David, Goliath and the appeal of the underdog: A Q&A with Malcolm Gladwell on this often-misunderstood story

Culture TEDTalks

For 3000 years, the story of David and Goliath has seeped into our cultural consciousness. This is generally how the tale is told: a young shepherd does battle with a giant warrior and, using nothing but a slingshot, comes out victorious. But is this really what the Bible describes?

Malcolm Gladwell: The unheard story of David and GoliathIn today’s talk, Malcolm Gladwell — whose new book is titled David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants — takes a closer look at this classic story, digging into the details which are easily lost on a modern audience. Overall, he asks: was David really the underdog in this fight? It all begins with a closer look at that sling (which is not the toy slingshot we might picture), and at the five rocks David picked up to use in it.

“The term ‘David and Goliath’ has entered our language as a metaphor for improbable victories by some weak party over someone far stronger,” says Gladwell in this talk. “Everything I thought I knew about that story turned out to be wrong.”

Fascinated to hear more, the TED Blog called Gladwell to unravel why the underdog story has such resonance and why rethinking David and Goliath is important now. (As a bonus, we also asked him what pasta sauce he prefers.) An edited transcript of the conversation follows.

How were you first introduced to the story of David and Goliath?

My mother read me biblical stories at night. And it’s funny, this was not my favorite — my favorite story was Daniel in the lions’ den. It’s a similar kind of story — at least, it’s a seemingly impossible encounter that turns out differently because of one party’s faith. I was drawn to these kind of stories from the very beginning.

What made you decide to zoom in on David and Goliath? What showed you this story was something you wanted to explore further?

I started with it because it’s the original myth, right? It’s where the whole idea of underdogs comes from — it’s all shaped by this extraordinary, memorable encounter between these two guys thousands of years ago. So originally, I just wanted to kind of reference it, and then move on. But the more I thought about it, the more interesting it became. I began to dig around and I just uncovered all of these fascinating facts — both about David and about Goliath — that really radically changed my understanding of what happened that day in the Valley of Elah.

What was the radical change?

Well, I don’t want to give away the talk, but I will say this: that Goliath is not what we think he is in a profoundly crucial way. The thing that makes Goliath seem strong is the source of his greatest weakness. This is something that was hinted at in the original accounts of the battle of David and Goliath, and that has been confirmed more recently by modern scholars. And David is also not what you think he is. Part of what’s fascinating is how many scholars, particularly Israeli scholars throughout history, have been fascinated by this story and written accounts of what exactly David’s weapon was. And we now understand that his weapon was not a child’s toy. It was a devastating weapon. So devastating, in fact, that the minute he decided to use a sling against Goliath, the tables were turned. He’s not the underdog anymore.

Once you understand that Goliath is much weaker than you think he is, and David has superior technology, then you say: why do we tell the story the way we do? It becomes, actually, a far more meaningful and important story in its retelling than in the kind of unsophisticated way we’ve done it for, I think, too long.

Why does the way we’ve traditionally told this story have such appeal?

The appeal of the story is the boy gets the giant, right? The outsider against the insider. So that remains unchanged in the retelling. But I think what we did was that we were content with a certain explanation of the story. It seemed to us more romantic to imagine that David’s victory was wholly improbable whereas I think that any contemporary of David’s — had they been watching the duel that day on the valley floor — the minute David takes out the sling, they would all have said David was the favorite.

The closer you read the biblical account, the more you realize that the authors of the original account have a pretty sophisticated understanding of what’s going on. There’s all kinds of references to Goliath that do not square with the unsophisticated way we’ve read that story. We’re a long way from ancient Palestine. We have lost some of the nuances that would have been obvious to someone in that era.

Why do you think the idea of the underdog has such appeal?

Because it makes the world seem just. If the strongest win all the battles, there’s no hope for the rest of us, is there? If the same people who have all the power and all the money and all the authority are also going to win every contest, what’s the point of going on for the rest of us? So the underdog story gives all of us who are not on top hope. Occasionally we do get to come out on top. I think that is profoundly true, that’s what the underdog is all about.

Which do you think is stronger: the desire to root for the underdog, or the desire to be with the winning team?

Well, I think this is one of those contradictions that we carry around in our heads without ever fully resolving. We want both. We want to be on the winning side, and we also want to root for the underdog. I think it makes sense. I mean, if I can be in the position of power, I’d like to have that. If not, I’d like to be the underdog, you know? It’s a kind of fallback position that we have.

The underdog winning is the romantic position. Like I said, it’s the one that gives us hope. But the minute we acquire resources, wealth and authority, we want very much to believe that those things which we’ve earned will prove to be decisive in any contest. We begin to increase our faith in those measures of results.

Why do you think it’s important that we rethink this myth now? What is it about our current time that demands it?

This book is really about power. Where does advantage lie? These questions are at the center of everything from the wars that we fight overseas, to the way we educate children, to the way we fight crime at home, to the way we understand disabilities. There’s almost no part of public policy that isn’t touched by this kind of understanding. If you’re trying to build the most advantageous educational system, what does that look like? Well, that definition depends a lot on how you define advantage. If you think advantage lies in resources, then you think the best educational system is the one that spends the most money. If you’re with David and you think, actually no, having audacity and a fresh perspective are better than being big and powerful, then you might reach a very different conclusion. So I think these are very, very relevant questions for the world we live in.

Can you maybe give an example of something — a corporation, a person, a government — that we define as a Goliath that retelling this story might help us rethink?

Well, the United States. What this book tells you is that Goliaths have more weaknesses than you think. I think that would help people to understand why the foreign policy objectives of the United States have been so difficult to accomplish in recent years. Why we had such a hard time in Vietnam, and again in Iraq and now in Afghanistan? These are countries that we dwarf — they are a fraction of our size. And still, we struggle to achieve our objectives there. I think this book will help people understand why. That just because you’re big and strong doesn’t mean you can do what you want.

