#29 - PJ Milani (Milani Creative): How to Unlock Your Creative Potential

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 00:00

one of your recent newsletter issues I read, you were talking about how you've grown an audience of around 400,000 followers. You've made over 900 posts over three years.

And one of the reasons you've been able to do that is that you don't aim for or more accurately, you don't wait for perfection. Right. And I think I kind of like reshared the article because it was like 400,000 followers, 900 posts, three years, zero perfection. And I just fucking love that. Right. Can you tell me more about your, just the, the, the mental approach you take to creativity?

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 00:26

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think it stems from just all those years I didn't do anything creative. So that's kind of the root of where I've kind of built this philosophy and it is 100 % quantity over quality, meaning my approach is, and if you're familiar with this story, there is this great book on, man, now I'm forgetting the name. I ⁓ think it's Art of

Man, now I'm so, it's, I will try to remember the name of the book, but basically it's got this really famous case study where you have a sculpture class and in the sculpture class.

picks half of the class and says, all right, you are gonna make 30 sculptures every day for 30 days. And then on the other half of class says, you are gonna have 30 days to make one great sculpture. And at the end of this 30 days, what they found is the group that made one sculpture a day for 30 days, so quantity, made vastly better, ⁓

sculptures by day 30 versus the one that waited 30 days to finally perfect this one thing. And that particular case study, that particular example is just like, kind of just echoes through my entire creative philosophy, which is it's far more important to get the full rep and get more of those full reps than it is to get one perfect rep. Because I...

really kept waiting and thinking, okay, if I just figure out exactly the right approach with the right tools in the right medium, in the right channel, then I won't make any mistakes and I will be able to just go through this in a smooth process. So I just have to wait till I'm ready to just get going. And then like year after year after year after year, I just delayed the start and I delayed getting in those

reps and you know, fast forward, I'm like over 40 years old and haven't done a thing on the creative side for myself rather. And so that has just been my engine that keeps me like, all right, every day, what I'm trying to do is not focus on getting in that perfect rep. I'm just trying to get as many reps as possible to perfect my process versus

having a perfect piece to share. And I think that has really been the focus of everything I try and do. And it's what I teach my students, both in the cohort and in my high school students. I'm just like, look, we are going for reps right now. There is a point, there is of course a tipping point at some point where you're like, okay, now there's these expectations out of the work that I create. So I have to make something better. But even with that,

I try to resist that.

particular limit in my thinking so that, because even once I start feeling that, I start feeling this tension in the process where I'm like, okay, now I shouldn't post this because I don't think it's good enough. And now I'm like starting to like decrease my output. And that is something I still struggle with, but I, again, I think I've.

built this foundation of just having this engine of quantity to get to quality. It's not that you don't aim for quality so that you don't start with quality. So you have to remember that, just continuing to push and push and push to build more volume. And I kind of think back to almost all the great creators, Mozart, mean, people who've created these pieces that resonate throughout time, they created a lot.

We only remember a few pieces. And so that is also kind of works into that philosophy because I kind of think I should not be, and I want to say arrogant, but I don't want to be so prideful to think that I know what quality is. So like, if I think I'm going to wait till this is perfect and then share it out into the world, that's assuming that I know what

Good is, and at the end of the day, it's not you who decides, it's the reader, it's the audience, and there's no way to know what is going to resonate. So you create volume so that those few pieces that will ultimately hopefully resonate throughout time do make their way into the surface. So yeah, that's kind of, I don't know, a word vomit of what I think about my creative ⁓ approach, but yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 06:01

So you kind of touched on your background. Can you walk me through how one, just sort of your career, your professional career first and how you got into this, you know, the quote unquote creator economy.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 06:17

Yeah, so I am a teacher by trade. So I've been teaching, this is my, I just finished my 21st year teaching high school film and animation. And the funny thing is, even when I was in high school, I remember when I was like in high school, you know, as a high school kid, I took art class and it was only in my art class that I felt a sense of

purpose and my art teacher who was, God love him, almost to a fault encouraging, like wouldn't really say anything specific, but just walk by and be like, that's excellent, excellent, excellent, that's excellent, fantastic, that's excellent. but that even, even that little false maybe praise was enough to like keep me going when I was that age. And I remember thinking in high school, man, I would love to be a high school teacher, like to.

be able to help kids like myself who didn't feel necessarily like they loved school very much, but I loved having a space in school to be able to just be fully present in a creative state of flow. So even in high school, I remember thinking, man, wouldn't it be cool to teach art at some point in life? Like that would be cool. And so I eventually found my way into

becoming a high school film and animation teacher. And as I was doing that, what I loved about it is that I was helping students reach their creative potential. But the funny thing as I was doing that is the kids would just be like, and this is Mr. Mulani, what are you working on? Because once I helped one kid, they're like, they all started.

just being like, Ms. Monty, you should be like doing this. What do you do working on? What's your film project? What's your animation project? Blah, blah. And I was just like, you know, I've been expending all my creative energy. All my creative juices are just flowing towards this. How can I help the students get to where they wanna be? And so I just kind of never really had a good answer for that. just, embarrassing. I was kind of actually embarrassed by it ⁓ because

you know, when you teach creative arts, you don't wanna be someone, or rather, I felt like a little bit of an imposter because like, if I'm telling them to do this and yet I'm not doing that, it doesn't feel good. It didn't feel like it aligned in some way. so that feeling kind of was with me throughout all these years. And it was just like this, just.

low hum buzz under everything I was doing. And if there finally came like this point where I just, I remember talking to colleagues and I was like, you know, I just, I just can't keep doing this, keep teaching a creative art without also saying, look, I understand how this feels like. I understand what you're going through because I can teach film, but I found that the

Majority of what I'm also doing as a teacher is playing and somehow like helping them swerve through the creative path, all the different ups and downs, the shiny object syndrome, all the doubts that you have during the process, the zone of ambiguity that you have to navigate when you're trying to go from.

idea, conception to execution, all these different things that a person has to overcome in order to get something creative outputted into the world. So I wanted to be able to talk to them, not just about, this is the process and say, this is what I went through as I did this. And so that kind of like feeling kept coming with me as I was, ⁓ you know, teaching film and animation. So,

there finally came a point where...

And the point was kind of out of ⁓ everyone's control was during the pandemic. Like, you know, I'm journaling through this feeling. I had a lot more time to think and I was really going through an existential crisis during the pandemic, I'm sure as many people were, but you know, we couldn't be in the classroom anymore. And I did not like teaching film and animation.

through Zoom is not what I signed up for when I became a teacher. And I started to really just doubt like, okay, well, if I'm no longer a teacher, then who am I? Like, what am I doing? know, what am I going to do? And so, you know, I was journaling through all this, ⁓ all these navigating, trying to navigate some of these emotions, some of these like doubts and.

and ⁓ definitely feeling like, okay, lost. And I remember writing very specifically that I needed to just, I went back to like, you know, watching Ali Abdal, watching all these different people online, these creators that I admired and ⁓ listened to their podcasts and whatnot. And I was just like, you know, it would be nice if I just fricking did something.

And then I was like, I just need to start, I just need to start doing something. And then I realized, holy crap. You know, I have like all these journals that I've been writing for years and years, right? And it just had this deja vu feeling. So I just like went through, I was like flipping through my journals after I wrote, like, okay, I need to have this creative practice. I need to start doing something. And so I started flipping through years of writing and I found that I had written these exact same words.

10 years plus ago. And I was like...

Man, I tell you, there's nothing that stares at you more just blankly in the face and says, what the hell are you gonna actually do, than your own words. Like, you literally wrote those same exact words and there is no way to, you know, back out of the fact that you did not follow through on what you said you were gonna do 10 years ago. And now you're saying the same thing. So I was like, okay, that was the breaking point. I was like, okay, you know what, screw it. I'm just gonna start. So I started a newsletter. That was the very first thing I did.

I saw, I watched an Ali Abdaal video post that was like, start a blog. So I started a blog, nothing. Like, you know, if anyone has ever spent like three, four hours on something plus, and then nothing. And then spend another five, six hours on something, and then nothing. And to be fair, I didn't share what I was doing with anyone. Like I didn't say, hey guys, here's what I'm doing. I was just like.

If my work is good enough, people will find it, right? And I didn't really understand how the internet really worked. I'm 40 plus years old. Like I haven't been on social media. In fact, I hated social media and I can't say I love it now, but I understand its place. So I didn't really understand how to navigate any of this stuff. But I was just like, know, screw it. I'm just gonna keep on doing it. And so I remember...

talking to my wife about it and I was like, you know, I think I'm gonna just keep working on this blog. And she's like, do people still read blogs? ⁓ I was like, not mine. ⁓ But I just kept trying. And then I came across Ship 30, ⁓ which is a cohort writing course from ⁓ Dickie Bush and Nicholas Cole. And what really resonated with me

as I came across their work was ⁓ Dicky was talking about how he had started a blog and how, okay, that didn't work and he started posting on Twitter. And I was like, Twitter? Twitter? ⁓ my God. If you're not someone who actually writes and creates, Twitter is like this just hell hole of just toxicity. That's what I thought.

And I didn't know that there were people on Twitter who were actually, you know, creating meaningful work, like people posting their writing, posting their ideas, posting thoughtful, visuals. So I signed up for ship 30. That was kind of what got me actually posting on social media. And about maybe halfway through the course, I started coming across these visuals that were popping up on Twitter.

And I was like, what are, what is this? Like, you know, Jack butcher, visualize value. And I was like, this is kind of cool. This is kind of neat. It's kind of looks like some of the stuff that I do in class, you know, and, know, presentations and whatnot. And so I just kind of had this thought, like, you know what, like I use metaphors a lot in class and what if I just started posting this stuff with the writing?

that was like back in March,: 2022

you know, what is this? What's going on? You know? So the first time I created, I put a visual out though. I was like, this person is not from Ship 30. This person is not from Ship 30. They're commenting. What? What's going on? And so just, I was like, okay, so that was a signal. And so I did a few more and about...

I don't know, maybe five, six visuals in, I had a post on leadership versus management, which is something I kind of share in my department meetings. like, this is not, you this is what we're supposed to be doing. This is what we're supposed to be. And so I just created a visual around that idea. And that post had more engagement and likes, whatever comments and whatnot, than I had total followers. And so I was like, whoa, this is...

interesting, never seen this before. And so just that signal kind of just kept pushing me forward. And I created all these other visuals and there were points where I was really just, cause it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work posting online. mean, especially early on and it's invisible progress. don't, it doesn't feel like you're progressing sometimes. It's lonely. You know, you're working alone.

And it's hard to know if what you're doing is making an impact. So even after a couple months, so I started in March, around May, ⁓ June, I was like, you know what?

It's about to be my birthday. And around that time I hit my, my a thousand followers. So around that time I was like, okay. It's close to my birthday. And, ⁓ I just hit a thousand followers as kind of like this.

t to bed, woke up, woke up to: 2000

What the hell? Like what just happened? And my first like truly viral post happened. But what was interesting was I didn't feel good. It didn't feel like I thought it would feel like. Like I expected, this I did it kind of feeling, but I didn't do it. I had already done it, meaning.

Those were all the visuals I had already created up to this point. And why that was really, that moment was really meaningful is that early on it taught me this really important lesson that it's not the quality of your work, it's the packaging of your work. And it's usually not necessarily that you're not moving forward, it's that

there's almost like this side effect of doing the work consistently eventually. And you have to trust that.

I really kind of struggled with this at first. I was just like, yeah, I don't know why I don't feel that great about it. And was just, again, it was like this idea, like up until this point, I thought that I wasn't making any progress. And I was like, the algorithm is a big part of this whole game.

That evidence of the impact of packaging was really important for me to just frame this entire creative or creator economy experience in a way that is hopefully more healthy, which is not to be too obsessed with, ⁓ this post didn't do well at all. And I just kind of think.

Well, that's helpful to know because, you know, obviously any kind of feedback is helpful, but also not to take too much stock into the fact that something bombed and try again with the small iteration later. And again, that's kind of what plays into this whole iteration mindset instead of this perfection mindset. It's just like, okay, not there yet for this one. And I just kind of keep moving forward with that. But that was kind of the start. And anytime I...

After that, I kind of started thinking, I'm just not sure if what I'm doing is making any kind of impact. Something crazy will happen. Like, all of a sudden I get a message from Gregory McEwen and I look at, I was like, wait, is this the real Gregory McEwen or Adam Grant posts one of my visuals? And I'm like, is this the real Adam Grant? you know, and by the way, Adam Grant is probably one of the coolest people.

out there in the world who will actually engage and talk with you for real. that's, which is great. like, I, know, obviously very busy person, but still super gracious with his time. And ⁓ yeah, so that was like anything, anytime I'm kind of like, I'm not really sure. All of sudden Justin Welsh reaches out or all of a sudden like Sahil Bloom is, gets a hold of something I've done. And like that, that just kept being a little bit of.

a spark to kind of keep it going. I, and you know, one of our mutual friends, Lawrence Yeo, like this is one of the biggest lessons that I, and I just always quote him on this, cause it's one of my favorite things that he's ever talked about, which is this balance that you have to have as a creator between internal motivation and external validation. And it's like, you have to be internally motivated, which was checked for me. Like, okay, I was, I spent years and years and years wanting to get started.

