Seasonality and Understanding Pseudo-Productivity | Cal Newport PT 2

0:00It's time for Cyber Monday, Dell Technologies biggest sale of the year. That's right, you'll find the lowest prices of the year on select Dell PCs like the Dell 16 Plus with Intel Core Ultra processors. And with built-in advanced AI features, it's the PC that helps you do more faster. From smarter multitasking to extended battery life, these PCs get the busy work done so you can focus on what matters most to you. Plus, you can earn Dell rewards and join many other benefits like free shipping, expert support, price match guarantee, and flexible financing options. They also have the biggest deals on accessories that pair perfectly with your Dell PC, improving the way you work, play, and connect.

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2:30welcome to the weekend edition of the daily stoic each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient stoics something to help you live up to those four stoic virtues of courage justice temperance and wisdom and then here on the weekend we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead, Nate Brin.

3:20Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I told you I've had some weird experiences with Cal Newport. I was in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and this sheik was telling me how much he loved Cal's work. I was visiting a senator who'd read some of my books and he showed me his little deep work room. My sister heard Cal was here, gets off the phone and goes, oh my God, you changed all these meetings we do. And actually Cal gave her a really good piece of advice that I thought I would share. He said, in hybrid working environments, and maybe you have a hybrid company, I let most of the Daily Stoic employees, we do a certain number of days in the office, certain number at home.

4:02He was like, no Zoom meetings when working remote. So his point was, when you're working remote, work remote, do the job when you're at home, do the meetings when you're in the office. And I thought that was really interesting. My sister was talking about how much, so much of her days, whether she's working remote or not, are eaten up by these endless zoom meetings and what a suck on creativity there. Anyways, about two weeks ago, I was in Las Vegas, I was doing a talk and, uh, this guy who's a veteran, he's, uh, a doctor, uh, runs a big organization. He was saying, you know, like whose stuff do you love?

4:40Like who's, who's one of your peers in your group that you read on a regular basis. And the first name out of my mouth was Cal Newport. I love his stuff. Mark Manson, who's going to be on the podcast in a couple of weeks. He was saying the exact same thing to me when he was here. Everyone I know is just a fan of Cal. And I think we're a fan of Cal because he does great work. His thinking really applies, not just to a large audience, but also to people like me and people who do what we do. Like his stuff isn't like, oh, this is great advice. If you're at this phase in your life, I think it's great advice for everyone, elite performers and people who are just getting started.

5:22I mean, he got his start giving advice on to college students about how to do better in school, but he's just a, always a delightful guy. You listened to part one of the episode earlier and in this half we talk about the concepts in his new book slow productivity the lost art of accomplishment without burnout cal always does subtitles well we talked about slow productivity we talked about autopilot we talked about how to be indispensable when to take that big swing when to really bet on yourself at use the leverage you've accumulated and then we talked about pseudo productivity and the thing i've been thinking about most is this idea of seasonality There's a time and place you go through phases.

6:04You're not just doing the same thing every day, which is more my style. And I think Cal really spoke well about seasonality. And that's something I'm taking away from the interview and going to try to apply it more in my life. Cal is an associate professor of computer science at Georgetown. He's a staff or a contributor. He's a contributing writer to the New Yorker. He's the host of the Deep Questions podcast, which is wonderful. And his books, Slow Productivity, Digital Minimalism, Deep Work, and one of my favorites. It's so good they can't ignore you. It has sold millions of copies for very good reason.

6:36Enjoy this part two of my conversation with the one and only Cal Newport.

6:53Yeah. Like I'm trying to make this movie. Yeah. You know, and this other stuff is cool, but I'm trying to make this movie. Or Neil Stevenson's Why I'm a Bad Correspondent essay. right? He's like, if I answered all these letters and went to all these conferences, which is what science fiction writers typically do, in the end, I would have all these different one-on-one conversations to point at, but I'd rather have like a hundred thousand word book that a million people read. That's better than making 500 people happy in a conversation. But that same mindset is applicable even the jobs where, okay, I have a boss and I can't completely just stop listening to emails.

7:28And so people often say, so it must be nice for you, but I don't even want to hear this advice because I can't just be Neil Stevenson or Chris Nolan. But knowing the game that matters really makes a difference. Now, you might not be able to play it as purely as a full-time writer, but you can for sure play that game better than the other people in your office if they don't even know that's the game they're playing. So you're not able to ignore your inbox. But when you understand like, oh, this is what's going to make a difference in my company. Now there's all sorts of things you can do to reduce the burden of that inbox, to begin to trade, you know, Adam Grant calls them idiosyncrasy credits.

8:03As I get better at this, I'm going to trade accountability, hold me accountable for less accessibility. I'm not involved in these things over here. There's things you can start doing if you know the game you're supposed to be playing. And it's going to be maybe very specifically constructed for your particular job and the personalities, but we shouldn't let imperfect be the obstacle of being much better. So even in a job where I can't throw out my email address, if I know this is what's going to make the difference and this is getting in the way, there's a lot I can do where I'm now spending two X more time on this than I was before.

8:38I still have to do emails, but I'm doing half as many because now I'm getting clear about what I'm trying to do here. Yeah. For better or for worse, businesses will make all sorts of allowances for people who get stuff done and deliver results. Yes. Do you know what I mean? And look, if you're at a company where you're delivering crazy good results, you know, what's, you know, you're, you're like a top or an elite performer and they're hassling you about your dress code. You're probably at the wrong company. And there is a company that will not hassle you about that and like make whatever arrangements or stipulations you want to get you.

9:17Like talent is the rare, is always the variable that is rarest. It's the number one problem employers have is getting good people. Yeah. They're desperate for good people. I think sometimes we tell the story in our heads of like, no, it's just this like purely sort of vindictive, exploitative relationship and like I'm nobody and they're just sort of pulling the strings. What can I do? People are desperate for good people. You know, I gave you credit for this in an interview recently. I don't know if I actually heard this from you or not. So you'll have to tell me if this was you or not. There's a danger along these lines.

9:49There's a danger, especially when you're in a, it's the opposite danger. It's like when you're new to a position, being too good at the stuff that's not the core value. And I don't know if this is from when you were talking about early on being an assistant. Yeah, I was an assistant in Hollywood. And this guy who's now a very big movie producer, he was like, look, I was where you were. He's like, my best advice to you is like, don't be too good of an assistant. He was pointed down the hall. He's like that guy right there. They'll never let you go. He's like, he's a lifer. Yeah. And he's like, uh, there's two types.

10:19There's people who are lifers. And then there are people who are going places and you got to decide which one you want to be. He's one of those ones saying like, if you want to be an assistant, if you want to be an assistant, don't, uh, don't be, be one. But he was saying, yeah, like if you are indispensable on the phones, they'll keep you on the phones. But if you're holding down the phones, but you keep like giving your boss good ideas that they use in meetings, like they'll promote you much quicker. So be competent. Don't be incompetent. Yeah. So be like, clearly I'm competent. Like I'm not dropping the ball and I can kind of do these things, but I'm not going out of my way to be like, Hey, I foresaw that like, this is near your dry cleaner.

10:54And I set up the driver to stop, like, don't make their life too easy. But then keep signaling the stuff that matters for the next rung up, which is take me off the phone to make me a junior agent. that I'm showing you, I could bring in money. Yeah. Yeah. Like I, I probably have what it takes to do that. Right. I'm not easily flustered. I have good ideas. I'm good with the client relations. Uh, I'm okay with this other stuff, uh, but that same, but the reason why I brought that up and I've been bringing it up, you know, in other interviews is because I'm thinking about this is essentially what you're doing when what you're mastering is the game of your inbox.

