500 - 5 Steps from ADHD Serial Quitter to Podcaster with 500 Episodes

0:02On the creative journey, it's easy to get lost, but don't worry, you'll lift off, sometimes you just need a creative pep talk.

0:20So this is a really special episode of the podcast because it is episode 500, man. And I thought, what better time than now to explore what does it take to stick to something, to stick to a creative project for a long time? How do you do longer term creative projects, especially when you're somebody who doesn't struggle with having ideas. You struggle with ideas having you right where they want you, starting them constantly but never finishing them. Like ideas love to be started but you have to do other things than have ideas in order to realize them. You have to stick to it. You have to have some discipline and some habits.

1:08And so this episode is five steps from ADHD serial quitter, that's me, into a podcaster with 500 episodes. And we're going to explore all these different things that have helped me continue to show up for a long time in the same direction. And at the very end of this episode, I'm going to come back with a creative call to adventure, something that you can do instantaneously that will increase the likelihood that you become somebody who can finish the kinds of things that you want to finish and achieve the kind of things you want to achieve. And it's called make something of yourself. Now it sounds really intense and kind of like a drill sergeant or something, but I promise you that is something that you can do right away that will help you become the kind of person you want to become and do the kind of things you want to do.

2:03And it's one of, if not the most essential lessons that I learned in my creative practice. And it's something I've done my entire creative journey that has been a game changer. So I'll come back at the end with that. And for now, let's get into these five steps.

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4:07So it's episode 500 and we're lucky enough that we still get lots of notes from people saying that they just started listening to the podcast. And so I thought just real quick, if the longtime listeners will just give me one minute, one, not even two, one minute to explain why I think I am the person to do this episode about how to finish things. And the reason, the first reason is because I'm terrible at finishing things. I have both types of ADHD. I have twice the memory deficit required to be considered ADHD. And I have a graveyard of not just unfinished projects in my basement, but half started projects.

5:02Okay. I freaking get it, man. There are so many things that I've wanted to do that I've got hyped about doing, like make this master huge plan of exactly what I'm going to do and how it's going to change my creative career and or life. And then I start with just so much energy and then just crash and burn quicker than I started. And so I just freaking get it. So I am that person, but I'm also the same person who has done 500 episodes of this show, who has published over 10 books, one of which hit the New York Times bestselling list and have worked with clients like Xbox and Nickelodeon in my illustration practice that I've been doing for over 15 years.

5:50And so both of those people exist in this same body and mind. And it's chaotic and it's frustrating, but it's also possible to finish things and do things. And so I thought, what better time than episode 500 to go over five super practical things that have helped me stick at something this long when I am a serial quitter, when I am an ADHD person with tons and tons of ideas and so many unfinished half-started projects in my wake. But the biggest reason that I am the person to do this episode is because I just freaking care about creative people getting some of that untapped potential out into reality.

6:53So I have to do some travel with works. I do public speaking and workshops and stuff like that. And so I usually do about one trip a month. and earlier this year when there were all these accidents with airplanes in the news constantly, one of those trips, I was feeling pretty anxious. Even if it felt like the odds are still with me, I'm sure a lot of people were feeling that way at that time. And one of these trips, I remember before I left, just kind of thinking about like, what if this is it, man? Like, what if this is the last time you get onto a plane? And I was just letting myself spiral out, I guess.

7:44And I thought about it for a little bit. And I thought, even though I feel really silly, I'm going to go talk to my wife, Sophie, about it and just tell her how I'm feeling. And the honest truth about how I was feeling, And this feels a little bit morbid, but it feels relevant to this episode. So I'll share. And I went and told Sophie, hey, just so you know, you know, if I'd never come back from this trip or just generally because all of our time is limited and none of us know when it's going to be our time to go, I just want you to know that I thought about it and I I feel like if I go, I want you to know that I'm okay with it.

8:34Not that I want it, not that I don't have other things to do, but that when I look back and I look at some of these things that I've been able to do, yes, I have unfinished things. Yes, I have future plans. Yes, I have some big dreams that I still want to realize, but I've done some things that make me feel like, you know what? If that's all I did, I'm pretty proud of it. It's more than I thought I was able to accomplish. It's so much more than Andy at 18, 22, 25, 30, even thought not just that he was capable of in terms of creativity, but capable of in terms of discipline and follow through. And that this list of stuff, I feel like, okay, I've done a decent chunk of what I wanted to do.

