The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 227: Jeff Goins - How To Be A Thriving Artist (Real Artists Don't Starve)

Episode Date: October 15, 2017

Episode 227: Jeff Goins - How To Be A Thriving Artist (Real Artists Don't Starve) Jeff Goins is a writer, keynote speaker, and award-winning blogger with a reputation for challenging the status quo. He is the best-selling author of five books, including Real Artists Don't Starve, and The Art of Work, which landed on the best­ seller lists of USA Today, Publisher's Weekly, and the Washington Post. His website Goinswriter.com is visited by millions of people every year. Jeff was previously on The Learning Leader Show Episode #028 The Learning Leader Show What does it take to stand out? "Show UP, Do the Work, and most importantly: FOLLOW UP. Nobody does this." Show Notes: Sustained Excellence. Common Themes of Leaders who Sustain Excellence: Passion - A fire to pursue their "why" Discipline - Daily habits, routines, rituals to be best every day Coach K -- Sit down and analyze after every single game to improve Great Learners - Hungry learner. How to do it better? Real Artists don't starve Starving artist vs. Thriving artist The myth of the starving artist Why Michelangelo was a thriving (rich) artist "Do you really have to starve to be an artist?" -- No You aren't born an artist (or a Leader) -- It's a result of the choices you make. The human brain is malleable. A person can learn and master a craft. "Leaders are made. Artists are made." The story of John Grisham -- A lawyer who wrote novels on the side. He wrote one page a day for years... And then he had a novel You can gradually re-create yourself Wake up a little earlier every day and do the work. Make it a habit Change happens slowly The way we talk about it is not actually the way we do it. We do not need to take a giant risk. When we look at the facts, we can take measured risks 2 Resources at The University of Wisconsin -- A study of 5,000 entrepreneurs The Two Types Burn The Boats -- 33% more likely to fail Side Hustlers -- People who didn't initially go "All In" statistically were more likely to succeed It took Jeff two years to quit his job. He built one year of runway The rule of apprenticeship -- Ryan Holiday - Be an Anteambulo. Clear the path for others A "master piece" came from the time of Michaelangelo What it takes to stand out -- Show up, do the work, FOLLOW UP (nobody does this), show what you've learned, help others Jeff has lunch every Wednesday with a mentee -- Rarely do they follow up. Do this. "The best thing you can do is take notes, and follow up. Put it into action." Jeff was/is mentored by Michael Hyatt -- He followed up constantly How do you do X? "It's easy to talk about stuff, it's hard to do it." "If you're teachable, it puts you in a class of people that sits apart." Do not work for free -- The rule of value Charging brings dignity to the work "Working for free is often not the opportunity we think it is" "Leaders are made. Artists are made." -- "You aren't born an artists." Social Media: Read: Real Artists Don't Starve Follow Jeff on Twitter: @JeffGoins Connect with me on LinkedIn Join our Facebook Group: The Learning Leader Community To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12  

Do you really have to starve to be an artist, to be a creative, to be a writer today? And I just kind of started digging into history and started interviewing more and more of these thriving artists. And the conclusion that I came to is that being a starving artist today is a choice, not a necessary condition of doing creative work. Now is the best time to be creative as long as you're willing to do the things that thriving artists have always done going back to the time of Michelangelo. Hey and welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk. Thanks so much for being here.

It is Mindful Monday. Go to LearningLeader.com. Enter your email address. Join thousands of other fellow learning leaders. Receive a note every Monday morning, 9 o'clock Eastern, the latest trends, topics, conversation pieces in the world of leading. others. Now, on tonight's featured leader with my friend, bestselling author, keynote speaker. It's Jeff Goins, recognized all over the world for his

books, his blog, and his speaking. I loved this talk. His most recent book is titled Real Artist Don't Starve. A few of the topics we got into. Why you aren't born an artist or a leader and how you can become

one. A great, great part of the conversation. And then And then the rule of apprenticeship and the power of finding great mentors and how you can help them be more successful, which ultimately will lead to sustained excellence for you. Then finally, why you should never work for free and the rule of value, somewhat controversial topic that Jeff discussed at length. And I loved it. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Jeff Goines. Jeff, man, it's great to have you back on the learning leader.

show welcome it's good to be back thanks for having me right i was telling you before it's been a couple years it's amazing how fast uh it's gone since i think it was our episode was in the 20s and now we're in the two 20 20 30s so it's been uh almost 200 since then but uh it's neat to see the progression that you've been on as well as uh this podcast too over the last couple years man yeah likewise congratulations um it's it's fun to be a part of this and It's a cool thing to two years later still be doing the same work. I know how, I know you know how that feels. Yeah, absolutely.

And your team sent me real artists, don't starve. And the first thing I couldn't help but notice is I just love the title. I like the cover and the title. So what was it that made you want to write a book about the fact of, well, really the myth that there are starving artists or that you must starve to be an artist? What was it about that topic that made you want to write this book? So, you know, the concept like I think any book for me, it happens in layers. So I have been a full-time writer for about six years now.

And I kept hearing people. And I live in Nashville, which is a fairly creative town, lots of songwriters, obviously musicians, authors, and even a lot of entrepreneurs here now. And so you bump into people and they go, wow, you know, like you're so lucky to be doing what you're doing. And I kept hearing this over and over again and I thought, am I lucky? Like, am I lucky to be a full-time writer? I didn't know. And so I kept bumping into two groups of people.

