Stay Updated With Our Weekly Ramp-Up Newsletter

Here's a glance at the episode...

[05:08] - Episode Overview: Setting Realistic Expectations

[08:21} - If you're already performing at a high level in one field, don't expect to perform the same in another right away[

13:41] - Comparison is the thief of joy

[20:34] - Expectations can come from external sources as well as internal

[26:02] - That moment where the perspective shifts from disappointment to gratitude

[34:57] - Tools, techniques, and ideas for settings expectations

[45:54] -Outro

Stay Updated With Our Weekly Ramp-Up Newsletter

Here's a glance at this episode...

[00:13] Preview

[00:33] - Intro

[00:50] - Episode Overview

[04:40] - Lessons on how our conversations have changed

[11:43] - Lessons on scheduling and batching tasks

[13:20] - Maintaining our attention and being present or "on" for the long conversations

[17:02] - Reflecting on when we watched the first episodes

[20:28] - Taking a step away from analytics to maintain focus on the goals

[26:10] - Looking ahead to the summer episodes and planning

[32:45] - Logistics of working with someone in a different time zone

[35:15] - To work weekends or not?

[41:13] - Lessons learned over 30 episodes; Importance of SOP

[51:47] - Final thoughts and lessons

[58:52] - Outro

Stay Updated With Our Weekly Ramp-Up Newsletter

Here's the episode at a glance...

[00:48] Episode Overview

[02:00] Perfectionism as procrastination = Competence exceeds confidence

[03:27] Deadlines as a tool to ward off procrastination

[04:37] The outcome may never match the initial vision.. and that's ok

[07:28] Done is better than perfect because perfect never happens

[09:30] Your expectations can cause you to overlook what potential is in an idea

[09:55] Don't over-curate your art, let inspiration guide you

[13:51] If you're serious about your work, you need a daily practice

[14:37] Don't hold your ideas as too precious

[18:58] Book Re -: Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career by Scott H Young

[19:20] Comparison can help give you perspective on progress[20:15] The difference between "Perfect" and "Perfect for right now"

[21:12] Practice: 30-Day Challenge

[25:34] Steven's journey in getting better at videography

[28:49] John's Journey through learning videography

[32:38] Most people don't care about the super fancy things you obsess over, they just want entertainment

[35:45] Make promises to yourself regarding getting work done and adhere to them

[37:38] Embrace the suck

[37:53] Book Rec: Atomic Habits by James Clear

[44:47] Outro

Stay Updated With Our Weekly Ramp-Up Newsletter

Here's the episode at a glance...

[00:27] Intro

[01:42] Episode Overview

[03:46] Red Flag: Talking down your services or ability in order to drive the price down

[04:40] Red Flag: I have someone who can do it cheaper

[06:20] When the client wants professional results from hobby-level investment

[08:33] Red Flag: procrastination and under-communicating

[09:52] Red Flag: No Respect for Your Time

[14:19] Shit happens.. but then again...

[16:07] Red Flag: When bands or artists aren't willing to pay a deposit

[19:47] Pro Tip: Get every communication on email since emails can be legally upheld

[21:46] Never let someone push on your boundaries

[23:19] Red Flag: when a band doesn't have a roadmap or marketing strategy for their project

[25:27] Red Flag: Bands building teams that don't usually work together introduce more chances for failure

[30:57] Closing Thoughts

[31:32] Outro

Stay Updated With Our Weekly Ramp-Up Newsletter

00:38 - Episode Overview02:12 - Extremism sometimes has the opposite effect: Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins08:41 - To Generalist in their advice: Productivity Project by Chris Bailey14:29 - Some books apply to different phases of your journey: The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann14:59 - Book Rec: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie16:38 - Overlap and Trend Chasing Makes a lot of Self-Help books Redundant: Productivity Ninja by Graham Allcott17:24 - Book Rec: Atomic Habits by James Clear19:54 - More Redundancies: Indistractable by Nir Eyal20:25 - Book Rec: Deep Work by Cal Newport26:20 - 1 Size Fits All Strategies aren't going to work for everyone: Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy31:17 - Find the System that Works for You35:47 - Outro

