449 - How to Unlock Your Creativity with Tina Wells

0:00So you started a company when you were 16 years old. I mean, when I was 16 years old, I was thinking back to like some of my home movies and I'm doing crazy dances and you know what I mean? Like you started a company. Can you take us back and tell us the story of the Buzz Marketing Group and how it came to be? Yes. Well, the first thing I have to tell you is I am an accidental entrepreneur. In no way, shape or form did I think at 16, I want to start a marketing company and blah, blah, blah. No. My dream at 15 was to be a fashion writer. I was reading Seventeen Magazine. I answered an ad to join the staff of a newspaper for girls, and I got hired as a product review editor.

0:43And I was so excited. I didn't quite get what that meant. But then I was like, I guess I try products and I tell people what I think. And that led to me sending clips to companies. And they always said the same thing. If I send you more product, will you keep telling me what you think? And at 16, I thought, this is the dreamiest gig one can have. Didn't even know I could make money doing it. It came a couple of years later in college where I got the tip I should be charging, right place, right time, talked to a professor, figured out a business plan. But in the beginning, I just wanted to be, and not just, but I wanted to be a fashion writer.

1:16That was the dream. And so I took a really long path to get to where I am now, but I did not start out. I'm very much an accidental entrepreneur. And so once you started getting that feel for reviewing products and kind of giving your your perspective and your insight on it. Did you feel like marketing for you was a natural gift, or was that something that you had to develop as you were going along? It was definitely natural. And what happened when I was in school and college, and then at Wharton post-grad was I started to put terms around the things I was naturally doing. I was like, oh, what you're calling experiential is when I did A, B, and C, right?

1:57And so I was starting to to form the language of how I was going to communicate all of this professionally, but it was just an instinct. I had an instinct around the idea that companies needed to connect with young people in a real way. And, you know, an instinct around, even when I started my writing and Mackenzie Blue way back in the day, like an instinct that we needed to create really cool content for girls and for younger readers that was just as exciting as the stuff that we thought maybe they shouldn't be reading. And so a lot of it for me was like gut instinct. That's awesome. And so tell me more too, because I can't even imagine.

2:32I know even when I was in my early twenties, there was this part of me that was so incredibly ambitious. And there was this confidence that came from being naive, quite frankly, not knowing. It's just like, I'm going to make this happen and just do it. You're pitching these enormous companies. Did you feel like you were equipped to go in there and just give presentations and nail that kind of business? or did you have someone that kind of mentored you and showed you the ropes and you're like, oh, I got this? Yeah. So it's funny. I'm the oldest of six children, raised in suburban New Jersey. My dad's an only child.

3:08My mom is one of 14. And so all eight of my uncles had had their own businesses at some point. So I grew up in an entrepreneurial environment. My mom was definitely the one that was like, this is how you write a professional letter. This is how you fax. She taught me all of those things. But what I realized at that time was I had the information that these companies wanted. They wanted and needed desperately to understand younger consumers. In the mid-90s, it was teen culture. So think about NSYNC, Backstreet Boys. That's when teen people, teen Vogue, we had this explosion, right? And then they became millennials.

3:43So I always knew that I had information the companies wanted. And then after the meeting, after I delivered the information, then was probably the moment where I was like, whoa, that was really stressful. But in the moment, it was just like, I have a solution to your problem. And that's really how I operated during that time. So I caught something that you said. You said, even when I started writing Mackenzie Blue, and this was a question I was really curious about because I've known you for so many years as this marketing powerhouse. And frankly, it wasn't until I think a couple of years ago when we reconnected that I was like, oh, wow, children's books.

4:20It was this whole other piece. I'm like, oh, my friend Tina's multi-passionate. Yes. We're all in this family here. Did you always know that you wanted to write children's books? Was this a simul career that was happening as you were also running Buzz Marketing? I just want to get a timeline of when that started to really bubble up for you. Yeah. So I always loved reading, always loved writing. And I think I always had in my head, I want to do a lot of things, but this one thing kept being the thing to propel me forward. Right. And I still remember talking to my advisor, my senior year of college.

