¶ Intro
And it's weird. Cause like we talked ages ago about the whole, like, Church sermon thing, and it's, it's interesting how much there is still that idea in there that was a big monologue, sorry.
No, uh, you never need to apologize for the monologue, This is your podcast too.
On episode nine in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in the 19 of convergence. Vegan eggs. Menstrual cycles. And the rebirth of morning creative. It's our Easter special.
¶ What is vegan really anyway?
This isn't going to happen now, so I think that I can, just talk about it on the pod and it'll be just kind of its own funny moment. but like, with your advice from last week, which just totally speaks to my heart of not worrying about social media. I had this thought, I figured out. the thing that I wanted to go viral over, which actually, it's kind of funny, because if I was to make a bunch of content for social media, then this would fit.
But considering that I really just want to make my product and hone that and make something really special and have it be its own word of mouth and be its own marketing, then this doesn't really fit. But if I were to do the whole social media thing and be posting about different things about health all the time and all that kind of stuff, I, I, I thought of the thing. That I would, I, I plan to go viral over, which is that, chicken eggs are vegan
Well, in, in a, well, uh,
because,
You're gonna have to
yes, yeah, absolutely.
I thought I could get there and then, no, I'm gonna need your help.
it's just a chicken period.
Ah, do we not get into, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Dude.
And if, and if eating a chicken egg is murder, then so is a woman's monthly cycle. And so is a man ejaculating into nothing. Like that, that's, that, that we're all committing atrocities.
Both of, yeah, well, you see, this is the thing. So one of those is a sin. You know, like, so much of our, so much of our society is based on, Catholic law, or Christian law. L O, well, I guess you could say that either way, L O R E or, L A W. law, Mmm, cuz yes, yes, but the reason I started laughing
Uh huh.
Is because it, it got me into a whole, and I'm sorry, like, if this is upsetting, but, like a whole Roe V. Wade thing, because, I guess, yeah, I mean, it's un, it's unfertilized.
Uh huh. Yeah, it's just an
But then I don't know that much about chicken reproduction, they
Oh, so Yeah, they, they just produce, like the chickens will just make their egg, just like a monthly cycle, just like a woman has their menstrual cycle and
Uh.
it, it, it doesn't harm the, the, so I, I looked up, like I went to vegansociety. com and looked up their five are required for, all living beings, should include the freedom from hunger, thirst, and malnutrition, from pain, injury, and disease, from discomfort, from fear and distress, and the freedom to express their natural behavior. Sounds pretty great. A backyard
By that token,
Has all those freedoms.
by that token is. She's not vegan, because a cow needs to be milked, whether you farm it or
Yeah. Yeah. And we're taking factory farms out of this equation. That's not. what we're talking about. We're
that's the and that's and thus and thus lies the thing, so yeah,
But Yeah. if you have just a goat or a cow on your property and they're, they're ranging around and, and eating and you, you know, you have a fence up to protect them from the wild animals, but, uh, but otherwise they're just like your family pet. And, and, well, you know, like, you know, pets are a whole thing and veganism too, like, they're not kind of allowed because they're not, they're not free to go and be. So that, that's the whole thing.
And there's a, There I did some more research and, there's actually a thing called a vegan, V E G G A N, who are vegans who eat eggs and, you know, and then the hardcore vegans are like. No, you're just an ovo vegetarian, you know, whatever. I, and, and I, I know this is all silly.
There is nothing in this world that we cannot find a way to make divisive or to draw divisive lines on. Fuck everything. All the way to the fucking moon. Fuck everything. Because there is nothing that cannot draw some kind of I didn't re I thought vegans were the best people. Now I know, now there's super vegans. Now there's power vegans. And the power vegans are at war with the super vegans, because they're not proper vegans. I can't take it anymore. I think I opt out.
title, title, fuck Everything. oh my God. Vegan. The, the, the, the layers of vegans and how staunch they are
The bacon
and, how they, you the infighting. It's insane, dude. So I was, I was vegan for seven years and, I was what they call a junk food vegan, where I, I ate all the processed foods, all the things that, you know, with the way that you find out, like you do the research to find out, Oh, Oreos are vegan. There's no, there's no animal products in them. So I can have all the Oreos I want, you know, that kind of stuff.
And I would, you know, I'd, I'd try to get, I would kind of try to get protein and other things as well, but like, I didn't understand it at all. I didn't understand. Like I was like, Oh, you just need protein. I didn't understand that. oh, there's actually two of the nine essential amino acids you can only get from animal protein. Like, they're essential for your body. Your body does not produce them. It cannot convert other things into them. You need to eat them.
