84 – Peggy Dean’s Tips for Building a Multi-Passionate Creative Career

Laura

0:06
Hi, this is Laura Lee Griffin.

Nikki

0:08
And this is Nikki May with the Startist Society, inspiring you to stop getting in your own way and start building an art biz and life that you love.

Laura

0:17
We are artists who believe strongly in the power of community, accountability, following your intuition, taking small actionable steps and breaking down the barriers of fear and procrastination that keep you stuck.

Nikki

0:30
Follow along with us on our creative business journey as we encourage you on yours.

Laura

0:38
Last week, we introduced you to Peggy Dean of The Pigeon Letters, an artist, author and educator extraordinaire. So if you haven’t had a chance to listen to that episode yet, definitely check it out.

Nikki

0:50
And Peggy gave us such great advice on growing a successful business while breaking all the rules, that this week, we’ve invited her back to share with us five tips on being a successful multi-passionate creative over the usual advice of niching down.

Laura

1:08
Peggy, welcome back to the Startist Society.

Peggy

1:11
Thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here and adore you both.

Nikki

1:17
The feeling is totally mutual.

Laura

1:20
All right, so what is your first tip for us today?

Peggy

1:23
Yes. So the first, as far as being multi-passionate is that whatever your first focus is, that is typically what you’ll be known for years to come. So even if you want to or accidentally pivot later, just make sure that you only put out – not only – well, only… that whatever you put out is work that you actually want to create.

Nikki

1:50
So right, don’t get known for something that you don’t want to do.

Peggy

1:54
Exactly. Yeah, and we said Nikki had mentioned that in our last episode briefly about you don’t want to because you will be stuck, you will not be happy.

Nikki

2:05
Yeah, for sure. That’s a great tip. So what’s your second tip for us?

Peggy

2:10
Okay, so this one everyone will hate me for, which is, because I’m all about not niching. But you kind of do have to focus in on some, on a niche, if you will, in order to then un-niche. So in the beginning, I know that that sounds terrible, but you’re not stuck forever. But in the beginning, if you have a focus, it will be a lot easier to hone in on the steps needed to take in order to achieve whatever that next focus is in that space. But then once that is established, even if it’s in the in the middle of being established, that’s when you can start to bring other parts of whatever it is that you’re doing in and oh man, I want to elaborate so hard, we could do this for an hour. But basically…

Nikki

2:56
You can totally elaborate a little bit.

Peggy

2:58
I will a little bit. So I just want to do this because I feel like I’m in the minds of some people who are thinking, Okay, well, that’s fine. But what if I don’t know what I want to niche on? And what if I don’t have my own style established yet and all these things, but I’m ready to take next steps. And I don’t blame you, like a lot of advice might be well, maybe you’re not ready to and I’ll back that. But I’ll also back like, as somebody who doesn’t and will never probably figure that out for myself, like you can still be successful. But I would say to have your work show up cohesively and consistently in collections, if you will. So maybe not something that all all goes together but showing some consistency in batches will help you appear to have a niche without actually needing to have one. So that might mean having a consistent color palette for six months or in a collection of work. Or maybe having a focus on a particular medium for you know, 12 pieces of art or whatever it is, just making if you can batch a style or a palette or something that alone can act as a niche. And I found that out way later when I kind of started honing in on a color palette and I was like, wow, these scream me, I make you know, I’m making all this stuff. And you know, those colors have since pivoted, but that will help a lot. So don’t think that you have to focus on one tiny, specific thing. Just have a focus, go that route and then start to integrate.

Nikki

4:29
Yeah, so you don’t have to you don’t have to stick to one thing forever. But you need, you need to have a focus. So people…

Peggy

4:37
so you can get set up.

Nikki

4:38
Yeah. And then you can expand on it from there. That makes total sense. Exactly. Yeah.

Laura

4:43
I like doing that. Like I just recently completed about 30 pages of a watercolor sketchbook and so I posted a lot of consistent pictures, you know, related to that. But I liked that idea of color because color you could do potentially multiple mediums if you were in that same color or like you could have maybe a Procreate piece of art as well as something that was watercolor or acrylic or, and they all kind of came together with that color palette.

Peggy

5:08
I think it’s also safe to say that we all love color and playing with color. So that’s an easy out for everybody who doesn’t want to niche. Play with color.

Laura

5:20
All right, so what’s your third tip for us today?

