The 7 Myths About Following Your Creative Pursuits
The 7 Myths About Following Your Creative Pursuits written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing
Marketing Podcast with Kate Volman
In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Kate Volman. She is the CEO of Floyd Coaching. With over twenty years of experience in developing and leading life-changing programs for entrepreneurs and leaders, she has a passion for helping people grow.
Her new book Do What You Love: A Guide to Living Your Creative Life Without Leaving Your Job shares the seven myths stopping people from exploring their passions and dreams.
Key Takeaway:
Pursuing your creative passions and incorporating them into your life can greatly enhance your overall engagement and fulfillment. It doesn’t require quitting your job or making it your career; you can still be creative while working full-time. Many people hesitate to pursue their passions because they feel they need permission or are waiting for the perfect moment. However, true growth and success come when we give ourselves permission to start creating, even if it’s not perfect.
It’s important to challenge the myths that suggest it’s not possible, that you’re not good enough, or that you need a specific reason to pursue your creativity. Your creative pursuits are inside of you for a reason and they’re not going anywhere, It’s up to each one to feed them to improve.
Questions I ask Kate Volman:
- [01:42] Why you built that caveat into this book?
- [05:50] Do you think that as a team leader, you should be trying to find out what are the passions of other team members? Is that crossing the line or is that something that you think would be a healthy business relationship?
- [08:10] The book is set up around seven myths that you must hear from time to time when you encourage people to follow their dream. So when people have a job, and think it’s impossible to follow their dreams, how do you bat that myth down?
- [09:22] Can you explain the second myth: You’re not good enough?
- [15:25] On the fourth myth, do you think we probably assign the need for permission to all of the responsibilities that we have?
- [17:00] What do you tell people when they say they don’t have time to follow their creative passions?
- [19:24] Some people may not want to develop their creative pursuits because they may think that what they’re doing is not perfect, what do you think of that?
- [22:48] Talking about the passion loop, there’s a part missing out and not doing the things you want. So, it’s like a vicious cycle, isn’t it?
More About Kate Volman:
- Website: katevolman.com
- Get your copy of Do What You Love: A Guide to Living Your Creative Life Without Leaving Your Job
More About The Agency Certification Intensive Training:
- Learn more about the Agency Certification Intensive Training here
Take The Marketing Assessment:
- Marketingassessment.co
Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please!
John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Nudge, hosted by Phil Agnew, and it’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. You ever noticed how the smallest changes can make the biggest impact on Nudge you learned simple evidence, back tips to help you kick bat habits, get a raise, and grow your business. In a recent episode, Phil tested a thousand dollars on some marketing principles, some work, some don’t. Uh, guest Nancy Har Hut, who’s been a guest of the show as well. And Phil put these principles to test in a set of real life experiments. You’ll learn what works and what doesn’t. Listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
(00:52): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Kate Volman. She’s the CEO of Floyd Coaching. With over 20 years of experience in developing and leading life-changing programs for entrepreneurs and leaders, she has a passion for helping people grow. And today we’re gonna talk about her new book Do What You Love: A Guide to Living Your Creative Life Without Leaving Your Job. So Kate, welcome to the show.
Kate Volman (01:22): Thank you so much for having me, John. Such a pleasure to be here.
