The Right Questions with James Victore
The Right Questions is designed to help you get paid to do what you love and stay sane in the process.
The Right Questions with James Victore
Episode 51: Trust Yourself
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What happens when you stand with one foot on the dock and one foot on a boat?
You get wet. This perfectly captures the dilemma of creative professionals who want both creative freedom and absolute security—you can't have both without risking something.
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All right, here we go. Howdy it is I, your BFF, your pal, your king, james Victoria, and this is the Right Questions, the podcast designed to help you get paid to do what you love and possibly stay sane in the process. That's a big part of it, isn't it? The staying sane in the process. I mean, you can get paid to do what you love, but sometimes we have to drag ourselves through the mud, right? Sometimes it feels like you're walking on the coals and I'm not afraid of hard work, but I don't want to suffer from it. I don't want to drive myself nuts, which I admit I sometimes do. But then I listened to this wonderful podcast by this guy named James Victoria and he helps me out. This wonderful podcast by this guy named James Victoria, and he helps me out. So today I want to talk to you about something. I want to talk to you honestly. I got to ask you a question. I got to ask you a question. I got to ask you a question Do you have trust issues? Do you have trust issues?
Speaker 1:I remember a bunch of years ago, when I first started out, I was working in this small studio, the 11th floor of Carnegie Hall. It was a delightful little place. It was those halcyon days that I remember so well and there were four of us in the studio. It was run by a man named Paul Bacon a genius. I'll have to do a podcast just based on Paul Bacon at some point. But he was a genius that I met. He was an instructor of mine at the School of Visual Arts who gave me a D. But when I was asked to leave SVA, I left quietly and I walked, literally walked, you know the 28 blocks from SVA to 57th Street, got in the elevator, went up to the 11th floor and saw Paul in his studio and I asked to apprentice with him. I didn't even know the word internship at the time.
Speaker 1:I was such a rube, fresh off the boat, you know, from the farms of upstate New York but there were four of us in the studio. There was Paul and then there were two women who worked for him, candy and Lori. Now here's the thing Lori was an amazing gal. They both were, they both were, but Lori was an amazing gal. They both were, they both were. But Lori was an amazing gal. But she had this weird thing where she used to drive herself crazy. You know, we all had our independent clients. We worked for Paul but we were all book jacket designers and she used to drive herself crazy. I would see her sweat over typography, like switching type faces out again and again and again and again and getting all these different comps made before she sent anything to a client, before she showed anybody anything right, just changing this and changing this and changing the color and changing that and changing this. And I was a little bit more shoot from the hip back then still am.
Speaker 1:And one day she said James, when you send in work to a publisher, are you ever afraid that they'll turn it down, that they'll kill it, it down, that they'll kill it? And I thought that was the craziest question in the world. I said, laurie, every time, every time, because if I'm not pushing myself and I'm not pushing the publisher, then I'm not doing my job. It's not my job to cater to them. It's not my job to intrinsically kind of guess what they want and make something that's going to make that's going to get instantly like accepted. And I understood through the question and I understood by living that question. As Rilke says, we have to live the questions.
Speaker 1:I've understood that what was happening in her mind, what was happening to her professionally was that she didn't trust. She didn't trust herself, she didn't trust that she had the answer, she didn't trust that she could relax and do the work that's in her heart and that the publisher would take it. And she didn't trust her clients. She didn't trust that the client would accept the work. So instead, what she was doing was she was training herself in that way, in that way, training herself to not trust, which kind of sucks, right. It's kind of unfair to both yourself and your audience.
Speaker 1:While what I was doing was trying to teach myself, I was trying to train myself in another direction. I was trying to teach myself that I have the answer, that I should relax and I should send in work that I believe in and maybe even train my clients, train the publishers to expect that kind of work from me, the publishers to expect that kind of work from me. Get that. It's an interesting idea. So I want to talk about trust, obviously, and I want to talk about the two parts of trust. There are two parts of trust, right. There's trusting yourself and then there's trusting others or trusting the world. It's a big idea, so let's get into it as children.
Speaker 1:As kids, we're very trusting, right, we trust ourselves and we trust other people completely, and the biggest reason is because we haven't learned otherwise. Right, we haven't learned it. We haven't learned to be wary. You know, as we're kids, we have no shame or discomfort. We can pick our nose or scratch our butts in public because we don't care. No one has said oh, oh please, oh, oh, please stop. Do you want a tissue? Right? We haven't learned that yet.
Speaker 1:And we trust the world and we love everything completely Until it bites us, right, we put our trust in friends, we put our trust in our parents, we put trust in other kids and we love openly Until we learn the truth. And the truth is the world ain't fair. Doesn't that suck? Doesn't that suck that you just can't completely trust everybody. It's like, oh, okay, I guess you're right, yeah, let's do that. Right, that we have to second-guess everybody and ourselves, but the world isn't fair. Everybody and ourselves, but the world isn't fair.
Speaker 1:And and and teaching that to, to, to children, as I try to do to mine, without, without completely kind of like saying it's a shitty world out there. Kids, brace yourselves, hold on to something. This is going to be a bumpy ride, but the world isn't fair. But the way you teach it is you have to let other people know this big idea. You know, what are you willing to risk? What are you willing to risk? You have to trust. You just have to. It's a huge part of us. If you go around distrusting the world, you're going to become very paranoid, right? Other people are out, not even out to get you. Other people are wrong. Other people are just out and out wrong. I have the right way, I have the right way. Do it my way and you end up driving yourself and everybody else crazy, right? So what are you willing to risk? What parts are you willing to let go of? Right, because you can't see the world by standing on the shore. Right, you can't move out to beautiful places if you're going to hold tightly onto these small beliefs. Most people want it both ways and they're not willing to take a chance on themselves or a chance on another person because of their lack of trust.
Speaker 1:I have been through numerous situations coaching professional creatives who want to make a big splash creatively. They want to do their thing. They've got a song to sing in them. I see the world differently. I see it and I want to share it. But they also want to keep their day job. They're very glued to their comfort and their security and they want to keep that. And I understand that we like our creature comforts, and not even that. It's just like. It's just like and I'm not saying you have to give away creature comforts in order to be creative.
Speaker 1:But the problem is and as I try to make them see, imagine this, close your eyes and imagine this. So there's this little and imagine this. So there's this little fishing boat. Right, it fits like six people and your left foot is on the boat. Right, you're going to go out into the world. Your left foot is on the boat and your right foot is on the dock and you're not making a move. You're not choosing one or the other. What do you think will happen? What do you think will happen? Yeah, you're going to get wet. You're going to end up where you never wanted to be. You're not on the dock and you're not in the boat. And that's what happens when we hedge our bets like that. We don't get what we want. You know.
Speaker 1:We need to take heed of this. We need to understand for ourselves what makes us lose our trust. You know. Again, it's very important to know this.
Speaker 1:The subconscious stuff that goes on is you can't just, you can't just move forward without without investigating the source. Right, you've got to see the source. It's like any any of your fears, any of your fears. The fear isn't going to go away. You're just going to get better at dealing with it. But you got to understand where it comes from. Is it? You know? Whose voice is it that's telling you no? Is it your dad's voice? Is it some terrible teacher who told you you'd never be good at math and therefore you think you're not good at math? You know who caused that painful strike that stops you? Okay, so in order to move forward, we have to figure out where these things come from. So I beg you to think about that stuff. When you start not trusting yourself, think about where that comes from. Who in your life didn't trust you? Who in your life said, hey, could you go to the grocery store? And then somehow presented it in such a way that you knew they didn't trust you to go to the grocery store? You know, think about that stuff.
Speaker 1:I tend to trust people and I admit it's a fault. I admit it is a fault. But I think I like to think that the world is a nice place. I like to think that I can trust people. You know, my kids are always asking me to, they're always reminding me hey, lock the door. Why don't you lock the door of the truck? Why don't they seem to remember some time that somebody broke into my truck? You know, and it happened maybe once, maybe twice, I don't know Nothing dreadful.
