Even after writing 355 books over a span of 50 years, [Isaac Asimov](https://www.dltn.io/posts/june-05-2023-isaac-asimov-on-writing) said he never experienced writer's block. His trick? Working on several projects at a time. So if he gets bored of one he simply starts working on another.

> Fortunately I’m never without several projects in mind so that if I wake up in the morning, I’m sick and tired of what I’m doing, I do something else.
> 

Haruki Murakami practiced [something similar](https://www.dltn.io/posts/novelist-as-a-vocation):

> I have been writing fiction for more than thirty-five years at the time of this book’s writing; yet I have never experienced what is commonly known as ‘writer’s block.’ Wanting to write but being unable is unknown to me. That may make it sound as if I am overflowing with talent, but the actual reason is much simpler: I never write unless I really want to, unless the desire to write is overwhelming. When I feel that desire, I sit down and set to work. When I don’t feel it, I usually turn to translating from English. Since translation is essentially a technical operation, I can pursue it on a daily basis, quite separate from my creative desire; yet at the same time, it is a good way to hone my writing skills.
> 

[Austin Kleon](https://rainmaker.fm/audio/writer/austin-kleon-file-one/) also practices this habit. He calls it “productive procrastination.”

> **Kelton Reid:** I like that. You talk about ‘productive procrastination’ quite a bit, and you’ve written about it. Do you have some best practices for beating procrastination yourself?

**Austin Kleon:** Yes. The best thing to do is to practice what you said, productive procrastination, which means have one or two or three things going all at the same time. When you get sick of one thing, you can work on the other thing because you hate the other project so much. Then when you get sick of project two, you can move back to project one. You have to work, but you basically use procrastination as a way to get things done.
> 

I recommend the same advice to people [who want to read more](https://www.dltn.io/posts/read). It’s much easier to read three or four books at once than it is to read one because when you’re bored of one, you can just pick up another. But if you are only reading one at a time and get bored, well what you do is stop reading.

Beat writer’s block

I don't believe in writer's block in the traditional sense. If you can't write, you probably have nothing to say, so you should go find something to say.

But if you feel like you *do* have something to say and, for some reason, the words and the work aren't flowing, *shake things up:* do things differently than you normally do them.

If you normally write on a computer, try writing by hand or on a typewriter. If you usually write at home, go to a coffee shop or even a park.

If you use a pen, write with crayons. If you write on paper, write on a napkin or the back of an envelope.

Haruki Murakami, when he was stuck writing his first novel, started writing it in English on a typewriter instead of longhand in Japanese. Writing in English, his brain avoided the "system overload" that accompanied writing in Japanese.

> It also led me to the realization that I could express my thoughts and feelings with a limited set of words and grammatical structures, as long as I combined them effectively and linked them together in a skillful manner. Ultimately, I learned that there was no need for a lot of difficult words – I didn't have to try to impress people with beautiful turns of phrases.
> 

[Joan Baez](https://austinkleon.com/), when she feels stuck, writes backwards or with her non-dominant hand.

> Somewhere in my teenage years, probably out of boredom, I taught myself how to write backwards, starting with EINAOJ ZEAB, my new name. I worked my way through the Greek alphabet: AHPLA ATEB, AMMAG, ATLED, and so on. I still write backwards as a form of therapy when I need to get to the root of a blockage or calm the buzzing heat of a panic attack. It's as though the appropriate wires cross my brain when I write backwards, which allows information otherwise unavailable to surface.

Later, I began drawing with my left hand instead of my right. Like writing backwards, using my non-dominant hand opened a different compartment in my brain. I discovered the results were less restrained and more fluid, and therefore more interesting to me.
> 

If you're feeling stuck, shake things up. Do things differently. You may be surprised by what comes out on the other side.

If you’re stuck creatively, shake things up; do something differently.