That was the internal motivation. But I realized if I'm writing a blog and no one is looking at it, there's no external validation and that was not keeping the engine going. Anytime that I felt like the engine was getting clogged with self doubt, something from an external motivating force came in and greased the wheels a little bit more so that I could keep going again. And I think there's balance is really, really important. So

It's one of those things that I think we need to be mindful of as creators as we're moving forward. So yeah, that's pretty much kind of like how I got started and what's been kind of keeping me going since.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 23:48

So at this point, you, you know, you've kind of reached niche fame, right? Like 400 K across platforms. It only continues to grow. ⁓ if, mean, you probably have more than four hundred K at this point, but, ⁓

At what point did you like realize, fuck, like people know who I am.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 24:17

I don't know if I still think that, but... ⁓

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 24:22

Well, cause earlier

you, you referenced like, you know, saw Hill and Justin and like, you know, Adam, of the people reaching out to you at a certain point, like, you know, when you're, when you're starting out, we we've all kind of done this of like, there are people who either you, you look up to cause they inspired you or maybe you want to emulate, you know, their trajectory or whatever. And at a certain point you become that person.

that other people are trying to emulate other people are inspired by or other people who inspired you are now like, man, I really like your stuff. Can we, can we talk, can we hang out? Right. At what point did, did it like registered you to like, ⁓ I, I, there's a specific threshold I have now crossed in internet land that I have a degree of notoriety.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 25:17

Mmm.

Hmm, it's interesting because I don't know if I have still felt that threshold personally. I am still kind of in a state of wow, know, if.

If somebody reaches out, it is not because I have ever felt that I've crossed a threshold. I think it's still, each case is this surge, I feel like a surge of gratitude, and joy, because I am just.

because there are so many people that I admire. And after creating for a period of time, I also can see how much sacrifice it can take in terms of your time and in terms of your headspace.

And I don't necessarily see it as sacrifice, but it is a concerted effort that you have to sustain over a long period of time. And so I have even greater respect for anyone who's doing it at a large scale. Anyone who is doing it alone, not necessarily as a solopreneur, but just someone who doesn't have a team behind them. I have even...

more respect and it's not that it's I have less respect for someone who has a team, it's just the amount of different moving parts that you have to manage.

So for anyone to still kind of...

be impressed or send me a note or something to that effect.

I'm still kind of not really at a place where I'm like, I made it, you know, and I don't know if ⁓ that's probably a psychological thing. You'd know better than I would about that. But yeah, I don't think I've ever felt that. Even when somebody ⁓ messages or asks, you know, to collaborate together or something, or messages to work on a project together, something to that effect, it's always still.

⁓ I think I just still feel this like tremendous gratitude to be able to be doing this kind of work. ⁓

You know, there is also like, funny enough, there's also, I think I have an opposite feeling. have like this, when somebody reaches out, I'm kind of like, my gosh, I hope I don't disappoint them. You know? Like, it's not like, yeah, yeah, you would reach out to me. No, it's more like, it's more like, ⁓ man, I hope that whatever I do end up creating for this person or in any other case, you know, even on a

podcasts like this, I'm like, oh man, Corey's really cool. I don't wanna disappoint him on this podcast. But yeah, so I don't think I've reached that threshold personally, but yeah, again, I don't know if that's just a self-awareness thing or what.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 28:45

Well, I mean, one, you're, you're, you're not a cocky prick, right? I think that goes a long way. Um, this is one of the reasons I love you. And it's one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show, but like, because you are an incredibly like humble, but also very genuine, very compassionate, uh, kind of guy. And I think that definitely helps temper all of that. Cause you know, fame can definitely go to your head, right? For sure. And we've all, you know, met people where you like,

on camera or on the internet. seem super cool. But then as soon as you meet him, you're like, this person is an asshole, right? Like fuck this guy. ⁓ you're not that kind of guy, but like I, cause I forget how we met. ⁓ may have been somebody with writing. I don't even remember how, how we met. Okay.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 29:34

Yes. Yeah. It was like writing.

was, it was a Lawrence. Lawrence was a blue. Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 29:38

Thinking of stories. Okay.

Okay. ⁓ yeah. So I think I, you know, so we met and I was like, it's PJ PJ is cool. You know, I like what he does, like how he thinks, you know, personally wise seems cool. And then I think like later, I like saw your Instagram. was like, shit. Like PJ's got like a hundred, 200,000 followers. Like fuck, like, okay. Like PJ is legit with, you know, with this creative shit. ⁓ cause I think I had only seen you on like the, the, the newer, the smaller audience, like writing stuff.

Right. And then I was like, this is what PJ does. Like, ⁓ okay. So when it comes to like imposter syndrome, right? Cause you, you've touched on a little bit before. And then just now you're saying like, I don't want to disappoint people. Right. ⁓ you know, one of the things that I think holds a lot of people back at various stages in their, you know, creator journey, ⁓ especially early on, that's the, that's the, the, the point most people think imposter syndrome,

is concentrated and they for some reason think it just magically goes away. ⁓ which isn't true for most people, but to me, imposter syndrome fundamentally is a belief that you don't belong in the room. It's sort of, there's this thought of like, who am I to do this? Right. Or, this question of like, who do you think you are?

how do you navigate that feeling or that thought that pops up?

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 31:10

Yeah, it's funny. had a very real and I think I texted you during this. I had a very real.

moment where I literally was feeling those things. I was literally in a room where I did not belong. And I remember messaging and I was like, man, how do you navigate this? So I don't know if I have a clear path that I can walk through whenever I experienced this, but in that moment and in the hours and days as I try to digest that experience,

in those moments, what kind of got me through it was kind of a little bit of a mental gymnastics that I don't belong yet. then that kind of sounds like, okay, well, I've accepted the fact that I am an imposter, but it's more that I used it as a fuel of sorts that...

What I'm doing, what's interesting about, and I guess to get a little bit more specific, like what's interesting about the work that I do is it's really easy for it to feel like.

fluffy, ⁓ feel good, know, just fluff, right? Okay, well, yeah, you need to grow. Okay, great, you know, this is what progress is, great.

So I started to think, okay, maybe it's because the stuff that I'm creating, I remember at that time, like in that moment, I was thinking maybe the stuff I'm creating just feels too generic. Maybe it feels like it's actually stuff that has no substance. And so very specifically in that moment, I remember thinking then this is just a sign that maybe I need to...

focus or refocus back on trying to create more meaningful work, at least to me. ⁓

The funny thing though is that, and this is something I've talked to with a few other creators about, is...

I'm not sure I have a great way to navigate it, but I do find myself, and I don't like this particular thing, like I don't like this particular feeling, which is I think why, which is what kind of gets me past the imposter syndrome kind of like threshold, is like, no, no, no, I don't like this. Let's refocus my efforts on what I can control, which is my output, which is my creativity, which is my process, which is helping my students, that kind of thing. It's more like a redirect.

of my attention versus like, this is how I get past it. It's more like a shifting of the flashlight to a different part of the room. And I remember feeling this.

Like, I want to be in these circles. Like, these circles are in this room talking to each other. I wanna be part of that circle, but I feel like I'm not. And what I started finding myself asking is why do I wanna be part of that circle? Why specifically? Obviously I wanna talk to cool people and interesting people, but there's a lot of cool and interesting people. Why is it this particular group? And it is...

And I'm embarrassed to say, like, in my head I was thinking it's, it's a status thing. But I don't really care about status. But in this context, in this room, I did. And I realized that that desire to be at a specific status, yet falling short of being in that particular status, that gap is where...

there is this feeling of imposter syndrome. so I just thought awareness alone was helpful. And again, the redirect to being like, this is not even something I really want and being aware, like you do feel these things and then you realize, okay, but do I really want this thing? I kind of don't. Then why am I feeling these like emotions of inadequacy and just like

kind of walking through that process, stepping on all the different stones to the right direction, ⁓ that redirect, I think to, again, remembering like this is not the direction I wanna be going in. I rather point my attention in this other direction. ⁓ That kind of helped me navigate that space. But I don't know if I ever found

a mental hack to just get past that feeling. ⁓ It's more just, okay, for me in particular, because output is so important to me. ⁓ Just the process is so important to me. If I can just stay focused on that, that helps me have not have enough space for those feelings. Because I'm taking up that space with something.

that is far more ⁓ important. And in filmmaking, there's this really cool concept, which is called a visual vacuum. And basically what it means is, if you think of a frame, imagine like a movie frame, and this is done like in horror films a lot. So you have a character on one side of the frame and there's all this empty space behind them. And the audience is expecting something to enter into that space.

And that's called the visual vacuum because you leave, because that space is empty. It wants to be filled with something. And so I think of that analogy in this context that if I don't fill that empty space myself, there is this vacuum that ends up sucking in all these unwanted things that I don't want in that space. So imposter syndrome, feelings of inadequacy, fear, fear of failure, perfectionism and so on.

But if I fill it with something that I intentionally want, then there's nothing to be afraid of. There's not, no monster is going to pop in there. So that's kind of the way I kind of like mentally imagine that ⁓ navigation.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 37:52

I remember a while back, somebody who I had, you know, looked up to and followed for years, they ended up following me back. So it like, I can actually, I can DM this person. That's insane. And trying to, know, just convey my level of gratitude to the person. was like, Hey, you've of been an idol of mine for a while. Thank you so much. And the response was like,

don't idolize me. I'm just a person. Right? Like don't put me on a pedestal. I am just a person. And I was like, one that's so fucking good, but also like my bad, maybe a different way to say that is like you've, you've been an inspiration to me. They're like, that's, that's cool. There you go. And like, granted, that's kind of, you know, just part of the personality, but it was just like immediately like, don't, don't idolize me. Like,

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 38:23

Yeah. Yeah.

You ⁓

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 38:48

Maybe that is the, the, language you, you know, maybe you don't put as much stock in that word, but don't do that to me. Cause I'm just a regular fucking person who, just so happens to do this thing over here. Right. And that was a really good lesson. ⁓ kind of backed up by every time I, so when you are physically in a room with somebody, their follower count doesn't magically pop up over their head.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 38:59

Yeah, yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 39:15

Right? Like in your head, you'd be like, this person, like they've got this many people. Right. But, but that's, that's a, you think like when you meet somebody who is, is a celebrity virtually at any level, right? Cause obviously at the high levels, they've got like an entourage and shit. That is, it'll be a little bit different, but quote unquote, regular types of celebrities or niche celebrities. When you meet them, they're just a regular fucking person. Like,

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 39:15

Right. ⁓

Right.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 39:47

They're just a person, right? Cause he even again, like, like with you, for example, like with, with your, ⁓ again, niche level of fame, right? Because over 400 K over 400,000 people in the world know who the fuck you are and like you enough to have followed along, right? Cause obviously more people have seen it. Thanks. And a lot of people may not even like know your face necessarily, but they know your, your aesthetic.

I think they know the visual metaphors and things that you do. But like, you know, when you and I go out to coffee or something, it's just like, this is just my friend PJ. Like that's it. Right? This isn't Milani creative, whatever. Right? This is PJ. And I think that's something that really adds to like the intimidation factor and the imposter syndrome aspect that a lot of us as individuals feel.

when we think about entering a room where there are all these other people, cause it's like, well, they belong here. I don't, or they've done all these things. I haven't, or they've got, cause you know, when you have 400,000 followers, like, okay, well, this other guy's got 4 million. This other guy's got 40 million, right? There's, there's always something else, right? Or yeah, he has, you know, this many, but it's in this niche or these, this many people know him or he's a best-selling off. Like there's always some kind of comparison game, right?

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 41:01

Yeah, right.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 41:15

And I think that makes it really hard to connect sometimes because you as a person are trying to connect to your ideal of who you think this other person is. Right. ⁓ Matthew McConaughey was on Ryan holidays podcast and he was talking about be less impressed, be more involved. And I really liked that because he's like, look, too many people just try to impress everybody.

They think, ⁓ almost like you're compensating. I'm like, you're this big, you know, famous person. You're this big, you know, whatever I need to impress you. So you like me too, versus how can I just connect with you, with you on a human level? Cause that's what you are. You're just a fucking person. Right. And I think that once you've, you've had those interactions a few times, you're like, okay, this is how it usually goes. But until you do, it's really easy to idolize people and think.

