The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 65 - Live Q&A Part 2

Transcript:

Jen: Hello there, listeners. Before we get to this week's episode, Pete and I do a lot of noodling on how to help people move things forward. And it occurred to us that it might be useful to all of you if we put those noodles in one place. So we have decided to do that in a series that we're calling Bowl O' Noodles. And you can download the first Bowl O' Noodles, Unstuck Edition, at thelongandtheshortpodcast.com/noodles. There you'll find our favorite questions. Things to noodle on when you're feeling stuck, things to help you get unstuck. Thanks for listening, and we hope you enjoy this episode.

Pete: Hey, legends. Welcome to Part 2 of the Live Q&A that was recorded when Jen and I were in the same room in New York City, a little earlier this year. If you haven't listened back, we had Part 1 last week. But if you have, please proceed. Or if you like to listen to things backwards, also just, you know, feel free to proceed. And remember that this is The Long and The Short Of It.

Questioner #1: Hi! So, I'd love to talk more about strategy but specifically about the sprint. And I know you all have had a podcast before about the sprint, just like talking about what it feels like. But what is it like when you know that you're about to go into a sprint? So for a lot of us, like, audition season is coming. Like, we have one quarter left and then we're hopping in for like six months. What do you do to prepare when you know you have something large coming, something daunting, and also something that you are hanging so many hopes on that it will be a great success? And you're trying to decide how to put 100% into it. But then also like, how to prepare yourself for the reality that you may not get the outcome that you want at the end.

Pete: Brilliant question. Over to you, Jen.

Jen: [laughter] Well, I think it's interesting that in the question, we're labeling it a sprint. But what you're talking about sounds to me more like a marathon. That, to engage in anything for six months of deep focused work is more like a marathon than a sprint. So, I just want to call that out as it's probably going to be a different mindset than, "I'm going to work hard and fast, and it's going to be over very quickly.". Versus, "I need to pace myself because I have a very long journey ahead of me. I need to know where the water stands are. I need to know where, where I'm getting my food gel packs from. I also need to know that I have new shoes, or shoes that are broken in depending on what works best for you.". So I do think that they're sort of different. I am in the beginning stages of a marathon. I showed Pete my planner the other day.

Pete: I felt nauseous. [laughter] Like what, that's January next year?

Jen: And what has helped me is I have very specific milestones, mile markers that I'm looking for in my marathon. And I don't know what every single day looks like because circumstances change, but I know that my intention is to hit Mile Marker Three by such and such a date. And I'll know at Mile Marker Two if I'm going to make it to Mile Marker Three at the date that I have hoped for. And if not, then I can start adjusting. It's when I surprise myself with being behind that it starts to feel like a losing battle to me. So that's one of the reasons why I like to think so far out, so that I know where I stand all the time. So that's been really useful to me. And then the other thing is to let people who are on your Brene Brown 1x1 Square, or in the arena with you, or your generous and generative feedback loop, however you decide to look at it, to let them know you're entering a marathon, and you need people to be standing on the sidelines at certain points to cheer for you. Because it can be very exhausting to run for that long with no one watching. So, that's my advice. Or, something to noodle on.

Pete: The other very, very, very juicy thing you mentioned, which is, I think...this is the work of almost everyone, which is, can I unattach myself from an outcome? That, the moment we put "success", or happiness, or joy, or satisfaction in something external is the moment we set ourselves up for failure, I believe. And so as much as possible...and this is so hard to do, I know. As much as possible, can we unattach ourself from the outcome being the thing that will bring us all of those things? And there is a brilliant, brilliant book by a brilliant, brilliant person called Thinking in Bets, her name is Annie Duke. She used to be a professional poker player, made millions and millions of dollars. But it's brilliant because it's called Thinking in Bets. And so the whole concept of poker is: it's math. And what she asserts is- really, really, really good math, and really, really good decisions that you make based on that math do not guarantee a good outcome. That if there's a 98% chance that you will win that hand, there is a 2% chance you won't. And so if that 2% chance happens, you could consider yourself annoyed or unlucky. Or you could realize that there was a 2% chance that this wouldn't work out. So was it that you were unlucky? Or was it that just, you just happened to be part of the 2%? So as much as possible, unattaching ourself from the outcomes. Because in the moment, if you did have a hand where you had a 98% chance of winning and you decided to go all in, it's a good decision. You had a 98% chance. It's a great decision. But the outcome...not a good outcome. So this I think is, like I said, the work of: can we unattach ourself from the things that we think might bring us joy, and satisfaction, and fulfillment?

