The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nassim Nicholas Taleb discusses “black swans”, unexpected and life-changing events, and how life is far more uncertain than most believe it to be. He also examines, in-depth, how we fool ourselves into believing reality is otherwise by various means like confirmation bias (we look for evidence to support our existing beliefs) and narrative fallacies (the tendency to describe existence using linear stories when reality is far more complicated).

Mix in a heaping dose of storytelling and autobiographical information and you get The Black Swan.

“This combination of low predictability and large impact makes the Black Swan a great puzzle; but that is not yet the core concern of this book. Add to this phenomenon the fact that we tend to act as if it does not exist!” Prologue xxii

This is a dense read, full of philosophical references and terminology. Basically, beyond black swans having a larger impact on reality than we realize they do, this book can be simplified way down to “beware of because” and “know what you don’t know”.

“Beware of because” because (tee-hee) reality is far more random than most believe it to be. And we suck at predicting the future, for a variety of reasons, but partially because it is impossible to project future events from historical ones.

“Note here that I am not saying causes do not exist; do not use this argument to avoid trying to learn from history. All I am saying is that is it not so simple; be suspicious of the “because” and handle it with care — particularly in situations where you suspect silent evidence.” pgs 120-121

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“Silent evidence” is the information not readily apparent for whatever reason. Taleb gives an illustrative example of silent evidence from ancient history of a philosopher being presented an argument that a group of sailors survived a shipwreck because they prayed. The philosopher wonders how many of the sailors who drowned were also praying. The drowned sailors, you see, are the silent evidence.

Biologically, Taleb says, human beings are not set up to be deep thinkers and are fooled by a variety of logical fallacies. This is only a problem because, as time goes on, humanity has less running away to do from things trying to eat us and more dealing with the complexities of modern existence.

But by remembering “to know what we don’t know” and understanding some of the limitations built into our brains by memory and logical fallacies, we can be prepared to make better decisions than before. Or, at least, we’ll have a better grasp on how risky and unknown life is.

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Anyway, this book certainly gave me a lot to think about. The part that struck me the most is when Taleb applies his black swan idea to careers and how this uncertainty applies particularly to authors and artists. For every J.K. Rowling, there will be thousands of writers who never make that break through. I started wondering how many extraordinary books I will never get to read because of this phenomena.

The author’s tone throughout the book, slightly irreverent, didn’t annoy me as much as it seems to have bothered other readers. I enjoyed learning a new way to look at reality, but, as I mentioned before, this is a dense read and I wouldn’t consider it “fun” reading either.

It may appeal most to philosophers and anyone who wants to consider new ways to view reality.

Thanks for reading!

Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin

The world has changed. There are far more choices, but there is less and less time to sort them out.” pg 13

Seth Godin, prolific author of business blogs and books, shares his insights about why a product must be remarkable to cut through the noise and get an audience’s attention. He opines that this remarkable “Purple Cow” quality is the only way a business can succeed in the modern world, as the old methods of mass marketing through expensive television ads is going the way of the dodo.

“Something remarkable is worth talking about. Worth noticing. Exceptional. New. Interesting. It’s a Purple Cow. Boring stuff is invisible. It’s a brown cow.” pg 3

The trouble with this remarkable stuff is that there is no clear method to create it. It is a “I’ll-know-it-when-I-see-it” type situation. For businesses looking to up their Purple Cow-factor, there are very few directions in this book, other than, it’s important to be a purple cow. I could see that unclear quality being frustrating for some readers.

“The old rule was this: Create safe, ordinary products and combine them with great marketing. The new rule is: Create remarkable products that the right people seek out.” pg 21

The “right people” being the influencers or the early adoptors of whatever type of product it is that you’re selling. Marketing to the niche, rather than mass marketing to the crowd, is, according to Godin, the best strategy for the new world of marketing.

Take Goodreads, for example. Publishers want to get their advance reader copies into the hands of those who talk to their friends about what they’re reading and are passionate about books, the readers who exhibit “otaku”. Godin defines “otaku”: “Otaku describes something that’s more than a hobby but a little less than an obsession.” pg 94

The obsessed, passionate readers talk about what they’re reading to the extent that they start an “ideavirus”, which Godin talks about in another book. In this way, Godin says, you build momentum for whatever remarkable product you’re selling. They can’t help but talk about it because of its fascinating qualities. As this movement builds, the books end up on readers’ favorite shelves, eventually becomes a Reader’s Choice pick, and then the book sells itself.

The products that aim for the largest audience are bland and have had their remarkable edges filed off. And, that’s bad, according to Godin.

