484 - Creativity vs Discipline: Finding Balance Between these Oppositional Forces with Andy J. Pizza

34:44I need to remember that all the time. It's so hard to, I mean, I'm just in the death throes of writing a book at the moment. Well, thank you for doing this. Maybe this is an escape. Yes, an escape. Thank you. Thank you for distracting me. But I, I need to, I need that reminder all the time. Like stop trying to be smart. Stop getting up in your head. Just write the thing, write the, I used to say this to my students and I can't believe that I've not absorbed it yet. Like say the thing that you want to say really directly, you know, ignore all this stuff about show, don't tell, because I think, I actually think that's become a problem.

35:18I think everyone's trying to show so much that they'll talk about anything except the thing. And it's like, start by writing down the thing. Don't sugarcoat it. Don't use words you wouldn't use if you were saying them out loud. Don't try to conceal it so that you can reveal it later. Like say the thing. That's the craft. That's the craft. Most of the time, things that are great, you don't realize that they do. You don't even realize that they're doing it. And also it, and if you want to conceal it because you just can't help yourself, then you can do that after you've, after you know what it is.

35:55That's right. Then you really can, then you can really do something good. Yeah. Because you actually know. You need to look it in the eye. Yeah. That's, that's really great.

36:05So back to the podcast. I want to know about how your audience built, because how many people listen to podcast number one? how many people listen now and what happened in between i need some coaching here actually yeah i'm a bit stalled yeah so i uh there's a couple different things so i think that um and i'm really because i do this show about building a creative practice yeah and i think this is also just something made i don't know i think it's part of my there's something about my upbringing which was not a creative culture, but it was a very analytical culture. And we always wanted to know why something was good.

36:49We always want to talk about that. We, if we watched, we, I remember in 1999, walking out of the matrix, me and my dad and my brother, and we're like, why, what is that? What's happened? Yes. What happened in there? You know, geeking about, about, about this. Um, and so I think that I've, Oh, I, I'm almost, um, even though I know there's a part of the best creative work, usually there's a part of it that you can explain. There's a part of it that's kind of random, like, or it's like by chance that this one's better than the one you did the day before. There's an element of that for sure. But, um, but I really love, I, when I do something I really like, I really want to know how I did it.

37:32I want to try to know. The whole time I'm building the podcast, I'm thinking about what's working, what's not working so that I can talk about it on the show. And so I can do it on purpose. I think that one of the things was early on, it's much more about endorsements. So it was much more about like people, you know, Seth Godin talks about like people like us do things like this. So designers and illustrators, when there were a couple people that were like leaders in the, in that world said, Hey, I like this. Then that group of people were like, Oh, people like us do things like this. Like, okay, that's fine.

38:12Okay. I can do, I can listen to that. So that was a big, that was, you know, the first thing I think that the other thing was like for the longest time, it was just a monologue podcast. The thing about that, um, that works is it's really difficult. There's a ton of stuff that doesn't work about it. Um, but one of the things that works is that it's easy to be consistent in terms of what people get from the show. Whereas when you have guests, you it's way more unpredictable and there are ways to kind of plan around that, but it is just a factor. When you have a mostly interview show, people are going to interact with it much more on an a la carte basis.

38:54Right. And so even the interviews, I tried to bake in some, eventually I tried to bake in some of the things that I thought made the monologue episodes good. So that was interesting. You know, so that when people turned it on, I can't remember who said this, but you know, when people go to go consume a piece of art or they want to go reach for something, they're usually reaching for what they get from it. Right. You know, on a psychological level. And so I was thinking a lot about like, what am I trying to deliver on this show? What feeling, what, what do they, what, what do they get from this?

39:32So that when they're hungry for that, they know to go to that. Like, oh yeah, I get that every time from creative pep talks. What is this for? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so they, and they know, so when that hunger comes up, they're like, Oh, I want that. That's the thing I want. And then I think ultimately, um, then a big, a big thing that I, I used to focus a lot on, um, is the best way to say it. I would talk to someone at Wondery at some point and she, she was a CA, I think she was CEO of Wondery, but she, she just said audio feeds audio. And it was just this idea that you want people to listen to your show, you have to be on other shows, like getting them from Instagram or TikTok or whatever.

40:14It's just too many leaps. And there, and I think such a big insight that that's taken me a long time to get to. It's too many leaps because part of the reason is because that hunger thing is that when they go to Instagram, they're looking for something that podcasts don't give them. So, you know, it's a it's just really tricky whereas if you give them something that they're really hungry for on a different show that they already listened to and like oh i like i want that then they'll they're likely to go to you that was probably the biggest thing it's the best advice it's taken me a long time to realize that not necessarily in terms of podcasting but i was like trying to you know use my instagram to get people onto my sub stack or to buy a book right they don't want to do that they're on instagram because they want instagrammy content for them to consume on instagram yeah like and actually when you think about it it's so inhospitable to be trying to move people along all the time yeah yes it's not friendly it's just advertising all the time it is and i always thought about it like um you know i grew up in the midwest and when you would go to the mall in the food court they would be giving away free samples and i was always like there's a reason why they're giving free samples in the food court and not in jc penny because if you're if they're on JCPenney and they're, here's a piece of chicken.

