DBP 000: What This Show Is About

Welcome to the very first episode of the Dan Barrett Show. Today we’re kicking things off by letting you know what this podcast is all about.

I've had some wild rides in my journey from being a musician to running a successful business, and I've picked up some pretty cool insights along the way. This podcast is my way of sharing those nuggets and chatting with some amazing people who have their own wisdom to share. 

Whether you’re into business, art, or any related field, there’s something here for you. Check out more at betterquestions.co and get the best stuff straight to your inbox. Let’s get started!

Show Highlights:

• The interesting yet weird side of this new show [00:43]
• Discover insights from people from different fields [01:44]
• Do you think there is a deficit in your skillset? [03:04]
• Find out how oppositionality in perspectives works [04:52]
• This shift in thought pattern that you need [06:07]
• The never-ending process of learning [06:22]
• You can learn anything with this mindset [07:42]
• Learn about the flipside of always trying to improve [08:33]

Transcript:

00:09

Hello. What's up? This is Daniel Barrett, and you're listening to the Dan Barrett podcast, the very first episode of this show,. It's a pleasure to be here. And I wanted to record this introduction because I think the show is a little weird, and I wanted to explain why.

00:35

And I actually recorded a version of this episode once already, and I asked my podcast team to delete it because I had all sorts of feelings about it. I felt like I was puffing myself up a bit. So let me back up and actually be a little bit more honest, a little bit more vulnerable about this show and what you're going to hear on it and why I wanted to do it. See, for the last several years, I've had a podcast for my primary business, and I have loved doing it. I've loved interviewing people. I've loved hearing about their lives and what they learn and what makes them good at what they do. But ultimately, it was very, very focused just on one particular industry, and it wasn't an industry that I had a lot of personal interest in per se, it was just that I found people interesting, and particularly people who are good at what they do.

01:30

And so when I sort of wound that podcast down, and I was looking around for a next project, I really wanted to do a podcast where I got to dig in with people of all different shapes, Stripes and colors, different industries, different skill sets, different world views. And I realized that what I was really looking to do was to dedicate this kind of next chapter of my career to learning and studying and trying to take the best of what I've learned and the best of what other people have learned, and to teach that, to put it in some kind of usable structure, some kind of scaffolding that I could hang things on, in order to actually take those ideas and use them in my own life, because I will tell you,

02:26

I've been very lucky. I've done a lot of amazing things in my life. I've had

a wonderful career. I've had an artistic, musical career that I'm still shocked by. You know, I've made more money than I thought I would ever make, which is, you know, by other people's standards, not a ton, but in my mind more than enough. I've got an incredible family, I've got a great relationship.

02:52

These are all things I want to be clear. I never thought I would be able to have, because I perceived myself as coming from a huge deficit, like I just felt everybody else knew things that I didn't. I thought that other kids had some kind of special operators manual to social skills or to getting along in class, or to doing well in school, or to making friends, it just felt like everybody was seeing something that I wasn't,

03:28

and I honestly didn't believe I would be able to get over that.  And what helped me, I still remember this. I was in college, and I was, you know, I was fully committed to this idea that I was a weirdo and sort of uniquely disadvantaged. You know, of course, looking back now, I see that viewpoint for how limited it was and how, you know, sheltered I was, but at the time, I just felt like there are people who have it and there are people who don't. And I don't have something, but I don't have it. Whatever it is that allows people to sort of get by with other people and be popular and be successful. I don't have those things. So I was leaning all the way into the fact that I didn't have them. I said, if I, if I can't have them, I don't want them, right? Like, I, I would say, you know, if the popular kids know about social skills, well, that's because social skills are stupid,

04:33

and I can't have them, so I don't want them. And I still have this part of my personality today, this part of my personality that says, like, well, if I can't have it, then it's bad.

Not a part of myself I'm super proud of, but it's there. There's a kind of oppositionality to me.  If you're not with me, you are against me, right? Again, not a part of myself that I'm proud of. 

05:00

Yeah, but I still remember I was in this phase of my life. I was in college. I had a very, very small, I mean, maybe one or two people, group of friends. And I remember reading the book How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, which, of course, is a classic of the genre. And Carnegie's advice is not earth shattering. It's not anything that anybody hasn't heard, shake a person's hand, look them in the eyes, say their name. You know, it's pretty basic,

05:33

but at the time for me, it was earth shattering. And it was earth shattering because it was the first time I really bought the idea that I could learn social skills.  It was the first time I bought the idea that it wasn't that I was the kind of person who couldn't it was simply that I hadn't learned how to do it yet. And that shift, although it feels subtle, was really profound, and it kicked off this process of learning and improving that continues with me to this day, for good and for ill. There's certainly people in my life that will tell you that my drive to constantly make everything better is not always super fun to be around.

06:33

And I get that I completely accept that it's a double edged sword, to be sure, most swords are but for me, it was a lifeline. It was a belief that gave me hope and really turned my life around in the moment where I needed it most.  And so when I was looking for this, next chapters, next group of things to work on next set of projects. I knew I wanted to talk to people about how they learned what they've learned, how they learned to do what they do, and to really get their perspective on things.

07:19

And so that's what this podcast is it's an ode to learning, because I'm always learning. I have so much to learn so little time.  So in a lot of ways, it's an ode to that gift I was given, this belief that you know you you may not be able to do it now, but it's just because you haven't learned how to yet. And so what I want to do with this show is to just bring in people from so many different walks of life, business people, artists, academics, people who are interested in obscure things or obscure corners of the world, people who are working day in and day out to get better at stuff, and people who are gonna tell us that we don't need to get better at things necessarily, because we're all already complete and perfect, just as we are.

08:27

That's been a lesson I've only gotten to very, very late, because that's the flip side. If you're always learning and you're always improving, you're never done and you're never content. So balancing those two things, that's what I think this project is going to be all about, and it's going to be weird, and it's going to go all over the place. And I really cannot tell you how much I appreciate you being here to come along for the ride.

08:58

So I look forward to hearing from you, you can find me over at my blog, better questions, which is better questions.co?  You can subscribe to get one email from me a week with the best of what I'm learning and reading, and I would love to share that with you, and thank you for listening to this show or truly, deeply appreciate it, and I cannot wait to see what comes of it. This is Dan Barrett signing off. I will see you very soon.