Creative Pep Talk
084 - Don't Undersell Yourself
(upbeat music) Hey y'all, just a quick heads up. The episode you're about to listen to is eight to 10 years old. Now, these episodes were intended to be evergreen, and I still believe there's a lot of good information in these early episodes, but I do wanna let you know that some of my ideas have evolved over time. Times have changed since we made these episodes, and ultimately, I'd like to think I've grown a lot as an artist and a human, and that these don't necessarily represent my best work or the best of the podcast. If you're new around here, I suggest starting with the most recent episode, or at least go back to around 300, and move forward from there. Enjoy the episode. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Hey everybody, you're listening to the Creative Peptalk podcast. This show is about commercial art, making good money and making great art. I am your host, Andy J. Pilsner beer. And you can, I'm sorry. Illustration Age is our proud syndicate. You can find this show at illustrationage.com/creativepeptalk, or on soundcloud@soundcloud.com/creativepeptalk, or on iTunes, or now on Stitcher. We're all over the place. I heard that we're in the arts page on some kind of Android app. I wouldn't know anything about that, but you can find us if you try hard enough. (upbeat music) - Man, I'm having such a good time with the podcast. You guys have been the biggest sweethearts in the world sharing this all over the place, doing the iTunes reviews, being so lovely. I'm so appreciative for all of you peppy, pep, pepsters out there. I don't know, I don't have a name for the people that listen to my show because I'm not weird, but, well, I am weird, but that's not the style of weird that I am. But, you know, I recently actually took off the first 50 episodes, or the first 49 episodes, off of iTunes and offline completely. And the reason being is that, you know, when you get into a new band, like a new listener, you don't want to hear the first things that they ever recorded. And I think there's all kinds of things about those early episodes that are a bit rough, although the content's good. And if you're into the show, you probably really enjoy those earlier episodes. If you want to get those episodes, if you're already crazy, creative, pep talk fan, go to my website, Andy, hyphenj, hyphenmiller.com/info, I believe it is, or you can go to AndyJ.pizza and click the info tab at the top, and there's a way to sign up to the newsletter, the creative pep talk newsletter. You'll get a email once a week saying, "Hey, we've got a new episode." And you'll be sent a special boys-to-men related password to unlock episode one through 49. It's kind of like the game genie for creative pep talk. To get those early episodes. So they're still available for the true fans, but so many people will come to the show and start on episode one, and it's not really indicative of where we're at today. So I wanna kind of eliminate that happening, getting put off by the low production values in the beginning and all that jazz. So that's what it is. Go check that out, go be a part of the pep talk nation. I don't have a name. I'm not gonna give you a name. If you're a listener of the show, you don't have to worry. I'm not gonna give you guys a name. Miro is a collaborative virtual workspace that syncs in real time for you and your team so that you can innovate an idea into an outcome seamlessly. We talk a lot on this show about the idea of how creative research shows that playing with the problem is essential to innovation. Now, when I think of play, I don't think of documents and email. So if your team is often working remote, you need something more dynamic and collaborative. I think that Miro's mind maps and flow charts where team members can edit and play in real time has a lot more capacity for innovation and playing with the problem than traditional ways of collaborating over the internet. Whether you work in innovation, product design, engineering, UX, agile or IT, bring your teams to Miro's revolutionary innovation workspace and be faster from idea to outcome. Go to Miro.com to find out how that's M-I-R-O.com. I'm a believer in the idea of dressing for the job you want, not the job you have. And I have applied this to my creative practice too, which means if you want professional results, you need to present online like a pro. And that means going beyond social media and having a professional website that reflects your style and looks legit. I rebuilt my site this year with Squarespace's Fluid Engine and was so happy with how easily I could build my vision without coding that when they approached me to support the show, I jumped at the chance because I love and use this product. So go check it out squarespace.com/peptalk to test it out for yourself. And when you're ready to launch your site, use promo code PEPTALK, all one word, all caps for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks goes out to Squarespace for supporting the show and supporting creators all over the world. (upbeat music) So I have a family member that actually has a mental disability, non-disability. And a few years ago, they found themselves at a car dealer. And as they went in, they were told like, you've won an award, you've won this contest. Jump in one of these, you know, crazy money grabbers, cash grab thing where, you know, there's like high wins in this little tunnel and things are flying all over the place and you grab as many of these things as you can. Usually it's like dollars. And so they had dollars and coupons and all kinds of crazy stuff going on. So my relative got in