Bonne année à tous.
I find myself in a weird position. I started a Substack newsletter to engage with my fellow French Canadians. But then, unexpectedly, a fair number of Americans subscribed to the newsletter—and not so many Quebecers did
So, I was left with a hard choice for this second edition of Entre la Cité et la Tour:
Writing in French and leaving the majority of subscribers bamboozled?
Or writing in English, and alienating part of my French-speaking readership for whom I’d become a traitor who doesn’t care about the fate of the French language in North America.
If you’re clever enough, you probably figured out which option I chose.
Traitor, it is.
CEPENDANT, chers francophones, sentez-vous concernés tout de même, SVP ! Cettre lettre s’adresse aussi (surtout?) à vous. Et la prochaine fois, je vous écrirai en français.
Now that we’ve dealt with linguistic insecurities, here’s the actual reason I am writing to you today: I want to share a podcast interview I recorded with Benjamin Wittes a few weeks ago.
For those going back to work tomorrow, this might be a good way to slowly get back to speed and start the year on the right foot, workwise.
So, here’s my suggestion for you:
Open your preferred podcast app,
Hit the 2x speed button (your time is valuable!)
And listen to this: Entre La Cité et La Tour.
It’s a reflection on how to build careers that are productive, intellectually stimulating, and fun. Whether you are a professor, a grad student or any other kind of person who wants to play with ideas for a living… I genuinely think there is something in it for everyone.
And if you’re not convinced yet, here’s a teaser of what’s in the interview.
Topic #1: Don’t Let Any Singular Choice Define Your Professional Identity
One of the interesting things about Ben is that no single label perfectly describes what he’s doing professionally. He’s a bit of an academic, a bit of a journalist, and a bit of a lawyer, but he doesn’t fit squarely in any of these boxes.
This is both uncomfortable and fun, as he points out.
It’s uncomfortable because the path is never clear. You’re walking in the wildlands, and you never know if you’re trailblazing or if you’re just lost. However, being in the middle of the professional Venn Diagram can also prove to be fun. You get to ask yourself what would be the most fun thing to do without being constrained by the boundaries of any professional identity.
You get to choose what you want to do, and only after having made that choice, do you pick what kind of tools you’re going to use to do it.
As someone struggling to find her own professional home, this is one of the key reasons I wanted to speak to Ben. I wanted to ask him if I really had to choose between being a lawyer, a journalist and an academic.
His answer is pretty interesting: You can’t avoid choices. But you don’t have to let any single choice define your whole professional life.
Topic #2: If You Want to Write: Write.
For most people, writing is hard. Even those who write for a living often describe it as an excruciating process. Ben, however, boasts about having no problem with writing.
Okay, I know what you’re thinking right now. I don’t think a podcast interview with a guy bragging about how easy it is to write is what I need today…
Bear with me. He’s not an arrogant bastard, he has some interesting stuff to say.
The reason why he doesn’t have trouble writing might be related to the way he envisions his scholarship. He doesn’t care about big ideas. Instead, he believes in small, useful ideas.
He doesn’t spend his days stroking his beard about the next groundbreaking theory regarding the Office of the presidency in the United States. He wakes up every day and wonders what useful information he can bring to the table and writes about it. Sometimes, it means that he’s going to read a document and simply summarize it—something that people of his station in life might consider below their pay grades.
But in the course of doing so, he’ll gather knowledge, ideas will slowly start to form in his mind, and maybe he’ll end up writing a book about how Donald Trump unmade the presidency—which is at least a medium-sized idea, if not a big one.
So that’s Benjamin’s theory: ideas do not fall from the sky. Good ideas are generated through the process of doing things. By working on small projects, you’re slowly but surely thinking through things. And once the thinking process is well underway, the writing process becomes much easier.
At least, that’s what he says.
And it proved to be true for me, so I am tempted to believe what he says.
Topic # 3: Engage in Mutually Exploitative Mentorship Relationship
In the last part of the interview, Ben and I talk about his mentorship style, which he jokingly calls mutual exploitation. If you find this offensive, you should know that I’ve settled for the least outrageous term. Before meeting Ben, I used to call this kind of mentorship win-win-slavery.
I first encountered this kind of mentorship as a sprint canoe coach, which is a job that you learn through apprenticeship. I sat with experienced coaches and acted as their minions. I learned a tremendous amount of stuff, and soon enough, I found myself in the position of an experienced coach working with her own minions.
Both positions—i.e., minion and overlord—were quite different but equally fruitful.
So, even after quitting coaching, I kept on engaging in mutually exploitative professional relationships, because I knew that they could be win-win situations.
But nobody I’ve worked with describes this kind of mentorship as eloquently as Ben does. The way Ben talks about the group of people he mentored throughout his career—which is the thing in the world he’s most proud of, professionally speaking—is both moving and inspiring.
Moving because he obviously cares about the people he’s working with; inspiring because he clearly explains how it makes him considerably more productive.
I won’t try to summarize what he says, you have to hear it from him. But you should really listen to it. It starts around 34:00.
Here’s the link, one more time: Entre La Cité et La Tour.
À la prochaine!
Eve, just listened to your podcast with Benjamin Wittes and greatly enjoyed it! Being in the middle of a career transition myself, it was helpful to ponder on career choices, and how not to get jaded... American reader here, mais francophone ! Happy to read you in either language.
Bonne année !