Book Report: The Compound Effect

I have been reading a lot lately. I read year round, but sometimes, I devour book after book because I'm in search of ideas. These times come when I am in a period of reinvention. This happens about every five years or so, which is pretty understandable. How many five year segments does a person get in life? Maybe ten or so after one is all out of formal schooling. 

Ten years ago, I started getting really into improv. Before that I was a gigging actor and sketch comedy guy. Five years back I drifted into solo performance big time. One thing kind of leads to another. I don't reinvent the wheel, I just pick a variation on a larger path (as a theatre artist who specializes in narratives) and see how far I can go. I'm not a hundred percent sure what is coming next, but I know I'm restless for new horizons. 

One of the books that I've picked up recently has been Darren Hardy's THE COMPOUND EFFECT.

I had never heard of Darren Hardy before. Apparently, he's a motivational dude comparable to Tony Robbins. He shows up in his own book preseting himself as quite a big deal, which was initially a bit of a put-off, but once I got past that, I found he has a lot of worthwhile things to say. 

The book doesn't break new ground, but the benefit of it is putting all the common sense stuff we need to hear, but often forget, all in one place.

• Track everything.
• There's no substitute for hard work.
• Cut out distractions.
• Figure out why you are doing what you are doing
• Small, incremental changes add up over time.
• Don't quite, keep going.

So, nothing groundbreaking. But Hardy puts all these things together in such a simple, accessible way. 

The things that I took away from the book have really stuck with me and I have started applying them directly to my life. For instance, Hardy reiterates that little seemingly inconsequential decisions really do either add to one's life or take away from it. 

For instance, he uses the example of three friends. One starts eating slightly less (like 125 calories less) per day by doing small things such as having one less soda or switching mustard in place of mayo on his sandwiches. A second friend doesn't make any change in his diet at all. A third friend puts a bit more luxury into his life. He puts a bigger screen television in his house and fixed himself cocktails in the evenings. After a few months, there was no noticeable difference between the friends. But after 30 months, the three friends had very different outcomes. The first guy had lost 20-something pounds. The second fiend didn't change at all. The third friend was 20-something pounds heavier. Just from the small, seemingly irrelevant actions, the compound effect yields drastically different results in the long-run.

Hardy goes on to point out, if friend one and three had stopped their actions after a short time, they would have seen very little effect. The big change happens in the long term. So, keep going. The take-away is to keep going.

I totally fall into the trap of instant gratification from time to time. I have been known to throw up my hands when I don't see results. Ultimately, I have never gotten that far in those areas where I expect a lot of apparent results in a short time. 

I have decided to switch my basic belief system in regards to this. If I have faith that the compound effect will work, that given enough time and pressure things are bound to change regardless of short-term noticeable evidence. 

The last big take-away for me is Hardy's insistence on direction over goals. Setting a goal and mechanically heading toward it in perfect measured ways is really difficult to do. But knowing that you are heading in a general positive direction towards what you want is enough. All the benefit in the long-run but without the stress and pressure. Again, small, incredmental changes add up to seismic shifts. The compound effect in action.

Recommended. You'll need to be ready for this book, or in need of it, but it is jam-packed with useful stuff.

NOTE: See more books that have impacted me on my Book Shelf page.

Book Report: The Empty Space

“A stage space has two rules: (1) Anything can happen and (2) Something must happen.”  ~ Peter Brook, The Empty Space

I first read this book right after I graduated from college and have revisited it time and time again since. It is dense and Brook, as with his other books, is accessible and clear, but passionate. And he never dumbs down his thoughts and concepts for passive readers.

I have written of the wonderful things about Brook in a previous Book Report (about his book Threads of Time). He is one of my major influences. The Empty Space is one of the defining texts by Brook and, in my opinion, one of the defining texts about the theatre in the last century.

In a nutshell, Brook explores what was (is) wrong with the professional theatre by breaking it down into overlapping categories: The Deadly, The Holy, The Rough and the Immediate. The Immediate, or a theatre that genuinely lives in the moment between the performers and audience, is the goal for Brook (and for many of us that have been influenced by him).

The real value of this book is how it shifts one's mindset. Peter Brook's lines of exploration and questioning work to sort of move one's frame of reference. Reading Brook, who is serious in his criticism, I come away thinking differently about the theatre. Question everything. Take nothing for granted (even tradition). Never lose sight of the goal: to genuinely, truthfully and spontaneously engage and share something worth sharing with the audience. In this way, theatre may just create lasting memories for audiences.

