135: The Bliss Engine with Jim Blake (aka Daddy-O!)

Hi, this is Charles Michael Davis. Toyotathon is on. So stop by your local Toyota dealer for incredible year end deals on the cars, trucks and SUVs known for their legendary reliability like the stylish and efficient Camry, the Ready for anything RAV4 or check out a rough and rugged Tacoma or Tundra, all with great financing and lease options available to qualified customers. Visit buyatoyota.com to find out more. Toyota let's go places.

Quick plug before we jump into today's episode and a reminder in case it's not already on your radar, I am going to be leading a free masterclass coming up on 1010 at 10am Eastern on Zoom called what else 10 streams of scalable Solopreneur Income. I am so excited to lead this course. I'm going to walk you through exactly what I earn across over 10 streams of income, the pros, cons, systems, considerations for each stream, and mostly lessons learned the hard way. I'm not saying you should if you're just starting out, that you should try to set up 12 things at once. It's not going to work very well, but eight years in I can share what is working, why I do have so many, and the three that I'm going to double down on for the year ahead. So if you want to join us, I would love to have you. You can register for free at Pivot Love 10 streams. That's Pivot Love 10 streams with a 1 and 0 not spelled out Pivot Love 10 and the words streams. And we'll talk about all kinds of things as it relates to scalable solopreneur income, including how to radically transform your bookkeeping, the importance of steady recurring revenue, and Q and A to answer anything else that's on your mind. This masterclass also kicks off doors reopening for my private momentum community for solopreneurs with crazy smart systems to build your ideal six figure heart based business in the year ahead. And who knows, maybe some of you are even building towards seven figures and beyond. So I'm really excited. There's so much going on and I'm just thrilled to be at the point of sharing it all with you. So if you want to join us for 10 streams of scalable solopreneur income, that's at Pivot Love 10 streams 10 streams. And now onto today's show. 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.

This week's episode is a little different than the usual. It is part of a series that I did at the inaugural Podcast Row held at Stand Up New York with James Altucher and the fantastic Podcast Row team. This was a pilot. It had never been done before. They invited a bunch of business podcasters and guests to come together and do a crazy packed day of interviews. I had back to back 30 minute interviews and was wondering how on earth I could possibly meet the guest, dive into the questions and close out the interview all within 30 minutes. But somehow we made it happen and then we did that over and over again. I was thrown into these rooms with brand new people that I didn't know much about. I got their bios maybe one or two days prior and of course I had some say in who I was going to interview as well so I could make sure that they were a fit for this show. I had a total blast. It actually challenged me to think about how can I be even punchier with my questions when I have more time. I hope you enjoy this episode and I look forward to your feedback.

Hello everybody. I am here at Podcast Row and there was a last minute schedule change. So instead of taking this first chunk of the day off, I am interviewing the one, the only, Jim Blake, AKA Daddy O. Daddy O. Welcome to the show, Jenny.

Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here. It's exciting to be here and I'm ready to rock.

It is so fun having you in New York City. Let me give you a proper introduction. See, I figured I didn't have to prep because I've been prepping my whole life for this interview.

All right.

My dad is an architect, a painter, a musician. He was the lead singer in a band, Mr. Gasoline for 30 years. They're on Spotify. Some great tracks there that will definitely get stuck in your head. And he's now hails from Washington. Well, he's from Washington. Yes, from Seattle. Born in Seattle, lives there now. And this is the tail end of a visit to New York City.

It's been a great visit. It's just been one highlight after another. Before I came here, I had a few ideas about what I was going to do. I'm going to go to a gospel choir. I'm going to go out to the ocean. I'm going to do this and that, and at every one of those events, they so far exceeded my imagination, it just boggled my mind. One event after another. Just. I've been astounded here. Every day, every day has been better than the day before. Reminds me of that great Pat Upton song, I love you more today than yesterday. I could say that about New York.

See, you always have such a positive attitude. If I ever ask my dad, how are you doing? He'll say, never better. These are the great times. That's the Jim Blake motto. You even wrote a book called the Bliss Engine that's on Kindle. It's on Amazon, yes. And you talk about two things. Well, many more than two. But you talk about the Bliss Diet. The Bliss Diet, kind of low key eating. So you free up your creative energies.

