Speaker 1: Literally the day I started journaling, I haven't stopped, and
Speaker 1: everything changed because I allow creativity back into my life,
Speaker 1: shame free. I think so many of us are creating,
Speaker 1: but we've got so much shame around it. We're not
Speaker 1: good enough, it's not making enough money.
Speaker 2: My parents, you.
Speaker 1: Know, really think I should give it up. There's so
Speaker 1: many narratives that come with creativity. So many of us
Speaker 1: are just being held back, kept small. I want you
Speaker 1: to find out what happens when you take perfectionism out
Speaker 1: of the equation and you just let yourself create.
Speaker 2: The number one health and wellness podcast.
Speaker 3: Stay Shetdy Jay, Sheddy Day, shed Hey everyone, Welcome back
Speaker 3: to on Purpose, the place you come to to become
Speaker 3: a happier, healthier and more healed. Today's guest is someone
Speaker 3: I've been wanting to sit down with for so long.
Speaker 3: I have stalked her on Instagram, shared a ton of
Speaker 3: her stuff, showed her work to so many of my
Speaker 3: friends and family members because it has deeply impacted me.
Speaker 3: It's a page that I turned to when I feel
Speaker 3: like I need someone to give me a bit of guy,
Speaker 3: give me a steer, give me a direction to think
Speaker 3: in And I can't wait to introduce her to all
Speaker 3: of you. I'm speaking about author, artist, creative, and poet
Speaker 3: and so much more. Amy McNee, Please welcome to On
Speaker 3: Purpose Amy. Amy. It is so great to have you here.
Speaker 3: I'm such a huge fan and I can't wait for
Speaker 3: your new book. We need your art. I think it's
Speaker 3: going to be life changing for so many budding creatives,
Speaker 3: people are just starting out, up and coming, and at
Speaker 3: the same time established creatives who are trying to rediscover themselves. So,
Speaker 3: as a fan, thank you for being on the show
Speaker 3: and so excited to have this conversation.
Speaker 1: Jay, I'm so grateful. I'm grateful for your art. I'm
Speaker 1: so grateful that you make the things that you do,
Speaker 1: and I'm just very excited to be here.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to remember when I first came across your work,
Speaker 3: and I can't remember the exact moment, but I remember
Speaker 3: the feeling I had of swiping through reading some of
Speaker 3: your work. You were holding up your pieces of board
Speaker 3: or card, and you know, with your thick marker handwriting,
Speaker 3: and I was reading it and thinking to myself, how
Speaker 3: can someone be saying things that are so sometimes difficult, uncomfortable,
Speaker 3: hard to say, and hard to hear, but doing it
Speaker 3: in a way that was so clear and so powerful.
Speaker 3: And I wanted to start off by asking you how
Speaker 3: do you see people? Are people born creative or can
Speaker 3: people become creative? And is everyone in some way creative?
Speaker 3: Because I think a lot of people listening right now
Speaker 3: are thinking, Jade, this episode isn't for me. I'm not creative,
Speaker 3: I'm not an artist. What do I do?
Speaker 1: I know when I say, and I say it a lot,
Speaker 1: I say we need your art, and I worry about
Speaker 1: the amount of people who are like, oh, not my art.
Speaker 1: But I'm like your art, and I think we have
Speaker 1: a real We can really pedestal the term art as
Speaker 1: to what it is, and we think it's, oh, it's
Speaker 1: fine art, or oh it has to be photography or
Speaker 1: a certain type of art. But art comes in so
Speaker 1: many different shapes and forms, and we all have a
Speaker 1: capability and a desire to create. It's just that it
Speaker 1: looks different for all of us. So when I say
Speaker 1: we need your art, like, I mean we need your
Speaker 1: art like we all have a drive and a desire
Speaker 1: to make stuff. It's so innate, it's so human. So
Speaker 1: I think we really need to take art off the pedestal.
Speaker 1: It's not just for fine arts, although obviously it is,
Speaker 1: but it's this. It's podcasting, it's you know, watercolors, it's writing,
Speaker 1: it's planting, it's gardening.
Speaker 3: It's makeup tutorials.
Speaker 1: It's makeup tutorials, it's previews, it's cooking. Like creativity like
Speaker 1: sinks into all aspects of our lives and we all
Speaker 1: have a thirst for it. And so when I say
Speaker 1: we need your art, I'm talking about you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I love that you are broadening the definition
Speaker 3: of art. Yeah, because I think you're so right. Like
Speaker 3: growing up, I'm not. I wasn't good at drawing, yeah,
Speaker 3: and so I always thought I was an artistic Yet
Speaker 3: it was so funny. I remember when I was finishing
Speaker 3: primary school, elementary school, and I remember we did this
Speaker 3: for flection exercise, and it was like, what's your favorite
Speaker 3: subject and what's your worst subject? And I put my
Speaker 3: favorite subject being math because I thought I was a geek,
Speaker 3: but I wasn't. And then I wrote down my worst
Speaker 3: subject was art. And then when I went to secondary school,
Speaker 3: high school, and when I finished, if you asked me
Speaker 3: what my favorite subject was, it was art. And if
Speaker 3: you asked me what my least favorite subject was. It
Speaker 3: was math because I had an art teacher called mister
Speaker 3: Buckerridge at Q Boys School in Barnet that expanded the
Speaker 3: definition of art from day one. And it became about color,
Speaker 3: It became about juxtaposition, It became about meaning. It became
Speaker 3: about college. It became about imagery, It became about my passions.
Speaker 3: It became about all these other things. And I then
Speaker 3: made him feel really upset because I sold out and
Speaker 3: didn't study art at university, even though I.
Speaker 2: Became in so many ways. You have studied art, you know,
Speaker 2: like you kept that going in there, but it was
Speaker 2: subject to be life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you've brought in that definition for everyone, and
Speaker 3: I think that's so needed because you are right. Podcasting
Speaker 3: is art, writing is art, Cooking is art.
Speaker 1: Or the way we dress, you know, the way we
Speaker 1: express like you can't not create art, And I think
Speaker 1: we need to reclaim that word for ourselves. It is
Speaker 1: mine and you are an artist in some way, shape
Speaker 1: or form.
Speaker 3: What happens when we stifle ourselves? So what happens when
Speaker 3: you hold back? Sometimes today people even know they're artistic,
Speaker 3: maybe they even had a little skill when they were younger.
Speaker 3: Maybe they were passionate, maybe even now in their spare time,
Speaker 3: but they're blocking themselves. They're stifling themselves because they've heard
Speaker 3: things like, well, that won't get you a career, that
Speaker 3: won't pay the bills, that's not going to make you money,
Speaker 3: that's not a real job. And by the way, I
Speaker 3: heard all those things growing up. So it feels very
Speaker 3: familiar to me what happens to us when we stifle
Speaker 3: ourselves and block ourselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if you will indulge me, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you a bit of my story because I feel like
Speaker 1: and exactly as you said, you've experienced this, Like all
Speaker 1: I wanted to do was tell stories, Like it's all
Speaker 1: I wanted to do, whether it was through acting or writing,
Speaker 1: I just felt like driven to express myself through storytelling.
Speaker 1: And once I left school, I was like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: going to take this seriously, like I really want to
Speaker 1: commit to this. And you know, from the age of
Speaker 1: eighteen to the age of like, you know, really recently,
Speaker 1: like I was inundated with it's childlike, it's irresponsible, it's
Speaker 1: foolish to take the creative arts seriously, and I ended
Speaker 1: up with severe depression. I was so low because I
Speaker 1: was so embarrassed by this extraordinarily strong desire to tell stories,
Speaker 1: like I just wanted to tell stories, and I felt
Speaker 1: so ashamed about it, and I felt like I couldn't
Speaker 1: be a real adult, I couldn't grow, and so I
Speaker 1: withheld my creativity and I felt incredible amounts of shame
Speaker 1: and I felt so embarrassed, and I didn't want to
Speaker 1: talk about it with anybody, and it resulted in me
Speaker 1: being ridiculously depressed. I was so low, I had such
Speaker 1: low affect, I had no motivation. So it was like
Speaker 1: a war going on inside me. And half of myself
Speaker 1: was like, I have to tell stories, like I am
Speaker 1: here to create, to make art and to impact the
Speaker 1: world with my art. And then the other half of
Speaker 1: me was like, this is so irresponsible. Why can't you
Speaker 1: be a real adult, Why can't you just grow up,
Speaker 1: like get a real job, And that duality and that
Speaker 1: war within me left me like broken. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: until I started journaling and I started seeing the stories
Speaker 1: that I was telling myself, and I was like this,
Speaker 1: I cannot live this way, and so I started rewriting
Speaker 1: them like with my pen on the pages of my
Speaker 1: journal and I allowed art back into my life, like
Speaker 1: shame free art, and like since literally the day I
Speaker 1: started journaling, I haven't stopped and everything changed because I
Speaker 1: allowed creativity back into my life. Shame free.
Speaker 3: Wow, I love that. I love this and a shame
Speaker 3: free art.
Speaker 2: It's so important.
Speaker 1: I think so many of us are creating, but we've
Speaker 1: got so much shame around it. We're not good enough,
Speaker 1: it's not making enough money. My parents, you know, really
Speaker 1: think I should give it up. There's so many narratives
Speaker 1: that come with creativity, and so many of us are
Speaker 1: just being held back, kept small.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need shame free art.
Speaker 3: How did you get the courage to allow art back in?
Speaker 3: Especially when you're in a dark place like you're saying
Speaker 3: you're experiencing depression, You're hearing all this negativity around you
Speaker 3: about the relevance of your art and the value of
Speaker 3: your art. How do you in that place go, I'm
Speaker 3: going to turn to art because it's the one thing
Speaker 3: that's been villainized and made to seem negative.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was through journally. It was a complete narrative shift.
Speaker 1: So I would write out the stories that I was
Speaker 1: telling myself. So why can't you get a real job.
Speaker 1: Why do you think this is possible? This is so embarrassing.
Speaker 1: You've got hundreds of rejection letters from publishers. No one's
Speaker 1: listening to you. And then I would write it all
Speaker 1: out so I could witness the stories I was telling myself,
Speaker 1: like I needed to see the amount of shame I
Speaker 1: was in because and it would shock me, like I
Speaker 1: would reread what I was writing and I was like,
Speaker 1: my brain is like a place of just like violence
Speaker 1: and vitriol, like I'm speaking so terribly to myself and
Speaker 1: to my inner artist. And then at the end of
Speaker 1: my journaling session, I would be like, Okay, well, how
Speaker 1: do I want to sound? And I call it mothering myself.
Speaker 1: It's like a reparenting exercise. And I would just be like,
Speaker 1: you know what, and I'd treat myself like a baby,
Speaker 1: and I'd be like, baby.
Speaker 2: Girl, you are here to tell stories.