John Jantsch (01:26): So I wanna start with what I see as a bit of a twist. I think the Do What You Love mantra has certainly been out there for quite some time, but this idea of l without leaving your job, you know, I think most books are like, no, go for it. Like
Kate Volman (01:48): Yeah, so it’s so funny that is your first question because I spent so much time thinking about this book and how is it different than all these other books that are basically saying, go out and live your dreams and do your thing
John Jantsch (02:56): You know, it’s interesting, I could see a lot, I could see a, of employers, I think this mindset’s changing, but certainly a lot of employers that would say, no, I want, you know, I want, I want you all in, you know, to your job that this is like, this is your, you know, everything, your growth, all of your extra reading, everything should be
Kate Volman (03:34): Right. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean, that’s so much of what I talk about in the book is when we, if we’re, if that’s all we’re focused on is busy, yeah. And we’re sometimes the best ideas come from when we’re out in the garden or we’re taking a walk. There’s so much data and research that shows we have to get out of our work environment sometimes. And it’s those things that bring you so much joy. And what’s so beautiful is when you start to pursue your creativity and some of those passion projects, all of you become more engaged. You become more engaged in your personal life, which then in turn you become more engaged in your professional life. So you automatically not only are becoming a better team member, you’re becoming a better parent and spouse, significant other friend, coworker, teammate, all of these things simply because you’re getting so much energy out of those creative pursuits. And it’s just a beautiful thing to watch. I mean, Matthew Kelly wrote the Dream Manager, and that’s the basic concept of the book. Your organization can only be the best version of itself to the extent that your people are becoming better versions of themselves. And when we are encouraging our team members to explore their creative passions, all of that stuff is gonna be infused into the other areas of their lives, including their business. Yeah.
John Jantsch (04:48): And I think sometimes personal development is missing in a lot of, you know, certainly in job descriptions, but in actually a lot of workplaces. You know, one of the things that I think is great about being an entrepreneur, owning your own business, I think it’s probably the greatest personal development program ever created
Kate Volman (05:22): Yeah, I think it’s important as leaders, I mean, as leaders, our number one role is to help our people grow. And how do you do that? Of course, you want them to get better in their role, and you wanna provide that kind of development and training so that they get better in the role that they’re in and the tasks they need to do, but then also encouraging them to explore those other passions, those other things that really light them up and really bring joy to their life. Yeah.
John Jantsch (05:45): We, I didn’t want to, I wasn’t gonna spend this much time on this, but I think it’s a fascinating conversation. I mean, do you think that actually as a leader of a team or of an organization that you really should be trying to like find out what are those passions and, you know, is there a way that we could actually participate in you, you know, realizing some of those, I mean, is that crossing the line or is that something that you think would be a healthy, you know, business relationship?
Kate Volman (06:08): Oh my gosh, absolutely. Oh yes. Those are conversations that should be had all the time. So one of the things that I think is so beautiful, so I run, uh, Floyd Coaching, which was founded by Matthew Kelly, who again wrote the Dream Manager. And in that, in that the whole idea of asking your team members about their dreams, right? Right. Like, what are the dreams that you have for your life? And you start to see them become more engaged. And then what’s so great is, as a leader, when you know what their dreams are, you’re getting to know them a little bit more. You get to know their mindset, and you get to encourage them to pursue those dreams. And when they do that, think about the relationship that you’re building with that person, right? Oh, John cares about me as a human being, not just that I come into work and do this job.
(06:50): And in the book he shares the 12 areas of dreams. We have dreams in all areas, professional, phy, physical material, psychological character, and we have creative dreams, and we lose sight of those. It’s kind of easy in business, right? We have professional dreams, we wanna get promoted, and we have financial dreams, and we all know about those. And so those are ones that we think about our material dreams. Those are ones kind of in our face all the time. But when we think about these other areas, like our character dreams, your legacy dreams, your creative dreams, and the creative one, I have to say, most of our clients have such a hard time putting the, those, filling that box up, because we’ve stopped feeling like we can be creative. And I believe that we are all artists, like you are the artist of your life. And so, yes, as a leader, we need to know what our people care about. When we know what our people care about, we can lead them better. We can coach them better. We know what drives them, we know what’s motivated, what’s motivating them, and we can build better relationships with not only that person, but within the entire team.
John Jantsch (07:53): Yeah. I, I suspect part of what holds people back is the very narrow definition of creativity. Meaning I have to have a paintbrush in my hand, you know? Yes. Or I’m not, you know, creating art. I mean, I think most people, if they really reflect on what their day looks like, they are creatively making decisions all day long.
