510 - Remember How to Have Fun and Get Loose, ADHD / Being You, Storytelling, Ignoring the Industry & More with Picture Book Maker Bob Shea

27:38I look terrible, and my son looks really cool. That's great. What a great dad. I love it. He's a good kid. You know, now I'm just getting, I'm just complimenting you, but here's another question. Here's, uh, so you, uh, last time we talked, um, I said something to you and as you, your reply really helped me. So I want to see if you remember what you said. Um, so I, you gave me this advice really helped. Um, we were having lunch and I said, you know, I kind of want to go this way or I want to do this thing, but I'm feeling like the people in my industry are going to like, not really like that. And I don't really know what to do about that.

28:16Do you remember what, maybe you even just know what you would say to something like that. Do you have any recollection? I don't, but I probably would just tell you to do it anyway. I wouldn't care what the people think. That is what you said. Yeah. I don't care. The industry's, I don't want to say meaningless, but I try to not think about it as much as I can. I don't read trade publications. I don't follow things. I honestly, your, let's see what creative ones I listen to ADHD podcasts, yours and news ones. You're the only creative one I listened to. I've tried other ones. It's a couple of those I tried and I was like, you know, you're, you're much more casual and much more authentic.

28:58And, and I understand a lot of the points you make. So I stick with that. But I mean, as far as the industry goes, don't worry about the industry. Do you have any tips on that? But that just your reaction was basically that, but you also are like, this is your job, man. Like, you know, and it just really helped me to realize, I think I didn't even realize like, oh, this is kind of the, what I think of as like the artists artists trap where you're really performing for your peers at the, you know, detriment to your own self. Yes. Yeah. That's bad. And again, it goes back to the thing we were talking about before, about being authentic and getting the best work out of yourself, because it's you.

29:46I can't do books like you do or anybody else, because I have to be myself the whole time. If I'm worried about what everybody else does, I don't look at other books too, not because I'm like, I'm too busy to be bothered with that. I don't want to go in the bookstore and be like, there's a lot of kangaroo books. I better make a kangaroo book. Kangaroos are hot or, or worse, which I hate this feeling. And I avoid it as I'll be like, man, these books are really good. Yeah. I, I don't know what I'm doing. Question everything I'm working on. And I'm in the middle of, and all the finals and look back at my finals and go, holy cow, what's, what's up?

30:24You know what i mean yeah it's like my work is even my illustration is my illustration it's not there's a million better illustrators than me my stuff's graphic design very straightforward screen printing looking kind of stuff it works for what i'm doing but if i go in there and try to compare with some tight you know i'm friends with lane smith like i go over and he's like oh look at this great painting i'm like yeah that's really great i can't be distracted by he's he's so nice So it's fine. And he's actually talks to me like a peer and that's kind of nice of him to do that. I mean, you know what I mean?

31:00But you go, but you know what I'm saying though? You go and you see if you, if you immerse yourself in the other work too much and what, and what the industry is doing, that has nothing to do with you and your work. It just doesn't. I think that's great. And I, I think, uh, first of all, Lane Smith is on a short list of people that determined my future. So, you know, that in there, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm hooked. Um, he, yeah. Like stinky cheese, man. I remember that was revelation for me. And I think, you know, I love this advice because to me, there's a, I try to keep in mind when I'm talking about creativity that there's almost, it's a very like non-dual thing where, or seasonal thing where there's a period of time where it's this.

31:47And then there's a period of time where it's that and there, and you have to be aware of that. And I think starting out or even when I was young and I was loving all these books by John Sheska and Lane Smith and all these greats, um, that there was a time for being this massive fan. And then I even got into a period of time where I was even more plugged in and reading and thinking about it. And I think now, like you say, I'm in exactly the same position where I really don't want to know. Like I like, I have a couple people that I'm friendly with in the industry and I like checking in with them from time to time and celebrating their books or enjoying something they did.

32:24But, um, but most of the things I'm trying to do, if they're inspired by anything, they're inspired by totally different industries or mediums, um, which I think has been good for me. And that's, and that's great. Like when you're early on and you're learning about the industry and you're learning what's expected of you and how the process works. But after you've done it for a while and you're in it, you can not retreat, but you can kind of go into yourself and be like, now I'm going to do whatever I want to do. Just like the people that I look up to did. Just like those people did. That's Stinky Cheese, man.

