Spooning Failure

Speaker 1: 0:04

You're listening to records, creatives, a pipeline artist's original podcast for Sadie Dean and Jr. Let Bauman share the candid truth about the challenges and benefits of living life as artists. Hey,

Speaker 2: 0:19

This is Jeanie from pipeline artists, and this is Sandy from script magazine, and this is pipeline artists, original podcast, reckless creatives. So I guess we should just kind of get right in it. Yeah. I mean, uh, why not start off your first podcast about, um, being a failure and what is failure? I know we'd like to set the bar low here at reckless grade, but I do want to show you something before we get into our topic of failure. Okay. Now the rest, you can't see this, but Sadie can. Wow. See, did you get yours? I have not. I I'm meeting him in person for those who can't see, because it was kind of mean to me to show something that you can't see. I was holding up a really cool black coffee mug with white lettering that says reckless creative on one side. And the other side has, are the pipeline artists and logo. This is apparently what podcasts hosts get. We get really cool mugs because that's what every podcast or needs is a really cool mug, not a microphone or a mic cable or headphones. Yeah, we don't need anything like that. Just a really cool old school at mud. We could do this in like the Partridge family van, like totally old school and go on a road trip. I'm ready each day. So, um, how was your week? You good life. Good. Well, life is good. Life is good. Uh, it was a very interesting week and I think it definitely speaks to, uh, our topic now, but, uh, mine too. Yeah. And it's, it's one of those weeks. I think it's just because it's the end of the month. So yeah. Well, let's get in the, the failure aspect. There's a lot to say about failure. And last night I was hanging on, um, I saw you there to city, um, pipeline authors, uh, Twitter chat. And I was asking people like, you know, stuff about failure and success and, and all of that. And it was really interesting people's perception of failure and people really beat themselves up a lot, you know, like unrealistic expectations. I think of what, what success looks like next time we're going to talk about success. Actually. I want to dip depth about that, but like, but failure, like I was a woman who was saying that she just felt like a failure because she had, she hadn't been able to write because had kids and their job and, you know, and she was really beating herself up a lot. You know, time management, I think can really mess with people's heads and make them feel like they're not, they jump right from, I didn't have time to write today too. I'm a failure, which is nuts. Those two, you don't go right from that to immediately, you're a failure cohort. Go stand in the corner. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 3:33

Wonder if it has to do with one with the last, you know, what is this 14 months now of this hell hole? We've all been in and put that pressure on ourselves of trying to be our very best and go above and beyond. Um, and the pressures of, you know, working from home, if you have that opportunity and you're just like, I'll do all of it at once. Even though it's not realistic, but also a societal, you know, social media. I think a lot of us see people who look like overnight successes, but they're really not. And I think that can get a lot of people down.

Speaker 2: 4:13

You're also seeing, like, I know a lot of people have been talking about like during the pandemic, Oh, I've gotten so much time to write. I'm like, I've wrote like three scripts and I did this and that. Well. Okay, awesome. That is fantastic. I've definitely had more time to focus on some of my work by writing stuff, because there was that really long time that I couldn't go participate in a lot of the town committees that I'm like a volunteer on because no one was meeting a person. So it was awesome because I got to literally take all of those responsibilities and toss them in the garbage can and see what my life would be like if I really put myself as a priority, imagine that, but like this woman on Twitter last night, and I apologize, I can't remember, um, her handle, but, um, you know, when somebody like that, who's got kids at home, well, she's not going to have more time to write because their kids are at home and she's trying to juggle them. Learning from home. A lot of the kids have been homeschooling and, or, you know, hybrid learning or whatever, but that's a, that's a huge strain and stress on people. And to keep that same expectation of your old worker teen, I don't even know how people held jobs, like who had kids at home

Speaker 3: 5:35

It's madness. Uh, yeah. I don't know either. I don't, I do not have children, so I would not know,

Speaker 2: 5:42

But that is not a failure

Speaker 3: 5:47

Depending on how you're speaking to my family. But that's another topic.

Speaker 2: 5:51

Well, we'll call your mom one day and we'll talk to her because you know, she really needs to get us those pictures of you when you were a little kid rocking that guitar and all that stuff. I'm going to call her out on her failure to get the pictures we'll work on that we'll work on that. Um, but like, I think it's, I think people look when you go to like scheduling yourself, like scheduling your time and stuff. That's like a huge thing. When people feel a great deal of pressure and they feel like a failure. Like if like, it's kind of like, I look at scheduling time to write sort of like saying on Monday, I'm going to start that diet, you know? And then if you have a cookie, um, the diet, you immediately feel like, Oh, I failed. So I might as well just eat the whole box. And if you're writing and you don't sit down to write that morning and this time slot you figure, Oh, I just screwed off. I'm going to, you know, I already blew it today. So I'm not even going to try to write the rest of the day, you know? And I think, you know, there's a certain amount of discipline that, that we have to have to not fail at that like producing work and writing and, and there's so many ways to procrastinate and there's, you know, there's so many ways to just distract yourself from writing. You know, I think a lot of writers what they think about failure and a lot of the things that they do are sort of self-sabotage, you know, like, are we all so insecure that we don't think we deserve to finish that script? You know? Like there's some sometimes I wonder if it's, if it is a little self-sabotage

Speaker 3: 7:23

Yeah. And, and setting those really big expert expectations for yourself, or like these outlandish goals that there's no way, even if you didn't have kids at home or whatever it is, those life distractions that you would never actually really hit those goals in a year. So yeah. Don't do that. Yeah. You're, you're setting yourself up for failure.

