Standout Creatives: Business, marketing, and creativity tips for solopreneurs launching their ideas

Cebo Campbell grew up with a father and a community only interested in one of his talents: football. When he was a kid, his father was the coach of his football team where he stressed one thing, be the best you can be. Cebo took that advice to heart and became a dynamic football player, but due to his height, only got a football scholarship from one school. So he took it. This is when Cebo started to shift his focus from athletics to academics. He was always creative, but it wasn't until his teacher encouraged him to major in writing that he truly started to focus on it. When you're a football player, your teammates shun you for being smart, so Cebo always tried to hide that part of his life. But after winning a writing competition as a freshman, he realized there was something there, so he ran with it. After graduating and spending a short stint on the west coast, Cebo moved back to Florida and worked at a hotel. While working at the hotel, he convinced the owner to let him work on the hotel's website. This would be the second big shift in his life. Cebo became interested in everything he could accomplish with website design and writing. So much so that he went to a conference centered around it. That's where he met AJ Leon. Cebo and AJ hit it off immediately. This fateful meeting ended up being the beginning of a great friendship, and eventually a job as the creative director of Misfit Inc. In this episode, Cebo talks about why you should put your all into your work, why you should take your time, and why you should always strive to be the best. Here are three things you can learn from Cebo: Put Your All Into Your Work Something Cebo believes in is the power of pouring yourself into your work. Most people believe talent is the ultimate predictor of great work, but Cebo believes great work is the result of being completely present when you're creating. "When it comes to what is good... that whole measure, I don't think measure exists in your talent. I think the measure is in how much of you are you allowing into be present in the work that you do. Can I see it? Can I feel it?" One of the things that prevents most of us from putting ourselves into our work is that when you make something personal, you open yourself up to criticism. But Cebo doesn't let that criticism stop him. "The minute that you allow yourself to be into the work that you created, you open yourself up to criticism and I have no fear of criticism." That's the problem many creatives have. They are afraid to expose themselves to criticism from the world, so they play it safe. "That's true of a lot of creatives. They're afraid of being exposed, and so they do just enough as opposed to letting it all hang out." And that's what separates Cebo's remarkable work and distinct style from most creators. He is willing to put everything into his work, even if it means opening himself up to vulnerability. If you want to make an impact with your work, you have to be willing to accept and embrace views from the outside world. Don't Be in Such a Hurry One of the burdens of being an artist is knowing when one of our pieces is ready for the world. Sometimes we toil over it for days, and other times we try to get it out as quickly as possible. Cebo believes we shouldn't be in such a hurry to release our work. We need to own it and chisel it until it's ready. "Not everything has to be shipped so fast. Not everything has to get out the door. Not everything has to be expedited. Start. Control it. Own it. Make it the way you want it to be. Chisel it if it needs to be chiseled. That's just how I look at it... I don't want to be here today, gone tomorrow." Our necessity to get things out quickly is especially true of people who work in the digital space. "We have a tendency, in particular with the web, any digital interface, to time stamp it to the trends of today." Cebo doesn't believe in following today's trends. He wants his work to stand the test of time. "I am very particular about my art. The same way I was very particular about playing sports... When it comes to art, I have no problem saying it's not ready." Even though much of his work lives on the web, Cebo doesn't treat projects like one and dones. He doesn't let other people dictate his work. He treats everything he does like a piece of art. "If it's not ready, it's just not ready. I hold to that because I think in the end it's art. If you abide by the rules that other people are imposing on both time and completion, then it's not your art anymore." That's the way we should all consider approaching our work. Whether you're a writer, musician, or painter. You should treat each piece like a work of art you