572 - Listen to Unlock Flow Now, Prep for Big Projects and Courage to Put Yourself Out There

0:00This is a timely message because applications are closing in two weeks. So if you're struggling to start and finish your creative ideas or projects, you feel jaded by all the times you've started and then stopped or you feel completely unable to get any perspective on your own creative practice because you're just too in it. Listen to this. I've felt these things tons of times and it's why I love working with creative professionals and helping them strategize and stay on track with their plans and have some accountability there. That's why I'm going to start coaching just five creative professionals on an ongoing basis. One, 60 to 90 minute call per month where we strategize and problem solve your current creative season to help you break into the next level. This is not for hobbyists or part-timers. This is for established full-time creative pros and freelancers. Our opens for two weeks and we'll close on September 18th and there are just going to be five spots. If you want to see if it's for you, go to antijpza.com slash pep talk for more information and to

1:03apply. If you're not quite there yet, join our supporters on Patreon and Substack and we have two monthly calls, group calls where we talk about episodes of the show and apply ideas to your creative practice. And if you're ready to apply, go to antijpza.com slash pep talk. Do you need to switch on those creative juices right now so that you can get into that creative space that's just so juicy? Sometimes you have some moments to create. You know some time to create is coming up but you're just not feeling it and you've got to switch those things on actively. I'm a big believer in priming that energy and taking action to really spark that when you're not feeling it because time and energy are limited. And so you've got to channel it when you've got the space. And so that's what this episode is. It's a schmorgasbord of activators that will help you get into that space.

2:07We're going to talk about all kinds of things. I'm going to answer a bunch of questions from listeners. We're going to talk about the fear of putting yourself out there. How do you get over that? We're going to talk about why I think every artist should have some component of teaching in their practice at some level and why that's really important to your own creativity. We're going to talk to the ADHD neurodivergent creative folks who have a difficult time you know finding something that works and then sticking at the thing that works instead of getting distracted by the new thing. We're out the eyes spent so much time trying to find something that works for me. And then once I found out, what's the next thing to do? I want to talk about how I manage those different capacities in my creative practice and why that's essential. I'm going to share a tool with that. And then at the end, I'm going to come back with a creative call to adventure. It is your choose your own activator. I'm going to give you three choices in the last question that I answer that can help you activate that holistic right brain creative energy.

3:09You know that feeling of like, oh, it's just flowing. Everything makes sense. It's all connected. That feeling of like, oh, I love art. This is why I do this. I'm going to give you three options for how to activate that right now today. Let's get into it. This episode is brought to you by Vinted. We talk a lot on this show about not putting all financial pressure on your creativity. And we also talk about how being a great creative means having great taste. Vinted is a perfect meeting point of these two things. If you want to make money on your taste in a way that supports your creative endeavors, instead of drains them, you probably have a lot of money sitting in your closet. That's where Vinted comes in. Vinted is a second hand marketplace with a mission to make second hand your first choice.

4:13Make some extra cash. Second hand is better for the environment. And this taps your good taste. Selling on Vinted is a win-win-win. In fact, I was just searching for black tie-dye graphic teas and a ton of super cool unique t-shirts popped up instantly. So also a good place to check out your next outfit as well. Vinted is quick and simple. So give your clothes a second life with Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free to start selling with no seller fees. So you keep everything you earn plus for a limited time. Enjoy free shipping in the US on Vinted. That's V-I-N-T-E-D. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. I freaking love having Squarespace as a sponsor because it's easy to sell it when you love something this much. I'm a big fan. Squarespace is an all-in-one website platform designed to help you succeed online. Here's what I love about Squarespace. They're intuitive and super versatile drag-and-drop tools.

5:15I mean, you can make a custom website without knowledge of code that makes people say, whoa, who made that for you? Looks like you built that from scratch. People have really said stuff like that to me about my site. And I built it myself quite easily with Squarespace. You can check it out at antjpizza.com if you want to check that out, what I did with it. It doesn't look templity and it screams my creative brand. I also love that I have all of my domains through Squarespace now, which makes it seamless and easy to manage. I know the first thing as creative folks do when we get an idea is to grab that URL. Now you can keep track of all your websites and your domains in one place that's super intuitive and easy to manage. Head to squarespace.com slash peptalk for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use promo code peptalk all one word to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. All right, let's go to our first question. Here it is. Hey, Andy. My name's Mirin. And first, I'd like to just thank you for your super encouraging podcast.

