Tag Archives: Twyla Tharp
The Newest Art Book about Business Makes a Splash
Occasionally, we have presented an art-based book at the First Friday Book Synopsis over the past 20 years. The most famous was a best-seller which is one of Randy Mayeux‘s all-time favorites, entitled The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it For Life (Simon & Schuster, 2006) by Twyla Tharp.
So, it is not surprising that a new best-seller about creativity has caught our eye for potential presentation. On June 6, 2017, Real Artists Don’t Starve: Timeless Strategies for Thriving in the New Creative Age, written by Jeff Goins, was released by Thomas Nelson Publishers.
We will monitor the performance of this book on the best-seller lists, and make a later determination about whether we will present it at a future First Friday Book Synopsis.
The book was an instant hit. As of this writing, it is in the top 50 in three Amazon.com best-selling sub-categories. It debuted at #6 on last week’s Wall Street Journal business best-seller list (June 17-18, 2017, p. C 10).
Who is Jeff Goins? According to Amazon.com, he is “a writer, speaker, and entrepreneur. He is the best-selling author of five books, including The Art of Work and Real Artists Don’t Starve. His award-winning blog Goinswriter.com is visited by millions of people every year. He lives with his family just outside of Nashville, where he makes the world’s best guacamole.”
In Inc.com, on March 9, 2017, Benjamin J. Hardy, interviewed Goins about the myth that artists must starve. Here is that interview. The exact URL is:
https://www.inc.com/benjamin-p-hardy/review-of-real-artists-dont-starve-by-jeff-goins.html
On a plane ride across the country, I just devoured Jeff Goins’ new book, Real Artists Don’t Starve, set to be published in early June of this year.
This book was extremely well written, filled with numerous stories from both historical and modern artists.
The premise is simple: A myth has been perpetuated for generations that artists must starve. This myth has stopped countless people from thriving as artists.
We’ve all been fed this lie since we were children. Hence, so many kids grow up to pursue “safe” college degrees and safe careers because being an artist of some form is perceived in our culture as “risky.” Only the “lucky” make it we’re taught.
Goins’ entire book is a strategy guide about how to thrive as an artist in the digital age.
As one who has personally been mentored by Goins, I can attest to his principles. In January of 2016, I reached out to Goins. Actually, I purchased 20 copies of his book, The Art of Work, as part of a promotion he was running. By purchasing those 20 copies, I was afforded a 30 minute phone call with the man. He generously gave me closer to an hour.
At the time of that call, I had approximately 10,000 email subscribers to my blog. I was very anxious to get a traditional book deal, as most young writers are. However, Goins told me to wait. Here’s almost word-for-word what he said (I was taking notes):
If you wait a year or two, you’ll get a 10x bigger advance, which will change the trajectory of your whole career. With 20K email subscribers, a writer can get around a $20-40K book advance. But with 100-200K email subscribers, a writer can get around a $150-500K book advance. Wait a year or two and change the trajectory of your career (and life).
I followed his advice and waited the duration of 2016, during which time I went from 10,000 to over 100,000 email subscribers. In February of 2017, I signed a $220,000 book contract with Hachette Book Group.
Had I not had that conversation with Goins, I may have jumped the gun and gotten a substantially lower deal, and been less mature as a writer. A concept Goins conveys in the book is the importance of knowing your value, and charging that value, for your work.
The entire book is filled with numerous strategies embedded within three sections:
- Mindsets
- Marketing
- Money
In the first section on mindset, Goins walks the reader through the mindsets needed to shed the false belief of the starving artist.
In the second section on marketing, Goins walks the reader through the development of a platform and key relationships that make a creative career possible.
In the third section on money, Goins teaches how to build a portfolio and diversify your income streams so you have the freedom to develop a long-term career as an artist.
If you want a motivational punch in the face coupled with a buffet of practical strategies, pre-order a copy of Real Artists Don’t Starve. Your future self will thank you when you read the book this summer.
We Have Change Covered for You – Our Three Public Workshops: November 12-13
No matter what your circumstances, you WILL deal with change in any organization, and no matter how you want to work with it, we have you covered….
Please spread the word about our November 12-13 public workshops on change. We hold these three workshops at the Richardson Civic Center, and to facilitate interaction among the participants, we limit seating to the first twenty persons registered for each program. See additional discounts at the bottom of this blog.