and played the game, came out, won this coupon for a giant discount on buying a car. Now it turns out as they kind of dug a little deeper, my family member didn't have any money. And somehow they found out that their mom did have money. Now the thing about their mom was that this person actually has Alzheimer's and is not quite all there anymore. But she does have a pretty sizable bank account savings. And so they got her in and they actually sold her two cars with this discount. Now if you're following along, you realize this is not a discount, this is a scam and a disgusting one at that. And you know, I think, although most of the people I work with now in my career are fantastic and they treat me really great, I think in society that sometimes artists get treated like especially creative professionals get treated like they're winning an award for being able to get to do creative work. Now I don't wanna discredit this idea of being grateful for your life. If you were blessed enough to be born in a developed nation, you have so much to be grateful for. If you get to go work in a place in an office where you are sat down on a comfy chair doing work on a computer, you have so much to be grateful for. But on the flip side of that, I just wanna bring this idea to the table that my dad is an accountant, a finance guy and he loves his job. In his job, he is massively respected and valued. He works really hard and he gets great payoffs for what he does, the work that he does and he loves it. It plays to his strengths. And in the same way, I see that in creative professionals. I see creative professionals grinding, working long hours with tough problems and then delivering amazing value only to be treated like they got to go into the cash grabber. Like aren't you lucky we're paying you to color? Like now again, I wanna say, there are tons of businesses out there. There are tons of people out there that massively respect and honor and value creative people in the way that they should be. But I think it's the way in which the society doesn't that creates this false narrative in creative people that causes them to have low self-esteem, a low value on themselves and what they're bringing to the table. When I believe, what I really think is that the return on investment into a creative professional is giant in the marketplace. It can be make or break in terms of marketing and how people perceive your company. And I think businesses know this. I think they understand the value of the creative. I think it's the creative people that maybe don't quite understand the value that they have on their hands. And so today, I'm relating that to the Antiques Roadshow. I almost called this episode Artiques Roadshow, but I didn't do so with my better judgment that that's a terrible name. But the idea was if you've ever watched the Antiques Roadshow, sometimes you get these guys coming in there and they'll say, yeah, I bought this from my neighbor for $5, but I suspected it was worth a bit more and it'll appraise for like $200,000. And they'll be like, yeah, made a pretty good profit on that. I don't know what that accent is. But to me, I'm always like, no, you scammed your neighbor and you owe them money because they didn't know what they had. They didn't know the value of what they had. And I think often in creativity, as a creative professional, wherever you fall on that map, we often really, really undervalue ourselves and don't really know the value of what we're bringing to the table. And so as these businesses come along and say, you're, it's your lucky day. You get to go in the cash grabber and work with us. You get to do work for us. And we come to the table with, aren't we so lucky that we get to do this only to be putting in long hours, delivering this great stuff that helps them differentiate in the marketplace and often undersell that work. And so today we're talking about selling your work for what it's worth, coming to the marketplace with a kind of posture that speaks to the confidence and to the value that you're bringing and how that can revolutionize your creative career. So we've got the analogy, the structure of the Antiques roadshow to guide us through all of these points. Here's how we're gonna break it down. We're gonna do the picking, you know, going picking for the Antiques. We're gonna go looking for what is your value? We're gonna try to identify those things because the more specificity, the more understanding of the value you bring to the table, the more confidence and the better you can deliver that value. Now, number two is gonna be restoring our Antiques. It's about developing and honing that value, developing that craft and how to best practice practices, some actionable things that you can actually do to take that value and just make it even better, hone it, get it better. Number three, we're gonna take it to the appraiser. We're gonna get an appraisal for your art team. We're gonna, I can barely get through this ridiculous analogy, but we're doing it. I'm committed, we're gonna do it. We're gonna take it to the appraisal. We're gonna talk about getting feedback and some of the best practices for really digging in and getting people to give you real feedback so that you can get better, so you can really understand what it is you have on your hands, really understand the value of what you're bringing to the table. And then last but not least, we're gonna take it to auction. We're gonna sell these bad babies. We're gonna talk about not just how you sell to other businesses, but how you might sell to customers and why that's such an important idea going forward. And so that is the overview. Let's