Questioner #2: Hi. So, um, you just talked about working smarter and, I guess, working smart, pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. But then you also hear, like, "You have to trust the process. You have to be patient.". And for me, I have a lot of trouble finding the balance between like, pushing myself and working hard and taking risks, but then trying to be patient and I guess, quote, unquote, "trusting the process". And how do you know when you're trusting and being patient versus, "Oh, I'm being lazy. I'm not taking enough risks. I'm not doing enough.".

Jen: There's a difference between being patient and practicing patience. One is about who you are. The other is a skill that you develop. I'm more interested in developing skill sets. So you can learn how to practice patience, and you don't have to be patient in order to do that. There's a distinction, or difference between waiting and practicing patience. And they're very, very different. One gives up all of your power, and the other claims all of your power. Practicing patience is a really important discipline. That being said, you've got to have some sense of what you're going to do while you're practicing patience. And that's where I think a lot of people become...drum roll...impatient.

Pete: Yeah, we can hide in waiting. Or we can hide in this idea that we're being patient. But again, unattaching yourself from the outcome, can you get a project to a point where it requires you to practice patience, and still move forward some other work that you're doing? If that makes sense.

Questioner #3: Hello! I am interested in hearing about approaching challenges that you've intentionally designed to foster growth. Friend of the pod...which I don't know if I can say that, but friend of the pod Seth Godin was speaking on Akimbo a couple weeks ago about the importance of committing to ship when you're developing a new skill or working on something new, which resonated as true that there's benefit to that. But I found myself identifying a paradigm that he was speaking to of an anonymity that is not always possible outside of something like authorship. And I'm, you know, just aware that the closer your product or service is to being your actual self, the more important your reputation is. The closer that line moves, the more vital your track record becomes. So I'm wondering how we can get the benefits of committing to shipping regularly without jeopardizing relationships and reputation in the process.

Jen: That is a great question.

Pete: Yeah, that's such a good question. The first thing that comes to mind for me is stand-up comedians. So I've recently become obsessed, apparently, with stand-up comedy and...

Jen: You have. You really have!

Pete: I have. Right, I've watched a lot of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. I've started reading books about famous stand-ups.

Jen: We went to the Seinfeld diner.

Pete: I went to the Seinfeld diner the other day. [laughter] I mean, I had to take a photo. I just had to. And what I am so fascinated by is- here is a group of people who are exactly what you describe, which is their work is essentially them. They are the product, they are the service, if you like. And what they almost without fail, every single one of them will talk about: You have to stay fresh. You have to keep showing up on stage. You have to practice your material. Essentially, you have to ship. And for them, they have comedy clubs which are essentially, there is an expectation from the audience that people are working on their material. The only way to get better at acting is to act. The only way to get better at writing is to write. The only way...well, not the only way but the best way to get better at podcasting is to podcast. And Seth talks about this verbatim. So I just think of stand-up comedians. And Jerry Seinfeld still goes to The Comic Lounge every now and then, when he's in, I think it's in LA, and practices material. And that just blows my mind. That someone that high or that, like, at the top of his game still shows up to practice and work on his material, almost on a weekly basis. So, yeah.

Jen: I just have one more thing I want to add to this as I'm tossing it around in my mind. I think it's, it's easy to take something that is really a small slice of the issue...like in the acting world, putting your work in front of the casting director, let's say, before it's ready to be seen, and allowing that to infiltrate the rest of the pie. So that is a small slice but I, I can say this just from personal experience dealing with clients, that sometimes that fear of, "If I put my performance work in front of someone and it's not ready, I probably shouldn't send this thing because I'm not that good at writing. And I probably shouldn't hit publish on my website, because that's not really ready. And I don't know if I can call that person.". And it starts to infiltrate everything. So I think it is really useful to get clear about: Where are there specific needs that need to be met in order to ship your work and move your work forward? And then, where are you holding yourself back just because you have that excuse in one small area?

Questioner #4: Um, in class last week, I heard a lot of talk about, from my cohort, about money. Asking for money, feeling guilty about asking to be paid and being paid well, and I just want to hear you guys noodle about that.

