Does Disconnection Improve Creativity?

00:00:00.000 | [Music]

00:00:04.700 | All right, speaking of deep, let's do some questions about the deep life.

00:00:10.200 | Sandy asks, "What were your thoughts on the Get Back documentary?"

00:00:19.200 | She elaborates, "I've been watching the Beatles Get Back documentary,

00:00:25.300 | and one thing that strikes me is the novelty of watching people just hanging out,

00:00:28.700 | playing with creative ideas and without distracting technology.

00:00:31.500 | I wondered if you have any thoughts on it.

00:00:33.200 | They spend a lot of time just hanging out, apparently not doing much.

00:00:36.200 | Is this important if you want to be as creative as the Beatles were?

00:00:41.100 | Do you think the lack of technology contributed to their brilliance?"

00:00:44.700 | Yes.

00:00:46.500 | I think the answer is yes and yes.

00:00:49.500 | Creative work requires

00:00:52.400 | a lot of deep work.

00:00:55.300 | So there's a lot of moments of just being able to be very comfortable,

00:00:57.900 | being very focused, but also a lot of what we can think of as cognitive wandering.

00:01:01.600 | It's the Beatles just hanging out, talking, messing around on their instruments,

00:01:06.600 | noticing things, "Wait a second, let me try about that.

00:01:09.400 | What if we did this?"

00:01:10.200 | None of that can happen at a high level if you're constantly context switching.

00:01:14.200 | Look at a text message thread, look at a WhatsApp thread,

00:01:17.000 | look at social media to see what's going on.

00:01:18.800 | I can give you a very specific case study

00:01:22.000 | from exactly this world.

00:01:24.800 | A couple years ago, I was communicating with a very high-level songwriter.

00:01:29.200 | So she's well-known and she works on songs for some pretty famous pop stars.

00:01:33.500 | Not to spoil this for the kids out there, but unlike the Beatles, pop stars today

00:01:39.600 | don't write their own music.

00:01:41.000 | Some do, but a lot of them don't.

00:01:43.100 | Anyways, she wrote me because she was having a real problem.

00:01:46.200 | She was constantly on social media and she had told herself this story about

00:01:52.700 | people need to know who I am and promotion and it's going to help me get work.

00:01:56.500 | But guess what was not happening?

00:01:58.300 | Songwriting.

00:01:59.900 | She wasn't writing songs.

00:02:01.800 | She was obsessed with posting, but did people like what I posted?

00:02:06.700 | What were people thinking about me?

00:02:07.800 | What are other people doing?

00:02:08.800 | What's happening in the world of the related pop star celebrity?

00:02:11.500 | And I talked to her and gave her some advice and said,

00:02:14.200 | "Don't worry about people finding you, man.

00:02:15.900 | What people worry about is are you writing killer hooks?"

00:02:18.100 | And she did pull back and it made all the difference.

00:02:21.500 | She's like, "Man, I'm back into it again.

00:02:22.900 | Like I just don't do this thing on my phone anymore."

00:02:25.000 | That's a direct example from this world.

00:02:27.800 | You also see this all the time with novelists.

00:02:29.900 | Novel writing is difficult, cognitively demanding work.

00:02:34.200 | It is very difficult.

00:02:35.500 | They don't mess around.

00:02:36.900 | I mean, some do, but there are so many novelists that say, "I don't want to

00:02:39.700 | have anything to do with this stuff."

00:02:41.500 | You know, I go, I disappear.

00:02:44.900 | I'm Dave Eggers where I have a writing house with no Wi-Fi on an old laptop

00:02:49.300 | with no internet connection and eight hours at a time, you can't get to me.

00:02:52.500 | It's John Grisham who like the groundhog comes out of his Warren in the

00:02:59.900 | ground, you know, once a year to promote his book for two weeks and then

00:03:02.400 | disappears.

00:03:03.100 | It's like, I don't want to have anything to do with that, right?

00:03:05.900 | This is like Aziz Ansari has a new comedy special out that I was watching

00:03:11.300 | the other day on the rowing machine and he uses a flip phone.

00:03:14.900 | He's like, "This just was killing me.

00:03:17.900 | And I'm supposed to create creative, interesting things and I can't if all

00:03:21.200 | I'm thinking about is what's happening on this little glowing piece of glass

00:03:23.500 | flip phone."

00:03:24.100 | You know, I'm sure he could be on Instagram and Twitter and trying to get

00:03:27.600 | an audience back and now he's like, "Forget it.

00:03:30.700 | I want to do this and I don't care if I'm less successful at it.

00:03:33.700 | I can't do creative work with this."

00:03:35.700 | So I think it's a good point, Sandy.

00:03:37.000 | It's not compatible.

00:03:39.100 | You know, Jesse, I hear this with sports too.

00:03:41.300 | I've talked quite a bit of people within professional sports.

00:03:45.300 | I've talked with general managers of NBA teams.

00:03:47.500 | I've talked with people at national rugby teams.

