40: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

Click any line to jump to that moment.

1. 00:00:00 Testing testing system on what did you do you got on here that you have a new podcasting setup so what is it what's the gear I'm I need to know this is important well okay so first of all it says new podcasting here does not say that I have new podcasting here new podcasting here is on its way to me.
2. 00:00:20 This is actually kind of related to follow up from a long time ago I think it was thinking girl rich where we talked about the personal communication room and I was like I'm finally going to finish my office.
3. 00:00:31 Yes well my office is almost finished it should be done by the end of this year nice so now that I have a home office I have a convenient excuse to spend more money on podcast gear I did a bunch of research went to there's a place nearby that actually like.
4. 00:00:49 I've been to musicians friend and those types of places guitar center I hate going in there because I feel like I know way more than anybody who works there.
5. 00:00:59 If I have to explain to you what I want in a lot of detail and go pick out the pieces to explain to you what it is I'm going to do with it that's not a good sign exactly but there is a place actually right down the road from the co working space called pixel pro audio it's a local place but the people who work there are really knowledgeable so
6. 00:01:15 I went in there and started asking them some questions about microphones and stuff they've got great gear and they've also got great prices it that's usually at or below Amazon prices for a brick and mortar store which is kind of amazing.
7. 00:01:28 Right so I like I like buying from them spent some time in there talked about some different microphones went home and did a bunch of research listen to the mindset episode which dropped not too long before recording this right you're talking about your shirt beta 87 a that's what I went with nice
8. 00:01:44 but it is not here yet. I also got a new audio interface so I right now I'm using my how PR for you through a focus right to I too.
9. 00:01:55 Okay during this process I learned way more about audio interfaces than I ever thought I would or ever cared to.
10. 00:02:03 I was a pixel pro audio guys mentioned to me that I should look into audience that is kind of like the logical step up from the focus right it's not the sound devices which is like $1000 and is what the Marcos of the world use but the audience they make a lot of bigger boxes that have really
11. 00:02:25 really nice preamps and also really really nice converters so Joe you probably know all about that stuff I know a lot about it I just learned about it.
12. 00:02:34 Okay yeah so for the people who care and if they and if they don't you can edit this out but converters are important because you can have a really nice microphone if you've got a junkie audio interface or junkie converters it won't do a good job of translating the analog audio that it's receiving into a digital format
13. 00:02:53 that you can do something with on your computer correct so audience like that's kind of what they're known for are these these converters and they use what are called brown bird converters now the one that I use doesn't use brown bird it's supposedly like a step below it but the way they frame it on their on their website it's not really a lower quality convert it's just a different converter it's got different different specs whatever it doesn't matter like the fact that they care about the converters at all puts it on a whole other tier compared to the
14. 00:03:22 the focus right yes and then the preamps are just supposed to be like amazing so I'm really excited to see what that combination will allow me to do also the audience the interface I got is the ID for so it is a single interface okay so it's supposed to be great for just like plugging in a guitar and recording ideas and stuff too so that's also something that I do so I'm excited excited for that it's got a got a dial that you can use and you can program when you're in logic or whatever and also a mute button built up
15. 00:03:51 so I'm you but built into it very nice that's exciting so you're talking about the converter from the analog structure of the microphone and converting it into the digital signal that the computer can consume exactly what you're talking about exactly yep so that's why you
16. 00:04:07 a speed microphones typically don't sound as good as XLR microphones even if the XLR interface that you have isn't very good right so you could buy a really cheap I don't want to throw any brands out there because they've all got like very cheap ones and also very good ones it seems but if you buy like a $50 audio interface off of Amazon you can plug in an XLR you will get better sound quality most likely then just plugging a USB mic like a like a road podcaster or my ATR 21
17. 00:04:34 like a road podcaster or my ATR2100, which I still do like,
18. 00:04:38 but after doing some, some audio sampling
19. 00:04:42 and doing the research on the other microphones,
20. 00:04:44 like yeah, it just doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't,
21. 00:04:46 doesn't hold up.
22. 00:04:47 - Right.
23. 00:04:48 - Yeah, then there's, from the $50 tier,
24. 00:04:49 usually there's like, the $150-$200 tier,
25. 00:04:52 which is where you'll find the focus right on the low end,
26. 00:04:55 the audience, maybe a tascam,
27. 00:04:57 something in there, an Onyx Blackjack is,
28. 00:05:00 is probably in there too,
29. 00:05:01 but then you can jump up to like the $1,000 sound
30. 00:05:04 devices or there's one, I think it's called the Apollo,
31. 00:05:07 which my brother actually uses, it's crazy,
32. 00:05:08 because that you can actually apply effects
33. 00:05:11 before it hits the converter.
34. 00:05:12 - Yes.
35. 00:05:13 - So you could EQ your voice before the microphone signal
36. 00:05:16 even gets to your computer, which is crazy to me.
37. 00:05:19 - Another route that you can take is the route I'm using,
38. 00:05:22 which is using a soundboard itself.
39. 00:05:25 Like I've got a USB soundboard,
40. 00:05:27 and I've also got an external recorder
41. 00:05:30 in the Zoom H4N Pro.
42. 00:05:34 Which was a gift from a listener.
43. 00:05:35 So thank you, whoever you are.
44. 00:05:37 Essentially what that allows me to do is,
45. 00:05:39 I can record like I am right now,
46. 00:05:42 without sending it to digital at all.
47. 00:05:45 So there is no converter,
48. 00:05:47 it's just going from XLR straight into the recorder,
49. 00:05:49 which is super nice,
50. 00:05:51 but I'm using the USB portion of the soundboard
51. 00:05:54 to get the signals to and from you.
52. 00:05:57 But I can do, like it's got the full EQ compressor,
53. 00:06:00 you can do the aux send things,
54. 00:06:03 the one I have has a six input, four output set up on it.
55. 00:06:07 So it's kind of intense for most people,
56. 00:06:09 and with that, I don't need any of the converter pieces,
57. 00:06:12 per se, I am using the built in converter
58. 00:06:15 that's in that soundboard to get the signal to and from you.
59. 00:06:18 But that never hits the listeners.
60. 00:06:21 So whenever listeners, when you're hearing this,
61. 00:06:24 you're actually not hearing that converter process at all
62. 00:06:26 because the recording is done pre-conversion.
63. 00:06:29 Does that make sense, Mike?
64. 00:06:30 - Yep, yep, to me, but probably to nobody else.
65. 00:06:32 (laughing)
66. 00:06:35 The life of audio engineering.
67. 00:06:37 - By the way, you gotta share my address
68. 00:06:40 with this mysterious gift giver who keeps sending you stuff.
69. 00:06:44 (laughing)
70. 00:06:45 I have a theory about this, by the way.
71. 00:06:47 - Okay.
72. 00:06:48 - Because Drew brought this up on the latest whims at work
73. 00:06:51 and you were kind of like, oh yeah, that's right.
74. 00:06:53 I think maybe Drew is the mysterious gift giver.
75. 00:06:56 - Ah, okay, you think it's Drew?
76. 00:06:58 - Well, I don't know your entire social circle,
77. 00:07:01 but given the evidence, if I had to pick somebody,
78. 00:07:04 my pick is Drew.
79. 00:07:05 - I'm not convinced it's the same person.
80. 00:07:07 And the only reason I say that is because of some weird
81. 00:07:10 markings that I see on some of the boxes and such,
82. 00:07:12 they don't always seem to come from like a manufacturer
83. 00:07:15 at all times.
84. 00:07:16 I've received three of these now,
85. 00:07:19 three random gifts from people.
86. 00:07:22 And with the Zoom, I know who that one was.
87. 00:07:24 And that one was not Drew.
88. 00:07:26 Because this person reached out to me on email
89. 00:07:28 and explained why they were giving it to me.
90. 00:07:30 So on that one, I tend to play it off as if I don't know
91. 00:07:34 who that one is, but I do know that particular one.
92. 00:07:36 The other two that I've received, I don't know who they are.
93. 00:07:38 And that could be Drew, maybe.
94. 00:07:40 I don't know.
95. 00:07:41 Drew, are you playing games with me?
96. 00:07:43 (laughs)
97. 00:07:44 - Quit playing games with Joe's heart, Drew.
98. 00:07:46 - It's true.
99. 00:07:47 Well, that's fun.
100. 00:07:48 It's exciting.
101. 00:07:49 New podcasting gear is always an exciting time.
102. 00:07:51 And part of the reason I get so much into audio
103. 00:07:54 is because of what I do at our church,
104. 00:07:56 because the sound system that we run there
105. 00:07:59 is really intense.
106. 00:08:00 Like we use a, it's an Allen and Heath iLive
107. 00:08:03 for the main sound board.
108. 00:08:05 It's a T112, which means it has 112 channels on it.
109. 00:08:10 And you're mixing a lot of stuff all at one time.
110. 00:08:14 You're dealing with gates and preamps and PEQs
111. 00:08:17 and compressors and limiters,
112. 00:08:18 DSRs, like you're dealing with pretty much every aspect
113. 00:08:22 that you would in a studio setup
114. 00:08:23 without going full studio setup.
115. 00:08:26 If you work with that stuff enough,
116. 00:08:28 and then you come to,
117. 00:08:30 I don't wanna say the lowly world of podcasting,
118. 00:08:32 but it's not nearly as sophisticated.
119. 00:08:35 It's easy to, I guess, get by with something a lot simpler.
120. 00:08:39 And knowing what's simple to go with
121. 00:08:42 is not always the easy thing to determine.
122. 00:08:44 - Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
123. 00:08:46 I noticed that when doing the research,
124. 00:08:48 because the good research is done by like the musicians
125. 00:08:51 and the sound on sound people.
126. 00:08:53 - Yes.
127. 00:08:54 - The podcast is like, oh, this one is cool.
128. 00:08:55 (laughs)
129. 00:08:57 - Yeah, like I used to run the road podcaster a lot.
130. 00:09:01 And I still have it.
131. 00:09:02 If anyone's interested in purchasing that,
132. 00:09:04 I'm selling it.
133. 00:09:06 So if you have an interest in that,
134. 00:09:08 gladly sell it to you, shoot me an email.
135. 00:09:10 I'll work through that with you.
136. 00:09:11 But the thing is that that,
137. 00:09:14 it's not a cheap microphone when you're buying it new.
138. 00:09:18 You know, it's a USB mic
139. 00:09:19 and it does a really good job given the USB nature of it.
140. 00:09:23 But if you ever want to increase quality
141. 00:09:25 and have a more stable environment,
142. 00:09:28 you tend to move over to the XLR world,
143. 00:09:30 which is what I did.
144. 00:09:31 And that is not a cheap world to move into.
145. 00:09:34 - No.
146. 00:09:35 - But you're right, whenever you look at a lot of reviews
147. 00:09:37 by podcasters and how to get into podcasting
148. 00:09:40 and what makes for a good mic,
149. 00:09:41 what makes for a good this or that,
150. 00:09:42 the microphones and stuff that you tend to see on that,
151. 00:09:45 although they will do the job,
152. 00:09:47 they're not always the best quality.
153. 00:09:49 And if you're gonna get serious with it,
154. 00:09:51 you tend to want the quality to be there.
155. 00:09:53 It's not mandatory,
156. 00:09:55 'cause people are very forgiving with some of it,
157. 00:09:57 but you're gonna want to upgrade.
158. 00:09:59 And to me, it makes more sense to just put a little bit
159. 00:10:01 of more money into it upfront than to try to sell
160. 00:10:05 and then upgrade later, which is kind of what I did.
161. 00:10:08 So, I don't necessarily recommend that you follow my path,
162. 00:10:11 but it does work and it does do a pretty good job.
163. 00:10:13 - True, but enough about podcast worm.
164. 00:10:15 Podworm.
165. 00:10:18 - You've got an action item here,
166. 00:10:19 which I am very curious to hear about.
167. 00:10:21 - Yes, we didn't have any action items
168. 00:10:24 for follow up from 40X last time.
169. 00:10:27 And there are a lot of reasons for that.
170. 00:10:30 Anyway, I started doing a thing
171. 00:10:33 between our recording last time and this time
172. 00:10:36 that I have tried to do and mentioned numerous times
173. 00:10:40 on this show and it has never stuck.
174. 00:10:43 And I can't say that it has stuck this time either, yet,
175. 00:10:46 Mike, but I am playing with meditation again.
176. 00:10:49 And this is partially because of someone
177. 00:10:53 that we've mentioned Drew now a few times.
178. 00:10:56 So Drew introduced me to a guy, Chris Boller.
179. 00:10:59 And Chris mentioned an app called Oak
180. 00:11:02 that I downloaded because it sounded interesting.
181. 00:11:05 And to be honest with you, I was kind of rolling my eyes
182. 00:11:08 as I downloaded it 'cause I know my tendencies
183. 00:11:11 with meditation or rather my lack of meditation
184. 00:11:15 and why I don't do it.
185. 00:11:16 But I started using this app
186. 00:11:18 and I think if it's ever gonna stick, it might be now.
187. 00:11:22 I've stuck with it longer than I have
188. 00:11:23 almost every other time.
189. 00:11:25 - Nice.
190. 00:11:26 - I can't really tell you that I have any positive results
191. 00:11:28 from this, but the practice itself seems to be going, okay.
192. 00:11:31 I like that I get to, as I meditate, I get to grow a tree.
193. 00:11:35 Like I think that's cool.
194. 00:11:37 Maybe that's why I'm sticking with it is purely for that.
195. 00:11:39 - Of course, growing a virtual tree
196. 00:11:41 is what would make Farmer Joe stick with meditation.
197. 00:11:43 - Exactly, yes, I just need to grow a plant
198. 00:11:46 and I'll be happy.
199. 00:11:46 - Nice, nice.
200. 00:11:48 I'm super excited that this is working for you.
201. 00:11:50 I think that this is a really effective practice
202. 00:11:52 that everybody should embrace in some way, shape, or form.
203. 00:11:55 You don't have to go on a silent retreat every year.
204. 00:11:56 You don't have to sit on a cushion for an hour,
205. 00:11:58 but even a few minutes here and there
206. 00:12:00 and the apps that are available
207. 00:12:01 make it super easy to do that.
208. 00:12:02 I've actually upgraded, I guess.
209. 00:12:04 I was using a one-time purchase.
210. 00:12:06 Meditation Studio was the name of the app,
211. 00:12:07 but I think they had a Black Friday sale
212. 00:12:10 where you got 25% off a headspace subscription.
213. 00:12:13 So I have signed up for that for the next year
214. 00:12:17 and I find that more effective.
215. 00:12:20 There's a ton more meditations in there
216. 00:12:22 and I just really like the British guy's voice.
217. 00:12:24 I'm a sucker for those British guys.
218. 00:12:26 It's wireless in the cortex.
219. 00:12:27 - One of the first things I do whenever I set up a new phone
220. 00:12:30 is make sure that Siri has the British accent on it.
221. 00:12:35 That's a thing that I like to do.
222. 00:12:37 - Yeah, me too.
223. 00:12:38 All right, I suppose we should finally
224. 00:12:40 talk about our book for today, huh?
225. 00:12:42 - Yeah, this is gonna be an intense episode, I think.
226. 00:12:46 - Yep, so we should preface this
227. 00:12:49 by saying that we did not cover this book
228. 00:12:51 the way that it was intended.
229. 00:12:53 - Yes.
230. 00:12:54 - And actually before we do that,
231. 00:12:55 I guess I should explain why I picked it.
232. 00:12:56 So the book for today is The Artist's Way
233. 00:12:59 by Julia Cameron and really the only reason
234. 00:13:03 that I picked this book is I was listening
235. 00:13:06 to Whims That Work and I Heard Drew
236. 00:13:08 talking about the effectiveness of these morning pages
237. 00:13:11 which I thought sounded awesome.
238. 00:13:13 And I think you were kind of familiar
239. 00:13:14 with this concept already it sounded like
240. 00:13:16 maybe from a blog or something.
241. 00:13:18 - Yes.
242. 00:13:19 - But this is kind of Julia Cameron's,
243. 00:13:21 I don't know, this is like her life's work, this book.
244. 00:13:23 It's a 12 week course and we did it in 14 days.
245. 00:13:28 - Yes.
246. 00:13:29 - So it's definitely condensed and the way that it's set up,
247. 00:13:33 there's some basic principles at the beginning
248. 00:13:35 which we'll run through real quick.
249. 00:13:36 Then there's a process which we've modified for Bookworm
250. 00:13:39 and then there's the each week has its own chapter
251. 00:13:43 and there's a bunch of exercises at the end
252. 00:13:45 that you're supposed to do at least half of them.
