0:00

I can find ways to be

0:02

happy that aren't necessarily tied to

0:04

this one number. And I know

0:06

that's basic as hell, but actually

0:08

implementing it has a profound effect.

0:10

Hey there, I'm Matthew Avella, and

0:12

and welcome to my short form

0:14

podcast, Three Rules. Each episode I

0:16

ask a guest to share three

0:18

rules that help them find success

0:20

and happiness. Today I'm joined by

0:22

Cam Walker, illustrator, author and YouTuber,

0:24

who's better known online as Struthless.

0:26

His new book is called Doom

0:28

and Blue. The Case creativity in

0:31

a world hooked on panic. You

0:34

were at the top of my list, it comes to people

0:36

that I wanted to interview, and it's not just because you're one

0:38

of the only people I know within a thousand miles. You

0:41

were at the top of my accessible list. Oh, there

0:43

were plenty of people I couldn't get. Yeah, there was

0:45

at least like six or seven people on my list.

0:48

Yeah, I'm on a safe silver medal, baby. Yeah, I'm

0:50

so glad that we could make it work, and we

0:52

got you while you're here in Sydney. Let's

0:54

get right into it. What's rule number one

0:57

for you? I'm gonna call it the Rigby Rule.

0:59

OK. Oh, a fun name. Yeah,

1:01

maybe. All right. So this idea came when I

1:03

was watching, you know that show Silicon Valley?

1:05

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pipe, pipe, all that sort of

1:07

stuff. So yeah, know, when two of the

1:09

characters are bitching about Richard, and like, they're like,

1:11

oh, Richard is great, but, and then they

1:13

want to say the thing that's annoying them about

1:16

Richard. Yeah. It's like, oh, yeah, Richard is

1:18

great, but he's been a real dick right now.

1:20

Richard is great, but he's, you know, being

1:22

really selfish and like, oh, man, this is making

1:24

making this conversation kind of long right now.

1:26

You know, so we need a patch. need a

1:28

shortcut for Richard. is great. But so they

1:30

saying Rigby and they're like, oh, Rigby,

1:33

he sucks. Rigby, I freaking can't stand him.

1:35

Anyway, so I always like that. That

1:37

always stuck with me is something funny. It's

1:39

like a good software engineering joke, but It

1:42

ended up. very much changing my life

1:44

for the better. And I mean this in the

1:46

sense of, I don't know, my married life, my life

1:48

as a dad. But yeah, so me and Felicity,

1:50

my wife, after our

1:52

daughter was born, as you would

1:54

know, it is an incredibly chaotic and

1:56

stressful time. And there are a

1:58

lot of opportunities in that time. for what

2:00

do you call it, like a you call

2:02

it, like a communication that could that

2:04

could blow up into something which

2:06

isn't a communication error. I could I

2:08

could fight, right? you know, And you

2:10

know, like nonviolent communication, conceptually, it's like, it's

2:12

it's like. exhausting if you want to bit exhausting

2:14

if you want to just like therapy speak to your

2:16

partner, to your partner being like hi I

2:18

that that right now I am feeling tired

2:20

and my need for sleep is not

2:22

being met. How can I da da da

2:24

da da da all that sort of

2:26

stuff. sort of all that sort of stuff. It It

2:29

felt like super we were super

2:31

sleep It was pretty it was pretty much

2:33

a to to either be misinterpreted, to say

2:35

something that you didn't wanna say because there

2:37

were so many times when you wanna say so

2:39

many times I just wanna check that you turn

2:41

the oven off, but I'm not asking you

2:44

in a way that's attacking you. I'm not

2:46

asking you to that's you. I am not

2:48

asking you because I think you left it

2:50

on. I'm asking you because I am anxious. I

2:52

So you left that entire you with the word anxious.

2:54

So So that be like, that did you lock

2:56

the car? word. Rigby, did did you from the

2:58

from the And yeah, what could have what could have

3:01

been a personal attack in so many

3:03

scenarios up ended up being so easy.

