The Best Book I Read in 2019
- Hey, what's up, guys?
My name is Thomas Frank and as you might know
if you've been watching my channel for any length of time,
I make a lot of videos on productivity
and on how to work better.
And in this video, I want to share the best book
that I read this year for my own productivity
and the one that taught me the most important lessons
that I applied to my work.
Now given the nature of my work,
is that book "Principles" by Ray Dalio?
No.
Is it "Ultralearning"?
No again.
Is it some big long book by Robert Greene
with tons of annoying red texts in the margins?
No, it's actually a book
by somebody who doesn't really work in the productivity
or self-help or career success industries whatsoever.
The book is "How Music Works" by David Byrne,
who is the founder or at least one of the founding members
of the band at Talking Heads.
Now like I said,
the author of this book is not a productivity consultant,
he's not some self-help guru,
and this book isn't a productivity book at all.
It's a book about how music works.
A lot of it is about his own life and performance.
It's about recording technology and how it's changed,
it's how the production of music has changed.
Nonetheless, the lessons that I took from this book
have impacted my work and improved the way that I do it
more than the lessons I took from any other book
that I read this year.
And in this video, I want to share three of them
that I think are gonna help you as well.
So the first big lesson that I took from this book is
that creative works often come out of a specific context,
like a specific audience that an artist is trying to reach
or a specific venue in which they have to play.
In other words, creativity is improved
by having limitations placed upon us.
This is actually kind of the opposite view
that most people have when they think of great artists.
We often think that artists
just have this amazing idea come to them
in the middle of the night,
that they just have some sort of genius
the rest of us don't have.
The book puts it this way.
"The accepted narrative suggests
"that a classical composer gets a strange look
"in his or her eye and begins furiously scribbling
"a fully realized composition
"that couldn't exist in any other form.
"Or that the rock and roll singer is driven
"by desire and demons
"and out bursts this amazing, perfectly shaped song
"that had to be three minutes and 12 seconds,
"nothing more, nothing less."
And this view is actually the complete opposite
from the truth that we either unconsciously
or consciously make things
that fit into predetermined contexts or formats.
Some examples could include the audience,
their current tastes, their demographics.
The venue could be outside, could be a cathedral,
a sports arena, headphones in your ears,
or it could be the medium.
Say a vinyl disc that only holds so much information.
To hone in on one specific example,
cathedral music often stays within the same key
throughout the entire duration of a piece
and utilizes long haunting notes.
And the reason for this, as Robert Jourdain points out
in his book "Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy,"
is that some cathedrals have reverberation times
of up to seven seconds, which is incredibly long.
And within an environment like this,
music that uses lots of complex percussive sounds
or that modulates between different keys
becomes a chaotic mess really, really quickly.
So a lesson that I took from this part of the book is
that a lack of limitations or a lack of context
is actually a bad thing for being creative
or for getting things done.
Because when you have limitless options,
you often just choose none of the above.
You've probably seen the power of limitations at work
in your own life as well.
I mean, how many times have you found yourself
under a tight deadline
and actually been more focused as a result?
So one thing that I've been trying to do recently is
to give myself some sometimes arbitrary limitations
when I take on a project.
For example, my one hour morning routine video
that I published about a month ago
and which was one of the more successful videos
on my channel recently had some rules in place
before I ever touched a camera.
Number one, the video could be no more
than seven minutes long and number two,
during the part where I explained the routine,
I had to do it off-camera as a voice-over narration,
which is something that I had never done before.
So these limitations actually helped me
to generate better ideas than I would have without them
because once I had boundaries,
they gave me a small area of focus
in which I could be creative.
Lesson number two had to do with the value
of building up anticipation
before doing something big or surprising.
And this lesson comes from the part of the book
where he was talking about his life as a performer,
specifically when he was putting together
the stage production for the album "Stop Making Sense",
which was actually very well received.
And the concerts they were putting together
for this album weren't your normal average pop concerts.
There were all kinds of additional elements.
He tried to take inspiration
from different types of Broadway theater and Asian theater,
so there was a lot going on in these productions.
And during the filming of the first few shows
in Los Angeles, he was able to meet and get some critiques
from a Beijing opera performer
who was pretty blunt with what he had to say.
And one of those things was about the value
of building up anticipation for the audience
before doing something surprising.
Here's how he puts it in the book.
"One adage was along the lines
"of needing to let the audience know you're going
"to do something special before you do it.
"You tip them off and draw their attention to you
"and you have to know how to do it
"in a way that isn't obvious,
"or toward whoever is going to do the special thing."
