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This is The Art of Charm.
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Learn everything you need to know to crush it in business, love, and life.
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Welcome to The Art of Charm.
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I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
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Today we re talking with my friend Sreeni Rao, author of Unmistakable Creative and host of a podcast by that same name.
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You should listen to this episode if you re interested in creativity and want to do something that s more powerful because it s more unique than what everyone else is doing.
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It seems obvious on its face in many ways, but we ll outline this and we ll get into some detail as we always do.
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We ll also discuss the power of long-term commitment, avoiding the idea echo chamber, why your goal should be to become the only and not just the best, support systems around being creative, and how to borrow from other works without staying in the realm of what s been done before.
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So enjoy this one with Srini Rao, and with that, welcome to The Art of Charm.
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We bring together the best thought leaders, teachers, and exceptional individuals to teach you how to be a top performer in life, in your relationships, and at work.
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If you re new to the show, we d love to send you some top episodes and the toolbox, where we discuss things like body language and nonverbal communication, persuasion, networking, negotiation, mentorship, and everything else we teach here at AOC.
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In the US, just text charmed,
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to 33444, that s C-H-A-R-M-E-D, to 33444.
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Everywhere else, go to theartofcharm.com.
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We may not have all the answers, but we definitely have all the right questions.
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All right, here s Srini Rao.
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Srini, tell us what you do in one sentence.
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I use the internet to make things.
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Okay, that s so vague, but you know what, you did that on purpose because you knew I was going to ask you that, which is great.
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First of all, what are some of the things that you create or that you make that we should know about?
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Yeah, so what that means is I write books, I am the host of a show called The Unmistakable Creative where I ve interviewed like 600 or 700 people at this point.
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We produce animated shorts based on those interviews, we ve created live events, and we ve done a bunch of other sort of creative projects as well.
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The theme that kind of ties all of it together, that s why when you asked what do you do, I was like, I m not any one of these things, because I think labels limit your capacity.
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So I m also a speaker, but really under the core of it, I use the internet to make and create things.
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How dare you not pigeonhole yourself for my convenience.
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I wanna back it up and let everybody know we re friends, we go back a ways, so I know a lot about you, you know a lot about me and the show and vice versa.
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In the book that you ve created, which is named after your show, Unmistakable Creative, why write a book on creativity?
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First of all, hasn t that been done before?
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Why is this different?
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And who are you to tell us how to be creative?
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Okay, so why write a book on creativity?
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So, let s actually get to the heart of something that you and I, I think, both share in common, and something that I think really has created a bond between us, is that we both have seen a lot of people, like in podcasting is just one area where we ve seen it, where people see something that works, they basically go and they try to replicate that thing by doing exactly what the person who has created the thing that works did, in hopes of creating a similar result, and so as a result, you get this sort of mimicry epidemic that happens.
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Now, the funny thing is, podcasting is just one of many places where it happens.
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You see this in the sort of coaching world, like people will take a course that teaches them how to become a coach or build an information product, and so suddenly you have all these businesses where the entire core of the business is, this is my business, I m going to become awesome, and then I m gonna basically create a course to teach you how to become just like me.
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And so, what I kept seeing was this pattern over and over again, and not only that, the results sucked.
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Right, like there s this sort of so-called guru at the top, and nobody is getting the results that the guru is getting, and of course, the person who benefits the most in that whole scenario is the person at the very top, because people are just buying into all of this.
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And so, in a lot of ways, it was sort of a frustrating rant.
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I m like, you know, there s gotta be something better about this that we can be doing, something much more original, something much more creative.
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And so part of it is looking at people like this.
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When you bring a guest to the Art of Charm, for example, people say, okay, these are experts, these are people that they look up to, authorities in their field.
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And I think what we have to do is move away from looking at the advice of experts as gospel and seeing it as guidance.
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Not looking at it as a map, but really seeing it as a compass.
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and taking elements that work for us, but not every single thing that a person says you should do.
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If you follow anybody s instruction to the letter, at best what you re going to end up creating is a pale imitation of what they ve already made, and at worst you ll be completely ignored, and the second outcome is happening more and more.
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So as the world gets noisier and noisier, the idea of doing things that are distinctive, doing things that nobody else could do but you, becomes much more powerful because when you re the only person who does what you do, you no longer have competition because you re not trying to compete with somebody else.
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You and I were talking about this before we hit record.
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Often we are not on lists of podcasts that are listed as the top whatever podcast you should listen to.
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And to me, that s actually not a bad thing.
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I actually am perfectly happy that we re not on that list because that means you re in a category of your own.
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You can t be categorized because nobody else does what you do in the way that you do it.
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I usually cry myself to sleep when I find that stuff out.
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You know, I do that in private as well.
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But, I mean, you get my point, right?
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It s not, I m not looking at what everybody else is doing constantly and trying to replicate the result that they re creating.
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And so, as a result, once in a great while, you and I have overlapping guests, but I choose my guests based on my own morbid curiosity, not on, oh, you know, this is a person who Jordan had, so I should have them too.
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A lot of people do that.
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Have you noticed that phenomenon where you have a guest on your show, and then, like, three weeks later, they re on 15 other shows?
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Yeah, well, as somebody who is in the midst of a book launch, I can see why that happens.
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Yeah, speaking of that, you can find me on the following 25 podcasts after you hear this.
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So here s the thing, right?
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So, book launch aside, I have seen that in other cases where somebody is an awesome guest on one show,
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and they re a person that nobody s ever heard of, and next thing you know, they re on 25 shows.
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And you re kind of like, oh, okay, well, that wasn t very original.
