 In this episode of my podcast I'm in conversation with a genius whose name is Ryan O'Neill and he puts out his music under the name of Sleeping At Last. He is a singer-songwriter producer. His music is featured on shows like Grey's Anatomy, blockbuster movies like The Twilight, series of movies and we talked all things creativity, personal development, communication, what things we do to look after ourselves internally, our non-negotiable weirdness, idiosyncrasies, you're gonna love it. Enjoy. I've been a fan of your work for a long time and I'm so appreciative of your music and the difference it's made to my world. Wow, thank you. I'm deeply honored. Thank you so much. Just a little bit of background for our listeners to get a location on you for whatever degree you can do that to. You are in Illinois? Illinois, yep. I'm in the suburbs of Chicago. Okay, that's your hometown, your place of origin or what? Exactly. I was born and raised about actually 10 miles from where I currently live so I didn't get very far. And what can you see from where you are? Right now, I am looking at computer screens so pretty boring. I have a partial window that I can see a little bit of sunlight but not much. I know you do a lot of podcasts. Your podcasts are amazing but is your, I mean just to encourage some of our listeners that are aspiring podcasters, I guess your setup is quite established by now but the beginnings don't need all that stuff, I guess, eh? No, not at all. I feel like technology is at the point now where really it's fairly inexpensive to just get amazing sounding stuff right out of the box. Your computer probably already has everything you need built in and at best maybe plugging in a USB microphone. But I have actually a really simple setup and I've sort of approached my music and an extension of the music with the podcast which is really, really simple gear. So I've got a microphone that is the same microphone I sing all my songs through that I do my podcasts on and then that just runs through one little preamp and then it goes into my computer. So it's pretty basic. Very cool. Now, what I think a lot of people, I certainly find this confusing is that stepping out last is not a band. Yeah, it is a little good. It has never been a band, right? It actually originated as a band. My brother played drums and my best friend Dan played piano and so it did originate as a band and they've always been kind of my personal journal of songs and so when they went on to do other things many years ago I carried on with the name. I kind of like the idea of having it be not under Ryan O'Neill. I like the idea of having having it be its own identity outside of myself. So where did the name come from? What does it mean? So it actually came a long time ago when I was just starting out in music. I was trying to figure out like what am I going to name my music and I was flipping through a poetry book and I think I jokingly said to a friend, all right whatever page I turn to next is going to be the band name and it was a poem by Christina Rosetti called Sleeping at Last and having nothing to do with the poem which I think is quite sad. I just love that idea and it's interesting too over the past 15, 20 years of making music under that name. I feel like that name has meant more as I grew up and my music gets calmer and gentler. Well, I'm glad that isn't the primary default mode of guidance for your life. Yeah exactly, I'm just flipping a page. There could have been far worse on the next page, yeah. Exactly, exactly. Now Ryan are you guys in lockdown there still? We are, yeah we're in Chicago, we're here until the end of the month, end of May. So we have been in quarantine mode and it's been good. I feel really grateful because I work from home anyway so I'm writing and recording music all day long so for us we feel very grateful that our normal life doesn't look all that different than quarantine life. We're missing our friends and family for sure but we feel grateful. Yes I think for me as an introvert I think similar to you I feel it's not a lot different to my normal life. I think if in another life I could have happily been a hermit in a cave with books. I agree with you, I might be that way too. There's a couple things like even with food delivery, the no-contact delivery, I'm kind of like it's not a bad idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ryan what do you think that any of the good changes do you feel may come out of the pandemic for us all? Have you given much thought to that? Yeah you know I always am hopeful about the bright spots of difficult things so I do see so many people finally making time to create things and I think that the creative spark that is going on right now is really beautiful. I also think that there's a level of authenticity you know even seeing like certain late shows that are recording from home and everybody's doing stuff from their real life, their normal life and that level of sincerity feels important and I hope that there's some good that can come out of that on the other side of this. But I definitely feel like the creative boom right now I mean even for me we can't make excuses about not making things, a lot of us. We've got plenty of time on our hands right now and so I'm hopeful that a lot of really beautiful things will get made out of this time. Yeah well Ryan I know obviously to the degree I do what you do and your sound and your music and so on but I wonder if you could describe what you do as if you were telling it to a stranger. Absolutely so I write songs it's kind of I treat it sort of like my audio journal so which sounds very self-serving and it is but these songs are really intimate they mean a lot to me. I sort of my criteria for writing music is basically am I proud of it and is it true and so that's been since I was probably about 15 or 16 years old that's sort of been my aim for anything that I make and so that ends up being pretty vulnerable music so for anybody that hasn't heard my work it is it's very calming the name Sleeping at Last does make a lot of sense like I said might put you to sleep a little bit but it's really