Craftsman Creative

[00:00:00] Hey everybody, it's Daren here, and today we're kicking off a five episode little series about my new framework, and this framework is called the MOVIE Framework. Why? Well, if you know me, if you've been paying attention, if you've been listening, my trade is as a film producer. I've been doing film and TV and music since 2006.

When I started in these industries, I really transitioned and went full into TV and film around 2008 or so, and since then, that's all I've been doing. So I work as a film producer. That's where, you know, in 2022, probably 80% of my revenue came from working to shift that into more like 50 50 between crafts and creative and other businesses and the film producing.

But that's beside the point. The point is, I'm a film producer and my framework is called MOVIE, which I think is pretty cool. So today in this first of the five episodes, I want to give you a overview [00:01:00] of the very first step.

The MOVIE framework is how to build creative businesses. This is the framework I use when I work with clients and customers, when I do events, when I do coaching, when I do all of those things around craftsman, creative. This is what I look at, and I've kind of put it into a framework so I can teach it more clearly to people like yourself who want to learn how to grow creative businesses.

So what does it stand for? The M stands for mindset. We always start with mindset, and I'll talk about Y and in just a minute. The O stands for outcomes, and we're looking at the outcomes both for you and for your ideal customer. V is for visibility. How do you get awareness and attention and visibility for your business?

Because if you don't have that, it's really hard to have a business that's growing . The I stands for implementing systems, and so that's where you dive in. You build your content system, your lead generation system, your [00:02:00] email system, your sales and product ecosystems. That's that step implementing systems.

And then ee, once you have everything else built out, you've got the mindset, the outcomes, the visibility, and the systems, then you can expand your impact. That's where you can grow beyond the initial niche that you. Focused on, that's where you can reach more people, have more impact, make more money, grow your team, grow your business, grow your impact.

So expanding your impact is the E. So again, mindset, outcomes, visibility, implementing systems, and expand your impact. That's the movie framework. So again, over the next five episodes, I'm gonna walk through each one of these, and today we're starting with M, which stands for, again, it stands for mindset. So why we st We start with mindset because success is 80% mindset.

It's only 20% strategy and skills. So the common [00:03:00] thinking is that if you find the right strategy, or if you increase your output or do more art, or if you improve your skills or focus on getting more credentials, that the doors will magically open the, if you build it, they will come mentality, right? . But here's the thing.

There are countless examples of people who started much, much later than you. In your same industry. In your same market, but they grew much faster than you. They're much more successful than you. And all of that is despite your skills and effort and everything that you've tried. So what gives my wife, I'm gonna steal an example from her because it's a perfect example.

Um, hopefully she'll forgive me, but she's been a photographer for over 20 years and is really, really, really good to tell you how good she is. There are two photographers in Utah that work with this one company. Out of all the photographers in Utah, which is like, um, [00:04:00] engagement and wedding mecca for , many, many people in, uh, the Mormon faith or the Church of Jesus Christ, the Latter Day Saints, there are co countless number of people getting married every week, year round, and yet, For a long time, she struggled and was really upset with how many newer photographers were coming out.

As soon as like the digital photography craze really took off in like the nineties and two thousands and 2010s, and it became where you could get a camera and a lens set up for 500 or a thousand dollars and call yourself a photographer. There were a lot of people who were doing. , and it was really frustrating for her because she was looking at an industry that she'd spent 15, 20 years honing her craft and building her skills and building her business, and people were coming in and stealing all the work.

And the mindset that she had at that time was a very limiting one. And so her business shrink, whereas other people's businesses grew. And so what. . What's the, what's the deal here? [00:05:00] The answer is that those people had a different mindset, so we're gonna talk about how can you do that yourself? If you feel like you are stuck and you are trying to grow, and you're doing all the work and you're working really hard, what gives?

How do we figure this out? All right, let's do that. Your mindset is a combination or the culmination of all of your beliefs, your values, your desires, your needs, and your approach to the work that you do. So if you believe that the industry that you're in is just a hard industry, that's part of your mindset.

If you feel like the economy is making it hard to. Have a successful business that's part of your mindset. And so all of those things together, you can look at those beliefs and values and desires and needs and really take a, a really deep look and ask yourself, is this a limiting mindset or is it a [00:06:00] empowering.