One were sort of your typical starving artists and Nashville has a lot of them. You know, you've got a musician who's on the road 200 dates a year making not enough money to live. And then they're supplementing that job with, you know, waiting tables or something when they're home, you know, for those 160 days, you know, when they're not on tour. And I kept meeting people who would talk about their art, whether it was this side business that they wanted to start. It was a writing career or something else entirely. And they were sort of apologetic about it. But they would basically, you know, say, hey, this is something that I love. I'm passionate about it.

but I'll never make any money doing that, which is your typical starving artist mentality, whatever the field or industry is. And at the same time, I kept meeting another group of people, whom I now refer to as thriving artists. And these people were like me in the sense that they weren't famous or celebrities or anything like that, but they were doing their art for a living. And again, some of these were creative entrepreneurs, others were full-time writers. fine artists, graphic designers, musicians, and so on.

And I just, like, I kept making mental note of these two different groups of people. And I finally said, like, what is, like, what's the difference between these two people? And around this time, I came across a story about Michelangelo. And the story was that in 2003, an art historian by the name of Rab Hatfield discovered some previously unknown bank accounts belonging to Michelangelo. And to make a long story short, he found all these financial holdings in the name of Michelangelo, real estate, gold, money in the bank, you name it. And it totaled up to over $50 million in wealth that Michelangelo had at the time of his death. And this made him the richest artist of the Renaissance. But not only that,

it made him at the time. He was the richest artist who had ever lived. So nobody had done what he had done up to that point. And afterwards, there were many, and this is well documented, there were many artists who, in the Renaissance, became wealthy because he set a new standard. He set the precedent for what was possible for artists who would kind of follow in his place throughout the Renaissance. And so all this stuff kind of came together around the same time a few years ago.

and I thought, do you really have to starve to be an artist, to be a creative, to be a writer today? And I just kind of started digging into history and started interviewing more and more of these thriving artists. And the conclusion that I came to is that being a starving artist today is a choice, not a necessary condition of doing creative work. Now is the best time to be creative as long as you're willing to do the things that thriving artists, have always done going back to the time of Michelangelo. And that's kind of how the book began. I love the way that you're able to weave in a few things as a writer. And that is stories, as you just so eloquently put a few already here in the first five minutes of us talking.

People remember stories. They're drawn to stories with scientific research to back up the stories, the fact. So when you're able to mix, I think, just flat out great writing, the horsepower to write great prose with stories and then the research that backs it up, you have them mixed with an idea that really hasn't been talked about before. And so I want to dive into, like I told before, I love the book. And there are a few, more than a few notes that I think it's cool when I get to do this podcast. I get to dive deeper with the people who actually put this art out into the world, as you did. And one of the things I talk about from a leadership perspective, Jeff, is there's always a question, well, are leaders born or are they made?

And you tackle this as well, basically in regards to being an artist. And you kick off the book this way, saying you aren't born an artist. And one of the stories who I've read much deeper about this guy because I'm fascinated by him that you talk about, though, is John Grisham and the fact of John's life as a lawyer and that he'd get up early every single day and write about a page or more of his novel until eventually even as a full-time attorney, he's able to write his first novel in about three years, which was a time to kill. So I'd love for you to share more about, and maybe how it relates to from a born or made perspective, because I'm a firm believer that leaders are not born, leaders are made. And there's obviously some nuance there

and there's some characteristics that you can be born with that can help you become, I think maybe a little bit better leader or a better artist. But for the most part, artists are made and leaders are made. Yeah. I mean, I think people are born, but the kind of person you become is more than not, it is a result of the choices you make, the habits that you practice, and the environment that you're a part of. And more and more we're realizing that science supports this. And there's that book by Anders Erickson Peak and his kind of famous study of what has become known as the 10,000-hour rule.

But the bottom line is what we understand today is that the human brain is, is fairly malleable and you can, you know, short of having some sort of disability, a person of, you know, average intelligence and aptitude can learn new skills and acquire new abilities and master them with a fair level of competency and proficiency. And so in that respect, leaders are made, artists are made, and writers are made. And so I wanted to start the book with this idea that if you want to be an artist, and you didn't grow up with a paintbrush in your hand, there's still room. There's still time for you to change.

And one of the things that I found fascinating when I interviewed hundreds of working creatives today is most of them may have had some creative inkling early on in their life. For a lot of them, they sort of pushed that aside. And then they followed the path of least resistance. You know, they went and became lawyers and doctors and corporate executives. And there's nothing wrong with that per se unless you are pursuing a path that you know is not the true path for you. It's not who you really are. It's not a reflection of your best self.

And one guy I talked to was a professional baseball player who spent his first year in the majors playing for the Chicago Cubs where you make a minimum of half a million dollars a year and typically get at least, at least a signing bonus of about a million dollars. So he's doing okay. And a year into it, he realizes playing for stadiums full of 40,000 people, this is not for me. This is not what I want. What I really want to be doing is telling stories. And so he quits the majors and goes to film school and basically becomes a professional

storyteller. And the way that he got there is the same. way that John Grisham became a full-time author, which is to say gradually. So in one hand, you can change the story that you're living. You can recreate yourself, which is the first rule of what I call the new renaissance. It's called the rule of recreation. Artists are not born. They're made. So at any point in life, we get to change the scripts if we want. We get to, if the story we're living isn't the one that we imagine for ourselves, or it's not the one that we truly want, we get to, we get to to rewrite it. So you do get to change. The other side of that, though, is change takes time.

