WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.299 There's a very specific kind of melancholy attached 00:00:03.299 --> 00:00:06.820 to the phrase someday. It's a comforting lie 00:00:06.820 --> 00:00:09.759 that we tell ourselves, a kind of mental storage 00:00:09.759 --> 00:00:13.259 unit where we pack away the things we genuinely 00:00:13.259 --> 00:00:17.940 want to do, making space for the things we have 00:00:17.940 --> 00:00:21.579 to do. Now we spend decades building careers, 00:00:21.920 --> 00:00:25.620 raising families, paying mortgages, exist in 00:00:25.620 --> 00:00:28.800 this state of perpetual motion convinced that 00:00:29.179 --> 00:00:31.960 Eventually, the noise is going to stop. And in 00:00:31.960 --> 00:00:35.240 the silence, we promise ourselves, we'll finally 00:00:35.240 --> 00:00:38.299 pick up the paintbrush. We'll finally write that 00:00:38.299 --> 00:00:41.539 novel. We'll finally book that one -way ticket. 00:00:42.159 --> 00:00:44.799 And today, I want to talk about what happens 00:00:44.799 --> 00:00:54.579 when that Sunday actually arrives. Even now, 00:00:54.659 --> 00:00:59.189 in my mid -50s, I feel... The pressure of that 00:00:59.189 --> 00:01:03.210 deferred dream. My day is creative. Yeah, I'm 00:01:03.210 --> 00:01:07.010 incredibly lucky to do what I do on here on YouTube 00:01:07.010 --> 00:01:10.030 and also what I do with my music. But even then, 00:01:10.129 --> 00:01:12.349 I still look at the books on my shelves that 00:01:12.349 --> 00:01:15.170 I haven't read. I think about the styles of guitar 00:01:15.170 --> 00:01:17.909 playing I haven't had the patience to learn because 00:01:17.909 --> 00:01:22.170 they don't immediately translate into the recording 00:01:22.170 --> 00:01:25.469 ideas I'm working on. And I catch myself saying, 00:01:26.349 --> 00:01:29.569 I'll do that when things calm down. But recently, 00:01:29.670 --> 00:01:32.549 I've been having conversations with some other 00:01:32.549 --> 00:01:36.549 people who've reached that horizon line. People 00:01:36.549 --> 00:01:40.569 in their 50s, their 60s and their 70s who've 00:01:40.569 --> 00:01:44.790 crushed over into retirement. I wanted to know 00:01:44.790 --> 00:01:49.129 about their storage units. What did they unpack? 00:01:49.230 --> 00:01:53.969 And perhaps more importantly, what did they decide 00:01:53.969 --> 00:02:02.390 to leave in the box? And when I asked people 00:02:02.390 --> 00:02:06.390 about the one thing they always said they'd do 00:02:06.390 --> 00:02:10.750 when they had time, the answer was really about 00:02:10.750 --> 00:02:15.110 grand earth -shattering achievements. Nobody 00:02:15.110 --> 00:02:20.030 said they wanted to become a CEO or qualify the 00:02:20.030 --> 00:02:24.330 Olympics. The answers were quieter, more intimate. 00:02:25.310 --> 00:02:28.949 Since retiring last year, I've been fortunate. 00:02:29.560 --> 00:02:32.879 I've done a lot. I started a music production 00:02:32.879 --> 00:02:37.000 course at university. I started a not -for -profit 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:40.060 record label. I've wrote and recorded my own 00:02:40.060 --> 00:02:43.840 album called See You on the Moon, which you can 00:02:43.840 --> 00:02:49.919 find on Spotify, Apple Music, etc. But I still 00:02:49.919 --> 00:02:55.599 have my own storage unit full of things to create, 00:02:55.759 --> 00:02:58.400 and I'm worried I'm not going to get them all 00:02:58.400 --> 00:03:04.379 done. I spoke to a man, I'm calling David. Actually, 00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:06.860 all of my anonymised people in my videos are 00:03:06.860 --> 00:03:08.659 called David. I hadn't really noticed that before. 00:03:09.259 --> 00:03:14.379 He spent 40 years in finance, high stress, long 00:03:14.379 --> 00:03:18.500 hours. For decades, he told everyone that when 00:03:18.500 --> 00:03:21.400 he retired, he was going to restore some classic 00:03:21.400 --> 00:03:26.539 cars. He had this vision of himself covered in 00:03:26.539 --> 00:03:29.860 grease, rebuilding engines. And we retired two 00:03:29.860 --> 00:03:32.960 years ago. And fair enough, he bought an old 00:03:32.960 --> 00:03:37.379 Triumph, but it's currently sitting under a tarp 00:03:37.379 --> 00:03:40.580 in his garage. And he said to me, Eric, the truth 00:03:40.580 --> 00:03:45.080 is, I like the idea of being a mechanic more 00:03:45.080 --> 00:03:48.099 than the reality of busting my knuckles every 00:03:48.099 --> 00:03:52.599 afternoon. And instead, he starts a bacon sourdough. 