182 : The Intersection of Intentionality and Creativity with Dan Arwady
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Welcome to the Mindful Fire podcast, a show about crafting a life you love and making work optional using the tools of mindfulness, envisioning, and financial independence. I'm your host, Adam Kwayo, and I'm so glad you're here.

Each episode of the Mindful Fire podcast explores these three tools through teachings, guided meditations, and inspiring interviews with people actually living them to craft a life they love. At its core, Mindful Fire is about creating more awareness and choice in your life. Mindfulness helps you develop self-awareness to know yourself better and what's most important to you by practicing a kind, curious awareness.

Envisioning is all about choosing to think big about your life and putting the power of your predicting brain to work to create the life you dream of. And financial independence brings awareness and choice to your financial life, empowering you to make your vision a reality by getting your money sorted out and ultimately making work optional. And here's the best part. You don't have to wait until you reach financial independence to live out your vision.

Mindful Fire is about using these tools to craft that life now on the path to financial independence and beyond. If you're ready to start your Mindful Fire journey, go to mindfulfire.org and download my free envisioning guide. In just 10 minutes, this guide will help you craft a clear and inspiring vision for your life. Again, you can download it for free at mindfulfire.org. Let's jump into today's episode.

So

Dan, welcome back to the Mindful Fire podcast. I'm thrilled to have you back. Thanks for having me, Adam. Good to see you, man. Yeah, Dan, it's great to have you back on the podcast. It's been a while since our first episode, probably several years. If you missed Dan's first episode or you're newer to the Mindful Fire podcast, you can go back and listen to Dan's episode about deliberate practice, how he used the idea of practice to

not only improve his music, but also to move from a job in sales to a job in engineering. He got a bachelor's in computer science and just moved into an engineering role at Google. And so very cool stuff in that episode, got great feedback, but it's really great to have you back, Dan, and to hear what's been going on since.

Thanks, man. Yeah, it's awesome to be here. And it's amazing to see the success you've had with the podcast from way back when Adam and I were friends at Google. And it's super cool to see how you've grown this and grown yourself and your family and everything. So thanks for having me. Yeah, it's my pleasure. And so let's just catch people up. What's been going on in your life over the last couple of years and what's keeping you busy these days? Yeah, a lot. So

broad strokes. Career-wise, I did do those things that you were kind of alluding to. So I was back at school for a little bit for about four or five years doing night classes. In the meantime, we started kind of growing our family. So my wife, Ange, and I have three kids now. Layla is the youngest. She's about one and a half. And then I've got Tyler, who's about three and a half, and my son, TJ, as well, is about five and a half. So kind of about two years apart.

Each. So we're parenting three kids in Pacifica, California, which is in the Bay area. And that's been, I mean, it's not without its challenges. It's expensive here and it's, um, there's a lot of stuff going on, you know, just in general, but it's also a really cool place to, to raise kids. There's a lot of nature and.

and all that. So we take advantage of that as much as we can. So I'm really busy with my family, fairly busy with my day job as well, and sort of keeping that whole train running. And then I've been a musician for most of my life. Started playing when I was about 12 years old and in various ways have done a lot of different things in music. And these last...

four or five years have really been focusing on doing some stuff more solo. So typically I was kind of working with other people in some capacity. Started as a drummer, played in several different bands. That way, did a lot of songwriting, things like that. I was a producer. I still do some production stuff. And so I was trying to help people make records. But lately I've been trying to actually just be a solo artist. I picked up guitar and started to play it

a lot more seriously, went back and took lessons and practiced and did a whole slew of things on that side and started to just really write songs, a lot of them, and do it as seriously as I possibly could. So I've been playing out a lot here around the Bay Area. And the goal for this year was to kind of start to take some of that momentum and kind of start to push it out a little bit more into the universe. And I was telling Adam a little bit

before this when we were speaking that some of his envisioning exercises really made me stop and think about what I wanted out of the different things that I'm doing with music.

It was what kind of, you know, made me kind of reach back out and say, Hey, you know, I've, I've been doing a lot of the stuff that he recommends and, uh, it sort of clarified my thought and actually like several big things have happened to me since that happened. And yeah, we can go into that a little bit more at some point, but that's sort of the broad strokes for what's been going on. Very cool. Thanks for catching us up.

I love just how intentional you are with your pursuits. Like you don't necessarily just dabble and kind of mess around with things. Like when you decide I want to pursue guitar, you say, look, yeah,

Yeah. Maybe I already know, I assume you already kind of knew how to play guitar, but you said, I'm going to go and I'm going to learn the fundamentals and I'm going to take lessons. And then I'm going to practice those fundamentals until I get better and better. We talked a lot about deliberate practice on the last episode, just that approach that you take and apply it to all different areas and are very intentional about how you pursue these things, I think is, um,

Really inspiring because, you know, I joke that like my progress or quote unquote success with the podcast or the coaching business or whatever is more of a result of what I call haphazard action taking. It kind of feels like like I just I just keep moving forward. I just one step in front of the other in front of the other and it works. But I really, you know, I really admire how you.

Think through, like, how can I get really good at this thing? And yeah, if there's any any kind of insights that you have top of mind to share with the audience about how that has been powerful for your life, I'd love to hear.

Thanks. First of all, thank you for the kind words. And before I get into some of my stuff, I actually think you're a really good example of that because one of the, I think one of the things that you can really do to control that is just sort of wake up and keep putting one foot in front of the other. And some days are not going to feel like anything really happened at all. In fact, like some weeks or even months might not feel like anything really happened at all.

But at the same time, just by continuing to sit down and put a little bit of time into it and continue to make episodes, I mean, things add up. It's like compound interest. And, you know, before you know it, you keep putting those episodes into the bank account and suddenly you have a podcast with a back catalog. And yeah,

I've seen a lot of people who wanted to start a podcast and it's hard to make it. The hardest part is making it probably to the first dozen episodes. Once you start to get momentum and it just becomes a thing you do, then people...

start to think of you as the person that does that thing too. And opportunities start to come your way even without you necessarily having to go look for them. I feel like, honestly, that's the thing that you taught me. So I want to kind of reflect that back on you because I think you're, you're a really good example of somebody doing that intentionally. But, um,

All that to say, yeah. So first of all, I'm not the best guitarist by any stretch of the word. I'm not the best vocalist. I'm not probably not the best songwriter. I'm not the best drummer. I know that there are these peaks of human achievement for all these skills that are like in some cases, probably impossible for me to get to. But like now that I've quantified that I stopped looking at other people and this is something I do with anything I'm going to try and learn.