11:27Yeah. Like I, I'm going to clear this thing out. Okay. You, yes, everyone's getting what they need. I'm following up and this and like, I'm, I'm very responsive and I get everyone answers quickly and I'm always on my phone at all times. So you never, you're always going to answer pretty quickly. And I'm never the thing that's going to slow down. I'm never going to be the link in the chain that makes the whole thing pull through slower. You're the assistant who's great at manning the phones, even if you have a high level job in some sense, that's the wrong game to be playing well, because ultimately the CEO is not the person who was, you're so great at answering emails quickly.

12:01you're right it's you're never actually measured on that you want them to go hey come in this meeting with me yeah like don't just set it you you you want to be sending the signal that like you're you have something to contribute yes not that you're you're good at getting coffee or whatever or i produce when you give me a project yeah like i knock it out of the park yeah like that's good and then they you're like oh you're slow in answering these emails but you know what this is important so i'm going to give this report to ryan because like it's going to be really good Yeah. Like he's a really good researcher and is riding sharp.

12:33And the last thing was really impressive. So yeah, I don't care about that. Yeah. I'm going to bother this other person over here with like the small stuff because like he's really quick at answering on emails. Yeah. And by the way, that, that can be someone that can be someone who, who likes that and wants to be good at it. And the funny thing is when you find those people you're so excited to find those people and they can command their own salary and benefits and demands because so many of the people that you tend to hire or see for those positions, see it as a stepping zone and don't want to be in it.

13:04And there's a cost to that, right? Because you're having to constantly replace those people. So it's figuring the thing that you want to be good at that moves the needle for you. Yeah, but don't accidentally become an assistant when you're seven steps up. That's what I think happens when you play the game of email. Is you could be an executive, right? But you're playing the game of the assistant by like, what I'm good at is answering emails really quickly and people get quick responses because ultimately there's no friction or traction on that that actually generates direct value, right? What's the thing you produce that we sold?

13:36What's the client relationship that brought in a lot more money? What is the new insight on which we built a new business strategy? None of that, it's not playing that game. So you can very high up the chain. I mean, I see professors fall into this a lot. You know, this is like an assistant professor trap because you have to know as an assistant professor, the game you are playing is publishing. It's the only game you're playing, right? Like that, You are going to lose your job after seven years if you don't publish a lot. That's how it works. We're going to temporarily give you this job. If by the end of seven years, you have not gotten tenure, you have to go.

14:05And how do you get tenure? We solicit confidential letters from the top researchers in your field. And all they talk about is how important is his or her work. That's it, right? You can't get tenure by teaching really well. You can't get tenure through politics because it's confidential letter writers looking at your research. You can't get tenure through, I did a bunch of committees and I was really useful or the dean likes me or all these things people think goes on. It's your work. Yeah. Your research. How important was it? Right. And these letters are brutal, by the way. I've been on the other side of this.

14:33It is here are the institutions at which this person would get tenure and would not. Here are the three people that I think are most comparable to this person right now. This is two people who are better than this person right now. I would say this person is a little bit worse. Like it is, you know, it's like the NFL combine, but with, you know, publishing papers basically. So an assistant professor has to learn. That's all that really matters. All right. Now, once you know that, try not to be too annoying to other people. Yeah. Try not to be horrible. Don't be horrible. But this is not your game.

15:04And a big trap for assistant professors is they get stuck in the game because it's scary. The publication game is scary because that might not look like anything today. It's played on the scale of years. So they feel much more comfortable. I'm answering all the emails. I'm joining all the committees. I'm very responsive and useful. I'm taking on... Because they want to create a sense of like, I'm doing things and I'm busy. And then when the 10 year time comes, it's, Hey, where's your papers? Well, you could, you could argue the same is true for a college student, right? So you get into the college, you're at an elite university or a mediocre university, it doesn't really matter.

15:35And if you think success at the end of that four years, it's like what your grades are, you've probably screwed up, right? Even if you're trying to get into grad school, because really it matters. What relationships have you formed? What things have you learned? Right. What have you found out you really don't want to do? Right. So if like you spend to four years getting great grades and you get into a law school, but you haven't figured out like that you hate the law, that's a huge failure. But also like if you, for most students who aren't going to be continuing on, nobody's going to care about your GPA ever again.

16:09So if that's the game that you're playing, you're setting yourself up not to be very successful because the important thing was, oh, I learned these people, or I got a job at this place, or you have to be figuring out big, big things that are going to, going to matter five, 10, 20 years from now. And, and, and the things that are very easily measured and clear, uh, don't matter even then. And they're definitely not going to matter down the road. It could be even worse. Right. I had this exact experience, right. So, so early in grad school, I'm at MIT. I had published these two books about how to be a good student.

16:48Right. Uh, and I had a blog and so I had this great idea. I was like, what I'm going to do is mentor a collection of students from Boston area colleges who are struggling. And what I'll do in my mind was, oh, I'll just apply my advice and they're going to be A students and happy. And then everyone will see how good my advice works and buys my books. So one of the students, I called her Lena, wasn't a real name, but I called her Lena. I wrote about this on my blog. This is almost 20 years ago now. So she came to me and she broke my whole understanding because she came to me and was saying, you know, I'm really, I'm stressed out, I'm struggling and my grades aren't where I want them to be or whatever.

17:28And so I said, okay, here's what we're going to do. Let's build a calendar. I used to, you know, let's, I call it autopilot schedule. Let's just take your activities and classes, figure out what work is due regularly, find time for it on the calendar. You know, just a standard thing. I started doing this for her and we ran out of hours. Like we ran out of hours for her to work because she was double majoring with a minor and had like nine different activities and like it, it didn't fit. So it wasn't, her problem was not, oh, grades are what matters. It was actually a college admissions mindset that said activities, quantity of activities, extracurriculars.

18:00So you had all this stuff. And I was like, okay, I mean, Lena, look, it literally doesn't fit into your schedule, right? So we have to slice and dice, like get rid of all these activities, cut down the one major, like just do something well, but give yourself time to also be, you know, a person, a student. She couldn't do it. Right. And it turned out what happened was, you know, our whole town, our whole family was like, oh my God, she got into MIT. Like all of their hopes were on her shoulders. And so she felt like I have to do really well here, but she didn't know the game that mattered. So the only game she knew was, well, the way I got into college, I did a lot of things.

18:34So she's like, if I'm not doing a lot of things, how else will I signal that I'm being impressive. And I owe it to all these people to be impressive. So she had a mental breakdown and had to leave. I think she eventually came back, but she had to take a long leave of absence and come back because she couldn't get out of that game. And I was telling her like, look, if you want to go to grad school, I'm in grad, let me tell you how this works. How do you get in the grad school? Let's say you want to go to grad school. You want to get a doctorate. You do need to have a good GPA in your field. You need to be a really good student in your field, but that means don't do anything else.

19:08Don't do double majors. Why would you double major? Don't have seven activities. Grad school admissions is decided by a group of professors. I've been on this committee many times. I've run it before. They don't care what activities you're in. All they care about, can you come and contribute to our research? So what matters is you did very well in specifically that field and that you got involved in research so you can signal, here's a paper or two I got involved in as an undergraduate. I can handle doing research. I was like, nothing else matters. huh right like so that was the game yeah but she was playing the wrong game and it completely burnt her out like it completely held her back yeah knowing what game you're playing that's kind of the ultimate thing uh i found this with daily stoic early on so when we started the daily instagram we would just do like quotes every day right yeah and then um they'd just be quotes from the stoic be like the picture of the stoic and then a quote and then uh you know like i would have a book coming out or we'd be making something and I'd go, hey, it's Ryan.

20:06Like I'm, you know, have this thing. And I'd be like, who the fuck are you? Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because I realized that the thing that was getting the most engagement by itself, so growing the account, wasn't checking one of the primary boxes of all of it, which was to develop a relationship with people. So it was not an email newsletter yet? It was - No, this is just a - It was an Instagram. But yeah, let's say I was like, hey, sign up for the email. And they're like, what email? What book? You know, they didn't know. All they were seeing were these quotes, right? And they didn't, it was devoid of any connection to any larger thing.