Our schedule and details follow:
Wednesday, November 12 – 8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
MANAGING CHANGE Facilitator: Randy Mayeux
In the midst of ever-increasing change, the ability to manage your own effectiveness is now required for virtually every position in an organization. In this program, learn how to turn change into a powerful competitive advantage, and into a friend, rather than an enemy. Register for this program if you want to:
- cope with change you must implement
- work in a change-friendly environment
- reduce personal anxiety about change
- produce an environment of freedom
- look for positive changes to implement
- use change as a tool to boost productivity and effectiveness
Price: $695.00 per person,* which includes breakfast, manual, and “work-with’s”
Wednesday, November 12 – 1:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION FROM CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE EXPERTS Facilitator: Randy Mayeux
Randy will brief you on four separate business books on creativity and innovation, and build on the transferable principles from these books. Each participant receives a copy of all four books.
Part 1: Think Creatively
- Identify strategies to actively seek out and hire people with diverse backgrounds and thinking styles
- Explore steps to effectively manage resistance to novel or experimental proposals
Part 2: Demonstrate How to Develop Processes, Products, and Services
- Describe how to evaluate new opportunities unconstrained by existing paradigms but keeping an eye towards organizational goals
- Identify and describe steps to maintain the organization’s competitive edge with breakthrough solutions and disciplined risks
The four books are: (1) The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp, (2) The Ten Steps of Innovation by Tom Kelley, (3) Weird Ideas That Work by Robert Sutton, and (4) Creativity, Inc., by Jeff Mauzy and Richard Harriman
Price: $775.00 per person,* which includes lunch, manual, four books, and “work-with’s”
Thursday, November 13 – 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
LEADING CHANGE Facilitator: Karl J. Krayer, Ph.D.
Why sit in the passenger’s seat for the next change initiative in your organization? Instead, sit in the driver’s seat and lead it! Your organization can maintain productivity and achieve results while in the midst of change by following three key principles to make the initiative you lead to be: (1) inclusive, (2) systemic, and (3) systematic. Register for this workshop if you want to:
- take a proactive approach to an issue, problem, or opportunity
- gain commitment by influencing others affected by a change
- measure and evaluate the effectiveness of a change initiative
- design a change initiative that you can implement in an inclusive, systemic, and systematic way
- boost the positive impact of a change initiative that you organize
Each participant receives a copy of Karl’s book, Organizing Change.
Price: $1,370 per person,* which includes breakfast and lunch, manual, CDROM template, book, and “work-with’s”
———————————————-
*SPECIAL DISCOUNTS
Both MANAGING CHANGE and CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION FROM CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE EXPERTS for $1,200 (save $270)
Either MANAGING CHANGE or CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION FROM CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE EXPERTS and LEADING CHANGE for $1,770 (save $375)
Best value – all three workshops for $2,200 (save $540)
We offer discounts for multiple registrants from the same organization with a single payment:
- 2nd person – receives 10% discount from the per-person price
- 3rd person – receives 15% discount from the per-person price
- 4th person – receives 20% discount from the per-person price
- 5th person – receives 25% discount from the per-person price
————————————————
REGISTRATION AND CONTACT INFORMATION
You can use this registration form and return it to us. Simply click on the image below and you will see a full, printable page.
If you prefer, we can also mail, fax, or e-Mail this registration form to you.
We are glad to answer questions from you, so please call or send an e-Mail. The number is (972) 980-0383. The e-Mail is:
We look forward to hearing from you.
We Have Change Covered For You – Three Great Public Workshops in November
No matter what your circumstances, you WILL deal with change in any organization, and no matter how you want to work with it, we have you covered….
Please spread the word about our November 12-13 public workshops on change. We hold these three workshops at the Richardson Civic Center, and to facilitate interaction among the participants, we limit seating to the first twenty persons registered for each program. We offer an early-bird discount of 10% for all registrations paid on or before October 20. See additional discounts at the bottom of this blog.
