Annihilating Fear So You Can Step Into Your True Power As A Creative | With James Victore

[00:00:00] Welcome to the six figure creative podcast. I am your host Brian Hood. And if this is your first time joining us today. Welcome. Thank you for listening. This show is all about how to take your creativity and how to turn it into an actual business typically through freelancing.

If you are joining us again, after listening to us before, thank you for coming back again. Today's episode is uh, what I would consider a rare treat. And the reason I say that is because our guest today, James, Victoria is someone that I've never had a chance to talk with someone like this before he is a designer.

He's an artist. He is a coach. He's a keynote speaker. That's spoken to some very large corporations. And some of the design clients are Adobe, Mel Chimp time magazine, Esquire magazine, the New York times, the city of New York. You may have heard of that before, but the cool thing is, he's had his, his work actually exhibited at the museum of modern.

In New York city twice and even cooler than that, at least to me, I, I maybe I'm impressed by stuff that shouldn't be impressed by, but this sounds incredibly impressive to me is he has permanent collections in the loof in Paris. And I don't know about you, but I've never gotten the chance to speak to someone [00:01:00] before today that has their work displayed in the loop, which I've been to twice now.

And I thoroughly enjoyed my experiences there. So today's episode, we got to talk about something that I think is rampant in our community as creatives. Especially creatives who are trying to monetize our creativity. And this is something that I think is James' superpower and the reason he was able to accomplish all these things, working with these big name clients, having his work displayed in places like the Lou, he was able to accomplish this because he overcame the thing that holds us back more than anything.

And that is fear. Before you turn this podcast off before you run away. I promise you, this is something you need to hear. Even myself listening to, to James talk today. I'm thinking through the things that I'm letting get in my own way, because no matter how successful you get, you're still going to be always dealing with the fear element, no matter where you are in your career.

Even James talks about. Even today, working on a new book that he has he is dealing with the fear Gring on the shoulder, trying to tell him what to write and what not to write. So this is something that we, we never solve. We only resolve for the time being, and this episode, we talk [00:02:00] about fear of self-worth, which again, this, this is pretty much every freelancer, every creative has some sort of fear around self- which leads to bad pricing.

It leads to taking on clients, you shouldn't take on all sorts of things. We talk about self doubt. We talk about perfectionism, which is my personal demo. We talk about procrastination. We also talk about a lot of other things, but these are the core of, I think the things that ruin so many creatives, especially those who are trying to monetize their creativity.

and James has done a wonderful job of helping, not just us, but a lot of people through his, book called stick with me here, The book is called fact perfection. I Which is a wonderful title. entire book is about addressing these core issues that we have as creatives and how to be a brave, courageous, creative.

So without any more uh, delay here, here is my interview with James Victoria. James, thank you so much for coming on the show, Anne.

it's a pleasure to be here, Brian. I am happy to be here. And uh, thank

reason we wanted to have it on the show is Is because I know our audience. Well after 209 episodes, you're our 210th. one of our biggest, I dunno what you would call it. [00:03:00] It's our own like version of a pandemic. our own plague going through our community as

creatives. And that is

this pandemic of fear. we have his creatives so much fear cosing through our veins and it is absolutely wrecking our businesses cuz we're a business focused podcast. I say it all the time in this podcast, there's no difference between us as human beings and all the baggage we have along with that.

And the, things that we create in our businesses. So if you can't get your personal life right, and deal with all the fear and the baggage, that's surrounded with that. There's no way to have a successful business as a freelancer or as any kind of creative. So you have on your website, in, for your books, we'll talk about or your main book that we'll talk about in upcoming books.

You say that your mission in life is to help creatives. Teaching them how to overcome creative challenges and gain creative courage. And your book is called fact perfection, which is one of my all time favorite book titles I've ever had. You have it on the screen right now, if you're watching the YouTube version of this so you've written the book on this.