253. 00:13:48 I did very few of these and that was just for time's sake
254. 00:13:52 but I can totally see how if you were to do these exercises
255. 00:13:55 it would just exponentially increase the effectiveness
256. 00:13:58 of these concepts that she's teaching in this course sticking.
257. 00:14:01 It's a very impactful book even if you just read through it
258. 00:14:03 like we did but I can totally see how if you follow through
259. 00:14:06 and do the course the way that she designed it
260. 00:14:08 you're gonna have an even bigger impact.
261. 00:14:10 Is that fair to say?
262. 00:14:11 - That is fair and I will say that when I went through this
263. 00:14:15 one of the things I wanted to do
264. 00:14:16 because with books like this that require a lot of interactive
265. 00:14:21 I guess work outside of the book itself
266. 00:14:23 when you have a book like this and we're doing it for Bookworm
267. 00:14:26 and we haven't done a ton of these for Bookworm
268. 00:14:28 but when we do I feel like I need to do my due diligence on it
269. 00:14:32 and put it through its paces and give it a chance I guess.
270. 00:14:36 So whenever she says okay you need to do morning pages
271. 00:14:39 every day you need to schedule the artist's date,
272. 00:14:41 you need to do half of these action items at the end of it.
273. 00:14:45 I did my best to do all of that.
274. 00:14:47 So I did do half of the action items a little bit more than that
275. 00:14:51 I think on every one of these but I'm doing a week per day.
276. 00:14:54 So this turned into like it almost requires
277. 00:14:58 about an hour and a half to two hours of work every single day
278. 00:15:01 to get through this book in that way.
279. 00:15:02 Like it's intense.
280. 00:15:04 - Yeah which was not something that I could give honestly
281. 00:15:07 the last couple of weeks with traveling and the other stuff
282. 00:15:11 you know trying to get stuff wrapped up before the end of the year
283. 00:15:14 for Asian efficiency like it just wasn't gonna happen.
284. 00:15:17 So I had to make that decision that like there's no way
285. 00:15:19 I'm gonna follow through on all of these but I guess I'm curious
286. 00:15:22 as we go through this to hear which ones kind of impacted you
287. 00:15:26 the most because she talks about when you're selecting
288. 00:15:28 these exercises that you're going to do you should do the ones
289. 00:15:31 that really jump out at you and you should do the ones
290. 00:15:33 that you really don't want to do.
291. 00:15:35 - Yes.
292. 00:15:36 - Because those are the ones that there's something there
293. 00:15:38 that you have to work through.
294. 00:15:39 - And that's not as easy to do as you think.
295. 00:15:42 - Oh I totally get it which is why I want to know
296. 00:15:44 like how it went for you because like I said
297. 00:15:46 I copped out this time.
298. 00:15:47 Didn't have the ability to do that.
299. 00:15:50 - I'll put it this way like I'll try to mention the ones
300. 00:15:53 that impacted me the most but to be honest with you
301. 00:15:56 it's thinking time and most of these action items are prompts
302. 00:16:00 at least that's the way I saw them.
303. 00:16:01 So whenever I would sit down to do this piece of it
304. 00:16:03 so I would read the weeks reading
305. 00:16:06 and then I would sit down to do the action items
306. 00:16:09 for that particular weeks, week of the course.
307. 00:16:13 And when I did that I was planning on 45 minutes
308. 00:16:17 of time to go through those.
309. 00:16:19 And that simple time turned into pure reflection I guess
310. 00:16:24 which is similar to what the morning pages is.
311. 00:16:29 But it's kind of like a guided morning pages if you will
312. 00:16:33 where I want you to work through this particular piece
313. 00:16:35 of your past or your mindset on a given topic.
314. 00:16:40 And I felt like after a while some of that gets
315. 00:16:44 to be a little bit repetitive.
316. 00:16:46 I noticed that as I was going through them
317. 00:16:48 that my amount of time I was spending on the action items
318. 00:16:51 got a lot shorter when I got to say week 12 versus week one.
319. 00:16:55 And I don't know if that's because the reflection points
320. 00:16:58 that I was being guided through had more to do
321. 00:17:01 with more surface level things that I've already worked
322. 00:17:05 through like how do you actually go about writing
323. 00:17:09 every single day like that type of thing versus
324. 00:17:12 why don't you write?
325. 00:17:14 Those are two very different questions
326. 00:17:16 and yet one is a lot simpler to answer than the other.
327. 00:17:19 And I felt like the harder questions were being asked
328. 00:17:21 at the beginning than towards the end.
329. 00:17:23 So my time got a lot shorter towards the end of the book
330. 00:17:26 but ultimately those action items they were points
331. 00:17:30 to stop and think through whatever these topics
332. 00:17:33 were that she was putting in front of me.
333. 00:17:35 So I'm not sure I have what you're asking for.
334. 00:17:38 These are the ones I like the most.
335. 00:17:40 - Okay.
336. 00:17:41 - But I think ultimately it became a time for me
337. 00:17:43 to understand myself.
338. 00:17:46 It becomes a self reflection and a self evaluation point
339. 00:17:49 and it helps you understand yourself
340. 00:17:52 which I think was the main point of it.
341. 00:17:54 But again, I don't know how to.
342. 00:17:56 - Here's a question you should do.
343. 00:17:57 Like I don't know how to say that.
344. 00:17:58 - Yeah, well when you put on the outline
345. 00:18:01 that you were dabbling with meditation
346. 00:18:04 I totally thought it was because you had just gone
347. 00:18:06 through this book.
348. 00:18:07 Because this book is in a way a form of guided meditation.
349. 00:18:11 And she even talks about some of that stuff
350. 00:18:13 in some of the later weeks in the course.
351. 00:18:16 - Right.
352. 00:18:17 - So yeah, I totally get what you're saying
353. 00:18:18 for people who have not read the book.
354. 00:18:19 Maybe it's a little bit confusing
355. 00:18:21 but it's designed to help you deal with
356. 00:18:24 some of these internal struggles that keep you from creating.
357. 00:18:28 And she's got a bunch of basic principles at the beginning
358. 00:18:30 which kind of lay the groundwork for the foundation
359. 00:18:35 that she wants to build on throughout the rest of the course.
360. 00:18:37 We'll just run through these real quickly.
361. 00:18:39 Now I will say when she proposes these
362. 00:18:42 at the very beginning before she even lists them
363. 00:18:45 she talks about essentially God being
364. 00:18:47 like a creative spiritual force.
365. 00:18:49 So she kind of leaves the door open
366. 00:18:50 to you can interpret it how you want.
367. 00:18:52 But she definitely as she goes through the book
368. 00:18:56 has this approach that there is a being
369. 00:18:58 that is helping you create.
370. 00:19:01 And it totally lines up perfectly
371. 00:19:03 with my own personal Christian belief system.
372. 00:19:04 So that's the lens that I looked at it through
373. 00:19:06 and I'm assuming you probably did the same.
374. 00:19:08 But I guess I want to call that out at the beginning
375. 00:19:10 'cause she does that you don't,
376. 00:19:13 it's not necessarily like a Christian book
377. 00:19:15 but she does refer to God a lot
378. 00:19:18 which you'll see when we go through these principles.
379. 00:19:20 Want me to just run through them quick?
380. 00:19:21 - Yeah, I think that would make sense.
381. 00:19:22 I mean, I know you've got all these listed here every week.
382. 00:19:25 I think it might make sense to just go through
383. 00:19:28 and let's talk about what all of them are
384. 00:19:30 and then maybe call out any pieces
385. 00:19:32 that really struck us as we go.
386. 00:19:33 Is that fair?
387. 00:19:34 I've got a couple points that I took away
388. 00:19:37 from each of the weeks.
389. 00:19:38 She did a really good job of unpacking a single idea
390. 00:19:43 in these different chapters which I think was really cool.
391. 00:19:46 But even before that, she's got her 10 basic principles
392. 00:19:49 which number one, that creativity
393. 00:19:51 is the natural order of life.
394. 00:19:52 Life is energy, pure creative energy.
395. 00:19:54 Number two, there's an underlying
396. 00:19:56 indwelling creative force infusing all of life
397. 00:19:58 including ourselves.
398. 00:20:00 Number three, when we open ourselves to our creativity,
399. 00:20:02 we open ourselves to the creators creativity
400. 00:20:04 within us and our lives.
401. 00:20:06 Number four, we are ourselves creations
402. 00:20:09 and we in turn are meant to continue creativity
403. 00:20:12 by being creative ourselves.
404. 00:20:14 Number five, creativity is God's gift to us.
405. 00:20:16 Using our creativity is our gift back to God.
406. 00:20:19 Number six, the refusal to be creative is self will
407. 00:20:23 encounter to our true nature.
408. 00:20:25 Number seven, when we open ourselves
409. 00:20:27 to exploring our creativity,
410. 00:20:28 we open ourselves to God, good, orderly direction.
411. 00:20:31 Number eight, as we open our creative channels
412. 00:20:33 to the creator, many gentle but powerful changes
413. 00:20:35 are to be expected.
414. 00:20:36 Number nine, it's safe to open ourselves
415. 00:20:38 up to greater and greater creativity.
416. 00:20:40 And number 10, our creative dreams and yearnings
417. 00:20:42 come from a divine source.
418. 00:20:43 As we move towards our dreams, we move towards divinity.
419. 00:20:45 So that's kind of the 10 commandments, if you will,
420. 00:20:50 of the artist's way.
421. 00:20:51 She's very clear at the beginning
422. 00:20:53 that you have to buy into these basic principles
423. 00:20:56 in order for the course to work.
424. 00:20:58 And then from here, she's got the process
425. 00:21:01 which we've kind of talked a little bit about.
426. 00:21:04 Basically, you're supposed to read the chapter,
427. 00:21:06 you're supposed to do the exercises,
428. 00:21:08 you're supposed to do the morning pages
429. 00:21:09 which we've mentioned here.
430. 00:21:11 And then you're supposed to do the artist's date.
431. 00:21:12 So there's four components here.
432. 00:21:14 Let's talk about the morning pages for a minute
433. 00:21:16 because I know this is something
434. 00:21:17 that we both have on our action items.
435. 00:21:19 So she defines the morning pages as three pages
436. 00:21:22 of long handwriting, strictly stream of consciousness.
437. 00:21:24 There's no wrong way to do the morning pages
438. 00:21:26 and you're never supposed to skip
439. 00:21:28 and you're never supposed to skimp.
440. 00:21:30 I already broke these rules.
441. 00:21:32 I haven't skipped, I haven't skipped
442. 00:21:34 but I also have skimped from the very beginning
443. 00:21:37 because I guess I just am not used to writing by hand
444. 00:21:42 for that long, like my hand cramps up.
445. 00:21:45 It takes me an hour and a half to write three pages
446. 00:21:46 but two pages I can do and that's stretching me
447. 00:21:50 at this point to get the two pages done.
448. 00:21:52 So that's basically the way that I've implemented this
449. 00:21:55 is I wanna make sure that I always do the morning pages.
450. 00:21:57 So even when I was traveling,
451. 00:21:58 even when I was in Austin,
452. 00:22:00 I'm at the airport at seven in the morning or whatever,
453. 00:22:03 I made sure, as I was saying,
454. 00:22:04 they're waiting for my flight,
455. 00:22:05 I've got some time I was doing my morning pages
456. 00:22:08 but I do have to confess to you
457. 00:22:10 that I did not do three pages every single day.
458. 00:22:13 - Sad day, very sad day.
459. 00:22:15 That tells me you're not embracing
460. 00:22:17 the most advanced technology we have in paper.
461. 00:22:20 (laughing)
462. 00:22:21 - It's true, it's true.
463. 00:22:22 I'm sorry, I'm not an analog guy.
464. 00:22:25 I actually reported a podcast yesterday
465. 00:22:27 with somebody from the Dojo on analog productivity
466. 00:22:28 and like, okay, you're the expert
467. 00:22:30 'cause I don't know anything about this stuff.
468. 00:22:31 (laughing)
469. 00:22:33 - Fair enough.
470. 00:22:33 My angst with morning pages is time
471. 00:22:38 and it has a lot to do with,
472. 00:22:41 I'm used to writing a lot by hand.
473. 00:22:45 So hand cramps are not a thing I deal with
474. 00:22:47 and even though I don't have that particular issue,
475. 00:22:51 it still takes me 45 minutes to write three pages long hand
476. 00:22:54 and that has a lot to do with just thinking through
477. 00:22:58 and just trying to get words on a page,
478. 00:23:00 like just what it takes.
479. 00:23:02 I've heard a couple people who say
480. 00:23:05 that this takes me 15 to 20 minutes
481. 00:23:07 and I start quizzing about that
482. 00:23:10 and realize they're like trying to leave space
483. 00:23:12 between each line so they're using only every other line
484. 00:23:15 on the notebook and maybe they write a little bit bigger
485. 00:23:19 than I do.
486. 00:23:19 So maybe this is an aspect of just how I write in long form
487. 00:23:23 but for me, I want to fill every single line.
488. 00:23:26 I wanna put this through its full paces
489. 00:23:28 and that's what I've been doing.
490. 00:23:29 I think I skimped one morning and it was because
491. 00:23:32 my in-laws were visiting and they got up a lot earlier
492. 00:23:34 than normal because they have a puppy who needs to go out
493. 00:23:38 and as a result of that, I ended up having conversations
494. 00:23:40 with them instead of finishing up
495. 00:23:42 the last half page of my writing.
496. 00:23:44 So I skimped one morning but outside of that,
497. 00:23:47 I've been doing the three pages every day.
498. 00:23:49 - You are a better man than I do.
499. 00:23:51 - Well, part of that's because it's a 45 minute deal
500. 00:23:54 and not an hour and a half.
501. 00:23:55 So if it was an hour and a half,
502. 00:23:57 I would probably be in the same boat.
503. 00:23:58 I would probably be skimping like you're saying
504. 00:24:02 just because that's a lot of time.
505. 00:24:04 - Yeah.
506. 00:24:04 - And that's a huge commitment.
507. 00:24:06 It really is.
508. 00:24:07 - I found two pages I can do in roughly a half an hour.
509. 00:24:11 So two pages is manageable for me
510. 00:24:14 but by the time I get to the third page,
511. 00:24:16 like you can't even read what I'm writing
512. 00:24:17 and my hand is just yelling at me.
513. 00:24:21 So that's kind of where I've drawn the line.
514. 00:24:23 And again, I'm adapting this
515. 00:24:25 but this is not from Julia Cameron
516. 00:24:27 but I would argue that the majority of the value here
517. 00:24:32 is not in the fact that you did three pages.
518. 00:24:35 You will get more value if you do three pages.
519. 00:24:38 But if you're starting from not doing this at all,
520. 00:24:40 the fact that you show up and you do it every day,
521. 00:24:43 that's the important thing when you start.
522. 00:24:45 I'm hoping to eventually, as I develop my hand muscles,
523. 00:24:48 I guess, get up to the three pages.
524. 00:24:51 And also hopefully having an office,
525. 00:24:53 a place where I can go early in the morning
526. 00:24:55 and not have to worry about being interrupted
527. 00:24:56 or waking people up that will help with this
528. 00:24:58 because I will have more time to devote to things
529. 00:25:00 but I definitely see the value in this.
530. 00:25:03 I love the format.
531. 00:25:04 I love and I totally get why she says
532. 00:25:07 you have to do this long hand
533. 00:25:08 and it has to be stream of conscious
534. 00:25:10 because if you were to sit down and type this,
535. 00:25:13 you can kind of keep up with, at least in my opinion,
536. 00:25:16 the way I type or I write
537. 00:25:17 and kind of keep up with the way that I think.
538. 00:25:19 But as I'm physically writing this,
539. 00:25:22 I can't write it that fast.
540. 00:25:23 So I have to kind of process these things
541. 00:25:26 as I'm writing them.
542. 00:25:27 And I found that that gives my brain the ability
543. 00:25:31 to make connections that it wasn't making prior,
544. 00:25:36 if that makes any sense.
545. 00:25:38 Like I've talked a lot about one of my favorite books
546. 00:25:40 is "Steal Like an Artist" by Austin Cleon
547. 00:25:42 and he talks about creativity is just connecting the dots
548. 00:25:46 in a way that they haven't been connected before.
549. 00:25:48 I've found that when I have to do that
550. 00:25:51 by writing long hand,
551. 00:25:53 it gives my brain the ability to connect more dots.
