Sam Bennett – The Organized Artist Company
Originally from Chicago, Samantha Bennett is a writer, speaker, actor, teacher and creativity/productivity specialist and the author of the bestselling,
“Get It Done: From Procrastination to Creative Genius in 15 Minutes a Day” (New World Library) which Seth Godin called, “An instant classic, essential reading for anyone who wants to make a ruckus.” Her latest bestseller is, “Start Right Where You Are: How Little Changes Can Make a Big Difference for Overwhelmed Procrastinators, Frustrated Overachievers and Recovering Perfectionists” (New World Library).
She is the creator of The Organized Artist Company, dedicated to helping tens of thousands of creative people get unstuck, helping them to focus and move forward on their goals.
Sam has also written the script for the hit musical, “In a Booth at Chasen’s,” and is working on her latest book, “Secrets of Highly Creative People.”
She is an award-winning marketing expert, having spent 15 years as a Personal Branding Specialist for Sam Christensen Studios and been honored as an Ultimate Marketer Finalist at Infusioncon. She is also an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant and Reseller.
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Shoan 0:00
Hello, and welcome to automation rehab. My name is Shoan Snoday. I’m the founder of automation rehab, and the voice of the podcast. And today we have Sam Bennett with the organized artists company on the line. Welcome, Sam.
Sam Bennett 0:14
Thank you so much. Shoan Hi, everybody.
Superheroes 0:16
Hey, so it’s really great to have you on the line. Now, before we go into anything, I want you to know that you were you you do this thing? That’s really cool. It has to do with superheroes. Does that make sense? Mm hmm. And I heard that way. And I heard that way before you did it. And then I go, Wait a minute, that person Why don’t want to say stole that from you. But you know, I was like, that person got that from Sam. And I know that they did. Because I thought that it was like just amazing thing. And it’s wonderful. And I’d really like to steal it for myself, but I haven’t. So I just want to kind of get that out of the way because I really admired that work. And then when I met you, I was like, wow, there’s so much more to that work than just that one little exercise. So, so welcome to the podcast.
Use the worksheet 1:08
Thank you. And I’ll tell you soon, you’re welcome to use the worksheet just you know, keep my credit means just keep my website, but I’m happy to give it to you. And I even have a little video that will walk you through how to use it. So
How did you get into this business 1:17
absolutely, yeah, wonderful. And then, you know, I’ll put a little backlink to you and everything if I do make a video, which I probably will put it up on YouTube, but we’re going to really talk more about you and how you got into what you’re doing today. And you know, just what you provide your services and, and how that all works. So So how did you get into this business? What started it all out.
Highly creative people 1:41
It was completely inadvertent. I had no plan or intention of doing this at all. I’m actually an actor, my backgrounds in theater, I was a theater kid, I went to theater camp, I studied theater in school, I actually left Northwestern University to take a job at the second city. So you know, from my first wedding, there’s a picture of me in the big white dress because it’s my wedding. And there’s Steve Crone, Steve Cole, bear and Amy serious and the ever and Alice and Jim Belushi and, you know, all my friends. And I had a good acting career, I still racked sometimes. And I you know, in Chicago and then eventually moved to Los Angeles. And, you know, it went well enough that you didn’t want to give up on it, but not so well as to actually be able to support a person. So that meant I just had a zillion different jobs and gigs and projects and shows and auditions and half time and part time and semi. Just like juggle, juggle, juggle, juggle, juggle, right, creatively, very satisfying, financially disastrous. And along the way, I just got really interested in this question of how to creative people make decisions. When you could do anything? How do you know what to do? You know, should I have a podcast? do YouTube videos? Should I supposed to regard Oh, should I stand on the street corner with a sandwich board? Like, what do I do? And especially for highly creative people? They’ve got a lot of talents and skills just like Uber’s. Right? And there’s no right way. Right? It was a right way, we would just all do that. But there isn’t, there’s just your way. So this is where the my heroes worksheet that you were talking about kicks in, because helping people connect with sort of what their zone of creative geniuses, what their values are, what their native, you know, creative superpowers are and what they really want to do where their desire really lies. Well, when you’re doing what you want to do in the way you want to do it, it’s not that hard to be productive.
