Hi everybody, how are you? Hey Sylvia, all righty. So we are here on some watercolor today. So as I said on Monday, we're gonna work on a giraffe. We are going to not discuss and not post anything in the chat regarding all the stuff that happened yesterday. There's enough of that going on the internet right now. So I'm gonna start the broadcast by saying this is a no politics zone. We are gonna work on watercolor. We're not gonna discuss that other craziness, okay? I'm just gonna put that out there. Hey Ian. All right, so we're gonna work on our giraffe, this other inspiration photo that I printed. Good morning, Kitty Jo, good morning. And I'm really thinking that we wanna do something sort of Gene Haynes inspired. So I'm going to work on that. First, I need to finish clearing off my table. We'll move the baby wipes over here. Isn't this cute? This is off topic. No, it isn't really, but let's just, we're gonna let it go. Good morning, Lisa. So isn't this cute? I got this yesterday when I was at IZO and getting a few things for myself and also for a friend who doesn't live in the area. And I found this cute little container. This is actually a sugar bowl, a mini sugar bowl. And I was thinking, how fun would it be to put some ink in and use with my dip pen? That would be a lot of fun. So I actually, this is not watercolor related. I just think it's cute. It's not watercolor related. All right, we're gonna find somewhere for our inspiration photo. Let's put it over here next to the iPad. You guys won't be able to see it. Good morning, Dawn. I'm trying to arrange my table this morning so that you guys can see everything. Let's see. Okay, before we do all that, let's do the first thing. We're gonna, again, use the muted palette. We're gonna get it wet. And then I have something else. Hey, Cindy, good morning. So before we do anything else, this is water with a little bit of Oxgall liquid in it. Oxgall liquid, you can find in your fine art aisle of almost any arts and crafts store. Windsor Newton is the brand that's pretty readily available. You only need for three drops, I'm sorry, three or four drops per cup of water.  And you'll probably never need another one, especially if you don't do a lot of watercoloring. But it aids in the rewetting and flow of your watercolor paints. Okay, now the surprise item that we got, that I have is something I saw in another watercolors video and I thought I really wanted to try it. I was really intrigued. Basically, it's water soluble graphite. Yeah, so I really like this. Now, I do admit that I wonder if the ink would evaporate out of here. It's not airtight. So, but if you put a couple of drops of glycerin in the ink, you should be fine. So I'm gonna give it a try. I have a lot of Sumi ink. And the Sumi ink is really cheap here where I am in California.  So I'm gonna try it with that. And can somebody type Oxgall in it? It's two words, O-X-G-A-L. And let's see. It's usually like right in front. Yeah, here it is. Sorry, G-A-L-L. So here. My Windsor and Newton. And I know that it really helps because I've tried a few different brands of watercolor paint recently as part of this series that were really difficult to rewet after they dried in the palette. Holvine being one of them. So, I I started using, I'm gonna address that in a minute, Ian. So I started using the Oxgall to aid in that. And I found that it really did work really well. Hey, Eve. Yeah, you could do that. I have a lot of Sumi ink right now and it's only $1.50 for like a big jar. And I figure if it would work with Sumi ink, it'll work with anything. So I'm gonna try with a little bit of Sumi ink and see what happens. I normally put it back in the container when I'm done. That's what I normally do. And I usually use one of these little green dishes. Now these are single scoop ice cream or gelato containers from Las Vegas. When I was in Las Vegas, I had some gelato. I actually have a couple of these. Yes, I made my family save them and I brought them all the way home with me.  Sumi ink is a Japanese calligraphy ink. Okay, so this is basically water soluble graphite. It comes just like this in this cute little box. And when you open the box, there's a little tin here of graphite. My watercolor graphite. There we go. So I think we might try some of this today. Oh yeah, that's a good idea, Ian. And both with this soluble graphite, isn't the tin cute? It's not why I bought it, but the tin is cute. All right, so now we're gonna let those sit for a minute and we're gonna arrange our table. This is the watercolor journal we've been working in all year. Actually, I don't know, did I start this last year? I started this in 2014. So it's about time that I, you know, finish it. We've only got two pages left in the back. I'm gonna just skip because we're gonna be working, or I'm gonna be doing a flip when this is full. And I might just work in this again later today and do that last page and get it all completed and then we'll do a flip. We'll see. Okay, so we're gonna work on this page. I wanna protect this little piece. This is one of the ones that we did. Little still life that I wanna scan and turn into a digital something to do something with. So I wanna protect that. Okay, I'm gonna, I'm going back a few comments. And Lisa, oh, yes, I did find, even with the cheapest of watercolor paints, that it really did a lot for rewetting, getting the paints to rewet nicely. Okay, some of the cheaper paints, I really don't wanna rewet. I don't know, Lisa, oh, what you're saying, sorry to Cindy for I missed something, I think. Okay, so I think I'm caught up and I'm glad you're all working on some kind of project while we're doing this today. I think that's fabulous. We need a pencil first. It's helpful if I have a pencil that actually is sharp, right? I don't know why I put pencils up here that have no tip on them. This is a 6-8, it's kind of a hard pencil, but it'll work. So basically what I wanna just do is I wanna just get some shapes on the paper in pencil. All right, I don't wanna go into too much detail because I don't do that. Oh, okay. So let's do that. So, and I'm going to, this is a hard pencil, so it's not gonna leave a super dark line, but I'm gonna do what I can. Probably normally I wouldn't leave this dark line because I want the drawing to be more suggestives, but because we're doing this for YouTube. Now, you could take your drawing, if you're not comfortable with drawing or maybe you're comfortable with it, but you wanna focus more on the painting. You could take your drawing and you could put it on your page with some graphite paper or transfer paper underneath it and just trace your shapes. I'm not worried about all the crazy sketchy lines. I kind of like to leave all the crazy sketchy lines. Those of you who have been watching me for a while know this.  I just, yeah, you're just not going to. So I wanna get the basic landmark shapes on here so that I have a good reference material. Okay, I think that ear's a little bit big. What do you all think? Okay, I think that's pretty good. Hey, Patricia, hey, Kathy, hey, Dawn. All right, so we've got our basic shape on here and some nice reference marks. So I think we're ready to go. What do y'all think? So again, this is our reference photo. This is from, hold on, okay. So my picture froze, so I'm just refreshing because since iOS 10, I have trouble with the Facebook. I mean, the YouTube app. I have some water soluble graphite pencils too. I just really liked the idea of having some graphite in a pot, because I'm an art supply addict. Whoops, because I'm an art supply addict. So why not? I just spilled crumbs everywhere. Hang on. All right, so we are going to get started. So this picture is from Paint My Photo. When the broadcast is over, I'll post a link to this photo where you can get it and the artist who took the photo in the description along with this one, which is the one we used on Monday for Monday with DecoArt. Now, if you're just surfing around while you're watching me, go to the Monday with DecoArt video from this week and both of these links are in the description. They're both from Paint My Photo. And I don't know why I'm right-handed, but I like my paints on the left. I have no idea. I keep trying to put them over here. It just doesn't work for me. He's cute, right? Yeah, he's cute, so. And we've already got some schmutz on the page, like some old schmutz. I just spilled graphite powder, but we're okay with that. So we're gonna start with a pretty big brush and I'm gonna use this Eskoda brush. I'm sorry, Princeton Neptune brush. And this is a number six around, I'm sorry, number six quill. Okay. All right, so we're gonna just, first we're gonna get the page a little wet and we're gonna dissolve some of that graphite powder that spilled. So yeah, so Ian, I do that and I do that with, they're really fun thing to do, save the pencil shavings and make sort of an ink or paint with is Stabilo pencil, but you can do it with any water-slable pencil. Yeah, we're using the muted palette again. It's just, it's my favorite palette at the moment. So I'm gonna start with French ochre, which is a golden-y color, but it's not super bright. Well, none of these colors are super bright because they're the muted palette. And we're gonna do sort of wash and stuff. I did, as you see, I did get part of the page wet. I haven't used that yet. I've been hearing about it though. We need our clips again. So right on the shelf above my table, I have these binder clips. These are from the Dollar Tree. These are Daniel Smith. Now there is a video on this muted palette and what colors I used and why I use them to make the palette.  