Bear your fruit | Reflection

Topics covered include:

Isaac

All right, let's do this. Hey, thanks for stopping by. To be honest, this whole process has been so new and wild for me.

Even talking like this in front of a camera, I never thought I'd be doing something like this. And honestly, a lot of it has been so much trial and error. I've been learning a lot.

I mean, I just spent the last 15 minutes just trying to put this camera in the right position and figure out the right way to set things up. A constant evolution. But I just wanted to share, I spent some time.

My intention with these videos is to try to do some reflection. I think so often in my life, I find it hard to just take a beat and reflect and process some of the things that have gone in my life. And I just wanted to do that and make space for that here, but also share that with others.

So we'll try to weave this in every so often and just do a reflection. And that can be everything from an interview or a conversation, a topic, just something in my heart. And we'll continue to evolve this, but that's what I intend through this time.

Try to keep it short, 10 minutes or less. I'm sure I'm not going to get it right the first time, and I'm sure I'm going to have to do some light editing early on to just cut through the awkwardness and the ums and ahs and things like that. So please bear with me.

But the intention is to keep this relatively short, but thoughtful, and just to also keep it raw and unpolished and just share kind of what's on my heart and what I'm thinking. But in the early days, I think I'm just going to have to do a little bit more editing just to make sure that I can hit that time. So again, please bear with me.

I wanted to spend some time talking about my time with David and my conversation with him. I honestly could not have asked for a better first guest, especially not only in my personal journey, but also with the intent that I have with the topics that I would like to talk about through this platform. And the reason is David was just incredibly gracious.

I just love his spirit as a dad, as a creator, as someone who is also starting his own journey and publishing his own books, taking a different path than he expected. And it's been really refreshing and encouraging to be able to talk with him, not only in that conversation, but also in fall conversations, because we've both been to each other. I don't know if it was mentioned, but he's my neighbor.

He lives down the street. Our kids met at the playground, and they go to the same school, and so we've developed a connection there. And he immediately came to my mind as someone that would be great to interview.

And so I reached out to him, and he was super gracious, and even entertaining that idea with me and got through it. His words have been very impactful to me, and I've had them echoing in my head a lot, not only because I literally have to, because I've been editing, and I've been hearing the art conversation like three times now, but also is super relevant for my journey and what I'm starting here, the new beginnings that I'm starting on this journey with MAUM and the content that we're creating here. So I wanted to spend some time reflecting on that in this conversation, because I think there's some great little nuggets in there that I think are very relevant to me, but I think might be relevant also to you.

And so we talked a lot about creativity, specifically how to find joy in creativity. You know, David, I think, through the conversation, I found that he does just exude joy. Like he is someone, I've seen him not only in the context of the interview, but with his kids, the way he moves, the way, the things he's interested in, the things that make his eyes light up, he is very much about joy.

And in unpacking that with the creative process, it made me think, and part of the reason why I even started this was, I felt such a lack of that in the things that I was doing, my work, and I think a lot of us feel that. We show up to work our nine to five, we feel almost like dull and void of the things that we think the joy, the things that we think we should have in our vocations. And it made me think about why, why that is.

And I'd like to, I think one of the things that's been on my mind is we feel that way maybe because we're not expressing ourselves the way that we should. And not only the way that we should, but the way that we were made. So it would be like some of you guys are pineapples.

You're a plant that lives on the ground, and it grows and creates the spiky fruit. Some of us are apples. We grow in a tree.

We need to live in an orchard or something like that. When you put us, a pineapple, in a place where the apples grow, and an apple tree in a place where the pineapples grow, we're not, those fruits aren't able to express the true nature of who and what they were made to be. And I think for a lot of us in our work, that is the case.

We're placed in an environment or in a situation or in work that doesn't allow us to express the true nature of who we are and who we're made to be. I'll probably touch on that a little bit more because I have some more thoughts around that. But in seeing David, I think he got a clear signal of who he was.

He understood that joy was something that was deposited in him even long before he was born. It was through his family, through his inheritance. And I think as he's gone through his own journey, he's found that he needs to tap into that.

