0:03

On the creative journey, it's

0:05

easy to get lost, but

0:08

don't worry, you'll lift off.

0:11

Sometimes you just need a

0:13

creative pep talk. Hey,

0:18

you're listening to Creative Pep Talk, a

0:21

weekly podcast companion for your creative journey.

0:23

I'm your host, Andy J. Pizza. What's up? I'm

0:25

a New York Times bestselling author and illustrator. This

0:28

show is where I share

0:30

everything I'm learning about building

0:32

and maintaining a thriving creative

0:34

practice. Are

0:39

you worried that you're lagging? Let's

0:42

talk about how to lock in,

0:44

reinvent and recapture passion. This

0:47

episode is for you. If you feel like

0:49

you're being left behind, if

0:51

you feel like all the tech

0:53

advancements and shifts in the past

0:55

couple of years have you scrambling,

0:58

or you just feel like you're

1:00

not locked into making progress in

1:02

a meaningful direction that your whole

1:04

heart and soul are behind. If

1:07

you stay until the end, I'll come

1:09

back with a call to adventure called

1:11

the heads up seven seconds exercise that

1:13

you can use today to make

1:15

your creative session more aligned with

1:17

where you are in this moment

1:20

right now and make that effort

1:22

count. But first, let's talk

1:24

about the creative business that's going to put your

1:26

business out of business if you

1:28

play your cards, right? Protect

1:34

yourself online with NordVPN. What is a

1:36

VPN? A VPN keeps you safe online

1:38

by hiding your identity and your IP

1:41

address and allows you to do things

1:43

like use public wifi hotspots without anxiety.

1:45

If you're a big traveler or you're

1:47

a work in cafes kind of creator,

1:50

you need to keep your privacy

1:52

and data safe with NordVPN for

1:54

you cafe creator coffee addicts out

1:56

there. You can get NordVPN for

1:59

just a coffee a month, they

2:01

have a program where you can pay in

2:03

coffee. Not really, for the

2:05

cost of the coffee a month.

2:07

Or maybe use NordVPN to switch

2:09

regions on your device. If for

2:11

example, you and your British wiseness,

2:13

those British detective shows

2:15

you haven't been able to access

2:18

for years. To get

2:20

the best discount off your NordVPN

2:22

plan, go to nordvpn.com/pep talk or

2:24

use promo code pep talk. Our

2:26

link will give you four extra

2:28

months on your two year plan.

2:30

And there's no risk with Nord 30

2:32

day money back guarantee. The link is

2:34

also in the episode description box. If

2:43

you're not witnessing

2:45

massive disruptions in every creative

2:47

field on the planet, you

2:49

can't possibly be paying attention.

2:52

Things have happened and changed

2:56

so fast. So many happenings are

2:58

happening in the world

3:00

right now, whether it's how social media

3:03

works or AI or social upheavals of

3:05

so many kinds. Things have

3:07

been really unstable for the past few years. And

3:10

it can create so much

3:12

anxiety around your creative practice,

3:14

but it doesn't always have

3:16

to. In fact, there

3:18

may be a different way to

3:21

approach this and think about this

3:23

completely. And today on the show,

3:25

I'm sharing a conversation I had

3:27

with Josh Linkner. Josh is a

3:29

jazz musician, author and business person

3:32

who is kind of also

3:34

a legend in the public speaking sphere.

