Transcription
[Music] I'm going to share what I've learned from working, observing, studying, hearing from, and having dinner with massively creative, productive people.
Number one, the secret to doing great work is doing a lot of work. Can we say that together please in unison? The secret to doing great work is doing a lot of work. If you look at the most productive, creative people, they do so many different pieces of art, so many different books. The best entrepreneurs often get to world-class by purely playing the numbers. If you put out a lot of products, put out a lot of services, you do a lot of work, you stay in the game a long time, eventually you will have something that will change the game. It is stunning how valuable just staying with one thing over an extended period of time is.
There are a few books I encourage you to read. One is called Talent is Overrated. Talent is Overrated. We're going to talk about this in one of the upcoming points about genius. If you really want to get serious about it, you can read the Cambridge Handbook on Expertise. It might take you a long time. It's about a thousand pages. To abbreviate it, go online, pay for an article from the Harvard Business Review called "What Makes a Leader?" What makes a leader? Excuse me. What makes an expert? What makes an expert? And one of the things, and it was written by a man named Anders Ericsson. This whole 10,000-hour rule has been popularized by some popular books, but really it speaks to a lot of the work of Anders Ericsson and the emerging field of optimal performance and expertise.
What Andrew Ericsson has been doing for years is he's been studying exceptionalism. How many people in this room are interested in what the best athletes, the great chess champions, the Olympic performers are doing to create the results? Show of hands. So I invite you to start reading even more on this emerging field of exceptionalism. Read "What Makes an Expert," Harvard Business Review. Read "Talent is Overrated." Read "The Talent Code," which talks about myelin. They say maybe myelin is the secret chemical to peak performance. If you like, I can explain a little bit about this.
But here's the point I'm trying to make. The secret to doing great work is staying with your David, staying with the book project, staying with the vision, staying on track with where you want to be. You are excited right now. I shared with you a concept which is it's like a desert. Right now, everyone in this room is excited. Remember I called it the desert of creative maintenance. What I was talking about was this. Everyone in this room, you've got your 24-month magnificent obsession. How many people are excited to nail it flawlessly? Show of hands.
Ladies and gentlemen, when you leave here at 5:00, your energy is going to go down around it. Tomorrow, even less. A week later, even less. Your passion right now, how many people are really passionate? Show of hands. You're going to get back to work. The naysayers, the experts, the critics, that difficult employee who just drives you crazy. And then you're going to get home and say, "I went to this conference and it was, you know, I really feel I can do this." And your family's going to go, "Yeah, yeah, conference conference. Pass me the remote control." And then you're going to wake up in two weeks and you're going to say, "I just got to get a little fix from TV." And you turn it on and what do you see? The latest accident, the latest fire, latest hurricane, tsunamis, death, violence, the lowest level of so many things. And all your positive intentions and your 24-month magnificent obsession and all the pages of notes you have so amazingly taken starts to fall to the wayside and the saboteur starts to take over.
So right now you're at your optimal best and I simply remind you that when you leave here at 5:00 today, you will start to enter the desert of creative maintenance. Your challenge, your job is to don't let the way you currently feel slip away. Be one of those 5% people who walk out of here at 5:00 today and literally you begin the process of implementation, flawless execution. And do you have to do one big thing tomorrow? Show of hands. You can, but remember the nanowins, small daily acts of iteration and improvement and ongoing optimization. 90 days from now, 90% improvement. How many people in this room 90 days from now would like to see a 90% improvement in the effectiveness of your business? 90%. 1% every day.
Secret to great work is doing a lot of work. The greatest artists, they put out so many different pieces of work. Not only then by sheer luck and numbers did one of those pieces become a Mona Lisa, but think about the practice, the craft, the skill set that was developed by doing a lot of work. That's the real key.
Number two, daily routines trigger the muse. I'll repeat it again because it's so important. Daily routines trigger the muse. I'm going to read you some of the daily routines of some of the most creative people in the world. Would that be valuable?
And what you're going to see is a lot of these people, you would probably say they're OCD. They get up every single day at the same time. They have the same drink. I'm going to read. Would you like to hear Winston Churchill's daily routine? I think I can dig it up for you. And literally every single day it's boom this then this for lunch. I remember one person I was reading about. Every single day the same vegetables for lunch.
