Time - we all have a certain amount of it and juggling between work, life, relationships, and family can be a tough thing on its own. And trying to pursue a creative outlet that you one day hope to become a sustainable career that can give you the freedom you always desired is tough as well. But how much time should anyone be putting into their creative endeavors, in this episode Steven and John discuss what is the right amount of time to put into a creative talent based on someone's desired output.  Stay Updated With Our Weekly Ramp-Up Newsletter  https://rebrand.ly/hzm0xhq  Want To Keep The Conversation Going? Join Our Discord Server!  https://discord.gg/AUzsj8hNMH    Have A Question You'd Like Steven and John To Answer In A Future Newsletter or Podcast?  https://forms.gle/B3q9kJVfyjk5XdM38    Connect With Us  https://mtr.bio/slow-and-fast-podcast  00:00 - Intro 00:37 - Catch-up chat 03:56 - Overview: How Many Hours Should You Be Putting Into Your Creative Skillset? 04:06 - Book Rec: The First 20 Hours 05:06 - Premise: It Takes Roughly 20 Hours to get a handle on any new skill.  How many hours should we put in after that? 06:12 - Breakdown: How many hours we're putting into this podcast a week 12:19 - Invest your time wisely when building your skillset, and future-proof your plans so that way when life happens, you're ready. 16:25 - Hobby or profession? This will influence how much time you invest 17:33 - Consistency looks different for everyone. 22:14 - Focused work vs noodling.  Quality of time invested matters 22:27 - Book Rec: Atomic Habits 25:59 - Clarity of vision matters when it comes to deciding what you want to be great at 30:11 - Being creative sometimes means taking on additional skill sets.  Each one means an additional 20 hours of work to get onboarded. 35:02 - It's never too late to take on something new. 40:58 - Don't get stuck in the "studying" phase, you'll earn more experience in the hot seat than you ever will practicing alone. 45:39 - Book Rec: The Gap and the Gain 46:32 - How did the time you invested into youtube change when you became an employee creating content? 47:57 - Done is better than perfect, cause perfect never gets done 50:14 - Focus on what actually matters to the process.  What could you leave behind that you won't miss tomorrow? 53:22 - Wrap up 55:17 - Outro

Making a living with a regular 9-5 is difficult in and of its own, but transitioning from a full-time 9-5 to a creative owning their own business is even tougher and the hardest thing for any creative is to put a value on the output of their craft  In this episode John and Steven talk about one of the ickest topics creative try to avoid that ends up hurting their creative businesses in the long run.

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00:00:35:04 Overview: How Much Should You Charge?

00:02:33:02 Hidden Life Expenses: Taxes, Insurance, Retirement

00:05:32:20 Thinking of income from the bottom up, rather than top-down (How much do I want to make in a year)

00:08:43:11 You need to educate yourself when it comes to taxes

00:12:08:00 Our Experiences on investing in "bad" gear we didn't need

00:17:42:22 When you first started, how did you figure out your rates?

00:20:29:20 Never be known as "the cheapest in the industry"  You hurt your career and everyone else in the process

00:22:06:01 When you charge discount rates, you attract discount clients

00:25:48:08 Did you consider bills when researching what you were going to charge?

00:28:10:11 If you're working remotely, base your rates on the US market rates

00:32:05:10 Never feel bad about asking for what you're worth

00:32:57:08 Using your rates to filter out bad clients

00:35:17:10 What you do IS a commodity, be the best at it you can be so you earn your rates

00:38:56:07 Breaking down the step by step of setting your rates

00:40:36:20 Charge per project, not by the hour

0049:55:13 Wrapping up

Balancing a Full-Time Career Alongside Growing a Creative one is no easy feat and in this episode, John and Steven invited their friend Gabe Caraballo of Liminal FX to discuss how he has been able to grow a creative business from scratch while having a demanding full-time career.  

