As you probably notice, this month, we're bringing you our Life of Purpose series and revisiting

some of our most transformative episodes. Tune in to explore expert insights and practical

strategies on help, performance, and community well-being, all aimed at helping you achieve

personal and professional fulfillment. If you sign up for the newsletter, you'll not only get

recaps of the key ideas in each interview, but at the end of the series, you'll receive our free Life of Purpose ebook.

What you have to do is go to UnmistakableCreative.com slash LifePurpose. Again, that's

unmistakablecreative.com slash life purpose.

I'm Sreeny Rao, and this is the Unmistakable Creative Podcast, where you get a window into the stories and insights of the most innovative and creative minds who started movements, built thriving businesses, written bestselling books, and created insanely interesting art. For more, check out our 500 episode archive at UnmistakableCreative.com.

Cal, welcome back to The Unmistakable Creative. Treen, it's always a pleasure. This is how I know I've written another book because you and I talk. You know what? I'm always waiting for you to write another book, which now I understand why having read the latest book that it takes so damn long. Every time you write one, I'm just like, oh, man, I'm like, I need another Cal Newport book to read. And it's funny because, like, you and I have met one of our friends is like, what's Cal like? I'm like, we had three old fashions each over lunch. And I think people find that hard to believe based on how they perceive you.

But anyways, you have a new book out called Slow Productivity, all of which we will get into.

And I was thinking about questions that I hadn't asked you before.

And of course, we'll do our usual tirade on education.

But I realized that I actually hadn't asked you about this.

And that is, where were you born and raised? And what impacted where you were born and raised end up having on what you've ended up doing with your life and your career? Oh, that's interesting. My answer surprises people often. I don't know if you would guess, but Houston, Texas. Wait, what? I thought you were born on the East Coast. I moved to the East Coast right before I turned eight years old. Wow. I didn't know you, I bet we have in common. I spent seven years in Texas.

There we go. So I guess I'm a native Texan. Move to the East Coast, though, at the impressional

young age of seven or eight. I never had an accent, though. This is why people don't really

because my dad was,

had been in broadcasting. So he had trained the broadcaster neutral accent. So even though

we live in Texas, he grew up in Texas. He had this sort of the Midwest accentless American

broadcaster pronunciations. My mom was from

the north from Michigan. I grew up in Texas but never had a Texas accent. So I think that's

why no one realizes that. I don't have any vestiges of the accent hiding under there. Did you ever say

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