127: Live from the Vulnerability Hangover! Launching @LifeOfALebaneseArtist with Michael Karsouny

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot Podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast. If change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Foreign.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Pivot Podcast. Here we are again on another Saturday morning test. I woke up early. Michael, as I mentioned in a subtle hidden Easter egg on episode 1, 2, 3, my new husband, he, in the last 24 hours, launched this full creative project, whole new Instagram account. And all I know is I was out to dinner with a friend and I'm walking home and all of a sudden I have 25 gifts waiting in my text messages from Michael. They were so hilarious. And we wake up this morning, it's Saturday. Actually, he was still sleeping because he had pulled essentially an all nighter working on this new idea. And I was thinking as soon as he woke up and came downstairs, I said, you know what, we should record a Pivot podcast. Because as I shared in a recent episode about JB 3.0 and the business renaissance hitting my 8 year SOL.

Three of the values that my team and I are committing to are radical. Transparency. Truth while it's fresh and delightful. Specificity. Oh yeah, there's a fourth crazy good systems. And so I couldn't help but think, you know, as I was watching Michael do his thing, this is exactly the creation mode that I'm always talking about in Momentum and on this podcast and that we're always striving for, which is that playful, joyful, doesn't even feel like work. And what scenario is gift making gonna be considered like some reputable contemporary art project in New York City? And yet I think Michael is totally killing it with this thing. And so I said it was nerve wracking for us both. But as soon as he woke up, I said, hey, you wanna record a podcast together? And he said, yes, even though it's nerve wracking. And if you hear any background noise, Hashtag harlemlife. That's where we live now. So just now we're hearing a boombox heading down the street. So that's fun. Backdrop of New York. Michael, without further ado, welcome to the show.

Thanks. It's great to be here on a one on one capacity thing.

I know it's funny because obviously we talk all the time. Michael and I both work from home, so it's not a rare thing to have a conversation. But we're always saying we should do a pivot podcast episode together. And today, as you said it, we're just ripping the band aid off.

Yeah, it's great how impromptu it is. And I guess I still have butterflies in my stomach from working all night and all day on that thing. So I actually slept one hour.

You know, I was so surprised when you came and woke me up. Not woke me up, knocked on my little office door.

Right. I was surprised to just wake up and see it was 8am like, how is this possible? But it's probably because of all the conditioning. I've been. I've been kind of, you know, honing the early hour wake ups to, you know, get to read and stack all these routines. So I guess it paid off.

But you also walked in to the office room as your own animated gif. He. You guys, he pressed himself up against the wall and did like the, you know, just that vulnerability hangover of you really put your heart out. So let's rewind, take a step back. We've now built up suspense of what is this new. It's starting off as an Instagram account.

Yeah.

And it's called.

Oh, I don't know if it has a name. Oh, it does have a name.

See, it's so fresh.

And it's called Life of a Lebanese Artist as a subtitle. Making it in New York.

And I didn't really introduce you as your full name, so my husband, ladies and gentlemen, Michael, AKA Michel, because he was French educated back in Beirut.

It's more Michelle, AKA not Michael now. Right, okay.

See, he's. This is how you know you're married to an artist. Exactly. That name changes all the time.

But it did. Right?

But yeah, he grew up. His family always called him Michael, so I call him Michael.

Right.

And then his friends from schooling and from Beirut and travels around the world, usually calling Michel.

Yeah.

Which I'm not allowed to say because I don't have a good French accent.

You can. No, never. See, if anything, it's, it's. It's really an honor for you to call Me, Michael, because it's just family at its core. I've always been called Michael by my family, but as soon as I joined any educational system, anything that required an id, where my name was Michel.

So that's how the name came. And, you know, everyone called me Michelle in school, university at work. But, yeah, coming back to New York, and not necessarily because it was America, I kind of wanted to, you know, take back my name and go for Michael. And it's kind of a two birds, one stone kind of a. Kind of a situation. Although we don't say that anymore in the household. What do we use now?

It's like two birds, one birdhouse.

Right.

Too many stones, killing the birds. Shout out to Theo, who just called me out of Momentum.

He was like. I even felt it. I said on a recent momentum call, I said something. Kill two birds with one stone. And then in the comments, Theo said something, and I felt bad, too. I'm like, we gotta stop killing all these birds.

So many birds killed metaphorically with this expression throughout the ages.

Yeah. So now we're saying two birds, one birdhouse. And we actually have this beautiful little terrace here in our new place. And I bought a book called Birds of New York City.

We even have two binoculars because we actually saw what seemed like a raven, although I looked it up. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of feel, though, that it was an overgrown, oversized crow because of its white beaks. Yeah. I'm starting to research birds now. Now. So here we go.

This is a day in the life of the household. We see a random. If we see a prominent animal or an animal of any kind that sticks around longer than usual, it's a spirit animal. Yes. And we go look up the meaning, and we see what's on the way. Like, the other day, a huge dragonfly crashed into the window. And dragonfly was a huge symbol for me when I was working on pivot. I was in Bali, and a dragonfly landed on my iPad. And it stayed there for 10 minutes, even while I flipped pages and was reading this book. And as I looked it up, it meant flexibility and able to navigate change, which is what pivot is all about. Yeah.

You know, good to know, because we saw this massive firefly pass by. And I'm glad that, you know, you shared the symbolism with me. Also, I saw a teeny little spider that, you know, sat on my. Sat on my.

Please tell me it wasn't on the pillow.

No, no, no, no. It was. You actually told me to remove it or something, but I was. It was on my Sketchbook or on the terrace. But, yeah, those are the animals we've encountered in the past three, four days.

Side note, Michael and I try not to kill animals. We had a mouse problem when we first moved in, and we used humane mousetraps. First, Michael thought the mouse was his friend and he would always see him at night, and we thought it was just one mouse and the joke was on us. That's a very naive. Oh, it's just one mouse and he's our friend. No. As soon as we started putting these humane traps, two would get in the trap and humane two a night and two per night for a week.

Oh, gosh.

And one day, I really did yelp because a mouse ran across the floor. And I just. I'm so not used to that. But what you can do then is you just release them into the park nearby. Sorry, neighbors who live by the park, but they're not harmed or anything, but they're staying in these traps. This is a long way of saying even a cockroach Michael definitely would not kill. He just, like, shepherds it and talks to it and puts it on a piece of paper and gently puts it out the window.

I mean, why would you want to, you know, smash anything, any living creature, to the smithereens?

What right do we have?

Guide them outside.

I agree. And just have a nice conversation. This is a long tangent from kill two birds.

Yeah.

Or put two. Attract two birds to one birdhouse.

You can set that with all of the radical transparency that we're doing. My God, even talking about this to a Lebanese audience I know would be like, what is this guy doing, really? Like, petting cockroaches now? No, Like, I'm just taking the metaphor way, way too far, but okay.

Actually, I'm glad you brought up the Lebanese.

The kindness thing is just. I've always had it. I had a friend back in school that used to, like, just, you know, like, guide these bees outside of the classroom when everyone was like, just kill it. Smash it. You know, And I never really got it. And up until now, up until maybe three, four years ago, and I guess it's this weird empathy or compassion kind of, you know, realizing that all living beings are living beings and they're having their own experience, and who am I to, you know, end that for no particular reason apart from my fear. Right, Your own fear, your own comfort. Exactly.

That is so beautifully said.

Thank you.

I'm glad you mentioned Lebanese culture, because before I met you, I didn't really know any Lebanese people that I knew. Apparently. Now they're all over the world. Like Salma Hayek's Lebanese. There's a lot of famous Lebanese that people are proud to claim. George Clooney's wife, Amal Clooney. Who else? Kevin the Shark Tank judge.

Yeah, I mean, everyone from Tony Kukoc, if you remember him, to Keanu Reeves is born in Lebanon, I believe. I'm not sure. Roni Saikali, basketball player, but CEOs Carlos Ghsen we're everywhere. We're, you know, I guess we're around 16 million Lebanese people outside of Lebanon in the Diaspora. In the diaspora. And 3 million Lebanese.

And for inquiring minds who don't remember geography, don't feel bad. I was in their same boat when I met Michael walking down the street that one day that I talked about on episode 123.

Lebanon is this tiny little country. I think it's 1 40th the size of California. It is north of Israel and then surrounded by Syria on the other two sides. It's a coastal country. It's incredibly beautiful. For a long time. Yeah, it's Mediterranean. I've never been to Greece, but it kind of gives me a Greek vibe. Very hospitality oriented. And it's, for a long time was called the Paris of the Middle East. It's. They speak. Michael speaks four languages. French, Arabic, English and Armenian.

Yep.

Everyone is so, so warm and delightful and it's just such a unique place because given its geographic location, it has been under a lot of war, a lot of conflict. When the country lines were drawn not by Lebanese, by like French, wasn't it? French by the west, they were drawn across 14 or 18 different religious groups.

French colonial powers.

That's right.

I mean, the French came in as a mandate to, to walk the Lebanese out of the First World War, you know, install a couple of like, couple of education systems. They actually, the mandate that we have for that we got through our independence is heavily based on the French system and we still apply it till now. Which is why my name is Michel initially. Right. My dad didn't want to call me Michael because it was too foreign. The joke actually went every time anyone hear me say Michael, they're like, oh, Michael Jordan or Michael Jackson. That was my only connection to American culture back then.

It's interesting about Lebanese culture. And even I remember last night, so when I came home from dinner and he had 20 to 30 gifts that he had been sending to his art curator friend and writer friend who lives in Beirut. Marie. Yeah, shout out, Marie. And I remember he said, should I Call it just, you know, life of a life of an artist. Or should I call it life of a Lebanese artist? And I told him it has to be Lebanese artists because A, there's that delightful specificity we've been talking about and B, so many of these memes really speak to Lebanese culture. Your search for approval from both of your parents for different reasons and in different ways. And even your sister, your high school friends, your childhood friends, your ex girlfriend, your wife, you know, this, this arc that you've told just in the very first batch, like if you didn't post another gif, which I certainly hope you do and you know, let's debate after the show in the comments, but I don't have comments anymore about whether it's GIF or gif, but it's gif. I prefer gif. Yeah. Anyway, life of Lebanese artists. Some of these have Arabic and I'd love to go through a few examples. But what was your challenge around both? Tell me, tell us a little bit about kind of your mom's impression of trying to be an artist growing up in Lebanon and even your dad who used to be a general for the army. And you know, one of the, one of the memes is like I was running the country by your age, right?

That was when I was 25 or 26 when he said that for the first time. But it's, you know, it's very funny because I'm a grown ass man, I'm 33 years old and I'm still dealing with all of these, you know, I'm not, I'm not necessarily seeking approval anymore. Although the butterflies are definitely there and you know, which, which definitely clearly indicates with, because of the content that I'm, that I'm producing, that it is there, it's just, you know, looming underneath the surface. And yeah, here it is. My, I come from a traditional family, Lebanon's relatively conservative and my dad's a general. He is definitely left brained systems. He's got eight doctorates, which is crazy. And he, you know, he was a general during the war. He held his post for 30 or I think it's 30 years or 35. I kind of, kind of need to ask him about that. But saved Lebanon many times over. Defending it from Syria, defending it from Israel, defending it from inter religious fighting, brothers killing each other. He knows death and A to Z and he's been like master and commander at that post. So here I am, you know, this like quirky little post war kid with an erased history because we live in complete Amnesia when it comes to Lebanese history so that we can at least coexist because there are 17 different sects in Lebanon and sectarianism is very prominent. The whole country is organized in a way so that you don't. You get minor interactions between. Between different sects and religions. I actually had my first interaction with a Muslim person when I was 18 years old. Took me 18 years to get to a university after I was schooled in a Jesuit school. So 13 years with just, you know, Christians, Orthodox Christians and a Catholic setting into like this microcosm of like Druze, Muslims, Shiites, Sunnites, etc. And yeah, I remember putting Mohammed on my phone. Mohammad Bakuh was with me in the architecture and design program. Was like, oh, my God, your name is Muhammad. I actually have a Muhammad on my phone. And it goes to show what kind of barriers that Lebanon have. And a lot of blind spots, actually, in that regard.

It's risky to even talk about them, probably to even say that what you just said on this is. Is edgy.

Edgy.

It's not really.

Thankfully, not anymore.

Improving it sheds light on. On the whole situation, just to give.

