I felt a little shitty and inadequate last week for giving the podcast a bit of short shrift. So I decided to compensate for it this week.
First step: be a day late releasing the podcast and the newsletter. Check.
With that bit of self-flagellation out of the way, I do think this is a great episode. First there’s some very important stuff from the Book (note, capital B), all about how the monkey tries to nail labels on to us, categoricals that distort who we really are and limit our futures.
Then a profile of a vile and insidious monkey subspecies: the Utopian. You know that little crystal-ball-gazing bastard. It’s the one that says, “Your life could be so perfect, so much better than this if only you would listen to me. Instead, it sucks and so do you.” Don’t worry, I put that Monkey of the Week squarely in its place.
Next up, a Monkey Tale from Susanna. it’s a return visit for her— she was also my first guest, way back in Episode 2.
And finally, a longish a chat with a very special guest: Jennifer Louden. Jen is a personal growth pioneer who helped launch the self-care movement with her first book, The Woman’s Comfort Book. She has gone on to write 6 more books on wellbeing and whole living which have sold over million copies in 9 languages. She’s been invited to speak around the world, has been on hundreds of TV and radio shows, wrote a national magazine column for Martha Stewart, and has led retreats and workshops and online communities for the last 25 years.
Jen has just come out with an invaluable new book called How to Follow Through on Your Creative Desire.
This book is a serious first aid kit for your creativity. Full of salves to heal the inevitable setbacks of making stuff and different-shaped Band Aids for every type of wound. Every creative person should keep it handy and you can get your copy for free.
Just click here and it’s yours. FUH-ree.
Thanks again for tuning in. But please, give me some feedback, yo.
It makes a difference. F’r instance, I heard there were a few people grumbling that my first episodes were a little hard to hear and that may well have been the case, I don’t know, I don’t listen to podcasts myself.
I have given a severe talking to my audio engineering team here at Gregory® International, Inc. and even raised my voice a little to show how miffed I was and it would seem the problem has been helped, at least so my VP of Audio Tech claimed at our last offsite on the corporate yacht. Honestly, it seems that no matter how many PhDs and Grammies and nose rings people have, they still can’t be counted on to mix a decent sounding podcast. Sigh. You have no idea how hard it is being me.
So don’t just write to complain.
Anyway, I really must insist that you make this whole thing a 2-way road. I give you blood and sweat and, in return, I just want you to buy hundreds of copies of my books, to book me to speak at your local prison, to send me home-baked lo-carb desserts, to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave glowing 6-star reviews, to leave recordings of your monkey tales at dannygregory.com/monkey and to, once and for all, shut your monkey! Do it!
Or better yet, subscribe to the whole series on iTunes (and leave a nice review).
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 