552. 00:25:56 As part of my morning pages, even today,
553. 00:25:59 I wrote something along the lines of like,
554. 00:26:02 I feel like everything that I've done with bookworm
555. 00:26:05 was collecting these dots
556. 00:26:07 and over the last several months,
557. 00:26:09 like they've been working their way through
558. 00:26:11 the skeptical, rational, epidermis
559. 00:26:14 and now like the inner artist is finally getting these new toys
560. 00:26:17 to play with and he's just opening up the Lego sets
561. 00:26:20 and connecting them in different ways.
562. 00:26:21 Like stuff that I would have never really thought of before
563. 00:26:24 and it's kind of weird, but it works.
564. 00:26:26 - You mentioned something about the value
565. 00:26:28 of two pages versus three and I might argue with you
566. 00:26:32 on that one just because having done all three pages
567. 00:26:36 most days, I can tell you that the first two
568. 00:26:40 are pretty easy for me to come up with
569. 00:26:42 and page three is the hard one.
570. 00:26:44 I can see that.
571. 00:26:45 - Or sometimes it's the first page is easy
572. 00:26:47 and then it's the last two are hard
573. 00:26:49 and there's something about forcing yourself
574. 00:26:52 through that third page that brings more to the table
575. 00:26:56 than just trying to do the thinking through
576. 00:26:58 of something on two pages.
577. 00:27:00 Because something I found with it was that
578. 00:27:02 as somebody who gets into productivity
579. 00:27:04 or who is trying to solve some complicated problems
580. 00:27:07 with some development structures that I'm working on
581. 00:27:10 or even business ideas, you know,
582. 00:27:12 I find that my brain tends to go to those
583. 00:27:14 and uses the morning pages to solve those
584. 00:27:17 and I can lay out the problem in clear ways
585. 00:27:22 for myself to comprehend in about a page and a half.
586. 00:27:25 That's about what it ends up being.
587. 00:27:27 The last half of that second page ends up,
588. 00:27:29 like that's what starts getting me onto solutions
589. 00:27:31 and what it is I want to do as a result.
590. 00:27:34 And then that third page forces me to think outside the box
591. 00:27:38 sometimes with those solutions
592. 00:27:40 and then actually I have a plan forward.
593. 00:27:43 So I don't know that I would want to skimp
594. 00:27:46 on a regular basis and I'm hesitant to say
595. 00:27:48 that you can get the full value with two pages
596. 00:27:51 just because I've seen in my own writing of the morning pages
597. 00:27:54 that third page being so valuable.
598. 00:27:56 It's still a lot of time though.
599. 00:27:58 Like that's my big problem with it.
600. 00:28:01 - Yeah, I would completely agree with you
601. 00:28:02 that I'm not getting the full value
602. 00:28:04 and that the third page is probably the one
603. 00:28:06 that provides the most value.
604. 00:28:08 And like I said, I hope to get there at some point
605. 00:28:10 but even just doing the two pages,
606. 00:28:11 I can see the difference that it's making
607. 00:28:13 and it's pretty awesome.
608. 00:28:15 - Yeah, I would say two pages is better than nothing.
609. 00:28:17 But if you want to get the full value,
610. 00:28:19 I do recommend that third page.
611. 00:28:21 And the thing is, and I've got a couple action items here
612. 00:28:25 that are, they don't appear to be a result
613. 00:28:29 of having read this book,
614. 00:28:31 but it's because of the morning pages
615. 00:28:32 that I have these action items.
616. 00:28:34 And the morning pages has provoked me
617. 00:28:37 to make some fairly significant changes to my working life
618. 00:28:41 and how I do things from a productivity stance
619. 00:28:43 that I simply was thinking through them
620. 00:28:46 on the morning pages and then couldn't find a reason
621. 00:28:48 to continue doing a thing.
622. 00:28:50 So then it forces me to admit
623. 00:28:52 that I shouldn't be doing this thing anymore.
624. 00:28:54 There's a teaser for later.
625. 00:28:56 But it's interesting how, you know,
626. 00:28:59 I'm just gonna sit down and write for three pages
627. 00:29:01 to think through a thing.
628. 00:29:02 I don't even know what it's gonna be.
629. 00:29:03 There's been a number of mornings when I sit down
630. 00:29:05 and it's like, the first thing I write is,
631. 00:29:06 what am I supposed to write about today?
632. 00:29:08 Like that's the very first line on my morning pages.
633. 00:29:12 Like, I don't know, but if I just keep the hand moving,
634. 00:29:15 it eventually comes up with the thing
635. 00:29:17 that I'm gonna work through that morning.
636. 00:29:19 - Yeah, it reminds me of an English class.
637. 00:29:22 I had a teacher who required us to keep a journal
638. 00:29:24 and you had to write something like five lines every day.
639. 00:29:27 And most people would put it off
640. 00:29:28 until like a couple days before it was due
641. 00:29:30 and then they'd crank out a bunch of journal entries.
642. 00:29:32 Like, today is whatever.
643. 00:29:34 - Yep.
644. 00:29:34 - Today I am going to.
645. 00:29:36 I don't know what else to write here.
646. 00:29:38 (laughing)
647. 00:29:39 It's just like the standard form stuff,
648. 00:29:41 which is totally against the spirit of the journal entries.
649. 00:29:43 But what you're saying is that just the fact
650. 00:29:45 that you're putting in that minimal effort.
651. 00:29:47 You know, that's a lot of times enough
652. 00:29:50 to prime the pump and get stuff flowing.
653. 00:29:52 - Right.
654. 00:29:52 - And I totally agree.
655. 00:29:53 - She even mentions that whenever she's introducing
656. 00:29:55 the concept of morning pages,
657. 00:29:56 like it doesn't matter what you write,
658. 00:29:57 you just need to write.
659. 00:29:58 - Yep.
660. 00:29:59 - And even if you need to write,
661. 00:30:01 I am writing my morning pages.
662. 00:30:02 I am writing my morning pages.
663. 00:30:04 I am writing my morning,
664. 00:30:05 even if you have to do that,
665. 00:30:06 you're still getting it done
666. 00:30:08 because at some point your brain will trigger off of that
667. 00:30:11 and start having other thoughts.
668. 00:30:13 Like, trying to hold that constantly
669. 00:30:15 for three pages worth of writing.
670. 00:30:16 You're not following your consciousness
671. 00:30:18 when you're doing that.
672. 00:30:19 So, you know, even doing that little thing does go somewhere.
673. 00:30:22 - Yep, yep, absolutely.
674. 00:30:23 And the other important thing that she lays out
675. 00:30:27 in the process is the artist state.
676. 00:30:29 And this is where you're spending time every week
677. 00:30:31 with your inner artists.
678. 00:30:32 She recommends that you do this weekly.
679. 00:30:34 Again, with my crazy travel schedule,
680. 00:30:36 didn't get to this.
681. 00:30:37 I actually had this scheduled for this week.
682. 00:30:40 I was going to actually be gone Monday and Tuesday,
683. 00:30:44 but it did not work out for reasons
684. 00:30:47 that were outside my control.
685. 00:30:49 So it's actually happening later this week.
686. 00:30:52 But that's not really just like the artist state.
687. 00:30:56 As she's defining it,
688. 00:30:56 I'm getting away for a day and a half
689. 00:30:58 and it's kind of like my thinking time
690. 00:30:59 for the next quarter, the next year.
691. 00:31:02 The artist state specifically is every week
692. 00:31:05 you're gonna take a couple of hours
693. 00:31:07 and you're going to schedule something fun.
694. 00:31:09 Maybe that's something that you wouldn't normally do,
695. 00:31:12 which is going to stir creativity within you.
696. 00:31:15 And this kind of reminded me of there was a block
697. 00:31:18 in the 12-week year format,
698. 00:31:20 where once a week you scheduled like three hours
699. 00:31:23 just a player to have fun.
700. 00:31:25 That's kind of how I see this playing out in my own life.
701. 00:31:28 And one of the things I wanna do during my thinking time
702. 00:31:31 this week is I wanna make a list of these artist state ideas
703. 00:31:34 because I think having something specific
704. 00:31:36 that I'm going to do rather than just like,
705. 00:31:38 "Hey, I'm gonna take these three hours
706. 00:31:39 and not do anything."
707. 00:31:40 Like sounds good and then you get there
708. 00:31:42 and you're like, "But I have so much to do."
709. 00:31:44 So making a list of like physical things
710. 00:31:48 that I want to do, places I want to go
711. 00:31:51 during these artist states,
712. 00:31:52 I'm thinking is gonna help this stick a little bit better.
713. 00:31:54 - Yeah, I know that for me, I did two
714. 00:31:57 and one of those was basically time in the morning
715. 00:32:01 for me to play with code
716. 00:32:03 because that's where a lot of my creativity comes out.
717. 00:32:07 And the thing that I ended up doing was kind of just
718. 00:32:10 playing with some APIs I've wanted to play with.
719. 00:32:12 And that sounds really sadistic to some people.
720. 00:32:16 (laughs)
721. 00:32:17 I know, I'm gonna go play with code.
722. 00:32:19 - Well, yes, it does work when you're in something
723. 00:32:22 like what I do.
724. 00:32:23 'Cause I have some things that I personally wanna connect
725. 00:32:26 together just for my own purposes
726. 00:32:28 and it ended up working out really well
727. 00:32:31 to just have this time to go play with the stuff,
728. 00:32:34 see how it works out and learn a few things in the process.
729. 00:32:37 So I did one of those and that was very refreshing
730. 00:32:42 more so than I think I ever expected.
731. 00:32:44 The other one I did was I was at the church
732. 00:32:48 and I had about an hour that was left in my day
733. 00:32:51 on a Friday and I didn't have any specific
734. 00:32:56 I needed to get done.
735. 00:32:57 I had a lot I could do, but I decided instead to
736. 00:33:01 kinda just play around with some audio equipment
737. 00:33:04 that we have there just to learn how some of that stuff
738. 00:33:08 works on a deeper level because with something like
739. 00:33:12 the Allen and Heath board that I mentioned earlier,
740. 00:33:14 there's a lot of layers of depth that you can go
741. 00:33:18 into that board and how you set things up
742. 00:33:21 and some sophisticated ways of sending signals
743. 00:33:25 to and from different locations in our building.
744. 00:33:27 And I haven't really just sat down and played with it,
745. 00:33:30 but I did that and it was very interesting,
746. 00:33:34 the ideas that that gave me as far as what our church
747. 00:33:38 can and cannot do for say releasing sermons
748. 00:33:43 or releasing some video recordings in different time frames
749. 00:33:47 or doing some new sophisticated things with how we provide
750. 00:33:51 some resources to the congregation.
751. 00:33:54 So there was a lot of ideas that came out of that,
752. 00:33:58 but I don't think I ever would have come up with that
753. 00:34:00 if I hadn't taken the time to just go play with stuff.
754. 00:34:03 - So this is a really cool idea.
755. 00:34:04 If I'm hearing you right, what you're saying is that
756. 00:34:06 you've used the artist state as a time block to allow yourself
757. 00:34:10 to explore shiny new objects.
758. 00:34:12 - Yes, which is a thing I love to do.
759. 00:34:14 - Which is a really cool idea, I think.
760. 00:34:16 Yeah, I think I'm in the same boat.
761. 00:34:18 I think a lot of people in the productivity space
762. 00:34:20 would be in that same boat where they want to look
763. 00:34:22 at the next new task manager or whatever.
764. 00:34:24 Well, if you really like playing with that stuff,
765. 00:34:26 schedule a couple of hours where it's okay to do that
766. 00:34:30 and then you don't have to feel bad because you were playing
767. 00:34:32 with this thing you weren't getting your work done
768. 00:34:34 when you were supposed to.
769. 00:34:34 - Yes, another example of one that I've got planned
770. 00:34:38 for this week is that I've now, I've got access to set app.
771. 00:34:43 Now I'm giving that a run.
772. 00:34:46 - Oh, I love set app.
773. 00:34:48 - It's not ever made sense to me financially,
774. 00:34:51 but I'm playing with it this Friday.
775. 00:34:53 So I have it installed.
776. 00:34:55 I'm gonna be seeing how all of it works out.
777. 00:34:58 And disclaimer here, the access that I have is free to me.
778. 00:35:02 They reached out to me and gave me a free license to it
779. 00:35:06 to see how it goes and asked for my honest review of it.
780. 00:35:10 So I have not purchased this.
781. 00:35:12 So I'm just gonna preface that.
782. 00:35:14 But it's a thing that I wanna know,
783. 00:35:18 is this actually worth the dollars?
784. 00:35:20 Because I'm even outside of the free license.
785. 00:35:23 I've been very close to pulling the trigger already.
786. 00:35:26 Just because from a financial stance,
787. 00:35:28 it doesn't quite make sense for me to do that.
788. 00:35:32 But I think if there was one more app added to it,
789. 00:35:35 it would make sense for me to make that switch.
790. 00:35:37 And if that app happened to make the switch,
791. 00:35:39 I wanna know if it's worth going down that path.
792. 00:35:43 So we'll see, we'll see.
793. 00:35:44 I don't have my thoughts on it yet.
794. 00:35:46 - Let me give you the TLDR,
795. 00:35:48 'cause I've been a customer since day one.
796. 00:35:51 Yes, yes, it's worth it.
797. 00:35:53 I know that you at least were playing around
798. 00:35:55 with Ulysses, correct?
799. 00:35:56 - Yes, I do use Ulysses, I use Bear as well.
800. 00:35:59 - Okay, well Ulysses is in setup.
801. 00:36:01 So if you're gonna pay five bucks a month for Ulysses,
802. 00:36:03 you're halfway to getting all those apps in setup.
803. 00:36:06 And there's a bunch of really cool apps in there.
804. 00:36:08 One other one that I really like is timing,
805. 00:36:11 which again, that's something that I bought prior to setup.
806. 00:36:14 But it's an application that runs in the background
807. 00:36:16 on your Mac and it gives you reports
808. 00:36:18 on how you're spending your time
809. 00:36:20 as you're using your computer.
810. 00:36:21 So if you're spending three hours on Twitter,
811. 00:36:23 it's gonna tell you.
812. 00:36:24 You're gonna have visual reports,
813. 00:36:25 which are gonna show you basically how productive
814. 00:36:28 or unproductive you were during your date.
815. 00:36:29 But what I like about is you don't have to think about it.
816. 00:36:31 You don't have to start and stop timers
817. 00:36:33 whenever you switch things.
818. 00:36:34 It just runs and that's the thing that makes it work for me.
819. 00:36:37 - So all that to say, I have a set app license.
820. 00:36:40 I'm planning to play with it as one of these artists dates
821. 00:36:43 because I know there are a lot of apps in here
822. 00:36:46 that I have considered before,
823. 00:36:47 but I've never taken the time to go play around
824. 00:36:50 with them to see how I like it.
825. 00:36:52 And the thing that I love about set apps so far
826. 00:36:54 is that this gives me a chance to go download these things
827. 00:36:58 and play with them and see if I wanna use it or not
828. 00:37:01 without worrying about the dollars behind it.
829. 00:37:03 That to me seems to be the freeing point of it,
830. 00:37:06 but it requires the time to play with it.
831. 00:37:09 And doing that just whenever I have time and saying,
832. 00:37:13 "Well, if I get this done today, I'll go do that."
833. 00:37:15 It's never gonna happen.
834. 00:37:16 Like I'm not gonna take the time to do that.
835. 00:37:19 And this is a nice aspect of the artist's date
836. 00:37:24 that I would like to incorporate
837. 00:37:25 is just letting myself have that free time to say,
838. 00:37:28 "I'm gonna have two hours.
839. 00:37:29 "I'm gonna go play with what I want."
840. 00:37:31 New shiny, this'll be fun.
841. 00:37:32 Like that's what I want that time to be.
842. 00:37:34 And I think that's part of what she's getting at
843. 00:37:36 and the purpose behind it.
844. 00:37:37 - Yeah, it's totally what she's getting at
845. 00:37:39 is that the value is in the playing.
846. 00:37:41 Like you're gonna get the ideas
847. 00:37:43 that you can implement to make stuff easier,
848. 00:37:45 but it's freeing because even if nothing comes to you,
849. 00:37:49 the fact that you're allowing yourself to play,
850. 00:37:52 like it's increasing your creativity.
851. 00:37:54 It's unlocking the creativity that's within you.
852. 00:37:56 It's gonna make what you produce better.
853. 00:37:59 So even if you don't find some awesome new thing
854. 00:38:02 that you can use at church, for example,
855. 00:38:05 just the fact that you're taking those couple of hours
856. 00:38:08 to kind of shift modes, like there's value in that.
857. 00:38:11 And I really like that.
858. 00:38:13 I really like that approach and I can totally see
859. 00:38:16 how that would be a lot easier to do
860. 00:38:18 if you don't view it just as like,
861. 00:38:20 well, I'm gonna take these three hours
862. 00:38:22 and I'm gonna go skydiving or something.