Now you notice that this is kind of counterintuitive
and you'd think so as well
because if you tell the audience what you're going to do
before you do it, you spoil the surprise, right?
Well, no.
If you do it correctly,
you actually draw their attention to the surprise
because if you don't do it,
then half your audience is just not paying attention
and they're going to miss it.
And in the book, Byrne notes that this is a rule
that doesn't just apply to stage performances
or to musical performances.
He notes that stand-up comedians
probably have very similar rules
for getting the audience ready for a punch line.
And you can probably think of several other applications.
This is why drum rolls happen in circuses,
why movie trailers now have teaser trailers,
like trailers for trailers,
and why pop songs have pre-choruses
that build things up for the main chorus.
Now this is a lesson that I haven't seen
in any other productivity book that I've read in the past,
yet I could immediately see
how it would help me do my work better.
Yes, I don't get up on stages,
I don't do musical performances,
but as a YouTuber, as a writer,
as somebody who creates media
and shares things with the world,
I can see the value of using hype,
using anticipation to get my audience ready
for what I'm going to do.
If I don't do that, like he says,
I'm probably going to surprise people
to the point where they're just gonna miss it or not care.
And that brings us to the third lesson,
which actually isn't contained
within the pages of this book at all
but is more a meta lesson that kind of dawned on me
as I was reading this.
Don't just learn from productivity people,
don't just learn from self-help gurus
and people who write about career success.
Instead, try to branch out a bit.
I know that when I was younger, I was pretty single-minded
about trying to become more productive,
trying to get ahead in my career,
and as a result I had tunnel vision.
Whenever I'd go to a bookstore,
I would immediately make a beeline
for the business section or the self-help section.
I would kind of exclude all other sections.
And I know a lot of other people
who do the exact same thing.
People are always asking me
what's the best productivity book that you read this year?
But the thing about people who write about productivity,
the thing about people who are in the self-help industry,
is that they tend to have a pretty narrow band
of work experience, especially when we're talking
about careers that span many, many decades.
People in these industries tend to make their livings
in just a few ways, either in mass media production,
you know, recording audio, recording videos like this one
because I am including myself in this group of people,
or writing books, or other people who run businesses
or who speak on stages.
And I'm not saying this to belittle any of those things
or to belittle these people
because those are important things
and there's a lot you can learn from them.
But again, it's a very narrow band of experience
compared to all the different professions
and pursuits that are out there.
So don't just focus your attention on the business
and the self-help gurus
at the exclusion of all other voices.
At the very least, read accounts from people
who have done what you want to do
or work in the industry that you want to break into.
Personally, I want to play more music in the future,
which is why I read a book by a musician.
But I think you should go even further than that.
I mean, I don't particularly want to go get into the opera
but the lessons I took from that opera performer
who was talked about in this book are definitely applicable
to my work as a YouTube producer.
People who work in specific industries often learn lessons
that really can't be learned in other places
but that are applicable to those other places nonetheless.
And this is also an argument for digging into new fields
and exploring new areas on your own.
When you do this, you gain new insights
that you can then creatively apply
to anything else that you've already been doing.
For just one example, Brian May, the guitarist for Queen,
used his physics background to figure out how to create
that stomp clap effect in "We Will Rock You."
And most people wouldn't think
that you would use a physics background as a musician
but well, there you go.
And if you want to learn about physics
or math and science in general,
then you should check out Brilliant.
Brilliant is a learning platform
that helps you quickly improve in these areas,
along with computer science,
through an incredibly active hands-on learning experience
that includes interactive challenges, storytelling,
and even code writing.
Their library of more than 60 courses includes
a complete math suite that spans everything
from the fundamentals of number theory to calculus
and differential equations and statistics.
There are science courses like classical mechanics
and the science of waves and light,
and computer science courses that cover algorithms,
data structures, and even how search engines work.
And because all these courses are so interactive,
you'll find yourself really stretching
your problem-solving abilities as you work through them,
which helps you become an overall better thinker.
Now you can start learning for free
with their daily challenges feature right now
by going over to Brilliant.org/ThomasFrank and signing up.
And if you're one of the first 200 people
to use that link and sign up,
you're gonna get 20% off their annual premium subscription
which gives you access to the entire library
of in-depth courses.
Big thanks as always to Brilliant for sponsoring this video
and supporting my channel
and thank you for watching as well.
Hopefully you found this video helpful
and if you did, hit that like button,
get subscribed right there,
and maybe check out one other video right over here
if you haven't seen it already.
Thanks again for watching
and I will see you in the next video.
