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Success

Becky Blades: The “StARTist” – Joel Goldberg Media

Success / January 11, 2023

Success as a topic has always interested me. At surface level, it may seem easy to define. But the more you think about it, the more difficult the job becomes. It’s part of what makes it so much fun to explore.

In concept, people often equate success to achievement. I see the comparisons regularly as a keynote speaker. The corporations I speak to ask for help improving the efficacy of leadership and strengthening team bonds. They’re intangible skills that help optimize employee performance. Help the company win more business. Help them achieve success. 

These comparisons become even more pronounced as a sports broadcaster for the Kansas City Royals. If one of our players knocks the ball out of the park, it’s an immediate success. But what about the guy after him who stepped into the batter’s circle…only to strike out trying?

success

It begs the question: how do we measure success? In November, I was joined on my podcast Rounding the Bases by one guest who measures it not by what you finish, but rather by what you have the initiative to begin.

Her name is Becky Blades, the artist, award-winning entrepreneur and delightfully quick-witted author who beckons you to give your ideas a fighting chance. After all, only YOU know where they want to go.

Her latest literary project, Start More Than You Can Finish, is a poignant celebration of the art of beginnings, a little something she calls stARTistry. With musings rooted in first-hand experience, she helps you bring every inkling to life…and add color to your own along the way.

SINGLE: A New Start

When one door closes, another opens. And it certainly proved true for Becky, whose most significant success began with the ending of another.

Before she became an author, Becky ran her own PR firm. It was a small start that grew into something bigger than she ever could have imagined. But after fifteen years of prized performance, she decided to sell, making room in her life for the writing, visual art and other things she hoped to pursue.

“As I was out there, just really enjoying that stage of my life, I started meeting all of these people I wanted to hang around with,” she remembered. These stARTists, as she came to call them, were artists, entrepreneurs and writers who didn’t just have great ideas…they were putting them into action. “I realized that that’s what I wanted to talk about for the rest of my life.”

DOUBLE: Step One

We all have ideas. But how will you know what they’re made of if you never act on them? Finding the courage to take the first step can be the most challenging of all. Luckily, it’s also the first one you conquer after deciding to act. And what helps the other pieces start falling into place.

Start More Than You Can Finish is based as much on experiential knowledge as it is on fact. While writing her book, Becky studied the neurological impact of initiating action. It’s something known in the scientific community as the Zeigarnik Effect. “Our brain holds on to something that is unfinished but started,” she told me. Doing so it helps move that unfinished thing forward.

While seeing an idea through to the end may be one form of success, it’s not the only one. Trials, errors and lessons learned all play an important role in shaping our ideas, whether current or future. And even though today’s start may never reach a finish, it may be the beginning of a new idea that does.

“We have to honor those false starts,” she said, speaking about things that don’t end as intended. Maybe they remain under indefinite development. Maybe they evolve into something different. But they had purpose, which is a success in itself.  “Because they’re not false in the first place,” Becky told me. “They’re starts that we should celebrate.”

TRIPLE: Start at the End

Aspiring authors are encouraged to write the thing that only they can write. But how do you figure out what that thing is to begin with? For Becky, it was waiting for her at the end of a scavenger hunt.

“I don’t know what it was that set me on that,” she recalled. But it led her to rediscover half-drawn sketches, business plans and countless other ideas left unfinished. She also realized that she was really good at starting things. “They were victories to me,” Becky said. “I had all of these ideas…and I DID something with them.”

HOME RUN: Creative Spirit

Becky’s book is a creative permission slip to unleash your best ideas. The subtitle literally says so. And even though it encourages people to make the leap from dreamer to doer, the greatest success of her book doesn’t depend on watching ideas take flight. Speaking of her end goal, she told me, “It would be to put stARTist in the vernacular.”

The word was actually coined when her two daughters happened across a curious juxtaposition: Becky making art in her home studio…while wearing a suit. In that moment, was she an artist? A business person? “She’s a stARTist,” one of them declared. And so the word was born.

It perfectly captures the spirit of everything Becky hopes to inspire. From embracing the unfinished to celebrating the complete, each brings you closer to success, however it is defined. “No creativity is wasted,” she said. “Every start leads to something.”

Listen to the full interview here or tune into Rounding the Bases every Monday and Thursday, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Learn More About Success from Joel

Book Joel Goldberg for your next corporate event. He draws on over 25 years of experience as a sports broadcaster. In addition, he brings unique perspectives and lessons learned from some of the world’s most successful organizations. Whatever your profession, Joel is the keynote speaker who can help your team achieve a championship state of mind.

