Live from the Ojai Playhouse: Slow Burns and Late Night Scribbles with Rob Bell

Live from the Ojai Playhouse, CEO ⁠Kristen McGuiness⁠ and CMO ⁠Lauren Porté Schwarzfeld ⁠interview author ⁠Rob Bell⁠ for this special edition episode of ⁠Write the Good Fight⁠. From creativity and writing books to navigating money and staying true to what you love, this inspiring and emotional conversation feels like a warm hug from your new best pal, Rob Bell.

Automatically Transcribed Transcript

Hello, and welcome to this special episode of Write the Good Fight, filmed live at the Ojai Playhouse on Monday, June 2nd. Write the Good Fight live was hosted by CEO, Kristen McGuiness and Chief Marketing Officer, Lauren Porté Schwarzfeld. We were thrilled to invite New York Times bestselling author, Rob Bell and Rise author, Dr. Gertrude Lyons, to the Ojai Playhouse stage for a special set of interviews.

From the ladies of Rise Literary, welcome to Write the Good Fight. We're excited to invite author, Rob Bell to the stage in an interview with CEO, Kristen McGuiness and Chief Marketing Officer, Lauren Porté Schwarzfeld. Here we are with Write the Good Fight live from the Ojai Playhouse, and we are really excited to welcome Rob Bell.

Rob Bell lives in Ojai where he writes books and plays and makes paintings and does workshops at the Art Center and then goes surfing. So thank you, Rob Bell, for being-

I like that bio.

It's fantastic.

I like that bio.

Yeah.

I wrote it.

You should teach other people how to write their bios.

It's a good one. That's all you need. Five things.

You do five things and you do them well. So that's why I told Rob so that we could adjust expectations tonight, that I have been touting him as a life-changing speaker and that he has to change at least six lives tonight. He said he might go for seven, but I told him if he only hits five, we're going to call this a failure.

So I would love to start, though, about your life and career as a creator and a creative, and creation, which in an early text message about this, I really love this idea of how you've moved through your career in terms of understanding creativity from so many different perspectives and moving out of a lot of more structured environments from the church, but also then as an author of big corporate media and big stages, and then really beginning to dive deeper into your own creative experience and what that evolution has looked like for you.

Is that it? Is there more pages to that question?

That's it. That's it. I leave it.

So you've got five minutes to change six lives. Go.

That was a question, right? It was.

That was it.

Because it was one of the better essays I've heard in a while.

I go long.

You know, it's interesting. I've never used the word career. I don't relate to the word.

It doesn't. It never felt like I never saw it that way. My friends had a band our sophomore year of college, and they were auditioning singers.

And they auditioned this guy named Joel, who was beautiful with blonde hair, but he had nothing to say. And so they were all the instruments. They were trying to find a singer.

And I was in the corner watching this all and pouting, because I wanted to be in the band, but I didn't know how to do any of that. But this beautiful young lad got up to the mic, and he had no, he just stood there because he had nothing to say. And so because I was so obnoxious, my friends let me audition.

And I just like, just made up some sort of sing songy, rappy, like Chili Peppers, early Violent Femmes thing. And I got the gig. It worked.

And so we would write these songs and then play like basements and clubs and colleges all around Chicago in like the late 80s. And creating a song and then, that was like trying to name my experience in some way. And then the shows were like, how big can the mosh pit, like it was almost like a shamanic, how can we get everybody from the back to the front into this thing that's happening?

Like this swirling energy. And I think that was the first time I felt there was something about trying to give language to my experience. And then all of us together having, and then as we put out, we made cassette tapes and we sold them for $5.

So then as we did it more, then everybody would sing along to the songs that we were writing. Something happened in me about almost like, oh, I could do this, like making things and sharing them. So it's never felt like something other than that at some level.

Are you with me on that? So as far as where this is all headed or how do you advance it, the only answer I ever had was, what's the next thing that's almost like coming up within me that's asking for expression? Like my first book, for sure, 2004 is called Velvet Elvis.

I remember I'm writing this book so I don't spontaneously combust. Like I'm writing this for me because it's in me and if it doesn't come out, something happens to me. That's why you're only pretending to have imposter syndrome.

You'll get that later. That kicks in later. That's a Slow Burn.

Because when you listen, like you were talking about finding yourself in the suburbs. How did I get here? I had to write to name the experience I was having.

It's like I didn't write the book for them. I wrote it. I was answering some question or I was trying to name.

You know what I mean? That's only ever felt. I remember, God, I'm trying to make an answer as long as your question.

