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Cheryl Strayed

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2017-03-31
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2017-03-31
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  1. “Humanity or the world or yourself. And so often, you know, those people have hurt us by teaching us those things. And so we just push them away and we put them over there. And then we never actually get to learn that what ends up always being a valuable lesson from them. And, you know, for me, so much of writing about, like in my case, it's my father. I've written about him in ways, you know, and I couldn't really write about him until I sort of worked my way to that place that I understood him as a teacher. And when you understand that somebody is your teacher, that you can't help but feel, like I said earlier, a little grateful for them, a little grateful for even the thing that you got from them that you didn't want to have. So do that.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “So, yeah, your darkest teacher is, and so that's the question I would have for your listeners and people in the room if you feel like going home and doing a writing assignment. Write about your darkest teacher. And that is to say a person in your life who taught you something you didn't want to know about”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “Does every day is that genuine desire to connect with people and be vulnerable and to be open to what's going to happen next? And that kind of curiosity has driven her to these great heights. And I think that some people, they forget that. Like they forget that thing that got them to where they are, right? And to me, the mark of success is staying open in that whole way. And Reese Witherswin has also done that. You know, so when I had that first conversation with Reese and my first question to her was, Why does wild matter to you? Because she said, I read it and I cried and I was like, why? Happened in your life that made you feel these, you know, that made you respond the way you did to the book. And she told me, and she told me things within five minutes of talking to her that she's never told the world. And I trusted that.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “I know, I know. I walked on this little rocky thing, and then it's like, oh, she's like, Cheryl, you know, and she hugs me, and we sit down at this table. And the thing that struck me, and I was like, this is Oprah's, this is why Oprah is successful, is that the look on her face and what I could see in her eyes is her vulnerability that I was meeting Oprah and I wanted her to like me. And Oprah was meeting me and she wanted me to like her. It wasn't like meeting the queen, even though for the record she is a queen. But she didn't act like one. Like she never, like she was still this incredibly humble human who was really looking to have an authentic interaction with me. And I thought, you know, this is what has driven her success is that it wasn't like the thing that makes her get up and do that work that she.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “Do hair and makeup on me, and they get me all ready to see Oprah because we're shooting this show. She's interviewing me on the show. And it's this big kind of moment. Like I'm like, okay, I'm going to meet Oprah Winfrey. And they tell me to go down this path through this redwood trees. And at the end of this path, there's Oprah. It's like getting married.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “Yeah, it was a spider scents I had. Feel like I get a sense of people and I got a real sense of reese and I could tell I trusted her. And one of the first things that I felt about Reese is she was immediately open and vulnerable with me in a way that you would never expect a movie start to be. And you asked me this earlier question about success and who comes to mind when I think of success. And I think of Oprah Winfrey and not for the reasons that we all think because obviously Oprah Winfrey is wildly successful. But one of the things I never forgot is the moment I met Oprah, she had picked Wilde for her book. She is researching her book club with wild and I went to her house in Montecito near Santa Barbara. I was brought to this little guest house, which is, you know, like nicer than any of our houses. But it's like, you know, and like they...”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “Disrespecting what I'd written, that in so many ways it wasn't obviously they can't make my, you know, you can't have everything in the book and the movie, but that they cared about the spirit of my book. And that mattered a lot to me. And I think my friends who have had opposite experiences, all the people who are making that movie, they don't really care about what's happened in the book. What they care about is that product they're making as a film. And I just don't think that that ever leads to good things. And so I think that that kind of old-fashioned, you know, trusting people who are good for their word matters a lot.