Ep 58 The Santa for Nerds & Coach for Creatives Conversation with Paul Pape

You can be wildly talented and still feel stuck financially, and that gap can mess with your confidence fast. I sit down with Paul Pape, a two-time TEDx speaker, author, creative strategist, and the maker many people call “Santa for Nerds,” to unpack what actually changes when a creative stops selling “a thing” and starts selling the value behind it. Paul’s work spans custom collectibles, hidden engagement ring boxes, and high-pressure builds for major brands, and his journey is full of pivots that prove you don’t have to break when the market shifts. 

We get into his roots in theater design, the blunt moment that made him walk away from the Broadway path, and the surprising chain of experiments that led to a full-time creative career. From viral Nintendo-inspired products to one-of-one builds that help people celebrate proposals, fandoms, and even family milestones, Paul explains how pricing handmade work and custom design is really about ideation, craft, and meaning, not just materials or production time. If you’ve ever heard “but it’s just 3D printed,” you’ll feel seen. 

Then we dig into Gamify Business, Paul’s business coaching approach for artists, makers, neurodivergent founders, and burned out solopreneurs. He translates confusing business jargon into game language, uses a quiz to map business roles, and shows how the right “party” of partners can make your strengths matter more. Listen, share this with a creative friend who needs it, and leave a review if the conversation helps you rethink your next move.

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Paul Pape Designs

Gameify Buriness

Paul's TedX Talk

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Music Credit:  True Living by Patrick Moore

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Transcript

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Cold Open And Welcome

SPEAKER_04 0:09

Everyday people following their passions.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

That's probably like one of the highlights of my life so far. Just being able to be creative like that. Something I've always wanted.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

And then I decided to get another hive, and that turned into a lot of hives. As long as I can do that, I want to be a good citizen. Help people out.

SPEAKER_04 0:33

Putting themselves out there, taking chances, and navigating challenges along the way.

SPEAKER_03 0:40

I I absolutely identified with having stage ride because, you know, anytime I went on stage, I just felt like I was having a heck.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

Very first lap, very first practice session, I crashed, turned the car upside down, made a spectacle of myself, and I got back on that horse and started riding again.

SPEAKER_04 0:56

As they pursue what makes them happy and brings them joy. As long as people are having a good time and I have the opportunity to put smiles on people's faces, I love what I do. I have done things that I never thought I could do.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

To have somebody tell me how real it looks and how, you know, from their actual memory.

SPEAKER_04 1:19

Because that's telling me I captured what I was trying to get. Welcome to Astorted Conversations. I'm your host, Helen. Welcome and thanks for tuning in. I hope you're having a great week and you are making time to enjoy the things you're most passionate about. I can't wait to share this week's conversation with you. I had such a good time. I had a really hard time coming up with a succinct title because my guest is basically a Renaissance man. And even that doesn't completely cover all the value and joy he brings to folks. If you love cool, one-of-a-kind items that you can't just get anywhere, or you're a creative who wants to share your work regardless of what it is, but can't find the right way to go about it without making yourself crazy, this conversation is for you. Take a listen to this week's episode, and I'll see you on the other side.

A Creative Career With Many Turns

SPEAKER_04 2:36

Today's guest is a two-time TEDx speaker, author, creative strategist, and the guy many people know as Santa for nerds. After spending more than 20 years designing for brands like Disney, Universal, Nickelodeon, Nintendo, and even Broadway, he discovered something surprising. Being wildly talented doesn't automatically mean you know how to build a successful business. So he did what creatives do best. He figured it out the hard way. After years of translating confusing business jargon into language that actually made sense to creative minds, he founded Gamify Business, where he helps artists, makers, neurodivergent founders, and burned out solopreneurs finally answer the question so many are afraid to ask. Why am I still broke when I'm this good? He's the author of five books, including the Creative Players Handbook to Business, and quit selling your shit. And his mission is simple. Help creatives stop feeling broken and start building businesses in a language their brains actually understand. I am so happy to welcome Paul Pape to Assorted Conversations. Hi, Paul.

SPEAKER_06 3:59

Hi, Helen. Thank you for having me. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

SPEAKER_04 4:04

I am so happy you are here. So before we get into all of the entrepreneur conversation and the business stuff, tell me where this all started for you. What was your creative outlet that led you to this?

SPEAKER_06 4:21

My background is actually in theater of all of all things. I started out as an actor and then pretty quickly learned that was not the road for me. I was actually told by my instructor in college that she'd never put me on stage, and so I might as well drop out. Oh, wow. But I'm stubborn. And so I said, no, no, that's okay. I'll figure something else out. And I was working with, uh I was working in the scene shop one day as just part of the lab hours that I had to do. And the dean of the department saw that I had a very good work ethic, and he said, Hey, would you be interested in learning everything? And I was like, Well, yeah, because he knew that I wasn't gonna be an actor. So he actually taught me the ropes from everything from janitorial to box office to stage management, directing, and eventually we landed on design. Wow. And I thrived in design. I really loved it. I was a scenic and uh properties designer. I've dabbled in the lighting and the costume, but I really found my way in scenic design and properties design. And that actually led to a few really good awards and really good opportunities, and they just kind of opened up a lot of doors. And uh that's really where the the beginnings of the creative path for me started.

SPEAKER_04 5:34

What what was the first show that you designed for?

SPEAKER_06 5:38

The first one was called Once on This Island. It's a musical takes place. It's an it's basically built on a Caribbean island, and there's there's mythology in it. Uh eventually one of the characters turns into a tree. And I just love I love creating magic in places where magic shouldn't exist. So it was one of my one of my favorites. It was a very much a black and white set until she turns into a tree, and then all of this color just sprouts from everything. It was a really, really beautiful design.

SPEAKER_04 6:07

Oh wow. Wow. So from there, where you know, learning front of the house, back of the house, technical, where where did it go from there?

