Lessons

Lesson Info

Overcoming Artistic Challenges

So if you go to your books you're going to see the first challenge where you can start thinking about what challenges you um I'm going to talk about some challenges that I hear a lot from artists I hate selling hate selling can't stand it helps sales people yeah hey people and it really helped hates the word marketing some reason but it's so vitally important exactly but I'm hoping that I'll change your view of that absolutely because really selling is just having a conversation I recommend a book called by daniel paint called to sell a human because it really is if you think you're not in sales gift again yes you are I just don't have a market my art raise your hand if you feel that right now I just don't know how to market it okay uh no market it all right? You know, I just I'm really I'm I'm you know, write down the challenges that you have because I want to hear from people online and if I if I'm not covering a challenge I'd like to hear from you later I'm afraid of being judged fo...

r wanting to sell my art raise your hand if you feel like you're afraid to be judged or label to sell out as many hands that's a good healthy sign okay, good all right I don't have enough confidence to sell my art who would like more confidence you know, when I was working with kate, I asked her what she'd received out of our working relationship and I thought she's gonna stay well and I've sold a lot of art and I you're doing it it's just really, you know, made x number of dollars what she said is I'm more confident that's the number one thing I got out of this and if you do this process which I'm going to be teaching to you're going to be more confident it doesn't mean that you're gonna be done at the end of the two days, but I think you will see that there's a way to actually ask your confidence I'm not really sure this course is gonna work this chicks telling the truth she's trying to sell me some well it's not gonna work for everybody that's the truth because I don't know if you're going to do the work but if you do the work this process does work now I don't know if you have talent maybe it's like american idol you you think you could saying but maybe not so much I don't know that's up to you, but it does work it really does work there's a lot of people buying art luxury market every category of luxury declined severely after the recession I'm a student of the luxury market the one category of luxury that did not decline but actually increased dramatically was what what do you think it was all right people are buying art I want piss off my rep right? Who works the galleries or representatives and they're a little concerned that maybe they're going to be angry if this happens right if you start selling directly to your collectors right ah lot of galleries will shut you down if you do that they expect that if you receive a commission that you give them half the commission so hey, if it's working for you if you have gallery representation or other representation that's actually giving you what you need selling thie amount that you want to sell not interfering with your creative process then you're in a good spot you're in a wonderful spot if you don't need any more work but I'm guessing you're tuning in because that's ok I don't know what to focus on raise your hand if you identify with that what should I do next? I don't even know what to do today what's my priority I don't even know how to prioritize that that's a feeling ok, so what I'd like you to do at home and in the studio is just jot down some of your challenges and um you know think about maybe some of the solutions that you've identified just some of the conversations we had about so far about how you can actually gain more business just if you know howto introduce yourself by communicating the value you offer to the world right? We've already identified a huge solution to increase your sales all right, so no, I'm gonna go into um story time to tell you some stories and each one of these stories could follow along in your book aside like you teo think about what some of the principles are underlying these stories about telling the stories just for sake of it there is actually a greater lesson so I'm going to date myself right now but I was one of the marked one of the designers involved in developing the g m's marketing car strategy remember that our saturn car strategy does anyone remember the saturn car raise your hand if you remember the saturn car. Okay, so here's, what happened? I graduated from art school and I was working for design firm and they said you're going to be working on a saturday project I said great you're gonna be designing the architectural environments for thee saturn car so just so you know, I actually did not major in painting in art school I majored in industrial design and minored in graphic design so um which makes no sense but anyway, so what happened was they thought, okay, we would've fell this car too young professional women so they thought they should invite at least one professional young woman to the conference the blue sky fashion so who do you think that one young professional woman wass it was me that's all right and I was really excited because I was leaving ohio to go to the meadowood resort in napa you know if you're familiar with that but it's really plush and it's really not how I spent my days in art school wine tasting lessons at night so here's what happened what we did is a blue sky session which is where we threw up all the ideas we could think of about how we're going to sell this car the young professional women well, the car does a little fatty okay takes gm a while to get a car off the drawing board and into manufacturing sew it tended to look a bit dated at that point and um gm was not really known