Latest / The Sober Creative Podcast / Episode 074 - Leading Through Recovery: Parker Gates on Honesty, Meditation, and Borrowing From the 12 Steps

Transcript

Episode 074 - Leading Through Recovery: Parker Gates on Honesty, Meditation, and Borrowing From the 12 Steps · The Sober Creative Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we can talk about it.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Let's see here.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Let people come in a little bit.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: How's the weather?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Nice temperature is good.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, it is unbelievable here.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's like for the last few days,
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: it's like lows,
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: mid 40s and the high like 70,
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: which is,
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: as my Dharma teacher says,
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: is like the temperature of enlightenment or the temperature
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: of Dhamma is what he calls it.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's exactly 70 degrees.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: So not too hot, not too cold.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's perfect.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Are you all getting similar?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, very similar.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Let me change my settings here.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I just love it.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: I love, like, the cool, crisp air and then hitting the sunshine on my face.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, hey, Eileen, thanks for joining us.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: It feels super good.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get it started.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like very zoomed in on my face.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's weird.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: What's that?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I said it's like it's very zoomed in on my face, which is kind of...
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's normal zoom is like it feels further away.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, it's totally fine.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, everyone, to The Sober Creative Podcast.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Every guest has done some version of the same hard thing.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: They got honest about what alcohol was costing them.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Some quit, some cut back, some don't use a word for it at all.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: What they share is that they're creating from a space that's actually theirs.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Josh Woll, and I'm excited to bring you today's guest.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Parker Gates got sober more than 23 years ago and has stayed active in recovery ever since.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: At six months sober, he was feeling everything he had spent 12 years avoiding.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And he told his sponsor he wanted to skip ahead to eight years.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: His sponsor laughed and said, you can't handle eight years.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: He spent the time since building the kind of life that sponsor was talking about,
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: one slow piece at a time.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Along the way,
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: he co-founded companies,
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: put in his time in corporate America,
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: and became an ICF certified executive coach trained
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: in mindfulness-based stress reduction.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: He has coached hundreds of founders and senior leaders,
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: teaches at Stanford D School,
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: and speaks at leadership summits and industry conferences.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: He has meditated for more than 12 years and studied the Dharma for 10.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: He writes The Practice,
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: a newsletter on leadership, inner work, and building a life worth living.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: And his first book is forthcoming.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: He also calls himself an aging punk rocker who loves coffee, bicycles, and dogs.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Please welcome Parker Gates.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Man.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first off, thanks for having me.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is super fun.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: I love this idea of what you're doing, man.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, really interesting.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Very cool.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: I would just say that more and more,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: maybe I'm just getting old, but more people are getting sober than ever before.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: More people are putting down alcohol.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Kids aren't drinking as much.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that people are really waking up to what is available
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: to them once they're not always intoxicated or running from the thing
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: that actually drives wonderful creativity.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, I think it's really...
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Really wonderful.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Don't let me forget to tell the Nick Cave story at some point during this.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Nick Cave.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Got it.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Put it in your brain.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I am doing well to answer your question, man.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Just got done climbing with some buddies at the climbing gym down the street and got
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: a full day planned, but really excited to be here and enjoying this fall weather.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's great to have you.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: I guess like let's,
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: as I do when we jump into the show,
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: walk me back to what early days of Parker looked like when you were young.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, man.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: So young Parker, I grew up in, I mean...
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people use the word like broken households,
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: just like when divorces and like all that kind of stuff.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't feel broken to me.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: It felt totally fine.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I did grow up.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: My parents got divorced when I was very, very young.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: There were a couple of different stepdads that came through the mix in the early years.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember...
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like the formative things that I remember really clearly,
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: like I fell into skateboarding really early on and like around 12 years old
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: and it became just such a huge part of my life for the next couple of decades.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And with skateboarding came like punk rock music and I...