Kate Volman (08:46): Yeah, I mean, myth number one is not possible. I mean, we think about, we go through life, and especially as we get older and things get a little more challenging, we have things that get thrown in our direction, right? We, it used to be more carefree living, and now we have kids and bills and all the things that we need to do. And so we actually have this mindset sometimes of it’s not possible. Like, it’s not possible for me to make money and go to and have a job and do these things and also pursue my creativity. Like, it just, it’s not possible. If we don’t believe it’s possible, then we’re not gonna be encouraged to take any steps towards making it happen.
John Jantsch (09:22): All right. Number two, I’m gonna debate a little bit. You’re not good enough,
Kate Volman (09:41):
John Jantsch (10:45): Yeah, I mean, there’s a whole lot of teachings mo mostly Eastern teachings, about how valuable it is to actually be a beginner at something and to, you know, to experience the fact that you’re not good at something is because you will eventually get there. Cuz you know, this whole talk about do what you love and the money will follow, you know, all of that. I think that there’s a little bit of misleading information in that sometimes there has to be a demand for what you love and there, you know, things like that. But I also think that when people get good at stuff, like, there’s things that I didn’t love in the beginning that I love now, because I’m kind of good at ’em. And, you know, had I just said, oh, I’m not gonna be a writer, or I’m not gonna be a speaker, you know, because I’m not good at ’em, you, you know, or because I don’t really think I love it, you know, now, and obviously those have been, you know, huge parts of my business and my growth.
Kate Volman (11:34): Yeah, I mean, I, and look, the, the, it’s part of what the myth is, right? I mean, one of the, well, myth number four is you need a reason. We’re kind of skipping, we skipped over myth number three, but you need a reason. And one of the reasons why I put this one in there is because of what you just said, which is, oh, do what you love and the money will follow. So that’s not the book’s about, we’re not talking about like making this your career. We’re talking about you. You don’t need a reason to pursue your creativity. If you love to write, I love, I started writing and or writing poetry. I never was really into poetry. Do I wanna be a poet for a living? No, but you never know if I start writing poetry now, what’s, what is my poetry gonna look like 10 years from now if I practice it every day simply for the joy of it?
(12:19): Now, how does it make me a better leader? Makes me a better leader? Because poetry is so interesting. You have to find things that are fascinating to put ideas together and make something work. And that’s what you do in business. It also helps in my writing, this helped me write the book studying poetry and what that was like. And I wanted it to feel like a very good flow moving book, which is a lot of what poetry is. And so this is why it’s not about the money. Now, obviously, if somebody wants to start a podcast and make money, for sure, be more strategic about it. But we’re talking about two different things. Yep. This is why I have that caveat of, without leaving your job, do you, if you want to one day leave your job, the myths in this book will still help you with that goal down the line. But you know, it’s really giving people permission to explore their creativity a little bit more than they are used to.
John Jantsch (13:08): And now let’s hear a word from our sponsor. You know, companies are under pressure right now. I mean, pressure to get more leads, close deals faster, get better insights to create the best experience for customers. A CRM can help, but not just any crm. One that’s easy to set up, intuitive to use and customizable to the way you do business. And that’s where HubSpot comes in. HubSpot CRM is easy for everyone to use on day one, and it helps teams be more productive. Drag and drop your way to attention grabbing emails and landing pages. Set up marketing automation to give every contact white glove treatment. Plus AI powered tools like content Assistant mean less time spent on tedious manual task and more time for what matters. Your customers. HubSpot CRM has all the tools you need to wow prospects lock in deals and improve customer service response times. Get started today for free @hubspot.com.
