The “Sex And Cash Theory” And Other Ways To Follow Your Passion – with Hugh MacLeod
on Jul 14, 2009 - 7:00 AM PSTHow do you follow your passion, leave your mark on the world and at the same time make money? That’s what I invited Hugh MacLeod to Mixergy to talk about.
Hugh makes a living as an artist. His work influences online conversations. And he’s a marketer whose work talks to people the way they want to be engaged.
The FULL program
Video excerpts
Hugh MacLeod’s latest cartoon (via his widget)
About Hugh MacLeod
Hugh MacLeod is a cartoonist who makes his living publishing fine art prints via the internet. His first book is “Ignore Everybody.” He’s also known for his ideas about how “Web 2.0″ affects advertising and marketing, and his blog gapingvoid.com. Since mid-2006 Hugh has been helping a small South African winery, Stormhoek “rise above the clutter” in the wine market by using Web 2.0 tools to get the word out.
Edited excerpts
He got an idea when he forgot his sketchbook
I used to go to a coffee shop and just draw in my sketchbook. One day I forgot my sketchbook. I left it at the office and I couldn’t be bothered going back to get it, and I didn’t want to not draw.
I had some business cards on me and I just started drawing on them. It sounded rather fun. So I drew a couple dozen of them, thinking I would draw a couple dozen of them and try something new, but you know that was 12 years ago and I’ve been doing it ever since.
It wasn’t about making money
I felt like if I started doing it for money — at the time anyway — it wouldn’t be as much fun, and it would kind of dilute my day job. I was kind of interested in my day job at the time. It was just a hobby. I still try to keep it like a hobby, although now, with the book deal, and the prints I’m doing, the hobby moments are fewer than they used to be, but that’s OK.
He lived by the “Sex and Cash Theory”
The creative person has two kinds of jobs. The first is the fun, sexy kind, and the second one is paying the bills.
Sometimes the task at hand covers both bases, but not often. And there’s always going to be a tense duality between the need to make a living and the need to maintain one’s creative sovereignty. Now that’s easier to understand when you’re young, and you’re just starting out, and you’re waiting tables even though you want to be a famous writer or whatever, and you have to wait tables. The sexy bit is being the novelist and the cash bit is being the waitress or waiter, we all understand that.
When you get a bit older and a bit more successful and you make it, that tension doesn’t go away. Just because you’re successful, there is stuff you have to do for money, and there is stuff you do because it’s fun. In the book I said that a good example is John Travolta. One year he’ll be in a movie like Pulp Fiction, just to get his street cred back as an actor, and then next year he’ll decide he wants to buy a new airplane so he’ll appear as this character in a very forgettable big budget spy thriller.
It took “talent, stamina and discipline”
Robert Hughes, the great art critic who I quoted in the book, always said, “talent, stamina and discipline” that’s the way you develop as an artist.
The little bursts of creativity propel you a little bit forward — but being a successful artist is day in day out, day in day out, day in day out. You have these occasional breakthroughs, but really its about turning up everyday and just doing it, day in day out.
How many successful people do you know? They all turned up everyday. They made the phone calls, day in day out. And next thing you know, they’re rich and famous, or rich anyway. And it wasn’t an overnight success. It was turning up everyday and putting on a shirt and polishing their shoes and turning up even when it was raining, even when it was boring, even when they were tired, even when nobody was buying, even when nobody was giving them money, and they still turned up everyday. That’s talent discipline and stamina.
Drawing on business cards helped him work in the moment
I admire proper painters, but that isn’t what I was doing. It was almost like a kind of photography for me. That’s what I wanted, something very spontaneous.
You know what, here is a drawing I did just yesterday. [He held one up in the video.] Is it good? I don’t know. Is it bad? I don’t know. But you know what, if it’s bad, it doesn’t matter. It took me two minutes to draw. If it’s good, that’s cool. I’ll take good care of it.
