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Creative Pep Talk
024 - DO LESS MORE BETTER
(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) Whoa, whoa, whoa. It's time, it's that time of the week again, and I've got a lot of stuff to talk about. Before I get right in, remember you can hear this podcast at illustrationh.com/creativepepto. It's a great website that's just a big supporter of illustration, and yeah, I love it. I love that I get to be a part of it, so check that out. Now, let's just, I like to put a few disclaimers in there, because the truth is, is that this podcast is a very vulnerable experience to record yourself in your thoughts, and put them out there online for everybody to hear, is just a bit nerve-wracking in a lot of ways, and sometimes I feel the need to explain myself, even if maybe I shouldn't, or don't need to. I guess part of what I wanted to say was, two things really, that one, all the stuff that I'm saying, most of it isn't stuff that I dreamt up. It's stuff that I've experienced, or someone has passed on to me, or I've read in a book, or heard another podcast, or, you know, but it is all stuff that I've then implemented and found to be true. And, you know, this isn't a shock to you, because I usually mention where I hear things from. I usually kind of say, oh, I heard this by this speaker, or whatever, but, you know, I just got the thinking about how I didn't want this to feel like, here's all the amazing stuff that I know. I wanted it to be more like, well, I guess I feel like that, you know, true wisdom isn't new. It's not, you know, there's nothing new under the sun. There's no, if it's really good stuff, I think that it's something that's been around as long as humans have been around. And so, I guess I just wanted to qualify. You know, I don't feel like I'm coming on this and bringing you all of this brand new information that nobody's ever said before. But I am telling you, you know, these are the ideas and my spin on different ideas that have helped me and the way that they've impacted me. And these are my own metaphors and stories on how that relates to my life. And, you know, I guess that's kind of what I see this as. The other side of it is, I kind of feel like if you record yourself talking and you put it out in the world, that for some reason that communicates that I think this is the gospel truth. This is the end all be all final word. This is my full opinion. And this is what you should be doing. And I don't see that like this at all, you know? I feel like it's really something totally different. You know, it's really just, my whole idea is that if I can tell you all of this stuff and it makes you critically think about your own path and your own work, then the job is done. Now, whether you agree with me or not doesn't matter because I think the real true value comes from just being self-aware and thinking about what it is you do. And so that's kind of what I see the purpose as. Just like basically poking at these different topics and hopefully stimulating your own thinking and your own ideas 'cause your approach is gonna be totally different than mine. And so, all right, enough with the disclaimers and caveats and explaining away all that. I just wanted to give you, I just wanted you to know that this doesn't come from a place of I've learned everything there is to know about being a creative professional because that's not even close to true. I'm 28 years old. I've got so much to learn, but I feel like if I can put it down on this podcast, maybe it'll help somebody else. And then also it'll clarify what I do and I can get better at what I do. So that's, all right, that's explanation and I'm moving on. Today, this is something that's been on my heart for a long time. It's something I'm really passionate about and it's just, I don't know, it's been eating at me and the topic is do less more better. And this is for you grammar nerds who hate this title and real, yes, it's supposed to be bad. It's supposed to be bad grammar. But it's, for whatever reason, it felt like the right cup to pour this podcast into. It just felt like the right sentiment of mashup of the contradictory statements as you know I like. So do less more better. And I don't care. Send me an email and tell me how bad grammatically it is. I don't care. But what I've been thinking about is, I feel like if you really wanna excel at something and you really, you wanna get good at life and you wanna live your best life, if you go out there and you search for information about that, the message, I think the prevailing message, and I think it's the prevailing message of our culture is do more. Do more, get more results. And I just don't believe it. I don't believe it. And actually it makes me angry because I feel like that it's people putting unnecessary burdens on other people. And I feel like it's one of the most unwise kind of pieces of advice is do more. And I think it because it lacks nuance, it lacks real experience. And it's actually not, there's only so much you can do. And yeah, if you're sitting around watching TV all day, do more, you need to do more. But so much of us that wanna be professionals, we're already doing so much. And if you just say, oh, you're not doing enough, just do more. Like that actually takes away from your overall net productivity and overall position. And I feel like there's so much advice out there that is masquerading as wisdom. And it's what it really is is just foolishness. It's foolishness to just say do more because you can't do, you can't just do more. Of course, if I could make 300 paintings in a day that were amazing, would that be better? Maybe. I mean, I would definitely get some exposure and interest, but it's not, first of all, it's impossible. Second of all, that's just not the answer. I really think that the whole work smarter thing. I believe in working hard, but I feel like working smarter and having more clarity in your approach to what you do is way more important than just piling on more activities. And I feel like I want this podcast to not be another thing telling you to do more. In fact, rarely do I feel like am I giving you actionable steps on top of actionable steps that can add up to infinity of a million things you could be doing to increase your work and your practice. Rarely am I doing that. Mostly what I try to do in the podcast and what I'm trying to do in my own life is gain clarity, and why? Because clarity actually means that you can do less, because when you've figured out the things that you're supposed to be doing and you're sure about it, 'cause you're clear and you're confident, you can actually brush away all the stuff that doesn't need to be there. And so that's a theme. That's kind of, I've been thinking about what are my core values as a creative person and as a person in general. And one of them is definitely clarity on what it is you're trying to do with your life. But then, you know, just in that same breath is the pursuit of doing less and less and more concentrated work every year. Okay. This podcast might just be a doozy of a podcast because I've got 20 points today. I don't know why. I just have this feeling like I really wanted to pour tons of information in there. I wanted to do a big podcast on this because I think it's so important and it's funny also maybe a little ironic that I'm gonna do more on this podcast about doing less. But anyway, I'm not gonna think too much about that or dwell on it. I just, but before we get started, you know, what I want basically to happen is to maybe shift our thinking away from, you know, when we hear someone telling us, do more, do more. You're not good enough as you are. You're not in the right place. You're not doing the right thing. You need to do 10 times more than you're doing right now. I want us to fight the urge to listen to that and fight the urge to be self-deprecating and fight the urge to go and double down. Then when we hear those things, I want us to be aware about it and just, and say no, we're not gonna do that. We're not gonna just up our productivity because that's the industrial revolution way of thinking. And there's all kinds of negative things that go with that kind of thinking. All right, so here we are. You know, I feel like, sorry, I keep almost getting started, but then I remember I had something else to say. You know, I feel like what this doing more mentality is like. It's like, you know, I heard one person say it like, you know, when you're out in the ocean, and you need to move fast, you start trying to swim so fast that you're flailing instead of swimming. You're not getting anywhere because you're going so crazy that you're actually wasting all of your energy and you're eventually gonna sink quicker than if you slowly and surely, properly with the right technique and the right direction, swim. And I think it's the same, I got this picture in my head of, you know, Bugs Bunny, you know, that, when he's trying to run super fast and he's running so fast that he's in the same place and he's just like building up all the dust everywhere. And I feel like that's so often the story is that we're running so fast that we're actually not moving, we're staying right in the same place. And I think that we're afraid that if we slow down and stop and take a look at everything, we'll look down just like Bugs Bunny and we'll see that we've run off a cliff 'cause we're way off on the wrong direction. We've run so fast that, you know, we're way off. And I think that that's what I wanna do today. I wanna stop and I wanna say here's 20 things to think about. 