Ep 58 The Santa for Nerds & Coach for Creatives Conversation with Paul Pape

Text me what you think of today’s episode!

You can be wildly talented and still feel stuck financially, and that gap can mess with your confidence fast. I sit down with Paul Pape, a two-time TEDx speaker, author, creative strategist, and the maker many people call “Santa for Nerds,” to unpack what actually changes when a creative stops selling “a thing” and starts selling the value behind it. Paul’s work spans custom collectibles, hidden engagement ring boxes, and high-pressure builds for major brands, and his journey is full of pivots that prove you don’t have to break when the market shifts. 

We get into his roots in theater design, the blunt moment that made him walk away from the Broadway path, and the surprising chain of experiments that led to a full-time creative career. From viral Nintendo-inspired products to one-of-one builds that help people celebrate proposals, fandoms, and even family milestones, Paul explains how pricing handmade work and custom design is really about ideation, craft, and meaning, not just materials or production time. If you’ve ever heard “but it’s just 3D printed,” you’ll feel seen. 

Then we dig into Gamify Business, Paul’s business coaching approach for artists, makers, neurodivergent founders, and burned out solopreneurs. He translates confusing business jargon into game language, uses a quiz to map business roles, and shows how the right “party” of partners can make your strengths matter more. Listen, share this with a creative friend who needs it, and leave a review if the conversation helps you rethink your next move.

Guest Links

Paul Pape Designs

Gameify Buriness

Paul's TedX Talk

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Credits

Music Credit:  True Living by Patrick Moore

Royalty free music license purchased at soundotcom.com

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_04 (00:09):
Everyday people following their passions.

SPEAKER_01 (00:13):
That's probably like one of the highlights of my life
so far.
Just being able to be creativelike that.
Something I've always wanted.

SPEAKER_00 (00:22):
And then I decided to get another hive, and that
turned into a lot of hives.
As long as I can do that, I wantto be a good citizen.
Help people out.

SPEAKER_04 (00:33):
Putting themselves out there, taking chances, and
navigating challenges along theway.

SPEAKER_03 (00:40):
I I absolutely identified with having stage
ride because, you know, anytimeI went on stage, I just felt
like I was having a heck.

SPEAKER_02 (00:47):
Very first lap, very first practice session, I
crashed, turned the car upsidedown, made a spectacle of
myself, and I got back on thathorse and started riding again.

SPEAKER_04 (00:56):
As they pursue what makes them happy and brings them
joy.
As long as people are having agood time and I have the
opportunity to put smiles onpeople's faces, I love what I
do.
I have done things that I neverthought I could do.

SPEAKER_00 (01:13):
To have somebody tell me how real it looks and
how, you know, from their actualmemory.

SPEAKER_04 (01:19):
Because that's telling me I captured what I was
trying to get.
Welcome to AstortedConversations.
I'm your host, Helen.
Welcome and thanks for tuningin.
I hope you're having a greatweek and you are making time to

(01:41):
enjoy the things you're mostpassionate about.
I can't wait to share thisweek's conversation with you.
I had such a good time.
I had a really hard time comingup with a succinct title because
my guest is basically aRenaissance man.
And even that doesn't completelycover all the value and joy he

(02:03):
brings to folks.
If you love cool, one-of-a-kinditems that you can't just get
anywhere, or you're a creativewho wants to share your work
regardless of what it is, butcan't find the right way to go
about it without making yourselfcrazy, this conversation is for

(02:24):
you.
Take a listen to this week'sepisode, and I'll see you on the
other side.
Today's guest is a two-time TEDxspeaker, author, creative
strategist, and the guy manypeople know as Santa for nerds.

(02:45):
After spending more than 20years designing for brands like
Disney, Universal, Nickelodeon,Nintendo, and even Broadway, he
discovered something surprising.
Being wildly talented doesn'tautomatically mean you know how
to build a successful business.
So he did what creatives dobest.

(03:07):
He figured it out the hard way.
After years of translatingconfusing business jargon into
language that actually madesense to creative minds, he
founded Gamify Business, wherehe helps artists, makers,
neurodivergent founders, andburned out solopreneurs finally

(03:28):
answer the question so many areafraid to ask.
Why am I still broke when I'mthis good?
He's the author of five books,including the Creative Players
Handbook to Business, and quitselling your shit.
And his mission is simple.
Help creatives stop feelingbroken and start building

(03:49):
businesses in a language theirbrains actually understand.
I am so happy to welcome PaulPape to Assorted Conversations.
Hi, Paul.

SPEAKER_06 (03:59):
Hi, Helen.
Thank you for having me.
I'm really looking forward tothis conversation.

SPEAKER_04 (04:04):
I am so happy you are here.
So before we get into all of theentrepreneur conversation and
the business stuff, tell mewhere this all started for you.
What was your creative outletthat led you to this?

SPEAKER_06 (04:21):
My background is actually in theater of all of
all things.
I started out as an actor andthen pretty quickly learned that
was not the road for me.
I was actually told by myinstructor in college that she'd
never put me on stage, and so Imight as well drop out.
Oh, wow.
But I'm stubborn.

(04:41):
And so I said, no, no, that'sokay.
I'll figure something else out.
And I was working with, uh I wasworking in the scene shop one
day as just part of the labhours that I had to do.
And the dean of the departmentsaw that I had a very good work
ethic, and he said, Hey, wouldyou be interested in learning
everything?
And I was like, Well, yeah,because he knew that I wasn't

(05:01):
gonna be an actor.
So he actually taught me theropes from everything from
janitorial to box office tostage management, directing, and
eventually we landed on design.
Wow.
And I thrived in design.
I really loved it.
I was a scenic and uh propertiesdesigner.
I've dabbled in the lighting andthe costume, but I really found
my way in scenic design andproperties design.
And that actually led to a fewreally good awards and really

(05:25):
good opportunities, and theyjust kind of opened up a lot of
doors.
And uh that's really where thethe beginnings of the creative
path for me started.

SPEAKER_04 (05:34):
What what was the first show that you designed
for?

SPEAKER_06 (05:38):
The first one was called Once on This Island.
It's a musical takes place.
It's an it's basically built ona Caribbean island, and there's
there's mythology in it.
Uh eventually one of thecharacters turns into a tree.
And I just love I love creatingmagic in places where magic
shouldn't exist.
So it was one of my one of myfavorites.

(05:59):
It was a very much a black andwhite set until she turns into a
tree, and then all of this colorjust sprouts from everything.
It was a really, reallybeautiful design.

SPEAKER_04 (06:07):
Oh wow.
Wow.
So from there, where you know,learning front of the house,
back of the house, technical,where where did it go from
there?

SPEAKER_06 (06:19):
From there, it I so that was undergrad, and then I
basically I had won a couple ofawards that had taken me to the
national stage, which was reallynice.
It was uh, there's a festivalcalled the American College
Theater Festival.
And from there, I was able tobasically find a graduates
program to go into.
And so I I went to theUniversity of California, San

(06:40):
Diego, and I got my degree inscenic and and costume design.
The irony is that I think it wastwo weeks after I had graduated,
I was assisting this guy uh whowas a designer for Broadway.
And he had, I think at thistime, either four or six shows
on Broadway, which for a scenicdesigner is pretty apex.
That's pretty top of the game.
Right.
And I was assisting him on ashow, and I had asked him, I

(07:03):
said, So what's it like?
Because I just graduated with adegree in this, and I and I
wanted to know, you know, youyou're pretty much at the top of
your game.
What's it like doing this?
And to this day, I'll give himcredit for being honest.
He said, It's horrible.
I hate every bit of it.
His his issue was that he says,I'm I'm on the road 46 to 48
weeks a year.
I never sleep in the same bedtwice.