an exploration of my perspective of life and my whether it's my faith or my relationships or it's just it really is my journal and over the past maybe five or six years I've been really excited to write in more thematic ways so I will kind of layout or map out different themes to write about and so my music kind of has this this template or this framework of like okay I'm going to write songs based on the the five human senses and so I have some jumping off points but really it all comes back to just being these these intimate songs that mean a lot to me. One of the things that I speak about Ryan in my communication masterclass that I've done around the world live for ten years and only a week ago putting out an online video course is what I call the art of capture it's something I realized I did as a communicator I've noticed in your work I think you do this all the time I don't know what you call your version of it capture to me is taking a mental or an emotional imprint of something and then turning it into a an idea in your case a piece of music in my case a message I might speak on in the corporate world perhaps a product and so on and so on the art of capture I think you do that amazingly well because it seems to me that your work is built around as you just said five senses or the enneagram and so on which I'll talk about in a moment so is that a major part of your creative process beginning with some form of capture? Yeah you know that's I think it's so beautiful that you mentioned that it's perfect terminology I've actually the way that I write songs is exactly I think I call it just I'm constantly collecting so it's a collection service that I do so I'll sit down at the piano and I'll press record on my my iPhone and we'll just play something and if something feels right I will just try to record it and I will forget it and I'll put it away I won't listen to it right away I'll just you know keep doing that on a daily practice and eventually I'll go back through and I feel like I get to hear it for the first time because I don't I genuinely don't remember recording it and I do that in approach for for writing lyrics too I try to write as often as I can just free write without music or without any any point in mind and whether it's a word that just makes sense to me today or something that I'm curious about and I'll kind of scribble that stuff down and when it's time to write lyrics I'll go back through those collections of everything that I've captured and and try to figure out kind of then it's almost like jigsaw puzzling my my wife actually loves puzzles and she doesn't know why like recently it just occurred to me like I don't I don't particularly love jigsaw puzzles because it feels exactly like writing lyrics but do you but do you like a jigsaw metaphor do you start with a box lid picture in your head and work backwards I do a little bit more recently because of these themes that I'm writing off of that actually probably serves as a perfect example where it is if I'm writing songs based on the four basic human emotions I know that this song is going to be called sorrow I don't know what it's going to be about I don't know my interpretation about it but I know that that that box is going to look at least not super happy so it gives me at least a little bit of a direction as I'm putting all those pieces together if you feel that one of those human emotions or even the enneagram that you did but certainly human emotions if particularly you as a person identify more easily with one emotion than another as with the enneagram how do you inhabit that emotion if it's not common to you yeah that's been one of my favorite parts of writing in theme is that I get to learn a whole lot about all different subjects I do some deep dives in you know whether it's books or trying to you know round up any video or documentary I can find about a certain subject for for the enneagram songs in particular that was a larger challenge because it was presumptuous of me to assume that I could write from the perspective of any personality that isn't I'm I'm at eight by the way thank you for writing eight it's perfect oh my gosh thank you I was I was very nervous if you didn't like it I'd hear it no if we're not like it we'll hunt you down and find you that's great um but so that actually as part of my my my project atlas which is a lot of this thematic yes when I announced that I was going to write these enneagram songs I I really didn't think too much about other than as just a fun creative like I know I was going to take it very seriously but I didn't quite realize that um I started hearing feedback from people that would be like I can't wait to hear my song and all of a sudden I realized like oh my gosh it's a that's terrifying I didn't realize that I was what I was signing up for and that that just led to much deeper research and much I took it very seriously so I spent I spent a good couple years really trying to I went on a couple like retreats to learn about the enneagram and there's a it actually worked out really beautifully I'm a type nine which is the the type nine is the need to the need to avoid so along the lines of that I I waited to write my own song last the series so I started with one and I just I tried to have as many conversations as I could with with folks that identify as each type and I just kind of wrote down different little whether it's a word or kind of going back to the capturing I just was trying to figure out there's some sort of commonality between all these interviews and these books and there's some language in there so um there's a moment pretty much in writing every one of those enneagram songs where all of a sudden my my heart kind of broke over something I learned about the type and I think I realized as I was going on that um that was kind of the moment that I knew how to write the song and how to write from that perspective a little bit because I could I could see myself in in each of the nine types and that of course led to some identity crises too but I think I think the best communicators in the world in my opinion that I have tried to study and learn