Conscious Creators — Make A Life Through Your Art Without Selling Your Soul

When was the last time you'd been bored? So there's this new problem that's been created that we need to be online. It's more important, but at the same time, our time spent in the real world now has to be much more effective than it was before.”

— Robbie Bent

This week Sachit (@sachitgupta) chats with entrepreneur Robbie Bent. Robbie is the CEO and Founder of Othership which is a platform that includes physical spaces, a mobile app, a concert tour and a global community. They also run live breathwork concerts in NYC, LA, Miami and Austin. Prior to Othership, Robbie was an early employee at the Ethereum Foundation

Find the show notes of the episode here - https://www.creators.show

Follow our host, Sachit Gupta on Twitter and sign up for the Creators Collective Newsletter.

Do you want to learn how to make a living as a creator? Check out the CreatorsMBA.

(01:02) - Genesis and inspiration behind Othership

(02:34) - Robbie’s perspective on the direction of the world that is moving towards more and more time spent on screens

(05:17) - How humans operate differently in a virtual world Vs real world

(08:24) - Why he took the leap to make physical spaces instead of focusing on crypto

(18:20) - Robbie’s approach to designing spaces

(24:36) - When do they know when to stop in terms of creating the best

(27:00) - How do they apply reverse engineering during the design process

(28:37) - How to facilitate more connections in online courses and communities

(33:59) - Stories that fuel the inspiration and delight during his travels

(36:10) - Robbie's history of dealing with addiction and visiting Iran

(41:24) - What do most people don’t understand about going through addictions

(46:18) - Meditation Vs Breathwork

(52:37) - How to unleash your creativity and bring that child-like wonder back

(59:04) - How the name Othership came into the picture

(01:04:45) - Bootstrapping Vs Venture-backed

(01:14:52) - One person he is thankful to

(01:19:82) - His definition of being a conscious creator

(01:21:05) - What is he most excited about in the next 5-10 years

“I came to realize that as the influencer, you’re your own best marketer, you’re your own best advocate, you know your audience best, you know your content best, and people want to hear from you anyway.” – Tessa Arias

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

In today’s episode, Tessa Arias, founder of Handle the Heat, shares her experience going from a hobby-blogger to published author and social influencer. What I love about Tessa’s background is she’s grown a platform online mostly organically, reaching audience numbers that a lot of my friends who spend a ton on paid ads aren’t even able to reach.

We also get super tactical into her experience working with sponsors and partnerships and how Tessa now acts as an advisor for companies wanting to work with influencers. We close with her experience going back into the world of publishing and why she’s self-publishing her next cookbook.

Actions:

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — click here to send a Tweet directly to Tessa and Sachit or find Tessa on Instagram.
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

Episode Highlights:

• Tessa began as a hobby blogger with no expectations of making money, until she was offered a book deal in 2012.
• Even though she was making money from her website, she didn’t feel like it was a real business, so she started attending Masterminds to learn more.
• Tessa found she needed the emotional support of having a team of like-minded people around her.
• Someone can have a six or seven-figure business, but hate their business and not feel fulfilled by their life.
• Find groups and resources where you’re actually getting advice and tools that you can implement.
• Surround yourself with people who understand and respect that you are the one who knows your business and yourself the best.
• Bringing someone else into your business forces you to operate at a higher level.
• You don’t need to post on major job sites; look within your own community first. For example, Tessa hired through Instagram at first.
• When hiring, Tessa suggests you ask them to tell a story about a time they overcame a challenge, and ask them their opinion about something trivial to see that they can make a commitment and not be a yes-person.
• Tessa realized she was approaching burnout when she stopped feeling excited about her work.
• Growing your business depends on being flexible and adapting to the changing online landscape.
• Tessa challenged herself to post something every quarter that is more controversial or more personal and that scares her.
• If you buy a course online, make sure you have an accountability buddy to do it.
• Her past experiences with sponsored posts were formulaic and based on how other food bloggers did it, but she learned from Sachit and others how to build larger partnerships and create relationships from sponsorships.
• Through her success with building partnership relationships, Tessa has become a case study and an advisor for how brands should work with influencers.
• Tessa learned to ask open-ended questions of her sponsors to understand how their organizations work so she learns what would work best for both of them.
• No one opens Instagram excited to see sponsored content, so you should prioritize sponsorships that work with content you already post organically and that you care about and whose products you use.
• Question your assumptions that something has to be done a certain way.
• Sell your own content to your audience and remind them of the work that goes into it.
• The most important fundamental skills you need to be a successful published author are marketing and sales.
• Tessa is writing a second cookbook but is self-publishing it.
• The hardest part is marketing the book for pre-sale while creating it in order to fund it at the same time.
• Don’t do something you don’t like just to see if it’ll be successful, because if it is successful, you’ll have to continue doing something you hate.
• If you’re bored ...