They are this perfect version that maybe that is the version you see because we typically only post our best shit online or a more manicured version of ourselves. Right. And I think that really, really exacerbates the whole imposter syndrome thing. But also it's like, okay, I have imposter syndrome because I believe I don't belong in this room. I believe all these other people are way better than me in some way.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 42:20

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 42:41

Therefore the only way for me to earn the right to enter this room is to be perfect or create something perfect so like there's this this Relationship between imposter syndrome and perfectionism because it's like once I am perfect or once I have created something perfect My imposter syndrome will go away because I will be perfect. I will deserve to be in this room But the reality is that never fucking happens

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 42:49

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 43:10

How do you think about that yourself and between both your, your, you know, high school students, but also students in the cohorts you run and things, how do you navigate this or think about it?

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 43:23

Yeah, I think you nailed it in terms of there's this difference between what's cool and what's meaningful. Like, ⁓ this was a cool thing, this was a cool interaction, and this was a meaningful interaction. And sometimes it's cool to get a message from someone that you idolize and that you admire.

It's also really meaningful when you get a message from someone who says, wow, this particular post really helped me get through this. And that is just really the name of the game. Like that's the whole point. And I think reminding myself and reminding my students, like what we're trying to do is not necessarily do this until it's easy.

It's not necessarily that we're trying to do this until we hit some kind of quality threshold and surpass that in the actual content of our work. But what we're really trying to do is get to a place where we align our actions with what feels meaningful and fulfilling. And if we can get to that place, then that's the game.

And I, in my high school, with my high school students, the funny thing is, like, I have three rules for my high school students for their projects. So my advanced kids, they come in and I pretty much allow them to have full creative reign in terms of what they create. But I have three rules. And the first is, the first one of those rules is it has to be meaningful to them. And that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be like dramatic or...

It has to be some gut wrenching, vulnerable thing that they're creating. It just needs to be meaningful to them. If they want to make people laugh because that's how they feel fulfillment, then that's fine. It has to be meaningful, has to be collaborative. And lastly, it has to be polished. And that's, that's at least polished to the best of our ability. So those are our three rules and we keep it simple. And that is how we run. And it's the same with my cohort students in thinking in visual metaphors in that we are really trying to.

create work that is

that basically practices and exercises our muscle to feel in a state of flow. like, I kind of equate creativity with flow and I equate flow with presence. And so I don't know, you know mindfulness and whatnot. That's been my way of being mindful in what we're, in life, which is getting into a state of flow where you're just like 100 % present in what you're doing. And

I think that that is, I think being able to just find that thread, because there's all this little stuff, like there's all these different threads that are just constantly moving around and all the feelings and emotions that you're feeling as you're trying to navigate, especially the online space. What you need to do is just find one thread that gives you value, gives you meaning.

in the practice that it is that you're doing. And that thread can be different. Like you can take this thread, sew it into something, and then take another thread out of here and like, okay, this is now meaningful for me. That can change as you progress, but that is kind of what, again, I think is the holy grail in terms of the practice that you're doing is just trying to remember that sometimes what's cool is not always meaningful and trying to remember that even though if something feels hard, that doesn't mean that

⁓ we should try to find a way around it because sometimes the most challenging things are the most fulfilling things. So we want to kind of lean into those things and just kind of remembering those kind of like ⁓ guidelines, I guess, or values rather can help navigate all these different things that you just touched on.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 47:49

So related to that, another piece, okay, so we'll get more into like creativity and creative expression and shit, but like on a, a foundational level.

A lot of people might have a lot of ideas. They might find a lot of things meaningful. They may want to create content around multiple topics, but it can be overwhelming, right? Cause it's like, what medium do I pick? Like do I, you know, do, do I use procreate to make things? Do I use, you know, Adobe illustrator? Do I use Canva?

Okay, well, that's one route, but what if I want to write? What if I want to make music? What kind of music? What, what things do I write about? How do I find my niche of one or my personal monopoly or my whatever the fuck other term we're going to come up with of like the Venn diagram that is so many circles that eventually the overlap is just you. Nobody else does that. How do I say something unique? Right. That because there's a, there's almost like this survivorship bias thing, I guess, where

We only see the current version of everybody else's business or creative expression. We don't see all the iterations. Sometimes there are, there are like breadcrumbs, right? So not necessarily for this exact thing, but one of things I like to do anytime I start to feel like intimidated or inadequate with my writing is I will go back and look up some of my favorite writers early writing. And I'm like, okay. This wasn't dog shit.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 49:24

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 49:29

but it is dog shit compared to their current writing. Right. and I'm like, okay, I'm comparing myself, you know, X number of years into somebody who's been around for 20, 30 years. Let me look at where they were at when they were two or three years in, right? That, that can be super helpful. But another, another thing with that is, is we see their current version and what they have decided to focus on. And even like you yourself today, you talked about how like you started

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 49:32

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 49:58

off writing and then you decided to move into, you know, visual metaphors and things. And now you're, you're back to writing as well, supported by all this other stuff. ⁓

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 50:00

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 50:12

but it's overwhelming for a lot of people because it's like, I have so many ideas. I have so many passions. I'm a multi potentiate multi potential light, whatever the fuck the term is. I have so many things. Well, I have multi multiple passions, but I also have so much potential. There's like, they call themselves like Renaissance people or multi potential lights or some shit, but there's also multi-passion. This is multi multi fucking multi hyphenates, all this other fucking shit. Everybody's trying to be Da Vinci. So like,

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 50:15

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 50:41

or like a founding father of like your 15 things, which is what most creators are. So I'm a writer, YouTuber, podcaster, course creator, coach, consultant, whatever, myself included. I'm not talking shit on everybody else. I'm talking shit on myself, but like it's overwhelming. How do you help people navigate that? Or how do you just, how do you think about it yourself?

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 50:58

Yeah.

Yeah, I remember very similarly to you. I have to remind myself first off.

Especially because I went through all that. Like, and sometimes I still kind of go through that. It's not like as you build some quote unquote notoriety on or develop some kind of niche fame that the opportunities stop. In fact, it becomes more challenging as you do more and more, more opportunities pop up.

And it's infinitely harder to stay focused because any one of those opportunities could potentially lead to something meaningful, but it can also distract you from the one thing that you are already doing well. So it doesn't necessarily get easier. So you have to have some kind of foundational belief that kind of helps guide you through some of these. again, helps you kind of carve the path and stay on the path.

And it's, again, it doesn't get easy, but I remind myself that one, and I share this with my students, that it's really easy to take a look at someone like Tim Ferriss or even Ali Abdaal and look at their work and see how many different directions they are talking about different contents, different, you know, they're talking about

of financial wealth, they're talking about playing the guitar, know, ⁓ Tim Ferriss has all these wide ranging people like psychedelics and talking about writing and art and it's just all over the place. But as you say, that is not where they started. Like Tim Ferriss was a productivity guy, but he wrote a book for our work week that was

primarily about redefining how we work, redefining how we think about retirement and redefining how we are attacking ⁓ wealth. He talked about new wealth and all these different concepts in this for our work week book that then catapulted him to being where he is now. Eventually he started a podcast and that has led him to where he is today, but that is not where he started.

Ali Abdaal.

probably one of the most niche people that I could think of started with content on how to get into med school in Cambridge. Like that is a pretty niche thing. not everyone wants to get into med school in Cambridge, right? He then expands. So I kind of sometimes think, especially for those who are multi-passionate and multi-potential-ites, I don't know, that...

It's important to remember sometimes there's a term like niching down, but I of think of niching up. Like you start here and then you expand out. And that's just a more visual way for me to think about it. ⁓

But I also like to help my students navigate some of this. I share my first 50 plus visuals and that is a great way to help people realize, ⁓ my work may not be as bad because when looking at the first, like even 12 pieces that I ever created, they're very different looking than what I create now. And...

it is really easy to see the progression. is really easy to see, okay, this is an improvement from where you started. And I kind of think back to, I don't know who said this, but like, if you're not embarrassed by your work that you did like a year ago, you haven't really, you know, grown that much. And so it like, you should feel like a sense of, ⁓ wow, that was not as, as good as maybe I, as my taste has grown since. And so, ⁓

Yeah, I think that's kind of been really, really helpful for me to just remind myself of those things. One is just that everyone starts at a very smaller scale and then they expand up. And I think that's why it's so important that you have...

you develop your own metrics of success. You develop your own measures of success, ⁓ especially early on because first off, Instagram, you you mentioned when we, when you first came across my Instagram channel, like, you know, all of sudden I had like a hundred thousand, whatever. I started on Twitter. Like that was where I started posting. And when I first started on Instagram and that was,

as a recommendation by my friend Yanis Ozlans, he was like, who's another visual creator? And he's like, you know what, you should be posting your work on Instagram. And I was like, okay. So I started posting some stuff on Instagram, nothing, no response. Meaning if I had started posting my visuals on Instagram and only Instagram.

I don't know if I would have had enough external validation to think this was a thing or there should be any interest in continuing to post on there. Nothing. Like, I mean, I would post no response. yeah, obviously I, you know, I was posting on my, on my own personal account. My friends would maybe say, cool. ⁓ but it wasn't until like, I don't know how many visuals I created that some of my friends were like, wait, did you write, did you make these? And I was like, yeah, those are the ones I made. And I.

I remember even telling Yanis, was like, man, no one seems to care on Instagram. He's like, dude, you just gotta understand that every platform is different. Just keep going. And I was like, okay. And it was about two months, two months in posting daily on Instagram. And it was literally like this hockey stick graph. It was like flat.

And then something happened in two months. It wasn't a very specific post that did it, but all of a sudden I was like, oh, what's going on? And then all of a sudden the next post went, what is going on? Boom. And it just like took off. All of a sudden Instagram recognized what I was doing. And again, it was another reminder. It's like what happened on Twitter with this thread that I made around my birthday that went viral. was this, what happened on Instagram was another reminder that

It wasn't necessarily the quality of the work. was the packaging, it was the algorithm. was so many different variables that are outside of my control. But the only thing that was in my control is my regular posting and just having some kind of faith and also believing in a different measure of success, which is the reps. And so I think when it comes to this overwhelming feeling that you have, like,

all the different things that you can do. You have to find the one thing that makes you feel alive, that makes you feel joy, that makes you have some kind of, again, going back to this meaningful, fulfilling kind of practice. It's kind like, when we were sitting down over coffee and you told me initially, you're like, you know what? I fricking realize what I love doing. I love having cool conversations with cool people and that is what I'm gonna focus on. And that's why I'm gonna do a podcast.

And I was like, hell yeah. Like that's, you realize that is what is like, regardless of what happens with this podcast, which I have no doubt is going to go amazing. But regardless of what happens, you're having fun and you're enjoying it and you're making meaningful connections, deepening the connections that you already have. And you're going to win at the end of the day, just because of that alone. That's the game. And just remembering the game.

Remembering the game is not how many, it's not the number of downloads, it's not, yes, all of those are important to keep track of. Again, you need some external validation, but if you don't have the foundation of why you're doing the thing, then it can be really, really damaging to your long-term creative health because yes, it's overwhelming all of the things you can do. And if I was,

You know, normally people come to me when they're thinking, okay, well, I wanna do visuals, okay? But at the same time, as they start and they start building some traction, they're like, ⁓ now I should also post on YouTube. Now I should also like have a podcast and now I should also, each one of those things is a tremendous undertaking. And I think part of that overwhelm comes because we compare ourselves as individuals to

other individuals who have teams and they're everywhere. And you think, this person can do everything, but no, they're not doing it alone. And I think just reminding yourself for me, like what I do is I remind myself that it's just me and until, or unless I want to have a team, then that is not something that's within the cards for me. So I have to be far more ⁓ discretionary. Like I really need to be far more discerning of how I'm going to.

devote my time and energy. And I encourage other folks who are feeling overwhelmed to just, again, find those threads that are gonna give you value, this, regardless of what the metrics of success that you might see on the algorithm, you have to find your own measure of success so that you can, again, stay focused on it.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:01:33

What are some of your measures of success or the metrics you think about?

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:01:38

The check, the fact that I did it, the fact that I showed up, that is like, and that may sound like pretty cliche and generic, but that is 100 % it. I gave myself an arbitrary, here's one way I kind of keep myself going, right? These are small little things I do. So I was off for a week and so I was like, all right, for seven days I had a goal for making 100 visuals. I didn't make it, I didn't reach it.

But I did hit 50 something, 54, 54 visuals in seven days. And each one of those days was a lot of fun. And I think of just showing up, just I did it today. It's kind of like, it's like working out, you like you can't think that the goal was to work out and I made it. The goal is to keep working out. The goal is not to...

hit some kind of virality. Like, and I think maybe that's why when I look back on that moment, when, you know, my first viral post ⁓ happened, like I was like, ⁓ this doesn't feel like anything. Like I thought this would be a lot more meaningful than it is. It's not that I wasn't grateful for it. It's just that I was like, ⁓ I need to really be careful here.

