Mak: 0:06

I don't think there's anything better than really cold San Pellegrino out of the miniature glass bottle. I don't, I mean it, I just think it's like there's, it just gets me going. Except maybe you know, I love Aquapana.

Valerie: 0:23

You do. I've gotten into Spindrift lately. I was like LaCroix all the way. Huge LaCroix fan Still am, but I like how Spindrift has the real juice in it.

Mak: 0:37

Well, I think we switched because LaCroix supposedly had bad stuff in it. It's not good for your health. The natural flavor.

Valerie: 0:44

I went on a real rabbit hole on that.

Mak: 0:47

I just spilled San Pellegrino all over my leg, but I'm serious, there's just nothing better. So if you need a little treat for yourself, I recommend get the six pack of the little green ones. Stick them in your fridge and, right before you're doing something heavy, get one out and put it on your desk. I promise it'll make a difference.

Valerie: 1:05

I should save those green bottles. Now I'm looking at them like what could I make out of that?

Mak: 1:11

That sounds like you. Everything in this house becomes something else. We're always saving toilet paper rolls or sponges.

Valerie: 1:17

I just used up all the toilet paper rolls. We saved toilet paper and paper towel rolls for the entire winter and I had a huge collection of them and I used every single one to do seed, starting in.

Mak: 1:32

And now we'll have beautiful plants all summer long.

Valerie: 1:38

Thank you to the toilet paper rolls. All of my recyclable projects can be like a side note of the podcast.

Mak: 1:53

This is the Unbound Creative Podcast. I am Mac. This is my wife, valerie, and we're so glad to have you along with us.

Valerie: 1:56

Episode five Hard to believe, but here we are, we're going strong.

Mak: 1:59

We're back at it.

Valerie: 2:01

So today, there's something that we hear all of the time, right, so think, if you've if you've heard this phrasing. It's like, oh, that's a creative person, they need a business person. Or like we put creativity and business on opposite ends of the spectrum oh yeah oh yeah, that's the right brain, left brain person and that's they're the artist I hear.

Mak: 2:27

It seems to be like the antithesis of business I hear it from artists oh, I'm a creative, I'm an artist, I'm not a business person. Yes, I almost hear it more from them than I do. People who are just in business saying you need a business person to help you do this it's just become another one of these things we're.

Valerie: 2:48

We're kind of finding this groove mac. I feel like of dismantling things that we just hear and that we've just come to accept. Almost. I feel like every time we sit down to talk it's almost like a dismantling. Another thing about creatives or about creativity that has just become accepted somehow. It's said so many times that it's accepted. We were talking about creatives and it being frivolous, or the cultural messaging that creatives get that oh, that's cute, until you're super, super successful. But then there's this whole other slew of cultural messaging that we get on creatives. I think this is another example of the cultural messaging that we've been just told so many times that we've come to accept it. Or creatives and artists have come to accept it, me being one of them. I said this for how long? Because you and I have been in business together, actually.

Mak: 3:53

I don't want to admit this number out loud Now that you're like bringing it up. Is it 15 years?

Valerie: 3:59

Oh, maybe.

Mak: 4:00

Is it close to 16? Because we're in that neighborhood where we met.

Valerie: 4:04

Okay, so fun fact, and we'll dive more into our paths in other episodes.

Mak: 4:10

Look, we've gotten a couple messages from people saying, hey, tell us about your background, about your story. We want to hear more, and so we don't want to sit here and talk about ourselves. So we're going to plan an episode where we get into our story from way back to now and everything we did.

Valerie: 4:25

but but a little tidbit is we met while we were both working in radio and we ended up starting a marketing agency together less than six months after we left, because we met after we met after we met?

Mak: 4:42

yes, after we left, no, after we met. We both left that job like a month after we met. After we met, I mean not left After we met. We both left that job like a month after we started our advertising agency and everyone thought we were crazy.

Valerie: 4:52

Because we met the first day of spring, which is very appropriate. Yes, because that just happened. So we met the first day of spring and we ended up really starting our business to the point that we quit in October.

Mak: 5:07

Yeah.

Valerie: 5:08

So that's not very long.

Mak: 5:10

That isn't long. I mean that's when we quit, but I mean we had started in the summer of that year because it was hot. I remember it being really hot, yeah, but anyway, that's neither here nor there.

