← Creative Pep Talk
Creative Pep Talk
535 - If You Only Listen to One Episode of this Podcast This Year Make it This One
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Struggling to find decent information around how to build your creative practice. You're struggling to wade through the gobs of information that's coming at you every single day from every single platform. And it is super overwhelming. And I have tried really intentionally to not make this podcast more of that. More noise, more overwhelm, more just info dumping on to just for the dopamine hit. I'm like, I'm learning. But for me, all of the biggest changes in my creative practice have come from not huge ideas, all this info, all that stuff, but implementing small things intentionally and in a somewhat disciplined fashion over time. And so this episode, what it's about, we're gonna review five ideas from this podcast in 2025 and try to get em down to their most like, shareable, retainable points so that you can take action on at least one of these in a significant way. Because for me, the biggest things that have happened in my creative practice have come from the smallest things that I've done consistently and done intentionally. My daily drawing project of drawing one little character on a white background every day for a year that turned into a bestselling kids book 10 years later, right? Like or more 10 plus years later. Or doing this podcast every week for years and years and years turned into meeting Ernie, dancing with Ernie, when I got to go speak to a team at Sesame street and I got to watch them actually filming it. And then Ernie came, came over and I'm telling you, I didn't see a puppeteer. It's not in my memory. All I know is I danced with Ernie and it changed my life. And that came from just the small things of doing it, taking action. And so I want to review five different things that we explored, my favorite ideas from this year, so that you can put one of these small things to work in your practice in the new year. And so we're going to work through those. Your creative call to adventure. This this episode is a create your own adventure episode. Meaning I'm gonna give you these five options and your action is to figure out which of these resonates which of these solves some problem for you. And you can go listen to the episode it came from and figure out a way, make a plan to implement some of this in your creative practice today. That's what we're doing. Hope it sounds good. Let's get into it. On the creative journey, it's easy to get worry you'll lift off. Sometimes you just need a creative pep talk. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. I love Squarespace. I'M a longtime user. One of the things I love about Squarespace is I will use it's so easy to use that I will use it to create pitches. If I'm pitching a book or I'm pitching something to a client, I will use a Squarespace page in my website and I'll build the whole thing there. Then you don't have these clunky like document PDFs clogging up people's inboxes and it looks super slick. If you want to see one of those that I use all the time, I did one for my series right side out andyjpiza.com RSO and you can see how I create a little pitch summary of that project. Go to squarespace.com pep talk get building for free and trying it out and testing it and then when you're ready to launch, use promo code pep talk all one word for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks Squarespace the creative path, like any good journey, requires a guide to help you find your way. You might be thinking, Andy, I don't have access to Creative Masters, but with Masterclass you do do I loved Amy Poehler's class on improv. I'm a comedy nerd, but also as a public speaker. I wanted to boost my confidence in dealing with all the unexpected situations that I always find myself in on stage. So this class titled Prepare to be Unprepared was just so perfect and inspiring for me. I especially love the lesson on finding the game within Improv. I also want to check out James Clear's Habits class and Esther Perel's Relationships one. With plans starting at $10 a month billed annually, you get unlimited access. Over 200 plus classes taught by the world's best business leaders, writers, chefs and more. I love that it has an audio mode so you can listen while doing chores or driving. And there's no risk. Every new membership comes with a 30 day money back guarantee. Masterclass always has great offers during the holidays, sometimes up to as much as 50% off. Head over to masterclass.com Pep Talk for the current offer that's up to 50% off at masterclass.com Pep Talk masterclass.com Pep Talk the first big idea that I recommend you implement in a small way that you take action on today or this year. This next year is number one. This or that. Yes. And what does that fricking mean? I'll tell you. And it gets at this thing that I think a lot of creative people do and get stuck with and it's called Overthinking over analysis. Analysis paralysis. For me, I can fall into this trap of thinking about, should I do that thing? Should I do this thing? Should I do it this way? Should it be a graphic novel? Should it be a chapter book? Should it be illustrated? Should it be just prose? Like, what should it be? Should this podcast be an interview podcast? Should it be a monologue podcast? You know, should I have