We’re very interested in ideas in our office, and are curious: how do you know when you’ve stumble upon something that you want to really dig into?

You’re taking a massive gamble. You’re hoping it pans out. Whenever you start something, you only have a tiny glimpse of how interesting it could be. You’re really acting on faith. And you trust that you could find hidden angles and unlocked doors and all kinds of things that can flesh out that idea. And sometimes you can’t. If you lose your way, you have to fight your way back. It’s complicated, but I have been doing this for long enough now that I think my instincts are pretty good. I don’t worry as much as I did when I was much younger. I know I authors always say that their most current book is their favorite, but this is really my favorite. Malcolm Gladwell: Choice, happiness and spaghetti sauceI think there’s more fascinating and weird stuff in this book than in my previous books. I’m really happy with it.

This is a question we’ve all wondered since your last talk, Choice, happiness and spaghetti sauce. Which pasta sauce do you prefer?

I make my own. I never buy store pasta sauce, but I do like my pasta sauce thick and hearty, so I know which one I would choose if I had to.

Dan Gilbert: The surprising science of happinessAnd is there a TED Talk that comes to mind that you’d love everyone to watch at least once?

There are so many. One of the old standards: Dan Gilbert’s talks over the years have stayed with me. I think he has done a better job than almost anyone of making academic work accessible and useful to people. I really think that his talks on happiness have actually changed lives. I think that people who see them, many of them went away and were happier as a result. If you can do that, man, that’s a great thing.

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How to survive without air. Or, David Blaine: visualized!

Design

David Blaine: How I held my breath for 17 min Check this out: a rather cool visualization of a TED Talk, courtesy of the Brazilian culture and science magazine Superinteressante. Each month, the magazine’s editors will take one of TED’s talks and give it to their graphic wizards to interpret in any way they see fit, adding a visual design element to presentations that have already sent minds a-whirring.

Here’s the time-driven circle of pain experienced by the magician/endurance artist David Blaine as he attempted to hold his breath for longer than anyone else ever had. I particularly love the emphatic warning, “do NOT try this at home,” like anyone else would actually try to do this. (Really, does this seem like a thing to try? Am I alone in not wanting to do this ever? OK, fine. I know, I know. File under “litigious society gone mad”.) Anyway, our thanks to artists Karin Hueck and Rafael Quick, as well as the editors at Superinteressante. See also Blaine’s own description of holding his breath for 17 minutes (and other incredible feats).

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On our reading list: David Byrne’s book, How Music Works

Many people simply listen to music. Not David Byrne, the solo artist and former frontman of the Talking Heads. Even beyond making music, Byrne thinks deeply about how music functions on a perceptual level.

At TED2010, Byrne spoke about how the nature of a space effects what kind of music is played there, from a gritty club like New York’s CBGB to the echo-filled chambers of a gothic cathedral. Now, Byrne has expanded the ideas from the talk into the book How Music Works, published on September 12 by McSweeney’s.

BoingBoing calls the tome “possible the book [Byrne] was born to write.” Reviewer Cory Doctorow continues, “Though there is plenty of autobiographical material in How Music Works that will delight avid fans (like me) — this isn’t merely the story of how Byrne made it, or what he does to turn out such great and varied art. Rather, this is an insightful, thorough, and convincing account of the way that creativity, culture, biology and economics interact to prefigure, constrain and uplift art.”

Meanwhile, fellow TED speaker Kathryn Schulz writes in New York Magazine, “Byrne’s style and energy are as apparent on the page as on the stage.”

After the jump, watch Byrne’s TEDTalk and his latest music video.

Here, Byrne speaks at TED2010 about the relationship between architecture and music. Read what he had to say to the TED Blog at the time >>

And while we’re reading How Music Works, we’re also listening to Byrne’s brilliant collaboration with songstress St. Vincent, Love This Giant. Here’s their first video together.

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The magnitude of mindfulness: Fellows Friday with David Gurman

Artist David Gurman’s installations use live data feeds from conflict zones to trigger lights, tolling bells, shadows and more, connecting us to the rhythms and intensity of far-away violence in real time.

How did you start thinking about conflict in art?

I was interested in resonance and wave patterns and energetic exchanges as early as 1996, but I started making work directly about conflict in 2003 when the US invaded Iraq. I was sitting with my parents watching television and seeing the green hue of the night vision cameras, watching the pops of bombs falling on Baghdad. And it almost looked like fireworks or some sort of celestial asteroid shower. It looked so abstract and felt so distant. I felt a deep sense of complicity, but also a deep sense of distance and an inability to understand.

So I started making real-time memorials that connect to conflict zones using data feeds, to parse how I felt about this. The notion is to collapse spaces, create a portal between the site of the installation and the site of conflict, so that we can understand on some level what’s happening in that place and meditate on it, feel a deeper sense of connection and simultaneously a sense of disconnection or distance from that zone.

People are always talking about how technology brings us closer together. I think that’s true, but it can also be a way we can understand that we’re actually quite far apart. There’s a lot of nuance that’s lost through technology as well. So the work becomes a space to wrestle with complex topics such as conflict and loss, but also a way to maybe site all of that in a larger meta-narrative: we’re on this big, geologic, hot ball of gas and rock hurtling through space at the same time. We get stuck in these human dramas, but there’s also a much larger narrative in play. And that’s why I really like using data feeds like seismic activity, allowing the Earth’s biorhythms to create a natural resonance and compose the narrative of my installations.

Can you give us an example of how your pieces work?

