How To Unlock Your Best Work By Eliminating Total Freedom | David Epstein

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0:28What do you think most people misunderstand about having total freedom? I think total freedom seems really attractive. I think they think it will make them happier. Like if only I had more choice, if only I had more freedom. But a mountain of research shows that people overestimate what freedom will do for them. So there are all these weird examples like, I mean, this one's, you know, a little negative, but if people get cancer, it's like more than around two thirds, I think, of people say that if I got cancer, I'd want to be involved in picking my own treatment. But then if people get cancer, it's like 12 percent.

1:02They don't actually want to be involved in that choice. Or people think if you give them more entertainment options, they'll enjoy the experience of whatever they choose more. And they actually don't. They, they, people say they express a preference for reversible decisions, but then if they're given irreversible decisions, they're actually happier because it removes the possibility of regret. And so I think that we just overestimate what total freedom will, will bring us. If someone is complaining about not having enough resources, not having enough time, not having enough options, what is actually happening for them?

1:40If they think that they need more flexibility, more time, more freedom, more resources, what are they actually saying? I think oftentimes they're saying they want more agency. Like they think they're being limited by something external to themselves. Like I could blossom if only I had this other stuff. You know, and everyone needs some resources, right? There's obviously a line. I mean, there's all these invention studies where you can restrict people enough. If you restrict people, they usually get more creative until a certain point when it becomes less. If you're telling them both what to do and how to do it, then there's no ability for them to surprise themselves.

2:16But one of the things I want to do with Inside the Box is hopefully push this mindset shift of seeing constraints and obstacles from, instead of limitations, to opportunities to clarify priorities and to launch into productive experimentation. So I think taking a different mindset to it and saying, this is a chance to experiment. Yeah, in the book, in page 49, you say total freedom then is the enemy of creativity and constraints its companion. And it sounds like, you know, my brother plays jazz. He's actually the number one jazz violinist in the world. No way. So I grew up watching him at all these kind of jazz clubs and then he toured the world and he's still doing it today.

3:00And he grew up playing classical music. Classically trained is one of the top in the country violin and then started getting into jazz. And I don't fully understand it, but I know there's a language of constraint, even though it looks like this improvisational free flowing, anyone's doing what they want to do at any moment, but there's actually a language and constraints within jazz oh yeah and it's interesting because you think you want to you might want to be able to have total freedom but if everyone is playing something totally free at the same time you can't really understand it yeah but it can be freedom and moments within the constraints that's right that makes beautiful harmony which i think is interesting i don't know what have you covered around music in the book is there anything oh Oh, yeah.

3:45I mean, speaking of jazz, like one of the chapters opens with this story of something called the Kuln Concert. This concert by pianist Keith Jarrett, who was improvising, became the... So basically he shows up to this concert in Germany, examines the piano. He's famously kind of ornery, like if he hears a camera click, it's like, concert's off. Really? And he shows up and it's the wrong piano, out of tune, has fewer keys than the one that he ordered. Normally plays it, yeah. And he says, concert's off. And this woman who was promoting the concert is like begging him, please, like we have a sold out theater, please.

4:20She gets him to do it. So he can't play with certain parts of the keyboard, right? The sound's not loud enough for the space. And so he starts improvising, using certain parts of the keys, only doing these very repetitive rhythms with one hand because he can only stay in a certain area. Doing these loops, he starts banging his foot against the pedal to try to make a percussive sound. and it becomes the best-selling solo jazz piano album of all time. Really? Too long to even be played on the radio, but it would be played in stores and people would just be like, what is that? And as he said later, it was this imperfect character of the piano that forced him to do something nobody had done before, but you don't do that unless you're forced.

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6:40Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.

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