Starving Artist No More

What do you need to be your best creative self? Where and how do you do your most innovative, exciting, unique-to-you work? And how can you take intentional steps to give yourself that “maximum creativity environment” so that you are able to do that kind of work? The answers to these questions are going to be different for every artist and every creative listening to this podcast. After all, what you need to be creative is different from what I need to be creative. But today, let's listen in on one creative entrepreneur's journey to foster her ideal artistic environment as she worked to give herself the gift of creativity. In this episode, you will learn: How one artist managed her transition from a corporate position to self-employed creative entrepreneurship (and why she made that decision). What to look for as you figure out what kind of environment helps you be your creative best. Why it matters that you develop respect for your own artistic process. How giving yourself time to be creative can help you be your artistic best. Why labels like “part time” or “full time” are completely irrelevant to your journey as a creative entrepreneur. In this episode, I mention the upcoming Thriving Narrators Retreat, which will take place August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. (Lisa Cahn of Prose Garden Productions, the guest for today's episode, will be a faculty member at this retreat.) You can learn more about this opportunity for audiobook narrators on my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com/ThrivingNarratorsRetreat. During our conversation, I mention the book Deep Work by Cal Newport. This episode includes an interview with Lisa Cahn, who is the owner of Prose Garden Productions. Lisa will be a faculty member at the Thriving Narrators Retreat, August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. You can learn more about Lisa and the retreat here. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

Do you understand how your creative industry works? Do you know who the key players are, and do you have an understanding of how artists in your specific creative discipline get projects and are able to do the work that you do? Do you have a firm grasp of the current style trends and changes that are impacting the creative work of your colleagues? How much do you know about the behind-the-scenes businesses and decision-makers that run your creative industry? Today, let's talk about why it's important to have curiosity about how your little corner of the artistic world works. Let's discuss together why you need to investigate your industry. In this episode, you will learn: What it means to investigate your industry, and why that matters to the health of your creative business. How a mindset of collaboration can help you build a sustainable artistic career. Why thinking of your creative business as a long-term commitment can help you form relationships with the decision-makers in your industry. What kind of communication practices will help you be a supportive collaborator in all of your creative projects. How a mindset of curiosity can give you the information you need to truly be a thriving artist. In this episode, I mention the upcoming Thriving Narrators Retreat, which will take place August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. (Erick Black of Dreamscape Media, the guest for today's episode, will be a faculty member at this retreat.) You can learn more about this opportunity for audiobook narrators on my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com/ThrivingNarratorsRetreat. During our conversation, I mention Episode 57 of this podcast, when I interviewed audiobook casting director Jonathan Pennock (057: Casting Director's Perspective), and I also refer to the six components of a thriving creative business, which you can learn about here. Erick and I discuss using Airtable for project management. You can learn more about Narrator.Life's Airtable template here, and you can see Rachel Jacobs' Notion templates here. (Notion is a database system that is similar to Airtable.) I also mention my other podcast, Crafting Audiobooks, which I co-host with the amazing Sarah Beth Goer. Sarah and I interviewed Erick for the Crafting Audiobooks, and you can listen here. Crafting Audiobooks is also available wherever you get your podcasts. This episode includes an interview with Erick Black, who is the Director of Production at Dreamscape Media. Erick will be a faculty member at the Thriving Narrators Retreat, August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. You can learn more about Neil and the retreat here. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

As an artist who is also a small business owner, it sometimes feels like you're pulled in two opposite directions: toward creative freedom and artistic expression on one side, and toward business-focused administrative tasks on the other. For most of us, in our creative training, whether that was art school or conservatory training or just a liberal arts education, everything was focused on the artsy side of things, with often no mention of business at all. And if you look to business literature or business coaches who cater to small business owners, which we are as creative entrepreneurs, that business material focuses entirely on efficient business administration, and creativity doesn't even enter the picture. Where can the two sides – creative and business – meet? In today's podcast episode, we're going to figure out how these two elements of our creative businesses can and do interact in support of our artistic work. Let's discuss how making decisions to follow our creative passion can actually help us in the business side of our work, forging a virtuous cycle of sustainable creativity. In this episode, you will learn: How improving your technique can help you find creativity even when you're not “feeling it.” What role your creativity plays in the business side of your work, and what role smart business decisions play in the creative side of your work Why sharing your ongoing artistic growth with others can help you grow and evolve even more as an artist. How identifying your core motivations when it comes to your creative work can help you make sustainable decisions, in both the creative and business sides of your work. How to balance the acceptance of risk and take a chance on new opportunities, with sustainable and responsible business choices. What mindset shift you can use to make any lingering imposter syndrome work for you and actually motivate you for positive change. In this episode, I mention the upcoming Thriving Narrators Retreat, which will take place August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. (Neil Hellegers, the guest for today's episode, will be a faculty member at this retreat.) You can learn more about this opportunity for audiobook narrators on my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com/ThrivingNarratorsRetreat. During our conversation, I mention Episode 7 of this podcast (007: Working in your Creative & Financial Sweet Spot), and Neil and I discuss the International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA) database, which is a useful resource when learning accents. This episode includes an interview with Neil Hellegers, who is an actor, audiobook narrator, and educator. Neil will be a faculty member at the Thriving Narrators Retreat, August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. You can learn more about Neil and the retreat here. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

When you're facing a problem or a difficult situation in your creative business, what is your first reaction? What do you do? Do you feel frozen? Do you feel frantic, like you have no options? Do you beat your head against the wall? Or do you take a step back and find a way to walk around the wall? I know that, personally, my initial reaction is always either to freeze or to feel frantic and stuck. But that's not the only option. Even if, like me, that's your first reaction, you don't have to stay there. When you're up against a problem in your artistic work that's standing it your way like a giant, immoveable brick wall, you can find a way to walk around the wall. In this episode, you will learn: How creative problem-solving can help you thrive in your artistic work Why treating your creative colleagues – all of them! – with kindness could be the best business decision you ever make. How a commitment to ongoing growth can help you find solutions to the difficulties you're facing. What to do when you feel like you've been pigeon-holed and want to expand into new genres and new creative areas. Why a mindset of curiosity can help you stay relevant in your creative industry. In this episode, I mention the upcoming Thriving Narrators Retreat, which will take place August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. (Amy Rubinate, owner of Mosaic Audio and the guest for today's episode, will be a faculty member at this retreat.) You can learn more about this opportunity for audiobook narrators on my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com/ThrivingNarratorsRetreat. This episode includes an interview with Amy Rubinate, who is an award-winning audiobook narrator, director, and producer, as well as an accomplished singer and writer, in addition to being the owner of the audiobook production company Mosaic Audio. Amy will be a faculty member at the Thriving Narrators Retreat, August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. You can learn more about Amy and the retreat here. In this episode, Amy mentions the "Potato Bugs and Cows" song from the Mr. Roger's show. We also reference Amy's two graphic novels, Kate and the City of Fire and Annie and the Unsinkable Ship. Amy shares two helpful resources for narrators, the Audio Publishers Association (APA) and the Professional Audiobook Narrators Association (PANA), and Amy and I discuss two narrators who are excellent at the business side of their work, Erin Bennett and Ron Butler. I have actually interviewed both Erin and Ron on my other podcast, the Crafting Audiobooks podcast. You can hear interviews with them here: Crafting Audiobooks Podcast - Ron Butler Crafting Audiobooks Podcast - Erin Bennett A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

As a creative entrepreneur, your time is literally your most valuable resource. From a business perspective, time is what you sell, because your artistic products require time to create. From a personal perspective, all work and no play makes you a miserable, starving artist (and it's right there in the name of the podcast that we're saying “NO MORE!” to the myth of the starving artist). One thing is for sure: time is valuable. But we don't often think of time as a resource, something to use and manage to our advantage. Today, we're going to look into what it means to think of time as a resource, and how that mindset can boost your creativity. In this episode, you will learn: Why time is so valuable to you as an artist and business owner. How viewing your time as a precious resource might change what you decide to do with that time. What benefits an attitude of “yes” can bring to your creative process. Why small steps toward efficiency can pay off in really huge ways. How to find small task automations that can help you stay in your creative flow. In this episode, I mention the upcoming Thriving Narrators Retreat, which will take place August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. (Jennifer Blom, the guest for today's episode, will be a faculty member at this retreat.) You can learn more about this opportunity for audiobook narrators on my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com/ThrivingNarratorsRetreat. During our conversation, I refer to several past episodes of this podcast: 005: The Time & Income Connection 007: Working in your Creative & Financial Sweet Spot 022: Outsourcing for Creatives 038: The Price of Success is Failure This episode includes an interview with Jennifer Blom, who is an actor, audiobook narrator, audiobook engineer, and audiobook director. Jennifer will be a faculty member at the Thriving Narrators Retreat, August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. You can learn more about Jennifer and the retreat here. In this episode, Jennifer and I reference the books The Power of Yes by Abbie Headon and The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

