Struthless shares 3 rules for life
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I can find ways to be happy that aren't necessarily tied to this one number. And I know that's basic as hell, but actually implementing it has a profound effect.

Hey there, I'm Matt D'Avella and welcome to my short form podcast, Three Rules. Each episode, I ask a guest to share three rules that help them find success and happiness. Today, I'm joined by Cam Walker, illustrator, author, and YouTuber, who's better known online as Struthless. His new book is called Doom and Bloom, the case for creativity in a world hooked on panic.

You were at the top of my list when it comes to people that I wanted to interview. And it's not just because you're one of the only people I know within a thousand miles. You're at the top of my accessible list. Oh, there were plenty of people I couldn't get. Yeah, there's at least like six or seven people on my list. Yeah, I'm a safe silver medal, baby. Yeah, I'm so glad that we could make it work and we got you while you're here in Sydney. Let's get right into it. What's rule number one for you? I'm going to call it the Rigby rule. Okay.

Ooh, that's got a fun name. Yeah, maybe. All right. So this idea came when I was watching, you know, that show Silicon Valley. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pipe, pipe, all that sort of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when two of the characters are bitching about Richard and like, they're like, oh, Richard is great. But, and then they want to say the thing that's annoying them about Richard. Yeah. It's like, oh yeah, Richard is great, but he's been a real dick right now. Richard is great, but he's, you know, being really selfish and like, oh man,

This is making this conversation kind of long right now, you know? So we need a patch. We need a shortcut for Richard is great, but... And so they started saying Rigby. And they're like, oh, Rigby, he sucks. Rigby, I freaking can't stand him. Anyway, so I always liked that. That always stuck with me as something funny. It's like a good software engineering joke, but it ended up very much changing my life for the better. And I mean this in the sense of, I don't know, my married life, my life as a dad. But yeah, so me and Felicity, my wife...

After our daughter was born, as you would know, it is an incredibly chaotic and stressful time. And there are a lot of opportunities in that time for what you call it, like communication errors that could blow up into something which isn't a communication error. Basically, like a fight, right? And you know, like nonviolent communication, conceptually, it's like,

It's a bit exhausting if you want to just continuously like therapy speak to your partner, being like, hi, I understand that right now I am feeling tired and my need for sleep is not being met. How can I da-da-da-da-da? Yeah, all that sort of stuff. So it felt like when we were super sleep deprived,

It was pretty much a minefield to either be misinterpreted, to say something that you didn't want to say, because there were so many times when you want to say like, hey, I just want to check that you turn the oven off, but I'm not asking you in a way that's attacking you. I'm not asking you to patronize you. I am not asking you because I think you left it on. I'm asking you because I am anxious. So we summarized that entire thing with the word Rigby. So be like Rigby, did you lock the car?

Rigby, did you get nappies from the shops? And yeah, what could have been a personal attack in so many scenarios just ended up being so easy. And what could have been like a long and drawn out

therapizing speech also just became really easy. What are you telling your partner in that moment? Yeah, that's yeah. So it's like a conversational safe word, right? But I think what you're telling your partner in that moment is I completely trust you. I'm not saying this because I don't trust you. I'm not saying this to condescend. I'm not saying this because I'm

of anything that's related to you. This is the most impersonal thing. I'm saying this because I am anxious about something. However, because you're super duper tired, you might misinterpret it. It might come off as a personal attack. And I want to neutralize that now with one word mutual understanding. But of course, the acronym for that was way too long. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Rigby. Rigby. Exactly. And how often

Do you find yourself using this phrase? Me and Felicity probably use it upwards of 10 times a day. Really? So still to this day? I reckon it has saved hours and hours and hours and hours of over communication of, you know, anything that could have escalated to anything. It's just, it's the best thing. Yeah. Best thing conversationally. Do you have like a specific example, like a recent one where you might have used that?

Yeah. Yesterday would have been an example. Like one of us had to look after our daughter and the other one had to go to the shops. Which one do you want to do? Rigby, I don't care. Like, and it's like, there is no part of you that's trying to be polite. There's no part of you that's trying to manipulate the situation. Not that either of us really do that, but it's just like,

I just genuinely don't care which one I get. - 100% it's actually like impossible. And I don't know how we survived it. Like, and actually Nat and I talk about this all the time where people will ask you that. They're like, oh my God, like 10 months of no sleep. Like, how did you survive? And she's like, we didn't. We did not survive. Like we didn't survive as the same people. We were very different people. - No, I need a funeral for the guy I was. - 100% dude, it's fucking bad, dude. It's hard. It's so hard. - So darling.