Speaker 1: I am so proud of you. I'm proud of the
Speaker 1: way that you are showing up. I am proud of
Speaker 1: the way that you were rebelling against society's expectation. You
Speaker 1: are being put on this earth to make art, to create,
Speaker 1: and I'm so proud of.
Speaker 2: What you're doing.
Speaker 1: And so no matter how much I like spewed out
Speaker 1: crap and there was so much in a critic rubbish
Speaker 1: on the pages, I always ended it with this voice
Speaker 1: that was like, Okay, but I'm actually really proud of you.
Speaker 1: You know, you are here to make art and you're
Speaker 1: on the path. I used to tell that to myself
Speaker 1: all the time. You're on the path, You're on the path.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was it was through words, which is
Speaker 1: so appropriate, I guess for me as an author.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's so interesting that that wasn't a learned
Speaker 3: technique or it was that just happened. Yeah, yeah, someone
Speaker 3: that came from within. But now it's practice people can
Speaker 3: follow through. And I love that repetition of you are
Speaker 3: on the path, because I think that's so so true
Speaker 3: in that we think that we're either off the path
Speaker 3: or on the path, and we think that we're either
Speaker 3: going in the wrong direction or the right direction, rather
Speaker 3: than just recognizing that you're on the path either way.
Speaker 3: And I've done this often, and I've seen a lot
Speaker 3: of people do it where we go. You know, up
Speaker 3: until last year, I was it was just a mess,
Speaker 3: and then I figured it out, which basically devalues all
Speaker 3: of that experience, all of that pain, all of that stress,
Speaker 3: all of the amazing journey you've had that brought you
Speaker 3: to that point that actually inspires empowers this path. But
Speaker 3: you're like, now I'm on the right path. And so
Speaker 3: we have this way of devaluing past experiences, even when
Speaker 3: we say, oh, I had this light bulb moment and
Speaker 3: then everything changed, and it's like, well, no, all of
Speaker 3: that got you to the light bulb experience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that. Jay.
Speaker 1: Something I say to myself is that, yeah, I mean again,
Speaker 1: I repeat it all the time. You are on the path.
Speaker 1: You are on the path. You are on the path.
Speaker 1: But it would have been so easy for me to say, oh,
Speaker 1: I figured it out. Now I've got the publishing deal.
Speaker 1: Now you know, I get to have an audience, and
Speaker 1: now I figured it out. But I actually owe everything
Speaker 1: to the girl that navigated silence, to the girl that
Speaker 1: navigated rejection, to the girl that had so much shame,
Speaker 1: Like when I think about how I got here, I
Speaker 1: owe everything to her. And I tell that to her.
Speaker 1: Artists all the time, because you know, so many artists
Speaker 1: we are navigating. You know, we're sharing stuff on social media.
Speaker 1: No one's seeing it, No one's liking it. We're, you know,
Speaker 1: daring to put our art out for sale. No one
Speaker 1: wants to buy it. We are learning new crafts, we're
Speaker 1: being so vulnerable, and you, your future version of yourself,
Speaker 1: owes everything to you for daring to be brave, for
Speaker 1: being courageous, for taking up space even when no one
Speaker 1: else is listening or no one else is watching, like
Speaker 1: I right here on the J Shaddy Show. Owe everything
Speaker 1: to the girl who was sitting at a cafe extraordinarily
Speaker 1: depressed but saying, you know what, I'm going to dare
Speaker 1: to write today even though nobody else wants me to write.
Speaker 3: I love that. I so love that, because you made
Speaker 3: me think of I remember when I started out, and
Speaker 3: I think the first two presentations I gave pretty much
Speaker 3: no one showed up. And then for years I was
Speaker 3: doing events for five people, ten people, and I loved it.
Speaker 3: And actually I was so lucky because social media kind
Speaker 3: of kicked off a bit later than when I would
Speaker 3: have done that, so I never even had the pressure
Speaker 3: or the belief that more than five to ten people
Speaker 3: could come, because maybe I'd seen twenty people in a room,
Speaker 3: or fifty people in a room, or one hundred people
Speaker 3: in a room, and so to me, one hundred was
Speaker 3: a big number.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I was talking to someone just a couple of
Speaker 3: days ago, and they're a creator, and they were saying, like, Jeae,
Speaker 3: I just feel this pressure of scale, and I feel
Speaker 3: this pressure of like, not enough people have seen my work.
Speaker 3: And I was just thinking, you know, whether I had
Speaker 3: five people in the room, ten people, one hundred, or
Speaker 3: you know, whatever it is now, I was always just
Speaker 3: happy and grateful to be with whoever was in the room,
Speaker 3: and so now I feel that same. And I know
Speaker 3: it's easy for me. It sounds easy for me to
Speaker 3: say it now, and it's hard for me to reflect
Speaker 3: back from the external view of whether people believe me
Speaker 3: or not. But I can honestly say that I remember
Speaker 3: just wanting to spend the whole evening with the five
Speaker 3: people who turned up and answer their questions and share
Speaker 3: with them insights, and it was so beautiful and valuable
Speaker 3: and meaningful that that's what gave me the practice. It's
Speaker 3: what gave me the ability to understand different people's challenges
Speaker 3: and stresses, and everything that I've been able to create
Speaker 3: here is only because of that experience. It wasn't that
Speaker 3: I'm different now and I'm better now and I mastered something.
Speaker 3: It wasn't that it was all part of the same path.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: We owe everything to that version of Jay, you know,
Speaker 1: and we get to experience you now because you did
Speaker 1: and you enjoyed and you loved doing that work earlier on.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I feel like so many people are probably listened
Speaker 3: to this right now, going Amy J I have an idea. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 3: I have something in my head that really makes sense,
Speaker 3: but I'm scared to put it out there. And I'm
Speaker 3: sure you hear this all the time, but I see
Speaker 3: the fear of judgment and the fear of your art
Speaker 3: being shamed, and the fear of people thinking it's silly,
Speaker 3: not good enough, as being such a blocker for people,
Speaker 3: And I wanted to ask you how do you help
Speaker 3: people overcome that fear, because it seems to be the
Speaker 3: biggest wall in the way of people and their dreams.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many different ways we can look
Speaker 1: at this. First of all, I'm so excited that you
Speaker 1: have an idea, like this is so exciting.
Speaker 2: Let's cherish it.
Speaker 1: We need to take care of it because I like
Speaker 1: that I'm really being serious, like, we need your art,
Speaker 1: we need your expression, we need you to take up space.
Speaker 1: There are people out there in the world who need
Speaker 1: what you have to create, and if you choose to
Speaker 1: withhold it, they will never get to experience it. Like
Speaker 1: you are a one time phenomenon that will never ever
Speaker 1: be seen again. And if you choose not to take
Speaker 1: action on this idea, then that's done. That idea is
Speaker 1: done eternally, will never be seen. And again, I just
Speaker 1: want to really enforce that because it can be so
Speaker 1: easy to be so flippant, Oh, it's just an idea.
Speaker 1: It was never going to go anywhere. These ideas are
Speaker 1: so precious and we need to take care of them.
Speaker 1: The judgment thing, misunderstanding, the oh my god, what's that
Speaker 1: dude from high school going to think of me? It
Speaker 1: is so valid because art is so vulnerable. Creativity is
Speaker 1: like pouring a little bit of you into an external
Speaker 1: thing and giving it to the world. Like that's super vulnerable,
Speaker 1: and so I want to validate that feeling of oh
Speaker 1: my god, what will people think of me? Art is
Speaker 1: a courageous exercise. It is so vulnerable, it is so scary,
Speaker 1: and it's okay that we have these feelings. I think
Speaker 1: there are several things that we can do. I think
Speaker 1: the first one is come home to a truth, is
Speaker 1: that you will be misunderstood and you will be judged,
Speaker 1: and it's still worth making the art. I can't let
Speaker 1: some random guy from high school stop me from doing
Speaker 1: my work, and I almost did. When I decided I
Speaker 1: wanted to really start taking up space as a writer.
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, I'm going to start like an Instagram.
Speaker 1: I'm going to start sharing my words. And I was like, no,
Speaker 1: I can't. It's so cringey. And I was like that
Speaker 1: guy from high school, like Ben from high school, or
Speaker 1: like I kept thinking of these random people, They're going
Speaker 1: to see me and they're going to be like, who
Speaker 1: does she think she is? And it stopped me in
Speaker 1: my tracks for ages. And I just love that version
Speaker 1: of myself because she was so brave and she decided, no,
Speaker 1: I want this life. I want to tell stories. And
Speaker 1: so I started inspired to write, started my Instagram and
Speaker 1: I blocked every single person I could find, and I
Speaker 1: sat there for hours being like they would stop me
Speaker 1: showing up, they would stop me showing up. And I
Speaker 1: created a cocoon for myself to become the artist that
Speaker 1: I needed to be, And so I think, first of all,
Speaker 1: we do need to understand that we will be misunderstood,
Speaker 1: and that is safe to be misunderstood. But second of
Speaker 1: all that we can take precautions to make sure that
Speaker 1: we are that we have spaces to create and that
Speaker 1: feel as safe as possible. But creation itself will never
Speaker 1: be safe. It's inherently risky, and that's why it's inherently rewarding.
Speaker 3: I love that. I love that you actually had a
Speaker 3: physical way I was having a block, and I think
Speaker 3: we don't think about it that way. Sometimes we think
Speaker 3: that we should have got over that feeling first, like
Speaker 3: I should be over the fact that my parents think
Speaker 3: this is a bad idea before I create, and it's like, well, no,
Speaker 3: you're probably gonna have to create while they think it's about.
Speaker 2: It my good.
Speaker 1: We can't become like fully actualized before we create art.
Speaker 1: And art's going to reveal all of your lightness but
Speaker 1: also a lot of your darkness. So there's going to
Speaker 1: be so many things that come up as you dare
Speaker 1: to do the brave thing and create stuff, like you're
Speaker 1: going to see a lot of narratives you're going to
Speaker 1: see a lot of insecurities because again, making art so vulnerable,
Speaker 1: you're just going to see a lot of the hard
Speaker 1: things within you and you can't wait till they're healed
Speaker 1: to begin creating. So yeah, do what you need to do.
Speaker 1: And for me, I needed to block every single person
Speaker 1: I could think of, and now everyone's unblocked. But I
Speaker 1: needed that space away from eyes. I didn't want their
Speaker 1: perception of who they thought I was to interrupt my
Speaker 1: journey of who I was becoming, and so I claimed
Speaker 1: space for myself. And I invite artists to, however, look
Speaker 1: put boundaries in place so that you can do this
Speaker 1: work and you can feel as safe as possible. And no,
Speaker 1: you can't protect yourself entirely, but you can do a
Speaker 1: little bit so that you've you know, feel a little
Speaker 1: more comfortible and more cozy as you do the brave
Speaker 1: thing and start you know, making some ideas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel some of us have this feeling of
Speaker 3: I wish the people who loved me believed in me.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah right, And I feel as artists, because you
Speaker 3: can have a softer heart, you're more empathetic, you're more
Speaker 3: in tune with some of these emotions and feelings. There's
Speaker 3: a sense of why don't you believe in me? And
Speaker 3: if you believed in me, I could do it. And
Speaker 3: if you believed in me, then I might get there.
