(upbeat music) Take a deep breath in and then breathe out. Did you know that conscious breathing can significantly decrease stress and anxiety? And if you're wanting less of those in your life, then meditation is key. The Meditation for Women podcast provides free daily guided meditations covering just about every topic so it's easy to press play and let yourself be guided to more calm and clarity. Listen and follow Meditation for Women on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music) ♪ On the creative journey ♪ ♪ It's easy to get lost ♪ ♪ But don't worry, you'll lift up ♪ ♪ Sometimes you just need a creative pep song ♪ Hey, you're listening to Creative Pep Talk, a weekly podcast companion for your creative journey. I'm your host, Andy J. Pizza. I'm a New York Times bestselling author and illustrator. And this show is everything I'm learning about building and maintaining a thriving creative practice. (upbeat music) This is chapter one in a new series we're doing called Journey of the True Fan. Have you ever made something that you love so much? But when you put it out into the world, it just totally felt flat. Like maybe it's even worse than that. Like you made something you knew was your best work. You knew that on a creative level, this was a breakthrough. You knew that it should generate more positive momentum in your creative practice than the things that you made before because it was better. But when you finally put it out there, when you finally let the cat out of the bag, even though you know this stuff is the good stuff, and you maybe even also know that you shouldn't get your hopes up, you have built up this launch or this post or this moment so much in your mind as this thing is gonna change everything and you know, mark this totally new chapter in your creative practice. But when you let it out, the world is crickets. It's just nothing. This is an awful experience. It's happened to me plenty of times, but it's even riskier than just some hurt feelings or unmet expectations because if you do this enough times, you are risking going to a place where you never feel like sharing any of your work ever again and you will feel like, man, what's the point if it doesn't matter how good the work is anyway? If that doesn't mean that more people will see it or more people will embrace it or enjoy it. If it's just gonna get squashed under the noise of everything, why bother? Some artists, when they experience this enough times, turn to this kind of detachment from the result. And actually, there's a degree in which when you're making the work, detaching yourself from the result is exactly what you need to do. I think you need to go all into connecting to yourself and enjoying the process. But I think too much detachment from the result means you won't put in the work in order to give this thing a chance, in order to do justice to this work by doing everything you can to get it out there. And this detachment to the result is a popular idea because it just feels good. It feels like, well, it's not up to me who likes it. It's not up to me if this thing is a success. That's somebody else's job or that's the universe's decision. And it feels kind of like how the universe should be. Like, forget about how people are gonna respond to the work. That's not your job. Your job is to make the art. Like, what artist doesn't want to hear this? Like, we want to. I want to just focus on making the art. Like, that's why I got into this. That's the fun part. It's the part that comes natural to me. Meanwhile, though, the artists that are cleaning up, the artists that are having a lot of success with their work refuse to hatch those creative babies and just push them out of the nest and hope for the best. They care too much about this thing that they've made. It's too important to them. They've invested too much to not slowly and purposefully invest in the work so that it has the best possible odds of taking off or getting to people that are gonna enjoy it. And they do this because they know what the work is, they're capable of. And so what's the difference between the artists that just kick the thing out of the nest and hope for the best and the artists that put in the time? The difference is that these artists that put in the time are able to batch their efforts into different seasons. These artists recognize that what got them to making the album isn't the same energy. It's not the same thing that's gonna get it out into the world, that they're gonna have to access a totally different side of themselves. These artists know that once you create something, that yes, the creative part is your hero's journey, but after that, that's over. Your creative hero's journey ends when you've finished making the work, but that doesn't mean that the work is over. This is where the art ends and the work starts. And it's not time to focus on your own journey, but it's time to tend to another creative traveler's journey, and it's someone you love and honor and respect. Who is it? It is your potential true fans. These are the people that are going to benefit, that are gonna connect with, that are gonna feel seen by the work that you're making. And creatives that master this side of the practice, don't just have more success posting their work, or launching their books, or getting their albums out there better. This skill is essential to the overall health and longevity of the work, to whether you feel that it matters the next time you go back to create something, to give it your all, to make it as good as you can make it. Because if you have the assurance that you are gonna do everything you can to get it out there, it's gonna help you feel more confident that spending the time making the thing is worth it. And so we're doing a series called The Journey of the True Fan. It is about that second journey. It's about when you've got the work done, you've developed a style, you've