Latest / The Uplift- with Luke Pollock / #36 - Solo Pod- Being 1 of 1 (with book recs)
Transcript
- Luke Pollock: Your day's work might turn out to be a mess. So what, Vonnegut said. When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth. So go on ahead, make big scrolls and mistakes. Use up lots of paper. Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the true artist friend. What people somehow inadvertently, I'm sure, forgot to mention when we were children is that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here. And by extension, what we're supposed to be writing. This is an extract from Anne Lamotte's Bird by Bird. I've been reading this book over the last two to three weeks, and yeah, I've just been enjoying taking this quite slowly. I got the book recommendation. From Drake Davis, an account called Sip Dreck on Instagram. He was talking about this book a lot and I picked it up. It is a book about writing. the title the the subtitle is instructions on writing and life. But you would be surprised how many how much her advice sort of resonates with other areas of of life. Or maybe you wouldn't buy the subtitle, but she does talk primarily about writing. Common things like when you sit down and and are trying to form a sentence in a day and it just doesn't feel like it's clicking or it's happening. how to overcome those things. And I think that's really relevant to sport and to my job as well. So on the pitch when things just don't feel like they're clicking a lot last season for me. I just didn't feel like pieces were falling together. it's really good to come back to books like this. Often we think that our problems are really, really unique to ourselves or I I'll t I'll speak for myself. Often I feel that my problems are unique to me and Only if only I could get a piece of advice from this type of person who really understood my situations. But our problems are all the same. They're always the same. They just show up in different forms. And this piece by by Anne Lamotte sort of speaks to me and in lots of different ways. And there's lots of different lessons from the book. But I literally just picked it up again this afternoon. that lesson was right at the start of the book, and I picked it up and I thought it was it was pretty cool. I've also recently picked up The Creative Act by Rick Rubin. To be frank, I have probably read the first two chapters, but this little snippet from Anna Lamott made me think of the first chapter, or maybe it's the second chapter. He says, Artists who are able to continually create great works throughout their lives often manage to preserve these childlike qualities. Practicing a way of being that allows you to see the world through uncorrupted, innocent eyes can free you to act in concert with the universe's timetable. How cool. So two two different artists, two books written completely different times. So Rick Rubin's book came out in twenty twenty three, I think, or twenty two, maybe earlier, would highly recommend. And then Anne Lamoss book came out over twenty years ago. So Really cool that they're saying the same thing pretty much. We have to yeah, sit down, make mistakes, and be like a child who's just trying to figure it out and be genuinely curious. You might be wondering where I'm going with this. And ultimately I want to get across this episode to just be yourself, to be one of one, and no matter what you're doing. If that is starting a business. If that is going self-employed, if that's performing in your sport, if you've just joined a new team, just be really confident in being one of one. And I think processes like reading and writing will make you more confident in doing that because you'll hear from people who are much older than us. Ann Lamotte is much older than me. She's much much wiser, same as Rick Rubin. And that's why I always come back to the Bible as well. It's wisdom passed down. and it's much easier to learn these things from from these people and it gives you confidence you can be yourself more and more. And yeah, I think this is yeah, This is something that I battle with probably on a weekly basis every week is am I being myself? Is this what I actually like to do? Here's a really good example. This week I posted pictures from our game on the weekend, which we won, our first win in the championship, which was really cool. And everything in me wanted to make the post look cool. so I had the really cool rugby photos, and then I was trying to curate it to where which I thought would look cool. And then I was like, actually let me just pick my favorite photos from this bunch and my favorite photos from the last week. Try and have a little bit of a nice theme and b color blend throughout it because that's satisfying to me to look at. And then let me pick a song that I really like recently. And it was a Hori Style song. And I knew when I picked that Hori Style song, like my there was a knee-jerk reaction. I was like, that isn't cool. Like not probably it's not that cool to like Hori Styles. I should pick like a more alt song that people will think, where's he got that from? But then I was thinking, I'm not here to please anyone else. This is my page. I can do what I want. So I picked the Harry Style song. And there's something free and about that. When you make the decisions that you genuinely want to make, and normally you know that they're the ones you want to make because you make them quickly. it's