And that joy is what enables him to create, freely create the things that he creates, which right now is he's pursuing those self-publishing his dad jokebooks. And so the joy part really struck me as something that made me think about why we don't have that, but also how, I guess, is the next question. How do we even find what brings us joy?

We have this feeling, perhaps, in our day-to-day where something's missing, but how do we find that? I don't have a very clear answer to that. And everywhere you look on the internet and there's tons of YouTube videos and things like that, people might say, just do it.

Just go for it, just try it. I do think that the process is a lot more layered than that. And the creative process inherently, I think, invites and is, there is a lot of friction, and there's a lot of tension that goes on in the creative process.

I honestly think a lot of it is kind of like giving birth. Not that I know anything about that, but I have been around that for the birth of my two daughters. And so, I kind of from a far have encountered and thought a lot about that whole process and how just weird and crazy and brutal that is.

But when I think about creativity, it is like carrying a baby. You might have an idea, a creative idea or something that's in you, and it has this need to come out. And initially, for some of us, we entertain those ideas or the creative pursuits.

We just do it. And it's kind of this euphoric season. It's similar to when you find out when you're gonna have a baby.

There's so much joy and elation surrounding it, and you start to dream, and you start to think about all the possibilities of this being that might be joining your family. And it's a great time. Some of us invite that and are in a space and time where we can experience that.

Others of us, I think, the journey is, we actually don't even entertain that. And so we continue to go on and maybe don't even experience that boost of euphoria or that energy behind our creative pursuits or our ideas. But fast forward along the way, and you're getting closer towards that nine month period, and I think the reality starts to set in, and you start to have these thoughts of, oh man, am I gonna be a good parent?

What stroller are we gonna use? What kind of bottles and bibs and toys and all these things? And is the house ready?

Is the crib been built? All these things. The reality of the nuts and bolts of the things that you need to do to prepare for this thing, for this child to be born, I think start to become real and alive.

Similarly, I found in this creative process, you start digging in, maybe you make the leap, and you just do it, and you just start, you start playing with the different editing tools, the different cameras, the stands, the music, all these things, and there's this friction, there's this reality that comes through, where it's like, oh man, this is happening, I'm doing this, and I don't have it all figured out. How do I move forward? That friction pushes up against us.

And then I think as we get closer to say the birth, or to the time when maybe you have your work ready, and you're ready to hit publish or whatever, is the fear. The fear comes in like such a strong wave against what your ideas or your creative pursuits or this thing that you want to birth new into the world, it really starts to hit. You start to question, am I good enough?

Did I make this good enough? Can I do this? In the creative world, I think there's the fear of what will others think.

Maybe less so with having a child, but definitely when you're trying to put yourself out there, what are others going to think? This fear is real and is tangible. And then I would say, once you are in labor, it's incredibly painful.

There's these ups and downs of emotions. You're stuffing yourself in the car, driving as fast as you can to the hospital, getting there, and then these ups and downs, these waves of the labor that goes through. And I think for a lot of us, the creative process initially, and for a lot of ideas, or maybe you're starting a business, whatever it is, there are these labor pains until it comes out.

And when the child comes out, I think there is a moment of release. When your idea or your creation, your new thing is out, there is a moment of release. And so I feel like so much of the creative process, to me actually, is like giving birth to something.

And through that, there's also another thought I had, which is, what if you were able to just go through the pregnancy, but then maybe you let your fear come in, and you decide, oh, I don't want to do this, or I don't want this baby to come out, not that you don't want the baby, it's just, I don't want this baby to come out. And thank God, there is no option for that. But in our creative pursuits, we do have that option.

We can just decide not to do it, to pull the plug. And I feel like in that, I'm not sure where I'm going with that, other than some of the greatest things, which for me, having daughters and children is one of the greatest, being a dad is one of the greatest things. Some of those things, the momentum just kind of pushed us into it.

With becoming a parent and having a child, you have those moments of fear. I still do, even as I'm trying to raise them, you're in it. And so it is almost a part of your life, I guess is what I'm saying.