Like you have written the book, the core of this book, I think, is helping overcoming [00:04:00] fear and giving creative courage. So I'd love to start just by getting the reasoning behind. It's probably the same reasoning that I wanted to have you on the show, but the reason behind the book in general, like why write a book about overcoming fear as a creative

so the first part of writing a book, isn't writing a book, people are like, how do I write a book? Where do I get an agent? What about a publisher? I'm like, whoa, whoa, hang on there. So the first part of writing a book, isn't writing a book.

It's collecting a book and most people are collecting a book and they don't even know it. You know, they got a drawer full of They got a, those notebooks full of notes. And I have a notebook around here somewhere. Big, big black hardbound notebook that I had for years. And on the spine I had just written in a white pan.

I had written everything. Because it was everything I had, it was everything. I, it was all these thoughts. It was all, it was something from Churchill. It was all these things that I'd collected or I wrote in it, or, and I might as well have just like kept it for myself pulled out the good stuff and spiral bound that, and just read that to my myself [00:05:00] every morning. But I woke up one day and I thought, well, you know, if I need this information, maybe somebody else needs it. So I basically took that, all that stuff and put it into, I first put it into a talk. And at one of my talks and editor from Chronicle books came up to me and said, I think you have a book about inspiration for entrepreneurs in you.

And I said, I have been constipated for two years with a book about inspiration for entrepreneurs. So please help

me. And they just paved the way

and helped me, you know, basically go through, I went through

everything and turned it into fact perfection. And in real, in

doing it one, I learned out, I learned that I was a

perfectionist and I didn't know it. And two, yes, there is an overarching addressing of fear in the book.

perfection is my, is the way fear shows up for me because perfectionism is to me, just a mask of fear. And it's afraid to put something down in the world until it's perfect. Which again, there is no such thing as perfection, so, perfection, right?

Yeah, it's a, it's a myth.

Yeah. everybody has their version of, of [00:06:00] fear for some it's self worth. So they don't know how to price. they don't know how to talk about money. They don't have how to, how to acts for more. They don't know how to uh, set a price for their work.

They don't know how to talk about money for some it's self doubt, For some it is uh, perfectionism for some it's perfectionisms ugly sister. procrastination. Right? Sorry about the ugly sister thing. That was really, that was just dumb but ugly brother doesn't work. fear has got like all kinds of different ways that it presents itself and there may be somebody out there going, oh yeah, I've got self worth.

Oh yeah. The self doubt. Oh yeah. Perfectionism. Oh yeah. Procrastination. But the thing is, and what I try to do when I work with people, whether they're, whether they're, whether they're hopefully reading the book or whether they're working with me one on one, or they come to camp Victoria or whatever is just, just to the best thing I can do is just to, just to give 'em a bunch of tools and give 'em a bunch of ways to a mindset, literally resetting the mind, give 'em a new mindset to understand that [00:07:00] fear is a lie.

That's the thing, the fear is a lie. And the reason we have that fear, if you want to go back to the neurology of it, is that when you were born, when we were born, we are so perfect and full of energy and full of love and full of play

and full of potential. And then we're given parents. and then we're given school and then we're given shithead 10 year old friends who don't know their ass in their elbow.

And then we're given, you know, sit in rank and file, and then we're given rules and then we're given society and then we're given this piece of Right.

He's holding up a phone for, if you're listening on the podcast and can't

see, he's just holding up a phone.

so what happens is we are born beautiful and I mean the first lines affect perfection. Say we are all born wildly creative and some of us just forgot. Yeah. And the reason we forget the reason we give it away, the reason we sell our dreams is because that's the way [00:08:00] society works best.

best way to put it comes from Carl Young. And he says, unless we make our subconscious. Conscious meaning, when fear comes up, you have to understand that those are pre-recorded voices.

That is somebody else that is your parents wanting you to be safe, but not successful. that's why they say, well, you should, maybe you, you know, the creative thing is okay, but maybe you should be an accountant first. Right. That's fucking bullshit. those pre-recorded voices embed that fear in our subconscious.

So you might still go to art school, but it ain't gonna happen because you haven't dealt with that. So what we do unless we make our subconscious conscious, and that means when we feel that fear in our gut, when we hear those voices in our head, pull them out, stop, take a breath, pull 'em out, look at them in your hands.