Speaker 1:I don't really keep anything of value in there, but they seem to. They, you know they want me to be secure and they want me to lock my truck. So they're secure in their minds and I guess that's kind of how it works right. That's how we build our lack of trust. What are you doing? What are you doing Right? They want to feel secure, that they've helped me be secure. But I have to tell them hey, guys, not going to lock the truck because I trust people.
Speaker 1:And if there are bad people in the world, then there are bad people in the world. If they want something in my truck, then they want something in my truck and they're going to get it. You know, I've had. I've had, you know I remember a big, expensive motorcycle I had a bunch of years ago, big, expensive motorcycle. It was double chained, locked to, to a fire escape in the city when I lived in New York and the next day I came out and it was gone. I'm like somebody wants it, they're going to take it. There's not much you can do about it. So you got to learn that If there are bad people in the world, there are bad people in the world. So a few thoughts on trusting others.
Speaker 1:And for you and I, these wonderfully creative professionals that we are, these delightfully creative poets and musicians and artists and entrepreneurs and designers and business folk that we are, trusting others means trusting our audience and trusting our, our, our bosses or clients. I guess trusting the people that we send our work out to hope, you know, to, to in theory, to to okay or to judge, I guess you know I learned, um, I had a pal who was in uh, who worked for a uh, a firm that did product testing, like analysis, for large corporations. They were gonna, if a large corporation was gonna run an ad campaign, they would go to this firm, my friend's firm, and uh, he would do all the testing. So he would, they would invite, like soccer moms or you know, the people into like to like, judge it, which I just thought was just a comedy. Right? What do I? What do I care? What? You know, soccer moms think of my work, right, but it's because large corporations, when they're going to spend a million dollars on an ad campaign, you know, they want to be able to trust it, they want to be able to believe it, they want rock-solid answers, but there ain't none. Everything's a gamble. Even if the soccer moms like it, it doesn't mean it's going to work, and even if it doesn't work, it doesn't mean it doesn't work.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm driving around and I keep seeing that the Nine Inch Nails logo on the back of cars. Do you know the one I'm talking about? It's actually not Nine Inch Nails, it's the new Kia logo. Well, new meaning, like what? Two years old, but you know it looks like a KN. But to me it reminds me of the band Nine Inch Nails. It doesn't work, but it works somehow. Who cares? And now we're used to it. Ups a number of years ago they got rid of Paul Rand's beautiful little package logo. Now it's something else. But I remember when it was changed and everybody was in an uproar. And now everybody loves it, everybody's okay, it's all else. But I remember when it was changing, everybody was in an uproar and now everybody loves it, everybody's okay, it's all good people, it's all good, it's okay.
Speaker 1:But how do we set it up? How do we set up our trust so it works professionally? You know, and the way we do that is the way we do it when we're trying to trust people professionally or we're trying to trust others is we set expectations in advance for each other and we do that by different agreements, by writing it out. That's what a proposal is all about. Hey, I'm going to do these three things for you and you're going to pay me this much and it's going to take me this long. Right, these are agreements. Those are ways that we can create this trust, ways that we don't get into long-term relationships that make us unhappy, relationships that make us unhappy. Right, we create written out boundaries for each other. You know, maybe you want to call it a contract. Sure, it's a contract, whether it's a professional contract or a personal contract. And professionally, the contract, you know, even you know it doesn't mean you're not going to get burned, but it's a start. A piece of paper is only as good as you can defend it, and that means, unfortunately, with lawyers, right. But if we can set up some agreements in advance with whom we are working, you know. And if you don't trust the person in advance, you set up things like you pay half up front or a third up front, right, so you're both committed. I mean, I ask for either half or everything up front because I'm ready to commit and I want to work with people who are ready to commit and if they don't trust me, that sets it up bad, right. You know, trust is the lifeblood of my business. If you want good work, you have to trust me.
