257 Inside the Artist's Mind with Christian Howes

"A sale is asking for the opportunity to be of service." - Christian Howes If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/257 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Lewis Howes?

  This is episode 257 with the artist's mind.

• 1:09Lewis Howes?

  I'm here in Charlotte, North Carolina with my brother Christian Howes and a couple of dogs barking in the background. And this is all about the artist's mind, inside the mind of an artist. And I wanted to bring my brother on because we're here and it's been a year and a half, a year since the last time he came on. Was it a year ago or two years ago? It was something like that. A year or two ago, he was on the podcast. We had two podcasts back to back. And we're going to be doing an event tonight in Charlotte together. My book's signed with him. He's going to be playing as well. So I thought we'd bring him on and do a session on inside the mind of an artist. And I want to ask him a question. He's going to be playing probably throughout strumming. And I want to ask him a question to start it off. Do you think that everyone is an artist?

• 1:56Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah, everyone's an artist.

• 1:58Lewis Howes?

  And can everyone make money with the art that they have?

• 2:02Speaker 01

  Ooh, well, yeah, I mean, you know, no matter what you do, I can answer that two different ways. I mean, no matter what you do, to make money, you could look at it as an art. But also, if you want to do something that's traditionally thought of as part of the arts, you know, then, yeah, I think almost anybody could make money doing art, almost anybody.

• 2:28Lewis Howes?

  Why do some really talented artists have a challenge making money?

• 2:33Speaker 01

  So there's probably a lot of reasons, and

• 2:36Lewis Howes?

  Probably some of the most talented artists struggle making money, huh?

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Definitely, and you and I have had this conversation a lot because, you know, I'm somebody who grew up and was supposedly quote unquote a virtuoso or something like this, right? But being a virtuoso doesn't even mean that you're gonna make a lot of money as an artist. And the opposite is the truth also. There's a lot of people make money in the arts who are not virtuosi. So I think

• 3:01Lewis Howes?

  People, people in the AMAs that we just watched, people who are like performing pop music and stuff, who aren't necessarily artistic, you would think.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, and even within pop music, you have people that are tremendous and people who maybe have been more quote unquote produced.

• 3:15Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  But I mean, I think there's virtuosi in the pop music world. I think Justin Bieber can dance and he can sing, and you know, I mean, power to him, you know?

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Or Justin Timberlake, actually, I think is a great example of somebody who is a virtuoso and also happens to be in the pop realm. But there might be people that can't sing or dance as well as Justin Timberlake, but are making just as much money, you know? And so it's one of the, one of the books I read said that, you know, there's, there's, there's having a craft and then there's having the business of selling that craft. So, you know, most, there's a lot of people who can cook, but then their businesses fail because they don't know how to, to, to run a business of selling food, running a restaurant. So the same thing for artists, you, you, most artists don't want to acknowledge that fact. They don't even want to acknowledge that they, they should be looking at their, their work as a business, as being in business for yourself.

• 4:07Lewis Howes?

  Why not?

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Well.

• 4:10Lewis Howes?

  Take away from the art or?

• 4:11Speaker 01

  I mean, I, that's a great question, you know, why not? Uh, yeah, I think some people, my opinion is a lot of artists just think I'm gonna be good at what I do and that's gonna lead to success. I think it's the same thing for chefs. I think that's why restaurants fail. I think that's why a lot of businesses fail.

• 4:30Lewis Howes?

  My food's great, so I should have a successful restaurant.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, or I'm a good rock climber, so I should be a great rock climbing tour guide to make lots of money doing it. Or, you know, I'm a great thinker, so I should be able to sell people on my ideas. I mean, it's, it, uh, people don't even think that they have to sell people. They just think I'm, I'm gonna be good at what I do and therefore I'm gonna succeed. But you can't really count on that. Maybe occasionally that happens that you get lucky that somebody else gets behind you being good at what you do. And, and obviously sometimes they do. And so they push you, you know, agencies or record labels or, um, firms or people that, that wanna hire you and wanna, you know, promote you and market for you and get a chunk of that, but, um.

• 5:12Lewis Howes?

  What do you think's the, you know, is it, is it packaging and marketing then and positioning that sets people up to make money around their art or to be able to put their art out there in a way so that people can consume it? Um, what do you think?

