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The Moonshots Podcast goes behind the scenes of the world's greatest superstars, thinkers and entrepreneurs to discover the secrets to their success. We deconstruct their success from mindset to daily habits so that we can apply it to our lives. Join us as we 'learn out loud' from Elon Musk, Brene Brown to emerging talents like David Goggins.
[Music]
hello and welcome to the moonshots
podcast it's episode 143 i'm your
co-host mike parsons and as always i'm
joined by the man who's got some big
magic for us it's mr mark pearson
freeland good morning mark hey good
morning mike what an exciting moment you
and i have ahead of ourselves today
the magician
of creativity that we're going to be
diving into
i know this creativity series started
with
a little bit of flow
but interestingly enough in this episode
mark i think we're going to face our
creative fears that's right if in show
142 with me high chin sent me high and
the idea of flow is our foundation mic
getting ourselves into the right
headspace to think and work and be
creative today episode 143 we have
elizabeth gilbert's big magic creative
living beyond fear i mean mike it's
pretty
exciting this topic as we're within
halfway through our creativity series to
now start understanding how can we
unleash the creativity that we might
have within ourselves
i know and this elizabeth gilbert is a
bit of a creative powerhouse herself so
i think she's got every right to speak
about creativity because she was also
the author of eat pray love which became
obviously a famous
movie starring julia roberts
and what's really interesting about her
approach and why she's so perfect for us
is she's really
getting into the habits and the
practices of how we can unleash
creativity and what's really interesting
is her anchor point
is how for many of us
it's fear is the big blocker to us
unleashing our creativity so
i want to ask you mike when when you
hear creativity and fear it together
like this is this like a natural
combination is this new to you how do
you relate to it you know what i think
the initial reaction i would have to
that pair is it doesn't feel right you
know
fear and creativity shouldn't go side by
side instead i i'm thinking about flow
again creativity it's running through my
veins you know paint is coming out my
fingertips
or music's coming out of my mouth yeah i
think there was a natural
connection that i would have always had
with just fear with creativity being a
free-flowing thing but i think what's
fascinating about big magic is as you've
already said mike
there is that connection with fear that
i think holds a lot of people back
i think you're right there and i think
that's why the book was so successful
and why
she's gone on you know to produce
you know more than one hit so she's
she's the authority when it comes to
creativity and in this show
we're really going to explore
the role that fear has with our
creativity i think we're going to
challenge
ourselves both you me mark and all of
our listeners
on how we are going to
experience creativity
the role of getting through those
blockers the doubts the uncertainty or
just being plain old resilient sticking
to your creative practice
and we've even got a few tips on how to
really polish up your creativity and i
think
we can do all of this with a smile on
our face because one of the big things
that elizabeth gilbert helps us with
is to learn how to not only embrace the
challenge of the process but not take it
all too seriously so we can roll up the
sleeves get in there and enjoy bringing
out that creative talent that i believe
resides in every single one of us so i'm
i'm really delighted to pull this show
together and i think it plays a huge
role in our creativity series doesn't it
yeah i couldn't agree more i think
that's a perfect setup so mike why don't
i set you and i and our listeners up
with a clip from elizabeth gilbert
herself telling us what is big magic and
why fear shouldn't stop you creating
what was the big magic that inspired big
magic what inspired you to write wow you
know what it is it's a response to years
of being out in public talking to people
who tell me
about the projects they want to be
making and are not making the things
they want to be doing and are not doing
i mean and oftentimes when i'm in public
i meet people who are making and doing
really cool things and they want to tell
me about it but mostly
it's people who aren't
and when they come to me with their
problems about creativity or their
struggles with creativity because they
know i love to talk about creativity
i find that they always have some sort
of very rational reasonable
kind of material real real world reason
why they're not doing it
um that they can lay out as an
explanation but when you start to
scratch away at that what's underneath
it is always and only fear yes always
and only fear i don't care what
the excuses or the rationalization or
the justification for why they're not
doing the thing that's calling to them
at the bottom of it they're afraid
they're afraid they don't have the
talent they're afraid they don't have
the right they're afraid it's already
been done better they're afraid they'll
be rejected or insulted or criticized or
worse ignored
they're afraid there's no point there's
afraid you know they just have these
like tumbling piles of fear and i see it
so much and i hear the same questions
again and again that i finally just
thought
well let's officially talk about this
yes you know like let's actually really
break this down and try to figure out
how people can live more creative lives
without being so scared
so
um
not being scared mark this is something
that i relate to not only
with creative pursuits what's
interesting as i listen to that clip
i i think that's something that holds us
back
in so many of our pursuits in life
whether it's on the sports field in the
boardroom or just at home
or
being social like i think we're all held
back by what elizabeth gilbert called
being scared this fear of failure
that the pointlessness you know all that
negative thinking that stops us from
making that step forward and i i like
how she said basically she meets a ton
of people who all talk about they've got
plans to do things but they're not
happening for whatever reason but
underneath all of that
there's one
reason and that is fear that is why they
are not
pursuing their creative talent their
creative challenges and their journeys
it's
fear we can have all the excuses in the
world right there wasn't enough time i
didn't have the thing to do the other
thing
but if you really wanted it
if you really could deal with that fear
you would push through and make it
happen wouldn't you yeah i think
you
there's a natural inclination
in my mind to look towards excuses
for reasons why i haven't done something
and it will be the classics it'll be not
enough time not enough resource not
enough patience maybe
and it's quite confronting to hear that
actually fear is what underpins all of
those
but i think i think elizabeth's correct
i think ultimately if i'm not afraid of
you know putting myself out there and
not being noticed or putting myself out
there and being ridiculed
i would go out and make that time i
would be able to you know put aside all
of those other blockers logistical
blockers and still go out and create
and yeah i i totally believe
elizabeth's correct here fear is what
