Standout Creatives: Business, marketing, and creativity tips for solopreneurs launching their ideas

Bob Baker has always been determined to make a living from his creative career. He started off his career by creating a music publication from scratch, with no prior experience. He didn’t let his lack of experience prevent him from achieving his goals. He just experimented with different ideas until he made it work. Since that first publication he has expanded his interests well beyond a local music magazine. He has dabbled with writing, painting, and creating courses for aspiring artists. He even got into stand-up and improv comedy. Bob has not let the starving artist mentality prevent him from making a career out of his creativity. In fact, he has thrived as an artist and creative. In this episode, Bob talks about doing things that interest you, why you need to be persistent, and what separates successful artists from unsuccessful artists. Here are three things you can learn from Bob: Do Things That Interest You Many of us have this fear of pursuing our creative careers. We are afraid that we will crash and burn, and never recover from our failures. Bob takes a different approach to his creative interests. He doesn’t play it safe. He explores the things he thinks are fun. “I had this philosophy early on where, if something seemed liked it was fun to do, I was like, I want to take some action… I want to experience that and see what it’s like sooner rather than later. So, you know, a lot of people play it safe, or they wait til they know everything about a topic or they think everything’s perfect… before they dive into doing something. And I was just like, ‘I want to see what that’s like. That looks like fun.’ So I did that with comedy, with improv, with publishing a newspaper.” It all started with creating his local music publication and has blossomed from there. Bob has never let his lack of experience stop him, and neither should you. “I published a local music newspaper and I had no business doing that whatsoever because I had no previous experience. Never wrote for the school paper, never really took journalism classes. You know, had just written on my own, had a passion for music. So I said I want to combine these two long standing passions, and just started publishing a local newspaper. And it was ugly. There were typos. People pointed things out. And I eventually learned just from doing and getting things out there to make it better.” You Need to Be Persistent There are no guarantees that you will ever make a living from your creative career. Not everyone is cut out for it. But there is something to be said for doing something you are passionate about. That’s why Bob believes persistence is crucial if you want to make a career out of your art. You need to pursue it regardless of the outcome. “There are no guarantees. The world does not owe you a living. So even if you are persistent and keep your nose to the grindstone for years on end, there’s no guarantee that you’re going to make it, whatever make it means to you. However, I guess what I encourage is if you’re meant to do that thing, to express yourself in that way… You should do it regardless of the outcome. You should do it for the joy of it, however, at the same time, you could be strategic in doing it and learning the things that will move you to toward that greater potential of maybe supporting yourself some day. But hopefully it’s something that even if you don’t make a living at it or you don’t reach that point, that you’ll still do it for the joy.” Bob recommends creating goals you can work your way towards so you can see the progress you’ve made. The key is to be strategic when you move towards your goal. “Making sure that your financial needs are met first just takes the pressure off to do your art more free flowingly I guess. And I kinda like that approach. But you can still be strategic in moving toward that goal if you have one of sustaining yourself like I did. It’s just… it may not happen on your time table… and that’s where the persistence comes in I guess. Yeah, if the payoff is not there in a month or two, are you willing to stick with it? And that’s another thing… that not everyone will, which is why not everyone succeeds because all of these rare… traits have to come together to make for a successful life.” Being Successful vs. Being Unsuccessful There are always people who will find success and those who won’t. There’s a fine line between success and failure. Bob believes one of the things that separates success from failure is seeing thing through to completion. “There are tons of people that want to write a book. There’s tons of people that have started writing books. There’s tons of people who have even finished the first draft of a manuscript of a book. But there’s a very small percentage who actually follow it through to get the darn thing published. So there’s this seeing it concept, and I don’t know what quality that is, but it’s like, when you start on a project, make a commitment to chip away at it and to see it through to completion.” Bob also sees another trait from many creative people: the need to jump from one project to the next. But you can’t always chase the shiny new object. You need discipline. “Another thing creative people are excited about new fresh things, and that’s cool, but you also have to follow through on the things that you’ve already started that may not be as exciting as they were those early weeks that you’re working on them. And that’s just a discipline I suppose and a personal commitment to stuff.” Another thing Bob recommends is re-framing the way you look at marketing. Artists need to stop looking at marketing as a necessary evil and approach it as something that is creative. “To me the marketing thing, the necessary evil, is all about an attitude toward it. If you re-frame and realize that all you’re doing is just sharing your work with people who are going to resonate with it, that’s not painful, you know. You just gotta do it in a more strategic way. So get on friendly terms with marketing and don’t lump a lot of things into this “business” category.” Read more shownotes from episode 69 with Bob Baker

A recap of episode 68 of the Cracking Creativity podcast. If you liked it, check out the full episode with Kym Dolcimascolo where she talks about creating plans, why you should know your audience, and how artists can change the world.

