This is episode 4, the one about redefining success. When thinking of success, we tend to have a narrow definition of it which often leads to feeling negative about one’s self and their achievements. However, success can encompass a much wider variety of definitions, and we discuss this.

Transcript

Announcer: Welcome to tricky fish, a conversation between a Gen X dad and his millennial daughter. Here’s your host, Ian and Rhiannon.

I: Okay, when you think of success, what comes to mind?

R: Honestly, this is a weird time in my life to be having this conversation because I’ve been trying to be more patient with myself. And so to me, success is just anything, any goal I have that I achieve, even if it’s small. But I know that generally speaking, like the ideas for success is to like… go to college, get a degree of some sort, then find a career, get a partner, settle down, have kids buy a house, get cars, things like that. I don’t know if that will work for me, though.

I: Okay, that’s a good one. I definitely think that most people when they think of success, it’s usually centers around fame and money, or maybe getting a PhD or something along those lines. 

R: Mhm.

I: But that narrow definition of success, that narrow focus of success does not necessarily equate to happiness. Now, if your idea of success is to become famous, and rich, and you become famous and rich, then certainly there is that bit of happiness that you can get. However, what I want to do is, I actually want to talk this episode about redefining success. Because when I was younger, I found myself with your stepmother. A lot of the decisions I was making, at that time, were very much centered around ‘Keeping Up with the Joneses’, because that’s what she wanted. It was not something that I wanted, it was not something I was interested in; definitely didn’t make me happy. But because I was comparing myself to that, to gaining the physical manifestations of “success”, I was not finding happiness in my own life. So I really want to talk about redefining success in a way that acknowledges the successes that we have in our lives, while at the same time re-attenuating that so that we’re focusing on the kind of success that also leads to happiness. Does that make sense?

R: Yeah. I was gonna say like, it sounded like you were trying to make sure that happiness and success are goals that go hand in hand together, because you were equating them quite a bit. So I would love to hear how you think we should do that.

I: Okay, well, we’re definitely gonna talk about that. So the definition of success is “the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors, the accomplishment of one’s goals, the attainment of wealth, position, honors of the like, a performance or achievement that is marked by success, as by the attainment of honors, such as the play was an instant success, person or thing that has had success as measured by attainment of goals, wealth, etc. She was a great success on the talk show”, as an example. But I think at its most basic success is the meeting of a defined range of expectations, it can be seen as the opposite of failure. And I feel like the criteria depends on context. A little bit of a background, I’ve had a rocky… life.

R: As being part of it, I can confirm.

I: Yes, with us, like you and I, we’ve had a rocky relationship to the point where it deteriorated to a point where we were not talking to each other. We were blocked on social media, phone numbers, etc. But here we are, we’re doing a podcast. So if you look at success in that narrow scope of wealth and fame, I’m neither famous nor wealthy. And so looking at it in that, I’m not successful. But if I take a look at the definition of success being the favorable or prosperous termination attempts or endeavors, the accomplishment of one’s goals, then us sitting here doing this podcast is a success. 

R: Yeah, I agree.

I: Because in order for – in order for you and me to be doing this right now, we would have to be in a good place in our relationship. Because there’s no way we would have- at the worst of our relationship, there’d be no way either one of us would want to even be in the same room, much less doing a podcast.

R: Yeah. Or that it would even go this nicely, or civilly, I guess. It’s not even a word. I’m so sorry, Internet. 

I: Yeah, “civilly” these a word. 

R: Okay. I don’t believe it, but okay.

I: You know what? This is our podcast, we can define it as we want. I’m saying it’s a word.

R: That’s true, we can do whatever we want. I was actually thinking how we’re always striving for improvement. Most people are always striving for improvement and are always trying to find ways to be better ways to make their lives better, be healthier, whatever. And we never really stopped to really appreciate in the moment that we’re living in the moment that Past Us has been striving for, while pining for a Future Us that we want to be someday. And we never stopped to really pat Past Us on the back and acknowledge that like; when I was a kid I wanted to move out of the city we were in and into like a much bigger one. I gave up on my dream a long time ago, but yet here I sit right now like we moved last year.

