Adam Street's Blog
The spiritual and practical path to freedom to do your art

Goals, Resolutions, and Motivation

In life, there’s always stuff for us to do. 

Goals, resolutions, changes, and all that kind of stuff.  Like, last year I said…

No more pets. 

We have two more by the way…

Last year I said no more  artificial sweeteners. 

I’m drinking a sugarless energy drink as I type this. And NO it’s not sweetened with stevia…

Last year I said I’ll get my dental work done. 

Cavities are fake news. Whatever Fauci…

There’s a ton of crap that I was supposed to do and never got around to. Or I did it for a little while and stopped. 

One thing I did do last year though was, I completed Megan Macedo’s 21 day writing challenge. 

It was hard. 

I was good at first though, I had all the motivation in the world. Then slowly the nice sugary coating of the honeymoon period wore off and I was left with the bland unchewy center. 

But I did it. 

I was proud of myself. Kinda like when I quit caffeine for a week. Well, almost a week. Well, it was almost four days. 

But still, I made it without slapping anyone or cursing at the innocent. 

I was proud of myself. Not for doing it, though. That’s like motivation. Motivation never lasts. Or as Mel Robbins put it, “motivation is garbage”. 

I just don’t want to check a box off my checklist. I used to live for that.  That ship has sailed, I’m in a different place now. 

What I was most proud of is who I became thru the process.  Through all of my coaching work I always wrote to be accepted, or for likes, or to pitch a product. Last year’s challenge was different. 

It was about ME and it was about WRITING.  

And. 

Nothing. 

Else. 

My world shifted and now I’m back and ready to do it again in 2023. 

Who’s with me?

Adam

Make your cash register ring by doing what you do… on a horse.

I was at an event.

There was a guy there dressed as a cowboy.  He told stories and gave facts about the Southwest.  

He was nice.

A little charismatic.

A lil funny.

But he wasn’t amazing or super captivating.  What made this guy interesting was…  

He had a horse.  

He did his schtick in front of the horse and sometimes ON the horse.

I pulled up a chair next to the DJ and I said, “could you imagine DJ’ing on horse?  You’d kill it!”  We both laughed.  Until I realized I wasn’t joking…

I thought, what if I did caricatures on a horse? I’d crush it!

The other day I spoke about what Dan Kennedy calls, Specific Application.  How can you narrow down your client list with a niche, purpose, location, etc and charge more?

Without the horse that cowboy would just be a guy telling Southwestern history.  Kinda boring.  

But doing it on a horse?  

Um….

Much more compelling.  

I met a lady the other day who was an artist.  She was working at the venue I was drawing at.  

She seemed interested in what I was doing so I assumed she was an artist.  When I asked her about her work her face lit up. 

One of the things that she does is, she creates paintings based on her client’s personal story, desires, favorite colors, etc.

My ears went up like Nightcrawler from the X-men!

I thought this would be brilliant in the wedding space.  She could easily charge 2x or 3x of what she is charging now!

Her limiting beliefs kept her from hearing but still…I thought it was a great idea.

So, what do you do now that you could do “on a horse” and charge more for?  

And I’m not talking about literally doing it “on a horse” but let’s milk that analogy.

Mary Kay is a commodity.  

There’s hundreds of thousands of consultants out there.  But what if you sold Mary Kary cosmetics…on a horse?  I bet you’d stand out. 

You manage social media?  I bet you’d be far more profitable…on a horse.

You like painting?  I bet you could charge more doing it, you guessed it, on a horse!

What could be your “horse” that sets you apart and makes the cash register ring?

Adam

adamstreet.net

Raising prices

There was this kid at my elementary school, I think his name was Jerry.

He was quiet and introverted.

The kids at school used to make fun of him because he always looked down when he walked.  One kid told me that since Jerry looked down all the time he always found interesting things on the ground—like money.

I feel just like Jerry when it comes to finding money in a business.  I’ve worked on my ‘finding money muscle’ mucho over the years.  