20:41And so one of the reasons that Daily Stoic, I became more involved in it as a person, even though it's not really what I'm as comfortable with, is that it became impossible without it to actually deliver anything but the quotes. Yeah. Let me ask you about this because I'm fascinated by this, right? Okay, because I mean, that's what really like your whole empire really took off, right? I mean, I've known you a long time, right? I mean, it was RyanHolliday.net and the reading list email, right? Which was still around. That's still around. So when Daily Stoic, so you're saying when you first conceived a Daily Stoic, you weren't quite playing the first game.

21:16You saw it as like, here's a spinoff thing. I actually saw a Daily Stoic. It's going to just put out quotes and it's not really me. It's like another business. Well, I was attracted to it because it was a brand that was not me. I thought this would be like a relief. This would be better. And actually it could be more because it's not me. Oh, I can have other writers. Yeah, exactly. Obstacle had come out at this point. Obstacle had come out at Ego? Or was this right after Ego? Ego came out too. This is all around when Daily Stoke, the book came out. So you're like, I'm going to write this book.

21:43So I might as well have the domain. And then you're like, why don't I have a brand? The domain was$6 ,000, I remember. And yeah, the idea was it was going to be this brand that wasn't me. And so it worked. at first the brand grew very quickly uh and it was doing well but it was there was a it turned out there's actually a ceiling when there's not a person involved because it's not personalized and people trust people yeah you know what i mean yeah and so so um i see this now there's all these other it's funny right like when when we did it uh nobody thought it was anything and it didn't seem like it would work and now of course there's all these other people that want to rip it off that do their own like copycat versions of it right you mean like daily but something else or stoic there's the stoic daily or you know there's like a thousand instagram accounts right but like every other day stoic it might it might as well be ai it might it could be some troll farm somewhere that's doing it because there is no person attached to it so yeah it bumps up into the ceiling in which they're all uh replaceable there there is no actual personal real connection with any of them.

22:50And there is no relationship. It's just like I get quotes and I don't actually care even who's delivering the quotes. Does that make sense? Yeah. So then how do you describe the game you figured out matters is what people want is they want an exemplar of this approach to life that they're able to have a bit like a daily interaction with. It's not just, I want to be more stoic. I want to have like a Ryan Holiday. explained to me and articulated to me and embodied to me. And I want it to feel real and attainable and all these other things that only a person can do. So the shifts then would be, I'm deconstructing your business here.

23:32So the shifts here would be not just quotes, but let's have more like short short videos, article. Right. And you have first person in the articles sometimes, right? More you, right? So like you get a YouTube strategy going, right? And you invest it up front. Like, you know, we're going to do produced videos, which is not necessarily the play if what you're trying to do was maximize like views or YouTube views right off the bat. But was a good play for, you know, here's Ryan Holiday. Like here he is. He's on his ranch. Here he is walking. Like get to see you again and again. Okay. So that got into it.

24:05Your socials were doing more. There's more video, more photo. Would you say, I mean, you'd have probably already moved out here. right? But you were leaning into that as I live on a rent, like I'm not living in the city. You have to show it. You can't just be a disembodied voice with a message because how can I trust that? What affinity, what connection do I have to it? What does it actually mean to me? How do I know that it's real? Then I'm going to argue, I guess this is what you were thinking, is the painted porch is another masterstroke in this plan, right? Because like i mean it you're giving a like people especially in an age of visuals there's an embodiment of like ryan like lives in texas and has this bookstore and he's there and like people are in the look we're in the like near the bookstore and there's books everywhere and you know it gives a okay i don't know if it's a masterstroke but it was the idea that like well it was something i wanted to do anyway but but yes it's it's a physical man it's it's a physical manifestation that again if you're just like a ripoff instagram account you could never afford to do and never would do and never could pull off.

25:11So, so yeah, making it real. And I think it's interesting, right? Like, do you read your own audio books? I did for the first time. So I actually think that you, you wouldn't think that was important. And it takes, it takes a lot of work. Like I have to do another one here very shortly, but then you go, okay, wait there. Somebody is going to, this audio book is seven hours long. So somebody is going to have a seven our connection with this material? Is it going to be with me or is it going to be with an intermediary between me and that person? And, uh, you know, so maybe on the one hand, not having a professional narrator, it could decrease your reach because you're not as good at it.

25:53I'm not as good at it as whoever the best audio book reader of the world is, but is that the game that I'm trying to play maximum reach? Or is it, is it, is it also about depth? And do I want to, when someone's deciding to have someone talk or when someone's deciding, Hey, this is a difficult moment in my life. Uh, do I, does this thing, did this thing resonate with me? Yes or no. It's going to be, um, like whose voice was in their ear. Does that make sense? Like it's a funny, a funny trivia tidbit. Yeah. It's the audio book for deep work, won an award in an audio, an audio book awards. I guess there's some ceremony it won an award.

26:28Jeff Bottoms had a hat tip, not me. Right. So it's kind of funny. Like, okay, yeah, that was so good. It won an award, but it wasn't playing the right game. You know, you know what switches it over? Why I had to do it is like, will you podcast now? Yes. Like, okay, so here's hundreds of thousands of people who now have this relationship. Who's this other person? It's going to be really weird to have another voice that's like your voice is well known. But that's one of the reasons why I got into podcasting is it's relationship. And so in like the writing sense, those old student books I wrote, for example, like some of those have sold hundreds of thousands of copies now yeah they didn't sell that in 2006 it's because once there's a relationship with a writer at this point probably parents are giving it to their kids like people who read it they have it's really distressing rental fans of yours are giving it to their kids who are now in high school yeah it is yeah it is distressing that i have yeah people or people who read it maybe they went back they actually read it in school yeah and now are talking about their own kids yeah that's the problem when you start writing when you're young.

27:26Yeah. Okay. So games that matter. I know this sounds writing specific, but this is like, this is the challenge I think for almost, you know, anything someone's doing. Yeah. What, where, where are the people that you're trying to reach? Where are they? What actually connects with them? Not, and there is this, it feels arrogant, but figuring out that actually most of the things that your industry does or that people do are not winning that game. Yeah. And And there's a certain amount of artifice to it or just inertia to it. And that you have to figure out what that stuff is and then not do it. So what about this element?

28:06All right. So this element also seems important. All right. So you're trying to find the right game. The other factor here that seems to be important in people who end up winning is when you get that gut instinct of, I think I found the right game. Like, you know, you just it's clicking or whatever the willingness to push all the chips in.

28:39You hear that? That's not just a Toyota truck. That's the sound of no crowds, no alerts. No distractions. And no telling what you'll find next. You know, like a detour. So why would you ever take a tour when you could take a detour? Toyota Trucks. Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Bastro County, I drove my car about halfway down the dirt road that we live on, thought, this isn't going to work, stopped, parked it, walked the rest of the way home, borrowed my wife's car, drove in Austin, and bought a truck. What I bought was a Toyota Tacoma.

29:27And this truck wasn't just transportation getting me to and from my house. It unlocked a whole different style of living for us, not just on the ranch, but in our little Texas towns. There were places I could go now that I couldn't go before, especially out here in the piney forests, through the fields, and on the unpaved roads like the one that I lived in. We got to go deep into the hill country's wild beauty. We've driven all the way out to East Texas. We've driven across the country. And by we, I mean not just my wife, but both my kids who I drove home from the hospital in that truck. Toyota trucks are built for those who understand that the best adventures happen when you're willing to veer off course, because you never know when you'll end up on a Toyota adventure detour.