I stopped looking at other people and I start looking at the problem instead of saying, Hey, am I as good as that guy or that girl? Or am I as smart as that person? I feel like that, at least for me, that can be a real, like a losing game. And, and I start to say, all right, what do I want to do with this? And that's maybe where the intention comes in. At first, I mean, I needed to get good enough at guitar to be able to go and play a set of

of music, some original and some cover for, let's say a small amount of money at a bar or a coffee shop or a small venue, basically. And to do that takes a certain amount of skill and proficiency. Like you need to be able to play the instrument well enough to get to that level. And when I started to break it into things like that,

who was like, all right, well, what's the fastest way for me to get to that? And so I started to take what I knew about guitar and practice songs that were sort of within reach. And I

I knew from going back to school, the thing about school, the thing that school taught me going back the second time. And I should clarify kind of what happened. I came out of college at 22 with a business degree and a music minor. And I stayed on and I got a master's in advertising and communication. So that's what I had kind of like for my first phase. And then eventually I was at Google and that's how we met. And then later on, I started to kind of really understand.

get very into engineering. And so I went back to school, but then it wasn't really that linear. What I was trying to do at first was just learn how to program. And I wanted to be doing this stuff professionally. And so I spent over a year just trying to self teach these fairly complicated things. I was trying to like learn about algorithms and programming languages and stuff that was hard to get into your brain. And, and,

I got pretty far as being able to use the skill. But what I started to realize was that school is amazing. Once you're used to the grit that it takes to self teach, um,

School has already parceled all these things out for you. And all you have to do really is show up and do the work. And you're going to learn the skill if you do those things. If you don't do your homework and you don't read the book and you don't do that stuff, then no, you're not going to learn the skill. If you stop and humble yourself and take advice from people who've already done this journey and taken the time to package it and put it into kind of spoon feedable lessons, you can learn almost anything.

I mean, that was a very complicated thing to learn. And it was at a complicated part of my life. My dad had just died. COVID eventually happened. I had a kid and then I had another kid. All that happened while I was going back to school. And I was still like working full time. And I'm saying that because it was a hard thing to do. It was a hard thing to learn. But the fact that school made it parceled out.

was really useful for me. And I remembered that when I wanted to go and learn this new thing, when I wanted to go and start playing guitar more seriously, I was like, all right, I know a lot of guitarists. I'm going to ask them for some advice. There's a gajillion things you can see on YouTube and anywhere you go, there's a wealth of information, but you can start to chase your tail really fast. And so, um,

Having that goal, which was, look, I've got to be able to play this proficiently enough to go play it professionally and to be able to get paid for it at least a little bit, because that's how I can start to get my songs out there. It was like, well, what's the fastest path to getting to proficiency? And you can't shortcut practice. You just, you have to practice. I don't care what it is. I think that people can sometimes get lucky and get to places where

without having put in a lot of practice, but at some point you have to put the hours in. And so if you're going to put the hours in choosing how to put those hours in is almost as important as putting the hours in themselves. And that's where like a teacher can really help. And that's getting back to the school example. That was where school really helped. It was like, look, there's a million things on the internet.

read this, focus on this for the next eight weeks. And at the end of it, you'll be a little smarter in this area. And then we'll move on to the next thing. And it's going to take practice. It's going to take repetition. It's going to be painful and it's going to make you feel stupid. And I think that,

That the reason that children learn in such a uneasy looking way is because they're not afraid to look stupid and adults are afraid to look stupid. And I know I am. And it is a really humbling thing to go and learn something at my age when I'm supposed to have answers and not look like I'm tripping over my own feet.

But it's a healthy exercise too. Once I had the intention, the deliberate practice followed essentially. Yeah, that's cool. So let's kind of get back to the envisioning piece, right? So you had a goal or a vision of wanting to

go and play shows at small venues, coffee shops, bars, et cetera, which I know you're now doing. And then you said, okay, what do I need to do? What do I need to get there? I need to learn guitar. I need to maybe practice some songs that I want to cover. I need to write some songs myself. Tell me about your envisioning practice. How did you decide, okay, let me carve out some time. Let me make some space to think, what do I actually want?

And then, yeah, tell me about the vision that came to you. And then very interested in to hear how you took action on that and then how things started to fall into place. Yeah, well, as far as how I...

Carve the time out. It was kind of a little bit late in the evening, which is about when my house is the calmest in the mornings during the day with the kids. There's just something kind of going on work, et cetera. And I had read a few of your emails, listen to a couple of your podcast episodes about some of the envisioning stuff. And at this point, this is probably like, let's say five or six months ago now. So at this point I've learned the guitar. I've, I've played probably like

In the hundreds of shows, some bigger than others, some really small ones, some stuff where I'm just playing markets and stuff where I'm hired to come play ceremonies or weddings or whatever, like some bigger deal things. But this collection of, I know I've done a lot of gigging and I had done a lot of gigging as a musician before, but this is solo gigging, me playing guitar and singing. And I've kind of gotten over that hump and I was sitting in

And thinking about some of the stuff that you have brought up and thinking about the year ahead and trying to think like, where do I really want to go with this? Like, what is the point of doing this? And that's a like deceptively easy question. Cause there's nothing wrong with what I was doing at that point. I had started to write songs. I had started to put out.

releases and stuff like that. And it seemed like, well, okay, just keep doing what you're doing. But like, where do I want to go with this? And when I started to really ask myself that question, I was like, okay, well get specific. And I was like evening time and I closed my eyes and I started to really like watch myself doing, but I gave myself permission to dream at that point. I was like, look, I'm not going to,

The minute I start to chase a lot of dream scenarios, the first things that come into my head are like, oh, okay. Like what are we doing with the kids? How, how's this affecting my job? How, how is money coming in? All these worries. And I said, okay, let's just pretend that stuff is taken care of and just give yourself permission to go somewhere because you're going to come back. And I closed my eyes and I started to think, okay, am I playing Madison square garden? No.

Actually, no, which surprised me because you'd think, oh, that's the way that's what you want. But no, I had gone to see who I think is probably the very best guitarist in the world. A guy named Tommy Emanuel play down in Santa Cruz with my wife a few years before. And we went and saw him at this theater.

