MCC #59 – 09 Jun 2023
Welcome to My Creative Calling!
Today we will explore how you ignore the subtle voice of the creative calling.
The main culprit?
You distract yourself with busyness.
Franticly rushing from one thing to the next.
Avoiding that silence.
Why?
It shields you from the hard and vulnerable work of pursuing the path of meaning.
There is a whole bunch of fears you need to face up to.
And there is a name that you refuse to say — the one that will change your life.
It’s a conduit for you moving from the lumbering to the graceful swan.
And we’re going to give you permission to answer that call.
You deserve it.
How?
We’ll float the idea of a conversation with your wiser self.
We’ll gently nudge you towards wholeheartedness.
And you’ll leave with an actionable path forward.
I hope you’re as excited as I am!
Let’s get into it:
Caught in the weeds
You feel stuck.
You’re confused.
You pray for a way forward to appear magically.
But all the options you can muster quickly devolve into a mess of overwhelm.
“Maybe I should just give up?”
“Maybe I should settle?”
Sound familiar?
Yep.
I know this feeling well.
I’ve unfortunately spent a lot of time there.
And one thing I have come to know:
Those feelings we try to bury don’t go away.
They keep rising up.
But we keep hiding from them.
Then those daily outbursts we manifest become more and more ridiculous.
So what is going on here?
Well, my friend, you are ignoring the call.
Ignoring the call
Sometimes you don’t even hear the call.
But wait, shouldn’t we hear it if it’s a “call”?
Not necessarily.
As you’ve probably:
Buried yourself with busyness
That’s what I did.
I found never-ending ways to keep myself occupied.
I was frantically rushing from one thing to the next.
My days were a blur.
You know the feeling:
- Wake up late
- Roll out of bed half asleep
- Shower (Maybe the highlight of your morning)
- Find some clothes that will do
- Eat the shitty breakfast which doesn’t serve you
- Make coffee (Actually, this is the highlight)
- You’re running late! Rush off to work on that commute you despise.
- Survive through the mind-numbing workday.
- “Keeping busy” is what saves you. More distractions, please!
- Clock off and rush back home.
- Argue over what to make for dinner with your partner.
- This disagreement leads to a verbal fight over what to get from Uber Eats.
- Crack open a bottle of wine to ease the pain (wait, this is the highlight!)
- Then you finally settle in on the couch with your prized meal and drink in hand — time to zone out and binge-watch Netflix for the next 3 hours.
It doesn’t sound so sexy when you see it listed on the page, does it?
I was doing that for a long time.
But all it did was leave me feeling empty inside.
At the end of the workday, my brain was a total mess.
And I wasn’t looking forward to the future.
More of this drone lifestyle?
No thanks.
What is wrong?
What am I missing?
I had no meaning in my life.
It was a passive existence.
I wasn’t doing things that excited me or fulfilled me.
I wasn’t creating anything of value.
I was just scraping by.
Living for the weekends.
Life was one big distraction from the pain of existence.
All covered up by the magic of being “busy”.
But the choice you can make is to stop believing you’ll ever solve the challenge of busyness by cramming more in, because that just makes matters worse.
Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks
Well, amongst all that busyness, I was ignoring a greater life purpose that was calling me.
One that would make my life a hell of a lot more engaging.
And easier.
A more effortless, frictionless path was out there.
But I was scared to seek it.
So I was stubbornly trying to stay put where I was.
But life doesn’t work that way.
Life is a series of seasons.
Beginnings and endings.
So why do we ignore this fact and pretend that everything is permanent?
When life is actually impermanent — it doesn’t last forever. And not even for a long time.
This reminds me, I better quickly eat that leftover pizza in the fridge.
Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten that.
But hey, life is short!
So my point here is that everything is constantly changing.
And it doesn’t serve to push against that.
Impermanence is a principle of harmony.
When we don’t struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality.
Pema Chodron
You know that feeling of trying to swim against the current?
It’s bloody hard work.
But when you let go of that struggle and flow with the tides?
It feels effortless.
Here’s another banger quote:
Yep, we cling to our old ways.
And we block the new.
We aren’t listening to that calling.
That quiet call we ignore
I return to one of my regular heroes, David Whyte, for this letter.
