Creative Pep Talk
020 - Do Not Be Afraid
(upbeat music) Hey y'all, just a quick heads up. The episode you're about to listen to is eight to 10 years old. Now, these episodes were intended to be evergreen, and I still believe there's a lot of good information in these early episodes, but I do wanna let you know that some of my ideas have evolved over time. Times have changed since we made these episodes, and ultimately, I'd like to think I've grown a lot as an artist and a human, and that these don't necessarily represent my best work, or the best of the podcast. If you're new around here, I suggest starting with the most recent episode, or at least go back to around 300, and move forward from there. Enjoy the episode. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Yo, it's the creative pep talk podcast. This is me, the guy who talks on the show, Andy J. Miller, a man who makes his money making pictures and coloring them, and I couldn't be more thrilled about it, actually. So, yeah, here it is, the podcast. You know, I usually kind of explain a little bit about why I do this. Recently, I've been feeling like, you know, I do this because there are things out there that help me stay motivated, and I'm not sure everybody has those things that when, you know, they can get up in the morning and listen to them, or read them, or something that gets them into the spirit of making new work, and keeping up the fight of having a creative career. And so, I just wanted to put a resource out there, not to maybe teach anybody anything, but just to pep them up and get them excited about what they do. You know, recently I've been thinking about this idea that sometimes it's not even about talent. You know, those bands out there that have made 15 records. You know, sometimes those bands aren't the most talented, but they've got so much work. They've poured themselves so much into these albums that almost anybody can be a fan. You know, like, if you dive into this, you know, I think of a band like Madison Mouse, who I do, by the way, think is extremely talented. You know, they make so much work, even someone like my brother, who's a, you know, a Tupac fan, he can get into it. It's not anything like the music he listens to, but there's so much there that if you just invest some time, it's this, you know, all those albums that they've made turn into this kind of character portrait of Isaac Brock, the lead singer. And you kind of feel like you know him. And when you, I just feel like so much of the fight of a creative career is just about keeping going, just keep going, keep investing yourself in your work. And so that's a lot of what this is about. You know, how do I make a resource that you can put on when you wake up in the morning and it gets you into that place where you're ready to keep making stuff and you're ready to keep chipping away at this thing that you're trying to do and finding your thing as an artist. So today it's a new year, happy new year. And I do, I get sucked into this feeling, you know, that it's time to think about new things. I love everybody that knows me, knows I love new things. I love to start new projects. And I love to come up with new ideas. That's what I do, I do it too often. And I feel like the new year is just an excuse to think up new plans and new things. And nobody can tell me no to that. And so. 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. You know, as I'm looking forward, I'm thinking about, you know, what do, what lens do I wanna look at the new year through? And when I look back, when I started out a new year, what were the best years and how did I approach those years? You know, I've approached them in so many different ways, but I think the best way is with hope and excitement. You know, I think it's so easy to look out into a new year and be afraid. And today I've titled this podcast, Do Not Be Afraid. And I feel like this idea of fear or hope in the way that you view the future is such a divisive thing. You know, it splits people into two categories, really. You know, this came to my mind. I went to Disney with my parents and we brought our kids and we went to Disney over the holidays and it was crazy, busy and all that. But it was awesome. We had an amazing time. My kids absolutely loved it. I went on a ride you might be familiar with. It's called the Carousel Progress. It's ridiculous, it's outdated and it's funny. And my dad loves this ride. And as I'm, they kind of tell a story of the past hundred years of progress. And I'm sat there and I can feel myself getting kind of upset. Every time they say this word progress, it makes me upset. Then when we walk out, my dad's just so excited. He's such a goofball. He knows it's goofy, but he just likes it. And I say to him, you know, I don't know, but this idea of progress actually makes me feel sick. And I, you know, I look at global warming and the things that we've done and how we retire these, like I had an iPad, right? I got an iPad the first time, the iPad one. When I went to go sell it recently, it sold for like $10. And I just thought, I don't even, you can't even update it anymore. And I thought, that is, you've created this piece of junk. It's only a few years old, but it's complete junk now. And obviously we know of ways of recycling these things now. But when I heard this word progress, it made me sick. 'Cause like, is progress a good thing? And I'll say this, I don't have an answer to that. That's a little bit too existential for the creative pep talk podcast. But I told this to my dad and he said something that kind of stopped me in my tracks. And he said that, you know, when a problem arises, historically a solution does too. And usually not before that either. So I think when we look into the future, we wanna be prepared for what's gonna happen. That's why we wanna know the future. But it's in the moment that the solution for what's happening right now arises. And it reminded me of getting ready for my third child. Yes, that's right, third. I mean, I know that means that I'm gonna have three kids. They're gonna outnumber the parents. And maybe I'm crazy, but I love being a dad. And I don't know, I don't know why I feel like I have to explain myself, but we're getting ready for our third kid. And as you get ready and prepare for labor, the thing that you know, if you've done this before, you can prepare day and night. You can take class after class after class. And all those things do help. But in the moment when it's happening and it's go time, there's all kinds of things that happen that you could never prepare for. And you've gotta be present in that moment and be ready for battle in that moment. That's the only true thing that you can do. And then you have to be hopeful that you're gonna be ready when the time comes. And I think that when you look out into the future and you look out into 2015 when it relates to your art career, you know, I think it's easy to do this thing that I call the freelancer disease to think, what if this is the year that all of my work dries up? What if this is the year that clients quit calling? What if this is the year that, you know, someone calls me out for being abroad and everybody hates my work? You know, I've heard so many people say that story. And I think that, that motivation, yeah, it can cause you to buckle down and maybe work harder, but I'm not sure you do your best work under that pressure. What it really does I think is it makes you think and spend time and energy thinking of an exit strategy. When you look into the future with hope and you think, what if that client calls me? What if I could get that client to call me? You start spending time on personal projects and work and promotion and all the right areas when you look at the lens through hope. And so when my dad told me that I've realized I didn't want to be the guy sat looking into the future in fear. I didn't want to be the guy. I didn't want to live my life that way because I know that even if there is trouble coming, spending my whole life worrying about that is a waste. And so that's why this episode, I've called it, "Do not be afraid." And I think what we need to do or what I want to do for myself is I want to look out into the future and I want to ask myself not what ifs that are negative, that are scary, like what if this happens? What if this thing happens to my health or what if this thing happens to my family or my money or my jobs or whatever? I don't want to ask the what ifs of negative what ifs. I want to ask the positive what ifs. And this idea of what if I didn't invent it, I think it's something that's kind of often talked about in the storytelling narrative circles. And it's basically this idea that if you get stuck when you're writing a character's story that just asked yourself what if questions and it's what if questions that push the plot forward? And it's the same thing that happens for you. And so at the beginning of the year, instead of asking your what ifs, what if this happens, what if that happens and worrying about the what ifs, what if you sat back and you thought about what if something amazing happened in your career? And actually, I think that that has the potential of doing way more good for your work than asking the negative questions. Actually, I came up with kind of three different things that I think actually happen from asking yourself what if on the positive side of the scale? And here they are, okay? Let me just say this before I go there. You know, we've got these parts to our brain. We've got our lizard brain. It's kind of like our animal brain and the negative what ifs come from there. And I'll tell you this, they don't need any encouragement. They're gonna come at you day after day, no matter what, because they need to. You need a little bit of that fear of survival to keep going. You know, you need that bit of animal brain but they don't need any stirring. You don't have to sit and meditate for 20 minutes to get those what if I crash my car or what if I can't pay this or what if, you know, you don't need to sit and meditate for those what ifs to be stirred up. They're gonna keep going. Don't worry about that. But it's your higher human brain, the brain that thinks about bigger things and more complex issues and dreams the dreams of your career. That brain is easily silenced and it's almost hard to tap into. That's the brain that needs stirring. You need to stir it up with the positive reflection. You have to sit back and think about these. You have to be intentional with it. The negative ones, they don't need any help. And whether they're completely bad or good is, you know, someone else's job to figure out. But for me, I'm just saying that the positive ones, they're not gonna just come to you. You need to stop and sit and get alone with your thoughts, or go on a walk and ask yourself what ifs of the future for 2015 that are amazing? And I think that that is the attitude that I wanna have for 2015. And so here are the three things that I think that this can do, okay? 