from over the years Ryan and and communicators leaders and so on I think one of their superpowers is empathy oh I feel a lot of empathy in what you do that you it seems to me deliberately put yourself in the shoes the skin the space of the people that you feel you're representing through the song um is that something you've always done or something you become more intentional about as you age or what I think I think first of all thank you for saying that um I I think it is more of a recent I think I've always as a as a type nine I do feel like there is a uh it's that merging quality that you know absorbs the opinions and perspectives of other people whoever I'm around I think that that lends itself to that um but I think more intentionally I've been trying to channel it into especially the Enneagram songs but over over the last few years I think I've been really curious about how um other perspectives um are formed and and I always have an easier time seeing other people's sides of the story sometimes I think the problem with with that outlook is uh I have a very difficult time figuring out what I actually think and feel so some empathy um maybe looks uh it guides me down a path where I'm like huh I I know how 15 other people feel in my life but I have literally no idea where I stand on any of it because it all makes total sense to me why you'd think one way and why another person would think another way um so there is there's some intentionality uh over the last few years to try to channel that and then um as I said writing writing the the the last song for this Enneagram series was uh was writing my own song and that I think I think put a lot of um it just made a lot of sense and uh it brought me to some hard work internally to to to figure out how to use empathy in a way that isn't um an avoidance tool for for my friend kind of put it best I was I was talking to him about um a lot of people talk about empathy as the gift of the type nine and I was I was telling him that I don't necessarily relate to that I mean I feel like I can see other people's sides but I don't necessarily I wouldn't I wouldn't say that that's like the gift of the type nine he's like well the the trick is you have to have empathy towards yourself in order to fully express empathy towards others and that that kicked my butt so that my nine song is definitely me wrestling with that and searching for um my own redemption story so it was a little it certainly wasn't easy but it was a it was much um simpler to find other people's redemption stories than than my own I think I think with your music Ryan I feel that um empathy throughout it I think one of the reasons I've been drawn to your music for so long is that I think I've been drawn to the energy of empathy not just the musicality of it and the production quality and the sounds that you use but the embedded sense of empathy that I think is foundational to it which makes me more I suppose want to ask you about the difference between what you do and why you do it in other words you clearly have a calling that's bigger than music music seems to me to be your delivery system but you seem to me to have a calling that is more fundamental than that what do you think that is why do you do what you do in other words oh that's a that's a great question I don't even know if I have a a decent answer but I the word that kind of pops up into my mind is hope I think that whether I'm a musician or a dad or a friend I do feel I have this not not responsibility but this this desire to to find hope in in everything that I work on and see and observe and so I think that that has been kind of this this north star in in my creativity especially is to just find ways of finding that and mining that hope yeah it feels to me that you are I feel served by you and I don't know you but I feel served I feel your music is more of a gift to me as a human and I feel it's interpretive of things in my life that you give language to musically so I feel it's almost like a service that you are giving to us as humans that listen to your music I don't feel that with all music but I feel the intentionality of you putting on if you like the clothing of a servant when you go to your keyboard or when you are curating sounds I feel it's all with someone else in mind you know beyond you or beyond the buyer or beyond the transaction nature of what you do I feel that that is very powerful with what you do Ryan with sleeping at last wow that I'm not just saying that that is the highest compliment I can imagine that's really beautiful thank you I hope you're enjoying today's show with Paul Scanlon and Ryan O'Neill from sleeping at last we just wanted to take a moment and let you know about an offer just for those who listen to the podcast Paul Scanlon has been publicly speaking now for 40 years all around the world and has recently released his communication masterclass as an online course which is over seven hours we want to offer you an exclusive 20% discount off this course as a thank you for listening to his podcast you can find out more details about the discount in the show notes or head over after the show to paulscanlon.com and use the discount coupon podcast 20 this will be limited to the first 50 people so take advantage of it today now back to the show where Paul and Ryan continue talking about creativity let me ask you a couple of things about your creative process which I'm fascinated by because again um my form of communication is through public speaking I'm also an author and so on so I have my own creative process but um I have a uh some go-to thoughts about creativity I wonder if you agree with this idea for instance that creativity favors combat boots more than slippers in other words in other words creativity responds better to a solid work ethic than waiting around for an idea to strike you I think you subscribe to that I do I do a hundred percent I read a book when I was probably 15 or 16 years old it was called um songwriters on songwriting and and basically all is this uh is this large book with pretty much the the classic traditional songwriters of our time you know the uh the