Find Your Creative Flow: How to Choose The Best Content Creation Tools

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What do the tools you use say about you when you use a new software or a tool or something that helps you do your work? What does it actually say about the kind of work you do? Do the companies that you partner with actually share your values? And do they help you promote exactly what you're all about so that when people see you using certain things, they know what you're all about because the companies are in alignment with your own mission and vision. I'm going to explain to you why it's so important to actually check to see if the tools you're using as an entrepreneur, creative, or artist actually work with you and for your mission and your vision today on this episode of The God and Gig Show.

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Give me just a moment to welcome those of you who are new to our show and then we'll get right into this fascinating and important conversation.

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Hello and welcome to our show. Thank you so much for making this podcast a part of your creative day. And if you are new to God and Gigs, let me explain why you're in the right place at the right time with the right people. First of all, my name is Allen C. Paul.

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I'm a creative, I'm an author, I'm a musician. And I help you along with the rest of our guiding gigs community to build a better creative life from the inside out by solving temporary creative problems with timeless spiritual principles. That's what we do here. And I'm so glad that you've joined us. Make sure you subscribe either on YouTube or your podcast app and make sure that you're following us and connecting with us because you have found your tribe as a faith focused Christian artist and or entrepreneur who's working inside not only the church, but also the mainstream arts and entertainment space.

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So let's talk about these tools, this software that we're using every day. If you are in any kind of content creation, you know what I mean, you've got your social media tools, you've got your email tools, you got your graphic design tools. We've got all this stuff that software, some people call it SaaS software as a service. These are the things that we use every day now. And there are always new ones coming out, especially with the advent of AI that are supposed to help us get our time back, keep us working faster, more productively.

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And there's honestly so many things that are going on in this world that it's impossible to keep up with. But I've noticed something. I've noticed that a lot of these companies are springing up and then disappearing just as fast. I'm finding that so many companies are trying to catch on to this AI craze or they're trying to make everybody think that they're going to be the newest thing since Twitter and something that's as big as Facebook. And all of these apps and these tools are trying to basically say to us, hey, we're the solution to your problem.

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Here's the issue that I think that we are going to face as creatives as we see all these tools come out, we have to make a commitment to learning just one thing, right? We don't want to spend all of our time learning different apps, different tools. But more importantly, we need to find the tools that work for us and with us. And oftentimes it has a lot to do with how the tool is built and who builds the tool, for what reason. You see, as a creative, you have a specific kind of bent, a kind of method to your madness.

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There's a certain way you like to do things. And the most important thing with the tool often is not whether it's the newest thing on the block, whether it's something that everybody uses. It's whether the people who design the tool think like you and are aligned not. Just with the tool and with the purpose of the tool in terms of the productivity, but also with the purpose in terms of its internal purpose. So it is important that you know, not just whether something works in terms of a tool, but also does it fit with your values.

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Now, I don't expect you to go into every single mission statement of every tool you use, but you can kind of catch on when things are just more about trying to make things fast and get you integrated with it and not really giving you any customer service or explaining what they're all about. And usually when you start to use these things online or even in physical form, you can figure out which things are made with you in mind and which things are just made kind of just to make a buck and doesn't really have the quality behind it. I'm going to give you some examples. Now, some of these companies I'm going to mention are in affiliate relationships with God and Gigs and Paul Creative Services. So I'm not mentioning them here simply because they're affiliates, but they are a perfect example of what I found with these tools that sometimes people didn't even know about.

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And I felt weird using them because they weren't the most popular. But I found that they aligned with my beliefs and my values and they continually got better at serving my needs. And eventually I realized that's why they're so good at meeting my needs because they already align with the way I think and the way I do things. So one of them that I have been using for years, and I always were mentioned when it comes to email, is ConvertKit. I've been using ConvertKit for years now and as they have progressed, I've always seen that they have focused on creators and creatives for their main customer base.

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So even though it wasn't necessarily the most popular platform at the time, I kind of saw that. Hey, even if it's not the easiest to use at the beginning, I can see that they are evolving and using their product to make it easier for creators like me. So I stuck with it. Then there's another company which I also built a membership on, is called Mighty Networks. Now Mighty Networks is a membership platform so you can build communities there, you can host courses and you have community forums and all kinds of stuff there.

