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Branding, Boundaries, and Being Inconvenienced with Andrea Shah
19 Plays1 month ago
In this episode, we talk all about how AI flattens your brand voice (YES, even if you "train" it), how to pick and choose what parts of your life to share online (and why defining these constraints makes your life a whole lot easier), and why it is a privilege to be inconvenienced (and to pay to outsource inconvenient tasks).
Joining us is copywriter extraordinaire and the mastermind behind my own web copy, Andrea Shah. Andrea is a copywriter and marketing consultant for wedding creatives who want to spotlight their artistry and client experience. She has over a decade of experience working on websites and brand voice for Fortune 500 companies and luxury brands alike. She teaches wedding professionals how to use psychology, storytelling, and market research to make their perfect-match clients feel deeply seen and heard.
Andrea lives in Philadelphia with her family. She identifies as: an Enneagram 5, an average watercolor artist, a pretty good baker, a Midwest native, a speed reader, a mom of one, a horror movie fan, and a Francophile.
You can learn more about Andrea's work at www.andreashah.com, or on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Threads.
You can find Where's Your Humanity on Spotify, Youtube, and Instagram, and you can learn more about Gail and her work at www.worksimple.io.
Our theme music is composed and produced by my dear friend Emily Bjorke, and you can go stream her new single, Skeletons in Toronto, anywhere you listen to music.
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Transcript
Introduction to Andrea Shaw
00:00:17
Speaker
Hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of Where's Your Humanity. i'm your host, Gail Fraser, and I am so excited to be joined by Andrea Shaw, who did my copy on my own website. She's a copywriter. and marketing consultant for wedding creatives who want to spotlight their artistry and their creative client experience. She has over a decade of work experience on websites and building brand voices for Fortune 500 companies, luxury brands, and of course, wedding industry. Welcome, Andrea. Hi, I'm so excited to be here.
00:00:53
Speaker
So excited to have you. Well, I want to start off by letting you give give the audience a little bit about Andrea. What is the bio that you wish you could give Honestly, I put it on my website, which is that I turn being good at parties into a job um because I'm nosy and I like to make small talk and I like to find out about everything.
00:01:12
Speaker
i like to know about everything. And i turned that into a job, which is being a copywriter and asking people questions about their businesses and what they do and what makes them unique. And also just random offbeat questions like, what's your toxic trait? So that I can get to the bottom of their personality and figure out who they really are and then weave that into copy that sells.
00:01:32
Speaker
And when I am not in front of the computer, I am a decent home baker. um I'm a horror movie fan. And I am like an intermediate level embroiderer. Like I wouldn't say beginner, but like certainly not advanced.
00:01:50
Speaker
I am not capable of knitting, Gail. That's not ever going to happen. I'm sorry. Um, just don't have, I don't know. It's like, to me, it's like trying to play basketball, whatever skill there is. i was not born with it. My daughter was knitting downstairs earlier today. i' love that for her. I love that for her
The Creative Journey and Offline Balance
00:02:07
Speaker
too. And I was like, I am bestie. I don't think you should try to teach me. I'm left-handed. So that's part of it is every time um when you're left-handed and you're trying to learn a new skill like that, um you need another lefty to teach you usually. And they're thin on the ground sometimes. But I love that you embroider. Do you like freehand? do you find patterns? What's your vibe?
00:02:28
Speaker
I have done a little bit of both. um I find patterns, but then I've also started doing um ones based on just like comic books and cartoons. So I don't know if you know Richard Scarry's Busy Town. um It's like this famous, for anyone who doesn't know it, it's this like famous children's book with all these animals going about the normal activities of a town. And my nephew's really into it. And so I embroidered lowly worm in his Apple car for him to hang on his wall. And it's it's super fun. um So yeah, I've just been getting into it over the past year. I love doing stuff offline and making art offline. And I should do more of it.
AI's Impact on Brand Voice
00:03:02
Speaker
um
00:03:03
Speaker
Be more offline. To do more outside of our business too. Yes. Yes. And outside of the computer. Like outside of, outside, outside sometimes even. No, I am feeling that massively right now. We're just eyes on the screen all the time. And especially when we're talking about like AI and I'm fighting with people on the internet like daily. And then I'm like, all right, we need to take a step back and like go literally touch grass um so that I don't go insane.
00:03:34
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. like just going for a walk is... a fundamental part of my routine. While we're on the topic of AI, I know that you are very passionate about the impacts of AI on brand voices. I know that we're all seeing right now like the tells of AI. started with ah my favorite, the M-dash. You can rip that from my cold day. yeah, no, I'm not giving that one up. They can't have it. anything yes They can't have it for me. They can't have the sparkle emoji either. That's mine. I'm a millennial.