Valerie: 5:18

Anyway, the point is we started a business very soon after we had met, which kind of crazy. That's a whole other thing. But I fell into that as well, where it's like well, I'm creative. I don't know if I'm a business person, but yet I, my family, they I come from a line of small business owners. I was entrepreneurial as a child. I had American Girl magazine and that's probably dating me too, but I loved crafts. What I'm saying right now about the bottles and everything, that's just. I've always been that way. I've always been very crafty. I love to make things and I remember just as a kid really young in elementary school I would get American Girl magazine. I would craft things from the magazine, like, I remember one project it was pencils and you would take embroidery floss and glue it around the pencils and put these tassels and these beads and they were so cool I don't know how really you would sharpen it.

Valerie: 6:30

I didn't know it, then I don't kind of know now it didn't matter.

Valerie: 6:32

It was so pretty and I took those to school and I would sell them. When I was in sixth grade I started a newspaper for my school and I would just use my at-home printer, print out a bunch of copies, take it to school, sell it for a quarter. So I was always entrepreneurial. When I was little even, it just was something about me. But then I think the cultural messaging really did seep in. And maybe not right then when we started a business for our agency, but definitely later in the Lillian Val years when it was my art business, I fell into that trap of well, I'm an artist and not really about the business. That's really sad. It takes away power, I think, to creatives and artists.

Mak: 7:23

I had a similar story. I had an entrepreneurial father as well. He owned his own business and I did very similar things. I was a DJ, I was a mobile DJ and I DJed my first wedding when I was 10, I think something like that, and so your first wedding. I did my first wedding when I was no. It was for family.

Valerie: 7:44

Okay.

Mak: 7:51

I was going to say someone trusted you. No, it was for family. Okay, someone trusted you. It was. It was well, they, they, they didn't have a lot of money. And and there I. There I was, um, uh, with my radio shack mixer and my dad's speakers from hysteria, but, um, but I did the wedding and but I got more gigs from that wedding. So, like I got it was weird anyway.

Mak: 8:05

So I built a DJ company all through middle school and high school and at the same time was had this burgeoning radio career and but what happened to me was I was super creative and I was doing all kinds of my life was nothing but creativity until I was probably I don't know 20 years old, at which point I realized I told myself I've got to learn how to be a businessman. And I full-throated went into learning business, being an entrepreneur and doing all the stuff. I wrote business plans, I took local business classes, I went to mixers. I did all the things trying to learn how to be a businessman, because I was convinced that I was not one and I always separated the two things in my head and I remember.

Mak: 8:58

This is like therapy right now, because this is like coming up as we're talking about it, the podcast has been kind of like therapy. Well, that's what podcast? That's what everybody says, go to a therapist Instead, everyone makes a podcast. But in my head I told myself I can't be both. I can't be a creative and I can't be a businessman. I have to pick one. And I remember saying to myself I've got this incredible career, that I could go into a radio at the time this was a long time ago, when radio was still really big, and I instead chose to be a business person because I said I can make more money being a business person. And the truth is, I think if I had stuck with my radio career, I might think my life would be very different now. But I, you know, I eventually tried to merge the two, but it's really weird.

Valerie: 9:49

But there was still that wall there, mentally of nope, I got a strap on my business suit and. I'm serious business person. Oh, and this is over. Here is fun, creativity, art and play and joy and all of that stuff.

Mak: 10:04

Yes, yes, but what I want to say and where we're headed with this is the first business that really worked for me that really took off was a marriage of the two, where I was fully in my creativity but I was also running the business and I let the two kind of come together and it exploded.

Valerie: 10:23

You know what, mac, I'm thinking. I'm even remembering instances just of our joint efforts together. Since that time we've always had joint business efforts going and I remember people even asking us or interviews that we would do, and I remember even specifically saying oh, it works so well because I'm the artist and he's the business brain, but that made so much sense to everybody, everybody went along with that. I feel embarrassed even saying that, because it is so diminishing of both of us.

Mak: 11:03

Yeah, it really is.

Valerie: 11:05

But isn't that so, like everybody, that we want to put things in boxes and we want to put labels on them? It just seems that that makes everybody more comfortable, or maybe it makes ourselves more comfortable when we can say stay in your lane, this is your lane, you're the artist. You are supposed to be aloof and unorganized and not really knowing what's going on. And great, you know. Great for you. We know that about you. You stay in your lane and then you're supposed to be serious business, making decisions, having the power. And yeah, it did. We kind of took on those stories.

Mak: 11:51

We did.

Valerie: 11:52

But it wasn't until I mean quite recently, I would say, maybe in the last several years, we sort of had this epiphany because we were saying that. But yet Mac is incredibly creative and artistic in his own right. Thank you, I am also. I have business acumen.

