“Eric Maisel (Coach­ing the Artist Within), a cre­ativ­ity coach and colum­nist, and wife Ann Maisel (What Would Your Char­ac­ter Do?) have col­lab­o­rated on a self-help book with an intrigu­ing twist: that the right kind of ‘pro­duc­tive’ obses­sion is not only desir­able but an essen­tial fea­ture of cre­ativ­ity. To lend cred­i­bil­ity to their claim the Maisels ref­er­ence research into con­scious­ness that sug­gests the cere­bral cor­tex con­tains dynamic coop­er­a­tives of neu­rons which may lay the foun­da­tion for ‘a pro­duc­tive obses­sion that is a large neu­ronal gestalt of long dura­tion — a big idea that lasts a long time.’

“In answer to the crit­i­cism that any obses­sion might be dan­ger­ous, the Maisels acknowl­edge that this pos­si­bil­ity hasn’t been thor­oughly inves­ti­gated but believe the gains out­weigh any poten­tial neg­a­tives. The process of nur­tur­ing pro­duc­tive obses­sions, the authors believe, is at the heart of how we value life and find pur­pose. It goes beyond sim­ple stim­u­la­tion, neat ideas, or inter­est­ing hob­bies. By ‘invest­ing mean­ing’ in our ideas, we can move from mere inter­est to ‘the mean­ing­ful­ness of authen­tic engage­ment.’ All too often peo­ple over­look the basics of a pro­duc­tive life, dis­tracted by mul­ti­task­ing, mar­ket­ing, and infor­ma­tion over­load. With this provoca­tive depar­ture from the usual lifestyle man­ual, the Maisels are out to break us of those ten­den­cies.” – Pub­lish­ers Weekly

“Accord­ing to the Oxford Eng­lish Dic­tio­nary I have on my shelf, an obses­sion is an unhealthy attach­ment to another per­son, being, object, or idea; a con­di­tion in need of a cure. Eric Maisel’s lat­est book is not about a con­di­tion in need of a cure. Instead he writes about the pro­duc­tive obses­sions at the heart of all mean­ing mak­ing. These are the big ideas and visions that great peo­ple pur­sue with the kind of devo­tion that is required to do any­thing long term and large scale. For artists of all kinds, Brain­storm: Har­ness­ing the Power of Pro­duc­tive Obses­sions is a pow­er­ful reminder that it takes the inten­sity and pain of an obses­sion to do any­thing grand, and that this is some­thing worth­while – some­thing that gives life mean­ing and is the best use of our time.

“In true Maisel style, the book doesn’t sim­plify or white­wash the dif­fi­culty inher­ent in mak­ing mean­ing. Maisel is deeply famil­iar with the exis­ten­tial demons and com­plex­i­ties that con­front artists, and is care­ful to present these and the artist’s obses­sive quest in a real­is­tic light. Fail­ure is always pos­si­ble – that’s part and par­cel of why the jour­ney is worth­while. Cre­ation always involves a leap into the unknown, but not just any unknown, an unknown that we’ve begun to per­ceive and are drawn to from some innate, true part of our­selves. The book is open about the rela­tion­ship between pro­duc­tive obses­sions – that is absorp­tion in an idea that becomes a project that becomes some kind of real­ized achieve­ment that ben­e­fits oth­ers, and unpro­duc­tive obses­sions that expend men­tal energy in the form of destruc­tive dis­trac­tions that involves more dream­ing than producing.

“Although Brain­storm explores a rea­son­ably eso­teric topic, the focus is prac­ti­cal, and takes a ‘self-help’ approach. Every word is addressed directly to the reader, with instruc­tions that are work­able and guided towards action:

Choose your pro­duc­tive obses­sion right now. Maybe you know exactly which one to select. Even if you’re pos­i­tive, give your idea a once-over and make sure it meets your cur­rent mean­ing needs and inten­tions. Maybe you have sev­eral good can­di­dates but aren’t sure which one to choose. Take your best guess, and com­mit to obsess­ing for a month.