Our schedule and details follow:
Wednesday, November 12 – 8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
MANAGING CHANGE Facilitator: Randy Mayeux
In the midst of ever-increasing change, the ability to manage your own effectiveness is now required for virtually every position in an organization. In this program, learn how to turn change into a powerful competitive advantage, and into a friend, rather than an enemy. Register for this program if you want to:
- cope with change you must implement
- work in a change-friendly environment
- reduce personal anxiety about change
- produce an environment of freedom
- look for positive changes to implement
- use change as a tool to boost productivity and effectiveness
Price: $695.00 per person,* which includes breakfast, manual, and “work-with’s”
Wednesday, November 12 – 1:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION FROM CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE EXPERTS Facilitator: Randy Mayeux
Randy will brief you on four separate business books on creativity and innovation, and build on the transferable principles from these books. Each participant receives a copy of all four books.
Part 1: Think Creatively
- Identify strategies to actively seek out and hire people with diverse backgrounds and thinking styles
- Explore steps to effectively manage resistance to novel or experimental proposals
Part 2: Demonstrate How to Develop Processes, Products, and Services
- Describe how to evaluate new opportunities unconstrained by existing paradigms but keeping an eye towards organizational goals
- Identify and describe steps to maintain the organization’s competitive edge with breakthrough solutions and disciplined risks
The four books are: (1) The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp, (2) The Ten Steps of Innovation by Tom Kelley, (3) Weird Ideas That Work by Robert Sutton, and (4) Creativity, Inc., by Jeff Mauzy and Richard Harriman
Price: $775.00 per person,* which includes lunch, manual, four books, and “work-with’s”
Thursday, November 13 – 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
LEADING CHANGE Facilitator: Karl J. Krayer, Ph.D.
Why sit in the passenger’s seat for the next change initiative in your organization? Instead, sit in the driver’s seat and lead it! Your organization can maintain productivity and achieve results while in the midst of change by following three key principles to make the initiative you lead to be: (1) inclusive, (2) systemic, and (3) systematic. Register for this workshop if you want to:
- take a proactive approach to an issue, problem, or opportunity
- gain commitment by influencing others affected by a change
- measure and evaluate the effectiveness of a change initiative
- design a change initiative that you can implement in an inclusive, systemic, and systematic way
- boost the positive impact of a change initiative that you organize
Each participant receives a copy of Karl’s book, Organizing Change.
Price: $1,370 per person,* which includes breakfast and lunch, manual, CDROM template, book, and “work-with’s”
———————————————-
*SPECIAL DISCOUNTS
Take 10% off the listed price for all registrations received by October 20
Both MANAGING CHANGE and CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION FROM CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE EXPERTS for $1,200 (save $270)
Either MANAGING CHANGE or CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION FROM CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE EXPERTS and LEADING CHANGE for $1,770 (save $375)
Best value – all three workshops for $2,200 (save $540)
We offer discounts for multiple registrants from the same organization with a single payment:
- 2nd person – receives 10% discount from the per-person price
- 3rd person – receives 15% discount from the per-person price
- 4th person – receives 20% discount from the per-person price
- 5th person – receives 25% discount from the per-person price
————————————————
Registration and Contact Information:
We can mail, fax, or e-Mail a registration form to you. We are glad to answer questions from you, so please call or send an e-Mail. The number is (972) 980-0383. The e-Mail is:
We look forward to hearing from you.
Twyla Tharp and Steve Jobs – (There are Good Tough Bosses and Bad Tough Bosses…)
Everybody probably has a bad boss horror story or two. And there are some genuine horror stories out there.
But, there are good bad tough bosses and bad tough bosses. What is the difference? One difference may be this: is the boss tough because the end result is worth all the coaching, coaxing, demonstrating, demanding, until the people get it right?
I think Steve Jobs and Twyla Tharp are two great exemplars of this kind of tough boss.
I recently ran across this wonderful 2006 article about the Kennedy Center Honoree Twyla Tharp, To Dance Beneath the Diamond Skies by Alex Witchel. Here are some key excerpts:
But it is probably time to say this: There was not a person in that theater, including the 19 performers, musicians and production staff, who did not admire Tharp. Those new to her are scared of her, those used to her are over her, because they know that behind the barking lies a devotion to them, to the work — always, always the work — that is religious in its fervor. Yes, she is a control freak, a perfectionist, a zealot in forming a vision and stopping at nothing to see it realized. But when it is realized, when her dances are good-better-best, flying off the stage like some biblical fire on a mountaintop, there is nothing in the world like them. Twenty-three years ago, Robert Joffrey said that Tharp’s work “didn’t look like anyone else’s.” It still doesn’t.
