Every Deal Is a Dance Ep. 11: Musician Adam Gaynor on The Art of the Pivot: From Matchbox 20 to Creative Entrepreneurship
Adam Gaynor sold 30 million records as guitarist and founding member of Matchbox 20, earning multiple Grammy nominations. Then he made a courageous pivot to build Creationville, his family animation and entertainment company. What attorney Mishawn Nolan has witnessed over 12+ years working with Adam: perpetual motion of creativity—from filing trademark applications in real-time as Adam walked to pitch meetings, to watching him build characters, write books, manufacture plush toys, and coach songwriters.
In this deeply creative conversation, Adam shares the biggest mistake he made after leaving Matchbox 20: spending years building everything with animators and illustrators but not launching most of it early. His million-dollar advice for creative entrepreneurs: finish, launch, and monetize one dream so it can fund the rest of your concepts. Don't get caught in the trap of creating to 75% and then chasing the next shiny idea.
Adam discusses his unique "commercial barometer" for recognizing hits (he may call himself the worst guitar player in MTV history, but he knows when a song or product will resonate), demonstrates the songwriting process live on ukulele, and shares why you can't wait for the universe to give you a sign—you have to meet the universe halfway by building something and seeing how it responds. He offers the 36-hour rule for creative crisis (cry in a ball if you need to, then roll up your sleeves), explains why 2025 is the year of the pivot, and predicts how AI will transform the music industry by pushing artists back to live performance.
From his current ventures—10X Songwriter coaching, creative consulting at AdamGaynor.net, relaunching Edgar Pingleton plush toys, and preparing to launch a Creationville game app—Adam embodies what it means to constantly reinvent while staying authentically creative. Essential listening for musicians, creative entrepreneurs, and anyone facing the pivot moment.
Every Deal Is a Dance Ep. 11:
Podcast Transcript:
You're listening to Every Deal Is a Dance, part of the Look Legal pods from the law firm Nolan Heimann. And now, here is your host, Attorney Mishawn Nolan.
Mishawn Nolan: I'm Mishawn Nolan and I'm co-founder and co-managing partner of Nolan Heimann LLP. Before I was a lawyer, I was a dancer and then I was a choreographer. And so, it's not surprising that my law practice reflects dance principles of alignment and flow, especially when I'm working with my clients to monetize their creative ventures. And essentially what it means is aligning your abilities with your goals while at the same time balancing structure and reinvention. I want to make growing businesses less scary and less overwhelming for creators. So, everyone I interview in this series is someone who has a story to tell about authenticity, about their reinvention and their journey as a creative business maker. It is an opportunity to hear stories of alignment and flow in action.
Mishawn: Some of you listening to this podcast know Adam Gaynor as a member of Matchbox 20, a band that sold 30 million records worldwide and earned multiple Grammy nominations among many other awards. The Adam I know is the creative force behind Creationville, an entertainment company focused on family animation, which was a courageous pivot he made after he left Matchbox. Recently, Adam has pivoted again. And in addition to writing and recording his own music, and continuing Creationville, Adam is helping other musicians grow creatively and figure out how to make their passions into a business. I'll let Adam explain what he's doing more later. I've worked with Adam for around 12 or 13 years, and here's my favorite thing about him. He creates constantly. He has perpetual motion of creativity, and I believe that's why he's excellent at the art of the pivot. When you design, you create, you throw it out there in the world and you see what the response is. If it works, you go deeper, if it doesn't work you pivot and I wonder Adam if you hone those skills writing songs? And we can explore that in this podcast. So, Adam, I don't know if you remember this story, but several years ago you were at a conference. I wasn't at the conference with you; I was at home at my desk and you called me because you were walking the floor. You were on your way to a meeting and you created a brand-new IP, and you said, I want to pitch it at my meeting in five minutes. But we had no protection. So, you said, hurry up, file a trademark. So, I went onto the trademark office and as you were walking to your meeting, I was filling out the trademark application and we were brainstorming - entertainment, clothing, toys. Like we were just throwing everything in there. And I filed the application as you're walking into the meeting. I got the confirmation. I said go, you're done, we have it. And you pitched it; you pitched it right there. And it's pretty incredible because most people, prepare for months and they workshop things and they test things, and you created it on the spot, walking to the meeting and there you go. And it was awesome. And that's my experience with you, just creativity in motion. I do this podcast to support other creative business makers, and part of that is revealing what's really going on behind the scenes, all the messy stuff, and ultimately what gets us through the rough times. It's tough and lonely, and sometimes it's really scary. And these podcasts are intended to be a little community that gives us strength. So, Adam, I’m so happy you're part of my community. Welcome to the Every Deal Is a Dance Podcast.
Adam Gaynor: (singing and playing ukelele) Just smile and the world seems forgiving, Myneighbor dies, I just smile while he's not living. A baby cries, a dog runs wild but I just keep on living. A happy song when they are gone makes the world seem right…MISHAWN!!!!!
