Realizing This Changed My Experience

For some reason, articles I set up to publish in this newsletter the last three weeks never went out. To catch up, I will publish the backlog off our usual weekly schedule.

Echoes of Inquiry

Lessons from a Boat Bottom

For quick context: I think most of us would agree that in order to make money, you have to invest money. Part of the cost of working in an office is the cost of your commute, or the cost of your professional wardrobe, etc. Everything has a cost. If I want to paint a picture, I have to spend resources to get paint and canvas—usually money, although through barter the cost may comprise time or skill.

Obviously, if you want to work as a commercial fisherman, you must spend on the boat itself, on diesel, etc. The costs include something that I imagine is unpleasant for somebody, like the guy in the picture. You must scrape barnacles. They’re not necessary to commercial fishing the way a boat and diesel are, though. They’re simply inevitable, and you ignore them at your peril.

If you keep your boat in salt water long enough, even for a few days, barnacles are very likely to start sticking to and growing on your boat’s hull. These pesky creatures find firm surfaces to attach themselves to and reside on permanently. And that glue they secrete makes barnacles very hard to remove. (“5 Reasons You Need to Remove Barnacles from a Boat,“ Boats.net)

Spammers and other such barnacles of the Internet irritate me. Spam filters help but cause their own issues—I have to regularly go through my Junk folder to find those emails that should have gotten through, and plenty of actual junk makes it through the filter.

I used to waste energy silently (and sometimes audibly) cursing those time-wasters, digital scum that clog the lines of communication. I realized that they’re truly barnacles—parasites that inevitably accompany any kind of presence on the Internet. In a weird way, I know I’m reaching more people when I get more people offering to help market my podcast or review my books (for a fee), etc.

It’s not just Internet business and boats, of course. Whenever you attempt anything positive, you will find barnacles attempting to interfere. The only way to avoid them is to attempt nothing.

I’m not satisfied to do nothing. I’ll bet you aren’t, either.

I don’t think we’ll ever learn to like barnacles. (Although it turns out some people eat barnacles.) But, since they’re inevitable, I think we can learn to “just do it” when it comes to dealing with them. They’re already taking time I’d rather spend on something else—I’m no longer going to let them steal my quality of life through irritation at having to deal with them.

I’ll just scrape them and move on. (Although you can run your boat through fresh water for a while to kill and remove barnacles, according to Boats.net. I have to figure out the Internet equivalent.)

Reading Reflections

Let Your Dark Horse Run

Anybody who pays much attention to my writing about writing or my podcast knows I frequently cited Joanna Penn. She is a pioneer in independent publishing, an excellent writer, and a fantastic podcaster. And she has written a bunch of books, both fiction and nonfiction.

“But I’m not a writer,” you say. “Donn’s going to talk about some book about writing, and what does that have to do with me?”

It has everything to do with you. First, chances are most of you have thought about writing a book, but you just haven’t. Second, and more importantly, although Writing the Shadow certainly deals with writing, it mostly deals with living an effective life.

The book delves into the intriguing intersection between psychology and creative writing. The book explores the concept of the "shadow" in Jungian psychology, which refers to the unconscious parts of our personality that we often repress or deny. Jo argues that engaging with our shadow can enhance our creativity and lead to more authentic, compelling writing, and ultimately, greater creativity in all of life.

Along with drawing on Jungian psychology, Jo draws on an ancient insight from Plato in The Phaedrus. Plato described a Roman chariot drawn by two horses, one white and one dark. The Charioteer (me) runs in the race of my life. The white horse represents my rational self, the one society sees. The dark horse represents primal aspects of the soul, unruly, driven by desires and passions, seeking immediate gratification and earthly pleasures.

Joanna Penn uses this allegory to highlight the importance of acknowledging and integrating both aspects of the psyche—the noble and the dark. By understanding and harnessing these opposing forces, you can achieve greater self-awareness and creative expression. This balanced approach helps tap into deeper emotional and psychological layers, enriching your personal and artistic life. It serves as both a guide for writers and a tool for anyone interested in delving into their psyche. The shadow is not solely the dark parts of your persona, but the parts that you have felt the need to hide. Jo provides practical exercises and examples to help readers uncover and work with their shadows, making the psychological concepts accessible and actionable.

She writes: “If both horses run together in the same direction, I can fly along, whooping in delight at the speed and power. But if they become unbalanced, the chariot begins to wobble.”

Passages and Pathways

Getting Ready for Hiatus

Several readers of this publication also follow my podcast, The Alignment Show. I really enjoy doing that podcast. (If you’re not familiar with it, it features conversations with people who have gone to some significant effort to bring their lives into alignment with their values. Most of us have things we want to do; these folks have actually done it.) We just broadcast episode 64, which is significant since more podcasts don’t make it past eight episodes.

But I’m getting a little burned out. I don’t think it’s the time it takes, and I definitely enjoy the conversations. I think it’s the necessity of doing something regularly at a specified time.

So I’m going to change it, which will lead to an interruption to the regular broadcasts. Since the beginning, I’ve done the vast majority of the podcasts live (with replays for folks who couldn’t make the live broadcast). I like the “feel” of natural conversation, so even on those rare occasions when we’ve done a recording and played it back during the broadcast time, I’ve only lightly edited the recording. Whatever happens happens. Dog barks? Someone rings the doorbell? Phone rings? That’s life!

It also, frankly, takes less time that way.

But more and more, things happen that make Friday mornings difficult. Just today, for instance (or yesterday, by the time this is likely to publish), the nurse for our disabled daughter had to call in sick. (It’s complicated, but that’s close enough for our point.) I had already been up with her all night, and now faced the prospect of doing a live interview for the podcast from her room, with a pulse-ox monitor beeping in the background, the potential for various alarms to go off.

We managed it, but I’m tired of juggling all that. We’re scheduled through June right now, and I’m leaving the scheduling link open through July, although I’m not trying hard to fill those slots. I’ve considered shutting it down, but I enjoy it too much, and the audience is building. Plus, I have to admit, although 64 episodes are quite respectable, I know that Joanna Penn (mentioned above) has stuck with it through over 750 episodes, and Rachael Herron has just published number 444. I don’t want to give up.

So even though recording takes more time, I’m going to move to recorded episodes. That leads to a few pragmatic effects.

• Live interaction with the audience will change. One reason I’ve stuck with the live broadcast is the opportunity to include audience comments. While they couldn’t come on camera, I could share written comments coming from LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube on screen and read them out loud for the audio-only folks. I may still share written comments on screen (see the next item), but we will lose the ability to share those comments out loud. A factor in deciding this is OK: live participation has dropped off. Most people watch or listen through replays anyway, and even when we have a live audience, they’re not commenting as much as they used to. I hate to lose that, but it’s become harder to make the argument of staying live for that rare comment.
• My presence could change. In the past, whenever we’ve used a recorded interview, I still introduced and concluded the episode live. Under the “new” system, I will still likely do that, but I also have the option of simply including the intro and conclusion as part of the recording. That means I could set the recording up for an automated broadcast. That will make it less likely that people will want to join as a live audience, unfortunately, but it gives me more options for managing the rest of life. In the spirit of self-care and self-compassion, I think that’s likely a good thing.
• It will take more time. That doesn’t affect listeners, of course. I’m just acknowledging an effect of the decision. Instead of just targeting a regular time each week, I will coordinate guests to find a mutually workable time, and then have to spend a little more time setting up the recording. I’m used to this in a way, though. For years, I have taught public speaking for college students online. They think online classes will take less time. Invariably, they take more time, for lots of reasons. I always warn students about this, and tell them not to take an online course unless the advantage of freedom from a regular meeting schedule outweighs the disadvantage of more work and more time. Same thing. I think the freedom schedule probably makes this worthwhile.
• We’ll have to do actual half-hour episodes. It has been a running joke for some time that ours is a half-hour program that typically runs 45 minutes or so. When we’re in live conversation, I get fascinated and lose track of time. But the service I use for streaming limits me to a half hour for a recorded playback (unless I spend significantly more money). To make sure I can set up a recording for playback, I will have to limit episodes to 30 minutes. That may also add to the prep time, since sometimes I’ll have to edit the recording to bring it in under that constraint.

So that’s the personal update this week, longer than usual—ironic, given how little time I’ve had for writing on Real Speak. So I’ll just mention that RS is coming along, more slowly than I would have liked. I think we’re probably looking at September for the release on that. Plus, I’m working on getting audio versions of the first two books. You’ll be the first to know of progress.

Thank you for sticking with me!

Donn King is The Confidence Cultivator. He is the author of The Sparklight Chronicles series of business parables (DonnKing.com/Books) and a professor of communication studies (which means “a professor of standing up in front of people and saying stuff”). He’s also a pastor, a speaker, and a communication coach. Reach out to donn@donnking.com to see how he could help you increase your impact, gain influence, and build your career.

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