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But here s the thing, though, is one of the things that I think you and I can do that we do well is that we ll have a conversation on our show that is very different than any of those.
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I think you go out of your way to do that, as do I. I don t listen to other people s interviews.
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Somebody once said, oh, Tim Ferriss was on this other show, so you should listen to it.
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And I said, well, why would I do that?
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I don t want to have the same interview and ask him the same questions.
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Yeah, of course, but a lot of people do want to do that.
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Instead of just sort of complaining about those people, which I could do all day, as you well know, what s the power, why is there power in making things that are so unique that nobody else can do them?
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I mean, it s great that we re unique, what s the difference between this being utilitarian and a good thing and us just saying, I m a special snowflake, I m so indie, I m a podcast hipster, nobody else does what I do.
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So I think the thing that that brings up is the issue of quality, right?
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Like, you ve been at this for a very, very long time.
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What, probably the better part of 10 years at this point.
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Yeah, it ll be 10 years in January, actually, that s coming right up.
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That s a long-ass time to be running a show, and of course, during that time, you ve probably gotten better.
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Like, I would imagine that if you compared what you do now to what you did even five years ago, like, you probably are gonna cringe.
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I mean, I cringe at stuff that we did a year or two ago,
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I get the whole, hey, I m just a weird special snowflake, and I m weird and odd, and that s why you should pay attention to me.
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So the thing with that is that doesn t take into consideration that, wait a minute, there s an audience that needs to be thought about here.
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If you re trying to reach an audience, here s what happens as a byproduct of the fact that we have now democratized the ability to create and share our ideas with the world.
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What is it, they re like a million podcasts on iTunes?
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So what does that do?
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It completely raises the bar for what your work has to be in order to cut through the noise.
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So you have a combination of both the quality has to be off the charts and it has to be distinctive.
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But if you can accomplish both of those things, then you re no longer playing this game of competition and comparison.
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So it s all about, I hate saying self-esteem, right?
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Because that s not quite the word.
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No, not really.
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I wouldn t say it s about self-esteem.
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I would say it s about self-expression, full self-expression.
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That s really what I would say is because, for example, you ve had one of these album covers made for you, right?
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Like every guest on the Unmistakable Creative gets a custom album cover.
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There s nothing in any course anywhere that told us to do that.
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We were like, this would be really cool, let s do it.
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And it just became part of our brand.
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And eventually, even when we were building the brand, one of my first thoughts was, okay, this is really kind of vanilla, I don t like it, it looks like too many other websites, it s not really creative.
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And I was like, well, what if we had Mars Dorian custom illustrate the icons?
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That would look really cool.
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And those are things that, again, I m not doing those because somebody says I should do them.
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I m not doing them because they re gonna lead to some sort of outcome.
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I m doing those things because that s my idea of full self-expression.
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Fortunately, there s a really nice connection with the audience that happens because they appreciate it as well.
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And as a result, you create something that other people aren t thinking about doing.
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How can we improve our ability to do this?
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Because I think for a lot of people, the draw to creating things, especially these Me Too businesses like you said, are that they seem quick and they seem proven and sure where right now, if you want to start a business and you re sitting at home, you have a regular job or you re a student, you start a business and the one thing you re afraid of is failure.
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So what do you look for?
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A proven formula, right?
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especially because cut years off the learning curve, it s a proven formula, it s already worked, so not only is it not gonna fail, but I already have a roadmap.
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Who could ask for more, right?
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is of replicating whatever that thing was that was proven to work.
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And the worst is that you will basically be completely ignored.
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Like you ll create a pale imitation of what already exists, which is what so many of these Me Too businesses end up being.
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And this actually stems from, more than anything, the fear of being wrong, right?
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The fear that what you do is gonna suck, what you do won t resonate, what you do won t strike a chord.
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And that fear goes all the way back to when we were kids.
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We ve been taught our entire lives from the time we were in school that being wrong is bad, and authority figures who tell you what is right know what they re talking about, and if you do what they say, you will get the result that they have promised.
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But the thing is, there s so much evidence to the contrary of that, right?
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If that was the case, every person who read The 4-Hour Workweek would be a millionaire and living on a beach somewhere, counting their cash.
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Tim lives in San Francisco.
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Yeah, exactly.
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But I definitely agree with you.
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I mean, what about the commitment level that seems to be lacking with a lot of new people and new endeavors?
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And I don t mean entrepreneurs necessarily.
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Artists, people who get jobs, people who are studying a certain thing.
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It seems like the level of commitment people are willing to make, the tolerance for risk is not necessarily there.
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Okay, so the tolerance for risk thing I think builds with time.
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I m a surfer, so we ll kind of go down that road a little bit.
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So you don t start out surfing 50 foot waves at Jaws.
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That s like a suicide mission.
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I mean, most people don t even reach that in a lifetime.
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I m never gonna be Laird Hamilton.
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I know that for a fact, because I m too late in my life to be able to develop those kinds of skills.
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So when I started, I would look for smaller surf days, like two to three feet, and if it was any bigger, I would freak out.
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Now, I want it to be bigger because I ve progressed past that.
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And there are still days that are beyond my comfort zone.
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If I thought it was gonna be 10 to 12 feet where I surf normally, I wouldn t go out because that would be a suicide mission.
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Like, I know I would be a danger to myself and to other people in the water.
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So, risk tolerance is something that actually grows as you do things.
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You know, Peter Sims wrote this book called Little Bets, which I made reference to in my book.
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And, you know, little bets are this idea that you make bets, you know, and it came from looking at a number of people who do this.
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It s, you know, it s kind of like the whole minimum viable product idea.
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So, Chris Rock is the example that comes to mind.