I had this thing sitting around my neck the whole time. I was below camera. For those of you that are listening to our beautiful podcast today, my name is Adam Gaynor. I'm so happy to be here with Mishawn. What an incredible introduction. Thank you so much. And yeah, I remember all those days of saying, hey, Mishawn, you probably have nothing going on in your life. Can you please drop everything and help me trademark something in seven minutes? To which to which back in the day, Mishawn was only, let's say 72 % busy. Now it's like, hey, I'll get back to you in a couple of days because you are, you know, and I'm like, no, she is, she literally is like the most responsive lawyer person, human, friend I've ever known. You can literally call her almost 24 hours a day. And she just responds. She is super awesome. And I'm so grateful for our relationship and friendship and your professionalism. And yeah, you've taken so much stress off of me throughout my career and inventions and IP and toys and projects. So, thank you for that. Cannot believe we're here together finally on Friday. See you guys at home might not see this for a while, but today is Friday the creepy 13th and I love it. Here we go.
Mishawn: When I asked you what day you wanted to do your podcast, you said, for sure, Friday the 13th. There was no question.
Adam Gaynor: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's like five dates and I'm like, no, we got it. We got to fill that date. So, whoever's afraid of it, I'm in. I'm ready to go.
Mishawn: Thank you, that was amazing.
Adam Gaynor: No, it's fine. Thank you.
Mishawn: So, what I want to do is I want to get into it, get into all the mess. So, let's go back. When did you discover that you could write music and that this could actually be a career for you?
Adam Gaynor: There's a famous story and I won't give you, I know this is a little quicker than my normal seven hour vodcasts that I do. So, basically when I was little, I still lived in New York. I just started learning guitar, probably 11, 12 years old, max. I was listening to an Eagles album called Desperado. An album, by the way, is a large piece of plastic. It looks like a UFO. It's not even an eighth of an inch thick. I was listening to an album, again, for the kids out there, it's an album, a record. And I was playing this song called Outlaw Man, which your oldest people on the podcast like me, maybe will know what that song is, but super obscure playing a couple of chords to the record as a 12 year old on acoustic guitar going, wow, this sounds exactly like the record. And if I flashback like the Wonder Years show, I'm sure it sounded horrible, but in my brain I was like, I could do this. I was a terrible student. I was actually pretty athletic but I didn't know what my path would be and guitar seemed to come easier to me than anything else I struggled with. So just kind of kept at it. And by the time I moved to Florida was 16, I'm like, I might have some talent in this. I'm not going to be an athlete my whole life. I'm too frail. That's a joke. And then, which really isn't. And then I just stuck with it and went to college and then blah, blah, blah. And you know, that's pretty much a setup is being 11, looking at yourself in a funny music video that you wish you could create and going, I think I could do this, I sound just like the record.
Mishawn: And then when did you discover that you could create characters and stories and animation?
Adam Gaynor: I feel like that was on a tour bus. I started messing around with Photoshop and I love taking pictures, like taking people's backyards and taking the hue and making trees like purple and the sky like blood red. And then just, it started with simple stuff on experimenting with Photoshop. And then I had a super fan of our band who drew cartoon characters and I asked her to draw me like a little skeleton guy and some weird stuff. Then me, with no artistic training,just started putting together these picture cells, which I literally still have on my computer. And I felt like, wow, like I always make a joke about my life and, I never thought I'd be Jimi Hendrix. I don't really think, I'm going to be John Mayer, but my idols were people like Walt Disney and Rod Serling and Tim Burton. I just really had a lot of respect for those kinds of people. And I just feel like all of a sudden, I felt like, my God, this is awesome. I love this. It's my creative soul coming out. And then, you know, slowly but surely started hiring other artists, went to Cal Arts, did a talent search and then I came up with the name Creationville, just built a website, didn't do anything with it forever, and just slowly but surely started building what I consider a pretty functional company.
Mishawn: So, you have all of these talents. How do you introduce yourself? If someone says, like, who are you and what do you do? How do you describe it?
Adam Gaynor: Well, I always say I'm an idiot because I'm self-deprecating. So, hi, I'm Adam and I'm an idiot would be the first introduction. And after we get over that and either the people turn around and leave or they laugh, it just depends what the response is. They either become my best friend or they're like, this guy's too much. Yeah, just, I'm Adam Gaynor. A lot of people know me from Matchbox 20. My company's not famous famous. I’m just Adam Gaynor. Like my mission in life is to make people happy. And if you don't know him from the band, then I'm just a pretty happy-go-lucky dude that wants to make sure you're having a good time at whatever you're doing and helping you with your creative process. And that's pretty much who I am.
Mishawn: What is the through line between everything that you've done, between learning the guitar and writing songs and performing and Creationville? What is the through line? What is it that connects all of those together?