3:36

So as most of you know, public speaking

3:39

is a big part of what I do

3:41

professionally, and it's a real creative passion of

3:43

mine. So I discovered Josh through his podcast

3:45

on public speaking called mic drop. It

3:48

was while I was enjoying that show that I

3:50

thought, hey, I need to go check out this

3:52

person's books. He's

3:54

got one called big little breakthroughs and

3:56

discipline dreaming is another one. And if

3:58

you're a long time or you know

4:00

these titles speak to the same ideas that

4:03

we talk about every single week on this

4:05

show. But I also wanted

4:07

to talk to Josh because

4:09

in this season of

4:12

high levels of disruption, I

4:15

thought who better to speak on this

4:17

than the guy who literally wrote the

4:19

book on reinvention. It's called The Road

4:21

to Reinvention. And it's not about avoiding

4:24

disruption, but driving it. This

4:26

is what I think it means to be a

4:28

creative person. And we talk about why

4:30

that is, and some tools for

4:32

how to do this actively, happily,

4:35

passionately, not

4:37

begrudgingly. And

4:39

not because you have to do this,

4:42

but because you want to do this,

4:44

because that's what being creative is all

4:46

about. From

4:50

what I can tell, you talk to a lot of

4:52

business people and a lot of what you

4:54

talk to them about is creativity. And

4:56

I've been reading your book, Big

4:59

Little Breakthroughs, and it's great. It's got tons

5:01

of incredible information on

5:03

creativity. But it

5:05

feels a little bit like it's

5:08

targeted at people that maybe don't

5:10

think of themselves as creative. And

5:12

that's excellent, getting more people to

5:14

be creative. But I was

5:16

kind of struck by how bad creators

5:19

maybe need to hear this

5:21

information. Because in my

5:23

life, and then in my experience,

5:25

and the people that I have

5:28

met, creators of all kinds, we

5:31

can get really stuck in our ways.

5:33

We can get really superstitious or

5:36

overly mystical about creativity. And so

5:38

I feel like, man, this is

5:40

a really, to get to

5:42

like, what does the research say? Or what

5:44

are some of the best practices we know

5:46

work? I feel like they could

5:48

really use it. So be gentle, because

5:50

I'm a creator. You're a creative

5:52

type. All my

5:54

listeners are creators. But what

5:56

do you think creative people get

5:58

wrong about creativity? now that you've learned

6:01

so much about it. And is

6:03

it different than what you

6:05

see business people struggling with

6:07

creatively? Does that make sense? It does. I

6:09

mean, a few things. First of all, the

6:12

research, to answer your question, is crystal clear

6:14

that all human beings are creative.

6:17

And truthfully, any job title can be creative. We

6:19

used to think, oh, the creatives, they sit on

6:21

the second floor. But the

6:23

creatives should sit in every seat. And

6:26

just because someone is in a traditionally,

6:28

quote, non-creative role, like legal or tax,

6:30

doesn't mean they can't be creative. Now,

6:32

the first instinct is all that means they're going

6:34

to cook the books if they're an accountant. Of

6:37

course not. They're going to use judgment and integrity.

6:39

But they can find creative ways, even if something

6:41

that seems uncreative. By the way, there are people

6:43

in, quote, unquote, creative fields that are not that

6:45

creative. I know classical

6:47

musicians that are fabulous technicians. And they maybe

6:49

interpret a Mozart sonata. But they're really not

6:51

creating much of anything that's not new. So

6:53

I think the first thing we need to

6:55

do is remove the notion that some titles

6:57

are creative and others are not, and that

6:59

some people are creative and others not. Because

7:01

the truth is, we're all creative, regardless of

7:04

what role or station in life we find

7:06

ourselves in. There's always room to express creativity.

7:09

So then the question you asked was, what creatives

7:11

do? And when do they get stuck? Again,

7:13

anchoring back to that we're all creative. I think

7:16

that we can get stuck in our ways. I

7:19

play jazz. And jazz is a very fluid art

7:21

form. And I've been performing for 40 years, played

7:24

over 1,000 concerts around the world. And

7:26

even in jazz, sometimes you're like, oh, this is a pattern

7:28

that I know. This is going to work really well. I

7:30

know there's chord voicing on this particular song. And

7:33

what happens is that once something works, the

7:35

human mind tends to anchor in its

7:37

base on historical reference. And so what we

7:39

have to do as creatives is keep pushing

7:41

ourselves to try something new and to arrest

7:43

the pattern instead of rely on the pattern.

