If you are seeking encouragement, wisdom, and positivity, then this episode delivers! Brian Perry is a singer/songwriter, clarity coach, copywriter, author, speaker, and amazing person. Enjoy his conversation with host, Juliana Finch, about navigating the creative process, finding joy, and measuring success.

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BRIAN PERRY: Singer/Songwriter, Clarity Coach, Copywriter, Author, and Speaker (and that guy who writes on the back of his car!)

www.yesbrianperry.com

@yesbrianperry on FB, IG, & LI

MENTIONED: www.thinkingoutsidetheblocks.com

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This is artist soapbox.

Through interviews and original scripted audio fiction.

We deliver stories that speak to your hearts and your minds.

Hey soap boxers.

It's Juliana.

Today, I'm bringing you a conversation with singer songwriter, story, coach

copywriter, author speaker, that guy who writes on his car, Brian Perry.

Brian Perry and I have known each other for about a decade now, which feels

a little surreal to say, because it does feel a little bit like yesterday.

He's an amazing person and so wise and so positive.

Every time I talk to Brian, I feel better for having done so, and I hope you'll feel

the same way for having listened to him.

You can find him online at yes brian Perry.

That's on all the platforms at yes brian Perry and I hope you will

get a lot out of this episode.

I certainly did just by having a conversation with him.

So enjoy.

Brian Perry, welcome to the podcast.

I'm so glad you're here.

Thank you.

I'm so grateful to be here . Before we get started, wanna tell you

something funny, like a year or so.

Maybe a back.

I stumbled upon like auto play on my podcast app.

It played something from Artist Soapbox.

Oh, wow.

And, and at that time, wouldn't allow me to see my listening history.

This was by listening to through apple podcast.

And I couldn't find it.

I was like, that was really cool.

I wanna know more and I could never find it.

And then you, when you reached out about this, when I looked it up, I

went, this is what I'm looking for.

So

you found us the universe's algorithm worked in your favor.

Indeed.

Yeah.

Artist soapbox has been a lot of fun.

I've done a few audio drama things with them and a couple

interviews myself back in the day.

And, and now we're moving in this fun, new direction where we get to

have a whole team of podcast hosts talking about stuff that we care.

I love it.

I love

it.

The diverse projects and such you're involved with my friend.

Great.

So you and I have known each other for a long time, and we've

had these conversations about the creative process, just personally

on the phone a bunch of times.

And so I'm excited to be able to have one of those Brian and Juliana conversations.

You know, in a place where other people will get to hear it.

Me too.

And I know you primarily from being a songwriter since we're

both songwriters, but you've also got a lot of other stuff going on.

You've been a coach, you've been a public speaker, motivational

speaker, you've, you're an author.

What do you have going on right now?

What's happening in your world?

You know, what's happening right now is really an integration of all

that I think for too long, I've kind of seen my artistic creative hats, siloed

them out from the rest of my world.

You know, I have.

My day job stuff, and my night job stuff in the last, really over the

course of the pandemic, I've been recognizing the through line of what

I do, which for me really revolves around story and calling people more

deeply into living and experiencing the story they wanna live in their lives.

So what I'm really engaged in right now is integrating all the things that I do.

Because boy that all plays out functionally is I, I do

that as a singer songwriter.

I do that as a story coach, as a copywriter, as an author, as a speaker.

And so, yeah, so I'm kind of liberating myself to live a

more cohesive creative life.

And what that looks like right now, pragmatically is I'm in

the midst of rebranding and relaunching my reintroducing

myself to the world digitally.

I love the idea of reintroducing yourself to the world

when you're doing something new.

That's really cool.

I like.

It feels, it feels good.

It feels like a fresh start.

It feels like.

I mean, I think we're all coming outta, coming to wherever this new

phase of the pandemic is and looking in our closets and going, Ugh, I don't

like any of these clothes anymore.

And I sort of feel that metaphorically in my own broader life as I step

out in the world, like, yeah, no, none, this, none of this fits me.

I need to put on different digital clothes and reintroduce myself.

So yeah,

totally.

Well, let's get into it.

I use this podcast to talk about writer's block and creative blocks.

Has that happened for you sometime in the recent past?

What was that like for you?