41:31You're like, who are you? What? No. Why are you giving me chicken? I don't want that. I'm not in the food court. When I'm hungry, I'm going to go to the food court. And so I think a lot about that. And same reason why I don't, this is just a random theory that I do. I have no business saying this. I can just say it. I don't have any business saying it, but I will say just for the hell of it, I will say that I think that it's one of the things like I have friends that are musicians and I'm always like, if I were you, I would just use Spotify as your social media. Don't think about it as your discography.

42:10It's already going to be a mess. It's already a mess. But when people go to Spotify, they are looking for music. So you know, and so you don't have to be a comedian on TikTok. And if you are, the chances that they're going to leap from that to wanting to hear your music are so like, it's just impossible. It's so funny, isn't it? And I, yeah, we're all in all these different places. And I think we can find it so hard to respect the place, you know, when you're making a podcast, you are making it for podcast lovers. Yes. And you're not, you're not there to convert people to being a podcast lover.

42:48Right. You're there to find existing podcast lovers who, and also who like the specific stuff you're talking about. Like, I'm never going to convince, you know, people that listen to a gardening podcast to listen to my conversation with someone that's written a book. Like that's not, they might also like that, but they won't come because they're gardening. you know yeah absolutely it's so simple and it's always the simple insights that end up getting you the place that you need to go every yeah and I think you know I do think I I feel like anytime I open this door in my head it gets a little bit like my brain is like malfunctioning because it's like I don't your brain doesn't want to think like this so I do it carefully, but I do think, I do think all of these things have a relationship, can have a relationship.

43:38I just think that they're, uh, I think understanding what the relationship is, is helpful. Just realize like Instagram is where, and it always changes where these things happen, but Instagram is where they're getting, they're like discovering you and trying to figure out whether they like you at all. Yeah. And then once they're, you know, once I, there are people that I've discovered on Instagram and I knew him on Instagram for two years. And then eventually I was like, I really like this person. I want to go listen to their podcast. And then it's, you know, it's just a really slow process. And a podcast is a great place to go deep with somebody.

44:18Yeah. And that's, that's also helped me with podcasting too, is one of the reasons, and one of the reasons I think I've stayed in it long-term is it doesn't have organic reach. It doesn't go viral. It is literally for people that want to go deeper with you yeah that's where they do it and so it's a really long game thing you know I do think people I don't know if you do this on your podcast because I've listened to some of your interviews and they're great uh but do you do any solo episodes no I don't and in fact I this could turn into coaching I think you should do solo episodes you're about the fifth person this week that's told me that so I'm beginning to hear it um I my podcast has been on hiatus because I began to just not enjoy it um and I but I love podcasting and I love podcasts so I know I want to be making a podcast yeah but I needed to do my long slow thought process that I go into I get that um I needed a couple of years just think right like yeah I still I still definitely want to do this and I've been I've been thinking more about how I can produce a format that's a bit more consistent and a bit more fun but what I'm hearing very strongly is people like to hear me talking to them um which is I don't know about you but my assumption is always like the other people are the interesting ones and I'm like the neutral conduit in which this is happening yes um but of course people you have to at some point along the line in this career except that people are there because they like your work yeah and i did you find that hard to believe i've found that really hard it like i said in my 20s not as much and i'm being honest not as much i don't know why it was i i don't not really sure what that is but as i went along i probably hit i hit a wall about halfway through i was like i don't want to hear myself talk anymore i i hate that why why would i do this and that what you know so i definitely i hate it later um i'm not like we'd have to go full therapy to figure out why that was but we have no time for that but that's okay that's okay but yeah you can do that over the next 10 years and just gradually unravel the storytelling yeah yeah so i don't know but eventually yeah i did get that way but i think um what was really hard about podcasting for a long time is that it didn't exist before so it doesn't have so you know when you have a tv show when you watch a TV show that should have been a movie, you just know, you're just like, yeah, this is, this is the wrong format for this.

46:53And so I think we did, I had a really hard time figuring out like, what is it, especially the solo thing, because especially at the time, very few people were doing it. So I didn't know, like I often, I was trying to figure out how do you do this? And one of the big shifts that helped was realizing like, okay, there are books and audio books. This is like an audio blog. That's all it is. It's an audio blog. And that really, that really changed the way that I thought about it um because it was the right level of casual because if they want it if they want something pristine they will go to a book an audiobook yeah um yeah that was really useful for me to think of that's really interesting so what's your approach to those episodes do you do you bullet point what you're going to talk about or do you just sit down and flow I so I went through I'm I think I'm always like tweaking it uh but early on, really early on, it was just like, I have an idea.