Mak: 12:14

I have, like I said, been starting business and selling things since I was a child as well you have a lot of natural giftings and leanings in that way and you get it honestly because your dad is an incredibly intelligent businessman, yeah, and so you've always had that and I've always had the creative side, but we both labeled ourselves sort of the opposite and it diminished.

Valerie: 12:40

each of us Correct.

Mak: 12:41

I think we could have done something much bigger if we had just explored the been okay being both.

Valerie: 12:46

Well, because the stories that we tell ourselves are so, so, so important and really we believe that it's often a story that's standing in the way of anything. You want anything, you want to do anything, you want to have anything, you want to be. If the story is that you can't have that thing or that you are not that thing, that is what is going to be the determiner of if you get it or not and I'm going to be even bolder to say it's always a story, it's not.

Mak: 13:20

Sometimes it's always a story Even if you're sitting there and you have no money and no friends and no connections. You sitting there saying I have no money, no friends and no connections will keep you from making it happen. But if you change the story and you flip it around, you say I am creative, I'm a good problem solver, I'm capable, I'm capable of making things happen for myself. At the very least I can start calling some people or talking to some people.

Valerie: 13:50

It's amazing how that story changes and flips things. It helps you get past those current circumstances, whatever they are, because you can see a little bit further. It loosens the dust on just your vision and we're all walking around with virtual reality headsets on. That's the thing and that's another lesson that I've really come to learn and it's hit me hard because I also have this tendency that I want everybody to understand. I think a lot of people are that way People-pleasing tendency. But almost even another wing of people-pleasing is this idea of I want to be understood, and I think a lot of these labelings and these boxes come from the fact that we just want to be understood. We want people to get who we are and we want to get who we are. So we label it and put it in a box.

Valerie: 14:45

But I've really had to work on getting over this idea of being understood and realizing the fact that everybody has their own reality and realizing the fact that everybody has their own reality. We all have our own stories, what we've gone through, what we're telling ourselves about certain situations, and it is actually impossible for you to be fully understood in any regard. It just is. It's impossible and maybe you have examples in your families or just situations that you've seen unfold and you're scratching your head going. Did they hear the same conversation? I'd have that, where you hear one thing from one person and one thing from another person and you go. Were you guys in the same room? Were you even talking? Because how is it this different? We all have that, everybody does. It's the virtual how you perceive the world and perceive reality. So often, if somebody is perceiving you in a certain way or they're not even seeing you, it's because of themselves. It's a mirror. We're seeing a mirror.

Mak: 16:11

I remember when, right after we met, or actually right before we met, I had probably the most spectacular failure of my life and in business and I was carrying that with me back into radio. So I had been away from radio for many years when we met and I and I got back into it and right before we met I had this and when and when I say what well, I well we're.

Mak: 16:41

I'm gonna save that for another episode. That's called a teaser in radio. See how good at this I am. So so it was very public, very humiliating. I mean news, news stations involve my name being people are gonna think really bad.

Valerie: 16:55

I really bad stuff. I'm just talking about being misunderstood.

Mak: 16:58

I know, and I did. I made mistakes. I actually didn't do anything wrong here, but I made bad business decisions because I was learning and I was really young. But at the same time, I had just come off of that and I remember saying. I remember saying, I remember telling my parents I'm never going to own another business ever again. I'm never going to start another business. I'm a failed entrepreneur.

Mak: 17:19

I tried this. I've been trying to do this kind of thing for a long time. I'm just going to go back into radio. I'm going to rebuild my radio career. I will never again start a business. Never say never.

Mak: 17:30

Well, that was a story I told myself. I'm a failure. That's what it was. And I knew I was not a failure in radio. So I went to where I knew I could thrive.

Mak: 17:41

But what happened is I met you and over the course of time, as we started dating and getting to know each other, we talked about our past and everything like that, and you, in this incredible way, reminded me that no, I'm not a failure. I actually do have worth and value. And you helped me change the story. You helped me take a step back and recognize that, no, that failure was something that I could carry with me as education, and within six months of this big event happening, where I swore I'd never and I believed a story that I'm this terrible guy, this terrible failure, I'm not going to do this Guess what.

Mak: 18:28

I started another business with you, but you helped me change my story. You helped me recognize that the story I was telling myself wasn't real, and if that hadn't happened, we might not be sitting here, because now we're what? Four businesses, maybe even five since then, I don't know, and it's completely different. And so that's what I think happens to a lot of people is they have an incident that you might not have as big spectacular failure, but it could be as something as much as a mentor or somebody you respect goes. I don to a lot of people is they have an incident that you might not have as big spectacular failure, but it could be as something as much as a mentor or somebody you respect goes. I don't really like this, I don't think you're cut out for that and you believe that for the rest of your life, yeah and you know what.