underpins a lot of the roadblockers that
we might run into both at work in our
careers as well as personal lives fear
is the thing that we need to to try and
get over
yeah and i think now that we have set
this kind of
context that the real blocker is not
this sort of
the excuse stuff but it's this more
fundamental issue of
embracing the fact that it's going to
get a little uncomfortable that we're
going to have to stick with it maybe it
won't be perfect the first time you know
all of these great lessons
if we can
present ourselves
to those
blockers to those challenges if we can
say okay it's actually great that i'm
experiencing some sort of fear doubt
anxiety about a creative pursuit because
that would suggest i'm stretching myself
i'm challenging myself
and here's the good news mark for you
for me for all of our listeners we have
got a playbook in front of us in this
show where we're going to learn how we
can kind of get inside this idea how we
can embrace the idea and hear
some of the important habits and rituals
we can build in
so that we can truly pursue
what our creative talent
is calling us towards and i i i firmly
believe mike that everybody
has creative capacity
yet most people never truly explore i
mean what do you think do you believe
when you look around the people that you
know do you see creative potential in
them that they're just not tapping yes
and i think it'll
come down to uh much like elizabeth's
calling out in that first clip the
logistical reasons that people don't
want to do it i like i don't have time
with my day job or i don't know how i'm
not very good at grammar whatever it is
there's going to be things that are
going to block them but again
this idea of fear i think is actually
that main challenge that people have
and hopefully by the time that we we end
this show mike you and i as well as our
listeners are going to have a little bit
more in our repertoire to go out and
tackle that fear and try and go and
create from our from our days onwards
and you know i have to make a big call
out there's obviously some creative
energy out there in the world
i was um looking at uh the listenership
throughout the world and mark
we have such a remarkable
listenership and a big shout out to all
of you moonshotters that are tuning in
and i really want to call out at just a
couple of countries where we've seen
like a huge rise in listenership and it
is just the most eclectic collection of
folks it's so cool let me hit you with
this one mark how about bulgaria
and taiwan where we've been rocketing up
their charts there in the
entrepreneurship podcast isn't that
awesome to know that we've got people in
taiwan and bulgaria listening in yeah
isn't that cool you know a couple of
custom people listening in their
countries checking out the moonshots
work with you and i learning out loud i
mean that's a real
confidence boost you know as we think
about creating products isn't it yeah
it's great for us and and another
another cut another pair greece and
austria so we've got southern europe
we've got northern europe getting in the
mix there and how about this south korea
and i think this is my this is just
testament to the fact that everyone
wants to learn out loud together in an
effort to be the best version of
themselves don't you think oh absolutely
that's given me a lot of confidence as
you and i continue embarking on this
creativity series and beyond mike i'm
really pleased all of those listeners
who are joining us from all corners of
the globe welcome and please continue
listening as we learn out loud together
and there's another invitation that
we've got mark to not only listen to the
moonshots podcast which you're listening
to right now
but we have the opportunity for you to
join our ever-growing
members
if you go to moonshots.io click on the
membership button become a member become
a patron
of the moonshots podcast and you will
get access to
what is it mark what is the gem the gold
at the end of the rainbow if you become
a member oh drumroll please bro it is an
exclusive at least once a month paid for
episode from our moonshot master series
where we dig into and share insights
into how to improve yourself your
decisions as well as your leadership
capabilities i mean mike that's a
membership that i want to be part of
yeah and the the real power of the
master series is now that we have done
over 140 shows what we can do is pick a
theme like first principles
like teamwork
like motivation and we can handpick the
best
thoughts the best ideas from superstars
all around the world
so you don't just like in this case we
do a deep dive on elizabeth gilbert's
book big magic
but we will have a podcast
the
master class in creativity where we
collect all the best together but we
also give you lots of practical tools
templates and things that you can
download so you can do it so we sort of
invert the moonshots podcast when we do
the master series we actually tried to
make the definitive oh it's almost like
effectively like the the podcast
equivalent of the wikipedia page right
you know like we try and really capture
the essences like if you want to be
uh if you want to get to the bottom of
first principles and it's our hope
that the master series that we make
is one episode that
completely covers the topic i mean
they're pretty epic aren't they yeah
it's everything from understanding the
the dna the foundations of it
understanding how we might be able to
practice it uh day to day to fully
understand it but also mike how to make
it a habit you know that's the most
important thing with a lot of these
themes and lessons that you and i are
learning is how we can actually practice
them from today onwards
exactly so no matter what your practice
is
check out the moonshots master series
which you can get if you become a member
and where do you go mark to become a
member www.moonshots.io
click on the member button and join us
in our member
series
so
now i think it is time to unleash the
creativity and we have to kind of
get a little more comfortable with
things that are uncomfortable and that
is namely failure and success
but the weird thing is that 20 years
later during the crazy ride of eat pray
love i found myself identifying all over
again with that unpublished young diner
waitress who i used to be thinking about
her constantly and feeling like i was
her again which made no rational sense
whatsoever because our lives could not
have been more different she had failed
constantly i had succeeded beyond my
wildest expectation we had nothing in
common why did i suddenly feel like i
was her all over again and it was only
when i was trying to unthread that that
i finally began to comprehend the
strange and unlikely psychological
connection in our lives between the way
we experience great failure and the way
we experience great success
so think of it like this for most of
your life you live out your existence
here in the middle of the chain of human
experience where everything is normal
and reassuring and regular but failure
catapults you abruptly way out over here
into the blinding darkness of
disappointment
success catapults you just as abruptly
but just as far way out over here into
the equally blinding glare of fame and
recognition and praise
one of these fates is objectively seen
by the world is bad the other one is
objectively seen by the world is good
but your subconscious is completely
