How To Be Consistently Creative So You Can Do What You Love For The Rest Of Your Life | With Todd Henry

Brian Hood (0:00)

This is the 6 Figure Creative Podcast, Episode 190

Welcome to the 6 Figure Creative Podcast, where our mission is to help you turn your creative passions into a stable, reliable income. If you're in audio, video, design, photography, or really any other creative field, and you just want to learn from other successful creatives, you're in the right place.

Welcome back to another episode of the 6 Figure Creative Podcast. I am your host, Brian Hood. I'm here with my big, bald, beautiful co-host, Christopher J. Graham. How you doing today, buddy?

Christopher J. Graham (0:29)

I'm great, man. I'm really excited about this amazing individual that we are hanging out with today.

Brian Hood (0:35)

Yeah, so today on the podcast, we have a special guest, New York Times bestselling author, Todd Henry's on the show today. Todd, thank you for coming on the show today.

Todd Henry (0:43)

It's great to be on the show. And I do want to just point out not New York Times bestselling, sorry. I wish I was. I'm not. I've been introduced that way before in public at like big conferences. And then there's always a womp, womp, when I have to go out on stage and say, not New York Times bestselling.

But the irony is, because of the way that those lists are compiled.

Brian Hood (1:03)

It's rigged, man. I know it's rigged.

Todd Henry (1:05)

Well, I'm sure we're going to talk about how do you measure effectiveness? How do you measure your work at some point? What's interesting is many of my books have sold many more copies than a lot of New York Times bestseller lists, but it's all about how many you sell within a very short period of time. That's how those lists are compiled. And so it's just interesting. Way more interested in the long game impact of books than the one week impact and then see the long tail drop off. So anyway, I just want, sorry to correct you right out of the gate.

Brian Hood (1:30)

This is fantastic, cause all the research for this episode is from a new research assistant. So this is going to be a fun one. It's like, how much more did you get wrong to research assistant? Throwing you under the bus. I take full responsibility for anything, by the way, that is off today. It's not his fault. It's my fault for not double checking some of these things.

Todd Henry (1:46)

I mean, I think, cause that really raises an interesting, I think, point given your audience, especially, you know, how do you measure your effectiveness as a creative pro?

Christopher J. Graham (1:54)

And let me just sort of like go into that, because I think this is a fascinating topic. I've had a lot of friends that want to be New York Times bestselling authors. And it is funny, you brought up a good point. If you want to measure your effectiveness, New York Times bestselling author is strange, because if for one minute you're a bestselling author, then for the rest of your life, you get to say New York Times bestselling author.

Even though, like you said, you've sold way more books than books that have been on the New York Times bestseller list, but that one little metric opens up a lot of doors. And that's fascinating.

Brian Hood (2:25)

I was gonna say, we have that same thing in the audio industry called the Grammy award-winning or Grammy nominated artist or producer. And it's the same exact thing as kind of a rig system.

Todd Henry (2:33)

Yeah, for sure. And listen, I would love if a book of mine hit that list. That would be amazing.

The reason that I don't really look at lists as the main metric is that lists are representative of a point in time, right? And if you're trying to build a career, whether you're designing or you're making music or you're writing books or whatever it is you're doing, if you're trying to build a career, an award is an interesting metric at one point in time, but all creative industries are a what have you done for me lately industry.

And I know a lot of people who have had New York Times bestselling books, and that's their last book, because it sold really well for a couple of weeks and then died off. Maybe it was like the book of the time or something. I'm way more interested in measuring impact over time.

How many lives am I transforming? How many habits am I transforming? You know, of creative pros, through the work that I'm doing, how many minds am I changing? You know, that for me is a far more interesting metric than just hitting a list one time, because there's also this sort of thing of like, you hit a list and then it's kind of like, okay, now what do I do, right? Like if that's your goal, if you're playing that finite game, as James Carson would call it, right? The finite game of hitting a list versus the infinite game of how do I get more people involved with my work over time? Because as I get more people involved with my work, the game goes on. That I think for creative pros is a far more interesting way to look at life and work. Again, whether you're designing, writing, making music, whatever it is, you have to have a game you're playing against yourself that's not measured by how other people rate you.