Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And so it no longer becomes what is required for
me to achieve my goal, and it becomes what is
required to make me the type of person who.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Would achieve goals.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
What are you working on and how can I help?
Speaker 3 (00:14):
I'm fairly successful in what I do. I want more
and I don't want more. That makes sense.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Oh, it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
I got for kids, well, from adults to five year old,
and I'm like tired of I want more work. I
when I go back to teaching, I I want to
do more professional stuff, but I don't want to meet
(00:51):
the Oh mom, let's seem Louis and just or let's
make this.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Bottle or whatever you'd like to expand what you're doing
without creating a bunch more overwhelm or losing your connection
with family. Yeah, wonderful. I mean, it's a wonderful desire.
It's a wonderful thing to want. A lot of people
(01:22):
don't think to want that. They just think, well, I
want this thing, and so I'm going to go after it,
and they're good. Those are the people that are good
at getting things, but they often get the wrong things.
And then there are other people who go, Okay, well
I'm going to think about this a while. I would
like this set of things because I think this would
(01:43):
be beneficial and make my life better.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
But they sometimes struggle to get things.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
They're the ones that struggle with taking action because they're
spending more time thinking about the things that they want.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
I think they want the first time for a long time, Yes,
and then I got really tired, yes, ma'am thinking I
want it, but I don't want it that much.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
So let's work on how to do that, because there's
a way, and the way is through learning to set limits.
And so what I mean by that is, have you
heard the term creative constraint? Okay, So a creative constraint
is a term that artists use where they say I
will be creative within this set of things that I
(02:37):
will do. And so that could be the creative constraint
is I only paint with water color and ink and
pieces of paper that are this big, And so the
constraint is the limited number of materials and the limited
size of materials.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Okay, it could.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Be I only paint with water color and ink and
pieces of paper this big, and I have to be
finished with my painting within thirty five minutes.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Okay, so that is a constraint, so impossible constraint.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
So artists know that creative constraints make art better. Strategic
limitation another praise for creative constraint, enables people to come
up with interesting solutions that are different and more valuable
(03:31):
to people than if they have the option to do
anything and everything. And so another example of this is
the band The White Stripes. So The White Stripes have
a creative constraint of the rule of three. If you
look at their videos, you'll notice everything is red, white,
and black. Yeah, that's their color scheme, three colors. And
(03:56):
then their music, this is this one as wild. You
will notice almost all of their songs there are only
three instruments playing at any given time. And it's not
because the number of people in the band. There's actually
two in the band. But they chose to constrain what
(04:17):
they were doing to say, Okay, it can only ever
be drums, guitar and voice, or drums, piano and voice,
or guitar piano and voice, or guitar piano and drums.
It can never be more than that. We have to
limit it to three. And the thing that came out
(04:38):
of that limitation was an incredible band, an incredible thing
because it made them think about things as a particular way.
And so what we do when we are earlier in
life is we set goals and then we go, okay, well,
I'll do whatever it takes to hit this goal.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
And then we exhaust ourselves.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
And so we pick a goal and we go after it,
and we go, well, as late as I need to
stay up to achieve this goal, I'll stay up that late.
If I need to sacrifice my friends, I'll sacrifice my
friends whatever is required to reach this goal, I.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Will do that. And that's powerful.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
It gets a lot done, and it teaches you a
lot of lessons about how to move in the world.
It like like, it teaches you sacrifice, which is very valuable.
There's lots of good things that come from that. But
people who do this a lot, what ends up happening
is they sacrifice so much. Is they sacrifice so much
(05:43):
that they then suffer They have no constraints when somebody
then matures and they get to the point where they go, Okay,
so I've learned a bunch of skills, and also I've
you know, I've expanded my life to a degree right
where I now have elements of my life that I'm
happy with. I don't want to sacrifice everything in my life.
(06:07):
Then what you have to do is you have to go, Okay, well,
I'm going to set a goal that includes constraints. I'm
going to say, well, I want to work towards X, Y,
and Z outcome or this specific outcome.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
But I get to work on this a half hour
a day.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
And that's that's the amount of time that I get
to work on it. It's not that I have to work
on it, it's I get to work on it for
a half hour, like, that's it. And so given that
I only get to work on this for a half hour,
how do I creatively shape this so that I could
(06:43):
get a result in a half hour?
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Right?
Speaker 1 (06:46):
And so at the beginning of life, you're undisciplined. You know,
you have to learn to be disciplined, and so you
say you have to work for a half hour, like,
I know you don't want to, but you have to
work for a half hour. But then you go through
this process of the achieving goals and you learn how
to sacrifice, and you become willing to work as long
(07:06):
as required. And so once you learn that lesson. The
new lesson is you only get to work for a
half hour. It switches, and so it's limiting you. Does
that make sense, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
It makes sense. It's some truly challenging, it's extremely challenging,
but yeah, it makes sense.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
It's actually what we would consider the next challenge of life.
And so the challenge when you're younger is you don't
want to do the things, and the challenge is to
get you to do the things right. And then you
learn how to do that. But then eventually you over
(07:48):
extend on the willingness to do things and you're willing
to do everything and it drains you. So you have
to learn how to actually control your instinct to do everything.