So now I'm looking at the inspiration photo at the areas of his face and neck that are a little darker, you know, yellow, golden color. I'm laying in some paint and then I'm going to go in with some more. So we're wanting to do something sort of suggestive, right? So that means that other than the pencil lines, we're not gonna get super specific about it. So a little paint box is actually from the Prima watercolor sets, but not being said, you can buy these little metal paint boxes empty from Amazon, Dick Blick, or my favorite place, Jackson's Art out of the UK. And any of, yeah, going back to Ian's question or a statement, any of your water soluble pencils or crayons, if you have crumblings or shavings of them, think about saving them or putting them in some sort of little pot or jar and adding a little water to it. And you can make sort of an inky thing with those shavings. Like you really don't need to throw anything away. I know that sounds crazy and goofy, but unless, of course, you have an art supply horde situation going on and then maybe you need to throw things away. I don't know, you know, we've all been there. I say that with, you know, love in my heart. We've all been there. Is it funny to already like where he's going already? I mean, we barely got started. I'm gonna zoom in a little bit. Now, we can only do so much about the glare because the paper is wet.  So I'm using the quill brush, it's pretty dry, but I'm using it to pick up some of the excess water before we put any other colors on here. Now I'm gonna go in with, and in this picture, I'm gonna be using more of the brown tones in the muted palette. And I'm gonna go in with the Rossiana.  And I'm using a big brush, which forces me to not have a lot of control. And that's kind of the point in a painting like this is I don't wanna get too wound up in trying to control where my colors go or I want it to be about the color, temperature and mark making. Whether I'm working in watercolor or acrylic. Yeah, you can dissolve it with Gamsol. I have to be careful with Gamsol, even the odorless kind, because it can make my asthma act up. So, because you know, odorless doesn't mean odor-free.  So all these puddley drippy marks, I love that when I get those. And I wanna keep it nice and loose. I'm not an artist to keep my colors perfectly blended. And you may be that kind of artist and that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that. I just don't do that. Start with the same color, the Rossiana start sort of mapping in a few spots, using of course our photo as a guide. I almost stuck my brush in the wrong color. Now I'm not looking to, you know, exactly copy the photo. I'd never do that. You all know that, but we're using it as a guide. And also let's see, I'm gonna use just the tip of it too. There's lines like crinkles around his face. So now that I did that and it's a little bit wet, I'm gonna put a little water on it, blot some of it. And I'm gonna get one of my little cards. This is a piece of a credit card, old credit card. This really won't show up necessarily right away until you get more pigment on there. But it's a great way to get some of these little wrinkly lines in his face, is to scratch marks into the wet paint and the pigment will settle in those marks. Alrighty, I think I'm gonna try a flat filbert. This is a Royal and Line Nickel Zen brush. This is a number 10. I don't think they call it a filbert, but it's got a flat tip with sort of filbert-y shape at the end. Filbert-y, that's a word, right? All right, so now I wanna continue to go darker because it's watercolor, right? So we start light and we're gonna work our way darker. I'm gonna start with the raw umber. Yeah, so keep them in a binder clip, otherwise they fall at the bottom of my tray that's above my table and then I can never find them and I end up having like the rest of you like five million of them because I can't find anything. So I just make more, just like the wrong thing to do. That was a lot of raw umber, which is okay. We'll make it work. I am gonna control the blooming a little bit by getting my rag in there. Okay, I'm gonna put the eyes in first. Yeah, you know, I'm constantly putting things away in a super safe place and then I can never find them again. I don't know, it's really annoying. Looking at the photo and just looking at where the shadows, the darkest parts of his face are. I'll catch up on the comments in just a second. So I wanna leave some of these marks. Some of these marks I really like what's happening with them. Some of them I don't. So I'll either come in and lift a little bit or I'll put water there to get the pigments to sort of spread out a bit. Yeah, you could totally stop right here. He's really pretty and I would try something like this on like mineral paper definitely in or watercolor UPO. That's really fun and interesting to work on. So I missed what bra I had on the palette with a little bit of Rossiana that was also on there. And I'm gonna use that for someone to start highlighting some of those shadows and start to give him dimension. So, you know, once you start making him darker or brighter, you know, that's when your painting will start to pop. Even if you're being super suggestive about it, I'm gonna wash some of this dark paint over where we scratched into the paint and then I'm gonna come in with some water and you'll see, start to see those scratch marks I left in the surface of the paper start to show up. We need some more of the dark color. Thank you, Patricia. So there's all different kinds of paper out there that are fun to try to do watercolor and other painting techniques on. I would suggest that if you have it in your budget or you can get a sample, try it. There's the one paper that's made out of stone. I don't remember the name of it right now because I'm having some memory issues this morning. There's Yupo, which I think is basically like plastic.   Maybe somebody can answer Kathy's question. So I don't want my background too perfect so I'm definitely coming in and doing lifting with my rag but you notice something starts to pop out from the page when you just put a little bit of color back there. So I'm also gonna take some of the Prussian blue that's in here and again, a bunch of water because the Prussian blue is very bright but I don't necessarily want it that bright. And I would say just like do like that much, put a little bit. They have different papers Kathy made out of different minerals and like I know there's a paper made out of stone and like I said, I can't remember the name of it. I would say try it. And he may be talking about the stone paper, which again, I don't remember the name of it and it's gonna bug me now. They're in the paint because you know, I'm going to take my blue. I know you're all going out and I'm gonna take my green. Okay. Yeah, it's stone paper. That's what I thought you were talking about Ian. I just don't remember the name of it. There's a brand, particular brand name that's pretty popular and I don't remember what that brand name is. Okay, he's looking pretty cute. You see, I don't remember either. I'm gonna switch to my favorite brush right now, the triangle brush. And the graphite I think is gonna be one of our last ones that we do. I do think we need to straighten up the edge of our face a little bit. I think we need to define the edge of his snout over here. I think it's a little bit off and funky. So one of the things that if you've taken a Jean Haynes class or you have any of her books is she defines a few bits to help the painting stand out. Yeah, it is made out of minerals and stone like stone pulp instead of paper pulp but I cannot remember. I can't remember the name of it. This kind of painting, kind of free expressive painting would be fun to do in that kind of paper, I think. So I'm gonna come in with some French ochre which is another earthy tone, but it's on the red side. I'm gonna keep adding a little bit of this to our giraffe. Now you notice I haven't done any drying. Things are pretty wet. I'm okay with that. Yeah, look for it and see if you can find, oh, oh, gami, is that the name of it, Ian? Look and see if you can find, maybe your store has a small pad of it or sometimes you can get a sample. I know in my art snacks I got a sample of a watercolor paper, a small pad. It's really little, it's cute. Like if you could get a little pad like this one which is ATC size, this is Stonehenge. Actually, I wonder if this is made out of stone. I don't know, it's called Stonehenge. Maybe somebody can look it up for me. I just got this in arts snacks, but a little past small pad like that is a good one to get when you wanna try some of these other papers. I'm looking at, again, the giraffe's picture over here and the different places on his face where there's shadow and then I'm not gonna go too far hopefully before I put some water. Sometimes I forget and then the place where I put the pigment has dried too much. That happens. Oh, the Stonehenge's cotton, yeah, I wasn't sure. I just got it, I haven't played with it yet or anything so it just came in the mail. It's just a different surface to paint on and it reacts differently to the paint and the watercolor than regular cotton or paper, tree pulp paper does. And it's a fun challenge to work with it. It reacts completely differently and you might find that you like working with it better because you like the way it reacts. So I would suggest giving it a try. You never know. Now of course you could do the giraffe shape and do him in crazy colors, blues and greens or pink. Of course you could. It's actually kind of a challenge for me to use these more natural muted tone palettes which is I think why this palette has been a hit for me lately because it's a challenge. So I'm grabbing some of the Quedocridone Gold which y'all know if you've used it before in any brand it's generally a very bright pigment. So it's gonna give our painting a pop of light that it probably needs. I do think it's time to start adding some of the graphite in. He's pretty cute. So I'm using this bright Quedocridone Gold to really try to make the parts of his face that are closer to the viewer and not in shadow to really pop out. Yeah, the U pose resists more of the paint also and it reacts differently than regular paper does and because of that it's really interesting to work with. Okay, I'm gonna come back in with some of the raw umber first before we do anything else and we need to work on his nose a little bit. Yeah, so it's good to try the different kinds of paper the 100% cotton papers, the ones made from tree pulp. I would try a bunch of them and see which ones you like working with better. It's just fun to switch things up a little bit and try something new. This is the graphite, dark gray. Of course, cause it's graphite. Oh, thanks Lisa. Now this graphite powder cause it's graphite it's very granulating. Now that's probably going to not be okay with some of you. Personally, I love it. I think it's fabulous. I love it when things granulate and it's down here in my plate kind of mixing with the blue and I actually like that. So I'm good with that. I'm gonna use the watered down version right now. I'm not looking at the comments just FYI. So if you guys are asking something and I'm not answering that would be why. Give me a minute. Yeah, so this book is made as part of a class that I teach that you can now get directly from me over on my website, geneabyearons.com. This was one that I made and it's been fun to work with and work in I gotta say. That's a good question. I don't remember. No, it doesn't say that it's permanent when dry. So I think it says watercolor graphite. So I would venture to guess that it's like any other watercolor paint that you can rewet it if you want to. He looks angry. Well, he sort of looks pissed off in the inspiration photo.  