And the whole idea of take a leap and the net will appear. I find that's not the way real life works for most of us. And it's not the way to build long-term success in the arts, in business, in whatever field that you're in. And so you look at John Grisham and he follows what I call the baby step strategy, which is fairly self-explanatory. You want to go be a writer, an artist, you want to start a side business, you want to grow as a leader. The best thing that you can do to change your course in life is to start practicing some daily habits every single day. And so this is what John Grisham does. He doesn't know for certain that he wants to be a writer. He's just kind of curious about it, which I find is often the way big dreams start, asking yourself the question,

could I do this? Is this me? And so he goes, I don't know if I have what it takes, but I'm going to try. I'm going to get up a little bit early every day. And not only is he a lawyer, he's a new father. So like just imagine really busy guy. And so he gets up a little bit early every day, goes to the office and doesn't try to write a novel because that's impossible to do. He tries to write a page. And he does that every single day for a couple of years and finishes a book, publishes it. It doesn't, you know, become a mega bestseller. In fact, he ends up having to buy a thousand copies of his own book and sell them himself because the publisher he worked with was this small press and they're not really doing any marketing for him. And he enjoyed the process so much that he decides to do it again. Keeps the same routine, same deal, you know, gets up, kisses his kids goodbye, goes to the office and writes a page a day, finishes his second novel, which becomes the firm, then is able to sell that book to a major publisher. And it does go on to be a bestseller. And he becomes an overnight success, three or four years in the making. And it is at that point where he realizes, okay, now I'm going to quit my job. Now I'm going to go all in on this.

And more often than not, that's the way change happens. Slowly, but surely, we get to the places that we want to go as long as we're willing to be persistent and persevere and not just come up with some big idea, you know, try it for something. six weeks, get bored and move on to the next thing. A lot of the greatest originals of our time took measured risks. Steve Wozniak, the Warby Parker creator, or the guys who started that business, they all had backup jobs. It's interesting the dynamic between somebody like Jim Collins who had told me that

when he made the leap, he felt like he was burning the boats. But then you contrast that with a lot of others who have went on to do great things. and they have stories like John Grisham. And the reason I think it's important, Jeff, to share these stories is because there's a lot of people listening who email me talking about this very thing. So they're working and they're doing fine. They're not unhappy at all. In fact, they have a good life with good family and they have regular bills like everybody else.

But they have a thought of what they want to do. And I try to give that same advice, but it's great when it's backed up by fantastic books and your stories to say, if you have some sort of a side hustle, how about you do it every single day? Make it become part of your routine, your habits, your rituals every day for years and see what happens. The baby step method seems to have worked for many people. Yeah. Yeah. And not to disagree with somebody as smart as Jim Collins. But I find that the way we talk about this, because you know, you hear people say burn the boats. leap in the net will appear, all these cliches.

The way we talk about is not the same way that we actually practice it. And I think that kind of advice is very dangerous to the, you know, 23, 24-year-old guy or gal who is emailing you. They've spent six months at their corporate job that they just got after college and they're restless. And they're reading all these blog posts about, quote-unquote, entrepreneurship. And they think, oh, like, I've got to take a big risk. And the problem with this advice is we have all these anecdotes, right? We've got all these people who suffer from survivorship bias where, hey, I survive this potentially bad choice and you can too.

When in reality, when we look at the facts, we look at the studies, it is better to take, in your words, Ryan, measured risks. And I've thought this way for a long time and kind of felt crazy because people go, make the leap. And when I look at the way my friends who talk this way actually made their leaps, I find something that looks a lot more like building a bridge. I had a friend who said, you got to take the leap. And he's now full-time author, speaker, New York Times bestselling writer.

He's got to take the leap. And I look at his story and he didn't actually take the leap. He went and got a job where he basically apprenticed under another leader for about three or four years. and then quit that job and went full time with his job. That's a bridge that he built. I talked to another couple who moved to Africa, and I tell their story in the last book that we talked about, The Art of Work, and they moved to Africa to start a coffee company in Burundi.

One of the poorest countries in the world, I said, how did you get here? They moved their whole family from the U.S., they've got young kids, and they moved to Burundi. I said, how did you do that? They said, we took the leap. I said, how long did that leap take? They said it took about 10 years.

And what they really did was first they moved to South Africa. They did development work, economic development work with a nonprofit for about 10 years, got to know the continent, got to understand the infrastructure, then realized over the last two to three years of that, they started making trips to Burundi and realize there was an opportunity to bring global attention to Burundi coffee and bring jobs and dignity to the local people there. and, you know, that's how they made their leap. A 10-year leap is not a leap. That's like one of those matrix leaps across, you know, for building to building where you're going in slow motion. And so I find that when we say we took the leap, what we're really doing is not necessarily taking the safe route,

but we're taking a calculated risk. And to back this up, I read this study and I shared in the book where these two researchers at the University of Wisconsin and did it, did it, you know, basically studied this. They studied American entrepreneurs over 5,000 American entrepreneurs for 15 years. And there were two groups. One, what we'll call the risk takers. These are the people who quit their jobs, burned the boats, had no backup option,

and went all in on starting a business. And then the other groups were, you know, the more conservative people who started a business but kept their jobs initially. And then eventually when the business had enough traction and momentum, and they went full-time with it. And the risk takers were 33% more likely to fail. So it's not to say that some of them didn't succeed. They did, but you're talking about thousands of American entrepreneurs

and the people who did not go all in. They took a risk, but they also kind of had a backup plan. They weren't playing it safe, but they weren't being totally reckless either. They statistically were more likely to succeed. And I think it's not that you're going to play it safe, and it's also not that you're going to go all in and do something crazy and audacious. I like risks. I thrive in that kind of environment. The reason I take measured risks, I take calculated risks, is because I understand that if I take too big of a risk, if I take too big of a leap, I might actually fall.