9:29And I don't say that to brag at all. I say that because that right there is the motivating factor behind why I made 500 episodes of this podcast. it's because I love weird, chaotic, creative people. I love their ideas. And I want as many people like that to have that feeling of, you know what? I did some stuff. I didn't just think about it. I didn't just hope for it. I wasn't just excited on one day and then quit the next day. I figured out how to make some of this internal creative potential a reality out in the real world. And so this episode, I want to share five things that I think really helped me stick with this podcast and stick with other things that I've been able to go to the finish line with.

10:31and I hope that they help you cultivate more and more of a sense of I am doing the things that I feel like I'm here to do. So let's get into it.

11:07Okay, the first thing that helped this ADHD serial quitter make 500 episodes of the same podcast was that I learned to not assume that bad feelings are signs that you're going the wrong way. You know, when you're driving, you see those wrong way signs. Even if it's like on the other side of the road, it gives me anxiety because I'm like, wait, hold on. I can see it. It doesn't like if I see the wrong way sign, I panic. And I feel as a creative person, a deep feeler, someone who uses their feelings to guide them through creative processes. I feel the same about bad feelings as I do those wrong way signs.

11:55When I start feeling that bad feeling when I'm going to make something, my nature is to assume that that means I'm going the wrong way. And in fact, I got into creative work because I wanted to feel good. Like I liked the fact that I would get into this flow state and like they talk about in positive psychology, the flow state is one of the highest forms of human joy possible. That's why I wanted to make stuff, not because I wanted to panic or have anxiety or have a breakdown or doubt myself or hear the inner critic or have imposter syndrome. All of those feelings are not the reason I got into this, man.

12:40And so when I'm going to make something in my project, in my creative practice, in my creative habits, and I get hit, I get slammed with some of those feelings, it feels like a wrong way sign. when I'm driving. It feels like I'm flowing in my car. I'm going, I'm in the road trip, man. I'm getting excited about what's to come. And then boom, right on the dashboard of the car, there it is. Some kind of little blinker starts blinking. And I'm like, oh no, what does it mean? Oh man, man. It means everything's going down the drain. It means I'm going the wrong way. But like the dashboard of the car, you can't be too quick to assume you know what a feeling means.

13:31You know, if you do that with the lights on your dashboard, when you first start getting, I mean, still, I don't know what half of those mean. There's one that comes up from time to time. Looks like a little fishbowl with an exclamation point in it. That doesn't mean you need more exclamation points in your fishbowl of your car. No, supposedly it means you need to air up your tires. I don't know. I don't ever really do that. I do it sometimes. Okay. But I can every single time. Come on. Yeah. You, you can't assume that what it looks like, what the impression it gives you is what it is. And it took me forever to learn this because I'm looking for flow state.

14:11I'm looking for ease. I'm looking for that creative juice to just flow, man. But a lot of times when you show up to the canvas, to the microphone, to the word doc, whatever it is, you are going to be met with not flow, but at least initially resistance. If you're a creative person, you've probably heard that term. You've probably, you might've even read the book, The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. He popularized and coined this term resistance. And it's this idea, and this is why it's such an essential book for so many creative people is because it introduced the idea that making creative work may require you to feel bad feelings.

14:57That the resistance is this thing that comes up that tries to stop you from sitting down and making stuff, right? You felt it. And that's such a pivotal book for creative people because it introduced the idea that that is part of the process. And so for me personally, there were times going through my creative journey where those lights would flash and I would feel like they were signs that I was doing the wrong project. I was going the wrong direction, that I was on the wrong creative path. and I would call my dad and I'd be talking about why it's so hard and it's not working and it feels really, really bad.

15:40And I'd be like, man, life is hard. And he would be like, yes, life is hard. And I'd be like, yeah, and it sucks. And he'd be like, no, life is hard, but that doesn't mean it's bad. Hard and bad are not the same thing. And that's an idea I've shared as a through line for this podcast because of this, getting used to the fact that not all the feelings associated with the right direction of your creative path are going to be good feelings. And I like the way that Susan David said, she has a book called Emotional Agility, and she says that feelings are data, not directions. And one way to think about that is every time you show up to make something within this project that you're trying to do, this thing that you're trying to stick to, every time you go to try to make a spread in that picture book or an episode in this podcast or a page or two in your novel, every time you sit down to do that, if every single time you're feeling terrible, those are data points on a graph.

