Elizabeth Gilbert: Big Magic
EPISODE 143
Elizabeth Gilbert: Big Magic (buy on Amazon): Whether we are looking to write a book, find new ways to address challenges in our work, embark on a dream long deferred, or simply infuse our everyday lives with more mindfulness and passion. In Big Magic, Elizabeth has written as a template; lessons in how to unleash your creativity.
She digs deep to share her wisdom and unique perspective about creativity. She offers potent insights into the mysterious nature of inspiration. She asks us to embrace our curiosity. She shows us how to tackle what we most love, and how to face down what we most fear.
Elizabeth Gilbert is best known for publishing the international bestseller Eat, Pray, Love (buy on Amazon) which was turned into a movie with Julia Roberts. Eat, Pray, Love is Gilbert’s memoir of the year she spent traveling the world, where she found her spirituality in India and ultimately fell in love again in Bali. Big Magic, discusses the attitudes, approaches, and habits we need in order to live our most creative lives. Gilbert encourages us to uncover the “strange jewels” that are hidden within each of us.
SHOW OUTLINE
INTRO
What is Big Magic?
Fear shouldn’t stop you creating (1m33)
LESSONS ON CONFIDENCE
Give yourself permission to create, even if you fail along the way
How we experience failure and success (2m54)
Instead of overcoming your fears, just get comfortable with them
Fear is your companion (2m57)
LESSONS ON CREATING
Ideas don’t need to be limited by what’s been done before
Originality vs authenticity (2m14)
Doing the deed is the reward, so have gratitude for the journey
Perfectionism vs finishing (1m37)
OUTRO
Find confidence by trusting your inner creative trickster, rather than your restrictive martyrdom
Don’t take yourself too seriously (1m50)
CLIP CREDITS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyUYa-BnjU8&ab_channel=MarieForleo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_waBFUg_oT8&ab_channel=TED
TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's episode 143. I'm your co-host Mike Parsons. And as always I'm joined by the man. Who's got some big magic for us. It's Mr. Mark Pearson. Freeland. Good morning, mark. Hey, good morning, Mike. What an exciting moment you and I have ahead of ourselves today, the magician of creativity that we're going to be diving in.
I know this creativity series started with a little bit of flow, but interestingly enough, in this episode, mark, I think we're going to face our creative fears. That's right. If in show 142 with Mihai chinks sent me hi, and the idea of flow as our foundation, Mike, getting ourselves into the right head space to think and work and be creative today.
Episode 143, we have Elizabeth Gilbert, big magic (buy on Amazon), creative living beyond fear. [00:01:00] Mike is. Exciting. This topic is we're within halfway through our creativity series to now start understanding how can we unleash the creativity that we might have within ourselves. I know, and this Elizabeth Gilbert is a bit of a creative powerhouse herself.
So I think she's got every right to speak about creativity because she was also the author of eat pray love (buy on Amazon), which became obviously a famous movie, starring Julia Roberts. And what's really interesting about her approach and why she is so perfect for us is she's really getting into the habits and the practices of how we can unleash creativity.
And what's really interesting is her anchor point is how for many of us it fear is the big blocker to us unleashing our creativity yet. So I want to ask you mark when you hear creativity and fear, Together like this is this like a [00:02:00] natural combination. Is this new to you? How do you relate? You know what?
I think the initial reaction I would have to that pair is it doesn't feel right. Fear and creativity. Shouldn't go side by side. Instead. I'm thinking about flow again, creativity, it's running through my veins painters coming out of my fingertips or music's coming out of my mouth. I think there was a natural connection that I would have always had with just fear with creativity being a free flowing thing.
But I think it was fascinating about big magic is as you've already said, Mike, there is that connection with fear that I think holds a lot of people back. I think you're right there. And I think that's why the book was so successful and why she's gone on to produce more than one hit. So she's the authority when it comes to creativity and in this show, we're really going to explore the role that fear has with our [00:03:00] creativity.
I think we're going to challenge ourselves by you may mark, and all of our listeners on how we are going to experience creativity, the role of getting through those blockers, the doubts, the uncertainty, or just being plain old, resilient, sticking to your creative practice. And we've even got a few tips on how to really Polish up your creativity.
And I think. We can do all of this with a smile on our face, because one of the big things that Elizabeth Gilbert helps us with is to learn how to not only embrace the challenge of the process, but not take it all too seriously. So we can roll up the sleeves, get in there and enjoy bringing out that creative talent that I believe resides in every single one of us.
So I'm really delighted to pull this show together and I think it plays a huge role in our creativity series doesn't matter. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I think that's a perfect setup. So Mike, why don't I [00:04:00] set you and I, and our listeners up with a clip from Elizabeth Gilbert, herself telling us what is big magic and why fear shouldn't stop.
You create. What was the big magic that inspired big magic? What inspired you to write that? Oh, you know what it is, it's a response to years of being out in public, talking to people who tell me about the projects they want to be making and are not making the things they want to be doing and are not doing.
And oftentimes when I'm in public, I meet people who are making and doing really cool things and they want to tell me about it. But mostly it's people who aren't and when they come to me with their problems about creativity or their struggles with creativity, cause they know, I love to talk about creativity.
I find that they always have some sort of very rational, reasonable kind of material, real-world reason why they're not doing it, that they can lay out as an explanation. But when you start to scratch away at that, what's underneath, it is [00:05:00] always and only fear always and only fear. I don't care. The excuses or the rationalization of a justification for why they're not doing the thing that's calling to them at the bottom of it, they're afraid.
They're afraid they don't have the talent. They're afraid they don't have the right. They're afraid it's already been done better. They're afraid they'll be rejected or insulted or criticized or worse ignored. They're afraid. There's no point there's afraid. They just have these like tumbling piles of fear.
And I see it so much and I hear the same questions again and again. And I finally just thought let's officially talk about this. Let's actually really break this down and try to figure out how people can live more creative lives without being so scared. Not being scared, Mike, this is something that I relate to.
