transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Hey y'all, at the time that I am recording this, this month is the two year anniversary since we released our six part audio memoir series Right Side Out on this podcast feed. Right Side Out is about creatively building a positive view of self through a neurodivergent lens. This is the journey of me finding out I was ADHD, adopting a positive view of myself, and why this was the key to unlocking my creativity. My mom, who I didn't see a ton growing up, was a big part of this journey, and the series culminates and ends with me going and interviewing her for an episode after not seeing her for several years. Sophie and I wrote this series together, and it was one of the most amazing and heartbreaking things that I've ever done. We cried a lot in the weeks that we were recording this, but it was really therapeutic, and it was a creative project that two years on, I can safely say, has changed my life. And judging from all the amazing messages and letters and notes we've received in the following years from all of you, I am so grateful to know that it has had an impact on your life, too, and on your creativity, and especially on your view of self. I love hearing people say that they're encouraged to live Right Side Out. Today on the show, we are re-releasing episode one on this feed to celebrate and to let you know that you can now find Right Side Out on its own podcast feed, which makes it easier to access. It also exists as its own project, and it's easier to share with family and friends that you think might enjoy it or get something out of it. Just a note, this was before we did video, so it's an audio only series. It's not on YouTube, but you can find the Right Side Out podcast on all podcast apps and find the link in the show notes of this episode, or go to andyjpizza.com/rso to listen to the rest of the series. Without further ado, this is episode one of Right Side Out. This is episode one in our Right Side Out series, a series all about how to make work that you love that's also more authentically you. This episode is for you if you want to find your style and your voice and make more authentic work. If you want to do that, but you know that that means putting yourself into the work and maybe you don't know how to do that, or worse, you don't even know who you are. We've all been there, right? This episode is the start of a new series all about that, and is especially relevant to neurodivergent people or those of us who just constantly feel like we have to hide ourselves or become smaller to get by in society. Stay until the end and I will share a creative prompt that didn't just break open my creativity, it broke open whole layers of myself and my life. But for now, let's talk about why we might have lost that sense of who we are, and why if we're not careful, we might forget who we are for good. Oh yeah, by the way, just a heads up, there is at least one unbleeped cuss word. It's an F word, so if you're sensitive to that kind of thing or you have kids around who might be, you've been warned, it comes up in a little clip in a conversation that I share later in the episode. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is an all-in-one online platform to help you stand out online. Get your domain, show off your best work, get paid all in one place. I've been working on a landing page for some offerings I haven't shared yet, and I love the design options that they have now. I am more of an illustrator than a designer, and this gave me a springboard to work with type and composition in a more elegant and unexpected way than I could have on my own. Plus, it was just fun. Also, domain management has been a nightmare for most of my creative career, but now I have all my domains under one umbrella, the Squarespace umbrella, and it is the easiest and most intuitive platform for managing domains that I've ever had, and I have had a lot of domains like all creatives. I've had one for every half-cooked up idea that I've ever had. Head to squarespace.com/peptalk for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use offer code pep talk, all one word, to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Hey, kids, it's Taco Tuesday again for the 800th week in a row.

Speaker 2:
[05:29] No.