(07:24):
I pay for an apartment I'm neverin.
He says, if you want to settledown and actually like have a
life, this is not the the careerfor you.
And I was like, wow, I wish hehad told me this before I went
to grad school for this, but youknow, it was it was a really
good, honest take on it.
And so I got my degree about twoweeks later, I decided I wasn't
gonna do that anymore.

(07:45):
And I just I was kind of a lost,a lost wanderer at that point.
I had invented a product becauseI was as a scenic designer, you
build a lot of models for theset that you're gonna put on
stage.
And I was working on this showcalled I Am My Own Wife, which
ended up, it was a workshopshow, but I had designed the set
for it.
And we didn't think anything ofit.

(08:05):
It ended up going on to winPulitzer Prizes, being on
Broadway, the whole nine yards.
It was like a really big deal.
But I was working on this showand it was all about furniture.
And so I had to hand cut ahundred tiny pieces of furniture
out of cardstock.
And I was halfway through it, Iwas like, there has got to be a
better way to do this.
And so I actually was at thegrocery store and I was looking

(08:25):
for a card for Mother's Day, andI saw that there were these
cards that had this beautifullacework pattern cut out of it.
I was like, well, how did theydo that?
And I, you know, so I starteddigging into it, and I, and this
is back in the late 90s beforeeverybody had everything, you
know, handed to them like theydo now.
And basically what I found isthey had lasered it out.
And so I found the company thatdid it through Hallmark, and I

(08:46):
was talking to them about it,and I said, Would you guys be
able to do tiny furniture?
So I designed a bunch of laserdie-cut furniture that you could
then just fold and put together.
And that was my first product.
And so I kind of launched intothat business instead of
following, you know, the wholescenic design route.
And then while it was happening,I my wife got tired of living in
LA trying to do the movie thing.

(09:08):
She's a costume designer.
And so we decided to move toNebraska where her family is.
And so I was like, well, whatcan I do here while I'm waiting
for the pop-out furniture totake off?
And my old undergrad reached outand said, Would you like to be a
professor to actually teachdesign?
Yeah, and I was like, Yeah,sure, I'll give it a try.
And so went and did that forthree years.
I love teaching.

(09:28):
I hate the bureaucracy that goeswith being in a university.
So it did not last as long as Ithink that they had hoped.
I was there for about threeyears.
And it was in that last year Iwas teaching a class, and one of
my students, I don't know ifyou're familiar with the
Nintendo Wii that came out inabout 2005, 2006.

SPEAKER_04 (09:46):
Yes, I think I waited in the snow in a
snowstorm at 5 a.m.
outside of a Target to get a Wiithat Christmas.

SPEAKER_06 (09:55):
So you do recall it.
Okay.
So they have these avatars inthem called me's.
And the student asked me, hey,can you make a me of myself and
my girlfriend so I can give itto her as a gift?
And I was like, ah, sure, whynot?
And I charge them like 50 bucks,I think.
And I gave it to him.
And what I didn't know is thathe had put it, he had basically
submitted it to a blog calledSuper Punch at the time and

(10:17):
included all of my contactinformation.
And I started getting requeststo this hundreds of them.
And I ended up making more moneyon the side than I was as a
professor, and I liked thecreative freedom that I had with
designing these sculptures.
Right.
So I asked my wife, I said, CanI quit being a professor and try
to be an artist full time?
Because you know that's gonnawork out.

(10:38):
And she's like, I'll give youone year.
And I was like, okay, cool.
And then I think it was three orfour months later, I had an
idea, still tied to the NintendoWii.
It was for Valentine's Day.
It was, they were calledchocolate mi's, and it was a
little Wii-shaped box that hadtwo chocolates in it, uh, either
guy and a girl, guy and a guy,girl and a girl, didn't matter.
And white chocolate, look atwhite chocolate, milk chocolate,
or dark chocolate.

(10:58):
And you could, but they werebasically like mi chocolates.
And on the box it said, We begwe belong together, you and me.
And it was W I I and M-I-I.
And we sold six thousand boxesin two weeks.

SPEAKER_04 (11:12):
Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_06 (11:14):
Yeah, and it was highlight, but it was also a low
well, a low level because thatwas also the year the Eastern
Seaboard on Valentine's Day orthe day before had a horrible
ice storm, and they lost about athousand boxes of my chocolates
for Valentine's Day.
And the amount of emails andphone calls that I got from

(11:35):
angry New Yorkers and peoplefrom New Jersey was not great.
But it, you know, I earned$50,000 in six weeks.
And my wife is like, I thinkyou've got an idea here, and
just keep running with it.
And so that was the story.
That was, and then 20 yearslater, here I am, and I'm
working for all of thosecompanies designing and
fabricating stuff for them.

(11:56):
It's been a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_04 (11:57):
That is insane.
Wow.
I had no idea.

SPEAKER_06 (12:03):
Yeah, it's it's it's been an interesting journey.
I I'm a firm believer in thephrase bend don't break.
I could have stayed very firm onbeing a scenic designer and been
miserable.
I could have stuck with pop-outfurniture, which kind of died on
its own because then thepersonal laser came out.
So you could start lasering athome as opposed to using the
warehouse-sized laser that I wasusing for my furniture.

(12:25):
And then I could have been acollege professor and miserable
for years.
I could have just made NintendoMies as sculptures, but then
that kind of went away becausethe new gaming systems came out.
So what happened is people juststarted asking for anything.
And I was like, why not?
Why not?
You know, I'll I'll make this.
And now I've become known asSanta for Nerds, as the guy who

(12:47):
can make anything you want, justyou just wish for it and it
happens.
And so it's built a good careerout of it.

SPEAKER_04 (12:53):
Yeah, I was gonna say, I want to get to the Santa
for nerds.
What are some of, besides thethe me chocolates, what are some
of the things that helped gointo earning your name, Santa
for nerds?

SPEAKER_06 (13:07):
I think the like as far as individual product,
what's weird is when you start abusiness, especially creative
business, typically you have aproduct and then you you build
that one product and you sellthat one product.
My product was I will make youanything you want, and I don't
have any overhead.
So this is kind of why I I knowthis is an audio-only podcast,
but if you look behind me, thisis called the nerd wall.
All the things that you seebehind me are the things that I

(13:28):
make.
And I have made thousands ofindividually created objects for
people and companies all aroundthe world.
And so I and I I mean, some ofmy favorites I've made people
frozen in carbonite, uh like Icall them custom carbonites,
like on Star Wars.
I've made those.
They were, they were fun.
I made, I took rocks from a gamecalled World of Warcraft,

(13:51):
because in the game you can mineore as part of just a thing.
And they had this beautifulpurple and sparkly ore called
Corium ornaments.
And I was like, oh, what if Imade uh corian ore?
And I was like, what if I madeChristmas ornaments?
And I called them O-R-Enaments,and it was like, so I can make
World of War Warcraft ornaments,and then I sold like a
three-pack of those and justlike really random things.

(14:14):
But then it it really came.
I think the thing that reallymade me ex the most excited
about the design is when Istarted getting into custom
engagement ring boxes.
And this would be really nerdy,geeky people like myself who
like they fell in love or theymet through something that was
nerdy, be it Harry Potter or avideo game or Star Wars or you

(14:37):
name it, some geekdom thatthey've fallen into.
And they wanted me to create aring box that was also
representative of that nerddom.
And all of my ring boxes arecalled hidden ring boxes because
when you get something from me,it looks just like a cool
collectible from that.
What you don't know is hiddeninside of it is the engagement

(14:58):
ring.
The ring, yeah.
And I've made probably athousand different kinds.
And what people love is soexciting to me.
And I I try my best to add alittle bit of magic.
I used to work a little bit withDavid Copperfield, so like
actually doing magic is reallyfun for me.
Oh wow.
And so hiding those littlethings inside of these boxes
that look like one thing but areactually end up being something

(15:20):
else is something I just reallylove to do.

unknown (15:21):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (15:23):
Well, and and being involved in something as special
as a proposal or an engagement,and and and you're a hallmark of
that.
You're actually tying togetherthe whole reason these two
people are together.

