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Week 3: Step 2: Design

wanted to welcome you to the next. Um, the next would be the third part in a six part series. Um, I know there's some of us who are joining for the first time, so I want to welcome you. And there are others who have been here since day one. I want to say thanks so much. And for those of you who, um, might be seeing a new view right now, we're experimenting. And Aziz, I'm always doing with the creative live team here, pushing us to experiment with the hopes of making the experience for you on the other end of the line or interesting and dynamic and engaging. Um, so, uh, I also wanted to let you know that the people who are, um, in an in studio audience right now they are a member of the Taxed Group. Ah, last week or two weeks ago last week, I gave out my phone number so that we can have a texting relationship. I'm gonna give it to you one more time. Ah, it's two of 5177 So those folks joined this text group and we sent out a little text this morning and asking inviting anyone in that g...

roup to, um, be a part of this experiment and in studio audience for I could see your face is coming at me life from all over the world. And it's leading to see you, um, wave if you can hear me or thumbs that upper a smile or something. Um and so those folks are, ah, part of this text communion. I would invite anyone to join, regardless, if you are a part of that in studio audience or not, um, we are also broadcasting live at the last page of creativelive acrid of live TV, maybe even on instagram this morning. Facebook live and YouTube. So if you are participating from any one of those platforms, welcome to you as well. Um, I want to do a quick recap, and then I'm gonna ask for a little participation from some folks in the text group. So get your hands ready to raise, because I'm gonna call on someone. Um, the question that I have for you or the I guess maybe the recap is in the first week we set up this course You set up this book club We talked about the power of creativity that it's often misunderstood. Creativity is thought to be art, or it's not to be Popsicle sticks and glitter and glue. What we're taught when we were kids and what we established in that first meeting, Um, that creativity actually underpins the solutions to every problem we will ever know, and that creativity with a Capital C is the ability to create anything. Everything around us was created, and therefore creativity is the most fundamental, um, of of human powers, and therefore we need to cultivate it. If you want anything to happen in our lives and this is not something we're often taught, we establish that we're going to go through four parts. The parts that mirror of the book I D. E a. Ah, that would be imagination designed execution and amplification. So in the first week, we cover the intro. Last week we were talking about imagining how we have largely lost our ability to think big for ourselves because it's not your fault. Don't worry about it. Don't blame yourself. Don't beat yourself up. But we're programmed from culture and from our parents and our career counselors, and often What's confusing about this is those people we love and respect, and they've They've sort of ushered us into this world. And yet they're telling this very, very concretely in some cases what to do and become and how to be in the world. And the reality is that that is toxic, because not because those people don't love you, but because the world is constantly changing and what is true for them is probably not true for you or is only partially true in so many areas of your life. So we talked last week about imagining what we want for this one precious life and acknowledging that are precious. Life is made up of precious moments and precious projects and precious relationships. And it's only through imagining what we want in those small ways that we understand that we can imagine what we want for this one precious life that we had. So we reviewed, Um, what are our values, our relationships with money, our relationship control in our life, our relationships with a lot of the people that have programmed us, and how do we change that? How do we break free such that we can draw a picture for ourselves of what we want and what's possible. And this is true. The idea framework I d e a. Again, whether this is an individual creative project or your life. And it's only through creating in small projects that we understand that we can do that in the macro. So I'm going to ah, go to our little Zumar. What? I'm calling our in studio virtual audience. Um, and I would love to see from a show hands I'll call on someone. What were some of the things that you, um, that you found out through imagining over the course of the last week? What were some specific things that you decided you want to do? Just, you know, show hands If someone wants to volunteer, I'm dying to see if I can call on maybe one person who's brave, who imagined something last week, or, and if you're not in the zoom call, you can chat. You can just type it into the check out. And wherever you are, whatever platform Ustream creativelive TV, creative alive. Ah, I will see that as well. Anyone in this a willing to be brave. Oh my, see someone right there. Ah, let's see. I'm going to a mute. We're very sorry right there. Hey. And I said, can you un mute somebody for me? I'm for some reason. I'm not. I think maybe on the broadcast computer There we go, actually. All right, Who's ways in their hand? I'm gonna make that smaller. Give me one more raises his hands. All right. I'm in a new J. D J D. Smith. Welcome to the show. Tell us one thing that you imagined in the last week that you want to change in your life. I I'm a creative person, and I have always wanted to travel. Um, but my ability to think that I am, uh I'm not as good as I think I am. And there's a lot of pressure to create good, powerful content. Um, is preventing me from really pushing forward. So my my thing, that I realizes that I have more, um, power than I think I can that I think I do. And I think that I can achieve Michael of traveling, doing videos and photography for whoever, uh, wants to see my work. Great. Thank you for sharing. Um, we'll take one. Others I'm not gonna judge your comment on anyone's dreams because that's what your parents in your career counselor do. I think that's good to hear from you. The JD lets it go with one other, if I may. Oh, quick. Here from the text group, Someone who's brave and willing to raise their hand. Yep. All right, and all right. I just asked you toe mute. That's Jenna. Got it. Jeanette. Yes, Jeanette? 100 Net. Hi. I have realized Yeah, tell me what you're what have you imagined for this one? Precious life in allowing? Sure, Um, finishing my documentary it started. And it's big, and it's scary in its person. It's really big. And tell me, Yeah. What? What? What Unlocked this for you? Because I think a lot of us sit there and we say, Oh, yeah, Cool. I'm gonna finish my documentary. But what was what was different from the way you were behaving, say, through four weeks ago. And now Ah, listening Well, reading parts of the chapter, the sign chapters that, um called us creatives on all our procrastinating garbage and actually just sitting down and doing it. It's It's interesting how much know its's fantastic. Thank you for sharing. Jeanette are This is a huge thing like we've We've told ourselves a story so often, Um and that story is part of what gets built from all the people and the culture that we live in, people we live with, the culture that we live in about again, what's what's possible. And as soon as you start telling people about your dream, your big Harry dream, a lot of people will give you the side eye. And so it's understandable that you may have, um, that whatever you were feeling four weeks ago, I hope that you're moving forward in that as as JD and Genet are, it's also curious to me that, um, we still have to live with a lot of these folks. We still have to be in the culture, And so you know what? We're gonna talk about a lot today is designing the framework, not just to continue to pursuing our go to give in to you pursuit of our goals, but to establish ourselves because we have to, you know, we don't live in a different culture. We might be able to surround ourselves. The different cross section of people but these air muscles that we have to develop the mindset and the vision for how we're going to achieve If we spent the last sweet talking about what? And we're now moving on to that to the how um, these a lot of these forces haven't gone away. So we need Teoh be strong and resist the temptation to slip back into the, um into the habits that we used tohave. So we're gonna talk a lot about that, Um, in today's today's ah, conversation. So I do want to just give a shout out to a lot of the folks we've got. Um, Wyoming, South Africa, New York. Oh, Christine can't hear us. Sorry about that, Christine. Maybe. Ah, try a couple of other platforms if you're on Facebook and you can hear, um, I see Hawaii in the house. Nice to see you. Um, so wherever you are, whenever you've imagined for yourself, the next step in achieving that is designing and designing a plan, a system. And we've also been sadly, ah, talked into believing that there's a short cut and to Janet's for Jeanette's point rather this you know, this idea of putting in the work seems scary, and it's it's often very safe to plan. So I want to sort of underscored that the designing, you know, process this this should be 10% of your effort and 90% is the doing. So that's why I like to, you know, have some plans, make a series of, um, constraints around what it is that I am doing and what I'm not doing. Carve out time and space in a place. But then it's very, very important to get to work now just because I want us to focus on 10% planning and 90% doing we're gonna spend 100% of the time today because today's conversation is specifically about planning. But I'm also seeing that a bunch of folks have typed in the comments, Um, the things that they have, uh, got a lot of folks from Canada, a lot of a handful of folks here talking about how there their imagination was confined to what they've seen in the world, and that's very normal. And there's a phrase that I like to share, which is you. It's hard to be what you can't see, and, you know someone here is commenting on my story of that. I told in the book about the avalanche of my near death experience. That was a very you know, this idea of not being able to be what I couldn't see that, honestly, is what has defined this next chapter of my life, that part of that we're in right now and I would encourage you to, of course, look around for examples of what it is that you want to do. But if you don't, if you don't see them, it's OK to think so big as to do things that have never been seen or that you're not aware of in the world. The chances are that the world's a big place, and maybe someone is doing the thing that you didn't think was possible or that culture didn't think it was possible. But that's another really, really common roadblock. So my hope is that we can shift into um, designing a plan to achieve that dream, regardless of how big and hairy and scary it is. So I won't wanted to open today's commentary around designing our life with two things. Two reads One is the apostle quote that I like. And ah, the second is, um, from building a creative mindset because I think this is foundational. So to kick us off, our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan in which we must fervently believe and upon which we must vigorously vigorously act. There is no other route to success now, Picasso. Wildly creative, Um, one of the best, you know, painters, the most recognized and renowned painters in the past several 100 years. The fact that, you know, he was again wildly creative that But the fact that Picasso you realized that structure and a plan was required to get wherever we're going I think that sort of underpins this idea that this is a framework for life. We have to understand what our goals are and make them break them down into a series of steps in order to achieve anything. So, in designing, we're gonna be talking about what we do physically, what we do mentally, what we do tactically on a day to day basis. But also on a you know, im a monthly at weekly. And, you know, depending on how big your goal your vision for yourself is some longer framework. The second part of the read that I'd like Teoh share with you before we get in is the following. It's on page Unfortunately, you can't adopt a creative mindset just by reading this book. Repetition of corresponding actions is necessary to develop it. Changing your mindset requires that consistent effort of putting this set of work of beliefs to work. Think you're creative, great, then prove it by creating something today, tomorrow and the next day on Lee. When you commit to a program of creative development, where your ideas about talent and destiny start to melt away, beware the stronger your creative muscles get the deeper and richer your work, and by extension, your life will become. This is potent medicine. The creative mindset is the launch pad for this virtuous cycle. So Topic one, if we think of that, is getting us into the material. What gets results and you can tell from those very those those readings were chosen because they underscore this point. It's consistent creative practice. This I can't overstate how important this consistency part is, and it's natural whenever we get excited about something and I hope you had this experience when you read the book, the there's just like a desire to run at something miles an hour. The same is true for, say, a new exercise regimen or a diet or, um, a TV series you want. You want to binge watch the whole thing and why I love that energy. And that's part of what Aligning your stuff with these visions that you have for this one precious life. Energy cultivation is critical. But here's what happens when we set ourselves up like that we say, Great. I'm gonna, you know, go to my studio and I'm gonna write for two hours every morning on my novel. Or, um, again, in Genet's case, I'm gonna, you know, edit in my basement on my documentary film, You know, every day for five hours, and what we find is that when we do that for three days straight, we get burned out and we then take two days off and it's in that two days off and that missing this missing our goals are falling short on the plans that we've made. Where I think the my inset creeps back in that this is too big, it's not possible. So I want to emphasize and I think that the book does this. I want to emphasize consistency. Now every one of the things that we do, every action that we take is a decision. And these decisions they creator days and our days creator life. And, you know, you see this in choosing to to work out or watch Netflix choosing to sleep first to stamp all night and try and cram for whatever it is. And so what I want you to focus on is that all you have to