October 16, 2024 • 50 mins
This week's guest is the phenomenally talented and creative Paul Pape, who's made a name for himself as a full-time artist and self-proclaimed 'Santa Claus for nerds.' We're breaking down his journey from disillusioned theater nerd to professional prop builder, and how he accidentally-on-purpose built his creative empire.
Can't-Miss Moments:
- Self-imposed summer school: what made Paul see school as a sanctuary, and how his acting attempt led to a surprising new career direction...
- Failure alert: why Paul and I are big fans of failing hard and failing often (and how you can use this to your advantage in your creative career)...
- Cease and desist: both Paul and I have received these legal orders from companies with a lot more money and power than we had. Paul's response to Nintendo's notice had me taking notes...
- Big twist: I confess to Paul that my MOST HATED class in grad school was - wait for it - Entrepreneurship. I bet you won't guess why...
- Fixing the creativity crisis: Paul shares three solid ways to bring creativity and imagination back into the workplace so your company can thrive and innovate AND keep its people happy...
Paul's bio:
Paul Pape is a seasoned artist, designer, and entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in the creative industry. His journey began with a passion for education stemming from a need to escape an abusive childhood. Eventually, he found my way to design and fabrication, which led to the creation of thousands of personalized products for clients worldwide as well as industry giants such as Disney, Universal, Nickelodeon and more.
In recent years, he’s pivoted to empowering Creatives, Companies and Corporations, sharing his expertise and insights to help them embrace innovation, reverse the Creativity Crisis and make life and work FUN again. As a speaker, educator, and mentor, he inspires others to unleash their creative potential and find fulfillment in their personal and professional lives.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Angie Colee (00:03):
Welcome to Permission to Kick Ass, the show
that gives you a virtual seatat the bar for the real
conversations that happenbetween entrepreneurs.
I'm interviewing all kinds ofbusiness owners, from those just
a few years into freelancing toCEOs helming nine-figure
companies.
If you've ever worried thateveryone else just seems to get
it and you're missing somethingor messing things up, this show
(00:24):
is for you.
I'm your host, angie Coley, andlet's get to it and welcome
back to Permission to Kick Ass.
With me today is my new friend,paul Pape.
Say hi, hi.
I'm still not quite over thefact that I'm so distracted and
impressed by your background.
Of course, everybody'slistening to this, can't see it,
(00:45):
but anybody who's watching thevideo gets to see all this cool
stuff.
I see Deadpool.
Paul Pape (00:53):
Is that Beetlejuice?
Tell me a little bit about thisbackground and where you're
sitting.
So this is my studio, and whatyou're looking at is just a
small glimpse of what I call thenerd wall.
It actually stretches about 22feet behind me and is about
eight and a half feet tall, andit is all the stuff that I've
worked on over the years, and soyou'll see little, I'm Santa
Claus for nerds that's what theycall me and so I literally make
the most geeky, wonderfulthings that you can imagine, and
(01:16):
so these are just a smatteringof the stuff that I've either
worked with or I've had theopportunity to use as, like, a
reference material or somethinglike that.
Angie Colee (01:24):
So yeah, that's awesome, like well, and you
hinted at it a little bit.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhat you do.
Paul Pape (01:30):
Okay, I am a full-time artist.
I am, like I said, santa Clausfor nerds.
I'm a designer and fabricatorof custom collectibles.
I make the things that peoplewant that they can't find
anywhere else.
What my wife would say is thatI make memories tangible.
Angie Colee (01:45):
Oh, that's cool.
She's got a way with words.
I appreciate her.
Paul Pape (01:49):
She does, yeah, and so for the last 20 years I've
had the opportunity to work forthousands of people around the
globe.
I also work with companies likeDisney, universal, nickelodeon,
the Tonight Show with JimmyFallon Fox.
I've been all over the placeand they call me up to ask me to
do the weird things that theycan't figure out how to do, and
so I just work in my studio herein the middle of Nebraska and
(02:13):
ship it all over the world.
Angie Colee (02:14):
Oh, that's fascinating.
How did you get into this lineof work by accident?
Paul Pape (02:20):
That's how everybody gets into anything fun, right.
Angie Colee (02:22):
Best stories by accident.
Paul Pape (02:24):
Yeah, so started off as a, as a.
Uh well, I don't know how howfar back do we want to go here,
so um, whatever the spirit tellsyou.
So, uh, as a child I lovededucation, loved it.
And, um, when I was in firstgrade, after first grade ended,
I came home and I my mom saysthat I cried for three days
(02:45):
until she enrolled me in summerschool.
And so I did self-imposedsummer school like year-round
school until I was in the 10thgrade.
Love my school, yeah.
Well, the reason was is becausehome life sucked.
It was, you know, physicallyand mentally abusive, and so
sanctuary was calling, and thatsanctuary was school, and so I
really, really threw myself intoit and I just have an absolute
(03:08):
love of learning.
But oddly enough, I'm supercreative and so typically those
two things don't go together andI kind of forced them to over
many, many years.
And then in high school, I foundtheater, and theater was
awesome because in theater youcan be other things and you can
be other places, and so it waslike the land of make-believe,
which is where I lived anyways,and so I was like, ooh, you can
(03:28):
do this for real.
And so I was an actor for alittle while.
And then I got into college.
I was declared major the firstday.
I was like, I'm going to be atheater major.
And then I'm going to be anactor, because while I have
really good stage presence and Ihave a decent voice, I'm too
distracted and bad withmemorization of lines and so I'm
(03:50):
like the worst person to actagainst.
So so in theater, I was, I was,so I was bummed, I still major.
And so I was working one day inthe shop, in the scene shop,
and the Dean of the departmentcame up to me and he said hey,
paul, how would you like tolearn everything?
I think I thought about it forlike a millisecond and I was
like yes, please.
And so his name was Bob, andBob taught me every aspect of
(04:11):
theater that you can get into,from maintenance to stage
management, to how to run thelight boards and the dimmer
packs, every aspect of it.
But he also introduced me todesign, and that's where I
really kind of found my niche,niche, niche, whatever you want
to call it.
All of them, yeah, all of those.
And yeah.
So I found scenic design, whichis designing the world of the
theater, and I really liked thatone a lot because I didn't have
(04:33):
to deal with people.
So my wife is a costumedesigner.
I know I brought her up earlierso I can introduce her here and
that's actually how we met.
We met doing theater and so didthat, and then went to grad
school for theater design andthen as soon as I graduated,
like a week later, I promptlystopped doing scenic design
(04:53):
because I talked to a guy whowas at the apex of it in America
and he just kind of wasbrutally honest with me.
He kind of wiped away all thedecisions and the mystical side
of design and let me know, likefacts, and I think he maybe saw
in me that I wanted more out ofit than just the hustle and so
like, okay, now I don't knowwhat to do.
And so my wife, we lived in LAfor a little bit and then my
(05:15):
wife got tired of LA so she cameback to Nebraska, cause that's
where family's at, and so Ifollowed her cause.
I liked my wife.
And then, uh, so I was here, Ididn't know what to do.
I had a product that I haddesigned which is like paper
furniture that I call it'scalled pop out furniture, and I
was doing that from home,whatever.
And then my old undergradcalled me and said hey, we have
an opening for a scene designprofessor.
(05:36):
Do you want to do?
You want it.
I didn't even interview, likeI'm sure I've got nothing else
going on.
And so I did that for threeyears and I love my education
but I'd never seen behind thecurtain and that killed it.
I liked the teaching, I likedthe students, I hated the
bureaucracy, hated it, and butwhile I was there, my last year
(05:59):
that I was there, I had astudent come up to me and say
hey, paul, would you be able tomake me and my girlfriend little
me's from the Nintendo Wii,because I had just come out and
he's like of us like holdinghands for a Valentine's Day gift
.
I'm like, yeah, sure.
And so I made that and,unbeknownst to me, he put it
online and this is in the early2000s, before there was an
online for like blogs and allthat fun stuff, and it went
(06:21):
viral.
And all that fun stuff and itwent viral.
It was the very first thing Iever did.
That went viral and I startedgetting a lot of requests to
make more and so I ended upmaking over a thousand Miis,
which is a crazy amount of Miis.
I got two C-synthesis fromNintendo about it, which was fun
.
I learned a lot about the lawand then I ended up starting I
(06:42):
was making more money doing thaton the side than I was teaching
and I was miserable with theteaching part of it.
So I asked my lovely wife if Icould quit and try and do this
full time.
She said I'll give you one year.
I had my second thing go viralabout three months later and we
did okay and she's like allright, you seem to know what
you're doing here, so let's go.
And so it's basically just beenthat.
It's anybody who comes to mewith a request, I just make it,
(07:07):
and I've never I don't turnanything down, and so that's how
I you end up going from me's toworking building lego sets for
the tonight show, I guess oh, mygosh, I wrote down so many
things while you were tellingthat story.
Angie Colee (07:20):
Um, oh, where do I want to start?
Okay, love that.
Like the theater for you wasthe escape.
For me, that was reading,Because I could always like
fully picture it be immersive.
I was that kid.
That was like walking down thehall reading and trusting
everybody else to get out of theway because, like, it doesn't
matter whether you're in the wayI'm reading here.
Um, I also like the bit thatcaught my attention too was
(07:44):
other people's.
I don't know if fear is theright word, that's the one that
I wrote down.
But you talked about the manwho told you about the reality
of working in stage and setdesign.
Um, I'm curious about that.
Like, what was the reality thatmade you say this is not for me
?
Paul Pape (08:03):
Well, I was assisting him.
We were working on a showcalled Dracula, the Musical.
This is for in theater, there'slike different scales.
It's called Lord B House.
It's basically the stagingground before it goes to
Broadway.
So it's like the staging groundfor that and I was assisting
him on this and it was like amillion dollar show or something
like this huge thing.
And I was talking to him one daybecause we had done a lot of
long hours and I said his nameis John Arnone and I said hey,
(08:25):
john, you you've got five, fouror five shows on Broadway right
now.
This is like the apex of beinga designer.
I said so what is it like?
I just graduated up going intothis and he goes.
Honestly, it's horrible.
I'm like well, can you explain?
He said you, he goes.
I live in New York or I have anapartment that I keep in New
York, but I travel 42 to 46weeks out of the year and the
(08:49):
reason is is because theatersdon't pay very well.
He's like you're earningbetween $2,500 and $5,000 a show
but I have to do so many tostay afloat, but I also have
like a team of people that Ihave to pay to do all the
drawings.
He says he keeps my boyfriendin my apartment in New York just
so that I have a place to stay.
When I can go home, he goes.
(09:09):
If you don't want to, if youever want to put down roots, if
you ever want to settle, this isnot the job because it's just
constant, constant hustling.
Ironically, my mentor fromgraduate school was from
Transylvania, because we'reactually in front of Roy, and I
asked him.
I said his name is Andre.
I said Andre, I just talked toJohn and he said there's there's
no money in this.
(09:29):
And then it's a constant hustle.
And he's like I don't know whathe's talking about.
I earned $60,000 a show.
I'm like, well, how do I, howdo I get into that?
And he goes oh, that's becauseI go back to my home country and
the?
U the government there actuallypays artists.
We're a government employee andso we do two shows a year.
They pay us $120,000.
And then I can do whatever Iwant on the side.
I'm like, well, how do I get inon that?
(09:51):
And he goes you can't, becauseyou're all this.
I'm like what's that supposedto mean?
He goes you're American, notgoing to happen, it's just not
the market for you, and that waseye-opening for me, because I I
didn't, you know, I just I hadliterally just spent eight years
like just throwing myselfwholeheartedly into this design
thing.
And then I had I had won awardsfrom the princess grace
(10:13):
foundation.
I met the prince of Monaco.
I mean I've done like all these, like I'm I'm, I'm good at it.
But it was like a anvil had justbeen dropped and I'm like, and
it's not always about money, butit's that hustle, and I didn't
want to have to constantlytravel.
And so I was like, okay, whatelse can I do with all of this
information?
And I thought, you know, I hateto say it, but those who can't
(10:36):
do teach.
So I was like, okay, I'llbecome a teacher, but there's
more to it than that.
And so I'm like, well, I'vealways kind of mowed my own path
.
I don't always like to thinkoutside the box.
I was like I'm just going totry and do something with this,
and really that's kind of how itevolved.
Angie Colee (10:54):
I love that and thank you for being willing to
follow me down that shiny path,Because I think what you said
demonstrates so perfectly howthere are different realities to
doing the same thing, and Idon't think that that's
something that's really talkedabout enough in entrepreneurship
.
Like is literally differentstructures in place, different
ways that things operate incountries.
(11:15):
Like to be able to do two showsa year and make six figures
easy, because that's governmentbacked right, Versus having to
hustle for everything in theStates and I'm not trying to
like paint any country againsteach other, but we all know what
hustle culture is like in theStates right, it's totally okay
to know that that's not thelifestyle that I want for myself
.
