Practice Session #41

Welcome to my show notes for this week’s session of Practice!

We record these sessions every Sunday. I try to publish the audio on the same day of recording, but once in a while, I may get delayed due to various reasons.

Also, I will usually have the AI-generated transcript and my initial notes published on the same day of recording as well. On Fridays, I’ll (try to) go back through and proof the transcript while I add all of my notes.

I’ll be utilizing this opportunity to clarify and elaborate on points that I may not have conveyed as well as I would’ve liked to. I’ll also provide links to further information and resources.

So, on Friday, I’ll intersperse all my notes with the transcription from the audio below (unless I don’t 🤷).

Intro.

[00:00]

Pam: Did my stomach gurgles come out on last week’s recording?

CK: I don’t think so… unless you, like, really pay attention… but I think I got most of it out.

Pam: Okay. It’s not doing it right now. So won’t yeah.

CK: Alrighty. Ready? 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. What started out as a practice of podcasting, as well as speaking in general, has evolved into a practice of self-coaching and self-reflection 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 also my pattern awareness manager, and every Sunday we reflect on the past week and my progress with this practice, along with other lifestyle practices, as well as theories and ideas behind the virtues of practice itself.

We’re 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 provide some fact-checking, self-psychoanalysis and commentary on things I could have done better. You may find this and more information about this project at ForcesOfEqual.com/Practice.

Catch up with the Anomaly and the Linchpin.

[01:20]

We’re recording today on Sunday, December 6th of 2020.

And this is practice session number 41 December 6th, already.

Pam: That’s funny that it’s the 41st session. And when we record the next session, you will have turned 41.

CK: interesting. I didn’t realize that can’t believe it’s going to be buying birthday Presley already. So, yeah, this is going to be my birthday week turning 41 on the 12th, 12, 12. Yeah. That’s crazy to think about it. Yeah, I’ll go ahead and restate the quote for the week. And this one comes from load zoo who I’ve quoted many times before. The founder, or I think he’s considered the founder of Daoism. Anyway, the quote goes like this. If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve. If you realize that our things change there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there’s nothing you cannot achieve. And again, that’s by law soon. And I’m trying to remember why that stuck out to me this week. I jotted it down a couple of days ago, but any thoughts from you offhand?

Pam: um, it feels like two quotes that were stuck together. Like they feel like two valid, but different statements.

CK: I guess that kind of goes along with the whole Taoism idea with the yin and yang coming together. Maybe the concept of dualism, right. But yeah, I do. So let’s take it line by line. The first line is if you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. So that one’s pretty, self-explanatory life and complex systems are dynamic and always changing. Oftentimes we as humans tend to hold on to various ideas or patterns or habits or routines These are things that as humans, we incorporate to make life easier. Because if we do, if we repeat similar things, we don’t want to have to relearn what we have to do each time we do it. So there’s that idea of habits and routines and pattern recognition.

But in reality, things are dynamic and always changing. So. Okay. I mean, it goes along with a lot of things, a lot of the stuff that we talk about often in terms of how things are dynamic and things are Accountex system. So,

Pam: It actually goes right along with what I wrote from my terrible spread this morning.

CK: Oh really?

Pam: Yeah. So the first card that I pulled was the death card, which doesn’t mean death in the literal sense. It means change and transformation. So, um, You know, we’re often afraid of change because change can mean the end of something and, or, um, change is scary in any sense, really.

So I wrote this morning, um, That death itself, isn’t finality. It’s the end of the current state of being and an initiation into the next one. When someone dies, we keep them alive. In our memories, they don’t cease being a part of our lives because they aren’t physically here anymore. Their influence continues to shape us as long as we keep them alive by telling their stories.

And the same is true for thoughts and beliefs. They don’t simply disappear because you’ve decided to let them die. The longer a belief has been with you the longer it will linger. Letting go of that old identity and those old fears and living in the old skin will take time, be patient with yourself. So just the idea that, but changes is a constant and, and you need to embrace change.

And that even when things do change, They’re not done that work. We’re kind of in this constant state of transformation.