jump in. All right, number one, picking. How do you find your value? How do you actually know the value that you're bringing to the table? How do you know what your superpower is? Because I really do subscribe to this idea that everybody has these weird strengths and weaknesses, these weird things that they can do in this, when they lean into their natural talents and abilities that they can bring something to the table that is truly unique, that is truly valuable, that's a rarity in the market. And I think it's good to just go back to this idea that all businesses, the whole idea of business is providing value. If you are not clear about the value that you're providing, you're not in business because all businesses, all they do, is trade value for money. And so it's really important, whether it's providing feeling, you know, an emotional connection with the businesses that use your art, or whether it's learning. Maybe you're a motion graphics designer or a infographics designer, and you help people understand something, an editorial illustrator can do the same. You know, a musician can score a film and add that emotional quality, but you need to be really clear, what value am I selling? Because if you're not providing a value, you're not really a commercial artist, you might be a fine artist. And so I think really having the clarity to say, this is what the value that I provide. And I think some of the best ways, something that has kind of been on my mind recently is, is connecting my value as a person to my value as an artist and a business person. And what I mean by that is I think often, we think of our art self as this very different entity. And I think often it's tied up deeply within a persona, something that we wish that we were, rather than what we really are. And so one of the ways that kind of break through that is to connect it to your real life. One of the biggest breakthroughs for me was realizing that the things that, the way I provide value in relationships, the reasons people get on the phone with me, the reasons people seek me out, those valuable things that I do in those places, the things that I bring to my family, the things that I bring to my friends, those same traits can be applied to art and illustration. So for one, one of the things that I do, I had a lot of friends seek me out about kind of creative career coaching and helping them find clarity in their goals. And so I realized that I was really, really good at and drawn to this ability to bring clarity to a subject. And I found that it actually makes me kind of euphoric. I've realized that in class, when I was trying to hammer down this concept, if I could find the right stupid illustration or analogy to make that click and I would hear that audible kind of, oh, I get it kind of moment. That was like a drug to me. And so I started to put that in illustration. I started to think, how do I make those moments of clarity happen within my illustration and what market can I bring that to? And so I've been focusing a lot on editorial illustration because that's something that you can do in that market. And so it's a good idea to stop and think in your life. One of the times when people have sought me out, friends and family seek me out for things that I'm naturally good at, the kind of deeper things that you do, the why you exist and then put that into what you actually make. So you're starting with why, that's that Simon Sinek idea, that book, Start With Why. You're starting with like, why do people come to you? Like what value are you really providing people in your real life? And then how can you apply that? How can you apply those raw kind of human skills to the art that you make and try to disconnect from creating this artistic self that's really disconnected from who you really are? And then you can start articulating, what do my goods and services, what do they actually do for people, like really? Not like buzzword, my work helps people exemplify to the public, the many attributes of the brand and the what, none of that. Cut that crap right out and think about this, right? Think about Aaron Draplin. Here's a guy, he a logo designer, fantastic work. An amazing guy, seems like a real sweetheart of a guy, does fantastic stuff. He can take some local hot dog vendor, this small time dinky hot dog vendor and create this amazing brand. And now all of a sudden this Cobra dogs brand, this logo that he created for a friend, all of a sudden that guy is now competing with McDonald's. And they look better than the biggest competition. That's the power of a brand, that's the power of creativity. So can you revolutionize the way people perceive the companies that you're working with? I have a buddy in town. His name's Doug, he runs this agency called Serif Creative. They make these amazing short films, beautiful, beautiful work. They took a local law firm and they made this short film. This law firm went from obscurity to being one of the top awarded firms in the world. Had one of the greatest prestigious awards given to it because of one of these short films. Because it took this boring industry, this thing that confuses people and people have all this suspicion about lawyers and all that stuff created this short film that made their brand and their company human and that told their story in such a way that moved people. That was the power of that creativity. Maybe that's something that your creativity can do. And then I think about the podcast, this podcast. This thing is competing for sponsorships with some of the biggest brands in the world. Like Creative Peptock, we're in talks now to get some small sponsorships, but some