Podcast Week: #1 Silencing The Inner Critic with Danny Gregory

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This week on the blog, I’ll be featuring all podcast interviews — some me interviewing others, some others interviewing me — perfect for any vacation or long-weekend listening you might want to do, if you want to learn a little something too.

First up is Danny Gregory, author of many books on creativity including the latest, Shut Your Monkey: How to Control Your Inner Critic and Get More Done.Danny Gregory Shut Your Monkey books

Danny interviewed me for his new MonkeyPodcast.com and I realized while listening to it that his questions made me get a little philosophical and go a little deeper into the psychological aspects of the challenges I help my clients overcome.

The monkey does everything he can to keep your world small and to keep you from going out into the world and achieving your potential. He doesn’t seem to want you to think strategically about the big picture. Instead he wants you to imagine crazy things that could happen — and they’re usually bad, not good!

I even reveal the specific strategy I use when I start imagining crazy things…

In addition to the sound of his voice, I really love Danny’s take on the inner critic:

Hear that voice in your head? The one that nitpicks all your new ideas? That’s your monkey. And we’re gonna shut it down!

Here are a few of the questions we tackled:

  • Are creative people more prone to inner criticism than the average bear?
  • Why do creatives have so much invested in the commercial work we do for clients?
  • Why does the inner critic criticize everything?
  • Is the inner critic right when it says, “You don’t know what you’re doing?”
  • Is the inner critic more active early in one’s career?
  • What kind of messages does the monkey have for entrepreneurial creatives?
  • What does perfectionism do to people? And is it good or bad?

Here’s more:

  • Meet Your Monkey: Facing Your Inner Critic. Another post I wrote for the HOW Blog about how Danny has developed tools to live with his own monkey to become an “accidental entrepreneur” as well as an Artist, Author, Creative Director, Blogger, Teacher and Speaker.
  • Danny gave an inspiring presentation at HOW Design Live last month in Atlanta. And you can listen to my interview of him on the HOWLive podcast recently.

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