Ever since Baudelaire and his pals started wolfing down hashish, absinthe and laudanum, we’ve been stuck with this lie that creativity is best fueled by getting wasted.
Have you heard of the 27 Club? Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse … they are just a few members of this mythical group of creative people who died at 27, thanks to drugs, booze or suicide. Romantic, but stupid.
In fact this is just another monkey con to distract us from what we are supposed to be doing, creating intoxicating ideas, rather than firing up the bong or draining the keg.
The Monkey of the Week is the Enabler. It’s that voice that says: Have a drink, you deserve it. Get high, it’ll make you more creative. Act like a prima donna, you’re a star. I’ll give you some thoughts about why that’s uncool and how to cut it off pronto.
This week, I am joined by Victor Yocco, author and psychologist, who shares how he wasted a fair amount of his life by pounding drinks instead of the keyboard. When he finally sought help and turned his life around, Victor was able to write the book he and the monkey had been putting off for years.
Click here to find out more about Victor’s new book, Design for the Mind – Seven Psychological Principles of Persuasive Design. Use the discount code: yoccomupad to get 39% off the book if you order through the publisher.
Listen to the new episode here:
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Or you can visit monkeypodcast.com and listen to the episodes right in your browser.
What’s your experience with your monkey? How has it affected you, and how have you overcome it? Record your Monkey Tale at dannygregory.com/monkey.
Danny Gregory 
Hi Danny, just wanted to say thanks for this great project you are doing about the monkey, I have ordered your book and am really looking forward to reading it. I have listened to a few of the monkey podcasts and find them really encouraging to hear that everyone does struggle with the monkey but you don’t have to let it hold you back.
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100% not true that you do better intoxicated (though I admit to ahving never done LSD, so no comment there.). But I will say that when getting sober, you THINK that you will never find that creative button. Then you keep on putting pen to paper and find that being awake and alive is better. Then you get really creative!
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No wish to argue with you Danny,
but : Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, and MANY more others, … DID NOT HAD the chance to read your books (in time). Being in that , …”pounding drinks instead of the keyboard” seems like the single hand you can see to get you out of darkness.
But, yeah :0) …,What do I know ?
I haven’t got the “Shout your monkey” book, yet… because i not to, unless i’m reading your previous one: “The art before breakfast” :0(
I know, is like …”what’s the point of singing (/ writing books for that meter,) if…” …you know…
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Thanks again for your inspiring writings, videos, podcasts (hasn’t listen much thou / i’m behind on that too, and on the SBS homeworks and on the…etc, etc,…my list is too long for the space you have here :0)
Nikita
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[…] creative and trying new things) by being courageous enough to get another monkey off his back. Click here to listen to the podcast, and to get a discount code that will give you 39 percent off V…Listen with a sketchpad and pen at hand; you never know how you might be […]
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