Like you burn the boats and you can die, you know, like when you fight, fight the native, so to speak. And there is that option. And my goal as a writer, as a creative and as a business owner is, I always want to live to fight another day. So risk is exciting. I'm taking risks. But I also am doing it in such a way that if the worst case scenario happens, I'm still good. I still have enough in me, enough what money in the bank, time, opportunity to get back up,

dust myself off and keep at it. So when I quit my job, when I took the leap, which took about two years to kind of build up enough momentum that I thought, this could fail, but at this point, it's unlikely. And if it does fail, I'll have about a, I'll have a year of runway, I had a year's worth of savings that I'd have to burn through. Like, I'm like, I have to be pretty dumb to make 12 months of, you know, really bad mistakes in a row to not really succeed at this thing. But when I did it, I did it in such a way where I said, I'm going to do this and I don't want to look back. I don't want to do this for six months or two years and then tucktail and head back because when I do this, when I become a writer, when I start writing books, I want to do this for the rest of my life.

And so in a sense, being a little bit more conservative with how you assess and take risks really does kind of allow you to burn the boat, so to speak, and not look back. And I get that whole analogy, and I'm sure that works for some people. But when you just look at the numbers, it's not the best way to chase any kind of career path. And what's more is it's just not necessary. And I love that John Grisham's story. He didn't even know if he wanted to be a writer. And if you're not running a business or leading an organization right now, don't tell me that your dream is to do that.

If you aren't doing something every single day to practice it, if for no other reason than if you're not practicing it daily, you don't know if you actually will like doing this all day long. And so not being super risky really does just allow us to try stuff and see if we'll actually like it. You mentioned earlier in that answer about one of your friends who apprenticed under somebody else that certainly probably helped him. Absolutely. I know you're right about this too. And it, I always, the cool thing about this, again, about this podcast and talking to so many others is I spoke with one of the other colleagues and friends about this, specifically, both the, the mentor and the mentee. So that would be Ryan Holiday as well as Robert Green.

He, Ryan Holiday was the mentee working for as a research assistant for Robert Green. I had both of them on separately. And Ryan writes about being an antambulo, meaning clear, clearing the path for, for, for, for, for somebody who's come before you, for a mentor, for somebody who can help you, somebody who perhaps has done what you'd like to do. And you write about the rule of apprenticeship, and there's a great story about Kelly Clarkson and Jill and Kate, people that she kind of, that Kelly kind of saw singing one of her songs. And I think, again, sharing a story and how it relates to the person who's listening, who's

driving to work, and maybe they're thinking of ways that they can put some of their creativity, some of their thoughts into action, it's the rule of apprenticeship and being an antambulal and clearing the path for others to help them and noticing and seeing how you could get to the point where you want to get by helping other people and learning specifically from those other people. So I'd love for you to talk about the rule of apprenticeship. Yeah, so my friend who did that, you know, basically went and worked for somebody else for three or four years got paid to do it and learned how to write books and speak for a living. And he told me, is it doing this fast forwarded my career by at least 10 years?

Do you want to say who it is? No. Okay. That's fine. Go for it. But yeah, what I think is challenging about this is an apprenticeship is like when we talk like this, it sounds very impractical. I know this is something that Ryan deals with a lot. people go, well, how can I do that?

You were lucky to get to Apprentice with Robert Green. We all can't do that. And I think that's valid. But keep in mind that in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, you know, not every artist or artisan had, like, not everybody got to be an apprentice. Like, it required really hard work. And most people aren't willing to do that. I mean, it is a lot of grunt work.

But I think the opportunity for apprenticeship, is greater than it's ever been. So you look back at, you know, four or five hundred years ago, and this was the path to become a professional for many vocations. And today, for the most part, apprenticeship is a lost art. There are a few cultures and professions where it still remains. But the best modern example that we have of it is like a summer internship, you know, in between junior and senior year of college where you're fetching some, somebody donuts and coffee. You know, it's just, we don't have a good picture of what apprenticeship was and ought to look like. And in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, apprenticeship was a process that lasted seven to ten years.

And the first six or seven years, you were, you were being the Antambulo, if I said that correctly, as Ryan says, where you're just kind of doing the grunt work. You're making the artists or artisans or craftsmen's job easier. And you're learning stuff, right? You're watching them. You're living with them. You're eating with them. You're basically working for free in exchange for room and board and experience. And you do this for about seven years.

And especially in the arts, they would eventually let you paint or sculpt or design things, at least contribute to part of the project. And then the artist would put their name on it. And so you really got to do the work at a certain point. And at about year seven, you'd leave the shop. And you'd go journey as a journeyman is what you were called. And you'd do that for two or three years, traveling around, practicing your craft, really trying it out and seeing if you had what it took to be a professional. And then you'd come back home and you'd submit a piece of your work to the guild, the local guild of masters.

and they would determine whether or not this was good enough to be admitted to the guild. And if it was good enough, they would call it a masterpiece. And this is where we get that word from. And if it wasn't good enough, you had to keep trying. And if they deemed your work a masterpiece, then you would be accepted into the guild. You would become a master. And then you could now take on other apprentices and continue the process. And I love this.

