The Tim Ferriss Show - #472: Books I've Loved — Debbie Millman

Starting point is 00:00:00 books i've loved on the tim ferris show is exclusively brought to you by audible there couldn't be a better sponsor for this series my dear listeners and readers i have used audible for so many years as long as i can remember i love it audible has the largest selection of audiobooks on the planet i listen when i'm taking walks i I listen while I'm cooking. I listen whenever I can. And if you're looking for a place to start, I can recommend three of my favorites. The first is The Tao of Seneca by Seneca. If you want to hear my favorite letters of all time, touches on stoic philosophy, calmness under duress, etc. The next is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, G-A-I-M-A-N, one of my favorites. Even if you're a nonfiction purist, this is the fiction book that you need to listen to. Neil also has

Starting point is 00:01:14 perhaps the most calming voice of all time. And third, Greg McKeown's Essentialism, subtitle, The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. This is one of my favorite books of the past few years. Combines very well with the 80-20 principle, but more on Audible. Every month, Audible members get one credit for any audiobook on the site, plus a choice of multiple Audible originals from a rotating selection. They also get access to daily news digests from the likes of the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, as well as guided meditation programs. And here are some other amazing audible features, and I use a bunch of these. You can download titles and listen offline, anytime, anywhere. I use this feature even when I could get access. I'll put my phone on, say, airplane mode,

Starting point is 00:01:59 because I don't want to get bothered with notifications when I'm taking a walk to clear my head, and you can listen to titles offline in a case like that, or on a plane or whatever. Obviously, I'm not flying much these days. The app is free and can be installed on all smartphones and tablets. You can listen across devices without losing your spot. And WhisperSync is another feature I use quite a lot. I love reading my Kindle in bed, for instance, then picking up at the same exact spot where I left off when I go walking and listening the love reading my Kindle in bed, for instance, then picking up at the same exact spot where I left off when I go walking and listening the next day. Kindle and audio versions can be synced up automatically. It's just amazing. And if you can't decide what to listen to,

Starting point is 00:02:35 don't sweat it. You don't have to rush. You can keep your credits for up to a year and use them, for instance, to binge on a whole series, if you like. Audible offers just about everything. Podcasts, guided wellness programs, theatrical performances, A, if you like. Audible offers just about everything. Podcasts, guided wellness programs, theatrical performances, A-list comedy, and Audible originals you won't find anywhere else. And right now, Audible is offering you guys, that's Tim Ferriss Show listeners, a free audiobook with a 30-day trial membership. And again, my list, if you want to check them out, The Tao of Seneca, The Graveyard Book, Essentialism. Those are just three.

Starting point is 00:03:07 There's so many good ones out there. Just go to audible.com slash Tim and browse the unmatched selection of audio programs. Then download your free title and start listening. It's that easy. So check it out. Go to audible.com slash Tim or text Tim, T-I-M, to 500-500 to get started today. Check it out,

Starting point is 00:03:28 audible.com slash Tim. Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is usually my job to sit down with world-class performers of all different types, startup founders, investors, chess champions, Olympic athletes, you name it, to tease out the habits that you can apply in your own lives. This episode, however, is an experiment and part of a short form series that I'm doing simply called Books I've Loved. I've invited some amazing past guests, close friends, and new faces to share their favorite books, describe their favorite books, the books that have influenced them, changed them, transformed them for the better. And I hope you pick up one or two new mentors in the form of books from this new series and apply

Starting point is 00:04:14 the lessons in your own life. I had a lot of fun putting this together, inviting these people to participate, and have learned so, so much myself. I hope that is also the case for you. Please enjoy. My name is Debbie Melman and I am a designer, the author of six books, the editorial director of Print Magazine, the chair of the Masters in Branding program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, and host of one of world's longest-running podcasts, Design Matters. When I was a kid, there were lots of rules in my house. One of the most horrific for me at the time was the very limited amount of television I was allowed to watch. As a result, I read, and I read a lot. I read books, magazines, newspapers, encyclopedias, and comic books.