4:53So mind you, this is six years in business. And I say to him, I don't know that I want to do this thing. Like, I'm just good at this thing. But then people think I'm this girl that has like, I didn't like my, like the way I was being talked about in the media. And I said, maybe I'll just try it for a year and I'll go to law school after if that doesn't work out. Let me interrupt you there for a minute. When you say you didn't like the way that people were talking to you about the media, can you give us specifics? Yeah. So I was a teenager who had started a marketing company. I was doing research and it was more about this cool girl, this young girl's doing this thing.

5:26So I was like, I don't know that people take me seriously. I don't really know that this is how I want to be branded. I feel like it's a personal thing, not about a business I'm building. So I just, I wasn't all in. I just thought I did this through college. I'd done it through high school. Maybe I need something else. Interesting. Okay. So now you're contemplating law school. You're not sure if you want to keep running the marketing agency that you've been running for six years. What conclusion did you come to? So what I said to him is I'm going to try it for a year and then we'll see what happens.

6:01And within that year, I had opened my first office in New York City. And when I was in college, I spoke at this big music industry conference. And I was one of three researchers. So I'm with big, big research companies. We're talking about illegal music downloading. And two gentlemen get up and they're like, guys, this isn't going to be a problem. I remember clear as day, they're like 17 % of the population does this. Not going to be a problem for us. I get up, you know, this is probably if I'm graduating, it's 2002. And I say, well, I've done a survey of 500 teenagers, 99 % of them have illegally downloaded over the last 30 days, and they have no plans to stop.

6:43And I remember getting like cut out of billboard. And what happened is I got a call from the head of research at Sony and she said, you are the only person who told the truth. I know what you're saying is true. And we want to work with you. And I had a blissful almost 10 years of doing research with all of the Sony BMG labels. And that's so I was like in New York, had this really great client, started to build business. And then, you know, I look up three years later, I have a cover story in O Magazine, and you know what that does for your career at 25 years old. And I thought, okay, now I feel like I've built something that my company is becoming branded.

7:22We have the best clients in the world and I'm doing really exciting work. And I felt like, okay, this feels good. Amazing. Okay. So things are cooking. Buzz marketing's happening. Cover story on Oprah. You're feeling great. Advance us through the story. I know somewhere in my research, and I don't know where this falls in the timeline. I can't wait to hear the story of it, but I feel like you took a six month sabbatical. So then what happens is marketing is going great. I get hired by a publisher and they've just bought a book from Alloy. So for those of you who don't know, at the time when I was doing marketing, there were a few of us that were considered like the big guys in the youth marketing space.

8:04So myself, Mr. Youth, that became MRY and Alloy Media and Marketing. Alloy had birthed these amazing creative projects, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Roswell, most notably Gossip Girl. And so I was hired to market one of their books. And the publisher said to me, you do the same thing. You should write a book. And I thought, oh no. I said to them literally, oh, I am so busy with marketing. I don't have time for that. End up doing some focus groups for a big company around this new emerging consumer called a tween girl. And a mom asked me a career defining question on a break from a focus group.

8:40She said, you seem to know about these things. My daughter is 10. She's reading Gossip Girl. What should I do? And that was a moment for me of like, I love that she's reading. The mom love that she's reading. At that point, I was about 27 years old. I'm like, well, I love Gossip Girl because I've been through high school. I can't imagine looking at that and aspiring to that. And I started writing a treatment like literally that night, sent it to some friends and they said it was really good. And I went back to the publisher and said, okay, I think, you know, who are the top agents you work with?

9:14And we ended up getting Mackenzie Blue sold. And then what happened is I just ran like crazy for probably 10 plus years. And I got to a place where I was just beyond drained. I just had nothing else to give. And when I sold Mackenzie Blue as an audio project, that's when I took a sabbatical. First time ever in my life. and it was a great creative time. But I didn't think I had earned the right for almost two decades in a career to kind of get off the hamster wheel. I think sometimes as an entrepreneur, we think it's not there anymore, right? If we step away, how do we re-engage with our career?