863. 00:38:24 'Cause she does use some pretty crazy examples in it.
864. 00:38:26 Like you should go scuba diving.
865. 00:38:27 You should do all these crazy things.
866. 00:38:29 And I'm like, I don't really want to.
867. 00:38:32 But when you frame it as like,
868. 00:38:33 you've got a few hours this week
869. 00:38:34 where you can play with new apps,
870. 00:38:36 I'm like, yes, let's do that.
871. 00:38:39 - I just saw it as the date is a thing
872. 00:38:42 that I need to go do things I enjoy.
873. 00:38:44 You know, that was to me the crux of it
874. 00:38:46 and having the opportunity to go do things
875. 00:38:49 that I know are fun,
876. 00:38:51 even though it's still connected to what I do for work.
877. 00:38:55 Like, you know, playing with APIs,
878. 00:38:57 I build off of APIs most days of the week.
879. 00:39:00 Like that is a lot of what I end up doing.
880. 00:39:03 But I haven't had a chance to play with the ones
881. 00:39:05 that I want to go play with.
882. 00:39:07 Like that's, it's just a different thing altogether.
883. 00:39:11 So it's still very connected to what I do for work,
884. 00:39:13 but it's not in the arena that I thoroughly enjoy.
885. 00:39:17 And that's to me the part that I want to make sure
886. 00:39:20 I maintain in the future.
887. 00:39:22 - Nice, yeah, I totally agree.
888. 00:39:23 One other thing I'll just throw out here
889. 00:39:25 regarding setup is if you want to get a taste of,
890. 00:39:30 well, I mean, you've got free access.
891. 00:39:32 So you can play with whatever apps you want.
892. 00:39:34 - Right.
893. 00:39:35 - But everybody else who wants to see
894. 00:39:37 some of my favorite apps that are in there
895. 00:39:39 actually did a module on this for Screencast Online.
896. 00:39:42 - Okay.
897. 00:39:43 - So I covered like 10 of the apps that I considered
898. 00:39:46 the coolest ones in setup.
899. 00:39:49 And some of them are tiny ones that I, you know,
900. 00:39:51 $5 menu bar apps that I never would have used otherwise.
901. 00:39:55 Some of them are big like Ulysses.
902. 00:39:58 Obviously I'm not going into all of the different features
903. 00:40:00 and stuff, but I'm amazed at the quality
904. 00:40:03 of the apps that are inside a setup.
905. 00:40:04 I think they've done a really good job
906. 00:40:06 of curating what's in there.
907. 00:40:07 - Yeah, I will say that whenever I got the email from them
908. 00:40:09 asking me for my thoughts on it, I was rather shocked
909. 00:40:13 and excited at the same time.
910. 00:40:14 So I'm planning on putting together a whole review on it
911. 00:40:17 at some point just so that I can, you know,
912. 00:40:19 hear the thoughts I have on it.
913. 00:40:21 So I am planning that.
914. 00:40:22 The nice thing about it is there is no expectation
915. 00:40:25 from the setup team on what I say.
916. 00:40:28 Like there isn't any guidance on that that they've given me.
917. 00:40:31 It's just a, I want an honest review.
918. 00:40:33 Like that's what they've asked for.
919. 00:40:35 So I'm hoping to do that.
920. 00:40:37 - Sweet.
921. 00:40:38 - All right, let's jump into the actual course here.
922. 00:40:40 - Yep.
923. 00:40:41 - Because there are 12 large chapters
924. 00:40:43 for the 12 different weeks.
925. 00:40:45 And like I said, we can kind of jump around here.
926. 00:40:47 Week one, where it starts is recovering a sense of safety.
927. 00:40:50 The thing that jumped out to me here
928. 00:40:53 is this whole idea of shadow artists.
929. 00:40:56 Shadow artists are artists that hang out with other artists,
930. 00:40:59 but they don't consider themselves an artist.
931. 00:41:02 And I was totally in this camp for a very long time,
932. 00:41:06 even after I started working with Asian efficiency,
933. 00:41:09 even after I had contributed a lot of different pieces
934. 00:41:13 to the blog, even after I had written and published my book.
935. 00:41:16 Like I didn't consider myself a writer
936. 00:41:18 to hang out with other people who quote-unquote were writers
937. 00:41:22 and just felt inadequate.
938. 00:41:25 And that's really what she's getting at here
939. 00:41:27 is that these shadow artists,
940. 00:41:30 they like to be in those circles,
941. 00:41:32 but maybe they don't think of themselves that way.
942. 00:41:34 And that not viewing themselves as having the ability
943. 00:41:38 to be an artist or the ability to create,
944. 00:41:41 that keeps them closed up.
945. 00:41:42 Like they have the potential to become an artist,
946. 00:41:45 but it's almost like that they're completely okay
947. 00:41:47 with just being in the same room as these people,
948. 00:41:50 even if they don't get to actually do
949. 00:41:52 any of the cool stuff.
950. 00:41:54 - Like somebody who loves to paint
951. 00:41:56 and all they ever do is go to museums
952. 00:41:59 and look at old paintings.
953. 00:42:01 Like that's what they do.
954. 00:42:02 - Kind of.
955. 00:42:03 - Okay, but although that's a good thing to do,
956. 00:42:06 you should also be painting.
957. 00:42:07 Like that's, you gotta get past some of that.
958. 00:42:11 - And the one thing that really kind of hit me here
959. 00:42:13 is that she says that many shadow artists
960. 00:42:15 choose shadow careers, which are close to their art,
961. 00:42:18 but they're not the art itself.
962. 00:42:20 So I've heard this from well-meaning people
963. 00:42:23 where like they said, well, you should do this
964. 00:42:25 because you'll still get to contribute,
965. 00:42:28 you'll still be able to do this thing that you like,
966. 00:42:30 but you'll be doing it a different way.
967. 00:42:31 And I'm just like, no, it's not the same.
968. 00:42:34 (laughing)
969. 00:42:35 - Yep, I get it.
970. 00:42:36 You end up being like an IT consultant
971. 00:42:37 instead of a web developer.
972. 00:42:39 Like, come on, do the real thing.
973. 00:42:41 - Yeah, yeah, exactly.
974. 00:42:42 And unless you are all the way in on the artists scale,
975. 00:42:47 you know, if you were to say on a scale of zero to 10,
976. 00:42:51 depending on zeros where you start off in 10
977. 00:42:54 is like where you wanna be.
978. 00:42:56 And maybe the web developer is an eight
979. 00:42:59 and the IT consultant is a six
980. 00:43:01 in that particular scale.
981. 00:43:02 And you can define your own scale.
982. 00:43:03 That's really important.
983. 00:43:04 It's not like there's one right way to measure this stuff,
984. 00:43:07 but you, basically what she's saying here is,
985. 00:43:09 is don't be content with being able to see what other people,
986. 00:43:14 other web developers, for example, are doing,
987. 00:43:16 and then occasionally being able to dabble with that
988. 00:43:19 in your chosen career as an IT consultant,
989. 00:43:21 if that's really what you wanted to do
990. 00:43:23 is become a web developer.
991. 00:43:25 I heard it said this way one time
992. 00:43:27 that compromises the killer of every dream.
993. 00:43:29 And I think that's basically what she's saying here.
994. 00:43:31 Yes.
995. 00:43:32 So week two is recovering a sense of identity.
996. 00:43:36 I love this one.
997. 00:43:37 It's essentially saying, I am an artist.
998. 00:43:40 Or what's the Jeff Goins says, I am a writer
999. 00:43:44 and just saying I am a writer.
1000. 00:43:46 Yep.
1001. 00:43:46 Completely changed his life.
1002. 00:43:48 Quite literally, just because that is what provoked him
1003. 00:43:52 to write more and more because he would identify as a writer.
1004. 00:43:55 Now, the piece of this particular section
1005. 00:43:58 that really struck me was the Crazy Makers.
1006. 00:44:00 Remember this part?
1007. 00:44:01 Yes.
1008. 00:44:02 Yes, that's basically all my notes on this section
1009. 00:44:05 are about the Crazy Makers, which,
1010. 00:44:07 when you're talking about recovering a sense of identity,
1011. 00:44:10 there's two parts to this.
1012. 00:44:11 One is identifying yourself as, as Jeff Goins would say,
1013. 00:44:14 a writer or as an artist, but also identifying the other people
1014. 00:44:18 that are in your life, which is where the whole Crazy Makers
1015. 00:44:21 section comes in.
1016. 00:44:22 She's got another term for him.
1017. 00:44:24 She's just poisoned this playmates who are typically
1018. 00:44:26 other artists who are still blocked because your blocked
1019. 00:44:29 friend is not going to like the fact that you've now
1020. 00:44:32 got creative breakthrough.
1021. 00:44:34 And that's when they become Crazy Makers because maybe
1022. 00:44:37 they're not even meaning to do it, but they do it.
1023. 00:44:40 They're trying to steal from your creative energy
1024. 00:44:44 because they don't like the fact that you're making progress
1025. 00:44:46 and they're not.
1026. 00:44:47 Do we need to define what a Crazy Makers?
1027. 00:44:49 I think this could be fun.
1028. 00:44:50 Oh, definitely.
1029. 00:44:51 So as a whole list here, I wrote down, Crazy Makers break
1030. 00:44:55 deals and destroy schedules.
1031. 00:44:57 Crazy Makers expect special treatment.
1032. 00:44:59 Crazy Makers discount your reality.
1033. 00:45:01 Crazy Makers spend your time and your money, aka email.
1034. 00:45:06 Crazy Makers triangulate those they deal with.
1035. 00:45:08 So they're trying to play you off of somebody else.
1036. 00:45:12 Crazy Makers are expert blamers.
1037. 00:45:15 Crazy Makers create dramas, but seldom were they belong.
1038. 00:45:19 Crazy Makers hate schedules except their own.
1039. 00:45:21 So again, email.
1040. 00:45:23 I just hate the fact that people can, at any given moment,
1041. 00:45:27 send an email, which requires very little effort.
1042. 00:45:30 And the expectation is that you are going to drop
1043. 00:45:33 what you are doing and deal with this.
1044. 00:45:35 But that doesn't have to just be email.
1045. 00:45:37 There are people that I'm sure every single listener
1046. 00:45:39 who's listening to this right now can identify somebody
1047. 00:45:41 in their life who just has no respect for their schedule.
1048. 00:45:44 You have to identify that person as a Crazy Maker.
1049. 00:45:47 Crazy Makers also hate order.
1050. 00:45:49 And Crazy Makers basically don't believe
1051. 00:45:52 that they are Crazy Makers.
1052. 00:45:53 So if you were to take this section and say, OK, look,
1053. 00:45:56 you're doing this, this, and this, they'd be like, no, I'm not.
1054. 00:46:00 Oh, this is the-- this part of the book,
1055. 00:46:02 I think I talked about more with people
1056. 00:46:05 than any other section of this book,
1057. 00:46:07 just because everybody has Crazy Makers in life.
1058. 00:46:10 And they are people who stay up till 3 in the morning
1059. 00:46:13 and then expect you to do something for them the next day
1060. 00:46:16 because they're too tired.
1061. 00:46:17 Like, well, then why did you stay up till 3 in the morning?
1062. 00:46:19 This was your choice.
1063. 00:46:19 Why are you calling me over this?
1064. 00:46:21 Like, that's-- go away.
1065. 00:46:22 This is your own problem.
1066. 00:46:23 Deal with it.
1067. 00:46:23 Like, that's how I think you and I would react to a lot of that.
1068. 00:46:28 But not everyone feels like they can because maybe it's
1069. 00:46:31 their mom that's doing that.
1070. 00:46:33 And you can't say no to your mom, right?
1071. 00:46:35 So you have to go with it.
1072. 00:46:37 And it's these Crazy Makers that ultimately
1073. 00:46:40 rob you of one time and two mental states of how
1074. 00:46:48 you can go about doing your own creative work.
1075. 00:46:50 If you don't have the time and you
1076. 00:46:51 don't have the mental space to do your creative work,
1077. 00:46:55 it doesn't have it at all.
1078. 00:46:57 So the artist within you can't actually
1079. 00:46:59 do the work that you feel you should be doing.
1080. 00:47:02 So make the Crazy Makers stop.
1081. 00:47:04 Make them go away.
1082. 00:47:05 The artist within you, that sounds like a Tony Robbins version
1083. 00:47:08 of the artist way.
1084. 00:47:10 The artist within.
1085. 00:47:12 You're absolutely right about the Crazy Makers
1086. 00:47:15 you sometimes can't control.
1087. 00:47:16 But there's a very important point in this chapter
1088. 00:47:19 where she calls out the fact that while a lot of us
1089. 00:47:22 like to complain about the Crazy Makers that are in our lives,
1090. 00:47:26 we put up with them.
1091. 00:47:27 Like we have the ability, maybe it's
1092. 00:47:29 a little bit hard because of the specifics of the situation.
1093. 00:47:32 But it's totally doable to say, you know what?
1094. 00:47:34 This isn't working and I need to cut this out.
1095. 00:47:38 Or I just, I can't function this way.
1096. 00:47:41 If all you're going to do is gossip and back
1097. 00:47:43 but I'm not going to get together with you for coffee
1098. 00:47:45 anymore.
1099. 00:47:46 This isn't a constructive relationship.
1100. 00:47:48 You have the right to say that.
1101. 00:47:50 But she says in here that we put up with these Crazy Makers,
1102. 00:47:53 even if they make us crazy, even if we recognize
1103. 00:47:55 that they make us crazy, because in her words,
1104. 00:47:58 we prefer to be blocked.
1105. 00:48:00 So even though we recognize that we hate the fact
1106. 00:48:03 that these Crazy Makers are there,
1107. 00:48:05 it's more scary to envision life without the Crazy Makers
1108. 00:48:08 because then we have no excuse for not following
1109. 00:48:12 through on the creativity.
1110. 00:48:13 As long as the Crazy Makers are there,
1111. 00:48:14 we may complain about them.
1112. 00:48:16 But we've got a built-in excuse for not taking action.
1113. 00:48:20 And really that's what this whole book is about,
1114. 00:48:21 is getting unstuck, getting unblocked.
1115. 00:48:24 And recognizing, this is a big tipping point for me,
1116. 00:48:26 is recognizing the fact that we accept the block.
1117. 00:48:29 Like it's not even forced upon us a lot of times.
1118. 00:48:32 We just willingly accept it because it's comfortable.
1119. 00:48:36 It's familiar.
1120. 00:48:37 You know, we're scared of the unknown.
1121. 00:48:39 - How many times do you hear about people who don't produce
1122. 00:48:42 their art or they don't release it
1123. 00:48:44 because they're afraid of the response they're gonna get?
1124. 00:48:48 I know that there's a lot of this out there
1125. 00:48:50 and a lot of folks feel that they could do something great
1126. 00:48:54 but they don't and they're upset about it.
1127. 00:48:57 This is probably the largest instigator of the trolls
1128. 00:49:02 and the hate mail that I get from people,
1129. 00:49:04 is that they feel that the thing that I have done,
1130. 00:49:09 say, creating the Omni Focus video course,
1131. 00:49:12 they feel like they could have done that.
1132. 00:49:14 And to be honest with you, you probably could.
1133. 00:49:17 I am not saying I did anything special with that course.
1134. 00:49:19 I didn't feel like it took any massive creative revelation
1135. 00:49:24 to do that.
1136. 00:49:25 It was simply a, here's what I do.
1137. 00:49:27 It was very basic in my mind.
1138. 00:49:30 And yet it's changed a lot of lives as a result of it.
1139. 00:49:32 And yet I have people who will email me about that course
1140. 00:49:36 saying that it's a complete waste of time.
1141. 00:49:38 It was an absolute failure.
1142. 00:49:40 You know, you should stop doing all this stuff
1143. 00:49:43 'cause you're terrible at it.
1144. 00:49:44 Like, okay, well that's you being upset
1145. 00:49:47 about a thing that I made
1146. 00:49:49 because I'm betting you feel like you could have made it
1147. 00:49:52 but you didn't.
1148. 00:49:53 And now you're upset that someone else did a thing
1149. 00:49:55 that you think you should have done.
1150. 00:49:56 Like this doesn't make any sense to me.
1151. 00:49:59 Really, you're gonna go through all the trouble
1152. 00:50:01 of sending me this 4,000 word email
1153. 00:50:04 about how I should stop creating because you won't create.
1154. 00:50:07 Really?
1155. 00:50:08 Come on, let's get your act together here.
1156. 00:50:10 Yeah, which is crazy when you think about it
1157. 00:50:12 because like how many people say they wanna write a book?