30:17And of course, this is stoicism too, because every detour, every obstacle is an opportunity. But it's helpful if you can handle the difficulty inherent in that. If you've got the resilience and the right companion to make it wherever the road takes you, discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. so to me the first thing you do is you you have this okay so you're you haven't been in this industry for 20 years you just started this thing you're some kid or you're you have this idea for business and you go you know the way that this industry or this product is done or whatever it's totally wrong it's just nonsensical how inefficient it is the first thing you should do is not trust that impulse yeah the thing you have thought about for three seconds yeah it's probably not smarter than all the institutional wisdom and tradition and self-interest operating in that space.

31:14So the first thing you have to do is go figure it out. So you're like, hey, I don't know, the way they sell things at convenience stores is dumb and it could be better. You actually have to go spend some time behind the counter at a place, or you have to spend hours and hours watching how it goes. Or why isn't there a book about this? Well, chances are there's not a book about this because nobody wants a book about that, right? Or whatever, right? And you have to figure out, you have to look for disconfirmation first and foremost that your hunch or hypothesis or insight into an established industry or space is not true because it's probably not true.

31:57And so I think that is a very undervalued step, right? Because especially if you have been successful with other instincts like that in the past, you start to believe you have this Midas touch or this know-it-all syndrome and that's when you blow up. Right. Okay. Then I'll add on to that. Also understanding how that world works. Yes. Right? So, okay. I think I've thought about selling things in convenience stores. Let me find out why don't people sell it that way. Also, how does one start a company that puts stuff in convenience stores? What's the reality of where those are, their margin? And like, I always tell people for me, the most important, you know, phone call probably in my life is when I decided to write a book, uh, I called a family friend who was an agent and said, explain to me how do people sell books?

32:46Yeah. And in particular, what would be the very narrow path that like a 20 or 21 year old could follow to sell a book? And she was like, this is how the industry actually works. And I don't know how many other, you know, young people like bright precocious or an Ivy league school, like I'm going to write a book or whatever. and it goes nowhere because you don't do that step either. You're like, I'm just going to, you know, I had this exact conversation with someone. He came to one of my talks and he wanted to write a book. I was like, okay, I have my standard advice for writing a book. And he had this whole like alternative world built out about how he was going to end run around the whole, it involved him spending a lot of money on these marketing firms.

33:21And these marketing firms were going to get like a lot of attention to his self-published book. and then the publishers were going to come to him and say like, you know, this is so great. And I was like, why would you do all of that? Like, there's a very specific path that works really well. They're desperate for good books and it's a great like threshold function to see if your idea is good. You don't want to have anything to do with it, right? So, you know, understanding is this idea really good? Don't trust yourself. How does this world really work? Yeah. Then I would say like, wait till you have traction.

33:48Like I've made money, I've sold things. So like, okay, like I'm actually playing in this world now. Yes. Until I'm playing in the world, I'm not ready to make my big swing probably either. So I think that comes into it as well. But then knowing, because it can be hard to figure out. Like, again, I think about your story. Like a lot of pieces came together writing about stoicism, which your original decision to do that was not part of some master plan. And I've told you before, like those of us who knew you back then thought you were crazy. Yeah. My editor told me later that she thought it would just not work.

34:21And then I would go back to doing the other. So my publisher was like, we were just humoring you. Yeah. Who I've now sold millions of books on that topic for. So yeah. And, but it is important. It wasn't a huge bet. No, but I'm saying that was like one of several elements, right? So it was like that, like, oh, that's kind of working. There's a couple of books and a planner in there before that really established. Moving to Daily Stoic as a separate entity, but then making Daily Stoic around you. Visual branding as well. And at some point, you know, those things all started clicking together. and then it's okay we're going to do the four cardinal virtues books we're going to you know really push the the the studio quality pot you know the plays it was like you push chips it right you know so it's like you're waiting for your moment i think like andrew huberman did something similar yeah he was going around doing all these interviews during covid yeah and was feeling like something here is working like i just something about being a a he's realizing he's good on camera good on camera things are spreadable i have authority but someone was hearing from an audience.

35:22Like he's probably getting lots of emails back from people who are like, your thing changed my life. There's these articles being written about him and his interviews were blowing up on these big podcasts. And he's like, oh, this works. I'm talking in the way of practical advice, but I'm not just, you know, whatever. And so he's like, let's just do, let's push the chips in on this. Great. Let's like, this is what I need to do twice a week. Let's do this, like do the research and like just put out these episodes and, and you know, all that sort of takes off too. Or like Lex Fridman realizing like the AI podcast, podcast which he'd been doing forever you know forever he was just interviewing uh scientists mainly about ai and other technology and there was this like pandemic moment where he's like oh no one's doing anything yeah and if i fly around the country and test myself every day and set up studios and hotel rooms i could talk to a lot of people yeah and like that was kind of working like let's go all in on that i'm gonna this is this is what's working is my interview style not the not the fact i'm talking about ai anyways you sort of see this right you see this come up like okay now that something's working, go for it.

36:20Yes. What do you feel like of your advice or strategies? Like, what do you feel like you're the biggest hypocrite about? Like, what do you feel like you struggle actually applying the most? I think this book, Slow Productivity, is like the most of the books I've written where it's a question I have, I want to be better at, like really something I'm really working at. Like when I wrote Deep Work, for example, it was, yeah, I came out of this environment, the theory group at MIT, in which focus was the number one thing. It was extreme focus. We could stare for hours. And I was trying to bring this to more, like, hey, there's this thing we learned in this narrow world, which is more broadly applicable than we think.

37:02I was trying to bring this message out there, digital minimalism. I'd never had a social media account. And so I was talking about why you need to be careful about this and how do you build, like I have an intentional relationship with technology. How do you build that too? You know, it's connecting to that. This, I was actually motivated by real problems in my life. Right. I mean, I, I am slow productive, right. I don't, I don't like busyness. I do not like having schedules on a regular basis that are packed. Like a big thing for me is I, I need work as much as possible to be in a scenario where it makes no difference if you work tomorrow or not.

37:38but if you don't work a lot this month like you're in trouble right like that's my sweet spot right but still things creep yeah and i'm constant tension so like what pushed me over the edge to writing this book was my three boys got all the elementary school age yeah and like when they got the elementary school age it swapped to this point where they needed like every minute i had yeah right like the tension between work and non-work became less of a pragmatic thing you You know, like, hey, what toddler needs to be taken where? And we make sure everyone's getting a break. And it became more like they need as much time as possible with me.

38:12It made that tension really palpable. And so I was like, I got to really, I really got to clean up my understanding of these intuitions and instincts I have about slowly working towards what matters. Because I've accreted a lot of things as I've gotten better and gotten more stature and the opportunities are everywhere. And I felt like I was in danger of impeding my own progress. So this slow productivity is probably the book I most had myself in mind as a reader. I mean, I do it, but this clarified what I'm trying to do so I could do it much better. Yeah. The way most people set their lives up, the way sort of business and life is set up, I think we don't maybe compute enough who gets screwed the most in that system because the workers are miserable.

38:56They're sitting in the cubicle. They're not happy. They're inundated with email. But like the person who gets the, the people who get the short end of that sticker are children. I was thinking about this, like, like I know how I'm able to drop my kids off at school at, you know, like eight 30 or nine or whatever, and pick them up before like three o 'clock or whatever. I don't understand how someone with a job could possibly do that. Like it's insane. Who, who can work from nine to three? Yeah. Right. That's not a, that's not a day. um and and and so what this is obviously where daycare comes in and nannies come in and in-laws come in but it's also by definition uh a world i think back to my own childhood where i probably saw my parents for like an hour or two a day you know what i mean interesting and then and then the weekend was like catch up and obviously they were burned out yeah and then um i like or they wanted to do stuff and i wanted to be home because i wasn't home all day yeah you know what i mean And so you think about how, what I, if you can get what you would call slow productivity, or you might call like an artist life.

