 All right, I'm happy to be here with Greg right now. And Greg is a professional coach for socially conscious creatives, which Greg, I'm gonna have you describe what that means. But Greg, first of all, welcome, welcome to this. Thank you, thanks for having me, George. Yeah, great to be talking with you. So you are, yeah, so let me go ahead and actually read your bio and then we'll get into the conversation. So Greg right now supports socially conscious creative entrepreneurs to do more of what they love. He coaches his clients to experience their unique brilliance and to take consistent, courageous action from the heart. Through working with Greg, clients gain the skills to do what they're on this planet to do with more ease, less struggle, awesome. And so socially, so tell me kind of who, some examples of your ideal clients, like what professions are they in or what are they struggling with? Just kind of give us a sense of who you're working with on a daily basis. Yeah, I'd love to. So I have a background and you can see I have instruments in the background. So I'm a musician, before I got into coaching about six years ago, I was a full-time musician. And so I work with a lot of creative people who are musicians, artists, writers who are going for their next creative project and they're struggling with the common things that a lot of creative people struggle with, perfectionism, focusing their time and energy, consistently being creative and being inspired. And then I also work with people who are entrepreneurs. So coaches who are starting some kind of business really contributing what they are passionate about, making the difference that they wanna make in the world that's kind of where the socially conscious comes in and see creativity as a part of what they're up to. Awesome, awesome. And so there's a lot we can talk about on this stuff. And I wanna ask you first, one of the things you work with clients on is vision, because that's like kind of where it starts, especially for visionaries, the kind of people you work with and you have this distinction between living from your vision versus working toward it. And I think that's an important distinction and just a love for you to share about that. Yeah, I'd love to talk about it. And this is a key kind of shift that I saw in my life that was really helpful. And I got it from my mentor Maria Nemeth from the Academy for Coaching Excellence. And a lot of times when we think about vision, it's like it lives in the future somewhere. It's like, I have a vision of what I'd like my life to be like and if I work really, really hard, maybe in time, hopefully I'll get to my vision. And it can be helpful to have an idea of what we wanna work toward. Setting goals is a really important part of what I support people with as a coach. But the problem is when we are holding our vision as something off in the future separate from us, then day by day it can become kind of like a struggle or it can be not so inspiring doing the work. And the shift is to experience that we can hold our vision within us always. And in the moment, even though all the details haven't come to be yet that we see for ourselves, each step of the way we can experience the joy and the privilege of acting from that vision, living from that vision day by day. So for example, if I had a vision to run a marathon, I wanna be physically fit and healthy and I can picture myself running the marathon and I can picture how my body is gonna feel and the excitement of it. But then I'm holding it as, well, that's my vision over there. Right now I can only run a mile or two. Then it might feel exhausting like kind of like a chore to go do the training as opposed to shifting to every time I go out there to run a few laps as part of my training, I can experience right now in this moment I'm living my vision of being physically fit and healthy and can really just savor the moment step by step. Yeah, that's super helpful because it's like, instead of, well, I'm not successful, I'm not successful, I'm not successful and one day I will be, it's like, I am, I mean, we're kind of redefining success, right? Like we're saying if I made progress on it today, that was a successful day, right? Like it is, I should be enjoying this because I know for sure I am making progress on it. And that's all I can do right now. It's like, right? That's all I can't suddenly jump myself into the future. I can only do what I can do today. So I really like that. Another common, I guess, hang up for creatives or block maybe is that they're worried, we are worried what people will think about our creation, whether we're putting on a new song or we're putting on a new article or launching a program or a project or something. It's like, okay, what are people gonna think about this? And what is your, how do you kind of advise or encourage your clients on that point? Yeah, it's a great question. And it's just, I don't know any creative person who doesn't experience this on some level, even if they've been doing it for a long time, we have these natural thoughts that what are people gonna think about this? Are they gonna think it's dumb? Are they gonna think, are they not gonna like me because I'm putting this out there and then you get into a whole, who am I to even be putting this out there? And it can really stop people from taking action on their creative vision. And what I find is most helpful to shift away from that is to focus on what is the contribution I'd love to be making? What is the difference that putting this out could make for someone? And I know you, I think advise similar things where you can really picture, well, if there was one person who saw this video or read this article or heard this song and it made a difference for them and you can kind of picture, who would you really love to reach with this and focus on what's the contribution that this could make? It just kind of calms those thoughts down. They don't necessarily go away. I don't know that they ever do, but it becomes a question of what's more interesting? What's the difference I can make with what I'm creating right now? What's the impact? How can I contribute to even one person? And when we focus our brain on that, it just is more interesting I think than all of the worries about what if somebody thinks it's stupid? Because the truth is that the stuff that we put out that isn't that good, people don't even really remember or care about. So it's kind of irrelevant and certainly compared to the opportunity to really make an impact in someone's life. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's actually surprising when people hear that, oh wait, they don't remember every single mistake that I put out there or they don't remember and all the mediocre stuff I put out there. People, of course, we're like in our own heads. So it's like everything we put out there is a big deal to us because we're the ones living it. But it's just like, like every couple of years, this is probably so true. Like every couple of years I'll like discover like a new Michael Jackson song. I'm like, what? Like he has probably so many other songs or the Beatles or whatever. Like there's so many other songs that I haven't even know or you too or whatever. So many other songs that I didn't even know they put out there, that was never a hit. It's just some other track number eight on album four or whatever. And it's like, wow. Yeah, people only remember the top hits that you put out there and the so-called mediocre stuff. They probably just scrolled past it because it wasn't relevant to them at the time, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. And a lot of the artists, creators, musicians, writers who we really love, who's really touched us, they've been consistently putting stuff out and that's how they get to the really good stuff. And oftentimes what we think is gonna be the thing that everyone's really gonna resonate with just isn't. So it's more about continuing to focus on creating consistently and enjoying the process of that so that we can reach people and make a difference. Now, one of the questions, I'm curious about your opinion on it. So let's say someone says, well, I actually enjoy creating. I enjoy playing the music or I enjoy writing. But it's the putting it out there that makes me nervous. Like, Greg, it's okay, I can write every day or I can even record a song every day, whatever. But it's like putting it out there. It's like, ooh, so how do you, let's say I was going through that. What would you say to me? Like, okay, I just, it's like, I end up putting out, let's just say I'm a writer, okay? But let's just use that. Yep. And I end up only putting out one blog post a month or every two months, even though I might be writing a lot more often. What's your perspective on that? Yeah, it's a great question. And I, it's uncomfortable for folks to look at it this way, but I encourage people to set goals to publish, set goals to put this thing out there. Because what happens when we don't do that is there's no clear sense of completion because we can always go back and re-edit and rewrite and we like it and then we wait to put it out and then we convince ourselves it's not good. And then ultimately there's no real finishing of the thing. And it's hard to kind of evolve creatively that way. So I encourage people to set small goals, not a huge, you know, I'm gonna release a novel every month or anything like that. But even if it's a small goal, but it's sharing it, it's publishing it in some way, even if it's just sharing it to a small audience of friends at first, because then it puts it into physical reality, which is a much different experience than continuing to be creating for ourselves. And I think the other thing it does is it shifts our focus from I'm creating this, but I'm in my own head and my focus is on me. And when my focus is on me, that's when all those worries and doubts and judgments come up. Whereas, okay, I'm gonna put this out, what would people really appreciate hearing? Like if I'm writing, you know, what would make a difference for people if they were to read this today? And I'm gonna commit to publish it. So it shifts the focus to how can I add to this person's day? How can I give them some perspective that's gonna help them? And one of the things I learned from you, George, is doing these live videos from time to time. And it really kind of is the best thing I've seen to kind of kick perfectionisms, but because you are committing to put it out there and then you don't have time to make it perfect. You don't need to worry about, is this perfect or is this not perfect? Because really there is no such thing as perfect, but just what in the time amount, the amount of time I have to create this, what can I give people that they might get some value from? Right, yes, absolutely. Gosh, there's a lot we could talk about, but I wanna do a couple of things. I wanna mention that you have a really good article called the top nine common mistakes that creative people make. And I'm going to link to the article in the notes of this video. So wherever you're watching this, it's either below or above the video. So check it out. The top nine common mistakes that creative people make. So check out that article because I was gonna ask you about that, but I think I wanna ask you about something else. I wanna ask you about your kind of, what part of your ideal clients are socially conscious, right? They want to be involved in co-creating a better society, better world. They don't wanna sit on the sidelines, they wanna be involved. And so how does that, I wanna ask you about two things actually real quick. One is kind of the, I guess the perfectionism. It's like there's so much I could do and how do I do it just right? And then the other part I wanna ask you about is, maybe it's related. It's like the compassion fatigue that can, or the potential burnout from, well, of course caring a lot, especially these days there's so much to care about. So yeah, I'll let you kind of share on this. Yeah, I think it's so important because I see especially over the past year, so many people really, really caring about what's going on wanting to be involved in what a lot of our challenging and uncomfortable conversations, especially around racial justice and topics like that. And people care about it and they really want to participate. But the same kind of conversation about, am I gonna get this perfect? Am I gonna make a mistake that happens when we express anything creatively? I think it's just magnified when it's around these issues of deep importance. So it really calls to us to ask, am I willing to make mistakes? Am I willing to be engaged in growing and learning in order to participate? Because I think that that's what is needed right now, which what we're being called to, to engage in this transformation. And we are gonna make