535 - If You Only Listen to One Episode of this Podcast This Year Make it This One

0:00Struggling to find decent information around how to build your creative practice. You're struggling to wade through the gobs of information that's coming at you every single day from every single platform. And it is super overwhelming. And I have tried really intentionally to not make this podcast more of that, more noise, more overwhelm, more just info dumping on to, you know, just for the dopamine hit. I'm like, I'm learning. But for me, all of the biggest changes in my creative practice have come from not huge ideas, all this info, all that stuff, but implementing small things intentionally and in a somewhat disciplined fashion over time.

0:53And so this episode, what it's about, we're going to review five ideas from this podcast in 2025 and try to get them down to their most like shareable, retainable points so that you can take action on at least one of these in a significant way. because for me, the biggest things that have happened in my creative practice have come from the smallest things that I've done consistently and done intentionally. My daily drawing project of drawing one little character on a white background every day for a year, that turned into a bestselling kids book 10 years later, right? Like, or more 10 plus years later, or doing this podcast every week for years and years and years turned into meeting Ernie, dancing with Ernie when I got to go speak to a team at Sesame Street and I got to watch them actually filming it.

1:58And then Ernie came over and I'm telling you, I didn't see a puppeteer. It's not in my memory. All I know is I danced with Ernie and it changed my life. And that came from just the small things of doing it, taking action. And so I want to review five different things that we explored, my favorite ideas from this year so that you can put one of these small things to work in your practice in the new year. And so we're going to work through those. Your creative call to adventure. This episode is a create your own adventure episode, meaning I'm going to give you these five options and your action is to figure out which of these resonates, which of these solve some problem for you.

2:44And you can go listen to the episode it came from and figure out a way, make a plan to implement some of this in your creative practice today. That's what we're doing. Hope it sounds good. Let's get into it. On 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

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5:07And it gets at this thing that I think a lot of creative people do and get stuck with, and it's called overthinking, overanalysis, analysis paralysis. For me, I can fall into this trap of thinking about, should I do that thing? Should I do this thing? Should I do it this way? Should it be a graphic novel? Should it be a chapter book? Should it be illustrated? Should it be just prose? Like, what should it be? Should this podcast be an interview podcast? Should it be a monologue podcast? Should it have a high premise? Should it not? Should I niche down? Should I not? All of that stuff. I started this show in 2014, but I wanted to start Credit Pep Talk in 2010, but I didn't do it for four years because instead of doing it, I was thinking about doing it and nothing changed.

5:54I didn't get anywhere. Everything I learned about how to do this podcast, quote, unquote right came from doing it and so i can get caught up looking for signs and symbols for what is the right path and instead i think making art is more like inserting a usb stick into your computer it doesn't make sense to like all right let me take a look at this thing see if i can find the sign or symbol that tells me which side is up the little usb weird logo okay yeah that's that one. No, that quit. Like a lot of the times that's even rubbed off. You're not even going to see anything. What you do when you put a USB stick in is you try one way, you feel the resistance.

6:36You're like, nope, it's not that. Then you try the other way and you realize like, no, that's really resistance. And then you flip it back and do it the original way and realize that level of resistance was actually the right level of resistance. That's such an important notion for me because every type of creative work comes with its own level of resistance. And one of the only ways to know whether it's the good kind of resistance or the bad kind of resistance is to do both. Now, you don't have to do the whole book as a chapter book or a graphic novel, but you can do five pages and you can internalize like, okay, what level of resistance am I feeling?

7:14Does this feel resistant? Like it's hard. It's a challenge. It feels like making creative work or does this feel like resistance, like I'm not ready for this. This is not where I'm at. This is not who I am. Like that kind of resistance. And the only way I ever get a sense of that is trying it, doing it, working it out. This is what I love about project-based side projects, like side quests, where I'm going to make a bet, which is my commitment level, based on how sure I am that this is a good idea. So that might look like I'm going to do five pieces in this direction, in this project, because I don't really know if this is a good idea.

7:55Or like when I started this podcast, I had already done a blog for a long time. I knew it was like deep in my passion. I never shut up. I thought this is, you know, something. And I, and I had done these talks that were kind of in the vein of what I wanted to do that I loved. So I felt really certain more so than other times that this was something I wanted to make a big bet on. So I was like, I'm going to do this for two years. I'm going to try to make a hundred episodes of this thing before I call it quits. At the beginning of this year, I did a similar thing with YouTube where I was like, I, we've messed around with YouTube since 2017.

