108 - Musk, Chalamet, and Real vs. Fake Greatness (with Cal Newport)

108 - Musk, Chalamet, and Real vs. Fake Greatness (with Cal Newport)

A couple of recent events—Elon Musk parading onstage with a chainsaw at the Conservative Political Action Conference and bragging about DOGE's 120-hour work weeks, and Timothée Chalamet saying he wanted to be one of "the greats" in an acceptance speech at the SAG Awards—ignited a conversation on the Growth Equation text thread about what role work should play in our lives. In a society that sometimes overly valorizes busyness or performative productivity, and also sometimes overly critiques the type of obsessive work that excellence demands (lauding "balance" instead), what does the actual hard work of greatness look like? For help, Brad and Clay tapped in Cal Newport, friend of FAREWELL and host of the podcast Deep Questions with Cal Newport, who writes and thinks (deeply, as you might've guessed) about productivity, work, and how they intersect with a meaningful life.


"Elon Musk Is the World's Richest Man. Why Is He Sleeping on an Office Floor?" (The New York Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/opinion/elon-musk-billionaire.html


Join The Growth Equation Academy today. 40% off for a limited time!

https://the-growtheq-academy.mn.co/


Now offering up to $5 for ideas, questions, or guests that make it onto the show. Email Clay at the address above or leave a voicemail at (646) 893-9503


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Episoder(345)

Stop Self-Sabotaging: How to Get Out of Your Own Way

Stop Self-Sabotaging: How to Get Out of Your Own Way

Today, we unpack one of the most universal performance problems: getting in your own way. Drawing on the "Self 1 vs. Self 2" framework from The Inner Game of Tennis, neuroscience, and child psychology...

19 Mar 43min

Unstuck Yourself: The Art of Building and Keeping Momentum

Unstuck Yourself: The Art of Building and Keeping Momentum

What do success and failure have in common? They can both trap you. Success can lead to complacency or a plateau, and failure can render you so discouraged or apathetic that you don't feel ready to tr...

12 Mar 34min

Beautiful Suffering: How Elite Athletes Find Joy in the Grind

Beautiful Suffering: How Elite Athletes Find Joy in the Grind

How do you have fun while working really hard? For many elite athletes, figuring out how to balance joy and suffering is the key to a long and successful career. Today, we explore how they do it — and...

5 Mar 49min

Back to Work: Navigating Success, A.I., and the Unknown

Back to Work: Navigating Success, A.I., and the Unknown

Today, for our monthly round-up, each of us shares a reflection from February: Brad explains what his chaotic book launch taught him about achievement, fulfillment, responding not reacting, and puttin...

26 Feb 29min

Olympics Review: Lessons in Pressure, Courage, and Going All the Way

Olympics Review: Lessons in Pressure, Courage, and Going All the Way

The Olympics are the ultimate laboratory for human performance. So today we're diving into some our favorite moments from the 2026 edition—and the lessons we can take from them. Between the bizarre "p...

19 Feb 32min

The Olympian's Guide to Handling Pressure, with Lilah Fear

The Olympian's Guide to Handling Pressure, with Lilah Fear

We're going to go ahead and say that today's episode is more densely packed with wisdom than any episode we've ever released. We are joined by Great Britain's Olympic ice dancer Lilah Fear (@thelilahj...

12 Feb 52min

How to Pursue Excellence Without Sacrificing Your Values

How to Pursue Excellence Without Sacrificing Your Values

Why do so many people sacrifice their values to make it to the top? People in business who commit fraud; writers who plagiarize; athletes who dope — the list goes on and on. At the core of understandi...

5 Feb 24min

How to Get Out of Your Head and Into the Zone

How to Get Out of Your Head and Into the Zone

This past weekend, when Alex Honnold climbed Taipei 101's 1,667-foot tower without ropes, he wasn't thinking his way up; he was doing what elite performers across disciplines—from musicians to surgeon...

29 Jan 32min

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