I: Right

R: Crazier things have happened and that’s a success. 

I: That is a success, yeah. 

R: Now I’m in the mindset of “Okay, we’re in an apartment. How do I get us into a house?” So instead of having that on my mind all the time and being upset that I don’t have a house yet, I’m still very proud of myself for getting here. And I’m cool with being in an apartment for a while until I figure out what works best for us going forward. Because I’m also taking the time to acknowledge that where I’m at past me was working really hard to get to.

I: Sure. 

R: So like we have to acknowledge Past Us’ as successes that got us to where we are now that’s propelling us towards what we want in the future.

I: Yeah, absolutely. I’m working on a book, I wrote my first draft last year, finished it up in December. And when I was younger, I wanted to be a famous author. So like Stephen King, or Clive Barker, or whatever. And over the years, there’d be certain things that would happen, that would be a setback that I actually did not look at the success of it, I looked at it as at the fail side of it. 

R: Mhm.

I: And as a result, that gave me a negative mindset. They’re like, “Oh, I’m never gonna be able to do this. I’m just totally not cut out for it. I’m not a writer, nobody’s gonna want to read my stuff.” When I sat down last year to write the book, I had basically told myself, okay, I’m going to write the first draft, even if it sucks, 

R: Right and I’m glad you did. 

I: And now, I did use- there’s a thing in November called National Novel Writing Month or something like that. NaNoWriMo in basically to “win it”, you have to write 55,000 words. So I did use that as a means of keeping track of that success because I had a goal. And that goal is-

R: Which if I do recall, you did complete it right? Like you overshot it?

I: Oh yeah, I think I ended up with like, 68,000 some odd words. 

R: Heck yeah!

I: So yeah, I shot over it. Of course, it wasn’t finished. At the end of November, I still had some to go. But I did continue it. And I finished it in December. 

R: Yay!

I: But my point is, is that in taking a different mindset of what success looks like, in the case of NaNoWriMo, I figured out that in order to… I forget the exact amount of words I would need to hit each day over that 30 day period to meet the 55,000 words.

R: Mhm.

I: But it ended up being something like 2500. So listeners, if that’s not the correct amount, don’t correct me, I’m…

R: -laughs-

I: I’m not bothering to do the math for this. This is just an example. So and I broke it down into smaller bite sized chunks. I said, ‘Okay, I have to write a minimum’. So we’ll say it was 2500 words just for a goal. So I knew that I had to write at least 2500 words per day to reach the 55,000 word goal. 

R: Mhm.

I: And there absolutely were days that I did not reach that goal. I think there was a couple days where I managed to get one day I had gotten like 152 or 156 words, so not very much at all. There was another one where I managed, I think 75 words, if I’m recalling correctly; I only had two really bad days. Now going into it, I suffer from depression, PTSD, and chronic pain. So I had those three things against me. So any one of those things could take me out. But I was willing to be more forgiving with myself. So those two days where I didn’t do anything, the fact that I sat down and wrote anything, that was the success.

R: Honestly, that’s one thing I keep telling myself, over and over and over again. Especially I post on TikTok videos all the time that progress is still progress, no matter how small of an amount- it’s still progress. It’s better than not doing anything at all, it still gets you in the point of the direction that you want to go in. So if you’re the kind of person like me, that beats yourself up, if you do nothing “productive” with your day, then giving yourself that break of ‘progress is still progress’ allows you to actually relax and enjoy that day so that you can recharge and have more energy to do something later. Versus beating yourself up about it the whole time and then you just end up in a worse emotional state than you were before. 

I: Yeah, absolutely. 

R: Progress is still progress.

I: And it’s still a success. So if I had approached this with like, the negative mindset that I used to, and the more narrow definition of success, I would have looked at that day where I did 75 words, and I would have said I was a failure. I completely failed. But because I was approaching this that I needed to write every day, even if it didn’t meet the goal. So that day that I did 75 words, did I meet the overarching goal for that day? No, I didn’t. And you could look at that and go, Well, that’s a failure. But I was in that seat. And I did it the day that I had the 75 words, I actually was having a bad pain flare up. So it was hard to just sit in a seat type out 75 words, and I guarantee you those 75 words are not my best work ever. But I got in that chair, I typed out the 75 words, I successfully met that goal of writing every day. So that is something that when you’re thinking about success, you need to be more focused and recognize the smaller successes as opposed to the larger successes. And that makes me think of a quote by Steve Jobs, who if our listeners don’t know who that is, he was the founder of apple.

