More is more
I sometimes have the urge to save my best ideas. I get an idea and I say to myself something along the lines of ‘oh that’s great! I’ll save it for when I’m more well known, have enough budget, the right team…’
A great idea for a scene and I’ll save it for a feature film.
The new song I think I could write. I can make that when I have the whole album.
That character I’d like to play in a show one day.
The film, the album and the show don’t exist yet; but the idea does.
I understand the fear: good ideas are scarce! Only a few come around.
It’s not true. It isn’t. The more ideas I have and use, the more come to me. It’s win win, the thing gets made and I get more ideas.
The belief that you have to hoard ideas because they’re scarce is self fulfilling.
The belief that great ideas are abundant is too (I know which I’d choose).
There’s sometimes the argument of quality. Sure it could be better if you waited, but as Mark Duplass said, I’d rather have a film made for certain now rather than one that might be made in the future. This is the opposite of the “one donut now or two donuts later” thing. We’re usually rewarded for waiting. For delaying gratification. But this is different. You’re letting your art die now for the empty promise of tomorrow.
It still doesn’t mean you do a bad job- you do your best. You’re probably not as good as you want to be. You certainly won’t get better by not making a thing, or only making your mediocre ideas a reality and not sharing your work. Thats how you get better.
Use your best. Do your best. And move on
Big is generous
When I was a kid, I thought that the person who was making the most noise in the room was not the person you wanted to be. The person who stands up in class and says “I’ll go first”. Or the kid who actually has an opinion on something.
The problem with that, is it lacked nuance. Being loud is not synonymous with being arrogant. Being decisive or opinionated does not make you narcissistic.
But as I find myself in more rooms of people trying to do their work, I find the loud ones are the most generous.
-Who has an idea?
I do.
-What should we do first?
Let’s do this
-Who can show the new guy around?
Hey new person, my name is Susan!
Be lovingly loud. Openly big. That’s the most generous way of being.
When beliefs chime
I was with my friend recently and we had a lively and deeply inspiring conversation. As we were talking, that cool thing happened where time stops meaning anything- 40 minutes felt like 4 minutes- that kid of magic. It’s my favourite kind of conversation; almost as though two peoples’ brains become one. Thinking thoughts and expanding them endlessly using dual brain power.
Why do we get on so well with some people and have these flowy conversations? And with others, the conversation rolls on about as smoothly as a car with crates for wheels. There is a particular moment that jumped out at me when I was thinking back to this conversation, it was something my friend said. He said:
“…and then it’s win win. You try something and either it works OR it doesn’t and you learn something. There is no failure, only learning”
This would have slipped past me if it weren’t for the second part of this comment “there is no failure, only learning”. This exact wording is a belief that I’d consciously adopted over the last few years. In the quest for self improvement a super important step is naming the beliefs that dictate our thoughts and actions. Our thoughts about what we’re capable of doing and so what we do and with how much conviction we do those things!
…ANYWAY…
When my friend said that phrase I realised- “Oh! we have a shared belief!”
It makes complete sense when we come back to this idea of how two souls can get on so well.
When beliefs chime magic happens. And when beliefs chime with the future you want to have, then a whole other magic happens.
But that’s a story for another day
Capturing Magic
Here’s a little exercise I’ve done the last few years on New Year’s Eve.
1.List all your favourite times of the year.
These can be long stretches or little snapshots- anything you think back on fondly from the year gone. For me one year I had a certain month travelling during winter where I was in an excellent flow with my creative work. Then there was this walk I took with my mum. I also had a sweet conversation with my niece on a log on a beach at sun set. And I really enjoyed being on tour for a show. And reading a particular book over croissants. As you can see there’s no upper or lower limit to the things you can list. The idea here is to capture the magic.
2.List the commonalities
What are some of the overarching themes in these experiences? Using the above, I found that spending time away from home to complete creative tasks was good and enjoyable for me. Being in nature with people I love. Having a good fiction book on the go.
You should then have a pretty specific and juicy list of things that ensure you enjoy your experience of life! The idea is you can curate and plan your upcoming weeks and months using these themes as guides for how you spend your time.
You can also do the same exercise for the opposite-
- What are times you didn’t enjoy this past year?
- What are the commonalities?
- How can ensure you don’t experience these this year?
The power of being a producer
Me and three friends are making a film next weekend. There’s no shortage of talent or ability here- between us we have over half a century experience acting and film making.
There’s also no lack of vision or attention to detail. We also all share a strong desire to get them film made.
The thing that has prevented us getting together to do this in the past is merely logistics.
A little while ago to combat this, we created a spreadsheet to find some shared available dates.
From this simple act- magic happened…
We found a few days we were all free. Once it was in all of our calendars, then everything else fell into place.
We don’t need much more certainty beyond knowing we will come together next weekend. With the time carved out, we can bring our focus together and make a thing. (Preparation in the lead up can be asynchronous)
This is the value of a producer! Find the magic people and simply bring them together at the same time.
What are you making next weekend?
I forgot what day it was and I liked it
Today I forgot it was Saturday. I don’t exactly know what that means- but it felt good. It’s natural this time of year I think- the New Zealand summery daze between Christmas and New Years; are shops actually open? Can I send that email? Who knows.
This summer daze must have contributed to my day amnesia, but in doing so I stumbled upon a little tendency I have…
In my brain, I allocate certain feelings to certain days. Different things are possible on certain days. These beliefs were buried so deep, I never noticed them until today.
To me, Monday is a work day. It’s a good day to start things on. Got a new diet or project? Save it till Monday!
