Maisel’s research on anxiety identifies a phenomenon called prethinking activity, which includes researching, brainstorming, making lists, interviewing, organizing, going to workshops and the like.
These activities, while enjoyable and meaningful, shouldn’t be our primary focus. They may serve our thinking needs, but they may also be dodges that we use to avoid our actual thinking tasks and their attendant anxieties.
We think we’re being useful, but in reality we’re just maintaining our identity. Soothing ourselves. Preserving the illusion of productivity.
I have a client whose business requires three main areas of creative activity. However, only one of those activities comes naturally to him. And so, he’ll use that activity to procrastinate doing the other two. Because it doesn’t feel like work. It’s the low hanging fruit. And the excuse he uses to justify his procrastination is that he’s being productive.
Which is technically true. But anybody can be productive doing something that doesn’t feel like work. But what good is being productive with an activity that comes easy to you if you’re just using it to avoid doing the harder work?
That’s just resistance tricking you into thinking that your prethinking efforts are the most important. They’re not.
The key is to remember what your fifth grade teacher used to tell you. Do the hard problems first. Frontload your heavy lifting. Use that work to boost your confidence, build momentum and create a cascading effect on other issues that may get resolved on their own. Then you can do all the prethinking you want. Because you will have earned it.
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The shortest distance to the heart is through the body
Clients ask me all the time, how do you know which projects to focus on? How do you decide where to invest your time and energy?
My answer is simple. Listen to what wants to be written.
Just start something, and in those first few minutes of action, scan yourself to see which muscles and bones and systems feel tight, energized or relaxed. Notice your posture and your breathing and your pulse and your toes. Listen to what your body is telling you, and you’ll have no doubt whether or not to proceed with a particular course of action or project.
I know, for example, that my anxiety typically manifests in my abdomen. In fact, yesterday I started working a new project that I thought I was excited about, but within two minutes I felt pangs in my stomach. And so, I calmly switched gears and moved on to a different project, one that created relaxation in my body instead of tension.
This useful practice is something my yoga instructor calls a physical diagnostic. It’s a check in with your body to see where you’re at, at this very moment.
Half moon pose, for example, is a diagnostic posture. It comes early on in the yoga series, allowing students and teachers to feel out anatomical inconsistencies and gauge where their practice is at, for today. Because every day the body is different.
And so, whether you’re sinking your toes into the yoga mat, or sinking your teeth into a new project, always listen for what wants to be written. The shortest distance to the heart is through the body.Learn to achieve focus as a function of physicality.
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We’re not supposed to be one thing in life
Any time you retire from a creative pursuit, it always comes back in another form. That’s the nature of the artistic mind. Creative water always finds its own level.
And so, once a person realizes that art needn’t be restricted to any one means of expression, they find new ways to channel their thinking and create value and meaning in the world.
I was listening to an interview with a comedian turned therapist. After thirty years of performing, he had reached a crucial pivot point toward who he was to become. He sensed that he was finished with comedy, and knew it was time to move on to the next incarnation of his creative expression.
He retired from standup and migrated his talents from the stage to the couch. And after extensive study and research and reinvention, he began his second career as a mental health professional and talk show host, healing clients trough the very gifts that earned him worldwide acclaim as a comic.
Craig may not be doing bits anymore, but he still synthesizing his unique talents of empathy, energy and connection to create value and meaning in the world.
It’s a powerful reminder that you’re not supposed to be one thing in life. Contrary to popular conditioning, focus isn’t about hammering one nail all your life, it’s about hammering lots of nails, one way, all your life.
That’s what the word identity literally means. It comes from the word identidem, which means, over and over. Because it’s all about the person you are, over and over, regardless of vehicle, venue, canvas or audience.
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Execution to the power of elation
If it’s not interesting, the audience won’t be interested.
That’s how boring art works. It never goes anywhere. It just sits there and laps up time and money and attention, traveling in a circle, never arriving at its destination, never quite succeeding, never quite failing.
That’s why my number one rule of songwriting is, I have to surprise and delight myself. With every new tune I write, the goal is to create a mood, compose a melody, construct a rhythm, write a lyric or communicate a story, that I’ve never tried before.
That’s my gauge of a meaningful song. It’s not about good or bad, it’s not about right or wrong, it’s about feeling proud because I charmed myself, albeit on a small scale.
I’m reminded of a fascinating piece of jazz trivia. Coltrane once said that his band would to play the same songs in the second set as they played in the first, just to find something interesting in the music that they didn’t find earlier in the evening. That’s the definition of artistry.
Yoga actually works in the same way. When you practice on a regular basis, the goal isn’t to achieve perfect posture and absolute stillness and full expression in every single asana. The goal is to sweat your way into something interesting. The goal is uncover a new understanding about your body, your breath and your brain.
That’s why our teachers call it yoga practice, not yoga perfect. When you fall out of posture, that’s a good thing. Your muscles are learning something. Besides, this isn’t a competition. This isn’t about winning and losing. Yoga is a filter you superimpose over the world to figure out who the heck you really are.
But if it’s not interesting, you won’t be interested.
