Episode 232: All Fun & Games

"If you can run a lemonade stand, you can own a business."

While we strive to provide value to everyone in our audience, we assure you this episode will be no different. However, we particularly want all of our gamers to step to the front! 

Paul Pape may be one man, but he wears an array of hats - creative genius being one of them. Take a second and think about your favorite game to play. Let's take it a step further - have you ever thought about how this game could be applied to your life when it comes to business ownership or your entrepreneurial journey? 

Well, don't worry because Paul has already built a framework that takes this into account, all while pushing against barriers to figure out what exactly works for you and your business.  

Tune in to episode 232 as Paul reveals what streaming platform allowed him to build a creative community, emphasizes the importance of selling yourself and not products/services and much more!

For more information about Gamify Business

Website: https://gamifybusiness.com/
Instagram: @gamifybusiness
LinkedIn: Paul Pape
YouTube: @PaulPapeDesigns

Transcript

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So we sat down with Paul Pape, or the Center for Nerds as he calls himself. And this was such a fun episode. Why? Because we talked about games. You got your board games, video games, card games, you name it. But have you ever really thought about how that translates to your business and how that could help you solve problems and excel at the same time? Well, Paul certainly did, because he's very much a creative, very much a designer, and also an author. Currently working on his seventh book, which we discussed throughout this episode just the same. So I'll challenge you to do this. One, tap in and tune in for the entire episode because I want you to hold me accountable to something I promised you. But two, also to really just listen to what Paul has to say. Because whether you're a business owner, an entrepreneur, or a creative, he dropped so many gems, so many resources, so many things that you could even be doing right now to help yourself succeed in the long run. So sit back, relax, have fun. Because without further ado, enjoy episode 232, All Funny Games. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Down to Business Podcast here with Tamar Turner. Look, a new month, it means new content. We are moving and grooving. As I spoke about in my most recent episode prior to this one, I'm I'm just excited. I know that we've had a lot of people kind of just wondering when the hiatus was going to end. I was telling you guys one month it wasn't happening the way that I thought it was. Life was just doing what it needed to be done. So it taught me a few things. It taught me to stop putting deadlines on things, stop telling people what we're going to do, and then just do it. Just give some teasers in there beforehand. But no, welcoming everybody back, welcoming Paul to the show. Very excited. I hope everybody's gearing up for summer. It's just different when the sun is out. My birthday is not too far. So it's just all things just good that are just happening in the world. But no, really have to give a big shout out to Paul once again for connecting via PodMatch, which Alex and Alicia have just been amazing with putting everything together on that platform and just making things easy for podcast hosts and podcast guests. So I'm very excited for obviously everybody tapping into this episode, but really excited for my creatives on this one. Really excited for my gamers, for my people listening who want to just look at things from a different perspective, a different mindset, but really just simplify it and still grow and scale and all the things. So before we get into everything, before I let Paul just and the background is real, y'all, by the way, just so that for all my for all my visuals that we've already discussed, we've talked it. I love it. So but before we get into all things as to what Paul does and why he's here to talk to us today, Paul, just do two things for me. One, just tell us a little bit about yourself, and then two, just tell us what brings you on the Down to Business podcast today. So as you mentioned, thanks, Tamara. I appreciate that. So my name is Paul Pape. I am a actually I have two jobs like primarily. My first one is one where I'm known as Santa for nerds. And I've been doing that for about 20 years. I run a company called Paul Pape Design. It's a design and fabric studio, uh fabrication studio. And I work with companies like Universal, Disney, Nickelodeon, those kind of things. And I design and fabricate things that just don't exist. So if you need something that doesn't, that isn't around, they call me up and I make it happen. Um I've also worked with thousands of people around the world. And in doing so, I was on a platform called Twitch for about six years, and I was uh doing creative streaming as opposed to gaming. And so what I would do there is I would sit in front of a camera for six to eight hours, five days a week, and just do the work that I was doing. And in doing that, I met a lot of other creatives who would come in and they would ask me questions and I would do my best to answer them. And universally, they were all asking the same questions. It's you know, how do how do I become successful at this? How do I make money at this? What do I charge? All these things. And so I'd answer as best I could. But what I realized through that six years is that a lot of people weren't really that information wasn't sinking in. They weren't really grasping it. And so uh eventually I got kind of tired of the twitch process and I thought, well, I could reach more people if I actually tried to do this directly. And so that's what led to me like you know, branching out and deciding that I was gonna go be a consultant or a coach. And so I spent a couple years actually kind of developing that. And it wasn't until I was working with a particular client who just really was successful on paper, but in reality was not doing too well. They were a seven-figure earner in their business, but that was the gross, the net was about $50,000. So go from a million to $50,000 is a huge gap to fill there. And so, uh, and the reason was is because they didn't understand business. And so I sat down with them and they were gamer nerds. I'm a big nerd myself. And so we sat down and I said, Hey, let's figure out a way to help you understand this. And so I said, How about we play Dungeons and Dragons Business Edition? And I was just making it up as I went along here. And I'm like, but instead of playing like a wizard or a rogue or a warrior, we're gonna play your role in the business. And instead of fighting traditional monsters, we're gonna fight the monsters that you will face in business, obstacles that you that you encounter in business. And so we played for about four hours, four or six hours. And at the end of it, like the CEO of the company, he like turned to me and he said, Is this what business is? Because if it is, I think I finally understand it and it seems fun. And I'm like, Yes, yes, it is. And that was really the impetus for Gamify business. Uh gamify business basically takes the complicated rules of business and translates them into a terminology that we all understand, which is gaming. And so that's really kind of how this began. And from there, I've written six, I'm on my seventh book now. Uh, done, you know, I've helped lots of people, as many people as I can, with it, and we're just kind of constantly expanding it out here. So, why I wanted to come on your business, your podcast in particular was that I saw that you had a need or a desire to meet people who are doing things just a little bit out of the ordinary, because then that's really like what my specialty is is that out of the ordinary, out-of-the-box thinking. Traditional business practices are great if you understand them. But if you're one of those people who doesn't want to go get an MBA, you know, you need a different way of doing it. And I kind of have grown really weary of everybody having to figure it out on their own. Um, why are we constantly