I remember the first... You're going to know all about this. After my first book came out, the publisher said we want to have a meeting because they were all like, are there more?

They said, we want to have a meeting about your brand. I was like, well, you're going to have that meeting without me. I don't...

No, we need to have a meeting so everybody will know what to expect. I was like, I don't know what to expect. So it was just all an odd, I'm following something and that's, I don't know what's, you don't know what you're going to write next.

Then eventually something will come in and you're like, oh, I guess this is it. So I just remember at multiple, well, just nonstop, like, oh, we need to make sure that everybody, I, so like almost like staying, actually the name of the game is to keep it really pure and true to what's happening in here. That's actually, that's actually the whole thing.

The people who do that then end up being fine, actually, that's my experience.

So the next thing we were going to ask you about is pivots. You seem to have pivoted a bit, but it sounds like you don't necessarily consider them to be pivots. You're just sort of...

Pivots. Business language. I'm going to silo that and then I'm going to get some of that low hanging fruit and then I'm going to do some paradigm shifts while I open the kimono and skate to where the puck is.

But continue.

Yes. So what's funny is...

We're going to dig the hole.

Yes. And then someone's going to fall in it. And then someone's going to fall in it.

Okay, buddy.

Hey, you make the big ask.

What's funny is...

Oh, sorry. What was the question?

That's what I'm here for.

Well, in April, I took a very, very long trip to get here. And on that very long trip, I listened to almost the entirety of your most recent audiobook.

And then she kept quoting it to me.

A feisty and sobering guy.

And I would roll my eyes in the spot. Only because it was like, and then Rob Bell said...

I was like, and then Rob Bell said this. And then Rob Bell said this.

I love knowing that you had somebody constantly quoting me and it was kind of pissing you off.

And Kristen was like, it's like my own life at hell.

Really delightful at some level.

File that away for the podcast. I was kind of in your head.

That's so fantastic.

It was.

She has a question might be longer than yours.

It is. It solidly is.

My ball's pivoting.

Yes.

Oh, pivoting, yes.

Well, I'm not going to use the word pivoting now. Every time you shift into something new, it's really just the like, what's happening right now. It's you being right where you are, listening to what's happening.

I remember when you and Kristen did a book event and you read from Where'd You Park Your Spaceship? You were saying how, when you wrote that, this is my very long question. When you wrote that, the characters just came to you and you just had to write them.

Is that how a lot of your process works? Yeah.

I fall in love.

Yeah.

I love it. It's like that feisty and sobering guy to doing what you love and also still somehow paying the bills, was all of these stories about money and how hard it's act and the constant staying true and trying to pay the bills and how I presented an early wound of mine was Make It Look Easy, when it was actually just like all over the place. So I noticed there were certain stories where they had a certain vulnerability to them about what it was really like, and something about that was asking, what I'm going to tell all of those stories about not having enough money, having plenty of money, but not enough, and all of the times when I was like, what the, so it's almost like sometimes it's healing.

Sometimes you are naming your shadow, which you're terrified of, but you shine light on it, it's no longer a shadow. So almost like you're finding out, sometimes you're asking a question. So generally a book, especially something like a book, there's probably something super, super, super simple in there that the person's actually doing and when you find that, like when then everything else starts to fall.

I call them career pivots.

And I'm gonna guess you don't.

So your question is, but I love your question because it did not feel like departures. It felt like following something that I could both name and not name. Like I would move across, have multiple times moved across the country for very specific reasons that I could kind of name.

And what's interesting is my son moved from Los Angeles to Brooklyn last September because he knew his life in Los Angeles was time to wrap that up and go to Brooklyn, which is not where you go if you'd like an easy pass. So I rode with him in the front seat of his 2014 Prius. And I watched him.

I know exactly why I'm doing this, and I just left my life to move into the unknown. I know it, and I also don't. And it was so fascinating to watch him just be in between.

Like Kansas is also called liminal space. They designed it so you're nowhere. You don't know where you are when you're in Kansas.

Everything looks like it's a million miles away.

It's waiting for Godot.

But it was fascinating because most of the time, you're following something that you can kind of name, and you also, it's a knowing that transcends your ability to name it. You're just moving. It's almost like you're moving with what's happening.

And then over the years, you get more and more tuned into, you just don't even ask questions. Like, where did you park your spaceship? In the middle of the night, I'm halfway between, I'm in between fast asleep and wide awake, and this guy is asking this guy, where did you park your spaceship?

What's his name? Dill Tud. What's his name?

Heen Grubeers. How does he feel about this question? Oh, it deeply unsettles him.

