Bridging Faith and Creativity | Allen C. Paul

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Welcome to another episode of The Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn to turn— try that again— the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Yuma, Arizona. I've never been to Yuma. Arizona is beautiful. Thank you for listening. Joining me today is Alan Paul of God and Gigs. Alan, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Christian. It's such an honor to be here. Looking forward to a great conversation, my friend.

I am too. Uh, I love the conversations we've, we've had on your show and, um, before, not related to shows. Uh, I love the energy that, that you bring. So I'm excited to hear about what you got going on, um, with God and Gigs. So Fill the listeners in on like, what is God and Gigs? How did that come about? What does Alan do?

Well, every time I tell this story, I feel like I have to go into like, you know, the where were you when, right? Go back into the time machine. And the origins of God and Gigs kind of comes from my own origins as a musician, as a church staff, I guess you could call, you know, person that's been working inside the church pretty much since I've been 14, 15, 16 years old. So the story basically begins with me as a musician in a church serving, pretty much not playing any secular music at all. You got to remember that there's these people that kind of divide the line between, oh, there's music for God and there's music for everybody else, right? So we have to assume first that kind of dichotomy where people think of, well, people who play in church can't play anything else or else, you know, the devil's, you know, giving that to the devil. So to be honest with you, I was in that camp, you know, for years. I did not play very much anything except playing on Sundays in church and every other rehearsal and every other, you know, you name it in terms of your whatever type of denomination you're in, you know, that the music ministry is pretty much all-encompassing. It's all the choirs and all this other stuff. That's what I was doing until basically, Christian, I know this all sounds weird, but I kind of heard a voice from God saying, hey, you're supposed to be doing something else. So I was basically We'd be hearing a voice saying, go to— from full-time ministry, which most people in the Christian world would say, that's your ultimate calling. And I was hearing a voice saying, yeah, you shouldn't be doing that anymore. So long story short, I ended up giving my resignation to my pastor at the time, my senior boss, whatever, at the time that he was trying to give me my promotion letter. So I exchanged unemployment for promotion. And now what do I do? Okay, I've just given away literally my job. And I'm still going to be serving in this other church where I ended up landing, but that was a part-time position. And so now what do I do? Well, I got to go back to my training as a musician who originally was playing jazz and R&B and all these other things, which again, you know, not exactly Christian. And I figured out I got to figure out how to make a living doing this. So I ended up playing in a blues bar for some $50 and some fish dip every Thursday. Yeah. And I realized this is not sustainable either.

Right.

Right. Okay. Working in the church full-time was not apparently my full-time position or calling, but neither was, you know, trying to play for pennies as a musician. I didn't know how to make a living. So started calling up some of my friends, people that I had heard and saw in church. But I also found out, oh, they also do this for a living as well. So a couple of interviews, couple of talks, and then realized this is not just me. There's hundreds of musicians, artists, creatives who also struggle with the balance between the secular and the sacred, the mainstream media and the ministry. So what God and Gigs basically is, is how do we marry and connect the dots between our spiritual lives and our creative lives. So it started with the book God and Gigs, then turned into a podcast, now is an entire community, an entire membership, everything based on how do I help people to thrive in everyday life as a creative by becoming the creator that God created them to be. So that's the long story short. Of God and Gigs where it started, you know, from a musician who didn't know how to figure out how to play outside of church to now, how do I help creators avoid that problem and be able to connect the dots between their spiritual life and their creative life?

How long have you been doing this then?

Started the blog and the book around 2015, '16. The podcast in 2017.

Okay. I'm curious. Most people probably aren't curious, but I'm curious. Being full-time in the church versus being part-time in the church, how has that changed your perspective on like what your calling is supposed to be? So kind of like this idea you said, like if you're a Christian, the ultimate calling is to be called full-time into ministry. That's what you thought. God turned you around and sent you the other way. How has that changed your thinking on that?