great sponsorships in terms of I have invested almost no money into this podcast. Seriously, I bought a few microphones. I paid for the SoundCloud, just small investment money-wise. Giant investment creativity. I put so much time and energy and creativity into this thing. And I've built a business from scratch just on the back of creativity. And I used the things that brands were coming to me for for myself and I invested in myself and proved its worth by actually using it. We're gonna talk about that in step four. And then I just wanna have one little note at the end of this first step. Have the humility to say that you're just one person. And your contribution to humanity can be very small, but if you really own that contribution, it can be truly delightful. I think it's Frank Chimero, Chimero. I can never remember how to say his name. I'm sorry, Frank. I don't think you listened to this podcast, but if you do, I'm sorry. Go check out his talk, The Shape of Design, fantastic. One of the best talks in our creative industry that I've ever heard massive impact on me. He talks about delighting people with creativity. And this idea of taking this very small thing and giving it lots of your time and energy. And that brings about delight when you respect something small to that degree in a surprising way. Like I took this little thing and I poured all of my time and energy and thought into it. And that really brings about delightful experiences. For me, I've really given myself over to helping creative people thrive financially. Like that's a thing that I wanna spend my entire life giving myself to. Now it's not curing the world of poverty or AIDS or it's not this giant thing, but my life is just very small. And I've found that the more that I own, my own kind of calling, my little plot of land, the more I own it and I don't think, oh, it's too small to really matter, I'm blown away by the significance of giving myself to that little thing, that little value that I can provide and doing the best in that area. I'm blown away. You know, I get emails and messages and tweets all the time saying, you know, I found, I had the know-how and the energy to go find my dream job. I was stuck at a job, I hated, or I went back to school or I started a project that turned into a published book. I get those things all the time and I think, you know, for so long, I kind of questioned, was this cause even a worthy cause? But I would say, whatever the value you provide, there's no value too small to really bake in giant amounts, giant amounts of delight and humanity. And so don't undervalue how important those little things can be. Hey, in case you don't know, we have a monthly live virtual meetup every last Monday of the month with supporters of the show from Patreon and Substack. We have so much fun on these calls and they are the warmest, most encouraging creatives that I have ever met. And we also talk real creative practice stuff. We have authors, illustrators, lettering artists, picture bookmakers, fine artists, musicians, and folks that work in video and film as well. And we have people that are just starting out, people super established in their creative careers and everything in between. For the rest of this year, we're gonna chat through our new Journey of the True Fan series, exploring questions and ways to apply these ideas to your own creative practice so that you can leave 2024 stronger than you came in with more visibility, connection with your audience and sales. Sign up to whichever suits you best at either patreon.com/creativepeptalk or antijpizza.substack.com. And I hope to see you at this month's meetup. - It's holiday shopping time, y'all. It's time to freak out! - Not because "Uncommon Goods" is here to make it easy. Listen, all I did was click the "For Her" section on this site and I instantly saw five things that I could get, Sophie, don't tell her, but I'm thinking either the National Park sweaters, the tea advent calendar. There's also just below that little bubble tea kit for my oldest, and then I saw one of these, you know, the retro little viewfinder orange real viewer things, but you can make it your own photos. Okay, it might not make sense, just you have to go check it out yourself. Here's the thing, I have seriously never seen so many good options for gifts online in one place and unlike lots of other convenient options, shopping "Uncommon Goods" actually supports small businesses. To get 15% off your next gift, go to uncommongoods.com/peptalk. That's uncommongoods.com/peptalk for 15% off. Don't miss out on this limited time offer "Uncommon Goods." We're all out of the ordinary! (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Restoration. Number two, restoration. You gotta take that antique, that value that you found from number one, and you gotta restore it. You gotta get it to its best condition. Now, one thing that I found really boring is talking to artists that have not really deeply dedicated their lives to developing that value, developing that craft. Now, the people that have, the people that have put the blood, sweat, and tears, the grit, the stuff where they've kept making stuff even when they didn't feel like it, even when it was painful and they've discovered things all on their own. They've discovered their own values, their own tips and tricks. Those people I can talk for hours with. These people that have really dedicated themselves to the craft of the creativity that they sell. Those people, oh man, I love those people. I can listen to them talk for hours and hours and hours. So, when you find that value, that thing that you can do, that's special, that provides value