anything goes with emma chamberlain - success kills creativity

Episode Date: July 15, 2021

We’ve seen it before… we find a band and their first album is amazing, they blow up, then their second album just doesn’t cut it. Or a TV show… we’re glued to the first season, then can’t even get through the second. Why does success kill creativity? Emma has experienced it herself, and this week she’s diving into why sometimes when we find success, it can be detrimental to continuing to be creative. She’ll talk about ways we can avoid it, and find the balance between creativity and success. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello everybody, welcome back to anything goes. I'm Emma Chamberlain, your host. I hope you're having a gorgeous day. I just got back from vacation and I am revved up. I have a newfound passion for day-to-day life after vacation. I feel excited to do my chores. I feel excited to cook. I feel excited to clean. I feel excited to work. I feel excited to do everything.

And then sometimes I get back from vacation and I still feel like I'm on vacation mentally, and I just can't get back into the swing of things. That's kind of how I feel right now. The thought of doing anything remotely productive or useful with my time is a nightmare to me right now. I still feel like I'm on vacation in my brain. So that's where I'm at, but I'll figure it out. I just felt the need to update you on my current mental state. I'm on vacation mode, but I am not on vacation anymore.

It is unfortunate. Hopefully I can figure this out. My kitchen is a mess. There's dishes all in the sink. My countertop is not wiped down. I've been in bed all day. I haven't even been being productive in my bed. I've been watching YouTube videos all day.

I didn't even open my book. I didn't even try to read my book today. Like, today was just not a productive day. Because I am still on vacation mode, okay? Whatever, I'll snap out of it. Anyway, that's what's going on with me. Anyway, I hope you're having a great day. What are we talking about today? Let me tell you. Today we're talking about a concept that came to me recently because it's something that I've experienced and it's something that I continue to experience. But also because I have seen it happen to other people and I've observed it happen. I've seen it happen to other people.

And I think it's a really interesting concept and I just wanted to have a conversation about it with you today. So that's what we're going to mother fucking do. The concept is that success kills creativity. Success ruins creativity. Let's use this scenario as an example. You find a band, they're a small band. They have maybe a few thousand fans.

Maybe they played little shows here and there. Not a lot of people know them. It's like one of those bands that you bring up to your friends and you say, you definitely haven't heard of them. Okay, and they're making bad ass music. Like it is just killer, it is so good. And you're thinking to yourself,

how have they not blown up yet? How have they not blown up yet? Okay, fast forward a year later, everybody knows this band. They're huge, mega popular. All your friends are listening to them. Kids at your school are wearing their merch, they're popping off. Then all of a sudden, they put out a new song. You listen to it, you hate it. You're like, this is not the band that I fell in love with. They suck now. What happened?

One more example. You watch a TV show. You watch the whole season of the TV show. All episodes, it's amazing. The first season was amazing. You watch the whole season of the TV show all episodes It's amazing the first season was amazing if somebody asked you what you'd have to rate it You would say a 10 out of 10 that is a great TV show. I would recommend it to my friends and family. I love it The show blows up it gets extremely successful It's trending on Twitter the whole world is watching this show. They love it.

It is the talk of the fucking town this show, this TV show. Everybody is biting their fingernails, waiting for season two. Season two comes out, it sucks ass. Everybody's pissed, everybody's disappointed. Everybody's asking what happened. I think that this is something that happens a lot. And I don't think a lot of people talk about why it happens. But as somebody who creates things in a sense, podcast episodes, YouTube videos, you know, stuff like that. I've experienced this myself. And so I kind of feel like I have a more empathetic maybe view on this type of situation.