I mean, I geek out on this history. This isn't the way it's going to work today, though. But what you have to understand is just because you went to an artist and said, hey, I want to apprentice under you, doesn't mean they would say yes. You had to prove yourself worthy to the master. And in the book, I talk about how Michelangelo did this a bit audaciously, I might add. He went there, he went to the studio of an artist named Domenico Ghirlandio called one of the most fashionable and influential artists in Florence at the time. And he basically demands to be apprenticed. And Kieranne Dio says, no, you know, you're too old.

You don't have what it takes. And I have enough apprentices. And Michelangelo not only demands to be apprenticed, he says, no, no, no, I'm not done yet. You're going to let me apprentice under you and you're going to pay me, which was unthinkable. That wasn't how it worked. Typically, you paid. Sometimes the family would pay a small sum to the artist to let the apprentice come in. and work in that master's studio.

And the request is so audacious that Gierland I was so taken aback that he goes, okay, yeah, all right. Let's see. Like, he's just kind of impressed. I mean, you know, I think he's offended at first. And then he goes, okay, let's do that. And it was definitely an unconventional apprenticeship. But what he does and why I think this is important is he does something to make himself

stand out from all of the other artists. And so we talked about artists are not born, they're made. So imagine you have a studio of a dozen, you know, young men working for you, fetching paint, mixing paints because artists had to mix their own paints and make their own colors, doing this, doing that, helping you out. And then you've got one kid whom you're paying to be there who was so audacious to ask and you're having to sort of equally divide your attention amongst all these different apprentices, isn't it kind of natural to assume that your attention may be drawn more to the one young man

who's different from everybody else there? A year after this happens, Lorenzo de Medici comes to Gierland-Dio's studio and says, I want two artists from your studio, the best two, and I want to bring. them into my house and I basically want to train them in my in my house to be you know like the royal artists and and you know I will give them commissions and and pay for them to live and eat and be a part of the royal household and Gierland Dio picks Michelangelo and his friend and at this point because Michelangelo stands up from everybody else Gierland Dio has given him access to drawings and works of art that he's working on that nobody else gets to see.

Again, because he was just audacious enough to ask and he was willing to do the work. And I think today, because like there's podcasts and there's books and there's blogs, there's no shortage of information. And today we have access to masters in multiple crafts that 25 years ago would have been unimaginable, right? I mean, you talked about having Jim Collins on your show, right? Like how incredible is that? And so we live in this really neat age of accessibility.

And so what it takes to stand out amongst all the consumers is to be like Michelangelo, to not only be audacious enough to ask, but to be willing to do the hard work that most people are not willing to do. Ryan, I've talked about this at length because it's easy for somebody to email you, Ryan, and say, hey, I want to pick your brain about such and such. And I'm willing to bet that the amount of people that do that, asking questions, looking for advice, even in a well-meaning way, is dramatically higher than the people who say, I listened to episode 195 where you talked about such and such, and I did it, and I'm killing it. Thank you so much for that. And I'm sure people are doing that too. But I just find that the amount of people who are saying, hey, I'm doing the work, that is much small.

And so if you want to become a master at a craft today, the way that you practice the act of apprenticeship is no different than it was 500 years ago. Show up. Do the work that most people aren't doing or are unwilling to do and then boldly present yourself to the master and say, hey, look what I'm doing. And I've made multiple friendships with influencers, people who have basically mentored me up close and also from afar by doing just that, emailing them saying, I read your book, I read your blog, I listened to your podcast. Here's the stuff that I'm doing based on the information that you shared with me and millions of other people without realizing, you know, that you're sharing it with me. And it's working and I just wanted to say things. If you show up every day and you email five or ten people like that over and over and over again, one of them, maybe several of them, will want to go deeper in relationship with you. And that's how I think apprenticeship works today.

I love it, Jeff, man. I think of a guy who email my name Joe Ferraro, and I normally don't do this, but your story's kind of inspiring me to do it because you're right. There are many, many of those emails and so few that actually say, so occasionally if someone emails me saying they're starting a podcast and they'd like some help, if their cold email is compelling and they share specific examples and they maybe they picked a few things out from some episodes and they want to learn more about how I approached it. or the storytelling or the process or the outline for doing an interview.

And they're thoughtful about it. I'll say, here's my number, just call me. And usually they're quite surprised, as I'm sure you probably did this before. But then you get on the phone. And so I spent 90 minutes with Joe trying to coach him and get his thing launched. And the see the way that he approached it, created his show. I was a guest on his show, the first episode afterwards, when he got it launched. And then I happened to go on vacation.

the week after we spoke. I coached him for about 90 minutes. Obviously for free, just to be, because he wrote a good email, it compelled me to want to do this. And so he thanked me and did the normal things, but he took it one step further because I talked to him a lot about how to say thank you to your guest. That was very important to me with actions and even sending them things like John Ruland does. So anyway, I'm in the Dominican Republic at the wedding of two of friends of my wife and mine. And in our room, this big gift shows up on the third day that we're there in the Dominican Republic, and it's from Joe.

And the way that he said, thank you, not only did he, it showed that he listened and he took action. And he certainly had to invest some of his money. He had to call the hotel. He had to figure out what room I was in. He had to get this all set up. And I was outside of the country. So it just goes to show you that if you're willing to do the work, that's, So many, for whatever reason, are not, I guarantee you you're going to be at a much better path

to being successful than those who just send the bland, blanket, cold emails. Can I share one more thing about that? Please. Please. This is probably one of my favorite things to talk about because it's so easy to stand out because there are so many people who don't do this. And I don't, like, I don't say this. I don't mean to sound mean or judgmental, but it's just fascinating to me.