Speaker 2: 7:46

Yeah. And I feel like, you know, failure's just a word. So maybe if people sort of redefine it in their head, like for me, I have never learned anything from the successes that I've had. Nothing except maybe the lesson of, if you work really hard, you can, you can achieve, I mean, like there's, you certainly learned that lesson, you know, cause and effect or whatever, but I'll tell you the best lessons I've learned is when I've been slammed in the head by a two by four, Oh wait, that actually did happen to me.

Speaker 3: 8:21

And I'm glad to see that your face is looking pretty good

Speaker 2: 8:24

Today. Yeah, I got it does.

Speaker 3: 8:26

But last was it last week? It was, yeah. It was unfortunate.

Speaker 2: 8:33

Sandy starts off going, look what happened to your face? That's a long story, but it's healing very nicely. I will have a scar, but it's healing nicely, but like, okay. Rewind back to like a literal two-by-four side, your head. Like sometimes I feel like we almost need that sometimes to realize like, okay, what I'm doing is the definition of insanity. Like I'm doing the same thing over and over again, but expect a different result. And if you're, if that makes you feel like a failure, then you're like a self-fulfilling prophecy where you're just going to keep doing that same thing. And you're going to keep feeling like crap at the end of the day, because you didn't get any words on the page. I've learned all of my lessons from the major failures of my life of which there have been many

Speaker 3: 9:21

I'm there with you. Yeah. And I mean, there's no failure. I mean, there's no success without failures. Right. You have to kind of go through those roadblocks are two by fours in the side of your head to kind of open your eyes, to see the bigger picture. And again, reality hitting you in the face. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:40

Yeah. You know, like when you're writing and um, Sandy's a filmmaker, a writer, a musician, um, she does a lot of creative stuff. She's a reckless creative, straight up. Um, so like when you're writing and you finish something and you worked really hard on something and then you eat it, you've spent months on this script and then you let the draft kind of sit there for a little while and you come back and you read it. Like, what is it like when it's not what you thought it was going to be when it just, this kind of like a, you know, like, have you, have you ever figured out that connection of what, what you didn't do to like, if there was ever like some common thing that you didn't do to kind of elevate it or to make it something that really wowed you?

Speaker 3: 10:32

I I've noticed that with a couple of my scripts. I think my problem is getting out of my way. I'm afraid of I'm afraid of the page. Be honest. And I think a lot of us writers are, it's like, it's just this blank piece of paper or digital paper, but it's the most frightening thing, but it's, you don't want to let down your story or your characters, even though they're not real, but there's something about it when you go back to, and you're like, you envision this world, you envision this great story and then you finish it. And you're like, well, that's not, what were they thinking? But you're, I feel like a lot of us in our way of actually going all in on whatever it is you're working on and really serving those characters or your story. Um, yeah, I think it has to do with, you know, thinking about, well, we'll manage this light. This will the audience like this. And I think the only way to figure that out is sharing it with people that you trust and get their feedback and see what works and doesn't work. Because most of the time I've been in many writers, graves. And most of the time, the things that you think sex is usually what people really like and the things that you're like, this is the best thing I've ever written. They're, that's the first thing to go.

Speaker 2: 11:57

I know. And I feel like it always reminds me of like, when I read that, uh, Stephen King's book on writing and which, which is really should be required reading because it helps you understand the writer's life and, and that creative process and stuff. It's not like he tells you, this is how you write a New York times bestselling book. You know, he's just, you know, talking about his process. But when he talked about like writing with the door shut, and when I think back on my early scripts and really where they didn't work, was it, you know, I was writing with a writing partner and that's a whole other topic that we can talk about one day, but like collaboration. But if you're not going to go there, like go to those like painful dark, but even if it's a comedy there's comedy in that, in that, you know, in, in pain. But like, if you're, if you're not going to go there, like really give it your all like shut right with the doors shut and throw it all on the page and write about the topic that really excites you. A subject that really excites you. The script is just going to be a bunch of like word vomit. And it's like, like that, cause you, you just, when I read scripts like that, you just it's like, come on you're you're like, you can see the writer like getting right to the edge. Like they're, they're going to do it. They're going to commit fully to this story. And then they just kind of like, just kind of like Peter back. And I think, I think we're, sometimes they always say like, write what, you know, but sometimes I think it's very debilitating and scary and horrifying to put your life on the page. Sometimes you're afraid somebody in your world will recognize that event and, or that moment. And they're going to be like, you wrote that story about being,