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On Mighty Networks, this is another company that I started with a while ago. I was researching all these different membership platforms, the Patreons of the world and I couldn't find one that really fit. But it looked like Mighty Networks was doing some things that I really liked. I liked the fact that they wanted to focus on building community and they were doing workshops all the time for creators on how to eventually build up your monetization or build up your audience. And there were so many YouTube videos where they were helping people with how to use their products so it always felt like they had my interest in mind.

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So why do I bring up these two companies? It's because these two companies have connected in the last few months. This is what's cool about it and why I bring it up and why when you choose your tools, it's important to see that alignment. The reason why I think it's so cool that ConvertKit and Mighty Networks created this partnership is because now, because I was using both those tools separately, my life just got a whole lot easier because their email platform and this membership platform now are in sync. But they're not just in sync because I'm using them, they're in sync because they already had a similar business plan and structure and purpose in mind.

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So when I adopted those tools, I noticed how they were serving their community and it's no surprise that those two companies eventually connected and decided to integrate more closely. So I want you to think about the tools you're using. Are these tools the kind of tools that play nice together? Do they help you to kind of see how you do things in a more productive and a more purposeful way? So that not only are you using the tool, but there's another quote that I love.

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I'm going to post a link to this that the tools also make you you are formed and your integrated creative life is kind of morphed and evolved by the tools you use. So whether it's canva for graphic design or whether it's another thing that you use for maybe video or audio, as you use the tool, the tool starts to really change the way that you even do your own work. So that's why it's so important. Musicians know this all too well. The music that you play is influenced by the instrument type that you use.

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Whether it's sounds on a keyboard or guitar strings or whatever it is, the sound that you make usually ends up evolving with you. So you pick instruments that help you to express yourself. It's the same thing with the tools you use and the tech you choose. So make sure as you're evaluating all these different AI things that are coming out, don't just grab the latest and the greatest. Don't just grab the one that everybody is talking about on hashtags.

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This does take some time and so sometimes you do need to ask around and ask people, okay, what's the best system that I can use? Borrow from other people. I call this borrowing systems. Always ask other people who are successful. But if something doesn't work for you that works for them.

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It's probably because the way the tool is designed simply isn't in line with the way that you think, which is okay, you want to find tools that work the way that you work, where the person that designed the tool thinks the way that you think. And even if it's not perfect for you right now, it continues to evolve and they have a commitment to customer service and a commitment to helping that particular customer base you to continue to improve. That's how you know a tool is built the right way and that it will help your creative life over time. You can always tell the ones that are based on service and most of the time those are the companies that last and they are not fly by night. So as I mentioned, if you're interested in checking out what ConvertKit or Mighty Networks is doing, you can find that link.

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Again, I am an affiliate, I am a partner with some of these companies. But I'm really recommending this because when I saw this happen, I saw the power of choosing the right tools, of choosing tools that are aligned with your brand, with your vision, with your workflow, and with the way you do things. And eventually I think those tools end up working together. Now if you have a different tech stack, that's what that's called. When you have a whole bunch of tools that you use, you might have a different tech stack that works for you.

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That's great. I have some amazing people that have been on the show, some mentors of mine who use different tools and that's okay. The key is, again, does it work for you and does it align with your purposes? And can you tell that the company has your best interests at heart? If that's the case, you're going to find a lot more success in the long run because you're not just picking the latest and the greatest tool, you're not just grabbing the most viral thing that's happening, the app that everybody's using.

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You're looking closely at how these things work with your creative life. I guarantee you if you do that, if you pay close attention, you research and you see how these things are aligned from the ground up, you're going to find out that they may have a long term benefit relationship and a long term effect that's positive on your creative life. Well my friend, that's our creative checkup for today. Again, if you want to check out either one of those tools, you can find links to either one of them in the Show Notes. In the description of this particular episode.

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I would love to see what you think about it or maybe just respond and let me know. What your tech stack? What are the tools that you are really falling in love with, that you enjoy and that can clearly show that they are working the way that you work and they're built with you in mind? Share them. Share them in our Facebook group.

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That's also a place where you can share with our guiding Gigs community or you can simply send an email. My link is also in the Show Notes where you can respond. I would love to hear how your tools work for you, but remember, keep it in alignment with what works for you and the way that you work and you will find out that those tools not only make you better, they will also make your work better. So until next time, continue to become the creative that you were created to be. God bless and I'll see you next episode.

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Thanks for joining us here at the God and Gigs show. Please leave us a review on itunes like our Facebook page or visit Godandgigs.com and tell us what you thought of this show. We'll be back soon. In the meantime, go create something amazing.