And they only come from animal sources. And one of those amazing sources is eggs. And they're, and they're vegan. So you could be a vegan eating eggs and be relatively or possibly perfectly healthy. If you're just eating vegan, super by the book, and that you cannot ingest any animal products, you are not going to have great health. Like, there's going to be something missing. That's my, my
Mark neither agrees nor disagrees with the statements of Brendan Hutchins.
Yep.
¶ Spiky points of view
you helped me make. So last week we talked about spiky points of view and I've written down if you're getting broadcast advice on how to stand out you're getting bad advice, but something that you said. moment ago made me put ahead of that stop and I might put a fucking in here stop fucking making content
Haha. Yeah. Yeah.
Make things make things not
Mm hmm. Content's so boring.
Yep, it's like the vegan junk food. It's, it's the Oreos. It's like, sure, they are vegan, but they're also sort of like, this, I know it's a bit of a joke, but like, you know, you take things like American cheese Like the Twinkie bar, and it's like, there's some loophole that's like, it's not technically food, you know what I mean? Like, it actually doesn't have any nutritional, any of the things that could be, it's edible, but it's not food, you know,
That's all processed foods.
Yeah, that's content. It's, it's, it's slurry. It's, it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's technically edible, but it's not nutritious.
Mm hmm.
and no one really enjoys if, and if you enjoy making content, then maybe you're just not my people. That's all.
exactly my point from my rant at the beginning of last episode, is that food, like, the food industry has been taken over by people who just make products to sell that we happen to eat, even though they have no nutritional value, and actually negative nutritional value.
¶ Woman Code
I read a, cool book, uh, speaking of ovulation,
Another one.
this one. was called woman code and this will not be a part of God mode.
Okay.
I've been trying to research a lot of stuff about, polycystic ovarian syndrome and women's health and other stuff for some people around me. And, I tried going down one avenue because I love fasting and, you know, when you get, you get a fresh new hammer, you try to check around to see if everything is nails or not, out this area is not nails.
bless you sir.
I'm, I'm looking at other like, okay, well, if this is not nails, what, what is it? And so then how do I fix it?
10 points for self awareness.
¶ Points tangent
points!
I miss that show.
back!
At Midnight.
After midnight? Yeah. Or, uh, At Midnight? Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, I, I, it's not Hardwick? No. it's,
Oh, it's, yeah, it is apparently called After Midnight. Which is based on at,
Yeah. It was the same format.
yeah. So, Taylor Tomlinson. Speaking of that, very, very tiny, quick tangent, but it's worth it. Um, I'm, I'm tempted to kind of buy a subscription for, does it drop out dot TV? they've got a game show called, game changes and it keeps popping up. Like rounds of it keep popping up on, on tick tock And I've watched a full episode of it and it's great. it's very, it's like admin, not even sillier and not based on current
Oh, that sounds fun.
I think you would like everyone who's, who's on it. they're not big names except, Brennan Lee Mulligan. is a name you might remember. I think it's Brennan. I know it's Brendan anyway, which is not a name. Brendan is a name. Brendan, that's someone mispronouncing the name Brendan.
Yeah, just dropping, dropping, it.
Sorry Brendan, you seem like a very nice person, but, you know, your name's wrong. I am the, I am the authority
Yeah, I actually, I kind of like the name Brendan. it's, it's a bit easier to say. I, I've, I've struggled to my life to say my name correctly, actually. because, Well, I, I pronounce it B R E N D I N, Brendin,
Oh sure,
Yeah, which I, that's how I like pronounced, but it's spelled with an A, and then, you know, everybody, at least here, like, especially in the South, Brandon is very popular. B R A N D O N and I'd get called that a lot and for a long time I hated that. That was just insulting to me. I was like, that is a completely different name. There are two vowel changes.
this is the Marco Armand snap to grid problem. People are like, ah, just close enough. Brandon. Fine. That's a name I know that that'll, that must be what he's
Yep. But Brennan always felt closer and like, kind of just like, oh, you're just saying my name fast. That's, that's great. You don't got time to mess around with a full name.
No, we've got stuff to do, we can't be sticking on Ds. Title. Oh God, we're too far deep in the
no, I think I, well, I'll pull this back
¶ Woman Code part 2
out. Woman code.
Thank you.
I don't actually have a lot to say about this, except it was a fantastic, any. for the lady listening.
Hello there.
I highly recommend this book. It's really great. I, I can't speak from experience, but I would say from the, it's reputation and from going through it, wow, spot on great, great advice. it's got, it's kind of a lot like God mode in that, but for women it's got Sure, the diet stuff, but also kind of self care routines. And there's a lot about the cycle and how there's four phases of the cycle and you really need different things in different phases.