8:27I feel like there's some, there's, it's worthwhile not thinking about it anymore, but doing it and then having a post analysis instead of a pre-analysis. And I said, we're going to do it for 30 episodes, which is almost half a year, more than half a year of podcasts. And then we're going to decide whether this is right or wrong. And so that's the first thing. If you are in your head, ruminating, constantly, not actually doing anything, what I suggest you do is you make a proof of concept. You put it down on the page, you do a small project or medium project, whatever you feel ready for. And you do it both ways.

9:03I do this with, I do it in the macro. I do it in the micro where I'm like, if I don't know if this should be a line drawing for the episode art or a shape-based one, I'm going to do both. And then I'm just going to pick which one feels more right rather than perfect. And so if you want to dive deeper into this idea, this USB metaphor and this whole thing, we go deep on it on episode 502. It's called how to beat the analysis paralysis of the right path in quotes. Because is there a right path? Who knows? I don't really know about that. But what feels right and and overwhelming yourself with, is this the right path?

9:40Is it not the right path? No, just go do it. Learn from it. Learn with your hands rather than trying to figure it out, running the simulations over in your head. It's just not a great way to learn. This is one of the things I love about storytelling is that we get these heroes that always want the wrong thing, but they learn the right thing by taking action, by engaging with obstacles. So that's what I'm trying to do. If you need to go deeper into that, check out episode 502. Yeah, I think I had one other thing to say about this, which was, oh, this also just gets into something that we've talked a lot about this year, which is bad feelings aren't necessarily wrong way signs in the creative path.

10:25Bad feelings are like uncomfortable. This doesn't feel we're not sure if it feels right. Insecure, imposter syndrome, all that stuff. That's all part of being a creative person. I recently heard PD USA who I'm a big fan of he does tiktok videos and also amazing his tiktok videos are some of the best on on the platform they're hilarious and then his music is better than his tiktok videos I can't even believe this guy um big fan of this guy he was just on the soul boom podcast with uh rain wilson and he talked about this like he was speaking about how song writing is freaking hard. It's not all fun.

11:04And to me, I like to think of that as wrestling. Like if you were a professional wrestler or an Olympic wrestler, it is going to be hard. It's going to be uncomfortable, but it actually is part of what's fun about it. And I think if we can have that relationship to the creative work, like I'm working on a puzzle, I'm wrestling with something because it's more fun than just sitting there looking at my phone, right? It's a discomfort that's preferable sometimes to the comfort of just zoning out, looking at garbagio. Okay. That's number one. Beat the analysis paralysis by this or that. Yes. Number two on the list is do the same thing differently.

11:47This is about creative habit formation. Listen, I'm not the guy getting on the internet saying all you got to do is habits they're easy once you get habits everything's great man your life will be saved no i habit formation for me is years in the making like little tiny habits it takes so long for me to create something that has some semblance of a habit it's not really a habit for me as a neurodivergent person i have a hard time i don't really have an autopilot. When I'm brushing my teeth, I'm all there, baby. I have to figure out, I'm going to walk around, I'm going to watch some dumb video for, I have to figure out how to get through it, right?

12:35And so for me, when I, however, all that and the most important ways that I have somewhat got my life together in the ways that I have got it together as a creative person have come from developing things that resemble habits, things that I do on a regular basis, routines kind of, I don't even know, maybe we need a different word, but for now we'll call them creative habits, which get at the oxymoron, I don't know how to say oxymoronical, I don't know, it's not a word, but I'm trying to create something. the the the opposing nature of creative and habit creativity doing different things doing new things habit doing the same things this is a battle in the creative brain and in the creative life so how do you do it how if they matter so much and they really have mattered to me how do you have anything like a habit in your life if you don't do this naturally.

13:43Because the conventional wisdom for regular folks is if you do the same thing the same way long enough, it will become automatic for you. You will have an autopilot moment and it will just kind of lock in. Some people, you know, depending on what it is and depending what the research says, it's anywhere from like six weeks to three months or something. If you do that thing, eventually you only have to think about it. You want to have resistance. It'll just happen. But for me, right around the time they would say, this is when it gets easy. It doesn't just get, it's already been hard the whole time, but right around that time, it doesn't get easier.

14:23It gets harder when they tell me it's supposed to become automatic because my brain is like, this has never been more boring and annoying and I don't want it. And so right when they say this is when the automatic kicks in, I stall and break down and it disappears. And what I've come to realize in my own life is that it's kind of like an automatic car versus a manual car. And I have a manual brain. My mom drove a stick shift. She was one of the only people I knew that did that. I kind of guess that this neurodivergence mostly comes from her, the ADHD, getting bored easily, that sort of thing. even though she's not really diagnosed.