Kym Dolcimascolo got a degree in photography and film making but didn't follow that path once she graduated from school. Instead she became a computer engineer and worked her way up the career ladder. After working for a while in the corporate world, she decided she had had enough. So, she set herself up to leave her corporate job and started a web design company. This career move allowed her to work with people who embraced creativity, and eventually led her into coaching for artists and creatives. In this episode Kym talks about creating plans, why you should know your audience, and how artists can change the world. Here are three things you can learn from Kym: You Need a Plan As artists, we tend to do things on a whim. We want to live a free-spirited life. We want the freedom to choose our own destinies. But this line of thinking often hurts us instead of helping us. We should be planning our way to success instead. Kym didn't walk away from her job immediately. She decided what steps needed to be taken and she took them. "It wasn't instant. It wasn't, you know, I walked out that day and that's the end of the story. I created a plan for myself. And the plan was, I'm going to start working on my business and I'm going to actually have my business be able to generate enough money that I can afford my cost of living. And then I literally went out and did that." Many artists believe in the starving artist mentality so they give up on their dreams. But what they really need is a plan of action. Kym believes a plan of action can help us overcome our negative mentality. "I think that part of it is that a lot of people... don't see that if they actually plan things out, and if they actually take actions that they need to take, that the starving artist thing is just whatever it is. It's something we've bought into. It's something that everybody's told us. It's something we've bought into. It's just kind of another BS that we fall for." Know Your Audience One of the mistakes that artists make when trying to selling their work is not knowing who they are selling to. Instead of figuring out who wants to buy their art, they try to sell it to everyone. Unfortunately, that strategy does not work. Kym believes it is vital for us, especially in the beginning, to focus on finding people who want our work. "There is a market that's dying for your particular work and if you don't focus on that market, at least in the beginning, then the frustration is really high, if nothing else. Obviously the frustration becomes very high and your bank account stays pretty low." That's why Kym believes we have two choices. We either need to find the people who want the art we are already creating or we need to create art for the audience we have. "If you really want to create that kind of art, then there is a particular person that wants that. Go find those people... It's one thing or the other. Either if you really want that kind of audience, then produce the art that that audience wants or if you really want to produce this kind of art and sell it, then go find that audience." If you an artist that wants to create for your own self expression, that is awesome, but if you want to sell your art, you need to learn the game. "There are tons of artists... [that] create for their own self-expression. They have no interest in selling their art at all... and that's fabulous, but for those artists who really do want to make a living off of it, then there is a game afoot." Artists Can Change the World One of the things that artists fail to realize is how much of an impact they can have on the world. While many artists start creating to satisfy their own creative needs, most don't realize how big of an impact they can make. Kym believes artists can make a difference once they are ready to move to the next level. "If you really had it inside of you to alter some of the things on this planet, that we could totally do it through art, and I think a lot of artists are up to that... They move beyond the 'I just create for me,' and they... actually admit 'No, I actually want to make a difference with my art.' Right? It's not just for me.... I think that that's kind of the next level." It all begins with thinking and knowing you can make a difference. "It's beyond I just create because I have to create. Now it's move to I can take what I create and make a statement, make a difference on the planet with it. But even those artists sometimes resist the conversation about making money off of it." In order to get to that level, you have to change your mindset. You have to be able to produce work when you want to, not when the Muse hits you. You have to call on the Muse yourself. "I think that's one of those things too, by the way, that I see that the artists that do actually build success and continue to build success for themselves is that they really know, that they can actually sit down, and they can create, and they can produce what they need to produce, whenever that is... and it's not waiting for the moon to be in a certain phase, and them to be in a certain space, and their environment to look in a certain way. It's like, okay, I can harness this and I can pull it forward, and I can put it to work right this second because I have everything it takes to do that." Read more shownotes for episode 68 with Kym Dolcimascolo 