developed your stories, you have put yourself into the craft and into the portfolio, whatever it is you make, then comes the time to get it out into the world. Yes, you could think of it as marketing, you could think of it as related to social media, but it goes way beyond that. And the principles we're gonna talk about in this series are much more evergreen than any social media strategy. They are the key pieces to this journey in making sure that you have an ability to connect with the people that want to connect with the work that you're making. (upbeat music) 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. When you need meal time inspiration, it's worth shopping king supers for thousands of appetizing ingredients that inspire countless mouthwatering 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. So the creative process or the creative journey is something that we're all probably familiar with on some level. Someone is called to make some art and they search the world and the world within themselves for something inspiring, then they grind in that kind of movie montage to polish that thing and kind of figure out what it is that they found and then they craft their piece or hopefully their masterpiece. We've got countless biographies and biopics and documentaries about that story. We love that story. I love that story. It's romantic, it's admirable, it's epic. It's why I wanted to get into a creative journey in the first place and a creative practice in the first place, but in my experience, it is an incomplete journey. This notion that slaving away in obscurity is all you ever need to do until you hit that big break is sometimes the same thing that prevents any significant breakthrough from ever taking place. Instead, if you just hide away, making your work, working on your work all the time, you end up overworking things. You tinker and you toil over the same details again and again and then when you finally launch and put it out there, you put out this perfectly crafted masterpiece. It's often two crickets and then you go back to the drawing board and you do it all over again, assuming that what went wrong was that your work just wasn't good enough, right? Like if it didn't perform, if people didn't spread it throughout the land, it must not have been that good. You think if I make something truly great, the next time it's gonna be a hit and then you go back and you just try to make it even better and make the next thing totally outshine the previous thing and that, that'll fix it. But what if that creative journey, that creative process that we know and that we're deeply familiar with is only half of the recipe. It's like meeting the dough, letting it rise and expecting to come back to some serious bread, but instead you find some overwork, not even half baked thing that nobody wants. And in fact, talking about needing dough, all the while you repeat this cycle in vain, your bank account is dwindling, you're pouring money into making stuff 'cause it's not free to create things. Most of the time, most of the ways that you create cost you something and you're pouring every extra penny an hour into your work and eventually, you're not going to be able to stay funded or motivated to keep going and you're gonna eventually feel like you have to just kinda call it a day. Finding your inspiration, forming the work, crafting it into something tangible, that is essential. That's the romance, that is the art, but then it's time for the work. Then it's time to put on a totally different hat. It's time to access the part of you that refuses to let all that inspiration and perspiration go to waste. Then you've gotta tap into the side of you that believes in the work, that believes like, when I've made something that I am proud of and I really stop and think about it and think like, do I think this is good? Like, it's not always, I don't always feel this way, but on some occasions, I'm like, yes, I know there are people that this is gonna be their jam and I wanna figure out how to get it to those people. And you gotta tap into that side of yourself that believes in the work, no matter how small that belief is and you've gotta let it fuel your fire to get it to the people that you know are gonna get it and be better off for it, no matter how few people that might be. This is the second half of the process. This is the second journey. So we've touched on this idea a couple times in the life of this podcast, but now we're going to go on a deeper dive, including a framework that has been essential for me when thinking about this side of the process. We're going to get to the parts of that framework in just a second. But like I said, in the first half of your creative practice and the larger journey of both the creativity and the practice, and the first half is the creative journey. You are the hero, you're on a mission to find the sweet, creative elixir within yourself, but in the back half, it's totally different. Once you have unearthed and polished that offering, once you're ready to launch the album or the book or the portfolio or movie, then it's time to take a completely different role. Now it's time to put down the metaphorical or literal creative hero's pencil sword of destiny and pick up the humble pencil staff of the creative guide. If the first half is the journey of the creative, the second half is the journey of the true fan, the fans of your creative work. This journey of the true fan is not your journey, it is the journey to guide others on. Unlike the creative journey where you discovered, developed and polished your art, the second journey of the true fan is where they discover your work. They develop a connection with it and you offer them a way of supporting the work and truly owning a piece of it for themselves, both literally but also metaphorically because when done in the right way, that art becomes a part of their lives, it becomes