(14:13): Hey, marketing agency owners, you know, I can teach you the keys to doubling your business in just 90 days, or your money back. Sound interesting. All you have to do is license our three step process that it’s gonna allow you to make your competitors irrelevant, charge a premium for your services and scale perhaps without adding overhead. And here’s the best part. You can license this entire system for your agency by simply participating in an upcoming agency certification intensive. Look, why create the wheel? Use a set of tools that took us over 20 years to create. And you can have ’em today, check it out at dtm.world/certification. That’s DTM world slash certification.
(14:59): Well, and I wonder how many people that started like that, oh, I’m not gonna be a poet, or I’m not gonna write music, or, you know, whatever it is. And then all of a sudden, like three years later, th they’re rocking it. It is like that’s what they decided they were meant to do. And now they’ve actually, you know, instead of putting it off because they needed a reason,
Kate Volman (15:47): Yeah. We feel like it’s almost like we, we wanna get picked, right? Like we want somebody to reach out to us and say, Hey, you should start a podcast, or you should go pursue that creative project. Or you should go try out for the play when no, you, we need to give ourselves permission cause nobody else is gonna do that for us, right? Like, we have to give ourselves permission to start creating. And then what you just said is when you start putting yourself out there and when you start giving yourself that permission, that’s when other people might find you. They might wanna collaborate with you, they might find your content and really find it interesting and want to do something with you. But when we’re waiting for permission, we’re gonna be waiting a long time. If we’re waiting for somebody to call us up and say, Hey here, do the thing you keep saying you want to do
John Jantsch (16:34): Well. And sadly, you know, as part of the human condition, there are people out there that maybe don’t want us to grow that way or to That’s right. Succeed that way. And so, you know, sometimes you’ve gotta just like bust through that too. There’s not enough time. I mean, I’m sure that one probably oughta be number one, probably
Kate Volman (17:04): Yeah, I mean, you hit the nail on the head. It’s, I used to run this workshop of called Inspired Action and uh, it was a group, it was a mastermind group, it was specifically for women, eight to 10 women. And this one was so fun cuz we, this section, we, we would always have a good laugh because what did we do? I had them do this exercise where they had time wasters and time enhancers, right? Like we both know both of those different things in our lives. And those time wasters are the things that have just over the years gotten even harder to get over, which cuz of social media, we scroll on social media, we do online shopping for things we don’t need. We do all of these things that waste so much of our time when really we should be investing in our time differently.
(17:47): And so I always find it so fascinating how we all say we need more time. Yet when something is truly important to you, you figure out how to make it work. You figure out how you’re gonna squeeze in five minutes here, 10 minutes there. And that’s another piece is I think that oftentimes people say people, especially when they talk about writing a book, they think, oh, I need 10 hours a day I need, or four hours or two hours a day. Yeah, no, you can literally, Hey, if you have 10 minutes, great. If you have 30 minutes, great. And what usually happens is when you give yourself that tiny little block of time to start writing or pursuing something, you’ll notice you’ll stay there a little bit longer. Yeah. When, because you’re realizing that, oh my gosh, I actually really do enjoy this. I actually am now excited to finish writing the book or the article or whatever it is. And so we have to really identify what are those time wasters and what are those time enhancers? And then figure out how do you limit or get rid of some of those time wass because hey, we all do them. We’ve all spent a little too much time scrolling on social media when we could be doing something else that we would feel much better about at the end of whatever amount, length of time that is.
John Jantsch (18:54): Well, and I think, you know, there’s a name for this theory, but just that, you know, we’re gonna fill up the space that we have and we’re either gonna fill it up with doing something we love or we’re gonna fill it up doing something stupid
Kate Volman (19:22): Exactly.