R: …how could somebody listening to a podcast not know who Steve Jobs is…?

I: it could be a month old baby, 

R: why would a month old baby be listening to our podcast 

I: because that’s one hip baby. 

R: -laughs- 

I: That’s a cool baby if that baby’s at one month, listening to our podcast.

R: That is a successful baby! 

I: That is- that is a successful baby, that baby’s going places, you watch! But Steve Jobs who said, “If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.” And how that fits in is that I did complete the first draft, it is horrible, I gotta go back. And I’m working on the second draft now. But it took we’ll say 30 days, it took longer than 30 days, because it was mid December by the time I finished it. But if you just take a look at that time period in November to get to that first draft, the completed first draft, it took being in the chair writing every day. So someone coming in might be like, ‘Oh, you wrote a first draft of your novel. That’s awesome.’ Okay, but it took me a month and a half to do but it was each one of those little things. And so if you’re re orienting yourself, as far as what success means, then you’re going to celebrate that you were in the way that I was in the chair every day. And if you’re somebody who suffers from chronic pain, like fibromyalgia, or whatever, it’s sometimes hard to get up and do anything. So if you’re having that pain flare up, and you manage to get up and fix yourself something to eat or take a shower, that’s a success. You know, if you’re real-

R: Especially because I know a lot of people who have chronic health issues, that also have family or friends in their life that are not understanding of what life with chronic pain is like. 

I: Yeah.

R: And by that I mean, for example, Paul also has chronic health issues, to the point that he always feels like garbage, some days are just easier to deal with it, but he still feels terrible. And then there are some days that are so bad that I have to take him to the hospital and just to get fluids in him because he’s so dehydrated, 

I: Right.

R: -and everything. So like there’s low key always being miserable. And some days, it’s just a little bit easier to deal with. And then some days, it really really sucks. But there’s no like level baseline near the normal other people get. So they’d be like, ‘well, you should be able to do this, you should be able to complete these tasks.’ Well, I should, but my mortal vessel is kind of defective. So I got to work with what I got, you know?

I: Yeah, absolutely. That’s a good point. The thing is, you’re reorienting so you’re not comparing yourself to other successes.

R: Mhm.

I: There are people that they do have way worse than I do. I haven’t had a real bad pain flare up in a couple of weeks. Now that I’ve said something, it’s probably going to happen. But my roommate, she gets really bad migraines that will take her out. For me, I don’t have those migraines. So if she were comparing herself to me, she might not- i’m not saying she does, I’m just saying that she may look at that and go, ‘Oh, well, I can’t get up as often as you do.’ But I’m also very stubborn. So even when I should be babying myself a little bit more and kind of do things to stave that off.

R: Yeah, but that’s when you need to look at it and be stubborn with your self care and self acceptance and reevaluating your definition of success.

I: Right. But my stubbornness has allowed me to kind of power through some things that for somebody else might actually take them out, you know, and cause them to have to be down for a while. So if they were to compare themselves to me, they might see themselves as a failure. Well, because he has chronic pain, and he’s able to get up and do these things. But it’s also kind of like, Yeah, but I’m gonna pay for it later. And that’s the thing we don’t see. And that’s the thing with social media, too, is you see all the carefully curated pictures, the things that show you, you know, somebody shows you that wonderful dish of food that they cooked, but they don’t show you the pictures of the dish before it was horribly burned and ruined a pan. 

R: -laughs-

I: So when you go to attempt to cook

R: Says the man who once found a way to burn water, 

I: yeah right. Yeah, yeah. That’s actually a story I tell people they like ‘yeah, I’m just a bad cook. I’m so bad that my daughter learned how to cook just so that they can eat decent food.’

R: -laughs-

I: It is horrible. Yeah. 