Nah, man. Nah. And I go into everything with like, yeah, probably like too much confidence. I was humbled, my brother. And it's probably like, it's, it's, it's a good thing. I think to have some confidence going into like one of the craziest periods of your entire life. Like, but like, to your point in those moments, you don't have patience. You, you don't have mental clarity. You are just stressed the fuck out. And you, you just,

You still love your partner, obviously, but you need to, you just don't have the same level of patience that you once did. This podcast has three rules. So let's move on to number two. The second rule that I'd like to say is ask yourself, how is this the best thing that has ever happened to me? And the, probably the most notable time for me

was almost two years ago to the day I got completely sober and it started because I made an absolute dick of myself. Not just on this night, but honestly for about 15 years. But this one particular, this one particular evening, I don't know, man, like, I don't, you know, like the Sunday scaries, like the shame, the shame was so intense. It wasn't just the shame of that, but it was the shame of everything. Cause I don't know, there's something about

being hungover in your 30s that is so depressing or like being hungover and instead of seeing a young man in the mirror I see this bald fuck and I'm like oh shouldn't you have your life sorted by now and in the midst of this intense hangover and shame I was like oh what was that question what's that question oh that's it how is this the best thing that has ever happened to me

And I was like, well, the only, the only way that this would have a legitimate answer is if this, if I never got drunk again, never did drugs again, never did any of this again. And yeah, I committed to the bit. Was that a rule before? It was a rule before that moment. And I tried it and I tried to, you know, like I've been trying to sort of quit drugs and alcohol for the past, you know,

However long before that but nothing ever seemed to stick it was only ever used in light situations You know like he lost a client or like, you know a bunch of money went missing or whatever it happened to be It's like how's this the best thing? Okay Well because I'm now I'm motivated to do this or now I'll do this or I'll make a commitment to here but being able to use it for You know arguably a top five demon. Mm-hmm. There's a game changer man. Yeah, how how do you go for attempt 42? I

Like, how do you, how do you go for that attempt and tell yourself like this time it's going to be different? That's such a good question. So there were a few things. So I really, really relished in the shame, which might sound counterintuitive, but I really felt it. And I really, really kind of beat myself up. So there was that. So firstly, feeling an insane amount of shame. The second one was attaching sobriety to my daughter, right?

and making a promise to her and I could break promises to myself till the cows come home oh my god I could I could just beat myself up for fun dude but I could never do that to her and so externalizing it and saying no you'll never ever ever see me drunk you'll never ever see me high you'll never ever see any of this that was pretty huge and then the third one man there's so many but

Yeah, fuck it. I'll give you five. I've thought about sobriety a lot. So third one will say really associating drugs and alcohol with poison, like understanding that it is poison and understanding that this is all you have. And that whatever's going on physically is going to, what's the word, like a ripple, ripple effect. Yeah, ripple into everything else.

Fourth one I'd say is replacement, not removal. So this is a pretty big idea in sobriety. It's basically like if let's say you want to quit drinking beers, but you drink beers at the pub, worst thing you could do would be to go to the pub and just not order beers because all of a sudden all you can see is the gap. You can just see the absence, the lack of beers, and you're just going to sit there miserable. You watch your old friends, your drinking buddies all getting drunk, and you'll be like, damn, man, life sure is terrible. It's just going to be a matter of time before you break. Exactly.

Exactly. So yeah, the idea of like removal is pretty depressing. Whereas the idea of replacing that, I don't know, tango class or, you know, whatever it is that gets you. It's fulfilling the social element too, which is a big part of why you go to the pub. Yeah, 100%. And yeah, and then I think also having role models was really big for me as well. So I was mentioning, yeah, Osher randomly,

had the bachelor host become my sobriety sponsor. As you do. Yeah, just naturally. Yeah, the guy from Australian Idol. Yeah, he's going to help me get clean. Cool, dude. Were you guys friends for a while? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And because he is...

something like 15 years sober and part of AA, which I never did, but he did. Part of that is once you help yourself, you help other people, sort of the airplane mask thing. And then I ended up helping a mate through it. So it was like, yeah. And he's been sober for over a year now. That's amazing, man. Thanks, bro.

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All right, cool. Let's move on to rule number three. Rule three, rig the game so you are always feeling some sort of progress.