rewriting the script? So I'm so my goal here with these podcasts, yours and the other ones that I've been on, is to really help people understand that there are multiple ways to accomplish business, and you don't have to be an NBA to do it. If you can run a lemonade stand, you can own a business. And so that's really why I wanted to come on here and chat with you and your audience so that they can understand that you know that the translation and language should not be the obstacle that allows them to get into business. Whew, that's that's that's the one right there. Yeah, I I can definitely understand just simplicity is key. Less is more. I I've spoken on so many different episodes as I'm repurposing my content. Now I realize that sometimes I say a lot of the same things over and over again, but I I love that just because it goes to show that whether we're sitting down and talking to somebody in real estate, whether we're sitting down talking to somebody in music and clothing and consulting, you name it. The all the lessons essentially, all what you're gonna learn, all of that journey and that path, it it all boils down to the same thing, to the same concepts, to the same principles, to really just that mindset. And really just as you said, if you can kind of shift it and get somebody who had no understanding of it before or who had some understanding of it before in some cases, but wasn't necessarily growing the way they wanted to, they can now just look at it something as simple as like a video game or a computer game or a board game and now just scale their whole business around it. I think that that's so impressive. So I want to rewind a little bit though, because I uh before we get to the part of this framework of what you really offer, of how you allow people to to grow, to scale, to make it very easy for them. Where were you along your business journey? Where did where did that spark kind of occur for you? Because there had to be a point where you were just like, okay, I feel like the wheels are turning, I feel like I'm on this hamster wheel, I feel like I'm making things happen, but essentially the results are not really what they could be or what I aimed for them to be. So at what point did you kind of realize, hey, like I can mix gaming and I can mix business? Two things that I feel like I can do very well, and I can really just put them together, but not only that, then move that and help others. I think the biggest thing was when I was doing pulpate designs, the crux of my business was customization. I don't make a product and then sell one product, I customize every single thing that I've done. And I've done that over 3,000 times in my career here. Uh 3,000 completely different products for the customer. But what I realized about 12, 13 years into that 20-year stint was that I was letting the work speak for itself. I was behind the work. I was hiding, basically. And what I noticed was that I was having a real hard time pushing past that ceiling, that glass ceiling that we all put in place of getting to the next level. And it actually took somebody saying something kind of off the cuff to me one day. They said, you know, everything that you do looks really professional, but the problem is that it there it leads to comparison. People can see your work and then they compare it to someone else because they don't know who the person is behind it. And so it's like, you should really step out from behind the camera and behind the work and actually like sell yourself. Quit selling your stuff. And I was like, you know, that's I'll give that a shot. Why not? What you know, everything else is doing what it's doing. And so um, I did that and I started saying, no, I I am the artist. And I always thought for a long time that, you know, nobody cares about Paul, they care about the thing that they're holding in their hands. But I was so incredibly wrong. The thing that I bring to the table is the skill sets that I have that I've learned, and my journey is what really speaks to that. And so that was like the really big turning point for me was that recognition. And then when I started trying to help other people, and for about three years, I was a college professor when I, you know, way back early in my career. And I noticed when I was speaking with these students, and I literally had been a student not too long ago. I just graduated out of grad school and I was like, oh, sure, I'll take this teaching job for a bit. Um, what I had noticed was that I was not communicating well to them. I was speaking a language, even though they were learning the exact same subjects uh that I was teaching that I had been trained in, they were not understanding what I was saying, and there was a translation issue happening. And so when I was doing my creative career, finally stepped out in front of the camera and started really talking to people. That was where Twitch came in. What I recognized was that how I approach things and how I do things, I don't think the way people think, like normal people think. I my brain works a little bit different. I'm okay with that. That's the ADD, it's all that fun stuff that's in there. And so what I had to do is I had to figure out ways of communicating my ideas so that other people understood them. And so I really I picked up this skill of being able to translate complicated things into things that people understand. And not just in gaming, but just in life in general. I love talking in metaphor and similes. Like if I can compare something to something else that people understand, great. And I spent a lot of time working that into how I approached speaking, helping, consulting, that kind of stuff. And that was like so eye-opening for me. And that was really what was the spark that helped me to realize that you know, there's opportunity here in expanding a business to getting further along in business, to doing more with it, um, is less about hustling for the money and like kind of seeking the fame and fortune, and more about actually being the person who can be helpful. Um, I, you know, if I had the option, I would do this for free and just help people. But unfortunately, we all have bills and we all have to do that thing. And I've also learned, and I had this conversation yesterday with a good friend of mine, which is that no matter how much free advice that you give somebody, they'll never take it. You've got to make them hurt a little bit. Whether this is your boss at the job that you have, whether you're a freelancer and you're selling something, if they don't hurt a little bit, and by hurt, it usually comes down to the pocketbook. You know, if they're not invested in it, then they're not going to take your work seriously. And so combining those two things, the translation and the ability to, you know, inflict a little bit of pain so they pay attention, that's really what's helped me to step this forward and kind of move the needle in that direction. Almost like that accountability factor in a sense. I think about how many, as people call a lot of people, YouTube university. And you think about a lot of the resources and things that you may read or take notes on. I'm a I'm a notepad and like notebook fanatic. I have notes of just I could literally probably pull out some notebooks and I'm like, wow, I remember when I had that idea. I remember when I started that, I remember when I went into it, and I remember, and I and all, and it's funny too, because a lot of those notes always kind of end or die out around the payment part of things or around the investment or the pricing or the memberships. And and then you're just like, okay, well, on to the next one, I'll figure this out or I'll come back to that and I'll do that. So I do definitely agree that when you put forth your money towards something, personal, business, anything of the sort like that, it's like, okay, you dial in just a little because we've had those times where, well, I'll I'll speak for myself. I've had those times where I pay for things or I've signed up for a membership, and the first 30 days go by just like that. And I'm like, wow, the payment already came out again, and I haven't even really got the ball rolling