incapable of discerning the difference
between bad and good the only thing that
it is capable of feeling is the absolute
value of this emotional equation the
exact distance that you have been flung
from yourself and there's a real equal
danger in both cases of getting lost out
there in the hinterlands of the psyche
but in both cases it turns out that
there is also the same remedy for
self-restoration and that is that you
have got to find your way back home
again as swiftly and smoothly as you can
and if you're wondering what your home
is here's a hint your home is whatever
in this world you love more than you
love yourself
so that might be creativity it might be
family might be invention adventure
faith service might be raising corgis i
don't know your home is that thing to
which you can dedicate your energies
with such singular devotion that the
ultimate results become inconsequential
for me that home has always been writing
so after the weird disorienting success
that i went through with the pray love i
realized that all i had to do was
exactly the same thing that i used to
have to do all the time when i was an
equally disoriented failure i did get my
ass back to work and that's what i did
and that's how in 2010 i was able to
publish the dreaded follow-up to eat
pray love and you know what happened
with that book it bombed and i was fine
actually i kind of felt bulletproof
because i knew that i had broken the
spell and i had found my way back home
to writing for the sheer devotion of it
and i stayed in my home of writing after
that and i wrote another book that just
came out last year and that one was
really beautifully received which is
very nice but not my point my point is
that i'm writing another one now and
i'll write another book after that and
another and another and another and many
of them will fail and some of them might
succeed but i will always be safe from
the random hurricanes of outcome as long
as i never forget where i rightfully
live
what a beautiful way of expressing this
experience that a lot of us go on when
it comes to successes but also to
failures mike i love the
uh almost the imagery
as we think about being successful the
blinding lights
great confidence as well as the failure
side of things becoming very dark and
equally blinding it's an interesting
connection
uh how both
concepts both failure as well as success
can actually be detrimental to us and if
we get off the path
trying to navigate our way back towards
the thing that we're passionate about is
is a challenge in either regard
yeah the sort of two ideas that
elizabeth gilbert gave us there the one
that you know i think that
failure is just part of the process
right and then the second one is always
come back to that foundation
what i think is really interesting is if
you look at um
some of the great
moonshot people that we've covered like
recently einstein
he he said you know a person who never
made a mistake never tried anything new
and so there is this interesting idea
which i want to build upon a little bit
here
which helps us accept
failure
which is
the um
it's the choice that we have like
there's a choice of not doing anything
new
not challenging ourselves
or challenging ourselves and pushing
ourselves and stretching ourselves
that's a clear choice
and there's this interesting idea that
the one who falls and gets up is
actually stronger
than the one who never tried
absolutely yeah so the capacity to build
yourself up and you might remember our
serena williams episode she talked
explicitly
that the greatest strength is that
to pick yourself up when you fouled and
get going again
there are very strong uh tones of that
in our michael jordan series but there's
this really powerful thing of just
saying hang on
it's all part of the process
this idea of failing and making mistakes
so
just accept it and then find your way
home
now here's the thing though
to go to the second point that she had
for us
how do we get to this
this kind of it sounds a bit abstract
what she's saying this idea of home how
can we make this a bit more practical
mark like
when you've had a rough go how do you
kind of pull yourself back together how
do you get back home to the to to the
foundation well i i think if i'm
thinking about home being
something that gives me
um let's call it a joy de vie or you
know an enjoyment of life
then i think it just takes a moment to
step away from whatever the the the
situation that's quite stressful is and
try and re-establish a bit of balance
so that might be through something quite
practical or it might be through
something a little bit more
freeing so something that i might do if
i'm feeling a little bit uh distressed
from a failed project or a failed
situation maybe it's a bad meeting maybe
it's a bad conversation
what i might do is
step away go for a run
go for some outside fresh air and some
external stimulus and i think for me if
i'm trying to to take elizabeth's
recommendation here and understand what
i love more than perhaps i love myself
i think it is this idea of
nature the great outdoors the sky the
lawns the sea and i think that's a way
for me to establish a bit of grounding
or a bit of foundation when i myself
feel like i'm exacerbating my my fears
if i'm getting a little bit worried
about um failure and i'm getting a
little bit distressed by that that's a
way for me to kind of ground myself what
about you mike what comes to mind when
you're thinking about this idea of of
home
yeah so i i mean i think there's
like such a
great amount of tools for us all i think
um
you know i totally agree with what
you're saying like just
get out of the office get out of the
house do something different
you know there's that great thinking
that no crisis is really as bad as you
think it is you know
and so
pause
change up the environment i think that's
like just an all-time classic
but once you go okay i've changed the
environment but i now need to deal with
getting back home to who i am
getting back to my kind of creative
foundation for me you might look to
mantras you might look to affirmations
about what you know is true about
where your strengths lie
you might want to try journaling you
might want to try
any sort of exercise that helps you
reinforce
positive constructive honest thinking
about yourself
and i think in particular whenever we
are presented with a creative endeavor
that has gone wrong
ask yourself well what's really the
worst that can happen here what's the
worst i mean we just had elizabeth
gilbert who's written books that have
become
i think like her book
if i remember right it's been a 200
weeks on the new york times bestseller
list this one big magic this is we're
not talking about eat pray love um so
this is like amazing that she has this
capacity right and then she's like you
know what the follow up to eat pray love
totally bombed
totally bummed
and her frankness there much like do you
remember that jordan ad where he says
like i've missed the winning shot like
100 times yes you know all that kind of
stuff i like
just
accept
that that phase part of the process
except that you have these innate
capabilities
and
there is nobody who's perfect i mean if
einstein is the one that's saying if
you're not making mistakes then you're
not trying anything new
what we know from studying einstein was
he just spent more time on the problem
being resilient until he cracked it and
he failed all the way up until