Ah, I love this question because I, number one, I'm so glad that I was challenged in that thinking because it was incorrect, right? Now, a lot of my writing now goes directly to erasing that idea that somehow ministry has to happen only, or the fullest way of doing ministry is only when you're full-time. And again, what is full-time, right? If I draw a salary from the church, there are people who volunteers who do way more during the week than I do. And I currently, again, could be called a full-time, you know, church staff member because I draw a salary. But there are people that spend just as much time— are they no less full-time workers in the ministry? Because everything they do, they're trying to bless other people, just trying to help other people, whether it's, you know, in whatever field they are in. That's where I think the And the way I was going to answer your question is I feel like sometimes we treat the full-time ministry as if it's some kind of special bubble that once you're in the bubble, like, well, you don't get out. Like, this is where you're supposed to be. You're supposed to— everything you walk, talk, think, and act is all about the church, which again, it's not a bad thing. Of course, you know, I'm not casting any aspersions on those who are called to basically live this out and do this all the time. But what about the 90% of people who, like Paul, have parallel careers. He was a tent maker, and we know from the scripture he never stopped being a tent maker. He continually continued to work. When people couldn't pay him in his churches, he was doing his profession. You name every other profession in the Bible, they continued to work even as they were doing ministry. Even Jesus being a carpenter, right? So I think unfortunately the, the picture of ministry being this high We want to hold these people in honor, of course. But it changed entirely for me in seeing that there is no dividing line. I'm always going to be operating in my gifts and my callings and my talents wherever I do, wherever I go, and whatever I do. So there shouldn't be some kind of flip of some switch. Yeah. When I step outside of the four walls of a church and go play for a a bar mitzvah or a wedding or whatever, it's still me giving of what God gave me. And just because I get paid for it doesn't mean I'm gonna do it with any less of amount of a eye of service or a mindset of service. It's still the same action, just a different role. And so that's where it's changed for me.

I think that that's a, I don't wanna say a false dichotomy, But it's something that I don't know that really Christ intended or the early church was obviously designed where there were two classes of people, the professionals and the congregants. And, you know, I can say 30 years sitting in a pew, It was way too easy to say, well, that's the professional's job, right? It's too easy to not live out your obligation as a follower of the Way if you accept that paradigm. And I also think it kind of And this is probably way too deep for most of our audience, but maybe your listeners are listening. I, I, I, I think it actually is, is, is in a lot of ways going back to the, the Old Covenant and the old model where, you know, you had, uh, a, a separate tribe, the Levites, that were supported by the nation of Israel, right? Your, your 10th your tithe went to go support them because they didn't own land, right? And so they were professional clergy, right? Um, and I, I, I, I, and, and you had, uh, a temple eventually. I mean, you had the tabernacle before, and, and then you had the temple, and that was like where God dwelled, right? Yeah. And Christ came and flipped that on its head and said, "You all are priests," right? And God is everywhere. "I am the temple," right? And so I think there's something in us that kind of wants to get sucked back into professionals and buildings and that's church.. But I don't think that's the fullest evolution of that.

Well, that's a very astute and insightful way to think of why that paradigm no longer or never really should have been the way that we look at service to a ministry, service to church, service to God. Because immediately as soon as you start talking about profession, the, you know, I'm just a word geek, right? My very first thought was, wait, well, the beginning of the word profession is profess, period. So in the original idea of that word, a profession is not just something that's a label. A profession is how you see the world. My profession goes along with my confession, right? So now I profess the gospel, and therefore I am a professional.

Yes, yes, right.

So what— so I think you're exactly right. The label of the priest, the labor of all those other— again, holy. That's why we're being careful.