40:03What's so wonderful about it is the flexibility to be like, oh, my kid is sick. Okay, I'll just spend all day with you today. Or like, you have a half day, I'll pick you up, let's do that. Or you run into my office. yeah, focus is important and I like to lock in what I'm doing, but I also can turn it on and off if I need to. Right. Because yeah, I'm measuring it not in terms of what did I get done today or my boss is going to be breathing down my neck, but I measured in terms of like months or years. And so like the, the, the system of, I don't know what the opposite of slow productivity would be, but like, yeah, that's the term I use.

40:41But I mean, I mean the way like corporate America and life is set up, that the large blocks of hours away from where you live, like focused only on this thing. The people who suffer from that system the most are children. Yeah. I agree with that. I use the term pseudo productivity because we give it a definition. I always define things. But I think pseudo productivity is using visible activity as a proxy for useful experts, right? That's what we did in knowledge work. And we did it because there's no other easy way to measure productivity. In a factory, there's easy ways to do this, right? There's numbers, model T's per labor hour.

41:20In agriculture, there's ways to do this, bushels of crop per acre of land. And you had really clearly defined systems. Oh, I switched from the craft method to the continuous motion assembly line. This model T per hour number went up by a factor of 10. This is a better way to do it. Knowledge work had none of this, right? I'm working on seven things. It's unclear what I'm doing. It's different than what you're doing. You have no idea how I'm organizing my work. That's up to me. So we had no numbers. So we fell back on pseudo productivity, right? Okay. Activity will be our proxy for useful effort.

41:50This was okay when it was, we all gather at an office for a set amount of time anyways. And then it was just a game of, you know, don't be seen reading the magazine during the day. But my argument is like the first part of the book is that when we got the front office IT revolution, So especially when we got network computers, portable computing, and then ubiquitous wireless internet. Now you had the ability to demonstrate activity on a very fine granularity at all times. Yeah. But you could send an email anywhere. Sure, sure, sure. Right? You could do a Slack message anywhere. You could jump onto these calls anywhere.

42:22You could do your work from home. And that's what put us then into this constant tension between work and everything else. And so I think it was pseudo productivity plus digital. Yeah. Because I'm a technocritic, so everything kind of comes back to that. Yeah, yeah, sure. Those two things together is when the wheels begin to spin off the bus. And you can actually see this by looking at business advice literature, like books, like the popular books, right? So in the 80s and 90s, he was like, the big name is going to be Stephen Covey, right? So you get Seven Habits, you get First Things First. Read these books.

42:51They're very optimistic. They're all about self-actualization. If you've ever read these books, it's like you figure out your roles in life and then you're building. there's this optimism of with using these quad charts and priority systems. I'm going to figure out the right things to do that allow me to actualize all the things I care about. What do you get in the early 2000s? David Allen. Right. How to manage your inboxes or your alerts and all this stuff. Not even manage, like survive. You go back and read David Allen, what you get, what's his goal? Occasional moments of zen-like peace among the deluge.

43:27There's nothing in there - It's turning you into a processing machine. And a survival process. So clearly the biggest thing afflicting David Allen when he's writing that book is just the sheer overload. And he doesn't even attempt to say, let's make work meaningful like it is with Stephen Covey. Let's not try to actualize our values. It is, can we find a way to be cranking widgets all day without going insane? And his whole methodology is about how to just get stuff out of your mind and on the list so you can just execute blindly off the list and it won't give you stress. It's because what changed between the nineties and the early two thousands, it was email, it was computers.

44:02It was like the rise of laptops. And most of the business, the bestselling business advice literature since then, it's like essentialism. It's one thing. It's deep work, right? It's these books that are all about trying to escape overload, get away. And then it's the whole anti-productivity, anti-work movement. This has been the whole literature ever since the early two thousands. So this is what I think happens. If your only definition is more is better than less, and then you give people the opportunity to visibly do work at every moment of their life. Those two things don't play well together.

44:32And I think that's why we get this burnout epidemic that just starts in the early 2000s and it just goes, goes, goes, goes, goes. And then the pandemic sort of pushes people over the edge and they're saying enough. Right. So what's the relationship between productivity and walks? Because I feel like people who are truly productive, not people who sit at their desk and pound at things all day, but I feel like people who have big scientific breakthroughs, artists, people who have theories about the world, whatever, there seems to be an undeniable relationship with walks. Yeah. Well, they come up all the time and there's a good neurological reason for it.

45:10But first, where walks become important is once you realize what's important, is like we were talking about before, actually having the valuable idea, figuring out something good. It's not just writing, which we can use with scarecrow. It's just doing stuff. You actually have to think, right? Walks are really common historically for big thinkers. We think like it's not exactly nailed down, but we think what's going on is that the motor neurons involved in walking actually act as a bit of a dampener on certain circuits in your brain, right? So part of your brain now gets into these autonomous motion loops, which acts as a dampener on essentially neural noise.

45:51So more distracting thoughts or asides, you're thinking about this or that. So when you're sitting still, sometimes the problem is there's not enough dampening going on in your brain. And so it's hard to sustain your focus. When you're walking, it puts on some cognitive blinders. You have an easier time holding your focus on a interior abstract idea. So it's, you know, it's, it's jerry-rigging your brain to be better at this thing that's pretty artificial for humans to do, which is to hold abstract ideas in our mind's eye. And, you know, this is not what we evolved to do. We're certainly not evolved to just sit down for long periods of time either, but we are evolved to cover long distances and look for things and explore places.

46:31And taking information while we're walking in process, right? Yeah. So all we're doing different now in the modern world is we're just turning the eye inward. So instead of taking in information across the savanna and kind of processing all this information, instead we're walking on the river walk and boss drop. We can just turn that eye inner and put it on internal things. But yeah, it's the same idea. So walking, yeah, it's super common. That's why. I mean, I do all of my best thinking, all of my best thinking walking. Me too. And Nietzsche said only ideas have had while walking have any worth.

46:59Nietzsche walked a lot. Yeah. Kierkegaard would walk just like hours a day. I mean, Aristotle's school is named after his movements, his walking, right? And so, yeah, There is, it's almost inseparable scientific discovery, philosophical discourse and walking. Even though the irony is when we think of the philosophers, we think of them standing in the Lyceum or in the school, we see them stationary, but in fact, they were always in motion. Yeah. You read the various dialogues, right? There was a Chilean dialogues and yeah, they're walking. it's Socrates with Phaedrius and they're walking by the river as they're talking right that's the way it unfolds you know who uh the champion walker in the arts right now is David Sedaris oh doesn't he walk around and pick up track he does he will but these walks he does are epic yeah like crazy walks like when he's in Manhattan he'll like walk from the battery like all the way up to like the upper west like he'll just walk the whole island or whatever he'll walk 10 15 miles No, he got an award from the queen because he would just take these walks and then he started picking up trash while he was on the walks, which I also do.

48:11Like I live on this dirt road and so I'll sort of walk it over and over again. And it's like, there's another nail, you know, or whatever. Sometimes it's not, it's even worse than that. But yeah, there's something about you're doing this thing. So there's not really any expectations that you should be working or that you should have the breakthrough. and perhaps that's where it comes from too, like Archimedes in the bath or whatever. It's when you've turned, it's still operating in the background because you can't turn it off. The thing that's working on the problem, but when you stop being so willful about it, something unlocks and it's very powerful.

48:46And it comes to you. Yes. Do you also get, I get this in my town, people think you're eccentric. Like you probably get it worse here. You know, I live in a little town outside of DC, but I walked the same loops through my neighborhood and they're like, oh, there goes. I mean, they know it now because we're a small enough town. Yeah. But people are like, why do you walk so much? I was like, this is what I do for a living, I think. The way that it has intersected with my life is, it's like, okay, so you got to get on the phone with someone for this thing. And I'll send you the invite. And then I don't look at the invite until I'm about to get on.