the Bob Dylan's and the uh Paul Simon the world and um I cannot remember I should look up who said it but something that stuck with me all these years is that songwriting and supplies to all creativity is like waiting for a bus so you can you can make certain that you are going to show up at the bus stop but you have no control over when the bus is actually going to arrive but you can certainly blow it by not showing up at the bus stop and I feel like that is exactly the um the the work ethic that I've I've tried to to maintain is just like just keep my butt in the chair and show up as much as I possibly can and and I also feel like I've learned that with uh with everything creative I do feel like not writing is actually probably more a part of writing than writing itself you know yes interesting Somerset Maugham a famous British author called Somerset Maugham and he stands out in our writing history because he was one of the first authors of his era to make a very good living from turning professional as a writer and Somerset Maugham was asked once he became quite famous in his era did he did he write when inspiration struck him or did he write to a schedule and he said I only write when inspiration strikes me fortunately it strikes every morning at 9am that's perfect which is I think what you're saying the combination of showing up if you don't show up for the bus you can't catch the bus if you don't show up and have some place and that's why I asked you where you are a studio or workspace I have an office at work from home but when I come in this space I become this creative work combat boots version of me and during that commitment you and I are making I think a lot of creatives that are listening to us need to know that guys like you that are doing what you're doing with the success that you've had um you go to work every day and it means that you can survive numerous days without feeling inspired right yeah absolutely yeah so I I knew that intuitively well not intuitively after reading that quote it is a guide guide in my creative process but I didn't know it quite as as deeply as I do now and that started with a project that I did in 2010 it's called yearbook right before that I kind of realized I'm writing very few songs I want to write more why am I why am I kind of following the rhythm of like making an album and then going out on tour and then there's just long stretches of periods of time when I'm I'm just not writing and that's my favorite part of doing music for for a career is is writing songs and getting to express myself so I came up with this idea for a yearbook which was essentially to challenge myself to write three songs every month for one year so 36 songs in total there was no the only criteria that I had was that I just had to be proud of the work and that is simple enough but there were several songs in that process where I was I knew the difference there's a few that met the garbage can but it taught me that I mean basically three or four months into that project which I which I by the way I announced and I took subscriptions for so to make me feel accountable to actually doing it yes yeah yeah which was kind of everything for me to like I can't let other people down I gotta do it which if that yes just left to my own devices I would have been I'd still be on song two at this point and so I was pushing through and I met you know writer's block pretty quickly into into that project and I think the biggest takeaway from writing those songs was just that there's there's deeper better stuff beyond writer's block and you do have to put on those combat combat boots as you said and the only way you're going to get to those is by waiting through it and pushing through it and it is showing up at you know I think at that point in order to do that project I was this is before kids so I I didn't have the the some of the the schedule that I do now but I would wake up at probably nine or 10 in the morning and start working right away and then work until 10 or 12 at night and then I would get a couple hours before going to bed and doing it all over again so it was truly an all all you know everything I had was going into that and I think that that taught me not only how to be less precious with with my my music and with my art um but to to trust that the waiting around for that bus is is not only worth it but it's essential like you have to do it you can't you can't just wait for something to show up especially if you're if you're not in the frame of mind to to know what it is um and so sitting in the studio it's it's too much it's not a sustainable way to make me right now but I think I think it's I think it's usually important thing Ryan for us to talk about because in this one hit wonder age and the youtube sensation that people think is a go-to way to hit the big time yeah um rather than speaking about what certainly my generation uh I'm 63 I'm a baby boomer so we grew up with this sort of embedded work ethic that we kind of felt we had to work for everything no one orders anything there's no entitled there was no entitlement mentality with our generation and I feel as I watched the emerging generation coming up around creativity I think it's a good thing to speak about the work ethic that people like you and other creatives that are long term successful it is a it is a complete work combat boot ethic uh rather than what people think is the music came out and it just appeared and you put it out there and it became a hit it's like people say you know we were going 20 years and then we would discover kind of thing you know nobody talks about 20 years before right right right exactly exactly no I completely completely agree with that and I feel like it is it is essential to um and I think that in creativity too it requires a deep love of of the very unrewarding thing that is making something you know because in 98 percent of the time it doesn't feel like it's turning into anything and sometimes it just doesn't um so I think that I think that anytime you're spending um waiting for it not in the right um frame of mind is is just kind of a waste it's sort of like waiting