That's not really what I signedon for.
(11:36):
But I think we often get sofixated on how things should
have been or how we wantedthings to turn out that when
they hit reality, it's easy tolike judge ourselves as having
done something wrong when that'sjust part of the process.
Paul Pape (11:50):
Absolutely, and I think that's a great segue into
what I'm doing now, which is Ido this, but I also
professionally speak on it and Iteach people and companies how
to embrace a creative mindsetand how to actually, you know,
put together imagination andeducation so that you can create
innovation, because innovationis completely on the outs,
(12:10):
especially in America, becausewe are at the hustle culture.
We're about bottom lines, we'reabout results, we're not about
new things.
And one of the things and Iactually got into an argument
with one of my coaches aboutthis because I embrace failure,
I think, and so I said I'm afailure.
He goes God, don't say that,it's so triggering, and I'm like
okay, I'm a fail-er.
(12:30):
I said, just take you out of it.
It's like a teacher or a dancer.
I'm a fail-er because you don'tlearn doing anything correctly.
You only learn by goofing up,and so it's only within failing
that you actually learn, likewhat works, what doesn't work,
and there's always like a nuggetinside there that you can
always take to kind of movethings along, and some of the
best innovations in our, in ourentire history, have been by
(12:52):
accident or by by effing up, andso, like we have, we've become
so conditioned.
I've got three kids and we'rewatching them go through school
and the conditioning for notfailing is so ingrained in
school, like you know, becausethey have to pass the test, the
(13:13):
standardized tests, because itaffects the funding, it affects
the teacher's career, and it'slike don't don't fail, don't get
a B, because a B is failing.
I'm like what are you talkingabout?
Like a C is an average amountof knowledge, you know A is an
extraordinary amount ofknowledge and everyone just
assumes we're going to get thisA and it's like we're not all
extraordinary in everything.
It's not going to happen, youknow.
Angie Colee (13:33):
And it's such a conflict of interest too, to
have it structured like that.
Yeah, sorry, keep going.
Paul Pape (13:38):
No, no, you're, you're, you're not wrong, and
it's and it's one of the thingsthat I get passionate about,
because it's one of those thingsthat we forgot how to be
creative.
We literally forgot.
There's something called thecreativity crisis.
I don't know if you're familiarwith it, but they've been
tracking creativity and IQ sincethe 60s and they have this pool
(14:06):
of people that they have beeninterviewing and they
psychologists to test thecreative part.
They use standardized testingto do iq.
We all are familiar with iqtests and what they found is
that up until the 1990s, iq andcreative were at neck and neck
they're both elevating and thenin the 90s, iq kept going but
creativity dipped and it's down60% from the 1990s Holy shit.
And the hardest ones affectedare K through third grade.
(14:29):
Okay, now, if you think aboutbeing a child and being creative
and using your imagination,that's K through third grade.
That's the prime time to becreative.
And we're smacking it out ofthem.
We're literally saying, no, youcannot be creative, you have to
take this test and you have topass.
And there's so much pressure onlittle ones and then, like I
(14:51):
said, it conditions them thatfail is bad.
Fail is bad and I'm doingeverything I can, because then
you go into the workforce and ifyou want to do something
different, you want to have,because one of the things I
teach corporations is you knowhow to endorse creativity and
innovative thinking.
And there's three things thatyou can do.
You can pay them more.
Nobody's going to do that.
(15:13):
You can let them have ownership, which allows someone to take a
job, take a task that they have.
You say, okay, you're startinghere, you're ending here.
How you get there, as long asit's within a certain amount of
time and you do it efficiently,we don't care.
That's ownership, and that'sone that's really easy to
implement.
And then the third one is givethem time back.
If you can complete all yourtasks in a really short amount
(15:34):
of time, let them have the restof the time off.
There's no.
The pandemic showed us thatthere's no need for a 40 hour
work week.
So ownership is like is like abig one, and we don't give that
anymore.
We feel so confined.
And then when you go get a jobanymore, the first thing they do
is they sit you down and haveyou watch training videos.
(15:54):
And so this is how Bob did it 50years ago, and I want you to be
Bob, nobody's Bob.
You know it's like I don't wantto try and be somebody.
I'm not like the tasks arefairly straightforward and as
long as I've got a buddy of minewho works for this company and
he's like I've become a masterof doing my job in an hour and
then and then hiding the factthat I'm on YouTube for seven
(16:15):
yeah and it's and I'm like whydon't they just give you that
time back?
I mean like Lee, you know yourjob is done, and he's like no,
because they got to watch overus and whatever.
And I'm like he's takenownership of his job, so now
he's super efficient, but nowhe's got to fake his way through
being slow and so so he doesn'thave that fear of failing,
which would be losing his job Ifyou're too efficient.
Angie Colee (16:39):
That's the funny thing about that too.
I actually got into it with acoworker when I was still in
corporate once, because theirperspective was like well, if
this is done for you, what do wehave to do for everybody else?
And I was like I don't carewhat you have to do for
everybody else.
If they can produce at my level, why not give them all that
time off too?
Right, and I'm not trying tosay that I'm superior or
(17:00):
spectacular or anything, butjust like your friend, if I
found a way to do this moreefficiently, first of all, can
we duplicate that and makeeverybody more efficient?
Second of all, could you notfucking punish me for being
really good at this job byadding everybody else's work
onto my plate too?
God, I got so resentful at that.
Yeah, it's a big, huge problemthat we're stuck in ways that
(17:23):
used to work for like factoryproduction and not for all this
work that we do literally in ourheads these days.
Paul Pape (17:29):
But it didn't work for factory production.
Ford was even the one whoinvented the assembly line even
recognized that it doesn't workthat way.
And now that we've gone to moreautomation and we're allowing
machines to do a lot more of ourwork which I know sky is
falling when you start talkingabout AI and all that fun stuff,
but I embrace it because theyare tools.
And now that we have that, theone thing that we're giving back
(17:52):
is we're allowed to have moreshortcuts.
Have that.
The one thing that we're givingback is we're allowed to have
more shortcuts.
We can do our work moreefficiently because the mundane
is being taken over by a machine, because that's really what the
machine should be doing Doingrepetitive tasks over and over
again, so that we can do what weare meant to do, which humans
are the only species that weknow of.
There might be others, but wedon't know of them yet.
That can be creative, and thetrue definition of creativity is
(18:14):
the ability to have originalthought or use your imagination.
Machines can't do that, but wecan, and so we are given if we
can give the mundane over, sothat we're not because, like the
big problem that we're runninginto, and especially right now
with our markets, the way thatthey are and you know everything
being so expensive is thatwe're not living.
We're surviving and societiesreally flourish and innovate and
(18:40):
become better when people arepast surviving and they're
living.
And we were that for a longtime.
And then we don't want to namenames.
But back in the 80s things gotreally good for a select few and
kept going up, and then therest of us just kind of started
seeing this divide.
And now we're back, you know,third, back in the thirties
(19:02):
again, which is funny becausewe're in the twenties.
Right now, in the 2020s, andwe're seeing a replica of what
happened in the 1920s is there'sthis huge divide between those
who have and those who don't,and so a majority of us are
surviving.
We're not really living.
And giving over some of thattechnology, you know, giving
over some of the mundane tothose tasks, allowing our bosses
(19:24):
to be like you can work fromhome because we know that you're
going to get the work done,because we know you can't
because of the pandemic, andthen you have more time.
Then you can actually go getanother job if you had to,
because you're not being paidenough in your current one.
And then that way you can notjust survive, you can start to
actually live.
Or, you know, start paying youworth what you're worth.
Like, if they're going to startpiling on more work, like they
(19:45):
did for you, they shouldcompensate accordingly.
But yeah, a lot of companies Iwas talking to, talking to a you
know fortune 500 company theother day and they're like we
have cut so much because we'rewe're in, we're not making as
record profits as we want to be,and so now we're cutting all of
our employees.
And so now our employees arehaving to take on more and more
(20:07):
responsibility.
And I'm like oh, that's great,so you're compensating them for
that?
And they're like no, we justknow that they'll do it, because
if they don't they'll get fired.
I'm like what's the motivation?
And if you notice, with Gen Zor the alpha gen there, they're
like why should I work so hardfor someone else to get rich?
Angie Colee (20:27):
Yep and they're just like I'm not gonna.
I freaking love these kidsbecause like this is beyond
work-life balance.
It's like why the hell am Idoing this?
If I don't even make enough tolive?
I'm going to go find anotherway.
And I think that's why there'slike of course I'm somebody who
is older on the TikTok, but Itotally identified with all the
(20:48):
creators on TikTok about thisgovernment reaction to we need
to ban it and I'm like, well,might as well ban all this
freaking cell phones, by the way, which are made from the
government that you claim isspying on us via TikTok.
But there are a lot of peoplewho have found a way to create
small businesses and connectwith each other and lift up
pieces of their communitywithout going the traditional
(21:08):
corporate path, the traditionaluniversity path.
And it's so funny that youbrought up education, because a
lot of people find it surprisingwhen I tell this story.
I have a graduate degree.
It's a hybrid creative businessdegree and it means I have a
specialized expertise in turningideas into assets right and
into a business world ofmarketing.
(21:36):
I don't know.
I had a weird disconnect andalso my least favorite, my most
hated class was entrepreneurship.
We actually had a class calledentrepreneurship and you want to
know why.
I hated that.
I couldn't figure out how toget an A, couldn't figure out
how to do it.
There was no clear steps.
She would come in every weekwith a weird assignment Well,
not a weird, just an unspecificassignment.
You are this company you aretrying to get funding from this
(21:56):
VC.
Go make a presentation.
What do you mean by that?
How long does the presentationneed to be?
Are there specific elements?
Like?
I wanted the checklist to getthe win, and I think so many of
us are still in that mode as weenter this entrepreneurship
space of like where's mychecklist to winning this
Surprise?
Just like I learned inentrepreneurship, there is no a.
You just got to do the best youcan with what you've got and
(22:19):
figure it out along the way.
And then you know, of course,15 years after the fact.
I'm like man, everybody shouldhave a class like that.
She actually came in one nightand it was evening classes,
cause we did like full-timeinternships during the day and
night and evening classes forthis, and it was in the
entertainment industry.
So I spent some time inPittsburgh and some time in LA
(22:39):
doing that.
She comes in one night and we'vegot the same groups and teams
that we were in all semesterlong and she hands each group
$50 and says using this money,and only this money, go make me
more money.
You are not allowed to add yourpersonal money to this, but you
are allowed to reinvest yourearnings from this back into the
(23:01):
business to grow it.
And, by the way, the team thatmakes the most money at the end
of two weeks wins all of themoney.
Good luck and just like,dismissed us and that was the
parameters.
And so I think this is relevantto what you're talking about,
because we were grade Aoverachievers, like in every
sense of the word.
We figured out that there was nofood in our hall.
(23:21):
So, like I'm being a pastrychef's daughter, I'm baking
snacks that we can sell, we'reholding art classes, like we did
all of this work and wegenerated, I think, like 400
bucks Not bad for broke gradstudents.
The winning team generatedabout 500, I want to say they
took their $50 to a localrestaurant, bought a bunch of
(23:42):
food, came back and sold it,bought more food and just
repeated every lunch period forthose two weeks and I was like
they took our idea and they didit so much better.
They probably had itindependently of us too.
But like just showed me in onefell swoop like it doesn't have
to be as hard as you think ithas to be.
There's going to be a learningcurve and you're going to mess
(24:05):
up a lot of stuff, but like,don't associate how hard you
work with how successful you'regoing to be.
Paul Pape (24:11):
I don't know.
My favorite expression is whatdo they call the guy who
graduated last with his MDDoctor?
Angie Colee (24:20):
I actually a high school English teacher, went.
D is for diploma, just pass,it's okay.
Paul Pape (24:28):
And that's the.
I think a hard lesson foranybody to learn is that you're
not going to be great ateverything, and that's okay, you
know.
And if you're not going to begreat at everything, and that's
okay, you know.
And if you're not great atsomething, acknowledging it is
the first step.
And then find somebody who isbecause they're going to be,
they're going to be poor atsomething else, and then maybe
you can fill in that gap.
And that's how teams are made.
Angie Colee (24:47):
Yeah, do you know how much life, how much better
life got for me when Iacknowledged that I didn't have
to be the one doing everythingand also that not everybody out
there loves and excels at thethings that I like to do,
because I had this.
I think a lot of creatives fallinto this trap too.
Everybody wants to be creative.
If everybody could get paid forsinging and dancing and
creating and making all day, whywouldn't they do that?
(25:07):
Because some people areallergic to that and they would
like to be in spreadsheets andthey'd like to be running
calculations and doingscientific experiments, and they
don't.