SPEAKER_06 (15:38):
Right.
My wife, my wife calls it, Imake memories tangible, which I
love.
I love that.
Because when you propose, it's avery intimate thing that
typically isn't recorded or ordoesn't have anything that you
can reflect back on.
And what I do is I take that andI create a permanent object, you
know, a tangible memory that youcan have on your shelf.

(15:59):
And every time you look at it,you're like, remember that
that's where we met.
That represents this briefmoment in time because we
celebrate the weddings, wecelebrate the children, we
celebrate all those things.
But that one moment when wereally come together and we make
that commitment to each other,that that's it's a fleeting
moment.
Like I proposed my wife in Romein a dingy hotel because we were
in between doing these things.

(16:19):
We had been walking all day, herhands were swollen, couldn't get
the ring on there.
It was kind of a kind of a mess.
And but it wasn't like a fancyring box or anything like that.
It was just in my pocket.
And I was like, it's notsomething that I don't really
have a representation of it allthose years later.
But uh renewal.
You can do a bow renewal.
There you go.
There you go.

SPEAKER_04 (16:41):
That would be that would be fun.
That's awesome.
So how did folks know that thatyou offered these services?
How did they get in touch withyou?

SPEAKER_06 (16:53):
So I think I got lucky in that I started when the
internet was pretty new.
I'm I'm 50 years old.
I've been doing this for awhile.
And what I did is I'd post everysingle thing that I made online.
And this is before everybody hadsocial media.
Um this is in the days beforeYouTube and all of that.
And so I would post it on myblog.
And then basically what happenedis the things that I make are

(17:16):
really cute and they're veryiconic to like nerddums.
And so what happened is otherpeople started putting them on.
I don't have a Pinterestaccount, but I am huge on
Pinterest because a lot ofpeople find my stuff and put it
out there.
And then people started likeBuzzFeed started making lists of
the 10 geekiest ring boxes thatare out there, or 10 geeky
wedding cake toppers.
And I'm usually six to eight ofthose.

(17:38):
So what would happen is peoplethen would like research.
It's like, oh, I I'm I reallylove a Star Wars themed
engagement.
You know, is where can I get aStar Wars themed ring box?
And because I was one of twopeople that was doing it at all,
and that guy's even dropped outat this point.
I'm just the guy who'sassociated with it.
And so, and and that was beforeeverybody had 3D printers and

(18:00):
stuff.
I was doing it all by hand.
But now that 3D printers havebecome more prolific, I just
happened to get in early enoughthat I've I've just was able to
establish a name for myself.

SPEAKER_04 (18:09):
Yeah.
I was gonna ask, you know, whenwe when we started going in this
direction, have 3D printersaffected your business, or are
you just that good that it can'tbe replicated by somebody's 3D
printer at home?

SPEAKER_06 (18:24):
This year alone, I have decided to release my own,
because I use 3D printers tomake my stuff, but I design
everything by hand.
And I never released thedesigns.
And this year I decided I wouldrelease them.
So I have 630 individual designsthat are very nerdy and geeky
that I've decided to release tothe to the public so that other
people can make them.

(18:44):
But everything that I do isunique to myself and I spend a
lot of time designing it.
And being a set designer and aprop designer in theater really
helped to play into that becauseit allowed me to be as versatile
as I could.
And so uh, but I, you know, Istarted off originally sculpting
everything by hand or doingwoodworking or metal working,
all of it is very manual labor.
But then as the 3D printers cameout, I was there when they first

(19:06):
started dropping out or, youknow, becoming a thing.
And so, you know, my my firstdesigns were really rough like
everyone else's, but I've beenable since I was there at the
beginning to really refine itand use those tools to help me
to make the pieces.
And I don't, like I said, Idon't like to mass produce
things.
I like them to be very unique tothe people.
And so a lot of the parts that Idesigned were very much

(19:27):
one-offs.
But occasionally I'll get likethe sorting hat from Harry
Potter is a very popular ringbox for me.
I've probably made 40 or 50 ofthem.
And so that's actually ended upbeing one that I didn't actually
3D print it.
I created a mold of it.
I made one sculpt, and then Ijust cast it in a different
material over and over again,and then finish them all off by
hand to make them a little bitmore unique.

(19:47):
But yeah, the 3D printers help alittle bit.
What's the downside of the 3Dprinting is that because a lot
of people have them in theirhomes, they recognize that it
doesn't cost a lot of money to3D print stuff, and it doesn't.
So when it comes to the designcost, they're like, Oh, I'd like
to buy a ring box, and I'm like,Okay, it's you know, it's five,
six hundred dollars.

(20:08):
They're like, But you're just 3Dprinting it and I can do that
for 20 bucks.
I'm like, Yeah, but you can'tdesign it for 20 bucks, and
that's what you're paying for.
Yeah.
And so that's that's probablybeen the biggest issue that I've
had with the 3D printing, isthat people now think everything
is super cheap.
Right.
But what I teach in with withGamify business, one of the
things that I teach is thatyou're you're selling ideation

(20:28):
and creation, you're not sellinga product, and that's why it's
more expensive.
And so you've got to kind ofstick behind that.
But there was definitely timesduring the the early parts where
I was, you know, I wouldquestion myself.
I'm like, am I overcharging forthis?
And the answer is no.

SPEAKER_04 (20:44):
Yeah.
No, i exactly.
You know, I've had makers on theshow.
I was a maker, I had a jewelrybusiness for a while.
And what people saw was theproduct, but it wasn't how long
did I take to design something?
How many different types ofmetal, you know, did I try to

(21:05):
use to get it to look the way itlooks right then?
And where everything can be massproduced these days, getting
something handcrafted oruniquely designed, there's a
value to that that I I I justthink escapes a lot of folks
because you know, massproduction is so easy.

SPEAKER_06 (21:27):
And I think that's and that's actually what my book
is about with the quit sellingyour shit.
It's about how product firstselling will kill a creative
business.
And we should stop selling theproduct and start selling the
artist behind it.
Right.
And it took me many years tolearn that lesson myself.
And once I did, I was able totack a zero onto my pricing.

(21:48):
And nobody batted an eye becausethey weren't paying for the
thing.
And you're absolutely right inthat we get into this comparison
thing, and we do itsubconsciously as humans.
So like if you're selling anecklace, they're like Like, oh,
I know necklaces and I've seennecklaces that were this amount
of money.
So why is this one moreexpensive?
And so what I'm gonna do is I'mgonna buy the cheaper one.
But the reality is you startselling yourself, you're not

(22:10):
just selling a product, you'reselling the journey of the
artisan behind it.
And then people aren't justbuying a thing.
Now they're buying a piece of anartist.
They're supporting an artist,and that has value.
Right.
It does.

SPEAKER_04 (22:24):
So how did you well actually I want to kind of stick
with the the Santa Fra nerds?
What are some of the wow momentsthat you had in in designing
things?

SPEAKER_06 (22:36):
I love a good story.
And that's I think it's why Ilove the ring boxes so much
because it's the beginning of astory, a beautiful story.
But some of the the most likeone that really stands out to
me, and this is a story I tellin my TEDx talk, which is called
Santa for Nerds, if you want togo check it out, is there is
this I got a call one day and Irarely get calls, usually
they're emails.

