484 - Creativity vs Discipline: Finding Balance Between these Oppositional Forces with Andy J. Pizza

Summary

Creative Pep Talk Episode 484 Summary: "Creativity vs Discipline: Finding Balance Between these Oppositional Forces with Andy J. Pizza"

Release Date: December 18, 2024

Introduction

In this landmark episode celebrating the 10th anniversary of Creative Pep Talk, host Andy J. Pizza engages in a deep and introspective conversation with acclaimed writer Catherine May. This special episode delves into the intricate balance between creativity and discipline, particularly through the lens of neurodivergent individuals. The discussion offers invaluable insights for creatives grappling with maintaining consistency while nurturing their creative impulses.

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1. Celebrating a Decade of Creativity and Consistency

Andy J. Pizza begins by reflecting on the challenges of sustaining a creative practice over ten years, especially as someone with ADHD. He shares his journey of transforming creativity from sporadic bursts into a disciplined practice through podcasting.

• Andy (00:03): "Creativity is about doing something new. Discipline is about doing something consistently. The aim of this podcast is to help you strike that elusive balance."

Catherine May commends Andy's unwavering dedication, highlighting the rarity and significance of maintaining nearly 500 episodes over a decade.

• Catherine (10:24): "You have been circling some really common concerns for quite, for a decade. For a whole decade. And you're still doing it, which is amazing."

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2. The Intersection of Creativity and Neurodivergence

The conversation pivots to the challenges faced by neurodivergent creatives. Andy discusses his struggle with consistency due to ADHD and how adopting a disciplined approach redefined his creative process.

• Andy (05:30): "I shifted my thinking away from habits and towards disciplines that are flexible enough to contain my creativity."

Catherine shares her experiences as an autistic individual, emphasizing the importance of authenticity and the pitfalls of masking one's true self.

• Catherine (51:00): "I can feel that in someone else. That level of fascination that's really crucial to good work."

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3. Podcasting as a Creative Discipline

Andy reveals how podcasting served as the perfect medium to channel his overflowing creative ideas, allowing him to maintain consistency and deepen connections with his audience.

• Andy (48:18): "I see my illustration as not drawing, but writing with pictures. Podcasting allowed me to tell stories and share insights in a structured yet creative way."

Catherine discusses the parallels between podcasting and other creative forms like stand-up comedy, noting the analytical and spontaneous aspects that make podcasting uniquely suited for creative expression.

• Catherine (50:09): "It's about finding that freshness and authenticity, which is what people crave from a podcast."

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4. Embracing Authenticity and Overcoming Self-Doubt

The duo addresses the vulnerability involved in sharing personal struggles and the fear of negative perceptions. Andy recounts his initial fears of discussing ADHD and how embracing his neurodivergence transformed his self-image.

• Andy (66:07): "Embracing my neurodivergence changed everything about how I thought about life and myself."

Catherine echoes this sentiment, highlighting the liberation that comes with self-identification and advocating for small, reasonable accommodations to support neurodivergent individuals.

• Catherine (62:50): "It's not about big demands; it's about small, reasonable adjustments that make a significant difference."

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5. The Evolution of Creative Practices and Community Support

Andy and Catherine explore how creative practices evolve over time, influenced by personal growth and community interactions. Andy credits his supportive team and loyal listeners for sustaining his creative journey.

• Andy (84:17): "I'm so grateful to all the listeners and supporters who have kept this show afloat over the years."

Catherine emphasizes the importance of building communities that recognize and celebrate diverse creative expressions.

• Catherine (84:11): "Creating spaces out of love and respect allows your authentic self to shine, attracting others who resonate with your truth."

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6. Practical Advice: Channeling Your Overflow

In the episode's concluding segment, Andy challenges listeners to identify their "overflow"—the surplus of ideas and creativity that need an outlet. He encourages finding a medium, like podcasting, that aligns with one's passions and allows for consistent creative expression.

• Andy (76:38): "Find your overflow. Identify where you’re producing more than you can handle and create a 'bucket' to channel that surplus into a disciplined creative practice."

Catherine adds that embracing one's unique creative process and respecting the specific platforms where audiences seek content is crucial for meaningful engagement.

• Catherine (80:07): "Respect the space you're in. If you're making a podcast, create for podcast lovers who appreciate the depth and authenticity you offer."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Andy J. Pizza (00:03): "Creativity is about doing something new. Discipline is about doing something consistently."
• Catherine May (10:24): "You have been circling some really common concerns for quite, for a decade. For a whole decade. And you're still doing it, which is amazing."
• Andy J. Pizza (05:30): "I shifted my thinking away from habits and towards disciplines that are flexible enough to contain my creativity."
• Catherine May (51:00): "I can feel that in someone else. That level of fascination that's really crucial to good work."
• Andy J. Pizza (48:18): "I see my illustration as not drawing, but writing with pictures. Podcasting allowed me to tell stories and share insights in a structured yet creative way."
• Catherine May (50:09): "It's about finding that freshness and authenticity, which is what people crave from a podcast."
• Andy J. Pizza (66:07): "Embracing my neurodivergence changed everything about how I thought about life and myself."
• Catherine May (62:50): "It's not about big demands; it's about small, reasonable adjustments that make a significant difference."
• Andy J. Pizza (84:17): "I'm so grateful to all the listeners and supporters who have kept this show afloat over the years."
• Catherine May (84:11): "Creating spaces out of love and respect allows your authentic self to shine, attracting others who resonate with your truth."
• Andy J. Pizza (76:38): "Find your overflow. Identify where you’re producing more than you can handle and create a 'bucket' to channel that surplus into a disciplined creative practice."
• Catherine May (80:07): "Respect the space you're in. If you're making a podcast, create for podcast lovers who appreciate the depth and authenticity you offer."

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Conclusion and Call to Action

Andy wraps up the episode by reiterating the importance of channeling creative overflow into a disciplined practice. He encourages listeners to identify their unique surplus of ideas and find suitable outlets to harness their creative potential consistently.

• Andy (84:17): "Find your overflow. It's where you have more than is necessary, and use that surplus to build a sustainable creative practice."

The episode serves as both a celebration of a decade-long creative journey and a source of inspiration for listeners seeking to balance creativity with discipline, especially within the framework of neurodivergent experiences.

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Additional Thanks and Acknowledgments

Andy extends gratitude to Catherine May for her insightful interview, as well as to his team members and listeners who have supported the podcast over the years. Special mentions include:

• Sophie Miller: Co-producer and editor
• Connor Jones of Pending Beautiful: Audio editor and sound designer
• Yoni Wolf and the band: For the theme music and soundtrack

Closing Remarks

Andy concludes with heartfelt thanks and a final motivational message to stay creatively "pepped up."

• Andy (84:37): "Stay pepped up."

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This episode is a must-listen for creatives seeking to understand the delicate equilibrium between innovative impulses and the steadfastness required to sustain a long-term creative endeavor. Whether you're a writer, illustrator, musician, or any other type of creative, Andy and Catherine's conversation offers practical wisdom and heartfelt encouragement to navigate your creative journey with authenticity and discipline.

Transcript

[Andy J. Pizza]