I'm being careful about—

I'm not saying that a full-time pastor somehow is a lesser in any way. No, uh, calling— it is an equal calling. Yes, with just as much honor bestowed as on the Christian janitor who's called to do his best service, right? To make sure that every single time that someone walks in they will understand that somebody who cares about God and cares about serving people has made sure that their life is so much easier when they walk into a clean facility. That is just as much service. I think again, Colossians, and again, we're going deep into ministry or the word, but I can't help it. Do everything as unto the Lord. He didn't say only do ministry in church as unto the Lord. So like, I'm glad you're saying again, to those who might say, okay, well, this is not really me. I love the idea of just bringing your best to everything you do and not waiting for some kind of green light from the— from heaven. Yes. To say, oh, this is worth doing well. Like, it's worth doing well because you have the skill and the ability to do it. And every time you do that, people will look back and say, hey, what— how did you get to where you are? How do you— why do you do things the way you do it? And then you have the chance to profess. You have the chance to tell people, well, you know, let me tell you a little more about why I do things the way I do them. And so that's where I think, again, there isn't a dividing line. But again, God and Gigs kind of came from that with having to kind of erase that whole stigma of, oh, I'm in a church and I serve all the time, or I play outside, or I perform or sing or dance or draw or whatever. And somehow there's some lesser or greater amount of honor if I do it in a certain place. So that's absolutely— I agree with you 100%.

Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that Full Commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now. Yeah, to me it's about being a person of integrity, which, you know, I think most people would say that's a good thing. And yeah, but in the sense that it's— I am in integral or integrated being. I'm not different in one place than I am in another. I may do different things. I may say different things because I'm in a different place, but I'm not different. Right. I, and I think you and I talked about this on your show. I, for a lot of my life, I thought that there were two things that you didn't bring into the workplace and they were religion and politics. And, you know, I I never hid my faith, but I kind of kept it from the workplace, especially as the owner. You know, I didn't want to be seen as overbearing or evangelizing or like, you know, not that that ever was an issue, but I didn't want that perception. But here's what happened is I realized that I couldn't, you know, and this is only a couple of years on, that I couldn't live that way anymore, right? I was talking to a friend yesterday that I hadn't talked to in 25 years. We spent an hour on the phone. And I said, it's not like I'm Jesus all the time, you know, everything's Jesus all the time. But I said, if you keep talking to me long enough, it can't help but come out, like, and I'm not going to stop it from coming out. Right? Like, that's the difference is I'm not going to hold up short because I'm afraid that someone's going to get offended by what I say. And, you know, I think if you think about it, Jesus was one of the most offensive humans that ever lived in the sense that, like, people took offense to what he said.

Right? Right.

And he was killed for it. So the expectation that somehow you living out your faith is not going to ruffle some feathers is not— it's not realistic.

Yeah, no, I love the fact that you're walking out what you're discussing, having to be a business owner, having to be someone that leads other people. And we're always told in Scripture that we are in it, not of it, right? That's Jesus's words himself. You're in the world, but not of the the world. So yes, we are in these businesses, we are called to be among other people who don't believe the same thing that we believe. And I remember a quote by C.S. Lewis that says, the truth is like a lion, you don't need to defend it, just let it out of its cage. And it's true, the truth does not need you to somehow once again, think about yourselves as some kind of holy roller soldier that beats everybody with the Bible. That's what all of us are. Not only realize that it's not what God's calling, it's ineffective. It's just not, just not going to work. And the second half is, like you said, is not putting your light under a bushel. One of the— my greatest— thank God, I don't know where I realized it or who, which teacher opened this up to me first, but when the Bible refers to good works over and over again, So let your light so shine before men, they may see your good works, right? You are being created as God's workmanship for good works in Ephesians. Good works is not, again, evangelism. It's literally that— good work. Did you do good work? Did you shine the shoe? Did you clean the car? Did you get the books right? Did you treat that customer with respect? Good works. That's what gets people to glorify God, not your sermon or you're texting your coworker a Bible verse. Correct. Like, your good work is the greatest witness you will have. Because here's the difference. Let's say you evangelize on your job. Let's say you tell your coworker about your— or your employees about your faith, and then you short them on their checks, and then you talk bad about them. Guess what? You've just done more damage Yes, because of your poor work. Yes. So God says, I ain't worried about your evangelism. Do good work first, and then we'll get to the part where you actually share your faith, because the second half is not going to happen without the first half. So I love this conversation because it points to the fact that we have to do, do the things that we say that we believe in before we ask people to follow us and to be part of, you know, actually learn— like you mentioned earlier before we recorded about sharing your faith, right? God does the rest with the people who need to hear from him and everything, but we have to start with being the people that he's called us to be and being very, very, uh, uh, um, uh, intentional about the way we show up in with other people that we are involved with, that we're in relationship with.