Well, The Divine Strake Project robotically tolled a bell, signaling large concussive disturbances from the Nevada Test Site, the US’s foremost nuclear weapons testing ground. I worked with seismologists Joshua Stachnik from University of Wyoming and Glen Biasi from University of Nevada, Reno, to pull a real-time data stream from an array of seismometers out on the test site. The data controlled a large bell located in San Francisco, at California College of the Arts. The bell tolled based on what was happening on the test site, without drawing a distinction between latent seismic events and nuclear weapons tests. Large seismic disturbances in the magnitude range of weapons tests resulted in a heavy toll at the sound bow of the bell.

In The Nicholas Shadow, the data feed came from citizen journalists in Iraq, via the website iraqbodycount.org. I installed a bell inside a former confessional chapel in St Ignatius church in San Francisco that, again, robotically tolled hourly the civilian death toll for that day.

Why do you use bells?

We have a long history and bodily relationship with bells. The bell is the size of, essentially, a human core. The ones I select are about 42 inches high, so they become bodily surrogates, in a way. And in the church, you really felt the intense energy of the bell tolling in that confined space. It shook the whole building. I also find it interesting that bells are tolled both as a call to worship and the call to arms. During the US Civil War, bells were pulled from churches and melted down for bronze to cast cannons. When the war was over, the cannons were melted down and church bells were cast from gunmetal. So they are complex objects that have been historically used in our most spiritual and violent practices.

I borrow most of the bells from historical collections. In the case of Divine Strake, I borrowed the bell from Hastings College because they had one that was cast in one of the first weapons-production facilities in the United States, around the time of the Revolutionary War. I found it interesting that they cast bells out of the same alloy as cannons. So this bell was resonating in my mind with the sounds of Manifest Destiny, that this was all steeped into this object, this history.

What are you working on now?

It’s a piece called Pax Americana that uses seismic activity from conflict zones around the world to resonate, or vibrate, a 15-foot diameter pool of water — proportional to whatever’s going on in each one of the zones at that moment. Light will be bounced off the surface of the pool and reflect those wave disturbance patterns as reflections into the space. So if there’s a bomb explosion or a mortar attack in, say, Syria, you’ll see proportionally modeled shadow play on the walls that looks somewhat like an explosion, in real time.

The first iteration will be installed at the Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco, a nonprofit installation space down on Market Street. Then I’d like to tour it internationally and domestically. I built this project to be sited, ideally, at the US Capitol rotunda, with the idea that politicians on their way to work would have a place to pause and reflect, so that they could see the resonance of their decisions in real time and have a moment to meditate — a complete feedback loop. I think a much more realistic and possible site would be the UN Plaza in New York. But any federal or public space where a lot of people who also make decisions shaping the world circulate is a good zone for it.

The project now has a good deal of momentum and generous support from Boulder Real Time Technologies, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Phyllis C Wattis Foundation and the Fleishhacker Foundation — and I just found out that it will receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. Now I need help getting the project to the UN Plaza and on to the Capitol rotunda.

The Nicholas Shadow — St Ignatius Church, San Francisco, 2009. A Russian-founded Orthodox church bell bearing the icon of St Nicholas tolled hourly registering the number of reported civilian deaths in Iraq on that day. Click to see larger size. Photo: David Gurman

What is the message you’re trying to get across that links your memorial pieces with the seismic pieces? Is it about creating a connection between forces that you don’t normally see?

I think it’s about creating a connection to things that we know about, that are in our psychic space, and maybe are mediated to us through traditional news media, but we have generally no access to, or we might never have been impacted by it directly. I’ve never been to a conflict zone, so a lot of this work is an attempt to connect to these spaces that I hear about every day, but have no direct relationship to. Obviously many do, but for those at a great distance, like myself, it’s about creating that sense of real time. The thing about news media is that we have these long latency periods where we hear about an event, but it gets distilled down to essentially a sound bite and some statistics about what happened. And there’s something lost in our kinesthetic awareness of what has just happened. There’s a disjuncture in time.

So the work is more asking questions than saying anything. And the questions are: How does it shape our perception of our presence in the world if we are signaled at the exact moment a violent event occurs? And how is it different from being present at the event versus watching the news versus monitoring it remotely from one of these installations? And if you don’t know much about it, but you experience something that physicalizes an event’s relative intensity — not even necessarily human loss, per se, or destruction — how does that change the way you make sense of it?

These are really questions about our current relationship with technologies that allow us to watch and act from a distance.

Have you seen any concrete changes that may have resulted from the narratives you’ve revealed in your work?

I don’t think I have seen any change that I could measure. I know that there have definitely been people who’ve had profound experiences with the work. And I personally have been profoundly moved through conversations with those people while the work was up. So it raised awareness or broadened consciousness, and that was why I did it.

At first the parishioners were pretty resistant to the Nicholas Shadow project, and the priests as well. They allowed it, but then they were kind of like, “Well, how long is this thing going to be here? It’s gonna interrupt all of our mass services. I think you should turn it off during weddings or funerals or masses” — basically any time anyone was in the church. So I made a case that, in order for it to be a powerful mechanism for dialogue, we should keep it going all the time. They still wanted it turned off. I decided to leave it on, interrupting a mass. One of the priests responded by giving a really moving talk about what it was, why it was there. He spoke about the complexity of loss, militarism and colonialism in the context of religion and spirituality. He brought up all these amazing ideas, and then they all agreed to leave it on permanently for the 66 days that it was installed.

It interrupted every ceremony from then on, in some cases for long periods. There was one day that 72 people died in a bomb attack in a marketplace in Baghdad, and the bell tolled for a really long time — around18 minutes of every hour. But it became a talking point in all of the following ceremonies that happened at the church. And then people started going to it and praying and spending time with it.