00:04:07
Speaker
that's like I use that for emphasis and sarcasm all the time sorry no um but yeah I actually i was just reading a website the other day and I noticed um a ton of the it's not x it's y and it's like it's a bummer because that's a thing that writers say and people say and ultimately all AI writing is trained was trained on writing that people did now it's probably trained on writing that AI did too but Um, it's a bummer that sometimes like we lose a decent phrasing to AI because once chat GPT or Claude gets a hold of a phrase like that, they really like to overdo it. So this copy that I was reading that I'm pretty sure was ai generated, it didn't just say it's not X, it's once.
00:04:50
Speaker
over and over and over again in a couple of pages of copy. And i was like, all right, I'm going to let that one go for a while and we'll come back to it in a year or so. um But yeah, i feel like I've been working on um thinking through some more like long form stuff about how one of the things that's going on with brand voice and AI, and I'm not a huge...
00:05:09
Speaker
AI person, I will also admit that like there's times when like, probably, I'm like a big fit for purpose person. So sometimes you're writing copy that's going to be read by like another robot or something like that. And it's like, okay, that's probably not something where you're going to take a ton of time. My, um my Pinterest tool has like a little generator built in. And I will admit that I have written Pinterest pin copy with the help of AI because just I'm only one person.
00:05:33
Speaker
But when you're writing like more thought leadership type stuff, the trend we're seeing is that like AI is kind of flattening people's brand voices. And a lot of times the copy isn't inherently bad. It's just that it all starts to sound alike because it's coming through the same machine. And even when you try to feed AI some information about your brand voice, like it's ultimately not capable of thinking. It's capable of...
00:06:01
Speaker
repeating patterns it's detected before. And that's really like smoothing out a lot of the differences. And I think as a business owner, if this makes any sense, you want to be spiky. You want to be a little bit different. That's what catches people's attention.
00:06:16
Speaker
And if you are just producing more of the same as anyone else, it may not necessarily be hurting your business. But it's not helping you stay forefront in someone's mind. Weird stuff, weird stories, unusual word usage, um quirky concepts. That's kind of what makes you stick in somebody's brain. Like a great example is the chaos demon concept we have on your website. Like I don't...
00:06:42
Speaker
Maybe I would be capable of coming up with that. I didn't use it. But like when you said it in your questionnaire, I was like, oh, we're running with this because this is so much fun. And every person who is ADHD and reading your site is going to be like, oh, I know the chaos demon. And yes, they're the reason
Personal Boundaries and Ethics in AI
00:06:57
Speaker
that I own a jumpsuit with bananas printed all over it. But also they're the reason that I haven't sent that invoice for three weeks. AI can't replicate my hyper focused, slightly crazed, ah probably haven't eaten, only running on coffee, like murder board vibes. It's not going to say murder board, but you said that. and I got it. I know what you're referring to. And AI is not going to like pick up that term and say it. If anything, it'll give you like a three sentence written thing about like, you know, that scene in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia when and like it'll go through that. But it's not the same as like you just said murder board and I had this image in my mind. Right. This is how my brain operates. yeah Take it or leave it.
00:07:40
Speaker
You get to pick little pieces of yourself to share with people. And there are some people out there who are absolutely like thriving with no boundaries whatsoever. People I love, know and love, like friends of mine that will just share anything and everything.
00:07:52
Speaker
And that is amazing for them. And it is not for me. I am a big boundaries person. So like, you know, i have a kid, but I do not talk a lot. You won't see my kid on my social media. um i don't share her name. Like there's just not a lot of details about it because that's just like a boundary that for me, I don't personally want to cross.
00:08:08
Speaker
Same with like sharing about my husband. You're just not going to see that much of it. I will totally acknowledge that I am a mother, that I have a partner. But those are my boundaries. And I just, I don't discuss them that much because I feel like it's also really easy for me to find lots of other cool things to discuss that resonate with my people and just cherry pick what I want to like share pictures of my peonies or my hydrangeas or whatever. And um this I posted a Squishmallow the other day and everyone was like, that was the cutest thing ever.
00:08:35
Speaker
And i did not need to dive deep into my personal life. You can like keep it. You can definitely have boundaries and still have a personality. I just think it really helps to sit down and think about what you are willing to share and set those boundaries for yourself.
