the latest in his assault on our wits of reasoning, new yorker writer malcolm gladwell has put together a red hot (#1 on nyt business booklist) tome on the story of success. a real eye opener it’s chock full of examples + evidence of his theories on what makes individuals rise above. essentially he comes up with the argument that those of us, in any field, that want to be on top 1) work much, much harder than everyone else + 2) employ a developed sense of practical intelligence along with a bit of luck + a few good opportunities. what follows are some of my favorite lines.

in discussing a study done in the early 1990′s by psychologist k anders ericsson with two colleagues at berlin’s elite academy of music….

the striking thing about ericsson’s study is that he + his colleagues couldn’t find any ‘naturals‘, musicians who floated effortlessly to the top while practicing a fraction of the time their peers did. nor could they find any ‘grinds,’ people who worked harder than everyone else, yet just didn’t have what it takes to break the top ranks. their research suggests that once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. that’s it. and what’s more, the people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. they work much, much harder.

if that doesn’t summarize just about everything about success then i’m a donkey’s arse. the next bit is good though too and just as applicable.

the particular skill that allows you to talk your way out of a murder rap, or convince your professor to move you from the morning to afternoon sections is what the psychologist robert sternberg calls “practical intelligence.” to sternberg, practical intelligence includes things like “knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and knowing how to say it for maximum effect.” it is procedural: it is about knowing how to do something without necessarily knowing why you know it or being about to explain it. it’s practical in nature: that is, it’s not knowledge for its own sake. it’s knowledge that helps you read situations correctly and get what you want.

this idea is so prevalent in most successful people that it should be a skill mandated in school or whatever path you take to get to be a busy photographer though i’m sure there’s little way to teach it. in this vein, i think it’s the intangible “turns” be they skills, abilities, opportunities or whatever, that shape anyone’s success. use every asset at your disposal + use it as wisely as possible. with a pinch of timing + gold fortune everything just might work out.

back to our first subject of hard work, gladwell continues on a path of illustrating that work for work’s sake is not an end that most desire. it must have something behind it. he demonstrates how it’s not entirely about money + concludes that work with “complexity, autonomy and a relationship between effort + reward in doing creative work…. is worth more to most of us than money”. in other words, + i find this spot on with running your own creative business regardless of the size,

“hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig.”

and lastly, not giving up our theme du jour of the sheer amount of work involved with success is the chinese quote that gladwell uses towards the end of the book.

“no one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich.”

now if you’ll excuse me, i gotta get back to work …

As I posted last week (Fractured Creativity) the idea of a break in the creative construct can do wonders for the process as a whole. And in all honesty it’s not just the creative process that benefits from this. Anne Fisher, a senior writer at FORTUNE is quoted as, “What scientists have only recently begun to realize is that people may do their best thinking when they are not concentrating on work at all.” Enough said.

With that in mind I set out in an ultra race last weekend to run 57km in the Swan Range of Montana. Had a great time (nice work Brad) but have to admit that the break from the process didn’t set a mental fire as it does most times. With the effort involved in the race attention was more focused on the task of simply moving forward. Guess there’s a limit to everything.

I still whole heartedly believe in and encourage everyone to seek that fracture that allows you to break the thought process (and thusly the mold). In fact, was just beta testing a high end commercial website by a ‘new media’ company in town that covers the likes of patagonia, Nixon, etc and was inspired with the energy put into it. So here’s creative inspiration for a wild weekend ::

Freeman Patterson :: Photography and the Art of Seeing
Arthur I Miller :: Insights of Genius: Imagery & Creativity in Science & Art
Arthur Koestler :: The Act of Creation
And lastly …