In The Empty Space, Brook leaves us with an incredibly simple (though not easy) formula for what theatre can be. Here is a man that believes in the power of the stage, the infinity of a particular moment, and the saving grace of theatre. He is also well aware of the pitfalls, too. He's been there. And he's still out there. For that, I'm very glad.

Book Report: Zen and the Art of Making a Living

It I had to choose one nonfiction book that has made the most profound impact on me, both as a person and in regards to what I do, it would be Laurence G. Boldt's Zen and the Art of Making a Living. Over time, I have dipped into the book again and again. It is more than what the title implies...

Though it is presented as a sort of career guide, the book is perhaps the closest thing to a bible I have on my book shelf. It takes into account the spiritual aspects of who we are when considering what we should be doing with our lives. It telescopes out and takes in a very wide-view of life. I consider it an excellent tool for living the examined existence.

The book provides inspiration, practical tools and presents good information in a very accessible way. A bunch of prominent thinkers' ideas show up throughout the book (a lot of Eastern philosophy but also Joseph Campbell, Nietzsche, Carl Jung, and a host of others). Many of these thinkers, whose work could easily be twisted to fit a shallow self-help book, are presented here to anchor several over-arcing themes. 

This book is essentially about finding one's vocation. Since I am a theatre artist primarily, with a secondary career as an educator, I have struggled in the past to reconcile the meaningfulness of the work I do with actually paying the bills.

Zen and the Art of Making a Living encourages the reader to align his or her work with inner values as much as possible and it is written from a spiritual perspective that is generally Eastern, but it does not actually push a particular worldview over any others. In particular, I really found the first portion of the book, with it's explanation of myth and zen, fascinating.

The second part focuses on choosing a career path best suited to one's talents and preferences. It not only covers the cocept of career itself, but whether one is best as self-employed, freelance or working for a company. It also helps with getting interviews and writing resumes. Throughout this section, questions and worksheets are provided so one can work out not only what job to look for, but also what one expects to accomplish when the job is obtained. Extensive resources and guidelines are provided.

The first part is inspirational, the last part is extremely practical.

If you have the discipline to work through this book (and it is long), you will learn a lot about yourself and the type of work that makes you most happy. It will also show you how to take what you most love doing and create opportunities to do more of it.

This is not a "quick-fix" career guide that one can just skim over and find the perfect job. It is a guide for looking within oneself to find the ideal mesh of talent and happiness and finding a job (or creating one) that suits one best.

Highly recommended. Get a copy on Amazon... HERE.

Book Report: Peter Brook's Theads of Time

If I had to name a single figure who has influenced me the most profoundly as a theatre artist, it would be Peter Brook. And this fact is something Peter Brook would not approve of. Brook refuses to be anyone's guru.

He defines himself as a “searcher” rather than a guru laying down some sort of set doctrine to those he has influenced. His ideas continue to fascinate and inspire me. In my personal Mt. Rushmore of artists who have had profound affects on me he is perhaps the least preachy, the least didactic. 

Moreover, I can sum up the exact things that have been impressed upon me about Brook. First off, his theatre is foremost about storytelling. The story trumps all. Secondly, he believes in the maxim of the famous French chef and restaurateur, Auguste Escoffier: faites simple (keep it simple). And last, and most important, he has a deeply intense respect for the audience. He sees them as more than just passive watchers and listeners. In Brook’s concept of theatre, the audience is essential; without it, nothing happens. “The relationship between the actor and the audience is the only theatre reality,” he once told an interviewer. 
 
Threads of Time is Brook's introspective, soulful autobiography. It is as different from the usual show-biz memoir as his imaginative productions are from traditional commercial theatre shows. 

Born in 1925, London-raised and Oxford-educated, Brook first began to make his mark during the 1950s and '60s with inventive Shakespeare (including a blood-soaked Titus Andronicus, an acrobatic A Midsummer Night's Dream and a celebrated King Lear) and avant-garde European works (Marat/Sade). He also relates in the book that he was immersed in the mystical teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff. In 1971 Brook founded the International Center for Theater Research, which brought together actors from different traditions and countries in an attempt to make theater reach across cultural boundaries and become truly universal. The productions resulting included The Mahabharata and The Man Who (based on the writings of neurologist Oliver Sacks).

