Lessons

Lesson Info

Name Your Shame - Diminish Its Power

Go back to the list that you made or perhaps the one thing on it the thing the problem the thing that is in your way is holding back that is like the block I want to talk about it and I said maybe wouldn't talk about it but I told you wanna talk about it? We've been talking a lot about other stuff and I think that I know uh usually in a room I would say that what is said here stays here but we've got the cameras we got the everything so I want to say to everybody at home, teo, I think we all trust each other now we've been sharing and I think that it's timeto error what it is that is holding you back, what is what is the thing is going to keep sharing, we're in we're on a roll, we're telling our stories and this is a part of our story what is the thing that's? The thing that's in your way why are you here today? It all comes down to two things fear and confusion and afraid of and confused about everything everything fear off um not being good enough, your failure here of not know what ...

to do and everything but and confusion, confusion like, ok, they're all this possibilities and I know I have some skills, but if I go this way I'll be missing this way so they're all this possibility is that I can create that I somehow could but together make it work but I'm not doing it because I'm just too stuck here just because I don't know where to go and them carrot and and so you do nothing it's paralyzing. Yes, well, no it's not actually. Well, I do think, but it's kind of just bringing around and yeah, somehow paralyzed to just move ahead and really go for it and do something that I wanted to but I don't know what isthe yeah, I totally hear you. Thank you for hearing we will do a lot of talking about the things that we talk about. This is is not the end. We're going toe. Yeah, okay. Anyone else, please? What? Uh, yeah, my my big thing is, like, very contrary where I worry that my work isn't unique enough that it's worth adding to the market, but I also worry that it's too niche to ever get a large audience. So you're stuck. Yeah, the push pull of yeah, what, what? What you end up doing? Um, I usually end up just kind of doing what I love the most and then stressing a little bit that it's never going to really get more stable, but so you feel like your own kind of shaky ground all the time. Yeah, yeah, so I kind of mentioned it when I was talking about the things that we tell ourselves, but my fear is of others judging me like like even in photography, I love my work. I think I'm good. I know I can improve. I know others are better than I like what I do, you know, I love to write. I like how I write and so I have all these things that I think I'm pretty good at and I love doing. But I mean, secure and hold myself back, because I'm just afraid of other people and you rely on the other people to do things like hire you, you write, is that where that comes from? Very hire me and pay me and I think it's, I don't really understand cause people will pay me, and I still fear that they don't like it and I fear other. Photographers because photographers could be mean especially in forums and so I'm like, you know well they're going to tell me I didn't do that lighting right or this or that even if my client loves my work wants to pay me a lot for it and so I book really well and I have a lot of clients and I love my work I'm just scared that somebody out there might not like it might say something and how does that affect your work? What do you what is it? I guess that sometimes I feel like I don't want to put my work out there like we just made this awesome promo video for my buddha and my clients absolutely love it a lot of people saw instantly enquiries and photographers like hey have your your linds hood on the wrong way and that everyone's like oh yeah I saw that's all these photographers are pointing out this one little thing but I still thought it was a great video lots of people want to hire me because of the video but now I'm like I don't want to show anybody this anymore because the lindsey put on the camera, you know? Yeah, yeah doubt doubt clients don't care about the lengths that is there on your camera I don't even notice that's totally true thiss classic for me it's this classic fear of failure right like whatever I'm about to produce is never quite good enough to actually put out in the world because if I put it out in the world it would either result in that confirmation of the deepest fear of failure or it would gain popularity until the curtain got pulled back on and you see the man behind the machine or the lack thereof impostor syndrome but he found out right? And, you know is for over a year I waited to start a video blawg because it was never right I never had the right this and I didn't have the studio and that this that the other thing and it was just like it was just more of the same and it's just this consist and, you know, it's this consistent thing and it's about really just like shifting that relationship with that story like, I'm doing that thing, so obviously you end up it's not a full you do end up doing it, you do it, does it? Is it just that it takes you longer to decide to let it out into the world? Or I think the the piece that key is trust is to shift my relationship to the story we're talking about the you know, the story we're talking about that earlier and at one point uh my mother shared with me one day and I was very social child, very gregarious and all the teachers notes reflected that that she kept for years and she used to say I worry about you because you're really kind of hail fellow well met which is another way of saying challenge like you know very gregarious but really there's nothing there there's nothing to contribute and that that's the story I made up yeah yeah and so like that was this beauty like it becomes this look wait this is a great crafting it becomes this woven cloth of stories right that all feed into each other but then you look at it you're like and yet is there any truth to it and how do we define that and you really look at it and realized wait a minute that's just a whole lot of interpretation that's a whole lot of story yeah and there's nobody outside of my experience who would give it any validity right other than