Latest / The MOOD Podcast / The Performance Trap and Creative Amnesia - Moments of Mood, 2.7

Transcript

The Performance Trap and Creative Amnesia - Moments of Mood, 2.7 · The MOOD Podcast

• 0:13
  Matt Jacob: Do you ever notice how quickly we perform?
• 0:15
  Matt Jacob: One of the things that's always quietly irritated me and I'm sure I'm not alone here is small talk yeah, not all of it, but that question, that one that always seems to come up within the first five minutes of meeting someone.
• 0:31
  Matt Jacob: So what do you do?
• 0:33
  Matt Jacob: And on the surface it's innocent enough, I guess, because, let's be honest, it's not just a question, it's a sorting mechanism, and that's perfectly natural.
• 0:44
  Matt Jacob: It's really just an attempt to categorize you, to slap on a label, sort you into a box and decide, based on your answer, whether you belong in the interesting pile or the politely move on pile.
• 0:56
  Matt Jacob: The person asking doesn't really want to know you, they really just want to place you.
• 1:03
  Matt Jacob: And the funny part is we know this, I think we feel it that split second panic kicks in, where you're scrambling to choose which kind of version of yourself is going to sound most put together, most successful, most impressive, and in that moment you're not really answering the question.
• 1:24
  Matt Jacob: You're performing, polishing the resume in your head, editing the job title, throwing in a subtle flex about that one cool project.
• 1:34
  Matt Jacob: We give the version that sounds most impressive, the version that makes them maybe raise an eyebrow instead of lower their expectations.
• 1:44
  Matt Jacob: Right, because ego is the architect of the mask always building, never belonging.
• 1:52
  Matt Jacob: It doesn't speak, it performs.
• 2:00
  Matt Jacob: Just recently I was preparing for a talk and I caught myself doing it.
• 2:02
  Matt Jacob: I was writing down ideas for the opening and suddenly I noticed I wasn't really thinking about what was true.
• 2:07
  Matt Jacob: I was thinking about what would land and what would really sound clever, what would make you think, wow, this guy's worth listening to.
• 2:16
  Matt Jacob: And it hit me even in a talk about voice.
• 2:20
  Matt Jacob: I was performing Because we're taught to perform for approval, for opportunity, for belonging.
• 2:28
  Matt Jacob: But I think this is the catch the more we perform, the more we forget.
• 2:34
  Matt Jacob: We forget what our voice actually sounds like and we all have one.
• 2:39
  Matt Jacob: We live in a world where success has a hierarchy.
• 2:43
  Matt Jacob: And art, creativity, self-expression they're usually buried somewhere near the bottom.
• 2:48
  Matt Jacob: Remember what childhood was like?
• 2:50
  Matt Jacob: Right, maybe they were fun when we were kids, but they weren't serious, they weren't useful, they weren't important.
• 2:56
  Matt Jacob: So it's no wonder so many people grow into adulthood thinking they aren't creative.
• 3:01
  Matt Jacob: Grow into adulthood thinking they aren't creative, that creativity is a luxury or worse, a waste of time.
• 3:08
  Matt Jacob: But I do not believe that at all.
• 3:12
  Matt Jacob: I believe creativity is a birthright that every single person starts with it, not just the artists and the poets and the romantics, but the builders, the leaders, the parents, the kids who doodled in the margins.
• 3:25
  Matt Jacob: It's not something we earn or achieve.
• 3:32
  Matt Jacob: It's something we remember.
• 3:33
  Matt Jacob: So what actually makes us forget?
• 3:34
  Matt Jacob: Well, in order to answer that question, we're going to go back.
• 3:37
  Matt Jacob: As a child, I was obsessed with sport.
• 3:39
  Matt Jacob: I still get something from sport that I don't get anything else.
• 3:43
  Matt Jacob: Maybe it's a nostalgia, maybe it's a competitive passion, and that was my thing back in the day.
• 3:48
  Matt Jacob: But I also played piano, and I played it really well.
• 3:51
  Matt Jacob: I loved the classical pieces.
• 3:53
  Matt Jacob: There was something about jazz that intrigued me, though.
• 3:56
  Matt Jacob: The idea that you could sit down and just make something up and have it fit in real time actually blew my mind, but improvising felt almost impossible.
• 4:07
  Matt Jacob: I was frozen, scared to hit the wrong note, scared to mess up.
• 4:11
  Matt Jacob: Looking back, I can see it clearly now.
• 4:15
  Matt Jacob: I was already performing right.
• 4:17
  Matt Jacob: I was trying to do it right rather than do it real, and that tension followed me into photography.
• 4:25
  Matt Jacob: I remember one of my first paid gigs as a photographer.
• 4:29
  Matt Jacob: I booked a creative shoot with someone I met through Instagram.
• 4:33
  Matt Jacob: I thought we'd do something edgy.
• 4:35
  Matt Jacob: I thought I'd try and look cool.
• 4:37
  Matt Jacob: You know, in a studio cinematic, cool lighting.
• 4:40
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, I thought I knew it all.
• 4:41
  Matt Jacob: She showed up with her mum, not in the background, but actually on set.
• 4:47
  Matt Jacob: The whole time I was trying to direct like, okay, now give me something relaxed, honest and real.
• 4:53
  Matt Jacob: And her mum was just off to the side with snacks and silly feedback like honey, tuck your shirt in.
• 5:00
  Matt Jacob: And then at one point she actually asked me if I was a real photographer or if I was just figuring it out.
• 5:07
  Matt Jacob: Well, obviously I didn't really know what to say and after some murmuring I eventually just said yes to both.
• 5:12
  Matt Jacob: It was the longest hour ever.
• 5:15
  Matt Jacob: And the photos, well, they looked like a school portrait session held in some corner of an auditorium.
• 5:22
  Matt Jacob: They were average at best and it was brutal.
• 5:25
  Matt Jacob: But the worst part wasn't the mistake, it was that in trying so hard to appear like a pro, I had stopped showing up like a person.
• 5:34
  Matt Jacob: I was all mask and no connection.
• 5:37
  Matt Jacob: And yet that moment was really pivotal because it cracked the performance and through that crack, something really started to come through over time.
• 5:47
  Matt Jacob: Okay, so now we've gone back, let's zoom out a second, because this isn't just about me.
• 5:53
  Matt Jacob: I mean, of course this is about all of us about me, I mean.
• 5:55
  Matt Jacob: Of course this is about all of us.
• 5:56
  Matt Jacob: Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, most people stop creating I see it with my own eyes all the time Not because they suddenly lose interest, but because the world quietly teaches them that creativity doesn't belong in the real world.
• 6:11
  Matt Jacob: We're told to be practical, mathematical, be efficient, get a job, get serious pay bills, climb the career ladder and over time, what starts as subtle nudges becomes actually a deep disconnection.
• 6:27
  Matt Jacob: We trade imagination for instruction, we trade expression for performance.
• 6:33
  Matt Jacob: And the most tragic part of all of this is that we don't even realize it's happening, because the shift is gradual.
• 6:40
  Matt Jacob: You know, one day you're drawing on your bedroom wall with glitter pens yeah, glitter pens and the next you're color coding a spreadsheet and wondering when the last time that you actually made something that wasn't measured in KPIs was something that wasn't measured in KPIs was.
• 6:55
  Matt Jacob: And the wild part is, we've been here before.
• 6:59
  Matt Jacob: We have done this as kids.
• 7:02
  Matt Jacob: We created because we could, we had no limits, we played, we imagined, we made weird stuff up.
• 7:20
  Matt Jacob: We didn't need a strategy or a portfolio or a five-year plan or a spreadsheet or a certificate.
• 7:22
  Matt Jacob: We needed space and maybe just some crayons or a ball.
• 7:23
  Matt Jacob: But somewhere along the way, creativity got replaced by correctness, that sketchbook got swapped for test scores and silly, stupid exam grades, and slowly we started aiming for applause instead of authenticity.
• 7:39
  Matt Jacob: Now I host a podcast, as you know, the Mood Podcast.
• 7:43
  Matt Jacob: Shameless plug, yep.
• 7:44
  Matt Jacob: But it's where I speak with creatives photographers, writers, designers, filmmakers because it interests me, and what strikes me again and again isn't just their talent, it's their return, their return to something that they had forgotten.
• 7:56
  Matt Jacob: Either's their return, their return to something that they'd forgotten either immediately or eventually, a part of themselves that never really left.
• 8:02
  Matt Jacob: It just got quieter in the background.
• 8:05
  Matt Jacob: Take one of my esteemed guests.
• 8:07
  Matt Jacob: I had the pleasure of talking with who I still think about and I've read his book Sean Tucker.
• 8:11
  Matt Jacob: He spent years mastering the technical stuff lenses, lighting, composition but the better he got at the rules, the more lifeless he felt his work started to feel.
• 8:21
  Matt Jacob: So one day he put it all down, took a single camera into the street and just followed whatever moved him, not what was trending, not what looked good online, but what felt real to him.
• 8:36
  Matt Jacob: And the moment he did, everything shifted Not just the work but how people responded to it, not because he was the most polished, but because he was the most present.