He kind of looks annoyed in the photo, I gotta say. Yeah, I don't think it's permanent. I think it's water soluble. I'm trying to suggest his chin hairs, but it's just not working. So I think we're gonna do something else down there. I'm gonna go in with now, I have burnt umber and other brown.  You really, you have to take my picture again. That's what he looks like. He looks like he's totally peoed. And that's, I guess I'm copying that from the photo. So now even the spots are, have different tones in them. So there's parts of the spots that are lighter and brighter than others and parts that are in shadow.  Yeah, he looks totally teetop. So unlike with acrylic paint where if you make a mistake, you can just cover it up. If you make a mistake in watercolor, you just have to figure out how to work it in and live with it. But that's part of the charm and challenge I think of watercolor painting. Not that I want to remove it, but that's good to know. I find it's, it gives the painting an interesting texture. I love the color of it. Before we leave today, I will do a sample on a piece of paper of this. I like the color. I almost stuck my brush in purple, but maybe we need to have purple on our giraffe. Maybe that's why I wanted to stick it in purple. My picture froze again. Cause of course it did. Cause, you know, we're on YouTube. It's not freezing for you guys. It's not freezing for my computer's end, but, you know, I don't know. Like I said earlier, I have problems since the iOS update with the YouTube app occasionally. I'm gonna add some purple cause, you know, why not? And this isn't, this is called Napsul something maroon that I can't pronounce. So try cat Carson and cat's life. Go into your browser instead of being here on the, if you're in an app. I am not gonna do that because I'm broadcasting, but I have found when I'm, it's happening to me and it happens whether I am broadcasting or watching. So I don't, I don't think it's my broadcast. I found that if I go in the browser, it stops doing it. It did it again. Seriously. So annoying. I know it's not my internet connection because I have, I did, not only did I do a speed test before we went on cause I know better now, but I've upgraded my internet connection. So, and it happened not long ago when I was trying to watch Cinnamon Cooney, her live broadcast. So I don't, I think it's something with the iOS update. Personally, that's what I think it is. I don't know if that's accurate or not, but I'm looking and I'm looking every now and then at the computer behind me and it's not freezing up as far as the stream coming from the computer. So now I'm going kind of bolder and I'm really, you know, I'm laying in this purple. I'm using it as my shadow color. You know, as per usual right now, that purple is just my thing.  I'm going to go back in with our pop color or highlight color, which is the Quedocridone Gold. And I'm going to use a pretty pure version of the pigment, meaning that I'm not going to water it down too much so that I can get that pop in there. And between purple and the graphite and the gold, it will really make your painting start to pop.  That's cool. You know, experiment was just taking it a little bit farther. Now that being said, if you do experiment and you get to the point where you want to go farther but you really like the way it looks at that moment, then I would suggest stopping for a minute, let it dry, scan it or photograph it, and then continue so that you have a copy of the painting in its other form before you maybe take it too far. Oops, wrong color. And I'm holding the brush at the end. I'm really not pushing hard on it. I'm kind of letting it make interesting marks on the paper. Let's see. There's actually a little bit of a glow coming up underneath his neck. He's looking pretty cute. Oh, screen froze again, because you know that's what it does. Hold on. Okay, the only problem with trying to watch it in the app for me right now is that I can't see the chat. That doesn't help. I need to be able to see what you guys are asking me. Right, so he's looking a little less angry. Which is a good thing. Now I can come in and I can try to lift some of the paint in the places where I think it should be more white, or I could leave it and go in with some highlighter, which I might do. I just took some Van Dyke brown, which is a really dark brown. I'm mixing it with the graphite. And I'm gonna just go in to his eyes and add a little bit of that. Okay, and then we're gonna give it a dry. Let's give it a dry. I do love this stuff, by the way, this little pot of graphic. Graphics memory on my iPad, Ion? Or Ian, sorry. I'm watching the stream on my iPad. It doesn't seem to be a problem on the desktop, which we're broadcasting with, but the iPad seems to be like an issue. And it's an issue more often than not. Okay, I do think we wanna do this a little bit. So as I stand up and get a different look at the painting, let's see a couple of issues. It could be an issue with the graphics on the iPad because it's not, I don't think it has that much, to be honest. I'm gonna take some of our blue from our sky. I'm gonna mix it with some of the browns and grays on the palette.  And we're gonna just fix it. There we go. That's actually better. The most important thing is that it's not happening for you guys, and as long as I can see the chat, it doesn't really matter. As long as you guys aren't having a huge problem with it, that's better. Okay, so we're gonna take and dry him, let's dry him. He came out a little bit more controlled than I wanted, but I think he's really cute. Thank you. Okay, so we're gonna get in here with a white pen. Hopefully I can find one easily. Hey, what do you know? All right. And I'm going to pull the photo. Here's our inspiration photo. And so we're gonna, oh, helps if I take the goop off the end of the pen. You know, I have a, so I have a Mac desktop. I don't have a tablet. And I'm assuming that tablet is the word that you meant. We're broadcasting from the Mac desktop. I'm watching on the iPad. So I'm gonna go in and using the inspiration photo as a guide. I'm going to just put some scribbly white lines in areas of his picture where there's the brightest, whitest highlights. And especially in those places where maybe I didn't leave enough white paper or any white paper. Now, you know, with gel pens and paint pens, you can get in here and you can add a little bit of it.  And, you know, you could use white gouache for this. Of course you could. I prefer to get in here with a pen. And I like to keep my lines like loose and sketchy. I like that look. You know, this is, if I wanted an exact copy of the giraffe, then I would I would, you know, use the photograph, but I don't care for that. So I like to, we were doing an art piece, right?   That would be cute. So that's a white pen. I'm kind of wanting to add black to you. This is a carbon pen, carbon ink pen. Sometimes it doesn't want to write over watercolor, but let's give it a try. Sometimes it's kind of finicky. See, look right now. Probably because it's just been sitting a long time. That's probably why it's finicky right now. No, see, it doesn't really, it doesn't always care to write over watercolor paint. Let's try something different. This is why sometimes I just prefer a Sharpie or a dip pen because they usually work when you want them to, to be honest. Some of those fancy pens are kind of an issue sometimes. Now I wouldn't do too much black pen work. I don't see even my Sharpie is not wanting to write over the paint, but you might want to just add a little bit here and there. I usually use some ink, Japanese calligraphy ink. I write over wet paint a lot, so I tend to nerf up a lot of pens, which is bad. He's pretty cute. Yeah, so you can do that. You can use this, this graphite stuff is fabulous. And I do have a little small brush. I didn't pull one out. Well, not super small, but what is this? This is a Utrecht number four watercolor brush. And actually the Utrecht generic brand of brushes. I got these, a couple of these when I was in Las Vegas with Cindy Utter and Ann Williamson and Michelle Mitchell. And I really like these watercolor brushes. Oh, see, picture froze again, because you know that's what it does. But I know you guys can see me and hear me and see the chat. Yeah, this is a Utrecht generic brand. Utrecht is an art supply store. The name, the spelling is U-T-R-E-C-C-H-T. It's owned by Dick Blick. And this is one of their generic brand watercolor brushes that I got when I was in Las Vegas to try. Frequently you can find the Dick Blick brand at Utrecht and the Utrecht brand at Dick Blick, just FYI. And I've tried their paints too and their paints are actually very good. The watercolor paints. I was pretty pleased with them. They do have separate websites, but a lot of their materials crossover. I said I was gonna stop, didn't I? I lied. In case you didn't notice, I lied. I'm really liking this graphite. In case it's something else you didn't notice. I'll answer that paint question in a minute if I can. Hang on, their paints are rebranded. I don't know actually about their paints. They could be rebranded and made by somebody else. I'm not sure. I just know that I have tried them and I do like them. They're decently pigmented. They're affordable. Now this graphite doesn't stay wet. I didn't put ox skull in it, but it doesn't stay super wet, just FYI. I do like it though. There's a couple of different brands of this and like Ian said, you can definitely make your own sort of thing using pencil shavings. I think it's a nice addition to your paint box whether you paint with watercolor or acrylic. It's a nice addition to your box of tools and supplies. I'm gonna stop now because I'm really liking where he's at right now. I'm gonna refresh the screen again. Monday, I had no problem with the screen freezing. Today is a problem, so I don't know where to go with that. Does anybody have any questions before we call it a day? Could I have done a better job on our giraffe? Well, certainly, but I always think that, but I think he's pretty cute despite the fact that, you know, I mean, I could keep working in, but I think I'd overwork him at some point. You know, we're always the most critical of our own work. So I like him, I think he's cute. And when I stand up, I like him more. There's something about the shape of his face is not quite right, I don't know. His snout, maybe, his nose part. I said I was gonna leave it alone, I will now. Step away from the painting, I know, right? All right, that's it for today, you guys. We will be back on Monday with DecaWart. So give some new things to try this week and this weekend. You know, if you can get your hands on some of this graphite, watercolor graphite, give it a try. There's a few different brands out. I got this one by ArtGraph, mostly because it's back to the cute little tin and it only had the one color and I didn't really need a ton of colors of graphite powder. That being said, maybe you don't have that in your art budget right now. Take some of your water-soluble pencils and purposefully collect some of the shavings. For instance, these are my pencil sharpeners and that I sharpen my Stabilo pencils with. And if you can see, that is full of shavings and I don't really empty it out unless I'm putting it into a jar with a lid with some water to make sort of an inky thing that you can paint with. So give some things like that a try and do some experimenting and I'll be back on Monday with Monday with Decorart. Let me know if there's anything in particular you would like to see. Send me an email or a message on Facebook. There is and I don't remember what the name of the company is, Lisa, but if you type in watercolor graphite into Amazon, it's gonna come up or into Dick Blick or somebody. It will come up. Okay, so don't forget to, here's the shfield. Don't forget to support the channel and the free broadcasts by shopping in my Etsy shop. If you can or going over to my website, GinaBeeArens.com and maybe getting a class from me on the classroom page. The links for both of those are in the description below. The Facebook group and my sister groups and I, along with a bunch of our admins have a free year long journaling program coming up next year. But the hitch is you have to be a member of one or more of the Facebook groups to get the free lessons. So go over there and see about signing up. Ian, that would be great. Send me some landscape pictures that you found and I'll see about, I have one page left in this journal so let's end it with one of those. And we'll do maybe do it in acrylic on Monday and do it in watercolor on Wednesday. All right, so go over to the Facebook groups and sign up so you can be part of our year long course and the most important message. You guys should know this by heart by now with your eyes closed. And if we ever meet in person and I ask that question I want you all to shout it out at the same time. And it's so true today, especially today.   All right, I will talk to you all later. Have a great rest of your day.  Barrett Niece has a video out on using these and making your own ink markers. If you want to, if you want the link for that later message me over Facebook. I am probably gonna film it and tag her in it but message me over Facebook and I can tag, I can send you the link to her video. So this is gonna be fun. And we have a sewing 101 coming up too. Woohoo! I'm gonna film that today too, hopefully. All right, see you all later everybody, our giraffe. Woohoo! All right, bye guys.


Well, let's just jump right in. And Johnny and I, first off, would love to know how the book series came about and a little bit of your journey to get here. So how the book series came about was I can't stand personal help stuff.   So I look at the whole thing, like it's just audio speed wagon. And I'm the sex. Right on. I love it. Love the analogy already. Right. So I, it's two, like, none of it that does in it.  You know, I'm like, what, what, what? I'm not a tiger. Um, but, but if you tell me, like, well, you know, like examine your own thoughts and write them down. All right, I can do that, you know. But, but the journey started for me, um, probably 14, 15 years ago when I started to do work on myself. And that, that kind of got me on this pathway of, because before then, if you talked to me about personal development work, I'd have just rolled my eyeballs, you know, I'd have just been like, well, come on. And I was, I was, I was very much like a hands on guy. You know, it was like, give me a problem.  Right. So, so everything that I did in my life was all circumstantial.  And then, so, but getting into that actually led to me. Eventually I became like a facilitator and I traveled all over the world delivering these transformational programs. And I became a senior program director. That's really big personal development company. And then I quit that and kind of got any, my own little private coaching business, which had like a very kind of limited number of what I would call exclusive clients. People might think they were assholes, but I thought they were exclusively. And then, and then, you know, my marketing person said, you should write a book. And I was like, why would I write a book, you know. But then the more that I looked at what was out there, I'm like, well, that's why I should write a book.  And I'm just, I just thought, well, why can't we just look at some of the world's great philosophers and the ones that I enjoy and love and read into what they're saying and find like applicable ways like, you know, as I like to say, if I'm, if I'm in Philadelphia and I've just lost my job, how does Heidegger help me?  Well, like, how does Heidegger help you at this time? And I really, that's, I've been on a one-man mission ever since. I love that. I was just telling AJ that before you had gotten on that there was a lot of philosophical questions I found that you were discussing in this book and looking at it through the lens of modernity. Here we are. And you're not calling anything back to these, but if you follow some of that stuff, you can see the hands, you can see the questions there. But without bringing anyone to those places, like, here's the question, here's where you are right now, here's what's going on, and how do you want to move forward? And I appreciated that because I felt it was, it was frank and just left you having to deal with the question or the idea or the concept rather than any other thing to soften the blow.   And as long as you keep getting my context, right, so my context is that I support you, that I want to empower you, and it's some human level. I love you, right? Like it's some kind of base human level. I love you as a human being, and I want you to win.  Now, unfortunately, sometimes when you're talking to people like they get jarred or upset or triggered, which I actually think is really good, because you know, you're learning something like what do you learn it? Now you can just indulge the trigger, right? You know, or you can be like, oh, hold on a minute, why am I getting triggered here? What's that all about? And what's that connected to? And how come and when did that start? And how long has it been going on?  Well, I think many of us love to assume that our problems are unique or special to us. And there are personal struggles, but borrowing from the ancient philosophers, these are human conditions that we all face, fear, love, loss and, of course, we can't go without saying now in the face of a pandemic, many of us are realizing just how unprepared we are for life's shitstorms, so to speak.  You just have to kind of take the punch and somehow come really back from it.  So they'd like and it's a horrible thing to say, but that is how we live. We can live in that crosshairs between I want things to be different, but I need them to be stable. You can't have significant upheaval in your life in a stable way. You know, it's like trying to move house in a peaceful manner. Like, it's not. Well, you write that we all have the life that we're willing to put up with. And many of us haven't even really thought about that, that we're putting up with it and we're just following these patterns that have become ingrained in us and our responses and reactions to things are usually the same and it takes us changing our behavior to change the end result of our life. Well, you'd first have to get that it's actually a problem. See, we are unbelievable. Human beings are just amazed and overcoming, right? But they're terrible at letting go, right? And just terrible at letting go. They'll just overcome something.    Like, it doesn't matter what it is, take your pick, it could be all of them. And yet they keep paddling.  