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Tell the story a lot.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like I remember staying up late to record whatever college radio station was
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: in like Mobile, Alabama, where I was growing up.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: I remember staying up late to like press play and record on my like jam box
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: to hear like Agent Orange and,
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: like old Dead Kennedy songs and Violent Femmes
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: and like all these like great old like bands from the early 80s.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I was really like forged by a lot of that music that a lot of that really spoke
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: to me early on.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think in like in the punk rock world and maybe even in
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: the skateboarding world to some degree back then, you kind of went two ways.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: You kind of went like the one way,
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: which was like, I'm going to be athletic and really get good at skateboarding.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Or you tend to like party a lot and get into some mischievous behavior.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the route that I went.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me more about that mischief behavior.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Man, I mean,
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: it starts with like,
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: you know, silly stuff like, I don't know, breaking windows in old buildings.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then it kind of like progresses quickly to like, I'm not going to school.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to skip school.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then it progresses to like, you know, small time theft.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And of course,
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: right around 12 or 13,
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: I became kind of Fascinated and interested in drinking and drugs.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Other than like TV, I don't know where I would have gotten that.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have drinkers for parents, you know.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know where that came about.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: But like I started smoking cigarettes pretty young.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then like the next thing was to like,
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: you know, score a beer off one of my older sister's friends or something like that.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And man, then...
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think I got like loaded, like proper drunk, probably 13 years old, something like that.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was living in Waco, Texas.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was with my two best buddies, Harry and Fred.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: That was their names.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And we got drunk in a field somewhere.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And Boone's, Strawberry Hill.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And Coors used to have a beer called Extra Gold, Coors Extra Gold.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And this would have been in like 87 or something like that.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I remember getting proper drunk.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: We went out and had a great time, Brazos River Festival.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember coming home that night,
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: I got to make out with a girl, which I don't think I'd ever done before.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And...
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I came home that night and I remember laying in bed and I'm like,
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do this forever.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like I remember like so clearly like this,
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: like lucid thought of like, this is how I want to feel for the rest of my life.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Just like this, which would be drunk.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I got started.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: Then we woke up in the morning and got a question or like, yeah, maybe.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I had a hangover the first time that I drank like that.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the funny thing.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: I partied as much as I could early on.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: I went to my first rehab at 15 years old.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, so did you go pretty hard in those two years?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: I went as hard as I could,
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: but I went hard in all of it,
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: like in crime,
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: skipping school,
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: failing school,
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: being a shithead to my parents,
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: ran away from home, did all of the little skate punk things that I could do.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't think that they put me in rehab,
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: to be clear, because they knew for sure that I had a drinking problem specifically.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: They put me in there because they had no idea what to do with this mess of a child.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was back in then,
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: this was in 89, and it was a facility run by the big hospital company, HCA.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a co-ed unit, which is so dumb for like children.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we all had everything.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: So there were people in there with eating disorders and drug addicts and alcoholics
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: and kleptos and people...
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, who were trying to harm themselves in all kinds of different ways.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were all in one thing and we had some therapists and we had groups and all
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: that kind of stuff.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I managed to get sober.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the wild thing.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: I got out.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: I smoked a joint the day that I got out.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then that was the thing that actually scared me,
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Josh, was I was like, oh my God, dude, they were right.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I do think I'm a drug addict.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just spent 90 days in there and I walk out and immediately get high.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that freaked me out.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so I stayed sober for the next six and a half years.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that wild?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it,
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's got to be very striking,
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: the contrast,
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: of like 90 days,
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: then you come out and just try to go back to what your life was like normal.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, whoa, wait, wait a minute.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: So six years went by and then had a relapse or?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Six years went by.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: I say sober.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say...
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe just abstinent or dry was probably the better,
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: like all the cruddy behavior was still there,
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: but I just didn't drink, which probably saved my life to be real frank.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then, yeah, I moved out to Colorado.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was going to become a professional rock climber back then,
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: which in the early 90s, I'm sure paid a lot.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I lived out there for a few years and then I moved to Nashville when I was 21 and
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I just,
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think I went to go to a meeting one night when I moved here and I like drove up
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: and I like looked in and the people in there looked like boring and square.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, man, whatever, dude.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, and I just like left and I think I bought my first six pack like a couple of days later.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: My first legal six pack is like a An adult and drank two or three.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, this feels amazing.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I've been missing this whole time.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like this takes me right back to that first time I got drunk with Harry and Fred.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, this feels awesome.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that started about a seven-year run where things got real dark.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: We went a whole other level down after that.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so you hear these corny sayings sometimes in the rooms of recovery,
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: which is like,
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: man, your disease is doing push-ups just waiting for you and all this kind of crap.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know whether that's true or not,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: but I picked up and started drinking as if I had never stopped.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like there was no gradual two to three year kind of catching up to where I used to.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like it immediately went from like three beers on night one.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think two weeks later I was doing blow with a bunch of people I'd never met before
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: in a bathroom.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was like instant.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: So...