I think what it really comes down to is how humans are wired and how creativity works. First let's look at how creativity works. How does it work? In my opinion and in my experience, creativity happens when there's no boundaries, there's no pressure, there's no constraints, there's no rules. That's when creativity happens when you feel free in a sense. And that sounds so corny, but it's really actually fucking true. I'm sorry, but when there is nothing to lose,

and everything is lighthearted and fun, creativity flows. I feel like I get the best ideas when I don't need to be coming up with ideas. The second I need to come up with an idea for something, I am the least creative. I can't come up with shit. But when I'm just walking around enjoying a summer day, grabbing a coffee, that's when my ideas come to me because there's no pressure. There's no rush. There's no pressure whatsoever. That's when creativity happens. So that's the first thing we need to understand and remember is that creativity just simply does not happen or flow under pressure-filled circumstances, under rushed circumstances, under constrained circumstances.

Creativity happens when you have freedom in a sense, okay? That's why the tiny little indie band you found was so good when you found them because when they created their first song, their first album, whatever it may be, they had no pressure. They had no rules, right? They could just create freely because they had nothing to lose. They had never created anything before. If it failed, it didn't really matter because they didn't lose anything. You know what I'm saying? Same thing with the TV show I'm talking about.

If the TV show didn't end up doing well, well, it's a bummer, but whatever, it's the first season and we just won't ever make a season again. You know what I'm saying? And we'll just try again next time, whatever. No pressure. It's as simple as this.

Once you succeed, all of these variables come in that make creativity die. Let's say, for example, the TV show. The first season was created by a small team of people, maybe had a small team of actors, maybe had a minimal budget to create the show. They just did the best that they could with with what they had and they just had fun with it right so the show is incredible because everything just fell into place. Well now Netflix wants to buy the next season and wants to put ten million dollars into the budget and wants to bring on 10 executives to oversee the project and

they want to up the production value and shoot with 10 different camera angles per shot. And all of a sudden, now there's this pressure to create a perfect season two because Netflix has invested all this money into it. The fans are expecting an amazing season two because season one was so great. The pressure and stress of that is enough to make a human simply shut down. So all of the actors are going to be freaking out. Feeling like they have to make every shot the best performance of their life. The director is freaking out because he's like,

holy shit, I need to make this even better than the last season. The writers are freaking out because they're like, uh, we have to write a whole new season now that's better than the last season. Holy shit. Everybody's freaking out. Now what? That's why the season two sucked.

Because now there's all this pressure to exceed expectations, to outdo yourself, to continue to create at the same standard. This pressure is excruciating. And I've actually experienced this myself. Recently, I recorded a podcast episode that I was really, really proud of. I really loved it. And I put it out like a day after I recorded it, I think.

And people responded so well to it. And I put it out like a day after I recorded it, I think. And people responded so well to it. You guys, technically, responded really well to it. Everybody really connected with it. I was so proud of it. And for context, I'm never proud of things that I create ever. I just don't work like that. My brain always tells me that what I create could be better.

Wasn't good enough. Whatever. It's just, unfortunately, how my brain works. I wish it didn't, because it's kind of depressing, but whatever. I'm never, ever proud of myself, but I was actually really proud of this podcast episode. And I really, really liked it turned out out is my whole entire toenail falling off

Holy shit you guys I just like looked down at my toenail and I was like Why is my nail polish chipping off like that and I just grabbed my toe and Press down on the nail and literally half of my toenail just fell off. How does that happen? How does that happen? Okay, sorry. What was I saying? Anyway, I recorded this podcast episode that I was really proud of.

And I put it out, everything went great. Then it was time to record the next episode, you know, Anyway, I recorded this podcast episode that I was really proud of and I put it out everything went great Then it was time to record the next episode, you know, because the show must go on baby and It was not working like I could not come up with the topic for one Every time I'd sit down and try to record about a topic I would freeze up and it was because I felt this pressure to outdo myself to record an even better episode.

And that pressure made it so that I actually couldn't even record an episode at all. And the way that I ended up getting over it was just by taking a break. Honestly, I just like took a break for a few days and I just like didn't force myself to do it. And eventually, you know, I relaxed and I, you know, took the pressure off myself, but it took a few days to kind of rewire my thinking and to take the pressure off myself so that I could record a goddamn episode, you know what I'm saying? But this has also happened in my YouTube career.

