I've been thinking about what to do long term with this pod walk podcast and how to arrange it, organize it, package it so that it's of maximum value to you and to make it so that it just becomes a part of my life. Something that I do, cuz the way that I deliver it. Is intimate, intimately linked with how you receive it, obviously.
And if, I mean, what I have, uh, noticed with, you know, those podcasts, which it's like they're on episode 900 and 900 million, 58, you know, they've been going 10 years. In fact, I'm listening to one, uh, right. Got, uh, got into one, uh, recently where he is been going since 2012. And I mean, it's great. There's a, there's, there's a lot to listen to, but it's very overwhelming and, you know, it takes a very special kind of person in terms of the podcaster to be able to make something like that, a, a habit.
And I think there is, um, real value in curating. The, the podcast creating the kind of subject matter. So what I'm going to experiment with is, uh, splitting this pod walk into seasons, but instead of there being a massive gap in between the seasons, essentially the seasons will be. Split by kind of a theme or a topic or a subject area.
Uh, now, obviously as this has been the first season, it started out with just me talking about creativity in general, just thinking I was gonna go doing an on ongoing podcast river, but pretty soon I realized a lot of what I was talking about could be put under the umbrella of the, the verses umbrella.
Uh, cuz it's a, quite a useful way of, uh, talking about various things and while I will still do versus podcast in the future, this will be the LA you know, the first season will be the end of the, the, just the verse idea. And the next season is gonna be about the, uh, making machine or the music machine.
So what I will do is I will break down this, uh, system, this, uh, creativity system into its component parts. And, uh, talk about kind of what's behind it and how it works now in terms of the length of these, uh, seasons. So, you know, if you, if we call the first season, it's like the introduction to, uh, the world of, of, uh, Mike Monday.
Um, How, you know, cause I could go, I mean, I could literally go on for 10 years, uh, talking about various different things, but how so? How long is ideal for a season? And it struck me when I got this podcast on Spotify. I mean, as a musician, it's really kind of unusual to think that I also have my albums on Spotify as well as Mike Monday.
Um, I was like, oh, well how about making it just, I mean, just to pick a number, I mean, it seems like a good number, you know, it's like the, the number of episodes is roughly the same as there would be on an album. Why? I don't know, it's kind of random , but, but it's, you know, it seems like a way of thinking about it, which is, um, yeah.
Which is helpful. Uh, even though it, it isn't an album, I mean, you know, on an album you don't have, uh, 10 to 1220 to, you know, 10 to 20 minute track. Um, but I think it, it feels like a good number and why not? So what this, uh, Pod walk is gonna be about is, uh, something. Well, this is the final pod walk of this album of this season of pod podcast.
I think what I'll do in the final pod walk of each, um, uh, season is to talk about something that's maybe slightly off the beaten track, something that I'm just playing with. Something that might be, uh, seem slightly less relevant, but which, or maybe more philosophical or something, but something it's, it's almost like it's that, you know, the, the track on, at the end of an album, which is like a kind of, it leaves you.
Somewhere. It's not like the, the core thing. It's just the, okay. It's like the full stop at the end of the novel. Um, that kind of thing. So what I'm gonna talk about today? Oh yeah. And in terms of number of episodes, I mean, for me, Anything approaching 15 in terms of an album, you know, music album, uh, is getting too much.
I mean, that sits specifically a double album, which is a different thing, but you know, for me, the sweet spot is probably anything 10 to 12 is roughly about right for me. So I think. As I see it now, this is probably gonna be the bonus episode, either 12 or 13 or possibly 14, depending on how things, uh, pan out.
You know, I, I record quite a few different, uh, pod walks and some of them make it, and some of them don't, uh, using the, uh, quality through quantity idea. So, but as it pans out, now, this is either gonna be 12, 13 or 14, and it's gonna be like the, the little bonus pod walk. So anyway, what is this one? Uh, about what I wanna talk about the difference between mean.
