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you know really think i should give it up there's so many narratives that come with creativity so many of us are just being held back kept small i want you to find out what happens when you take perfectionism out of the equation and you just let yourself create The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty.
Jay Shetty. The one, the only, Jay Shetty.
Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to to become happier, healthier, and more healed.
Today's guest is someone I've been wanting to sit down with for so long.
I have stalked her on Instagram, shared a ton of her stuff, showed her work to so many of my friends and family members because it has deeply impacted me.
It's a page that I turn to when I feel like I need someone to give me a bit of guidance, give me a steer, give me a direction to think in, and I can't wait to introduce her to all of you.
I'm speaking about author, artist, creative, and poet, and so much more, Amy McNee.
Please welcome to On Purpose, Amy.
Amy, it is so great to have you here.
I'm such a huge fan and I can't wait for your new book, We Need Your Art.
I think it's going to be life -changing for so many budding creatives, people who are just starting out, up and coming, and at the same time, established creatives who are trying to rediscover themselves.
So as a fan, thank you for being on the show.
And so excited to have this conversation.
Jay, I'm so grateful.
I'm grateful for your art.
I'm so grateful that you make the things that you do.
And I'm just very excited to be here.
Yeah. I'm trying to remember when I first came across your work and I can't remember the exact moment, but I remember the feeling I had of swiping through, reading some of your work, you were holding up your pieces of board or card and, and, you know, with your thick marker handwriting.
And I was reading it and thinking to myself, how can someone be saying things that are so sometimes difficult, uncomfortable, hard to say and hard to hear, but doing it in a way that that was so clear and so powerful.
And I wanted to start off by asking you, how do you see people?
Are people born creative or can people become creative?
And is everyone in some way creative?
Because I think a lot of people listening right now are thinking, Jade, this episode isn't for me.
I'm not creative. I'm not an artist. What do I do?
I know when I say and I say it a lot I say we need your art and I worry about the amount of people who are like oh not my art but I'm like your art and I think we have a real we can really pedestal the term art as to what it is and we think it's oh it's fine art or oh it has to be photography or a certain type of art but art comes in so many different shapes and forms and we all have a capability and a desire to create it's just that it looks different for all of us so So when I say we need your art, like I mean we need your art.
Like we all have a drive and a desire to make stuff.
It's so innate. It's so human.
So I think we really need to take art off the pedestal.
It's not just for fine arts, although obviously it is.
But it's this. It's podcasting.
It's, you know, watercolors.
It's writing. It's planting.
It's gardening. It's makeup tutorials.
It's makeup tutorials.
It's book reviews. It's cooking.
Like creativity like sinks into all aspects of our lives, and we all have a thirst for it and so when I say we need your art I'm talking about you yeah and I love that you are broadening the definition of art yeah because I think you're so right like growing up I'm not I wasn't good at drawing yeah and so I always thought I wasn't artistic yeah it was so funny I remember when I was finishing primary school elementary school and I remember we did this reflection exercise and it was like what's your favorite subject subject and what's your worst subject and I put my favourite subject being math
because I thought I was a geek but I wasn't and then I wrote down my worst subject was art and then when I went to secondary school high school and when I finished if you asked me what my favourite subject was it was art and if you asked me what my least favourite subject was it was math because I had an art teacher called Mr. Buckeridge at QE boys school in Barnet that expanded the definition of art from day one and it became about color it became about juxtaposition it became about meaning it became about collage it became about imagery it became about my passions it became about all these other
things and I then uh made him feel really upset because I uh sold out and didn't study art at university even though I but in so many ways you have studied art you know You know, like you kept that going in all aspects of your life.
Yeah, but you've brought in that definition for everyone.
I think that's so needed because you are right, podcasting is art, writing is art, cooking is art.
The way we dress, you know, the way we express, like you can't not create art.
And I think we need to reclaim that word for ourselves.
It is mine and you are an artist in some way, shape or form.
What happens when we stifle ourselves?
So what happens when you hold back?
sometimes today people even know they're artistic maybe they even had a little skill when they were younger maybe they were passionate maybe even now in their spare time but they're blocking themselves they're stifling themselves because they've heard things like well that won't get you a career that won't pay the bills that's not going to make you money that's not a real job and by the way i heard all those things growing up so it feels very familiar to me what happens to us when we we stifle ourselves and block ourselves.
Yeah, I mean, if you will indulge me, I'll tell you a bit of my story, because I feel like, and exactly as you said, you've experienced this, like, all I wanted to do was tell stories, like, it's all I wanted to do, whether it was through acting or writing, I just felt, like, driven to express myself through storytelling.
And once I left school, I was like, okay, I'm going to take this seriously, like, I really want to commit to this.
And, you know, from the age of 18 to the age of, like, you know, really recently, like, I was inundated with, it's childlike, it's irresponsible, it's foolish to take the creative arts seriously.
And I ended up with severe depression.
I was so low because I was so embarrassed by this extraordinarily strong desire to tell stories.
Like, I just wanted to tell stories.
And I felt so ashamed about it.
And I felt like I couldn't be a real adult.
I couldn't grow. And so I withheld my creativity.
And I felt incredible amounts of shame.
And I felt so so embarrassed and I didn't want to talk about it with anybody.
And it resulted in me being ridiculously depressed.
I was so low. I had such low affect.
I had no motivation because there was like a wall going on inside me.
And half of myself was like, I have to tell stories.
Like I am here to create, to make art and to impact the world with my art.
And then the other half of me was like, this is so irresponsible.
Why can't you be a real adult?
Why can't you just grow up, like get a real job?
And that duality and that wall within me left me like broken and it wasn't until I started journaling and I started seeing the stories that I was telling myself and I was like this I cannot live this way and so I started rewriting them like with my pen on the pages of my journal and I allowed art back into my life like shame free art and like since literally the day I started journaling I haven't stopped and everything changed because I allowed creativity back into my life shame free.
Wow I love that I love this on a shame free art.
It's so important. I think so many of us are creating, but we've got so much shame around it.
We're not good enough.
It's not making enough money.
My parents, you know, really think I should give it up.
There's so many narratives that come with creativity.
And so many of us are just being held back, kept small.
Yeah, we need shame free art.
How did you get the courage to allow art back in?
Especially when you're in a dark place, like you're saying you're experiencing seeing depression you're hearing all this negativity around you about the relevance of your art and the value of your art how do you in that place go I'm going to turn to art because it's the one thing that's been villainized and made to seem negative yeah it was through journaling it was a complete narrative shift so I would write out the stories that I was telling myself so why can't you get a real job why do you think this is possible this is so embarrassing embarrassing.
You've got hundreds of rejection letters from publishers.
No one's listening to you.
And then I would write it all out so I could witness the stories I was telling myself.
Like I needed to see the amount of shame I was in because, and it would shock me.
Like I would reread what I was writing and I was like, my brain is like a place of just like violence and vitriol.
Like I'm speaking so terribly to myself and to my inner artist. And then at the end of my journaling session, I would be like, okay, well, how do I want to sound?
And I call it mothering myself.
yourself. It's like a reparenting exercise.
And I would just be like, you know what?
And I'd treat myself like a baby and I'd be like, baby girl, you are here to tell stories.
I am so proud of you.
I'm proud of the way that you are showing up.
I'm proud of the way that you were rebelling against society's expectation.
You have been put on this earth to make art, to create.