R: I mean, they did have a culinary arts class at my school. So I at least learned how to cook. 

I: Well, yes. What’s funny, though, is I remember going into the kitchen, and you’d already started to cook. And I was like, ‘Hey, you don’t need to cook. I’ll cook’, and you’re like, ‘no, I got it, dad.’ And I thought you were being nice. And then later I found out like, ‘No, I just learned to cook so we don’t have to eat your crappy food.’ And I was like, “awwwe” but yeah, I mean I know, it’s bad.

R: Hey, it was still a powerful motivator, it was a powerful motivator. And you inspired me to learn a necessary skill that I use every day. So…

I: success!

R: That would be a success!

Both: -laugh-

I: Thing is, like I just cooked tonight a New York steak. I cooked two. It’s my second attempt at it and then it actually worked for the most part. A little saltier than I would have preferred but I think that’s something that I can adjust another time, but it actually was a success. So I did post that to social media because I was proud of it. Because that was a success, I was celebrating that success. But what will never ever be on social media, partly because we never took a picture of it. But even if I did have a picture of it, I would not put it on there. It’s a picture of that pan that I ruined burning water. 

R: – laughs-

I: So there-

R: Wanna know something interesting though? I have always had a preference for older men, and my male partners, and then females’ a totally different thing. But in each man that I’ve pursued and have been able to have these kinds of conversations with, they have all said this to me: “You learn more from failure than you do success”.

I: True. 

R: And like every single one, they would be considered successful in their own ways depending on their goals, and their careers and things like that, and what I envy of them. But they all have said, every single one at some point has said to me, “You learn more from failure than us from success.” So while on one hand, yes, we need to acknowledge that we do make successes, and that we’re making progress on our goals, and we’re doing small things every day that are going to build up over time. But also when we fail, it’s good, because now you’re learning how not to do the thing you want to do. You’re learning how to get closer to what you want, versus just going at something blind and hoping for the best. So while yes, the setbacks might suck, they’re teaching you something to help you get to the point that you want to be at.

I: That reminds me of something that my dad told me. My dad was never really a part of my life growing up. But he did give me two pieces of advice that were really good that I have taken to heart and lived by my entire life. One is “if you can’t deal honestly with someone, don’t deal with them at all.” 

R: Solid.

I: And then the second one is “it’s never truly a failure if you learn something from it.”

R: That’s solid too. 

I: Yeah, and that’s true. Here’s an example that, where we are recording an earlier episode-

R: Mhm.

I: We had to pause and I was like, ‘sure, all I have to do is hit this button, and it’ll pause. And then we can hit the button again and pick up where we left off.’ Well, the failure was, how I did it was not how you successfully paused it. So what I did was I effectively ended the one episode, 

R: instead of pause. 

I: Right, instead of pause. And then I created a second file when I started over again, thinking ‘okay, we’re unpaused. Let’s continue.’ Yeah, now the failure there was that I didn’t properly pause it, I now know the proper way to pause it. So I learned how to do that from that. But I also learned how to take the two separate sound files and put them together. So that episode, I won’t say which one because I don’t want anybody like, “Oh, this is that episode he screwed up on.” But if you listen to it, you’ll never know it’s two files put together cuz I screwed up. But that’s not-

R: And see that right, there is a success, because originally we messed it up. And we could have been so stressed out and we could have lost our minds. But instead we’re like, ‘okay, let’s find the answer that we actually need.’ So we looked it up. And then you ended up learning new skills and abilities that are going to benefit us in the long term. It was a setback. But it ultimately led to a good thing, because we learned more from that failure than if we had just paused the button and it worked correctly, you would have never figured out how to fix the files.

I: That’s true. Although I do want to point out that I don’t think we would have lost our minds. Because I remember I wasn’t losing my mind, per se. But I was like, oh, man, I screwed this up. And your approach was ‘Well, I mean, we have to re record it, we’ll re record it.’

R: -laughs-

I: So even if that didn’t work out, we

R: well because I also believed in your abilities. I had all the faith that you would be able to figure it out. I wasn’t worried for a second.