SPEAKER_06 6:19

From there, it I so that was undergrad, and then I basically I had won a couple of awards that had taken me to the national stage, which was really nice. It was uh, there's a festival called the American College Theater Festival. And from there, I was able to basically find a graduates program to go into. And so I I went to the University of California, San Diego, and I got my degree in scenic and and costume design. The irony is that I think it was two weeks after I had graduated, I was assisting this guy uh who was a designer for Broadway. And he had, I think at this time, either four or six shows on Broadway, which for a scenic designer is pretty apex. That's pretty top of the game. Right. And I was assisting him on a show, and I had asked him, I said, So what's it like? Because I just graduated with a degree in this, and I and I wanted to know, you know, you you're pretty much at the top of your game. What's it like doing this? And to this day, I'll give him credit for being honest. He said, It's horrible. I hate every bit of it. His his issue was that he says, I'm I'm on the road 46 to 48 weeks a year. I never sleep in the same bed twice. I pay for an apartment I'm never in. He says, if you want to settle down and actually like have a life, this is not the the career for you. And I was like, wow, I wish he had told me this before I went to grad school for this, but you know, it was it was a really good, honest take on it. And so I got my degree about two weeks later, I decided I wasn't gonna do that anymore. And I just I was kind of a lost, a lost wanderer at that

Inventing Products And Taking Leaps

SPEAKER_06 7:50

point. I had invented a product because I was as a scenic designer, you build a lot of models for the set that you're gonna put on stage. And I was working on this show called I Am My Own Wife, which ended up, it was a workshop show, but I had designed the set for it. And we didn't think anything of it. It ended up going on to win Pulitzer Prizes, being on Broadway, the whole nine yards. It was like a really big deal. But I was working on this show and it was all about furniture. And so I had to hand cut a hundred tiny pieces of furniture out of cardstock. And I was halfway through it, I was like, there has got to be a better way to do this. And so I actually was at the grocery store and I was looking for a card for Mother's Day, and I saw that there were these cards that had this beautiful lacework pattern cut out of it. I was like, well, how did they do that? And I, you know, so I started digging into it, and I, and this is back in the late 90s before everybody had everything, you know, handed to them like they do now. And basically what I found is they had lasered it out. And so I found the company that did it through Hallmark, and I was talking to them about it, and I said, Would you guys be able to do tiny furniture? So I designed a bunch of laser die-cut furniture that you could then just fold and put together. And that was my first product. And so I kind of launched into that business instead of following, you know, the whole scenic design route. And then while it was happening, I my wife got tired of living in LA trying to do the movie thing. She's a costume designer. And so we decided to move to Nebraska where her family is. And so I was like, well, what can I do here while I'm waiting for the pop-out furniture to take off? And my old undergrad reached out and said, Would you like to be a professor to actually teach design? Yeah, and I was like, Yeah, sure, I'll give it a try. And so went and did that for three years. I love teaching. I hate the bureaucracy that goes with being in a university. So it did not last as long as I think that they had hoped. I was there for about three years. And it was in that last year I was teaching a class, and one of my students, I don't know if you're familiar with the Nintendo Wii that came out in about 2005, 2006.

SPEAKER_04 9:46

Yes, I think I waited in the snow in a snowstorm at 5 a.m. outside of a Target to get a Wii that Christmas.

SPEAKER_06 9:55

So you do recall it. Okay. So they have these avatars in them called me's. And the student asked me, hey, can you make a me of myself and my girlfriend so I can give it to her as a gift? And I was like, ah, sure, why not? And I charge them like 50 bucks, I think. And I gave it to him. And what I didn't know is that he had put it, he had basically submitted it to a blog called Super Punch at the time and included all of my contact information. And I started getting requests to this hundreds of them. And I ended up making more money on the side than I was as a professor, and I liked the creative freedom that I had with designing these sculptures. Right. So I asked my wife, I said, Can I quit being a professor and try to be an artist full time? Because you know that's gonna work out. And she's like, I'll give you one year. And I was like, okay, cool. And then I think it was three or four months later, I had an idea, still tied to the Nintendo Wii. It was for Valentine's Day. It was, they were called chocolate mi's, and it was a little Wii-shaped box that had two chocolates in it, uh, either guy and a girl, guy and a guy, girl and a girl, didn't matter. And white chocolate, look at white chocolate, milk chocolate, or dark chocolate. And you could, but they were basically like mi chocolates. And on the box it said, We beg we belong together, you and me. And it was W I I and M-I-I. And we sold six thousand boxes in two weeks.

SPEAKER_04 11:12

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_06 11:14

Yeah, and it was highlight, but it was also a low well, a low level because that was also the year the Eastern Seaboard on Valentine's Day or the day before had a horrible ice storm, and they lost about a thousand boxes of my chocolates for Valentine's Day. And the amount of emails and phone calls that I got from angry New Yorkers and people from New Jersey was not great. But it, you know, I earned $50,000 in six weeks. And my wife is like, I think you've got an idea here, and just keep running with it. And so that was the story. That was, and then 20 years later, here I am, and I'm working for all of those companies designing and fabricating stuff for them. It's been a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_04 11:57

That is insane. Wow. I had no idea.

SPEAKER_06 12:03

Yeah, it's it's it's been an interesting

Becoming Santa For Nerds

SPEAKER_06 12:06

journey. I I'm a firm believer in the phrase bend don't break. I could have stayed very firm on being a scenic designer and been miserable. I could have stuck with pop-out furniture, which kind of died on its own because then the personal laser came out. So you could start lasering at home as opposed to using the warehouse-sized laser that I was using for my furniture. And then I could have been a college professor and miserable for years. I could have just made Nintendo Mies as sculptures, but then that kind of went away because the new gaming systems came out. So what happened is people just started asking for anything. And I was like, why not? Why not? You know, I'll I'll make this. And now I've become known as Santa for Nerds, as the guy who can make anything you want, just you just wish for it and it happens. And so it's built a good career out of it.

SPEAKER_04 12:53

Yeah, I was gonna say, I want to get to the Santa for nerds. What are some of, besides the the me chocolates, what are some of the things that helped go into earning your name, Santa for nerds?

SPEAKER_06 13:07

I think the like as far as individual product, what's weird is when you start a business, especially creative business, typically you have a product and then you you build that one product and you sell that one product. My product was I will make you anything you want, and I don't have any overhead. So this is kind of why I I know this is an audio-only podcast, but if you look behind me, this is called the nerd wall. All the things that you see behind me are the things that I make. And I have made thousands of individually created objects for people and companies all around the world. And so I and I I mean, some of my favorites I've made people frozen in carbonite, uh like I call them custom carbonites, like on Star Wars. I've made those. They were, they were fun. I made, I took rocks from a game called World of Warcraft, because in the game you can mine ore as part of just a thing. And they had this beautiful purple and sparkly ore called Corium ornaments. And I was like, oh, what if I made uh corian ore? And I was like, what if I made Christmas ornaments? And I called them O-R-Enaments, and it was like, so I can make World of War Warcraft ornaments, and then I sold like a three-pack of those and just like really random things. But then it it really came. I think the thing that really made me ex the most excited about the design is when I started getting into custom engagement ring boxes. And this would be really nerdy, geeky people like myself who like they fell in love or they met through something that was nerdy, be it Harry Potter or a video game or Star Wars or you name it, some geekdom that they've fallen into. And they wanted me to create a ring box that was also representative of that nerddom. And all of my ring boxes are called hidden ring boxes because when you get something from me, it looks just like a cool collectible from that. What you don't know is hidden inside of it is the engagement ring. The ring, yeah. And I've made probably a thousand different kinds. And what people love is so exciting to me. And I I try my best to add a little bit of magic. I used to work a little bit with David Copperfield, so like actually doing magic is really fun for me. Oh wow. And so hiding those little things inside of these boxes that look like one thing but are actually end up being something else is something I just really love to do.

unknown 15:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:23

Well, and and being involved in something as special as a proposal or an engagement, and and and you're a hallmark of that. You're actually tying together the whole reason these two people are together.

