Transcription of the show via Descript (it’s not perfect).
Welcome to the creative entrepreneur show. It’s so good to have you here. You know, it’s been a while. I’ve been so involved with a number of projects. My last podcast. Was back in March of 2021. Well, at least my last podcast here, but I have recommitted to this podcast because I’ve put the two blabs podcast on hold. I think I’ve done what I needed to do over there.
But I have so much more that needs to be done here. On the creative entrepreneur show. You know, this show has been going since 2008 off and on. But I am still proud. As many of you have heard many times. I kept this thing going for five years straight every Monday. And I hope to keep pretty darn consistent once again, and hopefully push another few years out and give you some more insight. I think.
One of the reasons why. I’ve jumped back over here is there’s so much new to share. And there’s so much that creative entrepreneurs need to work through and there are new opportunities and I want to share them with you. Let me share a few examples. One example. Is AI. And now I have to tell you, I am using at least four or five different AI platforms.
Including what I am recording on right now. I’m using this script. Which is an AI platform that is actually. Transcribing what I’m talking about, but not only that. And we’re going to do some experiments, maybe not in this show, probably the next show. So you’ll have to listen to the next show. Because the AI needs to get used to my voice.
And later on. I’ll be able to edit. Indescript. And the AI will use my voice to change. So I will tell you when I do this, I’ll probably say, okay, this next. Say paragraph. Is not me actually speaking. We’ll see how it goes. That will be interesting. I’m sharing a lot of this with you, because, well, because this is our future. In many ways as creative entrepreneurs, you can.
We can run away from the new technologies or we can embrace them and enhance our creativity with them. It’s sometimes quite often just taken out the little tasks that we don’t like to do. And let some machine do it. Now the other thing that is happening here, uh, is that, that paragraph that is going to be in my voice.
Is it going to be created by me? It’s going to be created by another AI. And that one is Jarvis AI. Jarvis AI can write and we use it quite a bit in my business for writing now. I got to say that. Yes, it writes very well, but what we like to do more than anything. Is we’d like to use it for research and we’ll say, Hey, write about this thing.
And then they’ll pull some research and then we’ll pull in, share our own, maybe experience our own phrasing, our own way of doing it, but it takes a lot less time to research when. The AI is already read a good portion of the internet. And has a good bit of information about what you’re trying to talk about and yeah, sometimes you need to correct it.
But it is rather amazing. So when I do this. I’m going to do it next week. So I hope you listened to the next show. I will actually have an AI created and I’m going to throw three AI’s in there. I’m then going to have, after the AI creates this paragraph in Jarvis AI, I’m going to take it over to Grammarly, which is AI and have a go through and make sure everything is correct. And.
It sounds good. And then I’m going to put it into script the other AI, which will then use my voice. Which will then use my voice to read that section of the podcast. And all this may be freaking you out and rightfully so, but there’s a lot of opportunity here. Look, AI is creating imagery. AI is creating video and I am all for the human experience and human creation. I am not.
Saying, I think this is the way to go in every situation in, in creativity. I think it can support you. And I do think we need to stand our ground. And what is human created versus AI created, but we can both, we can both benefit. We can all benefit from what is coming. As long as we steer the direction and know who we are in terms of what we’re trying.
To do what we’re trying to create and how we want to express ourselves. There is a lot of opportunity out there. And I’m looking forward to sharing. The discoveries. With you. When I first started this podcast, I was mostly focused on. Social media because social media, mid two thousands was the new thing. And it’s still a pretty big thing. It’s obviously integrated into our world.
But there are many ways we can approach social media today a little bit differently than we did back then.
There are new ways that creatives can grow. Their business. Different experiences that we can offer. Through. Augmented reality. So something I’ve certainly have talked about on this podcast before. Virtual reality. There’s so many approaches now that we can use to get the word out about what we’re doing, what we’re creating, we still have access. And that was the exciting thing about social media.
Was the access that we, we gained, the voice that we now have that can reach extremely far. Without which really. Involves taking time versus money. But it’s all important. As we grow. Our creative businesses. We want the freedom. Of growing our creative business and our creative life. We don’t want to be stuck in a cubicle. Is for sure. That’s something we know. We don’t want to be stuck in a cubicle. We want to be able to grow a business that we can sustain over time.
But one of the biggest mistakes that something it’s been a few years since I’ve talked about this, but one of the biggest mistakes creatives make. Is they go against. The natural. I hate to say it this way, the natural order of things. And I don’t mean it in a way that a lot of people would take this.