You all an example. So this gift that we're talking about is Jack Black with an aggressive, hilariously aggressive salute. And the dialogue of the gift. This says, son, when I was your age, I was running the country. Please go be at least a functioning member of society. And then. Line break. Sir, yes, sir. Your father does. Yeah, it's so good. Yeah, it's so good. So there's this pressure from your dad, who's a general, who's like, come on, artist is not a job.

I always wanted to be an artist.

Yeah, but you always wanted to be an artist. In fact, Michael is one of his side hustles is voiceover work.

It is. It's one of my side hustles that I carry through for 14 years. Amazing. It brought me here, which I tell.

That story sometimes because even when you were a young child, you used to walk around your house and bug everybody.

With your microphone bursting with creativity. That's for sure.

He also, his sign of affection is making impressions of people their voice. And he's done it to me. And then he's called out things that I say or I used to say, and then as soon as I'm aware, I just stop saying it.

Right. I do it as a sign of affection. And hopefully people know in Lebanon, you know, all these people that I end up imitating or making gifts about or making gifts about. About If. If you're remotely Interesting. If I like you, if you are your own person, I am gonna imitate you. You know, imitation is the highest form of flattery, as they say, but, you know, it definitely attacks your ego because it makes you self conscious. And that was, you know, a form of flattery that not everyone enjoyed. But that kind of, you know, got me to understand people more and put myself in their shoes or, you know, play their Personas for a moment. Yeah, if only that. Right? Yeah.

Right. It's a. There's a very playful side to you.

That's what's.

That's what is so fun about this project Life of a Lebanese Artist, because Michael graduated from School of Visual Arts here in New York with a Master's in Fine Arts. And that process was really a journey of deconstructing his work. He'd been classically trained as a painter, figure studies graphic design. And I love how in the Facebook post that launched this project, and again, this is all happening within less than 12 hours ago, basically. Less than 24, definitely. You said to the chair of the department at sba, you said the never ending cluster of trees turned out to be a forest after all. And instead of searching for some serious, like, you know, you've talked about, you don't want to feel the pressure to be a social activist representing the country of Lebanon. If you do that at some point, that's fine, but it's its own form of orientalism. To expect that just because you're coming from outside the U.S. now, you need to represent your country and your art needs to be activist art about your country. It's very limiting.

It's kind of like an identity that I, that I unconsciously took on back in the day, in maybe 2007, eight, where like, all right, if I'm going to be an artist, it's going to be for a good cause. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to Lebanon's horn or kind of figure out a way to. To make peace or, you know, like, I believe in the change that an artist can do, yada, yada, yada. But all in all, with, you know, coming through sva, and it's realizing that it's all about communication. And if you're authentic, if you are vulnerable, if you actually reach in and explore your humanity, who you are as a person throughout any art form and without necessarily, you know, having that sniper objective.

You know, way to approach art, you can still shine through. You can still have people understand, be compassionate, and you can shed light on so many issues just by Being who you are.

Being who you are. In this case, these are animated guests.

Terrifying.

But they're so funny. And the reason they're so funny, it reminds me of stand up comedy, which. Stand up comedy works when it's true. When someone is really speaking a truth or something difficult or challenging. And here you are with all the voices in your head as you've tried to be like, who do you think you are trying to be an artist and make it as an artist in New York City of all places.

What.

What right do you have? And then from the father's side, I was running the country by your age and. And then you have one, a gift from your mom. And by the way, I love Michael's parents, so anything we're talking about is only with, like, all due love and respect. But your mom has this line of like, you know, you could have been a graphic designer, but you didn't want.

You didn't want, you didn't want, but you didn't want.

You could have done anything, but you didn't want.

He actually got offered to be a host on MTV in Beirut back in the day.

And that's more television.

His mom kind of was like, what's wrong with you? Like, you're crazy. You could have been on tv.

It could have been a celebrity already. It was like, that's not the point. You didn't want an artist. I didn't want.

You didn't want.

Didn't want.

It's not been easy to follow that didn't want. Especially when you don't necessarily know exactly what the path forward is going to be.

Yeah, it's like Neti. Nettie. Like all. All you know is that this is not it. You know, that's. No, I'm not a designer. I mean, what is. What is being who you are? It's just. It's just the actions that you perpetually do that. That build. Build your identity somehow. But at a truth, at a core. Ever since I was three years old, I used to draw on everything. I used to be obsessed with drawing, and drawing led to painting, so on and so forth. Graphic design, though, was a functional way to pierce into the market, make some money. But the ultimate goal was auditing classes, auditing other BFAs, learning as much as I could about painting, becoming an artist. And that's why I started this graphic design company that I had for maybe five years. It was all to fund my master's. And then, you know, I moved on.

Now here we are today.

Yeah, voiceovers helped as well. It's you know, like, sometimes they definitely.

Helped create the Runway for all of your various pivots.

And it was a natural skill that I had. And as you said, I used to walk around with that voice recorder trying to have interviews with my grandma, which, you know, which. I mean, I'm not gonna say that she, like, beat the crap out of me because I just wouldn't let go. I just wanted that interview, you know, what do you think of your. Of your grand grand grandchildren? Do you love them? Do you love them, grandma? Do you love them? Just like, just stop and. Yeah, I digress.

What is it for you?

Maybe we can edit this thing out. I don't know.

We can decide or we'll leave it in and then we'll all hear the.

Sure, we'll see.

We'll figure it out. That's what we're letting ourselves. Neither of us. We're both. We both share the similar goals of just keep moving.

Yeah.

And truth while it's fresh means actually, really, when this thing is brand new, when you come down the stairs and you're nervous and you feel like stuck up against the wall out of nerves and vulnerability, hangover. What is it for you about a GIF that so uniquely captures emotion?

Yeah. A GIF is seeped in pop culture. It's derived from all the shows, all the tv, all the content that we create on a daily basis that we consume, and it's part of our fabric.

But add to that, we have Jim.

Carrey, we have Elmo, we have a little. Two little boy. We have Adele. It's true. It's so pulled from pop culture.

It's everything. And now with having these supercomputers at our fingertips, all you have to do is just throw in a couple of tags and hopefully.

Find something you can resonate with and then add this inner dialogue, all these words that you have in your mind. And there is a format now. There is a meme format. Format. There are different ways of presenting information and combining it together because of how prevalent it is. So putting it all together somehow, and in my case, I guess it's been just so far, it's been conveying some biographical hangups.