Shoan 0:00
Hello, and welcome to automation rehab. My name is Shoan Snoday. I’m the founder of automation rehab, and the voice of the podcast. And today we have Sam Bennett with the organized artists company on the line. Welcome, Sam.
Sam Bennett 0:14
Thank you so much. Shoan Hi, everybody.
Superheroes 0:16
Hey, so it’s really great to have you on the line. Now, before we go into anything, I want you to know that you were you you do this thing? That’s really cool. It has to do with superheroes. Does that make sense? Mm hmm. And I heard that way. And I heard that way before you did it. And then I go, Wait a minute, that person Why don’t want to say stole that from you. But you know, I was like, that person got that from Sam. And I know that they did. Because I thought that it was like just amazing thing. And it’s wonderful. And I’d really like to steal it for myself, but I haven’t. So I just want to kind of get that out of the way because I really admired that work. And then when I met you, I was like, wow, there’s so much more to that work than just that one little exercise. So, so welcome to the podcast.
Use the worksheet 1:08
Thank you. And I’ll tell you soon, you’re welcome to use the worksheet just you know, keep my credit means just keep my website, but I’m happy to give it to you. And I even have a little video that will walk you through how to use it. So
How did you get into this business 1:17
absolutely, yeah, wonderful. And then, you know, I’ll put a little backlink to you and everything if I do make a video, which I probably will put it up on YouTube, but we’re going to really talk more about you and how you got into what you’re doing today. And you know, just what you provide your services and, and how that all works. So So how did you get into this business? What what started it all out.
Highly creative people 1:41
It was completely inadvertent. I had no plan or intention of doing this at all. I’m actually an actor, my backgrounds in theater, I was a theater kid, I went to theater camp, I studied theater in school, I actually left Northwestern University to take a job at the second city. So you know, from my first wedding, there’s a picture of me in the big white dress because it’s my wedding. And there’s Steve Crone, Steve Cole, bear and Amy serious and the ever and Alice and Jim Belushi and, you know, all my friends. And I had a good acting career, I still racked sometimes. And I you know, in Chicago and then eventually moved to Los Angeles. And, you know, it went well enough that you didn’t want to give up on it, but not so well as to actually be able to support a person. So that meant I just had a zillion different jobs and gigs and projects and shows and auditions and half time and part time and semi. Just like juggle, juggle, juggle, juggle, juggle, right, creatively, very satisfying, financially disastrous. And along the way, I just got really interested in this question of how to creative people make decisions. When you could do anything? How do you know what to do? You know, should I have a podcast? do YouTube videos? Should I supposed to regard Oh, should I stand on the street corner with a sandwich board? Like, what do I do? And especially for highly creative people? They’ve got a lot of talents and skills just like Uber’s. Right? And there’s no right way. Right? It was a right way, we would just all do that. But there isn’t, there’s just your way. So this is where the my heroes worksheet that you were talking about kicks in, because helping people connect with sort of what their zone of creative geniuses, what their values are, what their native, you know, creative superpowers are and what they really want to do where their desire really lies. Well, when you’re doing what you want to do in the way you want to do it, it’s not that hard to be productive.
Academy Award winners Emmy Award winners 6:24
see, and I just had a breakthrough on this the other day. And this may be the first time I’m actually saying this publicly. So congratulations. First of all, the war of arts a brilliant book, Stephen Crossfield is a genius, and everybody should buy and read everything he writes. These books are very short, they’re easy to read. I recommend, um, but here’s the thing about that voice of resistance. Right, that voice that says, Who do you think you are? You can’t do that. Nobody wants that. Nobody’s gonna pay for that. You can’t do that. You’ve never done anything like that before? Who do you know, what do you know? Right? That voice? I have worked with some thousands, possibly 10s of thousands of creative people over the years. And everyone has that voice, right, saying the exact same things. Academy Award winners Emmy Award winners, famous people, rich people poor, but doesn’t matter. Everybody has the exact same voice saying the exact same thing. So when we are when we are having a universal human experience, that happens to everybody at all times, under all circumstances, right? What do we call that?