CK: that was something that you wrote

Pam: Yeah. I just wrote it this morning. Yeah. Um,

CK: Interesting. And then, so you related that to the first line, but then it’s interesting that the second line actually talks about death.

Pam: yeah, certainly I hadn’t put that together yet, but yes, that’s very interesting.

CK: And the second line again, it says, if you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve. And that’s actually interesting because that goes along with a big tenant of stoic philosophy. I believe the Latin phrase is momentum Mori,

Pam: Okay.

CK: which means wait. Oh shoot. So it’s been a while since I’ve been.

Learning Latin. Uh, so momentum, Mori, I think it’s life, basically life is fleeting, or like, remember to remember death and it’s the notion of it kind of sounds, I don’t know if the district’s the right term, but it kind of stones.

Pam: Fatalistic

CK: Yeah. In terms of thinking about death all the time, but in thinking about death, you’re thinking about life. So there’s that dualism there. And one of the stoic concepts is that you are dying a little bit every day, all the time, but we don’t really frame it like that in our own minds.

As we go along in our daily lives. And so we kind of lose sight of the concept of death and we kind of maybe have different ideas and we’ve sort of developed this different idea of death and in turn life because of the different ways we think about death now, for example, in. Ancient times or even a hundred or so years ago, humans were around death all the time, whether they’re out hunting and killing and making food from whatever’s hunted and killing to being on a farm and raising animals and seeing animals die and maybe.

You know, slaughtering animals for food and whatnot. So before we’d be around life and death all the time, obviously we’re on life all the time, but we’d be more exposed to death and dying, but these days were almost more shielded from it and tell. The time comes for death to happen to, uh, someone who’s close to us, whether it’s a loved one or a relative or a friend or whatnot.

And so it kind of hits us harder at that time in terms of the death and how we react to it. Whereas before when we were around it all the time, it’s more a part of life. And we’re not as, or we weren’t as devastated or surprised for lack of a better term. One death came around.

Pam: Yeah, I think it was probably different. Like it’s still just as sad and you are still just as affected by losing someone that you love. But it is, I think it was almost more honored.

CK: Yeah, I, I could say that that’s a good way to put it. And it just wasn’t as like severe, I guess you could say, or it wasn’t as big of a shock in terms of trauma and whatnot, because we were more used to it. We were more adapted to it. So, yeah. Um, again, the quote is, if you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to.

If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve. So it just kind of encompasses the whole flow and the dynamism of life and things are always changing. And. Things are always being born and things are always dying. And so there’s this cycle and a flow that goes on and we have to kind of remember all that.

And there’s this spectrum. I always talk about spectrums and spectral potentiality. And so there’s always all these different things going on. So if you just kind of open your eyes and open your mind and provide a space to see. All these things happening, you’ll be more apt or have less of a tendency to focus or have tunnel vision tunnel vision on some, a single thing or a single event or a single emotion and have more perspective. So, yeah, I think, uh, I was able to get around to what I got out of the quote. So maybe will I be able to tie it into some of the things, Oh shoot. I forgot to stop or start the stop watch. So. Uh, okay. So yeah, I’m going to try to keep things to around half an hour. It’s still been going long. I think I was around 40 minutes last week, but keep this shorter and more succinct because that’ll help me in.

Post-processing spend less time in post-processing yeah. Uh, let’s see. How about your how’s your mood over the past week?

Pam: good. I’ve been a really good, especially for the first week of a month, which is usually full of client reports and still was full of client reports right after black Friday, which is a big but I’ve really been working on, um, separating my worst from my production, knowing that what I produce is not.

The same as what I’m worth and what my value is as a human. So that allowed me to, um, have some more mental and creative space. So I decided to launch another site because what I need is one more thing to maintain. But, um, I decided to launch another site, which is@pamelalund.me. And it is my Derek. My daily tarot spreads that I do for myself, that I thought I would start sharing with the world with anyone who may need a little perspective outside of all of our audio perspective. So it’s there and I’m also, um, Doing a little posts on Pinterest to get it out there. And, um, yeah, that was, that was fun.