9:51How do we get back to where we thought we were supposed to be going? Oh my gosh, so much I need to just peel into with you, Tina. So for those who don't know, Can you give us a little more context around Mackenzie Blue and what that was, what it is, and how that kind of opened your periphery, I think, to a whole other chapter of who you were meant to be and how you were meant to impact the world? Yeah. So Mackenzie Blue is a bestselling tween book series for younger readers. So I would say seven to 12. It centers on the life of this girl, Z, and she wants to do and be everything, right? So obviously I'm writing about someone I can relate to, right?

10:29I remember selling this project and the publisher even said, she wants to do too many things. And I'm like, have you met a tween girl? This is like, she wants to be a pop star and a writer and do all these things. And she cares about sustainability, just what being a girl is right now. And so it was about her and a very diverse group of friends and their life in Southern California. And so it was one of the first series to really focus on sustainability. You know, they were at a sustainable school, a LEED certified school. She wanted to be a singer and songwriter. And it was about tween girl stuff and tween stuff and the tween drama that makes it exciting.

11:06But at the end of the day, she made good decisions and she lived her values. And I really wanted to create a character that had those values. And now to see her in the Z-Files, it's a spinoff of Mackenzie's story. She's now living in London with her family. She's at a boarding school in the Cotswolds. And it's a whole new set of adventures for this like Southern California girl. And so the theme continues that she is always a fish out of water. You know, she shows up in these very, very creative, sometimes a little bit crazy way that's so Z, but always herself. And so that was really what I wanted for girls was to create a character.

11:45And 30 % of my readers are boys. I would say for everyone, for young readers, that's all about living the truth and being who they are and knowing that they can show up as their full self and that that's okay. And I'm always putting her in these situations where it's like, you wonder if it's going to be okay for her to be accepted, but she is. Hey, are you feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, or just drowning in busy work? and still not making the money you deserve? In this brand new training, you're going to learn three super common mistakes that can kill your productivity and tank your profits and how to stop them fast.

12:21Just go to marieforleo.com slash free class or scan the QR code on your screen right now. So Tina, let me get this straight. Was there any part in you that was like, I know how to write fiction? Or was it just so you were just like, you had had this experience with this mom and this focus group, and you thought, hey, there's this whole open possibility for another kind of book that can serve tween girls. And because you had been doing so much work in this particular field that you feel like maybe did you just have a download of like, oh, wow, this is what it could be? I'm so utterly impressed and in awe.

12:59And I feel like the folks in our audience are like, whoa, Tina's like an expert in marketing. And then, whoa, she just poured out this bestselling children's book? So I have a fundamental belief and it's really what defines my career, which is that we all have within us an ability to be creative. We just have to unlock it. And I believe in tools and systems and processes that help us unlock that creativity. And now I'm a big person on process. That's a really big part. So many people might approach their creative very differently than I do, but I look at it how I started my marketing career, which was a problem, solution, value proposition, right?

13:40Those old school marketing, who's the audience? I approach my writing the same way. I will always say, I don't know if I'll ever write for young adult readers or older. I know my audience. I really hone in on what matters to them in that life stage. And I build the world. I build the main character, but we talk about from a society, what's going on. For example, Honest June, it's a series about a girl who can't tell a lie. My focus there was anxiety, all the things going on and issues, representation. I start with that and then I build the series. So it's very different than other people. But what I believe in is writing tools, writing prompts, and that we all can become better writers.

14:24I don't believe that some of us are given a gift to write and others aren't. It's just about unlocking and doing the work to unlock that specific gift. So inspiring. Okay. So tell me, I want to hear more about your actual process as you were creating these. This is a question that we get often because I have so many folks in our audience who, whether they are running their own businesses right now, or they are working in a particular job and they have a dream of producing a book, What did it look like for you practically to produce some of this work while you were still simultaneously running your marketing business?