If you don't maybe know much about me besides my podcast, I make YouTube videos as well. And I remember when I first started making YouTube videos, I didn't care. I had nothing to lose. I was just making YouTube videos for fun as a fun hobby because why not? And I didn't care if my videos were good or bad. I mean, I obviously worked hard on them because I cared about them, but all of the motivation was internal.

It was just within me because I wanted to create these videos and make them good for myself, but not because I had people watching me, not because I wanted to gain a crazy amount of followers. It was just because I was doing it for me. And so because of that, I didn't feel any pressure. And I just was creative. And I would do random different shit all the time.

Like sometimes I would do a makeup video. And then the next week, I would do a haul video or something that was like a joke, like not a real haul video, but like, well actually I did do that a few times, but whatever. I'd make like, it was like I was all over the map. I didn't feel like I had any constraints. I just made whatever type of video I wanted. And I had infinite ideas.

I had so many ideas. I had so many types of videos I wanted to make. And I never felt pressure to make videos. I just wanted to do it. Then all of a sudden, people start following me, people start watching me, whatever. I was able to keep that creative flow going for about a year and then it just cracked.

Like everything just fell apart. I had no creative inspiration anymore because I felt like I had peaked. I felt like, okay, I've made these videos that people really like, that I really like. I don't think that I can make anything better. Like I think that I'm done. And so, and I tried to push through that, and I tried to continue to make videos anyway, but then those videos ended up being terrible. And people noticed, and they're like, Emma, your video's fucking suck now. Your YouTube video's suck now.

And I just felt like shit, because I was like, damn. I was right, like, I peaked, I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. But what I did that was so important was that I didn't give up, I didn't quit. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. There's no instruction manual when it comes to being an adult. Sometimes I lay awake at night rehashing something I said earlier that day, or I lay in bed at night

thinking about what the future holds. I know I'm not the only one going through a lot of what ifs. Like what if I get into a fender bender? Or what if my home gets broken into? But state farm can help you with some of those big what ifs. They're available to answer your questions day or night. You can reach them 24-7 file a claim on the State Farm mobile app or simply call your agent to ask what's on your mind. Like you good neighbor, State Farm is there. Call or go to stateform.com for a quote today. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is more than a website builder. It's an all-in-one

place to make an online space that's entirely your own. Their all-in-one platform allows you to customize everything from the fonts and color scheme to your domain name. All you have to do is choose from one of their beautifully designed templates as a starting off point. Then, at whatever you need to show off your ideas to get your side hustle on, you've got all the tools you need to sell products, schedule appointments, and send email campaigns to your mailing list. Plus, everything is optimized for mobile, so it looks just as good on a phone as it does on a desktop. Check out Squarespace.com for more features and inspiration, and when you're ready to build your site, use the offer code Emma for 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. But how I handled the situation actually taught me a really great lesson because here's

what I did. I kept going and I kept pushing through it and I kept making videos and I kept going and I pushed through this creative dry spell. I just pushed through it. I was like, you know what? Fuck it. I'm just gonna keep going and I'm just gonna hope that I figure it out. And I'm just gonna hope that people stick along with me as it, as we go through this and like we'll see what happens. And I came out the other side. I got my creativity back eventually. I stopped paying attention to my success and I started looking at my creative side of things and my success side of things as two different things.

I stopped looking at them as being intertwined and I kind of separated them in my brain. In a way I kind of became a little bit disassociated with my success. I kind of started to try to ignore it. I wasn't ungrateful, I wasn't doing anything like that, but I more just looked at it in a way where I looked at success as something that was great, but also as something that doesn't really

matter. You know what I mean? I tried to look at it like that. I tried to look at it like, you know what? This is great and all and this has made my life so much better and given me so many opportunities and connected me with so many great people, but at the same time, it's not a life or death thing. You know what I'm saying? Like, if one day it all goes away, I will survive and I will be fine and whatever, you know? And that kind of took the pressure off of me. I just let go of the pressure.

