Immerse Yourself In A Universe Of…
I once heard the author Robert Greene give advice to an aspiring musician. Robert listened to some of their music and thought the musician was talented. Then he simply said, “You must immerse yourself in a universe of music.”
Immersion—that is the theme of this SIX at 6…
Where Your Desired Behavior Is The Normal Behavior
Throughout Atomic Habits , James Clear writes that the most reliable thing you can do to create better habits is to immerse yourself in a universe “where your desired behavior is the normal behavior.” This is a benefit of going to the artists’ colony. Say you want to work in country music. The benefit of living in Nashville is not just that it’s where most of the action is. It’s that it’s where you’re surrounded by people who think it’s “normal” to work in country music. If instead you live in Maryland, you might be surrounded by people who tell you to stop wasting your time, to be more realistic, to pursue a more normal profession.
All Fired Up To Do Wonderful Puppetry
Jim Henson grew up in Maryland. From an early age, Jim Henson was obsessed with television. In 1954, the local TV station announced they were looking for “youngsters who can manipulate marionettes” for an upcoming segment. Jim didn’t know how to manipulate marionettes, so he went to the library and checked out two books and “immersed himself in a self-taught crash course in puppetry.” A couple days later, he went to the audition and got the job. After the experience, Jim began to consider a career in puppetry. He studied the great puppeteers, developed his own puppets, and created puppet comedy sketches. Then one day, Jim was holding one of his puppets when a teacher said to him, “you [are] wasting your time with those puppets.” Jim realized she was probably right, and from that point on, he said, “I didn’t take puppetry seriously…It didn’t seem to be the sort of thing a grown man works at for a living.” Not long after, “I decided to chuck it all.” He chucked his dream of being a puppeteer and “wandered over to Europe” with no real plan. It would turn out to be a turning point in his life. “In Europe,” Jim said, “everyone goes to puppet shows.” To his surprise, puppetry was a highly regarded art from in Europe. “That was the first time I’d ever met any other puppeteers,” he said. “I saw the work of a number of people…They were very serious about their work. It was at that point I realized the puppetry was an art form, a valid way to do really interesting things.” After being immersed in a universe where puppetry was taken seriously, Jim said, “I came back from that trip all fired up to do wonderful puppetry.” And for the rest of his life, he would do wonderful puppetry with his classic characters: Kermit the Frog, Bert and Ernie, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Cookie Monster, Big Bird, and on and on.
The Carpenter To The Stars
Before he was Han Solo or Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford was a carpenter. In 1964, Ford moved to Hollywood to become an actor. “But I arrived on a metaphoric bus full of people who had the same ambition,” he said. As Ford spent time around the other aspiring actors on that metaphoric bus, he became aware of something: Most of them were in a hurry. They were in a hurry to “make it” or to make lots of money or to prove something to someone. Whatever the reason, most were on a tight timeline. So Ford decided to do the opposite: to lengthen his timeline. To do so, Ford said, “I had to have another source of income. So I became a carpenter.” He chose carpentry for two reasons. First…when he first moved to Hollywood, he taught himself the basic carpentry skills needed to fix up his dilapidated house. He was immediately attracted to the process of fixing things, calling it “a form of meditation.” Second…he thought—since Hollywood is an everybody-knows-everybody kind of town—a carpentry job could lead to an acting job. Indeed. Ford became known as the “carpenter to the stars.” He immersed himself among a roster of clients that included Francis Ford Coppola, James Caan, Richard Dreyfuss, and Joan Didion. Most famously, in the early 1970s, Ford was building “an elaborate portico entrance” at Coppola’s offices where Coppola’s friend, George Lucas, was leading casting meetings for Star Wars. One day, Ford said, “I was asked by George if I would read with the other actors. There was no indication that I might be considered for a part in the film.” “I read with about 300 actors and weeks later, they asked me if I wanted to play Han Solo.”
The Great One
When he was 14 years old, Wayne Gretzky moved from a small town in Canada to the mecca of hockey, Toronto. He was undersized and after his first practice, his coach pulled him aside. “When you go home tonight,” the coach told Gretzky, “the Leafs are playing the Philadelphia Flyers—watch Bobby Clarke play.” Clarke was an undersized player on the Flyers who went on to be inducted into the NHL Hall of Fame. “And I studied him and I studied him and I studied him,” Gretzky said. “I would take out a piece of paper and draw a rink and then without looking at the paper, I’d watch the hockey game on TV, and I would take my pen and I’d follow the puck.” When Clarke got off the ice, Gretzky would look down at the paper and look for patterns. He observed that Clarke “played the game out of the corners, not so much in front of the net.” Gretzky immersed himself in Clarke’s style and when on the ice himself, “I started playing out of the corner and from behind the net…And I started using the net as a decoy. Consequently, I wasn’t standing in front of the net, getting knocked over, and being on my keister the whole time.” Consequently, Gretzky went on to set 61 NHL records—many of which he still holds—including most career regular season goals (894), assists (1,963), and points (2,857).
A Grand Unified Theory
In her book Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life, Winifred Gallagher calls it her grand unified theory: “your life—who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love—is the sum of what you focus on.” Your life is the sum of what you immerse yourself in.