6:19That's also full of practical advice for all of us, neuros by C-creators out there. I do have a question and I want to preface it by just saying I am getting back into my creative practice after almost two years away after a flaming burnout and then having a baby. Part of getting back into my practice has been listening to a ton of podcasts and watching a ton of YouTube videos. And I've really become attached to the idea of starting a YouTube channel and probably a podcast as part of coming back to my creative practice. Something I see you do really well is creating authentically while also building and fostering a creative community and audience. So my question is how do you find that balance? Finding the balance between creating authentically and building a community. On top of that, how can I work through the resistance of being seen?

7:19And I don't mean physically, but like putting my work out there to be seen. I've been procrastinating, writing my book and starting my YouTube channel and starting my podcast because there's this little voice in my head telling me that it's not okay. So that's my question. Well, questions for you. Thank you in advance for your advice and thank you again for your podcast. All right. Great question. So I have so many thoughts about this. I think there's a couple of things going on here, but they're connected. The first one is about how do you strike a balance between what I think is like talking about what you're doing and like observing it and analyzing it either privately or publicly versus actually doing the stuff. And I really am a huge fan of this phrase that comes from the Design Matters podcast with Debbie Millman. The episode starts with her saying we can talk about design or we can design or we can do both. Like there is an option to do both those things and not only do I think it's an option,

8:22I think it's essential to your well-being as a creative person to have that arm of what you do. I'm a big believer in science generally. I know that the studies say that the best way to learn is what they call active recall. And that means being able to internalize something to the degree in which you could explain to somebody else. And the best way to do that is teaching. And so I'm a huge believer in teaching. I also just want to say like there's a lot of shame in the creative space if you teach for part of your practice or all of your practice. And I just think that's such a shame because I'm such a big believer in education. But then on top of that, I think there comes a time in your life as you get older usually but it doesn't have to be. But as you get older in your 30s and 40s, like every other industry, every other sphere of work, people are having to scale their expertise.

9:26Meaning they have to, it's not enough to just do the work. They have to have a team of people that they're teaching and managing. And that's what happens in the corporate world as you work up. You do less accounting and you start managing accountants and maybe you still are in the day to day. But eventually most people move out of the day to day. Now I personally don't ever want to do that. But you see it also in the design world. You see people that start as graphic designers or junior rough designers to mid to senior, to art director, to creative director. And eventually it's about scaling their expertise and also passing on and spreading out their expertise. So I think part of it is just knowing that this is a natural evolution of growing older is teaching, mentoring, scaling your work. And for me personally, it was important from the beginning of my show to not lose touch with being in the field, being in the creative field, actually doing the work, face to face

10:27with clients, making books, making stuff for people, never losing that. But then also being in the lab with creative pep talk, like being in the lab, thinking about what I've learned in the field and kind of comparing those and making sure that the podcast is always informed by having an actual creative practice. And so one of the things I think is sometimes a misconception about this show is that this is like most of what I do. I'd say creative pep talk is like a day a week, maybe a day and a half a week, and then the rest of the week I'm working as a full-time illustrator and author. And so part of the reason I think there's a misconception there is because I don't really have a strong taste for casual podcasts. So I don't lie. I'm not like soup. It's not I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, but I'm not super into the podcast that are big, ranty, long, like, I mean sometimes we get ranty, sometimes they go long. But I try not to front load it with a bunch of catching up, just shooting it with people

11:27and just trying to chat about general stuff of what's going on with me. I don't start with like, yeah, I've been up too lately. I'm not usually talking about updates about my creative practice. If I talk about my creative practice, which I usually do, it's related to something that I'm trying to share with you for your value. I'm very intentional about making this show as value packed for you and as much about you as I possibly can rather than about me. And so what I don't usually get to is, yeah, I'm recording this podcast. It's Friday, but this week I've worked on two editorial illustrations. I've been hustling on this book deadline. I have been taking calls for a big talk that I have coming up in the next couple months. And I did a story time last night with schools I think outside of Chicago, which was tons of fun. So I'm doing all these other parts of my creative practice, but I'm not starting the episodes of this show saying, yeah, I've been working on this and that and blah, blah, blah, blah. That's just not my style.