Friday- well good luck getting anything done on a Friday. People are checking out on Friday- gotta send an email at 4pm? Forget about it- you’ll be lucky to hear back on Monday- at the earliest.
The two things I needed to leave the house for today were coffee with a friend and a session at the gym. It was these that exposed my belief about what Saturday means.
To me, Saturday is a write off- Saturday? yeah we’ll see what happens. Saturday is sleep ins and junk food. It’s oh the people around me might have plans I can tag along to. It’s a lethargic afternoon.
Saturday is a busy day in the town centre, it’s certainly too busy to find a park to meet your friend or even to suggest coffee at 11am in the centre of town. Crazier still would be going to the gym on a Saturday at 1pm- are you nuts! That’s peak time, it’ll be packed you won’t have an enjoyable time.
Okay.
So because I forgot what day it was- I made my day plans without realising it was Saturday. Heck I treated my Saturday like it was a sturdy old Thursday. Empty gyms, empty coffee shops- PLENTY of parks. I carried out my plans, easily found a park, met my friend for coffee (I didn’t notice the line till now when I think back) then went to the gym which was largely empty. A great day out.
I get home and I realise what day it is and thats what unravels this whole web of lies! I would not have made any of these plans had I known. I would have found a place on the outskirts of town to meet my friend and probably gone to the gym at around 8pm.
The point is, for a moment I behaved as though my beliefs about what Saturday meant didn’t exist and I got new results.
The moral of the story? I’m removing my beliefs about what days and times mean. Anything is possible any time. Now that’s an exciting way to live. Almost as exciting as a Friday afternoon.
Latency
When you’re speaking on a microphone and wearing headphones, you can hear your voice at the exact same time as you are speaking. It’s a strange sensation at first, but for me it’s a really useful tool of monitoring and adjusting what I’m doing with my voice. I get to hear the eventual output live and that lets me adjust and learn on the fly.
If you try and do this with a set of bluetooth headphones, you’ll run into a problem called latency. This is when you speak and a split second later you hear your voice.
The most annoying split second to ever exist. You can quickly drive yourself nuts.
Latency removes our ability to course correct. We hear the result after we make the noise.
It’s rare that we see the effects of our actions immediately. In life there exists a latency; a kind of lag between something we do and the result it yields. Latency is challenging because we can’t know if what we are doing is working. But at the very least knowing about life’s tendency for latency will remind us to wait a little bit longer before we give up.
Don’t give up too early; what you’re doing may well be working, there may just be a lag. Victory might be just around the corner.
That said, here’s an idea I stole from my mentor…
How to beat latency:
Do something 100 times or 100 days straight- then look up and see where you are.
Don’t get bored on the way
They say good things come to those who wait.
That good things take time. And that the watch pot doesn’t boil.
In this life, the things we really want take hard work, or at least a lot of work over a long period of time. It seems to me that other than simply putting work into the things we wish to improve, our only other job is to not get bored on the journey to get there.
How can we take pleasure in the incremental steps? How can we simultaneously concentrate on quality and focus on the small steps while remaining connected to the grand vision?
Persistence is showing up consistently.
Persistence requires vision.
Consistency requires attention to detail.
Both require patience.
Patience can slump into boredom…
Success, then, isn’t always a Herculean effort of brute strength or divine inspiration, but rather a gentle meditation in holding the line and staying on the path.
Don’t get bored on the way
Get the hedge trimmer
Recently I left the house for a walk. It was early in the morning, my eyes were still waking up and I could smell the dew dappled on everything around me. As I walked down the driveway looking down at my phone, a tree brushed across me completely wetting my face. Annoying. I looked up and saw the culprit- a hedge branch ,that was usually tidily hugged to the fence, had grown too large and come lose from the rest of the hedge. It now hung away from the others; thick, out of place and now in the way of the drive way.
Without thinking I reached for the branch and tried to snap it. It was way too thick. I managed to get my knee high enough to leverage the snap. The stray branch bent and splintered a bit but didn’t budge. My arm was getting sore and my clothes were getting wet. I moved my attention to the smaller sticks on the branch. Well at least I can snap these off, I thought. Exhausted after about five minutes with this enthusiastic out-reacher I gave up, having lost the battle.
Defeated, I went on my walk feeling tired and annoyed. I realised on the walk that this tree had interrupted me. Of course it’s not the trees fault, but my plans were interrupted none the less.
Later that day I went back with hedge trimmers and managed to do that job in 30 seconds.
Quickly evaluate the size of a task (hint most things can’t be done on the way to do other things)
Then set aside a time to do it. And most importantly bring the right tools for the job. Save yourself the grief of coming unprepared and interrupted.
Get the hedge trimmer.
Wasting Magic
Inspiration can be a scarce resource at different points in our lives. For me it can be synonymous with energy; a sudden excitement to get going! It’s in these moments that I’m at my most optimistic. Suddenly I have all this energy to get stuck into that script I’m writing. With my new found overflowing cup, there’s the illusion that I have infinite time and that this feeling will last.
‘Great!’ I think. ‘You know what will make my experience of getting that important task done EVEN better, if I sorted all the files on my computer desk top by topic and year. Oh I should also get the washing on…”
Is this a familiar dance for you? It is for me, but one I’ve only just noticed properly.
I end up expending all my inspired energy on things that aren’t critical.
Yes it’s nice (and important!) having a tidy environment, but if it’s at the expense of whats actually important to me, I’m going to give it a miss. Big creative strides might sometimes require a little unbalance in life.
The moment the magic energy burst strikes- use it wisely.