You have to switch to go here are the limits,
and so you can create these constraints, these limitations in
(08:08):
a way that serve you. And the way you do
this is you kind of take an assessment of you
and your life and you start to figure out, okay,
so where are my talents, where are the environments in
which I thrive? And how much time could I devote
to a particular project, you know, things like that, and
so you go, okay, here are the sets of things
that I have talents in and then I thrive in
(08:32):
an environment with people, and I have one hour every.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Two days that I could devote to this thing.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
So that means now I'm only allowed to work on
this project in this way. I have to use these
skills to get there. I have to do this in
a supportive environment with my friends. Like I this is
a coworking project, and I schedule a meeting with my
friends every other day for two hours, right, because that's
(09:03):
the thing that works for me, and I make that
my constraint and that's how I work on the thing.
And then somebody else might be totally different. Somebody else
might be they work really well when they have quiet
time and they're able to kind of be creative in
their cave and explore that way. And so you go, okay,
(09:23):
so I'm going to use these skills here. I'm going
to see if I can use these skills for a
half hour every day in my quiet time. You know,
working this way right, or you know, it could be
something totally different, but but it's it's you set a
set of limits and so as opposed to I'm going
(09:45):
to make myself do a bunch of things. It's I'm
going to stop myself from doing everything, and I'm going
to contain myself. Do you see how this is challenging,
but it makes you kind of feel a little better. Yeah,
because it's how you create a healthy individual. They need
to be willing to do something, but they also need
(10:06):
to be willing to not do everything. That's how you
create a healthy person, right, is you can't not do anything,
but you also can't do everything. You can't be lazy
and you can't be obsessive. Right, these are the two
the two far ins. We have to be somewhere in
(10:28):
between those two things because both of those can destroy us.
And the way we create that is through healthy limitation.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
That applies to relations too.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Oh yeah, it definitely applies to relationships because it could
be we only work with like let's say you're starting
a business. It could be, well, we only are willing
to hire people who have a good attitude, and that
means we might have somebody apply for a job who
(11:01):
is an incredibly talented person, but they have a terrible attitude,
so we're not going to hire them. There are some
people who don't put that limitation on themselves because they
want the skill from their employees. Right, and so they go, well,
I know that I'm going to hate working with this person,
but I'll hire them because they're so good at what
(11:22):
they do and that's much more stressful. Right. Yeah, Yeah,
Now here's a wild one. Some people have different constraints
where it doesn't matter what type of attitude the person has.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Their skill is what matters.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
And so everybody accepts that the work environment is a
total mess and people are going to have terrible attitudes,
but that's not what matters in what we're doing. What
matters is skill. And so if we're all focused on skill,
then it's okay. And some people are all right with
that because what that is is they create an environment
(12:05):
where there's not a lot of social interaction. It's just
all about the work, and all of a sudden, it
actually doesn't matter if this person is sort of a
jerk because it doesn't even come up because they're so
focused on the work. And that could be a constraint
where it's like we don't socialize at work.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
That happens.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
There are people that work that way, and for some people,
they love that because they can just go to work
and work and that's just what they want to do.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
What I do in life.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
It's basically helping people not be jerks with therapy.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Yeah, so you don't want that one. You don't want
the all work one. And I was watching your face
and I was like, yeah, she doesn't want that one.
But you see how it could be a constraint where
all we do is we just get in the room
and we just we do the job and we're not
going to be talking, We're not going to be doing
(13:04):
all this in a relating We're just gonna do the thing.
And and that's a that is functional. There is a
version of that that works. It's not what you or
I like, but some people, you know, that's what they want,
and it's fine. But what matters is that there's a
constraint because in that example environment that neither of us like.
(13:26):
In that example, there's still a constraint. And the constraint
is we don't talk, we don't we don't socialize, we
we focus, right. Yeah, And for others it's the exact
oupos is. The constraint is like everybody in the room
needs it to be willing to actually set the job
(13:47):
down for a moment to have lunch together, right, and
and and we have to make sure that that happens,
because we know that if we do that that constraint,
then the people bond, The people relaxed, they get to
know each other, and they come up with better ideas,
and we make more money in the long run, right like,
or we stay in the business for longer so that
(14:08):
the business is more sustainable and stable. Right Regardless, it's
a constraint, and so you have to pick the constraints
based on what would make you thrive and perform the best.
And so it no longer becomes what is required for
(14:28):
me to achieve my goal, and it becomes what is
required to make me the type of person who would
achieve goals?
Speaker 4 (14:39):
Ah, yeah, I read that before in your I like
that praise. Yeah, it's terrible, but it's really true.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
It's very challenging to think that way. Yeah, but when
you do that, you start to think very differently. When
you're thinking about what is required to achieve the goal,
you just go, well, here's the work.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
I've got to do this work.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
And so you go, well, I got to keep going
on this for six hours. But when you ask the question, well,
what is required to make me the type of person
who would achieve this goal. All of a sudden, you go, oh, well,
I work best in forty minute sprints, and so I
need to work on this. And then I need to
step outside and I actually need a run and jog
(15:26):
for ten minutes, and then I need to step back
inside and hug a person that I love and then
do a thirty minute sprint and then have lunch. Because
now you're thinking about what makes you the most effective
as opposed to just what's this thing outside of myself?
(15:48):
And so a lot of people burn themselves out because
they're obsessed about the thing over here and they're not
thinking of themselves as the thing that would make that happen.
And when they realize that they're the thing that makes
that happen, all of a sudden, they realize, oh, well,
I've got to focus on what is the scenario that
(16:09):
would make me the smartest, most creative, most high performance,
whatever the set of things are that you need. That's
how you do it is you set up the constraints
that would create the optimal outcome as opposed to set
up the requirements that make you push yourself to the outcome.