Practice Session #17

Thanks for checking out my show notes! I’ll be utilizing this to clarify and elaborate on points that I didn’t convey as well as I would’ve liked to. I’ll also provide links to further information and resources.

We record these weekly sessions on Sundays. Please note that I try to publish episodes the day after recording: Mondays. I generally will have the transcript and initial notes published on Mondays as well. From there, I may continue adding and modifying the show notes throughout the week.

⚠️ I apologize for Pam’s audio quality in this episode- Oh wait, I was supposed to stop apologizing. Anyway, we’ll touch on what happened in the next session.

I’ll be interspersing all my notes with the transcription from the audio, which will be displayed like this:

Intro.

[00:00]

CK: Okay, here we go.

Heyo! I’m CK and you’re listening to Practice. I’m your functional systems integrator, and this is my podcast where practice is not just the theme of the show, but the whole purpose behind it. I’m using this platform to practice podcasting as well as speaking in general while espousing half-thoughts and providing unsolicited advice.

As always, I’m fortunate to be joined by my practice partner and partner in life: Pam.

Pam: Hey, that’s me.

CK: Pam is my pattern awareness manager, as well, and every week we talk about my progress with this practice, as well as other lifestyle practices, along with theories and ideas behind the virtues of practice itself.

Our conversations are unscripted and unedited. We’re really doing this on the fly. So don’t be- hold- eh- ugghhh…

Yeah, we’re really doing this on the fly. So don’t hold me responsible for what I say here. Make sure to check out my show notes where I’ll notate all the things I could have done better. You can find that and more information about this project ForcesOfEqual.com/Practice.

Catch up with the Anomaly and the Linchpin.

[01:21]

CK: And today it is June 21st, 2020. We are recording our 17th Practice session. So let’s start out by catching up with our week.

Pam: Well happy not-a-father’s day.

CK: What does that mean?

Pam: Well it’s father’s day, but you’re not a father, so happy not-a-father’s day.

CK: Oh, thanks, I guess.

We actually hung out with my family yesterday to celebrate father’s day – or my parents and my brother and his wife, and that was fun. We’re starting to get more stories out of them. And- well, I don’t know if we’re starting to get more…

So yesterday we actually recorded a session with my parents and we sat down and they told us stories of their upbringing and their time in Korea and immigrating to America.

So it’s been fun learning about that stuff and getting it on tape. And we may do something with that in terms of podcasting in the future.

And actually there’s some content in there for our Equanimity podcast that we’ve been in the process of developing for awhile now. So that was fun.

And I’ve been continuing to organize the Forces of Equal studio. And I was hoping to finish up with stuff last week, but I ran into some issues with logistics concerning some of the acoustic treatment that I’m working on.

And so I’ve kind of been just ideating around that stuff and trying to figure it out the best way to go because there’s so many options, and I have to work with what I have here in the room.

And you know, this isn’t like an official studio that we built out or anything. We are using it as an office, a studio, a guestroom, and a rec room. You know, just kind of all encompassing. So it has multiple purposes. So yeah, I’ve been thinking about different ways to make it efficient and optimal for all these different purposes.

So I think I’m close, if not set on what I’m going to do. So hopefully this coming week, I can finish everything out. But in terms of how everything’s set up and my workflow, I’ve gotten more used to how things are getting along (,or rather, coming together) and it’s been awesome. And like the speed at which I’m doing some things are- is- it’s really exciting. So I’m excited to get in that flow.

I don’t feel like I’ve gotten into the flow yet. I’m still kind of getting used to stuff and I’m still learning stuff too around audio and editing and all that stuff. So there’s a lot of time spent figuring things out and calculating different logistics and whatnot.

So that’s still coming along and I just love doing all this stuff. I mean, I realize that I love fiddling around and just tweaking things here and there.

Pam: You’re a tinkerer.

CK: Yeah, totally. And I mentioned before in terms of, like, creative (-ity) or intelligence, the difference between like conceptual creatives and experimental creatives. And I’ve kind of come to realize that I’m definitely more of an experimental creative where I just tinker, tinker, and iterate, and iterate and try to find like all the little things that I can do to optimize something as opposed to the conceptual creative, who just comes up with the whole concept at once and just puts it out there.

So…

Pam: What are people like me who just are like, “Eh… is this good enough? Yeah, it’s fine. I give up.”

