Cultivating A Positive Mindset In A World That Challenges Artists | Jonathan Nee

I think we as artists need to do a better job at reframing one, that our job is fun, like spend an hour to a week just freaking sketching or drawing, like being a child, because letting your client create that sense of play for you, you're not going to be able to keep that going for long. Past guests include Nico Fara, founder of Product Market Pro, Alain S. Lévy, founder and CEO of Motivare, and Mark Cenosa, owner and founding artist of Profanity Creative. Actually, Mark is coming on here in a few weeks, but anyhow, that's a little teaser for a future episode. Anyhow, I'm forever grateful for the supporters of our podcast, and we are always looking for more sponsors. That said, Pixel Retentive is brought to you by the creative gurus at Epic Made. Epic Made is a team of artists and strategists who craft entertainment-quality animation and illustration that grabs attention and gets results. With clients like Nickelodeon, WWE, and SyFy, we know how to speak to pop culture savvy audiences. Visit GetEpicMade.com and let's collaborate on your next creative campaign. All right. So with us today, we have Jonathan Nee. Welcome to the show, Jonathan. Hey, man. Thanks for having me, Carl. I appreciate it. Thanks. Thanks for being here, man. It's going to be fun. All right. So Jonathan Nee, aka Jags, is a self-taught 3D generalist and videographer. He originally studied economics before discovering a deeper passion for art and visual storytelling. Growing up immersed in games like Warcraft both inspired him but also led to a sedentary lifestyle, causing him significant health issues. He eventually learned how to take better care of his health through mindful eating, consistent exercise, and quality sleep. Today, he channels that same discipline and creativity into running a successful freelance business, creating cinematic trailers for board games and entertainment products. Sounds super fun and familiar. I love that. Yeah, man. Yeah. When we met, I was very much like, oh, my God, there's already someone in the industry who has way more veterancy than I do. And so I was like, we should totally have a chat, hang out, talk nerdy. So thanks for bringing me on. We're instantly friends. We're talking about art and nerdy stuff and yoga, like all the weird things we have in common, which is super cool. So look, before we jump into today's topic, I would love for our audience to get to know you a bit. How long have you been in your industry and what project are you most proud of so far? So I started getting into making videos in high school, maybe like for stuff like my World of Warcraft account. Here's a little hype video. And eventually that transitioned. I'm condensing the story down, but started working at a board game company called Cryptozoic Entertainment, doing their videos, their trailers for their board games. And when I left Cryptozoic right before graduating college to get a degree in economics, I was like, oh, from Cryptozoic right before graduating college. And then I was like, OK, I need to figure it out. Fortunately, a lot of people from Cryptozoic also left just as industries evolved. Some people were like, go, some people found new jobs, etc. And it kind of was like this whole little pandemic thing of people knew that I was doing these cool trailers at this one company. And then now they're like over over here at like UltraPro or at Super7, which is a toy company in San Francisco, or did some stuff with Ravensburger. And it's just like all a bunch of my friends who I've met over the years, they just enabled me to start working with some other big players in the board game space. So I started really getting into making trailers in 2019. And then throughout COVID, I just hard switched into 3D and leaned into that. And it kind of has pretty much led to a very blossoming career in the entertainment product space. I love it, man. Super fun stuff. Like we mentioned, we work a lot in the same space. And it's just always exciting, especially when you get to work on products that are things you actually like and you enjoy in your personal time. So now it feels like it almost doesn't feel like work, which is a beautiful thing, right? That whole idea that do something you love and never work again a day in your life. Total bullshit, by the way. There's no thing that you love so much that doesn't feel like work, at least sometimes. So don't let anybody get snowed on that. It can be the most exciting thing and you love it, yada yada. But there's always a slag in the middle where it's just you got to grind through some stuff. And even if you enjoy it, it's still work, right? So anyways, it's not relaxing in the pool, you know, like. Cool. All right. So look, today I thought we'd discuss cultivating a positive mindset in a world that challenges artists. I know you've been deeply reading some stuff on this and kind of thinking about this a lot and thought it'd be a very fun conversation for you and I to kind of kick around some ideas and share some thoughts with the world. Yeah, it's top of mind for me, so let's do it. Yeah, yeah. So where do you have any starting point for that? Are there some principles or foundations or is there just like a mindset, a specific mindset that you think helps cultivate