Speaker 1:
[05:30] Listen, I hate to admit it, but Sophie and I got into a real rut cooking, and the kids were actively trolling us about it, but then we started getting some hello fresh meals, and it has really helped us shake things up this year. So many dishes we've never had before or cooked, and all have been super tasty and easy to make. For me, it's all about the sauces. Last night, I made the curried chicken and roast sweet potato jumble, and the sauce was so simple and so delicious. I love that I'm making something yummy and broadening my cooking skills and experience in general. A couple nights prior, we had the edamame stir fry with this amazing gochujang aioli. It was vegetarian but super flavorful and filling, and just I absolutely loved it. Nothing hits like home cooking. Go to hellofresh.com/peptalk10fm. That's hellofresh.com/peptalk10fm. Now to get 10 free meals plus a NutriBullet Ultra Plus two in one compact kitchen system. It's $189.99 value on your third box. Free meals applied as a discount on the first box. New subscribers only varies by plan. Disclaimer, must order the third box by May 31st, 2026. If you want to find your voice, your style, and ultimately make authentic work that you love, you already probably know that you've got to put yourself into the work. And that's especially true if you do creative work. But honestly, whatever work you do, whether you see it as traditionally creative or whether you don't even get paid to do this work and it's kind of more of a vocation, whatever you do, meaningful work is the kind of work that you bring your whole self to. And that's better because you're the one doing it, because it's uniquely suited to the type of person that you are. I think that is what makes the work especially satisfying. In my late teens and early 20s, I was desperate to create meaningful work. Like, I was trying to be an illustrator and I knew I needed to put myself into what I was doing. I needed to just be myself in air quotes, but there was just one major problem. Who the hell was I? Which me was the real me? Which part of me was persona? Which was the ego? So much of me felt like a bad thing or at least a boring thing. I went and dug out some old report cards from elementary school. Even there, it's kind of confusing. The first six weeks, I get, super job Andy, congratulations. Yeah, ready? And then that same teacher just a little bit later in the fourth six weeks says, Andy needs to work on self-control. Like which of those is the real me? Especially like my first grade teacher, who in the second six weeks said, Andy has forgotten what neatness is. And in the fourth six weeks makes a note, he seems to have lost interest. Not what you want in the first grade. Am I the kid in third grade who the teacher said, was a hard worker and has many wonderful ideas? I'm bringing lots of ideas to the table. Or am I the kid who the same teacher says, I would like to see him work on walking quietly in the halls and working quietly in a group? I still have a hard time walking quietly. Was I the kid who collected Pokemon cards and really cool sticks that I found in the woods and played swords and pretend all the way into my teens way later than is socially acceptable? Or was I the chain smoking, sneaking out of my house, living for the weekend Midwestern house party team? I give a lot of hot fives. Not that kid. Was I the super serious art school kid living in England, reading spiritual texts and philosophy? Diving deeper into my personal work. Or was I the guy spending half his college experience in character as Big Jim, the Bigfoot Hunter or Reggie? Oh, welcome to the show. With this Gibbs TV show counting and aggravating the hell out of my brother, who was also occasionally amused. Maybe you don't have as many parts, maybe it's less confusing for you, but I'm sure you've tried to put yourself into your work and come up short, and had to at some point admit that you don't really know for sure who you are. How does this happen? How do we lose track of something as fundamental as ourselves? Well, I think the major culprit is what people in the neurodivergent space call masking. Masking is where you don't show up as yourself, but you show up as the person that you feel other people expect or other people will be more into that won't get you unwanted or awkward attention or something even worse than that, humiliation or even ridicule. Masking is something we all do, but if we're not careful, we can lose our sense of where the mask ends and where we begin. This episode starts a new series that we're doing called Right Side Out. It's about how to find some semblance of self and put it into your work so that you can make stuff that's authentic, that you love. The series is part memoir, part Pep Talk. It's going to be a little bit more personal than usual, but hopefully a little more impactful, too. To explain what I mean, I gotta tell you a story. So, it was sometime in the summer of 2019, and I was driving my family to see my Aunt Sandy when I got a phone call from Sandy. Hey, I forgot to tell you. That's my Aunt Sandy voice. Today is the day my church is having a memorial for all the congregants that have passed this year. They're going to honor grandma. Can we go to that first? And I said, yes, of course, because I'm not a monster and I really love my grandma. Okay, great, she replied. Okay, so each family is going to be releasing a butterfly in the memory of the loved one. It's at the park. See you there. And I was like, yep, okay, yeah, sounds good. I replied and I hung up the phone, even though it didn't sound good to me. I had so many questions. The main one being, where the heck are they keeping these butterflies right now? Like as a kid, I remember we were always discouraged from touching butterflies, let alone catching them. Like does this head priest, amateur butterfly wrangler even know that every second you hold back a butterfly, you risk permanently rubbing off that magic dust from its wings and destroying its essence and ultimately its ability to fly, which is like half of its name. But I kept those concerns to myself. I just put on a brave face, changed the address in Google Maps and headed to the park. I dropped off my kids at the park pavilion where the other families were gathered and I parked the car. But as I started walking over to join everybody, I realized that I had made an absolutely grave mistake. And I immediately jumped behind a bush and started ripping off my clothes. Why? Because I had completely forgot that Aunt Sandy goes to a nude church. Just kidding. In fact, I can guarantee you that Aunt Sandy would absolutely hate that joke. I can hear her now saying, that's not funny. People are going to think I go to the nude church. Sorry. Love you, Aunt Sandy. No, it was much worse than that. See, when I woke up that morning and I got dressed, I hadn't planned to go to a memorial. So I just threw on my favorite shirt from the clean laundry pile, as you do, and went about my day. But as I walked over to celebrate my deceased grandma with her loved ones and the loved ones of 10 or so other families, I caught a glimpse of my favorite shirt and realized it was far from appropriate memorial attire. I mean, a t-shirt was already kind of too casual to begin with, but that wasn't the problem. Printed on the front of this t-shirt was a large skeleton hand. Pretty bad. And now that skeleton hand happened to be coming out of the dirt, out of a grave. Very bad. This giant skeleton hand bursting out of the grave was also holding a giant slice of pizza. Now, behind that giant skeleton hand blasting out of a grave, holding an enormous giant slice of pizza was a headstone that read, REST IN PIZZA. Now, had I known this was the day I was gonna be mourning and celebrating the dead at a Catholic church gathering, this would not have been my first choice from the shirt pile. Now, grateful for my sudden and very uncharacteristically quick thinking and stealth, I managed to jump behind the bush, flip