Something that is true versus something that is useful. So I believe that there are facts. right. I, I believe that there is a truth out there. I believe that there is, and objective reality that exists, but I. No, that I have a limited access. We all have a limited access to the facts of the matter. Now. I think that puts me on the opposite end of a, a spectrum of, of many people.
Cause I think there's a lot of people out there who believe there is no objective reality that there are no facts of the matter, but what they know, I mean, I mean, it kind of contradicts itself, but they seem to have this position where what they know is true and they hold onto it with all of their.
Okay. Whereas I have the opposite view, which is, there is something to know there is a truth, there is reality, but I'm only ever gonna have a limited access to it. So why am I talking about this? And, uh, how does it related to the creative process? Well, let me talk about why sort of this came to me, why I'm talking about this right now.
So. A couple of days ago, it was on, uh, Monday morning where I do my magic music machine, uh, sessions, which is, uh, I. A group of music, producers get together. And, uh, they all make their solo music kind of directed by various different coaches in different rooms. And we, we, uh, practice different parts, different stages of the creative process, different stages of the, uh, music machine.
And at the end of these calls, I, uh, take the floor. You know, everyone comes back together from their various different breakout rooms. And I, uh, talk about something or deliver an exercise. And it's usually sort of more broad and I was talking. Something to do with how you prioritize things, um, whether it be in music or anything else.
And I was talking about this model where I'm putting, it's just something I'm playing with right now where I'm putting, uh, important at the opposite end of the spectrum to urgent. So in other words, what I've been playing with in my own life right now is that. As soon as something starts to become urgent, it can no longer be important.
And this is hard for some people to understand. But what that means is it is still important, but the way I'm thinking about it is that it isn't. Okay. So in other words, I've got like a sliding scale between any given action in anything is between important and, uh, urgent. So in other words, if something is 100% urgent, it is 0% important.
And, and I also, uh, put on an, I also talked about another one, which is. Impact and certainty. So I'm putting, if I am 100% certain that something will work, then it's gonna have 0% impact. Now, obviously both of those ideas are not true, right? Yeah. It's like when something becomes urgent, it doesn't stop being important.
If it, if it was important in the first place, of course it doesn't. But this is what I mean about true versus. Useful. because, and, and to be honest with you, I was probably being a Seagul. Uh, and I saw one of the, uh, wonderful magicians as I call them shaking his head, uh, vigorously. He may well have been shaking his head at, I dunno, uh, his kid or something else he was watching on the screen.
So when I say, uh, being a Seagul, what I mean by that is. If you go, uh, you walk along a beach, it seas really bug me. Not because they swoop on you and knit your food and all that kind of stuff. But you know, when you're walking on a beach and, uh, you, you are not paying any attention to these, uh, birds and they, they walk away as if you're chasing them, even though you're not right.
Um, this is what I say a lot. Uh, this is, uh, something I say is that, oh, I'm probably being Seagul is what I mean is what that person did is about me when. To be honest with you. Very rarely is somebody else's actions, 100% about you. It's usually about them, right? so, anyway, I'm probably being Seager, but I saw, uh, this magician, uh, shaking his head vigorously when I said.
Okay. So what I'm doing in this model is I'm putting impact at the opposite end of the spectrum, uh, to certainty and I'm putting importance of the opposite end of the spectrum to, uh, urgency. Um, and he was like, no. Yeah. And again, I could well be Seagul it, but anyway, there are gonna be people whether he was or not, there are gonna be people who go, well, that's not true.
Therefore it's not useful. That in itself is not true. and the right. So, and it's not useful. You see if it is, if it is the case that we only have, like, what we view as being true is open to modification because we have limited access to the facts of the matter to truth, to reality, which is a fact, right?
If that is, uh, if that is a fact, then. Anything that, like, if we say that doesn't ma that that does not, you know, that is not 100% true. Well, you're actually contradicting yourself, cuz nothing we say is 100% true even though an objective truth does exist. Okay. So how I kind of work with this conundrum is I say, right, I'm going to.