Hang ups. Yeah. That's what inspired me to do this podcast. Michael and I have been together now over three years. Years. It's not like every day I wake up and I think, we gotta do a podcast or even. Although this might seem like, oh, yeah, let's just promote your new Instagram handle. It's really not about that. The reason I was so inspired to talk to you is because I saw you light on.

Oh yeah.

Fire with joy. And you, you found this thing at the intersection of pop culture, which you have always loved even since you were growing up. Michael learned English by watching shows like Friends and, and Scrubs. And he got made fun of in school because his English was so good.

Yeah.

And then you're combining memes which are viral for a reason. They're so contagious, they capture so much. We were saying if a picture is a thousand words, a meme is 10,000. Because it's a micro moment, a micro emotion, actually. Macro expressions, steroids. I'm looking at Obama saying, what does that mean? Can you pronounce it better than me, please?

What's this triviality? The stupidity.

How do you say it?

What's this triviality?

Yeah, what's the silliness?

What about Walao ya, Marie? Say it properly. See, look how expressive it is.

What does that mean?

Add that with Ross's face. It means like, how dare you, Marie, come on. Shame on you. You know, it's a combination of shame inducing emotions and why?

Because Marie was the one. You were texting these to the art curator, your friend in Beirut.

We were talking about a different project and Makam, the contemporary art museum in Lebanon, accepted a project that I submitted that me and Marie were kind of like thinking about. And we put it together and they accepted it. So we're kind of.

I was not really ready to dive into it. You know, I kind of procrastinate. But it's also, you know, there's no such thing as procrastinating. It's just your brain building up, finding up solutions.

What a positive.

It's true. It's true. There is no such thing as procrastination. It's just inner work. That's all it is. And pressure makes diamonds. So what kind of diamond do you want? What do you want to put out? And what kind of pressure do you want to put on yourself? And honestly, look at that energy release yesterday. If I wasn't reading all these books, doing this research, just doing, doing all my homework, it wouldn't have come out as, as effortless as, as it did.

Right?

But there's no such thing.

Yes. And it's true, Michael, we were joking. He's a contemplative artist because he's been doing this super deep dive immersion, reading books every day on Jungian psychology, positive masculinity, deep into the unconscious, to the shadow side, like the books he's reading. It's so funny because Gifts on the surface look right, maybe. Surface levels, trivial, superficial.

Absolutely.

And yet the subject matter in them and the deep, it's almost like an iceberg in the ocean. You see a little tip, which is the gift.

That's what I love about it.

Huge mass of insight that you've amassed underneath. I'm looking at one of Donald Trump. Oh, I want you to pronounce it better, but you first.

No, just let me plug in something.

Yes.

You know, this came from reading an article in.

The Brooklyn Rail about this artist that paints landscapes. And when asked, she kept saying, I paint landscapes. But it's not about landscapes. It's just the. The. It's just the, The. The lowest common denominator that brings in everyone and gets everyone to. To understand. You know, landscapes are landscapes. They're. They're embedded in our history. But then you've got what dwells underneath the landscapes and the colors and the psychology and the reasons and. And all of this, this deep dive interpersonal excavation that goes on that, you know, comes out as a painting that some people would just hang and enjoy and not even look deeper than that. But that's. I think the thing with memes is that it's so democratized and everyone understands that language that I'm sure that it gets to so many other, so many people on a visceral level as well as, you know, the comic, trivial level. Also, think of stand up comedy. We were talking about that. Stand up comedians are the voice of society. They say things that politicians can't say, and they say it through humor, irony, all of this popular use of.

Dialogue, and it's super vulnerable. Stand up comedians get shut down half of the time. You know, it takes time to hone your craft, but it's the toughest, one of the toughest gigs because you're just bare and you just go up there and you just put it out there and you can be booed and you can be cheered, but then something happens. There's a sort of alchemy that's so direct present. You could, like, you could feel it in the air. And I think that's what gifts do. You.

So beautifully said memes. Memes. Yeah. There were two things in there. You talked about democratizing even art, which can be intimidating for some people. How do you. How do you. At first, when I was trying to wrap my mind around the contemporary art scene in New York, I was like, one of those people mind fuck. I do not get it. We don't use the F word on this podcast.

My darling mind Fluffy Bunnies.

Mind F. I don't know.

It's a mind fuck.

I'm gonna have to now mark this. This episode explicit.

Yeah. R rated. Pivot Podcast. Pivot Podcast. The Pivot Podcast. With your host, Jenny Blake.

With my husband.

I wonder if we could cue up some, like, erotic music in the.

No. Okay, now that's taken too far. We did do an episode together. We were interviewed together called Artist as CEO. I'll link to it in the show notes. See what I did there? I pivoted right away from his budding romance novel podcast. But speaking of politicians and almost undemocratizing this one hilarious one of Donald Trump. I'm not even going to be able to read it. Is that in Democrats? I'll read it for you, Aqeed Akid. Go for it. Yeah, bro, say it in your show.

Me. Okay, so this meme is about my Lebanese friends.

Say it in, say it in Arabic.

Okay, here goes.

Go for it, bro. Go for it.

And what does that mean? What was this about?

If you're happy, a million percent go for it. But you know, it's. If you look at the, the, the expression in the meme, it's like they're not, they don't believe anything they're saying. They're just, no, sure, sure, sure. We're giving you our blessing, but good luck, stay away.

Good luck, as we say. Yeah, for sure. They get it. That's the thing. And it's so directly linked to pop culture, but specifically Lebanese culture. And the delivery works so well because we're such a expressive people. It shows on our faces, it shows on our hands. It's like this Italian, spicy Italian thing.

It really is this one. It's so on point. It says, friends shunning me, lebo friends shunning me for being terrified of the prospect of my views being 1% right and affecting their coveted version of quote, reality. And then in quotes it says, as long as you're happy, of course. Go for it, bro.

Yeah, there it is.