John Jantsch (19:24): So Exactly. It has to be perfect. This is a great one because I’m an am an amateur woodworker, and I, you know, I wa I try to build furniture and I watch what other people do and I, you know, I always tell my wife, oh, I couldn’t get this part right, she’s not perfect. And she’s like, is that why you built it? And she’s like, no,
Kate Volman (19:50): I know. Yeah. We don’t, we, I mean me because mediocre work is not the end result, right? We don’t want to be mediocre at anything, but everyone has to start somewhere and Right. Like, I love why I love when somebody has somebody online who I’ve followed for years and years. I’m like, oh my gosh, they’ve accomplished so many things. And we look up to those people and then we go back to maybe their first blog or their first podcast or YouTube video, you’re like, oh, they were really not that great. Right? But after so many repetitions of doing it. And so it has to be perfect. We all, I, for a lot of, especially very driven type A individuals, we have this like perfectionism complex and we can te we know that perfect doesn’t exist, right? We can say that and have that conversation, yet we’re still striving for it.
(20:38): We’re like, no, we could get it perfect. And this is a challenge for us and it stops us from actually starting. And so in the book, I actually talk about the passion loop. So we have this passion loop where we have this idea of this passion or creative pursuit that we have, and then we say, I wanna do that. Like I, I actually wanna do that. And then we make these excuses, right? Like we immediately think I wanna do that. And then we make excuses and then we don’t do anything about it. And one of those excuses is like, I’m not ready, I’ve, it’s, I’m not a, there’s not enough time. It has to be perfect. All those things. And then what happens like a week later, a month later, we have that same idea again. Like, Ooh, I wanna start that podcast, I’m gonna do it.
(21:21): Excuses. And we’re stuck in this passion loop, huh? When really how to get out of the passion loop. The simplest way to get out of the passion loop is take the first step. Like that is all you have to do is take one step, even when you’re scared, even when you d don’t think, you know, you take that one next step to towards that patching project. And what’s so awesome is that when you’re, when you do that, all of these things br when you’re breaking through that passion loop, you start to uncover new opportunities, new passions, new relationships, new skills, confidence, all of this stuff. And so unless we’re doing the work and showing up every day, we’re never gonna get better. We’re never gonna go be able to, I mean we’ll never attain perfect, right? Yeah. But we’re never gonna even get better. And so this idea of, hey, it’s okay to be mediocre, it’s okay to have, you know, my first podcast isn’t gonna be stellar if you love it and you’re putting all, every single bit of energy and passion that you have and you know it’s the best that it can be right now.
(22:21): Yeah, that’s amazing. Put it out into the world. I’ve never met an author that said my, I would never change anything from the books that I’ve written. They’ve all said to me, when your book is out into the world, you read it and you’re like, oh, why did I say that? I should have done this. I could have done that. It’s the same thing with all of our work. Yeah.
John Jantsch (22:38): Plus’s, the feedback you get, you know, people actually do tell you how to make it better.
Kate Volman (23:05): Yeah.
John Jantsch (23:15): So inspirational strike is the seventh myth, and I’ll just let you tee that one out.
Kate Volman (23:22): Okay. So what’s so funny about this myth is this is, I was so excited to write this chapter and it was probably the hardest one to write cuz I was like, there’s so many things about this inspiration will strike. Because I think so many of us, we feel as though we’re gonna have this epiphany moment of, and I talk about muses in the book and I’m like, oh, I love this idea of muses and we think they’re gonna come fluttering down from the sky and pour magic pixie dust on us. And all of a sudden we’re gonna feel like writing or we’re gonna feel like recording something, or we’re gonna feel like getting up and playing guitar even though we love guitar. When really when we get home from the office or a long day, sometimes we just, you know, we think I just wanna veja on the couch, right?
(24:04): But what’s so interesting is that, so inspiration doesn’t just strike out of the blue. Yeah. It strikes when you actually start doing the thing. So when you start playing the guitar or when you start writing, like, I know so many writers, so especially when I started writing the book, I studied so many incredible writers like Anne Lamont and Stephen King, and I was reading and Margaret Atwood and I was so fascinated by the creative process and how they talk about writing and how so many writers actually don’t love to write like they say, I love to have written. And it’s like you have to sit down and write. So when you sit down and do the work and you start that project, that’s when inspiration comes. Like, on the days I didn’t feel like writing, I gave myself this goal of writing at least 250 words every day, right?