And I'm so proud of what you're doing.
And so no matter how much I like spewed out crap, and there was so much inner a critic rubbish on the pages I always ended it with this voice that was like okay but I'm actually really proud of you you know you are here to make art and you're on the path I used to tell that to myself all the time you're on the path you're on the path so yeah it was it was through words which is so appropriate I guess for me as an author yeah but it but it's so interesting that that wasn't a learned technique or it was something that happened yeah something that came from within but now it's a practice people can follow
through yeah and I love that repetition of you are on the the path.
Because I think that's so, so true in that we think that we're either off the path or on the path.
And we think that we're either going in the wrong direction or the right direction rather than just recognizing that you're on the path either way.
And I've, I've done this often and I've, I've seen a lot of people do it where we go, you know, up until last year, I was, it was just a mess and then i figured it out which basically devalues all of that experience all of that pain all of that stress all of the amazing journey you've had that brought you to that point that actually inspires empowers this path but you're like now i'm on the right path and so we have this way of devaluing past experiences even when we say i had this light bulb moment and then everything changed and it's like well no all of that got you to the light light bulb experience.
Yeah, I love that, Jay.
Something I say to myself is that, I mean, again, I repeat it all the time.
Like, you are on the path, you are on the path, you are on the path.
But it would have been so easy for me to say, oh, I figured it out.
Now I've got the publishing deal.
Now, you know, I get to have an audience and now I figured it out.
But I actually owe everything to the girl that navigated silence, to the girl that navigated rejection, to the girl that had had so much shame.
Like when I think about how I got here, I owe everything to her.
And I tell that to artists all the time because so many artists we are navigating, we're sharing stuff on social media.
No one's seeing it.
No one's liking it.
We're daring to put our art up for sale.
No one wants to buy it.
We are learning new crafts.
We're being so vulnerable.
And your future version of yourself owes everything to you for daring to be brave, for being courageous, just for taking up space, even when no one else is listening or no one else is watching.
Like I right here on a Jay Shetty show, owe everything to the girl who was sitting at a cafe, extraordinarily depressed, but saying, you know what, I'm going to dare to write today, even though nobody else wants me to write.
I love that. I so love that because you made me think of, I remember when I started out and I think the first two presentations I gave, pretty much no one showed up.
And then And for years I was doing events for five people, 10 people, and I loved it.
And actually I was so lucky because social media kind of kicked off a bit later than when I would have done that.
So I never even had the pressure or the belief that more than five to 10 people could come because maybe I'd seen 20 people in a room or 50 people in a room or 100 people in a room.
And so to me, 100 was a big number.
And I was talking to someone just a couple of days ago and they're a creator and they They were saying like, gee, I just feel this pressure of scale.
And I feel this pressure of like, not enough people have seen my work.
And I was just thinking, you know, whether I had five people in the room, 10 people, 100 or, you know, whatever it is now.
I was always just happy and grateful to be with whoever was in the room.
And so now I feel that saying, and I know it's easy for me to, it sounds easy for me to say it now.
And it's hard for me to reflect back from the external view of whether people believe me or not.
But I can honestly say that that I remember just wanting to spend the whole evening with the five people who turned up and answer their questions and share with them insights.
And it was so beautiful and valuable and meaningful that that's what gave me the practice.
It's what gave me the ability to understand different people's challenges and stresses.
And everything that I've been able to create here is only because of that experience.
It wasn't that I'm different now and I'm better now and and I mastered something.
It wasn't that. It was all part of the same path.
Yeah. We owe everything to that version of Jay.
And we get to experience you now because you dared and you enjoyed and you loved doing that work earlier on.
Yeah. I love that. Yeah.
I feel like so many people are probably listening to this right now going, Amy, Jay, I have an idea.
I have something in my head that really makes sense, but I'm scared to put it out there.
And I'm sure you hear this all the time, but I see the fear of judgment and the fear of your art being shamed and the fear of people thinking it's silly, not good enough as being such a blocker for people.
And I wanted to ask you, how do you help people overcome that fear?
Because it seems to be the biggest wall in the way of people and their dreams. I mean, there's so many different ways we can look at this.
First of all, I'm so excited that you have an idea.
Like this is so exciting.
Let's cherish it. We need to take care of it.
Because I'm really being serious.
Like we need your art.
We need your expression.
We need you to take up space.
There are people out there in the world who need what you have to create.
And if you choose to withhold it, they will never get to experience it.
Like you are a one -time phenomenon that will never, ever be seen again.
And if you choose not to take action on this idea, then that's done.
That idea is done eternally.
Will never be seen again.
I just want to really enforce that because it can be so easy to be so flippant.
Oh, it's just an idea.
It was never going to go anywhere.
These ideas are so precious and we need to take care of them.
The judgment thing, misunderstanding the, oh my God, what's that dude from high school going to think of me?
It's so valid because art is so vulnerable.
Creativity is like pouring a little bit of you into an external thing and giving it to the world.
Like that's super vulnerable.
And so I want to validate that feeling of, oh my God, what will people think of me?
Art is a courageous exercise.
It is so vulnerable.
It is so scary. And it's okay that we have these feelings.
I think there are several things that we can do.
I think the first one is come home to a truth is that you will be misunderstood and you will be judged.
And it's still worth making the art.
I can't let some random guy from high school stop me from doing my work.
And I almost did. When I decided I wanted to really start taking up space as a writer, I was like, okay, I'm going to start like an Instagram.
I'm going to start sharing my words.
And I was like, no, I can't.
It's so cringy. And I was like, that guy from high school, like Ben from high school, or like, I kept thinking of these random people.
They're going to see me and they're going to be like, who does she think she is?
And it stopped me in my tracks for ages.
And I just love that version of myself because she was so brave and she decided, no, I want this life.
I want to tell stories.
And so I started Inspired to Write, started my Instagram and I blocked every single person I could find.
And I sat there for hours being like, they would stop me showing up, they would stop me showing up.
And I created a cocoon for myself to become the artist that I needed to be.
And so I think, first of all, we do need to understand that we will be misunderstood and that is safe to be misunderstood.
But second of all, that we can take precautions to make sure that we have spaces to create and that feel as safe as possible.
But creation itself will never be safe it's inherently risky and that's why it's inherently rewarding i love that i love that you actually had a physical way i was having to block and i think we don't think about it that way sometimes we think that are we we should have got over that feeling first like i should be over the fact that my parents think this is a bad idea before i create and it's like well no you're probably gonna have to create while they think it's a bad idea we can't become like fully actualized before we create art and art's going to reveal all of your lightness, but also a lot
of your darkness. So there's going to be so many things that come up as you dare to do the brave thing and create stuff.
Like you're going to see a lot of narratives.
You're going to see a lot of insecurities because again, making art so vulnerable, you're just going to see a lot of the hard things within you and you can't wait till they're healed to begin creating.
So yeah, do what you need to do.