Wait, he has a spaceship, what planet are they on? Ferdus. So I get up and I go into the closet and take those notes on that sheet of paper that says, like, don't forget the eggs, that little notepad you have.

And then over the next couple of weeks, in the middle of the night, well, what happens after that? Oh, they meet Noonye. Who's Noonye?

She's from Meebs. I don't know what... So it's like falling in love.

I need to know. And when I finished the book, and it's 525 pages, it was always, how did they get there to where he asked him this question? And what happened after that?

When I had my first copy hand held of the book, the scene where he asks him, Where'd you park your spaceship? Is the middle page. So you're getting better and better at just trusting that we'll just follow this and see where it takes us.

I love that. And I read Where'd You Park Your Spaceship.

I remember you sent it to a picture on vacation.

I read it in two days, and it's like a 500 page book. It's no joke. But it was that much fun.

It really was. And I would never have read it if it wasn't fun. I did not listen to the audio book because I don't listen to the audio books.

I've been quoted.

I listened to the audio.

She just quotes it to me instead. But I think, and I mean, I love that. And I mean, well, I would love to hear though, not talk about pivots or anything.

But do you feel that like the drive to create has changed over time? And then because I love money shit, I love money questions. And I think like we always, I think creativity and money get, they can get into really toxic relationships together.

Yeah. Because we just want to create and like we'd love to create for free. But there's a mortgage company, mine is named Mr. Cooper, which sounds to me, his name, I'm like, it sounds like a really nice man, like from Sesame Street, who's also demanding cash every month.

And I have to feed Mr. Cooper, or my children are going to find a different life tomorrow, which is fine. But it's, but so how have you negotiated, you know, being creative and wanting to be free and wanting to move from your heart, but also having, you know, whoever Mr. Cooper is in your life?

Moving it around in here. So if you're a writer, and you also have to do your job to pay the bills. So the job that pays the bills sits here.

And then the writing is the thing over here that might or might not happen. Sound familiar? Moving the writing to the center, even if it's 43 minutes a day.

I actually write. And then I go to Trader Joe's, or like moving it. And what you'll notice is the person, that's just a shift in here.

And what I've just noticed is how many times I am making this. And then the rest is actually details. A friend of mine was moving his family from St. Louis to San Diego.

And he was trying to sell this business that he'd started. And he was knee deep in the muck of we're going to try to move the family and do a whole new life on the other side of the country. And I was like, wait, so you are moving.

He's like, yes. Oh, so you are moving. We're just discovering how it's actually going to happen.

Like shifting the thing that is the obstacle to a detail that makes it an interesting episode. Are you with me on that? And generally, when you interact with people who make lots of stuff and seem to have they shifted this and then they get way more crafty and shrewd about the money.

Like some people just go and get a delivery job because they're like, if I just lock that down, then the whole nervous system calms down. But the whole artist who's like, I'm always having problems with money, go get a job at Trader Joe's, calm this whole thing down and then watch what happens. And get a boring job.

You need to be thinking up, you need to be working on your book. Get a security job where you can like, they'll let you like have a notepad. Do you know what I mean?

So in my experience, when people decide, oh, I am writing a book. And then the ultimate litmus test, when you're at a party, what do you do? I write books and I pay the bills selling insurance.

That person's a badass. Because they just switched it around in here, they tend to get things done. But you're right.

I would just call it lock it down. Lock it down somehow, in some way. Otherwise, it will take so much ambient energy.

Lots of artists had all kinds of different jobs or something. Because they were like, yeah, because I got stuff I got to do.

Well, and you talk a lot about that concept of shrewd. I'm not going to give you a corporate question. This is from your book.

I like them, they're fun to play with.

You talk about books, so it's not corporate.

That concept of being of shrewdness as a way of creating more abundance.

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah, it's important to talk about money. It's not because you sold out, it's just because you're living in the world and food and stuff and rent. So I've noticed this, the quicker a person gets over there, like I hate talking about money, stop hating it because as soon as you can just, it's just money.

It's like money is both this currency, it's actual numbers, and then it's the stories you're telling about it. It's constantly moving back and forth between actual sums and all this stuff you've loaded on it. So you're getting good at understanding where we are in the thing.

But I noticed how the people that seem to really have joy making things, they're very straightforward about this stuff. This cost this. So I figured out how to do it this way.

Very matter of fact, and this is what happened to me in the book I tell about my first tour, 2006. I did 25 American cities in 28 days. Tour bus.