David speaks to the way our soul wants to change into something more.
It tries to speak to us.
But we will not entertain those thoughts.
They are terrifying to us.
We’re afraid of what may eventuate — new work, new relationships, new locations — the fears of starting over.
But there is a hint of excitement and possibility.
And if we listen closely, that voice already knows what we need to do.
The voice is hesitant,
and her hand trembling
in the dark for yours.
She touches your face
and says your name
in the same instant.
The one you refused to say,
over and over,
the one you refused to say.
David Whyte, The Soul Lives Contented
Our life is full of transitions.
We move from one job title to another in our careers.
We move from a boyfriend or girlfriend to a husband or wife.
Or one strange title I still cling to is “musician”. Although, in recent years, I’ve been on another path and haven’t played any music.
But I can’t let it go.
Somewhere deep inside, my heart yearns to play music again.
But the main one I pigheadedly clung to was “creative” throughout my accounting career, determined to see its resurgence.
I felt a long way from creativity during those years.
Still, it gently pulled at me.
But the most awkward of those labels are the ones we make up for our careers.
I remember disagreeing with a CFO over whether my title would be “finance manager” vs “financial controller”.
Who cares, buddy?
We slap them onto our online profiles to appear cool and competent in the eyes of others.
But we are much more than a title.
I love this bio from my creator friend, Aleana Kali:
I haven’t found a label I’d want to commit to yet.
Right now, my working title is “guide for entrepreneurs who are also secretly (or not so secretly) artists, mystics, and philosophers, among other things.”
I feel a bit the same.
I don’t like committing to one label like “coach”, “writer”, or “podcaster”.
In reality, life is more nuanced.
There is so much more depth to what makes us “us”.
The name you refuse to say
So you transition in your life and career from X to Y to Z.
But there is usually one thing — a name — that you refuse to say.
The name “poet” was the one that David Whyte avoided for much of his early adult life.
Again and again, he was hiding from it.
He knew he had great potential in poetry.
He absolutely loved doing it.
But it was not seen as a viable “career”.
I laughed as he said a quick way to bring silence to a room was to tell people you are going full-time as a poet.
It feels much the same, embarking on the journey as a coach and writer.
Or any kind of creative work.
There is no clear “cookie cutter” path to monetisation and “success”.
All we have is the calling, the desire to help and make an impact.
But David knew the results would come if he paid close attention to what mattered and worked hard on his craft.
And I am so glad he did.
David became a successful poet, impacting the lives of millions across the globe through his books and speaking over a 35+ year professional career.
And so I ask you:
What call are you ignoring?
There is something your body is trying to tell you.
An invitation for something more.
Maybe it comes from your heart.
Maybe you feel it in your stomach.
Or maybe it’s that tiny voice inside your head which you have been silencing.
It’s trying to tell you that you are destined for more.
But you keep ignoring it.
Trust me.
It doesn’t go away.
I ignored the call for years.
I wanted to be more creative, but I was holding back.
And even after writing online for two years, calling myself a “writer” felt weird.
For some reason, I couldn’t give myself permission to be labelled a writer, even though I had the runs on the board — I was doing it daily and publishing online — what more evidence do I need?
I have also seen it with the term “coach”.
I’ve been quietly coaching for almost three years now.
But it took me over a year before I was game to update my LinkedIn profile to include “coach”.
I still don’t promote myself well — I don’t even have a coaching services landing page!
Do you find yourself acting in these weird ways?
It’s like you’re actively shooting yourself in the foot by not sharing with the world what you want to be known for.
And so we all lose out.
The world lacks the gifts you have to share.
And so we end up wandering around, aimlessly tripping over ourselves.
I love this metaphor of the swan that David Whyte drew from some lines of the poet Rilke, which captures the essence of our struggles when we are misaligned in our life and work:
This clumsy living that moves lumbering
as if in ropes through what is not done,
reminds us of the awkward way the swan walks.
Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Robert Bly
Have you ever seen a swan walk on land?
It can be a slow, clumsy struggle.
Much like me pushing on through my accounting career long after I knew it wasn’t the right fit.
Maybe you have a similar example of your career struggles, where you felt like the lumbering swan?