And for me, I needed to block every single person I could think of and now everyone's unblocked but I needed that space away from eyes I didn't want their perception of who they thought I was to interrupt my journey of who I was becoming yes and so I claimed space for myself and I invite artists to however it looks put boundaries in place so that you can do this work and you can feel as safe as possible and no you can't protect yourself entirely but you can do a little bit so that you've you know feel a little more comfy a little more cozy as you do the brave thing and start you know making some
ideas yeah i feel some of us have this feeling of i wish the people who loved me believed in me oh yeah right and i feel as artists because you can have a softer heart you're more empathetic you're more in tune with some of these emotions and feelings there's a sense of why don't you believe in me and if you believed in me i could do it and if you believed in me then i might get there and if you believed in me then then I'd feel better about it how do you let go of those kind of expectations that we often have of the people around us there's a hurtful part of that but really it's a hurtful part
because it stops you from starting yeah it's so hard I speak to so many creatives who whose closest people aren't backing them I think when we commit to art we often trigger a lot of people and we trigger the artist within them that they squash down and that they repressed and so when we say oh I'm actually being incredibly brave and I've decided to write a book.
We trigger a little part in them that says, well, I never let myself write a book.
I thought you needed permission to write a book, and here you are just taking up space writing a book.
And I don't know that they necessarily know that that's what's happening, but I feel like when we commit to art, a lot of people find that confronting.
And so that's important for us to realize is it's not us.
It's often their inner child that just hasn't had a chance to express ourselves.
Because we don't live in a world that really encourages art, that encourages creative expression.
It's something to do when you're young, and it's something to do when you're retired.
And when we dare to do it now, you know, in like the mid of life, like I think it's people are like, oh, well, who gave you permission to do that?
And it's like, well, I did.
And a huge part of my journey has been permission giving.
Like I thought I needed to wait for permission for the gatekeepers, from publishers, I thought I needed someone to say, you are now allowed to make art.
One of the biggest revelations, And again, it came through journaling was, well, no, I'm just going to give myself permission.
And I didn't need it through my parents.
I didn't need it from my friends.
I just needed to literally be like, I give myself permission to take this seriously.
And it was the most profound permission slip I could have ever given myself ever.
I remember that as well for myself when I started to create videos eight years ago.
and it was that same sense of feeling that before i did that i was asking people to give me a job to do what i wanted to do and i knew there wouldn't be an exact job for it but i was even willing to sacrifice my art to take on a job that might evolve into the artistic version of that and so i remember pitching myself as a trainee trainee video producer lots of companies in london and i didn't do video production at college at university and then same thing with trying to meet editors of magazines and say oh maybe i can get in this way and again getting rejections and then it was actually raj who messaged
me i think it was like gosh like 2015 christmas time and he was like yeah you've been giving a lot of talks we should get out there and just you know maybe we should record some stuff and i was like i don't know i haven't really made a video before and i was like i haven't really got any scripts and he was like let's figure it out and so i scribbled some stuff down that I've been thinking about and then we just went out there and we shot these four videos and then we released them later on on YouTube and it was the best feeling in the world like I've never I wish I could bottle up that feeling
and give it to other people and well well you can with with the work you're doing your book is that we need your art that's what the book is going to do for people it's going to give people that feeling of freedom yeah and it was the first time I felt free because I would constantly be waiting for someone to give me a job give me a title give me a position give me an opportunity and a break and you're so right like as an artist you're constantly waiting for someone to say yes your art is valid it's valuable and it's almost like how do you get to a point where i want to ask you this because we
almost oscillate between two ideologies which is like you should just be happy making art and you shouldn't want anyone to see it and then on the other end it's like well you have to make sure people see it otherwise is what's the point of making it and so people get scared and this is partly why I love your work because I think it really gets into the nuance of that yeah there's this feeling of like well it's weird to promote yourself so I shouldn't promote myself but then no one sees my art and then I'm a starving artist yeah but maybe that's my badge of honor and that's what makes me credible
and valuable and then there's the other side of I'm just going to sell out and make what everyone else wants me to make I'm going to go with the clickbait trends and I'm going to do whatever it it takes, but then I don't really like myself at the end of the day because that's not what I set out to do.
How do you make sense of that when you're starting in the beginning and you're like, gosh, I don't know which way to go.
I don't know how to figure it out.
How do you help people think about that spectrum?
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and back to our episode this is such a nuanced conversation i'm so glad you said that because it is so complicated and it's so very valid to want to just make art for art's sake to just want to play and create in fact i think that's an imperative part of every artist's journey like have fun like that's so important for us but there are so many narratives around you know how to do art properly and how you're meant to be an artist and you should make a certain amount amount of money and you should be showing up in this way.
There are so many stories that I think mean that we start feeling, it can be incredibly stressful.
Being an artist on social media is so stressful.
How do I put myself out there?
How am I meant to promote myself?
Should I want to promote myself or should this be a private practice?
I think this is an intensely personal thing that you need to sit with and decide where you're at.
But for me, my calling is to be seen.
And I love supporting artists who want to be seen.
And I think there's a weird amount of shame that comes from a creative who wants attention for their art.
And so my new thing at the moment is to say, I create art for the attention.
Because I create art to connect with people.
And I think a lot of artists do.
Like we create because we want to show you.
And it's a really beautiful thing to do, to make art and say, here, do you see yourself in this?
Like I made this, how do you find it?
it and so I want to really validate creators who are creating stuff because they want to connect I think we get this other story that is again a very valid story that says you should only want to make art for yourself like Rick Rubin talks about this a lot and I love what he's saying because if we do get too focused on the external and we start thinking okay well I'm going to make art only for other people it can really muddy the waters we get very confused and we lose our our internal like compass of what it is we want to create?
But I think there's this balance to be struck because yes, we have to love the process.
We have to love the act of art of creating, but at the same time, it's okay to want to connect with other people.
It's okay to want to have a relationship with audience.
It's okay to want to be seen.
It is so human to want to be seen.
And I want artists to feel very validated that that is a beautiful and normal, almost most holy part of this I love artists that are out there asking people hey can you witness me I made this thing will you see me like it just sets me alight I'm like yeah I do want to look at you I want to see I want to give you my attention yeah and you're so right that so many artists and I know I carried this at the beginning there's the sense of shame and guilt in well am I less than if I want my attention am I am I doing something wrong if I want my art to connect with people am i and and i agree with you
that that can be such an excuse for us to not create and for us to not make or we create but then we play small and we hide and we kind of keep our work very very separate because we want to or we say things like that where we say oh yeah i mean you know i don't really care about followers i don't really care about how many likes it gets and inside it's eating us yeah as opposed to accepting and saying well maybe i do care and i don't care there's there's two sides of me and and I think I've always I feel that balance that you speak of is so true because there's a part of me that cares about everyone
listening to this podcast right now because I want to because I want to have a connection I want to create something of value for you that benefits your life and changes your life and you'll listen to this and it will be the reason three years from now you'll say I listened that episode with Amy and I started creating and all of a sudden I'm writing a book and my art's in a gallery or whatever it may be for you I want want that feeling, I do.
And at the same time, I don't care because I just want to have a conversation with Amy.
And so both of those things are true.
But when we start denying parts of ourselves, it's almost like we start lying internally to ourselves.
And when you do that, you then really disconnect.
There is such a duality to being a human being, and especially in being a creative.
And I love that. I care about my art impacting people, but I also want to make sure that I'm making art that I want to make and that I'm not making art just for an audience and these two things can be true at once and we can honor both the fact that yeah i make art for the attention and i also make art because i just love to tell stories and these things are true at one time and we've got to honor both those parts of ourselves you've done a lot of different jobs on the way here i believe it was like you were a waitress at one point yeah you very bad trainer you've done financial planning i want
to hear i wouldn't say i did financial financial planning I was a personal assistant for a financial planner so I was financial adjacent terrible at that job too but I want to hear about that journey because I think that's what I find fascinating about artists like as an artist you're always having to pay the bills finding a way to solve this until your art becomes yeah you know enough quote anyone who's I'm doing uh air quotes next to enough to to be recognized etc walk me through that part of your life where you're like like doing things that keep you afloat and at the same time trying to keep
your art alive. What was that like?
