521 - How to Quit Worrying About Other’s Opinions & Finally Create What You Want

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

0:20At some point in your creative journey, you're going to get to a block where you can't go any further and you're going to realize the thing that is in my way is me. and the reason why I'm blocking myself and blocking my path is because I don't want to put myself out there because I am afraid of what other people might think I am afraid of what other people might say about this piece of work or this story or this thought that I have or this style that I want to do whatever it is there comes a point in almost every creative person's journey that has any bit of social sanity where they are afraid to step any further.

1:08How do you put yourself out there when you have that fear? I can tell you something on that because I've made over 500 episodes of this show through fear and trembling. I am not above worrying about other people's stuff, but I have managed to find little parts of myself that have the bravery to put this stuff out in books and podcasts and in talks and in an illustration. So this episode is for you. If you need that, if you're looking for how do I find that little bit of courage, that little bit of bravery that allows myself to break free from the pack. If you're looking for that, this is the episode for you.

1:55Stick to the end. I'm going to come back with a call to adventure called Dumb Pride, and it's going to give you an exercise that will help you sift through your experiences and find those things that you feel supercharged enough, brave enough about to build momentum to break out from the pack. So stick around for that. let's get into exactly why we get held back by ourselves and how we can find a little break in the armor to burst through the cold is here i used to hate the cold weather until i started to embrace it, dress for it, build a wardrobe of layers that were made for the season, and that is where Quince comes in.

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4:16So sometimes I do an episode where I'm telling you something that I learned 10 years ago that It really had a dramatic effect on my creative journey. And it's kind of like just sharing something that I know for sure that I've, oftentimes those things are things that I've repeated a bunch of times and they've worked for me a bunch of times. So sometimes episodes are like that. Other episodes are more like, this is something that I'm noodling on right now. I'm currently noodling and I want to share it because it feels like it's helping me and I feel like I'm onto something. And I want to share it because maybe it'll help you noodle a little bit on this.

4:58Maybe you're struggling with this. And then also maybe it'll help me figure it out a little bit more. So we're kind of like right there together. So that's what this episode is. And the thing that I'm working on is trying to not care as much about what other people think. now this is a huge freaking topic man this is something that we all want to crack because it's so difficult to do it's really hard to put yourself out there in such a way that you know is not going to be well received by everybody or maybe even will be seen as a critique on some people or maybe you know some people hate stuff like this and yet that is an essential part of being an artist you know i think about this idea of what do you call an artist that doesn't want to stand out i don't know but you don't call him an artist because that is a huge part of what being an artist is all about is going your own path finding your own way carving out your own little niche or niche or however you want to freaking say it but it's hard you know especially for a recovering people pleaser like myself.

6:13I also have what they call RSD, as I would say. A lot of neurodivergent people have this rejection sensitivity dysphoria where any hint of any whiff that I might be being rejected in any way just cuts me like a knife. And so I am sensitive to this. And so I'm constantly battling this thing of, I want to be true to my art and to myself and what I believe and what I want to do and the kind of art I want to make. And yet at the same time, you know, every time I record the show, it happens. Every time I'm like, I want to talk about this thing. I'm thinking about this thing. I want to let the passion out and the excitement out.

6:55But are people going to think I'm taking myself too seriously? Are people going to think I'm this weird guy talking on the Internet? They definitely are. That's definitely true. And I have to make peace with that every single week. And so although this is an ongoing battle, I don't feel like I've figured it out. I've also made this show for 10 years. I've also put books out. I've also been doing this creative practice for over 15 years. And, you know, I've learned a thing or two about it. And I'm learning some stuff right now. So this can be a huge freaking block, man. It can be one of the things that holds back your entire art process, refusing to do anything that might be polarizing, doing anything that you're excited about that you know other people have a critique of.