Yes, 100%. I, I put, uh, I don't remember what they call it. It's the, uh, it's not a dedication, it's whatever they put in the front of the book. I don't remember what they call it.

Forward or—

yeah, no, it's, it's, it was just one sentence, uh, uh, in the beginning God created, and, uh, I said, yeah, gotcha. Yeah, I don't know what they call that. Uh, in the beginning God created, and, uh, you I can't remember the exact wording. I'm quoting my own book. Hold on a second. You gotta go look back.

I love it. No, for all authors, this is a common issue. You are not the first person who's forgotten what's in the book. I cannot tell you 90% of what I've written over the last 5 years.

I wrote it down so I didn't have to remember it.

Exactly. So I didn't have to remember it.

The quote is, "In the beginning, God created. God created man in his own image." And then my statement was, you were made to create. Um, and I, I think that what you do with creators of all types is, is of the highest calling, because when we create, we are glorifying our Maker, right? Um, and because we're, we're imitating him and what he does. How has that influenced how you've done, like how you've gone about it? Because you got 9 years on, 10 years on here. How has that evolved?

Well, I love this question because evolved is the right word. I've arrived at an understanding of what that means. And so I'm going to start from the end and work my way back to the beginning. The end is right now I'm writing devotionals on YouVersion specifically for that very reason. I've done a series on the creator's, right? So the creator's, apostrophe S, the creator's craft, the creator's purpose, the creator's— currently I'm working on the creator's legacy, the creator's battle. All these are like maybe one day a book. But the reason why I landed on this is because I realized how are we trying to train other creators in this creator economy, right? Where everything is a YouTube, everyone's a content creator, everyone's a podcaster, everyone's got a microphone. So we have all now taken on this label. I even struggle, Christian, with do I keep calling people creatives or creators, right? And the main reason I made the shift from creative to creator was this shift I saw in the culture where everyone was using the word content creator. Mm-hmm. So just because of the culture, I realize that we are basically glorifying— I don't know what the right word is, but we are elevating the creator in everyone to say this is something you should aspire to. How in the world can we do that without actually looking at the original creator? Why in the world would anyone try to follow a template of creating without looking at, like you said, the original Creator who made the heavens and the earth and say, how does He do it? So my— now this become my almost my entire message. Now before, I saw it a lot more piecemeal with, oh, let's just help musicians figure out how to keep their faith, and these are the different steps, and oh, you know, other people, let's do this. But now I see it as a whole where it used to be much more segmented. Let's read the Bible more, let's do prayers, you know, journals, things like that. And I'm like, you know, oh, let's adopt more spiritual habits, right? And again, well and good. I'm not saying I was wrong. I'm just saying I feel like I have a more total picture of that, which is 100% God. Anytime I want to build a website, anytime I want to— how do I promote? Anytime I want to think of what's this area of the creative lifestyle, the creator lifestyles, like what I like to call it now, the creator lifestyle should be based on the way that the Creator for did everything. And again, it should be— that should be a no-brainer. But the fact that it took me 10 years to kind of figure out how to put that into words is— no, I love that it's not as easy to like figure it out.

No, because I, I think, I think, I mean, just as you're explaining it, it has become more prevalent, maybe elevated Uh, but in, in some ways it's been cheapened, right? The, the term creator, um, because we all know that a lot of what is created out there is probably shouldn't be created. Um, but I, I wonder how many of people that identify as creators somehow, content creators, whatever, if, if they would, how many of them believe in a creator? Like, they're acting as a creator, they're labeled as a creator, but have they considered from whence that came?

I'm wondering. That's a great question. And I would— okay, so there's no way to answer that, right? Except to go by what the interactions I've had. And obviously my interactions are 90% with people who have already a faith and who do understand. I'll say it like this. Because I have seen while they may not profess Christian, Christianity, every single person that gets up on the Grammys or whatever, they're going to say something like, I thank God, I thank the universe, the universe brought this. There is an implicit understanding among creators, right? That what I have doesn't come from me. We are in camps The Artist's Way, you name all these, Big Magic. I'm naming other books, right, that people talk about. How do I engage the creative? How do I get to the divine? There is an implicit understanding that unless, you know, and this is why the funny thing, not to make a total left turn, but the AI thing is where I think it's so funny because now we're turning to this creation to try to make us creative.

