March 9, 2025 · Episode 11
48 Min, 41 Sec

Summary

Brea and Lyndon unpack the idea of “failing your way forward”—why embracing mistakes is essential to creativity and how perfectionism often gets in the way. Along the way, they reflect on selling their coffee van, a high-stakes mango frenzy, and a surprise connection between their podcast theme song and an old childhood habit.

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Transcript

Lyndon: I took a morning walk this morning, as I always do every morning.

Brea: I don’t believe you.

Lyndon: Anyway, I’m a fair-weather walker. That’s not true. Anyway, I easily get out of habit, so I haven’t done a morning walk for… look, it’s not important. What is important is, have a guess what happened when I was on my way out on the walk. So just so you know, I went up the hill past the playground, up to the shop to get almond milk.

Brea: Did you get some bread?

Lyndon: No. I made an executive decision to not get bread because last time I was there, I spent—and this is not a lie—five minutes at least looking at all the bread. So I thought, I’m not going through that again. I know that bread is rubbish. If it had have been like a nice crusty, freshly baked, I don’t know, like ciabatta or sourdough, yeah. I would’ve taken up the $20 you need for that. So guess what happened on the way up?

Brea: I’m gonna guess… you saw some little baby birds that have been thrown out of their nests? There seems to be a lot lately.

Lyndon: What are you talking about?

Brea: Walking up the road, yeah.

Lyndon: What, have you seen them?

Brea: I’ve seen three.

Lyndon: Now tell me where.

Brea: One near the park. And two across the road from the park. Yeah.

Lyndon: I can’t believe you got it in the first go. Was that actually the thing? Oh really?

Brea: Oh no.

Lyndon: So I’m walking along past the park there and a bird drops out of the sky and lands right in front of me. My next step, I would have stood on it. And it was already dead. Oh. And I looked up in the tree. And I couldn’t see a nest. So on my way back, I looked in the tree again, couldn’t see a single nest, and I’m thinking it was dropped.

Brea: Oh, by another bird? By a passing bird?

Lyndon: Yeah. Because it was already… blew it out of the nest? It was already dead. And yeah. And not rotting dead. Just dead. It was a noisy… they’re noisy miners. The noisy miners. Yeah. And yeah, I’ve seen… there was one there a couple of weeks ago when I was walking Birdie, and I picked it up and put it back in the tree. I knew it wouldn’t survive, but I thought I’ll just see if it can sit back up in the tree. Oh, yeah. And I put it there and the next time I looked, came back or whatever, it wasn’t there. And then, yeah, more recently I saw one dead right where you’re saying, right where this one was actually.

Brea: Jeez, that’s like they’re just dropping them all out from somewhere. It just seems it’s a springtime thing, obviously, where not all of the chicks are going to survive.

Lyndon: This was weird because it’s not often you’re walking along and one falls right at your feet, but I didn’t expect… I would expect that it would still be alive, but it won’t survive, but this was clearly already dead. Dead on impact? Yeah. Oh dear. It’s so hard to think about. And there was no nest. There was no nest. There was no bird as in… there was nothing jumping around in the tree. There wasn’t like a parrot or anything.

Brea: It is sad and we see them every spring. I did try to rescue one once. The kids all got involved. We brought it home.

Lyndon: Such unnecessary grief you brought into the home. I don’t know why you would do that.

Brea: Because it was an older one. It wasn’t like one of these little fledgling ones with no feathers.

Lyndon: At least four days old.

Brea: No, it was a bit older than that, but it looked like it had a chance. This one had feathers. This one was, yeah.

Lyndon: This one would have been on the verge of flying. Yeah, for sure. Anyway, Henry didn’t make it and the kids were sad. There you go. You got it in one. I did. A bird fell out of the sky onto the pavement in front of me.

Brea: I didn’t quite imagine it was that traumatic, but yeah.

Welcome to Pain in the Arts & Missing Milestones

Lyndon: I thought… I just didn’t think you’d guess it at all. We’re close enough. Welcome to Pain in the Arts, the podcast where the pursuit of meaningful art meets the unpredictable demands of real life. I am Lyndon.

Brea: And I am Breallyn. Welcome.

Lyndon: I was going to say that we should be celebrating ’cause, ’cause this is our 10th episode.

Brea: Wow.

Lyndon: Yeah. And I was like, wow, what could we do? We could have a deca episode.

Brea: Hey, deca episode.

Lyndon: Yeah. I thought maybe we had those party whistles or whatever. What are they called? Those streamer things that you don’t know. Party blower. I think that’s what they are. So I was thinking about what we could do and on the computer for… unrealized that last week was episode 10. So another birthday missed.

Brea: Let’s celebrate our 100th.

The Great Mango Frenzy

Lyndon: So what else has been happening this week? I can think of a number of things.

Brea: I can think of the highlight of the week.

Lyndon: Can I guess what your highlight of the week is? Yeah, go. Okay, two words. Mango frenzy.

