Cultivating a Creative Life After a Nervous Breakdown with Jim Woods

Today, I'm talking with Jim Woods, author of two bestselling books, Ready Aim Fire and Focus Booster about cultivating a creative life. These days, creativity plays a significant role in his everyday life as an author, freelance writer, book marketer, and writing coach—but that wasn't always the case. We'll be talking about the period in his life where he ignored his creative nature and how this manifested itself mentally and physically. Jim will be taking us through his journey of quitting a job that gave him heart palpitations to put new pieces together and build his creative life.

What to Listen For: 

Who was Jim Woods before he dove into the creative community?
What he went to school for and why
What he always wanted to be "when he grew up" that never panned out
The moment that he realized he wanted a change

"I was chatting with a coworker, just having coffee, shooting the breeze. It was something we would do like before work in his office. And I was like, 'Hey, what's, what's that on your wall?' And he's like, he's like, 'Oh, that's my number.'

I'm like, 'what do you mean your number?' He's like, 'it's 342 days until I retire.' And I was like, 'okay.' He was just checking off the days until he could leave. And that was a big inciting incident for me.

I realized it was like, you can do this until you retire. And I was 30 at the time, and I was like, I'm not going to do just this. I'm not going to do this till I retire."

His creative release during that time - spoiler alert: it wasn't writing
The story he was spinning in his head as to why he needed to stay at his job
How this story lead to a nervous breakdown

"I felt like that scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where they're in this room and spikes come down and the walls keep getting closer. I remember that point distinctively. I was in the bathroom, just sitting there avoiding being in the office, cause anywhere but my cubicle, anywhere but my office. And I was just trying to avoid it. 

I think I was playing a video game on my phone or something, and I was just like, I can't go back. This is terrible. And I just remember that image in the movie. And I haven't seen that movie in years, but it was like, 'Oh my gosh, this is so eerie. It's so similar.'

And at that point, my body just started rebelling against me."

His action plan as his body started trying to tell him something was wrong
Having body aches, high blood pressure, and heart palpitations
Thinking he was having a heart attack at 30
Giving up caffeine, as a new parent, no less!
Not getting answers from doctors
Feeling hopeless and becoming deeply depressed

"I was depressed too. I was like feeling more hopeless as all of this stuff was just piling up. My wife was concerned. She said she thought I was suicidal.

I never felt that I wanted to inflict injury. I just was internalizing a lot of my frustration, and I didn't go to a counselor. I didn't talk it through with anyone. I just was stuffing everything inside and trying to find those distractions, you know, the, 'Hey, we made it to Friday.'"

The coffee shop that turned out to be a turning point
Attending the Quitter Conferences with John Acuff
His biggest takeaway from the conference
Feeling his hope return through finding his community
Ditching the stereotypes and showing up as a writer his way

"I can wave the 'I'm a writer flag' and kind of push aside this image in my mind that you have to look a certain way. You have to have a cabin in the woods, a typewriter, a pipe, and a sweater. There are all these silly ideas in my head were floating around like, I'm not a writer. This doesn't make sense."

Releasing the pressure in making connections
Becoming a networking machine in a very natural way
How he discovered his love of writing

"Just the idea of looking back at what I did in the past, what I really enjoyed.