Episode 013 – Elise Rorick
Welcome to another episode of The HERO Show. I am your host Richard Matthews, (@AKATheAlchemist) and you are listening to Episode 013 with Elise Rorick – The Enchantment Artist on Discovering Her Business Identity.
Elise is an Enchantment Artist and photographer. She’s the founder of Lusicovi Creative–the name comes from her Armenian heritage, “Lus” means “light” and “Covi” means “sea.”–a company dedicated to helping her clients every step of the way from brainstorming to the session, to deciding how best to display and share the images they create together. Elise wants to capture your magic–your story–in a wonderful and creative way so that you can preserve it forever and share it with the world.
Here’s just a taste of what we talked about today:
- Elise on her realization that book cover design is a way for her to combine all her passions.
- Wielding the camera for the first time at age 12.
- Setting off, on her own, to learn business and marketing.
- Ditching one specific niche in favor of combining all your passion in one package as your unique offer.
- Helping her clients capture the heart of their story with visual images.
- Winning great customers with curiosity marketing.
- How your superpower can be your own fatal flaw.
- The balance between art/chaos and productivity/order.
- Making money by solving the problems that you need solved; someone else might need your solution too.
- Stories have a way of teaching people about the real world.
- To witness an art is just as important as creating the art.
Recommended tools:
Recommended Books:
- The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
- The Sandman Comicbook Series by Neil Gaiman
- Stardust by Neil Gaiman
- Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
- Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
The HERO Challenge
Today on the show, Elise challenged Kaylin R Boyd to be a guest on The HERO Show. Elise thinks that Kaylin would be a fantastic interview because they are dear friends and they have worked together on Kaylin’s book, Tell City; they had a wonderful experience in the making and publishing of the book.
How To Stay Connected With Elise
Want to stay connected with Elise? Please check out their social profiles below.
Also, Elise mentioned The Starlight Journal on the show. It is an illustrated bullet journal that Elise made for herself and for her clients. You can get The Starlight Journal here.
- Website: Lusicovi Creative
- Facebook Page: @LusicoviCreative
- Instagram Handle: @lusicovicreative
- Twitter Handle: @lusicovicreates
Call To Adventure
Don’t forget you can stay connected to me and the show by subscribing now. Just text ALCHEMY to 444999. Or you put your email address in the box at the bottom of this page. You’ll get all sorts of cool gifts, be updated about our contests and polls, and get notified when we publish new episodes. With that… let’s get to listening to the episode…
The Webinar Alchemy Workshop: https://fivefreedoms.io/richard/fs/waw-slf/
Automated Transcription
Richard Matthews
Hello, and welcome back to The HERO Show, Richard Matthews here and on the line today I have Elise Rorick. Hopefully, I pronounced that right. Did I get that right? This time Elise?
Elise Rorick
Yes.
Richard Matthews
Awesome. So at least is a photographer and an artist. She’s been a photographer, since high school. She started getting paid to do weddings and portrait photography–bunch of fine art school. Over the last couple of years, you’ve really started to turn your photography business into a full-time position for you. And that’s what you’re doing now. You’re doing product photography and things like that?
Elise Rorick
Yep. Product photography and book cover design.
Richard Matthews
Awesome. So that’s basically what you’re known for right now. Product photography and book cover design. That looks pretty different things. Is there a reason why you could do both photography and book cover design?
Elise Rorick
Well, book cover design is the realization I had of how to combine all of the things that I love. So graphic design, art, photography, and stories, because I’ve always been a huge book nerd.
Richard Matthews
Me too.
Elise Rorick
A realization that came well after college. And I was just like, “Oh, well, that’s a profession. People do that. I could do that.” Yeah, but I had already been doing the photography for so long. And I do still really enjoy product photography. So I’m sort of transitioning but at the same time, I don’t think that I will ever truly get rid of product photography. My goal is to have the book cover design be a little more of the focus. But even still, I mean, they also go hand in hand really well because if you’re working, especially self-published authors, they put their book out and it’s got my cover on it. And then, also, they need photography of the finished book so that they can market the book. I can wrap it all up in one package.
Richard Matthews
I see you have a nice little like unique service there for people so they can get their books designed, get pictures done of them, and all that kind of fun stuff.
Elise Rorick
Exactly. Like headshot photos. So it all still tied in together. And then I still enjoy photography.
Richard Matthews
I do with a lot of my clients and my businesses, I tell them they need to go hire a photographer and get hero shots done right. So they can use them in their marketing pieces. So yeah. So the author certainly needs to get that kind of stuff done.
Elise Rorick
Yes, exactly. And so it’s just a good way to start building relationships with the photography. And then later if they finish a book and need more, then I can provide other services too. So you’re right, it sounds like they’re very different things. But I’ve figured out that they actually can work together really well.
Richard Matthews
Yeah, and it gives you a unique place in the marketplace. because not a lot of people have both photography skills and book design skills. You can offer something that not a lot of other people can offer. And that’s an important thing that I think if you can bring your own uniqueness to a product, a service offering. I do the same thing. A lot of my clients, I have a photography background as well, and a lot of my clients, I’ll walk them through. Like, here’s how you should get your photography done. And I can have a little document I call my photography cheat sheet that’s written in photographer ease. Like in languages a photographer understands. I was like, “You to take this…” because I do marketing for my clients and like, “You can give this to a photographer, and then they’ll you’ll get back what you want.” Because if you go to a photographer and you say I want to get portraits, you’ll get portraits back. It means something specific to a photographer.
Elise Rorick
Yeah.
Richard Matthews
So a lot of my clients don’t know that. They don’t, they don’t know how to speak photographer. So they go and they asked for a portrait session and then get portraits back. And then the pictures are useful for the marketing we need to do,
Elise Rorick
Right.
Well, especially a lot of authors. Especially again, a lot of self-published authors, in a lot of senses, become the brand. People want to hear not just about the book, but also about them and about the story.