On the creative journey, it's easy to get lost, but don't worry, you'll lift off. Sometimes you just need a Creative Pep talk. Hey, you're listening to Creative Pep Talk, a weekly podcast companion for your creative journey. I'm your host, Andy J. Pizza. I'm a New York Times Best selling author and illustrator and this show is just everything I'm learning about building and maintaining a thriving creative practice. Let's get into it I'm a believer in the idea of dressing for the job you want, not the job you have. And I have applied this to my creative practice too, which means if you want professional results, you need to present online like a pro. And that means going beyond social media and having a professional website that reflects your style and looks legit. I rebuilt my site this year with Squarespace's Fluid Engine and was so happy with how easily I could build my vision without coding that when they approached me to support the show, I jumped at the chance because I love and use this product. So go check it out. Squarespace.com Pep talk to test it out for yourself. And when you're ready to launch your site, use promo code PEP talk all one word, all caps for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks goes out to Squarespace for supporting the show and supporting creators all over the world. Hey, in case you don't know, we have a monthly live virtual meetup every last Monday of the month with supporters of the show from Patreon and Substack. We have so much fun on these calls and they are the warmest, most encouraging creatives that I have ever met. And we also talk real creative practice stuff. We have authors, illustrators, lettering artists, picture book makers, fine artists, musicians, and folks that work in video and film as well. And we have people that are just starting out, people super established in their creative careers and everything in between. For the rest of this year, we're going to chat through our new Journey of the True Fan series, exploring questions and ways to apply these ideas to your own creative practice so that you can leave 2024 stronger than you came in with more visibility, connection with your audience and sales. Sign up to whichever suits you best@ either patreon.com creativepeptalk or andyjpizza.substack.com and I hope to see you at this month's meetup. We all know that doing something substantial with your creativity requires some level of consistency, and it's why on this show we talk a lot about the idea of creativity as a practice or a habit. The Problem is that if you're a creative person, it's likely that you're the type of brain that finds it difficult to form habits to do things consistently. This is this deep tension that happens for lots of creators where they know that they're super creative and they know that they have to have a habit of creativity to do the things that they want to do. And yet those two things, you know, doing new things constantly, which is creativity versus doing things routinely, which is the habit, are almost at odds with each other. So there's almost a contradiction within this idea of creative practice. And I know firsthand because for me, it's really, really difficult to make something into what seems like a habit. In fact, a lot of folks in the ADHD community would say that people like me aren't able to truly have what neurotypicals have when they have a habit, because nothing is done automatically. Everything costs a type of willpower, energy that is limited. And so for me, this conundrum, this problem of knowing I'm creative and I want to do something with it, and I find it really difficult to be consistent or form habits. This has been a huge challenge in my creative practice and in my creative journey. And the way that I have shifted my thinking is away from habits like forming these behaviors that become automatic and into thinking of creativity as a discipline and figuring out what are the disciplines that I am committed to and passionate about and are flexible enough to contain my creativity. And the reason I'm talking about this today is because in this episode, I am going to turn the tables or they're going to be turned on me and I'm going to be interviewed for a special episode for the 10 year anniversary of this podcast. So we've been doing creative pep talk for 10 years, and so we're going to do a couple episodes, a few here and there sprinkled in, that celebrate this and maybe even glean some of the things that I have learned from doing a project of this size for this many years. The first and foremost being how to have that level of consistency. We've almost had a new episode every week for 10 years. And as a creative person, as an ADHD person, that is a challenge all on its own. And this episode gets into some of the stuff around podcasting, some of the reasons why this was the right creative discipline for me to be able to consistently show up. And I was lucky enough to have Catherine May, writer Catherine May, that we had on just a few episodes ago, volunteer to do the interview for this episode. And as a major fan of her work. I was just blown away and I couldn't even believe my luck. And then the episode and the questions that she brought were just phenomenal. I got moved and I was feeling the right level of vulnerability. Hangover after this episode where I feel like I shared enough to feel like, man, I'm kind of really putting myself out there. But not too much to where I felt like, oh, I don't know if I want to share this. It just feels like a behind the scenes on making this show, on my personal life and my approach to this creative discipline. So we talk about podcasting, we also talk about neurodivergence and how I've built my creative practice around the type of person that I am, which is what has been at the heart of this show since the very beginning. Since the very beginning, this show has been about what do you do when the paths that are in front of you are not built for you? How do you carve out your own unique path and take it up? A creative approach to building your existence? And so I'm going to talk about how I've done this, why things like podcasting suit me, what I've learned about podcasting and having a discipline that you can show up for for 10 years. And I'm going to get personal into some of my journey. So if you're new to the show, this is a great place to start because it will really give you an introduction to what this is all about, where it comes from, what it aims to do. And if you're a longtime listener, I think there's stuff on this episode that you've never heard and stuff you might have been curious about. So I'll let you get into it. Massive thanks to Catherine May for taking the time to do this. I can't even believe. I don't even know why I'm so lucky to have her do this. She's so thoughtful and intentional and her questions were just perfect for a 10 year kind of summary and deep dive. And everything kind of comes full circle at the end. I'll be back at the very end of this episode to share with you a creative call to adventure, a CTA on how to know what kind of creative discipline you should pursue. And I'm calling that channel your overflow. And I'll talk a little bit about what that means and how to do it at the end so that you can maybe have a marker like a decade plus of doing a similar creative discipline yourself. Because it is such a a great experience, it feels very satisfying and it really, it was the type of creative work that really worked on me and it changed who I was. So I'll let you get into the conversation. I hope you love this episode and I'll be back at the end. Thanks. Thanks so much for doing this again.

[Catherine May]

No, well, I'm really excited. Thank you for having me. And it's, it's a huge responsibility and I'm really excited. And I also, I just worry that this is going to be the episode that your listeners hate the most ever. Because it's like, who's this woman taking over?

[Andy J. Pizza]

They're not going to think that, I can guarantee it. I had so many. When you were on, so many people like you. Catherine May's on the show.

[Catherine May]

Oh, it's great.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I love it. I think they will not be thinking that.

[Catherine May]

Well, I'll try not to screw it up. But what I want to start by asking you, because this is like, we're marking two really big events in one. In a way, aren't we? We're marking reaching more or less 500 episodes.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Catherine May]

And 10 years. Like, what a collision of amazingly auspicious things that is.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Catherine May]

How do you feel about that?

[Andy J. Pizza]

I feel great about it. I think that by the time I started doing the show, it was getting used to a collection of disciplines. I'm adhd and so I, I think my relationship to discipline is fraught and just very difficult. And getting myself to do the work is the hardest work to me. That's probably the main thing is I'm just glad that I figured out a way to have a regular creative practice just being able to produce something. And most of that time I was also making episode art with it. And so, and then I'm also, you know, everybody has complex feelings about their work. I definitely have complex feelings about the show, but I mostly feel good about it. And even when I. Yeah, when I go back, which I don't hardly ever do, but I had recently to the early episodes, I realized like, oh, I was talking about the exact same things with just. I didn't have as much language for it. Sure. So, yeah, I, it feels, it feels really good. And you know, I think this year, hitting the 10 year mark, I felt like I was like, should I keep doing this? Or like, is this the time to stop? But then now at the end of the year, I'm like, I feel really refreshed. I feel like I think this is.

[Catherine May]

Just something I do, you know, I think that's amazing. I mean, I, I'm a quitter and I am too. Well, and I, I often blame this on my neurodivergence, but, but clearly, clearly that's not true because I find that I burn through an idea, like I'll, I'll go passionately into it and then it's spent and I'm always really comfortable walking away. But, but you have, I mean, this is a, it's remarkably consistent. I was listening, I was like sampling through the history of it before this. And as you say, you have been circling some really common concerns for quite, for a decade. For a whole decade. And you're still doing it, which is amazing. And I think what ties it all together is this sense of generosity towards the creative community that receive it.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. Thanks.

[Catherine May]

Is that what, I wonder if that's your motivation really to share what you know because it's so hard earned.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. I mean, it's funny because when I started I did, I was definitely maybe, I don't want to say maybe just less socially aware. You know, I was in my late 20s at the time, so I feel like I was just not aware. I didn't fully understand yet why people don't like advice.

[Catherine May]

It's so obvious.

[Andy J. Pizza]

It's so obvious. But I didn't, I didn't know that. And mainly because I'm like, my growing up, my dad would tell me and it was really kind of a diss on my older brother of like, Andy's really teachable. Like he, he's teachable. And I think that is true of me is that I actually like being given advice, which is also, I think, probably not normal. Yeah. And, and so it took me a long time to realize like, oh, probably about halfway through the run of the show I realized like, oh, I started to really understand why. Why is this a sensitive subject? What does it say about me that I have things to share that I feel like maybe people would benefit from and all of the, you know, therapy around just ego and all of that stuff because I also am really grossed out by ego. And so anyway, I, I, I feel like the generosity component, I do think that's the through line because when I, and I, I don't even think I'm especially generous. I think I'm literally just very selfish in that it feels so good to, to, I mean, I think we're just wired to help people. We want art to be social. And any breakthroughs I had in my illustration practice, the first ones I had, I wanted to tell my friends back home, hey, you can email blogs. Hey, you can like, I'm like doing this stuff, and it's really cool. Like. And I just instantly wanted to tell people because, yeah, I have so many creative people that. And a lot of people I knew growing up that I thought, oh, you're so much more talented. And then I am, and you're struggling so bad. And just if you're neurodivergent or creative and that huge circle Venn diagram that. That is a lot of the times, you know, the world is just not set up for you to thrive and you have a creative perspective just by the nature of having a different perspective. And I'm just. I think I was just. I just. The whole thing is driven by. Well, anything that seems to be helping me, I want to turn around and tell.

[Catherine May]

I'm going to talk about it. Yeah, yeah, that makes loads of sense to me. I mean, I. I think the world that we both work in, I mean, it's quite different, but it's really similar.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Sure.

[Catherine May]

And you go, if you're anything like me, you go on these kind of geeky deep dives to figure out how to do things. You know, like, I need to know how to build a website now, so I'm gonna. I'm gonna basically train in that.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Catherine May]

Or I need to make a podcast and so I'm gonna learn how to edit sound, you know, and. And then there's the whole marketing thing behind it. Like, how do you get people to know who you are and where you are? How do you communicate that? Like, that's a life's work to figure that out. And for some people, it's their main job and we do all of it on the side. And I feel like it just spills out of you. You want to say, okay, look, I've worked this out, guys. Like, here it is. Like, this is what we do.

[Andy J. Pizza]

100 anyone? I just want to give people shortcuts on it, too. I'm like, this took me. I had to read five books and, you know, struggle and make so many mistakes. And now I know I just would have known that little thing before I started. It would have been not such a headache. So, yeah, I think I. I am driven to just want to share, mainly because I just think it's so hard to be a creative type person. Just everything's hard.

[Catherine May]

It is. It's really hard.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And, you know, the other thing I was gonna say was where you were saying, like, to have this consistency, to me, it feels like it feels probably akin to someone writing or someone. Like, it doesn't feel like. Because to me, even though a Lot of the topics run through there were definitely like, oh, these three years. I was obsessed with Jungian dream interpretation. These three years, you know, and it's filtering into everything I'm doing, so I can kind of reinvent it as it goes in a way that feels still interesting.