47:49I'm going to go talk about it. And then it pretty quickly turned into like outlines and bullet points. Then the more I got obsessed with like the craft of storytelling, the more written things became, but I never, I never just read it, but there were times where it was fully written, if that makes sense. So it's fully written. It's there. I think that I feel more comfortable with if I, um, if, if I wrote this and I meant it when I wrote it, uh, I am comfortable trying to get back into that headspace so that I'm able to perform it. So it's not inauthentic because it is something I mean, but I am, you know, I heard an actor say, I think it was, uh, not on a podcast or something.

48:42I heard, uh, Suri and McKellen say something like, they're not pretending to feel emotions. They're feeling motions on command. And that's, so I, I think that's what I try to do now is like, okay, I, I planned it. I wrote it, but I want it to feel like I am saying it now. So I have to get there. I have to leave some room and maybe I'm just making it too complicated. That's a lot of stuff to think about making an audio blog, but that is how I think about it. No, that does make sense. But I think what you're also talking about really is freshness. You don't ever want it to be a monologue that you're reading out.

49:18You want that spontaneity to come in and that authenticity and it is then a creative process when you're speaking. It's not just you. Because my guess is that you'd be very bored by repetition. yes very very bored and it also speaks to the fact that that is what people want from a podcast so again the form with a book if you're reading a book and you're thinking wow this is really fresh off the presses but not really well thought out you're like that's not a book this is you know whereas on a podcast if you're like okay this is tight but it's too tight this doesn't this isn't a podcast um yeah i always love to see people in process yeah

50:22let's talk about neurodivergence sure because actually because that's you know you and i uh I'm autistic. Yeah. When did you know you had ADHD? You said you knew before you started the podcast. Yeah. So when I first started talking to my doctor about it was like my mid-20s. So you went to your doctor, did you? Yeah, I went to my doctor. And then eventually I went to a psychologist and did a more kind of rigorous testing and found out a lot more about the particulars of my flavor of it. Yeah, spiritual flavor. Yeah. and what's going on there. Turns out I've got all of it. I've got all types of ADHD and I've got double the memory deficit required for being.

51:06So yeah, I got the whole kit and caboodle. And yeah, so I, but I, what's really funny is when I've talked about it on stage or in the show, I had a joke about, so when I was in kindergarten, I had a friend who I thought, I thought he was awesome. I was like, this is the only guy that's up to speed. Like I like this guy. And then he had to go get medicine at the office one time. And I was like, wait, man, like what's up? And he's like, no, I'm just hyper. And I was like, I thought that was just like being awesome. Like you have to medicate this. Um, and so that was one thing. And then, uh, but the, the joke was, and then in high school, I, uh, was recreationally doing Adderall just one time with, uh, um, my friend Brian, but we had a pill and we both went away and did it.

52:01And the joke is that we both did wild things at night. Like he stayed up to the crack of dawn, like was trembling watching the sunrise. And I did something way crazier than that, which was my homework in an efficient manner. I was like, whoa, what is going on? And I thought, oh, but I can't talk to my parents about it. Cause I'm like, so I was doing some recreational drugs. Um, turns out, uh, I'd like more of it, you know? So I didn't know what, and my, and also I just grew up in Midwest and especially at a time where it wasn't well understood at all. And, um, and I didn't know what to think of it.

52:38Um, but the funny thing about that joke is that that's a joke I wrote for talks and stuff. Then later I've heard two other neurodivergent people, two ADHD comics with almost the exact same joke because that's just the experience this is an experience of what that feels like when you have and i actually i don't take medication for it but uh now but um that was one of the first and i always knew i'm like i'm uh not like everybody else um i was definitely aware of that um but it wasn't but I also like repressed thinking about it until I couldn't anymore well it's a painful thought when you're younger isn't it I think that that feeling of being outside of the norm that I mean I you know you've talked quite a lot about masking and that experience of trying to be the thing that you're supposed to be but then that quickly becomes a multiplicity of things because it turns out that lots of people are lots of different things and so you end up being able to fake all of that you know you can be the party guy and you can be the studious you know all of those things become just different masks but the the fear behind that is like what would I be if I wasn't acting what would I be yeah very very true and also and to me I had another component of, and my listeners are familiar with this story of knowing that whatever I was like, was like my mom.