But what about the opposite — Have you noticed a swan on the water?
It’s a totally different experience.
Graceful.
Effortless.
Calm.
Content.
A joyous flow.
Isn’t that how you would prefer to describe your way of existing?
That’s how I feel now.
I have alignment in my work, and things feel “right”.
Sure, it can sometimes feel like a hustle trying to figure out this new space.
And the demands of being a new parent often gets the better of me.
But the energy and grace is there. It’s a natural sense of flow.
And that changes everything.
What would it look like for your work to be the swan on water?
It would be the opposite of the exhaustion you currently feel.
Make a change or be left with regrets
So you keep tripping over yourself.
You need to draw a line in the sand at some point.
Stop beating yourself up for all the ways you have not changed.
Or all the time you have already wasted by ignoring the call.
These lines from another creator friend Eunice Cheung resonate here:
We are all on OUR OWN timeline.
Stop letting society get into your head.
Stop letting society rush your timeline.
See your differences as a gift of perspective.
You are on your own timeline.
So stop comparing and wishing things were different.
And Eunice concluded with:
Just because everyone is doing something in a certain way, it doesn’t mean you are on the wrong path for not doing it.
Time to forgive yourself and start on your authentic path.
The ultimate forgiveness is often the necessary forgiveness in understanding all the ways you have refused to pay attention to the beckoning invitational doorways through which you could have escaped this dynamic a long, long time ago.
David Whyte
The reality is that sometimes it takes a long time for the message to sink in.
And then it can all change in a moment.
SNAP!
Suddenly you can see clearly what was in front of you the whole time.
Sometimes everything has to be inscribed across the heavens
so you can find the one line already written inside you.
David Whyte
I know this was true for me.
Here I was, struggling away through accounting.
Putting on a brave face.
But I was suffering inside.
I knew I was destined for more than churning out monthly reports.
Or sifting through expense receipts.
Yuk!
I hated that.
But I was scared to change.
That “one line” that would change my life had been written long ago, but I refused to see it.
You only had to take one look around me, and it was obvious.
The library in my office was walled with books on creativity, business, psychology, philosophy and self-improvement.
But no accounting books!
It was clear where my interests lay.
But my head was buried too far in the sand to see that.
One look into my browser tabs, podcast apps, or YouTube history, and you could broadly categorise it into:
- Mindset
- Meaning
- Mastery
There was an underlying message here for me to see, a clue for my future direction.
But good old me wasn’t having it!
And if that wasn’t enough, it was clear through my body language during my day job.
I would be slumped over my desk with that low-energy, depressive look.
But if you got me talking about my side interests like personal development and creative work…
Man, I was like a totally different person.
Then I was beaming with excitement and energy. I was eager to help others grow and succeed.
But still, that wasn’t enough for me to make a change.
Why?
Because I didn’t think I deserved it.
You deserve a positive change
Wow, where did that come from?
Some underlying belief that I wasn’t worthy of fulfilling work had claimed the territory of my mind.
I had inklings of another path forward, a better future, but I didn’t believe I deserved that freedom.
How unbelievable is that?
You know that is good for you. But you don’t think you deserve what is good for you.
You think you’re not worthy of a better life.
But here’s the catch:
We get the life we feel we deserve.
Don’t worry. I haven’t gone full mystic on you.
If you think you don’t deserve it, you won’t be out doing all the necessary work (action) to make that dream life a reality.
So I was suffering in silence and not taking any concrete actions on my dreams.
I wasn’t responding to that call.
Answer the call
It might be time for you to accept that invitation.
But usually, it takes some moment of insight to trigger meaningful action.
Maybe we hit rock bottom.
And at that bottom, we sink into a pile of the same old excuses we have been throwing out.
We grow tired of our bullshit.
“NOW!” — Is the time to change, we say.
There may be a great distance between your current circumstances and that dream life.
And this can be terribly painful, like an ache in your heart.
You feel so far away.
But the reality is it will only grow closer as you take those first steps and get to work on yourself.
Start to build momentum.
Next thing, that feeling of dread turns to excitement.
Give yourself permission to follow your heart.
But if you’re still feeling stuck, what else might help?
A conversation with your wiser self
David plays out in his mind the following conversation between himself and his wiser self:
“You know the antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest.”