33:03Everything about it. Molly Leach did the design. That was great. The whole thing, the writing illustration and design was of one piece and it was like nothing before it changed picture books from that time on it blew my mind no everybody was after that everybody was like let's do creative picture books and they could never even nail it i got two copies of it here it's like you pull it out and you're like it still holds up it wasn't like oh this doesn't this look early 90s it's like classic incredible yeah yeah and hilarious man it's freaking hilarious immersive and i just was like I couldn't believe it.

33:41Here's another kind of follow-up that's adjacent to that. But this is a question that I got from a podcasting guy named Eric Newsom. I've then translated it into, I think it's a really good hack for storytelling, but we don't have to go there. That's just my ADHD tangent. I was right with you. When I'm with someone who's ADHD, my ADHD is worse. Yeah. Yeah. But it's okay. Cause it's like, I'm like, I'm not lost at all. I'm like, yeah, I get it. I'm calling it out for the listener because you might notice that I'm off my game in terms of interrupting being, you know, tangential, whatever. I'm blaming Bob for that.

34:22That's fine. The question that he says is what do people in your world or your industry really, really get wrong? And I will just shift it so that you don't have to throw any shade on people. But you can also answer it like, what did you really, really get wrong earlier on in your journey? Oh, that's a good question. I'll tell you because there's so many things. Any book more than – and I only say this more than three years old. I can't open up and look at. I mean, so there's, I got things wrong technically, like illustration wise, story wise, what I, what jokes I, jokes I insisted on that were, I should not have insisted on that were a mistake styles that were a mistake.

35:20Like, I'm going to try this. Cause I was always like, I'm going to keep experimenting. And like, sometimes experiments don't, they don't go right. You know what I thought things early on, you get things wrong. Like you think you make mistakes that everybody makes and you're like, I'm not. I hate to say that I'm important, but you like sort of are like, you don't understand the landscape of it because I've been working for 15 years as a creative director already or whatever. So I was like, oh, yeah, I've got this down. Nobody has to tell me. And that was short lived. I'll tell you, as soon as I learned, I was like, whoop.

35:54Yes. i attempt to make an apology to somebody this is a um embarrassing parallel because it it's hilariously um grandiose but it reminds me of um i heard a random clip on on the internet of p uh what's his name what the comic uh from snl david davidson yeah pete davidson i blanked talking to Bill Murray and they were talking about like Bill Murray said, the first couple of years people are famous, they're terrible people. And then usually it kind of course corrects. And I thought, even though I don't know anything about that, I do think that when you get into an industry, you have this idea of like, this is the way it's going to be.

36:44And you're calling the shots and you see it all the time, like, you know, criticizing and whatever. And then you get humbled and you figure it out. So I think that there's definitely something to that. Yeah. Yeah. If you can kind of see it coming, maybe you can avoid some of the worst of it. Yeah. I got off easy, I do have to say, because I see a lot of illustrators, especially years ago. I saw a lot of illustrators and my reaction was, you've never had a job before, have you? Like you've always worked for yourself. Because if you get mad at the publicity people or whatever, you're like, yeah, that's just somebody who they just have a job they have to go to every day and they don't need your, your need you to give them a hard time.

37:25Yep. Yep. I get that. So I got 20 other authors to deal with. Yes. And, and also you realize that one of the, yes, people want to work with you because you have great work or you're interesting or that you're right for the job, but you also learn, like they're also not trying to make their lives terrible. And so if you're having, If you're easy to work with, they're likely to consider you for future stuff. It goes a long way. It goes a long way if you're a decent person. And most people in this industry, most people in publishing, very few have I been like, I don't want to be near that person anymore.

38:03People are cool. It's nice. The kids book people are cool. They're doing it for the love of the thing. That seems to be true to me.