It's a fabric of who you are, like I am a dad from here on out. And I cannot change that no matter how many ups and downs, how many failures and successes I have in that. 90% of it is just so much work.

And then there's a 10% that like these glimmers of where the kids are just acting wonderfully, or just like cooing or like coming and giving you, showing you so much love. It's small and few and far between in parenthood. You parents know.

But if that were the case in any other pursuit, why would we choose to continue on? But in the world of being a parent, those one out of 10 moments make it all worth it. And I think what I'm trying to say here is that, if you have an idea, if you have something that you wanna do, the pains are gonna be inevitable.

You will have to go through those labors of pain to kinda go through the fears, the doubts. But if you treat it as if it is a part of your life, as if it is part of the process, I think that's something that we can all tap into. And in David's case, I think what we found is, he tapped into that joy, that inheritance of joy from his family, and now he's applying it in his creative pursuit.

So he has this very rich connection, which I think is enabling him to find the right juice to continue on, and the right expression, where he gets to express himself as if he is the pineapple, gets to express himself as the pineapple. And I just see him, and I've heard through the interview, just like that coming through so clearly, that he is on this path of really finding joy in his creativity for once. After many decades of being in and around creativity, as a creative director and designer and things like that, but maybe not expressing himself to the fullest, to the unique way that he maybe has been made.

And it was just cool to see that. The other thing that I found very compelling about and interesting about my conversation with David was the fact that his work is not limited to himself. He felt this need and this desire to share.

And first of all, sharing with his family and his children. So creating this work and these jokes was his way to connect and give his inheritance and his creative energy to his children. But also then to expand that to all the kids that now can experience his jokes through his books, putting it out there, going around and telling these jokes to kids all across the town, really putting himself out there.

And it made me think about one aspect of the creative process, which I think it is to share. And what I mean by that is, even for me, I felt being the hardcore introvert that I am, this is so wild, I don't want to do this. I found joy in the process, and I had ups and downs with it, but I found joy in actually pulling out the laptop and the mic, and like trying to create and edit and things like that.

But I wanted to stop there. I wanted to just be like, okay, well, I have to share it with anyone. One of my deep intentions was actually to share this with my children, to interview people and to create content that I can somehow catalog and share it with my kids.

And that would have been good, and that would have been fine. But then as I sat with it, and as I sat with this conversation, I realized that sharing is so much a part of the creative process. To allow people to interact with the things that you have made and partake is actually necessary and is a great part of the creative process.

Going back to the fruit analogy, you ever think about why the fruit tastes so good? Why is it that it was made that way that some animal or person could partake in that? We could get down to the function and the mechanics of like it's so that we could, the fruit can spread the seed and stuff like that, which is also great.

But the way that it was made, it was made to partake with some other thing. And I feel like for us, if we can express ourselves the way that we can express ourselves uniquely, but then not only do that in a hidden place, but also express that and share that. I think that's something that is very much a part of the fabric of life.

So when I think about our conversation and what David, as we were talking through, it just became so clear to me that this through line was appearing as I got to know his family history, as I got to know his present work, that it was truly a lineage and an inheritance that David was expressing. He was expressing his family's legacy of being joyful people. And he somehow was able to, in this season of his life, find it connecting to his expressions and the way that he expresses himself, which is through illustration and through these jokes, and to now share that and hand that down to the next generation.

And I feel like there's something there for all of us, where if we could maybe flip the script, maybe you're like me, you were working at this job, and just struggling to find the right energy, the right motivation. It just felt very empty, an empty pursuit. Maybe if we flip the script and start thinking about how creativity is honestly a way to share our legacy, not only if you're a dad or a mom or a parent, maybe you can think about your kids first and foremost, that part of your legacy is to share with them how to create.

Then I wonder if that will encourage some of us to take that step forward, to try that thing that you've been thinking about, that idea that you have in your head, whether it's a business or an art project or cooking or even something as wild as trying to build content and have conversations and things like that. Like, if we think about this being a part of our inheritance, who we are and sharing that legacy with the next generation, I wonder if that might help us to finally do it and try it and we talked about it a little bit in the podcast, but your kids see it. My kids now are seeing me walking around with a camera.