SPEAKER_06 15:38

Right. My wife, my wife calls it, I make memories tangible, which I love. I love that. Because when you propose, it's a very intimate thing that typically isn't recorded or or doesn't have anything that you can reflect back on. And what I do is I take that and I create a permanent object, you know, a tangible memory that you can have on your shelf. And every time you look at it, you're like, remember that that's where we met. That represents this brief moment in time because we celebrate the weddings, we celebrate the children, we celebrate all those things. But that one moment when we really come together and we make that commitment to each other, that that's it's a fleeting moment. Like I proposed my wife in Rome in a dingy hotel because we were in between doing these things. We had been walking all day, her hands were swollen, couldn't get the ring on there. It was kind of a kind of a mess. And but it wasn't like a fancy ring box or anything like that. It was just in my pocket. And I was like, it's not something that I don't really have a representation of it all those years later. But uh renewal. You can do a bow renewal. There you go. There you go.

SPEAKER_04 16:41

That would be that would be fun. That's awesome. So how did folks know that that you offered these services? How did they get in touch with you?

Pricing Creativity In A 3D World

SPEAKER_06 16:53

So I think I got lucky in that I started when the internet was pretty new. I'm I'm 50 years old. I've been doing this for a while. And what I did is I'd post every single thing that I made online. And this is before everybody had social media. Um this is in the days before YouTube and all of that. And so I would post it on my blog. And then basically what happened is the things that I make are really cute and they're very iconic to like nerddums. And so what happened is other people started putting them on. I don't have a Pinterest account, but I am huge on Pinterest because a lot of people find my stuff and put it out there. And then people started like BuzzFeed started making lists of the 10 geekiest ring boxes that are out there, or 10 geeky wedding cake toppers. And I'm usually six to eight of those. So what would happen is people then would like research. It's like, oh, I I'm I really love a Star Wars themed engagement. You know, is where can I get a Star Wars themed ring box? And because I was one of two people that was doing it at all, and that guy's even dropped out at this point. I'm just the guy who's associated with it. And so, and and that was before everybody had 3D printers and stuff. I was doing it all by hand. But now that 3D printers have become more prolific, I just happened to get in early enough that I've I've just was able to establish a name for myself.

SPEAKER_04 18:09

Yeah. I was gonna ask, you know, when we when we started going in this direction, have 3D printers affected your business, or are you just that good that it can't be replicated by somebody's 3D printer at home?

SPEAKER_06 18:24

This year alone, I have decided to release my own, because I use 3D printers to make my stuff, but I design everything by hand. And I never released the designs. And this year I decided I would release them. So I have 630 individual designs that are very nerdy and geeky that I've decided to release to the to the public so that other people can make them. But everything that I do is unique to myself and I spend a lot of time designing it. And being a set designer and a prop designer in theater really helped to play into that because it allowed me to be as versatile as I could. And so uh, but I, you know, I started off originally sculpting everything by hand or doing woodworking or metal working, all of it is very manual labor. But then as the 3D printers came out, I was there when they first started dropping out or, you know, becoming a thing. And so, you know, my my first designs were really rough like everyone else's, but I've been able since I was there at the beginning to really refine it and use those tools to help me to make the pieces. And I don't, like I said, I don't like to mass produce things. I like them to be very unique to the people. And so a lot of the parts that I designed were very much one-offs. But occasionally I'll get like the sorting hat from Harry Potter is a very popular ring box for me. I've probably made 40 or 50 of them. And so that's actually ended up being one that I didn't actually 3D print it. I created a mold of it. I made one sculpt, and then I just cast it in a different material over and over again, and then finish them all off by hand to make them a little bit more unique. But yeah, the 3D printers help a little bit. What's the downside of the 3D printing is that because a lot of people have them in their homes, they recognize that it doesn't cost a lot of money to 3D print stuff, and it doesn't. So when it comes to the design cost, they're like, Oh, I'd like to buy a ring box, and I'm like, Okay, it's you know, it's five, six hundred dollars. They're like, But you're just 3D printing it and I can do that for 20 bucks. I'm like, Yeah, but you can't design it for 20 bucks, and that's what you're paying for. Yeah. And so that's that's probably been the biggest issue that I've had with the 3D printing, is that people now think everything is super cheap. Right. But what I teach in with with Gamify business, one of the things that I teach is that you're you're selling ideation and creation, you're not selling a product, and that's why it's more expensive. And so you've got to kind of stick behind that. But there was definitely times during the the early parts where I was, you know, I would question myself. I'm like, am I overcharging for this? And the answer is no.

SPEAKER_04 20:44

Yeah. No, i exactly. You know, I've had makers on the show. I was a maker, I had a jewelry business for a while. And what people saw was the product, but it wasn't how long did I take to design something? How many different types of metal, you know, did I try to use to get it to look the way it looks right then? And where everything can be mass produced these days, getting something handcrafted or uniquely designed, there's a value to that that I I I just think escapes a lot of folks because you know, mass production is so easy.

SPEAKER_06 21:27

And I think that's and that's actually what my book is about with the quit selling your shit. It's about how product first selling will kill a creative business. And we should stop selling the product and start selling the artist behind it. Right. And it took me many years to learn that lesson myself. And once I did, I was able to tack a zero onto my pricing. And nobody batted an eye because they weren't paying for the thing. And you're absolutely right in that we get into this comparison thing, and we do it subconsciously as humans. So like if you're selling a necklace, they're like Like, oh, I know necklaces and I've seen necklaces that were this amount of money. So why is this one more expensive? And so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna buy the cheaper one. But the reality is you start selling yourself, you're not just selling a product, you're selling the journey of the artisan behind it. And then people aren't just buying a thing. Now they're buying a piece of an artist. They're supporting an artist, and that has value. Right. It does.

SPEAKER_04 22:24

So how did you well actually I want to kind of stick with the the Santa Fra nerds? What are some of the wow moments that you had in in designing things?

