Valerie: 0:09

All right, we're back for another episode.

Mak: 0:11

Here we go.

Valerie: 0:12

And we're doing it. We've been talking about sharing more of these stories that we don't share with anybody.

Mak: 0:21

That we've never shared with anybody.

Valerie: 0:22

We've never shared with anybody, but I think it's time.

Mak: 0:26

Okay, I'm ready to dive in then.

Valerie: 0:30

Welcome to the Unbound Creative Podcast. We are your hosts. My name is Valerie McKeon. This is my husband, mac McKeon. We have so enjoyed hanging out with you over these. What, how many episodes are we in?

Valerie: 0:42

this is number six this is number six awesome. So if you have come along through all of these six episodes, we want to say thank you. If you are new to our podcast, hello welcome, we're so glad you're here. We want to empower all creatives through this podcast and our hope is that by sharing our story, sharing little snippets of just our careers, things that we've gone through, it will help empower you to embrace your own creative way of being. Our philosophy is that that's the way to be when we tap into our creativity. It helps you get unstuck when you are feeling lost. It helps you be resilient and nimble in your life. It helps you be able to get messy and enjoy the process. There is so much about creativity that will directly impact your life and make it better, and that's what we're all about here. And we love the arts too, and we love beauty and all of the things that in Nashville, where we live and where we record, and we're finally out of the hole, so we're breathing a little bit lighter.

Mak: 2:13

Yes, we're breathing a little bit lighter and feeling really good, so excited to record everything today.

Mak: 2:19

It was a couple of days of sleepless nights there and especially with young kids, it was a lot oh yeah, and you know I want to say I'm going to give a quick shout out to nashville severe weather. It's like these five dudes who are meteorology nerds. They were like up all night broadcasting on youtube. Look these guys up on instagram. Even if you're not local, they're fantastic.

Mak: 2:41

And the one night where we had tornado warnings all night long I had I stayed up all night to make sure we didn't have to shelter or anything because, of course, these storms hit in the middle of the night. So these guys got me through the night. They were so, so good. So shout out to those guys. They kept everybody calm, they explained, oh, there isn't going to be a tornado here and this and that, and they explained the warnings and it was just so fantastic and I just love that in this day and age you can have a passion for something and be super creative about it and you have an outlet in your house, in your basement.

Mak: 3:16

So what these guys are doing is very on point for what we're supporting on this podcast, because they love what they do, they have creative energy about it and they broadcast, and the broadcast in the middle of the night. The other night I saw on YouTube I had over 640,000 views, and that's just massive. So in this day and age, you really can do anything you want from anywhere, so take advantage of that. We live in a great time to be alive, especially if you're creative.

Valerie: 3:44

Yeah, it's our own blocks and our own stories. They could be like oh no, there's the weather channel. We don't need. They don't need us. Who needs another voice in doing this? It's like there were how many stories that could have prevented that, but I do. I think it is so cool when people do cool things, and we are all about that. We cool things, and we are all about that. We love, love, love that and you are capable of doing really, really cool things. That's what we want to champion.

Mak: 4:12

And you don't need anybody's permission. You can show up and do it really bad at first, because nobody starts out as an expert. You think the first thing Bobby Flay made tasted great. No, probably tasted terrible, but over time and you work on it and you keep showing up, no matter what life throws at you, because you're passionate about it and you love it, you're going to do well. It's that simple, it really is. It's almost so simple. It's hard.

Valerie: 4:36

It is. It's so simple. It's hard Because we stand in our own way with our beautiful brains that want to keep us safe. So, speaking of wanting to keep us safe, if we think about what are those kind of huge blocks in our way? Why don't we do the thing? Why don't we do the thing that we want to do? Or we have the ideas. If you're listening, you are probably just a creative person that is brimming with creative ideas, but if you're not taking that from the idea stage to actually doing it, what is standing in the way?

Valerie: 5:17

I would say one of the big things that people would say is fear of failure. There are many things and they're all fear-based. We don't want to look silly, and I think the fear of failure can be broken out even in. What does failing mean to you? Does that mean a loss of money or a loss of time? Or does that mean you have to go to people and say, hey, this didn't work, I'm trying something else now. So you're afraid of what people are going to think. But it can all have sort of a different wrapping paper on it, but the thing that we're packaging up here is the same, which is it is this fear of failure, and we all say that. We hear that, oh, fear of failure and everything. But what we want to do today in this episode, is help you understand that going for it, even if you fail, is still better than not going for it.

Mak: 6:21

And if you go for it, Well, not going for it is guaranteed failure yes, that's true if you never begin, you failed yeah, good point.

Valerie: 6:33

but also, if you do go for it, so many people let that stop them, right, because we're so afraid and we have it so built up in our head, it becomes the monster under the bed. We can't even look under there because it's too scary. So what do we do? We don't even try, we don't even start.

