Sometimes the thing we're building, whether that's an exciting new project or a whole career, feels so big and overwhelming it seems impossible. Focusing on that bigger thing, we wonder if we'll ever get traction on our efforts to build it. So

Episode 79: More Than Fun

Dec 11th, 2021 9m 57s

Isn't art-making and creativity meant to be fun? Why is it so often a source of struggle than anything a sane person would call fun? And are the challenges worth it? Or is there something bigger at play here, something more than fun? I have thi

Episode 78: For The Introverts

Dec 3rd, 2021 15m 9s

Introversion seems to have become a movement lately and as someone with strong life-long introverted characteristics, I think it's great that we're finally celebrating those quieter qualities, but there's also a danger in allowing the label to

Episode 77: A Different Episode

Nov 27th, 2021 11m 46s

You're different. About the only thing that we all share in common is that we are so very different. So why do we learn so early to blend in and put so much effort into being the same? Carl Jung talks about the society rewarding the diminuation

Episode 76: A Word With Pareto

Nov 13th, 2021 10m 13s

19th-century economist Vilfredo Pareto was out in his garden when he noticed only 20% of his pea plants were producing 80% of the peas. Fast forward to today and the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 Rule is familiar to many in the busi

Episode 75: More Than Time

Oct 30th, 2021 10m 34s

We need time to do our best work, but not only time. We need the internal resources to pay the emotional costs, and time without attention, focus, and curiosity probably only leads to cranking out the work, and that neither honours to muse nor

Episode 74: Worry or Wonder?

Oct 23rd, 2021 17m 44s

A recent visit to the dentist sent me into a tailspin when I was told I needed a root canal. After a week of fear (more like terror) and two hours with a specialist (the worst of which was having to listen to Adele, on a loop), I emerged with a

Episode 73: What's Your "Hell, Yes!"?

Jul 10th, 2021 13m 52s

The creative life is full of decisions. Do we? Don't we? And how? Some people over-think their choices, some go with their gut. I go with a simple paradigm that brings things into perspective and focus: if something isn't a "hell, yes!" then it

Episode 72: On Vision and Craft

Jul 3rd, 2021 16m 26s

There is a relationship between the skills—or craft—that we hone, and our ability to dream about what is possible and reach beyond it. Creativity is not the realm of technique alone, nor only in the inner life of the imagination, but in the way

Episode 71: 5127

Jun 26th, 2021 16m 38s

Creativity is less the stuff of brilliant ideas and more the reality that those ideas take work to realize, to take a project from (in the words of Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull) suck to un-suck. Unless you're James Dyson, in which case you're tr

Episode 70: You're Doing It Wrong

Jun 12th, 2021 11m 47s

For something so rooted in uncertainty, innovation and the discovery of new things, isn't it strange that creative work seems so often to be subject to voices telling us we're doing it wrong? Could it be that hearing, "you're doing it wrong" is

Episode 69: The Ability to Produce

Jun 5th, 2021 15m 14s

If the last episode of A Beautiful Anarchy was about the pressure to produce, this one is the (loving) kick in the pants you might need to stop worrying about it and start doing what it takes to widen the margins. I've got 3 ideas about reducin

Episode 68: The Pressure to Produce

May 29th, 2021 14m 55s

Paralyzed by the pressure to produce and keep cranking out the work? You're not alone. Creators often feel like they're only as good as their recent work which means you got to keep producing recent work. But people don't respond to your work b

Episode 67: Boxed Sets & Glory Days

May 15th, 2021 12m 16s

If the last episode of A Beautiful Anarchy was about failing to move on from past defeats and choosing not to get stuck there when things inevitably go wrong, then this episode is about the dangers of camping out on past successes, and getting

Episode 66: When It All Goes Wrong

May 8th, 2021 13m 27s

Life is never a straight line. You never get into comedy, for example, thinking you'll nearly burn down the venue or bleed out on stage (keep listening) so when the unexpected happens you're left with a choice: keep going? Quit? What do you do

Episode 65: More Than What You Start

May 1st, 2021 13m 45s

There was a motivational poster in my school that admonished us to "Always finish what you start." It included a photograph of a sprinter about to cross the finish line. It shouldn't surprise you to hear I don't think the creative life is the s

Episode 64: An Audience of One

Apr 17th, 2021 17m 26s

When I sent out an email last month talking about the need to be able to identify the audience for our creative work, my own audience raised some questions about the importance of understanding who it is that might choose to experience our work

Episode 63: How Do I...?

Apr 10th, 2021 13m 23s

The time has never been better to be a self-teacher. Learning how to do new things is as simple as asking Google, YouTube, or the million blogs and articles online. But this will only take you part way. It'll help you understand how others do t

Episode 62: The Freedom Of Being Wrong

Apr 3rd, 2021 14m 22s

Joseph Chilton Pearce said, "to live a creative life we must lose the fear of being wrong." And yet we live in a culture where the need to prove ourselves right has never been more easily satisfied. Many of us spent the formative years of our l

Episode 61: The Play's The Thing

Mar 20th, 2021 19m 11s

Somewhere along the way we decided play and work were necessarily different from each other. Maybe it happened without our noticing it on the way to becoming adults, when play became frivolous and work became serious. But what if the opposite o

Episode 60: Dig!

Mar 13th, 2021 15m 12s

Pablo Picasso was once asked whether he knew, when he started it, what a painting was going to look like when it was finished. "No, of course not," he replied. "If I knew, I wouldn't bother doing it." What Picasso was implying was that the act

Episode 59: Memento Mori

Mar 6th, 2021 16m 23s

The Roman stoic philosopher, Seneca, in the years before Nero went crazy and ordered the poor guy to off himself, was relentless in reminding those around him that life was short and that far from being morbid, the daily reminder to memento mor

Episode 58: Getting Off The Nail

Feb 20th, 2021 17m 42s

Only 2 months ago about 190 million Americans made New Year's resolutions in hopes of introducing changes to their lives. Only 8% will accomplish these changes and most of us will have quit the effort by January 08, designated Quitter's Day. Th

Episode 57: Feed The Right Wolf

Feb 13th, 2021 17m 8s

In the old Cherokee story about the two wolves battling within each of us, the one that prevails is the one we feed. But is it that simple? Does one wolf have a distinct advantage that demands we be even more proactive in feeding the other, how

Episode 56: The King Is Dead

Feb 6th, 2021 14m 1s

In 1996 Bill Gates wrote an article entitled Content is King for the Microsoft website. This premise has proven prophetic. And yet no one seemed to stop and ask what kind of King. If content is king at all, it's not a good king and it serves no