(22:56):
And this was a call from aconcerned parent, and they said,
Do you make a full-size Beautyand the Beast floating rose?
You know, the one that the beasthas where the petals fall off.
And that is one of the piecesthat I make.
And they said, Is there any waythat you can rush one and get it
to us within a week up here inCanada?
I live in Nebraska, and I waslike, uh, yeah, I can I can do
it.
And they said, That would begreat because our daughter is

(23:18):
dying of cancer, and it's herfavorite movie, and she was a
child, and we wanted to get itto her so she could see that
there was a little bit of magicleft in this world and that we
could have it as a keepsake forwhen she goes as a reminder of
her life.

SPEAKER_04 (23:32):
You're gonna make me cry.

SPEAKER_06 (23:34):
Well, it made me cry.
I'm a parent, you know, and I'mlike, oh, of course.
And so it it's it's those kindof stories where you don't think
when you're making things thatyou have that kind of impact on
people's lives.
I had a I had another kid who aparent had called me up, and
there's a movie calledDespicable Me.
I don't know if you're familiarwith all the little minions.
The very first movie, the theantagonist, protagonist grew.

(23:58):
He he writes, he adopts thesethree girls, and then at the end
he apologizes by having thisbook called it's the it's a
unicorn book, and he puts hisnose through it and it makes the
little unicorn horn and it'svery cute.
And I got a call from a parent,and they said their son had
drowned when he was six, butthey had recovered him, they had
they had brought him back, buthe had been he had been dead for

(24:18):
like six minutes and he hadsuffered some brain damage.
And uh this was a few yearslater, but his move his favorite
movie was Still Despicable Me.
And so the one big unicorn washis favorite book, and nobody
made it.
And they were wondering if Icould make him this book and
make it a a reality for him.
And of course I did, you know,like, yeah, sure.
But they said, you know, he hassome limitations because of the

(24:40):
trauma that he had.
And so they had some requests.
They're like, you know, he hastendency to put he while he is
growing up, his mentality staysthat of a four or six-year-old.
And so he had a tendency to likeput books in his mouth.
So it's like, hey, can you makethese books so that they're
waterproof?
Or can you, you know, make themso that the kid so they can have
them, he can he can look at itover and over and over again
because they have the repetitionwas something that he did.

(25:02):
And so I was able to kind ofstep up to that and make that
for him.
And I actually made two books soin case something went wrong,
and I threw the other one in forfree because I was like, this
means a lot.
And they did an unboxing videofor me, not to put it on the
internet or anything like that,but they should, you know, they
had him open it up, and I heardthe mom behind the camera get
choked up.
I got choked up, and this kidwas so excited.

(25:24):
Oh, and I'm like, if I couldbring that kind of joy to a
family who's seen some tragedy,it it makes it worth it.
Absolutely worth it.

SPEAKER_04 (25:32):
Yeah.
Holy cow.
Wow, so powerful.
What you know, in in in goingthrough this journey, and you
just seem to, I don't want tosay be a short order cook, but
no matter what anybody orders,you can fill it.
So where what were thechallenging times in in being

(25:56):
able to do that?

SPEAKER_06 (25:58):
That's a great question.
And you would think that therewouldn't be one, but the hardest
thing to sell is a service inwhich I can make whatever you
can think of.

SPEAKER_03 (26:08):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 (26:09):
And so I would go like, and and honestly, the term
Santa for nerds didn't happenfor like 12 or 13 years into my
business.
I would come up with all kindsof funny ways to put it on a
business card or a trade showbanner or whatever.
But nobody understood what itwas that I made.
I'd go to trade shows and I'dhave my table set up, and people
would walk by and I'm like, Ican make you anything that you

(26:30):
want, but you have to kind ofshow, you know, your your wares,
like your skill.
And so I'd have uh examples andpeople would walk by and go, I
don't want any of that.
I'm like, no, that's not what Ido.
I make anything that you want.
I even had a sign one show thatsaid, I will literally make you
anything that you can think of.
You just have to ask.
And I and nobody would buy fromit because they didn't, they
don't think it's possible thatone person or a company can can

(26:53):
do this kind of job.
Yeah.
And so the hardest thing isconvincing people that Santa is
real.

SPEAKER_04 (27:04):
I I can see where there'd be some skepticism.
I can see it, but I mean, Ihaven't seen any work that
you've produced, but I believeno matter what my little brain
can come up with, you couldcreate it.
So go figure.

SPEAKER_06 (27:19):
If now like I I work with the Tonight Show with Jimmy
Fallon.
Uh-huh.
Um, that's that's one of myfavorite ones to work with
because they're very topical andthey're very instant.
And so they will call me up andthey're like, we have this weird
idea and we need it to be on airin two days.
Like one of them, and it didn'tmake it to air, not because I
didn't produce it, but becauseit got vetoed, which happens a

(27:40):
lot in television.
But they had called me up andthey said, We need two animated,
realistic horse heads becauseJimmy and Shaq want to ride
horses and tell jokes, but wecan't put them on real horses.
And we need it in two days.
And I'm like, okay, let's do it.
So I made life-size animatronichorse heads that went on these
like little saddles and stuff sothey could be on the camera, but

(28:02):
they had like the ears twitchedand the head moved and stuff and
made it in two days.
And it that's the kind of that'sthat's the type of work that I
do.
It's like I can make it happen.

SPEAKER_04 (28:13):
Oh my gosh.
Now, see, I would panic.
One, I would panic that thetonight show was on the phone.
And then two, I would panic thatI only had two days.
But I don't have the mind of adesigner.
So that that could be a reallybig obstacle for me.
But holy cow, such coolexperiences.

SPEAKER_06 (28:33):
It's fun, it's fun.
It's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_04 (28:35):
Yeah, it it sounds it.
So as time went on, where didthe whole gamify business piece
come into play for you?

SPEAKER_06 (28:45):
So I had spent uh so I work in a studio basement.
Like in my basement, my studiois the entire basement.
So it's it's a wonderfulopportunity to be a stay-at-home
dad, but also have a studiowhere I can actually do all of
my work while my wife goes offand is a costume designer for a
theater here in town.
And I had been doing it for afew years and I realized I was
getting really lonely.

(29:06):
And so I'm I'm used to livetheater.
I'm used to being around people.
And so I had Googled one day, Isaid, how can I set up a camera
and do my work in front ofpeople so I can talk to people?
And I found a platform calledTwitch.
And basically, I didn't know itat the time, but it's a gaming
platform.
People play video games andpeople watch.
Right.
But there's a small subset ofit, about 20% of them are

(29:27):
actually creatives who do artand people can watch them do art
and ask questions.
And so for five days a week,about six to eight hours a day,
I would sit in front of cameras.
I had three cameras set up, onefor my hands, one for my face,
and then like a top view.
And I would make all of thesecool pieces.
You know, I'd be Santa'sworkshop, and you'd be able to
watch me work and ask mequestions.

(29:48):
And what I found was thatthere's a lot of creatives out
there who want to own a businessdoing what they love to do, but
have zero idea how to do it.

SPEAKER_07 (29:57):
Like none.

SPEAKER_06 (29:58):
And they have all the skills, they just don't have
any business acumen.
And so I would give them all theadvice, you know, like here's
how you figure out how tocharge, this is the, you know,
pricing, this is how you findclients, all of this stuff.
But what I realized was that Iwas talking in business speak,
and a lot of creative mindsdon't understand business.
And so I would say, okay, thisis the you know, Roas.
You got to understand Roas,everybody.

