73 – 6 Books that Will Change your Mindset

Nikki

00:00
Way back in episode 23, we shared with you seven books that we loved, that have helped us in our creative businesses. If you haven’t listened to that one yet, go back and give it a listen. This week, we have another six books on mindset that we think will make a difference for you like they did for us.

Laura

00:22
Hi, this is Laura Lee Griffin.

Nikki

00:24
And this is Nikki May with the Startist Society, inspiring you to stop getting in your own way and start building an art biz and life that you love.

Laura

00:33
We are artists who believe strongly in the power of community, accountability, following your intuition, taking small actionable steps and breaking down the barriers of fear and procrastination that keep you stuck.

Nikki

00:46
Follow along with us on our creative business journey as we encourage you on yours.

Nikki

00:55
We’ve spoken a lot about what book and art supply and online course hoarders we are, but just to prove that we actually read some of the books that we compulsively buy, we’re here to share some of our favorite mindset related books this week.

Laura

01:10
We’ll share a few books that we’ve both read and loved and we’ve also each chosen some personal faves to share with each other and with all of you.

Nikki

01:19
Okay, Laura, let’s start with one that we both got a lot out of.

Laura

01:23
Okay, book number one is, drumroll, Big Magic by Liz Gilbert. Now I am a huge fan of Eat Pray Love. And yes, I’ve even been to Bali…

Nikki

01:36
Of course you have.

Laura

01:37
…and been to the medicine woman from the book. But maybe that’s a story for another day. I have met Liz and heard her talk live four times so far.

Nikki

01:49
Of course you have.

Laura

01:51
And I pretty much love everything that she writes. But this book is a must have for any creative entrepreneur. It’s essentially a manual for creative living with courage.

Nikki

02:02
Yeah, and I love the way that she talks about fear, she kind of gives us permission not to feel like we’re conquering fear, or getting past it, but that your passions and fears can coexist. Fear just needs to ride in the backseat and not be close enough to grab the steering wheel.

Laura

02:19
Well, it’s feel the fear and do it anyway, right? And I also love how she gives us permission to grow our businesses slowly while working a day job to support ourselves on the side to help take that pressure off and really enjoy the process of building your creative business.

Nikki

02:35
Yeah, totally. You don’t necessarily have to force your art to pay the bills. I mean, it would be great if it could, I think that’s kind of what we’re all striving towards. But really, you aren’t any less of an artist if you pay the bills with a day job and create the art that you want to create on the side.

Laura

02:52
Right, and you can grow it over time to the point where you can get to that place. The other thing that I loved is that she addresses the whole idea of people thinking they have to have figured out their one big passion in their life and have like 100% clarity about that. You hear a lot of entrepreneurs telling people that if they just follow their passion, everything else will fall into place. Right? And not everybody knows what they want to be when they grow up, right. And I love that she reframes this idea of passion and instead says to follow your curiosity and see where it leads.

Nikki

03:28
Yes. And that following your curiosity reminds me of a quote from the book where she says, “You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures.” So just follow that curiosity and the path will become more clear.

Laura

03:44
So true. She also calls me out on my perfectionist tendencies in this book. I love the quote, “Perfectionism is just fear in fancy shoes and a mink coat.”

Nikki

03:55
Yes, yes, absolutely. So on to our second book that we’ve both enjoyed. This one is Designing Your Life, How to Build a Well Lived Joyful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans.

Laura

04:10
Yeah, it actually started out as a course at Stanford and became the most popular course there. They now have a Life Design Lab at the university and it teaches courses, delivers programs and tools and conducts research applying the innovation principles of design thinking to all different areas of life. One story I remember from the book is of a girl who wanted to own a cafe so so she goes out and she buys one and then very quickly realizes she absolutely hates all the practicalities that come along with owning a cafe. She realizes that she actually just likes sitting in cafes and working and eating in them not actually owning them.

Nikki

04:52
Not owning them, not making the coffee, not roasting the coffee, not cleaning up after the coffee.

Laura

04:59
Yes, not serving the coffee, all the things, yes. Right. She just realized that she liked sitting in cafes. And it was a huge, costly mistake. And the book teaches you how to incrementally work your way towards your goals to create the life that you love. It uses mind maps and other creative exercises to identify the things that bring you the most energy and joy, and work your way towards a career that encompasses all of those things.

Nikki

05:25
Yeah, it has some great ideas for very impulsive people like me who get an idea and just want to dive all the way in. It helps you think about ways to try out that new life that you think you might want. Basically, it’s like when you’re developing a product, you create a prototype of the life you want. For example, when I decided I wanted to sell my house and live and travel with my dog and cat in a school bus, before I did anything, I took a road trip from Kentucky to Texas with my dog, to see how he would do with life on the road. And he was surprisingly good.

Laura

05:59
Yay, Rocket.

Nikki

06:00
Yeah, and then on my next trip, I booked an AirBnB in a skoolie. And I spent three days and nights mostly just living my life in it.

Laura

06:09
Smart.

Nikki

06:10
Preparing meals, working, just feeling what it would be like to live that life. So if you’re thinking about a big change, whether it’s personal or your job, think about small ways you can try on that life before you go all in and see if you really want to own a cafe. Or if you just want to sit in one and read a book while sipping coffee someone else made.

Laura

06:31
If you want to learn about this concept in other ways, without the Stanford price tag, you can also listen to the audiobook, purchase the online workshop they have on Creative Live, which we’ll link to in the show notes. And there’s also a corresponding workbook which I own that takes you through the mind maps and various exercises talked about throughout the book.

Nikki

06:53
And we know I love any book that comes with a corresponding workbook. Not of course, so I can fill them in and learn from them. But so I can put them on a bookshelf and beat myself up about not doing it. So I can take it on a trip with me telling myself I’ll do it in my free time. And then of course, it doesn’t even come out of the suitcase.

Laura

07:12
Why do I feel so seen right now?

Nikki

07:15
Because I’m looking right at you, Laura. So another thing that I really like in the book is the way they talk about the dysfunctional beliefs that we have, and how we can reframe them into something that is more positive. For example, “happiness is having it all”. And you’re never going to feel great about that, because you’re never going to have it all. A reframe that works for that is “happiness is letting go of what you don’t need”. And another dysfunctional belief is, “if you’re successful, you’ll be happy.” And that puts a lot of pressure on you to feel successful, whatever that might mean, right? And a reframe of that could be “true happiness comes from designing a life that works for you.” So another thing that book talks about is trying to solve gravity problems. Basically, you can’t solve for gravity, gravity exists, whether you want it to or not. So basically, there are problems that just aren’t things you can solve, and to reframe them so that you can make it into something actionable.

Laura

08:24
So for example, a gravity problem might be you need a day job. And you might think that you hate that job that you currently have. But what you can do is find out what drains your energy and what builds your energy up each day, you can track that and take the things that bring you more energy, and actually inject more of those into your day. And then find ways to minimize the things that really drain your energy. So maybe that’s something like email, and you could batch that together and maybe create auto responders and systems that limit the amount of time you spend on those things.

Nikki

08:59
Yeah, the point is to not see everything as all or nothing. You know, it’s really easy to go I hate my job, I hate my life, I hate this. But really, if you take a look at things and reframe them into looking at what you can’t change, and then looking at what you actually can because there’s usually a lot of gray area in between that black and white.

Laura

09:22
Right, right. All right, so the next book that we both read and enjoyed was called Untamed by Glennon Doyle.

Nikki

09:31
Yeah, I love this book. “Untamed” is another book that has an accompanying workbook – this one’s actually a journal called “Get Untamed: How to Quit Pleasing and Start Living.” Which of course I bought and haven’t written in yet.

Laura

09:48
Yeah, I think “Untamed” is sort of a feminist manifesto. It’s redefining what is possible for women and the roles that we play.

Nikki

09:57
Yeah, it’s a memoir about Glennon’s life, marriage, parenting, eating disorder, alcoholism and her subsequent recovery. And then her divorce and the story of meeting and falling in love with her wife.

Laura

10:09
All the things.

Nikki

10:10
All the things, but the main message of the book is about how girls and women are caged or tamed by societal pressure and internalized misogyny, we grow up with all these ideas about how we should behave, how we should live our lives, how we should do everything.

Laura

10:27
Yes, we’re often trained at a younger age by society to see our value based on what we do for others and fitting into a certain societal norm.

Nikki

10:37
Yeah, and so in telling her own story about breaking out of these external expectations, she shows us how we can do that for ourselves. And there are a lot of great quotes in the book that demonstrate some of those ideas. So for example, one that really spoke to me is, “This life is mine alone. So I’ve stopped asking people for directions to places they’ve never been.”

Laura

10:58
Unless you’re Nikki, in a bus or in a new town.

Nikki

11:01
I’m still not going to ask people for directions, I’m still gonna go my own way.

Laura

11:08
Okay, and I love this one, “When a woman finally learns that pleasing the world is impossible, she becomes free to learn how to please herself.”