positivity? So there's a lot of layers to reframing and changing our outlook in life because I do believe that on average, most humans naturally have a negativity bias. There is this, it's a defense mechanism. We steer towards things that are negative because we perceive them as threats. Threats to our lifestyle, threats to our opinions, threats to our way of living, whatever it is. And depending on your life circumstances, that negativity bias could be reinforced or it could be lessened. So if you go into my past and my history, I was much, much heavier while I was in high school. And as such, that really was not good for confidence. When you're 15 to 17 years old, your friends, they go up the stairs and then I was exhausted at the end of it. So I was 250 pounds, I'm a five foot seven male, so that was obese. And I know there's people who have gone through 300 pound full weight loss journeys. I wasn't on the super duper, duper extreme, but I was very much in the extreme of like, wow, this is a problem. My father- I mean, if you throw on a hundred pound backpack at any point and try to live your life, it's exhausting, right? Yeah, 100%. So with that, there was a lot of negative things I just didn't believe about myself. And this comes down to this sort of victim mindset that I had as well. And so through a lot of trial and error, I ended up losing a lot of the weight, lost all the weight, got into power lifting, and I'm really just condensing all of this here. But most of the mindset changes that happen when it comes to weight loss, when it comes to fitness, when it comes to just art in general, a lot of it is approaching things that are extremely uncomfortable and being okay with it and accepting it. And I don't think those are skills we really teach people nowadays. Sure. No, you're right. Yeah, it's embracing the grind, right? Especially these things that are not instant gratification. There's no instant gratification weight loss, right? You go and you do the same thing over and over and over again. And then two months in, you realize like, oh, I look a little different. It's the same thing with your art, right? You're like, oh, I suck, but I'm passionate about this and I'm going to keep trying. I'm going to keep finding resources and I'm going to keep trying to draw. And it's like, I went on a journey myself for the past three years doing live art, and I hadn't really been doing art in years because as I built up my company, I hired a lot of artists. It didn't really make sense for me to work on projects. The next thing you know, I don't even do art anymore, right? So my first couple live streams, they were okay, but I go back and look at them now. It's like, wow, what I'm doing now has a lot more depth and a lot more artist's mastery of the intention of what I'm doing. But you can't put your finger on that one thing. So there's something there that's like embracing the journey and the suck, if you will, right? I think that's part of what you're saying there. Yeah, very much. There's a level of acceptance that happens because I'm pulling this quote from the book, The Mountain is You by Brianna West, who probably pulled it from other people, but suffering is effectively the unwillingness to accept pain. And there are parts about the artistic process that are very painful. And most people, obviously, we don't want to suffer. But when you're in that first phase of putting pencil to paper or having a blender cube or whatever you do, having that empty canvas, that's a very uncomfortable feeling. And you could either just accept defeat at that moment and just close the program or close your sketchbook, or you could find something deeper and accept that, no, this is just part of the process, that it's going to suck before it gets good. And some of the things that has really helped me through that while I was in high school, one of the things that did help me lose a lot of weight was getting into martial arts and having multiple senseis who were very good mentors to me. And they instilled a lot of good principles of grit, but it also wasn't the right kind of grit that I needed. Because there were some training sessions where it was absolute brute force, get through the exercise no matter what, disassociate, make it as almost like this anger or rage within to get through the process. But if you look at some of the best athletes in the world, they actually don't disassociate. They instead listen to their body and give themselves moments of acceptance to say, hey, it's okay where I'm at right now. And I'm referencing another book I've been reading called Do Hard Things by Steve Magnus, where it's basically an analysis of some of the highest performers in the world. And those people, regardless of them being lawyers or doctors or CEOs or athletes, they have to embrace a part of the process where there's going to be a high level of discomfort and they need to know to give themselves permission to be uncomfortable and also convince themselves that they are safe. Because most people, when they're exercising for the first time, they think they're unsafe. When in reality, they're actually very safe. Yeah, that's very true. There's a couple things in there, that introspection and understanding your limitations, but also that's double-sided, right? You don't know where your