EP17: The Artist’s Way - If You Lose, You Win

It’s no surprise that perfectionism takes many artists and creatives out of the game. On today’s episode, the girls walk through a chapter of their book club pick The Artist’s Way, unpacking the art of failure. And guess what? You never really lose so long as you’re actually trying. Also included in this episode: fangirling over Olympic figure skater Alyssa Liu’s child-like wonder and falling in love with an elephant in the Serengeti. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hi, I'm Vanessa Simone.

SPEAKER_00 0:02

And I'm Mimi Hayes.

SPEAKER_02 0:03

And we are the next moment laughing because maybe turned into a Gen Z in literally the last three minutes.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

I'm saying weird things today.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Um, I looked at Vanessa, and we were talking about the episode we're gonna do today, um, The Artist Way, if you're curious, and I said Hundo P. And I was like, Hundo P. Do you have to I was like, do you have to go pee? Hundo hundred pee percent. Hundo P.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

And I genuinely haven't heard of that until today, three minutes ago.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

I don't even know if it's that popular. Maybe I maybe then I don't know. I must have heard it before somewhere. Anyway, I'm not Gen Z. I'm a cringe millennial.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

We're both cringe millennials.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Um today we we have a really fun topic today. Uh we've been in a book club for two months now uh for The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

This is a very old book, I feel. It's like 25 years old now. It's a year edition. Um, so it's it's probably a book you've heard of or you've seen the cover of. Um and I guess Vanessa, walk us through why did we pick this book and what are we what are we focusing on today?

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Well, we picked this book because many of us and our friends, I think we're a lot of closeted artists, and we're trying to come out the closet as an artist and really turn that into our lives and embody it. And this past week we were in chapter seven, which is recovering a sense of connection, and there were a lot of gems in here that we would like to share with you, and so that's kind of why we decided to go about this.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

But one yeah, that's just gonna say the whole the whole book is laid out like a 12-week-long program. So you read it every week and you do these certain activities, and the whole goal is to get you back to your childhood artist, the one who made macaroni portraits and put on plays and put on makeup and experimented with stuff and things. Um, and so at some point we all were talked out of being that person and that version of ourselves, and we were told to grow up, and we were told to get a job and make money and go to college and do all these things. And so this was really a it's a recovery, and it's kind of mimics like an alcoholics anonymous recovery. Um, with that, there's a sense of um the word God is mentioned, and it's it's very important to note that when Julia Cameron says God, she makes it very clear. I'm not saying you should believe in God or not. What I'm saying is you need to connect to a higher power, which is also a part of AA, right? Is some kind of spirituality, right? To get you through to the other side of an addiction, you need something bigger than you. And so that's what she means when she says God. She can also, you can also replace it with spirit, universe, universe.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

I like universe, I like universe, I like mother god energy, you know.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Um, and so I think that's important to note because we did get some back uh pushback on that from a few of the book club members who are like, God, what about God? I don't this is not God book. Um, but yeah, so that was something I wanted to just briefly let the audience know that's what you're getting into. Um, so we're talking about week seven, which is about connection. And uh V, what's what's a good quote that you want to start us off with that really um lured you in?

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Yeah, one of the quotes that really lured us in is when we're creatives, we tend to become perfectionists, and we almost don't take the risk because we're afraid that we're going to lose or we're not good enough to do something, to start something. This chapter is about being bad, being bad at something. And so um, there was in the movie Raging Bull, boxer Jake Lamoda's manager, brother, manager brother explains to him why he should shed some weight and fight an unknown opponent. After an intricate spiel that leaves Lamoda baffled, he continues, so do it. If you win, you win, and if you lose, you win. And that's kind of what we want to name this episode today is if you lose, you win. Because we tend to, especially as artists, we don't even start because we're so caught up in that perfectionism. And there was another quote in here about perfectionism, and perfectionism is not a quest for the best, it is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, and that part tells us nothing we will ever do will be good enough, and that we should not try again. And so we should try again. Yeah, we should try again.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