(24:51): So I sat behind my computer at least 250 words and some days it was 250 and I was like, I’m done. But most days it was 250 words and I was like, oh, well now I’m into it. Now I’m excited to like play around with this. And so inspiration came after I did the work, like after we started working. And so that’s what this chapter is all about. And I share this one story about Stephen King cuz his book on writing, I love it. He talks about how the muse, he’s like, yeah, there is a muse. He’s, and he describes him as he’s a basement kind of guy and he, and you have to go down into the basement and he’s there and he’s kind of waiting for you to show, he waits for you to show up and do the work. And only by going down into that basement and being with that muse and he’s just sitting over there smoking his cigar and looking at his bowling trophies, he said, you gotta do the work. And then all of a sudden the muse will show up. And so the muse sh finds you when you are working. So the inspiration won’t just come to you. No one’s gonna grab you off the couch and tell you to go after your dreams. You have to start. And when you start you’ll uncover, oh my gosh, I am now excited about this. And that’s when the inspiration comes from doing the work.
John Jantsch (25:58): You mentioned Anne Lamont, her chapter, shitty First drafts, you know, is a similar idea there of many times. I was the same way. It’s like, if I don’t get this, whatever is blocking me out on a page, you know, I’m never gonna get going. And that’s true for me. It even playing the guitar, which I happen to do as well, getting started is always, I don’t ever feel like doing it. And then once I pick it up, you know, I, well I might keep doing this for a while. So it is getting the getting started. So I think that is, if you’re gonna give anybody practical advice, you know, the getting started is the most important thing because then it, you know, then it’ll roll from there. But the most doubt and fear and pressure that you’ll feel
Kate Volman (26:44): Yeah, absolutely. And you know, one other thing that I talk about in the book is creative friends and the importance of having creative friends. And I look at creative friends as people that not only do they support you in your work, but they are also creating, they are out there, they are trying, they are dealing with these same myths because we need those people in our lives to help support us as we grow. I mean, look, I look at John as one of my creative friends. You’re out there, you’re doing all this stuff, you’re never gonna put me down for creating, even if what I do is not perfect. Cause you’re like, Hey, at least you’re doing it right. Like you’re doing it. You’re out there, you’re gonna get better. And so we all need that. And I think so many times we are, when we’re surrounded by others that aren’t pursuing their dreams and their passions, we can get stuck in into some of these myths.
(27:32): Especially number one, it’s not possible. So when we’re building our network of creative friends that are out there, they’re in the trenches, they’re putting stuff out, they’re being vulnerable, they’re putting in the work. Even when it’s hard, they show up every single day, even when they don’t feel like it. This is, we need more of those people in our lives. So it encourages us to keep going and it encourages us to keep creating, keep sharing, and just keep pursuing the things that we know are meant for us. Like your creative pursuits are inside of you for a reason. They’re not going anywhere
John Jantsch (28:07): Yeah, absolutely. Well, Kate, we are out of time, but thank you so much for stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. You want to, where would you invite people to connect with you, find out more about to coaching and obviously the book, do What you love?
Kate Volman (28:19): Yeah, the quickest, easiest way is just go to katevolman.com. You can find all my social channels on there and would love to hear from any of you about the book and what you have going on. And of course you are creative, so go create something.
John Jantsch (28:33): Awesome. Well thanks for taking a moment out. Hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days soon out there on the road again, Kate.
Kate Volman (28:39): I hope so. Thanks so much, John. Hey,
John Jantsch (28:41): And one final thing before you go. You know how I talk about marketing strategy, strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that, what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the Marketing Strategy Assessment. You can find it @marketingassessment.co, not.com,
Sign up to receive email updates
Enter your name and email address below and I’ll send you periodic updates about the podcast.
This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network.
HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business.
Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sydneysocialmediaservices.com/?p=6502