507 - How to Find Your Secret Creative Powers

0:02On the creative journey, it's easy to get lost, but don't worry, you'll lift off, sometimes you'll just need a creative pep talk.

0:20Do you ever feel like there's just too many good artists out there? You go on the phone and you're looking at Pinterest or Instagram or you're listening to stuff on Spotify or whatever. And you're like at first feeling like, yeah, I want to get like, I'm inspired by this. I want to participate in this culture, man. and then slowly this other feeling creeps in that's like, oh no, I suck compared to these people. Do you ever feel like that? If you feel like that, you feel like I don't have any chance of competing, it's too saturated, it's too noisy out there, this episode is for you and I want to convince you in this episode to quit competing, to just give up competing and how that might give you an edge.

1:12And I'm gonna be back at the end of this episode to share a CTA that you can put in practice right now. It's called the Secret Elixir. Doesn't that sound juicy? I promise you it is juicy. It's a thing that I have learned from interviewing probably hundreds of creative people about what really gives them an edge when it comes to their creative practice. and I will get back to the secret elixir. But for now, we have to talk about superpowers.

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3:31so i'm getting older uh i'm almost 40 and you know for those of you that have not followed me since the early days you probably don't know that there was a time where i was the greatest there was a time when i was on top man i was the best drawer around and i felt like drawing was my superpower. Now you would have had to been following me way before following on the internet was even a thing because this was back in first grade. That was the last time I remember thinking I'm the best at drawing around these parts. And it wasn't until about halfway through the school year, I've mentioned this kid before.

4:16I've got a deep grudge with this kid. Justin shows up halfway through the school year, this guy can draw the perfect Chicago Bulls logo. I mean, from memory, he's just blowing my stuff out of the water and I'm no longer the best at drawing. And it only got worse from there. Like I remember, like I'm a professional illustrator, but back in high school, I wasn't even the best at drawing at my table in art class. Okay. And so pursuing a career as an illustrator and designer, um, just seemed really intimidating knowing that I'm not the best, that drawing can't possibly be my superpower when I'm just so average.

5:05and when I get feeling like that now because even almost 40 years old I can get into that mode where I'm like I'm just not that good at this uh you know if I'm working on a project and I'm struggling or like I said you know I'm scrolling on the internet I'm seeing how many great things are out there I can get into that mode where I'm like man I am just not so super but when I feel like that. One thing that really does help me is when I remember how much I hate Superman. I freaking hate Superman. Okay. Always have, always will. I mean, maybe, look, I'm open to the new Superman movie. I like James Gunn's movies and I'm interested to see if he can possibly sell this character to me because I've always just found Superman super uninteresting.

5:59That's his greatest power in my book. When I was growing up, he just seemed super basic. The flash, just too flashy, man. Like these, oh, I'm the fastest ever of anyone. Oh, I'm number one. I'm the strongest. Like, come on. It's just lame. And so even that alone helps me because I realized like, oh, what? Oh, you're the best at drawing? You're better at drawing than anybody else? so cool no i want some flavor you know i need something more than that i remember even when i was little feeling like batman okay you know people joke like what is his power money like that's not cool and then iron man is a little bit better than that he adds he's super rich and he also is like a tech bro and even back then i didn't find that very interesting my favorite superhero was not as strong as them not as smart not as rich even my favorite was spider-man and i was obsessed with the 90s cartoon version of the spider-man i think it was amazing spider-man i could be wrong about that but uh i thought he was amazing and i would rush home i I think it's like third grade.

7:21And I had like three minutes. I got you for three minutes. Three minutes of pizza. To make a sandwich and get in front of the TV. And I would just rush, grab some Wonder Bread, some Oscar Mayer slices of ham and smash it in there. And I, you know, it was kind of an average sandwich, but the thing that took it from average to amazing was this secret ingredient, a secret layer that I'm gonna reveal here on the podcast, just a layer of Lay's potato chips took this thing to the next level. So I'd cram those in there, crunch it down and rush to get in front of the TV before it started with its amazing theme music.

8:02Connor, just a little taste of that. You don't wanna get sued. But I mean, they, you know, I don't know how the kids are going to play, but they're pretty big. So Spider-Man, I was obsessed with it And the thing about Spider-Man is he does have superpowers. He is super strong. He's got web slinging, all this kind of thing. But that's not usually what gives him the edge in a fight because most of the villains that he fights, most of the superheroes even around him are all stronger, smarter, richer than him. And yet he still wins, finds a way over and over and over again. if he's up against a villain like Red Skull, of course, he's going to try punching him in the face because when you're face-to-face with a Nazi, who could help it?