Speaker 3: And if you believed in me, then I'd feel better
Speaker 3: about it. How do you let go of those kind
Speaker 3: of expectations that we often have of the people around us.
Speaker 3: There's a heartful part of that, but really it's a
Speaker 3: hurtful part because it stops you from starting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so hard.
Speaker 1: I speak to so many creatives who's closest people aren't
Speaker 1: backing them. I think when we can admit to art,
Speaker 1: we often trigger a lot of people, and we trigger
Speaker 1: the artist within them that they squashed down and that
Speaker 1: they repressed. And so when we say, oh, I'm actually
Speaker 1: being incredibly brave and I've decided to write a book,
Speaker 1: we trigger a little part in them that says, well,
Speaker 1: I never let myself write a book. I thought you
Speaker 1: needed permission to write a book, and here you are
Speaker 1: just taking up space writing a book. And I don't
Speaker 1: know that they necessarily know that that's what's happening. But
Speaker 1: I feel like when we commit to art, a lot
Speaker 1: of people find that confronting, and so that's important for
Speaker 1: us to realize, is it's not us. It's often there
Speaker 1: in a child that just hasn't had a chance to
Speaker 1: express ourselves because we don't live in a world that
Speaker 1: really encourages art, that encourages creative expression. It's something to
Speaker 1: do when you're young, and it's something to do when
Speaker 1: you're retired, and when we dare to do it now,
Speaker 1: you know, in like the middle of life, like I
Speaker 1: think it's people are like, oh, well, who gave you
Speaker 1: permission to do that? And it's like, well, I did.
Speaker 1: And a huge part of my journey's being permission giving.
Speaker 1: Like I thought I needed to wait for permission for
Speaker 1: the gatekeepers from publishers. I thought I needed some I
Speaker 1: want to say, you are now allowed to make art.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest revelations, and again it came through journaling,
Speaker 1: was well, no, I'm just going to give myself permission.
Speaker 1: And I didn't need it through my parents, I didn't
Speaker 1: need it for my friends. I just needed to literally
Speaker 1: be like, I give myself permission to take this seriously,
Speaker 1: and it was the most profound permission slip I could
Speaker 1: have ever given myself.
Speaker 2: Ever.
Speaker 3: I remember that as well for myself when I started
Speaker 3: to create videos eight years ago, and it was that
Speaker 3: same sense of feeling that before I did that, I
Speaker 3: was asking people to give me a job to do
Speaker 3: what I wanted to do, and I knew there wouldn't
Speaker 3: be an exact job for it, but I was even
Speaker 3: willing to sacrifice my art to take on a job
Speaker 3: that might evolve into the artistic version of that. And
Speaker 3: so I remember pitching myself as a trainee video producer
Speaker 3: lots of companies in London and being turned down because
Speaker 3: I didn't do communications at college or I didn't do
Speaker 3: video production at college at university, and then same thing
Speaker 3: with trying to meet editors of magazines and say oh,
Speaker 3: maybe I can get in this way and again getting rejections.
Speaker 3: And then it was actually Raj who messaged me. I
Speaker 3: think it was like gosh, like twenty fifteen Christmas time,
Speaker 3: and he was like, yeah, you've been giving a lot
Speaker 3: of talks. We should get out there and just you know,
Speaker 3: maybe we should record some stuff. And I was like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, I haven't really made a video before.
Speaker 3: And I was like I haven't really got any scripts,
Speaker 3: and he was like, let's figure it out and so
Speaker 3: I scribbled some stuff down that I've been thinking about,
Speaker 3: and then we just went out there and we shot
Speaker 3: these four videos and then we released them later on YouTube.
Speaker 3: And it was the best feeling in the world, like
Speaker 3: I've never I wish I could bottle up that feeling
Speaker 3: and give it to other people, And well, well you
Speaker 3: can with the work you're doing. Your book is that
Speaker 3: we need your art. That's what the book is going
Speaker 3: to do for people. It's going to give people that
Speaker 3: feeling of freedom. Yeah, And it was the first time
Speaker 3: I felt free because I'd constantly been waiting for someone
Speaker 3: to give me a job, give me a title, give
Speaker 3: me a position, give me an opportunity and a break.
Speaker 3: And you're so right, Like, as an artist, you're constantly
Speaker 3: waiting for someone to say, yes, your art is valid,
Speaker 3: it's valuable. And it's almost like, how do you get
Speaker 3: to a point where I want to ask you this?
Speaker 3: Because we almost oscillate between two ideologies, which is like,
Speaker 3: you should just be happy making art and you shouldn't
Speaker 3: want anyone to see it, and then on the other end,
Speaker 3: it's like, well, you have to make sure people see it,
Speaker 3: otherwise what's the point of making it, and so people
Speaker 3: get scared. And this is partly why I love your work,
Speaker 3: because I think it really gets into the nuance of that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: there's this feeling of like, well, it's weird to promote yourself,
Speaker 3: so I shouldn't promote myself. But then no one sees
Speaker 3: my art, and then I'm a starving artist. But maybe
Speaker 3: that's my badge of honor and that's what makes me
Speaker 3: credible and valuable. And then there's the other side of it.
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna sell out and make what everyone else
Speaker 3: wants going to make. I'm gonna go with the clickbait
Speaker 3: trends and I'm going to do whatever it takes. But
Speaker 3: then I don't really like myself at the end of
Speaker 3: the day because that's not what I set out to do.
Speaker 3: How do you make sense of that when you're starting
Speaker 3: in the beginning and you're like, gosh, I don't know
Speaker 3: which way to go and how to figure it out?
Speaker 3: How do you help people think about that spectrum before
Speaker 3: we dive into the next moment, let's hear from our
Speaker 3: sponsors and back to our episode.
Speaker 2: This is such a nuanced conversation.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you said that, because it is so complicated,
Speaker 1: and it's so very valid to want to just make
Speaker 1: art for art's sake, to just want to play and create.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think that's an imperative part of every
Speaker 1: artist journey, like have fun, Like that's so important for us.
Speaker 1: But there are so many narratives around you know, how
Speaker 1: did you art properly? And how you're meant to be
Speaker 1: an artist and you should make a certain amount of
Speaker 1: money and you should be showing up in this way.
Speaker 1: There are so many stories that I think mean that
Speaker 1: we start feeling if it can be incredibly stressful. Being
Speaker 1: an artist on social media is so stressful. How do
Speaker 1: I put myself out there? How am I meant to
Speaker 1: promote myself? Should I want to promote myself or should
Speaker 1: this be a private practice. I think this is an
Speaker 1: intensely personal thing that you need to sit with and
Speaker 1: decide where you're at. But for me, my calling is
Speaker 1: to be seen and I love supporting artists who want
Speaker 1: to be and I think there's a weird amount of
Speaker 1: shame that comes from a creative who wants attention for
Speaker 1: their art. And so my new thing at the moment
Speaker 1: is to say I create art for the attention because
Speaker 1: I create art to connect with people, and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of artists do like we create because we
Speaker 1: want to show you, and it's a really beautiful thing
Speaker 1: to do, to make art and say here do you
Speaker 1: see yourself in this?
Speaker 2: Like I made this? What do you? How do you
Speaker 2: find it?
Speaker 1: And so I want to really validate creators who are
Speaker 1: creating stuff because they want to connect. I think we
Speaker 1: get this other story that is again a very valid
Speaker 1: story that says you should only want to make art
Speaker 1: for yourself. Like Rick Rubin talks about this a lot,
Speaker 1: and I love what he's saying, because if we do
Speaker 1: get too focused on the external and we start thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: well I'm going to make art only for other people,
Speaker 1: can really muddy the waters. We get very confused and
Speaker 1: we lose our internal compass and what it is we
Speaker 1: want to create. But I think there's this balance to
Speaker 1: be struck because yes, we have to love the process,
Speaker 1: we have to love the act of art creating. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, it's okay to want to connect
Speaker 1: with other people. It's okay to want to have a
Speaker 1: relationship with audience, it's okay to want to be seen.
Speaker 1: It is so human to want to be seen, and
Speaker 1: I want artists to feel very validated. That that is
Speaker 1: a beautiful and normal, almost holy part of this. I
Speaker 1: love artists that are out there asking people, hey, can
Speaker 1: you witness me? I made this thing? Will you see me?
Speaker 1: Like it just sets me Alie. I'm like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: do want to look at you. I want to see
Speaker 1: I want to give you my attention.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And you're so right that so many artists, and
Speaker 3: I know I carry this at the beginning. There's a
Speaker 3: sense of shame and guilt in well, am I less
Speaker 3: than if I want to be seen? Am I? Am
Speaker 3: I doing something wrong? If I want my art to
Speaker 3: connect with people? Am I? And I agree with you
Speaker 3: that that can be such an excuse for us to
Speaker 3: not create and for us to not make or we create,
Speaker 3: but then we play small and we hide and we
Speaker 3: kind of keep our work very very separate because we
Speaker 3: want to or we say things like that where we say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean you know, I don't really care about followers.
Speaker 3: I don't really care about how many likes it gets,
Speaker 3: and inside it's eating us as opposed to accepting and saying, well,
Speaker 3: maybe I do care and I don't care. There's two
Speaker 3: sides in me, and I think I've always I feel
Speaker 3: that balance that you speak of is so true, because
Speaker 3: there's a part of me that cares about everyone listening
Speaker 3: to this podcast right now because I want to, because
Speaker 3: I want to have a connection. I want to create
Speaker 3: something of value for you that benefits your life and
Speaker 3: changes your life. And you'll listen to this and it
Speaker 3: will be the reason three years from now, you'll say
Speaker 3: I listened to that episode with Amy and I started creating,
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, I'm writing a book and
Speaker 3: my art's in a gallery or whatever it may be
Speaker 3: for you. I want that feeling. I do, and at
Speaker 3: the same time, I don't care because I just want
Speaker 3: to have a conversation with Amy, and so both of
Speaker 3: those things are true. But when we start denying parts
Speaker 3: of ourselves, it's almost like we start lying internally to ourselves.
Speaker 3: And when you do that, you then really disconnect.
Speaker 1: There is such a duality to being a human being,
Speaker 1: and especially in being a creative and I love that,
Speaker 1: like I care about my art impacting people, but I
Speaker 1: also want to make sure that I'm making art that
Speaker 1: I want to make, and that I'm not making art
Speaker 1: just for an audience, and these two things can be
Speaker 1: true at once, and we can honor both the fact that, yeah,
Speaker 1: I make art for the attention, and I also make.
Speaker 2: Art because I just love to tell stories.
Speaker 1: These things are true at one time, and we got
Speaker 1: to honor both those parts of ourselves.