15:03Did you wake up early in the morning? Did you just fit it into nooks and crannies? I know it might seem like, do people care? People care. They love hearing about this stuff. So I just wanted to make sure that I asked. So very practically, Mackenzie Blue became a client of my agency. I felt like we had to treat it that way, like our own internal project, but it had to get the same love and care as other marketing projects. What I honestly wasn't prepared for, and this doesn't happen anymore, but this just gives you a sense of where we were in 2007. The first time I get my pages delivered from my publishing company, in walks a package of 200 plus long, like long old school copies with notes, handwritten notes from my editor, right?

15:52Stick it, like post-it notes, right? To go through everyone, initial everyone, answer everything. And so it's like, I had gotten ready for the process until that point. And then I was like, okay, this is a thing. Like, this is a moment, right? Like I had had a process for everything before the pages came. And then how many times we go through those pages. But it really was, I had to treat her and this project like it was a project of the agency. And I guess because of my business, I could make it make sense that way, but it goes to carving out time and energy for the project the way we would any other project.

16:28I feel like what you hit upon there, folks are going to, and I'm writing this down in my own head because it's such a question that we get all the time. It's like, how do I make time for that? Because we're so conditioned, most of us, it's so easy for us to deliver for other people. It's so easy for us to make that time for our clients or for other people in our lives when we have to, and then our personal projects, quote unquote, tend to take the back burner. And I think what's so genius about what you said, it's like, nope, it gets the same slotting in as any other client would. So it gets elevated to this position where there's deadlines, there's a project plan, right?

17:03There's all of the things that we would do if we are delivering for a client or for somewhere else. I think that's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. I want to switch gears slightly because I want you to take me to the point, because I don't want to just skim past it, where you gave yourself that six months off. I cannot tell you how awesome that is. I have two different colleagues slash friends that have recently taken sabbaticals and folks who are extremely prolific in what they do. And I was so incredibly happy for them that they both gave themselves a significant break to go, you know what?

17:42I'm going to step away. And so Tina, my question for you, was it scary to take that break? Like what was the thought process? Did you have all the things like, is it all going to fall apart? You know, am I going to lose momentum? Am I going to lose relevance? Or was your heart so craving kind of a blank slate that you're like, whatever, even if the voices were there. You just knew you had to make that leap. So it's funny. A few years before that, I had gotten into this incredible program at the Aspen Institute, Henry Crown Fellowship. And they talk so much about inflection, personal inflection point.

18:19And I remember naively thinking, well, I already had my business and things. So I think I'm good there, right? And I don't know that I'm going to have that moment, but we're just going to ride this out. And of course, Because after you spend two years digging into the deepest parts of who you are and how you can have the most impact, you will end up at an inflection point. And so for me, it was I really believe in the power of writing and reading and unlocking that for young readers. So my heart, my right for at-risk readers, for people who are really young children who are at risk of not reading.

18:55And then the other part is representation. You know, less than 10 % of middle grade fiction features girls on the cover who look like me. And so I wanted to increase that. And when I thought about it and thought about, you know, so many people coming up to me saying, when I saw you in 1996, or I saw you in 2000, a woman who looks like you, who's in marketing, I didn't understand the statistics in my field that so few people look like me. All of that compounded to me saying, I guess I'm at an inflection point. And I just had this great event. And I've just sold my books to Audible. I have the time and the resources to take a beat.

19:31Did I think it would turn into me closing the agency? No. I booked a trip with a friend to Yellowstone. I'm sitting in Yellowstone, literally looking at Buffalo. And I just had this moment of like, I can't go back to marketing. And it was so definitive and defining that it was, well, it's great. I decided this while I'm on sabbatical. Now I can figure it out. But again, so many things for me are just, I get a gut instinct. And it's like, this is a direction I have to go in. And that it was very clear that I have this calling to do this thing and to use everything I've learned as a marketer to propel the next phase of my career.

