Welcome to five-minute magic from Mindful Creative Podcast. A short bonus episode, sharing tips and insights from the book's pages of the same title.
Every week I'll share one or two ideas that can give you an actionable takeaway for your creative process or work/business, or just the food for thought for the weekend ahead.
These bonus episodes share content from the audio book, and you can find the link to the full version in the show notes. ~
Mindful Creative: How to understand and deal with the highs and lows of creative life, career and business
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[00:00:00] Welcome to five minute magic from the mindful creative podcast. A short bonus episode, share and tips and insights from the pages of the book of the same title. Every week I'll be sharing one or two ideas that can give you an actionable takeaway for your creative process, your work, your business. Or just food for thought for the weekend ahead. These episodes share content from the audio book, and you can find the link to the full version in the show notes below.
Hey. The first bonus episode is actually going to be read by meAnd the reason why I want to read it myself is that the story's very personal.
when we were recording, The audio book. I was trying to get my friend, Steven, who narrated. Audio book. To get the tone. Right. And it's supposed to first when they be recorded and it feels quite somber. And the story of creativity nearly killed me. Is quite serious, it should also put focus on the idiocy of what I used to do of how I used to sort of believe in a [00:01:00] constant. Go go, go.
Not having time for anything apart from work thinking, all I have to do is to work and I'm kind of struggling with them. Survival instinct running my own business.
everything I did at that time. I've spent a long time undoing. So I was breaking myself a lot. And I didn't know it. I was just excited working until the point where I couldn't do neither of the things. I had a, such a major burnout and panic attack that, things had to change. So with the creativity nearly killed me with the. Intro to the book. I'm talking about a fact that. The elements of. Danger. sometimes mistaken for different signals. I'll stop talking.
I'll start reading and I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Creativity nearly killed me. It was 4:00 [00:02:00] AM on a Wednesday morning. I lit a cigarette standing in the backyard of my basement apartment in Southwest London. It was a warm summer morning and the world around me was still dreaming. The glow of my cigarettes signaled the end of the novel works day. I've been grafting for nearly 16 hours. And despite a long haul and a late finish. I for ready to continue for another few hours.
If need be. It had been a, yet another marathon session in the office feel about a mixture of caffeine, nicotine, adrenaline, and dopamine. But I didn't mind, I was fully devoted to my work, my deadlines and my clients.
Finishing my smoke. I checked my emails one last time and returned a piece of work.
I just finished. I also looked over my to-do list for the coming day. Which would be starting a may five or six hours heads. Tomorrow would be a likely another long one meetings, Client calls across different time zones, a feedback session, work promotion, folio, tweaking, and learning. I would get up mid morning to look [00:03:00] after the admin. Reserving the creative work for the evening when the world became quieter and I could focus. Technically I would work two eight hour days only in one calendar day. New business was coming in from all angles and any spare moments where felt. We have self-initiated learning. I believe I was in love with what I was doing. But obsessed is more accurate. Nothing seemed to miss though.
I was the main man, the one keeping the blade spinning. I had no idea how addicted I was. If anything, a Walmart work ethic as a badge of honor. It became my identity. Every day. I was chasing the next high, just like any addict. From getting inquiries to doing the work submitted, getting paid each step felt crucial to my sense of worth. I haven't been in demand since deciding to set up on my own.I had never paused to reflect on how far I had come or what issues am I [00:04:00] need to address?
My actions and emotions were underpinned by the search for security that can be running my own business. There was no fallback or warehouse full of stock, ready to ship.
Each new piece of work was a blank canvas, new client, new brief new obstacles. And if the word dried up. My bank balance, we do the same. I had no safety net. I was growing up businesses and immigrate from a different country in a city that I now called home. Project scam of divers requirements and overlapping deadlines.
