Speaker 1: As a new year approaches, many people start reflecting on
Speaker 1: the year that has passed and start thinking about how
Speaker 1: they want the next year to be. Imagine if in
Speaker 1: two you were able to have clarity on what matters
Speaker 1: to you and then have the tools to live that out.
Speaker 1: Imagine if you are able to be the person you
Speaker 1: really want to be. That's where I come in. I've
Speaker 1: helped hundreds of people from around the world become who
Speaker 1: they deeply want to be. If you're feeling frustrated or
Speaker 1: disappointed in your ability to make changes in your life,
Speaker 1: then having someone in your corner to support and advise
Speaker 1: you is critical. Look, there's a lot of general advice
Speaker 1: out there, but figuring out which of it applies to
Speaker 1: you is difficult. You are different than other people and
Speaker 1: your life looks different than other people, so you need
Speaker 1: solutions that make sense for you. Knowing how to apply
Speaker 1: certain tactics and tools to your specific life is my specialty.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to make two a better year for you,
Speaker 1: then book a thirty minute discovery call with me. It's
Speaker 1: a no pressure, no sales call where we determine if
Speaker 1: working together might make sense, and if it doesn't, I'll
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Speaker 1: win either way. Go to one you feed dot net
Speaker 1: slash coaching to book your free discovery session. That's one
Speaker 1: you feed dot net slash coaching to book a free
Speaker 1: discovery session. And I look forward to meeting you. Happy
Speaker 1: holidays everybody. I wanted to explain to you that we
Speaker 1: are going to be re releasing some of our older
Speaker 1: amazing episodes just for a couple of weeks while we
Speaker 1: have some time off, and in case you're recently joining
Speaker 1: us as a fan of the One You Feed podcast,
Speaker 1: or however long you've been a listener of the show,
Speaker 1: you may not realize we have over seven years or
Speaker 1: I think almost eight at this point of incredible episodes
Speaker 1: in the archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that
Speaker 1: we've decided to hand pick one of our favorites for today.
Speaker 1: That may be new to you, but if it's not,
Speaker 1: it is definitely worth another Leston. We hope you'll enjoy
Speaker 1: this episode with Charlie Gilky. If we're not finishing the
Speaker 1: work that matters to us, we can get um what
Speaker 1: I call creative constipation. Welcome to the One You Feed
Speaker 1: throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the
Speaker 1: thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or
Speaker 1: you are what you think ring true. And yet for
Speaker 1: many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf Y Thanks for joining us. Our guest on
Speaker 1: this episode is Charlie Gilki, the founder of Productive Flourishing,
Speaker 1: a company that helps professional creatives, leaders, and change makers
Speaker 1: take meaningful action on work that matters. He's the author
Speaker 1: of Start Finishing, How to Go from Idea to Done.
Speaker 1: He's widely cited and outlets such as INC Magazine, Time, Forbes,
Speaker 1: The Guardian, Life Hacker, and more. He's also an Army
Speaker 1: veteran and near PhD in philosophy. He lives in Portland, Oregon. Hi. Charlie, Welcome,
Speaker 1: to the show. Thanks so much for having me here today, Eric,
Speaker 1: I've been looking forward to this for a long time. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm excited to have you on. Your book is called
Speaker 1: Start Finishing, How to Go from Idea to Done, And
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about that in a moment, but let's start,
Speaker 1: like we always is do, with the parable. There is
Speaker 1: a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. What is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about
Speaker 1: it for a second, and he looks up at his
Speaker 1: grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And
Speaker 1: the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 1: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 1: you do. I love this parable for many different reasons.
Speaker 1: And actually I wrote about this a few years ago,
Speaker 1: and I think it's about the time you started this podcast,
Speaker 1: so it was in that pace, and so I find
Speaker 1: it interesting and useful on that first level about what
Speaker 1: are we feeding in ourselves and what are we seeing
Speaker 1: in the world. But there's a deeper level, I think
Speaker 1: to the parable is what are we feeding in other people?
Speaker 1: And so I like to think about it in both ways,
Speaker 1: because if we feed the dark wolf and other people
Speaker 1: by how we show up and how we project who
Speaker 1: we think they are to them, then that's the wolf
Speaker 1: that gets fed in others, and it's those are the
Speaker 1: wolves that end up biting us, you know. And so
Speaker 1: there's both this altruistic way of thinking about it and
Speaker 1: there's a self interested way and think about it. Altruistic
Speaker 1: way is how do we leave each person better off
Speaker 1: after interacting with us than before we found them or
Speaker 1: before they found us? So that's one, But the second
Speaker 1: sort of self centered way is how do we orient
Speaker 1: ourselves and navigate in this world such that we are
Speaker 1: feeding the good wolf that ends up not biting us
Speaker 1: nearly as much as the bad wolf. M That's a
Speaker 1: great way to look at it and think about it.
Speaker 1: I really like that that sense of of what are
Speaker 1: we feeding in others? And we do tend to sort
Speaker 1: of feed certain things and others. I'm thinking of a
Speaker 1: quote and I feel like it's attributed to Nelson Mandela,
Speaker 1: but that I might be completely wrong about that, but
Speaker 1: it's something along the lines of it never hurts to
Speaker 1: look for the good and someone else they tend to
Speaker 1: act the better because of it. Yeah, I find that
Speaker 1: to be absolutely true, and especially in times like these.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's been over the last few years, um,
Speaker 1: just this sense of darkness out there in the world,
Speaker 1: and I think that has been accelerated for a lot
Speaker 1: of different reasons, and we didn't listen. They need to
Speaker 1: go into the political landscape side of things, um. And
Speaker 1: it's also been my experience that there are plenty of
Speaker 1: actively good people out there doing great work, and there
Speaker 1: are plenty of people who are just confused and with
Speaker 1: just a little bit of guidance or which a little
Speaker 1: bit of inspiration or a little bit of kindness become
Speaker 1: those active good doers. And if we approach people with
Speaker 1: a sense of hostility, a sense of us and them,
Speaker 1: were more likely to take those people that are you know,
Speaker 1: doing the best I can and maybe you know, have
Speaker 1: their heads down and just wanting to get through the day.
Speaker 1: We can either alienate them again, get the bad wolf,
Speaker 1: or maybe we can pull them in and say, you know,
Speaker 1: we're in this together. And it's a quote often attributed
Speaker 1: to Plato, but it's actually Ian McLaren, which is be
Speaker 1: kind because everyone you meet us fighting a hard battle, right.
