Dan Pink, Author of WHEN: THE SCIENTIFIC SECRETS OF PERFECT TIMING
[0:00]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, and you're listening to Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
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[0:28]Daniel H. Pink is the author of six books, including the number one New York Times best
[0:32]seller's drive to sell as human and a whole new mind.
[0:35]His most recent book, When The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, spent four months
[0:40]on the New York Times bestseller list.
[0:42]Goodreads, Amazon, and others named it a top nonfiction book of 2018.
[0:46]The former host and co-executive producer of the TV show Crowd Control, which was a show
[0:50]about human behavior, Daniel regularly appears on NPR, PBS, and elsewhere.
[0:54]His books have been translated into 39 languages, which is more languages than I can
[0:59]even name.
[1:00]His articles and essays have been in the New York Times, Slate, the New Republic, and
[1:03]other notable publications.
[1:05]His TED Talk on the Science and Motivation is one of the 10 most watched TED Talks of
[1:09]all time, with more than 20 million views.
[1:11]A Phi Beta Kappa alum of Northwestern, he received a JD from Leah Law School, and was
[1:16]a speechwriter for Al Gore.
[1:17]He lives in Washington, D.C. with his family.
[1:19]Also, just a friendly reminder, please follow me on Instagram, at Zibi Owens, and at Moms
[1:24]don't have time to read books, and please subscribe to my podcast.
[1:27]Thank you so much.
[1:28]Hi, Dan.
[1:29]It's Zibi Owens from Moms.
[1:30]How are you?
[1:31]Good, thanks.
[1:32]How are you doing?
[1:33]Good.
[1:34]Thanks for coming on Moms.
[1:35]I have time to read books.
[1:36]I appreciate you taking the time.
[1:37]Yeah.
[1:38]I love your book when it has changed my life already.
[1:42]Can you tell listeners a little bit about what when is about?
[1:45]Sure.
[1:46]When is about the science of timing, and ultimately all of the when decisions we make
[1:50]in our life?
[1:51]And when we make these when decisions, we tend to make them based on intuition and guesswork.
[1:56]And that's the wrong way to do it.
[1:57]There is this rich, complex body of science out there that gives us clues about how to make
[2:02]better, smarter decisions about when to do things, everything from when we should exercise,
[2:07]when we should read, when we should do certain kinds of work, when we should do other kinds
[2:11]of work, when we should quit a job, when we should get married.
[2:14]And if we start making these kinds of decisions based on the evidence, rather than based
[2:20]purely on intuition, we're going to make better decisions.
[2:22]That makes sense.
[2:23]I loved your chart here.
[2:24]The five secrets to taking a perfect nap.
[2:27]I'm putting this on my balls and board for the kids and everybody who needs one.
[2:32]for the sleep deprived parents out there, what are the tips for taking a perfect
[2:36]nap?
[2:37]Yeah.
[2:38]Well, first of all, sleep deprivation is a tough issue.
[2:41]So a nap isn't going to cure that and believe me.
[2:44]My kids are older now, but I have a 22 year old, a 20 year old today.
[2:49]Oh, happy birthday.
[2:50]And a 16 year old.
[2:51]So if I go back in time, 15 years, you know, 14 years, I feel your pain, all your parents,
[2:57]all your parents out there.
[2:59]But what we know about naps, and again, there's a lot of research on naps, is that naps
[3:04]are pretty good for us, pretty good for our mood, pretty good for our mental acuity,
[3:09]pretty good for our overall well being.
[3:13]However, the ideal nap is actually surprisingly short, shorter than I would have imagined.
[3:19]The ideal nap is between 10 and 20 minutes long.
[3:23]After you nap longer than that, you begin to develop what's called sleep inertia, which
[3:28]is that groggy kind of boggy feeling you get when you have slept too long.
[3:33]And so a 10, 20 minute nap is extremely effective for any of you ice hockey fans out there.
[3:40]It's like a Zamboni for our brain, you know, like our brain gets scuffed and nicks on
[3:44]our ice and a nap comes through and goes, smooth it all out.
[3:49]So naps are especially good.
[3:51]But the nap that you're referring to, Zibi, is the super duper ultra high end, works
[3:58]as follows.
