[MUSIC] My part-time job outside of my full-time job is tabletop game designer. So, I own a small company called Encoded Designs. And we design role-playing games and accessories for tabletop, the tabletop role-playing markets. So, games like Dungeons and Dragons, things like that. So, a lot of fun. It's a very creative endeavor. And one of the things that we've done recently was we were hired by another game company to convert one of their products over to a different game system. So, we actually had both the original material for the game, the new game system that they wanted to convert to, and now our job is to kind of fit make a fit out of both of those pieces. I was a freelance writer for a number of years, and I actually started before that blogging. So I was just blogging like in an amateur blog. And then from there, I was a freelance writer and, and game developer. And last year, I decided that I, instead of going out to find contracts and work for other people, that I would start to gather up a group of people. All locally, here in the Buffalo area, and form a my own company, my own design company from local talent. So, there's a lot of passion. We're all all of us have other day jobs. But we've all been gaming in the, in the tabletop, role-playing games and board games and stuff like that for, oh, I think probably the 20, 20 plus years. In my case, it's like 30 plus years. But, so there's a lot of passion. Everybody's really excited to do it. And we all I think it, I really think it is the passion that kind of brings the group together, because it is work. It's not, I mean, playing a game is playing a game, but creating a game is actual work. And to do that after you've already worked all day, it takes a, it takes lot of passion to kind of leverage to kind of get over that inertia for just wanting to, you know, sit on the couch and flip through TV or something. So if I had a magic wand, my three wishes for other people's creativity. I think the first one would be courage. I think a lot of people are more creative than they give themselves credit for. And just having the courage to put it out there. So, to put it on a blog or make a podcast, or put it up on the web for download or something like that. And to not be worried about the rejection. I, when I wrote my first book, I finished the first chapter, the draft of the first chapter and had a small panic attack. Realizing that somebody out there will hate this book. No matter how many people like it, someone will hate it. And it took me a little bit to get over that. But once I had the courage to get over that, then I just finished the book. And true to form, a lot of people liked it, few people hated it. And you just have to not worry about that. So, courage to, courage to just do it. I would say, the other one would be, I think the other one would be drive. A lot of, again, a lot of people are creative but I think a lot of people fall into that trap that, well, I've, you know, been in class all day or I've been at work all day. And I really just want to unplug and, you know, I, I just want to sit on the couch and play Xbox, or watch TV, or something. But just a little drive to take that creativity and, and push it forward. Because a lot of great things happen when you just push yourself into doing something outside your comfort zone. So that, that, the drive and that passion. And then the last one I would say is awareness. So everything I've, everything I know about my creativity comes from the ability to connect things that I've seen in one place. So, things I may have discovered at work, with what I do when I game or when I design games. And so, just having that, that awareness to just look arou, at the things around you, and ask the questions of, how can I use that over here? How can I take that thing that I really like? What is it I like about that thing? And how can I change that, and use it in the thing that I'm really passionate about? I would say feed your, feed your mind. Be open to all sorts of different things. Watch different movies. Listen to music you don't normally listen to. Go see your play that you're not sure if you're going to like or not. Just kind of soak it all in. And in terms of, of class, take a few classes that are just completely not in your comfort zone. Just, just to get that extra input, because the connect, being able to make the connections is a skill, but having fed your mind with enough stuff to pull together to make the connections, that's where the real creativity happens. So do that. Go out and experience all sorts of stuff. You probably aren't going to like a bunch of the things that you try, but that's okay. Because what you'll figure out is you'll find out what you didn't like about it. And then you'll know not to put that into your own creations. [MUSIC]
