The World Can’t Ask for What It Has Never Seen

Why create something nobody ordered?Why write the song?Why paint?Why compose?Why make a movie?Why build a company nobody knew they needed?Why write the book before anyone asked for it?Welcome to the show.Tired of the hype about living the dream?It's time for truth.This is the place for tools, power and real talk, so you can create the life you dream and deserve your ultimate life.Subscribe, share, create.You have infinite power.Welcome to your ultimate life, the podcast about living a life of purpose, prosperity and joy by using your life experience, your divine gifts and your journey.You know, there's a interesting thought about that question that I ask.You know, why do this stuff, creative stuff, if nobody's asked for it?We have had the blessing of having a Ukrainian mother and daughter live with us for three and a half years, from June of 22 till, sorry, June of 23, I guess it was till October of 25.Four or five.No, 22 to 25.Anyway, it doesn't matter.Three and a half years, just about.And they're still heavily involved.They.They're on their own now and they're doing great.But what I want to talk about is this.The, the daughter, she was 7, just turning 8 when she came, and she's 11 now, and she is one of the most creative people I know.And just before I recorded this, I went to the, the door, the bedroom.There's a large, large bedroom downstairs here that they used when they were staying here.And it's still sort of their domain when they come to visit or whatever, especially the, the daughter.So I went there to knock on the door and invite her to go upstairs because Joy was going somewhere, I think to take Cooper the dog to the daycare.And as I did, you know, I said, joy wants you for something.So she dashed out and went upstairs and left the light on.And an hour and a half or so later, I didn't pay any attention at the moment.An hour and a half or so later, just before recording this, I opened the door, or the door was still open.I looked inside and there was stuff all over the floor.And there was a box of some kind, and it had all kinds of decorations on it and whatever.And I was struck with this thought that I expressed.To start with, she is a marvelous artist.We have pictures hanging all over the house of our cats and dogs and just as creative as anything.And when she spends time, and sometimes she'll spend a long time watching television, and she watches all of the animal things, National Geographic things and whale things and dangerous animal things, and she is so intelligent and capable about that, but she turns that into creativity.So she paints well, she draws well, she makes, you know, boxes and kitty houses and just all kinds of creative stuff.So it's interesting.It begs that question, why create something nobody's asked for?Well, let's explore that.Because nobody asked for any of that stuff.And sometimes there's so much of it laying around that, you know, we have to have a grand cleaning and take it all to wherever to recycle or to something, because last month's project isn't even interesting anymore and the walls have no more space.So anything that goes up means something's got to come down, right?So if you're listening to this podcast on release day, I think that's September 22nd, which is actually my brother's birthday.I'm recording this before that, and I need to make sure I wish him happy birthday.But in, in any case, Marquel, my glorious brother, who's just a few years younger than me, happy birthday.You're a glorious, beautiful person that I love.Anyway, Tomorrow night on the 23rd of September, I'm doing a concert and I'm going to make something disappear.I'm going to walk into the room and perform music like the concerts I did earlier in the year.I did four of them and we're doing four now at the end of the year, September, October, November and December.And this first one is September 23rd.And so I'm going to walk in and sit down and I'm going to tell stories and play songs, and they're all original and I'm going to tell stories about the songs and about what they mean and, you know, stuff to think about.So here's the interesting thing about live music.It vanishes.You play the note or sing the note and it exists and then it's gone.Nobody can put that exact note back in the room.Isn't that interesting?And yet me, you, others, we spend years learning instruments, thousands of hours rehearsing.Like, you know, I'm 70.I started playing when I was five.So 65 years.Some years way more diligent than others.But we've spent thousands of hours rehearsing money on equipment.I had a beautiful opportunity for 20 years, excuse me, to own a Steinway Model D, the nine foot concert grand.It's on 90% of concert stages around the world.I had one for 20 years.I sold it a few years ago in 2016 when we moved up here because the place we were moving into couldn't hold Quite that large of a piano.So I bought a little bit smaller one and I still have a glorious Yamaha, you know, C7, which is a 7 foot 6 one.But anyway, so money on