Episodes
378 - No Time? A Powerful Technique for Doing Less but Producing More
This episode is for you if: 1. Feel overwhelmed by all the creative work you have to produce and post to “stay relevant” 2. Feel like you’re always rushing with not enough time to come up with anything good or beyond surface level 3. The general state of social media, media companies and creative jobs is depressing or stressing you out!
377 - 3 Steps on Building The Essential Relationships in Your Creative Sphere
This episode is for you if: 1. You’re sick of the best jobs going to the most connected this episode is for you. 2. The algorithm and the extreme pace and demand of online culture is killing your creative spirit. 3. Your creative practice isn’t giving you the full depth of what you’re after creatively 4. You want tips on how to find people in your creative world who you can deeply bond with!
376 - How Seeing Your Work Differently Than the World Does is a Super Power with Shantell Martin
How did an artist whose primary medium is drawing, go on to collaborate with a legendary rapper like Kendrick Lamar, choreograph a ballet for the Boston Ballet and even being invited to give a TED talk? From this conversation, it seems the answer is to defy how people think about what you do. When the world thinks of a drawing, they think of a static image, but for Shantell Martin it’s a dance, it’s a path, it’s a living journey and it’s maybe even a question. This episode will inspire you to…
375 - This 4 Part Creative Practice Plan Took Me From From Frantic to Focused in 15 Minutes
Do you ever feel like you’re doing a MILLION THINGS but it all AMOUNTS TO NOTHING? You’re running in a million directions and getting nowhere? You feel pulled to post and create and make and launch 80 different things and it all seems in conflict with each other? In this episode I want to share a super simple tool that can help you organize your efforts to get it to compound in the same direction, as well as eliminate stuff that isn’t working. Listen to this episode if you feel: - Your work…
374 - How to Make a Creative Practice Blueprint that Grounds and Guides You
Have you ever been swimming and lost your sense of up while underwater? It’s incredibly panic inducing. This feeling is something I experience in the creative process sometimes too. Nothing makes sense. You have no sense of how to make any choices within a piece of work. It all looks wrong. If this ever happens to you, or you’re feeling particularly ungrounded in your creative practice today even, this episode will give you a practice for defining guidelines in your work before you enter the c…
373 - How to Escape Your Creative Hero's Shadow & Forge A Deeply Satisfying Path
The best students I ever had really had a clear sense of their influences. In the old days really studying and imitating your masters was seen as an essential part of the creative path. But what happens when you get stuck in this phase and can’t seem to break out into something that feels more truly yours? What do you do then? In this episode we are going to explore exactly what to do when your creative hero’s are overshadowing your presence in your own work, and the fun and surprising soluti…
372 - This Simple Creative Prompt Sparked Nearly Every Major Breakthrough I Ever Had
If you’re stuck and waiting for something to give in your creative practice, do not wait any longer! Listen to this episode. Nearly every major creative career breakthrough I’ve ever had came from a moment when I knew exactly what I wanted to do but no one would give me a shot. In this episode I share the exact practice that led to breakthroughs in editorial illustration work, kids books projects, public speaking and more. If you’re sick of waiting to get discovered, and you’re looking for fr…
371 - The 3 Step Mid-Year Creative Recalibration for Finding Direction Again
If you’re overwhelmed and can’t seem to make progress, it may be time to revisit your creative models. When’s the last time you stopped everything and reconnected with your true north? One of the most centering tools is taking a fresh look at who you’re currently learning from creatively. In this episode I share the 3 step process I recently used to find progress in my creative path again. This episode is for you if you’re feeling: - Unoriginal - Imposter Syndrome - FOMO - Lost and Unmotivate…
370 - 5 Pieces of Incredible Creative Advice that Lit Me On Fire with Zak Rosen of the Best Advice Show
If you’re in need of a quick jolt of creative pep this episode is for you. We have incredible guests best piece of creative advice. Today I’m joined by Zak Rosen the creator behind The Best Advice Show podcast. The Best Advice Show is a super short podcast where super interesting people show up to give the one piece of advice that’s the best they have. Zak was kind enough to curate the 5 pieces of best advice that he knew would be perfect for Creative Pep Talk and he was right on the money bec…
369 - How to Access the Otherworldly Creative Power within Your Longing with Author Susan Cain
If you’re a creator, chances are you have a legit relationship with sad songs. This probably isn’t news to you. But did you know this well of melancholy might be a secret well of hidden creative power? In today’s episode I sit down and chat with Susan Cain, author of the INCREDIBLE book “Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole” that absolutely BLEW ME AWAY. You might also be one of the 31 million people who know Susan from her TED talk on Introverts - or from her #1 best selling boo…
368 - Follow Your Bliss or Get Real? This New Take Gave Me a Thrilling Insight
The biggest wins in my creative journey never fit squarely into the whole “just follow your passion and everything will work out” philosophy, but they were never pure pragmatism either. For this reason, even after nearly 8 years of making a podcast that tries to strike the balance between the magic of creativity and the realism of building a career, I still felt pulled between these two extremes, with no real resolve. But I recently stumbled upon a new perspective that synthesizes these two se…
367 - How Seeing Every Piece as A Self Portrait Unlocks Hidden Creative Gold
If you ever wished you had a deeper or more meaningful relationship with your work, or wished you were able to make your work more you so that people like you could more deeply connect to your art, this episode is for you. Even if you’re not interested in making ultra revealing super serious art, there’s still a difference between work that feels authentically connected to who you are vs work that just feels hollow or soulless. In this episode we will explore how one personal breakthrough lea…
366 - 3 Unexpected Places Your Creative Genius is Hiding
Do you feel overwhelmed by the amount of incredible creative work out there? Scrolling through an endless stream of creative genius on every platform day in and day out is enough to make you want to give up for good. Today’s episode is an antidote to that feeling by means of identifying the surprising places your own creative genius may be hiding. Hint: it might be the last place you look! ALSO if you’re feeling uninspired by your current creative outlets and need to breathe some fresh inspir…
365 - Which of The 6 Creative Types Are You?