do is win tiny decisions over and over and over again. And you're gonna find yourself progressing now. To me, this idea of setting meaningful goals, um, is, I think often overlooked. And when I say meaning this is sort of the part of this is why we talked about imagining what's big and scary and awesome and what we want to this one precious life. But how many of us? I would love to see a show of hands here in the textbook and maybe, ah, just through a comment in the chat, how many of us refer to the goals that we set or the patterns that we want to have in our life every day, show hands or type something into the chat. If you if it's every refer to these every day. I see Heather's doing it. Um, who else is doing it? Ah, there's not too many of us. Hope we got married. Fox. Um, John John Green This job, John. And I'm sure there are others, and I'm looking at the chat here. Um, nice Janice got it. So I I like to remind us that this is a really key aspect. This boils down to consistency and two mindset. And to me, these are key aspects of what it is that we're trying to, um to achieve. If you're not looking at them on a regular basis, I'll say how I do it. I have a little morning journal. Um, and I have an app on my phone, and my app on my phone is called habit list. I think I talked about this under the maybe under the boosters and and, um, zappers section. But I usually a thing called habit list and what I have done over the course of the last I would say maybe five years of my life is I distill my daily routine my morning routine of my daily habits down to a list of 10 things such that if I do these things, I do not have any experience in my life from when I started this to now where I'm not consistently achieving my goals. Now. The thing that what's curious about this is it took me some time to establish what this list waas. And there are things that used to be on that list that are no longer because they're ingrained in my day to day activities. I they have become habits such that, like brushing my teeth, for example. I don't have to put brush my teeth on my list of things, But I have created a list of 10 things that if I do these 10 things, then I do not have the experience of making progress towards every aspect of my life. Now I'll share with you some of what these, um what these are for me and I will then, um, give you an example of a couple that I add when my goals change. So I need to change my camera here for just a second. I'm aware that I'm blown out a little bit. Me frame that. But you're down a little bit there. See how that is. Mary? A little better review My goals daily is one of the habits that I have visualize and gratitude. That's another set of I put those two things together if visualize what I want for my life and I have a grateful to be able even in pursuit. I have a podcast that I recorded. If you Google my name podcast, visualizing gratitude. There is a actually walk through one that you can listen to over and over. That's my own practice. I have to create or make something every day. I want to be in bed for eight hours. Notice That's not sleeping for eight hours. That's very hard for most adults. Um, but sleep is critical. I started tracking my sleep using the or a ring, which is this thing right here. Oh, you are a I meditate in the morning and meditate in the evening. I move my body every day. I consumed 64 ounces of water. I eat either paleo or slow carb I consume zero toe, one classes of alcohol, mostly zero. I used to do 3 to 5 a day, just casually as a person who is in the creative field and partying and socialization was a big part of it. I home that down to 0 to 1, and I work out some sort of a strength training entree attract that once a week. Now, in addition to those goals I try and and 1 to 2 that is very specific to my goal. Now I am I. I want to not reveal my current goal that I'm working on, but I want to give you as an example. When I was writing this book, I had two goals. One was to write for minutes every morning, and the other was to support. I called it Book Support, Support some other aspect of the book that wasn't right. Now, whether your habit list is two or 10 I think 10 is kind of a lot. But again, I've mastered this. I've been doing it for, you know, a number of years. So if you had a list of 3 to 5 things that you did every day, I believe that you would. And you referred to that list often again. I have it in the list. Right here on my phone habit list is the name of the app that I use you can use any. Doesn't matter if it's in paper or you write it on your mirror and lipstick. I don't care. But the point is, I look at these things every day and I hold myself accountable. So, um, I want to Then if you can wrap your brain around that, um, I think that is a huge foundation for developing, um, the ability to get you from where you are to where you want to be. A lot of people call it discipline. A lot of people call our productivity. I don't I don't love either of those to me. This is very much about, um, mindset. This is very much about framing the opportunity to do whatever it is that you want to do with this one precious life as an opportunity to pursue it. And if every day you have to do something, then I feel like you have not done a great job with imagining because of the imagination. Part is supposed to light you up. It's supposed to be the thing that if you could do that, that this idea of infinite energy comes to mind. And to be fair, I for I spent, you know, 12 calculated somewhere between 12 15 years doing the thing that everybody else wanted and was when I decided to become a photographer, creator and an entrepreneur that I suddenly had what amounted to almost infinite energy. So it doesn't matter wherever you have been. If you like me were $100,000 in debt from pursuing on education and the thing you didn't need, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you've designed this plan and designed a series of habits that can put you in the position to win. Now, I talked a lot about, um I want to cover two things boosters and zappers. Now, if you think about my list the list that I just shared with you and you go to that list in in the book, um, that, you know, I'm gonna ask a question of you know who has some favorite things that they do that on a day to day basis, make them able to create Um and so I'll ask for some favorite boosters. I don't want to go into zappers, because zappers there's a lot of potential zappers out there, whether it's culturally or in your particular situation. But as you're thinking, as I'm, you know, going to bring up one more point here, think about and maybe sharing the comments, something that you do that really lights you up. That is a creativity booster. And then remember what page these boosters are on. Maybe someone can. Where is it? OK, right there. It's on page for the view in the book Creativity, boosters and zappers. So I'm gonna go to the phones here in just a second. I'm going to start with chat. So chat a couple of things that you've done that, um that, like you up that our creativity boosters. And while we're preparing for that or while you're typing that into the comments, um, I'd like to share a, um, a creative pyramid. A graph with you, a chart, if you will. This is a chart that I am, um, it's wickedly symbol. But it's something that that I developed again through deconstructing my own successes and failures and the successes and failures of hundreds of people that I've had in the podcast really, really in depth conversations with my mentors with, um, my peers in the creative community. And I think there's something that's very beautiful in the in the most simple and that is the relationship of your mindset and your habits to your goals, because we use those things almost interchangeably and, um, team. Maybe you could put that up on the ah on the screen here, the relationship between mindset, habits and goals. So if you don't see that it is on page 106 I think we've got it there. So we talked a lot about Ah, you know what our goals are. That's that's the imagination part last week. We're sort of I'm trying to frame this conversation like it's it's on Lee. The things that you do on a regular basis that will allow you to reach two to reach those goals, and at the bottom of this pyramid is what I consider the most important part. And that is what your head space, because having noticed when I'm successful and not successful, is, you know, and track that for years and then done the same with many of my peers. For the world's top performers in whatever area discipline they chose to focus on, the thing with number one thing that set them apart was their mindset. And the number two thing was their habits. They were relentless about their habits. And that's why I talk about, you know, creativity being a daily practice rather than something that you do in fits and spurts. I like the sit down and get to work, but you know, if you think about the relationship here, of course it makes tons of sense. But I hope to have this be so simple in your mind that it's intuitive that it's you don't have to operate like this on a regular basis or that you don't have to think about this on a regular basis, that it's just ingrained in your DNA. And this is part of why I like tracking things. This is part of like why I like writing things down to me that the foundation of all of this stuff is mindset. Siris of behaviors that we track every day is its on Lee three thing one and thing two that you achieve things through three, which is your goals. So I'm gonna I would love to do all go to someone on the zoom call in just a second. Tell me 12 or three things that are creativity boosters for you that you like to do, um, on a some sort of a regular system basis, whether it's daily or weekly. I'm looking in the chat. Um oh, cleaning. Isabella says, cleaning her desk. Um, I don't see here, and he's talking about a very specific photo that he goes out to make. Show me another coming into too fast for me to read. L severe talks about, um, surrounding environment with nice music. Um, let's go to the zoom call here. Hands up, folks. If you want to volunteer a couple of creative boosters. All right. Um, once we got Heather. Uh, see, Heather, I'm gonna knew you. I think I'm doing that right. I I asked you to a mute there, Heather. There you go. Go for it. Move. You needed to get another. There we go. Can you hear it? Yes, I can Welcome. Tell us a couple things that are creativity. Boosters. That you do. This is new. Since I started, Book Club sent you a picture of my paint by numbers, and I've been journaling every day. That painting is just relax ation, but it's just making room. Teoh try to relax and de stress. It's a fantastic things that have multiple positive effects on us, right? That air honing a craft, whether it's writing and things that we also find to nourish us or replenish us rather than drain us. Um, that's great. Thank you for sharing Heather. Um, anybody else in the text Zoom? Uh, see, Let's go to Gen. Um, and I meet you. Jen was a couple. Jen. Megan, you hear me? Sound great. Oh, great. Um, I think for me, things like what we're doing now. Collaboration is infectious, right? So it kind of bouncing ideas, that energy. And then the second thing I like to do is any type of meditation where they talk about your dharma in what is your authentic voice and then how you can implement that? So that's kind of things that get me jazz and oh, I love poetry and poetry slams because it's just again collaborative and pretty cool, right? it's so what I heard was I heard things like community right, whether it's at a Poetry Slam, are you getting together physically or hear digitally? These are things where you know honestly, this is why we're doing the book club. Because I know the power of community and notice that that is not in my list of 10 things. 10 habits that I track because I made a career out of community, made a career out of writing and publishing and sharing and building creative live like that is 100% community. So it's no surprise, Jen, that you you know, again, this is a really common thread, and it's something that I had to you think of the videos that I made. The other 50% of it's not intuitive to build community for so many people. This will course will come back into play in, you know, Week five in in the final checked section of the book. But it's important to think of that as a habit that you can build through showing up at places like this, whether it's daily or weekly great. I appreciate you volunteering and let's take, um I'm gonna take one more from the comments here and chat. And then I go back to Zoom. Um, who? Co creator Marcia says two things she had has a vision wall that she reviews every day, and but she's got three things cleaning her desk, which has already been said and walking in nature. Now it's interesting to me that something as disconnected from the creative process walking in nature, for example, how it can be a habit that gives us juice. I know about you all. But one of the things that I found so hard about the beginning of the pandemic was I was just sitting at home attached to my eye screen, and that was all I did. I woke up in violation of all of my own philosophies about creativity. I rolled out of bed into my phone or my laptop. I was connected to my team, basically for 16 or 17 hours, and then I missed the most simple things in life, which is like connecting to my partner, connecting to the world and in a world where it's, you know, dangerous to be outside that was confounded. Now, through social distancing and other safe practices, the ability to connect and remember that were a part of something bigger is a very rejuvenated thing. So again, I love hearing that That's a booster. And I'm gonna go right back to Ah, Zoom call now and look for one other folk to raise their hand and share some creativity boosters with us. Okay, um, so many hands. Very hard I'm gonna do to. I'm going to go to Luisita Lopez first, and I'm gonna go to Mike Galvez. Go ahead and it, Louisa? Yes. Um, the first thing I like to do is make my bed because it's a visual, like, Okay, I got a task accomplished. And then immediately, I will meditate for about 30 minutes, and then I'll walk the stairs for 30 and then I have coffee, and I'm good. I'm ready to go. I love that there. You've got your routine. And that's part of what I'm asking you to build. And before I go to Mike, just remember, like, none of these things actually have anything to do with your craft yet this is just setting. This is why what I like. You know, I go back to the creative pyramid, right? Mindset is. A lot of these things are orienting us for the day or renting us around our big vision, orienting us to be able to get to work. And it's almost like this foundation of self care up here. Thanks for putting that back on the screen. Ah, team. Um, thank you for sharing that Louisa. And then we're gonna go to Mike. Mike Galvez, I'm on a meaty right here, but go for it. All right, Um, so I like to turn on tunes first in the morning. It's a big thing for me. And go on a walk with my wife every morning. That's another must do every every single day. We've been doing it since code started. Um, we have a pretty quiet neighborhood. So we do that every morning. And lately I've noticed that another big booster for me is getting on calls with friends that have, you know, similar interests in craft, that they're working on things that work on very similar to the whole collaboration thing that ah Jen was talking about. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's it's easy for us to pass over. You know, these foundational things like connection, But as a reminder. We're social animals. That is part of why you got yourself into the position you did without having pursued your goal right out of the gates. Most people that I know we wandered in the woods for a long time or we went down the path and other people dictated for us. And again, That's okay. What we're focused on now is getting right back to what it is that we love. We imagined what's possible. Now we're setting up ourselves for success now. Ah, lot of these things air habits that, as I, um, are building the mindset such that if we're in the right headspace, we've imagined what we want as possible. We've now created a series of behaviors when we're talking about these overall generic creativity. Boosters like sleep like exercise like music, like whatever there are some that are very, very, very personal, right, And maybe that's a choice in music. Or it's a choice in this space that you create for yourself. If you can. Right now, one of you might be saying, Yeah, I live in a two bedroom apartment with two kids, and it's really hard to create space. Great. Well, what can you do? Not these headphones, but they're not within arms. Reach me right now, but one of my best investments. And I think I said this in the book was a pair of noise canceling headphones That is to just turn this thing noise goes away And to be able to in a loud place, you know, backstage before I go on somewhere or when I'm trying to if you're commuting, the ability to focus on your craft and sketch something without having all these other inputs was really huge for me. So I don't want to be prescriptive. That's why I'm asking for a variety from you from your own. Why listed so many in the book? I think thinking about you, the distinct person is really important. And for me, the headphone things I'd never heard anybody talk about this. And to this day, if I'm about to go speak in front of 5000 people in a theater, I'm backstage with noise canceling headphones on. So I'm not trying to be prescriptive, but I know that there are things that are particular to you. Weird little quirks that if you did those things, they would help they would contribute to your success and still notice a lot of these. This is just basic mindset and these air simple habits, none of which have anything to do with your craft. This is the part of the design thing that was the most shocking to me was that there's so many of these things that are foundational and fundamental, the idea that if you want to be photographer, you have to put in 10, hours behind the camera lens. That's not really a surprise. What I did find to be a surprise was all this other stuff. So if you've got some of these basic ones that we I would file under human, like the ability to get sleep and whatnot, then there's some some specific ones for you. Like for me, it was the noise canceling headphones to be able to quiet out like, literally quiet out the noise. Um, that was a big one. And then, of course, there's all of the stuff around craft, and with respect to that, I like to think about, um, you know, how are you spending your money and your time? Are you actually spending your money in your time doing the thing that you said you want to do. Or are you in the camp that I threatened about it being this thing like you don't want to fall into just perpetually planning. So, um, and I think this idea of prioritizing work prioritizing, not now that this we've established a rationale for an a set of behaviours to cultivate a strong mindset and things that will get us closer to what it is that we want to be in the world. Now, I would like us to focus and prioritize the work. All right, be intentional. Be very intentional. Now, many of you saw the prompt that I put out on instagram. And if you're new to the party here or you may have slipped this part, um, it make sure you're following me on I G cause I'm putting out some prompts. They're either in stories or the gallery, um, and turn notifications on That way, you won't mists them. But the prompt that I had set out was to create anything with intention over the course of the 24 hour period. And what I mean by intention is, I'll just give you some examples of things that people shared with me. Uhm, I'm going to take a portrait of my son. And so that is someone saying Okay, great. What about what am I gonna do over the next 24 hours, I'm gonna take a picture of my kid now with the you call it a portrait of my son or a picture of my kid. The fact, like I'm not actually judging the the output. I'm not even talking about the quality of the photograph I'm not talking about. Was it big enough for small enough? It was something with intention. And this is what the trap that so many of us fall into is we've done all of the things and then go back toe Jeanette. It's like the thing that was blocking me was actually just sitting down and doing the work. So the next step in today's lesson if there's three topics, what gets results is consistent practice to prioritizing the work I would love to see show of hands or maybe a text in the chat of how many of you are prioritizing your work and I don't like Let's just do a show hands real quick. Here show of hands who is prioritizing the work on a regular basis. I appreciate you all for being honest. Yeah, at Mike's giving us this one a little bit of seatings. The chats come in from the folks that aren't on the zoom call. It's I'm I'm guessing it's around 50%. And for those 50% that are doing it, good job. But beware. There are gonna be times where you're not in the position to raise your hand. And for the folks who are not raising your hand right now, like Amanda, I didn't see you, Amanda Mark designs that it's the you raise your hand, and that's okay because that's what you're doing right here. You're here to get a little bit of help, but what I want if you did not raise your hand or you do not chat me up, Jason, I'm creating every day. I want you. Your homework is the same homework that I gave you last week, which is to create something anything in the next 24 hours. Now I would suggest you set yourself up for success. Don't make it too big. Don't make it too scary. Don't make it to Harry, and I don't even care what the thing is. I do know that you've decided what some of your goals are and that there is one thing that would you could do that would get you closer to that goal even if it was just jot down like what you're creating is you're creating a roadmap. You're taking the first step. You're painting your Jess owning the canvas. You're There's an infinite number of things that you could be doing that would get you closer than you are right now to your goal. And for if you didn't raise your hand, do one thing in the next 24 hours, it's a weekend. You've got time. You can make time. You can stay up late. You can get up early. I'm looking at you do this for me, and you will find that it's probably easier than you think. Okay, um, sorry. I got a lot of windows open here. Let's see. All right. In intending what we want to create and and by doing so, I mean, it's like you can't say like, Oh, yeah. I took a picture at some point today that that checks the box. The thing that's missing with that is the planning, the saying I'm going to do this end than doing it. And part of the challenge that I see with just doing whatever is this concept of being busy now to be busy doesn't actually mean effective. And they're so maney busy bodies out there in the world. And I myself, I I share vulnerably in the book. When I first declared that I was gonna be a photographer, I just ran around doing all kinds of things. But I wasn't actually landing jobs. I wasn't building my portfolio. I wasn't I wasn't actually developing um myself into the career that I had envisioned. And what I did instead is just wake up and did stuff. And so it was missing. There was intention, and yet at the end of every day, I was so had said to my friends and myself, Oh, my gosh were so busy all day. But you know what? I wasn't getting anywhere. And if you remember from this part of the book, a hamster on a wheel is busy, right? She might just be moving her feet, and it feels good because they're doing a lot of stuff, but if you're not sort of on a trajectory with intention to get somewhere, you're certainly not being effective. So I would ask you to do an audit of your own self. And I'm going to ask you to a couple of audits here. Seconds like, Are you being effective or are you being busy? And when I started, you know, doing those audits, I was woefully disappointed. But you know, that recognition of what truth was for me was a very, very powerful thing and putting me in the right direction. I also want to underscore this idea of being urgent versus important. I wish I had seen this this, um, chart way earlier in my life. It was quite quite late in my life, honestly, that I saw it Page 1 and I'm gonna let ah, my team put that up on the screen. Now it's on page 1 Check that out. Now. I'm like, that's gonna read something there. I'm gonna go to the Zoom College to second and ask for, um something that you do that is urgent. Sorry. It is not urgent but important to you. Not urgent but important to you. Think about that for just a second. I'm gonna read a little blurb here. These four rectangles can change your life. I really wish one and showed me to stick this diagram in a decade ago. Of course, we need to tackle important to an urgent tasks right away. That is like the house is flooding. We need to tackle that right away, of course, but it's essential that we carve out time for the important and not urgent activities in our lives. Otherwise, we will always be occupied with unimportant tasks. This is a little bit of a harder question, but I'm wondering if anybody in the in studio audience has an example of something that is not urgent as in it's not. Your hair is on fire, but is very important that you do do whether it's reading or working on the skill that you feel your is required to get you where you want to be. I'm gonna go to to folks, Um, I mean, ah, I'd like to hear from Terry Pruitt and from Yehv. All right, I'll start out with Terry and you have. I'll ask you to ah, share in just a second as well. Okay, Terry, what's something that is in where the quadrant, That is the best stuff in life. Something that's important and not urgent. Um, I love candy making, but not eating the candy that I make up a chair way have different life. Um, but sharing it with friends. So in this covitz situation, I've been prioritizing doing that, making candy, um, and then making care packages for friends and family and shipping them and sharing them great. There's nothing that says, Oh, my gosh, you have to do this today. Right now. Hurry up. Got to do it. But something is clearly very important to you, given that's part of your craft. And presumably how you make others feel when you give them these care packages. Important, but not urgent. Yev, are you willing to share something with us? Even if yeah. Are you have any, Uh, okay. It's cooking. Yeah. Yeah, it's morning. Um, I find cooking to be creative, um, and being able to just use different ingredients than it helps me. Um, it's like I've created something for someone to enjoy. And, I don't know. I noticed. I hope so. I talked to me, there was a little delay. Go ahead. You have keep going. No, I was just saying that, you know, cooking and using different ingredients create something. Bet I enjoy others enjoying sharing with them. That's really important to me. It's part of my whole bigger vision. Um, where are great? That was my next question. What is your bigger vision? So we can understand the relationship between cooking and you're bigger vision. Um, gathering people together, um, creative be, um, healing spaces. And I find that food and community helps facilitate fat. Okay, Absolutely. That the table is one of the most innovative, um, inventions of the last 100,000 years, right? The ability to give mean people. And what I loved is that it would be very easy for anyone to say Wait a minute. Well, food. Yeah, I guess the foods important because we need sustenance. But you talked about it as a creative act, and it was very clear that if creating spaces and convening people is the core mission than there's some other aspects of it that you need to, you know, provide something that cultivates the space, you need to provide, um, something that's going to ground people in this space. And so it's It's really nice to see that it, you know, it something as daily as food can be. The thing that you find critically important for this one precious life for for your craft, the thing that you've imagined for yourself. And it could be argued that it's not urgent that you make good food because if you know fear at my house and you turn up, turn upside down a bag of chips into a bowl that could be conceived of as providing a space for people. But if you want to do it with integrity and thoughtfulness and you know the port that I'd underscore is creativity noticed how important that becomes. Thank you for sharing it. All right, so I just want to remind us that this this little quadrant right here, we often suck at this stuff. And if you are, like at all like me, um, it's very easy for us, Teoh to put ourselves on a hamster wheel and to be busy but not effective, and I would ask you to begin to audit yourself. Now I wanna go through a couple of things is that we're going to do, Um, that I'm gonna ask you to do toe audit One is how often do you talk about yourself being busy? This was a cancer for me. I always talked about being busy because it gave me a sense of importance of my friends would ask a are you doing? And the reality is like, I'm excited about what I'm doing from always doing a lot of things. But I was wondering if a the end of the day when I had told three or four different friends that said passively, How are you doing that? My answer busy. Didn't actually correspond with with, um, progress toward the thing that I had imagined for myself. And so if that's you, I'm I'm not here to judge because I was that person. And yet I find that auditing that as an answer. Now I do everything I can not to say the word busy despite having a very full schedule. I just think that busy is a sort of a toxic mindset. So I audited that for myself, and what I would invite you to do is an exercise I would invite you this week. Audit your time of an interesting line. Warren Buffett, he said. I'm not at my kid. My calendar is not free because I'm