(30:19):
And they're like, is that arodent of unusual size?
I'm like, no, that's fromPrincess Bride.
You know, it's return on adspend and all that.
And so they didn't get it.
And I was working with a clientwho they're really creative.
They were gamers like myself,and they made little dragons.
And so we were like, we werealready best friends.
And so I was working with themon that, and I was asking them
because they were a successfulbusiness on paper, but they

(30:41):
weren't really successful in thebank accounts.
And so they wanted me to come inand see if I could help them
write the ship a little bit.
And so I was asking them, Isaid, So what do you guys like,
what's your role in thebusiness?
There were three of them.
And they said, Oh, we all doeverything.
And I'm like, Well, you can'tall do everything.
That's not how you run abusiness.
So, like, what's your main role?
And so they told me, and I said,Okay.
And I was just spitballing, Iwas just kind of coming up with

(31:02):
an idea to help them understandit better.
I said, How about I come backtomorrow and we'll play Dungeons
and Dragons Business Edition?
But instead of being a ranger orbard, you're gonna be your role
in the business.
And instead of fighting dragonsand imps, we're actually gonna
fight monsters that areobstacles that you'd encounter
in real life business.
Okay, so like the haggler or thescope creeper or these kinds of

(31:25):
things.
And I just make it up.
And so we played for about fourhours.
And after that, the CEO of thebusiness goes, Is this what
business is?
Because I think I finallyunderstand it and it seems fun.
And I was like, Yes, this isexactly what it is.
And that was like the light bulbmoment that went, ah, so what
gamified business is, is it'snot a game.
I mean, we play games, but whatwe do is we really translate the

(31:47):
terminology of business into anarea that people understand
already.
And a lot of it happens to begaming because we've all been
playing games since we werekids, and so we understand those
rules.
And so I translate regularbusiness stuff into the jargon
of it, into something that theycan relate to.
And then we try to make it fun.
And that's the entire thingbehind it.

(32:09):
And so once I was done withthat, I was like, okay, I love
Dungeons and Dragons.
I like the books that come withit.
And I was like, what if I wrotea book that looked like it
belonged to Dungeons andDragons, but it was like the
player's handbook, but it's theplayer's handbook of real life
business for creativeentrepreneurs.
And so I did.
I wrote the book, uh, that wasmy first book that I wrote.
And it's a basically walks youthrough how to set up your

(32:32):
business.
But you start by creating acharacter sheet, which is you in
your business.
And you have to understand whatyou're trying to do.
Like, what am I, what was whatmy business for?
What am I passionate about?
And then from there, we dolooking for group, which is what
you do in a Dungeons and Dragonsand game.
And what we do is we try to findpeople who are who are going to
be good business partners foryou that make a good group.
You don't want people who arevery similar to you.

(32:54):
You want people that are goingto help boost you up and round
you out so that you are like agood cohesive unit.
And then from there we do allthese encounters, which are the
monsters that you wouldencounter with business.
But what I don't tell anybody isthat if you fill out the book
and it's self-led, is that atthe end you have a fully formed
business plan and a 90-day planof action to earn real world

(33:15):
money.

SPEAKER_04 (33:16):
Wow.
But I hid it all behind thegame.
Yeah.
That is really cool.
And it it's funny because I havea lot of friends who are
creatives, and they're all kindof in the same boat where it's
they are incredibly talented andthey may every once in a while
sell something or get somerecognition that brings more

(33:40):
attention to what they do, butthey're not uh I don't know,
that that that that muscle thatis business acumen just isn't
isn't there.
And I I do not possess itmyself.
So I'm not I'm uh I'm notpoo-pooing anybody that doesn't.
I'm I'm right there with you.

(34:02):
So this is fantastic.
What do you think?
You now you're a creative, buthow did you get it being a
creative?

SPEAKER_06 (34:12):
My superpower is I I have ADD.
And my superpower is I love tolearn.
And for me, understanding howthings work is part of it's part
of the Santa for nerds.
I'm a creative problem solver.
And so with business, I waslike, how do I solve the
business of business?
You know, it's I I wanted to, Iwant to know the answer.

(34:34):
I have that creative streak inme.
And I love to uh I love similesand metaphors.
And so when I'm I was aprofessor for a little while,
like I said, and I loveexplaining things to people in a
way that they'll understand it.
And so for me, it was let'sbreak down all of these things,
not just for other people, butfor myself as well.
It's like because I have tounderstand this when I'm when
I'm doing it myself.

(34:54):
And one thing that's in all ofmy books are these little orange
boxes, which are stories of meand my business and in my my
struggles.
And I love that for me, failureis a step, not a stop, which is
one thing that I say a lot.
And I screwed up a lot, a lot, alot, a lot.
And fortunately, I'm I don'tever look at it as a stopping

(35:16):
point.
I always look at it as anopportunity to learn and move
on.
Right.
And so all of my books arefilled with stories of you know
how I screwed up and hopefullyyou guys don't have to.
And so it's just I I kind ofdon't have that part of my brain
that tells me that you're gonnafail and that nothing isn't is
possible.
I I think everything ispossible, and I love to learn

(35:36):
and and and failure is part ofthat.
And so that was really whatallowed me to do this this thing
that I do.

SPEAKER_04 (35:43):
Oh, that's wild.
I I love it.
I love it.
I am running out to get thatbook as soon as we're off this
call.
Excellent.
Yeah.
So now making that transitionfrom, or maybe it wasn't a
transmit uh transition, maybeyou're still doing all of the
creative stuff and now you'readding the the gamified business

(36:06):
piece to it.
What opportunities has thatopened for you?

SPEAKER_06 (36:12):
So I'm I I do both of them.
And actually I've added a thirdbusiness because of course I
did, where I'm actually writingfiction books.
That's right.
So That's right.
Yeah, because why not?
You know, everything'severything's on the table,
right?
But what I've what I've realizedis I'm 50 years old and I know
that there's a timeline to beingable to do the tiny little

(36:33):
things I do or to work with thechemicals that I'm working with
when building all this.
It's a young person's game.
And so what I do now is I I domostly corporate work.
I don't do a lot of individualwork anymore because it's fewer
and far between and they have alarger budget to spend.
And so I don't have to work ashard.
But I think it allows for theyounger, younger people to kind
of step in to where I was tofill that vacuum.

(36:55):
And so what the consulting andcoaching business does is it
allows me to just teach peoplehow to do this kind of stuff as
opposed to me having to do itall and take all the limelight.
And so the the challenges thatI've run into with trying to do
that conversion is that again,I'm a 50-year-old trying to

(37:16):
start a business again and doingit all from the ground up.
And not only am I starting abusiness, I'm trying to do
something that doesn't exist andmake it make it aware for
everyone who's out there.
And it's a it's a pretty noisysea of information out on the
internet and in the real world.
And so trying to convince peoplethat this new shiny that I'm

(37:36):
trying to sell to people isactually worth it when
everybody's trying to sell a newshiny that may not be worth it.
So that's been a big a strugglefor this business.
And so also the lesson of, andwe talked about this earlier,
about being the star of it, nothiding behind the work, but
actually trying to sell yourselfis something that I too am not

(37:56):
super comfortable with.
Um I've found a nice copingmechanism, which is I I put on
characters.
So when I'm doing the the gamifybusiness, I play the the game
master and the barkeep.
And so I get to put on myoutfit.
I got a little towel on myshoulder, and then I'm playing
the character of it, again,going back to theater here, but
that allows me to basically weararmor that protects myself from

(38:20):
being so nervous about trying todo all of this stuff.
Right.
Um, and then not, you know,because it when you're
consulting, the product thatyou're selling is what you know.
And so you have to be the personthat's talking.
And so the product that you'reselling is your mind.
And so you can't hide behindanything because it's your words
that you're selling.
And so I've had to teach myselfover and over again that this is

(38:42):
this is the way that we shoulddo it.
But the challenges that you runinto is very much just trying to
convince people that this weirdthing that you're doing is
legitimate and it can help.
And then getting in front of theright people in the right uh
areas, which is, you know,fortunately for me, I don't mind
being on stage, I don't mindbeing in front of a camera.
And so I do a lot of podcasts, Ido I go on stage, I've done my

(39:03):
TEDxes, it's it's those types ofsituations that get me in front
of the right people.
But don't get me wrong, I stillget nervous when I have to go up
to somebody and say, would youlike to learn how to be a
business, even though you'resuper creative?
So, you know, it never goesaway.