00:08:51
Speaker
And I also think that by defining those, you can show up more cohesively as a brand too. Like i think about as someone who has my Work Simple brand, I also write knitting patterns. That brand is very different than my Work Simple brand. Like they are two really different sides of the same coin. I show up really differently, talk about different aspects of my life. And those are both aspects of me. But when I started my business, I had kind of that same kind of earthy neutral vibe.
00:09:25
Speaker
And that's not really how I show up. Like I'm a yapper. I'm loud. You've got a pink mic. You've got a hot pink like pattern sundress. You've got like, yeah, it's just not the vibe. And so I was like, and it's so much more fun for me to have this brand than it was to have my other because it kind of shapes how you show up and having boundaries on like, okay, here's what I do and don't share and what I do and don't care about in this in this world, in this version of myself. It doesn't make you a different person. No. But what I think is super interesting, like about the flattening, and I say this about all aspects of AI, because like all LLMs work in the same way of like at a very general level, they like you put in a prompt, it scrapes the Internet for things that it thinks are relevant and it makes a summary. And like whether it is.
00:10:18
Speaker
actually summarizing it or whether it's writing copy for you or whether it's creating an image. It's essentially just a summary of what it found.
00:10:28
Speaker
And so, like you said, with like the flattening and the one thing that I always think about when i hear people talk about, well, if you put this in this and you train your LLM um to know your brand voice, but at the end of the day, then it's just teaching other people how to sound more like you. And also it's integrating its voice, which is just like that summary generic um into your copy without you knowing it. Exactly. I was just playing around with a tool the other day that was like working on developing email templates for me, but it was also filling them in with boilerplate copy. And that's fine. um
00:11:06
Speaker
You know, for one thing, it is useful to see words on the page when you're like looking at a layout. Of course, it's useful. But I was like, oh, this sounds so much like someone whose emails I subscribe to. I feel like it just has the best of her emails.
00:11:21
Speaker
But I've read enough of her emails to know like her voice was there. It was a very similar voice. But her... Content was not. She tells, she has a real gift for taking the most mundane story and turning it into a business lesson and making it really, and long and really entertaining. and I was like, yeah, the, it was like the, the colors, it's like the colors of an outfit are there, but the fabrics are not, the cut is not the, you know, it's not the same thing. Yeah.
00:11:50
Speaker
Yes, exactly. it was the Timo version of this person who I know does really great emails. And the other thing was like, I read it and I was like, oh well, that's not my brand voice. That's not. And I find it very hard to even prompted, like, I just think it struggles. The other thing is, and this is something that as someone who was trained, like in a workshop setting on all of that on writing, I really don't like having my ideas um repeated back to me as if they're genius. I'm an adult woman. I don't need to be told it's a great idea. Like, just make the PowerPoint or don't. But like, I don't need praise for it, um which is why I just end up not using prompting based. One of the many reasons I'm not using many of them is
00:12:32
Speaker
I just don't need to be affirmed all the time. I want someone to tell me when it's a bad idea. Right. That's why I have real friends to be like, no, this is a terrible idea. You're going to this isn't going to work out for you, you know, because the AI will be like, absolutely. I think you should pun but write an email about this. And yeah.
00:12:51
Speaker
Anyways. Yeah. No, I always say that AI is, or like an LLM is just a man's perfect woman where it just affirms everything that you say, treats you like a genius and makes it so that you never have to produce. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's it's a yes man. It's like just sitting there waiting for you to say something. And I do think there are definitely people who are using it in clever ways. I've been following someone who is like using an LLM she's built.
00:13:22
Speaker
to prompt people for their answers to questions and then turn voice notes into written content and that sort of thing. And I was like, okay, that's really clever. I can see that use of it because it's like, yes, sometimes, and I have actually been promoting, this is the one thing I really do use A for is transcription.
00:13:38
Speaker
And now, um and I think you'll be interested in this. One thing I built into my forums since working with you is I'm now linking people to Whisperflow and similar tools so that if they wanna go through my questionnaire and verbally process everything,
00:13:50
Speaker
They can do it instead of typing it out. And some of my people love to type and some of my people do not. And I just had a client be like, this is awesome. I loved talking through the questionnaire. And I was like, okay, so it does have like the occasional use where I'm like all for it for accessibility purposes and that sort of thing.
00:14:08
Speaker
Totally. Because especially in what you do if someone i mean, someone hires a copywriter for a multitude of reasons. For me, I was just like, I know that I'm good at what I do. I know what I do. And I'm horrible at like putting it into words written. And so for me, I'm like, okay I'm hiring a copywriter so that you can put what I do into words better than I can. um But people hire copywriters because they have dyslexia and they like typing something out. going to just take them so much longer than talking through it. um And so, yeah, I totally acknowledge like there are benefits to AI and accessibility benefits to AI, too. And I think that's one of the good ones as like a yapper myself.