20 things that we can raise of pruning our lives and our work and our approach. So number one, number one is something that's been on my mind a lot, okay? - 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. - So there's this metaphor that you hear a lot. It's like if all the civilization lived in this dark cave and there was no light, and then one person got out and saw the world and all its beauty with all the light and they came back and they tried to tell the people about it and tried to describe how you get there. You know, it's like when somebody achieves that thing that you wanna achieve or someone far ahead of you gives you advice, you should take it. You know, they come back from the light and they say, "Look, I've seen how to get out of here." And so often I feel like I've been the person in the dark thinking, what do you know? What do you know about how to get out? My life's different than yours and this and that and all these different things that why your advice doesn't mean anything to me. And one of the things that I think you hear so often from people that are wildly successful at their creative endeavors is that you need to specialize. Now, you could tell me, "Well, I know a guy. He does 10 things pretty well and he's doing just fine." But I didn't say just fine. I said wildly successful and I think that it's so important to specialize. Now, I think that there's maybe a little bit more nuance to this and another reason we kind of trip up is that specialization is a process that happens over a long period of time and over lots of experiences. So when you hear someone way far ahead of you saying, "Specialize," and you're like, "Well, I've got five things on my plate and they're all of equal importance and I don't know how to cut any of those things out." You know, when I talk to students, I feel like that's often their response to me. And I feel like, first of all, what I'm not saying is, go ahead and narrow it down to one thing. Because I think when you're young in the game, you need your hand on a few different things. Why? Because when you finally get to that one thing, that one thing that you do is gonna be very unique, uniquely done by you because of that experience with all different things 'cause you're bringing a lot of different things to the table. So I do think early on, it's important to dabble in a lot of things and be a jack of all trades and all that. But here's where the advice is still relevant to you who's in that season. That's fine, but I think that these people that come back and say you must specialize in what you do, I think the thing that you need to take from that is, yes, maybe I'm in a season where I've got five things on my plate that none of them can go away. But my goal is to eventually narrow down to one or narrow down to two max. As over years, so I'm always trying to prune away these things and even if you're a student and you've got five things that you're doing, five different specialties and five different skills and five different areas of focus, I would say just get rid of two. Wherever you are, wherever you are, whatever season you're in, I can almost guarantee that you're not specialized enough. Like you've got too many poles in the water and I think that almost any time in your life you can stop and say where is it that I'm just, I'm not specialized quite enough. And if you're in a time where you still, you're not ready to really bear down to those one or two things that you need to be doing, then just understand that that's probably the goal. Now, are there exceptions? Yes, there's always an exception to the rule, but that's why they're called exceptions. The rule is more like a guideline. So that's my first thing, is specialize. Do less, don't do everything. Don't do lettering in people and conceptual work and narrative work and stories and patterns and every, don't do it all. Don't try to do it, I'm doing magazines, advertising, kids books, this, that, all of it. You can't do all of that stuff well. And I think it's so important to go ahead and just cut a few things away now and understand that even if you can't cut away everything that eventually that's gonna be the case, that's gonna be the direction you wanna go. All right. Number two, quit something that used to be right. Now, this is a stupid metaphor, but I'm gonna go with it. 'Cause I have a two year old and this is how these kinds of things are on my mind. You know, nobody comes up to a one year old and says, diapers are wrong for you. Like, this is what you're doing in your life. This dependency on a diaper or a pacifier is wrong. And you need to quit, right? No, when they're in that stage of their life, it's totally good, it's totally appropriate, it's totally fine. And again, we're gonna keep going back to the seasons thing. 'Cause I think this is maybe the main theme throughout it is that there's gonna be things that were good for you then that aren't now, they're not appropriate now. 'Cause when you're five and you're in diapers, something's gotta change, right? Like, you know, what are the things that you were doing when you graduated college that were fine, that need to go? They need to go now. They were fine then, they're not now, you need to quit 'em. You need to quit those things. I think it's so, I think, you know, there's so many things that are like, we get that thing and we believe that it's right and we get all the signs in the world that this is the right place to be, it could be a job. Everything worked out perfectly for that job and or for this client that's an ongoing client. Everything's been good about it, but then slowly it wasn't good. Two years after, things aren't as good as they were, but because everything lined up perfectly at the beginning, we think that it's good forever. It's meant to be and we have to stick at it. But no, just because something's good at one point doesn't mean that it's gonna be good now. And so I urge just look at where you're at, look at all of the things you've got on your plate and quit the thing that is no longer good for you in this season, the thing that's not working anymore. All right, number three. This is something that comes from a guy I've heard about called Greg McEwen and he wrote a book called "Essentialism," which I haven't read, but I've heard a lot about it and this idea came from that book. And the idea is determining your highest point of contribution. Now, we kind of talked about that a little bit in the last episode where we're talking about where your passions and your skills and the demand in the market line up and that's kind of your thing. And so I think if you're always on that journey and if you haven't listened to that episode, go check it out and this will help you do this point. If you take that point and you hammer it and you think about what it is that I'm really, really good at, what are the things when I do them, you know, it's a higher level. So like for me, a good example is like designing logos, right? I can design logos. I think I'm all right at that, you know? I've done a few logos in my day and I feel like I'm pretty good. I'm better than average, I think that's for sure. But it's not my highest point of contribution. My highest point of contribution in my mind is illustration and it's narrative illustration. Can I do conceptual illustration? I can do it and I'm probably a little bit better than average at it, but it's not my best. It's not my highest point. And I think by determining what's my highest point, all of a sudden you're getting clarity on all the things that you're doing, those things that are not at your highest point that maybe are still necessary. Maybe you have a client on the side that