a part of who they are and how they even think about their own identity and identify themselves to other people in the world. Like for example, like the best case scenario is you get to be a way that people explain who they are to people with bumper stickers on their car or t-shirts that they wear or when someone says, "Hey, who are you?" You might struggle to explain it. Like I don't know, it'd be hard to answer, "Who is Andy J. Pizza?" But I can tell you for sure that I am an Elden Ring fan. I'm a fan of the band Y, I'm a fan of Moomin and Miyazaki and Jim Henson. Like these are a huge part of how I think of who I am and they've helped me understand myself. That's why I use them as shorthand for my identity. So this second journey is like a mirror of the first journey. The first journey you discover, develop, and display the work in a final way. And in this second journey, you guide the true fans to discover and develop a deeper relationship with the work and then literally buy the final form in some way or another. So let's call the three aspects of the journey of the true fan, discovery, trust, and sales. So the first one's discovery, second one's trust, the third is sales. This is basically a streamlined, simplified three part version of what you would find in marketing that they call the customer journey. But I have streamlined it and simplified it because you don't want to be a marketer. You don't need to go that hard in that direction because you don't want to because you wanna be an artist, not a marketer. So you see this journey anywhere you look in the world, both just in general business and commerce and whatever, but also it's deeply established in the arts. And all of these parts and how they work and what it means to get discovered and develop a relationship and what kind of sales you need to make to fund this thing or what people are actually buying, all of those things shift, but one really classic example that I'm sure you're familiar with is in the world of music. So discovery, trust, sales. This looks like singles albums merch. Now, when we get into the individual episodes focusing on each one of these, I will give you a much more nuanced idea because it's not as simple as singles albums in merch because singles, back in the day, that meant singles that you put on the radio or that you're trying to get on MTV, but it doesn't really work that way anymore. But I think this example is one that will go back to a lot throughout this process. So this idea that when it comes to presenting your work to the world that you're no longer the hero, but the guide, no longer the Luke Skywalker, but now you're the Yoda originally comes from a talk by mega TED talk speaker Nancy Duarte. It's a talk, in fact, about how to do a TED talk. It's really great, especially if you do any public speaking, highly recommend seeking that out, checking the show notes for it. And Duarte said that the biggest mistake that speakers make is mistaking the fact that they're on stage for meaning that they're the hero in this talk and in this setting and mistaking that this talk is about them and for them to get out their message. That it's about their journey when in reality, great public speakers know that the talk is always about the audience in their journey. You are at best Obi-Wan Kenobi in their journey. So for further exploration on this idea, if you wanna listen to this episode and you wanna do some research and really dig into this stuff before we get into the next episodes, you can also check out more on the idea of being the guide in business from Donald Miller's book, building a story brand or his podcasts and business where he has taken some of those ideas from Nancy Duarte's work and put them into a business messaging framework. And it's really more about crafting your message than what we're gonna talk about, which is kind of the full package of getting your work out there in the world. (gentle music) Okay, just a quick warning before we talk about how to put some of the ideas from this episode into practice, guiding your potential audience into a relationship with your work is not the sexy part of the process. It's not the part that feels romantic and they don't make movies about it. But I bet that if you dig into the footnotes of almost every one of your creative heroes journeys, you are bound to find an artist who was willing to take off their artists' beret and apron and get on the street with some flyers and a megaphone, literally or metaphorically. For me, one of the purest creative journeys and practices out there in the world are the journeys of standup comics in the comedy world. And there's just endless things to learn from them for so many reasons, partially 'cause I'm just a big fan, but also because I think it's just so, there's just so much, it's not a meritocracy, I don't think, I don't think anything truly is. I think there's just too many societal hurdles and problems with systems for that to be true. However, I think it's probably as close as it gets. And so there's just so much stuff that we can learn from those, that clarity. And one of the things is this guide segment of the standup comedian journey is just legendary in that world. So almost all standup comics. I don't know if they do this anymore, but for a long, long time, because now we have the online version of this. So maybe this is transferred, at least partially to social media, but I'm guessing it actually still exists on some level. So almost all of them had to start their careers by going out and literally spreading the word on the street with flyers, telling people face to face about their shows, telling people, "Hey, I exist by the way, "and I'm doing this thing." They even have a name for it in this world. They call it barking. A dog barks to draw attention to things. And artists that get attention for their work also have to bark. This process could be called how to bark