The Creative Process

'You see the crossings out, you see the agonies this man went through'

- Leonard Bernstein on Beethoven

Reading Nancy Duarte's 'Resonate' led me to search for a video of Leonard Bernstein as an example of a great communicator. Here he is talking about about Beethoven.

I imagine what he says is true of most aspects of greatness. The end product looks clean. Every note is exactly where it should be. It all makes sense.

Behind that is the toil. Behind that is the ten thousand hours. Behind that is the head clasped in the hands in shear desperation that leads to that moment when you are finished and smile.

Perfect.

Keep Showing Up

If the first two talks of TED 2009 that I have seen are anything to go by, this years conference was absolutely amazing. It certainly seems to be improving in the quality of filming and the AV support.

That aside, Elizabeth Gilbert's (author of 'Eat, Pray, Love') talk on a different way to think about genius is fantastic.

I don't believe in God. But I do believe in the very real emotion that she speaks of when we witness or experience 'divinity' as she calls it. Jonathan Haidt calls it 'elation'. This is often when viewing creative things, maybe the sound of Paul Potts singing in his first audition, maybe at the birth of a child, maybe when you are lying next to a girl looking in to her eyes and longing to kiss her for the first time... and then you do (perhaps that is a different emotion).

Maybe for you it is staring out on vast untouched beauty at the top of a mountain, or walking to work as the streetlights glisten on untouched snow.

Maybe it is sitting by a window as the sunlight filters through and lands on your face, while you sit with your eyes closed thinking of someone special.

Perhaps I am mixing all sorts of things that touch more on happiness and less on the moments of creative genius of which Gilbert speaks. I think there is an overlap though. I think if we focus on things we are passionate about. If you find our element. If we search for flow in the things we do every day...

We will 'sing ole'' more often.

To do that... you have to keep showing up. Keep showing up until you find that flow.

Exciting Times.

Outliers

Stuart writes (and I comment) about 'Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell.

I am a big fan. I don't agree with everything he says, but the man has style and he makes you think. I think 'Outliers' is definitely worth a read. I don't think it is `the truth finally revealed', and Tyler Cowen points out that there are far better books and more thorough research on the topic.

That said, he says things in a way that make me want to read what he says. It is a style that is very enjoyable, and makes you think.

Warts and all... I will continue to follow what he has to say.

Outliers

`Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell is the first book that I have eagerly anticipated pre-release much like I looked forward to The Lord of the Rings movies knowing in advance they would come out. I even managed to get it on the first day that it was available in SA.

It got mixed reviews and I am aware that there is the risk of seeing Gladwell as some sort of super hero intellectual just because he tells a good story. But he does just that. It is quite funny actually, having listened to and watched many clips of him speaking, it was like the `voice in my head' when I was reading this book was his. Largely because he writes as he speaks.

There are a number of powerful ideas in this book. It falls into the category of attempts to explain I wrote about in my previous post. But I think if you tell lots of stories trying to explain things, many will be plausible, and as long as you don't attach too much value to each possible story... it helps you understand the world a little better.

Taleb's warning is just don't think you understand even if you think you understand.

I am sure `Outliers' will lead to many more posts.

When Genius Failed

I finished reading this last week and have delved into `Why Life imitates Chess' by Gary Kasparov. I haven't had a chance to write about it because of Stuart and my search into the world of vegetarianism.

I have heard of the book for a while and knew the basic story so this was just filling in the gaps.

Not sure who this quote is from but I have heard it many times:

The market can remain irrational longer than you can hold onto your job.

Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) put together what they thought was a sound theoretical model and on the back of two future Nobel Prize winners and a famous formula proceeded to make lots and lots of money... and then blew it very very quickly.

If anything the book just served as a reminder to never just accept someones opinion just because they are `cleverer' or `more experienced' than you. It doesn't matter how many books you have read on a topic, or how many degrees you have... or even if you invented the topic, in 50 years time (or less or more) people will likely look on your arguments as fatally flawed.

It is very very difficult (if possible) to `crack' anything.

SO be your own biggest critic.

What makes genius?

Malcolm Gladwell in this lecture looks at two different kinds of genius.

The two he chooses are the decipherer of an ancient text and the man who sold Fermat's last theorem. The one he sees as a genius, the other he sees as a guy who is really smart, but not a genius, but also really stuborn.

Gladwell believes we need to focus more on creating smart people who are stubborn, and less on individual genius.

The world is becoming more collaborative. We don't need to solve problems by ourselves, we can solve them together. But the skill that is needed is the ability to focus on an idea. He calls it stubborness.

He talks about true mastery requiring `10,000 hours'. To truly understand something and for the lightbulb to go off... it requires brute force of passion and commitment.

This is counter to the way we have been taught what genius is. We are taught that it is a luck of the draw, wow I wish I was that clever kind of thing.

There are very few geniuses who have spent less than 10,000 hours plying and obsessing on their trade. Lance Armstrong, Rodger Federer, Tiger Woods, Albert Eistein etc. weren't just lucky... they worked harder than anyone else. Talent plays a part, but passion, focus and stubborness make the difference.

Interesting ideas. Watch it.