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 tool kit with a cardboard saw that's safe and connectors so you can build cool stuff and forts and whatnot. They also got these building connectors where you can connect sticks and make up for it. Mainly, I just like forts, but there's tons of cool creative gifts that will inspire your kids to go make stuff. But we could also easily have just bought stuff for each other or even ourselves. This curated selection of goods means you don't have to scour the internet for something unique and exciting and you're supporting artists in small businesses at the same time, which you know I love. 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. - When you need meal time inspiration, it's worth shopping King Supers for thousands of appetizing ingredients that inspire countless mouth-watering meals. And no matter what tasty choice you make, you'll enjoy our everyday low prices, plus extra ways to save, like digital coupons worth over $600 each week and up to $1 off per gallon at the pump with points. So you can get big flavors and big savings, King Supers, fresh for everyone, fuel restrictions apply. - The first one is I feel like it gives clarity. One of the things that I feel like hurts us are these dreams that we have of the future that we wanna do X, Y, and Z, like I wanna work for this magazine or this publication or you know, all of that jazz. And I think one of the things that what Fs can do is help you get clarity on that. So recently, you know, I have a few of those goals that I was shooting for in 2014 that I never stopped and asked myself, what if I got that goal? You know, what if that newspaper wanted to work with me? What if they wanted to work with me so much that I had to say no to the other things that I was trying to do? And when I realized that, I realized I didn't want that thing. What if that newspaper wanted to work with me so much that I couldn't do kids books? I instantly realized I don't want that. I don't even, I don't care about my motives for wanting to work with that client, weren't actually that great in the first place. And it was a goal that I wasn't willing to give my whole self to. And I thought about the same thing, about bigger, crazy goals. And I said, what if that happened this year? And I had to stop doing this, this, and this. And I thought, I don't actually want that crazy thing to happen because I'm doing the stuff that I need to be doing right now. I'm learning the things on these smaller things that I'm totally enjoying and pouring myself into. Like I said, working on kids' books and kind of kids' work. That's where I need to be right now. And so instead of pouring time and energy into these goals that what if they happened, when I ask myself that, what does it look like if that actually happened? I realized I didn't want it. But on the other hand, I ask myself, what if I get this deal? What if I get this thing? And when I played that out, I realized that's exactly what I want. And it helped me to say no to certain things and yes to other things. And I think that last episode I talked about, James Victoria, saying you do need to make decisions in your creative career. And I actually couldn't agree more with that. You can't do everything. Life's too short to do everything. I was recently reminded of another quote I said on the podcast from one of my students, Katie Chandler. She posted this on Twitter and it was, you can do anything, but you can't do everything. And I think that that is so true. I think that it is so true. You have to make decisions. And how do you make decisions? You have to have clarity. You have to have confidence. And I think that comes from one of the ways is to ask yourself, what if, what if I got that thing I wanted? Do you think I'd really be happy with it? Would it really fulfill me? Would it really be something I want to spend my time on? Like you can sit back and think I'd love to write for a TV show and then, well, think about what that would actually entail. What's the schedule of that person? What would you actually be doing day to day? Do you like doing those things? If those are things you would like to be doing day by day, the glory of writing for a TV show would not make up for the fact that you're miserable doing the work, right? So I think that's the number one thing it does. It gives you clarity. The second thing that it can do is keep you motivated. Now, that's one of the things that, you know, actually it's in line with the first one because I never feel less motivated than when I'm confused. When I don't really understand what it is I want, that's when I'm at my least motivated because you just want to give up. If you don't know what you want, you're not going to pour yourself into anything. And so I feel like when you ask this what if question, if you ask the what if question it's negative, for me at least, it makes me want to give up. It makes me want to stop going. When I say what if my clients, you know, even