a high premise? Should it not? Like, should I niche down? Should I not? All of that stuff I get. So, like, it took me. I started this show in 2014, but I wanted to start credit Pep Talk in 2010. But I didn't do it for. For four years because I was. Instead of doing it, I was thinking about doing it, and nothing changed. I didn't get anywhere. Everything I learned about how to do this podcast, quote unquote right, came from doing it. And so I can get caught up looking for signs and symbols for what is the right path. And instead, I think making art is more like inserting a USB stick and into your computer. It doesn't make sense to, like, all right, let me take a look at this thing, see if I can find the sign or symbol that tells me which side is up. The little USB weird logo. Okay, yeah, it's that one. No, that quit. Like, a lot of the times that's even rubbed off. You're not even going to see anything. What you do when you put a USB stick in is you try one way, you feel the resistance. You're like, nope, it's not that. Then you try the other way and you realize, like, no, that's really resistance. And then you flip it back and do it the original way and realize that level of resistance was actually the right level of resistance. That's such an important notion for me because every type of creative work comes with its own level of resistance. And one of the only ways to know whether it's the good kind of resistance or the bad kind of resistance is to do both. Now, you don't have to do the whole book as a chapter book or a graphic novel, but you can do five pages and you can internalize. Like, okay, what level of resistance am I feeling? Does this feel resistant? Like, it's hard? It's a challenge? It feels like making creative work. Or does this feel like resistance? Like, I'm not ready for this. This is not where I'm at. This is not who I am. Like, that kind of resistance. And the only way I ever get a sense of that is trying it, doing it, working it out. This is what I love about project based side projects, like side quests, where I'm going to make a bet, which is my commitment level, based on how sure I am that this is a good idea. So that might look like I'm gonna do five pieces in this direction in this project because I don't really know if this is a good idea or like when I started this podcast, I had already done a blog for a long time. I knew it was like deep in my passion. I never shut up. I thought this is, you know, something. And I, and I had done these talks that were kind of in the vein of what I wanted to do that I loved. So I felt really more so than other times that this was something I wanted to make a big bet on. So I was like, I'm gonna do this for two years. I'm gonna try to make 100 episodes of this thing before I call it quits. At the beginning of this year I did a similar thing with YouTube where I was like, we've messed around with YouTube since 2017. I feel like there's some, there's. It's worthwhile not thinking about it anymore, but doing it and then having a post analysis instead of a pre analysis. And I said, we're gonna do it for 30 episodes, which is almost half a year, more than half podcasts. And then we're gonna decide whether this is right or wrong. And so that's the first thing. If you are in your head ruminating constantly, not actually doing anything. What I suggest you do is you make a proof of concept, you put it down on the page, you do a small project or a medium project, whatever you feel ready for. And you do it both ways. I do this with, I do it in the macro, I do it in the micro where I'm like, if I don't know if this should be a line drawing for the episode art or a shape based one. I'm going to do both. And then I'm just gonna pick which one feels more right rather than perfect. And so if you wanna dive deeper into this idea, this USB metaphor and this whole thing, we go deep on it on episode 502, it's called how to beat the analysis Paralysis of the right path in quotes. Cause is there a right path? Who knows? I don't really know about that. But what feels right and overwhelming yourself with, is this the right path? Is it not the right path? No, just go do it. Learn from it, Learn with your hands rather than trying to figure it out running the simulations over in your Head. It's just not a great way to learn. This is one of the things I love about storytelling is that we get these heroes that always want the wrong thing, but they learn the right thing by taking action, by engaging with obstacles. So that's what I'm trying to do. If you need to go deeper into that, check out episode 502. 