Not only. With creative pursuits. What's interesting. As I listened to that clip, I think that's something that holds us back in [00:06:00] so many of our pursuits in life, whether it's on the sports field, in the boardroom or just at home or being social, like I think we're all held back by. Elizabeth Gilbert called being scared.
This fear of failure, the pointlessness all that negative thinking that stops us from making that step forward. And I like how she said, basically she meets a ton of people who all talk about they've got plans to do things, but they're not happening for whatever reason, but underneath all of that, there's one reason.
And that is fear. That is why they are not pursuing their creative talent, their creative challenges and their journeys. It's fear that we can have all the excuses in the world right there wasn't enough time. I didn't have the thing to do the other thing, but if you really wanted it, if you [00:07:00] really could deal with that fear you would push through and make it happen when you, yeah, I think you.
There's a natural inclination in my mind to look towards excuses, for reasons why I haven't done something and it will be the classics. It will be not enough time, not enough resource, not enough patients maybe. And it's quite confronting to hear that actually fear is what underpins all of those. But I think Elizabeth, correct.
I think ultimately if I'm not afraid of putting myself out there and not being noticed or putting myself out there and being ridiculed, I would go out and make that time. I would be able to put aside all of those other blockers, logistical blockers, and still go out and create. And yeah I totally believe Elizabeth correct fear is what underpins a lot of the roadblocks that we might run into both a [00:08:00] work in our careers as well as personal lives.
Fear is the thing that we need to try and get out. Yeah. And I think now that we have set this kind of context, that the real blocker is not this sort of the excuse stuff, but it's this more fundamental issue of embracing the fact that it's going to get a little uncomfortable, that we're going to have to stick with it.
Maybe it won't be perfect the first time all of these great lessons, if we can present ourselves to those blockers, to those challenges, if we can say, okay, it's actually great that I'm experiencing some sort of fear, doubt anxiety about a creative pursuit, because that would suggest I'm stretching myself.
I'm challenging myself. And here's the good news mark for you. For me, for all of our listeners, we have got a playbook in front of us in this show where we're going to learn how we can [00:09:00] get inside this idea, how we can embrace the idea and. Some of the important habits and rituals we can build in so that we can truly pursue what our creative talent is calling us towards.
And I firmly believe Mike, that everybody has creative capacity yet. Most people never truly explore it. What do you think, do you believe when you look around the people that do you see creative potential in them that they're just not tapping? Yes. And I think it'll come down to much like Elizabeth's calling out in that first clip, the logistical reasons that people don't want to do it.
Oh, I don't have time in my day job. I don't know how I'm not very good at grammar, whatever it is. There's going to be things that are going to block them. But again, This idea of fear, I think is actually that main challenge that people have. [00:10:00] And hopefully by the time that we were on this show, Mike, you and I, as well as our listeners are going to have a little bit more in our repertoire to go out and tackle that fear and try and go and create from our days onwards.
And I have to make a big call out. There's obviously some creative energy out there in the world. I was looking at the listenership throughout the world. And mark, we have such a remarkable. Listenership and a big shout out to all of you, moon shutters that are tuning in. And I really want to call out just a couple of countries where we've seen like a huge rise in listenership and it is just the most eclectic collection of folks.
It's so cool. Let me hit you with this one. Mark. How about Bulgaria and Taiwan where we've been rocketing up their charts? They're in the entrepreneurship podcast. Isn't that awesome to know that we've got people in Taiwan and Bulgaria listening in [00:11:00] yeah. Isn't that cool? A cup of coffee, some people listening in their countries, checking out the moonshots, work with you.
And I learning out loud. That's a real confidence boost as we think about creating products, Yeah, it's great for us and another pig grease in Austria. So we've got Southern Europe. We got no in Europe getting in the mix. And how about this South Korea? And I think this is my, this is just Testament to the fact that everyone wants to learn out loud together in an effort to be the best.
Version of themselves to anything. Absolutely. That's given me a lot of confidence as you and I continue embarking on this creativity series and beyond Mike I'm really pleased all of those listeners who are joining us from all corners of the globe. Welcome. And please continue listening as we learn out loud together.
And there's another invitation that we've got my car to not only listen to the moonshots podcast, which you're listening to right now, but [00:12:00] we have the opportunity for you to join our ever-growing members. If you go to moonshots.io, click on the membership button, become a member, become a patron of the moonshots podcast and you will get access to.
What is it, Mike? What is the gym? The goal at the end of the rainbow, if you become a member, oh, drum roll prese. It is an exclusive, at least once a month paid for episode from our moon shots master series, where we dig into and share insights into how to improve yourself, your decisions, as well as your leadership capabilities.
Mike, that's a membership that I want to be part of. Yeah. And the real power of the master series is now that we have done over 140 shows, what we can do is pick a theme, like first principles, like teamwork, like motivation, and we can hand pick the best. Thoughts [00:13:00] the best ideas from superstars all around the world.
So you don't just in this case, we do a deep dive on, big magic (buy on Amazon) but we will have a podcast, the masterclass in creativity, where we collect all the best together. But we also give you lots of practical tools, templates, and things that you can download, so you can do it. So we invert the moonshots podcasts.
When we do the master series, we actually tried to make the definitive, oh, it's almost like effectively, like the podcast equivalent of the Wikipedia page. Like we try and really capture the essence is like, if you want to be if you want to get to the bottom of first principles and it's out.
That the master series that we make is one episode that completely covers the topic. They're pretty epic, aren't they it's everything from understanding the DNA, the [00:14:00] foundations of it, understanding how we might be able to practice it day to fully understand it, but also Mike, how to make it a habit.
That's the most important thing with a lot of these themes and lessons that you and I are learning is how we can actually practice them from today onwards. Exactly. So no matter what your practice is, check out the moonshots master series, which you can get if you become a member and where do you go mark to become yeah.
www.moonshots.io, click on the member button and join us in our member series. So now I think it is time to unleash the creativity and we have to get a little more comfortable with things that are uncomfortable and that is namely failure and success. But the weird thing is that 20 years later, during the crazy ride of eat, pray love (buy on Amazon).
