My name is Thomas Frank and as you might know

if you've been watching my channel for any length of time,

I make a lot of videos on productivity

and on how to work better.

And in this video, I want to share the best book

that I read this year for my own productivity

and the one that taught me the most important lessons

that I applied to my work.

Now given the nature of my work,

is that book "Principles" by Ray Dalio?

No.

Is it "Ultralearning"?

No again.

Is it some big long book by Robert Greene

with tons of annoying red texts in the margins?

No, it's actually a book

by somebody who doesn't really work in the productivity

or self-help or career success industries whatsoever.

The book is "How Music Works" by David Byrne,

who is the founder or at least one of the founding members

of the band at Talking Heads.

Now like I said,

the author of this book is not a productivity consultant,

he's not some self-help guru,

and this book isn't a productivity book at all.

It's a book about how music works.

A lot of it is about his own life and performance.

It's about recording technology and how it's changed,

it's how the production of music has changed.

Nonetheless, the lessons that I took from this book

have impacted my work and improved the way that I do it

more than the lessons I took from any other book

that I read this year.

And in this video, I want to share three of them

that I think are gonna help you as well.

So the first big lesson that I took from this book is

that creative works often come out of a specific context,

like a specific audience that an artist is trying to reach

or a specific venue in which they have to play.

In other words, creativity is improved

by having limitations placed upon us.

This is actually kind of the opposite view

that most people have when they think of great artists.

We often think that artists

just have this amazing idea come to them

in the middle of the night,

that they just have some sort of genius

the rest of us don't have.

The book puts it this way.

"The accepted narrative suggests

"that a classical composer gets a strange look

"in his or her eye and begins furiously scribbling

"a fully realized composition

"that couldn't exist in any other form.

"Or that the rock and roll singer is driven

"by desire and demons

"and out bursts this amazing, perfectly shaped song

"that had to be three minutes and 12 seconds,

"nothing more, nothing less."

And this view is actually the complete opposite

from the truth that we either unconsciously

or consciously make things

that fit into predetermined contexts or formats.

Some examples could include the audience,

their current tastes, their demographics.

The venue could be outside, could be a cathedral,

a sports arena, headphones in your ears,

or it could be the medium.

Say a vinyl disc that only holds so much information.

To hone in on one specific example,

cathedral music often stays within the same key

throughout the entire duration of a piece

and utilizes long haunting notes.

And the reason for this, as Robert Jourdain points out

in his book "Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy,"

is that some cathedrals have reverberation times

of up to seven seconds, which is incredibly long.

And within an environment like this,

music that uses lots of complex percussive sounds

or that modulates between different keys

becomes a chaotic mess really, really quickly.

So a lesson that I took from this part of the book is

that a lack of limitations or a lack of context

is actually a bad thing for being creative

or for getting things done.

Because when you have limitless options,

you often just choose none of the above.

You've probably seen the power of limitations at work

in your own life as well.

I mean, how many times have you found yourself

under a tight deadline

and actually been more focused as a result?

So one thing that I've been trying to do recently is

to give myself some sometimes arbitrary limitations

when I take on a project.

For example, my one hour morning routine video

that I published about a month ago

and which was one of the more successful videos

on my channel recently had some rules in place

before I ever touched a camera.

Number one, the video could be no more

than seven minutes long and number two,

during the part where I explained the routine,

I had to do it off-camera as a voice-over narration,

which is something that I had never done before.

So these limitations actually helped me

to generate better ideas than I would have without them

because once I had boundaries,

they gave me a small area of focus

in which I could be creative.

Lesson number two had to do with the value

of building up anticipation

before doing something big or surprising.

And this lesson comes from the part of the book

where he was talking about his life as a performer,

specifically when he was putting together

the stage production for the album "Stop Making Sense",

which was actually very well received.

And the concerts they were putting together

for this album weren't your normal average pop concerts.

There were all kinds of additional elements.