Speaker 3: You've done a lot of different jobs on the way here.
Speaker 3: I believe it was like you were a waitress at
Speaker 3: one point. Yeah, you were a bad trainer. You don't
Speaker 3: financial planning, I want to hear.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say I did financial planning. I was a
Speaker 1: personal assistant, a financial planner, so I was financial adjacent.
Speaker 2: Terrible at that job too.
Speaker 3: But I want to hear about that journey because I
Speaker 3: think that's what I find fascinating about artists. Like, as
Speaker 3: an artist, you're always having to pay the bills, finding
Speaker 3: a way to solve this until your art becomes you know,
Speaker 3: enough quote anyone who's I'm doing air quotes next to
Speaker 3: enough to be RECOGNI eyes, et cetera. Walk me through
Speaker 3: that part of your life where you're like doing things
Speaker 3: that keep you afloat and at the same time trying
Speaker 3: to keep your art alive. What was that like? Because
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people listening right now. They're
Speaker 3: maybe working a twelve hour job a day, they're working
Speaker 3: three jobs a day just to survive. But they're like
Speaker 3: they've got this skill and art, and really when they
Speaker 3: get home at the end of the day, they just
Speaker 3: want to switch on a TV show and escape and
Speaker 3: switch out, Like how did you keep both alive when
Speaker 3: it wasn't your main thing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean one of the things that makes me
Speaker 1: angriest is how much life robs us of our art time.
Speaker 1: Like I want so many of us to have the time,
Speaker 1: the energy, particularly to come home and to create, but
Speaker 1: for so many of us, it's just it's not possible.
Speaker 1: And balancing a regular work and a creative life is hard.
Speaker 1: And I really want to validate any creative who's navigating this,
Speaker 1: because I think we get a bit of the hustle
Speaker 1: narrative or it's like just make it work. It is
Speaker 1: hard to balance your creativity and your real life job
Speaker 1: and you know, caretaking and being a kid and just
Speaker 1: be an adult in general. Like I can, it's huge
Speaker 1: and I really struggled with it. I was waitressing because
Speaker 1: I was doing all these little jobs because I was
Speaker 1: trying to fit art around them, so I was waitressing
Speaker 1: because I could then I could work after three pm.
Speaker 1: Maybe I was a personal trainer because I'll train clients
Speaker 1: in the morning and the evening, and I'd try and
Speaker 1: write in the middle of the day. Like I was
Speaker 1: trying to choose jobs that would work for me, but
Speaker 1: it was exhausting, and especially because these jobs were so
Speaker 1: like the antithesis of amy, like I'm not made to
Speaker 1: serve people coffee. I can't hold the skim milk situation
Speaker 1: in my head, like I don't care, so I don't
Speaker 1: pay attention, so I'm not a very good waitress. I'm
Speaker 1: exhausted by the end of my shift. Then I get
Speaker 1: home to my writing and I think, okay, well I
Speaker 1: got to write two to three thousand words. This is
Speaker 1: too much. And so I would let myself down. I
Speaker 1: would feel like I betrayed myself, and I would get
Speaker 1: in patterns of constantly feeling like I've betrayed my inner artist,
Speaker 1: I betrayed my dreams. I can never reach up to
Speaker 1: this level. And I think I see it all the time,
Speaker 1: like artists are like, Okay, because I didn't write it
Speaker 1: all this week, I'm going to weekend, I'm going to
Speaker 1: do I'm very biased to writers, but any sort of creating,
Speaker 1: I'm going to create for like six hours to make
Speaker 1: up for it, and then they can't do it because
Speaker 1: they're exhausted, and then in this pattern of self betrayal
Speaker 1: and they start not trusting themselves that they're going to
Speaker 1: follow through. But I had a real breakthrough when I
Speaker 1: decided that I was only going to write three hundred
Speaker 1: to five hundred words a day, just baby steps, small steps.
Speaker 1: I realized that that was a promise I could keep.
Speaker 1: Three hundred words could be done in like twenty minutes,
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes. They could be crap. It was another big thing.
Speaker 1: I think we'd demand huge amounts of time for our
Speaker 1: art when we're already exhausted, and we're like, and they
Speaker 1: better be perfect. It's so unfair, so unfair, and also
Speaker 1: it's a recipe for absolute disaster, and you're not going
Speaker 1: to be able to finish your creative projects because these
Speaker 1: working conditions are horrendous. So it was three hundred shitty
Speaker 1: words was my bare minimum. And I also had a
Speaker 1: bare maximum so that I couldn't keep going so I
Speaker 1: could contain my energy, so I wasn't allowed to write
Speaker 1: more than a thousand words, and that's how I wrote
Speaker 1: my books. That's how I still write my books. Three
Speaker 1: hundred to five hundred words a day, and it's so doable.
Speaker 1: And when you come home from an absolutely hectic day,
Speaker 1: you can say, okay, three hundred words, three hundred potentially
Speaker 1: crappy words, or ten minutes on the guitar, or I
Speaker 1: want to take three pictures with my iPhone, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. It's just really small, really doable, and
Speaker 1: then you start accumulating wins. So if you've done that
Speaker 1: like three four times a week, you're like, Okay, maybe
Speaker 1: I could do that again next week. And by the
Speaker 1: you know, end of the year, you have a portfolio
Speaker 1: of your creations and you've become you know, you've improved
Speaker 1: as an artist. You've got something to show for yourself.
Speaker 1: Some of you will have a finished book if you've
Speaker 1: chosen to write. We ignore the magic of the baby
Speaker 1: steps so frequently because I think we're just such a
Speaker 1: go all in or go home culture.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that you're so right that, you know, go
Speaker 3: all in or go home culture. Just it blocks us
Speaker 3: the most because it's also this comes from like a
Speaker 3: bit of ego where it's like I want to be
Speaker 3: the best of this, like this has to be incredible,
Speaker 3: and it's almost like, well, maybe I'm not going to
Speaker 3: be the best of this the first time I try,
Speaker 3: all for the first year, or maybe for the first
Speaker 3: ten years, and that's okay, because I'm just trying and
Speaker 3: I'm just learning. But that requires a sense of detachment
Speaker 3: and egolesseners to be like it's okay to make bad
Speaker 3: stuff and I know you have the biggest proponent of
Speaker 3: this shitty art. Yeah, and that's really been validating for me,
Speaker 3: Like every time I read you say something like that
Speaker 3: or write something like yes, thank you Amy for giving
Speaker 3: me a permission. Walk me through how we because I
Speaker 3: think we oscillate between procrastination and perfectionism, and so this
Speaker 3: kind of solves both of them, really, but walk me
Speaker 3: through that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're so closely related, procrastination and perfectionism. One causes
Speaker 1: the other, and such a perfectionism will mean that you procrastinate.
Speaker 1: So my ethos is like shitty art, Like if you
Speaker 1: can't point to a giant pile of shitty art that
Speaker 1: you've made recently, then you're not doing the work. And
Speaker 1: I think so many artists see that as a sign
Speaker 1: of failure. But to me, that is a sign of
Speaker 1: like giant success. We have to connect to that messy,
Speaker 1: playful part of ourselves when we create. That's when the
Speaker 1: best art is made. I watch artists for nests and
Speaker 1: for ness, and they're trying to get it so right,
Speaker 1: and they're like narrowing and narrowing their point of view
Speaker 1: and they're getting so constrained and they're losing i think,
Speaker 1: their own creative voice almost by these huge restrictions to
Speaker 1: be perfect. Whereas if you just say, make shitty art,
Speaker 1: and I often do this at workshops, They say I
Speaker 1: got three minutes, just make something shitty, and the cool
Speaker 1: stuff that comes out of that shitty palm shitty drawings,
Speaker 1: there's also that little element of magic to it, because
Speaker 1: when you just let yourself play like a child, it's
Speaker 1: so fun. There's a lightness to it. Ideas come in
Speaker 1: like perfectionism is rigidity, and we think perfectionism is the answer.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, if I'm a perfectionist, it's like that
Speaker 1: will get me to where I want to go as
Speaker 1: a creative. It's like the one fault that we're allowed
Speaker 1: to have. But perfectionism will destroy your creative career, it
Speaker 1: will destroy it. We need mess we need play. That
Speaker 1: is when you will become the best artist you can.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's actually often where I find the seeds
Speaker 3: of great ideas come. Like you did something bad in
Speaker 3: doing something random, but there's one word or one line,
Speaker 3: there's one dott or whatever it is for you, there's
Speaker 3: that one thing that you go, oh, that was the
Speaker 3: real thing. That's the thing I want to create now,
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden it sparks it. But if
Speaker 3: you didn't allow for that messiness, it's never going to happen.
Speaker 3: You'd never have seen it, you would never have found it.
Speaker 3: And that, to me is is definitely why I crave
Speaker 3: more play and more messiness in my life, because there's
Speaker 3: a sense of the profound will only come from playfulness.
Speaker 3: It's not going to come from trying to be profound
Speaker 3: or create something profound. Yeah, it doesn't originate that way.
Speaker 1: I think so many of us think that art is
Speaker 1: like a child thing, and so we're trying to be
Speaker 1: like adults creating, and adults would create in very structured ways,
Speaker 1: like we'd have rules, you know, we'd follow an expert,
Speaker 1: and we'd do exact what they say. And we try
Speaker 1: and make art a very responsible and neat thing. But
Speaker 1: art is like that in a child playing, and art
Speaker 1: is messy and it should be a kind of a
Speaker 1: chaotic experience. We've got to invite that back into into
Speaker 1: our lives.
Speaker 3: Yes, I do this activity that I got introduced to
Speaker 3: many years ago. It's known as the thirty circles test,
Speaker 3: and if you've ever seen it, so it's basically a
Speaker 3: four piece of paper with thirty circles printed on it,
Speaker 3: and I often hand it to executives at corporate coaching
Speaker 3: and corporate clients that I have, And the task is
Speaker 3: you have to uniquely fill and complete and use thirty
Speaker 3: circles in thirty seconds. And the clock starts, and everyone
Speaker 3: starts scribbling away doing their thing, and then clock stops
Speaker 3: at thirty seconds, and I asked them, what have they done?
Speaker 3: Over fifty percent of the audience will have done one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
Speaker 3: eight to thirty or abcd EFG to z Z to
Speaker 3: ABC again, and so they will have done that. That's
Speaker 3: what over fifty percent of the audience has done. Some
Speaker 3: of the audience has done squiggles just goes nothing. There
Speaker 3: maybe notts and crosses, or they've some people done emojis,
Speaker 3: and some people have done like footballs and soccer balls
Speaker 3: and pizzas or whatever like using So yeah, and that's
Speaker 3: generally runs the gamut of ninety nine percent of the audience. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and maybe in the adult side you'd get one. But
Speaker 3: they also did this with lots of ten year olds,
Speaker 3: and I tried it out with ten year olds as well,
Speaker 3: and some of the stuff that comes out is unbelievable.