CK: Cool. So that’s up and going now people

can check it out.

Pam: there are three days worth up there.

CK: Nice. I’ll have to check it out too. And that’s at Pamela and.me

Pam: Yep. That’s right. Yeah. It’ll be a little Rocky at the beginning because I’m transitioning from, I’m trying to not get into the mindset of writing them for other people. I’m trying to stay in the mindset of writing them for myself. And then, um, it’s, it’s been difficult though. Cause I find myself editing for an audience, so,

CK: Yeah, that’s interesting. I totally get that feeling because that’s kind of where I’m going with this podcast with practice. I’m really doing it for myself and to practice and yeah. For others in terms of providing an example. But in the beginning I find myself, you know, thinking what others are going to think and thinking how I can kind of tailor it to the audience.

But yeah, I’ve been getting more and more used to the idea of, you know, this is my thing, and this is my self-reflection. And. I can talk about myself and what I know, because I know those things and kind of confident with those things, although I’m not always so confident putting together all the thoughts that are scattered and floating around in my head, but still these are things that are in my heads,

Pam: It’s your head.

CK: but yeah.

But yeah, I totally get that, that mindset. yeah, my week was very interesting and this will kind of tie up a lot of the things that I’ve been considering talking about. And so my week was kind of split in half before Wednesday and after Wednesday. So I guess I mentioned last week that we were getting in launched the first episode of not bad advice on Wednesday.

So this past Wednesday, And I thought I gave myself enough time. You know, we gave ourselves two weeks lead times since we released the trailer and I thought that’d be plenty of time. And of course it wasn’t. And I was kind of getting to crunch time and I did end up finishing the first episode on Wednesday, but I wasn’t.

Completely comfortable with it and it’s probably fine. It’s yeah. I mean, I don’t want it to my own home, but it’s probably good and it’s Def definitely good enough to publish, but I just, I just knew that I can make it better and it took me. Now looking back, it took me too long to get where I wanted to get on by Wednesday.

So it’s kind of led me to look more into my tendencies around working and, you know, between creative work and strategic work. And this is stuff that I’ve talked about in weeks past, and I’ve tried to. Figure out and develop and cultivate. But I think this past week kind of really showed me how I go about these kinds of things.

And so I do, so I’m realizing that I still need to try to tap into that agile. Process or that agile philosophy, a little more, or a lot more where I get the minimum viable product developed as quickly as possible, which is. Basically what I tried doing with practice in the beginning where, you know, it’s simply a podcast, we’re just recording audio.

And we were nowhere near where we are now in terms of our room setup and our mic setups and our mic technique and our audio processing and our post-processing and editing and all that stuff, which now that I’m thinking about all that stuff, like it’s crazy where we are now from where we started. But when we started, I didn’t know that we were going to get into all these things.

And I knew that I wanted to produce something of quality, but I didn’t know what went into all that quality. And I was able to produce something that was available and viable, but of course, looking back now, you know, the quality is nowhere near where it is now. But still I was able to get it started. And now we’re on episode 42 or 41 and

Pam: now wouldn’t be where it is. Had we not gone through all of that? Like you had to go through it in

CK: exactly. Who knows, you know, if I didn’t. Kind of incorporate that agile process to begin with. Who knows if we’d have anything at all right now, like I might still be tweaking and fiddling around with all this gear and all the software and stuff. So yeah, in when, so with the not bad advice episode, I was trying to incorporate that concept, but.

Now looking back, I know that I wasn’t able to, and I kind of, I can see where I can incorporate a little more. So basically I’m trying to use all. So I I’ve been, I’m still learning a lot of stuff around post-processing audio and podcasting in general, and even just storytelling and editing and. The formatting process and everything like that.

So it’s, um, I still have a lot of learning going on and of course I’m learning each time that I’m processing one of these podcasts. And so each podcast is basically better or I’ve added something new that I’ve learned to it. And it’s tough. When I’m in that process because of course I want it to be, I want it to end up being the best I possibly can, but you know, if I’m still learning, it’s, you know, the, the bar is always gonna rise or the bar is always going to be higher.