00:14:55
Speaker
The only thing, I'm not actually a conspiracy theorist because it's not actually a conspiracy, but my concern is always, is it then going to like train a i on my voice? Yeah, exactly. Like my actual like reproducing audio in my voice. That and like I also just, I think sometimes that the guidance that people are getting around AI is not um very thought through from a privacy perspective. And i question whether some of the apps people are building with vibe coding and that sort of thing, they sound like great ideas.
00:15:26
Speaker
But what is the privacy infrastructure? Because i worked when I worked at a company, we translated websites. We had to adhere to such strict standards for handling personal data, especially if it was, um we were authorized to do, I can't remember the name of the the license, the certification, credit anything credit card related, there's certain standards you're uphel you have to uphold. And then PHI, personal health information. So we had a number of government clients, we had insurers, and those standards are so stringent. And I'm just like, then you see someone like Mel Robbins be like, upload all your financial documents into Claude and see what it tells you. And I'm like...
00:16:04
Speaker
It's so scary and it's such bad, bad advice. So like my background, I've worked almost a decade in IT, healthcare, healthcare, IT, and HR. So like really high privacy focused industries and like Your doctor is not allowed to tell anyone about your medical experience or like even say that they're your doctor without your consent.
00:16:31
Speaker
And there's so many regulations in place to protect your medical information. and you might not know it if you get like an x-ray back or whatever. that it has like a barcode and it has some numbers on it and like they mean nothing to you, but somebody could go in and essentially like get access to your private health information. same with the financial stuff, especially like it's basically creating a profile of you. Like that's why you have to log in is that it's like kind of creating that profile of you. And I always just tell my clients that,
00:17:06
Speaker
You should treat an LLM like Claude or ChatGPT as if everything you're entering into it is public information because it's going into a data center, which puts it through kind of multiple filters at any point where it could get hacked.
Automation vs AI for Business Efficiency
00:17:23
Speaker
But also you just...
00:17:25
Speaker
Yes, technically, they're not, quote unquote, not selling your data. um But also, I'm not sure that I want to put trust in the integrity of these companies that own AI when we know that their morals are pretty wishy-washy. And um I know Peter Thiel, for example, has explicitly said his intention with technology is to go around government. And it's like, yeah.
00:17:54
Speaker
I don't, yeah, I don't know that it's, um I mean, I don't know. likea And then sometimes i'm like, okay, but like also then how much data do they already have on me is the other question. Because we we talk about that. The answer is a a lot. We talk about that in my family. We've talked about like um if you have TSA pre-check that they will now, they can do like facial identification. And you They're doing facial scans for everyone at there at MSP anyway. yeah And it's just like, I mean, could I opt out? Sure. But like, i being realistic, they already had a scan of my face from my passport photo or whatever. It's... You're like, I'm... Yeah, we both have to be online as business owners. And like, my face and voice and...
00:18:33
Speaker
whatever, are readily available um on the internet and my opinions and whatever, because I don't have a filter. Yeah, no, it's definitely, it is like definitely an issue like where I think there's this balance of, and you know, it's it's also interesting, you and I have both seen like there's definitely AI built into apps that we use. And sometimes it's really beneficial for creating automations and that sort of thing. And then sometimes,
00:18:58
Speaker
I'm a very pro let's use technology to get rid of the tedious stuff. And I think you are too. The tedious stuff that you don't want to be doing. And then for me, I want to be doing the creative work and that sort of thing. And that's, you know, I know that's what you're about too, is like just giving people back the time and the space in their business to do the things that they want because they don't want to be sitting there searching Google, trying to figure out if they sent out a contract or yeah you can do way more complicated, complicated automations than that. I know that you do ClickUp and that sort of thing so that, you know, someone signs their contract in Dubsado and then there's something created in ClickUp and it just like all happens at the push of a button. And that's an amazing thing.
00:19:40
Speaker
Yeah. And I think like that is the true like benefit of ai And I think the reason that I don't I mean, the primary reason that I don't recommend it to my clients is the morality, the environmental data privacy, cetera. Like, I just feel like I know too much to like ethically stand on it. Yeah.
00:20:00
Speaker
But also I'm just like for me in my experience, AI ah often, especially if you don't have automation in your business already, if you're not in a CRM or you don't have at least some basic like email automation, your proposals are based on a template and going out like things are going out at all the right times automatically, which is automation and automation.