I found myself identifying all over again with that unpublished young diner waitress, who I used to be thinking about her constantly and feeling like I was her again, which made no [00:15:00] rational sense whatsoever because our lives could not have been more different. She had failed constantly. I had succeeded beyond my wildest expectation.
We had nothing in common. Why did I suddenly feel like I was her all over again? And it was only when I was trying to unthread that I finally began to comprehend the strange and unlikely psychological connection in our lives between the way we experienced great failure and the way we experienced great success.
So think of it like this for most of your life, you live out your persistence here in the middle of the chain of human experience, where everything is normal and reassuring and regular, but failure catapults you abruptly way out over here into the blinding darkness of discipline. Success catapults you just as abruptly, but just as far way out over here into the equally blinding glare of fame and recognition and praise, and one of these fates is objectives be seen by the world as bad.
And the other one is subjectively seen by the world is good, but your subconscious is completely incapable of discerning the difference between bad and good. The only thing that it is capable of [00:16:00] feeling is the absolute value of this emotional equation. The exact distance that you have been flung from yourself, and there's a real equal danger in both cases of getting lost out there in the hinterlands of the psyche.
But in both cases, it turns out that there is also the same remedy for self restoration. And that is that you have got to find your way back home again, as swiftly and smoothly as you can. And if you're wondering what your home is, here's a hint. Your home is whatever in this world you love more than you love.
So that might be creativity. It might be family might be invention, adventure, faith service might be raising corgis. I don't know your home is that thing to which you can dedicate your energies with such singular motion, that the ultimate results become inconsequential. For me, that home has always been writing after the weird disorienting success that I went through with the pray love.
I realized that all I had to do is exactly the same thing that I used to have to do all the time. When I was an equally disoriented failure. I had to get my ass back to [00:17:00] work, and that's what I did. And that's how in 2010, I was able to publish the dreaded follow-up to eat, pray love. And you know what happened with that book?
It bombed, and I was fine. Actually. I felt Bulletproof because I knew that I had broken the spell and I had found my way back home to writing for the shear. And I stayed in my home of writing after that. And I wrote another book that just came out last year and that one was really beautifully received, which is very nice, but not my point.
My point is that I'm writing another one now and I'll write another book after that and another at another, and many of them will fail and some of them might succeed, but I will always be safe from the random hurricanes of outcome, as long as I never forget where I rightfully live, what a beautiful way of expressing this experience, that a lot of us go on when it comes to successes, but also to failures.
Mike, I love the almost the imagery as we think about being successful, the blinding lights, great confidence, as [00:18:00] well as the failure side of things becoming very dark and equally blinding. It's an interesting connection. How both concepts, both failure as well as success can actually be detrimental to us.
And if we get off the path trying to navigate our way back towards the thing that we're passionate about is a challenge in either regard. Yeah. There's sort of two ideas that Elizabeth Gilbert gave us there. The one that I think that failure is just part of the process, right? And then the second one is always come back to that foundation.
And what I think is really interesting is if you look at some of the great moonshot people that we've covered, like recently Einstein, he said a person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new. And so there's this interesting idea, which I want to build upon a little bit here, which helps us [00:19:00] accept failure, which is.
The it's the choice that we have. There's a choice of not doing anything new, not challenging ourselves or challenging ourselves and pushing ourselves and stretching ourselves. That's a clear choice. And this is interesting idea that the one who falls and gets up is actually stronger than the one who never tried.
Absolutely. Yeah. Passively to build yourself up. And you might remember our Serina Williams episode. Yeah. She talked explicitly that the greatest strength is that to pick yourself up when you fouled and get going again. There are very strong tones of that in our Michael Jordans series. But this is really powerful thing of the saying, hang on, it's all part of the process, this idea of failing and making mistakes.
So [00:20:00] just accept it and then find your way home. Now here's the thing though, to go to the second point that she had for us, how do we get to this? This kind of, it sounds a bit abstract. What she's saying, this idea of home. How can we make this a bit more practical mode? Like when you've had a rough go, how do you pull yourself back together?
How do you get back home to the, to, to the foundation? I think if I'm thinking about home base, something that gives me let's call it, enjoy divvy or an enjoyment of life then. I think it just takes a moment to step away from whatever the situation that's quite stressful is, and try and reestablish a bit of balance.
So that might be through something quite practical, or it might be through something a little bit more freeing. So something that I might do, if I'm feeling a little bit distressed [00:21:00] from a failed project or a failed situation, maybe it's a bad meeting. Maybe it's a bad conversation. What I might do is.
Step away, go for a run, go for some outside fresh air and some external stimulus. And I think for me, if I'm trying to take Elisabeth's recommendation here and understand what I love more than perhaps I love myself. I think it is this idea of nature, the great outdoors, the sky, the lawns, the sea. And I think that's a way for me to establish a bit of grounding or a bit of foundation.
When I myself feel like I'm exacerbating my fears, I'm getting a little bit worried about failure and I'm getting a little bit distressed by that. That's a way for me to ground myself. What about you, Mike? What comes to mind when you're thinking about this idea of home? Yeah I think there's [00:22:00] like such a great amount of tools for our soul.
I think I totally agree with what you're saying. Just get out of the office, get out of the house, do something different. There's that great thinking that no crisis is really as bad as you think it is, and so pause, change up the environment. I think that's like just an old time classic, but once you go, okay, I've changed the environment, but I now need to deal with getting back home to who I am getting back to my kind of creative foundation for me.
You might look to mantras, you might look to affirmations about what you know is true about where your strengths lie. You might want to try journaling. You might want to try any sort of exercise that helps you reinforce positive. [00:23:00] Constructive honest thinking about yourself. And I think in particular, whenever we are presented with a creative endeavor that has gone wrong, ask yourself what's really the worst that can happen here.