helps you pay the bills, but you know when you're doing it, you're not in that highest point of contribution. To me that just says, that just ticked a box that said eventually I'm going to let this thing go. That's the goal. And so I think if you just determine what that thing is, I think here's another reason why it works. So I talk about basketball a lot, even though I don't really like basketball. I come from a family that was obsessed with basketball and so I kind of think in basketball metaphors. And I think about Shaq, you know? Shaq for Shaq to do less. What that would have looked like as he's going through, you know, when he's going through high school and all this, I'm guessing at some point he quit practicing that three pointer. You know what I mean? Like I'm guessing there came a stage when it was like, you know what? I'm not fantastic at three pointers and I'm pretty sure even if he was, even if he was, that's not the highest point of contribution because he's so big he needs to be down there. I think they call it in the paint, right? I don't know if that's true, sounds good. Down there in the paint, getting the rebounds, blocking, slam dunking, that's Shaq's highest point of contribution. And maybe if he practiced three pointers every day, he could be above average at him. But that's, it's pointless. It doesn't make any sense. It's a total waste of time. What are the things that you're doing that are never gonna be the highest point of your contribution? Take those things out. Number four, number four, love your work. Now, just let's pause for a minute. You might have to take a break. You might have to, I can tell this is gonna be a long one. And I, and I wanted it to be because I think this one's so important. And so just to let you know, we're on four of 20. So if you wanna break it up, break it up, that's fine. But I wanted to do a big honkin' podcast this time. So all right, number four, love your work. This came from someone tweeting at me, Kelly McMorris. She's an illustrator. You can, if you put Kelly McMorris, I think it's K-E-L-L-E-Y, McMorris. And to Google and Illustration, you can find her work. It's really good. And she's a podcast listener and she always gives me good feedback. And she pointed me to an article that are a blog post that she's written about loving your work and the importance of being happy with the work that you do and how so often that's the opposite of the message that we hear from our culture. We so often hear that you have to be good, you have to hate your work. And you know what, I feel like maybe she's right and that this is a bit of a false narrative. Now, I don't think that, I think this is the best way to kind of explain this. I think I've mentioned this on the podcast before. Look back five years and think about, what am I doing now? What am I doing now? That if the, me from five years ago knew about it, he would be or she, would be blown away. They would be, their mind would be blown. They couldn't even believe that that, that you've done that with your work. Whatever those things are, relish in them and be happy with them and enjoy them. 'Cause if you can't enjoy them, what is the point of doing all this? However, I like to just balance it out, 'cause I'm a big, you know, I'm a cheaper kind of guy. I like to grow my work and I believe that you should always be growing. And I do think that little nugget of discontent is one of the motivators of getting your work better. And again, I don't think it's one or the other. I think it's then now seasonal, kind of up and down, push and pull balance. And I think that in that, you're gonna get a better result. So sometimes I think about five years ago, you know, what could I have done then? That would have put me in a much better place now. And so that's kind of that discontent. Or sometimes, you know, I make these big strides in my work and I'm really, really excited about it. Really stoked and I'm feeling fantastic about it. And I think that feeling of fulfillment is such a good thing and I think you should enjoy it. And if you're not, then what's the point of doing all this? But at the same time, sometimes I think you can get into that zone where you're so happy with your work, you think it's so much better than it actually is. And if you actually go out there and get, go take a look at what's out there, you get a little bit of a sobering up of, all right, I've come a long way. And I think you need to celebrate the fact that your work has grown so much. And I think in that, I think in that love of your work and that satisfaction, you're gonna squelch that obsession to self-deprecate or that obsession with hating your work or being unsatisfied in that satisfaction, in that contentment, hopefully you can gain a little bit of, I don't know, a little bit of peace so that you're not scrambling. So you're not taking on more and you're constantly not trying to kill yourself with overdoing it. And I think this is maybe one of the keys to doing less. All right, number five, refuse the jealous side road. This is so massive for me. And I think for so many people I've talked to you, I don't think it's just me. It's so easy to look at who's winning the awards, to look at what magazines the coolest to be a part of. What, you know, what thing are the cool kids doing, you know, within the industry and be so jealous of that. And I think it comes in a form that maybe you don't even recognize as negative, but so often one of the things I feel like when you have this thought stop in your tracks 'cause it's a red flag and it's, I see what those people are doing over there. Everybody thinks it's amazing. I could easily do that. That thought right there, like, it would be so easy for me to attain that thing that I'm jealous of because I can see what they're doing. I get it, I've figured it out. I could so easily go over there and do that. And I think as soon as you're motivated by the ease of something and actually what you're doing is you're devaluing what they do, as soon as you're in that arrogant kind of place, that's a red flag, you're going the wrong way. And I think it's so easy to look at other people's directions and other people's awards and other people's clients and be jealous and think I want that, I want to go do that. And I could do it. And end up on a side road, away from your path, away from what you're supposed to be doing, away from your true work. And when you're doing that, you're actually taking, when you do that too many times, now you've got your hands on 15 things at once. Now you're cooking all over the stove. Now you're messing around and now you've gone off, you've sent troops into 15 different side roads because you thought on the way, on your path, you looked over at that village and you thought we could take that village easy. I think of all the great things that would come from it. And you know what, maybe those things are great, but they're not your thing. And when you've done that too many times down the path, you've lost your troops. You don't have anybody left, you're spread too thin. And that's one of the biggest things that I think happens. You've got to keep your eyes on your own target. Don't get jealous, don't let jealousy fuel you off into a side road that you should never have been on. All right, this is that quote. We've talked about it a bunch, but I feel like it's something that deserves a little bit more conversation. It's that David Allen quote, where he says you can, you can do anything, but you can't do everything. And I think it's so true and I think that in our culture, you know, I heard there's a leadership writer named Michael Hyatt, and I heard him say this. And it was, you've got to accept that you cannot do it all. You have to reject the lie that says you can do it all. You can do everything. Anything that you want, you can do it. You can be a mom and a blogger and a yoga teacher and involved at school with your kids and you can do the career and you can do this and you can do that. You can be 15 people all wrapped into one. And I really believe that that is a straight lie. You can't do all of those things well. And I think one of the first steps is saying understanding, I can't do it all. I can't be amazing at kids books, amazing at animation. I can't be amazing at editorial illustration. I can't be amazing at book covers. I can't be amazing at all of these different things. It's actually a lie and be a good dad or mom and be a good spouse and be a good friend and be a good brother or sister. Like you can't do all of those things. You can't be physically healthy and do 15 other things, right? There's only so much time. And I think