Valerie: 6:51

It is this is that voice that we talk about on the podcast many times. That's saying to you sit back down, sit back down, stay safe, stay safe. And your brain knows what to throw up at you. That's going to get you to sit back down. So it will wave the flag of whatever particular style of failure it is for you in order to get you to stop, because it wants you to stay safe, which, to your brain, safe equals the same, safe equals the same. So for many people, this idea of failing just becomes this monster hidden under the bed. We're too afraid to even look. So then we don't do anything, and you're right, that's the ultimate failure. That's the ultimate failure. So what happens when you do try, or you do the thing, or you take a risk and you actually do fail? What do you do in that case? What we want to do here is let's look under the bed. What if that happens?

Mak: 7:57

Well, because the chances are you are going to fail. I mean, I can't think of an instance in my brain where somebody had an idea and it was instantly successful. I mean even the businesses and the people who have gone on and done big things and they've done it rather quickly. They had several points, even if it was a month from beginning to going viral. They had moments of failure in the middle. So that's the point. It's like if you're gonna start, be prepared to fail. You're going to fail. There is no human being capable of starting without having some, some kind of failure. It's like if you're playing tennis, you're gonna, you're gonna drop a set. I'm sorry, you're just, it's just gonna happen.

Valerie: 8:41

So even down to starting anything, even on smaller levels. If you're learning how to paint, if you're learning how to dance, if you're learning how to do anything, you are going to fail at first. You're not going to come out the gate trying to paint a painting and it's going to look like Monet right off the bat. That's right. It's not going to happen. So it is like we can talk about almost micro failures. I think the micro failures actually can set us up for the bigger failures too. But all realms of failure, from the big to the small, it is all going to be part of walking this creative path, so why not normalize it?

Mak: 9:22

Why can't we?

Valerie: 9:22

just talk about it like it's normal.

Mak: 9:24

The idea is you have to be comfortable with failing. You have to be comfortable with it because it's actually failing is a superpower and I know so many people who are in positions to hire people and they would take someone who has failed multiple times but has gotten up over, someone who has quote unquote never failed.

Mak: 9:46

Or never done anything like never done anything or never done anything, you know, even if they're, if they have all the education in the world but they haven't done anything yet. But but there's a. There's a person who has failed three or four, five, six, seven times in their life, but they're still going and they're. They'll take that person because the experience of the failure builds a lot of things. First of all, it builds character, which is of the utmost importance, but secondly, it builds what failure really does, and really I hate the word failure because it implies that you failed.

Mak: 10:20

Well it implies completeness, Correct. But what happens when you quote, unquote, fail, is you just learn another lesson? You learn that actually that failure goes into your arsenal. And when that goes into your arsenal, in the moment of the failure and sometimes that moment can be a single moment or it can be months and maybe even a year or more but in that moment you are actually being downloaded a tremendous amount of just priceless information, priceless experience, priceless knowledge that you will carry forward with you into the future a much wiser, stronger, more prepared person. So if you learn to look at failure as a way of, it's almost like if you learn to embrace it and get excited about it and kind of reframe the way it looks. Sure, in the moment, externally there could be loss of all kinds, but inside, that loss instantly becomes a positive. It instantly charges you with something that you can't get.

Mak: 11:38

Otherwise, you cannot be taught failure. There is not a single person in life who can teach you failure. They can teach you how to deal with it. They can teach you what to do on the other side, but the feeling of it, going through it, planning, doing everything and it not working, that's only something we as individuals can do for ourselves. And until you've done it and maybe done it a handful of times can you come out and learn to really, really embrace it and see it as something positive. And all the greats, from Richard Branson to Steve Jobs and all these people Oprah. They understand and thrive in failure and they have learned that okay, if it didn't work, you just keep going. What's the next thing? What's the next thing? I'm going to keep going Because they learned that that's just part of what makes you great.

Valerie: 12:33

Failure is quintessentially creative. Let's not make it the boogeyman anymore, because it is the process. It's the process, it is, it's part of it. It is so inherently tied up into what it means to be creative and live a creative life. Because the essence of creativity you're thinking differently, you're trying things that you may not normally try.

Valerie: 13:03

You're trying things in a different way. You're trying things that haven't been done try. You're trying things in a different way. You're trying things that haven't been done before. You are taking the risks, you are silencing that part of your brain that's trying to get you to stay safe and you're saying, no, I'm going to do this, I'm going to try this. And yes, in doing that, you are putting yourself in the path of failures, in the path of failures of things not working, of experimentation and of curiosity. So if that's the case, if this is just so utterly tied to this type of lifestyle, then it makes sense that we would just embrace it and give ourselves the tools to be able to take those next steps, so that it doesn't put you, put you back so far beethoven wrote what?

Mak: 13:50

how many songs like a, like a ridiculous?

Valerie: 13:52

number. I used to know the number I know of this.