though every year my client list has gotten bigger and the work's gotten better, what if this is the year that everybody stops calling for some reason? When I start asking myself that what if question, I shrink and I feel like, okay, well, what am I going to do? What kind of career can I have if I can't be an illustrator? You know, and then I start thinking about this, well, maybe I need to look at jobs. Maybe I'm like, no, you've never made more money. You've never been in a better place. You never had better work. Your work has never been in this spot that it's in now. You never enjoy doing the work more than you have now. Why are you even considering what would happen if everything crumbled to pieces? And if everything does crumbled to pieces, then start asking yourself those questions. But I, you know, I've never, I feel like one of the things you hear of these people that we look up to, you know, so many of those people, they say, I didn't have an exit strategy. I poured myself into this thing. And I don't think that means being stupid about it. You know, I don't think that means, you know, these people on American Idol that you see auditioned that are not even ever, not even close to being a pop star. And they said, I've given this thing my all. I do think you need to be smart about it. You need to take calculated risks. But the more you decide, the more clarification you get, and the more you pour yourself into something, and the better signs that you get that you're on the right track, the more you have to give it your all. And I think that when you ask yourselves, then positive, what if, what if that thing I'm working for works out? What if, what if that happens? Well, okay, what if that happens? Now I'm getting confidence in the thing that I'm trying to pour myself into. And I think that leads me to number three, which is it informs the way that you spend your time. Okay? If you take this time to do this thought experiment, and you ask yourself, what if, what if I get that contract? What if that client calls me? If you take that time and you do the work of this thing, it's gonna help you. If you let yourself imagine these things, and you let yourself go down that path, it's gonna help you have the confidence to sit down and do the work. Now, early on, for instance, when I started, you know, I always feel like I'm risking something by telling you about my pursuit to do kids books, because I'm not quite there yet. And so it definitely makes me feel vulnerable, but that's the thing I'm going through, so that's the thing I'm sharing. You know, when I first started to do kids books, I would just barely put my toe in the water. You know, just afraid that I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna pour a bunch of time and energy into this thing and it's not gonna work out. And I do think that's a fine way to start something. You know, test the water. You know, I almost feel like when you start testing the water, usually right at the beginning, get a sense for if it's gonna be something positive or negative. And we just, and if you start getting that positivity, you start pouring yourself a little bit more into it. Now, when I sit back and I think, what if this thing is possible? I am so much more likely to spend the amount of time necessary to make a kids book pitch that is gonna, you know, knock it out of the park. But if I'm sitting back and thinking, what if this thing, what if it doesn't work out? What if I spend, you know, two weeks on a kids book pitch or a month on a kids book pitch that doesn't get picked up? Well, that's gonna cause me when I go to the drawing board to not put my all into it. And then it's a meaningless pursuit anyway, because now you're just wasting your time because you're doing subpar work. And so I think if you ask the positive one, it's gonna motivate you to tell you where should I, you know, when I ask myself the what ifs, the good ones, and I find myself thinking, well, if that works out, that would be amazing in every way. I'm gonna say, I know that I want that thing to work out. I'm gonna pour all my time and energy, my extra time and energy, and making that thing happen. And you know what, that, what if it might not ever happen? But the thing that I feel like I've learned is that when I do that, and I pour myself into this kids book and it doesn't work out, in my experience, the things that I've learned and the value that I've gained from pouring myself into this story, it usually gets used somewhere else. You know, I get a job where I would have never been prepared to do that job had I not done that kids book pitch, even if it didn't work out. You know, I feel like if you do the process, it's gonna work out even if the what ifs don't happen the way, exactly the way that you want them to. You know, I'm gonna get, and I hope you don't mind, I'm gonna get a little bit morbid and talk about dying, which I know nobody ever likes to talk about. But, you know, every time I think about this idea of looking out into the future, you think, you know, the truth is we all know what happens at the end of our lives. And no one wants to, you know, dwell on that too much, and I think it can be really negative to dwell on that too much. You know, every time I think about this, I'm reminded of this Ali G. Skitt or Sketch, where he's talking to a