I'm going to read. Start off with Stephen King. Every single night before he went to sleep, did the same thing. Washed his hands. Got into bed. His pillows had to be in the same position every single night. And consistently when you read more and more about the creative artists, they all had these routines. Well, what if this wasn't pure eccentricity, ladies and gentlemen? What if this is a way to tell your mind that it's time to do some dreaming? What if this was a way not to rely on willpower to execute or ideate, but to create a system?
How many people in this room have a flawless system that you run each day in terms of daily routine? Not many. Some do, which is fantastic. My friend at the back, I bet you get up every day and go for a run or something like that.
You. The way you put your pillow is important.
I do every single day.
Did you hear that? Part of many silly things I do every day. The world might say they're a little eccentric. I bet you you're highly productive.
One of the most productive people I know.
Could. Could. This is the value why I'm so grateful for you joining us this weekend. If you were to go out in the world and say, "I wash my hands before I go to sleep. I put my pillows in a certain way. I do this. I do that." What would the world say to you? The herd, the mediocre middle, the cult of mediocrity in the middle, the bell curve.
Weird.
Quack.
Crazy.
Right? And yet when you study the most creative, productive, elite performing people, my friend at the back, what did he say? Out of great humility, what did he say? I'm one of the most productive people I know.
Okay, so let's get into it. Daily routines trigger the muse. Let's look at some of the daily routines. And there's no need to go to the visualizer. I'll just read them. Who wants to hear about Stephen King's daily routine? Fantastic. From an interview. And by the way, you can give credit where it's due. You can find these at a fantastic website called dailyroutines.com or certainly Google daily routines.
Stephen King, "There are certain things I do if I sit down to write. I have a glass of water or a cup of tea. There's a certain time I sit down, from 8 to 8:30. Somewhere within that half an hour every morning I have my vitamin pill and my music. Sit in the same seat and all the papers are arranged in the same places." The cumulative purpose of doing these things in the same way seems to be a way of saying to my mind, "You're going to be dreaming soon."
A lot of the most creative people are early risers. Will Self, he was asked, "In your line of work, do you spend much time alone? How do you survive?" He said, "Rituals, coffee, tea, strange infusions. I have a stove on my desk. Fetishizing typewriters, pens." How many people like different pens for different activities? Show of hands. My team, and they never say this, but they might say, "Why does he like so many different pens for different things?" I've got certain pens that I use when I dream. Do you have pens like that? And then when I write other things, I have different types of pens. Lots of creative people do that. Overall, Will Self says, "The key is I have a healthy appetite for solitude. If you don't, you have no business being a writer."
John Grisham, when he first started, Grisham says he had these little rituals that were silly and brutal but very important. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a myth that creative people, that geniuses have no structure. They are brutal with themselves. I'm not saying don't be respectful to yourself, but you will not get genius-level work done unless you are brutal with yourself to get to the typewriter, figuratively speaking, at 5:00, to say no to the TV, to say no to most people who spend their lives in leisure versus learning. You can have a choice. You can make excuses. You can do genius-level work. You can't do both.
You meet the most successful entrepreneurs in the world. They don't do what most people do. They don't watch a lot of TV. They don't waste a lot of time. They don't gossip on the phone. They don't do all the things that the bell curve middle does.
John Grisham says, "The alarm clock would go off at 5:00. I'd jump in the shower. My office was 5 minutes away and I had to be at my desk at my office with the first cup of coffee, a legal pad, and write the first word at 5:30, five days a week." Geniuses aren't flaky. Now listen to this. "So I was very disciplined about it." He says, then quickly concedes, "He doesn't have such discipline." Now I don't have to. With all due respect to John Grisham, nothing fails like success. Here's what I mean by that. This is the greatest trap of success. "I don't have to." He sold what? 100 million books, which is fine. He's a genius. I honor him and I celebrate him. I'm just trying to make a point that I've suggested to you all weekend, which is the seduction of success is then you stop doing the very things that made you successful. That to me is the war. When you get to your mountaintop 24 months from now, when you get to your magnificent obsession, will you actually say, "Now I don't need to do the things that I learned to do"? Or will you say, "I must continue to do the very things I've been doing that allowed me to execute flawlessly on the 24-month vision because I've set a whole new 24-month vision 24 months from now"? Show of hands. Is that a valuable idea?
