Creative Pep Talk
031 - Peppy Talk 1
(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. Oh, the holidays are here, you gotta find a unique gift for Uncle Derek and your sister Catherine, and her kids, Jetson, and Jetta, and Jeffrey, and Jacob, and another two Jay kids. There's so much thinking, so much searching. Plus, there's the ethical thing, you gotta shop small, just, it's a lot, but it doesn't have to be. Uncommon Goods makes all of this simple and straightforward for real. The site is chocked full of unique and interesting gifts that also support small businesses. My fam loves advent calendars. I think Sophie would like the Stitch-a-Day advent calendar, and 12 days of hot sauce is definitely shouting my name. Sorry, that wasn't me, that was the 12 days of hot sauce calendar shouting. Seriously, we had tons of fun browsing the site for ourselves and kids and family 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) - Hey guys, it's the Creative Peptalk podcast with your host Andy J. Miller. You know, I've had a few people ask for me to do some shorter little pep talks a little bit more often and it's something that I've been wanting to do and I don't have a name for it, but I will by the time I post this. I'm on my way to work. I'm going to teach a class on self promotion for illustrators at the Columbus College of Art and Design. Just before I get on with this, I just wanted to let you know you can listen to this podcast at illustrationage.com/creativepeptalk. I just wanted to connect with you today and I wanted to say, look, I think it's incredibly important to know what you want. I feel like, you know, a few years back, I kind of cringed at this idea of what, you know, determining what you want. It sounded so selfish and so prideful and critical and prideful and, you know, I felt like there was just this air to it that just didn't at first sit right with me. You know, I feel like though, you do want things and the things that you want drive your life. They drive your life forward and whether you are in tune with them or not, you are wanting things and you are doing things because you want them. Now, if you stop and you ask yourself, what is it that I ultimately want to get out of my creative career? You know, what you're doing there is you're gaining mastery over this thing and instead of just letting your subconscious or your impulses rule the day, which my guests are going to be more inherently selfish than if you stop and come up with a bigger overarching plan or a bigger hope or a bigger want for your career. If you actually stop and put words to it, it's gonna be a lot less selfish than if it's determined by the impulses of the minute. I really think that it's a sobering experience to stop and say, what am I doing this for? Like, what's the end goal? In one year, where am I hoping to be? In five years, where am I trying to go? In 10 years, what do I want to have happened? I feel like this question is so clarifying. And one of the things that I want to do on the podcast, one of the reasons why I do this is to encourage you to do the necessary thinking and strategizing and ideation to get clarity on your creative pursuits. I don't think that clarity means that you end up throwing out chance, throwing out the happy accidents, you know, throwing out serendipity or riding the wave or going with the flow and the time comes. I do believe that your path is gonna be full of surprises from the universe, things that you've never expected, things that weren't part of what you wanted, things that you couldn't have planned for. And a lot of those things are the best things that you're gonna experience in your career. But I believe that if you don't have a clear picture of what you're doing, that you're not gonna have the clarity to be confident. And if you're not confident, you're not gonna stay motivated. I find that I can't get out of bed and do the work. Unless I have a clear understanding of what am I trying to do here? You know, I feel like when I approach my personal work, the work that I'm trying to push forward my illustration career with, when I don't have a clear understanding of what am I really trying to do here? I have a really hard time getting out of bed and making the work because if you're unclear about what it is you're trying to do, you're not confident in the work that you're doing because you don't even know what it's for. What's the point? And it's so hard to do good work. It's so hard to be motivated, to be prolific in your work, which by the way, I think is a big deal these days. Making lots of work, staying busy is very important this day and age. 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. 