my shirt inside out, obscure the graphic, and made my way over to the picnic tables. We let out the butterflies. It was good and weird and the crisis was pretty much averted. Although I, of course, didn't totally get away with it because inside out, Andy is still not exactly normal. And Aunt Sandy totally clocked the shirt tag instantly, rolling her eyes and giving me kind of like a what a goof Andy is wearing his shirt inside out. But also now, let's just talk a little bit more about the t-shirt because, hey, it is my favorite shirt. I mean, I call myself Andy J. Pizza for pizza's sake. It's a great shirt. Anyone who knows me would say this shirt is very me. But I think that we can all agree that no matter how me this shirt is, I did the right thing given the circumstances, right? I mean, there are times when you got to tone it down. You got to flip the me inside out on occasion. Like we can all agree, we have a problem with those people that, you know, bring their full, they're just bringing them full selves to the plane. And, you know, they, it's just them. They like to take their socks off while they're sitting and resting. But I don't care how you this is. When we're 50,000 feet in the air, we don't need two more feet in the air stinking up the whole place and breathing it in on a recycled loop. This makes sense. Most of us can agree. There are times like this memorial and the airplane where it's acceptable and necessary to just pull back a little bit. But if you are a neurodivergent person or someone who just doesn't fit in with the norms of society or you have ADHD like I do, those moments are not few and far between. This whole world was not designed for people like me, and that means it's not really appropriate to be much of myself anywhere. I learned this super quick, like first day of preschool quick. I came in all ADHD, fun of blazing and was quickly informed like, hey, that kind of behavior is not welcome here. So of course, I was happy to flip the me inside out on that occasion. I mean, it was only half days, five days a week, makes sense, totally doable. Flip. And of course, also on Sunday school. Flip. In the dinner table, of course, it's the dinner table. Come on, I get it. You gotta have some semblance of decency at the dinner table. Flip. Math class. Flip. Part-time jobs. Flip. With girlfriends. Flip. Graduation. Freshers week. You don't want to scare off potential new friends this early. Careers, PTA meetings, yard work, block parties. Flip, flip, flip, flip, flip. Pretty soon, you're going to get tired of jumping behind bushes. You're just going to flip yourself inside out at the start of the day. You do that long enough, and you're going to just go ahead and cut out the tags because nobody needs those awkward reminders of who you are, where you come from, how to care for you, constantly sticking out and getting you unwanted attention. Eventually, you're going to just fold and put yourself away inside out to save time. This became every day in my late teens and my early 20s. I've been thoroughly convinced that who I was wasn't just inappropriate in certain settings, but actually a bad thing at its core that needed to be overcome, folded away, stamped out, and repressed or even completely destroyed and abandoned. This was the same moment I was going to school to become an illustrator. It's not a surprise that it didn't feel safe to look inside and find myself creatively. Looking back, I can just totally see that. Instead, I just started making trendy stuff, hoping that somehow I'd get by. I'd seen other people seem from afar be able to do that and I thought maybe that's just what I'll have to settle for. Look, I want to just point out that making trendy stuff is often how a lot of creators start and it might even be a necessary part of the process. But the problem is that for a lot of creators, it's not a path to the next level, but a roadblock dead end that you never get past. Because ultimately, this runway of trends runs out and you're forced to take off into the air or forever stay on the ground chasing the next thing before it takes off too. I've come a long way but even now, when I find a situation where I feel completely free to be myself, I can feel that I'm shocked by how rare it actually feels. Worse than that, in those moments, I realize how unaware I was that I was even holding anything back at all. And it's legitimately scary to know that over time, if you're not careful with nothing left to remind you that this isn't normal, that this isn't the way that a self is meant to be worn, you're going to, slowly but surely, forget what's even on the inside and totally, completely lose yourself. I think that's what's behind the idea of finding yourself. I've always resonated more with the notion that the self was something you had to voyage and fight to find, the just in, just be yourself, just doesn't do justice to the difficulty of that journey. Warmer weather is here, time to break out those cooler clothes, but sometimes that's not so fun. You get out those shorts or pants you wore last year on vacation, and you're just flooded with memories of sticky fabrics that don't breathe, and your legs are hyperventilating. That's where Quince comes in. Quince has the pieces you'll love this year and love to break out next year and the years to come. My wife Sophie loves linen as it's lightweight and breathable, and Quince has got a great range of linen pants tops and classic styles, which work for both casual and comfy everyday vibes that can easily be dressed up with a little bit of jewelry. No more sticky or clingy fabrics. Wicked that moisture with Quince's Flonat activewear. That's moisture wicking, anti-odor and soft enough that you'll actually want to wear it all day. The best part is their prices are 50 to 60% less than similar brands because Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middleman. So, you pay for quality, not brand markup. Refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Go to quince.com/peptalk for free shipping and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada too. quince.com/peptalk for free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com/peptalk. As a neurodivergent creative, I am always trying to strike a better balance between creating versus just consuming. That's why Dr. Anna Lembke's class, Dopamine Take Your Brain Back on Master Class, piqued my interest. She is such a compelling communicator and one of the things that really hit me fresh was this idea that you want to embrace more things that make you feel uncomfortable upfront but great afterwards versus great instantly but bad afterwards. This insight really inspired me to action because this is exactly why I want to create more than I scroll. I am no creative prodigy or business genius but lifelong learning has been a game changer for me. Master Class makes it possible to learn from the best in the world at any time with video and audio only mode and also Master Class is a great gift for family and friends with interests in business, writing, cooking, wellness, creativity, all kinds of different people, all bases covered and with Mother's Day and Father's Day coming up, Master Class could be an ideal option for a gift. Master Class keeps adding new classes so there's never been a better time to get in. Right now, as a listener of this show, you get at least 15% off any annual membership at masterclass.com/peptalk. That's 15% off masterclass.com/peptalk. Head to masterclass.com/peptalk to get the latest offer. So if you find yourself in a similar place where you're always flipping yourself inside out, to show up appropriately to all these different settings that, by the way, were created without any regard for people like you who have the needs you have, the scary real truth is that you might actually forget who you are. And every second you hold back, you risk permanently rubbing off that magic dust, destroying your core essence and your ability to fly. That freak me shirt flag at all.