Making Memories Tangible For Families

SPEAKER_06 22:36

I love a good story. And that's I think it's why I love the ring boxes so much because it's the beginning of a story, a beautiful story. But some of the the most like one that really stands out to me, and this is a story I tell in my TEDx talk, which is called Santa for Nerds, if you want to go check it out, is there is this I got a call one day and I rarely get calls, usually they're emails. And this was a call from a concerned parent, and they said, Do you make a full-size Beauty and the Beast floating rose? You know, the one that the beast has where the petals fall off. And that is one of the pieces that I make. And they said, Is there any way that you can rush one and get it to us within a week up here in Canada? I live in Nebraska, and I was like, uh, yeah, I can I can do it. And they said, That would be great because our daughter is dying of cancer, and it's her favorite movie, and she was a child, and we wanted to get it to her so she could see that there was a little bit of magic left in this world and that we could have it as a keepsake for when she goes as a reminder of her life.

SPEAKER_04 23:32

You're gonna make me cry.

SPEAKER_06 23:34

Well, it made me cry. I'm a parent, you know, and I'm like, oh, of course. And so it it's it's those kind of stories where you don't think when you're making things that you have that kind of impact on people's lives. I had a I had another kid who a parent had called me up, and there's a movie called Despicable Me. I don't know if you're familiar with all the little minions. The very first movie, the the antagonist, protagonist grew. He he writes, he adopts these three girls, and then at the end he apologizes by having this book called it's the it's a unicorn book, and he puts his nose through it and it makes the little unicorn horn and it's very cute. And I got a call from a parent, and they said their son had drowned when he was six, but they had recovered him, they had they had brought him back, but he had been he had been dead for like six minutes and he had suffered some brain damage. And uh this was a few years later, but his move his favorite movie was Still Despicable Me. And so the one big unicorn was his favorite book, and nobody made it. And they were wondering if I could make him this book and make it a a reality for him. And of course I did, you know, like, yeah, sure. But they said, you know, he has some limitations because of the trauma that he had. And so they had some requests. They're like, you know, he has tendency to put he while he is growing up, his mentality stays that of a four or six-year-old. And so he had a tendency to like put books in his mouth. So it's like, hey, can you make these books so that they're waterproof? Or can you, you know, make them so that the kid so they can have them, he can he can look at it over and over and over again because they have the repetition was something that he did. And so I was able to kind of step up to that and make that for him. And I actually made two books so in case something went wrong, and I threw the other one in for free because I was like, this means a lot. And they did an unboxing video for me, not to put it on the internet or anything like that, but they should, you know, they had him open it up, and I heard the mom behind the camera get choked up. I got choked up, and this kid was so excited. Oh, and I'm like, if I could bring that kind of joy to a family who's seen some tragedy, it it makes it worth it. Absolutely worth it.

SPEAKER_04 25:32

Yeah. Holy cow. Wow, so powerful. What

Selling The Impossible Under Pressure

SPEAKER_04 25:38

you know, in in in going through this journey, and you just seem to, I don't want to say be a short order cook, but no matter what anybody orders, you can fill it. So where what were the challenging times in in being able to do that?

SPEAKER_06 25:58

That's a great question. And you would think that there wouldn't be one, but the hardest thing to sell is a service in which I can make whatever you can think of.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 26:09

And so I would go like, and and honestly, the term Santa for nerds didn't happen for like 12 or 13 years into my business. I would come up with all kinds of funny ways to put it on a business card or a trade show banner or whatever. But nobody understood what it was that I made. I'd go to trade shows and I'd have my table set up, and people would walk by and I'm like, I can make you anything that you want, but you have to kind of show, you know, your your wares, like your skill. And so I'd have uh examples and people would walk by and go, I don't want any of that. I'm like, no, that's not what I do. I make anything that you want. I even had a sign one show that said, I will literally make you anything that you can think of. You just have to ask. And I and nobody would buy from it because they didn't, they don't think it's possible that one person or a company can can do this kind of job. Yeah. And so the hardest thing is convincing people that Santa is real.

SPEAKER_04 27:04

I I can see where there'd be some skepticism. I can see it, but I mean, I haven't seen any work that you've produced, but I believe no matter what my little brain can come up with, you could create it. So go figure.

SPEAKER_06 27:19

If now like I I work with the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Uh-huh. Um, that's that's one of my favorite ones to work with because they're very topical and they're very instant. And so they will call me up and they're like, we have this weird idea and we need it to be on air in two days. Like one of them, and it didn't make it to air, not because I didn't produce it, but because it got vetoed, which happens a lot in television. But they had called me up and they said, We need two animated, realistic horse heads because Jimmy and Shaq want to ride horses and tell jokes, but we can't put them on real horses. And we need it in two days. And I'm like, okay, let's do it. So I made life-size animatronic horse heads that went on these like little saddles and stuff so they could be on the camera, but they had like the ears twitched and the head moved and stuff and made it in two days. And it that's the kind of that's that's the type of work that I do. It's like I can make it happen.

SPEAKER_04 28:13

Oh my gosh. Now, see, I would panic. One, I would panic that the tonight show was on the phone. And then two, I would panic that I only had two days. But I don't have the mind of a designer. So that that could be a really big obstacle for me. But holy cow, such cool experiences.

SPEAKER_06 28:33

It's fun, it's fun. It's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_04 28:35

Yeah, it it sounds it. So as

Gamify Business Through DnD Thinking

SPEAKER_04 28:38

time went on, where did the whole gamify business piece come into play for you?

SPEAKER_06 28:45

So I had spent uh so I work in a studio basement. Like in my basement, my studio is the entire basement. So it's it's a wonderful opportunity to be a stay-at-home dad, but also have a studio where I can actually do all of my work while my wife goes off and is a costume designer for a theater here in town. And I had been doing it for a few years and I realized I was getting really lonely. And so I'm I'm used to live theater. I'm used to being around people. And so I had Googled one day, I said, how can I set up a camera and do my work in front of people so I can talk to people? And I found a platform called Twitch. And basically, I didn't know it at the time, but it's a gaming platform. People play video games and people watch. Right. But there's a small subset of it, about 20% of them are actually creatives who do art and people can watch them do art and ask questions. And so for five days a week, about six to eight hours a day, I would sit in front of cameras. I had three cameras set up, one for my hands, one for my face, and then like a top view. And I would make all of these cool pieces. You know, I'd be Santa's workshop, and you'd be able to watch me work and ask me questions. And what I found was that there's a lot of creatives out there who want to own a business doing what they love to do, but have zero idea how to do it.

SPEAKER_07 29:57

Like none.