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So, when Chris Rock does a national comedy tour, funny as hell, everybody laughs at every single thing that he says.
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But the thing that nobody sees is that all that material is actually tested.
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Like Chris Rock, who is absolutely a master of his craft, goes to open mic nights, like where some schmuck who s trying to make it is also, and he tests material.
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And some of that material doesn t work.
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And he keeps testing and testing this material because the thing is, he tests the material in a low stakes environment in which the consequences of failure don t really affect you that much.
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And most people s ideas of the consequences of failure are all imagined anyways, right?
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Like they think that I m gonna say something and it s gonna blow up in my face and I m gonna die.
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And of course, what they don t realize is,
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There s so few people who are paying attention to what they re doing that the consequences of something like that are not nearly as bad as they ve made them out to be in their head.
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Now, the commitment to a craft and to longevity and all of that.
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So, I think that we have an incredibly warped perception of longevity because we live in a world where things are possible really, really fast.
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Like, you and I could sit down today knowing everything that we know.
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Let s say you and I wanted to start another show that was separate from the Art of Charm, the Unmistakable Creative.
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we could have it up and running and available on iTunes by tomorrow morning.
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Maybe it might take a little longer.
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The thing with that is it gets in your head this idea of instant applause, right?
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And if you want an example of instant applause, if you re a single guy, take a picture of yourself with a baby and put it on Facebook and see what happens.
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Every time I do that, hundreds of comments and likes.
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But the thing is that if you re going to create something of significance, you have to prioritize a true connection with an audience that is long-lasting over the instant applause that you might get from some sort of silly Facebook meme.
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And of course, that takes us into craft.
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Craft is about longevity.
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So Sam Altman, who is the president at Y Combinator, he said,
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your greatest competitive advantage is a long-term view because so few people have one.
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And what he said was, you know, a lot of people come into starting a startup or whatever it is, and they think, you know, I m gonna start this thing, I m gonna work on it for three years, I m gonna have my exit, and then I m gonna be done.
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And I m gonna be, you know, like the startup advisor investor and just be rich.
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And he said, really, if you think about it, if you re serious, it s a 10-year commitment.
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Like 10 years.
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And so, because things are so possible so fast, people think a year is a long time to be doing something.
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I remember, and you may have seen this as well, in one of the Facebook forums, somebody was bitching about the fact that nobody listened to their podcast after four episodes and they didn t see what the deal was about all the rage around podcasting.
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How can you take that seriously?
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Longevity is something that, if you re serious, you can t think of it as, okay, I m gonna give it a year.
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One year is a minimum in terms of getting somebody to take you seriously.
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Here s the thing, I bet if you and I went through, we could do this for blogs, we could do this for podcasts, we could do this for YouTube channels.
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Well, I d actually like to jump in here and talk about this for podcasts.
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Have you heard of the podcast Lore?
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Oh, yeah, I know of it.
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I ve seen it show up on my featured thing.
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Okay, Lore is a podcast done by a guy named Aaron Mankey.
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Aaron Mankey is a guy who has a bunch of side businesses, does his whole thing, but he s also, he writes horror novels.
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That s his like bread and butter.
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And what he did was, he took the little stories, the side stories,
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that wouldn t become a novel, but were amazingly interesting, put music behind them, spent literally under an hour to make these podcasts by episode like 2025, number one on iTunes, Patreon making thousands of dollars a month, and now has a TV deal.
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But before he did that, he knew his craft because he wrote horror novels.
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So he spent the time and put in all of those hours and those years to get to that point to make his craft like what it was.
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So that s one of those undiscovered stories I think we should talk about.
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Yeah, I mean, you made a good point.
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And that s the thing, often when you look at all of these stories, right, they appear on the surface as if suddenly they blew up overnight.
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An example that I think about when it comes to this is Derek Halpern.
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A lot of people thought when Derek Halpern started Social Trigger, it s like Derek just blew up in the span of a year, like overnight.
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The backstory is actually a little more interesting than that because he d already had experience building websites that had millions of visitors come to them.
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That makes a big difference.
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That s years of honing a craft.
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So that when you come into this thing, this guy that you re talking about, he has a very clear understanding of storytelling because he spent years doing it.
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it s not like it happened overnight because often we don t look beneath the surface to see what has actually led to people to where they re at.
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And when you start to look beyond the surface, what you see is a lot, lot longer timeframe than what might appear.
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Over the last 17 years, we have launched our fair share of online courses, coaching programs, and finding the right platform has always been a challenge.
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Hey, Art of Charm listeners, I m excited to share a new podcast I ve been absolutely binging.
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Winning is an everyday mindset, and Craig Robinson and John Calipari are here to help.
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On Ways to Win podcast, Craig and Coach Cal use their on-court wisdom to solve your off-court problems.
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Whether it s trouble at home or a workplace dilemma, the coaches will help you find a winning formula for success.
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You ll hear from prominent athletes, business leaders, and celebrities who reveal insights that made them into the leaders they are today.
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And don t miss President Obama sharing how he deals with pressure by projecting confidence, believing in your team, and taking criticism.
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Listen to Ways to Win wherever you get your podcasts.
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Thanks for listening and supporting the show.
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Let s get back to Srini Rao.
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I ve noticed that the commitment level tends to be much lower because it s like the old iceberg analogy.
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where all of the hard work is underneath the surface.
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You don t really see, for example, affiliate marketing and those internet marketing launches and stuff like that.
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You see the thing when it s out and the person s doing their PR tour or a book launch, for example.
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You see them when they re doing their PR tour and their promo and everything.
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But what you don t see is them writing the freaking book.