That’s just a condition of the human experience. Right? Right. It’s right up there with like, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Every four or five hours, I get really hungry, and I have to eat. Like, it’s not a moral judgment. It’s just a thing. It’s the same thing as like, when you were graduate in high school or college, and you have that feeling of like, Oh, no, no, I have to figure out what the whole rest of my life is going to be like? Well, no, of course you don’t. But you have that feeling, right. That’s this being in that environment. When you got married, you know, we’re settled down with someone’s more seriously, you have this feeling of like, is this really right? Should I really be with this person? Maybe I’m making a terrible mistake, right? Everyone in that position feels that way. It is not necessarily a sign that you’re making a terrible mistake. It’s just a condition of being at that stage in your life. Right? So the condition of being at the stage of about to start something new and exciting is extreme self doubt. And second guessing. So when we can understand that and normalize that voice and go like, oh, here, it’s like, Oh, I’m so scared of heights? Well, of course you are. You get up somewhere high, and the survival part of your brain goes, Oh, don’t fall off this. That would be bad. Right? Yeah. You’re about to start something new. The survival party who’s going? Oh, okay, this seems to seems new and scary. And perhaps we should, you know, stay on the couch and watch Netflix. Right? So we just understand that it’s not, it’s not low self esteem. It’s not self criticism. It’s not a reason to not do stuff. It’s a universal human condition.
Get it done from procrastination to creative genius 11:03
Well, yeah, I mean, the whole both my books are pretty step by step. The the first book is called Get it done from procrastination to creative genius, and 15 minutes a day. Yeah. And that’s the one that got endorsed by Seth Godin here toss, toss, totally not over it. That That book is really about sort of project management for creative people, right? It’s, it’s how do you figure out what to do? How do you keep going, especially when you get in the middle kind of the groan zone where it’s boring, and you don’t want to do it anymore? Are you getting towards the end that it looks like it might really be real? And that totally freaks you out? You know?
Start right where you are 11:46
And start right where you are the second book start right where you are, how little changes can make a big difference for overwhelmed procrastinators frustrated over achievers and recovering perfectionist. And that is a little bit more about inner game. And those it’s really super, super short chapters and each like a page or two, some of them. And then they all have a little action step. So it’s really about what sort of this thing of like, what can I do right now? How can I show up more right now? What decisions can I be making right now? Right? life better, because here’s the thing, all this self help stuff, all this personal development stuff. It totally works. If you do it, right. When you stop reading about it, and actually start doing it, when you take what you’re reading and put it into action, you will see the results in your life, you will learn the lessons in your body.
Methods and methodologies 13:33
Well, sure, because it’s really about, again, figuring out what your natural creative rhythms are, right? So to have systems and structures that support you both in doing a zillion things. I’m not one of those people says like, No, no, you have to focus on one thing, right? Oh, shit, I think if you want to focus on one thing, you should focus on one thing, I find that my life goes better when I’ve got three, maybe five, kind of huge projects going on at the same time. Now notice, I don’t say 12 to 15 huge projects, right. Um, that keeps me sort of just decide of the red zone of busy. And that that feels engaging to me, I like that I like I enjoy working, I like to do big things. Um, but 200, you know, but so to have capture systems for all your zillions of ideas to have, you know, methods and methodologies that suit you. I mean, it’s not like I’ve got some amazing method, and everybody should do things my way. Right now I like to use index cards, I use a paper calendar as well as my Google Calendar, you know, and this is partly how I control my time and my activities to make sure that I’m focusing on my highest income producing activities, my highest joy producing activities. And when I get those random thoughts of like, Oh, I wanted to write that novel. And oh, I wanted to wash the car. I know it like I have. I have a capture system for that. Right? You got to get it out of your head. Right? Step one, get it out of your head.