SPEAKER_06 29:58

And they have all the skills, they just don't have any business acumen. And so I would give them all the advice, you know, like here's how you figure out how to charge, this is the, you know, pricing, this is how you find clients, all of this stuff. But what I realized was that I was talking in business speak, and a lot of creative minds don't understand business. And so I would say, okay, this is the you know, Roas. You got to understand Roas, everybody. And they're like, is that a rodent of unusual size? I'm like, no, that's from Princess Bride. You know, it's return on ad spend and all that. And so they didn't get it. And I was working with a client who they're really creative. They were gamers like myself, and they made little dragons. And so we were like, we were already best friends. And so I was working with them on that, and I was asking them because they were a successful business on paper, but they weren't really successful in the bank accounts. And so they wanted me to come in and see if I could help them write the ship a little bit. And so I was asking them, I said, So what do you guys like, what's your role in the business? There were three of them. And they said, Oh, we all do everything. And I'm like, Well, you can't all do everything. That's not how you run a business. So, like, what's your main role? And so they told me, and I said, Okay. And I was just spitballing, I was just kind of coming up with an idea to help them understand it better. I said, How about I come back tomorrow and we'll play Dungeons and Dragons Business Edition? But instead of being a ranger or bard, you're gonna be your role in the business. And instead of fighting dragons and imps, we're actually gonna fight monsters that are obstacles that you'd encounter in real life business. Okay, so like the haggler or the scope creeper or these kinds of things. And I just make it up. And so we played for about four hours. And after that, the CEO of the business goes, Is this what business is? Because I think I finally understand it and it seems fun. And I was like, Yes, this is exactly what it is. And that was like the light bulb moment that went, ah, so what gamified business is, is it's not a game. I mean, we play games, but what we do is we really translate the terminology of business into an area that people understand already. And a lot of it happens to be gaming because we've all been playing games since we were kids, and so we understand those rules. And so I translate regular business stuff into the jargon of it, into something that they can relate to. And then we try to make it fun. And that's the entire thing behind it. And so once I was done with that, I was like, okay, I love Dungeons and Dragons. I like the books that come with it. And I was like, what if I wrote a book that looked like it belonged to Dungeons and Dragons, but it was like the player's handbook, but it's the player's handbook of real life business for creative entrepreneurs. And so I did. I wrote the book, uh, that was my first book that I wrote. And it's a basically walks you through how to set up your business. But you start by creating a character sheet, which is you in your business. And you have to understand what you're trying to do. Like, what am I, what was what my business for? What am I passionate about? And then from there, we do looking for group, which is what you do in a Dungeons and Dragons and game. And what we do is we try to find people who are who are going to be good business partners for you that make a good group. You don't want people who are very similar to you. You want people that are going to help boost you up and round you out so that you are like a good cohesive unit. And then from there we do all these encounters, which are the monsters that you would encounter with business. But what I don't tell anybody is that if you fill out the book and it's self-led, is that at the end you have a fully formed business plan and a 90-day plan of action to earn real world money.

SPEAKER_04 33:16

Wow. But I hid it all behind the game. Yeah. That is really cool. And it it's funny because I have a lot of friends who are creatives, and they're all kind of in the same boat where it's they are incredibly talented and they may every once in a while sell something or get some recognition that brings more attention to what they do, but they're not uh I don't know, that that that that muscle that is business acumen just isn't isn't there. And I I do not possess it myself. So I'm not I'm uh I'm not poo-pooing anybody that doesn't. I'm I'm right there with you. So this is fantastic. What do you think? You now you're a creative, but how did you get it being a creative?

SPEAKER_06 34:12

My superpower is I I have ADD. And my superpower is I love to learn. And for me, understanding how things work is part of it's part of the Santa for nerds. I'm a creative problem solver. And so with business, I was like, how do I solve the business of business? You know, it's I I wanted to, I want to know the answer. I have that creative streak in me. And I love to uh I love similes and metaphors. And so when I'm I was a professor for a little while, like I said, and I love explaining things to people in a way that they'll understand it. And so for me, it was let's break down all of these things, not just for other people, but for myself as well. It's like because I have to understand this when I'm when I'm doing it myself. And one thing that's in all of my books are these little orange boxes, which are stories of me and my business and in my my struggles. And I love that for me, failure is a step, not a stop, which is one thing that I say a lot. And I screwed up a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. And fortunately, I'm I don't ever look at it as a stopping point. I always look at it as an opportunity to learn and move on. Right. And so all of my books are filled with stories of you know how I screwed up and hopefully you guys don't have to. And so it's just I I kind of don't have that part of my brain that tells me that you're gonna fail and that nothing isn't is possible. I I think everything is possible, and I love to learn and and and failure is part of that. And so that was really what allowed me to do this this thing that I do.

SPEAKER_04 35:43

Oh, that's wild. I I love it. I love it. I am running out to get that book as soon as we're off this call. Excellent. Yeah. So now making that transition from, or maybe it wasn't a transmit uh transition, maybe you're still doing all of the creative stuff and now you're adding the the gamified business piece to it. What opportunities has that opened for you?

SPEAKER_06 36:12

So I'm I I do both of them. And actually I've added a third business because of course I did, where I'm actually writing fiction books. That's right. So That's right. Yeah, because why not? You know, everything's everything's on the table, right? But what I've what I've realized is I'm 50 years old and I know that there's a timeline to being able to do the tiny little things I do or to work with the chemicals that I'm working with when building all this. It's a young person's game. And so what I do now is I I do mostly corporate work. I don't do a lot of individual work anymore because it's fewer and far between and they have a larger budget to spend. And so I don't have to work as hard. But I think it allows for the younger, younger people to kind of step in to where I was to fill that vacuum. And so what the consulting and coaching business does is it allows me to just teach people how to do this kind of stuff as opposed to me having to do it all and take all the limelight. And so the the challenges that I've run into with trying to do that conversion is that again, I'm a 50-year-old trying to start a business again and doing it all from the ground up. And not only am I starting a business, I'm trying to do something that doesn't exist and make it make it aware for everyone who's out there. And it's a it's a pretty noisy sea of information out on the internet and in the real world. And so trying to convince people that this new shiny that I'm trying to sell to people is actually worth it when everybody's trying to sell a new shiny that may not be worth it. So that's been a big a struggle for this business. And so also the lesson of, and we talked about this earlier, about being the star of it, not hiding behind the work, but actually trying to sell yourself is something that I too am not super comfortable with. Um I've found a nice coping mechanism, which is I I put on characters. So when I'm doing the the gamify business, I play the the game master and the barkeep. And so I get to put on my outfit. I got a little towel on my shoulder, and then I'm playing the character of it, again, going back to theater here, but that allows me to basically wear armor that protects myself from being so nervous about trying to do all of this stuff. Right. Um, and then not, you know, because it when you're consulting, the product that you're selling is what you know. And so you have to be the person that's talking. And so the product that you're selling is your mind. And so you can't hide behind anything because it's your words that you're selling. And so I've had to teach myself over and over again that this is this is the way that we should do it. But the challenges that you run into is very much just trying to convince people that this weird thing that you're doing is legitimate and it can help. And then getting in front of the right people in the right uh areas, which is, you know, fortunately for me, I don't mind being on stage, I don't mind being in front of a camera. And so I do a lot of podcasts, I do I go on stage, I've done my TEDxes, it's it's those types of situations that get me in front of the right people. But don't get me wrong, I still get nervous when I have to go up to somebody and say, would you like to learn how to be a business, even though you're super creative? So, you know, it never goes away.