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. - I believe it's really important that you stop, not just acknowledge that it's good to have clarity or to have a vague idea. I think it's good to stop and ask yourself, what is it that I'm trying to achieve in my career? And that can be a lot of different things. It can be financially related. It can be achievement related. It can be client related. It can be skill related. It can be anything. But I think one of the listeners, Brian Hurst, he's a guy who connects with on social media a lot, suggested that I do a podcast on this idea of defining what success means to you and really determining what it is you want, you really want is basically that same question. What does it mean for you to have achieved your goal? And if you never define that, by the way, you're never gonna feel like you've actually succeeded because even if you get it, it's gonna come and go and you didn't realize that you wanted it. I also believe that when you have a strong sense of this is the thing that I want, that you have the skills and the talents and the brains to set your mind to the thing you want and to achieve it because I believe, you know, I think that we hit in this idea of this, I feel like America is this really personality and talent driven thing. You know, we think that either have the secret sauce or you don't. You know, we either believe that you're gonna have a, you're gonna have your fairy godmother show up and change your life because you're the special one or you're not. And I think this kind of thinking actually often gets in the way because I believe that going out there and achieving something great isn't about some kind of predestined, you either have it or you don't. You know, the times I've tried to start a new pursuit, one of the things that holds me back the most is, is this, am I really good enough to do this thing? Am I really gonna be able to achieve this thing? And I believe that if you just, if you figure out what you really want, you're gonna be, you're gonna have that natural, intense motivation that's gonna keep you focused on developing the skills and developing the work. And you're gonna be able to achieve that thing that you wanna do. And I think you have to reject this lie that says you either have it or you don't. I think it's so much more about you being clear about what you want. And then every day making that investment I feel like, you know, back in the day, when I was, I don't know, in high school or something, you know, I would think, you know what? I'm gonna get into exercise. I'm gonna be like this crazy exercise guy. And that day after school, I would just try to run like three miles as fast as I could. And I would tear up my body. I would feel absolutely terrible the next day. And I wouldn't run for years after that. And I think that so often when we let these little impulses of the moment determine our actions, we decide on these things that we think we want, usually based on the fear of missing out or stuff someone else is doing on social media that you're jealous of. We pour all this time of energy into it. The results are really nominal or the results are actually bad. Like, you know, like me with my body breaking down from trying to do all or nothing. And we give up instantly. You know, yesterday we had some family over, my in-laws from the UK are over. And we're playing this game, a board game called Air Lines of Europe. And it's this game where every turn, you get like to do one move and you get to pick up cards, you get to buy stock and all this jazz. And the thing is though, each move is very insignificant in moving the marker forward. It's, you know, and it's kind of hard to really see how it makes an impact. And I just had this sense of like, every day is kind of like that. You don't know, you know, what these decisions and these things that you're doing today or how they're going to impact the future. But I believe that when you have a clear goal and you really believe that you can do it and you're sure that you want it, that you can make these little investments and sometimes investments are going to pay off and sometimes they aren't. But if you make enough of them day after day, they're eventually going to pay off and you're eventually going to go towards that thing. And for me, one thing to know is that I think it's important not to bite off more than you can chew. You know, I've become pretty good at figuring out how to get the kind of feedback and getting stuff out there to keep me motivated, like to make work that I get to put online or send to friends or whatever, things that I have quick turnaround keep me motivated. And so over the years, I've slowly built up to bigger investments over longer periods of time with less quick turnaround. And it's been something that's really helped me to stay focused. So anyway, I'm getting a little bit off topic, but I just wanted to put this out there, this idea of stopping and having a clear picture of what it is you're shooting for. And you know what? In a few years, it might change, it might shift. But if you've made intentional investments over a few years, even if it's the wrong thing, I can guarantee you those investments are gonna pay off. And you can shift gears, if that thing you wanted, it doesn't quite work out for you. As you get closer, it doesn't quite look right. You can just shift gears a little bit, use those same investments and have a different payoff. And so I just don't see any downside to it. I think that it's much worse to have a vague understanding of what's motivating you to make this art in the first place. Why did you start this direction anyway? Why is it that you wanna do commercial art at all? And I think when you ask yourself, you might be sobered by the fact that you don't know what the answer is right away. And that can be a little bit scary, but I think if you persist, you're gonna find some really interesting stuff. All right, stay peped up. I'm gonna try to come at you with the podcast on Thursday, a bigger one. Until then, stay peped up. 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. - 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.