(If you’re looking for the infamous Starbucks conversation that Megan posted at Ideaschema today, you can find it right here. We recommend you right-click and download it rather than listening to it on the server, or listen using the player at Megan’s post. If you weren’t looking for it, you should still listen — but you can also continue on and read this lovely interview as well.)

Once upon a time (August 2009, for the sticklers), I started having a Very Serious Relationship with Megan Morris. (For those of you who are new and/or haven’t been paying attention, she’s the chick who manages me and the ninjas.) When she’s not talking me out of my perpetual threat to quit online business to move to the coast of Oregon to make jam, she is Ideaschema. (For those of you who are NOT new and HAVE been paying attention, you’ll remember when we talked about her Idea Catalyst Kit thingie here. It is not often that I hype the living holy hell out of someone or something, but for Megan and the Catalyst thingie, I pulled out every stop in my book. It was that good.)

I’ve been wanting to interview her for a while, but in the aftermath of the catalyst, she’s been busy. (I’m pretty sure that when my band, The Neverending Parentheses, makes it big, our first album will be called The Aftermath Of The Catalyst.) Now she’s doing a new thing and is likely to become busy as fuck again. Therefore, I snagged her before the storm hit. Because I’m smart like that.

What you are about to read is a mostly lightly edited version of a conversation we recorded to put right here on this very blog. The parts where we talk about my desire to run away with her love interest, the gloriously bekilted Marty Whitmore, were heavily edited.

ND. Okay. Can you please explain in short words exactly what you do?

MEM. What an excellent question! For the purposes of this conversation: I run a positive impact network called Ideaschema. Ideaschema’s job is to provide as much support structure and as many resources as we can to help motivated people grow their ideas. To that end, I do a lot of consulting work, idea catalyst work for special lovely people like yourself — running IttyBiz, in other words — and putting together learning packages to pro-active-ize the mindsets of people with spectacular potential. And very recently, I’m helping people look at normal situations from creative standpoints.

ND. Those were not short words.

MEM. I thought you were kidding.

ND. I thought you knew me better than that. I will translate. You do idea generation, building, and putting projects together, and you either do that by helping people find ways to do their thing, or by actually getting your hands dirty and helping them do it.

MEM. Right. In a nutshell, I Make Shit Happen.

ND. See, that? THAT was short words. But, yes. It is blindingly clear to all of us, most notably me, that you make shit happen.

MEM. I aim to please.

ND. So here’s what I really want to know, and what I think IttyBiz readers want to know. How does all this Blah Blah Blah Find Your Creative Mojo Mumbo Jumbo Bullshit fit into the life and work of a person who is trying to get their ittybiz off the ground? There’s a lot of information out there about running a business, and finding the business you love, and making sure it doesn’t take over your life, and figuring out how to sell stuff without feeling like shit.

But you’re talking a lot these days about how Not Particularly Creative people can learn to act like Very Creative People without having to become Very Creative People. (As in, you don’t have to be covered in paint or quote Proust.) Can you tell us a little bit about that?

MEM. The thing is, I don’t believe in “Not Particularly Creative” people. People throw around this “I’m not creative” thing like creativity is a special superpower and only certain people have it. That’s bullshit. Everyone is creative and has superior capabilities of creative mojo — but not everybody is using it. And there are a lot of small business owners out there, especially, who think they have to play by some kind of crazy left-brained rules to “do it right” when in fact the best and most effective way to go about becoming successful is to use your whole brain and become a real artist at whatever it is you do. So what I’m trying to do now is teach those people — those people who don’t believe they’re all that creative, people who don’t draw or sing or paint or muse or whatever — is how to recognize these little creative impulses, draw them out, and apply them directly to their work.

ND. No Proust required?

MEM. No Proust required.

ND. Praise Allah. OK, so what kinds of work are we talking about here?

MEM. ANYTHING. Especially work that has rules. Things that fall under the “business as usual” umbrella. Accounting. Virtual assistants. Dudes who sell widgets. Pie-makers and software programmers and search engine optimization experts and everybody in between. It’s not about the job — it’s about whether or not you are using your creative capacity to give your work momentum. To turn it into art. If you’re following the rules and doing what you’re supposed to do and you’re not paying any attention to what you could be overcoming — what might make your work world-changing or heart-wrenching or people-empowering — you’re missing a lot. And there’s a lot of success and happiness and money and potential missed when you miss those things.

ND. So while you haven’t been talking me off my perpetually proverbial ledge, you’ve been putting together a lecture series that helps people with these things.

MEM. Yes. It’s called The Creative Spark Plug, and we’re talking to a some amazing artists and musicians and creative professionals to discuss what they’ve done to make themselves successful in their artistic pursuits, and how we can take those concepts that seem to come so naturally to them and apply them to people who don’t feel like they have natural creativity. And in the process, we’ll show them that they actually do, and that they can use it.