like the way that I wanted to. So as you said, yeah, once you once you inflict just a tad a little bit there, it'll it'll get you there, especially if it's something that you want to do. But I love hearing that just growth, and I love hearing just that mindset because it's I feel like sometimes when people veer away from the norm, they they almost look at it as like a penalty to themselves. But no, you found a way you were basically just saying, hey, it's nothing wrong with thinking different. If anything, why don't I use that to my advantage? Because there are so many people who think along the same line. And if I come kind of around it, but I can show you how to without having to go through every single hoop, hoop, and ladder, I think that that's important just the same too. And especially to look at it from something that is a passion of yours, just the same. Now, I I want to kind of go back to um the Twitch days a little bit. I was not, I'm I'm familiar with Twitch more so from a lot of my friends game on there, and that's kind of just what they do. And I've supported them and I've tried to get them to the affiliate status and everything of the sort like that. When you were on there, when you were kind of developing your community, did you did you find that to be more beneficial or just as beneficial as like word of mouth or what you were doing on other social media platforms? Did you feel like for what you were doing, Twitch kind of gave you a competitive advantage? That is a really good question, Tamar. And I don't think anybody has ever looked at it from that perspective. So thank you for that question. The answer is kind of tricky because Twitch is a consumption device. You go there to consume. You don't really go there. You're not there for it's not an education, it's not a university, you're not going there to learn. Um, and that's why you know they say about 80% of it is gaming. You go there to watch somebody else play a game. Uh the 20% that does something different, talk shows or art or whatever, they're trying to do something a little bit different. And I think for me, Twitch actually started because I was feeling a little bit lonely sitting in my studio working all day long with nobody around to talk to. So I was like, I just want somebody to chat with. Now, when I started building my community, what I realized is that it was more like instead of it leading to better leads, to more business, those kind of things, and social media actually does a way better job than Twitch did. What I found it was it's kind of like lighting a beacon, and people like cre other creatives just started coming to me. And it was more the community of other people who were looking to see like how this can be successful for somebody. Like we're watching in real time somebody who is willing to not gatekeep to give us information and like we can see them working, we can see the stuff that they're doing. They're not just talking about themselves, but they're willing to help us out. And so it became more of a beacon, and the community that built I built around it was very strong and still is. I've still got about 2,300 followers in my Discord because of it. And so they're doing, you know, pretty well. They all hang around, and um, it's it's more like it became like my the world's biggest classroom, I guess, more than anything. But what's been nice about that is that then my expertise kind of bled out into it, and it did lead to work. Maybe not necessarily from people watching me on Twitch, but maybe they knew somebody, so the word of mouth kind of traveled out there. Or if anything, it was hey, this guy really knows what he's talking about. So we know a friend of a friend of a friend that really could use this help. That big client that I was talking about before was doing the seven figures but not doing really well. They actually found me on Twitch, but not during one of my lives. They had just been, they were basically chased into my stream through lots of different uh means. You know, when you're done, you raid out, and then it was like a raid into a raid into a raid. And they found myself themselves in my stream. They didn't know me, anything like that, but they heard me mention just kind of like off the cuff about how I helped creative businesses. And they sat on that information for 13 months before they actually contacted me, which is, you know, yeah. It's so I think that was the bigger boon for it, is it wasn't there was no immediate return on investment. There was no ROI there. And what's funny when you talk about Twitch is I went to TwitchCon a couple of times. And I remember the first time I went there, I went in and I was, I was wide eyed, I was like super excited because I got to actually meet some of my fans, but I was riding the escalator up to the second floor to go to the creators, the artist alley is what they call it, and go see some of my peeps. And as I'm riding the escalator up, I was behind two guys and I heard them say, they said, I can't even believe that even bother showing up because nobody cares about the art that they create or anything like that. It's such a waste of time for them. And I was like, wow, is that really the mentality that the majority of the people who are on Twitch think? And what we found out was that, yeah, that's true. But if you look at any of those channels, they've got emotes, they've got splash screens, they've got all this detail around them that's made by creatives, and yet they want to bypass that really quickly because they're being more successful in viewership. But I'm like, but what you don't understand is that we're creating the platform. We are the ones behind this. And so while we may not be loud and proud about it, like the gamers who are screaming and yelling to the thousands of people watching them, we are the ones who are actually building the structure that you're sitting in. And so don't don't downplay the importance of creatives. And so that was really almost lit a fire under me to be like, no, I really want to make sure that people understand that creatives are necessary. And that's that's really what kind of led to the talking and kind of getting creatives to want to be be seen more and to do more with ourselves. That's so interesting because I, as you were kind of just running through that, now I think about the I I I liked well, I really like the analogy that you talked about, like almost lighting a beacon, and the right people found you. They saw that like, you know, there could be lights anywhere, but you found that particular light. That one kind of drew you in a little bit. But now that I think about it, a lot of these platforms have not really changed much. It's the creators that bring the excitement to it. It's the creators that when you're clicking on there and oh, this reel looks really good. YouTube interfaces essentially remain the same for quite some time. If it's not broke, don't fix it, type of thing. But if I can go on here, I could spend weeks off of YouTube, but then I find a new maybe show or a new person, or I'm scrolling social media, and now I'm on here like every day or every second I have notifications on, I have different things like that. So as somebody who was literally only getting on Twitch for their friends, that literally just makes sense to what you were saying. I would never if there was at one point I didn't even have an account. I think I was just joining people's thing as a guest and just kind of just watching idly. So they might not have even known that I was on there. But some of y'all, yes, I definitely was on there. I I just didn't have my account set up right away. I was supporting for sure. Um, but I now I now it really makes sense. It's just like, well, I wasn't really getting on there for Twitch itself. I didn't even have the app on my phone. I was nine times out of ten going through the external browser. But because I knew somebody that was on there, because I knew somebody that was that was kind of up my alley, even podcasters I was watching on Twitch at one point. So that really adds it, that kind of lit a fire under me a little bit now because it's just like wow, like are these these platforms