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Carvana is in the business of driving you happy, and with the widest selection of used cars under $20,000, you're bound to find a car that'll put a smile on your face. They even offer customizable financing so you can plan your down and monthly payments to shop thousands of affordable vehicles 100% online. Download the app or visit carvana.com. Availability may vary by market. Hello everybody. Welcome back to anything goes. I'm Emma Chamberlain, your host. I hope you're having a gorgeous day. I just got back from vacation and I really. And struggling to. Return to everyday life. Right now. Sometimes I get back from vacation and I am. Revved up, I have a newfound passion for day-to-day life. After vacation, I feel excited to do my chores. I feel excited to. Cook. I feel excited to clean. I feel excited to work. I feel excited to do everything. And then sometimes I get back from vacation and I. Still feel like I'm on vacation mentally and I just can't get back into the swing of things. That's kind of how I feel right now. The thought of doing anything remotely productive or. Useful with my time is a nightmare to me right now. I still feel like I'm on vacation in my brain, so that's where I'm at. But. I'll figure it out. I just felt the need to update you on my current mental state. I'm on vacation mode, but I am not on vacation anymore. It is unfortunate. Hopefully I can figure this out. My kitchen is a mess. There's dishes all in the sink. My countertop is not wiped down. I've been in bed all day. I haven't even been being productive in my bed. I've been watching YouTube videos all day. I didn't even open my book. I didn't even try to read my book today. Like today was just, not. A productive day because I am still on vacation mode? OK, whatever. I'll snap out of it anyway. That's what's going on with me. Anyway, I hope you're having a great day. What are we talking about today? Let me tell you. Today we're talking about a concept that came to me. Recently. Because. It's something that I've experienced and it's something that I continue to experience. But also because I. Have seen it happen to other people and I've observed it happen. I've seen it happen to other people. And I think it's a really interesting concept, and I just wanted to have a conversation about it with you today. So that's where we're going to ************* do. The concept is. That. Success kills creativity. Success. Ruins creativity. Let's use this scenario as an example. You find a band. There are a small band. They have maybe a few 1000 fans. Maybe they play little shows. Here and there. Not a lot of people know them. You know, it's like one of those bands that. You bring up to your friends and you say you definitely haven't heard of them. OK. And they're making. ****** music like it is just killer. It is so good. And you're thinking to yourself, how have they not blown up yet? How have they not blown up yet? OK, Fast forward a year later. Everybody knows this band. They're huge. Mega popular all your friends are listening to them. Kids at your school are wearing their merch. They're popping off. Then all of a sudden. They put out a new song. You listen to it. You hate it. You're like this is not the band that I fell in love with. They suck now. What happened? One more example. You watch a TV show. You watched the whole season of the TV show, all episodes. It's amazing. The first season was amazing. If somebody asked you what you'd have to rate it, you would say a 10 out of 10. That is a great TV show. I would recommend it to my friends and family. I love it. The show blows up. It gets extremely successful. It's trending on Twitter. The whole world is watching this show. They love it. It is the talk of the ******* town, this show, this TV show. Everybody is biting their fingernails waiting for season 2. Season 2 comes out. It sucks ***. Everybody's ****** everybody's disappointed. Everybody's asking what happened. I think that this is something that happens a lot. And I don't think a lot of people talk about why it happens, but as somebody who. Creates things in a sense. Podcast episodes, YouTube videos. You know, stuff like that. I've experienced this myself. And so I kind of feel like I have. A more. Empathetic maybe? View on. This type of situation. I think what it really comes down to is. How humans are wired? And how creativity works, right? First, let's look at how creativity works. How does it work? In my opinion and in my experience. Creativity happens when there's no boundaries, there's no pressure. There's no. Constraints. There's no rules. That's when creativity happens. When. You feel free, in a sense, and that sounds so corny, but it's really actually ******* true. I'm sorry, but. When there is nothing to lose. And. Everything is lighthearted and fun. Creativity flows. I feel like I get the best ideas when I don't need to be coming up with ideas the second I need to come up with an idea for something I am. The least creative. I can't come up with ****. But when I'm just walking around enjoying a summer day. Grabbing a coffee, that's when my ideas come to me because there's