School of Sharks? Or Pod of Dolphins
So what I have to do is get back into my routine…but keep the knowledge that life will never really be "routine." Life is chaotic, and you have to roll with it.
My body-mind now has understanding it has never had. The "Writer's Room" as a model of individual creativity expanded to a group helps me to understand myself, and life, and things like the Mastermind much, much more deeply.
I need to do core dumps on this every day until I get sick of repeating myself--please bear with me. No, not "Cocaine Bear". Coffee was the only drug in that room. No one even smoked outdoors that I could tell. High energy with mature modulation was CRITICAL in that room. I wanted to have very high energy…but then dial it way back. The pitching process was similar to playing Double Dutch, where you have to wait for the perfect moment to jump in. That means:
Right Idea
Right Timing
Right person pitching
In other words, if you have a minor (but still important) piece, you can just wait until the subject is up. But if you have a more complex idea (say, for a scene) it becomes 10X more important to get that timing right. There are times when a simple idea about ANY episode can be pitched at any time, if everyone is relaxed and chill. Say at the beginning or end of the day, or while we're eating lunch.
But a MAJOR piece has to wait until that discussion is on the table. Write it down, and trust that it will come along. If it doesn't, find one of the co-producers when they are relaxed, and tell them your idea. If they like it, they'll run it up the food chain.
What I DIDN'T want to do is go outside that chain of command. Maybe I was too cautious, because I treasure Bryan's friendship and didn't want to abuse it. But frankly, if I chose the right moment that was possible too.
One thing that really happened was pitching an idea, and having it land with a thud, but then later someone else pitches it and it dances. WTF?
This is a phenomenon I"ve heard about many times: "I pitched an idea and one of my bosses stole it" is a familiar framing.
First…I don't doubt this happens. Not at ALL. And if you are a Newbie, or surrounded by bad folks, or marginalized in some way (black in a room full of white people, female in a room full of men, etc.) I’m sure its even worse.
But…that's the dysfunctional, negative, ugly aspect of this. But I could feel from day one that's not the only thing going on. In fact, it was healthiest for me to assume that wasn't it at all. So while admitting it happens, and sympathizing with anyone who has experienced it…
Would the same thing happen if surrounded by good and honest people, in a Mastermind context?
Yes, I am confident it can, and does. We need to understand this so that we can separate out the toxic aspects from the simple process of communication in such a context.
So…a writer's room is a specific sort of "Mastermind". And a "Mastermind" is "two or more people perfectly aligned to accomplish a common goal."
When I work with a collaborator, be it Tananarive or Larry or Larry and Jerry, it really is a creative stew. People throw out ideas, and the partner(s) bat them down, evolve them, or accept and build upon them. They mutate and twist. "The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas."
Or: "I love digging through that pile of horseshit because I know there's a pony in there somewhere!"
If the intensity of an orgasm is in direct proportion to the amount of ego you release at that moment (if you can remember your name, it wasn't good sex!) and the flow state for artists and athletes is similar ("She's gone into the danger zone, where the dancer becomes the dance"). Then what is true for an individual (enter flow state by temporarily suspending ego) or couples (the two become one for the purpose of our shared goals and values) it is also true for a team.
So…the attention has to be off the "I". To the degree that ego is a positive thing (there's a reason we have 'em) we want to excel, be acknowledged, be promoted. We're on that team to create a common project, yes, but that is because that GROUP project satisfies individual needs and desires
To learn
To grow
To network
To get credits
To make money
To have fun
To express myself in a new context
And so on. So yes, you need to take care of yourself--but in order to find the moment to jump in, you have to keep the entire structure of the story in mind, while ALSO keeping some specific perspective or intent in mind, and find the INSTANT when it is appropriate, polite, and powerful to interject.
That means you can't be thinking "I'll jump in now." It is more "here is the moment for this idea"--the attention OFF yourself, and ONTO the flow of the project.
Ideas are flying fast. Everyone hears them. Most are consciously forgotten. Most don't fit, even ideas from the leaders. Its just brainstorming, and anyone with access to their "waking dream" state has infinite ideas. If your timing is wrong, that idea still floats out there. And if things change, those ideas might settle in and mate with another idea, or blossom at another moment, and someone will say "hey! What if we…" and there is the idea you pitched an hour ago, or yesterday.
If the ideal state is the "I-less" state, it is easy to see how innocently you can "steal" something someone else said first. The leaders in that room had the phenomenal skill of not "just" generating and coordinating ideas, but also USUALLY remembering who said it in the first place.
Why is this important? Because we are egoic creatures. It ISN'T just the project that is important. It is also our personal progress. We love being acknowledged. It is HARD to come up with idea after idea and have them shot down…and then see an idea re-surface in someone else's pitch. That is ANNOYING.
And the artistic part of a human being is, I believe, the child self. That little kid wants to be praised, and patted on the head, and told "good boy! Good girl!" That's just the emotional stuff. But we also know that there IS a bit of "zero sum" about the world--that we want to shine, so that the higher-ups will talk to OTHER show-runners and producers over their dinner or weekly poker game or at a cocktail party and say: "you know? That Steve Barnes is frickin' brilliant. You should hire him!"
Get the problem? We need an ego to survive. And it is a healthy tool for progress. But EXCELLENCE requires suspending it to focus on the moment, and access the creative flow.
But that creative oasis can attract predators, who know that creative children just want to play in the water. Great time to grab a snack.