That, that, that you might be 1% right, because I will say I went to his 10 year high school reunion and most people are banking, law, business, family business. You don't meet very many that it's not like. I mean, that's probably true for, I'd say a lot of listeners where. Although maybe I think I have a more sad hustle y solopreneur y type audience in general. But not everybody, nor do you have to be. But I remember someone saying to me at that reunion back in Beirut that Michael's one of the three, like one of the three from our class who just purely followed his dreams and is doing something totally not in the mainstream that doesn't just immediately provide security and even status. Because there is some of that in Lebanon, just like in America, about status. You are what you do or what you own, how you look, how you present. It's. It's a part of the culture.

I mean, I'm gonna, I'm gonna plug in my dad here who.

Who freaked out when I started growing. Who freaked out when I started growing this beard I have.

And people stop him on the street all the time for this beard, by the way.

Yeah.

I mean, you can see it@carsoni.com what your bio picture. They can see it carsoni.com because, by the way, P.S. we still have not posted on social media that we got married.

Oh, yeah.

So all of you listening, you're in now on the secret. But the only reward is for people who listen to the podcast. That's the only way.

Congratulations.

Yeah, Congratulations and thank you. And this is the. But don't go posting like right on the wall being like, oh, congrats on the.

That's. Congrats. Nope, you're on the inside, you know, so therefore you're not gonna. Don't expect to find a Facebook album of wedding photos.

No 1000 person wedding here. We're keeping it.

No, we tell everyone. We're so happy. Everyone we tell is just directly one on one. Except this podcast. This right now. But the funny thing is, you guys.

Are the inner circle.

Yes. And I didn't put it in the title of episode 1, 2, 3, my first one back. I didn't put it in the title. I didn't directly say. So the only people still are the ones that actually click and actually listen.

Yeah. And are, you know, halfway through even the podcast. So it's a nice Easter egg there.

That's what I'm going for. So now you all know. Okay, that was the tangent. You were talking about your beard and your dad.

So I was talking about my dad. And so having a beard in Lebanon, you know, up until it turned hipster. Yeah. Is revealing of your religion. And after 9 11, it became such a huge deal because of how America portrayed these terrorists. And we got affected because.

We'Re this Middle Eastern country, but we're actually by the Mediterranean. And as the cliche goes, we're the gateway from east to west. You know, we bring both cultures together and it was pretty risky for. I mean, I say risky in the broadest of terms. But.

For a Christian Lebanese to own a beard and parade it around.

Well, and you were 27, 28, 29, even now 33.

You are a young 2010.

You are a young man from the Middle east with a beard.

Right.

He gets stopped every single time he goes to the airport. Airport. And it was such an interesting thing even traveling with him domestically where he has, he had nerves in the beginning. And I understand such a different experience for me versus for him where they're pulling him aside all the time.

I didn't want to shave my beard just because of that. It was weird to orient my whole Life around these 10 minute interviews that I used to have at checkpoints. And I didn't want to be that guy. And I have these great genetics.

Yes, he does.

Beard follicles.

I'm married. Well, you guys.

And my dad, dogmatic as he is, shaves every day. A man shaves every day. You know, I don't even know if I've seen my dad with a five o' clock shadow more than maybe four or five times in my whole life because he shaves twice a day. And you know, it's a mark of a man to be on, on top of his game and his, his grooming and his cleanliness. And having a beard when you're in the army is borderline blasphemous, I guess. No, no, having a beard in the army is probably not the way to go, but.

Kind of that, that view that he held for 35 years. Yeah. Was, was imposed on me. It's one of the reasons why I have a beard as well, which is funny.

And how does that tie in to life of a Lebanese artist?

Ties in with everything. I mean there, there are, there are people with man buns right now in Beirut and things of, things have obviously changed.

I see it as well as you're both stubborn, which I love. Stubbornly.

You.

Yeah, you are like stubbornly. Unapologetically.

Unapologetically me.

It was one of the things, I mean, see, I have an unfair advantage because my dad's an artist. He is an architect, an artist, a musician. And so I always grew up having this relationship with somebody who's very creative, very intelligent, very free in his own expression. And my dad's so happy with Michael as his son in law, vice versa. It's funny because it's such a unique pairing. Like maybe a lot of dads out there would be like, what are you doing marrying a painter? How's he gonna live? And then my dad's like Way to go.

You know, I am so thankful for that.

And then because of Michael, I learned so much more about my dad.

I mean, you went on an MFA binge with me as I was reading all these books you're doing.

Let's be real. I got a vicarious MFA because I read so many of those books.

Secondhand MFA.

I read Duchamp biographies. I read about the $12 million Leo Castelli shark. I read about Leo Castell. I read about Jeff Koons and the orange balloon dogs. And I read, like, so many things. And just to. Because really, really, there's a joke that an unknowing person to the art world or to a piece of modern art says, I could have done that.

And then it's like the meme. It's exactly like that.

It's the meme.

Yeah.

And then the following line is, but you didn't.

But you didn't. You didn't, bro.

You didn't, bro.

Yeah.

So that used to be my mindset, and I actually kind of stuck. Scoffed at certain excuses. Yeah.

Very much attached to painting, and that's all I wanted to be. And I didn't really understand what the hell contemporary art was. You know, it's so broad, and, you know, people use anything to convey their ideas and good on them. You know, it's. It's.

Yeah, but I think the beard is part of being devoted to being yourself. And no person on this planet can tell him otherwise. Take it from me, it's either you're gone or you're accepting his drive. And it's. It is rare to see somebody so committed to say, I am a painter or an artist. Like, I am an artist. This is who I am. No, I will not go get a job just to get a job, just to pay the bills. Like, you've never been that person. You're willing to be a traveling, nomadic artist. You're willing to sleep on couches. You're willing to bootstrap, so to speak.

But. But the. The opportunity cost is great of your soul.

Like, you're somebody who. If you don't follow your soul on.

Any given day, if I don't do my research, if I don't take these deep dives and read these books and go to shows and grow internally. There's no way I can. I can truly express or truly reflect any community I'm in and me and, like, filter it through my identity. And that's what being an artist is, damn it. And it took me a while. Yes, I am unapologetically an Artist. But for years I used to say, oh, I'm working to become a painter. They're like, haven't you been studying painting and painting for the past 12 years? And yeah, there's a sacredness to being painter and holding this responsibility. Although, you know, I hope it doesn't come off as a holier than thou situation. But I think it also has to do with European culture and their view on what it means to be an artist. Because that's not a label that's just thrown around. You're not going to hear a 18 year old, as I have here, just, you know, define themselves as artists. Like, what are you doing? I'm like 29 here, I'm 33 now. But the person I met, the people I met in their, in their teens just moving to New York City, and they're like deciding to be poets and artists and painters. I'm like, no, you can't do that. You know, there's, it's not the rules. No, you gotta, you gotta apprentice somewhere. You gotta, you gotta work under a master, you gotta go through a Nathalie process, you gotta earn your, the name, you gotta earn the lab. What do you call it, what do you say.