are not really doing anything out of the ordinary. You know, we're not getting on Instagram because, oh, we just love the way the app looks and we love the interface. If anything, we're complaining about it now, but we get on there to see our friends, to see moments, to see videos, to laugh a little bit, to celebrate, to do whatever. So that's wow. I love that. And now I'm thinking about Twitch. Now I'm just I I love just community, and I think that you kind of spoke about that in the people who I like to connect with a little bit. I like niche individuals, but I like like-minded individuals as well who are in that community, who are in that realm, who are in that zone. All right, so with the with the creative mindset, I feel like that creatives are definitely wired differently. I consider myself a creative. I definitely am just not your by the book person. But when it comes to business, there are so many books, there are so many blueprints, there are so many rubrics, guidelines, that a lot of these companies, whether they be Fortune 500, whether they be your local business owners or entrepreneurs, naturally, if they if they read a book or if they believed it to be true from the internet or what they saw or somebody else emulating it, that's naturally what they want to do. Now, with you, being that you're kind of coming in in most cases and telling people to switch up your thinking a little bit, keep this open-minded a little bit. But this is, you know, this is their business. This is something that they were told to do, X, Y, and Z. And you're kind of coming there and say, hey, well, let's start at QRS and then maybe even go back a little bit more to ABC. You know, how do how do businesses, especially for some of the ones that you've worked with, both in Paul Pape Creative Services, but also with Gamify, how do they kind of adjust and adapt to your framework versus what they know? Okay, yeah, you kind of hit the nail on the head on that one. And uh, yeah, I like to qualify people into two categories. You're either a linear thinker or you're a cloud thinker. Creatives are cloud thinkers instead of A, B, C, D, it's A, F, Q, Squirrel. We're everywhere, you know. It's like that's just how we think. And so to say, to take somebody who thinks like that, who's all over the place and say cram them into this box and say you have to learn this particular way, it is a struggle. It really is. And some people will do it, they'll force themselves through it, but they hate it. And then they kind of lose the it loses the luster. They they don't have the drive anymore. Um, but going back to your your question here, it's like how do they handle it? Um, not well. It's that it's like, I mean, I I'd love to be like, no, I come in in there, they love everything that I say, but the reality is is people hate change. Hate it, okay? But if you're in a position in which you're hiring a consultant or a coach or something like that to change stuff, you are at a position where you already know things have to change. Um, so I'm gonna blow everybody's mind here and just say something that needs to be said, but a lot of people don't is that the rules in which we live by were created by someone long ago to basically curtail something into their favor. Okay. It's not written in Stone. Every rule, every business that I've worked with, I say, what are your parameters? What's your rule book? And then we're going to push on every single one of them. We're not going to break the rules, or we're going to push on them as far as we can to make sure that they work for us. If you've ever had a job in which you've watched a training video, I'm sure we all have at some point. You know, you sit down and you watch somebody and you're like, oh, this is the most boring thing, or it's horribly acted, or whatever. Typically what happens there is that somebody is really impressed with the way somebody does a job. They they're like, we'll call that person Carol for an hour. So the boss comes down and goes, Carol, you've done a really good job. And we're so impressed with how you figured out how to do this. We would love for you to create a training video so that when you retire, when you're gone, we'll be able to fill you, fill in that position doing exactly what you're doing. So Carol's thrilled because they're like, hey, they really appreciate me. So they go ahead and they do this training video. They write it all up and say, This is exactly how I do it. And then the next person will say, John, comes in. John comes in, he's going to fill Carol's position. The problem is John's not Carol. Carol does a lot of things that are like nuanced and whatever that work really well for Carol because that's the way she's pushing on the rules. John doesn't work that way. And so now John will spend the first six to eight months trying his best to be Carol, but at the same time, he's itchy. He's like, this isn't exactly what I want to do. And so he'll start to slowly start to push on the rules in different ways. And then eventually, once he gets comfortable with the job and he's doing it his way, then that that same cycle repeats itself. So when I come into a business and I'm talking to them, I'm not coming in there to be a disruptor. What I'm trying to be is I'm trying to let them understand that the rules were not written for them. If they bought that book off the shelf, that worked really well for that author, but it doesn't necessarily mean that every bit of it will work for you. So let's find out how things work best for you. And that's typically where the translation comes in. It's like, okay, so what is it that you're doing that you really enjoy doing? What is it that you are really struggling with? Can we translate that? Can we twist it? Can we push it a little bit so that it fits better with how you personally approach the business? And that's really the answer there. And so um, when when people do get, you know, they hire me out, there, you know, there's a learning, there's a there's a discomfort in the learning. But that's why with Gamify specifically, we try to make it fun. Fun is the underlayment of the entire company here. I I love my job. I love paw paper designs. I have fun every single day. And there's never a day when I've woken up and go, darn it, I've got to go down and play with toys all day long or play with video games or help somebody by playing some Dungeons and Dragons. I've never once thought that. You know, I go and I try to have fun. And if you're running a business, it's a lot of work. And so if it's not fun, if you're not enjoying it, it's a slug. And it's the worst kind because there's no platitudes, there's no, there's nothing that's going to make you feel better. You're not going to get a raise because you own the business. You're not going to, you know, all those things that we would get when we work for someone else, you don't get as an entrepreneur. And you're wearing hats, more hats than you care to, and doing jobs that you don't necessarily want to. And so if you're not having fun at it, it becomes miserable. And so I try to inject that back into it, which is also why the gaming aspect plays so heavily into it, because we all enjoy playing a game. Now, what if your life is the game? Awesome. Let's figure out how to play your best game. Your best game. And the I I love kind of the ending about the hats, and I it kind of made me compare, you know, if you're in the corporate world versus in that business owner or entrepreneurial route, about how, you know, we're quick, even I do it at my job sometimes. It's just like, well, that's not my job, or that's not my responsibility. Sometimes we do it willingly, and sometimes we we do it not so willingly, but it still needs to just get done. But as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, you literally have no choice. And it's just like, you know, there are some things in my I I think what I and I've spoken about this on previous episodes, but I think why I've stayed a one-man band so long, and not necessarily this is not like the the prime reason, but it's I think about it from the perspective of I never want to bring in someone into any realm of the business in front of