When you look at the list of your clients, the list of people who purchase your creative work, what do they look like? Do all of those people or businesses look the same, or do they differ in some way? And when you look at the type of creative work you do, does it all fit into a tiny little box, or do you work in lots of different spaces and in lots of different ways? When you think of how you make income in your creative business, does it all come in the form of immediate payment, or work-for-hire agreements? Or do you also have money coming into your business that's based on past work? In today's episode, we're going to have a conversation with multi-disciplinary artist Steven Jay Cohen and learn why, when it comes to the kind of artistic work you do and the way you do it, there is freedom in diversity. In this episode, you will learn: What it means to diversify your client base and your creative work. Why pursuing that kind of diversity is important to the ongoing health of your artistic business. What asynchronous income is, and why it can help bring you freedom. What it means to think of your creative business as having a “Roster of One.” How to focus in on the “why” behind your business. Why creative businesses are more like startups than like traditional small businesses. How a startup mentality can help your artistic work thrive. In this episode, I mention the upcoming Thriving Narrators Retreat, which will take place August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. (Steven Jay Cohen, owner of Spoken Realms and the guest for today's episode, will be a faculty member at this retreat.) You can learn more about this opportunity for audiobook narrators on my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com/ThrivingNarratorsRetreat. During our conversation, I refer to several past episodes of this podcast: 008: Developing Asynchronous Income 013: Find Your Why 054: The Six Components This episode includes an interview with Steven Jay Cohen, who is an actor, audiobook narrator, audiobook engineer, and writer, in addition to being the owner of the audiobook production company Spoken Realms. Steven will be a faculty member at the Thriving Narrators Retreat, August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. You can learn more about Steven and the retreat here. In this episode, Steven mentions a title that I worked on with him, The Indestructibles by Matthew Phillion , and I mention Steven's podcast, Yet Another Dating App. In this episode, I reference the book How to Make Money While You Are Sleeping by photographer and author Rick Sammon, and Steven mentions Neil Gaimen's commencement speech, which you can watch here. Steven also refers to the teaching of author and coach Simon Sinek. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

Regardless of what creative industry you work in, communication is key. Particularly when you think of marketing yourself and your work to the people in your industry who serve in the project assignment role, the importance of professional communication skills cannot be overstated. When the decision-makers in your industry are deliberating about which artist to consider for a project, you want to make sure your name is in the running. I've talked about the importance of effective and efficient marketing and networking in previous podcast episodes, but today, you don't have to just take my word for it. We're going to hear directly from the source. In today's episode, we're going to get a casting director's perspective on the importance of effective communication in your marketing efforts. In this episode, you will learn: Why business communication etiquette matters when reaching out to the decision makers in your industry. How you can help people in those decision making roles to do their job more efficiently and effectively. Why sharing the kinds of projects you love benefits everyone, including the people who hire you for creative projects. What honesty and openness have to do with your marketing and networking strategy. How to cultivate a mindset of collaboration, and why that kind of mindset will lead to future opportunities for your creative work. In this episode, I mention the upcoming Thriving Narrators Retreat, which will take place August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. (Jonathan Pennock, casting director for Brilliance Publishing and the guest for today's episode, will be a faculty member at this retreat.) You can learn more about this opportunity for audiobook narrators on my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com/ThrivingNarratorsRetreat. During our conversation, I refer to several past episodes of this podcast: 007: Working in your Creative & Financial Sweet Spot 025: Make Your Own Luck 026: Marketing for Feast, Not Famine 027: Networking for Feast, Not Famine 043: AI and Art This episode includes an interview with Jonathan Pennock, an award-winning Audiobook Producer and Director for Brilliance Publishing. Jonathan will be a faculty member at the Thriving Narrators Retreat, August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. You can learn more about Jonathan and the retreat here. In this episode, I mention a title that I worked on with Jonathan: The Aviatrix by Violet Marsh. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

While I'm not neurodivergent myself, I know a lot of artists who are. In fact, quite a few of the artists who work with me to build their entrepreneurship skills are neurodivergent in one way or another. You, the fabulous artist listening to this podcast, might even be neurodivergent yourself. And this prevalence of neurodivergence among artists is more than just anecdote; a recent Psychology Today article explains that “neurodivergent individuals excel creatively,” making them uniquely suited to artistic careers. But while being neurodivergent can be a bonus in the creativity department, it can bring a whole host of unique challenges in the other aspects of our creative work. Today, let's discuss strategies for handling the ups and downs of life as a neurodivergent creative. In this episode, you will learn: Why neurodivergence is so common in the creative and artistic world. (In other words, lots of creatives are neurodivergent, which means you're not alone!) How coming to an acceptance of your neurodivergence can help you strategize solutions for the unique problems you face. What practical solutions have worked for Marni Penning, an award-winning actress, and what processes and resources she used to find those solutions. How you can use those same processes to find solutions that work for you in your unique circumstances. In this episode, I mention the upcoming Thriving Narrators Retreat, which will take place August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. (Marni Penning, the guest for today's episode, will be a faculty member at this retreat.) You can learn more about this opportunity for audiobook narrators on my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com/ThrivingNarratorsRetreat. I refer to two past episodes of this podcast: 016: The Six Components of a Thriving Creative Business 022: Outsourcing for Creatives I also mention this article from Psychology Today and this 2022 study of neurodivergence among electronic musicians. This episode includes an interview with award-winning actress Marni Penning. You can learn more about Marni's work on her website and on her social media. You can also learn more about the Penning Method for the Panicked Actor here. In our conversation, Marni mentions two tools that she finds helpful in managing her neurological differences: a full-year write-on calendar, and write-on magnets. I also mention the large desk calendar that I like to use for my schedule, which you can see here. Marni also shares two additional resources that have helped her in her journey: Shanna Pearson's Expert ADHD Coaching A Radical Guide for Women with ADHD by Sari Solden and Michelle Frank (the audiobook version is narrated by Marni!) Marni and I discuss body doubling as a strategy to help with focus. You can learn more about body doubling here, and you can learn more about Focusmate, a body doubling service, here. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

Questions related to branding and marketing can often feel incredibly overwhelming for artists. The vast majority of creative entrepreneurs got into their line of work because they were passionate about the “creative” part of the “creative entrepreneur” label, not so much because they felt drawn to the “entrepreneur” part. But as I've said before on this podcast, the flow of work into your artistic business is directly related to the flow of marketing efforts out of your business. So even if you feel lost when you think about what it would take to effectively market your creative business, doing that marketing work is still something that is part of what it takes to build your creative business into a thriving enterprise that meets your needs. And I'm here to tell you that marketing and branding don't have to be as scary as they seem. Your branding and marketing decisions can flow naturally out of who you are as an artist. Today, let's take a deep dive into the topic of branding and marketing for your creative work. In this episode, you will learn: How to consider the needs of the many different audiences for your creative business's marketing materials. Why your branding decisions can inform the way that you approach in-person events. How to transition from “me” to “we” in your social media strategy. What questions will help you find the commonalities in your interests and passions that will serve as the basis for your branding decisions. How your social media is similar to a public living room in your house, and what that concept means for how you “show up” online. How to consciously allow your branding to evolve over time as you grow as an artist. In this episode, I mention the upcoming Thriving Narrators Retreat, which will take place August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. (Gail Shalan, the guest for today's episode, will be a faculty member at this retreat.) You can learn more about this opportunity for audiobook narrators on my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com/ThrivingNarratorsRetreat. In this episode, I refer to two past episodes of this podcast: 026: Marketing for Feast, Not Famine 027: Networking for Feast, Not Famine This episode includes an interview with multi-disciplinary artist Gail Shalan. You can learn more about Gail's work on her website and on her social media. In our conversation, Gail shares a quote from the book Personal Branding for Dummies by Susan Chritton. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

When I'm working with artists, the most frequent question they ask is how they should structure their creative business. How do they know which tasks in their creative entrepreneurship life are worth their time? How should their business work if they want that business to support them and fulfill them in all the ways they need to be supported and fulfilled: personally, creatively, and financially? What does a functioning creative business look like? Today, let's discuss. In this episode, you will learn: What six components thriving creative businesses share in common. How to implement those six components within your creative business. Why establishing supportive habits will free you to do your best creative work. What role the financial aspects of your business play in helping your creative business thrive overall. How these six components can help you maintain a steady income in your business, getting you off the “feast or famine” roller coaster. In this episode, I reference the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definitions of systematized, marketing, and networking. I also reference this Vanity Fair article, in which US President Barak Obama talks about what he does to reduce his decision fatigue. In addition, I reference several previous episodes of this podcast: 005: The Time & Income Connection (Episode 1 in the 4-Part "Time & Income" Series) 006: Pay Yourself First (Episode 2 in the 4-Part "Time & Income" Series) 007: Working in your Creative & Financial Sweet Spot (Episode 3 in the 4-Part "Time & Income" Series) 008: Developing Asynchronous Income (Episode 4 in the 4-Part "Time & Income" Series) 010: What You Need From Your Business A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

One of my coaching clients reached out to me this week regarding a task that she and I had discussed at length during a session a couple months ago, and she confessed to me that she hadn't done it yet. What's more, she wasn't really sure why she hadn't done it. There wasn't anything stopping her or getting in her way. She told me, “I'm just not doing it, and I know I have to.” Have you been there? Have you felt paralyzed in the face of something you know you need to do in your creative business, but you just can't get it done for some reason? Have you found yourself procrastinating on tasks that need to get done, and not really knowing why you're procrastinating, or how to stop that procrastinating? I know I have. I know this coaching client is definitely not alone, and neither are you! Today, let's figure out together how to say goodbye to procrastination. In this episode, you will learn: What common causes of procrastination might be tripping you up. How to determine why this task is so hard for you to do. Why the stories that you are telling yourself matter, and how to edit those stories to cultivate a supportive mindset that will help you do your creative work. How other people can support you and provide accountability to you in your creative work. What positive steps you can take to get the task done and say goodbye to procrastination! In this episode, I mention two of my coaching programs, the Thriving Artists Academy and the Thriving Narrators Retreat. You can learn more about both opportunities on my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com. The Thriving Narrators Retreat is August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. In this episode, I refer to two past episodes of this podcast: 01https://www.starvingartistnomore.com/blog/what-if-you-could5: 016: The Six Components of a Thriving Creative Business I also mention this TED talk by Lori Gottlieb. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