CK: I don’t know if there’s a category for you guys. You guys are just…

Pam: More efficient.

CK: I’ll let you think that. But yeah, it’s probably true, anyway. So how was your week, Pam?

Pam: Uh, it was good. I made really, really good progress on, um, putting together the content for the, Not Bad with Money website, which will be my financial coaching product service that we’ll be launching in the next couple of months.

So that will be NotBadWithMoney.com very soon once I get everything over to CK and task him with building out the site. And we’re going to start having episodes on Not Bad Advice, that address money topics and budgeting and money mindset and the psychology of money and all that really fun stuff.

So it was a really good week of progress there.

CK: Yeah, we just actually recorded the first episode of that series and it’s- I mean, all of this is fun and that’s fun and it’s fun kind of delving into these little niches off of what we started out with and kind of developing them and creating these whole projects out of them.

And so, yeah, I’m excited for that to be released because that’s gonna be very useful and it’s going to help kind of launch Forces of Equal into the coaching atmosphere for lack of a better term, or maybe- I don’t know. I kind of like atmosphere.

But today we also did our Sunday run and Pam hit another personal best with the mile.

Pam: I’ve got two seconds faster.

CK: Yeah, I mean, faster is faster and it’s improvement. And some weeks you’re not going to improve your time. I mean, once you start hitting your top end and figuring out where that is, it’s going to be harder and harder to continue beating your personal best.

Pam: Yeah, and one of the things that I was thinking about is, um, you know, we, we talk a lot about optimization on here and about, you know, making everything in your environment the best possible for what you want to achieve. And we ate at your parents’ house yesterday, which means that who knows what, you know, what was in whatever we ate. It was not our normal environment, not our normal diet.

And it’s also, um, a little bit more of a stressful day because we were there for what seven or eight hours and trying to record. And it was not the normal chill Saturday that I have. So waking up the next morning, right after that and going and trying to dramatically improve my runtime was probably not optimal.

So to still improve that’s good.

CK: Yeah. And yeah, that’s a great point because I… I didn’t really consider all that. But yeah, it’s- it probably affected your physiology.

So let’s see. So today in terms of my supplementation, I have a cup of coffee. And we actually got a new grinder this week ’cause our last one went kaputt. Pam broke it,

Pam: Going to the big coffee shop.

CK: I think the motor ran out or got worn out or something. Yeah. But yeah, we had a little funny incident with the new grinder this week when I first tried to use it because the…

Pam: The hopper.

CK: The what?

Pam: The hopper.

CK: It’s called the hopper?

So the hopper, which is a container where you pour the beans and to for them to get grinded is completely clear on our new grinder. Whereas our old grinder had like a gray top. And so I didn’t know the top was on the grinder, so I poured the beans out and it just hit the cover and the beans just all scattered everywhere and on the floor. So that was pretty funny.

Pam: I’m still finding them. I’m still cleaning them up. Yeah.

CK: So anyway, I have a cup of coffee with me and I took some quality of mind as well. And I’m feeling pretty good since we hung out with our, or my parents yesterday and the family, I missed my summer nap, my afternoon nap. So I was a little tired yesterday, but I had a great night of sleep last night and I feel pretty good today and I’m running pretty well.

The latest on my podcasting practice.

[10:50]

CK: And so let’s get into the first segment where I talk about my process with this practice of podcasting. And I guess I’ve already started talking about some of it, so I’m not sure what else I had to talk about.

Hmm. Yeah, I think, yeah, we’re just getting the acoustic treatments all situated this week. I’m making connections- like I love optimizing the cables, like the cable management. It sounds so stupid,

Pam: I like it. It’s it’s nerdy. I love it.

CK: Yeah, like, I’m almost done with the cable management now. And it’s, it’s something like when I have all these wires all over the place it’s caused me so much anxiety. Like, I don’t know, it’s just seeing them or them getting in the way or whatever it is. I just like to have them organized and neat. So… we’re you gonna…

Pam: I’m just going to say that one thing that I think that has made a really big difference in our practice here with podcasting, with the acoustics is the, uh, the door cover the- I don’t know what they’re called.

So, um, when we were setting up before – CK and I are in separate rooms – and we would put like a towel or a blanket in front of the door to block any sound coming underneath them.