38:32So another question I wanted to ask you about was ADHD stuff. Sure. It wasn't that long ago when you got diagnosed and you've talked and spoke about it publicly. I'm not just like calling you out. Oh, I don't care. Yeah. It wasn't that long ago, right? Like three years ago, maybe four now this spring. Yeah. Maybe three or four years ago. Yeah. So, okay. What was that like? How old were you? You were, you were in teenager, right? But you didn't do anything about it for a while. 20s that I really started to take that idea. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my life was a wreck at the time. I mean, it's amazing because you get this diagnosis and you're like, it all starts that you could all of a sudden this movie of your whole life plays in your brain.

39:24And you're like, all those things were because of this. And then I went on stimulant medication and like 20 minutes in my wife was like, that's working. And I was like, what do you mean it's working? Because I'm not like hyperactive. She's like, you're standing looking out the window. you've never done that before. It's a Saturday and you're not sitting on the couch sketching, trying to catch up for the rest of the week. That medication's working. It changed. And then the thing is you think going in that it's like, oh, I'll be more focused and I'll be organized with my life. It was everything.

40:01It's like your mood and your emotional regulation. And like, Like my wife was like, you're a much nicer person again. And at the time I got diagnosed, I had just gone through a hard time with like my, it was during COVID. That was everybody's hard time. But right before that, my father had been sick for a few years and like dealing with an elderly parent, passed away. All this stuff. I had a surgery in there, like was like crazy surgery. And like I was not in a good place, you know, and my wife was like, I don't know what's wrong with you, but you are not. the same person anymore. She didn't know what was going on with me.

40:42And then I just went on stimulants and she's like, you're back. Cause it just, it just over the years, it just got worse and worse and stress made it worse. Oh, absolutely. And a lot of people don't understand that the emotional component of ADHD with all of the different ways that a neurotypical brain regulates are not as available to you. And it's one of the reasons why you have things like rejection sensitivity dysphoria and all of these issues that are adjacent to it that you're not even fully aware are part of it. And, you know, just for the sake of the conversation, I don't take medicine now.

41:21There were times where I did, I ended up doing a gene test that said I'm lucky enough to have like bad interactions with most, uh, drugs. Um, so I, I, I'm not medicated. Um, but I also, I know a lot of people that are, have had your exact experience. Uh, I think also, and it's, and it's pills, it's pills and skills. I don't want to be like, I took a pill and I magically was fixed. Like it was like, I didn't want this. I know people are like, my brothers have it. And they're like, no, I'm fine. I'm like, yeah, you're not fine. But like, it's not, it's not like I took it and then I, I didn't want it in me.

42:02And I was, and I know, and you, you're a runner too, right? So you, I know that you exercise a lot. I was running. It's primarily ADHD related. Yeah. Yeah. It helps. And it's huge. Running, meditating. I was, I quit sugar just for, cause it was COVID. I was getting fat. I had quit drinking at the time. Like I, and so that when And this, so all I'm trying to say is that the awareness of it was huge besides the medic. I didn't want to come across as I took a frigging Adderall and I was done. That's what I wanted to touch on because I wanted to just set the stage for that because you were also commenting on this, just what it's like to be seen in that way is a huge thing.

42:43I guess I'm highlighting it because I'm not always clear why I am so public about it. And so some people might guess that they'll guess whatever I'm trying to say about why this has been huge for me. But I know from conversations we've had that we deeply share this thing of it, you know, without the diagnosis, without the list of traits, that list of traits you already know, but you've been told that it's just called being a bad person. Oh, yeah. I was incompetent. I couldn't do anything anybody else could do. I was completely incompetent. And my wife has no ADHD. She's like the opposite. And she's also a creative person.

43:27She's an art director and makes like leather goods. And but everything I'm like, why is everything so easy for you? Why can you sit down and do a task? And I have to mill around for a while and like, I have to get ready to do it. Like it's like, you're like, what's I really I was like, what's wrong with me? And then at the end with the emotional stuff, I thought we might I thought I was going to leave my family, not just that's I'm not being dramatic, but I was like, I can't be around people. I can't, I can't, I couldn't handle more input into my brain of people talking to me. Like what's for dinner.

44:00I was like, how can you do that to me? Do you know what I mean? Like, Oh, I wish I didn't know what you mean. But you know, I just was like, I was like, I'm like, I'm broken. I can't be around these that my family hates me now. So what do you, so exercise and do you, do you like do other things too. I mean, yes, most of my life, if it's personal stuff, I'll surround managing myself. But yeah, exercise is huge. I got to run. I have, like a lot of people know about my bath regimen. That's a big part of it. That's a whole, you know, it's funny because the more you dive into the information around this, how many weird patterns you get.