Brook's representations of how these unusual pieces were collaboratively created are as absorbing as his compelling descriptions of earlier working relationships with actors like Paul Scofield and John Gielgud. The thing is, Brook is not an other-worldly metaphysician: he relates his spiritual and artistic discoveries very precisely to the insights they gave him about the theatre. 

For a memoir by a theatre person, there is no gossip, which is not that surprising since it is Brook. But still... I mean, his two children are only mentioned once; his wife (actress Natasha Parry) appears primarily as a working companion. Instead of personal chit-chat, Brook offers the chronicle of a very individual, very committed quest. It leaves a moving impression of a man deeply fulfilled both spiritually and artistically.

If you are a fan of the theatre and of Brook, Threads of Time is definitely worth a read.

Get a copy on Amazon if you want. Here's a link... LINK

Book Report: The Four Hour Work Week

2015 is off and rolling and I am determined to raise the bar on many aspects of my life over the next dozen months. With that in mind, I have been revisiting many books that I read at earlier times in my life (and a few new ones, too) that impacted me in some way. I am going back to these books in the spirit of returning to the river... no matter when you go back, the water is never the same. 

So, though I usually use this blog as a sort of online portfolio of my own creative work, I am opeing it up a bit to include more and more of my process. I am starting a series here on this blog called "Book Reports" and I will do my best to put down why and how these books affected me and how I am currently benefiting from them.

To start off, I pick one of the most controversial books on my shelf... Timothy Ferriss' Four Hour Work Week.

HOW'D I GET IT?

My friend Alia gave me The 4-hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Richas a gift in the summer of 2007. I had landed in NYC and stayed with her for a week and a half right after I returned from a year abroad in Hong Kong. She had already torn through the book and all she said when she handed it to me was "it's a little better than the same kind of self-help/business books because it lists actual resources, websites and plans of action..." 

Over the next few days I read over half of it sitting on her third-story patio in Green Point, Brooklyn with the Manhattan skyline rising up into view just across the river.

I ended up devouring the book twice through and then bought the audio version so I could listen to it in my car. I burned copies of it to give to friends. 

With such an endorsement, you'd think that this book became super important to me. And it did, but not in the way you might think.

THE IMPACT

Initially I fell full-crush both for the concepts in the book and for the charismatic author, Tim Ferriss. The book is about optimizing productivity to free yourself up from the cubicle. With this newfound freedom, Ferriss advises "mini-retirements" (or relocating for a few months to another country). Work can become more efficient and mobile and ideally, you'd only have to put in 4 hours any given week to earn enough to be considered a member of "the new rich." So, the promise of capability and freedom seemed like very attractive.

Ferriss himself walked the walk of his book. He seemed a good choice for modeling behavior and lifestyle... he was super smart, wealthy, very fit and had an extremely apparent gift for marketing himself. But he's not a super-speciman. He is weird looking and kind of diorky and throws off a frat-guy vibe. I believe this actually makes him seem even a bit more accessible.

Tim Ferriss

I wanted some of what he had. Even more enticing, he made it all seem incredibly accessible and possible. The message being, If he could do it, I could do it.

Earn millions, travel the world, own your time, make your mark.

I dug into the book and, like many people, learned through a series of non-starts and failures that the concepts in the 4HWW were not simple and not nearly as accessible as Ferriss had made them out to be,

I attempted starting several enterprises. Most did not get past the idea stage. Here's my list of companies that did NOT even get going...

•  A website that sells digital versions of play scripts, because soon, I reasoned, everyone would be reading print stuff off their phones (and soon after that came tablets). This was, by far, the best idea I had of the lot. I could see the future and I could see how I could leverage that to my advantage. Unfortunately, the execution of the idea was technically way over my head. I considered hiring someone to help with the user interface part of the website itself. Then, right after I had the idea, Amazon's Kindle books started taking off and websites like StagePlays and Original Works Publishing showed up. Then traditional play publishers like Dramatists and Samuel French began to release digital versions of their collections. I missed the window. (timing fail)

•  A website that does tutorials on well-known plays. This sounded promising when I was brain-storming, but I quickly realized anyone who would want a short cut to understanding a play would just go to SparkNotes or Cliff's Notes. SparkNotes and the like are really remedial and usually a bit off-base. My idea was to put together a real deep-dive into a play, far superior to the surface fluff offered by short-cut resources like Cliff's Notes. But, as I laid out an action plan and started researching, I realized there was very little market for this idea. Those folks who used SparkNotes obviously didn't have time or inclination to read the play itself and interpret it for themselves, so concise, better analysis was not going to be a draw. And those people who would want a deep-dive into a play would have read the work itself and would gone to the library to find their own resources. Plus, again, technically difficult to get a bunch of plays researched and get them packaged and online. Plus, it was an extraordinary amount of work for such a very small demographic (thus small chance of profit). 