12:28And so, but because of that, I've realized like, oh, because I don't do that, you don't really have a sense of what my day to day looks like. But that's a fairly normal week for me. I'm juggling a lot of different things. My ADHD loves that. It's not always easy. It's a little bit chaotic, but it gives me lots and lots of intensity and stimulation. Dopamine and I'm down for that. So I am a big, big believer in the balance. I'm a big, big believer in supporting, celebrating. I hate when people talk about, you know, that there's a funny line in school of rock, like those who can't do teach and those who can't teach teach gym. And I think that's funny, but I hate that sentiment. I think that it's ridiculous. It is demeaning to teachers. There are people that are better at teaching than the people. There's a lot of people that I get on this show just to interrupt myself. I get a lot of people on this show who are the best in the field and they struggle to explain what they're doing. You know, they wouldn't maybe make a great teacher.

13:29And then there are people that don't actively, aren't actively in the field, but are phenomenal in analyzing and dissecting what goes into something like this. And I just feel I'm very sensitive to anything that demeans educators anymore than they already are, especially in the United States where they're so undervalued, so underpaid. And I just believe in, I love intellectual people. I love educated people. I love uneducated people too, but I wish we were all more educated. I want education to be more and more of a prestigious path and a celebrated path. I think that for me personally, it's been important to stay deep within the field and keep that creative practice. And for you, it sounds like that's important to you. If that's important to you, then make that a value and just make it a priority. I would highly recommend you do so because I think it's just, they both kind of edify and inform each other in a way that's really powerful. I think it's one of the interesting things about this show is that I have all of this first

14:31hand experience with this creative stuff outside of the creative act of making this podcast. I'll just add one other thing, which is when it comes to being seen and the overwhelm or anxiety or procrastination around putting yourself out there either in a medium like a podcast or YouTube or on social media in your art and just having any of your work or any of yourself seen, I honestly think the number one thing is exposure therapy. I really, really am a huge believer in this. I personally struggle with anxiety on all kinds of levels. Or so as I've gotten older even for some reason, but the thing that has helped me the most is exposure therapy, realizing that I can acknowledge the anxiety. I can even say, hey, you're welcome here. It's okay that you're here. I'm not going to fight you. I'm going to try to channel you into energy as I go into doing the thing. I'm not going to obey you, but I am going to allow you to be there. But I'm still going to go do the talk. Actually, because you're there, I'm going to do more talks.

15:32I'm going to do more social events. I'm going to do more posts on social media and more YouTube videos because the only way for me to teach my nervous system that I will be okay is doing it and doing it again and doing it again and showing this system that it'll be okay. So I highly recommend having some kind of weekly or daily practice and putting yourself out there until that's no longer the fear. All right, let's get to the next question. Hello, Andy. My question is somewhat multifaceted, so bear with me. But I have an art business. I co-own with my sister where we've made a brand for ourselves within the insect tax of Dermy, Audity World. I've recently found myself taking a lot of breaks to create with other mediums and create large pieces that aren't necessarily the quote-unquote big sellers, mostly because

16:34I've become bored with having to make the same kind of art so frequently. My question is, how do you overcome the ADHD need for newness, specifically when the art? You've been making a name for yourself in is how you make a living. I want to stay true to myself and my art without sacrificing the work that sells well and seems to be a favorite among our buyers. So yeah, that's my question. I'm ADHD. I constantly have new ideas. I want to work on different things. I do make money, mostly, from selling one specific kind of art over and over and over. So anyways, thank you. I hope to hear your answer. Great question. I have so much to say about this because this is something that I have always struggled with as an ADHD person. You are completely correct in saying that I am prone to chasing after shiny objects.

17:40So I've had to learn a lot about that because creativity is my livelihood in business and feed three kids and now two dogs and pay these bills with creative stuff. So I've had to learn how do I manage not just abandoning the thing that is working. And so I've thought about this a lot and I'm going to tell you a handful of things, maybe three different things. The first thing that really helped me was understanding a little bit of the brain science, brain science. We're going to talk about brain science from this guy who draws apples with legs for a living. I like how we've all become brain scientists. Let me tell you about oxytocin and the amygdala and all like I know all the words. I don't know how they fit together or what they mean, but I will tell you because I'm ADHD, I have done a lot of reading to try to understand dopamine better because I know it's one of the key factors of what makes someone ADHD is this dopamine deficient nervous

18:41system. So I don't fully understand it, but here's what I do know. I used to think that dopamine was why I like to eat skittles all the time and constantly have nice little treats and it is connected to that, but it's not the pleasure of doing those things. That's a different thing. It's connected to dopamine, but just I recommend first of all just for yourself, go read about and listen and understand as much as you can how this system works because it's really, really helped me. But the number one way it's helped is realizing that dopamine is primarily about and connected to the chase of these pleasurable or satisfying or joyful experiences. And there's two things that have helped me around that. One is kind of unrelated to this, but I just thought I'd mention it. You're going to pay for positive experiences one way or another. So you're going to pay for them either after the fact, like a hangover or you're going to pay for them up front, like running to get the runners high.