So if you're looking to make the shift from a limiting mindset to an empowering one, let's start with just two things. Two things that you need right off the bat are faith and resilience. So what are these two? What do they mean? Faith means that you believe that an action will lead to a result. So faith is belief plus action.

This is the start of what I call the creator flywheel, and it starts where your mindset. Dictates your actions which determine your results, and those results expand your potential. And when the potential is expanded, that increases and improves your mindset and the cycle repeats mindset, actions. results potential.

Okay? So you can write that in a circle and draw arrows between them all, and you want to go in that order because when you don't, a limiting mindset is the reverse of that. It's where your mindset is one, where you believe that there [00:07:00] is no potential and that the results are external to your actions, so you don't take any action, which impacts your mindset even further.

So if you think of this as. Going the right way is going clockwise from mindset to actions, to results, to potential. If you go counterclockwise, that may be what you are experiencing right now. If you're stuck, you've got a limiting mindset that leads to a very small potential and you are externalizing the results and saying that they are out of your control.

And so since they're out of your control, you take no action or very little action. And. Counterclockwise is why you're stuck or even going in reverse. So what we always want to do is think about how can we get that flywheel moving in a clockwise rotation? Okay? So you do that with these two things. You start with faith, which leads to action, okay?

And that action leads to results. And that those results increase your potential. And you see that and it shifts your mindset and it keeps going [00:08:00] and going and going. It's a virtuous. So let's look at the second one. The second piece you need after Faith is Resilience. Now resilience is where. You have this belief that you will approach your creative work with patience, with resourcefulness, with discipline, with hard work, that you're not gonna give up after three or six or nine months.

You're not gonna get discouraged if it doesn't work after five or 10 or 20 issues of your newsletter, or episodes of your YouTube channel, or episodes of your podcast or 10 clients. , right? You're gonna keep going. You're gonna continue every single day to do more of what works. And less of what doesn't.

That's kind of an encapsulation of what resilience means. You're gonna show up every day, you're gonna be consistent. You're gonna do more of what works and less of what doesn't. So those two together are a really great start and a foundation to building your mindset, but [00:09:00] also Kickstarting this creator.

Flywheel, which a flywheel is great because it starts and it's, you know, inert. It's not moving at all. So it takes a lot of effort to get started, but with each rotation of that flywheel, it picks up momentum to where the, it reaches a point where it just, Is almost going on its own. It takes very little effort to continue that flywheel growing.

And the more, the more cycles, the more rotations, the more times around, the better your actions get, the better your results, the bigger your potential and your mindset grows. Okay, so let me share my story about this. It took me 12 years. to produce my first feature film 12 years. I attribute a lot of my success to the fact that I didn't give up for 12 years

Okay. That's the resilience piece, and really the faith piece too, that it, my belief was if I kept working hard that it would work. So for 10 or so years, 10 or 12 years, [00:10:00] really, I was working hard. I was trying different. I was trying to, in pre increase my skills, I was reading all the books, I was attending the conferences and the seminars and the events, and I was doing all the things, but it never happened.

So it wasn't until I shifted my mindset to focus on an outcome of producing a movie and making daily progress, doing more of what worked and less of what doesn't. That it finally worked out. I shifted my mindset. Okay, and within four years, I had produced four seasons of television as a senior producer, two documentary projects, a TV pilot that I was hired to produce, and three independent feature films, one of them internationally last year.

That's all within the last four years. So when you shift your mindset, that's when everything changes. I tried for years and years and years and years with no. And honestly, I had a limiting mindset. I was [00:11:00] approaching things the wrong way, so my strategy was ill-informed, and so I never got the results I wanted.

It wasn't until I shifted my mindset that everything changed, so, What should you do, right? Because you don't wanna just take in information, you need to implement things. That's where the rubber hits the road. That's where your business starts to grow. So what do you do if you have been working your butt off for years and years and you feel like you're stuck?

Or if you are stuck, you are unable to grow and progress you. You don't need a better. , you need a better mindset. So you have to start by shifting one belief that by doing more of what works and less of what doesn't. That's where you'll find success. You're gonna shift by saying, I'm gonna have more faith.

