Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Maynard Breese. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Maynard, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?
Let me state this upfront: EVERYONE has moments they don’t feel confident. If we didn’t, we would never feel the need to improve. Here is what I do to increase that confidence, and look out for my self esteem:
1. I don’t believe in “faking it until you make it”. How can you have self-esteem when you are lying, to yourself and to those you interact with? How much confidence will you have when they discover the faking? I am not a fan of that at all. Honesty is what people respond to. And part of that honesty is being ok with being vulnerable. It’s ok to admit there are things you need to improve on. It’s ok to say there are things you have failed at. You want people to respond to you, to accept you, to want to do business with you? Be honest with them. Because they can relate to a “normal” person who knows they have things to work on way more than they can relate to some superhero who never flinches, never fails, never has lost.
2. Speaking of losing….it’s the only way you can ever win. We learn from mistakes, we learn from pain, we learn from failing. Failure is just learning a way NOT to do things. If you change “failure” to “chance to learn to do it better”, you will grow leaps and bounds. There are things I do that set me way above my competition, and I do every single one of them because of a failure that was called to my attention by a client, and me striving to improve that failure. You want confidence? Stop telling yourself you failed, and relish in the chance to fine tune your operation.
3. You have to celebrate the small victories. We as humans seem to be conditioned to focus on negatives. If I ask you to think of three things that were negative about things people said to you last week, most people could come up with them instantly. If I asked you to think of three wonderful things people said to you last week, most people struggle to come up with them (I know this. We have done this in my martial arts school, and the positives have always been a struggle the first time we do this experiment.) Remind yourself at the end of the day of the small victories. Let those close to you know about them. Create a series of, not cheerleaders, but supporters who will give you more positive feedback on the positive feedback you tell them about. Create a positive loop in your life, in other words. The way you build self esteem and confidence is to remind yourself, daily, that you have a reason to be confident, that you have worth and you have had victories.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I became a fine art printer by accident. I started digital painting way back in 2008, when it was a relatively new thing. Basically, I paint on a screen using a program that replicates oil painting, using a stylus instead of a paintbrush. To get those creations into a format that could be owned by others, I had to have them printed on canvas by an outside company. After about a year of that, I started to have issues with the printer: missing deadlines, colors were off, etc. So, I thought, I will get a wide format printer and learn to do it myself, how hard could it be?
Turns out, way harder than I had thought!
I had no mentors, there wasn’t a school I could attend, and I made a lot of mistakes. Meaning, there was a lot of chances for me to learn. For a couple of years, I only printed my own work, which was a great way to learn and to work the kinks out. It was exciting to take control of that part of the process, to take full responsibility for meeting deadlines and product quality control and to have the chance to learn and grow.
After a while, I had artists that I would be showing next to at art shows ask me who did my printing. When I told them it was me, they asked if I would print for them. I became an artist who was sometimes a printer.
And I also found new rewards and challenges.
One of the greatest rewards, that I still enjoy to this day, is the forming of relationships. I am an introvert, and I don’t make friends easily because of that (there’s that being vulnerable thing I mentioned earlier). Being a printer for others allows me the opportunity to serve others, and to develop relationships with them, Some of the people we print for, we have know them for over a decade now. Another great reward is that every week, it’s like a private art show in our studio, because we get to see new artwork from all of these amazing artists!
(A quick side note about that “new relationships” thing, from a business standpoint: I HATE when companies say things like, “we value our relationship”, while I am listening to hold music, followed by them treating me like a CLIENT. Do you want to win in your field? I mean, really win? It’s not about product or price or presentation or advertising. It’s not about “customer service”. It’s about relationships. I mean real relationships. We talk with our artists, we listen and we actually care about them. You don’t need to take them golfing every weekend, but you need to stop “treating them like friends”, and actually have a friendship with them. Just think about the places you go where the people working there know you, on sight. It could be the grocery store or a restaurant or a gas station. But the places where they are actively happy to see you, remember things you have told them, have a real conversation with you that isn’t the scripted “welcome in” BS…those places you will continue to go to, even if the gas station across the street has gas 5 cents a gallon cheaper. Why? Because they have an actual relationship with you. We are friends with each and every artist we print for. We know about their lives, and they ask about ours. Don’t treat people like you care about them….actually CARE ABOUT THEM. And that, that is how you win.)