00:20:23
Speaker
ah Technically, it can be considered like machine learning, which is can be considered an arm of artificial intelligence. um But it's really more like a few lines of code and it's a lot less energy intensive than running even AI to do the same thing.
00:20:39
Speaker
And because it's very direct, it's like if this happens, then this like it has a very clear parameters um instead of AI having to kind of like do that figuring out. But I think that like automation can save business owners so much time if they don't already have it in their business. Yes. The number one thing is like I always say if you don't have anything, any tools, like get a booking link, like get the free Calendly, have a way for you don't have to like email back and forth to be like, hey, what time works for you and what time works for you? And like,
00:21:13
Speaker
It's just like those little things that are really draining. And I think that, yes, AI can be used for good, especially if you are already in a state where you're like highly automated and there are certain things that you...
00:21:28
Speaker
feel like you want to outsource to that or use it as an idea board or whatever. But yeah, I'm just like, i always start with automation. yeah Let's start there because that's what's going to give you the most reliable result. The flip side of the coin for me as a writer and as someone who writes things on websites is that ai falls into a category, AI search specifically falls into a category of I may not personally be using it.
00:21:53
Speaker
but I need to know what's going on there because it would do my clients a disservice to create them a website that will not work with the current searches and that doesn't evolve with people with what people are doing. Now for anyone listening, if you've been working on your SEO for
SEO and AI: Challenges and Opportunities
00:22:07
Speaker
years,
00:22:08
Speaker
It's a Venn diagram with a huge overlap between SEO and what we call like AIO or there's all kinds of different names for it. Nobody's quite settled on a name for optimizing for AI search, but there's a huge overlap. And most of the stuff you've been doing for SEO will continue to be productive for AI search, but there are new things we're learning all the time.
00:22:28
Speaker
And one interesting thing I noticed is that whether or not you or I choose to actively use AI search, it is appearing more and more in places where we may or may not want it, but it's like they they seamlessly integrate it. So you're not even really thinking like, oh, this is AI search. It's just now this overview that pops up at the top of a Google page instead of giving you your 10 results.
00:22:48
Speaker
And it's in everything that we use. And so we are... writing content for that. We are addressing that. um We're dealing with the fact that some people are now using agents that take multiple steps on their behalf. So the use case I always say is What if someone is using Claude to find a florist and they are not only just finding florists, but they are going all the point all the way to the point of having Claude inquire with the florist for them. You need to have your website set up where unfortunately your inquire button can no longer say something super cute. It needs to say like inquire now or book your date or whatever so that these systems
00:23:30
Speaker
can recognize that this is where we click to go do this next step. So it's a really interesting era. It still means that your your personality and your brand voice are still really important in distinguishing you. But there's also this layer of like having to write for the robots, essentially. Yeah.
00:23:49
Speaker
which is so sad because it takes some of the whimsy out. It does. Like I'm finding like now at the top of each page, like I'm definitely putting a little bit more condensed copy about like who everyone is and what they do, like two or three sentences, hundred words or less. And then we can get into the whimsy and that sort of thing. But if you want to be found, we are unfortunately currently not in a whimsy first landscape.
00:24:09
Speaker
The ah other thing is all of this changes and tomorrow it could be something totally different. um So we'll just kind of wait and see. But I will say that one thing we're seeing is that blogs are still really important and informing a lot of search and, you know, establishing your authority. So even though AI search is coming first, websites and blogs still have a huge way like role to play in that.
00:24:31
Speaker
Yeah. I finally created my blog. you so I'm so proud of you. so proud. I have like three posts and there we go. Yeah, i'm working on um I'm working on one now about actually an interesting topic that kind of combines this is Flowdesk Studio. I don't know if you use Flowdesk or if you've experimented with it, um but it's a really interesting... They have clearly taken an approach to AI where they're like, yes, we can use AI to assemble pieces of the email, but we had our designers create literally hundreds of different content blocks. They're like, we do not want to let it go and let Gen.ai design this stuff. But then AI can essentially like assemble the little pieces based on what you request. And it's a really fascinating hybrid approach that I think is going to appeal to a lot of people where it's like human first with a little AI support to get it done faster. You know, can we take this from a task that takes you 60 minutes to a task that takes you 40, but it's still very much got your stamp on it?