And a couple of weeks ago you bought, I don’t know what to call them.

CK: Basically like.

Pam: They’re just pieces of fabric that have foam tubing in them for each side of the door. So- so you can think of it if you live anywhere where it’s drafty, they’re the draft blockers that you put on the bottom of doors. But these are, have tubes on the inside and outside of the door and go underneath the door so that when you close it, you have something already on there that blocks the sound.

And that simple little thing – I’m sure they were cheap, relatively cheap,

CK: Yeah, they were like 10 bucks each

Pam: Yeah, that I think has made a huge difference in our setup. So if anyone out there is podcasting from their bedroom, invest in one of these things. And you can link it in the show notes so that people can find them. They were just a really simple change to the setup that I thought was a really good tip.

CK: Yeah. I mean, we don’t even have to do anything to set it up any more. Set up like covering up the door, like the openings below the door and stuff like that, because it’s just on there and you just have to close the door and it stays on there and it slides with the door and everything.

And it not only helps us with podcasting, but just in general. If, let’s say I’m still sleeping and Pam wants to grind coffee and that blocks- helps block the sound, so…

Pam: Or when I go to bed at night and CK is watching YouTube videos about acoustic treatments in rooms. Then it blocks the sound while I’m trying to sleep.

CK: Yeah. So, yeah, that’s a good point that you brought up there. And so, yeah, I don’t know…

Oh, actually, I just noticed this morning that last week’s practice session didn’t get published. And I just realized that. And it’s because I forgot to mark the category that the podcast is in through my, through the WordPress post.

So it defaulted to the default category, which is uncategorized. And so it didn’t get uploaded into the Practice feed. So that’s what happened. I apologize to the listeners.

Sorry, Darryl.

But yeah, that should be up now or soon. And hopefully I’m going to get back into the flow of publishing these sessions in a timely manner ’cause I’ve kind of been slacking (with everything else I’m doing around the studio) .

And I still want to do more with like the show notes and get things more organized and stuff like that. And all that’s been in progress. Uh, we- I think we mentioned last week that I had a huge list of tasks that I wanted to get done. And I made good progress with them all, but I don’t know if I actually finished any of them, but this is just kind of how I work. I like to have my hands in a lot of different things, and work on things when I get inspired.

Freetalking tangent salad based on the Zeigarnik Effect.

[15:33]

CK: And so that’s kind of something that I’m trying to navigate these days, because like I’ve mentioned before, I’m doing a lot more creative stuff now versus the more analytical and strategic stuff that I was doing before. So I’m kind of learning my flow and my patterns and when to do certain things in- at the optimal time.

So still getting used to those kinds of things. Creative mindset’s a little different, you know, you gotta kinda- like you don’t- sometimes you don’t know when inspiration is going to strike.

Pam: Can I counterpoint there? So I absolutely felt the same way when I started doing a lot of writing. Like when I was writing our scripts for Equanimity, our other podcasts, and when I started creating, uh, the content for Not Bad Advice, and even working on the, uh, the documents and course information for Not Bad with Money coaching, that is still a very creative process, even though it is work it’s- it’s creation.

And, uh, I would kind of have the same feeling where I’d be like, Oh, I have to wait until the mood strikes or until I’m feeling in a creative mood. And that meant that I never did anything. So I started blocking off time that no matter what, this is the time that I spend on this project. Even if I only work on it for five minutes, as soon as I start working on it, I find that I get in the creative mood.

So if you’re waiting for inspiration to strike, it might not. So, you know, think about blocking that time out and just trying.

CK: Yeah, that’s a good point. And I definitely tried different things and I’m still kind of trying to figure out what works best for what situation and stuff like that. Or maybe I just need to sit and try harder and yeah, I don’t know.

‘Cause the thing is I’m in so many creative buckets right now and they’re all a little different, like music is probably on the far end of the creative spectrum. And then there’s like the editing or the post-processing, that’s kind of less creative and more task oriented. And then there’s content writing, which has maybe a little more creative, but not as creative and free flowing as music. So yeah, there’s different levels and, so yeah, I’m just trying to wrap my head around all this and trying to figure stuff out.

And I’m still trying to wrap my head around this whole electronic music paradigm that I’m not as comfortable with yet still because I come from more of the analog and instrument world. So I’m still kind of working out my flow with that, but I’ve gotten a lot of things coming together and it’s just kind of how it works for me.