Speaker 3: 13:45

You know, but I changed the name,

Speaker 2: 13:48

But it changed the name, but everything else is exactly the

Speaker 3: 13:50

Same. Yeah. Yeah. I actually, um, I have a fun story that is definitely on topic with that. So when I was in grad school, one in fully believing, I was a comedy writer and that was what I wanted to do. And my first year there, I wrote this screenplay ever. And I remember writing them and doing pages, you know, late at night thinking, this is terrible. What am I doing? But now my, my goal is just to get this turned in because I need to, I want to move on to the second year at this school. And, uh, I remember my second year I decided to write something very personal. I remember we were workshopping scripts and I turned in my first like 15 pages. And my mentor at the time literally stood up and reached across and slapped me in the face and said, Oh my God, where has this been? This whole? Because he was my, also my mentor the year before. And I basically wasted a year and a half, not writing to my voice because I was afraid. And I still think, I wish I was a comedy writer. I have a writing partner for that now. But I think there's something to that. Like you, you know, once you tap in, people will enjoy it and see that you are fearless on the page and you know, be authentic to yourself. Yeah, totally. I mean, that's not. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:31

And then, and then you're like on top of it, you're like beating yourself up because not only were you not authentic to your voice at first, you were probably thinking, I thought it was going to be a comedy writer. So now you have to like reimagine your, all of your goals, you know, like it's, you know, people start off writing a certain genre and then like, this is why I always tell people, you think you're wanting to do this genre or you think you want to be a screenwriter or you think you want to be a poet or you think you want to be a novelist, try writing at a different genre or a different medium, because you may actually love it. Like, and be like, Oh, well, I'm not, I shouldn't define myself as just a screenwriter as just a comedy writer. Like you're limiting yourself in limiting. It's like, you, it also limits your creativity completely. Like, there's this quote that I came across this looking at my own, uh, I own blog today. Um, cause I was trying to find this article. I wrote about fear, but anyway,

Speaker 3: 16:32

One second, what's the name of your blog? Oh, okay.

Speaker 2: 16:37

It's Teenie, vb.com. Um, so, but I found this quote in an essay that I wrote about, um, called unbecoming, but this quote, I have no idea who said it, but it was a quote that when I saw it, I was like, Oh my God, this totally speaks to me. And I will share it with you. Maybe the journey isn't about becoming anything. Maybe it's about unbecoming, everything that isn't really you. So you can be who you were meant to be in the first place. And I think so much of us as artists, we think we're supposed to, like, we have this thing in our head of what a writer looks like or what a screenwriter looks like or what, or whatever. Maybe, maybe preconceived notions of what our family, we think our family wanted us to be, or can we stick our, so we stick ourselves in that box and because we're not just letting ourselves be free and opening our minds to being anything we want to be like, we can't find all our authentic self. We can't write authentically. So like AB just like stop labeling, you know, like writers should just stop labeling themselves as a certain kind of writer and just, you know, see what happens. I'm a huge fan of stream of consciousness writing where you just set a timer for 15 minutes. And like, if you want to do it for your stories, you can like pretend you're your main character and write a diary entry for your main character for 15 minutes or, or anything, you know, write 15 minutes on what you think about love or what you think about failure, you know, or anything. And I actually think that will be a really good thing for people to do set a timer after listening to us, of course, for 15 minutes and just write out what you, what you think failure is. And don't stop to reread it. Like literally just keep writing for 15 minutes. Don't let yourself think. Don't let yourself filter. I wasn't planning to talk about this, but I'm going to mention it because my father did this. My father passed away in 2019. And when I was going through, um, a box of stuff for his career, he wrote, he used to, um, he worked for the state New York state. And, but he also worked for the UN, um, he had, uh, four kids and four and a half years. So there were a lot of years that the three of us were in college at the same time. So the guy was working multiple jobs, um, trying to make extra money to put us through school. And so when he took this job for the UN, he was helping the Radian government, um, create a budget for the first time. And so he was over in Iran and that was in the seventies. And it was when all the bombings were happening over there and all this stuff, it was not a fun place to be. It was not a fun job. He was nervous all the time when he was over there, away from his family. And I found this, this sort of stream of consciousness writing that my dad did. And at first he talked about, it was really interesting too, because it's like, all of this stuff was in, like my dad wrote in capital letters, you know? So it was all this big, bold, competent, you know, he was really one of the smartest people I know. And he was talking about being over there and trying to help them and what it was like. And then he started his handwriting even changed. It got smaller. And he started talking about how he wasn't even sure his family appreciated what he was doing and that he was, you know, what am I doing here? I don't even think the uranium people or government appreciate what I'm doing here. And all of this stuff just came out, like all these fears and, uh, fears of failure. And then he cut like a flip switch and he's like, I'm just having a self pity moment. And then you could see his handwriting get bigger again, like as he did. And that was, and he was around my age at the time that I am now. And I'm like, I wish that I could have talked to my dad when we were the same ages, because now I get it. I've got kids. I, you know, college tuition was a thing, you know, like working multiple jobs is a thing. Like, I felt like, Oh God, you know, that would have been a really good thing. But even those people you think have got it all together, have those moments when they feel like I'm failing, you know? And, and I think if we remember that even the per people who you, who you look up to for your heroes, everybody has these moments where they feel like they haven't quite delivered no self doubt and that at its finest. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, look, it's just being human. So I think like if you just get that and then you stop beating yourself up about it, because that's just a waste of time, you know, to beat yourself up, like, like, you know, whenever my kids would have like a problem or something, I would always say to them, you know, told if you've got a handful of problems, you tackle the one that really scares the crap out of you first, because once you tackle that one, that the rest of them will be easy. And that's the one that's also stressing you out and eating you up the most. It's like, you're paralyzed when you're like that. Totally. You've nailed it on the head. That will be$85. I do take insurance. You did. Okay. Good to know. Thank you. Yeah. You know, it's like, it's like, this is like a big, our first podcast is like a therapy session, but it's it, you know, I think that's the only way you can really, it helps not the only way it helps you to become a better writer when you look at things from that perspective, understanding human nature. Yeah. Well, I have a question for you. Yeah. What is failure to you? You know, I used to really like obsess about failure. Like I was the youngest of four. Oh. And the other three super or achieving his siblings. So he used to always think like, I was never good enough. Like I was always very insecure. And for me, failure now, like failure used to be like not to be good job at something or, you know, getting a C in school or whatever, which I've done. And guess what? I lived, nobody died because I got a C in social studies when I was in the fourth grade truth. That is actually a true statement. But now failure to me now is, would be if I gave up, like if I on anything that, um, that I really want, like that to me is pretty much the only thing that I could do that would make me feel like a failure. Like if I didn't, cause then I, I don't want to lay on my deathbed and say, what if, because there's, there's no, there's no turning back. And I think to me, as long as I can, as long as I don't say that, like at the end of the day, I'm good, but there's nothing that, all this other stuff there, they're just like little don't really failures. They're just like these little blips of, you know, lesson opportunities for lessons. It's really what they are to me. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 23:53