Oh, so absolutely it's happened in the way it tends to

happen is it tends to surprise me.

I'll just suddenly start to feel really heavy and I'll, and, and in that I'll.

I get restless and heavy and just kind of don't feel good in my own

skin and I'll notice, wow, I haven't written anything in a long time.

And that so rapidly turns into a story about how I'm never gonna write again.

I mean, it just spirals, but I think where creatives run into trouble,

particularly songwriters or, or storytellers, people that self identify

as storytellers in whatever medium is that we're good at telling stories.

And, and so the moment that I go, oh my gosh, I haven't written a song in

whatever the date I'm imposing on myself.

I don't just leave it there and kind of observe that, you

know, objectively, immediately assign meaning and story to it.

And that's, that's a, it doesn't serve me.

It tends to, it tends to, to entrench me in the notion rather

than showing me a way through.

Used to say, when I was coming out of, um, my divorce, I, I used to

say I'm clear about three things.

I don't know the plan.

I don't know what shit means.

And I get myself in trouble when I pretend either one and I feel that to

be really true with my creativity, there tends to be a bit of an outcomes razor

moment in my own head around the stories I tell when I hit writer's block moment.

where, you know, what's, if I weigh these two theories, one that I'm never

gonna write again, because I haven't written in six weeks or two months or

six months or two, I've been writing for, you know, whatever 25 years or so.

And I have a, I have a long history of being a writer and

sometimes that means not writing, which of those stories is true.

you know, the simple, the simpler one, which is, Hey,

I've been writing a long time.

This happens.

So.

is the more true, but it doesn't feel that way.

And it doesn't feel that way because it's when I feel most like

me when I, when you're writing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's I think that's really the bottom line is that, is that it's,

it's not that I'm afraid that I'm never gonna write it's I'm afraid.

I'm never gonna feel like me.

I'm never gonna understand why I'm on this planet again.

Gosh, I think that's so true because we, so much of our

identities gets wrapped up in our.

Yes.

And that's, you know, pretty unusual for, there are certainly other, other

jobs, other professions that have that.

But I think artists, especially, we put so much of ourselves into the work that

it's very hard to feel like if you're not doing the work you're losing yourself.

Yes, exactly.

There's so many ways that happens on your artistic journey.

Certainly professionally, you feel like you start to lose yourself if you're.

Achieving certain goals and certain thresholds.

I, yeah, I went through this a while back as you know, well, it's still

going through it in many ways because I've ran in some health challenges

around my voice that prevented me from performing in the way that I wanted to.

And, and in many ways, writing in the way I wanted to, I couldn't count on my

instrument and yeah, it felt writer's block for me comes on issues like that.

Come on, like identity.

I mean it's it's and that's not to be dramatic.

It feels like identity theft now, because it doesn't honestly the,

the, the highs and lows of success in any profession, they come and

go, well, whoever your iconic artist is, everybody rides a rollercoaster

there, but it always, fundamentally for me, comes back to the experience

of sitting in my room, writing a song.

It just it's every time blows me away.

And when it's not there, I just, I lose

me.

Yeah.

It sounds like you have a good way of telling yourself to look

at the real history, to look at the actual legacy of 20.

So something years of writing, instead of the story that you're making up in

your head, which I think is a great tool for people to use, what else helps

you when you feel like, cuz for me, I feel like when I'm in it, I don't

necessarily know when it's gonna be over, but there comes a time when I'm

feeling like it's starting to end.

Right.

Doesn't just suddenly end for me.

What helps you.

To get to that place and to, and to feel hopeful around the process.

Again, you know,

there's a few things that pop up for me immediately.

When you say that I have, I, I have a journey around mental health things like,

uh, depression and anxiety and, and such.

And one of the things that my nearest and dearest, including you will say, if I'm

in a dark chapter in some form or another, we always say to each other, it will lift.

Just remember that part.

It will lift.

I don't know how, I don't know when, but it will.

I kinda remind myself that when it comes to writer's block, but I also,

I'm getting in a better habit of learning to stop demonizing discomfort.

Ooh, too often we treat discomfort.

Like it's our enemy in areas that we hold precious, writing being one of them.

in a way that we don't do the same demonizing.

