“The problem is that you’re trying in the first place.”

In this episode, Nick speaks with Carla Ondrasik, a former music publisher turned author and speaker. Carla shares her unique background, including her experience with the Department of Defense and her journey in the music industry. They dive into her philosophy of ‘Stop Trying,’ emphasizing the importance of mindset and the detrimental effects of the word ‘try.’

What to listen for:

• The philosophy of “Stop Trying” is solid, so give it a go
• Trying often leads to excuses and a lack of accountability
• Success is not guaranteed by trying, but by doing
• Motivation follows action, not the other way around
• Saying no can be more powerful than trying and failing
• We all have the potential to do what we truly want

“If you can just get rid of that word, try, your brain knows the difference, and your actions become different.”

• The words we use actually send cues to our brain
• Replacing “I’ll try” with “I will” instantly shifts your mindset from uncertainty to ownership
• When intentions are clear and confident, your actions align more easily with your goals
• Success starts with self-talk
• Letting go of “try” creates room for decisive action

“Trying is a half-hearted attempt or an effort.”

• When you “try,” you’re not fully in
• Strong intention makes effort meaningful
• You’re either in or you’re not
• If we only give part of ourselves to something, we learn to expect partial wins or total frustration
• At some point, you have to stop thinking and start doing

About Carla Ondrasik

Carla is the creator of the No Try philosophy and author of Stop Trying! The Life-Transforming Power of Trying Less and Doing More. She has spent over two decades sharing her message through research, speaking engagements, mentoring, and writing. A former VP of Creative Writer Development at EMI Music, Carla placed hit songs with legends like Barbra Streisand, Cher, Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, and many others, contributing to millions of records sold worldwide. She continues to mentor aspiring musicians while promoting her philosophy to businesses, women’s leadership groups, and schools. Carla has two adult children and lives in Southern California with her husband, John Ondrasik (Five for Fighting), and is an avid swimmer.

• https://carlaondrasik.com
• https://www.instagram.com/carlaondrasik
• https://www.facebook.com/carla.ondrasik/

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Click To View The Episode Transcript

Nick McGowan (00:09.812)
All right, three, two, hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show, we have Karla Androsik. Karla, how you doing today?

Carla Ondrasik (00:21.016)
So great today. Happy to be home and loving life.

Nick McGowan (00:23.86)
I bet you just told me you just got off the road and literally got back and where you said you were yesterday was probably what, 3,000 miles away from home? At least.

Carla Ondrasik (00:32.75)
Yep, got home at midnight and I’m just settling back in and this is one of my favorite places to be, home, so I’m great.

Nick McGowan (00:42.3)
Awesome. And thank you for not canceling on this. I know sometimes it’s like I’ve had a long week or weeks. It’s like, I just want to be home for a day. So I appreciate you jumping on. I think this will be a great conversation. So why don’t you get a start? Tell us what you do for a living and what’s one thing most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre.

Carla Ondrasik (01:01.578)
So what I do for a living is still a little bit of my past integrated in with my current life. I was a music publisher for EMI Music Publishing for 20 plus years, and I still mentor young artists and songwriters, and I work with some contemporary people. But at the same time, I am an author. I have a book coming out for the first time. I’m a speaker and a motivator, and I just

love sharing my message. I’m back to work.

Nick McGowan (01:34.74)
Perfect. And what’s that thing that most people don’t know about you that’s a little odd or bizarre?

Carla Ondrasik (01:40.25)
I had a top secret security clearance. I worked for the Department of Defense. I was helicoptered into secret locations, saw all kinds of things that most people don’t get to see. And yeah, that’s kind of a strange thing. Not many people know about me.

Nick McGowan (01:59.198)
So now I’m wondering, do I just stop recording and ask you all the questions about all the classified things or do we keep going? I guess we’ll keep going. I’m sure there’s not much you can really talk about that sort of stuff.

Carla Ondrasik (02:04.397)
Ha ha ha!

Carla Ondrasik (02:11.936)
I was debriefed, but it was a long time ago, but it was really intense. Like I was in classified documents and I mean, the people that I worked with were scientists and I they were basically building bombs. Okay. And yeah, and my job to get to work, I had to go through like five different doors just to get to my office and shred my bubble gum wrappers, you know, in case, you know, you had to shred everything and it got really intense.

Nick McGowan (02:14.964)
OK.

Nick McGowan (02:20.947)
Mm.

Nick McGowan (02:26.612)
Fair enough.

Nick McGowan (02:39.848)
Yeah. Huh.

Carla Ondrasik (02:41.888)
I got out, but it was quite an experience. Amazing.

