Life Lessons from Taylor Swift, Conquering Anxiety, Coaching Teens, Career Reinvention, Supposedly Gay Bulls, Your Shadow Side, and More — Soman Chainani (#720)

“If I spent my life on Instagram and TikTok, I would die because it’s just the wrong inputs to make me find what I want to do.”

— Soman Chainani

Soman Chainani (@somanc) is the bestselling author of The School for Good & Evil book series, which has sold more than 4 million copies, been translated into 35 languages across six continents, and been adapted into a major motion picture from Netflix that debuted at #1 in more than 80 countries.

Soman’s book of retold fairy tales, Beasts and Beauty, debuted on The New York Times Best Sellers List—his seventh book in a row to do so—and is slated to be a limited television series from Sony’s 3000 Pictures, with Soman writing and executive producing. Together, his books have been on the New York Times Best Sellers List for more than 50 weeks.

Soman has an A.B. in English and American Literature from Harvard University and an MFA in Film from Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Sun Valley Writers Fellowship, and he has been nominated for the Waterstone Prize for Children’s Literature and been named to the Out100.

Soman has visited more than 800 schools around the world, sharing his message that reading is the path to a better life.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Watch the interview on YouTube here.

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#720: Life Lessons from Taylor Swift, Conquering Anxiety, Coaching Teens, Career Reinvention, Supposedly Gay Bulls, Your Shadow Side, and More — Soman Chainani

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What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Want to hear the last time Soman Chainani was on this show? Listen to our conversation here, in which we discussed failed filmmaking projects, tutoring for fun over profit, habits of high performance, coming out, advice for tennis novices, the city-building aspirations of Walt Disney, preserving artistic integrity across mediums, and much more.

#220: Soman Chainani — The School for Good and Evil

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Connect with Soman Chainani:

Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter

SHOW NOTES

[04:54] Who is Soman Chainani?
[06:01] Follow the flow.
[14:52] Give stories away.
[23:34] Your bull might be gay.
[30:13] Indispensable assistance.
[36:36] Art appreciation: Christopher Marley.
[40:35] Coach Alpha.
[50:05] Mike Regula’s Course of Action.
[52:31] The catharsis of being an intermittent pop star.
[59:20] How ketamine changed Soman’s life.
[1:08:09] The Shadow Self vs. The Double (refereed by Kelly Clarkson).
[1:13:47] Thoughts on Netflix’s Quarterback.
[1:17:34] Career lessons from Taylor Swift.
[1:24:07] Recommended reading.
[1:29:55] Cross-collar dating.
[1:35:12] The language of couples.
[1:36:59] Hookups.
[1:38:28] St. Louis vs. everywhere else.
[1:42:48] Dodgy allergies.
[1:48:41] Babysitting the fully formed.
[1:52:07] Parting thoughts.

MORE SOMAN CHAINANI QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“What I realized is that your conscious mind can’t actually solve problems. It can execute, it can deliver on the promise of something, but what actually is going to be the next creative force in your life, the next big decision, has to come to you naturally.”
— Soman Chainani

“When you think you can’t find what the next thing is, it’s like, what’s the next zone of discomfort?”
— Soman Chainani

“I get a lot of big ideas, and I will not write a book until I’ve had the idea for at least three years. It has to stay with me for three years because it’s going to take me that long to write, promote, take it out, and I need to be sure that it’s not going to suddenly be a short-term relationship. And it feels also like it’s timeless then. If it lasts three years, it’s made it through most of a presidential administration. It’s made it through all the ups and downs. I feel like it’s going to last.”
— Soman Chainani

“On any given night, if you’re an alcoholic or you have a drug addiction or whatever, you can just go to an AA meeting and you can have that group experience. And I felt like, why isn’t there that for teenagers? This idea that you can just go to a space and meet other teenagers on a given night and have that kind of place to talk to or experience. And yes, you can do it online. But I just think the more you get into your phone, the further you often get away from actually who you are and real connection.”
— Soman Chainani

“If I spent my life on Instagram and TikTok, I would die because it’s just the wrong inputs to make me find what I want to do.”
— Soman Chainani

“It’s almost like you have to get your conscious brain out of the way because the double, the real version of yourself that knows how to do everything, is there somewhere. And the question is, over time, can you make it so they start to integrate?”
— Soman Chainani

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