It’s easy to lose track 15:36
Just figure out what works best for you. Here’s one tip I have actually with the to do list that has I use almost every day and it’s just changed my life. I write down all the stuff I have to do. Right. And then I put a few more notes next to each thing I put down how much time I think it’s going to take. I put down how much money is involved either coming in or going out. And then on a scale of one to 10 I put in what where’s my level of desire? What’s my level of inclination on this one to 10? How much do I feel like doing it? And I find getting those little bits of information time, money inclination, really helps. First of all, settle me down. Second of all, helps me really get a grasp cuz sometimes I write this long list out and I’m like, tired before I even start. I’m like, Oh, God, I got so much to do. Oh, thank you. I’m like, Oh, that’s 10 minutes. Oh, that’s 20 minutes. Okay, that’s like two hours. And if you’ve got something that you cannot put a time on, like, finished book, that’s too big. That’s too big of a thing. Right? Right. So we’re finished introduction to book. Okay, that’s three hours, you know, that’s 90 minutes. That’s right. And then money because it’s easy to lose track, you know, we get interested in what we’re interested in. And we sometimes forget about the money. So like this when things are expensive, one way or the other. And then really, where’s my desire? Like, how much do I want to do this thing? Yeah, sometimes I’ll go through the whole list and my, everything desire is like a two or three. I’m like, Oh, I’m tired. Time to nap. I don’t want to do anything. Because I’m exhausted. I’m not going to get anything good done in this frame of mind. Time to nap. Come back. Now, where am I?
Our areas of creative genius 19:04
Yeah. So first of all, just I think everyone is organized, right? Everyone has organizational systems in their lives, they may or may not work. I mean, some people their system, you know, your system is to let your pile mail pile up on the table until it annoys you so much, you have to answer it, right? That’s a system. It’s not a great system. But some people come home, they drop their keys, and then they spend 20 minutes looking for their keys The next morning, right? That’s a system, right? So it’s part so step one is sort of noticing what your natural organizational systems are, and then where they can be improved. Artist. So it’s interesting, I believe that everyone is a creative genius. Right? Not everyone is artistic, in the same way that not everyone is musical. But everyone has some area creativity really has to do with interest and ability to problem solve. Right? So that thing that you are sure fascinated by? Sometimes for no reason. Like I don’t know why I love 17th century Chinese pottery, I just do you know, I don’t know why I love the music of Robert Johnson. I just do. So what are the sort of things that you get a little obsessed about that you delight you? And that you have sort of a natural inclination to problem solve? And we often don’t notice our areas of creative genius, because they have come to us so naturally, right? I was talking to a client who does home and office organization. Check this, particularly for men who would like to date women, and not frightened off by the state of their apartment. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Right. Great niche. And she said, you know, she goes, I don’t know. She says, I don’t know what it is. She was I’ve always been able to do this. I can walk into any room anytime and go, Hmm, okay, this needs to be over here. This needs to be here. This needs to go. What is that, you know, just has the end took her years to figure out that she could charge for that.
Three kind of buckets of people 25:08
Yeah, mostly what I do is I do help, I sort of helped three kind of buckets of people, I help people who really just want to reconnect with their creativity. They just want to be inspired and motivated and feel a little more judged up in their lives. And then I help people who would probably self described as creative, and they have a specific project they want to get done. You know, they’ve got a screenplay that’s been sitting in a drawer, they want to get back to their watercolors, they want to get back to dancing, they’ve got something specific that’s been tugging on their sleeve for a long time, and they want to move forward on that. And then I’ve been creative to would like to make money from their creativity. So for me, the work I do is more of actually about educating creatives around the principles of business. Because when I first started the organized artist company, I knew nothing. Yeah, nothing so much nothing. It’s shocking how much nothing I knew. But I learned really fast. I read every book, I went to every webinar with every conference, I sat in on everything. And as I learned, I realized, wait a minute, this stuff is all stuff that creative people do falling out of bed in the morning. Marketing is about being authentic. It’s about telling the truth. It’s about storytelling. It’s about telling really compelling stories in a way that people can hear you. It’s about being of service to people. And I’m like, that’s what artists do all day long. We that we love to do that we’re naturally inclined to do that. So it’s but it’s a matter of sort of reframing some of the language I mean, you can’t say perfect customer lifestyle, or lifetime customer journey or conversion or CTR, or drip to a creative they’re going to go Yeah, I don’t know what that isn’t. It sounds Jackie. You say create a community of raving fans, you know, grab, create, you know, your circle around the campfire, people who aren’t into what you’re doing, tell them to create, you know, tell them a compelling story. And then give them something to help them help their lives be better. They’ll sign up for that in a second.