Nick McGowan (02:45.588)
So did that make you paranoid about everything else in life for a little while? Okay, cool. Well, that’s good. Yeah, I mean with the shredding like bubblegum wrappers and stuff like that, I wondered if you went home and you’re like, my God, all the documents and God knows what sort of spy raccoons are in our trash can looking through all of our paperwork.

Carla Ondrasik (02:49.844)
No, it me feel very safe actually.

Carla Ondrasik (03:07.285)
Exactly. I know. Yeah, we have a shredder here, but I don’t use it.

Nick McGowan (03:11.856)
Okay, fair enough. That is cool. I think a thing that is also really cool, at least from my perspective as a musician is you found your husband’s band. And you have, like, I want to know the story of that. Maybe I’m a little biased because as a musician and somebody who knows of your husband’s band, I’d like to hear that story. But also getting into the

the conversations that have been had between yourself as the business side of music and with the artist and the musician. I think that ties directly into the name of your book. You want to go ahead and name the book and tell us a bit about that as well?

Carla Ondrasik (03:50.69)
Yeah, the book is called Stop Trying and it comes out September 23rd. it really is. It’s carried me through my whole life. can get into Why I Don’t Try, which is a whole could be another podcast, but it’ll be interesting to talk about. But yeah, it really affects your personal life, your business life, your creativity, your mental wellness, all of it. And so, yeah, I have applied the not trying philosophy.

for myself and then my children now and in my marriage and family and obviously my career. I had a great career for 20 plus years. My last title was Vice President of Creative Writer Development for EMI on the West Coast. And the quick story about John on Jurassic of five for fighting, there’s no five and there’s no fighting. But.

Nick McGowan (04:45.012)
the

Carla Ondrasik (04:47.028)
when he got his record deal, there were no John Mayers. It was the Wallflowers and there were band names. And the record company was like, John, we can’t like market John Androsik. So he’s a hockey freak. He’s a sports freak and he loves the Kings. And he was like, well, what about Five for Fighting? I think he had just saw Marty McSorley do some terrible fight, you know, definitely dating ourselves here. But the record company loved it.

Nick McGowan (04:53.694)
Mm-hmm.

Carla Ondrasik (05:16.948)
So it’s just one guy and he has stories for you. We’ll have to get him on your podcast because the two of you would have a great time. I mean, he was booked into these bars that, you know, they were expecting five for fighting heavy metal and there he is playing like Superman, you know. But, you know, you learn on your feet. And the way I discovered him was it’s the greatest story. So I was working for

Nick McGowan (05:22.952)
Yeah, that’d cool.

Nick McGowan (05:32.936)
Yeah.

Carla Ondrasik (05:45.12)
a company called Zamba, which specialized in rap. And I mean, Too Short would run around and follow me all around the office. And I remember that, gosh, I can’t think of her name right now. Another artist that, a Latin artist, Selena, she was my writer and it was during the time that she was murdered, actually. That’s kind of crazy thing that happened. But so I’m pitching R &B music and I’m in Motown.

So I’m playing songs for an executive to have their artists record. And I hear this voice through the wall. And I’m like, what’s that voice? Like, that’s not Motown. That’s the most amazing voice I’ve ever heard. And the guy was like, oh, secretary’s girlfriend playing his music on a cassette all day long. That’s how long ago it was. And I’m like, I can get that guy a record deal. So I got the cassette.

Nick McGowan (06:24.372)
Mm-hmm.

Carla Ondrasik (06:42.284)
And then I went and saw him perform in a coffee shop on Melrose, like weeks later, because I needed to see like, is he artist material? You you never know. And of course I went up to him, you know, smoking a cigarette, black leather jacket, hi, I can get you a record deal. And he’s like, I’m sure you can. And I did, I left the company I was with and I went to EMI on my first day. I played his music and they’re like, sign him up. We completely believe in this guy.

Nick McGowan (06:49.182)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (06:58.398)
Sure.

Carla Ondrasik (07:11.502)
And then I developed him as a writer. You know, it took a long time for him to write the song that would get him a record deal. You you have to pair that unique voice and style with the right song. It’s all about the song. so got him signed to the publishing company. Then I got him his record deal. And then we got married. We fell in love and we’ve been married for 27 years, almost 28. We have two kids.

25 and 23 and our daughter is opening for him on this latest tour. So she’s incredible. Yeah, she’s got the bug. So yeah, I heard my husband’s voice through the wall. And that’s when I just was like, that’s amazing.

Nick McGowan (07:48.356)
man, that’s gotta be so cool.

