Less Is More

One of the most fascinating books I’ve read over the past ten years or so is Inside Steve’s Brain by Leander Kahney.  In this book, the author unpacks some of the keys to the design and marketing philosophy of Steve Jobs and Apple.  Some of the chapter titles are provocative (Focus: How Saying “No” Saved Apple; Elitism: Hire Only A Players, Fire the Bozos).

Jobs was leery of trying to do too many things with Apple.  In fact, when he took over Apple again in 1997 after a twelve year absence, he slashed and mothballed a lot of projects in the works.  Apple was in deep trouble financially.  He made the decision to focus on a few key products and make them superior to anything in the market.

One of the gnats he had to dispense with early on in his second tour with Apple was feature creep.  “Feature creep” is the IT design practice of creating all sorts of bells and whistles for any new piece of technology, thus increasing the product’s versatility and, therefore, sales.

Steve Jobs had no patience for feature creep.

This impatience was an outgrowth of his Zen minimalism which, in design terms, meant making technology as simple and user-friendly as possible.  So he and his colleagues worked painstakingly to do a few signature Apple devices extremely well.  As Jobs’ famous mantra says, “Focus means saying no.”

In the summer of 2011, Apple passed Exxon Mobil as the most profitable corporation in our country.  Jobs really knew what he was doing.

As a musician, it’s taken me quite a few years to learn that less is more.  Young musicians tend to want to overplay, to “express themselves,” to get everything possible out on their instruments.  Over many years, however, I’ve learned that the spaces between the notes I play are as important, sometimes more, as the notes themselves.  Or, as Dan Fogelberg said as a young studio musician, “I learned that it’s not what you play, it’s what you don’t play.”

What have you been given?  What do you do well?  What can you pare down or eliminate to simplify and focus, bringing your contributions to a higher level of excellence? Some suggestions:

• Social media: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.  All fascinating platforms but they tend to eat time the way SUV’s suck gas.  Limit your involvements–and unnecessary participation in the drama of others, something you really don’t have energy and patience for anyway.
• News media: Consider some other outlet to get your news than the Big 5.  BBC or NPR are good places to start.  Again, do you really need five different viewpoints on a story?
• Pour the extra time and effort thus gained from limiting your involvements in pointless, time-wasting pursuits into honing skills in your vocation and your avocations.  As the song from the Franco Zeffirelli film “Brother Sun, Sister Moon” (1971) says, “Do few things, but do them well.”

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Outliers and Factors of Success

Last year I read a remarkable book, Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell.  I am stunned by the results of Gladwell’s investigation into the hidden causes of success.  It is one of the most fascinating and upsetting books I’ve read in a long time.  Upsetting in a good sense, that is.  It upsets commonly cherished ideas about how people attain success in life.

In his book The Road Less Traveled and Beyond, M. Scott Peck argues that one of the characteristics and problems of our age is what he calls simplism.  Simplistic thinking fails to take into account that life is complex.  There are many variables that make up the people we live with and the challenges of our time.  The rub is that the variables are not always apparent.  It takes probing, time, patience and labor, for thinking is work.  Really.

The strength of Gladwell’s work is the way he demonstrates that, for example, 1) Bill Gates was not just a computer genius who came on the scene in the 1970’s and through sheer brilliance became the richest living American, 2) Asians aren’t necessarily “better” at math than Westerners but are more patient and their numbers nomenclature more user-friendly, and 3) that some recent airline disasters have more to do with overarching cultural distinctions vis-à-vis authority and power distance rather than simple “pilot error.”

I’m not writing today’s post as a spoiler for Gladwell’s book.  You owe it to yourself to get your hands on it and read carefully.  When I finished the book, I was struck with the reality that I am far too quick to pass judgment on the issues of the day, on why some fail and some succeed, even on theological issues—the area that I’ve given the most attention to since the early 1980’s.  Rarely are all the facts and evidence on the surface.

We are all composites of the influences and environments in which we were raised and in which we now spend our lives.  We are not simply our genetic makeup, products of our DNA.  More often than not, there are hidden factors that figure into the success of some, the failure of others.  Timing often figures in as much as raw ability.  We can thank Malcolm Gladwell and those like him (Scott Peck, Geoff Colvin, etc.) for digging deeper and giving us the full picture.

