Creative Pep Talk

The one constant is change. We all know this is true. This can be anxiety inducing when it comes to your creative career. Whether you’re just getting started or completely established, knowing the rules, trends and opportunities WILL change at some point in the future can be very scary. This means that nothing is more important than mastering the art of the breakthrough. As things change, if you’re able to continually break into new markets, you will always be able to grow with the times. In this episode, we talk about a solution for staying ahead of these changes, and it doesn’t involve being afraid all the time. I believe, if you master this one creative virtue, you can stay relevant for a lifetime. ---- Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band WHY? for our theme music. Thanks to my man Nate Utesch and his band Metavari for all the other tunes! soundcloud.com/metavari Thanks to Alex Sugg for editing and the podcast! www.alexsugg.com ---- Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band WHY? for our theme music. Thanks to my man Nate Utesch and his band Metavari for all the other tunes! soundcloud.com/metavari Thanks to Alex Sugg for editing and the podcast! www.alexsugg.com Astropad App - Turn Your iPad into a Graphics Tablet! The episode art was made using Astropad! http://astropad.com/?utm_source=Creative%20Pep%20Talk&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_campaign=Creative%20Pep%20Talk Make a Beautiful Website with Squarespace - Use Promo Code PEPTALK for 10% Off! https://www.squarespace.com/

Anxiety is like kryptonite for creatives. Getting locked up in your head and second guessing every decision, can destroy your creative flow and therefore the quality of your work. Rapper Andy Mineo understands this on a personal level, and in this episode he shares his struggles and breakthrough work arounds for when you find yourself in the grip of crippling creative anxiety. This is an extremely special episode. Andy and I got on a roll and had some deep moments and a ton of fun as well. I’m extremely grateful for the time and vulnerability that Andy brought to this interview, and I know you’re going to love it!! ---- Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band WHY? for our theme music. Thanks to my man Nate Utesch and his band Metavari for all the other tunes! soundcloud.com/metavari Thanks to Alex Sugg for editing and the podcast! www.alexsugg.com ---- Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band WHY? for our theme music. Thanks to my man Nate Utesch and his band Metavari for all the other tunes! soundcloud.com/metavari Thanks to Alex Sugg for editing and the podcast! www.alexsugg.com Astropad App - Turn Your iPad into a Graphics Tablet! The episode art was made using Astropad! http://astropad.com/?utm_source=Creative%20Pep%20Talk&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_campaign=Creative%20Pep%20Talk Make a Beautiful Website with Squarespace - Use Promo Code PEPTALK for 10% Off! https://www.squarespace.com/

I believe there are a lot of hurtful myths about creativity perpetuated by creative people. These lies keep us down and keep us from thriving. In this episode I want to expose one of these lies and replace it with what I think is a higher truth about creative work. Are you ever frustrated with the rollercoaster of being a creative person? One minute you’re making the best thing you ever made, the next minute you’re so aggravated with your work you’re thinking of becoming a postal worker? Obviously, creativity has it’s ups and downs, but I believe that if you have the right mindset, and approach your craft in this certain way, your creative work can be a source of ever deepening joy. ---- Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band WHY? for our theme music. Thanks to my man Nate Utesch and his band Metavari for all the other tunes! soundcloud.com/metavari Thanks to Alex Sugg for editing and the podcast! www.alexsugg.com ---- Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band WHY? for our theme music. Thanks to my man Nate Utesch and his band Metavari for all the other tunes! soundcloud.com/metavari Thanks to Alex Sugg for editing and the podcast! www.alexsugg.com Astropad App - Turn Your iPad into a Graphics Tablet! The episode art was made using Astropad! http://astropad.com/?utm_source=Creative%20Pep%20Talk&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_campaign=Creative%20Pep%20Talk Make a Beautiful Website with Squarespace - Use Promo Code PEPTALK for 10% Off! https://www.squarespace.com/