“Privilege is only negative if you don't use your privilege to elevate others. That's when it's negative. So for me, I express to people I have a deep privilege and a deep responsibility given my upbringing to give back.” — JeVon McCormick

This week Sachit (@sachitgupta) chats with JeVon McCormick (@JeVon McCormick), the CEO of Scribe Media, a multi-million dollar publishing company that was recently ranked the #1 Top Company Culture in America by Entrepreneur Magazine. JeVon’s experiences shaped a mindset for modern leadership that now guides his service as the CEO of a massively successful company that’s redefining the world of publishing.

Find the show notes of the episode here - https://www.creators.show

Follow our host, Sachit Gupta on Twitter and sign up for the Creators Collective Newsletter.

Do you want to learn how to make a living as a creator? Check out the CreatorsMBA.

Show Notes:

(03:16) - Why Sachit is grateful for Jevon for writing the Modern Leader

(10:45) - What happened once he reclaimed his own name and went from JT to JeVon

(14:11) - How he built his mindset up after ending up in solitary confinement

(15:46) - His internal talk after being in juvenile prison at the age of 12

(19:13) - Taking what happened to him and turning it into doing good for others

(27:57) - His emotional growth and the impact it had on the business

(35:34) - How Tucker Max helped him recognize he’s a fast learner and how he teaches that to other people

(40:40) - Who helped him reach his greatest potential

(48:43) - How Scribe Media hires people while keeping diversity and representation in mind

(53:03) - The dichotomy of prioritizing people and profit

(56:56) - Culture: recruit and retain vs offer and provide

(58:66) - Culture: work for vs work with

(01:02:57) - How to find a JeVon for your company

(01:11:05) - Three most impactful books

(01:13:14) - Who he’s thankful to

(01:16:59) - What it means to be a conscious creator

(01:17:43) - What he’s most excited for in the next 5-10 years

Most people don't understand that money is neutral. And like the amount of money you have is also your willingness to look at your money. So money has a lot to do with intimacy. Like I think most people are not good at taking care of money, but still, they want more. So it's not only about generating money. It's also about the ability to hold money. - Alisha

This week Sachit (@sachitgupta) chats with entrepreneur and business mentor Alisha Belluga (@alishabelluga). Alisha is the founder of IntuGrace. She is based in Germany and she helps business + lifestyle coaches, experts and trainers to create the business and business lifestyle of their wildest dreams with inner soul alignment and associated strategy.

In this episode, Alisha shares her journey from zero to now an 8-figure business, her mindset about money, what makes her an unstoppable creative machine, advice for creators and why she wanted to start a podcast, working with Sachit, and building a #1 business podcast together.

Find the show notes of the episode here - https://www.creators.show

Follow our host, Sachit Gupta on Twitter and sign up for the Creators Collective Newsletter.

Do you want to learn how to make a living as a creator? Check out the CreatorsMBA

Resources Mentioned:

The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery

The Manifestation Babe Podcast

Show Notes

(01:27) - Growth IntuGrace had seen in the last few years

(03:16) - What Alisha was doing before starting IntuGrace

(04:33) - What it looked like before things started to work out

(07:03) - Her early experiences in business

(08:26) - How she builds a story for a brand

(09:42) - What she was doing in business before doing IntuGrace

(12:08) - What led to her creative destruction

(13:17) - The moment she realized what deep-rooted thoughts were running her story and what happened after

(15:07) - The transition phase and what got her to the other side

(16:27) - How manifestations and other techniques helped her to change her identity

(19:07) - How she used Chinese metaphysics to remove obstacles from her life

(21:10) - Why she didn’t talked about Chinese metaphysics earlier and what changed after

(22:41) - Having two identities and how she navigated that

(24:37) - Things she thought were a weakness earlier and now are strengths

(27:43) - Going from 100K debt to 4.5 million in revenue

(31:21) - Advice for creators on how to start building business

(33:20) - Creating a story around a product - a live walkthrough

(36:30) - The elements she added to make the products more fun and better

(38:28) - Things that worked and things that didn’t work in her storytelling course

(40:27) - Alisha’s school of product development - What will she teach?

(42:00) - This episode is brought to you by CreatorsMBA

(43:33) - Example of how she structured her courses as cinema

(47:19) - Patterns she has recognized in the outside world and using to grow her business

(49:50) - Elements she uses in her products to stand out

(51:42) - How she uses points systems to create engagement

(53:06) - How to build an engaging community and the importance of a community

(56:30) - Are communities about the connections between the audience members?