49:22And it's like, oh, this is like a Zoom call with 15 people. I'm already walking. So now I have to make up this excuse for why. it's loud where I am or that I'm not at my computer. Like, Oh, I'm out in the country. And so, you know, I'm trying to get, I'm trying to get reception. Yeah, exactly. But, but it's like, I can't, I already didn't want to do this call. Yeah. And if you told me that to do this call, I had to sit at my desk for 30 minutes and not move or be outside, I'd want to do it even less, you know? And so, so yeah, I do almost all my phone calls walking. So sometimes that can be weird in a small town because people like, Oh, Hey, I want to talk.

49:56And I'm like, you know, uh but but yeah i try i try to i try to move um also yeah the only one that caused problems for me it's like if you're doing like therapy or whatever if you do it over the phone and it's like i don't know if i should be talking about this like out the thing but i also again don't just want to sit there for no reason for an hour and so yeah i think i think being active and moving it's first off it's just better than being sedentary for you physically and then And psychologically and mentally, there's just something very, very powerful about it. I'm picking my kids up from school today and then doing our weekly routine, which is I take them over to Whole Foods.

50:36We get all our groceries for the week. Then we have dinner. It's one of their favorite things to do. It's one of my favorite things to do. And then my wife loves it because she doesn't have to take care of it. This holiday season, whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner Whole Foods Market, has what you need to delight everyone at your table. They even have heat and eat sides from the prepared foods department. You can make Whole Foods your one-stop shop. Everything follows Whole Foods Market's strict ingredients standards, so you know it'll be delicious and good for you. You can also order online for pickup and even delivery in select zip codes to skip the crowds.

51:10Shop everything you need at Whole Foods Market, your holiday headquarters. I got an amazing night's sleep last night. One, because my six-year-old fell asleep in the car at like six o 'clock, and I transferred him from the car seat to the bed and it stuck, which is just magic. So he's in bed way earlier than normal. But I sleep really well every night because I have a 8 Sleep Pod 5 Ultra, which is 8 Sleep's best product. I've used 8 Sleep for many years now and it's just totally transformed how I sleep, made me sleep better, made my wife sleep better. It's amazing. So basically 8 Sleep is this topper that goes over your mattress.

51:49It can heat and cool both sides separately. It can raise and lower each side separately. So it helps you fall asleep faster, stay asleep, and then wake up better. 8sleep buzzes me to wake gently every morning as opposed to some loud blaring alarm. And then I can check the app and it tells me my sleep score. It even helps me optimize my day based on how I slept. If you want to survive the holidays like a pro and just generally sleep better, head over to 8sleep.com slash Daily Stoic and use code Daily Stoic to get$350 off your very own Pod 5 Ultra. The best part is you still get 30 days to try it at home and return it if you don't like it.

52:32But I know you will. Trust me, your body will thank you for this investment in better sleep shipping to many countries worldwide. See details at 8sleep.com slash Daily Stoic. We're going to write a book about this, right? So we have three elements of what we're going to call the artist's life. Okay. We've discussed three elements, right? So one is the work expectations are tomorrow doesn't matter, but this month does, right? Two, you can be done by three. Yes. And start at nine. Yeah. And then the third one is you can spend a lot of time walking. Yes. Like that to me, my heart's singing, right?

53:05Like that's all I want. That's a great life. That's all I want. Yeah. Yeah. Now I do it a little differently because I'm a believer in seasonality. Okay. Right. So different seasons being different than others. This is like an old professor thing. And so it'll look different for me where this semester might be my teaching semester. So I largely now just teach in one semester. So a lot of these days I'm going on the campus and I'm meeting with students and it's like it's an academic life. But then there'll be like another semester when I'm going to campus one day a week and I'm more at my studio and writing.

53:39And then the summers we disappear. Yeah. Right. And we often go up to New England. And then it's like, I'm completely off the grid. And like, the only thing I'm doing is book writing, maybe like some New Yorker work, but probably just book writing. So I, I, I lean in the seasonality. So sometimes that's the answer is like, well, I still want to be a professor. Right. So, um, sometimes it's not all going to be, I'm done at three or I'm walking a lot because some days I'm in the classroom and have a meeting with the Dean. So why not make that this season of the year and this, and then I'm bigger timescales too.

54:07Like I'm doing book publicity now. Yeah. Um, this is not, if I had to operate like this. Yeah. This is the worst. It's the worst. It's just, I mean, it's fun for like a while because I get to see people, but it's like the worst because it's not the, this is the fun part. The worst is like my, my email right now. There must be seven different teams that all are just like, we need this. Can you do this? Can you get back to me on this? It starts to feel like it's probably for you a glimpse of what regular life is for a lot of people. I think if you were like a higher level executive that like a lot of people needed things from, it probably feels like book tour all the time.

54:37Yeah. Yeah. No, the seasonality thing is interesting and it's probably a throwback to an older way of life. You know, it's like politicians, you know, the Washington would clear out during the summer because it was a malarial swamp or whatever, right? Or school, you know, has always sort of been in the seasons. But people used to do things that way, whereas now, and I find myself doing it, I am much more of a like, well, what does my ideal day look like? And I'm just going to do that all the time. But there is probably something unrealistic and unnatural about doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over again, and not having large chunks of time where you're doing it differently and you're forced to reexamine and question and try it a new way in a new place.

55:23And so I am, I am trying, especially as my kids are getting older and now, Hey, yeah, this is the season we're in school. So if I had some idea that like, uh, I don't do meetings on Friday and I'm work, I'm going to stay at home. Well, that was great when they were two. Yeah. Cause they were around, but now they're gone all day. So I might as well go. I might as well. So, so yeah, I think the rhythms of, oh, this is baseball season. And then the rhythms of this is, you know, this is the winter and not only are the hours shorter, but we're all sick all the time. So the hell with your plans. You know what I mean?

55:56The season of accepting that, that instead of having a routine, you have a series of routines and you rotate either seasonally or day to day or different days of the week through which one makes the most sense. So I had a couple of weeks ago, a New York times op-ed on this idea, like on seasonality. And one of the things I was arguing is this is so valuable, the humans, right? It's because it's the way we lived until evolutionary speaking, like a blink ago. This is when we're farming. This is when we hunt the buffalo. Yeah. And I went, and I went back to all that. Yeah. It's all over the place.

56:27I also, I wrote a long New Yorker piece about this last year too, where I looked at what do we know about hunter gatherers and like what work looked like for them. It's, it's important enough that it's for sacrifices as well. It's like, here's something I'm considering because I still, I'm not, my podcast is not with a network. We still sell ads, you know, directly with an agency and you sell ads, as you know, like a year in advance, makes you fill out the year ahead so i'm thinking about for the next year talking you know you know my agency uh i hope they're not listening but saying um i still work with them they're great yeah they're great but i'm thinking about saying let's not sell 52 weeks right in fact let's take why don't we sell like 45 or 46 weeks and i am going because i'm not going to podcast in july and i'll just batch the production and sell all your own well i could do that too but then that's also more like this is what i mean by sack well i was because i was thinking about this i was like well, what would happen if I just said, we're going to take six weeks off or two months off, no batching, just like the show's on hiatus there.

57:23I was like, okay, what does happen? Well, it's less money. But I like, this might be a fair trade though. No, I do like that because so that I tend to do the batching thing. It's a signal as well to myself, right? Of like, hey, wait a second. This is so important to me to unwind. I'm willing to, we're giving up money to do this. And then it becomes a brand signal. Like, hey, I actually take the time, you know, there's a whole way to make money. Well, I'm struggling with this right now. Like this has like been a very, very crazy week for me. I think we did like eight interviews and then I have a bunch next week and then I have meetings.