3:05

And what could a been and drawn long and

3:07

drawn out speech also speech also just became

3:09

really easy. What are you telling your

3:11

partner in that moment? Like, yeah, so it's like a

3:13

yeah. So it's like a conversational safe

3:15

word, right? But I think what you're

3:17

telling your partner in that moment is

3:19

in that moment is I... completely trust you. I'm not

3:21

saying this because I don't trust you.

3:23

I'm not saying this to you. I'm not

3:25

saying this because of anything that's related to

3:27

you. This is the most impersonal thing.

3:29

I'm saying this because I am anxious about

3:31

something. However, because you're super duper tired,

3:33

you might misinterpret it. It might come off

3:35

as a personal attack. I And I wanna

3:37

neutralize that now with one word. because

3:40

understanding, but of course the acronym

3:42

for that was way too

3:44

long. Yeah, that's it, yeah. that's It

3:46

might come off as a exactly. And attack.

3:48

often do you find yourself using

3:50

this phrase? May and Felicity it upwards

3:52

of it a day. of 10 times a

3:54

to this day? So I reckon

3:56

it has saved. it has

3:58

saved hours an hours. and and

4:00

hours and hours of over communication

4:02

of you know know, anything that could

4:04

have escalated to anything. It's

4:07

just, it's the it's the Yeah, best thing,

4:09

Yeah, the best thing conversationally. Do you have you

4:11

specific example, like a recent one where you might

4:13

have used that have you can think of? today would

4:15

have been an example. Like one of us

4:17

had to look after look the other one had

4:19

to go to the shops. other one Which one do

4:21

you want to do? to the I don't care. one

4:23

do you and it's do? there is no part of

4:25

you that's trying to be polite. There's no

4:28

part of you that's trying to manipulate the situation.

4:30

Not that the of us really do that, but

4:32

it's just like, really do that, but it's just

4:34

genuinely don't care which one I get. one I

4:36

get. 100% it's actually actually like impossible. I I don't

4:38

know know how we we survived it. Like, survived

4:40

and actually, Matt and I I talk about this

4:42

all the time time where people will ask you

4:44

that. They're like, oh my like oh my god

4:46

months of no sleep. Like, 10 how did

4:48

you survive? And she's like, like we didn't. We

4:50

did not survive. Like we didn't survive

4:52

as the same people. as the same different people.

4:54

I need a funeral for the guy I

4:56

was. No, no, I need a bad, dude. It's hard.

4:58

It's so hard. Yeah, 100% And I didn't

5:00

think it was going to be that bad.

5:03

I know, man. And I go into

5:05

everything with like And I like too much

5:07

confidence. was going was I was that bad. Nah,

5:09

man. it's probably like it's it's it's

5:11

a good thing I think to

5:13

have some confidence going into like one

5:15

of the craziest too much confidence. Like, like

5:17

to your point in those moments,

5:19

you don't have patience you you don't

5:21

you don't have mental clarity,

5:23

just you the fuck out you you the

5:25

fuck out, and you partner You

5:28

still love your partner, obviously, have the same

5:30

but you need to, you

5:32

just don't have the same level of patience that

5:34

you once did. This podcast so three rules, on so. number

5:36

Let's move on to number two. The second rule that

5:38

I'd like to say is yourself yourself how is this

5:40

the best thing that has ever happened to me?

5:42

And me and the the most notable time for me. time

5:45

for me was almost years ago to

5:47

the day, the I got completely

5:49

sober and it it started because I

5:51

made an dick of myself, Not just

5:53

on just on this night, but

5:55

honestly for about 15 years, 15

5:58

years. But this one one particular, this one. on

6:00

a particular evening. don't know, man. Like,

6:02

I don't know, You know, like the Sunday

6:04

scarries? Like, the shame. The shame was

6:06

so intense. It wasn't just the shame of

6:08

that, but it was the shame of

6:10

everything, because I don't know. There's something about

6:13

being in your 30s, That

6:15

is so depressing. Or like

6:17

being hungover, and instead of seeing a

6:19

young man in the mirror, I see

6:21

this bald fuck, and I'm like, oh,

6:24

shouldn't you have your life sorted by

6:26

now? And in the midst of this

6:28

intense hangover and shame, I was like,

6:30

oh, what's that question? What's that question?