I: I appreciate that. Because sometimes I just feel like I’m a hairless ape that’s just pushing buttons and hoping it works.

R: Aren’t we all? 

I: True. That’s,that’s, that’s evolution, kids. We evolved, and we lost a lot of our hair and we are yelling at the void

R: And a lot of our intelligence.

I: and hoping we push the right buttons.

R: And we learn more from failure than we do success, kids!

I: Yes, absolutely. So what I really want people listening to this to understand is reorient your view of success. If you want to be rich and famous, by all means, go for it. Because nothing- because you never know. Now we can’t all be rich and famous, that would just make us all peers again, but absolutely go for it. I will tell you that there’s things in my life where I’ve just gone for it, even if I feel like I wasn’t necessarily going to achieve whatever it was. And sometimes I didn’t achieve it but because I went for it, oftentimes I would end up in a better place. Even if I didn’t achieve that specific goal, like I found myself in a better place. The other thing too is don’t compare yourself to other people. Look at where you’re at. Now part of being successful is obviously you need a goal, so you want to set goals. I don’t think that you’re going to be successful just hanging out hoping, for example, if you’re wanting to be YouTube famous, which…

R: oof…

I: oof is right. That’s whatever. I don’t want to- I don’t want to rain on our listeners parades. If we have have listeners out there that want to be YouTube famous, go for it, live your best life, whatever makes you happy. But if you just record some stuff, upload it to YouTube and then sit back and never do anything, you’re not going to reach that goal. So you have to have goals like how are you going to achieve things talking about this podcast, specifically, but not specific in the details. When you and I were talking about, you know, behind the scenes, like how we were going to promote this, how we were going to get the word out, we actually talked about things and we actually came up with plans for things to do. Right now, they’re not completely solid, because we’re just trying to get this up off the ground first. And then once we get this up off the ground, then we can revisit that a little bit better. But those goals are still out there. And that’s how you’re going to achieve whatever you set out. So to relate it to something if I’m having a bad pain flare up, and I’m working on my book. So using that, then my goal is to write every day. And I do have a word count goal, which personally for me is 2500 words, which roughly equates to about six pages, I think, a day. That’s why 2500 sticks in my head because it was my personal goal. But my goal is to write every day. And if I write every day, and I reach that 2500 or exceed it, great. But I’m still successful, because I still sat down and wrote even if it was 75 words. 

R: So the takeaway here is to be patient with yourself, acknowledge your small successes, even if it’s not as much as you originally anticipated on doing and live your own journey instead of comparing yours to everyone else’s 

I: Correct, but have goals. 

R: Yeah, and have direction. I feel like direction, because you can you can still have goals without really having, like a clear definitive plan. I have a loosely based life plan like ‘this would be kind of cool.’ As long as generally the decision/decisions I’m making bring me closer to that. It doesn’t always necessarily have to be like you don’t have to sit down and create a timeline and 10 specific points. Just make sure you’re keeping your intentions in mind. But with that…

I: Well when you say- so I’m saying you gotta have goals, but you’re saying you also have to have direction; like what do you mean?

R: So trying to think of an example, because I was not anticipating that I thought my description was clear. So I want to be an event planner. So with that in mind, right now I am working at Starbucks, at like in a store. But they do have positions in corporate I could apply for for the events team like in the future, 

I: Right.

R: Even though I necessarily can’t be an event planner on my own. The fact that I’m staying at Starbucks, and I’m taking advantage of their education program in the meantime, while COVID has everything shut down, I’m still making progress on the goal that I someday have. Because I’m working on this four year degree, even though I’m not directly going and doing an event planning job right now. I’m still headed in the right direction, I’m still making progress towards what I want to do, even if it’s not exactly the goal that I have right now.

I: Okay, so you’re- so in this case, the ultimate goal is to be an event planner. 

R: Yeah.

I: Okay. But the direction is that you’re taking the step that’s propelling you in that direction.

R: Yeah, I’m going to college to get a degree to do that someday. Yeah. Okay.

