The Hidden Cost of Peak Performance: Why “Always On” Destroys Creativity

[SPEAKER_00]: Hello friends, hope you're doing good, welcome to another episode of the Eugene Hamilton Podcasts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: Hope you're doing well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hope that life has been treating you fairly, hope that you and your family, or wherever you're close to, family that became friends or friends that became family.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm hoping that you all are doing great and that you are experiencing the joy of being alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know,
[SPEAKER_00]: This year I've been really taking time to just soak it all in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes we find ourselves moving at a fast pace, sometimes moving so fast, we have no idea where we're going.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this year I've been trying to do a little more of reflecting.
[SPEAKER_00]: A little more soaking it all in.
[SPEAKER_00]: My son just turned five.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm gonna tell you all about our latest adventure as we try best to stay in reflection mode along the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray God, thank you for today, thank you for this moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: May we appreciate this moment, may we show gratitude for this moment and may we use this moment wisely in your name, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: My son turned five and it almost made me cry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll be honest, I actually share it to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not because I'm upset, not because I'm sad, I'm just like time is moving.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he was first born, somebody told us that the days sometimes can seem slow, but the years ago, by really fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, my son was born during the pandemic shutdown, so of course, days were slow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, days were super duper long, I mean, he was taking three naps a day, we walked to the park so many times.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that time seemed as if it was the trickle of a faucet when you forget to turn it all the way off.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it just keeps trickling.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's how I felt for a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as we've celebrated now his fifth birthday, man, I was like, you gotta be kidding me.
[SPEAKER_00]: A whole human being talking for sentences, doing this thing, trying to make sure he keeps us on our toes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one thing we did, several things we did in celebration of his birthday, they kind of reminded me of the power of being in reflection mode.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because even today as we just unpacked this for a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: it's it's really tiring to always be on you know what I'm saying like before I had a son I was always on I mean I said no to no one there's almost like as I was passing the church and if somebody called I don't care what time it was or where I was or what I would always you know break my neck almost you know to see to it that I was there that I did whatever was being requested of me
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's interesting that having a family now forces me to slow down, forces me to take moments and just say, you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let me cross this off on my calendar.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing happening for these three days except family.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or even every day, there's a shutdown time now.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, after this time, my son's home.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I didn't get it done, between the six or seven hours that he was away, alright, we'll get it done tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this past, no, it was two weeks ago now that we actually did a pre-trip.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we went to Lego land with his cousins, and maybe we had a blast on the rides, we were not meeting them on the rides, eat some good food, just being with our people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we came back and decided that we have like, of a cousin in law, I'll call him a cousin in law, who turned 50.
[SPEAKER_00]: Justin turned in five, he's turned in 50, he decides to have a gathering of all of his close people when we got, we got an invitation to join them in Utah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, oh man, that's really turning it all the way off.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never, I've traveled quite a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never been to Utah and I can be quite honest with you, I've never really desired to go to Utah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there is nothing wrong with Utah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Neither is there nothing, anything wrong with Wyoming, but these places don't call my name.
[SPEAKER_00]: I come, come visit me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, I don't really, they don't know my radar like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we took the trick from California.
[SPEAKER_00]: to Utah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now there was a big trip.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, big things on the agenda to include stargazing and hiking and all these great things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so my wife didn't want to fly because she had a lot of things that she wanted to bring so that we'd be prepared for the adventure.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we made a car,
[SPEAKER_00]: We got there and man, you know, it's funny because the drive there is winding is mountains.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're looking at God's creation, sun setting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't realize we were going to pass through the tiptop of Arizona.
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew we were going to pass through Nevada, but we finally made it there different times own and oh man, it was a blast.
[SPEAKER_00]: And while we're out there,
[SPEAKER_00]: We certainly had access to internet, being from that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We certainly had access to Wi-Fi.
[SPEAKER_00]: But with something about being out there, it almost forced you to say, you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need that right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to focus on the beauty of this country, the beauty of this part of the context to say, the beauty of the waterfalls and the Virgin River.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as my buddy said, man, it was just raw out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got to chances, like, almost hear your thoughts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I live in LA.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so sometimes the city is so busy, you can't, you can barely hear your own thoughts.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to encourage you this year, pencil in time, oh, I like this, to go hear your thoughts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You always, you always, you always find yourself if you're in social media and I know you are, you're always hearing the thoughts of other people.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're always scrolling and hearing that device of other people.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're always scrolling and hearing somebody's theory and their stance on this and nothing is wrong with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But every now and then, because this will happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you stay in the on position, sometimes you stifle creativity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's what we're gonna use.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter what line of business you're in, no matter what line of work you're in, there's always a call for us to be innovative and creative along the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever it is that you involve them, whatever it is that you are engaged in for your livelihood, for your work, even for your hobbies.
[SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes when you get just, for instance, when I, when I, when I was a pastor, when I was a pastor, which I did so for close to 18 years,
[SPEAKER_00]: As long as I'm at the church doing my week by week or week to week routine, I don't think about anything creative or innovative to present to my congregation, I don't think about any new ministries or new adventures or new approaches to things until I took a break.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even now again, I will go to a conference.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every now and again, I would just go just off to myself for a couple of two or three days and just not intentionally.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's almost as if I just said, let me press pause.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not so I can go be innovative.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not so I could go be creative, but I press pause.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I, when I silence the noise, creativity and innovation found its way to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're always in the on position, if you're always fine yourself on the go, if you're consistently and constantly fighting yourself, always moving, moving, moving, and you never take time to pause.
[SPEAKER_00]: You never take time to tap into your own ingenuity.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're always tapping into other people's genius.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stop sleeping on yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: The more, listen, the more times that you find it within your schedule to take a break, to take a pause, the more access you give yourself to fresh thoughts, fresh ideas, fresh approaches, and a fresh mindset.
[SPEAKER_00]: That trip to Utah, I had no intentions of pressing reset.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, can I be honest with you?
[SPEAKER_00]: an ambitious one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because to be honest with you, we will only on the ground for one full day.
[SPEAKER_00]: We got there on Friday.
[SPEAKER_00]: So part of that day was taken up traveling there.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were on the ground all day on Saturday and then we left on Sunday.
[SPEAKER_00]: Six and a half hour trip.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, come on y'all.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're really on the ground just one full day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of me honest with you don't tell my wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still tired.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd be come on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still recovering from from that trip, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not because this person drove or this person didn't drive.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, nothing to do with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just a trip.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we had just gotten off of a trip where we can't trip.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it was back to back nonetheless.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: We
[SPEAKER_00]: The following month, we're gonna press pause again for three days.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, my son will be on spring break soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna press pause again and go on another adventure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just to keep him busy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just to keep him occupied, but so that all of us can press pause.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, what we still be on?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we never office parents.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're just to be providing and making meals and, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: But the regular run of the meal, all, you know, of every day.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll get a sense of press pause, step back, and allow our minds to reset and refresh.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I can offer you anything as we close this episode today, don't rob yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: don't be so anxious to get to the goal that you work yourself to death or work yourself into a place where you'd no longer even see the value in pressing pause.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, don't stay on all your long.
[SPEAKER_00]: give yourself some strategic breaks and pauses to refresh, to reset and live your best life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you again for tuning in today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for your time, for your attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please share this podcast episode out with somebody that you know is working too hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is you play it again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody that's doing too much in terms of not looking
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all be great, continue to go, grow and glow.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll see you next week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same time, same place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Peace.