00:00First of all, I would say to anyone with a full-time job, excuse my French, but good
00:04fucking job.
00:07I have an MFA and an MBA, and I teach and write in both directions.
00:13So my life and my work are concerned with how we all balance our creative and practical
00:18selves and combine them and develop better language to talk about the gray area between
00:24selling out, having a job, being an artist, feeling self-actualized, all of that.
00:30What do you tell your students is the best way to do that, to have both a creative life
00:35and sustain yourself living mostly in cities?
00:38They're 40 bucks, but I'm feeling really great, right, and I'm in a great mood, give you two
00:43for 60.
00:44Love it.
00:44Oh, I meant $2.
00:46We'll take it.
00:46No way.
00:47Alana.
00:48No way.
00:49No.
00:50I'm like, what am I going to sell my soul?
00:52$2.
00:54Okay, let's do it.
00:55I think the first step is to acknowledge that there's been a pervasive prejudice that's
00:59anti-business.
01:00The way that business is taught is often as a set of rules, so it's highly inflexible.
01:05I think that business itself is a creative design medium and that you can build stuff
01:10out of it.
01:11Now, will you please stay and help me explain to your roommate how business works?
01:14Oh, I know how business works.
01:15I know I have an idea and a business wants it, and another business might want it too.
01:22Biddy war.
01:23Yes, please.
01:23Power lunch.
01:24Thank you, sharks.
01:24What do you say to people who have a huge following on Instagram or who want to be creative, but
01:30they can't figure out the business aspect or they're getting a lot of shit for being
01:34a brand, being a business?
01:36I feel like I found my true calling, you know?
01:39What?
01:39Being pretty?
01:40No.
01:41Being like a blogger.
01:42That ain't a real job.
01:44Jobs are like made cool.
01:45I don't think that we should be judging people for having full-time jobs.
01:48There are a lot of people who don't have the economic privilege to not support themselves.
01:52What is the way that creative people throughout history have bumped up against this idea of
01:59supporting themselves and selling out?
02:01Leonardo da Vinci, when he made the Mona Lisa that was a side project, he had a paying
02:07gig.
02:08You could say he was selling out because he was making stuff for other people.
02:12Truly selling out has a lot to do with knowing what your values are and doing something that's
02:17counter to your values.
02:18So many of us bought into this idea that the more followers we had, the more likes that
02:22we had, the more views that we had, the more subscribers we had, it meant that we eventually
02:27would profit from that and make more money.
02:29Did we just buy into a dream that didn't exist?
02:32You just bought in too early.
02:33You're right.
02:34What you're doing is a creation of value.
02:36It's just structurally not possible for you to align the price, what you're paid,
02:41with that creation of value.
02:42So are artists always going to be dependent then on the Facebook, the Instagram,
02:47the Twitter, the larger companies.
02:49The challenge is that we're not Laverne and Shirley working in a factory where we all
02:53have similar jobs and a union.
02:55We're by ourselves in our bedroom making amazing, singular YouTube videos.
03:00And that is magnificent, but it's also isolating.
03:03It's easy to not get a good deal economically when you're by yourself because you don't
03:07know what anyone else is getting paid.
03:08The algorithm isn't trying to exploit you, but the power of conversation with other people
03:13will help you.
03:18The truth is, and we take people out.
03:20The question for you is the truth.
