Red Hawk Essentials #16
Learning To Be Creative, High Ideas, Car Jitsu, Update on Henry/Aljo
Can You Learn To Be A Creative Person?
Do you aspire to be creative or want to create for a living?
What if you don’t feel like you’re a “creative person”?
I personally think creativity can be learned. And I think there’s two main things that hold a lot of people back from being creative.
The judgment from others.
Whether that be from friends, family, co-workers, or even strangers on the internet. I think this fear of negative judgment from others is what stops people from doing things they love in general.
So if you want to be a creator but don’t feel like you’re creative, this is the first thing you have to let go of.
Just create for yourself in the beginning. Get it out of your head. This leads to the second thing that holds people back.
Overthinking
Once you get an idea, work on it as soon as possible. Otherwise, you’ll overthink it and it’ll just get stuck in your head.
Like Steven Pressfield says in War of Art, just show up and do the work and don’t judge it.
Another good quote from War of Art is:
Are you paralyzed from fear?
Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do.
Remember our rule of thumb - The more scared we are of our work or calling, the more sure we are that we have to do it.
Whether it fails or succeeds, doesn’t matter. The important part is doing the work.
I’ve talked to so many people who say they have the “best” ideas. But nothing ever gets done. Why?
Because coming up with ideas is fun. Doing the work is the hard part.
Get used to doing the work.
A Case Study On Creativity
Also understand that when you’re first starting out, you’re going to have a bunch of shitty ideas. But that’s completely okay.
The important part is getting used to the process of creating ideas. Writing them down, sleeping on them for a day and coming back to them.
And out of all those bad ideas, you’ll pump out a few good ideas. You’ll know because they stick out.
Here’s a cool case study to think about.
There was a ceramics class where the teacher divided the class into two groups.
Group A was graded on quantity. The number of pots they could produce by the last day of class.
Group B was graded on quality. They had to work on one single pot. The quality of this pot determined their grade on the last day of class.
Now let me ask you a question. Take a second to guess below.
I’ll reveal the answer below at the end of this section. Don’t cheat.
Fit Creativity Into Your Life
It’s also important to schedule creative sessions for yourself instead of having it be sporadic.
For me, Tuesday mornings is when I try to knock out all the ideas for content for the week. After my morning routine, red light therapy, walk on treadmill, light protein, and a quick workout - I’ll sit down and create ideas for:
Red Hawk Essentials
Red Hawk Recap
Patreon
And anything else I need to take care of for the week.
Also creativity can come at night when it’s time to wind down and maybe smoke some weed. If you come up with an idea while high, write it down. Look at it in the morning after.
And lastly, I also think your health and your creative energy go hand-in-hand.
So eating good, sleeping well, reading, meditating, working out. The healthier you are, the more you can tap into that creative potential.
That’s why they say if you want to optimize the mind, you have to optimize the body.
And The Winner Is…
Group A.
Group A, the group focused on quantity, actually produced a higher quality pot than the group focused on quality. Why?
Group B spent more time focused on theory and perfecting every little detail. There was more brainstorming than actual work.
Meanwhile Group A spent more time learning from their mistakes. Since they were focused on quantity, they kept making pot after pot.
The point is, quantity leads to quality. Think about that.
So go out and create, fuck what others think.
High Ideas
Sometimes when I’m high I get really creative ideas.
Maybe I have some brain fog or some creative blocks on Tuesday mornings. But I don’t let that frustrate me, I embrace it. I just accept that my creative energy isn’t flowing right now.
And sometimes weed is the key to unlocking that flow of creative energy. A lot of my podcast and newsletter ideas have come from when I’m getting stoned.
Every different strain of weed could open up different neural pathways. So it really depends on what you’re smoking.
But I think the volcano really helps because it doesn’t burn the weed. It gives you a nice clean high. And I think this gives you all the benefits from cannabis without burning it away.
Thorne Supplements
When it comes to your health, you don’t need to be that creative.
Eat well, sleep well, workout. And take supplements to get any missing nutrients.
I personally use Thorne as part of my daily supplementation.
It’s third-party tested for the best quality ingredients so you know exactly what you’re putting into your body.
I personally use magnesium before sleep, fish oils, amino-acids when I’m training hard, and their VeganPro complex protein.
If you’re in the market for some good supplements, Thorne is the brand I trust. You can feel safe and good about what you’re putting into your body with Thorne.
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A New Sport On The Block
Speaking of creative ideas…
Seems like there’s a new sport that’s going viral on social media that’s not slap fighting.
And this one actually sounds kinda fun to me.
Car Jitsu.
It is fucking hilarious.
There’s room to be tactical and quick. Try to get that seatbelt off as fast as possible so you can choke the other dude out.