no pressure. There's no rush. There's no. Pressure whatsoever. That's when creativity happens. So that's the first thing we need to understand and remember is that creativity just simply does not happen or flow. Under. Pressure filled circumstances under. Rushed circumstances under. Constrained circumstances. Creativity happens. When you have freedom in a sense, OK. That's why. The tiny little indie band you found. Was. So good when you found them, because when they created their first song, their first album, whatever it may be. They had no pressure. They had no. Rules right? They could just create freely because they had nothing to lose. They had never created anything before. If it failed, it didn't really matter because. They didn't lose anything, you know what I'm saying? Same thing with the TV show I'm talking about. If the TV show didn't end up doing well, well, it's a bummer, but whatever. It's the first season and we just won't ever make a season again. You know what I'm saying? Like, and we'll just try again next time. Whatever. No pressure. It's as simple as this. Once you succeed all of these. Variables come in that make. Creativity. Die. Let's say for example the TV show. The first season was created by a small team of people. Maybe had a small team of actors, maybe had a minimal budget to create the show. And, you know, they just did the best that they could with what they had and they just had fun with it, right? So the show was incredible. Because everything just fell into place. Well, now Netflix wants to buy the next season and wants to put $10 million into the budget. And wants to bring on. 10 executives to oversee the project, and they want to. Up the production value and shoot with ten different camera angles per shot and all of a sudden. Now there's this pressure. To create a perfect season 2 because Netflix has invested all this money into it. The fans are expecting an amazing season 2 because season one was so great. The pressure and stress of that. Is enough to make a human simply shut down. So all of the actors are going to be freaking out. Feeling like they have to. Make every shot the best performance of their life. The director is freaking out because he's like. Holy ****. I need to make this even better than the last season. The writers are freaking out because they're like, ah. We have to write a whole new season now that's better than the last season. Holy **** everybody's freaking out. Now what? That's why the season 2 sucked. Because now there's all this pressure. To exceed expectations, to outdo yourself. To continue to create. At the same standard. This pressure is excruciating. And I've actually experienced this myself. Recently I recorded a podcast episode that I was really, really proud of. I really loved it and I put it out. Like a day after I recorded it, I think. And. People responded so well to it. You guys technically responded really well to it, everybody. Really connected with it. I was so proud of it. And for context, I'm never proud of things that I create. Ever. I just. Don't work like that my brain. Always tells me that what I create could be better. Wasn't good enough. Whatever. It's just unfortunately how my brain works. I wish it didn't cause. It's kind of depressing, but whatever. I'm never, ever proud of myself, but I was actually really proud of this podcast episode, and I really, really liked how it turned out. Is my whole entire toenail falling off? Holy **** you guys. I just, like, looked down at my toenail. And I was like. Why is my nail Polish chipping off like that and I just grab my toe and? Press down on the nail and literally. Half of my toenail just fell off. How does that happen? How? How does that happen? OK, sorry. Uh, what was he saying? Anyway, I recorded this podcast episode that I was really proud of. And they put it out, everything went great. Then it was time to record the next episode. You know, because the show must go on, baby. And it was not working like I could not come up with a topic for one. Every time I'd sit down and try to record. About a topic, I would. Freeze up. And it was because I. Felt this pressure. To. I'll do myself to. Record an even better episode. And that pressure? Made it so that. I actually couldn't even record an episode at all. And the way that I ended up getting over it was just by. Taking a break. Honestly, I just like took a break for a few days and I just like didn't force myself to do it. And eventually, you know, I. Relaxed and I, you know, took the pressure off myself. But it took a few days to kind of rewire my thinking and to take the pressure off myself so that I could. Record a *** **** episode. You know what I'm saying? But. This is also happened in my YouTube career. If you don't maybe know much about me besides my podcast, I make YouTube videos as well. And I remember when I first started making YouTube videos, I didn't care. I had nothing to lose. I was just making YouTube videos for fun as a fun hobby, because why not? And I didn't care if my videos were good or bad. I mean, I obviously worked hard on them because I cared about them, but all the motivation was. Internal it was just within me