• 5:26Speaker 01

  All those things are just part of a larger thing, which is looking at your business or looking at your, what you do as an artist as a business, having a business model. And, and so marketing and sales and, you know, all that is part of the same thing. I mean, for me, in my opinion, it's the thing that helped me the most was getting my mind wrapped around, um, selling. And just not being ashamed of that I was gonna go out and sell, um, my services. You know, just to say, hey, I, I wanna be able to provide a service and literally framing it that way. Like, you know, that a sale for me is asking for the opportunity to be of service. It's just that simple.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  And I think most artists can't get their mind wrapped around selling. As you know, like our dad sold life insurance. So, I mean, the story I tell a lot of times is. When you think about life insurance salesmen, most people cringe because they think selling life insurance is like this ugly thing. And, uh, and I didn't understand it growing up, but later on, after I talked to my dad about, our dad, about business and asked for advice about how to go out and create a career for myself, I realized a few things about what he was doing and that it was beautiful, that what he did is, is beautiful because, uh, number one, he, he believed, uh, well, he had a couple of reasons for doing what he was doing. Number one was duty to his family and he really had that sense of purpose, like I have to

• 6:53Speaker 01

  provide for my four kids and my wife. And so every day he knocked on the door because he had this, I have to do this, I need to do this, I know why. Clear vision, clear purpose, dedication, folk, you know, drive, you know, the drive for him came from duty. Um, and then, but the other thing was the value, that he believed that he was giving people something valuable. So when he would go to the, uh, the head of a household, he would say, look, this is gonna protect your family when your family's gone. What could you do better? What could you do to be a better person than to sacrifice now so that when you're gone, people you love will be taken care of? And that was in alignment with our dad's Christian values, you know, and he wanted to pass those on to other people.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  So he really believed in the value of what he was giving to people. It wasn't just asking people for a handout, it was he wanted to give people something good, you know, something that was meaningful. And he knew why he was driven to do it because he had the duty, uh, duty to family. So that's, that's so heavy. And you have to figure out, if you're an artist, you have to figure out why you're doing it and why, you know, what your sense of purpose comes from, what your sense of drive is. If it's not faith in God, if it's not that you're just desperate that you're about to get evicted from your apartment, if it's that you really want to impress some girl you just met, you know, it can be a lot of these different things. At the end of the day, I think the, the ultimate thing is to have that belief in your own worth.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  And then in the belief, in knowledge of your purpose, you clarity of vision, as you always talk about in so many different ways. But when you have those things, that gives you a purpose, that gives you drive, that says, this is why I'm gonna get up in the morning, I'm gonna make five hours worth of phone calls. You know, this is why I'm gonna, uh, you know, ask for agency representation or ask labels to look at me or, or see if the television news will, you know, put my record on or, or ask somebody to buy my CD or tell people about my next show or whatever my, this is the why. Because I'm driven, because I believe in myself and I believe in what I have to offer. It has value. And segueing into the value proposition, believing that what you're offering has value is, is, uh, and that when you're selling, you're giving value to people. You're not just taking from people.

• 9:06Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  So, and so that's why I say asking to be of service. I'm asking for the opportunity to be of service. That's not like, that's different than saying, I'm the best thing since sliced bread. You should give me money because I'm awesome. And, and I think artists, you know, they have this false humility in a way sometimes because they're like, I'm not gonna sell. Um, but really that's this false humility because they're like, I'm just, I'm just aw- so awesome, people should just give me money.

• 9:31Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  They should just, you know, and it's like where you have to believe in the value of what you have, but you have to humble yourself to ask for the opportunity to, to provide it sometimes.

• 9:42Lewis Howes?

  What do you think, uh, you're hanging out with artists all the time, musicians mostly, but what do you think most artists are thinking about on a day-to-day basis? What's in their heads? What's different about the way they think than people who aren't working artists?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  You mean?

• 9:57Lewis Howes?

  Just in general, what are they thinking about? Like what's inside your mind that's different than a non-artist working artist's mind? I guess we're all artists, but someone who's not working on art per se in general, photography, music, singing, dance, someone who's not an artist in that term, what do you think they're thinking about day-to-day basis? Are they thinking about their art? Are they thinking about, are they just wacky and crazy? Are they constantly creative? Are they doing other artistic things? Or what are most of your friends thinking about in general? What's inside their minds?

• 10:32Speaker 01

  That's a, that's a great question. I mean, one way to address it would be to say that, you know, our schedules are irregular and we work for ourselves and there's this unclear sense of where's the money going to come from. It may come from five or six different sources, you know, five or six different types of work that, that I do, there are even more types, you know, and it's like, well, maybe I don't have, you know, uh, any holiday work this month, you know, so what's, you know, am I going to get less? And so there's this constant scrounging around and, you know, but that's like, kinda like the life of any freelancer in a way, but for artists, I think that's part of what makes our lives different than other people's because it's just never regular. It's hard to be really regular, I

• 11:14Speaker 01

  think, for a lot of artists. And so then in that other time, unless you're just really organized, really structured, to have a really clear vision of what you should be doing, I think a lot of people are just waiting for their phone to ring, or they're spinning their wheels, or they're like trying, I'm like, well, maybe I'll work on Facebook today and then the next day they're like, okay, maybe I'll write a song. I mean, I think it would be ideal for artists, and maybe some of the ones that are the most balanced, are able to carve out, um, a plan and have time in the course of every week or every month, that they can focus on creative work and then also on business work and on just being a human being, like family and other stuff, you know. But I think most of us are more haphazard. I know that's one of my problems. And I know you've talked about that before too. One of the quotes that you had that I loved was like, you know, that, that, uh,

• 11:59Speaker 01

  to be great, you should be working from a plan. It was something like that. Do you remember what that, that quote was?

• 12:05Lewis Howes?

  Probably, yeah. I can't remember specifically.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  But a playbook. You use the word playbook, you know, great, great people work from a playbook.

• 12:11Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  And it's like, so you really, and I don't think most artists have a playbook, honestly. And so now, if you want me to answer it another way, like maybe what you meant to ask was like, are, are we looking at the world differently? Are we just like, you know, distracted all the time, singing songs in our head and stuff? Probably a little bit. You know, I think that's one of the cool things about artistic people is that they're thinking outside the box, they're, they're noticing different things in the world around them. Their attention is focused on different things. Um, You know, and that's, that's interesting. And that's what makes, you know, artists idiosyncratic. Um, and, and reminds us all, I think, of our own idiosyncrasies. I think artists give us, you know, different ways to frame the world and, and that's, that's part of what is a cool function of,

• 12:57Speaker 01

  of the artist in society, oh, ideally, right? That's what, that's what I'd like to be. And I think more artists, some artists that are really successful end up doing that because they, they write a song that touches people in this really unique way, or they paint something that, that, you know, expresses something that words can't. And so people, you know, connect to that. But a lot of us artists who are trying to make it, maybe we haven't made it yet, we're not actually creating art that's, and, and affecting people in that powerful way. And we should be, we should be trying to affect people and make people go, what? And, and, you know, we should have that connection to our audience and to,

• 13:36Speaker 01

  and, and making new people around us be a part of that audience and just, you know, enriching the world with, with what we contribute. I think a lot of times for a lot of us artists, we're, we're spinning our wheels and we're not putting enough art out there in that way. What do you think's the greatest gift and greatest downside of an artist?

• 13:56Speaker 01

  For an artist, and this may be true of anybody, but I think that we have this paradox where we tend to go on one side to have, uh, delusions of grandeur. And on the other side, these really despondent moments where we feel this despair and this insignificance. And, um, and the arts, you know, as you and I have talked about a lot too, you know, it's not a, who ran the fastest, the farthest, jumped the highest this day and won? We don't have those measurements, you know? So it can be, it's, so it's easy to overestimate and underestimate our, our, our power, you know, or our significance in terms of what we do. Um, it can be easy on any given day for, you know, for both of those things to be true.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  You know, for an artist to be like, my work's amazing. There's nobody that does what I do. You know, this is, this is totally cool. I'm so proud of this. And on the same day, Maybe like, I can't stand a single note that I play. I just don't wanna hear. It's worthless. It's all completely worthless. And that needs to be, that paradox, because both of those things can be sort of true. We are all kind of small in the scope of the universe, you know, and, and at the same time, we all do have something really powerful. You know, something really significant to offer and to contribute. To be able to reconcile those things. And, you know, I think is key to have this, this healthy perspective, this healthy balance. And that's why you and I have talked before about

• 15:26Speaker 01

  this idea about trying to be the best, you know, and like for me, like I, I got rid of that idea because I, I felt like for me it was unhealthy. Yeah. Because, because, you know, because there's, there's, you know, who's the best? Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder. Come on. They're both amazing. I wouldn't want to live without either one of them and you can't quantify. But, you know, more to the, more to the point, the way for me to have a healthy mindset as an artist is to say, on this one side, like, you know, I am just a small part of this, this huge equation out there. There are always gonna be people that can do stuff that I can't do. And I'm not gonna try to chase everybody and be able to do those things and, you know, and to have sort of, but, and there's always room to grow.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  You know, for me, like, there's so much room for me to constantly be growing. And that's a healthy way to, to, to see that, that truth about my work and about myself. You know, I'm just, just a dude, you know, who plays a violin. You know, on the other hand, and, and I'm always looking for it to get better and appreciate that, that there's so many things out there that I can't do. On the other hand, to be able to say, without being narcissistic, without being arrogant, to say, you know, this, this song that I just played, you know, that, that has something to offer to somebody. Somebody out there could hear that and be really, really moved by that. And then healed by it or, you know, just, just, there's something powerful that I have to offer.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  You know, something valuable that I have to contribute through my work. And to accept both of those things, I think is extremely important for artists to have that healthy balance and be moving forward. What do you think all artists want at the end of the day?

• 17:06Speaker 01

  That's a good question. Um, you know, everybody wants the same stuff supposedly according to psychologists to feel important, feel needed, feel loved, feel powerful, feel, you know, connected, whatever those things might be. And I think that our, to have clarity as artists, we should see that the function of our mu- our music or our art is to humanize. You know, plain and simple is to bring humanity into every context, into every environment. And artists make a mistake a lot of time of getting caught up in like, that's good art and that's bad art. Oh. And that's kind of like, you know, It's everyone's opinion, right?

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Well, there may or may not be, you know, art that's, that's more advanced or, you know, more complicated or more balanced or whatever. But we don't want to lose sight of the fact that what is it about, you know, and it should be about, I mean, look, if you, if you go into a ho- into hospice and people are dying and, and, and a, you know, a five year old plays that song for that person who's dying. That five year old's music is powerful. It's like, it means something that person is dying. You know, if you, if you go to three year old autistic kids and you, and you clap some rhythms with them, you're going to help them like, develop skills and accomplish things they couldn't accomplish otherwise. If you go into a prison and you have a rock band play, those convicts are going to be like,

• 18:30Speaker 01

  on cloud nine, like you're going to ch- like that, you're going to eliminate violence to that prison for like a week. You know, you're going to have like so much love and good feelings that people are going to experience. It's going to give them hope and morale or a war zone or whatever, you know? It's like, that's what music does. It, it brings healing. It brings all these emotions. It expresses all these things. Or any art, you know, it, it, it helps people get in touch with their humanity, I think. And, and, and so we shouldn't lose track of that. Um, so I think artists, to answer your question, why do artists do what they do? What, or what do they want from it? You know, that can be, that can be unclear for people, but I think that's the one that I would offer.

• 19:16Lewis Howes?

  How many artists are there in the world, you think? Like work, like working artists or people that wanna be artists? What's the, what's the percentage, you think?

• 19:24Speaker 01

  I honestly have no idea. But you, you do see a lot of, um, people who are younger, who have this artistic component of what they do and then as people get older, I think more and more people, they, they settle into a non-art job, right? But then they still, art is still a part of their life in one way or another.

• 19:45Lewis Howes?

  Well, what would you think of a rough estimate? Ten percent of the world is working arts, more work, and then working in the arts in some way and music and I guess fashion could be an art.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  That's a great question. That's a great, I, I honestly don't know.

• 20:00Lewis Howes?

  No idea.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of, you know, we need creative professional, but I mean,

• 20:05Lewis Howes?

  Designers.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  You know, people say that, you know, a lot of things can be thought of as an art, but I, but I honestly do believe that it's more important to see it that way. Cause, um, cause as you know, like I try to do blogging and, and podcasts and, uh, you know, even just a lot of marketing work and, and stuff like that.

• 20:23Lewis Howes?

  It's hard, yeah.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  It's, it really is, it's so, it's about the same kind of vulnerability, same kind of creativity, the same kind of risk, the same kind of trying to reach people. Um, you experience the same kind of rejection, you know? Um, and, uh, and for me, I, I try to look at it that it's all a connection to what I do as an artist. So if I'm teaching, I think a lot of artists think like, well, I just wanna be playing on a big stage every day and anything else is gonna be like a compromise. But I think you have to look at everything you do as, as an art, you know? It's like what you do, you know, Lewis Howes with your podcast and your business and, and reaching an audience. I mean, it, it really is art, in my opinion, you know, journalism or, you know, marketing or just.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Whatever it is.

• 21:08Lewis Howes?

  What's the process from idea to launching a song? What's the process look like? Does he, do you just have an idea for a song and then you start writing it? Do you have an idea? Does something inspire you or? And you start putting a pen and paper? Do you start playing something and you're like, oh, that could be cool? Does it take you a day, a year to put out a song? What's the whole process look like typically?

• 21:34Speaker 01

  Well, I like to tell people when, you know, cause I, a lot of my work is about teaching, especially teaching classical musicians, you know, coaching them to, to embrace their creative voice and giving them skills to do that and giving them insights and strategies to do that. So when it comes to composing um or creating music, um, I really like to emphasize that there are so many different ways that you can do that. And then different ways may appeal to you. So pen to paper is one way to do it. Um, but you can use uh computer software that is four or five different types that have different processes, you know? I mean, I know composers who don't play an instrument. They just have a computer and they, they literally, but they are composing music.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  Um, and then you can record yourself improvising and you can go back later and take ideas from that. I try, I've tried a lot of these different processes, you know, and um, and it really, it really depends. So sometimes I, I just use my violin. Sometimes um I just hear an idea. I build on it in a uh digital audio workstation like Pro Tools while I record multiple parts. Sometimes I, I write everything on a guitar or a piano. Um, sometimes I start with a chord progression and melody later. Sometimes I start with a um vice versa melody, go to chord progression. But also sometimes there's like a functional reason to do something. The, the more parameters you have, a lot of times it makes it, it actually makes it easier.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  Like you had a trailer video, your trailer video for the School of Greatness book. And uh that was in some ways, I like to work that way where somebody says it needs to sound just like this, or gives me very clear parameters, like here's the tempo, here's the length, this is what the mood, you know, as many parameters as possible. And so I have this exercise that I like to give people called a 10 second composition, which uh because it takes 10 seconds to compose the piece, not because it lasts 10, 10 seconds, but because it takes 10 seconds. And all you do is you put different parameters in a hat and you pull them out and mix them up. So that I have five, well, let's give, let's say uh. Let's say uh four categories, four categories uh for your parameters. So the first category would be emotions. Second category would be techniques.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Third would be musical elements and the fourth would be other. So all I would do is I would have a hat, let's say a literal or a figurative hat. Or if I'm doing a uh clinic, then there'll be an audience of thirty to a hundred people and I'll say, give me, you know, I'll just pick people from a crowd to give me something. So we'll take an emotion, okay, so it's sad. All right, we just pick sad out of a hat. Now we go into the techniques box. And from a violin, I've got different techniques, you know, like right hand techniques, you know, pizzicato, bowing and then left hand techniques like shifting and slurring and you know, all these kinds of things. So we'll pick something out of there. Okay, so I get a bouncing bow stroke. All right, so it's sad and now it has this technical parameter, it has to be a bouncing bow stroke.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Okay, great. So I go to musical elements and musical elements could be like rhythm, tempo, pitch, um phrasing, style, s- you know, ratio of space to sound, et cetera, et cetera. So I'd pick any one of those or a couple of those. So let's just say tempo. So we'll get, we'll say slow. All right, there it is. It's a slow tempo. We'll say it's eighty beats per per uh per minute. So that's three parameters and that's actually my song. It's done. If I want to add more to it, I can. I could say, well, let's give it a duration. Okay, it's one minute. Let's let's give it a title. Okay, it's called uh um My Old Dog. You know, and and then like, okay, that really rounds it out. Now that's five different things.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  And then I could even, you know, I could even play that song now. I wasn't planning on it, but sad with a bouncing bow, it's slow, called My Old Dog. Uh in one minute, I'm not gonna do a whole minute. Yeah, I'll just do like ten seconds. So the bouncing bow, making it sad, that's gonna be a trick, you know.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right? So that's just, that's like what came to me from bouncing bow, sad, slow, my old dog. Right, and so that's a 10-second composition. And so by giving yourselves like parameters, that's actually where you find freedom in creativity a lot of ways. And you can apply that to whatever you do. You just have to come up with the parameters and apply those. And you can apply one parameter, or you can apply like 50 parameters, you know? And you can do it in segmented ways, like, okay, so I'm gonna do that for the first part of my song, and then it's gonna go to another song, yeah. But I love that because it's very abstract, but you know, obviously, a lot of songwriters, you know, are gonna, they're gonna use what they know.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  So they might know seven chords, so they strum a chord, and then they try to think of a lyric, or they think of a melody, and then they try to put, you know? And you go from moment to moment to moment, and that is, that can be really cool, too, you know?

• 26:32Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious if there were, if you could give four principles of advice for artists or aspiring artists who wanna be thriving artists and make a full-time income around their art, but also make it meaningful and not compromise the art. What would you say are the four principles every artist must follow in order to make that happen for themselves, whether they're already an artist, or they wanna be an artist? Four principles to be successful?

• 27:04Speaker 01

  And you're asking me, they don't wanna compromise their art, and what can they do just to have success without compromising their art?

• 27:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, success meaning make an impact with their art, reach people, and also make a living with their art.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, it's great. I mean, I don't know if I can give you four principles, but...

• 27:23Lewis Howes?

  It can be simple, too.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  Well, as you...

• 27:25Lewis Howes?

  Something, what are four things they must do?

• 27:28Speaker 01

  Well, like you said, you know, you need to, you need to, you need to work from a playbook. And so that means schedule your time and, you know, schedule, schedule the things you're gonna do in your calendar, which includes practicing or writing new music or, you know, but it also includes the business, which means selling, marketing, you know. Um, so schedule your time and have along with that a marketing plan or a business plan that goes with it. Like, okay, I'm gonna try to make money teaching and I'm also gonna try to make money doing commissions, commission compositions. So then you split your time doing the things that you have to do for those things and you, you know, it just makes sense. It's like, okay, I wanna do commissions, I wanna do commissions,

• 28:12Speaker 01

  so I'm gonna spend three hours a week writing grants and three hours a week soliciting, you know, ensembles that are gonna commission me, you know. And then for the teaching gig, you're gonna like hang whatever flyers in music stores to get to and go out and do free workshops, you know, in schools to get new teaching students, but you have to, you have to put the time in. So that's number one. Number two, another thing that, that I mean, you've said a lot to me that I, you know, and, and other people that I know that we've both listened to, which I think is, you know, keep creating content. I mean, I, you know, I question that sometimes. I wonder if you question it. You're, you know, you've created what, almost 300 podcasts and however many videos and, you know, Facebook posts and, you know, um, and it's tremendous, you know, and, uh,

• 28:57Speaker 01

  and you've had a lot of success with it. Now, I've created a lot of content too. I haven't had the same kind of success, maybe some people might argue that you have. I've reached millions of people like you have. Um, but what I do is different too, you know, so, um, but I still feel good at the end of the day that I'm creating meaningful content and I'm putting that out there. Um, you know, from an artist's standpoint, like I'm, I'm feeling creatively fulfilled by that I did this thing. So you should feel that. If it's a blog post, if it's a, you know, if it's a Facebook post, if it's an instructional video, if it's a workshop, or if it's a new commission that you wrote for an orchestra, you know, no matter what it is, you feel that artistic.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  You know, um, creation happening, you know, be putting it out there and be investing in it that way all the time. And even if you don't reach people with it, well, at least you've got it, you know. So that's basically just keep, keep making stuff, right?

• 29:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  That's why I think you're an artist, because you keep making stuff. And a lot of great marketers, you know, that's what they're doing. They're making stuff, you know, it's very artistic process, you know, they're sharing content that's not only educating, but also entertaining. And where's that line? You know, what's the line? I mean, if I play a piece for orchestra, isn't that, is that educating people too? It's not just entertaining, it's, it's making people think, it's compelling them, you know. Those are, those are two things that, that strike me. I don't know if I have four for you, bro.

• 30:25Lewis Howes?

  You have one more or no?

• 30:27Speaker 01

  I don't know. Does anything strike you? What do you think?

• 30:29Lewis Howes?

  I would say, uh, I would say surround yourself with a great team.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:35Lewis Howes?

  Because you can't do it all on your own.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  That's great. Yeah, it definitely great collaborators. And, you know, when it comes to art, you know, I mean, whether you can find a meant, you know, coach, getting coached, you know, by an artist, but also collaborating with great collaborators.

• 30:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  You know, because that's, that inspires me. You know, the, the people that I work with, they inspire me a ton. And so.

• 30:58Lewis Howes?

  I would also say, uh, give yourself some goals, you know, don't just go out there to create art, say, okay, I'm a, I'm a painter, and I want to, I want to do a mural in my city on this building, or one, on this block. Like, that's a goal this year that I'm gonna do a painting, or I'm gonna do a concert in front of the Columbus, whatever, Pops Association or something like in the next two years, or Confest, or what, you know, it's like, give yourself goals you can work towards, I think, so you can start seeing results, and have something to shoot for, as opposed to just wandering around, creating aimlessly, so.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And, and you're talking about the business goals, and you should also have the creative goals to go along with it. So it's like, I'm gonna write a song a month, you know, and I'm gonna try to get, you know, double my gigs, you know, by the end of this year, or, you know, I'm gonna put up, you know, I'm gonna put up six new YouTube videos this year, and I'm gonna try to get, you know. Up to a thousand subscribers on my channel, you know, so kind of a creative goal, but also a business goal. And if you can tie them together, the all the better, you know, because if I'm, if I'm going to put out a new YouTube video, then why can't it be something that really is challenging me artistically, but also growing the business, you know?

• 32:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. Couple of final questions. One is, well, we've got a, we're doing a live event tonight. So if anyone's in Charlotte, North Carolina, make sure to come out and see us. Chris will be performing. I'll be doing a speech and then signing some books. But also Chris just came out with a CD that you can get at christianhouse.com. So check it out. I'll also have linked up on the show notes here in a little bit. I'll tell you where to go to get that. You can also hear the first two episodes we did with Chris, I think about a year or a year and a half ago. I can't remember when. Maybe it was two years ago, but I think it was a year ago. It was during Christmas time, I thought.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it might have been a year.

• 32:53Lewis Howes?

  Maybe it was a year ago. So listen to those as well. So you can hear about the whole backstory about our relationship and also what Chris has been through in his life. It's pretty incredible.

• 33:06Lewis Howes?

  I'm gonna have you play a song in a second for all the artists out there. But before you do, I want, I don't know if I asked you this question, because I asked this after you came on last time. The three truths question. There are three things. If you had, all your music was erased, and every blog post you ever put out there was gone, and you only had a piece of paper, and you could write down three things you know to be true about life and your experience from all the things you've been through, what are the three truths? And this is your, your family, your audience, this is the only thing they'll see from you for the rest of time. Say Christian House, three truths about life. What are they?

• 33:51Speaker 01

  I don't know if I have three, but you know, actually Rocky Schnarrs, he told me that there's only two questions in life is what do you want and how bad do you want it? And I love, I love that, you know, I always keep coming back to that. He told me that 20 years ago. I'm sure he might have heard it from somebody else, but I think that's important. You put me on the spot, bro. I don't know if I have.

• 34:14Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so one is to figure out what do you want and how bad do you want it? Right? That's number one?

• 34:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:19Lewis Howes?

  Ask yourself those questions.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I think, I think that's, that's a big thing. I think it kinda goes along with also like, what do you stand for? You know, just to kinda try to know yourself.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  You know, I think when I was younger, I wasn't clear about what I stood for or who I wanted to be or, you know, but that kinda goes along with what do I want in life? Why am I, why do you get up every day and do what you do? And, you know, what, what is important to you? So that comes down to, to self-knowledge, I think, in some ways, but I'm sorry, I don't know if I got it.

• 34:55Lewis Howes?

  No, no other truths?

• 34:56Speaker 01

  The three truths. I don't know if I got them, bro.

• 34:59Lewis Howes?

  What, what's coming to the top of your mind? What's on your heart? What do you think is true?

• 35:02Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 35:03Lewis Howes?

  Family, love, life, music, what is true?

• 35:07Speaker 01

  I gotta defer to you. What are you, what are your three truths?

• 35:12Lewis Howes?

  I'm interviewing you.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  I could, I could, I'll tell you what, I could, I could say it with a song better than I could.

• 35:19Lewis Howes?

  Okay, perfect. I like that. I like that answer. So let's do the song. This is the, the final song. And before you play it, make sure you guys, uh, check out ChristianHowes.com and his new album, which we'll have linked up here in a, in a moment on the show notes.

• 36:25Lewis Howes?

  There you have it. Make sure to share this with your friends, LewisHowes.com/257. This is The Artist's Mind with Christian Howes, the one, the only. We'll see you guys soon.