Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / JUST JOSH: On Resilience

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JUST JOSH: On Resilience · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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  Get a humans welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas and one of the most dangerous
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  ideas that I routinely have to wrestle with is the idea of how much resilience I have.
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  This has been a difficult week, one of the most difficult professional weeks of my life
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  and I think I need to hear the sound of my own voice and as I do so I suspect that I
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  might say things that could come in handy and be somewhat uplifting as I embrace my
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  middle-aged mentor status perhaps to some younger people who are just starting out in this
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  world and who are starting to forge creative careers of their own.
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  This is some advice that I'm reminding myself of this week that I think you might also
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  benefit from.
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  I won't go into great detail, suffice it to say that there was a big project, a television
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  project which isn't going to happen in the way that I thought it was and it's got me
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  thinking about the ups and downs of life and the peaks and troughs of this crazy caper.
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  It's time to reflect for me on what success looks like and it's a reminder that what success
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  looks like is actually more about what you do with failure than it is about what you
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  do with success.
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  Like there's this illusion that we sometimes have that successful people are people who have
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  lots of successes but that's not true.
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  They're people who have just as much failures as people who we regard as failures do.
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  They just don't allow failures to become definitive.
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  They don't allow the failures to become salient.
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  They regard the failures as bumps in the road on a big chaotic journey.
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  They carry on, they dust themselves off and they approach the next challenge with a spirit
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  of excitement and enchantment and a little sprinkle of pixie dust and if that falls over
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  then they get up again and they dust themselves off and they move on and they only allow themselves
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  to be defined by their successes.
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  One of the most profound conversations I ever had was with the amazing actor Frank Langella
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  who played Richard Nixon in the Frost Nixon films and a million other great roles and
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  I had the good fortune to have been shooting a pilot in Los Angeles while I was living
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  in New York and they were flying me back first class from LAX to JFK and sitting next
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  and he was Frank Langella.
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  He'd just finished shooting Frost Nixon.
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  At the time I didn't know obviously that that was going to be a huge movie.
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  I certainly didn't know that he was going to go on to win an Academy Award for it but
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  I knew who he was.
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  I'd seen him on Broadway and we got to chatting and they're ensued five hours of picking
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  the brains of one of the best actors in the world about the business and forging a creative
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  career and being true to yourself and I was wrestling at the time with whether or not
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  to accept a television show that I've been offered in New York City that really spoke
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  to me but was not going to be a big deal and was not going to put a lot of money in the
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  bank and was going to occupy my time from other potential things that could have been better
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  for my career.
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  And Frank said every single thing I've ever done that has been successful in my life
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  has happened as an accident because I decided to do something that I loved.
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  And every time I've tried to strategize about positioning myself into the best, most likely
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  successful scenario, it's backfired and I haven't gotten anywhere.
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  He said I've just been shooting Frost Nixon and that started as a small play not even on
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  the west end of London, off west end which I decided to do for the love of it and that
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  has turned into a huge career opportunity for me.
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  Every time I've taken things that I thought were going to be huge career opportunities
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  they've flopped.
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  So do what speaks to you and let the universe sort it out.
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  I still remember that conversation and it brings me great solace when I have a fork
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  in the road where I have to choose between doing something that I love and doing something
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  that I don't really love but I think it's going to be strategic.
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  Don't be too strategic.
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  Another experience comes to mind at this moment which is that I'd moved to Los Angeles thinking
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  that I could probably get further ahead in broadcasting in LA potentially than I could
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  in New York.
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  This was after the first television show that I hosted, died a death after three seasons.
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  It was on Discovery Science channel, it was called Brink, hello to the three people
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  who are listening, who still remember Brink.
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  And so I was in New York City and I was in Los Angeles and I wasn't really liking it
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  and it can be quite an alienating place because everybody's after the same thing.
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  It's a single industry town.
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  So if you have an eclectic kind of set of interests like I do it can be a bit dull.
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  And I was flown back to New York to shoot the pilot for a dating game show and I was
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  all right, it's a little bit of money, I'll go back to New York and I'll do it.
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  The only time they could get the studio was overnight, they could bump in after another
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  show had shot and piggyback on that shoot and shoot our pilot from like 10pm to 4am.
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  This huge six hour marathon effort of shooting several rounds with several different contestants
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  in this studio on the west side of Manhattan.