Nick McGowan (07:58.984)
And that’s one of those like you, you can kind of try to script it. But even if that was turned to do a movie, you’d like, come on now, that’s weird. And I could picture you being like, I can get you I can get you a contract like sure, honey. Sure you can. Meanwhile, 30 years later, you know, what a cool thing. Well, so part of the reason why I wanted to have you on the show.

Carla Ondrasik (08:07.906)
right?

Carla Ondrasik (08:15.15)
It is the best.

Nick McGowan (08:25.044)
was because of your background and I’m a musician and I love to just, I could just riff on this stuff all day long. But the biggest thing is the don’t try. Like there’s been a thing that I think just it runs rampant throughout probably the entire globe, at least this country. The hustle mentality, the grind after things, all of that. And then there are the people that are like the anti-hustle culture.

that I don’t think actually gets to the point that you get to, even with just the basic idea of don’t try. And I think if people stop listening to this episode right now, they’re gonna go, oh, this is Nick McGowan talking with some lady about not trying in your marriage and not trying your business, not trying in life, not trying. You gotta keep listening because this isn’t just about not trying. It’s about being specific in the things that you do try, am I right?

Carla Ondrasik (08:59.886)
Mm-hmm.

Carla Ondrasik (09:18.752)
Absolutely. It’s about eliminating that word because it’s fooling us. We think we know what it means. It’s this nasty little thing that’s out there that tricks us and fools us into believing that we’re doing. And when you try, and I’m just going to say right now, the problem isn’t that you’re not trying hard enough to anybody that’s listening. I’m sure you’re trying with all of your heart and soul.

Nick McGowan (09:48.724)
Yeah.

Carla Ondrasik (09:48.898)
The problem is that you’re trying in the first place and that’s a big thing. And if you can just get rid of that, that word try, your brain knows the difference and your actions become different. But when you stay stuck in that trying mode, believing you’re doing when you’re really not, we can go back to like, do we think it means? What does it really mean? Why do we do it? And you keep spinning around in circles because that’s what trying is. Okay.

you get depressed and then you end up giving up and then you have all this negative self-talk. it’s never going to happen for me. I can’t do it. I’m not smart enough. I don’t have enough money. So it’s a big thing. It’s an important thing to address. you know, we all know the Yoda saying do or do not, there is no try, right? But nobody has ever said why.

Nick McGowan (10:19.39)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (10:36.471)
Yep.

Carla Ondrasik (10:41.676)
We just take that at face value. No one’s ever like looked at and said, well, why don’t we try? Why does Yoda say that? And if you look at the Nike slogan even, it’s just do it. It doesn’t say just try to do it. There’s a reason that that word’s eliminated. So it’s more than just, yeah, don’t try, do. It’s why. Really stop and ask yourself why. And you can change your life. Literally, I’ve seen it happen in 24 hours.

Nick McGowan (10:54.174)
the

Nick McGowan (11:11.828)
I’m gonna get pretty macro with this because yeah, the nerd in me and probably most people that are 25 years old and older probably think of Yoda. God, even at this point because of the Mandalorian, they probably, younger kids probably think of Yoda. But that comes to mind and I love the idea of, why, but let’s break it down a bit more. Just when you think of, you try your job, let’s say.

Carla Ondrasik (11:23.309)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (11:41.874)
You get into a job and you go, I have to learn what’s going on, who these people are, what the systems are. And I have to at least attempt to do things. I have to try in that sort of way. The try of what you’re talking about. Are those the bigger tries of like, I want to try to be this big iconoclast or something that’s going to change everything. And instead removing that and just doing more of yourself. I I’m being real rough around the edges.

Carla Ondrasik (12:11.694)
Okay. Sure. I think your question is, is it, are we talking about semantics? The first part of what you said, it’s basically, you know, yeah, I’m going to try and pick up this little bottle of hand sanitizer. The odds are I’m going to pick it up. That’s semantics, right? But if you’re in your job and you’re saying, well, I’m going to try and, you know, get five clients signed up for a call tomorrow.

Nick McGowan (12:11.7)
kind of put the volleyball in air for you.

Nick McGowan (12:27.764)
Yeah.

Carla Ondrasik (12:41.664)
You’re gonna try to do that. And what that means is trying is a half-hearted attempt or an effort. And here’s why. Because the minute you say, I’m going to try to do it, you’re already putting failure as a possibility. When you say, I’m going to try, you’re insinuating it may not happen. Okay? And you’re also inviting excuses and blame. Well, I’m going to try…

I might not do it because, well, you know, their phone was busy and I couldn’t reach them. Excuse or blame. You know, somebody needed me in the office and I had to go do a meeting. So you’re putting failure in the first place. You allow excuses and blame. And then you have zero accountability. When you say you’re going to try and you don’t get those five clients that day, who cares? You just said you would try. No one’s going to get mad at you. Well, you didn’t say you would do it.