7:43That can be an incredibly huge block. But there's actually an earlier block that I think happens to even more creative people. and it's much less acknowledged and talked about i think because we don't realize we know you know that making art a big part of it is about standing out it's about being original doing a different thing not caring what other people think and just trusting your own instinct you probably already have a sense that that's what art is about right but i would say that's kind of at least step two and that before that, where I think a lot of creative people get stuck and where I was stuck for a long time was, I don't want to be like anyone else, that I don't want to follow the formula.

8:33I don't wanna learn the rule. I don't wanna fall in. I don't wanna do it like they do it. Early in my journey as a picture bookmaker, I resisted, 12 years ago, resisted the idea of learning storytelling, learning structure learning these tools because i i was like i don't want i want to do my own thing i don't want to do the formula man and the same was true for illustration and pretty much everything that i've ever done my initial response is i don't want to learn the rules where i want to go is breaking the rules why would i want to learn them right so that's actually a place where you can get stuck first now if you can get past that if you can somehow trick yourself into i had to tricked myself into reading about the hero's journey, reading about story structure.

9:23I really thought that I was just, I saw that when I did end up doing it, I thought I was disconnected from making picture books and making the podcast and public speaking. I thought I was just doing that as like personal hobby, spiritual practice, like learning about myth and all that kind of stuff. And so I had to find this weird subconscious backdoor into it. But by the time I was into it, then I was like all about it. Then I was obsessed with it. And that's when you hit the next block. Because once you get past not wanting to be part of the team and you become part of the team, then it becomes increasingly difficult to break the rules because being part of the team, being accepted by your peers, being celebrated by your industry or field or genre feels pretty good.

10:21The perks are nice. We like to belong. It's essential to being a social animal, to being a relational being like a human. And so that's where this second block shows up. because once you've finally accepted you need to belong and then you are accepted into the belonging, risking breaking that, you know, potentially hurting your place in that group, all of a sudden becomes very, very scary because you're talking about risking social standing, social status and everything else, all the other trappings that come with it. And the thing that helped me figure this out or not figure it out, like I said, I don't feel like I have it figured out.

11:12Maybe it's a lifelong thing I'm going to be going through. I always end up finding myself in places where I'm actually bending the knee to whatever the rules are of my particular group. But the thing that has helped me recently find a little bit of reprieve from that and have some courage to do the kind of work I want to do and say the kind of things I want to say on the show and what have you was a thing from the hero's journey. But it's a lesser known one because the popularized hero's journey that you've heard about, a lot of that doesn't come from Joseph Campbell, even though he gets the credit.

11:51it a lot of that comes from the guy christopher vogler who came along later and turned the comparative myth studies that joseph campbell did on the monomyth on the hero's journey the hero of a thousand faces and turned it into a screenwriting guide called the writer's journey and he took all the stages and he simplified them down to 12 stages those are the ones if you are familiar with the hero's journey those are the ones you're probably familiar with unless you're just a total nerd and have been geeking out on this for a long time and went back to some of that source material but if you did you would find that there are other stages that you might not have heard as much about even though you will recognize them one of them is called wearing the enemy's skin now as soon as i say that stuff might come to mind because it's all through story it's all through culture.

12:46You've seen it a hundred times. It's the idea of when the heroes are going to dress up like the enemies and make their way into the enemy camp. So this happens in Wizard of Oz. They dress up like the witch's guards and get into the castle. It happens in Star Wars. Luke and Han and them dress up like stormtroopers and they break into the Death Star. It's an essential part of this process, this mirrors these two blocks for me. And it helped me see that when I was there, it helped me see two things that have helped me find some ability to break through that concern of others' opinions. It helped me see two things.

13:31One, it helped me see that that first stage of breaking in and belonging, it wasn't just about belonging. That if I see it as, I wasn't trying to just become let into the club of being an illustrator, let into the club of doing editorial work and working for these publications, doing the picture books, doing the podcasting, getting invited on stage, that kind of thing. It wasn't just about trying to assimilate. that in a way it was wearing the enemy's clothes because actually I want to come in and I want to say, actually, I would do it this way. I want to, I don't want to just be a storm trooper.