Mak: 13:54

It's somewhere between a thousand and six thousand.

Valerie: 13:56

Okay, okay but you'll get the point.

Mak: 14:00

The point is he's probably I mean arguably melodically the most famous musician of all time. I mean arguably the most famous, and Beethoven's Fifth is probably the most recognizable tune of all time.

Valerie: 14:20

I think you're just born now, knowing those few notes.

Mak: 14:23

I mean, mozart has a couple like Mozart wroteart wrote. Well, it wasn't twinkle, twinkle little star, but like he wrote that melody um, I forget what it was, but anyway. So those two are pretty pretty like neck and neck there, okay, but arguably most famous, uh, a songwriter of all time. Let's call him a songwriter, for for sake of argument, do you know how much he had to write to get the like? Okay, classical music nerds will know 20, easily, 20 beethoven pieces. But if you're, if you know nothing about classical music, you maybe know three or four of his most famous melodies. He had to write thousands and thousands, and that's just the stuff we know about. Imagine how many more things he wrote that like you and me. So we're like this is terrible, I'm throwing this in the garbage. Now imagine if he had put out his first couple pieces and nobody received them and he said forget it, I'm done, I failed. This is embarrassing, I hate my life, it's over, goodbye. It would. Huh, we wouldn't have it, and it was.

Mak: 15:37

I think John Grisham is the other example I like to use. His first book totally flopped, and what did he do? He said, okay, well, it flopped, so I'm gonna go write the next book. He his mindset was not it's over, his mindset was not okay. This is embarrassing. Which it was his mindset was. I feel in my heart that I am an author, so I'm gonna go write the next one. And he said he was gonna keep writing until he got a hit. You know what's interesting? It's like that's, but that's so easy because he loved to write. Beethoven loved to write.

Valerie: 16:08

You know what's interesting about it, though we think that success, whatever we perceive to be success- is going to thank you, this is going to be a good point.

Mak: 16:17

I already know the point before it's come out of your mouth. Go ahead.

Valerie: 16:25

Maybe I'll surprise you. We think that success is going to inoculate us from feeling a sting of failure, and it doesn't.

Mak: 16:35

Oh, that's not the point I thought you were going to make, but that's even better than the one I thought you were going to make.

Valerie: 16:39

We think that, ok, if I was successful, if everybody recognized this is so good, or I tried to start a business and it was a massive success and I sold out on the first day, and we tend to think that that success is somehow going to like whoop, we have a superpower now. We had success, therefore I am now immune to failing forever.

Valerie: 17:02

No, no no way this point of failing and learning how to fail, which maybe that's what we should call this episode. Learning how to fail is going to serve you in the whole entirety of your creative journey, because even the people who have had massive success, the pressure of the follow-up is almost even scarier the idea of failing once you had success and then falling. It becomes even this other type of a beast. But it's still all failure and it's still all fear.

Mak: 17:38

I'm actually gonna disagree with you for a second and I'm gonna say the follow-up is always scarier.

Valerie: 17:45

Yeah.

Mak: 17:45

I get that. I I'm not like the underdog anymore. No, listen when you're at the top, okay, and um, I'm gonna. This isn't even a humble brag, I'm gonna. Brag val has been the top in the world at something she's done at least one time in her life, and I have two. I had, I had a success where I was number one in the world.

Valerie: 18:03

What I did you said this isn't no that's definitely.

Mak: 18:06

that's just a straight up brag, but it's from that place that I'm coming to you and saying once you're there, it's terrifying and it's not something you expect. But when people see your success, two things happen. You inspire people, which is the good thing, and they, like, want to do what you're doing, and they get excited and fulfilled and they start going. And number two, people want to take you down, and so they come after you. And then you're also being scrutinized to a degree and you just feel like, oh no, what am I going to do? I've got to have the follow-up be as good as the first thing. The trick is not letting any of that get to you, and that leads to another topic which we should do on another podcast, and that is not fear of failure, but fear of success, because the things I just said sound pretty scary.

Valerie: 19:05

So say more about the people that want to take you down. Like are you thinking? Are you talking more like competitive sense? Yes, competitively, like in business, like competitors pop up, Like if you have something that is working then people are going to pop up.

Mak: 19:20

Which we did experience a lot of that. Both of us have experienced that.

Valerie: 19:23

With just products that we have invented and then all of a sudden, there was all kinds of infringement. And well, you're one of the most infringed artists in the world.

Mak: 19:32

People don't like understand that, but like I'm telling you right now there, val has hundreds of infringement things going on in her life right now, from stuff she even did 10 years ago. That's a whole other and that's a whole nother podcast but my. But my point is when, when you're.