the camera, behind the scenes, social media, marketing, whatever have you, and I not understand that role myself. And I kind of look at it and take it for granted or don't compensate you enough, or maybe put too much on you, and that's not really what it entails. I want to really understand every method and mode of my business. I know I may not like it, though. I don't just get up just ready to edit today. No, no, no, no, no. But I do just want to understand what comes with it. Sometimes it's fun. Sometimes it is, you know, going back and my bloopers are just really, oh, I didn't even realize I said that, or seeing nice backgrounds or doing whatever have you, and really just feeling like I'm connecting with a guest or another host. But I want to also understand that when we get to that point where down to business is growing, is moving in the right direction, we're building just more than just a podcast. I want to understand what comes with that because now, as I also just kind of spoke to and alluded to a little bit, I don't want down to business to just be a podcast. I do want people to look at it. I want to put a nonprofit under this umbrella. There are multiple things that I want to have within this. So when you look at it, it's almost like down to business is the core. But under the on this branch, you have this. On that branch, you have this, on this branch, you have this. I kind of want to be known for multiple things. So, but I but I also just understand that that, you know, people are just nobody just, hey, let's change today. You know, we've been operating on this, on this path for such a long time, whether it's worked or hasn't worked, that's not the question. I just don't want to change right now. I'm just not with that, you know, I'm reluctant. And sometimes seeing is truly believing, especially in business. And even when people see it, it's just like, okay, well, now I need to see it consistently. And now I need to really see it happen over and over and over again. You even spoke about, you know, a seven-figure earner or seven person that was 750, yeah, they were earning seven figures, excuse me, but only taking home about 50,000 of it. And you know, to some people that may just, wow, like like you hear that from a business, you hear that in multiple ways. Like somebody may hear that and realize, well, I've never touched seven figures a day in my life. Some people may hear that, hey, I I've never even touched really uh 50,000 at the end of a month. So what am I doing there? What could I be doing differently or what could I be doing better? And they may even look to adopt that person's mantra or adopt that person's mindset, but the whole time that person is really doing themselves a disservice. So kind of kind of makes me curious about when businesses come to you and companies come to you and CEOs come to you, would you say that there's a focal pain point? Are there pretty much similarities in what they're all looking to do or looking to change, or does it kind of vary depending on maybe the industry or who's in charge or what it is? No, it's everybody has the exact same pain points. And I I everybody everybody is a unique snowflake, but it's a blizzard out there. So it's like as much as we want to be as individual as we can, we're all a bunch of individuals stuck together. So the reality is we all have the exact same pain points, and they are not earning enough income because we don't have enough customers and we don't know where they're at how to find. That's it. Every single time. It doesn't matter if you're trying to sell a million products or you're trying to sell 10 products, it's the exact same thing. Where are my customers? How do I convince them to buy something? And you know, that's that's really the gist of it. And so the it's a matter of scale. I personally uh can work with larger companies. I'd rather not. I'd rather work with smaller, smaller companies, typically 10 or less people in the business, because I find that once you get larger than that, from my point of view, the change is so large that they will not institute it. When especially if like a CEO or a COO is so removed from the people who are actually doing the labor, they are there's too much of a disconnect. And so I can talk to all of the people who run in the floor and they're all gung-ho. This is exactly what we want to do. We want to make all these changes, and then you go talk to the C-suite executives, and they're like, no, ain't broke, don't fix it, right? Even though it is broke and it needs fixing. Um, but from their perspective, they're too far removed. So I work with smaller groups, which I prefer prefer. Um, but what I find with that, with the smaller ones, is that they're intimately invested in every single employee that's in there. And what I've also found when I work with smaller groups like that, where the CEO, the founder, whatever is actually arm in arm with the rest of the people that are down there, is they have a tendency to like fill up their people with like-minded individuals, which then creates its own set of problems. Because if you put five warriors into a battle and you throw them out there, they don't have any healers, they're gonna wipe, you know, and it's the exact same thing in business. If you have too many people who are too like-minded, it's not gonna succeed. There's, you know, they say too many cooks in the kitchen, you know. Um, and you never know, especially when it's like a CEO or founder and you've got a bunch of people with that same mentality working around you, you know, you're you're playing a little bit of Caesar there. Everybody's there to stab you in the back because they want to take it over. And so what you need to do is you need to find people who helps to balance you out. And I've got some really fun tools that are included in Gamify, uh, all game-based, where you go in there and you kind of figure out who you are in business. And I've used that multiple times to actually go in and kind of move people around in the business. Say, okay, yeah, this is the job that you've been doing. And we all wear different hats, so we can do these types of different jobs, but their skill sets are actually better sorted over here. So, you know, why don't we bring them in, talk to them, and see if they'd be more comfortable over here. And when that happens and they actually take the advice and the person moves over, they thrive. You know, and so it's so for me, it's working with those smaller groups actually uh benefits me more. Um, and they're more receptive to change and to want to actually trying to do something different. Most definitely. And that spoke to another point too, um, just about how, you know, I've worked for bigger corporations like your targets and things like that. And there were times where the district manager may come in or or the higher up may come in, and they were, as you said, sometimes so far removed from what was going on on the floor in a department, how to secure electronics up for just different things, things that to us it was second nature. We see this every day. But as someone just in that C-suite level, in that you're not necessarily in the mix of every boots on the ground, as I like to say, you're not necessarily in that every single day, you're more so doing other things. So, yes, a lot of times there could be pain points coming from your own employees, from profitable stores, from profitable managers, everything of the sort like that. But for you, because the overarching theme is hey, well, at the end of the year, we're still doing what needs to be done. So this one store here in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is not about to skew my entire judgment as to what I need to do for my company moving forward. So I love that. Now, when you spoke about tools, it kind of made me look to your background immediately and just the books. And I believe at the beginning you said that you're currently in the process of writing your seventh book. Yeah. That's a lot of books, y'all. And I know that I talk about being out being an author and everything like that. So now for me, that's definitely just lit a fire under me. But I I I guess I kind