for its reliability or warranties at that point either. So what happened was we were contributing ideas and we were talking about how we could sell the car but here's the thing I was a young professional woman who was ignored by a lot of the stodgy gm executives who were there and all the men that were there I was in my twenties I think they thought I was part of that you know is part of help like a secretary yeah, nice um and so I wasn't feeling heard it all and I was starting to get a little miffed actually because I was so excited and I really did have something to say about what it was like to go buy a car not just as a young professional woman but as a person this whole haggling and negotiating thing was I just thought it was just for the birds so the facilitator recognized that I had kind of gone quiet and came to me and said well and what's your idea howyou going how should we sell the gm car and I said, well, you know what these architectural environments they don't really matter so much which I thought I'm gonna get fired now but I needed to tell the truth at that point because I was really just really frustrated and I said, well um I would tell you how to sell the gm car but don't think you listen to me I think that you're not gonna listen so they said okay, well you've got our attention now so how would you sell the saturn car two young professional women and I said, well why don't you sell the car for the same price to everyone and stop this haggling process? What did she use? Honesty is a marketing strategy how about that? And there is a one of the top ten dealers and general motors was seated right in front of me he's six five and he's from texas and his belt buckle was the size of a pie plate and he'd remember we mentioned earlier in a blue sky session you're not allowed to negate any ideas you're not allowed to subtracting innate any ideas but here's what he did, he stood up in front of me and he started pounding his fist on the table and he started to mean that will never work that will never work. It did so that was my first taste of marketing, and I like it like this, and at that point I really didn't have a notion of being a painter, but I filed it in the back of my head that if I could help gm sell the saturn car, maybe I could invent a marketing strategy for myself one day that's one story what's the what's, the principle that story speaking truth speaker, truth question authority question the norm. All right, now I'll tell you another story this is story you might not believe it's true, but I swear to you it is a true story. So when I left that design firm, I moved to california. I got married and I got a mortgage and I got a lot more so I had to go to work. I was supposed to move to san francisco, wound up in sacramento, and there were no design firms for me to work, so I had to go to work, and I I thought I just need to give up on art it's just not practical I'm just going I really just need to learn about computers so I went to go work for a computer company and my soul started sucking out of my body and it was really not their fault it was because I had just surrendered I'd given up on my creative self and I became very depressed I became very anxious I suffered from insomnia and I could not find an answer to the question so I went to a personal development workshop is we all do when we're stuck and at that personal development workshop I met a writer briefly just a very brief encounter and I said what's your story what are you doing here? And he said, I have writer's block okay, I guess I kind of have writer's block so what I did was a week later I went to go visit a dear friend of mine and she said, I know your problem is know where you're so sad and depressed and anxious I'll tell you why because you have shut down creatively and you're not expressing yourself and you are at your core and artist and that's why you're so sad you don't need these prescription drugs, you don't need to go to self development courses you just need to make art I'm like yeah, yeah yeah I'm not doing that it's not practical, I'm not doing it I'm gonna learn about computers that's gonna make my soul thing. So what happened was we went to this little town gallery saw this painting with my friend standing beside me and I was so incredibly inspired by it that he started tearing up and you notice that she was having the same reaction and then we started laughing because we were tearing up and I thought, wow, what was that? So we're sitting we went outside the gallery, we we took a seat in the town square and I said, I don't know what that was, but it was something important and why don't you take that watercolor set that you have hidden in your trunk and lets go in pain? And I decided in that moment that after over seven years I would actually paint and I looked up and ten feet in front of me where cheryl is sitting was the writer I had met one week earlier about over two thousand miles away and that's a true story and I swear on my father's grave that is true story. So you think that got my attention that got my attention so I walked up to him and I said you still have writer's block and he said, you know that because you're not writing and so I that's, the answer was just that easy start writing so I just started painting so what you think this moral that story is just do it just do it that's right? It's also your life is the story that you're telling yourself and I was telling myself that it wasn't practical and it wasn't possible and had a lot of people reinforcing that limiting notion, especially at the computer company where I work okay, so I moved on to the computer company to go work as a project management consultant and I worked with two women and we would sit and complain and groan about how awful it was to work where we worked, but I