And I knew that even if I created something great, something that was the best I'd ever made, it doesn't mean that I'm not going to ever create anything that good again. In fact, if I keep going and I keep pushing through, there's a great chance that I'll actually top that eventually. What I'm trying to say is, the only time that you really ever truly fail is if you just completely give up. If you just keep going and you keep creating things, despite your success, lack of success, whatever it may be,

inevitably you will find perfect harmony at some point, which in my opinion, perfect harmony is being able to be creative despite success. Wait, is that the right word? Why do I not know what the word despite means? Definition of despite? Yes, that was the right word. I knew what despitement, but like, I wasn't sure if I was using it correctly because I don't think I've ever actually thought about what that word really means. So anyway, the moral of the story is, I think it's really unfortunate how much success can destroy your brain because it almost puts you in a box. It almost is like a prison in a way because the amount of pressure that starts to build, the amount of expectation, the amount of judgment that you start receiving.

That all comes with the success. And I think that most people end up having a period where they can't handle it. And they might create a bad movie. They might create a bad TV show. They might create a bad song or a bad album or a bad podcast episode or a bad YouTube video or a few bad YouTube videos or a few bad podcasts or a few bad songs. Like I think when creative people start to succeed, they lose themselves for a second.

And I think that that's a normal part of the creative process in general. I think that that's just a part of it. And I think that for people who maybe have creative jobs or have a creative hobby or whatever it may be, I think that this is very relatable. And I think it's very normal to have a period of time where after you succeed, you hit a low point. You know what I'm saying? I think the good thing though about pushing through it and not giving up is that as you continue, you learn to get

better about being able to push through that pressure and also you know learning how to cope with the pressure of growing success while also simultaneously needing to be creative. I think that you figure out a way to balance the both the more that you continue and. I think that you figure out a way to balance the both, the more that you continue and the more practice that you get. But I don't know. I mean, it's definitely food for thought. I think the goal too is to eventually figure out a way

to use your success to make you more creative. By that I mean like when you become successful, you know, you have more opportunities. Maybe that means you have a larger budget to create a project. Maybe that means that you have more connections. You know more people that could help you create your project. Whatever it may be, that's the perfect way to use your success to be more creative. But the only way that you can do that is by learning to separate the pressure of success and creativity, and that's a really, really tough thing to do. Anyway, on that note, let's answer some questions.

So I asked you guys to ask me questions about how success affects creativity on the Twitter at AG Podcast. Feel free to follow if you wanna participate in future episodes. Let's get into it. Somebody said, do you think that as somebody gains fame, their level of creativity or originality decreases, like they just become lazy knowing that whatever they do, they'll still have

people that support them? I definitely do think that sometimes success makes people feel comfortable, actually, maybe even too comfortable because they feel like, okay, now I can just do whatever I want. I have the fan base, I have the money, who cares, you know what I'm saying? And then they might have a tendency to just recreate what works. So let's say they had a song that went viral. Let's say they had a YouTube video that went viral, whatever it may be, they might just try to recreate that over and over again.

Like if they had a hit song, they might try to create a song that's really similar, because they know that everybody likes it. So instead of being original and unique, they just kind of recreate what they've done a hundred times before. You know, and they don't evolve, they don't grow. And I think that that can be crippling because then they don't evolve. And when you don't evolve, you don't get better. And then people get bored.

And then people move on to the next thing. And that's that. I mean, the cookie does crumble that way for some people. Does that even make sense? I don't think I've ever said that. That's how the cookie crumbles. Anyway, I don't know I've ever said that. That's how the cookie crumbles. Anyway, I don't know why I said that.