SPEAKER_04 (39:16):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I visited your website andI took the the the quiz.
And I absolutely love it becauseI'm not talking to a business
consultant.
I'm talking to a barkeep.
And the barkeep asks a series ofquestions to evaluate as a

(39:39):
creative what your what yourbusiness, team building,
networking, efficiency,effectiveness, financial
awareness is.
It evaluates all of those thingsthrough a series of questions,
and then it puts it intopractice by putting you into

(40:00):
scenarios.
And I found it fascinating.
Now, I'm not a Dungeons andDragons person.
So some of the terminology is isgonna be lost on me.
But I went through and I tookthe assessment, and I want you
to tell me a little bit about,not without, you know, don't
give away trade secrets, but Iwant you to tell me a little bit

(40:22):
about my profile.
I came out as a barredconnector.
What does that mean to me?

SPEAKER_06 (40:31):
So one thing that you didn't mention is that you
should have gotten an email witha really deep dive, like 11-page
deep dive into your personalityas a business person as well.
So that should be in your email.
Oh, okay.
I didn't check my email.
Okay, so check that out.
And it's it's really thorough.
But so what a bard is, is is sothere are six different classes
that you can fall into.

(40:51):
There's warrior, ranger, bard,wizard, sage, and artificer.
Those are the six differentpersonalities.
And each one of them representshow you approach business.
This isn't a personality testabout your personal life or
anything like this.
It's really just about businessand how you approach it.
And when you're answering thesequestions, it kind of helps to

(41:13):
it folds you into thesedifferent areas.
Now, the bard in particular is agreat one because three of them
are outward-facing or peoplefacing businesses or classes,
and that would be the warrior,the bard, and the sage.
And then underneath that, thereare the behind-the-scenes
people, which would be theranger, the wizard, and the
artificer.
The bard itself is aforward-facing person who enjoys

(41:36):
communicating with others, hasideas, but also is selling the
uh basically other people, likethe ability to do things for
other people.
It's it's the level up frombeing a wizard.
A wizard is actually a personwho is comfortable with some
variety, some change, doingsomething a little bit
different, is is okay with youknow doing the same thing over

(42:00):
and over again.
You mentioned you did jewelry,so you're used to the to being
within the confines.
I'm making jewelry today, but itcould be a necklace, it could be
a bracelet, it could be a ring,it could be all these different
things.
So there's variety in it.
If somebody came to you andsaid, hey, we'd like to try
something a little bitdifferent, you would be game for
it.
That's the wizard mentality.
Well, the bard comes from thewizard.
So they basically move up, theylevel up out of it, and they are

(42:21):
more forward-facing.
So now you are a person who cansell the product.
You are good at communicatingwith people.
I look at you at this podcasthere.
You've got great communicationskills.
You can relate to what I'mtalking about.
So you can talk to people whoare wizards and be able to
communicate it.
And then you can also sell theskills that somebody, you know,

(42:42):
that people uh maybe underneathyou could do because you're
familiar with being that wizardpersonality.
And so I love the bard becauseit is very much a universal
communicator.
You you've got a lot offlexibility to you.
So you don't find yourself likeyou're not a wallflower.
You go into a party, you can youcan meet new people, you don't
have a problem with that.

(43:03):
You can tell good stories,you're a good uh you can laugh,
you can you enjoy yourself.
You have a social battery that alot of the behind-the-scenes
people do not have.
Now, if you rolled an artificer,those types of people are the
ones who not only do they notlike change, they want to be
locked in a room and left aloneto do the thing that they're
really good at.
That's that's an artificialaccounting.

unknown (43:20):
Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 (43:22):
No, no, you're not, you're not wrong.
And the sage is actually a levelup from that one because a sage
used to be that, but they areforced into a role that is more
people forward.
And they will sell atartificers' work, but they know
not to promise anything outsideof the box because it will upset
the artificer.
And so the bard is kind of themix there.
And then the last one, which isthe warrior and the ranger, the

(43:44):
warrior is the type of personthat would be like, We can do
it, we can do it.
They they charge in and theypromise the world and they they
they say that we can deliveranything, but they have no idea
how to do any of it.

SPEAKER_05 (43:54):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 (43:54):
We've all met those people.
Uh we call them bros, or we callyou know that it's all just guys
that are out there, and they'llsell the world.
What they do is they go, we cando it, we can do it.
And then they turn around andgo, can we do it?
And the ranger is the personthat's behind them that goes,
Yeah, we can do it.
Because the ranger is the typeof person that loves the
challenge of variety.
They love to pick up the pieces,they love to figure everything
out, but they will suffer if youput them into a cubicle and you

(44:18):
make them do the same thing overand over again.
That's not what they're gearedfor.

SPEAKER_07 (44:21):
Right.

SPEAKER_06 (44:22):
So they work really well with the with the warrior
because the warrior is promisingthe world in every direction and
they and the ranger has tofigure it out.
And so that's the six differenttypes.
And so the bard to me is almosta universal forward-facing
person because they they live abetter, uh, a fuller life and
they understand the limitations,but they're not locked into

(44:43):
those limitations, but they canoccasionally like confine
themselves.
So it's it's a really good bardis probably one of it's what I
pulled as well.
It's one of the most variety,it's the one of the most
versatile word I'm looking to.
It's yes, versatile.
That's the word I'm looking for.
Thank you.
It's one of the most versatileroles that you could get.
So yeah.
Cool.

(45:04):
Cool.

SPEAKER_04 (45:05):
So like I said, I I loved taking the quiz.
I think you got honest answersbecause it wasn't a
question-answer thing.
It was more of like aninteraction.
And the barkeep leans over andwhispers.
It's like, what's your nextmove?
So I really loved that.
It was it I think you got morehonest answers out of me.

(45:28):
Or I got more honest answers outof me because to your point, I
was playing a character.
We we were in a little scenetogether.
Yeah.
So really good stuff.
Once once somebody takes thequiz, what's what's the next
step?

SPEAKER_06 (45:44):
So you have options at the end of the quiz to sign
up for a you can sign up for thenewsletter if you want to to
kind of get a little bit deepervalue into it.
And some people do and somepeople don't.
It's probably like 60-40 as towhether they will.
But if you do get into the theworld of it, I don't spam people
because I hate spam myself.
Right.
But what you do is you you'llget deeper dives into it.
And then I start to mention someof the other products and

(46:07):
services that I offer.
You know, we call them upsellsin business, but I am a low
pressure salesman because hateto say it, but creatives are
skittish, especially when itcomes to sales.
And so uh I don't want topressure you.
And also I don't want to uh everput you in a position in where
you feel compelled to buysomething from me or work with

(46:27):
me, because I I know personallythat once I'm out of the
picture, you won't do the work.
And so I want you to be in aposition in which you feel
comfortable enough that you'relike, oh, I'd love to learn
more.
I'd love to do this, I'd like tolearn, you know, to get more
information on this.
And so it's very low pressure.
But that's basically whathappens is so you'll get some of
the newsletters, and then youhave the opportunity to either

(46:48):
buy the books, which are allself-led, or you can actually
work with me, or I do workshopsin which we get together.
And since you pulled Bard, Iactually will do emails every
once and say, hey, we're havingan all-bard meeting.
And so we can all get togetherand do and bards can talk to
bards.
But one of the key things that Ikind of glossed over a little
bit in it is that not only doyou get to learn your class, but

(47:09):
you get to learn the idealsecondary class for you.
So, like with the bard, you werelooking for wizards to be your
ideal partner in businessbecause they're gonna help to
pick up all the slack of theplaces that you might have a
deficiency, which isn't bad.
We all have them.
And then wizards have their own,and you've got things that help
to balance that out.
And we'll do workshops where wesay, okay, we're gonna do a
bards and wizards.

