Hey, this is the moment. I'm Brian Cobbleman. Thanks for listening.

I'm eager to have today's conversation with Cal Newport, who's a terrific writer, a Professor, tenured professor at Georgetown

and has written six books.

Six books.

Two of which really lit people up and really started a lot of conversation. My son read

digital minimalism, the new one and deep work. I've read both also, but my son was quite insistent that you and I have this conversation that I get into it and read everything because he said your work has really positively affected his life. So, Cal Newport Newport thanks for being here.

My pleasure.

So before we get into the the meat of what you write about I'm always fascinated by writer's journeys and especially a

writer whose big success has come outside of the core discipline that he

studied and and was, you know, has been employed for.

And I'm wondering, and I'll be quiet and you can talk, but I would love if you would tell a bit of your story like who

you were before the two most recent books what led to you writing them and then I want to talk

what we hoped would happen to you and what it felt like when it did happen so just

talk about where you were,

the sort of whatever the dissatisfaction were

or what you were observing that led you

on the journey to write these two books.

Well, the relevant back story is that that was,

those last two books were book five at six actually, right?

So I had been a writer as long as I've been at Adeleth, basically. So I signed my first deal with Random House

right around the time I turned 21 years old. So I had been a writer, but originally

I was writing about whatever topics were immediately relevant to my stage of life, so my first books I was a student. I was writing essentially student advice guides.

...