It's like an old woman using metaphors like that. But anyway, I do think that definitely does happen to some people. But I also think that there's other people that are kind of the opposite. And they feel like they need to completely one up the last thing that they created and make something completely new and fresh and different. And there's a chance they might be able to do that successfully. And then there's a chance that that pressure might cripple them to a point where they actually

cannot create anything. I think that it's very different for everybody, but yeah, I definitely think that that happens sometimes. Somebody said, has a viral video ever deterred you from making what you love and instead make you want to create what's popular. Honestly, for me, no, because I have never really liked to follow trends necessarily, just because I'm not good at it. Really? I've always kind of done my own thing.

I feel like, from what I can remember, I mean, I've definitely hopped on to some viral trends, but it's always been because I thought it was fun and I wanted to take my own spin on it. Luckily, I have never changed my content to please anybody, really. I don't think I've ever done that, which I think is rare and I don't know I've ever done that, which I think is rare. And I don't know why

I'm like that. I like, I'm not saying that it's bad if you do do that. You know what I'm saying? I think that that's like a normal response to becoming successful or going viral. You know, like after that happens to you, you know, you want to maintain it. So you'll do whatever it takes. For some reason, I have never done that. I don't know why, but I do think it's very common. And it makes sense, you know. Somebody said, do you think people who are more creative are generally more successful? No, I actually do not think that. There are a lot of very creative people that never become successful. And, you know, I don't really know why that is.

I think a part of success to a certain extent is luck. It's being in the right place at the right time. Do I think that that means that whoever got successful isn't creative? No, I don't. But I do think that some people are luckier than others. And some people are able to find success easier than others just because again that's how the cookie crumbles. That's how the universe decided to let the events happen. You know what I'm saying? I think that there are very many creative people that will never find success in their creative endeavors, just because success kind of falls in your lap.

You can't choose to be successful. It happens to you. You can do everything in your power to succeed, but it's not always in your control. But it's not always in your control. Somebody said, did success ever make you feel stuck in your life? I mean, I kind of talked about this earlier, but yes, and I think that the word stuck is a very good way to put it. I think that a big part of feeling stuck after succeeding is caused mainly by just, I mean, really what we're talking about here is creative burnout.

And burnout can be caused by so many different things. It can be caused by the pressure of success. It can be caused by overworking of success. It can be caused by overworking yourself and not taking enough breaks. It can get caused from having difficulties in your personal life. I mean, there's like infinite roots to burn out. But I think that finding success weirdly enough can cause burnout itself, which is so weird. It's so funny in office. You would not expect success to cause burnout. You know what I'm saying? It almost doesn't even make sense. It sounds stupid almost, because you would think that, oh, if you

get successful, then now you have this burst of energy because you just succeeded. And now it's gonna be easy to keep creating stuff because you're gonna be so excited and so motivated, yet it's the complete opposite. You succeed and then immediately you feel almost doom. At least for me, I don't know, some people might be different, but I know a lot of people feel the same that I do

where success almost It's almost like Kind of a nightmare It's almost kind of depressing in a way because You have to wake up tomorrow and go back to work you have to wake up tomorrow and keep going You can't just stop after you've succeeded. And I think that that's the depressing thing about it. And that's the thing that makes you feel burnt out because you still have to keep going after you succeeded.

It's not like, oh, I succeeded once or I've hit a certain point in my success. Now I can stop. No, you have to keep going. And that's what's depressing about it. You have to keep succeeding. Once you succeed, you have to continue to succeed and that is so terrifying This episode is brought to you by liquid IV

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This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. You know when you get so caught up in what everyone else needs that you totally forget to take care of yourself? I mean, it happens to me all the time. And there's nothing wrong with taking care of other people, but it only becomes an issue when you neglect yourself in the process. Spending all of our time giving can make us feel burnt out and resentful, which is why it's so important to have a space where you can talk through problems, reframe thoughts, and prioritize your well-being, like therapy. Therapy can give you the tools to create more balance in your life so you can keep supporting others without abandoning yourself.