6:32

Oh, that's it. How is this the

6:34

best thing that has ever happened to

6:36

me? And I was like, well, the

6:38

only way that this would have a

6:40

legitimate answer is if this, if I

6:42

never got drunk again. never did

6:44

drugs again, never did any of this again. And...

6:49

And yeah, I committed to the bit. Was

6:51

that a rule before moment? It was a rule before

6:53

that moment. And I tried it. And I tried to, you

6:55

know, like, I've been trying to sort of quit drugs

6:57

and alcohol for the past. you know, however

7:00

long before that, but nothing ever seemed to stick,

7:02

it was only ever used in light situations, know,

7:04

like you lost a client or like, you know,

7:06

a bunch of money went missing or whatever it

7:08

happened to be. It's like, how's this the best

7:10

thing? Okay, well, because now I'm motivated to do

7:12

this or now I'll do this or I'll make

7:14

a commitment to here. But being able to use

7:17

it for, You know,

7:19

arguably. a top five demon, That

7:21

was a game man. Yeah. How do

7:23

you go for attempt 42? Like,

7:25

how do you go for that attempt

7:27

and tell yourself like this time

7:29

it's gonna be different? Like - That's

7:31

such a good question. So there were

7:33

a few things. So. So I

7:36

really, really relished in the shame.

7:39

which might sound counterintuitive, but I really

7:41

felt it, and I really, really

7:44

kind of beat myself up. So

7:46

there was that. So firstly, feeling an

7:48

insane amount of shame. The

7:50

second one was attaching

7:54

sobriety to my

7:56

daughter. and making a promise to

7:58

her, and I - break promises to

8:01

myself till the cows come home.

8:03

Oh my god, I could, I could

8:05

just beat myself up for fun

8:07

dude. but I could never do that

8:09

to her. And externalizing it and saying

8:11

no, never ever ever see me drunk

8:13

you'll never ever see me high you'll never

8:15

ever see any of this That

8:18

was pretty huge. And then the

8:20

third one, man, there's so

8:22

many, but. yeah, fuck

8:24

it, I'll give you five. Um, I've

8:26

thought about sobriety a lot. So,

8:28

third one will say, really

8:31

associating drugs and alcohol with poison.

8:34

like understanding that it is poison and understanding

8:36

that this is all you have. And that

8:38

whatever's going on physically is going to, what's

8:40

the word, like what's a ripple, ripple effect. Yeah,

8:42

ripple and everything else. Fourth one, I'd say

8:44

is replacement, not removal. So this is a

8:47

pretty big, big idea in sobriety. It It's

8:49

basically like, if let's say you want to

8:51

quit drinking beers, but you drink beers at

8:53

the pub, worst thing you could do would

8:55

be to go to the pub and just

8:57

not order beers. Because all of a sudden,

8:59

all you can see is the gap. You

9:01

can just see the absence, the lack of

9:03

beers. And you're just gonna sit there miserable.

9:05

You your old friends, you're drinking buddies getting

9:08

drunk and you'll be like, damn man, life

9:10

sure is terrible. It's just gonna be a

9:12

It's matter of time before you break. Exactly,

9:14

Exactly. exactly. So yeah, the idea of like

9:16

removal is pretty. depressing. whereas the idea

9:18

of replacing that, I don't know,

9:20

tango class or, you know, whatever

9:22

it is that gets you. So you.

9:24

fulfilling the social element too, which

9:27

is a big part of why

9:29

you go to the pub. Yeah,

9:31

100%. And yeah, and then I

9:33

think also having role models was

9:35

really big for me as well.

9:37

So I mentioning it. yeah, Yeah,

9:39

I'll show randomly. had the Bachelor

9:41

host become my sobriety sponsor. As

9:43

you do. Yeah, just naturally. Yeah,

9:46

the guy from Australia Idol. Yeah,

9:48

he's going help me get clean.

