On the creative journey, it's easy to get lost, but don't worry, you'll lift up.

Sometimes you just need a creative pep talk.

Hey, you're listening to the Creative Pep Talk podcast. I'm your host, Andy J.

Pizza. When I was starting out in high school, there was nothing that I wanted more than to be cool.

I'm ashamed to admit it even today as a 36 year old man.

I'm still embarrassed that I desperately wanted to be cool. Why am I embarrassed because there's nothing less cool than wanting to be cool?

That's the one way you can be sure that you will not be it.

It makes it just such a mind game. How do you become cooler if you're not supposed to want it?

For the first part of my creative career, I kind of had the same conundrum.

It felt like as far as I could tell that making art was just about how do you make something 1% cooler than the stuff that's already out there.

But if you try too hard to do that, all of a sudden you've negated your ability and you've made it 15% last cool.

You've lost all of your credibility. It just felt like an impossible game to win.

Until I started to feel like maybe making art isn't about being cool at all.

If you are frustrated trying to make work that's just 1% cooler all the while making it look like it's a breeze, making it look like you don't care if anybody likes it.

I'm just doing my thing. If you're sick of playing the mind games, this episode is for you because how do you make your work better instead of just trying to make it cooler.

That's what we're going to explore on this episode. But before we do, a quick word from our beloved sponsors.

This episode only has one official sponsor, but another technical sponsor of the show is you. If you are a Patreon backer of the show, we love our Patreon backers.

They are the people that keep this show going and have done so for years. We really appreciate it. If you have a couple bucks to spare a month and you love creative pep talk, go to patreon.com slash creative pep talk.

You can back the show a couple bucks an episode or a dollar an episode and it really helps. If you can't afford that, don't do that because this show exists to help you on your creative journey not hinder you.

You can also share a couple bucks for those who don't. You can help us keep the lights on. We really appreciate it. We appreciate you. We did a little Patreon meet up just a handful of people. Nothing crazy.

We're going to do it again in the new year. We're going to try to make it a quarterly thing. We'll see. But go sign up so you don't miss out on that. And we really appreciate it. Patreon.com slash creative pep talk.

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