7:46

And so the same spirit that got us in that creative

7:48

chair in the first place sometimes can dwindle

7:50

just because our mind is based on pattern recognition and

7:53

we're trying to know what already works, quote unquote. And

7:55

it's the act of not knowing, the act of remaining

7:57

as curious as you were the first time you picked

7:59

up a paintbrush or a musical

8:01

instrument, that's what keeps the creativity rolling. Yeah,

8:03

that's great. And it gets right to the

8:06

next thing I wanted to talk to you

8:08

about because I find

8:10

that there's two pieces,

8:12

when you're trying to build a

8:15

creative practice, there's two things that

8:17

feel at odds sometimes. And one

8:19

is, you know, creativity is often

8:21

about, like, doing something that's never

8:24

been done. And for

8:26

a business to work, you really have to

8:28

have systems of like, hey, we can predict

8:30

this, at least for some amount of time,

8:32

we know this thing works and we need to

8:34

keep this thing going. But

8:36

you talked about having space to kind of reinvent

8:39

or break the pattern. And I love

8:41

in your book, the whole section about

8:44

opening a test kitchen. Now you're not

8:46

saying we should all get into the

8:48

food industry, but can

8:50

you tell us a little bit about that idea?

8:52

Yeah, I mean, the best creative people in all

8:54

walks of life, business and art

8:56

alike, are the best experimenters. And

8:59

the notion of we should always really

9:01

be running and experimenting in a test kitchen, in

9:04

a food environment. Think about a test

9:06

kitchen as it's a safe environment, they've got like ingredients

9:08

and stoves and such, and it's an

9:10

opportunity for them to tinker while they're not trying to

9:12

serve the main dish on a busy Saturday night. And

9:15

it's that both psychological safety that

9:17

occurs and also the assets, it

9:20

allows people to really push the creative boundaries. And

9:23

the reason I wrote a chapter on it is,

9:25

I think it's something we can put in our

9:27

own lives, regardless of our vocation. If you're an

9:29

illustrator, why not have a little time set aside,

9:31

where's your test kitchen time? And you're not cranking

9:33

out a new design for a paying client on

9:35

a deadline. It's like an hour here or there

9:37

where you can like doodle and imagine and push

9:39

the boundaries and try something that you've never tried

9:41

before. And I find that if we invest

9:43

that little bit of time, doesn't have to be a lot, that

9:46

test kitchen mentality, it really pushes the

9:48

creative boundaries and keeps us fresh. And

9:51

by the way, even when you're working on a project, on a

9:53

deadline, there is still room for that.

9:55

Maybe what you do is you say, okay, I'm gonna

9:57

present one alternative to the client.