This is a replay of episode 44 with Sarah Jackson. In these trying times, it's good to remember that people like Sarah are making a huge difference in the world. Sarah Jackson is the founder of Casa de Paz, a hospitality home for families affected by immigrant detention. She is also the founder ofVolleyball Latino, a year-round indoor volleyball league that raises money for Casa de Paz. In this episode, Sarah talks about why she started Casa de Paz and Volleyball Latino, the importance of taking small steps, and why you need to take action if you want to achieve your goals. Here are three things you can learn from Sarah: One Moment Can Completely Change Your Life Sarah was working at a church when she received an email that would change her life. The email was an invitation to the pastors of her church to visit Mexico and learn about immigration. The pastors couldn’t attend, so she volunteered to go to represent the church. Before going, Sarah had never thought of immigration or its affect on people. She just thought it would nice to take a free trip to Mexico. Little did she know, the trip would radically affect her life. While there, she learned that there are families who want to be together but can’t be. Since her family was so important to her, she wanted to help other families be together. From that moment on, Sarah has spent most of her energy trying to figure out how to help the families of immigrant detainees. This led to the formation of Casa de Paz and Volleyball Latino. The Power of Small Steps There are days we all feel overwhelmed. We have so many tasks on our to-do list. That giant project looms over us. Instead of panicking and worrying about everything you need to accomplish, focus on the next thing on your list. Sarah gives the example of cleaning her house. Even though she knows exactly what she needs to do, it can be overwhelming thinking of all the things that need to be done. Instead of being overwhelmed by the enormity of the task, she makes a list of everything that needs to get done. “Even though I know in my head what needs to be done to clean the house, I still write it down.” This allows her to measure her progress. She can see that what she’s doing is making a difference. “It makes me feel better and it keeps me motivated.” Whenever you feel like your task list is becoming overwhelming, just focus on the one thing you should work on next. This allows you to break down giant tasks into much more manageable ones, and you are also able to see the progress you are making. Just Do It We all have lofty goals, but how often do we act on them? We badly want to change the world, but we rarely ever take that chance. We are afraid to fail. We let the enormity of the task overwhelm us. One piece of advice Sarah got was to just do something, even if it is something small. Just get started, and the path ahead will reveal itself before you. When she first started, Sarah was intimidated and embarrassed about her idea of creating a hospitality home. Her thoughts were clouded by all the what ifs. Her fears overwhelmed her, but then she decided to just do it. She started with something small. It created momentum. “One thing led to another and now it’s it’s own apartment.” Sarah believes you shouldn’t let your pride, your fear, or the embarrassment of being a failure “prevent you from starting something you know that you need to do.” It might not end up being the right thing for you, but you will never know until you try. Find people who will support and respect your crazy ideas. Find someone who has done something similar and ask them for advice. You need to understand what your part is and just go after it. Shownotes for episode 44 with Sarah Jackson

A recap of episode 67 of the Cracking Creativity podcast. If you liked it, check out the full episode with Marcella Chamorro where she talks about letting go of your ego, getting into creative flow, and becoming more mindful.