remembered something these two women actually, um had been both of them were in recovery from stage four breast cancer at the same time, and I thought it's not good for us to just kind of sit around here and moan, right? So I decided I would turn the conversation around and I said maria maria was one of the women maria, what would you do if you had a magic wand and you could do anything you wanted and you know you would be successful? And maria said, I don't know I pushed her and it's a come on, I just gave you a magic wand and it works use your imagination, what is it that you would dio? And she said, I really don't know and I thought, well, that's really kind of sad because, you know, she doesn't want to do this it's just dodged a bullet, so I turned to my friend angela and what's important about angela's. Angela and I were only a a month difference in age, and I said, angelo, would you do if you had a magic wand? And angela said I would be an interior designer? Why don't you get up right now and go quit and go be a met gobi interior designer? Because she she had a husband who was loving and supportive and had a good job, she didn't have kids, she didn't have a lot of the financial obligations that prevent us from doing some of the things we like to do when we'd like to do them. And she said to me, um, yeah, I can't, and I said, why? Why not quit now? And she said, I can't, because I'm afraid I'm just too afraid I said, are you more afraid of doing what you want to dio then the bullet? You just dodged that the cancer that you just be? And she said, yeah, I'm afraid of it, I dedicate all of my books, and I dedicate this course to angela because she is my inspiration, life is really precious and short if this is what you want to do if you want to make art and you want to make money it's possible I hope you get that out of it and that's supposed to be oh yes another thing that you have that I forgot to mention that we do have some tissue because we are in the business of selling emotion and this is a very emotional journey and I want you to know that it's emotional all right let's take a chance because we've actually got quite a lot of comments of video game any comments coming in just based on where people are in their lives and what struggles they're facing with their with their goals and there are the challenges absolutely um one of them here I've just lost my way a little bit aren't marked bill had said one of the things he struggles with which I can understand this might be an issue why am I successful if some of your other friends aren't and being able to be confident in in your success and understanding like becoming successful and then being found out as a fraud not that anybody is ever a fraud when you're an artist but I think every artist has that feeling like sell out right right, yeah I found it interesting now that was a great, very good comment mrs sam but we were saying earlier on, you know, one day people we realize all I do is read out loud theo theo bang the balloon's gone our hair it is saying they currently have challenges of finding clients who can pay their rates or willing to pay their current rates because generalization first especially specialisation within their marketing strategy has always been a challenge it's the marketing aspect that is the challenge for them polo says I don't have anymore relatives to sell my rto love that that's true you do run out and marry sunder saying who cares about my values now that's an interesting question well I think you'd be sure of yourself but yes he was absolutely and then crystal pieces setting a price tag for my work that's setting a value for something so personal and reflective of who I am even you know what I think each of these comments has won through line and it's that confidence absolutely comes right back to that very that's a very astute observation that's exactly what it is it's really can conquer a lot of those challenges through confidence, authentic confidence yeah definitely all right, so I'm going to tell you about my mentor wayne tebow so raise your hand if you know who wayne tebow is everybody knows that wayne tebow is okay, so if you don't know wayne tebow is he is an american art icon and if you open on our history book you'd see him somewhere near andy warhol so he's an important guy new york world and I had there I had the rare privilege of actually being mentored by a wayne tebow and wayne was very encouraging to me and he also referred me to his friend gregory condos who's also a significant icon in the art world and they both encourage me tio painful time so when those words you know that those words of encouragement came out of wayne thibault's mouth I thought wow that's like that's a stamp of endorsement must have something going on if wayne says like unpaid great actually that gave me a lot of confidence now when I met wayne his paintings were starting to sell on the secondary art market for over one million dollars they're more than that now but that's where they was just tipped over that point and he had a retrospective that was touring the nation and it was at the metropolitan museum of art so he's basically at the pinnacle of his career when we intersected right so I said great oh my gosh wait selfish people must be really good so I turned to him and I said, well wayne, how am I going to do that and make a living and here's what he said to me? I don't know I'm not a businessman I'm all I can think is the irs thinks you're a businessman as ever the irs knows this man and I had an epiphany I had an incredible epiphany I recognized this unnecessary disconnect between making art and making money he's in complete denial with all due respect he was in complete denial you've made it a lot of money and he was a businessman in fact he had his own gallery here in san