It’s a very different thing when you say you’ll do something for someone and then you don’t, you you’re going to have some consequences and accountability. So all that stuff, you know, our brain is listening to us and our words matter because we are the programmer and then the brain processes that and says, okay, this is what I have to do. So the doer will say, I am getting five clients today and they will skip lunch.

They’ll work four extra hours if they have to. They will not even allow for the thought of not, you know, the failure. It’s going to happen and I’m going to do it. So it’s just a different mindset. And I think it’s important right now to say that not trying doesn’t guarantee success. It doesn’t guarantee you’re going to get those five clients, but it does guarantee you a better chance at getting those five clients than the guy that says, well, I’m going to try. You know, it’s just like

Nick McGowan (14:35.543)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As you say it, I think of different times I’ve said it to people and it’s been kind of a yeah, fuck off. Like, yeah, I’ll give it a try. Sure. OK. But if it’s one of those things that it’s like, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it. That’s how it is. And I think for all of us, we probably all go through those things and we have more of a soft gray area with the try when we’re not as focused on it.

Carla Ondrasik (14:37.634)
I’m gonna try.

Carla Ondrasik (14:46.158)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (15:03.88)
But if we’re all honest with each other, we probably do this more often than not. Like, yeah, I’ll give it a try. Sure. Shut up. Leave me alone. Or I’m going to go do this thing. And I don’t know how the hell I’m going to do it, but I’m going to go do it. Something I really want to be mindful of here. And I think about this in all the different ways that we just go through life is there are other people, their traumas, their situations that have happened that can infect or affect you, how you move about things are also systemic issues.

Carla Ondrasik (15:09.292)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (15:33.074)
Like it can be really easy for us to say, go do this thing if we have privilege and we have the money to do it. If we have these different situations or we’re not part of a marginalized community that’s going to cripple us or hold us back from doing things. So how does all that tie into the not trying?

Carla Ondrasik (15:49.262)
Oh boy, you just threw out tons of excuses as to why you can’t do something. That’s the bad part of trying, okay? So for, look, I have never, I’m 61 years old, okay? I’m just going to put it out there. It’s the truth. I’ve never written a book before. I am a behind-the-scenes star maker, okay? I can do anything for anybody else.

Nick McGowan (15:55.592)
Hahaha

Carla Ondrasik (16:18.382)
I’ve never aspired to write a book. I just had this incredible idea that the universe just kept bringing back and providing opportunities for me. But I could have given you a million reasons. First of all, I’m 61. Who’s going to sign an author? I have zero platform. I’ve been a very private person, right? I’m not really, you know, versed at speaking in public. I could give you

probably 25 reasons why I would not get a publishing deal. And if you research it, 1 % of authors get a publishing deal. Okay. Me who has everything stacked against her, it happened. Okay. Because I decided I’m going to do this and I did everything I had to do to make it happen. And when I was approached with you have to do this to make this happen, it was fine. I’ll get it done. Like,

For example, Mel Robbins, who is the top writer, right? I had, I met her, which is a crazy story, about eight years ago, and I reached out and said, I have a book coming out, you know, and I have this proposal and I’m wondering if you’ll write the forward to my book. And she read the forward and she got right back to me and said, look, I don’t have the bandwidth to write your forward. I love this idea. It’s incredible. But I’ll do your front cover endorsement for you.

Nick McGowan (17:27.508)
Nice.

Carla Ondrasik (17:41.134)
But she said, you have to get a major publishing deal. can’t. And at that moment, I’m well, of course, sure, I’m going to do that. 1 % out of 1 out of a million. OK? It’s a mindset. That’s what I’m saying. So no matter where you are in your life, no matter what you’ve suffered, I’ll tell you about my childhood, like why I even do this. You can do amazing things.

But if you try, you are holding yourself back. That’s all that that is. It’s putting this giant roadblock in front of you, this predetermined failure, fail stop. It’s just a really bad thing that we do. And the reason that I wrote this book is because we don’t even realize we’re doing it. So that’s my hope, that once people really get to understand what it means, that they could just push it away and just say, wow, I thought I was doing, but I’ve…

Nick McGowan (18:30.942)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (18:36.628)
Hmm

Carla Ondrasik (18:39.274)
really only been trying and I’ve been leaning on all this other stuff to keep me there. yeah, it’s trying is this horrible roadblock that we put in front of ourselves.

