Flynn Lives

Make you feel that way

I've been pouring quite a bit of time into Triple Scoop Music while trying to find the perfect track to fit a promo video I'm working on. I've been doing so much listening that I've been thinking about old tracks that I haven't heard in forever.

In case you didn't know, I love hip hop. Not the stuff you hear on the radio, but the lesser known stuff. It speaks to me in a clearer voice than stuff that "makes it" to the radio. Blackalicious is one such band that I love. The second verse of "Make You Feel That Way" in particular speaks to me. It's positive without going over-the-top. It's just a great summary of how things are for me: Fighting to get uphill, but enjoying the view when you look at the progress you've made.... and being thankful.

Christmas day when your mamma got your first bike
Type of feeling when you went and when your first fight
How your team felt winning championship games
Celebrate in a huddle dancing in this rain
Have a thought see a shooting star cross your screen
Put in hard work finally your living your dream
Deaf man get his hearing now in come vibes
Blind man get sight see his first sunrise
Dumb man speaking out, now he's load and clear
Earth through your chout smile so proud ya wear
Going in your third eye for the styles ya hear
Making music that'll bump for a thousand years
Eating right feeling conscience like health is first
Said a prayer that's sincere and you felt it work
Times I feel I wanna shout, man it's real that way
When I'm thinking things that make you feel that way

Personal Work

If there is one thing that I've learned from Chase Jarvis (among the billion things I've learned from him, of course) it's the importance of doing work on your own and getting it out there. I've been trying to build this little One-Man-Show of mine since September 2010 and I've been trying to hammer a ton of personal work. (OMG I realized I'm almost to my 1-year anniversary...) Why did I start doing so much personal work? Because Chase and Zack told me to.


At first I questioned using my time to do personal work. "I'm not getting paid, so I'm losing money," I thought. Then I realized that no one can hire me they've seen what I'm capable of. So I started shooting for myself, often taking non-paying gigs but taking creative control over the gig as payment. (Push-Pull). Then I started creating opportunities to start initiating personal work, even collaborating with other creatives... Like Leah D'Andrea (she's awesome, btw).


After being in Zack's creativeLIVE class, I realized I wasn't moving fast enough. My work sucked. Earlier photos in my short career were still on my site, and sucking the life out of me. I decided to put as much distance between me and my old work as I could... by doing new work. Then my new work was still falling into Ira Glass' "Creative Gap" so I decided to make newer work. Finally, I was able to show some of my new work to my good friend Carolina Yocom. She noticed a vast improvement in my work in the past three months. I finally felt that I'm getting enough distance between myself and my old work. So I stopped doing personal work.


Hell no! Are you kidding me!?


I'll never stop doing personal work, much to my lovely wife's dismay. I need to shoot for me as much as I possibly can! I've been told that when my business starts running like a freight train I won't have time to do personal work anymore. What I've decided to do is to schedule personal work on such a regular basis that it'll feel wrong to miss doing it: Like skipping a workout or dinner with my family.


So get out there and shoot what you want to shoot! You never know how long this ride might last, so take advantage of it!