Speaker 1: And I think if we sort of look at it
Speaker 1: that people have their own things going on, and they're
Speaker 1: fighting their own battles. And if we approach with kindness,
Speaker 1: when much more likely to get the good wolf, the
Speaker 1: kindness to see the goodness and others as opposed to
Speaker 1: just have the defensive shield and the biding coming back
Speaker 1: at us. I couldn't agree more. I'm gonna take a
Speaker 1: brief diversion for us before we go into the book,
Speaker 1: because you mentioned in the book of quote and you
Speaker 1: say it's from one of your favorite books, which also
Speaker 1: happens to be one of my favorite books, which is
Speaker 1: The Dowbt a Change, And so I wondered what it
Speaker 1: is about that book that you love, or any particular
Speaker 1: sections from that book. But I thought we'd talked about
Speaker 1: that for a second as a place to go first. Wow, Eric,
Speaker 1: I think we could spend the whole podcast talking about
Speaker 1: the data ching and I love that we're not going
Speaker 1: to do that. I don't think we're gonna do that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I've read the data ching so many times
Speaker 1: I can't count. So there are a few things that
Speaker 1: I really love about it. UM. One is there's the
Speaker 1: approach that I love and and my favorite translation is
Speaker 1: by Derek Lynn from I Think It's Skylight Press, because
Speaker 1: what unlike Stephen Mitchell's version, UM, he tries his best
Speaker 1: he can to translate the Chinese the way that it
Speaker 1: was literally written and then have interpretations on the right side.
Speaker 1: So the left side of the page is the as
Speaker 1: close to as possible Chinese translation, and on the right
Speaker 1: side is commentary on that, and so you get to
Speaker 1: see the beauty of the language in that way. So
Speaker 1: very very good translation. UM is one of the I
Speaker 1: think eight copies I have of it. I'll have to
Speaker 1: look at that because I am a fan of the
Speaker 1: Stephen Mitchell version, but I should check that out for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what I love about it is one it says a
Speaker 1: lot in a little amount of time, and as someone
Speaker 1: who is not always well practiced at being succinct, I
Speaker 1: appreciate that, UM. And the other thing about it is,
Speaker 1: you know, writing of that time. I'm a trained philosopher,
Speaker 1: by nature. So I have an m A and philosophy
Speaker 1: and I'm completing I'm a PhD candidate philosophy, and so um.
Speaker 1: What I love about works of that era is that
Speaker 1: they saw the connections between individuals and societies and communities,
Speaker 1: and so they can, like if you'd read Plato's Republic,
Speaker 1: he's talking on the one hand about a good city
Speaker 1: or a good policy, but what he's doing is showing
Speaker 1: that what's true of cities is true of individuals, and
Speaker 1: what's true of individuals is true of cities. And so
Speaker 1: there's this way where in the data ching lots of
Speaker 1: will talk about a city or a talk about something
Speaker 1: that seems to be completely remote from a person, but
Speaker 1: you understand it more because he didn't focus on the person.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can see that, you know. So I
Speaker 1: think three quote that I love. One is because the
Speaker 1: stage knows her faults, she is faultless, understanding that if
Speaker 1: you understand those faults and challenges that you have and
Speaker 1: you actually acknowledge them and build around them, they don't
Speaker 1: trip you up nearly as much. And there's the other
Speaker 1: one about the cup overflowing. What's that one? I don't
Speaker 1: know that one nearly as well. But it's like too
Speaker 1: much water in the cup and it over follows and spills,
Speaker 1: and so it's about boundaries and it's about completeness in
Speaker 1: a way. Um and then this is actually from Mitchell's version,
Speaker 1: is the Master does his work and then stepped away.
Speaker 1: And for so many of us they get so wrapped
Speaker 1: up into our work and into the meaning making that
Speaker 1: we're doing and not being able to step away. It's
Speaker 1: just one of those good things of being able to
Speaker 1: remind myself in that moment, like a haven't done my
Speaker 1: work and be is it time to step away and
Speaker 1: let it unfold? Because me trying to strangle hold it
Speaker 1: into a certain way is going to keep it from
Speaker 1: being what it might become. Yeah, that's a great, great point.
Speaker 1: And I love that sort of overall idea of do
Speaker 1: your work and and step away, which is reflected in
Speaker 1: a lot of spiritual traditions, but not reflected is often
Speaker 1: perhaps in the work world, which is really where it
Speaker 1: is really you know, particularly uh sage for our time,
Speaker 1: which is we can't control results would be the way
Speaker 1: we'd say it in the business world. We can't control results.
Speaker 1: We can only control, you know, the actions we take,
Speaker 1: which is such a profound truth. And when we understand
Speaker 1: and live according to that, BOYD, is our stress level
Speaker 1: change absolutely And I think the more something matters to you,
Speaker 1: the more you have to focus on, like doing your
Speaker 1: best but letting go of the rest, right, Like did
Speaker 1: you do you know what you could do in accordance
Speaker 1: with your values, when in accordance with your constraints and
Speaker 1: accordance with your challenges to make a certain outcome happen.
Speaker 1: But above and beyond that, it's out of your control, UM,
Speaker 1: And you're absolutely right, like every especially when you look
Speaker 1: at the spiritual traditions that were formed around you know,
Speaker 1: our round zero BC, Like there's a five year plus
Speaker 1: or minus crucible period where they're saying many of the
Speaker 1: same things UM independently co created a lot of times,
Speaker 1: and at that time they knew way better than we
Speaker 1: did it. Like nothing is boundary lists, like everything is
Speaker 1: contained except for you know, gods and things like that.
Speaker 1: But like in the human realm, everything has a limit
Speaker 1: and we humans have limits. And where we find our
Speaker 1: suffering is when we pretend as if those limits don't exist,
Speaker 1: or when we try to push past those limits and
Speaker 1: need to be reminded that we are, in fact humans.
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more. It makes me think of, to
Speaker 1: quote the doubt a ching, things like true mastery can
Speaker 1: be gained by letting things go their own way. You know,
Speaker 1: it can't be gained by interfering. And again, I think
Speaker 1: on one level, you hear that and you go, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't do anything. And I don't think that's what's
Speaker 1: being said. I think the way you just said it
Speaker 1: is really good. It's sort of the serenity prayer, which
Speaker 1: I bring up on the show all the time because
Speaker 1: I just think it's so wise, right. Know what you
Speaker 1: can control, know what you can't, and stay on the
Speaker 1: on the control side, spend your time over there and
Speaker 1: don't spend your time on the other side. And boy,
Speaker 1: a lot of things seem to sort of solve themselves
Speaker 1: when you do that. Yeah. Well, I mean one last thing.