Like scared little bird that they are and say, I see you. I know where you came from. I know who you are. You're the stupid ass uncle who said, nobody makes a living [00:09:00] writing poetry. Hey uncle, did you ever try, how many letters did you submit? How many times did you get turned down or did you just pull that out of your ass?

Cause you don't know shit. Right? So that's how the prerecorded voices are formed. And unless we question them, unless we see them. and let them go. We're gonna suffer from that. so Carl Young says, unless we make our, until we make our subconscious conscious,

they will rule our lives. we will call it fate. Well, it's just who I am. It's like people who are like, fear comes up in a bunch of different ways. And my favorites are when people say, oh yeah, I'm not very good at parties. What does that mean? That's the dumbest thing I ever, who doesn't like to go to a party.

That's the dumbest thing ever? No, I don't, you know, I don't like you and you know, it's like the shyness or people who say, you know, I'm an introvert or somebody I was talking to the other day, they said, this was like a peer of mine. This was a guy who's like corporate CEO.

Right. Saying, well, I'm kind of an introvert, but you know, at certain times I can be [00:10:00] an extrovert. So I realize there's this thing called the ambivert. And that's what I am I'm like, you mean you're normal? You mean you're human. Why do you have to label it? I'm an

introvert. I'm and I'm an extrover like, can't you just be E

cuz what he's done is he's taken those subconscious voices and he's made them conscious, but then he labeled them as right.

He hasn't gotten rid of 'em. He just labeled them as right. So he's still carrying that fear

and still, as, you know, as a 50 year old adult, still going to therapy for it.

So he is categorized them and because he's, he knows the name for it. He's justified. That's just how I am instead of actually addressing the issue.

That's the thing, what's the thing. That's what we do with our fear we learn to love our limitations and I call it in my new book. Um, In my new book, I'm writing the follow up defect perfection in my new book. It's a whole thing. It's called cruising pain. So I live in, I don't know about you. I live in this uh, relatively small Texas town and every once in a while I'm walking, I'm in the grocery store and I'm like, I look around and I'm [00:11:00] like, I, I just wanna get on the megaphone.

And I'm like, or, you know, the, the, the, the, you know, clean up an aisle, 10 thing and say, is everybody in this town hobbled in some way?

everybody limps or walks hunched over or has some, disability, three years ago now I had a really bad dirt bike accident and I broke my right collarbone and all of my ribs on the right side.

It was horrible. And you can't do anything about that except let it fricking heal. Right. And it took forever. And what happened was my body got all wonky. Like the, my right arm hung longer than my left. My muscles, all AED, all this weirdness and I was active on the road speaking because it was just before quarantine.

I was active on the road speaking and I would be up there and I would talk, I couldn't like pour a jug of water because it hurt so bad. And the talk was, listen, I am not gonna get used to this. But we [00:12:00] do. We accept those limitations. We accept our cruising pain.

Then we just live in that instead of doing the work and getting over it. So now I've been, you know, I, I took myself to the gym. I'm like made myself completely symmetrical and bulk ass and boas stronger. That I was prior to that because I'm not gonna let my limitations or my fears or anything get in the way of me

a strong dad, me being a strong partner to beautiful woman, you know, or me being able to get up at, you know, four o'clock in the morning.

So I can write this new book. And I was out at four o'clock this morning writing the new book and, the

critic up popped my parents up popped, the voices are still there. You're not gonna get rid of the fear, but you get better at dealing with them.

Yeah. So, I mean, there's so much to unpack in that because I have stories on my own that, mirror, what you have found true. and what is absolutely true. One of the things you, you, you talk about cruising pain

[00:13:00] And this reminds me of a trip. I had to Texas with a friend of mine, and we stayed at his parents'

house in Dallas. while we were there, we just

ate whatever they had around the house. And it was like really unhealthy junk food. And we just

felt like absolute the entire time. And me and my friend, Brandon, who actually Brandon's actually been on this podcast a couple times, me and Brandon looked at each other and we were like, this is just how people like this feel all the time.