Because I think a lot of people listening right now, they may be working a 12 hour job a day, they're working three jobs a day just to survive, but they're like, they've got this skill in art and really when they get home at the end of the day, they just want to switch on a TV show and escape and switch out.
Like how did you keep both alive when it wasn't your main thing?
Yeah, I mean, one of the things that makes me angriest is how much life robs us of our art time.
Like I want so many of us to have the time, the energy particularly to come home and to create.
But for so many of us, it's just it's not possible.
And balancing a regular work and a creative life is hard. And I really want to validate any creative who's navigating this because I think we get a bit of the hustle narrative where it's like just make it work.
It is hard to balance your creativity and your real life job and, you know, caretaking and being a kid and just being an adult in general.
like I can I it's huge and I really struggled with it um I was waitressing because I was doing all these little jobs because I was trying to fit art around them so I was waitressing because I could then I could work after 3 p .m maybe I was a personal trainer because I'll train clients in the morning and evening and I'd try and write in the middle of the day like I was trying to choose jobs that would work for me but it was exhausting and especially because these jobs were so like like the antithesis of Amy, like I'm not made to serve people coffee.
I can't hold the skim milk situation in my head.
Like I don't care. So I don't pay attention.
So I'm not a very good waitress.
I'm exhausted by the end of my shift. Then I get home to my writing and I think, okay, well, I've got to write two to 3000 words.
This is too much. And so I would let myself down.
I would feel like I betrayed myself and I would get in patterns of, of constantly feeling like I've I've betrayed my inner artist. I've betrayed my dreams. I can never reach up to this level.
And I think I see it all the time.
Like artists are like, okay, because I didn't write all this week.
Okay. I'm going to weekend.
I'm going to do, I'm very biased to writers, but any sort of creating, I'm going to create for like six hours to make up for it.
And then they can't do it because they're exhausted.
And then in this pattern of self -betrayal and they start not trusting themselves that they're going to follow through.
But I had a real breakthrough when I I decided that I was only going to write 300 to 500 words a day just baby steps small steps yeah I realized that that was a promise I could keep 300 words could be done in like 20 minutes 15 minutes they could be crap it was another big thing I think we demand huge amounts of time for our art when we're already exhausted and we're like and they better be perfect and it's so unfair so unfair and it and also it's a recipe for absolute disaster and you're not going to be able to finish your creative projects because these working conditions are horrendous.
So it was 300 shitty words was my bare minimum.
I also had a bare maximum so that I couldn't keep going.
So it could contain my energy.
So I wasn't allowed to write more than a thousand words.
And that's how I wrote my books.
That's how I still write my books, 300 to 500 words a day.
And it's so doable.
And when you come home from an absolutely hectic day, you can say okay 300 words 300 potentially crappy words or 10 minutes on the guitar or I want to take three pictures with my iPhone you know whatever it is it's just really small really doable and then you start accumulating wins so if you've done that like three four times a week you're like okay maybe I could do that again next week and by the you know end of the year you have a portfolio of your creations and you've become an you know you've improved as an artist you've you've got something to show for yourself.
Some of you will have a finished book if you've chosen to write.
We ignore the magic of the baby steps so frequently because I think we're just such a go -all -in or go -home culture.
Yeah and you're so right, that go -all -in or go -home culture just it blocks us the most because it's also this comes from like a bit of ego where it's like I want to be the best at this, like this has to be incredible and it's almost like well maybe I'm not going to be the best at this the first time I try or for for the first year or maybe for the first 10 years and that's okay because I'm just trying and I'm just learning.
But that requires a sense of detachment and egolessness to be like, it's okay to make bad stuff.
And I know you are the biggest proponent of this.
Shitty art. Yeah. And that's really been validating for me.
Like every time I read you say something like that or write something like that, I'm like, yes, thank you, Amy, for giving me permission.
Walk me through how we, because I think we oscillate between procrastination and perfectionism.
and so this kind of solves both of them really but walk me through that yeah they're so closely related procrastination and perfectionism one causes the other and such a like perfectionism will mean that you procrastinate so my ethos is like shitty art like if you can't point to a giant pile of shitty art that you've made recently then you're not doing the work and I think so many artists see that as a sign of failure but to me that is a sign of like giant success we have to to connect to that messy, playful part of ourselves when we create.
That's when the best art is made.
I watch artists finesse and finesse, and they're trying to get it so right.
And they're like narrowing and narrowing their point of view.
And they're getting so constrained.
And they're losing, I think, their own creative voice almost by these huge restrictions to be perfect.
Whereas if you just say, make shitty art, and I often do this at workshops, I say, I got three minutes, just make something shitty.
And the cool stuff that comes out of that, shitty poems shitty drawings there's also that little element of magic to it because when you just let yourself play like a child it's so fun there's a lightness to it ideas come in like perfectionism is rigidity and we think perfectionism is the answer it's like oh if i'm if i'm a perfectionist it's like that will get me to where i want to go as a creative it's like the one fault that we're allowed to have but perfectionism will destroy your creative career it will destroy it we need mess we need play that is when you will become the best artist you
can yeah and and that's actually often where I find the seeds of great ideas come yeah like you you did something bad you did something random but there was one word or one line there's one dot or whatever it is for you there's that one thing that you go oh that was the real thing that's the thing I want to create now and all of a sudden it sparks it but if you didn't allow for of that messiness.
It was never going to happen.
You would never have seen it.
You would never have found it.
And that to me is, is definitely why I crave more play and more messiness in my life, because there's a sense of the profound will only come from playfulness.
It's not going to come from trying to be profound or create something profound.
It doesn't, it doesn't originate that way.
I think so many of us think that art is like a child thing.
And so we're trying to be like like adults creating and adults would create in very structured ways.
Like we'd have rules, you know, we'd follow an expert and we do exactly what they say.
And we try and make art a very responsible and neat thing.
But art is like that in a child playing and art is messy and it should be a kind of a chaotic experience.
We've got to invite that back into our, into our lives.
Yes. I do this activity that I got introduced to many years ago.
It's, it's known as the 30 circles test. Don't know if you've ever seen it.
So it's basically a, A4 piece of paper with 30 circles printed on it.
And I often hand it to executives at corporate coaching and corporate clients that I have. And the task is you have to uniquely fill and complete and use 30 circles in 30 seconds.
And the clock starts and everyone starts scribbling away doing their thing and then clock stops at 30 seconds.
And I asked them, what have they done?
Over 50 % of the audience will have done 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 to 30 or A, B, C, D, E, F, G to Z, Z to A, B, C again.
And so they will have done that.
That's what over 50 % of the audience has done.
Some of the audience has done squiggles, just random squiggles, nothing there, maybe knots and crosses.
Or they've, some people have done emojis and some people have done like footballs and soccer balls and pizzas or whatever, like using selfies.
And that's generally runs the the gamut of 99 % of the audience.
And maybe in the adult side, you'd get one, but they also did this with lots of 10 year olds.
And I tried it out with 10 year olds as well.