He tried to take inspiration

from different types of Broadway theater and Asian theater,

so there was a lot going on in these productions.

And during the filming of the first few shows

in Los Angeles, he was able to meet and get some critiques

from a Beijing opera performer

who was pretty blunt with what he had to say.

And one of those things was about the value

of building up anticipation for the audience

before doing something surprising.

Here's how he puts it in the book.

"One adage was along the lines

"of needing to let the audience know you're going

"to do something special before you do it.

"You tip them off and draw their attention to you

"and you have to know how to do it

"in a way that isn't obvious,

"or toward whoever is going to do the special thing."

Now you notice that this is kind of counterintuitive

and you'd think so as well

because if you tell the audience what you're going to do

before you do it, you spoil the surprise, right?

Well, no.

If you do it correctly,

you actually draw their attention to the surprise

because if you don't do it,

then half your audience is just not paying attention

and they're going to miss it.

And in the book, Byrne notes that this is a rule

that doesn't just apply to stage performances

or to musical performances.

He notes that stand-up comedians

probably have very similar rules

for getting the audience ready for a punch line.

And you can probably think of several other applications.

This is why drum rolls happen in circuses,

why movie trailers now have teaser trailers,

like trailers for trailers,

and why pop songs have pre-choruses

that build things up for the main chorus.

Now this is a lesson that I haven't seen

in any other productivity book that I've read in the past,

yet I could immediately see

how it would help me do my work better.

Yes, I don't get up on stages,

I don't do musical performances,

but as a YouTuber, as a writer,

as somebody who creates media

and shares things with the world,

I can see the value of using hype,

using anticipation to get my audience ready

for what I'm going to do.

If I don't do that, like he says,

I'm probably going to surprise people

to the point where they're just gonna miss it or not care.

And that brings us to the third lesson,

which actually isn't contained

within the pages of this book at all

but is more a meta lesson that kind of dawned on me

as I was reading this.

Don't just learn from productivity people,

don't just learn from self-help gurus

and people who write about career success.

Instead, try to branch out a bit.

I know that when I was younger, I was pretty single-minded

about trying to become more productive,

trying to get ahead in my career,

and as a result I had tunnel vision.

Whenever I'd go to a bookstore,

I would immediately make a beeline

for the business section or the self-help section.

I would kind of exclude all other sections.

And I know a lot of other people

who do the exact same thing.

People are always asking me

what's the best productivity book that you read this year?

But the thing about people who write about productivity,

the thing about people who are in the self-help industry,

is that they tend to have a pretty narrow band

of work experience, especially when we're talking

about careers that span many, many decades.

People in these industries tend to make their livings

in just a few ways, either in mass media production,

you know, recording audio, recording videos like this one

because I am including myself in this group of people,

or writing books, or other people who run businesses

or who speak on stages.

And I'm not saying this to belittle any of those things

or to belittle these people

because those are important things

and there's a lot you can learn from them.

But again, it's a very narrow band of experience

compared to all the different professions

and pursuits that are out there.

So don't just focus your attention on the business

and the self-help gurus

at the exclusion of all other voices.

At the very least, read accounts from people

who have done what you want to do

or work in the industry that you want to break into.

Personally, I want to play more music in the future,

which is why I read a book by a musician.

But I think you should go even further than that.

I mean, I don't particularly want to go get into the opera

but the lessons I took from that opera performer

who was talked about in this book are definitely applicable

to my work as a YouTube producer.

People who work in specific industries often learn lessons

that really can't be learned in other places

but that are applicable to those other places nonetheless.

And this is also an argument for digging into new fields

and exploring new areas on your own.

When you do this, you gain new insights

that you can then creatively apply

to anything else that you've already been doing.

For just one example, Brian May, the guitarist for Queen,

used his physics background to figure out how to create

that stomp clap effect in "We Will Rock You."

And most people wouldn't think

that you would use a physics background as a musician

but well, there you go.

And if you want to learn about physics

or math and science in general,

then you should check out Brilliant.