8:56I don't blame him. But when that doesn't work, when he can't just physically win the fight, he has to try something different. And the thing that gives Spider-Man an edge, I think, that helps him defeat all these villains isn't the super strength, isn't the super riches, because he was very poor actually, isn't even the super smarts. It's the wisecracks. It's the surprises. It's the distractions. It's pretending to be kind of like an out-of-control idiot. And what looks like a weakness ends up being the thing that gives him a competitive edge. And so today on the show, I don't want to talk about how to make your superpowers even more super than anybody else.

9:47I want to talk about the secret powers. I don't want to talk about just how, oh, it's so sad. You're looking around all these artists. They look so super and artisanal. I'm just a crappy average Oscar Mayer Wonder Bread sandwich. Well, we got to find those chips, baby. where are we going to find that secret layer, that secret ingredient, because it's not the superpowers that are going to give you the edge. It's going to be your secret powers. And we're going to talk about how you go about finding what your secret powers are.

10:38So maybe you're thinking, look, man, I know a thing or two about you. I get what is attractive about this idea of someone who seems out of control, chaotic and kind of an idiot, but is a secret genius trickster that's undefeatable. I get what is inspiring about that Spider-Man guy to you, Andy. but I'm not convinced that what makes him go from average in terms of superpowers compared to everybody else to the amazing Superman I'm not convinced that it's the secret powers but it's not just Spider-Man you see this all the time in real life with creative people we've just hit the 10 year mark on this show.

11:25And I went back when I, around that time, when we hit the 10 year mark, I went back to the early episodes of the show and I never do this. It's very uncomfortable to go back to recordings of yourself from 10 years ago. And I started listening to a few of the early episodes. And I, even though there was plenty to be embarrassed about, um, I was kind of blown away by how much the themes of this show have stayed consistent. And then there was one thing that I found that I was actually kind of proud of. I think it's, it's like maybe the third episode about strengths. And in that I'm talking 2014, I was comparing Kendrick Lamar to Drake.

12:12And I was saying, Drake, you got to quit trying to go hard, man. You can't compete with guys like Kendrick in terms of just rapping. Like he is always going to be the Superman to your Spider-Man on that. Like what makes you who you are isn't that you're the best rapper ever. It's that you rap and sing. You have this secret power alongside the superpower. And so did I predict this rap battle? I don't know. But man, if he was listening to CPT back in the day, maybe you wouldn't have stepped to Kendrick in the first place. And someone who I think never would get in a rap battle with Kendrick Lamar is Lin-Manuel Miranda.

12:58Because Lin-Manuel knows that he's not the greatest rapper of all time. In fact, he knows that he's a bit of a theater nerd. and there are all kinds of ways in which a rapper who's super into theater could see that weakness or that that quality as a weakness instead of what it ended up being when he owned it which was a strength which was the thing that made him weird in the world of theater and in the world of rap is that he put these things together and so what seemed like a perceived weakness ends up being a strength when you own it and you direct it. And you know, if you don't know, that's Hamilton, the guy who made Hamilton, who doesn't know that?

13:46I don't know, but I just got concerned that maybe there's someone out there that didn't know that, but yeah, he's not trying to step to Kendrick. And it makes me think of, uh, one of my favorite sports stars of all time. I'm actually wearing a t-shirt right now for those listening, watching on YouTube. Check this out. Yeah. The worm, Dennis Rodman. I grew up in a household that was obsessed with basketball in the era of Michael Jordan. We were a crazy Jordan family. My little brother is literally named Jordan. And I didn't really relate to Jordan. Not my brother. I do relate to him in some ways and some ways I don't, but I didn't relate to Michael Jordan.

14:23Just this person that is just outstandingly good at almost every aspect of the game. I related to the weird guy, Dennis Rodman and my dad actually would call me Rodman when I would play basketball with him because my both my brothers and my dad can sink three pointers I can barely hit the rim most of the time I just don't have the eye hand coordination thing going on but I can jump pretty high and I can rebound with the best of them just like Rodman so he was kind of like a sports hero of mine and I just loved how weird he was but you got to imagine if this guy focused all of his energy on his weaknesses, on trying to be the best, trying to be Michael Jordan, he wouldn't have been able to play his role.

15:09He wouldn't have been able to lean into not his superpower of playing basketball because in the super world of the NBA, that isn't enough. You have to lean into your secret power. And that's exactly what he did. And so let's talk about a place where you can find one of these secret powers that is currently in hiding.

15:55All right. So this episode is about quit competing, quit trying to be the best. And instead lean into what makes you you. It's about finding your secret powers. But where are those secret powers hiding? I think they're hiding in a very unexpected place. And I've learned this from interviewing hundreds of creative people that have found all kinds of different levels of success. And I want to leave you with something you can do today with these ideas. So you don't just stay. I'm feeling inspired and then two minutes later you're back to whatever problems you're facing I want to give you something to do with this.