in the marketplace, then I think what you need to do is really, really develop it. Show up every day, create practices and disciplines that put that thing to the test. I think sometimes we can be really economic in the way that we deal with creativity in terms of thinking that we've got a budget, our dosage, the amount of creativity that we have on file, like it's a bank account that's gonna run dry. I don't think it works like that. Now, maybe I'm just a dad. Maybe it's that I've got three children running around here, like a mad house. Maybe that's why, but I started thinking about creativity more like breastfeeding. Breastfeeding, if you're familiar with the concept, the idea is that the more the baby feeds, the more milk that gets produced. And so if you do the pump thing, you can actually increase the amount of milk that you produce. I don't know if this is weird. It's not weird for me because it's just my daily life. Like breastfeeding is just a big part of our existence over the past seven years. But if it's weird, I'm sorry. And it's mostly, I'm not sorry, but I think creativity is more like that. The more you pump that creativity, the more that it flows, right? And I think that you gotta find these practices. Here's your actionable thing. Develop some projects, some practices, where regularly you're practicing, you're exercising that muscle. Like find some things, you know, look at Jean Julian. Great illustrator, fantastic work. He's the artist that did that when there was the Paris attacks. He made that peace symbol out of the Eiffel Tower that went all over the place. That was a really interesting thing that he did. Fantastic stuff. One of the things I see him do all the time is he's constantly making stuff. He's constantly trying to create those really clever illustrations. And often they're based on some relevant bit of news, something that's going on right then. And so he's created this discipline and this practice to keep an ear to what's happening and try to actively make things quickly based on that. And so for me, a thing that I do is I make an image for the podcast every single week and I want it to be really relevant to the podcast. And I want to bring clarity to what the topic is every week. I want to kind of come up with a visual metaphor. And that's a way of like exercising that muscle. And I'm exercising that muscle in public like I'm at the gym in front of the mirror showing off the muscles so that when the body building coaches are walking around, they can, I don't know where this analogy's gone, but I'm running with it. When they're running around, they're like, oh, we want this guy in our show. So not only am I practicing that creativity, I'm also doing that publicly so that the editorial people out there can see my muscles, my creative muscles and can see that I can push this stuff out on a regular basis. And so the next thing I want you to think about is what kind of projects, what kind of disciplines can I develop where I get to regularly exercise this value so that I can get it into its tip-top shape? Well, I can restore it to it. I know the restoring thing, there's some kind of disconnect here with the metaphor, but I think it works, stick with it. (upbeat music) One of the big turning points in my career was meeting my wife, Sophie. And the reason is, is because she's really good at giving me the brutal, honest feedback. Like we got really, really close to each other and we both started feeling really comfortable with saying this or that about each other's art. She actually does embroidery, she went to school for that, like fiber art. And we would both just, we got to this place of intimacy that is where we can be honest. We can be really, really honest about what we think about each other's work. And so number three is taking your antique to the appraisal. Like getting the self-awareness by getting other people who know what they're talking about to be honest with you. And the idea is you need to get an art wife, okay? You need an art wife. You need someone who can tell you when you have food in your teeth. When your art portfolio has food in its teeth. And you need to have those people that can say, "Hey, that thing that you're trying out, "it's not working yet." Or, "Hey, that image you're working on, "it's not there yet." Like, or it's got this giant issue going on. That song that you created, it's got no momentum. The lyrics are lackluster. You need those people in your life that you can go to on a regular basis. Now, beyond that, one of the things you can do is actually go contact someone that's like, not 15 steps ahead of you, but maybe a few steps ahead. Email them and don't say, "Will you give me feedback on my portfolio?" Because they're gonna be decent people and say, "Yeah, that's cool, I liked it." What you need to say, the actionable thing that you need to do, email those people and say, what do you think is missing in my portfolio? Or if my portfolio is not really there yet, like what's off-putting, what's not working about it? What can't I see? Where is the food and the teeth of my portfolio? So, I would actually encourage you to really invest in this. So, if you, if there are people out there that you'd love to get their feedback, don't be afraid to say, "Hey, I'd love to know what your hourly rate is, "and I'd love to pay you a half hour or an hour "to look over my work and give me a review "and give me some feedback of what I need to work on "or what's not working. "I do this, I have other peers that will do this, "that offer this service. "I'll charge people $100 an hour "to look over their portfolio "and give them my best marketing advice, "my