Like it was a signal to me that I, is not, this wasn't, this should not be the goal because this doesn't feel like I've been able, like I've accomplished something. It just feels like a cool thing. And so I, but every time I show up, like it's just like showing up in the morning to get your exercise in and you're like, all right, now I can face the day feeling like I've gotten something meaningful done. And there's.

I found that just the ambient benefit of continuing to show up daily compounds in other respects, oftentimes in how I'm able to articulate what it is that I'm thinking to, you know, my kids, my students. And so just staying focused on that and also being able to say to my students who are high school students, you know, they even say how I remember one of my students.

said to me, how do you continue making so much stuff? And I was just like, cause I just focus on that. I, yes, I do lose out on certain things, meaning like I may not engage as much. So the algorithm loves engagement. I may not necessarily go online and like ⁓ engage as actively as I would like, but that's because I'm using that time for the practice. And yes, it may not make me as

I may not get as many followers as a result of that, but I would rather just continue to improve and make meaningful work, at least meaningful to me. for me, it's like, here's another way I can articulate that. here's another texture to this idea. here's another perspective to this idea. Here's another way that I can present that idea that might resonate with a different audience that this didn't initially resonate with. And that to me is where, again,

I find success in that. It's not necessarily a quantifiable metric, but it's more of a check or an X on it. And I just keep liking, I keep wanting to hit another check for the day.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:05:24

So I think that is a really important piece. like, I'm so glad you had the prop to show because people, it's really easy for people to be like, Oh, I can just, you know, spend three days creating a single visual. And that's, that's, that's good. I don't think it isn't early on, but when you look at people who are true, like craftsman, they have.

to kind of echo the story you brought up early. They have so many fucking pots that they've made that month or that whatever, right? It's like quantity fuels quality, right? It's you have to have so many reps, so many iterations, so many practices to have anything really of, of, of merit. But also, especially like in, in, this, you know, this, in the creator space, you never, if you're, if you're consistently publishing,

You never know which thing is going to take off. And I don't mean in the algorithm, you know, virality shed, you know, engineered virality. mean, what is going to resonate with people? And like, I had heard this, you know, early, early ish on. It was like, you know, basically for every a hundred things you create, one might pop off.

Most people focus on trying to like preemptively identify what that one thing could be. And then they focus on that one thing, but you can't know that like, and that number one to three holds true for me too. Cause like a lot of what I do is, more longer form. does take longer that kind of thing. but on average for every hundred pieces I've published,

two to three tended to take off. And the issue is I would never have been able to tell you which ones they would have been because the ones I would have put my money on typically weren't the ones that popped off. The ones that like I spent way too much time like doing research or like putting all these fucking practical takeaways of prompts and exercises, make it look super practical, not nearly as, as, as effective, or if they were nobody told.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:07:26

Yeah. Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:07:44

Right? They didn't resonate with them enough that they were like, Hey, court, this was fucking great versus the things that like, just shit out in a day because I was fucking pissed off about something. I'm like, I'm just going to like, I'm going to channel that. Yeah. I'm just going to riff. I'm going to channel this. I'm not going to bitch, but I'm going to channel my frustrations into something productive. Or it's just like, Hey, there's not necessarily like a big takeaway for this. This is just something I've observed, something I've experienced, whatever.

Like, ⁓ like one piece I talked about early issue on was basically my struggles or my sort of identity development around.

choosing to lose my accent. ⁓ when I left home to go to college, ⁓ basically it's called like voices, the mountains. like I'm from up a holler. Like I'm from West Virginia. ⁓ I'm from a town. Nobody's heard of unless you're from the town and, ⁓ you know, like where I'm from, there's an R in wash. It's wash and wash cloth, right? Like that's, that's the, level that I'm from. ⁓

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:08:35

Mmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:08:59

But I remember growing up and I was like, every time I've ever seen an entrepreneur or a doctor, they don't sound like me. So I thought if I was going to succeed and become whatever I had to lose my accent because successful people don't sound like me. So at a late high school, early college, I was like, I am going to put dedicated effort into losing my HIC accent. And I did for a while. Obviously it's come back. ⁓

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:09:27

Yes.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:09:28

But

the sort of the point of the article is like, there was a point where I was at a fraternity party. Um, and every, every, so I've, I haven't drank since I was like 17 and I'm 36. So like I, any story I ever tell I'm but I was at a attorney party and basically everybody else there was to some degree of inebriated and suddenly everybody's accents came out.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:09:57

Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:09:57

Cause it

was like, it was a room full of people who didn't really have accents. Suddenly everybody's came out and then we all realized like, fuck, we've all done the same thing. We've all thought we had to like have like a newscast or accent or some shit to be successful. But actually your accent doesn't determine your success. Like your accent is a part of you. And the thing that I realized was that like all the things I love come with my accent. So

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:10:01

Yeah.

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:10:27

by trying to disconnect from my accent, I've disconnected from all the things that I love because I attributed all those things with ignorance and things. And it's just like, I lost my identity when I tried to lose my accent. So like reconciling that coming to terms with like, you know, and I kind of end the piece with like, look, I'm, you my name is Dr. Corey Wilkes. I'm an entrepreneur and I say y'all and like, just, just coming back to that of like, this actually is a strength for me, not

not a weakness, not a character flaw, not a sign of ignorance because the people think I'm ignorant because of the way I talk, fuck them. And there wasn't, like there weren't like here are journal prompts for you to think about your identity. It was just like, this is just a fucking story that I just, I feel like I need to share because I hope one day somebody like a younger version of me can come across this and that'll give them the permission to be themselves and succeed.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:11:20

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:11:25

People loved it. It was great. I'm like, this was just me riffing because of whatever. And you can't know what is going to resonate unless you hit publish. And, and I think that's goes back to perfectionism and like so many people think like, okay, I have a hundred ideas, a hundred things I could do. Let me spend the next three fucking weeks prioritizing which one I should pursue. But then you're like,

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:11:51

Right, right.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:11:53

Look, in less than a week I've come up with 50 plus visuals. I don't. They're all good enough.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:12:00

Right.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:12:01

Good enough, right?

It would take most other people a month or more to come up with 50 pieces, not because they don't have anything to say, but because they get in their own way because they put the quality bar so high. It's virtually unreachable. What is good enough for you?

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:12:28

Yeah, it's interesting. You know, you're talking about accents and I was like thinking as you were talking, I was like, ⁓ that's, I talk about creative accents all the time. And that is one of the things. Well, I mean, it's so they kind of connect in a weird, funny way that on the firsthand, there's this idea of what is good and whether or not we are the best judges of what is good and what is not.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:12:37

I literally have that in my notes to talk about. So go ahead.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:12:58

And also what's interesting is your impact is sometimes not felt until far later. a lot of times I think social media has kind of spoiled us in some ways because we see immediate impact and we think that is it period done. And I think back even further, like Edgar Allen Poe.

died without knowing that his work would be celebrated for centuries after he passed away. Emily Dickinson.

Like they were beautiful artists that never felt the impact in their lifetime of their work. And I think of this song from Lonely Island. I don't know if you're familiar with the band. It's like they have a lot of spoof songs, but they have one song that I think really resonates with this idea, which is cool guys don't look at explosions. it's like, you know, imagine, I kind of think about that image.

every time I post something that I think is good enough. It's like, I just created an explosion, I'm just like walking away from it. Like I don't care anymore. Like the work is out into the world, how people will react to it is no longer in my hands. Cool guys don't look at explosions. Like that's the way I kind of like frame it in my mind and my thinking. And the reason that is also important is like when we're talking about like accents and like celebrating your accents.

your imperfections, the good enough aspect of it is part of your accent, is part of your creative accent. And I think especially in this age, especially as we're watching everything happen now with AI, especially in the last just week and a half where these crazy breakthroughs are continuing to make at least some creators feel uneasy.

And not just creators, coders. mean, everyone in the world is starting to feel more and more uneasy about just how much AI is able to do, how perfect it can create certain things. And when we look at Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, you don't have to go very far to see an AI image pop up. And

I think that's why today creative accents are more important than ever. And what is a creative accent? Like to me, I think of creative accent is how you specifically.

create something imperfectly. Like when you draw a circle, you may not draw it perfectly, but the way that you draw that circle is unique to you. when we look at kids, you go into a, I have two young kids, if you go into an elementary classroom and you take a look at every student's work, you will see every single one of them look a little bit different.

And they are charming because of that. Like the fact that they may make a triangle for a face versus an oval. The fact that it doesn't look realistic is what makes it stand out. And I think in this specifically this AI world where everyone is just saying, my own work is actually not as

pretty as something AI can do, so I'd rather put an AI piece. And I'm like, the fact that your work is not pretty is exactly why you should put that instead of AI, because that's what's gonna make it stand out. I think, was writing a post earlier today, and I remember writing things that didn't sound great, like great copy. It just sounded like somebody writing. you know, ⁓ like almost, there were points where I was like, should I just?

change this and I was like, no, actually I want this to sound, I've been reading too much stuff that sounds like AI. I don't want this to sound perfect. I want this to sound human. I want this to have my voice in it. So I left imperfections in there instead of like trying to edit it out and try to wordsmith something perfectly ⁓ like mic dropping in there. And so I kind of think of all these things building into like, I think the way you do something, how imperfect,

you do something, how imperfectly you create something is part of your creative accent. And there is something about that now that I think people want to see. maybe about a month and a half ago on a, on just like a random impulse, I just do something on a sheet of paper, put Milani creative on top of it and posted the raw drawing ⁓ on Twitter and it did really well.

Like people were like, I love seeing this. Like I love seeing this analog version and yeah, okay. You know, may not have my brand colors. Maybe like somebody else could take it and it's no longer, you know, Milani creative, but I think there's something to that now in today's world where we want to see these imperfections. We want, and I think they're to be celebrated. I think they're, I think of Alex Hermosy. I think of his work.

someone who could hire anyone he wanted to make his own visuals. I mean, the dude's a multi-millionaire, right? But if you look at any of his ⁓ writing, they all have amazing visual thinking, because he tries to break things down simply through his visuals. And they are stick figures, and they are quirky, they don't look pretty, but it is...

because of that that they have character. is because of that that people actually like it. So I kind of think through this whole idea of something being good enough, this ⁓ whole idea of whether or not we are the best judges of our own work. All of that is kind of wrapped into this idea that we should really celebrate the imperfections in our work. And because of that,

when it's time to say this is good enough.

it's time to share it. Now I do have a certain, there is for me like taking a step back, like if I'm to be more practical, like if I'm really giving an actual tip, when I'm looking at a visual, like what actually makes it good enough for me is if the idea is clear, if the idea is clear, maybe the execution is imperfect, then I will still share it. If the idea feels unclear to me,

then I think it might still need work. But I'm not trying to get it to be perfect. I'm just trying to make sure that it makes sense. Because I still want to respect my audience's time. I don't want them to just, you know, I'm like, well, this is all about me and me getting in my rep. I still am thinking about my audience because I do believe there's a difference between creating for yourself and creating for an audience. And you want to respect your audience's time in some level. But you don't want it to be such a paralyzing force in

your approach to sharing your work. I want it to be clear. I want it to be ⁓ something that feels like an insight of some sort. And as long as I can check those two boxes, then I think it's worth sharing because I think of that as a version one. And I continue to think of, you you may have heard of this idea of ⁓ creating in public or ⁓ building in public. And I kind of think of the,

every work that I personally post, and I try to share this with my students, is that you are perfecting in public. Like, your iteration is gonna be visible. And that's okay. Meaning, three months from now, you will improve it. But you have to close the loop. A lot of times, you cannot see the full circle until you've closed the loop, so you gotta make sure to finish it so that you can actually take a look at it from a more...

⁓ third party kind of perspective. And you can only do that when you take a few steps away and it's shared with the world. Sometimes it's not until literally it's like immediately after you hit publish, you realize that's what I should have done. That's what I should have fixed on that. you're like, well, you know, three months from now, six months from now, I will create another version of this. And that will be what I improve on.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:22:12

Yeah. Cause like there's the, like the spotlight effect, right? Where we assume just because we are aware of what we're doing, everybody else's too. So it's like, I can't repeat myself or all this is the only way this can ever exist. Right? It's like, no, in three months, even people who saw it the first time, either they will have forgotten or they will appreciate the reminder. Right. How much of creativity in specifically creative expression comes down to

technical ability versus psychology.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:22:47

Mm.

I think if we have a narrow definition of creativity, it ends up becoming far more technical than it really is. Meaning, like if we narrowly define creativity in the context of art, in the context of the traditional arts specifically, like music, drawing, ⁓ even filmmaking, then we might start to think I am either creative or I am not.

And that I don't believe is a useful definition for anyone who is not building in some kind of creative habit into their life.