Speaker 1: My my other quote I think it's relevant right now
Speaker 1: is um, he who masters the world I count as strong.
Speaker 1: He who masters himself I count is truly powerful. And
Speaker 1: there's that sense where I think we lose our balance,
Speaker 1: we lose our serenity, we lose our power when we're
Speaker 1: so focused on changing external circumstances and changing those types
Speaker 1: of things. And this is a weird tension that we
Speaker 1: have to live in, is these creative human beings as
Speaker 1: we walk on this planet? Is there there's just a
Speaker 1: series of tensions and like, you're absolutely right, we can't
Speaker 1: just be that bump on the log just letting life
Speaker 1: go bias. That's not at all what's being recommended, right,
Speaker 1: But what is being recommended is, you know, no matter
Speaker 1: what sense of agency we take in this world, it's
Speaker 1: always going to be limited, and our vision, our grasp,
Speaker 1: our hopes, our dreams are always going to be on
Speaker 1: the other side of those limits. And so it's finding
Speaker 1: that balance of like, where have I pushed in the
Speaker 1: right ways in the world, um again in accordance with
Speaker 1: values and my doo or my my nature? And where
Speaker 1: do I need to let things unfold? I guess the
Speaker 1: fifth quote, there's like it's always sees the best leaders.
Speaker 1: This is from the Dalloast tradition. The best leaders are
Speaker 1: those ones where you don't really know they're there and
Speaker 1: everyone's saying we did this right, we did this, and
Speaker 1: and there's not that sense of domination by a leader,
Speaker 1: and they don't have that super charismatic you know on
Speaker 1: stage present that we in America really love to see
Speaker 1: in leaders that's not from the Dallast tradition. The pinnacle leader.
Speaker 1: The pinnacle leader is the one whose nature, in whose guidance,
Speaker 1: and who's behind the scenes things and hours other people
Speaker 1: to take action, to develop, to get things done and
Speaker 1: realize that they don't need someone cracking the whip behind them,
Speaker 1: They don't need to be led, they need to be
Speaker 1: let go. That's wonderful. Well, let's move on from that
Speaker 1: to your book. Even though, like I said, like we
Speaker 1: could probably trade quotes from the Dada Ching with each
Speaker 1: other all day long, I had like five more, and
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, hold on, let's let's move on.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned getting things done. Uh, there was some
Speaker 1: phrase like that in in your last couple of sentences,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of your book start finishing, how to
Speaker 1: go from idea to done? And you say very early
Speaker 1: in the book, the reason I'm guiding you to finish
Speaker 1: rather than start is because I'm near certain that you've
Speaker 1: already started quite a few things. And so let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about that. Hi, I'm certain that people
Speaker 1: have started things? Or why I'm focusing on finishing just
Speaker 1: your idea of why finishing is so important. So finishing
Speaker 1: is incredibly important because one, well, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of reasons, but one is because when we look at
Speaker 1: the impact we're trying to make in the world, that
Speaker 1: only comes from finished projects, from the things we have done,
Speaker 1: not from the things we are thinking about doing or
Speaker 1: that we've half done. So if you're starting a nonprofit,
Speaker 1: if you're starting a business, writing a book, whatever thing
Speaker 1: that is, the impact comes once you finish it. And
Speaker 1: so we you know, in many different ways, we want
Speaker 1: to go out and we want to either make a
Speaker 1: dance in the universe or leave our fingerprints on it,
Speaker 1: depending upon your your feelings about you know, our our
Speaker 1: agency in the world. But we forget like just my
Speaker 1: only doing a bunch of stuff is not nearly as
Speaker 1: important as like finishing it, seeing it and getting it
Speaker 1: to the people and the people who need to see it,
Speaker 1: including ourselves. I think a second piece about it is
Speaker 1: um mastery, Like we only get mastery from finishing things,
Speaker 1: not from like half doing a lot of things. And
Speaker 1: so if youer look at mastery is one of the
Speaker 1: basic human drives. As Dan Pink does in his book Drive. Um,
Speaker 1: it's super important for us just to be on that
Speaker 1: curve of you know, continual improvement. But again, we don't
Speaker 1: just improve in our brains no matter what. Well, there
Speaker 1: are some things we can improve just by thinking, but
Speaker 1: most things we actually have to make something, We have
Speaker 1: to do, something, we have to like present, something, we
Speaker 1: have to show our work. I think another piece that
Speaker 1: is important to talk about, and this is especially for
Speaker 1: those creative souls out there, is if we're not finishing
Speaker 1: the work that matters to us, we can get um
Speaker 1: what I call creative constipation. And it's what it sounds like, right. Um.
Speaker 1: It's you take in a bunch of ideas and inspirations
Speaker 1: and hunches and all the Ted talks and all the
Speaker 1: podcasts and all the books and all the things, right,
Speaker 1: and you don't actually push those ideas out into some
Speaker 1: form in the world. And just like physical constipation, you
Speaker 1: get toxic and you start, you know, not wanting to
Speaker 1: take on new ideas. And and we, as the spiritual,
Speaker 1: creative human beings that we are, we're either creating something
Speaker 1: or we're destroying something. There's a reason why our spiritual
Speaker 1: traditions tie creativity and destruction together because are like one
Speaker 1: and the same force just depend on how do you
Speaker 1: use it. And if you're not finishing that work, if
Speaker 1: you're not creating your best work, you're going to be
Speaker 1: destroying other things. You're gonna be destroying your relationships through
Speaker 1: resentments and frustrations and all the things that happened when
Speaker 1: you get bitter and toxic. And if it's your own resources,
Speaker 1: it's your time. You know you'll find you'll figure out like, Wow,
Speaker 1: I've done it yet another Netflix binge, or have done
Speaker 1: yet another Facebook crawl and I don't feel good. Or
Speaker 1: you do retail therapy because you're trying to buy something
Speaker 1: to feel that whole that's in yourself. Which is really
Speaker 1: ironic because most of us tell ourselves that we had
Speaker 1: more time and more money, we would do the thing right,
Speaker 1: whatever that thing is, we would do it. But then
Speaker 1: when we don't do it, we destroy the resources and
Speaker 1: time that we already have. But lastly, and most importantly,
Speaker 1: I think the object of destruction that will lash onto
Speaker 1: the most is ourselves through the stories that we tell ourselves,
Speaker 1: that limiting beliefs, through our sense of own capabilities, and
Speaker 1: the labels that will give to ourselves being in the
Speaker 1: process of finishing the work that really matters to you
Speaker 1: and getting out some of this work that your soul
Speaker 1: calls to do it. It's not just about economic livelihood
Speaker 1: and things like that. Is actually, I think a much
Speaker 1: deeper human need, much for lack of better word, spiritual
Speaker 1: human need that if it's undone will leave you unsatisfied
Speaker 1: and frustrated and really resentful that you spent yet another
Speaker 1: week really rocking that to do list, but at the
Speaker 1: end of the week looking up and saying, like, but
Speaker 1: did it matter? Those things that matter most to me?