for your phone to not being anywhere near your phone you know yeah and I think you have to and I get this impression with you very much you have to love the process I've listened to you in your podcasting doing in-depth interviews with people especially by Enneagram and the research that you do and the curating of all of these random sounds that you bank for some future project it seems to me that you love the process and I think for me in terms of communication I love the process of creating an idea capturing it um I almost like that more than delivering it I like the process more than the end product do you feel that a lot I do I absolutely do I mean it it's such a temporary joy to share it and you know like it's something's new for a minute and then it's not and and it's always exciting to see something grow and and have a life of its own like I love I love seeing when the when the songs reach different places or show up on tv shows and things like that but none of that compares to the joy of just that creative process which is you know it's a it's a complicated joy too because it's it's a total struggle yeah the process is struggle but I do I would be doing it whether or not people are listening to it and I do love I love adding dimension to it when I was when I was younger a friend of mine was talking to me kind of a mentor was was telling me about songwriting or lyrics he's given me tips and asking about the lyrics I was writing at the time and I just wanted to write things that sounded interesting or cool and he challenged me he's like you know what great writing is is saying as much as possible with as few words as possible and so that's that's been this really helpful tool and I kind of look at the same uh or take the same approach to all all songs like sure they're maybe they're three and a half minutes long but I want I want every listen to hear there maybe they're three and a half I want every listen for for there to be some sort of new dimension or new layer that that comes out or stands out so I really try to kind of chisel in as much as much inspiration and and I call them Easter eggs I love hiding Easter eggs through all of my music and yes I've heard you say that's a very good metaphor I like that and I get asked a lot around the world about you probably get asked this quite a bit too about how do people find their passion they're calling their why and I think a good go to response I've come to decide is to point people to where they love the process rather than to where they're looking for outcomes and results because often the results the results as you know can be very patchy in the early stages so if you're if you're looking for X number of views or likes or sales in the early stages you could feel this is the wrong direction for me and walk away from a process you adore but the results don't say it's worth doing yet but if you hang around in that space the results will come don't you think oh absolutely hundred percent couldn't couldn't agree more it is and I feel like expectations which is exactly that and it's waiting for the expectations are just a it just it takes it takes the air out of the room you know yeah exactly what I'm thinking this song is going to do this thing it it maybe it will maybe it won't but it pretty much cannot compare in any way shape or form to whatever expectations but you lose expectations when you're in process and I feel like that that is a that is like I've said before too even that yearbook thing kind of taught me you know before I would think a lot about like I would want certain opportunities with my music I would want you know for them to more people to listen to it or to show up on a certain tv show I'd have these aspirations and it's not that I let go of those but I think by keeping my head down and doing the work for especially a project oddly enough like without those expectations that's when any that stuff actually started to happen it was really unusual because I the less I tried to get it the more opportunity and I certainly have seen the opposite be true in earlier years of my career where the harder I aim at something the the further off the shot is you know one of the things I've struggled with I think a lot of you know creatives and certainly people in my public speaking world but I think it's the same across the board for wherever you finish up delivering is what I call babysitting my creativity I wonder how you feel about that I once you've done the post or posted the manuscript or you have done the thing the camera and press send or you've written the song I've gone public with it this tendency I have had to hang around almost like it's personal defense lawyer to protect to protect it from incoming criticism misunderstanding wrong judgments to justify it and to stay attached to it beyond when I should and I found myself getting over attached to my babies as it were in your case your songs and so on how have you managed that has not been a problem for you or did you kind of just do it and walk away and next project kind of thing I try to do it and walk away but that is you know as you as you can imagine is not as successful as it always is as I wanted to be I I do have a I won't listen to my music again once it's done and I put it out of the world really I will not I will like I mean there are situations where I have to like when we press vinyl somebody has to proof that the the pressing was correct and I hate doing that so I have to listen to a whole project and nine nine times out of ten I feel more proud than you know disappointed but I just can't I feel like when I let go of something when I let go of a song it feels it feels whatever intuition version of done is that I I know I'll second guess it if I come back to it so but I do feel that sense like I I always want to chase after the songs after they come out you know to to appear into the comment section and thankfully I might the people that listen to my music are incredibly kind and I I rarely well that's not true I it's not totally rarely but the positive comments are far outweighing the negative ones and of course you know the brain only can