of ask this question in two parts. Did you did you always know that you wanted to be an author of some sort, or did it just come as offering a resource to others? And then two, do you feel like do you feel like along your journey of being published, of getting these projects out there, was there one defining moment for you? Was there one book that it was just like, okay, things are really here, things are really clicking, this is really gonna kind of help me go above, or is every book kind of its own entity and its own intention when it was done? Again, these are great questions, Tamar. I've been like really good questions. Um I I'm a blunt dude. I'm and I'm very I'm brutally honest. I this morning was driving around going, Am I an author? Like, I've got seven books. Am I an author? I guess. No, never set out to do this. Never in a million years. Um, and what's funny is like I'm I feel more comfortable with a paintbrush or a sculpting tool in my hand than I ever do about writing. Uh, but what it was was I I found myself in a position, I'm like, I can only talk to so many people in a day, you know, in a year, in in 10 years. And I'm 50 years old, you know, it's like trying to get, you know, it's like, how much longer do I have to do this? I was like, what's something that I can do that would help to move this forward or to reach more people? And the answer was put it in a book. You know, anybody can, if the book's in a bookstore, people will pick it up. And then, you know, if they're interested, if that's what they're looking for. And so, and and with Gamify Business, it's kind of based on Dungeons and Dragons. It's a role-playing game type of approach. And I loved when I was a kid growing up, and I would collect every single monster manual, Dungeon Master's Guide, Player's Handbook, all the different uh campaigns that you could go on. I loved collecting those and having those tangibles that I could hold rather than like a digital asset or something that was just lived online. And so I was when I set out to write, I was like, I'm gonna write the Dungeon and Dragons version of business. And I want it to look like it belongs in that world. And so that's really what this book is here. This is the Creative Players Handbook to Business. That was the first book that I wrote for Gamified Business. And what it is, is it's basically takes you Tamar as a real human being and creates Tamar the character within the world of Gamify business so that you then become an adventurer within your own world. And so, but it has to be self-led because if I'm not there to teach you how to do it, then you need to be able to go through it and be able to finish out the book. Because it is a it's it's a workbook, essentially. Um, what I also found is I have ADD, my son has ADHD. And so what I found is that we're scattered brains. And so the book's actually written for people who do not think linearly. They think kind of all over the place. And so no tasks are repetitive. We try to keep everything light and fun and they're goal-driven. Um, but as far as like a book that I think really spoke to people, it ended up being, it started with one book, but then it ended up being two. And it's this one here can I curse on your screw on your show? Is that okay? Okay. So this one's called Quit Selling Your Shit. And the reason it's called that is because one, I wanted it to be so abrasive that you're like, okay, I need to pick this up and find out what it is. But the reality is that lesson that we talked about earlier, which was that I was selling my product and just like buy my product, buy my product, buy right. That's all I would ever say. But the thing is, is like, okay, well, if I said buy my book, well, there's billions of books out there, right? Like, and so there's this price comparison. So what's that book worth? Well, I try to sell that book for $20, but like I can go get a paper book for $9.95, or I can go on Kindle and get it for $4 or $2. You know, it's like, why buy yours? So what quit selling your shit does is it talks about how product for selling kills creative-based businesses. We should stop trying to sell our things and we should sell ourselves. Okay. But the problem is I spend an entire 320 pages talking about how to stop selling what you're making and try to sell yourself, but never really tell about how to sell yourself. So that's where I came up with this book over here, which is The Bard's Guide to Story Craft. Because story is going to be the best way for you to ever sell anything. And everybody said, you know, I've run into enough people to say, I'm not a storyteller, I don't know how to tell a story. But if I if you walked into a party and we all turn to you and like, tomorrow, what is your best party story? I know you got one in your back pocket. We all have one in our back pocket. And so what this book does is it actually starts and it's not an instruction manual. It is literally the character of the bard talking to you about your story and her story, and she melds it and works it throughout there. So you actually work it six different ways throughout the book. And it talks about the chemistry that goes on in your brain, talks about all these things that you wouldn't, you know, it's all the science behind it. But the reality is at the end of the day, it's about people sitting around a campfire, telling a story and being memorable while doing it. And so quit selling your shit, sell yourself. And those two books together have been really the thing that has propelled this business forward. I like that. Yeah, y'all. And look, man, y'all know that one one of my goals this year was just to get more into reading because I have books literally that I when I go home today, I'm gonna look at, and they're still collecting dust in the area that I said I was gonna move them from. So we're we're we're gonna use this as a as a call out. So that way, when this episode is published, when y'all are listening to this, I will have finished one of those books. And feel free to follow up with me, make sure that I did it. But I promise you I will, and that's not gonna be too long from now. So so it has to happen. I'm tired of it collecting dust and moving around. But I do love how the I do think about often that this podcast will live longer than myself, and that it will be there. And that's kind of what I love about books as well. It's just like, you know, you could get a book talking about things from the 1700s, the 1800s, before we were here, way but way after we'll be here. So I love the fact that, you know, whereas, as you said, we all have a social media, even the most extroverted podcast hosts in the world have that. And it gets to a point where I can't even give everybody the value that I want to give everybody. Everybody's not even gonna hear this podcast who I may want to hear, but there have probably been people who I'll never meet that have heard this, people who I have no idea that have heard this. I remember looking at my country map, and I was just like, I haven't even been to half of these countries, but yet it's being distributed and played in them. That's that's amazing. So now I know I have one more place to add to the list, but I love the fact that you can just have something that can that can be there, that can be a resource, you can take your time with it. They don't have to necessarily get all through it at one time, they don't have to get it and worried about it being gone. It is there to exist. And I love also with this journey how one creative element kind of bred another. And it and it can continue to do so because that's really what I feel like when you don't really think on that one track mind. That's the beauty about creator. So I definitely am gonna have to get that. Um the well, I know I really want to get all of them, to be honest. So and that's what I'm and I'm gonna ask you if you can. I'll ask that towards the end of this, if we can. But um I I'm kind of just I love the idea that you know, because I've gotten those books that are like activity-based or goal-oriented or goal-driven, but it's just like some of the stuff you kind of get into it, and you're just like, all right, like I feel like I