1158. 00:50:15 You know, 4,000 words in an email is like one quarter of a book.
1159. 00:50:19 Yes.
1160. 00:50:20 I think my book is like 20,000 words.
1161. 00:50:22 It's short, you know, it's not like the 60,000 words
1162. 00:50:25 or whatever most business books are
1163. 00:50:26 but most business books say one thing
1164. 00:50:28 and then they say it five different ways.
1165. 00:50:30 How many times have we talked about that?
1166. 00:50:33 It's the same amount of effort almost
1167. 00:50:34 that they're putting forth in keeping you
1168. 00:50:37 or trying to keep you blocked
1169. 00:50:38 as opposed to advancing themselves.
1170. 00:50:40 So they are internet based crazy makers at that point
1171. 00:50:45 and also like kind of leading into the next point,
1172. 00:50:47 the thing that week three is recovering a sense of power.
1173. 00:50:50 So I think that part of this is what drives
1174. 00:50:54 crazy makers crazy is the fact that you,
1175. 00:50:57 you know, because you publish this thing,
1176. 00:51:00 you have recovered that sense of power
1177. 00:51:02 where you are able to do this
1178. 00:51:03 and they have no idea how to get there.
1179. 00:51:07 They can't see the fact that they wrote
1180. 00:51:10 these 4,000 words that they could have done
1181. 00:51:12 that constructively, that power.
1182. 00:51:14 I guess I view recovering a sense of power
1183. 00:51:16 as a constructive power, not a destructive power
1184. 00:51:19 and flipping that switch is a very important shift
1185. 00:51:22 that you have to make.
1186. 00:51:23 But once you do, I think that this is really
1187. 00:51:26 where things start to get moving.
1188. 00:51:28 This is where she talks about dealing with criticism
1189. 00:51:30 but really this is also where she talks about synchronicity.
1190. 00:51:33 I think is how you say it,
1191. 00:51:35 which is this idea of fortuitous intermeshing of events.
1192. 00:51:39 So the fact that you start doing something
1193. 00:51:43 that makes other things line up with it.
1194. 00:51:47 It's almost like you don't even have to try
1195. 00:51:50 to line these things up.
1196. 00:51:52 And obviously there's a couple steps here.
1197. 00:51:55 The what has to come before the how,
1198. 00:51:57 but then when you choose the what,
1199. 00:51:58 the how usually falls into place by itself.
1200. 00:52:00 I've kind of seen this myself with the process of writing.
1201. 00:52:02 My book, maybe you've seen it with the developing
1202. 00:52:04 of courses and stuff like that.
1203. 00:52:05 But like once you start the creative process,
1204. 00:52:09 you really maybe don't have any idea
1205. 00:52:11 what the end result is gonna look like
1206. 00:52:13 or how you're actually gonna publish this thing
1207. 00:52:15 or how it gets delivered or whatever.
1208. 00:52:17 But through the process, those next steps,
1209. 00:52:19 like all of a sudden they'll,
1210. 00:52:20 it'll be obvious what you need to do next.
1211. 00:52:22 - I see this more in, so I'm a freelancer, contractor.
1212. 00:52:26 So a lot of times I will have people ask me to do a thing
1213. 00:52:30 for say a discourse forum.
1214. 00:52:32 I want to add this feature and I have no clue
1215. 00:52:36 how to add that feature.
1216. 00:52:37 But I'll tell you yes and I'll give you a quote regardless.
1217. 00:52:40 And once I get a yes, then I gotta go figure out
1218. 00:52:44 how to actually do it.
1219. 00:52:45 (laughs)
1220. 00:52:47 This is a thing that I need to learn now
1221. 00:52:49 'cause I've got somebody paying me to do it.
1222. 00:52:51 So the how of it, I don't always know.
1223. 00:52:56 Or like I've taken one, it's probably a few months ago
1224. 00:52:59 where they were asking me to build on a language
1225. 00:53:02 I had not built on before, which is fine.
1226. 00:53:05 It just means I need to go learn the language
1227. 00:53:06 as I'm building the thing.
1228. 00:53:07 And I told them, said yes to it, they committed to it.
1229. 00:53:10 So we built it, but I knew what I was doing
1230. 00:53:12 but I didn't know how to do it.
1231. 00:53:14 But it seems like once I do that and I say yes,
1232. 00:53:17 and then I begin the process of actually building it,
1233. 00:53:20 the mechanisms and the hows of it just kind of come together.
1234. 00:53:24 I can't really tell you how or why,
1235. 00:53:26 but it's a thing that the mechanisms that I need to go
1236. 00:53:30 through and actually in the process to actually build it
1237. 00:53:33 just kind of happen.
1238. 00:53:34 And I don't know if that's just because
1239. 00:53:35 of my background and development.
1240. 00:53:37 And I just understand how that stuff works.
1241. 00:53:39 Or if that is more of a function of just having,
1242. 00:53:43 you know, in her case, the universe helps you pull it all
1243. 00:53:45 together, like I don't know how you want to define that.
1244. 00:53:48 But it just seems like if I define what I'm going to do,
1245. 00:53:51 as she says, the how kind of just goes along for the ride.
1246. 00:53:54 - Yep, exactly.
1247. 00:53:55 On page 65, she says, "I have learned as a rule of thumb
1248. 00:53:57 "never to ask whether you can do something.
1249. 00:53:59 "Say instead that you are doing it,
1250. 00:54:00 "then fasten your seatbelt,
1251. 00:54:02 "the most remarkable things follow."
1252. 00:54:04 So I've totally have seen the supply in web development.
1253. 00:54:08 So I kind of get the code example.
1254. 00:54:09 I don't do the same languages that you do,
1255. 00:54:11 but I have seen that play out in my own life.
1256. 00:54:14 But I think that the supply is said just about any area.
1257. 00:54:17 All right, week four, "Recovering a sense of integrity."
1258. 00:54:19 The one thing that I wrote down here,
1259. 00:54:22 I don't have many notes on this section,
1260. 00:54:23 but on page 87, she recommends that you not read.
1261. 00:54:26 - I know. - What?
1262. 00:54:27 - She's wrong.
1263. 00:54:28 - I agree.
1264. 00:54:29 Now I understand her points.
1265. 00:54:31 She says that it poisons the well,
1266. 00:54:34 and the real reason behind this
1267. 00:54:36 is so that you don't just collect all of this information.
1268. 00:54:41 You want to force yourself to play
1269. 00:54:43 because it's like we're talking about with the artist states.
1270. 00:54:46 It's the act of playing that will allow your inner artist,
1271. 00:54:51 your creative being to kind of rearrange these things
1272. 00:54:56 and identify new solutions just with the dots
1273. 00:54:58 that you've already got.
1274. 00:54:59 But I would say that you can read,
1275. 00:55:03 just consider the source of what you read.
1276. 00:55:06 Like I mentioned before, the value of Bookworm for me
1277. 00:55:09 is that I'm reading all these books,
1278. 00:55:10 I'm getting all these dots,
1279. 00:55:11 all these little nuggets that are being placed
1280. 00:55:13 in my toolbox, and the act of the morning pages
1281. 00:55:17 is something that allows me to connect those things
1282. 00:55:20 a lot more freely and in a lot more creative ways
1283. 00:55:22 than I ever have before.
1284. 00:55:24 So I understand the point, but I disagree with the specifics
1285. 00:55:27 of absolutely no reading in week four.
1286. 00:55:29 I think she's calling out like a different type of reading
1287. 00:55:34 than reading a book.
1288. 00:55:34 - Yeah, I did too.
1289. 00:55:36 - Yeah, 'cause she talks about newspapers, television,
1290. 00:55:40 what else is here?
1291. 00:55:41 Chatty conversation, gossipy conversations, radio.
1292. 00:55:45 She's mentioning those as bringing silence.
1293. 00:55:47 I think this is more similar to a thing
1294. 00:55:50 that I've been pushing people towards
1295. 00:55:52 is the concept of absence.
1296. 00:55:54 So if I'm driving to the grocery store,
1297. 00:55:56 don't turn on a podcast, don't turn on the radio.
1298. 00:55:58 If you're going by yourself and there's no kids
1299. 00:56:00 or anybody in the car, just leave it quiet.
1300. 00:56:01 And I think that's what she's talking about
1301. 00:56:03 more than don't ever pick up anything and read.
1302. 00:56:05 Don't ever have anything come into your brain.
1303. 00:56:07 Like I don't think that's what she's getting at.
1304. 00:56:09 I think it has more to do with filling the small spaces
1305. 00:56:11 that she's trying to provoke us to not do.
1306. 00:56:14 - Yep.
1307. 00:56:15 - Which is easier and easier to do the more advanced
1308. 00:56:18 these little screens in our pockets become.
1309. 00:56:20 And I think those little moments are what she's provoking.
1310. 00:56:24 - I agree, but I also think that when I read this,
1311. 00:56:27 I also got the idea that she was saying,
1312. 00:56:29 like don't carry a book everywhere, for example,
1313. 00:56:31 because when you have that little downtime,
1314. 00:56:33 like you should embrace that little downtime,
1315. 00:56:35 you should not be reading, you should not be consuming.
1316. 00:56:38 So that just goes against every green in my body.
1317. 00:56:42 (laughing)
1318. 00:56:44 Which means I should probably try it at some point.
1319. 00:56:46 - Yep.
1320. 00:56:47 - But don't like the idea of not reading, that's for sure.
1321. 00:56:50 - Anyway, the sense of this week,
1322. 00:56:52 recovering a sense of integrity,
1323. 00:56:54 I think it has a lot to do with being true to yourself,
1324. 00:56:58 as we would say.
1325. 00:57:00 - Yep.
1326. 00:57:01 - And following the identity piece of saying,
1327. 00:57:03 I am an artist of whatever flavor,
1328. 00:57:06 and sticking with that and not letting, say,
1329. 00:57:09 reviews or criticisms or hate mail,
1330. 00:57:12 not letting that deter you from your path forward in your art.
1331. 00:57:16 - Yep, yep, totally agree.
1332. 00:57:18 Week five.
1333. 00:57:19 - Recovering a sense of possibility.
1334. 00:57:20 - I like this one.
1335. 00:57:21 So in here, she kind of talks about this scarcity mindset,
1336. 00:57:26 and I've read other books where it talks about the difference
1337. 00:57:29 between a scarcity mindset and an abundance mindset.
1338. 00:57:32 Now, if you really believe in the basic principles
1339. 00:57:37 that she laid out, okay,
1340. 00:57:40 if you really believe that there is a spiritual force,
1341. 00:57:43 a God who has abundant creative resources,
1342. 00:57:48 and that your best way of serving that God
1343. 00:57:52 is to let that creativity out of you,
1344. 00:57:55 this really makes a difference, okay?
1345. 00:57:58 Because the scarcity mindset kind of views everything
1346. 00:58:03 as a scarce resources, there's only a limited amount
1347. 00:58:05 of this stuff, but I think that most people
1348. 00:58:07 who would believe in God believe that God is not limited
1349. 00:58:12 in that particular way.
1350. 00:58:14 Like, he's not just got a thousand dollars
1351. 00:58:16 in his bank account.
1352. 00:58:18 So if you click into this idea,
1353. 00:58:21 like on page 91, there's a really good quote here.
1354. 00:58:22 She said, "Remembering that God is my source,
1355. 00:58:25 "we are in the position of having an unlimited bank account.
1356. 00:58:28 "Most of us never consider how powerful
1357. 00:58:30 "the Creator really is.
1358. 00:58:31 "Instead, we draw very limited amounts
1359. 00:58:33 "of the power available to us.
1360. 00:58:35 "We decide how powerful God is for us.
1361. 00:58:38 "We unconsciously set a limit on how much God can give us
1362. 00:58:40 "or help us.
1363. 00:58:41 "We are stingy with ourselves,
1364. 00:58:43 "and if we receive a gift beyond our imagining,
1365. 00:58:45 "we often send it back."
1366. 00:58:47 Wow.
1367. 00:58:48 I totally agree with this,
1368. 00:58:50 and if I'm honest with myself and I go back
1369. 00:58:53 and reflect on what I've done over the years,
1370. 00:58:55 I can see this where it's like,
1371. 00:58:58 I was given an opportunity to do this thing,
1372. 00:58:59 and I'm just like, "Oh, no, I can't do that."
1373. 00:59:01 And so it passes by.
1374. 00:59:03 And that's really sad when you think about it that way.
1375. 00:59:06 I think the key here is not to dwell on
1376. 00:59:08 what could have been in the past,
1377. 00:59:10 the key is to think about what can be for the future.
1378. 00:59:13 Like, what am I gonna do from this point forward?
1379. 00:59:15 And I personally believe that this is a really important,
1380. 00:59:18 again, a really important mindset shift
1381. 00:59:19 that you have to make is recognizing that,
1382. 00:59:23 yeah, I've got a lot more available to me than I realize,
1383. 00:59:26 and it's my own lizard brain,
1384. 00:59:28 my own unbelief, my own lack of faith,
1385. 00:59:30 and my own lack of faith in my own abilities to create.
1386. 00:59:33 Like, I don't believe that I can do this,
1387. 00:59:35 that often keeps us from achieving what we can.
1388. 00:59:38 Yes, to all the things.
1389. 00:59:40 (laughing)
1390. 00:59:42 It's a case of you need to be okay with letting things happen.
1391. 00:59:46 And there are a lot of times when someone will pose an idea
1392. 00:59:50 to me, say at church about a new area that we wanna get into
1393. 00:59:54 as far as promoting some video stuff that we have.
1394. 00:59:57 And although stepping into some of that video stuff,
1395. 01:00:01 at least whenever I first started getting into it,
1396. 01:00:03 like, okay, this is way above my head.
1397. 01:00:05 I don't even know how to encode a video correctly,
1398. 01:00:07 but I have someone who wants to teach me
1399. 01:00:09 some of the editing pieces.
1400. 01:00:11 Yes, I'll do that.
1401. 01:00:12 When am I gonna do it?
1402. 01:00:13 No clue.
1403. 01:00:13 How am I gonna get the time to do it?
1404. 01:00:15 No clue.
1405. 01:00:16 But learning that is a skill that I know I will want
1406. 01:00:19 in the future, so taking the time to go through that training
1407. 01:00:22 is very valuable, and figuring out how to make it fit
1408. 01:00:26 into the schedule.
1409. 01:00:27 Again, what versus how?
1410. 01:00:28 That's a thing you need to say yes to.
1411. 01:00:30 And trying to learn how to do that is not simple, Mike.
1412. 01:00:34 (laughing)
1413. 01:00:34 Like, that is not easy to do.
1414. 01:00:36 - No.
1415. 01:00:37 No, I can view this also as like,
1416. 01:00:40 let's say you wanna be a writer, you know,
1417. 01:00:42 and you have people saying like,
1418. 01:00:43 well, you'll never be a writer to the level of like,
1419. 01:00:46 the people that write the books that we read here.
1420. 01:00:49 The question to ask is, why not?
1421. 01:00:51 Like, why not you?
1422. 01:00:52 Why not me?
1423. 01:00:53 Why can't I be a New York Times bestseller?
1424. 01:00:56 Like, what is preventing me?
1425. 01:00:57 It's my own unbelief.
1426. 01:00:58 It's my own lack of faith in my own abilities,
1427. 01:01:00 and the gifts that God has given me.
1428. 01:01:02 If I would just put 'em to work,
1429. 01:01:04 you know, I'd be amazed at what I can actually do.
1430. 01:01:06 That's really the key here,
1431. 01:01:08 because if you don't believe you can do it,
1432. 01:01:10 you're not going to do it.
1433. 01:01:11 So you have to understand what's possible
1434. 01:01:13 before you actually do it.
1435. 01:01:15 - All right, so week six,
1436. 01:01:16 recovering a sense of abundance.
1437. 01:01:18 And this one, I think the part that I would resonate with
1438. 01:01:22 on this is admitting that being an artist
1439. 01:01:25 doesn't necessarily require you to live on rice
1440. 01:01:28 and beans the rest of your life.
1441. 01:01:30 Like, that's kind of the expectation we have of artists,
1442. 01:01:33 and it's not true.
1443. 01:01:35 But if we continue to expect that,
1444. 01:01:38 it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
1445. 01:01:39 So you have to get past some of that to realize
1446. 01:01:44 that there are ways to have an abundant life
1447. 01:01:47 with your art, and it doesn't necessarily have,
1448. 01:01:50 that doesn't have to mean financial, although it can.
1449. 01:01:54 But you have to get past that, you really do.
1450. 01:01:56 - Yep, and this kind of ties into the previous week.