compensate the yeah exactly it can only comprehend the the negative ones that I blow it completely out of proportion but that is exactly like you said it's like going around and watching over it like it's like I'm some sort of defense lawyer like you said yeah I heard Brad Pitt in an interview recently when he's sort of stepped back into his mainstream acting career he was interviewed recently after he got the Oscar for his latest Tarantino movie and someone was asking him on the red carpet about a movie he did and asked him about that movie and the response to the movie it got and it was going back some years and Brad Pitt just stood scratched his head and genuinely had no recall of of the experience in the movie of what happened to it next and he said to the person interviewing him he said honestly he said I know this may sound weird he said but I just don't have that kind of relationship with my work I do the project I finish it I go to the next thing and I thought it spoke to me that day because of this babysitting creativity thing like you just said yeah I do the movie I move on I think it's a very healthy thing for creatives to pay attention to rather than get over attached because once you're once you kind of status or identity is attached to it or your ego is attached to it and it gets hammered or it doesn't get a big response it's recovering from that can be very difficult and as you know many people in this creative world are very up and down according to the reception or whatever they do yes yes absolutely no all of that is 100 true and I I am a work in progress in all of that because I do I see the I see the dangerous nature of and some of my realizations actually in in writing that Enneagram 9 song stems from this but I realize that a lot of my emotional processing in this very intimate type of songwriting is it kind of gives me permission to think that I'm more in touch with my feelings and my emotions than maybe I am in my real life and I feel like it actually kind of it made me realize that my identity is deeply tied to sleeping at last like in some cases I almost feel like I'm more sleeping at last than Ryan right well which is dangerous that's not a that it should be an over my creativity should be an overflow who I am and I think it naturally is for everyone but it is so easy to get deeply attached and and on a creative level too I learned a long time ago that spending forever on on recording a song or writing a song does not equal that it's going to be better and like my first record that I ever made was for Interscope Records and it was I had I had a good year they they allowed like the budget was pretty crazy for for a young recording artist to to just take all the sweet time that we want to and I hear it now and I hear that like what was beautiful about some of those initial ideas is is buried in in a lot of a lot of insecurity and in a lot of like you know worrying about guitar sounds and worrying about things that don't actually matter and so when I started that yearbook project that I keep mentioning I think that also kind of along the lines of what I was saying it helped me to feel less precious about the music as a whole which ironically now I if I listen back to it like of course there's things that I would change or that I'd be you know insecure about but I feel a much deeper connection to those songs they feel they feel like the original spark of every one of those ideas they also feel like they just feel more real and more me and so I've been trying to kind of have this healthy balance of of staying out of the way don't don't try to overcook these songs but also when they're done let them really be done and try to walk away I wish that I could be like that uh that actor and completely forget about me too yeah I'm not there yet yeah I can do that in uh you know other areas of life which is probably not a good thing to do but um when it comes to my projects I have I'm definitely haunted by certain mistakes or yeah me too yeah it seems to it seems to me that you are just as comfortable though Ryan with lyric and music do you feel that or do you err more naturally to one than the other well that's a great question I I do probably feel like it's a pretty even balance for okay it feels like that yeah my my skill level but I do feel like I would say more often than not I feel like words are preferences so it's not even about being better or not you know um but music I feel like there's a there's a there's a level of skill in music that um I wish I had that yes like that I know that I can do exactly what I want to do but I also know um many many of my friends that aren't even musicians are technically better piano players than me they'll sit down right if you're like oh that would take me six years to learn with just my left hand you know like whoa I don't know how you're doing that with two hands um and so uh like yeah it it's it's a I do feel like um I probably am more natural at writing lyrics but I think that's just due to the nature of words are such preferences you know it's a there is a craft involved but it's uh uh I just am writing what I like with music I feel like oh man I wish I could I wish I could write something more complex on from time to time in recent years I've been speaking around the world quite a lot about something I call the prosperity of the soul focusing on the need for us as humans to live more from the soul and less from the ego and the awareness that we are I think entering a whole new era in the world and I think it's going to be accelerated post pandemic of people aware that despite being the most sophisticated generation of all time we are still yet the sickest most depressed suicidal and so on and I think any organizations businesses political groups creatives churches and so on that are committed to the to the call of human flourishing um and helping people live from that essential part of themselves that is usually neglected certain in the western world and um I wondered what lights you up how do you take care of your soul how do you stay healthy Ryan internally what do you do to keep in the kind of health you need to be