E100 - 8 Lessons from 100 Episodes

In this episode Alex discusses 8 lessons he learned from making the first 100 episodes of the podcast, including how to deal with success and failure, internal and external obstacles, creativity, peristence and much more.

Audio-Essay by Dr. Alex Curmi. Dr. Curmi is a consultant general adult psychiatrist with a sub-speciality in addictions who completed his training in the South London and Maudsley NHS foundation trust. He is also a UKCP registered training psychotherapist, and has a special interest in mindfulness meditation. 

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Transcript

 Welcome back to the podcast. My name is Alex. I'm a consultant psychiatrist. I'm proud to say we've recorded our first 100 interviews for the podcast, with the 100th interview coming out next week. It's a big milestone for us. Of course, we've done more than 100 episodes of the podcast. If you count the audio essays, which we've tried to release regularly and which many people seem to find the most useful. But I wanted to reflect on and share some of the lessons I've learned from doing the podcast so far, and I want these lessons to be applicable to any project you might pursue. That could be something like a podcast, but could be really any new endeavor you want to embark on, like studying something new, building a business, learning a musical instrument, learning how to write fiction, etc. for me, the podcast has required a lot of sacrifice, but has changed my life in many ways for the better. And I also think it's changed my psychology and how I think about the world, and certainly how I think about what is possible. So I'd like to go into that in some detail. I thought I'd share some of what were the major learning points for me, and hopefully you can get some use out of this as well. Whatever project or endeavor you're considering pursuing. So here are eight lessons I've learned from doing the podcast so far. One. The obstacles ahead are external and internal. In trying something new, you're going to have a mix of internal and external obstacles that you're going to have to overcome. My belief is that most people focus primarily on the external obstacles, and that they remain largely unaware of, or unconscious of the internal obstacles. That means the internal blocks kind of sneak up on you and stop you in your tracks before you even have a chance to get started. So, for instance, in the case of making a podcast, external obstacles are things like getting the necessary equipment, figuring out how to record in person, how to record remotely, how you're going to edit and do the post-production, what the show is going to be about, how you're going to get guests, how you're going to brand it, etc., etc. the list goes on. The internal blocks would be something like the fear of failure, the fear of success, low self-esteem, inner resistance or inertia to doing things which don't have a clear reward. Being unclear on your way. As in, why do you even want to do this project? Why is it important to you? Personally, I would say in the beginning of making this podcast, I over focused on the external obstacles and the internal obstacles did kind of sneak up on me, and that definitely hampered my consistency in the beginning. But I would also say the process of doing the podcast has made me much better at overcoming both internal and external obstacles. I've made some audio essays about overcoming internal blocks and you can check them out. And those are the ones like Insecure overachievers. Why you are lazy and afraid. Delayed gratification is the modern superpower and the many paths to self-sabotage. Lesson two be willing to free associates. Free association is obviously something we use in psychotherapy a lot. You could call it the engine of psychotherapy because it involves the client spontaneously speaking about their experience and what comes to their mind. And in so doing, they can deepen their self-awareness. So this is what Freud talked about in this way. Free association helps us tap into the unconscious parts of our psychology. And this isn't just useful for self-awareness, but it's also useful for creativity and authenticity. Many people run into problems when they're doing creative work because they try to force it to think about it too much, often with an acute sense that you have to get things right. Using this mindset is essentially trapping yourself within the limitations of your conscious mind, and blocking yourself off from the vast creativity of your unconscious. Instead, what I and many others before me have found is that if you give yourself the space and freedom to let ideas come to you, you can produce some of your best work. So for me, the principle of free association is not just something I encourage my clients to do in therapy, but it's also something I do in many situations. As a therapist, I'm letting thoughts, questions, or interpretations come to me in the moment when working with a client. I'm generating ideas for essays by free association. When I'm writing the essays themselves, I'm using free association. And again, when I'm interviewing guests on the podcast, I'm going to have prepared questions, but I'm also going to let questions occur to me in the moment. Those are often the best questions. In all these instances, rather than trying to actively think what would be a really good question or what would be a really good topic, I find the best approach is to just let and allow ideas to come to you spontaneously, naturally. This, of course, is the idea behind processes like brainstorming. The key is to have a structure in place that gives you the time and space to regularly generate ideas, and to have a means to capture ideas when you do have them. This could be as simple as having a Google document that you throw ideas into as they occur to you, or having a regular slot in your timetable where you just allow yourself to brainstorm and come up with things. The other key here is to develop more trust in yourself, to trust your intuitions, and to let yourself make mistakes. Even if you're speaking to someone, even