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Which is a good reminder.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like that reminds me,
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: it's like,
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: man, I'm just not a guy that can go back out and like, you know, give it a shot.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, it's not going to work for me.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it's,
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: I've heard so many stories of where it's like when you relapse,
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: it's much harder than the first time.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's like next level.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Not the same for you.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: So were you in AA before that and then went back or how did that work?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a good question.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: As a kid, I went to meetings.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Man, the meetings I went to, I was living in Texas at the time growing up and they had...
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, all these meetings with like a bunch of old crusty old dudes.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: There was one guy in there that was like young and kind of cool.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I picked him as my sponsor.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went to a lot of meetings and I tried to work this 12-step programming.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: I really learned the hard way the power of honesty and the power
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: of not keeping secrets or of not being known to another human being.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Very isolating and lonely when we keep those things to ourselves.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I see it a lot.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: I've been sponsoring guys for...
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, the info that I gave you was a little behind.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be 25 next week.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been sponsoring dudes.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I've been sponsoring dudes for like 25 years.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean,
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: it's almost always,
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: there's like one thing that they're embarrassed about that they want to hold back,
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: you know?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was my situation.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: But to answer your question, yes, I was in AA, stopped going to that for a long time.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then when it was time to get sober again, yeah, I re-engaged in the 12-step program.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just, it's been the thing that's worked the best for me, you know?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you don't mind sharing, if you don't, that's okay, too.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: What do you feel like that fear was that you were afraid of sharing?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, man.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there were a few things.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there were a few things.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: They were things that had nothing to do with drinking.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: They were always things that I was embarrassed about,
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: like about my body or whether people liked me like drinking.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: That was the stuff that I was ashamed to admit out loud that I was embarrassed about.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: It had nothing to do with like drinking and like criminal misbehavior or anything.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, I was the opposite.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like when I got sober, I was like, oh man, I stole and I fought and I like did all this.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Just like cool, you know, what I thought was like cool stuff.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it was like the silly stuff that, or I guess it wasn't that silly.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was, I mean, powerful enough for me to not share.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: it's almost always the things that we're ashamed of or
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: that we're really like embarrassed about that we hold back.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: And for a lot of people, not for me, but for a lot of people, it's almost sexual in nature.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: there's like some sexual experience that's been had that feels terrifying to talk
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: about for fear that we will be judged or dismissed or that,
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: you know, our sponsor's not going to like us anymore or something like that.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: And man, it's just, it's never true.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard some gnarly,
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: gnarly shit over the last 25 years and fist ups like,
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Crazy stuff where you have to consider like, oh, do I call the cops about this?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, some pretty heavy stuff.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and I'm so grateful that they trusted me enough to say those things out loud, you know?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think like the pain that we experience is,
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was just having this conversation the other day in regards to like,
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you can like score pain.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Pain is pain.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: When you look at someone else's pain, it's what they're experiencing and what they're feeling.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's as intense as it's going to be for that person.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Neuroscience tells us that emotional pain or mental pain,
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: psychological pain,
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: the brain can't tell the difference between that and physical pain.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you fall down and,
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: break your leg,
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: like your brain can't say like,
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: oh, that's a different kind of pain than psychological pain.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, it registers it all the same.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Which is wild, right?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it's probably why like so much of our thoughts, you know, tend to cause that pain.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it hurts.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: It hurts, yeah.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, here's this really nice, Tasty liquid that's going to make it all better.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to do this forever.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, tell me like, okay,
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: so, you know, leadership through recovery, like what does that look like for you?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good question, man.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I got sober when I was 27 and
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I had had like a corporate gig right before that.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: I lost that gig as a result of losing my driver's license for a couple of years as
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: a result of getting several DUIs.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I lost that gig and then went to work at Starbucks for the first like a year
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: and a half of my sobriety, which was a small pay cut.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: But then when I started up again,
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've always been kind of very entrepreneurial and And I don't love working
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: for other people.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started consulting kind of early on.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm always in the midst of like...