Mak: 19:07

It's not true. It's that person's opinion in that moment. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't proceed forward. But you believe and buy into that story for the rest of your life. You changed my story and now here we are.

Valerie: 19:21

It is really incredible when you think of it in that way, because I think at some point it becomes subconscious and something may happen. And then you just somebody says something and you do, you just adopt that as the truth and it just becomes part of your psyche, like these stories we're saying, just even overall with artists and creatives oh, they don't make good business people. Where did that come from? Who even said that? And maybe there are things popping in your head right now of stories. Maybe it needs another examination.

Mak: 19:55

It absolutely needs another examination. It's not a maybe for me. Me, I think. If you're listening right now you, you are. You have a couple stories you already is kind of pinging in your head right now. I think you need to re-examine those stories. We all have them, even now. Even the most successful people in the world have these stories that they're still overcoming and that they're still thinking about. And you and the topic of this is creative people make great business owners.

Valerie: 20:19

Yes, that's the point we want to get across.

Mak: 20:21

They make great entrepreneurs you are actually. I think creatives are better suited to be entrepreneurs and business owners than anybody else. And you know what? I'd be willing to bet that the first person that said creatives shouldn't be entrepreneurs was probably an accountant or something who was trying to sell their service to creatives it probably started that's how a lot of this stuff starts. It's just some marketing message and then it just becomes the meme.

Valerie: 20:47

Yeah, because it's not true, we're running artists through a program right now called the peaceful artpreneur. Um, we've been working with a fantastic group of artists and this is the first thing we said to them on the first day is artists make the best business, people the best. Let's get this story out of our head. And why? Why would an artist make the best business person? Well, think about it. Art, what, what you have to do to create something from nothing. You're taking a risk there. You're taking vulnerability. There you are getting messy, the willingness to do something messy, to pivot when you need to, and you're not so focused on that outcome. You're there in the process. You're making things work. You're playing.

Mak: 21:42

You have to be Same thing for business. You have to be in the process. And if you're an artist, every single time you start with a blank page, a blank canvas, and you have to build something beautiful. You bring something that didn't exist previously, something beautiful, something authentic, something real into the world. But you don't just snap your fingers and it shows up. The process of actually creating that art.

Mak: 22:12

Whether it's visual music sculpture, I don't care what it is, it is what Val said. It's visual music sculpture, I don't care what it is, it is what Val said, it's messy, it takes time and you have to focus on solving a million problems. Every stroke of the brush, every tap of the chisel, every pluck of the string, you are solving a problem. That takes you to the next problem and then you solve that problem and then it takes you to the next problem and then you solve that problem and then it takes you to the next problem. Sometimes it doesn't work.

Mak: 22:40

So you got a back pedal and you got a reef configure and you got to work forward, especially in visual art. You know you get the whole way done. You know, like pam beasley from the office says she's like oh, whenever I mess up. I just paint a bush over it, she goes. So I stopped respecting paintings with a bunch of bushes, so but but the truth is it's like you have to create. You can't just paint a bush over it, you have to solve the problem and that's all. That's all owning a business is is is you are creating, you're bringing something into the world, You're bringing beauty into the world by solving a problem for somebody else, and it's made up of nothing but a series of small problems that you have to continue to solve, but it fills you up so much creatively to solve those problems, and that's what makes a business.

Valerie: 23:24

And, just like artists who focus solely on that outcome, they're not going to be happy in their art practice. That is so much of the suffering of an artist, which there are a ton of artists suffering and who are blocked because they are not approaching their art from the lens of creativity. And this was another huge epiphany of why we even want to do this podcast, because you think you hear the word artist, artist and I think people have this view of, oh yeah, artists flitting around and there are butterflies everywhere, but meanwhile, how many artists who are suffering? They are suffering and they're suffering for their art and they're miserable and they're hard on themselves and this thing that the world is saying is frivolous feels so tied to their identity and they don't feel good enough and they feel like imposters and they feel like if only I could just get it right. And it brings up all of this angst. It's like such a minefield. There are so many artists who are not operating in their creativity.

Valerie: 24:36

I was one of them for many, many years. It had to be the good outcome. I was angsty, my identity was so tied to what I produced and how well what I produced was received. That is such a difficult way to live and that's not the most effective way to live. We somehow think that if we hold so tightly to the outcomes, that that's going to give us the result that we want, that if we control it, then we're going to get the better outcome. But, as we see examples of in so many other areas of life, that control is is the problem. The control stifles the flow. It stifles flow state it's. It stifles what is is beautiful and spontaneous spontaneous spontaneous and magical that can happen.