can be proud of. Always Strive to Be the Best Often times we will settle for good enough. We work so long on a project that it starts to feel like a burden. We want to get it out of our hands so we can stop worrying about it. This mindset often holds us back from achieving greatness in our work. But if we want to create our best work, we need to trust ourselves and stop holding back. "I believe wholeheartedly that you have to trust your talent... and there's so many people that I work with, where you can feel them holding back. You can feel it. You can see it in the work, where they're just holding back, holding back, holding back because they're afraid their skill set doesn't allow them to go further. But I will tell anyone, when I do design workshops, don't let up. What you don't know now, you'll learn. You have everything you need to do everything you want so just keep at it and you'll get where you want to go." Always doing your best can be a challenge, but no one ever said being an artist would be easy. Anyone can create art, but very few people can create great art. "I think it's a challenge, and it's not just a challenge to art. it's a challenge to us as humans to be the best that you can be. Take it there... If it's not where you think it should be, hold onto it." Cebo doesn't settle for good enough. He puts everything into his work. Even though he knows he might not be the best at everything, that doesn't stop him from doing his best. That's the attitude he wants everyone to pursue, not just with their art but in everything they do. "It's only the best that I know. It doesn't mean I'm going to be better than every person in the world. I just want to realize the potential that I feel that I have, and I think individually as a pursuit for everyone, not just in art, but in their lives just go out with intention and purpose. Take yourself seriously." Read more shownotes from episode 83

This is a replay of episode 29 with Kim Nicol. Kim's journey from marketing, to law, to mindfulness and meditation is an inspiration for anyone who feels stuck at their jobs or in their career. There's a lot we can learn from Kim, so check out our great conversation. --- Kim Nicol teaches meditations and mindfulness and has helped thousands of people find calm in everyday moments. In this episode Kim talks about how she went from marketing, to being a lawyer, to becoming a mindfulness and meditations teacher. She also talks about how to relate to others and the many different ways she helps bring mindfulness into people’s everyday lives. Here are three things you can learn from Kim: Your journey doesn’t need to be linear Many people settle for their lot in life. They went to college, got a job, and are stuck there. At least that’s the thought. It doesn’t have to be this way. Many people think of life as a singular path, but it’s much more complicated than that. Kim’s path took her from marketing and branding, to being a lawyer, and finally to her calling as a mindfulness and meditation teacher. If you feel like you can’t do anything about your job, think again. Look at Kim as an example, and remember, many other people are finding their way too. How high powered people can overcome stress People in positions of power often get stressed because they can’t control everything. They lived most of their lives getting what they wanted, but when things don’t go exactly as planned, they stress out over it. The best way to overcome this stress is to shift your perspective. It doesn’t do any good to get angry over something you can’t control. Instead take a breath and decide from a place of calmness. Explore your options and shift your relationships, choices, and momentum so you aren’t burning energy. Advice on getting started with meditation When people here meditation, they often think of monks sitting on the floor chanting to themselves. This often turns people away because they are daunted by how intense it can be. The good news is, meditation comes in many forms. It doesn’t need to be that intense or intimidating. If you want to get started with a mindfulness or meditation practice, Kim advocates starting small. People often give up because they start off trying to meditate for 20 minutes. Instead, start with a 3 minute meditation and increase the amount of time as you become more comfortable with it. Kim also advocates approaching your practice with a sense of curiosity and adventure. Don’t worry about getting it right. See how you can make it fun.

A recap of episode 82 of the Cracking Creativity podcast. If you liked it, check out the full episode with Erik Kruger where he talks about the lessons we can learn from failure, why you should let your principles guide you, and the importance of creating value for your audience.