Steven Sagmeister. Steven Sagmeister. This interview was conducted during his one-year sabbatical in Bali, Indonesia. He was asked, "Are you happy?" He said, "As I'm very aware how boring it is to hear about other people being happy, I only say this. This one's just to spice it up a little for you. I get up every morning at 5:00. Oh, I love this. Simply because it's more exciting to start working than to turn around and sleep some more. I do seem to have a lot of energy. After enjoying a giant cup of coffee and a medium-sized cigar for breakfast, I start my daily schedule of little experiments. This is coming along very well."
Daily routines trigger the muse. Great value in having a daily routine. Great value in adhering to a daily protocol. Why? Then you automatically set up your subconscious mind to deliver what you're looking for.
Number three, genius is the result of practice, not genes. It is a myth of the mediocre middle. A great way to not have to change. A great way not to have to do the work to say the Federers, the Agassis, the Picassos, the Jobs, the Mandelas, the Michael Dells, the great chess champions, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein. They were geniuses cut from a different cloth than me. So I might as well not even aim for that mountaintop.
I invite you to go deep into the research, the work of Anders Ericsson, the Cambridge Manual on Expertise. Read the book "Talent is Overrated." What you will find is all elite performers in business, science, arts, society, humanity, leadership all had a few things. Please write these down.
Number one, they spent the equivalent, the equivalent of 10,000 hours in a world where people will try something and give up after 5 hours. They spent the equivalent of 10,000 hours. Call it the 10-year rule if you like, focusing on their craft. 10,000 hours, 10 years focusing on mastery of your craft. Mozart, most people don't know this, his father was a music teacher. Mozart started playing the piano when he was four years old. Here's the big idea. Most genius, most masterpieces do not emerge until 10 years after the individual started the specific craft. And then what does the work do? The world says, "Look at this book. Look at this painting. Look at this business. She's a genius." What they don't see is the 10 years of practice, daily focus, iteration, optimization that got them to that piece of genius.
What's another thing that the true geniuses have? Every single person in this room could play a genius. Will you play a genius? Number one, 10 years. Number two, all geniuses had one thing in common. Their practice was a special type of practice that Anders Ericsson, the preeminent researcher in the field of exceptional performance, called deliberate practice. He studied brain surgeons and a lot of brain surgeons didn't improve over those 10 years. Why not? Because they just did the work for 10 years versus consciously iterating and optimizing the way they work. Does that make sense? So literally it's not like every day they would say, "What can we do better today than yesterday? 1% each day." So they got the improvement. If you just go to work and do the painting every day without asking yourself, "How can I practice to make it better consciously?" Okay, my brush strokes need to change tomorrow, my color combination needs to change tomorrow, this needs to change tomorrow. Daily nanowins over 10 years leads to your David. If you just go to work on that one thing for 10 years without deliberate practice, you're not going to get to world-class.
Third thing, every single one of these peak performers had a coach, Agassi, Federer, etc., or a mentor. And finally, the context. Maybe it's the city you live in, the country you're from, where being a painter was revered, where being a baseball player was revered, where being a chess champion was what every 5-year-old wanted to be. So that was your aspiration and you would take a bullet and die on the sword to follow that goal.
All creative geniuses have two things in common. Number one, extended periods of time in silence. Extended periods of time in silence. I am going to challenge you with great respect to start building out into your daily schedule. Please, at least one hour a day, daily chunks of time that you literally schedule onto your planner or onto your Blackberry or onto your scheduling tool. Chunks of time, at least an hour every day where it's unstimulated. That means no notifications, no Twitter, no Facebook, no phone ringing, no meetings, nothing. It's just you in your dream cottage or you in your office with the door shut or you in your spare bedroom doing that project that you know will get you closer to your 24-month magnificent obsession.