francisco that was operated by his son paul so I thought what is the deal where did this come from this disconnect between making art making money where did it become oil and water have you if you guys ever wondered about by that stone issue you know does the plumber worry about that? I can't possibly install your copper pipes and take your money right does the attorney think about that when they were tracking the billable hours? Do you think they have some disconnect right no it's just something that we're suffering from and I don't know where it comes from I have some theories about where it comes from but what the point was is that it didn't matter really where it came from but I realized that it was a big fat lie it's huge business it's enormous business look at sotheby's right let's think how many millions of dollars gets exchanged for our in those auction houses and that's just one sector of art so what do you think the point are? The principal of that story is every artist is an entrepreneur every artist yes right and you're digging exactly raise your hand if you're an entrepreneur raise your hand if you want to be an entrepreneur, everybody home raise your hand, raise both hands it's a beautiful thing selling our is big business, it's, big business and it's a wonderful business because I'm not selling copper pipes. I mean, I'm not dissing the plumbers, but I'm selling something that actually inspires people. When my paintings are unveiled to my collectors, they either cry or they jump up and down and hug me will you get paid twice? Awesome! I feel like I have made an impact in their life and that's a very worthy business, and you're all in a very worthy business because you're not just going to sell what you're what you create in exchange for money, you're actually going to affect people in a much deeper level if you know what your mission is, if you know who you are and what you stand for, if you recognize yourself as a thought leader and you can articulate a value proposition, if you could do those things. I just saw him comment coming in the chat rooms that I think that you will want to speak to this particular comment, um algorithm terrible, so I think the fundamental problem for the artists is that they're creating art for themselves and not for others and all the broken it bingo! That's! Exactly right that's the paradigm shift. I'm so glad you read that comment. That's exactly right that's what I said to jenny in the beginning, one of my rules in the book but you all have is it's not about you it's about them and when you make it about them, then it will be about you that the problem is how do you make it about them? Well, we're to solve that problem the next two days I'm going to show you how artists do it and it's doable is completely doable. Yes, do you want to say what? What was your biggest challenge if we're gonna go back to that? My biggest challenge is I didn't have a roadmap. I didn't have anyone I could obviously couldn't go toe wayne or gregory condos for help. I need to make money. I had moved to one of the most expensive cities in united states and I had to pay my rent I had to do in a hurry and I really didn't have any. I didn't know anyone and I didn't have any mentor remember, my brother said, you're crazy, right? My sister said not a good idea really not a good idea, so I needed a road map that was my biggest challenge that's exactly why I've created this road map for you, I don't often too much attention, but you also feel that society pays a part in this and for example, any time is a economic downturn. The first thing every government of any persuasion cuts is arts funding on arts budget except it's almost like what we could get rid of that that's an easy one and that artist therefore have this pressure that they're not valued in society and ways. But I could tell you if you can, if you can define your value, you are valued the people who run up and hug me or start crying after the painting I've created of it, they're valuing it. They're totally valuing it. So this is very revolutionary thought I am actually inviting you to buck this lie bucket it's on ly holding you don't want you to destroy what's, just maybe destroying you, which is this mythology but no one values are that's not true economic prove it's not true so that's the good news all right, I'll tell you one last story you liked my stories. All right? So here's, what happened after I got back and I started painting again and I met gregory condos he was giving this painting workshop in the south of france now, who doesn't want to go faint assault the france with a master right it was an opportunity to go and it was very expensive and I was working for a company called valley media which doesn't exist anymore and they were the largest music distribution company in the united states, but what happened was mp three happened so physical distribution of music was no longer necessary and they didn't keep up the technology, so valley media went away along with my job when I was about to go to france and paint with very condos I thought, oh my god, what am I going to do? I got a mortgage, jj, I don't know how I'm gonna come up with this money so here's what I did, I wrote a letter teo everyone that I knew and I said I'm gonna invite you to sponsor me to go to france and if you'd like to I can actually bring you back for a certain amount of money a small canvas that I will paint for you in the south of france and then I put out a big box of chocolate on my desk and it had a sign and it said send a kid to france and so all my co workers who are also getting laid off they bought my chocolate because they wanted me to go and I not only funded the trip to france and paid for the whole thing, I also funded a trip to england to see my family and I made a profit, and people love