Yeah. Well, I hope I live long enough to visit you on your death bed.

Speaker 2: 23:59

You better. And he regrets no regrets. Well, the day I start decided to do a podcast

Speaker 3: 24:09

Too soon.

Speaker 2: 24:11

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 24:12

I think that I'm, I'm on the same boat there with you. It's uh, the idea of giving up on something is a failure. Like I'm going to meet this thing. I'm going to see it all the way through. And it's going to be terrible at the start because you will hit those roadblocks and walls would get in the way. But, um, yeah, once I've set myself up to do something, I have to see it all the way through to the best of my ability,

Speaker 2: 24:38

Which is why we're friends, because we are like sisters from another mother. We are, which no one's speaking. We don't know. We haven't found your mother. Yeah. We don't know. Both of our moms are pretty bad-ass. So, you know, they visit their sisters. This is a fact they could be. Do you think how you were raised helps you with your perception of what failure is like? You know, I think people got those, some, some writers and humans and everyone else in between, has those parents who make you feel like you have to like, you know, be perfect.

Speaker 3: 25:13

I think for me, it's a little, it's a little different maybe for some people or maybe some people can relate I for a good chunk of my life. I, um, it was just me and my mom. She was a single mom and she, she's an artist. She's a reckless creative as well. And, um, she never put any like constraints on me of, you know, you'd have to do X, Y, and Z to be successful. Cause I think she was, and still is just trying to figure out what that is. I mean, I think she's highly successful in what she does, but she's also creative. So we all have that self-doubt right. Um, but I never was told like with school was never an issue. I mean, a C to me was passing and that was great. Um, yeah, but she did, um, support me in things that I was really passionate about, which I think helped me a lot. And then in the long run with music and writing, I do know that when I told her that I was going to go to film school and at music school, she was very sad, but

Speaker 2: 26:18

Um, mushy musician, she's

Speaker 3: 26:20

A musician. Yeah. Um, so she was like, Oh, I thought you liked playing music. Okay. I was like, no, I think the screenwriting things a lot easier, but yeah, she's I, and then, you know, when my, when my stepdad, when he came into the picture, um, it was the same thing. They just, they never put that pressure on me to be something, uh, in their eyes that they wanted me to be. It was just find your own path and whatever you do, you'll do great at it. We hope. And they support me all the way through. So

Speaker 2: 26:55

Yeah, I mean, there was, there's some people last night on pipeline authors who were talking about how their family would only consider them a success if they made money at writing. And if they, you know, that they're, you know, success at writing anyway, you know, like if they were bringing in bank and, and getting published and, or getting produced or whatever. And then I think there are probably far more families that feel that way than not. So my solution to that is you gotta just find friends who are awesome and who share the dream and get it. And don't judge you. And, you know, cause you CA you can be so much more creative when you're surrounded by people who, who understand the whole process. Like, like I always tell people, like, I'm not interested in hanging out with anyone who wants to on my flame. Not at all. Like if I'm doing my thing and working as hard as I can at it, I don't have to be great at it right out of the gate. I just have to be loving it. And you know, and those people around you should, you want to surround yourself with the people? I shouldn't say they should because people have, you know, free choice. They can do whatever they want to do, but it would be helpful if, if artists surrounded themselves with people who want to want to just lift them up, you know, and, and sometimes, and I've done this in my life. I've identified those people who were on my flame and said, there's the door, you know, like this has been fun and you can come back into my life when you stop being a jerk. But, but I also recognize that they may never stop being a jerk and it's okay

Speaker 3: 28:44

To just shut it down. But yeah, it's not worth it. It's not worth it. Now I read this really great quote, um, in the new Yorker. So Winston Churchill quote that I thought was pretty, I was just talking about him last night. Really?

Speaker 2: 29:06

Yeah. I asked my husband who he would want, if he could have lunch with anyone dead or alive, who would it be? He said, Winston Churchill.

Speaker 3: 29:14

I think that's great choice. See,

Speaker 2: 29:17

You are my sister from another mother.

