Episode Transcript
Transcript:
Intro: Welcome to Words That Move Me, the podcast where movers and shakers, like you, get the information and inspiration you need to navigate your creative career with clarity and confidence. I am your host, Dana Wilson, and I move people. I am all about the tools and techniques that empower tomorrow's leaders to make the work of their dreams and live a full life while doing it. So whether you're new to the game or transitioning to your next echelon of greatness, you're in the right place.
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Dana: Hello. Hello, dear friend, I'm Dana. This is words that move me. I am absolutely positively jazzed that you are here right now. If you are listening to this episode, uh, on the day of its release, then it's our first episode of 2023, which is season freaking four. I had to run the numbers on that math. I had to run those numbers twice actually, because we started the podcast in the very end of 2019, podcasted Weekly, all the way through 2020 through 2021 and through 2022, which means we are now beginning our fourth year, season four.
Holy cow, fun little, uh, bit of potentially useless <laugh> information here for you at the top of the podcast. Um, did you know that The Simpsons, the TV show, the Simpsons is 34 seasons old <laugh>. It premiered in 1989, which is 33 years ago math, uh, and it is the longest running primetime scripted show in US history, period, the end. I am not saying that because I'm going to podcast for 33 years. Um, I'm saying that because why am I saying that? I lost it, <laugh>. Anyways, happy fourth season to us. Happy New Year to you. No matter when you are listening to this. I encourage you to bring that New Year energy into your day. Um, and if you do happen to be listening to this today, which is Wednesday, January 4th, 2023, then you are a lucky dog because I'm hosting a free career coaching call tomorrow, Thursday the fifth at 5:00 PM Pacific on Zoom.
So there is no cap on how many people can attend. It is not too late, but you must register to get the Zoom link. So pretty please head over to words that move me.com/events to learn more about the event, um, and to rsvp, you have to fill in a Google form to rsvp. So hope to see you there. Career coaching call Thursday, January 5th, 5:00 PM Pacific. I think I said everything. Okay, great. Let's do this, shall we? I start every episode by celebrating a win. We've done this for the entire existence of the podcast, I think pretty sure anyways, I think maybe I tried a couple episodes to not do it, and then I didn't like that. Anyways, this episode will be no different. Um, I, I have decided in my new year mentality to not scrap everything, um, but to keep what is working. If it is not broke, don't fix it.
Wins aren't broke. I love starting every episode with wins, and I think that if you join me, you will too. So this week I am celebrating 10 days and lots of creative, very fun moments with my mom who came to LA for the holidays. Hi Stan. I know you're listening. I love you. Uh, anyways, it was my first time in LA for the holidays, which is a win like on its own, but I really loved spending that time with my mom. We yoga, we hiked, uh, we started a puzzle that we didn't finish twice, like started. It didn't finish it, put it back in the box, started it again, didn't finish it again. Um, we arted, we <laugh>, we also farted <laugh>, a k a. We ate some delicious food with a lot of garlic in it and, you know, it is what it is. Uh, we cleaned my house for like three full days.
Speaker 0 00:04:21 That was not the plan. Um, and that is a long story for another WINS section maybe. Um, but my friends, we even danced. I danced with my 70 year old mom. My friend Jeremy Adam Ray, who I met on In the Heights, gave us a private lesson in zoo, which is Brazilian social dance. And lemme tell you something about zoo. I am nowhere near as good at it as I would like to be. So more on that later as well. Uh, there's a lot to celebrate in there about our trip, but I did wanna say perhaps my favorite part about it was getting all the way through the New York Times is Times is the New York Times 36 questions that Lead to Love. This is like, these questions are out there. The on, they're on the internet. I will 100% link to them, but, um, they're, these, they're put together by psychologists of some sort, and they're designed to help you get to know someone and find love for them with them. So I, I think they were intended for new romantic partnerships, but I strongly encourage going through these questions with your folks and with friends alike because damn <laugh>, they sparked some very rich conversation. Um, that's, that was my win, is getting to spend time in space with my mom, but also getting to know her more deeply. Um, thanks to those questions was really interesting. Okay, that's me. That's my win. Now you go, what are you celebrating?