And that's what you know, writers especially, you can this the self-edit, right? It's the it's perpetual self-edits. I'm gonna edit my first paragraph until my face turns purple, because it's never gonna be good enough, right? And it's not about being perfect, like you said in the quote says, it's about focusing on the worst and being afraid of making a mistake when when you're actually there, like the boxer, right? Um, if you lose the match, you still have won because you learned something, you grew as an individual, as a creative, as an artist. Um, and I can tell you too, I didn't choose a whole career because I was I didn't I wasn't good at it. I wanted to be a fashion designer. I wanted to, you know, design clothes and outfits and scenery. I thought being on film set and designing set pieces. My aunt was a costume designer for one of the bigger theaters in Denver. I grew up with this kind of like, oh, what a cool job to have. And I will never forget uh the comment was, and I was bringing that up because I thought maybe I should go to design school. I should go to a school for fashion design. And one of my parents said, Can you draw though? Can you draw? I'm like, um, no. And I'm like, you know, 17, 18 at the time. And I'm there are kids my age, you know, teenagers my age who can draw, who are in art class with me and are better. I don't even I'm not even in art class. Like I'm taking theater, you know, I I do hockey, but I'm not I can't draw for shit. So I took myself entirely out of the game because I was like, well, I can't do it. And there was no room for the learning process and being bad at something. And in comedy too, like you have to be bad to get good.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

Yeah, in anything, you have to be bad to get good. I wasn't always good at photography, I'm still not the best, and I'm now entering into videography. I'm not good at it. I'm really, it's so hard for me, but I'm practicing. Last year I started doing ice skating and I'm still not good at it. Really? Yeah, I didn't know this. Yeah, I mean, I'm I haven't done it for a while.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

So well then let's go tomorrow. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

She's a queen ice skater here. She literally plays like let's go, let's go skate. But yeah, we and so I'm still learning, but it's if I never start, if you you could still be in the the perfectionist mindset, and you'll never get anything done because you are you think that it has to be perfect. And I actually want to talk about because the Olympics are going on, and there's an Olympian, her name is Alyssa Liu, and I hope I'm pronouncing her her her name correctly. But there was an interview where a reporter was asking her something along the lines of what did you do to prepare to beat XYZ team and this, this, and that. And she pretty much said, I actually don't even think about that, because she said, What I like to share about myself is my story, my art is and my creative process. I guess messing up doesn't take away from that. It's still something, it's still a story. A bad story is still a story, and I think that's beautiful. And there's no way to lose. So she has a completely different mindset going into the Olympics than a lot of the other Olympians. Olympians are going in, and a lot of times athletes or creatives were going into something to beat someone else instead of doing it for the art of simply we love it. We simply love it. And this Olympian, she actually retired at age 16 because she wasn't loving it, right? She was burned out. She was burnt out. You and she was burnt out because she wasn't doing it her way, she was doing it the way that everybody else told her do it. And I think we, I mean, our last um episode on the podcast was talking about travel. And honestly, before I went on this trip, I was burnt out. I was burnt out because I've been realizing I've been kind of confined into a life that has been kind of created for me versus a life that I'm creating for myself. And so that has been a realization. But even within our art, it's you have to do it based off of what you want to do, not based off of what Mimi does or what who so-and-so does. And I think that also ties into the jealousy aspect, which I know we've talked about before, but when you are actually loving something and you're doing it from your soul's satisfaction, because your soul is set on fire, because you just love it, it ends up being incredible because you your authenticity is showing, which I know authenticity is such a cliche word right now, but it's coming from you with no rules, no regulations. Your true inner child is basically blooming and popping out.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

