Howard Stern is a Creative Genius

This past Saturday, Howard Stern, the famous radio personality, revolutionized social networking by providing real time commentary on Twitter while his 1997 moving Private Parts played on HBO. It was the first time a celebrity provided behind the scenes commentary on Twitter while their film played on TV and I’m sure film/TV execs all over the country are wondering how to make use of this in the future. It’s obvious that having a film/TV star provide this commentary real time provides a compelling reason for viewers to watch broadcasts live instead of using their DVRs.

It’s interesting to think why such a simple idea took so long to take place. Twitter has been around since 2006 and video commentary on DVD has been around for well over a decade. What makes this so original is that it’s happening live, it’s easy to set up, you can interact directly with the celebrity, and it’s free. The funny thing is that Howard only recently started using Twitter and was actively trying to figure out how best to use it for his show. Yesterday, when he started tweeting, it seemed like something spur of the moment and unplanned. It turned out to be something that changed the world.

This isn’t the first time that Howard Stern changed the world. In the last 30 years, he revolutionized the radio industry. Prior to him, radio DJs were primarily focused on playing music, briefly talking about the music, and making people aware of the radio station’s brand. The radio stations wanted people to tune in because of the music, not the DJs. The DJs were a commodity, and for the most part, they still are. Howard completely changed the model and soon the radio industry discovered that someone with the right talent and creative energy could make people tune in.

What he is most known for is his brutally honest on air delivery, where he’s not afraid to say what he thinks. Others after him have imitated that approach, and many have become moderately successful doing it, but Howard was always and is still the world’s best at it. I personally think he’s the best interviewer on the planet. He has a way of asking questions that no one else will ask (because they are afraid to, or they aren’t creative enough to think of them). For some reason, even for the toughest, most personal questions, people will still answer the questions. I don’t know how he does it, but he’s a world-class interviewer.

However, the radio isn’t the only thing he does. He’s also a bestselling author, created a sitcom, starred in/co-authored a box-office hit film, and saved satellite radio, all of which require plenty of creativity.

Does Howard create art?

In my Skills to Pay the Bills post, I quoted Seth Godin: “Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient.” Howard’s art is that he makes millions of people laugh every day, which is ultimately a gift in happiness. His humor might be too crude for you, but you can’t argue that he makes a lot of people happy. He changed how people viewed the radio industry, how they think about entertainment, the meaning of being “brutally honest”, and the difference between a good interview and a world-class interview.

Seth Godin’s states in his book “Linchpin” that “passion is a desire, insistence, and willingness to give a gift…People with passion look for ways to make things happen. The combination of passion and art is what makes someone a Linchpin.” Howard has passion in droves. It’s probably led to the end of his marriage with his first wife. His insistence to stand his ground on what he believed in led to his firings at DC 101 and WNBC; while also leading to his battle with the FCC and ultimately led him to leave terrestrial radio to go to Sirius.

This passion to do what he believed is right and the art that he creates every day made him the King of All Media.

Howard’s left and right sides of the brain

In my post Left Brain vs Right Brain, I talk about the differences between the left side and right sides of the brain. The left side rationalizes and is analytical; it thinks in a linear fashion. The right side is creative and thinks visually using your mind’s eye. It’s where we get our great ideas and epiphanies. Most of us, only use one side or the other. The engineers, programmers, accountants, lawyers, and business men of the world are left brained thinkers. It’s what we are taught in school and is what was traditionally valued in the 20th and 21st centuries. The right brained thinkers are the artists, designers, writers, and musicians of the world. What’s rare is the person who can think with both sides of their brain. These are the innovators who can truly change the world.

Howard is one of those people. He’s both an analytical, logical left brain thinker, and a creative right brained thinker.

Left Side

Howard likes to analyze everything. He constantly does this on air and it’s the way he digs into the core of an issue. He’s also extremely organized. He has a great producer, but I feel that if Gary wasn’t around, Howard could still make everything work. To me, he seems like other engineers I know, very smart and logical. Howard even has a Radio Engineering Institute of Electronics degree. Both of his parents seem to be analytical, which seems to have been passed down to him.

Right Side

All of Howard’s bits are built from pure creativity. He has great instincts when creating something new, whether it’s creating new characters, scripting a bit, creating a new TV show, coming up with a list of interview questions, developing a new game, etc. I think the most powerful thing about Howard is that he sees the world more clearly than the rest of us. He has vision, and can see what the future will bring.

Howard early on started practicing transcendental meditation on a daily basis. Transcendental meditation has been known to stimulate creativity and has also been known to use both the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Although I don’t remember Howard stating that meditation was a factor in his success, I believe that the amazing work he does in the studio, the ideas that he comes up with, and his clarity of thought all has to do with his daily meditation regimen.