Like you don't go to the gym, have a killer workout, wake up sore the next

day and think, oh no, it's not working.

You think it is working

right?

Oh yeah.

And similarly, like the gym, there's a difference between like a soreness from

using that muscle versus like an injury.

Exactly.

Those are different, different feelings.

Exactly.

And I, I think so.

I think that the more I'm able to stop demonizing the discomfort of that moment.

Hey, I'm not writing.

It's not working.

It's not happening right now.

The more I'm able to listen to it.

There's a, uh, as you know, my most recent book was the myth of

certainty and other great news.

And it was really me trying to figure out how to embrace life, knowing

that there wasn't ever gonna be some lottery ticket arrival after

which everything was gonna be okay.

That, but that's not coming.

That's not a real thing.

So what does that look like?

And there's two things that came up that have emerged for.

As sort of anchor bits of wisdom since then.

And that is this notion from Epictetus, Greek stoic philosopher, which I'll the

bumper sticker version of his wisdom is we're not disturbed by things,

but by the view we take of them.

It's not the thing itself, but the view I'm taking of it.

Okay.

Well, that's interesting.

So this discomfort, this, this fallow period, I'm not traumatized

by it because it's happening.

It's because of what I'm deciding about.

That's the story piece and the others from a different philosopher from

the 20th century, Jerry Seinfeld

Um, and, and he was an episode of comedians and cars getting coffee.

He was talking with Trevor Noah about pain, like ouch pain.

And he said, I've come to the conclusion that pain is knowledge rushing into

fill a gap, stub your toe knowledge.

There's a table there, and you're not paying attention to where you.

So when I take those two pieces of information and I go, okay, I'm really

uncomfortable in this moment because I'm, I'm not having that creative outlet.

That brings me such joy.

And, and if I greet that and decide, okay, well I'm is discomfort.

That's a fact is discomfort.

Yeah.

Um, what do I do with it?

Pain is knowledge rushing into feel like, yeah.

Okay.

What is it telling me?

And that's when I, speaking of the gym, sort of get to the gym,

metaphorically speaking very often.

It's telling me that I'm not doing things.

To cultivate, I've gotten, you know, you know, Chuck cannon, right?

Yeah.

I did a workshop with him a long time ago.

Oh, did you?

Yeah.

And you know, he used to sail this a lot on it.

Probably still does on six man cruises and has a number of big hits in

the country, music world and such.

And on one of those cruises, I, I grabbed, I grabbed Chuck and, and.

I sailed with him a number of times, but I never really talked with him, was a

little bit intimidated by him and I, on the way out of the office there on ship,

I went, Hey, Chuck, let me grab him.

And if you don't mind that you don't notice about me, but I'm

actually a singer songwriter.

And I was curious, what do you do when it comes to writer's block?

Cause I'm not writing the way at that point.

I was not writing well, and I was, I was just really unsatisfied

with what was coming out and he's, and he looked at me hesitation.

He said he don't believe in writers' lives.

No such thing.

As writers, blog, just lazy writers.

He was right.

I have come to learn.

It's a misinterpretation of what the discomfort is telling me.

The discomfort is telling me it's time to shift into a different relationship.

I've read an issue of the performing songwriter magazine many years ago,

a similar take guy saying, well, I don't believe in writer's block.

I believe that I have input periods and output periods.

Yeah, exactly.

And, and when it's an output period, it's incumbent upon me to listen

carefully and set everything aside, you know, be ready to receive

when, when it wants to come out.

And when it's an input period, it's incumbent upon me to, to do the.

Which is turns out joyful because the work for me, anyhow, looks like

reading things that inspire me, listening to things that inspire

me, watching things that inspire me.

I don't mean inspire me to write.

I mean, just inspire me that ECHA me.

That caused me to feel something, to create creating quiet so that I'm become

a better listener when ideas do arrive.

And just, there is an element of trust in that in just showing.

To the cultivation, but I think there's also an element of honoring,

um, there's for me, Elizabeth Gilbert talked and her Ted talk about there's

essentially, you don't have to like that.

I feel this way, but there's some kind there's magic at foot in

creativity, straight up magic.

Woo, woo.

Magic.

Up and about happening there.