44:44I've heard a lot of neurodivergent people like say, all you need to do to regulate your system is wake up eight to 10 hours before everybody else and just, you know, meditate. Um, and so I think that there's, you know, truth to that. So I'm definitely doing that. Um, I think that I'd be a lot worse off if I didn't, um, build the career that I have. That's another reason why I'm so, it's not my place to have opinions on medicine, first of all, not to mention my medicine, my brain is going to interact differently, you know, as a fact. But also my circumstance is dramatically different. So than most people's.

45:30So, um, the, you know, the, anytime that I've had a regular job, all of my health has gone out the window dramatically quickly. Every time, every single time, you know, I'm eating, my eating habits turn into just numbing out, like all those kinds of things. I smoked cigarettes for five years, getting through being employed and that was a stimulant, you know? And so, yeah, I have all these different methods, but I, I wanted to ask you about, cause I know that you have an kind of an interesting way of scheduling and dealing with that. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. So I, uh, I'm just, I'm still, I'm, I was working on it today cause I'm doing a sub stack about it, about what I do during my day.

46:26It's called, it's called I'll do it later. that's an amazing method yeah thanks i i have to make i before i was i before i was diagnosed i was like obsessed with time management things and they don't work like they don't work for us like i can't i don't know how you do with doing a podcast and stuff i'd be it'd be crazy i yeah i um first Sunday, it is. Oh yeah. I was, I was like, wow, look, he's got that schedule where you go to the calendar and you could pick your day. I was like, that's really good. That took me years to set up after I knew about it years after I'd used other people's, he's talking about like a Calendly thing where you send a link and someone sets it up.

47:15That's it's a classic ADHD thing of like, when you need to schedule to go into the dentist, the I've it take there's like eight steps in between you and that thing yeah so that Calendly thing that took me years to do something that took me 20 minutes to finish so yeah so good I was telling my I was like telling my wife we should do this for my school visits and then schools just go on there and do a thing she's like no it's too hard and she was right but so anyway so my thing I've called I call it time blobbing because I don't want to call it it's like it's like time block planning but without wanting to like i can't do this i can't have a i have a job now yeah so basically you'd like you know your head is full of bees right your head is full of all the bees and the first thing you do i could i have it in my this is my planner the first thing you do is you dump everything onto a piece of paper like you dump you find a find a sunday you dump everything you have to do that week.

48:17Like this is it, like everything. So that's like projects, call the mechanic, dentist, a second project. Oh, I want to make some videos, everything. So it's in a big pile, like the piles on your desk, right? It's just a big pile. And then you take the, then you do five days for the week, morning and afternoon, and then you have to block out things that you can't do. I'm at the dentist here. I got a zoom call, blah, blah, blah. And now the time starts getting smaller and you start plugging things in from the big pile. And then you re what this does is you realize I can't add anything to this pile because beforehand I'd be like, you know, it'd be fun welding.

48:59I'm going to learn welding, but you got 500 other things to do, right? That you're not doing. And then, so then the day is 16 squares of 30 minute increments, right? Eight hours. And then you block off first square meditation. I can't do anything then because I'm meditating, right? I don't do it every day, but what it's training you to do is to see how much time you really have as opposed to what you think you have. Because at the beginning of the week, I'd be like, I got a whole week. That's an infinite amount of time. I'll do two books this week. And then when you get to the day, I block out.

49:39I always skip lunch. I don't know about you. And so I block out, go have lunch or else the rest of the day is pointless. So now I'm like, have lunch. My wife comes over. I can't work that time. And at the end of the day, I put cleanup blocks. I never use those, but I put them in every day anyway. Because the day falls apart by then. And your focus at four o 'clock is different than 10 o 'clock or whatever it is. But all it is, it's training me to learn because I have no idea how time works. It's training me to visually learn how time works. And then the other thing is I write down how long I think something's going to take.

