Don’t Work so Hard at Fitting In with Photoshop Hall of Famer John Paul Caponigro

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weddell. And before we get started, if you want to know exactly how to win again and again, go to Wydell on winning.com webinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind.

I am with John Paul Campanegro, one of the most renowned photographers in the world today. And the great thing about John is not only does he have an incredibly wide and super high quality and intriguing body of work, he also is every bit as energetic and organized about helping applies across the board to being useful in all areas of life. Because the creative process is, is what we're doing. You know, your, your life is an artwork and you get to be, you know, you're the artist in your life. And so I wanted to explore that with you. John, I've got something to put in front of you, but welcome back.

Thank you for having me back. That's great. That's great.

Hey, here's what I wanted to put on the table. I saw documentary or maybe two or three of them recently about. It's one of the most fascinating things of our time creatively is the rebuilding of Notre Dame.

Yeah. After the fire.

Yeah. And they documented, you know, after the fire and they went in and they had to go back and explore how this, how they built this sucker, you know, and you know, and they went back and opened up the whole subject that the great cathedrals, all these great pieces of architecture. Just staggering that, you know, they came up with a, the, the, the flying buttresses. Flying buttresses and how they, they, they had to invent all of these things. Like with the Coliseum, they had to invent concrete and had to invent bricks with the cop, you know, and had to figure out the water where they, they, they. The water supply from the mountains hundreds of miles away, you know, and guess what? There was no architecture schools back then. You know, when you think, when you think, you know, when you realize it was the tradesmen who figured out flying buttresses, it was the guys on the job bust in their rear who were, you know, lifetime, probably generations of people in metal working and woodworking and glass work and things like that came up with like, well, here's what we want, you know, and these, these vaulted ceilings that are just staggering today to pull off. They did it with like wood. Like, who were these people, you know, and where do they come from? But they, it's important for people to know, you know, it's encouraging that like you can build cathedrals in your life yourself if you're willing to get in there and bust your rear and put a team together of people who are excited about following you and excited about the project you're doing. And maybe they don't have that same drive and everything, but they want to be a part. You know, it's like you can't go out and win a national championship all by yourself, but you can be on a team and you can make a contribution to a team that wins the national championship. So you can't build a cathedral all by yourself. But, you know, but you can have, you know, the glass work, you know, the, you know, the woodwork, the stained glass and so the floor tiles and all of that stuff. So the deal is that when it comes, you know, we didn't have school, you didn't have to have a master's in architecture to do all of this. There were no schools like that, but they got done anyway. And a lot of these things have never been done match. You know, it's like they're just now trying to figure out how these obelisks got built in. And I don't know how they took them down like this. Supposedly there's one court in Egypt where there were 11 of these huge hundred foot tall obelisk there, but now they took them down and then they hauled them around the world, you know, like in Paris and then Berlin. And it's like, how do they take these things?

Yeah, a lot of it gets passed forward, but some of it remains a mystery like the lion or ink and stonework where you can, you can't push a piece of paper between these two huge blocks of stone that the.

Yeah.

So tight.

It's amazing engineering, absolutely amazing. But the lesson, there's a lesson there for us in that we don't have to go and get certificates in, you know, a permission to, you know. Like Zuckerman did not get a degree in social media before he created Facebook.

Because he created social media.

Yeah, yeah, he created. Yeah, I was degree.

I guess.