SPEAKER_04 39:16

Yeah, yeah. Well, I visited your website and I took the the the quiz.

The Quiz That Maps Business Roles

SPEAKER_04 39:25

And I absolutely love it because I'm not talking to a business consultant. I'm talking to a barkeep. And the barkeep asks a series of questions to evaluate as a creative what your what your business, team building, networking, efficiency, effectiveness, financial awareness is. It evaluates all of those things through a series of questions, and then it puts it into practice by putting you into scenarios. And I found it fascinating. Now, I'm not a Dungeons and Dragons person. So some of the terminology is is gonna be lost on me. But I went through and I took the assessment, and I want you to tell me a little bit about, not without, you know, don't give away trade secrets, but I want you to tell me a little bit about my profile. I came out as a barred connector. What does that mean to me?

SPEAKER_06 40:31

So one thing that you didn't mention is that you should have gotten an email with a really deep dive, like 11-page deep dive into your personality as a business person as well. So that should be in your email. Oh, okay. I didn't check my email. Okay, so check that out. And it's it's really thorough. But so what a bard is, is is so there are six different classes that you can fall into. There's warrior, ranger, bard, wizard, sage, and artificer. Those are the six different personalities. And each one of them represents how you approach business. This isn't a personality test about your personal life or anything like this. It's really just about business and how you approach it. And when you're answering these questions, it kind of helps to it folds you into these different areas. Now, the bard in particular is a great one because three of them are outward-facing or people facing businesses or classes, and that would be the warrior, the bard, and the sage. And then underneath that, there are the behind-the-scenes people, which would be the ranger, the wizard, and the artificer. The bard itself is a forward-facing person who enjoys communicating with others, has ideas, but also is selling the uh basically other people, like the ability to do things for other people. It's it's the level up from being a wizard. A wizard is actually a person who is comfortable with some variety, some change, doing something a little bit different, is is okay with you know doing the same thing over and over again. You mentioned you did jewelry, so you're used to the to being within the confines. I'm making jewelry today, but it could be a necklace, it could be a bracelet, it could be a ring, it could be all these different things. So there's variety in it. If somebody came to you and said, hey, we'd like to try something a little bit different, you would be game for it. That's the wizard mentality. Well, the bard comes from the wizard. So they basically move up, they level up out of it, and they are more forward-facing. So now you are a person who can sell the product. You are good at communicating with people. I look at you at this podcast here. You've got great communication skills. You can relate to what I'm talking about. So you can talk to people who are wizards and be able to communicate it. And then you can also sell the skills that somebody, you know, that people uh maybe underneath you could do because you're familiar with being that wizard personality. And so I love the bard because it is very much a universal communicator. You you've got a lot of flexibility to you. So you don't find yourself like you're not a wallflower. You go into a party, you can you can meet new people, you don't have a problem with that. You can tell good stories, you're a good uh you can laugh, you can you enjoy yourself. You have a social battery that a lot of the behind-the-scenes people do not have. Now, if you rolled an artificer, those types of people are the ones who not only do they not like change, they want to be locked in a room and left alone to do the thing that they're really good at. That's that's an artificial accounting.

unknown 43:20

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 43:22

No, no, you're not, you're not wrong. And the sage is actually a level up from that one because a sage used to be that, but they are forced into a role that is more people forward. And they will sell at artificers' work, but they know not to promise anything outside of the box because it will upset the artificer. And so the bard is kind of the mix there. And then the last one, which is the warrior and the ranger, the warrior is the type of person that would be like, We can do it, we can do it. They they charge in and they promise the world and they they they say that we can deliver anything, but they have no idea how to do any of it.

SPEAKER_05 43:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 43:54

We've all met those people. Uh we call them bros, or we call you know that it's all just guys that are out there, and they'll sell the world. What they do is they go, we can do it, we can do it. And then they turn around and go, can we do it? And the ranger is the person that's behind them that goes, Yeah, we can do it. Because the ranger is the type of person that loves the challenge of variety. They love to pick up the pieces, they love to figure everything out, but they will suffer if you put them into a cubicle and you make them do the same thing over and over again. That's not what they're geared for.

SPEAKER_07 44:21

Right.

SPEAKER_06 44:22

So they work really well with the with the warrior because the warrior is promising the world in every direction and they and the ranger has to figure it out. And so that's the six different types. And so the bard to me is almost a universal forward-facing person because they they live a better, uh, a fuller life and they understand the limitations, but they're not locked into those limitations, but they can occasionally like confine themselves. So it's it's a really good bard is probably one of it's what I pulled as well. It's one of the most variety, it's the one of the most versatile word I'm looking to. It's yes, versatile. That's the word I'm looking for. Thank you. It's one of the most versatile roles that you could get. So yeah. Cool. Cool.

SPEAKER_04 45:05

So like I said, I I loved taking the quiz. I think you got honest answers because it wasn't a question-answer thing. It was more of like an interaction. And the barkeep leans over and whispers. It's like, what's your next move? So I really loved that. It was it I think you got more honest answers out of me. Or I got more honest answers out of me because to your point, I was playing a character. We we were in a little scene together. Yeah. So really good stuff. Once once somebody takes the quiz, what's what's the next step?