They are.
Exactly. I call those sessions brand photography sessions. It’s not just a headshot, it’s not just product photography of your book. It’s everything–all combined, so that you can use all of it to tell the story of what your story is, basically.
Richard Matthews
So now I feel like I need to pull out my cheat sheet and go over it with you and make sure that it hits all the points that you actually do on the brand photography work.
If a client brought this to you, would you be able to turn what they’re looking for? That’s good.
Elise Rorick
Yeah, yeah. We can do that.
Richard Matthews
Yeah. So as you know, this show is about the HEROPRENEUR. And as a hero, every hero has an origin story. This is where you started to realize that maybe you were different, that maybe you had superpowers. And maybe you can use those to help other people. That’s where you started the develop or discover the value that you can bring into the world through your business. So what’s your origin story?
Elise Rorick
So my origin story is like a long and windy, really. But also very specific. I picked up a camera at age 12 because my dad was always an amateur photographer. I don’t remember why I just remember that I picked up his camera one day and started playing around with it. And then I just ran off with it and didn’t bring it back until he bought me my own.
And that was actually–I used his camera all throughout high school for paid portrait and wedding things. And then for my high school graduation, my dad and my grandma and I think my aunt and uncle all kind of pooled together. And for my graduation gift, got me my no nice DSLR camera.
And so that is in one sense, the origin. But then, in another sense, it’s kind of photography and art and stories have always been a part of who I am. I was the kid that used to get yelled at because I would take a book to a family like Christmas get together and then just sit on the couch reading. And everyone in my family would be like, “Will you please get your nose out of the book and come join us.” And so actually, I’ve always been that person too. And so the discovery of how I can combine all of that. And that is what led to the services that I offer now and who I am now and what I’m trying to do. That was a very gradual thing. It was like I said, I did some portrait and wedding work that I was hired for even in high school. And then that continued in college when I was getting my Fine Arts degree in photography.
And then it was sort of a slow realization after that of like, actually, I don’t really love this, like, yes, it’s photography, but it’s not.
Richard Matthews
It’s not the thing you love doing.
Elise Rorick
Right! It’s not the kind of photography I love doing really. And so that was a discovery process, to realize that “Oh, actually, what I’m interested in is more like product photography. “And then it’s like, “Oh, well, that’s the thing. And I can go pursue that.” which I did for.
Yeah. And so I went down that for a while, but then at the same time. So for a while, product photography was my full-time job. And like how I was making my money, but I was still very interested, always, always was interested in stories. And then artwork, all of my artwork is almost always inspired by stories in one way or another. I was still always really interested in that and doing that on the side in the evenings and weekends. Yeah. And even at that point of that full-time job, came up with the first idea that eventually led to my own product book release that just happened last fall. And so it was all this side by side thing where well, this is my career. But this is still my interest. And I had basically set off on my own to learn how to have a business and how to do marketing.
Because I didn’t learn any of that in art school.
So I was like, everyone tells you when you’re marketing, and when you’re setting up, “What are you going to do? What are you going to be what services are going to offer?” Everyone says, you know, “Niche down, pick a very specific thing and target that and do that.” And I kept running into this problem of like, but I really enjoy three different things. And they’re seemingly very different things. Because I’ve got, you know, my artwork, which is often painting and underwater photography, and then I have book cover designs, because of books. Then I had product photography. And so like I was having the hardest time in the world just trying to pick what–how am I going to pick one of these and market it. And finally, one of my friends said to me, “but at least the thing that those things all have in common is you. Like, you have a particular style. And like it doesn’t matter if it’s a book cover or an underwater photo, or product photo, if you’re sharing it like on Facebook, I don’t even need to see who shared it to know that that’s your work. So that’s a unique thing that you have.” And it’s you like, “Yeah, there are three different things, but you unite them.” And that was just like this totally clarifying ‘Eureka!’ moment for me, because I was just like, “Oh! that’s true”!
Richard Matthews
It’s a unique perspective.
Elise Rorick
Yeah. And then suddenly, I was like, “Okay, I don’t have to fight this anymore. I can just pursue all three of them at once, and wrap it up together to be just my unique thing.” That’s eventually how I have ended up here, basically. We were talking about the authors and brand.
Richard Matthews
A very interesting way to look at your story. You have this really interesting story where you started way back in the beginning. And it’s a story of discovery. Like, discovering what you are, what your skills are, and how they become this unique product and service offering in your space. Which is very cool. And I think it’s something that a lot of us can learn from where you don’t have to know right at the beginning. It grows over time.
Elise Rorick
Yeah. And it’s so funny, because even like I said, it’s a story that has a specific, definitive point. But also doesn’t. And like even in high school, I was saying, people would ask, “Well, what are you going to do? What are you going to college for?” All these questions that you get as a teenager. And my answer was always going to be a photographer. And people, the response is always just like, “Oh, uh, how are you going to do that?” And then my response was just like, “I don’t know, I’m gonna figure it out. Like, later.”
Richard Matthews
And here you are. You have a photography business. It’s your unique perspective with art and storytelling and underwater skills. Right? Like, that’s all cool stuff.
Elise Rorick
Yeah.
Richard Matthews
At this point in your business, if you were to say you had one superpower. It’s the thing that you do or build or offer that really helps your clients solve problems. Help someone slay their villains? What would that superpower be? The thing that sort of sets you apart?
Elise Rorick
My superpower and this kind of goes into my own company branding and everything. But my superpower, I think, is enchantment. So, being able to capture enchantment, whether that’s in a watercolor painting or an underwater photo, or a book cover design…I call myself an Enchantment Artist or an Enchantment Photographer, they’re a little interchangeable. And that’s my superpower. I can help other people. Usually, other storytellers are creatives, but I can help them to really capture the heart of their story in visual images, and sometimes even in writing that they can then go out and share their story with the world.
