Cal Newport

And that required a lot of thinking.

So they were terrible with email.

They had no interest in social media.

Meetings, like if you're trying to throw meetings at them, they would just ignore you, right?

I wrote about this in Deep Work even, and people pushed back.

I was like, this is what it's like in that world.

If you send someone an email in this world, like one of these professors, and you're like, this is ambiguous, you kind of didn't word this well, or I don't really want to do this, they just ignore it.

Like, that's on you, buddy.

Like, I have to get, you know, I'm being, I will lose my job if I'm pre-tenured if I don't come up and solve theorems.

And they put up with no nonsense.

And a lot of that actually infused the book, Deep Work, because like, you know what?

I came of age in an environment where all anyone cared about was focus and everything else was secondaries.

Like athletes, just like you said, if this is getting in the way of my launch angle going down or my batting average adjusting, I'm going to change it.

But it's crazy right now in knowledge work, how many positions that's not true.

But what I advise people then, get in a position where that's true.

change your profile at work, or if you're changing your job, change your job into one where your value production is unambiguous.

Now, this is a double-edged sword because it swings both ways.

You can't hide anymore.

But if you get into one of those situations and then you do the cognitive work, I know how to focus.

I build the skills.