well, this whole journey of the true fan. And one essential piece is to embrace that dog in you that's willing to fight for your art, finding that part of yourself that is willing to get out there and spread the work about what you do. And you're gonna feel silly. You're gonna feel embarrassed. You're gonna feel like this is nothing like what I thought being an artist would feel like. You're definitely gonna feel like that at different parts in this process. You may even feel like giving up. But if you do, remember that you shouldn't feel like an artist right now. That's not what this part of the process is about. You're not making the art, you're protecting it. You're guarding it, you're fighting for it. At this stage, you're the dog, baby. You're a marketer, doggedly pounding the pavement and getting the word out about what you do. And if you're getting really cold feet, go research your favorite artists until you find their own barking seasons and their own crafty strategies that they came up with for getting their work out there into the world. One really clear example of this for me that I really love is from comedy actor Billy Eichner. A really great example of him not just sitting back and waiting for the talent and the work to be discovered is him literally going out on the street and making a show called Billy on the street. You might also know him from Parks and Rec. He's one of my favorite characters in that show. He's in the later seasons. He plays this hilariously and randomly angry character named Craig. And he's just one of my favorite characters in that show. But Billy Eichner was starting out. He wasn't content to sit and wait for that talent to be discovered. He literally went out onto the street to take that anger and hilarity out to the streets of New York and he would film these guy on the street segments on the sidewalks and ask questions like, for a dollar, are you still rooting for Sandy Bullock or for a dollar singing Christmas song that doesn't exist? And Billy created this show with himself and just one other actor and they aired it not on TV but on stage in New York because just nobody was giving him roles. And I tried to practice this same approach. I tried to approach my practice with this same mentality as well. And so last year, for example, my wife and I, Sophie Miller, had a kids book coming out called Invisible Things. If you listen to the show, you definitely heard about it because it's one of my favorite creative projects and I'm never gonna stop barking about it, baby, because it was a decade plus in the making and I just knew, like we just knew we had to finish strong. And in fact, most of the time, Sophie was the one coaching me to finish strong because this part of the journey is very difficult for me. And she would constantly remind me like, hey, remember how much time you put into this? Remember how much you love this thing? Like, let's give it everything we've got. And so we spent the better part of last year launching and touring the book. And thanks to partially to that, along with the efforts of the publisher and librarians and teachers that enthusiastically adopted and supported the book and the love of a ton of families and listeners of the show, we actually hit the New York Times bestseller list. And we even have gone on to get the book translated to 14 different languages all over the world. And I'd like to mention here that it was terribly difficult for me to spend a year, a whole year focusing all of my extra creative energy that wasn't going to clients or existing commitments like this podcast and other things like that, just on launching a picture book. It wasn't like I just knew it was important, so I was content to just put in the time. It wasn't like I knew it would work. I absolutely did not. And I spent tons of time with a nagging feeling that I always have as an artist when I'm not pouring that energy into work or art or writing. And it's that feeling that says this doesn't feel like making art. This doesn't feel like what I thought it would feel like to be successful. Like what about the fairy tales of ease and big breaks and getting lucky? Like you see in the movies like those big fancy artists that I love so much, where are those moments? Like I wasn't able to stay perfectly consistent in it or carry blind optimism the whole time. However, I kept coming back to this idea that this is just the montage. This is this thing that when I look back at this year of hustling and mailing books and drawing on boxes and spreading the word and sitting on planes and being embarrassed when nobody showed up for the book event or being overwhelmed at the next event because there was too many people and he had to do crowd control with all the kids. Like I tried to through that and also with the help of reminders from Sophie, remember that this will just be this great funky montage in my head looking back and whether it's life changing or not, it is part of the job. And also looking back now when I'm thinking about, you know, kind of nervously pouring a lot of extra energy into this thing, when I look back now, it is imbued with this type of meaning that I wasn't able to always feel or tap into in the moment. And I actually just feel intensely grateful for those moments where I was able to drum up enough belief and passion for the work to put in the time. And now those memories are really, really important to me. And so I urge you as we go through this series to collect stories like this both in your own practice but also in the practices of your creative heroes and use them as reminders, keep them close to you because you're going to need all the help you can get to remember that most of the artists that find breakthrough moments like these aren't the cool cats that are playing hard to get at the art dogs that are willing to bark hard and sing for their support. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) So I've mentioned a few times this year on this podcast that I have recently redone my website using Squarespace's latest tools and fluid engine where you can really move stuff all over the place and how thrilled I've been with the result. But I haven't mentioned how influenced this site was by the idea of the journey of the true fan and how that helped me build my favorite website that I've ever had in my creative practice to date. So I was so happy with how this turned out and how clients and collaborators had responded to the site that I made a proposal to Squarespace to see if they'd be game to sponsor a whole series on this idea of the journey of the true fan to help creators make better websites that help them launch their portfolios and projects more successfully. And guess what? They loved it. They loved the idea. They said yes. So this journey of the true fan series is brought to you by Squarespace. And first off, I just want to say massive thanks to Squarespace. They sponsor and support a lot of creatives doing their thing and they've put a lot of their focus on building website tools for creative people. And I just think that's really awesome. I think they've done a lot of great things over the years. And also I want to note that this series, as I was planning it, could have easily been an online course but because of Squarespace's support, I can afford to make it for free. So I just wanted to highlight that because I think it's really awesome. So here's what we're gonna do. The journey of the true fan is a four part series. We will be returning to episodes in this series between interview episodes for the remainder of the year. Each episode we will build on this idea and help you think about how to present your work in a more powerful ways, including how you build your website. Now I'll be honest, listen, I'm gonna get quiet for a second. It's just me and you now. Don't tell anybody this. A few years back, four or five years ago when social media was kind of at the height of its game, I kind of assumed that websites maybe weren't as important as they used to be. But I don't know if you've noticed, the algorithm has gone crazy. All of these sites and apps have made it really difficult to present your work to the world in any meaningful, consistent way. And so with all of those changes, and then even more with the rise of short form video, the idea of anyone actively truly following you on these social platforms has kind of become a thing in the past. And I truly believe that websites, therefore, have never been more important for you if you have professional aspirations or you wanna take your creativity seriously and take getting it out into the world seriously as well. Your site needs to be your online hub where people know they can find you and who you are and what you're about and where you can make a clear, concise, strategic statement to the world about your art and what you do and what the gift of your work is to your audience. I think websites are the ideal place for this journey of the true fan to kind of all come together these days. (upbeat music) All right, it's time for the creative call to adventure. We like to end these episodes with something you can do, not just get peped up and inspired, but actually take action, that's what matters. So here is your creative call to adventure today, your CTA, it's called new patterns. In this series, I want you to rethink your creative practice model. It's totally fine, I think it's the right thing to do to focus on the creative heroes that inspire you because of their art and their craft in the first half of the journey, in that first creative heroes journey. But I want to challenge you to start collecting creative guide role models too. Not the artists that have some biopic level, major motion picture kind of journey where they have this incredible lucky break and all they do is go into the creative zone all day, all night and day, that is an impossible path to learn from or to plan from for yourself. Now there is a preacher from the south named Andy Stanley, if I'm honest, I don't know a ton about this guy, but he has this idea that I ran into when I was just a young pizza, something that I heard him say that stuck with me. He said, your financial plan can't be to win the lottery because there's no pattern there. And without a pattern, you can't have a plan. This really stuck with me because in the creative world, the people we put in the movies, the people that we put on the covers of the magazines, they're often the creative lottery winners. They don't know how they did it, they don't know how they do it, they can't often repeat it. And it's literally like if business magazines were all, all had lottery winners on the cover and they say, had you do it, I bought a ticket. You're like, whoa, I'm gonna go buy a ticket. But those are the people that you can't learn from because where there's no pattern, there's no plan. You can't learn from artists whose paths have no patterns. I think it's all well and good to get spiritual or woo-woo or abstract when you're thinking about that first journey, when you're in the act of creating. In fact, I recommend it, not because I believe in the muse per se, but because I believe that that type of right brain, symbolic, intuitive brain state thinking is the best bet you have to access that creative side of your brain. And maybe even your deepest self or maybe even something beyond yourself. But when it comes to the business side, the second journey, the marketing, the journey of the true fan, that's when it's time to set down that abstract way of thinking and learn from the case studies and the practices that have practically or have practical patterns that you can truly learn from. So here's your creative call to adventure, find new patterns. And so don't worry about the art side for a minute. Just think about the business model for just a second. Now, I'm