Speaker 3: 29:20

So the quote is, uh, success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. Amen. Winston. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:33

I also had a friend who named their dog Winston, that's a great dog name.

Speaker 3: 29:37

It really is. It

Speaker 2: 29:38

Is. But that, and that is an awesome quote. We should, we should put that up on reckless creatives page.

Speaker 3: 29:47

We should, failure is not fatal. And that really stood out to me. Um, and seeing the Twitter explosion last night, when you asked that question about what is success, we got a lot of people who were not quite feeling it, but there was a whole herd, you know, who found that, that silver lining, which I thought was really great that, yeah, this, these goals shouldn't kill you or make it feel like you're going to burn them. Yeah. Your goals should be bringing you joy. Right.

Speaker 2: 30:24

It should. But then it's also good to know like what to do with failure. Like, so when you fail, because everyone has a different definition of what that is. So like you have little, little failures, you know, like I wanna, like, I, when I first started working at pipeline, I live on the East coast and it was awesome because they're all on. Most of them on the West, there's some on the East, but, um, it's quiet all morning, you know, but then as soon as that, Matt[inaudible] wakes up, my Slack is crazy, but before he wakes up, well, he's snoozing way. I was writing. And I was like so happy. And it made me really happy the rest of the day, like super, super happy. And then, you know, things got crazy, getting pipeline artists up and running and the podcast and all this other stuff. And then I found like the last month, I haven't really written in the morning and I'm definitely like a little grumpy, a little irritated, I feel, you know, so, so I think one of the things that people, I like to give people like action items and, and you know, things to do that and little tips that have helped me and CD, um, can shout out some too. But like, I forgot my tip. I failed, I failed. I forgot my

Speaker 3: 31:52

Vitamin ladies and gentlemen, uh, for

Speaker 2: 31:56

There's some there's some, there was some sort of commercial too that came out about like this Prevage it or something like maybe we can get them to sponsor the podcast. And they'll give me some pills that I can like, prove that I can get through an hour.

Speaker 3: 32:14

Jeannie just totally forgets what she's talking about. And this is where the ad comes in.

Speaker 2: 32:20

Exactly. Cut, cut. To add. And then I come back and I'm not sure I'll remember anyway, but like, Oh, that now I remember that it's really important to draw boundaries. And like, so I think most writers have a hard time finding writing time because we're we say, Oh, well I just have to do the dishes or gonna throw some laundry in, or I've got to do this or that. Or the kids need me to help me do this. Or, or my husband wants me to do this and my wife or whatever, whatever. And some people, a lot of people I've noticed were tweeting out saying that they have to have like everything organized around them before they can sit down and get a clear head or like me, I'm a little freak when it comes to volunteering for things in my town. And so one of the things I started doing, especially the pandemic, I think really helped me figure this out when I, all of those responsibilities kind of disappeared because we couldn't go anywhere. We could meetings and all that. Then as I sort of bringing things back into my life, I would ask myself, if I say yes to this, am I going to resent it? If there's going to be any little part of me that will resent the task or resent the person who asked me to do this, that I don't really want to do, but I'm saying guests because I have a disease to please or whatever, knowing that if I say yes to all these things, the only thing that can only time I've got that has wiggle room is my writing time. Nothing else has wiggle room because most of us have day jobs. And so if I felt I was going to be resentful, that was a hell no, you know, can't do this. Nope. Sorry. Nope. And then if you can, cause a lot of times it's not that I didn't have time to write. It's like, well then why didn't you have time to write, like, really think about that, you know? And that's uh, so ask yourself that question. That's your number one task. Oh, no, actually that's number two tasks. Cause I already told people to do is true of consciousness. Right? There will be a lot of homework on reckless creative.

Speaker 3: 34:33

Betsy is always a passing grade. Yes. Set the bar low. Oh Switzerland.

Speaker 2: 34:41

No, this little fun fact about suites Switzerland. I don't know if this is still true, but years ago it was that somebody had done a study about Switzerland. Why those why people in Switzerland are the happiest people in the world and it's because they have low expectations.

Speaker 3: 34:59

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding set your goals low. Yeah. Be realistic about it. Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. Yeah. Uh, the, the word in the art of saying no is something that I'm still learning because I am a people pleaser and I wanted to just do everything. So that is something I'm learning this year has been that goal for me.

Speaker 2: 35:27

I wish we could see everybody. And we could say everyone raise your hands. If you're a people, pleaser are my hands in the air. This is up to, to see all know. I think my dog just raised her hand. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 35:41

Yeah. I heard it.

Speaker 2: 35:43

Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of people are, I definitely met a lot of people recently. Who've gotten to a point where they've admitted, like, yeah, I have a disease to please. I do too much and I'm not doing enough for me. And those are always the people who are the most exhausted.

Speaker 3: 35:57

Yeah. My, my, I won't go into too much details of my failures.

