The Power of Myth For screenwriting, Jon recommends The…

““The Power of Myth For screenwriting, Jon recommends The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler, which he used to determine if Swingers was structurally correct. He is also a big fan of The Power of Myth, a video interview of Joseph Campbell by Bill Moyers. “With The Jungle Book, I really am going back and doubling down on the old myths.” TF: We recorded our podcast during the shooting of The Jungle Book, in his production office next to set. Months later, The Jungle Book was the #1 movie in the world and currently has a staggering 95% review average on Rotten Tomatoes. Long-Term Impact Trumps Short-Term Gross “Thanks to video, and later DVD and laser disc, everybody had seen this film [Swingers], and it had become part of our culture. That’s when I learned that it’s not always the movie that does the best [financially] that has the most impact, or is the most rewarding, or does the most for your career, for that matter.” Another Reason to Meditate “In the middle of [a meditation session], the idea for Chef hit me, and I let myself stop, which I don’t usually do, and I took out a pad. I scribbled down like eight pages of ideas and thoughts, [and then I] left it alone. If I look back on it, and read those pages, it really had 80% of the heavy lifting done, as far as what [Chef] was about, who was in it, who the characters were, what other movies to look at, what the tone was, what music I would have in it, what type of food he was making, the idea of the food truck, the Cuban sandwiches, Cuban music . . . so it all sort of grew out from that.””

— Timothy Ferriss