a billionaire. I'm a billionaire because I've made my counter open process that 1st 2nd Warren Buffett not free because I'm rich. I'm rich because I made time for what mattered. And that's not to say that over time you are not going to get a more full schedule, because my belief is that if you get good at identifying things that really matter for you toward this goal that we have for ourselves toward the success, the fulfillment that we want for ourselves, that we become ruthless in the best way of choosing friends spending time, self talk these are all things that when we can, um, assemble them, they will radically accelerate our path toward success and fulfillment and notice that I'm almost always multi success and fulfillment, um, together because success without fulfillment is hell and fulfillment. Um, if you can achieve it, just you know, what is it technology on? Could probably could probably achieve that just with enlightenment. But a lot of people I like to pare fulfillment what make you feel. So I want you to audit being busy or not. I want you audit your time. This is a very hard thing, and I want you to do it in 15 to 30 minute increments. Just track what you have done over the course of this week if I did it for two weeks and I didn't 30 minute increments and have a have help with this exist someone who manages my schedule on bats a luxury. I realized that. But even if you just went back over the course the last three days, over the course of the next three or four days, you track your time. I think you'll find it interesting. Here's a kicker if you do this with your finances, if you want to understand what your priority is, and you look back and you can see what your time looks like and see where you spend your money, that will be the most revelatory aspect of your priorities, and this could be painful. It was very painful for me. Um, I'll give you another example for me so ah that I'm the vulnerable one and not required that we all turn ourselves inside out to 3000 strangers. Uh, I did this with business travel, and I mean, is it prick over it? I audited and I was going back and forth between the two locations in Seattle and San Francisco for Creative Live. And I was on a usually to New York L. A. Or London, where we have investors and folks that are that are very close to the business and for whom I am work or with whom I'm work very closely. And I found that that was eating up an extra probably unnecessary travel was eating up another 10 to hours per week, 10 to 15 hours. That's like two days of productivity where I might be to tell myself that I'm walking down the the bridge way to get on the plane. I could be texting, and when I'm sitting there waiting to take off, I could be, um, taking notes or when I'm like. But the reality is that that wasn't that wasn't true. So out of your time, out of your finances. Two other things before we move on to the third topic again. If the first topic is reminding you that consistent creative practice. Consistency is the most important thing prioritizing the work, which is what we're doing in auditing right now. The 3rd 1 is going to be getting to making but two things before we jump into the getting to making. I do not want the results of these surveys that you dio to stop you from taking an action. I do not want you to believe that you need the perfect set of circumstances in order to be successful. I do not want you to believe now. This may sound like a contradiction, right? And you do not want you to believe that wherever you are right now that you cannot start if you go back to the beginning of the book. It says this is one of the most powerful things that creators who are successful no is Just start. I'm asking you to do these audits. I'm asking you to, um highlight areas where you might not be truthful with yourself, not intentionally, but as a means to reveal lots of opportunity because I'm gonna assume that you are taking action. I'm gonna assume that you're doing something instead of nothing. And it's my hope that when I pull this. You know, pull some of these other audits back, the time out of money on it that you will reveal to yourself how much more juice you have to contribute to the things that are the most important in your life. And this is true whether it's a project or this is true if the project is your life. Okay, my zoom just randomly expanded. Keeps covering up my notes. One second, Joe. All right, so that that last little point there to me, this is like, this is putting you in a position to savagely guard your goals savagely guard them. Because if you do not, who will? If you don't protect the things that you want in this life, if you don't orient yourself toward them if you don't create them, who would savagely going to dreams? All right, last topic. I'm I'm a few minutes long, and then we're gonna go to the Worldwide Q and a, um both via Via the chat on Facebook, creative live TV, the class, the page, YouTube, Facebook and, of course, here in the Zuman call for the folks that are in the text community. Topic three. Stop fiddling and start making anybody show of hands in the zoom call or raise your hand in a chat. If you send me an emoji, Anybody believe that the thing that they're making is not the quality that they want to be making it? This is probably go back to J. D. Smith. He was said. You know, I realized that there's this gap, Heather an ad J. D Audrey Um, and, uh, I think everyone's hands up everyone that I can see in the zoom call Rob Rob's got it figured out. Rob Legler. He's got to figure it out. Yeah, he's 50%. He's going giving me one of these. Ah, trend. Uh, thanks for raising your hand. Um, this is true. Unless you have mastered something. Unless you have mastered the craft that you are envisioning for yourself, for example. So most people should be raising their hand. It's like this is the part that this is my belief. This is why we're here. And if you find yourself, um, let me ask a different question. Are you giving yourself deadlines? Are you creating a plan for your creative routine or not? Are you creating the space and the time physically and mentally that you need in order to do the things that you want to dio Mount Noah's a fine answer because that's why you're here. But if and if that's the case, then that is a piece of your homework. This week this week is to go create a plan. And when I'd also ask, is What are you doing to be accountable to yourself? Is there something that you conduce in this group? I understand there's a subreddit that's been formed. Is that right? I think, uh, e think Nossa and Kate Desi, you can remind us, Or maybe throw that in the comments or the chat here. I think it's Ah, um subreddit slash creative colony or something like that. I don't remember. I'm not here to prescribe your accountability, but if there's someone that you are appears within this community, it's like there's someone that is a friend. Um, I recommend us not be your partner spouse. I recommend this not be a family member. Um, I recommend this is someone who has a similar endeavor to yours. If someone you find yourself in a community with the trade organization or whatnot without being prescriptive, though. This accountability, um is, um, it's very good medicine. This is part of what separates pros from amateurs, right? The ability to just show up. And, you know, there's that Chuck close quote that I've got in there talks about everyone else, looks for inspiration to strike. And you know, that's not the relationship that most pros have with creativity. They just sit down and they do the work again and go back to Jeanette, who set us up so beautifully today with some of her comments. Um, she first drafts are great. If you've read the book Bird by Bird by an Lamont, she encourages shitty first draft. I can't if you guys had seen the first draft of this thing. I don't think I don't think you have been very happy with it. And the funny thing is, that was revised somewhere on the order toe. You know, between 10 and 20 times each chapter, different carnations, reincarnations, shifting, cutting, trimming, adding back in completely reworking, Um, don't be afraid of shitty first drafts. You've also probably remember the anecdote in the book about the ceramics class that was in part great half of them were rated on the A number of things that they did, the volume of projects that they did and the other was judged on one thing and the results at the end of the semester. We're not surprising. Not only did the group that made that was graded by volume, not only did they make more work, but they made it better work, and they made more, better work. Um, and that's not a surprise, right? When you think about it, this is the concept of shitty first draft. This is a concept of practice. This is a concept of repetition, of skill. A poor crafts woman blames her tools. A great crafts person does the work over and over and over and over. And let's other people judge whether it's good or bad. The punchline to that last chapter that asked to read is Give yourself permission to suck. This is one of the most simple but boldest pieces of advice I think you can take away. Today is we all think we suck. I stepped into the CEO role of Creative Live with never having run a company more than like 10 people. I was crappy. The first go around. I handed the reins to somebody else. When did some other stuff prepared myself? Planned, worked at it, came back, was a lot better, but I had to invest the time had acknowledged that I socked be okay with socking and put in the work. This was true with my photography. This was true with me as a leader creativelive and I'm guessing that this is true for you. What is the hard part is being truthful about it and secondarily not getting down about it, because as soon as we recognize this creative gap, most of us through our hands up. But that's the thing that differentiates most people from you. If you have chosen the area that you care deeply about and that you want for this one precious life, whether it's a project or your life, then you've got time. You've got time just to continue putting one foot in front of another, establishing this mindset with your daily habits as a path to your goals. All right, action steps and or tools that I want you to take away from this and I'm not closing, read and get to question. Since we're eight minutes long. I want to know what have you quit? What have you quit that you knew you weren't supposed to dio What have you quit? But you knew you were not supposed to be doing? Because I believe that quitting is a very powerful thing. I would like you to write some things down, because that, to me, is actually an understanding of priorities. That is you looking back and saying, You know what? I have taken action. I dropped out of medical school, bailed on a career in professional soccer, dropped out of a Ph. D to become a photographer. Those were the hardest three things I've ever had to quit. Those were in the face of my parents hanging me. And remember, I'm born white male, middle class in America in the seventies, like every advantage. And still, I looked at quitting some of the hardest things I've done. So if you're looking for courage to understand that you're capable of making these big changes, look back at things that you quit that people relationships that you quit that weren't working for you jobs that you quit where your boss was a jerk. Um, pads that you didn't want to go down that the world was forcing you down and you actually decided to quit those things. I hope that that will help you. All right, then what? Have you quit? What are some things that you love that you can do more of today? And if I want to fly an airplane more than I am because I want my pilot's license and I want to own a little aircraft company that flies around the Bahamas. Great. If you don't have an airplane, you have access to an airplane. Try not to think about that right now. If you are, don't have access to it. What are some things that you love right now that you can do more of today, make a list of those things where your creativity, boosters and zappers make a list of these things. These are things that help me. These are things that drain me. Audit out this creative junk food auto audit out, you know, watching too much Netflix audit out news, audit out things that don't serve you Don't forget. I want you to conduct this time audit. Ideally, you do it for a week or two. But I don't care if you do it for three or four days. It will still reveal a lot. Just you have to do it some weekend days in some weekdays. Don't just do it for a day, because then you're going to be able to skew the results. What is the smallest thing that you can dio to get you closer to? Your goal? This is the thing for those of you who didn't do the exercise in hours, I want you to create something that gets you one step closer to your goal, one step better as a draft person, one step better as a photo shop up illustrator one step better. As an entrepreneur, you can research what it means to start a business license or to open a business license. You can actually do the work. It's probably 45 minutes. What's one thing a smallest effective does that you can do to get you close to that? And then the follow on further that that I've asked you to do over the next 24 hours is how can you set aside that 30 minutes 60 minutes on some regular schedule that you can keep don't set it up for two hours. Seven days, weeks. You're not gonna be able to be successful. Give yourself a reason to pat yourself on the back. Build the calendar that you need for your creative work Set. Ah, plan again. Chuck Close sat down and did the work every day. Andy Warhol. While other people are judging your work, all you're doing is making more. And while they're judging, you're making be accountable. All right, I'm gonna get to page for the closing read today. And then I'm gonna get through a set of reminders and take questions for 20 minutes. 