• 8:48
  Matt Jacob: So that got me thinking and it really reminded me of that shoot, you know, with the mum, the girl with the mum.
• 8:56
  Matt Jacob: Looking back, the real issue wasn't the outfit critiques or the snacks or the mess that the mum made, or even the car park location.
• 9:05
  Matt Jacob: It was me.
• 9:07
  Matt Jacob: I was trying so hard to perform, to fake it till I made it, to impress, to appear like I had it all together that I wasn't actually there, I wasn't listening, I wasn't playing, I was posing just like the client was, and we both felt it and the work spoke because of it.
• 9:24
  Matt Jacob: But that moment, as painful as it was, taught me something important you don't get to the good stuff by posturing.
• 9:31
  Matt Jacob: You get it by being honest.
• 9:34
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, it's a longer and more difficult road, oh, but it's so, so worth it.
• 9:39
  Matt Jacob: So I realized we don't find our voice by adding more.
• 9:43
  Matt Jacob: We find it by stripping things away.
• 9:46
  Matt Jacob: We don't chase it, we remember it, we return to it, and that return really changes everything.
• 9:53
  Matt Jacob: Because I saw this in myself more than anyone.
• 9:57
  Matt Jacob: Right, the moment I stopped trying to be impressive and started creating work that felt really true.
• 10:04
  Matt Jacob: Everything shifted, just had more freedom.
• 10:07
  Matt Jacob: I stopped obsessing over whether my work looked like everyone or anyone else's.
• 10:11
  Matt Jacob: I let go of all the filters that I thought I needed to be taken seriously, and that's when the real opportunities started showing up.
• 10:20
  Matt Jacob: It's an energy shift.
• 10:22
  Matt Jacob: People aren't stupid, they have the sixth sense, and the clients I admired found me.
• 10:27
  Matt Jacob: The work started feeling like an extension of my soul, not just a service, and, maybe most surprising of all, people began to tell me that my work moved them, not because it was perfect or I got technically better, but because it was mine.
• 10:45
  Matt Jacob: It was more me, because this isn't just about making art and being all arty, farty, but it is about making meaning.
• 10:52
  Matt Jacob: Isn't that what we're here for?
• 10:54
  Matt Jacob: It's about building a world, even if it's just your little world that doesn't just function but feels.
• 11:01
  Matt Jacob: Look around at our systems, our politics, our planet, our screens.
• 11:06
  Matt Jacob: We don't have a lack of information.
• 11:09
  Matt Jacob: What we do have is a lack of imagination.
• 11:13
  Matt Jacob: We've been trained to think in boxes, optimize for profit and measure value in attention spans and productivity scores and exam grades and test scores, but the truth is that's not how real change happens.
• 11:28
  Matt Jacob: Real change doesn't start with answers, right, it starts with much, much better questions, starts with pushing the boundaries, it starts with curiosity, empathy, vision, which means creativity isn't the opposite of progress, it's the engine of it.
• 11:46
  Matt Jacob: We need more makers, more poets, more people who can see what isn't there yet and believe in it anyway, because when people reconnect with their creative voice and we all have them they don't just become more fulfilled, they become more free and free.
• 12:04
  Matt Jacob: People do radical things, they do great things.
• 12:07
  Matt Jacob: They do world-changing things.
• 12:09
  Matt Jacob: They challenge broken systems and then they build new ones.
• 12:13
  Matt Jacob: They speak the truth when silence is expected.
• 12:17
  Matt Jacob: They imagine possibilities that the current paradigm can't compute, and that's why this matters.
• 12:25
  Matt Jacob: That's why I feel so strongly about it, not because everyone needs to.
• 12:36
  Matt Jacob: So I realized we don't find our voice by adding more.
• 12:40
  Matt Jacob: We find it by stripping things away.
• 12:42
  Matt Jacob: It's not something out there that we chase, something else that we remember that we return to, and that return changes everything.
• 12:50
  Matt Jacob: So when you start creating from truth, not performance, you have to know that something does shift.
• 12:56
  Matt Jacob: You begin to act with intention, not anxiety.
• 13:00
  Matt Jacob: You slow down, you become more present and something unexpected happens.
• 13:05
  Matt Jacob: People actually start to notice, not because you're shouting louder, but because you're shouting clearly.
• 13:13
  Matt Jacob: Not because you're trying to stand out, but because you're finally standing in something real.
• 13:19
  Matt Jacob: And I've seen this shift in many others too.
• 13:23
  Matt Jacob: On my podcast, I've interviewed artists and thinkers who've spent years chasing perfection, only to find that the moment they let go of being impressive and started creating from alignment was the moment their work finally started to connect.