because I wanted to create these videos and make them good for myself, but not because I had people watching me, not because I wanted to. Gain a crazy amount of followers. It was just because. I was doing it for me and so because of that I. Didn't feel any pressure and I just was creative and I would do random. Different **** all the time. Like sometimes I would do. A makeup video and then the next week I would do. A hall video or something that was like a joke. Like, not a real hall video, but like, well, actually I did do that a few times, but whatever I'd make, like it was like I was all over the map. I didn't feel like I had any constraints. I just made whatever type of video I wanted. And I had infinite ideas. I had so many ideas. I had so many types of videos I wanted to make. And. I never. Felt. Pressure to make videos. I just wanted to do it. Then all of a sudden. People start following me. People start watching me. Whatever I was able to keep. That creative. Flow going for about a year and then it just cracked like everything just fell apart. I. Had no creative inspiration anymore. Because I felt like. I had peaked. I felt like. OK. I've made these videos that people really like, that I really like. I don't think that I can. Make anything better. Like I think that I'm done and so and I tried to push through that and I tried to continue. To make videos anyway, but then those videos ended up being terrible and. People noticed and they were like, Emma, your videos ******* suck now. Your YouTube videos suck now, and I just felt like **** because I was like, damn. I was right. Like I peaked. I'm done. I'm done. But what I did? That was so important was that I didn't give up, I didn't quit. OK, so I've told you guys about circle before, right? Spelled CIRKUL. Circle was created for people like me, OK, who don't drink enough water every day circles basically this water bottle with over 40 flavor cartridges that make drinking water way more tasty. The flavors cover all the bases. They have fruit, punches, iced teas. Some even have caffeine or electrolytes, but there's no sugar, there's no calories, and there's no artificial flavors. My favorite flavor is strawberry Kiwi. 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My favorite one stop shop in such a beloved friend to anything goes. Macy's is the best because it really has something for everyone in every occasion. Whether it's clothes, HomeGoods, cooking Ware, whatever it may be, Macy's has something for you in the spirit of everybody having their own individual Macy's shopping experience. They're making us feel like true VIP's for the next couple of weeks because Macy's VIP sale has arrived just in time to get everything you need to cozy up this fall. From September 23rd to October 3rd, get 30% off regular sale and clearance items plus. 15% off beauty. And again, outside of beauty, that's 30% off. Pretty much everything from clothing, shoes and handbags to home decor and appliances. It's happening at Macy's. You want to know what I'm going to get? I'm going to get scarves because I really want to have a scarf. I live in California. It's only cold for like 3 months here, and it's not even that cold. Like it never snows, but I need to be leaning into the winter. Entire this year, because last year I wasn't going hard enough. So I will be picking up a few things from Macy's if you need to get some stuff for fallcheckoutmacys.com, that's macys.com. You'll find what you need, I can guarantee you that. But how I handled the situation? Actually taught me a really great lesson. Because here's what I did. I. Kept going and I kept pushing through it and I. Kept making videos and I kept going and I pushed through. This creative. Dry. Spell. I just pushed through it. I was like, you know what? **** it. I'm just going to keep going and I'm just going to hope that. I figure it out. And I'm just going to hope that people stick along with me as it as we go through this and like we'll see what happens. And. I came out the other side. I got my creativity back eventually. I stopped paying attention to my success and I started. Looking at my creative side of things and my success side of things as two different things, I stopped looking at them. As being intertwined and I kind of separated them in my brain. In a way, I kind of. Became a little bit disassociated with my success. I kind of. Started to try to ignore it. I wasn't ungrateful. I wasn't. Doing anything like that, but I more just. Looked at it in a way where I I looked at success as something that was great. But also, it's something that doesn't really matter. You know what I mean? I tried to look at it like that. I tried to look at it like, you know what? This is great and all, and this has made my life so much better. And given me so many opportunities. And connect me with so many great people, but at the same time. It's not a life or death thing, you know what I'm saying? Like? If one day it all goes away, I Will Survive and I will be fine and whatever, you know? And that kind of took the pressure off of me. I just let go of the pressure. And. I knew that. Even if I created. Something great. Something that was