It’s so easy to feel lost on your creative career journey. It’s a complex path that can feel random and abstract. Nothing feels better than breaking out of this tough spot and into a moment of clarity and purpose. This episode kicks off our Creative Philosophy Series. This series is meant to help you find patterns in what seems like random static in your life, so that you can find clarity and make progress. ---- Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band WHY? for our theme music. Thanks to my man Nate Utesch and his band Metavari for all the other tunes! soundcloud.com/metavari Thanks to Alex Sugg for editing and the podcast! www.alexsugg.com ---- Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band WHY? for our theme music. Thanks to my man Nate Utesch and his band Metavari for all the other tunes! soundcloud.com/metavari Thanks to Alex Sugg for editing and the podcast! www.alexsugg.com Astropad App - Turn Your iPad into a Graphics Tablet! The episode art was made using Astropad! http://astropad.com/?utm_source=Creative%20Pep%20Talk&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_campaign=Creative%20Pep%20Talk Make a Beautiful Website with Squarespace - Use Promo Code PEPTALK for 10% Off! https://www.squarespace.com/

We all know we need to be doing personal work, but what’s the trick to doing personal work that turns into paid work? In this episode I sit down with illustrator / letterer Mary Kate McDevitt and discuss this exact question. Mary Kate has several game changing personal projects under her belt, and she was kind enough to share some of her brilliance with us! If you don’t know Mary Kate’s lovely work, go check it out! marykatemcdevitt.com Instagram.com/marykatemcdevitt Go get Mary Kate's new book 'Everyday is EPIC" https://www.amazon.com/Every-Day-Epic-Daydreams-Creative/dp/0761189408 ---- Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band WHY? for our theme music. Thanks to my man Nate Utesch and his band Metavari for all the other tunes! soundcloud.com/metavari Thanks to Alex Sugg for editing and the podcast! www.alexsugg.com ----- Sponsors The team behind Astropad has a new hardware product available on Kickstarter called Luna Display. Luna Display adds second display capabilities to Astropad, but it’s also a great tool on it’s own for using your iPad as an extended desktop. It literally turns your iPad into a touch Mac. Check out their Kickstarter at lunadisplay.com.  This Creative Pep Talk episode is brought to you by Twenty20 - where creative minds get authentic, real-world stock photos. If you’re looking to tell a true story through your brand, to deliver an honest message to your audience on social medias, the photos you use will matter. Twenty20 has crowdsourced millions of photos from a community over 350,000 photographers - all available under a simple, royalty-free license. Today, they’re offering listeners of Creative Pep Talk a 5-photo free trial. To start yours right now, go to twenty20.com/cpt

You gotta keep your head above water long enough to learn how to swim. You gotta survive long enough to thrive. In this episode I share practical tips that helped me stay in the game long enough to win a few!! If you’re tired of always waiting around for dream opportunities to land in your lap and you want to take control of your career now, this episode is for you! ---- Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band WHY? for our theme music. Thanks to my man Nate Utesch and his band Metavari for all the other tunes! soundcloud.com/metavari Thanks to Alex Sugg for editing and the podcast! www.alexsugg.com ----- Sponsors The team behind Astropad has a new hardware product available on Kickstarter called Luna Display. Luna Display adds second display capabilities to Astropad, but it’s also a great tool on it’s own for using your iPad as an extended desktop. It literally turns your iPad into a touch Mac. Check out their Kickstarter at lunadisplay.com.  This Creative Pep Talk episode is brought to you by Twenty20 - where creative minds get authentic, real-world stock photos. If you’re looking to tell a true story through your brand, to deliver an honest message to your audience on social medias, the photos you use will matter. Twenty20 has crowdsourced millions of photos from a community over 350,000 photographers - all available under a simple, royalty-free license. Today, they’re offering listeners of Creative Pep Talk a 5-photo free trial. To start yours right now, go to twenty20.com/cpt

Marketing can be pretty gross and the idea of ‘personal brand’ can be marketing at it’s grossest! But it doesn’t have to be this way. In my experience, personal brand can be an outpouring of real inner work and self discovery if you approach it the right way. It’s no secret that ‘personal brand’ is a game changer for your creative success, but if you, like me, find the notion of personal brand to seem shallow, I challenge you to listen to this episode and see that this journey can be quite the opposite! Plus this episode is completely based on big chain pizza restaurant slogans… so you know it’s gonna be good. May your personal brand journey be as deep as a Chicago deep dish pizza pie! ---- Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band WHY? for our theme music. Thanks to my man Nate Utesch and his band Metavari for all the other tunes! soundcloud.com/metavari Thanks to Alex Sugg for editing and the podcast! www.alexsugg.com ----- Sponsors The team behind Astropad has a new hardware product available on Kickstarter called Luna Display. Luna Display adds second display capabilities to Astropad, but it’s also a great tool on it’s own for using your iPad as an extended desktop. It literally turns your iPad into a touch Mac. Check out their Kickstarter at lunadisplay.com.  Just for Creative Pep Talk listeners, Scout Books is offering 15% off any order including your own custom design. They'll even throw in a free notebook sample pack to fill with your dreams, doodles, and designs. Visit scoutbooks.com/creativepeptalk