[3:59]And I've done this.
[4:00]And I actually didn't do it when I was a parent of young kids and it probably would have
[4:03]saved me some grief.
[4:05]What I do is I will sit in my office and I will put on my noise cancelling headphones.
[4:11]Indeed, the very headphones I'm wearing right now.
[4:13]Then I will set my phone timer to 25 minutes, count down timer in 25 minutes.
[4:20]Right before I turn it on though, I will guzzle a big cup of coffee.
[4:23]I won't even enjoy it.
[4:25]I'll plunk ice cubes into it just so I can go down easy.
[4:27]It's just go up a big cup of coffee.
[4:29]Now, when I close my eyes, timer goes off.
[4:32]I can usually these days fall asleep within 10 or let's say 10 or 11 minutes.
[4:38]And then so let's say I fall asleep in 11 minutes.
[4:40]My timer goes off at the 25th minute.
[4:43]That means I've slept.
[4:44]I've had a nap for 14 minutes, which is right in that 10 to 20 minute sweet spot.
[4:49]But here's the bonus.
[4:51]It takes about 25 minutes for caffeine to enter our bloodstream.
[4:54]So at the moment that I am waking up, that bony has done its magic.
[4:59]I'm getting a second hit from that caffeine.
[5:01]So this is a technique, as you know, called a napachina.
[5:04]And I really, now I hadn't thought about this.
[5:07]I really wish I had done napachinos when I had smaller kids.
[5:11]Well, I have to say I tried the nap technique and I've been very resistant to naps.
[5:14]I just feel like, I don't know.
[5:16]I feel like I should just power through and I tried it this weekend.
[5:18]And it changed my life.
[5:19]So I am going to adopt this.
[5:21]So thank you from my heart.
[5:23]That's great.
[5:23]Yeah, but here's the things.
[5:24]If you're not the only person who thinks it's better to power through it, we have this whole
[5:27]culture of powering through it that says that, you know, that's the way to get more work done.
[5:32]That's the way to get better work done.
[5:34]There's also morally virtuous to power through.
[5:37]And what the research is telling us is that's nonsense, total bunk.
[5:42]And research is telling us very clearly, we need to take breaks.
[5:45]We should probably be taking more breaks and we should be taking
[5:48]certain kinds of breaks.
[5:49]So naps are just one dimension of this larger research on taking breaks.
[5:54]And this is something that, as in many realms of life, had gotten completely wrong.
[5:58]I had always believed that sort of, I guess, you know, similar to you that, okay,
[6:03]yeah, the amateurs take breaks.
[6:04]Professionals don't take breaks.
[6:06]And it's 180% 80 degrees opposite.
[6:10]Amateurs are the ones who don't take breaks.
[6:12]Professionals take breaks.
[6:13]I love that.
[6:14]My daughter was doing her homework last night and she's like in the middle.
[6:16]She's like, well, I just need a break and I thought, well,
[6:18]Dan Pink says it's okay.
[6:19]So you have to go take your break now and get that restorative food.
[6:23]How long had she been working before she needed a break?
[6:25]I mean, I like that.
[6:26]I like that kind of self-awareness, unless it was like three minutes and she needed a break.
[6:30]Well, no.
[6:31]I mean, she'd done a solid hour.
[6:32]So she was like, oh my god.
[6:33]Yeah, she was well.
[6:34]I mean, she needed a break.
[6:35]Yeah, she needed a break.
[6:36]I mean, she always needs a break.
[6:39]So I have to say we're having this talk now.
[6:40]It's like two o'clock and based on your book, this is like the worst time for me to be doing
[6:44]anything that requires my brain because I'm like deep in the trough that you talk about.
[6:48]Can you explain to listeners, like when is the best time to be doing your analytic thinking?
[6:52]And I know it depends on if you're a morning person or a night out.
[6:55]But this is like really, really great information to have.
[6:58]Yeah.
[6:58]So you're exactly right.
[7:00]It does depend on what your chronotype is.
[7:02]Are you a morning person, an evening person or in between?
[7:05]What we know is about 15% of us are very strong morning people,
[7:08]larks, about 20% of us are very strong evening people, owls,
[7:12]and about two-thirds of us are in the middle.
