Struggle and Flow

`0:03:50`

and start over. And try to get there quickly. So the struggle I mean, it is important to struggle through things in life. That's how you're going to get better and stuff, but I feel like it's also a sign sometimes to say this isn't working and you're probably not going to make it work and you're going to get more frustrated and the frustration's going to show up in the So kind of back off a little bit and then come back to it later. But again with the clean sheet. I'm not a big fan of like starting with something and working it to death until I get there. It's just time to go. Time to move on. And do you feel like that's general advice or do you feel like that that's Jason advice? I think it's only fair for anyone's advice to be about them, honestly. Now, whether or not you can use that advice or someone else can use that advice is up to them. But for me, my experience is my experience. I do what works for me

`0:04:36`

and maybe that works for somebody else. So these are just ideas that's out in the world that someone might go, yeah, that's how I write. Or like, I didn't think I was justified in writing that way or I didn't think I could do it that way. But he's doing it that way, it gives me confidence that I can do it that way and that's kind of how I look at it. So I wouldn't tell you how to do it. Right. Who who might I say how you should write? Just how I write. Well, this really stands out as a as something that shows up in the way that you think about business and the way that you think about writing is just this sense of like feeling that flow. And it's just sort of step by step. It's like, is this the right flow? And there's just this sense presumably that you have in your body and your mind of like when you found that right idea that sort of slipstream. And then you can follow it. That's how it feels. I want to get into this effortless place where in in effect I don't really understand

`0:05:23`

why things are coming out so well in a sense. Yeah. You know, like I'm I'm proud of the work at the end, but I don't really understand how I got there. Sometimes I read a sentence and I'll be really proud of it. And I'm like, that's a good sentence. I don't know where that came from. But it's really good and I'm proud of that sentence and that kind of propels me through to the next one and the next And then there's also an aesthetic though to when I look at what I'm writing. I can't exactly explain it, but I'll look at a sentence and I'll say, does that sentence look right? Like the letter forms, does it look right? Is it too jaggedy or does it feel right or are the other words too long and then too short and too like there's a there's something I try to get to where but it has to happen naturally is the point. Like I'm not going to replace a couple words because the shape of the word doesn't work for me as well. I want

`0:06:08`

to write something out and I'll look at it and go, that feels good. That feels nice. Just like you you you you come upon something you're on a hike or something and you find a branch. Like every once in a while I'll find a branch with like lichen on it. I'm like, that just looks good. That's how I want my sentences to look. That just looks good. That there was no effort in that. It just is. And when I find those lines that really kind of propels me through the piece. And if I don't find one early, I know it's not going to be good. So I stop again, throw it away, come back to it later. I've heard people equate it to skiing. I'm not a skier, so Me neither. So I've like totally dropped the metaphor, but I guess that Shooting free throws maybe. Shooting free throws, who knows? But I guess you're ski and then you kind of find this line, you just sort of follow it. When you're in a really good flow, the line just sort of opens up and emerges.

`0:06:54`

Actually, okay, we'll do a football Like I'm not a big football fan, but I know I know football. Okay, so basically like when you're running back, you're sort of following what the line is is is doing. They're trying to create a hole for you. And sometimes it just sort of emerges, but then you just got to run. And I have found that when I'm writing, there's there's certain times where I have to say I got to put the plans away. I'm not coming to dinner. Like I found a hole and I need to run because that hole will close in 12 hours. Yeah. You don't control the hole. Yep. It's just like someone makes it for you or something makes it for you and you go. And there's there's this song when I wrote this thing called the um 37 Signals Guide to Internal Communication. Yeah. Yeah. Read that. And I wrote that in like an hour and it's long. And I

`0:07:40`

just couldn't stop. Like the the hole was open and I just felt like I just was in a flow and just kept going. And I barely edited that piece at all and I felt really good about it at the end, but that only happens when there's the hole. Again, if I if I'm finding myself in the middle of it and I think it was like I don't know, 30 points or something like And then sometimes I'm like, well, I want to get to 37 because that's our 37 signals, 37. But then I'm like, then now it's contrived and I have to stop myself very quickly from going over the edge because once I go into that contrived place where I'm where I'm I'm efforting something too much, it's going to be bad. I really don't want it to feel like effort. When it does, then I feel like I'm in the wrong place. Let me say this too. When I when I read I can sort of intuit that that's how the

`0:08:27`

off I'm guessing here, but that's how the author was feeling when they were writing it too. Like I'll read something. I just read this book, The Overstory. You know this book? Yeah, Richard Powers. Yeah. Oh my god, it was incredible. I mean, it's a Pulitzer Prize winning book, so like I'm not the first person to say it, but his writing style, I just kept reading it and I'm like, man, he must have been smiling when he wrote this. That's how it felt. There's some super clever lines and clever paragraphs and clever passages. I'm like, he must be so proud of himself at the end of that. It's like, that that nugget, those six sentences together, that just nailed it. And I can just imagine a smile or imagine a pride in that in the author. That's what I want to get to. I want to have that feeling when I write something. What came to mind was Like this sense of just Oh my goodness.

`0:09:12`

Yeah. It's just this awe, this majesty. Yeah. And I've had many moments throughout the years where I've seen that and I've had that wow moment and I've said, I didn't even know that that was possible. Like a sense of elegance that I want to recreate. That book is full of that. And I that's how I felt actually in that book. I was kind of shocked. I don't read a lot of fiction. I started reading that was the first fiction book I've read in a long time and now I'm like hooked on fiction, so I want to get into more more fiction, but that's how I felt when I read that book. I go, wow, what a beautiful way to the unfortunate clear-cutting of a huge forest. He described it as sort of coming upon this huge clear-cut space, this big arcing hill that was clear-cut of old trees. And he described it like the stubble on a bald man's head.

`0:09:58`

Which was just like my what a great way to describe like clear cut trunks are left, short trunks are left and just like desolate emptiness. Nothing that's bald people. Man, the the the thing that really stands out in that is sometimes you read that and you'll see something like that you feel like oh I need to try so hard when I write and you're using this word contrived. Like contrived needs like a big red danger sign like do not go Yes. Because the way that that sort of elegance often comes out is exactly what you're saying earlier. I don't know where that came from. It comes out of the intuitive world, not the conscious world. I I believe so. I think most things that are good come off of the intuitive world, the gut basically. It's

`0:10:43`

all gut. You were talking about the 37 signals guide to internal communications earlier. Yeah. When you have a piece like that where does the genesis moment, how does that happen? What inspires a piece like that? Is this a a question that you keep getting, a sense of frustration? What is anger? Yeah. Yeah, anger, frustration, yeah. It's usually I'll read something or I'll hear something and someone will say like this is how we make decisions or this is how we communicate. I'm like I need to share how we do it because this is like I just feel like this is wrong or you know it's wrong for us at least but like this should not be the only version of whatever this message is out in the world. We have our own message. So we usually develop software and I write from a place of frustration or anger is too strong but it's like a fun anger. It's like oh that's okay, okay. Yeah, let me show you what we can do or