Valerie: 25:36

So I I in my membership and when I work with artists a huge thing that I do is help artists tap back into their creativity, where they have the freedom and the confidence and the self-love honestly, because it takes a great deal of self-love to allow yourself to do it badly and make a mess. That is my goal is to get artists from this place of operating, from their creativity, so that they can make a mess. Wait in the mess, they can make something bad, make a painting that goes in the trash and know that that was time well spent. It goes on the compost pile. How can we follow the little pings, the little whispers, the little nudges and let that part of our souls open up, go louder into the whispers and silence the part that's saying sit down, you're not good.

Mak: 26:41

And that's where fear plays into. All of this is because we don't want to do that publicly. Everyone is afraid to step out and put that on display for the world. And when you're talking about you know, in the case of starting a business, people are going to see it. But this is where my favorite phrase, nobody cares comes in. Because nobody cares People.

Mak: 27:05

They're paying attention for a brief moment in time, maybe 10, maybe 15 seconds and then they move on to the next thing in their life. And it's because you do that too. You hear something oh, such and such is starting a business. Oh, wow, that's interesting. I never knew they were into this or that. Or I think they're going to do great, or I don't think they're going to do well at all. And then you move on and you say what was the score of the game this weekend? What time do I have to pick up the kids? What are we having for dinner? And that's it. It was literally five seconds.

Mak: 27:33

And that big event where I had my big public spectacular failure, however many years ago, was now how many people are still talking about that event to this day? Nobody. And they weren't talking about it a week after it happened right and and so. So my point here is we're afraid to be messy in front of people. Yeah, and that's what owning a business is. It's being a little messy in front of people because it may not work, and that's okay, because you can always pivot, you can always change, change. But what keeps you stuck, what keeps you from moving forward and understanding that your creativity is the most powerful thing about you being a business owner or starting a business, is being able to be messy in front of other people.

Valerie: 28:23

Yeah, people are thinking about themselves. That's it. They think about themselves, and we all do it too. So people aren't thinking about you the way that they think about themselves, and we all, we all do it too.

Valerie: 28:29

so people aren't thinking about you the way that you think about you oh yeah and your own self-consciousness, for sure, and what I was saying with artists and helping them tap into that actual realm of creativity that is a superpower and that becomes an a microcosm for all other areas of life. I firmly believe that when you get into an art practice or a creative practice where you are operating from that place of curiosity, wonder, beauty, following those whispers, letting it be messy, not tied to the outcome, you're loving your life in the moment. You're getting into flow state, and did you know that that is the happiest we can be? Studies have found that when we are lost in flow state, we think that maybe we want to come to a place of calm, but that's not where we're the happiest, because we hit that and we want to be challenged. We want to go into flow state as human beings. That's where we're the happiest. I think that's a really cool thing. But those skills, when you can learn to operate from the lens of creativity, that is a superpower in life.

Valerie: 29:44

But in business, and I firmly believe, we firmly believe that more creatives should be in business, because that way of doing business, just like that way of creating something, is more effective. It's way more effective when you're in flow state and when you are just getting messy through it. That's how we get discoveries, that's how we get uniqueness, that's how you tap into that part of you that speaks to you. It's the same thing with business. When you are willing to not hold so tightly to the outcome that, if people don't love it right away, if you're not tied to I need this to work, you are just in it for the process of building and creating. That is a superpower in business.

Mak: 30:34

And when Val says process of creating and building, that is the process of creative problem solving, because that's all that it is and that's why you should be good at it. Because you're a creative, you can come up with creative solutions to anything. And Rory Sutherland, who I have just, I've just really like I've fallen in love with that guy we should interview him on the podcast. His whole philosophy is that creatives are better set up for success in business and problem solving than the traditional scientific thinkers of the world. And his philosophy is this, the opposite of a good solution I think I'm saying it right is is another good solution. So so the point is, throughout life and what we've all been taught and educated, and now kind of what the general consensus is in the corporate world, is that there's one way to solve a problem and you have to figure out that one way scientists effective right and scientists and thinkers, they, they try to find that one way.