Marcella Chamorro's creative journey hasn't been a straight line. Her career path didn't reveal itself to her until well after she graduated from college. In fact, she took multiple detours including working at a non-profit, getting her masters degree, and starting a web design business, all before finding her true calling. She only recognized her true calling of writing, photography, and technology after running her web design business. Through these mediums she is able to help people tap into the serenity and enjoyment they crave. In this episode, Marcella talks about letting go of your ego, getting into creative flow, and becoming more mindful. Here are three things you can learn from Marcella: Let go of your ego One of the problems we face as creatives is letting our ego get in the way of creating something truly great. Often times we tie our self worth to our achievements or the amount of money we make. Marcella believes those things fed directly into her ego. "The main thing that I had realized was that for a long time, I had been attached to my self worth, to my achievement, and to my ability to make money. And that was feeding my ego so much. Like I made this much this month or I landed X client, or whatever." When Marcella decided to close down her web design business, she was prepared for the blow it would make on her ego. She knew she wouldn't be making any money, but she also believed it would help her peace of mind. "It was more of a blow to my ego and one that I was looking forward to. So I knew it was going to be an adjustment and I knew the area in my life where I needed the most growth... That's kinda what I felt was holding me back from peace of mind... So I decided, you know what, you think that you're cool cause you make money, how about you make no money and see how that feels." Our egos often get in the way of being at peace with ourselves. We let it control what we do. We let it drive our ambitions and our lives. But if we are willing to let go of our egos, we open ourselves up to greater possibilities. Getting into creative flow One of the problems we often face as creative people is tapping into our creative flow. We know that energy, or spark of ideas, lies within us, we just don't know how to tap into it when we need it. Marcella believes discipline is the key to tapping into that creativity. "For me it's a lot about discipline. It's a lot about repeating routines over and over, and just kind of triggering that in my brain, and say 'Oh yeah, it's time to write now,' and not having to use a ton of willpower when it's become kind of like a system... In my experience, if I plan things in advance, there's not creative flow." Another important thing we need to get into flow is working on things that matter to us. We need to choose topics that really speak to us. We need to let it come to us and let go of our ego when creating. "I need to really be feeling a certain topic to... really get into that creative flow. So for me, it's kind of spontaneous and... it definitely has a lot to do with letting go of the ego." Become more mindful When you work in a creative field, your mind often wanders. Your head is filled with so many ideas that it becomes hard to concentrate. That's why it is important that you build a mindfulness practice. A Mindfulness practice allows you to clear your head. It allows you to live in the present moment instead of always living in your head. Marcella's practices mindfulness by concentrating on her senses. "The main mindfulness practice for me are my five senses. I use my five senses to just reconnect with what is instead of what I'm thinking about. So either I'll stretch and feel my body... one of my favorite ones, just because it's so easy, is to just sit and hear everything. So really listen to all the sounds that I'm ignoring the majority of the time." Marcella believes taking breaks helps her get back into creative flow. She believes those breaks, even if they only last ten seconds, help her get through lulls in her productivity. "I try and really check back in to my surroundings via what I'm hearing, what I'm listening to, and then I get back to work. And it could be 10 seconds, but I realized when I did that that I got through that hour of writing or that email or whatever, however long it took, and I felt kind of energized and not depleted." Read more shownotes for episode 67 with Marcella Chamorro

A recap of episode 66 of the Cracking Creativity podcast. If you liked it, check out the full episode with Charlotte Eriksson where she talks about facing obstacles, knowing yourself and your fans, and the importance of knowing your why.

Charlotte Eriksson grew up in a house where athletics were emphasized. The arts weren't celebrated and you weren't supposed toe express your feelings. Her family didn't grow up listening to music, so she didn't really discover music until she was 16 years old. That's when a friend introduced her music that touched her life. From that moment on, she knew she wanted to be a musician. She knew she wanted to spend her life creating that magical feeling for other people. And at the age of 18 Charlotte moved to London to pursue her dream. Since that moment, she has released several albums, toured all over Europe, and has published three books. In this episode, Charlotte talks about facing obstacles, knowing yourself and your fans, and the importance of knowing your why. Here are three things you can learn from Charlotte: Everyone Faces Obstacles Many of us have this false assumption about people who are successful. We think they don't encounter obstacles just because they're successful. But that's far from the truth. The reality is everyone faces obstacles and challenges along the way, no matter how successful they are. That's why Charlotte recommends finding heroes who face obstacles and overcomes them. "A hero is not someone who sets out to achieve his dreams and achieves them with no obstacles. A hero is someone who has a dream and everything is working against him. He is running up hill, and it's tough and hard, and no one might believe in him but he makes it to the top anyways. And I'm saying that the hero stands on the top and people only see the glory of him standing up and praise him, but they don't see he had tears in his eyes and he's out of breath and clearly worn out, but he made it." Charlotte believes these obstacles make us stronger. "It's not about achieving everything you want without any obstacles. It's about having so many obstacles, but pushing through them and learning something in a way that matters." Know Yourself and Your Fans A lot of artists and creatives try to build their businesses by selling their work to everyone. They believe the more people they appeal to, the easier it will be to sell their work. But that is the exact opposite of what you want to do. If you want to build a successful business as an artist, you need to know exactly who you are appealing to. Charlotte believes that begins by knowing who you are as an artist first. Once you know that your audience will become apparent. "Just knowing what you're actually about. Knowing your story, knowing what you're about, knowing your statements, what you want people think about when they hear your name. If you know these things, it will be quite clear who these people are too." But your work doesn't end there. In order to build and maintain a passionate fanbase, you must build deep connections with your audience. "That's also one thing why I like having really deep connections with fans, because if there are these wide but shallow audiences, they will rarely go and tell their friends that they have found the next amazing thing... but if you build something really really deep, that person will feel such a personal connection and they will go out and tell the rest of their friends too." This is exactly how Charlotte built her audience. She started with a small and passionate fanbase and grew from there. "I think that's... the best way to start, is to just build something small but really passionate and then let it grow from there." Know Your Why Similar to knowing yourself is knowing your why. Knowing your why might be the most important thing you learn in your journey towards building a thriving and successful business. It is the reason you do what you do. Without your why, you lose direction, you lose focus, you stop working on the right things. Charlotte believes it is absolutely crucial to know your why. They are the reason she does what she does. "For me, everything I'm doing is always about my why, just creating these moments for people, creating belonging, creating community of inspirations. And personally, everything I do I base on the decision of how I want to spend my day to day life. And so everything I do has to match with my values and... I think it all just goes back to knowing why you are doing what you are doing and knowing how you want to spend your life." She credits knowing her why for keeping her on track. Without her why, she wouldn't be where she is today. "I would never have been able to get to where I am if I didn't know why I did what I did. Embarking on a mission, no matter what you are doing, creating your own business, it's tough, and it's hard, and it's a lot of work, and you will have to go places you didn't want to go, and you will not have time to be with people you might want to be with, and there's a lot of sacrifice. So if you don't have such a deep why, you know exactly why you want this, I don't think you're going to work as hard as you need to work to be able to make it." Read more shownotes from episode 66 with Charlotte Eriksson