Stay Updated With Our Weekly Ramp-Up Newsletter  https://rebrand.ly/hzm0xhq  Want To Keep The Conversation Going? Join Our Discord Server!  https://discord.gg/AUzsj8hNMH    Have A Question You'd Like Steven and John To Answer In A Future Newsletter or Podcast?  https://forms.gle/B3q9kJVfyjk5XdM38    Connect With Us  https://mtr.bio/slow-and-fast-podcast  00:31 - Intro 01:29 - The Power of Regret Breakdown 04:42 - "If Only" vs "At Least" Regrets 08:04 - Everyone has a talent, it just might not be what the world needs from you 09:25 - Foundational Regrets 12:51 - Make sure your actions and priorities match 13:44 - Regret of Missed Opportunities 17:08 - Build up your own portfolio instead of regretting taking on bad clients at the start of your journey 26:05 - What about this book challenged your perceptions of regret? 34:09 - How the book affected Steven's motivation and attitude toward work 47:30 - What will people say at your funeral? Write your own eulogy/legacy. 59:27 - Outro

Stay Updated With Our Weekly Ramp-Up Newsletter  https://rebrand.ly/hzm0xhq  Want To Keep The Conversation Going? Join Our Discord Server!  https://discord.gg/AUzsj8hNMH    Have A Question You'd Like Steven and John To Answer In A Future Newsletter or Podcast?  https://forms.gle/B3q9kJVfyjk5XdM38    Connect With Us  https://mtr.bio/slow-and-fast-podcast  00:24 - Intro - Catchup 00:55 - Episode Overview 04:36 - Book Summary - Intro to Circadian Rhythm(Night Own vs Lark) 06:47 - John on how his schedule has changed due to the lessons in this book 11:55 - Steven's scheduling lessons 15:01 - How to Schedule your Doctor's Appointments 16:06 - "When" will give you the tools to figure out when to schedule your tasks 19:07 - Circadian Rhythm Exercise: Find out if you're a Lark or a Night Owl 20:42 - The book has impacted all aspects of John's life, not just his work 23:30 - Closing thoughts 27:37 - Outro

In this episode, John and Steven talk about their deepened understanding of what drives them after reading Drive by author Daniel Pink.  Stay Updated With Our Weekly Ramp-Up Newsletter  https://rebrand.ly/hzm0xhq  Want To Keep The Conversation Going? Join Our Discord Server!  https://discord.gg/AUzsj8hNMH    Have A Question You'd Like Steven and John To Answer In A Future Newsletter or Podcast?  https://forms.gle/B3q9kJVfyjk5XdM38    Connect With Us  https://mtr.bio/slow-and-fast-podcast  00:23 - Intro - Catchup and BS'ing 07:17 - Episode Overview: Drive by Daniel Pink 09:55 - What motivates a creative? 14:40 - Outlining the framework of motivation from the book, Drive. 16:12 - The old ways of motivating people(Motivation 2.0) doesn't work for creative work 20:07 - The pandemic made companies evolve into a Results Oriented Environment 22:09 - Serving and Audience as Motivation 24:49 - What happens when you lose autonomy at your work 30:13 - Motivation 2.0(Carrots and Stick Motivation) has a place in the workspace 30:40 - Motivation 3.0 only works if the person is adequately compensated FIRST! 31:49 - The only time that signing up for free work actually makes sense 36:13 - Making this podcast sustainable 37:18 - Varying up your tasks and interests can help keep you motivated and interested in the work you're trying to accomplish 38:53 - John's 4 day work week 42:22 - Create the systems that will help keep you intrinsically motivated