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Full Transcript:

Joel Goldberg 0:19
Hey everybody welcome into Rounding the Bases, the podcast about culture and leadership with a baseball twist presented by Community America Credit Union: Believe in Unbelievable. We’re in in November. If you’re listening to this around the release date of the podcast, you might be listening to this in 2026. I don’t know. But my name is still, whatever year it is, Joel Goldberg. Quick shout out to my friends at Chief of Staff Kansas City. I’ve got a great event coming up with them in the offseason. I do a lot of work with them. And they’re a great partner to this show. So if you’re in the business of hiring someone, looking to be placed, just looking for a resource, just check them out, go to their website, they care about people. And their tagline is Making Connections That Matter. Chiefofstaffkc.com. They’re great partners and friends of the podcast. As for friends, my guest today really has some exciting news coming on or coming up right now. So I ask the question: How do you measure success? If you ask today’s guest, it’s not by what you finish, but rather what you have the initiative to begin. Her name is Becky Blades, the Artist, award-winning entrepreneur and delightfully quick witted author who beckons you to give your ideas a fitting chance. Or if I’m reading things, right, it will be a fighting chance. It’s one thing to write them, it’s another thing to read them. I don’t want to mess up the great creative script writing of the incredible Ashleigh Sterr, but I’ll get that right. Anyway, after all, only you know where they want to go. Her latest literary project is a poignant celebration of the art of beginnings, a little something she calls stARTistry. With musings rooted in firsthand experience, she helps you bring every inkling to life and add color to your own along the way. I am excited right now to be able to visit with Becky Blades who has something really exciting coming up here right, like, now. Becky, how are you?

Becky Blades 2:20
I am just great. And so good to be here. And can I have a copy of that introduction? Because that’s some startistic wordplay there.

Joel Goldberg 2:29
Yes. I need to say this before we get started. Because somewhere in the last year-plus, 14 months, I started having most guests say, Can I get a copy of that? Actually, we should. It is because when I hired my executive assistant, Ashleigh Sterr, and I could write I mean, I love writing. I did write my own book. I’ve been writing for 28, well, more than 28 years, because I started writing back when I was in high school and all that type of stuff. But I love writing. But when you don’t always have the time to put the thought into everything, you have to have good people. And so I just want to give that shout out. Because I’m telling you, Becky, I have more people that say to me, can I get a copy of what was just written? And that’s the great Ashleigh Sterr who puts incredible thought into this. So she does have that stARTistry that you’re talking about, but wanted to give her her due. Let’s talk about this. We got a book release going on here. Tell me about it?

Becky Blades 3:28
Yes, well, you know, we’re recording this on a Friday and the Tuesday coming up, the book is out there. And you know, I’ve held a copy in my little hands, but it’s been on preorder for weeks and months. So, you know when, as you as you know, with your book, when it starts to get in people’s hands and they and you start getting feedback, that’s when it all pays off. Because it’s a slog, am I right? And even even when I was writing it, and you’d have people read it, people come back to me and say, oh, gosh, this inspired me. I went out and bought power tools. This, I’ve started a book. I mean, they’ve just in the in the early readings, it has done what is my dream for it, and that is to make people act on their ideas.

Joel Goldberg 4:25
It is, I know, a passion of yours. It was something like I think any book that that we all, if we’re writing, put so much into. But I know that this one really means so much to you. Why is that and tell me about the book.

Becky Blades 4:42
Okay. Well, I had a public relations company for 15 years. Then I decided to sell it to do all of the other things that I wanted to do. And it was really hard to decide, because I have a lot of interests. But as I was out there, just really enjoying that stage of my life, I started meeting all of these, these people I wanted to hang around with. StARTists, I started to come to call them, you know, artists, entrepreneurs, writers. People that are making things happen. And I realized that, that that’s what I wanted to talk about for the rest of my life. I call it a getting old plan. Because if we can find that thing that we never tire of, then depression, you know, the depression of old age doesn’t loom so large. And it wasn’t only that. I, you know, was with these people who were acting on their ideas, of course, life put me in, in the rooms with people who had great ideas and weren’t acting on them. And that was the biggest tragedy, I could see. And so I just found myself saying, you know, what, when I wrote a book, someone would say, Oh, I have an idea for a book. And I would listen. And I would say, you should write that book, because every single idea was a worthy one. Now, would it sell to 5000 people? 500,000 people? Or would it be a Christmas present for grandma? It doesn’t matter. I’ve never met an author that regretted writing their book. So this is my way to, instead of talking to one person at a time and saying, Yeah, you should write that. Or you should start that business and and see where the idea takes you. So, obviously, I can go on and on.

