What fun thing have you created in your life lately? I want to know. I want to know right now, damn it. Oh, this is Daily Grateful.
I'm Michael Krause. You know, we're all so hung up on creating things, systems for our life, you know, goals, just objectives, just how you get things done type things. How much time do you spend creating fun things in your life? You know, I'm starting to do that more now because I just, you know, I just know I'm unzipping one of the things you can hear me unzipping it.
I just got, and the reason I got this, by the way, is because I am a washed up former member of the National Broadcast Media and people still send me stuff. You know, there was a time when I was on, you know, a couple hundred radio stations and, you know, it was somewhat of a big shot. Now I do a podcast that you're listening to. Thank you.
Um, but, um, they still send me things. I don't know why, but they sent me this little thing right here that I'm pulling out. And it's a fun thing. And I'm sitting here been trying to create what am I going to do with it?
Now I have a studio here that is pretty nice. The lighting was designed by my son Kyle, essentially told me what to get. I did it and I set it up. I've got pretty good lighting in here.
I got a really good sound in here, but, and you know what else I got? I got some pretty cool cameras. I've got a zoom camera over there sitting on a tripod that I've never used. And I've got this Logitech high definition 4k camera sitting here on the desk.
And that's all nice. But this is the thing, by the way, all of these things were just sent to me. And so I got a studio set up for it. I got a tripod.
I got all this stuff. Nothing, nothing is the only thing that's working in here is I have a ring light on that I'm using and I'm using my podcast setup, very nice Rode microphone, very nice Rode uh Procaster duo audio interface. But this fun little thing that I have here. Oh, this is cool.
This is called the, uh, this is one of those nifty little cameras. This is an Orjo. I got to figure out how to turn it on. I haven't played with it enough.
There, it's turning on. You can hear it turning on. And it's one of those cameras that's got a gimbal on the top and you, it does all kinds of fun things. You can shoot photos with it.
You can shoot video with it. The microphone stinks. The absolute microphone stinks. But luckily enough, right after I got this, I got a microphone that, you know, I wear on my shirt that'll go plug into this, which will make it all better.
Again, I haven't set any of this up, but this is a fun thing. And you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make videos. I'm going to shut it off now.
Oh, you hear it shutting off. I'm going to make videos. And I think what I'm going to do is get all these cameras in here set up and get everything rolling. And I'm going to shoot videos in the studio here.
I'm going to use this nifty little camera to shoot B roll outside and about wherever I'm going is what I'm going to do because the camera, the cameras in here will hook into my audio interface here. The camera in there, that Orjo camera that I got, which is just like the coolest little camera, uh, will not. So I will have to use, you know, the microphone and then download the audio into this. It'll be a little bit more complicated, but it'll be fun.
I'm going to do that. So that, that's my personal thing that I've done for fun. You know, uh, gratitude isn't about big blessings. It's about designing fun and joy and happiness.
it, by the way, you don't have to wait for fun to arrive. You have to engineer it. You have to do it. You got to go out and create it.
Uh, you know, I, I know people my age and younger, as a matter of fact, who they treat fun as an accidental or reserved thing, you know, like for vacations. We're going to have fun because we're going on a vacation. I haven't been on a vacation in years, but I still go out and do things that are fun. You know, I think my favorite ex-wife and I are probably going to go get away for a few days.
We do that every so once in a while. We just take a little mini trips together. So we make that intentional. Even if it's small, you know, we have a fun restaurant down near Cape Coral that we like because they've got awesome corn on the cob.
I don't know what it is, but they're damn corn on the cob is, is just delicious. I cannot even describe why. And if I knew what was on it, I probably wouldn't eat it, but I eat it and I love it. Matter of fact, I was down there with Zach a few years ago and I took Zach to this restaurant to eat, you know, it looks ordinary.
It's over by Pine Island. It's on Pine Island road, as a matter of fact. And we went there and ate and I got the, I got the corn on the cob and I texted Diane and I said, Oh, guess where we are. And I sent her a picture, uh, on the phone of the corn on the cob.
She said, I want me some. So me being the wonderful, wonderful ex-husband and good friend that I am loaded up like three ears of that in a takeout bag, all wrapped up in tinfoil. And I brought it to her and you would have thought I bought her a new car. I'm I knocked on her door and when we got back into town, I dropped Zach off at the house.
I went over there and handed his door. Oh my God. She was so happy. So that was even more fun that I created there, you know, and having fun, it strengthens relationships.
It makes things, it just makes things better. When you create fun, you're not escaping life. You're fueling it. That that's true.
And it is just really good. Let's talk about five ways to create fun this week. Just five things. Okay.
Invent a micro tradition. It could be taco Tuesday. Not for me. I do not eat tacos.
Yeah, I know. I'm one of those crazy weird ass people that does not eat tacos. I'm the only family member that I have. I am the only person in my family that does not eat tacos or Sunday morning porch coffee.
Oh my gosh. Once again, I'm probably one of the few people in my family that does not drink coffee. Bad movie night. Now that sounds fun.
That sounds fun. I love bad movie nights. I love terrible movies. I saw a movie on, on Amazon prime that was filmed in Florida and it was so bad.
It was, it was just so incredibly bad. It was made in 1961 or something. And it was filmed in down South of Miami and it was just so horrible. The acting was so horrible, but I loved every minute of it.
Okay. So that's, that's a good thing to do. Make something slightly ridiculous. Uh, a theme playlist, a fake award ceremony, a homemade top 10 list.
Uh, I have little sayings that I say that I do every so once in a while if I'm in a public situation. And I was in a discussion group today in the sweet town of Dunedin, the heart of rock and roll, by the way, the heart of rock and roll is Dunedin. Um, but it's nice, nice. It's all basically all political, but I go and I listen and I contribute every so once in a while.
And there was this dear lady down at the end of the table and she's going on and on and on about what a, the difference between a doctor and the difference between a doctor and a PA. And, uh, and she made her point in about, I don't know, the first three minutes and we have a three minute limit. Well, on about limit, you know, on about minute nine or 10, everybody's like looking around and looking around. The guy that runs the thing is just looking and I, and I just interrupted her and I used one of my favorite things that I said that I say when I say this, Zach gets excited.
And I looked at her, I said, and in closing, she looks at me and everybody else looks at me with all this great relief on their face. And she goes, well, I have a lot more to say, but in closing, and then off we went. It, it was just, uh, it was just fun. Another thing you can do, uh, gamify something boring, turn errands into a scavenger hunt, time yourself and clean.
Now, that's what I want to do. I've got to clean the studio. I'm going to time myself. I'm going to set a timer when I'm done.
I'm going to set a timer and I think I can have this whole thing done in 13 minutes. So I'm going to set a timer on my iPhone and make it go off and I'm going to take 13 minutes to do that. Uh, call someone that you know and make a memory. I do that all the damn time.
I, I'm constantly getting in touch with and calling old friends. I today, I ran into a guitarist at this place where I was at today that I have known since junior high and he's now my age and he plays in a big band there. And he had this Gibson guitar