Starting point is 00:05:04 I even borrowed my mother's Red Book and ladies' home journal and snuck into my father's library to read the steamy sections of The Godfather when I was sure that no one would catch me. My fascination with books began as soon as I could read, and golden books were my favorite. As soon as I got into grade school, I was introduced to the Weekly Reader, and there was nothing, nothing I looked forward to more than the moment every week when Mrs. Mayer handed out those gorgeous publications. By third grade, I was introduced to the Scholastic Book Club,

Starting point is 00:05:35 and while my folks were stingy with television privileges, they were quite generous with my book allowance. I ordered as many books as I could afford, and when the boxes came in with my name allowance. I ordered as many books as I could afford, and when the boxes came in with my name on them, I spent a moment gingerly fingering the corrugated brown carton. I'd sit for a minute or two and imagine what was inside, what the books would be like, and of course, how they would look. I've been in love with books ever since. In university, I majored in English literature and minored in Russian literature, and though I often joke now that I got a college degree in reading, I really have no regrets.

Starting point is 00:06:10 Books have sustained me, nourished me, provided solace in lonely times, and in one case, inspired me to fall in love and subsequently changed my life. The books on my list are some of the books that have inspired and moved me over the course of my life. These books, as Marcel Proust's famous description of the Madeleine, ultimately reach the clear surface of my consciousness, this memory, this old dead moment, which the magnetism of an identical moment has traveled so far to importune, to disturb, to raise up out of the depths of my being, but when, from a long distant past, nothing subsists, after people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised in a long time, like souls remembering, waiting, hoping amid the ruins of all the rest and bear unflinchingly in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence the vast structure of recollection. The following books are some of my favorite and are told in the order of my

Starting point is 00:07:20 discovering them. The Little Golden Book of Words written written by Selma Lola Chambers, has been out of print for a long, long time. Originally published in 1948, it includes gorgeous illustrations by Gertrude Elliott, and it is one of the first books I ever remember reading. When I was trying to find the book again as an adult, I couldn't remember the title. I recalled it had little scraps of paper on the cover and featured different illustrations of pets and fruit. Somehow I remembered a carrot. I thought the book was about art, as the main image I had in my head was simply poignantly rendered color wheels. Long before eBay, I searched for the book in New York City flea markets, and finally I found it. But I discovered it wasn't a book about art.

Starting point is 00:08:07 Ironically enough, it's titled Words. But the color wheel was still there. The entire book is magical and perfect. In college, I read The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy Gentleman by Laurence Stern. It was first published in 1759. Stern incorporated other texts from other books, Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy, Francis Bacon's Of Death, and many more, into Tristram Shandy.

Starting point is 00:08:32 The book also references John Locke's theories of empiricism, the way we organize what we know about ourselves, via the power of association of our ideas, and employs visual techniques never, ever seen before in any book prior. The book is remarkable in that it precedes modernism, postmodernism, and conceptual art by utilizing these techniques—blank chapters, black chapters, white pages, playful type and doodles—and it was all done in 1759. The Life and Opinions of Trish Tram Shandy Gentleman is now seen as a forerunner of the use of stream of consciousness and self-reflexive writing. It

Starting point is 00:09:12 is mind-blowing in its entirety and one of the most inventive original books ever written. A book that I keep going back to over and over and is one that I included in my interview with Tim Ferriss in his book Tribe of Mentors is the anthology The Voice That Is Great Within Us, American Poetry of the 20th Century. Gorgeously, thoughtfully, and caphrally edited by Hayden Carruth, it was required reading in a summer college class I attended back in the early 1980s. This funny-looking book introduced me to my most treasured, deeply felt poem, Maximus to Himself by Charles Olson, which has since become the blueprint of my life, as well as the poetry of Denise Levertov, Adrienne Rich, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens,

Starting point is 00:09:59 and so many more. I still have my original copy, and though the cover has come off and the spine is cracked in numerous places, I will never replace it. I first read Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in the late 1980s. The book takes place in an unnamed port city in the Caribbean and remains unnamed throughout the novel. Headstrong for Mina Daza is the female lead in the story, and after a brief love affair through letters with Florentino Ariza, she ultimately rejects him and marries Juvenal Urbino. Lovesick and forlorn, Ariza is obsessed and tormented by his love for Formina Daza. It's no use, he tells his uncle at the beginning of the novel. Love is the only thing that interests me. And love he does.