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “Hold true throughout that process. And she was, you know, she followed through. She actually pledged to honor the book and she did. And I think that that's really important. It felt really vital to me that I had the opposite experience in Hollywood many, many writers tell you terrible stories about what happened to them in Hollywood. And I have to say, like from Reese to the director Jean-Marc Vall ⁇, to the screenwriter Nick Hornby to the studio Fox Searchlight, all of those people were creative, good humans who had like depth of character and really cared about”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “Well, first, I would say be very, very, very careful about who you trust to make that movie. For me, having that sense of really trusting that my book was in the hands of people who were good humans and who were going to be good for their word, who pledged Reese Witherspoon when she first read Wild and asked me about her being the one to bring it to the screen, we had a deep long talk about What the book meant to her, why she felt like she was the person to play me and to essentially midwife that film as the producer into the world. And also what values she would”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. “Yeah, I think that, I mean, I'm all for having those big dreams, but I do think that at a certain point you can let your dreams get in the way of the actual work you need to do.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. “That by doing the best we can do, the work that we have to do, that that's the only way to get to greatness, and that we aren't the judge of our own greatness. We're only the judge of our intentions and follow through.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. “Know, and that what I had to do was that humble thing where I say guess what? It's true. I might be writing a mediocre book. I might be writing a book that nobody ever reads. And I just have to surrender to the truth of that. And I have to surrender to this notion that even if I'm mediocre, what matters more to me than writing a great novel is writing a novel. And that was a huge lesson. And it was a lesson, you know, later when I was thinking so much about my hike on the Pacific Rest Trail when I was riding wild. That was something that I learned every day. I would be like, I'm going to try to do this much. And then I have to do this much because this is what I can do. And I think that when we learn that, like when it's not about so much accepting a limitation rather than as accepting”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. “Oh, you know what? I think it would be this thing that I learned when I was reading my first book it would be surrender to your own mediocrity. Which sounds kind of sad, right? I mean, we're supposed to be aspiring to our greatness. But I think that here again, this idea of humility and strength is connected. Because what I learned, you know, when I was writing my first book, I really felt like, okay, I'm going to try to write the great American novel, like every writer who, you know, it's like, I want to be that. I want to write the best novel that has ever been written, even when I knew that I probably wasn't going to be able to do that. That was where I aspired to be. I was like, you know, there's this American idea, right? Like that you reach for those kinds of heights. And I found when I was about two-thirds of the way into that endeavor right in that book that idea of greatness was what was actually keeping me from fulfilling this dream.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. “That's great. Yeah, well, and I think that that's what we should do with ourselves you finish that first draft and say to yourself, not good enough. What can I do on that next round”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  15. “Where it's like they actually haven't done their work. They're approaching me in this spirit of, well, you know, like failure teaches us things. And I'm like, but no, I'm not going to do your work for you. You've got to do it for yourself. And I'm kind of an old school, you know, sort of stern in that regard, you know, that regard when it comes to that message about what failure means and what it can teach us.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  16. “I think that's really interesting. And it's interesting to me because I really agree with this message that we're hearing a lot in the last few years is like, failure is good and failure teaches us things. And like, I believe all of that deeply. But I think that what gets lost in the translation is that there's a difference between failing and being sloppy and expecting other people to do your work for you. And I am a real old school believer in craft when it comes to stand-up comedy or writing or developing software, like actually really genuinely doing your work, apprenticing yourself to the craft of what it takes to make that work and what it takes to make it good. Then go forward and fail. There's still plenty of room to fail out there once you know what the hell you're doing. But this, you know, I do see this sometimes with people who approach me.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  17. “Failure stories are always so boring. It's like, you know, oh, all these agents loved that piece and they all wanted to see your work. And then I was like, oh, here's the first hundred pages of my novel, which weren't really ready to be shown yet. And, you know, they all were like, thanks, but no thanks. And, you know, I went from feeling like, oh, they love me to, they don't love me. But, and that hurt in the moment, but at the time, you know, in retrospect, I think, oh, that was really a great lesson because what I did then is I said to myself, I will never again show an agent my work until I'm really can feel like it's ready to go. And that's advice I've shared with a lot of writers, you know, when they say, well, you know, how do you get an agent or what advice do you have? My first advice is always like, make sure your work is ready to show. You know, don't rush. Most of us rush for that external approval. I understand that impulse, but it's almost always the wrong impulse.