Here are a few brainteasers with which to bait yourself:

• What cultural and economic tides are coming in right now that I can make the most of?  In other words, can I discern the signs  and trends of the times?  My friend Christopher Hopper has written extensively on the emerging wave of self-publishing.  You can read about that here.  It most certainly will be a force in the literary world in the days to come.  But it needed a level playing field, courtesy of the World Wide Web, to function and in which to be established.
• What current politically hot issue engages me the most and do I have solid, consistent thinking and evidence to support my position?  Democrats routinely chide pro-life evangelicals for being oxymoronic—at once militantly anti-abortion and also vehemently pro-war (or pro-death penalty).  Are the criticisms valid?
• Am I patient enough to thoroughly research problems and find meaningful solutions? Peck again.  You must be patient and resist the urge for simplistic, easy answers.  Thinking is work.  Are you up to it?

Digest Gladwell’s book.  It is a very important contribution!

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Habits of Successful Writers

Writers are an interesting lot of people.  They often have the strangest habits.  They are all unique and quirky.  I’m fascinated by the stories writers tell about how they ply their trade.

Consider Ralph McInerny, for instance.  McInerny was a philosophy professor at University of Notre Dame for over fifty years.  He emerged from academic obscurity as the writer of the famous Father Dowling mysteries, a series so engaging that it was eventually made into a television series starring Tom Bosley of Happy Days fame.  He wrote other novels with different protagonists and settings, as well as numerous philosophical treatises, an adjunct of his day job.  He was a prolific and multifaceted craftsman.

McInerny became focused on writing in the early 1960’s.  At that time, he was teaching at Notre Dame, had a large family, and had just bought a new home.  As a result, he was financially overextended and needed to earn extra money to make ends meet.  He’d done some writing before, selling stories to magazines, but had never taken the idea of being a writer seriously.

So, facing a recurrent financial squeeze, he set himself up into an apprenticeship in writing.  Each night after the children had gone to bed, he went into his basement and pecked away on a manual typewriter from 10 PM to 2 AM.  Every night for a year.  Though pooped after a long day, he said about going to his subterranean writing desk, “It was as if the sun came up and it was a new day.  I just loved it.”  He tells the story of his writer’s apprenticeship here.

He did this for a year, having determined from the outset that, if he didn’t sell anything by the year’s end, he’d find a different way to moonlight.

He published over fifty books before he died three years ago at age eighty.

I’m inspired by hard work like this.  Here are some curious habits of some well-known writers:

• Ernest Hemingway wrote every day for six hours.  Sober.  His average output being about 500 words.
• Truman Capote always wrote reclining on a couch.
• Stephen King writes ten pages a day.
• Dan Brown rises at 4 AM and writes.  Seven days a week.
• George Will writes his editorials with a fountain pen.
• Vladimir Nabokov wrote his novels on index cards.
• Daniel Silva writes all the first drafts of his novels in longhand on yellow legal pads in pencil.

What writers inspire you in your creative tasks?  What are their habits?

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Listen To Your Own Life

What makes you come alive?  You know what I’m talking about.  When a particular subject comes up, you become animated.  Your pulse increases.  Your eyes light up.  Your speech becomes dynamic and dramatic.  People see that something matters  when they look in your eyes and hear your voice.

You can’t hide passion.

One of the most important things I’ve ever heard anyone say is this: Listen to your own life.

This is not psychobabble.  You need to pay attention to what lights you up.  It is a clue to what you should probably do in life to put your own dent in the universe.  Passionate people are far more effective than the complacent and bored.  Passionate people make better art, better commerce, better lovers.   And they’re far more interesting than a thousand people merely getting by, content with mediocrity and playing it safe.

Some time ago, I had an interesting conversation with an even more interesting young man.  He is near and dear to our family.  As he began talking about his love of wildlife and animals, he got excited.  I told him, “Pay attention to yourself.  Do you hear your own voice?”

We are each given different gifts, callings and interests.  You can still the voice of these deposits through fear.  What will my friends think if I want to play the cello?  Can I make a living as a writer?  Do I really want to be a politician—people don’t trust them because they all lie, right?  Listening to these voices will slowly kill something inside you.

The problem is this:  If you stifle who you are and what you are called to do, it will inevitably emerge in a number of different ways, either 1) in inferior forms–like settling for being a technical writer when you’re really a novelist–or 2) in toxic forms.  The depression and frustration that accompany the unfulfilled destiny, like buried nuclear waste, will poison the water table of your life.  And when that happens, you will seek to medicate and mask that pain and discontent with all sorts of unhealthy stuff.  Believe me, I’ve been there.