Human-AI Collaboration in Business Tools
00:25:35
Speaker
And I think that's really what we're going to see things shift towards because when it comes to especially creatives and people who are more hesitant or don't want to use it because of all of the reasons that someone might not want to use it, that like companies honing in on the things that are most useful and like most time consuming for people is I think where we're going to start to see companies shift. Dubsado is a good example too. Like they just implemented their note taker. And I'm in heaven. I have tried it and it is amazing and I am in heaven. um
00:26:14
Speaker
But I've always been using transcribers for that purpose. And they were clear about their data and where it's going and that sort of thing. And they were clear that you can opt out. Like that's the other thing is I think these companies like Dubsado are hearing from their users You cannot just slap an AI feature in there and make it mandatory or not disclose to us some of this information.
00:26:34
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that really because they took that approach to it people have responded really well to it in the way that when HoneyBook put in similar note taker, some AI tools in their email writing, people responded really negatively to it because they're like, well, I don't want to pay a price increase to have these features that I didn't ask for. Like they want to be able to opt out. And I think of that in tools that I use often, right? Like ClickUp has so many AI features and I don't really use them because it's just as fast for me to automate something as it is for AI to automate something because I'm an automator. Like that's... I've been doing it for a long time and choose to opt out as much as possible.
00:27:20
Speaker
But there tiers that they're at like You can opt out of it in that there are features that you can use ai for, but you don't need to. And then if you really want to use some of their AI features at their fullest, highest potential, then like you are paying extra for that. And I think that that's something that we'll kind of start to see companies shift to as they start to accept that people are not as gung ho for AI as the AI CEOs told them they would be. Yeah. Or that like or that VCs are and investors are because a lot of times I'll see like on a website of some software, the AI powered whatever.
00:28:02
Speaker
or just AI and this. And like, it's as if AI is the sole selling point. And maybe it really is that way for certain investors. It's a buzzword right now. I can't blame anyone for trying to get their their money and get their project funded.
00:28:14
Speaker
But for me as a consumer, I'm like, What is the AI and what is it doing? Because there are, we've been using machine learning in all kinds of tools and LLMs and all kinds of tools. yeah They're not inherently evil, but like it's how they're used. It's where the data goes. And it's, yeah, ultimately is also, are you charging me more for a feature I don't need? Like I use Notion all the time.
00:28:39
Speaker
Mm-hmm. They have AI features. I know they have AI features. I don't use them. And I am fine with that as long as I can turn them off and I cannot pay for them. And there I'm just on their free tier, so it's fine.
00:28:49
Speaker
But like Notion is where I go put my weird ideas for like a future threads post in three weeks. I don't need AI to come up with weird ideas for threads posts. I have driving my car and... Taking a shower and trying to take a nap for all those things, you know.
00:29:03
Speaker
It doesn't. And then the other thing is I think that one unpleasant fact of being human and like creating art is it takes work. And like it would be really nice to be a writer without writing.
00:29:14
Speaker
I think every writer would in some way like to be a successful writer without having to do the slog of writing. But it's where the best stuff comes from. it's not There's no way to really sidestep it. And I think that's been something I've been talking about more in my process and need to continue to talk about more is like I am not necessarily trying to be more efficient when I'm actually doing creative work.
00:29:36
Speaker
I don't really necessarily aim to be more productive. I don't want to write twice as many client sites as I do now. That's very overwhelming to me. I like the pace at which I work. And I think that as a writer, there's room to just – sometimes I'm just staring out the window over my shoulder for five minutes while an idea comes to me. And it's not glamorous, but I think that inefficiency is inherent to the creative process in a lot of cases. If you ever read writer's diaries – They'll be like, and you know, people who've published brilliant work, they'll be like, one day they'll be like, I wrote 50 pages. And then two days later, they're like, I tried writing, wrote three words, hated everything, went for a walk, like just did all this other stuff. It's yeah inefficiency is part of being a human creative. And it's really, it's kind of important to the process because I think it ultimately produces the best, most thoughtful, original work.
00:30:29
Speaker
Totally. And without that, also, like that is the experience of being human. Being human and being like a good person and a good advocate for other people requires inconvenience yes at ah at every level, whether that's creative, crafts, art, work. You don't want to automate out your whole life because then what's the point? No, and I think of it a lot of times too, in terms of having a community that people talk with. And I know this is something you feel very strongly about, especially offline. You know, people complain about when they become parents, they want a village.