The natural order of things is change. There’s always change. And the people who try to stop change. In other words, there are many artists. Creatives. Who get into a certain area, like for example, getting into. Digital, you know, getting to digital photography. And you, you understand how it works and you’re, you’re all in, but now, you know, you get in and then 10 years later, things change.
And see, 10 years ago, you were the person saying, oh, those film people, you know, or maybe it’s a program or the way a program works, maybe you enjoy using a specific design program and they just. Never really updated again, and there are better ones out there, but you’re just not willing to change. You’re not willing to update what you’re doing.
Change. Is going to leave you behind. And you need to continuously embrace what is the chain? Now? You don’t have to embrace every change, but you should be knowledgeable and you should be able to know what change. In terms of, cause that all change is good. That’s for sure. Um, that’s where the natural human kind of a conservative.
You know, ho. You know, protect myself mentality comes from because not all change is good and you need to be careful and it’s a balance. And that’s really what it comes down to is being a balance. Because trying to stop everything in saying the good old days was the right way, because today is the good old days for those.
10 years from now and the good old days of social media. Early days of social media. I miss them. I do the 2006, 7, 8, 9, 10. Wow. What a. What F amazing time. It was for me in my career and exploring all that was new in social media. It’s it’s been a lot of fun. But I continued to evolve and change and I embraced YouTube.
A little bit later. And in some ways I was wrong about YouTube, meaning I thought that YouTube was just a place. You put videos. And then you could share in your other social media, not realizing. You could develop a community there. And you can, and I have traveled and have met so many wonderful people. I have such great friends now because of YouTube.
C. You have to evolve. Because everything is changing. I mean, look. If you can create something that is timeless in a way, and you can keep doing that timeless thing. That’s fine. And hopefully there is continued demand for that timeless thing that you’re creating. But that’s not always the case. When you are.
Trying to develop. A modern creative entrepreneur. Life. And not everybody has to be modern, but many of us have to make a living somewhere to at least start. What it is we want to do. Maybe our dream, maybe there is a old style. Maybe you want to. Create an old style of ceramics. Maybe you prefer oil painting specifically versus creating.
Uh, on a computer or you like drawing in pencil versus creating a computer or you prefer film black and white film versus digital and using Photoshop today.
But if you want to be out there in terms of a serviceable. The serviceable. Type of creative life. I
mean,
serving other people. Then yeah, you’re going to have to be in with the more modern times versus maybe a pure artistic approach. But, you know, some people can do it, but, but not as many, not as many it’s important.
And I really wanted to kick this show off in this way, because you know, getting back into it for 2022. Looking ahead so much in the last couple of years has changed. We’re all. Well, well aware of that. But we do need to understand and have a vision of where we want to go. And maybe kind of look back and see.
Okay. What. What have I been fighting against? And because I’ve been unwilling. To change and move forward. There’s a lot of times. It’s very common. To see an arrested development. Within our communities within creatives. They get in. It’s really just what I was saying. They get in when they get in.
And they learn it. They get really good at what was right at the time and they never evolve. And that just can’t happen. You can’t do that. So we’re making 20, 22 the year that we evolve and grow and understand that the natural order of. Everything is change. The only constant is change. And those who fight against it.
Tend to lose out. I remember very clearly back in the early two thousands. How many film photographers quit photography? Quit. They just told, I talked to many of them, so I quit once digital got into play. I quit. Because it was a different approach. I mean, more preproduction with film and more post-production with digital.
It’s commonplace now, but back then, it was a big change in different workflow of doing business. And a lot of photographers had trouble. Doing that. And that’s unfortunate because they. You know, I honestly, I think many, not all, but many eventually started poking around and maybe got back into it.
And started to understand the value. Of digital. What it allowed you to do the next steps you could create? Imagery with, I mean, there there’s so many new ways to create imagery now. It truly is. Amazing.
Who do you want to be in 2022? What kind of creative entrepreneur do you want to be? What blanks do you need to fill in? Where have you fallen behind? As I mentioned before all change isn’t necessarily good change, but you do need to recognize the change and not just fight against it. Dabble in it a little bit. See if it really should apply to what you do. I have tried many things.
The internet is littered with many experiments of mine. Some that worked brilliantly and some that failed miserably in some, I just ultimately had no use of. What are those? For you. As we move forward because we’re going to explore together the new stuff coming down the road, we’re going to explore.