And I really truly to my heart, to my core believe that a creative practice is something that is valuable in everyone's life. And that shape, the shape of that creative practice can be different based on what it is that you do. Like if we expand the definition of creativity, then I think when we're thinking about the psychology of creativity, then we are that we can.

tap into some of the value that a creative practice can provide us in our lives. As an example, even when I wasn't creating visuals as a teacher, I remember still getting value from trying to creatively solve problems in the classroom or in a lesson.

A lot of people think and confuse what teaching is with instruction. Like teaching is not instruction. Instruction is a part of teaching, but it's not teaching alone. Like that's not the only thing. That's not the only block that is what teaching is. There's a lot more that goes into it. And so you have to troubleshoot a lot of ⁓ cognitive

and mental and psychological blocks that happens with students and each student is different. You wanna meet students where they are. You wanna differentiate instruction. You wanna do all these different things for each student. You wanna try to think about when you present something and all those different things. These are like, you're trying to like, ⁓ imagine, you know, if you've ever watched Minority Report, imagine like you have the, you know, you got all these different things that you're moving around, right?

And there is creative problem solving that happens in that. I think of lawyers, you know, like you're creatively trying to solve problems when as a psychologist and that you're, you you have someone that's in front of you who is suffering and you have to think of a creative approach to not just tell them what the solution is, but to help them come to that solution themselves. That is the game. And so you have to be creative in that. And so I think when you expand the definition of create,

creativity, you can start to see, ⁓ first off, I am being creative and to lean into that and to think how can I get better at that? And I don't necessarily have to define it just in this close little, ⁓ small little ⁓ definition of just the arts.

On a technical level, like, yes, there is an interesting additional kind of framework to kind of think about this is that whenever, like on a more practical level, like whenever you're trying to learn a new skill and you're trying to like, okay, think about how can I be creative in this new skill as well? Like initially we, everyone wants to be far more ahead than they're capable of doing immediately.

Right? We all want to be where we, kind of like, you know, Ira Glass has this great piece, very short little piece on the difference between like your taste and your ability. And there is always a gap. And the only way to bridge that gap is through a lot of work. And beginners usually don't understand this. Like what your taste is, is not where you start. So you have to, and you're going to be very frustrated.

as long as you are in that gap, but you just have to remember that you have to get in the reps to get there. But when I think about like the tech, difference between technical and like the psychology, I kind of think about the science and the art. And so every skill has a science to it that you have to learn the science first before you can learn the art. And ⁓ Bruce Lee has one of my favorite quotes of all time, which is learn the rules, master the rules, break the rules. And

there's a Japanese like parallel to that, which is Shu-ha-ri. And I think it's in martial arts as well, that it's, you have to know what to do so that you know when not to do that thing. And that's the art form, but you have to learn the science first. So that's the technical side of things. So there is a technical proficiency that you have to build. Like a teacher, you have to know all the different things.

that you have to do as a teacher first before you can start to creatively problem solve when you can blur the lines or when you can step over this line and when you can break the rules here and whatnot. And so I kind of like to relate it back to the story when I first met my wife. I met my wife salsa dancing and it was the very first salsa class I ever went to. And it really was like one of those moments where like she's

kind of like walking towards my group of friends and like, you know, slow motion, you know, like she had a ponytail, like swinging back and forth. And I was just like, oh my gosh, she is beautiful. And she had this shirt that says the one that got away. And so we're just like salsa class. And I start watching her dance. And she is like as elegant as you can imagine. You know, it turns out she'd been dancing for two plus years when I met her.

She just happened to show up at this beginner salsa class because of her friend. And I remember in the beginning as a salsa, dancing salsa that everyone else was like doing these amazing moves and whatnot. And like, it didn't look like any of the stuff I was learning in the beginner class. I'm like, why are they, how are, what, that doesn't even look like the one, two, three, five, six, seven steps. Like, why are they stepping on this beat when you're supposed to,

not step on that, I don't understand. Turns out they had already mastered the basic steps so that they knew when to skip a step. I couldn't fast forward that, I couldn't bypass that. had to, initially it was hard for me to understand though, that I had to learn the basics so that I would know when to not do the basic. And I kind of think about that framework when I think about the science and art of something, when I think about

What is the balance that you're trying to do with the technical like proficiency of something and then making it look creative? And that I think is ⁓ something that it's like a, it is a process. So yeah, that's kind of how I'd like to think about it.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:30:35

Well, thank you.

especially earlier on, people get too wrapped up in the technical aspects because those are the most easily observed. Like you can see like, ⁓ my, you know, drawing is, know, my ability to draw a hand or to draw figures or to do whatever is getting better. I'm learning this software, you know, more effectively. Okay. And to a degree, like understanding the medium you're going to use is important, but especially just with, with, you know, the broad definition of art.

There are some people so like one of my friends, ⁓ she's like an abstract painter.

one I thoroughly do not understand abstract shit. ⁓ okay. And maybe that's part of the point, but like I look at her stuff and I'm like, I can vaguely understand that there was a lot of craftsmanship that goes into this because I know for a fact, if I just swung paint at a fucking canvas, it wouldn't look as good as yours. But when I compare that to, to some of my, the artists that I really enjoy, they're much more detailed, much more realistic.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:31:19

I can't say I do either, but.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:31:46

⁓ and there's, they're fundamentally different.

But then there are also people like you or like Jack butcher, right? We've talked about him before, like Jack's especially is, is minimal, right? Like it's, it's black and white, very, very clean, very little, sometimes if any even text on it, right? But things that people continue to talk about for years and years afterward, they continue to use those things because he does such a good job of distilling things down, right?

⁓ that to me is proof that you don't have to get hung up on the technical aspects because like you said with hormones, you like, can draw fucking stick figures in a best and your book be a best seller. Right. It's, it's, it's about, can you use the tech? Are you technical enough to get your point across? Then the question becomes how technical do you want to become?

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:32:36

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:32:49

before you hit a point of diminishing returns relative to what you're actually trying to do. Right. ⁓ like I'll use myself. So Adobe premier is a pain in the ass because the learning curve is just insane. but it's what I started learning, ⁓ for, editing and things. And at a certain point, cause you know, I was inspired by like Peter McKinnon and know, Becky and Chris and some of the people I love, I love that, that aesthetic. ⁓

And I was trying to emulate that. And then one day I told myself, I was like, I am not trying to be a world-class color grader. I am not trying to be a world-class editor. What is good enough to get my point across? Once I hit that good enough, then my focus shifts to the actual, you said, the ideas, the messaging and, and dealing with like the psychological aspects of am I

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:33:27

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:33:46

coming up with an idea that is worth sharing? Am I dealing with my own perfectionism, imposter, self doubt, whatever? Am I doing that work? Am I finding ideas that will connect with people and resonate with them? Or am I hiding behind, nope, I need to work on this color grading a little bit more before I can do this thing. Or this is a supremely mediocre idea, but it's so fucking pretty because of all the editing I did, right?

And I think that, and I'm curious kind of what you have seen in your time, especially when it comes to using visuals, some people aesthetically it's beautiful, but meaning wise messaging, idea wise mid as the kids say, I don't know what the fuck the kids say anymore. I'm, I'm officially middle aged at this point. like, what have you seen when, when it comes to that of like,

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:34:38

Hahaha

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:34:42

Do people spend too much emphasis or put too much stock in being overly technically proficient to the point that they neglect what actually matters.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:34:54

Yeah, yeah, think that's what's interesting is on the technical side of things.

Going back, I'll use a different word because sometimes when we think of technical, we also think of technology. think of the actual nuts and bolts and we get, there is, I would probably use the science of it, right? And focusing on the aesthetics too much. I think the science of

visuals in particular is, well, I would say most people spend way too much time thinking that all that encompasses is the aesthetics. Like the most commonly asked question that I get from readers and my audience is what app are you using to make these?

And I understand that question. I understand the impulse to ask that question. It's just an incomplete question because, rather there, even if I, and I have no problem answering it. It's just that that is not gonna necessarily give you the results that you think it might just by knowing the app. Even if.

And we can see it even with AI, like I, I, I see a lot more AI visual metaphors yet there is still something missing in those. And maybe that'll change and maybe change very soon. Who knows yet. I think the science of a visual is deeper in understanding, like, how do you structure the thinking behind it and how do you then present that in a way that

is meaningful to your reader so that they can process it in an instant and like really kind of take off with it. I think, yes, there's way too much time spent on the aesthetics, a little bit too much time. I think it's a limiting belief even when we focus too much on the tools because the tools are gonna change. And if you look at Jack Butcher's work, to go back to him, a lot of it is,

I want to say he did in Illustrator, which, he's not using all of the suite in Illustrator. He's using like three tools. Like that's like 2 % of the software that you need in order to create something. So I find that

just on a general level, we don't need a lot of skill in the tools to start. And even with Premiere Pro, like you only needed maybe just a small set of tools, maybe being able to put stuff in the timeline, maybe put in some sound effects, you know, to understand how different layers work. But outside of that, like you will learn as you go.

and you will continue to build your skillset as you go. I found just, you know, teaching technology and teaching these technical skills over the span of 20 plus years that, that just in case knowledge is rarely effective and just in a nick of time is always effective. So it's like get going.

let me see your form as you're shooting your shot. And as you're shooting the form, I will correct it so that you can shoot the next shot better. And you're getting feedback, not only are you getting feedback from whether or not you hit or you miss, but you're also getting feedback as you're doing it from me as your instructor. And so that is far more of an effective approach to improving your skills.

One having like, you know, just enough, when we're thinking about just enough, we're thinking about just enough on many different levels, just enough skill in some kind of new tool or whatever it is that you're using to be able to achieve a singular rep. Once you have that, having some kind of feedback mechanism so that you know how to adjust and to expand that where you started from and your skill set.

as you move forward. And just remembering that if you spent three, four hours learning how to color correct and you don't do that like almost every day, then it's just wasted time because you're not really just like building that skill into your arsenal of skills. And a lot of people spend way too much time learning too much of

the technical side of things before just actually doing the real work.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:40:17

That and like, you know, we've all heard, you know, constraints, you know, fuel creativity or whatever, but I think I kind of layer deeper than that. So, so with me, with YouTube videos and shit at a certain point, I was like, I'm spending so much time creating a video that is getting like 40 views or something. I hate this process and I'm not even getting the external.

You know, metrics, why do I keep doing this? Because I was spending so much time finding B role and sound effects and music and trying to learn what the ducking is when you're trying to like deal with sound and shit. ⁓ it was too much. I was like, okay, what am I trying to accomplish? What constraints can I apply to my creative process so that I accomplished the thing I'm actually setting out to do?

What I'm actually trying to set out to do is convey information that I think is valuable and worth share. Could it look prettier? Could it, could every single video be the cinematic masterpiece that I collaborated with Peter McKinnon on a where walk around mountains and it's all muted and saturated. Of course, with custom music, that's the dream. But until then a talking head video.

With minimal editing, just editing out multiple takes or, even just doing a one take, no music, no sound effects, either no B roll at all, or just like a little graphic that pops up quick fade in and out that I can commit to doing that for now, early on allows me to accomplish the thing I'm actually setting out to accomplish, which is getting more, more ideas out there. One that helped me a ton.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:42:01

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:42:13

⁓ because I was trying to get good at things that didn't matter because I was trying to get good at things I thought were supposed to matter or things that I thought I was supposed to want to do. And that was getting in my way. I was getting in my own way about the creative process and what it quote unquote should look like. And, and, and also, you know, I'm, I'm competing quote unquote with people who have

full editing teams. I'm competing with professional editors who've done this for 15, 20 years. I, like you said, like with premiere, like I create a couple of shortcuts to like ripple, delete and shit. And that's, that's basically all I do. Even like, even like with podcast episodes, I will pull like a, like a small clip is like an opener. Um, and then I will manually record like an intro and then the rest is, is just this, right? Um,

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:42:55

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:43:10

That is a constraint that works for me. That allows me to accomplish the thing I'm actually trying to accomplish rather than getting, you know, just lost in the fucking weeds of all this shit that doesn't matter or learning something. Like you said, just in case, well, let me learn how, you know, DaVinci resolve works just in case I ever decide to switch over. Right. What constraints have you found helpful for you?

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:43:39

Mm.

You know, when I first started doing anything online, so when I started a blog and whatnot, my wife asked me, why aren't you creating YouTube videos? Like you're a film teacher. And I was like, yeah, here's the thing. I knew just like you've discovered, like I know how much work goes into a singular piece.

and

The long form format of YouTube, like podcasts and these longer form, even like a 10 minute video, like they are 10 minute films essentially. And it doesn't make it any less work just because it's YouTube. It's still kind of like a short film.