equipment, the price of a Steinway D. Look it up.We've spent.You have spent days preparing.You've spent all kinds of emotional energy and an enormous amount of attention just to make something that disappears into the air or in the case of these beautiful pictures or cat houses or whatever that that our Ukrainian granddaughter makes.Like, why nobody called up and said, kellen, civilizations facing an emergency, we urgently require another piano concert on September 23rd.Well, duh.Nobody asked for, asked Beethoven to write the 9th or the 5th.Nobody asked that very first person to paint a cave wall.Nobody ordered most of the art that later became precious.So why make it?Well, I want you to remember this.Some of the most important things that humans create are stuff that nobody asked for.So let's talk about that.What is this creative urge the world can't request?What, what it has never seen, obviously.And this is maybe the first profound creation principle.Because in the ultimate life thing, all we talk about every week, whether I've got guests or I do this solo, is that we, we own our lives, we have the clay in our hands and we create our life regardless of all the stuff that happens around us.So the first foundation principle here is nobody can request what they haven't seen.Market research can tell you what people already recognize.Surveys can tell you what people know enough to request.But genuinely new creation appears before demand has language.The the audience couldn't ask for the song that hasn't been written, the invention can't imagine, or the book containing an idea they've never encountered.Yours like the invention.Think about the iPhone and the history of that and other smartphones too.The iPhone revolutionized the universe the way AI is.And so we can't request the business model that doesn't exist.A new form of art, an unexpected solution.You, me, somebody's got to see it first.And this is imagination, not like fantasy, but as an advanced perception.And I'm not talking about some supernatural stuff necessarily, although those kind of inspirations do come and we don't know where or how, but simply this.You can see a thing that's not physically here yet.I can see things, I can hear things that are not here yet.That's when creation begins.I was just having a conversation with a delightful person that I have met a couple of other times, networking.And we are, you know, we're Connected.And she's been on the show here and I'm going to be on her podcast and we were discussing this very thing, the creation of stuff that she has in her mind that doesn't exist yet.So this is encouraging for you as a visionary, because you are a visionary.The world can't ask you for something it's never seen.And sometimes as visionaries, we get this feeling that, ah, I see this thing, but I don't want to do it unless I know it'll pay me or unless I know it'll matter or unless I know it'll, you know, it'll work, whatever that means.Use that all the time.Well, it may not work.Well, the world can't ask you for something it hasn't seen.And creation almost always, not always, but most of the time begins before consensus.So every original thing spends some period of time being visible only to one person.Now I want you to think about that so you have vision and thinking in your own mind, visions of ways that the world could be better.Now I'm not sitting here thinking about sitting around the kitchen table saying this politician or that politician or this party or that party or this idea or that, and complaining about what is.And say, somebody ought to fix this.Somebody ought to repair the education system.Somebody ought to fix.I'm not talking about any of that.I'm talking about the, the idea that you have somebody and you know, the burden of somebody, they, they ought to.None of that.Talking about the, the thing that you could see that will change the world or some part of it.The thing that you could see that will change mental health services or the integration of different medical practices, our regular allotropic medicine and all of the different Ayurvedic and Chinese and other kinds of, you know, medical and health preserving things.Maybe you see a way to combine that.Maybe you see a way to do better education.Because what's going on now, you know, it's clearly severely broken.So you do you have a vision of a thing that doesn't exist yet.I'd love to chat with you about that.Because the ultimate life, meaning the life you just flipping love to wake up to every day, is not a fantasy.It's available to you, to me.And I didn't used to believe that.Holy crap.I didn't believe that.I believe that was, yes, marketing hype.That's really what I thought it was.Nonsense.Marketing hype.Some crap somebody said to get me to buy something.That's what I thought.Now there's Nothing for sale here.Okay.I'm not going to encourage you to buy anything.What I want to do is encourage that creation in your mind.I want to encourage that idea because what I've discovered isn't new, but what I have seen.I won't say discovered.What