Tag: Inspiration

Tools & kit, Work

Sound advice

Here is the soundest of advice from Hunter Gatherer 21C’s Nicholas Bate:

Only listen to vinyl when working; a break and a walk will be naturally necessary every twenty minutes or so.

This could be the nudge I need to set up my turntable again.

Currently, I have a playlist on Sonos of mostly guitar instrumentals curated from my music collection. It runs for nearly a full day and ensures (after a couple of opening tracks with vocals) that I’m not writing with other people’s words in my head.

It’s not vinyl, but it includes some sublime tracks. Here’s a taster:

Opening vocal tracks:

Loser, The Grateful Dead (“I’ve got no fear of losing this time.”)

Hair of the Dog, Nazareth (“Now you’re messing with a son of a bitch.”)

Hello Hooray, Alice Cooper (“God, I feel so strong.”)

Thereafter, a mix of the sweetest guitar music:

Blue Valley, Thomas Blug

And The Address, Deep Purple

High Nights, Sutherland Brothers & Quiver (an instrumental from Quiver’s Time Renwick, later of Al Stewart and Pink Floyd’s touring band amongst many others)

Cloudy Day, JJ Cale

Weiss Heim, Rainbow

Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers, Jeff Beck

Samba Pa Ti, Santana

Journey of the Sorcerer, Eagles

Little Wing, Stevie Ray Vaughan

Another Place, Jeff Beck

Scandinavia, Van Morrison

Angel (Footsteps), Jeff Beck

Where Were You, Jeff Beck.

And, much, much more. Just so much great music!

Photo by Adrian Korte on Unsplash

Uncategorized

Lines to live by?

Action is the antidote to anxiety.

I found this list via (I think) The Hammock Papers. Apologies if I’ve misattributed. The full list of “20 Sentences I Wish I’d Read Sooner in Life” is here on a blog called Born Too Late.

The most dangerous addiction is the approval of other people.

…

Your habits are the silent architects of your life.

Worth pondering the full list.

Photo by Dani on Unsplash

Work

What’s on your slate?

There’s so much wisdom in Steven Pressfield’s posts, but this particularly resonated, “You have to have a slate.”

I was doing a free rewrite on the lot at MGM when a producer friend spotted me on the bungalow’s porch and plopped down in the chair beside me. She asked me what I was working on beside this freebie. 

I hesitated.

Don’t hesitate…

“you have to be able to rattle off four, five, six projects—and be able to pitch ‘em all with full professionalism.”

Read the full post, and more, here.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

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The blogs that keep on giving

Blogs come and go, but some stalwarts remain.

Here are a few that I’ve read daily for years and which still provide valuable insight:

  • Cultural Offering – Music, literature, humanity, perspective and more.
  • Execupundit.com – Michael Wade’s thoughts on leadership, ethics, management and life. Michael also writes long-form essays on his Substack channel (also highly recommended).
  • Hunter Gatherer 21C – Nicholas Bate’s new home: reflections on business, life, balance, The Beatles and his own fiction.

These three are the cornerstone of my morning reading. Also highly recommended are:

And two essentials that I follow on email:

  • Steven Pressfield – a writer’s writer with much to say about Resistance, the War of Art and “Putting your ass where your heart wants to be.”
  • The Daily Stoic – Ryan Holiday on Stoicism for modern, daily life.

Check them all out. Your lives will be richer for a few minutes’ reading each morning.

Image: Andrew Munro

Uncategorized

What I read on my vacation

I’ve been away. I’ve been neglectful. I have been busy, but I’ve also been distracted.

However, I did manage to read some great books. Here’s a selection of loosely relevant books I enjoyed over the past couple of years.

Stoicism

  • Marcus Aurelius, The Stoic Emperor by Donald J. Robertson – a fascinating and accessible biography from cognitive-behaviour therapist, writer and Stoic, Donald Robertson.
  • The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday – A well-deserved modern classic that’s (apparenty) sold over two million copies and which I should have read years ago. It’s packed with practical insight, quotes and examples. I’ve been lending out my copy ever since I finished it.
  • Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman – I had a big birthday. Friends bought me book-related vouchers and I bought books. This is fascinating if you’re interested in where Stoicism came from. It covers the philosophy from its founding by Zeno of Citium up to the time of Marcus, and explores the lives of famous and lesser-known Stoics and near-Stoics including Cicero, Cato the Younger, Seneca and Epictetus.
  • Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar – Not altogether Stoic, but a beautifully written fiction purporting to be the memoir that a dying Hadrian wrote for his adoptive heir Marcus Aurelius. It’s both visceral and delicately sensual. Remarkable.
Continue reading “What I read on my vacation” →
Echoes through time

Echoes through time: the sweat of your brow

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.

Genesis 3:19, King James Bible

I’m not prone to quoting the bible, but isn’t this exactly the life of a sovereign professional? No-one’s saying sweat needs to be a bad thing, it’s the consequence of hard work. In other versions, the passage becomes, “By the sweat of your brow…” and, interestingly, it has given rise to the “sweat of the brow” copyright doctrine by which a creator gains rights “through simple diligence during the creation of a work.”

Photo by Hans Reniers on Unsplash

Work

The writer’s deal … or dilemma – Steven Pressfield

Today’s Writing Wednesdays post from Steven Pressfield gets to the heart of a writer’s dilemma: do you stay true to your work and possibly earn nothing (“Nobody wants to read your sh*t.”), or do you compromise to the demands of the market?

Reflecting on the author Elizabeth Gilbert’s deal with her writing, he asks if we’re prepared to do the same.

Her deal was:

“I will never ask you to support me. I will support you.”

That’s a mighty challenge to integrity and income.

Read Steven’s full post here.