And I didn't want early on to have these long feedback cycles, meaning like I spent three to four weeks on one video to then post it and then learn from that to then take another three, four weeks to create another video and so on. So I didn't want that to be my starting point. So I wanted

something that had a far shorter feedback iteration cycle, which is why I started with writing and then visuals kind of became like a perfect format for me.

And so the constraint that I kind of created for myself is short feedback cycles. That is like, meaning I want to be able to create something in a day or two days that allows me to then finish the rep. That's one. The second creative constraint is

The format itself, the frame itself, meaning I've kind of created a contrast for context kind of approach to the visuals that I create. So meaning I am always comparing two things, maybe three things at most to try to convey the point. Having that constraint helps feel creativity. like I'm saying, I'm not gonna say 50 different things in one visual.

You know, a lot of times people will say, I love your infographic. And I understand sometimes, you know, there's different terms for these different things, but what I don't consider what I create an infographic. Infographic has a bunch of different things on top of it. And usually it's great as a reference for like, okay, this is something you've already learned. But if you're trying to teach something for the first time, I think of visual metaphors as a singular message and distill down into one idea.

And that is usually presented in like, this is what you could do, or this is what you could do. You know, it's either presenting a problem and a solution. It's saying, Hey, maybe you didn't know that this was a problem, but it is. And, or saying, Hey, maybe you knew that this is the solution. Here's a reminder. Like I'm always trying to present in that kind of framework in this idea that

with this binary kind of thinking, which is not the way most ideas are actually in reality, meaning there is always nuance, like a spectrum of understanding in most things. But if you wanna say something meaningful, a lot of times you have to just take a stand. You can't have lukewarm opinions. You have to kind of just suggest, hey, this is the thing. And yes, sometimes it is an exaggerated interpretation of what it is that you're trying to say, but that is kind of the start.

in the idea of presenting it. then, you know, maybe in the comments, people will have some colorful language to say, that's not the way it is, but whatever. That's, that's the point. Like that's just to get us started. So the creative constraints are one very tight feedback cycles. Number two is just trying to create a frame around this idea that I want to present it in like this or that. What do you think? And that helps in, kind of like,

keeping me focused. And it's like, you you have to have a box in order to think outside of one. You have to have constraints in order to be creative. And you have to just force the constraints on yourself. That's kind of the constraints that I keep too. And I don't want to have a bunch of constraints, because then that creates a different problem. Just like a couple, two to three is enough to keep you aligned and keep you productive.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:48:45

One thing I think about a lot, cause someone comes like perfectionism ship. The thing I hear a lot from people is like, just to have a really high bar for quality. You are bullshitting yourself because everybody has a high bar for quality. all have high expectations of ourselves. Right. And it's only things we're like, the more capable you become, the higher your expectations also become. Cause you are now more capable. Right.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:49:13

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:49:16

I really struggled to hit publish for a multitude of reasons over the years, but, one that kept coming back was this isn't good enough.

And then I came across this quote, I think it was by Da Vinci and he said, art is never finished, only abandoned. That was a huge unlock for me because

it switched the question I was asking myself. Now I don't ask, is this as good as it can be? I ask, is this as good as I can make it today? And the reason that's different is if I say, is this as good as it can be? No, it can always be better, right? But if I say, is this as good as I can make it today? I am putting myself in there specifically because I'm saying relative to my skill level,

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:50:00

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:50:10

Have I reached that hundred percent in this? But it also applies to secondary constraint of today because tomorrow I will hopefully be a little bit better. So this could be better if I push it till tomorrow, but then that's a never ending thing. So today is this as good as I am capable of making it. Sometimes the answer is no. And then I continue to tweak, but as soon as the answer is yes, I personally cannot make this any better.

And I personally cannot make this any better within this 24 hour period. That is when I hit publish. That is how I define good enough in my own creative process. Now I work on a different timeline, right? Like I don't, I'm not necessarily trying to create like a whole article or a whole whatever on a day to day basis, but given the, the, the time constraint I do put on it of like, Hey, I got a newsletter issue. It's got to go out this week.

or hey, need to, this thing's been burning in me. need to get it out by the end of the week, whatever, whatever constraint there is time wise. Those are the questions I think.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:51:19

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:51:21

What is your reaction to that approach or just the quote about art is never finished only abandoned.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:51:27

Yeah, Da ⁓ Vinci is, that guy kinda knew what he was talking about. So I definitely aligned with that. ⁓

Yeah, kind of, that's kind of where this idea of perfecting in public kind of comes from. know, Da Vinci was really dope too, that like he would carry around the Mona Lisa, you know, ⁓ would basically do like two or three brush strokes on it and then fold it back up, put it back in his little... ⁓

duffel bag of art and then just move on and continue to like just add bit by bit on his work. And I kind of think to, know, some of the most meaningful films, if you listen to the directors talk about their films, they will be tortured by the imperfections in the film, even though the films themselves resonate with millions of people. So these are just examples that

you know, the work itself can continue to resonate with people meaningfully, dramatically, and still be imperfect. And we will always have this feeling that we could have done more with them. And I think I like your ⁓ approach of, this the best that I can do today? And I think that today part is the most critical component of it.

And it's also, again, just gets you past this idea of, well.

being paralyzed by what it is that you're, ⁓ where you stop. And also like at the same time, it keeps you.

accountable to your own level of what is good enough. It's not to say that you say everything is fine. It's that you have a certain threshold that you're like, okay, this is, have I done everything? I don't think actually I have. So I will spend some more time on this. ⁓ Have I met what I'm capable of today? Maybe, maybe not. If not, then I keep going. And if I have, then.

I'm good, I'm done for now. And ⁓ I think you could even, yeah, just go a step further and just adding this like for now, you know, I can come back to this idea and make it even better. And I really truly believe in that. How often do you go back to work that you've already created and just say, you know what, it's time for me to.

Build another iteration into this.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:54:27

Exceedingly rarely because

So sometimes, so I have endless drafts, cause anytime an idea pops in my head, I'm like, I have to write this down, a couple of bullet points. And then when I'm ready to write the next thing, I'll cycle through this Rolodex and see what I want to do. I've ended up half writing the same piece multiple times before, because I forgot that I had already thought about this. Sometimes,

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:54:54

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:55:01

I've tried to go in and edit a piece, whether it was a draft or something I've already published, because like, add, need to revise this. And for some reason, so there's this thing in psychology called functional fixedness. And it's basically you look at something and you're like, that's the only way it can look. That's the only way it can work. there's like a classic example in like intro psychology textbooks, where it's like you're given, ⁓ like a candle, a matchbox.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:55:20

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:55:30

and some tacks and you're like, you know, put this on the wall and people are like, so those just putting the thumbtacks in the fucking candle, trying to get into the wall. And it's like, you can take the matches out of the box, tack the box to the wall and put the candle in it. Like you have to like, like thinking outside the box. When I read an article, especially when I've written, my brain is like, that is chiseled in stone.

It cannot be fixed at us after a certain point, because every time I try to look at it again, my brain is like, yes, but this is how it is. It's fixed. So sometimes I've instead of trying to revise the piece, I've just written it from scratch. Cause then what I ended up saying this similar things, but probably more polished. ⁓ but in a way that, that, ⁓ circumvents that functional fix in this that I will struggle with.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:56:14

Mmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:56:27

I've like, okay, I want to talk about this again, but I, I, I've tried to edit this and it's been three hours and I'm just looking at the same fucking thing. Let me just start from scratch. And that draft is always better. And the way I, I will do it is I will write out that piece, the revision, and then I will look at the old one and say, is there anything critical in the old version that I need to bring over? That is a much different process because then I'm just like,

sniping like individual things to bring over rather than what about this can be changed. That's too much for me. It's just not how my brain works. ⁓

That's, that's part of my process. Sometimes I will. honestly though, ⁓ especially now, like, you know, I'm in the process of writing a book and things rather than going back and editing some of the articles that I'm turning into like chapters or chapter sections. just re I'm just writing the chapter from scratch. ⁓ and then I go back to the article version and say, is there anything here that I, that I missed? That's been much easier.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 1:57:38

Hmm.

That makes sense. It's like a.

I have that same problem where you're like, I came up with this visual before. I just never drew it like all the way or ⁓ yeah, the same with writing. It's really, if you never like actually follow through and execute on something all the way, you never close the loop, then yeah, you have all these half circles that are just kind of sitting around in your drafts.

So yeah, I definitely feel you on that. And what's also, I think it's also cool what you're doing is in a way you're, it's like the first time you draw, you write something in your drafts or the, you've actually published, it's almost like that was the.

that was loading the idea, know, and you're kind of deep diving into certain parts of it later on by rewriting it into a chapter. It's almost like you're expanding little pockets in the ideas that you came up with.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:58:48

Well, so there's nothing I wanted to talk to you about, about, where do you draw inspiration? So like, for me touching on that, my sort of creative process, ⁓ what I'm, I'm always looking for ideas and connecting things into. I am naturally obsessed with like psychology, entrepreneurship and creativity. And it took me a minute to come to terms with that of like,

Well, then let me just talk about these things. Like, what can you not shut the fuck up about then then don't just, just, just do it. Like just obsess over it. Give yourself to it fully done rather than trying to like shoehorn yourself into a specific niche or a specific thing. Like what can you not not talk about? Cool. talk about that thing. What is the, most natural organic aligned effortless thing that you can do. Give yourself permission to do that thing. So

One, I'm always looking at things through the lens of, of psychology, because I am a psychologist by training. ⁓ but beyond that, the people that I coach are creators, right? Whether, whether it is like they're a YouTuber or they're an entrepreneur who creates content some way or whatever. Right. So I get a lot of inspiration from coaching sessions.

I also will want to have, you know, my own membership community where we have group coaching calls, like office hours and things that is a shit ton of inspiration for me. And then I also will either run workshops for other like creative communities or even colleges sometimes. And I also have been brought into do like group coaching for some other communities as well for like mindset coaching kind of shit. And.

Every time I come out of any of those sessions, I have five to eight ideas for content because it's like, if these people, or if this person is struggling with this or has this question or this insight I shared resonated with them, it's probably going to resonate with a lot of other people or a lot of other people are probably struggling with this. ⁓ so that is where I draw a lot of my inspiration. One, just living life, walking around.

reading shit, But a lot of it comes through interacting with people, one, the people that I serve, but also the people that I would love to be around regardless. Cause I just did a fucking love creatures.

Where do you draw your inspiration?

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:01:29

Mm.

Yeah, think similarly, I think the thread we probably share is most of the inspiration I get is from people too, people in relationships. For me, it's my students, both in high school and the cohorts, other creators.

And there's this interesting thing that I do in particular when it comes to inspiration. I kind of think of it in two different phases or two different, I guess, approaches. The first is like passive form of inspiration where you just kind of like, just by living life, you're coming across things.

and being inspired by it. mean, you cannot be, it's just like by just opening up and attuning your attention out into the world, you're like, wow, this is a cool idea. This is a cool idea. This is a cool idea. If you're reading books, if you're listening to podcasts, if you're just having conversations with cool people, then you're building up this great vehicle for drawing inspiration passively in the world. What's actually more important though, especially if you're,

in a field where creativity on demand is critical to your livelihood, then I think you have to have a more active form of inspiration where you're not just waiting for inspiration to hit you, you need to start and work and do a thing for today. And with that approach, I have like an examining approach that is active, meaning I take an idea or a concept or an object even.

and just ask very intentional questions. What does this remind me of? What is this, what is this like? What is this unlike? Is this part of a system? Is this a part of a process where there's an action or reaction? These kinds of really practical questions to just get you started to think about something. And almost within five minutes, there is an idea and an idea that I can.

move on or move forward with that.

kind of active approach is far more fun for me than waiting for something to hit me. ⁓ Even when it comes to writing something, like what I will do is oftentimes read a newsletter or take a book out of the bookshelf that is related to the thing that I want to write about or think about. And I will probably read about the first page or listen to

a podcast for the first like five minutes or get through the first three to four paragraphs of a newsletter where I have a thought and instead of continuing to read, I will write my responses very similarly, examining more actively like what does this remind me of? What is this related to? How is this similar to this? How is it dissimilar to that? ⁓

What is this a function of? Like these kinds of questions are enough to make it fun. Cause I'm like, that's an interesting insight that I just had there. And whether or not like that insight is mind bending for the rest of the world, it's still new to me. And so that is what makes it fun. And so I find that that kind of two-part passive active inspiration is

really critical to my process. What about you?

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:05:19

So I asked a lot of those exact same questions. ⁓ Also, one, I'm a slow reader naturally, but I read so much slower because I can't get more than a paragraph or two. And I'm like, fuck, that's a really good idea. Or all this. It makes me think of this thing over here, dude. takes me fucking forever to read a book. And at this point, even like trying to like read fiction is also started to creep in because I'm like, this is a really

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:05:31

Yeah. ⁓

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:05:44

fun way to like set up the scene. These are really good details. All this pacing is really good. Oh, they gave me. Yeah, exactly. Or like, Oh, they just, you know, they, um, they, uh, what's his name? Um, Jim butcher, like Dresden files. One thing he does. Okay. So one thing he does. Yeah. So he's really good at basically like every chapter, every so many chapters basically being like, Hey, here's everything that's happened just in case you forgot, right?