he he got some amazing principles
some scientific breakthroughs
that were preceded by
days weeks months maybe years of failure
before he finally got the
aha right and i think that this
avoidance of accepting that you might
fail again comes back to what i think is
at the crux of elizabeth gilbert's book
big magic mike and that's about
overcoming fears
and this next clip which i think is a
great uh two-handed to what we're
discussing is actually re-establishing
your relationship with fear and
let's now hear from elizabeth gilbert
tell us that actually fear is your
companion
i was wondering if you could speak to
this idea of fear as a companion yeah i
mean the thing is i have no desire to
become a fearless person because the
only genuinely fearless human beings
i've ever met were psychopaths
or toddlers you know like and neither
one of those things is interesting for
me to model my life after because
there's something missing from that
person yes that's very essential and you
see it in the kind of like weird eyes
you're like wow you are a dangerous
human being to yourself and others
and i don't want to be anywhere near you
and so i'm not interested in
fearlessness somebody said to me the
other day tell us how you conquered fear
and i was like i it's adorable that you
think i have conquered yeah it's also
i'm afraid right this minute i'm afraid
like almost every minute of my life um
so i haven't conquered it and i'm not
interested in conquering it actually
what my relationship with fear begins
with is a tremendous amount of respect
and appreciation because fear is the
reason i am still alive today it's the
reason you're still alive today every
single one of us can point to a moment
in our lives that we survived because we
were afraid because they said the thing
the voices said get out of that ocean
the waves are too big you know this car
is going too fast don't get into the
apartment with that guy um this street
is not safe to walk down all of us are
here because our fear is constantly
protecting us that's its job and it does
its job beautifully it's just that it's
all jacked up on red bull and it's
really trigger happy and it doesn't know
the difference between a genuinely
dangerous situation and just a little
bit of a nervy situation you know so
whenever i feel fear arise which is
constantly because i'm always trying to
do creative things and creativity will
always provoke your fear because it asks
you to enter into a realm with an
uncertain outcome and fear hates that
thinks you're gonna die so anytime i
start a new creative project the fear
rises and the first thing i do is say to
it thank you so much for how much you
care about me and how much you don't
want anything bad to happen to me and i
really appreciate that your services are
probably not needed here because i'm
just writing a poem
like no one's gonna die
no one's gonna die it's okay you know
and i just talk to it but in this really
friendly way and i don't go to war
against it i acknowledge its importance
and then i invite it along i'm like you
can come with me but i'm doing this
thing yeah i loved the metaphor that you
shared it's like
fear's gonna be in the car yeah but it's
going to be in the back seat that's not
going to drive or choose the snacks or
hold the map or touch the radio like
fear doesn't get to make any decisions
in creative ventures because frankly
with all due respect to grandfather fear
it simply doesn't understand what
creativity even is because that's a
newer part of our brain so it doesn't
even know what's going on so you can't
let it have any control over your
creative choices or else it will shut
them down one idea after another it'll
just be like nope don't do that nope too
risky nope and it'll just be one now
after another and your life will be so
much smaller than you want your life to
be
well this is getting into the serious
business of getting comfortable with
fear isn't it like this is really
starting to challenge us like how might
we
kind of exist with something that
traditionally were triggered into this
fight or flight thing
it's quite provocative to to really sit
down and wrestle with this and say okay
i'm going to make it part
of
my
way of working it just is what it is
and to me mark what i want to pitch you
is a really huge insight that i actually
had
not so many years ago which is really
the
we're talking a lot about fear but one
of the great examples people give is
people fear public speaking but if
you're something we've talked a lot
about on the shows that if you're well
prepared you can switch between fear and
excitement
and actually there's a whole body of
work about
turning fear into excitement so
mark what do you think of this idea that
like fear and excitement are not that
different it's almost your attitude
and how you're embracing it
that's really the difference here and i
think that
the question becomes like
can you accept that idea and and should
we brainstorm like on how we can turn
fear into excitement because that's
that's going to unlock a lot of
creativity isn't it
the thing i love most
when you and i are learning from some of
these moonshotters
are just to positions like this
where
i'm challenged
with my presumptions
by actually seeing that two things are
much more similar than perhaps i've
realized before and fear and excitement
are definitely
two such emotions
that i remember
you know
doing drama when i was a kid and
somebody
putting this to towards me and saying
okay well if you're nervous before a
show that's good because it's you know
it's your adrenaline it's your
butterflies are good
but it took me a long time and maybe i
think i'm still learning to actually
accept that that is true mike i think
it's
enough as elizabeth is showing us today
it's enough to put you off even giving
it a go
even to stand on that stage to go and
sing that song or whatever it is to go
and do that work create that business
because you're you're worried about your
physical and i when i say physical i
mean you know nerves in your stomach uh
sweaty palms overactive imagination
that's enough to put you off going out
to try something new
and that's where fear comes in and
attacks me you know if we're doing a
project that i'm not so familiar with
that's something that will make me very
very uncomfortable and if anything
almost lead me
against giving it a go and i think that
that is as you've just put that's just
maybe a little bit of it my brain
overriding the idea of excitement by
replacing it with the concept of fear i
think this is huge
it is because what we're getting into is
rather than
fearing of failure
rather than fearing that you can't do it
what you can say how exciting is this
i'm learning something new i can embrace
this i'm doing new creative practice
whether you're writing presenting
whether you're
pursuing some sort of artistic output
i truly believe you can be creative in
all respects
dare to cook a different meal dare to
invite new people around to your house
whatever it is
so so i think
creativity is all around us and it's a
choice for us to overcome those fears so
let's let's do some
um let's do some kind of
practical uh little lists here about how
we can
you know um embrace it i think the first
thing is we can start with our
physiological
state
which is rather than like you know head
down
you know
burying your head down negatively
like you can sit up straight smile right
this is something that you have complete