And the second thing all geniuses did, it wasn't just that they were great at finding solitude and being alone without stimulation, but they had trained their brains to sit at their project for an extended period of time. It's not just they were alone. Literally, they could sit and write the novel, work on the project, do the masterpiece, build the business, and sit there for three hours while the world seemed to pass in a minute. How many people have had that? It's called Flow. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the Chicago researcher, he's written a book called "Flow." It's a must-read, the psychology of optimal performance.
How many people cannot sit still and focus on reading or conversation with your best employee or working on a project for more than five minutes these days? Show of hands. It's very common. All sorts of research starting to come out. The quality and the nature of our brain has changed given the stimulation that we're facing now. Even with our kids, teach your kids to sit down and read for two hours straight. Most kids can't do it anymore. If your kids can't focus for more than five minutes, then how can they get to the part of the brain responsible for your best ideas?
Where you work influences how brilliantly you work. Find your creative studio. I have constructed a studio without technology in it. Every month, take a weekend and go out to the mountains. Some of you come from places where there's the desert. But even your office, set it up like a creative studio. Can I challenge you with great respect on that? If you're in manufacturing, if you're in retail, if you're in IT, set up your office like an ad agency so that when people walk in, they breathe. There's no mess. There's inspirational ideas on the wall. There's pictures of Einstein and Picasso and Rembrandt and Bono and Mandela and Mother Teresa. How would your people feel if they came to work? Would they feel more creative? Would they feel more inspired?
Spend time with Bohemians and art. I love spending time with artists. They're cool photographers. They're eccentric. The way they dress, they've got the purple hair. They've got the piercings. They've got all of that stuff. I love it. I love it. Why would I spend time with other business people? I want to spend time with people who disrupt my way of thinking, people who challenge me, people who irritate me. Those are the people who will help me grow. No. Wouldn't that be interesting?
And seven, the phenomenon of deteriorating interest. As you leave here, you're at your highest point of passion. What are you going to do to sustain that passion? We've talked about what creative geniuses do. We've talked about the fact that it's not about genetics. It's about practice. It's about persistence. It's about coaching. It's about endurance. I want to share with you now some ideas that will help you become much more productive. I've shared it through the entire super conference, but I'm going to put them on a single screen and then we'll debrief an exercise around them.
First thing, Tony Schwartz, author of the book "The Way We're Working Isn't Working," said, "A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention." A wealth of information creates a poverty of intention. We're living in a world where we have never had so much stimulation coming at us right now. So the war is really focused on the few things that are most important.
What did Confucius say? "The person who chases two rabbits catches neither." John Scully on Steve Jobs. What makes Steve Jobs' methodology different from everyone else's is that he always believed the most important decisions you make are not the things you do, but the things you decide not to do. He's a minimalist.
A few years ago I went on an African safari. As I went out onto the range, the tour guide said, "Here's the Big Five game." He talked about the Big Five game: the rhinoceros, the water buffalo, the lion, the other two...
Elephant, giraffe.
Elephant and giraffe. I went back to my hotel and I did something interesting that I found interesting. I asked myself this, "What are my Big Five game?" In other words, what are the five things that need to happen between now and the last day of my life for me to feel I lived an exceptional life?
Ladies and gentlemen, this is one of the simplest ideas. Now, this afternoon, we're talking much more about personal leadership, managing yourself, peak personal productivity, and we're going to end the day with what's most important, which is creating a gorgeous lifestyle. And then we're going to end in the final moments, I'm going to give you the most important idea of the entire event. But right now, it's more personal in this session. And here's a very simple idea. Ask yourself this question. It really is a game-changing move. What five things must happen between now and the last day of my life for me to feel I've lived an exceptional life? And on a daily basis, I now reconnect with my Big Five to ensure my daily actions are aligned with my deepest beliefs and my highest values.
Remember my three-step success formula. With better awareness, you will make better decisions. Better decisions will inevitably yield better results. So when you have crystal clarity on the five things that are most important, literally you can become a minimalist. My challenge to you is don't just see minimalism as a design aesthetic. See minimalism as a way of doing, a way of thinking, a way of being. Like Michelangelo, strip away at the complexity. Strip away the marble so that what is left would be your Big Five. Your 24-month magnificent obsession. The few things that are most important.