16:46And it will give you, if you give it enough time to like actually experiment and try it and learn it and get comfortable with it, then eventually you can step back and look at the points and say, okay, generally, this is not feeling good. And so you can collect those pieces as data instead of just seeing it as a direction, the direction being you're going the wrong way. And so the first thing that really, really was a shift in me as a person was to realize that bad feelings are not wrong way signs.

17:37Okay, so the first one was don't assume that bad feelings mean you're going the wrong way. The second one is embrace projects as experiments. Okay, you might have heard this idea before, this idea of the minimal viable product. But what about the minimal viable project? You ever heard of that? Well, it's the same thing, but I want to speak to it because it is literally the thing that has helped me build a career. And it's not just projects. It's seeing projects as experiments. It's a certain way of approaching your entire path as a series of projects and why Project orientation is such a powerful way to approach your creative path.

18:26And it starts with this idea that projects are not statements. They're not solutions. They are questions, not statements. They're questions you're asking yourself in the world like, is this the right direction? Is this what I feel good doing? Is this what you want from me? So when I started this podcast, I had committed to about 100 episodes. I thought, I want to do 100 episodes. That's how much data I need to collect in this direction to know if this is a good idea. And that's about two years of podcasting if you're making one almost every week. but this commitment, which is rather large, that's a huge commitment really creatively, especially without having ever done podcasts before, that's really huge but it wasn't my first experiment.

19:25Before I had made this podcast and started it in 2014 over 10 years ago, I had made a little tiny self-published magazine with a few friends called Pump Magazine. I'd made multiple issues of this zine called The Wizard's Hat. I'd done the Indie Rock coloring book and the Indie Rock poster book and then a dream journal and a daily character drawing project where I did a new character every weekday for a year. I did a project called A Novel View where I did new book covers for books from the public domain. I had done a blog for weeks and weeks and weeks called Art Directions, so on and so forth.

20:01I could name a bunch of other ones that I had done in between all of those. And the point is that this was not my first rodeo. This wasn't the first bull that I tried to ride. Do they ride the bulls? I think they just ride the horses. But by the time I started this podcast, I had done so many experiments that I was ready to wage a bigger bet. You know, if you're a scientist, I have to assume I'm not a scientist, but I think in science. You're not going to start with getting a huge grant, making years-long plans of experiments and putting all of your career on the line for this huge bet. You're going to try little experiments, test little hypotheses, try some things out.

20:55And if the early data looks like you might be onto something, then you stretch it. Then you make a bigger data set. Then you do a bigger commitment and so on and so forth. But as you're starting out, you don't wage it all on the first bet. You don't put it all on the first project or the first test. If you're a comedian, you don't think, all right, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to create my first hour-long special without ever having set foot on stage. You don't think I'm going to write a novel when you've never written a short story. This is one of the reasons why another through line throughout this whole show is this idea of writing on stage, this thing that comedians do where they test their material.

21:41They experiment with their material by going into clubs where they can't even be filmed and they test out jokes. And the people that have made a whole career of this, people like Chris Rock are people that do this and fail over and over and over again, even after becoming crowned comedy king. And so you have to be willing to test it. And so every new special that you're moving towards is a new project, it's a new experiment. And you're gonna take these little experiments and put them in the lab, see how they go. And you're not going to commit to any direction, any theme, any series, any special.

22:22You're not going to name the special before you've done some of those tests. And so this is, for me, this has been the most vital aspect of navigating my creative practice. Early on when I was struggling and I'm still struggling in so many ways, different ways, new ways, but I'm always struggling. That's just part of being a creative person and a person with ADHD. But early on with those struggles of not really knowing how to get this thing off the ground or how I could find any level of success or achievement, and I would be consuming lots of things about how do you do things. How do you do? That I just needed to know.

23:08And one of the things that was really frustrating for me early on is you'd read whole books and TED Talks and all this information about success is just about grit. it's just about stick-to-itiveness it's just about never giving up and you'd hear that over and over and i'd be like okay i'm gonna do this project i got an idea and i'll never give in um and i'll just do this direction and then you'd also then i'm in the middle of never giving up and what do you hear someone else shows up and they're like okay i know you've heard never give up, never let go, never surrender. But in my opinion, the secret to success is failing fast, quitting quick, like never stop quitting.