Every creative has moments in their career that are moments of celebration, moments of pure excitement. And usually, when I talk to artists about those moments, they think about the big career milestones: that huge award that they won or were nominated for, the incredible review they received, the prestigious fellowship they were awarded, the amazing project they won. These are all big, wonderful career events in your life as an artist business owner that absolutely should be celebrated. But they aren't the only moments that deserve celebration. The problem with focusing only on those big, external indicators of career success is that they are almost always things controlled by other people, which by definition means they are rare and unpredictable. Instead, I want to encourage you to focus on celebrating the small wins in your creative life. After all, doing the work is the win. Let's discuss. In this episode, you will learn: What “wins” to celebrate in your life as an artist businessowner. How focusing on small wins can help you to have a mindset of joy and excitement around your creative work. Why focusing only on the final outcome causes you to worry about the wrong things. How being a creative entrepreneur is similar to being a medieval merchant. What it means to “send out ships” in your creative life. What it looks like in your life as an artist to focus on what you can control. In this episode, I mention the Thriving Narrators Retreat, which is August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. You can learn more about this exciting growth opportunity for audiobook narrators on my website, https://www.starvingartistnomore.com/thrivingnarratorsretreat. I refer to several past episodes of this podcast: 017: What You Can Control 032: Progress, Not Perfection 040: Small Steps 051: Celebrations Matter I also share a quote from this X (aka Twitter) post by Billy Oppenheimer. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

Last week's podcast episode was all about the importance of acknowledging the hard things in your life as a creative entrepreneur, but if you stop there, you're only seeing part of the picture. Yes, much in the life of an artist is really difficult, but so much is amazing as well. We get to create for a living! We get to share our artistic ideas with the world! What a gift that is! But if we don't take time to intentionally acknowledge those good things, we run the risk of not even noticing that they happened. Our brains are primed to pay attention to and remember the bad, not the good. In order to make sure we recognize and appreciate the good things that happen in our creative lives, we need to celebrate them. Today, we'll talk about why that's so important and how you can incorporate celebration into your creative process. Celebrations matter. In this episode, you will learn: What social psychology research can teach us about how to navigate stressful situations using celebrations. What the negativity bias is, and how celebrations can help us overcome that bias. How celebrating can help us identify the strategies that work within our creative businesses. Why celebrations are vital to developing habits that support you and your artistic work. What practical steps you can take to make celebration part of your creative process, benefiting you and your business. In this episode, I announced the Thriving Narrators Retreat DEI Scholarship. You can learn more about this scholarship on my website, https://www.starvingartistnomore.com/thrivingnarratorsretreat. I also talked about the Thriving Narrators Retreat itself, which is August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. Again, you can learn more about this exciting growth opportunity for audiobook narrators on my website, https://www.starvingartistnomore.com/thrivingnarratorsretreat. In this episode, I refer to two past episodes of this podcast: 016: The Six Components of a Thriving Creative Business 050: Acknowledge the Hard Stuff I also mention several books that I have read and that I feel confident recommending for those who want more information: The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor Atomic Habits by James Clear The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg I share a quote from this TED talk given by Shawn Achor in 2011, and I reference this episode of the NPR Life Kit podcast, which is summarized here. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

The life of a creative entrepreneur is a difficult one. From a culture that doesn't value our artistic work, instead telling us we should starve, to the difficulty of dealing with business administration tasks that many of us were never formally educated to handle, the reality of being an artist business owner is not an easy one. You've picked a hard road, my friend. And one frequent reaction to this difficulty that I see in my colleagues and in my coaching clients is what I like to call the ostrich response: sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the hard things. If you ignore the things you don't like, they'll disappear, right? Oh if only it were that easy! Ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away. It just allows it to fester. It's not easy, but there is value in acknowledging the hard stuff. In today's episode, we're going to look at those hard things together. In this episode, you will learn: How acknowledging the difficulties of our creative entrepreneurship life gives us power. Why we instinctively want to ignore problems in our work. How to overcome that instinct to have a more helpful stance. What practical steps to take when you're feeling stuck by a problem in your business. How we can pay attention to our difficult emotions and learn from them in the process. In this episode, I announced the Thriving Narrators Retreat DEI Scholarship. You can learn more about this scholarship on my website, https://www.starvingartistnomore.com/thrivingnarratorsretreat. I also talked about the Thriving Narrators Retreat itself, which is August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. Again, you can learn more about this exciting growth opportunity for audiobook narrators on my website, https://www.starvingartistnomore.com/thrivingnarratorsretreat. In this episode, I refer to one past episode, 038: The Price of Success is Failure. I also reference this TED talk by Lori Gottlieb. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

I know you've been there. Your task list is overflowing, and you're overwhelmed. You've got more to do than you can possibly complete in the time available. Perhaps you're in a feast period in your creative career, meaning your project calendar is jampacked full of fabulous projects that you're excited to work on. Which is great, except that it means all of your time is spent heads-down creating, with no time left over for the necessary administrative tasks that come with running a business. Or maybe life has gone sideways on you, and you're dealing with time-consuming complications in your personal life, resulting in a tight squeeze on the time available for your business work, whether that's creative tasks or administrative to-dos. Regardless of the reason, you've found yourself in a place where decisions need to be made. You can't do everything. So what do you choose to do, and what do you choose to leave undone? How do you prioritize? How did you decide what really matters to you, and how do you make sure your actions reflect those values? Today, we're going to look at some of those hard questions. We're going to talk about where your priorities lie. In this episode, you will learn: What my recent experience during a particularly hectic time has taught me about how to prioritize within my creative business. Why I intentionally chose to take some time off from this podcast and how I used that time to focus on other areas of my creative work. How you can use the Six Components of a Thriving Creative Business to guide your priority decisions when time gets tight. Why focusing on these six areas within your business is even more important when life and work gets overwhelming In this episode, I announced the Thriving Narrators Retreat, which is August 22-25, 2024 in Cincinnati, OH. You can learn more about this exciting growth opportunity for audiobook narrators on my website, https://www.starvingartistnomore.com/thrivingnarratorsretreat. I also mentioned the Thriving Artists Academy. You can learn more about this dynamic and supportive community on my website, www.starvingartistnomore.com/thrivingartistsacademy. In this episode, I refer to several past episodes of this podcast: 007: Working in your Creative & Financial Sweet Spot 008: Developing Asynchronous Income 016: The Six Components of a Thriving Creative Business 044: Consistency Is Hard I also mention the Spoon Theory of chronic illness, and I share the Merriam-Webster definition of "priority." A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

As this episode is originally being released, it's the day after Christmas 2023. Last year, for the podcast episode between Christmas and New Year's Day, I narrated a Christmas story for you, and truthfully, that episode is one of my favorite podcast episodes of the entire first season! I'd like to make that holiday storytelling habit a tradition here on the Starving Artist No More podcast. So today, I have another Christmas story to share with you: The Elves and the Shoemaker by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

It's Tuesday of the last workweek of 2023, and it's a time when lots of us are thinking about what we've done over the past twelve months and what we're looking forward to in the coming twelve months. Those kinds of looks backward and dreams forward can be really exciting! But it can also be really difficult to think back on the year gone by. If I'm being honest, I'd have to admit that while “yearly review time” can be exciting and motivating, it's also a time when it's really easy to get discouraged and to judge yourself for what did or didn't happen in the past year. When those self-critical thoughts start creeping in and taking over your inner-monologue, what can you do? My recommendation: be a detective. In this episode, you will learn: Why curiosity is a powerful mindset to cultivate, and what exactly a mindset of curiosity is. What factors to consider as you review your work: from the big to the small, from the year-end reviews to the individual project reviews. How being a detective about the careers of your creative colleagues can actually help you in your own. What it means to “hunt for a star” and how that mindset can help you in your creative business. How curiosity can help your creative business thrive. In this episode, I mention the Thriving Artists Academy. You can learn more about this dynamic and supportive community on my website, www.starvingartistnomore.com/thrivingartistsacademy. In this episode, I reference Merriam-Webster's definition for "curious," as well as to several past episodes of this podcast: 021: Your Unique Pace 024: Overriding Imposter Syndrome 045: Your Personal Definition of Success 046: Year-End Planning I also read the first stanza of "As You Go Through Life," a brief poem by 19th century American poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox. You can learn more about Wilcox here, and you can read the full poem here. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