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And then before that, you don t see them getting the experience to do the research to write the book.
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That process can take decades.
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At the very least, it takes years.
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And then after that, you do a PR tour and people are like, well crap, all I gotta do is write a stinkin  book and I can go on a media tour?
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Alright, how fast can I write a crappy book?
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Think about it, I mean, like I started doing stuff on the internet in 2009, and it s 2016 now.
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That s eight years to get to write this book.
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And this is your first book?
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This is my first traditionally published book.
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And also, by the way, Aaron Manke had 200 episodes of a podcast about working from home that has nothing to do with
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his actual breakout success.
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He was honing the craft of podcasting before he got to the one that was a major hit.
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That s the other thing.
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There s so many things that you think are irrelevant that make a huge difference.
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Part of the reason the Unmistakable Creative looks the way it does and has all the artwork and all the branding is I spent seemingly unrelated 30 days teaching myself to draw and I discovered at the end of 30 days that I can t draw or shit.
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what it also taught me was to see things differently, and it also taught me how to improve at something.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so, to your point, with Aaron s podcast, the one that has nothing to do with the one that made him famous, it might seem like it had nothing to do with the one that made him famous, but it ended up being a playground for him to test ideas.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so, I self-published books, I ve done a shit ton of writing, prior to writing books, all of that stuff is constant preparation for whatever the big thing that somebody knows you about,
2
SPEAKER_02
Like, you know, I spoke with Steven Kotler yesterday, who I m sure I know you ve probably talked to, and somebody asked him, you know, hey, can I see your full CV?
2
SPEAKER_02
He said, you know, if you looked at the full CV of what Steven Kotler has done as a writer, it s like thousands of things deep, but what do we know him for?
2
SPEAKER_02
The rise of Superman, West of Jesus, and a handful of things that have actually caught the public eye.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and that s the way that it is with probably everybody, but since most people want success really fast, they don t necessarily see the years in the making.
2
SPEAKER_00
How do we make that actionable?
2
SPEAKER_00
We need to be prepared to make a long-term commitment, but what I think the problem is is that people go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I m prepared to make a long-term commitment, but in the back of their head they re going, as long as I experience some immediate success so that I feel good about it.
2
SPEAKER_00
The advice I give a lot of people is, who say, should I start a podcast?
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SPEAKER_00
I heard there s a podcast.
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SPEAKER_00
I say, do it as long as you would do it if no one was listening.
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SPEAKER_00
Because frankly, the reality for you is going to be that for years, probably nobody s going to listen.
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SPEAKER_00
And a lot of people, they go, oh yeah, yeah, no, that totally makes sense.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s really good advice.
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SPEAKER_00
And some smart people go, well, I probably shouldn t podcast.
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SPEAKER_00
and other people go, well, you know, I like it, I ll just do it until I don t like it anymore, and if that happens, if people start to listen at that point, you know, then maybe I ll continue, maybe that ll make me like it more, but I know that there s another 90% or 80% of people that go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I ll do it, even if nobody was listening, and then in the back of their head, they re like, maybe that s what you need to be aware of, Jordan, but my show s gonna be huge.
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SPEAKER_01
you know, I do the same thing.
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Cause everybody comes to producer Jason and ask the same questions that they ask you.
2
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And I give them your, your reply and 95% literally just dropped the ball right there.
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SPEAKER_01
And they re like, you know what?
2
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We re out.
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SPEAKER_01
We re done.
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SPEAKER_02
Well, you know, you re better off doing that in some cases than, you know, doing a half-assed job, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
Because then you just add to sort of a sea of noise.
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SPEAKER_02
I mean, there s so many things that we can talk about here, you know, in terms of commitment and in terms of seeing results.
2
SPEAKER_02
Let s talk about sort of, like, everybody says that you should do this thing.
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SPEAKER_02
This is something that really kind of has been on my mind.
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SPEAKER_02
There will be some authority figure who says, okay, everybody should be on Snapchat.
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SPEAKER_02
Or, you know, somebody famous will say, everybody should do this.
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SPEAKER_02
The funny thing is that people who are absolutely fantastic at what they do will abandon this thing and not be willing to go deep enough into that thing to become a master, to be average at this thing that somebody else says they should do.
2
SPEAKER_02
To me, I m like, okay, do I wanna keep producing awesome interviews or do I wanna spend my time building an average presence on Snapchat?
2
SPEAKER_02
Which one is gonna add more value to the world?
2
SPEAKER_02
You re telling me you re not on Snapchat?
2
SPEAKER_02
I am, but I don t even know what the hell to do with it.
2
SPEAKER_02
I literally look at it, I read the news on it.
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SPEAKER_02
That s about all I do with it.
2
SPEAKER_02
We re old, that s why.
2
SPEAKER_02
Exactly.
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SPEAKER_01
You little kids are so not old.
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SPEAKER_01
It s ridiculous.
2
SPEAKER_01
We don t want to hear about your gout, Jason, or whatever.
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SPEAKER_01
Hey, I turn 45 next week.
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SPEAKER_01
Kiss my ass, you little kids, and get off my lawn.
2
SPEAKER_00
How do we prepare ourselves for the level of commitment that s actually needed?
2
SPEAKER_00
Or is this just something where... No, no, no.
2
SPEAKER_02
There s actually a really easy way to deal with this, okay?
2
SPEAKER_02
And it comes down to visible progress and setting up metrics and goals that you can meet.
2
SPEAKER_02
If you re at zero dollars and you set a goal to have a million,
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in like three months.
2
SPEAKER_02
Sounds good to me.
2
SPEAKER_02
Oh, you re setting yourself up for failure unless you win the fucking lottery.