“The system is pretty simple: Go for the edges. Challenge yourself and your team to describe what those edges are (not that you’d actually go there), and then test which edge is most likely to deliver the marketing and financial results you seek.” pg 101

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There are definitely dated portions of this book and, as I said, it is nebulous. To get meaning out of it, readers need to distill the underlying ideas and apply them to your unique business. But, I still learned things.

The reason I read Godin is he encourages readers to think differently. He gets my creative circuits firing. I like that.

Recommended for readers who may need a creative jump-start for whatever remarkable product they’re creating. This book isn’t a road map, but it could be a compass.

Thanks for reading!

Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination by J.K. Rowling

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”

J.K. Rowling gave the commencement speech at Harvard in 2008 and the result was a mini-masterpiece about life, the power of imagination, and failure.

Though we all know now what a mammoth success she would go on to be, at one time, she was experiencing failure and poverty.

“Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution.”

I’ve had my own handful of rock bottom moments and, she’s right, it is no fun. But I too have found resilience and creativity that emerged from that darkness. It’s strange, when you’re pushed to your limits, you suddenly discover that there’s more to yourself than you ever realized.

“One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.”

Like Rowling, I studied the Classics because something about it spoke to me. When I told my dad that I was adding that course of study to my degree, he laughed and said, “Well, at least it will look impressive on your resume.” Even though I knew he was right in that there were very few jobs where I could use it, having a background in the Classics has taught me a lot about modern life.

I learned that people in antiquity, though they lacked the technology and lifestyle we enjoy today, still had the intensity of emotions and civilizations struggles that persist in the modern era. There were those who had and those who had not. There were crimes of passion, acts of kindness, politicians both corrupt and extraordinary.

Struggle, stress and failure is not something mankind invented when we produced the first smart phone. Classics gives you a long view on humanity and how far, or not far, we’ve come since.

“We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.“

Brilliant. I recommend this small book as a graduation gift or for anyone who is having a bad day. It can act as a reminder that anyone can succeed at whatever their heart tells them is their path, despite any evidence to the contrary. And don’t be afraid of failure. Everyone will experience it at one time or another, but what matters most is what you chose to do next.

Thanks for reading!

The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa by Michael Kimmelman

Michael Kimmelman, art critic for the New York Times, gives art trivia and philosophic insights in The Accidental Masterpiece.

… I have come to feel that everything, even the most ordinary daily affair, is enriched by the lessons that can be gleaned from art: that beauty is often where you don’t expect to find it; that it is something we may discover and also invent, then reinvent, for ourselves; that the most important things in the world are never as simple as they seem but that the world is also richer when it declines to abide by comforting formulas.” pg 5

Though, at times, I felt as if he was getting too deep into the art “appreciation” portions, I learned a great deal about not just unconventional forms of art, but how art can be found in your every day life. It is all a matter of adjusting how you view reality.

There were some historical tidbits I particularly enjoyed. For example, did you know that when Kodak film was invented and made the art of photography available to the general public, that some professional photographers believed the medium was doomed?

“The placing in the hands of the general public a means of making pictures with but little labor and requiring less knowledge has of necessity been followed by the production of millions of photographs,” wrote Alfred Stieglitz in 1899. “It is due to this fatal facility that photography as a picture-making medium has fallen into disrepute.” pg 32

Wonder what Stieglitz would have made of Instagram.

Or this other bit of trivia, which seemed particularly apropos with the news reporting today that so many people are climbing Mount Everest that they’ve become a danger to themselves and others: humankind didn’t always find mountains beautiful or worthy of appreciation. The Romans hated the mountains — they were difficult to maneuver armies across and also enemies had a nasty habit of popping out of them. (Think Hannibal.)

Here’s a young Thomas Hobbes’ view of mountains:

“Behind a ruin’d mountain does appear
Swelling into two parts, which turgent are
As when we bend our bodies to the ground,
The buttocks amply sticking out are found.” pg 55

Hilarious. And now we highly value mountain views and the sublime feeling of ascending a mountain’s peak.

“The evolution of the whole modern worldview, including the notion of beauty, you might even say, is exemplified by the evolution of our feelings toward mountains.” pg 56

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I also enjoyed Kimmelman’s thoughts on the art of collecting objects, every day and otherwise. I live with someone who has serious collecting tendencies — notably a large military hat collection. It made me appreciate my husband even more when I found out there are people in the world who collect things like light bulbs to the extent where they’ve set up light bulb-themed museums. In their own homes.

We’ve agreed (so far) to keep the collection in one room. So, comparably, I’m doing pretty well. 🙂

Recommended for readers who enjoy non-fiction reads about art, philosophy and a curious mix of the two.

Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz?: Yip Harburg, Lyricist by Harold Meyerson

An informative non-fiction biography about Yip Harburg, the little-remembered lyricist, who is responsible for, among other notable works, writing the lyrics to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”.

Similar to Malcolm Gladwell’s “successful hockey players who were born in January” thesis, Yip was among an extraordinary group of lyricists, all born within a short time of each other, who wrote for Broadway and Hollywood. It wasn’t just talent, of which Yip had a great deal, it was also opportunity.

A myriad of different factors came into play in just the right way at the perfect time to create musical theater and a chance for lyricists to make a huge impact on the national consciousness. Prior to this time period, that type of entertainment, musical theater, didn’t even exist.

Yip grew up in poverty but claimed that didn’t affect him all that much. Children are surprisingly resilient.

“You lived from month to month. But youngsters didn’t feel the sting of it because everyone else was poor, too. We knew no other way of life, and it didn’t mean much to a kid who turned the street into an exciting playground.” pg 9

The Great Depression hit Yip hard and he lost everything. He decided, when the chips were down, to try his hand at a new career. And so, he began writing lyrics for composers. It’s a curiously difficult profession.

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“The challenge of becoming a lyricist involves not only perfecting individual writing skills but also learning to be an effective collaborator, one of the most demanding of human relationships. … The theater lyricist must also be collaborating with the book writer of a musical, as well as directors, actors, designers, and producers who impact the lyric-writing process.” pg 32

Beyond the life of Yip Harburg, this book gives the ins-and-outs of the lyric writing business. It is a tricky art, limited by not only the written music but also the demands of the show or song in which the words are appearing.

“The word rainbow never appears in L. Frank Baum’s book, “The Wizard of Oz”. It was lyricist Yip Harburg who put it in the film.”From the introduction.

“Somewhere Over the Rainbow” is arguably one of the most recognizable Hollywood songs of all time and most people don’t remember the man who made it possible. Yip was also responsible for the almost “operatic” flow of the music during Dorothy’s time in Oz. In fact, Judy Garland wanted Yip to write the lyrics for her turn in “A Star is Born” but her husband, the producer, was unable to get Yip under contract because of his blacklisting during the McCarthy-era.

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But Yip didn’t let it get him down. He kept writing even though some of his friends completely fell apart when they couldn’t get a contract.

I enjoyed learning about not just the difficulties of lyric writing, including the plot lines and back stories of some of Yip Harburg’s most popular works, but also learning about the life of this man who affected so many people by putting thoughts into words. He encapsulated dreams. And that’s not an easy thing.

“I think everybody, not only every artist, but every person who thinks, is confronted with… — his drive to be related to the universe, but that’s a hard thing because there are so many stars and it’s very hard to grasp that relationship. … But, if he can identify himself, and relate really with one other person, he will relate with all of humanity and he will relate with all the universe.” pg 69

Thank you, Yip, for giving Dorothy rainbows. The world would have been a darker place without you.

Recommended for fans of Broadway shows and musicals, but also for readers who enjoy learning forgotten history about people who deserve to be remembered.

Thanks for reading!

Here’s The History Guy episode about Yip Harburg:

Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs by Joshua Wolf Shenk

Joshua Wolf Shenk examines creatives pairs throughout history in an effort to see why and how they work, and also why they end.

“The dyad is also the most fluid and flexible of relationships. Two people can basically make their own society on the go. When even one more person is added to the mix, the situation becomes more stable, but this stability may stifle creativity, as roles and power positions harden.” Introduction, pg xxii

Shenk believes pairs move through six stages: Meeting, confluence, dialetics, distance, the infinite game and interruption. The stages show the development of the relationship, assumption of roles and eventual fall out of creative pairings.

“This book is written in the faith, underscored by experience, that more is possible — more intimacy, more creativity, more knowledge about this primary truth: that we make our best work, and live our best lives, by charging into the vast space between ourselves and others.” Introduction, pg xxv

I picked up this book because I’m involved in a creative partnership with my spouse (The History Guy, YouTube channel) and I was curious to see how other pairings have worked in the past. It was interesting to see how similarly we function when compared to other creative partners. I mean, everyone is different, but there are patterns that can be observed if you look closely.

“The irony is that, while our eyes naturally follow the star, a pair’s center of gravity is often with the one we see less.” pg 66

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Shenk’s chapters were interesting not only in their obscure history about some of the most famous partners in history, but also their implications for people who are looking to share their creative endeavors, and lives, with others.

“High-functioning couples commonly say that one key to a good relationship is giving each other plenty of space. But a big reason there are so many dysfunctional couples, romantic and creative, is that it’s hard for a lot of us to know what that really means or what it would look like in our lives.” pg 128

What works, what doesn’t work, and why?