You know, I was with. We, we had a convention down in Atlanta and in the, the big dome there and the CNN headquarters is right next door. And I was inside many years ago, I was inside waiting at the elevator and there was Ted Turner. Ted Turner. And that was when he had. What's her name? Jane Fonda. They were the hot couple. And he was talking to her while they wait for the elevator and he said, you know, he said, I'm not qualified to do any job in this building or with this company. He said, I, he said I couldn't get a job here. And he said, but fortunately he said, I own the company, so I don't. And then he said, I do not have the money it would take to buy a building like this. But he said, fortunately, he said, I built it so I don't have to do that, you know, and so there's a lot to be said for just getting on with the big dream, because you and I both, like, if you look at what you've been able to accomplish in your life so far, is so many of us, when we have success, we go so far beyond what we had in our mind is that, you know, we had to work hard and we did all that stuff, but we would have worked around the clock if we knew how good it was going to be, you know, and you know what I'm saying, I didn't know I was working for this. I mean, I can't even remember the bad times hardly now. In fact, it is hard to get a lot of the super successful people to really talk in depth about their bad times because on this side of the mountain, the payoff is so staggering. Where the price was staggering early on, you know, the price of dealing with setbacks and defeats and people putting you down and demeaning you and ignoring you and making condescending comments, and then you work hard forever and you don't get a result. You know, just like when we all try to lose weight, you know, it's just so depressing. But.

Even harder for a corporation to lose weight.

Yeah, even harder for a corporation. Yeah. But you know, when you get out there and you see how great it is now, did you have any idea the payoff would be there?

No, no. I had certain qualities that I wanted to have in my life. Certain larger, more abstract goals that have been realized. But the specifics of it, I had no idea. You know, if you told me in the 1980s when I was in college that I'd be doing what I'm doing today, I'd say, where's your little jacket? You know, the white one that keeps your arms behind your back.

Right.

So you're going to be, you're going to be doing digital imaging. What's that? It didn't exist.

Yeah.

And you're going to be running workshops down to places like Antarctica. No way. Yeah, you just keep on going, oh, your iPhone's going to be in the Smithsonian.

What?

Wasn't even on the list. It's just a Nice little addition there, right? Other things happen along the way. And once again, we come back to this notion of process. You find your path by walking it. You start with a few steps, and eventually it develops into a longer road. You try and keep yourself going in the direction you most wanted to go, but it's going to unfold a little differently. And there's so much to learn about its unfolding. We learn not only about the path, but also about ourselves and how we want to travel it, get more out of our lives and make sure that we're going in the right directions. And ultimately we feel better about our achievements because they're truly ours. We're not making those achievements for somebody else. We've defined success and our goals for ourselves. And when we arrive there, it feels so good because it's like when I make an artwork, it's like, I made this, you know, and most of us had that feeling, you know, when we were like three or four or five, you know, show your drawing. Your mom said, look, Mom, I made this. Yeah, like, look, mom, no hands. Yeah, Like, I did this.

Yeah.

So I think when you're talking about those successful people who are looking back, they have that wonderful feeling, that grounding of having succeeded on their terms, and then the rest is icing on the cake. So it is easy to overlook the hard times where you haven't quite found what you're looking for, the conditions are not quite right. You still know you've got a lot of hard work to go. And I'm not sure why the hard work back in the early days, when. When your vision isn't as clear, when you haven't accomplished as much, when your successes are somebody else's and not your own, why that's so much more challenging, because when you do finally succeed, you kind of get addicted to that high and you still want to work. I mean, the notion that I would want to retire, there's parts of my business I don't want to have to run 10 years from now or even three. But I don't ever want to stop making images. The secret jacket, doing that the rest of my life, because I love it so much. And I want to work at it hard because I know it's more rewarding, more fulfilling, and I grow.

Yeah, well, the secret is, John, that you can retire from the boring, annoying parts and get hired. You know, if you're success, you know, you can become a surgeon and hire nurses. You know what I'm saying? You can. You can't be. If you're Successful enough, you can get people to drag the patients in, clean them up, get them all ready, and say, you don't even have to reach for things. Apple, you know, I mean, you can.

Start thinking creatively and make that plan.