Erik Kruger is like many of us who became entranced by the idea of lifestyle design. He read Tim Ferriss's Four Hour Workweek and felt the desire to work as few hours as possible so he could "run around and do other things" with all his extra free time. So he tried to build businesses that let him live that lifestyle. His first attempt was a local freelance network, which fizzled out. He also tried to create web directories for physical therapists, gyms, and models, but those never gained traction either. He describes all of these unsuccessful projects as his "graveyard of domains" because of all the sites he tried and failed to build. These failures taught him a valuable lesson. When he started out, his main goal was trying to make a lot of money while working as few hours as possible. But over time, he discovered he was focusing on the wrong thing. Luckily for Erik, our failures often lead to our greatest success. His success came in the form of Better Man, a site dedicated to helping men change their behaviors to become more productive, habit driven, and successful. This project has grown into a thriving community of like-minded men driven to make the most out of life. In this episode Erik talks about the lessons we can learn from failure, why you should let your principles guide you, and the importance of creating value for your audience. Here are three things you can learn from Erik: Failures Can Teach Us Valuable Lessons We are all afraid of failure. No matter what level you've reached, how much money you've made, or how much success you've achieved, there's still something in the back of our minds that's deathly afraid of failure. It's a part of human nature. The difference between those who continue to find success and those who give up is that successful people learn from their failures. Erik failed many times before hitting on Better Man, but these failures taught him valuable skills. "When I look back, it's really embarrassing to talk about them, but they taught me incredibly valuable skills, to the point where Better Man is what it is because of the digital skills that I built up during all these horrendous sites." Your moments of failure might seem frustrating in the moment, but they can also teach you valuable lessons. "It's always nice to look back and know that you've gone through all these things and at the time you might be frustrated and looking back you might think of them as failures, but they actually taught you so much." The biggest lesson Erik learned was changing his mindset. When he started, he was enamored with lifestyle design and let that dictate his decisions. But once he shifted his effort towards something he was passionate about everything changed. "Probably the biggest mistake that I made, and I don't want to say I regret it, but I wish my mindset was a bit different, is that, during that same time lifestyle design became this buzz word and everyone was flocking to this idea of building a business while working extremely few hours a week and being able to just run around and do other things the rest of the time and I got really hooked by that idea, and I wish I didn't. I wish I'd just stuck to working hard and not fell into the trap of wanting to put in as few hours as I can, but trying to get maximum results from it... A big deal with what I teach is that you want to put in as little effort as possible for maximum return but it doesn't mean you're not still working ten hours. It just means those ten hours are more focused and working on the correct things and not just things that are keeping you busy." Let Your Principles Guide You Often times our biggest challenge isn't that we don't know what to do. It's that we forget what we stand for. We stop letting our principles guide us in the right direction. We follow those shiny objects hoping that this new tool or technique will help us break through. But shortcuts rarely work. What we need are some principles to guide us. Better Man's guiding principle is to take responsibility for your life. "I think what we all just want is that magic wand... that's just going to figure out everything for us, but you have to go back and actually start taking responsibility for your life, and once you start doing that, then... things start falling into place because you start designing your life around the responsibility that you take. So, I guess if I had to say the number one value... of Better Man, it would be to take responsibility for your life. And to not just sit back and wait for life to happen to you, but to go out and to say 'This is what I want in life and I'm going to make it happen. It's going to be up to me.'" Being productive, building habits, and changing your behaviors are wonderful tools for becoming better people, but those changes are possible if you don't take responsibility for yourself and your actions. "The rest of the things that we speak about, productivity, world power, habits, behavior change, none of that is possible without you saying 'I'm showing up today. I'm getting out of bed and I'm going to kick some ass.' So I would guess that would be number one for me, the number one principle." People are always trying to jump ahead in the process, but the only way to build something sustainable is by doing it step by step. "People want to shortcut the process. The effort that it takes to