Brea: That was absolutely the highlight. The mangoes up at our shop were 78 cents and they weren’t like the dodgy, runty, half-rotten ones. They were beautiful, fresh, absolutely ready to go, perfect mangoes. 78 cents each.

Lyndon: I’m surprised you haven’t gone back.

Brea: It’s been on my mind for days.

Lyndon: You should go back today, haven’t you?

Brea: I should. When I did go up there and they were the 78 cents, I did go a bit crazy. I bought two trays worth and came home and spent the whole day eating and cutting mangoes, I froze some, and yeah, we’ve just been eating heaps of mangoes. We picked all the plums that we could reach from the tree we talked about last time. So I’m about to stew those. So yeah, it’s, it’s all happening.

Lyndon: This is interesting. This ties into something that I might talk about in a minute, weirdly enough. I saw a video of my mum this week eating like freshly shucked oysters, like from the shell.

Brea: Yeah.

Lyndon: And I thought, that looks aggressive.

Brea: Just the way she was eating them?

Lyndon: Like she’d been shipwrecked for like weeks.

Brea: Oh, she was enjoying them that much, I guess.

Lyndon: Either enjoying or struggling to work out how to tip it in. I don’t know. But it occurred to me, like with all the mangoes we’ve been eating, when you see anyone eat a mango, they’re eating it like someone’s about to steal it from them.

Brea: Oh, yeah. I know. Oh, one of our sons loves them. He definitely eats them like that.

Lyndon: It’s so primal.

Brea: You’ve got to get it in before it slops all down the front of you.

Lyndon: There’s so much noise happening and eyes darting around the room to see if an enemy is approaching. So yeah, that’s why it was a mango frenzy. There’s one left. We’ll have to fight to the death for it.

Brea: Once that’s cut open, yep. It’s funny, like I have noticed throughout the years that if people arrive to a party or back home or whatever, and they’re like, “I’ve just bought a tray of mangoes,” just how pleased with themselves they look.

Lyndon: You would have tipped over their box of mangoes just to make them shut up.

Brea: Oh, no, I was jealous always, because it’s like, who can afford a whole tray of mangoes?

Lyndon: Us, when they’re 79 cents each.

Brea: I know, we were the lucky ones this week.

Lyndon: Like $9 a tray.

Brea: Yeah.

Lyndon: And it wasn’t that long ago, it was $6 to buy one mango. Yeah. Probably still is in certain places.

Brea: Summer, mangoes, how much better can it get?

Podcast Vibes and Theme Song Secrets

Lyndon: It’s a beautiful day today. I feel like I’m up and about ’cause there’s so much going on and so much to talk about. And I think too, the last couple of times we’ve recorded, I’ve had a migraine, so there you go. Wow. Little insider information. Now that I’m actually feeling okay, I’ll still sound drawl and…

Brea: No one will tell.

Lyndon: ‘Cause I’m a pro.

Brea: This time you’re bringing a topic.

Lyndon: I’m bringing a topic. I’m going to… I promise I’ll get to it, but it’s… look, it’s our, not our 10th episode, it’s our 11th. We get to this point now where I can’t remember what we’ve spoken about. It’s been enough episodes gone that I might start telling the same stories over and over again, it’s probably not a big deal. I have this little, I wouldn’t say concern, but I’m just hoping that we’re not sounding preachy, we’re not sounding like we’re whinging all the time. I’m sure we’re not, but just think like some of the topics we’ve spoken about is… things that need to be spoken about, but maybe if you just look at them all back to back as topics, it looks like we’re…

Brea: Bit of a down vibe, is that what you think?

Lyndon: No, I just don’t want the podcast to be us flinging our arms up in the air going, “It’s all so hard, but here’s a tip,” which I’m sure it isn’t, and it’s not what it’s meant to be. No, that’s not what we’re doing.

Brea: Hey, at least we’re not doing a true crime podcast. That would definitely feel like the same sad stories week after week.

Lyndon: Yeah. What do they do at the end, do they go, “Have a great week. Don’t stab anyone”?

Brea: At least ours isn’t quite that serious. I don’t think they’re going to be like… We’re more like, “Hey, don’t feel bad about your endeavours this week”.

Lyndon: I thought we should talk about the show’s theme song. I don’t know if we have before. Clearly everyone’s heard it, but we were episodes in and we still didn’t have a theme song.

Brea: Yeah, that’s right. We’ve been recording the episodes, getting our content together and so on. And in the meantime, you’ve been… I hate that word content, but yeah. In the meantime, you’ve been working at all of the soundtrack stuff for this podcast and others.

Lyndon: The reason, one of the reasons I’m bringing this up now is because it’s not our 10th episode, but there’s something that I did when I wrote this that was for your benefit, which you’ll only know about if I tell you.

Brea: Okay, great. A little hidden gem in the midst of the music.

Lyndon: You know how the ABC radio theme music for years. And I think it still is, like for when the news is coming. So on the hour, the news had come. I know it well. I’m going to play it for you. Yeah. I know you know it.