(47:31):
So if you don't have a wizard inyour life, let's see if you can
meet meet one.
And it's kind of like a meetcute type of situation where we
all get to get to meet our idealpartners here.
And this, again, these arepartners in business, not
partners in real life.
Right.
But what's what's fun with thatis I've I've actually had people
who are like, I have a partnerin business.
I'm having them take the quiz tofind out if they truly are a

(47:51):
good fit.
And I'd say most of the timethey are, but sometimes they'll
find that they they it's twobards or it's two warriors.
And what's interesting isbecause creatives especially
like to surround ourselves withpeople we like to talk to and we
like to you know be aroundpeople like us, but it's not
really good for business.

SPEAKER_04 (48:08):
Right, right, right.
Nothing gets done.

unknown (48:11):
Right.

SPEAKER_06 (48:11):
And so, but but those are the the next steps.
And I have when we do workshops,I actually have games that we
play, they're video games and orlive action role-playing.
And so we we actually do thoselive, we have head-to-head
competitions, which I think isis really good.
And then I have like a starterland game that it's should be
out in the next month or so,because I'm not a coder, but

(48:31):
I've had to learn how to do thisto make these video games.
But basically, in a video game,you have a starting area, which
is where you learn all the rulesand then and all the skills to
be able to go play the game.
And so I was like, well, weshould have that in business as
well.
And so I created this game whereyou go in the barkeep is where
you start and you talk to him,and he's like, Well, you need to
go get some armor and somematerials.
So go out into the into thismake-believe world and talk to

(48:53):
these six different people.
Um, there's the blacksmith,there's the guild leader, and
they teach you skills and theygive you some equipment so that
you get fully kitted out, iswhat we'd call it.
And then after that, then thebarkeep sends you out on your
first mission, which is to gokill some monsters, and they're
very starter monsters.
And what's nice about it is yougo in there and you have the you
meet this monster, and andtypically the monsters are

(49:15):
things that you're going toencounter in real business.
And some of them are are, youknow, uh not necessarily
external creatures, but internalones.
So like we have the you know,doubts that rise up in
ourselves.
Yeah, and so when you encounterthese, it's not hitting them
with the sword, it's answering aquestion.
So it's like, oh, you'veencountered this creature, and
it says that you aren't worthybecause you've got, you know,

(49:38):
you know, I don't feel like Ibelong.
I don't think I have the skillsto do this, and this monster is
taunting you with this.
Well, how do you how do youcounteract that?
Well, somebody in the town, oneof those people actually told
you the how to get over this.
And so you don't have that fearanymore.
And so you you have we havechoose your own, like a you
know, A, B, C, D, E, um, and youlike choose a selection that
would would work best for you.

(49:58):
But all of those answers areactually generated by you when
you're talking to thesetownspeople.
So it's all about learning whoyou are and how you approach
these things and then turning itinto a game because the reality
is life should be more like agame and you should be having
fun with it, especiallybusiness.
And so it teaches you theseskills so that when you're out
in the real world, you're notoverwhelmed by these things.
You don't, you don't feel likeyou don't have the the skills or

(50:21):
the abilities to do this becauseyou do, we just don't have the
confidence yet.
And so if we turn it into agame, we separate the ego, then
you can go out there and you andyou do this and you just have
fun at it.

SPEAKER_04 (50:31):
Yeah.
Oh, I have a learning anddevelopment background, and we
were all about gamification,making things fun, creating
scenarios, role-playing so thatit's not just boring, dry
lecture on building skills.
Yeah.
You actually get practice time.

(50:51):
Go read about the skills outsideof class, come to class prepared
to start using the skills.
Kind of like driver's ed.
You take the class, but you doyour real learning behind the
wheel.

SPEAKER_06 (51:04):
So Yeah, absolutely.
And I think I I wish more peoplewould understand that, you know,
they're like when I was growingup, I was always told you're
book smart, but you're notstreet smart.
Okay.
You're really good at learningthe information, but you're not
really good at application.
And uh I was like, oh, okay,well, I got to work on that.
And so as an adult, you know,that's one of the things.
And you're absolutely right.
It's like you got to putyourself in that scenario.

(51:26):
If if you ever find yourself, ifyou've got a creative streak and
you're unsure like you can youhave that versatility, go
volunteer at a communitytheater.
Go do some theater, especiallythe behind the scenes stuff.
Because the you learn so manysoft skills that you don't think
will apply in life, but youabsolutely do apply them in
life.
I remember as a prop maker, oneone show I would be doing like

(51:49):
six-tier super decorated cakes.
And then the next one I'mbuilding uh I've built so many
weird things like swimming poolsor working kitchens and all
these kinds of like randomthings.
Like, where where do all theseskills get taught?
You know, it's like, well, youhave to do it in theater because
that's what's required.
And so if you are creative andyou're unsure about how these

(52:09):
skills work, go do theatersometime and you'll learn that
you have so many abilities thatyou're unaware of.
Yeah.
And that practical applicationis very possible.

SPEAKER_04 (52:17):
My my former pod partner, Maureen, was a
technical theater major incollege.
She went into HR.
She had all of those skills, I'massuming from technical theater.
She retired early.
It burnt her out, but she's veryhappy now.

SPEAKER_06 (52:37):
Well, hopefully she's like painting or doing
something from the side.

SPEAKER_04 (52:40):
She is doing all of the above.
She's painting, she's doingpottery, she's gardening, she's
she's doing fantastic.
But yeah, it's funny.
She was a technical theatermajor and had no problem going
right into the HR field.

SPEAKER_06 (52:55):
Yep.
Yep.
Theater is theater is a is aweird thing.
I would like we keep trying tocut it out of system, out of
school system.
But it's like you have no ideahow valuable this in this is for
people.
It's actually like when you gointo MIT and Harvard Business
School, or to, or the otherone's John Hopkins.
One of the last questions theyask is, Did you do you ever do
theater?
It's on their application.

SPEAKER_04 (53:16):
Wow.

SPEAKER_06 (53:16):
Because they want to know that you've got the soft
skills that you've got forversatility.

SPEAKER_04 (53:20):
Oh, that's great.
Now, speaking of skills, you arenow flexing a new skill, which
is the nonfiction writing.
Yes, I am.
Let's just, let's just bringthat up.

SPEAKER_06 (53:35):
Sure, why not?
So I was writing the thebusiness manuals, all these
gamified business books, and inthe middle of it, I was working
with a book coach on it.
And the book coach was notgrasping what I was trying to
do.
It was it my book coach wasreally good at writing books,
but she was like a memoirwriter.
And she's like, I think you needto write a memoir of your
journey, and then people willlearn from that.

(53:56):
And I was like, No, I don'tthink that's what I want to do.
So I started writing thegamified books.
And then in the middle of it, Iwas, I had a really weird youth.
I had one summer, and this mightit might be a little dark, but
it there's a reason we're goinginto this.
But in this one summer, 12people died within a two-block
radius of my house.
Oh my gosh.
This is in the 80s.