14:15I'm actually putting on all this gear so that I get in there so that I can do something different. So that was the first thing that it helped me see it a little bit different and be like, oh, it's not my purpose to just wear the garb so that everybody likes me and I get all the perks. That was the first thing. Second thing is, it helped me to see where I could find the courage. And this is a little, I'm a little bit scared about going into this element because I think it's a little bit complicated or maybe it's not complicated, but it's just a different thought. And like I said, I have a loose grasp of it right now, but I think there's something here.

14:58And so I wanted to share it. the next block can be that it can be pretty cozy in that stormtrooper lounge, right? Like they got nice coffee machine. They got some sweet mints in there, maybe little packets of crisps and chips, whatever you call them. It can get nice in that belonging, right? And maybe you went into it thinking I'm going to do things differently to the point where it was hard for you to even act the part but once you're in there you're like you know what kind of like in this situation actually these stormtroopers aren't so bad you're making some friends you realize okay maybe they got it wrong maybe they're kind of doing the art style in a way i wouldn't do it or i mean i'm mixing it all up now but you start making friends you're like that's kind of nice i don't know if i really want to ruffle any feathers i don't know if i really want to ruffle any lasers you're like now you're on this whole other block so if you're in that space where you're like i know the things i want to do but nobody like me nobody in my industry in my field in my market and my genre does the thing that i want to do none of the people like me none of the pop musicians like me make ballads anymore.

16:20Maybe you're in a position where you want to tell stories that have a message and that's not cool anymore. That's kind of where I feel like I am a little bit. And you know you got to break through, but you're worried about what you might be risking. I think the next thing that I took from this trope from story is that wearing the enemy's skin, it's not just about foiling the enemy. And by the way, any of you that think that I'm talking about the competition in my field as true enemies are missing the freaking point. I don't see them as enemies. Okay. I'm not wired competitively like that. These are friends.

17:11These are peers. I'm using it through the metaphor, but seeing it through this trope, through this symbolism has helped me because what that's all about, really, it's a metaphor for empathy. It's a metaphor for understanding other people. And so when you start thinking about, and this is where it gets tricky, because when you start thinking about how am I going to break free from the pack? How am I going to go my own way? It can feel like I'm trying to sacrifice the whole, the community, trying to sacrifice that for what's good for me, for the benefit of me, for me to do my thing. But when you think about this in context and you realize that it's this putting on the enemy's skin is about finding empathy for the enemy, is you realize that when Neo from the Matrix unplugs, he's not doing it because he hates the people that are plugged in.

18:31He's not going back into the Matrix because he hates these people. He's not putting on the enemy's garb because he can't stand them. He's doing it out of compassion and empathy for them. The same goes for Finn from Star Wars where he's not going to say, I'm throwing off this stormtrooper thing i'm sabotaging the bad guy's plan because i hate all these people he's doing it because he wants to liberate them and we just watched k-pop demon hunters at the theater um we've watched it a couple times now and i'm a big fan it's i don't want to get too nerdy about it but one of the things i think is kind of fun and interesting is the hero is rumi And she's kind of on what's a traditional heroine's journey, which is not about gender.

19:18It's a type of story. So Harry Potter is a heroine's journey. It doesn't really matter what gender it is. But through this lens, the heroine's journey is very much about you can't do this alone. You have to do it with your friends. You have to do it with the community. It's a journey about belonging, which is kind of similar to that first journey we were talking about. And then the, what's his name? Genu, who is kind of the bad guy, the rival lead of the boy band. He's kind of on a hero's journey where he has to sacrifice himself. He has to go it alone. He has to go from being a demon and put on the enemy skin and become a pop star.