And you're, you should kind of live your life differently in each week, approximately of the cycle. Like this week you can kind of go hard this week. You need a lot of rest this week Try to doing yoga this week. Try doing something new like when you're gonna schedule yourself for events and you're filling out an RSVP and Coming up in the future if it falls in within you a certain week of your period, then Yeah. go for it. If it falls within a different week, maybe don't RSVP to that one.
Cause You're not going to feel up to going
No. I've heard, similar things, and in fact I've edited podcasts that suggest
yeah. So I've heard from a long time that women famously have a monthly hormone cycle. I've heard from, for a couple of years now that Men also have a hormone cycle and I had tried briefly to kind of look into it and stuff and couldn't really find anything about it. but it makes sense. Like we, we, we also have, we're affected by different things. Our bodies go through cycles all the time. And so I've been curious about it, but I haven't really learned much about it until very recently.
So, a woman's hormone cycle, they're overarching, is it arching or arching? I don't, I don't know.
I've never been I think arcing, but I've never been
I like saying arching better than arching, Overarching. makes more sense. Like a, an arch is a structure. I like arc, I like a rainbow.
Yeah.
The overarching, timeline of, of a woman's cycle is a, is a around a month, 28 days, ish.
¶ A man's hormone cycle
A man's hormone cycle follows the circadian rhythm and is 24 hours long.
Oh, hello.
kind of a moot point,
Yeah.
but also it's kind of really interesting. this knowledge is going to feed its way into God mode. I'm going to talk a little bit about it. The part of the part of what I understand is going on. I still have a lot to learn, but part of what I understand is going on is while a man sleeps. That's when he's producing testosterone. so when you wake up, you have the most amount of fresh testosterone to use. And so that's, that's a good time to do your workout.
It's a good time to get outside and move your body. that's a good time for work and, and kind of, productivity stuff. When you get around 3 PM, that's, you have a big drop off. And that's why, There's usually .that. kind of drained feeling and the desire to have some coffee or something to, push your adrenal gland to produce some adrenaline so that you can keep going, keeping on.
And then around eight or nine o'clock, you have a severe drop off where you just really deplete and you're ready to, your body knows it is time to just stop, rest, get to bed.
Does
Click. so I thought that was really interesting.
as you age?
Oh, yes. as you age, apparently, I think that's every year, you produce about one, 1 percent less testosterone That's, that's, as I understand it, that has not, that's not super well researched on my part.
¶ Testosterone enhancement tips
but there are things that can be done to enhance testosterone. And I've been, I've been working on those lately, two, two major things, that have been working for me and that I understand are. universal for men is, working on that sleep, working on that sleep, getting good sleep every night and working out, strength training, not, not cardio, not, just getting yourself tired, not, aerobic stuff. Like that's great for your cardiovascular system.
If you want to do that, that's, that's a cool muscle to work on, but I'm talking about the rest of the muscles, building, building muscles, doing slow, Oh man, I've, I've found some interesting tips. I said, it's really just one tip, for really working on working your muscles when you're working out, if you're doing any like weightlifting, really slow reps, like taking it, taking, 10 seconds to go all the way in one direction. And then 10 seconds back.
makes totals. I mean, I've never really done it, but it makes total sense because you're going to be feeling that all the way through rather than just, you know, constant curl, curl, curl. Like, what is that actually doing? Whereas if you're constantly tensing, if you're really,
you've got the muscles fully engaged and you, you're the, the tissue all the way through is engaged.
Yeah, that makes
Yeah. And then there's also, I've been working with a personal trainer and I, I have, I got a, COVID set of weights, that, that didn't get used during COVID of course, but I was like, Oh, these are fun.
but now I'm, now I'm starting to use them with this zoom trainer and, He has me doing holds, so I'll, I'll, I'll lift up and I'll halfway and then I'll hold for five seconds and then lift up for the rest of the way and then come down and hold for five seconds halfway and then go, and holds will be like kind of moved around at different points and stuff. And wow, those, that's really effective and really, difficult. it. gets so, it gets so heavy and hard.
And, and, and so the, the idea, The, the optimal way that at least this company has described for building muscle and using muscle is that you want it to be heavy enough and use the pauses so that you wear yourself out between two and three minutes. And when you get to where you cannot lift it at any more and your, your muscles are just failing and you stopped between two and three minutes, that's perfect.