•  An improv/directing/ dramatic writing coaching/consulting business. Which is something I kind of still do, but I didn't make a full-on business out of it. Plus, it was not automated at all. For in-person service-oriented I would have to always show up to teach classes. And the only way to make it scaleable was to make multiple levels so I could have returning students several times. I considered coaching via skype, but on close investigation I realized there really wasn't a huge market for people who wanted my so-called expertise. Too much work, again, for a small chance of profit. And it didn't offer mobility, which is really what I wanted the most. This did make me think about possibly writing a book - or books - in the future on a subject I feel strongly and know a great deal about in the future. (so, mobility and scaleability fail)

•  An online shop that sold fez hats. I was really into retro-50s/tiki stuff in 2007 and I saw that I could have fez hats manufactured in China, sell them and then drop ship them to customers in the States for cheap. I was going to make fez hats THE THING. Bulk orders for bachelorette parties, for birthdays, for insert-excuse-to-have-a-party parties. I only got to the planning stages of this. There was only one real competitior online, who made over-priced handmade fez, but the marketing behind making fez an in-demand item seemed a huge barrier. Plus, it seemed off-message for me once I started really investigating it. I don't wear a fez that often. I make art and theatre. I couldn't see being enthusiastic about selling fez hats for very long. (interest fail)

The overwhelming barricades for me using the 4HWW to create "automated income" and become "location independent" were three-fold... 

1) I wasn't super passionate about most of my ideas. And without passion I was incredibly unmotivated to do the immense amount of work to get them up and going. I realized that people who are passionate about business are not necessarily passionate about the things they sell, but are, instead, passionate about simply selling things. Period.

2.) None of my ideas played to my full-frontal strengths. There was a little bit of overlap, but launching myself full into anyone of these ideas meant I'd have to give up the things I really liked to do in order to get them off the ground. There is only so much time in the day. I wasn't willing to sacrifice the stuff I was really passionate about in order to make businesses that had, honestly, little chance of success. 

3.) When I realized I wasn't passionate about simply making money to make money (which is what business is), I had to come to terms with what I was passionate about. And I realized I was really into creating art, particularly narrative art... super-particularly theatre. This is lucky since theatre is what my degrees are in. And the thing about theatre is that it can't be digitalized. There's no way to "automate" it.

Also, upon researching Tim with a cold, impersonal eye, I realize he is fundamentally a different kind of person from me. He is hyper-analytical and obsessive about record-keeping. He is a machine. I am highly organized and to some degree a sensualist. I am not a machine. His system works for him. It would not yield the same kind of result for me, or at least not the way I would want it to.

So, I was back to square one.

I went from really digging Tim and his book to feeling like the thing was a scammy Pyramid Scheme of some sort. Or at the very least, that once again, my situation in life fell outside the normal assumptions these kinds of self-help/business books were written for.

But here's what I've come to realize... the exercise of trying and failing, thinking and evaluating would not have been part of my growth without the 4HWW. The real value of the book for me is the reframing of my points of reference. 

I underwent a paradigm shift. 

I began to think a lot more was possible. What did I need the income for? How much income did I truly need to make to live like I wanted? Could I travel and make things and get by without worry without getting a standard 9-to-5? Could I be both an artist and an entreprenuer? Could I put at least some of the lessons from 4HWW to work in my life and career? I also came to realize just how much work would really be needed to make my aspirations come true.

The 4HWW changed the way I thought about the world and my place in it. It shifted my mindset.

This didn't seem to be the explicit purpose of the book, but it has become, over time, a valuable take-away for me. This shifting of perspective came in 2008, about the time I was revamping Audacity Theatre Lab to be more artist-centric and getting my solo performance career off the ground in order to travel more and share my art.

That's the real reason why The 4-hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich is on my Book Report list. 

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