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: working with leadership at most organizations,
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: that's who would bring me in to do consulting.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so I kind of just started to learn pretty quickly like what leadership looked like.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: I started working with a lot of CEOs.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: And at an early stage, I took a corporate job for a while in probably my early 30s.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to like wear khakis and a button down every day.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was gnarly.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: And...
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: But that's where I, you know, and I was on the leadership team.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started to learn more and more about like leadership and started like,
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: and then I had a small team of people.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started like trying to figure it out.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: But this was all like in the first decade of my sobriety.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: So like I'm learning how to get sober.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm learning how to apply the principles of this program in my life,
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: which I think is,
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of,
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: what it looks like in later sobriety when we're not kind of rigorously working.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you're in a 12-step program,
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: you stop working the step so literally and so fundamentally,
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: and you start just adopting the principle of each step and applying them
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: in your life.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: So whether it be kindness or generosity or compassion or forgiveness
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: or whatever it is, you We start applying these things.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm in early sobriety.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to be sober and not dead.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm excited to have these like leadership jobs.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea how to lead people.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I start just borrowing from the only kind of framework that I have,
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: which is both the steps and the traditions, which are like oddly amazing.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the traditions are these like kind of,
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: suggestions or tenets that we have in the rooms of recovery
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: that have kept 12-step programs together together.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: With a lack of leadership for almost 100 years,
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: you know, these programs have survived using the traditions.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's run by maniacs, right?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're like,
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: it's run by like criminals and thieves and junkies and like the,
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: you know, people who have like done some of the worst stuff.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: And yet we're able to, you know...
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maintain some degree of stability and help other people get sober
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: and put their lives back together.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, it's fascinating.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway,
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: so I started borrowing from the steps and the traditions as a means
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: of like what my kind of leadership would look like.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then also because I think I just got really comfortable talking in public
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: in groups,
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: having really big open conversations with my teams about what was really going on
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: in their lives was fairly easy for me.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: I got so used to talking about my stuff that it was weird for other people not
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: to talk about their stuff, you know?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd be like, hey man, like what's really going on with you today?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, they'd be like kind of hesitant.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: And, but, you know, for me, it's like natural.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, well, yeah, of course we're going to talk about the real shit, you know?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway,
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think that,
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that answers your question,
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: but yeah, that's where it all got started is like, yeah, in that world.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I love that.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, like, Yeah,
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: I guess like what is – so I think like what – we can play off this too
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: of like what does leadership for you look like within your sobriety?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: So these days it's a little different.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Having spent –
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think a handful of things have kind of pitched into this.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: One, starting and running a company with my business partner for a decade and having
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: a decent sized little team doing work all over the globe.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I just started, like, that was part of it.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then we thought a lot about how we wanted to lead at our company, Stoked.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we tried a lot of kind of crazy experiments with our leadership teams.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really, really rewarding for a long time.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Then I kind of went down this coaching path.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I start learning how to like lead senior leaders.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm embedded on senior leadership teams and with CEOs and executive directors and stuff.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's all been this like huge learning experience for me for the past,
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say like 15 years.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Add to that...
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm officially an old-timer in recovery.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: As of 25, I'll call myself an old-timer.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've been sitting in meditation and sitting these crazy retreats for over a decade now.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think all of these feel like inputs to the style of leadership that I appreciate.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so the things that I focus on these days and kind of the general topic of
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: the book that's coming up is this idea of like,
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Personal development is professional development.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of times people get hung up on what skills do I need to be good at this job?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And how do I up my game?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I need to be better at reading spreadsheets and leading a meeting
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: and all this kind of stuff.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing that I think I have found is the most successful leaders...