Richard Matthews
So you’re helping other storytellers, other creatives, other probably entrepreneurs, who have a story, and they want to get that visual element that really helps set that story off. So they can share?
Elise Rorick
Yes, and it’s enchantment specifically because the images like the images that I create are enchanting. They will capture the audience’s attention.
Richard Matthews
I feel like we’re going to have to pull up some examples here before we’re too far into the interview.
Have you found that message hard to–because enchantment is… to me enchantment is an ambiguous word. It’s like, I don’t know right off the bat what you mean. And so from a marketing standpoint, how have you found that as a challenge to find the right people and for them to understand what it is you can actually do for them?
Elise Rorick
It is a challenge for sure. I spent a long time trying to come up with that word before I landed on enchantment. Because again, I’m also trying to umbrella around these three different, totally separate things. And I landed on Enchantment Artist, especially because it is like–you know what enchantment means. And you definitely know what artists mean. But you’ve never heard that combination before. And so it’s a thing that inherently asks for more questions.
Richard Matthews
It makes you want to go “Okay, do I need an Enchantment Artist?”
Elise Rorick
Right. Or, or even just, “Oh, I’ve never heard of that, well, what does an Enchantment Artist do?” That gives me the opportunity to go into detail–that I really need to go into–in order to explain the three different things that I do and how they can go.
Richard Matthews
From a marketing standpoint, it’s a curiosity play.
Elise Rorick
Basically. Yeah.
Richard Matthews
You’re getting into the Curiosity a little bit and get someone to dangle a little bit and “Come talk to me a little bit. So I can tell you more.”
Elise Rorick
There’s not a single word that encapsulates all three of those things.
Richard Matthews
You need to use your storytelling powers to come through and show them how they need more enchantment in their business.
Elise Rorick
Exactly. And so it also gets in that thing that my friend, Maddie, said to me. When she was just like, “Well, your style, and you, is the thing that’s in common.” And so the word I feel like really encapsulates my style, as well.
Richard Matthews
Yeah. So what’s really fascinating about that–I love what your friend said that the thing that sets you apart, is you. Because I tell all of my clients that. Yeah, so I have this image that I used for my clients all the time. I call it the Crocodile Infested River. And your products and services are like–you have your customers on a journey. They’re on the left side of the river over here. And they have certain levels of awareness of the problem that they have that they’re trying to solve. And then when they get to their like, “I’m ready to solve the problem.” They have to get in the river–to swim across the river to get the other side where the promised land is. The promised land is where they’ve solved their problem. They live in a new life. They’re no longer you know–they were Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead on this side. Now they’re healthy, vibrant and full of life. And they have that journey that they go across.
Elise Rorick
Yeah.
Richard Matthews
And when someone is ready to like, dive into the water and swim across, that’s when you can come into their lives and say, Hey, you know what? I’ve got a boat. And that’s my product or service. And my boat has all of these cool features. It’s got crocodile disintegrating lasers and we’ve got whirlpool detection systems so we can help you get around.
Elise Rorick
Right.
Richard Matthews
All of the struggles that are going to happen in your journey,
Elise Rorick
Right.
Richard Matthews
Yeah, the most important part of the boat is you. You’re the captain. You have been on this journey before. You’ve been across the river, you’ve helped other clients go across the river. And you have a perspective. And it’s your uniqueness that allows you to offer something that is really valuable to the person who’s taking that journey. So anyway, that’s a long way of saying the same thing that your friend Maddie was telling you that you have your own uniqueness. That’s what makes your services powerful. Right?
Elise Rorick
Yeah. And that was the most defining moment, along with the journey that really led to here now. But even that, there was still a lot of steps that I went through between then and now because that was probably… Oh gosh, like four–maybe five years ago. Now, when she said that–and it’s still only probably in the last year, that I feel like I have really actually solidified this is the message. This is what I do. This is how I can help you.
Richard Matthews
I’ve been doing this for 10 years now. And it’s only in the last six or eight months that I’ve really started to nail down my identity.
Elise Rorick
Right.
Richard Matthews
And what’s cool is, after I did that, my business has started to pick up a lot. So, hopefully, you’ll see the same thing happened in yours. That once you really nail down your identity and start speaking it to people, well, you’ll see your business grow.
Elise Rorick
Right, which makes perfect sense too. Because if someone asks you, “Who you are you? What do you do?” And your answer is kind of like, “Well, I don’t really know, I sort of do this, and I sort of do this…” Which I feel like…that kind of was my answer for so long because I hadn’t figured out really how to make it all one thing. And now it’s like if someone asked me the same question, I actually have a good response and the confidence and all of that.
Richard Matthews
I totally get that. I spent the longest time trying to figure that out. If you look at like my business, I help people with sales funnels, I help people write their messaging, and I help people really understand their customer journey and how they come in to help their customers along their journey. I do all these things. I do a really good job with them and I help people build their expert brand. And for the longest time, I was like “I would tell people I did all of the minutiae that go into making that happen.”
Elise Rorick
Yeah.
Richard Matthews
Here are all the different things that make that up. And what I really come down to is I’ve just recently started calling myself The Hero Maker.
Elise Rorick
I like that.
Richard Matthews
So it fits in with the brand of the show and everything which is good. But it also an invite for some questions. Same thing that you have.
Elise Rorick
The Curiosity. Yeah.
Richard Matthews
Yeah. The curiosity. What do you mean by The Hero Maker? And then I can actually tell them all those things that we go into it. So anyway, hopefully, having that identity really nailed down is gonna help you grow your business.
Elise Rorick
Yes, I think it will.
Richard Matthews
Okay, so other side of the superpowers. Every superhero has these. It’s their fatal flaw. Superman has his kryptonite, Batman is not actually super. For your business, what would you say your fatal flaw is? I tell people mine, I’ve got a couple but the one I tell people on the show regularly is I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist. By a bit of a perfectionist, I mean like, four hours trying to get the pixel to the right spot. And then realize that it has no impact on anything. And I’m like, just four hours doing nothing. And I have to work on different ways to combat that. So question is, what is the fatal flaw? And more importantly, what are you doing to help overcome that? So other people who suffer from something similar can learn from you?