And some of the stuff that comes out is unbelievable.
And so this one girl had done all this like intricate shading on it.
And when we asked her what it was, she said it was a chess board from a bird's eye view.
And when you ask another kid what it was, they had put like a line around it and put a little little thing on top and they said it was a bag of marbles and they put five dollars and on the bag of marbles and this was my favorite one someone had done all this intricate shading this little girl and put all this like uh curves and all this stuff and when i asked her what it was she said it was bubble wrap oh my god and it was so creative and genius yes genius and and it's so interesting what you're saying is so true that when adults hear 30 circles 30 seconds we go go logical brain structure completion deadline
so we switch off the part of our brain that has any yeah I can you can imagine how many of those adults are thinking there is a right and wrong way to do this and I'm going to be marked on it whereas these kids are just like it's so beautiful so playful and when we talk about creative genius I think we often think of some of you know the greats like Mozart or something but like look to the kids because they are finding out fun stuff us yes they are the creative geniuses and we have that within us it's just that we've been told to squash that part of us from our culture really how do you start
to structure and strategize art and promote it in a way that then it does allow you to because it's almost like we're trying to become adult about our art not adult about how we market promote and strategize our art if that makes sense yeah yeah like it's almost like the art should remain playful and messy and truly truly creative.
But then how we get that art out there should potentially have structure and strategy.
Yeah, I'm going to disagree with you.
I want to hear your thoughts.
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visit apple gift card dot apple dot com for details and to send apple gift card this back to school season all right thank you to our sponsors now let's dive back in i think there's a lot of room for mess for playfulness for the chaos the traditional creative chaos in marketing putting your art out there i think we get really stuck on okay well i've made my art it's incredible it's beautiful it has my inner child like infused within it now I'm going to market it and now I need branding colors and I need a social media scheme and I need to be I need to be doing you know four to five consistent
posts a week and three reels and all of a sudden that like I see it like artists just shrivel like we don't thrive under those kind of circumstances I think there's so much room for I think marketing is an art form in itself and therefore I think that when we put put our art out there.
When we promote our art, there is room for mess and there's still like shitty art should still be a part of it.
Like we should still be playing around, seeing what works, having fun when we promote our art as well.
I think artists feel so claustrophobic when they feel like they have to niche down or they feel like they have to, you know, neaten up their Instagram grid, like be messy in the promotion process.
Like we're out there looking for real real humans to connect with, not brands, not companies.
I want to connect with artists who are real human people.
And so I want to invite artists to bring that mess into the marketing process as well.
But I think it's very easy for our perfectionists to flare up when it comes to sharing our art, because not only have we just done the bravest thing, which is make art, now we have to share it.
And so perfectionism is going to flare hugely because we're like, okay, I've got to protect myself because this is the moment where I put it out there and people are are going to see me as the artist, they're going to see my art, they're going to judge it.
So we start trying to structure it really heavily in order to feel safe.
And I just think we lose so much of the magic when we do that.
I want to see the artist, I want to see the human, I want to see your mess, I want to see you playing, I want to see, I just want to see grit when it comes to promoting.
No, I actually agree with you.
I actually agree with you.
I definitely, when I was talking about structure and strategy, maybe I used the wrong words, I definitely don't mean, definitely don't like the idea of people having to you know like you said um choose brand colors and be organized yeah no not in that way at all and and I couldn't agree with you more that often that's the stuff that stifles even more creativity because you're now playing a game definitely you hope to figure out yeah I see artists you see everywhere online especially in the space I'm in because I'm so in you know the creative space artists are just so tired of of having to show up
in specific ways online in order to please the algorithm.
Like there's a weariness that I see in creatives that's so heartbreaking.
And I just want to say, like, first of all, I know it's hard to navigate these systems, but second of all, break all the rules, rebel.
Like artists are inherent, like, rebels.
We break the rules.
We've already broken loads of rules because we've created stuff in a world that wants us to stay small and compliant and silent.
Now it's time to break the rules with how we put our art out there.
Do whatever you want to do, do what makes you happy do what feels creative rather than you know constantly obeying what's going to go you know what what we think might go viral or what reels are preferred by the algorithm this stuff is making us feel like shit and it's not I don't know that it's helping us and how do you feel like if someone's doing that but then they're also like going months and years without feeling like their work's being seen yeah it's so hard yeah yeah it is incredibly difficult and And there's nothing, to me, there's nothing more painful than when you're sharing your art
and nobody is seeing it.
There is an exquisite pain when it comes to that silence and navigating, like, putting something out there that you've just created and having no one respond.
Like, for me, when I was navigating that, I was very, very upset by it.
And I felt almost ashamed by how upset I was by it.
Again, it's that idea that artists shouldn't want attention.
But I wanted attention.
I wanted people to see and read my books.
I wanted to be witnessed so when artists aren't seen and when we're like okay I'm going to break all the rules but it feels like by breaking the rules you get missed or you get put to the side that can be incredibly difficult I think there's a way to kind of toe the line and play the game but at the same time make sure that it feels good to you certainly for the way that I like to share my art I don't want to do what's going viral but I will still consider like you know how it's going going to impact my audience and what people have enjoyed of my content lately like there's a game that I'm playing
and it's a balance that I like to there's a line I like to walk that makes it so it's still creatively fulfilling for me but I'm not going to obey whatever the next niche thing I have to do in order to be big on social media yeah yeah do you find that like in terms of your creation I mean totally I mean we in the beginning you know for me the videos that I started with were me just freestyling almost kind of rough words poetry on topics that I loved they went viral by chance like they weren't crafted for a particular time length or a particular editing pattern because I didn't know them I was just
making videos and and they went viral and people loved them and then I made more of those because I enjoyed them but the day I stopped enjoying enjoying making them, we stopped.
Yeah, beautiful. And then we created a new format where I'd seen a lot of comedians who would do sketches and they'd be hilarious sketches of real life.
I was like, well, what if I did sketches of real life?
Like what if I was to create real life experiences as dramatic performances with messaging?
So we did those and I loved it and those went viral.
And then there was a day I didn't enjoy making those anymore.
I felt like I I was trying too hard to come up with storylines.
And then, so we stopped doing that.
And then I started the podcast, which I'm still doing today because it feels like the most realist fluid form because there is no set structure to make a interview go viral.
It's truly a deep conversation.
It's far less, there's not a science to that as much. And if there is, I don't enjoy it because I choose not to ask I have a rule that we have of not to ask gossip -based questions clickbait questions yeah because that's how we protect our art yeah and I want the conversations to be true and genuine and sincere but basically when I've stopped finding something fulfilling as art I've stopped doing it because I've found that if I keep doing something I hate I'm gonna end up hating parts of myself yeah and I'm gonna feel disconnected from myself we get a lot of bitter artists when we have a practice
that we're doing, whether that's in the creation process or whether it's when we share it.
If we don't like it and we keep doing it, we are going to become bitter.
We see a lot of bitter artists out there who are just so angry at what the world has made them do, whether that's to sell their books or sell their art or be seen on social media.
And they're so pissed that they had to sacrifice their creative integrity in order to be seen.