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the ones that people love to be led by and be around and work for and work
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: with are people who are kind and they're compassionate and they're collaborative
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: and they're very generous.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: And they're not confused about what they're there about.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Their role clarity is really strong.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: They trust people to do their job.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it's all these soft skills.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's got very little to do with Executive presence, whatever the hell that means.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's got more to do with like, man, are you kind?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Are you generous?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Are you compassionate?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Are you a good listener?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Are you hearing the people on your team?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: These are all things that we learn in recovery.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so most people that have been sober for a while will go in and say something in
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: a business context, in a corporate context.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we say something like, oh, yeah, guys, no worries.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like this too shall pass.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's like not a big deal.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then everybody's like, minds are blown.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, wow, where did you hear that?
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: In a church basement when I was struggling not to drink pure grain alcohol.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's where I heard it.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and they thought it came from like Harvard Business School or something like that.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah,
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: pretty great, right?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great clip right there, man.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's,
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: I just love how like,
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: There's something about addiction that fuels this passion to do bigger things.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's what I find.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: You're putting that fire into something else.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: You need this focus and attention on things.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: When you put it towards yourself,
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: that's why I've I've focused so much on meditation and health and movement and food
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: and all of that.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the foundation for how I move throughout my day.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: So how do you find meditation helps in sobriety?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, it's funny.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: I came across it.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's the 11th step.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's a suggestion and a...
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: 12-step program.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a really tough time with it.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of people,
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: I started meditating and I was like, man,
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: do I need to get like some saffron robes and some incense and like,
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: you know, some tatami mats.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like I didn't know how to do it.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like going from like whatever, like I was watching on the 80s.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's my only like idea of what like meditation looked like.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so then I started to like,
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: somebody invited me to,
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: there was a meditation hall here in Nashville He's been my Dharma teacher for
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: at least 15 or 20 years now.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Dave is also sober, talks about it openly.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's got 20 plus years.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was my first experience with a guided meditation and a little bit of a Dharma talk.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, there's something interesting here.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: And...
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a guy that grew up going to church,
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: and my parents really wanted me to go to church, and I did not love it.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Mostly, I just didn't like waking up early on a Sunday.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: That was the big problem.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: There was no theological issues.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: I just didn't want to wake up on a weekend.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so I started going, and the Dharma started to make a lot of sense to me.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: And...
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: There were just a bunch of things.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so that I think drew me in enough to like want to continue to actually sit
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: in meditation and see what that was about.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so like most people,
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: I started with an insight practice,
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: a mindfulness practice and was watching my breath a lot for a handful of years.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then I started to move into more of an open awareness practice and Starting
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: to really become connected to this idea that I am not my mind.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: I am not my thoughts.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: And to be able to watch thoughts,
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: to become a watcher and just watch all these crazy thoughts roll
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: through Parker's brain.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Be like, wow, what is going on over there?
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's wild, you know?
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And not blame myself and not...
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Feel shame that I was having these thoughts as if I had any say over most of them.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: These were big ahas that were learned in meditation but had such a drastic impact
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: on my sobriety and my recovery and my healing, I think, as a human being.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I still get that.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: I sit daily and have for a long time and...
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Man, it's, I'm also a guy, again, I don't know if this is just a dude getting older.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm 52 now.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: So like, I don't know if like, it's like quiet and peace is hard to come by these days.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like I'm, I spend a lot of time on a computer.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: I spend a lot of time looking at, you know, the dumb phone.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm in a lot of conversation situations.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's just traffic noise and neighborhood noise and leaf blowers going all the time.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's really hard to get to like some peace and quiet.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so spending time in meditation and getting out like deep into the woods
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: as regularly as I can.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, kind of like...
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that I have like a rattled nervous system,
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: but I certainly feel physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: I feel way better when I sit on a regular basis,
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: when I sit a retreat, and then when I'm just out in the woods.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Same, same.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely relate to what you're saying.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: And even more so with Like our phones.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And now I've started tapping into,
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: using AI with the agents and such to be able to like,
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: oh, wow, I've got these things that can like help me with my business.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it just,
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: I can sense the workload,
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: like even though it feels like I'm being productive,
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: it almost feels like it's increasing it because I have to...