What's the worst. We just had Elizabeth Gilbert who's written books that have become, I think like her book, if I remember right, it's been 200 weeks on the New York times bestseller list, this one big magic, this is, we're not talking about eat, pray, love. So this is like amazing that she has this capacity.
And then she's you know what the follow-up to eat, pray, love totally bombed. And her frankness there much do you remember that Jordan ad where he says I've missed the winning shot, a hundred times know that kind of stuff. I like just excepted. That phase part of the process, except that you have these innate [00:24:00] capabilities and there is nobody who's perfect.
If Einstein is the one that's saying you're not making mistakes, then you're not trying anything new. What we know from standing Einstein was he just spent more time on the problem being resilient until he cracked it and he failed all the way up until he, he got some amazing principles, some scientific breakthroughs that were proceeded by days, weeks, months, maybe years of failure before he finally got the I think that this avoidance of accepting that you might fail again, comes back to what I think is at the crux of Elizabeth Gilbert's book, big magic Mike, and that's about overcoming fears. And this next one, Which I think is a great two handed to what we're discussing is actually reestablishing your relationship with fear.
And let's now hear from Elizabeth Gilbert, tell [00:25:00] us that actually fare is your competitor. I was wondering if you could speak to this idea of fear as a companion. Yeah. The thing is I have no desire to become a fearless person because the only genuinely fearless human beings I've ever met psychopaths or toddlers and neither one of those things, I is interesting for me to model my life after.
Yeah. Because there's something missing from that person. Yes. That's very essential. And you see it in the kind of like weird eyes. You're like, wow, you are a dangerous human being, helping others. And I don't want to be we're near you. And so I'm not interested in fearlessness. Somebody said to me the other day, tell us how you conquered fear.
I it's adorable that you think I told you incurred, I'm afraid, right? This minute, I'm afraid, like almost every minute of my life. So I have that. I conquered it and I'm not interested in conquering it actually, what my relationship with fear begins with is a tremendous amount of respect and appreciation because fear is [00:26:00] the reason I am still alive today.
It's the reason you're still alive today. Every single one of us can point to a moment in our lives that we survived because we were afraid because they. The thing the voices said, get out of that ocean. The waves are too big. This car is going too fast. Don't get into the apartment with that guy.
This street is not safe to walk down. All of us are here because our fear is constantly protecting us. That's its job and it does its job beautifully. It's just that it's all jacked up on red bull. It's really trigger happy, and it doesn't know the difference between a genuinely dangerous situation and just a little bit of a nerd.
Situation so whenever I feel fear arise, which is constantly because I'm always trying to do creative things and creativity will always provoke your fear because it asks you to enter into a realm with an uncertain outcome and fear hates that thinks you're going to die. So anytime I start a new creative project, the fear rises.
And the first thing I do is say to it, thank you so much for how much you care about me and how much you don't want anything bad to happen to me. And I really [00:27:00] appreciate that your services are probably not needed here because I'm just writing no one's going to die. No, one's going to die. It's okay.
And I just talk to him, but in this really friendly way, and I don't go to war against it, I acknowledge its importance. And then I invited along and you can come with me, but I'm doing this thing. I loved the metaphor that you shared. Fear is going to be in the car. Yeah. But it's got to be in the back seat and that's not going to drive or choose the snacks or hold the map or touch the radio.
Like fear. Doesn't get to make any decisions in creative ventures because frankly, with all due respect to grandfather, fear, it simply doesn't understand what creativity even is because that's a newer part of our brain. So it doesn't even know what's going on. So you can't let it have any control over your creative choices or else it will shut them down.
One idea after another, it'll just be like, Nope, don't do that. Nope. Too risky. Nope. And it'll just be one no, after another. And your life will be so much smaller than you want your life [00:28:00] to be. This is getting into the series business of getting comfortable with fear. Isn't it? My business is really starting to challenge us.
Like how might we exist with something that traditionally were triggered into this fight or flight thing? It's quite provocative to really sit down and wrestle with this and say, okay, I'm going to make it part of my way of working. It just is what it is. And to me, mark, what I want to pitch you is a really huge insight that I actually had not so many years ago, which is really the, we're talking a lot about fear, but one of the great examples people give is people fear, public speaking.
But if you're something we've talked a lot about on the shows that if you're well-prepared, you can switch between fear and excitement and actually there's a whole body of work about turning fear into [00:29:00] excitement. Mark, what do you think of this idea that like fear and excitement are not that different?
It's almost your attitude and how you're embracing it. That's really the difference here. And I think that the question becomes. Can you accept that idea? And should we brainstorm, like on how we can turn fear into excitement because that's going to unlock a lot of creativity. Isn't it? The thing I love most when you and I learning from some of these moonshots are just to positions like this, where I'm challenged with my presumptions, by actually seeing that two things are much more similar than perhaps I've realized before and fear and excitement are definitely.
Two such emotions that I remember doing drama when I was a kid and somebody putting this towards me and saying, okay [00:30:00] if you're nervous before a show, that's good because it's it's your adrenaline, it's your, the butterflies are good, but it took me a long time. And maybe I think I'm still learning to actually accept that.
That is true. Mike. I think it's enough as Elizabeth is showing us today, it's enough to put you off, even giving it a go. Even to stand on that stage to go and sing that song or whatever it is to go and do that work, create that business because you're worried about your physical and I, when I say physical nerves in your stomach there's sweaty palms, overactive imagination.
That's enough to put you off, going out to try something new. And that's where fear comes in and attacks me. If we're doing a project that I'm not so familiar with, that's something that will make me very uncomfortable. And if anything almost lead me against giving it a go. And I think that is as you've just put, that's just maybe a little bit of it.
My [00:31:00] brain overriding the idea of excitement by replacing it with the concept of fear. I think that's huge. It is because what we're getting into is rather than fearing of failure, why rather than fearing that you can't do it. What you can say, how exciting is this? I'm learning something new. I can embrace it.