So almost every week on Wednesdays, I meet a reader of mine for lunch. I write books. I teach online courses. I write a blog and host a podcast. And any fan, listener, reader, person who wants to have lunch with me can, if they're willing to come to the Nashville area, meet me in my hometown, and, you know, schedule it accordingly. And so just about every Wednesday, I have lunch with somebody. and pretty often somebody will ask me a question, you know, kind of along the lines of this.

Like, how do I connect with influencers? Because I'm very open that I am where I am, not just because I worked really hard, but because I met people who were generous like you were with Joe and help me out. People like Michael Hyatt and Seth Godin and men and women who invested in my journey. And what I've learned from that experience is that influencers, influencers are not inaccessible. They just have high demands on their time. And if you're willing to go the extra mile, you can stand out. And yes, they will spend 90 minutes on the phone with you.

They want to multiply their influence. They want to help people. They just don't, they want to know that you're different from all the other takers that they've encountered who are simply not going to do the work. So it's not worth it to you, Ryan, to get on the phone with you. Joe and walk him through this and him not do it, right? Like, that's not, like that just makes you feel like you wasted your time. But if you spend 90 minutes with somebody, you maybe can't do this every day all the time

and you invest and then you see somebody take that investment and do something with it, there's no greater thrill, in my opinion. Then hearing somebody say, I followed your advice, I did it and it worked. Thank you. And so when I have lunch with people, I tell them this, I say, look, if you really want to stand out to me or to somebody else, then here's what you need to do. And I tell them this. I go, I meet people every week for lunch, and I tell them this.

And what I say is the best thing that you can do is write down a few things that you're getting out of this conversation, make notes, follow up in a week or two, and let me know, like what worked, what didn't work? Like, just follow up. If you just follow up, amazing things can happen. This was basically how I became friends with Michael Hyatt, which people asked me about a lot. Michael Hyatt is a best-selling author. speaker and business owner for those who are unfamiliar with his work. And it was really just seven

months of meeting him, emailing him, and following up and saying, hey, I did this stuff. It worked. You wrote this book called Platform. I started a blog. It's working really well. Thanks so much. And I just email him. And he would say, oh, that's great. You know, keep going. And every once in a while, I'd ask, hey, what, you know, like Joe did, what do I do here? And he would give me some quick advice, all the email, all very quickly. So just keep following up. And so what I tell people, When I meet with them is I go, I say this every week. I say just follow up. And every week, you know, basically the same thing happens.

A very small percentage. About 10% of the people that I meet with actually do this. And so I look them in the eyes and I say, so if you want to be different, follow up. I'm not saying you have to do this. My pride won't be hurt. I'm fine having lunch with you and just, you know, moving on and that's fine. But if you want to stay in touch, you want to build a relationship, the best thing that you can do is take something that we talk about here, go do it and then follow up with me.

Like, that's a great way to stay in touch. Then I know you're serious. And so I tell them this. I look them in the eye, Ryan, I say 90% of the people won't do it. So you be different. And almost everybody asks me a version of this question. So I'm having this conversation, basically, almost every week. And even though I tell them the odds, even though I look them in the eye and I say,

you be different, it never changes. Like, it's always a 90-10 kind of thing where 90% of people don't do it. it, even though, even though it's like, it's like really easy. You could just a week later say, hey, thanks for telling me that thing. It really helped. And again, I want to be for this has nothing to do with my ego. I'm not mad when people don't email me. But I think it's interesting that people go, how do I do X, right? You tell them how to do X. And it's as simple as setting a calendar reminder, emailing the person a week later and saying, here's how this is working out for me. And most people don't do it. Why? Because it's easy to talk about stuff.

and harder to do it. I mean, I think there's lots of reasons. Like, maybe they're ashamed or whatever, but I think the vast majority, they get busy, they forget, they move on. And we don't really want to grow. Like, we want to pick somebody's brain, meet somebody, take a selfie with them.

And we say we want to have what somebody else has or be what somebody else is, but then when we find out the work that is required, I don't think that we, most of us really want it. And again, I think that's okay. You just need to stop saying, I would love to do blank if you're not willing to do the work to get there. A student at Miami University named Ben, I remember he emailed me and said, I'm only 21 years old. How can I add value?

I'm fortunate. I've, through my fraternity, I have a number of great mentors who impart a lot of advice that has helped me. But I feel like I can't help them. what would what can I do? And I thought it was a good good question. And so I said one of the practices that I got into that I now tell everybody to do in addition to Ben from Miami, I say when you meet with a mentor, okay, take take good notes, whether you meet with them in the person or over the phone, take quality notes. Then when you're done meeting with them, put the format those notes in a distinct solid way so that it's easily read. Um,

The points gotten across, so bullet points, whatever's easiest, that looks good and your notes are there for them to read. Send the email to your mentor or the person who's been helping you and say, hey, Ms. Smith, you know, we had to thank you so much for the lunch. It was great. Here's some of my thoughts, my takeaways, my notes. If I missed anything, you know, let me know or if I got anything wrong, let me know. But here's what I took.