99 is the closing read page Your mindset matters most. As the philosopher and Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius said, The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts as true Today as in Roman times, this state of your mind, your body and your spirit is the direct result of the decisions. You have made your life up to this point. Physical health, cognitive performance, happiness, well being these air driven entirely by our beliefs and our behaviours. Of course, there are so many things that started small, divergent Of course, there's so many things that you didn't choose in your life. But you have to choose how you respond to those things day after day, choosing exercise or Netflix all nighters or sleep eating clean or binging on mint chocolate chip ice cream. As I love to dio all these decisions, they create our days and our days Creator lives as a whole. Each of us faces all kinds of unique challenge. Whether men, um, mental, physical. Otherwise, we all have unique challenges. But no matter what have hand you've been dealt, your mindset gives you a massive difference. To achieve a new mindset and transform your life, you've got to believe two things. One. Your situation, whatever it is, is changeable for the better and to you are capable of making that change. I think that's why you're here. Just a reminder on page one of three. You are a creative person. The world is abundant, and Philip possible it would be. Your situation can always be changed. You can use your creativity to create the change you seek. Creativity is natural and healthy, but requires practice and creativity is the ultimate personal power. All right, reminder before we go into questions, I want to say thanks again for joining for this little creative sesh here. Um, 14 minutes long. I've been able to keep it to an hour for the previous sessions, but I'll apologize. I think the new zoom thing expanded my scope a little bit for the day. Um, just to remind her about those things again. Creativity zappers, boosters created do an audit, build a calendar, set some session plans. How do you want to do and create and prepare next week for the execute section of the book? That's part three. The fourth week that will be together. Um, this is doing the work that we have designed we have set out for ourselves today. So, um, if you would like to be in the zoom call next week, um, we're gonna have another call for first come, first serve. And the way you do that is, um, again, this is the only place in this this, um, community here that I've shared my phone number two of 5177 Um, there's a little automation you need to set. When you get that, you need to send me a text, and I think there's a confirmation that goes back to you. But then it's actually me that the doing the best that it can imagine. You know, there's 30 I think, 838 100 people in this class. So, um, I do my best to get back, and sometimes I will sit there for, like, two hours and just text people straight, and I get great pleasure out of it. So I would love to have that relationship with you. Um, if you haven't reviewed the book, it would be in the world to me wherever you bought it. Amazon, Barnes and Noble. Any Indy store IBooks, Apple books, whatever they call it. Now, that'd be really helpful. Um, I made an asked earlier, and I think we we got 10. Also, I was kind of bummed about that. I was hoping we could get a few more, but, um, so, uh, what That said I hope that you will, um, be further along toward designing the living life or vision that you have for yourself. Ah, I know that. Lots of questions. They're gonna come up. I think this is one of the um, it's easier to dream big once you've had someone like me toe sort of shake you out of it for a second. Designing a pen, a plan to get there. The fact that it's not on Lee a list of things of skills that you need is really a shock to some people. So this is we could be tough, as you're you're digging into this. Um, but just know that I'm here. This community of 3800 people is here. Um, there's the subreddit that we can put in the comments if you would, uh, my team so that in the comments, um, Marshes Santa just got the book on Thursday. Way behind to go ahead and get up speed. Um, and he says she'll review the bucket. Amazon. Thank you much. Um, all right, so we're gonna go to questions. I've been disproportionately favoring some of the folks in the the zoom video chat. Understandably, but I would love to go to comments, um, in text chat. If you're in one of those other formats first, um, I'll take that question and then those of you in the zoom will blow through a handful of these and I, I I I promised would you at least 20 minutes of Q and A, which is more than happy to dio um all right, so, um, questions coming in from the chat world, sir, I'm looking at the stuff that I'm getting on. Ah, from a team refreshing here. Oh, man, I get a spinning wheel of death on my chat window. Of course. All right. My since I don't know spinning wheel of death in my zoom call. I'm gonna go back. Who's got a question for me in in the zoom universe? Hands up. Okay, Rob, I talked a little trash to rob earlier. Someone to go to rob. Is it Zeigler or Ziegler? Hey, it Ziegler! Ziggler. Hey, what's up, Rob? I hope you didn't take my calling you out as ah, that was supportive because you were someone who hadn't struggled. So anyway, at war with your question, I'm here for you. But, you know, it's it's funny, because I e I was doing my creative allergies, YouTube videos. And, um, it's just the 1st 3 chapters of your book. Really? Is what made me stop getting hooked on the quality of it and just producing it and getting them out there. So I'm actually been very happy with what I produced since just reading the first few chapters. I just stopped getting hung up on that. So it's not a master never will be. I know I'm only gonna get better, but I'm learning to as a starter planner, Get over that hump and just get the stuff out there and get it published, you know, keep moving up. So that's kind of where I was going with that. It's huge, but I'm good. Good. I was gonna ask you was in these latest chapters. It's like you were excited. The audible book, right? So it's like you're sitting across from me, just calling me and my bs, which was, and you talk about perpetually planning and you talk about getting stuck on the work before the work. And I was just wondering in your creative process, maybe when you were doing the book or something else in your life can you give us an example of when you got stuck doing the work before the work? And then what made you realize that you're getting stuck on that and how you move as in. All right. Yeah. Um I don't know how much time you get, but I could give you about 100 examples. And that's one of the things about doing this. This experience right here and I tried to write the book from this vantage point is and I think I've said this on the book tour and couple of other podcasts I've been on his eye hate this idea of perfection because it keeps us from so much keeps us from so much joy. It creates so much suffering. If you can understand that Buddhist point of view, you know, pain is not optional. Suffering is optional. So much suffering happens. Ah, and you know my whether it's with the book, you know, I just I hate things that don't portray honesty like a bit. Isn't most business books a great if you've never created a problem in your business, and you can continue doing all the things that you need to do perfectly. Then you're gonna have a perfect business. Have a good day, you know, thanks for the $15.99. That doesn't look like anything that I have experienced. And so, you know, This is a messy, nonlinear, a bunch of work trying to figure this out. And so I came at the book trying to portray that, and that's one of the reasons I'm doing it here. And why should I've got I've got 100 of these. Um, I will use the meta example of the book, right. So the idea of a book is very romantic, and I resisted it for a long time because remember, writing is not my primary vehicle. Although I've written 1000 block posts and had a 1,000, monthly readers for a very, very long time, I never really saw myself as a writer. I developed my ability to write through repetition on the blawg and in graduate school as the PhD program that it was that I quit, which I was happy to share with you earlier. And yet when it came time to actually doing the work of the book, even the idea of I had romanticized, um, the writing process and there was a part of me that I did all of the other stuff. I got the book deal, worked closely with my agent, wrote a nice, um, proposal. Ah, and Then there was a lag time. I would say three months lag time and to be fair, like I have a ton of support, my wife, Kate, I think, is on the call somewhere. It's an amazing editor. I had, you know, all kinds of That's part of what you when you get a major publishing deal, they build a support now where you have writing support, editing, support, research, support. You know, these are all people that I had paid in order to, whether through lots of different mechanisms. And yet there was probably a three month lag to get started, and I had an outline. I had done the work to get the book to hell and knew where I wanted to go ID assemble the team. The team was doing things basically things that, like I would just send research tasks. But actually sitting down and writing was very, very hard for me. And what was hard for me was because I judged the things that came out when I sat down to type them. Is this of the quality that I want that I'm comparing myself with with what I know is possible for me and what I know it takes to have ah bestselling book out in the world and truly make an impact in the end gap with massive and was because I was judging my first draft and I I. Then I read an Lemont's Bird by Bird and recognized this concept of shitty first draft, which is because that's why it's littered throughout the thing. And it ultimately got to a point of near panic for the rest of my team. And I was like, Wait a minute. There's not enough time left to be continuing at the pace that we are in order to get a world class book created. And that again going back to Jeanette, who set us up very nicely early on this call. I just carved out time every morning and I'd lie. I'm a morning person, but I'm not a 4: a.m. and I started setting the alarm, and I made a series of videos every day or every other day, or when I remember to bring my phone downstairs with me of these videos and there horrifying and hilarious, and aside from you know, my hair is a polarity in its own bit, but I just made these videos of like, Oh, my God, what am I doing? I suck. And if you remember that chart in the book, which is the creative project excitement, enthusiasm and then Oh, my God, What am I doing? Oh, my God. This sucks. Oh, my God. I suck. I'm never getting out of this. And then, you know, here I am, nine months later, where I've been writing every day. And you know what? This is gonna be okay. Yeah, this is going to be good. You know what? I think this could be world class. And the last four weeks before I turned in the final draft of the book, so much came together that I didn't see a year before that I would never have been able to get there had I not done the work. Now, I hate to tell you this, but like writing a book is way heavier Lift of a lift and I've ever wanted I'm working. I go, I'm gonna write for the rest of my life because it's helps me organize my thoughts, especially as a visual artist. So that's never gonna go away as a problem. But I'm here to tell you that I struggle a lot with, um, the work because and here's the other thing that I think you probably pulled this out of the book. If you read the whole thing and you're going back now is that when you are in a position where you are just starting and you haven't, um, created success for yourself or this is sex, you success you dream of in fear. You've got nothing to lose, right? No one expects this of you, and it should be the most freedom. And if you're in that position right now, you're like, Oh, my God, I'm still stuck And I don't have any pressure. No one knows that. I want to be Ah, you know, Ah, renowned chef. Maybe like you have does Or I want to convene people and make videos that have, you know, that have a profound impact in changing people's lives. Whatever your endeavor is, the reality is, is after you achieve some success, you create some of the successes you want. Then you actually have something to lose. So the thought that it gets easier is fiction, right? It's and I'm sitting here right now, Like, what's the next one gonna be? Damn! So the fact that it never gets easy might be a slight overstatement because what you get used to is you get used to the pressure you get used to acknowledging you suck. And if you go through a few cycle of that, you can Actually, it's also a muscle. So the reality is now when I put out a shitty fridge draft, I'm like, OK, that's one of those shitty first drafts and then we'll pick it up again tomorrow. I'm gonna do it again. But if Rob what you're looking for is a reassurance, I've got ah, Infinity number of stories to share about sucking, um, doing the work. There is no substitute for it. Repetition is not only the mother of invention, but it's required anything that you've seen in the world, whether it's the light that slighting me right now, this Mike, you know, even this smoothie they had toe figure out what things went well together through trial and error. The only thing that will get you there is doing the work. Intellect is ah, subservient toe action. Action. Action is what matters. All right, I'm gonna go to the comments here and they're going to go back. Thanks, Rob. Um what? See? What's the best way this is from Marcia? What's the best way to start sharing your work in connecting with others? Um, well, here's the deal. Sharing your work requires, ah, connection to some social platforms and that's it. That's not the only way. Maybe that's not even the best way, but it's a way. And if this is about doing the work, then I would encourage you to start to share the work that you make because it is a muscle that you are developing. If you're wondering how to build community, this is the best example. But I can point to again. There's a lot of meta that goes on in this space and this creative headspace, because again we're creating our own experience of talking about creativity. It's no reason that we get a lot of things that are self reflexive, but what you're doing right now what even just typing the comment in the comments is an example of creating cultivating community because I bet if there's 3000 people paying attention, what we're doing right now that 300 people have that same question. And so just by taking the simple act of typing that showing up and typing that question into the into that little space and sharing that little piece of yourself is a way to help others feel less disconnected. Dis identified with their mission and vision for themselves. So I like to think of that as a very lightweight, easy digital way to do it. And I'm not just saying lurking. I'm saying participating. I'm saying you're gonna be in the zoom call. Put your damn hand up. Okay, it's I understand we're not all introverts. Some of us are introverts are Mr Extras and Burt's Doesn't matter. Showing up in the best way that you can digitally is a piece of it. I actually encourage physicality as well physical gatherings. That is obviously a challenge right now, So I don't want to over index on that, Um, but I do find great value in the community aspect of it again. This is very much about part four of the book, the amplify part. But since you asked it and since you're actually a part of a community effort right now, um, someone from a previous group started the SUBREDDIT. I think it's again slash creative calling again. Maybe someone getting put that in there. Uh, it's it's That's a great example. And that's not, you know, that's not a Chase Jarvis or a creative, live sanctioned thing. That's just a thing that sprung out of this group, which I love, that I heard a couple of stories. Ah, red