1451. 01:02:00 The thing I wrote down about this section
1452. 01:02:02 is that this is the, there's a quote she uses
1453. 01:02:06 regarding whatever.
1454. 01:02:08 Like, this is extravagant,
1455. 01:02:09 but so is God, and the point here is that,
1456. 01:02:11 as you expect God to be more generous,
1457. 01:02:13 God is able to be more generous to you.
1458. 01:02:16 And she uses a quote which encapsulates this idea perfectly.
1459. 01:02:19 It's like, you are the cheapskate, not God.
1460. 01:02:21 (both laughing)
1461. 01:02:23 Which is really sobering when you understand that.
1462. 01:02:26 Like, 'cause, I mean, it says you have not
1463. 01:02:28 because you ask not, right?
1464. 01:02:29 So literally, like, you mean that I haven't been able
1465. 01:02:33 to do this thing just because I haven't asked
1466. 01:02:35 that you help me do it?
1467. 01:02:36 Like, yeah, it is that simple a lot of times.
1468. 01:02:39 And there are other people though,
1469. 01:02:40 who are gonna say like, oh, it's not that simple.
1470. 01:02:42 That doesn't work that way.
1471. 01:02:43 And she uses a term in this chapter called
1472. 01:02:46 "Wet Blankets" to describe them.
1473. 01:02:48 And you wanna avoid the wet blankets
1474. 01:02:50 who are going to put out your fire and your passion.
1475. 01:02:52 - Stay away from the wet blankets.
1476. 01:02:54 All right, so. - That's right.
1477. 01:02:55 - Let's go on to week seven.
1478. 01:02:56 Recovering a sense of connection.
1479. 01:03:00 And I believe, if I interpret all of this correctly,
1480. 01:03:03 what she's referring to as a connection to God
1481. 01:03:06 and connection to, she would probably say
1482. 01:03:08 the forces are the universe that help you create things
1483. 01:03:12 without your own brain getting in the way.
1484. 01:03:15 I think this, to me, has more to do with
1485. 01:03:18 thinking about things subconsciously versus consciously
1486. 01:03:21 and not getting in the way of the dots
1487. 01:03:26 that can be connected when you let your brain run wild.
1488. 01:03:29 I think that's how I would interpret it.
1489. 01:03:31 Do you think that's fair or am I just being bonkers crazy?
1490. 01:03:34 - No, I think that is fair.
1491. 01:03:37 - On page 18, she says, "We are the instrument
1492. 01:03:39 "more than the author of our work."
1493. 01:03:41 So what that does is it frees you
1494. 01:03:44 to just go through the creative process.
1495. 01:03:46 You don't have to sit down and be like,
1496. 01:03:47 "Oh, I have to create now.
1497. 01:03:48 "I have to come up with something."
1498. 01:03:50 Because the creative process,
1499. 01:03:52 and that's where the sense of connection comes,
1500. 01:03:54 is like if you engage in the creative process appropriately,
1501. 01:03:57 you've got a spigot that you can turn on,
1502. 01:04:00 and then the creative process is the hose,
1503. 01:04:02 and then whatever comes out on the other end is completely okay.
1504. 01:04:05 She says, "Once you accept the idea
1505. 01:04:06 "that it's natural to create,
1506. 01:04:07 "you can begin to accept the second idea,
1507. 01:04:09 "that the creator will hand you whatever you need
1508. 01:04:11 "for the project."
1509. 01:04:12 And that also means that essentially,
1510. 01:04:15 you shouldn't be worried so much about perfectionism.
1511. 01:04:20 Perfectionism, as she says, is nothing to do
1512. 01:04:23 with getting it right or fixing things or standards
1513. 01:04:26 or all those things that we use
1514. 01:04:27 as justifications for the perfectionism.
1515. 01:04:29 Perfection is really a refusal
1516. 01:04:31 to allow yourself to move forward.
1517. 01:04:34 Which if you understand this whole idea
1518. 01:04:35 of connection totally makes sense,
1519. 01:04:37 'cause it's like, "Oh, well, the connection worked once,
1520. 01:04:39 "but I don't know if it's gonna work again,
1521. 01:04:41 "so I should probably just stay on this project
1522. 01:04:43 "because I don't know what the next project is,
1523. 01:04:45 "and I'm scared of trying to connect again and create again."
1524. 01:04:48 But you need to do it anyway.
1525. 01:04:49 You need to do it anyway, absolutely.
1526. 01:04:51 Which means you need to recover a sense of strength.
1527. 01:04:53 Yep.
1528. 01:04:54 To keep powering through those times
1529. 01:04:55 when you don't feel like you could keep moving on it.
1530. 01:04:57 And I think that's not necessarily an easy thing to do,
1531. 01:05:00 which is why page three of morning pages
1532. 01:05:02 is so important, Mike.
1533. 01:05:03 (laughs)
1534. 01:05:04 Too shy.
1535. 01:05:05 Page three.
1536. 01:05:05 (laughs)
1537. 01:05:07 'Cause I think that's,
1538. 01:05:08 it's an important piece of what she's getting at here
1539. 01:05:10 is that you need to continue to build up your muscles
1540. 01:05:14 in empowering through the times that aren't always as easy.
1541. 01:05:18 And when you feel like you need to start another project
1542. 01:05:22 or you need to embrace a new aspect of your art,
1543. 01:05:26 that's where this strength comes in.
1544. 01:05:28 And you don't wanna let that fall away
1545. 01:05:31 because then you'll start saying no,
1546. 01:05:32 and you'll become blocked again,
1547. 01:05:34 and you won't be able to power through
1548. 01:05:35 and keep going on to the next thing when you should be.
1549. 01:05:37 Yep, that totally makes sense.
1550. 01:05:39 And in this section, she even compares an artist
1551. 01:05:41 with an athlete, just as an artist will have injuries,
1552. 01:05:44 just like an athlete.
1553. 01:05:45 The trick is to survive them and to let yourself heal.
1554. 01:05:48 And the creativity requires activity.
1555. 01:05:50 So you just need to start.
1556. 01:05:52 You need to just go through the actions
1557. 01:05:54 like you're telling me.
1558. 01:05:55 Just push through and do the third page
1559. 01:05:57 of the morning pages.
1560. 01:05:58 Just do it, Mike.
1561. 01:05:59 Just do it.
1562. 01:06:00 Whatever your thing is, yeah, just push through and do it.
1563. 01:06:03 Because if you don't do it,
1564. 01:06:04 you will end up suffering because of that.
1565. 01:06:07 She also says that art that isn't expressed
1566. 01:06:09 is like a miscarriage,
1567. 01:06:10 and the artist suffers terribly because of it,
1568. 01:06:12 which I totally get.
1569. 01:06:13 I put off writing my book for years
1570. 01:06:15 until I couldn't stand it anymore.
1571. 01:06:17 And then I was like, I just have to do this.
1572. 01:06:19 Like I said, didn't consider myself a writer.
1573. 01:06:21 I suffered from all of this stuff
1574. 01:06:23 that she's describing in this book.
1575. 01:06:25 I overcame a lot of it,
1576. 01:06:26 but also going through this course,
1577. 01:06:27 I realized that I've got a lot more to do.
1578. 01:06:30 So what's week nine?
1579. 01:06:31 Week nine is recovering a sense of compassion.
1580. 01:06:36 Couple things I wrote down here
1581. 01:06:37 regarding procrastination and enthusiasm.
1582. 01:06:41 Enthusiasm, as she mentions, in the Greek,
1583. 01:06:44 literally means being filled with God,
1584. 01:06:46 which I thought was kind of cool,
1585. 01:06:48 based on all of her guiding principles
1586. 01:06:50 and the belief as God is a creative being,
1587. 01:06:52 which again, I totally agree with
1588. 01:06:53 and the fact that we are made in this image
1589. 01:06:55 and all we have to do is create
1590. 01:06:57 and that just kind of unlocks things.
1591. 01:07:00 You think about artists typically
1592. 01:07:01 and you think about like passion projects,
1593. 01:07:03 you think about people who are really into what they're doing.
1594. 01:07:06 As I read this, basically what it spoke to me was that
1595. 01:07:10 if you're going through the process
1596. 01:07:12 the right way the enthusiasm or the passion is going to come.
1597. 01:07:16 It's grounded in play, not work,
1598. 01:07:19 which is why the artists' dates are so important.
1599. 01:07:23 And joy, not duty is what makes that a lasting bond.
1600. 01:07:26 So one of the things I wrote down here
1601. 01:07:28 is to get a couple of toys for my artists to play with.
1602. 01:07:32 She mentions this and I thought immediately
1603. 01:07:34 of like David Sparks and his desk
1604. 01:07:36 with all his like a Star Wars stuff.
1605. 01:07:38 I've got a few of those things on my desk
1606. 01:07:39 but I'm definitely going to keep my eye out
1607. 01:07:42 for some additional like desk toys
1608. 01:07:44 and things that I just think are fun
1609. 01:07:45 that I really reading this section showed me
1610. 01:07:48 that those things can help cultivate creativity.
1611. 01:07:50 - I think some of this compassion piece
1612. 01:07:52 also plays into not being hard on yourself when you fail.
1613. 01:07:56 There's a little bit of that aspect
1614. 01:07:57 that I got from this piece as well
1615. 01:07:59 because I know that there are a lot of cases
1616. 01:08:02 whenever I am creating a new video course of sorts
1617. 01:08:06 or I'm building a new application for myself
1618. 01:08:10 like for a new business of sorts.
1619. 01:08:12 And whenever I do that, it's easy for me
1620. 01:08:14 to get upset with myself if I'm not being entirely productive
1621. 01:08:19 and I sometimes want to take a break from it.
1622. 01:08:21 Like, okay, this is a fun thing that I want to do
1623. 01:08:23 but at the same time, I just want to take a nap.
1624. 01:08:26 (laughs)
1625. 01:08:27 That's okay.
1626. 01:08:29 I think that's an aspect of this that needs called out
1627. 01:08:31 is that you have to forgive yourself sometimes.
1628. 01:08:34 - Yep.
1629. 01:08:35 - You know, not only do you need to have the passion behind it
1630. 01:08:38 and forgive others whenever they fail
1631. 01:08:40 to continue pushing through on their creative journey
1632. 01:08:42 but you have to do that with yourself as well.
1633. 01:08:44 And that's not all that simple to do
1634. 01:08:47 even though I made it sound simple.
1635. 01:08:49 - Definitely not.
1636. 01:08:50 And the other thing I wrote down here regarding procrastination,
1637. 01:08:53 I mean, this is something that everybody deals with
1638. 01:08:56 and she kind of calls it out right here
1639. 01:08:57 that procrastination, that lack of action,
1640. 01:09:00 putting off what you know you need to do.
1641. 01:09:02 The real cause of that is fear.
1642. 01:09:04 Fear is what blocks an artist.
1643. 01:09:06 And the way to overcome that,
1644. 01:09:10 in her words, use love for your artist to cure its fear.
1645. 01:09:12 And this is where the enthusiasm and the joy,
1646. 01:09:15 not the duty, why that is so important
1647. 01:09:18 and why the artist dates in the play is so important.
1648. 01:09:21 Because if you're doing something that you love,
1649. 01:09:23 if you're doing something that you enjoy,
1650. 01:09:26 that's going to provide the motivation
1651. 01:09:29 to overcome that procrastination.
1652. 01:09:30 You're gonna do the thing not because you want the end result
1653. 01:09:34 but just because you love the process.
1654. 01:09:36 - And I think this plays into the next one as well.
1655. 01:09:38 It's funny how they all tie into each other.
1656. 01:09:40 - Yep.
1657. 01:09:41 - Recovering a sense of self-protection in week 10.
1658. 01:09:44 And this is probably one that you and I
1659. 01:09:46 spend a fair amount of time talking about
1660. 01:09:48 without realizing it.
1661. 01:09:49 But some of the topics that she covers,
1662. 01:09:52 workaholism, fame, a drought,
1663. 01:09:55 where you're not having any creative ideas come up at all.
1664. 01:09:59 Competition is one that comes up quite a bit
1665. 01:10:02 with people just because someone else is doing a thing
1666. 01:10:05 that I know I could do as well.
1667. 01:10:08 I have a business I'm building right now
1668. 01:10:09 that is designed to be a competitor.
1669. 01:10:11 That's the whole point is the competition that's out there,
1670. 01:10:15 I don't think is good enough.
1671. 01:10:16 So I want to create one to compete with them.
1672. 01:10:19 That's exactly what I'm doing.
1673. 01:10:20 So that is kind of a slap in the face
1674. 01:10:23 of the competition aspect here is that,
1675. 01:10:25 you know, you see someone else doing a thing
1676. 01:10:27 that would directly overwhelm you
1677. 01:10:30 or maybe even take customers away from you in some cases,
1678. 01:10:33 but not letting that be a deterrent
1679. 01:10:35 from you creating the thing you feel needs to exist.
1680. 01:10:38 And I think that's very easy to say,
1681. 01:10:43 but it can be disheartening,
1682. 01:10:45 even if you're familiar with this process,
1683. 01:10:47 it can be kind of deflating to see someone else
1684. 01:10:51 building a thing that you want to build.
1685. 01:10:53 But that doesn't mean you shouldn't build it
1686. 01:10:54 because if you spend the time building it,
1687. 01:10:56 you never know when yours is gonna be the one to take off.
1688. 01:10:59 And even though you both work in the same space,
1689. 01:11:02 it's okay, like people will buy both in a lot of cases.
1690. 01:11:07 And that's all right.
1691. 01:11:09 It's not always gonna be a thing
1692. 01:11:11 where one is going to dominate the entire market.
1693. 01:11:14 How many task management apps are out there?
1694. 01:11:17 Like this is just nuts how many of them can be supported.
1695. 01:11:20 - 100 new ones every day.
1696. 01:11:22 - That's nuts.
1697. 01:11:22 - No, I'm just making up that number,
1698. 01:11:24 but it seems like it.
1699. 01:11:26 - Like I wouldn't doubt it though.
1700. 01:11:27 But you get what I'm saying.
1701. 01:11:28 Like the competition piece,
1702. 01:11:30 I mean, that's just one aspect of it.
1703. 01:11:32 The workaholism thing is probably the one
1704. 01:11:34 I struggle with the most just because I love a lot
1705. 01:11:37 of what I do, so I tend to want to do it more.
1706. 01:11:40 So there we go, it's gonna leave it there.
1707. 01:11:42 - Yeah.
1708. 01:11:43 - But I need to be better about protecting myself in that way.
1709. 01:11:46 - Yeah, workaholism is a block, not a building block.
1710. 01:11:48 She mentions, and this gets back to the whole idea
1711. 01:11:51 that's kind of been prevalent in the productivity space
1712. 01:11:53 this year is like, don't be busy, be effective.
1713. 01:11:56 Essentialism, minimalism, all those sorts of things.
1714. 01:11:59 Like those are really popular right now.
1715. 01:12:00 And really what they're saying is like,
1716. 01:12:02 just the fact that you're working doesn't mean
1717. 01:12:03 that it is actually working.
1718. 01:12:05 And also going back to the competition piece,
1719. 01:12:08 the fact that like you said,
1720. 01:12:09 it's the fact that someone else succeeded
1721. 01:12:11 doesn't mean that you can't.
1722. 01:12:13 But also famed is not equal success.
1723. 01:12:17 So the number of copies that you sell really is,
1724. 01:12:20 according to Julia Cameron, a little bit irrelevant
1725. 01:12:23 because the point of the work is the work.
1726. 01:12:25 And there's a very real danger in the comparison
1727. 01:12:29 where you compare what you've done
1728. 01:12:31 with what somebody else is doing
1729. 01:12:33 because that is going to make you less content.
1730. 01:12:35 She uses the example of magazines, like people,
1731. 01:12:39 but right away I thought of Facebook.
1732. 01:12:41 - Oh yeah, yeah, I could see that.
1733. 01:12:43 You hear stories all the time about people
1734. 01:12:47 who are on Facebook a lot
1735. 01:12:50 and they become more depressed.
1736. 01:12:53 They're not happy with their situation.
1737. 01:12:55 I heard a ridiculous statistic and I forget the number.
1738. 01:12:59 So I'm not going to try and quote it,
1739. 01:13:00 but Facebook is a major reason for a lot of failed marriages
1740. 01:13:05 because you see your old flame on Facebook
1741. 01:13:11 and you think, "Oh, what could have been?"
1742. 01:13:14 You're not content with your own situation.
1743. 01:13:16 Same idea like without the relationship piece.