Elise Rorick
Right. So that’s such a great–such a good question. And I feel kind of like when Superman–or with Superman–his superpower is that he’s not actually from Earth. What comes with that… it’s almost like the other side of the coin is the kryptonite. Which, none of us have to deal with. So, in sort of a similar way, I almost think sometimes the superpower itself can be a challenge.
Richard Matthews
Yeah. It can be your flaw.
Elise Rorick
Right. And so what I mean by that is kind of twofold. One is exactly what we already touched on a little bit which is just the fact that “Enchantment Artist” is not a thing. It’s not a thing that exists, I made it up. And so because of that, there’s no clear path at all in terms of how to build successful businesses in an Enchantment Artist. And so in a sense, I’m very much figuring it out as I go. Which, in a lot of ways is my superpower. Because I can figure–I can go with the flow, I can figure it out, whatever we need to do. But the downside of that is, there’s no obvious messaging, there’s no clear… Like, even when it comes to marketing or posting something on Instagram and trying to use hashtags. It’s just like…well, a lot of my hashtags are things that I made up, but that’s not helpful necessarily… until I really get more momentum going. And so that question of like…well, I’m going to have to tag this with underwater photography. And I’m going to tag it with book cover design and incorporate the other things that are already there and bring them together, in probably a weird way that’s going to confuse people at first. But then eventually, hopefully, they start to see how it all comes together.
Richard Matthews
And so how are you… How are you combating that?
Elise Rorick
So, um, I look at it as the thing that is so good is the enchantment; the magic. But it’s a little chaotic and that’s actually also true. I think, for me personally, too because I have three different distinct interests. And actually, more than that, because I’m also interested in Joseph Campbell’s, the hero’s journey, and other more nerdy things that don’t necessarily play into my business, but still kind of do because it’s just underneath everything. That sort of chaos was something that I learned, eventually. That I was going to have to mitigate, basically. And so I had this moment where I was just like, “Okay, this is too much chaos, I need to figure out how to introduce some order here.” And that led to the creation of my product, which is The Starlight Journal, which is an illustrated bullet journal. And so I made that for myself. Because honestly, like, I just needed something, I spent, like six months…
Richard Matthews
Some of the best products come from the stuff that you need for yourself,
Elise Rorick
Well, exactly. Like, that’s what they say, right? Like, solve the problem that you need solving and probably someone else needs it too. Which was basically my experience because I came up with this idea. It was just kind of a stroke of inspiration. One day, after I had spent six months looking for some sort of business planner. Some sort of thing to contain the chaos a little bit, basically. It’s what I was looking for. But I had specific ideas. And also, I know myself and if it was boring I wasn’t going to use it because I had tried boring. And so I didn’t use them. One day I just made a list of, “Okay, well, what would I be looking for in this what would it have to contain in order to be what I needed.” And then I started looking for things that fit that list, and I wasn’t finding anything. And then one day, it occurred to me out of nowhere…it’s like, “I know how to use InDesign, I can do this, I can just make my own.” So then finally, I had that idea. And it was weird because it was also like–it was just like all at once. Like, all at once was the realization that “Oh, I actually have the skills to make something. Like, I don’t have to keep looking for this. I can just make it.” And then also simultaneously, this inspiration for, visually, how to lay it all out. Like it was just there all of a sudden.
Richard Matthews
You’ve come at it…like, the idea that you have some chaos with the type of brand you have is by building this Starlight Journal that has–it serves two purposes. One, it helps you combat that fatal flaw in your business. And it also is a product that helps other people who have the same thing,
Elise Rorick
It is actually the perfect combination, really. Of all the different–It’s the perfect example of all the different things that I do. Because of the artwork inside of it…it’s illustrated. It has a cover it’s a physical book like I had to design the whole physical book. So it’s a clear example that yes, I can do this. And then in order to market it, I had to take product photography of the thing. So it was–and also of myself and for my own brand. And so it became the epitome…
Richard Matthews
Of what you do.
Elise Rorick
Yeah, it’s the epitome of what I do. And then it’s also simultaneously like the idea behind it, and in it, and all of that is so connected with what I do. Because I am always trying to help other creative people–other people who are struggling. Whether it’s with too much chaos or what I find more commonly is not enough of the right kind of chaos and none of the creativity. Because creativity is very chaotic.
Richard Matthews
Yeah.
Elise Rorick
And I feel like so many people just have an interest in that, but don’t know how to…
Richard Matthews
Yeah. So what’s interesting is, you mentioned a couple of things that I want to pull out and make sure people recognize. So the first one is you said you have…the strength in your business is also the weakness. You have this cool thing you’re calling the Enchantment Artist. And because that’s a new thing, it’s hard to market. It’s hard to understand. So you actually created something that helps you in your business but also helps people. You mentioned The Hero’s Journey as well. And I wanted to just point something out that in your business, the service that you offer, your service is not the hero. Your customer is the hero in their own story. So they’re Frodo on their journey to go and put the ring in the mountain. And then your business comes along, you’re Gandalf. You’re the one helps them on their journey.
Elise Rorick
Yes. I’m the wizard. I bring the magic. I love that.
Richard Matthews
My thought for you is to think in terms of like when you’re doing your marketing and stuff is who is the person who’s sitting there going, “I need to create something.”
“I need to get something done.” And thinking to themselves, like the same problem you were sitting in when you’re creating the Starlight Journal. How can what you’re doing come in and use like, “Hey, you got this cool thing, you got the cool message, you have a cool business, you have things that you’re actually going out and helping people to solve problems in their lives.” What you need is you need to have an Enchantment Artist to help you take your message to the next level. And someone who’s coming to help them along on that journey.
Elise Rorick
Right. Yeah. I love that analogy.
Richard Matthews
Yeah, so anyways, I think that could certainly help with the marketing message because you know how to figure out how to market
Elise Rorick
Right.
Richard Matthews
Enchantment. If you just find the people who are already on that journey and honor their journey. Basically, this is what you’re doing. And here are ways that you can make that journey more successful.
Yeah. So continuing on with our hero story here. After the fatal flaw comes our common enemy. The common enemy is the thing that the heroes fight against. And it’s in your business, what if you could go into every client you’ve ever worked with. And if you could just wave your magic wand. Wave Gandalf’s staff and just remove something terrible from their life.
Elise Rorick
Yeah, for sure.
Richard Matthews
What would that thing be?
Elise Rorick
Oh, hmm. I think I think in a lot of ways, that thing would be almost the idea that no one is interested in what they’re doing.
Richard Matthews
Yeah. Like the self-doubt that comes in?
Elise Rorick
Yeah. It does all probably go back to . But the idea that they’re not going to be able to get the message out there or that no one’s going to be interested.
Richard Matthews
So it feels like self-doubt didn’t quite capture it. Maybe it’s the doubt in the magic of their message. Right. The other people are going to be able to see the magic and actually get value from it.
Elise Rorick
Yes, exactly. And, like, especially with books. You know the saying is don’t judge a book by its cover, whatever. But that’s silly. Like, that’s what we do every time we look at a book.
Richard Matthews
We’re looking at it by its cover. Yeah.
Elise Rorick
Right. And so you can have an amazing, amazing story and if the cover is crappy, people are just going to look right past it. So you need that enchanting, visual thing that grabs people and makes them stop, and then actually pick up a book and then read the back. And then they’re intrigued. And then they’re curious.
Richard Matthews
And they need to have that curiosity play, they need to see it go out, “I need to look at that.” They can expand some of that story for themselves.
Elise Rorick
Yes, exactly. And actually, that’s a frustrating thing to me, because I am such a big reader. And so I’m, you know, I can’t go anywhere without finding more books to add on my pile.
And I was at a convention. Oh, gosh, almost a year ago now. Probably last early summer. And there were a decent number of self-published authors there. And I was walking around and talking to them. And there was one that in particular. She had this book and the cover was not really anything fancy at all. The only thing that drew me to it was the fact that it was very short. At the time, I was just feeling really busy and I keep starting books and not getting back to them. And again, wanted something I was looking specifically for a book that was going to be short enough that I could just sit and read it in like a couple of hours, just so that I could feel like I’m still capable finishing a book right now.
I pick that one up only for that reason. And then read the back and was kind of like, “Yeah, it sounds like it’ll probably be okay.” Like this will serve my very specific purpose. And then I read it. And it was amazing. Like, it was a beautiful, beautiful story. Really well written and I just loved it so much. But then that was kind of heartbreaking too because it was just like–you could have a cover that captures the magic in this story. And then more people would want to pick it up. Because if the only people you’re getting picking it up right now are people like me who are just like, oh, that’s the perfect short size. That’s not really the goal.
Richard Matthews
That’s going to come down to like your title and the cover needs to actually stop like every piece of that outside of that book needs to get someone going, “I need to take the next step, I need to, flip the book over, I need to open the cover, I need to read a little bit about the author.” And the average does that it’s what’s going to create that magical curiosity. They get someone to stop and think I need to do something with this.
Elise Rorick
Exactly. And yeah, so it was just–it was a frustrating moment.
Richard Matthews
When you realize that–something I’ve noticed that happens a lot–you realize in your business that like “Man, if I could just help someone accomplished this thing, then they could get so much more of a result.” It’s a good thing. It’s that common enemy. One of the things I do in my business all the time–I do something. I call it Instructional Design which is where I help people teach. I help experts build their courses and kind of do teaching, and all go through someone else’s course. Realize that they missed some major points that are going to keep their students from getting the results they want their students to get. I’m like, “Man, if they just talked to me, I could help them.” I could help them understand how to teach this thing better. So same kind of thing. You’re like, you see that frustration? Is that common enemy that you know, I call it an Expert Blindness for my business. It’s they’re so good at what they do. They don’t always necessarily know how to teach someone who doesn’t know what they know. How to do what they’re doing. Yeah.
Elise Rorick
Yeah, I understand that.
Richard Matthews
In your case, it’s the common enemy is like…they don’t see the magic that comes from a great cover and a great headline and really good photography that get someone to have that pattern interrupt and stop and go “I need to pick up the story.”
Elise Rorick
Right? Yes. That’s exactly it because it is all of the visuals. We’re such visual people, or visual creatures rather. They say a picture’s worth 1000 words. Yeah. 1000 words. And it’s very true. I mean, Instagram is a good example.
Even Facebook. I feel like it’s becoming like just nothing but pictures.
You know, that’s what gets people’s attention. And especially if it’s an especially mesmerizing or enchanting or…
Richard Matthews
…kind of thing that makes you want to stop.
Elise Rorick
Yeah, it somehow has like an emotional connection to where people just see it, and they can infer things from it about the story or even at a bare minimum, to be more intrigued. Then yeah, that’s what you really need. It is that sort of gripping visual.
Richard Matthews
Yeah.
Elise Rorick
Yeah.
Richard Matthews
I mean, you need to have something that really captures that. So the other side of the common enemy is the driving force. Your mission. You know, Spider-Man fights to save New York. Batman fights to save Gotham. Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information.
If you had a mission that you could just you know, clearly state the thing that you are fighting for. That you want to have, you know, better than this world, what would you say that is?
Elise Rorick
So my mission actually goes back to stories because I believe that stories, fictional, even artistic, like visual storytelling, is really, really important to humans. Because it has a way of teaching us things about the real world even if it’s a fantasy. Like a fantasy story, like Lord of the Rings, for example.
Richard Matthews
Yeah, absolutely.
Elise Rorick
The value in that is, like, Smaug the dragon does not actually exist, obviously. Sauron doesn’t exist. But in the real world, we have to come up against smaller versions of that we have to fight our own dragons in our everyday life. And so the value of seeing that artwork in most stories is that they teach us. That it’s a–I think it’s a G.K. Chesterton quote, something along the lines of a fairy tales don’t teach us that dragons exist; fairy tales teach us that dragons can be beaten. And that is, I’ve always loved that ever since I read it. Because that’s it. Like, that’s my mission. My mission is to use my artwork, use my stories, use my voice, use other people’s stories to help other people to tell their stories. And the value in that is almost–you can’t put a number on it. Because the value of it is…
Richard Matthews
…it’s got a tremendous ripple effect on people. You know, when you help someone get a story out there, every person who read that story is going to learn a little bit of something. One of the things that I find endlessly fascinating is the studies of our mind and our mind’s inability to tell the difference between reality and fantasy.
Elise Rorick
Yes, I was just listening to some sort of podcast the other day that talked about how they ran studies on piano players. And they were scanning their brains while they were playing a certain song on the piano. And then they took them outside, away from the piano, kept the scanners on and then told them to “Okay, now sit there and imagine that you’re doing that whole thing that you just did.” And the scanners detected no difference. It was exactly the same.
Richard Matthews
It’s like one of my favorite studies I read was a basketball game. And they had brought in a number of people. They had one group who were doing free throw shots. They had one group practice all week doing free throw shots. They would stand on the court and they would just–all day for eight hours, toss the ball into the hoop. Try and get to the free throw. And then another group that they did not allow to practice. So what you are supposed to do is you will sit in a room and you will close your eyes. And you will imagine throwing a perfect free throw.
…everything that goes into it. Now the way you’re going to move your hand the way you’re going to move, you know, jump and you know, the whole thing and swishing it in time. And then at the end of the week, they tested them to see who would win in like a free throw tournament. And the group that imagined throwing the perfect free throw and didn’t practice it all won that competition by like a landslide. Because of your brain’s visual cortex. The study was interesting. When you do something. Like, when you actually act like you’re out and you’re doing something… you might get something like 4000 or 5000 visual synapses or whatever will fire in your brain. But if you close your eyes, and you imagine it and you imagine seeing it and touching it and tasting it and being there… it’s something like 4 billion. It’s such an order of magnitude more. Yeah, things are off in your brain when you’re using your imagination to visualize something.
And what always struck me is like, people used to complain to me when I was a kid, because I was always reading books. And it’s a familiar problem that us readers have.
And I realized a long time ago that the value that comes from reading something is that you get to live experiences that you wouldn’t normally be able to live. You get to face those challenges and think through someone’s decision making even if you don’t agree with the way that the protagonist agreed. Like, you’ve thought through there, you’ve been there. And I tell people like, “I’ve been through space. I fought dragons. I’ve done these things.” You know, I fought wars.
Elise Rorick
Because you’re visualizing it.
Richard Matthews
Right because you’re there.
If you’ve ever if you’re read, Orson Scott Card in his series of books. For people who are listening, his series of books for the battle school…
Elise Rorick
Ender’s Game?
Richard Matthews
Ender’s Game. The Ender’s Game series, and then The Shadow of the Hegemon series that goes along with it. It follows Bean’s story. At the end of every one of those books. Orson Scott Card has like a chapter that he talks through the things that he’s thinking about and what he was thinking about while he was making the story. And he said something–I can’t remember which book it’s in. So I just recommend read the whole series. You’ll love it anyway.
Elise Rorick
Yeah.
Richard Matthews
And one them he mentioned, he said, “When an author writes a story, he only writes half of a story.” Because the story isn’t finished until someone reads it, and it makes complete in their head.
Elise Rorick
Yeah.
Richard Matthews
And that really stuck with me that the power of stories comes when we consume them, right. Because we’re storyborn people.
Elise Rorick
I mean, I think of artwork in much the same way. There’s one thing for me to create an underwater photograph, painting, whatever it is. But I get value out of that, regardless. It’s almost an entirely new, just as important, just as creative experience for someone else to then witness that art. If you approach it openly–any art, not just mine–but if you approach a piece of art openly and with genuine curiosity in earnest, I think you can learn things. You actually can. And the other weird thing that happens is that you don’t necessarily learn the same thing. Like you and I could look at the same Da Vinci painting and get entirely different things out of them. Because we’re each…
Richard Matthews
You’re coming at a different perspective. A different life story that you bring to bear on that experience.
Elise Rorick
Exactly. You’re going to find different things in it that are more relevant to you that won’t necessarily even stick out. Which is amazing!
Richard Matthews
Which is super important. Yeah. And it’s a super important thing to point out for our listeners too. That if you are running a business and you have products and services that your perspective–the thing that you bring to bear in your business is so valuable because nobody else has it. Nobody else has expected what you have.
Elise Rorick
Exactly. No one has the same unique combination of experience, and thoughts and all of that.
Richard Matthews
So let me continue down our path here. On the other side, when you get past the driving force then you have to actually go out and make your business happen. I talk about your Hero’s tool belt. Maybe you have a big magical hammer like Thor. Or a bulletproof vest, like the neighborhood police officer. Or maybe just really love the way that Evernote helps you organize your thoughts. Or maybe you’re a photographer like me, I love my A 6500. What are some of your favorite tool or your favorite tools that you use in your business that really allows you to do what it is you’re doing?
Elise Rorick
So it is definitely my camera. Obviously.
A very big one.
Richard Matthews
Okay, so I’m totally a gear nerd. What kind of camera is it?
Elise Rorick
It’s a Nikon D 750.
Richard Matthews
Do you like it?
Elise Rorick
I do. Yeah, I’m always–the camera my dad had was an icon. And so, I’ve always followed that. I’ve used Canon before too, and I don’t have a particular attachment to either one of them other than I just already had Canon stuff. So
Yeah, I already had Nikon stuff. But yeah, no, I do like it. It’s good. It’s a good camera.
Richard Matthews
So what’s your what’s the–camera is only as good as the glass you attach to the front of it? What’s your favorite lens that you use?
Elise Rorick
My 50 millimeter F 1.8. I use for almost everything.
Richard Matthews
So I loved my 50-millimeter 1.8 until recently. See how geeky I am, right? I just got a–actually I’ve had it for a couple of years now but a 30 millimeter 1.4 that I am in love with. I love this lens so much. Only other photographers can appreciate that…but yes, I love my 30-millimeter 1.4 and I use it all the time. So I get it.
Elise Rorick
Yeah, no, I love it. And I think it’s almost like a thing in my brain too. Because I know that the 50 millimeter is the same as what our eyeballs see.
Richard Matthews
So yeah, so is your frame a full frame camera?
Elise Rorick
Yeah.
Richard Matthews
Okay, yeah. So I’m on a crop sensor.
Elise Rorick
So your 30 is like…yeah. Right!
Richard Matthews
When there’s something wrong with the 50 and I couldn’t ever figure out what it was.
Elise Rorick
That’s what it is. It’s zooming in too close.
Richard Matthews
…zooming in a little bit. So the 30-millimeter is my equivalent of that 50-millimeter which is super geeky for all the people that are not photographers.
Elise Rorick
Right. Sorry.
Richard Matthews
It’s basically the same lens but yeah, the one for on that makes me so happy that–like, razor thin.
Elise Rorick
Oh, yeah.
Richard Matthews
Yeah, I definitely love it.
Elise Rorick
Love it.
Richard Matthews
So you do that…you use that mostly for your photography side of your business, I assume?
Elise Rorick
Yes. And then my other thing that is probably at least equally important is Photoshop.
Richard Matthews
Yeah.
Elise Rorick
That’s my big tool. I have a Wacom stylus so I can do photo editing and then some painting.
Richard Matthews
Wacom stylus.
Elise Rorick
Mine is older than that. Same basic thing.
Richard Matthews
We’re the same kind of nerds here.
Yeah. We are.
Elise Rorick
So yeah. No, I love. I love that thing. That like, just revolutionized everything. And that was also the start. Or, well, it wasn’t a start but it really helps to up my game with my artwork, not just with the photography. I mean it’s a great tool for editing. Anyway, but it because my particular artwork is–again, this weird sort of mixed media thing that I sort of made up. I do that a lot.
And so mostly what I do for my artwork is I’m combining photography with other hand drawn or hand-painted elements. And the Wacom stylus just made that 1000 times better because I can really get into the detail and do a lot more brushwork and just really make them blend together much better. Because, you know, a painting and a photograph don’t necessarily always blend.
Richard Matthews
It’s a difficult thing to accomplish. And I find it difficult to–even like when you’re working with two different digital mediums. If one is done
Elise Rorick
Oh, yeah.
Richard Matthews
You know, like block art and another one’s done with line art…trying to combine them. You know, they’re both digital but still hard like, it’s difficult to combine that kind of stuff. So yeah, good on you for trying. I don’t try. I just, it’s a photograph. That’s the way it is.
Elise Rorick
Yes. Yep. Uh, yeah. No.
Richard Matthews
You have a unique skill set that a lot of people have.
Elise Rorick
It is. Yes. Which goes right back to that whole, like, it’s new and no one really knows what it is.
Richard Matthews
I assume the art speaks for itself when you see it.
Elise Rorick
Yeah. Well, hopefully.
Richard Matthews
what I want to do is move on to your own personal heroes. We talked about this a little bit earlier. Frodo had Gandalf. Luke had Obi-Wan, Robert Kiyosaki, rich dad. Who were some of your heroes? Were they real-life mentors? Were they speakers, authors, were they peers who are just a few years ahead of you? How important were they to where you are now and what you’ve accomplished so far?
Elise Rorick
So my heroes are basically all authors, which–probably not surprising given everything we talked about. But I kind of have three big ones. Neil Gaiman is one. J.K. Rowling is another.
Richard Matthews
Yeah.
Elise Rorick
And the third is Elizabeth Gilbert.
Richard Matthews
Okay. So give us a famous book by each one of them. I know Harry Potter for J.K. Rowling. Everyone knows that. But the other two, I’m not familiar with the others.
Elise Rorick
Yes. Okay. So Neil Gaiman is most famous for Sandman. The Sandman comics.
Richard Matthews
Oh, okay.
Elise Rorick
That’s what people know him for. I also love the Sandman comics but more than that, I love his novels. So start us is probably my favorite one. It’s kind of a fairy tale for adults.
Richard Matthews
Stardust. They turned into a movie, didn’t they?
Elise Rorick
They did. Yes.
Richard Matthews
Okay. I know that. I recognize that.
Elise Rorick
I think he also worked on that screenplay. They changed a few things. But overall, it’s pretty similar.
Richard Matthews
Okay.
Elise Rorick
So basically, the same story.
Richard Matthews
And then the other artist.
Elise Rorick
And then the last one is Elizabeth Gilbert. And she is most famous for Eat, Pray Love which also became a movie. But the thing that I really love her for is her book, Big Magic.
Richard Matthews
Okay.
Elise Rorick
And that is really all about…It’s a little bit her own personal journey as a writer. So, as a creative but also, it’s just so inspiring and helpful as a creative person, and especially a creative business person.
And I think everyone should read that book.
That one, especially because it just…
Richard Matthews
we’ll make sure there are links for it in the show notes.
Elise Rorick
Yeah. It was this weird moment of like, reading that book…suddenly explained to myself, everything that I already was. I already knew, but couldn’t really articulate or didn’t really understand how it integrated. And so that was,
Richard Matthews
…and what’s the name of the book one more time? Just to make sure we can get it in the Show Notes for people.
Elise Rorick
It’s called Big Magic.