The title? Working under a master, having a mentor, you know, and, and it may seem a little traditional, but, and I'm pretty sure people in the contemporary art world would beg to differ, but I mean, it got me where I am right now. And I wear, I wear that badge very proudly.

Yes. And I know that something we're often talking about, and I'm often encouraging you to do, which I didn't realize was so uniquely American until Michael sort of points it out to me. But truly, this notion of you can do anything, you can be anything, if you can dream it, you can do it. There's one neighbor, he's writing a book, he lives next door to us. And we're constantly like, hey, if you could dream it, you could do it. And this is what we say every time we see him when we come home. But I think you hold a very high bar for yourself. And it kind of comes with that meme we talked about if I was running the country at your age and.

Huge shoes to fill, huge shoes.

But you, you make your own bar. There's often this reach for almost has to be perfect or it has to be, you know, you have to earn it.

There's this kind of slows me down every now and then.

This has been cool. This is why, again, circling back to life of a Lebanese artist that I It was so interesting to see you fly out the gate and immediately send these gifts to your friend Marie, who you made them for. Then you texted them to me. Then the next thing I know there's a complete set on Instagram. Then you even. And Michael and I, neither of us use Facebook very often. You even announced it on Facebook.

Yeah.

So you went all the way, put it out there. What's the difference? What is the difference in energy with life of a Lebanese artist that you just flew out the gate with with joy and ease and childlike glee? Compared to other projects where you feel more shoulds and more sort of like perfectionism creep in. What is the formula? What did you. What is the secret to this?

Yeah.

When there are a lot of rules around any project, any given project, it kind of cripples me. It kind of sets things in stone. And I'm not that kind of person. I want to discover what lies ahead. I want to have some goals in the future that I could aim towards, but it can't be the end result because I get bored. And then I always discover a gem that, that doesn't fit my preconceived notion of what this project might be. And it creates a lot of stress. And I think the key here is not de stress, but eustress. It's the kind of stress that gets you excited, that keeps you moving forward and carries you through a project rather than set all these barriers that you gotta, you know, break through and you know, there's all these expectations that you kind of throw out the window when you take the eustress. Joyful, exciting.

I think it's so joyful. That's why you only slept an hour. Oh, you have so much adrenaline.

I didn't realize what I was doing. I was like downloading all these gift program, gift making programs and, you know, writing these posts and usual circumstances, it would be okay. Now I got to do the social media bit and I got to put my work out there and write about that thing, but forgot to document. Right, Documentation.

Got to build a platform.

Absolutely. And it happened instantaneously. And it goes to show how intelligent we are on an instinctual level. We know all that stuff. You know, we don't have to, you know, plan it and write it down.

And take a course.

Make sure we know that we know that we know that we know. Like you don't need to pat yourself on the back so many times in order to do something. And that's, that's. I struggle with that, honestly. Sometimes it yields better results. But does it, though? I don't know. I don't. I don't have an answer for you on this specific subject, but I just.

Think the proof is in your actions that there are other projects where maybe they're on the wish list or the someday list. And then this went from 0 to 1. 0 to 2.

Priorities. What's the most important thing that sparks joy?

This. You didn't even need to make it a priority. It just came into existence. That's so beautiful. This is why I grabbed this fruit off the tree today. And I'm like, we got to do a podcast today. I want to hear within the first 24 hours of zero to one, which there is a book by Peter Thiel called Zero to One that Michael often references when he's talking about a new direction for his work. And that's what I think. And I'm having so much fun similarly building the new phase of JB 3.0 and the new Momo 3.0 and building my business. I can't believe how much fun I'm having. And it's kind of. That contrast shows me the parts of my business where I'm not having that much. Like, where. And then if I'm not now, I actually question it. So, for example, Momentum's gonna. We're gonna open doors again in October. And of course, one of the things in order to do that is writing a series of launch emails, or we'll call them invitation emails. Maybe someone calls them sales. Sales sequence, you know? Okay. I dread these things. I dread if it says on my to do list, like, momentum launch sales sequence, I will not want to do it. Yeah.

Yeah.

But I set this intention the other day of what would have me jump out of bed to write those invitations. What would have me have a blast, what would have me look forward Maybe if I did them as gifts, if I was as funny as you with those things. But, like, why not? Why not? Just what twist do I can I put here to let it be easy, let it be fun, and to look forward to this and why do it any other way?

Yeah, any delightful format goes delight. I actually have. Have another example that happened nine years ago now, 2010. I wasn't happy in my design business. I was actually.

Stuffing my face with sugary sweets. Sugary sweets. Sugary.

It sounds like a commercial, right?

With sugary sweets, stuffing my face with sugary treats on the daily because I needed my hit of dopamine. I hated my life, and I was growing horizontally.

You know, I was good. It was incredible. So I managed to gain about maybe 25, 30 pounds in a year.

And then Lebanese love to eat, by the way.

Yeah. When I go visit you, if you come over and. And you're our guest, he'll make you a bite. I'll make you bites. I'll cook for you. I, I.

Cultural tip. Derive a lot of Turn down somebody's bite.

Yes.

It's crafted with love and care. I've made that mistake.

It's an insult if someone sits there and crafts you a bite and hands it to you and you go, oh.

No, I'm not hungry.

No, it's an honor for them to feed you.

Yeah.

Yeah. And. And when you reject that, there's. There's. It's, It's. It's a cultural thing.

Michael's mom is a brilliant chef. She's. He would come home from school as a kid, and there's a whole tableau spread out every single day. So it's not hard to gain 25 extra pounds.

No, it's not. And back then, I didn't really want to do graphic design. The money was great, though, and. But I had. I was obsessed by this movie 300.

Which is, you know, it's about the Spartans and their military.

How many times have you seen 300?

You know.

I know. Yeah. 70. 79 times.

79. 79. He knows every word, right?