00:31:07
Speaker
and everyone wants a village, but some people, what they really want is somebody to do work for them without them having to do anything inconvenient, and that's not really a village. housekeeper and a chef and- A nanny and and all that, and that's not really a village. I pay people for those things, yes but yeah, it's not
Human Experiences and Community Support
00:31:26
Speaker
a village. a village is like, I have a village, and it's because also when my friend calls and says she's stuck in traffic and can't get her kids from school, I pick them up and I take them to my house, and they're there for an hour, and it's fine, or- Yeah, one of my friend's kids, she needed help with something. on the The family had to leave. they had an emergency. And I like went over to her house and unpacked her daughter's lunchbox so that when they got back, it wouldn't be full of rotten peanut butter jelly sandwich. you know um and there's And there are those inconveniences. But then when you pick those up, that's when also other people pick up for you. And they're like, okay.
00:31:58
Speaker
Likewise, you know you had to go out of town for a short period of time. I'll pick your kids up and take them home so that your husband can finish his work day or whatever. And then, yeah, there's just being human is inconvenient. I i didn't ask for it, but here I am.
00:32:11
Speaker
Exactly. i have to decide what to eat, make food, and sit down and eat it three times a day. Are you kidding me? I didn't sign up for that. That's highly inconvenient. Some people don't find it inconvenient. I would love to be one of those people. I was just talking with a friend today who had organized a retreat, and she said the best decision she made was to hire a private chef who handled every meal and every snack touchpoint because everyone felt like...
00:32:35
Speaker
that was Other than connecting with other people, of course, that was the most valuable thing. to just I think they were all mothers and the of young children, and they were all in an environment where that decision was just removed from them.
00:32:46
Speaker
They were going to have good food. Somebody else had decided what and when and was taking care of all the details, and it was like an incredible luxury. And I realized that about myself too.
00:32:57
Speaker
um I went on a cruise, and they had – you know, there was just one restaurant, like there was nowhere else to eat and you just showed up and what was there, you ate it. And I loved it. I was like, oh, I totally get the appeal of this now. I didn't even have to choose like, oh, we're going to the Italian place or the steakhouse. No, it was just one restaurant done.
00:33:16
Speaker
Yeah. And some like that convenience and usually you're paying for that like that convenience. And I think that's the difference, too, between like having a village and being a villager versus like we have options in our society that you can also pay for conveniences that make your life better. better but like also you don't get to a point where you have like the people showing up for you if you don't go out of your way to show up for them always going to be someone moves into a house I'll be like okay well I'll paint the living room with you and then what did I get out of it sure you want to come on a trip to Philadelphia and help me paint my office
00:33:53
Speaker
I definitely have to do that in the coming month like months. And um no, that is actually a great example of where I am making the adult decision to outsource that particular task because my energy is better spent elsewhere. And that's ah a wonderful thing when you can decide that in life and in business.
00:34:09
Speaker
Also, that's what having a business is, is like, where are my strengths and where can I focus them? And it's a lot of the work that both of us do. We fill a gap for people who are like, that's not my strength in my job, too. It's like, how can I make you focus on your strengths more so that You can just create and spend and be inefficient in your creative process. Or or be efficient if you are if you are gifted enough to be efficient and and great. Or spend more time with your family. Or if you want to take on more clients, great. Take on more clients. Like that's that's up to you to decide.
00:34:45
Speaker
But we get to choose like which inconveniences we take on But you can't not take on any. No. Otherwise, again, well what's the point? Yeah, you can't – yeah, you just – it's – and I do feel like there's sometimes this myth out there of like this soft girl life where you can just choose to outsource stuff and do only the things that really um you love and you don't have to work a ton and everything can be easy. And I i feel like that's achievable for some people.
00:35:16
Speaker
But I feel like what goes unsaid is that there's usually a period of really hard work that goes into getting you to that that point where you can then be like, okay – I've built this business and scaled it to $500,000 a year. Now I can take a little bit of a step back out of the day to day and that sort of thing.
00:35:32
Speaker
But I usually don't. Very rare is the person who can start from day one and live a soft life and still make a ton of money and like have everything going their way. Right. It is. It is exhausting and beautiful at the same time that we get to have.
00:35:47
Speaker
We get to live our life and we get to choose those things too. yes and And I like to try to focus my energy there. How awesome is it though that I have a community to
Current Inspirations and Creative Practices
00:36:00
Speaker
need me. yeah If I need to help them paint or I'm in in the stage of life where a lot of our friends are having kids and then can I come work from your house so that I can help you or like wash your dishes or whatever. How lucky are we to be able to have a community like that and and nurture it in that way too? Absolutely.