They want to be as far awayfrom creativity and the stage as
possible, like there'ssomething for everybody out
there, you don't have to be goodat it all.
Paul Pape (25:25):
And that's what I tell my kids.
I'm like if you want to go be aburger flipper, be the best
damn burger flipper you can be.
I don't, you know no judgment.
You want to pick up trash, bethe best at it.
That's all I ask you know.
And that's really whatcreativity is.
Creativity is an art, you know,and I tell that to a lot of
people because I always say youknow I'm an artist, but I talk
about creativity and they'relike oh well, I'm not creative.
I'm like I bet you are becauseyou do your job and I bet you
(25:46):
have found creative solutions todoing your job.
So I think that's a big part ofit is recognizing that
creativity, like you said, ismultifaceted.
It doesn't have to be one thing, it can be any aspect of your
life that you're just reallygood at.
Angie Colee (26:03):
Well, and the nature of this work too, is that
for every solution you find,you're going to create another
problem, sometimes 10 additionalproblems, Like.
I think this circles backnicely to something that you
mentioned earlier.
You started making all of thesewe's and suddenly you're in
business and suddenly you'regetting a cease and desist from
a big and scary company.
I've also been on the receivingend of those that was.
That was a learning curve, buttell me a little bit more about
(26:24):
that experience.
Paul Pape (26:26):
I call them pirate lawyers.
I love them, I've got, I've gota book of them.
I've got a book of cease anddesist and, like I said, I love
my education.
And so, instead of beingterrified, what I did is I
started asking questions.
They don't like it when you askquestions because I'm like what
exactly are you having me stopfor?
They're like well, you're usingour IP.
I'm like explain your IP.
And so they they startedtalking about it.
(26:47):
I'm like you cannot use theword we or me.
I'm like okay, cause you ownthat trademark.
I get.
That trademark has to be fought, otherwise you can lose your
trademark.
I said I have, you know I.
And they like well, we also ownthe look of the me.
I'm like okay, technically, youown the copyright to me's, but
do you have a copyright forevery variation?
Because I think there was like1.2 billion variations.
Do you have copyrights on allof those?
(27:09):
And they're like no.
And I'm like okay, cool, sothere's nothing you can do,
right, cool?
I said so I will stop usingyour IP, which is the me and the
we.
And so I went with MJJ with afont that just kind of they're
straight lines, but they satbelow the line.
So I'm like, okay, that's fallsunder parody law.
So what I did is I ended uplearning the law so that I can
use the, so I stay with it.
(27:29):
I work in a gray area, and how Iactually found about it is I
went online and I had a blog atthe time and I was like, hey,
everybody, I'm just letting youknow I have to stop production
on these, because pirate lawyersshowed up and they said stop,
or we're going to sue.
And I actually had twocorporate copyright lawyers get
(27:53):
a hold of me and they wereformer clients and they said
well, actually, and then they'rethe ones who helped me navigate
through it.
And so then the next time I'mhaving these conversations with
the pirate lawyers, I can feedthem information back.
And don't get me wrong, I'm aguy who owns copyrights of my
own, I own trademarks and allthat, and I understand the
necessity for it.
But there's this great like youwork in entertainment.
I've done enough comic consthat you know it's fine.
(28:15):
But if you go to a comic conthis is my favorite example to
give is you could have twobooths next to each other
selling Spider-Man.
One of them is the guy whoactually works for Marvel who's
actually making Spider-Man.
And then he's doing originalart, he's signing it and he's
charging a thousand dollars apicture.
And right next to him is a fanwho, just as an artist who makes
Spider-Man drawings, he'ssigning them but he's selling
them for 10 bucks a piece.
(28:36):
Now Marvel could come by and gohey, knock it off, we own this,
you're not allowed to sell it.
But there's going to be anine-year-old walking through
who loves Spider-Man and he'sgoing to say, mom, I want a
Spider-Man picture that's drawnfor me here.
And the mom's going to be like,how much is yours?
He'll go thousand dollars.
Hell, no, next guy, how much isyours?
10 bucks, sold American.
(28:57):
And I think that's a big part ofit, because if Marvel stomped
on every single one of them, ifthey, if everyone, enforced
their copyright to the extentthat they should, then what
happens is you kill all fandom.
Yep, you know thatnine-year-old is going to grow
up and he's going to loveSpider-Man and eventually he may
become a comic book buyer.
He'll buy all the DVDs, he'llbuy the costumes and eventually
he'll pay that thousand dollarsfor that signed art because he
(29:18):
remembers that time he saw it,couldn't afford it, but got
another cool one next to it, andthat's really what copyright is
like.
If we truly enforced every bitof it, there would be no comic
cons, there'd be no halloween,we would be so.
And now you watch movies.
I watched their first wonderwoman and I was sitting next to
my wife in the theater and theydid this like long, like you
(29:38):
know, shot on the shoe in thearmband, and my wife is is like
what?
That's the weirdest shot.
I'm like that's the cosplayshot.
They're doing it on purpose sothe cosplayers can pause it
there and know exactly what it'ssupposed to look like.
And that's the important thing.
And so it's about knowing thelaw and that kind of stuff.
So that's what happened withthe cease and desist, and I've
(30:05):
had some from BlizzardActivision.
They were probably more stodgythan Nintendo ended up being.
But if you know the law enough,while we do work in the gray
areas, you can still get awaywith a lot of it.
Angie Colee (30:11):
I'm curious how does this relate to?
Okay, so I have a little bitmore background information on
you than the listeners perhaps,but I know before we started
recording you were telling me alittle bit about Disney and the
situation with that.
Is that the same kind ofsituation, something different?
Paul Pape (30:28):
No, I'm actually hired by Disney now and they
hire me to make the interestingone.
I don't.
Are you a Star Wars fan?
Angie Colee (30:37):
My sister and brother are huge Star Wars nerds
.
Paul Pape (30:40):
OK, so I do this thing called custom carbonites,
which is people frozen incarbonite, and make it look like
them.
About 10, 12 years ago, whenthey opened the first Star Wars
area in Disneyland, you had theability to get a custom
carbonite.
But what they did is they tookHan Solo's body and they just
put your head on it.
So if you were a 300 pound manor a six year old girl, you
(31:00):
still had Han Solo's body and itjust didn't look right.
What I was doing is I wasactually sculpting like the
whole thing, so it'd be likereally you in any pose that you
wanted or whatever.
Well, when it first came out,they're like we didn't.
They didn't have the publicityphotos or any of that, but I had
them online.
And so they're like hey, can weuse yours until we get enough?
And so they're publicizingtheir custom carbonites using my
(31:21):
photos from my customcarbonites for that.
And so I'm like well, yeah,technically you're on it, so
sure, but nowadays I actually doprojects for them.
I've actually created customaction figures for the head of
Disney animation, disney homeanimation.
There's a retirement gift.
I'm like you guys are theImagineers, you can make an
action figure.
They're like yeah, but you canmake one better.
I'm like, okay, cool.
(31:42):
And then recently I just workedon something for the it's called
the Creator, which was a moviethat came out with androids in
it, and they wanted headphonesfor a publicity giveaway type
thing, but they wanted it tolook like people had holes in
their heads and they weren'tsure how to do it, because
that's what the androids have.
They have the giant hole andthat's how you know that they're
robots.
And so they called me up andthey're like we don't know how
(32:02):
to do this.
And I'm like, uh, I worked formagician for a while, so I'm
like, oh, we can do infinitymirrors on either side.
And so when you look through it, you just see a light path that
goes forever on both sides, andthey're like, wow, that's
awesome, you know, and that'sreally where education comes
into play, and so, yeah, things.
Then you know your brain willput A and B together to create
something innovative.
(32:22):
And that's so that's so.
Yeah, I work with Disney forthat.
I've worked on Teenage Mutant,ninja Turtles for Nickelodeon.
Even though I make customTeenie and Mentee figures for
people, they actually hired meto use those same skills to
create products for them to sell.
And then, most recently,there's a movie called Death
Becomes Her, which came out inthe nineties.
Stars Bruce Willis and MerylStreep and Goldie Hawn, and it's
(32:49):
the one where it's okay.
So you're familiar with theBroadway, it's going to Broadway
.
And so they contacted me becauseI sell the vial and the egg and
the onk box and the wood boxthat goes with it, and I'm the
only one who does.
And I actually managed to getall the designs because they
sold them an auction and thepeople who bought them came to
me and said reproduce it,because we don't want to put
this really expensive thing out,but we want the replica on
there.
So now I have all the designs.
And so they came to me and theysaid hey, we'd love one of your
vials so we can use it forpublicity.
(33:10):
I'm like, okay, and then thedesign team's like you've got
all the other parts that weneed'm like, yeah, sure, do that
.
And I'm like I just want to bein the program and then you know
, get paid.
But I had a friend who works inthe industry and he's like how
can you own the copyright tosomething that is owned by
(33:33):
another company?
And I'm like I, because Idesigned it.
It's not a hundred percent theoriginal, it's got it's, it's
different enough, but it looksso close.
And I'm actually working forthe company that made the movie.
Like they created the contractto hire me to give them the
(33:53):
thing that they already ownedbecause they didn't want to have
to do the work.
I don't know, but theyrecognize the talent in that,
like why spend the time toreinvent the wheel?
The original designs are gone,they're lost, they're in the
ether somewhere, and so they'relike well, let's just take a fan
and then elevate that up orgive them the money, since
they've done all the work.
(34:13):
And that's really where itcomes from.
Angie Colee (34:15):
Oh, that's fascinating.
Well, and I mean, the coolthing about all of this is like
it sounds fantastic.
It sounds so much fun.
You're making me want to takesome sculpting classes and get
back into my artwork.
How was the progression likefor you along this path?
Because, like, as we've beentalking about it on a
superficial level obviouslywe've only got an hour to talk
right, it sounds like it waslike well, I discovered the me
(34:36):
thing and then raw, but I knowthat that's not the case.
Like, what was it like actuallybuilding this thing and what
were the rough patches?
Paul Pape (34:44):
Well, okay, first thing, I believe in bending, not
breaking.
Don't be so rigid in what youthink you need to be doing that
you get broken when you don'tget to do it.
I bend, and so people would askme hey, paul, can you make this
?
Yep, okay, how are you going todo it?
I don't know, I'll figure itout.
And I think that comes from acurious mindset.
(35:05):
It comes from having a lot oflike again, that education.
It's like learning all thesedifferent things and then, but
being able to use my imaginationto imagine the potential.
And what a lot of people forgetis that when somebody comes to
you with a request, they'vegiven you the solution.
They're like here's the answerto the problem.
(35:28):
How do we get there?
And that's all you have to do.
Is you're like oh, okay, youwant this thing, all right.
Well, I'm like holding TARDISright here, there's a TARDIS
ring box that I'm making.
I'm like okay, you want aTARDIS, you want it to be a ring
box.
Okay, you want it to be hidden.
So I got to a ring be insidehere.
That's hidden, that you can'tsee it, but it looks like a
tardis.
You know it's.
It's that it's working theproblem backwards in the tiny
chunks.
And so, when it was the me's islike, okay, sculpt all these
(35:49):
different me's.
Well, the good thing was I hada nintendo wii and so I could
look at all the differentfigures and be like, all right,
I can figure that out.
But then somebody's like, well,I want an xbox avatar.
Well, that's similar.
Okay, now I'll go buy, buy anXbox and I'll go look at those.
And then it became well, canyou do wedding cake toppers?
What about world of Warcraft?
What about the?
And it was just oh, okay, let'sdo that.
Now I want to propose I loveHarry Potter, can you make a
(36:09):
sorting hat ring box?
Sure, I can do that.
And it's just bending to hereand to here.
And if I was rigid in it, Istarted off making sculptures of
people in the meet.
Well, who uses a Nintendo Wiithese days?
I think it was gone since 2009,.
You know, so I would have mybusiness would have been dead.
But instead I'm like well, whatelse can we do?
And it's always this bending inthe wind to kind of get where
(36:32):
you need to be.
And then eventually you lookback and you're like look at
this skillset.
This is a crazy amount ofskills that I've got to do these
silly things, and I mean I loveprop building and you know,
along the way, my dad used toteach me when I was like when I
was a kid.
He's like whenever you take on anew project by one tool, that's
your reward.
You get paid, but buy yourselfa tool, instead of going out and
(36:54):
buying all the tools that youneed to do everything right at
the beginning, cause that's tooexpensive.
Find a job.
You're like oh, I don't knowhow to do this one, I want to
buy one thing for it.
So you did like today I had tocut a bunch of pipe, I went out
and bought this pipe cutter, sonow I got this tool, it's going
to last me forever because Ineeded it for one job.
But now I could be like oh, Ineed to do something where I can
cut pipe.