The journey to bettering yourself isn't one with an endpoint but because of this endless outlook on constantly striving to improve ourselves, it can sometimes lead many of us to stop dead in our tracks and find reasons to hold off on doing the work necessary. In this episode, John and Steven discuss warning signs of diving too far off the deep in with self help that can cause us to procrastinate.   Stay Updated With Our Weekly Ramp-Up Newsletter  https://rebrand.ly/hzm0xhq  Want To Keep The Conversation Going? Join Our Discord Server!  https://discord.gg/AUzsj8hNMH    Have A Question You'd Like Steven and John To Answer In A Future Newsletter or Podcast?  https://forms.gle/B3q9kJVfyjk5XdM38    Connect With Us  https://mtr.bio/slow-and-fast-podcast  00:00:00:00 Later in the episode 00:35 - Intro 01:19 - Episode Overview 04:40 - Self-help introduces the ideal way of being but doesn't allow for any personalization or individual adaptations 07:09 - "Do the Damn Thing!" What does that even mean? 07:53 - A lot of self-help books offer an ideal existence but don't deliver on actionable tactics 10:05 - Self Help sometimes misses nuance needed to actually be helpful 12:32 - Book Rec: Atomic Habits by James Clear 12:57 - Some Self Help authors rely too much on their own story when, in reality, they are the exception and not the rule. 14:58 - Personality matters just as much as the technical aspect of client work 16:59 - Even when things seem to not be working out, keep going.  Consistency matters and success doesn't happen overnight 18:39 - Signature plugins are overrated because they only work for that one thing, you have to find your own voice and style 21:13 - On David Goggin's book, Can't Hurt Me and how it didn't work for Steven 22:06 - "Don't follow my example of how I got into audio.  I gambled and won and it could have just as easily gone the other way." 22:49 - Don't try and make someone else's story yours.  Look at their failures more than their successes and don't make the same mistakes 24:38 - Self Help is like a buffet; you don't have to get everything from the buffet, just the things that work for you 26:26 - Don't fall into the Self Help pitfall of never acting on what you're learning! 27:32 - Don't waste your time reading bad books, 30:06 - Link: Atomic Habits podcast episode and Creative Calling Podcast Episodes 30:59 - What's your approach to deciding what book to read? 31:24 - John's approach: Author recommended lists 34:21 - Steven's Approach: "What weakness do I feel I have and how can I fix it?" 36:20 - What is John currently pursuing in the books he reads? 41:03 - Talking about future business goals when it comes to hiring creatives 45:01 - Outro

Creatives all start out with an idea of what success means to them at that moment in their life. But as creatives grow and life changes depending on the season of your life your idea and how you define success will constantly be changing. In this episode, Steven and John explore how their ideas of success have changed over the past 5 years of their creative journeys.   Stay Updated With Our Weekly Ramp-Up Newsletter  https://rebrand.ly/hzm0xhq  Want To Keep The Conversation Going? Join Our Discord Server!  https://discord.gg/AUzsj8hNMH    Have A Question You'd Like Steven and John To Answer In A Future Newsletter or Podcast?  https://forms.gle/B3q9kJVfyjk5XdM38    Connect With Us  https://mtr.bio/slow-and-fast-podcast  00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:36 - Catchup 00:05:16 - Overview: How Our Perspectives Changed around Success 00:05:40 - How did Steven view success from 2015 to 2019? 00:07:42 - How did Steven's perspective on success change from 2019 to 2021? 00:09:10 - At what point did Steven shift away from taking on "busy work" and just focusing on getting good work? 00:15:14 - Was the idea of moving to Finland a marker of success for Steven? 00:19:29 - When  Steven left Neural, what did you imagine was success for 2022? 00:24:43 - What does Steven consider as "Success" moving forward to 2023 00:33:46 - What does success look like for John earlier in his career? 00:38:09 - Success changed for John in 2020 00:46:09 - At the end of 2021, John solidified plans for success in 2022 00:52:56 - John's goals for 2023 00:57:19 - Audit your metrics for success.  Are you paying attention to the right things? 01:01:09 - Outro