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: Make these decisions or, you know, type all these things in and such.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so it, it, yeah,
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: it becomes a thing where it's like,
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: you're using it so much and you're using it for scrolling that,
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: I notice it when I,
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: when I sit,
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: like sitting is a bit more uncomfortable because my, my,
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: my body, my brain wants to, to go to this device cause it's, it's used to using it.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: And, um, Yeah, it makes it tough.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it does, man, it does.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: I do not.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: And as a person who kind of, you know, uses technology to earn my living in a lot of ways.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: And as a person who is kind of constantly like encouraged to, you know,
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: Create more of like a personal brand and, you know, put myself out there more.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh man, that's, I get the business case for that.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: I totally understand it.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm trying to figure out how to be standing in a creek fishing more often,
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: you know, like, or,
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: whatever, riding my bike in the woods, like anything really other than that.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: But there's also, you know, there's also a business case.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: When I was an electrician, I had to carry around hammers and a tool belt.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the tool I had to use.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't want to wear the thing, but I had to.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think this is similar.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's just a much heavier side effect with this kind of stuff.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think I find trying to be intentional, too, with its use.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: There was a day not too long ago, I just threw it in the drawer.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, yep, just stay in there all day.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: It was a really great day.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's the amazing thing about when I go on retreat,
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: for instance, and the phone is just left in the car for 10 days.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's probably the biggest benefit of going on a meditation retreat.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's a silent retreat and all like that.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Those are great.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: You get Dharma talks, you get all the good food and all that.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: But like,
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: probably the most impact I get is from actually just leaving the phone in
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: the glove box of the rental car out in the parking lot and then walking into
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: the mountains, you know, without all that.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's pivot to creativity.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: You've done some fiction writing.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me about your creative outlets.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's funny.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about this on the way over here.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it started early on.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I started...
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Playing bass when I was,
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: I guess, probably 15, 14 or 15 years old, I started playing bass.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: And my stepdad at that time is a phenomenal bass player, wonderful musician in general.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so he would teach me a few things.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be like, hey, man, can you show me how to play the Barney Miller theme song?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he'd be like, he could listen to it and show me how to play that.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: And he showed me how to play The Chain by Fleetwood Mac and all these...
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're not punk things, but that's all I wanted to play, you know, was punk music.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so I played...
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: That was where it started for me was like playing and recording stuff at home.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I just got really into it as a young person.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I loved music and I started collecting record like a proper nerd.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: And...
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that was like the beginning of like,
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: oh, I had no idea how to say that I was a creative person at that point.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like that never would have occurred to me to articulate it as I'm a creative person.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: I just like music, you know?
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it was years later before I started to consider myself creative.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: And as a matter of fact, I think it was...
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: I went through an executive education program at the d.school at Stanford where I now teach.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the first time they started talking about creativity in these other contexts.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so then I could look back and I was like, oh my God, I love drawing.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Me and a bunch of buddies made horror movies when we were kids.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I loved playing music and played in a handful of bands and stuff like that.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: That was where I started to look back.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh my God, I've been a creative person for years.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah,
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: as you mentioned,
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: that eventually led to me writing a novel, a fiction novel about six years ago.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: I
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: remember my uncle gave me a copy of a book called Joe by a writer named Larry Brown.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: And Larry Brown...
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Was from Oxford, Mississippi and kind of wrote about like Southern Gritlet is what it's called.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of like this Southern way of life.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: He's a lot of desperate people, a lot of heavy drinkers, heavy smokers.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so, of course, I liked it.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember reading it.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: I remember thinking, oh, my God, I want to write like that.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not there yet.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: He was a really good writer.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's passed away since.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I read all of Larry's books.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: And years later, I sat down and I tried to start writing in the vein of Larry Brown.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: Cormac McCarthy and all these other, you know, writers that I've kind of fallen in love with.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, in my later years, yeah, a lot of my creativity comes in my work.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: And like, so I've been teaching design at the D School for a number of years.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so I really fell in love with the design, the principles and the mindsets of design.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then creativity showing up in so many ways,
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: like creating, bringing any new thing to life is a creative act, in my opinion.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: So whether that's a new business or whether that's a painting or you write a book or...