Together. All of the ways we can find new business support our clients. We’re going to take. The, the combination code that I’ve often talked about and see how we can apply that to our creative business. There are new things that I’m just amazingly excited about. And maybe you can hear to my voice. I’m very excited about all the new opportunities we have that we did not have five years ago, certainly not 10 years ago.
Of course, that means it can be overwhelming too. And that means you need to maybe dip your toe in. And decide that. You know, more things have to go to the wayside and figure out what are the things you’re going to apply. Yourself. And maybe you decide that you want to really get involved in. Augmented reality.
And you may have to let go of some of the things you have been doing or playing with or testing. Because the branches keep well branching off and, you know, even within the, you know, virtual reality, augmented reality, you probably should pick one, not necessarily both or different types of photography or different types of design approaches to design 3d design. Are you, are you gonna create design for the web or are you going to create design for the physical world?
Are you designing for 3d printers? I mean, it is endless the things that you can do and the type of design. That you can create if you like design and want to be creative. So I really want to get together with you. As many weeks as possible. On this podcast. So we can learn how to use these things. And even more importantly,
I think that. Sticking with the business and marketing theme that we’ve had through all of these years, of course, how to run your business, your creative business better and how to market it. It’s the creative entrepreneur show and there are many parts to being an entrepreneur. It’s not all about the money. It certainly is.
S a quality of life issue. It is for me, I could not, I really could not spend my time being told what to do. Hour after hour. And I’m lucky. I’ve worked and have created a. Created a very successful business. Uh, the raw rash media has been very successful. And Hey, I’m just like you. I’m refocusing.
In 2022, I really am. And I’m improving what I have been doing. I tell you a secret. Uh, you know, 20, 20. I doubled my business. In 2021. I kind of rested on my laurels and yeah, we grew. We grew about 30%. Uh, which was good. W I was only thinking we grew 10 to 20%, but we did better than that. And, you know, when we grow that much, it is a nice chunk of business that has increased.
But I sat back a lot. I didn’t work as hard as I had in the previous years. I kind of, although I couldn’t go and do very much. Uh, as many things as I would like to have done traveled more. Of course. I, I did just kind of sit back and let things run. And I need to improve what I’m doing. In the world of, you know, pay-per-click advertising my photography.
Search engine optimization. All that stuff. Creative content.
Not to say that I’ve ignored it. But, you know what? I wasn’t. Working as hard as maybe the year before and the year before that, in terms of educating. I myself. It wasn’t listening to as many podcasts, not reading. As many blog articles, I did listen to YouTube folks on various topics, but you know, a lot of my learning over the last few years has been.
Related to YouTube. And I really. I really do have YouTube and the understanding of YouTube down. So you’ll certainly hear. I’m really bringing in my knowledge of the last couple of years of interviewing and making friends with so many YouTube people. Educators that I’m bringing that to the creative entrepreneur show, because I know some of those people are coming over here to listen. And so I’ll certainly talk about it and even answer those types of questions because it is a big topic. And, but then.
What has evolved from that? Obviously tick-tock what an amazing algorithm. And understanding algorithms that can help us get our work in front of more people is important. Understanding the YouTube algorithm, but also understanding tic-tac understanding Instagram and Facebook is also important. And even Twitter.
I mean, Pinterest, there are so many more opportunities than we had again. 2015 years ago and we have to take advantage of them, but we don’t have to take advantage of them all. And that’s what I’m doing. Stepping back. Aye. Closed down. Or at least Paul I’m pretty sure it’s closed down the tube labs podcast.
Again, integrating it here so I can focus just on this show. And I, I closed my big, you bigger YouTube channel. So I could focus on the one that I think really applies to my business. And that. Were those were smart moves.
Refocusing where I need to go in the new year. So I ask you. Again, where do you want to be? At the end of this year. What do you need to refocus on? What do you need to let go of. So you can be the best creative possible. You know, I’ve talked about all these shiny objects, but maybe you have embraced too many of them.
And you might have to let some of them go just like I did. I think. This is going to be an exciting year. Obviously there are some major. Hurdles in our way, and we need to figure out hopefully. Hopefully many of these hurdles end. Soon. And we all know we’ve talked about last couple of years, what’s been in our way.
Um, I really miss networking and being out there. , at the same level that I had been before. So I hope that we can all even start connecting again in person. I think there’s some great opportunity for us. But we’ll see let’s let’s now just kind of evaluate. And see, what are those next steps? What worked for us in 2021? What worked for us in 2020? And what can we apply?
In 2020 to let go of that. Wasn’t working so well. And I’ll talk to you. In the next creative entrepreneur show.