54:16And that when I was really little, that was a great thing. But then as I got older, it just felt like a curse because I'd watched her life be riddled with addiction and abusive relationships and multiple families and all this stuff. And so I also didn't want to look at it because I thought, I don't think, I didn't think it was subconscious i just thought i i'm trying to not be this here's what i'm trying to not be i don't want a doctor to be like there actually is no not being this this is just yeah yeah this is what you are in your dna yeah yeah um so yeah i think that that's what was going on there well and of course one thing we know is that neurodivergent people are great self-medicators and it's so interesting that we've we've had that wrong for ages like we've thought that particularly autistic people are like the boring ones they're staying at home they're definitely not out doing drugs but actually as we've looked into it yeah you know like I was a huge drinker as a teenager like massive self-medicator because it was the only way I could get myself into those spaces like I had to I had to be numb but there's also that that attempt to stabilize your weird emotions that feel so out of whack with what everyone else is doing and I you know when I think through my autistic and ADHD friends you know I'm thinking about one of them has a valium addiction loads of alcoholics like kind of quite uh quite fascinating recreational drug users like the kind of friends that were like oh so I took some acid and then I took a tranquilizer and then I smoked a joint and then I did this and they're like sort of calibrating their feelings across the night um that now I see as a hallmark of being neurodivergent rather than a deviation from that geeky image that we're supposed to have I've heard I you know from just anecdotally friends that I have that are autistic almost all of them have an experience have a relationship to alcohol in particular that was because it's so available yeah so available and did something yeah the regulating and the social component and all that i wonder you know as you say it now like it just makes me think it feels like um just trying to do something to you to get more towards the middle of what it of like what you're supposed to be feeling what you're supposed to be experiencing well you're just trying to feel okay yeah at the same time being a drinker at a certain age makes you cool and so actually you're trying to get towards two centers at once and very true yeah then you're quite difficult to deal with because you're drunk like it doesn't actually work out but like that it takes you a while to to learn that i think it does it definitely does i think it's a yeah it's i feel like um it's sad too it's not i'm not like you know it is sad i mean i'm laughing about it but it's gallows gallows humor because actually i think yeah as i say as i think through the people in my life who are like me they've often had huge struggles with this and and they're and like in a way that them turning to it was rational you know yeah it's the best decision they could make at the time yes but also not healthy in the long term and okay 100 and that is a huge that was a uh a big part of my process why you know why i talk so much about adhd and i from what i gather from how you've talked about it or how you think about autism part of neurodivergence which i didn't understand at first is and but i this is why i gravitate towards it as a term is it the me getting diagnosed with a disorder funnily enough is what became the birth of a positive self-psychology and that embrace of your neurodivergence that was the thing that's what's hard because i don't currently medicate for adhd but i've been so vocal about getting diagnosed.

58:28Sometimes I feel misunderstood because some people take that as I'm telling people to go get medicine, which what, you know, everybody has to do, they have to do their own journey and figure out their own thing. But my point of it was not that. My point was finding this changed my self-image dramatically from a negative self-image to a positive self-image and a positive self-psychology because of things like that. Because I realized my mom, who I, we don't have an official diagnosis, but you do get it from one of your parents. And my dad is like, you know, a CPA in corporate America. And so she, you know, her whole entire life was shamed for never being able to stop smoking.

59:23and the psychologist that diagnosed me told me, you know, cause I told him that I'd smoked for five years and was obsessed. And I always said, if I had a genie first wish world peace, second wish cigarettes are good for you. I'm like, please let me have it back. But, um, he told me like nicotine is chemically almost identical to what we prescribe. So that stuff like that, as I got my diagnosis made me realize like my mom isn't bad she's trying to cope she's trying to figure this out um yeah and it yeah totally changed in that shift changed everything about how I thought about life and myself and self-development and creativity and all that and and how how creativity is knitted into it I mean I always say that I spent my help because I wasn't diagnosed as I was 40 or I didn't identify till I was 40 because actually to me the diagnosis was like the least helpful bit it was the the self-identification yeah I had at the time like I had to tell my doctor what it was and why I fitted it and why as a woman I might look different to what he had so like actually like for me I always say identified that's a side point but yeah that's totally true yeah yeah yeah but I you know until that point I saw myself as a broken neurotypical and suddenly I could see myself as a very normal autistic person yeah and and also therefore meet my needs like like see them as reasonable and that's the shift it's not it's not huge like I think I'm beginning to see stuff come through very strongly that people feel very threatened by people with ADHD and autism saying um I need this you know sorry that's the dog barking it's real life um good it's a podcast it's a podcast that's right I love it I my my you know my debut on on being my cat had to be let out of the room because she was meowing and they left it in the podcast that's exactly what it should be it's really good but yeah so I I found that I could just it's not it's not it shouldn't feel threatening to people it shouldn't feel like it's going to be a big demand because actually the adjustments that most people want to make are so small they're just saying oh wait can I just choose where I eat my lunch please because I I can reset them you know can I take a walk rather than do this sitting down like they're they're so tiny it's not saying I need you to change everything I need to be treated like a queen.

1:02:04It's like, actually, can I just do my own thing for a while? Because I'll be a much better employee or friend or partner if I do. That's it. So simple. Man, that's, I love that. I love what you said. I love the word reasonable. That's, it's so true. And it's, I've thought about a lot, like I've tried to, you know, when talking to my dad, like I said, at the beginning, giving him the analogy to make it make sense of why this was so painful to me uh you know i've tried one of the things really frustrating to me is at different times

1:02:50uh, when I would describe like, well, like you're, you're, you know, that you're, it's a limited mindset. I'm like, I'll tell you what happens. I've done it. I've done it. I'll tell you what happens. I gained tons of weight. I get tons of bad habits. I do because I have to do the reasonable thing, which is turn this fire hydrant off in my body. That's flipping out. Um, and so that just needs to move. It's just movement. It's not bad. It's neutral. It's neutral to need to move. Like I do more. I know. I mean, unfortunately I didn't know this was going to be true, but having working for myself for the past, however long, 10, 15 years is so much more work than any other job I could have.