502. Yeah. I think I had one other thing to say about this, which was, oh, this also just gets into something that we've talked a lot about this year, which is bad feelings aren't necessarily wrong way signs in the creative path. Bad feelings are like, uncomfortable. This doesn't feel. We're not sure if it feels right. Insecure imposter syndrome, all that stuff, that's all part of being a creative person. I recently heard PD USA, who I'm a big fan of, he does TikTok videos and also amazing. His TikTok videos are some of the best on the platform. They're hilarious. And then his music is better than his TikTok videos. I can't even believe this guy. Big fan of this guy. He was just on the Soul Boom podcast with Rainn Wilson and he talked about this. He was speaking about how songwriting is fricking hard. It's not all fun. And to me, I like to think of that as wrestling. Like if you were a professional wrestler or an Olympic wrestler, it is gonna be hard, it's gonna be uncomfortable, but it actually is part of what's fun about it. And I think if we can have that relationship to the creative work, like I'm working on a puzzle, I'm wrestling with something because it's more fun than just sitting there looking at my phone. Right. It's a discomfort that's preferable sometimes to the comfort of just zoning out, looking at Garbagio. Okay, that's number one. Beat the analysis. Paralysis by this or that. Yes. Number two on the list is do the same thing differently. This is about creative habit formation. Listen, I'm not the guy getting on the Internet saying, all you gotta do is habits. They're easy. Once you get habits, everything's great, man. Your life will be saved. No, habit formation for me is years in the making, like little tiny habits. It takes so long for me to create something that has some semblance of a habit. It's not really a habit for me as a neurodivergent person. I have a hard time. I don't really have an autopilot. When I'm brushing my teeth, I'm all there Baby, I have to figure out. I'm gonna walk around, I'm gonna watch some dumb video for. I have to figure out how to get through. And so for me, when I. However, all that and the most important ways that I have somewhat got my life together in the ways that I have got it together as a creative person have come from developing things that resemble habits, things that I do on a regular basis. Routines, kind of. I don't even know. Maybe we need a different word. But for now, we'll call them creative habits, which get at the oxymoron. I don't know how to say. Oxymoronical. I don't know. It's not a word. But I'm trying to create something. The opposing nature of creative and habit, creativity, doing different things, doing new things, habit, doing the same things. This is a battle in the creative brain and in the creative life. So how do you do it? If they matter so much and they really have mattered to me, how do you have anything like a habit in your life if you don't do this naturally? Because the conventional wisdom for regular folks is if you do the same thing the same way long enough, it will become automatic for you. You will have an autopilot moment, and it will just kind of lock in. Some people, you know, depending on what it is and depending what the research says, it's anywhere from like six weeks to three months or something. If you do that thing, eventually you won't have to think about it. You won't have resistance. It'll just happen. But for me, right around the time they would say this is when it gets easy. It doesn't just get. It's already been hard the whole time. But right around that time, it doesn't get easier. It gets harder. When they tell me it's supposed to become automatic because my brain is like, this has never been more boring and annoying, and I don't want it. And so right when they say this is when the automatic kick kicks in, I stall and break down and it disappears. And what I've come to realize in my own life is that it's kind of like an automatic car versus a manual car. And I have a manual brain. My mom drove a stick shift. She was one of the only people I knew that did that. I kind of guess that this neurodivergence mostly comes from her. The adhd, getting bored easily, that sort of thing. Even though she's not really diagnosed, I don't feel comfortable diagnosing other people, but my mom. It's got to come from somewhere. And it probably didn't come from my corporate accountant father anyway, who's very, very regimented and habitual and all of his nature. She drove a stick shift because she needed to keep those hands busy. She had to keep it interesting. And creative habit formation is the same where the conventional wisdom says, do it the same way, do the same thing the same way and it will become automatic. I have found out that that does not work for me. I have a manual brain. I have to do the same thing in a different way. I have to keep my hands busy, my brain busy. I have to keep it interesting, man. And so for me, I have had a pretty regular habit of running for something like seven or eight years. And getting that to happen was so painful. But I fought it. I tried to create that habit for probably a decade because I knew when I had it, it was so good for my brain. But it was really hard to get myself to do it. And what I learned was that I needed to not long distance run. I needed to long distance dance. And what I mean by that is my pace and how I engage. It is all about keeping the playlist fresh. I'll run on the treadmill in the winter and right now I'm doing these like hit exercise kind of thing where it's running and slow jogging. And it's all down to how the song evolves. So when the song really hits, that's when I'm gonna sprint and I'm really gonna get into it. And then when it goes slow, I'm gonna run slow. And then I do it differently every time. Cause I'm constantly keeping that playlist updated. And then I will burn every last drop of dopamine out of each song and then I will never listen to that again. So for me, what it looks like is how do I do the same thing? Not in the same way, but in a different way. How do I make it interesting? How do I keep it fun? That's essential. And the same goes for this