limitations are, and they're probably way further than you think unless you're already deeply ingrained in this excessive mentality. Someone like me, who's toured my ACL three times, I need the opposite side of that where it's like, hey, I can dial things back a little bit and not hurt myself and then actually continue to make progress. And I'm 40 now, right? So it's a different game I'm playing. It's longevity now versus trying to see what I'm capable of, at least on a lot of the scales physically. Now mentally, I'm still learning these exercises and the internal dialogue. You're right, I grew up wrestling. I've done some martial arts training and all that. And just in most male athletics, and probably all athletics in general, like high school and that kind of stuff, there is that kind of dig deep and almost like this really, it's like a really aggressive over... I don't know how to describe it, but it's almost like manifesting a toxic masculinity type of thing versus nurturing the greatness about yourself and finding out where that is. It has a negative undertoning to it, like don't be weak, but it's not like find your strength, right? I don't know. It's almost like you don't want to be anti-war, you want to be pro-peace kind of thing. One of the things that I believe a lot of artists and athletes fall prey to is not giving themselves autonomy. So if you take someone in a life circumstance where they don't feel like they have control over the outcomes of their life, their sport, their art, whatever it is, they end up falling into this give-up-itis situation because they don't feel like they have control over it. And I think this happens in two scenarios. And again, I'm referencing that book Do Hard Things again, because it's one of the more recent books I've been reading. But there are some coaches or art teachers who say, you must do art in this way, you must train in this way. And there is non-negotiable, you may not change how you do this at all. And yes, you may get an amazing performance from that athlete or that artist, but you're going to get it once. Because the only thing that's going to happen after that person feels like they have no control over their outcome is they're going to give up. They're going to quit. They're never going to continue doing it again. And I think not only does it come from external factors, but it also comes from internal factors as well. Because how often do we see people, whether you're an artist or someone starting a fitness journey for the very first time, or an artist journey for the very first time, where they give themselves a specific plan that's so rigid and so strict that they have no autonomy to change and deviate if life circumstances don't turn out exactly as they want. And because they're so strict with themselves internally, they don't give themselves permission to maybe lay off the gas a little bit, or give themselves the acceptance that maybe something might not be right for them. They immediately just quit because they don't give themselves the freedom to be flexible. Because growth happens consistently over time. And sometimes you're going to have art sessions or training sessions that are just going to be not good. How often have you done a yoga class and it's just like, wow, I was tight today. I couldn't get into any of those poses? 100%. Or like, I ate some stuff last night and my guts are killing me. I was trying really hard not to fart this whole class. It throws you off. You never know what life's going to throw at you. And that applies to business as well. I so many times have built myself out these rigid schedules. I'm going to work out at 6am and I'm going to do this and boom, and I'll be on a call. And next thing you know, by the end of the day, I might have done 80% of that. But because the last 20% got all jacked up, now I'm really mad at myself because I didn't follow it to a T and I have this 100% effort mindset. And rather than celebrating the wins that was most of my day, I'm now in a negative mindset about like, well, I didn't do exactly what I set out to do. So I've failed. So that's absolutely interesting there as far as that whole mindset goes. And then on top of this, autonomy as an artist, that's really interesting to me as well. What would you say having growth and autonomy as an artist would look like? So you're given an objective by a teacher or whatever the case, maybe you're taking a course, maybe you're reading a book. And what does that look like to you? Where like, hey, we're not being super regimented. You don't have to do it exactly like this, but what's the takeaway? How do you apply that in a way that's maybe more effective? So for an artist, that's always an interesting concept because it also depends on the context of the art you're trying to make. So for example, like you and I are both in commercial art, and I'm curious about some of your audience, if they're more in like commercial art, where we have absolutely non-negotiable, we have to follow brand guidelines. We can't change the logo at all or stuff like that. So there is a level of creative autonomy that is kind of stripped away when you do make commercial art, because you have to follow things exactly rigidly as like the branding guidelines describe it. If you're in an art school, you obviously have a lot more