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Jamie Catto on Creativity and Relationships [#7] The Ideas Lab Podcast

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Jamie Catto talks to John Williams for the Ideas Lab Podcast

Jamie Catto on Creativity and Relationships

Jamie Catto was a founding member of British Electronica band Faithless, and he was creator, producer and director of the multi-award winning One Giant Leap films and albums.

He now leads transformative workshops on creativity and relationships all over the world and his film about spiritual teacher Ram Dass is due out in September 2019.

His book, Insanely Gifted: Turn Your Demons into Creative Rocket Fuel, comes with a warning from the Daily Telegraph – “Prolonged exposure to Jamie Catto could blow your mind.”

This episode was actually recorded about a year ago while I was still busy creating The Love Challenge, an online course about dating and relationships and we jumped into the conversation there talking about the keys to healthy relationships.

Jamie Catto is kind, wise, open, boundlessly energetic, optimistic and passionate. I adore him.
— Stephen Fry

Note that there is some more swearing than usual in this episode!

Episode Highlights:

[On success] – “A few people just manage to hit the mark every time, but most people they get there by being prolific.” 

[On getting over your perfectionism] –

“When you go into a relationship with someone really you are agreeing to become if not the parent of their inner child, you’re certainly agreeing to become the stepparent of their inner child.”

“If you haven’t got that [perspective of]  being kind and loving and finding your constant failure adorable, and not having any agenda for you to evolve one inch and just totally loving you as you are, if that’s not switched on you’re not going to have a very nice life. It’s going to be agonizing.”

“One of the very, very, very few ways we have any choice to be powerful on this planet is we can choose which filter we look through life, which channel we look through life on.”

“I’ve done some projects unexpectedly that in a half day made me half a million pounds. I’ve had other projects I’ve spent four years on that still owe me money. It’s not like you can predict.”

“[On creative blocks] – One it’s not up to you if it’s great or not. Two, you have to put out some great and some medium stuff. Even if you’re fucking Bjork, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, they put out a lot of shit songs. First of all, let what’s come through, come through. Don’t pre-edit. That it’s so fucking important. That everyone thinks you’re great, is not (important). They’re looking at their phone. They don’t give a shit.”

[On dating] – “Don’t come as the groomed, normal, Chino jeans wearing, sort of Gap homogenized version of a being. It’s actually, when you fall in love with anybody it’s because of their uniqueness.”

“The actual you is uniquely, valuably, amazingly hilarious, with all your dark humor and all your silly ways and self deprecating ways, you talk about your vulnerability and everything else like that. It’s a breath of fresh air. The actual you is a breath of fresh air, is the truth. You just being honestly you, about how you feel, what your needing, how crazy you were yesterday. Then everyone can be, “Ahhh. I can be real too. What a fucking relief.”

“I’ve realised that the only criteria for deciding anything around what is valuable is how will you feel on your deathbed. And if I fast forward to my deathbed and I think of a life full of projects where I really fucking sucked the marrow out of every one of them and enjoyed all the people I was doing it with and really came up with stuff that resonated.”

Topics covered:

      • The keys to healthy Relationships
      • Dealing with our internal critic – “The DJs of headf*ck FM”
      • How to choose which creative project to tackle next
      • Why Jamie sometimes edits his films with the sound muted
      • The remarkable wisdom of spiritual teacher Ram Dass – and his one biggest message
      • One Giant Leap and the power of curating a showcase
      • Bursting the bubble of social media
      • The gift and evils of Facebook
      • Why it’s truer than ever that “Nobody knows anything”
      • How fellow member of Faithless, Dido become an international music megastar
      • Why should you make all your biggest creative decisions from the perspective of your deathbed
      • How to sidestep perfectionism and release your creative genius
      • The 3 minute trick to beat procrastination
      • Why ‘real is the new sexy’

Where to find Jamie:

ALL EPISODES

Show references:

Music provided by Argofox:
TheDiabolicalWaffle – My Wish
https://youtu.be/sRWEMjYR6e4

1 Giant Leap – I Love The Way You Dream (Feat, Michael Stipe)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmGoJuUTx1U