And like, they'll say, oh, yeah, I want to change. And I'll say, well, this is what it takes. And then they'll defend and I'll change it. And they'll be like, oh, well, you can't do this or you can't do that. Well, I wouldn't be able to. I'm like, well, why not? You know, why can't you? So it's amazing how like as a kind of common theme throughout humanity, people get themselves in their lives that they really don't want it. And then complain about that life and then never change it. Like it's until somebody like me comes along and then they get annoyed by me and intrigued by me. And then they start making changes. Well, it's about if you're not getting rocked to your core regularly, you're not growing. And now some of us find ways to search that out where it's where a getting rocked to our core comes from to seek it out and we're ready for it. And that is one way, but it is the getting rocked to your core that comes in blind side you is where a lot of the big growth is. And I have to remind myself when that does happen that this is a good thing. And I've been through enough in my life to be able to work through that. But of course at first I'm cussing out the world and what's going on and I'm upset at myself and I'm upset at whatever I placed blame on for rocking me to my core. But once I get through all that, I can start to look at, okay, what can I gain from this? How do I gain from this crisis? What can I change fundamentally to get the most out of this? And that takes a while and as I get older I've gotten more comfortable with that. But yet I still find myself when it happens having to go through that whole process. And in fact, AJ and I both have tattoos. This says B over A, we both have them. As a reminder that if we're stuck in any position that we're gonna, and we want change, we wanna get unstuck that we're gonna have to do things differently. And what comes with that made it is not going to be comfortable and it's going to be a fight. However, it is going to be what we have to do to make that change. Right, and look, so my firm, this is like a firm belief of mine and I've come to accept it actually as a belief of mine as opposed to just an opinion that any great transformation requires pain. So it requires pain.  And that was like shocking. I'm like, no, but what a bit, but yeah, but what a bit.    Because then I can change that. It's solvable. Exactly. I know I can impact that.   That's what it was like for me. It was like suddenly I got like, what it is to steer this thing myself as opposed to trying to navigate things that seemed like other people were presenting me when in fact what I was getting presented with were all my own obstructions that seemed like other people are other things. And I never looked back. Like my life was never the same. Like I went on just like it was, it was that switch in my mind where the word responsibility was like the holy grail in me.    And I know I'm not a lot of people at that point, but I want people to know you can get to that point. You can sit at the point where your past is like nothing, not like, because some people are very triumphant over their past, which means you're not over it because you're still hanging on to the trial. When you're truly over your past, you know, it's like it's not even a subject.  You're just like, whoa, I don't know. There's no juice left in it. There's nothing left to be said about it. There's no fire, there's no apathy. There's just nothing, it just sits there like an old t-shirt. One concept that we focus on in all of our coaching programs is this idea of taking responsibility. And for many of us, that's scary because it feels like more pressure's being put on us, not less, but in actuality, when you take responsibility, it frees you from old behaviors, from old outcomes, and from this victim mentality. And I'd love to unpack that because I'm sure there are some in our audience right now with everything going on in the world and their shitstorm who feel like they are the victim. And it's so easy to say, it's this person's fault, it's the economy, it's COVID, X, Y, and Z. How do we overcome that? All right, well, the first thing is, it's obvious to me just the way you explained responsibility, I can tell that you got that word in a way that's distinct from the way that most people connect to that word. So you can tell there's a freedom around that word for you. Like you can hear there's a visceral response there that just enlivens you because you get what responsibility really is, right? And what you're talking about is the struggle to get other people to get it the way that you get it.  Like in the way that love gets you. I mean, I could look up the dictionary definition of love, but that doesn't get me along. And that's the same with this whole world and it's a world that you get yourself into this world of responsibility because people automatically assume that it's something to do with who's to blame, right?  And because we, you know, we're very tribal.  So you don't want to be the blame, but what you don't get about responsibility is and you started to think of it in these terms like try on the idea that you've been spending your whole life trying to drive the car with a rear view mirror. And you're kind of, you'll get the straight bits and it seems like you're in control, but the car's just kind of driving itself.    I have a say in how this turns out for me. And it's not like a little say. It's like, I have the say, right? And I can be responsible. One of the things that I ask people is, tell me your most negative state when people say, well, I don't know, I get angry or I get depressed. And I say, when that comes up, can you be responsible for it? And then they're like, what do you mean responsible for it? And I'll say, can you be responsible for that that's present? And now you must continue to operate in a way that's more consistent with who you would say you are. So that is like the responsibility becomes bigger than the experience, but not like a burden, like the opportunity, like you actually have a say in it now. And so it's, I love, I mean, all existentialism is built on a kind of general foundation of responsibility, personal responsibility. So, you know, I can't have a conversation right until I get into that. But I mean, I would say it's probably the single biggest thing that set me free as a human being was when I finally got walked upside the head by this notion of what it is to be responsible.  All right, I always, when I'm explaining it for our classrooms, I always bring that up. It's like, you might think that responsibility is making your bed when you wake up and getting to work on time, but we're gonna dig into it because it goes a lot further than that. But once that word, and you mentioned it, you saw that AJ had a different definition than the regular Joe on the street does for responsibility. And once you realize that there was a deeper meaning in that word, and that's usually the first one, then you start looking at every other word that starts to define your life. And now a little of a sudden, from the big pool of culture and society that has agreed upon broad definitions, you're now separating yourself from the herd with your own definitions. And now you have to find people who identify the words, the way you are identifying with them so that there is a bond and a camaraderie and goals in the way you're going through life so you don't feel so alone. And it becomes incredibly difficult. It becomes scary because every time you define a new word you've just separated yourself from another stack of the herd. Right, I think one of the things you need to get though is, and this is one of the things that really inspires me is that I've really taken on that, that I'm leading the way for some people. And that that's really what I'm here for. I'm just here to lead the way. I love it. On a pathway that I already know and I'm familiar with. And all I need to really do is just work with you until you see your own and it can inspire you the way that mine did.  I'm here to empower people. It's so, and I'm inspired by that.  And I'm like, yeah, I can get that considering where you're looking at it from. That's okay. And that's absolutely okay too. And you know, one of the things I love a bit personally development, it's not a pyramid, right? I talk about this in some of those, it's not a pyramid of development, right?  We're just in different spots on the same map. And I can get you pretty easily just to hop over here and take a look from here and what do you see now that we're standing here?  That was terrible, right? I want to stick over here and start kind of branching out from this spot on the map. There's nothing wrong. I never look at somebody's development like it's a problem.  It's really like, I'm seeing it put over here and if you come and take a look, I think you might find something really interesting here for yourself. But if you don't want to take a look, then that's fine too.  I think that's a really important point because many people listening and who've probably read your book think, oh, your life is uneft. You have it all figured out. In actuality, there are going to be more problems. You have a higher resolution of what the problem is that allows you to find the solution faster than others who will stick to the victim mentality blaming others and not taking responsibility. But it doesn't mean you're uneft for the rest of your life. Does it work that way, unfortunately? No.  Yes. And I'm like, how unreal is that?    I can't even imagine what it would be like to look at somebody like that and then examine my own life and be left just to blade it. So I've always been at great pains to really get people to connect with people in a really authentic way.  The only difference between you and I is I've worked in some of those things, I've taken ground with some of those things and I continue to wrestle with the whole notion of what it is to be a human being and life is constantly presenting me with things like, oh shit, what about that?  So it's critical that people laugh with the experience in my view that it's doable, that this can be done, that it's not some impossible thing and that are amazing things that people can fulfill on. And if maybe, you know, like from a few pages of one of my books, it helps them kind of, you know, like put a bit of WD-40 on the hinges of that door, then awesome, that's really the ultimate aim. Right, and why in your mind does it start with behavior change? Yeah. We're big on it as well. Why is behavior change such an important part of this process? Well, I'll give you the kind of like, I'll give you a brief history of it, right? So once upon a time, it was all about what you're doing, what you don't do, okay? And it was that way for thousands of years, what you're doing, what you don't do. The problem with just focusing on that, man, especially in the 20th century, but even in the 19th century, it was this growing concern for you about how do I feel?  It's all about, get more of this, get more of that so that you can then do this, right? So, and then the reality is you can wrestle with us as much as you like, but life only ever changes in the paradigm of action ever, right?  That's fine. You can do that. But if you'd expect in that to change your life, you're grossly mistaken.  The, what we've kind of been, and I don't want to say we've been fed it, but we've been this growing opinion that to get up off the sofa, I need to feel different. That is my internal state, my physiology, my psychology. It has to align with what I'm about to do.  That is not true. That is, that is in fact a lie, right? I don't, some of the greatest victories of my life were done when I was in a negative mindset. Absolutely.    I don't care. I'm more interested in what's your vision? What are the actions? And then notice all the states and emotions and moods and feelings that arise. There's nothing wrong with those things. I'm not diminishing those things, but I think we have to start putting them somewhere where they're less likely to impede what we're up to as a human being. One of the parts in the book, when it's talking about this behavior in action, that there is fear that comes with it. You're going to be doing things new for the first time differently and the two go over this, the B over A thing again. For in our classrooms, we talk about the three things that you get every time that you do something out of fear. You get experience that no one can take from you. You get a story to tell your friends and you learn something about yourself that you previously did not know. Those three things are enough to fling yourself into fear all over the place because you know what you're getting out of it. And regardless of what you're feeling in that moment, if it's aligned with you having everything be perfect to do it, regardless of any of that, you are gaining from this experience.  And on the fly, right? They're just brilliant, right? Just in a really brilliant way. But my approach with people is I say, if you think of yourself like a character in The Simpsons or something, right? And your whole persona is like a character and you can even imagine your little drawing what it would look like, right?   Because out there in the unknown, that character is useless. So the persona that you are that is interested in perpetuating itself, that's why they get hung up and they're solving the same kinds of problems over and over and over again. But we don't realize that we're creating them too to kind of fascinate our own persona to keep it rolling the same way. And then you get presented with new things and that's when things like self-sabotized command or fear comes in, I can't do it. And so I love the idea of stepping into things that require me like, well, demand that I become someone that I currently don't think I'm capable of being. I'm interested in that.  How would I have to handle myself? And what are the things that I would have to start taking on that right now I seem to be resisting? To me that's the land of milk and honey. We tend to over index our positive qualities because we're chasing the respect and adulation of others. And of course we want to fit in and we don't spend enough time really thinking about our deficiencies or the areas that are weaker. And I love your Simpsons character or a video game character. If you think about being level 99 at certain attributes is great, but you want to level up your character and those other attributes to get them to 99. That's the journey. Yeah, yeah, I say to people all the time, a great way to see that by the way is in finance. You say to somebody, give me your number. What's your number for next year? What do you want?   Like that's based on something. That's not just randomly plucked at the air. And if you investigate and you look and you get under the layers, you'll see that it's based on something called what you think you can do. Right, it's based on that, right? So people would say, I want to double my income and I want to triple my income. But you notice they don't say 20 times my income next year, why? Because they don't think they can do it. No, maybe they can. But what I want people to start to see is those limitations that for you don't seem like limitations. That's the problem with self-limiting beliefs to you. It's not a self-limiting belief to you. It's true. And then something that takes somebody like you guys or myself to come along and say, but where did you get that? Like how did you, like even people who went to college, why that pathway? Well, because at some level you thought you could do it. You never went the pathway of what you thought you couldn't do, even though that's the more interesting one. You went for what I can do. And that's, I just find that fascinating, our whole notion fascinating. Now, one of the distinctions that you talk about is the difference between assertive self-talk and narrative self-talk. And I think many of us fall into this trap, myself included, I'm trying, I'm going to, I'm going to try, and it works against us. It actually limits us in ways that we don't even realize our language comes into play. Let's unpack that for the audience, because I know many are trying to lose weight, trying to make that change. So I've got this, I'm on this little mission right now. I've got a war on words, right? Man, it's a war on words and phrases, right?   Like where are you going? Like tell me where you're currently at. So, and if I use that as an example, right? Like I'm getting there, what does that provide you with? Provide you with the illusion that you're somehow, and it's kind of this nebulous place that you had, right? But it's not measurable, really. It's not like, rather than saying, this is where I'm at. I'm working on myself, and this is where I'm at. Now that's real. That's very real, right? But words like trying, or my current one that I want to set fire to, or it's easier said than done. Ugh, oh.  Right, farting is easier said than done, right? Like everything's easier said.  So it's absurd. Like of course it's easier said than done. So what? So what? Like running a marathon, easier said than done. So what? Climbing a mountain, easier said than done. So what? Saying sorry, easier said than done. No, not actually.  So there are these kind of like little prison bars we set ourselves up with, with things like trying, or I'm getting there, or I'm gonna, which is, I mean, that's a phrase I don't say, right?  But I noticed that the more I said that, I never quite got there. So if I'm not doing it right now, it's not happening. So I'm gonna, it's just an illusion. For myself, I never thought of myself as a writer or somebody who was getting into writing, or it wasn't just, it wasn't something that I wanted to do. It never came into my vision. And it wasn't until I learned that very trick that the way you speak, the words that you use is dictating your world. And it was at that point that I began to keep a pages open on my phone and write thoughts out so that I could see exactly what they were and help myself out of my own prison that I've created by the language that I've used in that language is so ingrained. Of course, we're not gonna think anything of it. It's what my dad has told me. It is what my best friends had always said that I had been. And then you start to realize how easily influenced you are and how you pick up these ideas, these concepts and the words that you use and how they have impacted your life. It was at that point that I wanted to be a writer that I started to write more, to look at the words that I would use to explain ideas or situations. And my favorite was to travel alone. And especially in Europe where you see things that have been made hundreds or thousands of years ago and you're standing there awe inspired and to write down the thoughts and ideas that are flooding, that are just flying in so that I can see what true inspiration and something to aspire to actually looks like and defining it for myself. So I can truly understand and relate to the idea and the power of words and their impact and it's a beautiful thing. In fact, some of our classrooms, I dig into some of our clients as the words they used to describe their experiences.  However, it's not until they opened up and examined it or like, holy cow, this is the block that has been impeding me for years because it's how I explained my experience. Right, right. And so the best notion like, like if I asked somebody right then the life story and someone had lived their life alongside that person and I said, you should write yours too. They would not be the same even though they had both been there for all of those events. And then so people say, well, why isn't the story exactly the same? Because they're writing it from a very distinct place from a perspective. And we never relate to our life like it's a perspective. Like I'm just sitting in a certain place looking at it and describing it and language is the key. Like, you know, Wittgenstein said this but there was many, many, many philosophers talked about language is everything.  It's words live for you. You have an emotional attachment, a psychological attachment. You have a physiological experience of certain words. People say, well, words don't matter.  