get there. The grind, and the hustle, and the pain, and the days and weeks of feeling like you're not getting anywhere... you want to shortcut it, and I completely get it, but ultimately there's only one way to really get anywhere. And that's brick by brick, step by step. That's the only way you can build something significantly." Create Value for Your Audience We are constantly bombarded with lists telling us what to do. "Here are five hacks for this" or "Ten ways to do that" but these lists are rarely helpful. They rehash the same tired information. Erik believes these lists are extremely unhelpful. There's nothing tangible you can actually implement from them. "One of the things that quite irritates me the most is the five life hacks that will make you successful... and then you go and read these articles and it's the same stuff that's been rehashed over and over and over, and they give you this one thing and they give you one supplemental thing to fill it up, and it just means nothing. There's nothing you can grab onto and that you're going to implement in your life and it's going to take you further." There's so much information out there that it becomes hard to distinguish what's useful and what's not. That's why Erik likes to distill his ideas for his audience. He knows they're busy. He knows they wants something that works. So he does all the heavy lifting for them. "I think that's one of the big problems we have at the moment is that there's so much out there in the world. You literally have millions of sites at your fingertips, and if you're just getting started in self-development, it can be so overwhelming to go and search and sift through all these blogs and to find good quality content. And then you think you've found something, and the next thing you read completely contradicts it. So, what do you believe? And what I'm trying to do is say to people 'I've already put in the effort and the time to make sure this is good information that I'm giving to you, and I've put my filter over it. My Better Man filter over it... and this is what I've come up with." Another thing Erik realized is we aren't going to be the right fit for everyone. We need to concentrate our efforts on people who will get the most out of what we have to say. "At some point you just have to realize that no matter what you create, it's never going to be for everyone. And the quicker you can get to that point, the quicker you can start serving the people that you will do an excellent job of serving." So stop trying to create for everyone. Stop worrying about your unsubscribes. And focus on your loyal audience instead. "I think what happened for me is I just realized there's so many other things I need to focus on instead of my unsubscribes. I need to focus on people who remained and who said I want more of what you have. Like, why not put your energy and effort into those people?" Read more shownotes from episode 82 with Erik Kruger

A recap of episode 81 of the Cracking Creativity podcast. If you liked it, check out the full episode with Ja-Nae Duane where she talks about how vulnerability leads to great work, why you need to stay in touch with your creativity, and why your mindset is so important.

Ja-Nae Duane, former opera singer turned entrepreneur and founder of Wild Women Entre, discusses how vulnerability leads to great work, the importance of staying in touch with creativity, and the power of mindsets. She emphasizes the significance of diving deep and creating something personal, embracing failure, overcoming fear, and finding your strongest creative outlet. Ja-Nae also explores the impact of a lack of creative outlet and shares book recommendations, creative inspirations, and tips for unleashing your creative potential.

A recap of episode 80 of the Cracking Creativity podcast. If you liked it, check out the full episode with Angela Ferrari where she talks about believing in yourself, having fun, and how struggles can lead to success.

Angela Ferrari has always lived a creative life. When she was young she lived in a rural area where she figured out creative ways to play. She would build tree forts, spray paint plants, and turn her mundane environment into stories. Angela continued that creative streak in college where she studied studio art and painting. After college, she moved to Portland, Maine and started working at a restaurant. While working as a waitress, Angela forged relationships with the restaurant owners and patrons. After a while, Angela was able to quit her job as a waitress to work on her art full-time. For some, having a successful business as an artist would be enough, but that wasn’t the case for Angela. One day while doing yoga,  she had a vision about a dog doing yoga. This would eventually turn into her first children’s book Digger’s Daily Routine. Even with three completed books and a newly released podcast, it still feels like Angela has more creativity to share with the world. In this episode Angela talks about believing in yourself, having fun, and how struggles can lead to success. Here are three things you can learn from Angela: Believe in Yourself When we are first starting out in our creative careers, a lot of self-doubt creeps in. “I’m not a professional artist, why would anyone buy from me?” we ask ourselves. We believe in our work, but don’t believe in