Mak: 31:40

Oh, we figured out how to solve and that is now the only way to solve that problem. But a creative person the one who might be a little, a little crazy usually has a multitude of ways to solve the problem that don't seem logical or make sense. And one of my favorite examples of this is a Rory Sutherland example where he's talking about he I think it was a client of his they had this big building and everyone was complaining about how slow the elevators were in the building. So the people who own the building were about to invest I don't know $10 million to upgrade all the elevators. And Rory Sutherland came in and I might be butchering the details of the story, so, but anyway, you get the gist. Rory Sutherland came in and said I can solve this for $1,000. And they all puzzled, saying saying what do you mean? And he said put mirrors next to the elevator doors on each floor. And they did that and poof, everyone stopped complaining. Everybody stopped complaining because they had something to look at while they were waiting for the elevator to come. That wasn't their phone. They're checking themselves out in the mirror. They're looking at the mirror. And so what a great solution.

Mak: 32:56

So the automatic place that the thinking minds go is well, we've got to speed up the elevators. But the truth is no. We have to look at all of the things that are actually taking place in that moment and what are creative ways to solve the real problem at the root of these things? And that's why creatives are great, because creatives it's like. It's like, you know. Another, another example of is is like is these trains in the uk. You know they wanted to shave 20 minutes off the trip and he said you should give that solution to disney and let them solve that problem, because they would come up with a thousand really creative ways to solve the problem of, of of the the train trip and get more pleasurable versus shaving the time off exactly all of the different ways you can and.

Mak: 33:46

And his point there was they spent like $3 billion to take 22 minutes off this train trip. $3 billion and he said, for a tenth of that we could have hired every male and female model in the UK to walk up and down the train during service and hand out free shots of Petrus, and people would have asked you to slow the train down, he's like, because because the concept there was that people wanted to be wanted to get home faster, he's like. But no, actually, people don't mind it taking a long time to get home, as long as they're comfortable or they're happy or whatever. And so that, see, and that's a creative solution versus the scientific solution.

Valerie: 34:30

It's a linear black and white type of a solution, and so you're listening here.

Mak: 34:34

You're creative. That's why you would make a great business owner, because there are way more ways to solve problems than just the typical like Val said black and white, scientific solution, and that's why creatives make great business owners.

Valerie: 34:50

I think the other reason why artists and creatives make amazing business owners is because they are attuned to what is below the surface, even with other human beings. Artists in particular are thinking about feelings. They're selling energy, they are creating something, they're creating emotion that is so connective to other human beings. And if you think about business, it's people, it's other people connecting with other people and with solutions and with things that are going to make their lives better. That is a huge superpower of an artist and a creative to be able to tap into those places, those feelings, those emotions, to relate to other people in business.

Valerie: 35:45

So much of business is about empathy. It's having the empathy for your customers and their needs and what they want and what they're looking for. And when you are somebody attuned to those things, you're not just looking at things in terms of black and white. You are thinking below that surface in order to build these experiences and build these brands that really connect on an empathetic level, on a human level. There is so much said for that and we could go on and on, just about the topic of branding, how the power is in the story again, of the brand and how it makes somebody else feel. Creatives have such a cool way of telling stories we can. I'm even. I'm thinking about um, I don't know why, this just popped in my head, but you know, in the little mermaid and she has a fork and she's like it's a dinglehopper or whatever.

Mak: 36:49

A thingamabob. A thingamabob, I like dinglehopper though.

Valerie: 36:52

That's what creatives do, though. We take these things and we're like, hey, look at this really cool thing, and as a creative, you are showing everybody the way that you see the world, and if you see it in this really magical, interesting way have you ever thought of this? Then we bring people along into that, and that's what brand building is. That's what it brings life and joy and color to other people's lives. When we are selling beauty and making that invitation to experience beauty in those ways.

Mak: 37:29

So look, if you're creative and you've been telling yourself the story for such a long time, I can't start a business, or I shouldn't sell my art, or I shouldn't do this or shouldn't do that.

Mak: 37:37

I'm not good at this Because I'm not good at this, or I need to talk to my brother-in-law, who's an attorney, or whatever. Forget all that. You're ready to go your brother-in-law, who's the attorney. He needs to talk to you because you'll probably have some creative ways to help him out of some pickles that he's dealing with for his clients. And if you are owning a business right now and you constantly rely on some of your executives to solve some problems, maybe, maybe talk to the, maybe talk to the people that are a little left to center in your marketing department about solving some bigger financial issues within your company or whatever things you might be facing, because I'm sick of creatives not getting the respect that they deserve, because creatives are the ones who make the world go round it is-, look at Walt Disney Literally the Steve Jobs the creatives and it's like are the ones who, like make the world go round it is.