I've seen in my own life is that I have been able to live the ultimate life purpose, prosperity and joy by following that vision, by seeing it, and not just by wishing for it, but by having the discipline to articulate it, to describe it, and to then dimensionalize it.What does it look like?And then think about what is the possible path between here and there?Because, you know, the path between here and there never is the same.Right?So I want you.I want to encourage you and I want you to think about the vision that you have that comes out of your own experience.Your heart, your life, your love, what you love.Okay?Now.Now that you're holding that vision that inspires you, that makes you want to jump up and down, that you say, you know, if I could make a living, if I could get paid to create or to live or to do this thing, I'd be in heaven.You have a thought like that?Boy, I've had that for decades.Where it used to focus was music.So I owned a recording studio for a long time.I still do.So it's been open and not open for different years, but I started in the late, very late 70s, early 80s.82.80.Yeah.80.81.82, I guess.80.1980.Started with rudimentary stuff.So that's been 46 years.Created a recording studio, bought some gear, did some stuff, started recording songs, you know, rudimentary things.And the vision that I had, it was more of an ego thing, fantasy.But I thought in my mind, well, I wish.Hope.Want somebody to hear some music and think that it's so good that they say, well, we'll just pay you like a million dollars or some great enormous amount of money.Million dollars was a lot in 1981.And you just make music because it's so good.That's.That's the way I did that the first time.Right.All those decades ago.80.So that's 46 years ago, 45 years ago.Well, nobody ever did.I kept making music and all kinds of other stuff happened.So here's the thing.Not every thing you feel like creating is divinely mandated.Not every impulse is genius.Not every song needs an audience, and not every idea needs a company.You know, I'm not sure what would have happened.What would have happened if someone had said, here's a million or 2 million or $10 million, go create music.I don't even know what would have happened.But it was an idea then.So here's the truth.Artists, and you are an artist.Make no mistake.I don't know if your art is art or music or literature or love or the way to teach people, or nurturing or kindness or a million other gifts, but you're an artist.Some.Sometimes we artists together can create from ego.Ooh, I've done that.It's only.It only matters if somebody tells me I'm cool.We can create because we crave applause.I've done that too.We can create because we're desperate for wanting attention.I've done that too.Oh, all these things are like hitting me in between the eyes.An artist can create from proving brilliance.So all of those were nailing me.Ego, craving applause, wanting attention and proving brilliance.There was a lot of stuff that went on in my life that made.That made me.Nothing makes you anything but the way I internalized it.I felt a need to prove something.I had to prove certain things to certain people.And what it was and why is a different episode.But I had that need.So those four things were really present for me in those very years that I was talking about 1980 to.For the next 20 years or so.Sometimes an artist produces, maybe from resentment.Somebody tells you can't do stuff, so I'm going to prove it, or a hunger for status.Most of those things don't last and don't.Aren't fulfilling.Because even if you get money and attention and everything else, how many artists of all kinds.And again, I'm not just talking artists or musicians or authors have achieved commercial, financial, and, you know, public acclaim, success and struggle with depression and everything else, even to the point of, you know, addictions and suicide and that sort of thing.You know about loads.So do I.So there's a difference.And we got to figure out how to talk about the difference between true expression and exhibition.Because exhibition is the word I'm using to describe all that other stuff.So here's something to think about.Does creating this, whatever your art is, enlarge me or just.Just display me, Me.See, for a long time I had this need that when I created something, started with music, but other things too.I was.I needed to be on display and somebody had to pat me or pat the thing or me and say yay.But it didn't enlarge me because when Those things didn't happen or didn't happen as much as I wanted, or even if they did happen and then, you know, went away, there was no energy left.So here's some questions to think about.Is there love in it?Whether you sing or write or teach or nurture, it doesn't matter.Is there love in it?Is there truth in it?Is there something you are learning or I am learning?Does it add beauty or usefulness or meaning or joy or possibility or service?Wow.You know, I never even thought about those questions when I was, you know, is it good enough?People are going