Flex and Frooms, Flex and Frooms.
This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast.
I found myself the other day at South Found Sandwiches in Darling Hursts, my favorite sandwich shop.
Yours too. Shout out to Giordana.
You're an early adopter, though you've been on it for years.
What can I say? Probably twenty eighteen I started there. Now.
I was sitting with a friend. My friend is a musician. Do they know you're about to dock them? Yeah, I asked them, because I know you would like this one flexing. And she was telling me about how the other day an old producer of hers called her up.
He was on he was having a really good time.
He was out that night right, so called her facetimed her, was like, you are the most talented person I ever worked with.
You're a genius.
You know it kind of befuddles me why you aren't bigger, Like you need to work harder, you need to do this. I know what you're capable of. And my friend was saying, like, while it was really nice to hear that because she really obviously respects this producer and they're big deal, like they know what talent is. She kind of felt it made her feel bad, like, oh my god, why aren't
I doing more? Like, you know, she's someone who's like really good at doing what she feels right for her, Like she's not someone who's going to follow a like a certain route that will like guarantee success, right, and she that's kind of like she feels bad about that, Like damn if only I, you know, like played the TikTok game and did all this.
Then I'd be where I want to be. But she doesn't want to do it.
We got talking about it, and I was like, well, would you rather everyone kind of like let's do a hypothetical. Let's say you end up getting what you want, you're as successful as you want to be.
Would you have.
Rathered everyone think you're a genius from the start, or would you rather an underdog story?
Oh?
Like she was so average. We had no idea she could make it.
Now look at her, Yeah, wow, what do you reckon?
I mean, it goes either way.
As I was hearing you recall or recount this story, I was like, it sounds like misplaced frustration to me, because it's I think being part of this like faux self aware generation. Because we can explain it. We feel soothed by that reality. So it's like I want to
do things differently. This is the consequence, you know. So when someone who has worked with other people who are doing the thing that you want to do in a way that you should be able to do it, but you don't want to do it that way, like, of course it feels bad, but now you know because imagine the alternative. Right, Let's say that I really want I'm an amazing visionary singer, Like I've got an amazing voice, an amazing style, i can do any genre.
It's effortless to me.
And I work with a bunch of other singers and you know, their voices are subpa they can't hit notes, but they're just really good at brand building. They're really good at social media, and not even really good. They just like work with enough people who are essentially putting them in a very specific mold, and they're just like being a puppeteer. You, I might feel like I don't want to do it that way, Like I want to
be the Andy Warhol of my generation. I want to be the person who's so far left to such an outlier that you can't help but look and stare and recognize that I'm incredible. It's like, yeah, it's like a one and all, one and a billion.
Thing to do.
So like that in itself has its own set of complications. But I feel like sometimes when you are really exceptional, it's hard to recognize. It's like you're not exceptional enough to like outsmart the system that was made in such a specific way for this reason. So when so, because what's the consequence, Like having a bunch of amazing people who we never get to hear because they want to do things their way.
It's like, no, we all tried that.
Where we got to in the conversation, she was like, I would hate to do something that doesn't feel authentic and then not get.
What I want.
She was like, let's say then I play the game, but I still don't get what I want. Now I've lost my you know, I wasn't even being true to myself. So it's a very difficult bond that she finds herself.
And it's a good question, like do you want what you want or do you want to feel good? Because I often feel like you can't do both in the same way, like you. I mean, some people can, and they do, but for everybody else. For all of us, it's like, yes, you can have what you want in exactly the way you want it, but you don't make any room for the consequence of that. And that's what my therapist told me. He's like, you're so rational and
logical and so naive at the same time. And I was like, what do you mean so, and he's like, you have You've done this really amazing thing where you've cultivated a life that matches your desires. Yeah, so it's given you this illusion of control that you don't have. You've cultivated control in certain areas, but generally you don't have control. I don't have control. We don't have control.
