This is the best interview I've ever done.

Also: bad dreams, new faces and Mick Jagger.  Let me tell you about the flashlight that sits below the kitchen sink. If my dreams turn to spiders when my head hits the pillow, it's usually a good indicator that I must grab a heavy-duty flashlight and do some rifling through my mind and heart. I use the word "heavy-duty" here quite intentionally. Growing up, my mother kept this spectacle of a flashlight underneath the kitchen sink. It was gargantuan enough to crack a baseball out of the park and bright enough to burn out the sun. For whatever reason, holding that heavy weapon in the darkness, after lightning from a bad storm killed the lights of our home, you felt like everything was going to be alright. So, when I go poking around in my mind and my heart, this is what I carry: the heavy-duty flashlight that sits underneath the kitchen sink of my childhood home, waiting on the rain. Dreams, especially the bad ones, are internal flares. They're our subconscious firing hot red ribbons into the sky, making us aware of something deep within the forest of ourselves that needs some tending to. I have dreams where all the teeth in my mouth fall out of my head and collect like hail in the palms of my hands. I have dreams where an ex-lover calls me up out of the blue and tells me I'm a father. I have dreams where I'm sitting in my office, my bare feet kissing my hardwood floor and, suddenly, seeing and feeling the hardwood fall to hell, piece by piece, sending up plumes of smoke and ash as it gets enveloped by the fire. These dreams signal to me that I've been focusing more on the "outcome" versus the "output" –– the cancer in this is that while we can very much control our "output", we can't at all control the "outcome" of this "output". "Output" is being a good friend. "Outcome" is this friend being a good friend to you. "Output" is putting in the work to write the book. "Outcome" is that book being a best-seller. "Output" is working your ass off at the gym. "Outcome" is fat melting off you like butter in a sauna. "Output" is showering her with love. "Outcome" is her sticking around. When I'm a miserable, anxious, awful mess... I'm focused more on my friends being a good friend to me, the book I wrote being a best-seller, the fat melting off me like butter in a sauna and her sticking around. In other words, when my life goes to hell, I'm focusing on all the shit I have absolutely no control over. Bad dreams, at least for me, warn me that I'm holding on too tightly to life's bucking mustangs that I have no power over. Take my teeth falling out as an example. The output I can control where it concerns my teeth is flossing every day. It's washing them good and clean. It's wearing my mouthguard at night because I grind my teeth like a camel. It's getting my ass to the dentist every six months. What I can't control is the outcome of all of this: the expiration date of when my teeth decide to take leave from my head. And so I'm writing all of this to tell you that in this life how you get ahead is you control what you can control with reckless abandon and you let go of every else. But, I digress. By [Cole Schafer](. [Did you like this intro? Tip me.]( Does she look familiar? If you're looking to get filthy fucking rich, I would never advise you to get into poetry. In fact, I'd tell you to run in the opposite direction. However, if you're insistent on writing and are hoping to make a bit of dough doing so, I'd tell you it helps to [change the face of your book every so often](. Or, better yet, offer multiple faces of the same book. It keeps folks on their toes, it keeps your most loyal readers collecting the covers like Pokemon cards and it allows you to appeal to a much wider array of tastes you wouldn't have been able to prior, with just one cover. They say don't judge a book by its cover yet... the global beauty industry is worth about $532 billion. But, now I'm rambling. If you would like to take a look at the redesign of the book of poetry and prose that started it all, well, you know where to go. [More than just a pretty face.]( This is the best podcast interview I've done to date. Chris Do, the creative mastermind behind The Futur Podcast recently had me on to talk alter egos, advertising, poetry and selling $15 cookies with pretty words. I've done dozens of these podcasts over the past year and have invested quite a bit of time and money with a kick-ass speaking coach named [Joe Ferraro](. There has been a ton of bad interviews, plenty of self-doubt and lots of cringing whilst listening to replays of previous interviews. However, this interview I did with Chris is the first time I've thought to myself... damn, okay, I'm getting somewhere. I hope you share the same sentiment. [Listen here.]( Mick Jagger had some fucking stones. Back in 1965, [a cheeky reporter cornered Mick Jagger]( in Ireland and bombarded him with an onslaught of pointed questions surrounding the “competition” between his group, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. The dialogue went something like this: Reporter: “How do you compare your group with The Beatles?” Jagger: “I don’t know. How do you compare it with The Beatles? I don’t compare it at all. There’s no point.” Reporter: “Well, let’s get down to brass tacks –– do you think you’re better than they are?” Jagger: “At what? It’s not the same group. So, we just do what we want and they just do what they want. And, there’s no point going on comparing yourself. You can prefer us to them or them to us. It’s just diplomatic, you see?” Reporter: “Do you feel you do what you want to do better than they do what they want to do?” Jagger: “Ugh. Well, I don’t know. I don’t know what they want to do, you see? It’s very diplomatic.” ["It’s very diplomatic."]( P.S. If this newsletter made you weak in the knees, you can share it with the world by selecting one of the four icons down below... [Send it.]( [Send it.]( [Tweet it.]( [Tweet it.]( [Share it.]( [Share it.]( [Post it.]( [Post it.]( Copyright © 2021 Honey Copy, All rights reserved. A while back you opted into a weekly email called "Sticky Notes". Remember? If not, you can always unsubscribe below... and risk breaking this writer's heart. Our mailing address is: Honey Copy 3116 N. Central Park Unit #1Chicago, IL 60618 [Add us to your address book]( Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](.