The voice in my head is likely a podcast.
I’m addicted.
Whether driving to find some waves to play in or washing dishes there is always someone in my ear.
Sam Harris is a favorite of mine.
Recently on his Making Sense Podcast1, Sam hosted Will Storr. The focus of their discussion was on status games. I hate status games. I refuse to play them. This, according to Storr is just another status play. It’s a way of saying - I have so much status that I don’t need it. Though Storr, looking for status games will likely find them everywhere, he has a point.
Peeling back the onion on myself, I’ve realized I have a particular blind spot around just how status obsessed I am. A simple look at how and what kind of status games are played in the circles that I travel has been a big ‘ah-ha’ for me lately.
The three main spheres of status games according to Storr are 1: Spiritual, 2: Virtue based and 3: Success focused.
What really shines in this is that all three are necessarily relational. Who defies spiritual growth, virtue or success? These are all deeply subjective and depend on the group.
And?
Our primary relationship is with ourselves. Having a felt sense of ‘being successful’ or ‘having agency’ in our lives begins with our relationship with ourselves.
The last couple of days, I’ve been writing about the Akimbo workshops, with a particular focus on The Creatives Workshops. I found these through another podcast. The Akimbo Podcast hosted by Seth Godin has been incredible in my journey as an artist.
Seth has over ten thousand blog posts. He has been blogging daily since before there were blogs. He had perhaps the first daily email newsletter. He looks at things like status and attempts to understand what’s it for?
Self esteem is how we feel about ourselves. It’s our status with ourselves. This foolsletter allows me to have daily success. I write and share daily. In doing so I get a small win every morning.
The effects of this have been cumulative. I’m more secure with myself. I’m more optimistic about the future. I experience freedom to act based on my choice to restrict myself to delivering these messages daily to you.
And you can do this too.
Fundamental for my journey was The Creatives Workshop. There, in addition to discussing voice, genre, form, taste and style, we learned how an overnight success takes three years.
The foolsletter is nineteen months old. So, only seventeen months to go?
You’ll all be able to tell ‘em you knew me when I was merely successful to myself, a legend in my own mind.
And, if you have something to say, something creative to launch into the world, it helps to have others around. You’ll find them in The Creatives Workshop.2
Tomorrow is the last day to sign up. You can do that here.
Subscriber content - there is a paywall, I subscribe. I love podcasts enough to pay for them.
I don’t get paid by the louts over at Akimbo for flogging their wares. I just loved it that much. Also? It was really helpful. And overwhelming. And fun. Expect to spend between seven and ten hours per week on it. That’s a lot. And it’s enough to get you started.
I have been curious about the effort to get really good since reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. But attaining success and bring excellent are different things. They do both require time to have the practice to become competent. But there's more to success or excellence than competency. We have to stick with activities long enough to become competent and surpass this milestone to reach something that feels like success or excellence. It appears to me that excellence can exist in a vacuum. I don't need others to notice me to be excellent. But success. Success appears to me to require us to be noticed. Another is necessary, in my opinion. I think that's why I have been obsessed with excellence and not success. I don't care about the opinions of others that are frequently malformed. Oops, my status is showing. I am intelligent and careful. I form opinions slowly and with a lot of research and effort. I think my opinion matters. I care so much, that I will listen to every other opinion, for there may be something I missed in there. I have changed my mind on many big ticket beliefs. It happened by being open to information, sifting and questioning and asking to understand more. It takes time to create whether that be art or worthwhile opinions. But how else shall we spend our time?
PS
It appears to me that I spend about 7 to 10 hours a week reading and responding to your Fools Letter. I have a corporate blog that I was contributing to, well irregularly, before reading this. I have neglected it. My writing practice shifted to supporting your work here and I have enjoyed this immensely. I have gotten to understand what makes James tick, worked on myself and continued to develop my expressive voice.
Its the Academic New Year. I meet my first students today. My schedule has been in hyperdrive since returning to work last Monday with my walking away from work around 10 to 12 at night. The message? 7 to 10 hours is a lot to me. I would dearly enjoy the program you speak of and am suffering from major FOMO at the thought. What would I drop to do it? Now that's the hard question. As a Certified Fool, I have a lot I want to cram into my life. A 10 pm bedtime, rather than a 10 pm walk away from my job time, is one thing I want. It's time to make a new schedule. I can read the Fools Letter over my work at the desk lunch. Ahhhh, I'll leave my desk. Maybe enjoy a tea and look out at the Harbour. Make the Fools Letter a purposeful treat and break. Time to make a thoughtful shift. That's what a New Year is for.