1744. 01:13:19 Like you see what everybody else is doing
1745. 01:13:22 and you see how happy they are
1746. 01:13:23 and they're projecting the very best parts of their life
1747. 01:13:25 and you're comparing it to the totality of your life
1748. 01:13:28 and you're just like, "Oh man, my life stinks."
1749. 01:13:30 It's just, it's not a healthy place to spend a lot of time
1750. 01:13:33 but it's also a very addicting application and service.
1751. 01:13:37 So people spend a lot of time there.
1752. 01:13:40 And as a result, like you compare yourself to other people
1753. 01:13:43 and you get discouraged about what you don't have
1754. 01:13:46 or what you haven't been able to do.
1755. 01:13:47 - If you ever want a reason to not be on Facebook,
1756. 01:13:50 you should just know that they hire PhDs
1757. 01:13:53 that design the application to addict you to it.
1758. 01:13:56 - Yeah.
1759. 01:13:57 - Like that is a lot of what they are designing that app for
1760. 01:14:00 is to keep you on it and serve you ads
1761. 01:14:02 and sell things to you like that is what it is designed to do.
1762. 01:14:06 The whole process of sharing your life
1763. 01:14:08 is kind of the icing on the cake that they're using
1764. 01:14:12 to get you to consume the rest of the cake.
1765. 01:14:14 Like that's what they're doing with it.
1766. 01:14:16 So just avoid Facebook.
1767. 01:14:17 - Yeah.
1768. 01:14:18 Now a very important distinction here
1769. 01:14:20 because I'm sure that people are thinking like,
1770. 01:14:22 "Well, what about Twitter?
1771. 01:14:23 What about all the other social media networks
1772. 01:14:25 that are out there?"
1773. 01:14:26 And the same danger is with all of these
1774. 01:14:29 but a very important distinction I think with Facebook
1775. 01:14:33 and Twitter is the reciprocity with all the people
1776. 01:14:36 who are your quote unquote friends.
1777. 01:14:38 'Cause what that means is that you are only ever going
1778. 01:14:41 to be Facebook friends with people that you already know.
1779. 01:14:44 These are people that are in your past.
1780. 01:14:46 And so for me, it's a lot of people I went to high school
1781. 01:14:48 with.
1782. 01:14:49 I don't necessarily want all of the people I went
1783. 01:14:52 to high school with to be able to barf on my timeline.
1784. 01:14:56 Which is why I like Twitter because you get to choose
1785. 01:14:58 who you're going to follow.
1786. 01:15:00 And yeah, there is a lot of negativity on Twitter as well.
1787. 01:15:03 But I feel like Twitter does a better job
1788. 01:15:05 at least right now of giving you the tools
1789. 01:15:08 to ignore some of that stuff.
1790. 01:15:09 You don't have to be notified of your mentions
1791. 01:15:11 and your likes and all that sort of stuff.
1792. 01:15:14 The direct messages you can turn off.
1793. 01:15:16 And so literally if all you wanted was a timeline
1794. 01:15:18 of what's happening in the world
1795. 01:15:22 or what's happening in your world anyways,
1796. 01:15:25 you can curate that.
1797. 01:15:26 And then I actually use Tweetbot
1798. 01:15:28 and it's got this awesome muffles feature.
1799. 01:15:31 So I just block all the political stuff.
1800. 01:15:34 Star Wars just came out.
1801. 01:15:34 I haven't seen it yet.
1802. 01:15:35 Jo hasn't seen any of them.
1803. 01:15:36 So maybe you want to create a Star Wars muffle
1804. 01:15:39 for the next six months or whatever
1805. 01:15:42 until you finally follow through on the 12 week year ago.
1806. 01:15:44 I'm going to have Josh.
1807. 01:15:46 - Getting close.
1808. 01:15:47 - Yeah, are you?
1809. 01:15:47 Awesome.
1810. 01:15:48 So yeah, you can curate it so that it's not so negative
1811. 01:15:53 but also you can pick the people who you look up to.
1812. 01:15:57 The people who are doing the things, the artists,
1813. 01:16:00 there is the danger here of the shadow artists,
1814. 01:16:03 for example, you could follow a bunch of writers,
1815. 01:16:06 you could even interact with some of them
1816. 01:16:08 and then you never actually write
1817. 01:16:09 because you're in the same spaces of them
1818. 01:16:11 and that's good enough.
1819. 01:16:12 But I think that it does give you the format of it
1820. 01:16:16 is going to really, it's set up a lot better
1821. 01:16:19 to avoid the comparison in my opinion anyways
1822. 01:16:23 than the way I use it.
1823. 01:16:24 - All right, so let's go on to week 11
1824. 01:16:26 recovering a sense of autonomy.
1825. 01:16:28 And this goes back to a little bit of what I was saying
1826. 01:16:32 earlier with the Jeff Goings bit
1827. 01:16:35 and the sense of identity of I am a writer
1828. 01:16:39 or I am an artist.
1829. 01:16:40 And she brings that out a little bit here
1830. 01:16:42 but one of the things that I like about the section
1831. 01:16:45 is she talks about this artist's altar
1832. 01:16:48 which I think is kind of a fun thing to think about.
1833. 01:16:52 I don't know that I like the terminology
1834. 01:16:55 of calling it an altar
1835. 01:16:56 but that's kind of beside the point here.
1836. 01:16:59 But for me, I like the idea of having a place
1837. 01:17:02 that you can go.
1838. 01:17:03 And this is where I do my morning pages.
1839. 01:17:05 This is where I do some of my creative work.
1840. 01:17:08 Like I like that setting up a place for this
1841. 01:17:11 makes a lot of sense.
1842. 01:17:12 Now, we talked way, way back about the fact
1843. 01:17:16 that I had two desks where I have the desk
1844. 01:17:19 where I keep my computer
1845. 01:17:19 and then there was the writing desk.
1846. 01:17:21 I don't have that writing desk anymore
1847. 01:17:23 which would have been the perfect place for this
1848. 01:17:26 because that particular table that I was using for that
1849. 01:17:28 became our main family table
1850. 01:17:30 because it was so much bigger than what we had up there
1851. 01:17:31 at the time and our family keeps growing.
1852. 01:17:33 So, you know, with three girls and food
1853. 01:17:37 and everything on the table, it just needed to be bigger.
1854. 01:17:39 So long story short, I lost my writing table
1855. 01:17:42 or my writing desk.
1856. 01:17:43 - Sad day.
1857. 01:17:44 - So I don't have a dedicated place for this per se.
1858. 01:17:47 So I'm working on that.
1859. 01:17:48 I don't have it as an action item
1860. 01:17:50 but I'm just kind of working my way through it somewhat.
1861. 01:17:52 I just don't want to formalize it, I guess.
1862. 01:17:54 - Have you listened to "Hurry Slowly" by Jocelyn Kiglei?
1863. 01:17:57 The Austin Cleon one, he talks about
1864. 01:17:59 how he's got two separate desks.
1865. 01:18:00 - I thought he'd write away.
1866. 01:18:02 - Yes, if you're not listening to that show,
1867. 01:18:05 I highly recommend it.
1868. 01:18:07 That is probably the number one podcast
1869. 01:18:09 I listen to right now.
1870. 01:18:09 - Yeah, she gets a little political for me sometimes
1871. 01:18:12 but it's good content.
1872. 01:18:13 The things that I wrote down here
1873. 01:18:17 were that creativity requires physical action.
1874. 01:18:21 So she talks about moving meditation
1875. 01:18:23 where you just get up and go for a walk.
1876. 01:18:25 I really like this section because I've noticed
1877. 01:18:28 I've gotten into this running habit
1878. 01:18:30 and one of the reasons that I like my Apple watch
1879. 01:18:34 is I've got drafts on there and I can dictate ideas
1880. 01:18:38 real easily when I'm out running
1881. 01:18:39 and I always seem to get a ton of good ideas
1882. 01:18:42 when I'm running, whether they be ideas for podcast episodes
1883. 01:18:46 or I finally something clicks
1884. 01:18:48 for this problem that I've been trying to solve
1885. 01:18:51 but I see this happen all the time.
1886. 01:18:52 I have no idea why it happens
1887. 01:18:54 but it definitely does happen.
1888. 01:18:55 So I can tell you from my own personal experience
1889. 01:18:57 I guess that this does actually work.
1890. 01:18:59 The other thing that she called out
1891. 01:19:01 and I've made up a term for this.
1892. 01:19:04 She mentioned that creativity is oxygen for our souls
1893. 01:19:06 cutting off our creativity makes us savage.
1894. 01:19:09 So the book is called The Artist's Way
1895. 01:19:11 I call this The Artist Rage.
1896. 01:19:12 And I totally have suffered from this too.
1897. 01:19:16 I've noticed that like when I don't
1898. 01:19:19 when I was writing my book for example
1899. 01:19:20 there would be days when I just couldn't get
1900. 01:19:22 to the coffee shop and write before work.
1901. 01:19:24 Those were the days where I was cranky
1902. 01:19:27 and the fact that I was not able to do what I knew
1903. 01:19:29 I needed to do that just made everything else harder
1904. 01:19:33 made me resent a lot more like the stuff that happened
1905. 01:19:36 during the day that was outside of my control.
1906. 01:19:38 - So let's go on to the last one here
1907. 01:19:40 because I think we're probably getting to a point
1908. 01:19:42 where we wanna talk about what our results are on this.
1909. 01:19:44 So the last one here is recovering a sense of faith.
1910. 01:19:47 And the best way I know to summarize this is to trust
1911. 01:19:51 that your structures and the way that you do
1912. 01:19:54 your creative work will continue to bring positives.
1913. 01:19:58 Like that I think is probably the easiest way
1914. 01:20:00 to summarize that but it has a lot to do with trusting
1915. 01:20:04 that you can protect yourself, you are an artist,
1916. 01:20:08 you are good at your art and then you need to continue
1917. 01:20:11 to do your art and trying not to let the criticisms,
1918. 01:20:16 the haters, the trolls, you know, the crazy makers
1919. 01:20:19 not letting any of that get in your way
1920. 01:20:22 of creating the thing and making the art
1921. 01:20:24 that you want to create.
1922. 01:20:26 I think that's a lot of what she's getting at here.
1923. 01:20:28 And although that is very spiritual in, I guess reality,
1924. 01:20:33 it also means that you create the things
1925. 01:20:37 that are important to the world that only you can make.
1926. 01:20:40 And you shouldn't let everything else get in your way.
1927. 01:20:42 - Yep, absolutely.
1928. 01:20:43 And she talks about how basically you've done the 12 weeks,
1929. 01:20:47 so good job, but it's about to get a lot harder.
1930. 01:20:51 'Cause she brings up the idea of the resistance
1931. 01:20:53 and immediately I thought of Stephen Pressfield
1932. 01:20:55 in the war of art and he talks about the resistance.
1933. 01:20:58 And he actually has a lot of spiritual imagery
1934. 01:21:03 and word choice in that particular book as well.
1935. 01:21:05 Page 194 in the Artist's Way, she says,
1936. 01:21:07 "We're not accustomed to thinking that God's will for us
1937. 01:21:10 "and our own inner dreams can coincide.
1938. 01:21:11 "We have bought into the message of our culture.
1939. 01:21:14 "This world is a veil of tears
1940. 01:21:16 "and we are meant to be dutiful and then die.
1941. 01:21:18 "The truth is that we are meant to be bountiful and live.
1942. 01:21:21 "The universe will always support affirmative action.
1943. 01:21:23 "Our truest dream for ourselves is always God's will for us."
1944. 01:21:27 So like you said, she's encouraging you
1945. 01:21:30 to keep going with this, to let your ideas grow organically
1946. 01:21:33 and to not force them before they're ready.
1947. 01:21:35 And she also makes it very important here
1948. 01:21:37 that life is meant to be an artist state.
1949. 01:21:40 So the way I interpret that is like your life,
1950. 01:21:43 your passion, your career,
1951. 01:21:44 like all of these things should align and it should be fun.
1952. 01:21:47 You should enjoy what you do on a day-to-day basis.
1953. 01:21:51 And if you don't, something's wrong.
1954. 01:21:53 And also it's cutting off the flow of the creativity,
1955. 01:21:57 which for an artist, especially,
1956. 01:21:59 I mean this whole book, The Artist's Way,
1957. 01:22:01 your creativity is your livelihood.
1958. 01:22:04 So you're sabotaging yourself,
1959. 01:22:06 if you're not letting this whole process play out.
1960. 01:22:08 - So action items, do you have any?
1961. 01:22:10 I have some, probably more than I should have.
1962. 01:22:13 - I do.
1963. 01:22:15 - Yeah, so this was my big takeaway here was just the habits
1964. 01:22:20 that I wanted to implement from this book.
1965. 01:22:24 So if you went through the course over 12 weeks,
1966. 01:22:28 I'm sure that this would, like we said at the beginning,
1967. 01:22:30 you know, you have got an exponentially greater appreciation
1968. 01:22:34 for some of these principles
1969. 01:22:35 'cause you've put in more effort and more time.
1970. 01:22:37 But just going through it in the two weeks that we did,
1971. 01:22:42 I can totally see the value in the morning pages.
1972. 01:22:44 So I've made this a habit, I wanna continue to do this,
1973. 01:22:47 and I want to get to the point
1974. 01:22:48 where I can write three pages without my hand cramping.
1975. 01:22:51 I want to make sure that I schedule my artist dates
1976. 01:22:55 and I already shared like how I think having specifics
1977. 01:22:57 for these will help these stick
1978. 01:22:59 and not just creating three hours on my calendar
1979. 01:23:01 where okay, I can play now because I've always got
1980. 01:23:04 my work to do when I get there, I feel bad,
1981. 01:23:05 just like stopping, I feel guilty, you know,
1982. 01:23:07 stopping and doing something fun.
1983. 01:23:09 So having an appointment in essence
1984. 01:23:12 with something that I'm going to do,
1985. 01:23:13 the place that I've gotta be,
1986. 01:23:14 I'm hoping that that will help that stick.
1987. 01:23:16 And the other one is she mentions,
1988. 01:23:19 and it was kind of impassing,
1989. 01:23:21 but I thought this was a brilliant idea,
1990. 01:23:22 thinking about problems that you wanna solve the night before,
1991. 01:23:27 and then letting the answers come to you
1992. 01:23:29 in the morning pages the next day.
1993. 01:23:31 I think this is a great idea.
1994. 01:23:33 I'm a little bit skeptical about whether this will work for me
1995. 01:23:36 because when I start thinking about problems,
1996. 01:23:39 I tend to get a little bit worked up
1997. 01:23:40 and I might have trouble sleeping if I do that.
1998. 01:23:43 But we're gonna try it.
1999. 01:23:45 I'll report back on whether it's working.
2000. 01:23:48 - Okay, this is exactly a thing I cannot do
2001. 01:23:50 and I know I cannot do this.
2002. 01:23:52 (laughs)
2003. 01:23:53 - Yeah, I kind of am skeptical that I'll be able to do it too,
2004. 01:23:56 but I totally see the value in it,
2005. 01:23:57 so I'm hoping that it works.
2006. 01:23:59 - All right, so on my side of things,
2007. 01:24:01 I am doing the morning pages, I will continue to do them.
2008. 01:24:04 I have completely changed how I do some of my morning routine
2009. 01:24:08 as a result of that, just because I would normally do
2010. 01:24:11 some of my own work at that time
2011. 01:24:13 and I'm sacrificing some of that for the morning pages.
2012. 01:24:16 Kind of a sad day there, but I'm finding my way around it.
2013. 01:24:19 So I will continue to do them
2014. 01:24:20 because I think there's a lot of interesting decisions
2015. 01:24:23 and ideas that come out of that.
2016. 01:24:25 I'll continue doing the artist dates.
2017. 01:24:26 I kind of wish I could do more of them.
2018. 01:24:28 (laughs)
2019. 01:24:29 But that would probably mean, you know, an unpaid mortgage.
2020. 01:24:34 That'd be bad.
2021. 01:24:35 So I wanna continue doing those.
2022. 01:24:37 As a result of the morning pages,
2023. 01:24:39 I have a couple here that are byproducts
2024. 01:24:44 of doing the morning pages,
2025. 01:24:47 one of which is I've kind of changed up my morning routine,
2026. 01:24:49 which I've mentioned, but I also really changed
2027. 01:24:52 my evening routine.
2028. 01:24:53 Part of this is that I know that I've not been
2029. 01:24:56 getting to bed on time, so my sleep hasn't worked out
2030. 01:24:58 real well, and what ended up happening was I had one night
2031. 01:25:02 where, so I used the sleep cycle app,
2032. 01:25:04 I had a night where I got a 47 on sleep cycle.
2033. 01:25:08 Not good, really bad.