And it just cannot cannot be worth it i just i want creatives to create with what feels good exactly like you jay it's such a beautiful example when it stops feeling good stop doing it try something else yeah because it will it did feel good at one point of course yeah and it was new and fresh and it was created and the funny thing is parts of me that want to go back to some of those now yeah so it's like because i'm like i used to love those videos eight years ago maybe if i reconnected to them i'd come at them from a really genuine place and so i can now go back home home feeling happy rather
than go back home feeling bitter because I feel forced to be there yeah and so I feel like when you let the algorithm dictate what you make you feel forced to be there and it's almost like your parents forcing you to come to family dinner and you don't want to be there exactly and I love what you said about artists being rebels because I remember when I wrote Think Like a Monk my first book and 14 out of 17 imprints that I took meetings with at different publishers told me not to call it think like a monk because they were like jay who wants to think like a monk no one wants to do that and it
was this big thing that i remember this conversation and i was talking earlier about when you're writing your first book you don't know how much to push for and how much not to that was something i pushed for wholeheartedly and i'm so glad i'm so glad you did and you know it's so interesting because same with my second book i was like i had this view of an artistic cover and i pushed for it again because i believed in it so so deeply.
And I could have gone for the cover that they thought would sell the most or whatever.
And it was never that.
It was always like, I want to create something that I think is beautiful and powerful and builds a movement.
Yeah. I think we've been taught to, we've got to create the thing that's going to go the most viral.
But what if we create something that impacts, you know, a hundred people?
Like that's still incredibly worth it.
I think we're always aiming for virality we're always aiming for like again what's that big or go big or go home like what if we make art and share it in a way that no it doesn't go viral but it connects and it impacts and it maybe only finds one or two people but it does its thing and it and it resonates with them i feel like artists are always told you know go viral be taylor swift or be a starving artist and it's this binary that doesn't serve us i talk a lot about like i want the i want this to be the era of the middle -class artist where it's like we don't need millions and millions of dollars
we need and you know a stable income and we get to enjoy a stable income um we're not the starving artist and we're not jlo but we are thriving joyful you know financially secure artists like that's what i want for us and i think it's much more possible than we realize you just talked about how you want this culture of middle -class artists which i love that like that's such a such a great vision and such a great mission that you're on like I really like that because like you said I think for so many years we've been told art's not a real job it won't make you a living what's the point and we've
subscribed to that and then you do a safe job and then you realize you left your dream back there yeah or you got lucky enough and art did become a really big thing but then maybe you lost touch with the art you wanted to create and you felt like you sold out and I've always described it as the selfish artist or the sellout artist and it's like the selfish artist only creates them for themselves but then they don't ever get to feel what it feels like to share their art and the sellout artist only creates for the audience and then they never create what they truly want and the balance is in between yeah but when it
comes to monetizing your art i feel like people are scared of asking for money we're scared of valuing our art accurately and then at the same time we're struggling to pay our bills at points in our life how do you encourage people to think about monetizing their art and becoming a middle middle -class artist. There's so much shame around for all of us, whatever we're doing, there's so much shame around money, but I think for artists, there are so many narratives.
There's this almost glamor around being the poor artist. And then as you say, then there's the glamor around being like the super mega famous artists.
And there's no healthy story about an artist who gets paid for what they do and can live, you know, a sustainable life.
And, you know, there's a value exchange and it feels good.
And the exchange of money feels good.
And I feel like for me personally on my journey like it's been the most beautiful thing to realize that selling my art has felt really good and selling my books has felt so aligned I know that my stories are going to serve them and there's a value exchange and they pay me for my stories or they pay me for my words and it's felt really beautiful like a very like a relationship it's felt very intimate it's felt very aligned and I always thought that it was going to feel icky or it was going to feel or yucky or that I was going to feel like I was taking advantage of them or manipulating them.
But I found a space where it feels good.
And I want artists to understand that selling your art can feel good.
And so I want artists to start getting comfortable with the idea that art is valuable.
And perhaps that's maybe the part of the problem.
Like, we don't understand that art is valuable.
People think, oh, you know, food is valuable because it feeds me.
Or, you know, I need a computer because I need to do work on it.
But we don't really understand the value of art.
And it is incredibly hard to put a monetary value on art.
I mean, I have so many conversations with creatives being like, how do I put like a dollar sign on my art?
And that is hard. It can feel very arbitrary, but art has value.
Art brings so much value to other people.
And the artist needs to learn that because I think there's too many creatives going around out there thinking, oh, I'm just, I'm making decoration for the world, or I'm just doing something so silly.
silly. I'm telling stories, I'm making movies, but it's just, you know, it's, it doesn't make a difference.
Art makes a difference.
And we're getting some very cool research coming in about how art impacts us physically, how it impacts our mental health, how it impacts our communities, like art changes us, but artists don't recognize that.
And we still think we're doing something frivolous when in reality, we are doing something incredibly profound that is making real change, political change, personal change, biological change to other people around us.
you deserve money for that.
That story needs to sink in.
And then that value exchange is going to feel so much better.
So powerful. I'm so glad you made it so easy and clear.
And it's so true. I have so many friends who are artists who do something and it's quite easy for them or it's effortless for them.
And then they're scared.
And there's this beautiful old made up story that I heard a long time ago where it's not true at all, but, but it's, it's got a nice message and Picasso walks into the marketplace and this lady sees Picasso and And she says, Picasso, will you draw me a portrait?
He says, sure, I'll draw you a portrait.
So he grabs a pen and paper and he draws a portrait of her and he gives it back to her.
And she says, Picasso, that took 30 seconds.
And he's like, it took me 30 years to do that in 30 seconds.
And it's like when you're working as an artist, you're almost recognizing and reminding yourself that when you're putting a value on your work, you're putting a value on all the training, all the pain, all the stress, all of that that went into that piece that maybe have taken you 20 hours, hours maybe it took you two hours maybe it took you two minutes but there's so much experience that went into that piece and so whether it was a quote on Instagram or whether it was a piece of art we're always valuing how long it took us to do the thing not how long it took us to live what it took to do that thing
I also think we think that because art can be joyful or easy to make that it shouldn't be worth money yes because I had a really good time writing my book I should give away it for free yes which is ridiculous i think we we almost feel like we've got it too good could i love the process and be paid for it yes you could because your art has a lot of value and you deserve to be paid for it again i want artists to understand that what you are making has value you deserve money for it yeah yeah no and i think about it all the time like there's also this this feeling of, if you're doing something truly
to help people, it should be absolutely free.
And that's a really interesting one.
Go on, you have a reaction, I can see your reaction to that.
I think it happens for artists a lot too.
And I get a lot of creatives telling me that, oh, they're family members asking for free art, or, you know, if you really wanted the world to change, you would give it away for free.
Lots of narratives, again, constantly asking artists to work for free, devaluing creatives, devaluing artists.
And it's so painful because because it's kind of a seductive narrative.
I actually really want to hear what you have to think about it.
But this idea that it's only generous if there's not a value exchange, it's just so cruel.
And it leaves artists, first of all, it perpetuates the scarcity story and the artists are poor, that we have no money, which means we end up not creating that much, which means we don't have the money, which means we're working multiple jobs, which means we can't create the art.
If we don't support and nourish artists with money, we lose artists.
So we need to be paying our artists.
If you want more art, if you want an art, a world that is filled with books and movies and creations and musics and beautiful gardens and good food, we need to support our artists.
And I still think that when we put our art up for sale, and when we sell it, it is a profoundly generous act, especially when we ask for money for it in return.
Yeah, you asked my opinion on it.
It's similar to yours.