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What did you discover about yourself during your last yoga class? LET ME SUGGEST THIS…
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Opinions are the only thing people pay for. Have them.
Thanks to the internet, the sum of all
human knowledge is now free, instant, ubiquitous and accurate.
And so, your value
isn’t about information, it’s about context and perspective and judgment and
process. Truth is, clients don’t want to know what you know, they want to know how you think.
Meaning, your processes.
The structures you place around yourself to make sure you get things done
consistently. Meaning, your self talk. The questions you ask yourself to make
sense of the world. Meaning, your personal standards. The values that make you
feel fully alive when you honor them. Meaning, your limits. The boundaries that
make you feel whole when you establish them. Meaning, your awareness plans.
Mental recipes for perceiving and thinking about the environment around you.
Meaning, your organizing principles. The frameworks which govern action and
allow everything else in its proximity to derive value.
As a consultant, I’ve
had a number of clients who hired me to spend two hours on the phone with them,
solely to answer questions about my thinking process. That was worth the price
of admission for them. They weren’t interested in solving specific problems,
they just wanted the opportunity to try on my brain.
A good reminder that
opinions are the only thing people pay for. Have them.You don’t need people to follow your social media, you need people
to follow your thinking.
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How are you bringing intellectual capital to the table?
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When leisure becomes livelihood
I recently read a fascinating study about why hobbies make for successful businesses.
Turns out, the differences in progress and viability between conventional entrepreneurs and hobby based founders aren’t as stark as we might assume. According to the research, leisure based founders may be slower to make progress initially, but after a certain time threshold, their progress is no different than other types of founders.
They’re tortoises, not hares. Which doesn’t suggest they’re dragging their feet or that they’re aimless or unmotivated, it’s just that these people are driven by a different set of motives. They operate in a context favoring slow and steady commitment to the venture, as opposed to the rapid progress favored by other entrepreneurs.
Think about it. There’s an implicit commitment in cultivating leisure interests. When you’re doing what you do because you dream about it when you’re not doing it, fostering deep commitment is a nonissue. That’s why hobby based founders were actually more likely to deepen their commitment to their ventures over time. Because the work is around the love of the activity, not just exploiting an opportunity in the market and cashing out.
And, when your motivations aren’t based around profit and growth, the reasons for giving up are not necessarily the same as they might be for conventional entrepreneurs.
Perhaps the ultimate job perk is the opportunity to get paid for doing what fulfills you.
The challenge, of course, is making sure the tortoise actually finishes the race. That you don’t labor in vain. Otherwise you don’t really have a business, you have an expensive hobby.
And so, if it’s been nine years and you still aren’t making at least some money, you don’t have to give it up. But perhaps your hobby should remain as a nonvocational pursuit.
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Do you have the commitment to convert leisure into livelihood?
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Send it to the gallows
Everyone
starts by throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks. In the
absence of experience, that’s really the only way to uncover which path to
pursue. We try things, we experiment, we listen to what wants to be written,
and we move forward accordingly.
But the mistake many of us make is, we forget
to go back and clean up the old, crusty noodles off the floor. And the kitchen
starts to smell foul, scaring away potential customers.
McDonalds recently
simplified their product line, removing more eight items from their menu.
Naturally, customers got upset. Nobody wanted to see their favorite value meal
sent to the gallows. Especially those bacon ranch chicken fajita wraps.
But business is business. And corporate representatives explained that
the company had no choice but to discontinue a number of products in an effort
to increase service speed. That’s how fast food works. A confused mind never
buys.
My question is, how bloated is your
menu? When was the last time you discontinued all of your company’s
superfluous, unsellable and outdated offerings?
I have a consultant friend
whose service line hasn’t simplified in over a decade. I was looking over her
website, and her company seems to specialize in just about everything. But
what’s interesting is, she says eighty percent of her clients only book one or
two of those ten different programs.
And I remember thinking to myself, why haven’t you cleaned up that spaghetti
off the floor?
I understand you wanted to position yourself in a way that
covered people who didn’t know they were clients yet. But if it’s been a decade
and you still haven’t sold it, it’s probably time to drop that loser from your
brand and let other aspects stand out better.
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Take the helmet of salvation
Carlin once said that most of the world is a straight line,
so you have to tilt your vision just enough to see the craziness.
It’s true. We
live in a society that disparages smartness, thwarts individuality, isolates
eccentricity, discourages critical reasoning and minimizes existential thought.
And if we have any intention of making the world a better place, we have a
responsibility not just to think, but to protect our thinking. To take the
helmet of salvation, to use a biblical term, and defend ourselves against those
who try to shake our belief in self.
It’s a way of setting boundaries. Putting
a cap on the amount of feedback we expose ourselves to, lest we give people’s
opinions more weight than they deserve.
I’m reminded of when I used to send out
my manuscripts for peer review. In every instance, people’s comments on my work
would do nothing other than make me feel defensive and upset and disempowered. Slowly,
the excess of feedback started to bounce me around like a pinball. And by the
time I finished reading everybody’s comments, I had lost sight of my original
vision for the book. Because I wasn’t protecting my thinking.