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00:00:39:05 Guest Introduction: Gabe Caraballo 00:02:37:00 What led you to sound design and post-production while maintaining a military career? 00:05:14:05 On chasing perfectionism vs just having fun 00:06:40:02 What was your audio journey like before joining the military 00:07:41:13 Pro-level results don't result from hobby-level productivity 00:08:50:02 Were you ever discouraged from pursuing audio? 00:10:00:07 At what point did you feel this was turning into a career? 00:11:59:09 At what point did you decide to move on from a "band member" role to purely sound design? 00:16:21:16 What was your first client experience after moving into sound design? 00:17:20:10 How did your clientele shift? From bands to producers 00:19:16:14 It's always going to be better for you to work with a single voice with a vision rather than trying to please the entire band 00:20:16:13 Protect your mental health when working with artists/creatives that display red flags 00:23:12:18 Gabe on Organized Chaos vs Hard Systems 00:24:15:00 The importance of routines 00:25:50:09 Sleep routines 00:28:02:00 Gabe's work on a sound design plugin and how he got that opportunity 00:29:02:05 Sound design terminology 00:29:29:21 Sound design in working with a producer vs plugin production 00:30:34:14 Technical vs Creative work 00:31:39:13 On working with Joey Sturgis Tones creating the Post Production Chaos Packs 00:33:39:21 Notable bands Gabe's worked with recently 00:34:08:16 Gabe's business is strictly word-of-mouth advertising 00:35:59:18 You need great communication skills to stand out from the crowd 00:39:29:18 Sound design is something anyone can do, but you have to be dedicated and creative 00:41:40:15 Every job is a calculated risk and you have to ask yourself some questions at the start of every job 00:43:25:15 Using your "dream board" or vision to filter out all your decisions in business 00:46:23:07 Working with friends and keeping things professional 00:53:43:20 Using our own intrinsic strengths to bring value to our mutual business ventures 00:55:01:17 The importance of watching out for those in your network 01:00:37:18 How to approach people in conversation while being completely genuine 01:04:05:18 Don't be a punisher 01:06:46:16 When looking for an internship(or networking relationship) you gotta ask yourself the right questions 01:08:01:02 How do you balance your life between sound design and a military career? 01:11:47:10 Wrap up

We've all heard the expression the glass is half full or half empty. For a creative, it can seem at times the glass is always half empty from where we see things. In this episode, Steven and John discuss perspective over perception and how it can be the ultimate villain in our own lives.

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Episode Overview: 

00:01:00 Changing Perspective

00:01:59 Creatives can be our own worst bosses

00:04:32 Comparison is the thief of joy

00:09:35 Spend too much time comparing yourself to others and trying to take their path and you won't find your own

00:10:53 Book Reference: The Gap and the Gain

00:11:13 Brenden Fraser on having a better outlook on negative situations(Batgirl Cancellation)

00:13:42 You know what you can handle because you've already been through it

00:15:21 Talking about how different the podcast would have been had we started it without our perspective changes over the last year

00:19:02 John's moment when he realized his perspective had changed regarding work and hustle culture

00:24:26 Having less but having more happiness as a result

00:24:46 Quantifying success

00:26:34 Steven's moment when he realized his perspective changed regarding work goals and motivations

00:30:58 John's self-talk regarding building his own business

00:34:27 Big perspective shift: It's a marathon, not a race

00:35:33 If you're sprinting through your work trying to get everything done, is it actually serving the end user?

00:38:32 Steve's improvement with self-talk and being hard on himself mentally

00:44:41 You're not alone in your struggles with your inner voice being negative

Burnout sucks and is unfortunately something many creators face just like we did all of 2022. In this episode Steven and I catch up to talk about what we learned from our year of burnout recovery and the changes we are making heading into 2023, as well as what we are excited for!