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:05:49

The language.

Mm. Yes. Love that. I love Justin Piles.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:06:13

And he folds it in. like, I can, I mean, I can almost be lazy because it's like, he's going to keep me up to date. Right. ⁓ and he just, he tees it up really, really well. I also appreciate it because tangent, he, plays D and D or at least likes D and D he rolled, ⁓ Harry Dresden, like he rolled him as a character. yeah, he's, was in an interview talking about this. And he said that like, when he rolled his stats,

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:06:28

Mmm.

really?

That's great.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:06:42

He ended up, um, Harry had a really high constitution. So he was like, Oh, what this means is I can put this character through all kinds of shit. Cause he has the health, the constitution to deal with it. So that's one reason he like Harry just gets fucked up all the time is because he rolled a high constitution for a stat. Um, yeah, fuck a lot. Um, so I have even more affinity for, for, for the series, but, um, it makes it really hard for me to, to reach it.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:06:53

Mmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:07:12

But there are these two things and I've written about them. I've also got, I've turned them into podcast episodes as well. But in psychology, there's this thing called the Bader-Meinhof phenomenon. And the easiest way I can explain it is whatever you look for, you find, okay. That's effectively all it means. So, you know, like if

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:07:21

Mm, yeah. Yep.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:07:38

When my fiance and I got together, she drove a red Jeep. And when we got together, I suddenly saw red Jeeps or Jeeps in general all over the road. And I don't remember seeing a lot of them before that. The reality was there was the same number of them, but my, my perceptual awareness had expanded to include this. So sudden, like, you know, typically as I'm going about living my life,

Jeeps are coming through. My brain's like, that isn't relevant. Forget about it. But now that I'm with a girl with a Jeep, for some reason, my brain's like, Hey, there's another Jeep. That's fun. And then suddenly I'm, I'm attending to, I'm paying attention to all these other Jeeps, but I'm also remembering that I came across them throughout the day. ⁓ and the way I kind of use this in a creative aspect is,

So like there was, when I was working on an article called the hidden cost of success, basically success has two costs. The price you pay to achieve success. So grinding and out, sacrificing, whatever. But then there's the second cost, the hidden cost, which is the price you pay after achieving success. So like maybe you want to become a bestselling author. Okay. So you know what you got to do. You know, the price it takes to achieve success. You've got to grind it out. You got to work marketing, write a really great book. Also the shit, but the hidden cost is maybe sophomore syndrome.

where you're like, fuck, what if my second book isn't good enough or suddenly, okay, I became a bestselling author. What's all the shit that comes with that? I, know, like Tim Ferriss, we talked about earlier, he talked about how after four work week came out, he bought like his dream home, but he bought it in his name and he got fucking stalkers. So he's like, so I had to move out of my dream house because of fucking stalkers. So now when I buy things, I buy it under a pseudonym.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:09:24

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:09:34

basically, so I don't get stopped. Right. And it's like, it's those little things of like, are you willing to deal with the price of, of success basically of, of fame or wealth? Now you got family members coming out of the woodwork. Like, are you willing to deal with that? So as I was writing this article, I was like, this is the next piece I have to write. So I basically said, Hey, brain, just broaden your awareness to anything reasonably related.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:09:36

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:10:02

to this hidden cost of success that week, I was listening to a podcast and ⁓ it was the armchair expert podcast with Jack shepherd. had Jake Johnson, who's Nick for new girl. he had him on and Nick was talking about the hidden cost of success and how Nick decided to not, do a bunch of movies because it would basically take him away from his family. So he was like, I'm not, I'm not going to get on that hamster wheel of promoting a movie and doing this and doing that. And then I saw, I was on Instagram and then I saw,

Dwayne Johnson talking about the hidden cost of success. And he was basically like, look, I can't just roll up to fucking Walmart or something. Like in order for me to go out to a store in public, I have to call ahead. We have to coordinate with the police department and also the shit he was like, because every single time I've just gone to a store, a mob has formed and we've had to call the cops to get me out because people just swore me. He was like, but here's the thing.

I remember when I had seven bucks in my pocket and nobody knew my name, I will gladly accept this hidden cost because I know what the alternative is. So it's like Nick sitting there saying, I don't want to sit and cost. I'm not willing to deal with that. But then Dwayne is like, no, I am willing to do that. And like the point, and then I had a bunch of other examples from like Kayhee, Paul Miller, some other people, and just the whole premise was like, are you like,

understand what this hidden cost is before you go down this road. It's not a good or bad. It's not a right or wrong. It's are you willing to pay this hidden cost or not? That's a question only you can answer. But the fact that I was like, Hey brain, this is what I'm going to work on. Suddenly my brain was like, here's an idea. Here's a tweet. Here's a real, here's this, here's that. And by the end of the week, the article was already half written just because my brain had just been passively paying attention to all the shit.

And like, that's the one thing that like, you know, again, like I've written about it. I've got, you know, content elsewhere on it. ⁓ but when I teach creativity, like creative practices, that's one of the first things I talk about because it's so fucking powerful and like it's passive creativity as, as effortless as it can be, you're just leveraging what your brain is already going to be doing. Right. ⁓ and then the second piece is.

This is a completely made up term by me. just kind of call it like lenses of inspiration. ⁓ so like anytime I look at anything, I view it as a psychologist, right? So like when I'm watching, ⁓ big mouth, we just finished watching big mouth because the, the, final season just came up. I'm sitting here watching this.

And I'm like, what are the psychological aspects of like, they're, sharing, know, they've, ⁓ anthropomorphized, you know, anxiety or depression, like, they, they made depression like this big cat that like sits on your chest. Okay. That's, that's really interesting. Right. ⁓ or if I'm watching another show, I'm looking at like, what are the interpersonal dynamics going on right now? ⁓ they wrote this character probably as if they have borderline personality disorder. That's why they're so fucking emotional and tumultuous or shit. All this other character.

They've definitely got some like undiagnosed, whatever. I'm always just looking at those little things, right? I remember, ⁓ one of my old supervisors, her husband, he's a lot of things. He's an attorney, he's a lobbyist, he's an entrepreneur. I remember he came to our class one time in grad school. And one of the things he was talking about was as an attorney and a lobbyist, he's always looking at, you know, laws that are coming down the pipeline.

And what he found was at that time, there was legislation coming down that was going to ban teen, ⁓ tanning tanning beds. So teenagers would not be allowed to tan. It's going to be law. And he was like, the interesting thing with that is a lot of people who own tanning beds are going to scramble because suddenly a lot of your cause teens wanted to be tan for prom for homecoming for things like this, right?

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:14:08

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:14:23

least the pasty ones. So like that's, he was like, there's a huge opportunity there because what it doesn't outlaw is spray tanning is like, so a savvy entrepreneur would pivot that and basically create spray tanning for teens. Right? Cause like, Hey, you legally can't tan. You legally can't go to a tanning bed, but you can look tan. Cause it was like teens don't care about being tan. They just want to look.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:14:34

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:14:52

little bit darker. And the reason I use that story is because he was seeing everything through the lens of entrepreneurship, like everything, everybody else was like, fuck, like teams can't tame anymore. He was like, there's a business opportunity here. And when you look at everything in your day through the lenses of a psychologist, an entrepreneur, a writer, a this, that you will see inspiration everywhere.

What are your thoughts?

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:15:21

It's funny, like this is one of the first things we talk about in thinking of visual metaphors, like specifically the beta main half phenomenon. I also call it selective attention bias a little bit easier sometimes to remember than the name, but yeah, we talk about this exactly like how you can actually use this bias to your benefit because by priming your attention towards the right things, you then allow.

less luck and chance for inspiration and insight to hit you. And one of the more practical things that we do is we create 12 key problems. And this comes from Tiago Forte's books, Building a Second Brain. ⁓ of content written about this particular approach that came from Richard Feynman. Richard Feynman was one of most prolific physicists out there, Nobel...

peace winning physicist and very prolific. And people would ask him, like, how are you so prolific? How do you come up with so many ideas? And he just said, well, you know what, like, I'm always thinking about ideas. I'm always thinking about this stuff, just not directly. And everyone's like, what do you mean? He's like, well, you know, I have these problems that I'm working on. I've articulated and crystallized these key problems that I'm working on. So came to be known as 12 key problems.

And so one of the things we do in the course is we come up with these key problems and we try to put them front of mind and have our subconscious kind of be working on them, whether we're taking a shower, whether we're driving or whatever. And I will actually sometimes just, you know, have a thing that I'm working on before I go into the shower, before I go on a walk, I'll just kind of refresh my mind on like, what are the problems? And then I just look at the problems. don't like actively think about it. I just kind of like have.

Cause you're always coming up, you're always thinking, regardless of whether you want to or not, why not just allow it to be directed a little bit. And sometimes I'll just wake up with the answer and it'll be like, Oh, that's the first thing I'll do. Or in the middle of the night, I'm like thinking some, some, pops up. may not be always great, but it's an idea. And so, yeah, I completely resonate with this approach and using it specifically as this guiding light.

to help ⁓ direct your attention, to prime your attention on the right thing. And this idea of the lens that you use is also really, really helpful because I think sometimes this goes back to what we were talking about way earlier when we were talking about being overwhelmed with all the different things that you could do, niches and whatnot. And everyone has a certain level of expertise in something. And if you look at,

let's say an interest that you have, like let's say you're interested in productivity and you're like, all right, well.

everything under the sun has already been set for productivity, but yet people are still creating content. Now some people are regurgitating the same stuff, but some people are still coming up with very interesting ideas related to productivity, and those people are not necessarily reinventing the wheel of the concepts behind time management, energy management, and all these different approaches that you can take to become a more productive self, but they are framing it in the context of a specific lens, like productivity for psychologists.

is gonna be very different than productivity for a teacher. And getting more specific, productivity for a high school teacher. Getting more specific, productivity for a high school film teacher, right? So having a lens to distill all of the selective attention that you're having helps even funnel that inspiration into something that is.

actually malleable into some kind of form that is then presentable for an audience to then gather an insight. So I think that that is all something that, I completely agree with. And ⁓ yeah, on a practical side of things, if you want to be more intentional about setting your lens to the right direction, hoping that it will be primed to the right thing, trying out and look up, you know, 12 key problems that can be really, really valuable.

and helpful to just like, again, be more intentional about that.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:19:53

So you brought up your course. Can you run me through like what it is, why you created it and who is it for?

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:20:01

Yeah, so thinking in visual metaphors, which actually the name comes from our good friend, thinking and storytelling, Lawrence Yeo. I was like, Lawrence man, you inspired this course title. And I call it thinking in visual metaphors for a very specific reason. I don't call it how to 10X your personal brand or whatever, because that's not the promise I wanna make. That's not the goal. And I am, I've,

I'm continuously astounded by the...

by just the thoughtfulness and the heart of the people that end up gravitating towards this course. And I feel like the name, the title of the course is partly the reason for the draw. The students who end up taking the course, who it's for rather, it's, I would say aspiring creators and educators, anyone who teaches, coaches, who is trying to

basically convey an idea that is complex and try to simplify it in a way. And entrepreneurs, founders that are trying to, yes, if they wanna build a personal brand, but I try not to focus on that particular aspect. The focus is, there are people who are creators first and there are people who are entrepreneurs first. And if you're a creator, you are an entrepreneur so that you can create. If you're an entrepreneur,

you create so that you can make money. So like, obviously everyone needs money, the world makes the world go around and whatnot, but there is a subtle difference between the two. I probably gravitate more towards attracting people who are aspiring creators who also are making a living. So if you're an entrepreneur who is creating, ⁓ but you are...

100 % focused on just making money and just like thinking of creating is a means to an end, then the course may not 100 % align with your values. I don't know, it just depends. But ⁓ the main ⁓ goal for the course and the reason I created it is to one, demystify some of the magic behind a visual like.

thinking, you know, like, how can somebody make this? I don't think it's in my reach. This is just something that is ⁓ constrained to ⁓ someone who can create art. And, you know, it's funny, you said you brought up Da Vinci because I like to say like, you don't have to be Leonardo Da Vinci to make visual metaphors. Like it's not about making things pretty. It's about making things pithy. And it's about trying to convey ideas in a way that again, resonate with your audience and their

so many different tools. And when I say tools, I'm not talking about apps, mean, thinking tools that you can leverage in order to convey ideas in a visual way that isn't necessarily like beautiful, pretty art. It's meant to be ⁓ something that is ⁓ focusing on ideas and making those ideas shine. I oftentimes, I also think it's really

been helpful for people who write, funny enough. ⁓ As a writer, you might appreciate this because what visual thinking and visual metaphors does is it helps clarify your idea even more. Like you cannot hide behind a visual, meaning if your idea is not clear, you can't hide. Like you can't use pretty words because the idea will not be fully clear. So.