Adam Gaynor: I mean, it's me, which sounds stupid, but it's, me and my passion and my creativity and, most musicians that I know, they want to do music. And then if they're not in a successful pop band, then maybe they'll write a Broadway show with music, or maybe they'll write for TV and film with music. So, I would think statistically speaking, 80 to 90 % of musicians just really function in that realm and they can be creative. And yeah, I know a lot of singers, including my old singer, Rob Thomas, like they like to draw and do that, but I don't know how many people want to take their creativity and turn it into a business. So, to me, I don't know what's in my soul that makes me hyper creative, but being self-deprecating for only the ninth time in a 30-minute podcast, I can say that when I talk to people, what I'll say negatively about myself is, which I feel is true, is I may be the worst guitar player in MTV history. But then I'll say something which my mom in heaven would be like, hey, be humble. I'll say that I have one of the best commercial barometers on earth so I can recognize a hit song. I know when one's being written and it's just a few chords. And I also know when something like my Edgar Pingleton character, like I invented, I say this is going to be good for the world.
And then I release it and I get, photos from around the world that people won't let it go. Their kid sleeps with it for six years up until 13. And I'm like, okay, there's my commercial barometer. So yeah, part of me is very proud of what I do. Part of me knows what my limits are musically. I can write really good songs, which I'm proud of, but yeah, I don't think I'm Jimi Hendrix. And, I'm just really proud of what my soul produces. And somehow those maybe are the gifts that I was given as just a weird commercial barometer. That's really all I'll positively say about myself and then I'll make fun of myself again later.
Mishawn: So, would you say that that is really the driving talent is the ability to create, but then also identify among the stuff you've created, what will resonate with people?
Adam Gaynor: Yeah. And I mean, here's, here's a cautious tale. You have an audience, you know, some people are very successful at what they do and you have a lot of probably young entrepreneurs that are also pivoting. So, what you have to be very careful of when you're like a guy like me who, know, I'm not going to throw these words out to get feedback and mail saying, hey, my kid has this, my kid has this, but I don't know what's right or wrong with me. I definitely don't claim to have autism or ADHD or ADD, but I definitely feel like I have spectrums of everything.
So, what you have to be super careful of as a quote, hyper creative that loves to create all day is you can get in big trouble if you don't stop just creating something and then you get it to 75 % and then you're like, here's another shiny idea. Let me put this down. You have to be financially responsible to yourself. If I could go back in time, I would have made sure that although it was amazing coming from this band that sold 30 million records and having all the time in the world to create, I would say in 10 years, I put every idea I ever had down with five different artists and animators, built this entire mothership, but I didn't launch a lot of that. Like a lot of it I put into my proverbial closet, which ironically that we're talking today, I've just relaunched one of my characters that was one of my first builds, edgarpingleton.com is one of my guys. See the marketing right there with the .com. And then I did, thank you. Thank you so much. And then we're getting ready to release another character in a game. And thank you, Mishawn. She hooked me up with one of her brilliant, brilliant clients. And I'm very, very grateful for that relationship. And we're going to do a game this year.
So, although I built all these things and launched some, monetized some, and kept some, you have to be responsible to yourself to make sure you're not just building to create. Although, if you are super wealthy and this is just a passion, that's great. You're allowed to totally do that. But you also have to find the balance of, this as another kind of self-deprecating and also not humble joke about myself, which Mishawn probably heard 12 times. I have a quote I made up for myself, which still at 62, I'm not sure where I am, but the joke is I'm either a mad genius or completely mad. And I have no idea to this day. I think on the deathbed, someone's going to hand me a piece of paper and he's going to be like, yeah, you were just completely mad or it's going to be the, yeah, you were a mad genius. Good job.
Mishawn: I'm in the mad genius column.
Adam Gaynor: Yeah. We'll figure that one out.
Mishawn: So, to that end, it must be really difficult for someone who's constantly creating, as you were describing, not to get 75 % and then say, here's something new I came up with, and here's something new. How do you stay focused? How do you finish it to the end?
Adam Gaynor: Look, it's a really hard process. Here's how everyone else does it. By listening to a guy like me I'm going to be just weirdly literal. You don't know that. If you're in the process and you're hyper creative, unless you hear someone like me saying, hey dude, I was nominated for four Grammys, I sold 30 million records, I made a pivot into creativity and early in my career, I did not make the smart decision of launching something and monetizing it early to sustain the finances coming in. It's like being a musician and you're an unknown. You're like 19 to 22 years old. You still got a little time and you're writing an album that's amazing. The world hasn't heard it, but oh my God, I have 10 more songs.
I'm just going to create it. There's no pressure. Nobody cares whether they hear it or not. And all of sudden you get discovered and you have this first album. Most people have a problem except for my band, which I'm blessed because of Rob Thomas. But then your second record sophomore slump, my God, I'm in trouble. But my God, you were the one kid that built all these two records, three records before anyone heard you. My thing in my brain was I had some money in the bank. I had a small crew of illustrators and animators and I'm going to build everything that I want now.