Brea: Wow. You went the long version, like the full fanfare.

Lyndon: That was the… that was the full 19 seconds. But the part at the end, you need to sing along with what’s going on. No, I can’t sing it, no. You’ve got to sing it.

Brea: Here comes the news! Now this is… Okay, I’ve got to explain, and I can’t believe you just made me sing on our podcast.

Lyndon: I didn’t, you just couldn’t help yourself.

Brea: Even in the first version, I was mouthing the words because as a child, I could hear that coming on. Mom and dad always listened to ABC radio. So it was in my day every day. And I knew that was the intro to the news, but I just put words with it. “Here comes the news.” It just seemed to make sense to me. And one day I came out with it. Mum and dad just cracked up because they didn’t know that I was making up words to what was clearly a non-singing part.

Lyndon: It’s funny. ‘Cause I, I’m like around the house. I make up little songs for everything.

Brea: Yeah.

Lyndon: The boys will probably remember some that I made up about their teachers and different things just for fun. I don’t know when it was, but we’re probably in the car or something and you sung it. And I was like… this would have been like when we were dating. I was like, what? I think you went, “Yeah, that’s the words.” And ever since then, every time I hear it, I just hear, “Here comes the news”.

Brea: I’m so embarrassed that you brought that up.

Lyndon: Why?

Brea: Because I can’t sing, I’m an idiot.

Lyndon: No comment. But, I’m going to play the theme song, and see if you can make up words.

(Speaker 4): Yay!

Lyndon: Did you make up any?

Brea: Some came to mind. What were they? Pain in the arse.

Lyndon: But where?

Brea: At the end. Pain in the arse. Is that what it is? Yeah. Is that the little surprise you have for me? Great. So now I’m never going to be able to listen to that without thinking, “Pain in the arse”.

Lyndon: But what I noticed then, and I hadn’t picked up on this before, because that’s the first time I’ve looked up that theme, the ABC theme. And I’ve just noticed it was 19 seconds long, and then when I pulled up the theme for this podcast, it was 19 seconds long.

Brea: Oh, wow. Gee, you have had that in your mind. Yeah.

Lyndon: Yeah. That’s crazy. That’s weird. But I’ll play it again, and you can sing it. Oh man.

Brea: Not again.

Lyndon: All together now.

Brea: I can’t believe it. There we go, listeners.

Lyndon: We have to stress it’s arts, with a T. Yeah.

Brea: I wouldn’t sing for anyone but you guys.

Launching the Patreon: Tiers, Coffee Math, and Community

Lyndon: There you go. So yeah, it’s funny how I did that and just actually never thought to mention it, because every time I hear it, I hear “pain in the arts,” but that’s where it came from is “here comes the news”. Now the other thing we’ve mentioned here and there on the episode so far is about our Patreon. Now, I’ve been working behind the scenes getting our Patreon ready to launch with no big fanfare because we’re probably launching it a year too early. But that’s fine. A ton of work has gone into it and so it’s…

Brea: We wanted to have it right, didn’t we? Plus I was learning what is available so that once we start having support on there, we’ll be able to deliver the bonus content and the perks. One of our major bonuses on there is two extra podcasts.

Lyndon: So there was a lot of learning involved. But we’re just going about this quietly and inconspicuously.

Brea: Learning as we go. Learning as we go. Yeah.

Lyndon: And probably also fair to mention that because we’re doing this slow marketing, and we’ve chosen to not include social media in that for our own sanity. It does mean that Patreon is going to have a lot of content that you’d probably get on social media. And of course there’s a couple of different tiers, which we’ve named and I’ll get onto that in a moment. They have a good mix of bonus content and community building. So we’re also trying to create a space there where members can chat with one another. And there’ll be different chat threads or chat channels.

Brea: Absolutely.

Lyndon: And the premium tier offers all of that stuff, but much closer access to us and our processes. I think we’ve said a number of times that, and it’s probably on the website, that you can become a member for less than a cup of coffee a month. Now that is still true, you can be a free member. So that’s true for that. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely free member, paid member… It depends on the size coffee.

Brea: Okay let’s have a think about the coffee sizes.

Lyndon: Or I’ll just change… We can’t change what we’ve already seen.

Brea: Hang on. How much is our lowest paid tier?

Lyndon: Okay. So the lowest paid tier is 4 USD.

Brea: So US dollars. US dollars. Four dollars.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Brea: Which works out to be what in Australian dollars?

Lyndon: It is about $6 or $6.50.

Brea: If people were to buy us each a coffee.

Lyndon: Oh, there you go. There’s always a way around it.

Brea: Buy each of us a coffee a month. That would be amazing.

Lyndon: If you get a large…

Brea: Quite a cheap coffee a month too, if it’s…

Lyndon: I got a small almond latte from our local dude and it was $5.50. Yeah. Not cheap, is it? That’s not expensive. No, it’s pretty standard at the moment. You can get the same thing somewhere else in Melbourne and you’d pay six. When I say small, that’s Australian small, which is an eight ounce cup. Americans, pick yourselves up off the floor. When we were in America, I don’t even think a 12 ounce was a small.