best portfolio advice." Kind of like an art business coaching session, and it goes really well. Like, I feel like we find some real breakthroughs there, and I know other of my peers do the same thing and it's really helpful. And so, don't be afraid, don't be afraid to put some money into this, put, you know, if these people are doing really well, they've got worthwhile advice, and they probably have tons of people come into them all the time asking for feedback, and they can't really invest too much of their energy or they won't actually be able to do their own work. And so, don't be afraid to say, hey, to that local person that you look up to, say, hey, I'd love to take you to lunch, you know, my tree, I insist, I'd love to get some feedback about where my portfolio is. That feedback to get really accurate information about the value that you have on your hands, to get that appraisal of the thing that you have is super important to growing what you're doing, getting better, but it's also really important in believing in the value that you're providing. Because there's nothing more valuable than this feedback, this stuff that we can't see, it adds to our self-awareness, and it grows our ability. It grows our taste, and it grows our skills, and it helps us see where we're not firing. And so, don't be afraid to go out there and actually put your money out there, go to the workshops, go to the conferences, get FaceTime with the people that really, really know their stuff, and get your work in front of them and prod them and try to get them to tell you the bad stuff. You've gotta get that thick skin where you're comfortable hearing what's not working. 'Cause if you're not, it's never gonna work. 'Cause you've gotta fix those things. And early on, I was lucky enough to have feedback from some of my favorite artists, and some of that feedback was a game changer. Things that you just cannot see on your own. There were just things like, they said, oh, you don't have any backgrounds or environments, you just have one figure for every illustration, or we need more of this or more of that, or this thing's not up to snuff. These lines are wobbly, or all the stuff. Those things are not things that I could've saw on my own. And so, don't be afraid to invest in your creativity by going out there, going to the conferences, go email one of your favorite artists and say, hey, I'd love to get some feedback. If you don't have time, I'd love to even pay you, or I'll buy you lunch, maybe if you live in the same town. But go out there and get that feedback. You need to be obsessed with getting the feedback. And actually, I've been obsessed since I first left college, and I just get more obsessed with getting that honest stuff because there's nothing more valuable in terms of growing and understanding the value that you're bringing to the table. (upbeat music) Okay, so the last one, last but not least, we take your antique, we take this value to auction, we go to sell the thing. Now, I wanted to talk about this because I think this topic of selling is really misunderstood in creativity. I think we have this negative view of what selling is. Now, there's this old school motivational speaker guy named Zig Ziggler, and he had some really interesting things. He was a big influence on Seth Godin and all kinds of fantastic business people in our day and age that swear by the guy's got great, had some great ideas. One of them was this idea that selling is human. And if you're gonna be good at your job, you really, really need to be good at selling no matter what you do. And his example that I just kind of really blew my mind was this idea that if you're a history teacher, you've gotta sell your kids on history, the importance of history. And you can remember back in high school, the teachers that really sold the subject to you and that what a crazy difference that made on you. You know, some of those teachers altered your trajectory of your life because they sold you on English, they sold you on art. And so your effectiveness really depends on your ability to sell what you've got. And in a big part of that, another thing that Zig Ziggler always talks about is believing in the value of what you've got. One of the things that he would always get people to do would be to buy what they were selling. He had a friend that was really doing poor, he was selling this dishware and he couldn't move any of the product. And he said, do you own the dishware? And he was like, no, I can't afford this thing that I'm selling, it's too expensive. And so it's like, how, what chance is that guy gonna have selling a product that he thinks is too expensive? And so he said, look, take your next paycheck and buy the dishware. If it's worth it, it's going to change the way that you sell it. If it's not worth it, you need to get out of the business. And I really believe this. When you unearth this value, when you go pickin' and you find the value that you bring to the table and you really understand it, if you really believe in it, it will change the way that you approach that these business relationships. It will have changed the confidence. Here's the best way to really believe in your creativity. Sell it to yourself. Use this creativity for your own business advantage. So for me, I've used my illustration to market my podcast. I have a podcast and I do editorial style illustrations for it to enhance the marketing power of my podcast. And it's worked. And I've said, look, I've been able to take this podcast, this kind of DIY scrappy thing that I started with no investment. And I put a brand on it and I created illustration for it. Week after week, I