Probably seats like 300, 500 people. It was an awesome show. And we sat and we watched and we listened. It was an incredible experience. And when I was doing this envisioning, I was like, I'm playing that theater. It's not the biggest theater. It's not Madison Square Garden. I don't have lights going on. I'm playing my original music.

To a group of 500 listeners who are sitting there and actually listening to it. And they came there on purpose. They're there to share in that moment with me.

And we're all together in that place. And I want to be able to wake up and easily go in a somewhat frictionless way, go and play that show and have that be economically viable to the point where I don't have to necessarily worry about paying off like the mortgage and all that kind of stuff.

But I don't need to be rich. I'm not driving a Ferrari. I'm not doing anything like that. I just kind of want the needs taken care of. I want my kids in good shape, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then I just want to make art and be together with people in that setting. And playing live to me is the pinnacle of human experience. It's my favorite thing to do. It's just one of my favorite things to do in the whole world. And so...

To me, that's not a means to an end. To me, that show is the end. That's the thing I really, really want to do. That's what I want to experience in life. And so I kind of woke up from that, so to speak, and was like, that was, that was really clear and perhaps even achievable, you know, not.

tomorrow, but why not? And that was sort of the experience of that whole thing for me. After that happened, that was when I texted you at some point and was like, hey man, I kind of want to tell you about this and all that. And ever since that happened, I mean, a lot of things actually musically have been going my way, but I'll stop there just to

Tell you that that was very cool and meaningful for me. Thank you for sharing that. It's a beautiful vision and a beautiful dream. And yeah, I think there's a few things that stand out to me about the process that you went through. And, you know, this is the process that I teach, you know, with my free envisioning guide that anyone can download online.

right now at mindfulfire.org slash start, but is also core to my coaching program, to my workshops that I'm bringing to companies as well. But it really comes down to creating space to think big about what you actually want. One of the things that stands out from what you're saying in your experience in doing this, but has also been reiterated by many people that I've talked to, is that thinking big means

doesn't necessarily mean the dream has to be some outlandish thing like playing Madison Square Garden, right? It's giving yourself permission to open yourself up to what it is that you really want, whatever that is to you. You know, so your example is like, you don't want to play Madison Square Garden. That's not the dream. The dream is to play in a big but intimate venue that

Where you can have that experience. And I've had that experience where I think back to been into a number of shows like this, but one that comes to mind now is, is I saw Hozier at the Masonic and SF. It's a pretty big venue, but it's not that big. It's a midsize venue, but it's like, you're right there with them. It's a shared experience.

And it's really it's something special. It feels different than being in like a huge cold auditorium that literally has an ice rink on the bottom of it. You know, in another example, I was talking to someone about my my program and asking, you know, what's your vision and everything? And his vision was he just wanted to say no to more people.

legal cases he's a lawyer he was a good lawyer and had made some money and got some income streams from cases that he's won that are able to sustain him but he was finding it really hard to say no to helping out his friends who needed help on cases and things like that but he just wanted to like

say no to more things so he could spend time with his family and do gardening. Like that's his big vision. That's fascinating. That's not something you'd predict. It's become clear to me that like, when I say that people give themselves permission to think big, it's like, whatever that means to you, that could mean playing Madison score garden or it could mean gardening, right? Literally it's totally up to you.

And the other thing that really stood out from what you're saying is just entertaining the idea, opening your mind to the possibility instantly makes it more real and seem more possible. You said specifically, like, it seemed like, you know, something that I could do, right? Maybe not right away, but.

It is possible. And that's the thing that I've noticed again and again in my life where I challenged myself to think really big. For me, that was a few years ago. I was working with my first coaching client. I was challenging him to think big. And I was like, all right, well, I should challenge myself to think big. So I said, all right, I want to lead these workshops. I want to lead what I'm now calling my Ask What's Possible workshop.

an envisioning workshop for people to think big about their team and their company and all that. I knew that was the vision. I'm like, all right, well, what would a really big vision of this look like? And that came to my mind where I'm like, all right, I want to do this for Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google.

And I was like, all right, and now we're talking. Now that's big. And I'm excited about that. And that would be awesome. But I have no idea how it's going to happen. But just by opening my mind to the idea, it's already became like, oh, yeah, like, I don't know how it's going to happen, but it could happen.

And then one thing led to another and I started, as I call it, planting the seeds, having conversations with people, talking to administrative business partners at Google who help plan events off sites for their teams. I started just kind of, you know, not necessarily going for the Sundar goal, but just moving towards this overall vision and wanting to lead these workshops. And one thing led to another, an opportunity came up where I got an email from

At 11.30 at night while I was finishing up my work for the third quarter of the year, they said, we're looking for someone to lead a mindful leadership workshop for a group of executives. I was like, perfect. And turns out that was at the CEO's leadership conference. Dude, that was unbelievable. It was unbelievable. But it's really just...

Over and over again, I've seen how just entertaining an idea in my mind already makes it seem more possible. And then the last thing I'll say is just the kind of related. It's like the difference between expectations and a vision with the Sundar thing with you and this venue is.

wanting to play the shows at this venue, you weren't saying it needs to be this venue in by the end of the year, very specific way. It needs to look very specific timeline. It needs to happen, but you're more open. You have a vision of wanting to make that happen, but you don't need it to happen in a certain way in a certain time. And that is something that, that I really noticed. There's just a different energy. There's a, on one hand with the expectations, there's,

And the very specific way it needs to look, there's a forcing feeling to it, right? It's like, I'm really pushing this forward. It needs to happen. On the other hand, if I'm open, if I'm excited about this big vision to do this, I can take action in a relaxed way, trusting that it will happen at some point. And I don't need it to look a certain way or a certain time. The CEO's leadership conference, he wasn't in the room, right?

Right. So some could say, oh, well, you didn't really get your vision, but I'd say I'm pretty damn close. You know, like the fact that I'm at that event, that I'm doing it for these vice presidents who also can help me reach my ultimate vision of wanting to do this for teams and companies. It's all a step in the right direction. So just kind of relaxing into the fact that like knowing what you want makes it seem more possible and just being

Taking little steps forward really can be very powerful. And especially if you don't get too tight around what it needs to look like and when it needs to happen. Man, that is, first of all, that's a phenomenal story that you shared. And there's so much that I agree with there because I think it's a powerful tool when you ask yourself what you really want. I think that's really what this comes down to because I think if it's unexamined that your assumptions are

Of what you think will make you happy.