Speaker 2:
[26:14] Just take me home.

Speaker 1:
[26:33] So, long time listeners know that Right Side Out is a project that I have been working on for a long time, like years, a long time. And you'll notice that some bits and pieces of this have appeared in unfinished chunks sprinkled throughout this 10 year podcasting journey. But what you almost certainly do not know is that I thought I was gonna launch this series about a year ago. Like I had the first episode done, which was very different to this episode. And it was kind of in a rough draft form. But I felt like it was an important enough project to me and central enough to this podcast that I better send it to a couple of friends and some friendly acquaintances and get some feedback. And one of those people that I have been very fortunate to connect with because of this podcast is Lulu Miller. Now, you may know Lulu as the current co-host of Radiolab or from my interview from this podcast a few years back or from her shows, Invisibilia or Terrestrials. Or maybe you know her from her book. It's an incredible science biography memoir mashup called Why Fish Don't Exist. Highly recommend it. And now she's even entered the space I'm deeply entrenched in, the picture book space and wrote her first picture book, Truckee Roads. It is gorgeous. Go check it out. If you're into picture books, if you've got kids in your life, get them this book. It's coming out soon. But needless to say, she is a radio and podcasting legend. And I feel deeply privileged that she gave me some advice about this piece and even threw off the complete trajectory of the project, delayed it for over a year and ultimately gave me a prompt that I think time will tell probably didn't just alter the project, but maybe legitimately changed my life. So here's an audio clip from a live podcast that I did at On Air Fest in Brooklyn in February this year. When I called Lulu and revisited this very advice that she gave me. In this episode, I made a year ago that I thought was going to be the first episode of this project. I tell my story of the broken relationship that I have to my mom and being a person like her and how my own creative journey of self-discovery led to a lot of healing with not just how I think about being me, but also how I think about being someone like her who shares half of her DNA. Hello?

