#83 Brian Koppelman: What Really Matters
Writer and director Brian Koppelman discusses his journey through career ups and downs, emphasizing daily routines like meditation and morning pages to combat fear and anxiety. He shares insights on pursuing creative dreams, the writing process, and living a meaningful life by embracing work and connection.
Deep Dive Analysis
15 Topic Outline
Introduction to Brian Koppelman and His Work
Brian Koppelman's Meditation Practice
The Practice of Morning Pages
Overcoming Fear and Creative Resistance
Embracing Your Creative Identity and Dreams
The Writing Process for Film and Television
Inside a Television Writer's Room
Differences Between Writing for TV and Movies
Cornerstones of Effective Storytelling
Fascination with Hedge Funds and Billionaires
Creating Morally Ambiguous Characters in Billions
Dealing with Career Setbacks and Resilience
Reflections on Living a Meaningful Life
The Clarifying Power of Contemplating Death
Brian Koppelman's Reading Habits
5 Key Concepts
Morning Pages
A technique described by Julia Cameron in 'The Artist's Way' involving writing three longhand pages of stream-of-consciousness every morning. The purpose is to tip subconscious thoughts onto the page, free the writer from productivity blocks, and lighten one's mental state over time.
Resistance
A concept from Steven Pressfield's 'War of Art,' which Brian Koppelman interprets as the internal 'stuff' that prevents people from doing creative work or taking risks. Overcoming it by doing the work leads to a better version of oneself, regardless of external results.
Result Thinking
The tendency to over-calculate or game out potential outcomes, which can lead to self-sabotage by making the odds seem insurmountable. Koppelman suggests that focusing on the process and building momentum is more effective than dwelling on results.
Momentum and Inertia
Powerful forces that can be harnessed in creative work. Committing to doing something for a few days, and then continuing, builds momentum that propels one forward, making it easier to sustain effort.
Beats (in writing)
In the context of screenwriting and teleplays, beats are the flow of scenes that make up a section of the story. After outlining, writers break the story into these beats, and then into individual scenes.
11 Questions Answered
He started practicing Transcendental Meditation at age 43, after struggling with anxiety and writer's block. He was influenced by David Lynch's book 'Catching the Big Fish' and sought a tool to calm his mind and facilitate his work.
Morning Pages, as codified by Julia Cameron, involve writing three longhand pages of stream-of-consciousness every morning with a pen or pencil. This practice helps to externalize subconscious thoughts, overcome creative blocks, and foster a lighter mental state.
He realized that allowing his creative impulses to die would be toxic and negatively impact his relationships. He committed to doing the work daily, understanding that the act of creation itself, rather than external results, brought fulfillment and dissipated fear.
Brian suggests that if you want to do something, just do it. He started by waking up an hour earlier to write, demonstrating that consistent, small efforts (e.g., one page a day) can lead to significant progress over time without needing to quit a job.
The process starts with identifying a fascinating world, conducting extensive research and interviews, developing characters, outlining a story structure with conflict, breaking the outline into 'beats' and then individual scenes, and finally writing the dialogue.
The showrunners (like Brian and his partner) lead a team of writers to develop episode outlines. These outlines are then shared with the team for notes, refined, and shared with the network (e.g., Showtime) for further feedback before drafting the teleplay.
A good story, whether professional or casual, has an inciting incident, a beginning, a middle that builds to a climax, and a resolution. Brian believes everyone inherently knows how to tell a story to engage an audience, and professional storytellers are simply more practiced at recognizing and addressing elements that hinder engagement.
He was drawn to the idea of ultra-wealthy individuals acting as 'nation states' with immense power, and the United States attorneys who, like 'kings,' wielded significant discretion. He wanted to explore the conflict between these forces and question why characteristics like facile intellect and raw charisma often captivated the public more than true character.
The key is to give the character immense personal charisma, charm, intelligence, and self-justification, while also showing them doing terrible things. This forces the audience to question their own loyalties and what it means to root for such a figure, aiming to make viewers more discerning in real life.
After a movie bombed and he was told his career might be over, he felt 'cataclysmic' and miserable. He reminded himself of 'first principles' – that he didn't need external validation to be a creative person. He started new projects like his podcast and short screenwriting lessons, essentially talking to himself to regain control by focusing on what he could do.
He believes it involves doing meaningful work, being good to others, contributing societally, and for him and his wife, raising their children. Simple practices like meditation, morning pages, exercise, eating well, and contemplating the finite nature of life also contribute to clarity and deeper connection.
25 Actionable Insights
1. Embrace Creative Impulses
Allow yourself to pursue your creative impulses and do the work, as suppressing them can lead to bitterness, jealousy, and toxicity that harms you and your relationships.
2. Practice Daily Morning Pages
Write three longhand pages of stream-of-consciousness every morning, without crafting sentences, to tip subconscious thoughts onto the page, free productivity blocks, and feel lighter.
3. Daily Transcendental Meditation
Meditate twice a day for 20 minutes (morning and afternoon) to outsmart doubt and fear, calm internal voices, and improve your overall well-being and interactions with others.
4. Self-Identify Through Action
Define yourself by consistently doing the work of your desired identity (e.g., ‘I am a writer because I write every day’), rather than waiting for external validation.
5. Consistent Daily Effort
Dedicate a small, consistent amount of time (e.g., a half-hour to an hour) each day to your passion, as even one page a day accumulates into significant output over a year.