So you sleep all night and then a new venue each night. And I was doing Glass House and Pomona and the White Stripes. I was a couple cities behind the White Stripes who had just appeared.

And are they brother or sister or husband or wife? And what's the red and white thing? And so I asked the house manager, what's anything interesting about them?

And he says, yeah. Because at the time Jack and Meg White were like the ultimate, like, auteurs who had gone mainstream. And it was like, they're doing their own thing.

And he said, yeah. He said, you know who they travel with? Which, no.

He said, they travel with an accountant. And the accountant in the settle up, which is the sheet that summarizes tickets sold, who's going to make what money. He's like, the accountant is like, every last penny gets accounted for.

And I was like, oh, the public image of Jack White as this artist, just like following the muse. Boop, boop, boop, boop. Yeah, there's a guy named Earl in a sweater vest down the hall, locking that down.

So what you'll often find in systems, whether it's in you or in any team that's making stuff, is somebody somewhere has to be watching this. Because if you're not watching it, then there isn't enough to do what you do. The booking agent I used for years said every time you would get together with a band to decide whether to book them, he'd be like, he would start asking questions.

He's like, there's always one who actually cares. And my friend, a friend of mine in his band, Zach is the drummer. He's like, your friend Zach, he's the one in that band.

But he's like, I'm just, I'm asking who understands that you can't keep touring if there isn't somebody going. Do we have enough money for gas? Otherwise, we don't get there.

So whether it's someone around you or you find it in yourself, it's like a thing you just have to pay attention to. And once you do, then it loses all of its power and it just becomes like a thing. Otherwise, it's like turbocharged.

Oh, I'm like reformed corporate finance. That's why we bring Elena with us.

She's our Earl. Oh, we have a CFO in the audience.

CF in the house, reformed corporate finance. You guys are.

But I think money, I think shrouding money in secrecy is a way that actually allows us to be disenfranchised from it. I think it's a lot like my daughter who's 10 has started asking people what their age is. And immediately, I forget who, but someone was like, oh, you can't ask that.

I was like, why the hell can't she ask that? Like, why wouldn't we want to honor?

And I guess Nana said that? Yes.

My grandmother. It wasn't even Nana who said that, but it was like it was a Nana-esque type character. A woman of a certain age.

And I was like, but here's like, we, you know, you've earned your right to exist on this planet for however long you've managed to keep the ball rolling, right? Like, you know, it's something to be shared. And I think, you know, the more we shroud it in secrecy, the more we build shame around it.

And so I think that's why, like, there's so much money shame. And I think particularly around creativity, there's so much of this idea that like, you know, you're either being exploitative if you were both doing something creative and attempting to make money from it, or you're abandoning the art if you're making money elsewhere. So I always, to me, I think it's so much about integrating things, is that a corporate word?

Integrating things and beginning to braid them together. And I would love to hear like, what do you, I mean, what do you do now? What are you doing these days?

But like, you write, you surf, but what are the other things that you like really love to do that bring you income and joy? And do you get to do both at the same time? Are you working at Trader Joe's?

Is that what this has been a low key? Rob Bell's at Trader Joe's.

Not at the moment.

Although I feel like you'd be great at it. They require a certain personality.

I write books live on Patreon. Do you? Yeah.

I have definitely told you that more than once. Right now, I'm writing a book.

What?

I'm sorry. I said, I have definitely told you that more than once.

Right now, I'm writing a book called Skin Bags and Space Suits, Notes on the Unbearable Diss of It All, about the nature of this human experience and how much of it. Bliss and sorrow have unbearable elements to them, and yet somehow we bear it. So I'm doing it so that I write it that week and then read what I wrote, and then put the written and the audio on, and then people respond to it, which then, and it's absolutely delightful, because people are brilliant, and then it starts like creating this loop, and then it's already shaping where the book goes.

So it gets super interesting because there's this like symbiotic thing happening. And then I might go through the comments, and because people write great stuff, and just cut and paste all the ones that thrilled me, because I don't know what people are gonna see in it, and then I'll do a whole writing where I just line those up and then fill in in between them my talking to them, which is my responses to their responses to the thing. So it starts to get super like what is happening.

It's very, very interesting to me. So I'll do that. And then I write plays.

And I was just at the East Coast premiere of one of my plays. And then one of the plays is at Fringe Festival in Scotland. And then one of them was it.

Iowa and then another one is actually going to New York. So I like, there's premieres that I go to, but there's like, I don't direct them and I don't give guidance. So I might meet the cast when they get together to rehearse and talk to the director for an hour.