I just kind of throw a lot of stuff at the wall at once and kind of pick out which ones I like or which ones I feel like work best and then kind of stick with those, but still have those other things in the periphery in case I might want to pick those up down the line. And then further down the line, it all just kind of starts coming together somehow.

And this may have something to do with the Zeigarnik effect. Are you familiar with that? I think I mentioned it…

Pam: I don’t know if I’ve ever heard that- those two words together before, or Zeigardik at all.

Zeigarnik , I believe,

Zeigarnik Okay.

CK: I think that’s the right word: Zeigarnik. I think it was named after Bluma Zeigarnik. Now I’m, like, thinking… You know what happens when you think of the same word over and over again – it kind of gets weird? Yeah. So I- now I’m not sure if it’s Zeigarnik. I’m pretty sure.

But anyway, it’s the effect of having something, like, incomplete and having that being retained in your bandwidth or mindspace, and it’s always kind of there. And it’s- it relates to the cliffhanger effect on- for like TV shows or movies or stories or whatnot. So, you know, you- you kind of want to complete that storyline or thought or whatever you’re doing.

So you- that- that notion is in the back of your mind somewhere, even if you’re not actively thinking about it. And then when it comes time for that to be useful hopefully it comes up and you can process it with whatever you’re thinking of at the time.

So it’s kind of- it kind of speaks toward procrastination… like the beneficial side of procrastination.

Pam: So like you might be doing a little justification because you’re a pretty big procrastinator.

CK: Yeah. I might be, but it works for me on some levels. So yeah, I think as long as you’re mindful about it and continually iterating on how you go about it, that it’s okay. Like obviously you don’t want to procrastinate to the point where you’re never getting anything done, but at the same time, it’s useful to have these ideas kind of available or floating around and available to you when you think of something else that’s pertinent and you can relate them and process them and come up with something that relates to them both or improves your idea in general.

So, yeah. Uh, I- yeah, I think that is what the Zeigarnik effect is,

Pam: Well, I just looked it up and it actually means, uh- they’re speaking about how, um, something that is an uncompleted task will be recalled more easily and more quickly than something that’s completed. So if you start something and don’t finish it and then need to pick it up again or do it again, you’ll be more able to pick up that task kind of where you left off or start doing it again versus something that you complete.

Because when you complete it, you kind of…

CK: Close the loop.

Pam: Yeah, you close that loop. It’s not in your consciousness as much anymore.

CK: Okay. So yeah, I think I got it fairly accurate. So anyway, why did we get into Zeigarnik effect?

Pam: So you were talking about how you have a lot of things going on at any given time and that you kind of want to, um, have them all kind of floating in your atmosphere and pick which ones you want to work on at any given time.

CK: Yeah, so that’s just kind of how I work. And I don’t know if it’s the most effective process for me, but I’m always mindful about how I go about things. So I’m continually iterating my processes and my routines. And so that’s kind of where things are going now.

Like, I like to set things out and schedule stuff and have like certain things in place and kind of divvy out my goals and the timelines for them and stuff like that.

But I know now- by now I know that I never hit those- the goals or those milestones when I think I will.

Pam: Because you’re too aggressive with them. You don’t set realistic goals, so then you never hit the goals. So then you don’t want to hit- you don’t want to set goals.

CK: Yeah, but at this- So that’s another thing. Like, I feel like that’s also just kind of how I work. Like I- I put the carrot on a stick out in front of me so that I can chase it, and, you know, I have all those different goals and that’s kind of what helps drive me.

So yeah. I don’t know I could be going about it wrong. And now that I’m talking about it, I can kind of determined where there’s inefficiencies.

Pam: Well, I would just say that, um, if that’s how you want to work for your projects, that’s fine. But I have definitely felt a little bit of, um, like, I don’t know what’s going on with the projects that we’re working on together. ‘Cause you’ll be like,”this week, I’m going to get this done” and then we talk about it and you’re like, “Oh, I didn’t get it done.”

And I’m like, okay… so when you tell me you’re going to get something done, I can’t- I don’t have any faith in it. And so like, when people are asking me like, what is Not Bad Advice going to start coming out? I’m like, “I have no idea.” And when we talk about it, you’re like “this week, this week.”