50:19Oh, go to the post office. Four minutes. And then I go to the post office. I'm like, that was an hour and a half. How the hell did that happen? But I write that down. So the next time I go to the post office, maybe I'll say, I'll get it in a half hour this time. Maybe. No, you know what I mean? You train yourself to learn how long things take. I've been working on this. Do you get a PDF if you sign up for the sub stack? Yeah. But working on it for a week, I'm like, take me half a day. Half a day is going to bang this out. I'm like, what's wrong with me? Like, I'm not saying that and I'm cured and everything works.

50:51But when you have an awareness of it, like awareness, you have ADHD. When you have an awareness of the way it is, you don't get to the end of the day and beat yourself up and go, what did I get done today? I didn't do anything. Because you look back and go, oh, I was supposed to be working on this, but I was caught up on. Instead, I was really making progress on the other projects, so I stayed on that, so I didn't jump over to this. And then you know why it didn't get done. And then you're like, all right, that's cool. Oh, and then the timers. Do you use the timer? Yeah, I got one. do you use it i use it i i the main way i use it is this i do one thing and it's i say if there's and this is something that i um you know i'm a cal newport fan and yeah that's the thing that he talks about with cognitive um load of like trying to get into switching yeah yeah context switching, like this thing of the cognitive load of getting into something and how it's this 15, 20 minutes of pain essentially to get into what he calls deep work.

51:59And so the thing that I do, the only thing I do with the timer is I say, you know, the thing you really don't want to do, you only have to do it for 20 minutes. You only have to do it for 15 minutes. So I set the timer and then I keep doing it after that. And that just makes me feel it's a trick. It's a task. The task initiation. Once you pass that wall and your brain is all in, you don't really want to get out of it. Yeah. You're like, all right, well, let's get this over with. Yeah. If it's a painful thing. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good one. Yeah. And then that's the thing too. In the mornings for me, I use that deep work.

52:35I look at it as deep work because that's where I'm the most awake. Yeah. Same. And the most focused. So I'm like, that's precious time. Like that's creative time. in the afternoon's administration or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I think that works super well. And I love what you said about going to the post office. My brain's like, what is that, 30 seconds? Come on. Right. And then you're like, fine, it's stamps and envelopes. Where's my shoes? Got to get down there. Oh, is it cold? I have my keys. And then you go down and you're like, oh, I'm going to go get a cup of coffee because I ran an errand.

53:07So then you're like. What I want to do is. But you don't add those things up. And again, this is difficult for me. I got to figure out some different ways of tricking myself into doing this. But, uh, well, I love what you said about, um, I get that same way where I'm looking at a free week and I'm like, okay. I mean, I just did this where I had, I was working on, I did this the first time I really blocked out time for making the art for a picture book. That was great. That was a great move. Um, I did a couple of things. I blocked out a bunch of time. I also created a little autoresponder for my email with all links to people.

53:43That was a good move because even if, and I told him what was going on. So even if it wasn't someone else's responsibility to answer that email, I knew that the person that got it knew I wasn't just completely ignoring it. So that was, that was really good. But the problem was the way that I really messed up was I just thought, and then the week after I'm done, the first week of April, anything's possible. So I just like loaded that with so many calls, so many headlines. It was, it was outrageous. So I'm going to take your advice and I'm going to this, I have a new project I'm just starting and I'm just going to block out as much time that I, you know, I'm going to try to overestimate in the coming weeks, all these different things I need to do.

54:26And I think it is going to help me out because free time on my calendar. I am so, I, I get drunk with it, man. I'm just like, wow, look, look at me go. Look, I can start a new business or three. 20 projects. Yeah, I got 20 things I could put in there. And you keep putting stuff in there. You're like, I'll do that in my free time. That's the thing. But if you overestimate, your brain is like, you overestimated. I'm going to take it easy. Which I love. That's a great point where you're actually auditing. How long did it actually take? You're like, yeah. That's good. You can't. It can only trick your brain so well.

55:06Mm-hmm. That's why I was like put blocks in the, like always go to lunch. Cause then in the morning, you're not like, I have all day. You're like, no, my wife's going to be here at one 30 for lunch. I got to get this done by one 30 or whatever it is. You got to like, think about what works for you. And then like, try to work that into the thing. Are you good at long-term planning? I can't plan long-term at all. Not really. You know, I think that, um, there's kind of two things at play. One of them I am good at, the other one I'm not good at. So I was thinking about this the other day. I was talking to my wife about like, I know one thing I'm good at that I don't, you know, I don't, I feel like this is kind of unusual is I said, it's not fear.

