We went full-throttle with our animal rescue this year and we’ve been picking up traction nicely. We’ve been attracting good positive helpful people, but we’ve also attracted…
Trolls.
Pompous know it alls.
And Ice Queens that are so pretentious they make my teeth hurt.
Wanna know why we started a rescue instead of joining an existing one? We couldn’t take the blithering weirdos and control freaks that care more about their fragile egos than dogs.
Or they run the rescue like the US Senate and spend money like Mike Tyson in his prime.
Which left him broke by the way…
This reminded me of something Myron Golden said, “Mediocrity scales exponentially but excellence scales incrementally.”
This is why there’s not many Tom Brady’s or Lebron James out there.
This is why there’s not many Apple’s or Nike’s.
This is why there’s not a lot of Oprah’s or Taylor Swift’s out there.
Success must be intentional!
You have to have discipline and intentionally make yourself great. If not you drift your way to average.
In The Creative Act, Rick Rubin said:
“Look around you: there are so many remarkable accomplishments to appreciate. Each of these is humanity being true to itself…”
I KNOW you want it!
I’m always saying you need to be the highest expression of yourself. How do you get there? It starts with being true to yourself.
Do the work you’re passionate about. The work that moves you.
And when you’re uber true to yourself they will notice.
When I was in my teens and early 20’s, being 100% responsible for my income seemed just a little sketchy to me.
I eventually saw the light.
Most people don’t though. The average person would rather drink a nice frosty glass of Strychnine than work a sales job.
But what if it’s not high pressure sales?
That’s like saying Gonorrhea isn’t so bad if it doesn’t burn when you pee.
You don’t like sales. Cool. Nuttin wrong with that.
Until you want to sell your art…. Now you have a problem.
So what do we do? Get educated!
We go online and see the successful people who tell us how to do it. ‘Easy for you with your “best-selling” everything and fancy Louboutin shoes.’
There’s nothing wrong with this but these successful people are usually speaking from CONFIDENCE. This is hard to swallow when you’re starting out.
Some people have more confidence naturally and these people are generally regarded as…
How do you say?
Annoying.
I had a friend in college that I considered average looking at best. But he was always preaching about the hot chicks he was going to date.
I thought he was punching well above his weight class but holy sh_t! He landed many of those women.
My sister went to high school with Gold album recording artist CeCe Peniston. She said Cece used to drive them all crazy cause she sang all the time.
Cece recorded her album Finally when she was 21. Her hit album by the way…
So, what do you do if you don’t have that kind of confidence?
Instead of confidence, you have to use what I call FAITH. Most people think faith is a religious thing but it’s not. You don’t have to have confidence to be successful, but you do need FAITH.
“Confidence comes when you have a proven track record. Oh, look what I did I sold these things online and I made $1000… Courage is I believe that I can have something different. I want something different. And getting clear about what you want. What genuinely ultimately do you want? And then saying I want that bad enough that I will take a leap of faith.
– Amy Porterfield
Neville Goddard has a book called, Your Faith is Your Fortune. This title is as real and true as Chlamydia!
Just when you thought there was NO WAY I could fit in any more STD humor…
Why is your fortune connected to your Faith?
Cause number one, it’s the Law of Belief. The Law of Belief says that whatever you believe, becomes reality.
Second, your faith is connected to your imagination. If you have faith in who you are and what you do, you’ll KNOW you can sell your art. It may not be today, but you know you will and it will be awesome.
If don’t have faith, your imagination will go dark on like when Dementors entered the courtroom in Harry Potter. Your imagination will tell you that you can’t do it and how no one will buy your stuff or hire you.
The same “Success Mechanism” that Maxwell Maltz talks about in Psycho-Cybernetics can push you down just as fast as it can pull you up.
This is why YOU need to tell YOU what you want and the kind of person you want to be.
“Adam, I’ve tried affirmations and they don’t work.”
That’s because you did them without faith. With no love or passion. No belief.
I love what President Trump told his former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham. She said she was told, ”As long as you keep repeating something, it doesn’t matter what you say.”
“If you can see it, and you have the courage enough to speak it, it will happen. A lot of times people believe in certain things but they keep to themselves, they don’t put it out there and truly believe in it. If you become vocal with it, you are creating that law of attraction and it will become reality.”
– Conor McGregor
Believe and say it enough times with faith and you will build your confidence. And in the end what you thought was so impossible will be possible.
I spoke to a friend before Thanksgiving and asked what her plans were.
She said she didn’t really celebrate the holiday. In part because her ex husband was Native American and he wasn’t a big fan of the holiday.
I get it.
I have mad issues with Columbus day.
The fact that that’s a federal holiday bugs the crap outta me like casting Jerry Seinfeld to voice the main character in Bee Movie.
It’s easy to look and judge the roots of some of our current traditions. But now that we’re older and wiser as a civilization, it should all come down to intention.
In my family, the intention of Thanksgiving isn’t about pilgrims and indians. It’s about enjoying food and being thankful for each other.
Your intention is YOUR choice.
Not your parents.
Not the Fed.
YOU.
I loved this passage from Gary Zukav’s the Seat of the Soul.