23:58And you're like, okay, so which one is it? Good God. Is it grit forever or is it never stop pivoting? And that right there is why I'm obsessed with projects because they contain both. They are the balance of both things, that a project has the grit of a commitment. You know, when I did the book cover project, I said, I'm going to do four of these. That's how sure I am. It was an early experiment. I wasn't sure at all. I was like, I think this could be fun. I think there might be something to this, but I'm not really sure. I'm sure enough to place a small bet of four pieces. That's where I was at the time.

24:50Then there was a time where I was sure enough. I'd been making characters for years and kind of obsessed with it and had all these questions and all this interest and curiosity. And I said, I'm going to make 260 characters, one every weekday for a year. and the thing about a project is that it allows you to have that kind of grit through a commitment of these are the terms these are the constraints this is the timeline and i'm not going to give up until i get to the other side of it but it also allows for the pivot because after you have done the experiment you can stop you can look at the hypothesis you can check out the data and you can analyze it and say, okay, well, the next project needs to be more of the same or a dramatic turn or a slight tweak.

25:40It is this project orientation, this experimental project orientation is the perfect synthesis of grit and pivot. And I think it makes total sense. It's the same thing as the scientific method where you're going to have a hypothesis. You're going to have controls or constraints. I did controls. That's constraints. That's constraints and controls in one word. Controls. And three, the third thing it's going to have is analysis afterwards. We're going to say, okay, this is how it went. But in order for that experiment to work, you're going to have to collect enough data to know whether there was anything to this.

26:32And to do that, you're going to have to stick at something for a long enough period of time to actually collect enough data to know if it's worthwhile, to make a bigger bet, to make a bigger project. And so for me, the second thing that really helped was embrace projects as experiments.

26:56All right. The third thing that really has helped me show up enough times to make 500 episodes of this dang podcast is that I selected a premise that had space to explore. When it comes to podcasting, you've probably heard of these podcasts that have these super clever, really, really tight premises, these really tight concepts for what this podcast is going to be. This podcast is recorded while eating barbarian pretzels on one of those, you know, pedal your own beer carts with six other strangers in May. Look, here's the thing. If you can pull off one of those, if you're the type of person that just has this ridiculous stick-to-itiveness just built in, you can pull that off and it's been done.

27:49Not that exact idea, but it's been done. These really clever podcasts have worked for some people. I get it. But if you're someone like me, what works a lot better is selecting something that has a lot of space to explore and improvise and grow and shift and change. You see this in TV too, like whenever you have these pilots, these one episodes of a show that are super clever, super tight, like completely compelling and amazing, often those shows can never live up to the hype of the first episode. and so the ones that have the most longevity are shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm where like it's a guy who just can't accept reality as it is on its own terms.

28:49He has to question everything. He has to push the envelope. He has to mold reality and friendships in his neighborhood into what he thinks it should be or at least fight for it, right? And you could do that forever. You can do that for 12 seasons. And not only that, in that show, they do this thing where it's a balance of constraint, plot, having a plan, and leaving space to improvise and try new things. Because they have a three-act structure of a plot going into every episode, but they don't have a script. They improv their way through the episode. and so they have a general sense of where it's going but they make it up as they go along and for me, if you're trying to do something long term if you're trying to do something that's going to require a lot of time and a lot of days of showing up it really, really helps to know that there are big, wide open spaces for you to experiment and explore and lead with your curiosity in episode 474 of this show I talked to a buddy of mine, Julian Glander who had created an entire movie without permission and animated it himself and wrote it himself and directed it himself.

30:10And it ended up in all these different film festivals and just did all of these amazing things, has an amazing cast. Really loved that episode and that chat with Julian Glander. And one of the things he said that I keep coming back to is that as he was writing the script, he would leave parts of it undone and just wrote beautiful thing here, knowing that that's a treat for him in the middle of the project when it's feeling stale, when he doesn't want to show up and just do the animation and do the hard work. He can put a music video. He can do something interesting. He can do something that's even going to surprise him.

30:48And that keeps him going, keeps him invested. And the same is true for this podcast. So this podcast, it started through this idea of creative pep talk, creative practice. But creative practice means so many different things. Psychology, anthropology, business, my own personal experience, design, illustration, music. You can cover so many different things. Story, structure, philosophy, spirituality. It's just such a wide open bucket to talk about like what does it mean to have a thriving creative practice? It's huge. And so I started with more of a focus on design illustration type stuff, but we have explored hero's journey, comparative myth, archetypes, Jungian stuff, kids' movies, video games, Zelda, all under the umbrella of creative practice.