Speaker 1:I remember back in back in the day when I was doing corporate stuff. I'd work for these huge corporations that are like who was it? I think it was like MTV. I was working on a campaign for MTV and they wanted changes and they got in touch with me like late Friday and I had plans for the weekend and they had. They wanted changes and they wanted to see them by Monday morning and I was like, hey, it's the weekend. And they're like oh yeah, sorry, here's another $10,000. Does that make it better? And I was like, oh, my God, you just turned me into a prostitute, right? So interesting, interesting, interesting, interesting.
Speaker 1:So we move on to how to trust yourself. And, more important, you know, here's the right question. More important than how to trust yourself is why? Why to trust yourself? And here it is Because your gift won't let you down. Your gift won't let you down. You were born wildly creative. You have this thing inside of you, this beautiful voice, if you allow it, and it won't let you down because it was put in there for a purpose. And we have to train that, we have to understand that and we have to train that. And it's training this habit of trust, right?
Speaker 1:You know, on this idea of training the habit of trust, when I was teaching at the School of Visual Arts, I had this series of assignments, these abstract assignments, and the purpose was to give the students an assignment that had no meaning whatsoever. They were already getting used to creating from a brief. Some of the other instructors had, like you know, would give them a brief and tell them what they're making. You know. So that already gives you these predisposed ideas. But you know, if I give an assignment, that says always the other or big nothing, little nothing, there's nothing there, there's nothing to grab onto. There's no visuals that come up right. It's not. If I say milk carton, you get all these, you get milk and you get white, and you get the container, and you get cow and you get blah, blah, blah. Right.
Speaker 1:And what I learned by giving these abstract assignments for year after year is that they were all really about attitude and perspective, perspective being how you see the world and attitude about your place in that world. Do you understand? So? Every idea, even the idea of trust, comes down to attitude and perspective. It depends on your attitude and your perspective. Right, which is a big idea, because the idea is to see the real picture, get the myopic right. It's like we've got this tube we're looking down all the time where we don't have this wider, peripheral vision. You know, we have to be able to see the real picture.
Speaker 1:I often think of the Marcus Aurelius idea. You know Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman emperor, who wrote a beautiful journal called Meditations that was eventually published for your viewing, for your enjoyment and for your learning. But he talked about seeing life, seeing the world from the bird's eye view, from up above. You know, the 360 view, because we kind of get so mired in our own perspective, in our own attitude, and Marcus Aurelius reminds us, he says this, reminds us, he says this it's best to take a bird's eye view and see everything all at once, of gatherings, armies, farms, weddings and divorces, births and deaths, noisy courtroom or silent spaces, every foreign people, holidays, memorials and markets. And when you zoom out like that, things seem less bumpy, right, less dire, less urgent and here's the thing less disillusioning, right, because we get disillusioned when we become overwhelmed. Right, we want to trust ourselves, we want to commit, but it's hard for us Right now.
Speaker 1:You're thinking, oh man, I wish James Victoria could be my mentor, my guru. Hell, I wish he was my coach. Well, you can make that happen. Go to yourworkisagiftcom. There's a questionnaire that will probably help you out, but it'll also give you access to a free call. So let's talk, but it'll also give you access to a free call. So let's talk, let's free you from overwhelm and creative frustration. Let's build your business and help you get paid to do what you love. Again, go to yourworkisagiftcom, let's talk.
Speaker 1:Here is another beautiful idea, and that's talk, as I see you, and I do see you, right, because we meet. We meet once a month, and I see you and I see your work on Discord and I see how hard you're trying and I'm very good at even just looking at work and picking things out about the person, and I wish you could see yourself, as I do, as constantly growing and as curious and imaginative, because you have to understand other people see us so differently. Again, because we sometimes get too mired in what we see in the mirror and what you see in the mirror. You should get better at looking at that person in the mirror and what you see in the mirror. You should get better at looking at that person in the mirror. You know, as Louise Hayes would say, love what's in the mirror.