not hard for me to go on and think, I really like that song this week. I'm just gonna pick that. It goes well with the post. It is hard for me to think what will someone else like? Or what will the version of me that's trying to please everyone else like? And coming back to our our book is you want to create enough so you you can develop your own taste. It's really hard when you create an Instagram profile. And for me, when I created my my physio profile, I was trying to be very performative in in terms of these are five rehab exercises I would use for knee pain, but really I just got the exercises off someone else on Instagram or I saw them someone give them to someone in the NHS. They're not exercises that I actually use myself for knee pain. so I wasn't being authentic to myself, but I had to create that rubbish. I had to get it out of the way. And I relate heavily to Adam when she says you feel like a man without arms or legs with a crayon in his mouth just finding your way through it. I was on the phone today to someone who's recently left his job and I was buzzing for him. First reaction was I was buzzing for him because he didn't like his job and he he left and he wanted to yeah, he's starting an Instagram profile because he's going down a different career path now. And he was asking me, How do how do you do it? Like how do you find out how to edit and post? And I was like, You just sort of you just sort of do it until you're not that bad at it. And I still think I'm not the best, but I'm getting better. And I think that's encouraging for people as well. Sometimes there is no like specific secret sauce. Everyone is terrible at the start. You're gonna be terrible at the start, and you just have to make enough errors, make enough mistakes to find out what you like and what your taste is. your taste is not often really, really easy to pick out from the start if it's on Instagram, because you And your taste will be clear to you because it'll be stuff that you naturally like. but that's quite hard to portray. So you need to get rid of the crap first. You need to get all that stuff out there that's for everyone else. And I'm not saying that I have mastered this. I'm still trying to do it all the time. What do I actually like? Because we consume so much now, we create sometimes to feel like we're pleasing other people. And I've seen this person do this and that made me feel a certain way. So I'm gonna try and replicate that rather than that's not actually me. I wanna create my own thing and create my own way. And often when people ask me what the plan is with the physio business, I wanna be one of one, to be honest. I got asked that this week by a reporter who did a little piece for me on jump rugby. He was like, What's the plan? Are you gonna, you know, have your own in person clinic? And the what what these people are are doing is just trying to see the plan through the the eyes of what they've seen before. So they're they're trying to mark out a path for you. But actually you can go your own way. you can be one of one because you are one of one. whether that is I actually wanna keep my physio business small, I call it a lifestyle business 'cause I can create a podcast on a Wednesday afternoon and if I was optimizing for revenue, I wouldn't be doing that. I'd be seeing people in person if I was Yeah, optimizing for growth. I'd be looking, okay, how can I maximize my hours here and then employ someone? But I don't want to do that. I want a lifestyle business. And you can have that too. You can be one of one and figure out what you want. Now I would have not known I wanted that two years ago. Well, I might have, but it would have been very hard for me to see that picture. It takes a lot of pushing the limits, then pulling back. Creating a post, not liking it, pull them back. Creating a post that does well but not actually enjoying creating it that much. And having the courage to say, I don't want to do that anymore. so yeah, I think it's really important to just be one of one and you can use your unfair advantages and your life experience to do that. And we all have unfair advantages. what I mean by that is something that you have that no one else can say they have, whether that is like a tougher, a tougher time at school or maybe you weren't very good at sports and then recent recently you you became quite good at sports. For me, I obviously use the fact that I play rugby and I'm a physiotherapist. That those are my unfair advantages. Not many people can say they do both those things at the same time. And then ultimately it seems like obvious now, of course you would treat rugby players as a physio. But I was advised not to do this. I was advised to treat older people 'cause they have more money. I was advised very clearly, don't do this. It'll be very hard to make good money at it. And you're yeah, it's not a very good niche to be in. But looking back, it's so obvious, of course, like this feels like this is exactly where I'm meant to be, because n there's not many other athletes who are also physios who are competing at a high level. So to me, that was my on fair advantage. But I had to figure that out and I had to lean on it. And you will have some sort of on fair advantage. Think about the World Cup, not the twenty three, twenty nineteen World Cup, Rugby World Cup, South Africa and England. Okay. England obviously have more resources in terms of financial resources. So