Hey, creative. I want to talk about the power of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, the internal dialogue we have and how we categorize us. To us. We talk a lot about how we categorize ourselves to others, but how we categorize ourselves to us internally is sometimes a little bit different. And I want to, uh, tell three stories about the stories we tell ourselves about us, that I’ve seen how people are, we’re able to change their internal narrative by telling it differently to other people externally. And it changed them on the inside, and it changed their creative careers in very real ways, <laugh> very dramatic ways.
So the first story is, uh, a, a friend of mine and, and a really, really neat artist named Ashley Feller. Ashley is a folk artist. She plays all kinds of really neat instruments, like unusual instruments, tin flute, accordion. She plays guitar, she writes songs. She’s just a very interesting human being. And she writes and sings this really cool, like Florida, uh, folk music. She’s, she’s neat. Okay, so a, uh, she still does that. She’s, she’s a, she’s a working musician, but I don’t know, a year, two years, maybe a couple. I don’t know. Uh, maybe during C O v, Ashley started a podcast called the St. Andrews Jezebel podcast. It’s one of my favorites. So I live in Panama City, Florida, and this is a podcast about Panama City and it features people in Panama City. It’s, uh, it’s great. Well, this thing just, it started doing really well, and then all of a sudden I started, uh, like on Ashley’s Instagram and her reels and stuff like that, she started talking about herself as a podcaster and a podcast producer saying it out loud.
I am a podcast producer, and she would ask questions online about podcast producing and what Mike’s and this and that. And all of a sudden she started posting about how, oh my gosh, people want me to help them produce their podcasts because she was a podcast producer and now she’s, she’s doing great. She’s still a musician and she’s doing this. But I’ve, I’ve watched Ashley bloom into this new creative field, uh, that she didn’t expect of. I bet you if I asked her, I said, did you expect this to happen? Like all of a sudden, you’re not just making a podcast for yourself, you’re producing them for others and doing all kinds of other neat behind the scenes, uh, work for others. It’s a business line. That’s great story number one. So, so she changed her story. She changed who, how She talked about herself to herself and the world responded.
Second one, Heather Clements, I think I’ve talked about Heather on this show before. She’s a dear friend and a great artist in, in multiple mediums. Um, but all the, uh, Heather over the last few years has developed into a muralist. She does mural, huge murals like a hundred feet wide murals. Now, when I, uh, I’ve been friends with Heather for a few years now and, and, uh, I mentioned years ago, she and I were talking about a possible project and I said, man, it’d be cool if your stuff would be a be a mural. And I remember her telling me, well, I’m not a muralist. I don’t, I don’t do murals. Part of her internal story was, I’m a, I’m a painter and I do watercolors and I do all these really beautiful paintings, but I don’t like, I’m not a muralist. Go to Heather Clement’s Art Heather Clement’s art on Instagram and look at her bio.
And one of the things it says in there now is muralist, because you know why she started painting murals. Uh, she got invited to paint a small mural in our town than bigger ones and bigger ones. And it changed her internal dialogue about who she said she was to herself. And that changed how she talked to other people about her. And guess what? The world responded. Story number three, me. I own a film company that I adore and I love the work we do, and we work for some amazing clients. My business partner and I and and the other folks that we have on, on our staff. We love this business. I’m 48 years old as, as this podcast is made. Uh, I never produced a video, never made a video in my life until I was 40 years old. Now, I’m not saying I started my video company when I was 40.
I didn’t, and I was 45. I had never produced a video in my life till I was 40 years old. I just, I had other things I did. I’ve always been entrepreneurial. I’ve had businesses and I’ve, uh, had corporate job and I mean all the things I was doing, but I had never produced videos till I was 40. And then I started doing that through my corporate job and realized I like this and I’m kind of good at it, and people are responding well to the content. And then it took a few more years, but before long, I started telling myself, you know what? I’m a I’m a video producer. So now when I talk to people and eventually it turned into Weah films, I am a vis video producer and I produce videos. And I hadn’t, I didn’t do that till I was 40 years old.
And now I’m 48 years old. I changed my internal story about me who am who is Kevin Elliott. He is a video producer. And guess what? People hire us to produce videos for them. So these are just three examples of changing the way we talk about ourselves to other people, changes our internal dialogue of what we believe about ourselves. And that is everything. Everything. If you can change what you believe about yourself and how you talk about yourself to yourself and to others, it will change you literally in the world. And you can create entirely new businesses and new business lines. So if there’s something you’ve always wanted to do, you’ve been afraid, try this. Just start talking as if you did that. It sounds fluffy, but I’m here to tell you it works. Tell people what you want to be. Tell yourself what you want to be and then start working at it. These are just three examples. I have many, many more. I want that so badly for you cuz I want us all to be doing the creative work we want to do and making money at it. I’ve done it. Ashley’s done it. Heather’s done it. Lots of other people have done it. You can do it too. I love you.