if you're speaking live, even if you're interviewing someone, it's okay to make mistakes. Creativity isn't about not making mistakes, but it's about risking making a mistake in order to come up with something great. Of course, this is not to dismiss conscious thinking entirely. There is a time and place for conscious, intentional analysis, but it can't all be about analysis. If you're just using your conscious mind, you're missing out on all the potential of your unconscious as well. And if you're interested in this, a good book on this subject is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Lesson three. Pursue projects with multiple returns on investment. A lot of people struggle because they know they would like to use their creativity in some way and start a project, but they don't know what they can feel a little lost. It can also feel in a world where everyone is increasingly busy, that nothing is clearly worth spending your time on. I think if someone is looking for a new project to work on, the advice I would give is to work on something that has multiple Rois or return on investment. In other words, something that will give you many different benefits rather than just one. Using this distinction can actually help you to distinguish between something worth pursuing versus something that's more likely to be a waste of your time. For example, one of the reasons something like a video game is often thought of as more of a recreational activity rather than productive, is because with most video games, even though a lot of skill may be required to get better at that game, by practicing, you're only really getting good at that specific game or other similar games. You're actually not getting much of a return on an investment with the time and energy you put into a video game. Generally speaking, usually something that's worth pursuing will give you multiple returns on investment. For example, doing something like a podcast through one pursuit, you have the opportunity to learn about writing, speaking, interviewing, audio editing, post-production, video editing, marketing, entertainment education, and so on can help you build an audience, advertise whatever you wish. Develop a body of work. Build a network. Having multiple returns on investment means you're never going to be wasting your time, even if the project doesn't turn out exactly as you planned or achieve the specific goals you would like it to. And often that doesn't happen. You will have still gained a lot of rewards in terms of skills and material results. Lesson four value your time. And by this I don't just mean care about your time, which I do think is important, but also I mean to literally think about how much value your time has, how much your time is worth. If you pursue some sort of creative project, the chances are it's going to be on top of all sorts of other obligations like work. Family relationships can be really hard to even carve out the time necessary to work on something new. And if you're serious about it, you're going to need to be a little brutal in terms of how you structure and use your time. The first step is you need to look at how you spend your time now and see what things are actually benefiting you, versus what things are wasting your time. In all probability, the things that are wasting your time are the usual culprits social media, gossiping, watching YouTube, reading the news over and over again, doing made up chores as a way of procrastinating all of the time you're wasting on those kinds of things is time you could be spending on working on your side project, or even doing things that truly replenish you. Because of course that's important as well. And that could be also the usual culprits exercise, socializing, yoga, walking, reading a great book. Meditation, watching a great film. In terms of the time you spend doing things that are productive, like your job or your chores, you should be asking yourself, is there a way this can be streamlined, made more efficient while producing the same quality? Are there things you could be approaching to perfectionistic? Are there things you could be delegating to others? Once you've audited your time carefully in this way, you can then reduce the time wasting as much as possible and make your productive time as efficient as possible. And then hopefully you freed up a decent amount of time that you can then start to spend on your project, which you regularly schedule and do it just like it's a part of your job. You then continue this process even with the project itself. In the beginning, you probably should not be that focused on using the time really efficiently, because chances are you're learning a lot of new stuff and doing a lot of creative thinking, which does take time. You're also going to be making tons and tons of mistakes, but hopefully over time and as your project begins to grow, particularly in the medium to long term, you can start to ask yourself, what are the things I'm spending time on which really matter and accomplish what I need to? Versus what are the things that can be, again, streamlined. Delegated. For example, with a podcast, should you spend more time choosing guests, coming up with interview questions, editing or doing post-production marketing? Is there a way any of these things can be done more efficiently? Are there any things that could be done away with completely? The only way you're going to be able to answer those questions is once you've been doing the thing for a little while and you have some data to work with. One of the best things about being self-employed or having your own business or project is you truly begin to value your time, as opposed to a more 9 to 5 mindset where you feel you can coast in your working time because you're going to be getting the same salary anyway. I would argue if you are in a 9 to 5, you should adopt a self-employed mindset anyway, because that would free up time to work on a creative project, learn new things, or really just spend the time however you actually want to. As in five. Choose something fascinating. Chances are, if you're thinking of