Nick McGowan (18:51.348)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I agree that there’s a lot of deep subconscious programming that has happened from when you were a little kid, somebody said something to you you’re like, Oh, well, maybe I shouldn’t do that. Or I shouldn’t do this. Or you’re a dumb kid, you’re never going to amount to anything or whatever. mean, some bully in fourth grade could have said something that just got locked in your head. And that was a story. And then you try different things. There are also other things that are potential blockers.

that don’t really affect how you try or go after and do, they’re still gonna be their own little entity that’s going to affect us. Like if the whole company, or company, the whole country collapsed right now and we’re in immediate civil war and technology went down, I could try to get on the internet. I could do my best to get on the internet, but if the whole grid is shut down, that’s a different story. So being able to take those things without saying, well, this is a soft blocker at least.

Carla Ondrasik (19:27.192)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (19:48.02)
And that’s one of the things that really stood out with what you were just saying was, if we look at everything and go, I’m just not gonna try it, I’m gonna do it. And then as those roadblocks come up or different things that come up that are literally just in our way, it’s not about us trying or not trying. When they get in front of us, it’s still that mindset, that mentality of I’m gonna get through this fucking thing. I think there’s that energy of like, I don’t give a shit what you put in front of me. I’m getting through it, I’m getting around it, I’ll knock you over with it.

Carla Ondrasik (20:09.944)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (20:17.712)
whatever I got to do. But taking a bit of a step back of how do we as people have that internal fortitude, I think is the right word for that, and drive of like everybody get out of my way without saying to ourselves, we’ve got to be Oprah, or we’ve got to be Steve Jobs, we just need to be us. And I think there’s a lot of infection that happens from social media and stuff like that where people go, my God, look at these influencers that are

Carla Ondrasik (20:17.74)
Yep.

Carla Ondrasik (20:38.293)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (20:47.614)
doing these things and they’ve made all this money and it’s like, well, no reality. It actually took them like 20 years to do that. Your husband’s stories. Yeah. That’s like, yeah, exactly. Like, well, I just woke up and magically I got billions of dollars. It’s like, that’s not really true. So how did you work through that? And even with yourself getting to the point where you go, I’ve never written a book before. Robbins said she would do this for me, but I got to do this. I’m going to go after these things and do it. But let’s go even further back.

Carla Ondrasik (20:53.418)
Exactly, overnight success. Yeah, the 20-year overnight.

Carla Ondrasik (21:03.536)
yeah.

Nick McGowan (21:16.596)
to your childhood? Like, how did you get to the point where you’re like, you know what, I’m not going to try anymore. And how did that start to, I don’t know, ball up 20, 30, 40 years ago, you know?

Carla Ondrasik (21:16.738)
Okay.

Carla Ondrasik (21:27.35)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, also you have to live a life to be able to write about something, to gather the knowledge, to be able to put it out there. So luckily I had a lot of, I’ve been fascinated by this for many years. Okay, so, well, you asked so many things. I’m going to like focus here. First thing I want to say is that innately we know.

Nick McGowan (21:32.02)
Yeah.

Carla Ondrasik (21:55.156)
that trying is not the best option. We already know it. So like, for example, you wouldn’t put your money in a bank that says, hey, I’m going to try and have your money available to you. I’ll try and keep track of it. You know, we’ll try to secure. No, that would not be an option. And then when you go to the store, if you have a headache, you don’t go to the bottle that says it tries to relieve your pain. It’s this relieves your pain faster, better, quicker than anybody else. So we don’t allow for trying.

Okay. And then sometimes we’re not given the opportunity to try. Like the airlines, you know, if you’re booking a flight, they say to you, you be here at 820, we’re boarding and that flight is taking off. You can’t try to be here. We’re not trying to take off. We’re taking off. you know, there’s, so for me, I grew up in New York, Long Island, New York. I’m one of three girls and my father was a gambler, like a bad boy.

He was, you know, we’d answer the phone sometimes and say, daddy, are you Jim? Like we didn’t even know what name he was going by. You know, on the surface we had the house and the neighborhood and his three little girls, but you know, sometimes there weren’t Christmas presents and sometimes we were leaving on a moment’s notice. so that, in addition to, I do feel like I was raised a certain way and born a certain way.

Nick McGowan (23:03.012)
Carla Ondrasik (23:25.44)
I remember a contest in school. I wanted to win that book. It was a book on the environment. Like horrible prize. What kid wants to win a book on the environment? But I wanted to win it. And I said, I’m going to win this book. And I worked harder than any of my friends. And I did. I won it. I wish I still had it. I’d have it on my shelf behind me. But it was this strong, you know, there wasn’t even

Nick McGowan (23:45.652)
Sure.