As this episode is being originally released, it's less than two weeks before Christmas 2023. In another four days, my husband, Arturo, will be off from work in his corporate job for the rest of the year. Yay for holiday vacations! And all over the world right now, people are making plans for the holidays and thinking about their New Year's resolutions. Because being less than two weeks from Christmas means we're also less than three weeks from the new year. What are you going to do in your creative work next year? What New Years resolutions do you have around your artistic business? What are you going to do to make your coming year one of creative joy and excitement? Let's discuss. In this episode, you will learn: Why knowing your personal definition of success is a vital part of crafting a plan for your business in 2024. What three questions to ask yourself as you review 2023 so that you can move in a positive direction of change for 2024. Why paying attention to how you receive personal, creative, and financial fulfillment from your creative work will help you plan an effective strategy for the coming year. How to use SMART goals to craft goals that you will actually achieve. What one exercise you can use to figure out the business strategy that is right for you. How your community of creative friends, colleagues, and mentors can help you achieve your goals. In this episode, I mention the Thriving Artists Academy. You can learn more about this dynamic and supportive community on my website, www.starvingartistnomore.com/thrivingartistsacademy. In this episode, I also refer to several past episodes of this podcast: 006: Pay Yourself First 019: SMART Creativity 040: Small Steps 045: Your Personal Definition of Success A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

When you picture someone who is a successful artist or creative, what image does that bring to your mind? Perhaps someone who has won lots of competitions or awards in your creative industry. Perhaps someone who is very prolific in their artistry, so you see their work all over the place. Perhaps it's someone who takes on really high profile projects, performing with the best ensembles or working with well-known clients or having their work profiled in The New York Times or People Magazine. Exactly what those external success markers look like varies a bit from one creative industry to another, but they are all exactly that: external indicators of what our culture has deemed success. On the other hand, what if you envision yourself as successful? What image does that bring to mind? So many artists I work with come to me with the idea that I'll help them achieve some of those external indicators of success, but that's not actually where fulfillment lies for any artist. You can have all of those external success markers, and even more, and not be fulfilled by your creative work. And like I always say, I am all about helping you build a creative business that meets your needs, that fulfills you holistically. Not a business that meets someone else's needs, or that meets the needs of a generic description of success, but your needs. Success is a very personal thing. It is not a blanket descriptor or a general state of being. Success is a state of being that is particular to each individual. In today's podcast episode, we're going to discuss your personal definition of success. In this episode, you will learn: Why I don't often use the word “success.” How to think about our culture's idea of success, versus what success means for us as individuals. What questions to ask as you do the internal thought work necessary to decide what success means for you. How to figure out a strategy that will make that individual dream of success your reality. What role action plays in helping you achieve success. Why celebrating milestones is vital to your experience of success. In this episode, I mention the upcoming free Dream Big workshop I am hosting on December 5, 2023. You can learn more about this free goal-setting workshop for creative entrepreneurs on the events page of my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com/events. In this episode, I mention the dictionary definition of "success," courtesy of Merriam-Webster. I also quote from the book From Individual to Empire by Laura Bull, which I highly recommend (and which we're going to study in 2024 in my new Thriving Artists Academy Book Club), and I mention Shawn Achor's TED talk on happiness. I also refer to one past episode of this podcast: 010: What You Need From Your Business. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

We're getting toward the end of the year, when people employed in corporate jobs are completing their yearly self-assessments in preparation for performance reviews in early January. My husband, Arturo, who you heard from in last week's episode, turned in his 2023 self-assessment last week, just before Thanksgiving. And yes, I am a self-employed creative entrepreneur, not an employee of a large company like he is, but I'm doing my own self-assessment right now, too: thinking about what went well over the past year, what didn't go so well, and how I want to use that data to move forward with joy and creativity into 2024. As I'm thinking about those things and reviewing my own actions (and inactions) over the past year, I'm struck over and over again by one overarching theme: as a creative entrepreneur, consistency is necessary, but consistency is also hard. Today, we're going to focus in on consistency in our creative work and figure out how we can be more consistent together. In this episode, you will learn: Why changing your perspective on what it means to be consistent can help you be more consistent in the long run. What paradox exists around consistency, and how acknowledging the truth of that paradox can free you from judgement. Why curiosity is the best mindset to cultivate when you find yourself struggling to be consistent. How to figure out where consistency really matters, and where doing something most of the time is enough. What strategies will help you improve your consistency in your areas of highest priority. How your creative colleagues can help you (and how you can help them!) be consistent in ways that count. In this episode, I mention the upcoming free Dream Big workshop I am hosting on December 5, 2023. You can learn more about this free goal-setting workshop for creative entrepreneurs on the events page of my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com/events. In this episode, I refer to several past episodes of this podcast: 004: An Attitude of Gratitude 006: Pay Yourself First 016: The Six Components of a Thriving Creative Business 039: Fix Forward 041: A New Season. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

Last week's podcast episode was all about how to think about change in our creative work. Change is inevitable in life, so we may as well find ways to think about it positively. After all, in many ways, when we think about it from a mindset of joy and abundance, change can be really beautiful! But what about change that has the potential to be incredibly destructive to your work and your way of life? How can you find positive ways of viewing that kind of change? Often, finding a silver lining in that kind of change feels impossible. And that predicament is exactly where a lot of creatives are finding themselves right now as we collectively, as a society, grapple with what the existence of generative artificial intelligence is going to mean for us over the short and long terms. In today's podcast episode, we're going to dig into AI and art. Why the existence of generative AI will almost certainly change the way we, as artists, live and work. What we can learn from history about how disruptive technologies have changed the nature of work in the past. How AI-triggered changes today and in the coming years might impact our creative work going forward. What we can do to ensure that we are still able to do artistic work that we love. Why our mindset as we think about the impact of AI will determine whether or not our creative businesses thrive through the coming challenges. How broadening our definition of what we do as artists can help us find our audience. Why ongoing growth of our artistic skills is essential for artists who want to flourish through the coming changes in our creative industries. In this episode, I mention the upcoming free Dream Big workshop I am hosting on December 5, 2023. You can learn more about this free goal-setting workshop for creative entrepreneurs on the events page of my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com/events. In this episode, I mention a recent Reddit post by author John Bierce about his perspective on AI audiobook narration, and Arturo (who is my special guest for this podcast episode) refers to the book The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil. If you're interested in learning more about futurism, you can read about it on Wikipedia. In our conversation, we also mention two previous episodes of this podcast: 016: The Six Components of a Thriving Creative Business 042: You're Not a Tree A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

I don't know what the fall weather is like where you are, but here in Cincinnati, things have turned decidedly autumnal. Arturo and I spent a few hours about a week ago, on Saturday, raking the leaves from our driveway and the paths around our house. And when I flew back from the LoveNVegas book con about two weeks ago, seeing the fall colors from the plane was truly breathtaking. Fall is my favorite season for a lot of reasons, but one of those reasons is that the changing leaves remind me that change is beautiful. Change is often hard and stressful and scary, but it can also be beautiful. In today's podcast episode, we're going to discuss how to think about change in our creative businesses. Change is inevitable, and even though it's sometimes scary, it can be a really good thing. After all, we're artists, not trees. We don't have to bloom where we're planted. In this episode, you will learn: Why change is often scary, and how to modify your mindset to see it as a beautiful thing. What steps you can take to grow consistently in your creative skills. Why ongoing growth is essential for the long term health of your artistic business. Why digging into your areas of fear can often reveal your biggest potential for growth. What to do when you find yourself in a situation where you are not thriving. How to create opportunities for your creative work through positive change. In this episode, I mention the upcoming free Dream Big workshop I am hosting on December 5, 2023. You can learn more about this free goal-setting workshop for creative entrepreneurs on the events page of my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com/events. In this episode, I discuss a recent Medium article about the importance of change. I also refer one previous episode of this podcast, 016: The Six Components of a Thriving Creative Business. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

You may have noticed that this episode is marked as the first episode in Season 2 in your podcast player. That's right – this week marks a full year of the Starving Artist No More podcast! For an entire year, I've been coaching creative entrepreneurs and helping them create workable strategies for businesses that actually work and that meet their needs in a real and tangible way. It's been an amazing experience! Today's podcast episode is going to look at the seven biggest takeaways I've observed from my first year working officially as a creative entrepreneurship coach. I can't wait to share with you what I've learned. In this episode, you will learn: What my seven most impactful takeaways are after a year of helping creative entrepreneurs build creative businesses that work. Why letting go of past difficulties and looking ahead is a powerful strategy to enact long-term change in yourself and your business. How to think about the importance of business finances in your creative business. Why marketing yourself and your work is important, regardless of where you are in your artistic career. What mental model around goal setting will help you craft goals that truly serve you and your business. How to embrace your own unique creative path. Why it is important to celebrate every win, big or small. What difference your mindset makes to the outcomes you experience in your creative work. In this episode, I refer to three previous episodes of this podcast: 002: Expand What's Possible 039: Fix Forward 040: Small Steps A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

Mark Twain once said, “The secret to getting ahead is getting started.” Sometimes, taking those first few tiny little steps can be the hardest part of getting a new project off the ground. If you're embarking on a new artistic venture, how do you decide where to begin? If you're preparing to tackle something unfamiliar on the administrative side of your creative business, how do you figure out what's the most important thing to do first? Often, we find ourselves waiting to even begin a new thing until we know we can jump in with 1,000% commitment and total confidence, but that feeling of complete commitment and absolute confidence might never come, leaving you stuck and paralyzed instead. What do you do then? Today, we're going to look at how you can use small steps to move you past any feelings of stuckness or paralysis. Today, we're going to learn how to add together lots of small steps so you can create the change you're looking for. In this episode, you will learn: What small steps are and how you can use them to motivate yourself in your artistic work. What social science research around “small steps” can teach us about how to shape our daily work processes as creative entrepreneurs. How to “Video Game” your big, overwhelming tasks so that they are approachable. Why small steps have the power to enable and enhance your entire creative process. How (and why!) to celebrate every small win in your creative entrepreneurship journey. In this episode, I discuss the motivation research done by Harvard professor Teresa Amabile. You can learn more about her work here: Progress Principle Research Diary Study on the Harvard Dataverse The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer "The Big Power of Small Wins" by Jude King I mention the book Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman and refer to this edition of his newsletter. I also refer one previous episode of this podcast, 004: An Attitude of Gratitude. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