20:09But what I will say to anyone who's on the fence about this is if I hadn't given myself that stillness, if I hadn't provided that opportunity to be in a place to hear and to fully connect onto what the next steps were, I don't think it ever would have come. I think I would have just kept going and going, but just stepping off that hamster wheel for a while and just sitting in that quiet of what's next allowed that to unfold, I think. Did you have a time limit? Like, were you like, you know what, I'm doing this for six months? Or did you say, you know what, I just need to step back for an indefinite period of time?

20:43I knew that I needed six months, but what I didn't know was going to happen was, you know, first it was the agency. And then I had been, you know, I had a job I just adored teaching at Wharton. I ran a program called Leadership in the Business World. And I decided to step away from that. And I think and then certain boards. And at that point, my parents got a little concerned. But right. They were like, what's happening? You know, I'm like, I just had I decided it was time to just kind of do a full cleaning. And I'm like, well, if I want new things to come, I just have to open up space. And at that point, I did feel untethered because this is all my identity was so tied to being this marketer.

21:25You know, I knew I was going towards relevant media, but I didn't even open it or talk about it for a year. And so there's literally this time where I felt like I'm just a floating person who is tied to a company or a job or a board. It's just I'm here and consulting and doing things. And so that was, you know, I wouldn't be disingenuous to not say that there were moments where I really didn't know where I was going. I thought about the corporate job. I was like, I'm just hanging out, but I knew it was right, if that makes sense. I just knew I was still going in the direction that was right. I love everything that you're sharing because it takes such bravery and it takes such courage to listen to our inner voices, which I think all of us have those instincts and all of us, you know, our soul is speaking to us and whether it's signs from the outside or these nudges from the inside.

22:22And I just want to say how much I admire and appreciate you. And thank you for sharing this because I read the questions from our audience all the time. And one of the biggest themes that's recurring is how do we navigate these transitions? Because people hear the calls from their souls of, I want to begin creative writing, or I've done this for X amount of years and I think I'm ready for something new, but I don't know what that something new is. And just hearing your story, I think is going to be so incredibly motivating for so many people and inspiring because you don't need to know what that next step is going to look like.

23:00And in fact, it might not appear unless you give yourself the space for it to grow. Would you agree? I do. And I think sometimes, again, full transparency, I don't love this, but I end up many times in my career being the one that's creating a path. And I would say to so many of your viewers and listeners, maybe you have to create the path for other people to see how it's done. And that's scary. But then once it's done, you'll see your system replicated so many times and it gets easier, but it's okay to really be in that space of saying, I'm just trying this thing and I'm connecting these pieces and it seems to be working.

23:40And eventually you're going to realize you've made a process and that process is going to make things easier for so many other people. So back to writing for a moment. Do you have any advice for writers? I mean, you've done six books in three years. Is that accurate? Yes. And now I have 12 that will come in the next three. Yeah. I mean, any words of wisdom, Tina, in terms of writers who aspire to be prolific and consistent in their practice? So I think first and foremost, tools and prompts are really important. And what I mean by that is you need to know what prompts you. Like for me, I am a writer who gets very inspired from traveling.

24:22So you can imagine I had to write, I birthed three new series and four books during a pandemic for a person who could not do the thing that brings me the most inspiration, right? So, like, that's where the discipline and the systems and processes come in. And I would say we all can improve as writers. You know, I reached out to you during the pandemic and said, I'm doing a different kind of writing and I need your course. Can you help me? Right? Yes. I was like, come and do the comic, Georgina, right? And I was like, no, this is a difference. So I think we also have to understand when we're doing different types of writing.

24:57And I think how I wrote as a journalist on the school paper is different than how I wrote as a marketer. And it's different than how I write for middle grade. But what is a common theme is that they all have really important systems and processes that help you get better. Now, for me, with my middle grade writing, I maybe have a different process from other writers. You know, I make my characters first, then I make the environment of where they are, what they do. And then I start to set narratives around books. But first and foremost, it's what's the overarching theme, right? So Honest June has now been dubbed Ella and Chan and Mead Stork Diaries when my intention was to find a clever way to talk about this anxiety that tween girls face or that tweens in general face, which is my parents have an idea of who they want me to be.