You know, however Nashville wants to try to systematize it.

There's an element of magic.

That's.

and I think part of my responsibility, having been given what feels to me like

a really sacred gift of being able to create whether, whether anybody else

likes it or not, it's irrelevant.

Somehow I get to write song.

That's freaking amazing.

That blows my mind.

And so I, I love the notion that my job and this relationship is to prepare

the way.

. Yeah.

And some, sometimes that preparation means, you know, remove the things

that are distracting you from the time to write that you want to have,

because it is an output period.

It's time to do it.

Yeah.

Or, and sometimes it means, like you said, sit back and listen, stop beating

yourself up about not writing because what you're supposed to be doing is listening

so that you have something to say.

Yeah.

Exactly.

That period of listening, it feels like my job is to just fill myself with.

like, so to, to, to deepen the colors that I have available to my

brush so that when the muse strikes again, have new colors to offer.

Um, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

And I love that you're using a visual metaphor,

cuz for me when I'm needing some inspiration, one of the things I

love to do is go to an art museum.

Because it's not my medium, you know, it's not my art form, but it's really

inspiring and, and seeing a great film or going to listen to music.

That's not your genre of music can really sort of open things up.

I think absolutely.

When you're stuck.

Absolutely.

I, I couldn't agree more.

I, you know, I also have a, I have a daily practice is something I took

from the, uh, uh, new thought author, Eckhart Tolle I have a daily practice

of just setting aside a few minutes.

To look to just sit in a space and notice things, same way you

would in an art gallery where you're just drinking in an image.

Well, we're surrounded by art all the time fundamentally.

And I just take the time to notice the lines and things, or to notice

the way the light hits something.

I am filling my brain with imagery.

I'm filling my brain with perspective and so much of, I think what we do

as artist, regardless of your medium.

Is that we are directing the emotional eye to something.

We want you to notice an aspect of, of something I've I've often said

that I feel like part of my job as a songwriter is I'm essentially an

emotional journalist, you know, taking careful notes on what it is to be human.

And that involves noticing.

Colors textures emotions.

Yeah.

And, and like you and I were talking about, I, I, one of the things that's

been a huge blessing for me during this, during the pandemic is how much

of the songwriting world, how much the artistic world in general, like

everything else has moved online.

And for me, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is some while I can, I love

being on a stage also wildly introverted and, uh, and inclined to being a, her.

The, the ability to connect with other artists online has been amazing.

One of the groups that I've gotten involved with during this time is a

result of a workshop that I saw Bonnie, a songwriter astonishing, just human offer.

She introduced to this group called thinking outside the pulled up website.

Before I got this call.

Cause the gospel of thinking outside the blocks dot.

Yeah,

we can put that in the show notes too, for great

to might wanna check it out.

They're

Beste are the two astonishing talents and professionals.

Who've put that to community together and it's essentially community

of songwriters specifically, but I get exposed to that community.

We do a lot of like writing to prompts and just continue to develop in our craft,

studying different elements of the craft.

These are all things you do when you're not writing or when you.

But again, they're creating, they're telling the muse I am here for this.

I am not just here to keep writing the same song I wrote 10 years ago.

Thank you.

And they have, they have time constraints too, right?

Yeah.

So, yeah.

So like when we do for one of the consistent challenges, we,

we do classes every Saturday.

We have prompts throughout the week and conversations

throughout the week that go on.

But once a month we do what they call blockbuster challenge, the air quotes, but

you can't see them and, and they'll give you on a Thursday, they give you a prompt.

And a restriction like, like this past week or so ago, we did the

prompt was winning and losing right.

About something about that.

And the restriction was something about using intervals, deciding

on an interval you're gonna use.

And it was interesting cause it was kinda like backing in starting with the

music and then backing into the lyrics.

Doesn't matter all that's, I'm getting, going down the rabbit hole a little

bit, but yes, we have a restriction.

The idea is here's your prompt Thursday afternoon.

By the next Thursday, you need to submit.

To the group, a fully recorded and written song go, it doesn't have to be good.

Just have to be written.

And what that's helped me to do is a it's gotten me exposed

to a ton of different sounds.

Cause I'm just a focus singer.