Sometimes you actually get those things and then they don't really make you very happy. And you hear that story all the time. Oh, I wanted to work at this place and I've been working there and I don't really feel any better. You know, that stuff fades away or I wanted to move to this place and I thought that would make me feel happy, but it didn't. And so on and so forth. Life's full of stories like that. And when you start to examine it, what it does is it allows you to ask why in your story, why,

Is Sundar the point? Not really. The point is that you've created something that's deemed to be valuable enough to people who don't have a lot of time, but it's so valuable that they're going to use it to enrich themselves. These people impact a lot of other people's lives.

CEOs, VPs, director, whoever. And by providing a trusted service to them and gaining their trust and actually having the opportunity, not just to like go pitch a product, but like sit and talk to them about how they think and how they feel and how they approach life, you know, not just problems at work, but how they actually think about stuff. The impact that can have potentially is massive.

Because they take that with them forever and go and impact many other people. It's a giant chain reaction. I don't mean to speak for you, but I think some of the meaning that you find there, it's not that Sundar, the acting CEO, is the guy who's listening. It's that you've made something that's that impactful. Yeah. And I think that's really cool that you actually got to see that realized. It was really cool because it was...

It went from something that seemed impossible to something that was going to happen. And then I was able to pour everything I had into it. And really, I think it's interesting. Like one of the things that really motivates me about it is just the idea of connection and creating a space where people are able to connect with themselves, connect with each other and connect with their biggest vision for their life and work.

It was very interesting because I would have thought that these people, in this case it was 27 vice presidents at Google, who I imagine have a ton of stress, a ton of things on their plate and on their mind, and are also in a very competitive environment. I would think that they would be very competitive.

reserved and not very open about what they actually want is what you want pushing ad products for the rest of your life. Probably not. And are you going to say that out loud in a room, in a room of your peers, your peers who could potentially use it against you?

I knew going in because Sean Downey, who we both know, he's now the president of the Americas. You and I used to work for him. And he was very supportive of me when he found out I had this opportunity. And he told me,

When he helped me prepare for it, he told me that these guys are going to be super open and super curious. They're going to be really engaged and very open. And that is exactly what they were. They were like, I was shocked. And luckily he told me that because I had that going in. Yeah. Like I was hearing people talk.

talk to each other about like you know i don't know how much longer i'm going to be doing this like literally like in the room i remember hearing that and it was just like wow these people are having real conversations and i'm the one creating this experience and so that's always been very interesting to me i used to want to be an architect actually

That's why with a whole skate park casita and this room and the whole thing, we went into that a lot last time. But it's like, actually, I want to be an architect of experiences. I want to create these spaces where people create opportunity through connection. And this mentor of mine, Marty, who was also on the podcast, she really challenged me to like, what does that actually mean? That can be a million different things.

And that's where I came back to what I said before, helping people connect with themselves and their biggest vision for their life. Because that is something that, again, by connecting with what you really want, you automatically start moving towards it. A thousand percent. Okay. Getting back to your example, like what are the steps in between where you were at that moment? And let's say going and hosting this leadership summit coaching session, um,

many, many steps in between, none of which are guaranteed to work. It's not like, oh, if I just go do ABCD and E then this is going to happen. You don't have a checklist, but the one thing you get from that clarity is you can actually use that as like a litmus test to go and examine what you're doing with your life at the current moment and say, all right, well, does this fit in or not? Does speaking to people like on a podcast, um,

still makes sense. What's stopping me from having these conversations with people who aren't Sundar? All those sorts of things happen. And then you go back and you start to look and you're like, yeah, actually, like, I know I got to keep doing these coaching sessions. I know I got to keep doing these episodes. I know I got to keep speaking to people. I know I have to keep leading these search inside yourself sessions. That stuff starts to line up. And I'm a pretty firm believer in the fact that people do get lucky sometimes when

But the thing that you can affect is not whether you're lucky. The thing that you can affect is whether you're ready. And if that email comes at 1130 at night and you can confidently respond at 1132 PM and say, I'll be there tomorrow or whatever I need to do. That's because you spent years getting ready. You didn't have to go and.

Figure out what all that meant. And the reason you got that email in the first place is because you put yourself out there over and over again, even when it was uncomfortable, even when no one told you what this podcast was going to be about or how to just jump into the pool of coaching other people who are already successful in their lives. Those are intimidating things. But by doing that and jumping into the pool and just continuing to swim one day, when that email comes.

You can very confidently respond. Yep. I'm going to do that. Sure. No problem. I can do that. And actually those are the building blocks. That was the checklist. You kind of already did it without knowing it.

And I think that's the power of stopping because we're always moving. And I think stopping makes you examine. And I think examining makes you intentional. When you're intentional, you keep things that are going to help you get to a place and you don't keep things that aren't.

Yeah, no, it's so many things that you said there resonate with my experience because like when you take the time to think about what you actually want and you don't have to commit your life to this vision, right? Like it's you. This is what I think I want. Right. And as I take action, as I move forward, as I'm.

ready to see things that are aligned with that vision, I learn more information. I learn, do I like this? Do I not like this? Do I want to keep doing this thing? Is it moving me closer to my vision or is it moving me away from my vision? And without that, you're just going through the motions of life, right? And another thing, like by having a clear vision and, you know, and then what I teach in my small group coaching program is practices where you can

Plant the seeds of that vision in your mind. Talking about your vision. Affirmations practices. What mindsets do I want to embody as I pursue this vision?

visualization, journaling, and many experiments, right? Like what's a little thing I can do? Taking a guitar lesson, for instance, right? Having a conversation with an administrative business partner. All of these things are little things that I can try to move towards my vision. And the more I do those things, the more I'm priming my mind to be ready when the opportunity presents itself, right? And, you know, I'm very keen to...

explore your

your examples of how things started falling into place. But just to cover off on this situation, I'm not working at 1130 at night ever. And I happened to be that night when the email came along, that was the biggest opportunity of my life. And who knows why or what it was, some of these things, you know, it seems like, you know, the universe is just aligning in, in my favor. I could have been there working on my stuff and missed that email. And if I missed that email, I