Joel Goldberg 6:37
Well, let’s go on and on from this standpoint that, just in the title, right? Start More Than You Can Finish: A Creative Permission Slip to Unleash Your Best Ideas. You name any activity, that people say, Well, I started it, or I don’t know if I want to start it, because well, I got this going on. And I I think the greatest example of that, and I’m sure you would agree with me on it, is the amount of people and this isn’t everyone that say, you know, I’d love to write a book one day, I’ve got a whatever that I’d love to share with people, but I got this going and and they’re probably never going to, and that’s fine. Maybe they shouldn’t. But what I tell people is jot down those ideas and just go start. And that’s just one example.

Becky Blades 7:25
Exactly.

Joel Goldberg 7:26
And by the way. I am. I mean, I feel hypocritical in many ways here, because I have like 1,000 things that I’ve started, if you even look at just TV. My wife gives me a hard time about this all the time. I’ll start binge watching 15 shows and episodes of any of them. And I don’t think that’s a productive thing. But my point is, we’re all all over the place. We are all over the place. And so it’s it’s very tough to find that focus in this day and age to get anything but I think if I’m understanding and all right, you’re saying just jump in there and go? What what is that process like? What does it do for you?

Becky Blades 8:01
Right? Well, well, the start the beginning, the first step has this swag bag of benefits. And until we open it, we don’t know what’s inside. And one of the things that I found out in studying neuroscience is that just that initiation. If we do it, in talking about it, is not doing it. Right? If we really find out what starting an idea is, and we take action, it installs in us something neuroscientists called the Zeigarnik Effect. Which is we our brain holds on to something that is unfinished, but started and kind of acts as a homing device to find information, to find people, you know, our ears are kind of perked up for the information that moves it forward. So kind of sets in motion, this momentum that we don’t have to push. Now, and I know you’re clearly a StARTist too, Joel. I mean, you’ve started a journalist or start is to begin with, I mean, every day they start a show, every line out of your mouth is a creation. And then you’ve started a book and you’ve started podcasts. Now all of these things I’ve named are things you have finished. So we have to honor each of those finishes. All of the false starts, are they’re not false in the first place. They are starts that we should celebrate. And so the the you know, the reason for the title of the book is to title the book that you know gives people’s interest. Start More Than You Can Finish. Of course, I want you to finish. Finishing is always the end the game. But how do you know what the idea is made of if you don’t start? And then what Finish might be that you’ll learn too? Lessons, the finish might be a big old pivot, which you know, businesses love to talk about. But the if we put too much focus on the finish, it keeps us from starting a business. For example, a my small business got bigger than I ever dreamed. But when I started it, if you would have said, Okay, back the one of these days, you’re gonna have multi million dollars in billings and your, your net every month is going to be in the six figures, I would never have started that company. I started a tiny little agency, and it grew to that gradually. And I discovered along the way that I could handle more and more risk. So and there are people I know who will not start a business because they haven’t figured out one that can make them a billionaire. Well, like, oh, I don’t have the idea. This is not a scalable, high tech company. Well, you don’t know. And it keeps the the focus on the finish. Whether it’s making it unrealistic, or making it something you don’t have time for. So let’s take the example of you not having time to start that one more thing. You do have time to start, you may not have time to finish it with your where your life is right now. But the start, I think if we if it’s really something that we’re meant to do, it’ll be like, I suppose having an affair as like or falling in love, we will, we will find a way to make time for it. And we just have to open that door and to people who are in a stage of life where maybe they do like their job, but they’re wondering if there’s something else and they have an idea for you know, the best taco truck. Well do it as a side hustle. I mean, find what’s the smallest way that you can initiate that idea.