that's one of the things you've got to accept. There's only so much time. And the reason why I think that this is so important is that more than any other time, illustration especially, and design as well, but especially illustration is a global competition. And if you're gonna compete globally, if you're gonna think about the Olympics, if you're gonna compete in the Olympics, you can't run every race. You've got to focus on what it takes to do your race. So you have to accept, I can't do it all. What are the things that I'm gonna pare down and I'm going to master these small things because I'm in a global competition, especially with illustration? All right, that's number six. Number seven, get your blinders on. Okay, so I guess I read that animals that are hunted have eyes on the side of their heads and animals that hunt are in the front of their head. So animals on the side, and the reason is 'cause they can have the ones that are on the side of their head, they can have that peripheral vision that can pick up if anything's moving around. And so horses have the eyes on the side of their head and the horse riders put those blinders on so that the horse doesn't get scared or get distracted by the things that are going on around them, they want them to just look ahead and look where they're going and look where they're telling them to go. Now, I think this is super important. If you wanna do less and you wanna keep on this, this ties up with everything else, you gotta find your blinders. You gotta find what are the areas that cause me to go down the side road? What are the places where I'm usually most apt to take on more responsibility than I should? Maybe it's at work, maybe you teach somewhere, maybe it's volunteering where you're there and you know that people are gonna come to you and ask you to do more stuff. Or maybe it's your phone. Maybe you need to systematically do less on your phone. Maybe you need to look at Twitter less. Maybe you need to look at Facebook less. Why? Because you need the blinders. Because you're gonna see that illustrator is doing that new thing or that illustrator got that new award or whatever. And it's gonna cause you to start thinking, even spending time thinking about going on a side road is a waste of your time. It's doing more than you need to do. You know, I think it's so important to figure out where are the areas where I need to put my blinders on. When I go into that organization, when I go into that experience, or when I go into that group of friends, or whatever it is, they're always trying to pile on more stuff. And it doesn't mean you have to not go to those places. It doesn't mean you have to delete Facebook. It doesn't mean you have to do any of that stuff. It means when you go in there, have it on your mind that I have to minimize the more that I get from this. And for me, one of the ways that that's looked is like, I used to spend a lot more time on Twitter. And now when I go on Twitter, it's because I think I wanna go on Twitter. I haven't been on today. I wanna engage a little bit. I wanna catch up with a few of the people. One of the ways that I put my blinders on is deleting a ton of people. And I don't know offense, if I deleted you, I'm guessing we weren't friends. But people that end up getting me on those side roads, or people that I'm not that interested. It's just like pairing down, cutting down on the amount of people that I'm ingesting all that information from. And I think that that's one of the ways that you can do less or maybe it's just less social media. Maybe it's not doing all of them. But yeah, I think you gotta be aware of when do you need your blinders on? Number eight, this is a big one for me. Invest more over a longer period of time. And this is the tortoise and the hare thing, right? And I think here's the sucky thing with the internet. There's so much on there that you're tempted to in response think about quantity over quality. Because just to compete with the amount of stuff that's on there, you gotta throw stuff up all the time and get it out there and just it's so overwhelming to see the amount of illustration and design that's online. And when you go on there and you go through Instagram, maybe your peer is only putting something once a week, but you're following 500 people. And so it feels like everybody's making so much stuff, which makes you wanna make more and more and more and more. But I think, you know what's great is that we're having a pushback against this. If you look at that website, the great discontent, they do the long form interviews. And if you haven't checked that out, I definitely think you should. It's really, really good. They do these long, long interviews that were so absent from the internet at the time. And most people thought nobody's gonna do that. Everybody was saying, if you put a blog post up, it should be 500 words or less. Well nowadays, it's those big massive blog posts. Those things where someone really buckled down and poured time and energy into it were consistent and intentional that get our intention. Why? I think because we're sick of the tirade of people posting every two seconds and drawing new things every two seconds. I think it's more interesting. You know, Scott Hull, he's an illustration rep, came in and talked to my students yesterday and it was awesome, thank you Scott. Hopefully we can get him on the podcast soon. He's in Ohio and like me. He said, you know, you should try to get noticed with your work four times a year. And I thought, man, that's so good. Like quit thinking about you need to make a splash every day. You need to make a splash every week. It's pretty impossible to do that. Make a splash four times a year. And when you make a splash, do the biggest cannonball you can muster. Train, prepare, invest in that massive cannonball and then do that thing. And then that's actually gonna make a splash while all these people are constantly creating all this noise and saying everything all the time and putting up work every five minutes. That one thing that you put in that's giant is gonna massively splash all over that other stuff. And I think it's just a, and the truth is maybe that's the cultural moment we're in with the internet. But it's just actually just the truth in general is that if you take your time and you make something really quality, you invest your heart, you make a decision that I'm going to invest in this thing. That thing's been, that wisdom has been around since the beginning of time. If you cherish and you care and you pour time and energy into the right thing, it's gonna have a big payoff. And I think it's gonna be way more valuable than the hare who's run, who sprints like crazy. It's that marathon, tortoise, that slow but steady, just invest a little bit into that big thing and be intentional. That's gonna be way more important than doing 15 things with less intention. And you're gonna be doing less. And I think it's gonna end up causing more benefits to you. Okay. Number nine, identify your one thing. I recently heard Joe R. J. Papasan. He's a writer on a podcast. And he, it was an interview with him and I went and go, I went and looked up a bunch of stuff about him. He works with Gary Keller from Keller Williams Realty. And they wrote a book called Your One Thing or something close to that. And an idea is that you identify, what's the one thing you could do that you could focus four hours of your day on every day that if you accomplish that one thing, everything in your life is easier. Everything in your life is better. Everything in your life. And they describe it as like a domino effect. So they figured out that if you, if you stack up dominoes in every domino that you put down is a little bit bigger than the one that you put down previously, that it infinitely expands to where in, I don't know, 50 dominoes, a small domino could end up knocking down a door. And it's this idea that if you invest in this one area, what's the one area that you could invest in that would make everything in your life? Maybe it's your health. If you would just focus on your health and get that into a place that it needs to be, and you've focused all your energy on that, maybe you'd be more productive every day. Maybe you'd be more present. Maybe your work would be better. Maybe your head would be less foggy. You know, what is the one thing? And it could be even, it could be something to do with work. It could be an industry. You're just gonna pour into that industry. You're gonna do that thing. You're gonna spend all of your time and energy until that thing is mastered. And then you're gonna move on to the next one. What's