2034. 01:25:10 And he's jotting sleep very well at all.
2035. 01:25:13 And I got up that morning,
2036. 01:25:15 and I went down to do the morning pages,
2037. 01:25:18 and all that was on my mind was sleep.
2038. 01:25:21 So I was writing about sleep,
2039. 01:25:23 and I ended up figuring out that some of the reason
2040. 01:25:26 I'm getting to bed later than I should
2041. 01:25:29 is because I would start getting ready for bed
2042. 01:25:32 about the time I felt I should be going to bed,
2043. 01:25:35 but by the time I had started it,
2044. 01:25:37 there would be about 30 minutes of getting coffee ready
2045. 01:25:40 for the morning and getting clothes out at night,
2046. 01:25:43 and all the stuff that I do
2047. 01:25:46 before I actually crawl into bed, it takes a while.
2048. 01:25:49 And as opposed to waiting until, say, nine o'clock
2049. 01:25:53 to start all that and then getting into bed at 9.30,
2050. 01:25:56 I just decided that once I get the girls put down
2051. 01:25:59 for bed at night, which I'm done with that process
2052. 01:26:02 by about a quarter to eight o'clock,
2053. 01:26:05 I go and get everything ready at that time,
2054. 01:26:07 which oddly enough gets done faster at that time,
2055. 01:26:10 because I think I'm still in go mode,
2056. 01:26:12 and I get things done quicker,
2057. 01:26:14 but it also means that that whole hustle
2058. 01:26:17 and get everything ready for the next day is done
2059. 01:26:21 about an hour before I get to bed,
2060. 01:26:23 so I'm not getting myself all jacked up on a journal
2061. 01:26:26 and trying to get stuff done.
2062. 01:26:27 So I kind of changed that all around,
2063. 01:26:29 and I've done it for a few days now.
2064. 01:26:31 It seems to be working out okay,
2065. 01:26:33 I'm gonna continue with that experiment,
2066. 01:26:34 but it's kind of a fun thing to at least see
2067. 01:26:37 that the morning pages has led to some interesting results
2068. 01:26:40 like that. - Nice.
2069. 01:26:41 - The last one I have here, and I texted you about this one,
2070. 01:26:45 so I know you're prepped and ready for this one,
2071. 01:26:47 but as a result of the morning pages,
2072. 01:26:49 there was one morning that right before I started writing
2073. 01:26:52 the morning pages, I had checked email on my phone,
2074. 01:26:55 which is a thing I have been trying to eliminate
2075. 01:26:57 from my morning routine for a long time,
2076. 01:26:59 and so I had email on my mind as I had started
2077. 01:27:02 to write the morning pages, and it led me down this path
2078. 01:27:07 of why do I have email on my phone?
2079. 01:27:10 And very long story and winding journey later,
2080. 01:27:14 I ended up deleting email from my phone,
2081. 01:27:17 and I have left it that way,
2082. 01:27:20 and I haven't seen any negative side effects of this.
2083. 01:27:24 Part of my rationale for leaving it on my phone
2084. 01:27:26 was that I have clients that often need responses
2085. 01:27:29 and I use it to check whether or not servers
2086. 01:27:32 have crashed overnight.
2087. 01:27:33 Turns out that doesn't really matter at all.
2088. 01:27:36 Now granted, I haven't been doing it for a very long time,
2089. 01:27:39 but I've had it off for about a week now
2090. 01:27:42 without any significant side effects,
2091. 01:27:44 so I'm going to leave it off of my phone
2092. 01:27:46 until I have some form of a major catastrophe
2093. 01:27:49 as a result of this, but even then, I'm not sure
2094. 01:27:52 it will ever lead to that, at least not in a way
2095. 01:27:55 that warrants me checking it first thing
2096. 01:27:58 versus three hours later.
2097. 01:28:00 So that experiment will continue.
2098. 01:28:02 - Nice, I'm so happy that she finally deleted email
2099. 01:28:05 off of your phone.
2100. 01:28:06 (laughing)
2101. 01:28:07 - Finally catching up with the times, I guess.
2102. 01:28:09 - So what'd you think of the author's style?
2103. 01:28:13 - She's a very good writer.
2104. 01:28:14 She has spent a lot of time with this.
2105. 01:28:16 I really enjoyed reading this.
2106. 01:28:18 If I have any form of criticism on this one,
2107. 01:28:22 it's that it's kind of philosophical and hard for,
2108. 01:28:26 say someone who's used to business books to get into.
2109. 01:28:29 I don't think I would recommend going through it
2110. 01:28:31 the way that we did it of doing a week a day,
2111. 01:28:34 'cause that's intense.
2112. 01:28:36 I'm not gonna lie, I'm kind of happy
2113. 01:28:37 to have this recording done this morning
2114. 01:28:39 because it means that I'm gonna get
2115. 01:28:41 about an hour of my day back now that this book is done.
2116. 01:28:45 Like, okay, I'm glad this is all over.
2117. 01:28:47 I can just stick to morning pages in an artist's date
2118. 01:28:50 and not have to do all the action items every day.
2119. 01:28:52 So I'm kind of grateful for that.
2120. 01:28:54 But at the same time, I would highly recommend
2121. 01:28:56 doing those action items the half or better
2122. 01:28:58 and picking the ones that you are excited about
2123. 01:29:00 and you really don't wanna do.
2124. 01:29:02 That's a good path to take forward
2125. 01:29:04 and I like that she set it up that way.
2126. 01:29:06 It's also a bit freeing that she doesn't require you
2127. 01:29:08 to do all of them, so I was grateful there as well.
2128. 01:29:12 So I really like this book, but at the same time,
2129. 01:29:15 I feel like I've been through some of this creative journey
2130. 01:29:17 already.
2131. 01:29:18 I didn't have any major groundbreaking changes
2132. 01:29:21 to how I see myself as an artist.
2133. 01:29:24 I think there are some fun tools here
2134. 01:29:26 and some revelations that can come from
2135. 01:29:28 having implemented those tools,
2136. 01:29:31 but I don't think it completely changed
2137. 01:29:33 my own creative journey.
2138. 01:29:35 But I can't say that it didn't impact it either.
2139. 01:29:39 So it's been a thing that I know I've been on this path
2140. 01:29:42 already and it simply submits that I'm on the right path.
2141. 01:29:46 I'm not gonna give it a five as a result of that,
2142. 01:29:48 but I will give it a 4.5 for a rating
2143. 01:29:51 'cause I did really love this, but at the same time,
2144. 01:29:55 it is a bit philosophical for me to recommend to everyone.
2145. 01:29:59 But if you're in the creative realm at all,
2146. 01:30:02 I would say this is a must read in that case.
2147. 01:30:05 - Yeah, this is a very impactful book,
2148. 01:30:08 but also the amount of impact that it has.
2149. 01:30:10 I do think depends on your stage in the journey.
2150. 01:30:13 The action items, we didn't really go through a lot of these,
2151. 01:30:15 but some of these I had done already as well.
2152. 01:30:17 Like she's got an action item, the Life Pie, I think,
2153. 01:30:22 which is essentially the Wheel of Life.
2154. 01:30:24 So I've done that even recently.
2155. 01:30:27 She talks about creating affirmation statements,
2156. 01:30:29 which are good, writing out your ideal day, that sort of thing.
2157. 01:30:33 There was one in here where she talks about going back
2158. 01:30:35 through your morning pages and using different color
2159. 01:30:37 highlighters for the insights that you got.
2160. 01:30:40 And then another one for the actions that are required.
2161. 01:30:43 So lots of great action items, tracking your spending,
2162. 01:30:47 scheduling downtime, all of that sort of thing.
2163. 01:30:49 There's some great ideas here,
2164. 01:30:51 especially if you're new to this process,
2165. 01:30:53 like implementing even some of these,
2166. 01:30:56 is going through those exercises
2167. 01:30:57 is really going to help a lot.
2168. 01:31:00 I've done some of these things already.
2169. 01:31:03 The big impact for me was in the morning pages,
2170. 01:31:06 just doing that consistently.
2171. 01:31:07 I can't even explain the additional clarity
2172. 01:31:10 that I've gotten from doing those.
2173. 01:31:12 Like I'm totally a believer in that process now.
2174. 01:31:14 I'm going to implement the morning pages
2175. 01:31:17 in the artist's state and I'm excited about
2176. 01:31:18 what that is going to do.
2177. 01:31:20 I found the writing style a little bit sensational.
2178. 01:31:24 I don't know, it's very different
2179. 01:31:26 than a lot of the books that we've read,
2180. 01:31:29 which is refreshing to a certain degree,
2181. 01:31:31 but sometimes I just like, okay,
2182. 01:31:32 you can dial it down a little bit.
2183. 01:31:34 That being said, I do think that it's really impactful.
2184. 01:31:37 Some great content here.
2185. 01:31:38 I think anybody who goes through this,
2186. 01:31:39 even if you just read through this,
2187. 01:31:41 if you didn't do it the way that she designed it,
2188. 01:31:44 like we did, we modified it.
2189. 01:31:46 But if you were to go through the course,
2190. 01:31:48 you're going to get a huge amount, a benefit, I would say.
2191. 01:31:50 But even just reading through it,
2192. 01:31:51 I think it's something that I would recommend
2193. 01:31:53 to just about anybody.
2194. 01:31:55 So I'm going to join you at the four and a half stars.
2195. 01:31:57 It's not completely life changing,
2196. 01:32:00 but it's really, really good.
2197. 01:32:03 And I got a lot of insights in it
2198. 01:32:05 and some really great rituals and habits
2199. 01:32:09 that I think are going to just make everything
2200. 01:32:11 that I do easier.
2201. 01:32:14 The whole focus on like the effectiveness
2202. 01:32:17 versus the efficiency, like,
2203. 01:32:20 it's something that's been brewing in me for quite a while,
2204. 01:32:22 but this solidified a lot of things for me.
2205. 01:32:25 - All right, so with that,
2206. 01:32:26 we'll put the artist way on the shelf
2207. 01:32:29 and we will step into the next book,
2208. 01:32:33 which is My Pick, 168 Hours by Laura Vanderkamp.
2209. 01:32:36 And the tagline for this,
2210. 01:32:39 because I think the tagline will help people
2211. 01:32:42 understand what this is.
2212. 01:32:43 You have more time than you think
2213. 01:32:45 is the tagline on it, the subtitle.
2214. 01:32:47 And how to find time, you know,
2215. 01:32:50 with an hour and a half for the artist way per day,
2216. 01:32:52 hopefully, well, maybe I should have read this one first.
2217. 01:32:55 I'd have to find time for it all.
2218. 01:32:57 But this is a listener recommendation.
2219. 01:33:00 - Nice, and the one that I picked after that
2220. 01:33:03 is How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler,
2221. 01:33:05 which I think we've teased and mentioned like,
2222. 01:33:07 hey, we should really cover that, but.
2223. 01:33:10 - Yeah.
2224. 01:33:11 - I was listening to another podcast,
2225. 01:33:13 and I forget which one it was,
2226. 01:33:14 where they mentioned that this book was really impactful,
2227. 01:33:18 and it makes a whole lot of sense
2228. 01:33:20 that we would learn how to read a book
2229. 01:33:23 before we read many more books.
2230. 01:33:26 - Yes.
2231. 01:33:27 - So that we can get the most out of them.
2232. 01:33:28 - It's fun that we're gonna do the How to Read a Book
2233. 01:33:30 as episode 42.
2234. 01:33:32 (laughing)
2235. 01:33:32 - Yeah.
2236. 01:33:33 It's a big book, by the way.
2237. 01:33:36 So. - All right.
2238. 01:33:37 - Not as big as like paid to think,
2239. 01:33:39 I'm assuming, I haven't cracked it open yet,
2240. 01:33:42 so I'm hoping not as action oriented as the artist's way.
2241. 01:33:46 But maybe that should have been one of my action items
2242. 01:33:48 is do a little bit more research on the books
2243. 01:33:50 before I picked them, so I don't get us into it.
2244. 01:33:52 (laughing)
2245. 01:33:54 Any more 12 week courses
2246. 01:33:55 that we're gonna cover in two weeks.
2247. 01:33:56 - Right, right.
2248. 01:33:57 Here's a one year book,
2249. 01:33:59 we're gonna do it in two weeks.
2250. 01:34:00 All right, good luck.
2251. 01:34:01 (laughing)
2252. 01:34:02 Between here and there,
2253. 01:34:03 I am reading Still Principles by Ray Dalio.
2254. 01:34:06 I picked up the artist's way in principles at the same time,
2255. 01:34:10 thinking, 'cause I looked at the artist's way
2256. 01:34:12 a little bit ahead of time,
2257. 01:34:13 and was thinking, this'll be pretty quick,
2258. 01:34:15 like it seems like it'll be a quick read,
2259. 01:34:17 not thinking about all the action stuff that comes with it.
2260. 01:34:20 So my thought was I was gonna work on the artist's way,
2261. 01:34:23 you know, a course, one of the course weeks a day,
2262. 01:34:26 and then I would use principles to fill in,
2263. 01:34:28 and that didn't work, so that means I'm still on principles.
2264. 01:34:31 So I'll wrap that one up,
2265. 01:34:34 and then I'll have 168 hours for the next round.
2266. 01:34:37 But yes, principles is what I'm still working on
2267. 01:34:39 as a gap book.
2268. 01:34:41 - Nice, I just ordered one called The Gift of Failure
2269. 01:34:44 by Jessica Leahy, I think is how you pronounce her last name.
2270. 01:34:48 The subtitle for this, I don't have it in front of me,
2271. 01:34:51 but it's something along the lines of,
2272. 01:34:53 like, setting your kids up for success by letting them fail,
2273. 01:34:56 which is an interesting idea,
2274. 01:34:58 and one of the things that I struggle with as a parent
2275. 01:35:00 is like, you don't want to see your kids get hurt,
2276. 01:35:03 you don't wanna see them fail,
2277. 01:35:04 but this book basically is talking about
2278. 01:35:06 how that's a very important step in the process,
2279. 01:35:09 and once they learn how to deal with failure,
2280. 01:35:10 like that helps them be more resilient and more successful.
2281. 01:35:13 So kind of parent-specific, but this looks interesting,
2282. 01:35:17 and I saw it initially believe on tools and toys
2283. 01:35:21 where they had mentioned it.
2284. 01:35:22 - Nice, so as I mentioned,
2285. 01:35:24 168 hours is a listener recommendation,
2286. 01:35:28 and if you have one that you want us to go through,
2287. 01:35:31 you can do that very easily, bookworm.fm/recommend,
2288. 01:35:36 and if you want to go through a little form there,
2289. 01:35:37 you can fill out, tell us what the book is,
2290. 01:35:38 and we'll get it added to our recommendations list,
2291. 01:35:41 which you can find over on bookworm.fm/list,
2292. 01:35:45 and that will also give you a list of all the books
2293. 01:35:47 that we've gone through in the past,
2294. 01:35:49 as well as the ones that we have planned
2295. 01:35:52 to go through in the future.
2296. 01:35:53 So, slash recommend, and you can send your idea over to us,
2297. 01:35:57 and if you wanna see what's out there, slash list.
2298. 01:35:59 - And if you want to help other people find the show
2299. 01:36:02 and help us take down KCRW,
2300. 01:36:05 we'd really appreciate it if you would go over to iTunes
2301. 01:36:08 and leave us a rating and review.
2302. 01:36:10 I also found out recently that the majority of podcast
2303. 01:36:14 player traffic comes from overcast,
2304. 01:36:16 like a disproportionate amount of it,
2305. 01:36:18 so if you use overcast, just tap that star button,
2306. 01:36:21 that'll also help us out a lot.
2307. 01:36:23 - Nice, I was not, I don't think I was aware
2308. 01:36:26 of the little star button and overcast.
2309. 01:36:27 I tend to just pull it up and hit play,
2310. 01:36:29 I don't really pay much attention to the UI.
2311. 01:36:31 That's probably a bad person, anyway.
2312. 01:36:35 So, if you are someone who wants to follow along with us,
2313. 01:36:38 but haven't been, and you wanna read these books with us,
2314. 01:36:41 this would be a good one to stop into
2315. 01:36:43 with our next read of 168 hours,
2316. 01:36:46 since Laura Van de Cam is going to help us find more time.
2317. 01:36:49 At least, I think that's what this is about.
2318. 01:36:52 We have more time than we think,
2319. 01:36:53 and that's what I'm hoping we'll figure out
2320. 01:36:55 how to do next time.
2321. 01:36:57 So, if you're wanting to learn how to read with us,
2322. 01:36:59 You can do that by joining this round with 168 hours.