Now as a man 20 years removed from the beginning of that process, I would have said, Hey, you need more strategic partners. need to hand a project off, have it launched, have someone managing it. Keep building your Walt Disney studio, which is my Creationville, but make sureyou launched the first thing because it took years of catch up. That's the million-dollar advice from this podcast is don't get caught up with creating ever, especially today. Like I already know people that are creating every dream they ever had with AI and that's super awesome, but you better make sure that you finish, launch, and monetize one of these dreams as soon as you can so that it could keep funding the rest of your concepts and ideas because it's really easy today. You know, I wasn't using AI back in my day, but yeah, the biggest advice I could give is get an idea that you could really follow through, finish, launch and monetize whatever level, because it's still going to take a year to five for it to reach that point where you're like, wow, I am doing really, really well. And now what else do you have the business? People are going to come for you and go like, what's the next thing that you have? And you'll be like, well, as a matter of fact, this is the other thing, you know? So just launch, build, and just keep repeating that, you know, rinse, repeat cycle.
Mishawn: Right, it's the entertainment business because it has to be a business so that you can continue to create. If you're not monetizing, there's only so long you're going to be able to create. But I want to focus on that shift because you went from being in one of the most famous bands in the world and then all of sudden you said, now I'm a startup, right? That's a huge pivot. That's a fundamental shift, right? Could you explain why you decided to pivot away from Matchbox and into this Creationville?
Adam Gaynor: Yeah, it's a simple answer. I think that some people, like we started the conversation with our musicians for life, right? Like I am not the musician's musician, but I am so proud of what I did. And I get to take my little proverbial magic knapsack. I get to reach to the sky. I grab my one star out of the sky. I got it done. I get to put it in the backpack. Mission accomplished. I was a well-known musician in a well-known band and wow, did it. But wow, like Serena Williams, Venus Williams, best tennis players ever to play the sport. Venus decides at a pretty younger age than retirement, I just want to do a clothing line and just drop out for a little bit. I want to do a milkshake line, a nutrition line. want to do, you know, I think certain people have something in them… that want like my dream was to be in a world known band pivot to having a show on TV that was a hit series, have an animation series that did well, and then I could die. Like if I can get an Oscar in between there for music or for something, that's the only other goal left. But that's my dream. My dream is to try to check off as many boxes, but it's because it's what I want to do. It's not because I once heard a guy speak, hey, if you do these four things, you'll be known as a great creator. Like, no, this is what my heart wants to do every day. Yeah, like I'm 62. I hope by the time I'm 70, I get to like, it's funny because this will sound not weird, but if you know me, I am trying to make lightning not strike twice, but probably three times. And I will not be happy. My sister will be the first to tell you like, how come you don't celebrate the victories? And I'm like, I just, I just not sure that I'm satisfied yet with what I have done. I am very proud. And the more years that are removed 20 plus years now removed from Matchbox 20. Wow. What I did, I know how hard it is now to reach the same paramount peak of a mountain where I want to be for these other projects. And honestly, I don't doubt that I will get there. It just takes a minute to, we talk about pivot and I call it halftime adjustments being a sports guy. Like you have to figure out what is going on in your life and do not keep throwing the same pile of poop against the same wall for 10 years because you know you're right.
Because if you know you're right, then you are the completely mad dude. You have to see what is being - what your audience is responding to. And you can't be the dude in the basement that's writing a quote unquote hit record, but the industry's not responding. Your family can barely listen to your music. Your friends are like, it's nice. Like, you know, in this world, I'm giving you a lot of feedback, but you know, when something's on, like when I, when I coach kids in music and they show me a song and they're like, when, they take my songwriting course, but, then they're like, but Adam, now that I left you, how am I going to know if I wrote the next hit? I'm like, when you play the next song for your mom or your dad or your brother or sister or your friend and their mouth drops open and they go, that's the best thing you've ever done. That's your barometer. If you throw a project or an app or animated series and the world freaks out, not your family going, that's really good. That's your barometer to know this is amazing. Let me make some alterations or, no, I need to pivot. I need to make a halftime adjustment now. You got to know that for yourself or you will burn a lot of fuel, a lot of money, and a lot of time.
Mishawn: It's really hard to know when it's a challenge because it's new and when it's not working and it's time to pivot. So, I like your description of getting people's feedback that it's when you elicit a strong emotional response from people, then you know you're onto something.
Adam Gaynor: Yeah, I mean, you, can't be delusional as a creator. We're talking about, Creationville is goes not just for a musician person or an entrepreneur. I wrote that book for Edgar Pingleton, it's for 40-year-old people that want to open up a floral shop. Like, you have to have some kind of a sense of non-delusion that like, I think this is great, but nobody else gets it. Like, yeah, there might be one of those Becks or Nora Jones's or people that do something so different that the world will embrace it later, but I'm a stat guy. And if you rely on the one in a billion philosophy, it's really hard. You have to kind of like, you talked about this. It's the entertainment business. It's also the music business. So, in everything that I preach and say, I always say this. You can't wait for the universe. You can't sit in a ball and with your legs crossed on the floor, rocking back and forth and saying, I am waiting for the universe to give me a sign. I will, that will drive me crazy. If I hear people tell me that all day long and look, I'm as fruity, lucky, happy, go lucky, hippie, go lucky as you want to be. But like, don't tell me you're waiting for the universe to give you a sign because you're going to be sitting there for a long time. My philosophy is meet the universe halfway, like build something that you launched to the universe.and see how the universe responds. But don't sit there and just not make pivots and adjustments and hope that something happens. You have to make it happen, whether it's a floral shop or a hit song or a cartoon character or a plush toy. You have to work really, really hard. It's a hard life to make a living in creativity. And then it's really hard to do super well. So be prepared.
You may launch the one in a billion thing like Labubu - like you better make sure that you have an idea that can resonate with a big commercial barometer and execute it well and work really, really, really hard.
Mishawn: Was there ever a moment where you considered quitting music?
Adam Gaynor: I kind of stopped creating for almost 20 years. Um, I just was so excited about creating Creationville and putting all my ideas down. So, I think it was only until 2000 and from 2004, when I was no longer with Matchbox then, uh, nine years later, I released two songs onSpotify, just to let people know I was alive, not because I wanted to promote or be famous from it. So, then it wasn't until this last year. And I mean, it's a dumb story. And I used to get mad when people say they met a muse and this muse well, I don't know. When I met my girlfriend,Rachel, and we were locked down for COVID, something transformed in me. I started writing songs again, but these songs felt less crazy love song dysfunctional and more like Jack Johnson cool commercial big and I'm like wow so I really have dove headfirst back into music which I've been doing for five years and then and a funny joke unfortunately now I'm going full steam back in Creationville as well, getting ready to launch a game app and relaunching Edgar Pingleton while my other stuff is doing what it does so yeah I'm I would make a joke and say I'm a little overwhelmed, because it's hard to do one thing really well. But yeah, I'm trying to do TV and film sync placement for the songs that I love and also trying to keep two or three brands moving forward. And yeah, it's a lot.
Mishawn: So, I want to talk about your songwriting. Songwriting is a really special skill. When you're writing music, what skills have you honed? How do you do it? I know you coach other musicians on songwriting, what do you tap into? How do you write music?
Adam Gaynor: It's a very weird process and I think that I start out playing a couple chords on the guitar. Hold on one second. So, this will be kind of a joke, but we'll do the quickest demonstration. So let me see. So, this is a ukulele by the way, I'm a guitar player, but I bought this a couple years ago and I don't know how to play it yet, but I'm having fun. So, the first thing you do is like, you start out with like, you play some chords, some...(plays)
And then like in this sense, you're being, I'm being a storyteller. So first I'll come up with like a….And then I got to figure out a story. So, this will be a non-commercial version. I write a lot of big poppy commercial songs. But in this case, I was thinking about an experience I had making a record at Electric Lady Studio in New York back in Matchbox. Saw a lady on the street corner. They had a window in their vocal booth, which was strange enough, but you could see a lot of New York. There's a lady standing under a streetlight and she was smoking a cigarette. And I see this mist in the smoke. Never forgot that image. Ten years later I come up with this idea and a story in my brain. So first I come up with the chords to answer your question. And then I'm thinking of some lyrics. You have to create some kind of a melody. And when you come up with like a… and then all of sudden I'm like, oh, slow slow flight. You'll come up with a word in there, something about flight, an angel. And then I start writing words. And before you know it, you have the chords, you have somewhat of a hummed melody and then it'll turn into (sings) like an angel denied by the lack of her light wound up stalling mid-flight crashed to earth on this night as I sat by the window I saw her last glow with her body old shoes and her tattered up clothes I thought she might see me across from the street but her eyes were all dead black as night then, she screamed.
So, it's like I come up with this melody, I come up with these words.
Mishawn: Did you just make that up?
Adam Gaynor: No, that is something that I'm so sorry. So, the whole point of that was to show you that you come up with chords for me as a creator then I start humming like, (sings) and then I'll be like an angel denied… And then I'm like, cool. An angels denied… So, the song is about like, sorry, I write kid’s stuff and I have very, very happy projects, but this song is the darkest one I've ever written. And of course I give you that as an, I gave you a smile song, which by the way, is like a dark comedy song. If you listen to those lyrics, it's kind of weird. And then this is like a really dark song that starts in ukulele and turns into this big epic rock like opera at the end. But yeah, I mean, it's just like, you just start feeling the creative process of what you want to talk about, then you have to find words. And to me, I'm not like a cat hat ball bat rhyme guy that is going to find the easiest words. I will research. I'll use tools and thesauruses to go like, I can't just say, water or lake or ocean. I'm going to look for the word float and then again, that will inspire me to write other words and other stories. So yeah, it's a wackadoodle creative process but that song came from some chords, strumming, coming up with something like an angel tonight and then I had to come up with the I knew what the story of my head was going to be sometimes you don't sometimes you'll sing words and a word will pop out and you're like oh that's really cool fly - so you're going to be like you know I just want to fly or I just something and that's kind of what you do.