Divine Strake Project — CCA, San Francisco, 2007. A 1908 Meneely Bell was mechanically tolled according to real-time seismic activity from the Nevada Test Site, Nevada. Click to see larger size. Photo: David Gurman

You described the bell piece as “disruptive and meditative.” Is that a quality you’d like to have in all of your pieces?

Yeah, definitely. The notion of meditation holds a pretty key role in my life. It’s something that I do quite often and that has been really helpful for me in terms of reconciling certain experiences. Or just as a moment to observe. And the impulse of my work is offering something that is, on some level, poetic and abstract and beautiful. But maybe within the context of that beautiful image or sound or whatever it happens to be, there’s something about loss that’s communicated. And I feel like to get into such complex territory as loss, we need to be in somewhat of a meditative or soothed or nourished space.

So I try to make it a palatable space. I try to make it something that’s comfortable and beautiful and ethereal and also extremely ephemeral. These works come and go.

Tell us about some of your collaborations with other Fellows.

I also work as a designer, and run a small organization called Brainvise. We do everything from apps to art and we work with clients having a big impact by doing good things in the world. Right now we’re collaborating with TED Senior Fellow Eric Berlow and his endeavor, TRU NORTH LABS.

Eric is an ecologist and complexity scientist, and he’s looking for a way to make complex problems more simple to understand. He does a mapping exercise where he essentially characterizes the ‘ecosystem’ of a problem by identifying how all the parts influence one another. Then from that ecosystem map, he identifies the key leverage points — the key issues or nodes with the most potential influence. Those are the places where creative solutions could have the most widespread positive impact on a problem.

Right now, Brainvise is working on videos, interactive infographics, and a website, and has built an app, TRU NORTH LABS MAPPR, that allows Eric to crowdsource data with which to make the problem-eco-maps. The one we’re working with right now is the Vibrant Data Project, sponsored by Intel. It’s about trying to understand what boons and barriers social entrepreneurs face as they develop social platforms, and what can be done that might augment what they’re already doing to enhance social justice, health care, economic opportunity, health and well-being. With the help of our collaborator Juliette Powell, we have more than 50 social entrepreneurs participating, including a bunch of TED Fellows (Sonaar Luthra, James Patten, Dominic Muren, Jon Gosier, Erik Hersman and Juliana Rotich from Ushahidi, Esra’a Al Shefei, Walid Al-Saqaf, Bre Pettis, Jean-Baptiste Michel, Jimmy Lin, Cesar Harada, Su Kahumbu, Faisal Chohan, Michael Karnjaprakorn and Jessica Green). Other folks participating include John Battelle and John Perry Barlow from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

For me, it’s awesome because the creative side of my work gets to be expressed, but it also satisfies a deep desire to have an impact. Art works on a much longer timeline in its effects. But in terms of my work with Eric, I can see how my work directly augments the efforts of people who are trying to do good things.

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Sorry, I forgot your name: David Hornik at TED2012

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

“I forget names,” says David Hornik. “I forget them all the time, every day. And I thought everyone did.” But he realized (after forgetting a very important name) that his name-blindness was actually a symptom of another condition: his dyslexia.

And it made him think: What other disabilities do we have, that other people don’t see, that causes others to assume the worst in social situations?

“When I forget your name, you just think I’m an idiot, or a jerk. I have an invisible disability and you assume the worst.” And he says: there are millions of people like this, people with OCD, or they’re bipolar or on the spectrum,  and they experience this same thing every day, “where people make certain assumptions without understanding the underlying cause.”

“So I’ve tried really hard to give people the benefit of the doubt when there’s more than one explanation to how they’re behaving. This week, you’ll catch me glancing at your nametag. Please know: I still love you, I just can’t remember your name.”

David Hornik: Amnesia is a hidden disability. When I forget someone's name they think I am a jerk or a stupid. #TED

—
Mohammad Tauheed (@mttwit) February 29, 2012

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GTD Leaders: A Lifehack Exclusive Interview with David Allen and Mike Williams

Editor’s Note: Lifehack was granted an exclusive opportunity to speak with both David Allen, founder of the David Allen Company, and the company’s new CEO, Mike Williams. As the new year begins, this is a great opportunity to learn about GTD from the man who created it and the men who plan to move it forward from here on out. Enjoy.

Lifehack: We have David Allen of the David Allen Company here. What’s your role now David – are you founder, are you chief innovation officer, or…?

David Allen: I am chief evangelist and visionary – that’s probably my major role. I still have a good bit of operational responsibilities – particularly in terms of our program development, content, QA and so forth that I’ve still got my hands into. But Mike Williams is pretty much taking over most of all of the operational, strategic and resource allocation side of the game.

LH: And speaking of which, the new CEO of the David Allen Compan is here as well, Mike Williams.

Mike Williams: Thank you very much. It’s great to be here. I’m looking forward to the conversation.

LH: First off, we receive this press release indicating that Mike Williams was going to become the CEO of the David Allen Company, and I had never heard of the man before. David, what drew you to Mike in terms of bringing him on board as the CEO of the David Allen Company and what was the process to bring him into the fold?

DA: Well, that is a long story I’ll try to shorten it and not bore you to tears with all the history of this. But basically several years ago my wife Catherine and I decided we were at a fork in the road where we said, “Look, do (we) just want to keep this individual and be sort of the source of this…and maybe build a community, a net community or a network community, not have an organization and try to roll this any bigger than just my own personal game?” And we decided that we didn’t. The press was great, the world was just was waking up, the book (Getting Things Done) was in 30 languages, and the world was not right here at our door.

David Allen (Photo via David Allen Company)

And you know, why hold this incredible methodology that seems to be transformative to everybody that doesn’t have a social work, gender or professional bias at all – and is a global thing– back? So we said, “Let’s do it,” and that started us down the path to try to figure out how do we operationalize this, how do we build a business to essentially distribute this educational model and have a business model at the same time so that it’s viable and can expand.