Right.

When all it's doing is taking a massive everybody's creativity and trying to dumb it down into one sentence or one particular thing. So even that is proof that, yeah, you cannot get to the creative without believing in some form of creative force, some form of something outside yourself, because I just think the nature of that informs you. And again, there's a million different ways people adopt that in terms of their own religious or even non-religious belief, but just knowing that there's some kind of ethical, moral place that they should land, right? So I do think that there is something to that, that every creator recognizes it in some way. But I think the way they recognize it is different.

I think you're right. Because I think when you talk to creators, that they, you know, it's like, where did that inspiration come from? Where is that 'How did you do this?' They don't have an answer. They know that there's something besides themselves that's causing this, right?

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Okay, I'm going to pivot a minute. Let's talk about your community because I think that's a, a huge missing piece in the, in the creative space. What, what I have seen is more of a lack of community around the business side of things. Like most of the creative cohorts that I've seen are— this may sound like I'm denigrating it, but it's like show and tell. It's like, you know, the look what I've done, which is great. Nothing wrong with that. But then, you know, and encouraging the creative aspects of it, but not really the business aspects of it. But I'm curious what you've seen on your end as far as the community element that's lacking and you're trying to fill.

Mm.

Well, I love the fact that you first pointed out the struggle of community, right? Like, where do you find it? Even when you find it, is it effective? Mm-hmm. How do you deal with the the overarching feeling of, well, everybody's competing for attention, right? So you go to social media and everyone's like, this is why you should follow me, follow me, blah, blah, blah, very individualistic versus this collaborative idea that, hey, let's all get together and share ideas, build each other up, whatever we need to do within the community where the community grows, we grow versus I have to grow and be, you know, the, the island that all ships land on, right? So the first thing would be, for me, what I feel is lacking that I'm trying to fill is what I would call creative isolation. And the reason I say that is because it has never been easier to be connected on our social media platforms and everything. And because of that, it is so easy to be alone because we have substituted real relationship for this kind of faux, oh, well, I just have a lot of followers and I connected with a lot of people, but I don't really go deep with anyone. I would much rather go deep with 5 than have 5,000 who are just, you know, so that part I think is one thing I'm trying to fill, which is the depth of relationship, the depth of community, and people realizing that for you to really grow as a person, you have to have a deeper connection with other people who know what you want to know, and want to grow the way that you want to grow. Like, that's it. So if you don't have that in business, if you don't have that in ministry or church, or you don't have that in your community or friends or family, whatever, you are lacking as a person, period. That's just it. You know, I usually go back to this Bible verse that usually people use for weddings and marriage. It is not good that man should be alone. Yes. I don't take that as a wedding thing. I think that that's a, that's a person thing. Like, yes, we need connection. So that's the first thing I'm trying to fill is kind of like the, that surface level, or just, you know, be, be, be out here and posting and stuff. But you really don't know anybody. Like we talked about it before we got brought on the recording, even in terms of podcasting, right? Like, who's on the other side? Who's actually listening? Who cares? So that's the first problem I'm trying to solve with community, which is why we created Guiding Geeks 360. And quick note, just an aside, it's why I took it off of Facebook. I just, I got rid of my Facebook group because it was not leading to depth of community. It was me trying to not be distracted by all the foolishness and the political and all the other stuff that was flooding my timeline, whereas Facebook is trying to get me to pay attention to what they want me to pay attention to.

Yes.