9:50

Cool, dude. Were you guys friends

9:52

for a while? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

9:54

And cause he is something like

9:56

15 years sober and part of

9:58

AA, which I'm I I did, did, but

10:00

he did. Part of that is you help you

10:02

help yourself, you help other people, sort

10:05

of the of the mask thing. And then

10:07

I ended up helping a mate through

10:09

it, so through was up helping a he's been

10:11

sober for over a year now. That's

10:13

amazing, man. special. Yeah, and gonna be back

10:15

with the third and final rule in

10:17

a moment, but first, one of the

10:19

ways I'm supporting this podcast is through

10:21

Patreon. with By becoming a and you get

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access to the full unedited episodes of

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10:27

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10:29

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10:31

feel we're in a very similar

10:33

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10:35

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11:00

matdiavella. link down in the description

11:02

below. the Thanks for All right, cool.

11:04

Let's move on to rule cool. Let's

11:06

move on to rule number the game so

11:08

you all so you feeling some sort of

11:10

progress. sort of progress. I know how to pronounce

11:12

his name, which is is... like 80% of of say

11:14

say it. cheek, me, hi. You're very smart. Yeah, the You're

11:16

very smart. flow. No, I learned that. I of very

11:18

No, I learned that you know, the recently. he put

11:20

so, you know, the ideas that he

11:22

put forward as the flow guy, that

11:24

which, the know, big one was that the

11:26

most motivating thing that people have to

11:28

push themselves forward a that they are

11:31

feeling a tangible sense of progress. If

11:33

they can see that they are progressing

11:35

and progressing towards a meaningful goal, a that

11:37

can be more motivating than money. than money

11:39

in things like that. things like

11:41

that. I have been been thinking about

11:43

this a lot lately because I'm

11:45

feeling feeling certain things that I would love to see

11:47

are certain things that I would love to see

11:49

progressing life getting bigger or smaller in my life

11:51

or any it is that I'm not seeing any

11:53

progress with. And that can be the most thing

11:56

when you're in the thing when you're in the messy

11:58

middle of a project and you just you - just and

12:00

hacking and hacking at the end

12:02

of the day you're just like,

12:04

I feel further. I feel further

12:06

from the freaking goal. And I

12:08

think a lot of a lot

12:10

of. you know, persistence, a

12:12

lot of life is about how

12:14

well you can make it through

12:16

those valleys and how well you

12:18

can actually yeah, push forward when

12:20

life is just kicking you and

12:22

life's been kicking me a bit.

12:24

So the thing that I have

12:26

taken a lot of solace in

12:29

is. Categorizing

12:31

my life into

12:33

different parts. wherein I

12:35

can win particular games or feel progress

12:37

in different categories. And that might be

12:39

an overly complicated way of saying when

12:41

I'm not making money, I can at

12:43

least, you know, run. There's this beautiful

12:45

Donald Glover lyric and it came from,

12:47

you know, before he really blew up

12:49

his childish gambino and it definitely came

12:51

from recession era blog rap, which I

12:53

think speaks to it, but he goes,

12:55

I was never worried about my money

12:57

being empty because when it was empty,

12:59

I was still happy. And And I

13:02

really related to that, probably because I heard

13:04

it in like, you know, post recession.

13:06

but I was like, yeah, I

13:08

can find ways to be happy

13:10

that aren't necessarily tied to this

13:12

one number. And I know that's

13:14

basic as hell. but actually implementing

13:16

it. which is also basic

13:18

as hell, has a profound effect. So

13:20

it's like, if My money

13:23

is going down, if other things are going

13:25

down. No one can take away

13:27

my physical freedom. No one can take away, you

13:29

know, this particular skill or the amount of books

13:31

that I read. There are things that I can

13:33

win even when I'm not winning. And something about

13:35

that. I don't know, can be really

13:37

confident when life isn't going too good. I

13:39

found a lot of

13:41

solace reading and researching because I'm like, well,

13:43

no one can unread a book for me,

13:45

you know, like, or no one can unrun a

13:47

kilometer for me. So yeah, running is obviously

13:49

a huge thing for me. But once I've read

13:51

something and I'm like, okay, I have this

13:53

new reservoir of knowledge, that's kind of cool. I

13:55

really like this. Or been like, getting better

13:57

at illustration, I've been like getting better at painting.