Brea: No, nah, it was more like a kid’s size or a, I don’t know, a piccolo.

Lyndon: I could never get a small. The only place I think I truly got a small from was in Hawaii.

Brea: Yeah.

Lyndon: I think when I particularly asked, I practically went round behind the counter.

Brea: Yeah.

Lyndon: So technically maybe still…

Brea: Still around, it’s around about a cup of coffee a month. If you buy it in the midst of Melbourne, if you were to buy each of us a coffee a month, because you can then imagine you’re sitting at the table with both Lyndon and I, we’re all enjoying a coffee.

Lyndon: We just say, yeah. Or we just say less than a cup of coffee a week.

Coffee Confessions and Selling the Van

Brea: Yeah. It’s funny. It’s become the standard measurement, even though there’s obviously discrepancies in coffee sizes and prices, but yes, we do drink small almond lattes. Both of us have that as our drink of choice. We’ve switched to almond milk over the years because it just doesn’t taste as milky.

Lyndon: Yeah, I just thought, milk is for calves.

Brea: Almond milk is not even for anything. Almond milk is for almonds, little almonds.

Lyndon: No, I can’t remember why I switched, but I think, look, I was having four coffees a morning for a decade at least. And at some point I just thought, I think I’m having… this is the, this is my thinking. I think I’m having too much milk.

Brea: Yeah. That was your brainwave. See, this is both the advantage and the disadvantage in having a coffee van is that you have four coffees a day. But you also have four coffees a day.

Lyndon: Four coffees in the morning. Yeah, between seven and twelve. Huberman would not endorse that, is for sure.

Brea: But hey, you’re not here for health advice.

Lyndon: Or any advice really. So it’s just funny. I look back and go, yeah, I changed a milk because was having too much milk. The coffee itself was fine.

Brea: It’s fine to have four shots of coffee. Were they double shots?

Lyndon: No, double ristrettos, which basically no one really understands unless… single shot size, proper barista. Yeah. Yeah, it’s the same amount of coffee as a single shot. So essentially 30 mil or thereabouts. Yep. This is something we haven’t mentioned. Sold the coffee van.

Brea: We sold the coffee van.

Lyndon: That’s a big deal.

Brea: Yeah. It was a bit overshadowed by the mango frenzy, but that was a big deal in our week.

Lyndon: Speaking of overshadowed, this whole podcast episode is going to be overshadowed by the mango frenzy.

Brea: Nothing is ever going to compare to our mango frenzy.

Lyndon: I didn’t think today’s episode would be about death of birds and mango frenzy.

Brea: Yeah, but Hey, that’s what happens when we sit down and have a chat.

Lyndon: It’s, we have said it before, this is like a date night.

Brea: It is, yeah, we get to do all that chit chat that we often don’t get to do.

Lyndon: We’re not allowed to do otherwise. So yeah, sold the coffee van and when Matt had put the offer in and I decided to accept it. I reckon I had my finger over the button for about three minutes before I said, done deal.

Brea: It’s hard.

Lyndon: Once the car was driven off, I couldn’t go out to the garage for about four days.

Brea: Yeah. Yeah.

Lyndon: I’d look out and I’d see the back end of our garage has another sliding door, so that’s always been open. So I looked out the back door and I could see into the garage and I could see that it just didn’t look familiar and I thought, I can’t go out there.

Brea: It’s empty. The coffee van not there. The only times when I have been in the home looking out at the garage and it’s been empty, it means that you are in the coffee van driving it somewhere. So, for me to look out. I have to just remember, “Oh, the van’s gone and you’re here somewhere”. But for you to look out, like you haven’t even had that experience of looking out and not seeing the van in the garage at all.

Lyndon: No, I’ve never had that experience. I would have been thinking someone stole the van. So that was a big deal. It’s funny in my little list of notes to myself, that wasn’t even… that didn’t even factor.

Brea: So we are no longer coffee traders. Solely making our living from music and writing at this point, or music production and writing, and music performance for me. Yeah, we don’t have the…

Lyndon: …the coffee empire to fall back on. No. Massive tongue in cheek there.

Brea: Well, it was our little empire.

Lyndon: Wow. Emphasis on little.

Brea: We did think about making it into an empire at one stage, but.

Unveiling the Patreon Tier Names (Caravan to Castle)

Lyndon: Not for very long. Yeah. Yeah. So back to the Patreon tier names. Yeah. Tell us about the tier names.

Brea: Because…

Lyndon: I’m going to…

Brea: …say what…

Lyndon: I want listeners to see if they can guess why they’re called that.

Brea: Yeah.

Lyndon: Right? Okay.

Brea: So drop us a comment.

Lyndon: Is that the lingo? I don’t know. Drop us a comment. Send us a… don’t send us an email about that. Do it. We’ll do it. Okay. Now I should probably elaborate on these but yeah, you need to tell us what’s involved in each level of membership. Yeah whether you want to do it now or whether later, but yeah, just we’ll just get a quick rundown.

