Still Multi-Passionate: The 3 Strategies That Led to 10 Years of Creative Success

How did I land a speaker spot in one of the biggest podcast conferences in the country, despite never marketing myself as a podcasting expert? I believe the answer is the same reason why being a multipassionate creative actually works in your favor. And I'm going to share the three key strategies I've used for the past 10 years that helped me build a thriving career in music, ministry, writing, and podcasting without ever giving up any of my God given passions. You see, I think my story and the story behind God and Gigs proves that you don't have to niche down or choose between one particular industry, one particular passion, one gift, and another. You just have to follow God's leading as you figure out the unique creative lifestyle that He's designed just for you. So if you're new to the podcast, thanks for joining us. My name is Alan C. Paul, and this marks, as I'm recording this, the 10th anniversary of me releasing the book God and Gigs, Succeed as a Musician Without Sacrificing Your Faith. But this is really about you, the multi-passionate creative, who feels like you're doing it wrong if you haven't chosen a specific niche, stuck with a certain industry, and kind of just built this platform on one particular foundation. Now, here's the thing that I want to make sure that you hear about my story. I was performing in jazz gigs and weddings and doing all the things as a professional musician. Also as a worship musician, I continue to do that in my local church. So I knew that these two worlds had to combine in some way, but I wasn't sure how. It's why I started asking other musicians around me, how do you do this? The book was really born out of these interviews that I did with amazing musicians all over the industry who love God but who are also performing in secular spaces. But that was just one area that these two intersections of passions, because they were both music, kind of found their place in my life. The other one was being an author. And so writing was a whole new skill that I had to figure out how to publish a book, how to get an editor. And all of that came out of my desire to share what I knew. Add on to that, I figured out wait a minute, musicians may not read the book, maybe they need a podcast. So that started the podcast of 2017. Why am I telling you all this? Well, because it was in August last month that I was voted in as one of the speakers at Podcast Movement, which is one of the biggest conferences of podcasters in the world. So how did I go from a musician slash writer slash podcaster, beginning podcaster, to now being someone that people want to speak to other podcasters about the industry? Well, what I'm trying to try to share with you today is just some key shifts, key mindsets that allows me to live in this space that really built the foundation of God and gigs because we have so many creators inside our space that are not just one thing. God has gifted them with so many other abilities, skills, and we find out that that's normal. It's not normal to just be one thing, especially as creatives. So, what I'm going to try to do today is give you three particular mindsets, some shifts that might help you to continue to build your creative lifestyle in every way that God is leading you. So it doesn't matter whether you are a worship leader, whether you're a musician, whether you're a filmmaker, whether you're a poet, a writer, an illustrator, uh whatever your creative space is, God can use the different pieces of it and form what I like to call a unique creative lifestyle. Now, I was reading a ton of books when I was getting ready to write God and Gigs. The Savvy Musician by David Cutler was one of the huge influences on my creative life when I first started it. Um, and then I have The Artists in Soul by Erwin Raphael McManus, another one that was a huge reinfluence on me. And uh The Gift of Art, Gene Edward Viet, I think I'm saying it right, Gene Edward Beath. These are all books that I was like consuming, really just trying to get the idea of what do musicians and artists think about when they try to blend their faith with their work. And all of them basically had the same message that you have to move in the direction that God has given you. It can't be just one thing, it can't be just one answer, one size fits all. So I also read a book called The Opposable Mind by Roger Martin. Now, this is a business book, but it was the first book that really made it clear that one niche in one particular area is not the way that I think. Roger Martin calls it integrative thinking. So I'm not going to bore you with a long, long topic and long kind of discussion of it, but I do want to kind of share what this means. And integrative thinking comes down to this kind of thought process. It says, or he says, we were born with an opposable mind we can use to hold two conflicting ideas in constructive tension. So all that long thing meet basically means is that there could be two things that feel like they are opposing each other, but we're able to come up with a third better solution than either one individually. And the reason that speaks to me so highly in terms of what it means to be a multi-passionate creative is we do the same thing. We hold these areas, these different parts of our brain, and yet we know there's a way to synthesize it, there's a way to blend it, there's a way to build it in a way that isn't just one size fits all. And so I love what he talks about when he uses this idea of mastery and originality in the book. He talks about mastery is that repetition of doing one thing over and over, but originality is how you break out of it. And so even when I was reading about it, you don't graduate from mastery to originality. Each one feeds the other. And so I really gravitated to that. And it's why I believe all of us artists, creators, musicians, whatever you're doing in that space, you are an integrated creative. I actually did a blog post about that, which I'll put a link in the description of this episode. But I want to get to the key things that helped me to do this and that will help you do this as you build your career, maybe over the next five years, the next 10 years. Maybe you've already built something and you want to continue to see it grow, but you're feeling this pressure of niching down, of only picking