The next time you find yourself getting excited about some pursuit—creative, vocational or social—pay attention.  Note your own body language.  It doesn’t lie.  If you’re near a mirror, take a look.  What you see is a clue.  A clue to fulfilling your destiny.

Life’s too short to settle for getting by.  You are here for a purpose.  Listen to your life, lock on and pursue.

You and the world will be better for it.

Inspirations

I read an interesting article some months ago about Viggo Mortensen and his influences.  Viggo is an actor of no mean accomplishment and a Watertown native.  He spent a number of his growing up years here in the North Country.  People who frequent neighboring Clayton see him from time to time as he comes back to visit family.

The article was not so much commentary as it was comprehensive lists.  Being a list junkie, I found it fascinating and invigorating.  You can read about it here.

I heard a wise speaker remark once that we are all a composite of the people who influence our lives, whether directly or through their work.  I resonated with this observation and it helped put to bed the nagging urge to “be an original.”

So I thought I would list some of my own, collected over forty-eight years.  I’d be interested in yours if you choose to comment.

I am a Christian man and so the biggest influence, without question, is Jesus Christ.  He is the summit.

I am also a husband, father, son, IT professional, musician and writer.  So here goes:

People:  My wife, Kath.  My daughters, Anna and Emily.  My extended family and friends. My teachers and ministers. My employers and colleagues.

Guitarists:  Phil Keaggy, Julian Bream, Christopher Parkening, Jeff Beck, Alvin Lee, David Russell, Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Brian May, Chuck Berry, Andres Segovia, John Williams, Earl Klugh, Larry Carlton, Ted Nugent, Paul O’Dette (lute), Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, Slash, Steve Howe, Eric Clapton, Joe Fava, Konrad Ragossnig (lute), Tommy Emmanuel, David Gilmour, Rick Foster, Angel Romero, Wes Montgomery, Jacob Moon, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Anthony Phillips.  And many more.

Music and Artists: Dan Fogelberg, Keith Green, Richard Souther, Elton John, The Allman Brothers, Paul Clark, The Beatles, 2^nd Chapter of Acts, Donovan, Honeytree, Sara Groves, Vineyard Music, Maranatha Music, Hillsong Music, James Taylor, Larry Norman, John Michael Talbot, Yes, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Luciano Pavarotti, Frank Sinatra, Michael Buble, Jethro Tull, Randy Stonehill, The Eagles, Billy Joel, Kemper Crabb, Lamb, Peter, Paul & Mary, Queen, Simon & Garfunkel, Twila Paris, Yo-Yo Ma, Michael Card, Bob Bennett, Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam), Brian Doerksen, Debby Boone, Kenny G, Norah Jones, Andrea Bocelli, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Dave Brubeck, Ralph Sharon, Tony Bennett, Neil Young, Jascha Heifetz, Glenn Gould, Malcolm & Alwyn, Phil Ramone.  And many more.

Composers: Johann Sebastian Bach, John Dowland, Gaspar Sanz, Ralph Vaughn Williams, Erik Satie, G.F. Handel, Ludwig Von Beethoven, Jimmy Webb, Francesco Da Milano, Henry Purcell, Pyotr Illich Tchaikovsky, Domenico Scarlatti, Enrique Granados, Isaac Albeniz, Michael Praetorius, Joaquin Rodrigo, Antonin Dvorak, Ennio Morricone, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Rachel Portman, Felix Mendelsohn, James Newton Howard, John Williams, Mychael Danna, Stephen Schwartz, George Gershwin. And many more.

Film: Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Marlon Brando, Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Johnny Depp, Steve McQueen, Ben Kingsley, Anthony Hopkins, Liam Neeson, Sir Laurence Olivier, James Caan, Sean Connery, Harrison Ford, Alec Guinness, Steven Spielberg, Gus Van Zandt, Jim Caviezel, Franco Zeffirelli.  And many more.

Writers: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Morris West, Will & Ariel Durant, Viktor Frankl, Chaim Potok, Ralph McInerny, M. Scott Peck, J.R.R. Tolkien, Michael D. O’Brien, William Manchester, Dan Brown, Daniel Silva, Leo Tolstoy, Randy Alcorn, Joel Rosenberg, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Elie Wiesel, Sol Stein, Mitch Albom, Mortimer Adler, Will Strunk & E.B. White.  And many more.