2
SPEAKER_02
Like you really are because here s what happens, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
And this is actually not just psychological, you know, motivational mumbo jumbo.
2
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There s real science behind this.
2
SPEAKER_02
If you ve never read it, for those of you listening, Sean A. Corr wrote a book called The Happiness Advantage.
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SPEAKER_02
The book is about a lot more than happiness.
2
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There s an old show we did about it, it was great.
2
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So if that sounds good to you, check out previous episodes linked in the show notes.
2
SPEAKER_02
That will definitely be in the show notes.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_02
He talks about two concepts.
2
SPEAKER_02
One is called activation energy and another is called success accelerants, right?
2
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So the idea behind success accelerants is that your brain makes progress towards a goal based on how close it thinks it actually is.
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So if you re at zero, a million is a really far way off.
2
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But if you go from zero to 50, you re much more likely to make progress towards that goal because you re much closer to it.
2
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I mean, I do this even when I m writing a thousand words a day, often what I will do is I will, the night before, copy and paste like a passage or a quote from something else,
2
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And that means I m that much closer to 1,000 words, so the progress accelerates.
2
SPEAKER_02
And the thing is that people set so many goals with metrics that are completely out of their control, as a result, they don t feel as if they re making progress.
2
SPEAKER_02
So it s about, basically, the most meaningful form of motivation, and I can t take credit for this, I read this in Greg McKeown s book, Essentialism, is actual progress.
2
SPEAKER_02
The problem is when you set these ridiculously out of whack targets.
2
SPEAKER_02
So for example, I ll give you another one.
2
SPEAKER_02
I have the number of MailChimp subscribers that we want to hit by the end of the year.
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I had a goal.
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And every week I print out where we re currently at and I put it on my wall.
2
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Because if I have this constant reminder that this is important, as long as that number keeps growing, I see progress every week.
2
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As long as it was bigger than it was last week, we re doing good.
2
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when I have to worry is when it s smaller than it was last week.
2
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I m not gonna go from what it is now to a million.
2
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That s what it s really about is tapping into this idea of success accelerants.
2
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There s another book that everybody should read if they really want to get this idea.
2
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It s called The Progress Principle by a woman named Teresa Amabile who is a professor at Harvard.
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SPEAKER_02
And if you are making
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visible and meaningful progress towards something, it s a lot easier to keep continuing with it.
2
SPEAKER_02
And you do that by setting targets that are actually achievable and blowing past them and then continually resetting those targets, as opposed to thinking about things that you have no control over.
2
SPEAKER_00
It does, because a lot of people are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, create goals.
2
SPEAKER_00
But, of course, you can also demotivate yourself with unrealistic goals, and you can also demotivate yourself with realistic goals that are too small and don t excite you.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you have to kind of find that balance.
2
SPEAKER_02
Exactly, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
I mean, if the goals are unrealistic, you know, like, if you ve never been to the gym, you re not gonna have a six pack by the end of the week.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s ridiculous.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, of course.
2
SPEAKER_00
What other pitfalls do we find?
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, you and I were talking about this, we were all talking about this pre-show, where there s kind of an echo chamber, where everyone s reading the entrepreneur blogs, and then everyone s listening to the entrepreneur internet business-y podcasts, and then these things that are not different at all.
2
SPEAKER_00
Everyone s in that same room, and there s the same thing with real estate.
2
SPEAKER_00
I ve seen that bubble.
2
SPEAKER_00
online where everybody s just kind of echoing the same crap that they read on whatever real estate blog, and you end up producing something that is so not unique, so mundane and similar and vanilla that you literally cannot tell them apart.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
2
SPEAKER_02
So the pitfall is really simple, actually, Jordan, to solve, is to not consume the same stuff.
2
SPEAKER_02
You know, like, diversify your inputs, because if you diversify your input, your output will change drastically.
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SPEAKER_02
I mean, it seems simplistic, but that s really all there is to it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And do you systemize this somehow?
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Because, of course, if I m interested in fitness, I m gonna read a bunch of fitness stuff.
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SPEAKER_00
Do you force yourself to consume different types of content?
2
SPEAKER_02
I systemize certain aspects of this, so my creative process is very systematized, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
It s 1,000 words a day, but the thing is, it s not rigid in the actual creation part.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s rigid in terms of the habits.
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SPEAKER_02
I try to go out of my way to read books that don t typically fall into genres, and I have to work on it as well.
2
SPEAKER_02
I m not as good about it as I want to be, but I know for a fact that any time I ve pushed myself out of sort of the, I know when I m reading too much entrepreneurial stuff, because I can see it happen in my writing.
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SPEAKER_02
I don t read books about online marketing.
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SPEAKER_02
And here s what I would say to that, right, is that most of the things about like how to are things that literally with a Google search you can answer, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
So it s like if I wanna learn how to optimize a Facebook ad, I don t wanna read a book about that.
2
SPEAKER_02
That would be a really boring book to read anyways.
2
SPEAKER_02
You know, that s not gonna be a book that changes your life in some meaningful way.
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SPEAKER_01
going to be a book that forces you to ask deeper, more meaningful questions, you can literally just Google that when you need to find out about it.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I think part of it is, here is one thing that I would say, what are you genuinely curious about?
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And don t say you re curious about these things that everybody else is reading just because everybody else is reading them.
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So if you re curious about some weird
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obscure art form.
3
SPEAKER_01
Ryan Holiday s a good example.
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Ryan has immense curiosity about all sorts of subjects, so he ends up taking stoic philosophy and turning it into a book that is accessible to all of us.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it really comes down to, I think, curiosity.
3
SPEAKER_01
What types of movies do you watch?
3
SPEAKER_01
Are you just sitting around doing nothing but consuming self-help content, or are you looking at entertaining content?
3
SPEAKER_01
When I listen to podcasts, one of the places that I went to that I thought was really inspiring was this show called Off Camera with this guy named Sam Jones, because he was interviewing these really amazing celebrities and he was getting these nuggets out of them that I didn t hear them on any other podcast.
3
SPEAKER_01
They were the kinds of things where you re like, okay, you know what, this is diversifying the input that I am dealing with on a daily basis.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because you re right, if you keep reading the same blogs, keep reading the same newsletters, there are people literally, I think, that probably subscribe to 20 podcasts, listen to all of them, read everybody s newsletter, and don t actually create anything.
3
SPEAKER_01
My advice to those people is to unsubscribe from all of those things, except for the art of charm and the unmistakable creative.
3
SPEAKER_01
All joking aside, you should drastically cut off the amount of consumption you re doing, because excessive consumption limits your creativity.
3
SPEAKER_00
I have a complete counterpoint to your point about excessive consumption because I listen to over 120 podcasts.
3
SPEAKER_00
Those are a rotating cast of characters because I want to know what s out there.
3
SPEAKER_00
I want to know dissenting opinions.
3
SPEAKER_00
I want to know what people are thinking every day and I want to find new ideas.
3
SPEAKER_00
So if somebody has something new that s coming out and, you know, maybe there s the top of iTunes or they re at the top of Overcast or whatever, I want to find these people.
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SPEAKER_00
I want to listen to it and I want to know what s going on.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I find new shows every week and I get rid of new shows every week, but I want to know what s out there.
3
SPEAKER_00
So you cannot constrain consumption, I think, just because you want to constrain your ideas and get down to that focal point on what you want to focus on.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that s just where I m at.
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SPEAKER_01
your consumption by its very nature is already diverse, so that s not a problem.
3
SPEAKER_01
Most people are consuming the same type of thing, and that s what limits their creativity.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s where their excessive consumption is at.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like, yeah, I mean, if you re consuming a diverse amount of stuff, by all means, that s a good thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
You re right, because you re being exposed to a wide variety of ideas, things that people are saying that maybe you agree with, maybe you disagree with, but most people are
3
SPEAKER_01
in almost an echo chamber of consumption that s incredibly excessive.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s what social media has done.
3
SPEAKER_00
We ve talked about this on several episodes with a lot of psychologists who were saying the same thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s like it becomes an echo chamber, and it s like people need to branch out of that.
3
SPEAKER_02
Thanks for listening and supporting the show.
3
SPEAKER_02
For a list of all the amazing sponsors and discount codes, visit theartofcharm.com slash advertisers.
3
SPEAKER_02
Now back to Sreeni Rao.
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SPEAKER_02
I was about to say social media, because literally it curates the feed, Serena, I don t know if you re aware of this, where feedback, if you click like, because I m like, this guy s great, and I click like, it starts to show me similar content from similar people, so you end up hearing from your own friends who are also...
3
SPEAKER_02
crazy gun-toting people or crazy Democrats or liberals or whatever, and then you think, geez, everybody agrees with me.
3
SPEAKER_02
So then when you hear a real dissenting opinion out in the wild, you re like, wow, you re such a weird random minority because everybody I know thinks just like me.
3
SPEAKER_02
And that s bad creativity from what you re saying, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, I ll confess, I use a plugin called the Facebook News Feed Obliterator, so my news feed is pretty much empty.
3
SPEAKER_01
I once a week check in via my phone to see what s going on.
3
SPEAKER_01
Why do you do that?
3
SPEAKER_01
Like, I know that I have the capacity to be easily distracted by things, and it helps tremendously with not spending insane amounts of time on things that I don t want to spend time on.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, like when you re writing a book, it s what is basically known as deep work, and when you are basically browsing through newsfeed, clicking on a lot of other things, like all day long, that does long-term damage to your attention span, and I want to have my attention span, you know, at its fullest capacity, especially when I m having to do something like write a 50,000 word book.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, one of the points in the book, Srini, is that your goal doesn t necessarily need to be becoming the best, but your goal should be to become the only.
3
SPEAKER_02
So rather than trying to be better, you can become the only person, therefore competition ceases to matter.
3
SPEAKER_02
That seems kind of strange, right?
3
SPEAKER_02
So I d love to hear your take on that because
3
SPEAKER_02
You could be the only underwater hockey player, that s a real thing apparently, but you could be the only one of something and it depends on how much you want to matter to other people.
3
SPEAKER_01
So there s another consideration there.
3
SPEAKER_01
If you want to do something that is actually going to reach an audience, that absolutely has to be taken into consideration.
3
SPEAKER_01
So you know like, there s a section in the book where I talked about how Steven Pressfield
3
SPEAKER_01
has said about I think one of his books, I think it was The Legend of Bagger Vance, he created what he wanted to see exist in the world and it succeeded beyond all of his wildest expectations.
3
SPEAKER_01
At the same time, it s kind of like you said, if you create something that literally has no audience, so for example, in the book I also cited the example where Sonia Simone once said, if you have a blog about naked mole rats, well, the amount of people who are going to read that and the potential for profit and a large audience at that is pretty damn limited
3
SPEAKER_01
the amount of people who are interested in that is not that big.
3
SPEAKER_01
So that absolutely does have to be taken into consideration, but that being said, what do you bring to it that other people wouldn t have thought to bring to it?
3
SPEAKER_01
What do you want to instinctually add to these things?
