Oh, hi friends!
What worked for you before?
I just found one of my old Spotify playlists. The name: Marathon 2015!!!
Ten seconds in and I was jamming.
Look at your bookshelf. Which books made you feel something once upon a time?
Pick one up, pick a random page, read it to yourself.
Remember one of your old, super inspiring, let’s-plan-our-lives conversations?
Text that person and tell them you are thinking about that energy.
What worked for you before?
Channel it again. It’s waiting.
“The craftsperson is making the thing and making them all the same and making them all match or making the one that somebody ordered. … The artist is making the thing that you didn’t know you want, the thing that you didn’t know that you couldn’t live without, the thing that you didn’t know was possible.”
— Rick Rubin
From his interview on the Tim Ferriss podcast (I haven’t listened to the full thing yet, fyi!).
Rubin also has a new book called The Creative Act: A Way of Being.
Hmm, yes, I do believe I will enjoy that! Will read it for you and report back.
My Favorite Read of the Week
I just love this Fortune article by Alicia Adamczyk: “My ‘soul is tapped out:’ The pandemic killed my ambition. Here’s how I’m getting it back.”
She interviewed me for this piece, and our discussion—and her reflection—articulated for me how much ambition has morphed in recent years.
Hope you find her perspective as energizing as I do:
“But what is life without something to look forward to—something to strive for, something new to learn? I want to live a soft life, while also feeling like the work I’m doing is meaningful and helpful to others. While I don’t want things to go back to the way they were before the pandemic, I do want to be ambitious.”
My advice, as always, is to listen closely:
“In periods of stagnancy, follow the pull, follow these little tugs in a new direction,” says Cutruzzula, noting she signed up for a song-writing class on a whim, and it led to her learning how to write the book and lyrics for musicals, and an entirely new craft and industry a decade into her career. “Even if it seems out of the ordinary or kind of random, it can take you down an entirely new road.”