00:36:20
Speaker
Speaking of things that we love that make life worth living, what is inspiring you right now? Oh, that's a good question. um Honestly, one of the things that's inspiring me right now is just exploring different artistic media. And like playing around with watercolor. I just had a client who was, like I said, she's stationer. She does watercolor illustrations. And i had this moment. of like, I want to do this. This is super fun. Not like I could do this in the sense that like I could take your job tomorrow. Just in the sense of like, oh, this looks amazing. And she gave me a YouTube channel to get started with. So that's a big part of it. um
00:37:00
Speaker
And the other thing I'm really looking forward to being inspired by is just getting out and walking everywhere. i am a huge walking person. So I'm going to France and I know I'll do a ton of walking there. I don't have a car, so I'll do a ton of walking there. And then same when I move to Philly, I'm really excited to just explore on foot. And like, ah kind of opens up new pathways in my brain when I'm walking and new ways of thinking about it. And um I'm really excited to get back out there. I'm not youre You're like, what are you inspired by right now? I'm not out walking around right now in our 95 degree, 100 percent humidity weather. And that's super reasonable. I think in the eastern south and western south, it is the same ah pride and extremism to be outside in the summer as it is here in Minnesota to be outside in the winter. Yeah.
00:37:50
Speaker
Like the coldest days. Yeah. And walking, living in a walkable city unmatched. It's like so good for me, not just my physical health, but my mental health as well. I just noticed like it's really, it's part of human nature to walk, right? And like to just get out and move and see stuff and- Whether you're seeing different stuff or walking past the same things all the time, but just seeing how they change with the seasons, I'm really looking forward to that. um And then I have a new house. so I'm also just looking forward to like finding colors for it and painting it. And that's been kind of a fun creative adventure as
AI Misuse in Imagery and Authenticity
00:38:26
Speaker
well. Okay. Well, as we come to the end here, i want to give you a last soapbox to talk about your humanity hot take.
00:38:37
Speaker
um Oh, my God. I've been thinking about this the whole episode. There's one time I really don't want people to use AI, and it's for pictures of food. Please stop using it for pictures of food. It doesn't get the texture right ever, and it's scary. And I would rather see your worst picture of your meal that you're serving at your restaurant or wherever then I would a flyer where you've used AI to enhance in any way photos of your food or just create photos of your food. Like, it's just not working for me. Yeah.
00:39:06
Speaker
I would rather you market your pizza restaurant with clip art of pizza. It's fine. It's fine. I'll go and try the pizza. But that is my hot take right now is like the thing I don't need to see the most. um Other than that,
00:39:18
Speaker
more like general to service providers is people really do want a person to work with. They are ultimately choosing a person to work with. You and I both work with a lot of wedding creatives and I would say personality matters, especially for people who are really involved with someone on these emotional high stress activities.
00:39:38
Speaker
like high high risk, high reward sort of events. It's bit vulnerable. Yes. Like I'm working with these two elopement photographers who work in the UK and they're out, they do like true elopements a lot of the time where they are out with just the couple. And it's that personality fit is so important because you're literally inviting two people you've never met before on your wedding day and saying, okay, we're going to hang for eight hours. And like, yeah what if it's They need to know it's a personality fit. And so I think that's something that's increasingly important. And it is okay to invest in having a personality. It is okay to tell a weird story every now and then. i want people to share...
00:40:18
Speaker
more about themselves and that they like coffee and tacos and they have a dog. All of those are great things. None of them make you memorable. um Tell me, i don't know, um tell me that you used to be a gymnast when you were seven years old or tell me that you have a dog, but it's a tripod dog. Someone I know does have a tripod dog and that's so cool. I always am like, that is the coolest, cutest detail.
00:40:42
Speaker
Tell me cool things like that. But try to avoid just the really generic message because people are hiring you as a person and they want to see that person. it should be a clear through line between who you are and what you create or what you do for them.
00:40:56
Speaker
All right, Andrea, thanks for coming to chat with me. Where can people find you? ah The best place is my website, which is just my name, andreashah.com. And then you can also find me at andreashahcopy on Instagram and on threads and even on LinkedIn if you want to come connect over there because I would love to meet more creatives on LinkedIn.
00:41:15
Speaker
I love it. Well, thanks for being here, Andrea. Thank you for having me. It's obviously so lovely to chat. Yes, it's been great. Thank you so much. Thanks so much for listening. I'm your host, Gail Fraser. And for more information about Where's Your Humanity, you can check out at Where's Your Humanity pod on Instagram. And for more information about me and the work that I do, you can go to my website, worksimple.io, which is also my Instagram and threads handle.
00:41:41
Speaker
Our lovely theme music is brought to you by Emily Bjorki, and you can go check out her album, Are You Going to Heaven or Hell? Anywhere you listen to music. Thanks for being here, and I'll talk to you later.