I read a I've read songs on a acoustic guitar and I I've, I've never really

branched out into production or, or, uh, rich arrangements or anything.

I bring other people in for that.

Yeah.

You know, I think what I do is I, I do other things as you know, with

the speaking and other things that I.

I think that's where I get that itch scratched, but all those

different sounds I get exposed to through the group, the restriction

itself, it grows me all the time and expands my sense of what's possible.

But here's the important thing that I've learned.

It's made me so much less precious.

Yeah.

And, and I didn't realize that my preciousness was getting

in the way of my process.

Um, yeah, that was one of the big things I took from, I spent

a little bit of time in Nashville years ago and just do doing these co-writing

meetings where it's, you know, four people in a room trying to write a country song.

And one of the things I really learned from them was like, just know whether

it's serving the song or not, and let it go if it's not working and it's okay.

It doesn't, it's not the last idea you'll ever have.

Exactly.

That's exactly right.

When I was touring full time, I literally would.

Every time I drive through Nashville would roll down the window

and give it the middle finger.

And I just, I just felt like it was like the evil empire.

And then years later I was blessed to be invited to a songwriting camp up there.

Beth Nielson Chapman, or actually go ahead and just offer her

name as by way of gratitude.

Who's a very talented hit writer.

She wrote this kiss for faith hill mm-hmm and she invited me to the songwriting camp

after I wrote her a letter after Katrina I'm back in new Orleans and anyway, went

up there and she really encouraged me to get involved writing in Nashville.

And I had this aha moment.

I went, oh, right.

I can learn to write in different ways and it doesn't have to compromise what I do.

It's just another tool I get in my tool set.

After that camp, I started going up there once a month.

I'd spend a week up.

Like you're saying take like three or four writing appointments a day.

And, and that was so again, healing in terms of going, oh, right.

The way this works is you write songs and that's how you

become better at writing songs.

what a concept.

Right?

And the way you do that is you, you know, in Nashville in a

way, is you walk into a room.

What do you got?

I used to love the conversation we walk in.

So what are we doing?

Are we killing somebody?

Are they falling in love?

What are they doing?

What's happening?

, you know, Again, all that helped me become less precious and brought

me back to, or brings me back to one of the things that I love most

about being able to do this craft.

And that is, you know, you and I have both done.

You still do acting, we've both done other creative endeavors that work

a little bit different than music.

For me.

The goal with music has always been, Hey, if you really

become wildly successful, yes.

You get to perform and be on amazing stages and all that.

But basically you get to get to write for a.

You get to write songs for a living in, in our industry.

The beauty of that is the way you get the opportunity to do

that is by writing better songs.

And the way you do that is by writing song.

so, so I get to do the thing that if I'm wildly successful is what

I'm doing, the thing to get to do.

Right.

You're already doing it.

Like the measure of success is not the thing that determines

whether you're a songwriter or not.

It's that's right.

Whether you're writing songs or not.

That's right.

And that continues to be the thing that brings me the most joy.

Now we'll say I remember Amy Ray for any girl she years ago in an interview

was being asked about writer, blah.

And she was also sort of defying the notion.

and saying that becomes really important to let yourself write

crappy song and because the crappy songs get you to the good songs.

And I can tell you in this thinking outside the blocks group every month,

there are people that post songs that they're like, I really don't like this

one, but, and then everyone will be like, but that one line circle back

to that, that's a great song, you know, or people will submit something.

They'll be like, I didn't really get, I got like 30 seconds of the song.

That's all I've got.

Okay, great.

That's something you continue to tell the use.

I'm here for this.

I'm here for.

So I want it to be simpler than that.

I want writer's block to be like, Hey, I can just take a pill or flip a switch,

but that's me demonizing discomfort.

I think that writer's block ultimately is pointing me to where

I'm ready to level up in some way.

And happily that be kind of turns out to be a bit of a joyful process.

So it sounds like for you, like having accountability, external

accountability is a really helpful tool.

Because you've got this group that you're, you've gotta turn the

thing in which I think is great.

I think that's something that's really helpful.

If people are stuck is just like find a friend and tell

them what you're trying to do.

Yes.