Peggy

5:23
So this one is, and this is going to be you’re going to anyone who has not gone through this process yet is going to just kind of roll your eyes, but trust me, is to allow organic opportunities to present themselves, aka trust the process. I’m a broken record about this, but that is 100% – if you haven’t listened to last week’s episode, it’s 100% exactly how my entire journey went. And not only did it unfold that way, but it actually made me much more successful than had I kind of like, sought out what I thought I needed to do. So, you are resourceful. You are listening right now because you’re resourceful as a human. And if you can trust your own passion and allow those organic opportunities to come up for you, and go with them and follow your gut instinct, then yeah, trusting the process is gonna get you much further.

Nikki

6:24
Excellent. And what’s your fourth tip for us?

Peggy

6:27
A piggyback on that, which is to always be a learner, always stay resourceful. There is always room to grow. I am a constant learner. I don’t know everything. I know my own experiences. And I feel confident in the things that I have gone through because I’ve allowed myself to fail and I’ve allowed myself to sit with uncomfortable feelings around that or just the uncomfortable feeling of fear. But in that, in that it kind of dismisses the feeling of being an impostor because you know, and position yourself as somebody who is a human being who’s always growing.

Laura

7:07
Well, and you’re always starting something right.

Peggy

7:09
Right. Always.

Laura

7:10
Wait, isn’t that a song?

Peggy

7:13
It is now.

Laura

7:15
I think it’s a Michael Jackson song, Gotta be starting something.

Peggy

7:21
Now this episode turns into like a harmonizing trio of a new song.

Nikki

7:25
You’re welcome. I’m gonna spare our listeners that. Laura can sing, I cannot. But I can drink bourbon better than she can.

Laura

7:35
She can, she she has that one over on me for sure.

Peggy

7:37
We’ve all got our skills. Okay, so the last one.

Laura

7:44
Yeah. What’s your last tip for us today?

Peggy

7:47
This one is to eliminate busy work. And this can take form in a lot… So it’s hard because it’s like, well, is this going to contribute to my goal, to my bottom line? Or is this busy work? So whenever I have that feeling, I’ll write a list. I’ll keep doing the thing, but I’ll just have this weird feeling like I don’t like it, it feels uncomfortable, but I’m still doing the thing. So I’ll write it down. And then I’ll revisit it later when I have a clearer head usually in a morning, fresh. And I can determine like okay, well what was busy work what was unnecessary, basically, work that I was doing that wasn’t actually serving what I want to do, which leads to stop procrasti-working. I am the queen of this.

Nikki

8:36
Oh, we are too: procrasti-working, procrasti-drawing, procrasti-learning…

Peggy

8:42
Yes! And it’s, it’s also hard because like, you start, and then you have an idea, and then you just kind of trail off and then you start designing stickers. And it’s like, no, what am I doing right now? Like,

Nikki

8:53
Have you been spying on me again?

Peggy

8:56
No, I did this the other night, and it’s like, I know, we all do this stuff. But we have these ideas and it’s like, have an idea bank and like make it a point to visit your idea bank, whether it be every two weeks or every month, and actually take action on one of your ideas. Like hold yourself accountable. Because a lot of times we think oh if I don’t jump on this now, it’s not gonna happen. And then you’re taking away from what you actually need to be doing by procrasti-working. So it’s not you’re not procrastinating because you’re actually doing something that has to do with what you want to be doing. But is it the right time for it? No. So this is hard for me because I have you know, attention all over the place. But when I was able to start channeling and being more intentional with my time, I got a lot more done. I liked what I was doing a lot more. It’s just holding yourself accountable. And taking breaks. So I’ll just add that as a little bonus. Set a timer, give yourself breaks because the more we stare at the same thing, the more we become blind to what we’re doing because we’ve been staring at it for way too long.

Nikki

10:00
Amen.

Peggy

10:01
There we go, boom.

Laura

10:03
Boom.

Nikki

10:04
That’s fantastic. Those are all great tips that we need to actually implement.

Laura

10:09
Yes.

Peggy

10:10
I have to remind myself all the time of most of these, so…

Nikki

10:14
Nice.

Laura

10:15
Well, we’re all learning, even learning about listening to our own tips, right?

Peggy

10:19
Exactly. And half the time. It’s funny because when we finally start to have conversations around this, we realize how much we haven’t been, like how much we know. Because we actually do know a lot and then how much we haven’t been doing the things that we know. Oh opportunity. Okay.

Nikki

10:39
Guilty

Laura

10:40
Well, Peggy, thanks so much for coming back and sharing your tips with us.

Peggy

10:44
Thank you so much for having me. I have absolutely loved spending time with you both.

Nikki

10:49
And we’ve loved having you here. And don’t be surprised if we ask you to come back.

Peggy

10:56
I’m in, I’m in. Cohost. Just kidding.

Nikki

11:01
To get a downloadable PDF with Peggy’s tips and tricks, visit startistsociety.com/peggystips.

Laura

11:10
Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next week.