Or I answered it the next day, probably someone else would have gotten the opportunity. And it was a potentially life-changing thing. And then the last thing I'll say that is related to something you mentioned about earlier, maybe even before we started recording, but the idea that all of these little steps that we're taking when we keep showing up,

They're all compound interest on our actions. And I've been seeing that in my recent time as well with just,

It feels like I'm going nowhere. My mind wants to trick me into thinking you should be further along. You're not, you're not where you should be, whatever. And I have to catch myself and remind myself like, no, like the point is to do this in my own time, in my own way. I don't want to be forcing and all of that. But when I am able to kind of snap out of that, not there yet situation,

mentality, I can actually look at, wow, look at all this progress that I'm making. Look at how I learned something from one person in a call. For instance, the other day I had three calls on Tuesday, three calls with people who are in my target market, three people that I didn't know or kind of knew, but were in positions that could help me by my service that I'm my workshop that I'm offering. And

And after those calls, I had LinkedIn open. So I just got back on there and I started like seeing this stuff. And I saw this post about like, if your prospect on a sales call says, let me think about it. That's a no. And so my mind was already just looking at all these people puffing their chest, pretending like they're super successful on LinkedIn. Then my mind's like, oh man, well, you, you know, you didn't get a yes. Yeah.

And so I started like, I started like getting all down. I was literally like down on myself for the rest of the day thinking, man, I'm a total failure. I mean, and it's very subtle. It's so relatable. But I'm like, what the hell? Like, what am I doing? I'm not there. Blah, blah, blah. And then I realized looking back, like, I mean, all the calls were great. I learned, I connected, I,

And they offered to introduce me to people and gave me new ideas. But I just very quickly saw how from the first call, the guy said something that I learned and immediately implemented in the next call. And then I heard something in the next call that I immediately implemented in the third call. And in the third call, the guy said something about not necessarily doing a one-to-one, like my workshop with them and a client, which is kind of what I was thinking was the biggest opportunity.

But he also said, we're a smaller partner, so we maybe don't have the budget for that. But what about like a thought leadership event?

What about like an event where there's multiple clients? And I was like, actually, that's a really good idea. And so now I'm able to see that as an opportunity. That's so cool. And I was open. But for the rest of that day until later on in the evening when I looked back and was like, what were these calls actually? Like, I feel bad about these, but like, were they bad? No, they were all great. It was compounding in real time. It's easy to get caught up in this like we're

we're not where we think we should be. And, you know, I'm all about mindfulness and this envisioning stuff. And I teach this and I still get caught in these unhelpful stories constantly, but I can realize like, wow, these are all just compounding investments. And if I'm open in like allow things to unfold without me forcing, I'll get there eventually. And it might not look how I think it needs to look or it should look, but it's, I'm

I'm going to get what I want eventually if I keep at it. I firmly believe that. And you can no more stop yourself from telling yourself that story. I remember when I was first meditating, actually our mutual friend, Paul Santagata was talking to me about that. And he,

I was like, you know, it's really hard to calm the mind. And he's like, it's not the point. People think meditation is about calming the mind. It's not. It's about observing the mind. He's like, the mind is, is essentially, I mean, it's a river and you can't stop a river except by damning it, which is potentially harmful. Right.

The point is not to stop the river. The point is to swim to the banks of the river, get out and dry yourself off and sit there and watch the river. And when you start to realize that that's the point, it takes all the stress away of telling yourself those stories or even having those thoughts in the first place, because you

We all have those thoughts. We all tell ourselves those stories after those calls go the way they go. I know I do. And it's hard to put yourself out there. Doing what you do is not something that you're dispassionate about. This is something that you deeply care about. And when you're in that frame of mind where you care about it and you want other people to care about it too, it's very vulnerable, no matter what it is.

And that story, I think for people like you, people like me, people who are doing that a lot, that story comes up over and over again. And of course it does, no matter how much training you have with it. But the training is the ability to swim to the side and look and deal with it and understand that those stories are natural things, but how you react to them is the thing that you can control.

And that's what you did. You get back up, you take the next phone call and you actually in real time learn from the one before, you know, it's funny. Cause I, I do this with songs too. It's like, you want every song you write to be this great song. And they're not, no matter who you are, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, John Lennon, probably Simon. It doesn't matter. They're not all good, but sometimes the whole point of song number 72 is

was just to be song number 72 so you can eventually get to song number 99. If song number 99 is going to be the one, you got to write a lot of stuff in between that maybe isn't going to do you any good, but at least it was a stepping stone. And that in and of itself is absolutely fine. At least you're doing it. And the point is that you wake up and you think about it and you do it and you intentionally do that.

And I think that's exactly what you were doing with those phone calls too. You got to take phone call one to get to phone call three or phone call seven and phone call seven is the one that sets you up with, with all the opportunity. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's the thing. It's like,

All of those calls, I learned something. All of those calls, I moved a little bit closer. And the thing is, I love having the calls. So like, why does it matter at all? It doesn't need to go anywhere, right? It's like, I'm still kind of like releasing the emotion and

to be honest, anger of the way that my career ended at Google and just the, all of that and transitioning from that mindset, never good enough. Go, go, go, go, go. You know, they lay off thousands of people and suddenly their job is now your job for the same amount of money. Just never enough. I'm trying to transition to a little bit more of an intuitive, slow paced, like a way of being and a way of moving through life towards my goals and

That's going to take a long time. Be okay with that. It's like you said, like be okay with the fact that your mind's not going to be this serene, calm place forever.

That's just not how it works. But you can learn to just observe that and we'll get caught up and then we can come back to the side of the river, which I love that metaphor. I think that makes a ton of sense. So it's an ongoing practice. But yeah, this week was like very much real time because like Tuesday afternoon, I was like, my God, I'm a failure. Wait a second. I made so much progress. Like,

Three weeks ago, I didn't even know who my target customer was. I was, you know, and now I not only have clarity on who the customer is, I have relationships and have had conversations with C-level executives that many of the customers I'm trying to pursue.

So I'd say that's pretty good progress. I think it's phenomenal progress. I think everything you've done has showcased really phenomenal progress. But I also want to say that, like, I think it's important for people to understand and ideally empathize with the volatility that comes with this stuff. Take this example, like this is your dream or at least a portion of your dream. And people think, oh, well, that guy is off living his dream.