Shake things up

## Impressions

In *****************************[Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work That Lasts](https://a.co/d/e5BJxTb)*****************************, Ryan Holiday creates a playbook for writers, creators, and artists to make exceptional work and get noticed. And yes, those are two ********sep********a********rate******** skills.

Creating great work is hard and takes time, but so is getting that work in front of other people. But, don’t think just because you’ve captured attention means your work will sell ([look at this example](https://www.insider.com/instagrammer-arii-2-million-followers-cannot-sell-36-t-shirts-2019-5) of someone who had 2 million followers and couldn’t sell more than 50 items).

Creating work that lasts and marketing that work is two sides of the same coin. To create a true ****************perennial seller****************, both skills are needed. You’ll learn the perfect formula for doing so in this book.

## Notes

### You can’t want to make something timeless, and then focus on metrics that aren’t

Holiday writes, “People claim to want to do something that matters, yet they measure themselves against things that don’t, and track their progress not in years but in microseconds.” Writers and business leaders ******want****** to create something that lasts a long time, but then agonize over social media followers and blog views–things that are pointless. People say they want to create timeless work, but then spend energy trying to figure out how to make their post go viral instead of how to make sure it lasts for 15 years. There’s a fundamental flaw there in the logic. “If you focus on near-term growth above everything else,” investor Peter Thiel writes, “you miss the most important question you should be asking: Will this business still be around a decade from now?”

### Perennial, defined

A perennial seller is something that, over time, has continued success and finds an audience that loves the product, whatever it is. Perennial’s aren’t defined by their initial success, because the initial success is irrelevant if it’s going to last for 20 years.

### The true act of creation is to make things that last

“The more books we read, the clearer it becomes that the true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and that no other task is of any consequence.” – Cyril Connolly

### If you want great marketing, start with a great product

No one who spends 1/4 of the time making and 4/5 of the time marketing will be a perennial seller. ******Making****** something worth buying, writing something worth reading is the first (and fundamental step) to creating timeless work. “The better your product is, the better your marketing will be. The worse it is, the more time you will have to spend marketing and the less effective every minute of that marketing will be.” Phil Libin, the co-founder of Evernote says, “People [who are] thinking about things other than making the best product never make the best product.” You start by *******wanting******* to make the best product.

### Ideas are worthless

********Everyone******** has ideas. Ideas for “the next big thing,” ideas for a book, ideas for how they want to turn their life around. But ideas are worthless. They mean nothing to the world. “The difference between a great work and an ****idea**** for a great work is all the sweat, time, effort, and agony that go into engaging that idea and turning it into something real. “Lots of people,” Austin Kleon says, “want to be the noun without doing the verb.”

### Work on things that last (and don’t hurry)

As famous astronaut Jeff Bezos put it, “Focus on things that don’t change.” You can’t expect something to last if it’s built on top of, explains, or piggybacks off something that ********doesn’t******** last or is constantly changing.

The beautiful thing about writing and creating timeless stuff is that you don’t have to hurry. You’re not trend-chasing. If the thing is *****truly***** timeless, whether it comes out next month or in two years shouldn’t matter; it should be equally relevant. So take your time and make it great. “It’s better to play the longer game,” Holiday writes. “Leave behind the hype and ephemeral infatuations for the time capsule and the one-hit wonders.” 

### Great work is created little by little

“You don’t have to be a genius to make genius–you just have to have small moments of brilliance and edit out the boring stuff.”

### Inspiration is a function of doing the work

“Getting into action generates inspiration. Don’t cop out waiting for inspiration to get you back into action. It won’t!” – Robert Evans | Planning a project is important, but don’t get so bogged down in the details you forget to do the work. Plus, no matter how *******perfect******* the plan is, it’s just an idea if you don’t actually do the work on it. And remember what we said earlier about ideas?

### You have to know who your project is for (and who it’s not for)

Charlie Rose asked the creator of ********Hamilton********, Lin-Manuel Miranda, what set him apart from other kids he went to school with. Miranda replied, “Cause I picked a lane and I started running ahead of everyone else…” If you don’t know who you’re making something for, how do you know you’ve successfully created something? If you can’t identify who will buy your thing, why do you expect ******anyone****** to buy your thing?