podcast. Same goes for my picture books. I have to figure out what is gonna make this fun. So that's your second one. If you wanna dive deeper into this. It's episode 513. Why creatives have to build Habits Differently and how to do it. Number three singles, albums and tour. So this comes from episode 515. And it was called Want to Quit Social Media. Three essential considerations for any creative practice. And what that is all about is I hear all of these creative people very, very rightfully so. Being fed up with social media it's not really social media anymore because we don't follow people like we used to or even see their content. There isn't really that much of a social component. It's really like daytime TV, like your TikTok feed and your Instagram feed and your Facebook feed. It's literally like being at home sick as a kid, trying to find anything to watch on tv. And it's just fricking televangelists and infomercials selling you stuff and America's Home funniest videos. Like fails. Like that's what social media has become. It's become daytime tv and it's very addictive, but it's not very healthy, helpful in almost any way, especially for creative people. And so I see all this, this mass exodus, or at least mass conversation of an exodus about social media. They have us in their grip. So much so that we're really having a hard time getting off there. And I feel that really hard. And so I think it's a great conversation to have. The only thing that I wanted to add to that conversation was it's all well and good. If you can make sure you have these three essential business elements to your creative practice. If you're practicing as a business or you wanna sell what you do or you wanna grow that connection with your audience, you really need three things for your business to work. And we could go into the marketing speak, we could go into funnels, create marketing funnels, and the customer journey. But that doesn't seem very fun or interesting to me. And it makes me wanna throw up in my mo little bit. Even though I'm telling you there's some helpful stuff there. I'll cut all that out. I'll cut to the chase, what it really looks like. And it's been happening in the music and happening in the music industry for a very long time. And it is three things. You got to have these three aspects of your business, whether you make music or not. You got to have your singles, how people are finding out about you, discoverability, you have to. How are where you can get off social media as long as you know where people are going to find out about you. And it could be a postcard, it could be a substack, it could be doing gallery shows. Whatever it is, you have to have an answer. If you're going to have a thriving creative practice with a relationship to an audience. You got to say, what are my singles? What are my hits? What am I making? That is really about getting discovered. Number two, you got to have your Albums, how do they go deep? How do they know you're legit, man? How do you get that? How do you communicate that? For me, all albums are quote unquote. Albums are doing a lot of air quotes today for the video viewers. And if you're not, just picture this for a second, it's gonna blow your fricking mind. I'm just in my recording studio and I'm doing air quotes. We do video on the show. I'm always gonna make it so that you don't have to watch. Cause I love companion media that you can do while you're doing other stuff. And audio podcasts are great for that and video in background's great for that. Anyway, I'm getting off track. What I'm trying to say is I'm talking about podcasts. Because a podcast is a long form media. A long form newsletter works. Talks work. For this, you've gotta have some way, case studies, you've gotta have some way of when those people discover you and they wanna learn more about you and learn like, who are you associated with? What are you about? What are your values? What is your work? What's the deep cuts? Like, what is it really all about for you? You've gotta have a place for them to do that. Podcasts work for that. All of these things. The albums are all about long form. Do you have a place where they can go deep on what you do? If you don't, then you need to figure it out. If you do and it's not on social media, you can get off of there. If you also have this third thing, which is the tour now, the tour, the merch, they're kind of tied in together. And what the tour and the merch is about is what is the, the economic engine? How do you keep this thing working? How do you keep it going? Where's the sales? For musicians that seem to be prospering, they figured out how to release merch in a way that makes lots of money. They figured out how to make that a big part of what they do. They figured out how to make the tour make money because they're not making money on the singles and the albums. The singles are the discovery, the albums are the going deep, the trust, like creating the relationship. And then the last piece is turning those fans into customers and doing so in such a way where it is an economic engine that fuels your whole thing. So if you, you have to have all three of those. So for me, the podcast, even before we ever did any sponsors, whatever, and sponsors and that kind of thing are only just a fraction of how I make a living. But it adds up. It helps us pay for it, gives me a something for