A recap of episode 65 of the Cracking Creativity podcast. If you liked it, check out the full episode with Ryan Hildebrandt and myself where we talk about providing value, writing my book, and starting a TEDx event from scratch.

Something a little bit different this week. Instead of a one way interview, I had a conversation with Ryan Hildebrandt of The Maker’s Journey podcast.  In it we talked about starting our podcasts, why you should provide value, writing a book, building  a TEDx event from scratch, and much more. Here are three things I learned by talking with Ryan: Everything Starts Off as an Experiment If you look around at all the wonderful things people are able to accomplish, you might believe they were meant to do it. For them, things go off without a hitch. Their work sells like hot cakes. They look calm, composed, and confident all the time. What you don’t see is how they got there. You didn’t see them struggling. You didn’t see them speak timidly about their work. You didn’t see how they doubted themselves. We all have this mistaken belief that other people are special. Ryan believes everything starts off as an experiment. “When you create something, it’s almost always… it’s is a bit of an experiment really. You’re never really sure how it’s going to turn out.” That’s the exact conclusion I’ve come to by interviewing and talking to a lot of people. Everything starts off as an experiment. No one really knows what they are doing when they start. The key is getting started. Find the thing you want to create and start experimenting. You Must Give Value to Get Value One of the things that is often overlooked when we try to make something great is focusing too much on ourselves. Most of the time, we try to see how something will benefit us, but the real moments of magic happen when we put other people before ourselves. That’s exactly what happened when Ryan decided to make a podcast. He could have been selfish and kept that knowledge to himself, but he didn’t. He chose to share the valuable lessons from other creators with his Marker’s Journey audience. Ryan feels that when you add value to other people’s lives, wonderful and unexpected things happen. “I think when you create something that’s of value to a lot of people, opportunities come back to you, and you never really know what they’re going to be until it comes, but when you create something, you’re giving a gift. You get to provide value to a lot of different people.” We Can Create Something Much B igger Than Ourselves My favorite part about chatting with Ryan was when he talked about starting his TEDx event. Ryan started the event because he wanted to do something cool, but he didn’t have a plan for it. He thought throwing the event would act as proof for his ability to manage and run something. He also believed it would help build a network of interesting and successful people. What he realized was, you can accomplish things much bigger than yourself if you ask for help. “It kind of showed me that it’s possible to do something that’s really really big, and that’s larger than yourself if you give yourself enough time to do it, and… if you’re willing to ask people for help.” When Ryan started preparing for the event, he was the only one on the team. Things started slowly. His grew his list, but only had a handful of volunteers. That’s when the impostor syndrome crept into his mind. Would he be able to run a successful event? What if he couldn’t get good guests? But then things started to change. His volunteer team grew from two people after one month to fifty people after three months. He had everyone from graphic designers to speaker liasons on the team. What Ryan realized was, in order to achieve something big, you have to find the right people to help you. “It’s very possible to do something that’s that big if you are willing to ask the right people for help, really, and keep working at it, even when you have zero volunteers and your email list is ten people.” Read more shownotes from episode 65 with Ryan Hildebrandt