For bliss mouth management.

Tell us what mouth management is.

Mouth management is a concept of being aware, being mindful of every single thing you do with your mouth. What you eat, what you drink, what you say, who you kiss and how you. You kiss them.

Wow.

It affects your life. If you can manage your mouth, you've managed your life.

You also talk about managing and navigating bliss. That in fact. And I just read you a quote. I use this great service called Readwise, Readwise IO and they'll send snippets of Kindle highlights like from my Kindle library. I get a newsletter every day with snippets. And while you were here in New York visiting, I got one from the Bliss Engine that was about casting your bliss and not to make the holes too big, not to only go for big bliss items. Yes, I'd love for you to tell us about that casting your Bliss Net, but also this notion of managing bliss and our capacity for bliss as well as knowing about the bliss crash.

Wow, those are great questions. The Bliss Net. The idea is that every one of us has an idea of what will make us happy, what will make us happier, what will fulfill us. Some people buy a lottery ticket every day at the corner grocery store with the idea that when I win the lottery, I'm going to be happy. Well, that's a very. That's a net with a very large opening. You need a very, very large event for your net to capture that lottery victory. Whereas if your net has much smaller openings in it, a much finer going to catch all the little things. On your walk to that grocery store, you might have passed a beautiful rose bush or seen a wonderful little dog in a yard, or seen a squirrel or heard a bird sing. And if all those make you Feel happy, then you're happy already. You don't have to win the lottery.

That's true. You said in the quote, go for the plankton. Yeah, go for the tuna.

And that brings up the idea of respect for little things. Respect for little ideas. Everything that we value, everything we can see has a beginning as something invisible or something very, very tiny. A redwood tree began from a grain of pollen that could get trapped in your nose and make you sneeze. So part of living is finding small things to nurture. Finding small things in your own life that you can nurture into larger things.

Let's say you want to be a Broadway star. Well, if you can nurture the small steps to becoming a Broadway star, or let's say a Broadway lyricist or a writer of Broadway plays, you would start by maybe writing little one page stories or a one act play or an off off Broadway play. Something small, something manageable. So the idea of plankton is to have small things that grow into big things. Don't expect the big things immediately. For one thing, you lose out on a lot of the fun that's to be had from managing small things and appreciating them on a daily basis. So the idea is to appreciate the small things, the things that are available to you.

I love that you've always been so encouraging. It's one of the things I feel luckiest. And one of the big privileges of my life is that you've always been extremely encouraging of anything I wanted to do. And if I even told you I want to be President of the United States, I have this feeling that in your mind you would think that that's 100% possible. Absolutely, without question. It's really a gift to have that kind of encourage. And it's not just words. I get the feeling you really believe it. And I'm wondering how you developed that mindset. One of the most powerful parts of the Bliss Engine is you talk about your childhood and that you lived. You had a very chaotic childhood, very chaotic, chaotic family life. You moved a lot, Maybe, wasn't it 14 times in one school year?

Well, I went to 16 different grade schools before 10th grade.

You even wrote a memoir about the age when you were age 10.

Age 10, yeah. 300 pages of memoir of one year of fifth grade.

So how do you go from having such a sort of chaotic upbringing, it was you and your three sisters and.

I don't know, leaving the house and then, you know, because some people in those circumstances might feel a little lost or down on themselves or unsure about how to navigate their life without real structure on the home front. And how did you become this, such an optimistic, cheerful guy, appreciating all the little bliss moments throughout every day?

That's a great question. I think the beauty of the chaos I experienced as a child, from my earliest memories to the day I graduated from high school, the day I left home, is that at the time.

Maybe.

Half of those experiences were dark, chaotic, confusing. The other half were fine. I'm learning new things. I'm meeting new kids. I'm having these experiences in Australia and all around the United States. I'm learning what a southern accent is. As an 11 year old. I live in Southern Idaho in the desert. I live in the mountains of the Cascades where it snows 500 inches every winter.