“Your intentions create the reality that you experience. Until you become aware of this, it happens unconsciously. Therefore, be mindful of what you project. This is the first step toward authentic power.”
Before Stephen Colbert started his show his intention for it was to be about love (e.g. country, faith) something most people would think have nothing to do with late night shows.
Oprah Winfrey transformed her talk show when she changed the intention of her show from tabloid to personal development.
When I became a full-time artist my intention was to make a difference in the lives of people. When I started caricaturing I wanted to focus on creating higher consciousness art.
When you’re authentic to who you are, you move in the direction to your authentic power.
And when you think how you need to think, and feel how you need to feel to feel…
I was checking my SPAM box and found an email from Donald J Trump.
We’re besties. We get down like that.
Not really…
A while ago I did sign up for his emails though cause I wanted to see what his copywriters/marketing people were up to.
I don’t care who you vote for, there’s always something to learn from politicians. Especially in The Don’s case. I thought, today would be a great time to analyze an email.
But if you’re all crazy from your political beliefs, I totally understand if you wanna sit this one out…
Ok. After my name this is the first sentence in the e-mail.
“It is my great honor to tell you that I have officially filed the paperwork to be a candidate for President of the United States in the very first primary of the 2024 election – New Hampshire.”
This one caught me off guard because this is old school, newspaper, reverse pyramid style writing. This is back-in-the-day old school when Americans didn’t have an 8 second (or less) attention span.
I probably wouldn’t do it but this ain’t a bad decision because if you only read that first sentence and stop, you’ll know EXACTLY what is going on.
Next is:
“NOTHING CAN STOP THE GREATEST MOVEMENT IN HISTORY!”
That’s all in caps baby! That’s gotta be important.
And it is.
Now he’s not talking about paperwork, he’s talking about his long term vision and making history. It’s slight but a HUGE difference.
I mean, come on. You wanna simply vote for me or do you wanna make history together? One is WAY cooler than the other.
Next…
“To prove that we truly are unstoppable, I’m calling on grassroots donors all across the nation to make a campaign contribution that will be registered on the very same day our official presidential paperwork was filed.”
To make history takes money so… The only thing I would knock here is I don’t think Trump would say “grassroots donors”. That’d be like me going to Jamba Juice and saying, “The course of drinking my juice never did run smooth.”
I wouldn’t do it.
And neither would Trump. Not in that context anyway….
“There will always be time-stamped proof that you were with us on DAY ONE.”
What does this mean? It means if you wanna make history, you can only prove it by donating.
RIGHT NOW.
This next paragraph is a doozie.
“Of course, if you cannot give because of the corrupt and incompetent fool who we will soon FIRE from the White House, then please do not donate today! I know who my loyal supporters are – and even if there won’t be time-stamped proof, I will remember who was with us on Day One.”
One of the things The Don is great at is always having a VILLAIN. This is great storytelling. We all know who the “incompetent fool” is, he doesn’t have to use the name.
And look at this myriad of emotions.
“then please do not donate today!” SHAME
“I know who my loyal supporters are”. AFFINITY
“I will remember who was with us on Day One.” FEAR
Then the close…
“Please make a contribution…” blah blah blah. He closes with a call to action to donate. No surprise there.
Again, this was written by a copywriter and not Trump but it was done really well. They did an excellent job focusing on the long term vision. All while hitting on some great emotions.
Never miss an opportunity to learn something that can help you.
When I started coloring comics professionally, one of my idols was Liquid. Liquid was a studio started by two dudes, Aron Lusen and Christian Lichtner.
Their work was mesmerizing and it took the industry by storm like hurricanes in Florida. Not to mention Liquid’s style led to more copy-cats and knock-offs than fake Louis Vuitton bags.
I had the pleasure of meeting Christian once at a con.
Trying not to geek out too much or take up too much of his time. I asked him for an art tip.
This was my moment!
I was talking to one of my idols AND he was about to share information. Not all pros do so this made our meeting special. What was the ninja-like advice I received?
Christian recommended a book. An art book.
I hadn’t studied painting that much back then so to be told to read a book on traditional painting didn’t, well, light my fire.
My local library had the book so I got it.
I was excited.
Till I looked inside.
WTF?
I was expecting more ’how to’ information but the book was more about color theory.
I told my mentor Chance Wolf about my disappointment with this ‘color theory’ book.
I can’t remember what Chance said verbatim but I’ll recreate it in my words. He said, ’Adam, if he told you to get the damn book, it was for a reason. You know how many guys would kill to know about that book?’
Didn’t I just write recently about having issues with being grateful for stuff when I was younger?
That right there is the power of having mentors. Really good ones.
Anyway, I studied the hell out of that book.
It didn’t make me a painting virtuoso overnight but it helped understand the genius of Liquid and it taught me how far I needed to go.
But it also taught me the value of good ideas.
If it wasn’t for Chance I probably would have LOOKED at the book instead of STUDYING the book.
When you receive a good idea, whether it comes from you or from someone else. Treat it like it’s worth thousands of dollars.
And if you can’t make something out of the idea.
You tried.
But when you judge an idea and don’t use it. It can’t make it’s impact on you.
It’s like firing a bullet with no powder in the chamber.
