The Right Questions with James Victore
The Right Questions is designed to help you get paid to do what you love and stay sane in the process.
The Right Questions with James Victore
Episode 43: Escape the Pull of Horseshit
If you are a stuck or frustrated creative and want to get paid to do what you love, let's talk. https://yourworkisagift.com/coaching
Ever feel like there's a constant battle between your creative dreams and the negative voice in your head?
You're not alone. The struggle between what James Victoria calls "the power of positive thinking" and "the power of horseshit" shapes our lives in profound ways we rarely recognize.
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All right, let's do this thing. That's right. You're in the right place. This is the Right Questions with me, your humble servant, james Victoria, and I've got something to say. So let's do this.
Speaker 1:When I was about 17 or 18, before I moved to New York City from my hometown I was miserable. I was in the middle of my first attempt at college. I was working a number of jobs, and one of which was a job I actually dug. I learned a lot. I learned a lot what I hated. I learned a lot what I liked, which is how it should work, right. But I was waiting tables at a small Italian restaurant called Anthony's Italian restaurant called Anthony's. Of course it was called Anthony's because it was an Italian restaurant. If it was an Italian pizza joint, it would have been called Tony's.
Speaker 1:And if you're ever in Plattsburgh, new York I don't know how long it's been since I've said those words Plattsburgh, new York, in the northeast corner of New York State, up near Burlington, vermont, across the lake from Burlington, vermont and just south of Montreal, go to Anthony's. It's probably the only good restaurant in Plattsburgh, new York still. But when I was there, they had a young chef At the time he was amazing and formidable chef. At the time. He was amazing and formidable. He was a fine character named Gary Danko, fresh out of culinary school also from upstate New York, but fresh out of culinary school and this was maybe his first or second restaurant job. Now today, Gary Danko owns a Michelin-starred restaurant in San Francisco named Gary Danko and if you can get in, go there. I think I would choose Danko over Anthony's any day. Needless to say, this guy is legit, right. He was pretty amazing and a big influence on me. I will always have a warm spot in my heart for my pal, gary Danko.
Speaker 1:One night after work I was sitting at the bar at Anthony's after hours with Gary and we were chatting and the owner, drew, got into the conversation and Drew started sharing a story um, um, a story and within this story I kind of got my my first lesson in uh, spirituality, right, gary, and Gary and Drew were on a different level than I was when I was, you know, 18. I think everybody was on a different level than I was when I was 18. But from this conversation it was my first foray into stepping away from pedestrian, normal upstate New York thoughts and into some form of consciousness. It took a little time for it to settle into me, but we'll get to that. The conversation wandered to a friend of Drew's who was reportedly ridding his body of cancer with only the support of clean foods. He was surviving on only green vegetables and fruits and nuts.
Speaker 1:Today we call that the Daniel diet. It's named after Daniel from the Bible, so the idea behind this fast is that you set aside animal products and unleavened breads and processed foods and caffeine and alcohol and eat only plant-based meals. Traditionally we do it as an act of worship or sacrifice, maybe for like 10 to 21 days, and in the Bible it actually says from this experience, daniel was said to gain knowledge, wisdom, spiritual understanding, favor and an even better appearance, and an even better appearance in addition to answered prayer and spiritual insight. So interesting thought this Daniel diet and cleaning your body and cleaning your mind with healthy, clean vegetables and fruits. Gary was well aware of the power of clean foods and he upped the ante with the idea that you can cleanse your body of illness or trauma or injury with only pure and positive thoughts, thoughts.
Speaker 1:This idea both blew my mind and somehow resonated within me. Needless to say, at the tender age of 18, I was pretty blown away. But also I felt like I already knew this, like it was information stored deep inside of me. It was just like, well, duh, you know my diet of pizza and beer. Where do you think that's going to go? But true to the meaning of this episode of the Right Questions, these ideas of generous thoughts and a sane diet would not be emphasized enough for me then to follow it for another like 20 to 30 years. Listen, I knew it, I felt it, I just wasn't ready for it. I was only ready to pollute my body with too much of everything. I was 18 and I was only ready to pollute my body with too much of everything. I was 18 and I was young and dumb and I had my eyes on other prizes.