So. I’m discovering now that I, it would really benefit me to adopt that agile philosophy a little more. So what I could have done differently last week was instead of, you know, doing everything I could to make the podcast the best I possibly could, I should have. Just produce it as fast as possible with what I already knew so that I could have something done.

And I know I kind of try to explain this whole concept to you earlier this week 10,

Pam: It’s making a lot more sense now.

CK: okay, good. So I am hoping that I can make even more sense as I go about it here. And so, you know, if I had something done quick, so, I mean, I could have probably processed it within a day, maybe two tops with what I know and have it good enough to publish and have it ready to go.

But instead it took me two weeks to get something ready to go, and it might be better than. What I could have done in a day or two, but if I did, if I took the agile, if I use the agile process and did it within a day or two, and then took the rest of those two weeks, uh, you know, 12 more days to work on it from there.

I think I’d be at a much better place or, you know, it may have taken me only three or four more days to get to where I got to in two weeks. So, yeah. So that’s why I think, uh, um, adopting the agile methodology would be beneficial for me and wrapping my head around my process last week. And kind of reviewing and reflecting on it is making me see that a little better.

And yeah. Do you have any response to that?

Pam: No other than that, I think that it’s really easy to look back now and say, Oh, it’s so obvious that that’s what you should have done. And I would have loved for it to only take two days. But I think you probably had to go through this to know that this is how your process needs to be going forward. So.

CK: Yeah, exactly. And I’m glad it happened. And so then the rest of my week went so well. So we decided to postpone the release of the first episode until next coming Wednesday or this coming

Pam: tell that you were stressed out and you were at nine o’clock at night, getting to go back to work on it. And we’ve been in that cycle before.

CK: And so, yeah, the, the thing is like with my typical cycle, I would just get into this mode and I just really kind of focus in on the process, which I love doing. I’ll get really tied into the process and I’ll just fiddle around and fiddle around and tweak and tweak. And I just love trying out.

Every variable possible because I want to know all the possibilities and then develop the strategy and synergize the processes from there, but that could just take forever and ever, and there could be no end because you know, there’s always something that you could. Probably add to the process. So that’s another reason why I think the agile, agile method, the hedge Hill methodology is beneficial because you get the product out of the way first, and then you can work on the process.

Whereas I used to work on the process and just kept working on the process and the product would just take forever to come out. So I think this kind of also relates to the learner, uh, modes of learning that I mentioned before in terms of focus, thinking versus diffuse thinking. And I’m finding that, like I’ve said before, I have a very strategic mind and I get into these phases where.

I am very focused in even my daily routine. My mornings are used to get my mind ready for the day and I have my Pomodoro sessions set up so that I could get into a flow state and do deep work as much as possible throughout the day. But with all this creative stuff that I’m doing. It’s a diff it’s just a different way of thinking.

So I can’t really use that process or I’m finding that, you know, that process isn’t really fit for the stuff that I’m trying to do because yeah, because I’m in that focus mode all the time. And so that’s kind of what I was in the beginning of last week before Wednesday, I was in that focus mode, trying to.

Produced in complete the first episode of not bad advice, but when I’m in that focus mode, I can’t be creative because I’m focused in, you know, all my working memories tied up in the process of producing that first episode. And then after we decided that we’re going to postpone it a week, I was automatically out of that focus mode and I was able to get in that diffuse mode and incorporate more different concepts and ideas that I’ve gathered along the way.

And I’ve kind of, I was able to basically open up my mind more and I mean, this wasn’t like done intentionally or. Consciously, it just kind of happened because, you know, we decided to postpone it. So on Wednesday, when after Wednesday, when we decided to postpone, I just felt like a sense of relief, I guess.

And I was just able to kinda get in that state. And my brain was able to, was able to become more diffuse and I just had more thoughts and concepts getting connected and. Then my Thursday and Friday, like I was able to do a lot of other things and I was super productive actually on Thursday, I switched to doing website work because I wanted to get away from the audio production and I was super productive with that.