autonomy because you're kind of making your own space in the creative world to express yourself. So to answer your question of how do you create autonomy for an artist, one, it depends on the context, two, which are what kind of art are we making? So I'm going to answer this in two parts. The first part in the context of a student, maybe just getting started. To give yourself autonomy is, I think it's important to give yourself a goal, and that goal should be pretty structured and deliberate. Don't just say, I want to be a better artist. It's better to say, I want to learn how to do ZBrush, for example, and with the intention of learning how to do toy sculpts. And it's very easy for an artist to want to be at ground level one and immediately jump into like, I'm going to do stuff on Hasbro level immediately. And I'm going to do a stormtrooper or a lightsaber, organic and cloth. There's so many layers to sculpting that. And I think when it comes to building autonomy for an artist who may have a specific goal, who's just getting started, it's about one, understanding where you're at and what your capabilities are, because how, again, how often does anyone bite off more than they can chew? And give yourself permission to take a longer path to get from one point to another, from point A to point B, the shortest path is a straight line. And sure, you could follow that straight line, but that straight line might not have things that are, again, right for you. So you may find yourself in a course where the teacher just doesn't vibe with you. And I've had a very similar experience to that. I actually bought a course on learning 3D coat recently. And as much as I love the teacher, there's a little bit of a language barrier problem. The content is clear, but he misses like keyboard shortcuts and stuff. So I'm kind of fumbling. But then I found another course and I'm taking a course on how to do 3D characters, but he's teaching the software in a way that makes more sense to me. While the main thing I want to do is let's say props, I'm giving myself autonomy to like change direction because I know what my end goal is. So autonomy for an artist getting started should be the willingness to take a different path to the same end destination. And then I think autonomy for commercial artists, I think that comes down to where you can find freedom to express yourselves or enjoy other of the artistic process beyond the final outcome. So it's like you have to follow something for a brand. Do you have the ability to, and this is from a business standpoint, can you be a little bit more flexible with your schedule? So then you can go enjoy other parts of life. Or do you have to follow how, like you have a clear goal, make a commercial for X brand. You can make it with any software or you can make it in any way possible because at the end of the day, artists are creative problem solvers. We have these tools that we have to press buttons in a specific sequence to make the pretty thing. And it would feel really cold and sad if we had to make art in the same sequence every single time. So I think if we have, if we give a commercial artist the ability to get to a different path or get to the same outcome through their however mean, however they want, that would give that artist autonomy. So very long winded answer to your question. I hope that makes sense. No, I love that. And it's something to consider, right? So this podcast really is on the intersection of art and business. And oftentimes they can be quite opposing things in life, right? Like art, like a lot of times has a natural flow and an exploration and an unknown factor that is part of the process and part of the excitement of it, especially for creative. So, and business likes predictability and it likes regiment and it likes repeatability and it likes A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and that's efficiency. And that's not really how creativity works. There is an unknown factor and lots of variables that you can't, you don't even know what's going to hit you midway through a project as an inspirational piece. And like, is it going to be worthwhile for you to put in this extra, you know, two, three, five, whatever percent back into this project to retool this thing? Because you've thought about a different way to do it now, right? I can't even think about how many times I've done logos early on, where most of the process was me doing ---- that I didn't even like that got thrown away. And the final thing I did, I could redraw in 20 minutes, but I spent 10 hours on this, right? Like, but that whole process is difficult to even quantify within. It's difficult to see the value of that on the business side where it's like, well, I could have just made this in 20 minutes, right? Like, but like that whole flow through it is part of the whole thing. And respecting the fact that like, sometimes you have to, like you said, the straight line is great, but that doesn't account for all the rest of life and all the rest of the variables and the things. So I want to get to this final result, but like, I had to do all this before I got there because that's the process that my life took, you know, and the best way I could do it. So you try to avoid those things as much as possible, but don't punish yourself when they show up because