19:58And so it's really, I think, you know, there's a lot of really interesting dynamics. It's a great, great movie. The reason I bring it up is the same thing is true here, where as he dresses in the enemy clothing, he finds empathy for the enemy. And the reason I bring that up is because this notion that you have to say, F everybody else's opinion, I'm breaking free, I don't care, I'm sacrificing the whole for the betterment of myself. I think we have it kind of backwards. Because if you're looking for that supercharged energy that's going to allow you to break free from opinions of others, it might have to be for the exact opposite reason.

20:43It might be sacrificing your own ego, your own potential social standing for the good of the whole, for the good of the community, that as you have become part of that system and you've become comfortable there and you look around at the other musicians, the other writers, the other actors, whoever it is, the other filmmakers, the thing that pushes you out to doing your own thing, to risking your reputation, I don't know if it's gonna be ego. I don't know if it's gonna be like, this is just good for me because it's a risk for you. But what if that social cohesion, that drive that we have to be a part of things and be a part of something bigger than ourselves, what if that is the thing that can allow you to say, I'm gonna go out on a limb because even though it might risk everything, it's actually, I think, gonna be good for everybody if I can pull it off.

21:47And it makes me think of people, You know, the stories you hear of celebrities coming out as gay in a time when that was really frowned upon or really was risking your career, that they tell that story. And so many times you hear them say, it wasn't really about me because I think I stood to lose a lot. It was about the people coming up after me. It was about trying to make a better situation or tell a story or make art for the people that needed it. And that it actually, they believed that it was going to make society better. It was going to make the community better. It was going to be better for the whole.

22:27Now, that little difference, I can't tell if that's just too convoluted and confusing. Or maybe not even confusing, but maybe just such a dramatic shift. because I think so much conversation around how do you not care what other people think is rooted in we think, oh, we're just doing this for ourselves. But I wonder if the reason why we struggle to do that is because we think we're doing it to better our own situation, to be selfish. When in reality, you don't want to throw off all care about what other people think. That's called being a sociopath. That structure, that drive that says we want to be part of something, we want to belong, that's key to our humanity.

23:19And anything that throws our humanity off, I can't imagine is going to make us a better artist. And so I ran into something recently that I want to share as our CTA that helped me take this to a more practical level and find what are those things, those little things, not everything. I don't have to live in such a way where I'm dramatically an assault on society. But what are those little things that are supercharged enough that say, I want to, I'm willing to risk my reputation. I'm willing to risk not be, just maybe not being liked. I'm willing to risk a couple of bad comments because this thing I think is good.

24:06Good for me. Good for others. good for pushing my genre or my niche forward. And so I'm gonna share that with you in just a sec.

24:39so if you're new to the show you might not know that we like to end every episode with not as good feels hopefully you got some of that but how do you put those feelings to actions how do you do something with this that can make a difference in your creative journey and so we call it the cta not call to action but call to adventure the creative call to adventure let's go this week it's The CTA is Dumb Pride. And this comes from a recent guest on the show, Angus Fletcher, who wrote a book called Primal Intelligence. And this action, this activity, this adventure comes from that book and it's called Dumb Pride.

25:17And it's about how do you tap into those things that you believe, those purposes, those objectives that you are so sold out on that you will risk social standing, that you will stick to them even if you have nothing to gain. In fact, you might have something to lose. And so this exercise is look back in your life, even go back into childhood and think about when was a time that I stood my ground even though it didn't benefit me in any way personally. It actually maybe hurt me because you're getting at, and I connected it to this idea because for me, it's getting at a principle. And this principle is, you know, being social animals, being relational beings are principles.

26:10Most of them are about humanity, community, you know, what's right, what's good for being people. And so if you're willing to risk your ego, risk your individuality on a principle. It's usually because you think this is good for the whole. And so the dumb pride exercise says look back to childhood. I'll give you a couple of examples. Childhood, younger version of you all throughout. When was a time where you did something and you knew this isn't going to help me in any way, but it's the principle of that thing. The example that Angus gives in the book is when he was in elementary school, they were going on a field trip and they were getting on the bus and the teachers were telling him to sit down and he realized there's no seatbelts on this bus.