control of
if that's not enough i think you can
move around if you're feeling
uh you know
fear or anxiety about a creative pursuit
move around i love to stretch you know i
stretch every single morning to awaken
my body but
there are times where i'm like i just
need to
create positive energy in my body
move around
stretch
you know this this kind of
this kind of framing of your physical
state this is great because we all know
our bodies affect our minds and when i
get to our minds
how about this one mark like actually
say
i am excited about this new creative
challenge like absolute positive
affirmation like state it because you
can become those thoughts you can become
excited i mean
these are just some rapid fire ways what
what seems to be something that stands
out to you is like a good practice to
kind of transform that fear into that
creative excitement so i love the
physical call-outs you're saying there
about moving around
the smile those are things that i
genuinely do see affecting my mindset
when i'm you know nervous about
something but actually
uh i'm going to focus on the final point
that you just caught out there which is
the anticipation you know it's very easy
to
uh what's the right word catastrophize
it's very easy to catastrophize a
situation and make it far worse than it
really is how regular do we do we do
that mike i mean i i i find i often
uh have created this bad habit in my
mind where i'll assume the worst
situation and then that affects the
other work that i'm doing which is crazy
and and you know there's this um
crazy thing that there's this body of
work
that shows
that fear
and excitement
are like inside of our bodies they're
actually the same thing
the same
the same biological yes response yeah
response yeah heart rate
think about it it makes perfect sense
doesn't it so you're actually once you
go oh great this feeling i'm not going
to translate this into a fight or flight
response i'm going to train myself to go
wow i'm excited i'm learning something
new this is how you can re-engineer
the way you want to to do that and in
fact
this is exactly what james clear who
we've done on the show would talk about
building these habits
to help train yourself this is a an
excitement response i'm excited i'm
doing something new
new challenges new boundaries new
learnings new insights fantastic rather
than holy i don't know how to do
this um
i mean
is there anything more
creative
than actually adjusting the way that
your body and your mindset reacts to a
situation mike you know that that seems
like a huge takeaway from elizabeth
gilbert's work
by
reestablishing and changing the way that
you anticipate fear and instead thinking
of it as your companion on a road trip
on the adventure of life fear is
alongside you and actually maybe it's
just excitement maybe it wears two hats
suddenly it becomes a lot more
approachable and a lot more fun to go
out and give those challenges a go yeah
and
i think there is a big body of work
based off what elizabeth gilbert is
talking about in big man
big magic she's sort of saying fear is
your companion but to build on this into
our practices and our habits
is to specifically say i am excited
about this challenge
and do not underestimate the power of a
simple mantra of saying i am excited
i embrace i accept this
as opposed to that rejection energy
right because that's when you're
rejecting it and saying oh it feels
dangerous rather than exciting you see
how there's like that like a very clear
choice and this idea of saying i'm
excited and really writing it down
saying it out loud is a way that you can
re-engineer the way your habit is going
to be when you feel this energy inside
of you
fear is just an energy just like
excitement so you can just you can be
the conductor the driver here you can
you can take the right route the
excitement route and unleash creativity
because then it's like
wow let's explore rather than oh my gosh
i'm just going to avoid mistakes because
that doesn't lead you anywhere good does
it no it doesn't and and something that
i like to try and remind myself
is if i was saying to you mike or our
listeners
oh i i don't like this
idea
no this isn't for me no i don't believe
it no i i don't want to expose myself to
this situation
then
you know
i'm probably gonna
rub off on you to a certain extent you
know it's gonna be a negative
environment and i think if you're
catastrophizing in your own mind
and you're associating this this fear
with you know negative connotations
then you're going to breed it in in
yourself as well aren't you so by
practicing these uh i quite liked where
you were going with the with the
affirmations you know this is going to
be great i can't wait for this new
challenge
by by reinforcing those you're almost
rewiring your own reaction to things and
you're creating a more positive mindset
i think it's i think is this is a huge
lesson in in fear management that
is actually giving us
and mark let's just embrace it it's not
about fear management it's excitement
creation excitement creation which
ultimately is what big magic's all about
isn't it creativity it is it is so now
we've got it we've done the hard yards
mark you and i we've done the hard yards
we've got these
foundational ideas about how we see
failure in and success
we've we've become friends with fear we
we know that it's just the start of
creating the excitement
mode right so we've got this baseline
we've got a fantastic opportunity now to
go into the act of creation of being
creative of unleashing new ideas into
the world and you know what it doesn't
have to be big and grandiose it can be
in anything that is around your life
we've got some great stuff coming up and
what i want to start with now mark is i
want to go into this idea
of
you're about to create and you might be
tempted you're in excitement but you
might be tempted to think oh this idea
has been done before but i want to put
this to you mark do you think apple when
they unleash their creativity on the
telephone do you think they sat there
and went um we better not do an iphone
because you know the telephone companies
have been doing phones for like a
hundred years now so
i guess we shouldn't try and do
something new did that stop them
it would be a pretty different world if
it did wouldn't it
so so i want you and all of our
listeners all of our moonshotters to
kind of really kind of remember
that we have such amazing capacity for
creativity for reinvention reimagination
and the starting point for this
is some thinking from elizabeth gilbert
on originality and authenticity
one of the things i love that you shared
which i feel is a big subset of fear
is this idea it's all been done before i
think it's the thing that i hear the
most both in my own brain and when i
talk to everyone out in the world about
their ideas or their businesses or their
projects
there's this recurring narrative
everything's been done before and i was
wondering if you can speak to
originality versus authenticity okay
cool i'm glad you brought this up um
so whenever i talk to somebody who has a
an idea that they're tremulously excited
about
generally speaking within the next two
minutes they will say but you know it's
not very original it's already been done
and i always say but it has not yet been
done by you
it has not yet been done by you and the
answer is
yeah guaranteed it's already been done
because humans are really inventive and