You wouldn’t get very far as a basketball player, if you played by the rules of soccer. Can you imagine? Trying to play without touching the ball with your hands? It’d be ridiculous! Actually impossible! And yet, in your creativity, you let other people’s creative rules and values make you feel disqualified all the time. You’ve heard it before “the only rule in creativity is that there are no rules”, so why do we constantly feel like imposters who are “doing it wrong”? I have a hypothesis: B…
364 - How to Overcome Tests and Trials on the Creative Journey and More with EttaVee AKA Jessi Raulet
How does someone from Indiana with parents with normal jobs become a full time artist living and working in France? Today on the show we deconstruct Jessi Raulet’s (aka EttaVee) creative journey to find out just that. In this episode we will:- Debunk the myth that you must transform and find yourself as an artist overnight- Find tips and tricks for when you hit a rough patch or get stuck on your journey- Show the difficult process of finding your place creatively in vivid detail!
363 - The 4 Step Process to Turn Strangers into Super Fans
Have you ever put something out into the world and were just devastated by the results? This is pretty much par for the course when it comes to posting a new piece, publishing a book, or launching really anything as a creator. The more failed and disappointing launches I had in my career, the more I just felt like maybe I just suck… and honestly, I did suck. No. I didn’t suck at making creative work, but I DID suck at launching things. These are two completely different skills. In the episode…
362 - Why You End Up Right Where You Started and 3 Ways to Breakthrough
Is there an area of your creative practice that you just can not seem to make progress in? Do you second guess every new piece and project to the point of doing nothing at all? In this episode we explore the two competing forces within you that are pulling your creativity apart, and how to get them working together on the same team. In this episode: - Why the definition of creativity is surprising - What it means to be a career creative - An activity for determining what work you should foc…
361 - When to Go with The Flow and When to Make Things Happen with Zac Gorman
Sometimes the adventure chooses the hero and other times it’s the other way around! Both are valid. The only trouble? Most of us have a default that we get stuck in, it’s helpful to recognize when we need to switch things up. In this episode a classic flying-by-the-seat-of-his-pantser (Zac) and goal oriented plotter (Andy) sit down and compare notes. If you don’t know Zac - he is a phenomenal creator. He won an Emmy for his work on the celebrated mini-series “Over the Garden Wall” on Cartoon…
360 - For When You Feel Like Giving Up (Return to ART ISLAND)
We’re living through some hard times – but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have the opportunity to really, really matter. In this episode, we’re going back to THE CURSE OF ART ISLAND from Episode 202! For me, the creative career path is a roller coaster. There are so many circumstantial and emotional ups and downs, and if you ride every twist and turn, it can be exhausting and discouraging. Sometimes, I almost feel like this road is somehow cursed even!!! When you’re hitting obstacles and…
359 - The 3 Crucial Elements of a Potential Unlocking Creative Process
Have you ever fallen out of love with your creative practice? Maybe you got stuck and couldn’t reach your goals. Maybe you reached your goals and they weren’t as fulfilling as you thought they’d be? Maybe the creative process itself has become too fraught with expectation and pressure that you can’t even face the proverbial blank page? In this episode we dive into essential ideas for unlocking meaningful and enjoyable work, and ultimately, get better results from this flow. Key ideas from the…
358 - 3 Ways to Provoke Stronger Emotional Chords in People with Your Work
Ya ever pour yourself into something and people essentially respond with “meh”? It’s so demoralizing! If you want a few ways to bake in more potent layers into your work that don’t necessarily just mean trying harder. This episode is for you! We explore: – How to use patterns no matter what art discipline you create in – How artists use the psychology or archetype for powerful effect – Why nonsense makes more sense in art
357 - 3 Psychological Principles That Will Make Your Art More Effective
At some point you may notice that putting more time and effort into your work isn’t making the work any better. This overworking results in the ceiling of diminishing returns. What do you do when you want to level up your work, but just trying harder isn’t cutting the mustard? If this is you, it’s time to quit making artwork… and start learning how art works. If this is where you’re at, it’s time to dive into the psychology of human perception and maximize your creative work for bigger impact!
356 - The One Thing Scientists are Sure Will Give You Better Creative Results
It’s very tempting to get obsessed with WHAT you’re making, but have you given much thought about the WHERE of your creative work? Where you make stuff. Where your head is when you’re making that stuff. Where you publish stuff! These spaces really really matter. Don’t just take it from me. In this episode we’re going to dive deep into what scientists say about what it takes to have more creative breakthroughs, as we explore the 4 spaces I see in almost all of my heroes’ creative practice…
355 - The Creative Power of Make Belief and How Your Art Can Make Others Feel Less Alone with Carson Ellis and Mac Barnett
Today on the show we have two of my dream guests ON ONE EPISODE!! Welcome New York Times Best Selling author Mac Barnett and Caldecott Honor Winning author / illustrator Carson Ellis!! These two were both essential inspirations in my creative journey, and it’s no wonder why. They both exude artistry and playful creative spirit in every single thing they create. This conversation could have gone on for AGES but I was just grateful for the time I had. Talking shop with these two was mesmerizin…