in to produce the stuff you're producing wow that's a great question I I do think that so I have two little girls I have a five-year-old and a three-year-old and I do feel like they are they are my my conduit to all things you know yeah they they definitely help in that centering at the same time as you know getting less great sleep than I need to and all that but um they're the first they're the first thing that comes to mind but um I would say also um there's the practice of mindfulness I I try to meditate from from time to time I'm not great at it it's always like this thing that I like to talk more about than do so yeah I'm always promoting you know headspace or whatever whatever um whatever meditation thing I'm excited about and then I do it once in a month or something um but that it is it is extremely helpful um and also just being more I feel like I connect more to that um my soul or my my my the true essence of who I am when I am creative so it actually does help like it's kind of right even though I have to be careful with those identity and ego connections that I that I sometimes feel in me too that sitting down and writing not for a project not for anything other because I feel like doing it like I'll I'll sit at the piano and I do feel like there's a my my body remembers that it's something that I deeply deeply love and my brain will sometimes you know click into into work mode but um there there are beautiful moments where I and I've been trying to do this more often um where I just sit down and and I I don't even record it I'm just I'm just doing it because it feels like something I want that yeah my soul too I think when you said I'd do this if I had to do it for free he tells me everything about your love of what you do people ask me what do you do for fun what do you do for play and I know they mean everything except work but my answer often is my work my work is my play is my play but it sounds like it sounds like you know you're flunking the test and you're dodging the answer right exactly it does and I mean it is what a gift that it is actually that way right like we that we get to um that we'd be choosing to do the same thing whether or not we're yes making a little yes yeah it's a blessing hey Ryan how old are you now how old are you 36 um 36 okay well I'm still gonna ask you this question what would you say any advice to a younger Ryan maybe your late teens maybe early 20s anything you wish someone had said to you that you would have wished you'd known sooner than you figured out I don't know two years ago or when you entered your 30s have you thought about that much as you age and or 36 isn't old compared to me at 63 but I thought about it a lot in my midlife you know I keep referencing that same song and I'm sorry I feel like a one note but the song nine that I wrote um yes really it was really about that I recognize that basically since the age of 14 or 15 I at that point I think just by growing up a little bit and some some circumstances in my life like led to led to a turning down of my heart and my emotions so even though I'm channeling all in in my songs and that's great and that gives me permission to explore it somewhere but I would tell them that that form or self that that's the that's the best part of who I am and who um and to not turn that down to turn it back up and leave it leave it as vulnerable and dangerous as it might be to kind of lead with your heart or lead with your the emotional part of who you are um and not that I not that I haven't been or have denied that part I just have shrunk it down um for you know to keep keep me safe and so I would definitely um I'm still now is 36 trying to remember that part of me but um I it would probably easier if I had known that at 14 what I loved about your approach to any aground though Ryan was and you made this very clear on everyone is that you approach them all with this celebrating of each of these types of people rather than judgment or suspicion um because the others were very different to you I think your sense of embracing all types was such a great approach to all the intergrams like your interviews and everything we're trying to find out what is the genius each of these people bring knowing that many of them didn't frame it as genius right yeah thank you thank you so much I did I did feel early on that it would be a really empty project if it was just descriptive or it would just be soulless if it if it was just talking about the the baggage that we all carry around so there was I was trying to figure out a balance between being really honest about that baggage and about the struggles and the weight of it and I think the way I was able to do that was just by seeing that I I actually have all those struggles and the weight in me too so it's easy to easy to relate to um but I really did I wanted them to be nine stories of redemption and and I also wanted them to be um these songs to feel I think I realized this halfway through the process that that not only are the stories of redemption but really the best version of every type is is a form of letting go and yes I like and I've been I've been learning learning a little bit about spiral dynamics are you are you familiar with spiral no it's this I'm terrible probably at talking about it because I'm so new to it and it's probably um there's there's probably a way to um that I'm going to dumb it down on accident um but it is essentially this uh this kind of unearthed um I think Don Beck and uh maybe Ken Wilbur I can't remember the exact origins of this but it's basically seeing throughout the history of human beings this this um these levels of development that that are occurring and um each one it starts from the very beginning of of of survival all the way up to kind of where we currently are at which is uh you know this this need for success and this need for this drive and ambition and this kind of explosion of technology and everything in between and it kind of talks about the formations of of religion and cause and effect and um it kind of fluctuates back and forth from from uh like an I me centered emphasis on each level then going