Sometimes they're helping me to film stuff. They see dad tinkering with something. And it's incredible because I realize in my decade of like being in tech and stuff, like I never really, I don't think I brought my kids to work.

My kids, I don't think they understood what I did, especially when I was working remote. I would just say goodbye, walking upstairs, going to my office. And my kids associated my work with, oh, dad goes upstairs.

You know, but as you create things, I think something beautiful about that, if you can let your kids see it, is they get to see it. And it's real for them. And they understand, start to make that connection of, okay, this is something dad is doing, or mom is doing, they're creating this.

And I think they connect the dots that, oh, I can create something too. And so I just wanted to encourage folks with that, because I was there too. I had these ideas, but that tension, that friction to try to get over that, it's really hard to get over.

And I don't think, while just doing it is very true, I think where your heart is and your mentality is, your intention surrounding that, it really pushed me over. A whole big reason why I even decided to do this was honestly thinking about what can I leave for my kids. And in my work that I was doing, I realized I didn't really have anything to offer.

Yes, I provided and had a stable job and a salary, and there's many experiences of things we had there, but as far as imparting the things I've learned, letting them hear and experience and see what dad is maybe interested in and what he creates, I had really nothing else to offer. And so a big push was actually me being a dad and thinking about my legacy and thinking about what I can leave with my kids. And I would argue that being creative is a legacy that has been passed down from generation to generation, and it's something that we should be doing, and we can impart to our kids.

And to do it uniquely, don't try to be an apple when you're a pineapple. Don't try to be a pineapple when you're an apple, just expressing yourself the unique way that you were made. I think that's the key, because we can express ourselves in our day-to-day jobs.

But I think the challenge is, most of the time, we're not expressing ourselves uniquely the way that we are made to be. I know for myself and my job, even though I felt like I was relatively successful and did well, I constantly felt like I was becoming less of myself. I was maybe conforming or trying to be something that I wasn't, and that didn't sit well with me.

And I think that the reason why work can be so hard for a lot of us, even though we might enjoy a lot of successes, is once you enjoy enough success, that ache inside starts to kick in, where it's like, but you're not doing what you are made to be. You're not expressing yourself the way that you know you should be. And so all that said, I think this is beyond 10 minutes.

Maybe I just had a lot that I wanted to share with, and maybe this will just be the one exception. We'll get better. I would just say that in thinking about the conversation I had with David, and reflecting on some of the nuggets that really hit me and were impactful to me, it's really trying to find joy in the process.

Being okay with it being the cadence of wrong, wrong, wrong. Yes, wrong, wrong, wrong, right. Similar to parenting.

So much I feel in my day-to-day is wrong, wrong, wrong. And then there's like glimmer of that special moment you had, or the way your kid reacts to something, and it makes it all seem fine. But hanging on and clinging to those moments, and being okay with a process that's messy and broken, I think is one of my takeaways in the creative process.

Finding joy, saying yes more often, and trying it, I think, is something that I'll take away. The other is this idea that there's an inheritance that we have, a legacy that we can carry on and share with our kids, which is creativity. It's free.

It's the one thing I think that we can impart to our kids freely. Think about, for you, all that are parents, one of the first toys or things we sit down often with our kids and do is play with that playdough or that ball of clay, that blank piece of paper and that crayon, the role-playing and imagination of being the dragon and the dinosaur, right? Like those are things that we, it's free, and it's a legacy that we can impart to them.

And it's something that I believe all of us have within us. And then finally, what I'm taking away is to express yourself the way that you are made to express. And I think taking some time sitting through, thinking about that, thinking about your legacy in conjunction with that, I think can actually be a very freeing thing.

And I hope that it opens you up to a path and a journey to more life. Thanks for sticking around this long. I promise next time, we'll try to make it closer to 10 minutes, but I just wanted to share my reflection with you all.

Thanks.

Glossary

Pursuing Joy in Creativity with David DaCosta (001 - GENESIS - MAUM - SUMMER'25)

MAUM