their campuses because when I made them, I had, you know, like, okay, this one, this one needs to go to an lincoln, I know that she's going to like this one, and it was just wonderful, and it was a real they were, they were happy to support me. They were interested in the whole value proposition, right? So that's, where I really got my taste of being entrepreneurial, I had been selling work in galleries, but there wasn't there wasn't gonna be any sales in time for this trip, so I had to figure out how it was going to actually do it. So what's the moral of this story for you anyway, ask for help, get people involved because I bet those people felt like they were going with you. They did it. They did go with me. Yeah, yeah, exactly! Use your creativity to create something that wasn't thank you exactly. You are all creative, you have the innate ability to be creative problems. All verse the best marketing is brilliantly creative. We're in a better position than most entrepreneurs to be brilliantly creative, right? But if you that's on ly, if you're willing, teo, say you're going to do something different from the established model if you're willing to surrender the rules. Then you can be creative does that make sense? Okay all right great. I'm glad I'm making didn't know if I would oh I do have another story it's a good one no um does anyone know what a dream map is? Where vision board okay if you work with me you know what it is that made you do it okay so I didn't know what it was when I made it but basically what it is it's a collage of words and images that are um did define your your dream your vision and so the instruction wass to dream big and think of anything you want and just believe it could come true in other words a minute magic wand analogy that I gave earlier just pretend as if you have a magic wand and you could create anything what would you create? You don't have to believe that you can actually do it that's okay don't worry about that part so what I did was I said I live and have an art studio overlooking the ocean I tore out a picture of big poofy bed because I have a big poofy bad I love big poofy beds I didn't have one that actually and some other things and then I forgot about it so where I live now is in the presidio of san francisco and I have a big poofy bed overlooking the ocean I have a studio it was really interesting about this is I actually forgot about the dream map and then when I moved my friends arranged on my furniture and I didn't have any input into where my furniture was going to be placed and then I found this thing and I noticed that a picture of big poofy bed which was overlooking the ocean by the way forgot to mention was actually in the same position as my friends had placed my bed and the relationship to the horizon and sky relative to the bed was the same as in the picture it was really extraordinarily magical, but my point in telling you this story is that I didn't actually believe I knew I wanted that to happen I thought that's just a magic dream but how the heck am I ever going to have a studio overlooking the ocean paint for a living? I'm gonna pull that off I didn't really believe I could do it but it's but here's what? I didn't know I knew I wanted it I knew I wanted it and is also getting to the point where I met angela and maria and I realize the clock is ticking and we don't know what tomorrow holds so you know if it didn't work out I can always go back to work in the cubicle where could I could be a bartender, right? But I wasn't going to go out without trying so what do you think the moral of story is about making a dream map or thinking about what you want? What do you see the answer? Hold on, go ahead terra you can't get somewhere without knowing where you want to go. Brilliant? Yes, exactly break I'm going to talk a lot about smarter goals towards the end of the second day, right? If you just say if you said I want to travel but you say we're going to travel teo where you want to go, you're probably going to travel, you have to make a decision about where you want to go and how you're going to get there and other things, but first you have to know what the destination is, so I really the point of the story is summed up beautifully by what you said it's also summed up by napoleon hill with quote, which is what the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve your woman, man or woman. The reason I'm telling you these stories is that life is the story that you tell yourself and you are all telling yourself stories about how to make art and make money and if it's possible or not right and everybody home you're all thinking about a story right? You've got some story running in your head, I don't want to be a sell out right, my reel I run out of relatives and won't be able to sell any more art I mean there's all sorts of stories and trust me, they don't actually ever completely go away. I have stories that are running in my head also that are not serving me. The point is to focus on the stories in your head that are serving you that are in line with what it is you want and so, you know, to stop teo to practise and it is a ongoing practice to think about now what you don't want but what it is that you do want and, uh hopefully after these two days that you'll walk away knowing that it's actually possible to set to make art and to make money. So I'm going to talk about the choices we have as artists going back to my painting and featuring my painting a lot, but the point is you have a choice. The choices are really clear and simple. You have a choice to compete with a lot of other artists regardless of your category photography, painting, jewelry, design you can compete using the established roads, right? You can compete and you can ask permission in a scarcity environment I don't think that's