Just Start: The Perils of Phoning It In
"LINE!"*
Something I’ve resolved to do recently is only watch or read things that somebody really cared about making. You watch and read more good stuff that way.
Screenwriter William Goldman often notes that, if you have a good script and get the casting right, your film has a chance to be good. Recently, I’ve started to think that the process starts before that: if someone on the project — probably the director, but maybe the screenwriter or lead actor — desperately wants to make something great, then there’s a decent chance something in it will be worth your time. If they don’t, then the thing might still be well-crafted, hit the right emotional buttons, and get everything right, but it’ll probably feel like something’s missing. If they care, then even if the whole project isn’t great — because of studio or publisher interference, budget issues, or black swan events — you can see little glimpses of that passion shining through, and often they make the hour or month you spend reading or watching the thing worthwhile.
I’ve mentioned before that philosopher/film critic Tom Van Der Linden calls the uncaring style of production ‘corporate passion’ — it’s what happens when the Lord Of The Rings films make a load of money, and a big studio spin The Hobbit out into a trilogy. But I think there’s another form of it that affects even solo creators, and it’s worth considering when you’re doing your own work.
“Lots of people want to be the noun without doing the verb.” says Austin Kleon, in his book Keep Going. “They want the job title without the work.”
Quite a common example of this is people who want to have written a book, but don’t actually write a book. Writing a book, these days, is quite often regarded as a calling card for something else: maybe it’s to get you speaking gigs or consultancy work, or to let you sell something or become more credible in the eyes of investors. But, crucially, if you approach a book with this in mind, it won’t be very good.
I’ve read at least a couple of dozen books that I’d describe as “Gladwellian” — they use the Malcolm Gladwell-inspired approach of combining descriptive passages about interview subjects with anecdotes about success in various spheres and the same set of scientific studies (I’ve probably read five books that mention the Stanford Marshmallow Test: most of them get some element of it wrong). But the thing is, Malcolm Gladwell books are (usually) good, because Malcolm Gladwell wants to make them good: he’s a great stylist who clearly values communicating information in an interesting way. The people who clearly regard a book as part of their portfolio are not good: their books are a collection of the tired anecdotes and half-discredited studies, well-worn turns of phrase and padding that makes your eyes glide over the page.
These books are the reason productivity bros say things like “Books are stupid when you can just ask Grok to harvest all the relevant insights and read them aloud to you in ten seconds” — it’s because they are books that should have been articles. Good books are full of things that amaze and amuse you, examples that make the insights inside real and help you to sit with and understand them, and surprising turns of phrase that help you remember it all. Good books also sell well, because quality wins out. Y Combinator founder Paul Graham explains, “The best way to increase a startup’s growth rate is to make the product so good people recommend it to their friends.” Good books are like that: even if you can’t articulate quite why you like them, you know you like them, and you recommend them because of that.
So what am I actually saying here? Two things:
If you’re making something, make it as good as you can. For more on what that means, I strongly recommend Ryan Holiday’s Perennial Seller, a re-read of which inspired this post.
If you’re not making anything, try to watch, read and listen to stuff by people who are trying to make stuff as good as they can. Your life will definitely improve.
And have a great weekend!
Joel x
* In case you’re wondering, this sub-head is a reference to maybe my favourite 30 Rock joke of all time, ‘Tracy’s phoning it in today.’
Stuff I’ve done
🎥 Video - The notebook system that saved my brain
Over the past couple of years, I’ve fine-tuned the ways I write stuff down in physical notebooks. Here’s what I do now, in as much detail as I can manage (not enough as it turns out, I had to answer questions in the comments).
📝 Article - Fake fitness influencers: the secrets and lies behind the world’s most envied physiques
Me in the Guardian talking about how Liver King (subject of a new Netflix doc) is just the tip of the mass-berg — the most egregious example of influencers who promise amazing results while lying about what they're taking.
📝 Article - One man, one plan, one kettlebell
A rare post for my other newsletter, where I talk about ways to get fit and look good in a t-shirt. This isn’t going to become a weekly thing, but if you’re interested in getting in shape, you might as well subscribe, it’s free. Go do it now!
Stuff I like
📝 Article - Everybody Hurts by Paul Bloom
A really interesting way of thinking about envy, ways of dealing with it, whether we’re all fighting the same battles, and what we can do about it. Very good.
🎶 Hype Music - Elephant by the White Stripes
Okay, this is not exactly a groundbreaking recommendation, but: I’ve been on a concerted effort to listen to more albums recently, as a way of rebuilding my fractured attention span, and not many albums are as front-to-back great as Elephant (obviously like half of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs output, but I already talk about them a lot).
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