This episode is JAM PACKED with insight!! For those of you living under a rock, Lauren Hom is a designer and letterer best known for her side projects (like Daily Dishonesty) and being a nomadic creative freelancer, working while traveling the globe. In this episode Lauren GENEROUSLY shares her wealth of knowledge on getting started in your creative career, how to make work that people connect with and share, and general tips on marketing your work. http://www.homsweethom.com/ Instagram.com/homsweethom ---- Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band WHY? for our theme music. Thanks to my man Nate Utesch and his band Metavari for all the other tunes! soundcloud.com/metavari Thanks to Alex Sugg for editing and the podcast! www.alexsugg.com ----- Sponsors The team behind Astropad has a new hardware product available on Kickstarter called Luna Display. Luna Display adds second display capabilities to Astropad, but it’s also a great tool on it’s own for using your iPad as an extended desktop. It literally turns your iPad into a touch Mac. Check out their Kickstarter at lunadisplay.com.  Just for Creative Pep Talk listeners, Scout Books is offering 15% off any order including your own custom design. They'll even throw in a free notebook sample pack to fill with your dreams, doodles, and designs. Visit scoutbooks.com/creativepeptalk

Marketing can be so discouraging when you’re not focusing your efforts on what really works. In my experience there are only a few styles of marketing that really work today and one of them is ‘influencer marketing’. Influencer marketing is like 'word of mouth' on steroids. Now, if you can resist puking in your mouth at the sound of the word ‘influencer’, I think we can learn some things from this marketing style that will not only help us grow our creative careers but also do so in a way that is more positively human! ---- Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band WHY? for our theme music. Thanks to my man Nate Utesch and his band Metavari for all the other tunes! soundcloud.com/metavari Thanks to Alex Sugg for editing and the podcast! www.alexsugg.com ----- Sponsors The team behind Astropad has a new hardware product available on Kickstarter called Luna Display. Luna Display adds second display capabilities to Astropad, but it’s also a great tool on it’s own for using your iPad as an extended desktop. It literally turns your iPad into a touch Mac. Check out their Kickstarter at lunadisplay.com.  Just for Creative Pep Talk listeners, Scout Books is offering 15% off any order including your own custom design. They'll even throw in a free notebook sample pack to fill with your dreams, doodles, and designs. Visit scoutbooks.com/creativepeptalk

These days, most creatives market their work with what we call ‘personal projects’, but often our personal projects don’t get the results we want. If your marketing efforts feel like playing the game Operation with giant BBQ grill tongs instead of precise effective tweezers, you have to listen to this episode. NOTHING has changed my career like understanding and properly utilizing content marketing. In this episode we will learn how to apply the principles of effective content marketing to our creative passion projects. ---- Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band WHY? for our theme music. Thanks to my man Nate Utesch and his band Metavari for all the other tunes! soundcloud.com/metavari Thanks to Alex Sugg for editing and the podcast! www.alexsugg.com ----- Sponsors The team behind Astropad has a new hardware product available on Kickstarter called Luna Display. Luna Display adds second display capabilities to Astropad, but it’s also a great tool on it’s own for using your iPad as an extended desktop. It literally turns your iPad into a touch Mac. Check out their Kickstarter at lunadisplay.com.  Just for Creative Pep Talk listeners, Scout Books is offering 15% off any order including your own custom design. They'll even throw in a free notebook sample pack to fill with your dreams, doodles, and designs. Visit scoutbooks.com/creativepeptalk

Do you want to market your creative work, but you feel unsure how to do so effectively? Do you ignore marketing because you’re not really sure how to invest your time in a way that will actually turn into results? In this episode I share the process I’ve used to market my work over the past 8 years. These ideas were game changers for me. I’m convinced this process is one of the core contributors to the career breakthroughs I’ve had in my life and I’m super excited to share them with you! This episode is a segue from the Deep Dive series into a new series on Marketing. Stay tuned for more! ---- Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band WHY? for our theme music. Thanks to my man Nate Utesch and his band Metavari for all the other tunes! soundcloud.com/metavari Thanks to Alex Sugg for editing and the podcast! www.alexsugg.com ----- Sponsors The team behind Astropad has a new hardware product available on Kickstarter called Luna Display. Luna Display adds second display capabilities to Astropad, but it’s also a great tool on it’s own for using your iPad as an extended desktop. It literally turns your iPad into a touch Mac. Check out their Kickstarter at lunadisplay.com.  Make a Beautiful Website with Squarespace - Use Promo Code PEPTALK for 10% Off! https://www.squarespace.com/