And a lot of stuff came together. And then on Friday I worked on, I actually went back and worked on the trailer because I just kind of still fiddling around with the new stuff that I’m learning. And I incorporated that into the trailer. And so it was kind of fun working on that. And of course the trailer’s done, but.

I’m able to basically open up my mind a little more creatively, create creatively and incorporate all these other kinds of steps back into the trailer. And then of course I’ll be able to use that, um, in episodes and other processing work moving forward. So, yeah, it’s just a, it’s interesting thinking about all these different. Ways that my brain functions in reflecting on that and kind of coming up with a plan and a strategy in order to work more productively and efficiently in terms of the different projects in the different types of projects that I’m working on now, um, namely between strategic and creative processes.

Pam: It also sounds like you were, um, having some, some time scarcity and that once that was relieved, you were able to. Be more abundant in creativity because you didn’t feel that pressure of, of even though, you know, deadlines are great and everything, uh, when you’re in panic mode or like rush mode, you can’t be creative because you’re just in, get it done, get it done.

And that is time scarcity.

CK: Yeah, definitely. And that’s another reason why I think that agile, man. Why can’t I say that today?

Pam: Your brain’s moving too fast.

CK: Do you say agile or agile?

Pam: I think I say agile.

CK: Okay. So another reason why I think the agile methodology.

Pam: You say what you want to say?

CK: I don’t know. I want to say it’s just coming out wrong or not. Right. But anyway, another reason that I think the agile methodology would benefit me is because I wouldn’t have so much time scarcity if I got that product out and completed initially. And so I don’t know if I’m going to be able to articulate this the way I want to, but the.

I mean, I guess I already mentioned it before where, you know, if I started out with the agile process and develop the episode within the first day or two, I would have all that rest of the time to tweak it and work on the process or whatever, versus using all two weeks to process. Go through the tweaks and all that stuff and maybe having the product done at the end.

So, yeah, so I I’m totally all in on this agile process and I still, I’m still trying to incorporate it a little more and develop my, my own processes within it.

Pam: I’m laughing as you’re saying this, because I pulled, I went to pull a card for today and when I was shuffling a card jumped out and sometimes when cards jump out, it’s like, that’s the message that you’re supposed to get. So the card that jumped out was the Knight of Pentacles. And one of the meanings for this card is that you can’t plan for every possible thing.

You just have to start moving. And if you get stuck on planning and prepping, you’ll never do anything. So I think that is pretty funny, given that you’re talking about needing to have an agile process and not be stuck in the process. And the other one, the one that I actually did pull is temperance, which is the card right after death, which we just talked about at the beginning.

And this is the rebirth after death. So this is leaving the Chrysalis and it’s, um, like letting go of your ego and trusting that what you do is what. Is meant to be done. So I think that that was, um, that was pretty funny.

CK: Yeah, totally. Temperance is a, one of the stuck for on, in the big four virtues of stoic philosophy too, in terms of like moderation and humility, maybe more moderation.

Pam: Yeah. In a taro, it’s a little less about moderation and more about, um, like just letting things be okay. And the alchemy that can occur when things that you wouldn’t think go together, come together, basically like letting, letting magic happen on its own.

CK: Well, I think that’s a good way to close out the session for today then. And so I think we’re right about half an hour, maybe a little, maybe a minute or two more. So that’s good. And I think we had a nice flow going today.

Pam: Yeah,

CK: So yeah, I’d like to thank the listeners for joining me this week. And Pam for joining me as always Pam, where can people find you?

Pam: you can find me on Twitter where I am at Pamela underscore Lund.

CK: And you might be able to find me on Twitter at CK disco. I think I tweeted it a couple of times this week, actually, and go check out Penn’s new podcast or our new podcast at not bad advice. I’ll go ahead and append the trailer to this episode. So if you keep listening past the end, you can hear the trailer go subscribe and you can check out the. Website for not bad advice that forces a pico.com/nut bad advice. And so, yeah, that’s it for this week. So thank you listeners for joining me as always, and I hope you come back next week and keep on practicing to loo