Pete: Seth Godin would say money is a story. And I tend to, I tend to agree. That, the stories we tell ourselves and others ultimately determine our relationship with money. And so, as I say that I'm trying to think of a really good example. I mean, I feel like wine is often a really good example. So when one looks at a wine list, and it might be in another language (I've done this in Italy), and there's fifteen wines on the wine list...I look at the most expensive and I look at the cheapest, and I immediately tell myself a story about which one's better, without any other facts other than the price. So to me, that's proof. Money is a story. And what I do is, you know, I'm not gonna get the cheap one. I'm not a cheapskate. I'll get like the second, you know, cheapest one. [laughter] Because I'm like, I'm a little bit classy. Right? I'm a little bit classy. And again, I'm telling myself a story that I'm a little bit classy, so I'll get the slightly classier one, based on nothing. I can't even read the label, it's in, it's in Italian. So I think that frame, that money is a story, is really, really worth spending some time noodling on. Now, that means the stories we tell ourselves, to that example, about money are worth unpacking. But also the stories we tell others about our own worth, and what we charge, is really, really interesting, and incredibly difficult to do. But I have some thoughts. The first is, people will pay you if you can solve their problem. So when I lose a pair of headphones, I need a pair of headphones. I have a problem. I want, I want a pair of headphones. I'll go and buy them. I'll pay the money. I don't care if they're gonna charge me forty bucks, or thirty bucks, or twenty bucks. I'm not gonna say, "You know what? That's too expensive. I'm not buying headphones.". I'm like, "I need some headphones. So if you're gonna charge me $45, charge me $45.". And that that is true of so many other things. That usually we buy something to solve a need, or a problem. So if you're doing generous work as a freelancer, and you are helping people solve their problem, then it's even more generous for you to communicate that. And this is where I think most people sort of fall down a little bit with selling and money, which is they make it about them. But it's not. It's about the other person. So really good marketing, and really good selling is about empathy. Is about, "Hey, I see you without the headphones. You have a problem. I've got a great solution for you. It's a pair of headphones, it just happens to cost this much money.". That's a really, really binary example, I know, the headphones. But I think it's worth looking at a little more, which is, what is this person telling themself is their story? Is their problem? Is their "issue"? And how might I help them see, generously, that I have a solution to their problem.

Jen: I think this goes back to something we...I don't know how frequently we've talked about this on the podcast actually, it's something I talk about in class all the time, is like: Know the market you're in. Know the landscape. Do the homework, so that you can go into conversations with as much knowledge as possible. Because if...let's just throw random numbers out there in a hypothetical industry. That if the market will bear $5,000 for whatever the thing is, and that is industry standard, and that is the expectation, and then you come in...that's what's expected for what's average. And then you come in and you say, "I'll do it for $1,500.". The story you've just told is how below average the thing is that you're going to deliver. So to the point that Pete made earlier, money is a story on both sides of the conversation, not just on your end.

Questioner #5: Hey. So this kind of goes back to the problem solving thing, and sort of like being the solution to the problem. It's possible you both have touched on this, and my mindset is stubborn and doesn't want to hear it. [laughter] So, I'm just inviting that as a possibility. But, um, so how do you reconcile between wanting to be the solution to the perceived problem you think that they're trying to solve, and being like, totally, authentically you and trusting that the right problem will arise that you are the perfect solution for?

Pete: So my first thought is: can it be both? And my follow up noodle to that is, there are multiple ways to communicate work that is authentically you. Often what we do is we communicate it in a way that makes sense to us, because it's authentically us. But there's also a way to communicate the same message in a way that resonates with the person that's, in this case, "buying". I don't know why I keep doing air quotes, but I do. [laughter] So, there you go. And often it's, it's a, it's a version of the same story. But we, we can tell it in a way that's relevant to the person on the other side of the table. That's, that's empathy. And I don't know if maybe I'm describing a utopian world, because I'm literally putting this together as you asked that great question. But to me, I think there's definitely a world that exists where it can be both. So if I think about an example...I think about everything that I do is about helping other people see things they can't. And at the moment that takes the form of podcasting, keynoting, coaching, and facilitating. And I could talk about the Imposter Two-Step in a certain way, and I did on the TEDx stage because that is a platform that allows me to talk about it in a way that's authentic to me. But if a executive from a company came in and said, "Hey, we want, we want someone to come in and talk to us about how to, how to be a better leadership team.". They didn't ask me to come in and talk about the Two-Step. But I can say to them, "Okay, so what you want is someone who's going to help you be a better leadership team, is that right? Sometimes there's a situation that happens in a corporate job, I know this, where people don't feel like they can innovate because they don't feel safe. They feel like an imposter. And so I think I can help you. I think I've got a keynote for you. Let me go away and think about it, and I'll come back and put a proposal together for you.". I never mentioned the Two-Step. I never mentioned, really, imposter syndrome, until the very end. But I think I communicated authentically that, in a way that resonates with that particular person. Did any of that make sense?