the best I'd ever made. It doesn't mean that I'm not going to ever create anything that good again. In fact, if I keep going and I keep pushing through. There's a great chance that I'll actually top that. Eventually what I'm trying to say is. The only time that you really ever truly fail. Is if you just completely give up, if you just keep going and you keep creating things. Despite your success, lack of success, whatever it may be. Inevitably. You will find perfect harmony at some point. Which in my opinion perfect harmony is. Being able to be creative. Despite success. Wait, is that the right word? Why do I not know what the word despite means? Definition of despite. Yes. That was the right word. I knew what despite meant, but like I wasn't sure if I was using it correctly because. I don't think I've ever actually thought about what that word really means. So anyway. The moral of the story is. I think it's really unfortunate. How. Much success can destroy. Your brain. Because. It almost puts you in a box. It almost is like a prison in a way, because. The amount of pressure. That starts to build the amount of expectation, the amount of. Judgment that you start receiving. That all comes with the success and. I think that most people. End up having a period where they can't handle it and. They might create a bad movie. They might create a bad TV show. They might create a bad song, or a bad album, or a bad podcast episode, or a bad YouTube video, or a few bad YouTube videos, or a few bad podcasts, or a few bad songs. Like? I think when creative people start to succeed, they lose themselves for a second, and I think that that's a normal part. Of. The creative process in general, I think that's just a part of it, and I think that. For people who maybe have creative jobs or. Have a creative hobby or whatever it may be. I think that this is very relatable and I think it's very normal to have a period of time where. After you succeed, you hit a low point. You know what I'm saying? I think the good thing though, about pushing through it and not giving up. Is that? As you continue. You you learn to get better about. Being able to push through that pressure and also, you know, learning how to cope with the pressure of growing success while also simultaneously needing to be creative. I think that you figure out a way to balance the both the more that you continue and the more practice that you get. But. I don't know, I mean. It's definitely food for thought. I think the goal too is to. Eventually, figure out a way to use your success. To make you. More creative. By that I mean like. When you become successful, you know you have more opportunities. Maybe that means you have a larger budget to create a project? Maybe that means that you have? More connections, you know, more people that could help you create your project, whatever it may be. That's the perfect. Way to use your success to be more creative. But the only way that you can do that is by learning to separate. The pressure of success and creativity and that's a really, really tough thing to do. Anyway, on that note, let's answer some questions. So I asked you guys to ask me questions about how success. Affects creativity on the Twitter at AG podcast. Feel free to follow if you want to participate in future episodes. Let's get into it. Somebody said, do you think that as somebody gains fame, their level of creativity or originality decreases? Like they just become lazy knowing that whatever they do, they'll still have people that support them. I definitely do think that this happens. Sometimes I think that sometimes success. Makes people feel comfortable, actually, maybe even too comfortable because they feel like, OK, now I can just do whatever I want. I have the fan base, I have the money. Who cares? You know what I'm saying? And then they might have a tendency to just. Recreate what worked, so let's say. They had a song that went viral. Let's say they had a YouTube video that went viral. Whatever it may be. They might just try to recreate that over and over again, like. If they had a hit song, they might try to create a song that's really similar because they know that everybody likes it. So instead of being original and. Unique. They just kind of recreate what they've done 100 times before, you know? And they don't evolve, they don't grow. And I think that. That can be crippling, because then. They don't evolve, and when you don't evolve, you don't get better. And then people get bored and then people move on to the next thing and that's that, I mean. The cookie does crumble that way for some people. Does that even make sense? I don't think I've ever said that. That's how the cookie crumbles, anyway. I don't know why I said that. I sound like an old woman. Using like metaphors like that, but anyway. I do think that that definitely does happen to some people. But I also think that there's other people that. Are kind of the opposite. And they feel like. They need to completely want up. The last thing that they created and make something completely new and fresh and different, and there's a chance that they might be able to do that successfully. And then there's a chance that that pressure might cripple them to a point where they actually cannot create anything. I think that it's very different for everybody but. Yeah, I I definitely think that that happens sometimes. Somebody said, has a viral video ever deterred you from making what you love? And instead make you want to create what's popular. Honestly, for me, no. Because I have never really. Liked to follow trends necessarily just because. I'm not good at it. Really? I've always kind of done my own thing. I feel like from what I can remember. I mean, I've definitely hopped on to some viral trends, but it's always been because I like thought it was fun and I wanted to take my own spin on it. Luckily I have never changed. My content. To please. Anybody really? I don't think I've ever done that, which I think is rare, and I don't know why I'm like that. I like. I'm not saying that it's bad if you. Do do that. You know what I'm saying? I think that that's like a normal response to becoming successful or going viral. You know, like after that happens to you, you know you wanna maintain it, so you'll do whatever it takes. For some reason, I have never done that. I don't know why, but I do think it's very common. And it makes sense, you know. Somebody said, do you think people who are more creative are generally more successful? No, I actually do not think that there are a lot of very creative people. That never become successful. And. You know, I don't really know why that is, I think. A part of success, to a certain extent, is luck. It's being in the right place at the right time. Do I think that? That means that whoever got successful isn't creative. No, I don't. But I do think that some people are luckier than others, and some people are able to find success. Easier than others. Just because, again, that's how the cookie crumbles. That's how the universe. Decided to. Let the events. Happen. You know what I'm saying? I think that there are very many creative people that will never find success in their in their creative endeavors. Just because. Success kind of falls in your lap. You kind of. You can't choose to be successful. It it like it happens to you, you know? You can do everything in your power to succeed. But. It's not always in your control. Somebody said, did success ever make you feel stuck in your life? I mean, I kind of talked about this earlier, but yes, and I think that the word stuck is a very good way to put it. I. Think that a big part of. Feeling stuck? After succeeding. Is caused mainly by just. I mean, really, what we're talking about here is creative burnout. And burnout. Can be caused by so many different things. It can be caused by the pressure of success. It can be caused by overworking yourself and not taking enough breaks. It can get caused from having difficulties in your personal life. I mean, there's like infinite. Roots to burnout, but. I think that finding success, weirdly enough, can cause burnout. Itself, which is so weird. It's so funny and I, like you would not expect. Success to cause burnout. You know what I'm saying? It almost doesn't even make sense. It sounds. Stupid almost. Because you would think that, oh, if you get successful, then now you have this burst of energy because you just succeeded. And now it's going to be easy to keep creating stuff because you're going to be so excited and so motivated, yet it's the complete opposite. You succeed and then immediately you feel almost doom, at least for me. I don't know, some people might be different, but I know a lot of people. Feel the same that I do where success almost. It it's almost like. Kind of a nightmare. It's almost kind of depressing, in a way. Because. You have to wake up tomorrow and go back to work. You have to wake up tomorrow and keep going. You can't just stop after you've succeeded. And I think that that's the depressing thing about it, and that's the thing that makes you feel burnt out because you still have to keep going after you succeeded. It's not like, oh, I succeeded once or I've hit a certain point in my success. Now I can stop. No, you have to keep going, and that's what's depressing about it. You have to keep succeeding. Once you succeed, you have to continue to succeed. And that is so. Terrifying. What does it really take to make it in New York City when you're young? The come up is a new freeform docu reality series on Hulu. 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Clothes are one of the many ways that we express ourselves and we're constantly switching up our wardrobes. To reflect our interests and styles. But one thing that is a little bit more difficult to switch up is our glasses. Until now, because now with pair eyewear. You can have a different frame every day, OK? With pair eyewear, you start with a chic pair of glasses, right? That look great just by themselves, but they have a special secret. Which is that they have at little. Magnet inside so you can snap on. A cool frame on top of your existing glasses. I got the crystal clear Reese base frame which is just a really chic pair of all clear glasses. The frame is clear obviously the lenses are clear and I got a tortoise frame and