[Catherine May]

Yeah. I mean, I find with a lot of the things I do that outside of my writing, they support it because they actually help me to have a kind of floodplain that all the extra ideas can flow onto, and I really need that.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. Yeah, that makes total sense.

[Catherine May]

So, yeah, take me back to right at the beginning, because I think the big question for you and me, it looms in my mind, like, why do we do this? You know, why did you start a podcast? What were your hopes and dreams about it? Like, who were you? Paint us that little picture.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. So, you know, one thing I. Every time I get into any topic about why I do something, I realize that I realized for a long time that I was making an assumption about what people knew. So usually when I would say, this is why I did a thing, that was usually like, the second or third reason, because I made. I think I made a deal with myself pretty early on. Just realized before I even knew I was adhd, I knew. People like me have a really hard time doing stuff they don't want to do. Like, they have to. Like, that is really essential. And I realized, like, I can do stuff I don't want to do, but it's a limited supply I have. I don't have tons of energy for that. So I realized that sometimes when I get into the details of why I did something, I'm missing the part that's the most true, which is I really wanted to do it. I just. I wanted to do it, and the reason. And. And my whole self wanted to do it, and I knew that. So I knew that my ego wanted to do it. And then I had, like, oh, this is like a strategy. Like, I want it. Like, there's reasons, good reasons why for my career, this is a good move. But then I knew also the deeper self wanted to do it. Like, I think this feels, like, meaningful and purposeful, and I feel uniquely suited to do this. And. And so that on the first level, I just knew I wanted to do it. And then on the second level, I, I. I had had a couple experiences. I think there was two things going on. I'd had a couple experiences doing some talks that were more like storytelling.

[Catherine May]

Right.

[Andy J. Pizza]

They weren't. They weren't like portfolio talks. They were just Like, I want to talk about a point and use metaphor and analogy and stuff like that. And I'd had such a powerful experience doing that that initially I was like, I don't even know if I want to be an illustrator anymore. I was already an illustrator.

[Catherine May]

Interesting.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I was already doing client illustration. And I. That was my career. I'd already gone full time doing that for a couple years by the time I started the show. But when I started doing these storytelling talks, I just had like one or two little opportunities. I thought, this is what I'm. I'm obsessed with analogy and metaphor and story, and then also the side of it. And it wasn't until a couple years later that I heard. I don't know if it was a TED Talk or something, but the person was like, I've got a story to tell you to kind of bring to life what I'm talking about. Here's my illustration. And I was like, they're the same thing. And then it actually really made me a better illustrator because I started seeing my illustration as not drawing, but writing with pictures. And so anyway, the reason I wanted to do it was I had these experiences. I wanted to have more of those. I wanted that to be a part of what I did. And I thought, I'm gonna create 100 episodes, and it's gonna be like a hundred episode portfolio of talks. And then people will know that that's something I do and want to do.

[Catherine May]

And, you know, I love that idea. I never thought of it like that.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. And. And I would already, like, I'd already. That I'd already taken that approach on a bunch of different other things. So editorial, illustration. I'd already. I'd already written a blog for several years and illustrated it, so people knew that I illustrated articles and, you know, that kind of thing. And so I'd had done. I'd done that a couple times. And then the other thing is, which I don't think I gave enough credit to this until later, now that I have a lot of disconnect from it, I feel comfortable saying this, but I also had. Was really surrounded by church culture in the Midwest, and I didn't grow up in an overly religious household, but I did have a period of time, my late teens, early 20s, that were a pretty religious experience. And I got really, really obsessed. It's so obvious now, but I got really obsessed with people that were incredible at sermons.

[Catherine May]

Oratory is kind of storytelling analogy and.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Metaphor, and my relationship to all that stuff has dramatically changed. But that. I think that was a piece of it that wasn't really obvious to me at the time of starting the show.

[Catherine May]

Just the lost art. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's.

[Andy J. Pizza]

It.

[Catherine May]

It is a lost art, and we are not encountering live speakers in the same way that we might once have done. And it's. And when you do hear someone speak really well live and in public, it feels amazing. It really goes right through you.

[Andy J. Pizza]

It does, exactly.

[Catherine May]

I never thought of a podcast like that. That's so interesting.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. And what's funny, it took me years to start thinking about, like, it probably wasn't until three or four years into it that I really started to see the connections and seeing, like, oh, I'm using basically the same art form to do a different thing. And there's so much. There's so much complex stuff around that. Because it touches religion.

[Catherine May]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

But I'm not religious. And so, to me, I. Yeah, there's maybe too many things we could talk about it, but I don't want to just take it that direction. But it wasn't until way later that I started realizing, oh, this is what this is. And then I was really surprised and delighted by hearing Ivra Glass on one of Mike Birbiglia's show talk about the same thing, because Mike Birbiglia was like, you kind of invented this storytelling thing of telling a story and then saying, this is what I think it means, and telling the story, and that's like, this American Life. And then Ira Glass is like, no, like, that's what Jesus did. Like, that's what. That's literally what he was doing. And so I do think it's just. I'm not trying to take all the mystical side of it out, but I do think it's a craft. It's an art form that is a.

[Catherine May]

Craft I just love.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Catherine May]

And so how has that craft developed over time? You know, what have you. What have you kind of developed like a muscle. What's kind of grown. But what have you very deliberately done as well? Like, what changes have you. Have you made to the craft?

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. So I Like when I. I'm trying to think back. So I think. I feel like this is one of the ways that the show has maybe even changed is that at the beginning, I was very much thinking about how do. I wasn't thinking about in terms of. I was already. I already knew I was adhd, but I wasn't thinking about. This is for neurodivergent people. I was just thinking people that are creative or people that need to take a creative Path. Yeah, I was thinking about that and I was trying to, I was mainly thinking about how do you build a life that is more suited to your creative nature? So I was thinking of that. But I would say at this point I'm as interested in that or more interested in how art and storytelling and metaphor and analogy, all that stuff helped me explain who I am and my story to people that I love. And so all of the things that I learned about story and analogy and all that craft element, the seeds of those were all the way back to when I was in college working at Subway. My parents, my parents made us have part time jobs from high school and into college. And I, you know, there's good and bad things about that, but I really hated it. It was like so painful, so physically painful, mentally painful in a way that's hard to explain. Literally just hard to explain. Especially to my dad and my stepmom who were long time corporate people like that. Like they are 100% bought into this. And I remember one day my dad met me for lunch on my lunch break at Subway. And I don't even remember what I said, but I know I was using an analogy to explain why this hurts, why this is so hard. And he says to me, he said to me, since he's like, that was the first day that I got it and I was interesting.

[Catherine May]

So he was open to it.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, I mean, but I had to use art, storytelling analogy. I had to use a craft to be understood. And so I think that, you know, over time I became more and more obsessed with understanding that I also came in the back door of, I don't know, a lot of artists have a, a natural. I also had a natural kind of rejection of craft because I like the intuitive nature of creativity and I like the mysticism of it and all that. But it was part of my, like part of my personal journey of deconstructing where I came from in my childhood and all that. That I got into Joseph Campbell and then right then Carl Jung and then storytelling books. But not through the lens of craft, just through the lens of trying to understand life, deepening that knowledge.

[Catherine May]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And so, yeah, so then it kind of rolled on from there, but then later it became. I would take stories that I loved, especially like stories that people were doing on stage and stuff like that, and I would just isolate them and then I would just listen to them over and over and I would think about where does this hit me right then? I try to think about what is happening in that moment, what, how Is it creating that? And I think you hear. I'm not saying I'm not necessarily comparing myself to a standup comic. I really respect that art form in a way that I don't even want to compare myself to it. But I've heard that they. I've heard them say similar things that.

[Catherine May]

Yeah, I would do that. Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And so I, you know, I kind of stumbled into doing that. But that, yeah, that's kind of been. And then that took over my whole creative practice of now that's just what I chase is like, can I construct a story? And I think of it like an opposite of a joke. So, okay, you know, instead of it being something that makes you laugh, like, if you've done it, you have a punchline, it makes you laugh. A story usually is going to make you feel, might make you well up, but it's also. It's going to hit this very particular chord.

[Catherine May]

Yeah, you're looking, Looking for that feeling. Yeah, I. I think for me, like, one of the. One of the things that unites truly creative people is that it's the learning that they're motivated by, and the outputs are almost incidental. You know, like, you might learn a really interesting thing and you might make a podcast about it. You might illustrate it. You might, you know, write a story about it in lots of ways that doesn't really matter. The core of it is this fascination with information, Ideas, feelings, concepts.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, that's in a way I'm trying to, like, through. I also, it's like, it feels very much like the creative practice side of it is like the lab of, like, I want to take those things that I'm learning about and I want to apply them. Whether that's craft or whether that's just information, I wanna. I wanna pass it on and test it almost. And I think it has that symbiotic relationship with your curiosity, you know? Yeah. So I totally, totally feel that I always.

[Catherine May]

It always fascinates me. And. And what's interesting as well is that when you, I don't know, do events for writers and. And people put their hand up and say, well, where do you get ideas from? Like, how. And my response is like, if you're asking that question, you are not there, you know, but the question, get rid.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Of ideas, that's the question I'm trying.

[Catherine May]

To figure out, how do I stop these damn things coming in?