9:59

And that's... The one that I know

10:01

that they want and it's based on his you know What

10:03

I've my previous work and then I'm gonna draw one as

10:05

if I'm a totally different type of artist If

10:08

your style is X maybe you say what the opposite of

10:10

X What if I tried it that way now if you

10:12

always anchor to one color palette? We try the opposite color

10:14

palette and you know just the notion of pushing

10:17

yourself to try something new and you know show

10:19

the client and my hunch is that you might

10:21

be surprised which one they choose yeah, and I

10:23

love the example you have in the book from

10:26

Shake Shack which I didn't really know the

10:28

origins of could you share that? Study

10:32

a little bit that case study that you use in

10:34

the book Yeah, so so Danny

10:36

Meyer is a brilliant a restaurateur and

10:38

he's very high-end restaurants in New

10:40

York and elsewhere, but um, he started

10:42

this idea of Shake Shack, which originally

10:45

was I think it started with

10:47

hot dogs too and then you got expanded hamburgers and

10:49

it's um You know the

10:51

menu is pretty simple like you know good

10:53

good old-fashioned American comfort food, but

10:56

underneath the restaurant in in

10:58

New York and I think it's in It

11:01

might be Chelsea or maybe it's in the South

11:03

Village But anyway, there's there's a restaurant on top

11:05

and underneath it's the Shake Shack innovation kitchen And

11:08

it's exactly what it sounds like it's at the test kitchen and

11:10

so down there They're trying crazy weird stuff like

11:13

oh, what if we put this weird zucchini sauce

11:15

on it? What if we what if we did

11:17

candy bacon, you know, and they're always trying new

11:19

things And then the cool part is that they're

11:21

actually close to the customer is one thing if

11:23

you did this You know in a rural farm

11:25

in the middle of Alaska, but like they're right

11:27

there with the customer So they can create little

11:29

ideas run upstairs. Let people try it go back

11:32

and forth So I like the fact that number

11:34

one they're tinkering and it's in a separate environment

11:36

So they can still deliver up upstairs what they

11:38

got to do to ring the register But they've

11:40

created a safe space for tinkering But then also

11:42

the proximity of customer access school because they get

11:44

this sort of ongoing feedback loop And

11:46

of course, it doesn't have to be just in restaurants and we can

11:48

apply that in any domain I love

11:50

it because it's a it's a different perspective

11:52

on something that I've Explored a

11:55

lot on the show through a different lens.

11:57

I usually talk about it through a

12:00

lens of stand-up comedy and what they call

12:02

writing on stage. And I'm so fascinated by

12:04

them working out stuff in the club, even

12:07

getting people to lock up their

12:09

phones. Like, I have pushed

12:11

creators like always have that space.

12:13

You know, I make episode art

12:16

every week for my podcast. And

12:18

I don't know if that's financially

12:20

a great use of

12:22

my time, but it's where all my new

12:24

ideas and all my fresh material come out.

12:26

And it kind of also is similar to

12:28

things I see where I see

12:31

bands that have these side projects that unlock

12:33

all this stuff. I was just listening to,

12:36

I don't know if you're familiar with Ben

12:38

Gibbard from Death Cab and

12:40

Postal Service, but the side band Postal Service

12:42

unlocked his main band's favorite album. And I

12:44

just kind of wish that I could go

12:47

talk to him and be like, start more

12:49

side bands, man. You didn't

12:51

have to just leave that in 2004, like keep doing it. Because

12:54

I think I agree. You need

12:56

that creative space. What

12:58

does that space look like in your own business

13:00

and creative output? Well, one fun thing is

13:03

it doesn't have to be a physical space,

13:05

depending on your career. But I

13:08

feel like most of the time that we do professionally

13:10

is what you might define as heads down time. Out

13:12

of deadline, crank it out, get your to-do list done. And

13:15

the problem is you can just think about physically, you're looking

13:17

heads down, by definition you're not heads up. And when you're

13:19

heads up, you notice things and you're experimenting

13:21

and you're tinkering. So I encourage people to carve

13:23

out a little heads up time and

13:25

really protect it like it's an important thing. And actually, here's

13:27

a fun challenge that I've issued to thousands of

13:29

people around the world. I say give yourself

13:32

an experiment back to the notion of

13:34

experimentation. Run a 30-day experiment. If

13:37

you take a look at someone's 40-hour work week, 5% of

13:40

that is two hours a week. So

13:42

you say, I'm going to take a 5% 30-day experiment,

13:45

where the other 95% of your time, you

13:47

do what you normally do, but that 2%, it

13:49

could be one two-hour block, it could

13:52

be four 30-minute blocks, whatever feels right

13:54

to you. But carve it out and

13:56

protect that time for heads up time. Where there's

13:58

not a deliverable, it's room. to

14:00

breathe creatively and to explore and to like

14:02

take her in touch. And anyway, here's what

14:04

I hear back. I've done this hundreds of

14:06

times. First thing I hear back is

14:08

zero percent drop in productivity. Zero.

14:11

Magically, 40 hours gets squished into 38 hours,

14:13

no one misses a beat. Second

14:15

thing I hear back is that the first week or so, people

14:18

feel really frivolous. They're like, oh man, I hope

14:20

my boss doesn't catch me. It's almost like you're

14:22

ashamed, like you're cheating on your spouse or something.