the one thing that you could be focusing as much energy on that you can that would affect everything in your life positively? And let go of all that other stuff that doesn't matter. Or maybe that other stuff could get done just by focusing on this one thing. So yeah, you can go check that out. It's Gary Keller and Jay Popis on. And I read a lot about it. I didn't read the book, but I listened to a lot of podcasts with them and videos and stuff. And it's really, really good stuff. All right. Number 10, it's something that I've always tried to do. If you wanna make art for a living, just a piece of advice, you don't have to do it. But a piece of advice I give you is, live as simply as possible. When you hear only $10 a month, only $15 a month, only $50 a month, run away. Do the least amount of subscription that you need to. I do a few, I try to do very few. Do the only ones you need. Don't take on more debt. Don't take on more bills. Don't buy that extra car. Don't, like if you want to do less, more better, if you wanna do that, one of the best things you can do is live more simply. What are the things, even the small things? What are the things that you can cut out of your life and live more simply? And because of that, you don't have to take on extra jobs that you don't wanna take on. You don't have to do 10 other extra things to keep up that lifestyle. I think if you're gonna do art for a living, this is a big thing. It's a small idea, and I don't have tons to say about it, but I think low overhead is the artist's best friend. And if you're not doing that, rethink it. And if you think you have, you probably haven't. List all those expenses you have. If you're going to Starbucks five times a day, cut down on that, because all of that stuff is a commitment to more, to having to earn more, to having to take on more jobs, to have to worry more, to stress more. And I, you know, I'm not the best at this in some ways. In some ways, I find it easy to live simply in some ways I don't, but I'm always trying to work on how do I keep my overhead low? And there's no mystical feature to number 10. It's really simple. I just think, just try to live a little bit more simply. All right, number 11, get dubious. All right, I like that word dubious because it doesn't sound like what it means, I don't think, but it basically means like be suspicious and hesitant about when people come to sell you the lie of more equals more. The holidays are upon us and finding the right gift for your kids, nieces and nephews and partner and family members can be super difficult, but it doesn't have to be. Go check out Uncommon Goods. Sophie and I were checking it out the other day, looking for gifts for our kids. They have a make your own storybook kit, which we love. There's this cardboard toolkit with a cardboard saw that's safe and connectors you can build cool stuff and forts and whatnot. They also got these building connectors where you can connect sticks and make a fort. 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So you can get big flavors and big savings, king supers, fresh for everyone, fuel restrictions apply. - I think one of the best things, this show is about clarity. This creative pep talk is like how can I say something that gets you pumped up to get serious about clearing out all of the junk in your mind and focusing on that thing that you're supposed to be doing. And I think one thing, you know, I feel like you see this in advertising. You see this at churches and religion and salesman and parenting and your boss and all this stuff, you're gonna hear, this is what I want you to do. Like get dubious when you start hearing people saying, they're gonna mask it and all different things, but what they're saying is do more. Like you're not doing enough, you're not good enough, you're not getting there. It's not right, you're, you know, all this stuff. And more is not the answer. And I feel like a lot of that in our culture comes from advertising, I'm saying, I'm gonna sell you this thing I've got and you're gonna give me money for it. I've got the key, I've got the answer. But so often the answer they're selling is more. Take more on. And I think if you just stop and say, whenever I hear that, I'm gonna filter it. And I'm gonna be, and maybe sometimes you do need to be do more, okay, that's fair enough. But you need to be very hesitant when that snake oil salesman comes around and he's selling you this new thing you need, the new product, the new stuff, you need to buy the way that your life isn't good enough, that's the whole way advertising works. As it says, here's a problem you didn't know you had and I have the solution. I think getting dubious about this stuff. When you start hearing that person trying to put burdens on your life, as soon as you start hearing that rhetoric, you stop and you say, no, and then process it. First say no, then process it because you're people pleasing nature and all that stuff is gonna wanna say yes. But I think in order to do less, more better, you've got to be dubious of when people are asking you things and people are trying to sell you. And I don't want this podcast to be like that. I don't want this podcast to be, here's 500 new things that you can do. There's 500 things that you're not doing. Hopefully, the best I could do is say that thing that you're doing, there's a different way of doing it where you're gonna get more out of it from doing less. And I hope that that's what this is about for me and what I can kind of pass on to you. But be careful, when that person comes around saying, you just need to make 15 images a day, I think you have to say no, I'm not doing that. All right, number 12, outsource. Now, at different stages in your career, you can afford to outsource things. Now, I think as a designer that often looks like hiring an assistant or whatever, but as an illustrator, I think often we think, well, we can't outsource because we make the work. That's not true. You can get an accountant, you can get a rep. You can even, it can even be, if you're not ready to do that stuff or if that's not something you wanna do, you can even just outsource it by purchasing the right app to manage your finances. You know, I think this is so big. I feel like you're gonna have, if you're doing an illustration, especially, you've got this massive boulder on your shoulder of you're running an entire business on your own, when really you wanna make art. And I feel like one of the best ways to do less is to figure out how can you partner with somebody else, where they can take off some of the stuff that is not your highest contribution and give it to somebody else that is their thing, like an accountant. You find a really good accountant that can help you. That's, I'm in the process of doing some of this stuff right now, but I've done some of it in the past too. You know, my wife handles finances in her house because she's better at it and she likes doing that. And I suck at it and it's more of more to me. It's not me doing my best. It's actually just a big thing that it's cumbersome and it doesn't help. So what are the things, and you know what? I think that it's so true, you're gonna sit down, you might think in your head that you've figured out everything you could already do, but I can almost guarantee you haven't. So write down all that stuff that you do and then look at the things, what are the things on this list that I don't need to be the one doing it. For me, promoting and negotiating emails is something that I'm starting to think about. Maybe I don't need to be doing that. And maybe, you know, it's gonna cost me money to get a rep 'cause they're gonna take some of the profit, but at this stage, I feel like maybe that's something I wanna do, so that's something that I'm considering outsourcing. All right. So number 13 is let go of the good. And I recently was introduced to this topic, even though it's something I've thought about before by a spiritual writer, Rob Bell. He talks about, he recently, I recently heard him talking about this idea of letting go of the good things to accept the greater things. And the example I had for this is like John Klassen is an illustrator he probably have heard of. He I believe is a Caldecott winner for Best Picture Book. And he used to work for DreamWorks. Now for some people, working in DreamWorks studios is great. And at some point in his life, that was great for him. But just because it was a really great thing then, and it was a really good thing, probably when he left the job, he had to move on to something that was great. And so I think sometimes we get these situations where you're like, I like