Take a little tiny step towards what you want 32:44
Right? Because your brain, the thing your brain does best is find what it’s looking for. Right? Questions, right? So when you make it a button by just because, Okay, forget it, we’re not doing that. They say, Well, I want to do this, and I don’t have any training at it. I want to do this. And I don’t really know how your brain Well, let’s find out how to tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Yeah. When you get those little, you know, like, and then you know, you know, how did you take a little tiny step towards what you want. And it’s like, the universe comes rushing at you. Yeah, like, and you won’t believe it. The next day, I’m in line at the dry cleaners. And the person next to me is a literary agent. And, you know,
This little three foot wall 33:18
it’s so it’s so weird how, again, that comes to like thinking grow rich. And I talked about that book a lot, because the principles in it are simply universal principles. And it’s happened to me, like when I was reading the book in the park, and then next thing, you know, 30 people are coming, and I like, had to stand on this little three foot wall. So I could see everybody and talk to them. I didn’t know I would be doing a podcast, you know, 10 years later, or however long? It’s 11 years later. But um, but it was it was really interesting. So then, so you’ve written a couple books, right? And you also have the business, you’re also as you speak from the stage? I do. And so what else do you do to get in front of more people.
A very authoritative presence 38:17
But you know, it worked fine. And people still found me and they still grew my list. And I still was able to, you know, publish books. And you know, it worked to some degree. So, but more and more, you realize that, you know, when people are coming to the site, they were googling it was all organic search, they were looking for me, they were looking for my books that and and we were in the same kind of thing. Like I am also I’m almost 511 I have a very authoritative presence, even though I am super shy and super introverted. So I also, no one believes this about me, but it but it was also very difficult for me to sort of step center stage as myself. Happy to do as an actor playing some other people. RS myself was a slightly different ball of wax. Yeah, um, but I didn’t wait to feel ready. I didn’t wait for it to feel comfortable. I didn’t wait for it to feel good. I just took the note that everybody had been saying to me and said, Okay, let’s invest in this new website. Yeah, oh, we have this beautiful site. And it’s really pretty and it’s very easy to navigate. And there’s a whole back end there’s Sam Bennett programs. com which when you buy something, you get access to that. And that’s all men barium site with, you know, all the bells and whistles on that we can track your progress. There’s forums, there’s little congratulations. There’s fun stuff going on in there.
40 Sevens at Woodstock 43:09
always go back to thinking Grow Rich, but they have a thing called auto suggestion, which is just affirmations. And mine is I live in a absolutely benevolent universe that understands my deepest needs and fulfills them instantly. And that kind of aligns with that. Another thing you were saying is, you know, in thinking Grow Rich, there’s faith. There’s two types of faith. Like, I know, I’m a powerful speaker. So I have faith that I’m a powerful speaker, but also have to have faith that what I’m saying people actually agree with, you know, and then I have another saying is you don’t take a hippie till a military base. So I’m not going to go on and talk about ak 40 sevens at Woodstock. Right? And, or, what would the kids of today know Woodstock as I don’t know. But then you were also talking about how you’re a little introverted, but you have this huge presence. And, and, with that, it’s kind of like for me coming to the microphone. It’s, it’s, um, you know, trying to look good, and try not to look bad. It’s like, I’m walking to the microphone, and I’m trying to look good. But then when I start talking, I’m trying to not look bad. So how do you deal with just all the monkey thoughts that happen?