And then you, you rest for the week, you only do it, you only work out for 20 minutes, once or twice a week. And then, oh Yeah, and dude, so I've been doing this for like a couple months, and I, am building so much muscle, dude, like I've, my arms are huge, oh dude, it's, it's, oh man, it feels so good. Good. Ah, Oh, it feels so good. It feels so good.
love the fact what's, what's interesting now is speaking of the hormonal cycle that we've got you, uh, the, beginning of your testosterone arc. Me at the end of mine,
Oh, that's really funny.
So it's like, yeah. And I'm like,
Well, that's what, no, this is like perfect timing for us still because like, I, I need that. extra help because I, I'm typically kind of a bit slower and you're always like full, full speed. Like, so we're like almost evenly matched here and like, yeah,
Yeah.
oh, that's really funny.
¶ On the importance of sleep
But yeah, the other, the other thing, um, that I mentioned just a second ago with. The importance of, the importance of sleep for testosterone for men is, is incredibly important. And, uh, I've been doing a lot of work on my sleep lately. the aforementioned red lens, blue light blocking glasses have been incredible. They, they, they help surprisingly. a lot. I, I, I use them. lately I've been using them less because I've been trying to just use screens way less at night.
And, and we've been We've done a whole bunch of things around the house to minimize blue light. Like I, I've gone around all the unnecessary lights and put black, you know, black electrical tape on them, on the LEDs, on, on devices that I still want to see the indication of. I bought some red transparent tape that's used for like repairing, uh, car.
I bought some of that from a, uh, auto store and cut little, little bits of it and covered up all the LEDs that I still want to see the indication of late at night. But, so I don't want to block out completely. As soon as I did that, I did that at night so I could see where all the LEDs were. As soon as I did that and covered up all these, the extra blue light that I didn't need, I immediately felt the difference. It was amazing. Really cool.
It's a super minor difference, and I'm attuned to it now because I have been working so hard on reducing blue light at night, not just, you know, screens like TVs, computers, uh, phones, and whatnot, but also blackout curtains from the street light coming in my window, not using standard LED bulbs, but I use like Philips hue bulbs. And when you're on the red color of the Philips hue bulb, it actually turns off the, the blue and other, other colored chips in there. It's just the red chip.
even in my fridge, I bought, I told you about like a piece of red acrylic for my, for my computer screen. I also bought some red acrylic to go over the lights in my fridge. So when I opened the fridge in the morning, it's not this bright blinding light. It's a really soft, warm red light. it really helps. I feel, I feel tired when I go to sleep instead of wired. I feel, I feel, so rested when I wake up in the morning, which I didn't used to.
For years, I would wake up more tired than I went to sleep. Like, I'd wake up and I'd just be fucking exhausted and not want to get out of bed and just want to snooze and then, Wake up from my snooze and feel even worse than I did before. And that is really all gone away. Now I wake up at 5 AM and I'm just like, kind of like buzzing. I'm like, wow, I am ready. I don't need coffee. I have it. I have decaf. When I want to, not every day. And it's just like, Hmm, energy. Oh, that's amazing.
Some advice I have been given for, more things about light and sleep is that you should get sun for at least five minutes, but aim for 15 minutes at sunrise. And that light doesn't count when it's coming through your window. You need to get outside. and have it directly on you and your skin. And this is best for,
I I haven't done this for ages and I was reading some, someone was talking about, the 5am club, which I guess is just one of these, another one of these, like you're not living your life well enough. You should get up at five and live your life better. And it's like, yeah, cool. But like, how, when do you sleep?
And one of the things that I am a real fan of and I haven't done it for ages is being outside at just Maybe just after dawn um because There is a charge to the air or I you know I pick that up Anyway, I don't know if everyone does but like yeah, I pick up a real uh, yeah a real sort of fizz to the air There's a freshness. Yeah, And I really enjoy being outside with that.
It's just, it's Yeah, It's like, if you've ever been camping and you, you open your tent in the morning and the Jews there, and you. And you sort of you feel that, it's like that's not because you're camping. It's because of the time Day, you've got up and the fact that you know, the sun's kind of just cresting and stuff and it's yeah It's a great feeling and I I to do more
¶ Morning Creative evolution
of Speaking of, sort of finding that meaning, of, you know, finding the right thing. Um, yeah. I've been through a whole journey over the last week or so with morning creative to catch dear listener up, two weeks ago, I got into a whole Thing about, I wanted to rename the show. I think you and I had a private conversation, uh, about that or two weeks ago. and I was, uh, you know, I had conversation with, with, if you're playing the drinking game, you can take a drink.