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Sculpt something or create a piece of sketch comedy or like whatever it is,
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: build a wonderful dish that people get to eat and enjoy, like all of its creativity.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've been teaching people how to be creative for a bunch of years now.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: I've worked at Stanford for, I guess, 15 years, which is...
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: Unbelievable.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: First of all,
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: if we go back to just like,
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up this like punk rock thug criminal kid who never went to college,
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: barely snuck out of high school.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: And as a result of, you know, sobriety, I get to teach at a place like the D school.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's, just unbelievable.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I didn't think something like that was in the cards for me.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway,
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: now that I'm there,
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: since I've been there,
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: showing people that they have Creative capacity and that they are creative beings
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: because most of us just don't consider ourselves creative.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you ask most people, there was a great study.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: I can't think of the guy's name,
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Bob something or other done many,
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: many years ago where he would travel around to different schools.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so he'd go into a kindergarten and say,
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: hey, out of everybody in this room, who here feels creative?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's hands would go up,
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: you know, like I am, you know, and there's like, Clitter and glue sticks everywhere.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody feels creative when they're young.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: And first grade asked the same question.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: A couple less hands, but most of the kids still do it.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: And as you can imagine,
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: seventh, third, second, third, fourth grade, less and less hands went up in the air.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so we do something to kids.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: We tell kids to put that quick...
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: Put that down.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get serious.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: Or, hey, we have real things to attend to.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think inadvertently or unconsciously, we beat creativity out of kids.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think we're doing it on purpose, but I think our choice of language can kind of do that.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so most of us, most adults do not feel like creative people.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I would argue that everybody is radically creative.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: We just don't know how to articulate it in that way, or we haven't done it before.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: So well said, man.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: So well said.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: I guess like trying to balance what is responsibility of becoming like a teenager
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: and adult and still having that creativity probably like loses some of that.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, way too much time spent on being an adult.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: I know, right?
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: I wish we had more time as a kid.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was talking to a buddy of mine at the climbing gym.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out to Jason.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we were talking about growing up.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: He's been climbing with some younger people where he lives in Utah
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: and how they'll try crazy things.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: And, um,
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: because they're out in the mountains and they get to try that stuff at a young age
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: when we don't, we're not so like risk averse.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I just think we've become risk averse in every way,
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: creatively, financially, you know, athletically.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so, um, uh, like, you know, he was talking about like witnessing this kid.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's like trying hard stuff, crazy hard stuff, uh, Scary stuff as a kid.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, man, I love that.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: I just, I didn't grow up with that.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm a little more like,
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a little more tentative, you know, and I climbed up softer, easier things.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think there's something to that too,
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: because it's like,
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: with those experiences,
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: you're getting to have more of a relationship with fear,
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: you know, and
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think carrying that into Your teenage, adult years.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, dude,
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: the fear versus creativity match that is going on at any given moment
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: in everybody's lives, it's real, man.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: It is probably the number one thing that keeps us from reaching our creative potential.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: We're scared what other people are going to think.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: We're scared it's not going to be as good as we wanted it to be.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many fears at play.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the people that blow past that, I see this especially in comedy.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: The people that just don't...
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're like the Alex Honnold, right?
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have the same kind of fear that most of us have.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: It seems all of it feels fairly irrational to them.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: Comics have that thing where they're like, no, I'm totally okay getting up on stage.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm scared, but I'm definitely going to do it no matter what.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I have a handful of friends that do open mic nights and stuff like that.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: And as much as I'm comfortable speaking in front of large audiences,
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: getting up and doing a bit or something like that feels way more terrifying
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: than You know,
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: than me getting up and sharing my experience of what I've witnessed in
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: the corporate world or in leadership or something that I've studied
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: that I can back up with data, you know?
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm sure there's some natural talent there,
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: but I mean,
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: everybody who's a comedian,
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure that they've just been practicing that shit as like a kid,
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: you know, doing stand-up stuff.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because, yeah, it's like it becomes...