the time. But really there was a straight line all the way to this will help me get speaking gigs, this will help me get client work. This will help me get the word out about my books. That's the tour of the Merch. So you can jump off social media 100% as long as you can answer those questions. What are my singles, what are my albums, and what is the tour? You probably know running is a big part of how I try to keep my brain sharp and creative. So I'm in that Creative Runner Venn diagram and so is Vander Jackie. Why? Because it's the only running apparel company that I've ever known of that was founded by an artist and the unique styles and creations that they make make that pretty obvious. Their unique looks are a product of their admirable and innovative approach to making each piece from dead stock leftover fabrics from larger companies and it just makes their stuff look really unique and cool. Each piece is made in Denver by the founder and a small team of brilliant clothing construction workers. It's very cool and I don't know any other company that makes the one of a kind garments like they do in these small batches. When I go for a run, I'm hoping my Vander jacket is out of the wash and ready. With its deep pockets for my airpods and the thumb holes for cozy hands. I am a big fan. So if you are looking for something special this holiday season, whether your family's gifts need to be local or handmade or one of a kind or repurposed, Vanderjacket checks every box. Head to vanderjacket.com and use code creative all caps creative for 20% off your first order. That's V A N D E R jacket.com promo code creative for 20% off your first Order One thing we talk a lot about on this show is this idea of whole self buy in. Like for me to successfully successfully pursue a goal, my mind, body and heart need to be in it or I will keep myself up at night worrying and sabotaging my own self. This is what I love about brands like Avocado Green Mattress. They know that comfort is both a physical thing. You want a comfortable mattress but also a mental thing. You want to feel good about what you bought. You want the mattress that has your back and the planet's back. Avocado has both. Both Avocado Organic Mattresses feature thousands of steel coils individually encased in fabric pockets that flex independently to reduce motion, transfer and support your body where it needs it most. But they also have the planets back the highest standards with the trusted certifications like gots, the Global Organic Textile Standard, EWG Made Safe, Oeko Tax Green Guard Gold and A B Corp. Some of the toughest certifications for safety, non toxicity, social impact and environmental responsibility. Better for you, better for the planet. They have one year sleep trials. Try before you buy easy financing. Don't let your mattress purchase keep you up at night. Head to avocadogreenmattress.com today and check out their mattress and bedding sale. Number four. Quit trying to be creative. Just, just quit. Quit trying to be creative. That's one of my goals in 2026 is to quit. Just quit. I'm gonna quit trying to be creative. And what that's all about is it comes from this notion from Ian McGilchrist in his book the Master and His Emissary. I'm gonna keep talking about that for a long time because it's such a long book and I'm listening to it on audio and I can only take on so much cause it's really dense. Very, very interesting. It's about. He's trying to get at the real science of the right hemisphere ve left hemisphere of the brain. There's tons of contention in the science community around that. Yes, the general pop psychology understanding of right and left brain people isn't really accurate, isn't really a thing. Your brain is involved, your whole brain is involved in so many aspects of what you do. Rational, emotional art, logic, all of that. He tries to really parse down what is this really all about? Why do we have these two hemispheres? What are their essential nature? How do they differ? But they're there's a lot of critique and discussion around that. However, I will say I'm noticing this right left brain thing become a bigger part of the conversation. Again, people like Jill Bolte Taylor, Martha Beck, they're talking about this thing because I think partially there is some truth in the science, but then also it's just giving us a framework to talk about these different ways that the brain works and how we end up creating stronger neural pathways in things like logic and rationality and strategy versus curiosity and wonder and creativity. So that's all I think important stuff. Anyway, what I'm talking about with this one is why you need to stop trying to be creative. And the inspiration for this came from that book. Ian McGilchrist book. And he said that it's kind of a throwaway comment in the book, but it's basically saying that he's going into how there are things we do do that we don't do on command. We can't do them on purpose. It's not like move your hand and you just do it. There are things in which the brain does that happen. We're not in control. And one of the most obvious ones of these is sleep. You cannot force yourself to sleep. You cannot try to sleep. Even in a way you have to pretend to sleep, create the environment to make sleep likely to happen. And it's called sleep hygiene. All these things. Don't use screens so much before you go to bed. Make