Now, patrons of the, of the show, Anna, We had a conversation about the naming and like me trying to find this whole sort of Thing because it was all spurred along by like, I feel like things are declining I feel like there's a drop off in momentum I think that the people who are listening to the show are the people who know and like me and it's not branching out Into strangers and so there needs I need to find that thing that's making that would want That would make complete strangers curious
and want to try an episode And so the whole thing there was like sharpening the razor like really getting it You really clear so that you can look at this thing and go, I know what I'm getting. Cause that hasn't been there. I went through a whole thing of like, okay, I need a new name. Cause it's like this sort of atomic unit of an idea. Every, every episode is this atomic little idea that you can take away with you and it's 20 minutes.
so over the weekend, I like, I basically rebranded it in my head. To, thinking of it like a morning show, like a daytime morning show. that was fine. And that, that sort of made sense because it was about. the thing that I finally got to was, it was about the intentional time. spending this time well. It's about time well spent. It's not about the idea. And this is where I think actually it would be interesting for you to check out an episode on
m'kay,
because It's going to be less like a podcast
ooh,
meditation.
dude,
The sort of pitch at the moment is meditate. It's meditations for creative people who don't have time to meditate.
oh yeah,
and so it will be kind of slower and, um, sort of brought down and with space and with time to actually sit with an idea. So there's still every episode, there's still a thing to think about, but it's not so dense and it's not so like. Take this away. It's actionable. It's like, here's a thing for you to mull over and actually we're going to breathe and we're going to think, and it won't be like a fully guided meditation necessarily, but it will be in that kind of cadence.
You know, there won't be music and a bell going and stuff, but it will have the cadence of we're taking 20 minutes out and it's you and your creativity and honoring that and spending time with it. and here's this, this thing that you can roll around in your brain and think about for the day to help fuel you up. And that's kind of the vibe.
And then going with that so I've been struggling, like, you know, if we, if we go pure, pure business here, struggling with the whole, like, how do we get people's email addresses in the modern world? That's how we do stuff, you know, because I'm, you know, my thing, you're, you're trying to build something that is from one person to another person. I, what I'm building, I, I need an audience. I'm trying to build an audience. I'm going big. I'm going from scale.
and that's great, but you also, you know, if I'm going to build a business off the back of it, I need to be in touch with people So how do I add value in exchange for people's email addresses? And the thing that I started to realize one, one cold Wednesday morning, was Okay. Morning creative is the right name. I know what the show is now. It's this sort of meditative thing. It's, it's an intentional space.
cause Jeremy ends of the podcast marketing Academy had used the word sacred space the day before when, when sort of, because I'd written this Description and it was okay. And he was giving it a really good teardown, like a really good, like, this isn't making me feel anything here. This feels a bit generic. This is a bit mushy. and he did all this over like a loom video and it was excruciating, but it was also very, very, very good and very helpful.
hmm. Mm
fast forward to, to sort of the end of Wednesday and I'm like okay, I know, I think I, I think I feel like I know everything now. uh, the email strategy is simple. It's like, well, we've got the morning creative. Here's the ideas for you to think about. And then, I, like, I can't control when the podcast lands in your feed, unfortunately. Uh, I can only do that from the UK.
I can't make you listen to it at a at a particular time But you know, the, the, the social contract that we have is that you listen to it in the morning and then For the evening, for your journaling for, you know, if you're a bullet journal person or if you are a whatever, you know, if you just have a journal that you write in, you get an email with a daily prompt for your journal.
hmm.
So it's something off the back of what's happened in the mornings episode. But it will be, you know, a provocation or a thought or something that's a little prompt for you to think about in your journal. And if you are a Morning Pages person, then you can save 'cause it will always appear. Based on where you are, it will always be your evening because I can do that with email. so it will always be your evening.
with that, then you get, so you get the email and then you can, you know, if you're a journal person, you can sit there and you can have a thing and it's, it's, it's there. And I even say like in the email, like some of these will resonate with you. Some of them won't, that's Okay, and so if you're not necessarily an evening journal person, you can save the email for the morning and use it for your morning pages, you know, if you're a morning pages person.
and you know, if you've, you've stuck for something to, to write in your morning pages, it's like, there you go, there's the thing. and so for me, it's like, that's the cycle. and I know what the product is off the back of that I know what, you know, what I'm selling off the back of all of that now. Um, which is basically you take those meditations. my thinking is they're not gonna, I'm not gonna have all my daily episodes on the feed.
I think there will be, they'll maybe stick around for, I was thinking 30 days, but I might go longer. cause there's little value to like, you're not going to bend. It would be weird if you binged. Yeah. My show,
Yeah, yeah
from the beginning.