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  18. “And they were always, they always served that purpose that I spoke about earlier of like reminding me what I was really doing and why I was really doing it. And it was reminding me to be humble and to not take for granted that I was going to be loved or that what I made was going to be loved. Because the thing about making art is that you have to be committed to making it even if you aren't loved. And so you have to attach your engine that drives any of us forward in the work we do. It can't be connected only. I mean, obviously we all want to be loved. Me too. But it can't, you know, the driver of that engine cannot be that other people accept and love you and praise you. It has to be that you really want to do this work. You really want to make this thing in the world. And so the times early on, you know, I remember when I was in graduate school, I had a piece, you know, the right.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  19. “didn't do enough, or we don't want you, or you're not going to be included, or we don't want to buy this or that, or the other thing. I think that part of being a writer and probably any kind of artist, you have to sort of always be hearing that something's not good enough, even if it ultimately is. When you're being told, okay, this is great, now revise it. This is great. Now revise it. This is great and I'll revise it. So failure is just like literally part of, like, I just like part of my life or part of the vernacular, I guess. But I will say that I have had a couple of experiences that were in retrospect kind of helpfully crushing.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  20. “You know, it's interesting whenever you ask a writer, I guess except for those few writers who come out of the gate at 22 and they win the National Book Award or something, that it's not one story. It's like a decades-long journey of being told.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  21. “So what if there's a clump of tomatoes here, but then there's some hummus over? Everything has to be as uniform as possible. So any sandwich I'm ever given, I open it up and I immediately like completely rearrange the sandwich. And then I close it. My husband's always like, would you stop touching your food? And I'm like, you're just jealous because I haven't done this to your sandwich. And he's like, get your hands off my sandwich. So, do some of you also believe in this uniform sandwich idea”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  22. “Oh my gosh, this is a hard one. Comes to mind, I do tend to be a little obsessively. Like, you know, if my kids are eating like Skittles or M&Ms or something, which they're not generally allowed to eat so much, like I'll have to organize them by color. But I don't think that's absurd. I think that's perfectly reasonable. I mean, why would you want to eat the colors out of order? I thought of something. This makes my husband crazy. So sandwiches, I'm a Virgo and I like things to be ordered. And so sandwiches are greatly problematic for me because, you know, Because you might, like, here's my whole theory of the sandwich, and I think that there are people who have a different theory, but maybe a couple of you have my theory, which is every bite should be as much like the previous byte as possible. Do you follow? Yeah.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  23. “Okay, let me tell you guys, I didn't know this until last week. There's a thing called a boot box for your long boots and you put your long boots in them instead of draping all over the floor of your closet, and then you put them up on the shelf. Pinterest Like $10”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  24. “Well, I have spent most of the last week cleaning my closet like a motherfucker because things have gotten out of control in my life, Tim. I'm a little bit like, you know, it's like, you know how this stuff, the stuff is encroaching. And I realized it was actually like, you know, violating my psychic space. And I needed to just like once and for all. And I was feeling like a failure because I kept saying like I have to deal with all this junk I have, you know, like the old Lego pieces that my kids don't use anymore and the old whatever like this pants I'll never fit into again or whatever and I finally just like went I was just like went through all my stuff I even hired like these guys came and like reconstructed my closet like physically like you know reconstructed my closet and then I got it all like together and I brought my daughter into my closet to show it to her”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  25. “My values, I guess, that have to do with not just achievement and following through on the things I said I would do professionally, but the way we are and the way I act in the world are you kind, are you honest? Are you generous? Are you transparent? I think transparency is something too that's like a sign of success, a mark of success. And I think to me it really comes down to a couple of questions. Did I set intentions and did I follow through with them? Did I do what I said I would do? And every time I've done that in my life is when I feel like I've succeeded and every time I have not done that in my life is when I feel like I've failed. And that's in ways large and small.