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  I did a great job, we did this huge, I mean enormous number of takes and scenes and
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  an enormous amount of copy to memorize and I came off the back of it and I was staying
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  with a friend of mine on the east side of Manhattan and I thought you know what instead
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  of getting a taxi across town, it's 4.30 in the morning, I'm just going to walk from
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  one side of Manhattan to the other.
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  And I was in a bit of a spiritual funk and I was at a place where I didn't know whether
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  I'd be able to make a living as a professional journalist, broadcaster, commentator, host.
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  And I didn't know whether I'd stay in Los Angeles, I felt like I should, I felt like that's
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  where they were going to be more opportunities but I loved New York City and I walked across
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  the city at dawn across the island, across the cobblestone streets, looking at the homeless
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  people just waking up, looking at the limousines taking wealthy people or perhaps other television
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  hosts to NBC or wherever they were going, taking Wall Street financiers downtown.
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  And I saw the garbage men doing their rounds as the sun slowly rose over the skyscrapers.
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  By the time I reached the east side of Manhattan, maybe an hour later, I decided that I was
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  going to move back, that I was going to pack it in in Los Angeles. Not because I was giving
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  up on anything but because I was embracing the uncertainty of something new and trusting
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  the little voice in my gut that said that this is where I belong. I don't belong in the
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  hard, scrabble freeways of LA fighting with a million other people going to a billion
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  auditions for cheesy game shows that I don't really want to host. I need to be in a hub
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  that speaks to my soul for a bit of a word at the risk of being corny. And I did move back
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  and within 12 months I booked the biggest break of my career which was being a founding
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  host and producer on half post live which was having been posted which was at the time the
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  most read online only website in the world was launching a 12 hour a day streaming talk channel.
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  And had I been more strategic, had I been more conventional, I would have stayed in LA and I
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  would have tried to strategize, I would have met with the right people, I would have gotten
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  the right coffees, I would have gone to the right auditions and who knows, I probably would have
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  fallen on my face. Instead I did what I felt I needed to do, I listened to the little flickering
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  flame inside that said this is your home and it all worked out. So it's, this is a long way of
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  saying that success is as much about the story we tell ourselves and how we manage that story.
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  And then how we manage our time. Let's talk a little bit about managing your time.
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  If you're a creative person, especially if you're a young creative it can seem difficult to
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  get to the deep work that you need to do to create the things that you'd like to create.
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  You know when exactly do I carve out in the day the time to record the podcast or write the novel
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  or draft a screenplay or jam with my music friends. Some loose principles about time management.
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  I found it very useful to focus on one thing. Only one thing. Don't have three things on the
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  boil all at once. Get up early in the morning if that works for you. It certainly works for me and
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  just devote the first hour or two of the day to that one thing. There's always time to get up a
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  little bit earlier and push other things back a little bit later and devote that time to yourself
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  to what you really want to have happen in the world. Your email inbox is basically a to do list
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  written by other people. Don't let it gov in your life. Certainly don't let social media be the
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  first thing that you look at when you get up in the morning. It just takes you down a rabbit hole
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  and distracts you. Get up, go straight to your computer, maybe after doing a wee and making a
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  cup of coffee or tea and get stuck into the deep work before you even take your phone off airplane
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  mode. Another lesson about time management and not having to overly strategize everything is
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  something that I didn't do that I wish I had, which is to say yes to more things,
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  even if it means you don't get to do them at the quality that you would like.
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  I'm somewhat envious of some of my friends who were less perfectionistic than I am,
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  who were more willing to go, you know what? I'm just going to give that a shot. I might even have
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  to lie about my abilities. I'm just going to try to get in there and do it. Now this runs
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  counter to another one of my principles which is that you should always under promise and over
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  deliver. You should always make everyone around you who hires you feel like they made the right
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  decision and that you did went above and beyond. I don't quite know how to reconcile those things,
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  but if you can do the delicate tap dance of both saying yes to a lot of things even if you're not
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  sure you're going to be able to do them and then hitting the ball out of the park when you do do
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  them, that's the sweet spot. I find myself too paralyzed by my insistence that my output is
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  perfect and that has been an impediment. I think there have been many occasions where I would have
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  been better off if I just said you know what? I'm just going to do this quickly as a rough draft.