just did this in the last chapter. I feel like this is not really different. I need something that's gonna have me looking at this here, but then wow, you I didn't even think about that. I talked about it because that's how my brain is. I could be on this podcast interview now, but then when I get off, I'm thinking about the event that we're playing in July for my birthday. Uh y'all didn't even know that. See, some of y'all didn't even know that. I'm just giving stuff out, but that's how that's kind of where my head and where my mind is. So I feel like those kind of get me where I need to go. Now, with the seven book, I don't want to spoil too much. I don't want to, I don't want to reveal anything that doesn't need to be revealed, but is there are there any details that you can share? Is there anything that you can give to the people as to what to expect for number six? Because they they call it the lucky number seven. So what's what's what's unique about this one? Well, so book, I'm gonna start with book number six. Book number six was my first collaborative book because I am an artist by trade. I am not a financial wizard by any stretch of the stretch of the imagination. I've made it work, but okay. What I did is actually work with a it with a CPA, a certified public accountant, who works primarily with creative people, and we co-authored a book together within the world of Gamify. So I play the barkeep, which is typically what I play when you're on my podcast, which is the person who asks the right questions. And then I brought him in. His name is Christian Brim. He actually came in as the financial planner who allows us to really break down what and how to to like really earn finances for us. Like, what does it mean? Like, and what I did is we I worked with him, he wrote a book on it. It was dry, people say. That's the nice way of putting it. It's dry. Um, and he's like, I need you to make this better. And so I started writing it within the world of Gamify, which is again translations, what I do best. And so uh he got it, he got the first few chapters back, and he's like, This is so much better than my book. So that was the book number six. That's my first collaboration. Book number seven is what is a passion project of my own, which is um the monster manual of business. So in Dungeons and Dragons, there's a monster manual. And you can read about all the liches and ghouls and dragons that are gonna be within the world of Dungeons and Dragons. But in business, there's a lot of monsters out there as well, from like traps that we'll fall into to uh encounters that we're going to find that we have to get over. Uh, some of my favorites are the scope creeper, which is something that if you've ever done any kind of design work, you know that they're just gonna kind of keep layering things on top of you. And it's a silent but killer uh because you start to earn less and less because they're demanding more and more. That's one of my favorites. But there's also ones that are more existential, like there's one for people with ADD minds that it's the it's a decision ghoul, and it basically doesn't allow you to make a decision because it keeps showing you new shinies that you want it to go on. So you kind of lose your track. And so that's the seventh book. It's a book basically that allows me to kind of show you in a in a fun way all the different creatures that you're going to encounter. But but the reason I'm writing it is twofold. One, it's to make it entertaining and you know, just have something another book up there. But the second one is when I do these live events, we actually do head-to-head gaming. And what we do is we find our groups within it, and then those teams go head to head. And I have an online, it's a 2D side-scroller game that they each play, but inside of that are the monsters that you'll encounter. So the monster manual for business is actually showing you some of the things, and then we compete with it as well. And so that allows the people to say, okay, these are monsters that we encountered in the head-to-head. We won, but what are the other things that we're gonna run into? Well, here's a book that explains all of the pitfalls and creatures that you're going to encounter in your business. We gotta keep it, we gotta keep it fun, y'all. We have to make sure that you are, you know, obviously we want you to to do right. We want you to to be there, to scale, to grow, but we want you to do it in a creative, interactive way, a way that'll have you opening the book again, coming back wanting more. You know, we we there this is amazing. I I really do love this because as I was kind of literally as I was just reading and going through the website, but listening to you speak on previous podcasts, I was just like, this is what like this totally it just gives you a totally different angle, a totally different perspective, a totally different thing that if you even look at it and implement it, and I'm pretty sure people are to buy your books now, even people listening, like you could probably do something this week, like you could probably do something maybe tomorrow or today. So I guess before we let people know like where they can find you, the books, the websites, everything like that. I guess to speak to the creators right now, to speak to the people who hear this episode in some capacity, what do you feel like is something that as a creative, I'm feeling motivated? I I I want different, I want new, and I'm not opposed to I'm not happy go lucky with change, but I'm not opposed to it if it's gonna help me in the long run. What's something that I could be doing like right now, like this week, to really help me get to where I need to go? I mean, it's literally in the title of my book, Quit Selling Your Shit, Sell Yourself. Like on all your social medias. Hiding, show the messy middle. It's amazing how much we want to present a polished, finished version of ourselves on social media. But once we get over it, because everybody does, nobody shows. We show the 10% of great that happens in our life, and nobody shows the 90% of crap that happens. They just don't, because that's what social media does. But here's the thing if you take that and you show something that is not typical, if you become atypical, you boost yourself so much higher. I do a lot of clips from these shows and stuff, and it's just me doing like little cute little thing, and I say something that's poignant or whatever, and it goes out there and it performs okay. But when I go out there and I show some really messy stuff that I'm working on, if I'm showing the process, if I'm showing things that aren't doing what I want them to do, and I'm getting frustrated, I'm getting mad, it's the ugly part of business. We all encounter that. Nobody wants to show it. So if you're a creative out there and you're afraid, you don't know what to do, you don't know what's going to move that needle, step out in front of that camera. Show yourself doing the work, show yourself struggling, but doing it, getting it done. That's gonna change your life. Okay, because as much as we want to hide the fact that we're imperfect, we all are. And so to be brave enough to show that to someone else is like putting on magical armor and grabbing the best shield and sword that you've got and going out there and defeating that dragon. And that's what we all need to be doing. I hope y'all saw what he did there too. But no, the messy mood, I I really do. I like that because yeah, it's not all glitz and glamour. It's not all, it's not, and it's not just to say that I spoke episodes ago about how even those though the most successful people, we're still waking up and we're still things are not where they want us to be. You know, there's gonna be a point where maybe you lose $7, but then you scale, there'd be a point where you're gonna lose $700. There's gonna be a point where you may lose $7,000 or $70,000. But does that take you out of business completely? Or does that just allow you to, okay, now I know where to go. Now I know what to do. You know, you want to be able to prepare yourself for that. But if you are always just so focused on perfect, perfect, perfect, it has