Mm hmm,
so, you know, I'll cut off the feed, but
for you to reuse content that's
yes, but, but the thinking is from a sort of reuse perspective is taking the meditations. Which I'll just between you and us call the meditations, and make those available because each month of the stuff I talk about is. There's a there is a theme for every month. That means when, as the library of content starts to build up, if we're in, if the podcast is, is, is in. like, rest mode, cause It's November and we're talking about rest. But you're feeling quite energized and quite up for it.
You can have a look through the archive, which is a paid thing, like, and just, the meditations library basically, and go, well, I want something on something that's going to catalyze me, something that's going to like get me into, or I'm really focused on growth. And so here's all the growth meditations basically. and so that comes at a, you know, a, small monthly, uh, subscription. And so that's kind of a, that's kind of a, a, a base thing.
And then there's the community and stuff and it all feels like it all kind of ties together and makes sense.
It really does. I like that. I like I like all of that.
with the new description that I read to my, to read to Jeremy on our, uh, weekly calls with the podcast marketing academy. I just sort of nabbed a couple of minutes towards the end of the call with everyone and, and read the, my descriptions and it, it was Exactly the right feedback like I'd basically I won't say nailed it But I I was at least I would say 90 to 95 percent there.
amazing
I'm very very pleased I feel like it was so worth doing and now having updated the artwork as well with people's advice.
Oh, that is classy, dude. I love the new art
image
and so fitting, and yeah, like, um, I think it was Danny was saying, like, it just really looked just, yeah, perfect. Oh, yeah, I love it.
Yeah, I've so so monday. we're gonna come out the traps You Crazy. And, and, and so we were talking, I think last week about, uh, websites and the, ability to go or the, the utility in kind of going custom. And I knocked this, I knocked this website out last week, in one night.
Of course you did. Of course you did.
using code from, you know, I dunno if you remember my newsletter, the Big Minute.
I do.
But that was all, like, all that newsletter, that whole system was, was my own.
Wow.
because I wanted to make it super simple. cause,
The idea of
I mean by that is,
making it simple, but yeah,
yes, what I mean by, what I mean by that is, using, like, and I use MailerLite, and MailerLite is one of the better ones of these that I've used. But they all suck. Like they all take too long to actually just write the email and to write a good looking email because you're dragging and dropping and you're copying components. And then there's just weird things that happen. The WYSIWYG interface doesn't do what you want and, and all this stuff.
And because it's got a, it's got to, fit so many different use cases. There's so many different options that you've got to remember, which option is it that I want? Whereas when you've got your own custom thing, it's like, well. I know my newsletter is always going to have in this order, these things. And so I can just select them from a dropdown or even write the code so that it automatically selects your, you're going to be writing a newsletter. So you'll want a daily prompt.
You want an episode to talk about. And so, and you want a title where we can infer all of those things from the content that already exists, rather than copying and pasting from one thing to another thing. And when you're daily, that kind of stuff saves. Like, you know, in the long term hours and hours and hours of unnecessary work. there are, there are other drawbacks. There are definitely other drawbacks from going custom. There's certain things that I can't do, but.
It means that from a productivity standpoint, I'm spending the maximum amount of time doing the thing. that I, want to do and much less of the time duplicating information and copying It from one box. to another box. And so luckily I had all this code that was able to piece together from two or three different projects. and, and built this website last night, So I didn't get a huge amount of sleep, but. It's up and it's there and things like the daily prompts.
¶ http://MorningCreative.co/prompt
you can just go to morning, creative. co slash prompt. and you'll see today's prompt, with, you know, the, the question and a bit more information. and you know, you are then invited to pop your email address in and you'll get a new one every day. the prompts aren't archived. they are, but not they're not accessible to, you know, the public. and it's all that kind of stuff that means. I, can build a little membership out of all of this stuff.
Like I had to, basically I had to make it its own website. Cause it was going to start to get really complex. If it was running on, you know, hello, stedman. com like it starts to get a bit unwieldy then, and so it's like, okay, it's its own thing. And then in however many months time it takes when I'm ready to go, you can now access a library of meditations, for five pounds a month and they're here at morning creative.
co done, you know, and, and I can automate the process of cutting out the meditations, even putting stuff in them, the background, making little videos, making all the stuff I can automate.
Amazing.
¶ I f**king love Transistor
I love transistors so much. they keep, they have really good ideas. So transistor is, is who this podcast is hosted with. and they are, you know, the best podcast hosting company that wasn't podium. like they were always much bigger than me, but like in, in, in many ways, I can sort of see it as like almost a spiritual successor, because actually like so many of their ideas, uh, uh, sponsored to how I think stuff should be done in terms of things like, uh, dynamic ad insertion. And so.