Like today I wanna write a chorus and I'm telling you, because if I

only tell myself I can ignore myself yes, but I can't ignore my friend

who I said I would do this for.

And also I think having like time constraints is really helpful

or any kind of constraint.

I know when I used to write primarily poetry.

For me, it was fun to play in form, you know, and like,

choose, choose a form for a poem.

You could do that with a song too, of course.

And just be like, okay, I'm only gonna write this certain rhyme scheme and it can

kind of get the juices flowing that way.

These are all tools, right?

Yeah.

I mean, they're all, they're all tools that help us.

What I, what I'm learning is at this point in my life, I turned 50 in a few months.

At this point in my life.

I'm returning to what mattered to me when I started doing this when I was 20.

And that is.

I am obsessed with this craft.

I think it's, it's miraculous.

It changes.

I have songs that have saved my life.

You.

No uncertain terms.

And so for me, I wanna just keep growing.

I wanna keep learning.

And when I hit those fall periods, which let's make no mistake, they suck.

When, when you're there, it's, it's an awful feeling, but it, it seems to direct

me to, Hey, how do I keep learning?

And, you know, and just kinda running through quick tips

that really are useful to me.

Somebody in Nashville years ago said, here's what I need you to do.

I want you to get up every day and I want you to set a timer for

five minutes and I want you to.

At least four Stans in that five minutes and I don't need it to be good.

I just need it to be done.

And that's one of those things that when I catch myself, Hey,

I'm not writing right now.

When was the last time you did that?

I haven't been doing that at all.

It's five minutes.

I can do five minutes.

And when I do it directs my thinking I just, the copywriter on me.

It directs my thinking to what I wish I was thinking, you know,

it's, it's, it directs my thinking to, to, to how to think like a

songwriter and see like a, so.

Books do that too.

Reading the right reading books on creativity.

Do that for me, listening to podcast on creativity like this one and

remembering that it's not a glitch, the feature of the process of living

a life as a creative helps me to feel.

It's like, it's actually kind of a sign of a membership card.

I, you know, I stepped into copywriting during the pandemic.

And one of the things I say to my accountability partners in that group

is I say, I love how often we'll show up and be like, so how's your work on

that thing going that you're working on?

How's it going?

And one of us will be like, you know, it's, it's going,

it's such a mess right now.

It's like chaos, which means it's probably about to come.

Mm.

Yeah, you, you start to recognize this is part of process and

not a, not a glitch in it.

I saw Paul Simon speak years ago at Emory Emory university in Atlanta.

He was invited there to be, he was the first time they invited a songwriter

for particular artist and residence program thing they were doing.

I don't know what it's called, but doesn't.

I remember sitting there in the congregation.

I say it that way.

Cuz we were in a church, but for me it felt like church.

I mean it's Paul Simon and, and he said he was asked about what he is working on.

And he said something like he hadn't written a song in

seven years or something.

And that simultaneously was deeply affirming and made me wanna run

from the building screaming.

Right?

Like it doesn't get

better.

right.

What are you talking about?

That's don't tell me that you're you've written.

Half of the modern American songbook, but you know, it's

just, it's part of the process.

Yeah.

And it's always part of the process.

It's not a thing that gets cured in the sense that like you mature

out of it or you become good enough that it doesn't happen to you.

It happens to even Paul Simon for God's sake.

Yeah.

Part of the process is so critical.

I'm trying to, I'm trying to make a distinction in my mind that I'm not

sure how to make, it's not it's it's not about for me on a daily basis.

It's not about embracing it like, oh, this is part of the process.

And so I tolerate it.

It's really celebrating it as part of the process, somehow coming to a

place of going, this is a gift I'm being offered right now that I'm not

writing well, lemme put it this way.

One of the things that's helped to me and you've been a, a

model to me in this regard.

You're very, you've been very good at navigating the business

side of being a creative in many.

I think for me over the years, I spent way too many years

demonizing the business side.

But, but the business isn't antithetical to what I love about the craft, the

business supports the art supports the business, supports the art it's.

It's what allows me to do it in the same way that my dry period support

my growth, which supports my fertile periods, which supports my growth.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely.

And again, none of this is easy.

It's all always say in my social media post, I'm always like, you

know, whenever, whenever always shares we're people, particularly on social

media are always sharing answers.