Joel Goldberg 12:34
So I think what, what I’m hearing and learning from you is that one, you can’t get anywhere that could turn into something good if you don’t start it. That makes so much sense. But in our minds, I think we think, Well, I don’t have time for that, well, maybe another time. And so we give ourselves reason not to start, but the simplest point is that we’re never gonna get there unless we try, right? I mean,

Becky Blades 15:44
Exactly. And it’s just like, every time management class you take, if you chunk it up, we all have its priorities, okay? But you’re, we’re not going to make a priority of something that is nothing yet. Because there are too many things pulling on us that are real, right? So we’ve got to make it real. And once we, you know, we just make a decision to be stARTists. So that’s the bigger part of the book, you know, after you have to buy the mindset, that starting that creative initiative is good for you. It’s good for us, it makes you happy, it’s key to thriving. So it’s worth it’s worth taking this risk, to make it a priority to practice starting, because, you know, this might be a small ball question. But it, it has to be easy to face that blank page, the stakes need to get lower, and then making something real, and putting it up on the plate of our lives. For that time management is changes and then producing, you’re choosing between three great already started ideas. And that’s the better problem to have than dying with all your ideas unexplored.

Joel Goldberg 17:18
Yeah, don’t don’t leave money on the table, essentially, is what you’re saying. So how did that process go for you over the years? I mean, you look at the evolution of your career, that you mentioned, having that firm and, and selling that and, and you’re an artist, you’re a writer, you’re, you’re doing so much. Could you have ever envision that in your early years?

Becky Blades 17:42
I’m actually, you know, we never know what we’re going to be when we’re young. But I realizing that I’m pretty good at this was my big aha. You know, they say write the thing that only you can write, you know, you write about stuff you’re good at. And in my 40s, I realized that I was really good at starting things. And I went on a scavenger hunt in my home after my kids left to find all the things that I had started and not finished. And this was kind of set in motion because I wasm after I sold the company. I didn’t do anything big for a while. I did a lot of little things. I was having a blast, but somebody said something to kind of shame me like, did you finish that thing? Or what are you doing? Really, I don’t know what it was that set me on the on the hunt. But I counted up all the things that I had not finished. And I learned a lot of things. I learned that all of those things, I learned something. From I found some stuff I forgot. And I thought oh, well, that was pretty good, little 22 year old Becky. Way to go. But I but I also found that all of those things felt good. They were victories to me. I mean, a sketch that was half done. Or I found business plans for three companies that I never started, you know, that I never made money from, but the business plan was the start. And I just realized, you know, I had all these ideas and I did something with them. And I know all these people who who aren’t even trying with one and I considered myself in midlife it you know in those in my 40s. So I just realized that this is something I do really well and so I started getting introspective about why I’m good at that and I learned things about my childhood and things that set me up for that. Part of it is that that you have to I mean, one thing that gives us initiative is negligent parents. Mine mine weren’t but If you have to figure stuff out on your own, you have a little bit of a free range childhood, you’re quicker to take action, and then using the creative process to move it to move it forward. But just the you know, when I learned that, hey, I’m good at this. I knew, wow, this person, this really successful sculptor, I know who also does this. And this, I bet he is really good at it, too. So I started talking to people like yourself, other startups to maybe we’re doing, you know, lots of different things. Once I talked to them, I found out they were doing more than I realized. And then talking to people who weren’t taking initiative to find out, they were either very creative, but we’re saying the things like you’re saying, I don’t you know, I have a full life, I don’t have time. And so I kind of say, well, why are you talking about it? Because you keep talking about this some something, clearly it’s an idea. It’s of you, it’s by you. It’s, you should give it life. So putting it together, I found myself coaching people to get them started. And kind of trying to count and research. Is this, you know, is this just an observation of one or two people? I did some, what do you call it? Survey Monkey surveys. And I just found out there’s some some very strong trends, about starting and not starting. Starting as a skill that we can practice and then we can improve. And it I kind of set out the formula based on what I learned in neuroscience and all there’s four parts and they can all be practiced and strengthened.

Joel Goldberg 22:00
Yeah, I was thinking about this that somewhat recently. My wife and I watched the entire width of the theaters. And we saw the David Bowie documentary, which was absurdly ridiculous in the best of ways. I mean, he was a really bizarre, strange, like, otherworldly talented man that, you know, I was probably mostly known as being a rock star, being a musician, but, I mean, he was just as good as an artist and man, like a million things. And watching it, it was, it was fascinating. Now, it was really just trippin crazy. This guy was on another world in terms of his talents across the board. And it occurred to me that he was never bored, because whenever he got bored, he just did something else. And then he mastered it. Now, most people don’t have the ability to take everything to that level. But it almost, when I was watching it, it wasn’t when we were watching it. I thought, we are told whether it be by society or internally in our heads, or both, that we’re supposed to focus on that one thing or those couple things. And he was the opposite. He just said, Yeah, sure. I’m good at this. And I’m making money at this. But I’m, I want to try something else. And that really, in essence, I think is what this is, right? I mean, there has to be a, I don’t know if cleansing is the right word. But there has to be this, this something inside us that feels good to continue to find that stimulation. Is that right?