a good idea that's one choice and that's the choice that we are led to believe is the on ly choice in fact that's the choice they teach us in art school right? But there is another opportunity available to us now because of the internet primarily musicians have figured this out and authors have figured this out now visual artists and craftspeople need to feel figure this out photographers we need to figure this out filmmakers air figuring this out you have a choice you khun back to the blue ocean the book the blue ocean the blue ocean analogy it's really simple you can swim with a pool of angry ferocious sharks who are full of jealousy and go after one tiny goldfish that's one option or if you create value if you create unique value you can own your own piece of the ocean and you could swim away from those sharks and that's what I'm gonna be talking about in the next two days I'm not going to talk to you about how to get into galleries I'm not going to talk to you about how to get represented representation I'm gonna talk to you about owning your own enterprise and building your own platform why is that important? Because there's no limit there's no limit no one's gonna limit you no one's going to kick you out of the gallery, not give you a show not represent you it's not gonna happen it's all up to you so here's the good news lot of freedom in that there's a lot more creative freedom and that the bad news might be depending on who you are there's a lot more responsibility in that you really got to take the reins so that's your choice swim in the blue ocean here's the other choice right okay I'm gonna go put back and forth this one for this thiss one or this one which one way yeah exactly what the heck is the blue ocean strategy you can find this in your action plan in your book we're gonna define with the blue ocean strategy is because I think this might actually be a bit like what is what's she talking about home I'm gonna separate myself I don't know how to separate myself yes I'll just say that I did a uh consultation with an and I'd like to reintroduce myself ok dad ok so my name is tara and through my art I help adoptees recreate their life stories whether or not they know the details are you interested in that? What did you say before? Uh wait forgot never waited a phone consultation and helped to shape that blue ocean strategy based on I got to know about you cried it was great because you were you were honest and you were vulnerable and I know because you were crying that we were getting at the truth and that truth and that often the authenticity of your story is inspiring as all get out and when you do this and you will you're going to move people that your work has never moved people like before I know that to be true can you sense that I know it's gonna work I love that introduction teo so much better than what you said before you remember what you said before that's so much better god okay what's a blue ocean strategy does anyone know what a blue ocean strategy is my preaching to the choir you two don't cheat you already know no no no okay all right okay, well let me break it down for you then I'm gonna tell you what a blue ocean strategy is a blue ocean strategy again to give credit where credit is due it was it is a name of a book that was written by two french business professor the concept is a breakthrough but actually here's what happened? I met the dean of the business school at mills a few years back and explain to her what I did and how I made money making art and she said oh you have a blue ocean strategy and I said what the blue ocean strategy and she said oh it's the name of a book written by two french business professors so I looked it up and I read the book and here's what's beautiful about it's exactly what I did I just didn't know that someone had figured this out in business we ten to compete based on the same factors and we don't always question them so in other words like the sharks we just go after that goldfish that one goldfish and we are all about competition how we can eliminate the competition right I don't want to compete I just don't want to compete so I thought I'll just invent something new where I won't have any competition the first example they sight in the book is circus soleil pretty amazing success right and they were up against barnum and bailey which was I mean how you gonna compete your brand new circus troupe how you're going to ever stand a chance of competing against barnum bailey right well here's how they did it they questioned all the competitive factors they said circus animals twenty those they poop and the animal rights activists don't like them so let's eliminate that competitive factor let's just do away with the animals we're not going to animals so then they looked at the three ring circus and um three ring circus do we have to have three rings was kind of confusing actually right to have three rings look here look here so circus soleil is about a central focal point right so they eliminated that competitive factor then they look for ways they could add value the way they could add value was to heighten the artistry the music the costuming the theatre and what happened a barnum and bailey I mean, really the object is to kill barnum and bailey the object was to for them to create new value, to inject new value and to stop trying to compete with barnum and bailey and to actually create new value and swim in a clear blue ocean. And if you notice no one has caught up to them no one's caught up to circus away and there are a few that are sort of like kind of pretend circus delays but you, you mean the first thing you think is just kind of returned circus away it's not really all that original, right? So this is an incredibly important principle that I'm also going to be hammering home in the next two days. You have to really be authentic and who you are, the only way you can differentiate yourself any kind of copying you're just dead in the water you make you render yourself irrelevant and that's what some of these copycat circus allays have been doing, they may make money, but they're always going to be compared so the only way you can avoid being compared and therefore discounted in the minds of people has to be authentic authentically yourself does that make sense so that's a great example of a very interesting that the first example they sight in this business book is actually artists and because why artists women a pretty competitive bloody ocean for the most part, right? So I don't believe in that. I don't think that's a good idea. So, does anyone have any other examples of blue ocean strategy that come to mind just to see if this concept has landed or any comments from online? No, we've got lots that we've got some really very powerful comments, but nothing specifically about blue ocean strategy. Well, let's hear them, I'm curious what they are, people like coley and em bds is saying, I'm so glad I came to watch this and is speaking exactly how I feel, and what I have been trying to do is the digital artist france is saying I love and stories I keep, I hope she keeps telling more. Well, she'll she will be. I've seen so many comments and chat about what a great storyteller and wordsmith you are. Thank you, thank you for that, mary travers, saying, I do what speaks to me, people have told me that my work has changed the way they see something, so I value the space someone gives me on their wall because it becomes a big part of their lives. Money comes and goes, but the wall space is more finite through warning, right? She didn't get to have that impact unless she sold that painting on that wall space, right? It's sort of like only half the creative process gets done right you're in your studio or you're taking photographs or shooting film but you don't have an audience it's like doesn't really satisfy the whole creative process the creative process involves your audience the creative process involves your fans it involves everyone who's tuning in all over the globe for creative live right we don't have created life as much as the audience right way tend teo somehow either discount or forget that point we make art make classes at creative lives in service to other people to inspire them and to enlighten them it's not just about us go back to that quote again and again and again it's not about you it's about them make it about them that it will be about you hey, so let's see, I wouldn't now take the last few minutes to discuss the eight part methodology in a little bit more detail give you a bit better orientation about what it is and the first part is visioning okay this is the part where we really understand who you are and what you value. Tara gave us a glimmer into who she is and what she values and it came from the most painful time in your life, right? Why is that important to examine the most painful time in your life it's important because your values stand in stark contrast to the most painful time in your life that's why it was so painful when you get through something that's really challenging you'll know who you are and what you stand for so that means know thyself if you go to that if you went to the help temple of delphi and you ask the oracle a question what's inscribed on the temple is know thyself so before you ask the oracle no they self which is really what dorothy was doing when she was walking the yellow brick road the next part is valuing creating unique value above and beyond the art don't sell art don't sell photography don't sell paintings the horrible business I bet you didn't think I would say that what did you don't sell? Music don't it's too competitive and the galleries and representatives to a much better job than you will ever do with that. So if you create that unique value above and beyond the art, then you stand a chance of differentiating yourself and basically eliminating the competition by just refusing to compete focus on creating value not competing dealing this is the business part of things we're going to review a one page business plan but I'm gonna call it something else I'm going to call it making money plan does that sound so much better than a business plan? I mean my producer justin I said business plan he said like he actually he said, it just makes me it makes my stomach hurt, it really does, and I said, okay, I'm not gonna call it they'll all calls that mills I'm gonna call it making money plan and that's really what it's designed to dio really that's really descriptive of what it is its value is to help you understand specifically how you go about making money targeting that's, finding your target market or I like to say and also acknowledge seth code in his book tribes you really want identify who your tribe is and celebrate them, and they will celebrate you that's what that part is about, the next part is, what is the next part targeting? So I just said, do that selling, uh, okay, selling and then we're going to go, teo profiting and accomplishing. So I think we're at the end of our first segment, thank you so much, everyone for tuning in all around the globe. Thank you, everyone who's here in the audience. But when we come back, we're going to be discussing vision and values. Do you want to give us a little teaser? But we're gonna see that. Yeah, we're gonna look att the vision and values of famous artists in history, and we're also going to look at their unique value proposition. The only reason those artists are famous and that you know their names and their hand in history books is because they had a unique value proposition that was born of the mission. Yeah, perfect, perfect.