Speaker 1:So we have to back up, back up from this tiny view of ourselves and this tiny view of our world and see ourselves as we are, see ourselves as these beautiful creatures, see ourselves as these characters brimming with potential Just a ball of energy. Just a ball of energy Because, dollars to donuts, other people see you in a much better light and so differently than you see yourself. Because, as Epictetus you know, the great Stoic tells us, he says it's unrealistic to expect people to see you as you see yourself. So we're not in control of that. So we might as well be ourselves. You know, again, I'm throwing a lot of names at you, but you know there's also that wonderful Eleanor Roosevelt quote that says says you may as well do what's in your heart, because you'll be criticized for it anyway. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. So we got to let go of our expectations, right, and just allow ourselves to trust ourselves and trust other people.
Speaker 1:Here's another idea, and it's about your ego. You know, that thing that takes the fun out of life. You know, it's your subconscious. Again, it's your subconscious, it's other people's voice, but it's this idea that that um makes making decisions scary.
Speaker 1:Right, your ego tells you that that, um, if you don't do this, things are going to go to hell. If you don't, if you don't, you're inviting people over, but if you're, if your lasagna isn't perfect, your neighbors are going to hate you. Right? You know thinking that if your boss doesn't give you that project that you've been gunning for, then you know it means you're going to get canned. Or if you send out a proposal and they don't like it that you're, you know it's like then they're going to hate you and then they're never going to work with you again, and then you're going to lose all your money. And then you're going to lose all your money and then you're going to like your family's going to leave you, and then you're going to die in a trailer eating cat food and on crackers.
Speaker 1:Right, it's like everything just goes to hell because of one decision. And it's a lie. Your ego lies to you, your subconscious lies to you and again, we've got to be investigative about that. We've got to figure that out. We've got to be investigative about that. We've got to figure that out, because when we do that, when we think that making one decision is going to change our life or one decision is going to ruin our reputation, what that is is that's perfectionism. That is perfectionism doing its job, which is taking the fun out of life. So be gentle on yourself. So be gentle on yourself.
Speaker 1:Okay, here's a few ideas on how to practice trust. How about that? How about that idea? Right there? You've heard it first here. Practice trust, that's nice, that's a good idea. I like that. I'm going to write that one down, and if you've heard it before, don't tell me, because I'm going to move on it.
Speaker 1:And if you're not good at practicing trust if you're not good at. You know, if you're creating in a tiny little window and you're not sharing your work, you're not putting it. If you're on Instagram and you know your bio says you like coffee and cats but you're really a poet, then you're not doing it. You're not practicing trust. You're not getting it out into the world, you know. But you know, start small, put yourself out into the world, take a chance on yourself, take a chance, take a chance yourself. Take a chance. Take a chance, as Abba would say. Take a chance on yourself, you know. And if you don't have a venue to take a chance, then make one. Start a newsletter, invite people to join. It doesn't have to be and it shouldn't be. You know a chapter of a book. Every time you send something out, Just make it short and fun. Start a new social media channel for you, to just play, for you to just practice being yourself.
Speaker 1:You know, do that thing you've always wanted to do, but you haven't because it's too scary. You gotta. The only way you're going to get through is to practice. You know, publish these things, publish something with no expectations. You know, I sometimes give assignments like this. You know, write a newsletter, or push that button that says send or publish one of your poems, or or write a song and get it out into the world. You know, and and and and I and I give those as assignments to, like coaching clients, or you know, to people that I'm working with because it scares the hell out of them, and they're like, okay, I'm going to do it, okay, I'm going to do it. I'm like, yeah, you're going to do it. I'm like, yeah, you're going to do it, it's going to be fine, let me know what happens. And they get back in touch with me and they're like, guess what? Guess what happened? Because what happens is the opposite happens. What happens is people are like, hey, that was really good, I didn't know you could do that. Do you have more? So publish something with no expectations. Get out there and do something, and I'm going to guarantee you something. I'm going to guarantee you 100% right now, that you are not gonna die. That's pretty much. That's pretty much it. You're not going to die, it's going to be fine. And if there's a hater, it's just because they're jealous, because you're doing something and they're not Right.