Starting point is 00:10:42 Though Florentino Ariza believes that Fermina Daza is his soulmate and vows to remain faithful to her, he proceeds to engage in 662 affairs over the next 50 years. He does this while sincerely believing that he is saving his heart and his virginity for her. When Fermina's husband finally dies, Ariza immediately returns to her and she keep coming and going in this manner. Forever is his one-word reply. Love in the Time of Color is perhaps the most perfect book ever written. Perverse Optimist by Tibor Kalman and edited by Michael Beirut and Peter Hall truly influenced how I practice the discipline of design. Tibor Kalman was one of the most influential designers of the 20th century.

Starting point is 00:11:47 He founded the design firm Emmen Company, named for his wife, Myra Kalman, and produced groundbreaking work for The Talking Heads, Restaurant Florent, The Limited, and Interview Magazine. He also had a keen eye for great talent and hired the designers including Stefan Sagmeister, Stephen Doyle, Emily Oberman, Alexander Isley, Scott Stowell, and Alexander Brebner, who all went on to create their own firms or have joined other firms and have had great, great success. Perverse Optimist, first published one year after Tibor's death in 1999. It features anecdotes and commentary from Kalman's clients, his staff, his peers, and his friends. It is an incredible book about an incredible designer,

Starting point is 00:12:31 thinker, and bad boy provocateur. My next book is General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannan. We are now surrounded by a world of activity that can't be seen. The patterns produced by the world of activity that can't be seen. The patterns produced by the splash of a raindrop happen too fast for our eyes to catch. Is it possible we could direct our brains to see more? The authors of A General Theory of Love, written in 2001, write this. The scientist and artist both speak to the turmoil that comes from having a triune brain. A person cannot direct his

Starting point is 00:13:06 emotional life in the way he bids his motor system to reach for a cup. He cannot will himself to want the right thing, or to love the right person, or to be happy after a disappointment, or even to be happy in happy times. People lack this capacity not through a deficiency of discipline, but because of the jurisdiction of will is limited to the latest brain and to those functions within its purview. Emotional life can be influenced, but it cannot be commanded. Our society's love affair with mechanical devices that respond at a button touch does not prepare us to deal with the unruly organic mind that dwells within. Anything that does not comply must be broken or poorly designed. Which, as Charles Olson might say, makes for difficulties. Our neocordial brain has the ability to organize and convey logic and reason. The limbic brain

Starting point is 00:13:58 inspires and can involuntarily feel love. Yet, according to Lewis, the verbal rendition of emotional material demands a difficult transmutation. Poetry according to Lewis, the verbal rendition of emotional material demands a difficult transmutation. Poetry, a bridge between the neocortical and limbic brains, is simultaneously improbable and powerful. A General Theory of Love is a book about human love in all its forms and is written in a brilliant poetry-inspired narrative. I'm going to be talking about two books now together, Pattern Recognition by William Gibson and Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier. In his novel Pattern Recognition, William Gibson has one of his characters describe branding in this way, all truly viable advertising addresses the older, deeper mind, beyond language and logic,

Starting point is 00:14:42 you know in your limbic brain, the seat of instinct, the mammalian brain, deeper, wider, beyond logic. What we think of as mind is only a sort of jumped up gland piggybacking on the reptilian brainstem and the older mammalian mind, but it is our culture that tricks us into recognizing it as all of consciousness. The mammalian spreads continent-wide beneath it, mute and muscular, attending its ancient agenda. And it makes us buy things. I think that we do buy things to help us fit in and feel more comfortable, and being part of a larger tribe, so to speak, is no doubt one of the benefits of branding. Brands create intimate