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Yay. Congratulations my friend. I am stoked for you. Keep winning. You've got this, I've got your back. Okay, let's do this, shall we? I'm pretty sure that I am like most people in most of the ways, but one of those ways is that around New Year's, I like to reflect. Um, I take stock on my life. There are some journal prompts and, um, little kind of exercises that I do usually around this time of year that that helped me, you know, kind of look at how I'm using my time and talent and give me pause and have, you know, the opportunity to sort of excavate things that maybe I wouldn't otherwise get to look at. So when, when I looked at this past year at 2022, I see a lot of screens, a lot of computing, um, and sitting and sitting and computing and not lots of dancing.
Although I do realize that lots <laugh> is relative. I probably did dance a lot relative to like normal people, not a lot relative to myself in past years. So if I were to really step back and try to like hit myself with the cold, hard, neutral facts, I would say that I spent more time sitting and looking at a screen than I did dancing. And I'm not saying that like on my deathbed, I wanna have danced more than I screened necessarily. Although I do think that is my goal. I think that that would be great. Uh, what I'm saying is that I want to be dancing more, period. And here at the top of the year, I really love to get clear on what I want more of and what I want less of. Um, I really just love looking at how I am budgeting my time and my energy.
So you have probably heard this idea, uh, that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. And it's true. I think <laugh> lives are made up of passing hours and therefore how we pass our hours is how we spend our lives. But thinking of that <laugh> in those terms can really feel like a lot of pressure. It can feel, um, very heavy. So we're gonna sort of unpack that in a gentle way. Um, and I'm gonna get kind of personal about a revelation that I had while unpacking gently my past year. Um, but yes, we'll, we'll wind up again on this first episode of the season, talking about doing daily. And I'm gonna give you a tool that will help you track how you are spending your days slash time slash life slash work. Okay, so back in episode one on New Year's day of 2020, I talked about doing daily, uh, in, in the form of a project where I released a daily dance video on Instagram every single day for more than a calendar year. I think 400 some, I'm not sure. Anyways, take a listen to this. This is a, an excerpt from that episode. This is how I introduced the concept of doing daily. I think you're gonna love it
Today. I wanna talk to you about the project that changed my life, possibly more than any other. And it's likely not what you would think. It's not a big movie or a music video or a TV show or a tour. It's actually much, much smaller, much, much, much, much smaller and in some ways a whole lot bigger. Today I'm gonna tell you about my 365 consecutive days of Instagram videos. Actually, it was closer to 420, I think, but who's counting? I'm doing this today on episode one because a, I'll probably reference this project or something that I learned from it a lot down the road. B a masterclass in commitment is exactly what I'm looking for as I embark on this New Year's Challenge, this weekly podcast, <laugh> and C, because I believe that there is genius and tremendous momentum in doing daily in my 30 years of training to be a professional dancer. Nothing prepared me to make art the way that this did. This project unlocked my creative superpowers. And now I wanna share the key with you.
All right, a few things. Number one, I thought that one episode would be me sharing the keys with you, the keys to my creative castle. And that's just so cute because as it turns out, this entire podcast has been me sharing the keys with you, like 154 keys, like a really big key ring with a lot of keys on it, if not more than 154. There's like so many keys in one episode. Okay, awesome. Number two, although I do maintain that nothing, like no other project prepared me for making my own art more than doing daily did, I do have to say that doing Daily is no longer the project that has changed me more than any other. And that is really how I used to introduce it. Um, and that's okay. It's actually really powerful for me to say that out loud. Um, and also to record <laugh> forever.