one, of having to focus on one specific thing. So everyone thinks you have to niche down. We've already talked about that. However, what if you thought of it as your brand, your artistic creative platform, like a menu, like a restaurant? Now, for me, God and gigs would be like the cuisine, call it Italian, Chinese, whatever. But we all know there are several dishes inside that specific area that are great. You know, you've got your bread, you've got your pasta, you got all these different things that are not necessarily the same, but they come from the same root. Now, think about this. In your creative lifestyle, how can you have a menu of things which, as you realize there are different ingredients that fit different dishes that you can then start to blend and match and make things, just like a chef does, right? The chef has all these different ingredients, but there are different ingredients that fit into different dishes and yet they have the same kind of flow, the same kind of taste, the same kind of cuisine that matches and blends them all together. So, what I want you to do is to start asking yourself, how did God uniquely design me to share what only I can create and share based on the blend, based on the ingredients that He put into you? That is where your creative lifestyle becomes rich, becomes full, and becomes practical because now you see how all of the pieces can blend together. So here are the three tactical things I think you can do to actually start to walk this out. And it helped me over the last 10 years. Here's the first one become a student of all of the mentors and the artists that you admire. This isn't not just about networking, although it kind of is. I followed and became members of communities, whether it was marketing, whether it was musicians, whether it was podcasting, I became a member and a student of these communities. Networking and relationships are always gonna be the fastest way that you can build the knowledge, build the relationships, get the instruction, get the information from people who are doing what you want to do. And so if you want to be multi-passionate, you also have to be multi-tribal. You're gonna have to be able to ebb and flow in different communities and not feel like you have to pick just one in order to stay connected to the creative community that you have chosen. And here's one thing that I love again from the opposable mind. It's a quote that he said that it goes like this it is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows. You gotta become a student again. You gotta remain teachable. That's gonna be the first thing that you gotta do. So think about who you can connect with and start to learn from. The second thing sounds a little counterintuitive. You got to commit to one area at a time in terms of your focus and your emphasis, but it doesn't mean you have to give up everything else that you're doing. So while I was writing the book, I pushed into writing the book. I spent most of my time with my 500 to a thousand words a day. But it doesn't mean I didn't go out and gig. It doesn't mean that I didn't work on my podcast. It just meant that those things took extra time that I was focusing on, and then I would lay back a little bit on the things that I couldn't put as much emphasis on. So my advice to you, go ahead and think about which things do you need to kind of lay back a little on. Doesn't mean you're giving them up. It just means that you're falling back so that you can push forward with the project that is getting the most of your attention. Let that be the ebb and flow of your creative life. So you can pull back on one thing while allowing the other thing to grow more. It could be your marketing, it could be your musicianship, it could be your films, it could be your poetry, whatever it is, let that ebb and flow kind of guide you. And here's the last thing, and it comes right back to what I said about integrative thinking. You've got to stop thinking about your creative life as disjointed pieces. You gotta lean into your multiple giftings, lean into the different styles and see how they integrate. And I'm gonna just go ahead and bring up Jesus right now because Jesus, as we all know as Christians, those of us who follow him, he's lion and lamb. He's all God and all human. He didn't divide himself into two, three, four, five, six different pieces. He was entirely himself. And yet we all know that all these different pieces made him who he was. I believe those who are following God but also have multi-passionate creative gifts and talents, you also are built together with so many different things that don't necessarily have to conflict. You just need to see how they complement each other. So as these 10 years have gone by so fast, and we've built an incredible community at God and Gigs360, and we have people following us on you version. I am saying thank you to you for 10 years. But I want to remind you that God did not give you multiple passions by accident. You have an integrated creative perspective based on all your experiences, all your skills, and the world needs to experience that. So now if you need it reset, just kind of like bring yourself back to where you realize that God is in all of your multi-passionate ideas. I'd love for you to check out our prayer devotional. It's a seven-day devotional, just gets you right into tune of what is God saying about creativity. And the link is right here in the description, or you can go, or you can go to godands.com slash prayer. And you can also sign up through that same link to our creator checkup where we send out newsletters every week to help encourage you in your creative lifestyle as you blend these worlds of your faith and your creativity. And if you have felt still that people are trying to box you in, let me know in the comments. Send me an email. Let me know how we can help you to see your integrated lifestyle as a creative and all the fullness that God has given you so that you can walk into this without any reservations, without the guilt, without feeling like you're doing it wrong. Maybe somebody in your circle is feeling that same thing and they need to hear this. So please share this episode with them. So, as we say, from now on, and as long as we're doing this podcast, until next time, continue to become the creator that you were created to be. God bless, and we'll see you next episode.