if we're thinking about businesses sport is business. If you think about it from business sense, England should win every day of the week. But South Africa have an unfair advantage that they l they lean on really, really heavily. And that's that a lot of their players and a lot of their country come from struggle. They're a third world country at the end of the day. So yeah, a lot of them have had struggle and upbringings and the coach really leans onto that and they feel the weight of the country on there and they want to g do good for South Africa. Most of the lads who went to private school in England couldn't say the same. Okay. So they use South Africa use their on fair advantage. Of course, English players have on fair advantages as well, like the money side of it. they're really, really well resourced. but it's just about leaning into that to get the desired result and to be one of one, like I say, to be one of one. And then soon you'll realize that people are like, I wanna I wanna do that. But then you it's your job to direct them in their own path as well. So recently I've taken on someone as I said on my last podcast and a little bit of business mentorship, which has been so cool. And I really enjoyed it. But the hard thing for me is to always remind him to be yourself, to do your own thing, to create with a bit of freedom, to say this is what I would do. But doesn't mean you have to do that. Because that will give him longevity in the game. If I just tell him exactly what to do, he's not actually pro he's not progressing the skill. he's not developing a taste. He's not scribbling, writing, crap to find the good. He is just being told what to write and what is good and what's bad. You have to go through the struggle. You have to go through the effort. You have to go through the days where you think I actually have not done anything today that is worth showing to anyone and will make me zero bonds. You have to go through those days to then have the days which are a bit better and really good. so yeah, that is that's the podcast today. That's just been on my mind today and it's a short one for you. But I hope you resonate with it. I think we all have the skills to do what we want to do. We all have enough knowledge in our brains, but sometimes not even sometimes, all of the time, the hardest bit is just getting out of our own way and letting ourselves create, letting ourselves do the thing. whether that's sport, whether that's business, whether that's your job, just try and get out of your own way sometimes. Give yourself the freedom to be a child again, to have fun, to play. That's when that's when I perform my best and that's when you will perform your best too. When I'm playing rugby, at the minute it feels like I'm in a real childlike state, like I'm super excited for training. Like you know when you used to be when you used to pack your bag the night before, maybe people didn't do this, but you pack your bag the night before, like a competition. I used to do it for athletics competitions at school. I w I got really excited to perform. and then that that excitement turned to a bit of anxiety. The the Later on my career I got because the pressure came on externally. But in the early stages, I was so excited. I just want to go out and jump and run. And same with rugby, I used to get so excited. I used to wash my boots with a toothbrush some nights before games. That didn't last very long, to be fair. that was a bit performative for me. But I used to be really, really excited to play. And then as you get older, that sort of wears because there's pressure and there's money involved and it's a bit more. But now this season I'm excited to play again. I'm excited to train. And of course that won't last all season. Of course it won't. But enjoy the period. the little snippets in your life. And it even in your day that you get where you're feeling that excitement, that natural, I can't wait for training tonight, or I can't wait for the game on the weekend. That is, that's exactly where you want to be. That's where the good performance comes from. and the true performance. So yeah, be one of one, be yourself. create authentically and develop your taste, whatever that may look like. And it's important you know to do that. You have to go through the crap. No one's just born with good taste. Rick Ribbon is not born with great music taste. Well, he maybe is, but he had to create curate that over time. He had to go to the underground scenes. He had to listen to music over and over and over and over again to develop his taste. And he says himself, his taste is just letting the artist do their thing. And when he feels that artist is fully involved and fully invested, he likes the song. so yeah, develop your own taste, be one of one. Thank you for listening. If you did enjoy this, please send me a message, let me know you enjoyed it, and we can maybe have a quick discussion off the back of this. Anyone who listens to the podcast, I will always have a conversation with in the DMs because not many people listen to the podcast and it's where I can express how I truly think about things and what's been on my mind recently. So I'm loving it. I think this is episode thirty six. but yeah, we will we'll make it to a hundred. Absolutely no No qualms or no doubts about that. So thank you so much for listening. Have a really good evening, day, wherever you're listening to me. Enjoy it. Thanks.