Lyndon: So the first one, the free membership is the Caravan.

Brea: Yep.

Lyndon: The first paid membership level of support is… for less than a coffee a month, less than a coffee a year… for less than… is the Cabin.

Brea: The Cabin. Now the medium membership level or tier, which is the one that has the two extra podcasts in it. Yes.

Lyndon: So that’s when it starts getting really serious. That is called the Cottage.

Brea: Yep. Cute.

Lyndon: And earlier when you were talking about, “Oh, I’m buying mangoes and I’m harvesting plums and I’m going to be stewing them”. It’s… that sounds very cottagey. It does. Like the cottage life.

Brea: I need a Breallyn apron to tie in.

Lyndon: So that’s probably even more appropriate than I realised. And then the premium tier.

Brea: Yep.

Lyndon: Is the Castle.

Brea: Really residing within the amazement of the podcast.

Lyndon: And when I say castle, you need to not think of a big Scottish castle or… but you’ve got to think more of the movie, The Castle. If you haven’t seen The Castle, the movie, it’s quintessentially Australian. It’s potentially only funny to Australians, but it’s a classic. It’s probably, oh gosh, do you reckon it’s 25 years old? Yeah, I reckon it would be, yeah. Look that up. It’s called The Castle.

Brea: And based on the premise, every man’s home is castle. A man is his castle. Yeah.

Lyndon: Yeah, yeah. So we have a tier called the Castle, but that’s because you are coming much closer into our home. Yeah. So that’s what it is. A man’s home is his castle. So that’s the quick rundown of the names. If you can work out why they are called that. Now, did you like the alliteration as well?

Brea: Yes, I did note that. Yes.

Lyndon: That took a lot of searching.

Brea: Thinking about chalets and chateaus?

Lyndon: That would still work. Chalet would be… Hasn’t got the hard C. Yeah. Hasn’t got the hard C. It’s true. But, of course, yeah, there’s… Anyway, they’re the ones we landed on. We think they’re appropriate.

Brea: Check it out on the website or have a quick check out on Patreon and then you can see exactly the list.

Main Topic: Doing It Anyway (Embracing Imperfection)

Lyndon: Maybe this whole idea today, I don’t even need to do.

Brea: I’m looking at you. You’ve got two pages of notes there. Have we not even started talking about?

Lyndon: No, none of them. But that’s okay because my notes aren’t proper notes. So I wouldn’t get too hung up on the fact that I’ve brought pages.

Brea: It’s okay though. I’ll just avert my eyes.

Lyndon: Why are you stressed?

Brea: Because if I had two pages of notes, I’d have a timeline in mind.

Lyndon: You brought about 10 pages the other day.

Brea: I did. And we didn’t quite get through, but that’s okay.

Lyndon: And I just looked at that and went, “Sorry, have you turned up to the wrong podcast?” That it wasn’t possible because you live here. I thought, no, I think she’s in the right spot. Yeah. Maybe just lost her mind for a moment. That was, I think that was our special episode, which is why I thought this was number 10, because one of the earlier episodes was an extra one.

Brea: One for Rare Diseases Day.

Lyndon: Which is a…

Brea: Great one. So go listen to that. If you want a little bit more information on us, where we’re coming from, check that’s the one to go to.

Lyndon: Yeah. I reckon I could smash this out in 10 minutes. Yeah.

Brea: Okay. Let’s do it. I’ll not interrupt.

Lyndon: Now, the good thing about this is I am certainly not going to be carrying on and offering solutions and all this sort of stuff. It’s literally, this is the title.

Brea: Okay.

Lyndon: I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m doing it anyway. And I would suggest that everything that we’ve just spoken about would… that I have, I’ve no idea what I’m doing, and so I’m going to talk about everything but this. And I’m also a little bit wary of, I think we’ve introduced topics before, and then once we’ve finished talking, we go, actually, this is what we spoke about. And you know what, we’ll be doing more on this in future episodes. So maybe this will just be a little teaser. I think I have admitted that I am a recovering perfectionist.

Brea: Yes.

Lyndon: I think a…

Brea: Couple of times we’ve mentioned to friends, “Oh, we did an episode about perfectionism, Lyndon decided he wasn’t a perfectionist,” and our friends have literally scoffed in our faces.

Lyndon: Yes. I met up with your Uncle Phil on the weekend and… Hey Uncle Phil, shout out. It came up somehow. And now, keep in mind that we don’t see a lot of Phil.

Brea: No, sadly. Sadly, because we get along really well.

Lyndon: Isn’t that interesting how that happens? Something came up that I brought up… maybe I was saying, I didn’t think that I was a true perfectionist. And he laughed. And he said, “You? Oh, what? No.” I’m like, how would you… I was like, if he thinks that. Yeah, it’s a crippling disease.

Brea: But as you said, you’re recovering.

