Fuse Chamber

As an icebreaker, I frequently ask people - what would you do if you won the lottery?

Despite your most disciplined attempts to show up every single day, inviting the muse, yet not leaving things to dumb luck, you sit down for your daily ritual, and nothing comes. This is made all the worse by a looming deadline, or being behind in production. So what do you do when you doing everything right, and nothing comes?

So you’ve worked it all out - you have a master plan for launching your product….but what if you build it and nobody comes?

Although we’d like to believe that we have what it takes, sometimes we worry that we’re going to be seen as ‘arrogant’, over-confident or full of ourselves. This alone can keep us from starting. What’s the difference between confidence and arrogance and how can you build the former without seeming like the latter? Limiting Beliefs - concepts of what we are capable of are limited by our fears, which talk to us in sentences that start with ‘you can’t’. Believing in the information to the contrary Arrogance - belief in your abilities and entitlements in ignorance of external information to the contrary Confidence - belief in your abilities and entitlements even in light of external information to the contrary Both limiting beliefs and arrogance can only be destroyed one way - through experience and reflection. The initial spark of belief that surrounds arrogance is important for overcoming limiting beliefs though.

There are two kinds of habits: good ones and bad ones. So often, we focus on the bad ones that we need to break, but how often do we take the time to focus on the good habits that we have integrated or need to integrate to continuously move us forward?

The Public Demands more content, more frequently. This seems foreign to many of us as we grew up with a new book, music or movie release from our favourite artists maybe once per year or less. You need to change your mindset to reflect the new virtues and values in the marketplace.

People who achieve everything they set out to do in life are masters of protecting their time. How do they do it?

Could we flip the script on our thinking about experimentation? Rather than seeing experiments as risky, or as a synonym for failure, we should be embracing experimentation as the fastest way to learn about what works, and what doesn’t.

If you’re making time for creativity, but you find yourself unfocused and unable to stay with it…there are some things that can help.

We all know about the paralysis caused by waiting for the right moment in the right conditions. So why do we continue to do it, and how can we stop?

By now, we know that inspiration is as much about showing up every day, as part of a routine, and doing the work of writing - even if it is for the wastebasket. But there are times when inspiration just hits. Are there things you can do that create fertile ground for inspiration? There are….and they exist in the everyday.

Today's episode is an impromptu musing on the state of coaching, for those of you who feel like you might benefit from it, or are yourselves in the coaching business. in many ways, its a bit like being a therapist. People should find a good coach that is a balance of engaged and removed, that specializes in or can tailor an action plan to your particular learning style, and that they trust and like. Once you've found that, I love to see clients eat up the learning. So often, I take for granted what I've learned, how far I've come personally, and how hard I've worked for the success I have. I forget what it's like to be new; to have your eyes opened to a world of limitless potential. But sometimes, it just doesn't happen that way. What continues to surprise me is how often people dive in, seem committed, seem ready to make a serious mark in the world...and then just fade away from the teaching. It makes me think that perhaps coaching is a nonsense profession...but then I remember that we have always had elders, mentors, jedi masters...people who pass down the wisdom accumulated from a life of disciplined practice. This is meaningful work for me, and its hard to accept that sometimes, people just aren't ready. They are not yet willing to commit to the time and effort it takes to transform. I'll never forget my public school teacher, Gerald Smialek, who taught us kids the phrase "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink". That continues to reveal layers of meaning to me, even to this day. Enjoy the episode. I hope you're learning lots and enjoying the journey!

As i work with many leaders in development, there is one thing that trips up more people than any other factor - and with each passing year, I see more and more of it. I call it FABJ - Fear, Anger, Bitterness, and Jealousy - but these things are all byproducts of one thing. Feeling not good enough. We all suffer from these feelings, but if you are a leader....you have to learn how to handle or manage them.

Most deeply creative people know that you simply have to show up ever day - inspiration will never just come and pay a visit. So how do you show up every day? You schedule. it. In this episode, I discuss my daily routine for capturing creative thoughts and then filtering them and refining them into finished product. Lots of tips and tricks in this one - hope you find it valuable!

As someone with a creative offering, I’d like to wait until my product is perfect before I unleash it on the world. Is that really so bad?

One of the challenges of being a modern artist is that there’s a lot to do in a day. Your art might be your side hustle, so there’s a full time job, family, friends, and daily life all competing for attention with your core offering - your creativity. How can you get ultra productive and disciplined, and what do you do if you’re stuck…..unmotivated and blocked?

Your reason for doing everything matters more than anything. How can you use Intention to improve your outcomes?

On this show we cover the fundamentals - be visionary, get focused, work hard, get gritty, always improve. That’s general advice, and those fundamentals are lifelong lighthouses - you should seek to study and perfect your ability to live those values every day. But how do you actually achieve stuff?

What’s the Difference between people who dream massive dreams, and those who are living those massive dreams?

If you’ve been listening for a while, you know I’m big on service. To review, service is the thing that validates your vision. Without service, a vision can be nothing more than a wishlist….a catalog of benefits that only accrue to you. Service ensures that you know exactly who your vision serves, how, and most importantly, why. So how do I figure out what that is if I’m just an ordinary, everyday person? That’s this week on the Fuse Chamber Podcast.