it, I enjoy that client that I work with. It's pretty good, I like it, it's not great. But we get in that mindset and we think, I think when you start getting to a place that's a privileged place to be in, I'm not gonna lie. But as you grow, hopefully, there are gonna be things that you're doing that are good. There are gonna be things that you're doing that are great. And eventually, just because something has, it might not even be generally good, but it might have, you might like the person that you work with. Say you got a client that you work with on a regular basis, you like working with that client, but the work sucks. You don't, you hate doing the work. So just because it has this element of good, doesn't mean that it's generally a good thing to be doing. And I think when you're in that situation, you have to assess it as a whole. Don't just think, well, I like doing that work with that guy, so I'm gonna keep doing it. No, just because it was great at some point, or just because there's an element of it that it's good, doesn't mean that it's something that you need to have on your plate. Just because you enjoy that relationship thing that you have at that, I don't know, place that you're involved in, doesn't mean that you need to be involved in that place. Sometimes, moving forward and doing less is about letting go of things that are good. But they're not great, and they're not perfect, they're not the thing. Number 14, let go of the old you. Okay, I think of, when I started thinking about this, I was thinking about Goodwill hunting, and I was thinking about how Matt Damon in there is this brilliant guy, you've probably seen the movie, and he can't let go of his friends in Boston, he can't let go of the place where he's from, he can't let go of the old him to move on to this new love that he's found in his life in this new direction, and he can't let go of it. He feels like it's wrong, and I feel like there's part of us that says, moving on from anything is not being true to you. If you ever, like any change is bad, you have to stay true to yourself, and I think it's totally wrong, actually. And I think it's one of the things that makes things pile up on us over the years. So for me personally, how this looks, is that several years ago, I was doing the NOD project, which I love, still impacts my work today, but in that project, I was really exploring these themes of like darkness and the dark things that are kind of lurking behind the seams of life, and that was something I was really attracted to, and it's something I still like, but I realize it's not the kind of thing that's not exciting me anymore, the darker things. I'm not really into that. And there's part of me that has this, I think it's our loyalty to something, loyalty to something that was good, that we wanna hold on to it, wanna keep it, like that's me, I've gotta be that thing. And if you watch Goodwill Hunting, I hate this is spoiler alert, so if you don't wanna hear it, fast forward 15 seconds, Ben Affleck tells Matt Damon, like you've got to move on. He's like the best thing, the thing I'm hoping for every day when I go pick you up for work, I'm hoping that one day I come to your door and I knock on the door and you're not there, and you're gone, and you've moved on, that's my hope for you. I don't even want you to say bye. And it happens, you know, he moves on, you're always gonna have those people in your life that say, "I like the old stuff better." You're always gonna have that, but you're not the same person you were three years ago. And in order to, you've gotta clear house, you've gotta clear out those clothes that you don't wear anymore. And in your work, you've gotta do the same thing. Just because three years ago, that thing was what your work was all about. It doesn't mean you have to carry it on now, because you've added 15 new things, and there's something new that you're excited about, and sometimes you've gotta clear house, you've gotta clear out that old stuff, and you've gotta move on. And people are gonna make you feel ashamed about it, or make you feel like you're being unauthentic, but the true authentic thing to do is to be who you are now, and let go of the things that you're not anymore. It's like video games for me. I love playing video games like crazy when I was younger, and I still play some, but I'm pretty picky. I basically play the ones where I can play for half an hour and shut my brain off, like Super Mario for the Wii, you know? But video games were a big part of my identity as like a teenager, and they're still a big part of a lot of people's identity as adults, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But for me, that's not true anymore. And so doing the video game work and trying to push that scene feels inauthentic to me. But I had this loyalty to, you know, the last episode was about Zelda. I had this loyalty to Zelda, 'cause that's part of me, it's my identity, but there's part of you that your identity's gonna grow and change, and I think you've gotta accept it. You've gotta allow it to happen, and don't be ashamed of letting go of parts of you that are not the same. And I think the thing about this is hard, because you gotta be really present in the moment. You gotta take account of who am I really now? Because for me, like those things that were moving me and interesting me when I was back in the day with a nod, you know, I still like that stuff, but I had to stop and say, wait a second, that's not the work I wanna make anymore. Like, I still like that, but it's not my, I'm not on fire about it. And I think at some point you've gotta switch gears, you've gotta take an account and say, you know what, I'm not doing that stuff anymore. And I'm moving on. All right. So let go of the old you. 15 pruning personal life, okay. I know a lot of people don't like this one. I was talking to my students recently. I said, you know what, here's my life right now. And I couldn't be more thrilled than I believe in it. I've got, I have time for my kids. I have time for my wife. I have time for my brother and his wife and his kid. I've got time for my students. I've got time for my peers in my industry. And I've got time for my work. I don't have a lot of time beyond that. And I'm not gonna sacrifice any of those things for more superficial relationships outside of that. There are a few people I'd like to, friends that are maybe unrelated to all those things, where I'd like to give them a little bit more of my time. But I'm cool with that. And I think about social pressure. This kind of goes back, all of these things are kind of tied in together. But this goes back to this idea of, what is it? Accepting you can't do it all. But so pruning your personal life and understanding. And I don't, so everybody's gonna have their own pressures. But some people have this social pressure of like, if it's, so for me, if it's Friday night and I'm drawing, I don't feel shame in that. But some people have this burden of, oh, I've gotta be hip and I gotta be out on the scene. I gotta be, if I'm not partying, I'm not really being a fun person. Or if I'm not out with my friends, then I'm missing something. If I don't have girls' night, if I don't have guys' night, if I don't have all this stuff, if I don't have those things that I'm not living a good life, or I'm gonna be under the scrutiny of other people as being boring or whatever it is. And I think it's so important to get rid of, what are the things you're doing out of social pressure? Where you feel like you don't add up, so you gotta do all this extra stuff. You can't do it all. You can't have it all. You gotta pick and choose. And I pick my family. I pick my extended family. I pick my really close friends. Some of them, a lot of them happen to be illustrators. And I pick my work and I pour that energy and time into that. And you can't be ashamed of pruning out the extra fat, cutting out the stuff that doesn't fit with your priorities because you don't have time to do it all. You can't do all the things. And I think that yeah, personal life, you've gotta be intentional about how you're spending your time. You gotta be intentional about who you mentor and who you don't. That's personal life stuff. You gotta pick and choose. There's gonna be a lot of people that want you to be, as you go along, the further you grow, the more that wanna mentor you and that you wanna mentor, but you can't do them all. And you've gotta prune that. So when I'm in my mentoring situations, the mentoring relationships I have with people that are mentoring me, I try to be aware of that for a season. That was a great mentor for me, but