Speaker 2: 36:02

Please do tell them all,

Speaker 3: 36:05

A lot of them, especially on the filmmaking side. Um, and, and with music as well over the last decade or so I found that I had always put their needs and their creative needs above mine. So I would spend years on a project that I was passionate about, but it wasn't creatively giving me what I wanted. Right. So after it imploded on themselves, uh, I walked away just totally emotionally drained because I had spent all that energy and time on giving all of myself to this thing. And now I had nothing left for me where I, one of my last projects I took about two years off of just writing. I just couldn't do it. I just had no pleasure by it. I, I was like, I will never open any string writing program ever again. It's all dead to me. Um, but then I kind of came back around. I'm happy I did. Yeah. But I think, yeah, you, you should always put yourself first, um, as a creative and, and serve yourself first

Speaker 2: 37:15

And you made a really good point about, you took a couple of years off, you know, and like that's okay. No one died. Winston Churchill. That's right. Nope. Well, he he's dead, but he didn't die because you took a couple of years off. Like, like I used to like, even when, when I was running script magazine, I remember people like saying to me, Oh, I can't make the deadline or whatever. I'm like, and I used to say, look, there's a screenwriting emergency. Last time I checked, nobody died because an article didn't come in. Like it's okay. You know, I think people just need to put it all in perspective. You know, that doesn't mean like, cause SAV and I are both editors. That doesn't mean blow off your deadlines people, but it just set

Speaker 3: 38:01

Realistic deadlines. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:04

But set deadlines because that's, that's like another thing, like I'm, I'm writing a book right now. And then I got a commission tray and my publisher has given me no deadline and that's not working. And I actually was talking to her this morning and I forgot to tell her to give me a deadline. But as soon as we're done with this podcast, I'm going to message her and say, you need to give me a deadline because that's how I work best. Like if I have a deadline, I work really well under that. And so I guess it's also figuring out how, what your process is and how, what some people do not need deadlines. They're very good at it. Like I think contests are a great way to give yourself a deadline, find some sort of like last night on the Twitter chat, we were, I was telling people, let's create an accountability pod where you have like a couple of people, a handful of people, not a lot, just a few. And then just so that you can say to each other, even if you just shoot a tweet to each other every week saying, okay, this is what I want to accomplish this week. Okay. Let me report back next week and let me know if you did. And you know, and I think like anything you can do to help yourself figure out, because if you do that, it's going to be this great snowball effect. Like, Oh my God, I actually did it this week. And then that's going to give you the energy to do it the next week. And the next week I love deadlines. I need one

Speaker 3: 39:30

Season. They love you too. I know.

Speaker 2: 39:32

I heard them tell me that they like was there my ear while I was falling asleep last night, we miss Eugenie. You need a deadline. You need us,

Speaker 3: 39:40

You have the reminders set in your calendars and the alarm is ready to go on your phone.

Speaker 2: 39:45

Those are so noisy. Yeah. I,

Speaker 3: 39:48

Uh, deadlines are good. I set those well. We tried to my writing partner and I tried to set again realistic. That's my keyword for this podcast. I think that realistic deadlines and goals for ourselves. Um, one, because we both had full-time jobs. He has a family and he lives in another state. So, you know, life happens. And so, you know, we we've been really good this last year and cranking stuff out, but ROAS. So like, okay, let's just be realistic here. Which contest do we really want to enter or fellowship? Or is there someone that we want the script to go to that we know let's set this deadline to make sure we've done at least three passes on this day before we give it to someone or something. Right. So we've been trying to stick to that, but again, you just have to be realistic.

Speaker 2: 40:39

Yeah. I think that, uh, some sort of deadline, I just can't do that on a deadline. I just, Nope. I need one failure. Yeah. There's a lot of lessons to learn and failure. Definitely. That meant to look up a Larry David quote on failure. I bet he has something really good to say about failure.

Speaker 3: 40:57

Sure. He does. I feel like that was just his pitch to HBO for his show, preparing these as just a guy that just fails at everything all the time, all the time.

Speaker 2: 41:09

But, but you know, he fails all the time, but it's funny as hell and yeah,

Speaker 3: 41:13

He's winning at life to him. It's great.

Speaker 2: 41:16

Okay. You want, you asked me my definition of failure. Yes. I'm going to, I'm going to readjust it. Okay. I will. I will feel like we are a failure CD Dean. If we do not get Larry David on this podcast, once just that's our goal. Okay. Just once for any innovation

Speaker 3: 41:34

For a full podcast,

Speaker 2: 41:36

The full podcast would be awesome. But even if he's not for five seconds, I'll consider the success. Okay. Even if we get him to say the words, reckless creative podcast, and then extra bonuses, if he can say it's a pipeline original. Why not?

Speaker 3: 41:56

I don't know if he'll say it as sultry as that, but you should.

Speaker 2: 42:00

We'll teach him. So I think I'm gonna, we're gonna wrap up our conversation on failure with, unless you had anything really exciting to say about failure. No,

Speaker 3: 42:09

No. I mean, other than everything we just chatted about. It's great. There's a lot of great points in there.

