TL;DR - Do you have any theories on how essential is reading biographies of people who are masters of a given skill to mastering that skill yourself? And what qualities or properties of a biography have you identified that make it more/less effective?

I once read an autobiography of Harpo Marx the harpist and mime, so it had the cheeky title of “Harpo Speaks”.^[1] It’s entertainment value was not what drew me to it: I was hoping for practical insights into his creative process and pantomime. Was this a wise approach – should one read biographies with the intent of learning practical skills or are they best suited for inspiration?

I don’t mean to dismiss entertainment as a reason for reading a biography, but if you’re not seeking to be entertained, then how effective is reading a biography related to the subject you’re inquiring to going to be? One of the most common reasons for reading a biography is related to the Classical notion of emulation: rhetorician Quintilian wrote about how educating young men with stories of heroes and their virtuous acts would inspire them to imitate or emulate them. That is not the kind of practical skills I mean.

Take for example the subject of investing, figures like Warren Buffet and George Soros are probably the “tip of the tongue” examples for a lot of people and one might be tempted to read a biography about them to learn how to “have the mind of a billionaire investor”. And certainly, even the least technical biography will provide entry level explanations on the topics of Value Investing in the case of Buffett. But wouldn’t you be better served by going to the source and reading Benjamin Graham’s books that inspired Buffett, or even Buffett’s yearly shareholder’s letters rather than a biography?

In the same way, if you wanted to learn about how to avoid Jet Lag, a biography of 4 time world champion pilot Max Verstappen might have some details on how his sleep pattern gets staggered depending on the time-zone difference between one race and the next; but it is probably very inefficient if your intention is to learn about how to avoid jet lag.

My own intuitive devil’s advocate retorts: sure, but if you wanted to learn how to have "the mindset of a winner" - how could you go wrong reading about a prolific world champion like Max Verstappen? And while I think the concept of “mindset” is self-help gobbledegook^[2] -- I am torn and confused.

I wonder - when should one read a biography if they want to learn the decision making models and effective habits of “winner”, for example, reading biographies about Max Verstappen, Michael Schumacher, Michael Jordon, Michael Phelps, and Lionel Messi? Maybe this is an entirely different question all together, how much of what constitutes championship winning behavior can be distilled down to decision making models, and explicit habits; and how much of it is an affect or a “vibe” that has certain self-perpetuating qualities? And how much of it is not replicable at all because it relies on the unique circumstances, luck, and resources of unique to those championship winning individuals?^[3]

There is also the question of the nature of a biography itself, even if the subject of the biography is appropriate to the skills you want to master (Harpo Marx to pantomime, Warren Buffett to Investment, etc.) different biographies will be marked by different editorial and stylistic choices which may make them less or more effective as research materials. What the authors and editors choose to omit, emphasize, how they present the chronology, even what tone and metaphors they use could all hinder or help the student.

My question is not “can a biography help you excel in a topic?” I would assume that any resource any text if treated as research may have some non-zero insight. I am wondering hierarchically speaking, how much priority should biographies (provided they have the appropriate subject, and editorial and stylistic choices) be given?

For example, if your goal was quite simply to be the guitarist in the best damn Led Zeppelin cover-band ever and therefore to slavishly imitate the guitar playing style of Jimmy Page: how much would be reading a biography of Jimmy Page accelerate or help you achieve that goal in addition to practicing and learning tabs and by-ear every riff and guitar lick and reading Led Zepplin songbooks? A biography of Jimmy Page may include interviews or paraphrases that explain certain decisions about why he structured a song like that, why he was drawn to this guitar or that kind of playing on that track and the underlying thinking. It may also include incidental “world building” references of value, like what kind of amplifier he used – or the fact that most of the records were done on a Telecaster not the Gibson he was often seen playing live in concert.

Then again, how much of that do you really need to read an entire biography for, and how much of that can be gleaned more effectively from other sources? Or is the journey, the narrative itself, even the “vibes” all part of it – and a force multiplier?

1. ^{^}

   At first the title seems rather ironic, after all a book is not speech (allusions to Geothe’s analogy: “architecture is frozen music”, aside). I am lead to believe Harpo dictated his life story to the ghost writer of the book. So in some sense it was truly a record of a famous mute speaking.

2. ^{^}

   I am bringing a lot of my baggage to this word because I can’t shake off the impression that “mindset” just a instruction for optimism by another name. This also extends to self-help books prefixed with “Think like a…” “The inner game of…”. How much of any of these can actually be distilled into operational advice that you or I can follow? And how much of it is really just “be more optimistic and you’ll experience a self-fulfilling prophecy”? 

3. ^{^}

   Non-Ergoditcity maybe?