[Andy J. Pizza]

It's very true. Yeah. And I think, you know, the only time that wasn't true because I'm sensitive to thinking about, like, it doesn't if you don't have those ideas, I don't think it means that this isn't for you. But just what you just said, which is you're maybe not there in that. I think I didn't recognize what my kind of ideas looked like for a long time.

[Catherine May]

That's a really big one. Because actually we don't, or most of us don't grow up in households that say, oh, that's a creative idea. I can feel the chewiness of that. I get that.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yes.

[Catherine May]

And I used to throw away a whole load of stuff that I thought was just nonsense that was going through my head. And the. The thing that changed me was learning to keep a notebook and to write everything down like I did. I did a little course that said write down everything. Don't discern between it. Just capture the whole lot and see what kind of persists over time.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Catherine May]

And it was only then that I began to see that. That I'd been having those thoughts all along. I just hadn't been paying them any attention. They were always there.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. And also, those two threads from Mike Birbiglia's podcast has been on my head a lot. But the. This second thread is. I heard him talking about how it's so essential to. To. For him to be around comics because the funniest things are the things that are, like. He didn't use this term, but they're like the water that fish are surrounded by is the stuff where you're like, if you are writing all that stuff down and sharing it with people that have a similar sensibility or know your sensibility, they're able to be like, ooh, that's really good. And it's usually the things that are the most normal to you, and that's why you're not recognizing them. Does that make sense? Do you feel like it does?

[Catherine May]

It does. Yeah. And I. And it does really help to talk to other creative people about them. There's something about that, that. That kind of mutual recognition. Like, you. You don't make the same work. You don't have the same kind of ideas, but you do recognize the quality of a really good idea when it comes, even if it's nothing to do with your work. And you're like, tell me more about that. I can. I can feel. I can feel that in someone else. That level of fascination that's really crucial to. To good work.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. And did you. When you were writing down or even when you were putting books out, did you feel like, were there elements about what you Were sharing that people responded to that. You may be undervalued.

[Catherine May]

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I. I'm going to ask the questions, by the way, but let's just be clear here. But I've got to answer that one. But, yeah, there's. I think it. I think my learning process was that actually people was. I mean, and this is everyone's learning process. I could tell as I'm about to say it, but the people don't care about me being smart. They don't want my clever ideas. My clever, clever. Oh, this is the really, you know, complex thing. I thought they love the bits that come from the heart and they're often the simplest bits of the work and they're often the bits that flowed out almost by accident, you know, that's so true. They're almost incidental. But that. That's the. That's the water you saw in. That's exactly what you're saying.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I think that's so. Oh, man, that's a.

[Catherine May]

Do you find the same.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I do. And I also think, you know, I don't want to make it a gender thing because it's not. But I do think in America, in the creative field, in the overly conventional masculine sectors, there's such a premium on cleverness.

[Catherine May]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

There's such a premium on the cerebral that I think I have to remind myself of that all the time because I think it's so easy to want to do a creative thing that there's, you know, I'm not going to call out anybody. But when you think about, like, comedians, the. The comedians that get the most praise critically.

[Catherine May]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Are usually the most clever, but rarely the funniest.

[Catherine May]

But. Yeah, you're not laughing.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, you're not laughing. You're like, oh, that's good. That's undeniably good. Because it's clever.

[Catherine May]

That's right.

[Andy J. Pizza]

So, yeah, I think I'm glad you said that because it's something that. But I need to think a lot about. I need to remember that all the time.

[Catherine May]

It's so hard to. I mean, I'm just in the death throes of writing a book at the moment and thank you for doing that.

[Andy J. Pizza]

This is an escape.

[Catherine May]

Yes. An escape. Yo. Thank you. Thank you for distracting me.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Catherine May]

But I. I need to. I need that reminder all the time. Like, stop trying to be smart. Stop getting up in your head. Just write the thing. Write the. I used to say this to my students that I can't believe that I've not absorbed it yet. Like, say the Thing that you want to say really directly. You know, ignore all this stuff about show, don't tell. Because I think. I actually think that's become a problem. I think everyone's trying to show so much that they'll talk about anything except the thing. And it's like, start by writing down the thing. Don't sugarcoat it. Don't use words you wouldn't use if you were saying them out loud. Don't try to conceal it so that you can reveal it later. Like, say the thing. That's the craft.

[Andy J. Pizza]

That's the most. The time. Things that are great, you don't realize that they do. You don't even realize that they're doing it. And also it. And if you want to conceal it because you just can't help yourself, then you can do that after you've. After you know what it is.

[Catherine May]

That's right.

[Andy J. Pizza]

You can really do something good.

[Catherine May]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Because you actually need to look in the eye. Yeah, that's. That's really great.

[Catherine May]

So back to the podcast. I want to know about how your audience built. Because how many people listen to podcast number one, how many people listen now, and what happened in between. I need some coaching here, actually.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Catherine May]

I'm a bit stalled.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. So I. There's a couple different things. So I think that. And I'm really. Because I do this show about building a creative practice.

[Catherine May]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And I think this is also just something. I don't know. I think it's part of my. There's something about my upbringing which was not a creative culture, but it was a very analytical culture. And we always wanted to know why something was good. We always wanted to talk about that. If we watched. I remember in 1999, walking out of the Matrix, me and my dad and my brother, and we're like, why? What is that?

[Catherine May]

What's happened?

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yes. What happened in there? You know, geeking about, out about this. And so I think that I've. Oh, I. I'm almost. Even though I know there's a part of the best creative work, usually there's a part of it that you can explain. There's a part of it that's kind of random, like. Or it's like by chance that this one's better than the one you did the day before. There's an element of that for sure. But. But I really love. I. When I do something I really like, I really want to know how I did it. I want to try to know. The whole time I'm building the podcast, I'm thinking about what's working, what's not working, so that I can talk about on the show and so I can do it on purpose. I think that one of the things was early on, it's much more about endorsements. So it was much more about, like, people. You know, Seth Godin talks about it like, people like us do things like this. So designers and illustrators, when there were a couple people that were like, leaders in the. In that world, said, hey, I like this. Then that group of people were like, oh, people like us do things like this. Like, okay, that's fun. Okay, I can do. I can listen to that. Yeah. So that was a big. That was, you know, the first thing. I think that the other thing was, like, for the longest time, it was just a monologue podcast. The thing about that that works is it's really difficult. There's a ton of stuff that doesn't work about it. But one of the things that works is that it's easy to be consistent in terms of what people get from the show, whereas when you have guests, it's way more unpredictable. And there are ways to kind of plan around that, but it is just a factor. When you have a mostly interview show, people are going to interact with it much more on an a la carte basis.

[Catherine May]

Right.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And so even the interviews, I tried to bake in some. Eventually I tried to bake in some of the things that I thought made the monologue episodes good. So that was, you know, so. So that when people turned it on, I can't remember who said this, but, you know, when people go to go consume a piece of art or they want to go reach for something, they're usually reaching for what they get from it.

[Catherine May]

Right.

[Andy J. Pizza]

You know, on a psychological level. And so I was thinking a lot about, like, what am I trying to deliver on this show? What feeling? What. What do they. What. What do they get from this? So that when they're hungry for that, they know to go to that. Like, oh, yeah, I get that every time from creative pep talks.

[Catherine May]

What is this for?

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so they. And they know. So when that hunger comes up, they're like, oh, I want that. That's the thing I want. And then I think ultimately then a big. A big thing that I used to focus a lot on is the best way to say it. I would talk to someone at Wondery at some point, and she. She was. I think she was CEO of Wondery, but she. She just said, audio feeds, audio. And it was just this idea that you want people to listen to Your show, you have to be on other shows, like getting them from Instagram or TikTok or whatever. It's just too many leaps. And there.

[Catherine May]

And I think such a big insight that's taken me a long time to get to.

[Andy J. Pizza]

It's too many leaps. Because part of the reason is because that hunger thing is that when they go to Instagram, they're looking for something that podcasts don't give them.

[Catherine May]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

So, you know, it's a. It's just really tricky. Whereas if you give them something that they're really hungry for on a different show that they already listened to and they're like, oh, I like, I want that, then they'll. They're likely to go to you. That was probably the biggest thing.

[Catherine May]

It's the best advice. It's taken me a long time to realize that not necessarily in terms of podcasting, but I was, like, trying to, you know, use my Instagram to get people onto my substack or to buy a book.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Right.

[Catherine May]

They don't want to do that. They're on Instagram because they want Instagram content for them to consume on Instagram.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Catherine May]

Like. And actually, when you think about it, it's so inhospitable to be trying to move people along. Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yes.

[Catherine May]

It's not friendly. It's just advertising all the time.

[Andy J. Pizza]

It is. And I. I always thought about it like, you know, I grew up in the Midwest, and when you would go to the mall in the food court, they would be giving away free samples. And I was always like, there's a reason why they're giving free samples in the food court and not in JCPenney. Because if you're. If they're in JCPenney and here's a piece of chicken, you're like, who are you? What? No.

[Catherine May]

Why are you giving me chicken?

[Andy J. Pizza]

Don't want that. I'm not in the food court. When I'm hungry, I'm gonna go to the food court. And so I think a lot about that and same reason why I don't. This is just a random theory that I do. I have no business saying this.