I think it would be pretty fucking fun to do.
Will it last?
Probably not.
What do you think? Let me know down in the comments.
ESPN covered car jitsu on their TikTok. You can check out a clip of it here.
It’s Official: Aljo vs. Henry On May 4th
Well, this sucks.
We’ve been working hard and staying ready. Now we have to wait until May 4th to see who wins, then wait some more.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re fighting in July for an interim belt against the winner of Chito vs. Cory. Or if everything goes well, we’re fighting Henry in July.
But this just gives us more time to get better. Getting stronger physically. Improving wrestling, jiu-jitsu, and everything else.
Giving us this much time to prepare is going to be dangerous for either of them.
But we’re still going to be ready for May 4th.
You never know what can happen. Opportunities pop up all the time.
If anything happens to either Aljo or Henry, we’ll be ready to step up and fight.
What I’m Watching This Week
I’ve talked about this show on a couple pods. But boy are things getting interesting at the Milf Manor. Some real drama and juice heating up at the house.
I really like reality shows because it’s a case study on communication. I like to see where people go wrong when they’re communicating, and how they communicate.
It’s also interesting to see how other people handle problems and drama when they communicate. Their ways of pinpointing what went wrong can be unique.
Quick Hits From This Week
Staying on the theme of creativity, here’s a segment from James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter:
“Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists. There is, there has been, there will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It’s made up of all those who’ve consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners — I could list a hundred more professions. Their work becomes one continuous adventure as long as they manage to keep discovering new challenges in it. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem that they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous I don’t know.“ - Wislawa Szymborska
Red Hawk Recap Ep. 77
Dealing with self-doubt
Everyone has fucking self-doubt. But you gotta accept it then counter it. If you want to build confidence, build discipline. Develop healthy habits and hold yourself accountable to doing these habits consistently.
The feeling of knocking someone out
I’ve knocked a few guys out and honestly, it feels like you’re not really punching them hard. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s not the hardest shots that knock people out sometimes. Sometimes it feels like you’re grazing them. I think timing and accuracy are more important. But won’t lie, the wiener does tingle a little bit. And sometimes I do feel bad in the locker room afterwards. But fighting is fighting.
Mentally relaxed on fight day
This is the hardest fucking part. This is where a lot of people break. They’ve already lost the fight on the walk. I try to remind Sean to follow his breath, to meditate, and to be in the moment.
Do I have an itch to compete in MMA again?
It’s tough. I don’t really think about it much. Giving back to my students feels really good and I also want to stay healthy. My body tends to break down pretty easily, I don’t know if it’s genes or something. But I want to have a long life after MMA so I want to be smart about my health.
TimboSugarShow Ep. 226
My brother joined us on this episode of the pod. We go over material from Naval Ravikant’s book The Almanack of Naval Ravikant.
All screen activities linked to unhappiness
That’s a tough one. Suga loves watching Survivor, but does feel guilty sometimes. But I do think it’s good to give your mind a break. Being constantly stimulated can’t be good long term. Plus, when people start to scroll too long on social media, they start to get jealous and compare themselves to others.
Thoughtful disagreement
In thoughtful disagreement, your goal isn’t to convince the other party that you’re right. It’s to find which view is true and find out what to do with it. I think it’s a skill to step away from your own mindset and programming to view another perspective.
Success does not earn happiness
You always think if you acquire more stuff, you’ll be happier. But it might never end. Sug says you can always work on the internal, but externally you gotta get in a position where you’re not working for someone and being a slave. My brother says if you can overcome the need to keep getting more things, you won.
How does one get lucky?
There are four different types of luck. One is just completely random like the lottery. A second is to create your own luck by hustling and being consistent. A third is being good at spotting luck. And the last one is creating such a unique character that attracts luck. So many people spend so much time focusing on other peoples’ shit. Keep working and creating your own luck.
Peace and happiness are skills
It can be learned, just like dieting, exercising, business, and love. It’s pretty interesting isn’t it? For all those people who are just chronically unhappy, maybe they just choose to be that way. They don’t want to learn how to be happy.
Tweet of the Week
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You can get exclusive access to technique videos, extra podcasts, and general healthy living videos.
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Another issue of Red Hawk Essentials in the books.
Hope you enjoyed this one. Give me a like/comment/subscribe below.
If you’re new here, welcome to the fam! We’re dropping gems like this each week.
If you’re feeling stuck and you want to create, I hope this newsletter makes you get off the couch and do what you want to do. To create.
Staying consistent and disciplined. This is how we create our own luck and produce better quality shit overall.
Talk next week.
Tim
Love your stuff man always a great read.
Perfection is the enemy of good. Appreciate these, turning up is 50% of the battle 👊