Valerie: 19:51

That's why, like the, the fear of of success is also very real well, I think what we're trying to say, I don't want to, I don't want to rabbit trail too much, but that's, that's a part of it, I think what we're trying to say in this is we can have these views of it's like a total grass is greener kind of a thing, where you're like that person is successful and look at what they have and if only, if only I had this, then you play the if then game. Right, if I had this, then I would feel all these things, or if I had this level of success, then my life would be so much better. And what we're trying to say is success often brings more points of problem solving and things that come up.

Mak: 20:35

Yeah, it does, and I'll admit to you right now the thing that I did, that I was like the best in the world at. I have been very trepidatious getting back into that because I feel like I not only have to reach what I did before, I have to do better but that's a blocker that's a blocker, I'm afraid, of judgment from peers from 20 years ago.

Valerie: 21:04

See, this podcast is therapy. This is therapy because we have it too, is what we're saying, and that's exactly the point.

Mak: 21:11

So listen, you can be listening right now and my not so humble brag came out. But what I'm trying to point out is, even though I've had wild success, I still have the same fear that you do.

Mak: 21:23

It didn't immunize us from doing things Correct, and so every time I step foot back into that world, I feel a sense of pressure to perform at a certain level, when, in turn, I should just perform as me. I should just do what I do best, and that's be myself, yeah, and but I'm, I'm right there, along with everybody else. It's it that doesn't make it go away. The secret is, I still do, you still. I'm still in that world, I still do it, yeah, I still do it, and isn't that.

Valerie: 22:01

That is the. That is. The whole point of all of this is that if you're waiting for a point for the fear to go away again the if then game if you're playing the if then game and saying at this point I'm gonna start because I won't be afraid, because I'm gonna have done all this stuff, we're telling you right now you won't. It's not gonna happen. That way, the fear doesn't go away. The fear just comes along for the ride. Because what ends up happening is the more you step out in your creativity, the more you start doing the thing and taking those steps and silencing the brain to try to keep you stuck so that you can move forward. The more you do it, the easier it becomes to just say, all right, fear like, pack your bags. Here we go again.

Mak: 22:52

You know, we just watched Friday night with Vienna. It's movie night, movie pizza night in our house and we watched Beauty and the Beast, the live action version. And one of my favorite moments in that whole movie is right toward the beginning, when Maurice and Belle are talking and Maurice and Belle says tell me another thing about mom. And Maurice says she was fearless. And I've always loved the idea of fearlessness because to me, fearless when you're fearless, it doesn't mean you lack fear, that's primal. I don't think it doesn't mean you lack fear.

Valerie: 23:34

That's primal. I don't think any of us can just completely lack fear.

Mak: 23:37

No, we would be dead if we didn't have that mechanism. To me, being fearless is being afraid and doing it anyway, that's fearless.

Valerie: 23:43

See, I would call that courage.

Mak: 23:45

No well, I see, I often think that fearless and courage are sort of kissing cousins, because I mean we could get into semantics here and call in an English professor, but no one wants to talk to an English professor. So what we're going to do is, I think that there. I think that that to me is what that means it's like, because everyone, even the most successful people in the world I don't care who they are somewhere deep down they have a fear of something, but what they've learned to do is embrace it and overcome it and grow from it.

Valerie: 24:19

It's almost like making friends with your fear, and the more that you still make a move anyway, even if the move was a failure, it's almost distilling that into something that is proof that you still survived, that you still are doing it, You're getting back up and there's a real level of trust I think that you build with yourself in that where you stepped out in your fear and you did it anyway. Just the fact that you did it. And it's not, I would say, 90% of the time it's not going to go even the way you expect it to go, whether it was a failure. But sometimes it's just surprising. And what if we looked at it that way, where it's like oh, that's interesting. Maybe we don't even label it as good or bad.

Valerie: 25:03

I think sometimes part of the problem is that we're holding on so tightly to how something needs to go or an outcome that if it's not that exact outcome, there still could be something really good that's in the process. But because it didn't hit that mark that we said or we said this is good and this is bad. I see people doing that all the time with their businesses and with launches, where they're like this is the number and then anything under that. They're so upset, but yet look at the people they still touched. There was still good there, but it really puts our blinders up, then, to what is good and what is going to help us move forward here.

Mak: 25:44

And in an instance like that, when you're talking about launches too, there's so much to be learned. So, if you were trying to hit a number and you didn't hit it, rather than being angry because we've seen people like then lash out on social media and actually attack their customers for not buying more which is always the worst decision but what could you have learned? So, if that felt like a failure, because that's an embarrassment, you didn't hit the numbers you wanted. What did you learn about the launch? What did you learn about your language? What did you learn about your customers? What did you learn about the way you like? There are so many things you can learn from in that moment. And take that anger or frustration or embarrassment and use it for good, because the next time you launch which you could do the next week you could do better.