Mishawn: That's really cool. I'm not musical. I don't, this is the first time I've ever actually heard or understood writing music. And what I actually hear from you is it's kind of a layering process, right? It's a natural evolution and layering, and it gets more and more complicated as you go, right? And actually, that's how I think about building businesses, which is really interesting, right? Because you start with basic problem, the basic solution, and then you build out the complexity. And so, I wonder, some of the skills that you developed with writing songs, do you use that in your entrepreneurial ventures?
Adam Gaynor: Yeah, I mean, you know, the things that helped me the most, it's almost very obvious. It's storytelling, right? So, I think again, anything that you're trying to do in life, especially in this day and age of content and communication, you have to tell a story. And again, I go back to this weird thing because I have this obsession with like people who read my Edgar book are, you know, I always make the same quote, like, I don't care if you're trying to be a rock star, a baseball player, or you're trying to open that floral shop it's repeat, repetition, getting good at it, understanding, I guess your lane, but trying to tell a story. If you're opening up a floral shop is just as important because you need to kind of know what your, window display is going to look like and why are people going to be invested in me and what am I going have to do on Instagram to get people to like my brand? So, storytelling for musicians or for creative content people, it seems to be what's happening today more than it's ever been. So that's the only recommendation I would have even for young entrepreneurs right now. I'm seeing a lot of Instagram ads when we just had the ice storm. So, it's prepper stuff and its people with a flashlight that can baste a chicken in 12 minutes and it can drive your car and it's a flashlight and it's so, but like whatever you're seeing, like you need to create a story behind it. I don't care if it's a product, like it's one mistake to just take, I invented a bean bag chair, so I'm putting it online, buy my bean bag chair. No, like create a cool environment around it or a cocktail party that people are drinking at or not drinking alcoholic beverages, but maybe they're drinking nice sodas with it, you know, for the kids that are listening.
But you know, like, yeah, create stories around your products, make people invested in the story behind the product. So that's the only correlation between songwriting and music and movies and animation and products. It's all about storytelling, which is really what Creationville started as - a brand that tells stories.
Mishawn: Yeah. And you know that the reason that I call this podcast, Every Deal Is a Dance is because I was a dancer and a choreographer before I was a lawyer. And that's what choreography is, right? Storytelling. First, you select a song, right? And you have to really deeply listen to the song and break down the song and understand what the songwriter is trying to communicate, right? The verses and then all the imperfections, right? Pauses, like I heard when you were singing that song and performing, there was a pause. It didn't go straight through and all those special things. You really listen deeply for that and then you tell your story through dance. And so, I also utilize that. I think every business today has to be a storyteller. We're all media companies. Even a law firm is a media company now. Everyone's a media company. How do you see people using their creativity beyond just storytelling? Or how do you use your creativity beyond storytelling?
Adam Gaynor: It's one thing to be Tim Burton, Rod Serling, and Walt Disney and be some of the greatest creative minds in our lifetime. But now all of a sudden, what are you going to do to build out what your idea is? What are you going to do to build out your dream? What are you going to do to build out that story or that product? So yeah, it becomes very quickly infrastructure, planning. If you're doing that floral shop, now you got to find a location. If you're trying to create a great song and then you want to perform and you have to build a band or you have to build at least a band in the studio, or if you're trying to do an animation project, you need to find a team. How are you? Yeah, it's, this is the part that's the work, folks listening at home. It's like everybody in the world has a story. Everybody in the world that you turn to wherever you're sitting right now in an office or in your kids' carpool lane everybody said, man, I thought of that product and I thought of doing that and I just, you know, but it's the people that execute and the people that don't mind putting aside personal time and having to tell your family, look, I need an hour time out a day to just build this dream. I believe in it.