indie EMS and in the in the chat group of people getting together social distancing to talk about, you know how to break down what they want for themselves. Like that's the work virtual work groups. I think that's incredible. And whether you you meet those people in the chat room or wherever, Um, it's very hard for me to overstate the value of community and what truly modest effort it takes to participate. Mostly, I said in the book, this is a weird thing that I said it become a joiner, and joiner is a weird word. I don't never see myself just like showing up like a all I'm here. I'm like, careful and unlike, thoughtful and a little bit worried and like I'm not sure if I'm gonna be welcome or if this is, these are my people. But, like for whatever reason, you're asking the question. It's clearly an issue, and it's probably an issue. I said, For 300 people in the call, it's probably more like 50%. It's probably 1500 of people who are listening or watching right now, like I don't know, chases saying, Be a joiner. I don't have much time, but you'll learn quickly if it's for you. If this particular community is for you. If you get one or two or three people that you connect with that can help you work on in Jeff's case, convening people in a table or in a coffee shop or and robs, you know in Rob's world making better videos Um, showing up is step one prioritizing time to build community. It should be a huge part of the effort beyond just your craft. Okay, um, let's see. Frank Tzar Hide wants to know. Is there a feedback loop? Question Mark. What to charge? If you're 500 lightbulb still sucks. Is there a feedback loop? The feedback loop? I believe if you're able to say my 5/100 experiment sucks, then you have a feedback loop built in because you made a value judgment of its sucking. Part of what I like to do is, um, I think there's a time and place to compare your work to others, and I have said that in the book, and I believe it. I think it's somewhat controversial because not every you know, if this is if your goal is to create, um at a professional level, and I recognize that is not the goal of everyone, not it all required. Not with the book professes, but, um, in that concept, I I like the idea of comparing your work to the work of others. And if you say you want to be a photographer, I'll use my own example, because it's easy to throw rocks at. Um, I was able to look at the pictures that I was creating and go stand at Barnes and Noble in the 19 nineties and look at all the magazines that couldn't even afford to buy a magazine. So I had to stand there for three or four hours and take notes literally couldn't afford a $4 magazine, and I was very clearly able to see that the pictures that I was creating. We're very different and very subpar to what I was seeing in the magazine. So that's when I, you know, did I think it was part of the last last week's conversation. I deconstructed the work of others, right? I looked. What were the components that I was seeing in the magazine? That whether it was the athlete, the trick, the location, all the different parts and recognize that all of those were very different then what I was able to create. So, you know, I deconstructed those I emulated. The things that I thought that I could emulate, I decided, is the formula Deer ray D. E a r. Deconstruct, emulate and analyze and repeat what's working. So you know, to your question, Frank, Um, yeah, there's a feedback loop. You have to be part of that feedback loop, and then the other part of the feedback loop is the community that you decided to join her. The communities. If you've read ahead and you've read part for the book, you realize that I'm advocating joining a bunch of different communities. And there's a community form, in my example, that the photography community was actually much later when I joined the photography community, I was more a part of the action. This works community when I was deciding, you know, what kind of sports owning a photograph and regardless of what order you join communities that that community provides a mirror or a lens through which you can look at your work. And, you know, in someone's case, I'm going to go back to you have, like Kiev's, um, presumably one of the things that got our inspired and I don't intend to speak for you, but just for expeditious reasons. Yeah, that you sat down at some dinner tables, you had some amazing conversations over some good food and you said, Wow, this is you know, this is something that I'm inspired by and I could do as well. And so you. There is a set of experiences that you can compare your ability to create something that is similar or better than what you saw out there in the world. So frank feedback loops were everywhere. You have a feedback loop built into you. It's just a matter of being honest. Repetition is incredibly helpful. Um, remember volume pump up the volume is the chapter that you're going to read in the book where we talk about creating a lot more things such that we can develop our skills and is the mechanism through which we get better at our work. I'm gonna go back to the zoom colleges to second. In the meantime, I am going to take a question from Grady. Great. He's been a really consistent shore upper here on Grady Lawler. Ah, what do you do when you're making consistent progress on a creative practice and are hit with a whammy in life that takes you off course not just slowly drifting into something that zapping you, but in out of nowhere, it takes you out of the knees kind of situation. First of all, great. It's so you should realize I'm going to do Ah, let's team, Let's cut to the zoom call here and please show of hands if you've ever been sideswiped, if your plans ever been interrupted. All right, Grady, you're not alone, my man. I hope now that a couple a breaker's it is a couple late breakers. Meghan. That was a slow raises. There was that a scratch that was a raise make inferior Ferriter, that was That was a razor. Doesn't. Okay, good. So my point in doing that is Hey, Grady, everybody gets sideswiped. And because of the myriad ways we can get sites What? I don't want to be prescriptive. I just want you to know that it's part of the equation. Um, I don't remember what section of the book it's in, but there's a There's a chart that says, like, quality of decisions over time, And it's not just landing it right. It's like up and down and up and down and up and down. And the hope is that just overall, the slope of the line is up into the right. The quality of your experience, the quality of decisions, the quality of your work. You can really. I talked about that in a decision framework, part of the book. But I think this is true for just progress at all. You've heard this this the concept of two steps forward one step back. There is nothing in life that is linear, and if it is, it's not gonna be linear for long, right? Most things have this halting, startling, interrupting, and that's part of what makes people quit, and that's OK, but go back to last week. This is one of the reasons that I would want you to find something that you really, really care about, because when shake, it's hard for whatever reason, and it will get hurt. I promise you won Shik. It's hard if you are working on something that you truly care deeply about your ability to push through on over, around. Get past this whammy, as you call it, which I like that I think there's they, uh, line an anchorman. Miami When you can get through a whammy, it's because you're gonna care deeply about it. And this is why aligning yourself with true things in your heart that you really care about is so important because there are other people in your community or in your class or in your group or in your industry that are there for the wrong reasons. And when that whammy happens to them, or in the case of a pandemic, when what family happens to everybody, you start to figure out what how important that is to others. And if you choose to pursue something that's kind of like may the chances are you're going to have to sort of change paths because you're not gonna want it that much. This is why you have to work on something. Why not choose something extraordinary that totally lights you up? That choice is yours. That's the imagination part. Now this is the getting to work part. This is why I'm such a huge advocate of mindset. You know, I want you to go back and re read the three chapters because mindset the ability to recover after step back. I believe I have this philosophy of It's not avoiding mistakes again. Sometimes these things happen to us or we create these mistakes on our own. The goal should not be to avoid mistakes. The goal should be to recover from your errors quickly. I'll say that again. The goal is not to avoid mistakes, because if you avoid mistakes, you're not risking enough. You're not trying hard enough. You're not putting it out there, so by extension you should make a lot of mistakes. But what you want to get good at is recovering from those mistakes really quickly. Big difference one is you're out there on the bleeding edge and every time something happens that you make a mistake and you recover quickly. What happens? You learn a tiny lesson. You learn to trust yourself. You learn that you can be put in a position where you have the ability to bounce back. And there are very few things in life that are more powerful. Um, I think again I mentioned my wife, Kate, somewhere on the call here, Um and so she will know this to be true that when I'm going to go speak in front of ah, I'm thinking fondly of one speaking at a stadium, I was like, You know, it was Intel or Microsoft or something to speak in front of 10,000 people at their annual meeting and then his big company. They have a stadium. So I'm backstage and I'm just I have mine on my noise canceling headphones on, and I'm literally I'm pumped. I'm I'm jazz that I'm going to get to go talk to these 10,000 people, and she's pacing, terrified, looking at me like I'm crazy, and I realized that Kate at that. Now she's a very proficient in public speaker, and she's a mindfulness teacher. But at that time. Like the difference between the the way we saw our ability to, uh, speak publicly was had spoken so many times to so many large audiences that if I stumbled on my words or set a wrong thing, I knew my material well enough that I could just recover and get back to it. And so that took the fear. A lot of the fear out of the equation, and that trust that you have that you develop in yourself is a very key attributes. Now Kate has that trust in herself in lots of ways that I don't have it. So whatever it This is why I continue to encourage people to take very passion in what it is they're doing and do the things that they were supposed to be put on this planet to do rather than something else, because it makes this equation this cycle of it's okay to make mistakes. You make mistakes and learn from them and recover quickly. It tightens that loop up and makes it less painful. All right, um, score, zoom. Hands up, hands up. I must have answered everyone's questions there. No more questions. Expand my zoom window just a little bit because I can see some more folks. I know you're all out there. Ferguson's got a question. I'm gonna go to first. Ferguson there. I'm a muting you, dear. Spare. You were live on the air. Oh, I think I had asked on you. I think you actually have to amuse yourself off. There we go. How's that chase, right? A little quick. Um, thanks for clicking on me there. It's not so much a question versus two quick comments, the whole understanding of urgency of versus importance. That happened last night at 9 15 when, uh, my two kids were telling me that the toilet isn't working. That became something that was very urgent. At the same time, what was important for me was remembering that I didn't watch the video fallout from last week's I missed last Saturday. So I finished that at 12 10 last night for him with bed to get ready for this. So understanding the two differences between what's really urgent and what's important and balancing that can be a fun example of living light. Secondly, we brought mentioned earlier about getting some stuff out there with his YouTube videos And even though it wasn't perfect, just getting whatever it is out there, just shipping it, whatever it is, it's never gonna be perfect for any of us that are creative. We're always gonna want something that's perfect. And if we're just too afraid to get it out there, it's never going to get out there for me. That's the way it's been for many, many years. So this year I started getting my photography out there. It's now out there. It's a little scary. But I did it. I took the step, so those were just the two things that I had. I don't have a question. No thanks for sharing much appreciated. And the just one more comment. Echo your sentiments on that that chart the urgent and important chart. I remember that that somebody else has charged the I. I basically I improvised on and put my own words in there. But the concept of urgent and important if we ultimately end up spending so much of our time around things that we perceive as urgent and that aren't really and for that we that are, um, important to someone else. So having a filter through which you can spend as much time in your important but not urgent category, and being very intentional about that is it's really hard for me to overstate, because if you sit down and you have an hour, this is one of the reasons I invoke planning and session planning and whatnot for your creative activities on a regular, consistent basis. But let's say you're just getting little sips of air, a little sips of creativity, where you can if you have an hour and you sit down and the first thing you do is open your email. What has just happened to that? Our It just basically evaporates because most of the things in your email inbox are a petition for your time. They're not, actually, um, important, and they masquerade as urgent because there's a petition that's hit your inbox for your time, responding to this thing. And then you think, Wait a minute. If I don't respond, you know, maybe it's a boss or a friend or a co worker or whatever. There's this mental gymnastics that you do to try and decide whether you should respond. Then how and ultimately even the fact of opening your inbox rather than prioritising your life. How many of these things do we get? We get exactly one. And so when you think about what's important to you where you try and provide a framework for thinking about it, there is very few sort of charts that summarize it more succinctly than that. All right, take two more questions to front Zoom Group in one from, um, one from the comments. Um, go ahead, zoom team. Um, I see a couple hands up, and I'm gonna go. I got to I'm gonna go first to Jackie, and then I'm gonna go to uh maybe I'll do three. Jackie, Heather, Mike, Jackie M. And I'm You were gonna try. And with these out because I'm behind schedule. Ah, a muting Jackie. Hi, Jackie. Welcome. Thanks for being here. Thank you. I'm so