Hello, everybody. Welcome to Three Point Perspective. The podcast is about illustration, how to do it,

how to make a living at it, and how to make an impact in the world with your art. I'm Jake Parker.

And today I'm just doing a little quick solo episode. Teams on vacation for the holidays.

And I just wanted to record a quick message something I've been

thinking about as we move into this into this next year some thoughts I've been having

and hopefully this helps you kind of establish the mindset that you need for success in

this next year so I'm going to start off by telling a little

story. It was 2002. I was 25 years old, and I had walked out of a Kinko's copy center carrying

a box of paper that I had no idea would change my life forever. So in the next few moments here,

I'm going to tell you how a simple creative project altered my

life's trajectory, how that project relates to an 8th century Japanese Shinto purification

practice, and how you'll never let, you should never let a year slip past you without

accomplishing something of worth.

Now, in order to get to all of that, we need to rewind back to 1992, so 10 years prior to 2002.

I know we're going way back in time here.

In 1992, I was in junior high, and I had an idea in my sketchbook that sparked something in me.

I created a character called Missile Mouse that was everything loved about, you know, all the

favorite things that I was into, my childhood heroes, everything rolled into one.

It was like part rocketeer. I don't know if you

remember that Disney movie, The Rocketeer. It was part Rescue Rangers. It had a dash of

Spaceman Spiff. So, you know, the side character from Calvin and Hobbs where he'd imagine

himself as a space character. And then you mold those characters together

...