### Project brief: One sentence, one paragraph, one page

For every new project or creative endeavor write out exactly what your project is supposed to be, who it’s supposed to help, and what it’s supposed to do in one sentence, one paragraph, and one page. What are the things that matter and what are the things that don’t?

This is a _________ that does _______. This helps people __________.

************What is it?************ Is it a modern piece of experimental art? Is it a low-budget YouTube video with friends? What genre is it in? Brain Koppelman, screenwriter and creator of ********Billions********, told Seth Godin, “Everything that has a clear path to commercial success is in a genre.”

Jon Favreau, when dreaming up ********Iron Man********, said in an interview once that his vision depended entirely in Robert Downey Jr. being Iron Man. Everything else–actors, set, story–revolved around him.

You must do this because, a Holiday writes, “An unaimed arrow rarely hits a target.”

Holiday’s “book about Stoic philosophy,” became, for an elevator pitch, “a book that uses the ancient formula of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius to teach people how to not only overcome obstacles but **********************thrive because of them**********************.”

### Packaging matters

“A great package on a great product is what creates an explosive reaction,” Holiday writes. ******************Catcher in the Rye****************** sold well when it was first published, but sold over 1.25 million copies in the early pulp paperback edition. The cover was provocative and the blurb sucked you in: “This unusual book may shock you, will make you laugh, and may break your heart–but you will never forget it!”

### You must stay focused (distraction is tempting)

“Nothing has sunk more creators and caused more unhappiness than this,” Holiday writes, “our inherently human tendency to pursue a strategy aimed at accomplishing one goal while simultaneously expecting to achieve other goals entirely unrelated.” If you want to create a new way of doing a non-profit, you can’t also expect to chase a big payday (and succeed). Seneca writes one must have, “confidence in yourself and the belief that you are on the right path, and not led astray by the many tracks which cross yours of people who are hopelessly lost, though some are wandering not far from the true path.” If you want to create a piece of timeless art, you can’t compare yourself to the people who are trying to get a billboard ranking next week or who are playing a different game altogether. A decade from now, you’re going to wish you stuck it out and kept pursuing the hard thing. 

### Anything that gets or keeps customers is marketing

Anything you do that creates new customers or keeps old ones is marketing: giving away a free chapter in a book, showing up to a local event and sponsoring it, signing books at a local book store, signing people’s emails up by hand.

### Piracy is better than obscurity

Don’t be fooled into thinking your content or thing is so special that it can’t be given away for free. Tim O’Reilly said it best when he said, “The problem for most artists isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity.” Holiday continues, “we spend a lot of time insisting that nobody steal our work or get it for free…but we forget that being ******unknown****** is a far worse fate for an artist than being underpaid.” Cory Doctrow, a blogger and science-fiction author gripes on the same point: “Although it’s hard to turn fame into money in the arts, it’s impossible to turn obscurity into money in the arts.” This is especially true if you have another, high price paid offer like consulting or a course. If just one session of consultation or a speaking gig gets booked from free content, it’s worth it.

### “Trade up the chain”

It’s tempting to want to start out on the biggest media outlet you can get, but it’s often smart to start small. Most outlets pick up stories from smaller ones. “By starting with a small podcast where I could tell the story on my own terms,” Holiday explains, “led to a pickup on a small site that covers a niche, and then sharing and spreading that piece out so it was seen by the right people, I was able to ultimately go from a tiny show to one of the biggest and most influential outlets in the world.”

### When in doubt, “newsjack”

The idea of “newsjacking” was popularized by David Meerman Scott and he defines it as “the process by which you inject your ideas or angles into breaking news, in real time, in order to generate media coverage for yourself or your business.” When everyone is talking about X, position yourself and your product to also talk about X.