to say, yay.That was as deep as it got.Add beauty, usefulness, meaning, joy, possibility, or service.That can be true about inventions or apps or other things that we create from our creative expression.And here's a deep question.Would I still feel the need to make this thing, some version of it, without any applause at all?Because this.This dives into kind of stewardship.If you have a genuine gift, that gift creates a question.Now, here's the thing.I know you have gifts.You guys know the story about me dying and coming away with, you know, several truths from the door where I had conversations with God.And one of the truths was that you and I, we have gifts.We were given the gifts.And the reason we were given is given those gifts is to enjoy and complete the mission or purpose we agreed to before we came.Wow.So when you think about stewardship here, here's the kind of question it brings up.Since you have several genuine gifts, what will you do with it?Not because you owe yourself fame or anything else, but because unused gifts have consequences inside of us.Now, that's scary, but I can tell you I experienced that.The recording studio was one way I did.I had it open commercially from the mid-80s to 95 for 12 years, and then I shut it down commercially for a while and have reopened it off and on during that time to do commercial projects.Now, the studio I have, I use it.It's commercial, but I use it just for my own stuff.But here's the thing.When I wasn't using the gifts that I had, I felt it.The tension, the friction, the.And I didn't even know what to name it, but I know that I felt it.And that conflict was a contributing factor to my struggles, which, if you listen to other things, you know some of, and ended up contributing to depression and all kinds of negative stuff.So unused gifts really do have consequences.And I want you to think about that, not to be scared of it.But because to realize a gift isn't proof that, that we're special.Gift isn't given to prove that you're cool.It is an entrustment, a thing that we are trusted with because you have capacity.So here's another thought.Adding good to the world, adding beauty, adding joy.Beauty doesn't need to defend its roi.Okay?We have the idea that something only matters if it makes money.We, we've become so commercially obsessed that everything seems.It needs to convert, right?It needs to scale, it needs to monetize or generate leads or solve a market pain and have measurable roi.What nonsense.We've become so locked up in the idea that those things matter, even when we talk about creating a business from your passion, right?Which you can do and should do.You have a set of life experiences that has connected you to a mission.I know that.And here's the thing.I'd invite you to do something if you don't have a mission that you know about.I would invite you to get a hold of me.Your ultimate life podcast.com, right there.Your ultimate life podcast.com.There's a contact form.Let's talk about it.Because finding your purpose is not hard because.But anyway, in the process of that, people have talked forever about following your passion and monetizing your passion and, you know, on and on and on.And we've become so obsessed with that that we do, we believe everything's got to convert, it's got to scale, got to be put in a funnel, got to have a offers and monetize and make leads and solve some market pains so that it can create leads and make money and have measurable roi.Now, there's a two edged sword here because I live in a world where I follow my passion and I make money and it has all that stuff.But I've also lived in the world where I had creative aspirations and creative actions and creative output that didn't have any of that stuff, didn't generate leads, wasn't monetized, didn't solve a market pain and didn't have a measurable roi except in me.So all those are useful questions in business and terrible questions if they apply to all of creation.So one of the things you, me, we've got to decide about the creation of your masterpieces, plural, your skills, gifts and life experience.You can choose to turn them into a business.And my experience is following your bliss, your passion, the thing that your life has brought you.I have discovered it's the way to have the most fun, have the biggest impact in the world and make the most money.And then all those questions matter, the ROI and the market pain and, you know, scale, etc.Etc.But when we start with that, we poison opportunities.Because again, those are terrible questions if they're applied to every piece of your creation as you have a fledgling feeling of where your life path has led you.You may not even know how to, quote, monetize it.And you may decide never to, or you may decide to, and all those questions.And that path is available, but it isn't the only path.Because what is the ROI of holding someone's hand or watching a sunset or Bach music or Beethoven or List or Schumann?What's the ROI of a beautiful garden?What's the ROI of reading stories to your kids?What's the ROI of