Mak: 38:31

It is Walt Disney, literally jobs, the creatives and and it's like I almost feel like everybody else who you know, I, you know I I hate to be a guy who's like pitting one side against another, so I'm like trying to dance around this, but like the, the executives, who are all like all the financial and we have to be all serious and all this stuff, it's like the whole reason that you are existing, being serious, is so that you can go somewhere where a creative has set up an environment for you to enjoy yourself, like a restaurant, a vacation, a movie, a Broadway show, whatever the case is. But then people like that tend to be so down on creative people and it's like but you're living to go experience what the creatives create.

Valerie: 39:08

It's the Robin Williams in the Dead Poets Society that engineers and these things that we need, and this is the thing we need all types of people in this world. That is what makes the world go around and we need everybody. And the quote is it's one of my favorite quotes that we need the engineers and and things because that sustain lives. It sustains life, but it's the poets, it's the creatives, it's the artists that make life worth living and I want to say this too.

Mak: 39:39

I need to get this out because of what I just said and I'm not backpedaling, I I still mean what I just said, but I believe that the people who are of the science mind and I think you're creative too, I think, if you're an accountant or an attorney- or a.

Mak: 39:53

CEO or whatever. You have creativity within you and you are doing something creative. So, like, dig into that a little bit. Maybe there's a story going around in your head that you have. You have a new way of doing accounting that you have just never tried because you're afraid of what your peers will think, or whatever. Lean into that, because I do believe that every single human being on the planet is creative. But in this world where everybody has been put into boxes, I don't appreciate how the creatives are the ones who kind of get the short end of the stick from the people in the other box, because, guess what? There are no boxes. We're all creative and we should all be supporting each other.

Valerie: 40:34

Yeah, and this isn't to say, too, that you have to create a business as a creative and an artist, but I do feel like there are a lot of people who would dream of that, but they've been told no, that's not for you, or no, you're not cut out to do that.

Valerie: 40:51

We make things so much harder than they have to be because we hear these things like the word business, and then, all of a sudden, you are having fun with your art and with your creativity and your creative outlet. However, you do that, and then you hear the word business and it's like a voiceover comes over business and you have to put on the suit and get really, really, really serious and what we're saying is no, no, you don't. You get to still be creative in business and, in fact, that's going to help you create a better business, a more effective business. So if that is a story that is going on in your head, we just want to squash that story. And what if? What would open up to you if you didn't have that story? What if you said, well, maybe this is for me, maybe just because I haven't done it before doesn't mean that I'm not good at it.

Mak: 41:45

And look, I see it.

Mak: 41:46

I see it all the time with my, with my personal business clients.

Mak: 41:51

My favorite thing about being a business coach is the moment, usually when the first call, where I help my clients realize they've been living a story because they're frustrated with their business or things aren't going the way they want, and I help them realize, oh, you started this business because you're creative and you were solving a problem that you really wanted to solve to help other people, and it's like that spark goes off and you see them relax.

Mak: 42:19

It's like they're intense and then 20 minutes into the call, they're relaxed, they're laughing, they're talking about why they love what they do and they're passionate about it again and I'm going yes, this is it, and that's what I love to do is help people who've gotten caught in all the stories that are you have to run your business like this and you have to do this and you have to do this.

Mak: 42:39

You have to have a business plan, you have to have a payroll thing and you have to do this, and you have to do accounting like this and you have to do this. And they tell themselves I have to have all these things in line, they have to be perfect and I come in and I go, no, let's get back to the creative person who wanted to start this business to begin with. And it's like when all that stuff melts away, there's like I'm like looking at a child who's walking into Disney World for the first time and it is the most beautiful thing in the world and that's what I love about what I do and what we're doing with your peaceful entrepreneur and what the purpose of this podcast is and why I'm so lit up, because I just everybody has that. You have that in you right now. Please examine those stories.

Valerie: 43:25

I just thought about. We live in Nashville and we for a while we were going to 12 South and there's Bar Taco there. It's really good. We would go there and we would walk down 12 South and on one instance there was a girl there who was selling bracelets that she made on the side of the street on 12 South.

Mak: 43:49

You have to say this we had, we had our family with us yes and this is the little girl she was maybe eight, nine, ten I would say like ten yes, somewhere in that neighborhood somewhere in that neighborhood but by herself.

Valerie: 44:00

It at least appeared that way it appeared that way, but then you do see parents set up on their lawn chairs like a little bit far off, but they had to be like 20 feet away, or she was really cute so she set up with these bracelets that she made and they say all kinds of things and there were like taylor, swift things and bachelorette things and national things and cowgirl, thing, all this stuff charms really cute little bracelets.