Thank you so much. And here's some ways I'm going to put in the action. In addition to that, feel free. to forward this email to anybody else that you mentor, because then we could help even more people than just me. And I found that that has not only developed good relationships with my mentors, but we've become friends. I mean, legitimate friends to where we'll go and golf and have dinner and do things that are non-mentor mentee talks, even if we have a big age range gap. So I think it does a couple of things. It shows them that you listen, that you care, that you're going to put into action,

and it also shows them that you care about other people. You want them to, because they probably, these people probably mentor more than just you. So, hey, in case that they're not doing this, why don't you forward it to them? I just had a session in this way, you as the mentor could be even more productive because I was taking some notes. I love that. Yeah. My answer to that is just be teachable. I never thought about encouraging them to forward it.

I think that's a great idea. my first boss was really my first mentor and he would tell me to do just that. And I had to learn. I think most of us just don't realize it. I met with him and we had these kind of like informal mentoring sessions after work and we'd meet for an hour. And the first time I met him, he goes, what do you want to talk about? I said, I don't.

I don't know. He goes, okay, well, next time bring an agenda. I know that when you interview Jim Collins, he says, never. come to a meeting unless you have five questions written down first. And just that simple, you know, and I had to learn that. And then the next time I met him, I said, okay, here's what I want to talk about. And he said, okay. And we talked and talk and talk.

And he looked at me, he goes, are you writing this down? And I clearly was not writing this down. I was just sitting there. I didn't have anything to write it down with. He's like, I was like, no. He goes, you should probably write this down. I said, okay. And the next time I came with a pen and paper and wrote it down.

And afterwards, he goes, what are you going to do with those notes? I said, read them. And he goes, you should email me a copy of those notes. And in fact, anytime you ever meet with anybody, you should take notes and then you should email them after you met with them and edit the notes and say, here's what I learned from our meeting. Here's what I took away. And if it's a peer, you know, or even a subordinate, you should say, was this your understanding too? And if it's, you know, somebody that, you know, superior, somebody you're looking up to, you know, just let them know that you're listening. and make sure that you heard everything correctly.

But you should always take notes and you should always just share the notes with people after your meeting with them. And this is something that I did when I met Michael Hyatt. I met him, took notes. It was kind of awkward. He asked a lot of questions. I didn't come with many very good questions.

I was sort of starstruck. I could have done that better. But I emailed him the notes. I remember him leaving that Starbucks. I opened my laptop and I emailed him the notes. I go, here's what I learned. And I did that over and over. over again, you don't have to do this perfectly, but if you're teachable, I just think that

puts you in a class of people that, especially if you're young, it'll just set you apart because so many people early on in life think they know everything, you know, myself included. And it is a discipline to assume that the other person on the other end of the phone or, you know, the table or whatever knows more than you do. And if you constantly just put yourself in the position of learner, which the smartest people I know, all ages, do this. And it's attractive. It's just like it's like people want to be around people that want to learn from them.

It makes you feel smart, makes you feel important if somebody's asking you questions about things that you know about. It's flattering. Yeah, it is. And if you're like genuinely asking these questions, learning from them, and then more importantly, going and doing it, like that's all the value that you need to add. You need to understand that, especially somebody in their 50s, 60s, part of what they're thinking about is, does anybody care about these ideas that I have?

Does anybody, is anybody listening to me? Does anybody care about my experience? Is anybody going to learn anything from me? What is my legacy? If you can be teachable and do the things that they tell you that you should do and learn from their mistakes and achieve their successes earlier in life, you become their legacy. And in my opinion, that's all the value that you need to add. I love it, man.

One more note that I wanted to make sure we covered because we've already kind of hit on this. But as you progress through the book, and I like this part of the end, and this has worked for me when it comes to giving speeches because I don't know if I fully understood the value I would bring to the room, especially when you're new at it. And this probably started a couple years ago when we first recorded Jeff. And that's about understanding the rule of value and why you should not work for free, because charging brings dignity to our work. Can you talk a little bit more about not working for free? Because I think one of the quotes is, working for free is often not the opportunity we think it is. And there's some stats there about students who had a paid internship versus the ones who did not.

And the ones with a paid internship, I believe, was 63.1 percent of those received at least one job offer. Whereas the ones who did not have a paid internship, but just was, they had an internship, but it was unpaid, was 37%. So amazing science to go along with your stories again when it comes to charging for your work. Right. So, I mean, that's just, you know, one small study, but, you know, the bottom line there is we think, that unpaid opportunities lead to pay at opportunities. And that is a great example of in the case of an unpaid internship versus a paid internship, a paid internship is twice as likely to lead to paid work as an unpaid internship. And it kind of makes sense, right? Like if I pay,

if I don't pay you to do something and then there's an opportunity for you to keep doing that something or do something else for me, and I have to go from zero paying you nothing to one paying you something, that's a huge gap. The difference between zero and one is exponentially greater than the difference between one and two, right? It's still, it's technically a difference of one, but it is exponentially greater to go from nothing to something versus something to something more. And so the idea here is always work for something. And if you're working for the elusive opportunity, you're doing a speaking gig for free, which I started doing for free early on as well. And realized that even when the people say the budget is zero, and I go, well, I really got to, like, I remember somebody challenged me to do this.

I go, what do you really need to do for, like, your wife to not be mad that you're traveling away from your family, speaking for free? Like, what do you need? And early on, I was like, you know, I don't know, like, $250. So I could pay $250 for a talk. That would be cool. And I was getting paid nothing, you know. And so somebody called right after I made that decision. And this speaking coach taught me how to set a high number and a low number and start

with your high number and then negotiate down to your low number depending on what their budget is. And somebody called and invited me to speak at a conference. And I said, what's your budget? And they said, well, our budget is zero. We can't pay our speakers. I said, well, you know, I really need to make about 500 bucks off of this in order for me to justify my time. And they said, oh, okay, yeah, we can do that. And I was like, wait, I thought your budget was zero.