Speaker 1:This idea of consciousness and the mind-body healing connection is something called the power of positive thinking, or I like to call it just believing in yourself. And this idea of the power of positive thinking, napoleon Hill, a mentor of sorts of mine. He hit upon it in his masterpiece of self-help literature. In his masterpiece of self-help literature in his 1937 book Think and Grow Rich. If you haven't read it, take a look. It was powerful and made sense then. And it's powerful and makes sense. Now, right, and what he was doing was he was just drawing on the stories of the millionaires of his generation. He literally went and interviewed, you know, the Fords and the Carnegies and the Edisons and the Vanderbilts and all the tycoons and the robber barons, basically, and asked them a series of questions about their success and what they attributed their success to, and from that he created his laws of success and they were mostly listen to this they were mostly about attitude. The 16 chapters, or the 16 lessons, include things like self-confidence and imagination, enthusiasm, self-control, accurate thinking Check that title accurate thinking, which is our aim here with this episode, profiting by failure. So it's a level of understanding failure and not letting it be failure, right, never accepting it as failure. Also, tolerance and even the golden rule. Each one of those could not only be an episode of the right questions in and amongst themselves, but an entire book, I mean entire libraries, are written about just the idea of tolerance or just the idea of the golden rule, right? So but check this out, that's 1937.
Speaker 1:Even earlier, even earlier than Hill was somebody who I have looked up to for such a long time, such a great writer, one of the best American thinkers to ever live is the 19th century American philosopher and what we largely consider the father of American psychology, william James. William James came from a fairly interesting New York city-based family. His brother is Henry James, who wrote a number of books, and probably the only thing you'd probably recognize would be the Gift of the Magi. Right, william James in the late 1800s check this out, late 1800s wrote this beautiful line. He says the greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude. How modern a thought is that? How beautiful an idea is that. Both of these men and their writings are great influences on me and also, obviously, my own book, effect Perfection. I like to think of Effect Perfection as thinking, grow rich with pictures, as Think and Grow Rich with pictures. But both these guys bring up the idea of how powerful our thoughts are right.
Speaker 1:So now it brings us to modern times and in a related and more current story, just a couple of days ago my dear pal Jeremy a follower of mine, longtime follower wrote me the other day and he wrote me to tell me he's quitting his job. So of course he got a big bravo and pat on the back from me, but he's quitting his job in order to listen to his creative voice. Right, and further, he was telling me that he was writing an article about it in order to help others. Bravo, fucking, oh, bravo. That is so cool, right.
Speaker 1:What Jeremy is doing is taking the chance, taking the time and the energy to believe in himself. And more than that. Not only that, he's listening to his creative voice, but he's not listening to the other voices. That's important. And by changing his thoughts, he is changing his reality and he changing his life and he's changing other people's lives. God damn, I have seen it in you already. I see it in Dan and his moth project already. I see it in the work that's coming up on Discord. Come on, you guys are so with it. You guys are so with it. You guys are so powerful. I'm so impressed. So Jeremy is telling himself, he's telling his body, he's telling his mind Remember Clear thoughts, clear foods. He's telling himself, his body, his mind, the world, his friends, his partner and the universe that he believes in himself. And you know what happens when you do that. Everybody listens. Everybody listens to Jeremy and says, oh, you're doing that now. Okay, damn, I love that story.
Speaker 1:Now here is the interesting part, here is the dangerous idea, and here's where the right questions brings us, because for every poll that is positive, for everything that's moving Jeremy forward, there's an equal and opposite negative pull. So the opposite of the power of positive thinking is the power of horseshit. You heard me right. The power of horseshit, the power of negative thinking, the power of the lies we tell ourselves hey, I got it, I'm there. You know me too, I'll put up my hand. Yeah, me too. You may see me as a particular figure of wisdom and creative energy, and most of that is true, but the tug of that 18-year-old poopy head is still strong in me, is still strong in me. I mean, it's an interesting story, right? I mean, we're all born wildly creative. We're all born perfect. None of us are born with self-loathing or worry or self-worth issues, right? So where does it come from? Right, when we're kids, we're beautiful, but it comes to us in a spoonful or a tablespoonful or a bushel or a peck over time. And it's important that we start paying attention to that, because I love it. I love it when I see people teaching graphic design, for example, or teaching skills, painting skills and tools and tricks and teaching how to use the computer and teaching AI and all that. But, guys, the tools and everything outside of you, anything you can hold in your hand or anything you type, is bullshit if you haven't taken care of the horse shit right? Another hero of mine, carl Jung.
Speaker 1:You might know Carl Jung, the psychologist and writer and philosopher. One of his main contributions is this idea about our subconscious right. And you know what the subconscious is. The subconscious is your inner critic. It's that stupid little voice that tells you no, you can't. And I got news for you. That stupid little voice that tells you, no, you can't is not your voice. It may sound like you, but it is not your voice. You pick that up over time. It is your parents. It is whoever raised you, but it is not your voice. You pick that up over time. It is your parents. It is whoever raised you wrong. It is some stupid-ass priest who told you you couldn't do something, or some religion that told you you can't do something. It's something that some friends said when you were a kid. Or some stupid teacher who did something innocuous like told you you wouldn't be good in math or that art doesn't pay. And voila, we start living it.