This is just their normal. this is their cruising pain, I guess, is what you would say. And they just get used to it. And there's no, no difference, but me and Brandon here in Nashville, we eat healthier. We eat mostly organic. We eat the right macronutrients and the right micronutrients.

And we, we know that we should feel the, a certain way. And because we have felt the good way before we know how. Bad the normal way feels to other people. So how do we, how do we start to spot that? I think it goes back to what you said, where you need to make the subconscious conscious. How do we do that?

Because if you've never felt normal, how do you know that you are, abnormal right now? Like how do you know that that fear is a lie? How do you know that these things are just the stories that where subconsciously trained to [00:14:00] think because of the trauma we had as children or as young adults and not actually something that is true.

Yeah, and it doesn't even have to be like, trauma is a, is a subtle thing. It doesn't have to be like, you were, you were beat as a child or, you know, abused, or it was a car accident or whatever, it's just this subtle thing I have a perfectly normal childhood, but I can see in there, the teasing.

you know, I can see in there where the lack of self-worth comes from. Again, the grocery store, I'm like everything. The person in front of us is buying is white. Whole milk, white bread, you know, white boxes and cans, not a green vegetable.

nothing gluten free, just like, you know, sodas, all that stuff. And I'm like, oh my God, that is so unhealthy. And I think most people don't even understand that. Like I follow people you know, on Twitter and Instagram and stuff, and like people who are 30 or 40 and they're like, oh, and I wake up and I'm like, oh, I'll sort, I'm like, I'm like 60 and I [00:15:00] pop outta bed hungry and horny.

Ready to go, gimme a break. What are you doing? It's like, I had this doctor back in Brooklyn and I, you know, we would have these very honest talk. He was a holistic doctor. So he was, he was really fascinated. He was like interested in my habits like, you know, Hey, how's the guitar going?

And how's, you know, hobbies and stuff, you know? I used to say, you know, I see some of the people in the waiting. And when they come into your office, I feel like if I took my truck to my mechanic and I had let it go to and I'd put all this stupid stuff on it, he would be like, why is that there?

what are you putting in this thing? why are your tires flat? Why did you put too big of a, this on it? why do you have a snowplow in Texas? You know what I mean? But that's what most people do with their bodies and they don't even know it, but they feel bad.

And creatively It's easy to. Your trauma. It's, easy to know that cruising pain, because you know, you feel it all the time. You're like, well, this is, this is what I really love, but I better not send it because, or I better, this is what I love, but I better send three things.

people, when people ask me, Hey, can we see [00:16:00] options? I said, what do you mean? They said, well, can you send it three things? I said, are you gonna pay me three times? because I can do this all day. I can send you 150 things and they'll all be pretty good, but you gotta pay me three times.

I'll do three things. it's like, why can't we stand our ground? Why can't we have autonomy and own our if you go to a restaurant, I mean, it's a classic thing and you order the chicken and it

doesn't look good. what do you do?

I'm sorry, that doesn't look

good. Can we try again? Can we try another option? Like no, nobody does that except us.

or when you're, you know, pricing

something out or you're afraid to say a high number, It's easy

to spot. It's not easy to fix because it's fear, you know, it's long bread inside of us.

So if we're, if we're looking at you listed out four different major fears and they manifest themselves in a bunch of different ways. You said fear of self-worth, which can affect how you price yourself, how you value, what you do. In any number of ways you said fear of self-worth. Self doubt is another huge one.

Perfectionism, which is my personal uh, demon and [00:17:00] procrastination, which can be my demon occasionally, but not lately. Again, these kind of go back to those, things that happened to us as young children or not even young children, sometimes it's young adults

Mo you know, all those, things that you listed, you can get, those are your

first job. You can get those from a bad boss. I know people who

have one stinky

boss, and there are many, I freaking know a million of them, and there are a lot of bad bosses out there. And, you know, you get one bad boss and he can, he can pee in your pool for uh, you know, the next 20 years.