“Creativity has become a broad, vague term, a kind of stand-in for universal good, even a synonym for happiness (or, as innovation, for profits). But making new, beautiful, useful things is as much about discord as it is about union.” pg 21

The path isn’t always smooth, but good partners shore each other up. They may be strong where the other is weak. They challenge each other to be better than they ever would have been by themselves.

“Highly creative people have high standards and distinct sensibilities; they see the world in an unusual way (or they wouldn’t be able to make something new out of the materials of that world). Their partners must be a match — and the discovery of a shared sensibility is itself often an impetus to share work.” pg 31

I learned a lot about the Beatles, scientists, dancers, artists, screen writers, authors and more in Powers of Two. This is a book about creativity, yes, but it also looks at relationships themselves. It takes apart power dynamics, personal satisfaction and creative instincts. It is more of a rumination on creative pairs than a scientific thesis.

Recommended for readers who enjoy quirky non-fiction books. You’ll probably learn something new if you pick this one up. I did.

Thanks for reading!

Wiser: Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter by Cass R. Sunstein

Authors Cass Sunstein and Reid Hastie examine many of the problems that beset groups and how to best address them for optimal group performance.

Written in a style that is more academic than approachable, Wiser uses the findings of multiple researchers to come to its conclusions. This book may be useful to managers who are desiring to set up a group at their own place of employment and want to start on the best foot.

“Do groups usually correct individual mistakes? Our simple answer is that they do not. … We also ask a second question: Can groups correct individual mistakes? Our simple answer is that they can. We aim to explain how.” pg 2

I picked this book up because, frankly, I wanted to know why anybody would utilize groups in a work setting. Every one that I have ever sat on has been either a disaster or inefficient. I was hoping Wiser would help me see the appeal that group-thinking seems to have for some.

And it did. But it also opened up my eyes to the myriad reasons why my experiences had been so bad. I had just assumed groups didn’t work. As it turns out, things are more complicated than that.

“The basic lesson is that people pay a lot of attention to what other group members say and do — and that they do not end up converging on the truth. In fact, they often ignore their own beliefs and say that they believe what other people believe.” pg 28

There can also be problems with authority figures in a group setting: “If the group contains one or more people who are known to be authorities or who otherwise command a lot of respect, then other group members are likely to silence themselves out of deference to the perceived or real authority.” pg 35.

I’ve seen that happen multiple times. The whole purpose of the group is thrown off. It has often frustrated me, leading me to think we may as well have saved our meeting time and had the boss issue a directive.

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Groups also have to keep in mind the idea of “cascades” or ideas taking a hold early in the process and then taking over the rest of the group’s time: “For their part, many groups end up with a feeling of inevitability, thinking that they were bound to converge on what ultimately became their shared view. Beware of that feeling too, because it is often an illusion. The group’s conclusion might well be an accident of who spoke first…” pg 60

Groups can polarize themselves, driving their members to extremes they wouldn’t otherwise reach without members that think like them. To combat this, leaders should make sure groups are diverse.

In a perfect world, groups are equivalent to their best members, aggregate all of the information each individual brings to the table, utilizes experts properly and creates an almost mystical “synergy” where, as the authors say, “the whole is more than the sum of its parts.”

The trick is getting the group to work like that. As I said, I’ve never seen it. This book brings me hope that perhaps one day I will.

The failures of groups often have disastrous consequences — not just for group members, but for all those who are affected by those failures. The good news is that decades of empirical work, alongside recent innovations, offer a toolbox of practical safeguards, correctives, and enhancements. With a few identifiable steps, groups can get a lot wiser.” pg 214

Thanks for reading!

Use Your Head by Tony Buzan

In “Use Your Head,” Tony Buzan teaches the reader strategies to utilize the infinite powers of your mind.

“I call it the ‘operations manual’ for your brain. It is designed to help you nurture your ‘super-biocomputer’ and unleash the natural and extraordinary range of mental skills that you possess.pg xii

I’ve read a lot of non-fiction books about what the potentials of the mind and positive thinking are. This book gives more than just information about what could be, it shares tools for expanding your creative skills and organizing what goes in and comes out of our mind.

“No man yet exists or has existed who has even approached using his full brain. We accept no limitations on the power of the brain — it is limitless.” pg 24

Buzan shares the keys for maximizing your memory — imagination and association. By combining images with simple rhymes, he’s created a surprisingly easy way to remember lists and, potentially, large sections of information.