I consult families and guys who tell me they have four kids and a wife and they don't give them any time. I'm like, it's the balance of your relationship. You have to find partners that will give you that creative space. And there isn't, again, a fine line of, just want to go my office and dillydally around and I don't want to deal with my family. That's not what I'm talking about. You have to figure out how you're going to get these ideas launched off the ground. It's part of what I do consulting with people. But I think everybody has ideas. Then you have to build a team of people that can either help you or you have to find the means and the infrastructure or the technology to build it yourself. You know, again, you can't see there in the podcast land, but I'm pointing at my arm and I say, look, we all have the basic same DNA in our systems, minus a couple of chromosomes that change to make us who we are. But we all have the ability to be successful. Like, I will never tell a musician that you can't do what I did because you can. And I'm not going to tell someone out there that you're not going to be the next Walt Disney or you're not going tobe the person that invents the next, Scrub Daddy thing that was on Shark Tank that sold a billion dollars. Like you can do it. Like I don't care how old you are. You could literally do it, but where's your brain? Like where's your process and where is your motivation? There are so many things that go into being successful. And I will always leave it with, you can also throw something out on the internet and it goes viral and you become rich in 12 hours because you just did it but I would go with the first part where it's going to be a lot harder of a grind than expect to go viral because that's not a great business model. And if you don't go viral and then, you just don't know what you're doing to build a business at the end. So, there you go.
Mishawn: So, what are you doing now? Could you describe the consulting and the other stuff you're doing in addition to songwriting and in addition to Creationville What is it that you're doing now?
Adam Gaynor: AdamGaynor.net is my consulting business where I consult musicians, independent musicians and songwriters, but I also love it. I've consulted families. I've consulted creative people because I'm fortunate enough to have made animation, TV sizzles, plush toys, manufactured overseas, written books. I have experienced doing a lot of creative.
So, a lot of people come to me just because their brain is going to explode or they're depressed or they don't know what to do next. So that's one part of my business. The songwriting classes that I give are groups of five people at a time. And that is just completely stripping down people's songs building from scratch in a class. I give you every process I use and tool I use intuitively. And then I rip your stuff apart, show you how to rebuild it. It's called 10X songwriter. That's also a .com. Thank you very much for all the free advertising. And that also is a very high dollar course. But when you leave, I'm not guaranteeing you so you get your money back, but I am guaranteeing you that you will be 10 times better than when you got there because it's what I do. And that's where I impose my will and it's very exhausting. And then that's it. Creationvillelaunching an app this summer, which has my first game with my first characters. Which by the way, all the crazy stuff that I put in my proverbial closet - those are two characters that I built - all of these beautiful gifts and all these beautiful animation cells and I didn't know what to do with, so I left them in the drawer knowing at some point it would come around. Those are going to be launched this summer, beyond excited, one of my first big monetization plans.
And then edgarpingleton.com is my little plush toy guy. I wish I could show you your podcast people, but he's a really awesome, imperfect creature that you can give and receive unconditional love from because he's imperfect, which makes him perfect. He's been relaunched since Christmas and very excited sales have been really nice on that. I think there's other stuff, but let's just stop there. So, I don't sound completely manic. Thank you very much.
Mishawn: So, with regard to the consulting and stuff you do, there's a lot of people in the entertainment and other creative industries that are struggling right now. AI is potentially taking some people's work. The lack of funding of projects is getting a little scary. Hollywood doesn't have a lot of work. And I'm talking to a lot of entrepreneurs that are looking, should I make...some shifts? What else can I do with my talents? What can I do? So, if anyone is listening and they're thinking about reinventing themselves, if they're thinking about pivoting, what actionable step could they do today or tomorrow to just start on the process of reinventing?
Adam Gaynor: Yeah, that's a difficult, there's a really easy answer and a very difficult question without knowing what the specific person is specifically building or trying to produce or launching.
If you don't know that this year plus last year is the year of the pivot. This is one of the most interesting times of our lives where technology, I don't know, again, 62 born in 1963. Can't tell you I remember a lot of stuff, but I do remember not having a microwave oven. I do remember not having a cell phone. I do remember listening to albums, which we talked about. Google that.
I do know what's happened since. I think in our lifetimes, I want to be selfish and say probably one of the most monumental years of development from when I was a baby till today because it's crazy, but God knows, maybe we don't even know what's coming in the next hundred years. Butthis is way the year of the pivot and because of AI, whether you love it or hate it, it's here. I will not use it for music yet. I will not do anything with AI for music because that is my niche. Like here's what I have done. I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars - Mishawn can show you the bills - on animators, illustrators, legal fees, to build my company. I feel less guilty taking those properties and throwing it back into AI. I'm very lucky in a weird way that I already built all of these properties that can be copyrighted and protected.
And now for you guys or hoping to learn more about any properties that you've already built and protected. If you haven't, call Mishawn right away, have her protect yourself. Then you can throw it. That's a plug for her by the way. Mishawn and what would be our website? Mishawn, I know they don't care, but what is it? are we? Yeah, nolanheimann.com. Google that please and go right away. But yeah, like now is the time for you to assess what you have. Understand the jobs that are being absorbed and finding your niche that you can pivot to. I'm not saying to throw your hands up in the air, freak out and worry. I'm not worried as a musician that today everybody can write a song that literally sounds like Justin Bieber and is a hit song or sounds like John Mayer and is a hit song. It's a little freaky. I'm not going to lie because this is what my talent might, my one talent might be is writing big hit songs, but I have to pivot. So, you know, think Mishawn asked me a year or two ago, what if she was going to talk to in a lecture, what I say is going to happen in the music industry.