19:43I try to make most of my pleasurable experiences something that I pay for up front, something that I work for and have in the payoff comes after. So that it's not leaving me in a negative place. It's leaving me in a positive place. That's one aspect of it. It's not completely related to this, but there are some pieces that relate to creativity there. Ultimately, the thing that has really helped me is realizing that the chase is what's fun. It's not just the novelty that's fun about this other new direction that I'm interested in. See, often I think, oh, it's that I've never done this before. And there is, I am novelty seeking as well. But there's an element of it that's about the chase because the dopamine is of this chemical that's like, I'm going after something. And what I realized was the hard way was that I got to a space where I had monetized almost every aspect of my creativity, all these different things.

20:44I wanted to do editorial stuff and I started doing that. I wanted to do illustration for advertising and then I wanted to do talks and then I wanted to do kids books. And now I'm doing all of those different things. And I got to this point where I wasn't chasing any element of it. And my dopamine was plummeting because I didn't have that little creative side hustle or side quest where I was chasing something. I just had all the satisfaction of doing all those things. I know that's a very privileged thing to say and I get that. But from that position, at least I can say that it's not really all it's cracked up to be. That it wasn't the happiest I ever was. The happiest I am is when I have my main thing, which is more steady, which is this is how these are some of the ways that I make income. Yes, they're not new and they're not giving me all of that. But they are fueling. They're allowing for me to have this other space where I can chase something. It kind of reminds me of playing a video game.

21:44You know, I used to, when I got back into video games, I used to just run to the finish line. I've run to complete the game as fast as humanly possible. I'm not talking to any of the NPCs. I'm not doing any side quests. And then I got into this game and I was so obsessed with it. It was breath of the wild. And then I beat it too quick. And I was like, oh no, now that I've completed that, now that there's not really a chase, I don't even feel super motivated to go back and do all that stuff now. That there's some kind of chemical reward to dragging out this experience. And so you don't want to just abandon all of the things that are working and spend all of your time on that until that thing works because it will actually diminish the amount of pleasure that you can derive from that thing. And so for me personally, what this looks like is, I'm never trying to monetize every part of my creativity. I'm never trying to get to a place where I'm not chasing anything. I'm also not going to get to a place where I'm focusing all of my energy on my side hustle until that clicks because I actually want to savor the process.

22:48And so that's key for me. It's realizing like, okay, part of it is about savering it. But then the last piece, I'll say, I did a whole episode about this. It was episode 496. It's called How to Know What to Start, Continue, Double Down on or Quit. And it's about this thing called the Passion versus Mastery Table. You can get this PDF if you go to antijpizza.substac.com and sign up to the newsletter. There's a bunch of perks to signing up to the newsletter. One of them is downloading this PDF. And this is a little table, a little square table that has four quadrants. And it works where from the bottom to the top, it goes from low passion to high passion. And then from the left to the right, it goes from low mastery to high mastery. And so there's a quadrant at the top right that's high passion, high mastery. There's one. I can't, it's hard for me to visually explain this, but there's four pieces. The high passion, high mastery is flow.

23:50That's where you are super passionate and you've developed high skill in it. And you've got this elusive moment where you have the right level of mastery and challenge. And you are like in the zone. That's the ideal. But it's important to know as soon as you become super masterful and the challenge isn't as intense, it will cease to be flow because the flow state is defined by having the right level of balance between those two things. And so for me, understanding that, both firsthand and then reading the works of people like Mihai Chik sent me high wrote the book flow and really outlines what flow looks like and how it comes about. And that meant that I knew that this is like all of my passion and all of my mastery and all of the flow comes and goes. And that's actually just part of it. And so yeah, the old thing might not be, I might not be in flow anymore, but what I might

24:52be is in the quadrant that is craft. And that's high mastery. It's after the passion is going to, the passion isn't as high. And I realize that craft is actually one of the most stable ways for me to earn a living. And I found that that cash cow section, which is really what craft is, that as soon as that starts losing the passion, I am liable to want to abandon it. But it is the lifeblood of my creative practice. And so even just being an awareness of my nature, an awareness of, oh, when this season's to be the perfect balance of passion and mastery, I am likely to abandon it at the first width of that. Even just an awareness of that has meant, I have this kind of metacognition around that behavior has helped me be like, oh, no, but that's a key part of the practice. It's a key part even to having the dopamine that is cheating on that thing.