Speaker 1:I have a friend who wanted to get better at public speaking. So he didn't know how to do it. So we were talking about it and I made some suggestions and he did two things. So he joined a local Toastmasters Right. You know what that is right? It's a national organization where you get together with other people and you practice. You practice public speaking in different ways, making toasts, that kind of thing. And he had his first experience on stage and people were in tears. People were in freaking tears and he was nervous and scared, but he was like, so proud of himself after. Isn't that amazing that we can do this, that we can learn to trust ourselves, and there are venues open for us to do that. And the second thing he did is he started going to open mic nights at a comedy club. He doesn't want to be a comedian, he wants to go out there and die. He wants to go out there and take a chance and learn what it's like. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:I did something the other night. I did something the other night that I've never done before. I've never, as an adult, stood at the door and given candy to children at Halloween. I never did that and I was actually nervous about it, but I did it and I did it in such a way. It's kind of funny. I did it in a very brave and very cowardly way at the same time. Cowardly way at the same time.
Speaker 1:I got, I put on, like you know, jeans and I got this heavy, heavy Carhartt hood hoodie right and I created this mask that made it look like I had like just this, like greasy, yucky hair hanging down in front of my face so nobody could see me. And then I had like the same kind of it was all cut paper and I had the same kind of thing over my hands so you couldn't see my hands, and I just sat in a, you know, in a, in a tiny chair, in a kind of like a, a slump on the porch, and then kids would come up and then, once they got close, I just kind of like slowly rise, like going, scared the crap out of them, which was really fun. But I was out and I was handing out candy and the kids loved it, and you know what I did? I was because I realized subconsciously I was afraid to do it. I had my face covered. I was like I was like that comedian who wears a paper bag over his over his head, you know, like the unknown, the unknown comedian.
Speaker 1:You know, take a chance, start small, start small, put yourselves out there. I guarantee you will not die, okay, and there are venues, there are places that will help you. So, listen, we got to see the bigger picture. We got to see the bigger picture. Sometimes we get burned and sometimes it's really bad. We get burned and we think it's the end of the world. It's like did you know that people fall in love and live together for a long time in what they think is the happiest thing in the world, and then something happens and the other person, like you know, ruins it for them and they get divorced and it ends up miserable and right. They get burned so hard and everything goes to hell and you just think it's like the end of the world. And then you meet somebody and you fall in love. That's the bigger picture. That's seeing the bigger picture, not getting mired in the oh my God, looking at the past. That's the bigger picture.
Speaker 1:We have to in order to trust ourselves, in order to trust other people. We have to see the bigger picture Because shit happens and time passes and you deserve those things that you want. You know, those dreams that you have about gifts and abundance. They are there in your head because they are yours and they are waiting to be seen. They're waiting to become real. Trust allows us to do that. And one last note on trust. And one last note on trust the one thing that kills our trust in ourselves is the critics.
Speaker 1:I had to help a friend deal with some critics earlier today. I had to have a talk with him about critics. It takes the fun out of our lives. One stupid person. So know this.
Speaker 1:Quite frankly, all critics are wrong. I know you can disagree with me if you go looking around right and just like if I said you know the client's not always right. You can disagree with me, sure, but all critics are wrong and the way we prove them wrong is to keep going. That's it. The way to prove them wrong is to keep going. The way to prove the critic is wrong is to fall in love again. Right, my own history of the critics is brutal. Oh my Lord, I could write a book. It's brutal, from parents and family to teachers just being continually punished punished for creativity and failing in the university and asked to leave art school. Man, I got to write the big book of James Victoria's failures. That would be very helpful to people, and it's also helpful to me to see the big picture and know that all those critics were wrong and they will continue to be wrong, continue to be wrong.
Speaker 1:So if there's a right question on trust, it's this. It's not. How can I trust myself and others? The right question is do you have a choice? Do you have a choice otherwise than to trust yourself and to trust the world? Keep going, I beg you. You have all the answers and if you don't, then ask me, because I do. I'm James Victoria. This is the Right Questions. Thank you for your kind support. I love you all and I'll see you next time.