Creative Pep Talk
062 - You Are What You Eat
(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) - Yo, it's me, Andy J. Miller, the original creative pep talker, and I'm here to talk to you about making money with your awesome work, making work that's creatively fulfilling, but thriving financially. It's about balancing commercial side of your work with the art side of your work. That to the core is who I am, what I'm about, why I'm passionate about making this show, sharing what I'm learning about that balance, striking that balance, that's what it's all about. So, this episode we are going to talk about you are what you eat. Your brain is a kind of computer that when you need to put the right things into it, the right code to get it to do the right types of functions. And I think often we don't think about our brain as something that takes input, and then that changes what we put out into the world. But you are not, you know, this core person of your being is deeply affected by what you throw into it. It's not this detached thing that makes judgments on all outside things. And in a way that is impersonal, it is a way, it is deeply affected by what you put into it. And that's what we're going to talk about today in terms of your art career. Before we jump in to that kind of stuff, let me just give you the notes. You can find this show on illustrationage.com/creativepeptalk. You can find it on my website. You can find it on iTunes. If you're on iTunes and you're digging the show, go ahead and give it a little review. That's how other people find it on iTunes. The more reviews, the better ranked, the more visible the show is for other people. Thank you guys for awesome reviews. Let's get down to business. Okay, you are what you eat. We've heard it before. Think about it like this. Think about your brain and your creative output as in a nice infused water. Now, if you took a gallon of water and you threw a potato in, you threw a few baked beans and a baseball card from the 1970s, the next day the water you pour out into your glass is not gonna be too appetizing. You're not gonna expect it to have a floral bouquet for you to smell. You're not gonna expect it to taste nice and citrusy. It's gonna be disgusting. Even talking about it kind of grosses me out and it probably grossed you out. And I'm sorry about that. But the point is your brain is very much like that water and what you throw into your brain to soak whatever you're soaking up, when you pour it out, when you pour it out into the work that you make, into the statements that you make with your work and what your work looks like, so much of that is dependent on your environment. Jim Rohn says you are the sum or the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Now, I didn't, like I said, Jim Rohn said that. I didn't invent this concept. It's a concept in other industries that's talked about a lot. But I don't think we talk about it that much in our industry and I think it's such a valuable thing to think about. One thing I found recently was that I would find myself focusing my energy, my energy that's driving my creative career, the thing that I'm trying to push next, I find myself focusing on different things throughout the year or different things from year to year. And I realized that a lot of what I'm interested in pursuing comes from the podcast that I'm listening to. That's probably the media that I soak up the most, right? And if I was listening to a comedy podcast and I was like eating that up and listening to episode after episode after episode, what I would be trying to do in my work would get more comedic. If I was listening to an illustration show where they talk a ton about editorial work and working for the New York Times and that kind of thing, I would find myself making work that is more suited to the New York Times. If I listened to a business podcast where they're talking about passive income and this and that, I would find myself trying to create passive income streams. But I didn't see it for years. I didn't notice the dramatic effect what I was listening to and how affected what I was focusing on. And so today I wanna talk about how do you take control of that and don't do this passively. How do you say I'd like to go to that place on the map out in the next five years? And I'm gonna put things in me that help me be the type of person and the type of artist that gets to those places. So if you watch these cooking shows or you know something about cooking, you know that eating is not just about your mouth. It's not just about the taste, right? And I think they say that you eat with your eyes, you eat with your nose and then you eat with your mouth. You eat with your eyes first. What does the plate look like? You know, you actually enjoy the food more if there's lots of different colors and everything's not the same on the plate. If the plate, you're gonna enjoy it more if it doesn't have some random gunk strewn across it. That's why chefs will wipe the plate. So there's no random juices flying all over the place. You know, you eat with your eyes first and then you eat with your nose. When you go to put the food into your mouth, you're gonna get a smell and that smell actually literally affects what you're tasting. And then the last thing you do, the thing we think about when it comes to food is what you actually taste with your tongue. And so I took these ideas and I applied them to what you're putting in to your brain and how that affects what you put out as an artist and where you go as an artist and who you are as an artist. And I'm gonna take those three things and I'm gonna break down ways that you can take more intentionality and control over what you're putting in so that the results are closer to what you're looking for. So here we go. 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. 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. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) You eat with your eyes. Number one, this isn't as simple as you think it might be and if you haven't been making art for a while, you might not even realize this but it's actually, at least in my opinion, 100% true. Whatever you're looking at, whatever you're spending your time, the sum, the average of the things that you're looking at on a daily basis will dramatically affect what your work actually looks like. Now, this isn't as simple as looking at things that you want your work to look like because you don't want to just rehash or reiterate what's already out there. You don't wanna be a copycat. You don't want your thing to look just like other things that are out there. And so, this is a more complex equation then just looking at the things that you want your work to look like. And so, how do you control what it is you're looking at? One of the ways is who do you follow on social media? You know, one of the things I suggest doing is from time to time, having a purge. On Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook and controlling what it is you're seeing and hearing on a daily basis. You know, are these artists people that you want to visually influence you? Are these people that are making you feel great about what you're doing or absolutely terrible? You know, one of the things that I've started doing, I just actually went through Twitter and just kind of purged things to a certain degree of the people I was following. And it wasn't because I didn't like those people. It was mainly because there were handfuls of people that weren't friends of mine, we didn't know each other, they, you know, we didn't even interact on Twitter, on the old tweeters, we didn't even interact on there. But they would constantly be talking about things that weren't relevant to the things that I wanted to achieve. And so, they were constantly distracting me with the awards that they were winning and the things that they were doing, things that I didn't want to do. But they were keeping me thinking about areas that I didn't even want to go. And I could find myself thinking about how to go to those places because those people seem to think it's really important. But this also has to do with what your work actually looks like, what is the influence that you're taking in? Now, when it comes to looking at art, here's a few tips that have helped me. And this can apply to, you know, pin boards that you make on Pinterest, it can apply to blogs and websites you look at, accounts you follow, books that you buy, the bookstores you go to. But I find there's a few general rules of thumb that have helped me diversify my work and get to a place where I'm excited about the stuff that I'm making. One thing is, don't just look at your contemporaries, don't just look at the people that are making work today. Now, I want to put a side note because I feel like in some circles, all they talk about is people that are working today. And then in some circles, it's a total faux pas to mention that you're influenced by people that are working today. I just want to say it right here now. I'm influenced by people that are working today, right? I'm influenced by tons of people. I love, I have lots of friends even that I love what they do and what they do influences the decisions I make, whether I like it or not, because I'm looking at that stuff, right? And I think it's actually okay. I think if your work is too classic, it's too in the old school, you're actually not making any statements today. And if you're not making any statements today, you're not going to be one of the greats who they're talking about 50 years from now. You need to be in tune with, what are the tools that people are using today? What are the discoveries that they're making today? You do need to be in tune with that. But you also can't be too in tune with that because all of a sudden your work will start looking like the next guy's work and the next person's. One way of combating this is getting really deep into the history of the stuff that you're making. Austin Cleon, the writer of Steel Like an Artist, says you should make a inspiration family tree. Now, early on, you might've got super into one person, one artist that really spoke to you, and that's totally fine, there's no shame in that. But you might've found yourself working a little bit too much like that person. And I would say also, that's okay, it's not uncommon. I would say most people start off that way, but it's not a place you wanna stay. You won't get anywhere interesting and it's not really that authentic. So what you need to actually do, Austin Cleon says, is go research that person. Go look at that, what that person is looking at. Go read the interviews and see who are their influences. Now initially, when you look back 50 years, you might not instantly see what's exciting about that work. I remember when I started to try to go back in time and look at stuff from 50, 60, 70 years ago. At first, it was hard for me to get through the veneer of the old school, the ways that it didn't shine in the same way that things shine today. But the more time you spend with it and the more time you study it, you'll start to pick up on the essence that's really brilliant. And if you can start to, when I start a project, if I'm feeling a little kind of bored, I'd try not to go too contemporary with getting excited about the work because I don't want to mimic anything that's happening now. I, usually I'll go to, I have a classic design and illustration pen board that has a bunch of stuff on it that I'm super stoked about that happened 50 years ago. And often, I'll see something in there that'll spark my interest. And I'll be like, ah, I like the way that they did the page layout there. I'm gonna try something in that vein. And that'll get me thinking in ways that a lot of people aren't thinking right now. In terms of fashion, you see this? I saw this, I think it was, there was a TED talk and I'm at a loss, but I think it might've been Kirby Ferguson's TED talk, TED talk, where he talks about how in fashion, often fashion and innovation and fashion isn't so much about coming up with a completely new idea as it is going back through history and finding something random that will be relevant today. For some reason, having that eye, that that thing that was going on 20 years ago, that piece of clothing and saying, that thing right now, I think that would work right now. Like when Drake on the Hotline bling new video where he's wearing that sweet turtleneck, he was like, turtlenecks are bound to come back, right? I don't know if that's true. Actually, I don't think it's true at all, but that general idea. And so one way you can kind of diversify is looking back 50 years. So take that Austin Clion advice. Go look at your favorite artist, go look at who their favorite