25:56If I'm just cheating all day long in this side quest, it's not as fun. And so I've realized, I need that craft element. Now just to go through these other quadrants real quick, there's a quadrant that is curiosity. That's high passion, low mastery. I'm not very good at it, but I'm really obsessed with it. I'm not good at it enough to make any money from it or really be successful at it in any significant way, even in terms of executing something that I like the look of. But I'm highly curious. Those are interesting. I've got to keep filtering those in because those things, if often, are the things that become the flow state. I think the main shift I'm trying to give you here is realize, this is part of a funnel, a flow, a journey. They all are trans-history. There's a seasonality to all of these things. It's part of the creative process to let them flow through these different states. And that's great. But you actually want a lot of these. The only one you don't want is the low passion, low mastery.

26:58Those are the things that you see people doing on Instagram that are going viral and you just feel like I should be doing that or I should be doing this kind of gallery show or I should be because that's where the money is or that's where people's attention is or whatever. But if it's low passion, don't even get on the journey to mastery unless you have some of that curiosity. And so like I said, you can go anyjpz.substac.com, go get go sign up to newsletter, get that passion versus mastery table. You can organize all of the different components of your creative practice, all your different interests into this and help you have a sense of like, okay, where are these at? Get a little bit of outside perspective on yourself so that you're aware of like, oh, I'm liable to abandon things as soon as they're like financially worthwhile or what have you. Dr. Peter. This episode is brought to you by Vinted. We talk a lot on this show about not putting all financial pressure on your creativity.

28:01And we also talk about how being a great creative means having great taste. Vinted is a perfect meeting point of these two things. If you want to make money on your taste in a way that supports your creative endeavors instead of drains them, you probably have a lot of money sitting in your closet. That's where Vinted comes in. Vinted is a second hand marketplace with a mission to make second hand your first choice. Make some extra cash. Second hand is better for the environment. And this taps your good taste. Selling on Vinted is a win-win-win. In fact, I was just searching for black tie-dye graphic teas and a ton of super cool unique t-shirts popped up instantly. So also a good place to check out your next outfit as well. Vinted on Vinted is quick and simple. So give your clothes a second life with Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free to start selling with no seller fees. So you keep everything you earn plus for a limited time. Enjoy free shipping in the US on Vinted.

29:03That's V-I-N-T-E-D. I don't know if it's just me or not, but couches and chairs in my house end up taking on a kind of personality. And they feel kind of like part of the family, which is weird. I know, but I bet you kind of know what I mean. I have this yellow satin love seat that we've had for probably like 10 years. And we've been through so much together. It refreshed our living room vibe back in the day. And now it's been in a few different rooms. It's in my home studio now. It's where my dog comes and sits as my studio pet. And I just love that couch. I mean, not more than my dog, but I do love that couch. And it's been easy to move. It's held up for years and it still looks really cool. I have had a handful of items like this from WayFair. WayFair helps you create a home that stands up to real life with quality products, great value and trusted reviews. WayFair verified products are hand-vetted by product specialists using a 10 point quality inspection. Transform your space with pieces that hold up to real life.

30:03Join WayFair rewards today and get 5% back on every purchase. Head to WayFair.com or shop the WayFair app for all things home. That's w-a-y-f-a-i-r.com. WayFair every style, every home. All right, let's get to the last question. Hi, Andy. I have a question about starting your first children's book project. What's the work you do before the work to prepare mentally and to get under the right headspace and flow for such a long-term project? Is there any do's and don'ts that you know now that you're a seasoned children's book maker? Do you have any advice from other artists or picture book makers about working on long-term projects that has stuck with you over the years? Thank you. Great question. I think you're right on about getting into the right headspace. I think that's actually maybe even literal.