Make it happen, right? You know, get the, the more successful you are, the more you can add the support team around you and not just have people, but have them. Excerpts like with our, our staff. I, I said I don't just have a staff. I've got a trophy staff. I don't have an all. I don't have an all star staff. They, they wouldn't last in our world. You know, I gotta have a trophy staff. And so when you, as you were starting out, what was the hardest thing for you to get yourself to do that would be, you look back. And it felt at the time as a grind that, you know, if I'm going to get where I want to go, I got to do these things. I really don't want to do it. And, you know, for a lot of independent businessmen, it's looking at the books and keeping up with the numbers and, and, you know, paying attention to the details rather than just trust somebody else. And then they wind up robbing you blind, which happens to a lot of us, you know.

Yes, it does.

Yeah.

Hey, listen, there's a lot of information online, but there aren't a lot of people who have actually done something. In my case, I've actually built a successful business, has accrued over $5 billion in assets under management, and has done well even during trying times. Now, if you want to know exactly how I've done this, go to Whiteellumwinning.com webinar Now, I've compressed a decade of learning into five short weeks. Just for those of you who want to give yourself an incredible advantage and are tired of waiting and watching others move up.

I think one of the big resistances for me as a visual artist was not wanting to talk or write about my work, to use words. And in some ways, my community stigmatizes artists who are articulate because, well, then they're writers or they're really more good at business than they are about making the art.

Okay.

But while I resisted writing, my first artist statement, when I finally finished was a process that I engage. And I learned a great deal about myself, my vision, and where I was going simply by writing that one or two pages. And it was, there was a little bit of external validation, and it was just external. When one of the professors at Stanford said, hey, do you mind if I Read this to my class.

Wow.

It's a good example of, like, an artist statement. It was my first, and I kind of got a taste for how I could grow by getting clear with words about what I was doing and where I want it to go. And you don't have to write in our statement for this. This could be a business plan. This could be a mission statement. This could be the elevator pitch that you use either when you're going up in an elevator or when you show up in a cocktail party at an. At a gallery exhibit or whatever it is. So what do you do? Well, I'm an environmental artist. I work in. I make land art in virtual space. What. What is that? Tell me more. Conversation starter.

Right, Right.

So words can be tremendously helpful, and I resisted them.

What was your driest spell? How did you keep yourself going through your driest spell when it was like, you know, we all reach, you know, it's not all a nice, simple climb to the top. You know, it's. There's valleys, and then some of the valleys are worse than others. Sometimes you cause them. Sometimes. Usually it's. You know, it can be the political situation, it could be the economic situation, could be personal things, financial things. You know, you make commitments, and then the funds don't come in.

Right, right. So I think there's. There's many kinds of dry spells. Let's. Let's work from the present back.

Okay.

This year, 2020, the past year, thank goodness, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. Light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah, hopefully, you know, I've been grounded. I got back from Antarctica in February, and everything got shut down. And I haven't been able to travel. People haven't been able to come in and take my workshops. My income has shrunk, you know, pretty dramatically, and you just kind of have to weather that. This great pause has been one of the most creative periods of my life. I've made over 200 images. I've written three books of poetry, a quarter book of a nonfiction book. I pulled my gallery talks online. So I'm improving my website. More importantly, I kind of filled my tank up. I'd been giving so much to other people that I needed to do this personal work to energize myself. Because when you're doing the thing you really love, you get off on it. It fills you up with energy. You know, you can see it in a performer. You can see it in yourself. When you're doing the things you love, you feel it. Is work. Some tree, you know, there's a Difference between grinding for somebody else.

Right.

And having put in a really long work week, month, year. But you're, you're still fulfilled by the work that you're doing. That's a different thing. So, you know, sir, there's been a financial dry spell this year, but in terms of the time that it's given me, it's been one of the best gifts that I've been given my entire life.

Well, people say who motivates the motivator? And you know, there are, I'm sure you have people that you plug into, friends that inspire you, things that inspire you. But most of the time it's the motivator that inspires the motivator because the motivated is. The motivator is working on things that fires himself or herself up.

Right.

And getting closer to that, learning more about that. And you know that that just creates the, the furnace, you know, that keeps that, that fire burning.