We are tribal animals 44:30
Yeah. So this concern of of what are other people going to think of me? Hmm, is, again, 100%. Natural It is, in fact, a survival mechanism. Okay. We are tribal animals. We live in a group? No, our animal brain knows that we cannot survive alone. getting kicked out of the tribe means death. Right, right. And so even though we don’t live tribally on the subject anymore, most of us don’t, we still have that brain, we still feel that way. So we are very concerned with the good opinion of the group, we want to be seen as good and contributing and upright and friendly, and helpful and fun, and, you know, pleasant to be around. We don’t want to take more than our share. We don’t want to be seen as greedy or grabby or a burden on the group. Right? Right. So we’re very sensitive to all that. And and that’s right and good. Again, it’s not low self esteem, it’s not, you know, there’s nothing wrong with you, you’re supposed to feel that way. Right. On the other hand, you will notice that you actually get a pretty consistent level of response from people. And if you’re curious about that, this is an exercise I often give people spend, I don’t know the next couple of weeks, writing down every compliment you get. Every time you get one. Don’t write down who said it, don’t write down what you think they meant, or what they wanted from you. Just the words they say, right? Hey, Sean, you look nice today. Looks nice. Oh, Sam, you’re so funny. So funny. You know, well, aren’t you right as new Penny, right as new Penny, right, doesn’t matter. what the circumstances are, just keep writing it down. And what you will notice is that, first of all, you are getting a ton of positive reinforcement that you had no idea you were getting, because I explain that in a minute. Um, and you’ll notice these things sort of start to clump up. IO over and over again, people tell me that I’m really friendly and easy to talk to. Right. All right. Now, I may not perceive that about myself, I don’t always feel friendly. I don’t always feel like I’m easy to talk to. But on the whole, most people seem to think this about me. You know, on the whole, most people find me authoritative and, and and capable. Okay, so when I have so I have a little social anxiety, like I will sit outside and event and read through my list of compliments, and be like, okay, I may not know how I’m showing up. But most people tend to perceive me as this.
Being loyal to the point of self neglect 49:02
and defensive. Right. You know, if you’re inspirational, you’re bossy. Yeah. Because that’s part of what inspiring people is about, right. And, you know, if you’re loyal, you’ve been loyal to the point of self neglect, you know, the loyal, you got footprints on your back. So to understand that all of these things that we were taught, like, makes us good, or makes us bad, are in fact, neither good nor bad. They’re just part of who we are. They’re part of your natural gifts. And so you want to be able to lean into them, share them with the world, right? That’s what we do with gifts we give them right, if your natural gifts to the world. And again, the more you show up as yourself, the fuller and richer and more satisfying, I think your life is Yeah.
Procrastination Domination starter kit 51:09
yeah, the real Sam Bennett. So with LinkedIn a little bit when we connect with you, what would people say in a connection? Would they say, You know what? Well just if you connect with Sam through LinkedIn, just say, I heard you on automation rehab, hashtag automation rehab, and connect with her. And definitely go to her website, the real Sam bennett.com download the the procrastination. What was it called?
procrastination, domination starter kit,
Shoan 51:39 the procrastination domination starter kit.
I’m definitely going to download that today. You’re going to see my name come in there and go through your funnel, because that’s exactly what I need. I’m exactly right there right now at this time in my life. Excellent. we’d really love to see you. We have some more stuff coming up. We have automated marketing summit, which actually is a summit where you would go through everything, that your whole service, it would be a paid thing. And it would be a funnel and it would count all the leads you capture go straight to you. You’ll learn more about that later. But again, we got the real Sam Bennett on with us right now. And also she’s with the the organized. I keep forgetting the name of it. The organized artist company,
Sam Bennett 52:27
the business is called the organized artist company. Yeah.
Shoan 52:29
Well, is that the name of the website as well,
TheRealSamBennett.com 52:34
So it’s therealSambennett.com find her on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, but definitely connect with her and definitely go to the real Sam bennett.com download the procrastination, domination, and especially that checklist that will teach you how to become more focused with your time and your desire as well as what needs to be done. So I want to thank you for showing up, Sam.
Sam Bennett 53:00
My pleasure. Shoan. Thanks so much, everybody. Nice to see you. We’ll talk to you soon.
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