 How's it? How's it? We are talking about having the courage of creativity, of grasping the nettle and just making art for yourself. And that's not really the true story, is it? That to tell you to not care about what other people think and you know just do do whatever is not going to help you overcome the real issue that is holding you back from fulfilling your full creative potential. There is a story about Henry Fonda, the very famous actor who you know was successful actor, but every time that he went on stage, his entire working life, apparently he would throw up so great with the nerves inside. Now I tell you that right at the beginning because I want you to remember that through all of this we're not talking about making the fear go away. There's a difference between fear and courage and today we're looking at courage, of having the courage of your convictions, of building within you a burning ball of creativity that is just ready to pour out whenever you need it. Often we feel this outpouring of when we start something new. In my case it was when I started this channel two years ago that I was enthusiastic about it. I was like wow you can do anything it's kind of cool and then self-doubt creeps in. Then you start to question yourself and in my case I was kind of like oh people say why don't you show your photographs and I would make excuses oh they're not very good they are not what this channel is about. They are images that don't really have a place on YouTube. Now all of those questions all of those doubts in my mind you may recognize are external that I'm talking about something that is beyond my control when really what's happened is I've bumped into a feeling that Stephen Pressfield in his book The War of Art calls resistance. And this is the first thing that you need to address because it is sabotaging your creativity. I'm sure when I was recounting that story you know about the photographs on the channel that you can probably sympathize that you recognize some of those tropes in there that you know the feelings of fear is it going to be good enough are people going to laugh at my work the feelings of of reluctance to create something or to share it so I make excuses you know we all find a reason why oh the weather's no good to them I'm going to go and photograph some pictures or you know I'm just not feeling it and stuff and we'll address that little idea later on and then there's of course this horrible vicious circle when you know that you kind of was given into that feeling of resistance that's pushing you away from being creative and you then feel bad about it so you go and indulge in something else you maybe go eat some ice cream or in my case maybe go and play some video games or grow vegetables anything to avoid doing the work the creative work and that's where you can see this idea of courage we need to have the courage to question these things to push back against that resistance every person's going to really you know challenge that in their own different ways but certainly a lot of people have found that one of the best ways to challenge it is to give it a personality think about you know in christian religion the devil is a personification of temptation so kind of the opposite sort of thing and when there's a face to it it's easier to you know say no I'm not going to listen to you and however you find this I want you to kind of talk to it don't go sit and go go you know sit in the toilet just talking to yourself all right but say okay what if or so what might be a better way of putting it you know is this thing it says you know if somebody says oh I don't like this picture all right so what right if the weather is rubbish today outside for going to taking photographs so what just do it anyway I'm not a big fan of this idea of like oh it's 100,000 hours or 10,000 hours or whatever it is and that will make you a genius and stuff like that that's not really about practice but it's really about committing to a process that's what you need to do that's what you need to have the courage to do is to commit to the process in our case of photography that doesn't mean just you're going out and taking photographs endlessly without any real point but focusing committing to the art form you know reading about photography looking at photo books looking at documentaries online watching channels like this you know everything that you do with these things is making you feel more engaged with the process of being creative so going all the way back to Henry Fonda and his unfortunate happenings on the side of the stage why do you think he did that right is it because he thought this is going to be the night that they are going to find out that I am not a good actor right and impostor syndrome again rearing his head or do you think he was so nervous so fearful of doing a good job that that's what triggered it and of course it's the latter fear nervousness whatever you want to call it when you are committing and showing the things you've created is understandable because you care about it recently I was talking to you know a couple of photographers and making choices for exhibitions and showing things like that and they were they were all quite worried about what images to show not because I think that they were you know looking for you know validation saying is this a good picture or something like that or worried about what people thought but because they wanted to show their very best they wanted to do and create a good impression to you know to make something that had value to them and that's what you need to understand so the fear on one hand is a wonderful tool to gauge actually how far you're progressing if you're not fearful if Henry Fonda just breathed on stage blah blah blah blah blah happiness Larry he doesn't really care just as much as you know when I used to run lighting for a theater you know when I was a student and every night I would be just you know above on top of the the go button and we did like 500 performances so it's not like I didn't know the show but every night there was that little spark of fear in there as soon as you become complacent that's when stuff goes wrong so don't worry about the fear in showing the work in actually doing the work but you can't let fear of creating in the first place get in the way it can't be the excuse for you not to do it in the first place in a number of creative fields and of course photography is no exception there's endless discussion about pro versus amateur you know professional versus hobbyist and what separates the two and there's always talk about lenses and yadda yadda yadda gear and stuff right and that's not that's not really the point that's not really what separates the pro from the hobbyist the pro to go back to a theater analogy because yeah you why not because I like it right is the actor who gets up on stage who lets dr footlights sort out his if he tell me or whatever right because he knows that creative people work they commit you recognize that word again commit to the process now as a hobbyist obviously you don't have to go out onto stage you don't have to go and take photographs you can make excuses to just not and again to use a phrase from the theater you know no one is going to die if you don't all right but what you're doing is you are making it a lot harder for you to be inspired to find inspiration inspiration is not some magical mystical sort of thing that you can channel right that you need like a lightning conductor right move walk around in the field right the more that you look at photography what you practice the more that you you know think about photography the more that you ingest it into your every pull right the more likely it is that inspiration is going to come because you are thinking about photography on a regular basis and when you do then in the background your mind can turn it around and all sorts of stuff like that that hippie kind of sort of thing and before you know it you're out there actually taking photographs and having a whale of a time because you've been exercising your brain the whole time to be creative you can't choose to be inspired or not but you can lay the foundation for it to happen more regularly reading this book the war of art by Stephen Pressfield was very handy because it opened up some questions within my mind rather than looking at it as a how-to guide right it made me address certain ways and thought patterns that have been holding me back and I believed you know of course that they were external factors but really it was the fear not the fear of showing the work but the fear of committing to it of doing the images and and when you listen to these videos when you have advice from other people stuff don't see it as a set of rules you know a step-by-step guide but more as suggestions that hopefully will put into your own head some questions that when you find the answers for those will give you a set of tools that will be so helpful so far reaching in their benefits that go beyond any of this kind of step-by-step sort of thing because you've discovered your own path through the jungle to that summit of creativity and when things do go a little bit squiffy you know when they do go a bit rye or you find yourself down in the doldrums or what have you then you are equipped to find your way out of this again it it is so liberating to feel this I love it I want I want to hear you know from you just let me know in the comments all these things about like you know a piece of advice you know do something every day that scares you what's your line in the interests of full disclosure if you want to see the very first video that I've ever released on this channel that I was extremely fearful about making then check it out right here thank you ever so much for watching and I'll see you again soon