Yeah, sure, I've got that toolalready.
And that the flow rather thanbeing rigid.
(37:20):
And this is something thatbusinesses need to learn as well
it's like, as long as you'rewilling to stay super rigid,
accept that it's going to end,it's going to fail.
You need to progress and theydo a lot of well.
We do these think tanks orwe'll do these focus groups and
all this, and I'm like you'renot thinking far enough out
because all you're doing isgiving yourself an incremental.
You're moving the finish linethis much further instead of
(37:40):
trying to get to here Like we'retrying.
You know.
You know, if you want to blazenew ground, you got to start a
fire.
You got to think that's theonly way blazes happen.
You know, and you've reallyembraced that.
But it's scary because thosewho are in power stay in power
by earning the money and and youknow, they get comfortable in
that.
It's the dragon with their gold, you know.
But if they want there to benew things you've got to, you've
(38:03):
got to be willing to take arisk.
Yeah, it's scary.
Risk is scary.
Angie Colee (38:14):
A lot of people are very scared of that one.
I feel like I was talking aboutthat just yesterday.
I was like we, we know whathappens.
Oh, I wrote about it in anemail.
So you know, refusing to beopen to doing things differently
, refusing to listen to yourpeople, is how behemoths go
bankrupt.
And then I typed I remembertyping Adobe, get it together.
(38:35):
Everybody's talking about this.
You remember Blockbuster, youremember all the guys before you
and, of course, blockbuster ismaking some sort of weird
comeback.
But I digress, you've got totalk to people.
But it's funny.
I think this circles back towhat you were talking about with
the assembly line and HenryFord.
He's famous.
I might be bastardizing thisquote a little bit, but he said
(38:56):
something along the lines of ifyou'd ask people what they
wanted, they would have said afaster horse, not an automobile.
So I think that ties inperfectly to what you were
saying with like you got tolisten to your people.
I think you should listen toyour people and also you got to
trust your gut and your visionand find that balance and be
flexible.
That's fantastic.
Paul Pape (39:15):
Absolutely.
Angie Colee (39:16):
And the other thing that you said that I really
wanted to highlight for peoplebecause, damn it, just start
doing this.
Make it part of your practice.
I did it in an exercise in amastermind this morning and it
was fantastic.
Look back on how far you havecome.
Stop only looking forward tohow much left you have to do.
That is so demoralizing.
(39:37):
Like you just constantly getoverwhelmed and sad by like, oh,
look at how much further I haveto go until I get to where I
want to be.
Like, no, turn around and lookback and pay attention to the
people who are behind you,looking at you as their next
goalpost and going, oh my God, Iwant what Paula has.
Oh, my God, I want what Angiehas.
And they don't even know whatyou've gone through to get to
(39:57):
what you have.
They don't even technicallyknow what you have.
They only know what they see onthe surface.
So, like, just practice the 360.
Okay, like, look behind you,look to the sides, look ahead of
you.
It's never as as bad or as goodas you think it is.
Just keep moving.
Paul Pape (40:13):
Absolutely.
I mean, it's always a journeyand what's cool about it is I'm
always taught like.
This is if this is your journeyand you're right here, you know
you're always trying to getfurther ahead, but the goalpost
is always moving, but there'salways people behind you that
are moving with you, and so youcan always teach the people
behind you, because they'retrying to get to where you are.
But you're always learninglooking at the other people, and
(40:34):
so we're always constantlymoving.
So there will always be someonewho is trying to catch up to
you, and there are always bepeople that you're trying to
catch up to.
But the thing is is don't youknow?
What do they say?
Comparison is the thief of joy.
Yes, you know, don't, don'tlive in that Like.
Angie Colee (40:52):
So I replaced that with your ordinary is everyone
else's extraordinary.
Paul Pape (40:55):
And so, like, look at what you've accomplished.
I mean like literally whatyou've accomplished.
And if you don't feel thatyou've accomplished anything,
have someone tell you, like, asksomebody to write you an obit,
mm-hmm, oh, you know, becausethey'll be like or hell, write
your own, yep, you know, put itout there and say what do you
want to be remembered?
Because you'd be surprised.
You're like oh yeah, I did thatand I did that and I did that.
(41:17):
Oh shit, I've got, I've gottensome.
Because I mean, if you've madeit this far, if you've made it
this far, you've done something.
Yes, you know we float on a lotof it, don't get me wrong,
because we all have those daysor times or periods or whatever,
and where we have, where wehave to float through it,
because it's just a lot, but youstill accomplish in that.
I mean, you know, what did theysay with people with utter
(41:38):
depression is that fear andtrepidation by seeing a finished
product, like the Tonight Showcalled me up and they're like,
hey, we need a singing, dancingrobot in four days.
It can't look like any robotthat's ever existed because of
copyright.
So you got to design a robotthat's completely new.
(41:59):
You have three or four days todo it.
Can you do it?
And the answer is always, yes,I can.
And then figuring it out Now.
I could absolutely have beenjust stopped figuring it out Now
.
I could absolutely have beenjust, you know, stopped dead in
my track by like I, you know,but instead I was like, okay,
what does it really need to do?
What is in breaking it down,instead of looking at things as
(42:19):
the finished product?
You know, when we're, wheneveryou're, building or designing
something, you know we startwith that goal.
We already know what the answeris.
But don't look at it as a whole, look at it as all the
different parts that go into it,and then you're like oh well,
these are just incremental stepsto get to this whole, and then
you put it all together at theend, and that's a lot easier for
us to acknowledge when you'redepressed do one thing, because
that one thing will lead to thenext thing and eventually you'll
(42:39):
progress your way out of it.
And it's the same with anychallenge that you encounter in
your life.
Angie Colee (42:43):
Yep, I've advised people on that before when I
work with them in like acoaching capacity.
I think a lot of especiallycreative people want to have the
plan ahead of them.
Like I just want to be preparedfor this straightforward path,
but also the 20 potential pathsthat branch off and like all of
the okay, yes, it's good to havea plan and at some point
(43:03):
planning becomescounterproductive and you're not
actually moving forward.
At some point you just got totrust that the staircase is
going to take you to the nextlevel and not just drop off in a
cliff.
If I take a step, I'm not justgoing to fall off into oblivion.
And the funny thing youmentioned the obituary and I had
a very visceral reaction whenyou said that.
It reminded me of a challenge Idid years ago.
(43:26):
I think it was called the 20Xyour Potential Challenge or
something like that was run by aNavy SEAL, I think his name is
Mark Devine and I just rememberthinking, especially as a kind
of chubby girl.
Right the day one was to do, Ithink, like a thousand pushups
or 20 minutes of planking, and Ipicked what I thought was the
easier one 20 minutes ofplanking and it's not like 20
(43:48):
straight minutes it was likehowever long it takes you to get
to a total of 20 cumulativeminutes.
I thought that was going to bethe hard one.
The hardest part was two dayslater when I had to call my
loved ones and ask them whatthey thought I could improve at
and what they thought I wasreally good at I mean talk about
(44:09):
.
I was nervous, I didn't know Iwas going to feel that way when
I called them.
Thought I was really good at Imean talk about.
I was nervous, I didn't know Iwas going to feel that way.
When I called them, I wasanticipating them ripping me as
hard as I rip myself.
And when they're telling me likeoh my gosh, you've got such
wonderful compassion, you've gotmore ambition, you've got like
this and that, and I'm just likeI can't listen to this anymore.
I feel like the theme recentlyhas been there are people out
(44:31):
there that are talking good shitabout you behind your back
Always.
I consider myself to be one ofthem, because I would much
rather lift people up than tearthem down.
So like, remember that it'snever as bad as it seems and
that people out there arerooting for you.
Paul Pape (44:46):
And 99% of the time, people are not even thinking
about you.
They're thinking about theirown stuff.
It's the truth.
I mean, like we have the long,like I I'm sure I'm gonna say
everybody, you included angieyou lie in bed and you have that
argument that you didn't win inyour head and you're gonna.
Oh, if I would have just saidthat.
You know it's like you thinkabout this way more than anybody
(45:08):
else.
My mother called me up becausewe accidentally like crossed
streams, we didn't read the textcorrectly, whatever.
I was supposed to meet her inone place it ended up being like
three minutes away where I hadto meet her, and she text
messaged me the next day andshe's like I am so sorry, I
won't ever let this happen.
I'm like why are you eventhinking about this?
I'm like we got together, welaughed about it and that was it
(45:29):
.
And I'm like why are you stillthinking about it?
Don't let it go, it's not thatdamn.
Angie Colee (45:40):
Yeah, well, it's so , like you mentioned, that I
call it um writing, writing thescript or or being the the
director.
Uh, would that we had that muchpower?
Like, if only the other partperson follows this script that
I have written for them,everything will turn out
perfectly.
And surprise, it's anotherhuman being and you may just
find out that they haven't givenit a second thought.
Just like Paul, with thissituation, my mom is the same
(46:00):
Like, oh my God, I'm soembarrassed that I let that
happen.
I'm like I forgot about thatthe moment that it happened.
It's totally.
Paul Pape (46:06):
I used to say a lot that I just don't, I don't care,
I don't care, because reallythat is the essence of it.
But saying you don't care has adifferent meaning to a lot of
other people, so I've had tochange it.
It's like I forgot about.
That is an easier way of sayingit, because honestly, it's out
of the ranking of things that Igot to deal with in my life that
falls so below the like, Idon't, I can't care.
(46:27):
If that falls so below the like,I don't, I can't care, I can't
care about that because I gotother things I got to care about
and that's really where that'skind of falls into that.
And I think that if a lot, alot of people would be a lot
happier if they realize thatpeople aren't thinking about
them at all and the things thatwe do, that we think like I mean
, I I've tripped on my own feetin front of a large group of
people and I thought, oh my God,they're going to remember this
(46:49):
forever, and then I'll bring itup, like a week later and like
you did what when?
But I've been thinking aboutdreading it or you know whatever
, because I thought, oh, this isgoing to be the thing I'm going
to be known as that guy.
And no, nobody cares, oh yeah.
Angie Colee (47:02):
I held myself back for auditioning.
I and I wrote about it a bit inmy book but I wouldn't audition
for bands for years.
I'm a singer and I was like I'mgoing to forget the words, I'm
going to blow a note, I'm goingto humiliate myself on stage
Spoiler alert I have done all ofthose things multiple times,
including the time, and youcan't make this stuff up, right?
(47:23):
We had just ended a set with acover of Tush by ZZ Top, after
which I tripped wearing a cuteflirty skirt and high heels,
hint as to what's to come, andaccidentally flashed my butt to
the entire audience.
And I remember laying there onthe stage with my butt still
hanging out because I'm justlike too stunned to do anything,
(47:45):
thinking well, whether the showgoes on or not is up to me.
Like I can run screaming intothe night or I can get back up
and like in an instant I justgot back up and cracked a very
mortified and embarrassed jokeabout well, apparently I can't
sing Tush without showing youmine, we'll be back in 10
minutes.
And then, like, bolted off thestage, they're never paying it.
(48:07):
I doubt that anybody out thereeven remembers that night like I
do.
Maybe the other guys in thebands, but all the patrons are
probably they're.
They're well past it in theirown lives and they don't care
anymore it doesn't matter, itdoesn't, it really does oh, this
has been fantastic and I wantto go for like three more hours,
but for now I will say thankyou so much for being on the
show.
Please tell us more where wecan learn about your work.
Paul Pape (48:29):
If you're interested in art and I am the guy who can
make anything, so you can findme at paulpapedesignscom it's
like paper without the Rpaulpapedesignscom or anywhere
on any of the social medias atPaul Pape Designs.
Also, if you're interested inhaving me come and speak, talk
to you about being creative andembracing your creativity, you
can find that over at paulpapeit, because I like to teach people
how to paulpape it, so that iswhere yeah, see, hi I wondered
(48:53):
where that came from, because Isaw your site and I was like is
that for Italy?
Angie Colee (48:58):
What's?
Paul Pape (48:58):
going on.
It is actually for Italy, butI'm like, no, I want you to
paulpape it.
Like I own the phone number.
Like I look for the phonenumber, paulpape, and people are
like people still do that.
I'm like, yeah, it's like four.
I don't even remember what itis at this point, but it's like
four, seven, paul Pate.
Nice, that's so clever.
I'm like why not make it easyto remember?
Angie Colee (49:16):
Exactly, oh, I love that.
All right, I'm gonna make surethat there are clickable links
in the show notes so that it'seasy as possible to check you
out.
Paul Pape (49:25):
Would out to your, to your viewers.
So I have this booklet that Imade, called.
So you want to be a creative?
Now what?
And it is the starting steps tolaunching a creative career
from figuring out what to chargeto you know, uh, understanding
what it is that you're actuallytrying to sell.
