In this solo motivational monologue, the speaker frames creative inspiration and work productivity as a wave that alternates between high‑energy surges and low‑energy troughs. He explains that inspiration arrives like a powerful surge that should be seized (“ride the wave”) to produce rapid progress, but that the surge inevitably wanes, leading to feelings of doubt, block, or despair. The speaker stresses the importance of intentional pauses during these down periods to rest, reset, and allow subconscious processing, which plants the seeds for the next wave of ideas. He extends the wave metaphor to team and organizational contexts, urging leaders to recognize individual rhythm cycles, provide supportive structures, and avoid forcing output when the creative energy is low. The core mindset shift advocated is to value the ability to stay on the wave—maintaining steady, adaptable effort—rather than tying self‑worth to any particular high or low point. By embracing both the light and dark phases, creators can sustain long‑term growth and avoid burnout.
Chapters
Riding the wave of inspiration and work at work within work. After doing this for so long, I've come to realize a truth that perhaps many of us have figured out a long time ago. So maybe I'm late to the game here, but this idea of like The wave— the universe is a wave, right? I mean, the whole thing is just one gigantic wave function. And if you look at it and observe it, it collapses into the particle. We won't get into physics right now, but there is a very real thing in crafting and creating something new from an essence. Lord knows where it comes from. Creation, pure creation that's unique and new. Um, And like I've talked about before, it's like when that thing hits you, you've got to ride that rocket ship. You ride that wave up or down or whichever way, whichever metaphor speaks to you, uh, more personally. And when you ride that wave, you— there's only so much energy, so it only takes you so far. And then what happens is you start to sort of like come over the cliff and go down. And then, you know, you get into these feelings of Despair, hopelessness, whatever. I'm the worst thing that's ever been created. My work is shit. You crumple it all up, you throw it in the trash, and, uh, you start again. And, um, maybe we're all a little insane, but we like to just keep hitting ourselves in the face because we keep riding this wave over and over again. Um, so that inspiration, it kind of comes and goes. You just stay that even process and you just trust yourself The universe, the process, whatever. And when you get those moments where it comes up, you hang on and you try to grab that energy and use that energy to help propel you forward to, like, write that requirements doc, paint that painting, right? Like, build that thing physically or digitally, and it'll pull you forward and you'll make a lot of rapid progress quickly because you'll know exactly where you're going and what you're doing. And so you can, like, hit it, hit it, hit it. And then you get to the end of that, and then it's like, okay, now what? And that's the piece where you have to just take a moment and take a step back and a pause and go, okay, everything's gonna be okay. And in those moments, it's actually super critical to have that positive and negative, the, the light and the dark, the speed and the slowness, and the like not do anything. Because what it does, which is so important, is it gives you a rest period. Period to sleep, period to turn your brain off, to turn the creative off, to like stop going so hard. And work, I found, often is that way as well. It's like these series of sprints. If you ever played sports, like even like great coaches will tell you, it's just a series of streaks. This team will go on a streak, that team will go on a streak, and it kind of like bounces back and forth. And you capture the energy when you can, and then you maintain your energy through that down spot. So I often find, like, you know, people might be between jobs, they might be between creative projects, they might be in a creative project, have a block, and then you start to get in your head, and then it just gets like, ah, where am I going from here? And you're just like, I hate all this stuff. That's the sign that you need to just enjoy the time. Take a step back, take a breath, go hang out in nature, take a day off. Like, chill out. You don't need to pump it out at 120% all the time. Even in a work project, as a board, as an executive team, part of your job is recognizing that in your team as well. And so, you want to maintain that steady, even keel clip with improvements in process and structure, resource, tooling, etc., to get you extra stuff. But you know that different people will go on those different flows at time. And so, overall, it'll sort of balance out. But, um, you got to do that for yourself too, and you got to be okay with it. And I think that's the— over time in life, you just get to this place where you've lived through it long enough that you know, like, the dark will never be dark forever, nor will the light, nor will that inspiration, nor will the writer's block or creative block. And so you just got to use them for what they are. One is like pure energy, hang on for dear life, grab the rocket ship. The other one is pure negative space. Rest, take a pause, take a break, have a broom sweep through the consciousness, let go, do something else. That's when it plants the seeds for the next elements of inspiration, of creative, of work output, etc. And that next one is where the thing that you create may be the thing that really hits. And if you push too hard And you try to like force it and you're like white-knuckling it, I can almost guarantee you that it's not going to happen. If you ever feel like you're white-knuckling something, that is the sign that you're in the wrong path and you need to take a step back. So, um, I'm just here to tell you. So yeah, I think it's— you got to just remember this wave. It's a universal thing. Ride the wave, the ups, the downs. Just grab your surfboard and like Philosophically, mentally, intellectually, spiritually, whatever. Just ride it and be okay on either one. Don't like tie your emotions and like your, your, um, your value to where you are along that wave. Just remember, the value is maintaining, is the ability to keep riding the wave, not where you are on the wave. I think that's the mindset switch and perspective shift that we have to have. And I think good things will come from that. And then it's less of a push and it's more of a create, like a growth, right? It's more of an emergence, if you will. Yeah, shout out to Virgins. Okay, that's it for me today. Short one. All right. Uh, that's the message. Grab your surfboard, ride the wave, hang on. Peace.