Yes. I'm doing new creative practice. Whether you're writing, presenting whether you're pursuing some sort of artistic output, I truly believe you can be creative in all respects, dare to cook a different meal, dare to invite new people around to your house, whatever it is. So I think creativity is all around us and it's a choice for us to overcome those fears.
So let's do some. Let's do some kind of practical little Elise here about how we can embrace it. [00:32:00] I think the first thing is we can start with our physiological state, which is rather than head down bearing your head down negatively. Like you can sit up straight smile, right?
This is something that you have complete control of. If that's not enough, I think you can move around if you're feeling fear or anxiety about a creative pursuit, move around. I love to stretch. I I stretch every single morning to awaken my body. There are times where I'm like, I just need to create positive energy in my body, move around, stretch.
This kind of this kind of framing of your physical state. This is great because we all know our bodies affect our minds. And when I get to our minds, how about this one, mark, like actually say, I am [00:33:00] excited about this new creative challenge, like absolute positive affirmation, like state it, because you can become those thoughts.
You can become excited. These are just some rapid fire ways. What seems to be something that stands out to you as a good practice to transform that fear into that creative excitement. So I love the physical call-outs. Yeah. You're saying there about moving around the smile. Those are the things that I genuinely do see affecting my mindset when I'm nervous about something, but actually I'm going to focus on the final point that you just caught out there, which is the anticipation it's very easy to.
What's the right word catastrophize. It's very easy to catastrophize a situation and make it far worse than it really is. How regular do we do that, Mike? I find, I often have created [00:34:00] this bad habit in my mind where I'll assume the worst situation. And then that affects the other work that I'm doing, which is crazy.
And do you know, there's this crazy thing that there's this body of work that shows that fear and excitement are like inside of our bodies, that they're actually the same thing. The same biological. Yes. The response. Yeah. Response, heart rate. Think about it. It makes perfect sense. Doesn't it?
So you're actually, once you go, oh, great. This feeling, I'm not going to translate this into a fight or flight response. I'm going to train myself to go, wow, I'm excited. I'm learning something new. This is how you can, re-engineer the way you want to do that. And in fact, this is exactly what James clear, who we've done on the show would talk about building these habits to help train [00:35:00] yourself.
This is a, an excitement response. I'm excited. I'm doing something new challenges, new boundaries, new learnings, new insights. Fantastic. Rather than holy shit. I don't know how to do this.
Is there anything more. Creative than actually adjusting the way that your body and your mindset reacts to a situation. Mike that, that seems like a huge takeaway from Elizabeth Gilbert's work by reestablishing and changing the way that you anticipate fear. And instead thinking of it as your companion on a road trip on the adventure of life, fear is alongside you.
And actually, maybe it's just excitement. Maybe it wears two hats. Suddenly it becomes a lot more approachable and a lot more fun to go out and give those challenges ago. Yeah. And I think there is a big body of work based off what Elizabeth Gilbert is talking about in big magic. She's saying fear is your companion, but to [00:36:00] build on this into our practices and our habits is to specifically say, I am excited about this challenge and do not underestimate the power of a simple mantra of saying I am excited.
I embrace. I accept this as opposed to that rejection energy, right? Because that's when you're rejecting it and say, Ooh, it feels dangerous rather than exciting. You see how there's like a very clear choice and this idea of saying I'm excited and really writing it down, saying it out loud is a way that you can, re-engineer the way your habit is going to be.
When you feel this energy inside of you, fear is just an energy, just like excitement. So you can just, you can be the conductor, the driver here you can take the right route, the excitement or out and unleash creativity, because then it's wow, let's explore rather than, oh my gosh, I'm just going to [00:37:00] avoid mistakes because that doesn't lead you any way.
Good does it? It doesn't. And something that I like to try and remind myself is if I was saying to you, Mike, or our listeners, oh I don't like this. No, this isn't for me. No, I don't believe it. No. I don't want to expose myself to this situation then I'm probably gonna rub off on you to a certain extent it's going to be a negative environment.
And I think if you're catastrophizing in your own mind and you're associating this fear with negative connotations, then you're going to breed it in, in, in yourself as well on you. So by practicing these I quite liked where you were going with the affirmations this is going to be good.
I can't wait for this new challenge by reinforcing those. You're almost [00:38:00] rewiring your own reaction to things and you're creating a more positive mindset. I think it's, I think as this is a huge lesson in, in fear management that is actually giving us and mark let's just embrace it. It's not about fear management, it's excitement, creation, excitement creation, which ultimately is what big magic is all about.
Isn't it? Creativity. It is. It is. So now we've got it. We've done the hard yards mark, you and I we've done the hard yards. We've got these foundational ideas about how we see failure in ex success. We've become friends with fear where we know that it's just the start of creating the excitement mode, right?
So we've got this base. We've got a fantastic opportunity now to go into the act of creation, of being creative, of unleashing new ideas into the world. And you know what? It doesn't have to be big and grandiose, it can be anything that is around your [00:39:00] life. We've got some great stuff coming up. And what I want to start with now is I want to go into this idea.
You're about to create, and you might be tempted you're in excitement, but you might be tempted to think, oh, this idea has been done before, but I want to put this to your mark. Do you think apple, when they unleash their creativity on the telephone, do you think they sat there and went on? We better not do an iPhone because the telephone companies have been doing phones for like a hundred years now.
So I guess we shouldn't try and do something new. Did that stop them? It would be a pretty different world if it did. Wouldn't it. So I want you, and all of our listeners, all of our moon shutters to really, I remember that we have such amazing capacity for creativity, for reinvention reimagination, and the starting point for this is some thinking [00:40:00] from Elizabeth Gilbert on originality and authenticity.
One of the things I love that you shared, which I feel is a big subset of fear, is this idea it's all been done before. I think it's the thing that I hear the most, both in my own brain. And when I talk to everyone out in the world about their ideas or their businesses or their projects, there's this recurring narrative everything's been done before.