Speaker 1:So Carl Jung talks about this idea and he says unless we make our unconscious conscious, meaning we take those inner critic that those pre-recorded voices, those lies we tell ourselves, unless we make them conscious and try to see them, try to write them out, unless we make our unconscious conscious, it will direct our lives and we will call it fate and James Victoria will call it horseshit. Because the power to change is so well within your reach and I have urged it and spurred it on in so many of you, and I have seen the beautiful changes that can take place if you stop believing in horseshit. Right now you're thinking, oh man, I wish James Victoria could be my mentor, my guru, hell, I wish he was my coach. Well, you can make that happen. Go to yourworkisagiftcom. There's a questionnaire that will probably help you out, but it'll also give you access to a free call. So let's talk. Let's free you from overwhelm and creative frustration. Let's build your business and help you get paid to do what you love. Again, go to yourworkisagiftcom. Let's talk. Your work is a giftcom. Let's talk.
Speaker 1:Listen, I see horseshit all the time. I see it on my Instagram comments when people say yeah, but I'm like, oh really. And I say, but as in B-U-T-T, right, you got a big butt, all of your stinky excuses. I hear it in my coaching clients, like people who are entrepreneurs and solopreneurs I like that word solopreneurs, I know it's a weird word, I call it solopreneur Teachers and creatives, all brilliantly smart people, but they carry around a level of horseshit, right, we get so tethered, so tied down, so beholden to the power of horseshit, because we somehow believe it's true, Because we're so used to saying it over and over and over to ourselves.
Speaker 1:It's become a habit. That's all it is. It's a habit and it comes as resistance and it comes as fear, but it's all the same. It's the power of horseshit. So why can't we make the changes in our lives that we know in our gut, that we know in our gut are necessary? Right? Because, just like that beautiful baby you were born into, you are perfect, you were creative and you had play and you had freedom, and now you've got a level of horseshit, and whether it's ankle deep or knee deep or elbow deep or earlobe deep, we have to get out of it, and we all have perfectly good reasons why there's a certain amount of horseshit in our lives, right, and the biggest reason is the pull of society, the pull of the crowd around you.
Speaker 1:You know the fear that we hear all the time. You know it's so funny to think about. You know we wake up every morning. We've got these beautiful ideas. I've got this idea I want to change the world. I want to do this and do this and do this and do this.
Speaker 1:And right after that thought comes the power of horseshit. All these negative reasons, all these perfectly good reasons why it won't happen, and all of those good reasons are driven by other people. They're driven by other people. We have to get rid of those. None of them are true. They're driven by other people. We have to get rid of those. None of them are true. None of them are true.
Speaker 1:Right, I was having a conversation just the other day and the idea that I was creative came up to a quote-unquote non-creative. And they told me about all the other people in their lives who were talented. Like they were not, like they were not. And even we, even us creative types, people who have a song left to sing in them. You know we come up with that occasionally, that you know that we're not talented enough. And here I am, here to tell you no one, no one, no one is more talented than you are. There are people who are more practiced than you. That is it. That is it. There is no talent. It was not. It was not doled out in different amounts to every child that went through on the conveyor belt, right, henry Ford and God are up there making babies and you know, putting talent in some and not to.
Speaker 1:This one's going to be a factory worker Sorry. This one's going to be a UPS driver Sorry. This one's going to be a bartender for life, sorry, right. Oh, there's an artist. There's an artist, right. It doesn't work like that. There are only people who are stronger than the power of horseshit and who practice. That's it. People who can get out of the muck and mire of other people's thoughts, of the pull of negative energy, of the pull of horseshit, and get out there and practice on a daily basis. That is it. You know. I hear it when I hear when people say, oh, that works, that's okay for you because you're James Victoria. That is horseshit. I am James Victoria because I am doing and did exactly what I'm talking about. I'm fighting myself every day. I'm trying to get bigger every day. I was born wildly creative and I will die wildly creative because I will not let that go Right. I am that James Victoria because I've practiced to be that James Victoria, because I've created a reputation being that James Victoria and that sounds ballsy, even as I say it right now, but that's what it takes and that's what people want from you. On top of it, that's what people want from you.
Speaker 1:I have a friend, a very prolific writer, john Acuff, a-c-u-f-f, a super sweet guy. On Twitter the other day he wrote something that I thought was pretty charming, pretty funny. On Twitter the other day he wrote something that was I thought that was pretty, pretty, pretty charming, pretty funny, and he wrote that the the expression must be nice. You know, when people say that to you, you're like, wow, it must be nice. He said that's Latin. It's a Latin expression, for I'm overcome by jealousy, but too afraid to change my own life to achieve what you have. Gee, that must be nice. Basically, I wish I could have that.