A few weeks ago, I woke up to an email from a creative entrepreneur that I've been coaching over the past few months. This wonderful artist had recently faced some pretty big obstacles in their creative business and was feeling really discouraged. They had wanted to start a new thing in their creative work, but they found themselves completely unable to take that first step and get started. As a result, they told me they were feeling “brutally defeated.” And my heart broke for this wonderful creative. I just wanted to wrap them up in a big hug! Shame and defeat have no place in our work as creative entrepreneurs. In today's podcast episode, I want to share with you some of the advice and action steps that I gave this delightful artist. When you are struggling with your creative work, there is hope. You have no need to feel ashamed or defeated. You are not powerless, and you can take action that will make things better. You can fix forward. In this episode, you will learn: What it means to “fix forward” in the context of your creative business. How to reframe your mindset so that shame and defeat no longer weigh you down. Why it's important to view our past actions with curiosity and inquisitiveness, not judgment. What questions to ask yourself so you can plan a workable strategy forward. Why launching messy is almost always a good idea, and why sharing that mess is a great idea. How to use your mess as marketing material so that your audience actually likes you more. In this episode, I discuss the Pratfall Effect, a concept from marketing and psychology that can help us as artists feel more comfortable sharing our process, warts and all. Here are some additional resources about the Pratfall Effect: The Pratfall Effect - brief YouTube video that gives an excellent, brief description of what it is Why We Buy: Pratfall Effect - article from the newsletter Why We Buy about the Pratfall Effect and how it works in marketing The effect of a pratfall on increasing personal attractiveness - research article from the journal Psychonomic Science about the Pratfall Effect I also mention one previous episode of this podcast, 038: The Price of Success is Failure. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

Over and over again, in my work as a creative entrepreneurship coach, I hear some variation of the question, “but what if it doesn't work?” Fear is a natural part of trying anything new, and for most artists and makers and creatives, focusing on the business side of their creative enterprise is indeed a new thing. Much of what we do as creative entrepreneurs is objectively hard! But if we never try anything new, we'll never get anything new. Taking risks and trying new things is a vital part of what it means to be a thriving artist. And when you are bold enough to take risks, failures will happen. They're unavoidable! The price of success, quite literally, is failure. But if that's true, how can you conquer your fear of failure and allow yourself the freedom to take risks? How can you learn from the failures you experience so you don't get stuck in a failure loop? In this episode, you will learn: How to think about your own personal definition of success, as it relates to your work as an artist and entrepreneur. What mindset shifts can help you let go of your fear around failing. Why it's important to reframe your “failure” experiences and learn from them, rather than regretting them. How to take your failures and turn them into growth experiences that help you succeed in the future. What your community of creative colleagues has to do with how you personally handle both success and failure. In this episode, I share a quote from Fauja Singh, the world's oldest living marathon runner. You can read more about Mr. Singh here. I also discuss passages from the books Madeleine L'Engle Herself: Reflections on a Writing Life by Madeleine L'Engle and 26 Marathons by Meb Keflezighi, and I mention one previous episode of this podcast, 010: What You Need From Your Business. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

Figuring out your strategy to make your creative business work is much easier said than done. You might think you know how things work in your creative industry, and you might be doing all the things that should be the right things, and yet nothing is working for you. Perhaps you even see things working out for one of your creative colleagues, but it's just not happening for you. When you feel like you're employing workable strategies and yet you're seeing any progress in your creative business, what's going on? The exact, detailed answer to that question is going to be different for every creative, but I think there are some universal truths that are common to all of us. And I recently was struck by those truths in the most unlikely of places: while at the beach, flying kites. I'm excited to share with you what I learned about business strategy by visiting the beach and attempting to fly a kite. In this episode, you will learn: What kite flying can teach us as creative entrepreneurs. How to adjust your strategy when it feels like you're just not getting anywhere, even though you're doing everything right. Why timing matters in our creative businesses, and how we can play a hand in making sure that the timing is right. What it means to notice every opportunity that comes your way, and how you can take advantage of those opportunities. In this episode, I discuss the "Invisible Gorilla" experiment conducted in 1999 by Dan Simons & Chris Chabris, and you can watch the original video from that experiment here. I also refer to previous episodes of this podcast: 007: Working in your Creative & Financial Sweet Spot 016: The Six Components of a Thriving Creative Business 025: Make Your Own Luck A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

I've said before that your beliefs about what is possible for you and your business will be the limiting factor in how your business grows, which is absolutely true. But your beliefs about the possibilities available to you and your business do more than impact your big picture. Those beliefs touch every part of what you do, from that big 10,000 foot view all the way down to the email you write when someone offers you work. When a job offer comes your way, how do you decide whether or not to say “yes”? What goes into your mental calculations as you figure out if this is a project you want to be part of? The nature of the project itself is probably something you consider, and you also probably look at the financial aspects of the project to see if it's a good fit for you. But what else should you think about? How do you know if this project is something you should be part of? Specifically, how does your mindset influence the work you accept and the work you pass on? In this episode, you will learn: How a mindset of scarcity and a mindset of abundance impact the growth of your creative business. What mindset problems lead to overscheduling and how to adjust your mindset to be more supportive of your creative work. How to decide which projects are right for you, and which ones aren't. Why saying “yes” always has a cost, and how to figure out what that cost is. What your Creative & Financial Sweet Spot is, and what it has to do with your mindset and your schedule. Why your mindset and your schedule are intricately linked. In this episode, I discuss the dictionary definitions for "abundance" (Merriam-Webster definition here, and Thesaurus.com info here) and "scarcity" (Merriam-Webster definition here). I also reference this blog post from the University of Washington School of Medicine, and I mention a brief story from the book Hell Yeah or No by Derek Sivers. I also refer to two previous episodes of this podcast: 007: Working in your Creative & Financial Sweet Spot 016: The Six Components of a Thriving Creative Business A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

The life of a creative entrepreneur is a busy one. There is a lot on your plate on any given day! You need to do the creative, artistic work that your business is built on. But you also need to reply to emails, manage your marketing, handle your business finances, and deal with project management tasks. Like I said, it's a lot! In that mess of tasks in front of you, how do you figure out what is most important for you to do right now, today, this week? How can you set daily, weekly, and monthly priorities within your creative work so that you know that the most important tasks are always getting done first? In this episode, you will learn: What an Eisenhower matrix is and how to use it to determine what tasks on your to-do list are both important and urgent. How to determine your MITs (Most Important Things) for each work day and week. Why identifying your natural rhythm can help you create a work schedule that fits you perfectly. How to prioritize tasks according to the impact that they will have on the future of your creative business. Why you get what you schedule, and how to use that fact to your advantage. What the concept of $10,000 per hour tasks can teach you about how to structure your time. In this episode, I discuss a daily mantra I use to help me prioritize myself within my creative work. You can access the coloring page version of this mantra here. I review the idea of $10,000 per hour tasks within a business, a concept that was first introduced by author and game developer Steve Pavlina and more recently made popular by Khe Hy of Rad Reads. I also refer to two previous episodes of this podcast: 008: Developing Asynchronous Income 016: The Six Components of a Thriving Creative Business A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

The life of a creative solopreneur is one of constantly being pulled in two different directions. Direction 1: the creative stuff! The reason you're a creative entrepreneur in the first place! This is the creative, artistic, innovative, unique work that you do and that brings you joy and fulfillment and that fills your soul. Direction 2: the administrative necessities of running a business. The emails, the project management tasks, the invoicing, the paying of bills, the managing of finances, the managing of your project schedule, the writing of copy for your website and for your marketing efforts, the scheduling of your marketing outreach and your business social media presence. The list of administrative tasks probably feels endless sometimes, and it constantly demands your attention! Those two directions are opposites, and yet both are your responsibility. You are both a creative and a business administrator. You are both a maker and a manager. How do you manage the juggling act of being both? In this episode, you will learn: What Maker Time & Manager Time are in the context of computer programming, and what they have to do with our work as creative entrepreneurs. What it means to your artistic work that you are both the Maker and the Manager within your business. How to identify your Maker tasks and your Manager tasks. Why batching tasks is important and can help you both in your creative work and in your business administration work. How to develop a scheduling template that will help you get all of your creative and business tasks done with ease and freedom. In this episode, I reference this article by Paul Graham, and I refer to the book Deep Work by Cal Newport. I mention this episode of NPR's Science Friday, and I quote from this Medium article by Aman Bhatia. I also reference Episode 22 of this podcast, Outsourcing for Creatives. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

What habits do you have? What are the things that you do automatically, on a regular basis? When we talk about habits, often the first place we think of is at bad habits we have – smoking, doomscrolling social media, staying up too late. But today, I want to talk about good habits. Epictetus, a Roman Stoic philosopher, wrote that “if you want to do something, make a habit of it.” So what are the habits that we want? What are the things we want to do, and how can we make those things habitual in our creative lives? Today, let's figure that out together. Let's look at the making of a habit. In this episode, you will learn: How to determine what habits will help you in your creative work and in the "business" side of your business. Why starting small matters when you are figuring out what new habits you want and where you will start. How to use a four-step process to successfully create new habits that you'll actually be able to stick with. Why knowing what will "trigger" your habit to happen is important. What "habit stacking" is and how to use it. What fun has to do with habits. Why Supportive Habits can help you be your best artistic self. In this episode, I reference this article from Daily Stoic, and I reference the book The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