Otherwise, I like to go to the city and sit and see what they did with my play. And the choices, because I love the idea of I don't know. They're going to make a bunch of choices, and it's the most, it's a super out-of-body experience.

So like that's really, really interesting to me. So I just wrote a new play last week that is premiering this fall called Jello Day. And it takes place at the Golden Springs Senior Living Center.

And on Wednesdays, they have Jello, and they have a new cuisine director who comes in. And the play starts at 2:23 p.m. because the door is open for dinner at 4. And everybody's already gathered outside the dining hall.

And the new cuisine director comes in and tells them that there's not going to be Jello today. And one of them says, like they all are like, and one of them says, this is all we need to secure our borders. And it's just pandemonium.

And one of them says, what's in Jello? And another one says, I'll tell you what's in Jello, America. And so the first half of the play is all of them losing their minds because they're not going to get Jello.

And there's a character named Tertz Meldin, who wants to organize a boycott. And Gladys Futz keeps holding up her phone and like Googling everything. And then he comes in and he says, I'm so sorry, I'm new at the job.

I should have told you I'm replacing Jello with Flawn. And then the second half of them all losing their minds over the Flawn. And then at the end, it gets so beautiful.

And I just cried and cried when I was writing it. And I wrote it, read it to him last week to the people who run the theater who are going to spend months and months on the play. And everybody was just bawling and laughing.

And I was so happy. So I'll do plays. And then, and then I do these events under the trees.

And Ojai, people come to the Art Center for two days and sit with me.

And returnees from one that you did last year.

There we go.

They came here just for this. They liked you so much they came back.

Yeah.

And I'm coming in October.

I don't actually know how it works. I just keep trying. And some things make money and some things don't.

And some things lose money and some... I don't actually know how other than I just keep opening my heart and trying things. And if you just keep trying, you try enough things, there's a chance somebody might listen to Feisty and Sobering Guide and then quote it to her and I'm double win there.

And then you're sitting and you're money and her annoyance double win.

I own private hell.

You don't even you didn't have to listen to it. You just had to listen to me talk about it. And I feel like I should be insult.

I feel like we should both be insulted by that.

He takes it as great praise as he should.

So you had a podcast episode maybe last year where you were talking about when you were reading the first Where'd You Park Your Spaceship book, and it was called Leave the Tears In.

Oh, yeah.

And I loved that episode so much. It was about like the vulnerability of while you were reading it, deciding because you did it on your own, you were your own narrator and then you produced it, leaving the tears in while you were reading it. And when we produced the TEDx event here, I shared that with our speakers several times.

To say that like the vulnerability in giving these talks, in sharing what you're creating is really powerful. And I noticed it when I listened to the book. But can you talk about that, like vulnerability and kind of how it comes through?

Yeah. I have this friend Kent who one time early on, like in my late 20s, he was like, you know, the real art of it is doing something in which you create all the space where you might surprise yourself. He's like, that's actually what you're doing.

If you could, if you've created a space where you might actually surprise yourself, that's something. And when I first started out, the first, like, God, this is going to sound so douchebag, sorry. Like the first 11 books were with New York publishers, and so you go to a studio for the audio book, and there's an engineer and a producer and a director and somebody on Zoom named Carol.

And so a book is a performance. So the book is on a stand on an iPad because they don't want the microphone to pick up the pages. And it's like, this is not the book, this is the audio book.

This is distinction, which fine. And then they're going to go and they stop you over and over again. So in that world, you start reading, you flub it slightly, they're going to edit out and you have to start the paragraph over because it's a performance of the book.

And then I was like, I would just rather do it differently. So I just made up my own imprint because you can do that now. Backhouse Books for the Spaceship Book and I was like, I want it to feel like I'm in the room and I actually have a paper copy and I'm reading it to you.

And then I wanted the mic close enough to the book, because that's actually how I would read it to you, that you could hear the pages turn and it would have a visceral and then I'm doing one take, like we were in the room together. But those books, especially these books that happen on all these other planets, they're about my father's death and they're about my kids and they're about, like, there's so much, when you're writing a story, it's so much about your unconscious, bit like dreams. So I get hit and I don't know what I'm going to get hit by or what I'm going to think is really funny.

And if you can make yourself laugh, you're winning. And also maybe what's going to choke me out, because there's lots of moments that just choke, like, yeah, it's just that it's accessing something in me. So I was like, oh, I'm going to do it how I would do it, which is just hit record and read.

Yeah. So that's like that, that's, but that's the thing is how do you do it? And when I sit across from people and I get to watch them finding clarity, well, how do you run a publishing house?