And Spartans are a military society. And it resonated when I watched that thing. It was as if the sky sparted, literally. And. And it was like, this is it. This is.

What's your favorite line to become?

I have a monologue for you.

Please. Can you give us a little snippet?

Yeah. Remember us? He said to me. That was his hope. If any free soul come across that place in the countless centuries yet to be, may all our voices whisper to you through the ageless stones. Go tell the Spartans, passerby that here, by Spartan law, we lie.

Right?

And the crowd goes, well, but point being, talking about eustress again and linking it to this project I had seen 300 over maybe 50 times back then. And.

Something happened. My girlfriend at the time got me this Spartan helmet for my birthday, and I wore it with glee. Was parading around, kind of like wrapped this red T shirt around my shoulders to stand in as a cape, and was just walking around then looked at myself in the mirror. I'm like, oh, my God, what happened to me? You know, I just, like, literally became this obese guy with a huge belly. And it wasn't who I am. It wasn't how I saw myself to be. I had been very, you know, healthy, energetic. I used to exercise and bodybuild my whole life. And something clicked. Halloween was around the corner. 31st of October, and I decided to become King Leonidas for Halloween. And to keep myself committed to that goal, I decided to blog about it. And it happened completely spontaneously. Just started the whole thing in a day like now. It's kind of the same energy. I was writing and you're talking about eclipses and how there's a nine year cycle and this corresponds exactly to that day back then. And. Yeah. So I put up this blog just to make sure people know.

What'S that term? So you can get.

I always forget that term.

Which one? Blogging subscribers?

No, no, no, no, not at all. I didn't want any of that. I just wanted even one person to follow. No, it ends with edibility, visibility. No, when someone makes sure you do something, it's accountability. Accountability. Okay.

Say it fresh.

Okay. Yeah, so I started that blog. I guess we're gonna have to edit out all of that.

I just wanted.

Yeah, I just wanted the accountability. And the blog was perfect for that. And it kind of channeled all my excitement and documented my day and, you know, gave me clarity and kept me going. So I just started doing that. And my whole world crumbled because even my best friend, who's a lawyer, not my best friend anymore.

Didn'T accept it. Please remove it. People are calling me. They're telling me that your friend is going crazy. Tell them.

How many stop diving. Did you get to let people know?

Because in the beginning it was maybe about. So it was, it was my close, my close community, maybe, maybe 200 people thinking that I've gone completely insane. And then a blogger noticed the project, or a friend of mine sent it to, to his blogger friend who had a. It's called. Well, it's a known blog in the Middle east. And he just put it on his blog. And then I went from 200 people a day to 2,500 views a day.

Wow.

And I ended up two months later having gone to the hospital twice because I pushed myself so hard. But I lost that weight and I got my six pack and I made my costume and I wrote all about it and I won, you know, Halloween competitions. But it changed my life. It showed me what was possible and, and, and all this exponential growth that happened just because of this eustress. And you know, in the end, the project, after two months, got about 60,000 views and, and, and thousands of subscribers. But then I stopped the project because it was. It was done. You know, of course, society again, my family, my friends, they're like, you're an idiot. You finally built yourself a following. These are the same people that hated my guts when I started that thing. And they're like, now that you have that, you should be a coach. You should write about challenges, you should do other things. You know, you should go into health and fitness. I'm like, you are insane. This is just a side project, which can be seen as a performance nowadays if you. If you look at it through a contemporary art lens. And that's what it was. I didn't know what it was back then, but so it's the same energy. It's just something that came out of the blue, out of things that I already had. And Sean west has this podcast about. You don't need.

Anything outside of you to make a million dollars right now, because you have all the tools, and they're there at your fingertips. Only you have to align yourself and pull in all these. All these different threads, these different activities, these different.

Expertises. Expertises.

Can I say? It's the word now.

Okay.

It's very pivoty.

It works, right? Right. You should pull in all of this experience we've had doing so many random things like tweeting gifs or, I don't know, learning about depth psychology and the artwork world and having friends that don't necessarily support you. Whatever. You pool all of this energy, and it comes so weirdly into this mountain of energy that you didn't even know you had, and then the format comes just all by itself, out of the blue. And, I mean, this is day one, but hopefully it keeps going, and I'm excited. I really want to write that momentum, and I hope I do.

I love it. We'll link to that Sean west podcast in the show notes, because it is great. Michael's been following him for a long time, but you already have the skills you need to earn a million dollars a year.

Absolutely.

And that's. That's why I love that this is day one. I also knew it was going to be very edgy for you because, yes, I have the podcast, and Michael's been listening, even off and on. He. We both read Tim Ferriss back in the day, so we often joke like, Tim Ferriss is like, our secret best man. That wasn't at our wedding. But, you know, he doesn't know who we are, but we talk about him a lot.

I. I had 30% of your library.

Yes.

In. We had 30% of your library in common with my library.

When you first.

When we first met and Tim Ferriss. Timmy, Timmy, shout out to you. We love you, man.

Love you, Timmy. If you can hear this.

Yeah, I should. I should post a gif about me fangirling.

Yes. Michael met him at south by Southwest and I got a picture of him and I said to him, I'm like the love in your eyes. I've never. You've never even looked at me this way. The love that he had let me.

Let me plug in this little thing. Tim Ferriss changed my life.

Me too.

When I. When I stumbled upon the four hour workweek and I realized that, you know, I could start the voiceover business and, you know, put it online and work from anywhere.

Bring your microphone.

Anywhere, Anywhere. Right. Bring a 200 microphone, plug it into my laptop, you know, record in friends closets, figure it out to get good sound. And that's what got me traveling around the world.

And I'll say it's one thing to read Tim Ferriss in the US it was already revolutionary. Put in Lebanon. Just. No chance.

No.

I mean, he tried to gift this book to so many friends and they're like, you're insane. This book is insane. In the US I think it picked up more quickly and especially I was living in Silicon Valley at the time. It wasn't. I mean, it was radical and it was a game changer.

2008. 2000. Yeah, yeah, about 2008.

9.

No one knew about that thing. No one knew about, you know.

So you can imagine my delight and sapio. Sexual turn on. Which is like. You get turned on. See. Dang it. We're now back in the erotica. But no.

Where you get turned on with an artist.