He must be happy all the time. He must be ecstatic all the time. And the truth is the closer you fly to the sun, the bigger the ups and downs are. And it can feel really personal sometimes.

If a phone call did, I mean that phone call, it's not like they laughed you out of the room or hung up on you. They took the phone call. It just, it didn't get 105% a plus rating. Maybe it was, you know what? I'm just making that up. And my point is like, that's how hard you are on yourself when you're doing something like this. It's not that something has to be a disaster to make you feel bad. It could just be this one little thing that,

I wish I was getting even a little bit of a stronger reaction and, and that's going to take my whole day. And that's the volatility. That's kind of how, you know, you're doing something right in a weird way because that's how much you care. It's how much you care about what you're doing. I mean, if you think about that as compared to like, let's say what you were doing at a corporate job and it's like, I got an email back from a client or a partner and now they're a little pissed off or whatever. And,

So it goes and we're all just doing our jobs and you shrug it off and you, okay, maybe not the best day, but it's not going to like keep you up at night. I mean, this stuff objectively went great for you. And the fact that it didn't even go greater than that is enough to send you careening off course. That's how passionate you are. I think that's worth noting. I think it's worth understanding that like, it's okay to feel that way.

And that both things can be true. You can feel that way. And also you can objectively be doing amazing at the same time. Both those things can happen at the same time. It's interesting to hear your thoughts on that because you're reflecting back to me and I'm kind of seeing new things in the situation that

It's so true because it's like, even at some point I'm like in that day or, you know, in this week where it's like my mind was catastrophizing or whatever. It's like basically getting to the point where I'm like, man, I'm living the thing that I said I wanted and I'm still not happy. But I was just disappointed about that situation, which gets back to what I was saying about expectations versus having a vision, right?

Essentially, my experience didn't meet my expectations and my expectations weren't even clear. Right. I didn't even know what they were, but.

It was like I was thinking, oh, like this, you know, I'm going to close these customers and this call and this literally initial call. That doesn't make any sense. But I didn't even have that in my mind. I just thought unless this was like the best call ever, it was going to be a catastrophic failure. And that sent me down a whole afternoon of like feeling like shit. It's worth having this conversation because you've experienced it. I've experienced it. And so it shows that there's no like

there and then everything's great. Life is still life and we're going to have ups and downs. And I think what you're saying about like really caring and it being very personal, personal because I care, very personal because I'm putting myself out there. I'm doing things, you know, like you were saying before with the guitar, like that are uncomfortable, that I'm not good at, that I'm going to feel stupid. That's how I feel on these sales calls or whatever. And it's just...

That's what happens when you put yourself in these situations. And so it's amplified. And I think the like corporate jobs, you know, example you gave us is a perfect example of like the opposite. It's like, well, you don't really care. So like, you know, you just move on, you know, totally go get a cup of coffee, get off. There's always tomorrow. Right. Exactly. By the way, I wish you so much success with that. And I knew you're going to have it.

Thanks, man. Yeah, it's been really it's been really cool. I'm glad I have this experience because it was a good lesson. And yeah, so, OK, we've been I've been beating around the bush, turning this into a podcast about me. But this is a podcast about you. So you had this vision, right? You had this you took this time. You had this vision of wanting to perform in that theater and.

And you said things started to happen. So let's talk about, you know, what actions you started to take and kind of what things started to come across your path. Yeah, definitely. And some of this is going to feel maybe a little specific to music. So apologies in advance, but I'll try and kind of. No, no, no. Don't even worry about it. This is your your vision. I want to hear my things were very specific to my situation.

Like 25 minutes worth. I think it's kind of important to kind of like have the, to kind of have the depth of what was going on. You kind of have to understand how some of this stuff works, even from a business perspective. So, okay. I have whatever I do, the envisioning exercises, think about what it is I want. And I want to fast forward to the end, which is the last month or really like the last month. Things have really started to waterfall like crazy, but it gets back to the

That's sort of being lucky versus being ready thing, because I got kind of a similar phone call that you got when you got that email at 1130 at night. But I'll get there in a sec. When I started to envision that stuff, what I realized was like, now that I feel clear, what makes me care about other musical artists, for example, enough to drive to Santa Cruz, which is two hours away from my house.

house and go see them and pay money and hire a babysitter and all that stuff. I'm always trying to make art that comes from, from the soul from here, trying not to phone that part in ever. And it's hard because it's hard to do that over and over and over and over again in a repeatable way. Even if you know a lot of the formulas and you know, a lot of the things that work and things that don't,

you can get really caught up in the formulaic part of it. And before you know it, you're not making something that's really personal to you anymore. And the personal stuff is the reason that people put their butt in a seat at the end of the day. And that was a big realization. I mean, sometimes it's not personal. Sometimes it's like, Hey, I just want to go and dance or I want to just go and have fun or whatever and be entertained. And that's fine too. For me, for my stuff,

I'm not that guy. I'm not the other stuff. It has to come from here or you're not going to listen to me, basically. It's like the one thing I can really bring to the table. And I know a lot about production. I know a lot about how records are made. And I realized that the thing that I really...

When I was doing this sort of envisioning exercise, I'm not by myself. I'm with a really small group because I love the interaction that's happening with music and all that's being made live. And the reason I said there's no light shows or anything like that is because when you go and see a lot of shows now, there's a lot of pre-production that goes into stuff like that. So there's basically backing tracks that are happening at the same time. People are playing to click tracks. Everything's synchronized. The lights are happening. It's cool. I mean, it's amazing era to live in that we can go and see shows like that.