that's just how it happens and it's okay. Yeah, I think there's a unique, we live in a unique field where being an artist, as you said, a business, it has to be predictable. We definitely need to have a bottom line so we can pay ourselves, so we can actually put food on the table. And unfortunately, in some situations, we don't have the ability to be creative. And I think it's important as professional artists to understand where their cup is being filled. And I think it's a fool's errand to outsource all of your creative fulfillment to your clients, because that is, one, it's not coming from you. And two, you're never going to have complete freedom in a business setting. So I think we as artists need to do a better job at reframing, one, that our job is fun. Spend an hour to a week just freaking sketching or drawing, being a child, because letting your client create that sense of play for you, you're not going to be able to keep that going for long. Because do you really want to be doing, granted, we're professional artists, we want to make money, but do you really want your entire portfolio to be Instagram banner ads for the rest of your life? No, that's an important thing, though. I think that happens, especially if you've been in the game for 10 years. Like me, for instance, I literally stopped doing creative stuff entirely. And I am an artist at my core. I love to make things. I love to draw and sculpt and paint and make things with my hands and craft things and all that. And I realized a part of me was quite miserable, because I no longer had really any creative outlets. And for a while, it was client work, and that sort of scratched the itch. And it was cool to make money doing creative work, obviously. That's amazing the first couple of times you do that. Like, oh my god, someone's paying me to do these things. And I'm having fun in Photoshop or Illustrator or any kind of animation software. But eventually, if you're not doing just creative things just for the fun and the love of it, because you want to explore, you're going to feel stagnant. A piece of you is going to feel almost dead inside, and you have to nurture that. You have to take that time to do creative play. Like you said, as a child, a childlike mindset of like, oh, wouldn't it be cool to explore what this is like and to use this tool or maybe learn something else and kind of broaden your tool set. Just get more experience in something that you're doing just for fun. It feels remarkable. It does. I love using food analogies. And I almost think of it like when we're an artist, we are pretty much a chef. And a chef, you don't go to a restaurant and be like, chef, make me whatever I want. Most of the time. If you go to Japanese, you get omakase. But even then, the sushi chef has probably already planned something in their head. But if you're just getting started and you want to learn how to make an epic, I don't know, grilled cheese, lowest hanging fruit, and you've never made one before, you need to do the work twice if you're going to serve that to someone else. Because yeah, you can make something for yourself, and it's a fine grilled cheese. But if you're actually serving that for money to someone else, you have to make sure that's good. So one of the things I always encourage, I don't want to say I even encourage it. This is what I do. And I'm just like, everyone just works for me. I recommend it. I do most of my work twice. I do spec work, like so much spec work. Because then when I go to my client and they see a beautiful dish in front of them, like, wow, I would love to have that too. It's so much easier to pitch them a dish that they can see visually and experience rather than just be like, oh yeah, I could make you a grilled cheese. Granted, it's also important to understand what is your client coming for you. Because if you've made 10,000 grilled cheeses in your life, yeah, you can be like, oh yeah, I will make you the best fricking sandwich in the world. And my rates are this high because I know how to do this process. And you can show them all the other ones you've I think looking at how restaurants are run is a good way to understand how to run a creative business because there's parts of the restaurant process that are predictable where you have the line cooks, you have the motion designers, then you have the head chef, the producer, who's kind of like getting all the tickets. Those are situations where it's like, yes, this is effectively a little bit of a factory. But sometimes you have the super fancy restaurants or art studios where they do make more custom things or they have a cycling menu every single time. So it's a question of like, do you want to be McDonald's or do you want to be the bear from the show The Bear? Have you seen the show The Bear? No, I have no idea what that is. Okay. It's a show on Fox and they start in this dinky little sandwich shop in Chicago and he turns it into a Michelin star restaurant with a cycling menu and the stress that comes from it. And there's a lot of good business practices that artists can pick up on in that show. Yeah, I love that. So there's a couple things you said there, right? And we did this a lot early on. I did a big rebrand of my company in 2016 and change it from Creative Art and Design Studios, which is sort of this generic, I