Lyndon: So I like this. So I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m doing it anyway. So if I can do it… but I guess that we’re talking about embracing uncertainty and imperfection, and being able to move forward. So have we done an episode on perfectionism or not?

Brea: We have, yeah. Okay. But I was the one that brought…

Lyndon: It felt like an intervention, that’s right.

Brea: I was the one that brought that topic and… Oh, that’s right. We just talked about it and you seemed to be so surprised when I said, yeah, it’s something that you…

Lyndon: That’s right, I remember now. You brought it forward, you introduced it and said a little bit about it and then you said something like, “Sorry, Lyndon. Is that how it is for you and your perfectionism?” I was like, what are you talking about.

Brea: Here, yeah, you are quite the well-known perfectionist. Anyway. Okay.

Lyndon: Something I really love about the studio is coming in with just the bare bones of an idea and then building on it. It’s like making stuff up as you go. Yeah. And I like that. And I hate the fact that sometimes, or a lot of the time, it’s the other part of my personality that gets in the way of that. Anywho, so I do feel like I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’m doing it anyway. And just weirdly enough, I was watching a YouTube video. Video of John Bollinger, who is a well-known columnist for Premier Guitar Magazine. He’s all over YouTube. Seems like a really nice guy and he’s just turned 60. And so he was talking about things that he’s learned in his journey of being a professional muso for 44 years.

Brea: Yeah.

Lyndon: And one of the things he mentioned was that no one has any idea what they’re doing. He said he was talking to a famous session person recently who said that they were there sitting in a studio cutting tracks with some of the best musicians in the world.

Brea: Yeah.

Lyndon: And they were looking around going, “I have no idea what I’m doing,” but they were also one of the best session musicians. And everyone in there feels the same way. So it’s one of these things, isn’t it? Which I really, I like about this industry that we’re in or being in the arts is that I don’t like that feeling, but I like the fact that we’re always learning.

Brea: And what’s good about that is the flip side of it is anything’s possible. We could do anything right now. Like we could do anything with this, in my case, this blank page, anything could be written on this. Yeah. Yeah. There’s no formula you have to follow or something that is pre-designed for you, like you can make those choices, so yeah.

Reclaiming Curiosity and Failing Forward

Lyndon: Yeah, I’ve been working on reclaiming Curiosity.

Brea: Yeah, you know my curiosity.

Lyndon: Because I do think and maybe I’ve skipped ahead. I do think that the curiosity is key to Creativity and to moving forward.

Brea: I agree a hundred percent. I think that it is the key.

Lyndon: Oh, we should get married.

Brea: Yeah, such a proposal. We agree. And it’s something that everybody’s got, but yeah, I think, if you, yeah, if you do feed into that and allow that spark of curiosity to grow. Be what drives you and give time to it and give, let it speak, then you definitely open yourself up to more creative ideas and following tracks that you might not have done otherwise.

Lyndon: I came across a quote this week from Kitty Knorr, I believe that’s how you say her last name. And she puts it across as an instruction or even a command. And she said, “It’s okay to fail your way forward,” which I thought was really great. Yeah. Because it really great way of putting it. Yeah. And it feels like an antidote to perfectionism. Yeah. It’s like a license to be kind to myself. Yeah. As well. Yeah. That’s right. I think I’m always looking for this, these little keys that when I recognize that, “Oh, I’m letting me get in the way of what I’m doing,” just go do it, try it. And then if it doesn’t work, who cares? So I don’t have to have everything figured out from the beginning. And I think for me too, a lot of that stems from always feeling like I’m under a time constraint. That’s where a lot of it comes from. And I think like we have touched on that about, yeah. So I’ve talked about it like in terms of, when I was doing coffee every morning and then I’m rushing to get to the studio and then I feel like I’ve only got so much time, part of being a healthy, creative person is knowing that it’s okay to… it’s okay to spend a couple of hours sitting in the sunshine, reading a book or listening to music that you have to do that. So when those things they’re either stripped away or you don’t make them available to yourself, it makes it a bit harder. And of course, I have mentioned about migraines in the past. So I’m chasing my tail, trying to recover for lost time.

Learning from Uncle Phil: Guitar Building Without Fear

Brea: I don’t think… just on that point on the greater scale. That we need to challenge the notion of, “Oh, I should have done this by… I should have written this by the time I was 20… I should have achieved this by the time I was…” like because it’s silly. It’s what’s the arbitrary numbers there of what time in your life you’re creating something or you know producing the thing that’s you? Yeah. It’s nothing. And, yeah, we really get hung up on those kind of timelines.

Lyndon: Yeah. That’ll be something, a good topic for another time. Yeah. For sure. We’ll explore that. Yeah. There you go. Now you know what you’re doing. Okay. Next week. So failing your way forward. That’s just really nicely put. Well done, Kitty. Maybe I’ll put a link to her Instamagram down below. Now speaking of your Uncle Phil.

Brea: Yeah.