All of which I felt equal to. There was no routine. No long-term plan.It was a punishing cycle of go, go, go. And the perfect recipe for chaos. But somehow it worked just. You'd be forgiven for thinking that I was doing it all to build some sort of multi-million pound business empire. How else does one justify, so enthusiastically making themselves. Ill. Indeed such reckless behavior is generally reserved [00:05:00] for high earners, whose job titles come with high demands. But there are both.
We have three titles. Uh, director designer illustrator splashed across my website. Work in a way in my apartment doing all I could show it. We'll skip turning. My clients were happy. As happy as possible. And I remain focus on producing exponentially better work.
Name com and commissions, including many high-profile advertising campaigns. Work for international renown Browns and dozens and dozens of other projects, the highs were super high and the work was engaging. It seemed like the best feeling ever. And I bought it all with our seen high price tag.
Only after sprinting on this treadmill for many years. Did I realize that my superpowers were waiting? The caffeine and adrenaline could only do so much to keep me awake. My circadian rhythm was showed. I was going to bed as the world woke up and getting up by the time it reached for the first coffee break. [00:06:00] I was both over-caffeinated and severely dehydrated. I smoked too many cigarettes.
And on many occasions when a socialized. I would drink too much, too quickly, which never goes well.
My idea of exercise was the old session on a static bike in the corner of my apartment.And I thought I could maximize every minute of every day for work, which meant not going out unless I had to Brisk walk that the tube station was my lot. I reasoned that I could balance all of the bad stuff.
We have a decent diet. Which I just about managed to stick to, but just like every broken person. I believe that everything was fine.I worked at recently, the, in my first 20 years of running my own creative business, I put in 30 years. Hours. Don't try this at home. Mental health was deteriorating, but I plowed on, even when I spend one of my birthdays crying into a slice of cake, Utterly exhausted. No alarm bells rang and nothing [00:07:00] changed. The remorseless grind kept me on course for the cliff edge. I was lucky to have survived that part of my life.
If I. And serious long-term damage. Of course there were fuck-ups and blackouts of plenty, but emerged on the other side with all four limbs intact and all five senses working. And, you know, what. It was all my choice. The title of this introduction is perhaps unfair. Creativity didn't nearly kill me. I nearly killed me. I made all the wrong decisions.I bought into the wrong mindset and beliefs. I can't deny that doing so open many doors for me. But I've long since realized that there could have been a far better way of doing it. The creative career can take enough of you as it is. You don't need to make it worse for yourself. With no set plan beyond ensuring the belts are covered every month. We often have no defined expectations or even define successes. We don't know. Are enough and I sure as hell didn't know mine. [00:08:00] It took me at least 10 years to work on. That there was a such thing.
life and work with both coming at me full pout, and I was happily opening my arms to catch as much as I could. Until the moment I suddenly couldn't anymore.
Thankfully more than a decade ago, the turning point came my Knight in shining armor turned out to be a Goggle. Rachel. On an ex race horse called Sean. Both utter legends. Much like me, show him wasn't bundle of chaos and integrate you a good few years to make us both listened to her wisdomAnd stop making fools of ourselves.
Rachel, and I are now married and the proud parents of two young children who are hard, but on their potential comedy careers. I mean, at least I think that's what they're doing. It's so easy to get sidetracked and end up in something like this chaos again. But for at least decade now, I've been working to form the right habits, follow healthy routines and act on the knowledge that I continue to find along the way. But [00:09:00] through it all. I'm still working progress and it always will be.
Hopefully compiling and sharing what I know about a beast of creativity. We'll help others avoid making the same mistakes. I did. Doing so feels not only right, but also necessary. If you feel thirsty. You already dehydrated. If you need help with mental health. You're already in trouble. The keys to anchor yourself.
So you don't end up drifting further from Russia. Then necessary and this book. It's all about it. I still love creativity. It changed my life. But it needed a broke me for good too.
It's a beautiful beast, but we have to learn how to tame it.
©2023 Radim Malinic. All rights reserved. Made with ❤️ in London by Brand Nu Studio.