And I go to them all the time and they're really fun, but that's not my vision. And having that vision made me realize, well, the thing that I'm seeing is, is interaction, human interaction that's happening live in front of me. I'm making these songs that are near to my heart and I'm making them for other people in real time with a few friends, essentially really trusted people with me up there. And so, um,

I booked some recording time at a studio. Our mutual friend, Harry Griffin, still plays with me all the time. I called my brother. He is amazing. Yeah, Harry is an absolutely phenomenal musician. And I called Harry and I called my brother Chris and Chris had some other stuff going on with work and so on. Couldn't make it out, but Harry was able to come out and I was like, you know, I got these songs and

I want to go make a record, but I want us to be in the room together. I want us to actually capture it in the room, which is a lot harder. If you do things one at a time, if you screw something up, it's all isolated. You can go fix it. You can do a million things to it. But when you're all playing together, what's happening is stuff is bleeding into different microphones. And so you're capturing a performance. And if that performance isn't good, isn't up to par, doesn't sound like a record, then you got to go do it again.

or whatever, it's just not going to sound as good. And so there's a lot more pressure on making things like that. But I realized how important the songs were in terms of being played live from that envisioning thing. And so I called Harry and I booked some recording time with

friend of a friend who had made some records out here in Oakland. And he was like, you know, I got the guy for you. And he hooked us up and I hadn't met him before. And Harry flew in and we did a bunch of stuff ahead of time so he could learn and try things out. And I was singing and playing with this woman, Cassie out here. And I was doing these small coffee shop kind of gigs and, uh, in bars and restaurants and stuff. And she'd come and

Sing a few things. And we started to practice. She sounded great. And we started to practice and I was like, I really want to be doing my original stuff. And so all this is sort of like starting to fall into place. I got this small group. She's learning the material. Harry's learning the material. I'm.

in a spot now where I can capture this live. And I started working on my next record with all that in mind. We started tracking it back in August. And at the same time as I'm doing this, somebody reaches out to me about this documentary that they're doing about indie musicians. And it was from the last record I'd made. He had heard a couple of things and he's like, can I come out and

do some filming. And I said, sure. And he ends up coming out. He paid for one of the studio sessions. We got a bunch of footage from one of the tunes that I recorded. That was one of those things where it was like, okay, good thing I'm ready because I had a few extra songs in the bank that weren't going to go on the record. But I was like, we could do that with the filming. So that started to happen. Then I started to go play a couple of bigger shows. He wanted to see if we could get some big shows on camera. So it's like, ah, you know, I'm playing smaller stuff. We'll see what happens. But

Through a couple networking things, I ended up getting booked at a couple bigger places. He was there to film them. None of that would have worked had I not been working on music as hard as I could for the last X amount of years, but especially at the guitar and the vocal stuff and the writing and all that stuff. I had all sorts of material when these things came knocking and I

So I put on the shows and they went great. And like a bunch of people showed up and, you know, I was accustomed to kind of playing and people not really paying attention, but people started to pay attention. They were really paying attention to the original stuff. And then I started to finish up production. I finished up the year last year and I started to finish up production on that record. And I put out the single ahead of time, which I released on, uh, we're filming this by the way, February 21st. So I put out the single, uh,

Six weeks ago, I put it out on January 10th and it's the song called somebody else. And it's me and Harry and Cassie.

And we recorded most of it live. It was me and Harry sitting in the room. We did all the guitars live. And then Cassie and I did all the vocals live together right over that. So all the harmonies were kind of like captured for real. And the one thing that we really did an overdub on was I had a cellist come and play. And so we took the finished song to her and she put her part over that. But it's a very live, very emotional, very like raw song to me. And it's not very produced.

Compared to a lot of the stuff that comes out. And I put it out on January 10th. After that, things really started to happen even a little faster. This guy named Rich Faden heard it and reached out to me about it and said,

We're still in the middle of doing some talking, but he's been able to line up some pretty big radio promotion for it. And he's played a big role in discovering some pretty big names in the past. He is most recent was chapel round. Actually back in 2016, 2017, he kind of heard her raw. And if you see those videos of her on YouTube, like playing to like 30 people or something like that, it was kind of like from back in those, some of those back in those days. And,

Um, and Sean Mendez and a few other people he's kind of helped and he's essentially well-connected in the industry can open some doors and is basically like trying to find people who he can go and maybe bring over to some label relationships or publishing or whatever. Usually he's hitting people up that maybe need a little more help from like the production standpoint. So like, Hey, let's get you into a professional studio with a producer, um,

make stuff that's going to sound radio ready, all this stuff. He heard somebody else and was like, and heard some of my back catalog was like, look, it's there. The music's there. I love it. It's, I think we can do this. Like,

We had several conversations. We decided to go for radio and we're about to start going for like some national radio on that tune and seeing if we could get it into the charts, the national charts. So that was a really big phone call to get. I love it, dude. That's so cool. It was really cool. And again, it's February 21st right now. I don't know when this is going to go out. I don't know what's going to happen.

So it might, might not really happen that hard. It might lead to something else, but it was the kind of thing where it was like, all right, just by being ready to put some of this stuff out there, I changed some stuff, some things that I was doing. There's a lot of other stuff going on there too. I, I just landed my first pretty big, um,

sync agency contract, which a sync agencies are the ones that are shopping music around for like TV and film and commercials. And that's kind of the way that you can be a working musician is you're writing songs and those things are getting used commercially and you're getting paid on the front end and the back end. And you do that enough and it can be like a good business without you having to necessarily be Bruno Mars or Taylor Swift. I landed that contract the same day that Rich Faden called me about the radio stuff.

It was really a cool day. It was like, everything just started to happen in real time. And I've been working really tirelessly on getting my catalog together and getting all my paperwork in line and making sure that I can go play and, and all that. And I'm starting to line up some shows. I'm going to try and do a little more touring this year, like around California. It's still hard with the kids, but it's like, if I've got a bunch of different things starting to work, then suddenly going and playing that theater is

I mean, all that really takes is demand. And if you can get

You can stoke enough demand and it's people who are really going to come and buy a ticket and sit in a seat. At some point you can go and play a place like that. It's not going to probably be this year, but the road to that has become a lot clearer than it used to be in like six months ago. That's sort of some of the stuff that's been going on and it's exciting. I've got several other things lined up. I'm about to go hit the studio again. And my new record that I was talking about is called carry with you. It's coming out.

This time next week, it's coming out February 28th. That's awesome. So somebody else is just the single from that? Somebody else is the single from it. And then the rest of the records in a week. You've been putting out a lot of music. You've put out several albums in the last couple of years, right? Yeah. Yeah. You got to keep, you got to just keep writing. It's the same thing we're talking about with phone calls. I mean, you just, sometimes you just got to,

And the way I do that, I used to be really like, oh, I have to be in the perfect mindset and the perfect setting to go write a song. And that helps. But really, if I just sit down.

for an hour a day. And I, if, if I pick the hour that like, I'm really feeling creative and productive for me, that's like in the morning, nine, 10, 11 o'clock great songwriting times for me. If I just put that hour in over and over and over again, I write songs. I always stare at the blank piece of paper and I always hate it. I, I, every time I have to sit and write, like start writing a song, I fucking hate it's the worst. Yeah.