31:04That reminds me of the work of Ian McGell-Crest. He has a book called Master in his MSS area. I've talked to him about a few times on the show, even though only about halfway through the audiobook, but in my defense, it's like literally a 24-hour audiobook. It's a big honker of a book and it's really dense, but it's fantastic, phenomenal, very interesting. And it's about the light, the light, the left versus the right hemispheres of the brain. And there is a lot of misunderstanding in the pop psychology world of the left versus the right hemisphere of the brain. He's trying to weave his way through it in a more accurate way, but even so, from what I know, it doesn't really work in terms of hemisphere, but these differences in our brain states actually do occur. And so I'm going to use left versus right as shorthand, but just understand that it's not as simple as that because there are some scientists that listen to this show and they might be like, Andy, come on, but we're going to use those terms because I think they're

32:08useful. And when you say trying to get into the right headspace, I think you're talking about getting into that right brain, getting into that creative brain. And a lot of people think of it like creative brain versus math brain or irrational versus rational or emotional versus thinking like all those different delineations, but what it really is or a big part of it is what we think of as the left less creative state is a big part of that is that it sees in parts. It sees the world as individual pieces, as individual words, as that's a tree, that's a bird, that's a, you know, all of this, all this separateness, which is an essential thing to do. Like you can't just walk around feeling at one with the universe or you'll just walk into traffic because you don't realize you have to take care of yourself. You have to have your own nucleus as a cell. This is getting very out there existential, but I think it very much relates to art making.

33:09You need to get into that right brain space that is that connected place when you're not walking into traffic, but you're making art. And so I think the first two things that come to mind are things that I've done that help me get into that space where I love art. I remember why I'm passionate about this and I'm feeling that connectivity. I'm feeling that wholeness and there's a narrative and there's a path and there's, you know, some cosmic energy flowing, channeling through me like whatever that is. There's two practices that I would give you. And these could be the creative calls to adventure. You can pick one of these three things when you're working on a creative project. The first two are about this holistic right brain space. The first one is try to get into some kind of synesthetic space. You know, synesthesia, this idea of you could smell colors or see music or, you know, I think some people seem to literally do that, but you can creatively, actively imagine

34:13that. Okay, what does, what color is a Monday or what, what does August smell like? Like that, you can just play around in that space and why I think that is activating to this right brain space is because the right brain sees all of these things as connected. It sees all the analogous patterns of when we look at a shape and it's really sharp, that's the key key shape. There's this, if you haven't heard this, there's a study called the key key and booba study where they have this really sharp, like explosive shape and then they have this really curvy blobby shape and they ask people which one's key key and which one's booba. And of course, people are going to say that sharp one is key key because key key has a kind of sharpness to it as a sound and it matches a pattern of the sharpness of the lines. And booba has a sort of curvingness to it. I think that there's a literal sense there but there's also a little bit of a leap that

35:15just feels like how these things are somehow connected. So the practice you can do is if you are making a picture book, make a little playlist that is this is how this picture book is going to sound. And of course, there aren't any sounds. It's not one of those novelty books that you push a button and it plays some, you know, Vivaldi or something like they have that. That exists. It's not like that. But just what does it sound like in your heart, in your soul, what is this book and a sound like and getting into that helps me connect to that holistic space where all existence is connected. There is no difference between sound and smell and color. They're all part of the same substrate. Sounds very woo woo and weird but that's the space. That's the space you want to create from. So that's the first thing I do. If you're making a picture book, maybe you need to make a playlist. If you're making an album, maybe you need to make a picture book. Maybe you need to draw like this is what this album looks like. And you see people like Salange who and Waxahatchee are both people who make these mood boards for

36:22their albums and really visually plot it out before they go into it. And I think what that's about is it's activating this space. So that's the first one. The second one is I'm a big fan of these. Pinterest isn't a sponsor but I'm a big fan of Pinterest has this feature that's a collage feature. It's a very easy way to collage a lot of your influences for a project. Both I try to get the color right. I try to pull from old stuff, new stuff, obscure stuff, again, other mediums like photography. And I put together a little collage on Pinterest and I'll make it my phone background so that I'm like soaking in that space. And usually those influences don't even directly inspire the project. I think what's going on here is something that I've heard a couple artists speak to. The first one was Jessica Hish. She's a lettering designer and I heard her say early in her career and some interview that she will, if she gets stuck, she'll just go get her type design lettering books off

37:24of the shelf and just flip through them. And even if nothing really directly inspires what she's doing, it just helps her feel that space of, oh yeah, this is what it's like. This is why I love this. And I think what she's doing is she's getting that right brain space where, oh, it all connects and all makes sense. For me, sometimes that looks like one of the things that gives me that more than anything is Mike Berbiglia is working it out podcast because they're talking about craft. They're kind of ruminating and savoring what's so great about stand-up comedy and what it feels like and they're just nerding out about it and I'm just like, oh, man, I know that feeling. That's why I want to make stuff. And it reminds me of what filmmaker, designer Mike Mills, who he made the movie Beginners, he made the movie Thumbsucker. He tries to just remember something that he loves. Just try to, just try to soak in something that you currently just love so much and it