Richard Matthews
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
Elise Rorick
Gilbert. Yep.
Richard Matthews
Elizabeth Gilbert. OK, cool. So let’s really bring it home for our listeners here. What are the top one or two principles or actions that you use regularly to contribute to the success and influence you enjoying your business today? Your guiding principles. The ones that you wish you knew when you first started on your Hero’s journey back in high school for you.
Elise Rorick
Right, um… I think my biggest one is balance. And that also–both figuratively and practically for me is exemplified in the Starlight Journal. The whole point of that was like, I need a single space to balance creativity with productivity. like, I need to be able to do both. And to figure out how to balance those two. And so I think especially for me having three different
almost Oh, sorry, um,
I think that is the key thing is figuring out how to balance the
Richard Matthews
balance those two things.
That is the, in the last episode we had is like this idea of like, you have to have permission to be creative. Like you have to have that space in your business, especially where a lot of us we try to, you know, focus on being productive entirely. And we don’t always have that room in our business to do the innovation and do the creation, realize that like, some of that’s the most valuable worth you’ll do.
Elise Rorick
It is for sure. And like, that is exactly why I made this journal. Because if I can schedule the creativity in…then on the days where I have scheduled to just paint and just see what comes up. Though you’re exactly right like those are the times where the best stuff comes up is when you allow it to come up.
Richard Matthews
And when you give yourself room to be creative; room to do some innovation and room to realize, “I don’t have to accomplish something today, what I need to do is just let the creative juices flow.”
Elise Rorick
Right. Sometimes the only thing on the to-do list is paint or be creative. Painting is very specific to me. But even in other businesses that aren’t like obviously creative. Exactly, there’s still brainstorming, there’s still–even just go out and take a walk. There are pages in my journal that say “Go out and take a walk.” And like note it, such and such. And then come back and journal about it. Even just journaling. Even just reflection of any kind. Like, all of that can be really creative and really necessary. Like, that’s where you get through it.
Richard Matthews
Okay, cool. So the last part of the show, something I do with all my guess is something I call The Hero Challenge. Your challenge is pretty simple. And it is just… do you have someone that you know, in your network that you can introduce to our show that you think has a really cool story that needs to be told? Who is that? And why do you think they would be a good fit on the show?
Elise Rorick
So the first thing that–the first person that comes to mind is an author that I’ve worked with. And she’s also one of my best friends. Disclaimer. But it’s her as just the process of making her book and publishing her book was–like, I was very, very integral in it. It’s her book and her project but I’m very connected to it. And it’s an amazing book. Like, it’s an amazing story, first of all. She is also in the same place that I am–of doing it. And like that’s the goal: to be an author. But it’s a process. So she’s still not as far along.
Richard Matthews
What’s her name?
Elise Rorick
…a full-time writer. Her name is Kaylin R. Boyd. So, this is what I grabbed earlier. This is her book. Tell City. Oh, nice. And you did that cover? I did. Yes, I did the cover and interior and I even have some art.
It’s in the intro pages here. Just because one day I was just sketching. And that is what came out.
Richard Matthews
It’s in the book now.
Elise Rorick
Yeah, and it’s in the book now. Like two years later.
Richard Matthews
It looks so cool.
Elise Rorick
Yeah, it’s a really good book. Especially if you like fantasy stories along the lines of Neil Gaiman and that sort of thing.
Richard Matthews
Awesome. Well, thank you very much for that we’ll reach out later and see if we can you know connect with her and see we can get her on the show and tell her story. And again, thank you so much for coming on and joining us on The HERO Show.
Elise Rorick
Thank you so much for having me.
Richard Matthews
Yeah, the last question is super easy. Where can people find you if they have a message that they want to get out and they want to get their Enchanting Artistry on for their business? Where can they find you? How should they reach out?
Elise Rorick
So my website and actually business name is Lusicovi Creative. And that is spelled L U S I C O V I and then creative. So, I am lusicovicreative.com. I am Lusicovi Creative on Facebook and on Instagram? Twitter cut me off so I’m Lusicovi Creates on Twitter. I’m there too. The best place is probably my website.
Richard Matthews
And apart of that. Where should someone be on their journey before they reach out to you? And say “Hey, you know what? I need your help.” What should they be doing or thinking about?
Elise Rorick
They should have a product or book pretty much fully formed and ready to…if they’re an author ready to actually start turning it into a book. Not Just a manuscript, to launch it into the world.
If they are a more product-based business, same sort of thing. You want to have–like, the product line… have things pretty much that are ready to go. You want to have some amount of time and money dedicated to marketing and advertising and that sort of thing. So you want to have it in your budget and in your plan.
Richard Matthews
Awesome.
Elise Rorick
Yeah, that’s pretty much it.
Richard Matthews
So if you’re listening to the show and you have a book or a line of products, and you think that having someone–like, at least come in and help you really get that Enchanting Cover and Enchanting Story put together and help you sell. Definitely reach out to her and yiu said it is Lusicovicreative.com?
Elise Rorick
Yes.
Richard Matthews
Awesome. Thank you very much for being on the show. We appreciate it.
Elise Rorick
Thank you so much. I’m so glad to be here.
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Richard Matthews
Would You Like To Have A Content Marketing Machine Like “The HERO Show” For Your Business?
The HERO Show is produced and managed by PushButtonPodcasts a done-for-you service that will help get your show out every single week without you lifting a finger after you’ve pushed that “stop record” button.
They handle everything else: uploading, editing, transcribing, writing, research, graphics, publication, & promotion.
All done by real humans who know, understand, and care about YOUR brand… almost as much as you do.
Empowered by our their proprietary technology their team will let you get back to doing what you love while we they handle the rest.
Check out PushButtonPodcasts.com/hero for 10% off the lifetime of your service with them and see the power of having an audio and video podcast growing and driving awareness, attention, & authority in your niche without you having to life more a finger to push that “stop record” button.
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