[7:14]And a way to think about it is this, that we tend to move through the day in three stages,
[7:19]a peak, a trough, and a recovery, a peak, a trough, and a recovery.
[7:24]Most of us, about 80% of us move through the day in that order.
[7:27]So we have our peak early in the day, the trough in the middle of the day right now,
[7:31]right around when you and I are talking, and then recovery later in the day.
[7:36]And our cognitive abilities are different during each of these stages.
[7:40]So during the peak, that's when we're most vigilant.
[7:43]And vigilance means that we're able to bat away distractions.
[7:47]So that makes the peak the ideal time for work that requires intense
[7:53]heads down focus and attention, writing a report, analyzing data, doing that sort of thing.
[7:59]I mean, the broad category of analytic work, as you say.
[8:02]the recovery period, which again, for most of us, is late in the afternoon, early in the evening,
[8:08]we're actually less vigilant during that period.
[8:10]But our mood is higher.
[8:12]And so the combination of, we're not totally worn out, but we're not as vigilant.
[8:16]So that combination of being not worn out, but in a decent mood,
[8:20]can make it a good time for things requiring some degree of mental looseness.
[8:24]So things like iterating new ideas or brainstorming.
[8:28]And so that's so we should be doing our insight work, creative work, then,
[8:32]our analytic work during the peak.
[8:34]Now, this trough period that you and I are in right now, not a good time,
[8:38]not a good time for anything.
[8:39]Now, it doesn't mean that you don't do anything during that work.
[8:41]But you might want to answer your routine emails during that work.
[8:45]And if you do find yourself having to do real work during this trough period,
[8:49]there are some remedies.
[8:50]So for instance, I'm actually, it's a weird day for me because I'm not in my office.
[8:55]I mean, my house, because I have to do some interviews that require having a hard-line phone,
[8:59]which I do not have in my office.
[9:01]And so it's also incredibly ridiculously irritatingly cold outside here in Washington, D.C.
[9:08]And so, but right before this, I actually, because I knew is like a non-optimal time to talk,
[9:14]I actually did like a kind of a sprint, not a full sprint, but sort of close to a sprint,
[9:20]up and down the stairs of my house.
[9:22]So I had a little bit of movement.
[9:23]So I had a little bit of a break because we know that in break something beats nothing.
[9:28]We know that movement is better than being stationary.
[9:31]Ideally, I would have gone outside to take a walk, but I'm not going outside in that ridiculous
[9:34]cold.
[9:35]And you know, so even though I'm talking to you in a non-optimal time,
[9:38]even recognizing that allowed me to take some steps to make it a little bit better.
[9:43]And I like how you had a whole hierarchy of things that can make breaks better.
[9:45]Like the best I felt like you recommending was taking a walk in nature with a friend, right?
[9:50]isn't the camaraderie the best and being in nature the best.
[9:53]Yeah, absolutely.
[9:54]So there are these design elements.
[9:56]So that's so outside is better than inside.
[9:58]Moving is better than staying.
[10:00]This is really important. Fully detached is better than semi-detached, so, you know, a lot of people dilute themselves into thinking they're taking a break
[10:07]And they walk around with their, you know, their nose and their snapchat feed or Instagram feed. That's not a break.
[10:14]And also very interestingly, as you suggest, social is better than solo. So breaks with other people are more restorative than breaks on our own.
[10:23]And that's true even for introverts, which surprised me.
[10:25]And the best time for exercise?
[10:27]It depends, but we can chart that out. It depends on your goals.
[10:30]So if your goal morning exercise seems to be better for weight loss, although the benefits to weight loss of exercise are not as great as I think people think.
[10:41]Second is morning exercise seems to be better for habit formation, probably because you're less likely to get interrupted at 7am than you are at 5pm.
[10:51]And the other thing which I think is a pretty strong argument for morning exercises is that exercise, not only aerobic exercise, but even weight training gives us a pretty enduring mood boost.
[11:02]And so if it can last like, you know, 10, 11 hours.
[11:06]And so if you exercise late in the day, you end up sleeping away some of that mood boost.
