It can be surprising to find out that other people want different things from life. It can also be surprising to realize what is the dream life for us.
Dream life is close
When I started writing down what were the foundational things of the daily life, I put together a schedule for a day. Dreaming into the future. Even my most ideal scenario had a ton in common with what I’m doing now. In my head, it was complicated and hard to achieve. On paper, I was sleeping and eating and moving my body. I was meeting with inspiring people. I was spending time with family and friends. I was performing. There were still things to improve. That’s the game of life.
Dream life is pretty unique
When we talk to our friends about what they want, they probably want different stuff. Our biz peers probably want different amounts and kinds of gigs than we do. They probably want a different work life balance. That’s good news for collaboration, for referring gigs to each other, for the tide raising all ships. We can make each others’ dreams come true while achieving our own!
Dream life is probably not stagnant
Oh, of course we all want to relax on the beach in Malibu in front of a mansion full of horses. No, not really. A few days of vacation are nice, but really what’s fulfilling is doing stuff. Creating things. Giving to the world. Being useful. Being challenged. We can think about what’s real. What’s really ideal and go for that.
Take Action: Schedule out your dream day or three dream days that you would like 5 years in the future
Feelings drive us. We don’t drive them. Our brains give us the chance to notice our feelings and act against them. I am really into letting my feelings be feelings. I let them flow thru me. I let them visit as long as they want. They will distort my reality. They will make unimportant things seem crucial and urgent. I will not control them. I can laugh at a funeral. I can cry when my shoelace gets wet. The more agile I am, the more goodness I can create.
Mindset is the thing I can change and I can change it quickly.
Embarrassment is a feeling. Shame is a mindset.
Sadness is a feeling. Depression is a mindset.
Joy is a feeling. Fulfillment is a mindset.
Should is a feeling. Could is a mindset. kinda
The great thing about giving the reins to brain rather than emotions is I can change my thoughts instantly. I can change “should” (shame word) into “could.” I can change “need” into “want”
Take action : Pick something that’s ahead for you that feeeeeels hard. Say to yourself “this is a game that I choose to play because I want to.”
People want to feel three things. We can help to give them these feelings. Even when these feelings are based on shallow evidence (like we feel accepted when someone compliments our shoes), the feelings are extremely powerful
Philanthropic
We want to feel like we’re good for the world. The stuff we do matters. It affects people in a positive way. Maybe we save lives, or maybe we give lives meaning.
Accepted
We want to know that we have security in our social circles. Our tribe loves us and will stick with us. We will have safety.
Prudent
We want to feel we make good choices that are cost-effective. Cost includes money, time, energy, health. It hurts me a little bit to get a shot from a doctor and i get healthier. The reward is worth it because I make good choices.
Using this for good
These three are super powerful motivators. People die for this stuff. So, think about how nice it is to give this as a gift to someone. Encourage them. Let them know that you see them the way they want to see themselves. eg…
“everything you do makes people smile” (philanthropic)
“people at the party were all talking about you and how they missed you” (accepted)
“how do you always find the best stuff at Goodwill?!” (prudent)
Take Action: share a big good feeling with someone who inspires you
I may have a genius IQ. I am very curious. I like learning. I have some people skills and presentation skills. As far as capitalist success, I’m pretty set up. I have ADD and anxiety and the stuff that most teachers wanted me to do in school was just not interesting to me. I didn’t do homework and I think I ended up graduating with a 1.8 grade point average. I was acing tests, class-clowning, and ignoring homework as often as would allow me to continue school.
The thing often told to my mom was “Scot has so much potential if he would only apply himself.” This anti-motivated me for two reasons…
Limited thinking
Potential to what? Most of my school seemed to be geared up to go to a local college, stay in town, do a normal job, get a normal house, have a normal family. Getting to normal isn’t what I would consider “so much potential.”