You never notice one of your good drawings right away. They kind of have a life of their own. After you finish them, go back to them and go “Wow, that’s pretty good” or “Oh dear, that kinda sucks.” I used to say by keeping everything small I’d avoid making big mistakes.
A bad economy helped him discover the power of new media
I had a couple of years, maybe two to three years, where I was not making any money and not doing anything very interesting. But then that’s the bad news. The good news is I started reading blogs like BoingBoing and Jeff Jarvis and Gawker. I remember when Gawker was just starting out. It was great, really interesting.
This new media, this 2.0 media, was just starting to reach adolescence and it was a really interesting time. So, I had to write brochure copy in the daytime, which kind of sucked, but at night I’d be like “wow, this whole new world is emerging.” I wanted to be a part of it, so I started putting some of my thoughts and my cartoons online.
If you stick around long enough, you’re always going to have a few fallow years. But I did some of my best work during the fallow years, so it paid off.
His new media reputation led Stormhoek to hire him
Stormhoek is a bottle of South African wine. It’s a small wine brand out of South Africa.
Jason Korman, Stormhoek’s Head of Marketing, was reading Seth Godin’s blog, and then one day Seth Godin wrote a blog post about me and so he clicked on me and found my work.
He used what he learned about new media to market Stormhoek
I start writing on my blog about a new client called Stormhoek and I noticed that it was kind of like talking to a vacuum. People didn’t know what I was talking about because they couldn’t experience it. So we decided to just send a bottle to any blogger (this is in the UK in England) who wanted one. It wasn’t so they could really advertise it and pimp it. You know buzz. It was so they knew what I was about because they actually tried it, when I talked a about it, I didn’t feel like an idiot.
How many people in the wine trade knew what a blog was five years ago? Three people? So they’d write about us and we got a lot of trade press. So when our salesmen would go to supermarkets and introduce themselves as being from Stormhoek they’d go, “Oh yeah I read about you. You guys seem kind of cool, why don’t you come on in.”
As opposed to the people who buy wine for the supermarkets, the big clients, the big customers. They hear the same crap every day: “Hello, my name’s Jose, I’m from Argentina. Please buy my wine: good price, good quality.” That is what they hear every day.
Today, his “Sex and Cash” are merging
Andrew’s Note: I couldn’t find the perfect quote to illustrate how they’re merging, so instead, I’ll point you to 2 links: If you go to Stormhoek’s site, you can see how much art he’s bringing to his work as CEO of Stormhoek USA. And if look at the gapingvoid gallery, you can get a sense of the revenue behind it.
Full program includes
- How you can pursue your passion and earn money.
- How new media marketing techniques (that you can use) helped Hugh grow Stormhoek’s revenues 5 fold.
- Andrew’s failed attempt to find out how much money Hugh makes with his art.
Suggested comments
- What’s your suggestion for how to mix passion and profit?
- Hugh drew on business cards because he wanted an easy way to keep trying new ideas quickly. Could you help me find entrepreneurs who simplified their launch process so they could keep trying new ideas?
- What did I miss in this interview that I should have asked?
- Do you see any errors in the text or video?
View Comments to “The “Sex And Cash Theory” And Other Ways To Follow Your Passion – with Hugh MacLeod”
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July 14th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Hey Andrew I usually enjoy all the interview but I think this interview was a bit hard to watch. The interviewee was very broad in terms of answers.
I think that the best interview that you could ever do is a interview of yourself. Your about section is so interesting that I don't know who hasn't read it over and over and over again!
Your about section couldn't really answer all of my questions regarding how you managed to create such a successful business. Now if there was an interview with you, Andrew Warner that would just be awesome. I read the interview when Neil was interviewing you but it wasn't really “mixergy content”. I mean this because when you do an interview you make it GRAND, fabulous and you ask the right questions that us, the viewers would.
