In this episode I talk with indie folk singer-songwriter and producer Garrett Kato about his path into music - from a nudge by a high school drama teacher to using guitar as a coping mechanism after a breakup, and eventually to build a career with over 200 million streams. We discussed the mental health toll of the modern music industry, including how artists now feel trapped by opaque social media algorithms. We explored the psychological benefits of creative "flow" states (meditative, ego-dissolving experiences), and we agreed that consistent daily practice—not waiting for inspiration—is what actually drives creative output. We also considered how AI-generated music may devalue creative authenticity and bring about identity loss as AI encroaches on domains like creativity and intelligence. But we both felt some cautious optimism that this disruption will eventually drive people back toward genuine human connection, live performance, and emotionally authentic art, ultimately affirming music's power as a uniquely embodied form of communication and shared human experience.

We discuss psychologist Kati Morton’s book: Why Do I Do This – Unlearn the Habits Keeping You Stuck and Unhappy. In a vibrant discussion, topics explored included: How repeated behaviours carve deep mental "ruts" that feel effortless to follow and require real effort and discomfort to change; 2. The need for control expressed in people-pleasing, perfectionism, and impression management, as futile attempts to control how others perceive us; Anxiety, the ego, and the necessity of "feeling your way through" rather than intellectual insight to break these patterns; How avoiding difficult conversations creates suffocating, superficial relationships contrasted with naming problems directly to deepen trust; and authenticity that flows from relaxing into being rather than performing for others.

This podcast is a discussion of psychologist Kati Morton's book: Why Do I keep Doing This? Kati is a clinical psychologist, author, public speaker and has a large online following. The book is largely about people who suffer with an obsessive need to control: whether that is to control their own thoughts, feelings and behaviors, and/or also other peoples' attitides and behaviors towards them. They are people pleasers, perfectionists, self-deprecators, and so on. But the book has relevance to a wider audience because we all fall into this need to control how other's perceive and value us. Kati shows that such attempts at control are illusory and counter-productive and the book is full of practical ways one can regain one's authenticity and and self-steem. But it is no quick fix self-help book. THe reason we 'keep doing this' is that these are deep, automatic, often uncosncious patterns of feeling, thinking and doing. The book explains the realistic and diverse strategies to gradually live more spontaneously, with more self-compassion and more freedom. It is a book about learning how to let go. It was, needless to say, a stimulating and informative discussion.