15:06I don't feel comfortable diagnosing other people, but my mom, it's gotta come from somewhere and it probably didn't come from my corporate accountant father anyway, who's very, very regimented and habitual in all of his nature. She drove a stick shift because she needed to keep those hands busy. She had to keep it interesting and creative habit formation is the same where the conventional wisdom says, do it the same way, do the same thing the same way and it will become automatic. I have found out that that does not work for me. I have a manual brain. I have to do the same thing in a different way.

15:41I have to keep my hands busy, my brain busy. I have to keep it interesting, man. And so for me, I have had a pretty regular habit of running for something like seven or eight years. And getting that to happen was so painful, but I fought it. I tried to create that habit for probably a decade because I knew when I had it, it was so good for my brain. But it was really hard to get myself to do it. And what I learned was that I needed to not long distance run. I needed to long distance dance. And what I mean by that is my pace and how I engage, it is all about keeping the playlist fresh. I'll run on the treadmill in the winter.

16:30And right now I'm doing these like hit exercise kind of thing where it's running and slow jogging. And it's all down to how the song evolves. So when the song really hits, that's when I'm going to sprint. And then I'm really going to get into it. And then when it goes slow, I'm going to run slow. And then I do it differently every time because I'm constantly keeping that playlist updated. And then I will burn every last drop of dopamine out of each song. and then I will never listen to that again. So for me, what it looks like is how do I do the same thing, not in the same way, but in a different way?

17:07How do I make it interesting? How do I keep it fun? That's essential. And the same goes for this podcast. Same goes for my picture books. I have to figure out what is gonna make this fun. So that's your second one. If you wanna dive deeper into this, it's episode 513, why creatives have to build habits differently and how to do it. Number three, singles, albums, and tour. So this comes from episode 515 and it was called want to quit social media, three essential considerations for any creative practice. And what that is all about is I hear all of these creative people very, very rightfully so being fed up with social media.

17:55It's not really social media anymore because we don't follow people like we used to or even see their content. There isn't really that much of a social component. It's really like daytime TV, like your TikTok feed and your Instagram feed and your Facebook feed. It's literally like being at home, sick as a kid, trying to find anything to watch on TV. And it's just freaking televangelist. and infomercials selling you stuff and America's home funniest videos like fails. Like that's what social media has become. It's become daytime TV. And it's very addictive, but it's not very helpful in almost any way, especially for creative people.

18:36And so I see all this mass exodus or at least mass conversation of an exodus about social media. They have us in their grips so much so that we're really having a hard time getting off there and I feel that really hard. And so I think it's a great conversation to have. The only thing that I wanted to add to that conversation was it's all well and good. If you can make sure you have these three essential business elements to your creative practice. If you're practicing as a business or you want to sell what you do or you want to grow that connection with your audience. You really need three things for your business to work.

19:19And we could go into the marketing speak. We could go into funnels, marketing funnels and the customer journey, but that doesn't seem very fun or interesting to me. And it makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little bit, even though I'm telling you there's some helpful stuff there. I'll cut all that out. I'll cut to the chase what it really looks like. And it's been happening in the music and happening in the music industry for a very long time. And it is three things. You got to have these three aspects of your business, whether you make music or not, you got to have your singles, how people are finding out about you.

19:53Discoverability. You have to, how are, where, you can get off social media as long as you know where people are going to find out about you. And it could be a postcard. It could be a sub stack. It could be doing gallery shows, whatever it is. You have to have an answer. If you're going to have a thriving creative practice with a relationship to an audience, You got to say, what are my singles? What are my hits? What am I making that is really about getting discovered? Number two, you got to have your albums. How do they go deep? How do they know you're legit, man? How do you get that? How do you communicate that?

20:28For me, all albums are, quote unquote, albums are, doing a lot of air quotes today for the video viewers. And if you're not, just picture this for a second. It's going to blow your freaking mind. I'm just in my recording studio and I'm doing air quotes. We do video on the show. I'm always going to make it so that you don't have to watch because I love companion media that you can do while you're doing other stuff. And podcasts or audio podcasts are great for that. And video in the background is great for that. Anyway, I'm getting off track. What I'm trying to say is I'm talking about podcasts because a podcast is a long form media.

21:08a long form newsletter is works talks work for this you've got to have some way case studies you've got to have some way of when those people discover you and they want to learn more about you and learn like who are you associated with what are you about what are your values what what is your work what's the deep cuts like what is it really all about for you you've got to have a place for them to do that podcasts work for that all of these things the albums are all about long form. Do you have a place where they can go deep on what you do? If you don't, then you need to figure it out. If you do, and it's not on social media, you can get off of there.