And I will give you the firstchapter for free and I'll give
that to you, and then you canset up a nice little link for
that.
Angie Colee (49:45):
Oh, fantastic.
Thank you so much.
I read it.
Everybody better go get that.
Just saying what an incrediblygenerous gift.
Thank you again for being suchan awesome guest and for sharing
your story with us.
I appreciate you.
Paul Pape (49:57):
Well, thank you, Angie.
I appreciate you having me on.
Angie Colee (50:02):
That's all for now.
If you want to keep thatkick-ass energy high, please
take a minute to share thisepisode with someone that might
need a high-octane.
You can do it.
Don't forget to rate, reviewand subscribe to the permission
to kick ass podcast on Applepodcasts, spotify and wherever
you stream your podcasts.
I'm your host, angie Coley, andI'm here rooting for you.
Thanks for listening and let'sgo kick some ass.
Welcome to Permission to Kick Ass, the show
that gives you a virtual seatat the bar for the real
conversations that happenbetween entrepreneurs.
I'm interviewing all kinds ofbusiness owners, from those just
a few years into freelancing toCEOs helming nine-figure
companies.
If you've ever worried thateveryone else just seems to get
it and you're missing somethingor messing things up, this show
(00:24):
is for you.
I'm your host, angie Coley, andlet's get to it and welcome
back to Permission to Kick Ass.
With me today is my new friend,paul Pape.
Say hi, hi.
I'm still not quite over thefact that I'm so distracted and
impressed by your background.
Of course, everybody'slistening to this, can't see it,
(00:45):
but anybody who's watching thevideo gets to see all this cool
stuff.
I see Deadpool.
Paul Pape (00:53):
Is that Beetlejuice?
Tell me a little bit about thisbackground and where you're
sitting.
So this is my studio, and whatyou're looking at is just a
small glimpse of what I call thenerd wall.
It actually stretches about 22feet behind me and is about
eight and a half feet tall, andit is all the stuff that I've
worked on over the years, and soyou'll see little, I'm Santa
Claus for nerds that's what theycall me and so I literally make
the most geeky, wonderfulthings that you can imagine, and
(01:16):
so these are just a smatteringof the stuff that I've either
worked with or I've had theopportunity to use as, like, a
reference material or somethinglike that.
Angie Colee (01:24):
So yeah, that's awesome, like well, and you
hinted at it a little bit.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhat you do.
Paul Pape (01:30):
Okay, I am a full-time artist.
I am, like I said, santa Clausfor nerds.
I'm a designer and fabricatorof custom collectibles.
I make the things that peoplewant that they can't find
anywhere else.
What my wife would say is thatI make memories tangible.
Angie Colee (01:45):
Oh, that's cool.
She's got a way with words.
I appreciate her.
Paul Pape (01:49):
She does, yeah, and so for the last 20 years I've
had the opportunity to work forthousands of people around the
globe.
I also work with companies likeDisney, universal, nickelodeon,
the Tonight Show with JimmyFallon Fox.
I've been all over the placeand they call me up to ask me to
do the weird things that theycan't figure out how to do, and
so I just work in my studio herein the middle of Nebraska and
(02:13):
ship it all over the world.
Angie Colee (02:14):
Oh, that's fascinating.
How did you get into this lineof work by accident?
Paul Pape (02:20):
That's how everybody gets into anything fun, right.
Angie Colee (02:22):
Best stories by accident.
Paul Pape (02:24):
Yeah, so started off as a, as a.
Uh well, I don't know how howfar back do we want to go here,
so um, whatever the spirit tellsyou.
So, uh, as a child I lovededucation, loved it.
And, um, when I was in firstgrade, after first grade ended,
I came home and I my mom saysthat I cried for three days
(02:45):
until she enrolled me in summerschool.
And so I did self-imposedsummer school like year-round
school until I was in the 10thgrade.
Love my school, yeah.
Well, the reason was is becausehome life sucked.
It was, you know, physicallyand mentally abusive, and so
sanctuary was calling, and thatsanctuary was school, and so I
really, really threw myself intoit and I just have an absolute
(03:08):
love of learning.
But oddly enough, I'm supercreative and so typically those
two things don't go together andI kind of forced them to over
many, many years.
And then in high school, I foundtheater, and theater was
awesome because in theater youcan be other things and you can
be other places, and so it waslike the land of make-believe,
which is where I lived anyways,and so I was like, ooh, you can
(03:28):
do this for real.
And so I was an actor for alittle while.
And then I got into college.
I was declared major the firstday.
I was like, I'm going to be atheater major.
And then I'm going to be anactor, because while I have
really good stage presence and Ihave a decent voice, I'm too
distracted and bad withmemorization of lines and so I'm
(03:50):
like the worst person to actagainst.
So so in theater, I was, I was,so I was bummed, I still major.
And so I was working one day inthe shop, in the scene shop,
and the Dean of the departmentcame up to me and he said hey,
paul, how would you like tolearn everything?
I think I thought about it forlike a millisecond and I was
like yes, please.
And so his name was Bob, andBob taught me every aspect of
(04:11):
theater that you can get into,from maintenance to stage
management, to how to run thelight boards and the dimmer
packs, every aspect of it.
But he also introduced me todesign, and that's where I
really kind of found my niche,niche, niche, whatever you want
to call it.
All of them, yeah, all of those.
And yeah.
So I found scenic design, whichis designing the world of the
theater, and I really liked thatone a lot because I didn't have
(04:33):
to deal with people.
So my wife is a costumedesigner.
I know I brought her up earlierso I can introduce her here and
that's actually how we met.
We met doing theater and so didthat, and then went to grad
school for theater design andthen as soon as I graduated,
like a week later, I promptlystopped doing scenic design
(04:53):
because I talked to a guy whowas at the apex of it in America
and he just kind of wasbrutally honest with me.
He kind of wiped away all thedecisions and the mystical side
of design and let me know, likefacts, and I think he maybe saw
in me that I wanted more out ofit than just the hustle and so
like, okay, now I don't knowwhat to do.
And so my wife, we lived in LAfor a little bit and then my
(05:15):
wife got tired of LA so she cameback to Nebraska, cause that's
where family's at, and so Ifollowed her cause.
I liked my wife.
And then, uh, so I was here, Ididn't know what to do.
I had a product that I haddesigned which is like paper
furniture that I call it'scalled pop out furniture, and I
was doing that from home,whatever.
And then my old undergradcalled me and said hey, we have
an opening for a scene designprofessor.
(05:36):
Do you want to do?
You want it.
I didn't even interview, likeI'm sure I've got nothing else
going on.
And so I did that for threeyears and I love my education
but I'd never seen behind thecurtain and that killed it.
I liked the teaching, I likedthe students, I hated the
bureaucracy, hated it, and butwhile I was there, my last year
(05:59):
that I was there, I had astudent come up to me and say
hey, paul, would you be able tomake me and my girlfriend little
me's from the Nintendo Wii,because I had just come out and
he's like of us like holdinghands for a Valentine's Day gift
.
I'm like, yeah, sure.
And so I made that and,unbeknownst to me, he put it
online and this is in the early2000s, before there was an
online for like blogs and allthat fun stuff, and it went
(06:21):
viral.
And all that fun stuff and itwent viral.
It was the very first thing Iever did.
That went viral and I startedgetting a lot of requests to
make more and so I ended upmaking over a thousand Miis,
which is a crazy amount of Miis.
I got two C-synthesis fromNintendo about it, which was fun
.
I learned a lot about the lawand then I ended up starting I
(06:42):
was making more money doing thaton the side than I was teaching
and I was miserable with theteaching part of it.
So I asked my lovely wife if Icould quit and try and do this
full time.
She said I'll give you one year.
I had my second thing go viralabout three months later and we
did okay and she's like allright, you seem to know what
you're doing here, so let's go.
And so it's basically just beenthat.
It's anybody who comes to mewith a request, I just make it,
(07:07):
and I've never I don't turnanything down, and so that's how
I you end up going from me's toworking building lego sets for
the tonight show, I guess oh, mygosh, I wrote down so many
things while you were tellingthat story.
Angie Colee (07:20):
Um, oh, where do I want to start?
Okay, love that.
Like the theater for you wasthe escape.
For me, that was reading,Because I could always like
fully picture it be immersive.
I was that kid.
That was like walking down thehall reading and trusting
everybody else to get out of theway because, like, it doesn't
matter whether you're in the wayI'm reading here.
Um, I also like the bit thatcaught my attention too was
(07:44):
other people's.
I don't know if fear is theright word, that's the one that
I wrote down.
But you talked about the manwho told you about the reality
of working in stage and setdesign.
Um, I'm curious about that.
Like, what was the reality thatmade you say this is not for me
?
Paul Pape (08:03):
Well, I was assisting him.
We were working on a showcalled Dracula, the Musical.
This is for in theater, there'slike different scales.
It's called Lord B House.
It's basically the stagingground before it goes to
Broadway.
So it's like the staging groundfor that and I was assisting
him on this and it was like amillion dollar show or something
like this huge thing.
And I was talking to him one daybecause we had done a lot of
long hours and I said his nameis John Arnone and I said hey,
(08:25):
john, you you've got five, fouror five shows on Broadway right
now.
This is like the apex of beinga designer.
I said so what is it like?
I just graduated up going intothis and he goes.
Honestly, it's horrible.
I'm like well, can you explain?
He said you, he goes.
I live in New York or I have anapartment that I keep in New
York, but I travel 42 to 46weeks out of the year and the
(08:49):
reason is is because theatersdon't pay very well.
He's like you're earningbetween $2,500 and $5,000 a show
but I have to do so many tostay afloat, but I also have
like a team of people that Ihave to pay to do all the
drawings.
He says he keeps my boyfriendin my apartment in New York just
so that I have a place to stay.
When I can go home, he goes.
(09:09):
If you don't want to, if youever want to put down roots, if
you ever want to settle, this isnot the job because it's just
constant, constant hustling.
Ironically, my mentor fromgraduate school was from
Transylvania, because we'reactually in front of Roy, and I
asked him.
I said his name is Andre.
I said Andre, I just talked toJohn and he said there's there's
no money in this.
(09:29):
And then it's a constant hustle.
And he's like I don't know whathe's talking about.
I earned $60,000 a show.
I'm like, well, how do I, howdo I get into that?
And he goes oh, that's becauseI go back to my home country and
the?
U the government there actuallypays artists.
We're a government employee andso we do two shows a year.
They pay us $120,000.
And then I can do whatever Iwant on the side.
I'm like, well, how do I get inon that?
(09:51):
And he goes you can't, becauseyou're all this.
I'm like what's that supposedto mean?
He goes you're American, notgoing to happen, it's just not
the market for you, and that waseye-opening for me, because I I
didn't, you know, I just I hadliterally just spent eight years
like just throwing myselfwholeheartedly into this design
thing.
And then I had I had won awardsfrom the princess grace
(10:13):
foundation.
I met the prince of Monaco.
I mean I've done like all these, like I'm I'm, I'm good at it.
But it was like a anvil had justbeen dropped and I'm like, and
it's not always about money, butit's that hustle, and I didn't
want to have to constantlytravel.
And so I was like, okay, whatelse can I do with all of this
information?
And I thought, you know, I hateto say it, but those who can't
(10:36):
do teach.
So I was like, okay, I'llbecome a teacher, but there's
more to it than that.
And so I'm like, well, I'vealways kind of mowed my own path
.
I don't always like to thinkoutside the box.
I was like I'm just going totry and do something with this,
and really that's kind of how itevolved.
Angie Colee (10:54):
I love that and thank you for being willing to
follow me down that shiny path,Because I think what you said
demonstrates so perfectly howthere are different realities to
doing the same thing, and Idon't think that that's
something that's really talkedabout enough in entrepreneurship
.
Like is literally differentstructures in place, different
ways that things operate incountries.
(11:15):
Like to be able to do two showsa year and make six figures
easy, because that's governmentbacked right, Versus having to
hustle for everything in theStates and I'm not trying to
like paint any country againsteach other, but we all know what
hustle culture is like in theStates right, it's totally okay
to know that that's not thelifestyle that I want for myself
.
That's not really what I signedon for.
(11:36):
But I think we often get sofixated on how things should
have been or how we wantedthings to turn out that when
they hit reality, it's easy tolike judge ourselves as having
done something wrong when that'sjust part of the process.
Paul Pape (11:50):
Absolutely, and I think that's a great segue into
what I'm doing now, which is Ido this, but I also
professionally speak on it and Iteach people and companies how
to embrace a creative mindsetand how to actually, you know,
put together imagination andeducation so that you can create
innovation, because innovationis completely on the outs,
(12:10):
especially in America, becausewe are at the hustle culture.
We're about bottom lines, we'reabout results, we're not about
new things.