me so if that's the case how do I want to interact with it here like what do I want to do like and there's no beginning middle and end like it's not like oh I got aware of that let's move on right right no it's it's it's a it's a concern assistant like you know it shows up every day you know you wake up with the same story so don't go away and yet the opportunity is to really just sort of shift the the way that you interact with right because it starts to take away the significance of it instead of it being this like pit in your stomach or the thing and you're like oh oh god I'm just doing that thing yeah sometimes write a wolf in cloth is a safety net and sometimes it's a straitjacket like same club different application where you gonna dio yeah yeah that's really profit thank you thank you thank you I have to share books at home some good ones here definitely a theme of lack of confidence that is holding people back and so that's from leah's well as broom co film I think it's good I think what I do is good but I worry about what other people will think see that a lot in here? Um lori says fear fear of failure, fear of making the wrong decisions fear of change change is the hardest for me change, I think yeah, and that is definitely a big one, especially when your business is established. Right? Right. So we've been talking a lot about sort of leg earliest things or even for established businesses. I've been talking a lot about new products, new services and things like that but like when you're established and your interest shifts and you want to maybe continue doing the work you've always done but also adding something new or do something that could beat hair if I ng and the worst part about it is that there will be people who say that's not what you've always done that doesn't look like the rest of the work that you've been doing what are you doing? You're letting me down you ruined my life I can't play in your life what you know but like but I just can't wake up again another day and keep making the same widget I've been making for it right? And that and change can be terrifying in any number of ways and then you have to grapple with what's more important to me making every single person that I perceive in the world who clearly isn't everybody in the world happy or me and is their balance and I just I recently spoke with a man that I interviewed for make it mighty ugly actually his name is joel watson and I spoke with him on my podcast a couple weeks ago he's a cartoonist, he writes a web comic and he talked to me about shifting the focus of his web comic so he didn't start a new web comic with a different title on a different thing he just was like, I don't want to write about this stuff anymore and also I don't think what I'm writing is really resonating with my audience I'm going to really shift focus and he said he lost about seventy five percent of his readers but he's building back his audience and he's happy he is really engaged with his story again he is waking up saying, I want to do this I want to you know and that and it was so honest his talk about the senate something again we don't often talk about because there's almost an aspect of like sacrilege to talk about not enjoying what we me right there's this gift were given were self employed creative people this is an extraordinary privilege we have to do what we love well, we have passion about and my friend that's, he talks about passion and I think that's he's watching today so betsy, is you totally that I'm talking about because he would be like, oh, it's got to be a different betsy how she hates when people talk about just follow your passion because the truth about passion is that it does not last it doesn't if we were all passionate all the time would be exhausted and did right passion shifts and if we build our whole career on following our passion, then we end up burnt out and not knowing how to do it anymore because we're so focused on her passion right? And so well I am just going all over the place today, but that aspect of things when we have to allow ourselves change but it could be absolutely terrifying that really resonate to me, absolutely. And I would like tio reassure you from nikola and people are convert vote on the question so these have some votes that's a loving the course, but would you please tell him she doesn't need to apologize for her rambling rambles? I believe in very well she is covering a swell as kim, your self styled rambles are not rambling for your audience. We need to hear whatever comes out of your free thinking lined your ramblings are our nourishment. So thank you for the ramblings. So you're judging yourself, I, while everybody at home is, did not calling it ramblings about calling it teacher and I mentioned, right? The story I tell myself, I'm that girl at a party who won't shut up because I will nervously talk and talk and talk and talk and talk, and I want to thank you gets up like, now I'm having my moment. I really appreciate you guys. Uh, that was really sound. Okay, I'm going to try to remember that tonight, when I'm like, back in my hotel room, going back about all the things that I'm going to take myself of that I will remember your general, thank you, thank you, wait, we're talking about what we're talking about, the hard things we're talking about, the reason that you're here have people been talking about things that you're like? Oh my gosh, me too, because that's part of what we want to get to today is that everybody is talking about a different kind of thing and a different perspective on that problem, but we all have them I'm sitting here you guys just totally nailed it right? Like I've got that thing for me is like shut up kim nobody cares about hey, thank you guys totally told me that you care, but it doesn't matter that my thing is different from your thing. What matters is that, like, I'm right now feeling like the love because while you are thinking about what is painful to you, you're also bolstering me and that's part of what today is about it's part of why it's important that we're all here that's something that's you know, got crickets, anyone else I would love to hear what's your thing what's the thing where you hear another one yeah, yeah, yeah, I make things that I like like I think they look