And you can tell that with Alyssa's skating versus the other skaters, you know, when they make a mistake, I remember, I can't remember, I think it's Amber, Amber Glenn. Um, amazing skater, neurodiverse, super amazing human. But she was really, really just disappointed when she made a mistake. She made one mistake, and it cost her, you know, these it's a very um intense sport that the slightest misstep of your skate can cost you so many points. And so at the end of her skate, she went like this, she with her little hand, and she went this close. I was this close. And she was like, dang it, you know, like I was this close. And it was so different than Alyssa's skate. She didn't make any mistakes that I saw, but she had a smile on her face the whole time. And when she was done, she was like, I don't even care what happens. And you see that in how she treats the other athletes, you know, the I think the silver and bronze, she goes up and she's hugging them. She's not taking the moment even for herself because she's like, You won, you're gonna do it. You won too, yeah. You're a winner, and it's just because I have the gold and you don't, doesn't make me better than you, you know. And I think we've seen a lot of athletes, you know, kind of choke under the pressure. And I think that's that's why Alyssa won, is because she took the pressure off and she was like, if I get up there and shit the bed, so be it. Yeah, and it's a story. It's a story, and she can get on a podcast and talk about it and write a movie about it, you know. Like that's a thing too, is is a lot of, and we're talking a lot about athletes, but I think creatives and artists are the same. Is like you have a big loss and a big failure, that becomes your defining moment. Like that becomes your purpose, your drive, your story. Like, and I hate JK Rowling, but like she was rejected X amount of times, right? Before Harry Potter. Like, you look at any artist, these big artists, actors, you know, like they didn't get bit until they're in the 60s or 70s, um, because they just kept getting no's and Viola Davis, like Viola Davis, and like just being told no and no and no and no. And so you just keep going and you see those no's as yeses, and you go, okay, cool. So they didn't like me, so what? I like me, and I'm gonna keep going and I'm gonna keep fighting and keep making my art. And that, you know, we have an episode about green lighting yourself, you know, making yourself the CEO of your project, the director of your own life and the main character of your own life. Um, and I think that's super apparent in um Alyssa's story, especially.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

