Key ideas based on Brian Johnson's PhilosopherNotes:
Originals: "a person who is different from other people in an appealing or interesting way."
Originals choose action despite fear & Anxieties
Don't Just Accept the Status Quo.
Be curious and willing to change the norms in favor of a better way.
Do a Huge Volume of Work
Originals usually aren't original by nature, but rather have a greater number of creative ideas that provide better odds of success. The produce a large quantity of work (i.e.: Build a Well).
Mozart wrote approximately 600 pieces, but only 6 are considered among the greatest of all time.
“The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on the quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the ‘quantity’ group: fifty pounds of pots rated an ‘A,’ forty pounds a ‘B,’ and so on. Those being graded on ‘quality,’ however, needed to produce only one pot—albeit a perfect one—to get an ‘A.’ Well, came grading and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the ‘quantity’ group was busily churning out piles of work—and learning from their mistakes—the ‘quality’ group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.” - Art & Fear
Volume of work cannot be shallow....it must be deep, thoughtful work. It is often incorrect that quality needs to be sacrificed for quantity.
Channel Emotions
"As most of us know, stage fright can feel like a paralyzing overdose of anxiety. And what do people tell us to do when we’re anxious? They tell us, with good intentions, to calm down. As it turns out, that might just be the very worst thing they can say. You see, anxiety is what psychologists describe as a high-arousal emotion. As I’ve explained, when we’re anxious, we occupy a heightened state of psychological vigilance. We’re hyperalert. Our hearts race, we break out into a sweat, our cortisol may spike—all of these reactions are controlled automatically by our nervous system. And it’s virtually impossible for most people to shut off that kind of automatic arousal, to abruptly de-escalate it. Not only can we not calm it down, but when someone tells us to calm down, it also reminds us of how calm we are not, which stokes our anxiety even more.But there’s another high-arousal emotion that’s not so negative. In fact, it’s quite positive— excitement. Brooks predicted that we may not be able to extinguish arousal, but we should be able to change the way we interpret it. So rather than fruitlessly trying to change the arousal level of our emotional states from high to low, what if we try to change them from negative to positive? From anxiety to excitement?” - Presence
Don't Vent Anger.....Think About the Victim
One someone or something angers you, don't focus on the harm done to yourself. Rather focus on the harm being done to others by this offense.
Embrace Challenges
‘I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world,’ E.B. White once wrote. ‘This makes it difficult to plan the day.
“Proper revolutions are not cataclysmic explosions. They are long, controlled burns.”