But – long story short – I decided I needed to find a way to structure the organization or to build a process so that it could be more self-managing and bring on the kind of people that would be interested in running this and taking this on – because I certainly wasn’t going to do it by myself. At one point I said, look who would be the ideal person for all of this and I just had Mike in my mind.

We’d met, he had been part of my network but I’d never had any kind of conversation – I mean, the guy was a senior guy at GE. So I didn’t know if this guy would ever have wanted to run this company. So I just raised a flag and waited to see what would happen. Mike and I had lunch last May back in Boston and I just sort of floated the idea, “Hey, would you ever consider…”

And that’s how it happened.

LH: Mike what drew you into the idea of becoming CEO of the David Allen Company? Is it a different slant in terms of, say, running GE, which still obviously involves a lot of time management and project management? What drew you to this whole new aspect of your life?

MW: I think it all starts back in 2004 when I got exposed to the GTD methodology. And if I can point to one book that has really changed and shaped my life for better, it’s this particular methodology. And the company I was working for at the time grew up and then got acquired by General Electric later on. So it has helped me both in the previous life, then transitioning to one of the largest companies in the world, and then also taking on new responsibilities within that large company.

But the aspirations with respect to a person’s career has a lot of different dimensions. I’ve been in the healthcare IT information technology space for over 23 years, largely focused on services side of things. And during that time I’ve worked in the organizational development department. I’ve run four different types of education businesses within GE, and been part of services teams that are really trying to transform healthcare.

At some point in time though, my thinking and what GE taught me really started to spark my entrepreneurial spirit. Before David even approached me I was doing my ideal scene imagining and I was thinking to myself that it would be fun to get back a smaller private company, ideally under a hundred people who were doing really cool work. You know, stuff that’s kind of changing their part of the world and would align to my value system.

So I kind of chalk it up to “be careful what you ask and what you wish for because somebody out there in the universe may call your bluff”. And that’s exactly what happened.

That day I showed up and had lunch with David and Catherine was…I don’t know what the colliding of two ideal scenes looks like but that’s probably the closest that I had ever been. Because here we have a private company – check – with under a hundred people – check – doing really cool work (…work that’s really helping people because that’s a big value alignment for me) – check – has a great product and a great brand – check. Then I also asked myself if I would I love doing this job every day. That was a “triple check” because I was such GTD enthusiast before. Just imagine getting to wake up every day and playing the space! It’s just wonderful.

So really the alignment of the opportunity plus all the wonderful things that I learned at GE in my career could be directly applicable to this new opportunity in this new game that I want to play for the next 20 to 30 years in my career…and have a lot of fun at it.

LH: David you and I have had this conversation before where we talked about how January – and correct me if I’m wrong – is more of a time of reflection and cleaning house as opposed to just starting brand new things. What’s the one thing that you’d recommend people do to prepare themselves for maybe a chance of alignment like you guys had for the coming year? We’ll start with you David.

DA: You know, I’m going to be a broken record, but if you’re really ready to take the next chapter the first thing you need to do is start to pay attention to what has your attention and basically externalize all of that and step back and take a look. You need a map, essentially. Get a map of where you are, what’s true, what’s pulling on you, what’s there and as best as you can objectify that.

There are two aspects to that. One is sort of acknowledgment and a completion – sit down and at the end of the year (and ask) what have we accomplished? What’s true? How can we pat ourselves in the back? What are issues we’ve come up with? What’s the current reality state there? So there’s the current realities looking backward in terms of a historical sense just to get closure on that, and to get a little bit of a step outside of ourselves and see it. And then there is current reality, what’s pulling on us what’s attracting us, what’s pushing on us, what’s also true right now? Where is the creative dissonance and the current reality…essentially, that’s looking forward.

So those polarities actually come together with doing a real current reality externalization of that and get it out of the psyche as opposed to try and manage all those factors. I mean, we’re living such complex lives – there’s no way on earth we can keep all that internalized and really trust our judgment on that. So that’s part of the GTD methodology and a real core piece of it. It’s called “get this out of your head so it frees up the flow” as opposed to being a log jam.

LH: Mike, what are your thoughts on this?

MW: For me it’s about freeing up space and freeing up that space to let your mind wander a bit. Because the ability to look backwards and see what you accomplished, to reflect on what is kind of in the subconscious of your mind and then the other thing would be to have the courage to actually dream. It’s funny, I’ve worked with a lot of people and when you ask them to write down your ideal scenario it’s one of those muscles that hasn’t been exercised that much.

So one of the cool areas where I often find myself kind of drifting into this space naturally is just getting in your car and driving down the highway for about three hours, see what shows up in your mind, and just pay attention to what starts coming forward. That is often when I have interesting thoughts or the things that are tugging on me surface. But I think the reason for that is because I found a space to have that thinking space. So if you want to go into that deep reflective mode try to find that space where you can get that deep thinking space, have some tools there so you can collect what’s on your mind just as it shows up and then get it out of your mind, park it and then come back and look at it and see what it’s telling you.

LH: Further to that…David, is this a time of year where it’s easier for people to grab on to probably one of the tougher components of GTD for people to “get”: The Horizons of Focus? Is this the time of year when it is the best time – the most capable to grab on to those and look forward – as opposed to putting in time and just capturing and capturing? Is this a good time to look at that and really get clear on what we’re looking for down the road?

DA: Oh, sure. You know, any kind of icon that you can use or any sort of metaphorical sort of thing that we can use to back off and say, “Hey, you know…it’s time for a new game.” That’s why actually travel (works so much for this).