I know that's the risk of interviewing your husband.

It's not a risk. It's. I know, it's. You don't.

Radical transparency.

Yeah. You don't tackle that in business. That's all. Well, sort of who we are.

Okay. Yes, that's true. That's true. But I'm saying that's definitely my personality. That is intelligence and heart. That, that, that's what gets me. It's not the way a person looks. Chemistry is important, but I have as much chemistry from their mind and their soul and their heart.

Same.

And who they are and the sparkle in their eyes and. Yeah. So we connected on that a really a long time ago.

Instantaneously.

Instantaneously. He had. I had just interviewed Cal Newport for the first time and Michael's like, oh, Cal Newport and the fact that this guy that I just met walking down the street knew who Cal Newport was, was now even now, Cal's taking off in such a big way.

Yeah.

Many more people even would know the name. But at that time, it was this quirky thing that we really connected on.

And deep work is crucial to both our methods of learning and growing our businesses.

All of that's a really long way of saying you've supported me so much, but you're not the one that's going to, like, tell the truth while it's fresh, necessarily. So I knew asking you before you had a chance to think about it, and we couldn't. I didn't even want to give you the chance to plan ahead. Just like you want to record a podcast this morning.

Yeah, I knew it'd be edgy for you. Perfect. Yeah, we don't.

We don't have scripts. I did. I gave him the respect, like, I prepared as I would for a regular guest in my little Moleskine notebook. Yeah, I have all these talking points. I mean, not talking points, but just questions that. That came to my mind. And if you hear doors opening and closing, it's. It's Saturday in the. In the house, in the building. So I think this is a really great, natural stopping point before I wrap up and let people know all the links, the rabbit holes that you can explore. Is there anything you want to say to close out or even. I always like to invite listeners to do one thing.

I was kind of surprised by those Yogi Yogi tea messages that I got from my tea today, and I want to read them.

Please do.

So, number one, we are born wise and we are born complete. And I think it's a huge one because there's so much, you know that you're not aware that you know. And it takes a little bit of tuning in, and it's not easy to do with, with this, this. This crazy world that we live in, with all these insecurities and people coming at us from. From every directions and all these responsibilities, but you really know more than you think you do. And that's something I struggled with for a while. And it takes every day to tune in and to know this truth. And the other one is live righteously and love everyone. That's yours. That's for you, Jenny. Right. That's who you are, practically. Live righteously and love everyone. Love and systems.

Yesterday I was dressed to go to meet a friend for dinner, and I was carrying the trash and the recycling, and he's like, oh, no, no, no, I cannot let you take the trash. You need to be waving and waltzing. That's your job. Like, that's how you need to leave the house. Because he makes fun of me that every time I'm coming and going from our house, always, like, waving and everybody, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Waltzing around.

And at the same time, you've got this compulsive need to just tidy everything around you, get everything organized. Course, of course, not everyone.

I mean, it's not so compulsive. I.

You know, relatively compulsive to. To. To an artist.

Actually, the trash was full, and I was doing you the favor. I was like, I don't even want you to have to take it out. I'm gonna get it on the way out.

I mean, that's what I. I really appreciate about you. So thank you.

Well, you're. You're so welcome. Can you read them one more time in your best vo?

Sure.

Because I want to let them land.

Sure. So the first one again is we are born wise. We are born complete. And the second one is live righteously and love, everyone.

Bravo. Thank you so much, Michael, my darling.

Thank you.

My husband, my love, my love. For everyone listening, if you made it this far, we. Wow. Congratulations. Thank you.

Thank you for listening. This was great. Thank you.

You have followed our wandering tangents down.

This is great.

Yeah, I had so much fun. And a couple places to find more if you're interested. First of all, I'd love to know your feedback on an episode like this, because Michael and I have joked in the past, like mornings with Jenny and Mike and that we would get our coffee. We could just do some podcasts because this is the type of stuff we talk about and think about all the time in the household. And if you liked it, let us know. You could even take the Listener survey. It's pivotmethod.com survey and you can take it as a bot now at Chatbot, which my inner geek loves, you can just chat with the survey and then it will write to you.

Love and systems.

Yeah, love and systems. You can ask us a question. So if you. If you found this interesting or you have questions for Michael, just leave it@pivotmethod.com ask. You can check out his portfolio@carsoni.com we even have an online gallery that we launched this year. Carsoni Blake.com Carsoni Blake, everybody. Yeah, the new household. Carsoniblake.com there's actually a lot of digital prints if you're interested in beautifying your space. I love his work. I'm biased, but I do. And most of all, I want to let you in so early on this project for building momentum. But also just you are actually in at the ground level. As I said, it's when we're recording this, the first 24 hours. So you can follow on Instagram at Life of a Lebanese Artist. That's at Life of a Lebanese Artist. And I realize the acronym for that, if you take out the O is Lala lala lala lala. Life. That's a Lebanese Artist.

That's a chicken sandwich place in Beirut that's very, very well known and has the best chicken sandwich.

Well, there you go. So at Life of a Lebanese Artist. And we'd love to know what you.

Think or La La Land.

You know La La Land, Exactly. But it's kind of a play the tagline, it's Life of Lebanese artist Michael Carson. Michael Michelle. Michael Carsoni. And then the tagline is making it in New York, which I love because I don't even need to say it, but I will. But it's making the art in New York, but it's also making it in New York and doing that thing that everyone has said you're crazy to pursue. So I will close.

You can make it here, right?

You can make it anywhere, right? Oh, you'd sing some great Frank Sinatra.

Absolutely. Stay tuned for our next show, Frank Sinatra.

Yes.

Good.

If you tune into the next one, I'm gonna make him sing for you. Michael used to be a wedding singer.

Yeah, for, like, for. For years. Yeah, for four or five years I was lead singer in a big band. Fifteen piece big band. Yeah.

So, yeah, stay tuned. That's going to be our little. Come listen to the next one and I'll just close by saying thank you. And Michael, I respect you so much and what you're doing and what you're building, and it's a joy to watch and a total honor and delight to be a part of it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's same. I got to say the same thing because you're here crushing your business and developing it day by day, you know, and it's great to be part of it, too.

Amazing. Thank you, Michael. Thank you everyone for listening. And show notes. All the links from this episode are@pivotmethod.com podcast.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter. Enny Blake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.