14:00

of watercolors and stuff like that, so I'm like,

14:02

okay, no one can unpaint a painting

14:04

for me. I control this, start to

14:06

finish. The part where I

14:08

think it runs into hot water is

14:10

probably, yeah, like yeah, getting into the nitty

14:12

gritty of, you know, like, you for example,

14:14

being a creator where it's like. you

14:16

ever know one can say that. it count? Does

14:18

it really count? Because, you know, like you kind

14:21

of get brainwashed by social media into thinking that

14:23

like creativity is only valid if it gets like.

14:25

some sort of algorithmic popularity. And

14:28

even if I look at something

14:30

that hasn't hit and I'm like,

14:32

that's the best thing I've ever

14:34

made. There's still that voice, that

14:36

brainwash voice. It's like, no, it's

14:38

not. No, it's not. It It

14:40

sucks. Yeah, because you're a loser.

14:42

I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess

14:44

you're right. Yeah, technically that man,

14:46

there's like so much evidence. to

14:49

support that voice online. know what I mean?

14:51

And it's like, Jesus Christ, man, can I

14:54

just like flip this switch off and just

14:56

like enjoy myself at once? No.

14:59

Yeah. absolutely. No, but like, yeah,

15:01

like things like, yeah,

15:03

things like running, things like skilling up. But

15:05

I think that one of the things, I

15:07

think that works really well about that, that

15:09

I've experienced is that it is through doing

15:11

that we can find the most joy. I

15:13

think I was trying to think my way

15:15

through this for a very long time where

15:17

I'm like, what do I want do? What

15:19

What do I wanna create next? What do

15:21

I wanna make? And I'm just like sitting

15:24

in a room and I'm giving myself space

15:26

from my work because I needed that. I

15:28

needed to step away from it also not

15:30

really because you're still trying to attack that

15:32

problem strategy. That's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I

15:34

didn't actually give myself a chance. You've You got to

15:36

properly like it and let your brain do it

15:38

for consciousness. Why would you do that? How you do

15:40

that? No one can do that, right? No, no,

15:42

no, no. But I did like, but

15:44

then it was like, once I felt like I

15:47

was ready for it and I just went to

15:49

a cafe and I just started writing. Really? Really?

15:51

And that was it. And I journaled, It was

15:53

like just word vomit. was just whatever I could

15:55

think of, whatever I was going through, it was

15:57

just a of consciousness. And I just wrote. And

16:00

the first day I didn't feel significantly

16:02

better, but then it was like as I

16:04

kept showing up and I kept writing

16:06

every day. And then I started reading and

16:08

going to the gym more. It was

16:10

the act of doing the gym more, it not just

16:12

keeping myself busy, but to your point busy,

16:14

but to feeling like I'm building something and

16:17

I'm working towards something I'm building made me. I'm working

16:19

let go of these ideas of go of

16:21

oh, I'm actually so far behind, so or

16:23

like, oh or like, oh where would my

16:25

life be if I hadn't hired hired? 10

16:27

people? you know, know, and so I I think that is.

16:29

The lament. Yeah, and so and so then

16:31

it's like, but I think it's like, it's

16:34

like, is what. what. I I think a

16:36

lot of creators have in common common

16:38

it is that you're creating, it's

16:40

like creating, think find fulfillment you, I think mind

16:42

goes calm when you're in those

16:44

moments of doing. when you're in completely. of

16:46

doing. And that's flow, right? Oh, I

16:49

mean, yeah, that's flow. right? Oh, I it's also

16:51

like, Yeah, it's also like, to refer to is

16:53

almost like to as therapy. like when you're like

16:55

in this creative state or in this

16:57

flow like like, and nothing can bother

16:59

me because I am in the happy

17:01

place now. you're like, and thanks for coming on

17:04

the podcast. man, man. to your your

17:06

company. If you wanna get these rules

17:08

summarized into a weekly newsletter, you can

17:10

subscribe you can .com slash

17:12

three slash three rules. Thanks to Cam

17:14

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17:16

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