quick. Question. It may be big one. Try to condense it, but, um, how do we convince herself it's OK that were still on the right track. You know that there's no effort is ever wasted. If some of these milestones that we we had a long journey don't end up looking exactly as we felt like they might and you know, Is it unwavering belief and trust in the journey or process? Or is there like a trick to keep you on track as you move along? Well, here's the No, not scratch, a huge one. But maybe I'll write a book. Um, there was a handful of things embedded in there, so I'm just going to sort of talk at that rather than because each any one of those things could, I think, like, literally be a book, but with respect to the destination, not looking like what you thought it was gonna be like, Um, that is what it's like for most people. It's very rare, um, for the destination, as you envisioned in it. Like when you're standing at the bottom of the mountain, the reality is you can actually see the top right? And so that simple little you know, anecdote is true for almost all things. And when you're, um, Michael Jordan and you are the you know, the best basketball player to ever play the game, you know, and you ask him what it was like enough. I'm drawing on the documentary Be, um that just came out about Ah, about the couple last dance. I recommend it. Um he's very clear that what it looked like at the top wasn't anything that he thought it would look like. And this is just a very common theme. So I think preparing to not this is why the process is so valuable, Like enjoying and enjoying the the I don't even like journey because journey. Um, there's something that when you talk about journey that that eliminated, it's talking about like what it feels like right now. And right now, if you're doing the thing that you're supposed to be doing, of course there are going to be moments of now that feel great and they're gonna be moments of now that don't feel so great. But any moment if you're truly doing something you're supposed to be doing when the moments of now don't feel that great, what I have experience and those that I think are some of the top performers in the world that I talked to have experienced is we find some solace in that moment not being great, because there's an understanding and intuitive cellular understanding that you're doing the thing you're put on this planet to do and That's not to say you won't call it into question that it's not to say that you won't be frustrated or upset or, um, angry over lack of progress or any myriad of things. But the reality is that there's this deep knowing when you're on the right track. And it's not to say that you won't question some of those things along the way, but I can tell you having pursued lots of other things, that other people's requests that I thought had become mine that were really cultures It led me to frustration, to sickness, to disease, to $100,000 in student debt and what I consider now, um, you know, 10 to 12 years of doing that activity or those activities rather than the thing that I wanted. Now here's how the the twist and you said it in your thing. Now it would be easy for me to say that that time was wasted for me. 12 years on $100,000 but it was required that I spent that money and sunk those times that time for me to be here with, you know, thousands of people on a classroom to have built the thing that is creative live for me to have written the creative calling book to have made APS had occurs. All of those things were a product that I would not have created would not be the same person had I not had that experience. I think that experienced the owner ability that I had to try and cultivate in order to you. Sharing the book is part of what made it resident, so it's very, um in the moment. It's hard to acknowledge that. But this is why I placed so much emphasis on imagining what we want for ourselves, Um, and being great truthful about it because it's in those moments, if you're doing the things that you're supposed to be doing, that whether they're good or bad outcomes that you still have the energy required to keep going, so you, to me, that's the thing I'd like you to focus on, and the other the other point about it. Not looking like what you what it looks like when you get there. Um, I think that's the there. Part is where most people screw up if you do not love the process of creating most people love the the idea of filmmaking. I would love to attend com on and show my film. Do you ever want a plan? Scene by scene? You know, Do I want to raise the money to make the film home to I Want to Do I enjoy looking through the viewfinder. Do I enjoy crafting the narrative arc Do I like? That's why I try like Khan is mostly it's like you've moved on from the work because it was a year ago and you finished and you did all the hard work. And that's why I and I invoke that really loving that. I loved being outside with the camera, press to my face, working with someone else to create a picture that I thought was beautiful and said something I wanted to say, winning the awards or getting hired to do a big commission or all of those other things. They were ancillary along the way to the process, so I would encourage you to look really carefully at that. Um, thanks for the question, Jackie. And let's see, I had to others that I had promised one of his Heather, and I think that there was it was Mike. I'm gonna go to you, Heather. Ah, a meeting you right now whether I think it was headed, that I was gonna go to the next Hi. Hi. Uh, cut my attention early in the conference when you mentioned part of how you structure your days to journal every morning. So I was wondering, Is that just like a brain dump to get stuff out of your head? Or do you have more of a structure, method and purpose for your daily journal writing? Awesome. Heather, Great question. I want to clarify that. So the thing that I when I mentioned journaling, that was mostly when I was writing the book. And I was just a way to make writing a part of my daily habit writing in the capital w like writing for the book, but also doing this And this man I was so in as such in a dark place. At one point I remember saying, You know what? If this book fails, or if my publisher rejects this manuscript, at least I got good at typing. I mean, I was It was like such a dark place. And I mean to type typing come out of all that would be would really be tough. But, uh, I I will confess that I am currently flirting with, um, that writing process again and what I have, I'm I'm currently testing out I don't have it with me right now, but, um, handwritten notes now my handwriting end up getting so sloppy because I'm my brain is wired to go fast. And so the distance between my brain and my hands ability to write is not as good as I wanted to be, but that you find that there's something I'm, um, inspired by the hand written word again in a way that I haven't. I think it's because I can also draw charts and graphs and things and pictures along the way sketched and make a little weird. Very bad drawings. Um, but I find that writing as a brain dump, I can steer towards several others since I don't have a structure, which is, I think, probably the gist of your question. But I don't personally have a structure. I think that there are morning pages ends up being a really good place that I have steered people in the past. Right guy I get good feedback that go cool. And if you, you know, look up. Morning pages. Julia Cameron The artist's way. There's a handful of books, and yeah, totally. Tim, Uh, Tim is a very dear friend. Um, we have talked about morning routines together. Um, and we made lots of videos together and take both together and separate on, but we have also shared swap notes about morning pages. He's a radical advocate of it. Um, so morning pages. Julia Cameron, Tim Ferriss. You'll get lots of direction there for me. It's doing anything I try and write down, like you know what's working what's not working list of stuff to do. Um, I find that I tend to think slowly and then when I when I grab onto an idea, I can get to execution and the vision takes shape really quickly. But the like The initial landing is slow, and I know that writing things down and writing them out helps. So, um, in periods where I'm in intense creative works like the book, that's when I have you used it and it's been effective. Um, and then I think there was Mike Mike Alvez, You still there, but a little, uh, hey, so this might be a repeat of Jackie's question on, and I think it's been sprinkled throughout the conversation, which has been great. And but I'll ask it anyway, it's mainly about resistance versus intuition. So when it comes to trying to identify the doing the right work, which I think is on page 1 11 you talk about doing the wrong work. How do you distinguish the difference between resistance, which is the work that you need to push through from your intuition, which is the work that's telling you to go, which is basically telling you to go run the other way, Um, someone that gets too stuck in the Imagine and design loop And I've quit many, many things in my life. Um, I feel like if you want a hammer, it home with us, be wonderful. Great. Um, I'm sort of making myself a little bit because my was on a morning walk with Kate and she said, You know, you don't really talk all that much about resistance, and this is literally like 90 minutes ago. She said this to me and my response to her. This is like so it's gonna be a really inelegant answer to your question, Mike. But my response is a lot of other people have written about resistance. And, you know, my wife is wise, so, so wise. Um, she's like the sage and, you know, she said, for her some of the things that you know, the harder we pushed the worsts it feels. And, um, a lot of times that that loop is, um, is not just paralyzing but damaging to your mindset. It's damaging to a lot of aspects, and that is why I identify the whole process. You know, some my manager her was like, There's a lot of people who have written at length about that. So it's hard for me to think of something that new to say. There, um, the artist's way is great. I mentioned Julie Camera just a minute ago. If you ever read that book, it's fantastic. Um, there's also ah, a bunch of books like When the body says no, This is a resistance like the DNA and ah, a cellular level. When you're doing things you're not supposed to be doing or that are hard or resisting, it's there's a lot of written on it. Um, but because I don't have much to offer, the way that I crafted the book to me is my answer. And that is, if you're in an I D loop, that is, I'm imagining and I'm designing. And then I don't actually get to action that I'm imagining and designing and imagining and designing. Um, that's one loop. The other one is executing an amplifying and you tended, executed amplify ideas that are not truly your big ideas or that are other people's ideas. And then that leaves you sort of out in the end, the dust. But since you've talked about an I. D. Loop, Mike, my, um, my prescription would be to follow the entire cycle on something on anything and adjust the size of your project sets that you can do an I D. E and A that you can, um, you know, the Imagine something great design a process to get it there, execute that process and amplify it. And it's my hope that this whole cycle, even if you do it on something small, that you get to see what it looks like and what it feels like because most people that I find that Aaron I d. Loops. They haven't actually done the whole thing in so long that there's that is part of how the resistance manifests itself and builds. So I would do something small in a light way, way that you can, you know, let's go back to yes, idea of a dinner party or for her is convening people to talk about big ideas around food at it at a table, like even if it's cooking a meal, throwing a dinner party that you can dio I d e and a right you can say, OK, Coleman, imagine a dinner party. I'm gonna Here's what I'm gonna have. Here's the menus here, so I'm going to cook it here. So I'm gonna invite I'm gonna do that thing and then, you know, I'm gonna, um The amplification of it is in part, you're building that community and maybe you agree you're gonna have three dinner parties. That is, I'm trying to do something. It's very simple, but where you can run the whole process because it's in the running, the whole process, that you it could be argued that that is successfully performing this whole loop right this whole arc, and in doing it once, then it gives you the ability to look back at where you were stuck and where you like. Was it the imagining part? We really imagining things that you didn't want for yourself that you should. This is where I find most people get stock. Honestly, is I imagined a thing that I thought my wife, my partner, my smiles, my boss, my friends would approve of. And that is where most of the resistance comes from is because it's just like, kind of. That's what I should be doing is what I ought to do. It's what culture thinks I should do. And that's where most why most people, the resistance crops up now again. There are people who have written at length on this, and so I don't want to try and replicate everything that they've said because it would be their work, not mine. Um, they would also take a long time. My prescription. My antidote is to do something that you can do the whole idea circle in, do it a couple of times so that you have a reference for what it feels like to just complete the whole circle and, um, and then go back and analyze if whether or not you were being dead honest with yourself around the Imagine Is it is it Is it truly what you want for yourself? Or are you trying to justify all the other things? Is a weird. You know, many of you have seen the movie the secret, and it's just it paints it as a picture of just like, manifesting whatever you want in the world. And and I I believe in visualization deeply, and I find that there's a lot of merit to the secret. There's a part of this part of it that is obviously not that awesome, but, um, part of the, um, I'm not gonna go down the secret. I'm doing this. I'm gonna shut up. I want you to do the idea thing on something small, okay? And do it a couple of times, and then I want you to be honest with yourself. Whether what you're imagining for yourself is something that Israel or if it is augmented by everybody else's opinions. My belief is that it's augmented by other people's opinions. If it's not the case in in a month. You've done this work, and I'm still wrong. Then hit me up on the text Text read that that, uh, I'm having been effective is a coach and a mentor. All right, we're gonna go to, um good to dirt. Drew v Taylor. Is it okay to take breaks for several days? Review. Taylor coming in from Facebook. Attribute. Not only is it okay to take breaks for several days, I encourage it, but I want you to set up a system that you conduce you ongoing. And I would like you to say I'm intentionally going to take a break for three