Lyndon: Isn’t it funny how these things all align when you’re thinking about them? You just notice them. Your Uncle came to a gig I was doing at a winery on the weekend. I should say hi to Steve and Rebecca at Greenstone Vineyards. Whew, gee, their Shiraz was nice.

Brea: I’m a bit jealous.

Lyndon: The Estate Shiraz.

Brea: I’ll have to try to come to the next one out there, I think, yeah.

Lyndon: Yeah. The view is amazing, and obviously, I’ve seen it before, yeah. So your uncle Phil, okay. Recently started building guitars.

Brea: Yes.

Lyndon: So he’s got a, he’s got an Instagram page called Great Skate Custom Guitars. Yeah. I’m going to put a link to this as well, yep. Now the reason it’s this name is because they’re made from reclaimed, recycled skateboards.

Brea: Wow. That’s a great idea.

Lyndon: It is pretty cool. Something very different. They look cool. Yeah. We were talking about his building of these guitars. He’s been a furniture builder.

Brea: Yeah. His entire career.

Lyndon: Yep. So he’s definitely got the skills. But I did ask him whether he shapes the necks himself. Yep. Or whether he buys the necks in or whatever. He goes, “No, I do it all”. He goes, “No, I do it myself. I love it”. And I said, “If I had to shape the necks, I would be so riddled with anxiety of making a mistake”. He said, “Ah, I love it.” He goes, “And if I make a mistake, I can just start again. Or do another one.” He goes, “It’s not a big deal.” And I was like, what? And then I think he even said, he goes, “Yeah, if you like, come over and I’ll show you how to do it”.

Brea: He’s so right. It’s not like there’s anyone watching going, “You only got one shot at this”.

Lyndon: It just shows you how much, like for me…

Brea: So that’s where that perfectionism gets in the way, I think. Yeah. It’s a fear thing too. A fear of making a mistake. Yeah. I tell you that, that fear, like I have that too, actually, sometimes going, “I’ve got to get this right,” like this story or this scene or whatever, because the nebulous sort of thought of the inspiration, if I stuff up the execution of it, then it’s gone. Then I’ve wrecked it. It’s… I’ve put mud in it. I’ll never be able to write it cleanly again.

Lyndon: I’ve wrecked it.

Brea: So I only do have what, that one shot. And I don’t actually know if that’s true or not. And it actually probably isn’t because I know I’ve rewritten things many times and it’s worked out better. And the rewrite is usually actually better than the original one. And I’m, yeah, I used to be much more into one shot at it and try to get it right. Now I do a lot more rewriting and editing of my original thing. And the important thing is just to get it down. But yeah, that thought of wrecking the original inspiration by your first attempt, like if you don’t get it right, that is a big real thing. And maybe with something like creating a piece of music or writing something that doesn’t exist, maybe that is more, I don’t know, it’s more abstract than maybe the neck of a guitar. Like you already know the shape of it. I don’t know, maybe I’m, maybe that’s not correct. Maybe every neck is different and…

Lyndon: Oh yeah. Yeah, maybe it’s exactly the same thing. But if you see someone shaping a neck and the way that they do it, it can be, it can look quite ruthless, Yeah, To begin with, yeah. And I would just be like way too scared that, oh, if I take off too much timber here, there’s no going back.

Brea: Yeah, Okay, yeah. Yeah. So you would do it a lot, what, slower and more painstakingly, trying to…

Lyndon: Oh, I don’t even want to think about it.

Brea: Your face when you are thinking about it. He’s just literally sagged in your chair. I know. Go and watch Uncle Phil do it. My grandfather was a carpenter. Yeah.

Lyndon: And I know he was a very good one. He did not like seeing dodgy carpentry. Like he was, obviously he was old school.

Brea: Same with my grandfather, strangely enough, which is Phil’s father. So yeah, they were both had their woodworking workshops.

Lyndon: And as much as you saw my face drop, I do think had I gone into that profession, not that I ever wanted to, but I do, I do work with my hands and I do using the right tools and all that sort of stuff.

Brea: Yeah, I love Uncle Phil’s solution there. Just do it. And if you get it wrong, you can just do it again.

Lyndon: Yeah. Yeah. It’s nice being around people that are that good at what they do, but that relaxed about it. And I think to be a lu… you need to be…

Brea: Okay.

Lyndon: To be a craftsman, yeah. You’ve gotta be, you’ve just gotta let it flow through you and have that confidence in your ability and know that if you get it wrong, you just start again. Otherwise, what, how would you otherwise…

Brea: Your skill that, that is how you build your skill. Yeah, expertise is by doing it a lot and getting it wrong a lot.

Lyndon: Can we have a segment called, “Lyndon talks about stuff he’s got no idea about”? Master crafts, master woodworking.

Brea: Oh, that’s funny. So not just this episode, but a section every episode. Yeah, pretty much every week we’ll just have us talk about stuff we don’t know what we’re talking about.

Lyndon: I think it’s something that I do mainly. So I guess all in all, it comes down to, listen to Kitty and be more like Uncle Phil.

Brea: Yeah, there we go.