How did he become the best in the world at what he does?

The Skills to Pay the Bills post was about how being the best isn’t about genetics or innate ability. It’s really about taking the time to practice deliberately at your craft. To become world class, you need 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. Generally, that means 10 years of very hard work.

Howard’s father was in the radio business (he owned a recording studio) and Howard took an interest in radio when he was five. When he was a child, he would practice making recordings of himself on the radio. Eventually, he went to college to study Communications, worked at the college radio station, and eventually graduated when he was 22. By that time, he probably had well over 10 years under his belt of deliberate practice. His father mentored him before college, he had a lot of formal education, and then experience in the college radio station. He might not have been world class yet at that point, but he was close to it.

By the time he reached Detroit at age 26, I think he understood what he needed to do. At that point he understood the need to be honest on the air, which was one of his key innovations in radio. I feel that the many years of practice gave him the knowledge, experience, technique which eventually led to his innovations in comedy and radio. 

Skills to Pay the Bills

All artists, whether it’s a painter, draftsman, writer, musician, actor, or anyone else, need to have a certain level of proficiency before creating their art. For art at the highest level, art that changes the world, that proficiency will likely be at the world-class level. Even for art that changes a single individual or small number of people, the artist will need to have some skill. That skill involves technique that is learned over time.

Time to develop that skill is crticial for developing artists. Geoff Colvin’s excellent book  “Talent is Overrated” and Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” both describe that many years (10 actually)  or many hours (10,000 hours actually) of deliberate practice are required to become world-class at anything. This theory contradicts the prevalent assumption that the people who are the best in the world at something got that way from genetics or innate talent, not practice. I’m fully convinced that this deliberate practice is necessary for excelling at anything that requires skill, including art and building innovative products.

I view that the artist needs to develop his craft prior to creating good art. I personally try to do this when drawing by focusing on specific techniques when I practice. For example, lately at least twice a week (I wish I could do this more, but I have a day job), I go to Starbucks and spend an hour working on either an “angles and lines” technique to practice proportions, modeling factors to practice realistic shading, or anatomy. The deliberate practice can occasionally get boring, but I know I’m stretching my skills and I’m getting better.

It’s actually the same when I train for triathlons. Six days a week I work out by either running, biking, or swimming, and I’ll also lift weights three times a week. All of these activities are deliberate practice activities. Sometimes I’m working on a “fast” run to build up my speed. Other times I’m intentionally running slow, but for a longer distance, to teach my body how to properly use fat, while maintaining a low heartrate. My swim sessions are full of drills that focus on technique. In all cases, the end goal for all of my workouts, is to get better – either through technique, speed, or endurance.

To become world class takes time. I started drawing a couple years ago and I started training for triathlons last year. Based on Colvin’s book, if I consistently practice drawing for 10 years, I might become one of the world’s best. I don’t doubt that is true and I feel I could do it if I keep it up. Unfortunately, I’m getting older and I regret that I didn’t start when I was a lot younger. I don’t plan on changing careers – although it would be interesting to retire from my current job and work on creating world-class art in my retirement. Triathlons, and pretty much any other sport that requires strenuous activity, are different. Since we are all fighting age and the human body typically peaks for most sports in the late teens or early twenties, that makes it difficult for all of us to take up these sports at an older age, and expect to excel at them. In this case, for triathlons, I’m happy to just slowly improve over time while keeping in shape.

Deliberate practice also affects the innovator. In this case, the software developer, the program manager in product development, or designer can spend many years working on their craft. Part of this is acquiring domain knowledge. Darwin spent many years studying geology and biology before coming up with his theory of natural selection. Most people assume that innovation happens in a “eureka” moment, where the inventor comes up with the idea out of nowhere. In some cases, the innovator themselves, think that’s the case, because they happen onto the idea while they are daydreaming or doing something else. Einstein said that his best ideas came from when he was shaving. I’ll describe why this is the case in a few of my future posts, but for now I’ll simply say that the years of acquiring domain knowledge in their area of expertise directly affected these “eureka” moments.

But technique and skill doesn’t make art. It is just a foundation to build on. As Seth Godin writes in “Linchpin”

Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient.

An artist is an individual who creates art. The more people you change, the more you change them, the more effective your art is.

Art is not related to craft, except to the extent that the craft helps deliver the change.

I personally believe that you need both technique/skill and this other thing, which I’ll call creativity for now, to create art. The next few blog posts will build up to a framework that describes how you use both to become more innovative and creative by tapping into the artist in all of you.