created this visual identity and it helped me look like I was one of the big dogs, right from the get-go, right from the gate. And the more creativity I put into it, the better that we've done. We see this all over the place. I thought, Rashida Jones, Karen from The Office, I like her, she seems like a decent human. She made the movie, I think it's called Celeste and Jesse Forever with Andy Samberg. She wrote that movie. Now she proved that that creates, she proved her creativity when she wrote that movie. Now she's writing Toy Story 4 on the back of that, directly linked to her proving her ability and screenwriting by doing it for herself. Let's go back to Draplin. Let's talk about him. He takes creativity, his brand. He folds a stack of paper and a piece of card and he makes it look beautiful with some great typesetting with these field notes. Now he's created a whole giant business on the back of that creativity. Almost no financial investment initially. Not a giant, crazy, innovative product. It's literally a stack of paper folded and cut, applies a fantastic, beautiful brand. And all of a sudden, he's proving the worth. He's now, he knows that this thing works. He knows the value. He believes in the thing that he's selling. Nothing matters more than really, really believing this work. I think of people like J.J. Abrams. The power of the show Lost is directly linked to him getting to make the latest Star Wars movie. That's gotta be like the biggest dream come true for this guy. So how can you take that value that you unearthed and how can you prove its worth, that social proof? How can you take that thing that you could do for other businesses and do it for customers? In the business world, they talk about B2B versus B2C. B2B is the business to business. Most of what we do is business to business. Like we're a business interacting with a magazine or we're a business interacting with another company where we're helping them sell their products. How can you take that thing that you do and do the whole kit and kaboodle and go straight to customers and prove that it's a viable return on investment? Maybe you're a graphic designer. Maybe you can get in the chocolate business and you can make a beautiful brand for your chocolate business and get that working. And on the back of that, all of a sudden other food brands wanna work with you. You know, we're listening to Metavari, my buddy Nate Yutesh. That's his band, it's great music. I love using it on the podcast, it's perfect. One of the things I saw him do was he made a movie trailer for his latest album. And I'm pretty sure that got him a scoring gig to score a film. And so use the thing that you've got, that value. Provide the value to yourself, not just because though, not just because it's good for proving your worth and helping you believe the value that you have, not just because of that, but also because now, all of a sudden, instead of that amazing value providing that for somebody else to get rich, now you're doing it straight for yourself. And it kind of reminds me of a bug's life, like these ants toiling for these grasshoppers, only to realize that they have the power to overthrow these grasshoppers, 'cause there's tons more of them than there are of the grasshoppers. And I think of this creativity thing, like these businesses out there, they know the power of this creativity. They know how, what an impact it can make on business. But we need to know that for ourselves. How do we take this amazing stuff that we do and provide that value for our own selves, right? Like so for me early on, I realized I could do this editorial illustration. And so I thought, I'm gonna write my own articles and then illustrate them. And that eventually turned into the podcast. And so this value, how can you take this value and not just prove it and show that you can do it for other people, but how can you really do it for yourself? Like you've got all the resources now. There's nothing stopping you from being your own little media company, from being your own business. Instead of just making bricks for Pharaoh, you can make them for yourself, build your own pyramids. (eerie music) One of my favorite marketers out there is Gary Vannerchuk. He has a podcast called Ask Gary V. I think we have some similar temperament in our personalities. But he's a funny guy, really brilliant marketer and he always says this and I love it. He says, the market decides. The market decides if you have value because it's based on merit. And so don't worry about whether the thing that you created is working and whether that means you have no value, you can figure out, you can under-earth this value. If you're a human, you have immense potential. Believe that from the get-go. I think one of the things that has been on my mind a lot, I went through a drive-through recently and there was a grown man, maybe 10 years older than me working there, polite, kind of really, really nice guy. Just seemed to be full of potential. Manning the drive-through late at night. And it really just broke my heart because I thought there's nothing ultra different about me. There's nothing, you know, in terms of, I'm not some super creative genius that is above and beyond other humans. I'm really just normal. But I think in normal that everybody has this amazing innate talents and value that are specific to them. And if there's anything different to me, I think it's really that I've spent tons of time and energy identifying this value, developing the value, getting feedback on the value, and then learning how to sell it and really believing that I've got great stuff on my hands. And I looked at this guy