Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is to develop a taste for quality. You can
Speaker 1: make your work better by surrounding yourself with good work,
Speaker 1: even if it is not all in your immediate field.
Speaker 1: Today's tip, like another one this week, is inspired by
Speaker 1: Cal Newport's new book, Slow Productivity. In this book, Cal
Speaker 1: talks about how you can achieve great things without burnout.
Speaker 1: One of the ways to be productive over the long term,
Speaker 1: he says, is to obsess over quality. Now, that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean become a perfectionist. Nothing is ever perfect, and eventually
Speaker 1: we have two publish, perform ship, or otherwise get things
Speaker 1: out into the world where the work can be critiqued
Speaker 1: and thus we can approve. But it is better to
Speaker 1: at least try to produce really good work. And that
Speaker 1: means getting better over time. So how do you get
Speaker 1: better over time? There's practice and being prolific, but another
Speaker 1: tool in the toolkit is to surround yourself with really
Speaker 1: good stuff. If you want to be a painter, you
Speaker 1: want to see what the best painters are doing. You
Speaker 1: also want to see what the best painters at your
Speaker 1: level are doing you want to learn from them, and
Speaker 1: that makes sense, But sometimes it can be a little
Speaker 1: disconcerting to look at amazing work when you are still
Speaker 1: growing in your career. Cal describes reading great nonfiction writing
Speaker 1: and getting white knuckled over whatever those writers are doing
Speaker 1: that he is not doing. So in addition to studying
Speaker 1: your field, sometimes it is helpful to look at great
Speaker 1: stuff in slightly different fields. Cal writes that he decided
Speaker 1: to become something of an amateur expert on cinematography. He
Speaker 1: read books on what good looks like in the movies,
Speaker 1: and he studied great movies like Reservoir Dogs somewhat obsessively
Speaker 1: to understand how a great director tells a story. Nonfiction
Speaker 1: writers are telling stories too, so there is a benefit
Speaker 1: to studying an adjacent field without that same sting of competition.
Speaker 1: I like this idea, and I think it's something that
Speaker 1: anyone can do. You can learn a lot about public
Speaker 1: speaking by studying something like Broadway musicals. You can learn
Speaker 1: a lot about strategy by studying historic US matches or
Speaker 1: perhaps the greatest football games of all time. You can
Speaker 1: learn a lot about communication by studying great revival preachers.
Speaker 1: Now Obviously, if you are in corporate strategy, you also
Speaker 1: want to study the strategies of your immediate rivals. You
Speaker 1: shouldn't skip that part. But by surrounding yourself with quality
Speaker 1: in other areas too, you gain an appreciation for good
Speaker 1: whatever good happens to look like. Plus, it just makes
Speaker 1: your leisure time more fun. We are only going to
Speaker 1: see so many plays or read so many books in life.
Speaker 1: Why not focus on the best. We develop more discriminating
Speaker 1: tastes and maybe wind up with some tools for getting
Speaker 1: better at our own jobs too. In the meantime, this
Speaker 1: is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to make the
Speaker 1: most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
Speaker 1: If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
Speaker 1: me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.