“The book is divided into 28 short chap­ters, each of which explores some aspect of the process of turn­ing cre­ative obses­sions into pro­duc­tive obses­sions — that lead to some­thing con­crete — a paint­ing, a novel, a new busi­ness. A num­ber of the chap­ters con­clude with an anec­do­tal exam­ple of some­one who has achieved some­thing through obses­sion, while oth­ers con­clude with affir­ma­tions or quo­ta­tions. Through­out Brain­storm are exam­ples from Maisel’s own prac­tice, from his own expe­ri­ence, and from infor­ma­tion gained through his pro­duc­tive obses­sion group. This includes one, two and three week reports which make clear some of the issues that have con­fronted his team as they strug­gled to work with obses­sion, and how they were dealt with.

“Some of the key demons that con­front the pro­duc­tively obsessed are tack­led, such as the sheer amount of work that’s required to see an obses­sion through fruition, emo­tional con­flict, endurance, a lack of self-confidence, fear and risk. There are tips for deal­ing with each of these. For those who would fol­low the exam­ple set by Maisel and cre­ate their own pro­duc­tive obses­sion group, there are also tips for start­ing one up. Above all, this is a book that chal­lenges the cre­ative per­son to pri­or­i­tize and obsess about those things that mat­ter most – not to let the small scale dis­trac­tions that form the basis of most of our lives stop us from achiev­ing our true potential:

You can halt a brain­storm with a feather. All you have to do is keep look­ing up or look­ing away. All you have to do is to take no real inter­est in your own ideas. All you have to do is secretly doubt that your efforts mat­ter. All you have to do is get in the habit of call­ing your­self “eas­ily dis­tractible” and buy every avail­able dis­trac­tion. If you want to make absolutely sure that you will not be able to con­cen­trate, all you have to do is not com­mit. That will guar­an­tee that the slight­est change in baro­met­ric pres­sure will dis­tract you.

“Maisel’s work is all about how to live a mean­ing­ful life, through art or some other large cre­ative endeavor. In Brain­storm he addresses the reader as fel­low cre­ator, and encour­ages the most expan­sive per­spec­tive, and the most com­mit­ted, deep­est leap into mean­ing mak­ing. This is no triv­ial mes­sage. It’s at the heart of a pur­pose­ful life, and in a world where nearly all of the media mes­sages that are being bom­barded at us are focused on the oppo­site — con­sume, scan, move fast from one inter­est to the next, and live life lightly — this is crit­i­cally, utterly impor­tant. This is a book that should be read by all who want to live their life in a way that is vital and leaves some kind of legacy. It’s not about fame and for­tune, but rather, about ensur­ing that this brief span that we have on Earth is one that has value — where we leave some kind of impres­sion. There’s noth­ing that mat­ters more.” – Mag­gie Ball, blogcritics.org

“Eric Maisel is a hum­ble, bril­liant writer on cre­ativ­ity, a guru (though he would argue against the very term) to the stum­blers like me. Brain­storm: Har­ness­ing the Power of Pro­duc­tive Obses­sions breaks no new ground but instead takes Maisel’s notions of ‘mak­ing mean­ing’ and liv­ing through cre­ativ­ity to prod us towards obses­sion. Not the destruc­tive obses­sions end­lessly named and chron­i­cled in mem­oirs but what he calls ‘pro­duc­tive obsessions.’

“By giv­ing our­selves per­mis­sion to drop every­thing for real work, rather than every­day noth­ing­ness, by then ignit­ing a fire under­neath us to obsess over a big goal, we achieve and we light up our lives. As always, Maisel’s writ­ing is sup­ple and melodic, and the mes­sage set out in acces­si­ble chap­ters is fully prac­ti­cal. Quo­ta­tions from an Inter­net ‘obses­sion group’ run by the author add real-life exam­ples. Fas­ci­nat­ing side­bar his­tor­i­cal exam­ples, pre­sum­ably sourced by co-author Ann Maisel, illus­trate how weird and won­der­ful, and how inspir­ing, obses­sions can be.” – Andres Kabel, Cul­tural Pilgrim

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