didn't know what I was doing. I named it in college to Epic Made. And part of what we did at that point was build a bunch of projects, passion projects, spec work, if you will, things that we wanted to attract to that type of work. We didn't have it in our portfolio and it's really hard to get someone to trust you and go, oh, we can do that. I promise. But it's way easier to go, hey, here's one we did for fun for us, even if that's it. Or you can find a client that's like, hey, we want to do this for fun, but it's on my terms. And they're usually going to be okay with that if they're not paying for it. So that's another angle to work there. So building the things that in your portfolio that you want to be working on is going to lead to more fulfillment and lead to you having the type of work that's going to make you happy. And then another thing you said there, I thought that was cool. It's like you have to explore and do new things and then refine them when you want to sell them to people. So it's like my wife and I made ravioli the other day for the hand roll it out and then run it through this thing. And then we cooked all the ingredients and melted a couple of different cheeses into it and some sausage. And so we're making all these things. And we made 100 raviolis. The first 30 of them fell apart and were trash. We didn't know what we were doing. And I was just thinking about that as we're making these. These suck. They're literally falling apart. It's just something about the process and the exploration. And then by the time we'd finished all of what we made, the last probably two sheets of them were absolutely perfect and stayed together and was so delicious and locked all the flavor in. But you can't sell the clients the first ones, but you got to do those first shitty ones. And it's got to be a part of the process. You don't know how to do anything the first time you try. You have to be okay with sucking at something if you want to be great at it one day. Yeah. As you said, it's going to start in the same way with business like you could be doing an amazing artist thing, whatever you do, and you do an amazing work. But even the first couple projects that you get as an artist are probably going to suck a little bit because you don't know how to communicate well with clients. You don't know how to go through revisions. You don't know how to accept feedback where money is on the line. And I think there's this modern fear of rejection that's so strong that it has made people extremely risk-averse to a point where they're not willing to put themselves in uncomfortable positions. So I don't know how to combat that, but that's something that I've definitely strived to be more risk-preferring because if you look at some of the greatest people in the world, they've always taken big risks, and it's panned out. And I'm not saying you need to throw all your money on the line, but gambling a little bit of your time just to maybe make a spec piece or try a new piece of software or do something that you've never done before, that's going to pay off so much more. And my father, he's had a quote in the comic book industry where you either have 10 years of experience or you have two years of experience five times. And when you have 10 years of experience, you have so much stuff that you could do with your life because you've accumulated so many situations that put you out in uncomfortable circumstances that you've learned how to do a lot of problem-solving. But if you've only had two years of experience and you just multiplied that five times, you're still a junior artist. Got you. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. And that's just like, how much are you focused in one space and growing in that space? Are you just continuing to reboot and go somewhere else because you're afraid to grow? And I think that's all kind of, like, the starting out, people get, we all have imposter syndrome, right? Like, we're never, like, when we're inspired to go into a place and do a thing, we always look at the greats and we never get to see their process of, like, when they weren't great and how they got there. We just assume, like, there's some sort of myth that people have talent. I don't really ascribe to this idea that, like, there's really, like, oh, someone's just gifted. Like, yeah, okay. I'm sure there's some people that just, like, came out of the womb with this ability to, like, see a thing and draw it. But, like, more than likely, they were encouraged very young to be working and doing these things, like, oh, that's great, sweetie. And, like, they're, like, too, so no one cares. And they've got, by the time, like, people are really paying attention to what they're doing, they've already went through the whole shitty phase of making really terrible stuff and no one cared because they were, like, really small, right? But, like, when you start something new as an adult, you're afraid of looking bad or, like, oh, I want to be a musician. Well, you have to sound horrible for a long time before you find your voice, before you learn how to play that instrument. And it's the same thing with art and same thing with any craft. So, you know, and then the risk-adverseness thing, man, I saw a thing somewhere, I wish I remembered where I read this, but they, like, analyzed, like, some