Speaker 1: I didn't spend a minute on them, but I've been
Speaker 1: quote unquote productive all week. Let's talk about getting things done,
Speaker 1: going from idea to done. You say, we don't do ideas,
Speaker 1: but we do projects. Yeah, And I think that's the
Speaker 1: thing is, like we take on all those ideas, we
Speaker 1: take on all those things, and unfortunately some of us
Speaker 1: to quickly attach some commitment juice to those ideas, right
Speaker 1: like just because it's a great idea, that means we
Speaker 1: should do it, or we don't even separate that moment
Speaker 1: of time from getting the idea to starting to research
Speaker 1: what to do with the idea, starting to make it
Speaker 1: to do list right and just jump right into that. Um.
Speaker 1: And the beauty of it is as the types of
Speaker 1: beings that we are, we can hold onto a practical
Speaker 1: infinity of ideas. The downsideas projects have to be done
Speaker 1: through time and space and there's only so many that
Speaker 1: we are going to be able to do, and so
Speaker 1: part of the issue here is that you know, we
Speaker 1: are these unlimited sentience in this very limited body, and so, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't do ideas. We do projects. And the second
Speaker 1: you start talking about projects, you start talking about time,
Speaker 1: you start talking about schedule, and you start talking about space,
Speaker 1: you start talking about resources and things like that. And
Speaker 1: the grace is that we can hold on to the
Speaker 1: beauty of those ideas and hold on to all of
Speaker 1: that joy around them, but not fall into the trap
Speaker 1: of thinking that we can do all of the ideas
Speaker 1: and end up frustrated because we're caring too much. Right,
Speaker 1: And I think the other way that gets in our
Speaker 1: way is that thinking about an idea is generally fun
Speaker 1: and pleasurable. You know, thinking about I'm going to do this,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do that, it will be like this,
Speaker 1: It's generally fun and pleasurable. And as you say in
Speaker 1: the book, as we get into doing, you know, you
Speaker 1: call it our best work. Doesn't mean that it's easy.
Speaker 1: A lot of times it's really hard. And so you know,
Speaker 1: doing and finishing is a lot harder than thinking about
Speaker 1: and dreaming about. Absolutely And there's this really counterintuitive thing
Speaker 1: that like, the more it matters to you, the more
Speaker 1: you're going to thrash. And by thrash I mean that
Speaker 1: metal work, that flailing, that quote unquote research. You know, Um,
Speaker 1: all the stalling you might do with an idea or
Speaker 1: a project that doesn't actually push the project forward. Um,
Speaker 1: we don't thrash about taking out the garbage or doing
Speaker 1: the dishes or the laundry, like we either do it
Speaker 1: or don't do it. We might be frustrated about it,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't cause a mini existential crisis. But when
Speaker 1: we start thinking about you know, starting a business or
Speaker 1: starting a podcast, or writing the book, or getting married
Speaker 1: or you know, moving across the country, are finally getting
Speaker 1: our kids off the couch, you know, and off the college,
Speaker 1: that actually does invoke that who am I? Who am
Speaker 1: I to do this is at the right time? Do
Speaker 1: I have what it takes? Maybe someone else can do it,
Speaker 1: you know, we start going into all of those sorts
Speaker 1: of maneuvers about it, and that's not a sign that
Speaker 1: it's not the right project, which, unfortunately, I think is
Speaker 1: the code that many people receive from that. And I
Speaker 1: don't know where we get it because I haven't been
Speaker 1: able to find it literally said this way, Eric, But
Speaker 1: somewhere along the way, I think many of us have
Speaker 1: gotten into this trap that like, if it's meant to
Speaker 1: be for us, that it's supposed to be easy, right,
Speaker 1: that it's just supposed to be super clear and you
Speaker 1: know what you're doing and it's easy, and it just
Speaker 1: sort of unfolds in this beautiful way. I hate it
Speaker 1: because a lot of times the things that you're most
Speaker 1: here to do are going to be the ones you
Speaker 1: thrash about, and they're going to be the hardest thing
Speaker 1: that you do. Now, I don't think we should be
Speaker 1: going out there and using difficulty and challenge as one
Speaker 1: of those tags to find out, like if a project
Speaker 1: is worth doing, because you may end up in that
Speaker 1: place to where your best work flows with ease and
Speaker 1: grace and things like that. So I'm not going to
Speaker 1: deny that possibility, but for many of us. Actually it's hard, um,
Speaker 1: And why it's so hard is like, well, less you
Speaker 1: live in the Midwest, and that's a whole another conversation.