And one of the things and Iactually got into an argument
with one of my coaches aboutthis because I embrace failure,
I think, and so I said I'm afailure.
He goes God, don't say that,it's so triggering, and I'm like
okay, I'm a fail-er.
(12:30):
I said, just take you out of it.
It's like a teacher or a dancer.
I'm a fail-er because you don'tlearn doing anything correctly.
You only learn by goofing up,and so it's only within failing
that you actually learn, likewhat works, what doesn't work,
and there's always like a nuggetinside there that you can
always take to kind of movethings along, and some of the
best innovations in our, in ourentire history, have been by
(12:52):
accident or by by effing up, andso, like we have, we've become
so conditioned.
I've got three kids and we'rewatching them go through school
and the conditioning for notfailing is so ingrained in
school, like you know, becausethey have to pass the test, the
(13:13):
standardized tests, because itaffects the funding, it affects
the teacher's career, and it'slike don't don't fail, don't get
a B, because a B is failing.
I'm like what are you talkingabout?
Like a C is an average amountof knowledge, you know A is an
extraordinary amount ofknowledge and everyone just
assumes we're going to get thisA and it's like we're not all
extraordinary in everything.
It's not going to happen, youknow.
Angie Colee (13:33):
And it's such a conflict of interest too, to
have it structured like that.
Yeah, sorry, keep going.
Paul Pape (13:38):
No, no, you're, you're, you're not wrong, and
it's and it's one of the thingsthat I get passionate about,
because it's one of those thingsthat we forgot how to be
creative.
We literally forgot.
There's something called thecreativity crisis.
I don't know if you're familiarwith it, but they've been
tracking creativity and IQ sincethe 60s and they have this pool
(14:06):
of people that they have beeninterviewing and they
psychologists to test thecreative part.
They use standardized testingto do iq.
We all are familiar with iqtests and what they found is
that up until the 1990s, iq andcreative were at neck and neck
they're both elevating and thenin the 90s, iq kept going but
creativity dipped and it's down60% from the 1990s Holy shit.
And the hardest ones affectedare K through third grade.
(14:29):
Okay, now, if you think aboutbeing a child and being creative
and using your imagination,that's K through third grade.
That's the prime time to becreative.
And we're smacking it out ofthem.
We're literally saying, no, youcannot be creative, you have to
take this test and you have topass.
And there's so much pressure onlittle ones and then, like I
(14:51):
said, it conditions them thatfail is bad.
Fail is bad and I'm doingeverything I can, because then
you go into the workforce and ifyou want to do something
different, you want to have,because one of the things I
teach corporations is you knowhow to endorse creativity and
innovative thinking.
And there's three things thatyou can do.
You can pay them more.
Nobody's going to do that.
(15:13):
You can let them have ownership, which allows someone to take a
job, take a task that they have.
You say, okay, you're startinghere, you're ending here.
How you get there, as long asit's within a certain amount of
time and you do it efficiently,we don't care.
That's ownership, and that'sone that's really easy to
implement.
And then the third one is givethem time back.
If you can complete all yourtasks in a really short amount
(15:34):
of time, let them have the restof the time off.
There's no.
The pandemic showed us thatthere's no need for a 40 hour
work week.
So ownership is like is like abig one, and we don't give that
anymore.
We feel so confined.
And then when you go get a jobanymore, the first thing they do
is they sit you down and haveyou watch training videos.
(15:54):
And so this is how Bob did it 50years ago, and I want you to be
Bob, nobody's Bob.
You know it's like I don't wantto try and be somebody.
I'm not like the tasks arefairly straightforward and as
long as I've got a buddy of minewho works for this company and
he's like I've become a masterof doing my job in an hour and
then and then hiding the factthat I'm on YouTube for seven
(16:15):
yeah and it's and I'm like whydon't they just give you that
time back?
I mean like Lee, you know yourjob is done, and he's like no,
because they got to watch overus and whatever.
And I'm like he's takenownership of his job, so now
he's super efficient, but nowhe's got to fake his way through
being slow and so so he doesn'thave that fear of failing,
which would be losing his job Ifyou're too efficient.
Angie Colee (16:39):
That's the funny thing about that too.
I actually got into it with acoworker when I was still in
corporate once, because theirperspective was like well, if
this is done for you, what do wehave to do for everybody else?
And I was like I don't carewhat you have to do for
everybody else.
If they can produce at my level, why not give them all that
time off too?
Right, and I'm not trying tosay that I'm superior or
(17:00):
spectacular or anything, butjust like your friend, if I
found a way to do this moreefficiently, first of all, can
we duplicate that and makeeverybody more efficient?
Second of all, could you notfucking punish me for being
really good at this job byadding everybody else's work
onto my plate too?
God, I got so resentful at that.
Yeah, it's a big, huge problemthat we're stuck in ways that
(17:23):
used to work for like factoryproduction and not for all this
work that we do literally in ourheads these days.
Paul Pape (17:29):
But it didn't work for factory production.
Ford was even the one whoinvented the assembly line even
recognized that it doesn't workthat way.
And now that we've gone to moreautomation and we're allowing
machines to do a lot more of ourwork which I know sky is
falling when you start talkingabout AI and all that fun stuff,
but I embrace it because theyare tools.
And now that we have that, theone thing that we're giving back
(17:52):
is we're allowed to have moreshortcuts.
Have that.
The one thing that we're givingback is we're allowed to have
more shortcuts.
We can do our work moreefficiently because the mundane
is being taken over by a machine, because that's really what the
machine should be doing Doingrepetitive tasks over and over
again, so that we can do what weare meant to do, which humans
are the only species that weknow of.
There might be others, but wedon't know of them yet.
That can be creative, and thetrue definition of creativity is
(18:14):
the ability to have originalthought or use your imagination.
Machines can't do that, but wecan, and so we are given if we
can give the mundane over, sothat we're not because, like the
big problem that we're runninginto, and especially right now
with our markets, the way thatthey are and you know everything
being so expensive is thatwe're not living.
We're surviving and societiesreally flourish and innovate and
(18:40):
become better when people arepast surviving and they're
living.
And we were that for a longtime.
And then we don't want to namenames.
But back in the 80s things gotreally good for a select few and
kept going up, and then therest of us just kind of started
seeing this divide.
And now we're back, you know,third, back in the thirties
(19:02):
again, which is funny becausewe're in the twenties.
Right now, in the 2020s, andwe're seeing a replica of what
happened in the 1920s is there'sthis huge divide between those
who have and those who don't,and so a majority of us are
surviving.
We're not really living.
And giving over some of thattechnology, you know, giving
over some of the mundane tothose tasks, allowing our bosses
(19:24):
to be like you can work fromhome because we know that you're
going to get the work done,because we know you can't
because of the pandemic, andthen you have more time.
Then you can actually go getanother job if you had to,
because you're not being paidenough in your current one.
And then that way you can notjust survive, you can start to
actually live.
Or, you know, start paying youworth what you're worth.
Like, if they're going to startpiling on more work, like they
(19:45):
did for you, they shouldcompensate accordingly.
But yeah, a lot of companies Iwas talking to, talking to a you
know fortune 500 company theother day and they're like we
have cut so much because we'rewe're in, we're not making as
record profits as we want to be,and so now we're cutting all of
our employees.
And so now our employees arehaving to take on more and more
(20:07):
responsibility.
And I'm like oh, that's great,so you're compensating them for
that?
And they're like no, we justknow that they'll do it, because
if they don't they'll get fired.
I'm like what's the motivation?
And if you notice, with Gen Zor the alpha gen there, they're
like why should I work so hardfor someone else to get rich?
Angie Colee (20:27):
Yep and they're just like I'm not gonna.
I freaking love these kidsbecause like this is beyond
work-life balance.
It's like why the hell am Idoing this?
If I don't even make enough tolive?
I'm going to go find anotherway.
And I think that's why there'slike of course I'm somebody who
is older on the TikTok, but Itotally identified with all the
(20:48):
creators on TikTok about thisgovernment reaction to we need
to ban it and I'm like, well,might as well ban all this
freaking cell phones, by the way, which are made from the
government that you claim isspying on us via TikTok.
But there are a lot of peoplewho have found a way to create
small businesses and connectwith each other and lift up
pieces of their communitywithout going the traditional
(21:08):
corporate path, the traditionaluniversity path.
And it's so funny that youbrought up education, because a
lot of people find it surprisingwhen I tell this story.
I have a graduate degree.
It's a hybrid creative businessdegree and it means I have a
specialized expertise in turningideas into assets right and
into a business world ofmarketing.
(21:36):
I don't know.
I had a weird disconnect andalso my least favorite, my most
hated class was entrepreneurship.
We actually had a class calledentrepreneurship and you want to
know why.
I hated that.
I couldn't figure out how toget an A, couldn't figure out
how to do it.
There was no clear steps.
She would come in every weekwith a weird assignment Well,
not a weird, just an unspecificassignment.
You are this company you aretrying to get funding from this
(21:56):
VC.
Go make a presentation.
What do you mean by that?
How long does the presentationneed to be?
Are there specific elements?
Like?
I wanted the checklist to getthe win, and I think so many of
us are still in that mode as weenter this entrepreneurship
space of like where's mychecklist to winning this
Surprise?
Just like I learned inentrepreneurship, there is no a.
You just got to do the best youcan with what you've got and
(22:19):
figure it out along the way.
And then you know, of course,15 years after the fact.
I'm like man, everybody shouldhave a class like that.
She actually came in one nightand it was evening classes,
cause we did like full-timeinternships during the day and
night and evening classes forthis, and it was in the
entertainment industry.
So I spent some time inPittsburgh and some time in LA
(22:39):
doing that.
She comes in one night and we'vegot the same groups and teams
that we were in all semesterlong and she hands each group
$50 and says using this money,and only this money, go make me
more money.
You are not allowed to add yourpersonal money to this, but you
are allowed to reinvest yourearnings from this back into the
(23:01):
business to grow it.
And, by the way, the team thatmakes the most money at the end
of two weeks wins all of themoney.
Good luck and just like,dismissed us and that was the
parameters.
And so I think this is relevantto what you're talking about,
because we were grade Aoverachievers, like in every
sense of the word.
We figured out that there was nofood in our hall.
(23:21):
So, like I'm being a pastrychef's daughter, I'm baking
snacks that we can sell, we'reholding art classes, like we did
all of this work and wegenerated, I think, like 400
bucks Not bad for broke gradstudents.
The winning team generatedabout 500, I want to say they
took their $50 to a localrestaurant, bought a bunch of
(23:42):
food, came back and sold it,bought more food and just
repeated every lunch period forthose two weeks and I was like
they took our idea and they didit so much better.
They probably had itindependently of us too.
But like just showed me in onefell swoop like it doesn't have
to be as hard as you think ithas to be.
There's going to be a learningcurve and you're going to mess
(24:05):
up a lot of stuff, but like,don't associate how hard you
work with how successful you'regoing to be.
Paul Pape (24:11):
I don't know.
My favorite expression is whatdo they call the guy who
graduated last with his MDDoctor?
Angie Colee (24:20):
I actually a high school English teacher, went.
D is for diploma, just pass,it's okay.
Paul Pape (24:28):
And that's the.
I think a hard lesson foranybody to learn is that you're
not going to be great ateverything, and that's okay, you
know.
And if you're not going to begreat at everything, and that's
okay, you know.
And if you're not great atsomething, acknowledging it is
the first step.
And then find somebody who isbecause they're going to be,
they're going to be poor atsomething else, and then maybe
you can fill in that gap.
And that's how teams are made.
Angie Colee (24:47):
Yeah, do you know how much life, how much better
life got for me when Iacknowledged that I didn't have
to be the one doing everythingand also that not everybody out
there loves and excels at thethings that I like to do,
because I had this.
I think a lot of creatives fallinto this trap too.
Everybody wants to be creative.
If everybody could get paid forsinging and dancing and
creating and making all day, whywouldn't they do that?
(25:07):
Because some people areallergic to that and they would
like to be in spreadsheets andthey'd like to be running
calculations and doingscientific experiments, and they
don't.
They want to be as far awayfrom creativity and the stage as
possible, like there'ssomething for everybody out
there, you don't have to be goodat it all.
Paul Pape (25:25):
And that's what I tell my kids.
I'm like if you want to go be aburger flipper, be the best
damn burger flipper you can be.
I don't, you know no judgment.
You want to pick up trash, bethe best at it.
That's all I ask you know.
And that's really whatcreativity is.
Creativity is an art, you know,and I tell that to a lot of
people because I always say youknow I'm an artist, but I talk
about creativity and they'relike oh well, I'm not creative.
I'm like I bet you are becauseyou do your job and I bet you
(25:46):
have found creative solutions todoing your job.
So I think that's a big part ofit is recognizing that
creativity, like you said, ismultifaceted.