14:24

Like, oh my God, I'm not doing something productive.

14:27

But by the end of that 30 days, people say it's the most

14:30

productive time they've spent in years. And

14:33

many have adapted that as an ongoing process. So

14:35

I think like anything in life, you have to

14:37

carve out time and resources for things that don't

14:39

matter. And if you're in the creative field, and

14:41

again, I hope everybody is, what an important thing

14:44

to do to sharpen the saw, to push the

14:46

boundaries, to try new things. And knowing that you

14:48

have a pretty serious background in jazz, I

14:51

really like jazz. I

14:54

don't have any expert knowledge around it, but

14:56

I am a fan. And

14:58

it seems like almost like, depending

15:01

on how experimental we're talking,

15:03

there seems to be that

15:06

space built into a jazz song where

15:08

you have maybe, here's like the chords

15:10

and the thing that we're trying to

15:12

get across with the song, but we

15:14

always have sections or instruments

15:17

that are doing the

15:19

test kitchen thing in real time.

15:23

Do you think that's just kind of

15:25

impacted the way you move through your

15:27

own work? Yeah, man, I think

15:29

of myself as a jazz musician first. And

15:32

the way I do business and stuff is just

15:34

jazz. And I'll unpack that a

15:36

little bit. So jazz, not everyone loves it, which I

15:38

understand in acquired taste. But first of

15:40

all, it's the only art form that I know of

15:42

where you're composing and performing in real time. So

15:45

you can't just go back and correct a mistake. You're

15:47

in it in front of a discerning audience. The

15:50

other thing jazz is much more like a conversation. And

15:52

you and I aren't reading from a script. You

15:54

say something, I build off of it, vice versa.

15:56

We're listening, we're responding. And

15:59

if we got together to... tomorrow it would be a

16:01

slightly different conversation, even if it was on a similar

16:03

topic. And so what jazz is, it's

16:05

a loose framework. There's almost like topics. And

16:07

even if we played in the same band every

16:10

night for 10 years in a row, every night would

16:12

be different, every song would be different. Cause it really

16:14

is like a musical conversation. And in jazz, what you're

16:16

trying to do is, is you're

16:18

taking your own artistic expression, but you're also,

16:20

if there's co-creation. So you might start a

16:22

little riff on the drums and I might

16:24

pick up on a guitar and someone else takes it on sax. And

16:27

so it's not just individual artistic

16:29

expression, it's collective, it's

16:31

collaborative expression, which makes it even

16:33

more cool and fascinating and fun and dangerous and all

16:35

that. And so yeah, it's deeply affected me in a

16:37

lot of ways. One is the way I think about

16:40

risk-taking. So if you're playing jazz and you play a really

16:42

bad note, you know, play it twice more and

16:44

call it art, everything's cool. But

16:46

kidding aside, like the jazz combo, the cultural

16:48

attributes of that team support

16:52

creative risk-taking rather than punch you in the face

16:54

if you make a mistake. And

16:56

so there's a lot of metaphors that can be drawn

16:58

from it. Now today more than ever, we all kind

17:00

of gotta play some jazz. I mean, what jazz musicians

17:02

do when you put the music aside, they

17:05

use situational awareness after listening.

17:07

They adapt to changing conditions.

17:09

They have to course correct and deal

17:11

with mistakes quickly. They have

17:13

to improvise to deliver the best outcomes. And

17:16

whether you're an illustrator or a lawyer or

17:18

do interpretive dance, like we're all playing jazz these

17:20

days to a degree. And to me, it's been

17:23

a wonderful training ground. Couldn't be more relevant in

17:25

this moment because I know the

17:27

creative industry especially has just had

17:29

so much disruption over the past

17:31

couple of years. And it just

17:34

seems to be ramping up. I think

17:36

lots of industries are seeing this, but creatives

17:38

I think especially are

17:40

feeling some serious tension. You

17:43

literally wrote the book on reinvention.