in the drive-through and I thought, I guarantee this person is under the surface, just brimming with this crazy potential, if only someone had been there to mentor this guy, to really unearth whatever this thing is, develop it, give feedback and help him to believe it and sell it, because I'm certain this guy could have been doing crazy awesome massive things. And I hope that he does. And so if you're out there wondering, do I have value? You definitely do, I've yet to meet somebody that doesn't have some unique quality that really sets them apart, this rare quality that they have that really becomes this valuable commodity, this thing that they can bring to the market and really have an impact. And so I encourage you, dig down deep, figure these things out, hone it, discipline, get to the plate day after day, develop these things, find your art wife or art husband and find those people that will tell you where you've got something in your teeth of your portfolio and then buy it yourself, show it, prove that you have this value, take this thing and instead of doing it for Joe Schmo, business down the street that wants to throw you in the money grabber and say, aren't you lucky you get to work for a living? No, do it for yourself. Say, I'm gonna take this value that I can add, I'm gonna add it to my own products and I'm gonna prove that I've got the good stuff and the great thing is, when you prove that you have value, you won't have to sell because when I've built this podcast or built these different side projects and I've proved that I've got value, all of a sudden, I'm not selling anymore, they're selling to me. They're trying to woo me and they're coming to me respecting me and say, they're not throwing me in the money grabber. They're saying, we're lucky to work with you and I've seen that happen when you can prove it that you've got the goods, you won't have to sell, they'll be selling to you. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) So I wanna end on some good news, okay? I wanna go back to the story of my relative with a disability that was scammed by that car dealer. Another one of my relatives actually went in and set things right, took some legal action and got that dealership shut down and that is good stuff, justice. Well, I really think, honestly, I think that the tides have started to really shift in the business world and I think more than ever with the internet, we're seeing, you know, businesses know the value of creativity and there are tons of people out there that are clued into this and they're willing to come as equal partners, respecting creatives and respecting the role that they play. I'm not treating them like, aren't you lucky to work for a living? No, I think this shift is happening. We're in an amazing time where creatives are being brought to the table in society for the value that they can bring, for this awesome stuff that you can do and we're seeing this partnerships blossom, this mutual respect where art and business can be working side by side, the lion and the lamb, (laughs) starting into a weird sermon of art business but I really think it's an amazing time. It's really great that there are these people out there respecting creativity, wanting to partner with you for the value that you can provide and what a fantastic time to be an artist. So I encourage you, you know, start with number four, go back and, you know, start by believing, believing that you do have these innate values, you do have this awesome stuff that you can bring to humanity that gives value as a gift and that it's just a matter of really finding it. Thank you guys so much for listening. I hope that this brings clarity and strategy to your creative career. Thank you to Yoni Wolf and the band Y for our theme music. Thanks to our proud syndicate illustration age, you can find this show at illustrationage.com/creativepeptalk. Thanks to my buddy, Nate Utesh and his band Metavari for all the other tunes. We love you, we love the music, it's making this podcast sound so tasty. Thank you, thank you guys for the love and the support, the sharing, the listening, the giving, the receiving, all of the awesome stuff with the creativepeptalk, it's changed my life and I'm proud and happy to be enacting even small little breakthroughs in your own life and your own creative career. Thank you guys for letting me be a part of all that good stuff, it's getting all lovey and nice over here. Thanks guys and until next week, do whatever you gotta do, stay Peptalk. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - I did consider Barney a friend and he's still a friend to this day. - The idea of Barney is something that I want to live up to. I love you, you love me, I call it the purple mantra. - Barney taught me how to be a man. - Generation Barney, a podcast about the media we loved as kids and how it shapes us. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music) - From Academy Award-winning actor, Matthew McConaughey's soulful and humorous picture book to New York Times best-selling author, Kristen Hannah's The Women, moms don't have time to read books, is an author interview podcast unlike any other. In 30 minutes or less, each episode of this chart-topping and webby award-winning show dives deep beneath the cover, fostering friendship and camaraderie, support and curiosity, connection and compassion. Hosted by me, Zibi Owens, author, bookstore owner and head of what the LA Times called the Zibiverse, moms don't have time to read books, has something for everyone, whether you're a mom like me or simply a busy reader. So don't miss out. 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