5 Lessons For The Modern-Day Creatives

Whether In Business or Creativity, These 5 Lessons Can Be The Difference Between Starting New, and Picking Up Where Your Greatest Self Left Off.

Since the inception of MRVL WRLD in 2020, my journey has offered me a lot of lessons on clarity, direction, and the overall pursuit of my most creative self. In that journey, which I've lightly documented in the intro to my mini-series, MY REAL VIVID LIFE, I discuss a lot of personal reflection that brought me to rebrand myself, dig deeper into my creativity, and formulate  a plan that brought to life much of what you see in my marketing strategies today.

In that journey, I've had to hold myself accountable. I've had to reflect on what brought me the most joy, and formulate a business strategy that taps into my greatest strengths while also allowing me to work on opportunity areas where I tend to fall short. The idea moving forward now is to continuous deliver "creativity-as-a-service", specifically through strategic storytelling that always asks, "What's the best medium for this message".

I've gotten lots of compliments about how visible my content is, how quickly folks have caught on to my trends, and how captivating storytelling can be to my audience. But one thing I haven't had enough time to really speak to is where most of the creativity came from.

In order for me to really dive into that, I have to tell you the true story of one of my greatest failures. As mentioned in "The Preface is the End: Part II", MyRealViciousLife was an EP I worked on from 2013 to 2015.

Yes! I released an EP to DatPiff on April 30th, 2015.

I learned a lot of tough lessons about consistency, branding, marketing one's self and how to channel creativity into an actual functioning engine for business - after the fact. Hindsight is 20/20.

But what if I told you that the creative that honors his/her own history has the chance to repeat it?

The key word here is re-envisioning. I didn't even verify if it's a real word or not, but what MyRealViciousLife did for me was allow me to reflect that I had all the creativity I needed. Sometimes, us creatives give up too soon, and so I now have 5 powerful lessons to share with you if you're a creative.

Revisit It: MyRealViciousLife on DatPiff

LESSON #1: LEARN TO LEAN INTO YOUR CREATIVE BLOCKERS

The EP was worked on as early as 2013, and stood as a compilation of stories and reflective anecdotes that  spoke to the struggles of a young creative who had to adapt to the "real world" of corporate America and having to abandon all the creative dreams of that were born in college. While most of the lyrics were written during my work shifts across 3 or 4 jobs, I found myself continuously hitting writer's block - that damn writers' block.

While many people can share their own experiences with writers' block, I learned a very key lesson about it: if you're having a hard time writing (or creating), choose a different medium.

The storytelling that I applied to the EP in the form of lyrics eventually evolved into prose, which would eventually find itself becoming my new strength as a writer and eventually a published author just 3 years after the EP's release. Whenever I find that I can't write, I draw. If I can't draw, I write music. When I can't write songs, I write stories. In fact, I often times write out ideas in 2 - 3 different forms before committing to one specifically. In 2017, hitting another wall, I wrote a very brief poem called "Some Assembly Required", which you might recognize as the upcoming sequel in the We Missed A Meeting series.

You have the creativity. Now work on expanding the ability to create different formats. What might not work as a song, may very well be your next novel.

LESSON #2: CREATIVITY'S KRYPTONITE IS CAPITALISM

Respectfully - stop listening to all these dumb asses telling you HOW to reach more people.

All advice is not good advice. I've come across so many "Advice" and "Recommendation" posts and reels on Instagram about how to reach more people, or how to go viral, or how to get more out of these free social media platforms. What I'm saying exactly is that no one knows how to use Instagram - not even Instagram sometimes. Our role as creatives is to create, release our world to the world, and continuous and consistently honor, live, and believe in that work.

There's no secret code to going viral, and there's really no easy formula to reaching thousands or millions of people online other than to embody and brand yourself as the creative who has what you have. These folks making these recommendations on cute 6-second reels, are only trying to snag more followers and grow a paid audience.

Use your discretion and discernment.

LESSON #3: NEVER EVER THROW AWAY YOUR WORK

There's such a valuable lesson in the painful story of Catherine Hettinger. She is the "Mother" and creator of the fidget spinner. In the mid-90s, Hettinger created the fidget spinner as a toy for her disabled child. She patented it, travelled the country going to trade shows trying to sell it, and in 2005, abandoned the patent for the toy. Only 10 years later, the fidget spinner - lacking a valid patent - would be recreated across the world, Craig, generating millions in revenue for makers across hundreds of brands.

I know it sounds crazy, but had Hettinger continued sticking with her original idea, she'd be a millionaire.

Far too often, we come up with our greatest ideas and then water them down and eventually toss them to the curb. Never, ever throw away your work. As a creative, everything we put our minds to is essentially a proprietary product that is unique to us. With more time, more focus, and a bigger budget, think about how many of your ideas from 10 years ago would be powerhouse brands today!

Sometimes, we need time away from our own work. Sometimes, that time is 10 years. Some times, we just need to revisit our past.

Remember this: Nothing Dies on the Internet. Be the original source code for the next big wave!

LESSON #4: COMPETE WITH YOUR PAST. HONOR YOUR PAST.

A quick look at the track listing for MyRealViciousLife, which was abbreviated as MRVL (...hello) will let you know that I've never abandoned or dishonored that project. In fact, it still lives on DatPiff to date. I suggest giving it a listen if you have a chance.

I always call back my first time watching Gemini Man (2019), and thinking to myself that my only competition as a creative is my past self. If you ever had a chance to know an early 20-something-year-old Alex Auguste, you'll remember that the creativity was seeping through my pores. The ideas were endless, but the budget and resources were scarce.

Even when you look at the name MRVL WRLD (My Real Vivid Life of Writing Recording Live Events & Development), you'll see that the name still honors that chapter's end of using music solely as a medium for storytelling. From "Welcome to the World" (Now "Welcome to the WRLD" - our slogan), to "Him" (an upcoming horror novel), and more examples, you'll find that MyRealViciousLife is the just the basis for most of the prospective work coming down the pipeline.

Why start fresh when the blueprint was laid out nearly 8 years ago?

LESSON #5: START TODAY AND FIGURE IT OUT AS YOU GO

When people ask me how I got started, I always tell them that I started here. I started in 2015 and have only been growing my business acumen and trusting in the skills I've learned outside of creativity. MRVL WRLD is a combination of creativity and selling skills that brings together storytelling to empower and enable our own projects and those of our clients to grow organically.

We act, analyze the data, and pivot based on processes and results.

Figure that sh*t out as you go!

Reviewing everything I just mentioned, I actually don't think of MyRealViciousLife as a failure. Sure, it didn't get the plays I imagined it would have gotten, but there are plans to resurrect some of these plans and create some really special in the coming year.