Speaker 2: 42:15

I want to give them another homework assignment. Does that mean to do three? No, this one's good. This is a good one. This is a good one. Okay. So I think failure is very much connected to fear. You know, like I've got friends who will only write a story using, save the cat or some kind of structure formula. I like outline that way and all that kind of stuff, like for sure. But once I'm in it, I'll go wild. They'll go off road. But I've got some people who, some friends who just will stick to those structure. Right. That's just an example, but it's, they really do it when you get into a deeper, they do it a lot because they're afraid. Like what happens if I go off road? What happens? You know? And I think sometimes that fear is because they're afraid, they're going to discover something about themselves. That's so much about the characters, but they're going to afraid. They're going to discover something about them and they don't want to quite, they're not quite ready to dive off that cliff of honesty, you know? So one year lent I'm Catholic, right? So, uh, I'm not really very good practicing Catholic. You know, that whole priest pedophilia thing kind of turned some problem for me. I didn't do it, but it's, it's like a whole other problem. But anyway, when I was a practicing gov like, and lent, I would never give up chocolate, swearing or liquor, not okay. Those are probably the most common things that those Catholics give up, not happening for me. So I decided one year I was going to give up fear. And the year prior I gave up being judgmental and that did not work very well. I found out I'm very judgmental. I am like judgey, Judy, Tom petty. Very anyway, ready? I am Tom petty. Um, and so this year I gave that year, I gave up fear. And during that time, and this was when I was the, my website, because I was looking up the article that I wrote about giving up fear during that five and a half weeks, I decided, I realized that fear was kind of keeping me paralyzed from doing the things I needed do in my life. You can't see shade, Sadie, but she shaking her head. Yes. You don't have to call me shady, shady, shady. Satie there we go. There's your new name? And so I was like, I wasn't doing the things I needed to do because I was so afraid. So I would just be like, but I'm too afraid to go to bed, whatever. So I decided to like take a box. And I just like wrote down some of the things I'm afraid of. And I put them inside this physical box and I decided I'm just going to let God handle all this fear stuff so I can handle the problem. And Oh my God, it was the most liberating thing I accomplished so much. I did so much. I wrote like a fiend, but I also was, um, testing for my first black belt, which was terrifying because I was going to be fighting like a prison guard. My school for karate is like, bad-ass this isn't just like some little karate thing in the strip mall. This is like, you know, real intense dudes. Uh, so I was afraid about that for sure. Doing the Bucko test. But I also had a mammogram. And when I, they called me up the morning of my black belt, pressed the hospital and said, there's a spot on your mammogram and you need to come back. I was like, okay, Hey, I was really calm. And my husband's just kind of looking at me, like not knowing what the hell is going on. And I said, okay, well, would you like to see me? And they're like two weeks. I'm like, okay, no problem. And I hang up the phone and then I tell my husband, Oh yeah, there was a spot on my mammogram. And we're like making the bed in the morning and he's looking at me. He was like, he's like freaking out. He's like, why aren't you scared? Oh my God. And I'm like, look, cause my husband does karate with me. And I said, look, there's either going to be one black belt or two black belt sleeping in this bed tonight, but I'm going to be one of them. So you get your together because we got something to do today. We got, our test is today. And he used to like, Oh my God, I'm like stop thinking about it. You can't do anything about it. There's nothing we can do about it. So of course we both kick in our testing. We both pass. But two weeks later, I go back to the hospital. And when you tie that little robe thingy on you tie it the same way you tie your karate key. And it just centered me completely. And I walked into this to the imaging room and, and um, and the woman who was, um, redoing the mammogram on me was really shaken because, you know, she was nervous for me and I'm like, and I just looked at him like, it's okay. She's like, how could you be so calm? And I'm like, because freaking out doesn't solve the problem. It doesn't do anything except freak you out. It doesn't, it doesn't get you one step closer to solving the problem. I said, you just, you just have to stick it in a little fear box. And then the next thing I know, I look over her and her she's like crying and she's like, you have no idea how much I needed to hear this today. I've been so scared about something in my life and I'm ending up like holding her. Oh, she's crying. And I'm the one who might have cancer. I'm fine. I did not have cancer. Everything's fine. But so your third and last homework assignment for this episode is to get a little fear box. And, but just don't use your pipeline mug for this because you don't want to do the bad mojo.

Speaker 3: 47:59

Don't do that. No,

Speaker 2: 48:01

Get a box, like a little box, whatever, and stick your fears in it. So you can focus on solving the problem.

Speaker 3: 48:07

I think that's great. Yeah. And then what do we do with the box once we've solved those problems? Do we just have a collective bonfire?

Speaker 2: 48:14

Yeah. I don't know. You do whatever you want to do with it. There's no failure at what you do with your box. You could, you could save it as like a, it looks like it's a little trophy. It's better than an Oscar. And or you could take all your little things, your little notes inside the box that scared you. Like every time you get scared, you throw a note in the box and let the, those, you could take those and burn them up.

Speaker 3: 48:35

This is great. I'm definitely going to, yeah,

Speaker 2: 48:38

I know. I already said the podcast was over, but it's not over. I don't have any idea how long we've been talking nor do I care.