“There is nothing in the world like them.” The end result may just be worth the cost it took to get there. She simply made the best better. And she also made the “average” much better than ever before. In her book, The Collaborative Habit, Tharp wrote:
As a choreographer, my task is to make the best possible work with the dancers I find in the room on any given day.
This is simply the greatest description of the day-to-day work of being the boss I have ever read. It is the job of the boss (manager, supervisor) to make the best possible work with the people in the room, on the team, at any given time.
By the way, there is a wonderful story in the article about the time Twyla Tharp had to show Baryshnikov how it needed to be done:
Huot sat at one of the computers and played footage of Baryshnikov in rehearsal. “What’s that?” Tharp asked shortly. “This is the one where he can’t do what you do,” Huot said, his tone gently teasing. “It’s your favorite thing in the world, which is why I kept it for you.” On the tape, Baryshnikov held a cigarette, shirtless, as Tharp demonstrated the steps. Hers were vivid, crisp. His were blurry, indistinct. Impatiently, she showed him again. He turned away.
“That’s right, go pout,” Tharp said mockingly to the screen. The next shots were of him in performance, his steps breathtaking. “Yeah, he got it,” Tharp said.
She knew how to do the steps; she demonstrated the steps, and she pushed Baryshnikov until he “got it.”
…To be a Tharp dancer is to master complex, intricate movements and steps that can defy gravity — in 1975 Baryshnikov told The Times: “It is very difficult to learn her steps.. . .One variation alone took me three weeks to learn, working a few hours every day.”
Regarding Jobs, the stories are endless, and somewhat legendary. He certainly could be something of a world-class pain to work with. But, he too could bring out the very best in people – more than they knew they had in them. Consider these revealing excerpts from the Walter Isaacson book, Steve Jobs:
For all of his obnoxious behavior, Jobs also had the ability to instill in his team an esprit de corps. After tearing people down, he would find ways to lift them up and make them feel that being part of the Macintosh project was an amazing mission. Every six months he would take most of his team on a two-day retreat at a nearby resort.
Jobs had latched onto what he believed was a key management lesson from his Macintosh experience: You have to be ruthless if you want to build a team of A players. “It’s too easy, as a team grows, to put up with a few B players, and they then attract a few more B players, and soon you will even have some C players,” he recalled. “The Macintosh experience taught me that A players like to work only with other A players, which means you can’t indulge B players.”
“What I’m best at doing is finding a group of talented people and making things with them,” he told the magazine.
Business Week asked him why he treated employees so harshly, Jobs said it made the company better.
…and his great talent, Jobs said, was to “get A performances out of B players.” At Apple, Jobs told him, he would get to work with A players.
The literature about leadership is pretty unanimous about this key role a leader plays. In Liz Wiseman’s book, Multipliers, she writes that the leader has to “multiply” the good effects of the workers, and never diminish them. A good leader “multiplies’ the results of the workers he/she leads. In Kouzes and Pozner’s Encouraging the Heart, they argue that for people to be their best, they must be encouraged, in their hearts, by the one who leads them. And when they are so encouraged, they become more productive, actually better at their jobs.
Whatever Twyla Tharp and Steve Jobs had, or did, it worked. They both developed quite a track record of bringing out the very best in the people who worked for them. (Of course, Twyla Tharp is still at it…).
If you are a leader, this is the test, isn’t it? Are you making your people better? Are you pushing them to do more than they even knew they could do? Are you making the average much better, and the best even better still?
If not, you’ve got some leadership skills to develop.
Creativity is a Verb, and feels like Hard Work – insight from Jonah Lehrer, Imagine
I have now read enough about creativity to know that we have our work cut out for us.