• 13:39
  Matt Jacob: Because when you create from who you are instead of who you're trying to be, your work becomes something people feel.
• 13:47
  Matt Jacob: Yes, you have to know who you are, but that's part of the journey and that's the power of remembering your voice.
• 13:53
  Matt Jacob: It gives you back your agency, it anchors you in your identity, it gives your work a pulse again and it's not selfish, it's actually service.
• 14:05
  Matt Jacob: It's the opposite.
• 14:06
  Matt Jacob: And this idea it's not new.
• 14:08
  Matt Jacob: Of course, I'm not some prophet, inspired guru or even an evangelical messenger.
• 14:12
  Matt Jacob: I just believe what I have experienced and what I've seen across hundreds of people up close and across a huge portion of my clients and those within my community and mentorship groups.
• 14:24
  Matt Jacob: It's prevalent everywhere.
• 14:27
  Matt Jacob: Picasso once said all children are born artists.
• 14:31
  Matt Jacob: The problem is to remain an artist once we grow up.
• 14:34
  Matt Jacob: That's the work we're being invited back into not to become something, but to unbecome all of the noise and all of the shit.
• 14:42
  Matt Jacob: That's the work we're being invited back into, not to become something, but to unbecome all of the noise and all of the shit that told us our creativity doesn't matter.
• 14:47
  Matt Jacob: And when we do, when we reclaim that part of ourselves, we don't just make better work, we live more honest lives.
• 14:56
  Matt Jacob: It's not just about the work, it's not just about the output.
• 15:00
  Matt Jacob: But here's the issue.
• 15:01
  Matt Jacob: I see Most people won't do this right, not because they can't, but because they've been conditioned not to, because they've been told their creativity doesn't matter.
• 15:11
  Matt Jacob: They'll stay busy, they'll feel busy, they'll feel important, stay reactive, scrolling, consuming, striving, editing themselves into someone else's algorithm and slowly they'll forget there was ever a voice to remember at all this.
• 15:31
  Matt Jacob: This is what happens when we stop creating.
• 15:32
  Matt Jacob: We numb, we burn out, we shrink.
• 15:34
  Matt Jacob: We give our attention, our most precious currency, to people who profit from our disconnection, most precious currency to people who profit from our disconnection.
• 15:45
  Matt Jacob: But every time you sit down to make something real, something that reflects what you actually feel, believe, love, you take some of that attention back and that act, that act is not trivial, it's revolutionary.
• 15:59
  Matt Jacob: Your creativity is not a side project, it's not decoration, it's not indulgent, it is a necessary form of resistance in a world that trains us to perform.
• 16:09
  Matt Jacob: Not creating because you think it doesn't matter is like holding a healing salve in your hand and refusing to use it.
• 16:18
  Matt Jacob: What if we've been taught to look in the wrong place?
• 16:23
  Matt Jacob: What if the real answer was with us, inside of us, all along?
• 16:29
  Matt Jacob: This is what it comes down to.
• 16:31
  Matt Jacob: We're taught to perform for success this stupid word success but your creative voice isn't found.
• 16:38
  Matt Jacob: It's remembered.
• 16:39
  Matt Jacob: It's not rare, it's not elite, it's not reserved for artists, it's in everyone.
• 16:44
  Matt Jacob: And it's needed now more than ever Because in our world that makes us feel small, distracted and powerless.
• 16:52
  Matt Jacob: Creativity is how we reclaim our agency.
• 16:56
  Matt Jacob: It reconnects us to meaning, it anchors us in presence, it opens the door to change, not just in us, but in everything we touch and everyone we come across.
• 17:09
  Matt Jacob: Imagine if more people remembered.
• 17:11
  Matt Jacob: Imagine if parents modeled expression instead of perfection, perfection.
• 17:26
  Matt Jacob: Imagine if leaders built with clarity, not ego.
• 17:27
  Matt Jacob: Imagine if schools made creativity the foundation, not the footnote.
• 17:29
  Matt Jacob: If artists stopped seeking approval and started seeking truth.
• 17:33
  Matt Jacob: The world would change, not from the top down, but from the inside out.
• 17:41
  Matt Jacob: So no, this video, this talk, is not about finding your voice.
• 17:47
  Matt Jacob: It's about remembering that it was never lost.
• 17:51
  Matt Jacob: It was just buried under expectations, under performance, under fear.
• 17:57
  Matt Jacob: So maybe today you stop asking what do they want to hear and start asking what do I actually want to say?
• 18:08
  Matt Jacob: Because the world doesn't need more performance it really doesn't but it needs more truth, it needs more presence, more soul, more of you.
• 18:21
  Matt Jacob: So stop performing and start remembering.