Speaker 1: But most of us don't attach much status or image
Speaker 1: to like how nicely laid out our trash cans are
Speaker 1: out front, right, we just put it out there. The
Speaker 1: trash man is gonna come like. It doesn't say anything
Speaker 1: about who we are. But when it comes to our
Speaker 1: best work, when it comes to especially our creative work,
Speaker 1: as well, it says something about us, how well it's done,
Speaker 1: how artistic it is, how statically pleasing it is, how
Speaker 1: whether it does it like we attach our identity and
Speaker 1: our moral worth to the work itself, and that's a
Speaker 1: huge pit to fall into, because if it's not quite right,
Speaker 1: and if it doesn't live up to the ideal of
Speaker 1: perfection and so and so forth, what does it say
Speaker 1: about you? By the very nature of a lot of
Speaker 1: these creative projects, you start out, necessarily in a lot
Speaker 1: of cases, not as good. And the only way, as
Speaker 1: you said earlier, the only way to get there is
Speaker 1: to do it. You know that this video is probably
Speaker 1: watched by countless people, but it's the Ira Glass video
Speaker 1: where he talks about the creative gap and he basically says,
Speaker 1: creative people have good taste. They know what's good. So
Speaker 1: they start doing something creative and what they're doing doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like that, and they go, I'm not any good
Speaker 1: at this, right, when the reality is it's it just
Speaker 1: takes time. You have to go through that period. We
Speaker 1: had David Cadaby on the show who wrote a book
Speaker 1: about the Heart to start and talks about you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta give yourself sometimes permission to suck. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: and anything worth doing is worth doing badly at the beginning, right,
Speaker 1: And so absolutely, I don't know where we get this from. Eric, Well,
Speaker 1: I do know. It's it's the stupid talent myth that
Speaker 1: I can go on a whole rant about, right. But
Speaker 1: the talent myth is basically, there are some people who
Speaker 1: got the goods, they got the modid they got the talent,
Speaker 1: and this type of stuff we're talking about just comes
Speaker 1: easy to them. And if you're if it's not coming
Speaker 1: easy to you, maybe it's not your thing, right, Maybe
Speaker 1: there's some other thing out there that you should do.
Speaker 1: Because clearly this prodigy over here it comes easy for them,
Speaker 1: and it turns out almost all the products these are
Speaker 1: actually just well practiced people that started earlier. Right there
Speaker 1: are chest Master at three because both of their parents
Speaker 1: are chest Master and they've had this kid playing it
Speaker 1: since they were two months old. Right whatever, Right, Most
Speaker 1: of the truly prodigiously talented people that are in our
Speaker 1: in our ranks, actually we're grown up in a culture
Speaker 1: of talent or nurtured to be talented, but many of
Speaker 1: us were not. And so again we latch onto that
Speaker 1: myth and we go out there and we do something
Speaker 1: and it's hard at first, and so what do we
Speaker 1: tell ourselves, Well, maybe that's not for us, Maybe that's
Speaker 1: not our talent. When you know, I think the super
Speaker 1: talent it's just learning to sit down when something's hard
Speaker 1: and when when you suck at it and saying, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm going to do this until I get
Speaker 1: good enough to determine whether I want to keep doing
Speaker 1: this or not. You might get good enough at something
Speaker 1: and determine, Like, know what, I started playing tennis. I
Speaker 1: was terrible. I'm good enough at tennis, I'm adequate, but
Speaker 1: this is not my thing that I want to invest
Speaker 1: my life and soul energy towards for the next three
Speaker 1: to five years. I don't want to do that, Great,
Speaker 1: go do something else. Um. But that process of just
Speaker 1: sitting down and saying, you know what, I'm going to
Speaker 1: do this, and tool I'm competent enough to know whether
Speaker 1: or not I don't want to do it anymore, it's
Speaker 1: a really great skill to learn. You sort of talk
Speaker 1: about five things that get in the way of doing
Speaker 1: our best work, and I thought maybe we could run
Speaker 1: through those five as a place to sort of dig
Speaker 1: a little bit deeper into your work here. Great, So
Speaker 1: we're talking about the air sandwich here, right, And the
Speaker 1: basic idea is that I think we all have this
Speaker 1: vision of ourselves for this best version of ourselves, our
Speaker 1: best life, for our best work, um. And you can
Speaker 1: kind of see that as the top layer of a sandwich,
Speaker 1: and then we look at our day to day reality
Speaker 1: as the bottom, and we notice that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of gap in between those two, like we're away all
Speaker 1: from this best life for this best you know, work
Speaker 1: that we want to be at and what do we
Speaker 1: do about that? And it seems to be a gap.
Speaker 1: But underneath, when you look deeper, those are the five
Speaker 1: challenges that you talked about. Eric. Where we're talking about
Speaker 1: competing priorities, head trash, no realistic plan, too few resources,
Speaker 1: and poor team alignment. Most of those are pretty straightforward,
Speaker 1: but I'll talk about poor team alignment specifically because a
Speaker 1: lot of times when people here team, they think professional
Speaker 1: team or economic team, like the people your coworkers. But
Speaker 1: I want people to think about the broader group of
Speaker 1: people in their life. It could be that neighbor kid
Speaker 1: that watches your children and pets on a Saturday afternoon
Speaker 1: so you can go do your thing right. It could
Speaker 1: be grandma grandpa that does the same thing. It could
Speaker 1: be a coworker that does some heavy lifting for you.
Speaker 1: So it could be a lot of different things like that.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm going to hang out on poor
Speaker 1: team alignment a little bit because many of us have
Speaker 1: not set a really clear vision for what we want
Speaker 1: to become and what we want to work on, and
Speaker 1: then we get frustrated when the people around us are
Speaker 1: not supporting it. But how can they? Are they telepass like,
Speaker 1: are they just supposed to figure out, Oh, this is
Speaker 1: what Eric wants to do today. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: align myself to make sure that happened. There's no way.
Speaker 1: Um and and a lot of times the reason we
Speaker 1: haven't been clear about it. It goes back to that
Speaker 1: second thing that I laid out is head trash, the
Speaker 1: limiting believes the stories, you know, just the bullshit that
Speaker 1: we get from our society that we latch onto. And
Speaker 1: the thing about head trash is that it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: whether or not it's true. You're believing it gives it
Speaker 1: all of its force, right exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I can't
Speaker 1: tell you how many times I've told myself I'm a
Speaker 1: terrible writer. It's not true. I know it's not true.
Speaker 1: I would not have my life and job if I
Speaker 1: were a terrible writer. But if I were to believe
Speaker 1: that idea in the moment, in that throw, then I
Speaker 1: would not be a good writer, like I would be
Speaker 1: a terrible writer. Um. So it's that belief in that
Speaker 1: head trash. And so if you say, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not the type of person that excels at this level,
Speaker 1: or I'm not the type of person to do that
Speaker 1: type of work, or I don't have what it takes,
Speaker 1: then yeah, it turns out that head trash is gonna
Speaker 1: make it really hard for you to point your ship
Speaker 1: in the direction you want to go, you know, good
Speaker 1: winds or poor winds versus is just sitting in the harbor,
Speaker 1: you know, wondering when whether there's gonna be nice for
Speaker 1: you to take that voyage. Right, It's such a one.