I: I just wanted to be clear, that’s where you’re going with it. All right. So and other things, too, that I want to put out there is it’s never too late to start over. I hear a lot of people over the years that say, ‘Oh, I’m too old to go back to school’, or ‘I’m too old to change careers’, or ‘I’m too old to learn to play guitar’, or ‘I’m too boring to start a podcast’. It’s never too late to start over, it’s never too late to start something. I’m 50 years old; I wrote my first draft on my novel, I keep talking about this, but it’s I feel like it’s a good example, at the age of 50. But one of the things that as I was researching topics for this to offer this episode, I encountered a few things that I thought was really interesting. For example, Stan Lee, who passed away not too long ago, but he was the head of Marvel Comics for many years. He was 40 years old when he finally found success in comics, so he’d been doing comics for years. But it wasn’t until he was 40, he started seeing success with characters like Spider Man, Fantastic Four and the X Men. Julia Child, famous chef; she was 50 when she published her first cookbook.

R: Oh, that’s true. 

I: So yeah, when I read that-

R: Oprah didn’t become a thing until she was like in her 40’s, I think.

I: Yes, something like that. But the interesting thing with Julia Child is like I grew up, my mom would watch her cooking shows on PBS or whatever it was on. I always assumed that she had been successful for years as a chef doing cookbooks and stuff. So when I read that she was 50 when she published her first cookbook, I’m like, ‘Oh, well then I’m still on track for becoming a famous writer.’

R: You’ll get there, I believe in you.

I: I will. I will. Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken thing. He was 62 years old before Kentucky Fried Chicken became successful. 

R: Wow. 

I: 62 years old, like several decades of messing around with chicken and different chicken recipes. 

R: -laughs-

I: It’s horrible how I said it

R: Whoever his wife is must really, really, really love him. That’s all I have to say.

I: I think This is not anything that I read, but I am in my head. I imagine that his wife said, Look, Colonel Sanders, this is really ridiculous. You’ve been monkeying around with chicken and chicken recipes. For years, this is going nowhere.

R: You’ve been clucking around with this chicken recipe this whole time!

I: Yeah, just like ‘if you don’t make this by the age of 63, I’m asking for a divorce’. And he loved her that much that he made it by 62. He got in under the-

R: by the skin of his teeth, as they say.

I: By the skin of his chickens, 

R: It was a success!

I: It was a success, yeah. So it’s never too late to start over. Whatever you want to do, you can do and the greatest thing and this is the biggest thing I want our listeners to take away from this is that you get to write your own definition of success. You don’t have to stick with the rich and famous aspect of success. If you set out to do something, let’s say you want to learn to play guitar and you learn to play guitar. Boom, you’re a success!

R: Even if it’s one song, 

I: Even if it’s one song, yeah.

R: My ex boyfriend once taught me some chords to Seven Nation Army. By I don’t know …the White Stripes, or something?

I: Yeah, white stripes. Yeah,

R: Yeah, he taught me a couple chords to that. And I knew it for a couple years. I can’t do it now but I consider that a success because I never thought I would be able to play anything on the guitar. And so I could kind of do that. That was dope.

I: So let me tell you about my guitar learning journey. There’s a video I took of me playing what little I knew. Which amounted to like the first part of Queens Reich Silent Lucidity, two or three Black Sabbath baselines and that was, it had nothing. And I’ll tell you, I went back and saw that video, and it was cringy ‘AF’ is the kids say, and I’m never gonna let that out into the world. It’s so bad. But at that point, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to document my progress. And in two months, if I don’t see any appreciable progress, then that’ll tell me I can’t play guitar and to move on.’ 

R: Mhm.

I: My first lesson with my current guitar teacher, I had three other teachers before him that were just horrible. I don’t want to say that they were necessarily horrible teachers, they just were probably not the right teachers for me. But that being said, I walked out of the first lesson, knowing four chords and two songs, just the basic- 

R: Heck yeah! 

I: Right! And it was just basic strumming. When you think about someone who plays guitar, like you don’t think about the very basic stuff. So I went into my guitar lesson today, and we’ve been working on strumming. So two things with that we went in, he decided, like, ‘Alright, let’s just check out your strumming.’ So we played along with some songs, some Eagle songs, Horse With No Name by the band America, which is actually one of my favorite songs. Oh my god, I rocked it.