I remember at one point in my my life i was i had 100 million views and i was four months away from being broke and i was starting to think okay i'm gonna have to go back to work i'm gonna have to get a job again and i know that the job i would probably get would be demanding because that's the job i'd get with my education and everything i have and therefore i'd probably not be able to do much of this anymore and that means if i can't make this anymore but the 100 million views i have the comments and everything everything I'm reading a Jay, this really helped me.
This changed my life.
I shared it. I like all the comments I'm reading are like, people are benefited by this, but I'm not going to be able to do that anymore because I don't know how.
And I remember going through that whole process and I was thinking, well, wait a minute.
And, and at that time I was shaming and guilting myself for even thinking that I could charge for something.
And I was like, well, how do I do that?
And like, but people are getting value from it, but then I really want to do it for free because that's how how I was trained to always, and obviously with my monk background, it's like everything was for free and everything was charity work.
And so I really had that conditioning.
And then I thought to myself, well, if I give up what I love that helps people and serves people and I can't do it any longer, is that the world I want to live in?
And it was a really clear answer where it was like, no, I want to live in a world where I can do this forever.
I can help more people do what what they want to do.
We can even create teams that will all be living a purposeful life that they want to, excuse me, that they want to live in.
And we'll be able to hopefully impact so many more people who create amazing journeys for themselves.
And I'm so glad that despite any criticism, shame, guilt that comes with that path, I'm glad I made that choice because I'm far happier having pursued that than I would have been if I just went, okay, well, I'm done now because I can't afford to do this anymore.
What a huge loss for the whole world if you would have been like, I'm done.
And for myself. And for you, yeah.
And the creative of just also just not just thinking about, well, I can't make more if I don't have enough to make with.
Who am I going to pay to edit the video?
Exactly. How am I going to film this and all of this?
And there was even with the podcast, which is free.
And I always thank everyone for us allowing to have our sponsors and our ad partners, which is the way we're able to do this.
And we're so, I always say this to everyone.
and I'm well not everyone I say this to my friends behind closed doors I'm like we're so selective over which brands we work with which companies we partner with in order to present that to our community and we probably leave more on the table than we even make because of that desire to get it right and I'm not saying that to sound holier than thou or sound what I'm saying is everything's done intentionally and I think if it if it's done intentionally there's a heart there and there's a a truth there of wanting to serve and wanting things to be good yeah and the podcast is absolutely free but there
are certain things that may not be if that person wants to hold that integrity for themselves i love that no it makes a huge amount of sense i think artists are just constantly people always want to call them out for selling out and i don't know why we're so vulnerable to that narrative because you don't go up to your accountant who's doing you know important work and say why are you being paid for this we don't go up to we don't ask other people why do you want money for your job but we ask artists that all the time we ask creatives that all the time and it's interesting and I don't fully understand the narrative
there but I question it and I want to like double down like we deserve to be paid and we deserve not to be questioned about that as well like of course we we bring value we deserve money yeah yeah I think it's because and that's a great point it's like wanting to understand it I think it's because emotional and spiritual exchanges are not valued in society as deeply yeah right like you can't we all know there's people you meet that energetically make you feel better yeah because you don't known to pay for that as an energetic exchange you almost think it's impure if you had to pay for it so we
see money as impure and we see art as pure yeah and we don't like them touching whereas I want to very gently suggest that art is like messy, human like not pure at all it is holy and incredible and the most important force ever but it's messy and it's human and it's ugh same with money it's like you know none of these things are impure or pure they're all very human ideas and I believe art and money belongs together no I love that I want to ask you a few more about some emotions that artists often go through I think one of them today is oversaturation saturation oh yeah this feeling of it's oversaturated
like i was looking at someone the other day a friend of mine said to me they said jay i feel like you were one of the first podcasts and i was like i think you must be kidding right and they're like no no i think you were like one of the first podcasts i was like i launched my podcast in 2019 and i pulled up this chart i googled it there were 336 000 podcasts that existed in 2019 and of course there are so many before that that were that were well known and big as well and it was like but to them because I was the first podcast they'd discovered I must have been the first podcast I was like it's
really the first thing of anything that takes off has lessons is whatever today I think there's over probably I was about to ask do you know the number I think I could be wrong so but maybe like two million maybe today yeah and so I'm sure it's high because it's been five years I still I want to say though like two million isn't that high not for the world seven billion of us people like I couldn't start a podcast it's saturated I'm like it is there's two million podcast there are so many of us there are billions of us i think we can kind of get the scale a bit confused sometimes totally um but yeah
whenever anyone says i can't it's oversaturated no um plus there's no noise like your noise there's nothing that you again you're a one -time phenomenon you're never going to be repeated you have something to say that's never been said you have a viewpoint that will never be replicated um you almost have your own market yes there's so much I see that more and more when I see creators come up and I'm like there is so much demand in the world we're so hungry for art yeah to be seen and you can make people feel seen in a way that no one else can and that's your superpower and that's what's so beautiful
about you and that's what's needed because you're going to make someone feel seen heard and understood in a way no one else can in a way I can't in a way you can't in a way I love that yeah I really I often use this example when people talk about oversaturation and art, because I think art sits in a really different space to other products.
So for example, like a toaster, I only want one toaster.
Or I could maybe want to, but basically I want one toaster.
But I want hundreds of books.
I want, I can watch so many films. I can have so much art around me.
Like I want so many different types of plants for my garden.
I want, you know, to try different types of food.
Like we have a really, really big appetite for art.
And so when people come in and say, oh, I couldn't possibly be a writer.
There's so many writers in the world.
I'm like, I can't have enough books.
I'm mainlining them on audio books just all the time.
Art is not toaster.
It's not a fridge. We don't need just one of them.
We have a much bigger market than you realize.
And I always feel whenever a creative, I very gently say this, when a creative comes to me and says, I can't, it's oversaturated, I go, there's got to be another reason.
You're playing small because it sounds great.
it sounds like a perfect excuse but we need your voice there is no noise like your noise start taking up space yes and like two million podcasts seven billion of us and i want more podcasts i listen to new podcasts all the time totally and most people i've found listen to a collection of podcasts totally yeah people and i was asking that like how do you feel about so many other podcasts coming up and and that's the funny thing it's like that's the conversation when you're established in the conversation when you're new is there's too many yes everyone's like oh And I'm like, I love it because most
people are listening to like two or three different podcasts at the same time.
It's how we, like we don't all go, I only watch Netflix.
It's like, no, I like shows on Apple and I like some shows on whatever else there is here.
Sorry, I only know the channels in America.
That HBO and Hulu and whatever else there is.
It's like, you don't just go, oh no, no. I only watch this one platform.
We have a huge appetite.
I only watch YouTube.
I don't use Instagram.
Like it doesn't work like that.
No. And like on Instagram, it's like, oh, there's an oversaturation of poets.
I'm like, give me all the poets.
Yeah, exactly. I'm not just following one poet on Instagram.
Totally, totally. And there's a renaissance for so many art forms at the moment because of social media, because we have this like connection economy and there is more space than ever before.
And it can feel like there's a lot of noise because of these spaces and because when you scroll through Instagram, you can see a lot of creators, but it's because we're hungry for it.
And more than ever, we're hungry for very vulnerable, real connection.
We're hungry for art.
Yes. In a world where we're shown a lot of, you know, listicles or like viral content, like we're hungry for human expression.