55:52I'm not just driven by fear all the time. And I was trying to explain like what I was saying, like going through some decisions I made to shift things and invest in different areas and whatever over the past 10 years. Um, and she said, Oh, it's like law, like, um, long game or big picture thinking. So I am good at that. I am good. I can, I definitely feel like I have a sense of the 40 ,000 foot view or whatever it is. Um, I do have that, but I don't have, um, and I am good at being like, okay, this is what I'm doing now. And all these other things, if I'm not doing them now, it doesn't mean I'm throwing them in the trash.

56:33I tell my brain that I'm throwing them in the crock pot. So they're in the crock pot. Doesn't mean they're gone. I put kids books in the crock pot for four years while I was getting the podcast started. So those are two things that helped me with that, but I'm not good with, um, I'm not good with like blocking it out or sticking to it. Even if I did block it out. Right. Right. That's good though. I'm terrible at long-term planning. And I mean, it's hard because I do picture books, which that's all it is. But I mean, I can't go more than in my brain. I can't go more than two or three weeks out and I'm always wrong.

57:08Anyway, I should be done with a book that I'm barely starting now, like the finals, because all this other stuff came up in that process. Yeah. But that putting it away for four years in the crockpot, that's a great way to think about it. Cause a lot of People just abandon that stuff. Yeah. Shea Bob, I had that idea 10 years ago before 10 years before I drew it, before I did it, I had the little light, the seed of the idea that I just held on to. Yeah. People. And, and if you can do that without beating yourself up about it and feeling guilty, because then you're like, Oh, and I got all these books I have to do and blah, blah, blah.

57:43You're like, and again, with the, any kind of day planning, you do any kind of, any kind of planning you do during the day, then you don't feel guilty about all the stuff you're not getting to. Cause you're like, well, I know this is, this is what my capacity is. Yeah. And, and also it speaks to that thing we were talking about earlier where you're not so, uh, invested in the industry where you're getting all the FOMO and you're getting all that's what they're doing that, you know, I'm falling behind this or that. I think that, um, uh, the people, most of the creative people I respect the most and have consumed all their interviews and all their writing and all that.

58:21Um, almost all of them have this sense of like a timeless relationship to the stuff that they do and not, not so, you know, it's funny. I, both of us being in publishing, one of the things that I like, I'm not here to, you know, talk crap about publishing. I love the people I work with so much and I love all of the work that we do. But one thing that I'm like, one, I would love for publishing to let go of is anything about time and trends because it's a it's a world that's so talks about it so much and it's one of the slowest moving things it's the slowest moving thing it's like a year later this i don't know okay so the only thing to do with that is the opposite the only thing to do with that information is go a totally different direction that's the thing too That's why I say I don't follow the industry also because I'm like, I don't want that stuff in my head.

59:25And one of the first books I did was called Dinosaur vs. Bedtime. It was very graphic design, heavy. Every page looked like a poster because I was a graphic designer. And I was like, I better stick with what I know. And then when it came out, everybody was like, this feels so fresh and new and different. I'm like, yeah, well, I couldn't draw spaghetti. So I took a picture and put it in in Photoshop. You know what I mean? So it's like, it's a great book. Just do your thing. Yeah. It's, it's, thank you. Yeah. I'm just saying like the trends I hear about the trends and I'm like, I'm not doing that.

59:58The couple of times that I tried, not even on purpose. My wife was like, what are you doing that for? She's like, that's going to be over in two weeks. Don't, what are you doing? Cause you just get, you get like insecure and you're like, I got this. This is what people are buying. Doesn't matter. I feel so grateful that I, the idea that we do this on our own terms, I, anytime, and I do feel jealous. Sometimes I go in, I'm like, wow, that's a really good book. I wish I, cause I'm like, that's the problem with being able to do more or less, whatever you want. Right. If you see something better, you're like, I got nobody to blame.