of the most successful people in the world and trying to find, like, all the common threads. And really the most consistent thing that was definitely in every single one of them is that they had a high level of risk tolerance. They were willing to just back themselves into a corner, put it all on the line and go, like, I got to make this work. And that's where it happens, right? Like, when you're high, when you have a lot of risk tolerance and you, like, you know, so, like, I'd never worked for anybody, right? I quit my last job when I was 22 years old and I literally never worked in the creative industry for anybody, started my own business and just have been figuring it out for 18 years now. And it's, like, I've gotten backed into a corner so many times, it's, like, I have to figure this out or I'm going to lose everything, right? Like, and you just do, like, because there isn't another option. There's no plan B. It's, like, OK, I've got to double down, I've got to triple down, like, whatever it takes, like, because when you've invested so much into it and it really means something to you and now it's part of your identity, like, hey, I'm an artist or I'm this or I'm that or I'm fit or I'm a cook or I'm whatever, like, you're more likely to just keep growing in that space because you've owned it as part of who you are and you really don't, you stop caring about what people think about it and you just want to be on the journey and continue to grow. At least that's been my perspective. 100% agreed that, like, I wanted to expand on this and say, I don't think people know how to take risks safely because you can be a risky person and make poor decisions. Like, let's be real. Drugs are risky and stupid and dumb. Don't do drugs, kids. Sure. Yeah, yeah. But, like, spending, let's, you and I were in the motion design space, spending $1,000 on my first School of Motion course was one of the best things I did for my career and I will reference, and it's not just School of Motion, I'm not saying sign up for School of Motion immediately, but I've bought courses from people who teach ZBrush, from Udemy or Skillshare. I've been on, I've gambled my time just being on YouTube. I have spent so much time outsourcing my knowledge to people who are significantly better than me and that is a risk because, one, you don't know how good a teacher is going to be for you because there's some amazing teachers, but they may not be right for you. But also, you don't know if a thing is going to be right for you, but you're not going to know unless you try. And the reason why I'm going to double down on this, like, people should ideally embrace risk a little bit, is I've read in the last couple of months, I've been reading a lot more books on stoicism and we're not going to get very woo-woo. I'm actually a very analytical person, so the woo-woo nonsense does not compute with my head, but reading the book The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday, where if you deliberately face an obstacle going, that is a signal that if something is uncomfortable, you should maybe lean into that a little bit more because that might have greatness on the other side. The second is Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, and literally in the first couple pages of that book, Marcus Aurelius, former Roman emperor, he thanks his great-grandfather for suggesting to outsource all knowledge to mentors and teachers and pay premium rates for those people because they always will pay back. And then in the most recent book I'm reading, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, he literally has a chapter on how outsourcing your knowledge or getting mentorship will lead you to so much bigger and better things. And the only way you get that type of mentorship is if you go buy a course, go take someone out for coffee, even just ask a girl on a date. You're not going to get great things unless you just freaking ask for it. Well, I think about just the evolution and progress of the human race across the world. If we didn't consistently build on the ideas and the knowledge of our previous generations, we would be starting off every generation in the woods, trying not to get eaten. So it's the same kind of concept. Our brains were never less capable. They weren't less capable 2,000 years ago. They were starting from a different place. They had a lack of knowledge of how these things and this technology works. So we've been able to consistently build on that. So that's the same kind of thing. It's just life mindsets. A lot of these things, even from Roman emperors from thousands of years ago, it still talks about living life as a human being on planet Earth in societies with other humans. A lot of those principles still haven't changed even though all of our technology has changed. So yeah, I totally agree with that, man. I've made the most growth collaborating with other people and learning from people in the business world and in the art world. My creative director, Ross, who co-hosts the show with me sometimes, crazy talented artist and just has such a depth of knowledge that I'll be exploring and doing things and not know why I'm stuck. And I send it to him when I'm just doing my art for fun, right? And then we just have this great relationship where it's