Book notes takeaways from reading Perennial Seller by Ryan Holiday

Perennial Seller by Ryan Holiday

## Impressions

Almost every writer or creative person I listen to swears by this book. I had high expectations. Those were met (and exceeded).

Throughout, Pressfield identifies this “thing” that he calls Resistance. Resistance is a force that keeps you from achieving the things you were born to do. Fear is Resistance. Criticism is Resistance. Jealousy is Resistance. Rationalization is Resistance. Resistance is tough, but it’s also a sign that you’re supposed to be doing that thing. The greater something is to your calling or the more that you feel like you should do something, the more Resistance you’ll feel while doing so.

The only antidote to Resistance is to show up every day and do the work. When you focus on the daily process and not the outcomes or the accolades, you give Resistance less power.

Ryan Holiday has [said he reads this book before starting a new creative project](https://www.instagram.com/p/ClEPlD6OWLk/). I plan to adopt that habit.

## My Notes

- Writing isn’t hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. Making videos isn’t hard. What’s hard is sitting down to film videos. Editing videos isn’t hard. What’s hard is sitting down to edit videos.
- We get jealous of others’ success because their success means they’ve overcome resistance but for some reason, we can’t. “What do they know that we don’t,” we think to ourselves? It also makes us face our own reality. It shows that whatever excuses we’ve been telling ourselves for why we can’t get something done is utterly wrong, because someone else did it.
- Trouble, frustration, complaining, and ill-fortune are all things that keep the working artist from doing their work. Great artists distance themselves from trouble and ensure any distractions they ****can**** control are kept to a minimum.
- Having a condition–being sick, being a victim, etc.–rationalizes the significance to one’s own existence. People that go from condition to condition becomes their work of art, one that is ****much**** easier than the work of art they ******should *****create.** They use the condition as an excuse to keep themselves from their art.
- Unalleviated Resistance turns to unhappiness, boredom, restless, unsatisfied, and so on. This forces us to turn to vices to alleviate the unhappiness. We turn away from art to drugs or substances or distractions to keep entertained. If this is how you feel, you may not have a chronic condition of anything, but instead are chronically avoiding something you should be.
- People are only as free as the extent of their own self mastery. Those who do not govern themselves will find something to govern them: drugs, relationships, vices, etc.
- Amateurs focus on the outcome. Professionals focus on the work. The professional knows that success, like happiness, is a by-product of doing the work. The professional focuses on the work and allows the rewards to come or not to come.
- **********************************************Principle of Priority:********************************************** (a) you must know the difference between what’s important and what’s urgent (b) you must do what’s important first.
- ****************************Professionals:****************************
    - Show up every day
    - Show up no matter what
    - Stay on the job all day
    - Committed over the long haul
    - The stakes for us are high and real
    - We accept renumeration for our labor
    - Do not over-identify with their jobs. ***********Pros recognize that they are not their job descriptions. Ams do. “Resistance knows that the amateur compose will never write his symphony because he is overly invested in its success and over*********** ***********terrified of its failure. The amateur takes it so seriously it paralyzes him.***********
    - Master the technique of their job
    - Have a sense of humor about their jobs. ***********************Pros take it seriously, but not too seriously***********************.
    - Are patient. The amateur thinks they can get their big goal done in 2 weeks. The professional knows it takes years of daily effort to produce consistently, quality work.
    - Seek order. ******************They eliminate chaos from their enviornment so they can banish chaos from their mind.******************
    - Accepts no excuses. *********A pro knows that if he caves in today, he’ll be twice as likely to cave in tomorrow. If you so much as say hello to Resistance, you’re finished.*********
    - Are prepared. ***Not for victory, but for the process. Professionals handle their details. The plans. The small things. They work all of them out.***
    - Dedicates himself to mastering the technique. **************************They do so not because technique is a substitute for inspiration, but rather they want to be prepared with the full arsenal of skills when inspiration finally comes. By toiling by the front door of technique, the professional lets genius enter slyly from the back.**************************
    - Don’t let the actions of others define who they are or what they do. *************The critic won’t be there tomorrow. But you know what will be? The blank page…staring you back in the face.*************
    - Know their limits. *************************************************************************************************************Pros can only be a pro at one thing. So they bring in other pros to help them (lawyers, doctors, accountants, etc.)*************************************************************************************************************
    - Reinvents themselves. *******Pros don’t limit what they can create in the future to that which they’ve created in the past. They recognize that with changing technology and ideas, so must their creations. Amateurs think they’re too good to change.*******
- You will fail. You will be criticized. But that’s the price for being in the arena and not on the sidelines. Pressfield had a horrible review written about his first screenplay in *******Variety*******. But someone snapped him out of his misery. “You’re where you want to be right! Writing full-time?”
- ********************************************************************************************************************Resistance will stop you from achieving greatness. The antidote, the only lasting antidote, is professionalism. Professionals follow the rules, qualities, and characteristics of the previous.********************************************************************************************************************
- “The goal of life isn’t to discover who you ought to be, but to become who you already are.” – me
- The Artist is entitled to their labor, not the fruits of their labor.