1:00:36It was me. So it's on me, but I'm like, how can I be jealous of what more could I want? You know what I mean? Than to create a freedom and be able to do it as a job. It's like, it's nice. I'll give you one more question then. All right. Which is, back to this thing of like, it's all on you. And you have these ideas in your pocket for ages and ages. How do you choose what the next project is?

1:01:07It's hard to say that. Because it depends where I am. Because I have a ton of books in my notebooks and hard drives and things. And it's what I did last and sort of what I think I'm feeling the most. Yeah. I just sold one last couple weeks ago that was, it's like me. It'll sound like me. But it's not as funny as like Shay Bob. like funny as, as high, you know, Oh, look all the jokes on every page. And, uh, but I thought it was a sweet book. It's a really, and it still sounds like me and it's got very modern illustrations, all that stuff. But I mean, I just was like, this is, this feels like a thing to do.

1:01:55A lot of times it's whatever you feel like it's whatever you can get. It sounds terrible. Get to your agent because they're all, you know, you know what I mean? I mean, that answer is fantastic. It's extremely ADHD friendly. And I probably wouldn't have thought of it that way, but that is, I mean, it's the same for me, which is what can you get yourself to do? Do that. Yeah. Yeah. Because you've got to capitalize on it when you have it. If you like, yeah, that's exactly how I feel. You get that. If you, if you're like, I'm jazzed to do this thing, do it and get it out as fast as you can. I got a chapter book I've been working on for a couple of years now.

1:02:34And I know if I stop everything and just work on that it's six months before I get it to my agent but if I but if I'm like I could get this picture book to him in two weeks and then something's in the mill so I can go work on the other thing yeah anyway it's a whole that's a little inside baseball but I like that and I I also think what's interesting about uh you know I'll say it's like one of the through lines of the whole show like when I go back I don't go back early episodes hardly ever okay almost never but i did when we were doing the 500th episode or no when we're doing hit the 10-year thing i went back against my better judgment ready to just cringe which i did but yeah i also i listened to the first three episodes or something and the funny thing was yeah i you know it feels very awkward and bizarre but i also was like oh these are the same things i'm talking about talking about the same i have a bunch of different i have like a lot more information.

1:03:31I've thought a lot about more, but the same things. And one of the earliest episodes is about leaning into your strengths, which is about a positive psychology of it's easy as a creative person to focus all of your energy on getting better at what you're terrible at and be passable. Whereas, you know, this thing that you're saying about getting the thing that you can get over quick, as quick as possible, that has a, that has to have a lot to do with why you have this looseness that other people wish that they could do because you have this, it's a frenetic, like energetic thing of getting it over, get, you know, so I, I think that there's something really good about that.

1:04:12Yeah. Yeah. It is. And it's hard. It going back to the beginning, it's hard to give yourself permission to do that. And to my son's a musician, he's going to music school. And I'm like, just go be yourself. Like, just go and do that the most that you can. Those are the most successful people and the happiest. I'm like, look, you, you chose this thing. Enjoy it. This is it. That's excellent. And we'll leave it there. Thank you for spending all this time with me and ADHD and out really, uh, let it roam. It was going. Um, but, uh, I hope you come back too. Thanks, man. Andy, thanks for having me.

1:04:51That was great. Thank you. I appreciate it.

1:05:10All right, I'm back from the future. After I had the chat with Bob, been thinking about this chat, had a great time talking to him. I wish I would have had him earlier on the show and I hope to have him back because I just have so much to learn from this guy and he's just tons of fun to hang out with. So I hope you love the episode. I'm back with the CTA, the call to adventure. It's called Tickle Yourself. And the idea is that even though, you know, if you've ever tried to actually tickle yourself, you know that it's impossible. But when you're making creative work, it is possible. One of my favorite things to do, and I forget about this all the time, is to try to draw stuff that's going to make me laugh, like literally, verbally, out loud laugh.

1:06:02And one of the ways that I've found to do this, you don't have to be funny, right? It doesn't have to make anybody else laugh. Really, it's about giving yourself permission to goof off and waste time. And so recently, my daughter has been like, you know, really trying to get me to go like, let's go downtown Columbus where we live. Let's go find a cool coffee shop. Let's waste a bunch of time journaling, doodling, whatever. And I thought it was a great idea. So we made some time to do it a week ago or so, maybe two weeks ago. And I just decided that I wasn't going to do any work. drawing. I was going to only draw whatever came to mind, whatever I could see around me.