1:03:40Oh my God. That's the bad news. The bad news, so much more work. the good news is I can do it however I want. I literally half the stuff I write is in the bath. The other half is on a walk. Like I do, like I just do work in such a weird way, but that's, that's how I have to do it. Because I don't, I think one of the things about neurodivergent brains is we can't let go of the stuff that interests us. So I, I can't, I can't switch off my working brain and I don't want to, like, I don't know how to, I never could. What I don't want to do, because like you, I've never been able to hold down a proper job.

1:04:15yeah um is is be told what to do and when and how like i i that's that's not okay for me yeah so god i'm running over your time so much i'm so sorry we we go over all the time i've got two big questions that i want to ask before i let you free the first one is like when did you when did you start to bring this in to your work um and why like what what point did you think because that you know you did i was listening to your um right side out series and thinking about how intentional that was about really leaning into that and saying, we're going to talk about this and we're going to talk about how to do it.

1:04:51Yeah. At what point, at what point did you think, right, this actually needs to come in and, um, yeah. And why? It was early. I know it was early in the show where I started to, I think I, uh, uh i think early on i felt like i remember having to make a decision about whether i'm going to talk about being adhd yeah and you know this being nine years ago or something 10 years ago i think that i knew that it i think it was such a huge deal for me that i did you feel shame to admit it Yeah, I think I felt mostly afraid that it was going to have a negative impact on my career, that I was going to just, that people, I knew, one of the reasons I want to talk about it, actually, honestly, it's funny because at the time, and looking back, this is not true, but at the time, we had had some representation of autism in the culture.

1:05:58Now, looking back at that representation 10 or 15 years from now looks so ridiculous and a lot of it's really bad, right? But at the time, I didn't know that. I didn't know enough about any of this stuff. But I felt like, okay, I'm watching people in the Midwest take this seriously with their kids, even if they're doing it really wrong. It's something they're thinking about and there's a conversation about. People are making some concessions for those people. And then ADHD, I knew this is a – I'd watched my mom's life just be horrifying. I'd had so many friends that, uh, whose lives like, you know, a lot of my creative friends who either were neurodivergent in some way, you know, some of those people didn't make it.

1:06:49Others, uh, you know, we're just struggling the worst lives just, um, and so I really felt the decision to start talking about it on the show was purely about, I was, I was hoping that we would have what we have right now, which is a huge conversation around it because I thought, uh, and I didn't, I don't, I was no part of that happening. I just, uh, that's why I was doing it as I was like, I want people to know this is not funny. I, it is funny. It's funny, but it's funny, but it's not funny. Yeah. It's funny and not funny. It is a, it is, um, We can be part of the joke and it's hilarious, but we shouldn't be the butt of a joke because it's unkind.

1:07:41But also most of those jokes are based on complete nonsense anyway. True. And yeah. And misunderstanding it completely. I personally am just the type of person who, even the funny, if I'm funny in real life with my kids or family, I like, I'm, I'm happy to make fun of myself. I don't mind that. What I don't like is if someone really thinks you're a piece of shit and you're the butt of the joke, that's a whole other thing. So for me, it was like, I don't care if ADHD is a joke there's so much funny things about it as long as you also know that it's really really serious and really makes it difficult to every day every day's difficult that's just that is that goes hand in hand with it um and and I would add to that as long as you acknowledge that being a neurotypical is also quite funny objectively it's like a lot of the things that neurotypical people do.

1:08:38Yeah. Oh, 100%. I mean, I think that wait, you're going to all gather together in the noisiest space possible. So you can't hear each other and all wear the same clothes. Like what? Sorry. That's objectively funny to me. I actually think such a huge percentage of standup comedy is literally just pointing out neurotypical culture, just being like, look at this what is happening here but yeah i think so i i think i just i wanted to start making work about it because i felt like i hoped that people would start to understand the severity of it and that also then it would lead to maybe i also even before i had ever heard the term neurodivergence i had one of my biggest core values that i knew was true and this group this a little bit came from growing up in, you know, the Bible belt, whatever.

1:09:35There were phrases like that were kind of weaponized against people that were different. So there were like a scripture that talked about like every man's temptation is the same. And that would be extrapolated into an idea that we're all the same. So, and it's a meritocracy thing. It's a, every person's basically the same. And so the results are due to your character. That's it. And so I had this huge value of, I know we're not the same. And I know it's one of the best things about being a human is that we're not the same. Yeah. I think that that was why I just, I also didn't think anyone was going to listen.