But as I get older, the chaos trained me so wonderfully for what it's like to be an adult in America that it's like winning the lottery every day. Oh, my God. Well, being an adult in America is schizoid. It's chaotic. It's enough to drive you crazy. And I'm so well prepared for that. So I just feel like my background and all the chaos of my childhood was a wonderful training for life in America.

But you channeled that chaos because even still, I think you could have easily gotten addicted to something or gotten into drugs or, you know, many people with a similar background to yours wouldn't have really landed on their feet so well. And I know art and the creative process has been a huge part of that. Yes, but what was that kernel within you to transform your experience and have you say, wow, I'm so well prepared for the world instead of feeling the opposite?

Well, number one, I think the biggest reason was that I grew up in a household that was plagued by people with substance, substance issues. So I could see the destructive effect of alcohol, various prescription drugs, and this and that right in front of me every day. It was making people unhappy. I came of age during the height of the hippie movement. All of my peer group were experimenting with drugs. I just said, no, thank you. I've been there. I've done that for the last 10 years. I don't want to go there. I don't want to drink anything in the army. I don't want to go out and drink, drink beer with the guys. I've seen beer. I don't want beer. I have my passions, my art, my drawing. I'm addicted to that. I'm gonna do that every day. I'm addicted to adrenaline, exercise, running, working out. I Feel great on these addictions that I have. They appear to be healthy addictions and they're serving me well. I can stay away from all the crap that wrecks your health.

My dad turns 70 this year. Hope it's okay that I just said that on the podcast.

That's great. I love being 70.

And he walks six miles every night.

Six miles.

And then. Are you still doing the 16 milers every now and then.

Not too often now. I used to walk 18 miles a day for three years in Nashville, channeling my muses and writing song lyrics. On those walks, I'd walk from my house that was way to hell and gone out Murfreesboro Road to the center of Music Row in the heart of Nashville to the Nashville Songwriters Association. So lots of exercise.

Talk about a pivot. I thought it was so incredible how when you retired from being an architect, you were living in the Bay Area as. As were my brother Tom and I. We were all kind of in the Bay Area and we spread out. And at some point you retired from doing residential architecture.

Semi retired.

Semi retired. Right. Because you're still doing.

I love to design a house and.

What is even the word, retirement. But what I'm trying to say is you had this such a courageous life pivot that just a few years ago you packed your bags, had two bags and a guitar, and you bought a one way ticket on a Greyhound bus and just said, I am going to Nashville. You are gonna. You move. You did. You moved to Nashville to pursue songwriting.

Yes, I did.

Where did you find the courage to just leave your life behind and get on a one way Greyhouse?

Well, you know, that's a great question. I have to say that for most Americans, most humans, the motivation was my phone had not rung for a new architecture client for five years, and I was tired of waiting.

And this was in 2008, right around the recession, actually.

2013.

Oh, okay, great.

The phone stopped ringing during the bush Obrama depression. 2008. That's when it stopped. I used to get 25 phone calls a week. I'd sort through them for the four interviews I wanted that weekend. And then I'd go to those interviews. At least one of them would turn into a job that went on for years between these busts of Silicon Valley. So it was many, many, many phone calls. Lots of opportunity for new jobs that stopped altogether. 100% dried up. It's like we went from. From buggy whips to automobiles overnight. And after five years of just struggling with this idea that I'm an architect trying to drum up business. I just said screw it. I have this passion for songwriting. I've recorded three albums of original songs. I have a 33 song catalog. I've been dealing with people in Nashville for the last 20 years. I know roughly how the system works. I'm going to go to Nashville and get songs covered by some A list country singers. So like 40,000 other fools every year I took off for Nashville to be to make money in the songwriting industry. So I bought my ticket and took off for Music City.

While teaching yourself guitar every day. I mean, you're so dedicated. It's just. It was really cool to see. I. I think something I really admire is you never stop learning. My dad sent me the other day a hundred page, an envelope, a dad pack P a K of a hundred pages on Heidegger, the German philosopher. And Heigl he'd been wrestling. He wrestles with these greats every day. And you even make a point to read books that you don't necessarily like but that are part of the canon.