Becky Blades 23:40
Yeah. And I just I think it’s the human condition. And I think we all have it. I don’t think you know, maybe we aren’t David Bowie’s who have so many neurons firing, you know, visually. But he, you know, he’s a generalist, he makes the case for being a generalist, and I think I am too, but I don’t have the discipline to take many things to a mastery level. And we find out that a lot of people are that way, but they they try something, they’re not immediately good at it. And they drop it too quickly. Or you know, but if we can embrace that generalist, like I say, I don’t want to get good at things. I just want to get something done. I want to use I had to learn to use a router this year because I wanted to make some driftwood art. It’s it’s something a five year old could do. But I had to just carve a little nick and something and there’s a tool that does that and now that I have that tool, my imagination goes crazy like all of these things. Oh, I could do this. I could do this. You know what if we used to give our kids that, you know in home ec and shop it was just it was kind of engineering in different ways, and we call it home ec and shop. But if, if we all had some more of those skills, I think our creativity would take us more places. And, and I think I wrote about that. And in the book that if we surround ourselves with tools we know how to use and using the term very loosely, it could be a rolling pin could be, you know, technology. And in the workplace, it’s technology, if we give our employees, toys and tools, they use them, the curious ones will use them really well and help change our company. So that’s a note for raising kids. I know I’m a generalist, and I have lots of interest, and but not until my 40s did I lean into that and start taking, you know, class on this or that, you know, watching YouTube tutorials? I mean, how long the I have a friend who watches a YouTube tutorial every day. Just, you know, that’s her stARTistry hack. And I met her Do you know, researching this book? Because she seemed like one of those people like a, like a David Bowie and like, how do you know how to do all these things? And what can it take? 15 minutes a day?

Joel Goldberg 26:28
I mean, you’re that obviously, on your website, which is Becky blades.com. And I encourage everybody to check it out. Under the section or where the description is about what you create. Mixed Media, artwork, mono prints, functional art, driftwood, sculpture, study drawing and photography, studied printmaking, welding, painting, sculpture. Oh, by the way, written a book, you have that company, and I was curious about this. On the website, it simply describes you as writer, artist, strategist, stARTist. Is there an actual order there? Is it all of it? I know that’s not alphabetized. So I’m wondering how you see yourself?

Becky Blades 27:14
Well, the truth is, you know this, to pitch this book, I had to kind of make some choices. And the speaker, the speaking agency, wanted to be sure I had speaker up there. I think stARTist will say it all. But if my if I were to say my dream for this book, it would be to put stARTist in the vernacular. Because I think if I don’t know if I said artist, you might have more questions, right? What kind of art do you do? A person I was talking to talking about somebody the other day and call them an artist. And even me had had a picture of a visual artists, they were talking about an actor. But anyway, and then strategist says something a little different. So I think for, you know, today, I’m an author, because I have this book coming out. And that’s my focus. But the word stARTist came from my kids. When I sold my company, I was home more. And I turned their basement into my art studio, and they would come home from school and find me there. And that was very unusual for them. They were about in middle school at the time. And youngest came home one day and said, Mom, I was in a business suit because I was going to a board meeting or something. She said like, Are you a business person? Are you an artist? And I said, Well, I mean, I’m starting this company. This other company ended it, and my daughter from the other room said she is a stARTist. I think, and then it just but Joel, don’t you know, gobs of people who would say about people who start lots of things that they’re flaky, undisciplined, I mean, and that sticking to the same thing and being solid and just getting better and better and is is somehow more respectable. And part of my quest is to get people to never say to a creator, Hey, did you finish that or it’s been a long time or while you have a lot of irons in the fire you know, it’s it’s every start leads to something. No creativity is wasted. And shaming each other about you know, what the finish might look like, is the worst thing for cultures. It’s the worst thing for for family dinners.

Joel Goldberg 29:57
This resonates so much with me. I remember the revelation I had about five years ago when I was taking one of those, you know, culture index type of tests. And, and it read out that that I’m I’m at my best when I’m doing things last minute and I had this aha moment like, wait a minute, I’ve been beating myself up for years about being a procrastinator and realize that I’m just best on a deadline. I don’t plan things out like that, I’m not at my best. And so this is a revelation to me too, because I always have my hands on a million things. Then I’m beating myself up over not finishing all of them. And it’s like, well, maybe I need that. Maybe that’s the way it goes. And you finish what you need to finish or want to finish. So that’s just my own personal revelation on that. I want to get to the baseball themed questions. First off for you, in this long, illustrious career, what is your biggest home run?