doctor. And if you don't know, it's just like Borat, where he's in character, but the person he's interviewing doesn't know he's in character. And he's talking to this doctor, and the doctor says something about death. And Ali G is like, whoa, no, well, you know, hopefully, and the doctor's like, "Well, hopefully you're not gonna die." And he's like, "Yeah, well, you know, I'm hoping that he's gonna be the one guy who doesn't die." I think, I just love that sketch. But, you know, I think when you look out in the future, yes, we know that problems are gonna arise, right? You know that things are gonna happen. But in that same way, the way that you view the end of your time on earth, you can do two things with it. You can be in one camp or the other. You can be in the fear camp or the hope camp. And I think you can be George Costanza, who, when he looks out into the future, is so petrified of the end that it causes him to seize up and do nothing or take as much as he can or be as selfish as possible in the small amount of time that he's allotted. Or you can be like Steve Jobs, he spoke in a commencement speech, I think it was at Stanford, and said, you know, he thinks about every day, like it could be his last, and he asks himself, is this the work that I need to be doing if this is my last day? And he uses that future of even the things that we know that, you know, are not gonna go right to motivate him to stay hopeful about today and about what he's doing today and pouring himself into the right work today. And so, I, after that, sat back, after the carousel progress, feeling all negative about the future and about progress, and I don't really know all the answers for all that stuff, I definitely don't, I literally make pictures for a living. But, I do know that I know which type of person that I wanna be, I don't wanna be the person that looks into the future in fear. I wanna be the person that looks in, you know, even if it's just wishful thinking, I wanna be the person that spends every day looking at the future excited for what's gonna happen next and hoping that I'm gonna be prepared that when the time comes with the hardship comes or the problems come, that my journey is gonna have prepared me to deal with it when the time has come. And I don't need to deal with it every day leading up to that. So, I hope this has helped you. I hope that, you know, you're excited about 2015. You know, I hope that you would look out into this year and ask yourself, you know, what if that client that I've been wanting to work with so bad calls me this year? You know, what can I do now? What kind of personal project can I do to prepare myself for that? Or to put myself in the right position to get that job? Or what, you know, I hope that you feel excited about the new year and not afraid. I hope that you, this is your best year that you've had to date. And I hope some of these positive what ifs do work out for you. Okay. So, one thing I wanted to get to was, I have a print actually that I made. This is where I got the idea. You know, I made this really morbid piece of work and the next day I felt kind of bad about it. So I wanted to make the most sappy, like positive thing I could make. And I went into it kind of skeptical that I would, you know, or kind of like an ironic detached way. But as I was making it, I was kind of getting emotional because I just felt that, you know, the kind of, you know, how I feel about when people are facing something hard that they're trying to triumph over. You know, that's something that those are the types of stories that always really get to me. And even with art, even with your art career. You know, when I look back in a few years ago, facing certain things that I was facing and things that I was trying to achieve. And I see those things and I, you know, some of them I actually achieved. And I was scared that I wasn't going to be able to work through it, but the awesome feeling of knowing that you've worked through something. You know, while I was making that piece, I was thinking about all these things. And actually, it's one of my favorite pieces of work that I've done, you know, because of that. So anyway, I'm thinking about getting some offset posters printed, like I think they're 11 by 17 landscape. And I don't know, I've kind of, I don't love pouring into a print unless I feel like people actually want it. So send me an email if that's something you want, just so I can kind of test the waters if this is something that people would be into. I'm going to put it up on Instagram and Twitter too, and see if anybody would be interested. And if I get enough people being interested in it, I'm going to put it up for a pre-order today or tomorrow. So yeah, you can see that piece on my website and you can send me an email and tell me that's something that you want to scoop up just a poster for your space or whatever to help you not be afraid and looking at the future with hope and excitement. I hope this episode is just an awesome pep talk for you. And until the next one, which I think I'm doing these about weekly now, so you can kind of expect that until the next episode, stay peped up. (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. I'm Whit Missaldine, 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 lived 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.