## On Resistance

- Any act that rejects short term gratification for long term exceptionality will elicit resistance. Resistance stops you from doing that which you are called to do. And it will do anything to stop you from doing so.
- Resistance is always lying and always full of shit. If you listen to its demanding voice, you deserve ***********everything*********** that you get.
- The more important something is to our calling, the more Resistance we will face while doing it. Resistance attacks our love and our calling. If you are experiencing Resistance in one area, it’s a sure sign that you should be doing and accomplishing that thing. **The thing that you keep trying to do and just can’t, is probably the thing you should be doing.**
- Resistance is omni-directional and only opposes that which desires a higher order. You’ll never feel resistance quitting your hard corporate job to work the drive thru at in n out. You will feel it trying to quit your 9-5 to go work as a missionary in the Congo.
- Resistance is greatest when the finish line is in sight. It’s like the story from *****Odysseus,***** when they were close to the island at first, the crew opened the bag of wind.
- Fear is Resistance. If you’re afraid of something, it’s a sign to do that thing. Resistance is also proportional to Love. If you love something deeply, their will be more Resistance facing you there.
- Healing is Resistance. Telling yourself you can’t create because you’re working on “who you are” or you’re dealing with trauma is a form of Resistance. The part we create from and the part of us that needs healing are not the same. Where we create from is so deep and so within us, that nothing our parents did or our spouse said can touch it
- The outcomes don’t beat Resistance. Sitting down to do the work beats it.
- Support is Resistance. What better way to avoid doing the work than going to a workshop or networking event? “The more energy we spend stoking up on support from colleagues and loved ones, the weaker we become and the less capable of handling our business.”
- Rationalization is Resistance–and it’s oftentimes true! We probably should be helping our pregnant wife, or spending more time with family, or this might be a particularly busy season…but “that all means diddly.” There will ******always****** be enough rationalizations to keep you from work: Resistance.
- Resistance loves pride. Resistance says, ‘Show me someone who is too good to take Job X or Assignment Y and I’ll show you a guy I can crack like a walnut.”

## Quotes

- How many of us have become drunks and drug addicts, developed tumors and neuroses, succumbed to painkillers, gossip, and compulsive cell-phone use, simply because we don’t do that thing that our hearts, our inner genius, is calling us to?
- The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day.
- There was never a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our own destiny.
- The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.
- The professional tackles the project that will make him stretch. He takes on the assignment that will bear him into uncharted waters, compel him to explore the unconscious parts of himself.
- It’s one thing to study war and another to live the warrior’s life – Telamon of Arcadia, mercenary of the fifth century B.C.
- “I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.” – Somerset Maugham. This echoes another deeper truth: that by performing the mundane act of sitting down and starting to work, he set in motion a mysterious but infallible sequence of events that would produce inspiration, as surely as if the goddess had synchronized her watch with his. He knew if he built it, she would come.
- The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.
- You don’t hear the amateur bitching, “This fucking trilogy is killing me!” Instead, he doesn’t write his trilogy at all.
- The critic hates the most that which he would have done himself if he had the guts.
- The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.
- The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would not otherwise have occurred.
- “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now.”

