“In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind, there are few.” That's a quote from Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Zen master Shunryu Suzuki. And it's the reason I've invited my friend Daniel Hayes to this conversation over tea, sitting 8,200 feet up in the mountains outside of Denver, Colorado. Daniel Hayes spent most of his adult life doing work that didn’t ask much of his creativity. For a long time, that part of him stayed quiet. Now, he’s making music, writing books, and creating short films for the first time with joy and confidence. Not to prove anything, but to reconnect with a way of being he thought he had lost. In this episode, we talk about how joy can return when you stop needing to be good at something. We explore how letting go of judgment can open up space for curiosity. Daniel shares what he had to unlearn in order to find ease in making things again, and how that shift is changing the way he moves through the world.If you’ve ever felt too late, too stuck, or too unsure to try something new, this one is for you.🌱 Find this show on Youtube. Mind Over Matcha is a space for everyday epiphanies, where we pause, reflect, and find meaning in the small things. Take what you need, and leaf the rest.🔍 Find Daniel Hayes on Youtube or on downingstreetstudios.com👩🏼‍🎤👨‍🎤 My prior performance art & music project Ming & Ping is here on Youtube🍵 Support my projects and pre-order my book "Baoisms: Everyday Epiphanies of a Mindful Artist" at baovomusic.comCHAPTERS:00:00 - Intro to approaching life with a Beginner's Mind00:48 - Beginners have many possibilities, Experts have few01:58 - Daniel's background was not in the arts03:01 - A creative & life renaissance at age 5006:09 - Unlearning the illusion of control10:02 - Matcha and the importance of flow states11:46 - Make fear an irrelevant emotion14:40 - Joy in not being right16:54 - How to start at any age18:17 - Play with sandcastles, not sandboxes20:07 - Where to find Daniel's work22:26 - A deer doing deer stuff