So it's one thing to spot these, cuz I think most people are not gonna have a big issue of like understanding, oh, I fear I, I have low self worth or I have self-doubt or I have perfectionism, I have procrastination. So that's the easy part. The hard part is now figuring out what's the path to go from.

These things are ruling my life. they're in the driver's seat of, my life in my

business. Now how do we get them the hell outta here so that we can actually start to. Start to, to be better people to work from a place, not from fear, but of what could be created, cuz like I love how you said we're all born creative.

Some of us just forget. And so I, I [00:18:00] feel like the ones who forgot are the ones who let the, fear drive us our entire lives to safety, which is to me, safety is the complete antithesis of creativity.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah,

You know, it's funny. I had a, I got a guy David who came to camp Victoria a couple years ago and he was a university instructor. he ran a creative department for university and after camp, he said, you know, I came thinking I was gonna become um, better at teaching creativity, like tools and, you know, brushes.

And I was learned some, you know, he said, I realized, that I couldn't even begin to do that. Until I learned to become a better person. Cause that's what it is to like, even if I taught you awesome Photoshop skills and how to use a Sumy brush and you know, like you still can't, do better work because you can't present better work because you can't talk about better work because you can't set the expectations for the client because you can't ask for the money that you now deserve you. Can't You're still coming from a hobbled place.

Right. So yeah, that's the funny thing [00:19:00] is like, once you see it, once you understand it, then you need, then you need to go to the next level. And the next level is something so incredibly. But so incredibly hard. And it's called self love. you have to learn that like, oh my God. I was born so smart and talented, and I love what I do.

And I can see past the client and see into the audience. that's how I talk to, you know, weird clients. I'm like, I see what you want, but I know your audience and I know what they want. And they want to hear from an honest, true voice. they want someone real to share their experience with them.

You know, that's one of the reasons why I don't really do client based work anymore because I can't find brave, interesting clients that want to do that. You know, I'm a race horse, you wanna change the world, hire me. But what most people do with a race horse is want it to pull an apple cart.

I'm like, nah, Next , you [00:20:00] and so, you know, we have to learn how to love and appreciate who we are and what we do, what we're capable of and understand, understand that that gift was put inside of us for a reason. So we should make it pay rent, right? We should, we should make it, make it do its job doing its job doesn't mean getting paid to, you know, punch in on time and do a, a, a high level of mediocre work when, you know, in your

heart, that you're capable of more.

And that's where the soul sucking comes from. People talk about soul sucking jobs. That's where it comes from when, you know, in your heart that you're like, I'm just passing time here. I'm not adding to anything. I'm not contributing to society. I'm not really doing anything because I know that I there's something inside of me.

Yeah. So I think one of the, the reasons this can happen, or one of the, one of the things holding people back from

this honestly, is that they are not being true to who they are.

They're they're trying to live a

life that makes someone else happy instead of. Themselves happy. this is actually getting into your book, which is fact perfection.

Again, love saying that so much. I don't know if my audio

editors are gonna bleep any of that out or

[00:21:00] not Who knows? Good luck Leland on figuring that out, Um, But you, you talk about um, in your book fitting in versus being weird. Let's just talk about the mindset of trying to fit in versus just allowing yourself to be different.

Oh, well fit in. I mean, just the words themselves, I mean, what does that feel like? You know, it's like fitting into an ill fitting suit, fitting into a, cubicle, a box. With great carpeting and fluorescent lighting, it's conforming. It's, contorting. it's bending yourself at to someone's else's preconceived notion of what creativity is.

Right. So fitting in is bullshit. fitting in is, you know, normal. And my, heart hurts for humanity because I know that that's what most people, kind of one they want just, cuz it's easier. I mean, I wish I wasn't James Victoria. I wish I could accept, you know, 20 pounds of gut weight and uh, you know, a job that I kind of at an insurance company that I show up to when I get to go home from.

And not think about, have a regular paycheck. I can take my, kids to a water park on a weekend, you know, like[00:22:00] that'd be cool. But yeah, no fitting in uh, shows lack of character. really and lack of self love. it's easy. it's what we're taught to do.