So, the pivot that I would say there is I think it's going to come back to live performances. I think that if everybody in the world could write a hit song, if AI is creating a country artist that's completely made up and has a number one song and is not a real person. And if you're looking to figure out what you're going to do next in the music industry, you're going to have to figure out how to perform live. Now, here's cool things. You maybe you'll have AI in the screen behind you. Maybe you're going to, but I think it's going to come down to people wanting to go see live music. If everybody in the world can have a song in the radio that sounds exactly like everybody else, there has to be another level. We're going to go back - old school analog, get on stage with your guitar and put on an entertaining show that people are going to want to go see. Other than that, mean, everybody can write hit songs now and everybody can filter it through AI and we don't know what the rules are going to be from Spotify that are going to change probably like everything else does.
So yeah, I mean, whatever you're doing, you know, come talk to me if you want to pivot, literally not trying to jump up more time in business that I rarely have, but yeah, I love trying to figure out creative solutions to problems and just being aware of what technology is there today. But yeah, it's time for you to think about what it’s going to look like in a year or two where everything is moving at the speed of light technology wise right now. Now it's time to start thinking at least about what you're trying to build if you're building or what your business model is today if you're trying to pivot to what it's going to look like, you know, just in two more years or even a year.
Mishawn: I agree. This is the year of the pivot. Last year, we thought it was the year of the pivot, but this year is even more so the year of the pivot. So, if someone is standing on the precipice of about to pivot, what do you want them to remember about your story?
Adam Gaynor: Man, the quote about me having the same basic DNA structure as you do, the point that it's all doable, the point that I have a dentist theory that you can't worry about going to the dentist two weeks before you go to the dentist because you think it's going to hurt and then you go and it doesn't hurt. It's why you can never be worried or too anxious about anything you do or produce because it's just such unnecessary wasted energy that's going to interfere with your creative process. So, the first thing I'm going to tell you is, take a breath, calm down. If being an entrepreneur freaks you out to the point where you become paralyzed this might not be the business for you. But all of that. Yeah, I mean it's really look I have days of anxiety don't, don't - I am NOT a perfect human being but you know, major crisis, I'll give you a 36-hour rule. Go, if something fails, launches destroyed stolen, go in your room, cry, rocking a ball back and forth for a day. If you can't help it, you need another 12 hours. You get 36 hours, but man, you got to roll your sleeves up. Here's another Adam Gaynor quote, if success were easy, we would all be successful. The most dumb thing I've ever created in my life. But the truth is if you like sports, remember LeBron James. Remember the coach of the Miami Heat when they were trying to build a championship team.
It is a grind. Everything that you do should not be easy. If it is easy, God bless you. I'm actually happy for you, whether it was luck or you being a super brain, but man, just know it's going to be hard. It's hard work. If you have a day job and you're freelancing your own life into building your dream. Hey, roll up your sleeves. Know it's going to be painful. Embrace that pain so that you can build something great for yourself. And that's the only advice I have is like, look, you know, whether you're pivoting, whether you're starting from day one scratch, if you have a dream, please try to execute it somehow. If it's reasonable and you're not taking your whole life savings and putting it into a dream with no backup plan. So that's pretty much what I would recommend to someone just, just do it. Start from scratch, small step, maybe find a creative partner. That's usually - surrounding yourselves with talented people is a very smart way. I tell people to produce not just music, but producing projects. All right.
I'm going to say Nate, and Nate, if you're listening to this podcast, God bless you. So, one of the projects I am launching is because Mishawn said, Adam, I want to take your super brain and connect it to one of my clients that has a super brain. And for me, being with someone that was technologically much smarter than me, I didn't have to be the smartest person in the room. I got to put my ego aside and go, here's my creativity. This is what I want to do. What is your brilliant techno brain say to do? How would you do it? And we've done something really extraordinary together. And that's the thing that we're launching this summer. Yeah, surround yourselves with talented people. Thank you, Nate, by the way, if you’re listening. Thank you, Mishawn for that hookup. And if you do work with Nolan Heimann, they're very good at that. They're very good at building community. This is not a pitch for them. She is not just my attorney. She is a dear friend. She's someone I trust with my life and with my business. And I'm just so grateful to watch her grow as like a two people startup entertainment, legal law firm to going into I mean, dozens of people now and partners and watching her create, creating a representative for every niche that you could have for creativity and entertainment and patents and copyrights and trademarks. Yeah, they're my people for life. And I'm very, very, very grateful for you, Mishawn, for everything you've done for me.
Mishawn: Thank you, Adam. And thank you so much for sharing your story and your experiences and your thoughts and your inspiration for other creatives.
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