singing with the friend?What's the ROI of standing in a cathedral or some kind of a painting that moves you to tears?Like, we didn't order that painting from the artist last year or 100 years ago or 500.We didn't do that.Yet it is here.And it was done because, and I realize many classical painters had, you know, patrons paint this, paint that fine, and many things were done without that.Beauty adds good to the world.Joy adds good to the world.Wonder adds good to the world.You know, there's a.A lady whose work I admire, Byron, Katie, and she has a lot of books that I've read, and I like them.One of the things she says is take a. I'm calling it a wonder walk.I don't know what she calls it.I can't remember.But it's a walk where you go on a walk and you act like every single thing you're seeing, it's the first time you've ever seen it.And you walk with just a sense of wonder.Well, what if you do that to a friendship or a conversation?Now, not all the time, because if that's all we did, we're going to starve.And this episode is not to talk about or dismiss our need to eat or make money or to pay rent or do whatever it is.Of course not, but we have warped this idea of following your passion and the idea that everything's got to have an ROI and that more is better.You know, I got an email from a friend of mine whose emails I love talking about T A N E. The addiction to not enough.The idea that no matter what we have, we've got to create more.We've got to have more.The addiction to not enough.And we Live in a world that does that.And you know how you can tell?Just look at the fashion industry.Clothing is produced way faster and way more than we need.Styles and fashions turn over faster than they need to.Why?So that the clothing industry can make more, sell more.And then we have millions of tons of used clothing we cannot even give away.So if you read about that, all this used clothing donated to thrift stores and everything sent over to countries that, you know, have clothed enough and everything else, they have an overflowing.It goes into landfills.There.There is a perfect example of doing too much, driven by roi just because there's no need on earth to have a new fashion every spring and fall and new clothing and new fabrics and new this and upcycle and side cycle and whatever the hell crazy.One of the things my beloved wife Joy does, and those of you that know her, know that she's an angel.She loves to get old vintage patterns and she has a place to get them and has tons of them, hundreds, and then sells them online.Like I've talked about her businesses before and she's really good at it.And you know, people are recycling old fashioned.But anyway, that industry is just an example of that excess.Beauty by itself and joy and wonder adds good to the world.Music adds good.And not everything that's worthy needs a funnel.And some of the greatest commercial creations hear this.Some of the greatest commercial creations in the world came because somebody loved the thing itself way before anybody knew how to monetize it.And sometimes there's a creation or a creator that sees and creates a thing that meets a real important need.And they may not know how to get it to masses or get it in production.And somebody comes and creates a partnership and then they build and sell the thing, not for money itself, but because somebody's seen that it solves a real need, handles a real problem, and that the lack of commercial availability is really a disservice.Well, that's fine.And that adds good to the world too.But just like in the clothing example, where it's just simply too much by a factor of at least two, and probably more so it's important to remember that utility, meaning the ability to make a business and sell it, is not the only form of value.Beauty itself doesn't need to apologize for taking up space.So now that I've said all that, I want to talk about one other thing.And that is you.Are you creating with the gifts and talents you have?Like, I don't know what they are, but I do know that you have divine gifts.I do know that you have talents.Maybe the talents and gifts result in something visible, like a book or a painting or a symphony.Maybe they exist in a softened heart or a loved one place to be or a place where someone's seen or heard.Or maybe it's ideas about how to solve problems that we have in the world.Okay?And I know you have those gifts.Yet I also know that every person breathing air has resistance.And they doubt and don't want to create.Not just because there's not.They don't know how to monetize, but because they're afraid of doing it.Because real creation exposes us.How many times have you felt you want to create something, then you don't quite dare, or you do, but it stays on the shelf because you can't hide.If someone sees it, they're going to like it or not like it.And now you're in that space of vulnerability, and then you're terrified.I don't want to do that because I lived there.I didn't want to show people.I didn't want to play people's songs.I started last year.Not several