Right. I want to be able to. I've heard the names Hutzerl, Heidegger and Hegel. I call them the 3H club since I was in high school. And I've never read anything by these great godfathers of western philosophy. So about two years ago, I decided to read the magnum opus of each of these major Western philosophers. Started with Husserl. His Magnum opus was 400 pages called Ideas. I read it. I was able to read. This is a translation from German into English. I'm reading English at two and a half to three pages a day in an hour. So in an hour I could read three pages. It took me like four months to read Husserl. I took 220 pages of notes on Husserl. The beauty of reading these impenetrable philosophy books is that my mind wanders and then I can write down whatever thought thoughts I'm thinking as I'm wandering. And then I usually get at least one good Facebook post out of a morning of reading.

Your Facebook is great. I'm jumping around a little bit. But one thing you mentioned about Nashville is you would record songs from the Muses.

Yes.

And I know that the muses were right on your shoulder when you were in Nashville, that you were getting songs as downloads. Practically every day you go on your walks, four or five, you'd have to stop walking.

Yes.

My dad always has index cards and pens in his. His shirt pocket. He's. You're a true architect. You've always Got a note card handy. But the muses were so prominent when you were in Nashville. I find that very interesting. And I'm wondering even now in Washington, you've spread out across this beautiful house. You have painting and art supplies in every room for different types of art making. How do you build a relationship with your muse or muses, plural?

Yes.

What do you do when they're gone? And how do you. What do you think are the ingredients that get the muses to just. Just rain down creativity?

That's a great question. That's probably the most important question in all of the arts. It's important to a sculptor, a painter, a dancer, a writer, a singer. Anybody that depends on creative energy for their work.

Must have access to their muse or muses.

Do you think we have one or more than one or a muse issue?

I think I have more than one. I think I have an architecture muse, a song muse, a painting muse. Unless there's one like genius muse out there that comes down in these various forms. But I think it's almost like a multiple personality muse that sends this information down to me.

I think having access to that requires having a clear mind.

Avoiding alcohol. Alcohol will. One shot of whiskey or one beer will completely block a muse access to me.

One sip of wine, all of a sudden, boom. Brain fog.

Yes.

We're back to mouth management.

Mouth management is vital to allowing your muses space on your shoulder. You want them on your shoulder speaking to you right there at your ear. And then as they're speaking, as I get older, my memory gets short, so I have to reach for my pen quicker I look for a telephone pole quicker to lean against to write down the lyric that popped into my head.

When I'm painting. It's a little bit simpler. Another thing about muses is that if you're working.

It opens the door to the muse to visit you. Your muse says, oh, Jim's working, I'm gonna go down and visit. Yes, they love to see you at. If you're writing a novel, show up in the morning, you can be sitting there rewriting instead of being very creative. And the muse will see that you're at work. And he or she, I think it's a she for me, comes down and starts speaking. So after an hour of rewriting, not very creative, here comes the muse. That middle hour and a three hour session is very productive creative. The museum is speaking, I'm writing, everything's flowing, I'm in a flow state. And then she gets tired after an hour and takes off. And then I rewrite something I wrote the previous day. So an hour of warmup, an hour of the muse interaction, and then an hour of cleanup, and then I go do something else.

I love it. I love how you talked about just going to work, just showing up, and that invites that. The muses like seeing you already at work. One thing I really respect about your creative. Creative process is you're very prolific. You show up every single day for reading, writing, thinking, painting, songwriting, guitar playing. And my dad has a beautiful portfolio. You can see it at Jimblake Co. I'll put this in the show notes. I also really admire your persistence. So I remember we'll. We'll have conversations about a painting you're working on, and it gets real hairy. And there are points where you hate. You hate the painting. And I don't want to. Maybe that's too strong because you love all your paintings. But you have to wrestle with it, and you have to solve it. And there are times where the painting feels like you're ready to rip it in half and throw it away.

Yes.

And you, more than anyone I know, find a way to push through that feeling that you want to just trash the whole thing.

Yes.

How do you do that?

You know, one key to that is realizing that number one.

