Awhile ago, I had a great chat with Geoff Talbot.
Geoff is a Blogger, a innovative Film Maker, a Transmedia Producer and a Social Media Marketing strategist. He is originally from Auckland, New Zealand and moved to Los Angeles a few years ago where he married his wife Athaliah. They now have two children. Geoff’s inspiring blog for creative entrepreneurs and dreamers is at sevensentences.com and you can find his amazing short films here on YouTube. Also he’d love to connect with you on Twitter or Facebook.
In the update I talk about how I was encouraged by the New book Inspired Writers, by Bryan Hutchinson. If you’ve been feeling stuck in your writing process, this short ebook might be just what you need.
Also, Todd Henry has a new audio/podcast out, called the Louder Than Words BookCast. Each episode is based on each chapter of his book Louder than Words and I’ve found that it has helped me to get clarity on where I’m headed with my writing as well as an author entrepreneur. So I hope it helps you too!
Lately I’ve also been re-reading James Scott Bell’s short and helpful ebook, Self-Publishing Attack. In this book, he lays out a strategy on how to continually increase your stream of income by writing ebooks. I’m someone that really needs these consistent reminders, so I’m always re-reading books that have really helped me to grow as a indie author. So that’s been the new stuff I’ve been learning in the last couple of weeks. I’d love to hear what you’ve been learning as a writer or author entrepreneur – please share in the comments 🙂
Summary of the Interview
*Geoff shares his own story growing up in New Zealand as the youngest of 4 children to conservative parents who were of the Builder Generation. He says he took their advice and went off to College, graduating at 22 years old as a Veterinary Surgeon. But it wasn’t until he had been working for 6 months in that job that he realized that this was not what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.
This is when he had an Aha Moment – realizing that he had a lot of creativity, depth and a lot of other skills that wouldn’t be able to be expressed in this career even though he liked it. So he went to Drama School for 2 weeks, to see if he’d like it even though he’d never done anything like that before. At the end of the course one of the teachers took him aside and said “Oh my goodness! You must, you must do more of this.” He said he didn’t know what he was doing, but was doing it, giving himself over to the creative process and doing things on instinct… not second guessing himself.
*He says as he started the chase his dreams, he didn’t have a lot of support from people around him. He had to ask himself questions like: What am I created to do? Where do I feel most alive? What’s in me that needs to come out? Geoff remembers as he continued to grow, leaning into more of who he was, that he remembers someone else who came up to him, who he didn’t know who told him I just have this feeling that you’re going to use the Internet to do something amazing with your life. He says at the time he was skeptical about this word of advice, but he began to think about these things wondering how that might look.
*Geoff says it’s important to have those moments and to remember those times when people speak into your life. Because it helps you in the process of becoming. He says we need to learn to be those kinds of people too, who encourage and inspire and help others. Listen to and learn to really see people and then encourage them in what you see their gifts and talents are.
* SevenSentences.com, started out as a way Geoff could share his film making journey with his friends. It didn’t take too long until it morphed into a website where he could help people discover their dreams and he also helps others find social media strategies.
*Geoff talks a little about how artists and Creative people can get their message out into what has become a noisy world. He says Social Media is similar to being in a crowded Shopping Mall when its close to Christmas. You can talk as loud as you like, but the chances are that no one is going to hear you. Everyone around you is trying to make themselves heard by shouting, but it doesn’t work. So the only way to really be heard in a crowded room, is to know who you want to talk to and get really close to them. Either pull them out of the noise and talk to the privately, or get really close and whisper in their ear.
*In order to build relationships and grow your brand you need to know who it is you want to talk to and then you need to find a quiet space to talk to them. Like you blog, a personal message on Twitter or Facebook… somewhere that its not so noisy. Building relationships with like-minded people is important. It’s important to make it real and something that will bring value to others. This is something that Geoff does to help people grow their business and brand online. He says part of building a strong business online is know who to connect with and build relationships with people that will help move you in the direction of what your end goals are.
*Geoff says the really hard work, is discovering first ‘who am I really? what do I have to give to the world” and building your brand around that. He tells a story that helps to understand this process – when they had their first son. When he arrived they didn’t have a name for the first 24 hours. Geoff says it got to the point where he gave up and told his wife “I don’t think God wants me to name our child. You name him.” He says it wasn’t 30 seconds later that he walked past him and the name “Gabriel” came out of his mouth. Geoff says they needed to see him and experience him before they put a name on him. He says its important as you are discovering who you are and your brand and what you offer to people – its important, when you have a dream you’re chasing, to explore what it is before you name it. If you’re patient enough to wait, and do the hard work first, you’ll save time and money in building your brand.
*He says being patient and having a strategic approach to your life and following your dreams is critical. He feels like he failed at times because he’s risked everything many times. Geoff says if he could talk to himself 15 years ago, he would tell his younger self to be strategic with money and plan things out a little better. As Creative Entrepreneurs we can see the end goal very easily and it seems like its only a leap away – we don’t see the long process – we need to be process oriented so we have a place to leap from. Wisdom comes from being prepared to wait… and yet not procrastinating.
*Sometimes we have all these ideas but we can’t do them all at once. We have to look at them in order of establishing what we need to do first and building on that. As Creative people the ideas never end, so we need to think strategically.
*Geoff also shares how he helps people identify their purpose and dreams. Having a strategic approach to following your dreams. You can achieve a lot in 7 days if you set a window of time to really sprint and get clear on what you want to do. A big part of the program is throwing away the end goals – for a short amount of time – and finding what is your unique value you give to the world. He says he encourages people to use their imaginations and seeing themselves at the end result of their dreams… in terms of relationships, resources and time. The accomplishment of a dream is about the achievement of step-by-step process.
*The best piece of advice Geoff says is to just do it. Unless you start heading toward your dreams, you will never finish. If you see something you want to do, figure out how to start it and just begin. Sometimes as creatives we fear our work isn’t good enough or that its been done before. Those feeling are normal and real, but the problem is we get focussed on right or wrong – success or failure – instead of focussing on the process and just loving exploring and finding what’s in us.
“Trying to be good is a real killer of creativity.” Geoff Talbot
Geoff encourages creatives to come up with 5 really bad ideas… and that’s often when we uncover really good ideas. We need to stay in love with the story that’s in us. Worry about refining it later. Refuse to self-judge.
Chat with Geoff on Twitter, Facebook or catch up with him on his blog.