Like it just now that now you've got it.

No, that's it takes it's it's practice.

It's practice.

There's a reason that there are monks in monasteries and they're

doing, and they're meditating all the time and then it takes practice.

All these things take practice, everything.

Absolutely.

Everything you're good at takes practice.

Usually when I hit a fallow period, I'm not practicing in some way.

So I wanna end with something a little unusual.

Like normally I would ask people like, what's a tip that you wanna leave

artists with, but because I have you here and I happen to know that you had

a project that's been going on for a long time, where you write inspirational

messages on the back of your.

And drive around town and people get to see them and photograph them.

And you've done it for my car when I went on tour, which was awesome.

It was so great.

So if you had a hindsight, if you had something that you would leave on the

rear window of our listeners car, and that listener is a person who hasn't written

anything in a while and just really hoping they'll be able to do that again.

What do you think that might say?

That's nice.

Well, may I frame what the hindsights are real quick?

Yeah, absolutely.

Short version of the long story back in 2009, my, my beloved

new Orleans saints went to the super bowl and hell froze over.

And, uh, and when I went to new Orleans to, to be there, to celebrate the game

and watch, watch the game there with friends, I rode on the back of my car,

like, you know, who dad, all that kind of stuff and honk of your same fan.

And, and the response was so fun that when I got back, I, I decided

to throw up like a motivational quote there that I just thought was.

And I'm saying pens that people use for just married or graduation or whatever,

it's a paint pen, the window marker.

And I write that on the back of my windshield.

And I started doing that with motivational quotes.

And again, the response that I received from people, not like how

cool you are, but the response that people coming up and being like,

gosh, that really means a lot to me.

Thank you.

I needed that today.

It was really powerful.

And then I started to notice how it was changing my perspective,

cuz I would see it in my rear view mirror and it would surprise.

and, and so I then started to use it intentionally and I would essentially

not more or less a weekly basis, I still do coach myself going, what is the one

thing, if somebody said to me right now came up to me randomly on the street and

said blank, and it would be exactly the words that I need to hear in this moment.

What would that be?

And that changes because I'm constantly trying to change or practice.

A new perspective, change of thought, change, shift my perspective on

something and allow myself to live and as a result of different experience.

So that's where the hindsights come from.

They're never, they're very rarely anyway, about something that I'm trying to put up.

That's clever.

They're almost always about something I'm trying to, I'm trying to shift.

Yeah.

And so in this, in the context of what we're talking about here, a

hindsight that I would offer returning to your question, somebody that

that's dealing with, writer's blog, that's dealing with these kind of.

My first reaction when you said that was, was this.

So I'll go with my first reaction was to say it's working yeah.

Keep, keep going, keep growing.

It's it's working.

That's it.

This, I love this is, this is, this is, this is, this is what

it looks like to be a creative.

How cool is that fact that you are churned up?

Because you're not writing means that, you know, you can write how cool is.

The fact that you wish you were writing something better means,

you know, there's something better.

How cool is that it's working?

Just, just keep growing

it's working.

I love it.

Thank you so much, Brian.

This has been an awesome conversation and I know that our listeners, thank

you are gonna get a lot out of it.

And where can people find you if they want to find you on the internet?

So I I'm on yes.

Brian perry.com as in the opposite of no, Y yes.

BRIANPERRY com.

And yes, Brian Perry on Instagram, Facebook and

LinkedIn.

All right.

And I hope people will find you and I look forward to hearing

what's next in your world.

It's always something

exciting.

And thank you, Juliana.

I mean, this has been really a treat to, to have this conversation and, and

to, to talk with our creative tribe, we.

Beautiful growing, striving, challenged.

Dysfunctional, highly functioning, poetic, artistic family.

and I'm grateful to be part of it.

So

Established in 2017, artist soapbox is a podcast production

studio based in North Carolina.

Artist soapbox produces original scripted audio fiction and an ongoing interview

podcast about the creative process.

We cultivate aspiring audio Dramatists and producers, and we partner with

organizations and individuals to create new audio content for more

information and ways to support our work.

Check out artist soapbox.org, or find us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

The artist soapbox theme song is ashes by Juliana Finch.