The very first phase. First of all, a blank canvas is a beautiful thing. Why do anything? It's beautiful just the way it is. My God, it's white. It's square. It's rectangular. There's nothing there.

Modern art. White canvas.

Yeah. My. Imagine Malevich, the white square. It's beautiful, and it opens up your imagination. You can go anywhere on that white square, and it's wonderful. Well, okay. You make a mark on it, and you.

You've ruined it.

You've kind of wrecked it.

I could think about writers looking at the blank page.

Yeah.

Like, it's beautiful. The cursor's blinking.

Yeah.

And then they write something. You're like, ugh, I'm the worst.

Yeah.

Why am I even bothering?

Why am I bothering? And then you fill the whole page. I'm like, God, this stinks. It's horrible. It's like, what? But here's what every creator must understand is that every artwork that goes beyond banality has an adolescence. It has a period that's most magnificent, magnificently captured in the Nirvana song Smells Like Teen Spirit. That every work of art is just gonna smell bad and be contagious.

What's the word? I'm ugly and contagious? Or. Anyway, it has an adolescence, and you're gonna hate it, and it's gonna hate itself. And you have to find ways to get it out of the adolescence. There are 90% of people that pick up paints stop before it reaches adolescence. They know how to guide it through a childhood. Everybody loves a child. They're cute, they're sweet, they do nice things. Oh, I love it. And you go to an art fair and maybe 100% of the things you see will be these pretty little children. Oh, they're so cute. I love them. But if you want a more mature art, a deeper art, you've got to first of all, have the will to get it into adolescence. In other words, if it's just too sweet, just do something to eff it up.

That's great. Do something to eff it up. And then the other eff it up is getting feedback. You really helped take Pivot out of its adolescence. I remember sending my dad very early drafts where it's so embarrassing to send a shitty first draft to anyone, even if they're your own dad. And my dad would always ask, do you want the gloves off treatment or not? And he'll ask this even of his friends. He'll say, well, do you want me to be encouraging? You want me to be nice and tell you that this is a cute child of a creative project, or do you want me to take the gloves off? And when my dad takes the gloves off, it's. It's intense.

Jenny was very, very brave with Pivot.

She just, well, you're a great editor and you ripped it to shreds. And I was happy. Happy. And it's a much better book for it. I learned so much from you in that process.

That was an exciting experience for me to just get to work on it every day.

One thing that you taught me is about Oakum's Razor. I think listeners would really benefit from this principle. Could you just give them a super quick 30 second version of what we. Because we now have a shorthand. We'll say, oh, I'm razoring this.

Yeah, Occam's Razor. The simplest solution to a problem is usually the best solution. It's the true solution.

There's a certain innate beauty and rightness about simplicity. And if something is more complex than it has to be to communicate its idea, then you take the razor to. To it. And, you know, Jenny was a wonderful writer, a beautiful thinker, but she just had a little word fuzz here and there of a little fluff. And we went in with Occam's Razor on every sentence and just Pointed out the fluff.

He would take it from 10 words to five anytime that I used two words instead of one or three words. I wish I could think of an example off the top of my head, but there were so many cases.

It was a gorgeous, beautiful day in Hollywood. Yeah, well, you don't need gorgeous and beautiful, so pick the best one.

Right. Or.

And as a result, I went to the store and you would tell me. Consequently, I went to the store because now I've razored out three words as a result could become one word. Consequently.

Yeah, the English language is loaded with three word phrases that are easily replaced by a better single word. And learning that is a valuable part of writing to learn.

It's an expansion of one's vocabulary to learn this new realm of words that summarize these three word phrases.

Very useful.

Really. We could talk about this all day. And we often do. My dad and I used to walk my dog Patches who died when she was 16. So we had 16 beautiful years. We used to walk her every Sunday for hours, just taking her to the Google campus when no one was around, letting her swim in the fountain.

Favorite day of the week.

Me too. Read the Sunday paper, discuss. So. So we could really talk for many hours. Unfortunately, we're starting to wrap up, although we'll just have to do another round.

Sure.