Audience: Yes!

Pete: Okay, good. Wow. I just sort of blacked out. [laughter]

Jen: The other thing that I want to just talk about is, there is not only one solution to every problem.

Pete: Yes.

Jen: And part of what I find trips a lot of my clients up is that when they are not the solution to someone's problem, they assume that is somehow a reflection on whether or not they're good, or valid, or worthy. And so one of the distinctions I've been really trying to make in the work I'm doing with artists is the distinction between being the best, and simply being the preferred choice. Because when it comes to creative work, there is no best. There will never be best. It depends on who's viewing the work, what is best. So what you can aim for is to do your best work knowing that the best possible outcome is simply that you're preferred. That your best will never be someone else's best, it's simply going to be their preference. And that little language shift has been very, very helpful in giving people the freedom to just show up and do that their best work, to your earlier point of unattaching from the outcome.

Pete: You want to take one more?

Jen: Sure.

Sarah: I'll ask a question.

Pete: Yes! [laughter]

Jen: Oh my gosh, the editor is asking a question!

Sarah: I reserve the right to edit this out if it's a bad question. [laughter] But from what I know of you both, you're sort of obsessed with this idea of continuous learning.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: And I just wonder if you could talk about sort of where that motivation comes from? And if you ever get exhausted by the constant stream of information that is the life that we're all living right now?

Pete: What a great question. My immediate answer is, I don't know. But I can do better than that. So I will. So I think, to me, curiosity is just one of my core values. And I don't for a second think that I know anywhere near enough, almost in any given moment. I cringe at words like "expert". I cringe at words like...well, in fact, I'll just leave it at "expert". Because I think that there's this notion that the more you know, the more you realize you don't know. And so it's like once you start down that rabbit hole, there's no coming back. So it's not overwhelming for me. It's fun. I love it. And I don't know if this is a very good answer, because it doesn't give you any practical ideas. But the idea that I can think of something that interests me (and we talked about stand-up earlier), develop some random obsession with a topic like stand-up, look at who are the best in the world of that particular field, and then, like, spin up a bunch of almost endless free resources to hear what that person has to say on the topic. Like, that makes me so happy. That I can learn from the best in the world in almost any given field for free, in this day and age that we live in? Like, that is outrageous, and inspiring, and makes me a better person, makes the things that I do like this podcast, I think, better. Because I'm always stretching, always growing, always learning, and that fuels me. That the opposite, to me, is stagnation. And honestly, that bores me. So, I don't know if that was a great answer. But I just love to constantly learn, and challenge myself, and challenge norms. That's just something I get joy out of.

Jen: Um, the impetus, like the beginning of the "why do you always want to learn"...definitely from my grandmother, Ida Marmer, for sure. Yes, and my sisters are chuckling right now if they're listening to this because my grandmother...I grew up in a very, [sung] very Jewish, very middle class, and very straight [spoken] uh, city, Calabasas, California. And my grandmother used to take me on (I'm using air quotes) "architectural tours" of different houses of worship, mostly so I knew there was a world out there. And I think that was like very early instilled in me. That there's a world out there, like, that you know nothing about, and you need to go figure out what else is out there. So that's always been like a craving in me. Also, I don't know if anyone's been following the Marie Forleo explosion that's happening right now in relationship to her new book called Everything is Figureoutable. Recommended. But she keeps saying something that I can't wait to start bringing into class, which is: Create before you consume. That it's okay if you consume. But make the first thing in the day, create something. Before someone else's ideas get into your head, create something. It might be journaling. It might be drawing something, maybe writing a poem. It might be singing a song. Like, create something before you consume someone else's content so you can get really clear on what your content is. And I've just, I've loved that message. Super special thanks to Sarah Nichols, for editing the podcast. [applause]

Pete: Thank you, Sarah. And thank you, everyone, for having me in your city, and in your country. [applause] And thank you for coming. Thank you for coming. And thanks, thank you for the generous questions. Thank you for listening. It's truly...it's humbling in a really, really kind of nice way. That, I literally sit in a black box that is soundproofed and record this with Jen 99% of the time. So to be able to come here and see, and hear from so many of you in-person is like a little bit overwhelming, and amazing. So, thank you

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It. [applause]