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's just second nature.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: You're in your flow state, whatever it is that you're doing.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I was just yesterday demonstrating me doing some photography
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: with some macro lens stuff,
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: and it was just me in the zone with it because I've been doing it so many years.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: Love that.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: This has been so good.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, likewise, man.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a really fun conversation.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: I love these where we just get to do these kinds of things.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so, I mean, this is, I think, 73, I think.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, nice, dude.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, so rich, man.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: Every single one is, there's multiple little nuggets that come out.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's really nice that I think,
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: it's so beautiful that,
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: When people share and they get a list of other people's stories,
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: that's really where they can see themselves in your story and such and such.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, really powerful.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Nick Cave.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: You just reminded me of Nick Cave.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was probably going to forget, but I'm glad you said it.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I was, this is pre-COVID, which is like created like a complete time warp in my memory.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: But pre-COVID, I go see Nick Cave.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: He's doing a tour.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: So for those that don't know,
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: Nick Cave is a musician who was originally a band called The Birthday Party.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then he formed Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and has been doing that for,
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, He's an incredible writer.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: A really, really, really good writer.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: But Nick was doing a tour where he traveled by himself.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: He had a piano on stage and this amazing thing.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: So he would play a couple of songs by himself, sing, play piano.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then he would take questions from the audience live.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: Wild.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: So rarely, I mean, like are fairly small here in town.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little venue at TPAC, our performing arts center.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: But he would take these questions.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so microphones would get passed around up in the audience.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: And somebody said, hey, man, I just got sober.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've been sober like, I don't know, 30 or 60 days or something like that.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm terrified that I won't make good music anymore.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what you and I both know, and the people that have joined all probably know, is that Yeah.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, my work has never been better.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've never been more talented since I got sober.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: He's like,
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: I also was scared that I wouldn't have that thing
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: that made me special once I gave up alcohol.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, and I've become so much more special as a result.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I think about that a lot.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: I can say that,
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: but I'm just like some guy that like,
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: whatever, lives in Nashville, Tennessee and has his own like little job.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: But Nick Cave's like, it's a whole other ballgame when a guy like that says it, you know.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: Just such a consummate artist, you know, for him to say something like that.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, cool.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't need that shit to create and to make really, really good art as it were.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway...
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: My final story.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think it just gets better.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it gets better.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because you're tapping into yourself more.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 100%.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're the
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: real self.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if anyone has any questions, please feel free to pop them in the chat.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Parker,
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: if you want to let everybody know where to find you,
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: what's coming up next, anything coming up,
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: The easiest way to find me is at parkergates.com.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm on Instagram.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the actual handle is, but it's Parker's Day Off.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, cool.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: Coming up,
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: if I have said anything that sounds interesting to you,
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: I host a two-day retreat every year.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not for people in recovery,
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: although a handful of people that will Maybe there are in recovery,
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: but it's two days.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: What we do,
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: we spend half the time kind of reflecting on the previous year
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: and getting really clear about the things that worked for us and that we want
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: to carry forward,
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: but also the things that are no longer serving us that we want to let go of.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then we spend the second half of the retreat looking forward and thinking
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: about what kind of intentions do we wanna set for the year ahead?
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of behaviors do we think are gonna be necessary
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: to support those intentions, those goals?
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's out in the woods about an hour outside of Nashville at a retreat center called Evans Mill.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: Great food.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: I keep it really small.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a pretty intimate crew.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: The crew from last year all still talks to each other,
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: like people that had never met from all over the US that are like super good friends
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: and support staff for each other.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a beautiful little thing.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, that's coming up January 7th through the 9th.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the only other thing that I would say is like, uh, yeah, keep an eye out.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I hope to have this,
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: this book published,
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: uh, personal development as professional development, um, in the spring of 27.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, looking forward to that.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: If anybody hasn't done a retreat, highly recommend it.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds amazing.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_01: So awesome.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Parker.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate you.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, dude.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, man.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_00: Likewise.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks everyone for joining and we'll see you next week.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks y'all.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.