Two questions. One, I love seeing you in New York City. My dad is more active and energized than I am. He stays out. Later he goes and meets new people. He walks home. He walked home the other day from The West Village, 10th street, all the way up to where we live in Harlem, over 100 blocks north. And then he was staggering. And that's just amazing. I'd love to know what's your favorite thing about New York City?

Oh, my very absolute favorite thing is seeing Jenny and her husband Michael and talking about art and life. It's just absolutely the highlight.

I love seeing you and Michael just geek out over all things art and painting and music. It's really special.

Yeah. Jenny's husband Michael is a brilliant man, a great painter, an exciting.

Omnivorous mind. He speaks five languages, he's got a great sense of humor, creative, superb painter. We talked for a half an hour yesterday about our favorite illustrator of the 1960s. I mean, what son in law could do that with his father in law?

That's true. I know. It's really special.

Yeah. A real treasure. So that would be the highlight. Just the family interactions as far as outside events. I saw a group called Sing Harlem.

Yeah.

Gospel Brunch which cafe was that?

Well, at Ginny's Supper club, downstairs of the Red Rooster.

Downstairs of the Red Rooster, we saw a gospel choir that was. It dislodged Iggy Pop from my all time favorite live music of my entire life. It was. I had tears flowing down my face halfway through the first song and they didn't let up till the show was over. It was truly incredible. Don't miss a chance to see this group in Harlem. They perform every Sunday.

Yes. It was so powerful, wonderful.

Another highlight was the Jersey shore. It was the finest surf I've ever swimming.

Shout out to Anne my New York.

And what word did we teach you? It's the two words Neva. Neva.

Perfect. Perfect. And that's special to you, Ann, because I know she'll be listening.

And I got a chance to meet Frank Sinatra's cousin Johnny Sinatra and had a fabulous one hour conversation with this 90 year old former Broadway star. So that was just.

That's New York for you that you don't even realize and the next thing you know you're meeting Sinatra cousin in Jersey.

In Jersey.

Okay, I said I had two more questions. So the second one, this is a big birthday year. 70.

Oh yeah.

There are so many things I want to know, like can you give listeners what's one nugget of wisdom that you've collected in the last decade that you want to share with listeners?

The last decade, That's a great question. And it's ties directly into Jenny's book Pivot.

Great product placement. See, that's how you know you have your dad on the podcast which is.

Get your stuff together before you take a great leap. I've heard all my adult life take a leap. Go for it. Follow your bliss. Follow your happiness and money will follow.

Do it, just do it while. Well, I can't use vulgar words here, but bullsh to that. You've got to prepare before you take a great leap as an adult in this culture in the United States of America or you're going to end up on your butt. So pilot.

Yeah.

Look around. Prepare. Get your bank account in order.

Get your small experiments.

Get your small experiments and get your act together before you take that great leap to Nashville or you'll end.

I love it. Well, we just heard James Altucher get interviewed at lunch and it made me laugh. He said a lot of people pick their passion and then later they try to monetize it. And he said, well you could just as easily pick something that's gonna make you money and then enjoy a tize it later.

That was so funny.

That's great.

And what are you most looking forward to to in this next decade?

The next decade? I'm looking forward to my granddaughters Zoe and Kira growing up. I'm looking forward to seeing Jenny and Tom find new avenues for their happiness and fulfillment. I'm looking for. I've been trying for the last 40 years to discover a new, new direction in painting. I think painting is still a great aspect of contemporary art. It's not dead, it's alive and well.

And I'm looking for a new swerve on contemporary painting. I want to invent something.

Yes. Well, I can't wait. Daddy O Jenny, I can't thank you enough for being here at the last minute. My dad had no notice. I just, just said, hey, why don't I interview you in this time slot? So way to jump in and improvise with me.

Fun.

And more than anything, thanks for being the greatest dad on earth.

Oh wow. Thank you. I love it.

I wouldn't be here without you. So thank you for all your love and support and coming all the way across the country to visit us in New York and even be here at Podcast Pro.

It's fabulous. It's the highlight of my life.

You're the greatest.

And these are the great times said.

By a true Jim Blake. Daddy O everybody.

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 ennyblake.

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