00:03:53.219 --> 00:03:57.490 He's obsessed with... hydration percentages and 00:03:57.490 --> 00:04:00.129 starting cultures it was a complete surprise 00:04:00.129 --> 00:04:08.330 to him and I think that's the first lesson here 00:04:08.330 --> 00:04:12.229 the someday dream is often just a placeholder 00:04:12.229 --> 00:04:16.930 it's a psychological safety valve we need while 00:04:16.930 --> 00:04:20.110 we're working when the time actually arrives 00:04:20.110 --> 00:04:24.629 the things you thought you wanted might not fit 00:04:25.129 --> 00:04:30.790 into who you've become and that's okay but then 00:04:30.790 --> 00:04:35.410 there are the others the ones who did pick up 00:04:35.410 --> 00:04:38.110 everything they deferred and what led me to the 00:04:38.110 --> 00:04:42.149 most poignant part of these conversations we 00:04:42.149 --> 00:04:45.069 live in a culture with expertise optimization 00:04:45.069 --> 00:04:50.170 and this 10 000 hour rule we want to see the 00:04:50.170 --> 00:04:53.290 finished product the virtuoso performance we 00:04:53.920 --> 00:04:56.779 rarely celebrate the clumsy, awkward beginnings. 00:04:59.420 --> 00:05:04.319 Now imagine being 65, you've just finished a 00:05:04.319 --> 00:05:07.180 career where you were competent, you were respected, 00:05:07.319 --> 00:05:10.139 you knew the answers, you were the expert in 00:05:10.139 --> 00:05:13.040 the room, and suddenly you're sitting in front 00:05:13.040 --> 00:05:16.160 of a piano for the first time since you were 00:05:16.160 --> 00:05:19.459 10, trying to make your left hand cooperate with 00:05:19.459 --> 00:05:23.639 your right hand. The emotional hurdle here is 00:05:23.639 --> 00:05:28.220 massive. It's genuinely terrifying to voluntarily 00:05:28.220 --> 00:05:33.540 make yourself vulnerable again. To be a beginner 00:05:33.540 --> 00:05:37.759 at an age when society expects you to be finished. 00:05:38.459 --> 00:05:42.839 Now, another lady that I spoke to via my website, 00:05:42.959 --> 00:05:47.620 she was a retired teacher who'd finally started 00:05:47.620 --> 00:05:51.680 taking creative writing lessons. And she described 00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:53.980 it, I think, perfectly. She said to me, Eric, 00:05:54.120 --> 00:05:58.620 it felt like showing up to school naked. Now, 00:05:58.699 --> 00:06:02.019 I've spent a lifetime building armour and to 00:06:02.019 --> 00:06:05.839 write, I had to take it all off. My ego didn't 00:06:05.839 --> 00:06:10.560 want to let me be bad at something. Now, that 00:06:10.560 --> 00:06:15.560 fear of being bad stops so many of us. We think 00:06:15.560 --> 00:06:17.560 if we can't be great at something immediately, 00:06:17.720 --> 00:06:21.610 then it's not worth doing. And that feeling seems 00:06:21.610 --> 00:06:26.089 to amplify as we get older. The stakes feel higher 00:06:26.089 --> 00:06:31.069 because time feels shorter. Why waste time being 00:06:31.069 --> 00:06:35.170 a mediocre painter when you're an excellent accountant? 00:06:35.550 --> 00:06:39.889 But for those who push past that initial ego 00:06:39.889 --> 00:06:43.209 bruise and fear, something great can happen, 00:06:43.250 --> 00:06:47.310 a liberation, when you remove the need to earn 00:06:47.310 --> 00:06:51.310 a living. When you remove the need for career 00:06:51.310 --> 00:06:55.970 advancement or impressing your peers. What's 00:06:55.970 --> 00:07:00.569 left is the pure act. The joy of doing something 00:07:00.569 --> 00:07:07.230 simply because it feels good to do it. That's 00:07:07.230 --> 00:07:10.389 sourdough baker David. He doesn't want to go 00:07:10.389 --> 00:07:12.889 to the bakery. He just wants to eat nice bread 00:07:12.889 --> 00:07:16.689 on a Tuesday. The writer, she's not trying to 00:07:16.689 --> 00:07:18.970 get published in the New Yorker. She just wants 00:07:18.970 --> 00:07:23.110 to understand her own life through words. And 00:07:23.110 --> 00:07:25.990 I don't want to be on top of the pops. There's 00:07:25.990 --> 00:07:30.089 a profound beauty in just trying your hand at 00:07:30.089 --> 00:07:34.509 something you love. It's a reclamation of childhood 00:07:34.509 --> 00:07:39.269 in a way. It's a mission to play. Now, talking 00:07:39.269 --> 00:07:42.430 to these retirees, maybe look at my guitar in 00:07:42.430 --> 00:07:44.839 the corner of the room. A little differently 00:07:44.839 --> 00:07:47.800 today, it made me realise that waiting for that 00:07:47.800 --> 00:07:51.980 perfect quiet moment is actually a trap. The 00:07:51.980 --> 00:07:54.800 noise never really stops, it just changes frequency. 00:07:55.959 --> 00:07:58.699 Now, if there's a dream that you're deferring, 00:07:58.740 --> 00:08:02.319 that someday that you're keeping locked in your 00:08:02.319 --> 00:08:05.800 mental storage unit, maybe crack open the door 00:08:05.800 --> 00:08:08.779 just a little bit. You don't have to wait until 00:08:08.779 --> 00:08:14.029 you're 65 to be a beginner again. Be new. Be 00:08:14.029 --> 00:08:18.769 bad. Be a starter at something today. It might 00:08:18.769 --> 00:08:21.790 be the most important thing you do all week. 00:08:23.790 --> 00:08:24.910 See you on the next one.