artists were, and then go look at who those favorite artists were. Those favorite artists and favorite artists and favorite artists. Go back and back and back. And don't be afraid to be challenged. If initially you don't understand what's cool about that work, spend some time with it. The best albums I've found are the ones that I didn't like initially, but there was something intriguing, so I stuck with it. Those albums end up being the ones that actually change me. And so be prepared for that. Another way of getting inspired by looking at different stuff and by diversifying what you're doing and challenging yourself is go 10 levels out. Go outside your niche, go outside your market, go outside the style, go outside the medium, go outside the art, go outside of art in general, and go look in real life. Go get real reference. Go take some photos. Go where in the world are you feeling inspired? It can be at Walmart. If you get inspired at Walmart, go take a camera there and just take some of these ridiculous. I don't know anybody that's inspired by Walmart. But if maybe you're inspired by consumerism, maybe you hate consumerism, and that's why you get fired up when you're at Walmart. And you go take some photos about things that give you a visceral response. For me, it often looks like nature. I like finding the weird kind of plants in nature, things that don't look real. I like the animals in nature that you can't believe exist. Those things like really get me excited. I'm really inspired by what I see in my dreams. And so I've started to take more notes on that. I started to try to take hold of that in more real ways, in more intentional ways, in ways that I can soak in more, that I can infuse my art with. Get reference from real life. Go take some real photos. Go get real models that you want to influence the way your art actually looks. Surround yourself by nice things. Work in a place, work in a situation where when you look around your desk, you're looking at things that excite you, that are like what your work wants to be like. For me, at this stage of my life, I've surrounded myself mostly my office is full of stuff that I made, that I like. Because I want to keep feeding back into that. So I get that consistency. And I remember the different breakthroughs that I've had as I've been image making. But then I also have, across from me, I have one component of my room is a pen board that has a literal pen board, not one of those Pinterest boards. A real pen board with things stuck in it that I've collected over the years or friends have sent to me. Stuff that I just want to soak up and I want to be in, old stuff, new stuff. I've got books all over the place. I want to be surrounded by my characters. So I've started to make my characters in different ways. You know, I did needle felting and made some of them. You know, I've got a mug that has one of my characters on it. And so I'm soaking that stuff up. But you're also visually soaking up when you travel. You know, if your work is getting stale, one of the best solutions is going to a place you've never been traveling to a different city, totally shakes things up. And I'm a big supporter of Pinterest. Get on Pinterest. If you're not comfortable, at first, just make some secret pen boards. And for me, a thing that's helped, I've made pen boards that are photography, pen boards that are just pure inspiration things, things that get me excited that don't have any like real category. You know, on that inspiration board, I've got things from movies. I've got things from real life. I've got animals. I've got old McDonald's characters. Got all kinds of different things. Just things that I know gave me the feelings all throughout my life. And I put that on the same board. So be intentional about the things you're looking at, because that is what your work will end up looking like. - 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. (upbeat music) - It's holiday shopping time, y'all. It's time to freak out. - Ah! - 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 T advent calendar. There's also just below that little bubble T 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) Eat with your mouth. Number two, eat with your mouth. Who are you talking to? Who are you listening to? What are the words that are surrounding you? If you're listening to things about the art world, if people around you are saying, you can't make money on art. You'll never get anywhere. You know, it's all dire. Everything's going to crap. You know, the money's gone. The opportunity's gone. That's what your brain's going to tell you. The more you soak in that, the more that's who you become. You are literally what you eat. Like what you eat actually turns into the cells in your body. And in the same way, the people you're talking to dramatically affect the words that go into your brain. And therefore affect the way that you think about yourself, the way you think about art, the words that you choose to view your world through. I found myself recently, I found myself this week being challenged by this idea that because I teach in an illustration major at an art school in the Midwest, the students, I'm spending more time with them than I am other artists. And they're starting to affect the way that I'm making stuff. And in some ways, that's great. I've noticed that they've challenged me to use more reference in my work and draw more from real life. And they're very, very focused on drawing. And that's great. You know what, that's influencing my work and it's changing the way that I do things. And I'm getting some exciting things out of that. That's a great challenge. But that's balanced with the fact that they don't really have the same tastes as I do. So in ways that they don't like my art, that I really do, I need to be intentionally seeking out people that can affirm the things that I actually want my art to be. And I think as someone who lives in Midwest, someone who lives in America, even, I have to intentionally seek out the people that really understand on a more visceral level or a deeper level. Like understand the smaller decisions that I'm making and affirm those things so that I can have the confidence to keep making the work that I'm excited about. And so last night, even as I'm driving home from class, I'm thinking, you know, how do I make sure that I don't let these students change the view of the work that I really like? How do I make sure that I don't start questioning things that I actually feel really good about? And so I called a friend who I know has really similar taste, who has work that I dramatically respect and love. And I went and checked that work out and I had a phone conversation. I had a long chat with that person. And I ended up talking, it wasn't even so much about them telling me that it's okay, Andy, your work is fantastic. It was more about just having some commonality about shapes and drawings and the way I see my work and the way I see illustration and help balance that challenge with some affirmation about what I actually want my work to be like. One of the things that have been the most valuable to my career has been getting on the phone at the right times, having those people that I can call, you know, that network of five people that I can call when I need a different voice in my life, in my art career that's influencing the decisions I'm making. So sometimes that's about the way my work looks. Sometimes that's the person that I can talk to who understands, you know, a different aspiration. Sometimes it's about someone, you know, I talk to my dad when I want to talk about business because he's a business guy, he knows tons about that. I talk to my brother when I'm looking for something else. I talk to my friend Andrew Nier and Cincinnati when I want to talk about a different component. But actively seeking those conversations instead of just deferring to the people that happen to be in your life at any given time. Try explaining your work to your grandma. You're going to find new things about your work. You're going to see your work in a different perspective. You're going to see ways that it's missing things. Then make sure that you're talking to the people that do love your work, that do understand, that love the things that you love so that that can spur you on to make the kind of things that you want to make. When I lived in England, my family moved over there, right when I was going into college. I had a younger sister who was, I think, six or seven at the time, and she really quickly picked up an English accent. You know, when you're that age, you're so much a product of your environment. But I think we're actually like that today. You know, my seven year old daughter will go to her friend's house, and for the next five hours, we'll talk just like her friend. She'll pick up all these little nuances. And so it's not just about who you're talking to, although that is a big deal. Who are you talking to? Who are you allowing to speak into your life? Because it's going to change the way that you talk, the way that you're the words that are soaking in your brain, and that that is going to ultimately determine how you see your career, how you see your opportunities. But not just that. Have you ever noticed when you're watching a show, especially if you binge watch a show, how you start saying the words from that show, saying the phrases from that show? In the same way, be careful about what you're putting into your mind in terms of the podcasts that you're listening to, the music that you're listening to, the words that you pour into your mind will color and shape the way that you see the world. I've talked about this before. There's an episode of Radiolab where it's called color. And they talk about how when a culture doesn't have a word for a color, they don't even really see that color. They can, but it's really hard for them to see it. Like if they go test a tribe that doesn't have a word for the color blue, and they show them a circle of 10 squares, one of them being blue, the rest being green, and they have a word for green, they either can't point out the blue square, or it takes them a while, or they make a bunch of mistakes before they get the right one. Having the right words in your mind changes the way that you see the world. It changes the opportunities that you see. It changes the way that you see your work, the way you talk about your work. Make sure that you're being intentional about the words that you're putting in to your mind. I titled this one, number three. Who are you smelling? Who can you smell on a regular basis? Like who are you actually sitting next to? Who are you hanging out with the most? What's the, who's the person you smell the most? I don't know why I want to say that so many times, but there's something about that that I like. Who are you actually face to face with? This will affect you like nothing else. It will affect your art like nothing else. When I was in college, I had three buddies. We spent tons of time together, we went out for drinks together, coffees together, we drew together, we made stuff together. And the more time we spent together, the more homogenous our work became. Our work started to all meet together. Yeah, we all had our different tastes and interests and styles and strengths, but they're all of a sudden became all this commonalities between our work. And when you're not careful about that, when you're not intentional about who you're spending time with and what those people, how those people influence your work. You know, I found that when I met my wife, because her taste was for the handmade, I started making more handmade stuff, right? And that's something I didn't even realize that was happening at the time. Look around to the people that you're spending the most time with. Are they living the types of creative lives? Are they having the creative success that you want to have, even in terms of business, even in terms of awards and clients and all that stuff? If they're not, you have to figure out, you have to go on a mission to spend more time with people doing the types of things that you want to do because you really are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. And so something I'm thinking about a lot is the challenge, the moat, if you will, of location. I think about locationism, you know, stereotyping where people live. And I think about this a lot. I think about how often I feel like the Midwest is not valued by a lot of people on the coast or they think it's irrelevant. And I actually couldn't disagree more with that. But that's a real thing. Location is not something that you can ignore. The people that you're physically around is not something you can ignore. And it's not