It doesn't have to be one thing, it can be any aspect of your
life that you're just reallygood at.
Angie Colee (26:03):
Well, and the nature of this work too, is that
for every solution you find,you're going to create another
problem, sometimes 10 additionalproblems, Like.
I think this circles backnicely to something that you
mentioned earlier.
You started making all of thesewe's and suddenly you're in
business and suddenly you'regetting a cease and desist from
a big and scary company.
I've also been on the receivingend of those that was.
That was a learning curve, buttell me a little bit more about
(26:24):
that experience.
Paul Pape (26:26):
I call them pirate lawyers.
I love them, I've got, I've gota book of them.
I've got a book of cease anddesist and, like I said, I love
my education.
And so, instead of beingterrified, what I did is I
started asking questions.
They don't like it when you askquestions because I'm like what
exactly are you having me stopfor?
They're like well, you're usingour IP.
I'm like explain your IP.
And so they they startedtalking about it.
(26:47):
I'm like you cannot use theword we or me.
I'm like okay, cause you ownthat trademark.
I get.
That trademark has to be fought, otherwise you can lose your
trademark.
I said I have, you know I.
And they like well, we also ownthe look of the me.
I'm like okay, technically, youown the copyright to me's, but
do you have a copyright forevery variation?
Because I think there was like1.2 billion variations.
Do you have copyrights on allof those?
(27:09):
And they're like no.
And I'm like okay, cool, sothere's nothing you can do,
right, cool?
I said so I will stop usingyour IP, which is the me and the
we.
And so I went with MJJ with afont that just kind of they're
straight lines, but they satbelow the line.
So I'm like, okay, that's fallsunder parody law.
So what I did is I ended uplearning the law so that I can
use the, so I stay with it.
(27:29):
I work in a gray area, and how Iactually found about it is I
went online and I had a blog atthe time and I was like, hey,
everybody, I'm just letting youknow I have to stop production
on these, because pirate lawyersshowed up and they said stop,
or we're going to sue.
And I actually had twocorporate copyright lawyers get
(27:53):
a hold of me and they wereformer clients and they said
well, actually, and then they'rethe ones who helped me navigate
through it.
And so then the next time I'mhaving these conversations with
the pirate lawyers, I can feedthem information back.
And don't get me wrong, I'm aguy who owns copyrights of my
own, I own trademarks and allthat, and I understand the
necessity for it.
But there's this great like youwork in entertainment.
I've done enough comic consthat you know it's fine.
(28:15):
But if you go to a comic conthis is my favorite example to
give is you could have twobooths next to each other
selling Spider-Man.
One of them is the guy whoactually works for Marvel who's
actually making Spider-Man.
And then he's doing originalart, he's signing it and he's
charging a thousand dollars apicture.
And right next to him is a fanwho, just as an artist who makes
Spider-Man drawings, he'ssigning them but he's selling
them for 10 bucks a piece.
(28:36):
Now Marvel could come by and gohey, knock it off, we own this,
you're not allowed to sell it.
But there's going to be anine-year-old walking through
who loves Spider-Man and he'sgoing to say, mom, I want a
Spider-Man picture that's drawnfor me here.
And the mom's going to be like,how much is yours?
He'll go thousand dollars.
Hell, no, next guy, how much isyours?
10 bucks, sold American.
(28:57):
And I think that's a big part ofit, because if Marvel stomped
on every single one of them, ifthey, if everyone, enforced
their copyright to the extentthat they should, then what
happens is you kill all fandom.
Yep, you know thatnine-year-old is going to grow
up and he's going to loveSpider-Man and eventually he may
become a comic book buyer.
He'll buy all the DVDs, he'llbuy the costumes and eventually
he'll pay that thousand dollarsfor that signed art because he
(29:18):
remembers that time he saw it,couldn't afford it, but got
another cool one next to it, andthat's really what copyright is
like.
If we truly enforced every bitof it, there would be no comic
cons, there'd be no halloween,we would be so.
And now you watch movies.
I watched their first wonderwoman and I was sitting next to
my wife in the theater and theydid this like long, like you
(29:38):
know, shot on the shoe in thearmband, and my wife is is like
what?
That's the weirdest shot.
I'm like that's the cosplayshot.
They're doing it on purpose sothe cosplayers can pause it
there and know exactly what it'ssupposed to look like.
And that's the important thing.
And so it's about knowing thelaw and that kind of stuff.
So that's what happened withthe cease and desist, and I've
(30:05):
had some from BlizzardActivision.
They were probably more stodgythan Nintendo ended up being.
But if you know the law enough,while we do work in the gray
areas, you can still get awaywith a lot of it.
Angie Colee (30:11):
I'm curious how does this relate to?
Okay, so I have a little bitmore background information on
you than the listeners perhaps,but I know before we started
recording you were telling me alittle bit about Disney and the
situation with that.
Is that the same kind ofsituation, something different?
Paul Pape (30:28):
No, I'm actually hired by Disney now and they
hire me to make the interestingone.
I don't.
Are you a Star Wars fan?
Angie Colee (30:37):
My sister and brother are huge Star Wars nerds
.
Paul Pape (30:40):
OK, so I do this thing called custom carbonites,
which is people frozen incarbonite, and make it look like
them.
About 10, 12 years ago, whenthey opened the first Star Wars
area in Disneyland, you had theability to get a custom
carbonite.
But what they did is they tookHan Solo's body and they just
put your head on it.
So if you were a 300 pound manor a six year old girl, you
(31:00):
still had Han Solo's body and itjust didn't look right.
What I was doing is I wasactually sculpting like the
whole thing, so it'd be likereally you in any pose that you
wanted or whatever.
Well, when it first came out,they're like we didn't.
They didn't have the publicityphotos or any of that, but I had
them online.
And so they're like hey, can weuse yours until we get enough?
And so they're publicizingtheir custom carbonites using my
(31:21):
photos from my customcarbonites for that.
And so I'm like well, yeah,technically you're on it, so
sure, but nowadays I actually doprojects for them.
I've actually created customaction figures for the head of
Disney animation, disney homeanimation.
There's a retirement gift.
I'm like you guys are theImagineers, you can make an
action figure.
They're like yeah, but you canmake one better.
I'm like, okay, cool.
(31:42):
And then recently I just workedon something for the it's called
the Creator, which was a moviethat came out with androids in
it, and they wanted headphonesfor a publicity giveaway type
thing, but they wanted it tolook like people had holes in
their heads and they weren'tsure how to do it, because
that's what the androids have.
They have the giant hole andthat's how you know that they're
robots.
And so they called me up andthey're like we don't know how
(32:02):
to do this.
And I'm like, uh, I worked formagician for a while, so I'm
like, oh, we can do infinitymirrors on either side.
And so when you look through it, you just see a light path that
goes forever on both sides, andthey're like, wow, that's
awesome, you know, and that'sreally where education comes
into play, and so, yeah, things.
Then you know your brain willput A and B together to create
something innovative.
(32:22):
And that's so that's so.
Yeah, I work with Disney forthat.
I've worked on Teenage Mutant,ninja Turtles for Nickelodeon.
Even though I make customTeenie and Mentee figures for
people, they actually hired meto use those same skills to
create products for them to sell.
And then, most recently,there's a movie called Death
Becomes Her, which came out inthe nineties.
Stars Bruce Willis and MerylStreep and Goldie Hawn, and it's
(32:49):
the one where it's okay.
So you're familiar with theBroadway, it's going to Broadway
.
And so they contacted me becauseI sell the vial and the egg and
the onk box and the wood boxthat goes with it, and I'm the
only one who does.
And I actually managed to getall the designs because they
sold them an auction and thepeople who bought them came to
me and said reproduce it,because we don't want to put
this really expensive thing out,but we want the replica on
there.
So now I have all the designs.
And so they came to me and theysaid hey, we'd love one of your
vials so we can use it forpublicity.
(33:10):
I'm like, okay, and then thedesign team's like you've got
all the other parts that weneed'm like, yeah, sure, do that
.
And I'm like I just want to bein the program and then you know
, get paid.
But I had a friend who works inthe industry and he's like how
can you own the copyright tosomething that is owned by
(33:33):
another company?
And I'm like I, because Idesigned it.
It's not a hundred percent theoriginal, it's got it's, it's
different enough, but it looksso close.
And I'm actually working forthe company that made the movie.
Like they created the contractto hire me to give them the
(33:53):
thing that they already ownedbecause they didn't want to have
to do the work.
I don't know, but theyrecognize the talent in that,
like why spend the time toreinvent the wheel?
The original designs are gone,they're lost, they're in the
ether somewhere, and so they'relike well, let's just take a fan
and then elevate that up orgive them the money, since
they've done all the work.
(34:13):
And that's really where itcomes from.
Angie Colee (34:15):
Oh, that's fascinating.
Well, and I mean, the coolthing about all of this is like
it sounds fantastic.
It sounds so much fun.
You're making me want to takesome sculpting classes and get
back into my artwork.
How was the progression likefor you along this path?
Because, like, as we've beentalking about it on a
superficial level obviouslywe've only got an hour to talk
right, it sounds like it waslike well, I discovered the me
(34:36):
thing and then raw, but I knowthat that's not the case.
Like, what was it like actuallybuilding this thing and what
were the rough patches?
Paul Pape (34:44):
Well, okay, first thing, I believe in bending, not
breaking.
Don't be so rigid in what youthink you need to be doing that
you get broken when you don'tget to do it.
I bend, and so people would askme hey, paul, can you make this
?
Yep, okay, how are you going todo it?
I don't know, I'll figure itout.
And I think that comes from acurious mindset.
(35:05):
It comes from having a lot oflike again, that education.
It's like learning all thesedifferent things and then, but
being able to use my imaginationto imagine the potential.
And what a lot of people forgetis that when somebody comes to
you with a request, they'vegiven you the solution.
They're like here's the answerto the problem.
(35:28):
How do we get there?
And that's all you have to do.
Is you're like oh, okay, youwant this thing, all right.
Well, I'm like holding TARDISright here, there's a TARDIS
ring box that I'm making.
I'm like okay, you want aTARDIS, you want it to be a ring
box.
Okay, you want it to be hidden.
So I got to a ring be insidehere.
That's hidden, that you can'tsee it, but it looks like a
tardis.
You know it's.
It's that it's working theproblem backwards in the tiny
chunks.
And so, when it was the me's islike, okay, sculpt all these
(35:49):
different me's.
Well, the good thing was I hada nintendo wii and so I could
look at all the differentfigures and be like, all right,
I can figure that out.
But then somebody's like, well,I want an xbox avatar.
Well, that's similar.
Okay, now I'll go buy, buy anXbox and I'll go look at those.
And then it became well, canyou do wedding cake toppers?
What about world of Warcraft?
What about the?
And it was just oh, okay, let'sdo that.
Now I want to propose I loveHarry Potter, can you make a
(36:09):
sorting hat ring box?
Sure, I can do that.
And it's just bending to hereand to here.
And if I was rigid in it, Istarted off making sculptures of
people in the meet.
Well, who uses a Nintendo Wiithese days?
I think it was gone since 2009,.
You know, so I would have mybusiness would have been dead.
But instead I'm like well, whatelse can we do?
And it's always this bending inthe wind to kind of get where
(36:32):
you need to be.
And then eventually you lookback and you're like look at
this skillset.
This is a crazy amount ofskills that I've got to do these
silly things, and I mean I loveprop building and you know,
along the way, my dad used toteach me when I was like when I
was a kid.
He's like whenever you take on anew project by one tool, that's
your reward.
You get paid, but buy yourselfa tool, instead of going out and
(36:54):
buying all the tools that youneed to do everything right at
the beginning, cause that's tooexpensive.
Find a job.
You're like oh, I don't knowhow to do this one, I want to
buy one thing for it.
So you did like today I had tocut a bunch of pipe, I went out
and bought this pipe cutter, sonow I got this tool, it's going
to last me forever because Ineeded it for one job.
But now I could be like oh, Ineed to do something where I can
cut pipe.
Yeah, sure, I've got that toolalready.
And that the flow rather thanbeing rigid.
(37:20):
And this is something thatbusinesses need to learn as well
it's like, as long as you'rewilling to stay super rigid,
accept that it's going to end,it's going to fail.
You need to progress and theydo a lot of well.
We do these think tanks orwe'll do these focus groups and
all this, and I'm like you'renot thinking far enough out
because all you're doing isgiving yourself an incremental.
You're moving the finish linethis much further instead of
(37:40):
trying to get to here Like we'retrying.
You know.
You know, if you want to blazenew ground, you got to start a
fire.
You got to think that's theonly way blazes happen.
You know, and you've reallyembraced that.
But it's scary because thosewho are in power stay in power
by earning the money and and youknow, they get comfortable in
that.
It's the dragon with their gold, you know.