sure it's dark, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All these different things. That's not what we're here talking about. What we're talking about is how do you make creativity happen in your brain? And creativity is also like sleep. It is a thing where it happens. You can't just say, I'm gonna go over to the creative part of my brain. And no, it's very fuzzy, it's very abstract and it's not in your control. But it is like sleep in that just because you can't control it doesn't mean you don't have influence over it. Major influence. And so instead of trying to be like, ah, time to be creative right now, instead start thinking about your creative hygiene. What does it look like when creativity shows up for you? For me, it's I'm in the bath or I am in. I'm drawn to. I like this notion that drawing isn't being creative. It's something you do that it's thinking with your hands. And it's the kind of thing that when you're doing it, like laying down for sleep, it's when creativity often happens. And so that episode we did, we did it was episode 529. And it was about Escape youe Creative Rut with this five part creative hygiene checklist list. That episode is all about things you can do to make creativity likely to happen. And so that going in 2026, that's what I want to do. I want to have what I also. What I think is essential about this is getting into your creative zone. So much of it is about letting go. It's about being out of your critical brain. It's about having fun, play. All of that requires being smushy and porous and letting stuff occur, not controlling. And so I like this shift because you're acknowledging I can't force this to happen. And often the more I try, the harder it is to go to sleep, the harder it is to be creative. And so creating good creative hygiene, I think, is really essential to getting your best ideas, to getting into the flow state. If you need to dive deeper into that, check out episode 529. All right, we're going. We're doing it. This is number five, know the twist is coming. Number five, know the twist is coming. This is how you're gonna get your creative secret weapon, how you're gonna figure out what is your edge creatively. This is about what we're calling creative salience. It was inspired, that salience. I got thinking more about that from that same Iain McGilchrist book. But also it's something I've heard Jungians talk about. Salience just means really, it's a fun way of saying importance. If it's what you focus on, what you notice, what your brain sees as important, it's really a big part of being creative is noticing things that other people don't notice and looking for those little things that are catching your curiosity. And being creative is about pulling those threads, not just ignoring those things that don't make sense. Why you're noticing them don't make sense. You can't see how this is going to lead to anything, but trusting that if your internal metal detector, creative metal detector, is beeping, that you should pull on that thing. And the reason why is because it's a lot like trying to guess a twist in a movie. So in this episode, episode 532, I tell the story of how I I'm gonna brag. I guessed the ending of the Sixth Sense the first time I saw it in theaters. If you haven't seen it, you have had your chance. I'm not going to protect you and I'm not gonna give you the whole spoiler, but there is a twist. And the reason why that's a spoiler is when you know there's a twist coming. You are so much more likely to be observant of things that are out of place, things that are unusual. You are switched on to notice that something stuff, and your life is like that if you are planning to stay on the creative journey. Why? Because every creative thing you do is a kind of twist. It's a unexpected way of things turning out, adding things together. You're doing something that is unexpected. There is a twist on your path ahead of you. If you are trying to be creative, you're going to take storytelling and you're gonna add something from ancient mythology that other people aren't thinking about. You're going to approach your illustration practice, and you're gonna put a twist on it from something from the animation world and add that into the editorial world because you're putting your own twist on it. And so the thing is, guessing the twist, that creative act, is difficult, especially if you don't know that a twist is on the horizon. The movies that get you the most with the are the ones you didn't know how to twist. And so the only reason I was bragging about, I guess, Sixth Sense, but I already knew that there was a twist. And so that gave me this edge because my cousin told me, hey, you're never gonna believe this twist. And that switched me on to look for those threads. And the same is true in your creative practice that you know that if you're gonna be creative, you have twists on the horizon. Every creative act you do is a twist. And the way that you figure out what that twist is gonna be is by noticing the things that are out of place, noticing the things that other people aren't noticing, noticing the things that you're naturally curious about, interested in those things become the creative twist. Because you pull from these other areas that nobody's pulling from. And that's what becomes interesting in the stories that you tell. That's what becomes your unique