Travel is a handy illusion that we can sort of pretend that we can show up a new person in a new way, I mean to Mike’s point, driving – getting a little white line fever and just driving. Get somewhere new, give yourself the chance to get out of the old conditioning and “same old, same old.” So, obviously (this time of year is a) great time to do that. You could use Spring Cleaning, you can use Summer Solstice, you could use anything…anything like that which gives you an opportunity to say, “Let’s blow a whistle,” and just call a halt in the game and step back.

Anything that can help you lift a little bit – that’s just part of the GTD methodology is a regular reflection and review modality. And there a lot of different horizons to do that in but it’s you know, boy we all get down on the weeds and wrapped around the axle is tight as anything. And we need to go manage the forests instead of just hugging the trees. Not all the time, we all have to be down on the day to day operational stuff but boy that can get really old and tiring if you don’t lift back up. So obviously new year is a great opportunity to you know use that for that purpose.

LH: Mike, there is an interesting article by Cal Newport where he talked about the “post-productivity era” and he talked about how we were obsessed with the tools that need to be used to get productive as opposed to actually being productive. Do you think we are at a point where the tools are now going to be able to work synergistically more with the greater public in terms of getting things done? Do you tend to agree with that or do you think that’s it’s a healthy combination of both?

Mike Williams (Photo via Twitter)

MW: I think the productivity conversation probably belongs more in the thinking pattern behavior pattern area because when you look at GTD it’s really neutral to any particular tool. And some of the most sophisticated people are actually doing GTD on paper. But what’s changing within them is the thought pattern that they bring to all the stuff that’s entering their lives. So the analogy I love to use is that I kind of think of GTD as a Star Wars kind of thing. It’s an epic battle between you versus the stuff in your life – and you’ve got your lightsaber out and if you can carve out the stuff into tiny pieces then you own the stuff. But if you let stuff continue to grow, it will come in and it will overwhelm you.

It’s that discipline – that kind of Jedi discipline – of being able to carve the stuff, assign your relationship to it so you can control it versus it controlling you. That kind of stuff transcends any particular tool. What you need to do though is find a system that you trust to put these little pieces in so that you can bump into them where they make sense to you and where they create meaning to you. So it’s those little rituals, those habits, those behaviors that need to change. If you find a tool to align to those, fantastic, that’s an important part of the system.

So I would have to agree with the premise – let’s transcend the tool, let’s go to the thought patterns and then go back to the tools that provide the form and the system that work for you. And the thing I love about GTD is people can be on totally different tools and be very, very productive. And it’s not the tool, but it’s more of the thinking process.

LH: You brought up an interesting point, and I want to take this to David. Do you think people are heading back towards paper more and more because of the onslaught of information that comes our way? Do you think paper is “making a comeback”?

DA: Actually, it’s making a come forward. It’s different usage of it. Any of those things can get in your way and any of those things can work. To Mike’s point, even though we’ve been introduced to emotional intelligence and I think we’ve got to understand the value of that, we need to move into mental intelligence. People are using their psyche still to capture all kinds of stuff and to avoid decisions and it’s becoming this huge log jam, this huge constipation on the psyche and that absolutely cannot endure with the world that we’re in.

What we have to do is we have to be able to externalize that capture so that that’s not banging around the psyche and then also make decisions about that stuff that we have allowed come to our ten acres that we have captured. That whole process of capturing and then making decisions is really critical to get it out of the psyche – back to Mike’s point – so that it frees up intuitive intelligence to be able to use it for what it needs to be, as opposed to just truly log jam in terms of creative flow. So where we’re getting to is understanding the necessity for creative flow, the necessity to be able to manage all of these things with appropriate placeholders. So understanding how to deal with paper and Evernote or Outlook or whatever, all of those tools are that just become potentially very valuable placeholders for this.

But again, it’s back to the thought process that we once you do that, any of these things work. I also think there is a reason you start to see paper as a way to reflect a larger context and relationships between things than it is on the computer. It’s still hard to flip pages on the computer and see them in your face like they can on a paper planner. We’ll get there – and it’s going that direction – but I think it’s the moving forward with understanding a new way to use these tools and why these tools are so valuable.

That’s why GTD hit such a nerve in the tech community; it was because suddenly there was a way that was a non-tech means that actually turbocharged everybody’s cool gear and gave them a way to actually use what they were already using and really liked using. But now it gave them a way to use that in such a way that it just took off like crazy. So that’s true with paper as well as with the high tech stuff.

LH: Mike, what do you think of the term “lifehack”, “lifehacker” and all of the “lifehackery” stuff? Do you think we’re confusing common sense with lifehacks? Or do you think that it’s more of an anomaly when that happens?

MW: I absolutely love the term lifehack because what it expresses to me is the spirit of experimentation in the pursuit of what works for me in my life, what’s true. And I just love the idea of getting out there, putting things in play, experimenting, testing your hypothesis and seeing if it resonates with you. So lif hacking your way through life…I think that’s called life. I think it’s absolutely essential. It turns it into a very interesting and creative game when you do something like that.

LH: David, what about yourself?

DA: I totally agree. I think you know all of life is a hack. Like I woke up – I was born – asking myself, “How much easier can I do this?” All they did was just put a name of what I’ve always done as far as I can remember.

People have always said that (I’ve) always been organized; that’s sort of a misconception that GTD is really about organization. But I’ve always (tried to figure out) how much easier I can get from here to there. I’m always thinking that way. Somebody just put a name on it.

LH: I’ll share what my wish list item is for 2012. My wish list item for 2012 is a return of The GTD Summit. Mike, what about yourself?

MW: Boy, that’s a big question. So you know my wish in 2012 for GTD is the expansion of the community. The GTD Summit would be part of that, reaching out through our online presence through GTD Connect and also in 2012 we’re going to be expanding internationally. So all those things combined equals lives impacted and lives touched by our methodology, and you know we carry the premise that when somebody engages with us in this methodology that their life will be changed in a positive way. And if we change somebody’s life in positive way then that’s a very powerful place to play.