inquisitive and creative and we've had
40 000 years of the arts and pretty much
everything has been done you know um and
that's fine like even shakespeare half
of his stories he totally stole from
older stories because there aren't that
many new stories to tell but he told
them in a way that had never been told
before and then 500 years later we're
still borrowing them from him we're all
just borrowing from each other and even
the most original piece of creativity
that you ever saw in your life where
you're like that's groundbreaking i've
never seen anything like that before
guaranteed i could bring in like 10
professors and academics who could look
at it and say well obviously this is
somebody who had read this book or they
had heard this symphony or they had
they were playing off of this or they
were rejecting that they're responding
all we do as humans is respond to stuff
that's already
come before us but you're allowed to add
to the pile
you're allowed to add to the pile and
what i always say is whenever i look at
art that's really original i feel like i
can admire it but it doesn't move me
what moves me is the humanity in an
authentic piece of creation where
somebody was doing something whatever it
was because they had to because they
wanted to because it brought them to
life because it ignited their soul
that's what gives the shimmer of gold to
something and makes me feel like my
heart's been changed my mind's been
changed the world looks different than
it did before so i don't care if it's
been done i don't care if it's been done
10 000 times if you need to do it do it
oh mike what a a
welcome glass of cold water
in in the creative world i mean how many
times
in your career i i know it's certainly
true for me
have i caught myself
either talking about an idea with
somebody or trying to put the finishing
touches before sending something live
and we think ah this suddenly doesn't
feel quite as groundbreaking as perhaps
it was maybe it's not the right idea and
suddenly
you realize that it's kind of a
narrative in your own brain isn't it
your own worst enemy
oh yeah and to go you know beyond
creative uh classic creative pursuits
um just to build on like oh shakespeare
was just borrowing from like a ton of
stories that had already been written
which was very much the same point i was
making about apple think about something
even more modern did elon musk say oh no
you know like the car has been
you know
the same way for centuries like oh
batteries no they've been the same way i
won't go for that we're all i mean i
love that that thought we're all allowed
to add to this pile of creation because
in the end everything is a remix of
something that all ready
exists so this gives us so much
permission there is no such thing as a
bad idea because all the ideas have been
done before it's just how you arrange it
what's what's this the new approach that
you can bring to it
and i just simply love this it gives us
a ton of permission it's like a it's
like a big invitation get in there and
have a go because even shakespeare was
borrowing from others
i loved that idea
uh
and and you're right mike it it does
give me
permission but i think what it also
gives me is is confidence you know it
gives me that little bit of a kick
uh to think okay well maybe that idea
that i've been knocking around in my
head for five
ten years that i've never wanted to do
because frankly i'm afraid it's just
adding to the pile maybe it's time to
actually revisit that maybe it's time to
give it another go and not be so afraid
of just adding it to a pile because at
the end of the day i haven't done it and
much like you were saying earlier
in the second clip
when you go out and experience that fear
or that failure
you are growing so the actual simple act
of me putting out a short story or
whatever it might be a form of
creativity learning a new skill
is me growing as an individual because i
want to expand in my repertoire of
experiences that i've done in my life so
suddenly what i think elizabeth's
calling out here is an invitation to all
of us it's just to go out and live our
lives and not be so
crippled by the idea that we're not
doing something totally original
yeah i mean it's like
whatever your creative pursuit is it
doesn't need to be a you know academy
award-winning
nobel prize winning idea in concept what
it just needs to be is your work
do your thing bring out your creativity
and whether it's
something as simple as writing a poem
about a sunrise which is probably being
done a million times
there is everything for you to gain by
writing the one million a month version
of that story there's always
new opportunities for you to create a
new version a new flavor whatever your
pursuit is so don't get hung up on
trying to have this insanely unique idea
because if you look around there's so
much success as people
doing
things that were already in the world
but just doing them better and if apple
could hang its kind of a whole business
strategy
it's kind of that they weren't the first
to the phone or to the laptop or to the
pc
they weren't the first
but when they do show up they tend to
bring something
very different
to something that's kind of stuck down
like think about the fact that they have
an app store which is a colossal
business
on its own forget the iphone the app
store that's like 10 other companies all
in one
and this is that idea of just bringing
your authentic self to whatever your
pursuit is could you imagine picasso
sitting there saying well you know
i probably shouldn't try during you know
a bull fight
because that's been done a lot of times
before but it ended up being one of
these best artworks
again again we see this pattern it's
about what you bring to it not whether
it's been done before yeah and even to
go another layer on top of that i think
what
puts off people from
attempting to learn an instrument or
pick up a paintbrush or or write
something down like a poem as elizabeth
says
is because they are just adding to yet
another growing pile of that particular
medium so imagine if picasso not only
said about the bull but he just said uh
there's no point in being a painter
there's loads of painters yeah
yeah
or elon said no ton of cars out there we
don't need anymore yeah
you know they'd been to space so imagine
elon turning around and saying oh well
we've already done space so maybe i
should do something else
you know now it's it's this is really
good because now that we've been given
all this permission to jump in and have
a go
we get to the next big blocker the
stumbling point the gotcha
which is people sit there and they this
is what they do my they polish
and they polish they don't show anyone
and they polish some more and they
polish some more meanwhile life is just
ticking away right
and it's this idea of perfectionism i've
been guilty of trying to polish
something
like
way too much have you ever fallen in
this trap mate 100
[Laughter]
absolutely there's been plenty of times
when i will obsess over delivering
something and it could be anything it
could be a podcast it could be a
document it could be just a conversation
and you'll obsess over it so much that
suddenly
it either loses the ability to have an
impact because you took too long
or you you end up and this is perhaps
more damaging
and mike tell me if you've experienced
this you talk yourself out of even
delivering it in the first place i know