ourselves. That’s why it’s so important to believe in who you are and what you are doing. That’s what Angela did when she went from being a painter to also being a writer. “A big part of it too was I was afraid of the impostor syndrome, especially transitioning from painter to writer. I was afraid to call myself a writer, and therefore I was afraid to promote myself as a writer. Once I got established painting, I liked being called a painter. I liked that being part of my identity, but it was a little harder when I was unpublished or before I launched a podcast, calling myself a podcaster. It’s hard to almost validate yourself when you don’t feel like you’ve accomplished anything. But then I realized the action of doing it is what makes me a writer. The action of recording and creating episodes is what made me a podcaster.” The only way you can overcome the impostor syndrome is by believing in what you do. You have to own it. “Once I started being kinda comfortable with myself and saying yes, I do belong in this space, and I can put myself out there, not just my work, but myself into my work, and that’s now part of my identity.” Many of us believe we just have to reach our goals and we’ll have “made it.” The truth is, there’s no such thing as making it. The bar is constantly moving. You have to evolve with that sliding scale. “You never really arrive. You’re always going to be growing in this creative space. You’re always going to be evolving in staying current in your field. So once you start that initial page in the book, you now are a writer. The more you say to yourself, “I am this. I am doing this.” Then it kind of positively reinforces and motivates you to say “I need to follow through because this is now part of who I am.” Have Fun Most creative people discover their love for art early in life because they had a blast while creating. We enjoyed every moment of the creative process from dipping the brush into the paints to wrapping up a finished painting. But along the way, we lose sight of that fun and joy. We let the business side of creativity distract us. We become discouraged when we don’t see immediate results. Angela found a way around this by making sure everything she does is fun. “For me, I don’t like doing something if it’s not fun. I like to have fun and it’s everything from cooking to working out, once I find a method of ‘Oh, this is a creative way I can do this. This works for me.” This was especially true for the way she approached marketing. She found a way to make marketing fun. “My approach to marketing, I knew it’s necessary and it feeds into that big picture goal I have of ‘Okay, I want to tell stories. That’s my big goal.’ So I start telling stories when I market. I find really fun images to use when I create campaigns for social media. And starting a podcast was a way I could promote myself in an authentic way or I could use my voice and speak directly to people. I knew that was something I could have fun with for marketing.” Sure there are some tedious elements to starting and maintaining a business, but the best way to get around the tedium is to have fun with it. “The business side, yeah there are definitely some tedious things that are hard to do, but once you learn something, you can find a way to have fun with it because the learning part of it is definitely I think the hard part of any part of a business.” Struggles Can Help in the Long Run We’ve all faced struggles in our creative careers. It’s why the term “starving artist” exists. No one said living a fulfilling creative life would be easy. You will face ups and downs. You will soar to the highest highs and hit rock bottom. That’s just how the uncertain life of a creative goes. Those same struggles are also what makes success so sweet. We might dread them in the moment, but when we look back, we are usually glad we found our way through them. That’s exactly what happened to Angela when she went from being a painter to being a writer too. “A lot of times I look back and things that felt like struggles or hardships, I look back and think, ‘Oh thank goodness that happened.’ I mean, I’ve had a lot of rejection and failure… starting out as a painter and going and working my way up as a writer. Any time I’m submitting a piece I’d get feedback that, a lot of times I just didn’t feel like I could do it. I didn’t realize I had it in me.” Those struggles push us to achieve more. They help us determine determine if we want to forge on. They help us ask ourselves the right questions. They help keep us honest. “So those struggles, they definitely push me. They definitely make me check in and say ‘Do I want this enough? Is this what I want?’ And the answer has always been yes. So I’ve always had to push through by again asking the questions. Keep that goal in mind. I do have a lot of visual images in my work space… Those kinds of things are those kind of reminders that really help push me forward when I’m going through an area where I just don’t think I can do it.” Read more shownotes from episode 80 with Angela Ferrari

A recap of episode 79 of the Cracking Creativity podcast. If you liked it, check out the full episode with Henry May where he talks about why well respected jobs aren’t always right for us, why good ideas take time to develop, and why you need to stop waiting and put your ideas into action.