Speaker 3: And so this one girl had done all this like
Speaker 3: intricate shading on it, and when we asked her what
Speaker 3: it was, she said it was a chessboard from a
Speaker 3: bird's eye view. And when you ask another kid what
Speaker 3: it was, they had put like a line around it
Speaker 3: and put a little thing on top, and they said
Speaker 3: it was a bag of marbles. And they put five
Speaker 3: dollars on the bag of marbles. And this was my
Speaker 3: favorite one. Someone had done all this intricate shading this
Speaker 3: little girl and put all this like curves and all
Speaker 3: this stuff, and when I asked her what it was,
Speaker 3: she said it was bubble wrap. It was so creative. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's genius, and it's so interesting what you're saying is
Speaker 3: so true that when adults here thirty circles thirty seconds,
Speaker 3: we go logical brain structure, completion deadline, so we switch
Speaker 3: off the part of our brain that has any Yeah.
Speaker 1: Can you can imagine how many of those adults are
Speaker 1: thinking there is a right and.
Speaker 2: Wrong way to do that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm going to be marked on it, whereas
Speaker 1: these kids are just like, it's so beautiful, so playful.
Speaker 1: And when we talk about creative genius, I think we
Speaker 1: often think of some of you know, the greats, like
Speaker 1: Mozart or something, but like, look to the kids, because
Speaker 1: they are finding out fun stuff. Yes, they are the
Speaker 1: creative geniuses, and we have that within us. It's just
Speaker 1: that we've been told to squash that part of us
Speaker 1: from our culture.
Speaker 3: Really, how do you start to structure and strategize art
Speaker 3: and promote it in a way that then it does
Speaker 3: allow you to Because it's almost like we're trying to
Speaker 3: become adult about our art, not adult about how we market,
Speaker 3: promote and strategize our our It doesn't make sense. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Like it's almost like the art should remain playful and
Speaker 3: messy and truly creative. But then how we get that
Speaker 3: art out there should potentially have structure and strategy.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I'm going to disagree with you.
Speaker 3: I want to hear your thoughts. But first, here's a
Speaker 3: quick word from the brands that support the show. All right,
Speaker 3: thank you to our sponsors. Now let's dive back in.
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of room for mess, for playfulness,
Speaker 1: for the chaos, the traditional creative chaos, in marketing putting
Speaker 1: your art out there, I think we get really stuck
Speaker 1: on Okay, well, I've made my art. It's incredible, it's beautiful,
Speaker 1: it has my inner child like infused within it. Now
Speaker 1: I'm going to market it, and now I need branding colors,
Speaker 1: and I need a social media scheme, and I need
Speaker 1: to be I need to be doing you know, four
Speaker 1: to five consistent posts a week and three reels, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden that like I see it, like
Speaker 1: artists just shrivel, Like we don't thrive under those kind
Speaker 1: of circumstances. I think there's so much room for I
Speaker 1: think marketing is an art form in itself, and therefore
Speaker 1: I think that when we put our art out there,
Speaker 1: when we promote our art, there is room for mess.
Speaker 1: And there's still like shitty art should still be a
Speaker 1: part of it, like we should still be playing around
Speaker 1: seeing what works, having fun when we promote our art
Speaker 1: as well. I think artists feel so claustrophobic when they
Speaker 1: feel like they have to niche down or they feel
Speaker 1: like they have to you know, meeten up their Instagram grid,
Speaker 1: like be messy in the promotion process. Like we're out
Speaker 1: there looking for real humans to connect with, not not brands,
Speaker 1: not companies. I want to connect with artists who are
Speaker 1: real human people. So I want to invite artists to
Speaker 1: bring that mess into the marketing process as well. But
Speaker 1: I think it's very easy, like for our perfectionists to
Speaker 1: flare up when it comes to sharing it art because
Speaker 1: not only have we just done the bravest thing, which
Speaker 1: is make art, now we have to share it, and
Speaker 1: so perfectionism is going to flare hugely because we're like, kay,
Speaker 1: we've got to protect myself because this is a moment
Speaker 1: where I like put it out there and people are
Speaker 1: going to see me as the artists. They're going to
Speaker 1: see my art, they're going to judge it.
Speaker 2: So we start.
Speaker 1: Trying to structure it really heavily in order to feel safe.
Speaker 1: And I just think we lose so much of the
Speaker 1: magic when we do that. I want to see the artist.
Speaker 1: I want to see the human. I want to see
Speaker 1: your mess I want to see you playing. I want
Speaker 1: to see I just want to see grit.
Speaker 3: No, I actually agree with you. I actually agree with you.
Speaker 3: I definitely when I was doing my structure and strategy,
Speaker 3: maybe I use the wrong words. I definitely don't mean
Speaker 3: definitely don't like the idea of people having to you know,
Speaker 3: like you said, choose brand colors and be organized. Yeah, no,
Speaker 3: not in that way at all. And I couldn't agree
Speaker 3: with you more. That often that's the stuff that stifles
Speaker 3: even more creativity because you're now playing a game, definitely,
Speaker 3: and you hope to figure.
Speaker 1: Out Yeah, I see artists, do you see it everywhere online?
Speaker 1: Especially in the space I'm in, because I'm so in,
Speaker 1: you know, the creative space. Artists are just so tired
Speaker 1: of having to show up in specific ways online in
Speaker 1: order to please the algorithm. Like there's a weariness that
Speaker 1: I see in creatives that's so heartbreaking, And I just
Speaker 1: want to say, like, first of all, I know it's
Speaker 1: hard to navigate these system but second of all, break
Speaker 1: all the rules, rebel like artists are inherent like rebels.
Speaker 2: We break the rules.
Speaker 1: We've already broken loads of rules because we've created stuff
Speaker 1: in a world that wants us to stay small and
Speaker 1: compliant and silent. Now it's time to break the rules
Speaker 1: with how we put our art out there. Do whatever
Speaker 1: you want to do, Do what makes you happy, do
Speaker 1: what feels creative, rather than you know, constantly obeying what's
Speaker 1: going to go you know, what we think might go viral,
Speaker 1: or what reels are preferred by the algorithm. This stuff
Speaker 1: is making us feel like shit, and it's not I
Speaker 1: don't know that it's helping us.
Speaker 3: And how do you feel like if someone's doing that,
Speaker 3: but then they're also like going months and years without
Speaker 3: feeling like their work's being seen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is incredibly difficult, and there's nothing to me,
Speaker 1: there's nothing more painful. And when you're sharing your art
Speaker 1: and nobody is seeing it, like, there is an exquisite
Speaker 1: pain when it comes to that silence and navigating like
Speaker 1: putting something out there that you've just created and having
Speaker 1: no one respond. Like for me, when I was navigating that, like,
Speaker 1: I was very very upset by it, and I felt
Speaker 1: almost ashamed by how upset I was by it again.
Speaker 1: It's that idea that artists shouldn't want attention, But I
Speaker 1: wanted attention. I wanted people to see and read my books.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be witnessed. So when artists aren't seen
Speaker 1: and when we're like, Okay, I'm going to break all
Speaker 1: the rules, but it feels like by breaking the rules
Speaker 1: you get missed or you get put to the side.
Speaker 2: That can be incredibly difficult.
Speaker 1: I think there's a way to kind of toe the
Speaker 1: line and play the game, but what at the same time,
Speaker 1: make sure that it feels good to you. Certainly for
Speaker 1: the way that I like to share my art I
Speaker 1: don't want to do what's going viral, but I will
Speaker 1: still consider, like, you know, how it's going to impact
Speaker 1: my audience and what people have enjoyed of my content lately. Like,
Speaker 1: there's a game that I'm playing and it's a balance
Speaker 1: that I like to There's a line I like to
Speaker 1: walk that makes it so it's still creatively fulfilling for me.
Speaker 1: But I'm not going to obey whatever the next niche
Speaker 1: thing I have to do in order to be big
Speaker 1: on social media.
Speaker 2: Do you find that, like in terms of your career.
Speaker 3: I mean totally. I mean we in the beginning. You know,
Speaker 3: for me, the videos that I started with were me
Speaker 3: just freestyling, almost kind of rough words poetry on topics
Speaker 3: that I loved. They went viral by chance, like they
Speaker 3: weren't crafted for a particular time length or a particular
Speaker 3: editing pattern because I didn't know them. I was just
Speaker 3: making videos and they went viral and people loved them,
Speaker 3: and then I made more of those because I enjoyed them.
Speaker 3: But the day I stopped enjoying making them, we stopped
Speaker 3: Yeah beautiful, and then we created a new format where
Speaker 3: I'd seen a lot of comedians who would do sketches
Speaker 3: and there'd be hilarious ketches of real life. I was like, well,
Speaker 3: what if I did sketches of real life? Like what
Speaker 3: if I was to create real life experiences as dramatic
Speaker 3: performances with messaging. So we did those and I loved it,
Speaker 3: and those went viral, and then there was a day
Speaker 3: I didn't enjoy making those anymore. I felt like I
Speaker 3: was trying too hard to come up with story lines.
Speaker 3: And then so we stop doing that, and then I
Speaker 3: started the podcast, which I'm still doing today because it
Speaker 3: feels like the most realist fluid form, because there is
Speaker 3: no set structure to make an interview go viral. It's
Speaker 3: truly a deep conversation. It's far less. There's not a
Speaker 3: science to that as much, and if there is, I
Speaker 3: don't enjoy it because I choose not to ask. I
Speaker 3: have a rule that we have of not to ask
Speaker 3: gossip based back questions, clickbait questions, because that's how we
Speaker 3: protect our art in that I want the conversations to
Speaker 3: be true and genuine and sincere. But basically, when I've
Speaker 3: stopped finding something fulfilling as art, I've stopped doing it
Speaker 3: because I've found that if I keep doing something I hate,
Speaker 3: I'm going to end up hating parts of myself and
Speaker 3: I'm going to feel disconnected from myself.
Speaker 2: We get a lot of bitter artists.
Speaker 1: What we have, you know, a practice that we're doing,
Speaker 1: whether that's in the creation process or whether it's when
Speaker 1: we share it. If we don't like it and we
Speaker 1: keep doing it, we are going to become better. We
Speaker 1: see a lot of bitter artists out there which are
Speaker 1: so angry at what the world has made them. Do
Speaker 1: you know, whether that's to sell their books or sell
Speaker 1: their art or be seen on social media and they're
Speaker 1: so pissed that they had to sacrifice their creative integrity
Speaker 1: in order to be seen, and it just cannot be
Speaker 1: worth it.
Speaker 2: I just I want.
Speaker 1: Creatives to create with what feels good, exactly like you, j.
Speaker 1: It's such a beautiful example. When it stops feeling good,
Speaker 1: stop doing it, try something else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because it did feel good at one point and yeah,
Speaker 3: and it was new and fresh and it was created.