ND. So, like, for the Taco Stand Lady…

MEM. Yeah. So the mother of three with the taco stand down the street can work through this lecture series with us, have the focus points laid out, go through the worksheets we’re putting together, and at the end of six weeks have a much better understanding of what she can do to open up the creative aspects of her business and her journey as an entrepreneur. Because she’ll have been learning that whole time about artists and musicians who had to shake off the “starving artist” stereotype and become successful in an area where most people tell you you’re going to fail, all the time. Taco Stand Lady can apply those creative precepts to what she’s going through right now, and she’ll have a head start on all the other taco stand owners who think they have to set up their taco stand just so or they won’t get any business.

ND. [rant redacted]

MEM. [soothing words also redacted to retain continuity]

ND. This is something we talk about a lot, this idea that if you’re not remarkable and standing out in some way, people are just going to overlook you. You bust your ass making the best motherfucking tacos in Tacotown and nobody notices, let alone cares. All because you were willing to blow the top off the way you make tacos, but not the way you do business. Uneaten tacos are very sad.

MEM. Exactly. Exactly. And so we’ve structured this thing so that no matter who you are, you can discover and make great use of your creative spark, you can start that process for yourself and go where it leads you.

ND. Now who is this thing for? Are we talking your average ittybiz owner? Wet behind the ears beginners? Seasoned professionals?

MEM. We’re definitely talking about beginners to a certain extent, but there’s a big overlap into anyone who has been assuming that creativity doesn’t touch them. Many experienced ittybiz owners will know and understand the steps these artists have taken to make their work successful. But the real question here is, will those experienced ittybiz owners already be applying creative impulses to their left-brained work in new and exciting ways? Are they still following all the “rules”? Have they thought to rewrite those rules for themselves, dig deep to find what it is they really want and integrate that into the work they do? Because if they haven’t, they’re still just working. They’re not making art. And that’s what we want to do: We want to help people make their work into their art.

ND. So, what about the people who are already artists? People who are working — or trying to work — in creative fields, who follow that aspect of themselves faithfully?

MEM. Well, it definitely wouldn’t accomplish the same purpose for them. I think that many of those people will still get something out of it, but there’s no doubt that we’re focusing on translating for the left-brained rule-following number-crunching part of the population. So there will be a lot in here that true artists of all stripes will already understand intimately. Although I can definitely imagine, if I’m a starving artist, that listening to a bunch of smart, successful artists talk about their work and how they do it would be useful for me, you know?

ND. So what you’re saying, ultimately, is that all those IttyBiz readers out there who don’t consider themselves creative — the ones who say, Oh, I can’t draw, I wish I could draw. Or whatever. That they are all actually just as creative as anyone else, and all they need is to be steered in the right direction to apply it to what they’re doing.

MEM. And that it will make their ittybizes amazing. That’s what I’m saying. That this is really the missing link for a lot of people who simply overlook it because they’re “not that kind of person” or whatever. And they’re completely, completely wrong. There’s this whole toolset they’re ignoring.

ND. Can I just say here, you know what makes me crazy? The fact that our culture seems HELL BENT on convincing us from the age of — what? four? — that creativity by necessity involves paint. I find it offensive to painters and I find it offensive to everybody else. I’ve found myself in some pretty fucked up spots since I started this business, and creativity is always what gets me out. You think it doesn’t require creativity to build a house? To reorganize someone’s accounting procedures? When I was going down to Florida and Texas and we had to have Jamie and Jack fly out of Detroit to Tampa and back, but I had to fly from somewhere to Tampa and then to Austin and then to Detroit and we had to do it all on different airlines so that we could still drive to the airport together? You’re telling me my travel agent isn’t creative to the power of 83?

MEM. EXACTLY. Dude, you are not kidding.

ND. And most business owners, because they got fed this total garbage from their parents and teachers and media, don’t know they’re missing a whole huge facet of their business that could be connecting with their customers and making them shittons of money. It’s not their fault, but they’re just ignoring it.

MEM. That “Oh, I’m not creative” bullshit is keeping a lot of people from having the successful small business that would allow them to quit their job and do what they love for a living. And the idea that artists are all broke is making it worse. And Jesus, if you really want to do this thing… you consider every possible resource you have at your disposal. And a creative impulse, that is absolutely a resource — that everyone has.

ND. In fact, none of the artists on your list are broke. They’re all doing fine.

MEM. Right. They aren’t millionaires, so they’re not outliers either, but wow, they do their thing and they do it damn well. They are NOT starving artists. They are normal, wonderful people who know how to make their art into their work. And bashing in the skull of that starving artists stereotype, I think, is the first step towards understanding that we must apply creative impulses to our work in order for it to be our truly best work. And our best work supports us, pays the bills, and makes us happy. I mean, what the hell else would you ask for?

ND. What else, indeed!

WHAT TO DO NEXT:

If you’re interested in attending Megan’s lecture series — which is virtual, and therefore can be done from the comfort of your broom closet — and getting six killer lessons and all kinds of other crap for half price, click this link right here. (Undisclosure: I am not financially involved in this product and I’m not an affiliate. I just really, really, really like Megan’s shit, and I don’t say that about many people.) Fast action crazy launch hypestravaganza pricing WILL NOT LAST, so if you’d rather pay less than a hundred bucks instead of two hundred, time is of the essence.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

OK, no there isn’t. But I love pretending to be an internet marketer every now and again. Seriously. Click the link and check it out.