R: I think my oldest son really liked that song, too. 

I: It’s a good song. But I was totally rockin. I was, I was able to keep up with the song. I was strumming like I didn’t-

R: Just in the zone!

I: I was in the zone. Yeah, absolutely. Not only that, one of the songs. I have a list of songs that I want to learn to play on the guitar. I don’t know if you’re familiar with there’s a band called, Four Non Blondes, and they have a song called What’s Going On? 

R: Mhm.

I: Do you know what song? 

R: I have definitely heard that song.

I: Okay. Yeah, I’m sure pretty much everybody’s heard of that song. Even if they don’t know what the name of it is. If we played it, they would be like, ‘Oh, I know that song.’ I taught myself to play that this week.

R: Nice!

I: Like the full strumming chord changes the whole thing. It’s actually-

R: Way to go! I remember you, I think you sent me that video you recorded where you were like, really insecure about it. But you were doing good and then, now here you are kicking ass. 

I: Yeah. 

R: Taking names, writing songs…

I: And what’s funny is like the songs. A while back, I would never have played in front of anybody. I would like to embarrass like, like, I suck. Now. I’m like, you want to see what I can do? Like I do 

R: To quote Jake, the dog. “The first step to being good at something is kind of sucking at something.”

I: For sure. Yeah. Oh, and I absolutely sucked at guitar. Like if you could see that video and you knew nothing about that I was taking lessons, you would have just looked at me and been like, don’t do that again.

R: -laughs- I think it would only matter if you’re like, ‘Hey, girl, you want to see what these fingers do?’ And then you just like fumbled through it the whole time. You were trying to own it as like a seduction thing, I don’t think that would work. But if you were honestly like, ‘you want to see this thing I’ve been working really hard on I’m trying I’m learning’ like it would be so cute and endearing. It just depends on how you go about it.

I: I just be like, ‘Hey, babe, check this out. See what my fingers can do.’ And then I’ve just played the opening to sound acidity 

R: -laughs-

I: Over and over, like it would never go anywhere. Just be that opening.

R: Perfect, that’s all you need.

I: Right? Hope she’s a Queens Reich fan and that’s her favorite song because that’s all I’m gonna be able to play. But uh…

R: I would do anything for love, but I won’t sit through that.

I: -laughs- Nice! I don’t blame anybody on that one. But no, it’s just again, it’s like I’ve been wanting to play guitar for decades. And like, I’m just now starting to do it. And that’s my point. Like, it’s never too late to start. 

R: And I’m proud of you.

I: It’s never too late to start over. And you know, I know I’m not playing in clubs. I’m not playing in a band. I’m not you know having a stadium full of adoring people throwing their underwear at me, whatever. But that’s fine. I sit down and turn the song on and I’m playing with it. I’m just in the groove. Awe yes, I’m doing it. I’m happy. And that’s me writing my own definition of success. And that definition is I can play along with those songs that I like.

R: Heck, yeah. I love these realistic goals. Way to smash them. 

I: Heck, yes. 

R: Like the hulk, but like much more reasonable.

I: Much, much more reasonable. 

R: Although I will say at the end, the Hulk and Bruce, you know, like they make, they make a good team, a good compromise. I like what they do with the place.

I: -laughs- Well see, it’s never too late to start or start over. And even the Hulk gets to write his own definition of success. 

R: -laughs-

I: Alright, so that is it. And I hope that our listeners go forth, celebrate their successes, no matter how big or small and if someone wants to tell you that that’s not a success, or you’re not cool or whatever. Don’t listen, those people they don’t know what they’re talking about. You define your success. Not anyone else. All right. Did you have anything else you wanted to contribute to that?

R: mmm, I mean, I think I think you recapped it pretty well.

I: All right. Well, with that. That brings it to an end of Episode Four. The one about success have a week.

R: And this has been another episode of tricky fish. If you liked what you heard and want more of us. You can find us on Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever else you find your podcasts, reviews and comments really help us out so feel free to leave this one. Otherwise, you can find us at tricky fish podcast.com and twitter at tricky fish pod

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