Henry May spent his childhood playing with LEGOs. He loved the outdoors and harmless mischief. He thought his life was pre-ordained. He thought our paths are set for us. This all changed the summer he joined Teach First. The two years he spent here, changed his thoughts on the education system and his role in the world. After his time at Teach First, and a short stint at Procter & Gamble, Henry took a trip to Colombia through Teach Colombia and fell in love with the country. But he also heard horrible stories about the public schools there. These were the driving forces that pulled him to leave everything he knew in London and to start CoSchool in Colombia. In this episode Henry talks about why well respected jobs aren't always right for us, why good ideas take time to develop, and why you need to stop waiting and put your ideas into action. Respected Jobs Aren't Always the Best For Us If you ask most people what they want out of life, one thing they will mention is a good career. They want a safe job at a well established company. They want stability and security. But that doesn't mean a job at a well respected company is right for everyone. That's exactly what Henry found out while working at Procter & Gamble. While most people would be overjoyed to have a job at a company like P&G, Henry found it frustrating. "It was such a different world from this real life, hard hitting world of being a teacher in a school in South London. To then be found in an office talking about selling razor blades, nappies, shampoo. I just couldn't connect with the deeper purpose. I really respect an organization like Procter & Gamble for the success that they've had, for the benefit that they bring to the world... however I found it very frustrating to see so many intelligent, capable, caring people there who were using all of that talent and all of that brilliance to sell 1% more shampoo than their rivals." Just because a company is a good business, that doesn't mean it's the right fit for everyone. Sometimes our hearts just aren't into it. "Ultimately that's the bottom line in an organization like that. They do a great job of developing people, and growing leaders, and making some fantastic business people, but I was a mismatch in terms of where my heart was." Sometimes Good Ideas Take Time to Develop In the modern age, we want things to happen instantaneously. We have been conditioned to expect instant gratification. But sometimes good ideas take time develop. Sometimes we need to think things over before they can become a reality. That's exactly what happened to Henry. His dual passions for Huracan FC and CoSchool were on completely different journeys, but after thinking about it for a few months, the ideas converged. "They were separate dots on... different journeys of my life that didn't make a connection immediately. There wasn't intentions. It took a process of reflection and iteration, and three or four months initially of thinking 'Am I going to focus on the Huracan foundation? Is that my thing? Is that what I am going to do? And eventually CoSchool was born out of this process of stopping." We're always in such a rush to get our ideas off the ground that we don't give them time to breath. That's why Henry advises aspiring entrepreneurs to spend some time thinking about their ideas. "I think that if there's something that I learned from that, there's something I share with other people, with friends who are thinking about doing something entrepreneurial, the value of stopping and stepping outside of the white water, not just for a day or for a week, I mean I did it for three months. I gave myself the time and space to think, to explore, to consider, to evaluate, to analyze. I think out of that space, was the birth of probably my greatest moment of creativity." Stop Waiting and Put Your Ideas Into Action We all have ideas we're passionate about but far too often, we let them sit inside our heads. Instead of giving ourselves the chance to succeed we self-sabotage and do nothing.   Henry believes that if you have a good idea, you need to treat it with a sense of urgency. You need to talk to people about it. You need to test it, to write it down, and prototype it so you can learn as much as possible.   "Every day that you wait to make that idea a reality is a day less of your life to make your idea happen. So if you have an idea and you care about it, treat it with a sense of urgency. Treat it with the same sense of urgency that you would treat a ticking time bomb in your hand. You don't know what might happen in your life or what things will go on and what circumstances might change, and you don't know how long that idea might be in your hands for. So give yourself the chance to, if you really care about it and you really feel it in your gut, and you feel like it's something you want to do, the how and route to success and execution, to creating a business plan and model and team, that's not important. That's not the most important first thing. And I think that's a common mistake. People go 'I haven't got a plan. I don't know how to make this a reality.' Well, I think every single entrepreneur that ever had an idea probably had a moment like that... What you do is get an idea and speak to people. Test it. Write it down. Draw it. Try and prototype it in the quickest and shortest way possible to learn as fast as possible."   If you don't put your ideas into action, you'll never know if they're going to work. You can't learn anything about your idea if it just sits inside your head. The best thing you can do is lean into your fear and take action.   "You can learn an incredible amount in about twenty minutes of your life, about ideas, by putting them into action. You can learn zero about ideas by just thinking about them. If you put them into action, act them out, listen to them, and role play them... all of a sudden stuff starts happening. So that would be my biggest advice and lean into fear. Take that step out of your comfort zone and go somewhere you haven't been before. Take the idea with you. Let the idea lead you. Don't be afraid of failure. I mean, learn. Learn, grow, test. See what happens."   Read more shownotes from episode 79 with Henry May