And so it's time for artists to step up, take up space, share their art and make things because we're desperate for it.
So yeah, I really won't hear anything to do with the saturated market.
I will shut that down.
Another emotion I think a lot of artists experience is jealousy.
Yeah. If we're being really honest, jealousy and envy of like, I wish I had that, I wish I got those views.
Yeah. I'm jealous of you, Jay.
but I am but I see jealousy as a compass I think it can be a beautiful emotion if we let it fester it can be toxic I love the way you use your platforms I love the art you make I love the way that you uh use this podcast like and in there is a definite like almost it feels a bit like jealousy like I want what you have but I can use that in a way that is incredibly inspiring to me in my art and I know where it is I want to go I can learn from you I can be taught by you um I can follow in your footsteps and if we can use jealousy in that way rather than sinking down into patterns of comparison so instead
of me sitting here and being like oh why am I not in Jay's position and like listing the reasons why and like comparing to incomparable artists I can say I can use jealousy as a compass and I really wish that artists could see it in that way because again it's another emotion that can take us down we can feel constantly less than never enough and i also feel like it's an emotion that maybe doesn't go away i'm not sure if that's been your experience if you've seen that like it doesn't matter how big you get there's always someone who's got something that maybe you want or something like that and it
just if you don't get a handle on it i feel like it's not something that yeah it doesn't fade away with success yes yeah there's two questions i ask clients of mine uh when i'm coaching them and the first question is who do you envy yeah and there's no one that i've met no matter how successful they are that doesn't know that word on the tip of their lips like that they've got them they know it and i've found that learning to deal with envy and transform it is core to happiness and fulfillment in life because you can't forget even how much you do what you love even if you did what you love every
day and it paid you well you'd still be unhappy if you had envy in your life like envy is that force that what you're saying to use it as a compass and what I often do and I said this to you the moment you walked in because I love it the way you write I said to you oh yeah I probably need to take a workshop with you and that's me saying I'd rather study with you than envy you I love like that's the choice I get to make I'd rather study you and your work and how you've learned that and study with you and grow and have a relationship with a mentor than to envy that person and, and want to never
give myself the opportunity to grow and become, but only to unbecome and unlearn and kind of go backwards.
That was stunning. I loved everything you just said so much. I feel like that's so beautiful.
The idea that it's an, it's an opportunity to level up as soon as you feel that jealousy and envy.
I think you've got two options.
It's like, you could really let this take you down or you could really let this take take you up.
So it's very exciting.
Yeah. Yeah. It's a similar with imposter syndrome.
I have to feel like imposter syndrome is a sign that you've leveled up as well.
You're in that new skin and it feels like uncomfortable, but yeah, it's a, it's an opportunity to say, no, I'm going to learn from you.
I'm going to sit at your feet.
I love that. Yeah, absolutely.
Uh, We Need Your Art is out right now.
I'm excited for everyone to grab a copy of the book.
Amy, is there anything that I haven't asked you that's really on your heart or something you wanted to talk about that we somehow didn't get to that, that you want to share now that intuitively is coming to you?
Yeah. I mean, we could talk for a long, long time.
I think I want to talk about how, when I wrote, we need your art and it was, you know, not long ago.
I love that. I got to speak to the creative experiences from in the trenches and because it can be such a challenging experience, navigating yourself as a creative, uh, there's so much rejection, silence, you know, imposter syndrome comparison, like so much of what we've spoken about.
And I love that I got to write this book in it.
Like I'm still experiencing rejection.
I'm still experiencing violence.
Yeah, exactly. And I love that I got to, yeah, delve into this topic with everyone as we all navigate it.
And yeah, I'm very excited for people to get to read this book and for me to be on that journey with them.
Like the greatest privilege in the world for me is to to sit by an artist and watch them create, there's no greater honor to me.
So I'm very excited for this book, Baby, to be in people's hands.
That's beautiful. Me too.
I really believe it's going to be that generational book that's going to inspire all these new creators and artists at a time when I don't feel ever since social media took off, we've really had a book that speaks to that dilemma of being an artist. And I feel like We Need Your Art is that book.
So I'm really excited for you and excited for everyone to have it, excited to read it myself and have it.
But Amy, we end every On Purpose episode with a final five.
These have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum.
So Amy McNee, these are your fast final five.
I've been preparing.
I love it, I love it.
Question number one, what is the best advice you've ever heard or received?
I love what Liz Gilbert says when she says, this world is just a school for endless learning.
I love this idea and I feel like you embody this so much. It's like, this is just a school for endless learning.
We just get to keep being curious, keep learning, keep making mess and then finding something magic within it.
And I love taking that into each day because it allows for so much room and it gives me, even if it's shitty or even if it's good, I love it.
I love it. Question number two, what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received?
Honestly, like in a more general term, be careful.
I wanted to recklessly pour myself into my art.
I wanted to be risky.
And the words I kept getting was, be careful.
And it made me feel like I was doing something wrong.
But I love the invitation for artists to rebel, to be the revolution, to just be messy and recklessly throw themselves into this creative life.
I just got goosebumps.
That's really like, it's so right that that cautiousness, which is for safety, but always always ends up feeling like it trapped you instead of keeping you safe.
Yeah. That's beautiful.
I love that. Uh, question number three, what is the worst piece of art you've ever made?
Oh man, you should talk to my, my partner.
So we write books together and so I'll write the first draft and then he'll read it.
And watching his face as he reads my first draft, he's like, what is this?
He's here right now.
Yeah. I mean, it's because I, and I pride myself on this.
I I write spectacularly shitty first drafts, and I'm genuinely proud of it, because I just word vomit.
It's just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
There's so much magic in there, but it is difficult to navigate as an editor, and poor James really has to wade through some shit.
But I'm incredibly proud of my first drafts.
I love it. That's great.
What is your favorite piece of art that you've ever created?
I wrote a fiction book called Regrettably, I'm About to Cause Trouble, and it's just that don't be careful kind of vibe.
It's a witchy historical fiction, like rebel book.
And I loved, it was this reckless abandoned novel of just throw yourself in.
So she has a special place in my heart.
I love that. Fifth and final question, which we asked every guest who's ever been on the show.
If you could create a law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?
I want people to make some shitty art.
I want you to find out what happens when you take perfectionism out of the equation and and you just let yourself create.
So yeah, make shitty art.
It's all I want. I love it.
Amy McNear, everyone, the book is called We Need Your Art.
If you don't follow Amy already on Instagram, inspired to write.
Amy, it's been such a joy.
I look forward to getting to know you so much more.
I'm so excited for you to continue to create art in this world, and we definitely need your art.
So I'm so happy to have connected with your work and found it organically, fell in love with it.
it and it honestly does work wonders for me when I'm struggling and figuring things out and just go to your page and find something that resonates very very deeply so and anything I do that helps anyone you get the credit for it too because yes it definitely I wouldn't be able to do it without people like yourself so thank you so much thank you for your art we need your art I'm so grateful for you thank you thanks Amy if you love this episode you will enjoy my conversation with with Meghan Trainor on breaking generational trauma and how to be confident from the inside out.
My therapist told me stand in the mirror naked for five minutes.
It was already tough for me to love my body, but after the C -section scar, with all the stretch marks, now I'm looking at myself like I've been hacked.
But day three when I did it, I was like, you know what?
Her thighs are cute.
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