And so, I made
the decision to simply remove that step from the writing process. I just
stopped listening to people. And I started writing what I wanted to write, the
way I wanted to write it, publishing it irrespective of people’s projected
insecurities and flaws. And I never looked back.
The point is, the brain has no
firewalls. By sticking ourselves out there, we are unprotected to the searing
headwind of others doubts. And there’s nothing to stop our minds from being
hijacked by adverse influences. Take measures to safeguard them.
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How do you protect your thinking?
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Moments of Conception 181: The Originality Scene from Garden State
All creativity begins with the moment of conception.
That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.
Based on my books in The Prolific Series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.
Today’s clip comes from the original moment scene from Garden State:
I champion any
transformation of the self. Every time I watch this movie, I cry my
eyes out. The soundtrack is perfect. The acting is amazing. The humor is
clever. And the love story is touching. Not to mention, the movie premiered
when I was in my mid twenties. Everything the characters were going through, I
was going through too. Braff put it best when he said, your body goes through
puberty in its teens, and the mind goes through puberty in your twenties.
Proving, that people love to witness transformation. Nobody likes a story about
continuity, about how someone has always been the same. In fact, that narrative
is biologically impossible. Human cells regenerate every seven years. We
literally can’t be the same as we used to be. McKee famously said that if the value
charged condition of the character’s life stays unchanged from one end of a
scene to the other, nothing meaningful happens. There needs to be an arc to the
story. The great sweep of change that takes life from one condition at the
opening to a changed condition at the end. That’s what I love most about coming
of age films. They explore the transition from youth to adulthood. The hard core
formative years of spiritual exploration, psychological realization and moral
growth that foster dreams and lay the groundwork for years to come. What is still lethal inside of you that
wants to be transformed?
Guardians of
the infinite abyss. This movie is about reinvention and spontaneity and
discovery. Trying to steal life whenever and wherever you can. And it’s
reminiscent of the futurist’s
manifesto, which reminds us to elevate all attempts at originality,
however daring, however violent, bear bravely and proudly the smear of madness
with which they try to gag all innovators, and sweep the whole field of art
clean of all themes and subjects which have been used in the past. What’s crazy
is, that manifesto was written over one hundred years ago. And yet, the
painters of the day still knew that an artist’s greatest currency in this world
was their originality. Samantha knows this, intuitively. That the experience of
discovering something new, doing something that’s completely unique that’s
never been done before, is the stuff that life is made of. And so, as dopey as
her little exercise is, it still helps her develop the empowering habit of
exercising the part of her brain that is most original. It still keeps her
focused on the present moment, even if that means bearing bravely and proudly
the smear of madness. Even if that giving herself utterly to the unknown.
Whatever it takes replenish the deep wells of the absurd. Where are you currently compromising your originality?
Cynicism is
easier than actually making something. The world doesn’t need another cynic.
Our planet has enough pessimism to last a lifetime. That’s why it’s so
important to be fundamentally affirmative, relentlessly encouraging and
radically supportive towards one other. Because most people have already been
discouraged, disenchanted and degraded enough. And the last thing they need is
another scoffer to pour salt on their wounds. On the other hand, believing in
people costs nothing. And it has the power to change everything. I remember
when one of my musician friends went in the studio for the first time. After
years of writing songs, she finally summoned the courage to put them on wax. Hallelujah! But once the album was done,
she began to encounter resistance. Record producers, club owners, music critics
and other industry professionals immediately shot her work down. Saying that
the songs were uninspired, grating karaoke tunes at best. She was devastated.
To the point that she went into music hibernation for almost a year. And so,
when I ran into her at my songwriting circle, I asked her to share. And when
she played the song, I remember thinking to myself, wow, this song is awesome. Not because it’s perfect, not because
it’s catchy, and not because it’s radio friendly. But because it’s hers.
Because it’s finished. Because she had the guts to sit down, slice open a vein,
bleed her truth onto the page and share it with the world. That’s enough.
That’s a win. And nobody can take that away from her. Are you trying to become best at what you do, or the best of who you
are?
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What did you learn from this movie clip?
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The best way to beat the odds is with massive output
Being an artist is like owning a venture capital firm.
You make lots of individual investments at varying levels, but you only need one of them to be successful to make the whole portfolio work well.
The hard part is, you never know which one will take off. There’s no certainty in art. Creativity is not a combination lock. Every day you’re just winking in the dark, throwing frisbees out the window, anchoring what you create to probability, trusting that it’s only a matter of time before the world pays you back.
I write hundreds of articles every year for a dozens of different publications, and I’m always shocked which pieces gain the most traction. I think to myself, that’s the one people liked? Really? And yet, despite my efforts to localize the virality and pinpoint what it was that made a particular piece stick, I always come up empty handed.
Because that’s not the way art works. It’s mostly luck and timing. You concentrate all your energies, bring your work to a roaring blaze, and then go start your next fire. And you have faith that eventually, one of those embers burns the whole forest down.
Art is just a series of investments. You start with one idea and quickly pivot to another if the first doesn’t work out, knowing that every attempt betters your odds in the long run.
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What structure could you put place to tips the odds heavily in your favor?
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