Valerie: 26:34

But there's always questioning. I'm constantly questioning. I love that. I think it's part of being on a creative journey or an entrepreneurial journey. There's so much self-reflection that needs to come with that and I feel like just asking yourself okay, so this didn't go very well. Well, maybe ask those questions. Did you love what you created? Were you creating just for the purpose of what you thought everybody else was going to like? I feel like a failure. It opens up the door to some tough conversations with yourself because maybe you didn't actually want that, maybe you weren't into it that much.

Valerie: 27:13

I know that's been the case for me sometimes, where it's really caused me to pause and say do I have the right team in place? Am I really in my own alignment? Because something here is blocked, something here is being resistant, and it always gives us an opportunity to seek out our own alignment again because we can say all right, what is this path forward? And there's also something that there's something to be said about dusting yourself off and holding yourself in gentleness and learning what you need in those moments and almost taking care of yourself like you would take care of a sick child. You know, okay, I see you.

Valerie: 27:58

You had this huge disappointment. You're feeling all the feelings. You're feeling embarrassed or you're just feeling disappointed and okay, it's like how would you treat yourself if you were a sick child? In that moment and cultivate so much gentleness with yourself to nurture yourself and nourish yourself? And just be like, okay, we're gonna cry, we're gonna let this be a moment and and then we're gonna rise and I think that's a huge part of it in getting to know yourself, treating yourself with a certain amount of gentleness and giving yourself what you need to move forward.

Valerie: 28:37

But then, once you have sort of that initial shock underway, then you can start asking some questions, and they might be hard questions and you might be saying things like is this aligned? Should I really be going in this direction? But it gives you that ability to change course, to try something different. You can make it all play too. Just be like, okay, well, maybe this time I'm going to try this different method. And if we look at it like we're putting pieces of a puzzle together, you just haven't maybe cracked that puzzle yet, but there's always opportunity to seek out that next puzzle piece, especially when you're doing it in a way of alignment.

Mak: 29:21

Yeah, I mean that's, that's a hundred percent correct. I mean you just all you want to do is is, I think well, first of all, I think it's a hard sometimes. It's difficult to have a hard conversation with yourself and really look at those.

Valerie: 29:33

It's always difficult to have a hard conversation with yourself, but journaling helps with that. Yes, it's, but that is meditation see, this is the thing.

Valerie: 29:41

This is another thing, though. We are so adverse to emotion, just as a society. This is another societal thing that we are adverse to it. And if you think about when you see somebody crying, for example, our first inclination is like what's wrong? What's wrong? Feel better.

Valerie: 30:03

It actually makes us uncomfortable if somebody is having a display of emotion, the same thing with ourselves. There are several times where I'll maybe just it might be something so small and I just feel a welling up and I want to cry. And then I'm saying what is wrong with you? Stop that, like, get it together. But no, that emotion is energy in motion that needs to come out and that is healthy and healing. And just a side note, I was reading about crying and our tears, and there are actually. If they look at tears under a microscope, there are stress hormones present in the tears. They are literally washing the stress hormones out of our body. When we say, like a good cleansing cry, it is true, which is so neat, like we are built and made to emote and to show feelings and emotions and all of these things, but what we tend to do, we block that off and we say nope, don't want to go there, don't want to feel that way. So then we turn to what Doom scrolling, netflix numbing, because we don't want to feel that way.

Valerie: 31:09

So then we turn to what Doom scrolling, netflix numbing, because we don't want to feel the feeling. But the problem is, when you don't feel the feeling, when you don't have the hard conversation with yourself, that stuff doesn't go away. It's not like the feeling is like, oh okay, nevermind, and it turns around. No, it just gets stuffed down and often it will come back with a vengeance and it will knock louder because it wants to get out. It is energy, it is energy in motion. So if you want to cry, if you feel those welling up this is part of why everybody knows by now that I'm obsessed with Mr Rogers and that is why I resonate so deeply in part with what he says about there's no bad feeling.

Valerie: 31:52

Feelings are just feelings. It's okay. We are allowed to experience all gamut of human emotion. Guess why? Because we're human and we're made to have that gamut of emotion so completely. It is hard to have brutal honesty with yourself. It is hard to sit in those emotions, not because we're trying to wallow, but because we're trying to honor what is coming up and let it move through. But when we do and all of the different ways we can do that, like journaling and just getting to that place of honesty, instead of stuffing it away. Then we actually make progress, then we actually clear out space and stagnancy and we're able to be clearer.

Mak: 32:43

And your tears too. They're also flushing out microplastics. So you can get microplastics out and and no, I'm just making it's very healthy for you to cry. But um, no, I mean, val's right and that's the thing. Like we, we're all. I think we've all sort of been taught forever don't show your emotion and you know what people say.

Valerie: 33:09

That's a man thing, but I think it's both. It's for men and women?

Mak: 33:13

Yeah, I think it's. I definitely think it's both. I mean, as a man, I was definitely directed to never have any kind of emotion whatsoever, any kind of weak emotion. I was allowed to be strong, but never, rarely, was I allowed to be sensitive as a man or anything like that, and so that takes that, takes some that. That that's that's a difficult thing to overcome, because we do have feelings.