Christian – Protestant: A.W. Tozer, R.C. Sproul, C.S. Lewis, J.C. Ryle, Francis Schaeffer, A.W. Pink, Derek Prince, Jack Hayford, Ravi Zacharias, Chuck Missler, John MacArthur, Robert Shank, Gordon Lindsay, Leonard Ravenhill, David Wilkerson, John Piper, J.I. Packer, Richard Foster, Jonathan Edwards, Eugene Peterson, Gordon Fee, Dallas Willard, Robert Dick Wilson, John Bevere, D.M. M’Intyre, Watchman Nee, John Wimber, Jack Deere, Bill Johnson, Thomas Oden, Edward J. Young, Hobart E. Freeman, J. Barton Payne, Gene Edwards, William Branham, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Smith Wigglesworth, Josh McDowell, Dave Hunt, Chuck Smith, Robert Murray M’Cheyne, Ronald Enroth, Larry Burkett, Jack Van Impe, A.T. Robertson, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Charles Colson, John G. Lake, Paul Livermore, Michael Brown, Richard Baxter, John Bunyan, John Wesley, Charles Finney, Bill Hybels, John Eldredge, Billy Graham, Jim Elliot, Chuck Swindoll, Charles Spurgeon, Alfred Edersheim.  And many more.

Christian – Catholic: St. Francis of Assisi, Thomas Merton, Francis MacNutt, Louis Bouyer, Karl Adam, Msgr. Ronald Knox, Scott Hahn, Peter Kreeft, Thomas À Kempis, Mark Shea, Romano Guardini, Thomas Howard, Madame Guyon, G.K. Chesterton, Fr. John Hardon, Dietrich Von Hildebrand, Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II), Angelo Roncalli (John XXIII), Raymond Brown, Brennan Manning, Joseph Girzone, John Henry Newman, Karl Keating, Malachi Martin.  And many more.

Leadership and Self-Development:  Jim Rohn, Peter Drucker, Michael Gelb, John Maxwell, J. Oswald Sanders, Jack Canfield, Dean Karnazes, James Allen, Napoleon Hill, Brian Tracy, Anthony Robbins, Stephen Covey, Earl Nightingale, Dale Carnegie, Warren Bennis, David Schwartz, Zig Ziglar, Warren Bennis. And a few more.

Politics and Economics:  George Will, Henry Kissinger, Abba Eban, Ronald Reagan, John Kenneth Galbraith, John F. Kennedy, George Schultz, Thomas Sowell.  And a few more.

Science and Technology:  Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, E.F. Codd, Stephen Hawking.  And a few more.

Enough for now.  Who inspires you in your talents, work and avocations?

Creativity and Discipline

I’ve been thinking about  creativity, being “inspired” and self-discipline.  There’s a common misconception afoot that creativity comes primarily or solely in moments of unsolicited inspiration.  And that, somehow, to go about one’s art in a methodical and disciplined way is to stifle creativity.

But this is simply not true.  Inspiration and self-discipline are not enemies.

They are friends.

Consider the output of creative geniuses of our time and of history.

Father of the classical guitar, Andres Segovia used to practice five hours a day up until his death in 1987.  I saw him give a recital at the University of Michigan in 1986 and he was still performing like a virtuoso.  And he was 93 years old at the time.  Ninety-three.

Author Dan Brown gets up at 4 AM every single day and writes.  Every day.  Mega best-selling novelist Stephen King writes 10 pages every day.

Oscar Hammerstein II, the great Broadway lyricist, used to work regularly in the upstairs portion of his home from 8 to 3 PM.  Every day.  He insisted his wife keep the volume level of the children down during his work period so it didn’t interfere.  He had, by comparison with all his work, a handful of really successful musicals on which he collaborated.  But people will be singing his lyrics hundreds of years from now.

Leonardo da Vinci made sketches of human hands thousands of times before painting the Mona Lisa.

Someone once asked a famous composer, “What comes first, the music or the lyrics?”  His answer? “The phone call.”  All this to say that an artist simply cannot wait to “be inspired.”  The greatest artists have been disciplined practitioners of their craft.  They saw no dichotomy between inspiration and steady production.  Kiss of the Muse and a regular schedule.  And no panic when the phone call comes.

Can shifting your perspective even a little in this area improve both the output and quality of your work?  You will discover that creativity tends to favor the diligent as does opportunity!