And so even when the, you know, they say there's nothing here, it's just going to be a good opportunity for you. The market can always sustain more than you think it can. But there are times when it makes sense to not receive a check or cash for your service or time. And so long as you understand what you're working for, for example, as a speaker, you may go, well, they can't pay me, but I need a speaker reel, which is something that you would pay thousands of dollars to create on your own, right? To hire a videographer, you know, get a space and, and do part of a speech and record it. And if you're speaking at a school or a church or some event space where they, you know, typically have video cameras and recording material microphones and such, you could just say, hey,

I'll do it in exchange for, you know, the recording. And so the idea here is whatever, you do, you need to be not setting a precedent that the value of your work is zero. And there are times when it makes sense to give something away to somebody. Certainly I'm a fan of generosity, but don't do this thing that a lot of people do, where you do your work for free, client after client, time after time, year after year, hoping that at some point you can flip a switch and start charging money for your work. It doesn't work that way. You need to set a precedent that almost all the time you charge for your work.

And if you want to be generous, be generous. But don't give with the expectation that it's going to lead to paid opportunities. When it's time to sell, sell. And when you want to give, give without any expectation of reciprocity. because giving itself is the gift. And I hate it when people are giving, giving, giving, and then they're frustrated that they can't get a paid gig. That's not really generosity.

That's just you running a bad business. Man, I'm glad we're able to get all this in, Jeff. I love your work. I would encourage everyone to get real artists. Don't starve. Jeff Coins, it's so cool to have you back on. And I look forward to the next time. And I'm glad that we've continued this dialogue as we've progressed.

And it's exciting to see what's, next. What is next for you? Do anything on the horizon? You know, when I write a book, Ryan, first of all, congratulations on this podcast. I've learned a lot from you, as I'm sure many other people have, and just well done on really running a world-class show. I respect it and I'm proud of what you've done. Thanks for including me in it. Thank you. Yeah. Whenever I write a book, it's like I go, okay, I'm going to stay on message for the next two years on this

because it took me about two years to write this and everything creative in me wants to like rush on to the next project and I kind of start working on stuff. I haven't started working on a new book yet. But you know, what's next for me is I really believe in this message and my goal of real artists don't starve is I want this to be the go-to resource for every creative leader, every aspiring artist, every person who dreams of being a writer.

I want it to be the book that they're, friends and spouses and family members think of giving them when they go, hey, here's my big dream. I want to go chase some creative passion. I want this to be the handbook that people think of when somebody declares their intent to go change the world with their art, whatever that may be. And so I don't know what that looks like, but that's the goal. That's the vision right now. Awesome. Love it, man. Where would you send my listeners to learn more about you online? You can find me and, you know, all, all things about me at my website, glainsrider.com, G-O-I-N-S-Rider.com. I have a weekly newsletter for writers and creatives, tips on, you know, all the stuff we talked about here that you can sign up for.

And the book, you can find, you know, wherever fine books are sold, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound, all those fun places. Awesome. Thanks again, Jeff, man. Look forward to the next one. Thank you, Ryan. Arvin. This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time.

Head over to Learning Leadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world-class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time on The Learning Leader Show. This episode is brought to you by my friends at Callaway Golf. Calloway's business and marketing approach has turned heads over the last several years,

helping the company make a dramatic turnaround from losing millions of dollars per year to being a leader in the industry. Products like the GB epic driver, steelhead XR irons, and Calloway's Chrome Soft golf ball are aimed at avid golfers looking for premium performance. And the coolest part about this partnership is we're doing a giveaway. Yes, we're giving away the number one selling driver of people. 2017, the GB epic driver. All you have to do is put your favorite leadership quote pulled from an episode of The Learning Leader Show on Twitter or Instagram. So pull your favorite leadership quote that any of the greatest leadership minds over the last three years from the Learning Leader show has said, quote them on Twitter or Instagram and tag my name at Ryan Hawk 12,

at Ryan Hawk 1-2 on Twitter or Instagram. My team will gather all of the quotes, and you can enter as many times you like. The more times that you enter, the better chance you have of winning. And over the course of a few months, we will gather them all, and then we will draw a random winner,

and my friends at Callaway will send you the GB Epic Driver. Thank you so much. I look forward to seeing all of your great responses on Twitter and Instagram at Ryan Hawk 12. And thank you to my friends at Callaway Golf. Oh, perfect.

Still there? Yeah. Thanks, man. That was, it's funny. I still get emails about your first time being on, which is really cool. And I've had friends who have, particularly side hustle type friends who really appreciate your work and it's moved them. So it's neat that we're able to do this.

And I almost forgot how much you kill on these things. So thank you, man. Thanks. I really appreciate. that. No, I really meant what I said and I think you're doing a great job. And it's, you know, talk about standing out. It's hard to do a podcast well when it's so easy to do one poorly. And you definitely set a great standard for the rest of us to follow. Thanks, man. It means a lot coming from you. So I'll be sure to get this link and everything out

to your team when it goes live. Thanks. Appreciate that. Sounds good. Cool. Cool. All right, thanks, Jeff. All right. Thanks, Ryan. Thanks, have a good day. You do. Bye. Bye.