57:51I have a bunch of stuff. So you're batching ahead with interviews? I didn't think I was, but I was like, why is this so crazy? And then I realized the reason it's so crazy. First off, it's something that's outside of my control, which is it's South by Southwest in Austin. So a bunch of people are here. So that like, they were just like, this is the only time they can do it in person. But then I realized really what's happening is I'm going out of town for like 10 days for my kids spring break. So what happened is I took 10 days off the calendar. So it just moved that stuff this way or that way.

58:21And so, so you, yeah, you, or, or like we, we went out of town for a month this summer and it was great. But then I was like, why was it not as relaxing as I thought it would be? And it's because I didn't just continue on with my normal schedule. And then there was a month gap. And then I continued on with my normal schedule. It was all the things that had to happen while I was not doing the things for a month basically just made the preceding month and the uh proceeding month more stressful than it needed to be and it might have been a wash right and so so yeah the idea of like yep no no no like i i it's more like the rapture like i just go to the thing and i disappear and maybe i'll come back so that's that's real i'm inventing this term now but real seasonality versus fake seasonality it's fake seasonality if during this period i'm doing less work but that That work all still got done.

59:07Yes. We just moved it or whatever. Real seasonality is, we know Ryan disappears for this month. Yeah. Can't go outside, it's raining. That's real seasonality. We've known that for a year in advance. As we've been booking the schedule, we just book around it. I figured this out as an academic. So if you had a research institution as a professor, the university does not pay your salary in the summer. They pay you 10 months salary. Yeah. Like your contract. Can you pick your paychecks? to like, my mom was a teacher. They could be, they were like, do you want 12 months of paychecks or do you want 10 months of paychecks?

59:41But it's the same salary. So no one does that because what you do instead, if you're a researcher is you, you put in a, what's called summer salary into your research grants. So you fill in those two months. Now it's like the national science foundation or DARPA is paying it because you're like, yeah, I should be working on research in the summer. And so that's what people do. Right. So now you're taking your, your summer salary comes in, you know, from a grant or something like this. And then what people think is like, okay, but I still want to take vacations or this or that, but I am on the hook to keep working.

1:00:08So they have to do fake seasonality. Right. And then at some point I figured out, you don't have to do that. Yeah. Like, what if you just say, I'm not taking summer salary from a grant. As far as the university is concerned, you're not their employee in those two months. Like there can't, you don't, there's nothing for you to do. They can't ask you to do anything like you're gone or whatever. And I figured out at some point, like, oh, why not just, you know, I write books. Like, wouldn't that be a good use of part of a book advance is to cover the summer. And like, this was a, and that was a real seasonality versus fake.

1:00:37I was doing fake before, which is summers are more flexible because I don't have to teach and we can go travel and like do things, but also like I'm all I'm working and I have to write these reports or this or that. When I went to real seasonality, like, no, I'm, I'm taking a sacrifice. I'm losing money, but I owe no one, nothing to no one during this time. It really changed the character. That's why I wanted to make the podcast be protected in the summer as well. So it's just, we know in it, we just know in advance, like I completely shut down. Yeah. I think your tricky part is going to be audiences are not seasonal.

1:01:08I mean, you are on TV shows, right? And that you're like, whatever. But if a thing is more like a daily or a weekly habit, breaking that habit is hard. So yeah, but here's my thought on, I thought about that. So this is why podcasting thinks okay. Yeah. Because podcasting doesn't, it's a push, not pull, right? So like, why do I listen to like Cal's podcast? like it i like it and i see it come up in my list of new episodes and i listen to it all right you go away for six weeks you know it's not showing up in their list you come back it just shows up again they're already subscribed to the show right and when it comes back again like oh yeah like listen to cal show right like it's it's not that hard for them to get the habit back uh that's not how algorithms work right and that's also not podcasting there's no algorithms in podcasting there absolutely is and there's also you're thinking youtube no no no there's definitely algorithm so what gets suggested uh in your things and uh did your did your downloads take a hit earlier this year probably as all shows did yeah so what happened is apple started recalculating right yeah how they how they calculate episodes so the point is even if it's not totally true now it's definitely going to become in the past is that like it's gonna when you stop listening to a thing that's a reinforcing habit algorithmically and then also when you do things so so i think i think the the rain on my parade right the recurring is great but it is uh anyways that i would say though the thing i struggle with i wonder if you struggle this too the hard part the decision to do seasonality like when i just i was like i'm gonna take a month i'm just gonna hang out only thing i'm gonna do is i'm gonna write you know maybe an hour or so a day just working on this project but but that's i love doing it i'm only doing the things i love to do.

1:02:49But then, so I take this month off the calendar and then, you know, my speaking agent calls a couple of weeks before and he goes, Hey, you know, you got this, uh, offer to do this talk in Boston, you know, smack in the middle of it. You can be in and out in one day. And, uh, and I, I was like, you know what? I'm going to be like, I'm going to, I said, I'm not going to do anything. So I'm not going to do anything. And then, uh, you know, he's like, okay, I told him this and then you doubled the offer or whatever. So it's now the most I've ever been offered to a thing. And I decided to stick with it, to not do it.

1:03:18But now I'm like going like, not only was I already paying for this vacation, but now this is the most expensive vacation that I've ever taken in my life. We could have, you know what I mean? We could have gone on like a round the world trip first class for what I, you know? So the decision to be seasonal, I think was, is it's easier when there's norms about it. When everyone leaves for the summer, when everyone in, you know, gilded age New York gets in their trains and goes in different directions, that's easy. But then when you're the only one doing it, then you are actually having to calculate what that thing is costing you.

1:03:57And that's very painful. It is. It is. I mean, I have this, my speaking agency knows this now. I don't like to do things in the summer. I mean, I completely frustrate them, right? Because I think from their perspective is this is money on the table and it's like really big money. And why not just, you know, we can get you in and out same day or it's like go on overnight or whatever. But the unpolluted seasonality, I don't know. There's an advantage to that, right? Because there's the - Does it take you a lot of discipline to enforce that? Yes. Or for you, is it just kind of naturally? It's socially difficult, especially with agents.

1:04:29Be like, I'm not going to do it. So socially difficult is one thing. Is it difficult for you personally to, would you rather do it? No, I don't like doing things. Okay. Yeah. All I want to do, honestly, what am I wired to do is to be in a cabin around on the beach writing. And like what I would be optimal set for is like the once a year novelist. Come back at the end of this year with a novel. That's also a great season. Yeah. And we will, we're going to leave you alone until like novelists have this figured out. It's the, it's the only industry I can discover where it's, there's no expectation.

1:05:02In fact, the expectation is you do nothing else. Novelists don't start, they don't podcast a lot. I mean, they do sometimes. They don't have business. If you're John Grisham, like they'll say it's about novelists instead of when you're actually referring to like 10 novelists basically the well all literary novelists right so no but not the but you're referring to the industry as successful not like seven people who can who are at that yeah but but uh but the thing is like if you let's say if you got to our level of success in novels yeah okay to make it comparable yeah it would be completely understood if we disappeared before publicity tours like that's a not everyone does it, but it's a complete pet.

1:05:39Like I wrote this article once looking at Crichton versus Grisham because they were doing similar types of novels and Crichton went like the maximalist route. Yeah. I want to do TV. I want to do scripts. I want to direct. I moved to Hollywood and Grisham went the other way. This is great. I can quit my job. I can disappear. I'll do three weeks of publicity a year. I don't have, I don't even have a team. Yeah. You're like one assistant. I did marketing for one of his books. Yeah. And then when she retired, he was like, I don't need anyone else because only my agent, my editor ever call me. And they call me like this time of year when I tell them what I'm writing.