CK: Yeah. So now that you mention that, I think I do need to get a little more organized with my goal planning, but that may also be an effect of all this organization that I’m trying to get into these past couple of weeks. Or this, uh, what’s the word I’m looking for? Like, I’ve kind of been just, like, not in my flow.

So I think maybe I’ve just been kind of riding that wave. Just kind of winging things. So maybe I just need to get all my stuff together, get everything organized and get back into the flow.

So I don’t know. We’re keeping an agile and adapting on the fly. So…

Pam: Always learning.

CK: That’s right. So yeah, today we’re totally winging it and I had no idea what I was going to talk about. And so I think we’re already in our freetalking segment where I talk about the half-thoughts that are bouncing around in my mind, make tangent salads and tangent spaghettis.

And yeah, I don’t know. We’re already coming close to the end of the episode, so…

Do you have anything else that you want to talk about or anything that’s on your mind?

I don’t think so.

Practicing the practice, and other practices.

[26:33]

CK: Okay. So let’s see freetalking and then segment about practice and practicing. Um, so… one second, I’m gonna clear my throat real quick.

All right. Um, yeah, we were just talking about our voice quality. Was it right before we started this session? Your, how your voice? I don’t know what’s going on with my voice. It’s really- my throat’s really gravel-y today.

Pam: That kind of works for men though. When it happens for my voice, it starts to sound pretty funny, but you can get away with that, like low gravel-y.

CK: Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t like how mine comes out. So I still need to figure out how to talk for half an hour without my voice getting like this. But yeah, I’ve tried honey before and I think- I didn’t do that this week, so maybe I need to add that back in and figure that out.

And we started kind of- I think we’ve talked about doing vocal exercises and stuff like that before. So yeah, still working things out on the actual physical talking side of things.

And let’s see, let’s get into it. Practices virtues of practice and theories and ideas behind practice. It’s like, I’ve been talking about structure and scheduling, and I guess we touched on that today. So I just need to get back into my flow and find my flow. And I don’t know if I have any advice off the top of my head.

Pam: There’s something that I’ve been thinking about as we’ve been talking the last couple of weeks about how you’ve been re- uh, setting up the studio differently, and that that’s all really beneficial and in the longterm, it will be good, but it has definitely thrown a wrench in your workflow. And there’s, uh, something that I saw the other day that said, distractions don’t seem like distractions.

So, um, you know, maybe just being cognizant of when you are optimizing the studio to a point because you, you want it to be so perfect and you’re putting all of this time and energy into, you know, getting cables perfect and the, you know, the sound perfect and all this stuff, and it feels really, really productive.

And to an extent it is, but at the same time, it is a distraction.

CK: Yeah. It’s not efficient.

Yeah. So that brings up a couple of topics. One is paedomorphosis and another is function versus form. So maybe we can dive into those next week and yeah, I have a lot that I could say about those things

And, yeah, so we’ll leave it at there- we’ll leave it there for this week and sorry, things were kind of all over the place and- maybe I shouldn’t apologize.

I kind of noticed that listening to previous episodes, that I’m way too critical of myself. And like I say, things like… like, you know, sorry for this being that way or apologizing for stuff when I don’t really need to.

Like, when I listen back to it, it’s like, I didn’t really need it to say that or mentioned that, you know. But on the other hand, I don’t know, maybe it’s useful because this is a whole process of me being self-reflective on this practice of learning how to speak better and trying to articulate the thoughts that are in my mind.

So maybe there’s benefit in voicing the thoughts that are going on and how I’m thinking of stuff at the time. So I don’t know. Uh, I’ll put those thoughts in the show notes as well, of course, but yeah, I’m just kind of rambling now and…

Don’t apologize for it.

Okay. So I’m not going to apologize for that. So I’m not sorry.

Outro.

[31:13]

CK: And we’ll leave it there for this week. So I hope you guys come back next week and we’ll potentially talk about pedal Morphosis and form versus function.

And so before we leave off Pam working, people hit you up?

Pam: You can find me on Twitter. I am @Pamela_Lund.

CK: And I’m on Twitter @cKdisco. And, oh man, I really got to figure out my voice thing. And yeah, don’t forget to check out the show notes and more information about this project at ForcesOfEqual.com/Practice.

And again, we’ll leave it there for this week. So I hope you come back next week and keep on practicing!

To-da-loo! ✌️