[Catherine May]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I can just say it. I don't have any business in it. But I will say, just for the hell of it, that I think that it's one of the things, like, I have friends that are musicians, and I'm always like, if I were you, I would just use Spotify as your social media. Don't think about it as your discography. It's already going to be a mess. It's Already a mess.

[Catherine May]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

But when people go to Spotify, they are looking for music. Yes. So he was, you know, and so you don't have to be a comedian on TikTok. And if you are, the chances that they're going to leap from that to wanting to hear your music are so, like, it's just impossible.

[Catherine May]

It's so funny, isn't it? And I. Yeah. We're all in all these different places, and I think we can find it so hard to respect the place. You know, when you're making a podcast, you are making it for podcast lovers.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yes.

[Catherine May]

And you're not. You're not there to convert people to being a podcast lover.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Right.

[Catherine May]

You're there to find existing podcast lovers who. And also who like the specific stuff you're talking about. Like, I'm never gonna convince, you know, people that listen to a gardening podcast to listen to my conversation with someone that's written a book. Like, that's not. They might also like that, but they won't come because they're gardening, you know?

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Catherine May]

It's so simple. And it's always the simple insights that end up getting you the place that you need to go every.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. And I think, you know, I do think I. I feel like anytime I open this door in my head, it gets a little bit like my brain is, like, malfunctioning because it's like, I don't. Your brain doesn't want to think like this, so I do it carefully. But I do think. I do think all of these things. Have a relationship. Can have a relationship. I just think that they're. I think understanding what the relationship is is helpful. Just realize, like, Instagram is where. And it always changes where these things happen, but Instagram is where they're getting. They're like, discovering you and trying to figure out whether they like you at all.

[Catherine May]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And then once they're. You know, once I. There are people that I've discovered on Instagram, and I knew them on Instagram for two years, and then eventually I was like, I really like this person. I want to go listen to their podcast. And then it's, you know, it's just a really slow process. And a podcast is a great place to go deep with somebody.

[Catherine May]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And that's. That's also helped me with podcasting, too. Is one of the reasons. And one of the reasons I think I've stayed in it long term is it doesn't have organic reach. It doesn't go viral. It is literally for people that want to go deeper with You. Yeah, that's where they do it. And so it's a really long game thing. You know, I do think people. I don't know if you do this on your podcast, because I've listened to some of your interviews, and they're great, but do you do any solo episodes?

[Catherine May]

No, I don't. And in fact, I. This could turn into coaching.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I think you should do solo episodes.

[Catherine May]

You're about the fifth person this week that's told me that, so I'm beginning to hear it. I. My podcast has been on hiatus because I began to just not enjoy it. And I. But I love podcasting and I love podcasts, so I know I want to be making a podcast.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Catherine May]

But I needed to do my long, slow thought process. I go into. I get that I needed a couple of years to just think. Right. Like, yeah, I still. I still definitely want to do this. And I've been. I've been thinking more about how I can produce a format that's a bit more consistent and a bit more fun. But what I'm hearing very strongly is people like to hear me talking to them, which is. I don't know about you, but my assumption is always, like, the other people are the interesting ones, and I'm like, neutral conduit in which this is happening. Yes. But of course, people. You have to. At some point along the line in this career, except that people are there because they like your work.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Catherine May]

And I. Did you find that hard to believe? I. I found that really hard.

[Andy J. Pizza]

It. Like I said, in my 20s, not as much. And I'm being honest, not as much. I don't know why it was. I don't. Not really sure what that is. But as I went along, I probably hit. I hit a wall about halfway through. I was like, I don't want to hear myself talk anymore. I hate that. Why. Why would I do this and that. What. You know, so I definitely hit it later. Um. I'm not.

[Catherine May]

Like.

[Andy J. Pizza]

We'd have to go full therapy to figure out why that was, but we.

[Catherine May]

Haven'T got time for that. But that's okay. That's okay.

[Andy J. Pizza]

We can.

[Catherine May]

Yeah, you can do that over the next 10 years and just gradually unravel the storytelling. Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. So I don't know. But eventually, yeah, I did get that way. But I think what was really hard about podcasting for a long time is that it didn't exist before. So it doesn't have. You know, when you have a TV show, when you watch a movie, a TV show that should have Been a movie. You just know you're saying, this is. This is the wrong format for this. And so I think we did. I had a really hard time figuring out, like, what is it? Especially the solo thing, because especially at the time, very few people were doing, so I didn't know. Like, I was trying to figure out, how do you do this? And one of the big shifts that helped was realizing, like, okay, there are books and audiobooks. This is like an audio blog. That's all it is. It's an audio blog. And that really. That really changed the way that I thought about it, because it was the right level of casual. Because if they wanted. If they want something pristine, they will go to a book, an audiobook. Yeah, yeah, that. That was really useful for me to think about.

[Catherine May]

That's really interesting. So what's your approach to those episodes? Do you. Do you bullet point what you're going to talk about, or do you just sit down and flow?

[Andy J. Pizza]

I. So I went through. I'm. I think I'm always, like, tweaking it. But early on, really early on, it was just like, I have an idea. I'm gonna go talk about it. And then it pretty quickly turned into, like, outlines and bullet points. Then the more I got obsessed with, like, the craft of storytelling, the more written things became. But I never. I never just read it, but there were times where it was fully written, if that makes sense. So it's fully written. It's there. I think that I feel more comfortable with if I. If. If I wrote this and I meant it when I wrote it, I am comfortable trying to get back into that headspace so that I'm able to perform it. So it's not inauthentic, because it is something. I mean, but I am. You know, I heard an actor say, I think it was not on a podcast or something. I heard Surrey and McKellen say something like, they're not pretending to feel emotions, they're feeling motions on command. And that's so I. I think that's what I try to do now is like, okay, I. I planned it, I wrote it, but I want it to feel like I am saying it now. So I have to get there. I have to leave some room. And maybe I'm just making it too complicated. That's a lot of stuff to think about making an audio blog, but that is how I think about it.

[Catherine May]

No, that does make sense. But I think what you're also talking about really is freshness. You know, that you don't ever want it to be A monologue that you're reading out. You want that spontaneity to come in and that authenticity and that. And it is then a creative process when you're speaking. It's not just you. Because I. My guess is that you'd be very bored by repetition.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yes. Very, very bored. And it also speaks to the fact that that is what people want from a podcast. So, again, the form with a book. If you're reading a book and you're thinking, wow, this is really fresh off the presses, but not really well thought out, you're like, that's not a book. Whereas on a podcast, if you're like, okay, this is tight, but it's too tight. This isn't a podcast. Yeah.

[Catherine May]

I always love to see people in process.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. You.

[Catherine May]

Let's talk about neurodivergence.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Sure.

[Catherine May]

Because actually, because that's, you know, you and I. I'm autistic.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Catherine May]

When did you know you had a adhd? You said you knew before you started the podcast.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, so I. The first, like, when I first started talking to my doctor about it was like my mid-20s.

[Catherine May]

So you went to your doctor, did you? That was.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I went to my doctor and then eventually I went to a psychologist and did a more kind of rigorous testing and found out a lot more about the particulars of my flavor of it, what's going on there. Turns out I've got all of it. I've got all types of adhd and I've got double the memory deficit required for. For being. So, yeah, I got the whole kitten caboodle. And yeah. So I. But I. What's really funny is when I've talked about it in. On stage or in the show, I had a joke about. So when I was in kindergarten, I had a friend who I thought. I thought he was awesome. I was like, this is the only guy that's up to speed. Like, I like this guy. And then he had to go get medicine at the office one time, and I was like, wait, what are you sick, man? Like, what's up? And he's like, no, I'm just hyper. And I was like, I thought that was just like, being awesome. Like, you have to medicate this. And so that was one thing. And then. But the joke was. And then in high school, I was recreationally doing Adderall just one time with my friend Brian, but we had a pill and we both went away and did it. And the joke is that we both did wild things at night. Like, he stayed up to the crack of dawn, like, was Trembling, watching the sunrise. And I did something way crazier than that, which was my homework in an efficient manner. I was like, whoa, what is going on? And I thought, oh, I. But I can't talk to my parents about it because I'm like. So I was doing some recreational drugs. Turns out I'd like more of it, you know, So I didn't know what in my. And also, I just grew up in Midwest, and especially at a time where it wasn't well understood at all. And. And I didn't know what to think of it. But the funny thing about that joke is that that's a joke I wrote for talks and stuff. Then later, I've heard two other neurodivergent people, two ADHD comics with almost the exact same joke, because that's just the experience. This is an experience of what that feels like when you have. And I actually don't take medication for it, but now. But that was one of the first. And I always knew, like, I'm not like everybody else. I was definitely aware of that, but it wasn't. But I also, like, repressed thinking about it until I couldn't anymore.

[Catherine May]

Well, it's a painful thought when you're younger, isn't it? I think that. That feeling of being outside of the norm that. I mean, I. You know, you've talked quite a lot about masking and that experience of trying to be the thing that you're supposed to be, but then that quickly becomes a multiplicity of things because it turns out that lots of people are lots of different things. And so you end up being able to fake all of that. You know, you can be the party guy and you can be the studious. You know, all of those things become just different masks. But the. The fear behind that is like, what would I be if I wasn't acting? What would I be?