00:03:50.500 | I've talked with people within football.

00:03:52.800 | I've talked with golfers and this is like a real issue.

00:03:56.400 | Is especially coaches and managers are very worried of the impact of the

00:04:01.200 | cognitive drain of looking at these things all the time on their athletes.

00:04:04.600 | And so it's another world.

00:04:06.300 | So forget creative stuff.

00:04:07.100 | What about physical, high concentration physical stuff?

00:04:09.700 | Phones kill you.

00:04:11.100 | A lot of the coaches, general managers, they're on their phones all the time

00:04:15.100 | too.

00:04:15.400 | Agents.

00:04:16.000 | Yeah.

00:04:16.800 | Well, the agents are part of the problem.

00:04:18.700 | Because the agents are talking in one ear, especially the NBA is a real

00:04:22.200 | problem because these are the youngest athletes of any sport, right?

00:04:25.900 | It's the only sport where you can come out of high school into it, really,

00:04:28.500 | right?

00:04:28.800 | I mean, you're not, to play whatever, professional football, you got to

00:04:32.700 | grow, you know, and so typically you're going to come out of college for

00:04:36.000 | that.

00:04:36.400 | Baseball, you have a, you're going to have this 10-year path of the

00:04:39.600 | minors before like anyone cares.

00:04:41.300 | Basketball players, you could be 19 and on the national stage.

00:04:46.500 | And the agents are in their ears.

00:04:47.600 | People got to know, people got to know your brand, you know, you got to

00:04:52.100 | be on there.

00:04:52.700 | You got to be and they get on the court and it, they can't, it's not

00:04:57.700 | that they can't play, but it is a, I've had, I had this conversation

00:05:00.700 | with a really high level person in the NBA.

00:05:02.800 | At that level.

00:05:04.400 | It is a game of Epsilons.

00:05:05.900 | If you are 3% off of your peak, you're on the bench because everyone

00:05:12.000 | is fantastic and everyone is playing at their, their, their fullest

00:05:15.700 | extent.

00:05:16.200 | There's really no room unless you're really, you know, Giannis or

00:05:19.000 | someone who has like a little bit of wiggle room here.

00:05:21.400 | It makes a huge difference.

00:05:22.900 | These agents are in their ear.

00:05:24.000 | You got to be on your phone.

00:05:24.700 | You got to be on their phone.

00:05:25.500 | It, it destroys their concentration.

00:05:28.600 | And then they're 5% worse and then they're out of the league in two

00:05:32.400 | years.

00:05:32.700 | A lot of them start clothing lines too.

00:05:35.100 | You know, Aziz Ansari talked about this in that special.

00:05:39.100 | He's like, yeah, a lot of comedians I know, like have these other

00:05:42.200 | products and do these other things.

00:05:43.600 | He's like, it kind of makes me feel like a slacker, but like, I just

00:05:45.700 | want to write.

00:05:46.300 | I just want to write comedy.

00:05:48.100 | Basically, I saw a David Goggins video.

00:05:53.100 | And he was talking about being in the gym at a hotel and like an NBA

00:05:58.500 | player came in with his coach and I forgot exactly.

00:06:02.200 | It was a Goggins video.

00:06:03.100 | So, you know, it was like really intense, but, but basically like

00:06:06.000 | the, the long and the short of it was like the NBA player was just

00:06:08.800 | going through the motions and the coach, the, and by coach, I mean

00:06:11.500 | trainer, not coach.

00:06:12.300 | The trainer was like, let's do 15 reps, not 12.

00:06:14.600 | And the players like, nah man, I'm just doing my 12.

00:06:16.100 | And Goggins went off on like, you know, not pushing yourself, whatever,

00:06:21.100 | but that it's like an example of what happens when you have this

00:06:25.300 | pull from you coming from the phone is like you're doing the 12 reps

00:06:28.400 | instead of the 15.

00:06:29.300 | It makes a difference when you're at a very high level.

00:06:31.900 | So, yeah, I'm a big believer in that.

00:06:34.900 | I think it's a huge, it's a huge competitive advantage.

00:06:37.000 | Be the guy or the woman not on this stuff.

00:06:39.500 | It's a big advantage.

00:06:41.400 | Yeah, you're gonna produce better work.

00:06:42.800 | Nothing matters more than producing better work, social media, and

00:06:45.900 | I don't mean to rant too much, but social media is great for spreading

00:06:49.100 | the word about you, but it's best when other people are doing it for

00:06:51.900 | you.

00:06:52.100 | So yeah, you should be happy that social media exists.

00:06:55.000 | If you're doing something awesome, because it makes it easy for

00:06:57.500 | people to talk about it, but they don't need you on there saying

00:07:00.100 | look at me.

00:07:00.600 | That only helps a little bit.

00:07:02.000 | So there we go.

00:07:03.400 | All right.

00:07:06.100 | [Music]

Does Disconnection Improve Creativity?

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