38:28can be a piece of art. Like just any kind of art, last movie you saw, this is a question I asked people a lot and I'm kind of, I'm kind of discouraged by how few people have a good answer for this when I say, what was the last piece of creative work that really let you up? I think part of that is this, the plague of short form video has made us all brain-dead and disconnected. I mean, talk about disconnected left brain. Like just this context shifting of one thing to the next every 20 seconds, it just makes for this very fragmented experience where you have no idea even what you've consumed, let alone being able to recall that and soak in it, right? And so for me, I've tried to make it an active discipline to go seek out movies, go seek out albums. I am not even as disciplined as I'd like to be, but I am pretty disciplined in that. And part of it is like knowing the acquired taste is so essential to your ever unfolding

39:29as a creative. I think when we're young, there's a little bit of a tangent, but let's go there, baby. When you're young, you have all the reasons in the world to fake the part, to be like, I'm going to get into punk because all the cool kids are into punk. And often, yeah, that inauthenticity, that starts in a place that's maybe ego-driven, that you soak up enough of that punk music and you start noticing like, what's actually cool about this? And now you're acquiring a taste and your palate is evolving. And to me, that inauthenticity, that's the hero's journey, baby. That's leaving home where you're comfort zone and you're going out to see if there are anything out there worth while. And then you take what you find and you bring it back to your comfort zone, that comfort zone's where you create, okay? That's your taste. That's where you're like, I'll actually have some opinions, actually have some passion, I'll actually have some to say with this. But you have to continually be foraging in areas where you don't know if you're going

40:30to like them. You have to watch a movie not knowing. That's what we, I mean, God darn it, I'm old, but damn, we needed blockbuster, baby. We needed to go and pick something not knowing what the Rotten Tomato score was and not going to be like, oh, I can just like flip to the next one because it's all the same anyway. I pay the same subscription fee. No, you paid five bucks to watch this movie. You're going to watch it. And you might not even enjoy it. But sometimes that's not even the freaking point of art, man. It's to be disturbed, it's to be annoyed, it's to just, it's to have something done to you and communicated to you and experienced by you. And some of the worst things might inform you as much as the best things because creativity is an act of critique sometimes. You're like, you know, I would have done it a different way. Anyways, this is more than you bargained for, but I think there's something in here that's worthwhile and I think it's, I mean, I think it's all good stuff. It's all stuff I'm clearly passionate about, but I am just a big believer in recalling

41:34the last piece of creative work, art that made you feel like I get it. Like this is moving my soul and then soaking that and then create from that place. And you can do that with a Pinterest collage. You can do that with a cynic leap of a soundtrack. And the third one I'll tell you is create something else. If especially if you're an illustrator, I think the same might go for acting even though I don't have an experience past high school theater and acting, although, you know, my ADHD would love a chance to do some acting. I don't see how that could possibly happen, but I was putting it out there in the universe. Don't know why I deserve that at all. I don't, but I'm very interested in acting. I see a lot of parallels between acting and illustration. Don't have time to go into that right now, but I do think they're similar in that you get given like a text usually. It's not a magazine article or a picture book manuscript. It's a script. Still both of them are scripts and you have to bring it to life.

42:38You have to put emotion into it and a lot of illustrators, even while you're drawing, you're making faces the face that you're drawing because you're acting it out. You're channeling that energy. So why am I talking about that? I'm talking about that because, oh, I'm saying this. If you're an actor and illustrator, whatever you are, I recommend this kind of circles, goes full circle to the thing I was talking about the start when I was talking about teaching an active recall. Can you internalize this piece enough to continue it somewhere else? So can you create like fan fiction about this thing in your medium? What this looks like for me is like, I'm working on a picture book right now that I didn't write. And some really interesting things happened when I would read little bits of the text and then I would just start drawing and I got this big sheet of paper out and I was just drawing kind of whatever came to mind in this world. And I started telling different stories then were in the text. And I think in picture books, there's a lot of conversation about like John Klossen talks