nice and like they're my style, but I always worry that other people won't like them and it makes me afraid even to kind of like like promote them like look at this cool thing I'm a didn't have a really like that's cool, I don't like that at all on galway when I hear from other people who, like make detonating patterns that I designed and they're like, this is so pretty, I'm always surprised, like, I had a pattern recently that a bunch people made and I got, like, a lot of really nice comments about and I looked, oh, people liked something like, really, you know, it's kind of hard for me, teo believe sometime now, do you allow yourself to believe it? Well, if they said they liked it, I guess I go I mean, but but it doesn't even like after that happens, that doesn't mean the next time I won't be like, I think no one is going to like this and is it because it's so personal to you? Because what you're making is something that's so in line with what you like, do you feel like if people don't like it? It means they're kind of not liking you, I think yes, yeah, because I'm making something I like. I think this is cool. I mean, obviously I would not put out a pattern that I thought sucked I'm kind of a perfectionist, so like I like, I think it's great by the time I'm like, ready to put it out there, so then if other people like don't like it and it's like oh, they hate me but also I think if I don't get like very much of a response I feel like, oh, it must be because nobody likes it and not like because I didn't even tell them it exist, right? Right? And then have you ever had the thing that you think isn't but you're so sick of looking at it you put it out there and then like accolades like rain down upon you and you're like but I thought that was on people like this is that all? No, not really like because I okay I don't put things on if I'm not happy with him like I definitely stop yeah, no it's not good enough done my favorite book from last year was austin clear on show your work and one of the reasons I loved it so much is that he's all about like you just got to show it when it's in the middle right show it when it's so the ugly underside of it like do you remember? Do you remember I'm saying as if like everybody was on the internet with me sitting on my lap while I was surfing the internet years ago jenny heart the woman who designs sublime stitching, embroidery patterns she used to talk about how she would if she showed the back of her work people who are expert embroiders nabbed there never there terrible and from the front, I mean, like, gorgeous. She did like portraiture and embroidery and it's like absolutely stunning. And and I think she just showed a bunch of the backs of her work, and it was this, like, cathartic experience of, like, wow, that's a and like that's amazing, right? And from the front. And it was just so profound. It all it was was like, that was the picture that I spoke a thousand words because it wasn't just about how the back was such a mess and the front was so gorgeous. It was also about, like, how do we judge workmanship? Like, if we never saw the back, if she like, glued the back to a canvas and nobody ever saw it would've mayo tree fell in the woods, but like, you know what, anybody even know and if we like, what if we and this is what I have started to do? Like once I started really messing around with ugly stuff and people were like, yeah, I get that that I started showing the ugly stuff like I showed I started making soap last year as part of my year of making because I was, like, could honest to god it's because I watched breaking bad, and I wanted to do chemistry that with legal and a friend of mine mentioned making soap and I was like, what is this making soap? It sounds like it would be chemical and she invited me over and we made to open it is you were gas mask it's awesome and I so I'm now obsessed with making soap and I had a batch go really wrong andi I would you know I would instagram my you know, soap things good I love instagram what I love about instagram is that it's in perfect right? Because I'm not a photographer but I am not shy about showing my crappy photographs right? So I would take this you know, flash photograph of soap or whatever, but this soap got spotty soap people call it dreaded orange spots and it's like a thing that goes wrong with soap and it looks disease I mean, it looked gross, it was like my soap had a horrible rash and I showed it on line and I was like, yes, I almost felt like I was not in my belt like you guys I'd made a batch of soap that has warned spot it's kind of like well how that you know that's like an epic screwup that's awesome, but like what I have heard people being like, well, does it affect the so because I would totally use that soap from you has been talking about don't you think you would get diseased by using this so because it's so gross looking and they were like no, no, I was and I was like and I was like sitting there with my pal who I've never met and you know, whatever austin clear and being like show your work like nobody was like, wow, she clearly doesn't know how to make soap because she had this people were like I would actually buy that so from you don't you worry I will never try to sell you this so bits growth you know? But it was such a fascinating reaction I wasn't even coming from a place of vulnerability like I was not coming from a I was coming from a like look at this soap I really screwed up and I was ok with it but people were like I buy it what's wrong with you what appeared on so it was it's that aspect of like you should try try showing it dr showing it and like you know and do it from a place of like I know this isn't finished if you can it's especially hard to fear perfectionist right show that underside showed the leg show the knocks in the mass and the on what you think other people like working in the knitting world right like there were there's talk like the backside of embroidery there's the backside of fair isle knitting right stranded color work if you're not a knitter when you see like like ski sweaters with the different colors in the yoke of the sweater it's called stranded color work and those designs were made by holding an unused piece of yarn behind and so when you turn that sweater inside out you see