not a huge personal fan of Hello Kitty or Iron Maiden or The Grateful Dead, but I am a student of how they've built what they've built, how they've created the work that has gone beyond the artists, how they've made bands that outlast the members of the band, how have they cultivated that connection with their audience, that outlast trends and lucky breaks and doesn't even require hit singles. Here's my challenge to you today, find art guide models. Write down a few artists or creators that have the type of creative practice that you want, that you want to learn from, even if you're not a mega super fan of the actual work. And so that's all you got to do today. It's just create a list with a few guide models, people that do this part well that you respect. And hopefully you respect their creative practice as well. And even, but even if it's not creative work that you're particularly interested in, you can still learn from the other journey that they've taken. And also in the meantime, you can go check out my website at AndyJPizza.com to see what I did with Squarespace. And you can start tinkering with Squarespace for free at squarespace.com/peptalk. And when you get that baby into a play through you want to show it to the world, you can use promo code PEPTALK, all one word, for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks Squarespace for making this journey of the true fan series possible. And I will be back soon with the second episode in this series. There's a lot to chew on here. And so over the next couple of weeks, we'll do some interviews and then I'll be back with part two. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Creative PEPTALK is a weekly podcast designed to help you build a thriving creative practice. But that's the thing. It only works if it's an actual practice. It has to become a habit. We make this show every single week so that your creativity can go from being a thing that you do sometimes to a creative discipline, to immerse you in a world of creatives that are doing the same, where those kind of behaviors are normal. One way we help you stick to this is by sending you the new episodes via email to your inbox every single week so that you never miss a week. And we often add bonus content like pictures and links and extra related stuff to the episode that you're not gonna get just from the apps. Go to AndyJPizza.substack.com to sign up to the free email newsletter and I'll have the accountability to stay on the creative path and keep this street going and hopefully it will inspire you to do the same. And if you sign up right now, you'll get immediate free access to our e-booklet, the creative career path. It's a step-by-step roadmap for creating a project that is designed to unlock your dream creative clients and opportunities. Sign up at AndyJPizza.substack.com and let's keep this creative habit together. Creative PepTalk is part of the Pod Glamorit Network. You can learn more about Pod Glamorit at www.podglamorit.com. This has been another episode of Creative PepTalk, a weekly podcast companion for your creative journey. Hey, it's dangerous to go along. Take this podcast with you, weekend and week out by subscribing to the show to keep you company and keep the best creative practices top of mind so that little by little weekend and week out, you can make progress in your own creative practice. I'm your host, AndyJPizza. I'm a New York Times best-selling author and illustrator and I make this show not because I have it all figured out but because as a squishy creative artist type that's prone to big emotions, it takes a whole lot of creativity to just get out of bed sometimes. So every week I put out the ideas that are helping me stay disciplined and stay excited and have helped me stay on this creative path for the past 15 years plus in hopes that it might help someone else or at the very least, help them feel less alone on their own creative journey. Massive thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band Y for our theme music. Thanks to Connor Jones of Pending Beautiful for editing and sound design. Thanks to Sophie Miller for podcast assistance of all sorts. And most importantly, thanks to you for listening and until we speak again, 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. - What if you could poke, prod and explore the mysteries of nature from wherever you are? I'm Nate Hedgy, host of "Outside In" an award-winning podcast from New Hampshire Public Radio. We cover all kinds of topics related to our environment, with a healthy dose of goofing off, of course. "Outside In" isn't just a chauffeur through hikers and conservationists, it's a podcast for anyone who's ready to embrace their curiosity about the natural world and have some fun doing it. Listen every Thursday wherever you get your podcasts.
Why aren’t more people discovering and embracing your work? It must not be good enough, right?
You’ve heard it a billion times: Just do the work. But what if obsessively overthinking and over-tinkering is just as dangerous of a distraction as procrastination?
What would it look like if you redirected some of your focus away from micro-creative improvements and towards developing a more intentional relationship with new fans?
In this episode we explore how to get new people to discover your work and form a meaningful long lasting connection with them as well!
Head to https://www.squarespace.com/PEPTALK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code PEPTALK
SHOW NOTES:
Co-Writing / Editing: Sophie Miller sophiemiller.co
Audio Editing / Sound Design: Conner Jones pendingbeautiful.co
Soundtrack / Theme Song: Yoni Wolf / WHY? whywithaquestionmark.com
Nancy Duarte https://www.ted.com/speakers/nancy_duarte
Billy Eichner https://www.instagram.com/billyeichner
Invisible Things Books https://www.andyjpizza.com/invisiblethingsbook
Also Mentioned:
Andy Stanley 'Don't plan on winning the lottery'