And I was wondering if you can speak to originality versus authenticity. Okay, cool. I'm glad you brought this up. So whenever I talk to somebody who has an idea that they're, tremulously excited about generally speaking within the next two minutes, they will say it's not very original.
It's already been done. And I always say, but it has not yet been done by you. It has not yet been done by you. And the answer is. Yeah, guaranteed. It's already been done because humans, it's a really inventive and inquisitive and creative, and we've had 40,000 years of the art and pretty much everything has been done[00:41:00] and that's fine. Even Shakespeare, half of his stories, he totally stole from older stories because there aren't that many new stories to tell, but he told them in a way that had never been told before. And then 500 years later, we're still borrowing them from him. We're all just borrowing from each other.
And even the most original piece of creativity that you ever saw in your life where you're like, that's groundbreaking. I've never seen anything like that before guaranteed. I could bring in like 10 professors and academics who could look at it and say obviously this is somebody who had read this book or they had heard this symphony or they had were, they were playing off of this.
Or they were rejecting that they're responding. All we do as humans is respond to stuff that's already. Come before us, but you're allowed to add to the pile you're allowed to add to the pile. And what I always say is whenever I look at art, that's really original. I feel like I can admire it, but it doesn't move me.
What moves me is the humanity in an authentic piece of creation where somebody was doing something, whatever it was because they had to, [00:42:00] because they wanted to, because it brought them to life because it ignited their soul. That's what gives the shimmer of gold to something and makes me feel like my heart's been changed.
My mind's been changed. The world looks different than it did before. So I don't care if it's been done. I don't care if it's been done 10,000 times, if you need to do it. Oh, Mike, what a welcome glass of cold water in the creative world. How many times in your career? I know it's certainly true for me.
Have I caught myself? Either talking about an idea with somebody or trying to put the finishing touches before sending something alive. And we think, ah, this suddenly doesn't feel quite as grounded breaking as perhaps it was maybe it's the right idea. And suddenly you realize that it's a narrative in your own brain, isn't it?
You're your own worst enemy. Oh yeah. And to go [00:43:00] beyond creative classic creative pursuits just to build on oh, Shakespeare was just borrowing from a, like a ton of stories that had already been written, which is very much the same point I was making about apple. Think about something even more modern did Ilan must say, oh no like the car has been.
The same way fit for centuries like, oh batteries. No, there've been the same way. I won't go for that. We're all. I love that thought we're all allowed to add to this pile of creation because in the end, everything is a remix of something that all ready exists. So this gives us so much permission.
There is no such thing as a bad idea because all the ideas have been done before. It's just how you arrange it. What's the new approach that you can bring to it. And I just simply love this. It gives us a ton of permission. It's like a, it's like a big invitation get in there and have a go because even [00:44:00] Shakespeare was borrowing from others.
I love that idea. And any you're right, Mike. It does give me permission, but I think, and what it also gives me is his confidence. It gives me that little bit of a kick. To think. Okay, maybe that idea that I've been knocking around in my head for five, 10 years, that I've never wanted to do, because frankly I'm afraid it's just adding to the pile.
Maybe it's time to actually revisit that. Maybe it's time to give it another go and not be so afraid of just adding it to a pile because at the end of the day, I haven't done it and much like you were saying earlier in the second clip, when you go out and experience that fear or failure you are growing.
So the actual simple act of me putting it out. A short story or whatever, it might be a form of creativity. Learning a new skill is me growing as an individual because I want to [00:45:00] expand in my repertoire of experiences that are done in my life. So certainly what I think Elizabeth going out here is an invitation to all of us just to go out and live our lives and not be so crippled by the idea that we're not doing something totally original.
Yeah. It's like, whatever your creative pursuit is, it doesn't need to be a academy award winning Nobel prize, winning idea in concept, what it does needs to be is your work, do your thing, bring out your creativity and whether it's. Something as simple as writing a poem about a sunrise, which has probably been done a million times, there is everything for you to gain by writing the 1 million a month version of that story.
There's always new opportunities for you to create a new version, a new flavor, whatever your pursuit is. So don't get hung up on trying to have [00:46:00] this insanely unique idea, because if you look around, there's so much success, is people doing things that were already in the world, but just doing them better.
And if apple could hang, it's a home business strategy, it's that they weren't the first to the phone or to the laptop or to the PC. They weren't the first, but when they do show up, they tend to bring something very different. To something that's stuck down think about the fact that they have an app store, which is a coal also business on its own.
Forget the iPhone, the app store. That's 10 other companies all in one. And this is that idea of just bringing your authentic self to whatever your pursuit is. Could you imagine Picasso sitting there saying I probably shouldn't try during a bull fight. Because that's been done a [00:47:00] lot of times before, but it ended up being one of these best artworks.
Again, we see this pattern it's about what you bring to it. Not whether it's been done before. Yeah. And even to go another layer on top of that, I think what puts off people from attempting to learn an instrument or pick up a paintbrush or write something down like a poem as Elizabeth says is because they are just adding to yet another growing pile of that particular medium.
So imagine if Picasso had not only said about the bull, but he just said, oh, there's no point in being a painter as loads of paint. Yeah. So Ilan said not a ton of cars out there. We don't need anymore. I've been to space. So imagine Ilan turning around and saying, oh, we've already done space, so maybe we should do something.
Yeah. It's, this is really good because now that we've been given all this permission to jump in and have a go, we get to the next big [00:48:00] blocker, the stumbling point, the gotcha. Which is people sit there and they, this is what they do. They Polish and they Polish, they don't show anyone and they Polish some more and they Polish some more.
Meanwhile, life is just ticking away. And it's this idea of perfectionism I've been guilty of trying to Polish something like way too much. Have you ever fallen in this trap mark? 100%. Absolutely. There's been plenty of times when I will obsess over delivering something and it could be anything. It could be.
Podcasts. It could be a document. It could be just a conversation and you'll obsess over it so much that suddenly it either loses the ability to have an impact because you took too long or you end up, and this is perhaps more damaging. And Mike, tell me if you've experienced this, you talk yourself out of even delivering it in the first place, just when it's you're that close to getting it [00:49:00] live and then you pull back and here's the great news.
Elizabeth Gilbert author of big magic has some more inspiration thoughts and yeah, very good practices for us. When we think about perfectionism and finish. I want to go to the power of finishing. Cause you said something another genius gem from big magic about I don't want it to be perfect.
I want it to be finished. Yes. And that is another one of those things where I'll hear from folks. It's like there's 15 half created fridges have things that are just half done and it tortures them and they're afraid to start something new because they haven't really developed the habit of getting something out there, even if it's totally perfect, man, this is a huge one.
This is a really huge one for women because it's all rooted in perfectionism, which is of course the murderer of all good things. Perfectionism is just, it's a serial killer. That just goes around killing [00:50:00] joy, spontaneity, wander grace. Humility. It's just kills. And perfectionism, I think is a particularly dangerous kind of fear.
I always call perfectionism fear and high-heeled shoes because it's fancy. It's like a really fancy old Coture version of fear because perfectionism can advertise itself as a virtue and it can trick you into the letting it think that it's, it makes you special because people have such high standards, I'm like, look, I just can't wrestle something.
I'm a perfectionist is what people say in job interviews as their fault. Yeah. I guess I just care too much, and you're like, wow, you're telling me, but what you're telling me, when you say that is that it's going to be very hard for you. Not only to finish something, but probably to begin something because the true perfectionist won't even start because they know already that it's not going to be the thing that they can they're dreaming of.
And again, Mike, this comes back to what Elizabeth was teaching us earlier on. It's the [00:51:00] fear to go and give it a go because you're afraid of the final product not being perfect. And the truth is what is perfection. It's what you make of it in your own mind, what you think might not be perfect is probably perfect in other people's minds.
You're your own worst enemy again. Yeah. And actually what she goes on to speak about in much of her work is that perfectionism is actually a cover story. You just terrified out of your mind and you're thinking of any excuse just to keep polishing away and not take that step.
Now, the other thing is just get it out there and embrace the good feedback. And do you know what if people don't like it that's okay too. If people criticize you that's okay, too. I know a lot of people. Who have been [00:52:00] creatively successful? Look for actually tough feedback in the process from people that they trust to give them Frank feedback, but then when they publish their work, they then don't read the reviews.
They don't read all the comments on social media. A great example that comes to mind is Joe Rogan says, oh, I've learned to stop reading comments about my show because it just twist you a lot, do your best job, bring your authentic self to it, get it out there. Enjoy good counsel from those that you trust.
And don't let the naysayers get you down because really what's happening when we're avoiding, pressing the publish button. It's just fear. It's not perfection. It's not oh, I can wordsmith it a bit more. It's actually the truth to what Elizabeth Gilbert is saying is it's just plain old, scared, and don't give in to that feeling, right?
[00:53:00] Yeah. Yeah. This speaks so highly to moments in my career and my life where I've put off delivering something or certain actions, because I'm just yeah. Terrified of that situation. Not going how I planned it. Yeah. And that could spread from delivering a pitch proposing to your partner buying a house or doing something significant, doing something you've always dreamed of jumping out of a plane because the fear of the product not being perfect, no matter what that product is, it could be just an experience.
That's a huge reason to not go out and expose yourself to that experience. Isn't it? Yes. And a great technique that we learned from Dale Carnegie is to ask yourself, what's the worst that can really happen. And this is a very good way of getting that transition from fear to excitement. And look let's say you wanted to write a screenplay and [00:54:00] publish it or send it to some film companies or actors or directors, whatever, ask yourself seriously.
Like what's actually the worst thing that can happen. Let's do a checklist to get them out. Let's say we co-wrote the moonshots movie. All right. You're with me. Yeah. Yeah. I'm definitely keen on making the moonshots movie. We have to work out whether it's going to be like Saifai or I don't know.
Could it be a romcom? I dunno. Okay. But it's the moonshots movie. Now, if we spent a year writing this and then we sent that to a bunch of people and nobody. Responded. That's kinda like the worst thing that could happen, right? Yeah. A lack of any acknowledgement would be no acknowledgement. Yeah.
Sent it out. We even had people to send it back on open. And that it was okay. You're with me. Yep. Yep. I'm here. Yep. Are you still alive in that situation? Are you still able to breathe? I am. Yes. Do you still live in your house? I [00:55:00] do. Are you able to, you enjoy the company of your partner and your friends and do eat good food?
Yeah. And none of that's changed. Huh? Not so bad. It's so funny. Isn't it? When you break it down. So practically when you actually go through the exercise of just getting it out there and that the reward was in the craft and the process, and you accept what the world's going to give you back. And even if you dare to say, okay, what is the very worst that could happen here?
You're still alive. You're still breathing, so he didn't die. So that can hopefully get that that, that fear response down and help you go. Okay. I wonder what happens if we write the SQL, then maybe we have to write the prequel mark. I don't know. Maybe you can set the scene for the previous one, but the point here is it ain't that bad.
It's really not that bad. And almost I have been really guilty of this as thinking as some sort of life [00:56:00] or death moment, but it's just getting it out there. Getting it out and either receiving feedback from your trusted allies and your friends, or not even sending it out, maybe to, to the big wide public, just getting it done because then the deed and the adventure that you've gone on is so valuable to yourself because you've exposed new.
For lessons to learn new practices to pick up and just adding to the pile. That's okay. It's okay. To add stuff to the pile because at the end of the day, it's the first time you've done it. It's the first moonshots podcast movie that's come out into the ether. Yeah, I think that the this moment of just get it out there and so many things these days, once you publish it, you can still fix it.
If you realize there's something that you want to improve, or you can do a follow-up and do you know what's so beautiful [00:57:00] is that Elizabeth Gilbert says, Hey, I wrote this Hollywood hit and the followups. Yeah. And she's that's just what it is. And it was almost like the pressure was off.