Absolutely. I also so I used to be an athlete, and now I'm remembering, I remember there was one track meet where I completely flunked, failed this this race because and I knocked over hurdles, I fell, everything was just terrible because I was so much in my head thinking I have to beat, I have to beat, beat, beat, instead of just run, just have fun and run. You love running fast, just do that. And it's all going back to just make sure that you're in it for the art, for the love of whatever it is, and it goes, it also reminds me of I think it was a quote or something, maybe I don't know if I said it or you said it or somebody, but we will never be as good as the people who just love it for the art of simply loving it. Because how can you fake passion? You can't, you cannot fake passion, you cannot fake that you love something so much. Like, for instance, my dad, he is he loves he's a businessman and he loves engineering. I went to school for engineering many, many mainly because of him, but do I love it to the extent that he does? No, he's up day and night thinking about the business, thinking about this and that, and I am not, but you know what I am passionate about? This, what we're doing right here. I know that I can be my best self, and I give a hundred, I give so much of myself to this. Oops, sorry, this and the things that I love because it's what lights up my soul. I know like whenever we work on like today, I've been working on, I've made three YouTube videos that I just need to publish. We've done two podcasts now. And why does the day feel so fast? And I could do this every single day until I die. Because that's where my soul lives, that's where my passion is, is doing these creative things. And I'm about to go put my prints up on Etsy, and it's when you find what it is for you, and that's actually another quote Alyssa has, but um, yeah, she said, when you follow your heart and do what you want, things just flow. And so, especially in this year of the fireworks, which happy Chinese New Year if you are Chinese and celebrate. Um, but this is the year of I think just embodying exactly who it is that you are meant to be. And you, Mimi, what I'm so proud of you with is you've been doing that because this year Mimi's already booked for so many gigs more than she has been last year at all. Like, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Yeah, in the total year I did, I didn't have any paid speaking gigs. I had one gig that I did for free, and I was a little resentful. So I don't count that as like experience. It doesn't count. It doesn't count, right? I was a story. I got to see my friend. I offered up my time for free. Um, but this year is quite a different story. And um, I'm booked and busy, and part of me is is so nervous about delivering, right? Like I booked, I booked the biggest gig, the most money I've ever charged for a gig before, an hour of stand-up comedy at a college in an auditorium, and they're making a backdrop and they have they they just wrote a piece about me that I forgot that they did. Like they interviewed me for it, I approved it, but it came out and I was like surprised. I was like, oh what? Like, wait, they wrote a piece about me. Um, but you know, I set Google alerts on myself, which this is kind of funny. Like, I I have Google alerts for certain celebrities, like um, we talked last episode about Britt Marling, which is a uh filmmaker that I love. So I'll set a Google alert so that when the internet pops up something about the celebrity will in my in my email, it will tell me, hey, Britt Marling is doing such and such. Um, which is good if you're in the industry and you're trying to have a reason to go talk to somebody and they just put out a project, you can be like, hey, I just saw you just put out your Netflix series. I want to say congratulations. And also I'm working on X, right? So I have one of those set on myself just because I'm like kind of curious if anyone's gonna say anything about me. That's so smart. Nine times out of ten, it is uh an obituary for a different Mimi Hayes, an elderly woman who passes away. Oh my god. And so I was like, oh, another Mimi Hayes passed away, and I opened my inbox and they're like, no, the Fort Lupton Press, this comedian has taken the stage. And I was like, Oh, it's me. Yay! But I wanna I want to talk about the failure piece as well. Cause you know, I get nervous and my can I really live up to the hype? You know, I look at my resume and it is impressive, but am I going to deliver when I get on stage and am I gonna bomb? And that's you know, in the industry in comedy, what you call a total failure is a bomb, right? Um, but then I think about this alternative comedy form called clowning, and it is not what you think about clowns like red noses and painted faces and blue animals. It's actually all about failure. And I learned about clowning when I lived in LA a couple years ago, and it was just this quirky, weird art form where you get to be a total idiot, and there's a whole workshop there called the idiot workshop, and it's all about failure, it's all about getting on stage and shitting the bed and embracing it and being like, How can I make myself so uncomfortable on stage that I'm squirming and I I don't know what to do next? What do you do on stage when that's how you feel? And so it was great exposure therapy because I'd show up to class and I'm like, I have nothing prepared. I have to get on stage and shit the bed. And like you just have to like fail. And it that's what it's praises the failure. It's like, how big can I fail? And I've seen clowns who are like, you find your clown, right? You find your essence of your clown, and some of them are like huge fuck-ups. I saw a guy fall down a set of stairs in a theater, and you know, he was clumsy and he broke things and he broke the microphone, he ripped his pants, and like just the most embarrassing things you could think happening, but it's all we're all laughing and we're all enjoying it because that's what clowning is. And so I I say that to kind of bring that option to you is it's like, how can you use that as like, hey, this is something that's actually quite valuable to me, is this kind of failure. And if it does happen, how do I recover? I'm always super interested in if I tell a joke and nobody laughs, I'm interested in how I'm gonna respond. And sometimes that response actually gets a laugh because I'm not panicking, and I'm like, okay, so you didn't like it. That's okay. Other people like that joke, it might just be you, and then people start laughing because they're like, oh, she's comfortable failing, she's okay to fail. Yeah, right. And those are the best kinds of artists that I'm you know into is artists who are like, hey, that sucked. And you know, pull out that quote um about the George Lucas um studio. So, okay, here's a quote from the artist's way. I'll look like an idiot, we say, conjuring images of our first acting class, our first hobbled short story, our terrible drawings. Part of the game here is lining up the masters and measuring our baby steps against their perfected craft. We don't compare our student films to George Lucas's student films. Instead, we compare them to Star Wars. Um, so you know, and maybe this was this actress's name. Jennifer Coolidge. Um, Jennifer Coolidge said this in an interview once. She was like, you know, my favorite thing to build confidence is to watch people's shitty films. And to watch, like, go back to your favorite actor and watch their first movie. It's terrible. They're all terrible. Um, Robin Williams, his first film from being in the TV world, moving into film was Popeye. Popeye, where he's dressed up like literal Popeye with an eye closed, and it's a terrible movie. It did awful. And like that's Robin Williams. Like, we love him. And so it's like if he's gonna make that movie and he's gonna bounce back, so am I. And I'm not meant to be amazing right now, I'm meant to be bad, and that's okay. It's okay to be bad at something. You have to be bad to then go on and learn and be so much better.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

Even your favorite singers, your favorite like Olivia Dean. I mean, her first song, her very first song, even watching because Bridgerton's also going on right now, and I'm watching the fourth season, and I was looking at the actress, the um, I think her what's her name? Yen Yemen? Yesin? I can't remember, but she's the new lead in this season, and I was looking back on her she's been around forever, and her first work, I can't remember what it was called, but it wasn't the greatest, you know. But we tend to think because I'm starting to try and get in a little bit more into videography and filmmaking, and I'm looking at some of these YouTubers, and their first video when they're on camera is terrible. They're awkward, they're slurring their words. I've done the same, but I can't compare my current videos where I'm still learning, I'm still Growing to a freaking production. I want, and I also one day want to do like a produce my own TV series and stuff. And I'm over here thinking I have to make it as good as I just saw like the Jurassic World movie and the underwater scene. And I'm like, I don't have that equipment. I I'm not as good.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Girl, what are you talking about? Girl, what are you talking about? Nobody expects you to have that equipment. Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