Speaker 3: 48:44

But the problem is bolded on a call like this, and then three hours later,

Speaker 2: 48:50

We shouldn't have warned you all. And there is one thing that I do want to add because one, cause this has to do with failure when I was, and this is a much shorter story than the fear story. But when I went to college, I went to Cornell hotel school and um, I really had no interest in it. I just didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up. And my brother said, you should do this because there will always be hotels and there will always be restaurants and blah, blah, blah. Well, now pandemic has changed that, but I had two English classes. So I took this one English class, um, called writing from experience. And I really, really loved it. And I wrote this, this term paper for it. I totally embellished. It was supposed to be like your real life, you know, some real life experience, but that wasn't dramatic enough. There wasn't enough conflicts like intuitively I already was a fiction writer, you know, in my head. So I'm adding all this stuff to it. And my professor would gave me an a and he's like, you need to show this to your parents. Great writer. Why are you in the hotel school? You need to be a writer. And he like took me out to lunch. Um, this was the eighties. So quiche was like really big then. And it was delicious. We went to Rulloff's great place, by the way, he tried to convince me to change majors and go to the arts and science school. And I was 19. I remember just looking at him like, why would I want to be a writer? Like I'm like, no one, why would anyone want to listen to anything I have to say? And that I'm so glad that I didn't end up listening to myself and I, that I let go of those spheres that I actually did. Right? So even if you halt yourself from doing, you want to do, because you're scared, you can always change your mind and you can always redirect and just fire it back up again,

Speaker 3: 50:36

Except if you kill someone and you can go to jail, you cannot read different

Speaker 2: 50:43

Unless I'm on your jury and I let you off. Or that.

Speaker 3: 50:48

Yeah. I, and I guess I'll add one more thing. I think that kind of has all of this up at us when I took over scripts. That was probably one of the scariest career moves I had ever made. Well, we've known each other for a long time now, 10 years or so. Yeah, maybe longer. We don't know. Yeah. I mean, taking over this magazine in this empire that you built was very scary because I didn't want it to do a disservice to the current readers and the fans of genie, which I am also a fan of genie. So it was when those fears of, well, do I try to copy what she was doing because that's what was working, why I tried to fix something that's not broken or do I put a new perspective, which is what's going on in my head and bring in a new, fresh spin. And so the first couple of weeks, I just kind of rinsed and repeat. Cause I was settling in after doing, you know, a few interviews with some folks and stuff. Um, I think that helped kind of just invigorate me and, and find that voice and a new voice. Um, and just kind of like what you did was with a pipeline.

Speaker 2: 52:03

Yeah. And I have to say, like, when you said that was really scary for you, it was really, really scary for me to leave. Like I, I remember when I called Taylor and Amy and I told them, I gave my resignation, I was crying on the phone. I was crying straight up crying. I'd been there for 10 years. I love script. But, and then that fear of I'm glad you made it, you gave it your own fresh voice because you should, nobody should. It's just the same thing with writing. I mean, this is now your like running that is that that job is now yours and you should make it your own. And for me, you know, when Matt was like, yeah, we're going to launch this pipeline artists. And, and I'm like, okay. And then those few weeks, I'm like, try to imagine, like, what is it that like, I'm trying to make his vision come to life. And so I felt like I was director of his vision and I was worried that what if I failed? But if I couldn't bring his vision to life, the way he sees it. And I think that's one of the things I love the most about pipeline artists is that we have a stable, and this is not some commercial for pipeline artists. This is just me talking about how I didn't fail, you know? But sometimes it's like, you have to, it's good to challenge yourself to be scared to death of failure. Like it's, you know, you just cause that's when, like you realize, Oh my God, I did it. And then as soon as you take on that thing, that big thing that scares the out of you and you, you don't succumb to the fear and you actually succeed at it, then it, then you're not afraid of the next thing. And the next thing. And the next thing it's like when you tackle those things, but it's when you don't try things, because you're scared that then you're not gonna have any personal growth or creative growth.

Speaker 3: 53:50

Yeah. And you don't know if you're good at it or not, unless, you know, you gotta try it first, right?

Speaker 2: 53:55

Yeah. Totally. And there you have it failure in a nutshell here, it is just in 20 minutes. I don't know how long we talked, but

Speaker 3: 54:05

The goal was 30 minutes, but I don't think anyone died listening.

Speaker 2: 54:10

We had a goal. We had a, we had a low let's survive, 30 minutes. So say they give like one piece of advice about wrapping it up in your mind about like, if you have one thing to say about, about what takeaway you want people to have about failure.

Speaker 3: 54:25

Yeah. I think it would be, I guess, something, what I I've been harping on the whole time is being realistic about your goals and about your deadlines and your expectations of yourself. Plan ahead. But you know, be realistic about it. Write the pages. You, you know, when you can make time when you can, but don't be hard on yourself. There's no point.

Speaker 2: 54:49

Absolutely. And for me, it's, it's that ditto a hundred percent. And also to remember that there's only one U, which means a lot of things. Like you can only do so much, you know? So like, like Sadie was saying, be realistic, don't beat yourself up. Don't do things you're going to present. You know, just, there's only one of you, but there's also only one you. And which means you're the only one who can tell your story and write that script or write that novel or make that film or write that song. Oh, speaking of, did you know that our intro little music is a Sadie Dean original. Just enjoy that when you listen to it again, but that there's, you know, there's only, you know, that you have a unique story to tell. So try not to think about anybody else reading it and just bleed on the page and not worry about rejection or anything like that, that comes after it and move on.

Speaker 3: 55:53

Absolutely. I'll leave everyone with this. And this is something, uh, my husband says to me a lot, he'll say this to me when he realizes that I'm working too much and, uh, stressing too much over something and he'll say work smart, not hard. Amen. It's a nice little reality.

Speaker 1: 56:13

Yeah. Work smarter, not harder. Breakfast creatives is a pipeline artists, original podcast, like subscribe and follow us on social media@pipelineartistsandfindmoreinfoatpipelineartists.com slash listen until next time stay reckless.