Speaker 3: And the funny thing is part of me that want
Speaker 3: to go back to some of those now yea. And
Speaker 3: so it's because I'm like, oh, I used to love
Speaker 3: those videos eight years ago. Maybe if I reconnected to them,
Speaker 3: I'd come at them from a really genuine place. And
Speaker 3: so I can now go back home feeling happy rather
Speaker 3: than go back home feeling bitter because I feel forced
Speaker 3: to be there. Yeah, And so I feel like when
Speaker 3: you let the algorithm dictate what you make, you feel
Speaker 3: forced to be there, and it's almost like your parents
Speaker 3: forcing you to come to family dinner and you don't
Speaker 3: want to be there exactly. And I love what you
Speaker 3: said about artists being rebels because I remember when and
Speaker 3: I wrote Think like a Monk, my first book, and
Speaker 3: fourteen out of seventeen imprints that I took meetings with
Speaker 3: at different publishers told me not to call it Think
Speaker 3: like a Monk, because they were like, Jay, who wants
Speaker 3: to think like a monk? No, one wants to do that.
Speaker 3: And it was this big thing that I rom with
Speaker 3: this conversation, and we were talking earlier about when you're
Speaker 3: writing your first book, you don't know how much to
Speaker 3: push for and how much not to. That was something
Speaker 3: I pushed for wholeheartedly, and I'm so glad that.
Speaker 2: I'm good glad you did.
Speaker 3: And you know, it's so interesting because same with my
Speaker 3: second book. I was like, I had this view of
Speaker 3: an artistic cover and I pushed for it again because
Speaker 3: I believed in it so deeply and I could have
Speaker 3: gone for the cover that they thought would sell the
Speaker 3: most or whatever, And it was never that. It was
Speaker 3: always like, I want to create something that I think
Speaker 3: is beautiful and powerful and builds a movement.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we've been taught to we've got to
Speaker 1: create the thing that's going to go the most viral.
Speaker 1: But what if we create something that impacts you know,
Speaker 1: one hundred people, Like that's still incredibly worth it. I
Speaker 1: think we're always aiming for virality. We're always aimed for
Speaker 1: like again, it's that big, go big or go home.
Speaker 1: Like what if we make art and share it in
Speaker 1: a way that no, it doesn't go viral, but it
Speaker 1: connects and it impacts and it maybe it only finds
Speaker 1: one or two people, but it does its thing and
Speaker 1: it and it resonates with them. I feel like artists
Speaker 1: are always told, you know, go viral, be Taylor Swift,
Speaker 1: or be a starving artist, and it's this binary that
Speaker 1: doesn't serve us. I talk a lot about like I
Speaker 1: want the I want this to be the era of
Speaker 1: the middle class artist where it's like we don't need
Speaker 1: millions and millions of dollars, we need, you know, a
Speaker 1: stable income and we get to enjoy a stable income
Speaker 1: and we're not the starving artist and we're not j Loo,
Speaker 1: but we are thriving, joyful, you know, financially secure artists.
Speaker 1: Like that's what I want for us, and I think
Speaker 1: it's much more possible than we realize.
Speaker 3: You just talked about how you want this culture of
Speaker 3: middle class artists, which I love that, Like that's such
Speaker 3: a such a great vision and such a great mission
Speaker 3: that you're in. I really like that because, like you said,
Speaker 3: I think for so many years we've been told art's
Speaker 3: not a real job, it won't make you a living,
Speaker 3: what's the point, And we've subscribed to that, and then
Speaker 3: you do a safe job and then you realize you
Speaker 3: left your dream back there. Yeah, or you got lucky
Speaker 3: enough and art did become a really big thing, but
Speaker 3: then maybe you lost touch with the art you wanted
Speaker 3: to create and you felt like you sold out. And
Speaker 3: I've always described it as the selfish artist or as
Speaker 3: a sellout artist. And it's like the selfish artists only
Speaker 3: creates them for themselves, but then they don't ever get
Speaker 3: to feel what it feels like to share their art,
Speaker 3: and the sellout artist only creates for the audience, and
Speaker 3: then they never create what they truly want. And the
Speaker 3: balance is in between. Yeah, But when it comes to
Speaker 3: monetizing your art, I feel like people are scared of
Speaker 3: asking for money. We're scared of valuing our art accurately,
Speaker 3: and then at the same time we're struggling to pay
Speaker 3: our bills at points in our life. How do you
Speaker 3: encourage people to think about monetizing their art and becoming
Speaker 3: a middle class artist.
Speaker 1: There's so much shame around for all of us, whatever
Speaker 1: we're doing. There's so much shame around money. But I
Speaker 1: think for artists there are so many narratives. There's this
Speaker 1: almost glamour around being the poor artist, and then as
Speaker 1: you say, then there's the glamor around being like the
Speaker 1: super mega famous artists, And there's no healthy story about
Speaker 1: an artist who gets paid for what they do and
Speaker 1: can live, you know, a sustainable life and you know
Speaker 1: there's a value exchange and it feels good, and the
Speaker 1: exchange of money feels good. And I feel like, for
Speaker 1: me personally on my journey, like it's been the most
Speaker 1: beautiful thing to realize that selling my art has felt
Speaker 1: really good, and selling my books has felt so aligned.
Speaker 1: I know that my stories are going to serve them
Speaker 1: and there's a value exchange and they pay me for
Speaker 1: my stories or they pay me for my words, and
Speaker 1: it's felt really beautiful, like a very like a relationship,
Speaker 1: but it's felt very intimate. It's felt very aligned. And
Speaker 1: I always thought that it was going to feel icky,
Speaker 1: or it was going to feel lucky, or that I
Speaker 1: was going to feel like I was taking advantage of
Speaker 1: them or manipulating them. But I've found a space where
Speaker 1: it feels good, and I want artists to understand that
Speaker 1: selling your art can feel good, and so I want
Speaker 1: artists to start getting comfortable with the idea that art
Speaker 1: is valuable. That's maybe the part of the problem, Like
Speaker 1: we don't understand that art is valuable. People think, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, food is valuable because it feeds me, or
Speaker 1: you know, I need a computer because I need to
Speaker 1: do work on it. But we don't really understand the
Speaker 1: value of art. And it is incredibly hard to put
Speaker 1: a monetary value on art. I mean, I have so
Speaker 1: many conversations with creatives being like, how do I put
Speaker 1: a like a dollar sign on my art? And that
Speaker 1: is hard, it can feel very arbitrary. But art has value.
Speaker 1: Art brings so much value to other people, and the
Speaker 1: artist needs to learn that because I think there's too
Speaker 1: many creatives going around out there thinking, oh, I'm just
Speaker 1: I'm making decoration for the world, or I'm just doing
Speaker 1: something that's so silly. I'm telling stories, I'm making movies.
Speaker 1: But it's just, you know, it doesn't make a difference.
Speaker 1: Art makes a difference. And we're getting some very cool
Speaker 1: research coming in about how art impacts us physically, how
Speaker 1: it impacts our mental health, how it impacts our communities,
Speaker 1: like art changes us. But artists don't recognize that, and
Speaker 1: we still think we're doing something frivolous, when in reality,
Speaker 1: we are doing something incredibly profound that is making real change,
Speaker 1: political change, personal change, biological change to other people around us.
Speaker 1: You deserve money for that. That story needs to sink in,
Speaker 1: and then that value exchange is going to feel so
Speaker 1: much better.
Speaker 3: So powerful. I'm so glad you made it so easy
Speaker 3: and clear, and it's so true. Have so many friends
Speaker 3: who are artists who do something it's quite easy for them,
Speaker 3: or it's effortless for them, and then they're scared. And
Speaker 3: there's this beautiful, old made up story that I heard
Speaker 3: a long time ago, where it's not true at all,
Speaker 3: but it's got a nice message. And Picasso walks into
Speaker 3: the marketplace and this lady seeves Picasso and she says, picassa,
Speaker 3: will you draw me a portrait? He says, sure, I'll
Speaker 3: draw your portrait. So he grabs a pen and paper
Speaker 3: and he draws a portrait of her and he gives
Speaker 3: it back to her and she says, Picasso, that took
Speaker 3: thirty seconds, and he's like, it took me thirty years
Speaker 3: to do that in thirty seconds. And it's like, when
Speaker 3: you're working as an artist, you're almost recognizing and reminding
Speaker 3: yourself that when you're putting a value in your work,
Speaker 3: you're putting value on all the training, all the pain,
Speaker 3: all the stress, all of that that went into that
Speaker 3: piece that maybe have taken you twenty hours, maybe it
Speaker 3: took you two hours, maybe it took you two minutes.
Speaker 3: But there's so much experience that went into that piece.
Speaker 3: And so whether it was a quote on Instagram or
Speaker 3: whether it was a piece of art, we're always valuing
Speaker 3: how long it took us to do the thing, not
Speaker 3: how longs to live what it took to do that thing.
Speaker 1: I also think we think that because art can be
Speaker 1: joyful or easy to make, that it shouldn't be worth money.
Speaker 1: Because I had a really good time writing my book,
Speaker 1: I should give away it for free, yes, which is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I think we almost feel like we've got it too good.
Speaker 1: Could I love the process and be paid for it? Yes,
Speaker 1: you could, because your art has a lot of value
Speaker 1: and you deserve to be paid for it. Again, I
Speaker 1: want artists to understand what you are making has value,
Speaker 1: you deserve money for it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, And I think about it all the time.
Speaker 3: There's also this feeling of if you're doing something truly
Speaker 3: to help people, it should be absolutely free. And that's
Speaker 3: a really interesting one. God, you have a reaction. I
Speaker 3: can see your reaction to that.
Speaker 1: So I think it happens for artists a lot too.
Speaker 1: And I get a lot of creatives telling me that
Speaker 1: all they're family members asking for free art or you know,
Speaker 1: if you really wanted the world to change, you would
Speaker 1: give it away for free. Lots of narratives again, constantly
Speaker 1: asking artists to work for free, devaluing creatives, devaluing artists.
Speaker 1: And it's so painful because it's kind of a seductive narrative.
Speaker 1: I actually really want to hear what you have to
Speaker 1: think about it. But this idea that it's only generous
Speaker 1: if there's not a value exchange, it's just so cruel
Speaker 1: and it leaves artists. First of all, it perpetuates the
Speaker 1: scarcity story and the artists support we have the money,
Speaker 1: which means we end up not creating that much, which
Speaker 1: means we don't have the money, which means we're working
Speaker 1: multiple jobs, which means we can't.
Speaker 2: Create the art.
Speaker 1: Like, if we don't support and nourish artists with money,
Speaker 1: we lose artists. So we need to be paying our artists.
Speaker 1: If you want more art, if you want an art
Speaker 1: a world that is filled with books and movies and
Speaker 1: creations and music and beautiful gardens and good food, we
Speaker 1: need to support our artists. And I still think that
Speaker 1: when we put our art up for sale and when
Speaker 1: we sell it, it is a profoundly generous act, especially
Speaker 1: when we ask for money for it in return.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you asked my opinion on it, It's similar to yours.