17:45

And I wondered, I was

17:47

gonna pick your brain on this because

17:49

I think everybody is having to, as

17:51

you say, play some jazz and figure

17:53

out how are we going to reinvent

17:56

and move forward? What are any pieces

17:58

of, maybe we'll do that. what's

18:00

a piece from the book that has

18:02

stuck with you that you maybe still

18:04

think about and utilize when it comes

18:06

to maintaining that kind

18:08

of agility

18:11

in your practice? I

18:14

think a lot of times people think about

18:16

a word like reinvention as a one-time

18:18

event that happens once a decade or something

18:20

like that. And what I try

18:22

to drive home in the book is that actually it's better

18:24

off as an ongoing process. Like if there you should always

18:27

be in sort of a state of reinvention the way you're

18:29

always growing and learning and evolving as a human being. And

18:32

it's funny I had a saying as I built

18:34

my several businesses. I said it so

18:36

often man my people got here in it.

18:38

But the phrase was someday

18:40

a company will come along and put us out

18:42

of business. So it might as well be us. And

18:46

I adopt that same approach both as a human

18:48

and also as a creative person like the

18:51

notion that someone's gonna come along and put me out of business might

18:53

as well be me. Which is kind

18:55

of cool because then you're always like okay what's my next

18:58

version gonna look like? Now I'll tell you why

19:00

it's kind of freeing. On the one hand you can say well that's kind of

19:02

scary oh my gosh but on the other hand it

19:04

means that nothing you do has to have some

19:06

crazy level permanence. So that's actually kind of a

19:08

freeing concept. I mean you're always this evolving work

19:10

of art and you get to play around and

19:12

test and take risks and all that. That's kind

19:14

of freeing. And the notion that if

19:16

you're in a rough patch it doesn't have to stay that

19:19

way. Or by the way even if you're in a success

19:21

patch don't take it for granted. And so it's a really

19:23

healthy approach I think. Not to be scared of that next

19:25

version but to be excited about it and lean into it.

19:27

And that's the best advice that I can give is you

19:29

sort of like put yourself in this

19:31

ongoing state of reinvention. It's less

19:34

risky than one big one once a decade and it's

19:36

way more effective. I also think the

19:38

reframe from I'm reinventing because

19:40

I'm afraid to I'm

19:42

reinventing because that's what I do. That's

19:45

what's exciting. I did a talk to

19:48

a group of designers not long

19:50

ago. They were doing this

19:52

retreat. And I was I

19:55

was feeling I was sensing when I

19:57

was prepping like they're worried about how

19:59

the businesses are changing.

20:01

I came

20:04

into that space thinking, hey,

20:06

you wanted to be creative for a living because

20:08

you didn't want to do the same thing all

20:10

the time and now you're getting frustrated that you

20:12

have to change what you do. This

20:15

is your game. There's just a reframe

20:17

there of the whole

20:19

idea that it's exciting to

20:21

constantly reinvent. I love

20:24

the spin that you

20:26

put on that. Thanks, Dan. If you think

20:28

about the great artists of the world, whether

20:30

they're a comedian or a painter, Picasso

20:33

didn't have one phase. He had multiple phases.

