Brendan Kane is the Bestselling Author of ONE MILLION FOLLOWERS: HOW I BUILD A MASSIVE SOCIAL AUDIENCE IN 30 DAYS and HOOK POINT: HOW TO STAND OUT IN A 3-SECOND WORLD, as well as the Founder and Managing Director of Hook Point.

Since 2005, Brendan has helped the largest brands and celebrities in the world to reverse engineer how to make content go viral. He has worked with major corporations MTV, Viacom, Vice Magazine, Paramount Pictures, IKEA and Sketchers shoes on their digital strategy, as well as celebrities like Taylor Swift, Rihanna and Adriana Lima. In addition, he developed the first ever influencer campaign on YouTube in 2007; oversaw $200 million in marketing spend and generated $1 billion in revenue.

In this Podcast, Bestselling Author of ONE MILLION FOLLOWERS Brendan Kane talks about how-to’s of creating content that serves your viewers – and the algorithm, maximizing your followers’ engagement, content vs context, chaos as part of the creative process and so much more!

For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/386.

Perfectionism holds artists back. It gets the best of us, both junior and senior artists like. It’s part of the inability to manage ourselves. 

It also ends up costing more: You’re spending so much time on the project, you burn through the budget. You end up paying the client for the privilege of working on their project.

There is a famous quote from Leonardo da Vinci, “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” But if you’re creating art as a business, you need to know when enough is enough. You’re the one who has to give yourself the constraints. Your goal is to create the best work within those constraints.

All of this can be avoided if you:

• Track your time; and
• Have a clear target of what you aim to deliver. 

Failure is also part of the process. It helps you identify the dead ends in the process and to avoid them. But the ego sometimes gets in the way and forces you to avoid admitting defeat. In addition, if you do your art every day – like Goro Fujita or Beeple (see links below) – you can see your progress. What gets measured – gets managed!

Speaking as a Studio Owner and VFX Supervisor, Allan McKay tackles the subject of perfectionism: how it sabotages artists’ careers, how to defeat perfectionism – with self-established constraints, clear communication and having a clear vision of the process ahead – and how to identify and avoid self-sabotage.

For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/387.

Chris Bailey is a Productivity Expert and the bestselling Author of two books about productivity: The Productivity Project and Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction. Chris writes about productivity at www.alifeofproductivity.com and speaks to organizations around the globe on how they can become more productive, without hating the process.

Chris was born in Red Deer, Alberta and raised in Ontario, Canada. He first became interested in productivity in high school after reading David Allen’s Getting Things Done. He graduated from the Sprott Business School of Business in 2013. After college, he started researching productivity and conducting experiments, while documenting his experiences on this blog A Year of Productivity. Insights and strategies learned from these experiments were compiled into his 2016 book The Productivity Project. His second book Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction was released in August 2018.

Most recently, Chris wrote his third book How to Calm Your Mind, which is a toolkit of accessible, science-backed strategies that reveal how the path to a less anxious life, and even greater productivity, runs directly through calm.

In this Podcast, Allan McKay interviews Bestselling Author of Hyperfocus Chris Bailey about anxiety and the effects of repeated stress; what constitutes burnout and how to combat it; burnout versus engagement; as well as Chris’s upcoming book How to Calm Your Mind.

For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/386.

We all have doubts if we’re on the right path. Being an artist requires a lot of patience, perseverance and skill. In addition, we have to continue learning and innovating. 

There is this inner voice that asks, “Am I investing my time into something that’s going to pay off?” It weighs on you. It doesn’t help when we have people around us, telling us to give up. There is so much negativity on the internet – and on social media – as well, and it’s hard to weed out that noise. Everyone is opinionated and not everyone knows what they’re talking about. It makes us double guess our path and sometimes even give up!

It’s tough to keep going when you’re alone. The best thing is to find our circle: A group of people excited about our one thing. If you’re an artist, you need to have people who support you and lift you up. You have to find your community. There is a concept of something called “monk mode”: It’s about eliminating the noise and getting focused. Get focused and surround yourself with people who help you rise up.

When it comes to VFX, there is no shortage of work out there – especially right now! But the negative people are the loudest. Before we lived in a permission based economy. Now, we are all connected and there is so much opportunity to do what we want to do! 

If there is something you want to do – go after it. There is no excuse to not get paid to be an artist. Art and design is everywhere. Everywhere we look, there is a need for artists. It’s just about lining up your skills with the right job. How do you do that? Through your portfolio / reel and your brand. That’s where social media is a great space: It allows you to show your work. 

In this Podcast, Allan McKay talks about the need for a community that supports and uplifts you as an artist; why it’s important to shut out the negativity of the internet and social media – and instead use it to promote your brand and gain exposure; and why right now – is the BEST TIME to be an artist!

For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/385.

Tim Miller is a Film Director, Animator, Creative Director and VFX Artist. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the work on his short film Gopher Broke. He made his directing debut with Deadpool. He is also known for creating opening sequences for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Thor: The Dark World.

In 1995, Tim co-founded Blur Studio with David Stinnett and Cat Chapman. Blur is where animators and artists can collaborate and be in control of their creative destinities. Since then, the Studio has evolved into an award-winning production company with work spanning the realms of game cinematics, commercials, feature films and more. Committed to their clients, artists and to the telling of great stories, Blur continues to grow not only as a high-end animation studio, but also as original content creators, having recently helmed Netflix’s first animated anthology Love Death + Robots.

In this Podcast, Allan McKay deconstructs his interview with Film Director and Co-Founder of Blur Studio Tim Miller, to review the valuable bits of advice on: why ignorance is bliss when starting a new studio or business, the importance of doing a daily self-check, knowing how to ask for help, how to keep your professional relationships alive, being a competitive brand – and so much more! 

For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/384.