In almost every artistic training program the world over, regardless of the specific creative discipline, the pursuit of perfection is a driving factor in the training. I spent hours in the practice room during my conservatory training practicing the same passages over and over to get closer to that ever-elusive “perfect” ideal. Lessons and masterclasses were fine-tuned examinations of the details of technique, always in search of a better, cleaner, “more perfect” sound. There is a lot in that mindset that is commendable and valuable, but in my work with artist business owners, I see too many creatives willing to die in that pursuit of perfection. They are allowing perfect to be the enemy of good. Don't let yourself fall into that trap. Let go of perfection and focus on your progress. In this episode, you will learn: Where perfection can be helpful and useful to you, and where it can hold you back. How to use a focus on progress to improve the "business" side of your business. Why worrying about perfection can hamper your creativity. What Supportive Habits have to do with your progress and growth as an artist. How to change your mindset around both perfection and progress to help you thrive in your work life and your personal life. In this episode, I reference this article by Austin Kleon, plus several books: Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland Atomic Habits by James Clear The Money Book by Joseph D'Agnese and Denise Kiernan Profit First by Mike Michalowicz I also reference a previous episode of this podcast: Episode 016: The Six Components of a Thriving Creative Business, A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

I have a bit of a controversial thought to share: Hustling isn't a good thing. Allow me to explain why I say that. Hustling is all about working harder than everyone else and doing everything imaginable to get the job or gig or project or whatever. It's about sacrificing everything else on the altar of getting ahead. Hustling is what the "starving artist" mindset is all about, and you all know that I despise that mindset. Yes, as creative entrepreneurs, we do absolutely need to work hard. But working hard ALL THE TIME -- aka hustling -- is the opposite of helpful. Frankly, I hate hustling. Our best creative ideas come to us when we're allowing our mind the freedom to rest and be still. Creativity doesn't thrive when you're stressed and tired and frazzled and ... well ... starving. Yes, work hard, but work hard with balance and calm and intention. Work smarter, not harder. Today, we're going to discuss how you can say no to the hustle. In this episode, you will learn: What it means to hustle, and why hustling isn't a good thing. How to reject the many negative aspects of hustle culture. Why the mindset you hold while you seek to grow your business will have long-term implications. How to let go of the guilt you feel when you're not working. What strategies you can use to tackle your overwhelming task list and busy daily schedule. Why it's important to prioritize your health and well-being. How saying no to the hustle can make a positive difference in your creative work and in your personal life. In this episode, I mention that the Taming the Muse Group Workshop is getting underway in one week, on July 19, 2023. Registration is now open, and a few spots are still available. for the summer cohort of my group workshop. The workshop begins on July 19, 2023 and will meet weekly through the end of September. I reference the Merriam-Webster definition for "hustle," and I mention two research articles regarding workplace well-being: Remote Workers Feel Productive but Also Guilty Impact of Workplace Stress I also mention the book "Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less" by Greg McKeown. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

This episode is originally being released on July 3, 2023, meaning that as I'm recording this, it's the midpoint of the calendar year. Recently, on The Half Marathoner substack (which is an awesome newsletter if you're a runner, like me), Terrell Johnson wrote, "This time of the year … has always felt like second base to me. As if you're on a baseball diamond, running the bases, and you're about to touch second; you're at the farthest point from where you started — home — but you're also half way to getting back there again." What a powerful image. You're halfway through the journey that's called 2023. We're as far as we can get from the holiday season that always marks the delineation between calendar years, but we're also halfway to getting back there. This time of year is when business owners and leaders the world over are reviewing their plans for 2023, determining how things have been going so far, and making any needed changes. They're taking time to figure out how they want to run the other two “bases” that are left in 2023. What about you? Are you going to take some time over the next week or so to look back over the past six months and make plans for the coming six months? A lot of the creative entrepreneurs I work with struggle with the planning part of being an entrepreneur. So today I'm going to give you an exercise I think will help you wrap your brain around doing that deep planning work that's necessary to allow your business to thrive. We're going to talk about how to use your regret and your imagination to make future-shaped decisions. In this episode, you will learn: Why strategic planning within your creative business is worthwhile. How your past regrets can be an important motivator in the present. How you can use your imagination to ensure that you're making the best decisions you can. What role your aversion to regret can play to help you overcome your fear of change. How to make decisions about your creative work that you will be proud of for years to come. In this episode, I share three pieces of exciting news in the Starving Artist No More community: Dream Big Workshop - This is a completely free, no-strings-attached 2-hour workshop on goal setting for creative entrepreneurs. July 5, 2023, from 7-9pm ET. Taming the Muse Group Workshop - Registration is now open for the summer cohort of my group workshop. The workshop begins on July 19, 2023 and will meet weekly through the end of September. Muse Scholarship - The Muse Scholarship will be granted to two creative entrepreneurs and will cover 75% of the registration cost for the Summer 2023 cohort of the Taming the Muse Group Workshop. Scholarship applications are due 11:59pm ET on Sunday, July 9, 2023. I quote briefly from a recent edition of The Half Marathoner newsletter by Terrell Johnson, and I mention the book "The Power of Regret" by Daniel Pink. I also reference previous episodes of this podcast: 017: What You Can Control 018: Purpose and Flexibility (Goal Setting for Creatives, Part 1 of 2) 019: SMART Creativity (Goal Setting for Creatives, Part 2 of 2) 025: Make Your Own Luck A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

Funny story. I've had this topic, being a good boss, on my list of upcoming podcast episodes for months. Literally. For week after week after week, I've had this episode marked down as the next episode I was going to write and record for this podcast. And I kept pushing it back. I kept saying to myself, “No, I want to talk about this other thing this week. This other topic is more on my mind.” And so this episode, the one you're listening to right now, kept getting shoved to the back burner. Finally, after months of doing this, I asked myself, why I was doing this? Why was I refusing to work on this episode, even though I knew I wanted to have an episode about being a good boss? The answer: because of all of the topics I've discussed in the past 28 epidodes of this podcast, this is probably the area where I personally struggle most. So, more than anything else I've ever talked about here before, today's episode is for me. We're going to talk about what it means to be a good boss, when you're your own boss. Today's episode is going to look at how to have a good boss as a creative entrepreneur, which begins with being a good boss. In this episode, you will learn: What honesty has to do with being a good boss to yourself. How you can use knowledge about your strengths and weaknesses to thrive in your creative work. What it means to check in with yourself and your artistic business. Why allowing time and resources for ongoing growth is an essential part of caring for your creative self. How to use your passion to determine what projects are the right fit for you and your business. What it means to accept work that matches your capacity as an artist. In this episode, I share three pieces of exciting news in the Starving Artist No More community: Dream Big Workshop - This is a completely free, no-strings-attached 2-hour workshop on goal setting for creative entrepreneurs. July 5, 2023, from 7-9pm ET. Taming the Muse Group Workshop - Registration is now open for the summer cohort of my group workshop. The workshop begins on July 19, 2023 and will meet weekly through the end of September. Muse Scholarship - The Muse Scholarship will be granted to two creative entrepreneurs and will cover 75% of the registration cost for the Summer 2023 cohort of the Taming the Muse Group Workshop. Scholarship applications are due 11:59pm ET on Sunday, July 9, 2023. I also reference previous episodes of this podcast: 007: Working in Your Creative & Financial Sweet Spot 016: The Six Components of a Thriving Creative Business 022: Outsourcing for Creatives A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

The life of a creative entrepreneur is one of gig work. I'm sure you've heard the phrase, “gig economy.” For workers in many industry, this gig economy is a totally new thing. In decades past, engineers and computer programmers used to always work as employees of a company. They didn't have to jump from project to project on their own. My grandfather worked for the same textile manufacturing company his entire working career. He even lived in a town built by and named after that company! But that has never been the case for creative entrepreneurs. Even Shakespeare had to continually be writing new plays, hoping that his next project would be as successful as the last. Paganini had to keep writing music and playing concerts in new places. Picasso had to keep painting more paintings. But no creative lands every gig every time. Sometimes, we don't get the gig, or the release flops, or no one buys. When Moby-Dick flopped upon its release, Herman Melville immediately stopped attempting to write big, ambitious books, and not long after, he eventually stopped writing forever. Melville's reaction to “not getting the gig” was to allow the rejection and disappointment to swallow him to the point that he left his creative industry. I don't want that for you. I want you to have a thriving, satisfying, delightful creative business and creative career for years to come. So today, we're going to talk about how to handle the rejection that is part and parcel of living and working as an artist. Let's figure out what to do when you don't get the gig. In this episode, you will learn: Why it's important to process your feelings of disappointment after a rejection. How to find joy in the process of auditioning or submitting yourself for consideration. What a few other prominent creatives have done when they faced the reality of not getting the gig. What action steps you can take to make sure that you're giving yourself the best chance of getting the next gig. How to adjust your work in the short term so that you can get the kind of work you want in the long term. In this episode, I mention that registration is now open for the summer 2023 session of my Taming the Muse Group Workshop. I discuss Giannis Antetokounmpo's answer during a press conference on April 26, 2023, and I mention Episode 8 of the Crafting Audiobooks podcast. I consider a recent interview with writing coach Dan Blank and author Janae Marks, and I refer to Mo Willems' appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. I also reference one previous episode of this podcast: 016: The Six Components of a Thriving Creative Business. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

