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For me, elegance is not to pass unnoticed but to get to the very soul of what one is.91
—Christian Lacroix
Elegance is a strange word and concept, because it is difficult to define exactly what it is. How do you know if something is elegant? Definitions from the Encarta Dictionary are:
(1) Style and good taste A combination of graceful stylishness, distinction, and good taste in appearance, behavior, or movement.
(2) Conciseness A satisfying or admirable neatness, ingenious simplicity, or precision in something.
Even with these definitions, it’s still hard to put your finger on exactly what elegance is. Yet somehow, when you are in the midst of it, you know. You walk into homes that reek with elegance. You watch a deer jump over a fence. There is an elegance in style and you know it when you see it, but to try to put it into words is difficult. Someone comes up with an elegant solution to a problem—an ingenious, simple solution. It’s unique, special, simple, and elegant.
I’m mentioning elegance in this book not just because I like it, but to expose you to a wonderful book, In Pursuit of Elegance, by Matthew May. I highly recommend the book, as it is not only elegantly written, but it will open your eyes to a new way of thinking. May emphasizes that “simplicity” and “less is more” are foundations for elegance. And I believe they are also foundations to great businesses, great works of art, athletics, and life itself.
There is a lot of talk about the law of attraction, but May’s book could easily have been titled The Law of Subtraction: Your Key To Elegance. He talks about how most people tend to try to add to or make things more complicated when in fact they should be doing just the opposite and looking at what can be taken away or subtracted to make things simpler.
As May says, “By nature we tend to add when we should subtract, and act when we should stop and think… We need some way to consistently replace value-destroying complexity with value-creating simplicity… We need to know how to make room for more of what matters by eliminating what doesn’t. We all reach for elegance at some level, and yet it so often exceeds our grasp.”92
This advice can be used in so many areas of your life. In business, think about possibly reducing the number of products you sell. In your home, look at what you can get rid of (furniture, clothes, magazines). In writing, eliminate unnecessary words to make your message more concise. In your golf swing, eliminate unnecessary moves to make your swing more efficient, effortless, and more powerful. Same thing for tennis and most other sports—simplify. Why do you think when you watch professional athletes, it looks so simple and effortless? Like they are hardly trying? In life, eliminate things you don’t like and make more room for what matters to you. Elegance: we all need more of it in our lives.
Another interesting topic that May discusses in his book is certainty and predictability:
When you remove certainty and predictability, engagement and awareness rise. The concept of shared space makes that clear. The less stated something is, the more powerful it becomes. Uncertainty and ambiguity can create intrigue, which makes us slow down and think. We don’t immediately see the symmetry and order we so desperately seek and that transfixes our attention, draws us in.93
May goes on to explain that we are curious by nature, and we all have a need to know. We want to know what’s missing. It intrigues us. We want to solve the puzzle. He writes of Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo:
Da Vinci instructs artists to leave any preliminary sketch indeterminate precisely because “confused shapes arouse the mind.”… Leaving something for us to guess at was a stroke of genius… Michelangelo perfected and made famous a technique pioneered by sculptor Donatello before him, called non finito, meaning unfinished or incomplete. A shallow relief style, non finito not only left sculptures seemingly unfinished, it made them appear deeper than they actually were…
But neither Leonardo nor Michelangelo was the first to explore the concept of purposefully unfinished or ambiguous work. As the Zen philosophy took hold in Japan during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Japanese art and philosophy began to reflect one of the fundamental Zen aesthetic themes, that of emptiness. In the Zen view, emptiness is a symbol of inexhaustible spirit. Silent pauses in music and theater, blank spaces in paintings, and even the restrained motion of the sublimely seductive geisha in refined tea ceremonies all take on a special significance because it is in states of temporary inactivity or quietude that Zen artists see as the very essence of creative energy. Because Zen Buddhists view the human spirit as by nature indefinable, the power of suggestion is exalted as the mark of a truly authentic creation. Finiteness is thought to be at odds with nature, implying stagnation, which is associated with the loss of life. The goal of the Zen artist is to convey the symmetrical harmony of nature through clearly asymmetrical and incomplete renderings; the effect is that those viewing the art supply the missing symmetry and thus participate in the act of creation.94
Find ways to make your life more elegant by the law of subtraction. What can be taken out or removed for the betterment of your life? Simplify. Get rid of that extra hitch in your golf swing. Get rid of that loop-de-loop you have with your forehand in tennis. Get some elegance in your life today. Start by cleaning a small section of your closet, a small section of your garage. Start small so it’s not overwhelming. Make small, subtle elegant moves.
When you tour new homes or model homes, why is it they look so elegant? Because no one has had a chance yet to “de-elegantize” (my word) them with all their personal clutter and belongings. Focus on the law of subtraction. Each day bring a little more elegance into your life. And you can start now by spending twenty dollars and purchasing The Pursuit Of Elegance. The small investment will pay off big.
Simplicity, carried to an extreme, becomes elegance. 95
—Jon Franklin