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  26. “Well, you know, I'm just a real believer in In many different definitions of success. I know I'm not the first person to say this to you, that this idea of that our culture has created this notion of success that has to do with money and position and sometimes fame, depending on what your career is. And I reject that. I don't think it's successful to be at the top of some pile and have a sad pathetic life. I don't think it's successful to have a bunch of money and be mean to people. I really take very seriously”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  27. “And Alice Monroe and a few other really great writers can transcend beyond what you already know that experience would be like and actually show you a deeper level of that experience. When we say I was astonished by this, what we mean is we were shown a truth that we know is true but couldn't yet articulate to ourselves until it was shown to us by that writer. And that's magic. I mean, that's a magical act. And I think it's what every writer aspires to do. It's certainly what Alice Monroe has done in pretty much every one of her short stories.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  28. “I know. What do I love about her? She's the kind of writer who I read all of her stories many times, and almost always the experience is like I'll be just going in to try to find a passage or a quote. And I find myself accidentally reading the whole story again. And every single time it takes my breath away, she's so, her craft is so virtuosic prose writer. She has the capacity to inhabit a sense of perception that exceeds even what we already know to be true. And when you see writers do this, what I mean by this is a good writer can make you feel what it feels like to be feeling unwell in Cambodia, right? You can be inside that physical experience. You can hear the sounds and the smells and feel like what they're thinking of that moment or that situation.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  29. “I was all ready to say my favorite books, but now with the graduating senior thing, you made it. The first book that came to mind would be Claudia Rankin's book Citizen, which came out a few years ago and is just a really important book for us to be reading right now. But one of my old standbys too is my favorite, Alice Monroe is my favorite writer. Her selected stories. My favorite book is her book The Lives of Girls and Women, but she's just an amazing short story writer. I love her so much. I'm also, you know, I love so many poets, Mary Oliver is one of my favorites. I mean, it's always hard for me to think about Forcing one book on everyone, but all of those would be good ways to go”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  30. “If we lock the doors and made everyone get in a circle and spend, we would spend the night going around the room, everyone tell their poop story, you would all have one. And it would be very fun.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  31. “Everyone remembers, right? You remember that horrible I mean, my husband is a documentary filmmaker and he was making a documentary in Cambodia and he ate something and he went to bed and he was so sick that he literally shot the bed. Like he woke up. And my kids, that's their favorite travel story. They're like, tell us again, dad, about when you pooped in the bed. And it's like, and this is really true. And same with the Pacific Crest Trail. What did I write about the funny thing about when I was writing Wild, I have my journals and I was reading my journal, like, you know, what was I writing about on the PCT as part of the research for my book? And literally half the pages are me complaining about how much my feet hurt, you know? And it's because that's you remember your suffering and it becomes pleasure afterwards. Is that true”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  32. “The most acutely, or like the time you almost died in Guatemala because you had such terrible diarrhea for a week, or the, you know, like the diarrhea stories, they're our best travel stories, you know.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  33. “Well, you know, it's always not just long distance hiking, but certainly long distance hiking. But I think any kind of journey, any kind of trip you're going to take to remember that it's not, that it's that usually it's not going to be fun all the time and sometimes it's not going to be fun a lot of the time. Almost always when we're about to go on a trip or a journey, we imagine, like what we're imagining are those like sort of postcard scenes that we think we've gone to Bucharest for or to the PCT for or whatever. And then you get there and it's like, you know, it's not like that. But what I always say is I'm a real believer in retrospective fun. And that is the fun that you have remembering the like shitty thing that happened, you know. And this is really, if I asked if you and I, you know, if I asked you to tell me about some of your travel experiences, I guarantee you the things that you remember.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  34. “Oh, I wish I were with you. That's what I would say. You know, one thing that every, I've talked to so many people who have hiked some long distance trail or gone on even just a few weeks back in trip. It's always like the best thing any of us have ever done. And I don't understand why, because it's also really technically quite miserable. I mean, you have to poop in a hole that you dug yourself with a stick. And you have to sleep on the ground and it's cold and it's hot and it's all of these things and you have blisters. But it really, there's something about that kind of Doing something hard, making yourself suffer in a physical way that feels like the opposite of suffering, incredibly restorative. So I have such nostalgia for my time on the Pacific Crest Trail.