Lyndon: That’s it? Yeah. Don’t you think? Listen to Kitty, be like Uncle Phil. Yeah. Yeah, it’s okay to fail. It’s okay to stumble along the way. I think definitely persistence is why I’m still here. Yeah. Failing my way forward. Yeah, absolutely. And kicking goals occasionally. Yeah. So good on me. Yep. And you’ve managed… good on everyone that’s doing the same thing. Yeah. And more power to us.

Brea: Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Keep that curiosity going.

Lyndon: Now, we did say that we’d expand further on these names of these tiers. We’re not going to tell you why they are named. No, you’ve got to tell us why. Let me give some clues, maybe. Yep. So we did mention the Caravan, that’s the free tier. So that’s the starting point.

Brea: Free membership.

Lyndon: A moving home for the creatively curious. You receive basic updates, participate in polls and join our open community chat to share ideas and inspiration with fellow travellers. The first paid membership tier is called the Cabin. It’s where you’ll gain early access to public podcast episodes and join the Q&A thread. It’s a cozy space for exchanging thoughts and questions with us and fellow supporters.

Brea: Fantastic. And how much is that?

Lyndon: Four dollars U.S. Everything’s in U.S. dollars.

Brea: Everything’s in U.S. dollars because it seems to be the international standard.

Lyndon: The second membership tier is called The Cottage. It’s where the fires of inspiration burn brighter. Bree? Enjoy access to two subscriber-only podcasts released fortnightly.

Brea: Now, that is the thing you really want to get into. Okay. You’ve also got…

Lyndon: Access to Q&A live events. Yeah. For real-time creative discussions and everything from the Cabin.

Brea: Yeah, that’s great.

Lyndon: The Castle is the premium tier. It’s a home for the visionaries and dreamers who make it all possible?

Brea: Yeah.

Lyndon: So you’ll receive an invitation to our private AMA group, which is ask me anything. Yeah and how’s this, you’ll get a personal supporter credit in the audiobook that you’re writing, Bree. So Bree’s writing a novel, of course we’re doing the audiobook and that’s why I’m writing the soundtrack for that. And so you’ll get a personal credit in that also. Yep. Nice. Is pretty cool.

Brea: The commitment of your support. Yeah.

Lyndon: Yeah, the Cabin is like buying us each a cup of coffee for the month. And you get an extra two podcasts. Yeah. And those podcasts are pretty much following along the processes of how we’re putting together the novel and the music. Obviously separate podcasts. Yeah. They’re cool. They’re exciting. So anyway, so there you go. You’ll enjoy them, so go check out the Patreon. It wasn’t meant to be a massive Patreon plug, but it’s probably prudent.

The Importance of Support and Community Connection

Brea: What we’ve been doing with Patreon, so yeah, might as well say what people will get if they want to join at any of those membership tiers.

Lyndon: And the support is important. I was blindly going along thinking that, apart from our time, there was no actual real cost to us. And then I discovered that no, there actually is a, there is a cost to doing this. There is a cost. Who would have thought?

Brea: There’s some software costs with the editing that goes on. Yeah, there’s all sorts of things. Yeah, even.

Lyndon: Please support the show. Even it doesn’t sound like a lot, like $4 a month. But it really makes a difference to us.

Brea: Yeah, definitely makes a difference to us. Helps us keep putting this show out.

Lyndon: And the other thing is, the community side of it. I think we’re actually really looking forward to that. And being able to connect with people.

Brea: With people, yeah. We were really excited to discover that would be quite a crucial part of our Patreon experience for our listeners, is that community interaction, that ability for you guys to tell us what you’re doing and to share between one another, different experiences, thoughts and so on. Do get involved and connect with others who are also having some pain in the arse.

Lyndon: You brought home a German backpacker, tourist.

Brea: I did. It was overshadowed by Mango Frenzy.

Lyndon: Gone to park my car and there’s a hippie van in the driveway.

Brea: I did, I brought her home from… what’s going on? From our local bushland where I was walking Birdie. Yeah.

Lyndon: And it’s interesting, I only spoke to her for half an hour or so before I had to leave, but I did feel like it expanded our world a little bit. It was nice.

Brea: Ah, yeah. So good to hear about where she lives.

Lyndon: It’s always nice to have someone come over and have a bit of a chat, which doesn’t happen a lot for us. So yeah, to have someone from Germany showing us pictures of where she lives and talking about her country and different parts of Europe afterwards. I just felt like my world had expanded. So as much as the community will be a cool thing people to be involved with. I think it’ll actually be fun for us as well.

Brea: Yeah, I’m really looking forward to hearing you guys tell us about your community. Your lives here, what you’re doing creatively, your interest in the podcast is and yeah, sharing a bit more about yourselves.

Lyndon: You have been listening to Pain in the Arts. You can support the show on patreon.com. Visit our website, paininthearts.life. Follow our show wherever you get your podcasts. Until next week, thanks for listening.

Brea: See you then.

Lyndon: Bye.

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