starting something like a side project, it's because there's some kind of fulfillment that you feel is lacking from your day to day work. This kind of thing is common because we often make big career choices when we're young, and we have no idea what we're really interested in. Or perhaps we do something our parents think is a good idea, or we simply don't have a clear idea of what a particular job will entail. To make this problem worse, creative work, which is often more fulfilling, is, as a rule, the hardest to monetize. So you may need your day job indefinitely to pay the bills. Taking all these things into consideration, it is essential that when choosing your project, you choose something that fascinates you. And if you're not sure what fascinates you, then you must experiment and watch out for and cultivate that sense of fascination within yourself. Ask yourself what grabs your attention? What would I be willing to do for free? What kind of work would I even enjoy on my day off? What can I do when the time just flies? It's important not to make the same mistake you may have made with your day job, because otherwise the project just becomes another chore, another obligation. Because it's not necessarily that fulfilling to you. The sense of fascination is also important because if the project becomes quite serious or long term, for example, as this podcast has, you will have that fascination and fulfilment carry you through when things become difficult and tedious, which is inevitable in any long term pursuit where you're growing, learning new skills, or getting outside of your comfort zone. Which leads us to lesson six. Be persistent and determined. This idea really applies if you're doing something that's not just for fun, but something where you're trying to achieve a concrete result. A lot of people, when trying something new, try their best to avoid anything that could be perceived as failure. Because when we feel we have failed, we experience all sorts of negative emotions. This is precisely the opposite approach we should take. By definition, if you're trying something new, you should expect to fail a lot, and you should view that failure as positive because you're learning what the common mistakes are and learning how to avoid them in the future. This is especially true if you're trying something creative where success and improvement usually relies on constant repetition of the creative process, with gradual improvement over the different iterations of your work. For example, if you're trying to learn how to write short stories and it's not something you've really done before, you should not be afraid to write a bad story. At that point, your fear should be to not write a story at all. You should write a story with the expectation that it's going to be full of flaws, but knowing that it's just the first step in a much longer process. The progress comes not from any one story, but with the process of repetition, writing stories over and over again, assessing them, getting feedback, trying again, and so on. Typically, as you go through this process, you're going to have all sorts of negative thoughts and feel all sorts of weird emotions like embarrassment, shame. This is normal. Creative work, in my experience, taps directly into any issues we may have around self-esteem and can actually be a really good opportunity to develop healthier self-esteem if you go about it mindfully, as we'll discuss later. It's important as you develop your craft to not be led too much by your negative thoughts and emotions. Treat them like bad weather as something that can come up for no apparent reason. That can be unpleasant, but not something that should cause you to cancel your plans or not do what you intended to do in your project. If you go back and listen to my first audio essay I released in April 2020 called The Value of Subtraction, which was a mere seven minutes long. I think, and hope you would notice a fairly big difference in terms of the quality of the ideas, how well they were structured and delivered, the audio production, and so on compared to an essay I'm releasing now. If I had been too down on myself for releasing a subpar essay, it would have been impossible for me to continue the process of gradual improvement to get to this point. And of course, I'm still trying to improve. And that's what's fun about creative work. There's always something new you can do to make it better, or make it more interesting in some way. Ultimately, the ultimately the definition of determination is persisting in a particular action, even when it doesn't feel good, and even when the solution or good outcome you want isn't immediately evident. Trust that as long as you're giving something your best effort, you're not wasting your time. For example, even if no one listened to any of my audio essays, I still have 75,000 words worth of structured written work all around different ideas and psychology. And for context, the average nonfiction book is around 50 to 80,000 words. Going back to the idea of return on investment, we mentioned earlier that written work could be used to make an e-book, to do in-person presentations and talks, to use as the basis for an academic thesis, etc., etc.. Of all the skills you might learn doing a creative project, I would argue persistence and determination might be the most useful because the ability to continue trying your best, even when it feels very difficult, is transferable to every area of your life. Lesson seven. View success and failure with detachment. Building on some of the ideas we just mentioned in the last section. As you go through the process of working on your project of building your craft, you will have a long series of perceived ups and downs of successes and failures. The successes might look like writing that first story that really impressed someone. Starting to finally generate some income from your business. Reaching a milestone and podcast downloads. Getting your first piece of fan mail. The failures might look like being stuck on a problem you can't solve. Not meeting your targets. Not maintaining consistency in your