That would be a major intention that I’m carrying forward. As well, my family currently lives in Burlington Vermont and we’re moving to Ojai, California. So making a successful transition for my family is something that definitely has my attention for 2012.

LH: David, what about yourself?

DA: You know just lowering the barrier to entry globally for GTD, to get people to be attracted to it, to find out what it is and to allow for us to be able to build an elegant path and a recognition of this as a lifelong and lifetime thing to play with and to play in. I look at it now much like a martial art. Forty and fifty years ago very few people even know what they were. And they’ve spread around the world and it didn’t oversimplify it. It was a still a very sophisticated, very powerful thing to do and yet it took of virally around the world. And I see GTD being the same thing.

That’s what I would love to see. Finding great ways to get a lot more people engaged, and then building the highway out there for people to stay on board. Just keep taking this and being supportive and developing this and supporting each other as a global community.

LH: David and Mike, I’d like to thank both of you for taking time to speak with me for Stepcase Lifehack.

DA: Our pleasure.

MW: Yes, thank you so much – and thank you everybody at Lifehack too. You do great work.

Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, and "productivityist". You can follow him on Twitter, listen to him regularly on his podcast, ProductiVardy, and read more from him at MikeVardy.com and at Vardy.me.

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No Brown M&M’s! David Lee Roth and the Power of Checklists

Article 126: No brown M&M’s! (Photo: Mr. T in DC)

Happy New Year, all! I’ll be putting up a “Lessons learned in 2011? post soon. In the meantime, here is a taste of things to come.

###

I can come across as anal retentive, even severely Monk-ish. One reason for the madness: with rare exceptions, I’ve come to believe that how we do anything is how we do everything.

I’m not alone.

The following is a short excerpt from The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, also reprinted by Tehelka magazine in India. In it, we learn the logic of David Lee Roth’s famous obsession with brown M&M’s:

Listening to the radio, I heard the story behind rocker David Lee Roth’s notorious insistence that Van Halen’s contracts with concert promoters contain a clause specifying that a bowl of M&M’s has to be provided backstage, but with every single brown candy removed, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation to the band. And at least once, Van Halen followed through, peremptorily cancelling a show in Colorado when Roth found some brown M&M’s in his dressing room. This turned out to be, however, not another example of the insane demands of power-mad celebrities but an ingenious ruse.

As Roth explained in his memoir, Crazy from the Heat, “Van Halen was the first band to take huge productions into tertiary, thirdlevel markets.

We’d pull up with nine 18-wheeler trucks, full of gear, where the standard was three trucks, max. And there were many, many technical errors — whether it was the girders couldn’t support the weight, or the flooring would sink in, or the doors weren’t big enough to move thegear through. The contract rider read like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages because there was so much equipment, and so many human beings to make it function.” So just as a little test, buried somewhere in the middle of the rider, would be article 126, the no-brown-M&M’s clause. “When I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl,” he wrote, “well, we’d line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you’re going to arrive at a technical error… Guaranteed you’d run into a problem.” These weren’t trifles, the radio story pointed out. The mistakes could be lifethreatening. In Colorado, the band found the local promoters had failed to read the weight requirements and the staging would have fallen through the arena

Do you have any similar tests that you’ve found helpful in business, hiring, life, or love?

Posted on January 1st, 2012

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2×4: An Interview with David Sparks

2×4: One series that examines two topics, creativity and productivity, by asking those who make things on the web the same four questions on both subjects.

David Sparks does a lot. Like a lot, a lot. His Mac Power Users podcast (along with Kaity Floyd) can transform the way you use your computer, especially the two Merlin Mann workflow episodes. His blog, MacSparky is a wealth of geeky goodies, I’m especially partial to his magic trick with iThoughts HD and Scrivener that made writing large projects faster and easier. His books are ideal starting points for using both your Mac and your iPad at work. Oh yeah, and if that wasn’t enough, he has a family and a full-time career as an attorney. In other words, the man does more than inform, he inspires in the best way possible, with his work.

I’ve been a fan of David’s for a while now. Anyone even vaguely familiar with his work should expect an informative addition to this series (and I think you’ll agree that it is). What I wasn’t expecting is just how bold of an approach he takes to his creative work. I could continue to geek out, but without further ado, here’s David Sparks:

Have you always considered yourself a creative person?

As long as I can remember, I’ve been infatuated with the creative process. The act of transforming some nebulous concept from my mind to something feels like magic and still amazes me every time it happens. Whenever I get in a rut, creating something pulls me out.

What mediums and inspirations do you gravitate toward to realize your creative goals?

There really is no limit to the mediums I work in. I write. I play music. I design and build furniture. I do geeky things to Macs. I consider myself an artist in every aspect of my life (even my legal cases). My only limitation is my time. I just wish I had more time to explore more creative mediums.

As for inspiration, it really depends on what I’m doing. My two biggest musical inspirations are the ’50s jazz scene (Monk, Bird, Dizzy, Miles) and Impressionist era classical music. With furniture, it is the craftsman movement and on my Mac, I’m inspired by my very many brilliant friends. I wouldn’t even know where to start on all my writing inspirations.

If you had to point to one thing, what specific posts or creations are you most proud of and why?

Whatever I’m doing next is going to be my greatest creation. I’m not good at looking backward when it comes to my work. I move on quickly. When I was in high school I did these recordings with a Jazz Quartet that were pretty good. Several years later I threw them out in a fit of anti-nostalgia. That probably wasn’t a very good idea (and part of me really regrets that) but at the same time that behavior is completely consistent with my personality.

Any suggestions for those who feel they may not be creative enough to unlock their inner artist?