21:49If you also have this third thing, which is the tour. Now the tour, the merch, they're kind of tied in together. And what the tour and the merch is about is how, what is the economic engine? How do you keep this thing working? How do you keep it going? Where's the sales for musicians that seem to be prospering? They figured out how to release merch in a way that makes lots of money. They figured out how to make that a big part of what they do. They figured out how to make the tour make money because they're not making money on the singles and the albums. The singles are the discovery. The albums are the going deep, the trust, like creating the relationship.

22:28And then the last piece is turning those fans into customers and doing so in such a way where it is an economic engine that fuels your whole thing. So you have to have all three of those. So for me, the podcast, even before we ever did any sponsors, whatever, and sponsors and that kind of thing are only just a fraction of how I make a living, but it adds up, it helps us pay for it, gives me a little something for the time. But really, there was a straight line all the way to, this will help me get speaking gigs. This will help me get client work. This will help me get the word out about my books.

23:06That's the tour of the merch. So you can jump off social media 100 % as long as you can answer those questions. What are my singles? What are my albums? And what is the tour?

23:38number four quit trying to be creative just quit quit trying to be creative that's one of my goals in 2026 is to quit it's just quit i'm gonna quit trying to be creative and what that's all about is it comes from this notion from Ian McGilchrist in his book, The Master and His Emissary. I'm gonna keep talking about that for a long time because it's such a long book and I'm listening to it on audio and I can only take on so much because it's really dense, very, very interesting. It's about, he's trying to get at the real science of the right hemisphere versus the left hemisphere of the brain. There's tons of contention in the science community around that.

24:20Yes, the general pop psychology understanding of right and left brain people isn't really accurate, isn't really a thing. Your brain is involved, your whole brain is involved in so many aspects of what you do, rational, emotional, art, logic, all of that. He tries to really parse down what is this really all about? Why do we have these two hemispheres? What are their essential nature? How do they differ? But there's a lot of critique and discussion around that. However, I will say I'm noticing this right, left brain thing become a bigger part of the conversation again. People like Jill Bolte-Taylor, Martha Beck, they're talking about this thing because I think partially there is some truth in the science, but then also it's just giving us a framework to talk about these different ways that the brain works and how we end up creating stronger neural pathways in things like logic and rationality and strategy versus curiosity and wonder and creativity.

25:23So that's all I think important stuff. Anyway, what I'm talking about with this one is why you need to stop trying to be creative. And the inspiration for this came from that book, Ian McGilchrist's book. And he said that, it's kind of a throwaway comment in the book, but it's basically saying that there are, he's going into how there are things we do that we don't do on command. We can't do them on purpose. We can't, it's not like move your hand and you just do it. There are things in which the brain does that happen. We're not in control. And one of the most obvious ones of these is sleep. You cannot force yourself to sleep.

26:06You cannot try to sleep even in a way you have to pretend to sleep, create the environment to make sleep likely to happen. And it's called sleep hygiene. All these things. Don't use screen so much before you go to bed. Make sure it's dark, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All these different things. That's not what we're here talking about. What we're talking about is how do you make creativity happen in your brain? And creativity is also like sleep. It is a thing where it happens. You can't just say, I'm going to go over to the creative part of my brain. No, it's very fuzzy. It's very abstract. And it's not in your control.

26:44But it is like sleep in that just because you can't control it doesn't mean you don't have influence over it, major influence. And so instead of trying to be like, oh, time to be creative right now, instead start thinking about your creative hygiene. What does it look like when creativity shows up for you? For me, it's I'm in the bath or I am in, I'm drawing. I like this notion that drawing isn't being creative. It's something you do that it's thinking with your hands. And it's the kind of thing that when you're doing it, like laying down for sleep, it's when creativity often happens. And so that episode we did, we did, it was episode 529 and it was about escape your creative rut with this five-part creative hygiene checklist.

27:33That episode is all about things you can do to make creativity likely to happen. And so that going in 2026, that's what I want to do. I want to have, what I also, what I think is essential about this is getting into your creative zone. So much of it is about letting go. It's about being out of your critical brain. It's about having fun, play, all of that requires being smushy and porous and letting stuff occur, not controlling. And so I like this shift because you're acknowledging I can't force this to happen. And often, the more I try, the harder it is to go to sleep, the harder it is to be creative.

28:19And so creating good creative hygiene, I think, is really essential to getting your best ideas, to getting into the flow state. If you need to dive deeper into that, check out episode 529. All right, we're going, we're doing it. This is number five, know the twist is coming. Number five, know the twist is coming. This is how you're gonna get your creative secret weapon, how you're gonna figure out what is your edge creatively. This is about what we're calling creative salience. It was inspired, that salience, I got thinking more about that from that same Ian McGilchrist book, but also it's something I've heard youngians talk about.