Speaker 1: I've been contemplating this idea recently. I've been talking with
Speaker 1: some coaching clients around it and really kind of you know,
Speaker 1: trying to dig into it more deeply because at first
Speaker 1: glance and we'll go, yeah, yeah, that's true. But just
Speaker 1: because you know it's in the idea is just because
Speaker 1: I think something doesn't mean it's true. And I think
Speaker 1: we have this tendency if the thought keeps coming back
Speaker 1: that we then go, well it must be true if
Speaker 1: it keeps coming back, and it's that's not the case.
Speaker 1: It's just a habitual conditioning of the brain. But that
Speaker 1: ability to start to go just because I think it
Speaker 1: it's not true is so important dealing with things like
Speaker 1: you're talking about here, like head trash. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: just purely you know, neurological of what fires together, wires together,
Speaker 1: and you think I thought long enough, and that's you know,
Speaker 1: our brains are lazy, and that's where our brain is
Speaker 1: gonna go is like I'm not or I am. It's
Speaker 1: going to feel in the blank with whatever you've sent
Speaker 1: down that read long enough, right, And it's really one
Speaker 1: of those things where when you sit and you meditate
Speaker 1: or you have sort of metic cognitive processes where you
Speaker 1: look at this like whenever you start playing with what
Speaker 1: you can follow I am with, it really throws your
Speaker 1: brain for a loop because it's like, well, you could
Speaker 1: be a lot of different things, and that's exactly what
Speaker 1: that's the growth mindset you want to have. But if
Speaker 1: you tell yourself I'm not a good planner, or I'm
Speaker 1: not the type of person, or you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: good at math because in third grade Mr Wilson hit
Speaker 1: me on hand. You know, those types of things, none
Speaker 1: of them are true. But that loop, that firing together
Speaker 1: and wiring together process happens so frequently um that a
Speaker 1: lot of times we don't even see it. And something
Speaker 1: that can be really helpful here is I think we
Speaker 1: try to pay too much attention to what's going on
Speaker 1: in our heads, and we pay too little attention about
Speaker 1: what our bodies are actually doing. And a lot of times,
Speaker 1: if you're paying attention to what your body is doing,
Speaker 1: it's acting as if it's afraid, it's acting as if
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's acting in a certain way, or
Speaker 1: you're doing certain behaviors, and you go work backwards. I
Speaker 1: sometimes have to do this because my mind, like, you know,
Speaker 1: we we can do the whole guerrilla warfare thing where
Speaker 1: it's hightening for me and I'm hiding from it, and
Speaker 1: we can do that whole thing for a long time,
Speaker 1: but I can't hide from my body and my body's signals,
Speaker 1: and so just paying attention to that and looking at
Speaker 1: those natural urgences or looking at your patterns for instance.
Speaker 1: I know and most days at four thirty, like that's
Speaker 1: the weakest willpower time of the day for me, Right,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm going to do all the dumb things.
Speaker 1: So um, I have a program called Cold Turkey Blocker
Speaker 1: set up on my computer that goes off at four
Speaker 1: thirty that blocks me out of all the dumb things.
Speaker 1: Why because I know that at four thirty that's like
Speaker 1: when my willpower and strength and everything wanes, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to end up on Twitter or Facebook for two hours,
Speaker 1: right and then let me super mad about it. So um,
Speaker 1: I don't have to get into my head about like
Speaker 1: what is it about four thirty in the day and
Speaker 1: going to a big, major story about it. I could
Speaker 1: just have a blocker that keeps me from doing the
Speaker 1: dumb things that I know I'm going to do and
Speaker 1: just go on with my life. You say that an
Speaker 1: upshot to discipline is it limits decision fatigue, And that's
Speaker 1: a perfect example of it. It's like, I don't decide
Speaker 1: it for thirty what I feel like doing, because, like
Speaker 1: you said, I know it for thirty I'm gonna feel
Speaker 1: like doing things that aren't that good for me. So
Speaker 1: I'm going to just predecide and set things in motion.
Speaker 1: But another of your five things I really want to
Speaker 1: get a couple of minutes on is competing priorities, because
Speaker 1: I think this is a big one, right, because we
Speaker 1: have so many things in our lives these days. Is
Speaker 1: if you're the average adult, you've got a job, you've
Speaker 1: got kids, you you might have your creative thing, you
Speaker 1: want to do, your side hustle, you might have elderly
Speaker 1: parents that are sick. I mean, the plates pretty full.
Speaker 1: The plate is indeed pently full. And then you know,
Speaker 1: because we have never had more um communication technologies, you know,
Speaker 1: throwing it as at once. We see everybody else's life
Speaker 1: and see what everybody else is doing. And for most
Speaker 1: of human history we've been in these smaller circles of
Speaker 1: fifteen to twenty people where that's the limit of sort
Speaker 1: of the emotional and social exposure that we've had on
Speaker 1: a day to day basis. And so I think we're
Speaker 1: at a point to where, because of you know, social
Speaker 1: media and some of these tools, like, we're now got
Speaker 1: access to fift three thousand people a day in their worlds,
Speaker 1: in their lives and what they're getting into, and also
Speaker 1: how much better their life is than ours and all
Speaker 1: those different things that we get into. But what I've
Speaker 1: learned from a lot of the coaching work and overdoing
Speaker 1: this over the last decade is that many people's actual
Speaker 1: prior parties are ones that they don't count, and we
Speaker 1: make aspirations into priorities. By by that, I mean, I'll
Speaker 1: take parents, for example, whichever parent you are, if the
Speaker 1: school calls you up and says, hey, your kids sick, um,
Speaker 1: you're going to you know, go pick that kid up.
Speaker 1: Unless you have some you know, someone to help you
Speaker 1: out with that, your your day is fundamentally going to change, right,
Speaker 1: You're not going to go through this whole sort of like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, is this a priority? I don't know, kid,
Speaker 1: Maybe I can do this, Maybe I could do that.
Speaker 1: Like no, you drop everything, you take very kid, right,
Speaker 1: same with elders and things like that. And we know
Speaker 1: that at the same time, when we're deciding what projects
Speaker 1: to do and we're deciding how we're going to spend
Speaker 1: our time, we don't use that same sense of certainty
Speaker 1: about it, and we assume in the way that we
Speaker 1: make decisions that we won't have that priority come up
Speaker 1: in the way that it is right. And so um,
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of peace when you really
Speaker 1: lean into the consequence of say, your children being your priority,
Speaker 1: which means that you don't have the amount of available time,
Speaker 1: energy and attention available to you as other people who
Speaker 1: have not prioritized that way, right, because they don't have
Speaker 1: the three to seven hours a day of child care
Speaker 1: stuff that they need to do. And it's not that
Speaker 1: you're better or worse, it's just you've made different choices.