to a collective community we sense um so it it's this really beautiful um understanding of of human development and uh the same thing that I realized about the enneagram is seems it rings very true of all of these different uh uh levels of spiral dynamics which is just it's just in order to get to the the better versions of who we are it's just letting go that's it's like well I feel I feel another album coming on right there I do I actually saw atlas three even though it won't be songs about spiral dynamics it is sort of going to be it will serve as the underpinning for uh for the order which I very cool listen man I don't want to take a lot more of your time but I want to ask you two more things one one last thing I want to ask you about um uh any particular uh how can I phrase this quirks idiosyncrasies weirdness that you have that to you are non-negotiables you know I have things in me that people think are odd or weird idiosyncratic and it's always been said to me historically growing up as a criticism and I've come to realize it's it's a non-negotiable part of who I am once I settle that that weirdness sort of found a home under safety in me and became a blessing to others but I think um I think the future belongs to weird people by the way um and I think things are changing more towards that direction in all walks of life anything that you have struggled with in your life that people have seen that you've come to think at 36 that's just me I love that about me um my my deep adoration and love of disney is growing the older I get and not shrinking the town um and I do feel like that there's a there's just an optimism about the uh some of the original ideas of everything that disney stands for you know of course it's a giant company and it is uh uh there's there's probably many many things to critique about it but it's still it's still centers back to this this really beautiful idea of of hope and and family and um I don't know I feel like somehow it it uh it highlights some of the best of us and um and so I my love for that is pretty deep so I have to tone it down around most friends because uh not not everybody is as uh as big of a disney fan as I am well I could I could so imagine you writing for a disney movie in the future doing a whole score for a movie you would be brilliant at that so hope you're listening I'm in Ryan any hobbies I love movies so I uh I I try every year to uh I keep track of every movie I watch and I give a little rating or um just I just love kind of keeping tracks especially when people are like what what have you seen recently I can quickly reference my notes um but I I I have like a a very flexible goal of seeing about 100 films a year and I've only been able to hit that maybe once or twice but um it keeps me trying and I just I love I love that format of storytelling and I feel like it's like the the best of all art forms because it's visual it's audible you know it's audio it's it's acting it's it's kind of everything and uh yeah so that I would say just viewing movies as a hobby is that can that be considered a hobby I think it is absolutely did you see did you like see the Netflix series Jerry Seinfeld at comedians and cars I love that show yes I love me too from a creative point of view of interviewing them about that craft I found that amazing but honestly I honestly I found Seinfeld often more interesting than the guests yep absolutely his his perspectives are yes very unique and uh I love I love his stance on fame and just me too and his guests you know in in these public settings how they handle people and how they handle each other I yeah I love it it's almost like it's almost especially him he doesn't take it all that seriously and I'm right median but there's there's something really beautiful about that Ryan how can our listeners find you give us a little bit of information how we can find you and what you're currently involved in as your upcoming projects thank you yeah um I'm I'm everywhere that social media is so sleeping at last is my handle pretty much everywhere and sleeping at last.com and my music's on Spotify and all all of the the places where music is and my current project is I'm continuing on that that long form series called Atlas which is where those Enneagram songs belong and this will be the third installment of this project and I think it's going to be a trilogy so it started with Atlas one which is songs based on the origins of all things and then led to Atlas two which is us it's all about life and human involuntary human development and then this next chapter Atlas three will be all about voluntary human development so everything we do with all that we're given so I'm very excited to kind of launch into that and but that's that's what I'll be that's what we'll be spending the next few years on I think which will be a lot of fun. Thank you fantastic listen I want to say thank you for your time and thank you again for your for your voice I don't just mean your singing voice but the the body of work that you are presenting to the world that sense of gathered voice your your vocal fingerprint as a human is a beautiful thing and I think it's very very embedded in everything you do and I think we're all the better for it and I hope more people find their way to what you're producing because I feel it's a service to humanity rather than just songwriting or music producing I think you are a genius my friend and I'm so privileged to have this time with you thank you thank you Paul seriously thank you what a what a delight it is to get to talk we hope you enjoyed this show with Paul Scanlon and Ryan O'Neill from Sleeping at Last we'd love for you to subscribe write a review and share with those you think might be interested don't forget about the exclusive 20 discount from Paul's Communication Masterclass course in this course there are over 34 videos to do at your own find out more about the course and the great packages we put together for you at PaulScanlon.com and use the discount code podcast20 and don't forget this is limited to the first 50 people thank you and keep connected with us for more great shows coming up