“The antidote to exhaustion us wholeheartedness.”
Remember when you have been exhausted.
So you took a much-needed holiday.
Great!
For a bit.
It doesn’t take long for those mushrooms to start appearing again in our minds.
Or maybe you had a bit too much fun on that holiday — too many cocktails by the beach, perhaps, or too much late-night pasta?
And you come back with that deep sense that something isn’t right.
No, there is a greater misalignment.
Something a quick holiday can’t fix.
That’s just a band-aid cover-up.
So what might help?
Wholeheartedness
You need more wholeheartedness in your life.
Big lofty word.
Sounds good.
But what does it even mean?
Completely and sincerely devoted, determined, or enthusiastic.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Wow!
That’s powerful.
It brings a warm smile to my face reading that definition.
Mmmm.
I want more of that.
What can you list from your life that brings that wholehearted feeling?
Go on.
Take out a pen and paper.
Jot it down.
Now, on another page, list what you could and should do, that would bring more of this wholehearted feeling.
For example, here are a few things that come up for me:
- Writing
- Deep coaching sessions
- Playtime with my little son
- Travelling and exploring with my wife
- Long walks outside in nature with my dog
- Hanging out with my mates, “shooting the shit,” as they say
So I know this.
But why don’t I do more of it?
It’s not rocket science.
My life would significantly improve.
And I am sure yours would, too, if you prioritised your wholehearted list!
So the great challenge you face is:
How can you do less of the exhausting things and more of the wholehearted things?
Continue that conversation with your wiser self
David continued his imaginary conversation:
“You are so tired through and through because a good half of what you do here in this organisation has nothing to do with your true powers, or the place you have reached in your life. You are only half here, and half here will kill you after a while.”
Don’t be half here!
I did that for too many years.
And I am no longer accepting that.
No, it’s time to choose the wholehearted path.
Back to David’s little narrative:
“You need something to which you can give your full powers; you know what that is; I don’t have to tell you.”
You know what that is. Assuming you did the list exercise above.
I’m sure it is staring right at you.
I can’t tell you what it is.
When you see it, you will know.
You will feel it in your heart.
Here was David’s response to “wise David” in his head:
“He didn’t have to tell me. Brother David knew I wanted my work to be poetry.”
You need to start doing what makes you feel like that awkward waddling swan returning gracefully to the water, where you belong.
That means letting go of the land that hasn’t been serving you.
Surrender to the calling.
And have faith in the natural flow of the water.
But you might be exclaiming:
“But wait, I’m not ready for this!”
My friend, you were born ready to be yourself.
You are merely returning to the potential that already exists inside you.
And we can’t just sit on that forever, or we begin to rot like fruit left on the vine.
Sure, it will be awkward at first.
At this point, it’s only potential. You have not yet reached mastery status in your craft.
And you will still have plenty of questions.
But you will instantly feel the alignment with your inner compass.
It will feel like a homecoming to what you always knew you should be doing.
Here’s some final wisdom from “wise David” to David:
“You have ripened already, and you are waiting to be brought in.
Your exhaustion is a form of inner fermentation.
You are beginning, ever so slowly” — he hesitated — “to rot on the vine.”
This insight led to David metaphorically plucking himself off the vine and working on his new path as a full-time poet.
An actionable path forward
Take one daily action towards your desired future self
I decided on two things: firstly I was going to do at least one thing every day toward my future life as a poet.
I calculated that no matter how small a step I took each day, over a year that would come to a grand total of 365 actions toward the life I wanted.
David Whyte
So it seemed like the hardest part was answering the call.
“I’m going to be a coach and writer.”
Or, in David’s case, as a poet.
Or, in your case, ________?
But now the real work begins.
And how can we make it actionable?
After all, at this time, it’s more of a feeling we are attached to than some concrete plan.
Well, you start where you are.
I’ve previously written about the wisdom hidden in the Alice in Wonderland books. Here’s some more:
“Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?” he asked.
“Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
Lewis Carroll
And so, what did I do when I decided I wanted to coach and write?
Well, I started a blog and aimed to publish daily.
Seth Godin’s daily blog inspired me.
But then I quickly worked out all the attention was on social media.