a Plaid frame so I can now it. Basically I have 3 pairs of reading glasses now. There are so many options, iconic base shapes and then all sort of frames to go on top retro classic neon sparkle. You'll definitely find your vibe I also love. Buying from a brand that really, really cares and pair provides glasses to a child in need for every pair that you buy. Get glasses as ever, changing as you are with pear. Go to pair eyewear.com/emma for 15% off your first purchase. That's 15% off at PAIR eyewear.com/emma. Somebody said, do you force yourself to continue creating content? Even when you don't feel creative or you feel stuck. Yes. I definitely do. I. Feel a pressure not to give up and not to stop, and I'm not sure if that's necessarily a good thing. Because I think that there's two ways to handle. This dilemma. Number one you could. Take a break. Take a few months off. Take a few weeks off. And reassess and kind of get your. Thoughts in order? Put things into perspective. Calm down a little bit. And. Try again later, you know. That's one way to handle it. I think that that might be the best way to handle it, and I don't usually handle. These kinds of scenarios like that, but I do think that that might be the best way to do it. But on the other hand. You can keep going. And you can keep creating even if you're burnt out and you feel stuck and not creative and you feel like **** you can just keep going and keep creating things anyway. That's what I've always done, and in a way I think that that can be good because if you force yourself to keep working and keep going then. Eventually you know you're going to have a breakthrough. It's inevitable. But. On the other hand, you know you might be creating stuff that you're not proud of, and you might be creating stuff that. People don't really like and that can be really upsetting, and actually it it might even make things worse. So ultimately, I think the best thing that you can do is to take a break and to step back. I need to take my own advice right now because I don't usually do that, but if I ever find myself in a place again where I feel crippled by. Some form of success. I think what I'm going to do is just take a step back and process everything, put things into perspective and then revisit it when I feel ready. I think that trying to work through it. Can do more harm than good. But I don't know. I I don't know, I don't know what the right way to handle it is. Maybe there is no right way. Somebody said, do you feel like success makes you not want to work as hard, you know? For me personally, no. It makes me feel like. I need to work really hard like it makes me feel this pressure to. Work harder and harder and harder and harder, which is not good because then that causes burnout, so it's not very productive. But I've noticed that there are some people that feel like they can just kind of give up. And. Stop working as hard once they succeed because they're like, well, I did it so now I can just sit back and relax and. Put in bare minimum effort and just. Say **** it, you know, and I think that that's unfortunate, because I think that. There's not maybe a lot of integrity in that, but at the same time I also kind of. Get it? Because. Once you have the money, once you have the fame, whatever it may be. That lasts for a little bit, you know? Even if you stop trying, you still have that for a little bit. It'll eventually fade away. Uh, for sure, but. You're still going to have it for a little bit, even if you kind of. Take your foot off the gas. You know it like. It's not like fame and money and praise just goes away overnight. It goes away kind of slowly. So you may think that you can take your foot off the gas and you can stop trying. Once you've succeeded and you'll be fine, and you might for a little bit, but eventually it's not going to work anymore and I think that that's why you know. Viewing success as something that. Can go away. Tomorrow is not a bad way to look at it. You can't get all high and mighty once you've succeeded. You have to continue to work hard. And that's the hard thing about doing literally anything in life is that you have to keep working hard, you know? Unfortunately, I think that we're all gonna have to work hard for the rest of our lives. In order to continue to succeed, in order to continue to. Get better at whatever it may be. In your personal life, in your work life, in your. Creative life, whatever it may be, unfortunately. In order to evolve, you have to work hard forever. And it's not easy. And I'm actually ******* tired just thinking about it. But that's also what makes life so great is that, you know. We constantly have things to strive for. There's no, you know, there's no such thing as like. Hitting a peak of success or hitting a peak of anything you know you can always improve. You can always be a nicer person. You can always. Come up with a more creative idea. You can always. Work harder, you know, or work smarter. Whatever it may be, you can always get better. There's no limit to how great. You can be. In any capacity. And that's a really beautiful thing. But it's also exhausting, you know? Somebody said. Do you feel that