days, not just let the break happen. And I think you probably understand the difference between those two things. Mental emotional breaks, physical brakes, brakes are required. I would say Learn to rest, not to quit. And just make sure that those breaks, if you can at all, are are planned. And if you're starting to feel burned out, give yourself some X. Number of time too. Recuperate. I often I'm bad at this and I find that when I am, I got my shit together enough to figure it out. I come back like, Oh, my God. That was amazing thing. Why I so bad at that? And then my noodle forgets rather quickly, and I find myself back in that same position in a 2 to 4 to six months. Um, very good question. Hope that helps. I'm going to go back to aid caIIed Collins on Twitter. Appreciate your brother. What is the affirmation you tell most often the affirmation? Um, mostly, this is I think this is gonna be antithetical or a little bit disappointing because, um, you probably wanted some zippy saying, um, most of my, um and I'm couching this and supportive mantra rather than affirmation. It's just presence. Maybe this comes from having a wife as a was a mindfulness coach, but just being able to be present in the minute, it's such a powerful thing. It's it just to be able to, you know, be here now, just to to sit with things that are exciting and things that are awful. I've been, you know, I don't know about you know, all of y'all, but this, you know, last release have been extra hard. Um, made some videos about how hard it is. It's hard on lots of different levels. Um, and being able to sit with that is a very powerful thing. So most of my affirmations are around being able to be and not projecting into the future. Thinking about the past, just like, how do I feel right now? A lot of things like body scans. And I would recommend, um, meditation, mindfulness practices for for the hot. So not some catchy phrase, but that's my answer there, and I'm going to do I'm going a little bit long here, but I'm I'm gonna go for three more minutes. Gonna go back to I don't see e that it Frank e l Brookhart is from YouTube. What are you seeking in quotes this question that you asked. Chase keeps coming up in my mind. I think I answer it and then it pops up again. Do you still ask yourself what are you think? Do you still ask yourself, Chase? What are you seeking? I am very clear about what I'm seeking as often as possible. Maybe that's another echo of the sentiment from the question. Before I am, I try and be very clear with what my objectives are. Um, I tend to stack rank them. I try and have a couple. Yes, I do some goal setting at the beginning of every year because it's a helpful reframing. But I check in daily. That's why I say I have some goals and I have some habits that I I do on a daily basis. So what is it that I'm seeking is almost it's It's something that I have developed and gotten good at, Which is why I felt, um, the authority to, you know, write a book about it. Um, I e yes, I write it down. I write down the things that I'm seeking and trying to create. And there are, to be fair, those air just like top line things. And there are a bunch of things that are in that sort of second tier of importance that I may be articulate to friends or to my partner, Kate or I I write down or that I have preferences for those aren't the those tend not to be the big ones. And you know, the goal with this book was to do it with the project and then start to realize that that's how you can act on this for your life that it's the same process. It's just creativity at a different scale. Okay, Back to back. To zoom. Anybody got a question here in the call? Mike Smith going to go to you? Mike Smith. Um, And I meet you in a way. You go. How do you all right? A long time, listener. First time caller Lovett ho. Ah, we've talked a lot about Ah, a lot of things with first, you know, three weeks. But you've kept coming back to this notion of shooting first traps. I'm curious to know. How do you know are or how do you think you know that you've reached a final drafter closing in on it, for one? No. Is it just a feeling or perhaps a consensus with piers to how do you not fall victim to the path of least resistance? During that process, we get a certain point. You have to plant your flag, you know? Are you tinkering for too long and too much? Yeah. Um, here's a really useful tool. Is time boxing him like that's deadlines matter, right? Deadline? My book for a deadline is contractually negotiated, and I have a ah I'm culpable. I'm I'm have an obligation to meet that deadline. And so all of my actions ladder up to that deadline. And when the deadline hits, that's when I'm done. Um, and I think that's a really useful time for, you know, a new dealer. It just sounds like you're probably a new dealer. If you can put yourself in one of those camps, Um and then that's the best advice that I have is give yourself actual deadlines. The second, um, sort of about, um, she first drafts and knowing when something's done need don't have a deadline. Ah, this is why I usually use the words creating share in that same sort of like Crean share as you don't say create and then share it or I try and put them is close together in proximity to one another in a sentence in proximity in my mind, because the creating and sharing, um is a way to get feedback. You start to feel how you feel. You start to get emotions and learning and this idea of putting it out in the world. It sharpens that just a little bit versus leaving it in a drawer or under a desk. You're on a hard drive somewhere, and there's a feeling of sort of permanence. And, um and just like you, you've done something vs and I like the action have done of taking it of sharing it on. Even you can you can revise it may me as many times as you want. Um, but the cool thing is about completing things. The more you hit publish, the more you start to have a clear sense of what it feels like to be done when something is done or done enough. And it's only through that act, you're gonna publish things that maybe they probably should have held off on this a little bit longer. And this is like so many things or habits and muscles and these air skills that we develop over time. So I really encourage you to get in the habit of doing that as the best mechanism for developing your sensibilities, right? It's like personal style. Most people want to do no work and have a personal style on Day one. Repetition is the number one way that you can possibly create a professional personal style over and over and over and over and over. So it's and this is a thing that most people don't like to hear. Which is why I like you to imagine doing things that you really, really, really care about, because when shit gets hard and it will, you have that to fall back on. So repetition and time boxing. Okay, Um, I'm having too much fun. Ah, my team is curating some questions here since there now. Too many. Um, Jorge, I have a creative agency with no accounts. Interesting. We believe in direct contact being creatives and clients. No info loss. What do you think about this issue? Um, I think it's great if you can manage it. You know, when you have the creator who's actually working on the campaign sitting down with the client, it's great what I find this. Mostly there needs to be some account management present there. So if you have the ability in the structure or the flatness of an organization, have the PM and maybe you the head of the agency that creators were working on and sit down with the client. That's fantastic. Um, it's just hard to operate that business model. So if you found a way to do it. Awesome. I think you should write a book because it's powerful to have the creators and interfacing with the client just know that this is different skills needed to create a great campaign. And they build to the ability to manage a client through the process of what it takes to make a great campaign. Those air sleigh, different things. And so you might be co mingling things. We're people who have lesser skills at the table because you want them to get the information. But I might unwittingly, unknowingly create problems in the process. Good luck with that, Jorge. And, um, last question of the day is now back on Zoom. I'm going to. So maybe there's a car. There's a common offshoot. There's 99 comments in the chat. Hey, is the first time I'm opening the chat. I'm sorry about that. You know, I've been looking at the creative live TV, the chat from all the other platforms and having open the zoom chat here. Um all right, um, video calls or more fun. I think it's is it. And I am a I s You got a question there? Is that just a little bit. Is that a question? We're gonna go to it. All right, You get the last question say, tell me how to tell your stallion It's a name. Is it any an ex? Denise? Yes. Hi. How are you? I'm good news that your friend there is your assistant. Sorry. Just just being like driving me crazy. The whole This is my dog high. All right. Um, yeah. I wanted to ask you, um, question regarding mine said, I know you talk a lot about mindset. Why would I e, um tips or exercise to, like, try to develop or change your mindset? Because sometimes I I find my state my itself struggling with my mindset, I guess. Yeah. So what would be good exercises to like, I'm gonna I'm gonna go right at this. And I think the heart of mindset is gratitude is irreplaceable. You cannot possibly be angry and grateful at the same time, you cannot possibly be upset at the world and grateful at the same time. You cannot be Gratitude is such a space taker upper that it will shift your mindset in a moment faster than almost anything that I've ever experienced not almost faster than anything I've ever experienced. And sometimes it's super hard when you're super pissed to find the good in the world to find the thing that is you, like you know, the things you're grateful show for is one step above crappy. But it's a step above crappy. So to me, a gratitude practice. And you know I have. If you search my name and podcast, I have shared and walk through a very, very detailed gratitude practice. To me, that's foundational. I believe in things like mindset in meditation, Tim Ferriss tells a story in his book. I believe it was, I don't know, Maybe it's on is one of the podcast. I think it's no is actually in tools of titans. I have a section there, and he talks about myself. And Rick Rubin, the music producer, discovered the Beastie Boys and produced probably 100 of the top 500 albums of our day really got him into into meditation as a super super valuable foundation. That, to me, was a slingshot. It took every other aspect of my life and elevated it. Um, I used transcendental meditation, but visualisation gratitude. Tony Robbins does a thing called prime ing. Um, I've seen, you know, folks like Desmond Tutu talk a lot about, uh, gratitude. Thankfulness these air, these air practices. I I feel like our, um you know, most of these were, you know, thousands of years old. Um, all of them have science as a backer of ah, of support for their ability to, um to help. And just the concept between growth and fixed mindset. Angela. Angela Duckworth's on Carl Door. Carol Dweck. The book mindset is a great read. Um, and it essentially, she's the the mother of growth mindset, which is that you go back to something I said earlier in this broadcast. You have to believe two things. One that your situation is changeable. And to that, you have the capacity to make that change. That is the concept of a growth mindset. Versus I'm stuck here was me. Um, but I just one final word on that, um and you're not alone. It's one of the chief, you know, things. I wanted to cover today's mindset. It's the foundation of the creative pyramid with mindset have its goals. Um, and it is the thing. If you look at the list of daily habits and creativity boosters, most of them support mindset first and foremost, so it's not a surprise that this is something you want to do work on. It's not an accident that I put so much time in into in the book. And it's also true that of all of the people that I interact with were of the highest performers in the world. My own experience when I have been the most successful and fulfilled it is 90% mindset, 90% skills, 10% 90% mindset. All right, went way crazy long today. Um, I attribute that to the zoom call. Thanks so much for experimenting. I hope the folks that weren't on the zoom you might get the hint. That would be a great time to join in the text community, which is That's my number, and I will respond again. I've filtered it through naps like and do things like group responses. And I said, if couple videos out for those of you Rana today, you can shut out in the in the comments. But I want to thank everyone I want to just recap quickly. What are some of your creativity, zappers and creative creativity? Boosters do more of the things that help you and less of the things that hurt you. I think the news is one that we can all acknowledge is really very hard right now. It's been sensationalized. I'll just use my own experience. This autonomous zone just came out today that Fox News digitally altered photos and video of the Seattle Autonomous Zone showed people carrying air fifteens up there. I made a video that's on my instagram right now from this place Yesterday, free water, food, medical, tens, singing, dancing, activism, conversation, community around shared ideas was everything but what you had seen on television. And it wasn't just Fox, but that fox is the one that digitally altered the images. Um, so news may be taken news, diet, whatever is for you. What drains you and what juices you do more of what dishes you less of what range you do a time audit to a financial audit. Any one of these things would be amazing if you did all of them high fives to you build a calendar that you can keep. And if you miss one, don't schedule two hours every day for seven days. Schedule an hour every other day so that you do it three times a week. And if you miss, then you have a little bit of space in your life, too, to make it up, Um, and then read the section called Execute for next Week. This is a part that some people find trying because it is doing the work, and it is getting you out of the the dreamy world. Um, you know, my mike is a little bit around Mike's question a little bit around. We know we heard from Terry were a little bit from trend. I think we you know, a lot of people chimed in, um, that with questions or comments that were relevant, our conversation around designing, but ultimately had a lot of merit in doing the work. So I think I covered everything and then some that I wanted to Today I want to say thanks to the team helps me produced this thanks to you all. Um, well, the career reviews on Amazon. I'm grateful to have this community and this time together, um, you know how to reach me. I'm widely available on the Internet. I just want to say thanks. Um waving Bye from my basement in Seattle. Hope all you all are awesome. I'm looking forward to next Saturday already appreciate it.