SPEAKER_06 45:44

So you have options at the end of the quiz to sign up for a you can sign up for the newsletter if you want to to kind of get a little bit deeper value into it. And some people do and some people don't. It's probably like 60-40 as to whether they will. But if you do get into the the world of it, I don't spam people because I hate spam myself. Right. But what you do is you you'll get deeper dives into it. And then I start to mention some of the other products and services that I offer. You know, we call them upsells in business, but I am a low pressure salesman because hate to say it, but creatives are skittish, especially when it comes to sales. And so uh I don't want to pressure you. And also I don't want to uh ever put you in a position in where you feel compelled to buy something from me or work with me, because I I know personally that once I'm out of the picture, you won't do the work. And so I want you to be in a position in which you feel comfortable enough that you're like, oh, I'd love to learn more. I'd love to do this, I'd like to learn, you know, to get more information on this. And so it's very low pressure. But that's basically what happens is so you'll get some of the newsletters, and then you have the opportunity to either buy the books, which are all self-led, or you can actually work with me, or I do workshops in which we get together. And since you pulled Bard, I actually will do emails every once and say, hey, we're having an all-bard meeting. And so we can all get together and do and bards can talk to bards. But one of the key things that I kind of glossed over a little bit in it is that not only do you get to learn your class, but you get to learn the ideal secondary class for you. So, like with the bard, you were looking for wizards to be your ideal partner in business because they're gonna help to pick up all the slack of the places that you might have a deficiency, which isn't bad. We all have them. And then wizards have their own, and you've got things that help to balance that out. And we'll do workshops where we say, okay, we're gonna do a bards and wizards. So if you don't have a wizard in your life, let's see if you can meet meet one. And it's kind of like a meet cute type of situation where we all get to get to meet our ideal partners here. And this, again, these are partners in business, not partners in real life. Right. But what's what's fun with that is I've I've actually had people who are like, I have a partner in business. I'm having them take the quiz to find out if they truly are a good fit. And I'd say most of the time they are, but sometimes they'll find that they they it's two bards or it's two warriors. And what's interesting is because creatives especially like to surround ourselves with people we like to talk to and we like to you know be around people like us, but it's not really good for business.

SPEAKER_04 48:08

Right, right, right. Nothing gets done.

unknown 48:11

Right.

SPEAKER_06 48:11

And so, but but those are the the next steps. And I have when we do workshops, I actually have games that we play, they're video games and or live action role-playing. And so we we actually do those live, we have head-to-head competitions, which I think is is really good. And then I have like a starter land game that it's should be out in the next month or so, because I'm not a coder, but I've had to learn how to do this to make these video games. But basically, in a video game, you have a starting area, which is where you learn all the rules and then and all the skills to be able to go play the game. And so I was like, well, we should have that in business as well. And so I created this game where you go in the barkeep is where you start and you talk to him, and he's like, Well, you need to go get some armor and some materials. So go out into the into this make-believe world and talk to these six different people. Um, there's the blacksmith, there's the guild leader, and they teach you skills and they give you some equipment so that you get fully kitted out, is what we'd call it. And then after that, then the barkeep sends you out on your first mission, which is to go kill some monsters, and they're very starter monsters. And what's nice about it is you go in there and you have the you meet this monster, and and typically the monsters are things that you're going to encounter in real business. And some of them are are, you know, uh not necessarily external creatures, but internal ones. So like we have the you know, doubts that rise up in ourselves. Yeah, and so when you encounter these, it's not hitting them with the sword, it's answering a question. So it's like, oh, you've encountered this creature, and it says that you aren't worthy because you've got, you know, you know, I don't feel like I belong. I don't think I have the skills to do this, and this monster is taunting you with this. Well, how do you how do you counteract that? Well, somebody in the town, one of those people actually told you the how to get over this. And so you don't have that fear anymore. And so you you have we have choose your own, like a you know, A, B, C, D, E, um, and you like choose a selection that would would work best for you. But all of those answers are actually generated by you when you're talking to these townspeople. So it's all about learning who you are and how you approach these things and then turning it into a game because the reality is life should be more like a game and you should be having fun with it, especially business. And so it teaches you these skills so that when you're out in the real world, you're not overwhelmed by these things. You don't, you don't feel like you don't have the the skills or the abilities to do this because you do, we just don't have the confidence yet. And so if we turn it into a game, we separate the ego, then you can go out there and you and you do this and you just have fun at it.

Theater Skills Writing And Farewell

SPEAKER_04 50:31

Yeah. Oh, I have a learning and development background, and we were all about gamification, making things fun, creating scenarios, role-playing so that it's not just boring, dry lecture on building skills. Yeah. You actually get practice time. Go read about the skills outside of class, come to class prepared to start using the skills. Kind of like driver's ed. You take the class, but you do your real learning behind the wheel.

SPEAKER_06 51:04

So Yeah, absolutely. And I think I I wish more people would understand that, you know, they're like when I was growing up, I was always told you're book smart, but you're not street smart. Okay. You're really good at learning the information, but you're not really good at application. And uh I was like, oh, okay, well, I got to work on that. And so as an adult, you know, that's one of the things. And you're absolutely right. It's like you got to put yourself in that scenario. If if you ever find yourself, if you've got a creative streak and you're unsure like you can you have that versatility, go volunteer at a community theater. Go do some theater, especially the behind the scenes stuff. Because the you learn so many soft skills that you don't think will apply in life, but you absolutely do apply them in life. I remember as a prop maker, one one show I would be doing like six-tier super decorated cakes. And then the next one I'm building uh I've built so many weird things like swimming pools or working kitchens and all these kinds of like random things. Like, where where do all these skills get taught? You know, it's like, well, you have to do it in theater because that's what's required. And so if you are creative and you're unsure about how these skills work, go do theater sometime and you'll learn that you have so many abilities that you're unaware of. Yeah. And that practical application is very possible.

SPEAKER_04 52:17

My my former pod partner, Maureen, was a technical theater major in college. She went into HR. She had all of those skills, I'm assuming from technical theater. She retired early. It burnt her out, but she's very happy now.

SPEAKER_06 52:37

Well, hopefully she's like painting or doing something from the side.

SPEAKER_04 52:40

She is doing all of the above. She's painting, she's doing pottery, she's gardening, she's she's doing fantastic. But yeah, it's funny. She was a technical theater major and had no problem going right into the HR field.

SPEAKER_06 52:55

Yep. Yep. Theater is theater is a is a weird thing. I would like we keep trying to cut it out of system, out of school system. But it's like you have no idea how valuable this in this is for people. It's actually like when you go into MIT and Harvard Business School, or to, or the other one's John Hopkins. One of the last questions they ask is, Did you do you ever do theater? It's on their application.

SPEAKER_04 53:16

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 53:16

Because they want to know that you've got the soft skills that you've got for versatility.

SPEAKER_04 53:20

Oh, that's great. Now, speaking of skills, you are now flexing a new skill, which is the nonfiction writing. Yes, I am. Let's just, let's just bring that up.