20:35

Great comedians are constantly redoing their material, as

20:38

you point out. One of my

20:40

heroes, Miles Davis, was at the forefront of

20:42

no fewer than four completely transformative genres of

20:44

jazz. The prolific

20:46

one, the legendary artist, or the one that actually

20:49

clings to only one thing, like one-hit wonder,

20:51

but they're always pushing the creative boundaries and

20:54

trying something new. By the way, it doesn't

20:56

always work. One of my other jazz heroes

20:58

is John Coltrane. Love

21:01

Supreme was one of the most incredible albums of

21:03

the universe and so was Giant Sets. Some of

21:05

his later work, I didn't really like that much,

21:07

nor did a lot of other people. It was

21:09

almost pushed a little far for many people's ears,

21:11

but good for him for doing that. I love

21:13

the notion that even as an artist, it doesn't

21:15

have to mean everything is perfect and every album

21:17

has got to be better than the one before,

21:19

but at least giving ourselves a little grace and

21:21

permission to push the creative boundaries and try something

21:23

new. I love that. My

21:26

oldest daughter, she's

21:28

Gen Z, and I love

21:30

Gen Z. I feel like these are good

21:33

people that are coming up in a bunch of ways to

21:36

over-generalize a generation. But one

21:40

of the things that I think is

21:42

permeating the culture and it's

21:44

impacting creators is this idea

21:47

of things being cringe. It

21:49

kind of worries me because I think

21:52

there's a pressure for creators to have

21:54

this flawless career where they don't have

21:56

any of those albums that were like,

21:59

cringe. They were bad, we

22:01

didn't like that. But the people

22:03

that have had these long-term careers,

22:06

they have those, like Bob

22:08

Dylan has cringe albums. And

22:11

I think you're absolutely right. You

22:14

have to let the journey not be a

22:16

masterpiece, I think. You have to let it

22:18

have some rough patches, you know? I'm so

22:20

glad you said that because, you know, someone

22:22

looking at you in your incredible work, they

22:24

might say everything he touches is beautiful, it's

22:27

masterful, it's his God-given talent, you know? And

22:29

my experience is that, you know, when you look

22:32

at like even a Picasso, where there's, you know, 15 paintings

22:34

that are really famous, he created 150,000 pieces of art, you

22:36

know? So

22:38

like if you're unwilling to have cringe, you're unwilling

22:41

to be an artist. If you're unwilling to have

22:43

cringe, you're unwilling to be an innovator. And the

22:45

notion is that, you know, sometimes it takes some

22:47

quote unquote cringe to connect the dots

22:49

and let your art unfold. And so I think it's

22:51

crucial. Like in fact, we should probably aim for more

22:54

cringe. Like the right ratio of awesome

22:56

to cringe is not, you know, is not a zero.