1:10:21So I didn't, you know, I thought, yeah, sure. Maybe some clients will be like, should we hire him? I mean, like, yeah, it's a liability. But has that reaction changed over time? Like, have you, did you get any iffy responses at first? I mean, I know I sure did. And is that getting, I feel like it is getting better, but there are some people that have got more angry about it. Very true. Very true. And I think my favorite thing about, because as I started saying about, the conversation is happening way more now. It is what part of like what I was hoping would happen for ADHD. And then now that I have a little bit better understanding of autism, I'm happy, really happy that people are understanding that in a totally different way and and have a more nuance and understanding around it.

1:11:11OK, you asked what is the did this happen like bad, like bad reactions to it? yeah um what i was gonna say oh what i was gonna say my favorite thing is because i think now that it's so such a hot topic you get this the thing of oh everybody's adhd now everybody's autistic now everyone's a little bit autistic yes like that thing um it's a terrible terrible thing And one of my favorite things is, have you seen that graph on when being left-handed was normalized? Oh, no, I've not seen it, but yeah. It's really fascinating because what happens is we're in this period of the graph where coming out as these things is happening rapidly.

1:12:02And what it looks like when you're experiencing it is this on this line graph is a huge shot. we're like why is everyone left-handed everybody's that and then when you watch the left-handed thing it has a massive plateau once it's normal to be whichever one then it will it will course correct it'll be or won't course correct it'll just be um yeah it won't be as um shocking and and so skyrocketing i and i i mean i read in like quite a respectable book by someone with a phd recently the sentence how come so many people are becoming autistic now surely it would have been noticed when they were children and I it's like are you kidding me like here is the many ways that my autism was noticed when I was a child but they didn't have the word for it so obviously they had the word for it but I'd have had to have been an eight-year-old white boy and that would have a middle class preferably because otherwise I'd have just just been naughty so like exclusively those people were diagnosed and they didn't think that girls could be autistic at the time so everything was seen and everything was felt and it was only when the tool was available that you and I could say this is what I am this is what it is and here are all these other people that are like me and no not everyone is like me sure as otherwise it wouldn't have been so damn heart.

1:13:25Yeah. And I, yeah, it's, it's very bizarre because in retrospect, it's like, it's even sadder to me because I think all of these people, there's two parts that are really sad to me. One is all of these people, when you were in high school, you were looking around and being like, these people are weird. Like, why are they weird? So, you know, they're weird, not to use a bad term for it, but you know it, you knew it then. So why is it surprising you? like oh it turns out what everyone's weird like yeah there's a lot of weird people yeah um yeah and then uh yeah I don't remember I was gonna say something else but that that's just me um but I think uh that yeah that's a huge part of it is like you were very aware that um there was a lot of difference but maybe before you had a term for it or an understanding of it you could say it's your problem and it's you know um oh the other sad thing pull yourself together yeah yeah it's like oh they're weird because they chose to be or whatever it is and it's easier to kind of um put them down but the other the other thing I found really sad was that when I started to build an illustration practice uh and at first I was kind of part of like some trendy stuff and the economy was good and I was getting some jobs early on and then it crashed with in 2008.

1:14:46Um, and, uh, and I got hit a brick wall and, and I say that in my lowest times in my darkest hour, when I hit rock bottom, rock bottom for me was I started to read business books. That was like, I turned to the darkest arts. Um, I got bad. I'm so sorry. bad. So sorry, Matt. And so I started diving into that world. And at first I thought, okay, gosh, I have to read this shit and I don't want to do it. But the thing that ended up being really promising and really sad was all of the most unicorn business people, a lot of them are neurodivergent people. And I was like, these aren't rare people. That's the thing.

1:15:35If you knew how to find these people and train them, a lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them, this wouldn't be so unusual. You could have whole parts of every company that is utilizing these very different types of brains. And so, yeah, that's the other sad element of it. It's getting better. I'm an optimist. Me too. We're a part of this. We're doing our best. Final question. Yeah. And that is for someone listening now thinking, you know, like maybe they're a writer, maybe they're an illustrator, maybe they're a dancer thinking, should I start a podcast? Does it do anything for your career or is the answer instead?

1:16:20Start a podcast if you want a podcast. Don't worry about the rest of it. I would. That's a good question to end on. I would say that, I mean, having a podcast can be incredibly valuable to your creative practice and your career, I think. To me, the first thing I would say is, just like what you said, I'm a really big believer in that the first step of the creative process is taste. So do you have a taste for it? If you don't, don't do it because you won't know how to do it. It's literally like vegetarians trying to cook steak. They could do it. They could do the steps and everything. But if they can't taste it, it's going to be really difficult to nail it.

1:17:13And so I think that would be my first thing. However, if you love podcasts, it can be extremely valuable. I think the only thing I would say is I learned to do projects and have these, a multi-layer strategy of what it meant to be successful. So I never, so now one of the reasons it's really valuable is because we have sponsors. So it, you know, pays money. So that's good. That's great. That's, that's obvious thing. I never thought that would happen. And it was before that ever happened. It was super valuable. It changed my career. Um, and the reason is, is because it goes back to that thing of, um, I mean, it's kind of, it's kind of obvious in a way, but it wasn't obvious to me.

