YouSaid · the spoken record

Anne Lamott

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114
first
2021-07-14
most recent
2021-07-14
sittings or episodes
1
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podcast

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  1. “Some survival tools. And one was to think that I was defective and that I was the reason that the family wasn't doing well, because if I was the problem, that meant I had some measure of control, right? I could do better and I couldn't do better. I was an A student. I was a tennis star. But if I believed I could do better and I could need less. And if I did better and needed less, then it seemed to make mom and dad better. And it was completely Reaganomic trickle down. Like if dad was okay and we helped dad pump up, then mom would be able to nurture the three of us. So born to die people pleaser. I got all of my self-esteem from outside, from good grades, from being the star of the classroom and from being a great conversationalist that my parents liked to have around and that my parents' friends like to chat with. And I was not only defective, and this is where it gets dicey, but I was in charge of everybody's happiness.”

    2021-07-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #522: Anne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “To try to keep my brother from imploding. And it was exhausting. And I got migraines at five years old. And no one, it was 50s. No one quite noticed that children had mental health diagnoses and stress that was really life or death. But I'll tell you, my family worked better when I had a migraine because families do well if there's one sick person that's not them. So when I had to be in the total darkness with cold compresses, the family thrived, you know. But I learned a couple of rules, and I know you've written about stuff like this, but I learned.”

    2021-07-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #522: Anne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “It's an illusion. And in fact, I gave a talk once on inspiration on how I don't believe in it and how what gets me going is debt, mental illness, and desire for revenge. But my dad just did it. And that's what I learned. And that's what I passed on to my son. And my house was very, very tense. My parents didn't love each other. My father drank a lot. My mother was very, very overweight. And a black belt codependent from Liverpool. And I was the middle child. I have an older brother and a younger brother. And it was up to me to help make sure dad kept coming home because he didn't like mom, but he loved me. I had a rebellious older brother and an infant baby brother, and I needed to try to help raise the baby brother. I mean, my parents really would have been better off raising orchids or teacup poodles or something. And so what I did at the age of five was to try to raise the baby.”

    2021-07-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #522: Anne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “Yeah, well the model was my father who was a writer Kenneth Lamotte and he had a lot of books published and a lot of magazine articles and I heard him down at his desk at that old Olympia at five thirty every morning rain or shine or hangover. He just did it and that was what he taught me was that you don't wait for inspiration.”

    2021-07-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #522: Anne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “I will help you because he loves the same stuff. You sit down, you keep your butt in the chair, you take one passage, one memory, one vision, one bit of dialogue, one character description, and you do it badly”

    2021-07-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #522: Anne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “In bird by bird, there's a whole chapter on K fucked radio, KFKD. And without a lot of help and a lot of transformation and healing, K fucked radio is on 24-7. It's telling you how far short you're falling. It's telling you how great you started out and what a disappointment you've turned out to be. It's telling you that what you're in the middle of is beating a dead on and on and on. And so the shapes of truth work and the inner critic work and bird by bird is 90% about turning down K fucked radio. Anyway, out of the left-hand speaker is all this stuff about that you can't do it perfectly and that why bother and that this has been blah, blah, blah. But out of the right hand speakers, it's like the voice of the people who love you most. The voice of like for me, Sam or my husband or my two best girlfriends. And they're saying, I love your stories. I love how you write.”

    2021-07-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #522: Anne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “Inner critic can go off to the library where there's an incredibly comfortable chair and a good reading light in 2,000 books and he will sit there and read, which he loves to do. And when we need an ethical consultation, we'll come get him. But we don't need that constant, is it allowed okay to say the F word on each other?”

    2021-07-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #522: Anne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “And letting yourself do it really badly and to try to help grind down that critical voice. I'll just mention my husband's work here. He's Neil Allen. He wrote Shapes of Truth. And the work he does with people and these shapes of truth is taming the inner critic. And what his position is, you're never going to get rid of it. You know, we don't get over very much here. What he does with people is he has them bring forth the inner critic and actually just put it on the table in front of him. And he thanks them for keeping him alive when he was six and seven because it kept him small and controllable. So he didn't run out into the street. He didn't swim out past his ability to stay afloat. But that at the age of six or whatever, we probably don't need it anymore. And so he has his clients give the inner critic a great new job, which might be ethical consultant for the project.”

    2021-07-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #522: Anne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “All of them are kind of shanty towns, you know, and like in BC during the peace marches where people set up tents and thought it made sense to bring their dogs, you know, during the rainstorm. And that's a miracle to have written a shantytown. And so I think these ideas of not knowing what you're doing.”

    2021-07-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #522: Anne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. “20 years ago, so in my 40s, I heard EL Doctoro say that writing was like driving at night with the headlights on. You could only see a little ways in front of you, but you could make the whole journey that way. And I think that is the most profound advice I can offer anyone on any topic that you can only see a little ways in front of you and you can make the whole journey that way. And another thing that I think help people when they read bird by bird was the chapter on perfectionism and how perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor. It's the voice of the enemy. And if you listen to it, it keeps you crazy for your entire life because we all fall short. You've written books and you think you're creating this golden and crystal palace that people can walk inside of and see all of truth and beauty. And reality, and you kind of end up your books and my books all.”

    2021-07-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #522: Anne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. “Well, my older brother, I was like a superstar achiever in school, and my older brother hated school and he was kind of a rebel. And in California in the 50s and early 60s, in fourth grade, you wrote two term papers. One was the Sacramento paper. That's our state capital, and the other was on birds. And you had to write it all year, all semester, a paper on birds. And my brother hadn't started. It was due on a Monday, and on a Saturday, he admitted to my dad that he hadn't started. My brother was a tough guy and he was in tears. And my dad sat down with him and put his arm around him and he said, just take your bird by bird, buddy. You know, first you read about chickadees, and then you write a paragraph in your own words about chickadees. And then you draw a picture. And then you take pelicans and you study up on pelicans and then you write a paragraph or a passage on pelicans. I never ever forgot that. And then years later,”

    2021-07-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #522: Anne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. “You told people you would teach them how to write a book, but you only taught us how to write one page. And that's really what I can help you do is one chapter is on shitty first drafts. I don't try to teach kids or grown-ups how to write really, really well. I just teach them to stop not writing. I teach them to keep their butt in the chair and to write badly and that all first drafts of any book you've ever read by the authors you esteem most began as unreadable first drafts. And I teach people to take it really small, you know, bird by bird. Is it okay if I tell the story? Oh, please.”

    2021-07-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #522: Anne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. “I think it's because I didn't try to con people into thinking that if they just got a book finished that my agent will want to take a look at it by the end of the week and that it would almost certainly be published and that then they would all the Swiss cheese holes inside of them would be healed and they'd be well and they'd get that FDA stamp of approval and be validated and then their parents would start to respect them I said none of that's going to happen all of that is an inside job but I'll tell you a funny story. When Sam's little boy who's 12 now was five, I was teaching his kindergarten class a writing workshop and instead of saying shitty first drafts I said really poopy first drafts but after and the kids love me and after I was done my little grandchild came up to me and he leaned in and he sounded like Tony Soprano he said oh Nana that was terrible and I said what and he said”

    2021-07-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #522: Anne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. “Thank you, Tim. I'm so honored, and I just want to say I think my son takes me a lot more seriously because you were interested in having me on.”

    2021-07-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #522: Anne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT