How collaborating can help grow your creative business

Even some of the most seasoned creators find reaching out to others anxiety-inducing. But when author Rachel Cargle and magician Nicole Cardoza teamed up to launch Rachel’s first published book, A Renaissance of Our Own, the results were truly magical. Rachel and Nicole explain how collaboration benefits their creative business and how they’ve overcome the fear of connecting with other creators.

Transcript

Rachel Cargle:
There's absolutely no way I can touch each person in the audience. So collaborations, for me, fortify my work.

Nicole Cardoza:
It's a vulnerable thing. I've definitely struggled with imposter syndrome, and feeling like, "Oh my gosh, this creator is so amazing. Why would they ever want to work with me?"

Rachel Cargle:
I approach collaborations, even with my own anxieties. I too feel like, "Are y'all about to come to my little book tour to be a part of this with me?" I dreamt of what this could feel like, what it could look like. I am very excited and I cannot believe that tonight's here.

Nicole Cardoza:
My name is Nicole Cardoza. I am an entrepreneur and I'm a magician.

Rachel Cargle:
My name is Rachel Cargle, and I am releasing my first book, A Renaissance of Our Own. I had become very disenchanted with book tours. I didn't want me to just be stopping by and signing books. I wanted it to be an event. So it's going to take other creatives, it's going to take other minds. My very first desire was to have you as part of it. I knew opening up the show with magic would really usher people in to the feeling and the embodiment of re-imagining before they even hear me talk about the book. Between Brandee playing her harp, Phillip doing his poetry...

Phillip Evelyn II:
Her fraudulent parallel drawn with ignorance and permanent marker.

Rachel Cargle:
And you doing this magic show.

Nicole Cardoza:
As soon as we start to doubt what we see, sometimes those cards can go right back.

Rachel Cargle:
Every single person joining me on the stage is a player in pulling people in and inviting them into re-imagining.

I don't even know how we met met actually.

Nicole Cardoza:
I don't remember.

Rachel Cargle:
We were just confiding in each other about our efforts to do nonprofit work to benefit our communities, and then we finally met in person.

Nicole Cardoza:
I feel like stories are so inherently magical.

Rachel Cargle:
I had the opportunity to work with Patreon to put on an experience.

Nicole Cardoza:
I think that was our first time.

Rachel Cargle:
That was our first really working to together.

Nicole Cardoza:
I really wanted to do a magic show and a conversation. We rented one of my favorite spaces in Austin, which is called The Cathedral, so it's a converted church and is now this beautiful event space, and we put together a conversation on what it means to step into your magic and find yourself. I want people to know that they have the tools inside of themselves to reimagine what's possible, and anybody that I can work with that has that kind of mindset, I want to bring into that conversation. So of course, I thought of you.

Rachel Cargle:
I had many people come up to me saying that there's a lot of excitement about this intersection of our audiences who knew about both of us and could see us both at the same time. While we were on stage in conversation, my mind was like, "What's next? Where are we going? How are we doing this?" People probably think I'm your PR person because I... because I talk about you in every single room that I go into.

Nicole Cardoza:
It's up to us to cultivate this practice to reach out, feel something right between the tips of our fingers, and then make it real.

If you were nervous about talking to somebody, do it. Reach out, slide in their DMs.

Rachel Cargle:
You'll surprise yourself.

Nicole Cardoza:
You're going to surprise yourself. Setting your intentions from the get go can ensure that you're having a really authentic relationship with somebody. Be really clear in why you want to collaborate. If it's a really straightforward thing, like you want to grow your audience or you're hoping that you can gain revenue from it, make that clear. Root back down into why you're in this work. When you're really clear about your why, other people will see that too.

Thinking about that word. One word. What word was it? What word were you all thinking?

I'm a magician, and so maybe the default would be the assumption that I would just reach out to other magicians to collaborate. But not every magician is in the work for the same reasons or has the same message, or is looking at a similar audience, and so instead I'm like, "Where are my people?"

Rachel Cargle:
I think my audience is always telling me who they would love to hear from. So sometimes I don't know about the people that they're suggesting, and I love that as a creator because that gives me so much material to dream out new events, dream out new gatherings and collaborations. It doesn't have to be a product, it doesn't have to be a production. Take the opportunity to collaborate with people and just dream with them. Call someone up or shoot them a DM and say, "Hey, I have an idea. Can I think through this with you?"

Nicole Cardoza:
I always stick to what I know that's true about myself and look for that in other people and not allow myself to get intimidated or worry that I'm not enough. It can be really overwhelming when you're a new creator. You've got an audience that's waiting to hear from you. You don't have to be doing that alone and you have a group of other people that feel the same way.

Rachel Cargle:
Collaborations are really a foundational part of growing a career, not only because it's always a chance to cross audiences, to bring new veins of creativity to your current audiences, but also that's how you build community. That is necessary for us as we grow in our careers.

Nicole Cardoza:
As creators, we often think so much about serving our audience, but we serve each other too. And so collaboration is a wonderful way to serve each other, to know that we are able to pour into each other's work, it really fosters another layer of connection when you're tilling the ground together.

Rachel Cargle:
That is even sweeter when you get to watch the flowers of it together.