just when it's like you know you're that
close to getting it live
and then you pull back and here's the
great news elizabeth gilbert author of
big magic has some more inspiration
thoughts and very good practices for us
when we think about perfectionism and
finishing
i want to go to um the power of
finishing
because you said something uh another
genius gem from big magic about you know
i don't want it to be perfect i want it
to be finished yes
and that is another one of those things
where i'll hear from folks it's like
there's you know 15 half created bridges
half things that are just half done and
it tortures them and they're afraid to
start something new because they haven't
really
developed the habit of getting something
out there even if it's not totally
perfect man this is a huge one this is a
really huge one for women because it's
all rooted in perfectionism which is of
course the murderer of all good things
perfectionism is just it's a serial
killer that just goes around killing joy
spontaneity wonder grace
humility it just kills it all
and perfectionism i think is a
particularly dangerous kind of fear i
always call perfectionism fear and
high-heeled shoes because it's fancy
it's like a really fancy oat couture
version of fear because perfectionism
can advertise itself as a virtue and it
can trick you into letting it think that
it's that makes you special yeah because
because people
have such high standards i'm like i'm
look i just can't wrestle something i'm
a perfectionist it's what people say in
job interviews as their fault yeah you
know like well i guess i just care too
much you know you're like um and you're
like wow you're telling me but what
you're telling me when you say that is
that it's gonna be very hard for you
not only to finish something but
probably to begin something because the
true perfectionist won't even start
because they know already
that it's not going to be the thing that
they can they're dreaming of
and again mike this comes back to what
elizabeth was teaching us earlier on
fear
it's the fear to go and give it a go
because you're afraid of the final
product not being perfect and the truth
is
what is perfection it's what you make of
it in your own mind
what you think might not be perfect is
is probably perfect in other people's
minds you know you're your own worst
enemy again
yeah and and actually what what she goes
on to speak about
in much of her work is that that
perfectionism
is actually a cover story you're just
terrified out of your mind and you're
thinking of any
excuse just to keep polishing away
and not
take that step now the other thing is
just get it out there and embrace the
good feedback and you know what if
people don't like it
that's okay too if people criticize you
that's okay too you know i know
a lot of people
who have been creatively successful
uh look for actually tough feedback in
the process from people that they they
trust to give them frank feedback
but then when they publish their work
they then don't read the reviews they
don't
read all the comments on social media a
great example that comes to mind is joe
rogan says oh i've learned to stop
reading comments about my show
because it just it just kind of twists
you all up
do your best job bring your authentic
self to it get it out there enjoy good
counsel from those that you trust and
don't let the naysayers get you get you
down because really what's happening
when we're avoiding pressing the publish
button
it's just
fear it's not perfectionism it's not
like oh i can wordsmith it a bit more
it's actually the truth to what
elizabeth gilbert is saying is it's just
plain old scared and don't give in to
that feeling right
yeah this this speaks so highly to
you know moments in my career and my
life where i've
put off um delivering something or put
off certain actions because i'm just
yeah terrified of that situation not
going how i planned it yeah um and that
could spread
from delivering a pitch uh proposing to
your partner
um
buying a house or doing something
significant doing something you've
always dreamed of jumping out of a plane
you know
because the fear of the product not
being perfect no matter what that
product is it could be just an
experience
that's that's a huge
reason to not go out and expose yourself
to that experience isn't it yes yep
and a great technique that we learned
from dale carnegie is to ask yourself
you know what's the worst that can
really happen and this is a very good
way of getting that transition from fear
to excitement
and look you know let's say you wanted
to write a screenplay and publish it or
send it to some film companies or actors
or directors whatever
ask yourself seriously like what's
actually the worst thing that can happen
let's let's do a checklist uh together
let's say we co-wrote the moonshots
movie alright you're with me yeah yeah
i'm definitely keen on making the
moonshots movie we have to work out
whether it's going to be like sci-fi or
you know i don't know could it be a
rom-com i don't know okay but it's the
moonshots movie
now if we
spent a year writing this and then we
sent that to a bunch of people and
nobody
nobody
responded that's kind of like the worst
thing that could happen right yeah a
lack of any acknowledgement it would be
no acknowledgement yeah like like we
sent it out we we even had people just
send it back unopened right that's how
bad it was okay you're with me yeah yeah
i mean okay
are you still alive in that situation
are you still able to breathe i i am you
know yes
do you still live in your house
i do
are you able to enjoy the company of
your partner and your friends and do you
eat good food still yeah and none of
that's changed
huh not so bad right
it's so funny isn't it when you break it
down so practically
when you actually go through the
exercise
of just getting it out there and that
the reward was in the craft and the
process and you accept what the world's
going to give you back and even if you
dare to say okay what is the very worst
that could happen here
okay
you're still alive you're still
breathing so you didn't die so that can
hopefully kind of get that that that
fear responds down and help you go okay
well i wonder what happens if we write
the sequel then
maybe we have to write the prequel mark
i don't know maybe you could set the
scene for for the previous one but the
point here is
it ain't that bad
it's really not that bad and almost
uh i have been really guilty of this is
like
you know thinking at some sort of life
or death moment but it's just getting it
out there right getting it out there and
either receiving feedback from your
trusted um
allies and your friends
or or not even sending it out maybe you
know to the big wide public just getting
it done
because then the deed and the adventure
that you've gone on is is so valuable to
yourself because you've exposed
new
lessons to learn new practices to pick
up
and just adding to the part that's okay
it's okay to add stuff to the pod
because at the end of the day it's the
first time you've done it it's the first
moonshots podcast movie that's come out
into the into the ether
yeah i think that the
um
this moment of just get it out there and
like so many things these days once you
publish it you can still fix it if you
realize there's something that you want
to improve or you can do a follow-up
and you know what what's so beautiful is
that elizabeth gilbert says hey