I was intrigued by his method of organizing information and study materials with the use of “mind maps.” Basically, you start with a topic and draw branches coming out from this main theme, that relate to the information in some way. Continue to branch out, using colors and shapes to stimulate your brain while drawing conscious connections between the ideas on the paper.

It’s a fun little creative exercise, but also it helps you see associations you may not have considered before.

Personally, I do mounds of research on an almost daily basis and it helps to have a tool to organize the facts I come across. The mind map may be the most helpful tool in this book.

There’s a lot of self help advice in these pages too. It’s mainly common sense, but I found almost all of it useful as reminders of what is possible. For example, Buzan suggests considering your perspective before starting any program of study or problem solving.

“On average, people assume that there are theoretically infinite insoluble problems and only a relatively minor number of solutions. The fact is, every problem has a solution and there are no insoluble problems for a human brain that is properly trained, activated and aware of its creative functions.” pg 82

After a bit of research on the author, it seems Buzan is quite popular in Great Britain and has been for some time. Perhaps it’s time for the U.S. to jump on this train too.

Thanks for reading!

Art Matters: Because Your Imagination Can Change the World by Neil Gaiman, Illustrated by Chris Riddell

Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell have created a manifesto for readers, librarians and content creators. This little book celebrates everything having to do with reading, freedom of information and ideas, and how to start creating the life of your dreams, even if you don’t know where to start.

It was compiled from Gaiman’s prolific back catalog of speeches, poems and various other writings about creativity.

“The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before.”

I feel like this should be required reading — especially the parts about how to respond to intellectual disagreements. I think Gaiman penned these words after the bombing at Charlie Hebdo, and they still ring true.

“I believe I have the right to think and say the wrong things. I believe your remedy for that should be to argue with me or to ignore me. And that I should have the same remedy for the wrong things that I believe you think.”

And, of course, I was partial to all of the praise directed towards librarians and libraries, having been a librarian once myself. Sometimes people ask me if I ever think libraries will be closed because “they’re just a building with books” or “they’re a waste of taxpayer money”.

This is how I wished I had replied: “Libraries are about freedom. Freedom to read, freedom of ideas, freedom of communication. They are about education, about entertainment, about making safe spaces and about access to information.” How could that ever possibly go out of style?

Gaiman also gives attention to the bookworms of the world. We make it a better place through our reading and daydreaming and daydreaming about reading. Also, our epic library patronage is a good thing.

“We have an obligation to read for pleasure. If others see us reading, we show that reading is a good thing. We have an obligation to support libraries, to protest the closure of libraries. If you do not value libraries you are silencing the voices of the past and you are damaging the future.”

Gaiman shares a bit about how he became the universally beloved author he is today. Step one, you’ve just got to get started.

“If you have an idea of what you want to make, what you were put here to do, then just go and do that and that’s much harder than it sounds and, sometimes in the end, so much easier than you might imagine.”

He confesses that he lied on early resumes to get his foot in the door. But, after his later success, he went back and worked at all of the places he had claimed before. That way, he didn’t see himself as lying but as “chronologically challenged.” I loved that he took the time to make things right.

Gaiman also has some interesting views about no-start dreamers. He says the saddest thing to him are friends that say they’re too committed to follow their dreams. There’s bills to pay, mortgages and families to support and they can’t take the dive to do whatever it is they’ve always dreamed of doing.

He said he dodged that particular roadblock by skipping a well-paying job or two early in his career, so that he didn’t get too comfortable doing something other than writing. I thought that was an interesting strategy. Creating is about having the courage to just do it, no matter what and not stopping until you’re doing it.

“Somebody on the internet thinks what you do is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before? Make good art.”

The good news is there are more platforms than ever before to get your creations in front of the people who will care about them.

“The gatekeepers are leaving their gates. You can be as creative as you need to be to get your work seen. YouTube and the web (and whatever comes after YouTube and the web) can give you more people watching than television ever did. The old rules are crumbling and nobody knows what the new rules are. So make up your own rules.”

My own life right now points to the truth of that. I left a guaranteed paycheck and employer provided health care to write for my husband’s YouTube channel. We’re not only succeeding but we’re having a lot of fun doing it.

Thank you, Gaiman and Riddell for this beautiful book. I hope it encourages creators everywhere to take the leap.

Thanks for reading!

The Help Desk Book Blog

Sharing reviews and deep thoughts about life.

Category: Creativity

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin

Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination by J.K. Rowling

The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa by Michael Kimmelman

Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz?: Yip Harburg, Lyricist by Harold Meyerson

Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs by Joshua Wolf Shenk

Use Your Head by Tony Buzan

Art Matters: Because Your Imagination Can Change the World by Neil Gaiman, Illustrated by Chris Riddell

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