What we think, what we wish, is that creative ideas just fall from the sky in blinding moments of inspiration. That does happen, but… But, just as Twyla Tharp says in The Creative Habit, and Jonah Lehrer confirms in his thorough study of creativity, creative breakthroughs are the result of specific practices (“habits”), serious attention to work places, and work styles, and many, many interactions and connections, and work discipline…
Yes, breakthroughs may come suddenly, but they come at the end of some very hard and serious work. And then, when the breakthrough arrives, there is much more hard work to do to turn the idea into something real. Here’ s a key quote from the Lehrer book:
I think people need to be reminded that creativity is a verb, a very time-consuming verb. It’s about taking an idea in your head, and transforming that idea into something real. And that’s always going to be a long and difficult process. If you’re doing it right, it’s going to feel like work.”
Our future depends on our creative work leading to those creative breakthroughs. So, we all need to get to work…
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If you are in the DFW area, come join us this Friday, May 4, at the First Friday Book Synopsis. I will present my synopsis of Imagine: How Creativity Works, and Karl Krayer will present his synopsis of Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success by Rory Vaden. 7:00 am at the Park City Club. Click here to register.
Charles Dickens, Twyla Tharp, Steve Jobs – Focus; Focus on the Core, the Spine
The first steps of a creative act are like groping in the dark: random and chaotic, feverish and fearful, a lot of busy-ness with no apparent or definable end in sight. There is nothing yet to research. For me, these moments are not pretty. I look like a desperate woman, tortured by the simple message thumping away in my head: “You need an idea.”
You need a tangible idea to get you going. The idea, however miniscule, is what turns the verb into a noun – paint into a painting, sculpt into sculpture, write into writing, dance into a dance.
…Spine, to put it bluntly, begins with your first strong idea. You were scratching to come up with an idea, you found one, and through the next stages of creative thinking you nurtured it into the spine of your creation. The idea is the toehold that gets you started. The spine is the statement you make to yourself outlining your intentions for the work… If you stick to your spine, the piece will work. (emphasis added).
Twyla Tharp — The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life (A Practical Guide)
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I was listening to NPR the other day. It was the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens. Any author that receives a segment on his 200th birthday (plus a birthday party at Westminster Abbey) qualifies as a significant author. But we didn’t need NPR to tell us that.
In the midst of the story by Linda Wertheimer (Dickens At 200: A Birthday You Can’t ‘Bah Humbug’), this paragraph jumped out.
Novelist Jennifer Egan is a fan who came back to the books and unexpectedly found that Dickens felt modern.
“The way that Dickens structured his books has a form that we most readily recognize now from, say, the great TV series, like The Wire or The Sopranos,” says Egan. “There’s one central plot line, but then from that spin off all kinds of subplots. And so he would go off in all sorts of directions and create these amazing secondary characters who would go in and out of focus. But then there was also this sort of central spinal column of a plot that he would return to.”
“This sort of central spinal column of a plot…” When I heard this, I remembered the section about “spine” from Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit. To Tharp, you need an idea! And then, that idea has to be attached to the “spine,” and the “spine” is what centers the piece, centers the project, centers the “idea.”
This idea of “spine” reminds me of the Steve Jobs decision, upon his return to Apple. Apple had too many products in the pipeline. They were too unfocused. They had lost their spine. Jobs got rid of practically every project except the core two or three. Jobs helped them re-find and remember their spine.
Call it backbone, but don’t think just of courage; think of connection to the core, connection to the central idea. Consider the dictionary definition of spinal column: “constituting a central axis or chief support.” Everything is connected to, and supported by, the spinal column. You can’t have a body, a structure, a company without that central axis or chief support.
The word spine is also the word used to hold the pages of a book together. No spine, no book – just a loose connection of pages.
Business books use many words to describe this concept: focus; core product… but here is the clear principle: have a solid, sound, unshakeable core.
In the devotional classic, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, the main character, Christian, is trying to cross the river. The water is moving rapidly; the water is rising, and he is about to go under. But Hopeful calls out from the midst of the same dangerous river:
Then they addressed themselves to the water, and entering, Christian began to sink, and crying out to his good friend Hopeful, he said, I sink in deep waters; the billows go over my head; all his waves go over me.
And Hopeful calls out: “Be of good cheer, my brother, for I feel the bottom, and it is sound.”
“Feel the bottom.” Get the spine right. Get the core product, the core principle, the core service right. Don’t go off chasing anything that is not utterly connected to your core – your spine.
Dickens, and Tharp, and Jobs, and Bunyan had it right.
What is your spine?