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, very, very true. And also. And to me, I had another component of. And my listeners are familiar with this story of knowing that whatever I was like was like my mom, and that when I was really little, that was a great thing. But then as I got older, it just felt like a curse because I watched her life be riddled with addiction and abusive relationships and multiple families and all this stuff. And so I also didn't want to look at it because I thought. I don't think. I didn't think it was subconscious. I just thought, I. I'm trying to not be. This is what I'm trying to not be. I don't want a doctor to be like, there Actually is. No, not being. This, this is just.

[Catherine May]

Yeah, yeah, this is what you are in your DNA.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I think that that's what was going on there.

[Catherine May]

Well, and of course one thing we know is that neurodivergent people are great self medicators and it's so interesting that we've, we've had that wrong for ages. Like we've thought that particularly autistic people are like the boring ones. They're staying at home, they're definitely not out doing drugs. But actually as we've looked into it, yeah, you know, like I was a huge drinker as a teenager. Like massive self medicator. Because it was the only way I could get myself into those spaces. Like I had to, I had to be numb. But there's also that, that attempt to stabilize your weird emotions that feel so out of whack with what everyone else is doing. And I, you know, when I think through my autistic and ADHD friends, you know, I'm thinking about one of them has a Valium addiction. Loads of alcoholics, like kind of quite, quite fascinating recreational drug users. Like the kind of friends that were like, oh, so I took some acid and then I took a tranquilizer and then I smoked a joint and then I did this. And they're like sort of calibrating their feelings across the night that now I see as a hallmark of being neurodivergent rather than a deviation from that geeky image that we're supposed to have.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I've heard, you know, from just anecdotally friends that I have that are autistic. Almost all of them have an experience, have a relationship to alcohol in particular.

[Catherine May]

That was because it's so available.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, so available. And did something. Yeah. The regulating and the social component and all that. I wonder, you know, as you say it now, like it just makes me think, it feels like just trying to do something to you to get more towards the middle of what it of like what you're supposed to be feeling, what you're supposed to be experiencing.

[Catherine May]

Well, you're just trying to feel. Okay. Yeah. At the same time being a drinker at a certain age makes you cool. And so actually you're trying to get towards two centers at once and.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Very true. Yeah.

[Catherine May]

Then you're quite difficult to deal with because you're drunk. Like it doesn't actually work out but like that it takes you a while to, to learn that.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I think it does. It definitely does. I think it's a. Yeah. It's feel like it's sad too. It's not. I'm not like, you know, it is sad.

[Catherine May]

I mean, I'm laughing about it. Gallows humor. Because actually I think, yeah. As I say, as I think through the people in my life who are like me, they've often had huge struggles with this. And, and they're. And like, in a way that them turning to it was rational. You know, it was the best decision they could make at the time.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yes.

[Catherine May]

But also not healthy in the long.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Term and not okay, 100. And that is a huge. That was a, A big part of my process. Why, you know, why I talk so much about adhd and I. From what I gather from how you've talked about it or how you think about autism, part of neurodivergence, which I didn't understand at first is. And, But I. This is why I gravitate towards it as a term. Is it the me getting diagnosed with a disorder, funnily enough, is what became the birth of a positive self psychology.

[Catherine May]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And that embrace of your neurodivergence.

[Catherine May]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

That was the thing. That's what's hard because I don't currently medicate for adhd, but I've been so vocal about getting diagnosed, sometimes I feel misunderstood because some people take that as I'm vocal. I'm telling people to go get medicine, which what, you know, everybody has to do, they have to do their own journey and figure out their own thing.

[Catherine May]

Make your own decision.

[Andy J. Pizza]

My point of it was not that my point was finding this changed my self image dramatically from a negative self image to a positive self image and a positive self psychology because of things like that. Because I realized my mom, who I. We don't have an official diagnosis, but you do get it from one of your parents. And my dad is like, yeah, you know, a CPA in corporate America. And, and, and so she, you know, her whole entire life was shamed for never being able to stop smoking. And the psychologist that diagnosed me told me, you know, because I told him that I had smoked for five years and was obsessed. And I always said, if I had a genie, first wish, world peace, second wish, cigarettes are good for you. I'm like, please let me have it back. But he told me, like, nicotine is chemically almost identical to what we prescribe. So.

[Catherine May]

Right.

[Andy J. Pizza]

That stuff like that. As I got my diagnosis made me realize, like, my mom isn't bad. She's trying to coach, trying to figure this out.

[Catherine May]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And it, yeah, totally changed in that shift. Changed everything about how I thought about life and myself and self development and creativity and all that, and how.

[Catherine May]

How creativity is knitted into it. I mean, I always say that I spent my heart because I wasn't diagnosed as I was 40 or I didn't identify till I was 40, because actually, to me, the diagnosis was like the least helpful bit. It was the. The self identification.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Catherine May]

I had at the time, like, I had to tell my doctor what it was and why I fitted it and why, as a woman, I might look different to what he had. So, like, actually, like, for me, I always say identified. That's a side point, but.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, that's totally true.

[Catherine May]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I, you know, until that point, I saw myself as a broken neurotypical, and suddenly I could see myself as a very normal autistic person.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Catherine May]

And. And also, therefore meet my needs. Like. Like see them as reasonable. And that's the shift. It's not. It's not huge. Like, I think I'm beginning to see stuff come through very strongly that people feel very threatened by people with ADHD and autism saying, I need this. You know, Sorry, that's the dog barking. It's real life.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Good. It's a podcast.

[Catherine May]

It's a podcast. That's right. I love it. I. My, my, you know, my debut on. On being my cat had to be let out of the room because she was meowing, and they left it in the podcast.

[Andy J. Pizza]

That's exactly what it should be.

[Catherine May]

It's really good. But, yeah, so I. I found that I could just. It's not. It's not. It shouldn't feel threatening to people. It shouldn't feel like it's going to be a big demand, because actually the adjustments that most people want to make are so small, they're just saying, oh, wait, can I just choose where I eat my lunch, please? Because I can reset. Then, you know, can I take a walk rather than do this sitting down? Like, they're. They're so tiny. It's not saying, I need you to change everything. I need to be treated like a queen. It's like, actually, can I just do my own thing for a while? Because I'll be a much better employee or friend or partner if I do. That's it. So simple, man.

[Andy J. Pizza]

That's. I love that. I love what you said. I love the word reasonable. That's. It's so true. And it's that I thought about a lot. Like, I've tried to, you know, when talking to my dad, like I said at the beginning, giving him the analogy to make it make sense of why this was so painful to me. You know, I've tried. One of the things really frustrating to me is at different times when I would describe, like, here's why I can't sit in a chair for eight hours. Here's why I can't do that. And nothing hurts me more, really. When someone I love says, well, like, you're, you're, you know, that you're. It's a limited mindset. I'm like, I'll tell you what, I've done it. I've done it. I'll tell you what happens. I gain tons of weight. I get tons of bad habits. I do. Because I have to do the reasonable thing, which is turn this fire hydrant off in my body that's flipping out.

[Catherine May]

Yeah. And so that just needs to move. It's just movement. It's not bad.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yes.

[Catherine May]

It's neutral.

[Andy J. Pizza]

It's natural to need to move like I do more. I know. I mean, unfortunately, I didn't know this was going to be true. But having working for myself for the past however long, 10, 15 years is so much more work than any other job I could have.

[Catherine May]

Oh, my God.

[Andy J. Pizza]

That's the bad news. The bad news. So much more work. The good news is I can do it however I want. I. Literally, half the stuff I write is in the bath. The other half is on a walk. Like, I do, like, I just do work in such a weird way. But that's. Yeah, that's how I have to do.

[Catherine May]

It, because I don't. I think one of the things about neurodivergent brains is we can't let go of the stuff that interests us. So I, I can't. I can't switch off my working brain. And I don't want to. Like, I don't know how to. I never could.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Catherine May]

What I don't want to do, because, like you, I've never been able to hold down a proper job. Yeah. Is. Is be told what to do and when and how. Like, I, I, that's, that's not okay for me. So. God, I'm running over your time, so. Sorry.

[Andy J. Pizza]

We, we go over all the time.

[Catherine May]

I've got two big questions that I want to ask before I let you free. The first one is like, when did you, when did you start to bring this in to your work? And, and why, like, what, what point did you think? Because you know, you did. I was listening to your Right side Out series and thinking about how intentional that was about really leaning into that and saying, we're going to talk about this and we're going to talk about how to do it. Yeah. At what point. At what point did you think, right, this actually needs to come in and. Yeah. And why.

[Andy J. Pizza]

It was early. I know it was early in the show where I started to. I think I. I think early on I felt like I remember having to make a decision about whether I'm going to talk about being ADHD.

[Catherine May]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And, you know, this being nine years ago or something 10 years ago, I think that I knew that it. I think it was such a huge deal for me that.

[Catherine May]

Did you feel shame to about it?