Speaker 1: But that also means when you look at all the
Speaker 1: other projects and priorities, you might assume you are now
Speaker 1: three to seven hours down from doing that, right, you
Speaker 1: don't have that same amount. Except what we do is
Speaker 1: we compare what we're doing two people who have prioritized
Speaker 1: in other ways. How are they getting that much down?
Speaker 1: How are they blah blah blah. Well, maybe they don't
Speaker 1: have kids, or maybe they prioritize that differently, or maybe
Speaker 1: they have grandparents taking care of them, or there are
Speaker 1: a lot of different things, and so the competing priorities
Speaker 1: comes up because we, unfortunately um like to choose projects
Speaker 1: in the abstract because they sound cool and fun, but
Speaker 1: we don't necessarily tie them to the priorities and values
Speaker 1: that are actually going to show up day to day.
Speaker 1: And I very much follow the quote from Gandhi that
Speaker 1: action expresses priority, and that can be really frustrating for
Speaker 1: a lot of us, because if we look back over
Speaker 1: the last two weeks and look at what's on our
Speaker 1: schedule and get real with it, whatever is on your
Speaker 1: schedule has been your priority because you have chosen not
Speaker 1: to do a lot of other things. So we have
Speaker 1: to get real that. Maybe you know, this is for
Speaker 1: creatives and entrepreneurs and people like that who dream like
Speaker 1: you know, I want to start my business, I want
Speaker 1: to do all that kind of wouldnot, but they feel
Speaker 1: sort of bogged down by the day job. Well, that
Speaker 1: day job is actually tying into some sense of priorities
Speaker 1: and values for you, right, Maybe it's providing security for you,
Speaker 1: Maybe it's writing stability, maybe it's providing professional status, and
Speaker 1: actually those things matter to you a lot, and saying
Speaker 1: you know what, those things matter to me, those are
Speaker 1: part of this broader matrix and priorities in my life.
Speaker 1: I think you can give people a lot of peace
Speaker 1: because maybe you can be at peace that with all
Speaker 1: things considered, maybe starting a business right now is not
Speaker 1: right for you. And until you change some of those
Speaker 1: priorities and those values, it's never going to be a
Speaker 1: congruent choice for you. Yeah, I could not agree with
Speaker 1: that more. That's so important on so many levels, And
Speaker 1: one of the big ones is, like you said, we
Speaker 1: end up feeling bad about ourselves because we're not doing
Speaker 1: all these other things because we have these priorities that
Speaker 1: we've not acknowledged our priorities, Like you said, like if
Speaker 1: we say are our kids are our priority, then that
Speaker 1: dictates a certain degree of action. But when we're doing
Speaker 1: those actions, we tend to forget that we're doing something
Speaker 1: that's important to us. And and that's the thing I
Speaker 1: think that we miss a lot with what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: is that we think that in order for something to
Speaker 1: be important, it's got to be something in addition to right.
Speaker 1: But the job of raising kids is a really important job.
Speaker 1: And the fact that a lot of people prioritize that,
Speaker 1: I think is a wonderful thing. But a lot of
Speaker 1: people who prioritize that feel bad because they're not getting
Speaker 1: all these other of things done. You want to get
Speaker 1: me on a rant, like, I will sometimes lose my
Speaker 1: mind and I can't help it at this point in
Speaker 1: my career when people are like, well, you know, I
Speaker 1: really like I need to take care of my kids,
Speaker 1: but I got to be more productive. I'm not being productive,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like you're
Speaker 1: taking one of the most productive things that we humans
Speaker 1: can do, right if you're being productive in a different way, right?
Speaker 1: And so, and I think when we make it all like,
Speaker 1: we put it all on the table, and then you know,
Speaker 1: in my language, if it takes time, energy, and attention,
Speaker 1: it's a project. And I have no real difference between
Speaker 1: economic projects and life projects, and in fact, I want
Speaker 1: us to do more of the work of life then
Speaker 1: as much as we talk about life of our work, right,
Speaker 1: So we spend so much time talking about work, work,
Speaker 1: work and all that that is, but we does work
Speaker 1: of our lives. You know, it gets quart of crammed
Speaker 1: into these empty spaces left over after work and there's
Speaker 1: not nearly enough empty spaces. So yeah, like I agree,
Speaker 1: being mid career and having a big project deck on
Speaker 1: you and then you realize, um, you know that your
Speaker 1: dad has dementia and you need to help figure out
Speaker 1: how to assist him in this next stage of his
Speaker 1: life and what that looks like, and that makes you
Speaker 1: drop other projects. It's not that you're being unproductive. Is
Speaker 1: not that you're not honoring commitments and thought that you're
Speaker 1: a flack. You're focusing on what matters in that moment, right,
Speaker 1: And yes, that means that you have to renegotiate and
Speaker 1: you gotta do all this other things. And that's I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to say people should do that, but if
Speaker 1: that is what really aligns with your values and really
Speaker 1: aligns with the relationships as you've been in with people,
Speaker 1: you're being incredibly productive. Is just taking a completely different
Speaker 1: direction than you thought it might, right. And I think
Speaker 1: it's so important to realize the choices that we're making.
Speaker 1: And the example you just gave is a great one
Speaker 1: for me because I spend half my time in Atlanta
Speaker 1: and my partner's mother has dementia and we do our
Speaker 1: living caregivers every two weeks down here, and so that's
Speaker 1: a choice that that we're making. And the more that
Speaker 1: I remember I'm making choice, the better that whole experience is. Right.