So that was my first goal, was get people either in live into a room, right? A live coffee shop, a live whatever situation where we do these coffee, uh, these, uh, meetups and really get to see what your problems really are and how can we help them and address them beyond the surface level, beyond just send you a PDF, right? And then the second thing is, again, I feel like now it is even more important that we help people to see your answer to your problem is not in ChatGPT, it's in another person. Yes, like it's, it's in another person that you truly are going to find the answers that help you grow. So that part, I think, again, I've seen so many places where people just want— again, I've been one of the people, I built courses, right? I've built courses, I've done it. But so many times I found it like, wait a minute, like I'm putting the cart before the horse. I'm trying to give people solution before they understand the problem. So, yes, figure out the problem by talking to other people and figuring out, oh, whether I'm a creative, whether I'm a musician, whatever, here's what's really bugging me. And those conversations— there's never conversions before conversations. Look at Jesus, woman at the well. He didn't start with, you need to get saved. He started with, can you give me a glass of water? Yeah.

Like, and, and as you're describing this, I'm like, that I think is a ubiquitous problem is in all businesses, not just creative businesses, but we're as business owners going around and trying to solve symptoms as opposed to diagnose. It's, it's the quick fix. It's the quick hit. You get this $49 course and it's going to solve your problems or whatever it is without ever really delving into the problem behind it. And I think you're 100% right, unless you're engaged with a person, there's no way to get that depth of understanding. Um, yeah, you, you can't even read it. It's like, it's like the difference between reading a book on your own, uh, versus doing a book club, right?

Great analogy, right?

And you're sitting there, I mean, you can get something from the book, but How much deeper is that conversation when you're talking to others that have read the book, right?

Exactly.

So do you do a live component in what you're doing in your community?

Yes. I love the fact that this is— again, I had to learn the hard way how communities work, and that's probably what I want to piggyback on you, right, when you said that, which is for business owners, truly, we look at bottom line stuff. All the time, right? We say, okay, was this effective? What's their ROI? Da da da da da da. This does not immediately bring their ROI. It is a long-term building of what eventually becomes a customer base of what, you know, people love to say, like the 1,000 true fans, right? But it starts with those 2 or 3 that you're just willing to go deep with and say, hey, whether or not I ever build this thing, this is the stuff that will actually make it sustainable over over time. And whether you call it brand affinity or whatever you wanna call it, it's the actual buy-in of people because like you said, we actually understand their needs versus just trying to get them to pay for something real fast and not really know whether they're ever gonna stay a customer. So overall, it's a long-term play that doesn't bring a whole bunch of immediate cash, but it does build the foundation for a, you know, million-dollar business, whatever you wanna call it, because you have people that you truly understand. So then what you asked about the live component, absolutely. We do at least 2 calls a week, a month for our gold members. I'm constantly doing live streams every Friday with God and Gigs. So I go live every Friday, 1:00 PM Eastern. Um, it is, it's been my struggle to get out of my own way and worry about like literally this live stream today. I had a snap where I nearly knocked myself in the head with a camera. Like, it's like, the worst of the worst production value. And at the same time, it's like, but I showed up for people. And when you show up for people, you give them permission to show up for other people. So it absolutely is, is imperative for each one of us to get away from the avatars, get away from the AI, and show up for people authentically. Because that is, again, I think in business and in life, it's the only way that you truly see growth and opportunity is when you make yourself vulnerable and available to other people. And the community is the number one answer to that.

Yeah. And I was thinking, you know, one of the things I preach on this show, preached in the book, is knowing what problem you solve, right? Because we get roped into, especially if you have an existing business, in the things that you do, the activities you do, what you produce, as who you are being the solution to the problem. But I was reading somebody had a $20 million company. I don't remember what kind of company it was. But the guy asked him, it's in this book that I'm reading, the consultant asked them, he said, what's the number one problem of your customers? He said, I want you to write it down. And he wrote it down. He said, now I want you to go ask your customers. And he came back and it was like fifth on the list. And he was like, I shouldn't have a $20 million company. I should have a $50 million company because I'm not, I'm not really solving what they really need. Right? Yeah. And that's exactly what you're talking about, is, is truly understanding what it is, what the problem is that you're solving. Because one, what business is not complicated. I mean, you can make it complicated. That doesn't mean it's easy. But it is pretty simple in the sense that somebody has a problem and you solve it, right? But to your point, if, if you, if you don't truly understand that person and you're just making guesses about everything, how are you going to solve it? You're, you're going to, you're going to be gravitated to the symptoms, right? Oh, well, they say this or they're doing this. Well, that's, that's not a complete answer because you may not know why they're doing or saying or Yeah, right.