Unlimited thinking
I have potential to everything. Even if i wasn’t born so privileged i could still be a soldier, a senator, a doctor, a tv actor, whatever… potential is endless and amorphous. Shooting for achieving my potential is a terrible goal. Even if I’m the richest person in the world, I’m still not pursuing my potential of being a soccer player or a house-husband or whatever other infinite potential things
The trap of infinity
I am all for people maximizing on their gifts. I’m all for people using their whole selves – for shooting big and dumping everything into it! Potential is a tarpit. It’s a trap that i still fall into on a regular basis. I think what’s possible and get a nose-bleed. Then, I get paralyzed. The remedy for me is to switch the search for “potential” to the search for “opportunity” … what’s in front of me now, or what will be in front of me. What’s fun? How do i like spending my time? Who do I like spending my time with? Opportunity is real even though my lens of the world is distorted, it’s a tangible path instead of just an endless void waiting to be filled.
Side: in space movies, they fly in any direction they want near light speed through meteor showers and dodge rocks. Like, people get in wrecks on a two dimentional road with lines drawn on it. Are these space drivers that much better? seems impossible.
Take action: Write down a great thing you can do today in the next hour that will have a big effect on your mood or your main project.
It’s 9am – two hours into my work day and I have not decided when is best to meet with this person. It’s an important meeting. I want to be prepared and also fresh. I want to be off-the-cuff and grounded. My deciding is taking a lot of energy and time. I’m sweating.
Here are some tricks i’ve found to shortcut decisions and get to the thing right away.
Remember nothing is conclusive
sometimes i feel that i’m going to make a decision and that will be the end of it, so i better make a good one that i can live with. The truth is everything. keeps going. I keep growing. I keep having more conversations with the same people. I keep having the opportunity to pivot, apologize, trash plans, flake (though i don’t). My point is, i’m free in this decision. Most likely, everyone will survive it.
Difficult choices don’t matter
We were looking at two very different schools for Arlo to attend. They both had pros and cons and they both seemed good. We weren’t sure though because we’ve never picked a school for him or any kid. We did all the research. We knew a lot. It was paralyzing us. The answer to these difficult decisions is it doesn’t matter. Flip a coin.
If the decision is stay on the sidewalk or run blindfolded into the street, that’s an easy decision. That decision matters.
Just because the outcomes can be important, it doesn’t mean the decision is important.
Make the deadline now
Big fan of Parkinson’s Law here. If we give a decision a long gestation period, we’ll spend a lot of jellybeans on it. Skip it. We can decide to decide now and it’s done.
Choose no regrets
One thing that makes decisions heavy and bulky and awkward to lift is that there is the promise of regret. We can choose before making the decision that “this is the best i can do in this situation with what I know. I will repair later if i need to, but i will not regret it.”
Take action: Look at a big decision from your past month. Notice how it could have been easier in retrospect. Fuel your future with that decision wisdom.
People think i mean make marketing for similar people. I think it’s easier to just make stuff for them. Sometimes it takes a little imagination and a ton of empathy. I really mean serve that real person. Make social media posts that help them. Make newsletters that help them. Make a website that helps them.
It attracts the same kind of people and rejects the people that are not in line with our mission.
So, when creative freelancers ask me how are they supposed to find their sentinel, my answer is you already found them.
Take action: find a meme that your sentinel would like. Send it to them.
He’s a perfect depiction of a variety entertainer. The avatar for us all.
Variety entertainers are ridiculous. We work really hard to perform stuff that nobody cares about and try to make them care. We are desperate, delusional, passionate, heart-first, beautiful, powerful, impotent. This is the most important craft in the world and that’s why I’ve dedicated my life to it and to uplifting and amplifying the work that others do in it.
Perry Kurtz, 3 days after posting “Need some laughs?” on facebook, was killed crossing the street. Why was anyone walking in LA, and the question I’m sure he would like me to ask…Why did Perrry cross the street?
I don’t know, but he got to the “other side.”
He was going somewhere. He was always going somewhere. He was doing stuff. He seemed old, yet full of a young energy. He seemed like tired of it all, and yet didn’t know what was around the corner. Perry was a long-term Los Angeles comedian in every show you could imagine. Busy without feeling busy. He was a fluctuation between cocky and jaw-droppingly humble. A full human! So rad. He would kill on stage and not know why….Consider himself lucky and do it again.
I introduced him to James Corden and he charmed Corden faster than I could. Had a joke on his show that made me a little envious. Then, I got immediate gratitude that Perry was in my life at all.
Perry was one of the performers that would keep myself and the band guessing even though we knew exactly what he was there to do. He was very supportive of me and every performer that needed it. Let’s be more Perry today.
I performed all my life. The brunt of my training was during my formative years on the streets of the world. I busked majorly in New Orleans, Boston, Baltimore, NYC, San Francisco, Los Angeles. Street style performances at Coachella, Huis Ten Bosch – Japan, New Zealand, lollapalooza, touring with Brooks & Dunn and Canada.
I did what’s called a big circle show. Gather a crowd of 200 people, perform a full show (maybe 30 min long) and ask people to pay me cash in a bucket.
It’s a grueling school and very effective since i was trying to learn to be maximum engaging.
The crowds are diverse. They’re distratcted. They mostly don’t intend to watch a show that day. I needed them to stick around the whole show. Then, i needed them to like it enough to pay me. I could perform five shows a day, so i got lots of practice. I could do whatever I wanted. I would take turns with other performers from around the world and see how they did the same.
Trust me… this eventually gets to something that matters to professional hula-hoopers…
USA just did Independence Day. We’re celebrating the Declaration of Independence signed 247 years ago. The following “truths” were not the truth.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
The authors didn’t treat everyone equal and give everyone liberty. It was a hope. It was a hope that some day they would. America still has that hope.
The words “hope” and “freedom” can sound wishy-washy. They can be used to manipulate people because they’re very powerful. So, let’s use these words to manipulate ourselves into doing great things.
I have a lot of transformational conversations with freelance creatives (mostly entertainers), and I have found that hope is the difference between growth and stagnation. In the book Deep Survival, it’s the difference between living and dead. Believing that something is possible is crucial before we start figuring out how to do it. Growth is required for life. Hope is required for growth.
We got into freelance work for the FREE part. We wanted certain liberties that 9-5ers and executives don’t have. If you made a declaration of independence when you quit your day job, imagine what it would contain.
I want you to feel fueled to fight for your freedom this weekend because you’re doing good stuff for the world and it’s gotta be fun for you. If you feel something is just the way it is, you will stop growing and stop sharing. Instead… Here’s hope.
💸 FINANCIAL FREEDOM
From my recollection, every single creative I know can charge more from the same customers for the same service. Some can charge 10x more and some can charge 10% more. If you charge 10% more, you can do 9 gigs instead of 10 to make the same amount of money. That leads to…
😴 TIME FREEDOM
Most of us are working on creating value that nobody appreciates. I’m not talking about doing that extra bit of effort to push our art brilliance over the top… I’m talking about making our websites perfect, or learning a juggling trick that isn’t fun and won’t improve the audience’s response. We can all cut stuff out and get more time freedom. What’s crucial for the life we want? Accept only that! Time freedom is available to you right now. This hour.
👯♀️ CO-WORKER FREEDOM
We want to work with people we like. We have that opportunity. Most of the people we work with are awesome. Many are on the same mission as us. They’re commited to the same hope. We can gracefully make more time for them and give ourselves space to have all the jellybeans for our loved ones. We gotta find people that inspire us and work with them. We do have a choice. Even you do. Text one person who inspires you.
🦺 CREATION FREEDOM
We saw the power of ventriloquism, but felt like others weren’t tapping in to that power. We wanted to make something new. Then, as our careers continue, we can feel that we are servants of what makes money or whatever.
It’s time to revisit. Instead of elephants leashed with string, we can look at who we are now, what we’re trying to do, and go as big as we are with expression.
🆔 IDENTITY FREEDOM
There’s a part of me that also I see in the most successful people. It says…
“fuckit. if i show up however i want, wild and free, I will create the best stuff, i will be the most loveable, I will be the most prolific, the wealthiest, and the safest.”
Without understanding who I am, or figuring out how to present myself, or what is the right thing to do next… If I show up in my most agile state, I will be powerful.
You at your core are loving and lovable. You’re accepted. You’re dependable.
🕊️ UNLEASH IT TODAY
The hope of freedom is so powerful, it has motivated a ton of people to die in terrible wars. Freedom is available to you and it’s what you generate for other people. I want you to live and thrive and give. My hope for you is that you look for help finding unrelenting hope.
Arlo’s taught me to like small things, but it’s not my normal. I like working with people who are thinking BIG and doing BIG things. Boobietrap was not a place to play around. It was a place to be a full-on badass with other killer acts. The people that hire me now are mostly my buddies. They’re experienced, powerful, and generative. Other people are glad to support beginners. I like to collaborate with people who have been in business for years and think they know what they’re not doing.