So I started my @mattkhead Instagram with the goal of publishing five days a week.
I thought I would run out of ideas. But man, they just kept coming!
And coaching?
Well, I did a coach training course.
I then started asking people if they wanted free coaching.
Anything to get my hours up.
Notice the key thing here is to start taking ACTION.
You gotta act.
Not sit around reading or watching videos all day “learning”.
And this action can be on many levels. For example:
- You write daily to improve your craft
- You put your name out as a podcast guest
- You contact organisations sharing what you have to offer
- Those small actions add up over time to a new you.
What else?
Tell the world who you are
Second, I told everyone I knew that I was moving toward becoming a full-time poet.
I wanted them to hear it and to hold me to what they heard.
Disbelief, silence, scorn, I didn’t care.
I was doing my damnedness to create a kind of gravitational field that would have me drawn increasingly into its centre.
David Whyte
You have to own your new domain.
Tell people what you are.
The withholding was a mistake I made.
I secretly hid my desired new direction for too long.
But no, you’ve gotta claim it, so people find out about you.
And it’s incredible how the world presents you with opportunities when you proclaim who you are.
So in my case, this was calling myself a coach and writer.
- Social media bios
- In your content
- In conversations
And this is always met with weird responses from those who know us.
It’s a shock to them.
They don’t understand.
But one of the most awkward responses is dealing with silence as a response.
Cringe.
But do not fear.
This is normal.
It’s not known widely, though. Not many people are brave enough to announce what they truly want to the world.
It may be that the silence is there so that you can hear exactly what you asked for, and hear it more clearly so that you can get it right.
If the goal is real and intensely personal, as it should be, others naturally should not be able to understand it the first time it finds its own voice.
It means in a way, in a very difficult way, that you are onto something.
David Whyte
Ooooh, I love that!
So it means the silence means we are onto something!
So it’s a good litmus test.
And so onwards we go, paving this new path into the unknown.
But what a path it is as we courageously merge our gifts with the world’s needs.
Although hard initially, you will eventually slip into a groove, and things become easier.
Effortless.
Frictionless.
I’ll leave you with this beautiful line from David:
Once we have built our work and our contribution around our natural gifts, we have joined a great gravitational river where the current is flowing in the direction we wish to travel.
Reflection
I hope this letter has triggered some insights into your path to meaningful work.
Capture them. They are gold.
What courageous conversation do you need to have with yourself? And then others in your circle?
Even if you already have your “dream job”, is there a way you can deepen and enliven it?
What is one thing you could start doing every day as a step forward?
A quote to ponder
You must do something heartfelt, and you must do it soon.
Let go of all this effort, and let yourself down, however awkwardly, into the waters of the work you want for yourself.
It’s alright, you know, to support yourself with something secondary until your work has ripened, but once it has ripened to a transparent fullness it has to be gathered in.
David Whyte
What happened this week
Time to look more professional
I got some new designs this week from my creator friend Sepideh Yazdi
Here’s the email header:
And here’s a new profile pic:
What do you think?
I think Sepideh has done a fantastic job!
I finally am looking professional here!
So massive shoutout to Sepideh and please check out her work.
YouTube
My YouTube podcast is slowly becoming a reality.
I recorded three long-form episodes this week.
And guess what?
I loved it!
It was fun.
Sure, I probably suck.
But the fact I am excited and enthusiastic shows there is some potential there for me.
It felt almost effortless.
Although, I’m not looking forward to the editing part.
That definitely won’t be “effortless” ☹
I’ll keep you posted when I publish!
Feeling the burn
I felt a bit burned out this week.
My three-part epic on creator lessons from Steve Jobs really took it out of me.
Here they are if you missed them.
But I managed to pull myself together and muster up this week’s letter.
Final thoughts
Today’s writing background music was Flamenco 100% on Spotify.
I’m not sure why I picked this playlist. It seems like a strange choice, right?
Well, my brother-in-law and his wife are on their honeymoon in Spain, and they’ve been sending through some pics.
So I’ve been reminiscing fondly on my travels through the south of Spain — Beautiful nights drinking red wine, eating tapas, and listening to live flamenco music.
Ahhh, the good life!
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It would be great to have you on board!
Cheers!
