2 Things You Can't Teach: Jared Dillian on JUST PRESS RECORD

Jared Dillian came on Just Press Record to discuss his excellent new book, Rule 62: Meditations on Success and Spirituality - and he surprised me with this statement:

"You can teach pretty much anything in writing, except for two things: voice and imagination. You either have it or you don't."

But what if you don't realize if you have it or not yet?

I'm only asking because I've felt this way before. More than once. In more than one domain too (I remember feeling this with writing music and writing words, very distinctly!).

So what is voice?

To some people it's writing how you talk. But it doesn't have to be just that. You can write how you think too.

You can even write to help other people think in a way or style like how you would teach it.

Halfway to the bottom line - a voice is heard and understood.

If you can convey ideas to create or curate feelings, you have voice.

But where do the ideas you create or curate come from?

Imagination.

And that's all imagination is. It's the muse planting something in our head and you noticing. It's not just spacing out during the game or the social media scroll and stopping to ponder something, and then expressing it.

When you start combining voice and imagination, something else happens.

Some people will think you're a schmuck.

Or a moron. Maybe an asshole. Jared and I talked about this too.

Even closer to the bottom line - using your voice to express your imagination will mean some people don't "get" you.

And that's ok. Or, you'll tell yourself it's OK, even when it doesn't feel OK.

Which might be my favorite part about Jared's work.

Jared says, "When we stop creating, we die."

This is the spiritual part running through all of those meditations on success he's got in those pages.

It's not about worrying about what anybody thinks about whatever you do or don't do.

It's all about learning to love yourself for the things you love to do.

Maybe you can't teach voice or imagination, but you have to learn how to love yourself for loving what you love.

It's the only way to have the habits that will nourish your life, and it's the only way to have a chance of your habits helping nourish the people around you.

We had a very special conversation on Just Press Record, and I really enjoyed this experimentation with the format. Whatever you're making, there's something to learn here (even if, as I point out in the foreword I wrote for his book, ahem, you don't like Jared's approach).

Listen now on Cultish Creative YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts: