S4E4A - Coaches' Notes - Creative passion & the unintentional influencer w/ Jesse McAllister

This week, we connected with Jesse McAllister - social influencer and creator of @90sHockeyCards.

In our follow up Coaches' Notes to this episode, we're exploring a couple of thoughts from the show about enabling creativity and putting your creativity on display. We talk about enabling creativity as a leader, and dive into how hard it can be to put out in the world what we create.

We also discuss Dr. Dre's possible unheard Rap-Opera, and make our pitch to take a listen. We're here for you, Dre!

So, what did you take from the show this week? Connect with us on our social channels and let us know!
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Transcript

JP Gaston: 0:12

I have been thinking about hockey cards for like a week for your entire life.

Seth Anderson: 0:18

Because I have most

JP Gaston: 0:18

of my life most of my life, but it has been emphasized last week.

Seth Anderson: 0:24

I'm I'm actually disappointed that you cut out the, like 20 minute conversation as we opened hockey cards out of the episode.

JP Gaston: 0:32

Well, I was trying to leave the episode, maybe we'll release it as its own special, it was pretty good. It was pretty good. I was just, I was trying to leave the episode is related to creativity. But the conversation in the opening of cars, there's another section to where we talked, we got pretty deep into the details of a draft, which I felt like might have veered slightly.

Seth Anderson: 0:55

target audience. I don't know. That's, that's my that's the content. I'm here for

JP Gaston: 1:03

Nolichucky, four seasons to get.

Seth Anderson: 1:08

So what was your big takeaway this week,

JP Gaston: 1:10

there was lots but I think the biggest one for me was that I've really been thinking about enabling of creativity, and what we can do for others, because we went down a path on the call where we were talking about Jesse being enabled by his boss to shoot some videos. And as much as those might have been a little painful, because he was waiting for snow to exist. He really, he really was able to spread his wings a little bit and do some interesting and cool things. And it sounds like he's got a good creative support system, I will call it.

Seth Anderson: 1:45

Yeah, you don't really think about that. I would venture a guess until you're in a leadership position. And then, you know, it's one thing to be creative yourself. And when you brought that up when we were doing our preamble, it was like, yeah, like being a leader is one thing. But being a leader who creates space for people to be creative. Like it's it's its own skill set.

JP Gaston: 2:08

And it's hard, especially when you're in some, like if you're in an operational type role or a sales type role. It is hard to leave space there because you need to make those sales, like you need me to make those dollar bills.

Seth Anderson: 2:20

What do you have a leader in your career that's really stood out? And, you know, sort of giving you that kind of space?

JP Gaston: 2:26

I don't know if I've had I suppose to see yourself? I know. I know. I know, I know what you want

Seth Anderson: 2:34

me to say? No, I wasn't actually angling for that. I I wouldn't. I've been pulling in that front, I would say

JP Gaston: 2:41

no, I just think I've traditionally been in operational type roles. And it's been hard for, it's hard to see the value of those things, because it's a little bit intangible, like you actually don't know what you're gonna get from it. And that can be scary in an operational role. Can

Seth Anderson: 2:56

I think, you know, off the top of my head, I'll ask myself the same question. But there's actually a leader I had a couple of years ago, Phil Moore, I think you've probably interacted with Phil at some point. But I just really appreciated his style in that specific way where it was like, Okay, here's what we need to do. Here's what the end goal is. Now you go figure it out, and was always there to support if something didn't work out quite right was always willing to, like, bounce an idea off or throw his idea in the mix, but really just gave you the room to kind of go figure things out. And to me at least that's that's been one of the most, where most of not only my creativity really got to get to us. But I also think I became a more creative leader, because I saw that you could kind of you could do that you could create that space and things still worked out?

JP Gaston: 3:47

Well, it's funny, because there's so many different studies that have shown the value of creativity and how giving, you know, a couple of hours worth of space returns tenfold what you what you give, provided, I mean, provided there's just a little bit of structure around it. It doesn't have to be fully structured. Otherwise, it's not really giving space, but just a tiny bit of structure around it. And I think what we've been talking about all season, maybe a little bit of constraint, put a little constraint around it to force the creativity.

Seth Anderson: 4:17

Well, that showed up in this episode too. Like I mean, as I was listening to it, and it's weird because this is actually an episode we recorded before we talked to Terry but it's funny how similar some of those themes are specifically the constraint one that that sort of topic came up more indirectly, like we didn't specifically call it out but there's definitely like, it resonates in this episode as well.

JP Gaston: 4:40

Yeah, for sure. What did you pull out?

Seth Anderson: 4:42

You know what? The term I would use and it wasn't directly this But after listening to the episode and specifically with with you and Jessie, this I'm going to call it like a symptom of perfection like this. It's almost like It's like paralyzing for people like good is not good enough, great is not good enough. It's like it wanted to be perfect. And you just it, it stifles you from you know putting your creations out into the world, because it's not perfect. And I know you and I have talked about this many times. And I think some of the most growth I've had as a human being especially over, let's just say the last five years, is just finding a way to hit send, knowing it's not perfect, not beating myself up about it and just letting it go. And moving on to the next thing. That took a lot for me to get over. So like listening to that I'm not saying like, I don't think about that, or like I don't want things to be perfect, but honestly like to be to put creative. Anything out in the world, we talked about it being down to the level of email, like whether it's an email, a podcast, a painting a song, whatever, at some point as the creator, you have to decide that this is good enough. And for some people like it's a struggle, because it's never going to be good enough. So when do you know when to draw the line, and

JP Gaston: 6:06

I have a computer full of not good enough, like literally a computer full of songs. And some of it's just unfinished stuff. Like we've also talked about that just not being able to, there's a

Seth Anderson: 6:17

difference. There's a difference between like, you know, you've only done half of it and that you couldn't put it out and then it's like it's done. But like I don't, I'm not quite

JP Gaston: 6:26

there the difference between incomplete and not finished. Right?

Seth Anderson: 6:31

Right. And so for you like I mean, I'm interested to ask you because you blame like the straight up set on the on the pot at one point, like you've never created anything that you were totally happy with. paraphrasing, but more or less, that's what you said. And like, Does that still stand? I mean, it's, it's kind of a month and a half later, do you still feel that way?

JP Gaston: 6:49

I do. I feel like I am happy enough to put it out in the world. And for some stuff, I still haven't you know, fully overcome the especially with music like for me

Seth Anderson: 7:00

for your Spotify artists now.

JP Gaston: 7:03

I am a Spotify artist Gitche Yes, my old band from Ontario is on there. And even that took a while like, I'm happy to share that out with

Seth Anderson: 7:16

yours, dude, you've got six monthly listeners, I'm going to talk to you, I'm going to talk to you a follow right now.

JP Gaston: 7:22

Sweet, seven monthly. Let's

Seth Anderson: 7:26

also I'm disappointed that you have these nice animated characters on there. And I've been asking for animated versions of us for like two years.

JP Gaston: 7:37

We'll see what we can do. But it's hard. Like it's i And I especially find it with music. Like when it's art and whatever, I can put it out pretty easily. But for some reason, there's this thing with music where I just gotta I want to get the pitch, right? I want to get the words just perfect in the song. And I don't, I don't know what it is. I just find it harder to put out than some of my other creations.

Seth Anderson: 7:58

I could see that I could see that I didn't in fact, I would say like, there's a tiny piece of me somewhere inside that always wanted to be like in a band or do something in musical realm. But like I was too afraid to even get started. So like you made it further than I did. So congrats. Now just go put some of it into the world.

JP Gaston: 8:16

Let's let's make some let's make some animated characters. And

Seth Anderson: 8:20

yeah, maybe we'll start a podcast. No, no, we'll make a band. We'll start a band. That'll be our next venture podcast band. Podcast. No, I mean, I thought those are those are two really interesting ones. I mean, the the, I don't know, like perfectionism is probably I'll probably do a season on perfectionism. And like, how do you get, like, in some ways, I think a lot of creative blocks, not all but like a lot of times, I think it comes from that, like, for sure you want to be perfect, or you've created something really great and you don't know how to follow up on it. I can see how that

JP Gaston: 8:56

feel like you've created something great for a long enough time that you now feel committed to it. And he like, you might not be ready to put it out. And maybe it isn't the thing you thought it was at the start and that's okay. But now you're stuck in this thing where you're like, I need to finish it to put it out and you get your creativity gets stuck as a result because you keep following this old method instance of a song like you keep following the old chord progressions and the old lyrics you're gonna use just because you're like, I've put 10 months into this thing. Now I must finish it exactly as it was meant

Seth Anderson: 9:27

the sunk cost fallacy

JP Gaston: 9:30

sunk. I don't know musicians think of it in terms of sunken costs, but that is a good

Seth Anderson: 9:34

chunk of what it is. Honestly, you know what, you know, what's one music project that I always heard about and never came out? And I'm sad it never happened. At one point in the late 90s, early 2000s to the mid 2000s Dr. Dre was working on or I believe he was working on a rap opera. And I always thought that would be so cool, but it never suddenly today so I don't know what happened there. It'll

JP Gaston: 10:00

be interesting.

Seth Anderson: 10:03

Right? Yeah. I'm thinking like Shakespeare style like rap opera just

JP Gaston: 10:07

like like Hamilton, but more like less musical. Yeah.

Seth Anderson: 10:11

More if you're listening Dr. Dre or Jimmy IV. Dre? No, Andre, I think you should put that out. Because I, I always thought that was a really creative idea. And I just thought something has to have been recorded. So can we just hear that?

JP Gaston: 10:28

Maybe? Yeah. Well, you know what, we'll use it for intro music and music.

Seth Anderson: 10:33

Just send it to us. So Seth, the biz dojo.com or JP or anything, you could actually send it to Dr. Dre at the biz dojo.com and we will happily have a list.

JP Gaston: 10:44

All right. Well, I think that's those are some good takeaways from this week.

Seth Anderson: 10:49

Yeah. What do you take away? Let us know. Yeah. Thanks for listening.