Absolutely. And I'll draw a funny example from a company, right, but that has nothing to do with creativity. Talking about shaving, right? I remember back when— remember when we first started getting the Dollar Shave Club and Harry's? And I was like, I'm never going to sign up for one of these subscription services. Finally, I think I saw one ad or something. It was, it was online back then. I don't think they were on TV me at all. And I went ahead and got a Harry's razor. Yes. However many years later, you cannot find a non-Harry's. I've got the balm, the— I've got every— like, I looked around, I was like, they got me hook, line, and sinker, man. Yes. But it's because here's what I think they did very, very well. And again, for other business views, and even creators, they saw my initial problem, which is I Razors are expensive and I don't want to go to the store. And then they solved the very next problem I had, which is I need to also have the shaving cream to go along with this. And I don't want to go for there either. So they didn't solve all my problems overnight. I just went and got the razor. They didn't try to like throw all this stuff at me. They evolved as a company. I remember all they had was razors, but they slowly started adding to their product line. What's the very next problem that I needed solved. And like I said, now you can— can't— you can't see me not using a Harry's product, but it's because they knew their customer. They figured it out and they have evolved and they have— I'm sure their market cap is huge now, right? So I don't even know all the details. I just know as a customer side, they figured out I needed the very next solution to the problem. And so I think when you say about knowing your— knowing your customer and knowing your people and wanting to be in community with them, is the desire to get that right from the get-go. And like you said, not guessing, not, not doing again the ChatGPT, what does my customer want, ask them. Um, there's a great book by Ryan Levesque, I love that one, it's basically that, Ask, right, it's the name of the book. And the entire thing is again, like, go out and talk to the customer, go out and talk to the people and have longer conversations. One of the best things I love about, um, what I do as far as guiding gigs is what I call TMI sessions. So TMI is not too much information. TMI is, for us, is too many ideas. And so, yes, we have too many ideas sessions. This is not registration. This is literally two friends of mine that came to my house and it's like, we want to be creative, but we have too many ideas. I was like, meet me on Zoom on Saturday at 10 o'clock. That's been our most popular thing. We don't charge. Show up and vent all your too many ideas and let's help you figure out like which one you should stick with. That was the problem. No, I didn't need a webpage. I didn't need a funnel. I just asked and they said, this is our issue.

It's a very real problem with anybody with a divergent mind is that there are too many options and getting the focus on what is the one thing that you should do is often a struggle. As you were describing Harry's, I was thinking about the example again from the book that I was just rereading was, um, Apple going back to the MP3 players. And everybody and their dogs were trying to produce MP3 players that had the most storage, smallest size, X features, blah blah blah. And Apple, in their brilliance, said, well, really, they're not buying an MP3 player. They're buying the convenience of being, of listening to music, right? So what did they do? They launched iTunes. And so it was really looking at the behavior immediately before and immediately after what they buy from you, right? Just like Harry's. Okay, I need a razor. What do I need? I need some shaving cream, right? And and solving the underlying problem, not just doing what everybody else is doing because again, they're just— there's a tendency, and I think with technology it's going to get worse, not better, to just follow the herd. And it's like everybody's in AI now, right? Okay, great. Does that mean you need to be in AI? Well, maybe, but not just because everybody else is, right? But that's the That's the tendency we all fall into. Why? Because there's comfort in it. Well, if everybody's doing it, then it must be safer, right? I mean, it's just that herd mentality. But as entrepreneurs, we have to step back and look at it, the whole picture, right? We have to understand the real problem. We can't just do what everybody else is doing.