Speaker 2:
[29:23] Hey, can you hear me?

Speaker 1:
[29:25] Yeah, we can hear you. How are you doing?

Speaker 2:
[29:28] All right. How's it going over there?

Speaker 1:
[29:30] It's going pretty good. We're about two thirds of the way through this episode. And I was just telling them about the advice that you gave me on that first episode I was working on last year. And I wondered if you could just start by sharing what that advice was, if you remember it.

Speaker 2:
[29:49] Yeah, but can you cleanse my soul? Because I feel guilty because I feel like you were almost done. And then I did the like, great, great, great, great, great. So sorry, first of all.

Speaker 1:
[30:06] Yeah. I mean, it did send me into a year long process, but I think it will ultimately be for the better.

Speaker 2:
[30:15] Okay. Okay, we hope. Maybe not. Yeah. Okay. So I mean, basically, you share, you know, I know you from your work as a children's book illustrator, but also as a, as, you know, someone who talks about creativity and does fantastic interviewing on process and inspiration. And then you, you dolloped this little MP3 my way and said, I'm thinking about a series. It's a little different. And then it was a much more, you know, entirely essayistic thing about how do you make work you love. And for most of it, I thought maybe your mom wasn't alive anymore because she was such a past tense figure. But then there was some part grammatically where it was like, oh, wait, I think she's still here. And all I know, you know, I basically just said, what if you talk to your mom and, and you know, you had this little refrain in there just like her, just like her parts of me. I didn't like parts of me. And it kept coming back almost like the true heartbeat of the piece. And I was like, Andy, I think maybe it felt like a conversation with her. And I just wondered what would happen if you had a conversation with her, even if you never used it. It felt like it was in conversation with her. So I think I just said, would you ever think about having a conversation with her?

Speaker 1:
[31:32] And so I wanted to hear if you could talk about that, because you have experienced doing that yourself, right? Like people that are close to you, not just science people that you're interviewing or that kind of thing.

Speaker 2:
[31:44] Yeah, and I've got the full gamut of that going well and not well, and times that I'm like, oh, why did I do that again? It's not a, like, it is not, I don't know, you mess with reality, you mess with relationships, you change relationships when you do it. So it is like a proceed with caution, and you know, proceed with different, you know, proceed with making sure, you know, you have full consent and they have outs if they want outs and dignity and all that. So there's all kinds of stuff about that. But in terms of a prompt, I mean, I think, okay, there was this, I once heard Ray Bradbury give a talk, I wasn't alive, it was like I watched a YouTube of Ray Bradbury, you know, famous sci-fi writer, give a talk and he was part of it. He's like railing against New Yorker stories and he's like, yeah, they aren't even interesting, all right. That was fun.

Speaker 1:
[32:38] Great impression.

Speaker 2:
[32:42] He just talked about that he likes to write when the idea strikes, like when the inspiration is hot and he actually cares and it's nascent and messy and he hasn't organized it perfectly. Some writers talk about like you let the idea percolate forever, and then when you finally write it down, you know its form. He was like, F that, and the phrase he said was right when the skin is still on it, right when the skin is still on it. I don't know what that means, but it's just like this picture, this fruit where like the skin, it's so new, the skin is still on it. I think about that. I love it because it is like when an idea feels just so juicy and almost forbidden and hot. I think that about questions. I think that about go to someone when you fucking care, when you're like, I don't know why, but I need to know this hella specific thing about, after your mom sent that letter to the guy where she was trying to apologize, and he didn't forgive her, what happened to that guy who's dead now? What happened to his family? Was there any, whatever it is, whatever specific tiny thing that for some reason has risen to the level of you actually care in this life when it's so easy to be sarcastic and so easy to not care, or so easy to feel daunted. Notice when that chirpy little hook shaped thing rises in your soul and you want to cast it out and fish, and you might not get a fish, and you might not get a fish you wanted, but if you notice you freaking care, follow that and go ask the person however big or small it is. That's my version of the skin. It's like right when you feel that, get in touch when you actually care, when you want to know a thing.