SPEAKER_06 53:35

Sure, why not? So I was writing the the business manuals, all these gamified business books, and in the middle of it, I was working with a book coach on it. And the book coach was not grasping what I was trying to do. It was it my book coach was really good at writing books, but she was like a memoir writer. And she's like, I think you need to write a memoir of your journey, and then people will learn from that. And I was like, No, I don't think that's what I want to do. So I started writing the gamified books. And then in the middle of it, I was, I had a really weird youth. I had one summer, and this might it might be a little dark, but it there's a reason we're going into this. But in this one summer, 12 people died within a two-block radius of my house. Oh my gosh. This is in the 80s. And so, very much the stand by me, stranger things type of life, all the kids in the neighborhood were deeply invested into the mystery of what was happening during this time. And it was, it was a bizarre time in my life. But while I was working with the book coach and we were talking about the memoir aspect of it, I had brought this up, and she's like, that is such a wild, that sounds like a book. And I was like, Oh, it could be. And so I wrote a bunch of short stories, but instead of them being hyper-realistic, I turned them into suspense, thriller, sci-fi type of stories, whereas like these mysteries and stuff were because magical things were happening in the neighborhood. So I wrote these called the Green Trees stories. And then I wrote them. There was 20 stories in that one, and I submitted them to a couple of places, and they said, nobody buys anthologies of short stories. So you need a through-line book. And I'm like, okay, fine. So I took one character who may or may not be a lot like me in this time and created a story. It's called Death's Intern. And it is about a kid who is recruited by the Grim Reaper to become the next Grim Reaper. And it's all of these, it and in doing it, there's all of these weird things that are happening around his world. And so he's got a team of kids that are helping him solve these mysteries and stuff. And it's an adult, it's an adult book. It's it's written from the perspective of kids, but it is not, it's more like Stand By Me and It from Stephen King as opposed to a children's story or young adult story. But I have read it to my kids, they loved it, and not because dad wrote it. They actually do like books. They'll tell me if they don't like it. But it's it's most kids do. They do indeed. They're very brutally honest. And so that's where that's where this came from. And so from there, I've I've been writing it. It's actually now I'm looking for a publisher for it. I thought about self-publishing, but I'm like, I had an editor, and she's like, don't self-publish. This is too good for me, self-published. And I'm like, well, great. Now I gotta learn how to be a published author. I have no idea how to do this. So I guess I'm gonna learn something new. You gotta add that to the list. Yeah, exactly. So so that's where that that one started from. And it was it's it's funny. I never thought I would be a writer. Never. And now I'm I'm seven or eight books in in seven or eight books within the last three years.

SPEAKER_04 56:28

Wow. Amazing. Your journey blows my mind. And and I I had said off mic before we started recording, what drew me to you as a guest was the whole Santa for Nerds. I was like, oh, that's a great conversation. Little did I know that was a fraction of your journey from Santa for nerds to entrepreneur to business coach to writer. Holy cow. Is there anything left for you to do? Is there anything you want to do?

SPEAKER_06 57:04

I'm a go with the flow kind of dude. I you know, honestly, I I just love to put to put it out there, you know, to be creative. And I and I think that is is what's the next thing? I have no, I have no idea. I love to travel and it's and it's whatever whatever comes up comes up. I I I think right now the the biggest journey that I'm looking forward is I've got three boys who are all extremely different, but they are all extremely creative in their own ways. And I think between mom and dad both being creatives and all of them, I I my next adventure will be seeing what they do with it and seeing it and because they want to be creatives, they all do. My oldest is in college right now to be an animator.

SPEAKER_05 57:51

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06 57:52

And I've got a musical kid, and I've got a writerslash game developer kid. And every single one of those are very challenging careers to get into, but they happen to know a dad who is kind of writing the book on how creatives can be successful. And so for me, it's, you know, put my money where my mouth is or where my family is, and seeing if I can, you know, help them to become the the great creatives that they are, as well as the strangers in my life.

SPEAKER_04 58:17

Yeah. That's that's fantastic. That is, that is a great mission. And I will definitely be checking back in with you to see how how we're doing on that one. But what a what a beautiful, what a beautiful way to kind of pass the torch to your to your kids. I love that. Thank you. Thank you. Paul, thank you so much for all of your time. I have so enjoyed this. You're definitely a guest I'm gonna be in touch with outside of the interview for my own personal growth, because I am making, I think I alluded to it a little earlier, I'm making a career pivot right now. Wonderful. And uh I've got I've got some concerns. I've got some strengths, but I've got some concerns. So you were very timely for me, as I hope you are very timely for a lot of the creatives that I know listen to the podcast. So again, thank you for all your time. Where can folks find you online?

SPEAKER_06 59:19

Okay, thank you. So thank you so much. And that that actually does mean an awful lot to me that you uh what you said, super kind. You can find me at gamifybusiness.com and you can take the quiz at gamifybusiness.com forward slash quiz if you would like to learn your business personality. And if you're interested in the design work and seeing what's out there, you can go to paulpapedesigns.com as well. That's where the Santa for Nerd stuff lives. And all of my social media handles are either Paul Pape Designs or Gamify Business. So you can find me anywhere. And just so everyone knows, if you have a question and you reach out, you're not gonna get a bot. You're gonna get Paul, and Paul will answer. So if you have questions, please feel free to reach out.

SPEAKER_04 59:57

Fantastic. And where can we find your books?

SPEAKER_06 1:00:00

My books are available. Two of them, quit selling your shit, and the uh Bard's Guide to Storycraft are available on Amazon, but the rest of them are on gamified business.com because Amazon doesn't want to sell my hardcover books. And I think books are beautiful when they're hardcovers. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:15

Well, great. Thank you so, so much, Paul. I really enjoyed this.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:20

Thank you, Helen. I really appreciate it being honest. It's been a lot of fun. I love it.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:35

I am an absolute fan of what Paul does and how he continues to evolve throughout every experience he has or creates. Something that stands out to me, especially early on in his journey, is his ability to remain open-minded, to try new or different things, yet he's so self-aware to know when something's not going to work for him. Another nugget I took away from my conversation is his natural ability to seek improvement or to simplify things. And those qualities have taken him on some wild rides and brought about significant steps along his journey. And then lastly, his overall journey reminds me of a quote from the 2005 animated movie Robots. If you haven't seen it, check it out. It has an amazing voice cast, including Robin Williams. The main character is a young boy robot with aspirations to become an inventor. And he gets encouraged by this saying, see a need, fill a need. And Paul has been doing that throughout his entire career. And having the heart of a creative, a teacher, and the mentor that he is resonates throughout his entire journey from what he produces for folks who are ordering from him to how he coaches people who think in the same way he does, and helping them become better business people so that they can share their creativity wide and far. Just amazing. Use the tell me what you think about this week's episode link in the show notes and tell me what you got out of Paul's journey. I'd love to hear it. And speaking of show notes, jump down to them to connect with Paul's design work and his Gamify Business website. And while you're there, don't forget to connect with me. All my socials are linked there as well. As always, thanks for listening. Your support of the podcast means a lot, so keep listening and keep sharing. And I'll see you in a few weeks.