Becky Blades 30:42
I guess it would be my first company Blades and Associates. Well, that’s a professional homerun. You know, I, I started when I was 30. I sold it 12 or 13 years later for successfully. And then I got to do to a wonderful company that allowed me to stay engaged and you know, with creative people. I sold it to Trizollo Communications here in Kansas City, a wonderful family company. Um, but you know, another, I think, time will tell but I think the biggest home run is how this stage of life has is being played. Because I just can’t imagine being any happier. And I see so many people at this age. You know, searching for something and I’m searching for something, but I’ll find it in five minutes, and then I’ll find something else tomorrow.

Joel Goldberg 31:43
That resonates with me, too. I know Angelo Trizollo very well, he’s a good friend. Great guy. Biggest swing and miss you’ve taken and what did you learn from it?

Becky Blades 31:52
I went to Startup Weekend about 15 years ago, and that’s a an entrepreneurial weekend event put on by Tech Stars. I think at the time it was put on by Kauffman Foundation. You start on Friday. You go till Sunday afternoon, and you create a company in a weekend. And you get into teams. I won’t go into how but I was with a team of seven people. And we started a company called Dawg B&B – DAWG – Dawg B&B. That company was precisely what rover.com has done. If you know rover.com, it’s dog sitting. We’re just well, the only thing different from rover.com is that rover.com was valued at $1.3 billion last year. And Dawg B&B doesn’t exist. Because that team, even though we won third place at Startup Weekend, and and they give you free legal fees, free mentoring, we did not move forward with it because two of the developers could not quit their day jobs or would not quit their day job. So of course, that’s I think, I think I swung. I think I missed. But it was the the lesson is I don’t know. I mean, it was an inspiration for this book in this business, because it showed me that you got to be ready, you know, some, some ideas. Don’t go anywhere, because of one or two people if you’re in a collaboration, you know, we couldn’t. These guys didn’t want us to do it with anybody else. Because they worked on the idea. And they thought, well, we’ll get to it maybe someday. But I wanted to start a business inspired by that that would be a repository for ideas. So if somebody started an idea, but they couldn’t take it where it needed to go, they could sell it or post it, you know. Anyway, that’s a pretty big, that’s a pretty great story.

Joel Goldberg 34:14
Yeah. And in baseball terms, I’d say that you you crushed that long, it just went foul. Was about to be a homerun and unfortunately, there wasn’t another swing. So we’re maybe you crushed that bow and the guy jumped up and caught it. I don’t know. But you’re, you were close on that one. Before so I’ll either let you double down or wherever you want to go with it. But what is small ball for you?

Becky Blades 34:40
Yes, it’s the it’s the practicing. But I love that. When I read that question. I’m going to I’m going to have to think on it for a long time because small ball can become big ball. And I mean, all big ball starts with small ball. Right? Is that is that?

Joel Goldberg 35:02
I mean, I think that’s right. Because just just again, using the baseball metaphor, or going literal with baseball, when I usually hear from a guy that hit a home run, not always, but usually as I wasn’t trying to hit a home run, so it started.

Becky Blades 35:15
Mm hmm. And so one of the things I explore in the book, it’s the only best baseball metaphor I use. And it’s the concept of practice. What is the equivalent of the batting cage for starting? So it has, it depends on what you are, if you’re a writer, going to the batting cage, maybe writing first lines of, of stories, it might be writing headlines, it might be writing limericks. What’s the I love the batting cage metaphor, right, because you know where you need to go to get better at hitting a ball. A lot of skills and creativity doesn’t know where to go practice it, we have to figure it out for ourselves.

Joel Goldberg 36:06
I love all of that. You can read much more about this. In Becky’s brand new book, you can find it everywhere. Go to her website for more information to Beckyblades.com or Amazon or wherever you get your books. Start More Than You Can Finish: A Creative Permission Slip to Unleash Your Best Ideas. It’s not her first book, but it is the one I know that is not just the focus, but the passion of Becky, amongst her many, many projects that that move her every single day. Becky, I’ve got four more quick questions for you on YouTube. So I encourage everybody to check us out there as we Round the Bases. But congratulations on the book. Thanks so much for doing this.

Becky Blades 36:48
Thank you, Joel.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai