Artists Self Criticism

Artists Self-Criticism is explored. When does it serve an artist and when does it undermine their self-confidence?

- These are my new pads that I use for things. I bought a brick of these guest checks.

- I like those.

- It's really fun. They're a good conversation piece. Then as I'm doing an album, I'm doing new Joe album, so I put these up here like a short order cook. We need trumpet, and then we'll write it down.

- How fun!

- Sweet little hook, Joe's crazy for it. I've taken pictures of it.

- It's good to have fun. Makes you more creative. Alright.

- Alright, let's do it.

- What were the three, alright before you were Grammy Dan, before you found Artists Who Thrive. What were your three big fat problems?

- They were big. The first thing is I just didn't know what to do with money. I didn't know how to manage money. I didn't understand how money works in the world. It felt like a burden. It felt like this thing I had to deal with on route to being able to do my art. I just didn't understand both the energetics of money or the specific tangible ways that people use money as a tool and wield it well. It felt like this awkward burden.

- How did that get solved? What changed?

- That solved mostly through reading. I read a ton of books. I got counsel. You're gonna see a theme as I got counsel. I was working with you. You had worked out a lot around that. You were a great counselor about that. Then I read hundreds of books about it of which sometimes less than 10% of the book I absorbed. When you read a 100 books, and eventually I got my skills together. A lot of what I did too was I learned how to spend money on things that make me more money. I spent money on coaching, but that was something that made me a bunch more money. I learned the difference between investing and spending even on myself. That was really important.

- That's what they've gained. You had a problem around money, and learning the difference between investing and spending. Huge, huge, huge lesson. What was the other problem that you had?

- A lack of belief in myself. It was too much. You know it's funny certain kinds of doubts can prod you forward. A certain amount of insecurity, I know is somewhat productive cause it makes you burn for something. At a certain point, there's a diminishing returns point. So I learned how to think better about myself and celebrate myself as much or more than I was. I still criticize myself positively in an upbeat an honest manner like this needs to be better. Gotta improve this, that, and the other thing. I also learned how to celebrate my wins.

- How did you learn how to criticize yourself better and celebrate your wins?

- The real difference came in just making sure that I didn't just criticize myself. You have to be just as good at celebrating yourself. I was already really good at criticizing myself. I didn't need any practice on that. I wouldn't say I changed it, but somehow balancing it out it creates balance in the force. The force being magical things, with balance in myself.

- Great

- I'm still a tough critic of my work, but I do so without venom toward myself just out of a desire to be better.

- Great

- It's actually more realistic too, balancing criticism with praise, What was the third big problem that you had before?

- It's something that you helped me with a lot. I was scattered. If we weren't on a live chat, I'd say scattered as, and then--

- You can say it.

- No, scattered as--

- We're not live; we're recording.

- As scattered as onions on a grill. I was scattered, smothered, and covered which is something they say. There are these horrible restaurants called Waffle House's here in the south.

- Oh, yeah I've heard about them.

- You can get your potatoes scattered, smothered, and covered and that's how I was. I was all over the place. We were worked a lot. One of the most important things is that you had me do these weekly check ins. That was a way to 3,000 feet or 10,000 feet instead of right in my face. What did I do this week? What do I wanna do next week? Every week reserved the right to cancel all further sessions if I didn't do it. That scared the crap out of me. I was like this woman's for real.

- Well cause your market will cancel you if you don't do at least that.

- I agree. That also helped me with my belief in self actually. Going back to number two just having somebody I respect like I respect you, and showing up for what you asked me to do that changed my belief in myself. You can build belief in yourself by doing affirmations and saying I'm the best and I'm good. I actually love affirmations to some degree. Also just keeping your agreements with yourself and others that's a great way to believe in yourself more like I'll do what I say I'll do. That's a time tested non new age way of getting more belief in yourself by doing what you say.

- Small commitments lead to bigger commitments or the ability to keep bigger commitments to yourself and to others and to your market definitely. Okay you said you were drawn to Artists Who Thrive that hold that notion that phrase that blog name. Why was that such a refreshing or astounding title for you?

- I can go off about this. Because you're very spirit was so refined all the way down to your name. Your name is as powerful as you are, and you're powerful. You have this clarity as to who you are and what you're doing. It's just such a freaking clear and perfect expression artists who thrive. Who doesn't want to be, you have to be an idiot not to want to be in that club. As soon as I saw it, I was like whatever else I was doing, I was like f-- that right there. Then I signed up. Then you were like I'm sorry I don't work with musicians. And you're like yes you do. I would have ridden there and shown up at your door. That would have been awkward. Luckily you excepted me. When something is right it tends to resonate as right all the way down the to the core. Down to the name, down to the logo, down to the website, and your website was clean and beautiful and updated consistently. Artists who thrive, it looked thriving. Then I went to Ann Rea's painting website. Colors were vibrant. There was stuff you could by for hundreds of thousands of dollars to like a two dollar postcard. It was like somebody was walking the walk. The was in the first 10 minutes I'm like, I'm signing up. I don't know what this lady is eating for breakfast, but I'm gonna find out and start eating it too.

- Just to be clear, have I paid you for anything you're saying.

- You said my hair looked good.

- I did.

- I will take you paid me in one compliment.

- I paid you in one compliment.

- Does it?

- It does look good. It looks good. You had different hair when we started.

- I didn't get paid a single solitary cent people. Don't be a numb skull. My income has gone up so significantly as a result of my relationship Ann Rea. I get absolutely butkiss except for a great opportunity to get back to a mentor of mine. This is the real stuff and it works. I'm living it. I know so many artists think that they're is no light at the end of the tunnel or there is no method to this. There is and it works. The only thing holding you back are the same unproductive thoughts. A lot of people are just doing the same crap that isn't working. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to try something new, and it worked in dozens of ways. It has made me hundreds of thousands of dollars, not tens of thousands of dollars. This has been an absolutely-- It was what four or five years ago, about five years ago that we worked. It worked quickly and has continued to work. It being a host of really tangible things that you can do for your spirit and technically and tangibly. No I don't get a cent. But I want to see other people get the opportunities that I have.

- If you were to give other artists one piece of parting advice, one thing you could say or even a version of yourself that had those problems and didn't know what to do about it, what's one piece of parting advice you'd give people?

- Get help. That's on multiple levels. I have hired an assistant engineer who's in another room working in my music studio on stuff. As I'm doing this interview, projects for my studio are being fixed. I was seeing a client in the other room. Files were getting exported. I got coaching with Ann and a number of other people. I still do. I spend a lot of money on coaching. I will always do that. New coaches, new books, new programs Get help. There's this weird self-flajulating dragging yourself through the desert, cross to bear, artist's bull crap. It doesn't work. The more help I get the more money I make, and the better art I make. You can't do it alone. I don't know any very successful person in a creative field music, visual art, that is completely solitary in their efforts. It just doesn't work. There's too much to do. You have to know when to outsource, and you have experiment with that. The first thing to do is to study with somebody who's already doing it. Even down to, I wrote a book with Joe Vitale called The Remembering Process. We had really great editors help us edit it. I didn't want to sit there and edit every word. We wrote the book and we got help. It goes on and on and on. Get help.

- You didn't design the cover. You didn't just do books. Is that what you're saying?

- No, we didn't do the legal. We hired a lawyer. We got a publicist. We got editors. There's a way in which you one of the skills of being an artist is learning what to do yourself and that usually involves the things you are best at. Things that you that little spark genius in. Then you start to learn first small, and financially manageable, and larger and larger ways to outsource the things that don't suit you and what you're doing.

- Let me be the devil's advocate and ask you I can't afford? I can't afford it? What would you say?

- I understand. First of all, I would tell you the first thing is never say I can't afford it. At the very least say I can't afford it yet. Add the word yet to what you're saying because one of the things I learned from Ann and from all the great teachers is that your language will predict your future. Say I can't afford it yet. An even better is I'm not sure how to afford it yet. The first thing that you can do I'm not a huge fan of bartering, but early on when I had more time than money I did use it. I did it successfully.

- You do?

- Yes, so barter a little bit and find the things that you need done but aren't great at. Find somebody who you can trade with. There are online resources ways to get help free. Even for coaching if you can't afford a coaching program. I will say this, I have a challenge if somebody wants to work with Ann or myself or anyone and oh I want to but I can't afford it. That person better have every single free resource printed out and completed and in a binder like I have done every single thing that you have offered for free. Once they've finished all of those. They will be able to afford you. I'd be amazed at how many people think they can't afford it but haven't scoured every nook and cranny of your website, blog, and resources and printed out every blog post and applied it to them. There's just so much there. There's so much meat on the bone. Actually these days when most of the great teachers have free as part of their, have a very valuable free information package as part of their offer. There's just tons out there. A lot of people aren't making good on that.

- I agree. You can get those when we start to increase your income. Yeah, this is great. This is perfect. Thank you for sharing your problems, and challenges, and how you resolved them specifically. I think that's a great piece of parting advice. Get help. I get help. I have mentors. I don't have it all figured out because I want to take things up to a higher level. I want to do it quickly. I don't want to spend a lot of time, money, and frustration doing it. I get help. You still get help. We all need to gain specialized knowledge. Specialized knowledge is, some of it's free, and some of it you've got to pay for. That's all there is to it.

- Yep.

- Alright, Grammy Dan, I thank you so much for your time, and your energy, and your enthusiasm. I'm so proud of you and happy for your success and your continued success which I see when we go to the Grammy Award's ceremony and clap for you.

- Woo! Ann, all kidding aside, I get absolutely nothing other than the opportunity to recommend you to others which I do whole-heartedly. You people write in right now because this has been one of the best decisions of my life to work with Ann.

- Aw, thank you. Thank you very much. Alright, Grammy Dan, I'll be talking to you soon. I know I will.

- You will.

- We'll be doing another remembering process. I think it's your turn.

- Okay it's my turn.

- Yeah. Okay talk to you later.

- Bye.

- Bye.