Book notes on The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

Summary
-------

Being able to think and solve problems in a general sense allows for innovative breakthroughs and discoveries in a niche field.

My Top Two Takeaways
--------------------

1.  Before determining a solution to a problem, make sure to completely understand the type of problem it is. Not all problems are as they seem on the surface.
2.  Don't measure someones work-ethic or 'grit' based on an observation in a specific field. For example, the worst thing someone can do is base one's entrepreneurial spirit and drive on their homework scores. They're two completely different fields and one is not parallel to the other.

Chapter 4: Learning, Fast and Slow
----------------------------------

-   One of the best ways to produce real, long lasting learning is practicing retrieval.
-   The Generation Effect - Struggling to answer on your own, even a wrong on, enhance subsequent learning
-   Deliberate Difficulties - Making your study sessions or practice harder and harder in increments
-   Test taking cannot be an accurate measurement of long-term lasting learning. Real learning is hard to do quickly, like most schools expect during a week of new curriculum, but fleeting knowledge is easy.
-   Fleeting learning is based on before your eye progress - while deep learning is not. Deep learning cannot be measured in hours, more like days and weeks
-   Before determining the solution to the problem, you must figure out what problem you're solving. Not all problems are what they seem.
-   Far Transfer - When a knowledge structure is so flexible that it can be applied effectively even in new domains or extremely novel situations.

Chapter 5: Thinking Outside Experience
--------------------------------------

-   Analogical Thinking - The practice of recognizing conceptual similarities in multiple domains or scenarios that may seem to have little in common on the surface.
-   Takes the new and makes it familiar, or takes the familiar and makes it new
-   "If you need a large force to accomplish some purpose, but are prevented from applying such a force directly, many smaller forces applied simultaneously from different directions may work just as well" Karl Duncker
-   Taking the Inside View - When you make judgements based narrowly on the details of a particular project that are right in front of us.
-   The most successful problem solvers are the ones who can identify the deep structure of the problem before they proceed to match a strategy to it.
-   Retrograde Motion - The movement of Mars when it reverses direction in the sky, does a little loop, and then continues on in the same direction.
-   Dunbar, a scientist, saw that the labs most likely to take unexpected findings into new knowledge for humanity made a lot of analogies, and made them from a variety of base domains.

Chapter 6: The Trouble With Too Much Grit
-----------------------------------------

-   Peregrinations - Travel or wander around from place to place
-   Match Quality - The term economists use to describe the degree of fit between the work someone does and who they are- their abilities and proclivities
-   Learning things is not as important about learning about oneself.
-   Every single person before taking on a new endeavor should identify terms under which they should quit.
-   *If I start this business, and I lose more than $2,000 in the first year*
-   The trouble with grit is that it isn't an accurate measure - grit is subjective to the person and what they love/what they're trying
-   Sunk Cost Theory - The more we have invested and even lost, the longer we will keep going and say, 'almost there' even though it's obviously failing. We don't want to lose the investment we gained by quitting.

Chapter 7: Flirting With Your Possible Selves
---------------------------------------------

-   Aviatrix - A female pilot
-   Leadership training is as simple as looking at any situation and asking, "what would teach me the most in this situation and how can I be of service?"
-   Be a Dark Horse in Life - Look at life and say, 'this is who I am. These are my motivations. I need to do this, that, and this to be there.'
-   All Dark Horses have short-term goals - don't think *too* far in the future
-   Our preferences for work and life are not going to stay the same as we age, because we don't stay the same. It's okay to move on. It's okay to switch careers - especially in today's day and age.
-   Instead of asking *if* someone is gritty, ask *when* are they gritty. This will reveal passions and motivational situations.
-   One way to make decisions is to not think too far in the future - look at all the possible options and choose the one that will give you the most options afterward
-   Ibarras Aphorism - I know who I am when I see what I do
-   Bad things could end up good, and good things could end up bad. You don't know what is until it's over. Don't react before the situation ends.
-   Want to find your talent? Try things.