6. Build Momentum Through Commitment
Avoid over-calculating the odds; instead, commit to doing something for a few days and then continue daily to build powerful momentum that propels you forward.
7. Contemplate Life’s Finite Nature
Understand that everything you love will eventually be gone; this awareness clarifies what truly matters, deepens love, and encourages being more expansive and giving in the present.
8. Holistic Meaningful Living
Live a meaningful life by doing fulfilling work, being good to others, contributing to society, raising children, and prioritizing self-care through meditation, morning pages, exercise, and healthy habits.
9. Recognize Fear as Resistance
Acknowledge that fears of not being special or good enough are merely ‘resistance’; getting past them and doing the work itself is curative, regardless of the external result.
10. Avoid Dramatic Self-Sabotage
Do not take drastic external actions, such as immediately quitting your job, as a prerequisite for starting creative work, as this can be a form of self-sabotage.
11. Focus on Controllables
When facing setbacks or failures, regain control by focusing on the aspects you can directly influence, such as showing up and starting to work again.
12. Revisit First Principles Regularly
Consciously and repeatedly remind yourself of your core beliefs and values, as life events can knock you off course, and regular reminders help you stay aligned and move forward.
13. Develop Anxiety Coping Tools
Actively develop and practice tools like meditation and morning pages to prepare yourself to deal with anxiety and challenging times.
14. Prioritize Eating and Sleeping
Ensure you eat well by avoiding excessive sugar and flour, and get sufficient sleep, as these are crucial for maintaining strength and energy.
15. Daily Cardio Exercise
Incorporate cardio exercise into your daily routine to maintain physical health and overall well-being.
16. Take Coffee Seriously
Make your morning coffee a ritual by freshly grinding beans and enjoying the aroma, treating it as a serious part of your daily routine.
17. Seek Deeper Pleasures
Be aware of chasing only short-term endorphin hits and consciously strive for deeper, richer, and more lasting pleasures in life.
18. Know Your Story’s Ending
When creating a story, have a clear idea of how it will end, as this allows you to plant elements and guide characters effectively from the beginning.
19. Structured Story Creation Process
Follow a structured process for storytelling: start with a fascinating world, research it, define characters, outline the story, break it into beats and scenes, then write the dialogue.
20. Analyze Scripts for Storytelling
To understand the craft of storytelling, watch movies and TV shows, then read their corresponding screenplays or teleplays to analyze their structure and dialogue.
21. Get Outline Feedback
Share story outlines with a trusted team or partners to receive notes and questions, which helps refine the narrative and identify areas for improvement before drafting.
22. Trust Innate Storytelling
Recognize that you already possess the ability to tell engaging stories, similar to how you would in a casual conversation, without needing to adhere to rigid formal rules.
23. Manage Creative Finances Responsibly
Take responsibility for managing your project’s budget and resources within the given financial constraints, fulfilling your obligation to financiers while maintaining creative freedom.
24. Love Work to Endure
Cultivate a profound love for your work, as this passion is essential to withstand the inevitable ups and downs, setbacks, and challenges of a long career.
25. Read Widely and Varied
Engage in extensive reading, rotating between nonfiction and fiction, to broaden your understanding of various themes, including the human condition and life’s finite nature.
5 Key Quotes
If you look at the great expanse of time, we're not even a dot. The dot is already over. It's already in the past. And so we may as well be super connected to the fact that we're here and alive right now.
Brian Koppelman
If I allowed these creative impulses to die, it would be like a real death. And like any form of death, it would be toxic. And this toxicity would ooze out of me onto those that I loved.
Brian Koppelman
Well, son, if you want to write, write.
Brian Koppelman's Dad
You have to be able to plant stuff. You have to be able to set the characters off on their quest, knowing the way in which that quest is going to resolve.
Brian Koppelman
Everything you love will be taken away.
Slade Cleaves (quoted by Brian Koppelman)
4 Protocols
Transcendental Meditation Routine
Brian Koppelman- Wake up in the morning, make coffee.
- Meditate for 20 minutes.
- Perform Morning Pages.
Afternoon Meditation Practice
Brian Koppelman- Meditate for 20 minutes sometime between 3 PM and 7 PM.
Morning Pages Practice
Brian Koppelman- Use pen or pencil.
- Keep the pen moving across the page.
- Write three longhand pages of stream of consciousness.
- Do not craft sentences or think about paragraphs; just write whatever comes to mind.
TV/Film Writing Process (with a partner)
Brian Koppelman- Identify a world that fascinates you (e.g., hedge fund operatives and U.S. attorneys).
- Conduct research through reading and first-person interviews to understand the world.
- Develop characters, considering what draws them to this world and forces to set against each other.
- Journal and think about character motivations and backstories.
- Outline a story structure that creates conflict between characters/forces.
- Revise the outline multiple times.
- Use index cards to break the outline into 'beats' (flow of scenes).
- Break beats down into individual scenes.
- Create a detailed outline (e.g., 20 pages for a 'Billions' episode) with scene descriptions and some dialogue.
- Write the dialogue, turning the outline into actual scenes, allowing for improvisation.
- Review the complete draft for gaps, pacing issues, or areas needing more tension.
- Share outlines with the writer's room for notes and incorporate relevant feedback.
- Share outlines with the network for their thoughts and questions, using these to refine the teleplay.