The 5 Rules of Peak Productivity + Creative Mastery

Well, I finally finished, after almost a year to the day, the manuscript of my new book, which I hope you're going to get in your hands relatively soon. And while the ideas of the creative process and the ideation journey are fresh within me, I thought I'd share some of my ideas in the hope that you'll produce your magic and bring your artistry to the world. And the first idea is really an acronym I've been teaching over many years called oad, which is Obsessive Attention to detail. I think a lot of creative people suffer from over productivity. I'm going to repeat that again because it's so important. A lot of creative people suffer from over productivity. They've fallen into the snare of believing they need to put out 50 books every year and 10,000 pieces of content every month. It's better to produce one masterwork than a thousand mediocrities.

And so OAD is all about doing one or two Mona Lisas over the course of your career, maybe five. But you simply sweat the details. Oad, Obsessive Attention to detail. Do not put anything out into the world that does not represent your absolute best. The second idea that I'd share with you is fight your dragons. The real success of putting out your finest work, as I hope I've done with this new book, is not getting on bestseller lists. It's what the process of making your finest work does to you that is the real treasure. Those early mornings. Yes, 5:00am, those late nights, working on the book. The.

Vulnerability I shared in this new book, the new content I forged, the lines and paragraphs and poetry that I handcrafted. The way I continued when distractions were calling for my attention or exhaustion was causing me to rest. And rest is very important, of course, but fighting your demons, because when you. The closest you get to your finest work, the more your fears will come out to play. And so see producing your Taj Mahal as a. As an act of self mastery. And then whether you created Taj Mahal or not, you've already won. Third thing I say that I've learned from writing this new book is trust the craft. The first part of the book is philosophical. Then it gets tactical. Then there's creative information, then there's metaphysical information. And I kept on rewriting it, and every time I rewrote it, new things came out and the book transformed itself. And I've learned that you must trust the craft. You must heed the muse. She knows what she's doing. And so every time you rewrite, you're questioning Things. Trust that you're being taken and led to the place where your work wants you to be. It's very important to remember that. Trust the craft, trust the process. And I don't know about you, but when I write, I don't write perfectly the first time. I think a good writer is a good ender. It's an important thing to consider as well. And so sometimes people I work with wonder, why are you writing it? Rewriting it 30 times, 40 times. This new book, I've rewritten over 20 times. Why are you doing that? Why? You know, you're so demanding to push yourself, to keep on writing it like that. It's good enough. Well, good enough is not very good. But also, most people don't understand the standards you and I hold ourselves to, so they want to push the work out. We want to change the world. Next point I share is make fresh tracks. While I used to be a skier, I don't ski that much anymore, but I used to be a skier. And one thing skiers love is fresh tracks. To be the first person down the. You get up early on a ski day just to be the first person to go up the lift and down the mountain. So you get fresh tracks, you know, pristine powders, though, and you're going down in the fresh tracks. Same thing. When it comes to our jobs, our craft do not go where everyone's going. Our job, your job, is to take your field where it's never gone, to make fresh tracks. And I always think of Miles Davis, and I talk about his story in the new book. He learned what the masters did so he could break the rules. The masters knew. He.

Forged his own new way of playing, played with new rhythms and syncopations. And then in the late 60s, he. Throughout the rule book again, you know, I watched the documentary, and his son said, my dad never kept his old records at home because he was more interested in the future than in the past, than what he'd done in the past. So forge new tracks. And that's scary, you know, this new book, there's productivity and spirituality. It's part memoir. It's part handbook for humanity. I hope to make a better humanity. And it's a very unorthodox book. The past day, I've wondered, have I made a mistake? Have I failed? That I overreach? Did I try to do too much? Is there too much in there? Is there too little in there?

And I think that's part of being an artist. You never know if you got the work right. And you have to just trust that you gave it your best. Final thing I'd say is exhaustion is a success symptom. I'm tired right now almost to the day. I've been at this for a year, hours, almost every single day. When I felt like it or whether I didn't feel like it, I sat down and I got to work. And yes, I took days off, but I've been tired for a lot of this. And what I'm saying, suggesting with this idea that exhaustion is a success symptom, you know you have gone all in given your mindset, heart set, health set, soul set, every molecule of your commitment to serve and push your craft to the jagged edges. You know you've done that when you're spent, when you're exhausted, when you don't want to read another book and you don't want to learn another new idea and you don't feel like working out and you just feel like eating pizza because you're craving the carbs for comfort. That's because you've given everything to your craft. It's not a symptom of wrong. It's a symptom of mastery. So when is the new book coming out? I am not quite sure. The manuscript is now in what's, what publishers call pages, where the manuscript is made into the pages of the actual book and we're working on the COVID and I'll soon announce the title and then we'll get it out to my publishers worldwide and then you will be able to get it into your hands and I will suggest you with great love and respect.

This is a one of a kind book and I have never written anything like this and I've never shared so much of my frailties and my life as I have in this book. So I hope you love it. And if you don't, you know I've done my best. Okay, thanks for your time. Talk to you later.