Speaker 1: When I realize, like, I am choosing this because it
Speaker 1: aligns with my values and what I think is important,
Speaker 1: then I go into this whole thing with a totally
Speaker 1: different attitude than I do if I'm like, oh, I
Speaker 1: have to go do this thing right, because we are
Speaker 1: always making a choice. We are always making a choice,
Speaker 1: and it's just whether or not that choice matters. And
Speaker 1: you know, this comes from sort of the existentialist philosophers
Speaker 1: were like, not choosing is also a choice, right, going
Speaker 1: and just showing up and doing the grind and not
Speaker 1: making some of these greatest choices, Well, you've chosen other things,
Speaker 1: and absolutely, and I think that's where it can be
Speaker 1: really helpful. You know, However, you do your planning. We
Speaker 1: have a certain type of methodology we talked about in
Speaker 1: the book. We don't need to get into it. But however,
Speaker 1: you keep these broader projects front of mine is super
Speaker 1: helpful because you're going to get a bright, shiny object
Speaker 1: pop up, right, you're gonna be I'll pick on Eric here,
Speaker 1: like you're you're going to be on a plane flight
Speaker 1: and you're gonna have this idea like, oh wow, I
Speaker 1: can totally do that, and so and so forth. But
Speaker 1: it's like, how does that fit in with this project
Speaker 1: of being a half time caregiver? And if I had
Speaker 1: to choose between those, which am I going to and
Speaker 1: you might find it like, you know what, I'm going
Speaker 1: to continue to choose to do this thing that I've
Speaker 1: committed to do. I can't convert that idea into a project.
Speaker 1: And you know what, that's great, Like that's one less
Speaker 1: thing for me to think about, right it's and it's
Speaker 1: one less thing to feel bad about that I'm not doing.
Speaker 1: That's the offshoot. And I do think this topic is
Speaker 1: really I think you and I both feel passionately about
Speaker 1: this because I see a lot of people feeling bad
Speaker 1: about themselves when I look at their life and I go,
Speaker 1: I think you're living a great life, Like you're doing well,
Speaker 1: you're taking care of people around you, you're doing all.
Speaker 1: You're not a failure, you know, And I just think
Speaker 1: that's so important. Yeah. Well in the work that I do,
Speaker 1: so I work with people on strategy execution and on
Speaker 1: you know, productivity as we need to. And there will
Speaker 1: often be times when I'll come to the meetings with
Speaker 1: Shane right like I didn't do the things and I say, oh, kids,
Speaker 1: so what did you do? And they sort of talk
Speaker 1: about what they did and it's like, well, were those
Speaker 1: your priorities? Like would you have made a different choice
Speaker 1: knowing everything you know now? And they're like no, one, Like, well,
Speaker 1: we don't have a problem here, right. The only problem
Speaker 1: we have now is a logistical problem. What are we
Speaker 1: going to lift and shift and put where? But we
Speaker 1: don't have that sort of character problem that you came with,
Speaker 1: like oh, I'm not this person and I didn't commit,
Speaker 1: like you live according to the value, Like my work
Speaker 1: here is done. Like if I can get people to
Speaker 1: do that, fantastic, right. Um, So yeah, I think it's
Speaker 1: just I may take this a different way, But if
Speaker 1: we treated ourselves half as kindly as we treat other
Speaker 1: people that we loved. Man, would we be so much
Speaker 1: more at peace? And would we be I dare say
Speaker 1: it more productive? Um, because you know, when we look
Speaker 1: at people going through things and whether it's there mother
Speaker 1: in law that's got dementia, whether it's you know, the
Speaker 1: brother that's going to depress about or what maybe they
Speaker 1: slipped down the stairs and busted their knee, right, and
Speaker 1: we look at someone in those situations and they're like,
Speaker 1: I'm not getting done. Of course, we look at them
Speaker 1: with compassion and say, you know, like maybe you're kind
Speaker 1: of going through this thing and it takes time, and
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you should be with the process. We
Speaker 1: say it when it's someone else, we do. We admire
Speaker 1: it in someone else, Yeah, but when it's us, it's
Speaker 1: a defect. Right for us, it's one of those things.
Speaker 1: And so slight pause here, but just in case someone
Speaker 1: needs to hear it. Like being sick, it's not a
Speaker 1: character defect, right, it's not. It's just something that's happened
Speaker 1: to you, having a chronic illness or whatever thing you're
Speaker 1: going through. It's not a character defect. It's not something
Speaker 1: that needs a you know, story about It's just something
Speaker 1: that happens as a part of being human. It's your
Speaker 1: response to it that matters, and it's how you make choices,
Speaker 1: you know, the way I think about it, recovering or
Speaker 1: having a chronic illness, like that's a project. Um, it
Speaker 1: takes time, energy and attention. You've got to do all
Speaker 1: the things it takes to you know, either hell or
Speaker 1: if it's something where it's like chronic fatigue, you just
Speaker 1: don't have the energy that other people have and it
Speaker 1: doesn't make you less, then it doesn't make you a
Speaker 1: weaker from a moral perspective person, it's just a constraint
Speaker 1: that you're dealing with. So I just add that because
Speaker 1: I think we forget that these trials of life, that
Speaker 1: we forget that these transitions of pain or transitions of
Speaker 1: relationships and you know, breaking up and getting married and
Speaker 1: all these types of things, they take life force that
Speaker 1: we can't put towards other things. And yet we think
Speaker 1: we should be able to and think that if we're
Speaker 1: not that somehow like we're not one of those golden
Speaker 1: people that can do all the things. And you know,
Speaker 1: we're not the whoever your icon is. We're not the
Speaker 1: that person because they've apparently got it figured out. But
Speaker 1: when you look two or three clicks under the image,
Speaker 1: you'll see people then maybe don't have the family relationships
Speaker 1: that you want. Maybe they don't have the health that
Speaker 1: you would want to have for yourself. Maybe um, they've
Speaker 1: done things that when you look at what man or
Speaker 1: to you, you wouldn't choose to have those outcomes. So
Speaker 1: most importantly, live life on purpose and on priority, and
Speaker 1: choose the projects that support those and as best you can,
Speaker 1: let go with the rest. Yeah. I think that's great,
Speaker 1: and I think that's a great place for us to
Speaker 1: wrap up. You and I are going to continue talking
Speaker 1: in the post show conversation about some of your uh
Speaker 1: techniques for going from idea to done and they are
Speaker 1: really good. Um, we we barely even touched on them,
Speaker 1: so we're going to do that in the post show conversation.
Speaker 1: Listeners you can get access to that by going to
Speaker 1: one you feed dot net slash joint and becoming part
Speaker 1: of the community there. But Charlie, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: This is I've really enjoyed this conversation and I think
Speaker 1: it's been a really important Eric. Thanks very much for
Speaker 1: having me and anytime you want me back. I'm here
Speaker 1: all right. Bye. If what you just heard was helpful
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