Starting point is 00:15:25 worlds inhabitants can understand and where they can be somebody and feel as if they belong. I think Marty Neumeyer states it best when he confides his thoughts about tribes that he belongs to in his book, The Brand Gap. We can belong to the Callaway Club when we play golf, the Volkswagen Tribe when we drive to work, the Williams-Sonoma tribe when we cook a meal, the Nike club when we work out. He goes on to say, as a weekend athlete, my two nagging doubts are that I might be congenitally lazy and that I might have little actual ability, but I'm not really worried about my shoes. When the Nike folks say, just do it, they're peering into my soul. I begin to feel that if they understand me that well, their shoes are probably pretty good. I'm then willing to join the tribe of Nike. But to see the world in

Starting point is 00:16:12 Brandtribes is to take position of much more than just a theory of the world. It is to possess a theory of all the activity in it, perhaps an entire science and ethology that could tell us everything we want to know about human behavior. I think the way Neumeier describes brands is probably one of the most poetic and forgiving of the place that products now have in our lives. The mammalian part of our brain is indeed the part of the brain that makes us want to be part of a tribe. And I do think that we buy brands that make us feel part of that tribe in order to be able to participate in that tribe. But I think it goes deeper than that. We're buying brands and products to be part of a tribe because now,

Starting point is 00:16:48 in a day and age and culture and world we are living in, we are otherwise tribeless. We feel tribeless and disconnected because despite our technological connectedness, we are emotionally and physically further away from our friends and family than ever before in human history. We've now replaced our closeness with people with closeness with brands that at best can only represent that we are close to others. Pattern Recognition is a novel written in 2002 before Facebook and YouTube had launched, but somehow predicted the creation of both. The Brand Gap was written in 2005,

Starting point is 00:17:23 but it is one of the first books to present a unified theory of brand building. Individually, they're both great books, but together they provide a unique perspective that the power of brands have in our lives. Building Stories by Chris Ware Chris Ware's Building Stories, published in 2012, is so much more than a book. It is 14 individual experiences full of ennui, heartbreak, joy, and elation, humans living their lives stacked in a box, 14 interlocking stories of the residents of a Chicago apartment building. The 14 pieces and building stories

Starting point is 00:17:57 include a game board, a newspaper, two hardcover books, and various ephemera filled with lonely, frustrated people aching for connection. There's the one-legged 30-something woman who is also the central character, living on the top floor, frustrated with her husband gaining weight and wondering what happened to her dreams. There's a lonely old landlady living on the ground floor, a couple living in the middle floor with relationship problems, and Branford, the best bee in the world, who is truly a thinking

Starting point is 00:18:25 bee. The design is not limited to the story or the presentation of the book. It is central to the narrative. Building Stories is remarkable and sets the stage for an entirely new way of storytelling. My last book is the book Hunger by Roxane Gay. When I first read Roxane Gay's 2017 New York Times bestselling book, Hunger, a memoir of my body, I thought I was reading my own diary. Her words hit me like few other books have. I felt simultaneously seen, understood, and heard. All this from a book. Lines like, I'm full of longing and I am full of envy and so much of my envy is terrible, just pierced my heart. Mine was too. Then came this statement.

Starting point is 00:19:07 I was a gaping wound of need. I couldn't admit this to myself, but there was a pattern of intense emotional masochism, of throwing myself into the most dramatic relationships possible, of needing to be a victim of some kind over and over and over. That was something familiar, something I understood. Man, oh man, did I understand that. I understood it until, after a lot of therapy, I didn't understand it anymore. And then, in an aberrant moment of courage, I asked Roxanne to be a guest on my podcast. She said yes, then she said no. A year later, a generous friend put in a good word for me, and I took Roxanne Gay out on a proper date.

Starting point is 00:19:45 Five months later, she was finally a guest on my podcast, and one year later, we got engaged. Sometimes books take you to very unexpected places that change your life in every imaginable and unimaginable way. Thanks for listening. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun for the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email

Starting point is 00:20:19 where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend.

Starting point is 00:20:48 So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it.

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #472: Books I've Loved — Debbie Millman

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #472: Books I've Loved — Debbie Millman

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