i wrote this hollywood hit
and the follow-up sucked yeah and she's
like that's just what it is and it was
almost like the pressure was off right
she's like okay back to the drawing
board away we go again it's all right
nobody's perfect and what we're learning
throughout moonshots is it's all about
embracing hardship
being resilient and then
we saw it with einstein we're seeing
seeing it here today with elizabeth
gilbert author of big magic that it is
stay the course be authentic in your
creative output
and
it will feel good and that's gift enough
and if it succeeds
cherry on the top of the cake right
cherry on the top of the cake and mike
if there's one consistent theme and
thread that i've seen from elizabeth
gilbert in big magic it's this idea of
just giving it a go and not being too
obsessed or disappointed in the ultimate
response or result and this final clip
from elizabeth gilbert and her book big
magic is actually all about not taking
yourself too seriously see the martyrdom
is all about this kind of sanctity that
is so heavy that it will break you and
the trickster them is like
what if we don't have to treat this
thing like it's a holy sacred relic what
if i
turn what if i like put sparkles on it
what if i you know if i cut out my
pajamas
or if i just get my glue gun and
and just
you know like what if nothing's holy and
everything's allowed um that's what art
has been asking for centuries even holy
even sacred art has been asking you know
even the sistine chapel has a bunch of
little like winks from michelangelo like
what if the pope's not infallible what
if i like give him donkey ears what if i
you know like there's always like this
sort of playfulness that art wants to do
and all we want to do is take it so
seriously that we kill it and often
ourselves in the process and so if you
can learn how to dance with the
trickster part of yourself which is in
you because we all have martyr in us and
we all have trickster in us and um and
trust that's the thing about the
trickster the trickster trusts the
universe trusts that if the trickster
takes a ball throws it into the universe
the trickster knows it's coming back it
might come back
three years from now it might come back
in a hail storm of like 20 balls it
might come back like in some really
comic strange way but if you engage
there'll be a response and the only
thing the trickster wants to spend its
life doing is playing with that sense of
like put it out there see what happens
put it out there see what happens and
it's just a more fun way to live that
isn't quite so heavy and isn't quite so
macho
and um and that's the way that i've
always wanted to engage with my work and
whenever i catch myself being the martyr
i'm like are you falling for this yeah
are you falling for this thing that says
the only way that you can be creative is
to suffer because you know better right
and then we trick our way out of it yeah
you don't have to suffer i think that's
a that's a great message but i would
even go further and say
what this reminded me of in this message
from elizabeth gilbert is like don't be
like this martyr don't be so heavy about
it all
um is you know how like great athletes
the greatest athletes often looks really
relaxed on the playing field because
they're not taking it all too seriously
they're actually enjoying the moment
because
they move from fear to excitement
because
they're being very authentic they're
doing
they're well prepared
they can just enjoy the moment and have
a bit of a laugh and not be so wound up
i think like if if you're full of fear
and
and and doubt then when you're in the
act of trying to do something creative
you're also rigid right but if you look
at great athletes it's such a great
analogy because they're well prepared
they're in an excitement mode not in a
fear mode
they can have a laugh they're not all so
tight and highly wound i think this is a
great invitation to us
just breathe let the tension go from the
shoulders and just
have some fun with your thing i mean
it's what you love it's what brings you
joy fulfillment and satisfaction so
just embrace it right just embrace it
just gonna have fun whether your
creative moment is you know
at work or in exercise or with your
family
personal life whatever it might be
that's what elizabeth is inviting us to
to remember mike isn't it go out and
just enjoy life because at the end of
the day who wants to be ruled by
this this fear where this fear putting
us off going out to create a new idea a
new product instead let's just go and
have a bit of a laugh let's go and have
fun let's go and learn out loud in the
process
and and just see what happens
absolutely so for you mark
we've covered a lot of ground from
like bringing this unusual bed partner
for creativity fear into the process
we've learned what it takes to get it
out
all to do with a wink and a nod a little
bit of the creative trickster which idea
was the one that had you
well i think what
is going to perhaps stay with me
as a new idea
is originality so it's okay to add to
the pile i think that's a pretty new
insight to me a new data point that i
can that i can factor in
and give myself permission to go and
create no matter if it's something that
picasso or shakespeare's done before not
that i'm grouping myself in with those
two individuals of course
but actually
the the lesson that or the message that
stood out to me today was the reminder
of fear and excitement being uh bed pals
this companionship between the two of
them and how i can sometimes get them
mixed up that's a great reminder
great yeah
i i would build on that and say for me
it was like it was just this like i am
excited you can literally
smile
loosen up the shoulders and say i'm
really excited about this and you can
even hear it as i say it in my voice you
can do you hear how the tone is
different yeah you can hear
almost like a uh
when you smile as you're talking it
makes a difference sounds doesn't it it
does it really really does
what a great great lesson we've had
today in creativity and what elizabeth
gilbert would call big magic right yeah
a lot of practical pragmatic advice as
well as things that just come down into
our mindsets mike things that we can
start to remember from today onwards
exactly well mark thank you to you and
thank you to you our listeners the
moonshotters who've joined us on this
adventure to learn out loud together and
it's been so good because we definitely
gave it a nudge today we are really on
the way to realizing our full potential
we are
definitely in the world of creativity so
with show 143 we heard from elizabeth
gilbert author of big magic and her
story started with fear should not be
stopping you from creating in fact you
need to give yourself permission to
create
and importantly to fail along the way
and
don't get all stopped don't get all
bunged up because fear is actually your
companion fear is your new excitement
and ideas don't need to be limited to
what's been done before you can go
beyond doing the deed
is the actual reward
the gratitude is in the journey
the destination is just the cherry on
top so there you have it you can explore
your world of creativity if you don't
take yourself too seriously and become
friends with fear embrace the excitement
and you'll be on your way to growing
you'll be on your way to becoming the
best version of yourself and that's what
we're all about here at the moonshots
podcast that's a wrap