1:18:00Like there's almost no place where you can go this deep with somebody like, because mainly because it's a thing that you can do while you're doing other things. and it, and I love bundling ADHD. People love that, love doing, you know, two things at once. Like, um, so I love, that's why I love podcasts. I was constantly listening to podcasts. Um, and so it's a space where this is, um, a podcast is the middle step between someone hearing about you and someone becoming a true fan of you. It is where that happens. And so if you want to have a creative practice, that's maybe the most difficult part, the most essential part, and the one that most of us don't value because it's not, I don't know, I don't really know why it is.

1:18:59We put so much emphasis on the discovery. We put so much emphasis on the sale. We put almost none on the steps that get you there. Like, I don't know if it's the discovery. They're the mysterious bit. Yeah. The discovery seems like easy, like, but it's not, it's also the hardest. Yeah. It feels like if I played my cards right, I could get a million people to find out about me today. People can discover you, but they don't necessarily hear that discovery. Like it runs past their eyeballs or past their ears very true and there's always i don't know how true this is or how researched it is but there's always this statistic that goes around in publishing which is that someone needs to have a book recommended to them three times before they'll buy it yes that and that rings true for me actually i think you know it's it's got truciness let's say yes um i'm not sure how how accurate it is but that's a similar thing yeah it is and i think for me that's uh i mean the people that you are a fan of their podcast you got to think that is a deep relationship in comparison to everything else and that means that you can uh build a lifetime of a of a practice on that relationship um and so i think it's incredibly valuable and i would just if to get when i would get really practical i'd just say i think about it like your true fan idea Yeah.

1:20:22Everybody starts, most people only have one true fan and that funds their entire living. It's their employer. That's it. Like the person that hired them, that's their one fan changed everything. Right. And so when I, when you start the podcast, I would just think about it, like, how can you use this to get 10 true fans? So how can you get 10 clients off of this? And if you do that, it will be the most valuable thing that you do. And you don't have to think about how do I get thousands and thousands so that I can, you know, directly monetize it. And then ultimately, I'll say one other bit, which this is maybe the most important thing.

1:21:02And I'm sure you probably have this with writing. So it could happen with a lot of different ways. But the podcast dramatically changed me. So when I started the show, and I didn't think anybody was going to hear it, and I was just kind of having fun, whatever. I wasn't really thinking much about that. But then eventually when I had friends and then people in the industry listening, then just people that, I don't know, I just knew a hundred people are listening, 500 people are listening, whatever. I started to realize like, oh, I really want to mean what I'm saying. I really want to, I want to know that what I'm saying and oh, it came with beginning criticism.

1:21:43Right. I realized like if someone criticized me and the thing they criticized me was about something that was inauthentic, it was terrible. I couldn't bear it. It's really true. And if someone criticized me for something that I would go to the grave for, if somebody said, we're all the same and that, you know, then I would be like, I don't, don't listen to my show. I like, no. You're not my people. This is really fine. You're not my people. And I don't care. And that criticism just rolls off me because I'm like, I fundamentally build my life on the opposite of that. And so a couple of years in, I was having a lot of anxiety about the show.

1:22:25And I think it was feeling, it was just, you know, getting little criticisms, whatever. And that completely changed me because I started thinking I really want to believe the stuff that I'm saying. Even if I'm wrong about it or change later, that's fine. I just when I do it I want to have been sold out about what I'm saying and the thing that that did was that made me examine what I said in real life and what I who I said I was and what how I thought about my identity and it changed it just it changed me I just I changed how I moved through life because of that um yeah but that i think that circles us back beautifully because actually what that speaks to is the autonomy that you get when you make your own spaces and you create spaces out of love and respect and authenticity and you bring your authentic self there and there goes the fear because you like you've made it you've made this place and that's a place that other people want to come to.

1:23:34Andy, thank you. Thank you so much for letting me take over your podcast. That was so cool. It was so fun. And I really, you got me on a bunch of occasions. I was really in my feelings for most of the show. So I really appreciate you taking the time and being so sensitive to the topic. And yeah, I just really appreciate it. It's lovely. It's such an achievement. So congratulations. I, you make me want to be less of a quitter. Yes. I, I'm a major quitter. So that's what, that's why I was like, you know, I've done this. Like, that feels like I did something. Um, yeah.

1:24:30okay i'm back thank you katherine may for making time to do this i just feel so honored um and uh And this was just the perfect way to dive into this giant project that I've been working on for the past 10 years. I'm back to tell you the CTA for this week. So the CTA, the call to adventure, how to take this episode and do something with it in your own practice. I'm calling channel your overflow. Okay. The question is, how do you make your creativity a discipline when being disciplined isn't exactly what creative people do? It feels almost at odds with each other. And my take on this is that you have to channel your overflow.