Mak: 33:36

Men are human, women are human, and so what Val is saying here is so right when you have a sense of failure, feel it, feel it, get it out. Whatever, whatever emotion you're feeling, get it out, feel it. I have a playlist literally on my Apple Music. That is when I'm feeling sad and deep and I just need to get it out, and if I need to cry or whatever, I put this playlist on because it moves me through the emotion a lot faster. But it's not because I'm trying to avoid it, it just helps me feel. It literally is a playlist of four or five songs that just help me feel that deep part of myself that are now reserved for those moments.

Valerie: 34:19

I really love this conversation because I think that you can have so many conversations about failure that turn into this like toughen up and get right back up and dust yourself off. And there is that element of getting back up, but I think, truly recognizing the emotion part of it and the nervous system part of it, with ourselves, that we need to care for ourselves and hold ourselves in that space. And this is also part of what we were saying about having the fear. We're feeling it but we're consciously doing it anyway. And I think a lot of this is taking you from a place where maybe your subconscious is sort of just running a program, because that's what our subconscious does, does, and we aren't even recognizing what is happening.

Valerie: 35:13

So much of what we do it may be even hidden fears and things that we don't even know, but they're kind of running our lives, which is a whole other tangent. We could go on. So I think, just having the awareness element of it and being able to name it oh, I'm feeling fear, oh, I'm feeling self-conscious, I'm feeling a vulnerability hangover you can then hold yourself in those spaces and do what you need in a healthy way to move through, because it's the numbing behaviors, trying to avoid those things that end up becoming the very destructive things that we hear about destructive things that we hear about.

Mak: 35:51

So you know what, what is some practicality that we can, we can bring into this, because people like some people like practicality. So when you are, when you so, if there's something just deep within you right now that you are dying to do, to get out, to create, to, to, you know, to build a business, paint a picture, write a song, call a friend, whatever, it is something that's holding you back because you're afraid of how it's going to be perceived, or you're afraid you're not going to be able to do it, or you're afraid that it's not going to go well, or it's going to make your life more complicated or whatever. What is that thing and what is a small step you can take to get started on that thing? Because to me, that is 99% of the battle is recognizing I am afraid of this and understanding why, where the fear is coming from, and feeling that for a minute and then going.

Mak: 36:50

But I'm going to be okay, because how many people have gone before you who took major steps and were terrified to do it, but now we have amazing things because they were capable of being so vulnerable. So what is the first step that you can take this week towards something that you've been afraid to try. And then part two of this is if it doesn't work out the way you think, how can that be okay? How can you examine that and understand that it will be okay? How can that make you feel?

Valerie: 37:37

It's almost like having a failure plan, because what we've established is that it's inevitable. Why should we be talking about it? It's something so big. Let's just level set and say I failed, mac has failed. We failed many times, do you?

Mak: 37:53

want to know something. One of the things I like to tell people when they have something to sell, their number one thing is fear of rejection, which is a sense of failure. They failed at making a sale. And what I like to tell people is if you knew that you were going to get the sale on the 25th phone call, how quickly would you get through the first 24 phone calls? You'd snap through those first 24 phone calls and you wouldn't care that you got rejected because you knew on the 25th you were going to get the sale.

Mak: 38:21

This is a very similar concept. If you knew that on the 10th time you attempted to do what you want to do, you were going to succeed, how quickly would you want to try to burn through the failures? Yeah, you would be anxious to get through them. You would be like, okay, failure number one, great Done, let's get on to failure number two Okay done, let's get on to failure number three. That's how you have to play this game, because if you keep trying, you will make it happen. The woman who started canva she was told no by a hundred investment firms and banks and it's a billion dollar company now.

Valerie: 38:58

She failed a hundred times and now she's got one of the most successful software tools in existence and that's not even talking about all of the people who their mistakes turned into a thing we haven't even gotten into that about how you could be trying to do one thing and then you realize, oh well, this is failing or this isn't working. And then it's part of that self evaluation and you're like, oh, but what if I try this? And you're going toward that ease and going toward that alignment, and then you end up somewhere that you didn't even imagine. We hear that story all the time too. So, as part of your kind of failure plan, what are some of those stories that you can even remind yourself of?

Valerie: 39:45

Maybe even as another practical thing, actually have a Google Doc on your computer or a note on your phone that's like a read this whenever you feel like stopping or you're letting the fear stop you, or if you have experienced that failure. It's almost part of your sick plan. If you're kind of babying yourself. When you've gone through these things that are really hard to go through, it's hard to fail. This is why people, a lot of people, don't do anything. They don't do it because it's hard to do that. But you are choosing the path of creativity and the path that is ultimately fulfilling. So maybe as part of your plan, you have some of these stories in there to go back and listen to, some quotes, some things that just remind you that this is normal, because something else our brains do. It makes us feel like we're alone, that we're the only one.