Um, it's very, very cool to find that something, some story that I was telling myself for years and years and years is now no longer true. And that doesn't mean it's bad or that it's wrong. Um, it's simply really, really powerful. So I wanted to kind of clock that today because in many ways this podcast has snuggled up to doing daily, um, for that second place slot. And I think actually I know, and I'm gonna tell you how I know that the new number one slot for the project that has changed me more than any other is my eight year old art baby that is the seaweed sisters that I share with my two best friends, Jillian Myers and Megan Lawson. Um, okay, how do I know that is true? How do I know that the sisters are in that number one spot? Well, the Seaweed Sisters a few days, weeks ago were hot gluing gems onto rubber swim caps like we do.
Uh, we really do love making our own costumes. It's something that we really relish. Um, and Jillian asked Meg and me, what is the work that you guys wanna be doing? Like, what's the dream job right now? Like, what do you, what's the dream? And Meg and I both kind of like rummaged through some options of answers, like options of stuff that maybe kind of fit that description of Dream Job <laugh>. Or maybe we're just too old to believe that a dream job actually exists, like something that's perfect. Um, but anyways, it took us a long while, like, like many hours before we actually circled back and we're like, wait, <laugh>, it's this, it's us. It's more seaweed. Like that's the dream job is this. See, I think that, I think this, and I'm still like unpacking this. I haven't even told the sisters these exact words yet, but I will probably before you hear them anyways.
Um, I think that the seaweed sisters as, as a project has changed not only how I make things in that it has helped me to become a better collaborator. It's given me a better sense of my own taste and my values. And it's given me a way to practice expressing those things to other people and then working them through from ideas and values and feelings into actual physical works. Um, it's also the playground for making big, brave creative choices more so than a lot of my other industry work. So there's all that. But more, more than that, more than the how it changed me, it has actually changed what I want to be doing. Like it's changed my thoughts about my future self. It has become the thing that I want to do. And doing daily never reached that level for me. I never wanted to become a person who made daily Instagram videos for a living.
Like it did. It didn't ever rank that high. It was fun, it was exciting. There were days when I was more excited about my little Instagram burp, <laugh>, I don't know, it's just the word that explained it in that moment. I was more excited about that little Instagram burp than I was about sometimes performing on stage in front of thousands and thousands of people because it was mine, top to bottom like idea, um, execution, distribution, all of it. And I loved that part. Now I also have that I share that with my two best friends, which is so super special, but I'm finding in, in that I'm kind of losing myself again cause I'm super like emotional about it. Um, that I actually know I fully lost myself. <laugh>.
Here's why I bring this up. I enjoyed doing Daily, y'all, it did help me practice putting my perfectionist in the passenger seat. That was a huge reason why it was not making more work in my earlier days, cuz I knew it wouldn't be perfect. I didn't wanna do anything unless it was perfect. So I didn't do much, certainly not much on my own. So it helped me to do that. It also, um, kind of gave me this proof, this evidence, daily evidence that creativity is a renewable resource and that I can mine it. That was huge and it did help me unlock my creative superpowers. So now that my creative superpowers are unlocked and, and rather strong, I want to use them to save the world jk. I want to use them to do what I love to do, which is the seaweed sisters. I wanna seaweed all over the world, which actually in my mind is the same thing as saving the world. <laugh>.
Here is the catch though. When I take stock of my day-to-day life, my, my year, that was 2022. The vast majority of it was not spent seaweed all over the world, although a tiny portion of it was we did go to Canada last year and it was awesome. Um, I already mentioned that there wasn't a ton of dance period, but the seaweed sisters usually kind of are our history, our past workflow is that we would get together, um, for one big video work each year and then a few little blips and burps, <laugh> can't help it. Um, outside of that to teach a bit and play a little bit. Um, and, and that's kind of been our workflow Last year we did get to travel. We hosted our first, first ever creative workshop where we offered two to other people to come in on a creative process of our own.