But so there have been creative dry spells as well. Let's, let's wind it back 10, 15 plus years ago when I've got too many people working for me and I'm trying to make salary and I'm doing all of these other things that's busy work for me. But I'm not putting in the time that I want to create the things I want to do, nor am I putting my energy into the things that challenge me and keep me alive to it. Yeah. And I'm looking at burnout. You know, it's like this is not going or I'm going, I'm not filling my tank, I'm on this treadmill. It's not working for me.

Yeah.

So luckily I'm self employed. And I've always said you need to be as creative with your business as you are with your art. You know, that applies to life.

Right.

So if it's not working for you now, where do you want to go? Let's reverse engineer where you want to go. Set the vision and then take the steps back. What's the first step you need to take now to move towards that goal and of course stay open and flexible to it. So there have been many times where I've shifted from teaching digital printmaking and I feel like I'm also can teach something out in the field on location, not just be behind the computer. Yeah. So let's shift the brand a little bit. Let's write some more articles, let's offer some workshops yourselves. Well, suddenly I've got my own workshop program instead of teaching for everybody else.

Yeah.

And lets me go out and make opportunities like that. Am I going to have to get an NEA grant like Elliot Porter did to go down to Antarctica? How long is that going to take for Surreal Composites? Good luck. Yeah, no, I'm going to develop my own workshop program. And I partnered with a wonderful guy, Seth Resnick. You know Seth. Well, he's appeared here, said, hey, let's make this thing work because we want to go back there.

And we did.

So now, 2022, we're going to go back for the 13th time and make those opportunities happen. But it doesn't happen if you don't set the vision. In fact, the very first trip to Antarctica, I always wanted to go to Antarctica. The minute I saw Elliot Porter in his late 70s, early 80s, he came back doing his Project Antarctica. My mom designed the book. Minute I saw that, I wanted to go. But very few people were going. There were no tourist ships. You had to get on a National Science foundation vessel, that kind of thing. You had to get special permission. I wanted to go. I didn't know how that was going to happen. Well, there was a period of time in my life where things really got shaken up and I just, I reviewed everything and I set my bucket list and I looked at all the locations and I put Antarctica right at the top of that list. Six weeks later, my colleague Michael Reichman calls up and says, hey, jp, do you want to teach a workshop with me in Antarctica? I didn't even have to reach out for it. Somebody came to me, but I set the intention very clearly.

Right.

I think Jim Carrey talks about this quite a lot. He wrote himself a million dollar check, right? Put it on the wall because I need to earn my first million. Like that sense of visualization, where do you want to go? Being clear about that and then being open enough and flexible enough that you know, when it swims by, you can catch it.

Yeah, yeah. You got to this thing about speaking into existence. I mean, you can go, you can go too far with that. But at least it turns your mind on. Like, okay, notice these things. Notice the. Notice the thing. Pay attention to the things that's going to get me there. If at all possible, wake up inside here, brain cells. This is what, you know, fetch. You know, it's like the dog is not going to run out in the field unless you throw the bone of the ball out there first. You know, that's what right about it.

You can take it too far. You can say, I want to play with the dog. I want to play with the dog. Throw the darn ball already.

Yeah, the dog's jumping up and down to throw them all.

Yeah, like that old joke, you know, in the flood and they're praying for, you know, God save us. And the helicopter comes by, they won't get on it.

Right, yeah.

Pearly gay helicopter.

Yeah.

Stay flexible, stay open.

Yeah.

Mysterious ways.

Yes. Yes. That's great stuff. Thanks so much, John, and look forward to the next time we can get together.

I look forward to too.

If you enjoyed what you've heard and are dead serious about finding out for yourself exactly how this works in the real world. I've taken the most valuable business lessons I've learned over 40 years and put them into something for you to watch. Go to whiteellawinning.com webinar now in order to move up as far as fast as possible, I'm Larry Widell and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go, go.