3
SPEAKER_01
Because often we re tempted to leave parts out of our work that we would be better off leaving in, because those are the things that give it the edge that it has, or the thing that makes it what it ends up being.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, I mean, if you re a musician, that could be, you know, a certain solo section that you think about cutting out, but might actually be the thing that makes it.
3
SPEAKER_01
If you re an author, maybe that s a chapter you are scared to write, but by writing it, you actually, you know, create an emotional connection with that one section of the book.
3
SPEAKER_01
So, you know, this can go on in so many different ways, but yes, absolutely, if you re serious about reaching an audience, you can t ignore the fact that this has to go out into the world and to interact with other people.
3
SPEAKER_02
You also bring up the mental health and support issue for people who are creative.
3
SPEAKER_02
Why is this a tenet of your book?
3
SPEAKER_02
It seems kind of out of left field.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t necessarily think it s out of left field, because the thing is, when you re doing big, big, ambitious things, inevitably you re going to get your ass handed to you at some point or another, in some way or another, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t imagine, Jordan, you woke up 10 years ago, you started The Art of Charm, and it was just a smooth ride all the way to where you re at today.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s ridiculous even hearing that.
3
SPEAKER_02
Somewhere along the way, something shitty probably happened.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I mean, you can kind of count on it.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s like clockwork.
3
SPEAKER_02
Something shitty has happened pretty much every year, every other year, something major has gone on where we re like, OMG, this is awful, kill me now.
3
SPEAKER_01
We have this idea in our heads that there s going to be this day when we re gonna wake up, we re gonna be rich, famous, all our problems will be solved, and we ll never have to deal with any bullshit again.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so in surfing, there s a section of the ocean known as the impact zone.
3
SPEAKER_01
And in the impact zone, you basically get your ass handed to you like wave after wave after wave after wave on the head, and it feels like it s never going to stop and that you re never going to come up for air.
3
SPEAKER_01
And because of that, it sucks.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the only way to not be in the impact zone is to not surf, like to not be in the water.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s an inevitable part of what you do.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so the thing is that
3
SPEAKER_01
when you re doing all these big things, they will push you to your limits.
3
SPEAKER_01
Psychologically, they will push you into really challenging spots mentally.
3
SPEAKER_01
Part of what we have to do is learn to manage our psychology during all of those periods.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s where things like support come in.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because one of my mentors said, he s like, your problems don t go away.
3
SPEAKER_01
What changes is your capacity to handle them.
3
SPEAKER_01
And each time that you take a massive wave on the head, metaphorically,
3
SPEAKER_01
the next time you re there, it s not nearly as bad because you ve been through it before.
3
SPEAKER_01
Your problems change in size.
3
SPEAKER_01
They become different kinds of problems.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you and I were talking about some of our problems earlier, which we won t mention on the air, but a year ago, those would have actually been nice problems to have.
3
SPEAKER_01
We weren t even thinking about stuff like that.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, of course.
3
SPEAKER_02
No, I mean, the problems become higher quality, but there s still problems, especially if you re running a business and you re trying to pay your rent.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, exactly.
3
SPEAKER_02
So having the support systems in place makes sense for that reason.
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean, how do you develop those?
3
SPEAKER_02
Actually, a lot of people, entrepreneurs especially, do themselves a big disservice when it comes to this.
3
SPEAKER_02
and I see this a lot with internet marketers and thought leaders, they do things like where they lie about numbers, they lie about sales, they spin things weird, where they re like, yeah, this launch, and I got a million dollars, and they don t realize they paid 1.1 million to do the launch and all this stuff.
3
SPEAKER_02
So you can t really get support because it would involve being like,
3
SPEAKER_02
the reason I m broke is this and so basically I m full of smoke and mirrors and they don t want to do that so you end up isolating yourself even more because you ve got this brand based on fluff and can t reach out because you can t tell people what s really wrong because it basically says you have to out yourself.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you really do and that s the flaw of doing that to begin with is you re setting yourself up for that, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, like I don t teach people
4
SPEAKER_02
how to make money online because I don t feel that I, I m not qualified to say, okay, here s how you make a million dollars online because I ve never made a million dollars online.
4
SPEAKER_02
So I m not gonna claim to be able to teach something that I don t know how to do.
4
SPEAKER_02
There s a lot of different things that you can say about this.
4
SPEAKER_02
I mean, first, one of the things is that we have a really, really sort of insidious cultural narrative that encourages exactly what you re talking about, right?
4
SPEAKER_02
We re encouraged to put up this face of, I m killing it, I m crushing it, life is awesome, when really,
4
SPEAKER_02
you might be thinking about killing yourself.
4
SPEAKER_02
And it s really sad because it s not until something like an Aaron Schwartz happens that we get woken up to the reality of this.
4
SPEAKER_02
Is that what it takes?
4
SPEAKER_02
And it turns out that this situation, this issue with mental health, with depression, and doing entrepreneurial things, is actually much more common than we think.
4
SPEAKER_02
Many, many high-performing people deal with it.
4
SPEAKER_02
And, you know, I think it s becoming more and more acceptable to talk about it, but our unwillingness to seek out help in these situations, I think, is really, has what cost us dearly because we re forced to put on this facade for the world.
4
SPEAKER_02
And, you know, yeah, there are situations in which it s not appropriate for you to air this laundry publicly, but that doesn t mean you shouldn t go seek help, like going and seeing a therapist.
4
SPEAKER_02
You know, like, I think maybe the big thing that came to me from going to a therapist was like, holy shit, I should have done this like years ago.