this season not so much and I'm spending less time with that person. And saying goes for people that you're mentoring. So when I mentor this person, they take my advice and they're growing from it. But this person is no longer, I'm not helping them anymore. And it might not be their problem, it might be mine. But that one's not working anymore and we're gonna cut that down or we're gonna cut it off. And I think you've gotta be intentional or all these personal things are gonna, all the volunteering and commitments and time that you, all the regular things that you do, I think you have to cut away. You have to be intentional about that. All right, number 16. Have just one main goal for your work this year. I feel like this is something, you can have a big wish list. Like I hope all this stuff happens, but I think when it comes to your work, I do think it's important to have like a goal or resolution or something you wanna achieve. But I think the best way to do it, instead of having 10 of them and kind of loosely going after all of them, pick one thing and I've got mine, I know what the thing I wanna do this year. Pick that one thing and give it everything you've got but if you cross it off early in the year or halfway through the year, go on to number two. But don't think about number two. Maybe you can do one or two, maybe you can do three, I don't know. But I think that if you just get intentional about, I'm gonna do this one and I'm gonna, these are the action steps and I'm gonna pour all of my extra energy into those and all that other stuff is gonna, I'm gonna put it on the back burner. But I think you've gotta do that because I feel like if you've got 10 goals, you don't have time to do actionable steps for all 10 of them. So I think put that to-do list, that goal list and put them in order of what they wanna get done and focus at one at a time. Number 17, find your inner wellspring of infinite peace. All right, that's ridiculous and obviously it meant to be ridiculous. But I feel like, okay, it kind of reminds me of this. So, if you look at kids that go to school, you look at the kids that went to preschool, to the kids that didn't, the kids that go to preschool, by the time they finish are generally more successful in life and that's so much true that the government has started subsidizing preschool in most states because it's such a determining factor of success. And why do I think that is? I'll tell you why I think that is. Because preschool is the waiting pool. It's the place where you're prepping socially. And for me, it's an analogy for your day. And if you have that moment in the morning where you have that quiet time where you can get centered on the things that are important to you, you can get away from the noise. So for me, like I've said before, it's either a bath, which is embarrassing. I don't know why, but it just is. People think baths are weird. I don't know, I like 'em, a bath or a walk. And I do that thing alone and I get that peace and I get that center and I remind myself of the things that are important to me. Or most of the time I have to be that intentional. I just spend some time in solitude. And slowly all that noise starts to get turned down. And the things that are important start to kind of percolate and make more sense. And I think that's what the preschools like. Preschools like before you get learning, let's just be together. Let's just be in that space and let's just be, and I feel like if you go in to the day without some sense of who you are in that center of where you're at and what's important. You run the day, it's like being in a race and the gun goes off and the race starts before you've laced your shoes. And it's gonna be a mess. And so I think one of the best ways is just have that, of doing less, is having that quiet time to not let the noise drive your day. Don't let Twitter drive your day. Don't let that, you know, you start up and you see that thing on Twitter and you get jealous and you think I'm gonna do something like that. And I'm gonna blah, blah, blah. And you start heading down this path like a crazy person. You're letting all the outside world determine what your day's like. And if you let that happen, you're gonna do way more in the day than you need to do. And all that stuff you're doing is gonna be irrelevant. I think it's so important. Get, find your inner wellspring of infinite peace from the beginning of your day. And you will do less, more better. 18, fight opportunities. I love opportunities on the type of person. If you look at my Myers-Briggs test, my personality, I love possibilities. I live in a world of possibilities. I love the idea every time I see an opportunity, to me, it's like a possible golden ticket. Like every, you know, every one of these chocolate bars might just have a golden ticket in it. It's like I'm the type of person that could get sucked into lottery, you know, playing lottery. Because, you know, I love that possibility. I don't play the lottery. I don't do any gambling actually, just because I feel like that's my personality type to be sucked into that. And I think what you need to do, when someone says, hey, do you wanna be, do you wanna contribute to this blog? Do you wanna do this? Do you wanna have this new project? Do you wanna volunteer? Do you wanna go this place? Do you wanna, all that stuff? Every time you see an opportunity, you gotta fight the notion that maybe it's a golden ticket. Maybe it's that missing piece that I'm looking for. Now, I think sometimes it is. And I'm not saying that every opportunity isn't, or that you should hate out every opportunity, but I am saying that I think it's a smarter attitude to see every opportunity as a possible siren, you know, back in mythology. These beautiful, I think they were like mermaids that would call, these beautiful, so I would sing these beautiful songs and it would lure the sailor off of his path and then kill him. And I think every opportunity, it's better to first feel like this could be the thing that's trying to distract me than the thing that, oh, this is the thing that's gonna make me what I need to be. And I started thinking the other side of it, every opportunity, every new opportunity, seeing like maybe, testing the waters, like maybe this is Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars and you're Anakin, and he's telling you, I've got a faster, better way to get what you want. And you're gonna turn into Darth Vader. So if you're not familiar with that, you know, the Jedi's kept telling Anakin like, you gotta slow down, you gotta chill out. You can't have it all at once. You can't, there's no quick fix to this, to be in a Jedi, to be in a master. And they deny him being a master, but Palpatine is saying, no, let that curiosity and fear and fuel this thing and you can have it now and you can save everybody now and you can have it all. And I feel like that same thing, these opportunities that come along are these ideas that you have, these projects that you wanna do, or all these things that they're gonna spread you too thin and make you ineffective, they're like the things, they're Emperor Palpatine saying, yeah, feed into that. Feel the hate, whatever it is. I'm not an insane Star Wars fan, I like that, but I don't know it super well, but fuel that thing like that jealousy. Yeah, follow that jealousy side road. Go off into that direction because it's gonna spread you too thin. And so instead of seeing every new opportunity or every time someone asks you to do something, instead of seeing it like, ooh, another side road, another thing that I could do that maybe just might be my thing or might make everything work or maybe make me feel good. Instead of seeing it all like that, seeing all these extra burdens, all these extra responsibilities, all these opportunities, all these jobs, be cautious when you hear someone ask you to do something. For me personally, I can be a people pleaser, but they want me to do that thing. I'm even right now as we speak, I'm letting go of a client that I've worked with for a long time and they've helped me pay my bills and I'm super grateful for it. I'm not entitled when it comes to creative work, but it's that good stuff that's not great for me anymore. It's not my highest contribution. And I know they love the stuff that I do and I'm a people pleaser and I wanna just say, okay, I'll do it. But it's not my path and I'm being cautious about it. I might love those guys, but secretly, they're my emperor Palpatine and they're saying, just let that fear of the future fuel your obsession with doing more. I'm not gonna do it. So every opportunity is don't see it as a possible golden ticket. 