1:06:07Right. Uh, and he went that way with it and that's complete people like, that's fine. Yeah. Like it's completely fine. Right. It's the only where if you or I said like, okay, I'll be back in two years with my book. Like, you don't, it just doesn't happen as much in nonfiction and certainly not in like a lot of other jobs as well, but there it's normalized because there's this, uh, this belief that came from literary novelist of this is not going to be good enough to win the award. If anything pollutes me, this is like Like Dave Eggers writes on the non-internet connected laptop and disappears.

1:06:36And it's because it came out of that belief of you can't create this art. And if it's not art, then it's not going to, if it's not great and doesn't get the National Book Award, then why did we pay so much for Jonathan Franzen's latest book? And so they had this idea of like, yeah, please just disappear and do what you do. But very few fields have normalized that. Yes, that's right. But I think what they all have in common ultimately is to be able to pull any of that off is leverage, which you talk about in So Good Can I Ignore. You have to have leverage. You have to have the goods. You have to have the audience.

1:07:11You have to write the firm. Yeah. And you have to. And so, yeah, whether you're a salesman who wants to be the only remote employee for your company. Yeah. Or you want to be the author who takes a bunch of weeks off during the year, months off during the year, whatever it is. No one's going to give it to you. You have to take it and demand it. And then you have to have the leverage to be able to make it worth doing. That's why I say the obsession over quality piece of slow productivity is to glue. Yeah. Because it gives you two different things that both reinforce slowness. So like one, as we talked about, as you obsess more about quality, slowness, by which we're saying here, like lack of busyness becomes like really natural.

1:07:55Right. So like once you get more obsessed with doing something really well, the more all the other stuff begins to feel almost like morally bankrupt. Like you just instinctually want to have less busyness. And then the second piece is as you do something really well, you get the leverage. Yeah. You get the leverage to be able to actually demand and get slowness. And that's why the story I thought captured both sides of that in the book was the singer Jewel. Yes. Because I said she did both, right? So when she was coming up, she was this weird, really talented singer because she had grown up yodeling with her family troop in rural Alaska and had this weird vocal control and then went to this Interlochen, which is like this really good art school in Michigan.

1:08:37So she had the goods, but she was singing at a coffee shop, leaving out of her car or whatever. And these record executives discovered her. Yeah. She is very, very good. So they go to sign her and they put a million dollars on the table eventually, right? And she turns down the signing bonus because she's like - I was going to bring up the story when you're talking about talking to that agent when you're a kid. Yeah. Yeah. So she turns down the million dollar signing bonus because she's like, this is going to, it's going to take me time to figure out how to translate this into like a fully established singer songwriter who can make a lot of records.

1:09:09And if they give me a million dollar bonus, they're going to want to make that back, which means I have to have a hit record in the first like whatever many months. And I'm not going to. And she didn't. The pieces of me at first wasn't working. So her desire to be really good, she said, I'm going to choose a slower trajectory into music. No big signing bonus. This will give me a multi-year runway. And then she was very, I'm going to be very cheap for you. No tour bus. I'm going to drive my own car. I'm going to cost you nothing because her desire to be really good admit, she's like, I have to slow down.

1:09:43Then once she got really good, she went on one of those Taylor Swift style international tours, started doing Hollywood stuff. She was in an Ang Lee movie. All of her people were saying, this is the plan. We're going to move to Hollywood. We're going to do movies in between international tours. She's like, well, wait a second. I have a lot of money and I'm really good. She said, no tour. Never did another international tour. Never did another movie. Went to Texas, actually. Her boyfriend at the time was a rodeo rider. Came out to his ranch of texas like i want to just write music and do albums and like i don't so the quest for quality slowed her down she turned down the million dollars went on to make more than 200 million after that we know that because her mom stole 200 million dollars from her so that's a whole other story uh and then she used when she did get good yeah she used that to slow down her life too so you get this sort of like double-edged virtue for obsessing over quality yeah i feel like i so on the one hand i was very unlucky in that the obstacles away which is sold a very large amount of copies.

1:10:40I only got a small advance for it. Like as we were saying, my publisher thought it was a crazy idea. My first marketing book had come out. I got in a big advance and it had done okay, but they, I got less than half for that book, for a book that ultimately sold millions of copies. So one argument would be, I should have gotten a much higher advance. Right. But since they didn't really believe in it, but I did, I took the smaller advance, but when it came out and it did okay, you know, they were like, sure, you want to do another one? And I did another one. And so now I'm three or four books in with the same publisher.

1:11:12We have a longstanding relationship. I'm not going anywhere. They're not going anywhere. The book's able to develop. I'm able to sell all my books. So I've been able to do, which, I mean, what are you at? Four with portfolio? Five? How many have you done there? That's a good question. It's minimalism. Email's my third with them. Yeah. So you're, which is unusual in and of itself. I've done 12, 13. nobody does that in publishing because you're always you're always chasing the next deal which you think is you cashing in your leverage yeah but actually someone else is getting leverage over you yeah because they're not giving you a large advance because you're awesome they're giving you a large advance because they think they're going to make it back and as soon as they give it to you they want to start making it back yeah and so so yeah sometimes the thing that feels like financially actually wasn't a great move is from a lifestyle and a freedom and a development standpoint, absolutely the right thing to do.

1:12:06And then in the end, the same financially. Well, you're the, I mean, I always point to your example for this. Like you're the person I know most who says, who cares about the advance? Like it's just a loan on basically on earnings. You're going to make the same money regardless. Yeah. And I've gone back and forth on it. I do too. I definitely don't try to get smaller advances. I think it doesn't, like the thing, the thing that does matter though I learned is it also dictates the energy they put into a book. So I began seeing the advances a little bit as a, as a scorecard. Like if they spend this much, then their marketing budget is X.

1:12:39And if it's this much, but I think that's starting to get in the weeds a little bit, right? Yeah. But the point is if she had taken a million dollar advance, she wouldn't have been able to have a, one album that did okay. And then do another album. They'd be like, they're already writing her off. They're writing her off. Exactly. And so the fact that the obstacle is, I mean, the obstacle is away, sold 36, 3700 copies its first week, which is not terrible, but it wouldn't have predicted where it ended up. But they didn't cut bait on it because for what they've given the advance on, they're like, ah, this is okay.

1:13:12Do you know what I mean? Managing expectations is an important part of it too. Deep Work was the same way, you know. So the book before Deep Work, So Good They Can't Ignore You, didn't live up to their expectations at first. reduce the advance for deep work. And I was like, I guess fair enough. And so let's just do this. Like, let's just, yeah, let's just roll. Like, I think this book is good. Like, let's get that going. And then when deep work was first coming out, because it was a lower advance, you know, they weren't doing a ton. They were doing like, what was reason? There was nothing bad happening here.

1:13:43They were doing what was reasonable for that level. And I was complaining. I still remember this call to my agent. I was like, nothing's happening with this book. My friends, like parents went to barnes and noble they didn't even have it in stock like this is a great idea and she's like they don't they don't budget money based on ideas they have a model yeah what can it do and she's like look you gotta just do the work and so like i was like okay great that so touched me i was like i'm just gonna um put my head down and like keep trying to get better and so then i started doing i mean i got my my writing for my newsletter and then podcast emerged as a thing and i was like doing all the podcast just doing podcast early podcast and that book also And millions of copies later.

1:14:22And then you're saying it was so good that they couldn't ignore it. It was so good they couldn't ignore it. And ironically, Deep Work Doing Well pulled so good they can't ignore you up to be like a very good seller. None of those books were bestsellers, though. That's funny. Yeah. Speaking of which, you want to go check out some books? Yeah.

1:14:44Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us. and it would really help the show. We appreciate it, and I'll see you next episode.

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