Mak: 40:41

there's something wrong with us, but it's so universal usually the difference between somebody who succeeds and somebody who fails is that the person who succeeded took continuous action. That's it. They might not even be nearly as talented as the person who failed. The person who failed could be 10 times as talented. The difference is the person who took action over and over again and got over this idea of being afraid of failure Maybe they felt their feelings, they learned from them and they got up and they did it again. That's literally it. It is the action of moving, and so I'm going to bring it up again the quote from the Office.

Mak: 41:25

And Wayne Gretzky, michael Scott, you'd miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Wayne Gretzky, michael Scott, you'd miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Wayne Gretzky, michael shot, michael Scott, it that is. There is nothing more true than that, and, and you know what you know, dealing with failure and taking action when it is scary because you have these fears, is hard, but you know what else is hard sitting around and not doing what makes you feel creatively lit up.

Valerie: 41:52

Not being self-actualized and feeling alive and whole.

Mak: 41:56

That's hard too, and so they're both hard. So you got to pick your hard. Which hard would you? At the end of each of those hard paths, what outcome exists that you would like to relish in? And that's literally it. And it's like we said at the beginning of this thing it's so easy. It's hard Because you're sitting there and you're saying it can't be as simple as taking action. Okay, will you run into problems? Yes, will you have to solve things? Will things come up you didn't think of? Will there be barriers? Will there be? Yes, of course that's with everything in life. It's the same thing like okay, if you're baking a cake, there's going to be 100 decisions you need to make, and you could go wrong in so many different ways. But when you do it and you do it and you do it, then you get a really good cake.

Valerie: 42:50

But guess what? Here's where the magic is. It is in the becoming, it is in taking those steps. That's the part that the you now sitting here can't fathom or it's hard to fathom, I should say, because it's the you now. But the greatest gift as Max said earlier, that nobody can teach you. No book is going to teach you, a podcast isn't going to teach you is what that actually feels like in your own self and in your own body.

Valerie: 43:20

When you fail, when you take the action that didn't work, and then you have to think of something else, and then you have to pivot. Or you took the action that didn't go as you thought it would, so then you need to problem solve and you need to come up with a solution. Or something happened even better than you thought that it would, but that came with a lot of problems, and then you have to have a solution for that. Maybe you oversold, or maybe you, you did something successful that actually ends up with a number of problems. That happens too, but it is in the becoming. You are going to become the person who then solved that problem. You're going to become the person who failed and then got themselves back up and learned something and did something else, that person, that evolution of you, is the juice, is the magic, because it's who you're going to become. You're going to show yourself what you're made of. You're going to show yourself what you're capable of, and there are no one hits or just instant successes where that happens.

Valerie: 44:24

And if it was possible to wave a magic wand and you would go from point A to point B, exactly to plan, exactly, without a hitch. You got right to the result that you wanted to, and there was a way to like rub the genie's lamp and get that to happen, it would be such a disservice and you would only need to go through the process of becoming and learn those lessons later. Because, as we we said, there's not an actual destination of success. A creative life is going to be one of this push, pull of fail, success, try, try again. That's going to be the nature of it. So those lessons will need to be learned eventually anyway. So you might as well let yourself become in the process, and who you're going to become is the real magic of it all.

Mak: 45:13

And let me also say this when you have failed and you have learned and you have taken that knowledge and applied it towards your next thing and it might even be the next step like the first step didn't work the way you want it, so you got to go back to the drawing board, start over. The goal might still be the same, but you go, the first step didn't work the way you want it, so you got to go back to the drawing board and start over. The goal might still be the same, but you go that path didn't work. Okay, let's, let's try this path, or it could be a whole new thing. When you do finally succeed, and it's after a series of failures, the feeling of that success is so much sweeter because you really earned it. You earned it. And what you'll do is you'll look back and it won't even be about ah, I got where I am. You will look back on the journey with a big grin on your face. I can tell you this from experience.

Valerie: 46:06

You'll be so proud of yourself.

Mak: 46:08

You will look back and you will feel so good and what you'll want to do is you'll want to start sharing it with other people. You'll want to say, okay, let me help you do this now because it feels so good. Let me let you in on a secret. That's what val and I are doing. That's why we have this podcast, because we're like you. You get to a place where you just want other people to experience it and understand it and get it, and then it just feels so good and you just want to start giving it away. You want to give away. You want everybody else to feel that feeling, and so the journey becomes worth it. Whether that journey is six months or 60 years, it's worth it. The juice is worth the squeeze, yeah.

Valerie: 46:52

So I started this whole thing saying that we were going to share, that we were going to share some of our own personal stories and vulnerable stories about failure Spoiler. There are many, so we had a few to choose from and we didn't actually end up talking about the story that we plan to talk about. So I think, we know what our next episode is going to be this was almost like a part one lead up.