Right? Oh, yeah. Right, so what I want people to get is I don't want people to be careful about what they say. I want them to be curious about what they like. What are you saying? How are you saying it? How do you talk about yourself? Like a simple one for me is people who say like they ask for something but they can't barely get a sentence out of their mouth and they're given the person a reason why they can say no. Right? So it's like, you might not want to do this. You're probably really busy anyway but I'm having a party inside.  I don't want the discomfort of looking you in the eye and you say no. So let me get this in first. I'm creating a whole world there for myself rather than I'm having a party at seven on Saturday. Are you coming? Which just seems like a, you know so all the language that we're using it's constantly shaping our experience of this life. So your experience is shaped by the language you're using and it would be who viewed it kind of start paying attention to some of that shit. Well, the narrative self-talk as I've realized about myself is it's an excuse. We don't realize it but by verbalizing I'm doing something it lets us off the hook of the end result because we're telling ourselves and we're trying to share with others. Hey, there's effort here. You may not see it. It may not actually be appearing in my behavior but just so you know mentally for me there's a lot of effort going into not doing the thing that I said I was gonna do versus assertive self-talk I am you are stating who you are presently or who you want to become in that next present moment and it's not letting yourself off the hook and it's not pontificating to others which is so such a false mindset for us to unravel potential success. We don't realize that we're doing it. Assertive language is all about the current moment. It's right now.  It's like right now, I forgive you. That's an assertive statement, right? I forgive you and I'm forgiving you right now. People say, well, I don't feel like I forgive them.  We'll take it from there. I'm probably gonna be waiting on the field and he had to get the words out. So assertive language is almost like you acknowledge, you might feel one way. You acknowledge whatever way you've been but it's a current, it's like an end the moment experience of yourself or you like draw a line in the sand. This is who I am and this is what I'm standing for and this is what I'm about right now because again, that British philosopher Alan Watts talked of a time in a really brilliant way way more eloquently than I ever could but we live with the illusion of time. It's not a thing, right? It's an illusion of time that we have come up with. It's a construct to help us make sense of a reality. But the reality is there is only now. Your experience of now is now but you have brain patterns, you have thoughts. So people think I'm still in the past. No, you've got repetitive neuronal patterns that when they come up, there's an experience that's very familiar to you and similar to one that you had in a previous moment of now except now you're having it now. And so it's always something like a challenge for me to keep rediscovering the present moment because my brain wants no part of it.  So I gotta keep away from myself to the slumber. Now the new book, Y's AF, wisdom being wise, many of us envision comes with age and a lot of experience. And again, we will use that as an excuse. I'm inexperienced, I don't have enough information. Again, to keep us from our goals, our dreams, our beliefs, how do you define Y's and how does one become Y's AF in an environment like today where we're inundated with information that we're not acting on? Yeah, so I think the first thing you gotta really realize, there's a lot of things that you've experienced in your life and there's a lot of stuff that you have done and made mistakes with and yet you keep doing it. So it's not experience, right? Because if it was, you pretty much have the things squared away by about 25 because you've made most of your big blunders by then. There's probably still a few to come but you've made some of the big ones by then about love and loss and rejection and all that stuff by the time you're 25.  So wisdom doesn't necessarily grow with age, right? There's a lot of people way older than me are reading my books to get something for themselves, right? And I'm hardly a spring chicken. And then most, like I said, there's this idea like, well, like I won't do that again is some kind of wisdom. You know, as I said in the book, I got a five year old who practices that, you know, not doing that again, right? And that's actually a really bad practice. Like, you know, for instance, if I get in a relationship with someone and I say, well, I'm never gonna date somebody like that again, well, how would you know that like that? You're only going on that one person. Like now you're gonna use this as the template, therefore the past lives on. I would recommend you just go and get to know people newly and keep discovering people and finding out new things about them and come from a different perspective and see what's there. And if you wanna be in it, do it, if you don't, you don't. So for me, wisdom are the things and we talked about this kind of thing again and that you've wrestled with them, that you've thought about them, that you've applied them.  And then you're like, oh, damn. Which is why a lot of people say, yeah, that's not my kind of wisdom because you're suddenly getting confronted by shit that you need to handle. And you're like, well, there's gotta be another way. Is there another Scottish guy out there who writes books that I could read, right? But I really come to the place for people that I say, a good wisdom soaks the mass up. Like you can see it, it doesn't make it easy at the beginning, right?  Yeah, if I do this and do that, like that will straighten that out. There's some difficult conversations I need to have. There's maybe some big choices that I'm gonna need to make in my life, but I can see how that strengthens the pathway for me. So it starts to live for you and it's an ontological thing. It changes your experience of something. You start to see something in a different light and in that kind of seeing of it, as I like to say, when you see wisdom in your life, there's no unseeing it. It's there, like, oh, shoot, you can't ignore it.  All right. You know, right? And that just rung my balance. When I knew what responsibility was, I just couldn't blame anybody anymore. It wasn't even an option. It was like, I can't, no. Now I'm giving away all my power for what? No, not doing it. So like you said, you know, you need to wrestle with it. You need to think about it. You need to apply it. You need to distill in it. And you need to see it through. You don't just, people want to take things like this and just apply it to the life like an app. It's not like that. You know, it's, you gotta come from it, right?  I believe that was Heidegger's partner, Hannah Arendt, who said that philosophy is not to be just thought about in a cave or a candle. And it is about playing it out in life and see how it unfolds. Without that, it's just pontification. I wanted to ask you, I think a lot of people conflate the idea of getting older and wiser with becoming bitter or salty or hardened. And in reading your book, I felt that you have stated very well of about love and staying open to that and put in some ideas to keep from becoming hardened through life as life is a full contact sport. Could you speak a little bit about that and to your experience of doing that?  It becomes something monastic. And that's really contradictory because you are all the love that you'll ever have. Your real job is to find something that you'd like to express that with, not find it in. So the minute you start trying to find it or pursue it, you've lost it, right? It's like, it's like meditating. You only realize you were meditating after it.  Exactly, like if I fall asleep, I think I was meditating. I was doing it, I was doing it. It's after it. So love's kind of like that. Love's like the minute you put it out there as a target, you're done, right? It's a place that you can come from. And it's really easy in this life to get sour because we think love is a disappointment and it's not.  Disappointment sucks, right? It's disappointment. But it should never be confused with love, right? Like hurt should never be confused with love. They're not the same thing, right? Sometimes you end up with this experience of being hurt and I get that. And something you end up with this experience of being disappointed, that's right. But you should never let that stuff get in the way I love because ultimately that's your greatest expression as a human being, right? I mean, it doesn't get any better than love, right? There's nothing else.  Because that's when you settle as a human being, when you authentically love another.  And we sort of touched on this earlier that humans crave certainty.  So you are lost and many with the pandemic are now facing job loss, family loss, health issues, fear that they've never faced before.  So, you know, I subscribe to the notion that we are constantly living in complete chaos with an illusion of certainty.   You get like rocked by like, what do you mean you don't believe that anymore? Like it rocks people, right? Because that's your little milestone. But what I invite people to get is, look, you've always been great in uncertainty. You're thrived in uncertainty.  You're designed for uncertainty.    It might take you a while to work it out. So what I invite people to get is what we're doing right now is we're trying to have this reality, this like the scale is getting peeled off at eyeballs, right? And we're trying to get a match up with the certainty that we had. And that's the big upset. The big upset is this is not what was. So what do we do? We automatically try and make this, that, but it's not. It's a different world. So I say to people, look, why don't you get your nose out there and see what's actually happening and start to snap out the opportunity that's there, right? How do you say the world is filled with opportunity, right? Filled with opportunity that you're either adopting as your own or ignoring. Try on the idea you're ignoring. You're currently trying to get what's been revealed to match up with what's been and it doesn't match, they're not a match. And have a little more faith in yourself, a little more faith in your ability. You're, you know, and I really want people to get this. You are a quest for this, right?  