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00:00:45:23 - Reflecting on the past 10 months

00:03:57:02 - Takeaway from this year - Learning how to not "Be on" all the time

00:05:18:09 - Restrospective look at John's Youtube journey this year

00:07:44:19 - Reference: E-Myth Revisited

00:09:50:10 - Take time to unlearn FOMO habits, your audience will always find you

00:12:39:10 - Building a new identity once the old one has no more use or relevancy

00:18:05:23 - Talking about some of the challenges of building our own vision after having worked in service to other people's visions.

00:21:53:12 - Steven's challenges: Option paralysis, finding content that satisfies the needs of the consumer and himself

00:24:18:21 - John's Challenges: Systems building and finding his team

00:30:05:10 - On building this podcast: our approach and attitude that's allowed it to be successful to our standards of quality and workload

00:32:27:07 - You have to take initiative in certain situations - shit has to get done

00:34:50:10 - You can't expect perfection on the first try

00:39:26:01 - "I don't know what I don't know" - The key to success and improvement is self-awareness

00:40:54:00 - John's struggle with overanalyzing minutiae

00:45:29:05 - Real entrepreneurs prioritize jobs they actually WANT to take part in, not just say yes to everything possible.

00:48:47:20 - Steven's Struggles Throughout 2021

00:53:24:07 - Talking about our optimism for 2023 and our future with the podcast

01:02:00:08 - The change of mindset between hobby to business

01:02:57:22 - Personal, creative, and business goals for 2023

In this episode, Steven and John discuss the books they read in 2022 that left a big impact on them and why they enjoyed these reads.   Stay Updated With Our Weekly Ramp-Up Newsletter  https://rebrand.ly/hzm0xhq  Want To Keep The Conversation Going? Join Our Discord Server!  https://discord.gg/AUzsj8hNMH    Have A Question You'd Like Steven and John To Answer In A Future Newsletter or Podcast?  https://forms.gle/B3q9kJVfyjk5XdM38    Connect With Us  https://mtr.bio/slow-and-fast-podcast

In this episode, Steven and Jon talk about the importance of balancing having creative friends and friends that are not creative with different interests and how they've found and nurtured these important relationships.  Stay Updated With Our Weekly Ramp-Up Newsletter  https://rebrand.ly/hzm0xhq  Want To Keep The Conversation Going? Join Our Discord Server!  https://discord.gg/AUzsj8hNMH    Have A Question You'd Like Steven and John To Answer In A Future Newsletter or Podcast?  https://forms.gle/B3q9kJVfyjk5XdM38    Connect With Us  https://mtr.bio/slow-and-fast-podcast

In this episode, Steven and John talk about the idea of spending money to make money is always taken out of context and does more harm than good, especially for creatives.   

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As Creatives Steven and John started out as musicians only wanting to have fun with their passion. Eventually, this led to spending time in studios and realizing they could probably do a better job than the person recording was a segue into their audio and video careers. Neither of them thought about their creative callings being something they could one day turn into a profitable business. In this episode, Steven and John discuss a book they wish they would have had a decade ago when they began their creative full-time journeys.

This is Part 2 of a 2 Part Series.  

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Here's a glance at the episode...

[00:00] Opening

[00:29] Intro

[00:48] Episode Overview

[02:43] 4 Laws of Creating a Good Habit - Overview

[05:08] Using 4 Laws to Build Systems for John's YouTube Channel

[15:33] Using 4 Laws to Building Good Habits for Steven's Project Management System

[17:08] "Make it Easy" - Writing/Recording Templates 00:24:57 Using the Inverse of the 4 Laws to Break a Habit - Overview

[25:47] Breaking Bad Phone Habits

[27:02] Breaking Bad Social Media Habits

[33:09] Habit Stacking Technique

[35:05] Creating a Writing Habit

[36:41] Making Writing Easy with Online Tools

[40:37] Habit Stacking for Mixing

[43:29] Wrap up

[44:19] Making the Exercise Bike Attractive with Anime

[47:03] Wrap up