Speaker 1:
[34:34] Having this career and going and asking questions that are often uncomfortable, either with people you don't know or people that you do know, do you feel like it has helped you have tougher conversations in your own life?

Speaker 2:
[34:50] Oh, I mean, yeah. But yeah, and partially that's me having them. I mean, I'm such a wuss in real life. I am a walking doormat of a human a little bit, who's slowly growing a tiny little nascent backbone. But so it's like the practice of interviewing. You have to be more courageous. You learn over time. You've just got to be a little brazer, more brave, ask a brazer. That was my mashup with brazen and brave. You be a little brazer and just ask freaking direct questions, because also it turns out people feel dignified when you do and when you stop beating around the bush and you get better tape and you get better conversations. So blah, blah, blah. I've learned that by doing it over and over again to like when the headphones are on, I'm a little more direct and courageous. But really the thing that changed me, so it's partially practice and seeing, okay, I can get different results when I'm not freaking like was.

Speaker 1:
[35:48] You can curse.

Speaker 2:
[35:50] But it was also just like honestly, my early days of radio taught me the most were just transcribing other people's or logging other people's tape and just seeing how so many other people were in conversation and just seeing that. That stuff changed me as a human. I am a very different human than I was when I started at 21, conversationally, like how I am with strangers, how I am in intimate relationships, and I feel all the people who taught me alive in me. And I actually just got a text from Ellen Horne, who's in the audience apparently, we're texting an interview. But the way she approaches people, she's just so direct, goes up to Craigslist con artists and just asks them straight up what's going on, and they answer her. And I just, they're all, Kralwitsch would just make everything a flirtation, but not in a creepy way, just in a like, I want to make everything a game. And so I don't know, it's just, there's just all these tools alive in me that, you know, for me, the main learning was to be less of an uptight Northeastern coward and be a little more direct. And yeah, and I think that's changed relationships, that's honestly probably saved relationships because it turns out communication is good.

Speaker 1:
[37:16] Yeah, I love that. I love what you said about how your creative practice impacted you as a person because this project is really all about the space between the self-expression and the self. It's good to talk to you.

Speaker 2:
[37:30] OK, go have fun. All of you in the audience, learn things, tell me things. I'm sorry I'm not there, but have fun and thanks for calling me. And sorry for messing up your flow on that piece.

Speaker 1:
[37:40] It's OK. Say bye, everybody. Bye.

Speaker 2:
[37:43] See you, Lulu.