And what happens is when you start to when you're able to curate things in your vision, you don't take into consideration that there would be a bunch of things that you can't curate in your vision. You don't want to be accountable for that reality. So, for example, this idea of like, well, I would prefer to be authentic and get what I want, it's like, maybe in this
reality you can't do that. So what you're preferring is the feeling of failure from not getting what you want and the story you tell yourself around why you feel comfortable with that. And I was like, whoa sir, so sorry, sorry, back up, and he was just like, there are a lot of the things that all of us will experience. It's just biproducts are being alive byproducts are being a human. Biproducts are being women, byproducts of living in a patriarchal society,
by products of living in a capitalist society. This is just the reality of the situation. And what we do with this information is we often feel like we're the exception to the way that things are, or that we have the power to overcome because we are told a lot of stories about overcoming trials and tribulations, from fairy tales to old folks tales to how people motivate you when you're younger, Like you can be the exception. You know, I knew a guide he was so dumb, but look
look at how he turned out. Or like I knew a girl she was so unfit, but she wanted to be a bodybuilder. People like instill this idea into you that you can overcome the most abnormal situations, and so when it comes to doing things as they have been done for a millennia. You feel like you're above that because I've heard plenty of stories that would affirm that I could do it differently.
And it's true, you can do it differently. But then what we don't.
Prepare ourselves for is almost like the number of implications are doing things differently. So, for example, if you're someone who wants to do something exceptional, objectively exceptional, so be a creative for a living that's an exceptional thing. Be a doctor that's exceptional, go off the grit, it's exceptional. You must prepare yourself for exceptional failures. Yep, exceptional hardships. People don't do that. They're cand like, wait, why can't
I just do both? You are doing both? Wait, I have to do GST you literally, I can't I just own a business and not have to fire anyone.
It's like, well, you could try it, see how you go.
So it's interesting when you talk about this friendom like I get it, Like I totally understand this, this juggling these two opposing ideas, like I could do it this way and it could work out, but I could be unhappy. Or I could do it this way but it might not work out. But then I could be happy. It's like, but the only way that you know is if you do it.
I choose the option where you're not doing the like
trend thing, but maybe you fail. Yeah, because I think especially this person's like in the creative industry, I think, like you, something that I think you need to be conscious of is like, let's say you do go down the path of doing like I think with a lot of creative industries, like in what we do, something that's really important, which I feel like I would find hard, especially when I worked at Pedestrian, is like the way to grow an audience is to keep doing the same
thing again and again and again, like people really want to know, Oh, you're gonna get this thing on Tuesday, like podcasting everything, the number one thing is to be consistent.
Like you don't even have to really be.
Like good tvh you just have to do it because there's really Australia's industry is so small. If you just get up and like post something every single day, you will find an audience. But I used to be like, oh I did want a video like this, and you know, someone to be like can you do another one like that?
I'm like I actually can't king like.
I don't know if you know how creativity works. People don't all my processes.
They're like, you're getting paid, so you're gonna have it.
No, I can't walk to another Bunnings and talking about conspation. No, I can't do that. Thank you. That was the one and done. It was the Becasa of my generation.
Literally never before seen.
So I get the vibe that, like, you don't want to have to do it a cookie cut away.
And yeah, I can't help you with.
That because I But it's also interesting, like knowing that and actually knowing that.
Yeah.
So it's like knowing it is being able to say it but then have it be affirmed by people around you, Like imagine if someone.
Said to you to your face with love.
It's like you should be at a different position, like you were so much more talented. You're falling off in record times. It's freaking me out, it's freaking the girls out. You need to do better, and it's like you just like you'd be like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Look I wasn't ready to hear it. But it's like you knew, you already knew. It's interesting. Let's go hit differently.
It would, but this is why we always go back to.
You know, when we seek feedback advice, Do we actually really want it or are we just light gassing?
Do we want a mental advice?
She wasn't unhappy before that mental call. You've been listening to The Flex and Froom's daily podcast.
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