lines of yarn unused it's practically speaking very warm it's why we associate them with skiing sweaters but there are ways to do that really need very well practiced manner and there are ways to make the back of your sweater looked like the yarn monster barfed all over it right and there's it takes skill in practice and it's a you know, it's z whatever but like anyway, now I'm thinking what I was going to apologize for rambling and I'm not, um thinking about what we will allow ourselves to be proud of, you know, like I my first stranded color work was a meth and I had to like really forced myself to say, but yeah, I held yarn in two hands and made this thing and it was like, ok, I had never would have done that before or so it's allowing ourselves to see value where we might otherwise be like it was awesome that I showed my spotted soak that's how I shoot I shoot in perfect yeah, I don't like everything perfect in structured I don't like tons of stylists and people around await that that little piece of hair I don't photo shop after that comes from a film okay he's like a documentary style well because I started with films so we didn't really have that option you kind of had to just get it right the first time, but I like showing people's true side and what people are really doing and I like creeping around people are in certain situations where I'm allowed to be theo leaping around yeah like behind the scenes at fashion shows were appropriate images and I love photographing people when they have absolutely no idea because it's so great because they're not stephan in structured it it's kind of the same idea that in perfect and then how did people respond to your work when they see it? Not necessarily the subjects of your work but like, is it the you know, do you get the people who are, like, horrified by the backside and the knots or do you get the sort of resonance I get? Kind of the ensure kind of yeah, not too sure we don't know how to interpret that. Yeah, not quite sure how to interpret that going from most of the images that we see in magazines really staged and photoshopped and structured and then going to that it's kind of, you know, I could do that on my iphone right? And yet there's so much skill in what you do too, so there's that is that is that frustrating tv feel like people just aren't seeing the skill that I have here because there they're not saying what they expect to see you. They see they'll say yeah, yeah, oh like almost I feel ahead of the curve that's kind of an ahead of the curve thing that it it behind the scenes is becoming bigger, but I feel like no one's ever really seen it that way never really got what I was doing. Yeah, truly, yeah, I want to see your work, I'm going to see it there's one hand, yeah, talking about showing the backside and for those of us who don't work in the creative field, I was giving a talk to a business group last summer and it was an afternoon it was like an hour drive away from where I was going to be and, you know, and so after lunch I got dressed up and I was the tie and full business tire my wife calls me, she said, hey, I know you're going to go on until after dinner, make sure you feed the chickens before you leave it I'm like all right, I got it all right, no problem I can take care of it so I put on you know, the month boots and I go out and I feed the chickens I discovered their waters empty michael I gotta deal with that too and come back in a grab my bag get everything I need and can I make it out but you know, touching go I make it out in time I get on the road and I show up on time and I'm like I walk in I walk in and I go into this business meeting time you know, it's like people in business suits and walk into the building and I look down and I'm wearing muck boots on and I'm wearing my boots and I'm like, well, now I know what I'm going to talk about first on I took a photograph of him and I immediately posted it on everything on social media and I was like it was like this opportunity to to, like created as toe own it right like it's not pretty to own it like look, it may be but I just did I did that I did that right there and you know, and it actually created this huge light moment by having the opportunity to just kind of own the humanity of it all yeah owning the humanity of it all right like that's that's it right when I when I first started speaking with my publisher they were like tell us about your social media presence what do people respond to? Is it when you like tweet about creativity and I was like no it's when I tweet about my kid barfing on the clean bed she's it's when I make the bed and he vomits on the bed sheets that I just put on his bed and we have toe you know and and there was like silence on the other end of the phone and I was like because for all human because everybody's had that experience or it's when I tweet about like the oxford comma which f y I I am not a huge fan of I only use it when I need to use it it is ok to be ambiguous it's okay I mean no sorry that's not what I mean it is ok to be inconsistent with your use of the kama if anyway this is my point but I will like tweet about the oxford comma and it's unrelated to anything else that I do but then there's like haters going to hate right like we get into grammar because even though we're interested in these other things that's what drew us together it's this common also like buffy the vampire slayer like awesome I will get out with you about buffy right? But like you too you two, who is addressing the room of people in suits in a suit, also fed the chickens, you know, like that and it's, a great and I that that nobody in the room like immediately rolled their eyes and left, like we can't trust this guy. He had the chickens, right, right? Les just doesn't happen, but but you probably before you decided to take that photo, there was this, like, now they'll know, yeah, right, yeah, it's, like that's, that's been my biggest practice. That's been. The biggest practice for me over the last few years is vulnerability and all but right like an end. And if you had, if you see it and it looks like that, who that's uncomfortable, maybe there's something to do there? Yeah, that's. The perfect note to take a break on. Actually, if it's uncomfortable, we'll address that after the break.