16:38So every episode we try to give you something like that It's the cta the call to adventure how to put this stuff into action. Here it is today. It's the secret elixir Okay, the secret elixir. What does that mean? It means the thing that you found on your hero's journey but there's a misconception about the hero's journey. The hero's journey sounds like something you do that's really epic and heroic. When in fact, in my experience and from interviewing all these creative heroes of mine, I think the hero's journey is more like a journey of inauthenticity. it's a journey where you you know in the in the standard hero's journey in literature and movies it's about leaving home and then coming back you know maybe that's what's going on with these tom holland spider-man movies homecoming no way home what's the other one far from home that's the second one i put them out of order but there the home is not somewhere outside of yourself the home is inside of yourself that the idea of the hero's journey is about how we all have to go through these cycles of leaving our comfort zone leaving who we think we are and putting ourselves out there in a place where it's uncertain it's unknown we don't know if this is going to work, if this is the right direction or not.

18:14And so in the hero's journey, the hero is at home at the beginning, goes into a foreign land, and then at the end comes back to home, but not empty handed and not as the same person. And this is about going on a journey that might not feel authentic because you haven't grown into that person or you're not sure you need to go that direction. And so one of the things I've learned about interviewing creative people is that almost every creative person that I know that goes and does something really incredible and really finds their groove started by doing something unrelated or inauthentic or something that was not their groove.

19:06That in fact, when I go interview people now, and you'll notice this if you keep listening to the show, when I do my research for interviews, I'm looking for what was that hero's journey early on where they went and tried something. Maybe they went to school for something else. Maybe they had a whole career before they found their stride in their home. what was that thing that they did because it was that mistake it was that failure that ended up giving them a piece it ended up giving them the elixir they needed to find their groove later and this isn't just true for artists it's also true for the amazing spider-man because yes the wise cracks and the jokes and the distractions all of those things do help spider-man find secret power to overcome his enemies, but I think his biggest secret power isn't the strength or the web slinging or the jokes.

20:08It is the deep sense of responsibility. In fact, in almost every multiversal telling of Spider-Man, his journey starts with not a glorious heroic moment, not saving the cat as they say but rather making a giant mistake because he lets a robber get away that ends up killing his uncle ben and his uncle ben had told him that with great power comes great responsibility and he was using his power for personal gain and so unlike other heroes unlike the villains, his secret power came hard won. It had a high price. And it was this deep sense of responsibility that he got from the hero's journey of making a mistake, of making a failure, of being someone that he wasn't.

21:05And I think that that's so essential. And I meet so many creative people that had this other life before they started this creative journey, this misstep, this side road where they I was trying to be this thing but it wasn't really me this happened to me in multiple ways I go around the country telling story of the story about how I failed big time in my dream opportunity out of school the first time I got to work with a show that was on Nickelodeon I just totally tanked because I wasn't ready for it and the reason I wasn't ready was because I was trying to be somebody else. I was just working in trendy styles of the time.

21:46And I go around telling that story because it gave me the elixir that I needed. It showed me what I needed to do, which was dig deeper into deeper influences, more timeless influences, guilty pleasures, and then into my own self and put that on the page even before I knew if anybody else was going to be interested in it. And so for me, a huge turning point was making those mistakes, going on that hero's journey away from who I was trying to be somebody else and it showing me who I really am. And so here's where I think you can find one of your most important secret powers. It's in the part of your journey that you're maybe most embarrassed of.

22:34It's in the part of your journey that feels like a failure, feels like a mistake, feels like wasted time. Because in the creative journey, I don't think any of those things get wasted. And that your mistakes, your failures, your experiences, those things end up becoming the secret elixir that gives you that edge. It's one of the reasons why I love the movie Tick, Tick, Boom. And it's another one directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda. It's about one of his heroes, Jonathan Larson, the guy who created the show Rent, one of the biggest shows on Broadway of all time. And it was a play called Tick, Tick, Boom that I think was originally written by Jonathan Larson, like as a memoir kind of thing.

23:20But Lin-Manuel Miranda, Andrew Garfield, Vanessa Hudgens created a movie on Netflix with it. And it's just really great. And what's great about it is it's not about the making of Rent. It's about the making of this weird sci-fi rock opera thing that Jonathan Larson made before Rent that was a failure, that didn't take off. He was sure he put everything into it. He thought this is going to be it, and it ended up going nowhere. I have to imagine the reason he turned this into Tick Tick Boom and these songs and this memoir was because it gave him a secret elixir that ended up being exactly what he needed to go on to make Rent.