Carla Ondrasik (23:52.078)
thought that I could try to do it. was no, I’m doing it. And you know, my family, when I was about 13, we literally had to leave New York overnight and I left my dog, my clothes, my Barbies, my bedroom, my friends. In fact, so talk about not being able to try. You can’t, I was left with a family I didn’t even really know. So it was

Nick McGowan (24:19.369)
Mm.

Carla Ondrasik (24:20.526)
You don’t try to survive. You’re either going to go on that way, you know, you’re to take a hard left and go down the rabbit hole, or you’re going to survive and you’re going to come out of this, you know, better than you were before. So that’s really where my moment was, where I’m going to do this and I’m going to be great and I’m going to take care of myself and I’m going to survive this.

Nick McGowan (24:26.26)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (24:44.104)
Yeah. I hope that the people that listen to this can call up the memories of the times that they’ve done things like that, where there was no idea of even trying something. It was like, we’re gonna die right now, or I’m gonna do everything in my power to make sure that does not happen. And maybe there aren’t super crazy things that happen in people’s lives, or like,

Carla Ondrasik (25:08.247)
Yep.

Nick McGowan (25:12.912)
One night you’re sleeping and two hours later you’re in a car and you’re driving across country or whatever because you’re going to get away. That’s not everybody’s story. They’re also deeper.

Carla Ondrasik (25:21.698)
Or maybe it may be the dream job interview. You’re not going to sleep through that. You’re going to make that happen. You’re not going to try to show up, right? Maybe it was a trip across country to see somebody. You’re not going to try to make that flight. So I think that’s a great thing for people to think about.

Nick McGowan (25:24.926)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (25:29.736)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (25:38.344)
Well, on that note with the job interview and things of that sort, think of the people that are, let’s just say creatives and doing a thing that’s paying their bills, but not actually scratching the itch for their soul. They want to do whatever it is that’s inside of them. But how does this actually help people find their purpose and really dive deep into it?

Carla Ondrasik (26:04.68)
Well, the first thing, well, you know, they’re obviously doing something. They have their day job, right? But how do you’re asking how do they get to the part of life that’s really fulfilling to them, right?

Nick McGowan (26:18.74)
Well, it’s mainly the people that have been going down a path because life tells you, you go to school, you go to college, you get a job, you have two kids, you have a family, you have these things, whatever. Check these boxes off. And some people, like when I think of purpose, some people say, well, I need to do something crazy big like Oprah or Steve Jobs or whatever, but their purpose may be to just be the best parent they can be. Their purpose may be to do whatever that thing is.

Carla Ondrasik (26:43.022)
You

Nick McGowan (26:47.536)
and not try to do those other things. So the people that are in the spot, because for the most part, the people who listen to the show are the leaders and the go-getters, either as entrepreneurs or in the company they work with, and they’re still going through shit on their own inside themselves. Now, if they’ve led their life where they’re not trying and they’re just doing things, we all still work through our stuff and there’s still stuff that happens. But how do we then tap that into the purpose that’s inside of us?

Carla Ondrasik (27:02.158)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (27:16.764)
And I don’t think purpose is just one thing. Like we’re not here to just do one thing forever. But how do we actually tie that in to what we’re doing and not? I guess really what I’m saying where those people are like, I’m going to try to get out of my job, helping them make that decision to go, you’re not going to try it. You’re going to do something different and that confidence to be able to bridge the gap between why I make 200 grand a year working for this company, but it sucks my soul out my nose and I want to do this thing.

How do you help people transition from that, or at least what’s your advice for that?

Carla Ondrasik (27:46.091)
Mm-hmm.

Carla Ondrasik (27:49.858)
Well, my advice would be first, you you have to look at your motivation. You said a couple of things there. So, you know, maybe they’re in a mundane job, but they think they should be doing more, you know? And sometimes saying no is much stronger than trying to do something and failing. Because when you try and you fail, so many things happen, you try and fail and then that negative self-talk comes in, you know?

Nick McGowan (27:59.922)
Mm.

Carla Ondrasik (28:17.204)
I’m weak, I’m a loser, I don’t have enough commitment to this, whatever. And that’s a rabbit hole that just spirals into anxiety, depression, lack of sleep, insomnia, all of it. I think we’re all given opportunities. We can do anything that we want, that we set our mind to. But knowing what is your motivation for doing it and is it strong enough? So decide, do I really wanna do this? Why am I torturing myself thinking that I should do it?

Nick McGowan (28:24.436)
Yeah.