(54:17):
And so, very much the stand byme, stranger things type of
life, all the kids in theneighborhood were deeply
invested into the mystery ofwhat was happening during this
time.
And it was, it was a bizarretime in my life.
But while I was working with thebook coach and we were talking
about the memoir aspect of it, Ihad brought this up, and she's
like, that is such a wild, thatsounds like a book.

(54:39):
And I was like, Oh, it could be.
And so I wrote a bunch of shortstories, but instead of them
being hyper-realistic, I turnedthem into suspense, thriller,
sci-fi type of stories, whereaslike these mysteries and stuff
were because magical things werehappening in the neighborhood.
So I wrote these called theGreen Trees stories.
And then I wrote them.
There was 20 stories in thatone, and I submitted them to a

(55:02):
couple of places, and they said,nobody buys anthologies of short
stories.
So you need a through-line book.
And I'm like, okay, fine.
So I took one character who mayor may not be a lot like me in
this time and created a story.
It's called Death's Intern.
And it is about a kid who isrecruited by the Grim Reaper to

(55:25):
become the next Grim Reaper.
And it's all of these, it and indoing it, there's all of these
weird things that are happeningaround his world.
And so he's got a team of kidsthat are helping him solve these
mysteries and stuff.
And it's an adult, it's an adultbook.
It's it's written from theperspective of kids, but it is
not, it's more like Stand By Meand It from Stephen King as
opposed to a children's story oryoung adult story.

(55:47):
But I have read it to my kids,they loved it, and not because
dad wrote it.
They actually do like books.
They'll tell me if they don'tlike it.
But it's it's most kids do.
They do indeed.
They're very brutally honest.
And so that's where that's wherethis came from.
And so from there, I've I'vebeen writing it.
It's actually now I'm lookingfor a publisher for it.
I thought about self-publishing,but I'm like, I had an editor,
and she's like, don'tself-publish.

(56:07):
This is too good for me,self-published.
And I'm like, well, great.
Now I gotta learn how to be apublished author.
I have no idea how to do this.
So I guess I'm gonna learnsomething new.
You gotta add that to the list.
Yeah, exactly.
So so that's where that that onestarted from.
And it was it's it's funny.
I never thought I would be awriter.
Never.
And now I'm I'm seven or eightbooks in in seven or eight books
within the last three years.

SPEAKER_04 (56:28):
Wow.
Amazing.
Your journey blows my mind.
And and I I had said off micbefore we started recording,
what drew me to you as a guestwas the whole Santa for Nerds.
I was like, oh, that's a greatconversation.
Little did I know that was afraction of your journey from
Santa for nerds to entrepreneurto business coach to writer.

(56:56):
Holy cow.
Is there anything left for youto do?
Is there anything you want todo?

SPEAKER_06 (57:04):
I'm a go with the flow kind of dude.
I you know, honestly, I I justlove to put to put it out there,
you know, to be creative.
And I and I think that is iswhat's the next thing?
I have no, I have no idea.
I love to travel and it's andit's whatever whatever comes up

(57:26):
comes up.
I I I think right now the thebiggest journey that I'm looking
forward is I've got three boyswho are all extremely different,
but they are all extremelycreative in their own ways.
And I think between mom and dadboth being creatives and all of
them, I I my next adventure willbe seeing what they do with it
and seeing it and because theywant to be creatives, they all

(57:48):
do.
My oldest is in college rightnow to be an animator.

SPEAKER_05 (57:51):
Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06 (57:52):
And I've got a musical kid, and I've got a
writerslash game developer kid.
And every single one of thoseare very challenging careers to
get into, but they happen toknow a dad who is kind of
writing the book on howcreatives can be successful.
And so for me, it's, you know,put my money where my mouth is
or where my family is, andseeing if I can, you know, help

(58:12):
them to become the the greatcreatives that they are, as well
as the strangers in my life.

SPEAKER_04 (58:17):
Yeah.
That's that's fantastic.
That is, that is a greatmission.
And I will definitely bechecking back in with you to see
how how we're doing on that one.
But what a what a beautiful,what a beautiful way to kind of
pass the torch to your to yourkids.
I love that.
Thank you.
Thank you.

(58:38):
Paul, thank you so much for allof your time.
I have so enjoyed this.
You're definitely a guest I'mgonna be in touch with outside
of the interview for my ownpersonal growth, because I am
making, I think I alluded to ita little earlier, I'm making a
career pivot right now.
Wonderful.

(58:58):
And uh I've got I've got someconcerns.
I've got some strengths, butI've got some concerns.
So you were very timely for me,as I hope you are very timely
for a lot of the creatives thatI know listen to the podcast.
So again, thank you for all yourtime.
Where can folks find you online?

SPEAKER_06 (59:19):
Okay, thank you.
So thank you so much.
And that that actually does meanan awful lot to me that you uh
what you said, super kind.
You can find me atgamifybusiness.com and you can
take the quiz atgamifybusiness.com forward slash
quiz if you would like to learnyour business personality.
And if you're interested in thedesign work and seeing what's
out there, you can go topaulpapedesigns.com as well.

(59:40):
That's where the Santa for Nerdstuff lives.
And all of my social mediahandles are either Paul Pape
Designs or Gamify Business.
So you can find me anywhere.
And just so everyone knows, ifyou have a question and you
reach out, you're not gonna geta bot.
You're gonna get Paul, and Paulwill answer.
So if you have questions, pleasefeel free to reach out.

SPEAKER_04 (59:57):
Fantastic.
And where can we find yourbooks?

SPEAKER_06 (01:00:00):
My books are available.
Two of them, quit selling yourshit, and the uh Bard's Guide to
Storycraft are available onAmazon, but the rest of them are
on gamified business.com becauseAmazon doesn't want to sell my
hardcover books.
And I think books are beautifulwhen they're hardcovers.
So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:00:15):
Well, great.
Thank you so, so much, Paul.
I really enjoyed this.

SPEAKER_06 (01:00:20):
Thank you, Helen.
I really appreciate it beinghonest.
It's been a lot of fun.
I love it.

SPEAKER_04 (01:00:35):
I am an absolute fan of what Paul does and how he
continues to evolve throughoutevery experience he has or
creates.
Something that stands out to me,especially early on in his
journey, is his ability toremain open-minded, to try new
or different things, yet he's soself-aware to know when

(01:00:58):
something's not going to workfor him.
Another nugget I took away frommy conversation is his natural
ability to seek improvement orto simplify things.
And those qualities have takenhim on some wild rides and
brought about significant stepsalong his journey.

(01:01:22):
And then lastly, his overalljourney reminds me of a quote
from the 2005 animated movieRobots.
If you haven't seen it, check itout.
It has an amazing voice cast,including Robin Williams.
The main character is a youngboy robot with aspirations to

(01:01:44):
become an inventor.
And he gets encouraged by thissaying, see a need, fill a need.
And Paul has been doing thatthroughout his entire career.
And having the heart of acreative, a teacher, and the
mentor that he is resonatesthroughout his entire journey

(01:02:07):
from what he produces for folkswho are ordering from him to how
he coaches people who think inthe same way he does, and
helping them become betterbusiness people so that they can
share their creativity wide andfar.

(01:02:29):
Just amazing.
Use the tell me what you thinkabout this week's episode link
in the show notes and tell mewhat you got out of Paul's
journey.
I'd love to hear it.
And speaking of show notes, jumpdown to them to connect with
Paul's design work and hisGamify Business website.
And while you're there, don'tforget to connect with me.

(01:02:53):
All my socials are linked thereas well.
As always, thanks for listening.
Your support of the podcastmeans a lot, so keep listening
and keep sharing.
And I'll see you in a few weeks.