There's a Kristen McGuiness where there's a long way of doing it, which might overlap with conventional wisdom, but it might not. And lots of people get jammed up because they're doing it how they were taught to do it. And well, how would you do it?

Well, well, if I were doing it, you are. Well, I would do it this way. I'd put a carpet on the stage with spots on it.

Good. So that's what I've.

We also leave the giggles in.

Yeah. So the leave the tears in was, part of it was for me after lots of books. But how would I do it?

Oh, like an example would be every single publisher I ever published with, can you make the font huge? Because psychologically, if you pick up a book and the font's huge, you're like, I could actually read that. And if it moved you and you loved it, and books are a communion, like you pass a book to someone you love, someone passes you a book that did something to them, and the font's large, you're like, I might be able to do that.

So I would like every book to have big fonts and come out on my birthday.

Yeah. And then I release it on my birthday. That was a no-brainer.

But, what's fascinating is these things that matter to you, you don't back away from them. Like they matter to you for some reason. And the number of people who are like, hey, the spaceship looks that big font, thank you.

I knew it. I knew I had people out, big font people, BFPs out there, right? So think about a giant, giant corporate system that's like, yeah, no, we don't do big fonts, because that makes, you need more pages, and then that means more printing cost, when lots of people are like, yeah, fine, how many of you, ooh, how many of you would pay extra for a slightly larger print?

Yeah, so isn't that just fascinating? Like, lots of people would pay extra for that. Why is that not like a thing?

Or why in a presidential primary debate, every politician when they start talking on the screen isn't a list of corporations that they receive money from? Like, why is that not just like, duh? So, there's lots of things you could do very easily.

It would cost no money.

Wow, Rob, you have so many good ideas. You should have a podcast with 391 episodes.

And call it a Robcast. Look at these great ideas we're giving to you.

Oh, here we go. I remember somebody like, would you do a podcast? No, I don't like the name.

I don't like its sounds, podcast. And I was like, I do a Robcast. So I don't ever say I have a podcast.

I have a Robcast.

Yeah, it's a Robcast.

Well, I think, I mean, I love it.

That one will kick in later. That's got a Slow Burn, but when you get that one.

After your imposter syndrome goes away.

Yes, you're just pretending you have imposter syndrome.

I have a really long question next, which is only going to get longer as I try to un-wield it from my own writing.

So, I want to talk about God.

I did not write that question.

No, you didn't. But this is basically what this question is, because it's about using our creativity, I think, to define and redefine our human experience. But because you've had a relationship with faith, and I think about this being in recovery, like, you know, again, having had two very different lives in one lifetime, you know, and that writing, especially, is such a beautiful way to make sense of that for yourself and begin to unravel who we might have been.

And also, you and I, before we had started this, you had texted something about like, well, I'd like to talk about creativity and creation. And I love that, because I think that we all get to, you know, we all get to be gods when we're making up worlds, you know, and what does that look like for you in your creativity journey, but also your faith journey? Because everything, I once read this great book title, and it said that everything is spiritual.

Well, at some point, you probably end up, you stop using the word creativity because what you give your energies to is a creative act. The boundaries you have with people who would suck the life out of you has an element of creation because it's what you've chosen to listen to or not listen to, what you've chosen to participate in your calendar, like the color of the paint in your bathroom. So at some point, the beauty of art, like an actual created piece of art, is that it is just showing you the nature of this entire experience.

So gradually, the whole thing is creation. Like you all creating this space, but then, yeah, that's why, like what somebody does with their yard, like dressing has elements of creation to them. So I think it's some very profound way you, certain words you almost stop using because everything has become everything and you're creating your life.

And I've noticed how many people, if you just move from your life is happening to you to you're creating your life, what would you like to do with it? That tiny shift from disempowerment to empowerment, all sorts of interesting things begin to happen. And we're all wildly creative.

An accountant is actually very creative. You don't want a creative accountant, but like you think about an accountant, for an accountant, the symmetry of the numbers is how the system can actually do interesting things. So that's like an act of creation at some level.

So lots of things that people don't, wouldn't, these are creative or these are not, I just don't find that. I remember, where was I? This was forever ago when I used to get invited to speak things, except for you.

And a guy, I think the guy before me, his thing was there are math people and creative people. And I remember sitting in to see what the vibe was for this conference. I mean, this is like nine Rob's ago.