So it's it's it's like get back to you need to remember that it's okay to take the baby steps, the baby steps, and not compare your baby steps to whatever. And I think that also kind of helps with if you're feeling jealousy or anything, because sometimes you see, because I think the other day we were talking about how you saw one of your comedian people, they're like, they booked a 75 city show. She's booked.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

And so then I asked Mimi, I was like, Well, Mimi, are you ready for that? Can you do 75 shows? If they booked you right now, would you be down for that? And I'm like, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

So it's baby steps because and I know you're going to get there. You will absolutely get there. It's totally what you're doing. We have to learn. And like, actually, this because um I'm starting to do more travel content as well, too. And my friend Laura and I, we've been reaching out to hotels because we're going to Vail on Thursday, and I'm trying to reach out and reach out, and I've reached out to so many hotels. My first pitch was terrible. Um, but I'm also just like, well, you know, if we get it, we do. If we don't, we don't. But as as long as we try, and then we're basically creating the luck for ourselves. And you can only create the luck for yourself if you're actually doing something, if you're actually working towards something. And so I actually called, I think I've mentioned this in a previous podcast, but um, I made a list of it's called my lucky 1000, and it's basically just anything that I want to do, whether it's applying for a school, whether it's getting a hotel gig or a brand gig or whatever gigs or anything that I want to do with my life. And this is a great exercise for if you feel kind of scattered, but is literally everything and anything you want to do, put it in a list of up to a thousand or beyond things that you want to do. And as you're applying and knocking those off, you just put it in the list and then you let it go. Because especially for me, being someone who is a multi-passionate, who doesn't know exactly where I want to go, I'm just gonna let the universe, I'm gonna put it out there and be like, oh, I want to get this gig. Like we just signed up on backstage. Okay, I'm doing these auditions, doing these things, doing this, whatever. Whatever comes first, that's what's gonna happen for me. Because I don't know what I want to do next. I have too many things I want to do next. So whatever's gonna come to me first, that's what I'm gonna just do.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

I'm gonna apply to Cirque du Soleil. Dude, wait, that is so cool. I saw this on I saw this on Instagram. So they're they said they're looking for funny clown women female identifying clowns. And I haven't looked at the application process yet, but I just saw the post and I sent it to myself. And I was like, yeah, I'm gonna apply for that.

SPEAKER_03 25:20

Why not?

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Because how crazy would that be to get a call from Cirque de Soleil be like, hey, we're booking you to be our clown for this year's show. Like I would drop, I would drop everything. Yeah, like that's the thing too, is like you're being open to the universe to have this opportunity. You put yourself out there, even if your audition tape is terrible, like you don't know. They could look at that audition tape and be like, She's so endearing. I love her so much. That was such a bad audition, but let's let's call her. Let's call her. You know, you don't know, and that's that's where you're making your own luck because you're putting the intention out there. And we made these intentions um during winter solstice, uh, right around the same time we started the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 26:01

I forgot to do it. I should probably do that.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

I didn't do it. Um, where you made 12, no, 13, because you you burned them every day for like certain amount of days of the of the winter solstice. And I I don't know the exact rules. I may have done it incorrectly. I think you weren't supposed to look at which one you were burning, like it was supposed to just be just so that you get to the 13th manifestation, and that's the one that you are supposed to in theory focus on. But I was looking at them the whole time. I got kind of upset when certain ones I wanted to be the last one standing got burned. And I was like, what do you mean? I'm not gonna have 12 speaking gigs this year. Um of course I'm like at three or four right now, and we're not even in you know, March yet. So that's obviously coming true. And you know, the one that was the last one burned was actually travel, which is their last episode. But it was that I'm gonna travel to new places and have new opportunities in different places I've never been.