The challenges, though, those were the important things. One small challenge that created a change that makes our print work stand out from everyone else’s that we have seen came about because of a complaint from a photographer. This particular artist called me, early in my printing career, and said that he had some clients of his complain about the “corners of the canvas being too bulky” where they were folded over the canvas stretcher bars. This is actually a common thing, and you can see it on prestretched canvas to works you buy in gallery gift shops to the pieces you find in home decor stores. The canvas has to be folded to allow you to staple it to the back of the stretcher bars, and in doing so, you end up with several layers of canvas stacked on top of each other on the corners. Every, including myself back then, just folds it over and staples it. But this photographer said that he couldn’t sell those pieces, and that he wouldn’t do business with me if that’s the way there were going to be.
Now understand, I didn’t have nearly as many clients back then (that was maybe 10 years ago), and I didn’t want to lose him…but I never want to lose any client for any reason, when there is something I can do to fix it. I was upset that the quality of my work was questioned, but I didn’t allow myself to be upset by it for more than 15 minutes. I didn’t allow myself to see it as failure, but rather, this was a chance to solve something, to fix it and make it better. And, after many hours of experiments, we found a way to remove that bulky corner material, have the piece look sleek and to be able to do it as fast or faster than those who just fold over the canvas and staple it. We are now known for how we do our corners.
As the years have passed, I have become more of a printer who sometimes gets to be an artist. We currently have over 400 artists we work with, from big names in the area to artists who get one print a year. And we value each of them the same. I am so excited that we allow those artists the chance to get more of their work on more people’s wall. The world can be a dark place at times, and I think art shines a light. We are happy to help that light reach more people. We have grown to where we are strictly on word of mouth advertising, and our goal is to reach twice as many artists in the next 24 months, including more outside the greater Southwestern region.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
1. Relationships. I mentioned that previously. Read “how to win friends and influence people”, by Dale Carnegie. Then read it again. Then read it again and highlight parts. Then read it again. Now put it into action, every day.
2. Develop resilience. My dad used to say, “when the job is too big, and you don’t know what to do or even where to start, just put your damn head down and work.” I don’t focus on those failures that come up, because they are learning experiences, and also because I keep my head down and keep working. One failure (or one success) most likely isn’t going to play that big of a part in your total career. Take the hit, spin off of it, and keep working your way forward. Simply don’t let the bad times win.
3. Set goals, and also realize you most likely will not reach them when or how you think you are going to. No plan survives first contact with the enemy, as Patton said, and life has a way of “contacting” the heck out of you. If you have a straight path planned towards your goal, and you get blown off track by a life event, that doesn’t mean the goal vanished. It’s still there, you just aren’t headed in the right direction at the moment. Adjust as and when you can, and keep working towards that goal. The reason you set that goal is so that you have a direction. Otherwise, it’s like getting in a car, punching the gas pedal to the floor, but never touching the steering wheel. It’s probably not going to end well.
Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?
This is a big one I face. The first thing I do is realize that I am, in fact, overwhelmed. Usually being overwhelmed creates an inability to even start on or focus on a certain task. There are just too many things going on in my head.
Once I acknowledge that I am stuck in a spot, I take a moment away from the task. A moment to just take a couple of deep breaths to center myself. I push all the swirling thoughts out of my head, and just focus on a deep breath, holding it, releasing it. Things that are totally in my control.
After I have calmed myself, I remind myself that I have accomplished many hard things before, that I have been overwhelmed before, that I have felt like I couldn’t get something even started let alone finished before…and that I have overcome those things in the past. I remind myself of the small victories that became big victories.
I then stop thinking about the destination or end result, and instead focus on taking that first step. I ask myself what is a first step I could take. I don’t spend time agonizing over if that first step is the only first step, or if it’s the right first step. The important part is to take action. I used to work in a brokerage firm many years ago, and one of the sayings that we used all the time that I still use today is, “thinking about it sucks, but doing it makes it better”. Just identify ANY possible first step and work on taking that action.
And from there, “keep your damn head and work”.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.maynardbreeseprinting.net/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DiscoveryDefenseArizona
Image Credits
head shot – Miachelle Breese