And it's

what society wants us to do, because it makes society work better. You know, every once in a while someone says, yeah, but James, but like, what if everybody was artists, what would the world be like, then? I'm like, you know what? Let's give that a show. Let's try that. Who knows?

Couldn't be any worse than it is now. Could it buddy?

I think you're right there. So this is all part of in your book. This is all part of finding your

voice. And if the audience is listening or watching on YouTube right now, like they probably have a pretty good feel

that like you're being no, no one other than James

Victoria right now, you're not, trying to be someone

else. You are generally being who you are because you have

found your voice. Talk about like some of the other things you have

that you say this is I would rather be myself a hundred percent all the time than to try to pretend to be someone else. Like you, you have opinions. You're a very strongly opinionated person, but a lot of people are afraid to ever talk about their opinions.

They're afraid to ever ruffle feathers. And I'm sure[00:23:00] if you haven't already, you will probably say something on this show that might offend

people

If I haven't already, a couple things there. Um, One is I have had a great career and I'm having a great career and it's getting better. But I bust my home, you know, and like I said, I'm out, I'm out early in the morning. Working and cuz I'm a hungry horny guy and I would rather, even if sometimes the bank gets lean, you know, we keep charging forward, but you know, sometimes the bank might get lean.

Right. And it's like, I would rather have my kids. See me humping and proud and happy doing this. then me coming home and complaining every night about, you know, my work or not taught, not ever, like we don't know what our daddy does. Right. My kids, they know what I do and, and there's a number of spots in this town where my work is up in restaurants or in places.

And then they know it, they see it, or you go to someone's house and they there's a, you know, a print of mine. And they're like the. daddy that's you? I'm like, yeah. that's me. the, the other part of that is, you know, for, for your [00:24:00] listeners, if there's someone out there, and I know there is who's saying, well, you know, that's good for you.

You're James Victoria. No, man. No, I was like this when I first started. I no, I, when I very, very first started, I first started working when I was 20 or 21, I think. And I towed the line. I did what I, I did what I made work look like work. I made the obvious look obvious, sir. Made a book, jacket, look like a book jacket.

Right. Until I was like, Hey, wait a minute. I have my own sense of humor in my own. I was there. I was probably like 26, 27 I'm making a lot of bread. Cuz I'm towing the line and then all of a sudden I'm like, wait, I've got my own opinions. I got my own, my own things.

I want to see in my work. And I started employing that with my clients and bunch of clients dropped me because they wanted to expect something very particular. And I wasn't interested in. so I have always been James Victoria. I've always tried to do this. I have always tried to put my opinion in my work.

I have always tried to, to put [00:25:00] a level of artistry in my work because I know that the

audience digs that. And I D I just dig it. I like playing. I wanna feel like I got away with something I think it's okay. You know, I want to be a creative monster because I can control that monster.

in a, an interview I, I was listening to earlier. You said

that when you're, when you're creating art, you actually

start with, you start with, what do you wanna say? before you start worrying about how you're gonna do it or what the technique is gonna be. But talk about that a little bit.

Cause I think that's a big

part of, finding your own voice and, and whether you're doing design or

photography, videography, you're doing music. You can still take the same approach to what you

create, but it's all

starting with, what do you wanna say?

the, I remember, I remember when I, when I was first starting out, like one of the, one of the first Batman movies, I forget who played Batman, Michael Keaton maybe, but um, Jack Nicholson played the joker.

Like a terrible movie, right? the newer ones are, are a little bit more into the Christian bail stuff is awesome.

But I remember with the joker, when he first, he got, he got thrown into the, the VA, [00:26:00] right. And he's disfigured, and you don't see him for a bit. and then the camera goes into this big, expensive office, and there's the back of a chair. And you hear the voice. Of the joker and all of a sudden, the joker kind of spins around and he's got that hideous smile.

And he says, wait, till they get a load of this. That's where I want to go. That's where I want to go with my work whenever I'm, you know, I come up with like someone I get a job or this or that. I'm like, where do I stand on this? What's my opinion, not what do the client want?

What do they want? I have no idea what they want. They want me. That's freedom. and I know, I know Bryan. I know there's, there are people in your audience who are like, you're just like an anarchist I'm like, no, you're, you're, sucking off the tee. Come on. There's so much more available to you.

I wanna enjoy the process. I wanna enjoy the work I make. I wanna make art. I wanna make good, interesting creative work. and I get away with it. that's who I am now. Now, now I [00:27:00] get asked to be that thing. Right. So that's very fulfilling

to me, even like writing fact perfection, I'm writing, I'm writing bits of the new one.

Even the, one of the chapters is called cruising pain. And I'm like, man, This is fun, writing this stuff or making up words, I just make up words and the publisher goes and okay. That's yep. you know you had mentioned it earlier. Yes. I want to make myself happy first because I know that if I make myself happy, if I make work that makes me chuckle,

then I know that I can make the work pregnant with that. And it will go out into the world and make other people happy.

I think the root of it all is you're not afraid to. Potentially fail. Like would imagine that every single piece of art you put outta the world is not a smashing success and not hanging up in the Louv

right now. I think that some of the work you do is

on a shelf somewhere unused or not

accepted by the client. And you said in your book To fail more because that's how you're gonna learn

best. I think this is the mantra that more and [00:28:00] more creatives should take on. And I think it's worth you talking about that because you've probably experienced the best of both worlds and, being open to fail and being willing to fail leads to the success and the, the creating great art that you have been able to create so far.

Yeah, I think, I think being open to fail, you know, I mean, the what's the worst, worst thing that happen. If you send in work that, that someone doesn't like, they're just gonna ask you to, you know, try something else is fine. Right. But you have to risk that you have to take that risk because the only way to success of any kind is through.

You know, if you don't take those chances and if you're not making risky work, like if I don't, make myself nervous, what I'm sending work in, and if I don't make my client nervous, then I'm not doing my job. If I'm not pushing. I'm not doing my job, you know, I'm just like, giving something to somebody they already expect, like off a menu where one from column a, with an appetizer, boom, there you go.

Right. Not interesting. But yet you have to risk, failure. In my new book, it's called uh, drawing fire. Right. You stick your [00:29:00] head up out of the foxhole. you need to do that.

You need to draw fire for your, not, not only for yourself, but for other people. Like one of the reasons why I take risks and why I write about it and why I put it in books and stuff is to free other people. I'm like, Moses with a Sharpie for creative people.

Right. I wanna set my people free. But the reason we, take these chances. Is, so we realize that we won't die you won't die. You'll just get better. And the client isn't right. Even if they don't like it. That's so what move on that is obviously

not your client. the worst that can happen is kind of nothing. I'm like, Hey, that's pretty awesome. You should just send that now to the client.

Oh, but it's not really per no, no, no, no, no. Because you're gonna, what you're gonna be up until three o'clock in the morning, noodling all these little, but nobody cares us. Nobody sees that, but you, so just send it out the door, get some sleep, make yourself happy. um, Because, Nothing's gonna happen, so many of us are so afraid of, we have to [00:30:00] please the client, but what happens is that is not our client. And we never define who our client is. And I work with a lot of freelance people to get them to understand that the audience.

And how to find their audience and the way you find your audience is you

take risks. You do bold,

audacious work, and people will say, well, but I'll get haters. And, but by people won't like it I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Those are not your people. Those, the ones that leave the ones that hate ignore them.

They're not your people. Your people will show up. Might be three of 'em now, but it's gonna be 10 of 'em and there's gonna be a hundred of 'em then it's gonna be thousands of 'em.

I would say in most cases, if you don't have haters, you're probably not doing anything worth a damn.

and those who are vocal are basically people who just wanna spout off people who are jealous, that you're doing something and people who do less than

you so why do we worry about that? I don't even know if I have

haters I don't think, you know, And it's weird because I kind of put myself out there and I don't know if that, because of my reputation of putting things out there, people

just don't know where to [00:31:00] jump in and hate.

said, you said you just launched a TikTok, So it's only a matter of time before

you

get,

you go.

haters on there. It's only a matter of time.