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  I'm just going to shoot it off to whoever and we're just going to see what comes of it rather than
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  slaving away by candlelight, toiling in my dim dark basement in my dungeon until the perfect
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  work of art has been created. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good as they say. This
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  is the debilitating thing about perfectionist syndrome unless you're collaborating with other people
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  where there's a sort of accountability structure where you're going to have to deliver something
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  on a certain date. It can be very tempting to trust your brain which isn't always reliable that
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  the thing that you are producing isn't quite good enough yet and you're not quite there yet or
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  you're going to need a lot more time to get it done or if only you had this and you'd be able to
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  do it but you don't have this so you can't quite do it right and at some point you'll be able to do
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  it perfectly. No, shut down that voice. The thing that's in your head is always going to be more
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  perfect than the thing that you actually put out into the world by definition of the fact that it
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  doesn't exist. It only exists in your head. Of course it is a platonic ideal of the thing.
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  The screenplay you write is never going to be as good as the screenplay in your head
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  but the screenplay that you write has one important virtue. It exists. The thing in your head
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  doesn't. So find time to focus on it. Say yes to a lot of things. Another thing that I'd like to
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  suggest is that you leverage your relationships as much as possible. As I've said,
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  delete your social media apps. Don't use them as filler to fill up your brain. Collaborate with
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  real human beings. They can keep you accountable and you can bounce ideas off them and you can
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  arrive at some creation that's better than you would have been able to come up with on your own.
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  It's been invaluable to me to make friends in high places. The initial
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  experience of going on Joe Rogan's podcast really changed my life. I didn't know it at the time
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  but it put me into a class of commentators that was different from the one that I'd been in
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  before and then cultivating that relationship and thanks so much to the generosity of Joe for
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  having me back on his show seven times. An interesting aside about that, by the way, while I was
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  living in New York, the today show hired me. They got me on regularly as a regular commentator,
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  right? I would come on set. They'd send a limousine to my apartment and it'd whisk me through the
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  dark Manhattan dawn to 30 Rockefeller Plaza and I'd be hustled through an intermakeup and then
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  I'd be on the set with Al Roker and you know, Kathy Lee Gifford and these people we'd talk about
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  the news for four or five minutes and this show is ostensibly the most important show in American
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  broadcasting. I mean, really this is you know, 40 million viewers, 50 million viewers, it is the
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  staple. It is the anchor of American broadcasting. But I would go on the show and my podcast,
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  the prior podcast that I had to this was called We The People Live. I'm fortunate you can't get it
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  anymore or perhaps fortunately. The numbers wouldn't bunch. I'd get one text message from an old
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  colleague who had seen it seen the today show, you know, because it was on in an airport lounge
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  or something or it was on in the background while they were making breakfast for their kids.
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  By contrast, I'd go on Joe Rogan's show and every single time my podcast would be the number one or
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  number two on the Apple iTunes list, 48 hours, 24 hours after going on Joe's show, which just
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  goes to tell you something about conventional media versus new media and your ability to succeed
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  in the new media space. Now granted, Joe Rogan is an outlier because he's so gigantic. He's the
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  elephant in the room, but it's extraordinary that people who are listening to his show are
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  actually listening to his show. Those 40 or 50 million people who are watching the today show,
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  are they actually watching the today show or is as I say the today show on in the background while
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  they're making breakfast for their kids? Do they really care about what's being said or is it
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  wallpaper? People care about what Joe Rogan is saying and what his guests are saying. They're paying
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  attention. They're loyal. It's one of the things I love the most about doing this podcast. I get the
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  sense from you guys when you communicate with me that you actually dig the show and that you pay
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  attention to it and that you look forward to it and that something and you sparkles or
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  enlivens when you see a new episode in your feed. I love that relationship. I love that relationship.
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  I have to podcast that I love and I love that relationship with you. That's just a long-winded way
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  of saying leverage relationships over-promising over-deliver. I certainly did that on I think every
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  episode of Rogan's show, I certainly did it on every episode of the today show. Then a reason
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  the today show became a regular thing for me in New York was because I got the first offer for
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  them to try me out. They sent through five stories that we're going to talk about. Do you think I
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  went out and had beers and just got up a little bit hung over and then winged it? No.
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  I spent the full day and well into the night writing exactly what I was going to say about each of
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  those five things, putting in some jokes, some zingers, some personal references, a bit of teasing,
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  of Kathy Lee and this and that. I pretty much learned it verbatim until I knew it by wrote.
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  And when I came in and I hit that set, I knocked it out of the bloody park and they were like,
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  oh fabulous, who's this guy? He wings things fantastically. No. No, I don't. Well, maybe I do,
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  but I didn't then I was doing stick. I was doing material that I had prepared because I knew it was
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  a big break. I knew it was something that I wanted to keep doing. I knew it would put me on a
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  different level of American broadcasting if I had a regular spot on the NBC today show. So be
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  someone who's known to deliver. Be someone who shows up and delivers. The opposite of resilience.