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  35. “And seen what it felt like to do that. And it was really painful and interesting and necessary. So that's why I strayed. And, you know, it led me, and of course, like almost always when we make mistakes that harm ourselves, it almost always leads us to if we listen to that lesson. I mean, in some ways that was a dark teacher, right? It led me to this place that I could then, you know, make other choices walk in a direction that was going to be not about increasing my suffering, but rather lessening”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  36. “I straightened a number of ways, but yeah, I think with that, so, you know, because I was young, so for those of you who don't know what this question means, I was, as I wrote about in Wilde, I was married young, and I just, my mom died, and I just couldn't stay in the box, in the box of that my marriage was in and that my life was in so many of Much part of my growing up, I think, especially in my 20s, doing that real adult growing up, was about testing the fire and seeing what it felt like to do something that I wasn't allowed to do. And maybe that was that thing that I wasn't allowed to do was what I wanted to do.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  37. “Consolation is a sense of being part of a struggle. And I think that that's also what we seek when we seek advice. Nobody can tell us to end our marriages or do this or that or the other thing, right? But we can say you're not alone and I too have had that struggle.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  38. “Well, you know, I think too I would say that the Maybe the most important kind of thing that people take from my advice is just that sense that they're not alone, they're okay. Even when you said earlier that say no is hard for you. Like I just, if there were little nodes attached to my brain, some little pleasure center would have been bumped up then because it's like, okay, oh yeah. So you seem like this together person who's successful in making it happen and you clearly not have to say no. And then when you say, I don't know how to say no either, it's a struggle for me. It's not advice that you've given me, but it's a sense of...”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  39. “Oprah, who let me tell you. Which I know is shocking to all of you, right? I've asked friends, I've asked people at parties who I met, you know, like we get on this subject of no. I think a lot of people struggle with this question. We all have different relationships too, what kinds of things are being asked. But almost everyone has something to tell you about it. I think that to me that's always too. When I'm giving advice, I always feel like I'm just one voice and I encourage people don't just listen to me. I'm going to offer you what I can offer you. And then somebody else, it's not about being right or wrong. It's about illumination. It's about getting you as the person who's seeking advice to ask deeper questions, to bring into consciousness maybe a little piece of this that you didn't see before you talked to me. And I love that about both advice giving and advice taking.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  40. “From books, you know, from podcasts. And so, you know, I turn in all of those directions. When I find that I'm stuck, for example, this question of no has been a big one for me over the last few years. I have asked Oprah how she says no.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  41. “You know, I think that Maybe what helped me sort of have the audacity to even begin writing the sugar column, because of course the first question I asked myself when I agreed to write the dear sugar column is, who the hell am I? Why would I think that I could give anyone advice? And what I realized right away is like, first of all, I never positioned myself as the authority on anything. And the reason I could do that so comfortably is much of the best advice I've received does not come from somebody who is like a credential to give advice, right? You know, I mean, obviously I think that psychologists and therapists can give great advice and do and they absolutely serve a function. I'm not questioning that at all. But I also think that most of us get a wisdom from a wide range of sources, from the people we know and love, from strangers on the street, from therapists and counselors, from teachers.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  42. “Right. And yeah, obviously, and we're not talking about, I want a Hotford Sunday right now, so let us go get one. I mean, I'm not talking about that. When I say to do, you know, that most of us take a long time to learn how to say what we want, I mean for those bigger things. Like, you know, for me, it's been very connected to what I give beyond the books I write, how do I keep that line of communication open between the readers and the writer? And how do I also have my own private life? And it's tricky.