They're they're waiting in line to call me out.

Now I'm gonna be on TikTok, like dancing and pointing at boxes

and the boxes are gonna say, this is bullshit.

So this is great, man. I I've really uh, enjoyed our conversation about this. And um, if you have a, a second or a few more minutes, I'd love for you to tell us about the upcoming book you have coming out and maybe some of the concepts and things that you're gonna be writing about in that book.

So fact perfection was called uh, the subtitle is dangerous ideas on the business of life. And it's just that ideas and it's kind of like a, a creative mindset, there's, like five different sections and the sections are.

Loosely set up to follow the arc of the hero, the Joseph Campbell model. Right? finding your voice and then when you do find your voice, you have to practice it and there comes fear. That's the second part. And then the third part start. Because all beginnings are hard, starting [00:32:00] is hard.

And then action, because I'm an action guy, you know, action. Action. Action, action, beats worry, action beats too much thinking, action always wins. And then habits, cuz we have to be conscious of our habits our habits form our character and form our destiny and fear. and self worth procrastination.

Those are just habits they're lies. And then the last chapter is uh, purpose. So finding your purpose. So the new book this came out before quarantine, but since quarantine I've been teaching a bunch of courses and I've become kind of the how-to guy for these ideas. Like James, I have fear, what do I do?

Or James, I want to find my purpose. What do I do, James? I'm searching for my voice. What do I do? So now the next book, and we don't know the title just yet. It possibly, there were a couple things that I was playing with. One is um, your work is a gift. The other one is uh, there ain't no rules.

And you also, you joked before the call. You're just gonna call it fact perfection too,

because you're never gonna find a perfect title.

cuz I'm searching for perfection again. Right. And fact perfection is, is the best and worst title [00:33:00] ever. you know, I spell it wrong. People say it wrong. But so it's, a much more practical look at these ideas.

Like how do I do that? So like cruising pain, for example, like understanding that we do walk around creatively limping, Not really fully using our, using our resources because you know, out of fear, it's this habit that we've created. So yeah, I think the practical aspect is a big part of it.

It will still be beautiful. It will still be illustrated. It will still be, you know, audacious and, kind of uh, bold, because that's, the fun part.

Exactly. So I think our audience loved this conversation and hopefully as much as I did. And uh, where do you wanna send our audience to connect with you or to learn more about you or actually, I know you have camp Victoria coming up in November as well. Do you wanna talk about that and send them where they can find out more information about that?

Yeah, I, everything is on uh, James victoria.com. the book is on there and the camp is on there and there's a, a link for art and prints. And then if they wanted to see where I'm [00:34:00] practicing all, you know, like putting out new ideas and putting out new work is generally uh, through Instagram, which is just at James Victoria.

have links to all this in our show notes. So you can get links to everything he just mentioned by just going to six figure creative.com/two zero, and you can get to everything that he. Talked about there.

But yeah, I think, I think a big part of the new book and one of the things that, critics that keeps jumping up on my shoulder when I'm, when I'm working on it or is, um, I want to tell the truth and the truth is really hard. Most people don't really want the truth.

that's why they limp because so afraid of looking at the bank, for example,

I think the worst part is as creatives and as someone you write about this stuff, and this is what you teach people, and you've talked to big corporations about this stuff is you still deal with it. So it's like, it's not about just solving the issue. It's all about. Solving the issue for now, and it's gonna come up again and it's never gonna go away.

It's just a matter of, lessening the effect and being aware of these things, controlling you and just winning the battle more times than you're losing it. and I think you've done a great job of winning many of those battles as a [00:35:00] creative, when it comes to fear, when it comes to those little Grimmons on your shoulder or demons on your shoulder, telling you that, X, Y, and Z is, is the way to be.

And, and, you know, as a creative, that's not how it is. I'm gonna write how it should be. So I, I look forward to your next book.

Thanks man.