I know how to pronounce his name, which is like 80% of why I'll say it. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. You're very smart. Yeah, the grandfather of flow. No, I learned that. I learned that very recently. Yeah, so, you know, the ideas that he put forward as the flow guy, which, you know, a big one was that the most motivating thing that people have to push themselves forward is that they are feeling a tangible sense of progress. If they can see that they are progressing and progressing towards a meaningful goal, then that can be more motivating than money in certain contexts.

things like that. So I have been thinking about this a lot lately because I'm feeling like there are certain things that I would love to see progressing or getting bigger or smaller in my life or like whatever it is that I'm not seeing any progress with. And that can be the most demoralizing thing when you're in the messy middle of a project and you're just hacking and hacking and hacking. At the end of the day, you're just like, I feel further. I feel further from the freaking goal. And I think a lot of

A lot of, you know, persistence. A lot of life is about how well you can make it through those valleys and how well you can actually really push forward when life is just kicking you. And life's been kicking me a bit. So the thing that I have taken a lot of solace in is categorizing my life into different parts of

wherein I can win particular games or feel progress in different categories. And that might be an overly complicated way of saying when I'm not making money, I can at least, you know, run. There's this beautiful Donald Glover lyric and it came from, you know, before he really blew up his childish Gambino and it definitely came from recession era blog rap, which I think speaks to it. But he goes, I was never worried about my money being empty because when it was empty, I was still happy. And he,

I really related to that probably because I heard it in like, you know, post recession, but I was like, yeah, I can find ways to be happy that aren't necessarily tied to this one number. And I know that's basic as hell, but actually implementing it, which is also basic as hell has a profound effect. So it's like, if you,

my money is going down. If other things are going down, no one can take away my physical freedom. No one can take away, you know, this particular skill or the amount of books that I read. There are things that I can win even when I'm not winning. And something about that, I don't know, can be really comforting when life isn't going too good. I've found a lot of solace in...

reading and researching because I'm like, well, no one can unread a book for me, you know, like, or no one can unrun a kilometer for me. So yeah, running's obviously a huge thing for me. But once I've read something and I'm like, okay, I have this new reservoir of knowledge. That's kind of cool. I really like this. Or I've been like getting better at illustration and I've been like getting better at painting and watercolors and stuff like that. So I'm like, okay, no one can unpaint a painting for me. I control this start to finish. And

The part where I think it runs into hot water is probably, yeah, like getting into the nitty gritty of, you know, like for example, being a creator where it's like, yeah, but no one can say that. Does it count? Does it really count? Because, you know, like you kind of get brainwashed by social media into thinking that like all creativity is only valid if it gets like some sort of algorithmic popularity. And even if I look at something that,

hasn't hit and I'm like that's the best thing I've ever made there's still that voice that brainwash voice it's like no it's not yeah no it's not you didn't get a million views on it yeah because you're a loser I'm like oh yeah I guess you're right yeah technically that man is so so so there's like so much evidence to support that voice online you know what I mean and it's like Jesus Christ man can I just like flip this switch off and just like enjoy myself at once but

No. Yeah. Absolutely not. No, but like, yeah, like things like,

Yeah. Things like running, things like skilling up. But I think that one of the things I think that works really well about that, that I've experienced is that it is through doing that we can find the most joy. I think I was trying to think my way through this for a very long time where I'm like, what do I want to do? What are like, how do what, what I want to create next? What do I want to make? And I'm just like sitting in a room and I'm, I'm giving myself space from my work because I needed that. I needed to step away from it. Also not really because you're still trying to attack that

problem strategy. That's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't actually give myself a chance. You've got to properly like leave it and let your brain like do it subconsciously. Why would you do that? How could you do that? No one can do that, right? No one can do that. No, no, no. But I did like, but then it was like once I felt like I was ready for it and I just went to a cafe and I just started writing.

Really? And that was it. And I journaled. It was like just word vomit. I was just whatever I could think of, whatever I was going through, it was just stream of consciousness. And I just wrote. And the first day I didn't feel significantly better. But then it was like as I kept showing up and I kept writing every day and then I started reading and going to the gym more. It was the act of doing and not just keeping myself busy, but to your point, progressing and feeling like I'm building something and I'm working towards something that made me –

let go of these ideas of like, oh, I'm actually so far behind or like, oh my God, where would my life be if I hadn't hired 10 people? Oh my God. You know? And so I think that that is- The lament. Yeah. And so then it's like, but I think it's like, this is what I think a lot of creators have in common and whatever it is that you're creating, it's like you, I think find fulfillment and your mind goes calm when you're in those moments of doing. Absolutely. Oh, completely. Yeah.

And that's flow, right? Oh, I mean, yeah, there's 100% flow. Yeah, it's also like what I like to refer to as almost like creativity as therapy. Yeah, when you're like in this creative state or in this flow state where you're like, and nothing can bother me because I am in the happy place now. Cam, thanks for coming on the podcast. Oh man, thanks for your company. If you want to get these rules summarized into a weekly newsletter, you can subscribe at mattdiavella.com slash three rules.

Thanks to Cam for taking the time to chat. To get more from him, simply type Struthless into your Google search bar. See you next time.