Chapter 8: The Outsider Advantage
---------------------------------

-   Outside-In Thinking - Finding solutions in experiences far outside of focused training for the problem itself.
-   Viewing a problem in your industry, through the lens of all your experiences in that industry can sometimes lead to a brick wall. To come up with creative solutions to problems, frame the problem in a more general sense, not specific to the industry its happening in.
-   Einstellung Effect - A psychology term for the tendency of problem solvers to use only familiar methods even if better ones are available
-   Clandestinely - Secretly; Kept a Secret

Chapter 9: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology
----------------------------------------------------

-   Lateral Thinking - A term coined in the 60s' for the reimagining of information in new contexts, including drawing parallels between to seemingly disconnected or unrelated ideas that can give them new uses
-   Functional Fixedness - A tendency people have to consider only familiar uses for objects
-   The more uncertainty there is to a problem, the more important having a analogical, lateral thinker on the team of problem solvers
-   Serial Innovators can be defined as people who are/have: a high tolerance for ambiguity; systems thinkers; repurposing what is already available; synthesizing ideas from many different sources.
-   When we expect a hyperspecialist, because of their expertise in a narrow area to magically be able to extend that knowledge to a new area, the results can be disastrous.
-   *A specialist in dog food advertising, can not be given the job to work as a fast-food advertiser.*

Chapter 10: Fooled By Expertise
-------------------------------

-   Hedgehogs - People who know one big thing
-   Foxes - People who know many little things
-   *Foxes see complexity in what others mistake as just simple cause and effect*
-   Most cause and effect relationships are not deterministic, they are probabilistic. There are variables, and things do not always repeat as precisely as they once did or have before. Foxes understand that they are always in a new learning environment and not everything is as it seems.

Chapter 11: Learning To Drop Your Familiar Tools
------------------------------------------------

-   Sometimes decisions can be made based off of the wrong data. Not all data is useful, and sometimes the data you have can be not enough. Before making a decision based on data, ask, 'Is this the data we need to make the decision we need to make.?'
-   When The Challenger exploded, there was a very simple warning that could have been analyzed, and fixed by the NASA scientist. Only problem was they were missing the data necessary to make the proper decision, but no one caught it.
-   Dropping the familiar tools you use to solve familiar problems is what you need to do when solving unfamiliar problems. Different problems require different tools.
-   Over Learned Behavior - Doing the same thing over and over again in response to the same challenges until the behavior has become so automatic that they no longer recognize it as a situation-specific tool. That answer now becomes the answer to *every* problem instead of just the situations in which its supposed to be used.
-   The most effective leaders and organizations had range; they were paradoxical. They could be demanding and nurturing, orderly and entrepreneurial. They embraced ambiguity and clear cut systems.
-   There is a difference between the Chain of Command and the Chain of Communications
-   Most organizations make these one in the same - the CEO talks to the executives, who talk to the middle managers, who talk to the managers, who talk to their teams.
-   Successful and healthy organizations have an established Chain of Command, but not a chain of communication. The engineers can talk to the executives whenever something comes up, and no one bats and eye - that's actually encouraged.

Chapter 12: Deliberate Amateurs
-------------------------------

-   Take the skills you have in one domain, and apply them to a different problem in a different domain.
-   "A paradox of innovation and mastery is that breakthroughs occur when you start down one road, but wander off for a ways and pretend as if you have just begun.'

Being able to think and solve problems in a general sense allows for innovative breakthroughs and discoveries in a niche field.

creativity