23:00

There's gotta be some good fringe to get the

23:02

art right. Okay,

23:10

I wanna leave you with a little call to

23:12

adventure, a call to action to put some of

23:15

these ideas into your practice

23:17

right now. This one

23:19

is called the Heads Up Seven

23:21

Seconds Exercise to get tuned in,

23:23

locked in, for

23:26

a more mindful connection to what

23:28

you're doing. So I don't know

23:30

about you, but I'm strapped for

23:32

time. Like I have three kids,

23:34

I've got two dogs, I've got

23:36

a mortgage, I've got four

23:39

creative practices. And

23:42

so when I go to create something, I

23:45

can just so easily just

23:48

swoop it, jump straight in

23:50

cannonball into my process. And

23:53

what ends up happening is I'm

23:55

not tuned in. I haven't

23:57

dropped in, I'm not there. I

24:00

don't know where I am. I don't know if

24:02

I'm in the last activity or if I'm somewhere

24:04

in the future But I'm not there making the

24:07

work And so one

24:09

of the things I've been trying to do as

24:11

I sit down especially when I go to write

24:13

in the morning I write almost every morning And

24:16

I've been trying to do this thing And

24:19

I'm calling it the heads up seven seconds

24:21

exercise because it's really fast. It's it's

24:24

not gonna take any time at all It's

24:26

just three seconds inhale Hold

24:30

it for one second Three

24:33

second exhale It's

24:37

just a little tiny controlled

24:39

breathing exercise and

24:42

the purpose of it is to Drop

24:44

you in to the moment

24:46

to where you are So

24:49

that what you're making and what

24:51

you're doing is related to

24:53

where you actually are and where you actually want

24:55

to go next and and

24:58

This simple thing it might not

25:00

seem like anything But it's been

25:03

a pretty important part

25:05

of my practice recently because

25:07

I can get through a portion

25:10

of creating a Writing session

25:12

or a drawing session realize I've just

25:14

been spinning the past hour like

25:19

Frantically running in 18 directions

25:21

and literally not Leaving

25:23

where I started in any

25:26

meaningful way And so every time

25:28

I sit down for the past month or so,

25:30

let's say I will stop

25:32

I will pause I will

25:34

just do a little breathing Look

25:37

at my surroundings feel

25:40

what I'm feeling and And

25:44

tune into where am I? What

25:46

does this need to be? What

25:49

does this piece? How can I

25:51

get my mind? Into

25:55

the moment and I

25:57

do the same thing when I go on stage

25:59

to do it talk because

26:01

for me, I've found that every

26:03

single talk, I need about

26:05

seven seconds. I need about

26:07

15 seconds at

26:09

the start to pause, breathe,

26:14

be in that moment and then communicate. I

26:16

even leave a little space at the beginning

26:18

of every talk to communicate

26:20

a feeling that I'm

26:23

feeling right there in

26:25

that moment and I can't decide

26:27

what I'm going to say until

26:29

I'm there so that it's connected

26:32

exactly to the moment that I'm

26:34

in. So that's what I

26:36

want you to do. I want you

26:38

to take seven seconds, do controlled breathing

26:40

and just identify one feeling

26:43

that you're having

26:45

right now. Once

26:47

you acknowledge it, you're mindful about this is

26:49

who I am right now, this is

26:51

where I am right now, you're

26:54

going to be able to more actively put

26:56

your real self, who you are right

26:59

now into the work because who

27:02

you are and what you're doing and where

27:04

you're at all meet in the

27:06

moment by

27:08

tuning in like this. So that's your

27:10

exercise to do what Josh talked about.

27:13

Don't just put your head down and

27:15

start working. Have a

27:17

moment of heads-up time. Take

27:20

it in, soak it in, tune in before

27:23

you can and

27:25

ball in to your process. I

27:29

want to thank Josh Linkner for having

27:31

this conversation with me. I know he's

27:33

a super busy guy. He's very in

27:35

demand in the public speaking business space

27:39

and I was excited to kind of

27:41

do something differently. We usually have creators

27:43

talk about business and practice and all

27:45

that kind of thing. I know this

27:47

guy, his main background is in jazz

27:49

music but then he got into the

27:51

business world, investing, all that kind of

27:53

stuff and spends most of his time

27:55

talking to business people about creativity and

27:57

I thought it could be cool to flip it.

28:00

Give us a taste of something different and

28:02

I hope you enjoyed it. And

28:04

I hope it got you thinking

28:06

about embracing reinvention instead of fearing

28:08

the needs to reinvent. Creative

28:19

Pet Talk is your weekly

28:21

podcast companion for your creative

28:23

journey. And hey, it's dangerous

28:25

to go long. If you're

28:28

looking for a little creative

28:30

community and accountability, we do a

28:32

monthly live Zoom call with

28:34

our paid Substack subscribers. You can

28:36

sign up and join us

28:38

at antijpizza.substack.com or sign up

28:40

to our free newsletter so that you never

28:43

miss a week of this podcast or a

28:45

week of pushing your creative practice forward. I'm

28:47

your host, Andy J. Pizza. I'm a

28:49

New York Times bestselling author and illustrator.

28:52

I do client work for the likes

28:54

of Apple, Xbox, and Lego. And I

28:56

travel the world, pep talking teams at

28:58

creative hubs like Warby Parker and Sesame

29:00

Street. You can reach

29:03

out about commissions and collaborations

29:06

at andyjpizza.com. Massive

29:08

thanks to our backers, Yoni Wolf

29:10

and the band Y for our

29:13

theme song and soundtrack to Sophie

29:15

Miller for content support. And

29:18

until we speak again, stay peped

29:20

up.