I’m practically ready to wear one of those tight-ass UnderArmor t-shirts that the Rock wears.

And pulling it off!

Metaphorically anyway…

Sometimes you don’t need to “find” money in your business, sometimes you just need to raise your price.

Sometimes you need to look for more ways to provide more value.

Sometimes you can just package what you do differently.  Dan Kennedy called it, Specific Application.  

You can add more specific application to what you do with:

Location

Packaging

Niche

Exclusivity

For example, I’m not a caricature artist I’m a wedding artist [niche].

Susan isn’t a massage therapist, she’s the massage therapist of Gainey Ranch [location]

One artist I read about struggled trying to sell her paintings so she got a licensing deal to sell art of her university [exclusive].  Now her paintings sell like hot cakes.

What more Specific Application could you add what you do that could drastically increase your revenue?

Adam

adamstreet.net

The Power of Tens

One of the big lessons that I learned fairly recently was looking at 10 year chunks of time.  

I’ve done this before and it was…cute.  BUT, I think I had to turn 40 first before I REALLY understood the value of the exercise.  

Cause I heard it before…

Like how hall of fame college basketball coach John Wooden started each season showing his players how to tie their shoes properly.  

It sounds…

Stupid.

Mocking.  

Unnecessary.

Until…

A player loses a shoe in a game and can’t dribble or defend a player.  I’ve seen this happen before, and it happens all the time.  

Back to the 10 year thing… 

Instead of looking back ONE year at all the stuff that you didn’t get or at the goals you didn’t achieve.  Look back 10 years.

When you look back 10 years you can see in 4K clarity how far you’ve come.  It’s doesn’t matter if you’re 17 or 60!  Looking back in decades can be profound.  

Wanna hear something else I learned that didn’t really HIT ME till I was over 40? 

What made you successful the last 10 years won’t make you successful the next 10.  

Like tying your shoes before basketball games, I’m not talking about changing the fundamentals.  

You need good work ethic and integrity and the baseline of things that made who you are.  

But as for the other stuff, some of it has to go…

With me, it was anxiety. 

First off, I didn’t know I had an anxiety ‘problem’.  I just knew I thrived (and was kinda cocky about) doing production art and hitting headlines.  

I didn’t realize I was allowing my anxiety to run amok in my brain like a herd of antsy Belgian Malinois looking for something to do.  

Emotionally I was gearing up to run a 10k but what I really needed was peace and calm for strategy and execution.  

I started meditating more and doing things to quiet my noodle.  

Things got easier and I gave my old monkey mind the middle finger.  

So…

If you find that you’re not as happy as you’d like to be in your life right now… 

Look back 10 years!  

I bet you’re further along in more ways than you thought.  

Want to slay this years goals?  

Or resolutions?

Or whatever?

Find new skills (or systems or people)  that will help you cause some of the old ones you used have run their course.

Adam

adamstreet.net

It’s 2023, JUST do it!

I learned a while ago that I’m not JUST an artist.  Actually, I said when I die if the only thing people say at my funeral is that I drew good I ‘missed the boat’ on living.    

When I draw at events I’m not JUST drawing caricatures, I’m making a difference in people’s lives.  I’m making that party better.   

My mentors Chance Wolf and Chris Sotomayor didn’t JUST teach me how to draw and paint better, they taught me how to be a better human being.  And to follow my passions and curiosities wherever they took me. 

 My nephew Chris isn’t just someone with thousands of follows nor is he JUST a social media influencer.  He brings light to people thru his humor and creativity (offline too).    

My brother Andre isn’t JUST a Mixxedfit instructor.  First, he’s made exercise fun.  If that alone wasn’t a miracle enough I’ve also seen him give people the confidence and motivation to change and be better versions of themselves.  

Do more of your art and the stuff that moves you.  

Put it out there and do it again.  It’s 2023 baby!    

JUST do it.   

Adam