edge, your unique twist on your creative practice. And so you always have twists on the horizon. You always have to be looking out for what are the things that are piquing my interest. And that fodder becomes what's great about your work. And so if you are trying to stand out from the crowd, get above the noise, have your own thing that's different. The key to that, I think, is making sure that you are listening to your curiosity, letting it pull you in. And if you are in a place where you're like, I'm not curious right now. I'm not interested in anything, then you need to go back and finish your plate. You need to go back and think about what was the last time that I felt completely lit up about something. And then you need to go back and find the book on that, find the episode on that, find the podcast on that, whatever it is, and dive deep into it. Because that fodder, that's coming from weird places, that's what makes your work interesting. So this episode is one of our create your own create your own adventure episodes. And it's about looking over all the points. It's a listy Episode and job to put this to action. What you can do today to do something with this information is review these five and I'm gonna go over them real quick and then pick one to go listen to that episode or at least go refresh it and that is what you're gonna do. Here is the list. Number one was this or that. Yes. In its episode 502 how to Beat the analysis. Paralysis of the right path math and it's the USB episode. The next one is do the Same Thing Differently. That is episode 513. Why creatives have to build habits differently and how to do it. If you know that you need a little discipline to that creativity and that oxymoron is not working for you, go check that out. That's an ongoing battle for me, but it's a battle worth fighting. Number three is singles, albums, tour. If you need to go deep into that and really check deeper into that kind of thing, go to episode515. Want to quit social media? 3 essential considerations for any creative practice. This is important. This is a big one. If you need to figure out what are your singles gonna be, what are your albums gonna be, what are your tour gonna be be, go check that episode out. Number four, Quit trying to be creative. Just give up. It's just. It's not working. You can be creative, but you don't quit trying to be creative and instead try to create the environment in which creativity happens. Go check out episode 529. Escape your creative rut with this five part creative hygiene checklist. Who doesn't like a checklist? Baby, I love a good checklist. Okay, number four. No. Number five. Know the twist is coming. The twist is on the horizon. If you are gonna be creative, twists are in your future. That's the information you need to know that you're looking for. That extracurricular activity going on in your periphery, in your everyday pulling those threads. You wanna dive deeper onto that one. That was 5:32. This is your creative style, secret weapon that you're ignoring. And it's about how you're gonna find your edge. How are you gonna be different? It's gonna be by. You know, I. I just cut that sentence off and tangented over to this other way of saying it. Cause it's better. And it comes from an author that I've never read Murakami, but I like the sound of his books. I just never read enough fiction to really get through enough to get there. But I love this quote, he says something like if you read the same books as Everybody else, you're gonna have the same thoughts. And that gets at what I'm saying here. Pull those weird threads that are unique to you, your unique taste and interest. Because if you're reading those books, you're watching those videos, you're pulling from these different weird places, your work is gonna do stuff that nobody else's can do. Okay, y', all, I am very. I'm going to just say it. I'm really proud of this body of work. These episodes from this year, I have been more excited about making the podcast than I have in a while. I feel like we have some new, fresh energy and fire. We moved. Look, I want to let you guys know I am dedicated to the audio listeners. I'm mostly an audio listener of podcasts. Every once in a while, I will throw on a video version of a podcast, like that option for the podcast that I love. And I'm happy to give y' all that option for those of you that like to have the video in the background, that sort of thing. And making that move to YouTube was many years in the making, but it gave some new life, new possibility for this show that I am really excited about. And, you know, reviewing all of these episodes and ideas from it, I just. I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but I'm proud of it. I feel like we had a good run this year, and I hope some of these things help you. It was good for me to review those ideas. I hope that it was good for you. I'm gonna try to do these end of the year Review, Best Top 5 Favorite Albums of the year kind of episode. And so I hope you really liked it. Cause I really enjoyed it. There were other ones that I wanted to include, but we just didn't. I didn't have the time to do it. And. Yeah, I hope you really enjoyed it. Next week, we are going to have an episode, audio only with. It's actually from Catherine May's podcast. She had me on her new, updated version of her show called the Clearing. And it's going