SPEAKER_02 26:57

And you're already gonna do that.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

And I'm already doing that. Wow, look at that. Um, you know, you really have to bring that into your intentionality as a creative and reach for the stars. I mean, sometimes I question if my goals are too big and too crazy because I have some friends and they're like, hey, my goal is to like try a new hairstyle this year. And I'm like, okay, I want to make a fucking Oscar worthy film.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

I'm like, I need to make my mermaid TV series and it needs to come out in 2027, January 1st, and I have no equipment and I don't even know how to film underwater.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

It sounds crazy, but like I know you're gonna do it, and it may look different, right? It may take a certain amount of time, you may get sidetracked, you may do the TED Talk first, you may be get on Cirque du Soleil. Like, those are all things that are gonna lead you into the right direction. And so you're just giving yourself more opportunities to connect to the universe, and again, that's the the artist way is like higher purpose. Yeah. Because if you're just in your own head, and a lot of art is really solitary and individual, right? It's not really a group sport what you're doing sometimes. So if you can connect to something bigger than you and be like, I'm going to manifest into the universe this idea that I'm going to do this thing. Um, another great book we should probably bring into the fold is um B is it Big Magic?

SPEAKER_02 28:26

Big Magic, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

Yeah, I always talk about big magic. Everyone that I talk to knows that I love this book. I practically should have been a big book.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

She gave it to me for my birthday. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Yeah. So it's it's like the same idea that you uh put into the universe. Actually, it's the universe puts into you. The universe says to you, here's a book idea. And so you you wake up, and I've done this too. You wake up from a dream, and that dream is a book idea. So you run to your your table and you start writing notes about this book idea and these characters, and you're getting it out as fast as you can. That's the universe saying, Here's a book idea for you. Would you like it? And then you have the opportunity to take that and say, Yes, I'm gonna write this book. And so then you go and do it, or you don't, and then the universe goes, Okay, I'm gonna take that idea and give it to someone else who is ready.

SPEAKER_03 29:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

And that sounds kind of harsh, but um the way that she describes it in the book, it's quite beautiful and she's not resentful about it. She's like, Well, I wasn't ready for that.

SPEAKER_02 29:20

Like I love that she's not resentful about it because I think we can be resentful for sure about those things, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Um, so that connection piece I think is really important in this uh this this week's reading. Um, how about your artist dates? I was gonna ask if I mean your whole trip was pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah. Well, before that, I was actually gonna say when you're creating this luck for yourself and creating these opportunities yourself for yourself. Um, there's another quote, but from Alyssa, she says, the purpose of life is to experience, but you're creating these experiences for you to have that are able to come to you because you've put in the pre-work to allow those experiences to fall into your lap. Um, but yes, my artist dates have basically been this whole trip. I think a lot of it was whenever I go to a new place, I love to take my camera and get up very early in the morning, take my camera and just go around and take pictures. But I think one of the days that it was very surreal was I got up and I opened up like the hotel room door and I look out, and there's an elephant literally in the back lawn. And Mimi and a lot of my friends know this. I do like animals, but I'm not like the biggest animal person.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

You know, you're not gonna go rescue a dog from Puerto Rico.

SPEAKER_02 30:45

No, I'm not on the beach. I'm not gonna do that. Um, partially because we grew up in my parents grew up in third world countries, and um not Puerto Rico's not a third world country, but anyway, anyway, yeah, anyway. So I'm literally looking at this elephant. I kid you not, I'm about maybe 30, 50 feet away from it. And just having such a beautiful moment, like I could cry right now. I've never experienced such intimate intimacy with an animal and with a creature that's just so beautiful and majestic. And honestly, it was like eating and shitting in front of me. And I'm like, oh my god, this is amazing! I love elephants. Mind you, elephants can piss like 14 gallons or something. It's insane. Wow, I can't don't quote me on that number, but it's literally like a literally it looks like a hose.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

And I'm over here like you're peeing and pooping in front of me, and I'm just walling.