Valerie: 47:19

But that is the thing we want to share these stories that we've never shared with anybody. Because you don't really go on your Instagram one day randomly and be like, hey, let me tell you about the most painful thing that happened to me, randomly, you know. So this seems like that perfect avenue to be able to share those things and just kind of have a conversation about it and a lot of those things too. This is why I love having a podcast so much, because I always feel like it's not enough to just write a caption about it. It just feels so hollow and some of these stories and some of these things really do need the space created of a conversation and to be able to feel the energy of it and it's like the tone of voice and how all of that is coming through. And so that's why I love that we have this outlet to be able to share these things.

Valerie: 48:13

But what we can tell you is that we have experienced a ton of failure, which we do want to get into all of those stories, because we want to demystify all of it. We're because I think everybody feels that way. They don't want to go on instagram and randomly talk about the times they failed or the launches that didn't work, or the money that was lost and the bad decisions that were made or the bad contract that was signed, whatever. Nobody is going to get on just one day and say that stuff, so we're all left with highlight reels on instagram, which is fine but you know, what is great is like the.

Mak: 48:48

You can learn the most from those stories, the highlight reels on on instagram and social media. They don't. They don't really. They don't really help as much as it does when you can sit down and have an honest conversation with someone who's done something and and where they started and where they they ended up. And your dad. I love this. One of the things I love about your dad. One of his pieces of advice to me has always been if you see an old guy sitting on a bench, go sit next to him, because that sounds like him yes, because you know he said you just talked to him about his life and you will get so much wisdom from that.

Mak: 49:26

And you know he old guy, but any older person, man or woman, there's so much wisdom there and it's because they've done stuff, they've been around the block, and so that's what's so exciting. Even if you know someone and they don't be 100 years old they could be your age or even younger but if they've done something that you're interested in, sit down and actually be genuinely interested in what they have to say and you will learn something from that person.

Valerie: 49:56

Those painful moments in our lives and I'm even talking beyond business failure, creative failure, but just even the painful life moments those are often those life-shaping things moments.

Valerie: 50:12

Those are often those life shaping things.

Valerie: 50:13

And isn't it so true that whenever you meet somebody and and maybe you hear about what they do and it's like, oh, that's really cool. And then you hear their story and you're just like, okay, blown away. Oh, my goodness, you hear what that person has gone through in their life, where they came from, what they had to overcome to be where they are, and those stories they just they tug on my heartstrings, they tug on everybody's heartstrings because we, we start to realize, one, our humanity, but two, that we are connected in this beautiful, complex, crazy life, that everybody has those ups and those downs, and those dark spots and those light spots, and it's all just weaving into you and your story and it's all welcome and it's all beautiful. And often those dark spots are going to be what makes the light spots brighter, because a candle is going to shine so bright in a dark room rather than a candle in daylight. So the darkness and the contrast is often those pivotal moments that mean so much, and I think that just goes for everybody in their lives.

Mak: 51:27

So if seriously no one has ever created anything by doing nothing, that's a good, that's a good line.

Valerie: 51:36

And if you nobody has created anything by doing nothing. I almost want to write that down. Well, write it down, mac McKeon.

Mak: 51:41

There's some genius wisdom right there that I didn't even know I had within me. So do me a favor, seriously do me a favor. Seriously do me a favor right now. It's just you and me and Val in the room right now, in your ears, in your car. Take a first step. Just take a first step. Don't worry about anything, don't worry about what it means, don't even worry about the next step. Just take a first step forward and understand that at some point it's not going to go the way you want and you might have some feelings that are a little uncomfortable, but as soon as you become comfortable with being uncomfortable, you'll be able to start actually creating and bringing things into the world that we all need and want. There's some inkling in your life. Please just start, just do it. The world needs it. So do it. Just take a step, one step this week. Take a step. That's what we want from you.

Valerie: 52:40

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. We're going to be back again. We're going to share those stories.

Mak: 52:45

actually, like we talked about, this is almost like a part one I should say but hey, that is what I love about this too.

Valerie: 52:52

This is unscripted, we are just going with the flow. They can tell it's unscripted, which makes it fun and we are just again so glad to be with you. If this was helpful to you, please consider leaving us a review. That really helps other creatives who need this message for it to get to them. Maybe forward this to a friend and let us know too if you had a takeaway from the episode. I am at Valerie McKeon on Instagram. Mac is at that, mac guy. Mac is with a K. We'd love to hear from you.

Mak: 53:22

Well, you have to say M-A-K. M-a-k Because there's Mac M-A-C and M-A-K.

Valerie: 53:26

Yeah, that's true. There you go, see, val failed at that and I corrected her, but she's just fine, I'll be okay.

Mak: 53:34

Thank you so much for listening.

Valerie: 53:36

We'll see you soon. Bye.