Creative Pep Talk
060 - Make Them Care w Jolby
(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. Hey guys, it's Andy J. Miller, with the Creative Peptalk podcast. Today, we're talking about making people care about what you care about, and about your work. And this episode, I actually recorded live on Periscope. It's an app where you can view live video. I might do that from time to time, so if you're interested in that, go ahead and follow, and it will update you. If you follow me at Andy_J_Miller, it will let you know when I'm recording live, and you can kind of tune into that, and that will always be like Creative Peptalk stuff. So I've recorded this one live, and there was some cool things, and there were some kind of annoying things, and so I'm working that out, but it was an experiment, and so join me in that. Also, this week, I decided to break down the episode into three parts, so that you could digest them in chunks over the next three days. We also have on this podcast, Joel B., Colby, and Josh from Joel B. Studios. Have a little bit to chime in on the topic, and thank you guys so much. You guys are awesome for that. If you wanna see this on the web, or hear this on the web, rather, go check out illustrationage.com/creativepeptalk. You can find it on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com/creativepeptalk or on iTunes and the iTunes Store. Thank you guys for the reviews. It means so much to me, and that's how this show grows, so thank you so much. Thank you for the Patreon backers who back this show every week. They donate a few dollars per episode, so you can do that too, if you love the show, at patreon.com/creativepeptalk. It helps me offset time and money poured into the podcast, so thank you guys so much. Without further ado, here's the show. 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) And here it goes. All right, it's the creative PEPTALK podcast with me Andy J. Miller. Hello. This week, if you're listening on the recording, we're actually going to be doing, my hair looks kind of weird. Sorry, we're gonna be recording the podcast and putting it out there live on the Periscope app. So if you're watching live, you can actually, I think, maybe even type questions and I might be able to work in answering those as we go. If you're listening to the recording, make sure you download the Periscope app so that you can watch live if that's something that you're into. We're now recording. So we are talking about today, making people care about your work. So not just being self-indulgent in your work, but bringing your audience into the equation and whether that's a good idea or a bad idea or how you end up doing that. I'll tell you how I started to think about this topic. So earlier this week, I was reading an interview with one of my favorite artists. I'm not gonna name them for all kinds of reasons, but I was reading an interview with one of my favorite artists and I was just starting to feel really jealous, if I'm honest, and I don't mean this as a diss at all, but their work had become so self-indulgent in terms of, he was really just making work about his interests with not really any thinking of what his audience wants or even trying to really communicate anything. He was just making this work and it was fulfilling to him. And I was just kind of getting jealous because I kept feeling like I have all these thoughts and feelings and interests and I always feel the need to interpret those things into something more packaged and valuable for my audience. And also recently, I've been super stoked and excited about the Joanna Newsome album. I cannot wait to get my hands on the new Joanna Newsome album. I'm a giant fan, I love Joanna Newsome. I know that her music is a bit polarizing and so this isn't about her music, it's about something that we can take from her career. So I love Joanna Newsome, but I think she's another example of someone who, as they've gone on in their career, they have become more and more, she's become more self-indulgent in her work. And I mean that with the most love and respect that I could possibly say because I'm a giant, giant fan. But as her career has gone, her work has become more and more challenging. And I'm up for that challenge. I also think it's become more, it's become better the longer it's gone. The more challenging it gets, it actually gets better. And so I was thinking through that too and thinking why is it that my favorite, favorite artists can be so self-indulgent in their own interests and passions, but when I do that, it seems to fall flat. And so I started asking these questions like, should your work be for you and about you, or should your work be about an audience? And for an audience. And do you have to choose? And so I started thinking through, and all kinds goes back to the purpose of this podcast, which is a mixture of business and art. Exactly, someone just chimed in because they're rich and don't have to put out quality anymore. Well, I'm not saying it's quality. I actually think the work has gotten better. But I do think having money on a lock actually does contribute to this idea. And so I always come back to this same topic on the podcast because the podcast is for freelance creatives going out there on their own, trying to thrive financially and be creatively fulfilled at the same time. And so I think that early on, you do need to include your audience. You need to meet them halfway. It can't be just about you because you have to earn their attention, right? They're not already interested in what you have to say. You have to meet them halfway. And so that's what this episode's about. This episode is about how do you more intentionally tap into what an audience wants to talk about? (chuckles) This periscope thing has thrown me off a little bit, but I'm going to keep rolling with it because I think it should be interesting and fun. So sorry if I don't get your question. I'm trying to stay on topic to a certain degree, but I might be able to get to it. So I started thinking through this and I started thinking through what makes art fall flat? What makes art self-indulgent and not interesting to an audience? And then when is it wrong? There's one side of it making art that's super self-indulgent and all about you and that not really working. But there's another side of it too where you're making it all about the audience. And all of a sudden it's no longer authentic because oftentimes if you're speaking to an audience that you're not a part of, you're often basing your assumptions on stereotypes instead of experience. And so if you base your complete art on groups of people that you're not a part of, not only will it feel maybe coming from an inauthentic place, but it also will be based on stereotypes or it'll be chasing trends. And so on that side you might be making good money but you're probably not going to be creatively filled. And so as always I'm trying to find a good balance of these things. And so this made me start thinking about this idea of communication, this idea of not just talking at people but actually communicating with people and actually connecting with people so that your work doesn't fall flat on its face, right? And I was reminded of this one of my favorite quotes. It's from maybe my favorite movie of all time, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And this quote is from Joel Barish, Jim Carrey's character. And Kate Winslet is constantly talking. And she says, I tell you everything, Joel. I tell you everything, every thought that I have. And then in Joel's response is constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating. And so I started thinking about this idea of communication. And my favorite description of what communication is is the conveyance or the transference of thoughts and feelings. And so talking can be anything where you're using words, right? You can talk and never communicate. You can constantly talk and never convey, never transfer any of your thoughts or feelings. And I think sometimes early on in our careers we're doing a lot of talking but we're not actually connecting with anybody. And so I started to think about how do we, how do you systematically as a pro consistently communicate with your audience in a way that's powerful? And so that's what this episode is about. And you know, it reminded me of this zig-ziggler. He's an old school motivational speaker guy but I love this, I keep going back to this. He did this reference to the teachers. There were lots of teachers that were talking, right? They were talking about, you know, if you had a history teacher and all he was doing was talking, you might fall asleep during the lecture. But for the teacher that sold it to you, the teacher that communicated, the person that took their excitement and interest and passion in the subject they were teaching and they transferred it to you, those people actually made a difference. Those people were engaging and interesting and you were willing to trade your attention to them and I think as artists, we're in that same boat where attention is scarce and you have these things you wanna express but you have to learn how can you make other people care. And so that's kind of what we're talking about today. And you know, one of the things that I, you know, as a teacher myself, I can fall into this habit of blaming my students for things not going right. And I think it's actually, I never wanna do that because I feel like such a heretic because one of my biggest pet peeves is when a leader blames their followers for how things are going. And I think in the same way, it's a very lazy thing to do as an artist to blame the audience for not buying your work or engaging or being interested in your work. It's a very like lazy way of viewing. Like if it's not hitting, then you're not communicating it right. And actually got this term, make them care from Andrew Stanton. He's a big wig at Pixar. He did a great talk on Ted about story and he talks about no one's just gonna automatically care about your character. You have to make them care. And in the same way, no one's gonna automatically care about what you have to express. 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. 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 support 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. And so I think we get a lot of this creative fulfillment from expressing things that are dear to us, but part of that fulfillment comes from seeing other people respond to what you're expressing and get what you're trying to say. You know, we've all had that experience where we hear a song and it hits us in such a way that we didn't even know anyone else ever felt that before and that's the power of art to say, you're not alone in this thing. I feel exactly like you and I'm gonna use my art to transfer those feelings to you and we're gonna share that, right? I remember being a kid and I don't know, maybe I was just really a heavy thinker or something as a kid, but when I remember being in fourth grade and in the summertime, like laying on my back in the grass and looking at the stars in the sky and being just enamored with the night sky, being blown away. And if I was with a friend being like, isn't this amazing, like, man, I'm just feeling all these feelings. And I remember just the response of them being very underwhelmed, like just being like, yeah, it's kinda cool, there's stars in the sky. But I remember having this extreme feeling in my gut saying, oh man, this is so amazing. And just saying it with words and just saying, isn't this awesome? Wasn't transferring how I felt and there was something unfulfilling about not being able to share that with somebody. And then I remember also when I was in middle school, you know, I've always had crazy dreams. Every night, almost every night, I have a crazy dream. Last night I had a crazy dream. I dreamt that I painted a American robin in two different pages and I was splicing together the pages, really bizarre, weird dream. And every night I have a weird dream and I love sharing my dreams, but if you've ever shared your dream with somebody, as soon as you say, ah, the craziest dream last night, you're gonna see their eyes glaze over and be like, oh gosh, now we have to listen to this whole spiel about how you were at your house, but it wasn't really your house kind of thing, like, and, you know, for somebody who loves dreams, it's a very lonely experience because you never really get to share that with somebody else. And