SPEAKER_02 31:55

But then we had more intimate moments where he's just eating and we're kind of staring at each other. But what was so fascinating is I left to go inside to get something, my coffee. And my sister said she watched the elephant, and it looked like the elephant was sad that I left. So then I came back out and we had our moment again, and it was just honestly so beautiful. Was it an artist date per se? No, but it was just a magical moment that I'm gonna relish for forever. And I think it really just it. I literally think I have my soulmate is an elephant. All these men are gonna be like, Oh, you want to date? No, my soulmate is in Africa, it's an elephant.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

You could never give me the intimacy that's an intimate moment.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

Swear to god, never had that with a man.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Yeah, that's so special. That is the artist way. I think that was an experience that because I'm I'm sure as a child, like we went to the zoo, you know. Like you go to the zoo and you like, you know, you connect with animals or whatever, but you were like back in that space where you were just like there and present, which is what a child is. A child isn't like, oh, I better go do my taxes today. Yeah, I gotta go get caught up on my emails. You're like, there's an elephant in front of me. I'm gonna show with the elephant for as long as I possibly can.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

Yeah, and it's crazy because there's literally a thin fence between us. This element could elephant could literally run me over, but I'm just like, you're so majestic. And so it was just a beautiful moment. So that was my artist date, but what about you? I love it. What's been your artist dates lately?

SPEAKER_00 33:35

Um, I went to a reconnecting with your child artists workshop, which is run by one of our friends, Gian. Oh, you went to her. I went to the Wild Sprout, yes.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Wild Sprout shout out, Wild Sprout.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Yes. Um, it's it's here in Denver, and um, it's really all about reconnecting with your child artists. So it is kind of the artist's way. And uh I went to the workshop, not really knowing what to expect. Um, we started with some journal prompts where we had to write with the opposite hand, a non-dominant hand. So I was like, it was like, what did you want to be when you're a kid? And I was like actor, and I wrote it all big, you know. I wanted to be a professional actor. Um, what do you wish you would have had that you didn't? You know, like okay, validation from adults that I wasn't crazy for wanting to be an actor. Um, and then we did a lot of coloring and bubbles, and so we colored and we had like play-doh and we had tunes and we had uh capri suns and child snacks, you know, goldfish and stuff like that. And we just got to play with our friends and draw and color on these big, big coloring pages. Um, so it was super fun. I was like, I don't want to leave, like I don't love it here. Yeah, so that was a big artist date for me recently was doing uh the Wild Sprout uh workshop. So if you're in Denver, definitely check that out. We're gonna link that um in the show notes as well.

SPEAKER_02 34:57

Yeah. I love that you went that to that because I also remember they took your phones, and so you're yes, you're very you are in the moment, which I think we need so much more of that. And I also too want to shout out Jean as well because she just posted, so she works at a coffee shop and she was basically showing the progression of her latte art and how in the beginning she wasn't good at it, but her the team at this coffee shop and this coffee shop is um oh my god, Moonflower. So if you're ever in Denver, visit Moonflower. Shout out Moonflower, shout out Denver, shout out all the things anyway. So um she the people at the coffee shop they never yelled at her, they never, you know, disciplined her for not making the latte art. They just said it's okay, and you keep doing and you keep going and you go keep going. By the end of her slideshow, she had like beautiful latte art, and it literally goes inside with coincides with what we're talking about, how we are so afraid to start. And I think we get lost along the way, and I know we're going long, but it's fine. Um, but we get lost along the way because we're stuck in like somebody in our life as we're trying something has said, oh, you suck at that, or oh you, you know, even at work, I remember my first few days on one of the jobs, and it was like every time I made a mistake, it's like you get yelled at, you get this. There's always a punishment for it. But in art, there isn't a punishment for for sucking. There's a reward, there's a reward, and so it's almost reframing your brain to remember oh, I no matter what, because I'm trying, I'm rewarding myself because whether I win, I win, whether I lose, I win.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

Yeah, I don't know a better way to end the episode. I really don't. I think that is it. And I say our call to action for this week is go be really bad at something. Yes, go pick up a crochet needle for the first time, go make a YouTube video, go do a stand-up routine and totally bomb your face off. And then go take yourself out for ice cream, you know. Like it is it's not easy to fail, right? Like, we're in a society that that teaches us not to do that. So if you can really just reinforce for yourself, hey, I'm on the right track, I went and I did terrible and it was great.

SPEAKER_02 37:17

I did terrible and I won.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

Yeah. So if you lose, you win. Yeah. See you guys next week on the girls next tour.