I'm going to increase my resilience. You start with those things, and then it's about taking action, but not just any action or the same action. It needs to be a different and bigger action. So you need to commit to it. You need to do it consistently [00:12:00] for as long as it takes. Okay, this is Faith plus Resilience.

It's not just about trying it once and oh, that didn't work for me. It's about starting a new daily or weekly habit. It's about building a system around it so you can ensure that you show up consistently. So that might mean that you're gonna show up first thing in the morning and you're gonna write for 20 minutes, or that every Friday you're gonna take an hour or two and you're gonna produce another episode of your YouTube channel, or your newsletter, or your podcast, and you're gonna.

Every single week, no matter what the results are. Cuz right now it's not about the results, it's about, it's about shifting your mindset. So you have to build a habit. And the last thing I would recommend is to turn off negative reinforcers. So for example, this is something I see a lot if you follow a lot of people who talk about their wins all the time and where they're traveling to.

Beautiful pictures of their family and their new car and their new computer and their new camera, and their biggest gig that they just did. You [00:13:00] gotta turn those off. Okay. If they are a source of discouragement rather than inspiration, turn 'em off. So unfollow them or in my recommendation is just turn off the social media channels and.

Go on a social media break for a month to three months and give yourself a nice reset where you're gonna say, I'm gonna start over. I'm gonna have a new mindset. And that includes not having negative reinforcers showing up on my feet every day. And then you can use that time to take more action that gets the results that you want to build that new habit and to show up consistently.

Okay. So you might be hearing all this and going, well, okay, I've, I've never done. I don't know what to do. I'm freaking out a little bit here. Well, first thing you need to know is that it's not a one and done event. Okay? It's not even a pass or fail type thing. You, if you're showing up consistently, that's success.

It's not, there's no like mountain to summit here. It's not a one and done event. It's a new practice, a new approach to creative work, a way to [00:14:00] align your business with your needs as a creator so that you can do this for a long. So it takes work, it takes patience. It's gonna take a while, and that's okay.

So don't stress if you haven't done it before. The sooner you get started, the sooner you'll reach the point where it, that flywheel is really taking effect. So, yes. . It takes time. I've been doing this for years and it still feels like I have a long way to go. When it comes to mindset, it's a process, but I guarantee you if you give it six to 12 months of very consistent effort, you show up every day and you're working on your mindset and you're taking action.

You have faith and resilience. Then if you give it six to 12 months, you're gonna see a massive difference in your mindset. That's just how it works. You can do this, okay? Everyone can do this. I know that you've probably read all the books, you've taken all the courses, you've gone to the conferences, and you've done all the things to try to get unstuck.

The reason they haven't worked is cuz those are [00:15:00] all strategies. . They're not mindset. Okay? You may not want to try something else. You may be burnout. You may be jaded. I'm gonna ask you one more time to give it a try. Okay? You have, you likely haven't done this. You likely haven't shifted your mindset. So if you keep the same mindset, but try different strategies, it just doesn't work again.

Because strategies are only 20% of the equation. Mindset is the other 80%. So we have to shift your mindset from a limiting one to an empowering one. We need faith and we need resilience. You have to shift from impatience to patience. You need to thi stop thinking about the lack of resources to being resourceful.

Go from fear to faith, inaction to action. Okay. If you want to get started in your mindset as a creator, check out the link in the show notes. Uh, depending on when you're listening to this, I either there's an upcoming workshop where I'm doing about this, or I'll just put the replay to this [00:16:00] one. I'll, I usually make those private in my community, but for this one, I'll put it a link to the replay.

in the show notes. So grab the link, either come to the workshop or watch the replay. It's probably a 60 to 90 minute, um, deep dive on mindset. So if that's the thing that you're like, man, yeah, I believe this stuff, I think I need to give mindset a try. This will help you take the next step. To grab, um, a, a really great in-depth workshop on mindset in building your bespoke creative business, how to build a business that supports your mindset, that gets your needs met, and helps you do this work for a long, long, long time.

All right, so either next week or the next episode is about the next step in the movie framework, which is outcomes. We're gonna talk about outcomes for you, outcomes. Your audience and how to get more of both. So thanks for listening and we'll see you in the next episode.