Speaker 3: I remember at one point in my life, I was
Speaker 3: I had one hundred million views, and I was four
Speaker 3: months away from being broke, and I was starting to think, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm going to have to go back to work. I'm
Speaker 3: going to have to get a job again. And I
Speaker 3: know that the job I would probably get would be demanding,
Speaker 3: because that's the job i'd get with my education and
Speaker 3: everything I have, and therefore I'd probably not be able
Speaker 3: to do much of this anymore. And that means if
Speaker 3: I can't make this anymore, but the one hundred million
Speaker 3: views I have, the comments and everything i'm reading a say,
Speaker 3: this really helped me, This changed my life. I shared it.
Speaker 3: I like all the comments I'm reading are like, people
Speaker 3: are benefited by this, but I'm not going to be
Speaker 3: able to do that anymore because I don't know how.
Speaker 3: And I remember going through that whole process and I
Speaker 3: was thinking, well, wait a minute. And at that time,
Speaker 3: I was shaming and giving myself or even thinking that
Speaker 3: I could charge for something, and I was like, well,
Speaker 3: how do I do that? And like, but people are
Speaker 3: getting value from it. But then I really want to
Speaker 3: do it for free because that's how I was trained
Speaker 3: to always and obviously with my monk background, it's like
Speaker 3: everything was for free and everything was charity work, and
Speaker 3: so I really had that conditioning. And then I thought
Speaker 3: to myself, well, if I give up what I love
Speaker 3: that helps people and serves people and I can't do
Speaker 3: it any longer, is that the world I want to
Speaker 3: live in? And it was a really clear answer where
Speaker 3: it was like, well, no, I want to live in
Speaker 3: a world where I could do this forever. I can
Speaker 3: help more people do what they want to do. We
Speaker 3: can even create teams that will all be living a
Speaker 3: purposeful life that they want to excuse me that they
Speaker 3: want to live in. Yeah, and we'll be able to
Speaker 3: hopefully impact so many more people who will create amazing
Speaker 3: journeys for themselves. And I'm so glad that, despite any
Speaker 3: criticism shame guilt that comes with that path, I'm glad
Speaker 3: I made that choice because I'm far happier having pursued
Speaker 3: that then I would have been if I just went, Okay,
Speaker 3: well I'm done. I'm done now because I can't afford
Speaker 3: to do what a huge.
Speaker 2: Loss for the whole world if you would have been like,
Speaker 2: I'm done.
Speaker 3: And for myself and for you. Yeah, and the creative
Speaker 3: of like just also just not just thinking about well
Speaker 3: I can't make more if I don't have enough to
Speaker 3: make with, like yeh, Whom'm going to pay to edit
Speaker 3: the video exactly to film this? And how all of
Speaker 3: this and there was even even with the podcast, which
Speaker 3: which is free. And I always thank everyone for us
Speaker 3: allowing to have our sponsors and our ad partners, which
Speaker 3: is the way we're able to do this. And we're
Speaker 3: so I always said this to everyone, We'll not everyone.
Speaker 3: I say this to my friends behind closed doors. I'm like,
Speaker 3: we're so selective over which brands we work with, which
Speaker 3: companies we partner with in order to present that to
Speaker 3: our community, and we probably leave more on the table
Speaker 3: than we even make because of that desire to get
Speaker 3: it right. And I'm not saying that to sound holy
Speaker 3: than now or sound what I'm saying is everything's done intentionally,
Speaker 3: and I think if it's done intentionally, there's a heart
Speaker 3: there and there's a a truth there of wanting to
Speaker 3: serve and wanting things to be good. Yeah, and the
Speaker 3: podcast is absolutely free, but there are certain things that
Speaker 3: may not be if that person wants to hold that
Speaker 3: integrity to themselves.
Speaker 1: And no, it makes a huge amount of sense. I
Speaker 1: think artists are just constantly people always want to call
Speaker 1: them out for selling out. And I don't know why
Speaker 1: we're so vulnerable to that narrative. Because you don't go
Speaker 1: up to your accountant who's doing, you know, important work,
Speaker 1: and say why are you being paid for this? We
Speaker 1: don't go up to we don't ask other people why
Speaker 1: do you want money for your job? But we ask
Speaker 1: artists that all the time. We ask creatives that all
Speaker 1: the time. And it's interesting and I don't fully understand
Speaker 1: the narrative there, but I question it, and I want
Speaker 1: to like double down, like we deserve to be paid
Speaker 1: and we deserve not to be questioned about that as well, like,
Speaker 1: of course we bring value, we deserve money.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I think it's because and that's a great point,
Speaker 3: it's like wanting to understand it. I think it's because
Speaker 3: emotional and spiritual exchanges are not valued in society as
Speaker 3: deeply right, Like you can't. We all know there's people
Speaker 3: you meet that energetically make you feel better, Yeah, because
Speaker 3: you don't known to pay for that as an energetic exchange.
Speaker 3: You almost think it's impure if you had to pay
Speaker 3: for it. So we see money as impure, and we
Speaker 3: see art as pure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we don't like them touching correct, Whereas I
Speaker 1: want to very gently suggest that art is like messy,
Speaker 1: human like not pure at all. It is wholly an
Speaker 1: incredible and the most important force ever, but it's messy
Speaker 1: and it's human. And it's same with money. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, none of these things are impure or pure,
Speaker 1: where they're all very human ideas, and I believe aren't
Speaker 1: money belongs together.
Speaker 3: I love that. I want to ask you a few
Speaker 3: more about some emotions that artists often go through. I
Speaker 3: think one of them today is oversaturation, this feeling of
Speaker 3: it's oversaturated. Like I was looking at someone the other
Speaker 3: day a friend of mine said to me, they said, gee,
Speaker 3: I feel like you were one of the first podcasts.
Speaker 3: And I was like, I think you must be kidding, right,
Speaker 3: and they're like, no, no, no, I think you were
Speaker 3: like one of the first podcasts. I was like, I
Speaker 3: lount my podcast in twenty nineteen, and I pulled up
Speaker 3: this train I googled it. There were three hundred and
Speaker 3: thirty six thousand podcasts that existed in twenty nineteen, and
Speaker 3: of course there are so many before that that were
Speaker 3: that were well known and big as well. And it
Speaker 3: was like, but to them, because I was the first
Speaker 3: podcast they'd discovered, I must have been the first podcast.
Speaker 3: And I was like, it's really the first thing of
Speaker 3: anything that takes off as lessons is whatever. Today, I
Speaker 3: think there's over probably.
Speaker 2: I was about to ask, do you know the number?
Speaker 3: I think I could be wrong, but maybe like two
Speaker 3: million maybe today? Oh yeah, And so I'm sure it's
Speaker 3: high because it's been five years since I.
Speaker 1: Still I want to say, though, like two million isn't
Speaker 1: that high? Not like there's seven billion of us. People like,
Speaker 1: I couldn't start a podcast. It's saturated. I'm like, it is.
Speaker 1: There's two million podcasts. There are so many of us,
Speaker 1: there are billions of us. I think we can kind of.
Speaker 2: Get the scale.
Speaker 1: A bit confused, sometimes totally, but yeah, whenever anyone says
Speaker 1: I can't it's oversaturated.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: Plus, there's no noise like your noise. There's nothing that you. Again,
Speaker 1: you're a one time phenomenon. You're never going to be repeated.
Speaker 1: You have something to say, this's never been said. You
Speaker 1: have a viewpoint that will never be replicated. You almost
Speaker 1: have your own market.
Speaker 3: Yes, there's so much. I see that more and more
Speaker 3: when I see creators come up, and I'm like, there
Speaker 3: is so much demand in the world.
Speaker 2: We're so hungry. Yeah, art to be seen.
Speaker 3: And you can make people feel seen in a way
Speaker 3: that no one else can. And that's your superpower and
Speaker 3: that's what's so beautiful about you, and that's what's needed,
Speaker 3: because you're going to make someone feel seen, heard, and
Speaker 3: understood in a way no one else can, in a
Speaker 3: way I can't, in a way you can't, in a way.
Speaker 1: I love that, Yeah, I really I often use this
Speaker 1: example when people talk about oversaturation and art, because I
Speaker 1: think art sits in a really different space to other products. So,
Speaker 1: for example, like a toaster, I only want one toaster. Oh,
Speaker 1: I could maybe want to but basically I want one toaster.
Speaker 1: But I want hundreds of books I want. I can
Speaker 1: watch so many films, I can have so much art
Speaker 1: around me, Like I want so many different types of
Speaker 1: plants for my garden. I want, you know, to try
Speaker 1: different types of food.
Speaker 2: Like, we have a really really big appetite for art.
Speaker 1: And so when people come in and say, oh, I
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly be a writer. There's so many writers in
Speaker 1: the world, I'm like, I can't have enough books, Like
Speaker 1: I'm mainlining them on audiobooks, like just all the time.
Speaker 1: Like art is not toaster, it's not a fridge. We
Speaker 1: don't need just one of them. We have a much
Speaker 1: bigger market than you realize. And I always feel whenever
Speaker 1: a creative, I very gently say this, when a creative
Speaker 1: comes to me and says I can't it's oversaturated, I go,
Speaker 1: there's got to be another reason. Yes, you're playing small,
Speaker 1: like cause it sounds great, sounds like a perfect excuse,
Speaker 1: But we need your voice there is no noise. No
Speaker 1: noise like your noise start taking up space. Yes, and
Speaker 1: like two million podcasts seven billion of us and don't
Speaker 1: want more podcasts. I listened to new podcasts all the time.
Speaker 3: Actually, and most people have found listening to a collecttion
Speaker 3: a podcast totallyople.
Speaker 2: Dad was asking that, like.
Speaker 3: How do you feel about so many other podcasts coming up?
Speaker 3: And that's the funny thing. It's like, that's the conversation
Speaker 3: when you're established in the conversation when you're new, is
Speaker 3: there's too many? Yes, everyone's like oh, and I'm like
Speaker 3: I love it because most people are listening to like
Speaker 3: two or three different podcasts at the same time. It's
Speaker 3: how we like, we don't all go I only watch Netflix.
Speaker 3: It's like, no, I like shows on Apple, and I
Speaker 3: like some shows on whatever else there is here. Sorry,
Speaker 3: I only know the HBO and Hulu and whatever else
Speaker 3: there is. It's like you don't just go, oh no, no,
Speaker 3: I only watch this one platform. I only watch YouTube.
Speaker 3: I don't use Instagram, like it doesn't work like no, and.
Speaker 1: Like on Instagram it's like, oh, there there's an oversaturation
Speaker 1: of poets.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I give me all the poets.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I'm not just following one poet on Instagram. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: there's a renaissance for so many art forms at the
Speaker 1: moment because of social media, because we have this like
Speaker 1: connection economy, and there is more space than ever before,
Speaker 1: and it can feel like there's a lot of noise
Speaker 1: because of these spaces, and because when you scroll through
Speaker 1: Instagram you can.