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, I. I think I felt mostly afraid that it was going to have a negative impact on my career, that I was going to just that people I knew. One of the reasons I want to talk about it, actually, honestly, it's funny because at the time, and looking back, this is not true, but at the time we had had some representation of autism in the culture. Now, looking back at that representation 10 or 15 years from now looks so ridiculous. And a lot of it's really bad. Right. But at the time, I didn't know that. I didn't know enough about any of this stuff. And I. But I felt like, okay, I'm watching people in the Midwest take this seriously with their kids. Even if they're doing it really wrong there. It's something they're thinking about and there's a conversation about. There's a. People are making some concessions for those people. And then adhd. I knew this is a. I'd watched my mom's life just be horrifying. I'd had so many friends that. Whose lives. Like, you know, a lot of my creative friends who either were neurodivergent in some way, you know, some of those people didn't make it. Others, you know, were just struggling. The worst lives, just. And so I really felt the decision to start talking about it on the show was purely about. I was. I was hoping that we would have what we have right now, which is a huge conversation around it, because I thought. And I didn't. I don't. I was no part of that happening. I just. That's why I was doing it. As I was like, I want people to know this is not funny. I. It is funny. It's funny.

[Catherine May]

It's funny, but it's not funny.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, it's funny and not funny. Yeah, it is a. It is. We can.

[Catherine May]

Part of the joke and it's hilarious.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yes.

[Catherine May]

But we shouldn't be the butt of a joke because it's it's unkind. But also most of those jokes are based on complete nonsense anyway.

[Andy J. Pizza]

True. And. Yeah. And misunderstanding it completely. I personally am just the type of person who even the funny. If I'm funny in real life with my kids or family, I like, I'm, I'm happy to make fun of myself. I don't mind that. What I don't like is if someone really thinks you're a piece of shit and you're the butt of the joke, that's a whole other thing. So for me it was like, I don't care if ADHD is a joke. There's so much funny things about it as long as you also know that it's really, really serious and really makes it difficult to. Every day. Every day is difficult. That's just, that is, that goes hand in hand with it.

[Catherine May]

And, and I would add to that, as long as you acknowledge that being a neurotypical is also quite funny objectively. Like a lot of the things that neurotypical people do.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, I mean, I think that.

[Catherine May]

Wait, you're going to all gather together in the noisiest space possible so you can't hear each other and all wear the same clothes? Like what? Sorry? Like that's objectively funny to me.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I actually think such a huge percentage of stand up comedy is literally just pointing out neurotypical culture just being like, look at this, what is happening here? But yeah, I think so. I think I just, I wanted to start making work about it because I felt like I hoped that people would start to understand the severity of it and that also then it would lead to maybe I also, even before I had ever heard the term neurodivergence, I had one of my biggest core values that I knew was true. And this, this a little bit came from growing up in a, you know, the Bible belt, whatever. There were phrases like that were kind of weaponized against people that were different. So there were like scripture that talked about like every man's temptation is the same and that would be extrapolated into an idea that we're all the same. So. And it's a meritocracy thing. It's a, every person's basically the same and so the results are due to your character. That's it. And so I had this huge value of I know we're not the same. And I know it's one of the best things about being a human is that we're not the same. Yeah, I think that that was why I just, I also didn't think anyone was going to listen. So I didn't, you know, I thought, yeah, sure, maybe some clients will be like, should we hire him? I mean like, yeah, it's a liability.

[Catherine May]

But has that reaction changed over time? Like have you, did you get any iffy responses at first? I mean, I know I sure did. Yeah. And is that get. I feel like it is getting better, but there are some people that have got more angry about it.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Very true, very true. And I think my favorite thing about because as I started saying about the conversation is happening way more now. It is what part of like what I was hoping would happen for ADHD and then now that I have a little bit better of understanding of autism, I'm happy, really happy that people are understanding that in a totally different way and, and have a more nuance and understanding around it. Okay, you asked what is the, did this happen? Like bad, like bad reactions to it? Yeah, yeah, what I was going to say. Oh, what I was going to say. My favorite thing is because I think now that it's so such a hot topic, you get this the thing of oh, everybody's ADHD now. Everybody's autistic now.

[Catherine May]

Everyone's a little bit older. Autistic.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yes, that thing, it's a terrible, terrible thing. And one of my favorite things is have you seen that graph on when being left handed was normalized? What?

[Catherine May]

Oh no, I've not seen it.

[Andy J. Pizza]

But yeah, it's really fascinating because what happens is they were in this period of the graph where coming out as these things is happening rapidly and what it looks like when you're experiencing it is this on this line graph is a huge shot. We're like, why is everyone. Everybody's out. And then when you watch the left handed thing, it has a massive plateau. Once it's normal to be whichever one then it will, it will course correct. It'll be or won't course correct. It'll just be, yeah, it won't be as shocking and so skyrocketing.

[Catherine May]

I and I, I mean I read in like quite a respectable book by someone with a Ph.D. recently the sentence how come so many people are becoming autistic now? Surely it would have been noticed when they were children. And I it's like, are you kidding me? Like here is the many ways that my autism was noticed when I was a child but they didn't have the word for it. So I'll say they had the word for it. But I'd have had to have been an 8 year old white boy and that would have a middle Class, preferably, because otherwise I'd have just. Just been normal. 40. So, like exclusively those people were diagnosed and they didn't think that girls could be autistic at the time. So everything was seen and everything was felt, and it was only when the tool was available that you and I could say, this is what I am. This is what it is. And here are all these other people that are like me. And no, not everyone is like me. Sure as otherwise it wouldn't have been so damaged heart.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah. And I. Yeah, it's very bizarre because in retrospect, it's like, it's even sadder to me because I think all of these people. There's two parts that are really sad to me. One is all of these people. When you were in high school, you're looking around and being like, these people are weird. Like, why are they weird? So you know, they're weird. Not to use a bad term for it, but you know it. You know it. This. So why is it surprising you, like, oh, it turns out everyone's weird. Yeah, there's a lot of weird people.

[Catherine May]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And then. Yeah, I don't remember I was gonna say something else, but that. That's just me. But I think that, yeah, that's a huge part of it is like, you were very aware that there was a lot of difference maybe before you had a term for it or an understanding of it, didn't have to say, it's your problem. And it's, you know, oh, the other side.

[Catherine May]

Pull yourself together.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, they're weird because they chose to be or whatever it is, and it's easier to kind of put them down. But the other. The other thing I found really sad was that when I started to build an illustration practice, and at first I was kind of part of, like, some trendy stuff and the economy was good and I was getting some jobs early on, and then it crashed with in 2008 and. And I got hit a brick wall. And. And I say that in my lowest times, in my darkest hour, when I hit rock bottom, rock bottom for me was I started to read business books that was like, turned to the darkest arts. Figure this out.

[Catherine May]

That got bad.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I'm so, so really bad.

[Catherine May]

So sorry about.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And so I started diving into that world. And at first I thought, okay, gosh, I have to read this shit and I don't want to do it. But the thing that ended up being really promising and really sad was all of the most unicorn business people, a lot of them are Neurodivergent people. And I was like, these aren't rare people. That's the thing. If you knew how to find these people and train them, a lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them, we wouldn't. We. This wouldn't be so unusual. You're actually. You could have whole parts of every company that is utilizing these very different types of brains. And so, yeah, that's the, that's the other sad element of it.

[Catherine May]

It's getting better. I'm an optimist, but.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Me too.

[Catherine May]

Like, we're a part of this. We're doing our best. Final question.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Catherine May]

And that is for someone listening now, thinking, you know, like, maybe they're a writer, maybe they're an illustrator, maybe they're a dancer, thinking, should I start a podcast? Does it do anything for your career? Or is the answer instead, start a podcast? If you want a podcast, don't worry about the rest of it.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I would. That's. That's a good question to end on. I would say that. I mean, having a podcast is. Can be incredibly valuable to your creative practice in your career. I think, to me, the first thing I would say is just like what you said, I'm a really big believer in that. The first step of the creative process is taste. So do you have a taste for it? If you don't, don't do it, because you won't know how to do it. It's literally like vegetarians trying to cook steak. They could do it. They could do the steps and everything, but if they can't taste it, it's going to be really difficult to nail it. And so I think that would be my first thing. However, if you love podcasts, it can be extremely valuable. I think the only thing I would say is I learned to do projects and have these. A multilayer strategy of what it meant to be successful. So I never. So now one of the reasons it's really valuable is because we have sponsors. So it, you know, pays money. So that's good. That's great. That's. That's obvious thing. I never thought that would happen, and it was before that ever happened. It was super valuable. It changed my career. And the reason is, is because it goes back to that thing of. I mean, it's kind of. It's kind of obvious in a way, but it wasn't obvious to me. Like, there's almost no place where you can go this deep with somebody, like, because. Mainly because it's a thing that you can do while you're doing Other things. And it. And I love bundling. Adhd. People love that. Love doing, you know, two things at once. Like, so I love. That's why I love podcasts. I was constantly listening to podcasts. And so it's a space where this is. A podcast is the middle step between someone hearing about you and someone becoming a true fan of you. Yeah, it is. Where that happens. Happens. Yeah. And so if you want to have a creative practice, that's maybe the most difficult part, the most essential part, and the one that most of us don't value, because it's not. I don't know. I don't really know why it is. We put so much emphasis on the discovery. We put so much emphasis on the sale. We put almost none on the steps that get you there. Like, I don't know if it's the discovery.