Speaker 1:Well, you can, and the only reason you can't is you've got horse shit right. And what does it take to get out of that horse shit? It takes an effort, a modicum of effort, a little bit of effort and effort sounds hard, right? Oh God, it's effort. You got to make an effort. You know that's my mom. Oh well, it takes an effort. Let's not do that, right, you can't do that. Effort sounds hard, like work. Yeah, it is work, but it's the best effort you'll ever spend, the best work you'll ever do, because you know what ever spend the best work you'll ever do, because you know what you get to believe in yourself. How awesome is that? Yes, you have to change, and change is scary. But here's check this out. You know what's more scary? Being an artist stuck in a barista's body. That's scary. They should make some like a Halloween kind of movie. You know they should make a Halloween movie about that the artist stuck in the barista's body, coffee artist now playing.
Speaker 1:You know the reason we believe this stuff is because these fears they all, seem real. They seem real Because the horseshit is real and it's heavy. But what are we going to believe in? Are we going to believe in the horseshit, or are we going to believe in those beautiful, lofty goals that we had, or have the dreams that we hopefully don't trade off so we can pay rent? You know the dreams that we think about, or even mood board about that. Keep doing that. That's the path, that's the way. Keep fantasizing about what you want. That's how we show our belief to it. Keep thinking about it, keep committing to it, keep taking the first step by expressing it to the world.
Speaker 1:Like my friend Jeremy, we have to believe that we're worthy of a brighter, a better, a more profitable future. That's where the power lies. And I have seen and should document, should go back and have conversations about this document people who've quit their day job. They were afraid, they were afraid to quit their day job. They were afraid, they were afraid to quit their day job. I get it. That's scary. Because they got a family, because they got bills, and now they're following their dream and making more money than they would have with their job and they're happy. How about that? That's power, that is going against the negative pull of horseshit and we have to understand this.
Speaker 1:Why is the pull of horseshit so freaking strong? And here's the worst reason I can come up with, here's the scariest thing that I can come up with. Because it's normal, because addressing life with a horse shit attitude is acceptable and normal. That's it. You've seen it, you've heard it. You go ask your friends, you go hang out at the bar or wherever you have your pity potty and you go hey, how's work. And they go. Eh, how's work. And they go. Eh, it's work. You lose the floor. Should drop out underneath that person and they should go pew, try again. Right, that's horse shit. Eh, it's work.
Speaker 1:The fact that the majority, more than half of people hate their jobs or find them unfulfilling is horseshit. That is so sad. But it makes it acceptable to complain, right, and complaining is not only not conversation, it's horseshit. And more than that, complaining is unhealthy. Complaining creates stress. We get into the habit of complaining and then all we can see is the negative of anything right, and that creates a negative attitude in our head. Attitude in our head, and that level of the pull of horseshit starts seeping into our body, with all the cortisol and all the adrenaline from these lazy, inaccurate thoughts Br brought on by complaining.
Speaker 1:It's also normal because we see it everywhere, everywhere this horrible idea that women are castrating shrews and men are idiots and children know better than their parents. We see that everywhere. We see it on TV shows, we see it in advertising, we now see it in memes and yes, yes, they are a lie that illustrate the truth and they are the truth, but they're not the truth for you. They're the truth for the average person. They're the truth for the unsatisfied and unhappy who wish to wallow in it with a G and T Right. You, you, my loves are different. You were born wildly creative and you will not let go of that if I have anything to do with it. Because this is your path, your golden ticket, your way to the future believing in yourself and envisioning your future in its most perfect form, fantasizing about it, thinking about it, writing it down, sharing it with friends all the time. And here's the funny thing, you start sharing it with friends. You're going to hear their tolerance of horseshit. You're going to start a business in this economy.
Speaker 1:As I said before, here's a little truism, right, I do suffer the pull of horse shit. I do, I do and we all do. I mean, for me, it's so easy to see the dark side. Maybe it's just how I was raised, I don't know. Maybe it's the drama queen in me, I don't know. But listen, I've begun to work on it. I've begun to study more intently, not just write about it, not just teach it, which is a great way, but just to do it for me, right? I'm literally we'll call it seeking the way to happiness, and one thing I do is beginning every morning. Now I sit down and I go outside at like super early in the morning in the dark, sit in my little comfy chair and I write at least one person in my life a big, honest thank you. I create a token of gratitude and appreciation that someone in my life exists. That's it.
Speaker 1:So there are ways to counteract, to free yourself from the pull of horseshit. So, my dear friends, we need to understand this, that the pull of horseshit is only a thought, really, and we can change our thoughts. It's like selecting wildflowers from amongst the manure right, selecting the beautiful amongst the weeds. So pick a few beautiful flowers, put them in a place where you can see them all the time and get your mind and your thoughts aligned to that beautiful place, and I will meet you there. I'm James Victoria. This is the Right Questions. You guys, you guys are awesome and you got this. I know this for a fact because I do too. Adios.