your content has gone down slash been affected at all since you've gained a large following? I think that it's gone through phases for me, like my personal content. I'm referring to my YouTube videos specifically. I had a period, I would say for the first year or so of my YouTube channel where I felt proud of my videos. I felt like they were good. They were well received by the public, well received by the public. And everything was great. And then I had like maybe a year or so where things were a little shaky. It might have been like 7-8 months and it was because the success. Burned me out. I got burnt out. I felt tremendous amounts of pressure. To keep it up. And I couldn't handle it. And so my content suffered a lot. And I've actually deleted a lot of those videos because I just am not proud of them and I don't feel like they represent me and I just hate them if I'm being brutally honest. And they weren't received that well. There were some people that liked them and a lot, you know, whatever but. There were also a decent amount of people that were like, no, this is not what. We signed up for we don't like this. And I think that's a valid criticism because I think that my content was suffering at the time because I. Was so consumed by. The pressure of needing to continue to get better and better and better and better and to continue to create. Every week, every week, every week, and. You know, it took me a while to figure it out and to get back to a place where I feel like I'm proud of what I'm doing and. I mean, not proud. OK, see, proud. It's it's funny because I'm never proud of what I make, but it's more that I'm satisfied, if that makes sense. Unfortunately, I have imposter syndrome and. Which is where you. Don't believe that you deserve success or deserve. Praise or. I've talked about Imposter syndrome before on this podcast, but anyway. I feel like I'm at a place now where I feel satisfied with what I'm creating and I felt like that for probably the past year and I felt really good and maybe even past two years. Or so. I don't know. I don't even remember the timeline. Either way, I got out of it. But. It took a while. I had to refine my footing and. You know, I'm grateful for all of you who have stuck around through all the ups and downs. Somebody said if. You created something and it performed badly. Would that affect you? See, weirdly enough, no. I feel like if I create something that I'm really proud of. That's enough for me to feel good because I rarely feel truly proud of something that I make. So if I do feel that feeling. I don't care how it does, because just the mere fact that I feel proud. Blows my own ******* mind, so I'm usually thrilled about that. It's when I'm simply satisfied by something. That I'm more critical. Of how it's received. You know, as we've been talking about this, I feel like. There's actually a formula. For this whole scenario. Step one. You have zero fame 0 success, but you have a creative idea. And then you create it Step 2. You put it out into the world. And it succeeds. You feel excitement. You feel proud. You feel great. Step 3. It's time to create the next thing. The pressure hits. And you crumble. Step 4. You either take a break. Or you create something that sucks. Step 5. You come out of the other side. And you learn to find a balance. Between success and creativity. And you figure out a way. To let your success. Either inspire your creativity or give you more opportunities to be creative. Or you just learn how to block out success completely. And return to step one. Where you will hopefully remain, which is being creative with no pressure. I hope that made sense, but that's what I think the final verdict is like. I think that's the final formula and that's kind of the best way that I can explain it. But anyway, that's enough for today. I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. I hope that anything that I said made sense. Lord knows I don't know. But I really appreciate you guys listening today. If you liked this episode and you like anything goes. Leave anything goes or review on Apple Podcasts. I really appreciate it. I read them. Every time before I start recording an episode and it makes me feel so warm inside and. It makes me feel really good, which is actually kind of ironic because we're literally talking about how. Like success or praise, you know can make you feel unmotivated and make you feel trapped. Yet I read podcast reviews before I start recording. So that is quite ironic, but actually it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. It has a great effect on me. So listen. Maybe I have it all figured out. Maybe I figured out my own personal balance, because. Anyway, **** we need to end this episode. Thank you for listening. Subscribe to anything goes on any of the platforms that you listen to podcasts. Follow the Twitter at AG podcast to keep up and participate in the episodes sometimes. And that's all I got today guys. I love you all. Thank you for listening. Have an amazing rest of your day and I will talk to you soon. Bye. I just ended that like it was a phone call. OK, bye. Like, what the ****? Why did I end it like that?