[Catherine May]

They're the mysterious bit.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, the discovery seems like easy, like, but it's not. It's also the hardest.

[Catherine May]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

It feels like if I played my cards right, I could get a million people to find out about me today.

[Catherine May]

People can discover you, but they don't necessarily hear that discovery like, it runs past their eyeballs or past their ears.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Very true.

[Catherine May]

And there's always. I don't know how true this is or how researched it is, but there's always this statistic that goes around in publishing, which is that someone needs to have a book recommended to them three times before they'll buy it. Yes, that. And that rings true for me, actually. I think, you know, it's. It's got truthiness. Yes, yes. I'm not sure how accurate is that, but that's a similar thing.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, it is. And I think for me, that's. I mean, the people that you are a fan of, their podcast, you got to think that is a deep relationship in comparison to everything else. And that means that you can build a lifetime of a. Of a practice on that relationship. And so I think it's incredibly valuable. And I would just. If to get. When I would get really practical, I just say, I think about it like, your true fan idea. Everybody starts. Most people only have one true fan, and that funds their entire living. It's their employer. That's it. Like, the person that hired them, that's their one fan changed everything. Right. And so when I. When you start the podcast, I would just think about it like, how can you use this to get 10 true fans? So how can you get 10 clients off of this? And if you do that, it will be the most valuable thing that you do. And you don't have to think about, how do I get thousands and thousands so that I can, you know, directly monetize it. And then. And then ultimately, I'll say one other bit, which this is maybe the most important thing. And I'm sure you probably have this with writing, so it could happen with a lot of different ways. But the podcast dramatically changed me. So when I started the show and I didn't think anybody was going to hear it, and I was just kind of having fun, whatever, I wasn't really thinking much about that. But then eventually, when I had friends and then people in the industry listen, then, just people that I don't know, I just knew 100 people are listening, 500 people are listening, whatever. I started to realize, like, oh, I really want to mean what I'm saying. I really want to. I want to know that what I'm saying. And, oh, it came with beginning criticism.

[Catherine May]

Right.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I realized, like, if someone criticized me and the thing they criticized me was about something that was inauthentic, it was terrible. I couldn't bear it.

[Catherine May]

Really. True. Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And if someone criticized me something for something that I would go to the grave for, if somebody said, we're all the same and that, you know, then I would be like, I don't. Don't listen to my show. I like my people. This is my people, and I don't care. I'm. I. And that criticism just rolls off me because I'm like, I fundamentally build my life on the opposite of that. And so a couple years in, a couple years in, I was having a lot of anxiety about the show, and I think it was feeling. It was just, you know, getting little criticisms, whatever. And that completely changed me because I started thinking, I really want to believe the stuff that I'm saying, even if I'm wrong about it or change later, that's fine. I just. When I do it, I want to have been sold out about what I'm saying. And the thing that that did was that made me examine what I said in real life and what I. Who I said I was and what. How I thought about my identity. And it changed. It just. It changed me. I just. I changed how I moved through life because of that.

[Catherine May]

Yeah, but that. I think that circles us back beautifully because actually, what that speaks to is the autonomy that you get when you make your own spaces and you create spaces out of love and respect and authenticity, and you bring your authentic self there, and there goes the fear because you, like, you've made it. You've Made this place. And that's a place that other people want to come to.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Catherine May]

Andy, thank you. Thank you so much for letting me take over your podcast.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I was so cool.

[Catherine May]

That was so cool.

[Andy J. Pizza]

It was so fun. And I. It really. You got me on a bunch of occasions. Like, you know, I was really in my feelings for most of the show. So I really appreciate you taking the time and being so sensitive to the topic and. Yeah, I just really appreciate it.

[Catherine May]

It's lovely. It's such an achievement. So congratulations. You make me want to be less of a quitter.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yes, I. I'm a major quitter. So that's what. That's why I was like, you know, I've done this. Like, it feels like I did something. Yeah. Okay, I'm back. Thank you, Katherine May, for making time to do this. I just feel so honored. And. And this was just the perfect way to dive into this giant project that working on for the past 10 years. I'm back to tell you the CTA for this week. So the CTA, the call to adventure, how to take this episode and do something with it in your own practice. I'm calling channel your overflow. Okay. The question is, how do you make your creativity a discipline? When being disciplined isn't exactly what creative people do, it feels almost at odds with each other. And my take on this is that you have to channel your overflow. And what that means is when I look back at this 10 year project, 10 years plus, and going strong, I think the reason this was possible, it wasn't always easy. Sometimes it was really easy. But the reason it was possible to show up for 10 years, every single week on this is because this is something that I just do. If I wasn't recording these conversations, I would still be doing and having these conversations somewhere, whether that was in conversation with other people or just voice memos on my phone. Like, this is a thing that I do. I love to analyze the creative process, the creative journey, creative careers. I get very, very analytical about these kind of things, and I love to talk about them. And when I say channeling the overflow, I'm talking about the overflow of my everyday life. If the reason I need a podcast is because I have more hours and more to say than anyone wants to listen to in my everyday life. Like 10 years ago, making this show, it was such a good outlet. And we were talking about this. My wife and I have talked about this a bunch. Like how grateful this show we are because we don't have. I need this as much as it. As much as anybody might need to listen to it, I don't know or want to. I need it. And so this is a place to put that. And so it reminds me a little bit of what Jerry Seinfeld says. He says he's a joke chuck, like a woodchuck, he chucks jokes. His brain automatically wants to find a punchline, wants to see the funny thing and construct the funny thing, and his brain automatically does that. For me, I am automatically trying to find the problem, solve the problem, see what works. Why did it work? That's the way that I interact with everything. And proof of this is recently I just thought about how I would consider myself kind of a mega comedy nerd. And then I realized I don't watch a ton of comedy, almost none. I only watch a few comedy specials a year. I go to a couple comedy shows, maybe three or four comedy shows a year, depending on travel and stuff. But I listen to hundreds of podcasts of comedians talking about comedy. And I think it's maybe less about comedy and more that comedy is such a difficult path. And you have to be so good at your craft. You can't just intuit your way completely. You really have to know what you're doing. So those people are. Don't just do what they do. They know how they do what they do so they can talk about how they do what they do. And so I think, for me, the reason I am drawn to comedy in some ways other than I'm just a goofball, is that I just love how analytical that this community can be. And so for me, that tells me something about my high tolerance, my high output, my massive overflow of this kind of thing. And so what I would challenge you to do is to find your overflow. Where are the places in your everyday life where you are producing more? You're. You're creating more. You're doing it on accident. You're doing it automatically. Like, for me, throughout my every day, there are just things that I think, oh, this is a little, like, nugget. This is an idea. This just seems true to me. And I'll put it in my phone. And I'd be doing that whether I had a podcast or not. And so what are the things that you just have an overabundance of and you need a bucket to put them in? That's what this podcast is for me. It's a bucket to put this stuff in. And that makes it very easy to then make it a discipline. And so that's my challenge to you find in your everyday where do you have more than is necessary or more that you know what to do with? That kind of surplus is exactly what you want to build a creative practice on. So I'm going to leave you with that. I'm going to say just last things are the thank yous and the goodbyes for the episode. Again, thanks Catherine May. Thank you to Sophie Miller, who is an editor of the show and co producer and has really supported me mentally, emotionally over this past 10 years and I wouldn't have been able to do it without you. So thank you Sophie for all the support. I know it hasn't always been easy. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of. It's a lot of troubleshooting, it's a lot of self motivating to make something this long and I couldn't have done it without you. Pep Talking the pep talker every single week. Massive thanks to Connor Jones of Pending Beautiful for the audio editing and sound design. You have been a really consistent dude throughout a long period of making this show and I love you man. And I really appreciate your support in making this thing possible week in and week out. I'm just so grateful to all the listeners and to the people that have supported the show over the years through Patreon and now Substack. You guys were doing that before we had any other ways of funding this thing. And as funding from sponsors and stuff like that has come and gone, you have kept this thing afloat. And there's so many relationships and people I've met because of this show that I'm just so grateful for. And so thanks for listening. Thank you for sharing the show, reviewing the show, supporting the show. Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band, yeah, for the best theme music and soundtrack of any podcast, I have to say. And yeah, thanks for showing up. Hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll be back next week for more pep. But until then, stay pepped up.

[C]

From Academy Award winning actor Matthew McConaughey's soulful and humorous picture book to New York Times best selling author Kristin Hannah's the Women Moms don't have Time to Read Read Books is an author interview podcast unlike any other. In 30 minutes or less, each episode of this chart topping and Webby Award winning show dives deep beneath the COVID fostering friendship and camaraderie, support and curiosity, connection and compassion. Hosted by me, Zibby Owens, author, bookstore owner and head of what the LA Times called the Zibbyverse. Moms don't have time to read books. Books has something for everyone, whether you're a mom like me or simply a busy reader. So don't miss out. Follow Moms don't have time to read books on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening now. New episodes are released every weekday, bringing books to life.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I did consider Barney a friend, and he's still a friend to this day.

[Catherine May]

The idea of Barney is something that.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I want to live up to.

[Catherine May]

You know I love you, you love me. I call it the Purple Mantra.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Barney taught me how to be a man. Generation Barney a podcast about the media we loved as kids and how it shapes us. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.