to come out on Christmas Eve. And it's appropriate because it's all about rest, relaxation in retreat. And she interviews me about my fantasy of a retreat. And I really take advantage of that idea of fantasy and that it's mostly living at Howl's moving Castle. So that's if you know what that is. So that's kind of what we're gonna do. And I'm really excited for y' all to hear it. I was very honored to be asked to be on Katherine's podcast. I just am a huge fan of all of her work. And then the following week we're gonna have off and then we're gonna be back with fresh episodes in January. I want to spend January, not hit the ground running. I like to take January and dream the whole month. I call it dream you weary. We're gonna do that. We're gonna think about how we want this to go. We're not gonna just jump. Like, I need to do this, I need to do that. Cause I always fail if I do that. So we're gonna like, we're gonna think about it. So I'll be back in the new year with that. And one other thing, thing we may in the new year, we have some cool stuff lined up around mystery and curiosity and getting into that creative spirit, the creative side of the brain. I think we could all use a little refresh on how to access that part of us in times that are hard, in times where we're feeling in survival mode, it's even harder to access that stuff. And so we're going to do that in conjunction with, with the new book that we have coming out, new picture book called Mysterious Things that Sophie Miller, my wife wrote and I co wrote with her and illustrated and that's coming out in the summer. We got a bunch of cool things and guests lined up for that. But the other piece of the new year, I want to potentially go on a little bit of a campaign to ask y' all to become supporters of the show either by supporting on Patreon or Substack. We have monthly meetings that we've been doing every month at least for a year, maybe two years now. And they have just become really great. We get together, share creative wins, things that are going well. Sometimes that's career related, often it's just creativity related, like breakthroughs in our style and our storytelling and how we're thinking about it or what we're getting ourselves to do. And then we talk about the episodes. And so if you ever feel like, man, I wish this was a dialogue, that's where that happens. So if you become a patron or a Substack supporter, you have access to those. And ultimately even if you don't and you also have access to ad free episodes, I'm very excited about that. I try to pick good advertisers for the show. However, if you want the ad free version and definitely a decent chunk of you seem to be utilizing that when you sign up to the Patreon or the Substack you get a welcome email and it will tell you how to access the ad free feed. And so I'm super pumped that we are able to offer that now and I'm gonna some point next year we're gonna do a campaign to try to raise a little bit more patronage because as we have moved to video 2026 was an experiment on that and now we're kind of locked in on that. It costs more money to do that. We also I'd like to explore having some in person interviews. I'd like to explore how we could level up the video a little bit bit and the audio, the storytelling all around. But that costs money and time and so I would love to raise the support a little bit to make that all easy and positive for everyone involved in making this show, which is a handful of folks. So if you want any of that stuff, go to patreon.com creativepeptalk or creating or sign up to the paid subscription of my substack@andyjpizza.substack.com we so appreciate it. Hope you freaking love this episode. I love doing it. Very excited for the next year of Creative Pep Talk. Thank you to Sophie Miller for being an editor and producer on the show. Thanks to Connor Jones of Pending Beautiful for the audio edits, the video edits, the sound design. I always lose one sound design animation. Yeah. Thanks to Yoni Wolf of the band Y for the theme music and the soundtrack. And thanks to all of you for listening until we speak again. Happy New Year y' all and stay pepped up. Okay, the podcast is over, so I don't know why you're still listening, but I am glad that you enjoyed it enough to stick to the end. I have one more thing for you. If you're in a place where you're feeling a lack of clarity and you want to figure out your industry, market and niche and find the perfect strategic side project to do next, go sign up to our newsletter@andyjpizza.substack.com and you will get a confirmation email that will give you the download of our Creative Career Path handbooklet. And the whole process is in there. And you might also get a few bonuses in there depending on when you sign up. But again, thanks for listening. Glad you enjoyed the episode and stay pepped up y'. All. Hi, it's Reese Gorman, congressional reporter and host of the brand new podcast on Notice. This is the new podcast from Notice the nonpartisan Newsroom covering politics and policy in Washington, dc. Each week I'll bring you real conversations with members of Congress and those who make the Hill run. And it's packed into just 30 minutes, so you can learn a lot without taking too much time out of your busy day. Join me for On Notice. That's notice spelled N o t U s available every Monday wherever you get your podcast or on YouTube.