Nikki

11:17
Too many jokes.

Laura

11:22
I knew you were gonna go there, Nikki.

Nikki

11:25
I have to go there. So another one is, “There is no one way to live, love, raise children, arrange a family, run a school, a community, a nation. The norms were created by somebody. And each of us is somebody; we can make our own normal.”

Laura

11:42
Amen. And so often we’re told to ignore our emotions or suppress them. And she says, “If you’re uncomfortable, in deep pain, angry, yearning, confused – you don’t have a problem, you have a life.”

Nikki

11:56
I love that. That’s a great one to leave this book on. So let’s move on to a book that you’ve read, but it’s been on my Amazon wishlist for years that I surprisingly haven’t purchased yet.

Laura

12:06
Okay, I was recently gifted “Feck Perfunction” by James Victore. Nikki, can you say that three times fast?

Nikki

12:13
Feck Perfunction. Feck Perfunction. Feck Perfunction. I did it. I didn’t even say fuck one time.

Laura

12:24
So what I love about this book is it’s a super quick read. It has little essays on each page all about creative living. There’s a whole chapter related to just getting started, which, of course, is what we’re all about, right? And so I thought I’d read an excerpt from that chapter. It says, “I’ve got no idea what I’m doing. I never have, nobody is ever ready to begin. We want a few practice rounds, not for realsies, just a warm up to get started. Bad news, you’ll never be ready, you’ll never be fully prepared, and the conditions will never be perfect. You’ll never have all your pencils lined up or all of your ducks in a row…”

Nikki

13:02
Laura, you will always have your Copic Markers lined up.

Laura

13:08
I will.

Nikki

13:09
But not your ducks.

Laura

13:10
My ducks aren’t in a row. “…You’ll always feel uncertain about what you’re doing or what the final outcome will be. You just have to start. Waiting until you’re ready is a form of self sabotage, a good excuse to quit while you’re behind. Experience is great and practice has its place, but boldness makes way for action.” How awesome is that quote?

Nikki

13:33
Yeah, that pretty much sums up everything that we’re all about. Now I want to read the book even more. All right, what’s next, Laura?

Laura

13:41
All right. The second book I wanted to tell you about is called The Soul Sourced Entrepreneur by Christine Kane, An Unconventional Success Plan for the Highly Creative, Secretly Sensitive and Wildly Ambitious. Now I’ve known Christine for about 14 years, I attended a couple of her women’s retreats in Asheville, North Carolina, way back when she was still releasing albums as a musician and dipping her toe into the water of entrepreneurship. She since built an amazing empire primarily for female entrepreneurs, helping them uplevel their businesses. She also has an awesome Soul Sourced podcast. So if you’ve never checked that out, it’s totally worth a listen. And don’t be fooled, the name of the book doesn’t mean it is all about spirituality. It gives so much practical and helpful information on creating an authentic business that that grows organically and is in alignment with your true self. I love Christine’s writing and I know you will too. And she also was the first person I learned about the word of the year from and we had a whole episode on that that you can listen to as well. But I love that she is a multi-passionate individual that has been able to transition from a music career to a seven figure business career so successfully.

Nikki

14:56
Awesome.

Laura

14:57
Now the book covers things like honoring your authenticity, uncovering the traps that keep you stuck, looking at behavioral patterns that hold you back, identifying what drains your energy and power, ditching all those old stories and finding opportunities that are hidden within the challenges and breaking free from fear based decision making, so that you can make intention-based decisions with profound clarity. So it’s an awesome read, highly recommend. And there’s also an audiobook that you can get for that one.

Nikki

15:25
We can all use some clarity here and there, right?

Laura

15:28
Definitely. I need to reread that one actually. Yeah. All right, Nikki, so tell me what your pick is.

Nikki

15:35
Okay. So, um, because I, when I started preparing for this, I went nuts with talking about this book, I’ve decided to just dedicate my two to one. And the book that I’ve chosen is called The Art of Asking, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help by Amanda Palmer.

Laura

15:58
Awesome.

Nikki

15:59
I mentioned this book back in episode five when we talked about choosing a word of the year, but it’s really one of my favorite books. And it’s all about the mindset of asking for help. Aside from the fact that Amanda Palmer is one of my favorite musicians and people on the planet, she wrote this amazing book that started as a TED Talk. And we’ll definitely link to that; I highly recommend listening to it. It’s all about how she developed her unique way of living and running her creative business through asking for help, sharing freely and connecting with people. As a songwriter, she’s a great storyteller, and she uses her personal stories to show how she has crafted a beautiful, successful, completely non-traditional life and business. Her first real professional experience with asking was when she worked as a living statue called The Eight Foot Bride in Harvard Square, she dressed as a character that made a silent connection with an individual, she made eye contact and handed them a flower. She had a donation box out in exchange. And it was interesting that some people were happy to give her money, but not to accept the flower in return. She learned that asking is collaborative, both sides have to be open to giving and receiving. And both can get something out of the exchange. It’s a reciprocal act.