43:39a lot about how the picture book is all about, you know, you're telling one story in the text, you're telling a similar story or a connected story in the illustration, but if it's really good, they're kind of giving you both, you can't have the whole story without both pieces. And so there's an authorship to the illustration. There's an authorship to acting, your choices and your character background and all that. So if you got a script, could you write a little short film in the same world? Because that act of recall is going to make it so that you're really bringing yourself to the table, you're forcing yourself to understand the story in a deeper way where you've internalized it. Then you're really going to come from a place of authenticity and a place of authorship. And I think that that's something that I would continue to do every time I do this from now on is that really try to create, try to soak in a little bit of the story and then let that flow into things that are not even there because that's getting some of my perspective

44:39and point of view in it. I do the same thing when I do editorial. I do try to let it flow and have my own kind of take that's complimentary to the text. A couple of notes here at the end. The first thing is just so you know, we meet up virtually twice a month with the backers of this podcast both on Patreon and Substack. If you are a supporter in either place, you will get notified about our creative pet rallies which we do at the end of the month which we talk about. We share creative wins and then we go through each episode of the month of the past month and we talk about it and I get to hear your thoughts and this becomes not a parasocial thing and not a monologue but a dialogue and a conversation and it's so satisfying for me and the community there is just really warm and cool and it's just become this awesome

45:44thing where those conversations are informing where the show goes. And so that's when I get really into a podcast I would like to have that option to connect with the person making it and the community listening to it and it become more of a social thing. It kind of reminds me of like when you read a book but you don't know anybody that's read the books so you can't talk about it. That's such a frustrating place to be and this space kind of moves you out of that with this podcast. So if you're a fan of the show, join this group of people, they're great and they've even connected off out of side of that and started making connections with people with similar mediums and similar goals and we have people that write for children. We have people that make books. We have people that are musicians. We have illustrators. We have PhD scientists. We've had all kinds of different people in there but it's just the greatest group and then we do the creative pro talks which are for creative professionals and we that's a little bit more career oriented. We share creative career wins. Someone is putting the hot seat preselective ahead of time and sign up.

46:45They sign up to that and then we all give feedback to their creative practice and where they're struggling and it's been an amazing, emotional, valuable, interesting experience and the feedback on that from people has been so good and we will need for about an hour and a half to two hours on that one. So go sign up, energyapizza.substac.com or patreon.com slash creative theft talk and become a supporter and join us there having so much fun doing that. Last thing I'll just say is if you want to add a question to one of these Q and A episodes go to creativepeptalk.com. There's a little microphone at the bottom right either on browser or on your phone and you can click and record the question. Review it, delete it, not submit it or re-record it or submit it and so it's very easy really love getting these questions and they make for such fun episodes. They're fan favorite episodes because they're just chock full of all kinds of goodies. When you don't know what you need, it's great to just have like a whole grab bag of stuff and something is likely to hit.

47:45And so I like these episodes for that reason. Mass if thanks to Sophie Miller for being an editor and producer on this show. Thank you to Connor Jones for being an audio editor, video editor, sound design, animator, like this guy just does it all and he's got a beautiful smile. He's a joyful guy. I don't know what I'm talking about. Thanks to Yoni Wolf of the Band Why who has new music out, the Band Why, W-H-Y question mark just dropped the second half of their new album as a surprise. Highly recommend this thing. This is, I think it's Yoni is so good at, he captures this really transcendent space between what can is considered the profane and the profound. He's just very honest and confessional in his stuff, often like even giving space to like shadowy figures from his life, I'm almost embodying a character and letting that part out. It's just very interesting therapeutic and this album more than others has made me tear

48:47up and feel highs of joy and then also laugh out loud to lyrics. Highly recommend it. Go check it out. I think the part that's out now is the Yes Lord. But I'll try to put some links in the show notes about it. Anyway, thanks to Yoni, thanks to you for listening and until we speak again, stay pepped up. I said, no, no, no, other than they won. How did Donald Trump turn the presidency into a king? Well, it didn't start with him. It was the goal of a decades-long master plan. When the president does it, it is not illegal. I'm the decider and I decide what is best. Were they won't act? I will. I'm David Sarota from the lever. On our new season of the award-winning master plan podcast, we uncover the stealth plot

49:52to create an all-powerful president or as some call it, the unitary executive. The unitary executive. Our journalists reveal the hidden scheme to eliminate checks and balances, crush democracy, and turn government by the people into government by one man. I have the right to do whatever I want as president. Check out Master Plan season two, The King Makers. Visit masterplanpodcast.com or search Master Plan in your podcast app to start listening right now.