Sure, you might want to read a book or do a class or to empower you to enliven you for sure. But don't start to relate to this like you can't do this or, you know, this is impossible for you. The only thing that's basically impossible is trying to recreate what's been, right? That was all an illusion anyway.  The future is unwritten. There's people, by the way, are going to come out of this and change society that if this never happened, they would never have done it. Absolutely agree. And taking that perspective into the future is more powerful than living in the past and hoping as a strategy that things will return to the way they were in 2019. We love having a challenge for our audience each week to unlock a new mindset or a view or perspective that they could apply in their life for meaningful change. And I know all of your books are filled with these exercises. Can you share one with our audience that could help tilt the scales towards them being more positive about the future?  Your future is always waiting to be created, right? So tomorrow right now hasn't been created in your mind, right? And there's lots of different ways it could go. And that people often can attempt for that future based on the past. And what I say to people is strike for the bold future, strike for something big for you. So it might mean, like the example that I like to use to people is to say, do you think it's easy to make 200 bucks a week or hard to make 200 bucks a week? And it depends who you're talking to. And somebody might say, it's hard to make 200 bucks a week. And I say, but it's no more difficult to make 2,000 a week. You're just in that world of 200, trying to solve all those problems. And you'll solve them and you'll make that two bells and that'll be it.  One that's beyond where you think you can get it done. So it might be something simple. I'm gonna go to the gym every day this week or I'm gonna work out every day this week at 6.30 and I've never done that, right? I'm gonna do seven days in a row, right? The job now is not to stay positive.  And so the practice that I invite people to take on is the practice of relating to what you promised is being far greater than anathon, but particularly what you're promising yourself. What you're telling yourself you're gonna do or I'm now getting myself on the hook for, that's a bigger deal than any promise you'll ever keep to anybody else.  So take on a practice a week or two weeks or a month of holding yourself to something and then noticing like all the resistance, all the pool, all the circumstances that come up that seemingly are getting in the way, but hold yourself true to the promise. And you'll realize that your life and your success is only ever, ever, ever a series of promises that you fulfilled on and that's it. It's a beautiful, beautiful exercise and it's often easier to share those promises with others and feel good about it than it is to hold that promise and that discipline to ourselves. So it's a very worthwhile challenge for our audience. We love ending every great conversation with our guests with a simple question, what is your X factor? That is, what makes you extraordinary? That I'm an ordinary man with an extraordinary purpose. Beautiful. And I love that you're sharing that purpose with others. And it's a really powerful message in a no-nonsense, no-BS way that Johnny and I absolutely loved as fans of self-development and not hearing this voice as much as we should. So thank you for joining us and having this conversation with us. We really appreciate it. And best of success with the new book, YZF. Awesome, thanks for having me, you guys.


I'm here, remember, I want to put all my weight back to my feet. The trick to being this is not allowing this ankle to come out of the mat. As soon as the ankle comes out of the mat, I'm in trouble. What's happening behind me, boom, I'm here. If I try to get up right here, you see that I'm in trouble. You see that I'm going to drive forward, boom, I'm in trouble. You want to make sure all the pressure comes out of that ankle. So boom, he drives, he drops the ankle, I just put the pressure back. Put pressure back, boom, I'm going to do this precision right here. Now look where we're at, same precision when we're working on this. Once again, Sandy drops there, boom, he's on the ankle, put pressure back, boom, pressure back, boom. Now I'm here. I want to make sure I'm not bending over here. You can cradle me, get me in trouble. Once again, boom, drop to the ankle, boom, pressure back, pressure back, pressure back here. Now you can rush in, push it forward, boom, boom, you get out. If you're fast and you can beat, you can do the wish of Wiper, that's also good. So he's here and he drops there, boom, boom, I'm here. Pressure forward, boom, boom, I'm out. Try that, one, two.


Welcome to Toffy TV, it is the Everton News Daily. Ella Sims has signed a new three-year deal with Everton, the 20-year-old striker pup enter paper on a contract that will run until the summer of 2024. The young forward who has been injured since the summer hasn't played any real competitive games at all and hasn't featured for Everton's first team as yet, has had a contract next summer so it's good for both the club and for Sims to get. That deal sorted out. He had a great loan spell at Blackpool didn't he last season's got ten goals from January onwards and missed out on the play-off final with injury, returned from that injury in September but then had a slight set back on his out again but is fit again now training with the first team and is absolutely delighted he said to sign a new contract that Everton said the club has looked after him, Everton's a massive club and I want to continue my development here. I spoke about his relationship with Rafa Benitez as well said the manager, it takes time to discuss things with him very carefully and being really supportive. One thing I guess to discuss with the Sims thing is will he go out on loan in January? Will Everton look to continue his development? We know that Blackpool are looking and sniffing around them again, Neil Chrisley had them last season and really liked them, they wanted them again in the summer obviously but the injury hadn't settled down. So it will be interesting to see whether they come back for them, they are of course in the championship now so it will be a step up for Sims playing at that level or maybe over the next few weeks the manager will have them with the first team, the manager will be able to see just how good he is maybe and maybe get a chance in the first team off the bench. Especially at the moment with Dominic Alvedluban still being out injured, there is an opportunity for someone to step in there and be the back up to Ritialis and Salomon Rondon, hasn't done it, hasn't been impressive enough to warrant that but is still obviously getting fit at all the time. Shane Tolson has just returned from a long term injury but he looks like he may be going in January so there is an opportunity there for Ella Sims to potentially force his way into the Rafa Benitez's thinking so the good news today Ella Sims has signed a new contract, there is still no word on Louis Dobbin, the club has been speaking to him with a view to a new contract, he is again another one who has had a contract next summer, he has been in Everton squad and been on the pitch in a few weeks. He has been in many games this season for Rafa Benitez and Everton are keen to get him tied down to a longer term contract as well, Dobbin is thought to be looking at all of his options before committing to a new contract at Gullison so we will keep you up to date with that once we get any more info on it. Tom Davies has sustained an injury in training and he will be out for at least a month with a knee injury. The midfield player who has made over 158 appearances for Everton has been, again, was looking to exploit the fact that Everton had been without Abdelai Decori and he was hoping to get cement a place in there but this injury going on top of the amount of injuries Everton have had already this season is very disappointing. The manager brought in Christian Fernandez as the rehabilitation expert and he is going to need all of that expertise to get these players back. Davies joins Andre Gomez who is still not right after a thigh injury on the sidelines and Everton do need to start getting all of their squad fit and available because without it we do struggle so Tom Davies looking like he is going to be out for around a month as well. Everton today again linked with a move for Manchester United midfield player Donnie van der Beek that is on loan in January. Everton almost got the player on loan in the summer transfer window before Manchester United pulled the plug. He is hardly featured for United so far this season and there are thoughts that this time the Manchester club are willing to let him go out on loan. The player himself wants to get out and play some football at the front of the queue for his signature for the rest of the season. It is getting to that stage at the moment now we are linked with a number of players each day but van der Beek certainly is one who has held an interest in so there could be something in that one definitely. And reports that they say that Everton may have Adelaide de Coray back in the squad for the trip to Manchester City on Sunday. That hasn't been confirmed anyway it was a story in the mirror. A Yeri Mina is training again and should be available for Rafael Benitez as side but it will be a huge boost if Adelaide de Coray was deemed fit as well Everton have missed him while he is being out. That is it for the news daily make sure you give the video a thumbs up, subscribe if you haven't and if you want more daily videos including live videos why not become a patron. We'll see you later.