For this conference, it was like, and his whole thing was there are math people and creative, and my whole thing was everybody's creative. I was like, I'm just going to just wreck this guy. Just, just go home now, Wayne, because I literally you're the prop for my talk, basically, because it's just felt like so crazy to like, this kind of classes of this is like your friend who like is always repairing their hot rod.

Those are aesthetic decisions. Like the backyard, those are aesthetics. That's like, that's creation.

It's creation. I mean, good God, human beings can make people. Why isn't everybody talking about this?

So I think, I think it's right at some point. Like, faith or God or creation, all, you're right, they almost become clunky words that get in the way of, who are you? What do you want to do next?

What's it look and feel like to be you? As you listen to your life, or like, what's, what sounds like it's arising? That's asked, what's tugging on your sleeve?

Let's see what that is. Yeah, creation. Yeah.

I love that. I would love to hear though, for other writers and creatives, sort of what is your one piece of guidance for them.

I work with a lot of writers and creatives, and I'm one too. I think it is so scary to put yourself out there. It is so scary to follow the idea you get in the middle of the night.

I feel like I have a follow up question on why you have a notepad in your closet. I mean, that's just going to stay with it. It's like New Roman Empire.

Like is there really you keep that notepad in the closet?

Isn't that interesting?

Isn't it?

What was it doing there?

Why do you have it in there?

It was like a walk-in closet, but it had like a flat spot where I put my keys and maybe.

Okay.

I think probably there was like a pencil and a scrap, a couple scraps of paper like there. Almost like that's the thing where you set things down.

I imagine everybody's closet looks like mine and I'm like, where would you have the space for such a thing?

I promise you, they do not.

We have a very small closet.

Yes, it wasn't even that big of a closet, interestingly, but I had this interesting flat shelf here. It was in Los Angeles and it was like almost, I ended up, you dump stuff there and then deal with later.

That makes sense now.

I love it at this point in the interview.

I'm glad that's been resolved.

That's what you're thinking about.

I could not let it go, just so you know. I got about 50.

This is Kristen's auditory processing issues.

I got about, my life was changed. I got about 50% of what you said and the other 50% was like, but why did he have the notepad in the closet?

No, actually what you did is, there's a guy named Dill Tud and he's asking a guy named Heen Gruberz on the planet Ferdus where he parked his spaceship and they have a friend in Nunez who is going to show up and you were like, wait, what's in your closet? That's the weird part to you. That's the weird part.

No, I told you. Well, I loved the rest of the story. Remember, I did read the book.

It is a great book and it made me cry. It was a laugh cry book, truly. But I do think that in working with creatives, I think there are just so many stories that we tell ourselves that stop us from getting up in the middle of the night and writing it down on the pad in the closet.

I think we get the ideas, but we don't believe in ourselves enough to actually let it come from here, all the way down the arm and share it and extend it out to the world. I mean, maybe you're born with it, maybe it's Maybelline. But I do think that there is a magic in feeling like, you know what, this wild story that just showed up in my brain in the middle of the night about Dill Tudd is, I'm going to flip the switch and I'm going to turn this on and I'm going to share with people.

What is your one tip for other people to go out and do this? This might be the Slow Burn on Impostor Syndrome.

That sometimes it's important to use incredibly hyperbolic dramatic language like life and death. Something about this is living. If I don't follow that, it feels like death.

That's all I got. Lots of people have like a strange thing they're interested in or a hunch or a thing. I don't know why it's tugging on your sleeve, but if you put it in the most drastic binary sometimes, I don't know.

It just feels like living. And what that does is the antidote to getting jammed up in your brain. And you make a commitment not to rationalize, defend or explain that.

You just ask and take the next step. That's all you got. I have no confidence.

I can do anything. I just have confidence that I can try. And somewhere along the way, the pain of not following it, it just feels like death at some deep level.

So I'd just rather be alive at some level. It's like it actually sits very, very simply. So that thing that you have that you're like, yeah, it's life itself in some way.

And your uncle might not get it at Thanksgiving. So you just stop playing that game. I don't need anybody.

I barely get it. So the people around me don't get my new thing I'm doing, and I'm progressive and radical, and I'm doing that. You don't get it.

You're just following some little shrapnel of hope or life or vitality. You know what I mean? You're asking people around you to get you when you don't get you.

So just make peace with that mystery. You just knew more schooling. How?

I kind of knew more schooling. Also, if I something, this is just life. And if you swing and miss, at least you swung and miss on your intuition and your heart and your...

Yeah, I've made so many things that are like sitting on my computer that are like not that good or events no one came to or... Yeah, of course. How else would it work?

I love that. And I'll say, you know, I published Live Through This around the same time. We did a book event together.