She's okay. Back to the drawing board away we go again. It's all right. Nobody's perfect. And what we're learning throughout moonshots, is it all about embracing hardship, being resilient? And then we saw it with Einstein. We're searing seeing it here today with Elizabeth Gilbert author of big magic, that it is stay the course be authentic in your creative output and it will feel good and that's gift enough.
And if it succeed cherry on the top of the cake, Cherry on the top of the cake and Mike, if there's one consistent theme and thread that I've seen from Elizabeth Gilbert and big magic, it's this idea of just giving it a go and not being too obsessed or disappointed in the [00:58:00] ultimate response or result.
And there's final clip from Elizabeth Gilbert and her book. Big magic is actually all about not taking yourself too seriously. See, the martyrdom is all about this kind of sanctity that is so heavy that it will break you. And the trickster dumb is like, what if we don't have to treat this thing? Like it's a holy sacred Relic.
What if I turn, what have I like put sparkles on it? What fuck it out. Might be down. Let me just get my glue gun. And just like what if nothing's holy and everything's allowed? That's what art has been asking for centuries even, holy even sacred art has been asking even the Sistine chapel has a bunch of little like winks from Michelangelo.
Like what if the Pope's not infallible? What if I like give them donkey ears? What if they there's always like this sort of playfulness that art wants to do. And all we want to do is take [00:59:00] it so seriously that we kill it and often ourselves in the process. And so if you can learn how to dance with the trickster part of yourself, which is in you, because we all have martyr in us and we all have trickster in us and and trust that's the thing about the trickster.
The trickster trusts, the universe trusts that if the trickster takes a ball, throws it into the universe, the trickster knows it's coming back. It may come back three years from now. Now it might come back in a hailstorm of like 20 balls. It might come back like in some really comic strange way, but if you engage.
There'll be a response. And the only thing that trickster wants to spend his life doing is playing with that sense of put it out there, see what happens, put it out there, see what happens. And it's just a more fun way to live that isn't quite so heavy and isn't quite so macho. And and that's the way that I've always wanted to engage with my work.
And whenever I catch myself being the martyr, I'm like, are you falling for this? Are you falling for this thing that says the only way that you can be creative is to suffer because better. And then we trick our way out [01:00:00] of it. Yeah. You don't have to suffer. I think that's a great message.
But I would even go further and say what this reminded me of in this message from Elizabeth Gilbert is like, don't be like this motto. Don't be so heavy about it all. Is, do you know how to like great athletes. The greatest athletes often looked really relaxed on the playing field because they're not taking it all too seriously.
They're actually enjoying the moment because they move from fear to excitement because they're being very authentic. They're doing they're well-prepared they can just enjoy the moment and have a bit of a laugh and not be so wound up. I think if you're full of fear and doubt, then when you're in the act of trying to do something creative, you're also rigid.
But if you look at great athletes, it's such a great analogy [01:01:00] because they're well prepared. They're in an excitement mode, not in a fear mode. They can have a laugh. They're not also tight in highly wound. I think this is a great invitation to us. Just breathe. Let the tension go from the shoulders and just.
Have some fun with your thing. Is what you love is what brings you joy, fulfillment and satisfaction. So just embrace it, right? Just embrace it. Just going to have fun. Whether your creative moment is at work or in exercise or in your family, personal life or whatever it might be. That's what Elizabeth is inviting us to, to remember Mike, isn't it go out and just enjoy life because at the end of the day, who wants to be ruled by this fear where this fear putting us off, going out to create a new idea, a new product, instead of let's just go and have a bit of a laugh.
Let's go and have fun. Let's go and learn out [01:02:00] loud in the process and just see what happens. Absolutely. So for you, mark, we've covered a lot of ground from bringing this unusual bed partner for creativity, fear into the process. We've learned what it takes to get it out, all, to do with a wink and a nod, a little bit of the creative trickster.
Which idea was the one that had you? I think what is going to perhaps stay with me as a new idea is originality. So it's okay to add to the pile. I think that's a pretty new insight to me, a new data point that I can factor in and give myself permission to go and create no matter if it's something that Picasso or Shakespeare's done before.
Not that I'm grouping myself in with those two individuals, of course, but. There the lesson that, or the message that stood out to me today was the [01:03:00] reminder of fear and excitement being bed pals, this companionship between the two of them and how I can sometimes get them mixed up. That's a great reminder.
Great. Yeah. I would build on that and say for me, it was like, it was just this I am excited. You can literally smile. Loosen up the shoulders and say, I'm really excited about this and you can even hear it. As I say it in my voice, you can hear how the tone is different. You can hear almost when you smile, it makes a different sound.
Doesn't it? It does. It really does what a great lesson we've had today in creativity and what Elizabeth Gilbert would be coal, big magic, right? Yeah. A lot of practical, pragmatic advice, as well as things that just come down into our mindsets, Mike things that we can start to remember from today onwards.
[01:04:00] Exactly. Mark, thank you to you and thank you to you. Our listeners, the moonshot, others. Who've joined us on this adventure to learn out loud together. And it's been so good because we definitely. Gave it a nudge today, we are really on the way to we're realizing our full potential. We are definitely in the world of creativity.
So yeah, 143, we heard from Elizabeth Gilbert author of big magic. And her story started with fear should not be stopping you from creating. In fact, you need to give yourself permission to create. And importantly, to fail along the way and don't get all stopped. Don't get all banged up because fear is actually your companion.
Fear is your new excitement and ideas don't need to be limited to. What's been done before you can go beyond doing the deed is the actual reward. The gratitude is in the journey. The destination is just the cherry on top. [01:05:00] So there you have it. You can explore your world of creativity. If you don't take yourself too seriously and become friends with fear, embrace the excitement, and you'll be on your way to growing.
You'll be on your way to becoming the best version of yourself. And that's what we're all about here at the moonshots podcast.