The feast or famine cycle is a vicious thing. If you're not familiar with that term, “feast or famine” refers to the awful roller-coaster-like situation when your business vacillates between months with tons of work, and tons of income, to months with almost no work and almost no income. There's no doubt about it: riding the feast or famine roller coaster is an awful place to be. But you, my dear friend, are not helpless. You can do something about it. You can take steps to get off that roller coaster and find a place of more peace and stability in your work schedule and in your business income. And networking – reaching out to your peers and colleagues within your creative industry – is a perfect place to start. Let's look at how you can network for feast, not famine. In this episode, you will learn: What role your mindset plays in making networking easy (or not). How sharing your experience as a creative entrepreneur can help you and those around you. Why developing a relationship with an accountability partner or accountability group can be one of the most important business decisions you ever make. What factors to consider when you're looking for that accountability partner or group. Why being kind matters in business (and in life). In this episode, I mention that registration is now open for the summer 2023 session of my Taming the Muse Group Workshop. I refer to the Merriam-Webster definitions of "marketing" and "networking," and the Wikipedia definition of "accountability partner." I also reference two previous episodes of this podcast: 016: The Six Components of a Thriving Creative Business 026: Marketing for Feast, Not Famine. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

The feast or famine cycle is the bane of every creative business and every creative entrepreneur I know. “Feast or famine cycle” refers to the stomach-dropping ride that you experience when your business flip flops from months with so much work you can't handle it and stress out like crazy (even if the resulting payday is pretty nice) – these are the feast months – and then careens down into months where your schedule is empty and you feel like you're never going to work again and you're terrified that your career is over and you have no idea how you're going to pay any of your bills because you aren't doing any work, which means you aren't making any money – these are the famine months. And I'll bet that, as you read these last few sentences, you were able to think back to months you've had in the past year or so that were both famine months and feast months. Riding the feast or famine roller coaster is common enough to be almost universal among creative entrepreneurs. And it is terrifying. But it doesn't have to be that way. You don't have to spend your creative life on that roller coaster. You can get off. And getting off starts when you intentionally market for feast, not famine. In this episode, you will learn: Why marketing is essential for all artists, and is not something that means you've “sold out.” What vital role an audience plays in your creative process. How to figure out the right marketing strategy for you and your business. What to look for in the careers of your peers and colleagues to help you in your own artistic career. Why consistent action is essential within your business marketing plan. How to use your marketing strategy to step off the “feast or famine” roller coaster. In this episode, I mention that registration is now open for the summer 2023 session of my Taming the Muse Group Workshop, and I reference one previous episode of this podcast: 007: Working in Your Creative & Financial Sweet Spot. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

Do you have any friends or colleagues who just seem lucky? Who appear to have great opportunities fall in their lap all the time? I know that, from the outside looking in, it can sometimes seem like other people have all the luck! Well, I'm here to tell you, my friend, that the appearance of luck is just that: an appearance. It doesn't match reality. Behind the scenes of that other creative's career, what you don't see is all the work they're doing to create that luck. Today, I'm going to pull back the curtain and show you how to make your own luck. You, too, can be a lucky artist. In this episode, you will learn: What's wrong with the concept of “overnight success.” Why “luck” is actually something you can create for yourself, not something that just happens on a whim. How your mindset will influence what opportunities are available to you. Why a practical, workable strategy for your business is an essential part of your creative process. What kind of action will allow you to have consistent predictable results in your business. (Goodbye feast or famine!) In short, how to make your own luck! In this episode, I mention that registration is now open for the summer 2023 session of my Taming the Muse Group Workshop, and I reference two previous episodes of this podcast: 007: Working in Your Creative & Financial Sweet Spot 011: Mindset, Strategy, and Action I also reference Merriam-Webster's definition of "mindset" and the video for the "Invisible Gorilla" experiment conducted by Chris Chabris and Dan Simons. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

Imposter syndrome. I'll bet that you have a visceral reaction just to hearing me say those two words. Every creative that I've ever known has dealt with imposter syndrome at some point during their artistic career. Imposter syndrome is virtually impossible to avoid. But it's not impossible to overcome. You are not helpless in the face of your imposter feelings. You can take steps to hit the mute button on that little devil on your shoulder whispering that you're not good enough or that your work isn't valuable. You can override imposter syndrome. Today, we're going to talk about how to do that. In this episode, you will learn: Why “comparisonitis” is dangerous to your self-esteem as an artist and how to get out of its grip. What it means to compare “like with like” as you look at others' creative achievements. Why it's never a good idea to guess what other people are thinking or to guess their motivations. (Hint: it's because human beings are really bad at this. We almost always guess wrong!) How an attitude of gratitude can completely change your emotions around your creative work. What steps you can take to make gratitude an integral part of your creative process. Why your mental model matters, and how to change it to one that supports you and your work. In this episode, I mention that registration is now open for the summer 2023 session of my Taming the Muse Group Workshop, and I reference two previous episodes of this podcast: 002: Expand What's Possible 004: An Attitude of Gratitude I also reference Wikipedia's definition of "imposter syndrome," A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

If you could go back to the very beginning of your journey as a creative entrepreneur, what would you tell yourself? What pieces of advice would have made your journey to this point a little smoother if someone had whispered them in your ear at that early stage in your career? Or, what pieces of advice were whispered in your ear, but you ignored them and learned the hard way, and now you wish you'd paid attention? What do you wish you'd known when you were embarking on this crazy, fantastical journey called creative entrepreneurship? Today, I'm going to answer those questions from my creative entrepreneurship experience and tell you the eight things I wish I'd known as a young, just-starting-out creative entrepreneur. Hopefully you can learn from some of my mistakes and missteps along the way. In this episode, you will learn: How you can use play to grow your creativity. Why celebrating your successes, no matter how small, is vital to your artistic journey. How to balance receiving advice from mentors in your field, while also making space to be your unique creative self. What role mindset plays in the development of your artistic business. Where to turn when you're not finding the opportunities you want in your creative industry. Why it's so important to know your worth as a creative. What role self-care plays in your creative business. Why kindness matters in creative entrepreneurship. In this episode, I mention that registration is now open for the summer 2023 session of my Taming the Muse Group Workshop, and I reference two previous episodes of this podcast: 002: Expand What's Possible 004: An Attitude of Gratitude I also reference my adult coloring page of my daily mantra, which originally came from Andi Arndt, and I reference the Merriam-Webster definition for the word "play." A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

One of the most common pieces of advice that business coaches give entrepreneurs is to outsource. A lot of discussion in the world of entrepreneurial coaching deals with how to build a team around you, how to delegate tasks to employees or contractors, how to work as a leader within that team. This is all excellent advice for entrepreneurs in more traditional fields, but what about artists? What about creative entrepreneurs, like you and me? If the product my business is selling is my creative energy, which by its very nature cannot be passed off to someone else, does outsourcing have a place? Can building a team help me to grow my artistic business? Today, we're going to endeavor to figure that out together. We're going to look at the role of outsourcing within your creative business. In this episode, you will learn: What outsourcing looks like for creative entrepreneurs, and how that differs from the way traditional entrepreneurs think about outsourcing. How to identify tasks that you can outsource within your creative business. What the categories of “outsourceable” tasks are within your creative business, and how to think about outsourcing within each of those categories. Why building a team of supportive personnel in your creative business could be the best business decision you ever make. In this episode, I mention that registration is now open for the summer 2023 session of my Taming the Muse Group Workshop, and I reference two previous episodes of this podcast: 016: The Six Components of a Thriving Creative Business 019: SMART Creativity A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

Our culture tells us we need to hustle and go! Work work work, busy all the time. That's what we're supposed to do right? That's what we're supposed to be. And I don't want to deny that there are elements of that mental framework that are helpful. If you're a self-employed working artist, like most of the people who listen to this podcast are, then you do have a lot on your plate. Being a solopreneur creative isn't an easy thing. But thinking that working all the time and hustling all the time is what we should be doing is a slippery slope that leads nowhere good. Your creativity has a pace to it, one that is uniquely you, and rushing that isn't a good thing. Today, we're going to talk about how to find and settle into and truly own the pace at which you work. In this episode, you're going to learn: Why it's important to view your artistic journey as uniquely yours. How comparisonitis and imposter syndrome can both lead us away from our own personal pace of work. What impact working within your unique pace can have on the quality of your artistic work. Why working within your pace is essential if you want to build a creative business that supports you holistically – personally, creatively, and financially. In this episode, I reference Merriam-Webster's definition of the word "hustle." I also reference Episode 7 of this podcast, Working in your Creative & Financial Sweet Spot. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

How do you use your time? During your work days, are you efficient and focused with your time? Time is one of our most precious and most finite resources. As artist business owners who sell our time and creativity energy, time is incredibly valuable to us. So how can you use your time effectively? Are there strategies that can help you get more done, without adding stress and overwhelm to your creative work? Today, we're going to figure that out. We're going to dive into strategies you can use to get more done. In this episode you will learn: What effectiveness and efficiency mean in terms of your creative work. How to evaluate your current processes within your craft to find ways that you can improve. What it means to work within your “best” hours, and how to figure out what those hours are. Why you need to “eat your frog” every day. How batching your non-creative tasks can help you within your creative work. Why giving yourself less time to complete a project might actually help you to get it done better. What mindset questions are important to consider as you think about your creative productivity. In this episode, I reference Paul Graham's article about the difference between Maker and Manager Time. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