Therapy can help you when you're struggling with a specific problem. Therapists can help you develop tools that make getting through challenges easier, but also therapists are there to just generally help your well-being and help you develop tools that help you get through day-to-day life in general. It's not just for people who are going through a major trauma. It's something that can be useful for anyone. If you're thinking about starting therapy, give better help with try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient,

flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and switch therapists any time for no additional charge. To get started, visit betterhelp.com slash anything today, to get 10% off your first month, that's better, help.com slash anything. Somebody said, do you force yourself to continue creating content, even when you don't feel creative or you feel stuck? Yes, I definitely do. I feel a pressure not to give up and not to stop and I'm not sure if that's

necessarily a good thing because I think that there's two ways to handle this dilemma. Number one, you could take a break. Take a few months off, take a few weeks off, and reassess, and kind of get your thoughts in order, put things into perspective, calm down a little bit, and try again later. You know, that's one way to handle it. I think that that might be the best way to handle it. And I don't usually handle these kinds of scenarios like that, but I do think that that might be the best way to do it. But on the other hand, you can keep going. And you can keep creating even if you're burnt out and you feel stuck and not creative

and you feel like shit, you can just keep going and keep creating things anyway. That's what I've always done. And in a way, I think that that can be good because if you force yourself to keep working and keep going, then eventually, you're gonna have a breakthrough. It's inevitable. But on the other hand, you know, you might be creating stuff that you're not proud of and you might be creating stuff that people don't really like and that can be really upsetting and actually it might even make things worse.

So ultimately, I think the best thing that you can do is to take a break into step back. I need to take my own advice right now because I don't usually do that, but if I ever find myself in a place again where I feel crippled by some form of success, I think what I'm going to do is just take a step back and process everything, put things into perspective, and then revisit it when I feel ready. I think that trying to work through it can do more harm than good. But I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know what the right way to handle it is. Maybe there is no right way. Somebody said, do you feel like success makes you not want to work as hard? You know, for me personally, no. It makes me feel like I need to work really hard. Like, it makes me feel this pressure to work harder and harder and harder and harder, which is not good because then that causes burnout. So it's not very productive. But I've noticed that there are some people that feel like they can just kind of give up

and stop working as hard once they succeed because they're like, well, I did it. So now I can just sit back and relax and put in bare minimum effort and just say, fuck it, you know, and I think that that's unfortunate because I think that there's not maybe a lot of integrity in that. But at the same time, I also kind of get it because once you have the money, once you have the fame, whatever it may be, that lasts for a little bit, you know? Even if you stop trying, you still have that for a little bit. It will eventually fade away for sure, but you're still going to have it for a little bit. It'll eventually fade away for sure, but you're still going to have it for a little bit. Even if you kind of take your foot off the gas, you know, it's not like fame and money and praise

just goes away overnight. It goes away kind of slowly. So you may think that you can take your foot off the gas and you can stop trying once you've succeeded and you'll be fine and you might for a little bit, but eventually it's not going to work anymore. And I think that that's why, you know, viewing success as something that can go away tomorrow is not a bad way to look at it. You can't get all high in mighty once you've succeeded. You have to continue to work hard. And that's the hard thing about doing literally anything in life is that you have to keep working hard, you know? Unfortunately, I think that we're all gonna have to work hard

for the rest of our lives in order to continue to succeed and in order to continue to get better at whatever it may be. In your personal life, in your work life, in your creative life, whatever it may be, unfortunately, in order to evolve, you have to work hard forever. And it's not easy. And I'm actually fucking tired just thinking about it.

But that's also what makes life so great is that, you know, we constantly have things to strive for. There's no, you know, there's no such thing as like hitting a peak of success or hitting a peak of anything, you know, you can always improve You can always be a nicer person. You can always come up with a more creative idea. You can always work harder, you know, or work smarter, whatever it may be. You can always get better. There's no limit to how great you can be in any capacity. And that's a really beautiful thing, but it's also exhausting, you know.