Carla Ondrasik (28:46.734)
And, you know, I’ll tell you a little story. This happened a few years ago. I go to a park by my house and I usually walk the dog every day and I would see this one guy walking the circle of the park every day and he had these giant headphones on and it was almost like he was meditating, you know, so could never talk to him. And I always wanted to know, like, what’s he listening to? I was so curious. I was in the music business, you know.

Nick McGowan (29:13.908)
Yeah. Yeah.

Carla Ondrasik (29:16.778)
And so one day I got there and he had the headphone off and he was like fiddling with it. So I’m like, I went, go, what do you, yeah, my moment. I go, what are you listening to? I see you here all the time, but we don’t really talk. And he goes, I, I’m listening to all these motivational podcasts. And, you know, I have, you know, I struggle with completing things and motivation. There’s so many things I’m trying to do. And I heard that tri-word and my brain just goes ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Nick McGowan (29:22.782)
That’s your chance.

Nick McGowan (29:45.47)
Mm-hmm.

Carla Ondrasik (29:46.456)
So I just looked at this stranger and I said, tell me one thing you’re trying to do. And he said, I’m trying to get back into swimming. We have the new pool at the YMCA. They just built this beautiful pool and I need to get physical. I know that’s going to help me in so many ways. And I looked at the guy and I said, stop trying to go swim.

and go swim.

That was it. And I like, he’s like, my God. And I thought I’m never going to see this guy again. He thinks I’m nuts. And the next day, 24 hours later, I go to the park. Same time. He’s across the park, waving his arms, screaming at me, waiting for me. I did it. I didn’t try. I went swimming. And a couple of lessons here. He’s changed his whole life. I interviewed him for the book. He’s still swimming. He quit his job.

Nick McGowan (30:17.864)
He’s just gonna be swimming.

Nick McGowan (30:39.956)
That’s cool.

Carla Ondrasik (30:42.35)
I don’t really see him that much anymore. He stopped trying. So what he was doing when he had those headphones on, he was worrying about, wondering about, thinking about all the stuff he’s trying to do instead of doing it. So that’s my advice to those people that are stuck where they are, but they want to build a bridge to do something else.

Stop thinking about it. Do something. Do one thing. Maybe it’s read a book about what it is you want to do. Maybe it’s listen to some podcasts of people that are in that field. Do something. Because I don’t really remember who said this, but I love this idea. And it’s that it might be Mark Manson, you know, the subtle art of giving a fuck. I feel like it might have been him. And he said that motivation.

Nick McGowan (31:32.904)
Hmm. yeah.

Carla Ondrasik (31:41.516)
You don’t take action. don’t, motivation doesn’t come first for you to take action. Action is first. So when you are doing it, then the motivation kicks in because you’re like, wow, I’m so proud of myself. I went to the library. I bought a book on painting. Okay. Now I’m going to go buy the easel and the canvas. So if you’re an accountant, but you have always wanted to be a great painter, but for all these years, you’ve said to yourself,

Nick McGowan (31:52.82)
Mm-hmm.

Carla Ondrasik (32:08.716)
my God, like no one’s gonna wanna buy my stuff. I’m not professional. wouldn’t, I don’t know anybody in the gallery world. It’s just gonna sit in my garage. No one’s gonna see it. I don’t have time anyway, right? I could go on and on with the excuses. But the minute you immerse yourself in that world and start doing it, I’m telling you magical things happen. It’s incredible. So the action actually comes before the motivation. So get out there, anyone that’s listening, anything you’ve been.

worrying about, thinking about, wondering about. It makes me so sad to hear people that are trying. It truly does. I don’t need to work at this point in my life. Okay. I’ve had a huge career. I’m older. All my friends are traveling. All my friends are going to lunch. They’re having so much fun. And I’m working. I’m working because this is something I’m passionate about. If it’s one person, like you said earlier in our conversation, if one person says, wow,

I’m just not going to try to do that anymore. I’m doing it. I’ve won and it’s the greatest thing.

Nick McGowan (33:14.484)
yeah, absolutely. And there’s a lot to that too. And I think there’s, there are times where I’m sure all of us can think like, yeah, I didn’t try to do this thing, but I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. And I just started to do it. And then like X amount of time later, I went, maybe I know a little bit about this thing. And then you get better and better. And I think there’s an expectation of you won’t evolve as you go through things. Like,

Carla Ondrasik (33:33.614)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (33:41.854)
From a music perspective, recently I reformatted my entire external musical hard drive, reformatted it by accident and lost all my music for the past X amount of years. And I remember having one of those moments where I was like, there’s not a damn thing I can do differently about this. This is now fried. Yeah, and the only thing you can do is the next step of it. I was talking to somebody two days ago about

Carla Ondrasik (33:48.877)
Wow.