When you're thinking about what you want out of your creative work, the ways in which you want to grow your artistic business, how do you figure out your strategy to get there? How do you figure out exactly what your goals should be? What goes into formulating a business strategy that will actually help and guide you, rather than one that will set on a shelf in your office, or languish in an unopened and unreferenced file on your computer? One way to make sure your business strategy is one you're going to actually use is to develop your business goals as SMART goals. This common acronym is a guide for how to write goals that you can actually achieve and that will help you stretch and grow. Let's talk about what it means to be SMART with the business strategy for our creative businesses. In this episode, you will learn: What SMART goals are and how that framework applies to you as a creative entrepreneur. Why it matters whether or not your business strategy is in alignment with your purpose for your creative work. How to find the Goldilocks Zone of goal difficulty, so that you're motivated to work toward the goal without being discouraged by it. What role goals can play in helping you grow within your artistic work How you can use goals to build a creative business that actually works. In this episode, I reference the book 26 Marathons by Meb Keflezighi. In addition, I mention several previous episodes of this podcast: 017: What You Can Control 018: Purpose and Flexibility (Goal Setting for Creatives, Part 1 of 2) I also discuss Starving & Panicked No More: Business Strategy and Text Breakdown for the Thriving Actor, my upcoming in-person workshop in New York City on March 26, 2023. If you'd like information about this event, visit my website for all the details. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

Goals and goal-setting are sometimes really hard for creatives. I work with a lot of artists who struggle to set goals within their creative work. They want the freedom to pursue any project that strikes their fancy, and they're afraid that establishing a formal business plan or writing set of strategic goals within their business will keep them from accepting work they would enjoy. Or sometimes I encounter a creative who has tried goals in the past, only to have those goals languish in a drawer or computer file somewhere – they're not quite sure where – never to be looked at again, and certainly never to be achieved. If you're a creative who has struggled with goals and goal-setting, I hope you're willing to give it one more try. I've got two mindset shifts around goals that I think will make a big difference to how you see the role of goals within your creative business. In this episode, you will learn: Why identifying the purpose that underlies your business goals is essential to actually completing those goals. How crafting a set of strategic business goals can contribute to your life and work as a creative entrepreneur. What flexibility means in terms of your business strategy. How to adjust if you realize you aren't going to be able to achieve one of your business goal. What to do when you realize that your business goals are no longer serving you or your creative business. In this episode, I reference the Merriam-Webster, Dictionary.com, and Wikipedia definitions for the word "goal." I also discuss this episode of the podcast Hidden Brain, and I read a brief excerpt from 26 Marathons by Meb Keflezighi. In addition, I reference several previous episodes of this podcast: 007: Working in your Creative & Financial Sweet Spot (Episode 3 in the 4-Part "Time & Income" Series) 011: Mindset, Strategy, and Action 014: Begin with the End in Mind I also mention Starving & Panicked No More: Business Strategy and Text Breakdown for the Thriving Actor, my upcoming in-person workshop in New York City on March 26, 2023. If you'd like information about this event, visit my website for all the details. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

What can you control in your business? You may hear me ask that question and have an instant, knee-jerk reaction. “I'm a solopreneur. I do everything in my creative business. I control it all!” Or maybe you have some people working with you, but you're still the driving force behind your business, so your reaction is more along the lines of, “I may not have my hands in every single project at every moment of every day, but that doesn't mean I'm not in charge. I control everything!” Not so fast. There's actually a lot you can't control in your business. You can't control whether or not you actually win an audition, but you can control if you submit an audition that is your best work. You can't control whether a certain casting director or personnel manager hires you, but you can control when/how you reach out to them so that you're top of mind as they're hiring. You can't control whether you get reviewed by an industry publication, but you can control whether you've reached out to the editorial department and submitted your best recent projects for consideration for a review. There's a lot you can't control within your creative business, so let's make sure that you're focusing on the things you can control. In this episode, you will learn: How to determine whether or not you have ultimate control and responsibility over a certain area of your business. Why knowing what you can control is essential to developing a workable strategy for your business. Why focusing on what you can control will improve your mindset about your creative work. In this episode, I mention Starving & Panicked No More: Business Strategy and Text Breakdown for the Thriving Actor, my upcoming in-person workshop in New York City on March 26, 2023. If you'd like information about this event, visit my website for all the details. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

What are the components that make up a thriving creative business? If you listen to business coaches who are working and teaching in the non-creative business spaces, you'll frequently hear discussions about the components of a successful business, things like providing value to customers, hiring great employees, understanding the market, employing sound financial management, et cetera et cetera. And those business coaches are correct. For a traditional business, those things are incredibly important. But what about a creative business? Do the components needed for flourishing change at all when the business in question is an artistic business, one in which the product being sold by the business is the creative work of the artist running that business? What components do creative businesses need to grow and thrive? That's the question we're going to answer today. In this episode, you will learn: What six components thriving creative businesses share in common. How to implement those six components within your creative business. Why establishing supportive habits will free you to do your best creative work. What role the financial aspects of your business play in helping your creative business thrive overall. How these six components can help you maintain a steady income in your business, getting you off the “feast or famine” roller coaster. In this episode, I reference the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definitions of systematized, marketing, and networking. I also reference this Vanity Fair article, in which US President Barak Obama talks about what he does to reduce his decision fatigue. In addition, I reference several previous episodes of this podcast: 005: The Time & Income Connection (Episode 1 in the 4-Part "Time & Income" Series) 006: Pay Yourself First (Episode 2 in the 4-Part "Time & Income" Series) 007: Working in your Creative & Financial Sweet Spot (Episode 3 in the 4-Part "Time & Income" Series) 008: Developing Asynchronous Income (Episode 4 in the 4-Part "Time & Income" Series) 010: What You Need From Your Business I also mention Starving & Panicked No More: Business Strategy and Text Breakdown for the Thriving Actor, my upcoming in-person workshop in New York City on March 26, 2023. If you'd like information about this event, visit my website for all the details. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

If you could do anything, if you had no limits whatsoever, what would you do? Where would you go? How would you grow? If the impossible became possible, what would you be just so incredibly excited to create? Perhaps, as I was asking you those questions, you journeyed with me on my little thought experiment and allowed yourself to dream. Or perhaps you resisted. “I do have limits,” you might have argued. “The impossible, by its very definition, is not possible. I need to be realistic. I can't do those things.” But what if you could? What if you could achieve those far-off dreams that you are today labeling “impossible”? What if you weren't limited? Today, we're going to stretch your concept of what you can do. We're going to challenge your limits. We're going to ask, “but what if you could?” In this episode, you will learn: What strategies you can use to quiet the internal doubts that are holding you back How to improve your mindset so you can effectively problem solve within your business What to do when you find yourself stuck in your business Why envisioning far-off pie-in-the-sky dreams for your work and your business can actually help you overcome obstacles in your business right now. In this episode, I reference the song "Impossible" from Rogers & Hammerstein's Cinderella. Here are three recordings of this son that I enjoy: Recording 1, Recording 2, and Recording 3, my favorite. (Who doesn't love Julie Andrews!) I also mention Starving & Panicked No More: Business Strategy and Text Breakdown for the Thriving Actor, my upcoming in-person workshop in New York City on March 26, 2023. If you'd like information about this event, visit my website for all the details. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

Do you know where your creative business is going? Do you know the things you want to achieve and do and create in your business in the coming year? If you do know where you want your business to go, have you taken the time to make those goals concrete and specific? Knowing where we're going in our creative work has a lot of advantages, and in today's episode we're going to talk about why it's so important for you to have a concrete image for the future of your artistic enterprise. We're going to look at why it's so important for you to begin with the end in mind. In this episode you will learn: Why beginning with the end in mind matters for your creative business. How identifying your dream goals for your business influences the business strategies you choose. How goal-setting and strategizing can actually improve your creativity and innovation. Why goal-setting leads to positive change, and how to capitalize on those changes. In this episode, I reference the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. I also reference this article from the Harvard Business Review looking at the connection between constraints and creativity. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.

Why are you a creative entrepreneur? Why are you an artist? What is the reason driving you to make a living from your art? Being a working artist is a hard life, full of ups and downs and twists and turns. So why do you do it? What is the purpose behind your choice to live the life of a creative? A lot of artists I talk to can't answer this question right away. They've never actually thought about it. Their choice to be an artist was made so long ago and was so instinctive that they can't articulate any true purpose behind it. But it is worth it to do the internal thought work necessary to determine your own personal purpose for the work that you do. Finding your why as it relates to your art will allow you to weather the ups and downs that inevitably come with the creative life. Finding your why helps you stay focused and motivated over the long-term. Finding your why gives your art purpose. In this episode, you will learn: Why finding your purpose matters to you as a creative entrepreneur. How you can use your why to nurture your intrinsic motivation. What a Values Ladder and a Values Map are, and how to use them to help you identify your purpose. Which questions to consider as you do the introspective work of finding your why. In this episode, I reference a quote from Josh Spector, writer of the "For the Interested" newsletter. A full transcript of this episode can be found here. Full transcripts of every episode will always be available at the Starving Artist No More Blog. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, with any questions, comments, or feedback. I'd love to hear from you.