like, hey, Ross, make this not suck. And he's like, oh, you should do this, this, this. And he gives me these ideas like, oh, my God, it just keeps expanding my creativity and my ability to execute a story in a visual still piece of art, which is beautiful. And yes, the risk taking is huge, man. I did something where I got access to some capital in COVID, and I had never joined a mastermind or been a part of any of these big groups of other CEOs that were doing things like me, but on a better scale. And I invested more money in that than I've had in any single thing ever. I was still driving a $400 car, and I signed up for this membership that was $2,500 a month, right? And my business still wasn't crazy profitable. I was barely making it. Like I said, my car was worth $400. I was driving an 04 Hyundai Accent. So I could have went out and bought a new car and done some stupid ----. But I was like, that isn't a risk that's going to happen. There's no way that risk pays off for anything other than me having a cool car. Why would I do that? But I put it into this space and learned from all these other people, and it ended up leading me to really significantly growing my business. So just being calculated with your risk is huge, right? Don't take stupid risks that there's little to no chance for you to make benefit out of it. But if there is opportunity for growth and expansion there, then you really should consider them. Yeah, I am going to double down and say one thing, if I could say it to all artists, it is do not accumulate burn. What I mean by burn is do not buy things outside of your means so you cannot make art. Because having a car payment or buying a house outside of your means is going to make you take a job that you're going to freaking hate. And you're not going to actually be able to work on art because you're so busy having this job. And this is why most people, they end up in life circumstances that they just, they're trapped. Don't trap yourself. Buying creative software that could turn into something, I think that is a better risk than buying a car, personally. While I was driving this car, right, that I got from my dad, that was my grandmother's. It was an, like I said, an 04 Hyundai Accent. It was totally beat up. Blue book value was 500 bucks, but max. But like I had a thousand dollar cell phone that, you know, I needed to be productive and work on my, on my business and a $2,500 computer. And I'm driving to my office and a 400, $500 car, right? Like, but those things had, you know, value that could be recuperated, right? So yeah, totally agree with that. Don't get yourself stuck in, in, in vanity purchases about bullshit. Like really make sure that you're investing in yourself when you, when you take these risks. So, so look, we're coming up on time. This happened real fast, Jags. Super cool, man. I'm super jazzed. We had this conversation, but we have one last, one last question for you. Is there anyone or anything in your career that you'd like to shout out to the audience, maybe a mentor, valuable resource, favorite client? You mentioned a bunch of books already, so I'm sure that would be helpful for people, but yeah. Anything else? Oh, that's a good question. I'm not going to recommend the WooWoo stuff because while it is, it has been helpful to me, I know that's not everyone's favorite flavor. I think my favorite book that I've read over the last couple of years is The Mountain Is You because it's a, it's about overcoming self-sabotaging behaviors and to be a successful artist, there are a lot of hesitations that you're going to have. And a lot of that is internal. So fixing that and just learning how to experience your own emotions in a practical way, I think is very useful. So The Mountain Is You, I'll shout that out because that's been perhaps the favorite book that I've really gone through. But I will also add, if you need a business book or something to get started, the book I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi is going to teach you very strong personal finance skills. And I do think that is something that most artists don't think about. And that is something that I post in some of my content on how to work with your money better, but also be gentle and give yourself grace. So. I love it. So many resources. People have reading log booked up now for the rest of the year, for sure. Yeah, pretty much. Love it. All right. And a big thank you to Dryson Carson, who connected us with Jags. What's Tryson's last name? Yep. You got it. Yeah. OK, cool. Awesome. All right. So we've been talking with Jonathan, a.k.a. Jags, who is a animator and owner of John Jags Knee LLC. I guess. What do you call it? Jags.tv. I just call it Jags.tv. I do business as Jags Studio, but technically on paper, it's a business in California called John Jags Knee LLC. OK, so we're just going to put Jags Studio on here just in case you want to look him up. So awesome. And so you can check out his website at Jags.tv. But if listeners want to follow up with you directly, where should they go? At John Jags Knee. Pretty much everywhere. Awesome. All right. Well, appreciate you being on the show, Jags. It was a lot of fun, as I knew it would be. And we'll see you all next time. We really hope you enjoyed the show. 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