I love finishing a song. I love taking a song that I started to write. And I'm like, Ooh, I like that. I'm going to change that. I'm going to do this. That's the fun part. The initial idea is it never goes away. It's brutal, man. It's brutal. But I read this book called the war of art.

It's by Steven Pressfield, who did like turning pro and a bunch of books kind of like that. And he's a really raw writer and he's not for everybody, but he talks about in the war of art, capital R resistance and how many things happen in your mind to make you not sit down and do the thing you're supposed to do. And that was happening to me with writing. It was like, no, why don't I go practice my scales? Why don't I go sit down and shed on this or, you know, whatever. And it's like, no, sit down and write a song. That's.

That's what you need right now. And I've been forcing myself to just sit down and write a song. And it turns out the more you do that, the more material you have and you get better at it and start to make a system out of it. And before you know it, you got a bunch of stuff. That's the learning from all that. Well, that's awesome, dude. I'm so thrilled for all of the success that you're having and

You know I'm a big fan of your music, you know, Through the Great Divide is probably my favorite song. But Somebody Else is amazing. It really, it's very raw. It's very soulful. It's great. So I'm excited to hear the rest of the album to see how you continue to grow this. And when you book that theater, man, let me know. I'm coming. Dude. I'm coming to the show.

Maybe I'll get to the point where I can book out East too. That would be cool. Yeah, that'd be fun, man. I appreciate that. Thanks. Yeah. So Dan, let's shift gears now into what I call the mindful fire final four. And so the first question is about envisioning and we've talked a lot about envisioning today, but if you had to give somebody one piece of advice on maybe giving themselves permission to do this exercise, what would it be?

Think a little bigger about what they want. Like, what would you say your advice would be to somebody? I would say that the most important thing is to actually be honest with yourself. So the thing that you're trying to get to with this exercise is not the logistics of how all the other problems get solved. The thing that you're trying to get to is way, way deep down there. What do I want? What am I trying to do? And in order to get to that, you need to put other stuff to the side.

And once you know what you want, there's plenty of time to go back and figure out the logistics. Those things are important for me. It's like my family and my marriage and my career and all these other things, right? Yes, of course.

But knowing what I want allows me to figure out how to fit that in to those other things. And so you need to be able to just push that stuff to the side for a second. You need to give yourself permission to think deeply about that, get to your answer. And then after that can go and sort things out. I think that'd be the one piece of advice. Yeah, that's great. I'm glad you brought that up because that stood out to me when you said it earlier and I forgot to comment on it. So yeah,

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That was, that's huge. You don't have to figure out the how exactly right now there's time for that. This is a time to set aside all the limitations and really ask yourself deeply. What is it that I actually want? And again, if you want help with that, I really would suggest starting with the envisioning exercise and,

that I offer for free at mindfulfire.org slash start. So Dan, the second question is, what piece of advice would you give to someone early on their path to financial independence? That's tough because it's going to be different for everybody. But I think that the one thing I would say is habits. No matter how rich or poor you are, how deep in debt you are, or how flush you are, habits are the thing you carry with you. And so being very intentional.

about where you're spending your money. It matters just as much when you have a lot of money as when you have a little bit of money and getting in the habit of saying, I don't need to necessarily take all of this now and go spend it. And sometimes you do. I don't want to like, I think sometimes at some points in life, like you do have to take everything in your bank account and it does all have to go away. And that is the way it is. And

So I just, I want to be aware of that when I'm saying this, but being able to do that with intention versus doing it reactively is something that I've taken with me pretty much my entire life. So trying to be very proactive.

intentional about where the money is going, why it's going there in the first place. I need a place to live. I need food. Maybe this is going towards a goal of mine to dig myself out like a education or something like that. Those habits, even if everything works out for you, you can take those with you and they'll continue to compound and enrich your life.

The third question is, what piece of advice would you give to someone getting started with meditation and or mindfulness? I would say probably some of the same advice applies, which is don't be too hard on yourself and try to make the most out of five minutes. I think meditation and mindfulness sounds very weighty.

And it can feel like this thing that's maybe for other people, but not for you. I've meditated on the train before. I've meditated in my car, just like parked after I get to work and just like sat for five minutes and just done it then before my day really starts. Try and find five minutes and actually carve it out and then do nothing. You don't even try very hard. You don't have to like put on a guided meditation. You don't have to do anything just meditation.

Just show up and see if you can do that several times in a row. And by like the fifth or sixth time of showing up, you're going to be like, oh, well, maybe I'll try one of these guided meditations. Maybe I'll actually set an intention this time. Maybe I'll go see what Adam was talking about. But like, just show up. Yeah. That's all you got to do. And then I think the habit comes from there. Again, it comes back to habits, I think.

Yeah, absolutely. One of my guests, Morgan Bricka, she's a mural artist. She was one of my early guests. She said, I like to ask myself, what would this look like if it were easy? So I think that's great advice. Just make the most out of five minutes, show up and just do it. All right, Dan, the last question is how can people connect with you online, find your music and all that you've got going on?

You can find me on YouTube. Everything's going to be at Dan R. Wadey Music. YouTube is going to be at Dan R. Wadey Music. Instagram is going to be at Dan R. Wadey Music. You can search my name on Spotify and my discography will come up. I've got a website, the links to all those things. Yeah, I'm trying to be as ubiquitous as I can be. You have to be. So I'm out there. Just search my name and hopefully I'll come up.

All right. And we'll certainly link all that in the show notes as well. So wherever you're listening to this, don't forget to subscribe and also look in the show notes and find Dan's music there and then subscribe to him on there as well. Because as I said, he keeps coming out with awesome music. And honestly, dude, it's getting better and better. You know, I just thank you. I can tell the amount of work that you're putting into it, especially on the vocal side, you know, from the first song that you sang to this.

somebody else like it's very clear that you're very intentional about improving your skills and that's really cool to see and i'm glad that the success is coming it's gonna be a big year and all of that for you is i'm really pumped for you man thank you so much for being here thank you for having me adam it was awesome conversation and much love to you and your family and thanks for doing everything you do i think can change your lives out there so right back at you man

Thanks for joining me on today's episode of the Mindful Fire podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, I invite you to hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this.

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Thanks again, and I'll catch you next time on the Mindful Fire podcast.