work. Trying out a new strategy which doesn't accomplish what you intended. Success and failure are both inherent parts of the creative process that the yin and yang, if you like. As I mentioned earlier, we tend to naturally enough strongly resist failure and move towards success as much as possible. But again, this can be very counterproductive. The mistake most people make is we identify too strongly with both success and failure. In other words, success inflates our egos, while failure tends to diminish our self-worth. Both of these can be dangerous if someone achieves a lot of success and becomes too identified with that, then they can become entitled, arrogant, even narcissistic. And I covered these sorts of ideas in my essay about narcissism and Napoleon. A person can start to believe they are successful because of their inherent specialness, rather than because they employed a good set of strategies. This is the definition of buying your own boss. Ironically, this can lead a person to stop doing what works in favor of taking an easier path. This is commonly seen with people in the arts where they have a really successful first book, first film, or first album, and then they have difficulty following it up. A person can become so caught up in how special they must be to have accomplished something, that they deprioritized the creative work itself, and ultimately it's all about the work itself. On the other hand, when people encounter a lot of failure, they are over identified with that. Then it can make them feel as though they are a failure with all the associated feelings of shame and embarrassment. And this can be a major emotional block which stops someone entirely. Ultimately, success and failure should be seen primarily as signals of what is working and what is not working, with, of course, room being left for things like luck, chance, accidents of fate, the day to day successes and failures we encounter should not have a massive impact on your ego, but should serve merely as indicators of how well your different approaches are working. And I generally find the longer you engage in a particular creative process, the more to feel like that, like the successes and failures are just signals. Success means something is working well. Failure means you need a different approach, but being willing to fail a lot and not take it to heart and keep trying will make it more likely, of course, that you will succeed in the future. And lastly, lesson eight. The rewards are both external and internal. At the beginning of this episode, we discussed how the obstacles you will face in your work will be internal and external, and similarly, the rewards you will get are both internal and external or intrinsic and extrinsic. It's important to pay attention to both, as both can help motivate you to keep your project going, especially when times are rough. If you do something like a podcast, the intrinsic rewards you can expect include learning a whole range of different skills, as I mentioned before, like writing, interviewing, marketing, etc. but they can also include, of course, many of the lessons I've contained in this essay, like how to be persistent, how to view success and failure with detachment, how to value your Time correctly, and you can also expect deeper psychological rewards like becoming less self conscious, becoming a person of greater agency and autonomy. Making a podcast has also brought me all sorts of extrinsic rewards, like being able to build my own client base and largely being able to attract clients who are well matched to my way of working. Since they are the listeners who resonate with my content. The podcast has also allowed me to meet and speak with people I never thought I would, such as authors, comedians, filmmakers, and has allowed me to get involved in projects I never could have otherwise. Just like people tend to focus too much on the external obstacles, many people, when starting something new, also tend to focus consciously too much on the extrinsic rewards. But I would advise against that because the extrinsic rewards tend to take a lot longer to come, generally months to years, and are inherently less within your control. The intrinsic rewards you start seeing straight away. In fact, you probably get the most intrinsic reward towards the beginning of your project when you're really learning the fundamentals of so many new skills all at the same time. You can draw an interesting analogy here to improving your nutrition and exercising. When you start exercising and clean up your diet. You'll get the intrinsic rewards really quickly. You will start to feel physically better, have more energy, be able to think more clearly, sleep better probably within the first couple of weeks. Whereas the extrinsic rewards actual weight loss, changing body composition, clothes fitting better, people complimenting you. That takes months at least. The extrinsic rewards are nice and you should look out for them and use them to keep you motivated. But ultimately it's the intrinsic rewards the learning of new skills, cultivating of new capacities, really becoming in many ways a new person, which I think are foundational and again, which will be the most transferable to other areas of life. So I hope you found that helpful. Those are a few lessons which were really important for me. And if you're thinking of starting some sort of creative side project, perhaps that'll be useful for you as well. If you have any questions on this subject, as always, you can email Thinking Mind podcast at gmail.com. We're always looking for new questions for a Q&A episode. I'm curious about any projects you guys might be thinking of starting. In addition, if you'd like me to speak for your team or your organization in person or online, as I have been doing recently. You can email a Thinking Mind podcast@gmail.com and put Speaking Inquiry in the subject line, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks for listening to this episode, and I'll past 100 or so episodes. We look forward to seeing what we can do with the next 100 episodes, and we'll see you here next time.