something you might be able to change easily, but you can travel, right? You can spend time with people online. The people that you choose to keep in your social network and influence the way that you think, those are people that you're technically spending time with. I'm a massive supporter of conferences. Conferences have been a game changer for me. I got to go to Elkhaf a few years ago, which is a comics festival in London, like independent comics, no brow, that kind of thing, met a bunch of people there, heard a bunch of talks that I was listening to, all kinds of different things, had some fantastic conversations with people. That totally changed the way I was thinking at the time. I went to ICON a few years back in Portland. I met tons of people there that I still constantly communicate with now. They changed the way that I see my work. They're people that now I can reach out and talk to. You don't have to necessarily live in the hotspot. In my view, part of the reason I thought about living outside of one hotspot area is all those places have really high overhead. They're expensive to live there. And I thought, well, I can live somewhere cheaper and use that money to actually go visit several different places that are like the hotspots of creativity. And I have done that, and it's been really effective for me. But you need to physically go out there and find people that are doing the types of things that you want to do, or you will never be able to do those things. You need to find where those types of people are congregating, and you need to find kindred spirits in there. Go make friends within those places. Make friends with people that want to be friends with you. That's a big deal. You don't need to push yourself on to people that are like, get away. But if you go to the right spots, if you go to places where the things that you value are valued, often, even if you're not quite where they are, they'll see that you've got the spark of something and they'll let you spend some time with them. (gentle music) (gentle music) So, you are what you eat. The work that you make and the career that you have is a product of what you put in you. And, you know, it's not just about eating the right things. You know, I'm not just saying, don't eat donuts every second, obviously, right? Don't just eat the sugary, sweet instant. You know, don't just constantly binge on the same one artist and eat only that. And, yeah, obviously, that's gonna affect how you make stuff. But you also don't want to only eat carrots. It's also about diversity. It's also about making sure that you're getting stuff that's challenging, as well as stuff that's affirming, and you're getting new stuff as well as old stuff, and you get a range of diversity. What you don't want, what you really don't want, the main conclusion is you don't want to be passive about what you're letting into you. You don't want to be passive about who you're spending the most of your time with. You don't want to be passive about what you're seeing on a daily basis. You don't want to be passive about who you're talking to and who you're letting talk to you. That will change the way that you talk to yourself. It'll change the way you talk about your work. It'll change the way that you see opportunities. It'll change the way that you see possibility and how big your vision is for your career. And all of those things dramatically affect what your career ultimately will be in the next five to ten years. And so intentionally think through these things and think about which things do I need to be fixing? Which things do I need to look at a more diverse range of things? Do I need to mix it up? Or do I need to affirm it? Do I need to mix up who I'm talking with and get some challenges, get some stuff that's mixing up the way that I'm thinking? Or do I need to talk to more people that are excited about what I'm excited about? Am I spending too much time with grandma? And she's saying, the stuff you're making is irrelevant. You're pedestrian crap. Or my grandma would never say that. My grandma's fantastic. But do you need to spend time with people that get what you do, value what you do, so that you can get excited about what you're doing? Okay, friends, that's all I've got. That's all she wrote today. Thank you so much for spending some time with me. Thanks for spreading the PEP all across the online. I really, really appreciate that. Thank you so much for the encouragement, for the reviews, for the Patreon backers. Thank you so much. You can find this show on illustrationage.com/creativepeptalk. You can find it on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com/creativepeptalk. You can find it on my website, AndyJ.pizza. You can find it on iTunes, wherever you find it. Enjoy it. Get excited. Get excited about what you're making. You know, one of the biggest ways to ensure that you're gonna have a successful career, or that you continue to have a financially thriving career that's also exciting for you, is staying motivated, staying excited about what you're doing, so that that translates into making piles of work, and piles of work equals a pretty good career, in my opinion. So do whatever it takes to get super pumped about what you're doing. Thanks for listening. Spread the word in the pep talk. I really appreciate that. Stay pep talk. (upbeat music) - Hey y'all, one more quick thing. Earlier this year, I rebuilt my website using Squarespace's new fluid engine, and I was so pumped about how it turned out that I have been really thrilled to find as many ways to partner with them, and tell you about what they can do, and bring you discounts as possible. With social media going haywire, I think having a site that feels as unique as your creative work is essential to building trust with your target audience, or your clients. I have had several clients point out how cohesive and fresh my site looks lately, and if you wanna check that out, and what I was able to do without any code, check out AndyJPizza.com. If you wanna test it out, go to squarespace.com/peptalk to test it out yourself, and when you're ready to launch, use promo code PEPTALK for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks Squarespace for supporting the show, and for supporting creative people. (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 who 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)