I built the course to hopefully demystify some of the process and to...

It may sound a little bit corny, but somewhere along the lines of being a creator, I came up with what my purpose is. And it's not, and a lot of times...

You know, people will say, this is your side hustle. And I'm like, I don't think of it as a side hustle. First off, I hate that term side hustle. Like it sounds like I'm trying to hustle someone out of their money. That's like, that's not really what I'm trying to do. I kind of think of this as in alignment to like what I'm doing in thinking in visual metaphors in the course, in the cohort course is in line with what I do in high school, which is in the.

The purpose, the bigger vision is to encourage people to build a daily creative practice or a regular creative practice, regardless of your cadence. Maybe you do it daily, maybe you do it every other day, maybe you do it every week, whatever is in reach for your particular circumstances. But it is to encourage people to have some kind of creative practice to make the world a more creative place. And I think that's the ultimate goal for me.

and it's in alignment to what I'm trying to do in the course, again, alignment with what I'm trying to do with my high school students. just, I'm not necessarily suggesting you do this for a living, but I do think.

Again, whether or not it's visual thinking, whether it's filmmaking, animation, whatever, that it is something that will add value to your life and the people that you come in contact with, hopefully. So the course is three weeks. It is a cohort-based course, so we meet in live sessions and I try to do things almost like crazy, unscalable ways.

where I record direct looms for people, ⁓ you know, if they have a question that I've already answered, I don't just point them to a link. will walk them through it again, personalizing it to whatever it is that they're asking. And, ⁓

I definitely do things in the course that I have been advised not to do. Like I invite people back for free. Like I don't charge like a premium price for, you know, lifetime, you know, or come back, you have to pay like three, four times the price of the course in order to be able to come back a few times. Like I just say, Hey, you know what I want? I want students back. I want to build a relationship with students over time. And I think there's value in repeating the course. So that's one of the

things that I've kind of built into the course. ⁓ The goal is to really help people build the skill and.

And yeah, I just find tremendous fulfillment in like meeting with people, seeing them like, ⁓ like I can do this. Like I love seeing like in the chat where they're saying, this is not impossible. This is not as hard as I thought it would be. like I've even, I haven't had someone post in one of the comments ⁓ like two sessions ago that.

I'm just amazed that you don't have to be Leonardo da Vinci to do this. And I was like, yes, my God. Like it's as if you are part of my marketing plan. No, that's amazing. How did you, like that's insane that you said that. So yeah, the main thing that's really also been super cool is just, you know, we've had a lot of like bumps, know, like technical bumps in the course. ⁓ you know, there was a,

you know, a hurricane that came through Houston, you you remember you're in Texas. So, you know, like there's a hurricane that came, took out the power and I had no internet and I wrote thankfully to the community, like FYI, hurricane's coming, Houston sucks when it comes to power, might not be able to make it to this next session. And everyone was just so supportive. And, you know, I ⁓ unfortunately lost family members during cohorts and everyone's just been super supportive and

It's just, feel like the people that are attracted to the course are just my favorite people on the internet. And so, ⁓ yeah, I just find that to be super fulfilling and, you know, I don't know how long I'll be able to continue to do it, how long people will continue to be interested in it. But yeah, I hope to continue to keep doing it as long as ⁓ people will be interested in it. So.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:28:49

And where can people go to find out more?

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:28:52

It's on the Maven platform, ⁓ thinking in visual metaphors. Probably the best way is through, you know, looking up milanicreative.art and you'll see all my links to my newsletters and whatnot. But ⁓ yeah, thinking in visual metaphors on Maven.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:29:13

Awesome. And the upcoming cohort is number one.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:29:17

Number 12, I'll be going over 500 students at this point, which is insane to think about. But yeah, it's been really cool. Also, really cool, really cool, just side note, for second year in a row, was recognized as Maven 100. So the course was recognized as Maven 100, like one of the top 100 courses on Maven. And yeah, so there's gonna be a...

Upcoming promotion that's coming up in like June mid-june. So yeah, if you're interested keeping keep your eyes peeled on my LinkedIn for that

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:29:55

That's awesome. One of the, I think is Jack black or somebody said it in like school of rock maybe. And it was just quote about those who can't do teach those who can't teach, teach Jim.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:30:08

Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:30:10

But

there's this, cause like, remember like my, like high school art teachers or, you know, other people or college, you know, literature professors and shit. And it was like very few people who teach do the thing they teach. Big either because they, know, they, they couldn't make it work professionally or they were only interested in.

critiquing other people's work rather than creating their own. Cause it's just so much safer psychologically to just complain about everybody else. You were one of those people who you taught period. Like you taught film and shit for a long time. You still do, but then you went out and created your own stuff. So you have the teaching background, the art background, the actual portfolio of shit you yourself have created. And now you've come around and you're teaching other people.

to help sort of unlock their own creativity and creative expression, right? Cause I think, I think a lot of people, anytime I hear somebody say, I'm just not creative. I'm like, you are, you just aren't seeing it as creativity more than likely either you're not putting yourself in an environment where you're drawing a lot of inspiration or you're letting fear and insecurity and self doubt overwhelm you.

to the point that you question your creative abilities so that you don't express your creativity. So I think there's that, but then there's also a lot of people who are like, I believe I am creative, but I don't know how to express it. I am so afraid of hitting publish. I don't know how to be pithy. I don't know how to find ideas or create ideas.

and communicate them to other people in a way that is valuable and worth doing. So man, that's why like, I love that you have this course because you have the teaching background, you have the art creativity background, but you also fucking do it. Like you're not that of like those who can't do teach, like you are doing and teaching. You're not teaching gym on assuming, but like you, like you are actively doing it. And you know, I remember, ⁓

reading on writing by Stephen King. And that's the only Stephen King book I've ever read. I haven't read any of his other shit, but like, I loved it so much because if for no other reason, people who do great work rarely teach how they did great work. So most of the people teaching how to do great work haven't made great work, right? Think of how many writing books there are by people who

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:32:46

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:32:57

The only thing they write is books on how to write books. And it's like, that's just a fucking pyramid scheme. So like, or a Ponzi scheme and shit.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:32:59

Right, right, right.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:33:07

You actively create visual metaphors. You have, do you, you, you did 50 forms of 54 and like how many days less than a week, right? Cause you failed in air quotes to make a hundred in a week. You're actively doing it. You've built the audience of over 400 K. You've been doing it for over three years. You made over 900 posts, you correction. You've published over 900 posts, right? There's probably a huge back catalog. She has seen the light of day plus drafts and everything else.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:33:15

Yeah.

Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:33:36

I can't think of many people who are better suited to teach a course like this. So I definitely think that anybody who's interested in sort of unlocking their creative expression or just interested in a new route to doing it, they should most definitely check out the course because it's, it's taught by somebody who's actually doing the work and doing great work. ⁓ so highly recommended, ⁓

Then kind of start to land this plane.

And I will have links to show notes to shed as far as where all people can find you. but you said Milani creative art, Milani creative art would be the main one. And then you just look up Milani creative on all the social media platforms. but I'll make sure I have those in the show notes. ⁓

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:34:21

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:34:33

Let's pretend it is the anniversary of your death. So you died a year ago. Only one visual metaphor or piece of content you created has lasted. Which one do you hope it is?

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:34:40

Hmm.

Hmm.

Mmm.

as a

That's a thoughtful question.

You know, I created a piece very recently inspired by Sahil Bloom's book, Five Types of Wealth. And it's a visual metaphor about financial wealth specifically. And the reason this particular visual like really kind of sits home with me is my dad

who passed away a little over a year ago.

He lost all of his wealth when we moved to the States from Iran. And we grew up without, in, and when I say he lost all of his wealth, all the wealth that he worked his butt off for all of his life. ⁓ And it wasn't like we were wealthy, but he lost everything that he worked.

so hard in Iran to build when we came to the States. And so what that ended up doing for him is that it shifted his attention towards

just building that wealth back and, or, and it's hard to say wealth. It's more like building the ability to survive with money ⁓ back and not feel like you're going to have your family starve. And so he was obsessed with that and he worked his butt off the rest of his life, ⁓ focused on that. There eventually came a point where

He was

He had quote unquote made it, meaning he had made it to the point where we no longer had to worry about if we were gonna be able to pay the rent. It's not that we were wealthy, but he was no longer in a state where it was in always crisis mode.

And it took a long time to get there. I remember when I was in middle school, he broke down in front of me just crying because we weren't sure if we were going to be able to pay the rent.

But once he was able to, he wasn't able to turn that off. Meaning he couldn't turn off that anxiety, that fear, ⁓ my God, what am I gonna do for next month? He couldn't turn it off even though.

We were okay. And I would say for the last like 10, 15 years of my dad's life, every time I saw him, that's what he would talk about. Even when he had Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, dementia, and he had lost his ability to do a lot of other things, the fear and the anxiety was still there when we would talk.

and that's what he would be talking about. He may not even know that I was there. He may not even know it was me, but that's what he would be talking about. Sometimes it would not be coherent, but that's what he would be focused on. And that just struck me how dangerous it can be to focus only on financial wealth throughout the course of your life.

As I was reading Sahil's book and thinking about my dad's life, I had this one visual where on the top is basically a faucet filling up a bucket and that's your money, that's the amount of money that you're making. And then on the right are three flowers, like relationships and.

and all the things that you should be using water to nurture. So that's what's happening on the top. On the bottom is we have all these buckets of water now, yet none of them have been used to nurture the flowers and the flowers have wilted. And it is just meant as a reminder to remember why you're building wealth, why you're building, why you're trying to get money. It's not to say that

All you need is love to make life move forward. It is just to say that if you focus only on money to the detriment of nurturing the things that that money is supposed to nurture, like it's a means to an end, always remember that, then you will end up.

Regretting a lot or at least the people in your life that you end up leaving behind You know if it's been a year since I've passed You know those people will then be living the regret of that focus and so you know I Just think I just think about that visual in particular and I hope that it will act as a reminder to my kids and anyone else who may find value in it that

It is important to have enough water. It's important to know that there is water that you can get without having to worry about drought. But just be careful that that is not the only focus and to remember what that water is for. Like the water in and of itself, just building a bunch of buckets is not gonna do you any good.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:41:10

Dude, that's such a fucking good answer.

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:41:12

Hahaha

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:41:14

I'm so glad I asked literally like I wrote that down as we were talking. I was like, I really want to end on a strong question and I don't think I have one yet. And then just as we were talking, I was like, this seems like a good one. So thanks. ⁓ it's so good. Okay. ⁓ I'll also try to pull that and like add that, like a link to that in the show notes. ⁓ cause I definitely think more people need to see it. ⁓

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:41:26

That was a good question, yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:41:44

Any parting words for today?

PJ (@milanicreative) (: 2:41:50

I think if I was to suggest to anyone any one thing, it would be that to expand your definition one of creativity, that's one, that it is not narrowly defined to traditional arts. And that...

It's...

Something that like, it's like trying to describe the value of creativity is trying to describe color if you don't see color, if you've never seen color. It's not to say like, oh, these people who create are better or that they are able to tap into more than you. It is just to say, like, you can't understand the value until you practice it in some respect. If you've been waiting, if you're like me who just was like,

One day, one day, I too will participate in the world in some creative way. If that's you, there will never be a perfect time. And that's where I made a mistake. That's why I didn't start posting until I was in my 40s. And I was like at a point where I was like, I'm either gonna be, I'm either gonna just die and not, and just always have this mindset of like, what if, or I'm just gonna just.

take the first step and see what happens. And I can always course correct. So if you're someone who's been waiting for that right time, I'll tell you right now, there will never be a right time. In fact, doing it at the worst time will be evidence to yourself that you can do it in any situation. And so, you know, it's how I, and I had that mindset almost towards everything. It's how I actually ended up launching the course. Like I hesitated.

for like, people were asking me about having a course for a long time. And even then I had the same mindset, wait, I have to get it perfect before I launch this course. And I had a friend who just said, dude, you're just afraid. And I was like,

Yeah, you're not wrong. And so I ended up launching a beta and that was the first iteration. And you know, anyone who took the beta knows that what it is now and what it was then is dramatically better because I iterated on it and going back to this idea of perfection and iteration and perfecting in public, all that, like just get started, improve as you go.

You don't need to know as much as you think to get started. And that would be my encouragement to anyone who's been thinking about, who's just like me is just like wondering, should I? I don't know, maybe later, maybe not, maybe once I understand this, maybe once I understand my niche and whatever, just, yeah, again, it's cliche as it may sound, just start.