Best wishes,
Emil Hajric.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Hi Andrew, the MP3 link is malformed. The interviews are just the right size for my one-hour commute, so I find the MP3s absolutely great. You're doing an awesome job here, and I agree with hajrice that it would be nice to see you trying different formats to share some of *your* hard-earned experience with us.
July 14th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Hey Emil,
Here are some stories about Andrew
1st Andrew is interviews by Lisa Bruckner here http://mixergy.com/how-must-marketing-helped-me…
2nd a story about his early days and Furniture choices here – http://mixergy.com/how-i-spent-a-million-bucks-…
I agree the vid i hard to watch but Hugh is an amazing dude, well worth check out.
Cheers
Jess
July 14th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Hi Jess,
Thank you very much man. I really appreciate the response. I'll def. check it out. The reason why I come to Mixergy is to learn and to interact with people like you, Jess. Thanks again man.
Wish you the best!
Emil Hajric.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
It seems that link to audio-version http://mixergy.com/wp-content/audio/http://mixe… doesn't work.
July 14th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Try reading my excerpts. Also, I recommend his book. It's a short read and
it's full of solid ideas.
I have an interview of myself up on the site. I'm always happy to do others
with people who ask.
July 14th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Thanks! I fixed it because of you.
July 14th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Thanks, I'm never sure how much listeners want, but I know I need about an
hour to really learn about the person I'm interviewing.
I'll see if I can find more ways to talk about my experiences without
feeling like a self-obsessed weenie. Thanks for asking.
July 14th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
I appreciate this.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:27 am
Wow, I always check out the person's work before I listen to the audio. And boy did I catch myself repeating, “wtf is this?” about 20 times. Now I'm going to listen to the audio, this is gonna be interesting.
Watching video with my internet is choppy, so I just listen to audio which is fine.
July 15th, 2009 at 11:36 am
The eBay story about Pierre Omidyar creating the site for his girlfriend to collect Pez dispensers was merely a marketing tactic. eBay has admitted to this. I thought I would just correct Hugh.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Hey Andrew, I'm sure you've heard lots of reasons why this video isn't the greatest so I'm just going to say I also didn't enjoy this one and didn't agree with Huge for the majority of the video.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
I really enjoyed this interview. As an artist myself it was great to hear what one of my colleges has been doing to create is business. It was very inspiring to me.
Thanks!
July 15th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Wow, I always check out the person's work before I listen to the audio. And boy did I catch myself repeating, “wtf is this?” about 20 times. Now I'm going to listen to the audio, this is gonna be interesting.
Watching video with my internet is choppy, so I just listen to audio which is fine.
July 15th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Hi Hajrice:
I always love Andrew's interviews, and he was great as the interviewer with this one too…but the Hugh was kind of rough. What helped me a lot was to look at this interview as a potential SNL skit (Saturday Night Live) skit….especially when you first see a picture of Hugh flash on the screen with his mouth opened while Andrew makes the first introduction. When Andrew was smiling real big during the interview, I imagined him trying to make himself not fall over and start laughing. I wandered if Hugh was just extremely sleepy combined with a lot of caffeine? If that happened to me, I would probably look just like that first photo of Hugh that Andrew flashed on the screen with my mouth wide open and hair in a disarray.
July 15th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Hi Andrew….I saw you crack a grin a few times during the interview.
Here is a message I just posted on this discussion……
I always love Andrew's interviews, and he was great as the interviewer with this one too…but the Hugh was kind of rough. What helped me a lot was to look at this interview as a potential SNL skit (Saturday Night Live) skit….especially when you first see a picture of Hugh flash on the screen with his mouth opened while Andrew makes the first introduction. When Andrew was smiling real big during the interview, I imagined him trying to make himself not fall over and start laughing. I wandered if Hugh was just extremely sleepy combined with a lot of caffeine? If that happened to me, I would probably look just like that first photo of Hugh that Andrew flashed on the screen with my mouth wide open and hair in a disarray.