Valerie: 44:23

Um, vienna, of course, instantly wanted one. We wanted to support her. We bought these bracelets. So we saw her the one time and we're like, oh, that's cool. And then we went again, we saw her again and, mac, you struck up a conversation with her dad yes and he told you she's making real money like legit money from these bracelets I think her, I think he said her best month was like A couple thousand dollars a weekend.

Mak: 44:51

Yeah, her best weekend was like 2,000 bucks or something In these little plastic bracelets.

Valerie: 44:55

These bracelets.

Mak: 44:56

And he goes and she's only here for like two hours or three hours.

Valerie: 45:01

Let that be a story to everybody. We complicate things, we make it so hard, we make the barrier to entry so huge in our minds and it feels like this unscalable wall and we're not cut out for it and we're artists and all of this. I want you to think about that little girl on the side of the street making real money, doing what she loves, going to school. Still, she's a child, yeah, she's in middle school or elementary school. These bracelets and saying I made this, here is my offering of that. It's X amount of dollars. Do you want to buy it and have this exchange, yes or no? And and what?

Mak: 45:50

that is business and what's great is she's in this age and I because this is, this is story, this is brand she's in this age where you go and you see the bracelets and they're they. Obviously she's not just making these things in like five seconds, they're taking time and she's selling them, I don't know, for a buck, two, two bucks two bucks a piece and everybody there's like, oh, oh, darling, here, just take a 10, take a 20, take it what?

Mak: 46:19

because she's got this great little stand, she's a little smile, she's so friendly and it's just like the story is there and you just like I want to support this little girl, yes, and so that's how she's making all this money. It's like people are giving her 10 times what she's asking and a super cute product and you know, I know, oh yeah, she's a kid mac.

Mak: 46:39

Yeah, but this. But what happens is when you get in the story and you get in the vibe and you're, and you're authentic and you're lit up, that's what people will give you 10 times what you're asking. I don't care if you're eight or 80, it will happen.

Valerie: 46:51

Yeah, if you connect on again that level, you are being true to you and authentic to you. You have that, that piece of your heart that you just want to share and just want to put out there. That's the stuff that becomes magnetized, that's the stuff that people were like, um, I'll have what she's having, you know. So we overcomplicate it and we make all of these things and really it boils down to that you, in your creativity, doing something that you love, making an invitation to other people if they want to experience and be in this with you. And we can go more into business, which we will, but just for today, the biggest takeaway here is it's not that hard One. If you are having this story that it's hard, you're not cut out for it. I'm an artist. Therefore, I'm not a good business person. We want you to re-examine that story, because it could be holding you back. And when you start to let yourself dream without a story, what's there? Is there a desire that wells up? Is there something that feels like oh, I never thought that was for me, but maybe it could be for me. Let yourself go there, let yourself go into those what if? Questions. I tell my students that all the time. Art mirrors life, it's microcosm. And I will say to them, when you are in the painting process, your number one question is what if? If you're asking what if questions, you're doing it right, you're going down the right path. What if I add this? What if I try this? What if this would happen? What if this, following those what ifs? You do the same thing for your business, for your life, you open up. That's opening up to curiosity, and you will be surprised what happens when you just ask the question. Your brain likes to solve problems. When we give it a question, it will search for things to fill that with. So start asking some what if? Questions. If this is speaking to you, and often if you do have a story that maybe this something came up in the course of us talking, where you're like oh yeah, my middle school art teacher told me that I wasn't very good. Or my college professor said you know, you need to really think about doing something else. Or, who knows, whatever somebody said. If you're thinking about that, maybe turn that into a what if question. What if they were wrong? What if I'm not bad at music? What if I? My dad? He's told this story. He's 70 years old and he will say the exact teacher, the name of the teacher in middle school that told him he had a tin ear. To this day, he says that these stories run deep. And what if that just wasn't true? So what if questions are going to be your best friend? We really hope that this opened up something for you today.

Valerie: 49:52

Thank you so much for listening. We just are continuing to be blown away by your downloads, by your messages. Thank you so so much. I'm Valerie McKeon on Instagram at Valerie McKeon. Mac is at that. Mac guy Mac is M-A-K. We love hearing with you. We love connecting with you. If you have a moment and this was a helpful episode to you we would be so grateful if you would share it with a friend who might need it or if you would leave us a review. Those reviews really, really help other creatives that feel like they are in a box find us so that they can also be unleashed and live unbound. And who even knows the beauty and the magnificence that is going to come from creatives being unbound?

Mak: 50:40

And if you haven't done it yet, hit the subscribe button too, because that really helps also, and then you'll get notifications every time we upload a new episode. So thank you so much for being here. We'll see you really soon, and we hope you have a great day bye.