Dr. Cal Newport

Like it matters like what you're eating, like how you're sleeping, the details of how you train and when you train and how much.

Like we're very used to this idea that that really matters.

We have no intuitions for cognitive development or application.

We like treat our brain, I guess, because we associate it so much with a sense of self.

It's just this sort of ineffable connection to us as a person.

We don't think of it as much of an organ as like a muscle or something like this.

But we don't have a sophisticated vocabulary at all for thinking about how do you do stuff with your brain, which is the, if you're in knowledge work, that's the whole game.

The whole game is this brain takes an information, adds value to it.

It alchemizes value out of mind stuff.

And people who alchemize value out of muscles, I'm a relief pitcher in baseball.

I know like my whole job is like to take a certain muscles on my kinetic chain and use them to move a ball very fast.

And if I really am very careful about this, I can have a multimillion-dollar deal.

Those of us who do this with our brain don't have any of these intuitions.

It's just like, you know, you have to work hard, you know, and we're on our phone all day.

I mean, this has to be the physical equivalent.

If you had like an endurance athlete who was smoking all the time, like this is crazy.

Like this is directly contra-intricating or indicating what you need to do, what matters, like what the actual activity is that matters for your value production.

But with cognitive stuff, we have no intuition like this.

Yeah, which means – and it starts with vocabulary.

It starts with intention.