On a whim, I emailed the support team and I was like, you know, it'd be really cool if I could create a chapter in my, or like have some kind of metadata or use the API or something to be able to mark in my episode where I would want a dynamic ad to be inserted, rather than have to upload the episode and then go to the interface and pick it there. And then we're like, ah, we don't have anything for that, but it's a good idea. Oh, cool. No, no, I'm not disappointed. That's fine.
I'll figure it out. And then like a day later. Helen, uh, the support person got back to me was like, Oh yeah, it turns out if you put a chapter in your mp3 file with like, and, and write it like this, we already had the system in place. So we will use that, and it won't show up as a chapter or whatever. And it was like, and I think, I think I'd like, I replied with like, I F star star King love you guys or something. I was like, I was so blown away. It's like.
I haven't tested it yet, but um, it's, it's, yeah, it's there. And so there's that, and there's a few other things that just like, I can automate this with, you know, with a combination of descript and a few other things means that actually putting an episode out and then being able to just take that chunk of a, of a, Of a meditation 'cause I'm, you know, obviously I've gotta think about how I'm sharing this stuff online. well, I, I say I have to, I don't have to.
I've just told myself that I have to. but there is, there is an option there for, and I actually,
¶ Podcode
I don't know if you ever saw this, but I had a lot of fun in 2021 in the summer of. I used to have a podcast that was like podcasting news for sort of indie podcasters. and it was made up of lots of chunks that got assembled. So I would record, like, I'd have all these news headlines.
Yeah.
It was called the pod code briefing. and, and it was a wonderful piece of, you know, Like engineering. I'm really, it was really cool because you could get a public version of it, which was like, here's the major headlines. And anytime a new piece of news would come in, I would record it because it was, it was an email newsletter. And so you'd have that stuff, but I would also record my scripted version of it. And that would get uploaded somewhere. And then at the end of
like customize your audio, podcast feed and it would,
tagged.
that was
so you could have your own feed. and so the MP3 was made, was stitched together based on all these parts.
Just so, it's such a cool idea and, amazingly implemented, like, it was just, I was like wow, like, like, I get, like, after you describe it, it's like, oh, I get how you can take all those pieces and make that work, but it still felt like magic, it was
Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's the, that's the beauty of, of, of the MP3 format. It's like, wow, this is, you know, cause dear listener, the, the, the idea being, there are certain things in podcasting that you don't care about. For, for where you are in your journey. And so for you to be able to say, I don't need, like, I've got all the gear I need. I don't need you to tell me about a new microphone. Cause I'm really happy with the gear I've got. So don't tell me about gear.
Tell me about these things. And you can have your own custom feed that was just made up of that stuff. and the same went with the newsletter as well. and so like, I had a lot of fun with that. And what I was also doing was all of those news articles. Because I was reading them anyway. And some of that content would actually never, it might never be used because there were some articles where, I'd already recorded them, but actually more important news came along.
I didn't include every single news article. And so there were some that would just go by the wayside. But what I could do, and what I spent a bit of time doing was making a whole thing to create. and they're actually quite neat. And I need to see if they, I think they, they are, they still exist. somewhere on, on YouTube that could make vertical YouTube shorts that were animated and had music in the background and the audio bit that I'd recorded. and like the news headline or something.
and it would just automatically just make that and put it out into YouTube shorts. And so there's stuff like that, that I can play around with again, of taking these meditations,
sure,
creating a few templates that are just, I had it in my head of like, I like the idea of having some, some sort of pulsating kind of colors, I don't know why I said colors in a weird way, so pulsating kind of colors that simulate. a good sort of breathing rate And so you can listen to my voice and i'm not necessarily directing you to breathe in a particular way But you can see this sort of very slowly pulsating breathing image And then it's maybe it's my face in a little circle or something.
maybe some text maybe not but being able to make that video and just cut it, out with the water No effort, you know,
that's cool.
of having the mad coding skills and being very squishy, wanting to do a very squishy podcast,
hmm.
but also over here, be able to like, be really technical about how we actually make this with, you know, no need to hire a social media manager,
Yeah, for sure.
you know, to just take that video, put it into buffer, buffer takes care of the distribution, like,
Yep.
that's kind of the dream.
That's amazing. Wow. That's all, that's all really, I'm so happy for you, dude. That, what, what a cool, um, tumbling into place of a bunch of things you've been thinking about and working on. And, uh, oh, I'm, I'm so excited to see it come to fruition and excited to see it on Monday with the new, the new version is like, and, oh, I'm, I'm happy for you, man.
thank you. I, I hope that it would be something that, because like, it's less about making time for the podcast and it really is like, I want this to be an opportunity for, for you. Like it is a time where you can sit for 20 minutes And have a, like and spend time every day with Godmode. Even if, You can't because of the other demands of the day. Like,
Yeah.