July 15th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Hi Hajrice:
I always love Andrew's interviews, and he was great as the interviewer with this one too…but the Hugh was kind of rough. What helped me a lot was to look at this interview as a potential SNL skit (Saturday Night Live) skit….especially when you first see a picture of Hugh flash on the screen with his mouth opened while Andrew makes the first introduction. When Andrew was smiling real big during the interview, I imagined him trying to make himself not fall over and start laughing. I wandered if Hugh was just extremely sleepy combined with a lot of caffeine? If that happened to me, I would probably look just like that first photo of Hugh that Andrew flashed on the screen with my mouth wide open and hair in a disarray.
July 16th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Even though Hugh's communication style is not like most interviewees, he presented some interesting ideas. Sometimes it's nice to see someone less ultra polished.
My interpretation: Sex/Cash-Maybe you're business is based on what you're good at but your passions lie elsewhere or maybe good ethical business is your passion and the industry/target market is what you're good at. Sometimes the constant “follow your passions and the $ will follow” is a little grandiose.
July 16th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Thanks Andy. Recording and editing video from Skype continues to be a
challenge.
July 16th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
You're right. Thanks.
His bigger point about starting because of a passion and not just “a market
opportunity” is one that others have made here. Most recently Jimmy Wales of
Wikipedia made the same point.
I need to do an interview just on this issue. There's a lot to talk about
with this subject. I'd love to hear your opinion on it some time.
July 16th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
I appreciate your feedback.
July 16th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Thanks Scott. I love his work.
July 16th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
We might have had a rough connection, but as I read the transcript, I was
proud of the ideas he talked about here.
Thanks for this note.
July 16th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Dashed off the comment quickly. The communication thing was more of a reaction to a post I think is now gone.
I really like his art and thanks for introducing him. Sex/Cash-compromise, Talent/Stamina/Discipline, ongoing small iterations of consistent creativity (business cards) and decide if good or bad later are all really great real world advice
July 17th, 2009 at 11:59 am
this was a good one! I just discovered this site a few weeks ago and I just gotta say THANK YOU to you and your guests for being so inspiring!
July 17th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Thanks. I'll keep doing these interviews for you. Glad you like my work.
Andrew Warner
(sent from my mobile)
July 17th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Thank you very much for making an effort to do a solid interview. It was very interesting, but not easy listening though. I couldn’t make it all the way for the 1st time. Good news, I want to go back to it.
Katya
July 21st, 2009 at 1:20 am
weird having Hugh on my desktop here in London….I think I prefer having him actually in London :)
The Michael Caine quote was great. That was the highlight of the interview.
July 21st, 2009 at 2:34 am
Thanks, Andrew. I had a lot of fun. Hope your viewers thought the same :)
July 30th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Andrew – Thanks for another wonderful interview. As always I am inspired to go out and do my thing by hearing from the great people you interview on the site. Hugh is amazing, and I am right there with him when he says he wants his work to “do something” for people. Thank you for introducing me to Hugh and his work. I am following him on twitter now and am already a huge fan.
August 3rd, 2009 at 7:24 pm
The message behind his work is simple and insightful.
August 3rd, 2009 at 7:55 pm
The message behind his work is simple and insightful.
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:21 pm
The message behind his work is simple and insightful.
September 12th, 2009 at 8:46 am
Andrew, as always you did great and kept your cool but this was an annoying interview. The artist seems to almost be bothered by some of your questions. This is the very first time I have ever heard of him and I think he screwed himself on this interview because for one he wasn't respectful to you and secondly he doesn't realize how big of a following you have that have more respect than he demonstrated toward you. I don't think he understood his own point when he talked about about treating people as human beings and treating others with honor so that you get repeat business. Obviously he has accomplishments (don't we all) but he is an angry person with issues. What's he so mad about anyway? Your questions regarding his profits could have been answered smoothly but you must have touched a sore area that he reacted the way he did. That's too bad.
September 19th, 2009 at 2:20 am
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