But if they want there to benew things you've got to, you've
(38:03):
got to be willing to take arisk.
Yeah, it's scary.
Risk is scary.
Angie Colee (38:14):
A lot of people are very scared of that one.
I feel like I was talking aboutthat just yesterday.
I was like we, we know whathappens.
Oh, I wrote about it in anemail.
So you know, refusing to beopen to doing things differently
, refusing to listen to yourpeople, is how behemoths go
bankrupt.
And then I typed I remembertyping Adobe, get it together.
(38:35):
Everybody's talking about this.
You remember Blockbuster, youremember all the guys before you
and, of course, blockbuster ismaking some sort of weird
comeback.
But I digress, you've got totalk to people.
But it's funny.
I think this circles back towhat you were talking about with
the assembly line and HenryFord.
He's famous.
I might be bastardizing thisquote a little bit, but he said
(38:56):
something along the lines of ifyou'd ask people what they
wanted, they would have said afaster horse, not an automobile.
So I think that ties inperfectly to what you were
saying with like you got tolisten to your people.
I think you should listen toyour people and also you got to
trust your gut and your visionand find that balance and be
flexible.
That's fantastic.
Paul Pape (39:15):
Absolutely.
Angie Colee (39:16):
And the other thing that you said that I really
wanted to highlight for peoplebecause, damn it, just start
doing this.
Make it part of your practice.
I did it in an exercise in amastermind this morning and it
was fantastic.
Look back on how far you havecome.
Stop only looking forward tohow much left you have to do.
That is so demoralizing.
(39:37):
Like you just constantly getoverwhelmed and sad by like, oh,
look at how much further I haveto go until I get to where I
want to be.
Like, no, turn around and lookback and pay attention to the
people who are behind you,looking at you as their next
goalpost and going, oh my God, Iwant what Paula has.
Oh, my God, I want what Angiehas.
And they don't even know whatyou've gone through to get to
(39:57):
what you have.
They don't even technicallyknow what you have.
They only know what they see onthe surface.
So, like, just practice the 360.
Okay, like, look behind you,look to the sides, look ahead of
you.
It's never as as bad or as goodas you think it is.
Just keep moving.
Paul Pape (40:13):
Absolutely.
I mean, it's always a journeyand what's cool about it is I'm
always taught like.
This is if this is your journeyand you're right here, you know
you're always trying to getfurther ahead, but the goalpost
is always moving, but there'salways people behind you that
are moving with you, and so youcan always teach the people
behind you, because they'retrying to get to where you are.
But you're always learninglooking at the other people, and
(40:34):
so we're always constantlymoving.
So there will always be someonewho is trying to catch up to
you, and there are always bepeople that you're trying to
catch up to.
But the thing is is don't youknow?
What do they say?
Comparison is the thief of joy.
Yes, you know, don't, don'tlive in that Like.
Angie Colee (40:52):
So I replaced that with your ordinary is everyone
else's extraordinary.
Paul Pape (40:55):
And so, like, look at what you've accomplished.
I mean like literally whatyou've accomplished.
And if you don't feel thatyou've accomplished anything,
have someone tell you, like, asksomebody to write you an obit,
mm-hmm, oh, you know, becausethey'll be like or hell, write
your own, yep, you know, put itout there and say what do you
want to be remembered?
Because you'd be surprised.
You're like oh yeah, I did thatand I did that and I did that.
(41:17):
Oh shit, I've got, I've gottensome.
Because I mean, if you've madeit this far, if you've made it
this far, you've done something.
Yes, you know we float on a lotof it, don't get me wrong,
because we all have those daysor times or periods or whatever,
and where we have, where wehave to float through it,
because it's just a lot, but youstill accomplish in that.
I mean, you know, what did theysay with people with utter
(41:38):
depression is that fear andtrepidation by seeing a finished
product, like the Tonight Showcalled me up and they're like,
hey, we need a singing, dancingrobot in four days.
It can't look like any robotthat's ever existed because of
copyright.
So you got to design a robotthat's completely new.
(41:59):
You have three or four days todo it.
Can you do it?
And the answer is always, yes,I can.
And then figuring it out Now.
I could absolutely have beenjust stopped figuring it out Now
.
I could absolutely have beenjust, you know, stopped dead in
my track by like I, you know,but instead I was like, okay,
what does it really need to do?
What is in breaking it down,instead of looking at things as
(42:19):
the finished product?
You know, when we're, wheneveryou're, building or designing
something, you know we startwith that goal.
We already know what the answeris.
But don't look at it as a whole, look at it as all the
different parts that go into it,and then you're like oh well,
these are just incremental stepsto get to this whole, and then
you put it all together at theend, and that's a lot easier for
us to acknowledge when you'redepressed do one thing, because
that one thing will lead to thenext thing and eventually you'll
(42:39):
progress your way out of it.
And it's the same with anychallenge that you encounter in
your life.
Angie Colee (42:43):
Yep, I've advised people on that before when I
work with them in like acoaching capacity.
I think a lot of especiallycreative people want to have the
plan ahead of them.
Like I just want to be preparedfor this straightforward path,
but also the 20 potential pathsthat branch off and like all of
the okay, yes, it's good to havea plan and at some point
(43:03):
planning becomescounterproductive and you're not
actually moving forward.
At some point you just got totrust that the staircase is
going to take you to the nextlevel and not just drop off in a
cliff.
If I take a step, I'm not justgoing to fall off into oblivion.
And the funny thing youmentioned the obituary and I had
a very visceral reaction whenyou said that.
It reminded me of a challenge Idid years ago.
(43:26):
I think it was called the 20Xyour Potential Challenge or
something like that was run by aNavy SEAL, I think his name is
Mark Devine and I just rememberthinking, especially as a kind
of chubby girl.
Right the day one was to do, Ithink, like a thousand pushups
or 20 minutes of planking, and Ipicked what I thought was the
easier one 20 minutes ofplanking and it's not like 20
(43:48):
straight minutes it was likehowever long it takes you to get
to a total of 20 cumulativeminutes.
I thought that was going to bethe hard one.
The hardest part was two dayslater when I had to call my
loved ones and ask them whatthey thought I could improve at
and what they thought I wasreally good at I mean talk about
(44:09):
.
I was nervous, I didn't know Iwas going to feel that way when
I called them.
Thought I was really good at Imean talk about.
I was nervous, I didn't know Iwas going to feel that way.
When I called them, I wasanticipating them ripping me as
hard as I rip myself.
And when they're telling me likeoh my gosh, you've got such
wonderful compassion, you've gotmore ambition, you've got like
this and that, and I'm just likeI can't listen to this anymore.
I feel like the theme recentlyhas been there are people out
(44:31):
there that are talking good shitabout you behind your back
Always.
I consider myself to be one ofthem, because I would much
rather lift people up than tearthem down.
So like, remember that it'snever as bad as it seems and
that people out there arerooting for you.
Paul Pape (44:46):
And 99% of the time, people are not even thinking
about you.
They're thinking about theirown stuff.
It's the truth.
I mean, like we have the long,like I I'm sure I'm gonna say
everybody, you included angieyou lie in bed and you have that
argument that you didn't win inyour head and you're gonna.
Oh, if I would have just saidthat.
You know it's like you thinkabout this way more than anybody
(45:08):
else.
My mother called me up becausewe accidentally like crossed
streams, we didn't read the textcorrectly, whatever.
I was supposed to meet her inone place it ended up being like
three minutes away where I hadto meet her, and she text
messaged me the next day andshe's like I am so sorry, I
won't ever let this happen.
I'm like why are you eventhinking about this?
I'm like we got together, welaughed about it and that was it
(45:29):
.
And I'm like why are you stillthinking about it?
Don't let it go, it's not thatdamn.
Angie Colee (45:40):
Yeah, well, it's so , like you mentioned, that I
call it um writing, writing thescript or or being the the
director.
Uh, would that we had that muchpower?
Like, if only the other partperson follows this script that
I have written for them,everything will turn out
perfectly.
And surprise, it's anotherhuman being and you may just
find out that they haven't givenit a second thought.
Just like Paul, with thissituation, my mom is the same
(46:00):
Like, oh my God, I'm soembarrassed that I let that
happen.
I'm like I forgot about thatthe moment that it happened.
It's totally.
Paul Pape (46:06):
I used to say a lot that I just don't, I don't care,
I don't care, because reallythat is the essence of it.
But saying you don't care has adifferent meaning to a lot of
other people, so I've had tochange it.
It's like I forgot about.
That is an easier way of sayingit, because honestly, it's out
of the ranking of things that Igot to deal with in my life that
falls so below the like, Idon't, I can't care.
(46:27):
If that falls so below the like,I don't, I can't care, I can't
care about that because I gotother things I got to care about
and that's really where that'skind of falls into that.
And I think that if a lot, alot of people would be a lot
happier if they realize thatpeople aren't thinking about
them at all and the things thatwe do, that we think like I mean
, I I've tripped on my own feetin front of a large group of
people and I thought, oh my God,they're going to remember this
(46:49):
forever, and then I'll bring itup, like a week later and like
you did what when?
But I've been thinking aboutdreading it or you know whatever
, because I thought, oh, this isgoing to be the thing I'm going
to be known as that guy.
And no, nobody cares, oh yeah.
Angie Colee (47:02):
I held myself back for auditioning.
I and I wrote about it a bit inmy book but I wouldn't audition
for bands for years.
I'm a singer and I was like I'mgoing to forget the words, I'm
going to blow a note, I'm goingto humiliate myself on stage
Spoiler alert I have done all ofthose things multiple times,
including the time, and youcan't make this stuff up, right?
(47:23):
We had just ended a set with acover of Tush by ZZ Top, after
which I tripped wearing a cuteflirty skirt and high heels,
hint as to what's to come, andaccidentally flashed my butt to
the entire audience.
And I remember laying there onthe stage with my butt still
hanging out because I'm justlike too stunned to do anything,
(47:45):
thinking well, whether the showgoes on or not is up to me.
Like I can run screaming intothe night or I can get back up
and like in an instant I justgot back up and cracked a very
mortified and embarrassed jokeabout well, apparently I can't
sing Tush without showing youmine, we'll be back in 10
minutes.
And then, like, bolted off thestage, they're never paying it.
(48:07):
I doubt that anybody out thereeven remembers that night like I
do.
Maybe the other guys in thebands, but all the patrons are
probably they're.
They're well past it in theirown lives and they don't care
anymore it doesn't matter, itdoesn't, it really does oh, this
has been fantastic and I wantto go for like three more hours,
but for now I will say thankyou so much for being on the
show.
Please tell us more where wecan learn about your work.
Paul Pape (48:29):
If you're interested in art and I am the guy who can
make anything, so you can findme at paulpapedesignscom it's
like paper without the Rpaulpapedesignscom or anywhere
on any of the social medias atPaul Pape Designs.
Also, if you're interested inhaving me come and speak, talk
to you about being creative andembracing your creativity, you
can find that over at paulpapeit, because I like to teach people
how to paulpape it, so that iswhere yeah, see, hi I wondered
(48:53):
where that came from, because Isaw your site and I was like is
that for Italy?
Angie Colee (48:58):
What's?
Paul Pape (48:58):
going on.
It is actually for Italy, butI'm like, no, I want you to
paulpape it.
Like I own the phone number.
Like I look for the phonenumber, paulpape, and people are
like people still do that.
I'm like, yeah, it's like four.
I don't even remember what itis at this point, but it's like
four, seven, paul Pate.
Nice, that's so clever.
I'm like why not make it easyto remember?
Angie Colee (49:16):
Exactly, oh, I love that.
All right, I'm gonna make surethat there are clickable links
in the show notes so that it'seasy as possible to check you
out.
Paul Pape (49:25):
Would out to your, to your viewers.
So I have this booklet that Imade, called.
So you want to be a creative?
Now what?
And it is the starting steps tolaunching a creative career
from figuring out what to chargeto you know, uh, understanding
what it is that you're actuallytrying to sell.
And I will give you the firstchapter for free and I'll give
that to you, and then you canset up a nice little link for
that.
Angie Colee (49:45):
Oh, fantastic.
Thank you so much.
I read it.
Everybody better go get that.
Just saying what an incrediblygenerous gift.
Thank you again for being suchan awesome guest and for sharing
your story with us.
I appreciate you.
Paul Pape (49:57):
Well, thank you, Angie.
I appreciate you having me on.
Angie Colee (50:02):
That's all for now.
If you want to keep thatkick-ass energy high, please
take a minute to share thisepisode with someone that might
need a high-octane.
You can do it.
Don't forget to rate, reviewand subscribe to the permission
to kick ass podcast on Applepodcasts, spotify and wherever
you stream your podcasts.
I'm your host, angie Coley, andI'm here rooting for you.
Thanks for listening and let'sgo kick some ass.
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