I don't know if you read, if you read the description of the show.
I'd love to hear it again.
yeah. I was going to say, if you would permit me, I can, I can read it to the listener. Cause I think it's, um, it's instructive. yeah, I think, I think you said something, uh, last week that kind of really, really Sort of made me realize, like, I think this is the right thing for you as well.
¶ Morning Creative description
daily life as a creative minded solopreneur is noisy. Your household, personal life, and your business are all competing for your attention. Not to mention keeping healthy, seeing your friends And, feeding the algorithm more content.
Mm.
No wonder your big side project takes a backseat from time to time.
Yeah.
Instead of waiting until the working day has zapped your energy, start your morning with a warm, friendly dash of inspiration. Morning Creative is the daily podcast for imaginative thinkers And doers working on their big project. Each 20 minute episode mixes prompts, gentle provocations, and practical actions you can take today to further your practice.
Join creative advisor, Mark Stedman, as he invites you to reignite your spark and set yourself up for the day, motivated and energized on the days you feel like you've got this. You're right for every other day as morning creative.
Hell yeah! I love it. I love it.
And so my hope is that, this becomes not like every other podcast that's trying to tell you stuff, but it's really, it's like how we used to use podcasts that we used to. Like, properly dial them into our day and make them part of our routine. And my real hope is that like you, you, the you, but also you, the general, pick a time, you know, in the morning when you can just take a little bit of time. it's part of your practice and it's part of what you're doing as part of your routine.
and, and that you hold that space. and, and I get to help hold it and that just feels
It does. It does, man. Oh, man. That's, that's Brilliant.
And it's weird. Cause like we talked ages ago about the whole, like, Church sermon thing, and it's, it's interesting how much there is still that idea in there because, uh, you know, and it's bow, bow our heads in, in prayer, not to a God, not to me, not to you, but to
Creativity.
the creativity, the, the, the particular spark, your particular relationship with that spark that that's working for you and keeping that faith for want of a better word alive. But now we get to do it through the lens of. sort of mindfulness, sort of meditation, as opposed to an ersatz idea of prayer. Um, which I, which feels just a lot more wholesome and a lot more easily accessible. So yeah, I feel like I've sort of roundabout ended up where I kind of wanted to be.
But through a slightly different lens.
Mm hmm.
so it's, yeah. It feels, feels good.
That's amazing. Love it. Well done, Mark. Good creative work.
Thank you! Thank you.
You're very welcome. Wonderful. Well, as always, correct me if I'm wrong.
¶ Good People by P.O.S.
Only want good people around me in this life to lift me up, show me who I'm meant to be.
¶ 19 by Paul Hardcastle
if I say to you, NIETEEN Does that mean anything to you?
uh, the beginning of it makes me think of Batman. Uh, 19. No, I'm sorry. It doesn't,
no, it's fine. in, 1985, so I was two when this came out.
well, it was probably less than one.
Paul Hardcastle had a track called Nineteen, and it was in the era of the 80s when, um, Lots of music was, I think we got into like big beat, which is where sort of Norman Cook, Fatboy Slim started doing stuff, but there was lots of, there was um, an era where it was just, people were, Using samplers and yes, you had drum machines, but you will, you were also taking samples from films and all that, you know, um, various bits like that. And there's a track called 19.
Which, uh, has, uh, an American, like, journalist. It's a bit, uh, well, I don't know. I actually don't know if it's even Paul Hardcastle. I'm guessing it's not. I'm guessing it's clips from something. And it's about the eighties. Such a weird, such a weird, the eighties were a weird time.
yeah.
It's about the average age of soldier in the Vietnam war, if I believe rightly being 19. it's a, it's a weird song, but it was a very, very famous song. And so the certain era, if you say no, no, no, no 19, cause it's all, of course, because it's all samples, someone's hitting the sample button several times and you're just getting, no, no, no, no 19. Um, like, uh, Shaka Khan. That's, that's another one. Anytime anyone says Shaka Khan, you have to say Shaka Khan.
You have to, yeah.
Does that one that
I, I know the reference, but I don't Like I haven't memorized the song.
It's a great song. Actually. I really like it. I feel for you I think or it might just be called feel for
Oh, I think
by
it's like, oh, I feel for you. Like you
Oh, I feel for you because you don't know the song um, Hello listener, this is episode 19. Hence this Thing