(59:14) - How does it feel to create communities where people can belong

(01:00:33) - Stories of the impact that stand out

(01:02:18) - Why do creators have a hard time accepting compliments

(01:04:42) - Going from chase to the craft

(01:05:17) - What happens after when she was earning 500K

(01:07:58) - Why she was selling products for a higher price range

(01:09:22) - Insecurities and fears that lead to really good business decisions

(01:10:22) - Why she keeps building businesses from scratch

(01:11:43) - Identity shifting and how it works

(01:15:15) - Top 5 identity shifts she made that helped her to achieve so much success in business

(01:19:16) - How she jumps to the next version of herself

(01:21:44) - What are the things she subtracted to go from 1 million to the current revenue

(01:25:06) - How creators with small audiences can earn millions in revenue

(01:28:06) - Customer progression from a stranger to membership in her busi...

“You’re placing an ad on my platform in my voice, and I know my audience the best.” –Jane Ko

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

Jane Ko is the blogger behind A Taste of Koko, Austin's top food and travel blog featuring the hottest restaurants and weekend getaways. A Taste of Koko has been featured in O Magazine, InStyle Magazine, OWN TV Network, and The New York Times.

A Taste of Koko launched Shop Koko, her very own line of foodie tees that help support local non-profits in Austin and her first book, Koko's Guide To Austin."

On today’s episode of the Conscious Creator podcast, host Sachit Gupta speaks with food and travel blogger and social media influencer Jane Ko. They discuss the Austin food scene, how influencers are being impacted by the pandemic, and the insider perspective on brand deals. They also talk about how Jane’s childhood in a tiny Texas town impacted her career, self-publishing a book, and more.

Episode Highlights:

• Jane introduces herself as a blogger rather than influencer because she started her blog before that term existed.
• The “free stuff” you get as an influencer isn’t actually free because it requires hours of work to leverage for content.
• Jane works 80-100 hours per week, from restaurant tastings to brand deals.
• It took Jane about 3 years before she started getting paid through brand deals, but it may take someone less time now because the market has changed.
• The main thing Jane has learned about brand deals is how much money brands have to spend.
• Her biggest frustration is brands not listening when Jane brings her own ideas and expertise to the table.
• Jane has an agent, but she still does her own first round vetting of clients who reach out directly to her.
• Jane was supposed to work with GoDaddy, which has hosted her website for 10 years, on featuring Austin businesses during SXSW, but the event was canceled due to the pandemic.
• Instead, Jane presented an idea to GoDaddy around the domain hireacreative.co, which she had been paying for but not using and saw this as an opportunity to finally launch it to support the freelancers like her who had just lost all their income.
• Measuring KPIs for influencer marketing is almost impossible; the only metric you can track is impressions.
• Everything Jane does for local businesses is done for free and is only for the sake of supporting her community.
• Jane grew up in a small town in Texas and never believed she was going to amount to anything.
• Jane works hard to make the process as easy as possible for brands because that makes it easier for her.
• She always communicates her idea for the content fully so she doesn’t end up in the position of having to redo anything.
• Travel blogging is the most time consuming work; it isn’t a vacation.
• Jane spends time sourcing outfits for posts while traveling, planning an itinerary of locations and shots and posts.
• Jane self-published her first book last year in 5 weeks, but she had been doing research and planning for years.
• Jane was surprised at how easy it is to do brand deals and how hard it is to sell a product.
• Her goal for her book was to sell just one copy but she sold over 3,000 copies in 5 months.
• Jane believes her book had good product-market fit.
• It’s a common misconception that authors make money on book deals; almost no books make profit.
• Because Jane self-published, she’s able to brand books for companies who want to buy in bulk and give them as gifts.
• The first quarter of the year is always the slowest for influencers.
• Jane launched hireacreative.co and Hundred for Hospitality to support local businesses and freelancers in Austin in response to COVID-19.
• Hundred for Hospitality provides 100 meals a day for free for any service industry person who has been laid off by a restaurant in Austin due to COVID-19, while being able to pay the restaurant for those meals.
• Jane’s income is down 80% right now.

3 Key Takeaways:

1. There is no secret to getting brand deals other than working hard for a long period of time and waiting for the right opportunity to emerge.
2. Communication is key in brand deals to make the process as easy as possible for both parties.
3. Nothing can replace the impact of building relationships over time.

Tweetable Quotes:

“So for brands, they’re thinking, we’re getting 2 in 1. We need exposure & we need content, which is something that we were going to pay an ad agency easily $50-...