to be 100%. This has to look as good as possible. And plus it creates an unrealistic expectation because then it's just like, you know, when you do something that's not A1 or what people were expecting, now they kind of look at you like, eh, like you, you, you really haven't missed in my eyes, but really you have missed before, but they just haven't been there to be able to see it. So I think that that transparency, that authenticity, it's important because two, you don't know who you could inspire. You could be in the same industry as somebody else. The same, because as Paul spoke to, a lot of the companies across different industries, they're coming to him with the same pain points. Meaning, we're all having the same struggles in some capacity. We're just at different levels of that struggle, and we're just at different levels of how we want to address it, how we want to move forward from it, or if we even recognize that we're struggling. Because sometimes that's what I think it is too. We just don't want to accept that fact. Nobody wants to call themselves out for doing bad, you know? So it but but it has to happen. It really has to be done. So, you know, I definitely can uh I can really appreciate all of that. All right. Do you feel like for everything that we've talked about today, for everybody tapping into this episode from my side, from your side, people who will arguably be my favorite, the ones that know nothing about us, but they somehow find this episode. Do you feel like there's anything that we left out, anything that you want people to know, whether it be about Gamify, whether it be about Paul Papin designs and what you're doing there, whether it be about the upcoming successes that you you have, the books, anything that we left out, or anything that you just want to leave the people with? I I especially with Gamify, I try my best to not be the leader. I don't want to be a leader, I don't want to lead anybody else's business. What I really want to do is I want to make you the better leader of your own business. And so if I want to leave you guys with anything or talk about something that needs to be said, it's two sentences. It is business is an adventure, life is an adventure. Don't be an NPC, don't be a non-playable character, be the hero of your own adventure. That's really what I want you to take away from this. More than anything else. I mean, I'm an expert, sure, but what I really want you to know is that you're the expert of your own journey here, and that it is unique to you, it is special to you, and it cannot be replicated. Do you know who Neil deGrasse Tyson is? He's a s he's a scientist. Okay, everybody loves Neil, right? He he killed Pluto for us. Okay, anyways, but Neil deGrasse Tyson has this quote, and I absolutely love it because he says, Look, I am a very smart man and I can talk day and night about everything science. But the thing is, is the person that I look up to is the artist because everything that I know came from a book. But an artist can create from nothing. And the great thing about being an artist is that never before in human history and never again in human history will there be another artist like you, another creative. Your lived experiences make you so unique, but you have the gift of being able to share that uniqueness and reach other people. That is rare. And I love that from Neil. And I think it's very important that everybody recognizes that. And last thing I like to throw out there is because we've been talking a lot about throwing the word creative out there and artist out there, but I want everyone to understand that every artist is a creative, but not every creative is an artist. Okay, you don't need to be a painter, you don't need to be a sculptor. You can be a chef, you can be a guy who changes tires, you can be flipping burgers at McDonald's. If you're good at what you do, you are creative at it. That's what separates us from animals. Creativity is the ability to create something from nothing. And we all do it as humans. That's what our job is. So don't think that if you're listening to this, I'm not an artist, I'm gonna tune it out. You don't need to be an artist, you need to be creative, which means you have to be human. I can't, I can't really, I can't really put, you know, so I I we could have really ended the interview after your first reply, but I wanted to give the people some more. I felt like they just I felt like they just deserve that. As I said, we're on the brink of summer, and one of the best months of the year, July, is is is coming pretty soon. So, you know, I just I just felt like I needed to give down to business the treat that they deserve. But no, on a very serious note, Paul, I I really do thank you one just for wanting to do this. You know, we spoke prior to hitting record today and just the and just kind of the research that you did on myself and and the show and everything and how intentionally you wanted to be behind it. I think that is very important too. But two, just the just how you came on here today, and just the insights and just what you allow people to just realize and even the steps that people can take just from after listening to this interview. So I'm definitely tapping into all my creatives, my business owners, my entrepreneurs, you know, even if it's not you, if you don't feel like this episode spoke to you personally, which it should have, because I feel like even if you're not even in that realm, Paul just gave facets of life today. And Paul just gave things that you could do or think or ways to think just to better yourself because it does start with you ultimately. And I think that's what we're all just getting at here, that it's not about, you know, a product or service. It's about you as a person, it's about tomorrow. It's about Paul, it's about whoever else is listening to this on the other side of that. So, Paul, from down to business to gamify to Paul Pate, we we sincerely appreciate everything that you're doing. We're here to support you every single step of the way. We will definitely see you on Twitch one of these days because my account is made. We're here, we're there, we've made it happen at this point. So you will see me soon. But no, thank you so much for just your responsiveness, for your willingness to come on here. I really do appreciate it. To all my listeners, my viewers, like I said, we're back. I promise I will never leave again this long. But look, we're here, we're moving in a great direction. All thanks to people like Paul and what he's doing over at Gamify. So please don't hesitate to tap out. Before we officially close out, Paul, can you just tell us some of the best places to find you, whether it be social media, whether it be websites, where to get the books, give us everything you got. Yeah, go to gamifybusiness.com. That's g-a-m-i-f y business.com. If you go over there, there's lots of things that you can do that are a lot of fun. Go take the quiz, find out a little bit more about yourself, buy the books, they're all available there. Some of the books are also available on Amazon, not all of them, because they don't like to do hard covers, and all of my really cool books are hardcovers, so you have to buy those on the on the website. But if you buy them at gamifybusiness.com, I will sign them, I will autograph them for you and send them out so you'll know they come directly from me. Uh, social media, I'm known primarily as Paul Pape Designs. I've owned those social media handles for over 20 years. No point getting reading them now. And so you'll find all the gamify stuff as well as Paul Pape Design stuff out there on any of the socials under Paul Pape Designs. And no, that was not Paul saying that he is not opposed to change, but it's just in this case, we also have to make sensible change, guys. You know what I'm saying? 20 plus years, that's a you know, that's a state. So no. Um, but again, thank you so much, Paul, for everything that you're doing. Look to everybody who taps in with us, who shows us love near and far. We're very grateful, we're very appreciative. We love you guys. This has been another episode of the Down to Business Podcast here with Tamar Turner.