Carla Ondrasik (33:53.997)
Yep.

Nick McGowan (34:10.072)
He was like, well, what happened after you reformatted the drive, you redoing your album or whatever. And I was like, yeah. And it’s so much better than it was before. Everything that I’ve gotten since has been better. All of it. Because it’s almost like the burn the ship sort of thing. Like you can’t go back. You can only keep going forward. And I appreciate.

Carla Ondrasik (34:25.698)
Yeah.

Yeah, but when people say that to you, you there’s a reason and it’s going to be better. You just want to like punch them in the face, right? Because you don’t know.

Nick McGowan (34:33.124)
that shit. Especially in the moment. Yeah, when you’re like, yeah, fuck you and your reasons. But in all reality, there is that silver lining to it. And I think even from that approach, somebody even as a close friend that can feel the pain can understand they’re still a third party. So for us to take that third party aspect and go, well, what is it? We can’t, we shouldn’t interpret things when it comes to that.

The thing is what it is, so the only thing we can do is something else. So then we do that and we move along, which goes along with what you’re saying, not even the trying aspect of it, but the doing the thing. Because in some ways, if somebody goes, well, I’m an accountant, but I want to paint, I’ve always wanted to do it, there is an aspect of go try that, go buy the things, but you’re still actively doing it. You’re going to the store, you’re buying these things, you’re trying.

Carla Ondrasik (35:23.48)
You’re doing it.

Carla Ondrasik (35:28.78)
No, you’re doing it. You’re doing it. Yeah. The trying is, I’m going to try to go to the art store today. I’m going to try to make the time to go. That’s what we do. That’s really what we do. I’m going to try and get down. I mean, is there something in your life that you’ve been trying to do? Like, is there a garage to clean? Like, you’ve been trying to get around to? Is there something you’ve been trying to do?

Nick McGowan (35:28.798)
but you’re actively doing it, exactly. So that’s where I think, and I’m pointing that out. I’m pointing that out.

Yes. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (35:56.306)
Me specifically? yeah, I’m working on an album. Then I reformatted my entire drive and that wasn’t a matter of trying, I was actively doing it. And then at that point it was like, well there’s nothing I could do with the hard drive now. I have to start over. But that is still an act of. The reason why I was saying that with that sort of Venn diagram of the try and doing is I wanna call that out so people can’t use that as an excuse. Like if you are that accountant and you wanna go paint, then just go to the store.

Carla Ondrasik (36:04.792)
doing it.

Carla Ondrasik (36:10.371)
Yep.

Carla Ondrasik (36:16.877)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (36:25.17)
Go to Michael’s this afternoon. Go this weekend. Don’t say you’re gonna try, just go, I’m gonna fucking do it. Just I’m gonna go, go wander around and look and go, I don’t know what this paintbrush is, but let me grab it and I’ll go try to do it when you’re actively doing the thing. So being able to separate from that is kind of a crucial part of it. I love when people do what you had done. One of the last questions they ask is, what’s your advice for somebody on their path towards self mastery?

Carla Ondrasik (36:26.828)
Yeah. Yep.

Carla Ondrasik (36:40.353)
Yep.

Nick McGowan (36:53.382)
and you already answered that. And that was a big chunk of that. And I really appreciate being able to get into the depths of this stuff. before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

Carla Ondrasik (37:05.934)
So I’m on Instagram at Carla Androsik and I really do fun little hits, you know, pretty much every day, you know, just inspiring people to take a look at why they’re trying and what the try means. And I my website, you can sign up and get on my newsletter and you’ll be, it’s stop-trying.com or carlaandrosik.com. And when you sign up, you get a link to the Try Baby Test.

Nick McGowan (37:19.549)
Mm-hmm.

Carla Ondrasik (37:34.83)
If you’re a tri-baby, that is someone who just completely is absorbed and complaining about and talking about like a crybaby, all the things they’re trying to do. They’re called tri-babies. I came up with that little word there. And TikTok and you know, I would love everybody to pre-order my book because that’s an act of doing. You’re not going to try to get it. It comes out in September. You can pre-order it on Amazon. And I completely know that

Nick McGowan (37:47.432)
Awesome.

Nick McGowan (37:55.561)
Yeah.

Carla Ondrasik (38:03.604)
it will help transform your life in some way, shape, form.

Nick McGowan (38:08.636)
Awesome. Well, look, I’m glad that we didn’t try to have you on the show today and that we actively had you on here. I think it’s been a great conversation. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for being with us today.

Carla Ondrasik (38:13.836)
We did it.

Carla Ondrasik (38:18.466)
Thank you.

https://youtu.be/YIIP96IRLQQ