THE GOLDMINE IS PERFECTIONISM
here’s an example. I just worked with this guy, KS. In less than 15hrs, we got his album released, a new brand, a new aesthetic, network connections with five powerful peers, and two bookings. We built him a website, he did some cold outreach, created an idea for him to become a community hub, and some other things I’m forgetting. He got to take care of all of this because of his perfectionism. He had been wanting to do this shit for 6 years.
That’s why it worked. He had built up the capital. To him it looked like dragging his feet. To me it looked like 6 years of investment.
6 years of nagging anticipation
6 years of recording imperfectly
6 years of fretting in the shower
6 years of dreaming
6 years of contingency planning
6 years of talking himself out of truly bad ideas
6 years of tip-toeing around relationships that were waiting to blossom
KS hit a point where he just was done waiting and he took charge. He pulled the trigger and gave oxygen to his capital. He mobilized it.
MY POINT IS… HAVE HOPE
It was instant to convert KS’ capital into useful value. It was sitting there eagerly waiting. Maybe you’re doing good work that you don’t know about right now. Maybe that thing you’ve wanted to do for a decade (redoing your website, raising your rates, redoing your brand, figuring out your finances, making a real business, publishing a book, etc. ) is already mostly done.
I went to standup shows for weeks before getting on stage. When I got on stage at a mic, i knew exactly what to do.
I went to therapy and meditated and journaled and went on bad dates for years. When I met my wife, i was ready.
🎠🎠🎠🎠
Mini horses are great for plowing under tables and in hard to reach spots. Other than that, they’re cute and useless. I’m writing to you because you’re not a mini horse, even if you’re cute.
I love perfectionists. They’re the most fun.
when you’re ready to pull the trigger on something, I’m here to work it out immediately!
Here we are in August. I never liked it when people asked me “are you ready for school to start again?” Part of it was summer was over. Most of it was WTF does that mean? We bought pencils. I had a backpack. I was going to be in a new part of the school with a new teacher with different kinds of classes with new students. NO! I wasn’t ready for school.
I asked a friend how to know if I was ready to get married. He said you’ll never be ready. Same advice when considering having a baby. Same when moving to a new house. Same when changing something in our business.
Nike is not ready to create the most innovative basketball shoe. They never were. There’s no way to get ready to do that. Toyota is not ready to make next year’s family car. There’s no way of telling if they are ready.
Decide by desire
We want something big, we go for it. We take the risk. We gamble on a big outcome. We feel out of control.
We feel like it’s a crazy idea. Everyone else feels like it’s a crazy idea… except the people who are more successful.
Important things just gotta be done
We can be thrilled by being out of control. The thrill dissipates quickly.
The appreciation of vulnerability is a more sustainable mindset. We are vulnerable. Even if we feel secure in waiting to be ready, we are really not in control there either. We can accept vulnerability and realize that preparing or doing, we’re still specks in the universe. We can figure out what’s important to us and jump into it. That’s fun.
Take action: Say “I am going downhill in slippery roller skates” until you believe it.
If we want to do small ticketed shows, that’s fine and good. It can be a low stakes way to test out some material. Not my jam. For me, street is the way to do that.
If we think we’re making good stuff, we want to charge more for it. It’s gotta be special. Audience members are commiting to a night out just for our stuff, we gotta give them an equal commitment. The commitment that this is going to be good. If the show is the same price as a bad movie or less, I’d rather go to a bad movie where at least i know I’ll get a comfy seat, popcorn, and good air conditioning. I won’t regret going to a bad movie even if I don’t like it. It was worth a try.
People are paying a lot for special experiences now more than ever and are attending fewer cheap experiences. This is the time to try raising prices and seeing how to over-deliver on the quality. Mediocre is worse than bad.
COVID changed things for people. We’re all more aware of what’s important to us and more dedicated to those things.
People would rather pay 1000s for a Taylor Swift ticket than $30 for ______ ticket. Maybe it’s not just because it’s Taylor. Maybe it’s because it’s special.
Take action : research
…what mediocre shows are charging and what the amazing shows are charging. If something’s selling out, it’s in the pocket.