And we, we taught sort of our ethos. Uh, that workshop is called Deep Dive by the way, and we 100% we'll be doing that again. But we didn't make the video work that we usually do. Um, and that doesn't mean that we are bad or that we failed or that something is wrong. Actually, I think quite on the contrary, it, it was a great year for all of us. I don't think anything was broken in that sense, <laugh>. Anyways, there was a lot about last year that was broken. Um, but as individuals and as a group in terms of doing interesting work and discussing the work that we want to be doing, we had a really great year. But what I'm getting at slowly but surely <laugh> is an example of time management and an introduction to a tool that I want to use more this year and that I wanna share with you today.
It does not have a fancy or catchy name. Sometimes I simply call it time budgeting <laugh>, which is not sexy at all. So, um, it's maybe sexier name and definitely nickname. Sometimes I just call it 24 K, uh, yes, like Bruno Mars, 24 karat, but only in this case, I mean 24,000. Like 24 k, like 24,000. Here's the concept. You are given $24,000 every day, $1,000 for every hour, and you get to decide how you spend it, right? Awesome. Spending 24,000. Great, I love that. Here's the catch. Any unused money at the end, if you do not spend all of it by the end of the day, just goes away. It disappears. Trash can doesn't go into savings. You can't add it up and do something with it later. It gets thrown away because that's how time works. And this is a metaphor for how you spend your time.
So if you got $24,000 every day, how do you spend it? How do you invest it? Do you put eight hours, $8,000 out of $24,000 into sleep? You still have a lot left even with $8,000 of sleep. Do you, do you put $2,000 into dance class or 4,000 out of $24,000 into dance class? Um, do you put $6,000 into spending time with your family? Would you put $1,000 into hanging out with your dog? If I had a dog, I definitely would put at least $1,000 hanging out with my dog. How much time, how much money? I mean, and isn't it funny that time really actually is money in this metaphor? Um, how much of it would you spend on social media? Literally, if you had $24,000, would you pay 2000 of that to scroll on Instagram or TikTok? I just use Instagram naturally by default because I'm older. <laugh>
Because I'm older and I don't understand TikTok, I'm becoming a person who understands TikTok, <laugh>, okay, no judgment about how much time or how much money you spend on social media. For some people the social scroll has a high return on investment. So it's really, it's, it's less about how many hours and more about your alignment of those hours with your values. That is what we're actually talking about here. So once you understand exactly what you're investing in, how many time dollars you're spending and where, then you can decide if you want to change how you're spending that time and how you invest into things with higher returns. So I invite you to join me in recalling your day yesterday. This might take like a little bit of time and definitely a piece of paper and a pen. How did you spend your time dollars yesterday?
Can you even recall? I'm not gonna lie, y'all <laugh> time with mom, 10 days is kind of a blur. I do not remember what day was what day. Um, but let's just say for example's sake that I spent, uh, uh, eight hours sleeping. Whoa. Which is true, I think every single night I got eight hours while my mom was here. Oh, oh no, that's definitely not true. Definitely not true. But let's say last night I got $8,000 worth of sleep. I spent an hour, maybe an hour and a half driving. So $1,500 driving. I spent, um, an hour and a half coaching. So $1,500 coaching. I spent four hours. So $4,000 preparing, uh, materials for the whitham com, the words that moved me. Community, $1,000 on the phone with, uh, Geico, my insurance oof not my favorite, but it is safety and the law are important to me.
So that definitely ranks my values. Um, and got eight hours of sleep. Let me see. Math, math, math. Okay. I definitely have a lot of unaccounted for time yesterday, <laugh>, um, oh, I did also spend 1500 time dollars dancing Zuke with Jeremy. Very, very much fun. I wish that was. I, hey, I would rebudget, I would totally rebudget my day to make $6,000 investment into Zu. Um, anyways, I don't know where all that time goes, but simply seeing that time, cash being thrown in the, in the trash, like that leftover time, oh, I think there was at least like $2,000 worth of puzzle, like doing the puzzle, which I wouldn't change thing anyways. Sometimes being aware of time actually in terms of money keeps me moving efficiently and really striving for a zero balance, really striving to, uh, spend my time on things I find valuable.