1:06:50And then I also was going to try to make it weird and silly and fun just to enjoy myself. And I would draw these characters and some of it was a little bit influenced by the things that were around me at the coffee shop. And then other things were just like weird top of my head stuff. And I was giving them speech bubbles and they were interacting with each other. And I kept chuckling to myself embarrassingly for my 16-year-old daughter. I mean, honestly, she likes me. But it was a great experience. And it felt very similar to the way that Bob lets himself create. And for me, nothing huge came out of it, not a picture book or something.

1:07:32But one of the prints that I'm going to release through a company ended up coming out of that time. And it was just a great experience to have the goal not to make a print that was going to sell rapidly, not to make a successful picture book, not to have any other goal from that creative session than tickling myself, trying to make myself laugh, trying to have some fun. And I like this because it also reminds me of stuff that I've heard John Cleese talk about where when they were writing for Monty Python, they would do these writing sessions where the only goal was to have fun. It wasn't to have an episode done when they were through with the session.

1:08:15It was literally to just stack as many sessions up as they could where they had fun and they knew if they did that, they would end up with good episodes. They would end up with something to show for it. And so my challenge to you is just find 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, two hours, whatever you can muster, whatever you can find to have a creative session where the only goal is to have some fun, is to make yourself laugh, is to make yourself feel something and to remember what it's like to create for fun again. And, you know, we're in the summer. I'm trying to lean into some of the seasonality of that.

1:08:51And part of that is how do I make all this process a little bit more enjoyable? And so I hope that inspires you to loosen up like Bob does so well. He's just a hero of mine in that way. And I hope you got a 10 for this episode. Massive thanks to, you know what? I'm not going to go to the thanks yet. I'm going to just say one more thing. I'm switching it up. You know, in the era of, we're in this time where, you know, the sound bites get taken out of context. There's so much pressure to be on point, to not waste time. Short form video has us being like, okay, I gotta say something really important every single second.

1:09:29And, you know, it's actually, I don't know if it's a contrarian in me or what, but it's caused me to wanna go off script more and be more present and authentic in how I'm feeling and thinking. So anyway, just real quick to go off script. We meet up at the end of every month with our Patreon backers, Substack supporters, and our Creative Pep rallies first Monday of the month. Sometimes we meet in the morning, sometimes midday, sometimes later in the afternoon. And they're not just great for the people attending. They're great for me because I finally have a place to talk about this stuff that's not alone in this room.

1:10:05And so if you have ever listened to episodes and you wanted to talk about it with me or talk about it with other people that listen or follow-up questions or added comments or other perspectives. That's the space for it. And it's kind of been incredible and it's been growing. We've been doing it for about a year and a half now. And it's become part of the process. And I think the episodes are actually improving because of that. So thank you for the supporters. And if you want to join in, you can show up. You can keep your camera off. You can just listen in the background while you're doodling, working, whatever it is, cleaning up.

1:10:41And then eventually you might have the courage to join in and turn the camera on, ask questions, participate, whatever. But if you're a fan of the show and you want a space to explore some of these things and apply some of them directly to your creative practice, that's a good place for it. So you can go check that out, annijpizza.substack.com or patreon.com slash creativepeptalk, whichever place is more interesting or easier for you to support. supporting the show and either of those places will get you access to that. So hope to see you there. These are people that are building creative careers, want to make creativity a practice and they're serious about it.

1:11:22There's beginners there. There's seasoned veterans of creativity there and everything in between. So hope to see you. Thanks for that. Thanks to Sophie Miller for giving me great notes on this episode and helping me put it together, be the producer editor on the show. Thanks to Connor Jones of Pending Beautiful for audio edits, video edits, animation, sound design. Extraordinaire. Connor Jones, happy to have you in the mix, my friend. Thanks to Yoni Wolf of the band Y for our theme music and soundtrack. And thanks to all of you for listening. Until we speak again, stay pepped up.

1:12:16Okay, 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.

1:12:59But 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.