Speaker 2: See a lot of creators.
Speaker 1: But it's because we're hungry for it, and more than ever,
Speaker 1: we're hungry for very vulnerable, real connection. We're hungry for
Speaker 1: art in a world where we're showing a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, listicals or like viral content, Like, we're hungry
Speaker 1: for human expression and so it's time for artists to
Speaker 1: step up, take up space, share their art, and make
Speaker 1: things because we're desperate for it. So yeah, I really
Speaker 1: won't hear anything to do with the saturated market.
Speaker 2: I would shut that down.
Speaker 3: Another emotion I think a lot of artists experience is jealousy. Yeah,
Speaker 3: if we're being really honest, jealousy and envy of like
Speaker 3: I wish I had that, I wish I've got those views.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm jealous, but I am but I see jealousy
Speaker 1: as a compass I think it can be a beautiful emotion.
Speaker 1: If we let it fester, it can be toxic. I
Speaker 1: love the way you use your platforms. I love the
Speaker 1: art you make, I love the way that you use
Speaker 1: this podcast like and then there is a definite like
Speaker 1: almost it feels a bit like jealousy, like I want
Speaker 1: what you have, But I can use that in a
Speaker 1: way that is incredibly inspiring to me in my art,
Speaker 1: and I know where it is I want to go.
Speaker 1: I can learn from you, I can be taught by you.
Speaker 1: I can follow in your footsteps. And if we can
Speaker 1: use jealousy in that way rather than sinking down into
Speaker 1: patterns of comparison, so instead of me sitting here and
Speaker 1: being like, oh why am I not in Jay's position,
Speaker 1: and like listing the reasons why and like comparing two
Speaker 1: incomparable artists, I can say I can use jealousy as
Speaker 1: a compass. And I really wish that artists could see
Speaker 1: it in that way, because again, it's another emotion that
Speaker 1: can take us down. I can feel constantly less than,
Speaker 1: never enough, and I also feel like it's an emotion
Speaker 1: that maybe doesn't go away. I'm not sure if that's
Speaker 1: been your experience, if you've seen that it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how big you get, there's always someone who's got something
Speaker 1: that maybe you want or something like that, and it
Speaker 1: just that if you don't get a handle on it.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's not something that, yeah, it doesn't
Speaker 1: fade away with success.
Speaker 3: Yes. Yeah. There's two questions I ask clients of mine
Speaker 3: when I'm coaching them, And the firstsion is who do
Speaker 3: you envy? And there's no one that I've met, no
Speaker 3: matter how successful they are, that doesn't know that word
Speaker 3: on the tip of their lips that they know it.
Speaker 3: And I've found that learning to deal with envy and
Speaker 3: transform it is core to happiness and fulfillment in life
Speaker 3: because you can't forget even how much you do what
Speaker 3: you love. Even if you did what you love every
Speaker 3: day and it paid you well, you'd still be unhappy
Speaker 3: if you had envy in your life. Like envy is
Speaker 3: that force? That what you're saying to use it as
Speaker 3: a compass and what I often do. And I said
Speaker 3: this to you the moment you walked in, because I
Speaker 3: love it the way you write. I said to you, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I probably need to take a workshop with you. And
Speaker 3: that's me saying I'd rather study with you than envy you. Like,
Speaker 3: that's the choice I get to make. I'd rather study
Speaker 3: you and your work and how you've learned that, and
Speaker 3: study with you and grow and have a relationship with
Speaker 3: a mentor than to envy that person and want to
Speaker 3: never give myself the opportun unity to grow and become,
Speaker 3: but only to unbecome and unlearn and kind of go backwards.
Speaker 2: That was stunning.
Speaker 1: I loved everything you just said so much. I feel
Speaker 1: like it's so beautiful. The idea that it's an opportunity
Speaker 1: to level up as soon as you feel that jealousy
Speaker 1: and envy, I think you've got two options. It's like
Speaker 1: you could really let this take you down, or you
Speaker 1: could really let this take you up. So it's very exciting.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a similar with imposter syndrome. I have to
Speaker 1: feel like imposter syndrome is a sign that you've leveled
Speaker 1: up as well.
Speaker 2: Yes, you're in that new skin and.
Speaker 1: It feels like uncomfortable, but yeah, it's an opportunity to say, no,
Speaker 1: I'm going to learn from you. I'm gonna, yeah, sit
Speaker 1: at your feet. I love that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, we need your art is out right now
Speaker 3: I'm excited for everyone to grab a copy of the book. Amy,
Speaker 3: is there anything that I haven't asked you that really
Speaker 3: on your heart or something you wanted to talk about
Speaker 3: that we somehow didn't get to that that you want
Speaker 3: to share now that intuitively is coming to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we could talk for a long long time. Sure,
Speaker 1: I think I want to talk about how when I
Speaker 1: wrote we Need Your Art, and it was, you know,
Speaker 1: not long ago. I love that I got to speak
Speaker 1: to the creative experiences from in the trenches, and because
Speaker 1: it can be such a challenging experience navigating yourself as
Speaker 1: a creative. There's so much rejection, silence, you know, imposter syndron, comparison,
Speaker 1: like so much of what we've spoken about. And I
Speaker 1: love that I got to write this book in it
Speaker 1: like I'm still experiencing rejection, still experiencing silence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And I love that I got to, yeah, delve into
Speaker 1: this topic with everyone as we all navigate it. And Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm very excited for people to get to read this
Speaker 1: book and for me to be on that journey with them.
Speaker 1: Like the greatest privilege in the world for me is
Speaker 1: to sit by an artist and watch them create. There's
Speaker 1: no greater honor to me. So yeah, I'm very excited
Speaker 1: for this, this book Baby to be in people's hands.
Speaker 3: That's beautiful me too. I really believe it's going to
Speaker 3: be that, you know, that generational book that's going to
Speaker 3: inspire all these new creatives and artists at time when
Speaker 3: I don't feel ever since social media took off, we've
Speaker 3: really had a book that speaks to that dilemma of
Speaker 3: being an artist. And I feel like we need your
Speaker 3: arts that book.
Speaker 2: So thank you.
Speaker 3: I'm really excited for you and excited for everyone have it.
Speaker 3: Excited to read it myself and have it. But Amy,
Speaker 3: we end every On Purpose episode with a final five.
Speaker 3: These have to be answered in one word to one
Speaker 3: sentence maximum. So Amy mcne these are your fast final five.
Speaker 2: I've been preparing. I love it.
Speaker 3: Question number one, what is the best advice you've ever
Speaker 3: heard or received?
Speaker 1: I love what Liz Gilbert says when she says this
Speaker 1: world is just a school for endless learning. I love
Speaker 1: this idea, and I feel like you embodied this so much.
Speaker 1: It's like this is just a school for endless learning.
Speaker 1: We just get to keep being curious, keep learning, keep
Speaker 1: making mess and then finding something magic within it. And
Speaker 1: I love taking that into each day because it allows
Speaker 1: for so much room and it gives me even if
Speaker 1: it's shitty or I think it's good, I love it.
Speaker 3: I love it. Question number two, what is the worst
Speaker 3: advice you've ever heard or received?
Speaker 1: Honestly? Like, in a more general term, it's be careful.
Speaker 1: I wanted to recklessly pour myself into my art. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be risky, and the words I kept getting
Speaker 1: was be careful, and it made me feel like I
Speaker 1: was doing something wrong. But I love the invitation for
Speaker 1: artists to rebel, to be the revolution, to just be
Speaker 1: messy and recklessly like throw themselves into this creative life.
Speaker 3: I just got goosebumps. I was like, that's really Like,
Speaker 3: it's so right that that cautiousness, which is for safety
Speaker 3: but always ends up feeling like it trapped you instead
Speaker 3: of key.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that. Question number three, what
Speaker 3: is the worst piece of art you've ever made? Oh?
Speaker 1: Man, you should talk to my partner. So we write
Speaker 1: books together, and so I'll write the first draft and
Speaker 1: then he'll read it, and watching his face as he
Speaker 1: reads my first draft.
Speaker 2: He's like, what is the he's here right now?
Speaker 1: And I mean it's because and I pride myself in this.
Speaker 1: I write spectacularly shitty first drafts, and I'm genuinely proud
Speaker 1: of it because I just word vomit.
Speaker 2: It's just la la la la la.
Speaker 1: There's so much magic in there, but it is difficult
Speaker 1: to navigate as an editor, and poor James really has
Speaker 1: to wade through some shit. But I'm incredibly proud of
Speaker 1: my first drafts.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: That's great.
Speaker 3: And what is your favorite piece of art that you've
Speaker 3: ever created.
Speaker 1: I wrote a fiction book called Regrettably I Am About
Speaker 1: to Cause Trouble, and it's just that it's that don't
Speaker 1: be careful kind of vibe. It's a witchy historical fiction
Speaker 1: like rebel book, and I loved it. Was this reckless,
Speaker 1: abandoned novel of just throw yourself in. So she has
Speaker 1: a special place in my heart.
Speaker 3: I love that fifth and final question, which we asked
Speaker 3: every guest who's ever been on the show, If you
Speaker 3: could create a law that everyone in the world had
Speaker 3: to follow, what would it be.
Speaker 1: I want people to make some shitty art. I want
Speaker 1: you to find out what happens when you take affectionism
Speaker 1: out of the equation and you just let yourself create.
Speaker 1: So yeah, make shitty art, that's all I want.
Speaker 3: I love it, Amy mcnege. Everyone in the book is
Speaker 3: called we Need Your Art. Who don't follow Amy already
Speaker 3: on Instagram inspired to write Amy, It's been such a joy.
Speaker 3: I look forward to getting to know you so much more.
Speaker 3: I'm so excited for you to continue to create art
Speaker 3: in this world, and we definitely need your art. So thanks.
Speaker 3: So happy to connected with your work and found it organically,
Speaker 3: fell in love with it, and it honestly does work
Speaker 3: wonders for me when I'm struggling and figuring things out
Speaker 3: and just go to your page and find something that
Speaker 3: resonates very very deeply. So anything I do that helps anyone,
Speaker 3: you get the credit for it too.
Speaker 2: Because yes, definitely, I.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't be able to do it without people like yourself. Y.
Speaker 2: Thank you for your art. We need your art. I'm
Speaker 2: so grateful for you.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Thanks Amy. If you love this episode, you'll
Speaker 3: enjoy my conversation with Megan Trainer on breaking generational trauma
Speaker 3: and how to be confident from the inside. Oh, my
Speaker 3: therapist told me stand in the mirror naked for five minutes.
Speaker 2: It was already tough.
Speaker 3: For me to love my body, but after the C
Speaker 3: section scarf with all the stretch marks.
Speaker 2: Now I'm looking at myself like I've been hacked.
Speaker 3: But day three, when I did it, I was like,
Speaker 3: you know what, her thighs are cute