Laura

17:21
And that’s so true. Because I I love giving to other people. And I love it when they accept it, and that they get joy out of whatever I’ve given them. So I totally get that.

Nikki

17:30
So how are you at accepting something in return?

Laura

17:33
Oh I suck, I’m totally horrible at it. But I’m working on it. I’m actually working actively working on it.

Nikki

17:42
Well, if you take the mindset that the person that is giving something to you gets something out of the giving, then maybe that will help you receive?

Laura

17:55
Yes.

Nikki

17:56
So anyway, so she took this idea to every aspect of her life and her musical career. She basically crowdsourced everything before it was an acceptable thing that people were doing. She asked her fans for a couch to sleep on when traveling to perform shows. And to this day, she asks for help with song lyrics through her private community and on Twitter. She’s really built a community and formed true reciprocal relationships with her fans. She went all in on it with a Kickstarter campaign to launch her first solo album. She asked for $100,000 and shocked the world when she raised over $1.2 million. In exchange for copies of the album, private concerts, house parties. She gives so much of herself, her stories, her music, glimpses into her personal life, the good, the bad, the ugly… that her fans are thrilled to support her in return. And after the hugely successful Kickstarter, she next took it to Patreon and has been supporting her entire music career that way. It’s her only way of making a living. For example, I pay her $3 per thing that she puts out, and a thing could be a song, a video, or it could be an entire album. But the point is, she gets everything she needs to run her business career in life by asking for it. And in return, she gives everything freely to those who give to her. She shares her stories, her music her life.

Laura

19:24
Okay, so clearly you’re fangirling.

Nikki

19:28
I could go on for freaking ever.

Laura

19:31
Amanda Palmer, Nikki loves you. But my question to you is this have you actually applied this to your own life at all? And how, I mean, do you ask for help? Because I know I’m really crappy at it.

Nikki

19:45
Yeah, that’s probably one of the main reasons I’m so in awe of her, aside from loving her music. Historically, I’ve been terrible at asking for help. I generally feel like I need to know how to do everything myself or how to learn it on my own. But since doing this whole school bus thing, I found myself in over my head a bit, and I have been asking for help, and people seem happy to give it.

Laura

20:08
Well, I’m happy to help you until you asked me to fix your engine. And I, sorry, I have no idea how to do that and you’d be in trouble.

Nikki

20:13
Well, I gotta say, in the past three days, I’ve learned how to change the batteries, put in antifreeze and all sorts of things I never imagined doing. Anyway, back to the book. One quote, I think, sums it up really well. She says, “From what I’ve seen, it isn’t so much the act of asking that paralyzes us, it’s what lies beneath the fear of being vulnerable, the fear of rejection, the fear of looking needy or weak, the fear of being seen as a burdensome member of the community instead of a productive one. It points fundamentally to our separation from one another.”

Laura

20:50
Wow.

Nikki

20:51
And as, as I’ve learned recently, when asking for help, it actually does help form deeper connections.

Laura

20:57
Yeah, it does. And we don’t always realize that, again, we let the fear of rejection, the fear of looking needy get in the way. And we forget the fact that we love it when we give to other people and they accept it. It makes us feel good. So we need to realize we’re doing that service for other people. For sure. You know, just maybe not go to the same person every 30 seconds asking them the same question.

Nikki

21:24
Unless it’s asking them for more bourbon.

Laura

21:29
Exactly. For links to all the books we mentioned, and to read today’s Startist Society show notes, go to startistsociety.com/mindsetbooks.

Nikki

21:43
If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, we’d love for you to share it with a friend and leave us a five star rating and review. Reviews help us reach more Startists like you and keep us inspired to create new episodes.

Laura

21:55
Speaking of reviews, we thought we’d share one from Apple podcasts from Kitty Lea of Finland. “Instant favorite, relatable, funny, full of good content and guests. Listening since the very beginning and love it. If you’re a creative or an artist, this is a must listen.” Thanks, Kitty.

Nikki

22:14
We’re so glad to hear you’ve been with us from the beginning and are loving it.

Laura

22:19
On that note. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next week.