27:04And he's like, I'm not doing it. I'm not sitting down. And they're like, well, if you don't sit down, you can't go. You're going to end up in the office waiting for your mom to come pick you up. And he's like, fine, I'll do it. And that was a time where he sacrificed his self, his own joy, his own field trip. And man, you remember what field trips were like as kids. It was the day out of the fricking jail. Sometimes it felt like. And so he sacrificed that because there was a principle there that meant more to him, that this isn't right. This isn't safe. Now I'll give you two examples for me. One was just, I thought was interesting just because it was the one that came to mind.

27:47And so the first one that came to mind was I was in first grade and we're at the lunch table and we're all talking about who knows what flipping off means. Does anybody know what this means? You know, the middle finger and we're all talking about, yeah, I know what it means. I know what it means. And it's, you know, very like we're talking about some risky stuff here and i don't know how it got here but we were arguing about whether flipping off was only wrong like sticking your middle finger up was only wrong if you were doing it at somebody i was arguing that no it did it wasn't wrong if you were just doing it to a wall.

28:29If you just had your middle finger up and you weren't actually intending to flip anybody off or, you know, do that gesture to somebody, it didn't mean anything. It wasn't bad. And they were like, yes, it is. Yes, it is. And I was like, no, it isn't. Watch. And I flipped off the wall and I believe they told on me. But there was something about that. I don't even know what it is, but there's just something about, there's like a, an underpinning, a philosophical thing that was driving me nuts that I had to take it to the next level. Now, I don't really know how that relates to what I'm doing now, but I can see looking back in my own creative journey, this happened a bunch of times.

29:11One of the times that it happened was starting this podcast. Now, I know kids, it's hard to remember a time where there weren't lots of people on TikTok and Instagram reels talking about career strategy. But back in my day, when I started the show in 2014, I really strongly felt like nobody in my industry is doing this and that it might be career destroying to start talking about the career side, to talk about the career strategy of creativity, talk about the marketing talk about the yeah just to kind of dissect it on the table even i might be putting myself out there in such a way where i'm going to get ostracized for this community and i chose to do it because i have because i know how essential it has been to me to find work that works with who I am rather than against who I am.

30:13And that's especially difficult to do when you are a neurodivergent person, when you don't slot easily into the way that society is organized. And it had been such a game changer for me that I knew that I was willing to risk. And I also knew I had stuff to potentially gain. It's not like I thought, oh, there's only one way this is going to go and it's going to be bad. Yes, I thought there could be all kinds of good things that come from this, for sure. It wasn't completely selfless, but there was an aspect of it that required courage. And when we're talking about how do you find it within yourself to put yourself out there and risk humiliation, risk a negative comment, I think the key isn't to think F everybody else's opinion, F everybody else, I got to do me.

31:10I think it's the opposite. That the thing that's going to allow you to get past that structure in your mind that says do not stand out at all costs isn't going to be saying screw the community. It's going to be finding those little parts of yourself, those little purposes, that little thing that you have dumb pride in, that you are willing to risk it. Those little things that say, this matters so much to the community that I'm willing to risk my own reputation on it. And so can you look back into your past of those things you have dumb pride in? Dumb pride because it wasn't smart. it wasn't good for, it was not necessarily good for you.

31:59What are those things? And then you isolate those and try to understand what is it about that principle? What is it about that thing that I was willing to stand up for that is connected to my values, that is connected to what I believe is good for the pack, even if it's not good for me or my rep? And if you can find just a few of those, you can tell a hundred stories. You can make a hundred illustrations connected to something supercharged like that. When you find something, you're like, I'll tell you another one. Another one for me is, I'll go on the mountain, I'll go to the grave, I'll go through the rivers and through the ocean.