And so I'm going to give a— I don't know how I'm going to use this, but I'm going to coin it. Maybe nobody else if it pays attention, but I am going to be leaning more into HI. Like, I am, I am, I am 100% human intelligence, right? Like, because I feel like what you just said, the herd mentality, is what unfortunately AI is built to amass and to profit from. Um, it is— no matter how creatively they try to spin it, it still going to deviate to the mean of what they think in terms of all this information is the, the one best answer, right? And, and, and no matter how much it tries to specialize, it will not ever be able to get to the depth of, well, Susie says this, this, this, this, this, because why? Privacy, obviously, right? Hopefully it never gets to the point where I can just read what Susie's thinking. I'm going to have to talk to Susie. Other than that, it's going to take 1,000 Susies and take what the average Susie would say, right?

Yes.

Well, in terms of his best guess.

Yes. And to your— that point, the average person has one testicle and what's the other? I don't remember, right? Whatever that is, like you can't— averages are dangerous.

Let's just say that. Exactly. That's about what I'm saying. What you're saying, the mean, the average, everybody's doing it. Brings you to mediocrity, right? 50% get it right, 50% get it wrong. And that's, that's the definition of mediocrity where, yeah, I'm right in the middle. And I believe that people want to look for the exceptional. They want to see the, the unicorn. They want to see the one that did it totally different, especially in the creator space, right? We, we aspire to that creativity like you just mentioned with Apple, where the whole comp campaign was Think Differently. I remember that. I'm old enough. I remember that campaign, right?

It had nothing to do with technology.

Nothing. It was the, like you said, the underlying problem, the psychographic, the understanding of who this person is and how they think is what drove them to create these products that now are ubiquitous. And now we say everyone's got an iPhone, but it's because they understood the underlying problem that pretty much every person has. And even Android and all the other companies are still trying to tap in to the problem that I, the iPhone figured out, right?

Yep.

So yeah, eventually it can become mass market because you solve a ubiquitous problem that all humankind has. That's great. But 90% of us are looking for that one specific niche problem and to really get to the heart of it. And that's why I have to be comfortable, honestly, as God and Gigs has become a bigger part of my life and the platform, I have to re ask that question again, who am I serving? Before, I was solving a problem for Christian musicians who play in church. I'm no longer solving that problem. So I have to go back and ask the question again. I just did this in the email. What's your single biggest issue right now? And my answers honestly were not the ones that I was expecting. Just like you said about that other, uh, example of the business, I'm doing the same thing. I'm reevaluating. I'm constantly putting my ego in check and asking other people, what am I missing? What's my blind spot? How can I serve you better?. And of course, I do hope that those things will help my business, but overall it's just treating people more like humans and less like robots and, you know, just a, a generalized AI kind of mass.

Very, very wise. Allan, how do people find God and Gigs if they want to participate?

Well, since they are on a podcast platform right now, I believe number one, they need to follow your show if they haven't already. If you are in my audience, you have not followed the Profitable Creative, Christian is not just a podcast host, he is a member of Got2Geeks360 as an established creative expert. His, um, his, uh, workshop that we did back, I think March or April, was it last year? It seems like forever ago, but he has a workshop inside Got2Geeks360 Creator Resource Center. So literally you're talking to someone who believes in what we're talking about. Now, if you are not a part of Got2Geeks already, Just go in that same app you're using right now to God and Gigs. Okay, just put in the username. You will find the podcast, The God and Gigs Show, and you will find all of our links connected to that show note. Okay, so go to the episode before, the episode that's coming out, however this comes out, and I guarantee you'll find something that will help you to become the creator that you were created to be by solving a temporary creative problem with a timeless spiritual principle. So that's honestly the easiest way for them to find it right now. And then all the different links and stuff like that, they'll find attached to those episodes.

I love that tagline. That's beautiful.

Say it again. Ah, the become the creator that God created you to be by solving timeless spiritual principles with temporary creative problems or temporary creative problems with timeless spiritual principles. See, I mixed it up. You mixed it up. Okay.

It was beautiful. I love it.

I was doing it one time.

I was like, oh my gosh, I have to do it again. Yeah, no, it was beautiful. Listeners, if you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you heard, I don't know what's wrong with you, but shoot us a message, let us know what you would like to hear, and we'll get rid of Alan. Until next time, ta-ta for now.