24:24so maybe you're thinking oh man don't bring up making rent i don't want to hear it i know that the times are crazy and it's been a bit rough out there um and uh you know i wanted to make this episode partially because we talk about creative careers and creative practice and i'm always looking for things that help me with my creative practice and sharing them with you in case they help yours. And I think the secret power thing, I think there's something to it. And I really do hope that it gives you an edge. But also one of the reasons this has been on my mind so much is I've been thinking a lot about power generally, superpower, secret powers, There's real power in the world.

25:14And there's so many ways in which we live in scary times. And, you know, the powers that be can seem extremely intimidating. But I wanted to just leave you with one last thing about power. Because my point of view on power has evolved over time. because when I was a kid, I loved Spider-Man. I loved superheroes. I was like super into Marvel. I don't talk about it a ton now because I'm so much more mature these days. But also because, I don't know, it's funny. I think because the Marvel movies are kind of how it exists now, which I like. I like watching them, like watching them with my kids. It is kind of like Andy's childhood dream.

26:07I remember hanging out with my buddy Jeff in fourth grade, like fan casting what Marvel movies would be. And I can't believe that I got to grow up in this dream. But also everyone has their generation's experience with these characters. And for me, it wasn't even the comics. I was the 90s kid. It was the cartoons. It was the trading cards. It was the toys. That was kind of my way in with Marvel. and I was obsessed. It was like probably my main thing for a good like seven, eight years of my childhood. But I have in some ways grown up. And one of the ways is that my views on what it means to be powerful have evolved.

26:58And as I've been thinking about power, do we have power? Who has the power? How do you overcome the evil powers? I started thinking like, you know, I think the progress of human evolution and the evolution of consciousness has a lot to do with the evolution of our views of power, what we think power is. And so as a kid, I was really into Spider-Man. And I remember even when like Lord of the Rings came out, I was not into it. I was like, we're supposed to be rooting for this Frodo guy. No, I, who likes this? I don't, I did not understand what the appeal of this was. It wasn't until I've grown up that I've started to see the appeal of Lord of the Rings and see the appeal of Frodo.

27:58And I came across this clip. I couldn't find it, but it was an excerpt of a letter from Tolkien about Frodo and about how Frodo succeeded in his mission. And so if you watch the movies, you're seeing this not super powerful character at the center of it all, not in the ways that we think about power traditionally. And in fact, even at the end, at the end of his journey, when he's supposed to throw the ring into the volcano, he doesn't follow through with it. He's thinking about keeping it for himself. It's only because Gollum comes in, bites off his finger and falls into the volcano with the ring.

28:44That's how it ends up being accomplished. And so if you just look at it on the surface, this isn't a superpower. It's a stretch to even think that he's got secret power. But this is a type of power that goes beyond the logical. It goes beyond your head and it comes from the heart. And so in this letter, Tolkien talks about how this mission was accomplished through the power of Frodo's compassion and pity on Gollum. That the fact is that Gollum wouldn't have been there to bite his finger off and go into the flames with the ring and destroy the ring if it hadn't been for the fact that Frodo had compassion and pity on him and wouldn't let Sam kill him.

29:37and that this is a testament to the power, the deep, true power, the transcendent power of our human capacity for empathy and compassion. And so I started working on this episode as a rumination on power and what kind of power might see us overcome some of the challenges we have today. And I don't know if compassion and empathy and heart alone can turn the tide. I really don't. But I do think it does have a secret power. It is a secret fuel source to fight and work and keep going even when we're tired, even when we're scared.

30:38uh just so you know you can get ad free versions of this show by being a supporter on patreon at patreon.com creative pep talk or become a sub stack subscriber a paid subscriber at andyjpizza.substack.com we just started uh making this an option and i'm really excited about it because if you're someone who really hates ads i wanted to have an option um but we couldn't figure it out a lot of the tech wasn't quite there to make all of this work for us and we finally got it sorted so you can go there and you can get access to uh the the ad free version of this show uh if you don't know if you're new to the show i'm annie j pizza i'm a new york times best-selling author and illustrator of picture books.

31:26And I make this show, so that's me. And you can go find more about me at andyjpizza.com. I want to tell you that we also do a monthly meetup with the supporters of the show from Substack and Patreon called the Creative Pep Rallies. We do it the last Monday of the month usually. And we get together and we talk about these episodes of the show. And so if you're listening and you want to talk about these things, you want to connect with other people that listen to this stuff and you have questions or comments or extra ideas to throw in there, that's where we do it. So you can go join us. I hope to see you there.

32:09Got to say massive thanks to Sophie Miller for being a producer and editor on the show. thanks to Connor Jones of Pending Beautiful for audio edits, video edits, animation, sound design. Huge thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band Y for our theme music and soundtrack. And thanks to all of you for listening, showing up, keeping going, making stuff. And until we speak again, stay pepped up.