Somebody said, do you feel that your content has gone down, slash been affected at all since you've gained a large following? I think that it's gone through phases for me, like my personal content. I'm referring to my YouTube videos specifically. I had a period, I would say, for the first year or so of my YouTube channel, where I felt proud of my videos, I felt like they were good, they were well received by the public, well received by the public,

and everything was great. And then I had like maybe a year or so where things were a little shaky. It might have been like seven, eight months. And it was because the success burned me out. I got burnt out. I felt tremendous amounts of pressure to keep it up. And I couldn't handle it. And so my content suffered a lot. And I've actually deleted a lot of those videos because I just, I'm not proud of them. And I don't feel like they represent me

and I just hate them if I'm being brutally honest. And they weren't received that well. There were some people that liked them and a lot, you know, whatever, but there were also a decent amount of people that were like, no, this is not what we signed up for. We don't like this. And I think that's a valid criticism because I think that my content was suffering at the

time because I was so consumed by the pressure of needing to continue to get better and better and better and better and to continue to create every week, every week, every week. And it took me a while to figure it out and to get back to a place where I feel like I'm proud of what I'm doing. And I mean, not proud. Okay, see proud, it's funny because I'm never proud of what I make,

but it's more than I'm satisfied if that makes sense. Unfortunately, I have in Poster syndrome, in which is where you don't believe that you deserve success or deserve praise, or I've talked about in Poster syndrome before on this podcast, but anyway, I feel like I'm at a place now where I feel satisfied with what I'm creating, and I felt like that for probably the past year. And I felt really good.

And maybe even past two years or so, I don't know. I don't even remember the timeline. Either way, I got out of it, but it took a while. I had to refine my footing. And I'm grateful for all of you who have stuck around through all the ups and downs. Somebody said, if you created something and it performed badly, would that affect you?

See, weirdly enough, no. I feel like if I create something that I'm really proud of, that's enough for me to feel good, because I rarely feel truly proud of something that I make. So if I do feel that feeling, I don't care how it does, because just the mere fact that I feel proud blows my own fucking mind. So I'm usually thrilled about that.

It's when I'm simply satisfied by something that I'm more critical of how it's received. You know, as we've been talking about this, I feel like there's actually a formula for this whole scenario. Step one, you have zero fame, zero success, but you have a creative idea. And then you create it. Step two, you put it out into the world, and it succeeds. You feel excitement, you feel proud, you feel great. Step three, it's time to create the next thing,

the pressure hits, and you crumble. Step 4, you either take a break or you create something that sucks. Step 5, you come out of the other side and you learn to find a balance between success and creativity and you figure out a way to let your success either inspire your creativity or give you more opportunities to be creative or you just learn how to block out success completely and return to step one where you will hopefully remain, which is being creative with no pressure.

I hope that made sense, but that's what I think the final verdict is. Like I think that's the final formula and that's kind of the best way that I can explain it. But anyway, that's enough for today. I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. I hope that anything that I said made sense, Lord knows, I don't know, but I really appreciate you guys listening today.

If you like this episode and you like anything goes, leave anything goes a review on Apple podcasts. I really appreciate it. I read them Every time before I start recording an episode and it makes me feel so warm inside and It makes me feel really good, which is actually kind of ironic because we're literally talking about how Like success or praise, you know can make you feel Unmotivated and make you feel trapped

yet I read podcast reviews before I start recording Because you know, it can make you feel unmotivated and make you feel trapped. Yet I read podcast reviews before I start recording. So that is quite ironic, but actually it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. It has a great effect on me. So listen, maybe I have it all figured out. Maybe I figured out my own personal balance. Because anyway, fuck, we need to end this episode. Thank you for listening Subscribe to anything goes on any of the platforms that you listen to podcasts follow the Twitter at AG podcast

to keep up and to participate in episodes sometimes and that's all I got today guys. I love you all. Thank you for listening. Have an amazing Rest of your day and I will talk to you soon. Bye. I just ended that like it was a phone call. Okay, bye. Like what the fuck? Why not end it like that?