mistakes and it is gonna be uncomfortable and we might get called out for it. But the alternative of not participating is really, we don't have time for that anymore, I don't think. And people suffer when they stand on the sidelines ultimately, over time, people start to suffer and become frustrated and resigned. And it takes a lot of courage to be vulnerable and be willing to make mistakes and not be perfect about it. And I think it's what we're being called to do for this transformation that our global society is going through. I think, yeah, I really like how you're combined, you're relating it to the creative journey because we are co-creating a better world. And just like in creativity, mistakes need to be made, experiments need to happen in order for something better or something new, something more integrated to happen. And I feel like if people, and I think the same thing with creativity, if people can sense our intention, like we are intending to be helpful, we're intending to be part of the healing. And especially if we can approach it with curiosity, with gentleness, like from a, well, just like as a creator, we're not, when we're creating, we don't say, I have the right, I have the perfect art, I have the right art, but it's like, hey, what do you think? This is something that I came up with and I'm really curious of resonates with anybody. So yeah, I really appreciate that you're kind of combining these two ideas. What about sort of the, all these issues that are happening is that maybe there's, sometimes people might feel like the guilt that they're not doing enough or that they might feel fatigued if they're doing a lot. And are you, how do you encourage people to balance that? Yeah, I was reflecting about a month ago on this idea, am I doing enough, doing enough? And it's, the question becomes, what is enough? And I think this is where the compassion fatigue can set in before we've even taken any steps because there's so much. And I was thinking back on, well, what are the moments in my life where I have experienced joy, meaning, harmony, satisfaction, experienced, I'm really doing what I'm here to do. This is a day well spent. And rarely is it when I'm doing a ton of stuff, I'm not, it's not the moments where I'm being driven and super busy and kind of burning myself out, but it's in moments where I might be doing something very simple, but showing, being very present to it, showing up wholeheartedly to it. And so that's kind of my invitation to people who are feeling this stress about, am I doing enough? But it's like, what's one thing that you can do that you can bring your full self to? And I think, is it Mother Teresa quote about, it's not how much you do, but how much love you bring to what you do. Yes, yes, yes. I think it was, instead of, yeah, yeah. It's like something about, instead of trying to always do big things, it's more important to do small things with great love or something like that. Yeah, it's, I totally agree with you because ultimately that's all we can do, right? Like the world is so big, the problems are so big that it's not any one person, only the most egotistical person can think, I can change the world, I can, I alone, I alone, right? Can save the world, but no, it's like, we all do it together and we all do our part and we all do it today, right? And so thank you for kind of integrating that into your coaching. So I wanna just end by inviting you to just share with those who are listening and watching. If people are interested in working with you, what does that look like? Maybe you could say a bit about how you work, how you like working with clients. So imagine someone was starting to work with you, what's the kind of the first few steps? How do you help them to kind of orient to your coaching? Yeah, absolutely. So I work with a lot of one-on-one clients as well as doing training. So if you have a team that you'd love to train, I'd love to chat about that. But with my one-on-one clients, we pretty much always will start with vision, getting very clear on what it is that you'd really love to be doing, where it might be harder than it needs to be, but if you were really to have a breakthrough, what would you be doing consistently? What would each day look like? What would you be contributing? What would you be creating? And getting very clear on that vision, because without a clear vision, when the normal worries and doubts and obstacles come up, it's very difficult to move past them because there's not something to shift our attention to. So getting very clear on a vision that's exciting and that's more interesting than any of the challenges that arise. And then from there, I support people to set goals and take steps, but also to really train their brains to focus on consistent, creative possibility when the normal worries and doubts and common ways of thinking that have stopped them in the past come up. Because they'll come up and that's part of the opportunity of growing and building these skills to be consistently doing more and more of what you absolutely love to do. Sweet. So you do a discovery session with people who are considering working with you either one-to-one or to train their team and the discovery session is free. And at this time anyway, and I will put a link in the notes of the video for those who are wanting to sign up for that. Perfect. Yeah. So, Greg, thanks for the work that you do. Your clients are lucky to have you to support them. And any kind of final words of encouragement as we go about our way and maybe create today, right? Yeah, well, it's an exciting time to be alive. There's so much, I think, in our status quo and our lives that are being shaken up right now. And I think it's uncomfortable at times, for sure, to say the least, but there's an opportunity to really have something new emerge here. So I'm excited to see people waking up in ways that they haven't been awake before and to see new creative possibilities. And I think there's a lot emerging right now. So I'm looking forward to supporting people in their journey. Yeah, awesome, awesome. Well, thank you so much, Greg. And I hope those who are watching this found this encouraging. Check out the links, like I said, the top nine common mistakes that creative people make that the article is there. And also a link to your website, Greg, and also the link to do your discovery session with you. So, all right, thank you so much, Greg. Thank you, George.