So…I didn't know where this was going, just needed to get it out. But what is the answer?
Back to the Three Centers: Belly Brain, Heart Center, Head Center. The "Belly Brain" is your survival stuff, your energy, your personal power. The "Warrior". The heart is the home of emotion, positive and negative. The "Shadow". The head is intellect, wisdom, and spirit: "the Magician."
Wake them up in order. The "child" or "artist" self (in this sense) might be thought of as living in the heart space. To the degree that such a metaphor is accurate, then artists tend to be open-hearted, just wanting to be loved and appreciated for being clever and bringing beauty into the world.
This is why the "I'll give you exposure" sharks are so dangerous. On some level the answer is "hell YES! You'll put me in front of an audience? Yes sir!"
But the "adult" part of you is the book-keeper, manager, agent, marketer, salesman. THAT part of you has to say "just a cotton pickin' minute! PAY MY CHILD."
Or to take that further: the WARRIOR part of you has to be strong, and alert, ready to swoop in and protect. It has to be wise enough to differentiate between a situation where it is simply natural for ideas to flow freely, unlabeled…and a context in which sharks are feeding on the unwary tuna. People who are artists, or creatives, who are NOT protecting themselves and wander into a school of competitive predators.
That warrior self might well say: "well, our ideas will be stolen, but we'll only be here six months. Every day we will learn more, until we increase BOTH our value and our capacity to PROVE that value to the money people, at which point it is to THEIR best interest to protect and uplift us." All animals try to move away from pain toward pleasure. Show a sociopath how it is in THEIR best interest to help you, and they'll be your best friend…until they don't need you.
Ultimately, you want to find a tribe of people who play by your rules. Even then, ya'll will bump against each other. There will be ego bruises. But in the right group, everyone is TRYING to be the best person, artist, team player they can be. Remember that if my model is accurate, YOU grab some of those ideas too, and never realize it when you offer it later in your own wrapping.
The trick would be engaging your warrior self, so that your child is SAFE to dance and sing and draw and play. That adult/warrior self might tell you to hold back a bit, so that you aren't as vulnerable, and learn the rules so that you can find that more favorable situation in the future.
So…wow. Let's connect all of this to the Morning Ritual.
Well, we are moving our bodies and breathing properly. ENERGY.
We are visualizing role models who can THRIVE in such a situation. The "who would kick this problem's ass and grin about it?" Visualize that person. And once your warrior is alive, you can program it to "only model the positive aspects of these role models." You are actually in the context where the ladder to the next level exists. MODEL ONLY THE POSITIVE BEHAVIORS, BELIEFS, AND VALUES. If you earn your way into the company of people at the next level, you probably did it by being energetic and willing. Before you have specialized skills to sell, you sell your character and energy and sincerity. They can get you in the door.
Emotional FLOODING with gratitude and joy is essential. Tananarive and I not only did our INDIVIDUAL rituals, we also performed our "Blessing Dance" every day, to connect as a couple and a team. Your body, heart, and head ALL have to be heading in the same direction.
And I'll make a prediction: show me ANYONE who is unsuccessful and unhappy in life, and you'll find someone who has not mastered this. It is a learnable skill. Get on it.
And if you get knocked down over and over, what gets you back up is FAITH AND COURAGE. The confidence that you CAN and SHOULD take these efforts. That means that you have to set it up so that you win every day. That's right--no matter what happens next, if I NEVER work in television again, THIS WAS A WIN. I won. I won the instant I walked in that room. I won every time I spoke, whether it landed or not. I won if I made it home alive every night. Every single day, all I had to do to win was do the work to the best of my ability.
My belief was that every person in that room was bringing their best, and that I would win if I helped THEM win.
Why? Because Bryan had brought us together and drove us with his energy, brilliance, and loving heart. He is the real deal, 100%. He is not a shark…he is a dolphin. And a pod of dolphins can deal with sharks, if they protect each other. For just a little while, just six weeks, we were a pod. And I am SO grateful for that, that I thank him, and them, in my morning ritual: "I am SO grateful for Friday the 13th!" During the thanks portion of my ritual I amuse myself by being grateful for things that start with the letter "f": fun, fantasy, fans, friends, family, fitness, finances, fortress…and Mr. Fuller.
Oh, yes. I want to be sure to burn it into my brain that I have SO MUCH to be grateful for. Because ONLY if you are grateful for the past can you reasonably expect good things in the future.
If you go through that, and isolate the M.A.G.I.C. of it (Model, Action, Gratitude, Intent, Conviction) then you can create your own ritual, using some form of motion to tie it all together. I used that ritual every morning to transform my nervousness into pure energy for action. That's why the fear is there: to get your attention and feed you energy. Once you have focused the attention, the fear is no longer necessary and you can blend it with love and faith to get pure energy. If you're sneaky like me, you might wonder if I set it up so that success in the writing makes me a better martial artist, protects my family, and leads to even better sex.
You might wonder if I was that sneaky. Your answer would be "you betcha. You're catching on!"
Anyway, that's all for right now. I have to do yoga, and then do my daily meeting with Jason to get him on track. So many things to process, so many projects that got neglected while I focused.
Life is beyond good. Life is a blessing. Stress is your friend AS LONG AS IT DOESN’T EXCEED YOUR CAPACITY TO ADAPT TO IT.
I am so grateful for the journey. Thanks for listening as I process…
Namaste
Steve