Speaker 1:
[38:32] Every episode of this show, we try to leave you with a CTA. Not a call to action, but a call to adventure, which is clearly better. We try to give you some method to put what we explored on the show into practice in your creative work immediately. So this week's CTA is the Reverse Friends and Family Discount. What do I mean by that? It's about how we often discount our friends and family, and we don't include them in the self-exploration that comes along with the self-expression of creative pursuits. You know, a lot of times in our creative work, we're doing stuff that people, when they see us doing it, people that really know us are like, you made that? I don't really understand. And sometimes it means, you know, you're getting to more true things that you've been hiding or discovering about yourself. But often it's because we're trying to be something we're not. So if you blinked with your ears for even just a split second in that last clip with Lulu Miller, you might've missed it. But she said, when I asked her about if interviewing people for her work helped her have tougher conversations in real life, she said that that stuff, meaning doing her creative work in radio changed me as a human. And she said, I am very different. I'm a very different human than when I started. And when I look back, this couldn't be more true for my own creative journey. And one of the major shifts in my creative pursuit was when I quit seeing finding myself as a tool for making better creative work, and I started seeing my creative work as a tool for better finding myself. When I realized that, in a lot of ways, my creativity wasn't the end, it was the means. Like, will your work benefit from exploring yourself more fully? Intuitively. But here's what I know. In the long term, the more precious gift has been how creativity helped me find myself. So your CTA, your prompt, is the same prompt that Lulu gave me. Go have a purposeful conversation with a friend that knows you better than anybody else, and ask them if you can selfishly do some soul searching, some soul researching. Could you have a phone call or a coffee or a beer and just chat, or even just over text, ask them, what's something about me that you don't think I know about myself? And preferably, let's start with the good stuff because we need that positive momentum to make sure we stay curious. I think we can get to the shadowy stuff later, but start with good stuff. And you can also go and interview a family member, and you can record it, or you don't have to, but they can probably tell you something about where you came from that you don't currently know. The upbringing, the DNA, the ancestry. I recently had a cousin who I asked, like, what was I like when I was a kid? And she was able to tell me from the perspective of a teenager, because she's a little bit older than I am, what it was like to see me growing up in my family, and she offered to write that up and give her perspective on what my childhood was. And it was really mind-blowing and validating and super informative. Now, I do have to say that if there's any real serious trauma with any of these people, I wouldn't suggest starting there or even going there without the help of a counselor or a therapist. But what I can say is that this prompt that Lulu gave me is that, yes, it can be creativity changing, but more importantly, it can be life changing. And I can tell you that from personal experience because guess what? The reason I didn't launch this series last year at the beginning of 2023, like I thought I was going to and I thought I'd cracked the case, completely written the story, is because I took Lulu's advice to invite some other important voices into this story. And I asked myself, like, what if I went and asked the hard questions? What if in this quest to find myself, I interviewed the one person from my life that people said that I was just like? All right, so I'm driving to see my mom for the first time in a few years. Yeah, so I'm on my way. So I'll share the full clip of that in the next episode and these other clips in future episodes in the series. But I can tell you right now that now that a year has passed, I feel like I can safely say that this conversation that I had changed this piece of creative work, but almost certainly changed my life. And I hope this series helps you make better, more authentic art. But ultimately, my hope is that it helps you live more Right Side Out. Sophie bought me tickets, my wife Sophie, she bought me tickets to see Alana Glazer stand up. Alana, you might know her from Broad City. We had her costar, Abby Jacobson on the podcast a few years back. I'm a huge fan. And the stand up act was incredible. We laughed our faces off. Now, Sophie and I do a ton of creative projects together. We're always constantly talking about creative work, either her art or mine. So she's like a chief editor and producer on this series that we're doing. We've been talking about it, working on it for a long time. And she's been really involved in the structure of the series and how we present this information. And as we're leaving this show, laughing, like totally feeling high from just a great experience that is good stand-up comedy, we're there talking and celebrating how hilarious Alana is and how creative she is. And then she said something that really stopped me in my track. She said, Alana is just so Right Side Out. And she used the name of this project as a way of being in the world. And right there, I was like, that, that is why I'm doing the project. I want to give people a word for what it looks like to know yourself and be yourself and use that in your creativity and let it guide your process like we have seen Alana do over the years. So I hope you'll join me in this journey and embrace this call to be the kind of person that others say creates, expresses, and most importantly lives Right Side Out. Okay, so that is the first episode of Right Side Out. I hope you're excited about this series. I just want to add another note that just gives you an added nudge to, yes, take it seriously, go have those conversations with friends and family, but if you have ones that you know are delicate, I really suggest, and I encourage you to do that with some level of professional support, whatever you can find, whatever you can access that can healthily support you in this process. When I went and had this conversation, I have been in therapy for, I think, two years and also was in active therapy and could unpack what that conversation was like with my therapist. And I am not a therapist, but I do think and I hope that art schools will start making therapy integrated into the process. Because I think that making creative work, making any type of work is a reflection of who you are. And doing your best work is going to require doing some digging into who that is. And you can use all the help that you can get. So I hope you take that seriously, because as you start reflecting, for some of us that can be kind of a dangerous process if we don't do so with a lot of help and a lot of care. I wanna say a mega thanks to Sophie Miller for being a producer of this series and an editor, giving me, yes, tons and tons of phenomenal edits and suggestions and story ideas and structure stuff, but ultimately, I just have to say a huge shout out to you, Sophie, because you supported me. You've supported me through this journey of diving into this pretty delicate information and personal work, and I know it's not always been easy, and I just super appreciate you and love you. Huge thanks to Lulu Miller for the advice that took this whole journey to a whole different place that I didn't see coming, and I'm just super grateful for you and your feedback. Of course, absolutely humongous thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band Y for the theme music of our show, but also the soundtrack, but also the Right Side Out soundtrack. So all the music you heard here on this episode, the new songs are from their album A-OK Ohio, and they're just perfect for it. Also thanks to Charlie Locke who helped me polish that pizza shirt story for the stage, for a live storytelling event in Los Angeles, Patreon last summer. Thank you to On Air Fest for hosting a live podcast of Creative Pep Talk and making a space for that conversation with Lulu to happen. Thank you to Conner Jones of Penning Beautiful for sound design and editing of this show. Thanks to all of you for listening, and until we speak again, stay pepped up.

Speaker 3:
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Speaker 4:
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