Jerrod Carmichael on the most common mistake aspiring creators make: Takeaway 1: Don't deceive yourself

In his biography of Michael Jordan, Roland Lazenby writes about how Jordan was often surprised by what other players focused on in practice, the weight room, the offseason, etc.

"They were deceiving themselves about what the game required."

Steven Pressfield's rule of thumb: the more Resistance you feel towards doing something, the more sure you can be that you have to do it. In The War of Art, Pressfield writes more about this idea that fear is an indicator, telling you what you must do:

Neil Gaiman is a master of his craft, and of responding to trolls: Takeaway 1: Pretend there is a hostile crowd out there trying to catch you in a mistake.

@RyanHoliday once emailed me a manuscript to be fact-checked, and he said,

“Pretend that there is a hostile crowd out there trying to catch us in a mistake (because it is true).”

I once heard @RobertGreene give advice to a young aspiring musician.

After Robert listened to some of their music, he thought the musician was talented. And then he simply said:

“You must immerse yourself in a universe of music.” Takeaway 1: Go to the artists' colony

In 1923, Walt Disney moved to Hollywood after a decade of failing to make it as a cartoonist in Kansas City, Missouri. Bob Dylan moved to Greenwich Village. On @tferriss' podcast, comedian Jerrod Carmichael explained why he moved to LA:

Jerry Seinfeld: my guiding rule is systemize...You've got to treat your brain like a dog you just got. Takeaway: Confine the puppy brain

In his book "Habit," the psychologist William James wrote about how we can "make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy."

We do this “through repetition and systematization,” as Seinfeld said.

Here’s how James puts it:

Matthew McConaughey is known in Hollywood as a "Quick No, Long Yes."

"Before I say Yes to anything...I give myself about 2 weeks in each frame of mind—Yes I'm in, No I'm out—and then I measure what keeps me up at night." Takeaway: Use time as a filter

The prolific writer Joyce Carol Oates famously never publishes immediately.

When she finishes a novel, "I put [it] away in a drawer and I wait for a year," she explains:

"Feeling the pressure of their approaching deadline, Paul [McCartney] searches for [a] song.”

What emerges a few minutes later is one of The Beatles' classic songs: Takeaway 1: You become creative by creating

In the clip, we see Paul McCartney’s creativity ramp up.

@hubermanlab talks about how the brain circuits that turn on before those involved in creativity are of the stress system.

Huberman uses 3 analogies:

While writing jokes for “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” Seth Rogen was watching American Idol.

That’s how he came up with the iconic "AHH, Kelly Clarkson" scene: Takeaway 1: Ideas are everywhere.

"Everybody," Orson Scott Card said, "walks past 1000 ideas every day. The good [artists] are the ones who see five or six of them."

J.K. Rowling, for instance, named Severus Snape after this sign "I walked past...every day on my way to work.”

In the studio working on “99 Problems” with Jay-Z, Rick Rubin has the idea to start the song acapella: Takeaway 1: Get to the essential

On the very first album Rubin produced, the credit he took was, “reduced by Rick Rubin,” instead of, “produced by Rick Rubin.”

"I like to get to the essential,” Rubin explained:

In 2016, Pharrell Williams visited an N.Y.U. music production class to critique student songs.

After he listened to a song called “Alaska” by a student named Maggie Rogers, he explained why “I have zero, zero, zero notes for that:” TL;DW

Why Pharrell Williams was blown away by the song "Alaska" by Maggie Rogers:

When something is totally unfamiliar, you're in a state of what neuroscientists call "experiential blindness."

The cure for experiential blindness is more context, knowledge, or experience. Takeaway 1: Your perceptions are a function of what you’ve previously encountered

Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett writes in How Emotions Are Made:

"Your past experiences—from direct encounters, from photos, from movies and books—give meaning to your present sensations.”

Everyone has ideas all day long.

Award winning artists like Adam Rubin just do something slightly different when they have an idea: Takeaway: don’t judge your ideas.

The music producer Rick Rubin likes to say, “Never judge the description of an idea.”

He explains:

A 25-second masterclass on storytelling: TL;DW

Aaron Sorkin on the point of friction that drives all great stories:

Mr. Beast mentors other creators.

With Mr. Beast’s help, one YouTuber went from 4.6M to 46M monthly views ($24k to $400k/month).

His simple formula: Takeaway: do less, better

When you do less, you do those fewer things better.

This is ancient advice:

Jerry Seinfeld: I'm never not working on material. Every second of my existence, I'm thinking, could I do something with that?

Howard Stern: That, to me, sounds torturous.

Seinfeld: Your blessing in life is when you find the torture you're comfortable with. Takeaway: Find the torture you love.

To Howard Stern, what Jerry Seinfeld does sounds like torture. But Seinfeld loves what he does.

Paul Graham has a great essay on this imbalance.

When he was 11, Kobe Bryant played a full 25-game basketball season without scoring a single point.

He then took a simple mathematical approach to becoming one of the all-time greats: Takeaway 1: Everyone/everything is terrible at first.

Pixar has made hit movie after hit movie: Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, Inside out, on and on.

But, Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull writes,

“Early on, all of our movies suck.”

10 habits and principles for sustained creative success.

From working with Ryan Holiday: 1/ The work has to be the win

“You control the effort," Ryan says, "not the results."

You control the work you put in, not how it’s received.

"So ultimately, you have to love doing it. You have to get to a place where doing the work is the win & everything else is extra.”

Quentin Tarantino says he makes movies with a very specific audience in mind: In a 1994 Address to the National Cartoonists Society Convention, Charles Schulz (the creator of the comic strip Peanuts) said it is disastrous to try to please an audience.

Instead, he said, just try to please yourself:

Questlove hated a Dr. Dre album for 18 years.

Next time you think you hate something, consider sushi: When something is unfamiliar—you're in a state of what neuroscientists call “experiential blindness.”

Look at the blobs below—your brain is sifting your library of past experiences, looking for something similar. If it can't find anything, you're experientially blind.

"Innovation happens," Matt Ridley famously wrote, "when ideas have sex."

6 innovations born of ideas having sex.

1. In the 1900s, surfers began looking for something to do when the waves were no good. Combining the wooden scooter with the roller skate, the skateboard was born. 2. In 1987, Tinker Hatfield designed the Air Max 1. Years earlier, in architecture school, Tinker learned about an inside-out building in Paris, the Georges Pompidou Center.

Like the Pompidou Center, Hatfield said, the idea for the Air Max 1 was to "show what's in the shoe."

How and who Wayne Gretzky studied to become the greatest hockey player of all time: Lesson: study and imitate the greats.

Hunter S. Thompson famously typed out his favorite books, word by word.

While he was once doing this, a friend asked, "What the fuck are you typ­ing The Great Gatsby for? That’s the stu­pidest thing I’ve ever seen.”