1:25:24And what that means is when I look back at this 10-year project, 10 years plus and going strong, I think the reason this was possible, it wasn't always easy. Sometimes it was really easy. But the reason it was possible to show up for 10 years every single week on this is because this is something that I just do. If I wasn't recording these conversations, I would still be doing and having these conversations somewhere, whether that was in conversation with other people or just voice memos on my phone. Like this is a thing that I do. I love to analyze the creative process, the creative journey, creative careers.

1:26:12I get very, very analytical about these kind of things. And I love to talk about them. And when I say channeling the overflow, I'm talking about the overflow of my everyday life. if the reason I need a podcast is because I have more hours and more to say than anyone wants to listen to in my everyday life. Like 10 years ago, making this show, it was such a good outlet. And we were talking about this. My wife and I have talked about this a bunch, like how grateful for this show we are because we don't have, I need this As much as anybody might need to listen to it, I don't know or want to, I need it.

1:27:00And so this is a place to put that. And so it reminds me a little bit of what Jerry Seinfeld says. He says he's a joke chuck. Like a woodchuck, he chucks jokes. His brain automatically wants to find a punchline, wants to see the funny thing and construct the funny thing. And his brain automatically does that. For me, I am automatically trying to find the problem, solve the problem, see what works, why did it work. That's the way that I interact with everything. And proof of this is recently I just thought about how I would consider myself kind of a mega comedy nerd. And then I realized I don't watch a ton of comedy, almost none.

1:27:44I only watch a few comedy specials a year. I go to a couple comedy shows, maybe three or four comedy shows a year, depending on travel and stuff. But I listen to hundreds of podcasts of comedians talking about comedy. And I think it's maybe less about comedy and more that comedy is such a difficult path and you have to be so good at your craft. You can't just intuit your way completely. You really have to know what you're doing. So those people don't just do what they do. They know how they do what they do. So they can talk about how they do what they do. And so I think for me, the reason I am drawn to comedy in some ways, other than I'm just a goofball, is that I just love how analytical that this community can be.

1:28:34And so for me, that tells me something about my high tolerance, my high output, my massive overflow of this kind of thing. And so what I would challenge you to do is to find your overflow. Where are the places in your everyday life where you are producing more, you're creating more, you're doing it on accident, you're doing it automatically. Like for me, throughout my every day. There are just things that I think, oh, this is a little nugget. This is an idea. This just seems true to me and I'll put it in my phone. And I'd be doing that whether I had a podcast or not. And so what are the things that you just have an overabundance of and you need a bucket to put them in?

1:29:26That's what this podcast is for me. It's a bucket to put this stuff in. And that makes it very easy to then make it a discipline. And so that's my challenge to you. Find in your everyday where do you have more than is necessary or more that you know what to do with. That kind of surplus is exactly what you want to build a creative practice on. So I'm going to leave you with that. I'm going to say just last things are the thank yous and the goodbyes for the episode. Again, thanks, Catherine May. Thank you to Sophie Miller, who is an editor of the show and co-producer and has really supported me mentally, emotionally over this past 10 years.

1:30:15And I wouldn't have been able to do it without you. So thank you, Sophie, for all the support. I know it hasn't always been easy. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of troubleshooting. It's a lot of self-motivating to make something this long. And I couldn't have done it without you pep-talking the pep-talker every single week. Massive thanks to Connor Jones of Pending Beautiful for the audio editing and sound design. You have been a really consistent dude throughout a long period of making this show. and I love you man and I really appreciate your support and making this thing possible if we can't make out.

1:31:04I'm just so grateful to all the listeners and to the people that have supported the show over the years through Patreon and now Substack. You guys were doing that before we had any other ways of funding this thing and as funding from sponsors and stuff like that has come and gone, you have kept this thing afloat. And there's so many relationships and people I've met because of this show that I'm just so grateful for. And so thanks for listening. Thank you for sharing the show, viewing the show, supporting the show. Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band Y for the best theme music and soundtrack of any podcast, I have to say.

1:31:48And yeah, thanks for showing up. I hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll be back next week for more pep. But until then, stay pepped up.

1:32:19Okay, the podcast is over, so I don't know why you're still listening, but I am glad that you enjoyed it enough to stick to the end. I have one more thing for you. If you're in a place where you're feeling a lack of clarity and you want to figure out your industry market and niche and find the perfect strategic side project to do next, go sign up to our newsletter at andyjpizza.substack.com and you will get a confirmation email that will give you the download of our creative career path hand booklet and the whole process is in there. And you might also get a few bonuses in there depending on when you sign up.

1:33:03But again, thanks for listening. Glad you enjoyed the episode and stay pepped up y 'all. Hello, this is Jack Wilson, the host of the History of Literature podcast. For the past 10 years, I've been talking to novelists, biographers, and scholars about the greatest books in the history of the world and the men and women who wrote them. Like our recent episodes on Dante and Love, a starter pack of 10 Indian classics, the pop culture that influenced Sylvia Plath, and a talk with scientist and novelist Alan Lightman about the wonders of nature. Join us at the History of Literature podcast wherever you get your podcasts.