4
SPEAKER_02
Personally, I think everybody should go through it.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s actually a really sort of eye-opening experience to get a lot of shit out on the table that you can t tell anybody else because what you will get is a completely unbiased, completely objective perspective from somebody who, one, wants to see you get better, but two, is not gonna tear you down in your moments when you need them to be supportive.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think that s hugely important, and not only that, but if you ve found that you ve painted yourself into the corner, it s still worth outing yourself if you need the help, because it s certainly not worth suffering the consequences.
4
SPEAKER_02
No, no, it s not, it s really not.
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And the thing is, those consequences, they will start to affect every other area of your life.
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It s so hard to do all the things that people that you ve profiled on this show do if they are not in a proper state of mind.
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Those things take being in a very, very healthy psychological state.
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One thing I d like to reconcile just before we wrap here is we talked about avoiding the echo chamber.
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We talked about making sure we have diverse inputs and being unique and being original.
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But what about taking cues from other artists and other creatives?
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You know, finding inspiration.
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How do we kind of reconcile being original with like, oh, but I like that thing too.
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Yeah, okay, so I will echo something that I think had a profound impact on the way I went about looking at other art forms.
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Eric Wall told me once, he said, live music has engaged participants.
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Keynote speaking has passive consumers.
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There s room to be explored in how you bridge the gap between those two things.
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And if you look at Eric Wall and you do a search for him on YouTube, you guys can link that up in the show notes, you ll see he mixes graffiti art, painting, music, as well as a keynote talk, which is not what we would typically expect of a keynote talk.
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To me, it was kind of like, okay, well, why not borrow from visual art and bring that into a business-based website?
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That could be cool.
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You could do a lot of stuff with that.
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Why not borrow from the world of movies?
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I happen to have this love for all things visual, so that s why I wanted to create an animated series based on the podcast.
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I looked at other art forms, and it s like, okay, well, this is possible in one art form.
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Why not do it in the world of podcasting?
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So, that idea,
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that you re blending things from business and other art forms together.
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So when we did an event, I mean, you know this, because you ve seen some of this stuff, we didn t treat it like an event.
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We didn t plan a conference.
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We wanted to plan a theatrical performance with the content for the conference underlayed underneath a theatrical performance.
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The content was still there, but the fact that it was a theatrical performance made the whole thing 10 times more engaging than it would have been otherwise.
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You know, like, okay, usually what you get is one of those crappy banners in front of the hotel room with the speaker s head shot on it.
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Well, we didn t do that.
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We actually made X-Men style, you know, movie posters of each speaker, so when people walked in the room, it felt as if they were walking into a theater.
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Those are the kinds of things that really, I think, come from just saying, okay, why not?
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Like, why would we not do those things?
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Like, who says that we have to do things all these other ways?
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Another example I ll give you, so right now, I m doing a closing for a keynote, and, you know, if you look at dialogue in movies,
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There s a great example of this is, if you ve ever seen the movie Meet Joe Black, there s a number of sort of very poetic monologues.
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And if you listen to the monologue, you will notice that music plays a big role in each one of those monologues.
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And if you imagine it without the music, the impact would be gone.
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And so, you know, I m doing this closing for a keynote and I thought, well, what if I actually underlaid a track under this last section of the talk?
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Like, how much more emotional will that section be?
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And it turns out,
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a hell of a lot more.
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Those are kinds of actual examples of borrowing from other art forms.
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Trini, thanks so much for your time, man.
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Is there anything that I haven t asked you that you want to make sure you deliver to the AOC fam?
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You know, if you guys like podcasts and you like Jordan, I mean, he s probably mentioned it in his ads.
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So, Unmistakable Creative, we have bank robbers, drug dealers, performance psychologists, you name it.
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We probably had him as a guest.
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Got it.
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Thanks so much, man.
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Great work.
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Some good stuff in there.
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Sometimes it s hard to balance being creative with borrowing too much from others, not borrowing enough, or making something so unique that no one cares about it.
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Sreeni does a good job of balancing that.
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And if you enjoyed this one, don t forget to thank Sreeni on Twitter.
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We ll have that linked in the show notes as well as the other resources mentioned on the show, including his podcast and book, The Unmistakable Creative.
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You can tap our album art and most mobile podcast players to see the cheat sheet for this episode.
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We ll link to the show notes right on your phone.
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I also post tons of stuff on Twitter that never really makes it to the show, articles, insights, other ways to engage with me and producer Jason.
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I m at theartofcharm on Twitter.
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Our boot camps, our live programs here in Los Angeles, details on that at theartofcharm.com as well.
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And remember, we sell out a few months in advance, so if you re thinking about it, get in touch now, plan ahead a little bit, and get a little bit of a head start on boot camp.
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Also don t forget about our social capital challenge at theartofcharm.com slash challenge or in the U.S.
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text charmed to 33444.
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That s C-H-A-R-M-E-D to 33444.
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It s all about improving your networking and connection skills and inspiring those around you to develop a personal and professional relationship with you.
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We ll also email you our fundamentals toolbox that I mentioned earlier on the show, some drills and exercises to help you move forward.
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It ll make you a better networker, a better connector, and a better thinker.
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Check it out, theartofcharm.com slash challenge or text charmed in the US to 33444.
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This episode of The Art of Charm was produced by Jason DeFilippo.
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Jason Sanderson is our audio engineer and editor.
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Show notes on the website are by Robert Fogerty.
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I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
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Go ahead, tell your friends, because the greatest compliment you can give us is a referral to someone else, either in person or shared on the web.
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So stay charming, and leave everything and everyone better than you found them.
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Thanks for listening to the Art of Charm.
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Get more confidence, relationship skills, life hacks, and more at theartofcharmpodcast.com.