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  We sometimes think of the opposite of resilience as being fragility. I don't think that's true
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  anymore if it ever was. When I interrogate myself in moments like this and I think, all right,
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  well, how can I be resilient? The enemy of resilience is actually grievance.
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  Grievance is my enemy. Grievance is the dark shadow stalking me and every creative person,
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  I believe. It's not fragility because we don't think of ourselves as being fragile, not most of us,
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  not unless it's been inculcated into us. But it is quite easy to feel like we have been put upon
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  or that we haven't got our due, that our ship should have come in more than it has,
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  that maybe there's something about us that is reflective, that reflects negatively. Of course,
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  this is all nonsense. I have had no control over the setback that occurred to me this week. There
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  was nothing I could have done differently. It was completely out of my hands. Yet my head goes
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  to places of like, oh, maybe I wasn't right for this. I mean, this is just the human machine
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  worrying away in the background, doing its mindless, unthinking dance. Pay it no heed.
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  Don't get caught in traps of grievance. It's especially profound at the moment because of social
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  media. There's like, there's almost a status to being aggrieved. There's a status to being put upon
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  to being a victim. And it's less about being fragile, not being able to get back up and dust
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  yourself off because even if you have the ability to get back, you get yourself back up and dust
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  yourself off. If you feel like there's a chip on your shoulder, if you feel like the world is
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  against you in some way or that the world should be behaving differently, should be giving you more
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  than it is, that's bloody corrosive. That leads you nowhere. The world isn't obliged to give you
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  anything. The world just is as it is. It's axiomatic. How you move through the world, how you deal
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  with setbacks, that's in your control. The psychologists sometimes talk about spheres of control
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  and where you put your focus. There are things that you imagine a bunch of concentric circles on
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  a page. In the bull's eye, there's a circle where there are things that you have total control
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  over, like how you spend the time that you've got off. Then there are gradually expanding circles
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  until there are things that you have no control over whatsoever, which might be international
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  geopolitics or so on, Ukraine, something like that. Your psychological well-being is closely
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  correlated to which of those circles you spend most time in psychologically. Are you focusing
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  on things that you can control? Are you focusing on things that you can do or are you focusing on
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  things that are out of your control? One of the bad things I think about the over-politicization
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  of the globe at the moment and the kind of flattening universalization of our conversations on
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  social media where we're all talking about garser and we're all talking about Ukraine and we're
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  all thinking about Trump is it relocates your focus to the outer edges of those circles, things
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  that you're not really in control of. Refocus your attention on the things that you can control.
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  Refocus on your own discipline, your own diligence, even in just tiny small little ways.
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  So yes, avoid grievance, focus on things you can control.
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  Another lesson that I'm mindful of and have been really ever since departing the public broadcaster
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  and going out on my own is to care as little as you can what people you don't respect think of you.
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  My goal is to be respected by people I respect. I don't care about the respective people I don't
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  respect. And engaging in conversations in the comments thread on Instagram or Twitter
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  is basically a way of giving your phone number out to everybody in the world and then being
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  surprised when people are nasty when they text you nasty things. It's madness. Who cares what
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  they think? The world is a big place. There are lots of people. A lot of them are going to
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  believe stupid things. Some of them are going to love you and some of them are going to hate you.
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  I'm not enough for the likes. I'm in it for the respect of people who I respect.
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  I had a funny moment recently, well, funny and somewhat depressing where I was in an elevator
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  and there was a woman in it and then she got out and then she turned around and she saw me and
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  she said, oh you Josh Lebs and I said, yeah, and the doors started to close. She jabbed her hand in
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  and blocked the doors from closing and she said, I'm so sorry. I just wanted to ask you a question.
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  I said, yeah, what? I'm like waiting for the doors to prepare to remove her arms and the doors
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  are closed again. To hear the rest of this conversation, go to uncomfortable conversations.substac.com-slash-listen
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  and you will get your own personal premium podcast feed with at least three extra episodes of the
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  podcast every month and heaps of extra stuff, including the remainder right now of the fabulous
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  conversation you've just been hearing. If it was worth listening to this much of, don't rob yourself
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  of the rest. Well, let your phone light now and search for uncomfortable conversations.