years ago, but last year mostly doing concerts.I was scared.What if everybody hates my stuff?What if they hate my voice?What if they hate my songs?What if they hate the stories I tell?What if they think it's stupid?I've thought all those things.And when you create something from inside yourself, we can't hide behind someone else's instructions.We can't hide behind somebody else's curriculum or somebody else's answer.We can't hide behind certainty, like knowing for sure this is going to work, yet no way.We can't hide behind some kind of a guaranteed approval.And that exposure can be terrifying because the moment you create, somebody's gonna hate it.Maybe nobody cares.It may fail.And I don't even know what fail means.Because if you create it for its own sake, then there's no failure.If you created looking for approval, there can be failure.If you create it because you're trying to turn it into a business, there can be failure.So you may fail in one of many ways.The execution may fall below the vision.How many times have you said or heard somebody say, well, I have this vision in my mind, but I can't, you know, make it exactly what I want.You create something, or I do, and the market or the public may completely ignore us.Right.Or you may discover that you're.You're not yet developed Enough with your skill or talent to make what you see in your mind.That can be terrifying.That good enough thing, that's right up there with the addiction to not enough.Not good enough nge not good enough.You know what the answer is?Make it anyway.Go for it.Why Masteries built in the making.It is in the doing that you discover.When I.This, this podcast is an example.When I started, going on seven years now, seven years ago, I wasn't anywhere near as able and capable at interviewing and speaking and all the rest as I am now.1100 And Something episodes later, plus a thousand on other people's shows, I've become excellent.But the mastery was built in doing stuff.You and me, we get capable.We get and develop capability when we attempt stuff that presently exceeds our chops, our current capacity.That's exactly why creation can be dangerous to the ego and nourishing to the soul.So I want you to remember these, these thoughts here.Creation is voluntary exposure.Wow.The distance between what you can see and what you presently make is the space where mastery is born.Write that down.The systems.The distance.The systems.The distance between what you see right now and what you can presently make is where mastery is born.So here's the final thought.I want you to go with what is asking right now to be made through you.Okay?You're a divine being with gifts and talents.This is not about what you should sell.It's not even really what is your purpose?Because that might be too big to talk about unless you already know.But just simply what keeps tugging at you?What ideas?Things keep returning?What idea won't leave you alone?What beauty do you want to add to the world?What problem do I just keep on noticing and keep wondering why nobody's addressing it?What gift in you keeps asking for expression?And don't hide behind the old saw.I don't have any gifts.Yes, you do.You're a beautiful, capable, gift filled soul.And here's one that really hits me.And that is what would I regret leaving unmade?It was a conference talk I used to give when I used to speak, but not used to.One that I had spoken at conferences.I still do.It said, don't die with your music inside you.Like whatever your music is.What would you regret leaving undone?Now you're not required to create everything you imagine.That's not it.But some ideas keep on coming back.Some nudges survive days, weeks, months.Some feel like they become assignments or even callings.The concert I'm giving tomorrow and I don't know if you'll hear this before that, but if you don't, there's one in October, November, December.Tomorrow's concert is a very concrete example.This isn't about come buy a ticket concerts free anyway.But it takes your time.An hour tomorrow night.Check on my Facebook page if you're interested in this one or one of the later ones.Because tomorrow I'm going to sit at the piano and I'm going to make some music and tell stories.Because music's the one.One of the ways I have been entrusted to create.Maybe nobody asked you.Maybe that's the point.The world can't request what it's never seen.And sometimes your job, or my job, is simply to listen carefully enough to hear what wants to exist and then love it enough to make it real.I believe in you.You have gifts and I'd love to see them.And I know that listening to those intuitions and following those nudges is one of the most joy ways to move forward and create your ultimate life.Right now, your opportunity for massive growth is right in front of you.Every episode gives you practical tips and practices that will change everything.If you want to know more, go to kellenflukermedia.com if you want more free tools, go here.Your UltimateLife CA Subscribe Share Stand with your heart in the sky and your feet on the ground.Sam.