And I think Live Through This has sold something like 215 copies, which is super fun when you're the publisher of the book, too. But it's really good. Those statements are fun.

That CFO loves that. But the book saved my life.

Yeah, I could feel that in the pages. It's in the pages.

Yeah. So it's like, you know, there are days where I'm like, oh, it was a failure or whatever, you know, but I'm like... But honestly, it's like going home and writing that.

I hated my job. I went every day to a place that I was very miserable at. I would sit in the car and I had a baby at home and I wanted to die.

I wanted to die with a baby, you know, which is like the worst feeling as a mother of like this. I love her so much and this is not the life I'm supposed to be living. And then I started writing and it was in the writing that it was like, I'm fucking alive again, you know?

And so like at the end of the day, I mean, maybe no one, maybe only Rob Bell liked it, which was kind of cool. I like, it was when Terry told me, Rob Bell likes your book, I was like, really? And so, but you know, but it really is like just that act of creation that's like, you feel alive inside, you know?

And that is such a better feeling like than the feeling that you're dying.

When I read the book, thank you for saying that, that was great. What you said because when I read the book, it was clear that the book owed you nothing. That you had made something that had already given you a gift.

So, do I get a second tip? Just the tips. You're giving yourself, so what happens is a person is like, I'm gonna work on this.

Okay, I'm gonna do it. And then up ahead in the road when it's done, we'll see if anybody likes it. And then up ahead in the road, when we see if anybody likes it or if it whatever sells or impresses someone, then what I'll do is retroactively look back and decide that that effort was worth it.

If they don't like it, which is can never be named. So, the if who likes it, how much, what exactly does it need to do for you to look back on it that it was worth it, not a waste. So, when you're here, you're actually up ahead in the road.

Then when you get up ahead in the road, you're actually looking back, you're never actually here. So, what you're actually listening for is what is that that rises up within me? Shout out to your publisher.

What is it that rises up within me and following it? Don't write a book, just write a bit. Just the actual thing that arose has some level of delight or satisfaction.

And then you take it and you're eating your dinner or you're walking your dog, you're like, that was actually, I actually got that on the page. I got one page and that page, it hums. And it owes you nothing because it brought you that joy.

That's the shit that you love because that person loved it. That's how you can love it because you pick it up in the energetic imprint of the creation is in the creation. You can feel it.

You can't explain it. That's why those albums like make you sob because the person who made it was feeling something. So if you're farming out what other people want someday, then that's the thing.

That's how it actually works. That book you wrote was doing something to you. No wonder you read it and go, God, this is humming with something.

So you're making something so when it's done, it was like, it's awesome. Then if one person likes it, you're like, no, it's just gravy. It's like frosting.

It's unbelievable. You liking Feisty and Sobering Guide like really moves me. Calling it to you is really enjoyable, but like because otherwise, it's conceptual, conceptual.

Like I need this vast thing of people. What's the number? To somehow validate.

But if you actually give yourself to something that has done something to you, it has to do something to you first, then one person loves it. Yeah. Like literally selling millions of books is consent.

I don't know what that means. That happened. And I don't, that doesn't, what?

If there were 400 people in this room or 390, would that notice how your mind just immediately goes, I don't know. But like doing it with some satisfaction and joy. And then one person responds, you're like, this is the best ever.

Yeah.

It is. Yeah.

I feel my life has been changed tonight. Same.

You know what? You know what? 8.4 tonight.

So we only need four more in the audience to be at four more. Oh, look at that. We hit our numbers, Rob.

We hit our elusive numbers that were clearly identified from the start. Thank you. Thank you for being here with us.

We adore you. She will continue quoting Rob Bell quotes at me.

There's a new book right now for her to quote to you. It's coming out.

Is it going to be printed or is it only audiobook?

Skin Bags and Space Suits is going to be, I did this-

Oh, I subscribe on Patreon.

She can quote it to me?

I subscribe on Patreon so I can give her real-time updates.

Oh, good.

And I did a painting and the painting is going to be the cover.

Thank you to the Playhouse, David Ojai Playhouse for hosting us once again. Thank you Bernadette of Soul House Media. Thank you Jason and Taylor.

Thank you Raya, who will turn all of this into a lovely podcast episode. And thanks to all of you for coming in and hanging out with us. And thanks again, Rob Bell.

Thank you, Rob Bell. Bye bye.

Bye.

From Write the Good Fight: Live from the Ojai Playhouse: Slow Burns and Late Night Scribbles with Rob Bell, Jun 26, 2025

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