[11:11]Whereas in morning exercise, you get it throughout.
[11:14]That said, afternoon early, even exercises better for some things, other kinds of things.
[11:19]So afternoon and early evening exercise, like late afternoon, early in exercise is better for avoiding injury because we're literally more warmed up right at that point.
[11:28]The second thing is that it's better for enjoyment.
[11:32]People enjoy late afternoon early, even exercise more than morning exercise.
[11:36]And I speak, I say that not only looking at the research, but I hate morning exercise.
[11:41]I feel awful when I exercise in the morning by the late afternoon early, even I actually kind of enjoy it.
[11:47]And then finally, afternoon late afternoon early in exercise seems to be better for performance, believe it or not.
[11:52]Our lung function is higher.
[11:54]Our speed is greater.
[11:55]Our hand eye coordination is a little bit better.
[11:57]So it really depends.
[11:58]It really depends on your goals.
[11:59]But as you see, your listeners can't see this.
[12:01]But you and I are talking to be a video.
[12:03]I'm actually dressed in my, you know, some workout clothes because around 4 o'clock late afternoon,
[12:09]I'm going to go to the gym because I hate going to the gym in the morning.
[12:14]But I like going to it in the afternoon.
[12:16]See if I don't go by nine.
[12:17]Forget it.
[12:18]It's fun.
[12:19]That's fun.
[12:20]You know, here's the thing.
[12:21]People should do what works for them.
[12:22]It really depends on on their goals.
[12:24]And for me, morning exercise, listen, I want to be one of those badasses who gets up at 4 o'clock in the morning
[12:29]and then works out for two hours and then reads three newspapers and two different language and is in the office.
[12:35]It's at seven fifteen.
[12:37]But that's not me.
[12:38]I'm the kind of, you know, I'll wake up at seven.
[12:40]I get to the office at eight thirty and you know what?
[12:42]I'll go for a run at four thirty or five.
[12:44]And that's, you know, it's like the pop eye principle.
[12:46]It's like I am.
[12:47]And you said have your therapy sessions in the morning.
[12:50]This was another good one.
[12:51]Yeah.
[12:52]There's some really interesting evidence on on therapy sessions that we actually,
[12:56]that actually therapy we tend to absorb.
[12:59]In general, we absorb messages better.
[13:01]We learn a little bit better.
[13:03]Again, not all of us.
[13:04]People who are ours are a little bit different.
[13:06]The vast majority of us absorb and learn a little bit more in the morning than in other times of day.
[13:11]So there is evidence that therapy sessions are more effective in the morning rather than later in the day.
[13:17]So what do you do if you're a lark married to an alum?
[13:19]When are you ever supposed to talk?
[13:21]Well, that's actually a really tough one.
[13:23]And it's interesting how often that will come up when I talk to people.
[13:28]When I want to talk to people about this.
[13:30]It can be difficult.
[13:31]And I think that one of the things that you have to do is you have to recognize that
[13:35]the other person's like a conotype is a very heavily biological thing.
[13:40]It's like height.
[13:41]All right.
[13:42]And it's not a character flaw.
[13:44]If somebody is an owl that is their wake up late and go to sleep.
[13:48]It's not a character flaw.
[13:49]It's not a character flaw.
[13:51]If somebody wakes up at six in the morning and it falls asleep at nine in the evening.
[13:56]It's just like that's who they are.
[13:57]It's sort of like complaining about straight couples,
[14:01]oh, I'm really miffed.
[14:03]My wife is short.
[14:04]You know, it's like, okay, what are you going to do about that?
[14:06]And she's short.
[14:07]Or, you know, my husband's my husband's tall.
[14:09]I hate that.
[14:10]Like, okay, what are you going to do?
[14:12]And so I think that recognizing it as a biological feature is really important.
[14:16]And then just making, you know, whatever, whatever accommodations you have.
[14:20]You see some evidence that when you have groups that have a mix of chronotypes
[14:25]that that can create cognitive diversity that ends up making better decisions.
[14:29]So there could be a virtue in that as well.
[14:31]What's interesting is that there are differences in men and women
[14:35]and their chronotypes.
[14:36]Men are more likely to be owls than women.
[14:39]And even over the course of a lifetime, little kids are very strong larks.
[14:45]Most of us know most of your parents know they get up early in the morning,
[14:48]start running around like insane nut jobs early.
[14:52]You know, but then around the mid teens,
[14:54]there is a massive move toward lateness.
[14:57]And again, it's biological.
[14:59]They can't be very significant shifts two hours, three hours, four hours.
[15:04]And that period of owliness exists until about the mid twenties.
[15:08]Then after that, in general, leaving aside the hardcore owls,
[15:12]a 20% of us who are hardcore owls,
[15:14]there is a general return to larkiness except that women and men,
[15:18]women return to larkiness a lot faster than men.
[15:21]And so what you have actually, I don't have the chart here,
[15:25]but I could be useless to draw it in the podcast.
[15:28]But what the chart shows is that among straight couples,
[15:32]male female couples of the same age,
[15:34]they almost always have incompatible sleeping times.
[15:37]The man in general is a little bit earlier than the woman.
[15:42]I feel like my husband and I never agree on what time to book a flight
[15:45]because I want to fly at like 9 a.m. and he wants to fly at like 9 p.m.
[15:49]So.
[15:50]Oh, yeah.
[15:51]I'm like, here's the thing.
[15:53]I'm going to side with you on that, leaving aside your husband's chronotype here for a moment
[15:57]because early morning flights are less likely to get delayed.
[16:00]Oh, thank you for it.
[16:02]That's the argument.
[16:03]The first flight of a day is far less likely to have a problem or get delayed
[16:07]than a flight later in the day.
[16:08]Excellent.
[16:09]Thank you for helping me win that argument from now on.
[16:11]That's a very, very helpful thing that I thought was great
[16:16]that as a companion to your book, you have all these little videos on your website
[16:21]that are short and they're like animated and you have the words underneath.
[16:25]So people can read them.
[16:26]You have audios.
[16:27]People can hear them.
[16:28]I feel like someone was like, this is the best educational framework
[16:32]for making a story because people like learn in such different ways.
[16:36]Was that your goal there?
[16:37]Because I feel like that was a lot.
[16:38]Oh, thank you so much for saying that because there's things
[16:41]of what would you refer to.
[16:42]I call pink ass, which are these two.
[16:43]Yes, I'm sorry.
[16:44]Pink ass.
[16:45]No, that's cool.
[16:46]It's cool.
[16:47]It's cool.
[16:48]Super short videos.
[16:49]Of trying different ways of conveying ideas.
[16:52]And you know, like min experience, most of them don't go anywhere.
[16:55]This is one that's actually worked pretty well.
[16:58]And the idea was that a lot of people online,
[17:01]especially on their phones, didn't necessarily want to watch a super long video.
[17:05]But people were still curious and wanted to learn.
[17:07]And if you could distill something to 60 seconds, 90-second video.
[17:12]And actually, right now, and we changed a little bit.
[17:15]We have the subtitles underneath them.
[17:16]So people don't even have to turn on the sound.
[17:18]If you can leave people with one idea, one tip,
[17:21]in 60 to 90 seconds, and do it in a way that is mildly entertaining,
[17:25]it'll prove to be pretty popular.
[17:27]So that that has worked pretty well.
[17:29]And what I'm working on right now, as a matter of fact,
[17:31]is actually taking those pink ass to the next level,
[17:35]making them even a little bit more entertaining,
[17:37]a little bit better produced, but still leaving people with that one tip,
[17:40]that one takeaway that they can use in their life.
[17:43]And I liked how you always sort of ended it with some sort of a joke or a pun.
[17:47]Like it was perfect.
[17:48]They're all like wrapped up with a little vote.
[17:50]I loved it.
[17:51]Thanks.
[17:52]Looking forward to more of those things.
[17:53]Thanks.
[17:54]So you have had 20 million views of your TED talk.
[17:58]What does that feel like?
[17:59]How does it feel to know that 20 million people out there are
[18:02]watching you talk and really learning from your ideas?
[18:05]Well, I mean, 20 million views.
[18:07]We don't know if it's 20 million people.
[18:09]It could be a nice thing here.
[18:10]It's your mom, 10 million times.
[18:12]I watched it myself 19 million times.
[18:14]So, but you know what?
[18:15]I don't think about that much.
[18:16]I mean, I'm just glad to be able to, you know,
[18:19]it's what we're talking about before at the pink cast.
[18:21]It's like, you know, what I do for a living as a writer is try
[18:24]to do deep, real research that gives people some insights into
[18:29]their world.
[18:30]Because I think that people have, you know, they're overwhelmed
[18:33]with data to experience and they're missing context.
[18:36]They don't understand how the pieces fit together.
[18:38]So I think if I can provide people that and translate that research
[18:42]in a way that is accessible and then give them something to do
[18:45]about it, then, you know, I'm doing something reasonably good for
[18:49]the world.
[18:50]And today, especially, you know, you and I are talking to be a
[18:53]Skype.
[18:54]You've got this podcast for this audience of parents, mostly moms.
[18:58]You know, there are all kinds of ways to get ideas out there.
[19:00]So I think you really have to endlessly experiment with what are
[19:03]the best ways to tell stories?
[19:05]What are the best ways to convey ideas?
[19:07]What are the best ways to make arguments?
[19:09]Try stuff.
[19:10]If it works, keep doing it.
[19:12]If it doesn't work, stop doing it.
[19:14]And to me, it's like, you know, I think that what people might
[19:18]not know is how much stuff doesn't work.
[19:21]And then you just stop doing it.
[19:23]And in terms of writing your books, how much time and research goes into each
[19:27]of the books?
[19:28]This is your six, six, six, six.
[19:30]You know, ideally, about two years, most of my books are fairly
[19:34]research intensive.
[19:36]And so I spend, you know, maybe a year on the research.
[19:39]And then I spend a year on the writing.
[19:42]But the writing often will entail in the course of writing something
[19:45]you'll realize, oh my God, there's a giant hole here.
[19:48]I need to talk about this topic.
[19:49]And I don't have any research on it.
[19:50]So you go back and do that.
[19:51]Or you'll say, oh, I did all this research on this thing.
[19:54]And it's actually really boring and useless.
[19:56]I can't use this.
[19:57]So I have another gap here.
[19:59]And so.
[20:00]Generally, so for me, I'm a slow worker.
[20:02]It's generally about two-year process.
[20:04]And it sounds like from your acknowledgement
[20:06]do you have your kids helping you out now?
[20:08]Well, my kids are older now.
[20:09]So in this last book, my elder daughter,
[20:12]but both my daughters, actually,
[20:14]the one who's not 22 and the one who's not 20,
[20:16]so they were just a couple years younger.
[20:18]They actually read pieces of it.
[20:19]And believe me, any daughter, especially,
[20:24]is willing to tell her dad when he's full of it.
[20:26]And it doesn't know what you're talking about.
[20:27]So they were very good at the various student readers.
[20:30]And my son, actually, because I needed a basketball example,
[20:33]he was willing to help me out,
[20:34]find that actually found some great basketball research.
[20:37]And then it's a family business here, man.
[20:39]And then my wife is a hugely important part
[20:42]of all of these books from the conception all the way
[20:45]through the final editing and things like that.
[20:47]And for reasons that I can't understand,
[20:49]she is willing to sit in a small room with me
[20:51]while I read pages out loud to her
[20:54]and also read the pages out loud to me.
[20:57]I find, I like to edit by hearing the word sometimes.
[21:01]And so this book and other ones,
[21:04]Jessica, my wife has literally read every single word
[21:08]out loud to me.
[21:09]And here's the thing, I'm the most annoying person
[21:12]in the world to be read to,
[21:14]because I have a certain way I want things read.
[21:17]And I will interrupt and I will criticize.
[21:19]And yet, she stuck with it.
[21:22]It's nice.
[21:24]And what do you have?
[21:25]What's your next book?
[21:26]What are you working on now?
[21:26]I don't know.
[21:27]You got an idea.
[21:28]I'm trying to figure that out right now.
[21:29]There are a lot of, for me, the topic you pick for writing a book
[21:32]is a very, very high bar because it's just so much work.
