THE SIMPSONS NEWS – The Missing Pieces in an Artist’s Knowledge

Simpsons Quote:

Homer: [grumbling about Smithers] He thinks he’s so big.
Karl: You don’t belong here.
Homer: Huh?
Karl: [pointing emphatically at Homer] You. Don’t. Belong. Here. You’re a fraud and a phony and it’s only a matter of time ’till they find you out!
Homer: [gasping] Who told you?
Karl: You did. You told me with the way you slump your shoulders. The way you talk into your chest. The way you smother yourself in bargain-basement lime-green polyester! I want you to say to yourself, “I deserve this. I love it. I am nature’s greatest miracle!” Go ahead, say it.
Homer: [after a few bumbling attempts] I deserve this! I AM NATURE’S GREATEST MIRACLE!
Karl: I’ll need three weeks’ vacation and moving expenses.
Homer: You got it, buddy!
Karl: Let’s go shopping!

Today I’ve got some videos for you and a link that will help and inspire you to invest in yourself.

I know you’ve already done this. As artists we’re always learning more and more about art.  This is great, but just as important as learning our craft is investing in understanding on how to leverage it so we can live off it.

I was hoping to do a much shorter video this week. It mostly is, I just ended up asking a long winded favor at the end of this video.

Below is a video where I introduce the videos and link I’m going to be referring you to and why. You can watch it or  you can go ahead and just start watching the videos.  Below I’ve also transcribed what I say in the video anyway.

But please, make sure you read the favor I ask at the bottom of this post. It will influence my next blog topics from this point on. Thanks:

The Gap in our Artistic Knowledge

As artists, our education tends to be about drawing or our art. It’s usually not about money management, entrepreneurship, learning to make a living with the assets we’ve got.

There are to video below that I think are very useful in this regard. I’ve also got a link to a blog post that has recommendations on reading material.

Jim Rohn Videos

The first two videos are from a man by the name of Jim Rohn. He’s an old timey entrepreneur, marketer, and most importantly, motivational speaker. In the video he talks about things that, as artist we don’t really  talk about or think about.

The first talk is called “Living an Exceptional Life,” which I like a lot. It’s in fact geared for kids. It tries to get THEM to think about this kind of thing at an early age. It even talks a bit about money management. I highly recommend it:

This next video is called, “Three Keys to Greatness.” This video compliments the first video above. There’s a little bit of information overlap with the video above, but it mostly adds other interesting things that are not said in the first video.

Dan Kennedy Blog Post

This third link is to a blog post written by Dan Kennedy. Dan Kennedy is a marketer that teaches marketing. It provides a list of some of his favorite books that he recommends if you want to learn marketing and other skills. Skills that we need to learn, especially because we’re not taught these skills as artist. We’re too busy learning to draw and do art.

The title of the post is:

Read This is You Want More for Your Life

I keep recommending these videos and this link to friends of mine because I think they’re very good to watch and read.  Now I’m sharing them with you. I hope you get as much out of them as I did. I’ve watched the videos twice and have not yet written down notes from the Jim Rohn videos. I really should. They’re fantastic.

A Favor

Besides leaving a comment if you like what I’ve shared here, let me know if you have any questions about his kind of thing.  I’ve really been studying it lately and I’m kinda eager to share what I’ve learned so far.

It would be nice to know if this is something you want me to elaborate on so we can keep the conversation going.

I’ve also like to know if there’s something else you’d like me to talk about. Is there any question that you might be wondering about or might want to know about that you think I might be able to answer?

The last series of posts on this blog where inspired by a reader of my blog who asked me to talk about increasing your value as an artist. So you can definitely influence the direction of the conversation of the next few posts.