I remember going into school and middle school and every morning in our home room being like, oh, I had this wildest dream. I was one of the members of the Seinfeld cast and it was the last day of shooting and we were in an alley in New York and I was saying, guys, we can make more episodes and Kramer and Jerry just being like, just forget it, man, just move on, it's over. And I remember saying this and just people being like, okay, who cares, shut up, but I had this strong visceral experience that I was desperate to share, right? And so I was trying to, I've learned over time that there are these practices that actually learning craft and learning how to communicate with an audience in a way that you help them care can change everything. Another example I saw recently, I saw these really cool installations where they had strung together hundreds, thousands of white balloons to enter these cloud formations in the train stations in London indoors. And I thought, man, I love that so much because there have been so many times where you just see this magnificent cloud formation and it just gives you, it just hits you really hard. But if you just take a snap of that with your iPhone and be like, aren't clouds awesome? You're gonna get crickets. No one cares about your, how you feel about clouds, right? And so, but this was a way of taking that feeling that awe of clouds and using art to meet your audience halfway. And so that's what I wanted to talk about today. I wanna talk about how do you respect your audience and meet them halfway with your creations so that they care about what you're doing? And I think part of it is letting go of your ego. And now, if you're listening to this on Periscope, you're not gonna see this part, but I'm gonna splice it in later. I have a really nice clip from the guys, Josh and Colby of Joel B, and they're gonna be talking about letting go of your ego. And so, if you're listening to the podcast, I'm gonna put that in now. But if you're watching Periscope, you're gonna have to just check it out on iTunes. (upbeat music) Hi, we're Josh and Colby from Joel B and Friends. And when we first started working together 11 years ago, we both really liked the idea of coming together and losing oneself to create something as a team. And thinking that way allowed our egos to dissipate and have something that we can do together and make something great. And we realized in this process that it's so freeing to just let go of that ego and your own personal creative interests for the better of a project and just to trust in your team and know that they're going to help produce the best work possible no matter what that work is. And the more you do it and the more you practice it, you just realize how much more rewarding it is, the feeling of accomplishing something together versus just on your own. (upbeat music) So I loved that. I think that that is fantastic. And I think even if you do work on your own, seeing yourself as a collaborator with the audience that you wanna communicate to, the audience that you wanna be a part of, seeing that as a collaboration between you and the audience and letting go of your ego, getting that out of the way and saying, hey, I don't just wanna say something. I wanna listen to what you're saying. And I wanna combine it with what I'm saying and make something that we can both be really excited about. And so I love that. I think that's fantastic. I'm really compelled by that. Thank you so much, Josh and Colby. It means a ton to me that you take time out to be on the podcast. I think if you don't know, Joel B., go check out their work. It is fantastic. They're doing some of the most interesting stuff in our industry, in the illustration and design industry. I think that especially as a business model, I'm just blown away and fascinated by two guys getting together, making some really interesting stuff. And then also now they're hiring other people or they have been for a little while and they're doing branding projects where there's a lot of illustration involved and logos. And I just think I'm just totally inspired by that whole concept. I love the idea of illustration and design, blurring those lines again, going back to the old commercial art days where we had people like Paul Rand and Saul Bass doing the logos, but also doing all the illustrations. I just think that's super exciting. Their work is just really, really exciting. I'm so glad that they're doing what they're doing. I had the honor of meeting those dudes back in Portland last summer at ICON. Nice as guys in the world couldn't be more thrilled to have them on the podcast sharing some of their brilliance. So thank you guys, you guys are awesome. I've broken this podcast up into two parts. You're gonna get the next part tomorrow. I'm just experimenting, experimenting with Periscope, experimenting with breaking these down into smaller, more digestible trunks and spreading them over a few days just to spread the pep a little bit thinner across the week and see if that is effective. So let me know, let me know if you like that. Let me know if you watch Periscope and you enjoyed that. Next time I recorded on Periscope, I'll probably take questions at the end. And then, so if you're into that or you wanna ask some questions, that might be a way to get that in there. So be mindful of that. Again, thank you guys. Thank you illustration age for sharing the podcast. Thanks for the iTunes reviews. Thanks for the Patreon backers. Thanks for all the excitement about the podcast. It means a ton to me. I will be back tomorrow with the second part of this episode. Until then, stay peped up about your work. Thanks guys. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (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'm Whit Msildine, the creator of This Is Actually Happening, a podcast from Wondery that brings you extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lift them. From a young man that dooms his entire future family with one choice, to a woman that barely survived her roommate, we dive into what happened and hear their intimate first-person account of how they overcame remarkable circumstances. Follow This Is Actually Happening on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app.