[21:35]It's, you know, I've been doing this for a long time.
[21:37]And still, it's really hard to write a book.
[21:39]And it's a really hard to write a good book.
[21:41]And it takes a lot of effort.
[21:43]And even if you've done it before,
[21:45]it gets a tiny bit easier, but actually not that much easier.
[21:49]And so for me, I want to pick a topic
[21:51]that I really, really am into.
[21:53]I think sometimes journalists will write an article
[21:56]about something and it's kind of interesting.
[21:58]And then they'll decide to write a book about it
[22:00]without fully vetting it.
[22:01]And, you know, it's sort of like getting married
[22:03]to somebody after two days.
[22:04]It's like, okay, I had a pretty good time on those two days.
[22:06]But that doesn't mean you get married.
[22:07]Like, for me, the bar is very, very, very, very high.
[22:10]So I've written, I've actually explored several ideas
[22:14]and even written full proposals from books
[22:16]that I've actually said, I don't want to live with this
[22:19]for several years at the rest of my life.
[22:21]Or this isn't quite good enough.
[22:23]So I'm trying to figure that out right now.
[22:25]All right, I'll send you some ideas later.
[22:27]Sure, I'll take it.
[22:28]No, I'll take it.
[22:30]Do you have any other advice
[22:32]aside that was pretty helpful right there,
[22:33]but any other advice to aspiring writers?
[22:36]Oh, sure.
[22:37]Yeah.
[22:37]Yeah, so just recognize that writing is really,
[22:41]really, really, really hard.
[22:43]And what you see on the page is often the product
[22:45]of a lot of sweat and torture.
[22:48]Don't get the idea that any writer just simply shows up,
[22:53]blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[22:54]Sit down and you know, they start taking dictation from God.
[22:58]It doesn't work that way.
[22:59]To me, the best advice I can give to a writer's aspiring writers
[23:02]is number one.
[23:04]You've got to read a lot.
[23:05]I'm surprised by people who say I want to be a writer
[23:07]and they actually don't read very much.
[23:09]You're not going to be a writer that way.
[23:10]Second thing, or maybe the first thing,
[23:12]is in terms of day to day practices,
[23:14]is that it's really important to treat,
[23:17]at least it is for me, to treat writing like a job.
[23:21]All right?
[23:22]You don't just start writing whenever you feel inspired.
[23:26]If I waited until I was inspired to write,
[23:29]I would have zero books to my name.
[23:31]All right.
[23:32]What you should do is instead, I treated it
[23:34]like in some ways a blue collar job.
[23:35]I've said this many times.
[23:37]I liken writing to building a brick wall.
[23:40]What do you do to build a brick wall?
[23:41]Like a giant brick wall, all right?
[23:43]You show up on day one with your supplies
[23:47]and put up a few bricks and then what do you do?
[23:49]You show up the next day, put up a few more bricks.
[23:51]And it doesn't, the world doesn't care
[23:53]whether you're in the mood to put up bricks that day or not.
[23:56]You just freaking show up.
[23:57]And if you just show up and show up and show up and show up
[24:00]and treat it like a job, treat it like a blue collar job
[24:04]where you have to do the work,
[24:06]you'll be surprised at how often inspiration will come
[24:08]because you've shown up.
[24:10]So it's really just show up every day in read a lot.
[24:13]I think those two things,
[24:15]and here's the thing that surprises me is a lot of people
[24:18]who want to be writers aren't even willing to do that.
[24:19]And if you're not willing to do that, came over.
[24:22]Excellent. Well, thank you so much
[24:23]for coming on mom's center of time to read books.
[24:25]They really appreciate it.
[24:26]Of course, I hope they have time to read this book,
[24:28]but I hope they have time to listen to the podcast
[24:30]if they can't read the book.
[24:31]All right, well, thanks so much.
[24:33]All right, should we?
[24:34]Okay, bye bye.
[24:35]This episode has been sponsored by Bookhampton.
[24:38]Bookhampton.com.
[24:39]Thanks to Ryan and Steve at Texture Sound
[24:41]for the audio editing and mixing.
[24:43]Thanks for listening to momstone.
[24:44]We have time to read books.