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Bron-Yr-Aur and Creative Spaces

I am a guitarist.  I took up this amazing instrument in the mid ‘70’s.  I saw a friend of mine play three songs—“Time In A Bottle”, “Dream On” and “Smoke On the Water”–the riff that launched thousands of guitarists in those days.  I freaked.  And fell in love.  The love affair continues thirty-five years later.

I owe a great deal of my early formation as a guitarist to Led Zeppelin in general and Jimmy Page in particular.  I learned a lot of the classic rock Zeppelin tunes in those days.  But I was especially drawn to their acoustic work.  It was just so interesting.  Rare chords.  Alternate tunings.  Mandolins.  J.R.R. Tolkien in the lyrics.  Multiple overdubs creating marvelous sonic textures.  A world of wonder and colorful sounds. A fair amount of Led Zeppelin’s creativity in those days emerged as Jimmy Page and Robert Plant retired to a little cottage in the Welsh countryside.  Bron-Yr-Aur.  It was here that music was inspired and created that endures to the present day.  They even named music after this quaint locale, pictured above.

Where are your creative spaces?  A cottage?  Water?  Forests (my personal favorite)?  Urban life?

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Carl Sandburg On Loneliness

“Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln never saw a movie, heard a radio or looked at television. They had ‘Loneliness’ and knew what to do with it. They were not afraid of being lonely because they knew that was when the creative mood in them would work.”

–Carl Sandburg

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One Of A Kind

“Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” (Henry David Thoreau)

Years ago I read a book by John Eldredge that said, in effect, that the most important battle we will ever fight is the battle for our hearts.

He was on to something.

Human beings are like snowflakes.  While we all have certain commonalities like the marvelous geometry of snowflakes, we are, nevertheless, individuals.  Sui generis.  One of a kind.

We have unique talents, fascinations, propensities, drives, goals and potentialities.  The war for the heart, at least in the realm of sense and society, takes place as we are confronted with the “safe” choice of conformity to expectations of peers and loved ones versus that road less traveled by which we fulfill our unique design and destiny given by God.

You have your own voice and perspective.  There are enough parrots in the world.  There are lots of people you touch daily who want to hear the events of the day through your perspective.  What happens, then, if we play it safe and give the expected response, perspective or party line?  Or put another way, what happens if we are not authentically ourselves by letting self-preservation rather than our values dictate our contribution to those around us?

Step to the music you hear.  Don’t play safe.  Play honest instead.  Integrity is your watchword.  It is what lets you sleep well at night.  Be courageous and be who you were created to be.

And let the chips fall where they may….

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What Lights You Up?

What makes you come alive?  You know what I’m talking about.  When a particular subject comes up, you become animated.  Your pulse increases.  Your eyes light up.  Your speech becomes dynamic and dramatic.  People see that something matters  when they look in your eyes and hear your voice.

You can’t hide passion.

One of the most important things I’ve ever heard anyone say is this: Listen to your own life.

This is not psychobabble.  You need to pay attention to what lights you up.  It is a clue to what you should probably do in life to put your own dent in the universe.  Passionate people are far more effective than the complacent and bored.  Passionate people make better art, better commerce, better lovers.   And they’re far more interesting than a thousand people merely getting by, content with mediocrity and playing it safe.

I had a conversation with a young man some time ago.  He is very near and dear to our family.  As he began talking about his love of wildlife and animals, he got very excited.  I told him, “Pay attention to yourself.  Do you hear your own voice?”

We are each given different gifts, callings and interests.  You can still the voice of these deposits through fear.  What will my friends think if I want to play the cello?  Can I make a living as a writer?  Do I really want to be a politician—people don’t trust them because they all lie, right?  Listening to these voices will slowly kill something inside you.

The problem is this:  If you stifle who you are and what you are called to do, it will inevitably emerge in a number of different ways, either 1) in inferior forms–like settling for being a technical writer when you’re really a novelist–or 2) in toxic forms.  The depression and frustration that accompany the unfulfilled destiny, like buried nuclear waste, will poison the water table of your life.  And when that happens, you will seek to medicate and mask that pain and discontent with all sorts of unhealthy stuff.  Believe me, I’ve been there.

The next time you find yourself getting excited about some pursuit—creative, vocational or social—pay attention.  Note your own body language.  It doesn’t lie.  If you’re near a mirror, take a look.  What you see is a clue.  A clue to fulfilling your destiny.

Life’s too short to settle for getting by.  You are here for a purpose.  Listen to your life, lock on and pursue.

You and the world will be better for it.

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