Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. I'm here with my producer Jason to fill up all in today's conversation we're talking with my friend Kathy heller

Kathy's got a lot going on she's mom to three girls she's got a successful podcast she was able to crack the music licensing code

when even successful indie artists struggle to make a living in LA and I thought this was kind of an interesting fit for the show because

she gets her royalties from her music and TV and ads everything from McDonald's to Walmart and American Airlines

but she's also she's my kind of who you've heard me talk about who I'm normally not about this at all but I really like what she had to say here she's found saying things like purpose is the opposite of depression and of course before I roll my eyes I like to think about this kind of thing and she grew up in a family with anxiety depression

and her parents fought all the time and she's really found a unique way out of that and found success in a niche that was not her plan at all when she came to LA and I think it's very effective stuff for you as audience members here today we'll discuss branding yourself as a creative in a way that's effective

effective enough to mix with the world of corporate business we'll also explore how creatives can market in a way that doesn't contradict your brand or make you feel like you need an acid bath afterwards

we'll also learn how to talk to non creatives and pitch them and sell to them in a way that's effective enough to get you doing what you want to be doing instead of hammering out pitch decks all day long in all admit when I went into this episode I knew it'd be fun because I'm friends with Kathy and I think she's a great person but I actually didn't know she'd be dropping this type of knowledge during the show so it was really a pleasant and fun surprise for me to spend time with her on the show and I hope you all like it as much as I enjoyed recording it don't forget we have work sheets for today's episode so you can make sure you understand everything we talk about

here and everything that Kathy wanted to teach you here on the show that link is in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger dot com slash podcast all right here's Kathy Heller

tell me if this is true for you as a creative person which I don't necessarily consider myself or hadn't in the past I still have to do certain things to engage my brain enough or creativity comes out right find that at all yes

so what do you do in that situation because I know like a lot of people are like all I get all these great ideas in the shower but if you're writing songs I don't know if that's possible for example in the shower I feel like it takes time

to just put yourself on pause like we spend a lot of time where we're like consuming things but I think in order to be creative we need to make time for there to be space like take a walk or

even though it's anxiety provoking like don't have your phone all the time you know like I know Steve Jobs was famous for talking about like taking walks and

I recently interviewed Julia Cameron from my podcast wrote this awesome book called the artist way which a lot of people have cited as being you know this thing that they did they talk about this book is something they did because it gives you

work stuff to workshop and Jennifer sure when she was on my show she said that she did the artist way and that got her in this habit of like making things instead of just auditioning for things it's important to cultivate your creativity and I think part of it is like in the artist

she talks about doing these things called morning pages which could also be just journaling but I think creating a space where you're like writing in a journal even if your hands just writing I have nothing to write and you just keep writing because after a while you will find that you have stuff in there to say and it starts to come out and then over the course of four days or 12 days or six months you start to see patterns of things that you keep talking about and you're like wow I don't really stop to even really know myself you know people people are very precious about their

identity like this is who I am and this is who I'm not do we really even know like we're so much more multifaceted and multi-dimensional and I think we just we want so much to have control and to be able to put ourselves in this box because it's like this very tight precious little like neat thing into this is

me this is what I am this is what I'm not because there there is this unknown that is a little scary but it's also exciting you might discover like you have ideas in there but then the question is I have to face that and go what am I going to do with that anything or just stay comfortable and sit over here so but I think making time to journal making time to walk making time to meditate making time to just try and see what's in there or even just do things that strike your creativity like go to a movie by yourself

go take yourself to a museum go to a concert like do things that evoke high-stake emotion and see what it does and see what winds up coming up do songwriters like yourself have writers block like a novelist would does that happen I think everybody feels like they don't know what they're going to write and every time I get asked to do something like recently

I was asked to write this theme song for a Netflix show and I was like I just immediately typed into my phone the like the reply to the email and I was like thank you so much but I can't and then I went delete delete delete because it's just an excuse why did you think you couldn't do it just I always I never think I'm going to write anything good

really yeah even though you've licensed hundreds is it hundreds of songs I think there I think there's been quite a bunch but I always feel like I don't have anything good to do or say and on my way to a writing session with a co writer

I'll be like I'm such an idiot like why am I even going and I I'll come up with a million things I have to do like oh I should work on my taxes even though it's July or like oh I think I need to organize like the basement like I'll just come I'm what it really is as we all have a hard time facing our own feelings of inadequacy and it's not fun to feel mediocre but Ed Sheeran has this great quote and he I love him and he's such a great songwriter and he says you know imagine if you went to a cabin in Vermont

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