And yes, sometimes that is a puzzle or an hour in the tub or two hours at the gym. Like when I really think about 24,000, all of a sudden, two hours at the gym does not seem like anything versus out of that context, I'm like, oh God, that's forever. Can I just like do a 20 minute Peloton or something? No, I definitely can't invest two out of my 20 4K into having a strong physical and mental being. So, um, that is my tool for you. This concept of 20 4k try, um, to use it gently. Um, again, I do think that you can get very critical down to the minute of how you're spending your time and, and if misused, you can definitely go into overdrive on how you're budgeting your time. You don't need to become a person who's constantly rushing to be constantly saving time dollars.
Um, but simply the consciousness and the goal of spending time on things that you value and spending the most time on the things that you value the most, that is, that's the value of this tool. Um, so whoa, all of that being said, if the thought of a daily creative challenge like doing daily, if that excites you, and by excite I mean like maybe you feel a little bit scared <laugh>, it might show up as fear, it might sound like, oh my God, I could never do that. I could never make a creative work every single day for a year. Um, but if, if what I said about doing daily and practicing commitment to yourself, finding your creative voice, unlocking your creative superpower, if all of that spoke to you, I really do suggest that you try it. Go give a listen to episode number one, um, and actually check out the show notes to this episode.
I'm gonna link to a YouTube playlist that contains all of the episodes in which I mention doing Daily, which by now is several. Um, so yeah, I talk about doing daily a lot. It definitely is a hugely important piece of my creative history. Um, but that, that playlist can be your guide. I also offer a free download on my website. It's called the Doing Daily Diary. It's an interactive digital PDF that will help you stay accountable to yourself, organize your ideas, budget your time, all that good stuff. So visit words that move me.com and poke around there for a few minutes. Then a popup will appear to download your Doing Daily diary. Sorry, I'm not sorry. I put popups on my website. It is what it is. Uh, if you are like me however, and have have ad blockers, then you won't get the popup.
So you can simply DM me at Words That Move Me podcast. I will personally send you a doing daily diary cuz I love them. I think they're great. Um, and I do love doing daily. I think that you should try it if this speaks to you at all. Um, and if you're simply if, if you're not looking for a daily creative project, if that is not where you're at, it's that if that's not where you want to spend your time dollars, if you're simply looking to reevaluate how you're spending your time and want to be spending your time that's in a way that's more aligned with the work you want to be doing, then do it. But take the drama out, make it about math, make it about numbers. Write down how you spend your days. Measure the numbers, make a list of how you are spending your 24 K and then if you're feeling extra funky, you can make a list of how you'd like to be spending your 24 K.
Then compare those two lists and adjust accordingly until you are living that future life, that dream life, that Bruno Mars 24 karat Magic life <laugh>. That is what I have for you today, my friend. I hope it is useful. I hope you are having a fabulous start to the year or a fabulous middle end of the year. Um, I I really am simply so grateful that you are here and excited to talk to you again next Wednesday. All right? Oh, hopefully see you on Thursday. Free career coaching. Call over Zoom, visit words that move me.com/events to rsvp. All right, that is it for me. Get out into the world, keep it very funky. I will talk to you soon. Bye.
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Outro: This podcast was produced by me with the help of many music by Max Winnie, logo and brand design by Bree Reetz, and big thanks to Riley Higgins, our executive assistant and editor also massive, thanks to you. The mover, who is no stranger to taking action. So go take action.
I will not cannot stop you from downloading episodes or leaving a review into rating. I will not ban you from my online store for spending your hard earned money on the cool merch and awesome programs that await you. There. I will. 100% not stop you from visiting wordsthatmoveme.com. If you wanna talk with me, work with me and make moves with the rest of the words that move me community. Oh, and also I will not stop you from visiting thedanawilson.com. If you're curious about all the things that I do that are not words that move me related. all right, my friend, keep it funky. I'll talk to you soon.