19, we're almost to the end. Hope you're feeling good. I know this is a big old chunk, but I wanted to do a big old chunk. I wanted to take my advice from, I don't know which one it was, but of doing something. I wanted to pour more time and energy into this thing and put less out there over the week and just give you one big old thing that you can savor and just be a big old thing. So I know it's long, but you stick with me and let's battle this thing through. 19 is make space in your life to be a person, things that are non-negotiable. Now, I've mentioned on this podcast that I'm of the spiritual persuasion. You know, the major religions in the world come from Israel, the original books of the Bible and the Jewish tradition and the Muslim tradition have the commonality and back in that, they talk about God giving the people Sabbath requiring that on the, I'm not that familiar with it, the sixth day that you have to rest. You have to, maybe it's the seventh day, sounds like it's better, it makes more sense, but I think it's the sixth day, that sounds right. You have to rest, you have to stop what you're doing. No matter what, no matter what's on your plate, do that. And I feel like exercises like this, family time, like I wanna go on a date with my daughter every week. No matter what's on my plate, I feel like that discipline of I'm gonna be just a person. I hear this and I'll be honest with you, I hate little things like this and I hate it, I don't even wanna say it, but I think there's a good point, so I'll say it. That whole, you're not just a, you're a human being, not a human doing, I hate that, cringes, I cringe saying it, but I like the sentiment of like making space where you're like, I'm not gonna be productive on that day or in this time, in this rhythm, I'm gonna do this discipline. Like reading a book, reading some fiction, I'm bad at it, I like fiction, but when I read it, I feel like I'm not being productive. And if you're like that, I think you've gotta say, I'm going to do things where I'm just a person and I'm not gonna let productivity rule. And I think it's so important to make, what are the things you're gonna do on a weekly or daily basis that says no matter what's on my plate, I'm doing those things because that's me just being a person and I need to do less in that way. And I don't think you need to do 15 of those things where now you're doing more as a lesson. I'm saying make those things that you're saying, I'm gonna do these all every week, no matter what. And if there's opportunities that come along that negate these things, I'm gonna say no to them. You're just charting out space. All right, last one. Kill FOMO, which FOMO is the fear of missing out. And we've never had more of that with Facebook. Your friends are doing amazing vacations and parties on the weekend and they're doing all these amazing things with their kids and they're doing all this amazing work and all of these things. And you have this thing in you that feels like missing out on this thing. And it's similar to the jealousy side road. But you've got to kill that thing in you that's saying you're missing something better is going on somewhere else. And stick to the stuff that you need to be focusing on. Stick with the stuff that's the good for you, the great stuff that's for you. And don't get afraid that you're missing out on that award. You're missing out on those clients. You're not involved in that magazine. You didn't get that industry. You could tap into that and you could do a little bit of logo stuff on the side or whatever it is. Don't let that fear of missing out drive you. I don't feel like that is the right place, the right motivation for doing the work that you should be doing. Like fear of missing out. I don't think that's the place it comes from. I'm gonna talk about this a lot 'cause that's one of my favorite things but Kate Binghambert, one of my favorite people, says about her side projects, do only the side projects that you're gonna die if you don't do them. That's where the motivation to do that great work comes from. Not missing out on that cool stuff they're doing. You've gotta fight that urge, that fear of missing out urge because it's gonna make you stack up your plate with a bunch of junk that you don't need to do, right? Okay, we did it. It was a long one today but I had so much to say and I wanted to just, I wanted to take a moment and say let's do less, don't buy into the noise and the action and the insanity and the chaos that is modern life. Pull you in a billion different directions to where you're ineffective and you can't compete on a big scale. I think it's so important to get intentional about how do you do less? More better. Every time I say that sounds so stupid and that's why I do it. I gotta make myself not take myself so seriously on this podcast because it's doing a hour plus monologue is quite a hefty toll on my ego. I really believe in this. I hope that all this stuff really hits you in a strong way and meant something and really helps you identify the things in your life. I hope that you start thinking about and you actually do go out there and do less. That would be awesome. I am on that path. That's something I'm, it's very much on my heart today. It's something I'm thinking about right now. How do I do less and do the things I do with more quality? I think one of the first times I ran into this idea was, I went to go visit Jim Dantz in his studio at the time. He was sharing it with Josh Cochran and Mike Perry and they were actually in New York at the time so I didn't get to meet him. But I think it was Mike had on the wall something about doing less but bringing more quality to everything that he did. And I think honestly over time, and I think when it comes to your illustration career or your design career, the real attitude, the real right thing to do, it's really hard to do when you're young too, is thinking about the long game because that's the thing that's gonna matter. And I think in the long game, you're gonna want to have done more quality things and less overall. Okay, thank you for all the messages and email. I'm kind of overwhelmed with the emails and I love it though. So keep sending them, it's really nice to hear how this thing is making an impact on you. I'll try to get back to you quickly. I'm not super good at that. But yeah, thank you for the emails. Thank you for everybody that goes on there and reviews this on iTunes. That means so much to me. That's one of the best ways for other people to find it. So if it's effective for you and it's making a difference for you, go ahead and go on there and give a review if you love the show and it'll help other people find it. I'm so appreciative of all that. Thanks for the good ratings. Thanks for the sharing it on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook means so much to me. I really appreciate it. Thank you for all the encouragement for doing this 'cause it's not an easy task. It's not something that, you know, it's not an easy thing to do to put yourself out there in this way. And I also realized that it's not maybe the coolest thing to go out and say, hey, it's hard to make good work and it's hard to have a good career and I'm working hard at it. You know, hard work isn't always come across very cool. And so, you know, I'm putting myself, I feel like I'm putting myself in the line in a lot of ways. So I really appreciate all the feedback and all the encouragement. So, and one more thing. Remember, you can hear this on illustrationage.com/creativepeptalk. It's an amazing illustration website. Thank you guys for syndicating it and letting me the Creative Pet Talk be your flagship pet talk. And yeah, so until next time, try to stay peped up and I'll be back next week to pep you up. Speak soon, guys. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Hey 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 want to check that out and what I was able to do without any code, check out AndyJPizza.com. If you want to 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. Do you love hair raising allegedly true stories about the paranormal? Then some in the podcast Scared to Death. It's the popular horror series with more than 60 million downloads and is co-hosted by me, Dan Cummins. And me, Lindsey, co-host, and also Dan's wife. Each week on Scared to Death, we share bone chilling tales from old books and creepy corners of the web and some submitted by our listeners all designed to make you sleep with the lights on. Think you can handle the horror? Tune in to Scared to Death every Tuesday at the stroke of Midnight to find out.