Create certain conditions create certain models, create certain ways of thinking, ask certain questions in my life. Um, and in my work and in my business, which I know aren't true, which have, uh, Uh, mistakes or errors or inaccuracies in it to see what kind of incentives, what, what conditions they create in my life.
So let's just take the, uh, importance versus urgent. Example, and then I'll move on to the, uh, certainty versus impact. Okay. So if you are somebody who's constantly finding yourself only doing urgent things and never actually hitting go on your big goals in your life. Things that are really important, not doing more long term things, then this model.
When something becomes urgent is no longer important, becomes very useful, even though it isn't true. Right. Because what, what it does is you, if you say, alright, this is 90% important. Yeah. Um, so, you know, on the scale, if we say zero is, is 100% urgent and a hundred is a hundred percent in important. Okay.
So in fact, let's, let's do the other way around. Yeah. If it's 90% important, then it's 10% urgent. Okay. That. But if that thing then gets closer to actually having to be done, it becomes 90% urgent and 10% important. Well, what I'm actually doing is creating incentive structure where I. I'm making sure that I focus on higher importance actions, whether it be in the thing that you're creating music, the art or, or anything, or, you know, in your life, because the thing is urgency looks after itself.
Uh, we, we have ti I mean, it might not feel like it, but in terms of getting things done, we have time on our side. We have the force of. Time an impending deadline or having to do something on our side in terms of our own motivation and having to do it when something is urgent. Whereas when something is not urgent, we don't have that.
Yeah, we can do it anytime. So we don't do it at all. So by creating this false but useful model. Okay. If something is important. Sorry. If something is urgent, it's not allowed to be important. Yeah. You actually end up doing much more important stuff and still getting the urgent stuff done. Cuz as I said, we have this external force of time.
Pushing us to do the stuff that's urgent. So we don't need to think of the urgent stuff as being important. So again, I'm not saying that something becoming urgent means it's not important, but what it does is it just constantly reminds us to be focusing on important stuff. So again, not true, but useful.
Similarly, if I say, okay, actions, which bring me certainty. yeah. If, if something brings me certainty, then it's not gonna have a high impact. Right. If I think of it like that, that is not true. Ideally we wanna find the things that bring certainty and have a high impact. Right. But the, the problem that we have, the reality that we have, that we exist with is that what we end up doing is because we're creatures of habit.
And because also our brains, our mind. Love to find certainty. If you only do things that make you certain often, what you end up doing is just spinning your wheels, doing the same thing over and over again, which has very little impact. So you need to create the conditions where you are doing at least some things which are, uh, I dunno, like innovating testing something, doing something different, trying something.
So I saw my dunno, if you can hear the chickens in the background, trying something that maybe you haven't tried before creating a big shift in your life. So, so again, useful, but not true because in terms of this way, you know, this, uh, model certainty on one end, an impact on the other, what we. Fighting against isn't time, but we're fighting against how our minds work.
As I said, something that makes us feel more certain, we are likely to gravitate towards, we are creatures of habit. So we need to create the conditions. Where, you know, create a kind of scoring system or a way of looking at the world, which ensures that we are not just spinning our wheels all the time, that we are doing things that have a high impact.
So by putting something at the opposite end of a spectrum, which isn't at the opposite end of the spectrum, we are doing that. Okay. So if I'm only doing things that make me feel certain. that I can be certain of. I am not creating an impact, not true, but useful because it's creating an incentive structure.
Now, what this does, what this kind of distinction between true versus useful is, is I'm not attempting to suggest, as I said at the start of this, that there isn't a truth that there aren't facts of the matter that everything is purely subjective. It is not what I'm suggesting at all. But what I am suggesting is that by.
Detaching from what we believe to be true in any given moment. Ironically, what we can ask you do is come to a greater understanding of what is true. Yeah. Being less, uh, fixed, being more flexible, recognizing that we are as, uh, a human. Uh, as human beings, there's always going to be more that we don't know. And in that situation, it's almost like being humble enough to recognize that we can play with things that aren't true in order to find out what is well for me, That's how I wanna live.
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True vs Useful