Staying relevant over the long haul is a concern of almost every designer I know. So how do you do it? What does it take? What better way to find out than to chat with someone (or in this case someones) who has actually done it? The design duo (now full studio) The Heads of State have had many lives. These guys cut their teeth in the early 2000s gig poster scene, transitioned to illustrators for the likes of The New York Times and now take on larger design projects as a full on design studio. In this interview I really wanted to pick their brains and find out what was it about them that enabled them to stay relevant over the past 15 years? And how do you navigate large transitions in your career? http://theheadsofstate.com/ https://www.instagram.com/theheadsofstate/ ---- Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band WHY? for our theme music. Thanks to my man Nate Utesch and his band Metavari for all the other tunes! soundcloud.com/metavari Thanks to Alex Sugg for editing and the podcast! www.alexsugg.com ----- Sponsors The team behind Astropad has a new hardware product available on Kickstarter called Luna Display. Luna Display adds second display capabilities to Astropad, but it’s also a great tool on it’s own for using your iPad as an extended desktop. It literally turns your iPad into a touch Mac. Check out their Kickstarter at lunadisplay.com.  Make a Beautiful Website with Squarespace - Use Promo Code PEPTALK for 10% Off! https://www.squarespace.com/

We all know self-initiated work is essential for pushing forward in your creative career, but finding the discipline and dedication to make it happen can be pretty tough. This episode contains a strategy for unlocking the deep well of discipline and drive that you never knew you had, so that you can make a big splash in the creative world. ---- Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band WHY? for our theme music. Thanks to my man Nate Utesch and his band Metavari for all the other tunes! soundcloud.com/metavari Thanks to Alex Sugg for editing and the podcast! www.alexsugg.com ----- Sponsors The team behind Astropad has a new hardware product available on Kickstarter called Luna Display. Luna Display adds second display capabilities to Astropad, but it’s also a great tool on it’s own for using your iPad as an extended desktop. It literally turns your iPad into a touch Mac. Check out their Kickstarter at lunadisplay.com.  Make a Beautiful Website with Squarespace - Use Promo Code PEPTALK for 10% Off! https://www.squarespace.com/

It’s so easy to get caught up chasing likes and followers, but should you let these numbers guide your creative career? In this episode I don’t tell you to disregard social media feedback or tell you it’s irrelevant, but instead encourage you to shift your perspective and look for more helpful metrics. ---- Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band WHY? for our theme music. Thanks to my man Nate Utesch and his band Metavari for all the other tunes! soundcloud.com/metavari Thanks to Alex Sugg for editing and the podcast! www.alexsugg.com ----- Sponsors The team behind Astropad has a new hardware product available on Kickstarter called Luna Display. Luna Display adds second display capabilities to Astropad, but it’s also a great tool on it’s own for using your iPad as an extended desktop. It literally turns your iPad into a touch Mac. Check out their Kickstarter at lunadisplay.com.  Make a Beautiful Website with Squarespace - Use Promo Code PEPTALK for 10% Off! https://www.squarespace.com/

Things feel a bit nuts in the world right now, right? Many creative people keep asking themselves this question: does my creativity even matter? In this episode, I want to help you tap into the meaning of your creativity and show you that when you do, it will change everything. ---- Thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band WHY? for our theme music. Thanks to my man Nate Utesch and his band Metavari for all the other tunes! soundcloud.com/metavari Thanks to Alex Sugg for editing and the podcast! www.alexsugg.com The team behind Astropad has a new hardware product available on Kickstarter called Luna Display. Luna Display adds second display capabilities to Astropad, but it’s also a great tool on it’s own for using your iPad as an extended desktop. It literally turns your iPad into a touch Mac. Check out their Kickstarter at lunadisplay.com. Make a Beautiful Website with Squarespace - Use Promo Code PEPTALK for 10% Off! https://www.squarespace.com/