Wreckless abandon. Honestly, I don’t get how people can get hung up on this stuff. Turn off the TV and create something. You could write a song on an iPad without a lick of musical training. It is so much more fulfilling than sitting like a slug in front of American Idol. Put yourself out there. Life is too short.

Can you describe your current personal and professional responsibilities?

I’m a husband, a dad, a lawyer, and a MacSparky something or other. Each of those jobs comes with their own special collection of joy, satisfaction, tedium, and tears.

How do you go about balancing the personal, professional, and digital?

Balance is the hard part. I find saying “No” helps. I am much more happy nailing a few things than screwing up a lot of things. The trouble is I have so many interests, picking those few things is really hard. To be perfectly honest, I suck at saying no. I am, however, trying to get better at this.

What tools and techniques do you find yourself counting on to get through your workload?

I find technology a big help in this regard. OmniFocus holds me together. I also use a rat’s nest of project planning, mind mapping, and outlining software to keep track of and on top of whatever I’m up to. The iPad and iPhone are, in my opinion, Grade A planning tools. They’ve really improved my game.

What is the best starting point for the unproductive amongst us, who are looking to get more organized?

Spend a little time figuring out why things are a mess. Sometimes it is not a question of getting organized but cutting crap out of your life you’re not passionate about. Next, make a plan. David Allen’s Getting Things Done struck a chord for me which is great, because there are some really fantastic GTD tools out there. Finally, don’t be so hard on yourself. Start small and be forgiving when you fall off the wagon. This stuff is hard and people are, in general, much too harsh on themselves.

Michael Schechter is a Mac geek who rambles about how technology impacts our productivity, our creativity and our lives. You can connect with him over on his blog or as @MSchechter on Twitter.

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The 12 Days of Giveaways: Day 7 – The David Allen Company

Today is another day of Lifehack’s 12 Days of Giveaways where we feature some of the best productivity services, apps, and products that you can get your hands on. We really appreciate all of the entries so far this week and last, and after today’s awesome prizes from the David Allen Company we only have one week left. Don’t worry though; today there are three chances to win!

Before we get to what we and David Allen Company are giving away, let’s first announce and congratulate the winner of The Womack Company prize pack. Andrea Aresca, had this awesome comment here at Lifehack.org:

“I will be more INTENTIONAL in defining what I want to achieve in every “account” of my life.
I will be more SPECIFIC in describing the outcome of each one of my projects.
I will make the habit of FOCUSING a bit extra time daily on 1 very important thing I’ve chosen the day before.”

We at Lifehack hope that The Womack Company products are going to help you out in the new year, Andrea. Congratulations!

I’m very excited about today’s giveaway because I am a devout user of it and have been for about a year now. And, since we are in the spirit of giving, it feels great to share the awesomeness and ubiquitousness (it’s a word now!) of the David Allen Notetaker Wallet with 3 Lifehack readers.

First, The David Allen Company is a, “global training and consulting company, widely considered the leading authority in the fields of organizational and personal productivity,” as if you didn’t know. But, really, The David Allen Company and the GTD system (something that we are quite fond of here at Lifehack.org) are almost synonymous.

If you are a GTD follower in any way and have listened to Mr. David Allen wax about GTD outside of his books, then you have surely heard of his infamous Notetaker Wallet. The “evening module” or “UCT” (ubiquitous capture tool), as David Allen has aptly called the notetaker wallet, is a sturdy accessory with an awesome little paper pad and a “wicked cool” expandable pen. If you are a knowledge worker, or just someone that wants to get the next great idea, thing to pick up from the store, or current project’s next action out of your mind and into your system so you can concentrate on the work at hand anywhere you are, then you seriously need this tool.

Also, these wallets are super high quality. My Ballistics style wallet is the strongest wallet I have ever owned.

So, what are we giving away?

That’s right. The David Allen Company isn’t messing around and you won’t be either when you turn into a ubiquitous capturing machine with your new GTD Notetaker Wallet in 2012.

In order to enter to win one of the three GTD Notetaker Wallets, you need to leave a comment below or on our Facebook fan page that answers the following:

“How will the addition of a ubiquitous capture tool enhance your productivity this coming year?”

Leaving a comment on both our Facebook fan page and here at Lifehack.org will get you 2 entries, so but you need to give us two items that you like the most – no copying and pasting!

Employees of The David Allen Company and of Stepcase (including current independent contractors of both) are not eligible for this contest. The winning entries will be judged by the Stepcase Lifehack editing team and winners will be notified on the platform in which their winning entry was placed (either on the Lifehack.org Facebook wall or by email through our commenting system here on the website). For those entering the contest with a comment on our site, in order to be considered eligible, you MUST leave a contact email when leaving a comment (it’s the only way we’ll know how to contact you). Entries must be submitted by 10 am Eastern the following weekday (Monday 12/19/2011)  and winners will be chosen by 12 pm Eastern time on the same day. The winners will be announced the same day on Lifehack.org, and will be notified beforehand. The David Allen Company will ship you your Notetaker Wallet flat rate (even Internationally). The item will be marked as a “gift” and the winner will have to pay an taxes that are required by their country.

Good luck!

Chris is a developer, writer, tech enthusiast, and husband. He holds a degree in MIS and CMPSC from Penn State Behrend. Chris is also interested in personal productivity, creativity and how to use technology to get things done. Check out his writing at devburner.net or follow him on Twitter.

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Big history: David Christian on TED.com

Backed by stunning illustrations, David Christian narrates a complete history of the universe, from the Big Bang to the Internet, in a riveting 18 minutes. This is “Big History”: an enlightening, wide-angle look at complexity, life and humanity, set against our slim share of the cosmic timeline. (Recorded at TED2011, March 2011, in Long Beach, CA. Duration: 17:40)

Watch David Christian’s talk on TED.com where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 900+ TEDTalks.

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