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  43. “And that's me too. And that's about giving ourselves permission to do what we want to do. And it's because we associate that. Like even that phrase, like when I say doing what you want to do, I'm sure some of you in the audience think, well, that's very selfish. We associate that with being selfish. And it's kind of like the way humility is strength. Vulnerability is strength. Those two seemingly opposing things sit opposite. They sit opposite each other. They're also the same thing. I really think there's something about this, that actually doing what you want to do is the opposite of selfishness. It's actually a kind of generosity because you're being honest. You're being saying this is what I need and I won't expect you to do something you don't need to. What have you learned about your journey to saying no?”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  44. “Be true. And I have the privilege of seeing letters from so many people who write to Deer Sugar. And almost always in the letter of the person who's saying, I don't know what to do and I have this problem and I don't know if I should break up with her or if I don't know if I should take this job or move to New York City or go to Paris, whatever it is. The person who writes the letter almost always knows. And I think that one of the scariest things in our lives is actually doing what we know we want to do. Most of us don't give ourselves permission to do that. Most of us take many years to do that. You said earlier one of the hardest things for you was to learn how to say no.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  45. “No, the importance of that one is that having my husband and I made this list together. It was like having our kids is the best thing we've ever done bar nothing. So it was just like a very clearest truth that was standing counterpoint to these like, you know, we don't have much time as it is and we won't be able to sleep for another two years and all of that stuff. And so obviously I think that this is often true when I've had professional I've been at sort of crossroads with different opportunities have come my way. Here are the reasons to do it. Here are the reasons not to. It's not about the number of things on the list. It's about the weight of those things. And almost always I think the things that mean and matter the most really come down to sort of one question, what do you really want to do? And this is something that I really believe.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  46. “Very much so. And often, you know, sometimes too, you know, like there could be, I did, we did end up not having a third child. I wasn't pregnant, you know, and we decided not to. But what was really striking to me about that list and the reason I brought it up is that there was only one thing on the list of reasons we should have a third child. And there were like 300 things on the other list. But the one thing on the list to do it was more important than any of those other 300 things.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  47. “Yeah. And then the reasons to do it and the reasons not to do it. And those are like really, I think, they allow you to kind of see it's literally like a map on the wall of your life. What you want, what you fear, what you desire. And I think that those things that we make them very explicit rather than just imagined, a list does that.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  48. “Exactly. Or you can say, okay, well, this can be addressed, you know, like, oh, I don't ever have time to write. Well, we could do this or that, you know, it allows you to sort of see instead of just feel what your challenges are. There's something about having it in front of you that in some ways It pins it in place rather than allowing it to float around in your head and be this like big, terrible monster thing.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  49. “Well, you know, I mean, it's so hard to pick one goose there so many times. Okay, oh, this was a big one. Well, speaking of kids. So I have two kids. So when I was almost 40, I thought that I was maybe pregnant again. And it wasn't planned, but it was kind of like, well, maybe we should have a third kid, you know. And so my husband and I were agonizing. We're like, well, what do we do if, you know, like this is a kid is a big deal. Do we want a third kid? And so I made a list and it was like everything I, all the reasons I didn't want to, all the fears. And what I mean that there are sublists is like, well, why are you afraid of this thing? Like sometimes the thing that you're afraid of that's like on the no side of the list can actually be solved by another list because you can because you can solve that problem.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  50. “Yeah, yeah, no, it was like one of the longest emails ever written. What I did is I walked her through my thinking about the consequences of each decision. I said these are the things. I did with her the way I would do it in the column, which is like, okay, so why are the reasons that you would do this or that or the other thing? And I lid all the scenarios out. And I think that that's in my own life always what I do when I'm having a hard time. And I talk about this a lot on the show. It's like I'm a super big fan of list making. I'm like the list queen. And every problem I've ever had has been solved by a list. You write down like all the reasons for this and all the reasons for the other thing and then all the, you know, and it's like there's a sub lists and you could color code them. You could get highlighters. And the answer is there.”

    2017-03-31 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #231: How to Be Creative Like a Motherf*cker -- Cheryl Strayed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT