I came across the idea of blogging in Seth Godin’s ebook Who’s There?. It’s hard to imagine now, but in 2006 the idea of publishing your ideas on a business website, instead of just sales copy, felt like a radical step.

A well-meaning friend, who had a lot more business experience than me, gave me a dire warning about ‘Giving away your valuable intellectual property for free’.

Others tut-tutted and wondered ‘Where do you find the time?’ – the implication being it was clearly a waste of time, and I couldn’t have much else on my plate.

In fact, I was insanely busy. But I decided to make time – by getting up an hour early every morning to write.

I chose to ignore the people I knew in person and listen to people on the internet.

First Seth, then Brian Clark, whose recently-launched Copyblogger website had me at the tagline: How to sell with blogs, email and RSS.

Within a few weeks, I looked at my stats and saw I had readers scattered all over the world.

Within a few months, my blog was attracting not just subscribers, but coaching and training clients.

Within a couple of years, I was in partnership with Brian Clark, and learning the craft of writing for an audience first-hand from his mentoring (and judicious editing of my blog posts!).

With Brian, Tony D. Clark and Sonia Simone, we created and launched an e-learning program for creative entrepreneurs. And by the time we parted ways to pursue our different projects, I had served a valuable apprenticeship in what is now called content marketing.

Everything I’ve written and published since – hundreds of blog posts, four books for creatives and two podcasts – began with that first blog post.

Thank you Brian, Tony, Sonia, Seth, and Naomi Dunford. The skills I learned from you have shaped everything I’ve built since.

You helped me serve my readers and listeners – and attract the kind of inspiring and ambitious creatives I love to coach.

That blog means Mami and I can live where we want to (we chose Bristol) while running our business and being there for our children.

And it all began with a single, unremarkable blog post.

So if you’re reading this and thinking of starting something new, full of excitement but also hearing the voice of doubt in your head (and maybe in your social circle), then let me share with you what I’ve learned, twenty years on:

Firstly, I’m not linking to that blog post because I deleted it a while ago. And I deleted it because it was a bit rubbish – not terrible, just very bland.

But most things are a bit rubbish when you start out. (You can rest assured I burned most of my earliest poems years ago.)

That blog post didn’t matter because of what I wrote. It mattered because I wrote.

It was the start of a writing habit that has helped a lot of people over the past twenty years – and helped me grow my business and create the life I want.

Secondly, my blogging went from a bit rubbish to pretty good to powering my business because I made it my business to get better at writing – by seeking out the best teachers I could find, as soon as possible.

Thirdly, I remember feeling very anxious about the possibility of wasting my time. I wanted to know whether the blog would ‘work’ – by which I meant, ‘Will it help me sell my training workshops to agencies and studios in London?’

The good news is, the blog did help me sell some training. But the even better news is, it did a whole lot more.

If you had told me back on Valentine’s Day 2006 that writing that blog would not only attract readers and friends around the world, but also coaching clients on six continents, and gigs in Europe, the Middle East and the USA, I would have been open-mouthed.

Back then, I had never heard of podcasting or self-publishing, so those were adventures I couldn’t imagine – yet which my experience as a blogger equipped me for.

By the time I launched my first podcast, in 2017, I had learned one big thing from blogging. As I said to Mami:

‘The best thing about launching this podcast is I don’t know where it will take me’.

So if you’re thinking of starting something new, and wondering whether you’ll be any good, or feeling anxious about whether it will ‘work’ or turn out to be a colossal waste of time, remember these three things:

1. It might be a bit rubbish to begin with – and that’s OK.

2. Find the best teachers you can, as soon as you can.

3. Right now, you don’t know where it will take you – and that’s the best thing about it.

The post The Blog Post That Changed My Life (Twenty Years Later) appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

The idea of instant creativity is one reason many creatives hate AI, as a parasite on their work and a threat to creative jobs. Not to mention their work being used without permission for AI training.

And for those of us who have spent years honing a craft, there’s a deeper anxiety: that the ‘efficiency’ of AI comes at the cost of the human spark. It feels less like a tool and more like a replacement for the very soul of what we do.

Which is a shame. Because AI does have a lot to offer in the creative sphere – just not in the way many techno-evangelists are claiming.

Professional artists and creatives know that real creativity is complex. It’s an iterative process, involving different types of work at different stages. For us, the real question isn’t ‘Can AI be creative?’ – it’s ‘How can AI amplify human creativity?’

AI and Human Creativity: It’s about Process, Not Just pressing a button

As a poet and a creative coach, I know the creative process as a practitioner, and also as a facilitator of others’ creativity.

It’s possible to identify several aspects or stages of the process, that are broadly similar across the arts and creative industries. And there’s no reason why creators can’t use AI at any or all of these stages, while retaining ownership of the vision and finished work.

If you’re reading this, I imagine you are a professional artist or creative, who may have reservations about aspects of AI, but who is also curious about what it can bring to your creative practice. I’m writing this to share what I’m learning, in the hope you will find it useful.

Before we dive in, here are a few assumptions I’m making:

• You are the creator; AI is an optional tool/collaborator/assistant.
• You are open-minded about AI’s potential, while sceptical of the hype and hysteria.
• You want to preserve and practice your core skills, and use AI to extend, not replace, them.
• You want to respect others’ intellectual property and protect your own.

I’ve gathered a lot of ideas and examples in this article, to give you practical ways to use AI in your creative process, in seven different areas:

1. Developing Ideas
2. Research
3. Sketching and Drafting
4. Doing the Previously Impossible
5. Collaborating with Yourself
6. Feedback and Revision
7. Pitching and Promoting

1. Developing Ideas

Yes, AI can generate ideas, of varying quality. But coming up with new ideas isn’t generally a problem for creative professionals. We usually start with at least a kernel of an idea. For us, AI is more useful at helping us develop our ideas.

We typically do this either alone, with a notebook, sketchpad or voice recorder, or in dialogue with a trusted friend or collaborator. Now, AI gives us a third option at this early stage of the creative process…

Where AI can help

Starting a conversation with AI can be a great way to both capture and extend your ideas.

AI isn’t a substitute for talking to a human being, but it does have two advantages over most people you know: it’s always available, even at 3am, when an idea strikes and you want to talk about it; and it has instant deep knowledge across most domains, that can be invaluable in exploring the potential of your idea.

You can’t rely on it to get all the facts right, so later on, you’ll need to fact-check rigorously. But for this early stage, its overview of a topic is generally good enough to explore possibilities.

ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus is currently incorporating AI into his creative process as he writes a new musical, as he told an audience at SXSW London:

A misconception is that AI can write a whole song. It’s lousy at that – very bad. And thank God! It’s very bad at lyrics as well. But it can give you ideas.

You have written a lyric about something, and you’re stuck maybe, and you want this song to be in a certain style. So you can prompt the lyric and the style you want, asking, ‘Where would you go from here?’… And it usually comes up with garbage, but sometimes there is something in it that gives you another idea. That’s how it works.

It’s like having another songwriter in the room with huge reference frames. It is really an extension of your mind.
The Hollywood Reporter

Things to try

Talk to the AI as if you were sharing an idea with a friend. Using voice mode makes it more like a real conversation, but voice vs text is a matter of personal preference. Either option gives you a transcript that can be useful at later stages of the project.

I have this idea… what do you think?

Here’s my idea in three sentences. What parts feel strongest, and what feels generic or overfamiliar?

As the conversation develops, ask it to help you extend the idea:

What else can I add to it?

What else could this be?

Who would value it most?

Where else could it be useful?

Writer and founder Stew Fortier asks AI to ‘reverse interview’ him, by asking questions about the idea. Here’s a prompt (not Fortier’s) to get started:

Act as a curious interviewer. Ask me ten questions that would help you understand what’s really interesting about this idea.

You can also get it to nudge you into action:

Where should I start?

What’s the minimum viable version of this idea, that I could show to potential collaborators?

If I were on a shoestring budget, what version(s) of this idea could still work?

Boundaries and pitfalls

Don’t rely on AI to do all the heavy lifting for you. Research has shown that group brainstorming sessions work better if everyone has done some work beforehand, generating ideas on their own.

My experience is that the best AI sessions are often like this – I work on the idea myself in my notebook, then talk to the AI once I’ve reached a natural pause, and I want another perspective on it. This makes the AI conversation more productive – it gives the AI more to work with, and crucially, it means I’m developing my ideas rather than the bot’s.

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2. Research

Ideas need to be grounded in reality if they are to work, most obviously in the case of non-fiction books, or the laws of physics for buildings or furniture.

Even if you’re writing a fantasy novel, you want to make sure your storyworld won’t seem too familiar to aficionados of the genre. And you definitely want to avoid plagiarism. When the melody for ‘Yesterday’ came to Paul McCartney in a dream, he worried that he might have heard it before:

For about a month I went round to people in the music business and asked them whether they had ever heard it before. Eventually it became like handing something in to the police. I thought if no one claimed it after a few weeks then I could have it.

But that was yesterday. Today’s creators can save themselves a lot of time in the early stages of a project, by enlisting AI as a virtual research assistant.

Where AI can help

For those of us without a large research library on our doorstep, AI research tools are a big step forward compared to searching Google, article databases, library catalogues etc. AI can search and synthesise much faster than a human, so instead of a collection of links, AI can give you an overview of a topic, with recommendations for key texts to read.

You can also ask AI to help you test your assumptions, and look for evidence for and against your hunch or hypothesis. In a commercial context, market research can be crucial.

AI can help you avoid the kind of unconscious plagiarism McCartney was concerned about. More than that, it can be a great ‘originality filter’ – give it your idea or a sample of your work and ask it how fresh and original it is, compared to what has been done before.

Some artists are even using research data itself as material for new kinds of art, such as the stunning ‘Archive Dreaming – AI Data Sculpture’ Refik Anadol created for SALT Research

Things to try

To get started on a new topic, ask:

Give me an overview of this subject, including where the consensus is strongest, and what issues are still contested.

Who are the leading experts on this topic? What do they say?

Give me 5 essential books to read on this topic, that cover it from different angles.

Test a hypothesis using academic AI research tools, such as Scite, Elicit or Consensus:

My hypothesis is X… but what does the research say?

What supporting evidence can you find? What challenges it?

Cite sources – and tell me what each source supports.

Avoid inadvertent plagiarism using tools such as Scribbr (writing), MIPPIA (music), and AI-based visual similarity search tools (e.g. Google Lens).

Discover how original your work is, by asking an AI:

Has anyone done something meaningfully similar before?

And direct the AI to search in specific areas, for example:

Writers: search across genres, not just your own. Look for:

• earlier novels, short stories, essays
• mythological or folkloric precedents
• non-fiction treatments of the same theme

Visual artists and designers:

• Museum and gallery archives
• Reverse image search
• Design history books and patent databases (for functional objects)

Filmmakers and media creators:

• Festival catalogues
• Interviews and production notes
• Earlier works by the same director or movement

AI will almost certainly find some similarities with previous works – it’s your job to decide whether the overlap is superficial, problematic or complementary.

Boundaries and pitfalls

Large Language Models (LLMs) are notorious for hallucinating, so always ask for sources! I’ve trained ChatGPT to give me a literature overview and confidence rating (‘low-moderate-high’) about its findings on any given topic.

And when the outcome really matters, and you’re dealing with a subject outside your field of knowledge, there comes a point where you need to talk to an actual human expert or researcher, who can give you the in-depth knowledge and reassurance you require. Because if something goes wrong, the buck will stop with you.

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3. Sketching and Drafting

This is where the talking and thinking stops, and the actual creating begins: the writer’s first draft, the artist’s sketches, the screenwriter’s storyboard, the musician’s demos.

For many creators this is the most exciting stage of the creative process, when ideas start to become real and concrete. AI offers us some intriguing new options at this stage – and also some important decisions.

Where AI can help

Here’s where I’m a little hardcore: as a writer, I insist on writing the first draft myself. Especially when it comes to poetry. The idea of asking a bot to write the draft of a poem strikes me as ridiculous. Even when it comes to prose, I write the draft myself. Otherwise I feel like I would be missing out on something essential.

But I’m at one end of a spectrum here… I know some excellent writers who have trained an AI on their entire back catalogue and use it to generate a first draft, which they then edit extensively, to get to a version they are happy with.

Many writers, screenwriters and directors use AI for structure and scaffolding – outlining chapters, or building storyboards, beat sheets and shot lists, which are then worked over by humans.

Another emerging use of Generative AI is to create concept art and other visuals to aid discussion and collaboration between professionals with different skill sets. A character or scene visualisation can help a screenwriter convey the essence of a script to a director or cinematographer.

Zaha Hadid Architects use AI in client presentations, to render design options during a meeting, so that ‘it helps [clients] participate in their own building’.

Things to try

Generate multiple rough versions of the same thing and develop the one(s) you like:

Give me 5 radically different openings / thumbnails / 8-bar loops / blocking ideas for this concept. Keep the core premise, change the energy and form.

Ask AI to help you develop a structure for your work, such as the outline of your book, a storyboard, beat sheet, etc.

Create collaboration material – such as character and scene visualisations, diagrams, flow charts, and promo materials. Crucially, these don’t need to be finished to a professional standard; they are to facilitate discussion and collaboration, so as long as they spark a useful conversation, they are doing their job.

If you’re feeling brave, and if you trust the model’s security settings, you could upload your work and ask it to help you generate new drafts and sketches in your own style.

Get more original or edgier results with an anti-blandness rule – whenever you ask AI for options, also ask for one version that deliberately violates your own habits or preferences, and one that risks being unpopular or uncomfortable.

Performers – generate rehearsal prompts:

Create 8 improv prompts / movement scores / acting objectives for this piece, each with a clear playable constraint and a 60–120 second duration.

Boundaries and pitfalls

The more material you allow the AI to generate on your behalf, the bigger the risk of blandness, or of losing touch with your craft skills. You also risk freezing your style – if the AI is creating options based on your current style, you are less likely to evolve into a new one.

And however thoughtful and skilful your use of AI, using it at all can be controversial. Pentagram attracted heated criticism for using Midjourney to create a set of 1,500 logos for a US Government website – even though they started the process with their own handmade paint and cut-paper designs.

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4. Doing the Previously Impossible

Artists have always used new technology to extend the possibilities of their medium.

The ancient Greeks used stage machinery to enable gods to descend onto the stage as if from the heavens.

In the 1920s, the development of high quality microphones was exploited by the crooners – singers who used the intimacy of the microphone to create a new type of seductive vocal performance.

In just over a century, filmmaking went from blurry black and white silent pictures, to immersive HD worlds that could never exist, with actors playing characters who look completely different to them, such as Andy Serkis’ Gollum.

AI once again gives creators the opportunity to radically reinvent and extend their work.

Where AI can help

In ‘Creativity and Artificial Intelligence’, an influential paper published in 1998, the cognitive scientist Margaret Boden proposed that ‘AI techniques can be used to create new ideas… by making transformations that enable the generation of previously impossible ideas’.

Now we are entering a period of experimentation, as artists and creatives explore the potential of new AI tools.

Some screenwriters are going beyond using AI to create visuals for collaborating and pitching, and using the tools to create the actual movie. AI short films are becoming a new category, represented at the Reply AI Film Festival.

While many artists are concerned about their work or image being used by AI, others are actively encouraging the idea. The musician Grimes wrote on X in April 2024:

I’ll split 50% royalties on any successful AI generated song that uses my voice. Same deal as I would with any artist i collab with … Feel free to use my voice without penalty.

The artist Sougwen Chung sees AI as an opportunity to create a new kind of art, as described in an Observer article about her collaboration with an AI-powered robot in front of a live audience:

The artist begins planting broad brushstrokes onto the canvas while wearing an EEG headset that monitors their brainwaves. Minutes later, they give paintbrushes to the bespoke robotic system… which has been fed with Chung’s movement and spatial data that lets it paint on its own. Working in unison, they and it engage with each other without using words; instead, their conversation is recorded on canvas in shades of blue.

Vibe coding removes technical barriers to entry when it comes to building software: non-coders tell the AI what they want to create, and ask it to write the code for them. Like AI films, vibe coding is spawning new genres, via app hackathons and game jams.

Things to try

The simplest way to get started is to ask the AI to be your guide:

I’m a [writer/artist/musician etc.] Here are some examples of my work.

What new creative possibilities can you offer me?

What can you help me do, that I couldn’t do before?

Or think of something you’ve always wanted to do, but assumed it was out of your reach – because you didn’t have the skills, collaborators, budget, or other requirements. Tell the AI about your dream project and ask it to help you.

Experiment with a new medium. If you’re a writer, trying making music. If you’re a musician, try painting or movie making. And so on.

Try vibe coding. If you could create an app or a game or another piece of software, what would you build? Describe it to the AI and ask it to help you build it.

Treat all of the above as experiments and don’t get too perfectionistic about them. You may not end up with work that is finished to a professional standard, but playing with AI can help you stretch your imagination in different directions.

Some experiments will be more successful than others – you may be surprised to discover how easy your idea is, or how hard. But don’t worry about this in advance. Tell the AI what you want to do, and ask it to act as your guide and lead you through the process of making it happen.

Boundaries and pitfalls

Attempts to work in unfamiliar media often expose the fact that technical skills aren’t the only barriers to entry. A writer might create a film that looks superficially impressive, but because they don’t have the skills of a director, cinematographer or film editor, it drags for the viewer.

Vibe coding has a lot of exciting potential – and often faults or security vulnerabilities that limit its usefulness.

Even when an artist overcomes the artistic and technical obstacles and produces work that finds an enthusiastic audience, they can still encounter legal issues and industry backlash.

In 2022 Kris Kashtanova wrote a comic book, Zarya of the Dawn, and illustrated it by generating images with Midjourney. But the US Copyright Office revoked protection for the images, after concluding they were not human-generated. And many in the comics industry have taken a strong stance against AI-generated art, so creators like Kashtanova risk the ire of human illustrators.

So if you want to take your AI experiments out of the studio and into the marketplace, you may need a thick skin for criticism and a good copyright lawyer.

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5. Collaborating with Yourself

Many artists have built on their own previous work, incorporating themes and motifs from their previous work and developing them in new ways. Think Rembrandt’s self portraits, Yayoi Kusama’s dots, and Honoré de Balzac’s La Comédie Humaine, with characters reappearing across different novels.

AI gives creators new ways of exploring and experiencing their own work, and new ways to ‘collaborate’ with their own past selves.

Where AI can help

Whereas Doing the Previously Impossible is about breadth, extending yourself outside your usual creative domain, Collaborating with Yourself is about depth – making new discoveries in the latent potential of your own oeuvre.

I use the word ‘collaborate’ because the user-friendliness of today’s AIs means we can engage with our own work in playful, insightful and potentially creative ways.

In his book The Creativity Code Marcus du Sautoy describes The Continuator, an AI musical jamming partner, trained on a musician’s own work, and quotes jazz musician Bernard Lubat:

the system shows me ideas I could have developed, but that would have taken me years to actually develop.

It is years ahead of me, yet everything it plays is unquestionably me.

Watch a video of Lubat jamming with the Continuator.

The DJ and producer Reinier Zonneveld extends the jamming from the studio into performance, playing live sets in tandem with an AI clone of his ‘musical brain’:

To my knowledge, no one else has tried a project like this, partly because I don’t think anyone has access to as much data as we did… I’m such a music nerd, I have all of my recordings… which has put me in this unique position of being able to train AI purely through my music.
Music Radar

Choreographer Wayne McGregor has collaborated with Google Arts and Culture Lab on AISOMA, a choreographic tool fed on hours of footage from McGregor’s archive.

It generates new options for movements, based on the archive footage, which McGregor can incorporate if he likes them:

The choices are still mine. I’m the source, I’m the person at the beginning,” he says. “I see this more as an opportunity – I love being in the game.
Wired.

Painter David Salle has trained a custom model on his previous work to generate starting points that he then transforms into finished paintings. Far from freezing his style, he says machine learning allows him to explore many more possibilities than he would have time for on his own:

The machine can synthesise things in a matter of seconds… This evolution in painterly terms might take years or even decades.
The Guardian

Things to try

AI can help you analyse your own work in different ways.

A fun place to start is to upload a piece of work to Google Notebook LM and ask it to perform its party trick of generating an Audio Overview – a podcast episode with two (virtual) presenters discussing your work.

Other ways you can use AI to analyse your work include:

• Theme mining: ‘List the recurring obsessions in my writing/painting/music; show me supporting passages.’
• Motif map: ‘Generate a mind-map of phrases/images//melodic patterns I keep returning to.’
• Identifying polarities: ‘What tensions or contradictions are central to my work?’
• Blind spot spotter: ‘What’s missing from my work? What could I be avoiding?’
• Continuity checker: for long projects, have it build a ‘world bible’ (characters, rules, timeline) and flag contradictions.

If you want to go beyond analysis, you can upload your work to an AI (caveats below) and ask it to generate new options based on your previous work – images, plot ideas, melodies, physical movements, etc. You may get better results by giving specific prompts based on your own knowledge of the crucial elements at play – e.g. ask it to keep one element the same (palette, tempo, character desire, movement quality) while changing another element.

Or you might like to try artificial synaesthesia – upload a poem and ask the AI to turn it into music. Or turn your music into a painting, or a video, or a poem, etc.

Boundaries and pitfalls

Be very careful about uploading your work to any AI. Read the small print and check the security options – especially whether or not you are granting permission to use your work for training.

Personally, I’m OK with uploading the books for creatives that I’ve already published, but there’s no way I would upload the unpublished manuscript of my poetry collection.

An obvious creative risk is becoming too dependent on the AI for new ideas, and cannibalising your own work, so that it feels imitative. So it makes sense to also keep developing completely new work in your usual way.

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6. Feedback and Revision

This is the ‘good to great’ of creative work. In spite of the popular image of inspiration, very few great artworks have been channeled in a single burst of creativity, and presented to the world without significant reworking.

Often, the difference between pretty good and apparent genius is a willingness to keep coming back to the work, looking at it from all angles, and refining it. AI can give you a lot of new options in this area, and can even make this part of the process enjoyable.

Where AI can help

For me, this is one of the most valuable uses of AI. I like to write a draft and then ask it for different types of feedback: starting with logic and fact checking, and moving on to the more imaginative process of asking it to adopt the persona of my ideal reader(s) and tell me how they respond to my writing – emotionally as well as intellectually.

I haven’t completely rewritten a piece based on AI feedback; what typically happens is it shows me areas where I may not have fully taken into account a reader’s perspective or situation, which feeds into my thinking about the next draft.

I don’t use AI to write poetry, but when I showed it a few of my poems and asked it to describe my poetic style, it was surprisingly accurate and insightful. It also made a few connections between my performances on my poetry podcast and the style of my written poems that I hadn’t noticed before.

The same approach works for images, sound, performance and design – you’re using AI as a second set of eyes/ears.

There is an emerging market in custom-built feedback tools. Logo Rank is designed to critique an uploaded logo on criteria such as uniqueness, legibility, and color/contrast, then provide suggestions for improvement.

Photographer Trey Ratcliff has built a ‘virtual art director’ version of himself to critique photos.He trained a custom GPT on his own books and blog posts, to give compositional and aesthetic critique of users’ photos – essentially ‘How would Trey see this?’

AI can also provide technical help with post-production. If you are a photographer, filmmaker, musician, producer, film editor or another role that combines creativity and technology, there is a mind-boggling array of AI tools to take the grind out of the process while giving you control of the creatively crucial decisions.

Things to try

AI can help you improve your work with different types of feedback and a range of technical tools.

If you regularly work on the same kind of projects, create a ‘feedback flowchart’, to ensure that you evaluate each piece of work in a consistent and rigorous process.

Big picture patterns. For instance:

• Storytelling – narrative and emotional arcs, character development, inevitability vs. surprise, stakes and consequence, unity of theme
• Art and illustration – visual hierarchy, overall balance / imbalance, dominant vs. subordinate elements, harmony vs. tension, where attention rests vs. travels
• Music – overall emotional journey, tension and release, contrast vs. continuity, unity of sonic world
• Performance – attention arc, energy modulation, presence and authority, relationships (solo – ensemble – audience), contrast and surprise

Audience personas:

• Describe your ideal reader/viewer/listener
• Ask the AI to give feedback as this persona – How do they feel about the work?
• What do they like/dislike or agree/disagree with?
• Repeat with as many personas as you like – useful when your audience is composed of different types of people, and you can expect a range of responses.

An informed critique:

• Ask the AI to act as an knowledgeable critic, an expert in your field, and give you feedback based on their domain knowledge and professional standards.
• This may well differ from the audience persona feedback above, and can help you take your work to a higher level.
• Depending on your goals (and emotional sensitivity!) you can ask it to take a more ‘incisive’ or ‘encouraging’ approach.
• You can also ask for a critique from a certain aesthetic or intellectual viewpoint, if relevant to your work.

Technical refinement:

• Photography – culling, exposure and white balance, noise reduction and sharpening, retouching and cleanup, batch export, metadata
• Film and video – transcription and text-based editing, stabilisation, shot matching, rotoscoping and masking, captions and subtitles
• Music – noise cleanup and restoration, stems and source separation, timing and pitch correction, mixing, mastering
• Design – design system consistency, accessibility checks, layout and responsive checks, asset export, design handoff

Checking crucial details. Depending on your media, these can include:

• Fact checking
• Logical errors
• Spelling and grammar
• Copyright infringement

Boundaries and pitfalls

When it comes to making art to connect with humans, there’s no substitute for the real thing. Virtual beta readers can help you anticipate human response, they are quick and easy to use. But at some point you need to put it in front of the people you’re creating it for. There are no guarantees they will like it, but AI feedback can help you give them your best work.

And with just about every AI tool, beware of the tendency towards blandness and conventional taste; if necessary, ask for feedback based on your very specific taste and attitude, and give it examples of the kind of work you want to benchmark yourself against.

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7. Pitching and Promoting

Even when your work is finished, it’s not finished. You need to present it to the world – by pitching potential clients or collaborators, or promoting it to your audience or customers.

AI gives you some intriguing new options in this sphere, starting with the emotional challenges.

Where AI can help

Creators often struggle with self-promotion. Sometimes this is shyness. But it’s also about being so immersed in the work that it’s hard to see it as others do.

AI can shift your perspective, bypassing your ego, and showing you the work as it is, and why it will (or won’t!) appeal to others.

It can also analyse a complex product – such as a book, movie script, or product design – and give you a structure that highlights the most attractive elements.

When I uploaded one of my books for creatives to ChatGPT and challenged it to write a better sales page than the one I had written, it gave me a genuinely fresh look at my own book. It highlighted things that were important to my ideal reader, but which I had left out. I rewrote most of the actual copy, but it was still a valuable exercise.

AI can also help you sprinkle some ‘previously impossible’ magic on crucial pitches. Business Insider shares a story from Elena Knox, when she was Executive Creative Director at BBDO New York:

Knox said she was using AI to sell ambitious concepts to clients. She and her team used tools such as Midjourney to bring to life a vision of an office where tree growth exploded into it before landing the viewer in a forest in the form of a GIF. It convinced the client to invest a multimillion-dollar production budget for shoots in New Zealand and Bulgaria.

‘Before you would have had to spend hours comping that, and the image wouldn’t have existed,’ Knox said. ‘In AI, we were able to make a quick GIF of it and show the clients: This is what we want to film.’

Things to try

Avatars

First, develop a clear image of your ideal reader, customer, viewer or user – what marketers call an avatar.

This is what I know about my ideal reader/customer/viewer/user. What else can you infer about them, that will help us clarify who they are and what they want?

Once the avatar is clear, ask:

Here’s my work – which aspects of this will be most attractive or useful to them?

Angles

An angle is a specific, truthful way of describing your work highlights one aspect of it that will be attractive to someone else.

Show your work to to the AI and ask it to list 10-20 angles, explaining its appeal to different people for different reasons. Then pick the ones that feel most compelling.

Types of angle to ask for:

• Craft / process angle
  What did I do that was unusually hard, meticulous, or revealing?
• Problem solved / value delivered
  What does this work do for the audience – emotionally, practically, socially?
• Origin story
  What question, wound or fascination generated it?
• Cultural moment angle
  Why now? What’s happening in the world that makes this resonate?
• Audience identity angle
  ‘For people who…’
• Comparative angle
  Two or three comparable works – but with why (e.g., ‘X’s intimacy + Y’s structural weirdness,’ not simply ‘for fans of X’ only)

Authentic outreach

Used wisely, AI can help you find collaborators for your project, such as curators, producers, investors, editors and agents.

You can show it your work and ask for a shortlist. You can ask it to research each potential partner. You can even ask it to draft an outreach email, based on what it knows about you and them.

But you should never use any of this as a substitute for getting to know someone’s work, and giving serious thought to whether your project might be a good fit for them. When it comes to the email, the final draft should be authentically yours. Anything less is disrespectful to them, and a big risk for you.

Promo materials

The same goes for promo materials such as:

• Sales pages
• Pitch decks
• Press releases
• Proposals for clients or grants
• Emails to potential collaborators
• Summaries and show notes – e.g. for an hour long podcast
• Social media posts

It’s a risk to just ask the bot to write them for you. Treat its outputs as scaffolding or primers, to be revised into your own voice.

Boundaries and pitfalls

These days, everyone is on high alert for anything that looks AI-generated – so don’t believe the hype about marketing materials at the touch of a button. As with any creative work, AI is best used to help you iterate to a final product – or to feed into your brief for a marketing professional.

Final Thoughts

AI is not creative in its own right. But in the hands of a skilled professional, it has a range of applications at different stages of the creative process.

We don’t have to look far to see the pitfalls of AI, or examples of it being used badly. But used well, it can widen the field of possibility, amplify your thinking and reflect your own work back to you in unfamiliar ways.

Most of the examples I’ve given show creators using AI as a stimulus to their own thinking, scaffolding to be painted or drafted over, or a mirror to see themselves and their work in a different light.

However much (or little) you use AI, your taste and judgment are essential to producing great work.

I hope this piece has given you some food for thought – and your experiments bring some welcome surprises.

The post 7 Ways to Use AI in Your Creative Process (without Losing Your Soul) appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

So-called authors are using AI to publish books they generate in a matter of hours with a few prompts, flooding Amazon with mediocrity. The problem got so bad, Amazon has limited Kindle authors to publishing (only!) three books per day.

Spotify has removed tens of thousands of AI-generated songs. By May 2025 it was estimated that nearly half of the images on Adobe Stock were AI-generated. In October 2025 scores of AI Bollywood videos were deleted from YouTube.

AI is also infiltrating the work of major studios and production companies, either directly, with the use of AI-generated sequences in TV series such as Secret Invasion, or indirectly, via data-driven commissioning that leads to the ‘algorithm movie’, described by critic Phil Hoad as ‘the kind of generic product that clogs up streaming platforms and seems designed to appeal to the broadest audience possible’.

How on earth can we as creative professionals compete with the tidal wave of AI content?

It feels overwhelming as well as deeply dispiriting to scroll through reams and reams of so-so writing, images, music and videos.

The sad thing is, a lot of people think this stuff is OK, even good. They don’t see the garishness, the blandness, the gaucheness, the sheer lack of taste that are obvious to you and me as professionals.

The AI hype cycle is in full swing in the press and online, with (often erroneous) stories of AI outperforming human artists.

And that’s before we get to the economic implications. Some clients and employers are inevitably thinking: ‘If a machine can create something in an instant, why would I pay a human to do it more slowly?’

Hence the stories about creative jobs disappearing, and freelance work drying up because people without a creative bone in their body think they can generate all the content they need by pressing a button.

No wonder I’m seeing a lot of anger and grief among artists and creatives. It’s obvious to us that AI art is not real art. That creativity is an iterative process, not an instant one, whether or not you involve AI. But it’s clearly not obvious not to everyone.

It feels like skills we have acquired through a lifetime of painstaking effort are being rendered obsolete. And the bots – which have been trained on creatives’ work without our permission –are coming for our livelihood as well as our craft skills.

As a poet myself, I write in metrical verse, a traditional style that sounds fantastic, but which takes years of practice to do well. I’ve spent decades practising, to the point where I’m approaching some level of fluency.

So how would I feel about a robot coming along and reeling off thousands of lines of well-crafted blank verse? Or an exquisite sonnet sequence? You can probably imagine.

Fortunately for me, poets don’t have bosses or clients to answer to. I can write what I like. But if you’re working in any kind of commercial creative field, you likely have people around you who have little interest in your craft skills, only results.

So how can you ensure that you don’t find yourself pushed out of the value chain by an algorithm?

Be the Artist in the Loop

In his book Reshuffle, Sangeet Paul Choudary recounts a prediction made by the AI guru Geoffrey Hinton in 2016, that AI would soon replace radiologists. Trained on vast image datasets, AI can outperform even expert humans when it comes to detecting disease from scans. So it seemed like a matter of time before it replaced human radiologists. Yet the profession continues to thrive.

So how come the radiologists weren’t all made redundant?

Because behind every X-ray there is a human being whose life is on the line. They are not just an image on the screen. They need assurance that the diagnosis is correct. They need someone to interpret the findings and help them come to terms with bad news. They need someone to help them make informed decisions about their course of treatment.

It turns out that making a diagnosis from an image is a surprisingly small part of a radiologist’s job. AI can’t (currently) do the rest. And it’s debatable whether we will ever reach the point where patients don’t want any human interaction in the course of their treatment for a life-threatening illness.

Medicine is just one high-stakes field where deploying AI requires having a human in the loop – acting as a supervisor, a control mechanism, a safety catch, and a facilitator of what happens next.

Other fields where the human in the loop is critical include business, education and the military.

Because if you are building software, it matters that it works. If you are producing accounts, it matters that they are accurate. If you are teaching the next generation, it matters that they learn. If you create a killer robot, it matters that you can control it.

You can’t just leave these things to AI, however dazzling its performance looks at first glance. Because AI is prone to hallucination and other errors. It has no idea whether it got the answer right or wrong. And it doesn’t understand the human context in which it is operating. It does not take responsibility for results – and cannot be held accountable.

When it comes to creative work, we are not typically dealing with matters of life and death. But in a professional context, the outcome always matters.

It matters whether a piece of art or music means something to its audience, and makes them feel something. It matters whether a marketing campaign appeals to consumers, or puts them off. It matters whether a book or a movie brings something fresh, original, and meaningful to the humans it is created for.

In the creative industries, this is not just a question of artistic integrity – there is a lot of money riding on the outcome.

And when outcomes matter, someone has to own the choice. Machines can generate; only humans can be accountable for results. And the person who sets the standard and signs off on the work keeps their place at the table.

So when it comes to creative work, who is in the best position to be the human in the loop – the quality filter and the person who takes responsibility for the work?

I humbly submit that it’s someone who has spent their life immersing themselves in a creative field, to the point where they know it inside out.

Someone who has a finely honed aesthetic taste and an instinct for what will appeal to an audience.

Someone like you, the creative professional.

No matter how much we automate the generation of media we still need the Artist in the Loop – to sift out the wheat from the chaff, and to make the finished work the best it can be. Because everyone has a stake in that.

Taste and judgment: your professional edge

Creativity is more than inspiration. It’s also more than perspiration – putting in the hours, honing your craft, working patiently until the work is finished to its fingertips.

As I wrote years ago, creativity also involves your critical faculty: knowing whether something is good, being able to look at a piece of work and judge it on its merits; figuring out what works and what doesn’t; knowing how to improve it and how to present it to the world.

In short, it requires having impeccable taste.

Many of us start with a rough first draft or sketch. Writers warm up with free writing, scribbling down the first things that come into their head. Musicians noodle around with ideas, improvising alone or jamming with others. Artists ‘take a line for a walk’, in Paul Klee’s phrase, allowing the hand free rein to make marks on the paper or canvas.

But most of us don’t release these first drafts and sketches, contrary to the myth of untrammelled inspiration. We revisit and revise and rework them, until we are satisfied with the final result. So our judgment and taste are vital to the creative process.

A few years ago, I interviewed Tyler Hobbs, an artist who generates his work by writing computer code. I had reached out to interview Tyler because I was fascinated by such an alien-sounding way of working. But as he described his creative process to me, I felt a flash of recognition.

Tyler writes a piece of code that will produce an image, or a series of images:

The programs that I create tend to involve a lot of randomness. And the randomness is used very carefully and very deliberately. I might use it anywhere from the high-level structure of the image in terms of how large forms and shapes are placed and organised, all the way down to very fine details, little random rough edges and splatters and things like that. I also use randomness for colours and colour selection. So every time that I run the program, I get a different output.

This means that he cannot predict the image that the software will produce:

It flashes up on the screen. And that moment can be very exciting. There have definitely been a lot of moments where I make a change not knowing what the output is going to be. And I see the results and suddenly I know where this piece is going. Like it’s the ‘aha’ moment. It clicks when I see that image. And since a lot of my work kind of begins by stumbling around in the dark, there’s usually that kind of one critical change that really puts the … I see it and then I know what the structure of the work needs to be like.

So Tyler embraces randomness and surprise, but he also reviews the output and uses his response to decide ‘where the piece is going … what the structure of the work needs to be like’. His art emerges and evolves via an iterative process of generation and appraisal.

This is very much how I approach some scribbled notes from a rough first draft: I look through the text, I pick out the elements that seem to work, and I take them forward to the next draft.

If you are a creative professional, you probably have a similar aspect to your own creative process.

Because an artist isn’t just someone who puts paint on a canvas or pixels on a screen. They are someone, like Tyler, who can look at a succession of images and pick out the one with the potential to be developed.

The writer is someone who can look at a page of stream of consciousness and pick out the phrases with potential.

A songwriter is someone who hears a great riff or rhythm in a jamming session and says ‘play that again’, and builds on it.

As creators, we are like a heron gazing intently into a rushing stream, poised to pluck out the fish.

And this aspect of making art and creative work isn’t going away anytime soon.

In his book Co-Intelligence Ethan Mollick illustrates this with reference to AI image generators, pointing out that most users are producing predictable and unambitious work:

There is a lot of Star Wars art, a lot of fake photos of movie stars, some anime, cyberpunk, a lot of superheroes (especially Spider-Man), and, weirdly, a LOT of marble statues of celebrities. Given a machine that can make anything, we still default to what we know well.

But AI can do so many more interesting things! The AI can create a marble statue of Spider-Man, but it can also output a pretty amazing ukiyo-e woodblock Spider-Man, or Spider-Man in the style of Alphonse Mucha, or even images entirely unrelated to Spider-Man (gasp). But you need to know what to ask for. The result has been a weird revival of interest in art history among people who use AI systems, with large spreadsheets of art styles being passed among prospective AI artists. The more people know about art history and art styles in general, the more powerful these systems become.

Yes, we are drowning in AI-generated mediocrity, in blandness. But now that everyone can produce a ‘pretty good’ illustration or video or article or story, that doesn’t mean we should all join the race to the bottom.

It means the bar just got raised.

‘Pretty good’ is no longer good enough.

AI content is already starting to lose its ‘wow’ factor. Audiences are no longer amazed that previously impossible things can be done. They want to see them done well. Google is updating its algorithms to filter out AI slop. And we are all recalibrating our expectations.

Getting from pretty good to good, from good to great, and from great to outstanding still takes judgement and taste. It requires the professional eye of the Artist in the Loop.

It’s time for you to speak up

So what if AI is flooding the world with bland content? As a human creator, you can’t compete on quantity, but that was never your aim.

You can still compete on quality.

You have always aspired to excellence, which means human mediocrities have never been a threat to you. So why should AI mediocrity be any different?

So your edge isn’t speed. It’s taste: your ability to notice what’s working, what’s off, what’s clichéd, what’s quietly brilliant – and to steer the work towards what actually connects with humans.

If you are a solo artist, you call the shots. If you want to keep making art your way, and trust that there will always be enough humans who want art made by humans, then I’m with you. There’s no way I’m going to delegate writing my poems to a robot.

And maybe you will experiment with using AI in your creative process. But even if you delegate some of the execution to the tools, your taste and critical judgement are still crucial to the outcome.

If you work in a team or for clients, then your situation may be more challenging. You may be surrounded by people who can’t see the difference — and therefore can’t see why quality is worth paying for.

If that’s your situation, then it’s your job to explain to them why ‘good enough’ is not good enough. It’s your job to advocate for quality, to show them where the AI is falling short – what it costs when taste is absent.

This is a familiar challenge, is it not?

How many times have you had to explain to a client or a boss why creativity by committee doesn’t work? Why a bold idea should not be diluted? Why it’s worth going the extra mile to make the work better? Why it’s unacceptable to ship crap?

As a creative professional, this has always been part of your work. AI just presents you with another version of this challenge. Here are a few ways to make your case:

Show them the difference

Put mediocre AI work side-by-side with stellar human or AI-assisted human work, and explain why one is better than the other. Use clear criteria, such as alignment with the brand, factual accuracy, readability and emotional appeal.

Translate taste into outcomes

It’s hard for a client to pay extra for ‘soul’. It’s much easier to pay for results: higher conversion, longer time on page, more shares, fewer support tickets, fewer refunds, stronger brand preference.

If you can connect ‘better work’ to measurable outcomes — or even to obvious audience reactions — you’re no longer having an aesthetic debate. You’re making a business case.

Be open-minded

Get to know AI tools and use them where they genuinely add value. This will give you more credibility in the areas where you push back and insist on being the Artist in the Loop.

Highlight the risks of AI

Talk about the risks of using AI without expert supervision – factual errors, intellectual property infringement, cultural bias and reputational risk. Emphasise the importance of a professional whose sound judgment can avert such dangers.

Shift the conversation from efficiency to added value

Ed Gandia recently published an eye-opening report based on a survey he conducted among freelance writers.

He found that freelancers who talked to clients about using AI to save time risked downward pressure on their fees. If the work takes less time, then surely that means fewer billable hours?

But he also found a significant group of freelancers whose income had increased because of
their use of AI:

When freelancers used AI to elevate what they delivered – not just how fast they delivered it – clients noticed, appreciated it, and often said so. Nearly half of those in this group reported positive feedback. Some received glowing emails. Some got referrals. Some even used this as a jumping-off point to gradually raise their fees.

‘Elevating what they delivered’ meant taking the time they saved by using AI, and using it to do deeper research and better thinking, and deliver added extras to the client.

Don’t sell ‘faster’. Sell ‘better’.

If your client or your boss think it’s all about efficiency, and that an AI can do everything a human creative can do, your position is under threat.

But the more AI raises the floor, the more your value lies in what raises the ceiling.

Someone still has to set the standard, own the choices, and sign off on what goes out into the world. This is your chance to be the Artist in the Loop.

So speak up – not against AI, but for taste. For the work that actually means something. For the quality that’s worth paying for.

The post The Artist in the Loop: Taste Is Your Edge in an AI World appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Alarm bells are sounding in the arts and creative industries, with fears of human creators being replaced by AI, resulting in job losses, companies failing, and even whole industry sectors finding themselves redundant.

To take a few recent headlines:

Graphic design among most at-risk jobs from AI – report
Design Week

Human artists could disappear if copyright not protected from AI, MPs told
The Independent

WPP’s Mark Read Says AI Will Upend the Advertising Workforce
Adweek

AI plundering scripts poses ‘direct threat’ to UK screen sector, says BFI
The Guardian

All of this is generating not only anxiety among creatives, but also anger, given the allegations of AI models having been trained on creators’ work without their permission.

And yet… a lot of the enthusiasm about AI creativity is coming from technologists who, with the greatest respect, may be very good at what we could call ‘technical creativity’, but don’t really understand artistic creativity.

And the alarm bells are often triggered by journalists and writers (or their editors) using sensational headlines that obscure the real story.

Just to be clear: I’m aware that some artists are making brilliant use of AI in their creative process. But given all the hype about AI threatening to ‘replace’ human creators, I’m focusing on a narrower questions: can autonomous AI, working without human creative intent, produce art?

Apparently, AI is on the verge of mastering poetry

I’ll take my own art, poetry, as an example. You can imagine my scepticism on seeing the following headline:

This AI Poet Mastered Rhythm, Rhyme, and Natural Language to Write Like Shakespeare

The article is a lot more thoughtful and nuanced than the headline, and makes it clear that this AI poet did not master rhythm, rhyme and natural language to write like Shakespeare.

Here’s another example:

AI-generated poetry is indistinguishable from human-written poetry and is rated more favorably

This is the title of a fascinating research paper by Brian Porter and Edouard Machery of the University of Pittsburgh, published on Nature.com.

The paper has been widely reported, with attention-grabbing headlines such as:

ChatGPT is a poet. A new study shows people prefer its verses
The Washington Post

AI poetry rated better than poems written by humans, study shows
The Guardian

Artificial intelligence is better at writing poems than William Shakespeare, a bizarre new study has found
The Scottish Sun

It has also been widely discussed on forum threads such as ‘Has AI Killed Poetry?’ (Reddit).

And its findings make sobering reading for those of us who cherish the idea that poetry is a unique and special form of human artistic expression.

In the researchers’ first experiment, they gave 1,634 non-expert readers 10 poems – 5 written by poets such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath and Dorothea Lasky, and 5 AI imitations of the same poets. The readers were asked to decide whether they thought each poem was written by an AI or a human.

Overall, readers rated the AI-generated poems as more likely to be human-authored than the actual human-authored poems.

In a second experiment, they asked participants to rate the quality of the poems. And the readers thought the AI poems were better than the works of distinguished human poets.

Better in what way? Specifically, they thought the AI poems were more moving, profound, lyrical, inspiring, beautiful and meaningful than the human poems. When it came to originality, the AI poets were judged to be equally as original as the human (ahem) originals.

I must admit my heart sank when I read this. ‘Maybe the robots really are coming for poets,’ I thought.

One thing that is missing from the research report is examples of the AI poems that were judged to be superior to the human efforts. Fortunately, ChatGPT came to my rescue, and found me some examples in an article about the research on the Smithsonian website.

So here for your consideration is an AI attempt at emulating a poem by Sylvia Plath:

The air is thick with tension,
My mind a tangled mess.
The weight of my emotions
Is heavy on my chest.

The darkness creeps upon me,
A suffocating cloak.
The world outside is cruel and cold,
And I’m a fragile, broken yolk.

My thoughts are spinning wildly,
A cyclone in my brain.
I try to grasp at something solid,
But all is lost in vain.

The voices in my head,
They never cease to scream.
And though I try to shut them out,
They haunt me like a dream.

So here I am, alone and lost,
A ship without a sail.
In this world of pain and sorrow,
I am but a mere wail.

What do you think? Is this is more moving, profound, lyrical, inspiring, beautiful and meaningful than the actual poems written by Sylvia Plath?

(If you’re not familiar with her work, here’s a selection of poems by Plath on the US Poetry Foundation website.)

If you want to know my opinion…

The AI Plath is truly terrible – clunky, clichéd and tin-eared. It’s not just bad, it’s laughably bad. It is also nothing remotely like Plath’s poetry.

And given Plath’s well-documented struggles with mental health, lines such as ‘The voices in my head, / They never cease to scream.’ are crass and insensitive. A human poet would be much less likely to make this mistake, but of course, the AI doesn’t know what it’s writing.

If this really were the competition, poets would have absolutely nothing to fear from AI.

Yes, it’s still depressing that so many readers thought this was better than the real Sylvia Plath. But I humbly beg to differ. And Plath has so many admirers that I don’t think we need to worry about her artistic legacy.

There is of course better AI poetry out there than this. And Porter and Machery have conducted a thoughtful and thought-provoking study. But this example shows we should look beyond the headlines when it comes to assessing bold claims about AI creativity.

I’m not just talking about technique or originality

My reaction to AI poetry is similar to that of a lot of creatives when they see AI versions of their discipline: the AI products look crude, artificial and amateurish. To us, they are interesting novelties, remarkable in their own right, but the shortcomings are obvious, even if others are wowed.

But I don’t think we should rest on our laurels, at least from a technical viewpoint. AI expert Ethan Mollick advises us to assume that today’s AI is ‘the worst you will ever use’. The technology will only get better. So we can expect its creative technique to keep improving.

One of Mollick’s best-known articles is The recent history of AI in 32 otters, where he fed the same prompt (‘otter on a plane using wifi’) into Midjourney between 2022 and 2025, and published the images it produced. Looking at the succession of images, it’s clear that Midjourney is getting better and better at creating images. So it seems conceivable to me that AI could end up creating work that was technically indistinguishable from the work of the best human illustrators.

Maybe AI is better at illustration than poetry. But I still chose an image by a human illustrator for this article. Maybe one day, AIs poetic technique could improve enough to imitate really good poetry, to a standard that would fool even expert readers.

But it still wouldn’t be poetry. Just as even a flawlessly-executed AI image or sculpture or film or piece of music wouldn’t be art.

Another common criticism of AI creativity is that its productions are essentially aggregates of the data from its training, so that it tends towards bland imitation rather than striking originality.

But once again, I’m going to grant the technologists the benefit of the doubt. I’m going to accept that AI is an evolving field, and that future AIs will be able to think more creatively.

In this imagined future, AI will be able to create artefacts – text, images, video, sound, etc. – that are as original as any human work, and indistinguishable in terms of their technical execution. Even experts are fooled by its creations.

That would be amazing, but it still wouldn’t be art.

Art is a meeting of minds (and AI is mindless)

The reason these strikingly-original and perfectly-executed artefacts would not be art is that they would be missing one crucial thing that is essential to real art – the sense of having been created by a living, breathing, feeling, suffering human being.

When we read a poem by Sylvia Plath, part of what makes it meaningful to us is the knowledge that it was written out of a fiercely intense lived experience.

The same is true of any great poem. It matters that it were written by someone who has lived and loved and experienced the kind of thoughts and feelings it expresses – even if the poetry isn’t straightforwardly autobiographical or even realistic.

Poetry, like any art, is not just a technical performance. It is a meeting of hearts and minds.

We value art for its ability to communicate more than information, to convey something essential about the human experience.

Most of the time, we take this relationship between artist and audience for granted. It’s so obvious that it doesn’t require comment. But it becomes glaringly obvious when the unspoken contract is broken.

In his book The Creativity Code, Marcus du Sautoy recounts a series of daring experiments conducted by David Cope and Douglas Hofstadter, where they staged concerts featuring unfamiliar pieces by Bach and Chopin, as well as imitations of these composers by Cope’s EMI (Experiments in Musical Intelligence) software. The audiences were made up of classical music lovers, including composers and music theorists.

To everyone’s shock, a piece by the real Bach was judged ‘a poor imitation’ of EMI’s imitation. The same thing happened with Chopin.

One audience member described the audience’s reaction on learning they had voted the wrong way:

There was a collective gasp and… what I can only describe as delighted horror.

Some listeners were so incensed they vented their fury on Hofstadter, to the point where he felt physically threatened after one concert.

Audiences hate being fooled like this, because it suggests they are not as discerning as they thought they were. More than that, they hate the idea that the profoundly moving experience they just had was based on a fake. It feels like deception, even betrayal.

Does this example show how easily artistic types can be tricked? That we are not as sophisticated as we like to think? Maybe there’s a bit of that. But it’s not the whole story, because art has never been a one-way street – in spite of the popular image of the creative genius expressing their vision for the rest of us to marvel at.

Without a thoughtful and engaged viewer, a Picasso is just an old canvas covered in paint. Without a sensitive reader, a novel by Dickens is just a succession of marks on a page.

Art requires at least two people to engage in a relationship, via the medium of the artefact. And like any relationship, it breaks down if one person turns out to be a fake.

Imagine chatting online to someone who you thought was a human being, a potential friend or romantic partner, only to discover it was a bot. Most people would lose interest at this point. Just as the AI Bach lost its allure the moment the audience discovered it was generated by a software program.

To return to Porter and Machary’s research paper, they cite an impressive range of studies showing AI creative work becoming ‘indistinguishable’ from the human versions – but there is an important caveat (emphasis mine):

AI-generated images have become indistinguishable from reality. AI-generated paintings are judged to be human-created artworks at higher rates than actual human-created paintings; AI-generated faces are judged to be real human faces at higher rate than actual photos of human faces, and AI-generated humor is just as funny as human-generated jokes. Despite this, studies have consistently found a bias against AI-generated artwork; when told that an artwork is AI-generated, participants rate the work as lower quality.

Even when AI creative work is rated better in a blind test, as soon as the true origin is revealed, audiences recoil from it. Because we don’t just want polished perfection in art: we want an authentic human connection.

And AI cannot provide, this, because however good it gets at simulating the patterns and passions of human art, it can never feel those passions itself.

It’s good at what Alan Turing called ‘the imitation game’, but not the real thing.

Because it doesn’t know what it’s like to live and move and breathe, or to feel emotions at the visceral level.

It has never been head-over-heels in love, or sick to the pit of its stomach.

It has never savoured a delicious meal in entrancing company. It has never had mind-blowing sex.

It has never woken from a profound sleep to marvel afresh at the miracle of life, listening to the dawn chorus greet the new day.

It has never woken from troubled dreams to suddenly remember the loss of a loved one, and felt a fresh wave of grief.

And it does not know that it will die.

And this is something we value in poetry and art in general: it does come from a living breathing, loving, suffering, mortal human being.

So however good it gets at technique, however original its ideas may be, however well it simulates emotion and experience, AI cannot make real art. And it probably never will.

Art is a game of meaning (and AI is meaningless)

To be fair to AI experts, they are very well aware of this issue. It just seems to have been overlooked in the popular hype around ‘AI creativity’.

In 1980 the philosopher John Searle kicked off a long-running debate in his paper ‘Minds, Brains, and Programs’, where he advanced what is known as the Chinese room argument.

He imagined a person with no knowledge of the Chinese language sitting isolated in a room. The room contains a book of instructions for manipulating Chinese characters. Every so often a Chinese text is delivered to the room, and the person follows the instructions in the manual to produce texts that read to Chinese speakers as meaningful responses. The person in the room, however, is just following a set of rules, and has no idea what any of the Chinese texts mean.

Searle’s contention is that computers executing programs are like the person in the Chinese room: they are just processors, with no understanding of the meaning of what they are processing, and no mind or consciousness comparable to that of humans.

It’s an ongoing debate among philosophers, technologists and other specialists. But for my purposes here we don’t need to resolve the philosophical question. We just need to consider the fact that, throughout history, humans have taken it for granted that art is produced by other humans, with a mind and consciousness like their own.

This is why many writers on creativity and cultural theory, such as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Howard Becker and Pierre Bourdieu, have described creativity not as the work of a lone genius but as a social process – an ongoing conversation between creators, gatekeepers and audiences.

A canvas and paint have no intrinsic meaning, only the meanings we ascribe to them. The same artwork can have different meanings for different people or groups, in different contexts. So creativity becomes a game of meaning, with many players.

Following Searle’s logic, if AI only shuffles symbols without truly understanding them, then an AI artist does not have a mind like humans. So it cannot participate in these networks and relationships the way we do. It cannot play the game of meaning.

When we encounter a new artwork, questions arise in our mind:

What does it mean?

Did the artist really mean that?

Am I missing something here?

So the game of meaning involves ambiguity, subjectivity and interpretation. It results in a process of negotiation between artists, critics and the public, about what constitutes art.

And it turns out that this aspect of art doesn’t require any executional skill at all.

When Duchamp put a urinal in the 1917 Society of Independent Artists exhibition in New York, and labelled it ‘Fountain’, he made a bold move in the game of meaning. He didn’t create the artefact, all he did was reframe it as art, by giving it a title and a place in the exhibition.

Tracy Emin made a similar move when she exhibited her unmade bed in the Tate Gallery in 1999 and entered it in the Turner Prize.

Both works have come to be accepted as genuine art, with ‘Fountain’ being voted the most influential artwork of the 20th century by 500 art professionals, and ‘My Bed’ being sold at Christie’s for £2,546,500.

Yet initially, both works provoked squawks of outrage. And there have been plenty of people who tried to persuade the rest of us that their work was art, and the rest of us remained unpersuaded.

‘Call that art?’ some people ask, when confronted with something new.

‘Yes,’ says the artist. ‘I do call it art.’

And we argue and decide whether or not this ‘counts’, whether it’s a valid move in the great game of art that artists and audiences have been playing for thousands of years.

But because AI lacks consciousness, because meaning has no meaning for AI, it is not currently a player in this game.

About that ‘probably’…

In the title of this article I say that AI will ‘probably’ never create art. But there are no guarantees. It is conceivable that our concept of art, and/or our attitudes to AI, will shift to the point where AI art is considered as valid and meaningful as human art.

There are two obvious scenarios in which this could happen.

Scenario 1. We cease to see art as a meeting of minds

In this scenario, our definition of art, and the kind of experience we want from it, evolves with our technology.

Instead of seeing art as a meeting of minds, we value it as a mirror of our own consciousness. We accept that there is no ‘other’ behind AI art, no second player in the game of meaning.

Instead, all the meaning we find in the art is generated by the viewer. When we contemplate such art, we are using it to reflect on our own thoughts, feelings, sensations and experiences.

So this art of the future, is more of a single player game, rather than the multi-player game we join when we gaze at a Rubens or watch a Tennessee Williams play or listen to Mozart.

Personally, this would stretch my own definition of art to breaking point. For me, it would no longer be the real thing. But I’m on the far side of fifty, and my vote won’t count in the long run. Maybe future generations will think differently about all this. It will be for them to decide.

Scenario 2. AI becomes (or turns out to be) conscious

This second scenario is more startling and more revolutionary. In this future, we come to accept that AI has become conscious. Maybe we even decide that the AIs of the 2020s were already conscious, if only in a limited way.

In this future, AI art becomes a meeting of very different minds. A bridge between AI consciousness and ours.

In 2018 I interviewed the artist Tyler Hobbs for my podcast, and asked him whether he thought AI could ever creat art that we find as moving as human art. Here’s his reply:

Let’s imagine a future where an AI lives in a robot and it can go around and collect its own physical images and sensory input and it’s working based on that. I think it’s going to be really tough for an AI to produce artwork if we define artwork as being… about the human experience in some way, then just from that definition, I don’t think an AI is going to be able to create truly new artwork, just because it doesn’t experience and won’t experience the world and life in the same way that a human does.

But maybe the AI can very successfully create artwork that is meaningful to itself or to other similar AI. And in that case, it might be a very successful artist. But yeah, it’s going to be really interesting if this stuff develops to see what an AI’s idea of artwork is once they can move beyond mimicry as the main operation. I have no idea what that’s going to look like or how successful it might be. But I think it’ll give us some interesting insight into ourselves and how AI might fundamentally be different from humans.

This would arguably be real art and a whole new ballgame. It would open up hitherto unimaginable realms of art.

If we ever find ourselves in a world of AIs that we consider conscious, then maybe art could be a tiny thread that connects us with these superintelligent beings, and permits some kind of meaningful communication with them.

This art could perform a similar function to the logographic language in Ted Chiang’s short story ‘Story of Your Life’ (adapted into the movie Arrival) that enables humans to communicate with heptapod alien visitors. Or the musical notes that form a bridge between the humans and aliens in Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

It feels odd to be even writing about this kind of scenario. It doesn’t feel likely. But then it wouldn’t, given that it involves trying to imagine what happens beyond our current conceptual horizon.

Whatever you make, make it art

To restate my basic point: as long as we see art as a meeting of minds, and as long as AI is not conscious, then AI cannot make art.

Yet not all creative work is art. A lot of it is pretty average or disposable, or merely functional. And the more mediocre or functional it is, the easier it can be automated.

AI is already doing some types of advertising, design and decorative work. No one really cares if a pay-per-click ad was written by a robot.

Maybe AI will produce dazzling entertainment, in the form of TV, movies, and serial fiction, and some audiences will be happy to consume it.

So the creative sector is clearly in for major disruption. None of us can be complacent. But the closer your work approaches the condition of art – where human experience and human connection matter – the harder it will be for an AI to compete with you, let alone replace you.

So whatever you create from this point, remember that AI is gobbling up all the low-handing fruit. There’s no safety in doing something mediocre or even pretty good.

Whether or not you have previously considered yourself an artist, whether you work in advertising, TV, gaming, design, or another commercial creative field, ask yourself:

How can I take my work to the level of art?

How can I channel my unique human experience into my work?

What kind of meaningful connection do I want to make with others?

The post Why AI Can’t Make Art (and Probably Never Will) appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

I say ‘need’ rather than ‘want’, because if I’m honest, a big part of me would rather not. I am not an enthusiast for AI. If it were up to me, on balance, I would rather it didn’t exist.

But we’re now at the stage where AI is unavoidable. Big changes are already here. And they are being felt particularly keenly in the arts and creative industries.

Some of my friends have been fired up for years about the creative potential of AI. It’s always good to see a friend full of enthusiasm, but listening to them, I didn’t feel it myself.

I’ve been wrestling with AI for over a decade — my earliest concerns were the big existential ones. But for most of us, the urgent problem isn’t superintelligence. It’s what’s already happening to creative work.

Why creatives have good reason to hate AI

Let’s start with copyright, which is currently a large bone of contention, playing out in debates, protests and lawsuits around the world.

Here in the UK people are getting very exercised about the issue of creators’ work being used to train AI models without permission – whether or not this constitutes copyright infringement, and if so, whether anyone is going to do anything about it.

Creatives are protesting. Furious debates have been raging in both Houses of Parliament. Open letters have been written and a petition has gathered the signatures of Kazuo Ishiguro, Simon Rattle, Kate Bush, Stephen Fry, Alan Ayckbourn, Antony Gormley, Roger McGough, Robert Smith and other stars in our creative firmament.

This is the point where the debate stopped being theoretical for me. When I saw an article in The Atlantic alleging that Meta had trained its AI models on the LibGen database of pirated ebooks, I typed my name into the helpful search box on the Atlantic website, and saw that my four books for creatives were in the database.

It took me several years to write those books, and many more years to gain the experience on which they are based. I am the publisher as well as the writer, which means I also spent thousands of pounds on editing, proofreading and design costs.

Call me old-fashioned, but if a multi-billion-dollar corporation wanted to take my books and use them – as is alleged in the Meta case – it would have been nice of them to ask.

Whether or not Meta did this, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to discover that other companies have done something similar.

So I have skin in the game. If you are reading this and feeling angry about your work being used without your permission, and fearful about the consequences of AI for you as a creative professional, then I have had a taste of how you feel.

How has the UK government responded to this kind of allegation against the AI industry? It has made a concerted effort to weaken UK copyright law, to create a special exemption allowing AI companies to use creators’ work to train their models, without asking permission or even telling creatives their work has been used in this way.

And of course, it is these very models that are now being trumpeted as the ‘future of creativity’, and causing millions of creatives to fear for their livelihoods.

There are newspaper stories about creatives being replaced by AI. Some researchers are finding evidence of a decline in creative freelance work since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022.

It feels like a triple whammy:

Theft: Taking our work without permission to train their models.

Threat: Using those models to develop machines that threaten to replace us.

Insult: Flooding the culture with hideous AI slop.

I’ve signed the petition. And I would love the debates and petitions to have some kind of effect.

But I’m not holding my breath. Looking around the world, it’s clear where the balance of power lies between the tech and creative sectors. We can’t depend on governments or courts protecting our rights.

No one is coming to save us.

Why we can’t ignore AI

Even if we loathe AI — even if we refuse to use it on principle — it is already reshaping the conditions of creative work.

Clients and employers are adopting it, and expectations are shifting with them: faster turnarounds, more variations, more “Can you just…?”

At the same time, AI is being baked into the tools we already use. Writing apps, design software, search engines, email, editing suites — features are arriving by default, often switched on before we’ve even decided what we think about them.

And whether we like it or not, other creatives are using it. Not because they’re better artists, but because it can accelerate the dull bits — research, rough drafts, mockups, options — and that changes the market we’re working in.

Meanwhile the culture is being flooded with slop: more content, more images, more noise. That puts downward pressure on commodity work and raises the premium on taste, trust, and a recognisable human voice.

So yes: we can refuse to engage. But we can’t opt out of the consequences.

The AI genie is not going back in the bottle. There is no turning back to the old world. We need to face this with our eyes open.

There is no world where humans don’t create AI

It’s natural to be preoccupied with the current state of the AI industry, and the consequences for our lives and livelihoods. And to wish for a world without AI – or at least with wiser, more ethical and more trustworthy people leading the industry. But that is not the world we are living in.

If we look back into the past, from the earliest times shrouded in myth, to the long sweep of human history and the progress of technology, the development of AI begins to look inevitable.

Back in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve could have been perfectly happy, munching away at the fruit of the Tree of Life, forever. But they couldn’t resist the one thing they were forbidden by God – the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.

And once they had eaten the fruit, their eyes were open. They saw that they were naked. They were expelled from Eden, to live by the sweat of their brow and the ingenuity of their brains.

Generations later, humans had gone from hunting and gathering to planting and sowing, building city-states and fighting over them. In the first millennium BC, when metalsmiths were leading technologists, hammering out weapons and armour and ploughshares and other tools, humans were already dreaming of artificial intelligence.

In Book 18 of Homer’s Iliad, around the 8th century BC, there is a description of gold automata (Homer’s word) ‘filled with minds and wisdom’ that sound remarkably like intelligent robots, serving Hephaestus, the Greek god of blacksmiths and other artisans:

Handmaids of gold attending him, resembling in all worth
Living young damsels, filled with minds and wisdom, and were trained
In all immortal ministry, virtue and voice contained,
And moved with voluntary powers; and these still waited on
Their fiery sovereign,

(Translation: George Chapman)

So creating artificial life is one of our oldest dreams. It’s such a fascinating problem, it attracts bright minds like moths to a flame. And not just writers of poetry and fiction, but inventors trying to do it for real.

Around 400 BC, Archytas of Tarentum is reputed to have made a steam-propelled wooden bird that could fly about 200 metres. Just over a century of later, Ctesibius built the first known feedback-control device – a self-regulating water clock. And by the first century AD Hero of Alexandria is said to have created a programmable theatre show, featuring moving statues, singing birds and automatic temple doors driven by water, steam and weighted ropes.

It makes Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine (1837) look positively recent.

Since we built the first machines, we have dreamed of creating thinking machines. It’s as if we are hard-wired to do so.

Our progress towards AI has followed a very long and drawn out exponential curve, measured first in millennia, then centuries, then decades – to where we find ourselves today, when things have accelerated alarmingly since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022.

The rate of change is speeding up, and is projected by many experts to accelerate even further, to the point where we reach Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – with capabilities comparable to humans on any cognitive task – and beyond that, the fabled singularity.

And whatever we think of some of the people developing the technology, the technology itself feels inevitable.

As inevitable as microbes appearing in the sea millions of years ago.

As inevitable as organisms growing eyes and gills and fins and arms and legs.

As inevitable as the first fish venturing onto the land.

As inevitable as the hand reaching out for the forbidden fruit. Because human beings will always eat the apple.

There is no world in which we didn’t eat the apple. No world in which we didn’t evolve to become intelligent and conscious and insatiably curious to find out more and more about our world and what we can create.

No world in which we don’t want to know the answer to the question: can we build something more intelligent than us?

So from this perspective, AI as a fundamental technology is neither good nor bad. AI itself is neutral.

If we ignore AI, or demonise it because of the people involved, or specific ways it is being developed and applied, or how the politics and economics are playing out in our world, we are not seeing it clearly. We risk missing the real threats, and the real opportunities it presents us with.

And if we are tempted to put our heads in the sand, rest assured the tech bros and politicians are not. They are setting the terms of the brave new world, whether we like it or not.

If we as artists and creatives can’t take our bearings from them, who can we look to?

What would Bowie do?

When I find myself agonising over a big decision, to do with my artistic work or my career, I have a question I use as a thought experiment:

What would Bowie do?

I’ve long admired David Bowie as an artist, for many reasons, including the fact that he was always leaning forward and looking into the future and doing his best to channel its signals for the rest of us.

He was singing about the downside of space travel in 1969 and the threat from AI in 1970. His big breakthrough came in 1972, when he appeared on UK TV sets as a gender-fluid Starman for three and a half minutes that changed the course of music.

And he didn’t just sing about the future – he continually experimented with new techniques and technology, to disrupt his thinking and spark his imagination.

In the seventies he was using William Burroughs’ ‘cut up’ technique and Brian Eno’s ‘Oblique Strategies’ cards.

In 1976 he left Los Angeles for Berlin, and embarked on a trilogy of albums using techniques from the emerging electronic and ambient music scenes.

By 1994 he was using a program called the Verbasizer to randomise his lyrics and blend them with other texts.

That same year he released a CD-ROM of the video to his single ‘Jump they Say’, encouraging fans to remix it, with the instructions: ‘Sculpt the album of the future… Don’t be passive; be interactive.’

The single was from 1. Outside, a dark futuristic thriller in album form, where he played a series of characters, using computerised vocal distortion on the record and visually distorted photos on the artwork.

In 1996 he was the first major artist to release a single, ‘Telling Lies’, for download online. (I tried to download it, but it took forever on a 56K modem, so I gave up and bought the CD, but I appreciated the gesture.)

In 1999 he gave a remarkably prescient interview to Jeremy Paxman, where he shattered Paxman’s assumption that the internet was ‘just a different delivery system’:

‘I don’t think we’ve even seen the tip of the iceberg. I think the potential of what the Internet is going to do to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable. I think we’re actually on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying… It’s an alien life-form… it is going to crush our ideas of what mediums are all about.’

So how do I think Bowie would respond to the creative challenge of AI?

I think he’d be all over it.

He wouldn’t be naive. His 1970 album The Man Who Sold the World included ‘Saviour Machine’, a song about ‘President Joe’ who hands over power to a super computer that is supposed to make life easy for human beings – but it turns on them in disgust and threatens kill them all.

So I’m pretty sure he’d be alert to the risks of AI.

Maybe he would add his name to the current petition, alongside the other stars, and speak up for a better deal for artists. But I don’t think he would be a Luddite. I can’t imagine him shunning the technology and the creative possibilities it offers.

I think he’d be in the studio playing with it, trying it out, testing it, trying to break it – looking for its limits, for the edges, the new worlds it would help him discover and explore.

I seriously doubt he’d worry about it replacing him or making his decades of work on his art redundant. I’m sure he’d see it as another tool, another technological toy that allowed him to extend his work in new directions.

As always, the technology would be a medium. The vision and the finished work would be unmistakably his.

In other words, I think he’d be a lot less hesitant than me. And assuming he knew a thing or two about creativity, then maybe I should follow his (imagined) lead, open my mind and spend more time playing around with it…

Maybe if we all had a little more faith in our own creative vision, then we would spend a little less time worrying about what this technology can take from us, and more time experimenting to see what we can create with it.

Of course a superstar like Bowie would be harder to replace than most of us. And he’d have the financial reserves to ride out any disruption. So whatever he would or wouldn’t have done, his approach may not be entirely applicable to our professional situation.

But looking at things purely in terms of creativity, I don’t think all is lost. I’m feeling a flicker of enthusiasm amid the dark clouds of uncertainty.

I’m still doing all my writing (including this article) by hand. I’m a writer. I love to write. So why would I give a robot the pleasure of doing the best bit?

But I have been using AI daily for a while now, in ways that augment my creative process – research, brainstorming, sketching and prototyping, analysis, feedback and new perspectives on my work – to see what I can learn from it, how it can deepen my knowledge, extend my skills and help me do my best work.

Dare I say it, I’m enjoying the process. New perspectives are opening up. I can see what all the fuss was about. And the more I learn about what AI can do and what it can’t, the less worried I am about AI replacing human artists and creatives.

I still have my reservations. But it turns out I’m not alone in being in two minds about AI. In his insightful book How to Think About AI, Richard Susskind writes:

‘It’s possible to be simultaneously optimistic and pessimistic about AI. It’s coherent to regard AI as a double-edged sword. This contrasts, however, with the position of many newcomers to AI – they seem to be allied to one of two camps, one that is indefatigably positive, the other relentlessly negative.’

What was it Fitzgerald said?

‘The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.’

So it feels like a time to acknowledge the downside, learn as much as possible about the new world, and lean into our determination – and creativity – to make the most of it.

The post Why Creatives Hate AI – and Why We Can’t Ignore It appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Believe it or not, this show exists. It’s called Shine: Life Perspectives from a Bespoke Jeweler, and it’s hosted by my good friend and long-term coaching client Daniel Boettcher.

To create the first season, he travelled across the USA, the Caribbean and Europe, to interview each guest in person. In the latest episode, he interviews me at my home, about the writing process behind my poem ‘Waterwheels’, and the beautiful ring he created based on the poem.

You may remember Daniel from when I interviewed him for The 21st Century Creative podcast. He’s a remarkable guy, who travels the world in search of inspiration, materials and craftsmanship for the one-off pieces he makes for his clients.

In this interview you get to eavesdrop on two different creative processes:

1. My writing process as a poet, and how I use poetic form (in this case the stanza from Keats’ ‘Ode to a Nightingale’) as a focus for my conscious mind and a doorway to imagination. You’ll hear me read the poem and talk about the memory of a day with my family that inspired it, and how that led to the poem.
2. Daniel’s creative process as a jeweler, which involves an in-depth interview with his client to get to the heart of their life story, so he can create a unique piece of jewelry that represents an aspect of their soul. In a follow-up episode, he talks about a new ring he is creating based on the podcast interview, which he calls The Distraction Ring.

Daniel’s conversations with me and his other guests showcase his deep listening skills, as he helps each person reflect on their life and work, and what really matters to them.

This kind of deep listening is the foundation of my own work as a coach. I’ve noticed it is also the hallmark of any creator providing a truly bespoke service or creating unique artefacts for their clients. So when I met Daniel and started working with him, it was fascinating to hear it applied to the world of jewelry.

On this podcast, you can hear his approach for yourself, in a rare opportunity to peek behind the curtain of a high-end jewelry salon.

And if you want to see the design for The Distraction Ring and the pieces Daniel creates for his other guests, you can get access to them here.

Sharing this conversation is a nice way to set my own course for 2025, which will be full of poetry and deep conversations with my coaching clients.

And listening to it is an opportunity for you to reflect on your own creative process and the intention you set for this year:

What is your ‘why’ for the creative work you do each day?

How do you access your deepest sources of inspiration?

How much of your work is a solitary pursuit? And what role, if any, does conversation play in your creative process?

The post My Creative Process (on the Podcast that Produces Jewelry) appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

As a writer and a coach for creatives, I have been particularly concerned with the devastating effect of the pandemic on many sectors of the arts and creative industries, and on the lives and livelihoods of creative professionals like you and me.

So in late 2021, when I started planning Season 6 of my podcast The 21st Century Creative, I decided to use the season as a way of seeing what we can learn from what we’ve been through – and to give you some inspiration and ideas for not just surviving but potentially thriving in the new landscape that we find ourselves in.

I assembled a lineup of guests whose work was severely disrupted by the pandemic, but who responded by doing something new and creative.

I focused on the arts and creative industries that have been most disrupted – including theatre, music, TV and film production, in-person live events and experiences.

I also had stories from some creative fields that didn’t necessarily get so much media coverage, but which were also severely affected – such as teaching retreats, experiential marketing, street photography and tattoo art.

And I did my best to get a global perspective on the crisis, because the pandemic played out in different ways in different parts of the world.

Based in Bristol myself, I cast my net wide and managed to record interviews with creatives on five different continents – in London, Prague, New York, Austin, Nashville, Santa Cruz, Johannesburg, Mumbai, Tokyo and Melbourne.

As the virus spread around the world, these creators were locked down, they were shut down, they were grounded. They were forbidden to go out to work, or to perform for their audience or to sell to their customers or to work with their clients in the ways they had always done it.

They had to cancel tours and plays and films and retreats.

They had to deal with isolation, illness, strain on their mental health.

Some of them had to make ends meet when their main income had been cut off, and government support was in short supply.

Some of them had to homeschool while trying to work. Others were responsible for teams of employees, and had to make tough choices about whether they could keep them on.

And in the face of all this… they kept their creative spark alive. They found the energy and the courage and the faith to do something new, to try something different, to experiment.

Some of them pivoted or reinvented themselves, by doing new types of creative work, or finding new ways to bring their work into the world.

Some of them looked outward to their peers and colleagues, to the wider industry, to see what they could do to help in the crisis.

All of them had to dig deep, and draw on reserves of creativity and resilience that they’d never had to use before.

And they produced results – new artworks, new products and services, new income streams, new audiences and customers, even whole new businesses. New ways to live and work and thrive in the 21st century.

These are the stories I have collected for you in The Creative Disruption season of the 21st Century Creative.

The rest of this article includes a brief summary of the 10 stories I collected, including the challenges faced and how they rose to meet them.

You will also find the 10 podcast episodes embedded in the article, where you can hear the full stories in the form of extended interviews with the creatives. The podcast episodes are also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and other platforms.

In the final episode, I talk about my own journey through the pandemic and what I’ve learned from it. And you can hear best-selling author Joanna Penn interview me about how I created, funded and launched my new poetry podcast in the midst of the pandemic disruption.

One thing I’ve said from the start of the pandemic is that I hope we all come out of it with more options than we had beforehand. I’ve done my best to collect insights about what those options might be, and share them with you.

With the ongoing economic crisis and what’s left of the pandemic, we are no means out of the woods. So I hope you find my guest’s insights helpful, and their stories as inspiring as they are to me.

Episode 1: Steven Kunis, Theatre Director (UK)

Steven Kunis is a Greek-American theater and opera director, currently based in London. He is the founding artistic director of Panorama Productions, a company committed to international collaboration in the fields of theatre and music.

Covid Disruption

When the first lockdown was announced, all the theatres in the UK were closed. Which meant Steven’s UK Premiere production of Young Jean Lee’s STRAIGHT WHITE MEN at Southwark Playhouse was put on hold.

His commitment to bringing people together in the theatre meant that when the pandemic first struck, he was sceptical of the idea of simply moving a theatre production online.

Creative Response

When it became apparent that the theatres were not going to reopen any time soon, Steven came up with a completely new production, ROCKY ROAD, based on a script by Shaun McKenna and combining elements of cinema and live theatre.

ROCKY ROAD made live theatre accessible at a dark time for the industry, and received glowing reviews. The Guardian described it as ‘a riveting cat-and-mouse’ thriller:

Artfully directed by Steven Kunis, Rocky Road was broadcast live from Jermyn Street theatre last week and is a fine example of onscreen theatre wrought with the suspense of live drama and employing the aesthetics of film.

The Guardian

And when restrictions were relaxed and theatre returned to the stage, Steven and Panorama were in the vanguard, with the revived production of STRAIGHT WHITE MEN, which was nominated for Best New Play at the Off West End Theatre Awards. Steven himself was nominated for Best Director. It was also named by Sam Marlowe at The i newspaper as one of the top ten theatre events of 2021 and garnered four-star reviews in The Evening Standard, The Guardian and The Times.

Key Insight

The only reason this Rocky Road play existed was because we were told it was a horrible idea to have our other play put under a live stream format and thinking, “Okay, what can we do now?”

This play was written by a playwright who had that theatrical bent to his craft but wrote this originally as a film, meant to be made into a film… The hybrid format that it was in was even more powerful than just a film experience alone or just a theatre experience alone.

Episode 2: Earl Abrahams, Artist and Filmmaker (South Africa)

Earl Abrahams is an artist and filmmaker who likes to get up and close with his subjects, by walking and skating the streets of Johannesburg, sometimes hitching rides on the traffic as he captures the life of the city.

He is an official Fujifilm X-Photographer, and has showcased work in Paris through an exhibition titled ‘Créateurs en Mouvement’. His marketing clients include brands such as Fujifilm, SAB, KFC, ALDO, MTN and Vodacom.

Covid Disruption

Earl’s work capturing the life of the streets of Johannesbug came to an abrupt end in early 2020, when a strict, heavily-policed lockdown saw him confined to his apartment block and its parking lot.

I was living in an apartment block and it was heavily monitored. So you couldn’t just get out if you wanted to get out, you needed to chat to security. We had these four levels of parking lots, and I spent my time basically running and exercising and skating in the parking lot. That’s what I started doing the first three weeks. And then, like I said, after the second announcement, that’s when I started to realize how serious this really is.

Creative Response

He responded to the lockdown by making his camera his window on the world, documenting the experience in a remarkable series of photographs, which became known as Lockdown Series.

I started documenting the parking lot, documenting things over the wall. People that are cruising in the streets. They were not allowed to be there, but we have a big homeless population. So I made sure to document people in spaces, but moving through shadows and moving through spaces.

I decided to build in a daily practice of shooting. Whether it’s one image a day or even if I’m sick and in bed, I grab a shot of the light coming through the window.

Lockdown Series wasn’t just a personal project – Earl shared the images on Instagram and then started selling prints online, which helped him sustain him financially through lockdown.

Key Insight

I think life teaches you that sometimes you don’t know what lies ahead, but all you got to do is just follow the process.

Episode 3: Hometeam – Lagan Sebert, Harrison Winter and Brandon Bloch, Filmmakers (USA & Czech Republic)

Hometeam is a film and TV production company founded by Harrison, Brandon and Lagan in response to the pandemic.

Prior to the pandemic, they had spent years building networks of film-makers around the world, and providing remote shooting services to clients via Harrison’s company Co.MISSION Content Group and Brandon and Lagan’s company Magic Seed Productions.

Covid Disruption

Travel restrictions, border control, quarantine, and later on, vaccine requirements, meant that a huge proportion of filming ground to a halt during 2020 and struggled to pick up for many months afterwards.

All of which created a huge headache for TV production companies, movie studios, advertising agencies and other media producers.

At the same time, filmmakers all around the world were sitting at home, frustrated that they were unable to use their skills, and anxious about their financial situation. At this point, Harrison Winter, Brandon Bloch and Lagan Sebert realised the solution was staring them in the face.

Creative Response

Between them, their two companies had the resources and experience to reboot productions while the rest of the industry went dark. So they took the next logical step, and founded a new company, Hometeam.

They joined the dots via their networks, connecting clients and film-makers, to reboot filming, get productions made, and provide work for talented creatives around the world.

Hometeam leverages a highly-curated network of over 500 top-tier filmmakers across more than 150 countries to provide remote shooting solutions to clients around the globe, including NBC’s The Voice, HBO Max’s Legendary, NBC’s Global Citizen Prize, and Trillions of Questions. No Easy Answers., a feature-length documentary for Google.

And they argue that their model is not just a band-aid for a temporary problem – it can deliver many creative benefits, as well as logistical ones. So it opens up new possibilities for the future of production for TV, film, brand and agency clients.

Nobody knows their city better than a local crew. They’re going to say, “There’s this awesome cornfield”. And, “There’s this cool alleyway nobody knows about where all the locals do graffiti”. ~ Brandon Bloch

Key Insight

I wanted to be able to go into any room, at any agency, anywhere in the world, and say, “Wherever you need your content filmed, we can do that tomorrow”. ~ Harrison Winter

Episode 4: Amrita Kumar, Agency Owner (India)

In October 2019 Amrita Kumar was celebrating becoming CEO of Candid Marketing, an innovative experiential marketing agency with offices in Bombay (aka Mumbai) and Delhi, in India.

Over the course of 21+ years Amrita and her co-founder and partner Atul Nath had grown Candid into one of India’s most awarded Experiential Marketing agencies, named as the No.1 Brand Activation Agency in the country by The Economic Times, with a team of over 120 staff and a client list including Bacardi, Cadbury, Disney, Coca-Cola, Vodafone, Dyson and Uber.

Becoming CEO was the culmination of 21 years of work on the company. A moment to savour her success and look to the future. She was full of plans for 2020, oblivious of what was coming.

Covid Disruption

Candid’s strength is meeting consumers face-to-face, getting products into their hands and eliciting honest feedback. And this is precisely what made the agency vulnerable to the pandemic.

Because when Covid struck and India went into strict lockdown, Amrita and her team were forbidden from carrying out their core business activity – going out onto the streets to meet consumers in person.

As a leader, she had to make some hard, and eventually excruciating choices, particularly around whether and how long she could afford to keep hold of her team.

Creative Response

In the midst of the turmoil she came up with a creative solution to her problems, by launching an innovative new service that grew into a whole new business: Mojo Box.

Mojo Box is an online platform that helps consumers discover and experience new products before buying. They sign up via the website mojobox.online and for a small convenience fee they are sent Mojo Boxes, containing a range of new products to try.

The value of the products is far greater than the convenience fee, and Amrita’s members told her that the arrival of a new box was a moment of fun and discovery in the long lockdown days.

Amrita used Mojo Box to help her big brand clients reach new customers in spite of the restrictions – and in the process, she grew her membership numbers to 270,000 and kept her own business afloat during the pandemic. Now, she’s looking to the future with renewed optimism.

Key Insight

With Covid, consumer behaviour changed. Indians got more comfortable transacting online. Indians got more comfortable putting more information, personal details online. Internet payments, digital payments exploded obviously because of Covid.

Suddenly, I went back to all our old discussions and started thinking about it and the thought process was: let me start something, let me just jump, I’ll aim later.

Episode 5: Kay Lock Kolp – Parenting Expert and Coach (USA)

Kay Lock Kolp is a coach and podcaster with many years experience of helping parents to be better parents, and also to take better care of themselves.

Kay lives in Massachusetts, USA, with her husband, sons, and the family‘s twelve-and-a-half-year-old pet chicken. Via her coaching and her podcast, Practical Intuition with Kay, she offers support for ‘grown-ups and our inner lives’. 

Covid Disruption

Parents around the world were severely disrupted when Covid forced them into extended childcare and ‘involuntary homeschooling’ during lockdown.

The added demands and distractions were particularly keenly felt by artists and creatives, whose work requires single-minded focus and ‘alone time’.

So Kay found her experience and expertise in great demand, as an artist and author who had helped many creatives balance their work with their responsibilities as parents.

Creative Response

Kay stepped up to help parents stay as creative as possible through the pandemic, via her coaching work and her podcast.

In this interview Kay talks about her own experience of art and parenting, and about what she learned from homeschooling her children long before the pandemic arrived.

She also shares insights based on her work helping parents who face hard choices about where to put their time and attention on a daily basis.

Kay tackles the practical challenges of lockdown parenting and homeschooling, as well as psychological insights around self-care, permission, and creativity.

Key Insight

What we do is we work on the inner lives of parents.

Episode 6: Charlotte Abroms, Music Manager (Australia)

Charlotte Abroms is a music manager based in Melbourne, Australia, who guides the careers of artists such as Ainslie Wills and Haarlo, and producers Jonathan Steer and John Castle.

She is a recent recipient of Australian accolades the Lighthouse Award, the Fast Track Fellowship and the Outstanding Woman in Music Award.

Covid Disruption

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Charlotte was about to book a major European tour for one of her artists. Instead, she found herself enduring one of the longest and strictest lockdowns in the world, in Melbourne.

Music was one of the creative sectors that was hardest hit by the pandemic, with gigs and tours cancelled around the world, and artists cut off from their connection with fans as well as their income.

All of which meant Charlotte wasn’t able to perform most of the work she would normally do for her clients. But she’s an incredibly upbeat and resourceful person, so when she realised she had a lot of extra time on her hands, she decided to put it to good use.

Creative Response

Charlotte response to the pandemic by looking outward – to her musicians, her peers and the wider industry, to see what she could do to help.

In the first few months, she helped musicians create virtual gigs and sell tickets, and organised a fundraiser to help people in the music industry,

She also started offering 1-2-1 mentoring to her clients and other musicians, where she focused on the big-picture career questions that are often sidelined in the hectic round of recording and touring.

What I love the most is talking to someone and saying, ‘What is it that you want out of your career? What are your goals? What drives you? What gives you that spark that we talked about before, that passion?’

She developed this approach into a new mentoring service for musicians as well as younger music managers.

Key Insight

When I look back in hindsight, I was very close to experiencing quite severe burnout but I had no idea that that was the case until the pandemic… I think the general consensus is that everyone had the opportunity to stop and pause and reflect on how they were working.

Episode 7: Laura Davis, Author and Teacher (USA)

Laura Davis is an author and teacher who writes books that change people’s lives. Her first book, The Courage to Heal, which she co-authored with the poet Ellen Bass, came out in the eighties and it was the first book to give survivors of sexual abuse a pathway to the healing process.

Laura’s books have been translated into 11 languages and sold millions of copies. She is also a very experienced teacher who has been helping other writers find their voice and tell their stories at classes and retreats for many years.

Laura’s latest book is The Burning Light of Two Stars, a powerful memoir about her relationship with her mother, how that was disrupted by Laura’s writings and how they took steps to make peace with one another.

You can read the opening chapters of The Burning Light of Two Stars here.

Covid Disruption

When the pandemic struck in 2020 Laura had to cancel all her retreats for the year, and she lost the bulk of her income in a moment. And like many teachers and facilitators around the world, she was left facing the question: what next?

The obvious answer was virtual teaching. But Laura had always resisted this idea:

For many years, people had emailed me or written and said, ‘Why don’t you teach online?’ because I had fans or students or people who followed my work who wanted to study with me and didn’t want to travel across the country to do it. And I always said ‘no’. There’s no way I could replicate what I do in person in a digital environment. I was certain that I had to be in the room, that I had to feel the energy in the room.

Creative Response

Faced with what felt like no alternative, Laura challenged her own beliefs and stepped out of her comfort zone to take her work online, starting by gratefully accepting an offer of technical help from a member of her community.

I taught a class for more than a year of the pandemic called ‘Writing Through the Pandemic’, and I had people from all over in that class, and we met once a week and we would write two prompts that focused on whatever was happening in the moment.

Laura also ran retreats, work weekends and other events online, and discovered many elements of online teaching that she enjoyed, such as the flexibility and the ability to reach and work with students around the world who would never have been able to attend an in-person event.

Even now, when she is back running in-person retreats at inspiring locations around the world, she still incorporates online classes as part of her ongoing teaching work.

Key Insight

The way I set the container [for a workshop or retreat] creates pretty predictable results. And I found that the same results were happening online. I didn’t think that would happen. I also found that I was able to read people, that I was able to pay attention to what was going on with people, and as I got more facile with the online interface I found there were a lot of ways to keep communicating with people… I was still able to connect.

Episode 8: Nicky Mondellini, Actor and Voice Artist (USA)

Nicky Mondellini is an actor who has worked in television, film and theatre. Having grown up in Mexico City with an Italian father and a British mother has made her equally proficient in Spanish, English and Italian, as well as different accents.

She is also an award-winning voiceover artist specialisting in commercials for the Hispanic market; she has been the voice of major brands such as Ford, Google Pixel, Fiat Alfa-Romeo, Texas Lottery, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Ikea.

Covid Disruption

At the beginning of 2020 Nicky had been cast in a film and was looking forward to starting shooting in February. Then the pandemic arrived and the project evaporated, as well as all the other acting opportunities she had been lining up.

It was a frightening time and a part of her was very tempted to play it safe. But she decided to treat the pandemic as an opportunity to lean into her voiceover work, raise her game and attract new clients.

Creative Response

Nicky invested in her professional development, ignoring the voice at the back of her mind telling her not to spend any money she didn’t have to.

She worked with the voiceover coach Dave Walsh to improve her performance, which led to her landing an ongoing national commercial campaign.

She also joined Marc Scott’s mastermind group, which led to the launch of her Spanish language podcast La Pizarra, which features interviews with experienced professionals in the entertainment business on both sides of the camera.

Creating the podcast has given Nicky another outlet for her creative talent, and is paying off by raising her profile, growing her network and creating opportunities for her career.

Key Insight

‘You have to keep pushing. You have to keep moving. Even though things are halted, what can you do to prepare yourself for when the economy does improve, for when things start picking up, what can you do?’

Episode 9: Ichi Hatano, Artist (Japan)

Ichi Hatano has worked as a tattoo artist since 1998 and also produces Suiboku-ga, a type of traditional ink wash painting.

In late 2019 Ichi was employing 3 more tattooists plus a full time studio manager in his Tokyo studio, and they were fully booked 6 days a week, with the majority of their business coming from overseas tourists, who wanted a very special souvenir of their trip to Japan.

Covid Disruption

Then along came the pandemic, and the restrictions meant that not only was Ichi’s tattoo studio closed for many months, but foreign tourists were barred from entering the country.

So Ichi’s business shrank from six days a week to only one or two clients a month. Which meant he had a lot of time on his hands, and he came up with three very different creative projects in response to his changed circumstances.

Creative Response

Ichi’s first pandemic project was a beautiful book of his Suibokuga paintings, called Ichi Hatano’s Dragons, which he crowdfunded on Kickstarter.

The second project is an ongoing DIY renovation project at a traditional house in the Japanese countryside, which he plans to turn into a gallery.

And the third was his entry into the world of Crypto Art and NFTs.

Ichi took part in CrypTOKYO, Japan’s very first in-person NFT art show, exhibiting and selling his digital artwork alongside notable Japanese artists and international icons including Beeple, and Maxim from The Prodigy.

The show attracted national press and television coverage in Japan, and established Ichi as one of the country’s leading digital artists.

Key Insight

‘Life is short. I feel like I’ve been starting to think more about how to spend my limited time. I want to do more big projects, but if each one takes a few years, I can’t do a lot!’

Episode 10: Mark McGuinness, Poet and Creative Coach (UK)

I am an award-winning poet who has been a Creative Coach for the past 25 years.

I’m also the host of The 21st Century Creative podcast, and devoted Season 6 of the show, The Creative Disruption Season, to collecting these pandemic stories from creatives around the world.

In the final episode of the season, I talk about my own journey through the pandemic, and what I learned from my own experience of creative disruption.

Covid Disruption

Like people all around the world, my wife and business partner Mami and I experienced a lot of disruption to our daily lives, and we did our best to take care of our family in the midst of lockdowns, restrictions and uncertainty in the face of the new virus.

We were luckier than many, however, partly because of where we lived, and also the way we had set up our work and business prior to Covid. We had been working from home and online for many years, so were able to carry on our usual work as writers and coaches.

In this episode of the podcast, I talk about how the strategies and practices that allowed us to keep working and to be as resilient as possible during the pandemic.

Creative Response

I wasn’t forced into reinventing myself by Covid, but I did take the opportunity to focus my energy on a project I had been dreaming of creating for several years: a new poetry podcast, A Mouthful of Air.

I wanted to create a high-quality show to share my love of poetry, and introduce the work of contemporary poets to a wider audience.

It wasn’t a commercial project but I wanted the highest possible production values, so for the first time ever, we applied for public funding, from Arts Council England, and were thrilled when they awarded us a National Lottery Project Grant to help with the production of the show.

In this podcast episode, you can hear the best-selling author and speaker Joanna Penn interview me about the inspiration behind A Mouthful of Air, and how I conceived, funded, launched and produced the show against the backdrop of the pandemic.

Key Insight

Whatever you’re doing, if you want to get it out into the world, even if you’re giving it away for free, like a podcast, you’ve still got to sell it.

About the 21st Century Creative Podcast

Each episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast features an interview with an outstanding creator in the arts or creative industries.

At the end of the interview, I ask my guest to set you a Creative Challenge that will help you put the ideas from the interview in to practice in your own work.

And in the first part of the show, I share insights and practical guidance based on my experience as a Creative Coach.

Make sure you receive every episode of The 21st Century Creative by subscribing:

The post Creative Disruption: How 12 Creatives on 5 Continents Rose to the Challenge of the Pandemic appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

First, I reflect on my own journey through Covid disruptions – from coaching creatives to writing poetry – and then my friend Joanna Penn interviews me about the inspiration, funding and production behind the show.

UPDATE, 2025: A Mouthful of Air is still going, and has been selected by The Guardian in a list of ‘five of the best’ poetry podcasts, and by Podcast Review for three years running as one of the 11 best podcasts for poetry lovers. So it feels like it was worth the effort to get it started, back in the tense days of the pandemic.

‘For me personally, poetry is the bedrock – it’s the foundation of who I am in everything that I do.’ – listen to my story and Joanna Penn’s interview about launching a podcast amid global upheaval.

Episode summary

Mark McGuinness

Mark McGuinness is an award-winning poet and creative coach whose podcast The 21st Century Creative has guided thousands of creatives. In this episode he unveils how he launched his new poetry show, A Mouthful of Air, against the backdrop of the pandemic.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Poetry as foundation – personal art can anchor and enrich professional work.
• ‘Throw them in the deep end, then give them a lifejacket’ – my approach to poetry podcasting.
• Diverse funding strategies – combine coaching revenue, grants and independence to support creative ventures.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Seize disruption – crises can spur new passion projects and opportunities.
• Play multiple games – pursue both traditional and independent routes to find the best platform for each project.

Where next?

Listen to A Mouthful of Air at amouthfulofair.fm to hear how classic and contemporary poems are made.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post How I Created, Funded and Launched My New Podcast (while the World Was in Meltdown) appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

From crowdfunding a sumi dragon book to renovating a countryside house and launching NFT art, he reinvented his creative practice.

‘Challenging yourself is very important’ – discover how Ichi reinvented his art across mediums.

Episode summary

Ichi Hatano

Ichi Hatano is a Tokyo-based tattoo artist and Suiboku-ga painter whose work honours centuries-old Japanese traditions. When the pandemic emptied his studio, he published a Kickstarter-funded dragon painting book, restored a rural house via YouTube, and exhibited his digital art at CrypTOKYO, Japan’s first in-person NFT show.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Embrace disruption – unexpected challenges can lead to new creative paths.
• Blend old and new – update traditional forms with modern technology.
• Diversify projects – pursue multiple ventures to sustain momentum.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Trial and error is vital – experiment boldly with new mediums to keep your practice alive.

Where next?

Explore Ichi’s sumi ink paintings, digital art and his crowdfunded book at ichihatano.com, and follow his studio on Instagram at @ichi_hatano.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post From Tattoos to NFT Art with Ichi Hatano appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

That was voiceover artist Nicky Mondellini’s dilemma until the pandemic cancelled her film work – and suddenly she had the time to launch her long-planned podcast.

‘If you don’t start now, you’ll never do it’ – tune in to Nicky’s story of seizing her moment in lockdown.

Episode summary

Nicky Mondellini

Nicky Mondellini is a multilingual actor and award-winning voiceover artist whose work spans stage, screen and commercials for brands such as Ford, Google Pixel and Ikea. When the pandemic upended her acting projects in early 2020, she chose to deepen her voiceover skills and launch La Pizarra, her Spanish-language podcast interviewing entertainment professionals.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Lean into your strengths – use existing skills to find new creative avenues.
• Invest in yourself – targeted coaching and training boost confidence and bookings.
• Start imperfectly – launch projects now and refine as you go.
• Use your voice – spoken connection can clarify, engage and open doors.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Perfect is the enemy of done – begin your project now to build momentum and learn from experience.
• Pick up the phone – a quick call can achieve more than dozens of emails.

Where next?

Discover Nicky’s voiceover demos and coaching at nickymondellini.com and listen to her podcast La Pizarra at lapizarrapodcast.com.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Using Lockdown to Launch a Dream Project with Nicky Mondellini appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

If you skipped a day on your novel, who would know?

If you didn’t go to the studio today, who would know?

It’s not like anyone is watching, is it?

The same goes for how you show up.

If you stayed out partying last night, you’re probably not going to be at your best this morning.

Even if you’re well-behaved on weeknights, what kind of presence are you bringing to your work each day?

What did you put into your mind before you got down to work?

Were you doomscrolling endless bad news?

Were you sharing outrage on social media?

Were you emailing back and forth about things that could wait till later?

And what kind of emotions did all of that stir up?

And how will that affect the quality of attention you bring to your work?

But again, no one is watching, are they?

Actually, they are.

Because whatever you put on the page or the screen or the canvas or into a microphone today, is precisely what your reader or viewer or listener will pick up whenever they encounter your work.

It’s as though space and time have collapsed, and they are right with you as you write, as you paint, as you compose or speak or sing. Right this moment.

Deep down, you know this, from your own encounters with artworks you love.

That poem that speaks to you as if the poet were in the room.

That novel that is always fresh, always vivid, always humming with life, each time you open it.

That painting that takes your breath away each time you stand before it.

That music you feel in your heart, in your gut, whenever you stop and really listen to it.

Each time you encounter a work like this, you are in the presence of a great performance.

Because the power of a work of art is a result of the presence and intention of its creator, while they were working on it.

If they had phoned it in, you would never have heard of them. You’d be reading someone else’s book or looking at someone else’s art.

Because a true work of art is the result of the artist’s fullest attention, their deepest intention, their greatest performance.

In other words, all arts are performing arts.

So we need to prepare like performers.

I’m lucky enough to have coached quite a few top stage performers – actors, singers, musicians, DJs, comedians and public speakers.

I’ve learned about their pre-performance rituals, which actually extend, very often, to the whole day of a performance.

They are very particular about how they spend that day. They have rules and routines covering their diet, exercise, meditation or other mental preparation, rehearsal or warmup time.

Quite a few of them have an interest or discipline that helps them use their time well, rather than getting into trouble. Yoga. Reading. Learning a language or playing a game. Having a healthy distraction like this can also stop them overthinking their performance.

They all have horror stories to tell about mistakes that led to bad performances – going out the night before, or getting into an argument in the afternoon, or receiving bad news just before walking on stage.

So they do everything they can to minimise disturbance and distractions – anything that would detract from their presence on stage.

Because they know the audience is unforgiving. The audience notices every wobble, every hesitation, every fluffed line, every wrong note.

And they know the audience deserves their best.

It’s a tough regime. But in a way, stage performers are lucky.

Because they are eyeball to eyeball with their public. They are under no illusions that they are being watched and judged. And when the lights go on, there is absolutely no excuse, so they have to show up.

But when you’re sitting there on your own, it’s easy to have illusions.

It’s easy to pretend that no one is watching.

It’s easy to tell yourself it doesn’t matter if you skip today.

Or if you ‘just’ check your email or ‘just’ take a look at Facebook.

Or if you just do your 2 hours or your thousand words or whatever goal you’ve set yourself, but without really showing up, without putting your heart and soul into it. Without risking anything.

But all of these illusions melt away when you realise that your art is a performing art, just as much as Ian McKellen’s or Lady Gaga’s.

When you realise that if you want someone to look at your art or read your book or listen to your album, then you need to show up as if they were in the room with you, watching or reading or listening over your shoulder.

When you realise that, then you start to prepare like a performer.

You think about your pre-performance ritual.

You think about the day – and the night – before your performance.

You put in routines and habits that will prepare you – physically, mentally, emotionally – to show up like a top performer.

Maybe you join the gym or take up tai chi.

Maybe you meditate or listen to something motivational or calming.

Maybe you start learning Spanish or juggling, so you have a way of filling your downtime without getting into trouble.

Before you start work, you avoid anything – news, social media, email, paying bills, meetings – that could break your single-minded focus on your work.

If all of this sounds like too much discipline, too much self-denial, on top of the work itself, then you haven’t quite grasped the implications of what I’m saying.

Because if you’ve ever performed on a stage yourself, you’ll know that yes, it’s scary, and yes, it takes a lot of preparation, but it can also be utterly thrilling.

When you’re on stage and in the zone, when you feel the connection with the audience, and you’re channeling your work, it’s pure joy.

And that joy, that excitement, can be there for you every day you show up for work. Even if it’s just you in the studio or at your desk.

As long as you treat your art like a performing art.

The post All Arts Are Performing Arts appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Laura, famed for The Courage to Heal and her new memoir The Burning Light of Two Stars, challenged her own beliefs about digital learning – and discovered it could be just as transformative.

‘I didn’t think online teaching could match an in-person retreat – but I was pleasantly surprised’ – listen to Laura’s story of creative reinvention.

Episode summary

Laura Davis

Laura Davis is the co-author of the classic guide The Courage to Heal and author of the memoir The Burning Light of Two Stars. Her work has sold millions of copies in eleven languages and pioneered a pathway to healing for survivors of trauma.

For the past 25 years she has taught writing and personal transformation at retreats worldwide. When the pandemic struck, Laura boldly took her deep, intimate workshops online – proving that virtual spaces can host genuine healing.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Pivoting to virtual teaching – how to adapt deep healing work to online classes.
• The power of writing practice – using unfiltered writing and reading out loud for transformation.
• Creating and sustaining community – building intimacy and support in both in-person and online settings.
• Courage to reveal – the creative bravery required to write one’s most vulnerable truth.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Embrace the closed door – write for 20 minutes without stopping on prompt and read your words out loud.
• Create your container – establish clear guidelines for safety and self-care in online workshops.

Where next?

You can read the opening chapters of The Burning Light of Two Stars here.

And you can find out more about the book and where to buy it here.

Laura is now back to teaching in-person retreats again, as well as online classes – you can learn about all of thes at her website LauraDavis.net.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Taking Deep Work Online with Laura Davis appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

In Season 3 episode 11 Arsalan spoke to Donny McCaslin, the leader of the jazz band that Bowie discovered in a New York club, and asked to work with him on what turned out to be his final album, and one of his greatest masterpieces, Blackstar.

At one point Donny was talking about what it was like to be working with Bowie in the studio:

‘He was such a dynamic performer and just a dynamic presence, and we felt it when we were recording and it felt magical. I would finish the day in the studio and be going home and was thinking, “Man that was a great day. I hope that tomorrow is like that, I hope every day is like that”. And I think for the most part every day was, we felt that connection was happening in the room. You know, there were some days where it’s like, there’s thirty alto flute overdubs, you know [laughter] it’s not ‘Sue’, you know, every day.’

So when he says ‘it’s not ‘Sue’ every day, he’s referring to the track ‘Sue (Or In a Season of Crime)’, which for him was one of the highlights of recording the album.

I love Donny’s honesty here, and it rings so true. Even when you’re working on a dream project, with a superstar, on a masterpiece, and it’s a transformative, magical experience, there will be days when the work will be repetitive and start to grate a little. Where you’ve done twenty alto flute overdubs and there’s still another ten to go. When you have to grind the work out.

And we’re not talking about grunt work, that can be automated or outsourced or delegated to someone junior. Sometimes, as in this case, it requires high artistic knowledge and judgment, but it can still get dull if you’re doing the same thing over and over.

And I thought, if that’s true when you’re working with Bowie, then no wonder if it’s true for the rest of us!

When I’m writing a book, it’s checking proofs. Of course I have a copyeditor and a proofreader, but I wrote the book, so I need to check it too. It’s tedious, and it’s also the stage when I’ve looked at the text so many times I never want to see it again. I just want to move on to something new.

There is even a boring part of writing poetry. I usually write in metre, which means the poems have a regular rhythm, iambic pentameter or trochaic tetrameter or whatever. And there’s a point where I need to go through each poem with a fine-toothed comb and check the metrical pattern for mistakes and infelicities.

It’s not too bad for a short poem, but my Chaucer translation is currently over 1,000 lines, and I was seeing double by the time I had checked all that…

So sometimes, there’s a difficult and boring task to be done, and it needs to be done by someone like you, with high levels of artistic skill and knowledge and taste. And on those days, you need to grind it out.

It’s not exciting. It doesn’t fit the popular Romantic image of creativity. But this willingness to go the extra mile, to obsess over getting all details right, helps you filter out imperfections. And sometimes it can add an indefinable touch of magic to the finished work.

When you’re facing a task like this, first check: Can this be outsourced? Is there someone else who can do it as well or better than me?

If not, then it’s time to put the kettle on, roll up your sleeves, and grind it out…

And make sure you give yourself a nice reward afterwards!

Special thanks to Arsalan Mohammed for letting me use the clip from his interview with Donny McCaslin.

If you are a Bowie fan you should definitely check out his podcast DavidBowie: AlbumtoAlbum, he gets amazing guests like Reeves Gabrels and Tony Plati and Sterling Campbell and Nicholas Pegg talking about Bowie’s work, it’s an absolute treasure trove.

You can hear an audio version of this article in this episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast.

The post Sometimes You Have to Grind the Work Out appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Charlotte Abroms, a Melbourne-based music manager, used the enforced shutdown to pioneer new ways to help her roster thrive – from virtual gigs to mentoring emerging talent.

‘If an artist doesn’t have cash flow, the manager usually works on a commission basis – so the manager doesn’t have cash flow either.’ – hear how Charlotte innovated to keep musicians afloat.

Episode summary

Charlotte Abroms

Charlotte Abroms is a Melbourne-based music manager whose roster includes Ainslie Wills, Haarlo and producers Jonathan Steer and John Castle. With a background in digital strategy and as co-founder of the live-music blog Large Noises, she has won the Lighthouse Award, Fast Track Fellowship and Outstanding Woman in Music Award.

When COVID-19 cancelled tours and cut off artist incomes, Charlotte responded by creating virtual gigs, fundraising campaigns and bespoke mentoring for emerging musicians and young managers – showing how resourceful creativity can sustain an entire industry.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Creative resilience – pivoting to virtual concerts and on-demand streams to generate income when live shows were impossible.
• Audience-first marketing – scouting talent and engaging fans online using digital-strategy skills.
• Flexible management models – offering short-term mentoring and consulting instead of long contracts.
• Enhanced accessibility – using high-quality streams and seated events to reach fans unable to attend in person.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Use enforced downtime – invest in virtual projects, mentoring programmes or skill-building when tours are halted.
• Maintain audience connection – produce professional online events and digital content to keep fans engaged and support revenue.

Where next?

Discover Charlotte’s mentoring and music-management services at hearheargroup.com and follow her insights on Instagram at @charlotteabroms.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Helping Musicians Through Lockdown with Charlotte Abroms appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Because if you get up every morning and ask yourself ‘What should I work on today?’ you risk making decisions based on what feels urgent right now, rather than what will make the biggest difference in the long term.

But when you focus on projects, rather than tasks, you shift your effort from the daily round of tasks to bigger, more substantial works – writing a book or a script, recording an album, creating an exhibition, producing a show, or launching a company.

When you do this, you give yourself a shot at creating the game-changing, career-defining work that you dream of.

But supposing you’re like me, you typically have several project you’re itching to get on with, and you feel pulled in different directions. How do you decide which project to work on?

Should you do the thing that fires you up creatively, even though you can’t see any money in it?

Or should you focus on a money project, even though it doesn’t inspire you?

Or should you do the thing that will help to build your reputation within your artistic or creative field, even though it’s not obvious what the payoff will be?

Or should you do the thing that’s is currently working really well for you, and people are encouraging you to continue with, even though you’d rather move on to something new?

It’s easy to make a case for any of these options, which is why you can find yourself going round in circles, moving from one to the other, or even worse, trying to do them all at once.

That’s why, last week, I recommended you focus on one project at a time, for a few months at a time. Then pause to evaluate your progress and if necessary, change direction.

But which project should you pick?

If your creative work is separate from the work you do for a living, it’s relatively easy – you’re already paying your dues to society, so you can afford to give your passion projects free rein.

But if you’re a creative professional, then there’s always a delicate balancing act between creativity, money, passion and professional advancement.

One answer is to spend a few months on one project, say your ‘art project’, and then do a more commercial project, or one that will raise your professional profile.

But if you get to the point where it feels like you’re constantly facing a trade-off between different motivations, and if you’re feeling frustrated by it, then it’s worth considering the type of project you’re choosing from.

Passion projects are great, and money projects can be useful, but they are both what I call single-faceted projects. You have one clear motivation for each project. Which means that on its own, that project is not sustainable enough, or not satisfying enough, to be your long-term focus.

But the Holy Grail for creatives is discovering a multifaceted project – where you don’t have to choose between creativity, money, personal fulfilment or professional rewards. Because all of these things are found in the same project.

When something is multifaceted, like a diamond, it reveals different aspects according to which angle you look at it from. You can turn it, and contemplate the different facets. But it’s all the same thing.

If your creative project is like a diamond, it will be valuable in different ways. And it will shine.

In my book Motivation for Creative People, I talk about 4 fundamental types of motivation that are essential for a fulfilling, successful and sustainable creative project.

Firstly, intrinsic motivation – the love of the work for its own sake. This is most important from a creative point of view.

Secondly, extrinsic motivation – rewards for the work, such as money, fame or artistic reputation, and new opportunities. And this is most important from a sustainability point of view.

Thirdly, personal motivation – expressing your individual personality, your feelings, your taste and your point of view.

And finally, social motivation – the energy you get from other people, whether through connection, collaboration, competition, or contributing to your community.

A truly multifaceted project incorporates all 4 types of motivation – it brings you creative fulfilment, financial and other professional rewards, personal satisfaction and social connection.

When you’re working on a multifaceted project, there is no conflict, no ‘but on the other hand’, holding you back.

The different motivations interlock and make each other stronger, propelling you forward.

You move forward faster on all fronts. Partly because of the energy the project gives you. And also because you are saving time – instead of doing different projects for different motivations, one after the other, you get all your motivations at once, from a single project!

For example, The 21st Century Creative podcast is a multifaceted project for me.

I love making it, it’s a creative outlet for me. It brings me coaching clients and also income via the Patreon membership. It also helps to get my name out there and attract interesting opportunities.

When it comes to personal motivation, I always remember the feeling I had when I recorded my very first interview for the podcast. It felt like I was inviting my guest into my space. There are plenty of other podcasts for creatives out there, but this is my show, my place to talk about the things that matter to me, and where I get to do things my way.

And the best thing about the show is the way it connects me to other creators – listeners, guests, clients, Patreon members, other podcasters and the wider creative world.

So that is one of my multifaceted projects. How about you?

Maybe you’re working on a multifaceted project already, in which case, good luck with it.

But if you’re feeling pulled between different types of projects, and you’d really love to have a multifaceted project to focus on, here’s a place to get started.

Write out a list of your current or potential projects and ask yourself, which of the 4 types of motivation it gives you.

Give it one tick for each type of motivation – intrinsic, extrinsic, personal and social.

And I want to emphasise that extrinsic motivation doesn’t just mean money – it could also mean building your artist or professional reputation, growing your fame or attracting opportunities.

OK, so when you’ve gone through your list, consider how many facets each one has.

If a project has 4 facets then it’s a no-brainer – make it a priority!

If it has 2-3 facets – is there a way you can expand it, to add more facets, with different types of motivation?

If it has a single facet, that fine if you really love that one thing about a it. But if not… maybe it’s time to retire that project and focus on other things?

From my own experience, and from observing coaching clients, a multi-faceted project often emerges mid-career, when you’ve tried a few different lines of work, which has given you a range of skills and experience. And then one day, things start to come together and you can see a way to create a project that combines all those different elements in one.

And remember, the surest sign of a multifaceted project is that it shines…

Photo: Sphenes from the collection of The Intrepid Wendell. (Listen to this podcast interview for the story behind one of the world’s most innovative jewellery salons.)

The post Work on Multifaceted Projects appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Kay Lock Kolp shows how even in crisis you can nurture your artistic spark alongside parenting demands.

‘Each of the next seven nights, take a few moments to look at yourself in the mirror.’ – hear Kay’s nightly ritual for nourishing creativity as a parent.

Episode summary

Kay Lock Kolp

Kay Lock Kolp is a coach, podcaster and author who helps creatives balance parenting and their inner lives. Through her Practical Intuition podcast and one-to-one coaching she guides parents to reclaim self-care, preserve creativity and thrive under pressure.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Creativity and parenting coexist – tiny daily acts sustain your artistic life alongside childcare.
• Self-care fuels resilience – filling your own cup enables better parenting and creative work.
• Permission frees expression – give yourself the right to create and dispel self-doubt.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Think small – even five minutes of creative focus moves you forward.
• Set micro-boundaries – use short timers to balance child care and concentrated work.

Where next?

Connect with Kay at kaylockkolp.com and subscribe to her weekly insights at kaylockkolp.com/weekly.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Parenting for Creatives with Kay Lock Kolp appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

All of which is great, but if this is all we focus on, there’s a danger of getting stuck at the tactical level, getting caught up in the daily round of tasks.

We end up making decisions each morning about what to work on today — based on what feels urgent or important at that moment, not what will bring us the most fulfilment and success over the long term.

If you’re serious about your creative ambitions, you should not be making that decision every morning.

If this is where you find yourself, it’s time to stop and look at the big picture. Crucially, you need to think about your work in terms of projects, not tasks. Because ultimately the level of your achievement will depend on the quantity and quality of the projects you complete.

What do I mean by a project? A substantial piece of work. A book. A movie. An album. An event. A product. A major artwork or a collection of smaller works.

A single poem or song or painting wouldn’t count as a project, but a book of poems or an album full of songs or a series of paintings would.

What do we remember Beethoven for? The symphonies.

What do we remember Picasso for? Guernica.

What do we remember Shakespeare for? King Lear. Macbeth. Hamlet.

What do we remember Sylvia Plath for? Ariel.

What will we remember Francis Ford Coppola for? The Godfather trilogy.

What will we remember Kate Bush for? Hounds of Love.

We won’t remember them for the tasks they ticked off their to do lists, only the major works they produced.

So once in a while, lift your eyes from your daily task list and your weekly calendar, and look to the future.

Start by asking yourself: what do I really want to make? What will fulfil me the most? What do I want to be known for?

If you’re struggling to answer that, here’s the negative version:

When I’m lying on my deathbed, what kind of work will I regret not doing, if I never get round to it?

That will give you the kind of project you need to focus on: books, albums, events, movies, or whatever.

Next, divide your year up into manageable chunks. I divide mine into 3: New Year to Easter, Easter to July, September to Christmas. Some people prefer to divide their year into 4 seasons.

3 or 4 months is a good timescale to think in terms of – big enough to do something substantial, small enough to hold yourself accountable.

Now, it’s decision time! You want to pick one project and make that your focus for the next 3 to 4 months.

Why one? Because if it’s a project worth doing, you’ll need single-minded focus to push through the inner Resistance and external obstacles you’ll encounter.

If you’re anything like me, at any one time you probably have several projects you’re keen to get on with. But unless you focus on one at a time, it’s hard to build the momentum you need to make it happen.

If you try focus on two or more projects, they will jostle for your attention every day, and each project can become a distraction from the others.

But when you have a single project as your main focus, you don’t need to decide what to do on a daily basis. Whatever time is available in between your various responsibilities, you simply devote it to your current project.

This saves you a huge amount of mental effort each day, because you don’t need to decide all over again what your priorities are. And it forces you to stick with the project when it gets difficult, and push through the obstacles.

It also means you can live inside the project for an extended period. When I’m writing a book, or recording a season of this podcast, I’m inside the book, inside the season, for weeks and months at a time, not just the hours I spend writing or recording.

So part of me is always thinking about it, and probably figuring things out at the unconscious level. I notice connections in the world around me and in articles and books I read, or news stories, or in conversation with other people.

And the book or the podcast is all the better for this immersion.

I’m not saying you completely ignore your other projects. Sometimes you have to do a bit of work here and there to keep them alive, especially if they involve other people. But always have a single project as your main focus, and don’t let the others distract from it.

And at the end of your allotted 3-4 month period, it’s time to stop and go up to 10,000 feet again, to review your progress and consider your priorities for the next period.

For example, last year I was working on the funding, launch and promotion of my poetry podcast, A Mouthful of Air, so it was the main focus for my spring, summer and autumn seasons.

At the start of this year, it was time to rebalance and focus on The 21st Century Creative podcast again, so I made that my main focus for the spring. Now that it’s finished and rolling out, I’m turning my attention to another project over the summer, that I’m talking about in the 21st Century Creative Patreon group.

And when I reach the autumn, I know I’ll have several projects vying for my attention, so it will probably take me a while to think through which one to prioritise.

So how do you decide which project to focus on when you have several ideas that you want to execute? That’s a great question – I’m going to answer it in next week…

Right now, I suggest you write down the answer to two questions:

Firstly, that question about what kind of work you really want to do and be known for.

And secondly, make a list of all the projects and ideas for projects that you currently have, that you’re itching to get on with.

Next week, I’ll give you some suggestions about how you go through that list and decide which one you’re going to focus on next.

The post Focus on Projects, Not Tasks appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Amrita Kumar turned the crisis into opportunity by launching Mojo Box – a subscription discovery platform that kept her business alive and engaged 240,000 consumers.

‘Going slow is okay’ – learn how patience became Amrita’s secret weapon.

Episode summary

Amrita Kumar

Amrita Kumar is co-founder and CEO of Candid Marketing, one of India’s most awarded experiential agencies. When in-person activations ground to a halt in 2020, she launched Mojo Box – a home-delivery sampling service that now reaches over 240,000 registered consumers across India.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Reinvent under pressure – turn a long-held idea into a lifeline when your core business stalls.
• Design for all stakeholders – create value for brands, consumers and micro-influencers alike.
• Embrace slow experimentation – launch quickly, gather real feedback and refine as you go.
• Consumer insight drives innovation – real-time feedback sparks better products and services.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Going slow is okay – give yourself permission to build at a sustainable pace.
• Push imperfect launches – if you’re not embarrassed by your first version, you launched too late.
• Charge for commitment – a small fee ensures engaged participants and richer data.

Where next?

Explore sample boxes and join Mojo Box via @iwantamojobox.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Launching a New Business in the Pandemic with Amrita Kumar appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

One reason for this is that marketing can feel so big and impersonal. We think of ‘mass marketing’ – and it’s hard to feel a connection to masses.

We prefer to make things with more of an intimate, one-to-one feel. If you’re a writer, you probably have a single ideal reader in your mind as you write. If you’re an artist, you probably think of how your work will look to a single viewer.

So it feels like a big and unnatural shift to start thinking about promoting this thing we’ve made with for a single person, by trying to talk to thousands of potential customers.

Plus there’s so much competition – including big brands with huge marketing budgets, and super-influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers. So it’s easy to feel we have no chance of cutting through.

But really, this is an illusion. Marketing may be pumped out at scale, but it’s consumed, or encountered, in a very intimate way.

When you look at a Tweet or a Facebook post, there aren’t millions of people looking over your shoulder – it’s just you and your phone.

When you read a magazine, you are alone with the magazine.

When you listen to a podcaster talking on your headphones, or in your car, or in your kitchen while you’re cooking, it’s just one person listening to another person talking.

Even if you’re looking at an ad on a poster or billboard in a crowded space, it feels like you’re the only one looking at it. Or if you’re watching an ad in a cinema, surrounded by people, you’re not aware of them – it’s just you and the screen.

So when I’m working with a coaching client on their marketing, I encourage them to focus on one-to-one communication. To help them do this, I use a tool I call the Media Dashboard.

Because the dashboard in a car displays all the essential information a driver needs while on the road – speed, fuel gauge, engine temperature, warnings if something is wrong. And the SatNav helps you find your way. And it’s quite an intimate experience – the dashboard is designed to be visible to the driver, everything is tilted to make it easy for you to see.

The dashboard is essential for navigating the road safely and getting to your destination. It’s an overlay of information on the real world you can see through the windscreen. A form of augmented reality.

Driving without a dashboard would be a disorienting and scary thing to do. You wouldn’t know how fast you were going, where you were, or whether you were about to run out of fuel.

And if you think about it, we all have a personal media dashboard that we use to navigate life in the 21st century.

We have our trusted news sources for local, national and world events.

We have social media to keep up with friends, professional contacts and people we’re interested in.

We have books, podcasts, radio, YouTube, Neflix, Disney+ and so on, for entertainment and learning.

We have specialist professional magazines or journals relating to our work.

Different media fulfil different purposes. They keep us informed about the world around us, and help us make decisions, from what to watch on TV tonight to business strategy or career moves, to who to vote for every few years.

Like the car dashboard, your media dashboard is a very intimate space. And the instruments on your dashboard are your trusted sources of information.

But unlike a car dashboard, your media dashboard is individually curated by you. Each of us has our unique media dashboard, that we are constantly tweaking and adjusting as our interests, tastes and situation evolve.

So how does this relate to your marketing challenge?

It’s really very simple. Your marketing goal should be to appear on the media dashboard of the person you want to reach.

If you can do that, and if the impression you create is sufficiently positive, and your messages is clear enough, they are likely to do what you want – whether that’s buying your product or artwork, or enquiring about your service, or subscribing to your podcast/YouTube/newsletter, or telling other people about you and helping to spread the word.

Remember, the dashboard contains their most trusted sources of information. If you appear there, you have cut through all the noise. You are in their inner sanctum.

Sounds simple, right?

And no, it’s not easy. But it is at least simpler than trying to broadcast to hundreds of thousands of people, with a scattergun approach, hoping you’ll somehow ‘cut through’ to the right people.

So what I say to my clients is to start by imagining the media dashboard of the kind of person you want to reach:

Who are they?

Where do they get their news?

Do they use social media? If so, which platforms?

Do they read books? If so, do they prefer print or ebooks? Or maybe audiobooks?

Do they listen to podcasts, watch YouTube videos, read blogs or email newsletters?

Do they read professional journals? If so, which ones?

How about mainstream media? Newspapers? Magazines? TV, radio?

Start with educated guesses, but check these in reality – a bit of judicious Googling may uncover some fascinating data about the media habits of different segments of society.

And pay attention to your friends and peers and – what kind of media do they mention in conversations?

It can help to sketch the dashboard on a piece of paper, in a similar format to a car dashboard, with the different media logos in place of the car instruments.

Next, ask yourself the big question: How can I appear on that dashboard?

List all the options that you come up with. They might include:

• Growing your profile on a relevant social media platform.
• Getting interviewed on a podcast.
• Pitching a guest article to a blog or magazine or trade journal.
• Getting interviews or coverage in the news media.
• Writing a book.
• Launching a podcast or YouTube.

Notice that there aren’t any easy options. But then most work worth doing is difficult.

But the media dashboard makes it easier in two ways: firstly, it helps you focus your efforts in the right places. And crucially, it helps you keep your marketing personal, by focusing on 1-2-1 communication that will feel personal.

So for example in my case, as a creative coach, I know this about the kind of creative professionals I want to reach:

They read books for personal and professional development. So I write books.

They listen to podcasts for the same reasons. So I make a podcast. And give interviews to other podcasts.

They aren’t massive social media users. They are more likely to be on Twitter or Instagram than Facebook or TikTok or wherever the young people are hanging out these days. So I focus on Twitter, because it’s the one I like the most.

They read newspapers, usually the digital edition. I have a pretty good idea which ones, which means I say ‘yes’ to some media enquiries and ‘no’ to others.

The media dashboard helps me focus my efforts. It’s not quick and easy. But I know if I commit, then over time I can appear on the dashboards of enough of the right kind of people.

Finally, remember people are constantly tweaking their media dashboard. So keep an eye out for new platforms, channels, and trends in media consumption. And drive safely!

The post Make Your Marketing Personal with a Media Dashboard appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Hometeam Productions turned that crisis into opportunity by tapping a global network of local filmmakers to keep content flowing for brands and broadcasters.

‘When the rest of the industry went dark, we already had the solution’ – tune in to discover how Hometeam rewrote the rules of production.

Episode summary

Hometeam

Hometeam is a global content-production network founded by Harrison Winter, Brandon Bloch and Lagan Sebert. They leverage over 500 filmmakers in more than 150 countries to deliver remote shoots for clients such as NBC’s The Voice, HBO Max’s Legendary and Google’s No Easy Answers, keeping projects rolling when travel was impossible.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Remote production as necessity – a pre-existing global model became essential overnight.
• Local talent unlocks authenticity – filmmakers on the ground deliver richer, more vibrant stories.
• Constraints spark creativity – limitations inspire innovative solutions and new possibilities.
• Community over competition – sharing resources builds opportunity for all.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Turn disadvantages into advantages – seek the opportunity in every constraint.
• Stop asking permission – pick up your camera (or pen) and start creating.
• Anticipate reinvention – look proactively for your next creative pivot.

Where next?

Discover how Hometeam can reboot your productions at wearehometeam.com, and explore their case studies of global shoots.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Rebooting Global Filming with Hometeam appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Yes, the 21st century gives us plenty of options for creating things without gatekeepers – you can sell direct, build your own platform, launch your own event, self-publish or whatever, and we’ve covered a lot of them on this show. But that’s not the game we’re playing today.

Today we’re assuming you’ve considered the alternatives and you’ve decided that here is an opportunity worth pursuing, worth submitting and waiting and hoping that whoever is on the receiving end will love your work enough to say: ‘Yes!’

My own experience of this is submitting poems to magazines and competitions, because that’s how the poetry world works here in the UK, how I can reach the hardcore poetry readers.

And rest assured I have had my share of rejections. And just about every week I talk to coaching clients who are wrestling with how to cope with rejection. Often serial rejection, because if an opportunity is really worth pursuing, there will be a lot of competition for it.

Rejection is normal, even for highly talented creatives. But it doesn’t necessarily feel that way when yet another ‘no’ lands in your inbox.

Firstly there’s that feeling like a punch to the gut. Then on a bad day, the Inner Critic starts up, doing its best to make things worse:

Of course they said no! What were you expecting? Why did you think you had a chance? How much longer are you going to keep banging your head against a brick wall?

And so on. Ad nauseam.

From observing my own experience, as well as having worked with hundreds of creatives on this issue, I’ve noticed that a lot of these anxieties boil down to one deeply depressing thought:

My work wasn’t good enough.

As if that’s not bad enough, it’s not long before a further thought occurs to you:

And that means I’m not good enough.

Ouch!

So today, I’d like to examine this assumption. Because that’s what it is – you’re assuming that the reason your work was rejected was that it wasn’t good enough. And it ain’t necessarily so.

This was brought home to me way back in 2005, when I had the chance to go through the looking glass and edit a major poetry magazine myself.

I was on the editorial board of Magma Poetry, one of the foremost poetry magazines here in the UK, and which has a different editor for every issue.

And when my turn came in the hot seat, I found myself on the receiving end of a torrent of email submissions and bulging postbags arriving at the door.

The first thing I noticed was how many there were – literally thousands of poems. And I had room for about 60 poems in the issue.

And immediately I felt better about all my own rejections, because I realised that with those odds, there was no shame in not being regularly plucked out of the stack of submissions.

Over the next few months, as I worked through the poems, it gradually dawned on me that I was going to have too many good poems. In other words, there were plenty more poems that were ‘good enough’, in terms of writing quality, than there was room for in the magazine.

So what was I going to do about it?

After thinking it over, and getting some advice from more experienced editors, I realised there were two other factors at play that would decide which of the excellent poems would make it into my issue.

Firstly I started to notice patterns emerging in the submissions – poems by different authors on the same topic or theme, that seemed to build on each other or talk to each other. It was as if these poems somehow joined hands and made friends and looked out for each other, whereas others were left on their own and it was harder for me to make a case to include them.

Secondly was my personal taste. If the issue was going to be my issue, I had to stand by my own judgment and make the selection of poems I liked the most. Otherwise what was the point in me being the editor?

So I chose the poems I liked, in full awareness that another editor would probably have done a similar job of sifting out the well-written pieces, but could have made a radically different selection of poems from the ‘excellent’ pile.

If you want to read some of the poems I selected, you can find some excerpts from Magma issue 34, here.

And ever since that experience, I’ve taken account of these other factors when preparing my own submissions and in helping clients with theirs.

I think of the process in terms of a triangle, comprising Quality, Context and Taste. When I’m preparing a submission, I call it The Triangle of Aspiration. When I’m dealing with a rejection, I call it The Triangle of Consolation.

Quality

Starting with Quality, ask yourself:

Is this the best work I can possibly do?

You have to learn to set your ego aside, to be a relatively objective judge of your own efforts. It’s not easy to do this, so if you’re starting out, you need to find a teacher or mentor or someone else whose judgment you respect, to give you high quality feedback.

Outstanding quality is necessary but not sufficient. And… it’s the point on the triangle that you have the most control over. So it’s up to you to do what it takes to get your work to the highest level you can – practising, taking courses, getting feedback, whatever.

Context

Next, consider the Context. The key question here is:

How does my work relate to the bigger picture?

Maybe the venue you are applying to is known for a particular style or genre of work.

Or maybe a competition or magazine or event has a specific theme or topic. Sometimes the theme is optional, but even if that’s the case, your chances of success go up significantly if your work is ‘on theme’. Because clearly, you are solving the gatekeeper’s problem by giving them what they are looking for.

Or maybe they are looking for work from a particular type of person, representing a specific type of lived experience in terms of cultural background, gender, sexuality or something else. If you happen to belong to that group, then you can help them by sending in your work.

Another thing you should be aware of is current hot topics and trends in your creative field. If you have work that aligns with this, then that could give you an edge in certain venues.

And I want to be very clear about this: I am NOT saying you should write to market or create art that hops on the latest trends and fads. That’s a slippery slope to compromise and selling out.

I’m not talking about deciding what to create. I’m talking about deciding what to do with what you have already created.

So in my case, I write the poems that come to me, and I’m grateful for what comes. But once I have a stack of poems ready to send out, I think carefully about where to send them, where they are most likely to be welcome.

Taste

Finally, it’s worth asking yourself:

What do I know about the judge’s taste?

Because regardless of quality and context, it really really helps if they actually like your work!

Now taste is subjective and often idiosyncratic. So on one level, there’s nothing you can do about it. But what you can do, is take into account what you know of the judge’s taste when deciding where to send your work.

If you haven’t heard of the selectors before, take time to research their work. And look for interviews with them, these can be very revealing about what they like and don’t like.

So that’s the triangle – Quality, Context, Taste. And you need to hit all three to get a ‘yes’, not just the Quality part.

Just because your work got rejected, it doesn’t necessarily it wasn’t good enough. There are three factors at play, and there are things you can do about all three of them.

The post How to Deal with Rejection as an Artist appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Under strict restrictions he turned his camera into a window on the world, creating his Lockdown Series to reimagine confinement as a source of solace and invention.

‘Photography became my place of solace and kept me grounded at a time of uncertainty’ – listen to Earl’s inspiring story.

Episode summary

Earl Abrahams

Earl Abrahams is a South African photographer and filmmaker whose practice investigates race, identity and social mobility through dynamic, movement-based imagery. His Lockdown Series documented life from his apartment block, earning global recognition and new income streams.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Solace through creativity – daily photographic practice provided emotional grounding in lockdown.
• Resourceful vision – a confined field of view became a source of inventive abstraction and storytelling.
• Digital community – sharing work online opened new audiences and sustained him financially.
• Play as practice – gifting himself time to play each day sharpened his eye and unlocked new projects.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Follow the bread crumbs – trust the next intuitive step, even when the path is unclear.
• Gift yourself play – carve out daily time to experiment without expectation.

Where next?

Explore Earl’s Lockdown Series and other work at his website – Lockdown Series and more at earl-abrahams.com.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Lockdown Series: Windows on a Changed World with Earl Abrahams appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

‘Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day.’

This quote is often attributed to Mark Twain. Apparently there’s no hard evidence linking it to him, but that hasn’t stopped it from concentrating the minds of many people when they ask themselves what they should do first on a Monday morning.

About twenty years ago, Brian Tracy wrote a classic productivity book called Eat That Frog! Get More of the Important Things Done Today.

The book is based on the idea that doing your most difficult and important task every day is essential for success. Specifically, Tracy defines a ‘frog’ as your most important task of the day – the one you are most likely to avoid and the one that will have the biggest positive impact on your work and life.

And, obviously, the idea of eating a live frog isn’t very nice. But just to be clear, Mr Tracy is not talking about prioritising the most unpleasant task in your to do list, but the one that’s going to have the biggest impact.

So obviously, the point of the analogy is that faced with a difficult and important task, we are likely to experience Resistance to doing it, and we’re in danger of procrastinating and avoiding it, and never getting it done.

And it’s absolutely true. The more days you eat your frog, the more you do those difficult, challenging tasks that will have a big impact, inevitably you will be more successful, however you define success.

And for creative professionals like us, what the frog boils down to, so to speak, is usually either doing a some challenging creative work or having a difficult, emotionally charged conversation.

So this is the artist or the writer showing up to do their work every day, or the freelancer doing what it takes to find clients, or the actor embracing the uncomfortable emotional journey of a challenging role.

And when it comes to conversations, it’s about broaching that difficult subject with a colleague or someone who reports to you, or maybe your boss or your client. About being willing to engage with them in a heart to heart, rather than hiding behind email or sweeping the problem under the carpet.

So I have no argument with the central theme of Brian Tracy’s book. It’s an excellent book and I certainly recommend you check it out. And… I’d like to add another course, a dessert course, to the diet he prescribes.

Because one thing I’ve noticed is that eating the frog can get you a certain level of success and will certainly help you avoid the fate of the amateur. You know, the person who’s always struggling, who’s all talk and no action.

But one thing I’ve noticed from coaching successful creative people, is that the most successful ones don’t just live on a diet of frogs. They also they also treat themselves to a generous slice of cake. In other words, they do the fun things as well as the hard things.

They read books, they go to the movies, they watch TV, they go to shows and exhibitions. They subscribe to their favourite magazines and listen to podcasts. They join clubs and societies in their creative field where they can meet up with stimulating and fun and occasionally silly people. They go to conferences and meetups and parties.

They go on holiday. They have fun with their family. They have hobbies and interests outside of their work that they do for fun, for the hell of it.

In other words, they don’t deny themselves pleasure. They see it as integral to what they do. It helps to keep them stimulated and energised and buoyant – and resilient in the face of challenges.

You know, if you had a good time at the weekend or if you’ve enjoyed watching a great movie last night, or if you’re looking forward to a coffee with a creative friend later today, it’s actually a lot easier to sit down on Monday morning and say to yourself, ‘Okay. Now it’s time to get down to work’. Because on some level you feel it’s worthwhile, you’re rewarding yourself for your efforts.

And it’s not just about the fun things around the edges, the rewards for the work. Because one of the weird things about creatives is that we actually enjoy our work.

So Rich Litvin, who you may recall I interviewed back in Season 3, has a distinction he uses with his coaching clients, who are all high achievers. And that is between between easy and effortless.

Because very often he catches his clients avoiding something that they’re really good at and which creates a lot of value. Because it feels too easy. They feel like work should feel like work, it should feel hard and unpleasant and maybe boring.

But Rich likes to point out, well, it’s actually effortless for you because you’re working at a really high level. But it’s certainly not easy. Look at the level of skill, the amount of experience you have. Look how long it’s taken you to get to the point where you can get into flow in that line of work. And don’t discount that, because very often that’s where you add the most value and where you find the most fulfilment.

Remember the research that I keep talking about, here on the podcast? Into creativity and intrinsic motivation – the findings demonstrate that pleasure is intrinsic to highly creative work. So enjoying your work, at least sometimes, is not optional for creators. It’s essential.

This is something I’m being reminded of with my poetry podcast, A Mouthful of Air, which on one level is pure self indulgence. You know, I spent yesterday morning recording a very shouty speech from Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure, which was terrific fun.

My wife was down the corridor and she heard me yelling out the speech, and said, ‘You sounded very enthusiastic this morning!’ And of course I did, because I needed to put quite a bit of oomph into that speech. But the thing is, that was my Monday morning. That was my job. That was part of my mission to share poetry with my listeners, and so I mustn’t discount it just because it’s fun.

So. Don’t avoid the difficult tasks that will make a big difference. But don’t deny yourself pleasure either.

Eat that frog. But eat the cake as well.

(The producers would like to make it clear that no frogs were harmed in the making of this podcast. Although cake may have been consumed.)

You can hear an audio version of this article in this episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast, starting at 14’32”.

The post Eat that Frog (But Eat the Cake as Well) appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

When his acclaimed production of Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men was halted by the pandemic, he responded by inventing Rocky Road, a hybrid theatrical-cinematic thriller that reimagined live performance for the Covid era.

‘I aim to make theatre that allows us to feel closer to one another and to collectively imagine better possibilities for how we might all get along.’

Episode summary

Steven Kunis

Steven Kunis is the founding artistic director of Panorama Productions. His work spans theatre, opera and experimental performance, and his UK premiere of Straight White Men earned multiple award nominations and rave reviews.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Creative disruption – Constraints can spark entirely new forms, as Steven’s pivot from stage to screen demonstrates.
• Collective creativity – Theatre thrives on shared experiences and the communal imagination it fosters.
• Embrace your limitations – Your perceived obstacles can become the very fuel for inventive solutions.
• Hybrid storytelling – Blending cinematic techniques with live performance can create fresh, immersive experiences.

Advice worth hearing in full

• List your constraints – Spend six minutes writing down everything that feels like a limitation, then choose one or two and ask how they might become advantages.
• Lean into collaboration – Use the collective intelligence in your rehearsal room or team to uncover ideas beyond your own.

Where next?

For more on Steven Kunis’s work and to stay updated on upcoming projects, visit his LinkedIn page.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post The Rocky Road for Theatre through the Pandemic with Steven Kunis appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

I hope this finds you as well as can be.

Here in the UK we’re bracing for what we are assured will be a large wave of Omicron.

I know things may be very different for you, depending on where you are in the world. But whatever the circumstances, I hope you are finding your creative work a source of energy and inspiration in the midst of it all.

And to help you focus on the things that will make the biggest difference to your career, here’s a video of a live talk I gave in October about a strategy for long-term success as a creator.

In case the video doesn’t appear for you at the top of this post, here’s a link to the video on YouTube.

The talk was hosted by Robert Vlach and his team at Freelancing.eu. (You may remember Robert’s interview in Season 4 of The 21st Century Creative.)

And Robert and the team have done an excellent job of editing the talk into a video. They’ve kept the whole of my presentation, but instead of just using a Zoom screen capture, they have edited in my original slides and blended these with the video of me talking.

Because of the original Zoom source, some of the footage of me is a bit blurry, but the slide resolution and audio quality are excellent, so it’s easy to follow the talk.

So what’s the talk about?

It’s based on one of the most important strategies I use in my own career, and which I teach to my coaching clients:

Forget the Career Ladder – Start Creating Assets

Because there is no conventional career ladder for creative professionals like you and me, we need to create our own path and our own opportunities.

And creating assets – such as world-class skills, a catalogue of great work, a communication channel with your audience, a product range and/or a reputation for excellence – is a way to find creative fulfilment and attract more income and opportunities as time goes by.

In this talk I explain that this strategy has always been used by the big stars, but these days it’s available to all of us.

I talk you through the different types of creative asset and how they add value to your career or business.

I also give you an exercise that will help you take stock of your current creative assets (you may already have more than you realise!) and start to think about what kind of assets you can create to achieve your long-term ambitions.

We’re coming to the end of another challenging year, and who knows what 2022 has in store for us.

But my approach has always been to focus on the things I can influence, and to end every year with more creative assets than I began with. So around the end of each year, I take time out to review my progress and think about my long term goals – and what new assets I want to create in the next 12 months.

I invite you to watch this video with a pen and paper handy, and to use the exercise as a way to review your current situation and to think strategically as well as creatively about what you want to create in 2022.

OK here’s the video, I’d love to hear what you make of it.

Stay safe, and creative,

Mark

The post Career Advice for Creatives: Start Creating Assets (Video) appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

At first I couldn’t believe it – I had had the idea walking back from taking my kids to school, and I could swear I remembered writing it down in detail afterwards. But I couldn’t find it anywhere in my Scrivener files. So I realised with horror that I had omitted to write the idea down.

In a growing panic, I grabbed some paper and wrote down everything I could remember about the article, but it slipped through my fingers – I got the basic idea down, but I knew there were some important twists in my argument, not to mention elegant turns of phrase, that were clear as day when it first occurred to me – but which had now vanished forever.

First thing this morning I woke up and had a rush of hope. I looked in Evernote instead of Scrivener and there it was! A photo of two whole pages of handwritten notes, laying out the idea in detail. I had in fact written the idea out as soon as I got home, but I’d done it in my notebook and saved it to Evernote instead of typing it into Scrivener.

All the details were there. I could have kissed my phone in gratitude.

This experience brought home to me something I’ve been saying to coaching clients for months: ideas are Leprechauns. If you take you eye off them for a moment, you can lose them forever.

A leprechaun, in case you’re wondering, is a kind of faery in Irish folklore. It is usually portrayed as a twee little man in green clothes and a big hat. But originally a leprechaun may have been one of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the ancient gods of pre-Christian Ireland.

According to legend, if you see a leprechaun and catch him, he has to grant you three wishes in return for his freedom. They are also supposed to have a pot of gold that they keep at the end of the rainbow, so most people spend one of their wishes on getting the pot of gold.

Do you see why ideas are leprechauns? A good idea opens up new possibilities for you, which is the equivalent of having wishes. And if the stories about the pot of gold are true, maybe it could even make you rich.

There are no guarantees of course – the old stories are full of people whose wishes had unexpected consequences, so you need to use your ideas and wishes wisely.

But if you want to have any chance at all of your wishes coming true, you need to bear in mind something else about leprechauns: once you catch one, you must never take your eyes off him even for a split second – otherwise he will disappear, along with all your wishes and the pot of gold.

So next time a brilliant idea pops into your mind, as if by magic, don’t take your eyes off it, even for a moment. Write it down right now in as much detail as you can. (or draw it or record a voice note or however you capture ideas best). Then put it somewhere safe, straight away.

Whatever you do, don’t trust your memory.

I hadn’t thought of my brilliant idea for months, and when it did finally occur to me again, I only managed to recapture the bare bones of it. It had faded to such an extent that I knew the article wouldn’t have come out right. There was almost no point trying.

And make sure you put it somewhere safe. Right now, I couldn’t tell you where the notebook is that contains those precious two pages of notes. I’ve got several notebooks and they all look the same. Maybe it’s in the cupboard in my office. Or it might be in my briefcase. Or possibly it’s the notebook in the pile of books by my bed.

But I knew exactly where to look in Evernote – a folder I have for capturing new ideas. And that’s where it was. Because the instant I finished scribbling my notes, I took a photo of the pages and saved them to Evernote. Which means they are there for me in the cloud, whether I want to consult them.

So if you want to have your creative wishes come true, and maybe even get your hands on a pot of gold some day, I suggest you don’t take your eye off the leprechaun for a moment until you’ve recorded your idea somewhere safe.

You can hear an audio version of this article in this episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast, starting at 8’37”.

The post To Capture Ideas, Treat them Like Leprechauns appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

In this final episode of Season 5—Episode 50—Michael returns with his new book, The Advice Trap, to show you how to tame your inner Advice Monster and transform the way you lead and communicate.

‘Our advice is not nearly as good as we think it is.’ – listen to the full conversation.

Episode summary

Michael Bungay Stanier

Michael Bungay Stanier is a coach and author who teaches leaders how to move from rushing to solutions towards being curious a little longer. His first book, The Coaching Habit, became a modern management classic, and his new follow-up, The Advice Trap, tackles the hidden costs of our default advice-giving habit.

Big ideas in this conversation

• The advice-giving habit – defaulting to solutions can target the wrong problem, disempower others and exhaust you.
• The Advice Monster – your urge to tell, save or control undermines autonomy and creativity in your team.
• Stay curious a little longer – delaying advice invites deeper insights and reveals the real challenge.
• Questions over answers – asking ‘What’s the real challenge?’ and ‘What else?’ surfaces better solutions.

Advice worth hearing in full

• ‘What’s the real challenge here for you?’ – a four-step script to uncover the true issue before advising.
• ‘What’s your first idea? And what else?’ – a habit to slow the Advice Monster and empower your team.
• Frame advice as possibilities – offer suggestions tentatively and check if they’re useful.

Where next?

Explore the Advice Monster questionnaire at theadvicetrap.com and find Michael’s free resources, including The Year of Living Brilliantly course, at mbs.works.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Avoiding the Advice Trap with Michael Bungay Stanier appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

The Americans like to talk about ‘shipping’, meaning finished and sent out for delivery. This emphasis on getting things done and out to market is part of their extraordinary entrepreneurial culture. Famously, Guy Kawasaki even said ‘It’s OK to ship crap’ as long as you keep innovating and fixing the problems with the first version of your product.

At the opposite end of the spectrum to ‘shipping crap’, we find the perfectionists. These are the people who say it’s important to slow down, to take your time and do the best job you can. “If a job’s worth doing,” they say, “It’s worth doing well.”

So who is right?

It partly depends on your personality. You probably already know if you have more difficulty with perfectionism or impatience:

If you’re a perfectionist you have trouble letting something go and getting it out the door. So it can make sense to focus on pushing harder, by ‘shipping’ something that is good enough for now.

If you’re impatient and slapdash, you could do with slowing down and taking more care, and maybe getting some good feedback before you release your latest work.

But it’s not all about you. Sometimes it’s more about the work. Every creative project has a rhythm and momentum of its own.

Some projects naturally seem to want to move fast. For example, my book 21 Insights for 21st Century Creatives started as a long blog post that I wrote in a single burst.

Then I realised the article had struck a chord with my readers and I turned it into a book. I challenged myself to keep every chapter short, to get to the point, to give reader an insight and stand back and see what they did with it, and not over-explain or give them every little step.

I then published it as an ebook and shared it quickly. Which meant I got it into readers’ hands and they got the benefit as soon as possible.

My poetry collection is another matter. Some of the poems are over a decade old. None of them were written in a single draft, or even less than five drafts. Over the years I keep revisiting the poems, reading and re-reading them, spotting things I missed the first time, things that don’t quite work, things that could be better.

It’s not about perfectionism in the negative sense. It’s about taking the time to really listen to the poems, really look at them, and see if I can bring them into the light a little more.

So each of these books has it’s own speed and momentum that’s independent of me. It would be disastrous if I tried to rush the poetry, and pointless to spend years revising the 21 Insights book.

I come across this a lot with coaching clients. Sometimes they’re procrastinating and need encouragement and deadlines to get down to work. Other times, they’re in too much of a rush. They’re trying to push the work or force it to completion, when they really need to slow down and take their time.

So if they’re struggling to find the right approach, I tell them: every creative project is a revolving door.

I’m thinking about those big glass revolving doors you find at the entrance to big important glass-fronted buildings.

If you’re in a hurry, maybe because you’re late for a meeting, and you try to rush inside by pushing the door, what happens? The door grinds to a halt and an alarm starts beeping and someone comes out from behind the desk to give you a telling off. You’ve made yourself later than you needed to be.

Or maybe you’re taking your time, dawdling along, looking at your phone or thinking of something else. What happens then? The door comes up behind you and gives you a nudge. You’d better start moving!

So next time you’re getting frustrated by a project that feels like it isn’t happening fast enough, stop and take a good look at the work.

Will pushing harder really get it done faster? Or is it time to accept that this is a slower-moving project?

Could it benefit from taking more time, maybe moving a deadline back? Or getting feedback and input from a truster colleague before you move forward again?

Or if you think you have all the time in the world to complete your project… have a look at the calendar, and ask yourself if that’s really the case.

Is it time to pick up the pace and inject some urgency into your process?

Whichever it turns out to be, your work will become easier and more rewarding when you adjust the pace of your work to the speed of your project’s invisible revolving door.

You can hear an audio version of this article in this episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast, starting at 3’03”.

The post Every Creative Project Is a Revolving Door appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

In this episode, Krystal shares her journey from analogue artist to leading a studio at ‘the intersection of delight and clarity through illustration’, and reveals how persistent outreach and smart hat-switching turbocharge a creative business.

‘I really think that it’s big online because this is a way to bring humanity, to bring that expression onto the interface.’ – listen to the full conversation.

Episode summary

Krystal Lauk

Krystal Lauk is an illustrator whose studio crafts engaging visuals that help tech companies humanise their products and tell complex stories with clarity and charm. Her clients range from Google Play and Uber to editorial features in The New York Times, and her work has been recognised by American Illustration and the Society of Illustrators.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Illustration as a humanising interface – use metaphorical visuals to make technology feel approachable and engaging.
• The intersection of delight and clarity – balance playful style with clear communication to guide users.
• Proactive outreach builds opportunity – persistently signal availability and follow up to land big-name clients.
• Hat-switching as entrepreneur – allocate dedicated time for focused creation and for extroverted networking.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Signal you’re open for business – send concise, personalised outreach emails and follow up until you get a response.
• Batch uncomfortable tasks – set aside specific blocks for outreach to build momentum.
• Embrace both introvert and extrovert roles – schedule time for deep creative flow and separate time for client-facing activities.

Where next?

Explore Krystal’s portfolio at KrystalLauk.com and learn more about her studio’s work at LaukHaus.com . Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post The 21st Century Illustrator with Krystal Lauk appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Between work and family responsibilities, I only have 30 minutes a day to study Japanese, and I’ve spent this time every day for the past two years memorising kanji characters, vocabulary and grammar patterns. So in theory, I know a decent amount of basic Japanese.

I say ‘in theory’, because it’s one thing to have information in your head, and another to produce it in a conversation. Which is why I’m now focusing on listening and speaking skills, to achieve some kind of fluency with the material I’ve accumulated so far.

After my first one-to-one conversation lesson, Mami asked me how the lesson went. I said it was like my first driving lesson – I was relieved to have survived without crashing the car, but my pulse was racing, and I knew I’d stalled the car three times and almost ran through a red light because I was concentrating on the pedals.

We’re all bad drivers on our first lesson. And right now, I’m bad at Japanese. I can make myself understood, but it’s not pretty.

I’m lucky to have a great teacher in Teppei Sensei, who is very patient and easy to talk to. He has great podcasts too, so if you’re learning Japanese I highly recommend listening to Nihongo Con Teppei (he has separate podcasts for beginners and intermediate learners).

I say it’s been a humbling experience, as I haven’t learned a new language for many years. I’m quite comfortable speaking French, which I learned as a boy. Now my French is by no means perfect, but I’m used to being able to express myself and discuss just about any topic I want to.

So it’s humbling to be a beginner again. I’ve heard enough Japanese to know how bad I am. I can often hear myself making mistakes as I say them, or failing to recall the meaning of simple words when Teppei Sensei uses them in our conversation, and then kicking myself afterwards.

But I have to accept being bad if I’m going to get better. The more I speak, and the less I care about making mistakes, the more I will learn from my mistakes, and the better I will get.

It will take years, but then most skills worth learning do take years.

And this is certainly true of a creative discipline. We start off bad and we have to accept being bad if we’re ever to get good.

A few years ago the radio host Ira Glass made a great video about this, where he points out that all of us who get into creative work do it because we have good taste – we watch great TV, listen to great music, read great literature and or whatever, and think “I want to do that!”

But when we start, we’re not very good at it. So there’s a gap between our taste and our ability, which is really uncomfortable.

In the course of the video, Glass plays a recording of his younger self eight years into his career, delivering a radio news segment, and mercilessly dissects the writing and the rhythm and intonation of his speech. He does this to underline how bad he was and how many years it took for him to get good at it.

But according to Glass, the real problem isn’t the gap between our taste and ability. This is uncomfortable but it’s also inevitable. Everyone has to go through it to improve.

The problem is that most people give up because they can’t stand the gap. It affronts their sense of who they want to be as a creative, so they give in. Or they ignore it, and refuse to accept their limitations, so they don’t learn from their mistakes.

And the solution, according to Glass, is to keep going in spite of the gap, and to do a lot of work over many years. That’s the only way to close the gap. It’s long and painful, but ultimately rewarding.

And if you think about it, it’s the gap that makes it worth pursuing – if it were easy, if there were no gap and anyone could do it easily, it would be unremarkable.

So if you’re struggling in the early stages of a new skill, ganbatte kudasai!

This Japanese expression means ‘Please do your best!’ and it’s used to encourage people when they’re facing a challenge. I have recorded it here, with my beginner’s accent, to remind us all of the gap, and to encourage us to persist in spite of the gap.

You can hear an audio version of this article on this episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast, starting at 4’03”.

The post You Have to be Bad to Get Good appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

In this episode, Cynthia reveals practical strategies—from mindset shifts to time-management hacks—to guide busy creatives through every stage of the book-writing journey.

‘Writing a book is hard! It’s not an easy thing.’ – Cynthia Morris on why commitment and curiosity are your best allies. Listen to the episode.

Episode summary

Cynthia Morris

Cynthia Morris is an author and creative coach who has helped countless writers overcome self-doubt and launch projects since 1999. Her latest book, The Busy Woman’s Guide to Writing a World-Changing Book, offers a step-by-step roadmap for carving out time, managing mindsets and sustaining momentum—no matter how hectic your schedule.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Treat your book as a relationship – schedule ‘writing dates’, show up daily and engage in a creative dialogue with your deeper self.
• Balance Inner Critic with Inner Champion – use free-writing to surface self-doubt, then let your own encouragement emerge in response.
• Capture promotion ideas while writing – note ‘tweetables’, pull-out quotes and themes to streamline marketing later.
• Embrace curiosity over doubt – reframe the question ‘Can I do this?’ into ‘I can’t wait to see what happens.’

Advice worth hearing in full

• Learn free-writing – set a timer, choose a prompt and write without stopping to unlock flow and clarify ideas.
• Write a manifesto – distil your book’s purpose into a rallying cry that reminds you why this project matters.
• Commit monogamously – treat your manuscript like a cherished relationship you nurture each day.

Where next?

Explore The Busy Woman’s Guide to Writing a World-Changing Book and discover Cynthia’s coaching programmes and resources at originalimpulse.com.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Writing a World-Changing Book with Cynthia Morris appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

It might be funny, or shocking or useful, or – as in the case of so many loud phone calls in public places – completely boring, pointless or annoying.

But have you ever thought about overhearing yourself?

Because in my experience, this is a great – and often overlooked – source of new ideas.

Most of my blog posts, articles, book chapters and podcasts have come from things I find myself saying over and over to coaching clients, and realising this means they are useful, so I should write them down:

Stop trying to be confident, start being enthusiastic.

Forget the career ladder, start creating assets.

If it won’t fit on a post-it, it won’t fit in your day.

Be thankful for your inner critic.

Enthusiasm is better than confidence.

And so on. I’ve realised that as long as I’m coaching and helping clients deal with the challenges that come their way, then new ideas will keep emerging from the conversations we have. And the best ones are the ones I keep repeating, because they are the ones that apply to the most people.

I just need to pay attention, and overhear myself saying something useful.

Sometimes I even get ideas for poems by overhearing myself. I catch myself repeating the same anecdote to more than one friend, and realise there’s something important or memorable about that experience, and maybe it could be a poem.

Like the first time I went to Japan, and tried to order brandies for myself and 2 friends at a cafe in Hiroshima. The waitress seemed very surprised, but I insisted we wanted three, so she shrugged her shoulders and brought us three triple brandies…

Or the time I was staying in a Buddhist monastery and we all got up before sunrise to meditate. As I sat there cross-legged in the dark, I heard someone snoring loudly, and couldn’t believe one of these dedicated monks had fallen asleep, or that no one gave him a nudge when he woke up. It was only when the sun came up that I spotted the monastery cat curled up asleep next to the abbot.

Or another time I was in Japan, watching a documentary on extreme weather conditions, with lots of footage of floods and buildings collapsing and cars being swept away, and wondered why tomorrow’s date was appearing in the corner of the screen, and suddenly realised it wasn’t a documentary, it was the weather forecast…

All of these turned out to be poems trying to catch my attention. Eventually I took the hint and wrote them down.

So next time you catch yourself offering the same piece of advice or telling the same story over and over again, start listening in, as if you were listening to a stranger’s conversation, and ask yourself: ‘Is there something here I can put to good use?”

You can hear an audio version of this article on this episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast, starting at 2’46”.

The post Generate Ideas by Overhearing Yourself appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Her adventurous spirit shines through both her writing and her life – from sailing the seas on a houseboat to roaming the US in an Airstream trailer while building a thriving author‐entrepreneur business.

‘I could do better than that’ – Emily Kimelman on the moment she decided to become a writer (and it turned out she could).

Episode summary

Emily Kimelman

Travel writer turned thriller author, Emily Kimelman has crafted a global career by writing from India’s beaches, Costa Rica’s jungles and even her own Airstream trailer. Her Sydney Rye novels pair unflinching heroines with exotic locales for pulse-pounding adventure.

After overcoming childhood dyslexia, Emily embraced self-publishing on Kindle, leveraged ebook marketing tactics to build a loyal readership and later scaled her operation by delegating business tasks – all while embracing a life of travel.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Write the books you want to read – creating fiction driven by your own passions ensures your work remains fresh and authentic.
• Embrace self-publishing – Kindle’s early algorithms and promotional tools let authors connect directly with voracious readers and build sustainable income.
• Blend travel and writing – working from boats, jungles or trailers can feed both your creativity and your narrative detail.
• Delegate to protect your art – bringing on a business partner frees you to focus on writing while keeping the enterprise moving forward.
• Treat obstacles as adventures – view every interruption as a creative challenge rather than a barrier to your work.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Learn to dictate – training yourself to speak your first drafts makes it possible to write anywhere through headphones or handheld recorder.
• Create Plan Bs for every excuse – list each condition you think you need to write and devise an alternative method to keep going when it fails.
• Forgive your stumbles – a graceful mindset shift from self-criticism to self-compassion helps you bounce back faster.

Where next?

Discover Emily’s globe-spanning thriller adventures and dive into her Sydney Rye series at emilykimelman.com – the perfect gateway to kickstart your own creative expedition.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post The Adventure of Writing with Emily Kimelman appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

You might not associate systems with freedom, but bear with me while I explain.

This morning I’m writing this article for you. The only thing I’m thinking about is you, and what I can say that will be most helpful.

But how is this possible? Don’t I have other responsibilities? Don’t I have children to take care of, and clients to serve? Aren’t there emails in my inbox waiting to be answered?

The answer is ‘yes’ to all of these questions. And yet, right at this moment, I’m free to focus on you, and only you.

And the reason for that is that these few moments I’m spending with you are embedded in systems that are taking care of all those responsibilities. I have systems I trust, so I can be present with you right now.

Some of the systems were created without me, so I don’t have to do much about them. Right now, the power company’s systems are taking care of the electricity that’s powering the equipment I’m using to write on my computer.

The school system is taking of my children. And the recent period when our schools were closed has really made me appreciate this all the more!

Other systems are ones I’ve created and agreed with other people.

All my clients know how they can reach me when they need me. They know I’ll reply to their emails within one working day. And if it’s urgent they have my mobile number so they can call me. So I don’t need to worry that they might be anxiously waiting for help.

And there is a third category of systems that set me free – these are the ones I create for my own use.

I have a productivity system that means there is a time and place for everything in my working life – writing, recording, serving clients, answering emails, filing accounts and so on.

I have a production system for my podcast, that means I know how to record, edit and produce every episode of every season. This system involves my producer Javier Weyler and his team at Breaking Waves. Over the past 5 seasons, we’ve got pretty efficient at working together.

It was a steep learning curve at the beginning, because I was learning how to use all the hardware and software and record something that would make Javier’s job as easy as possible.

But now I’m familiar with the process, and I’ve turned it into a big spreadsheet, with check boxes for each part of every episode. I hardly think about it any more. I look at the spreadsheet to see what tasks are next, and I go do them. Which frees me up to think about the important questions, such as: what do I want to say? Who do I want to interview? And what do I want to ask them?

But none of this would be possible without good marketing systems to promote the podcast and also my books and coaching service. Even as I record this, my website and email systems are working hard for me, helping new people to discover my work, and helping them with my articles, my free course and my podcast episodes.

I also have effective business models for different parts of my business, which are basically systems for creating value. These systems mean money flows into my business and help flows out to my readers and clients.

I could go on, and talk about the systems I use for writing, accounting, publishing books and so on, but hopefully you get the idea. The more powerful, effective and reliable my systems are, the more I can trust them, and the more freedom I have to be present in the moment – whether I’m writing a poem, talking to a client, answering an email, playing with my children, or talking to you right now.

So why do systems have such a bad reputation?

The word ‘systems’ sounds cold and machinelike, like a computer system. And ‘The System’ sounds sinister and malevolent, we talk about being trapped by The System when we feel like we’re being controlled by politicians or bureaucracy.

If you feel trapped or oppressed by a system, it’s usually because it has been imposed on you from the outside, by other people, for their goals. It’s not a system that serves you.

But if you create your own systems for your own goals, they can set you free.

Because once it’s set up, a system does a lot of the heavy lifting for you, especially when it comes to boring tasks or non-creative decisions. It frees you up to focus on more interesting things.

It’s a bit like learning to driving a car – to takes time to learn the internal systems (operating the car) and external systems (road regulations) but once you master them you can focus on the journey and where you want to go.

How to create systems that serve you

1. Make a list of all the parts of your life and work where you would like less boring work, less drudgery, and more freedom to be present and creative in the moment.

2. Make a list of the kind of systems that could free you up. Here are a few examples:

• Automated systems – for payments, marketing, posting to social media, alerting you to important tasks.
• Productivity systems for getting your work done well, and on time
• Communication systems – with family, colleagues and clients so you know who is responsible for what
• Production systems – for complex things you will make over and over again, such as products (books ), media (articles, videos, podcasts, social media posts), and events (launches, gigs, performances, workshops).
• Skills – these are basically systems you have internalised for performing tasks, such as writing, painting, playing music, public speaking and so on.
• Business models – if you’re in business, you need a reliable system for generating value for your clients and customers first, and yourself as a result of this.
• Financial systems – to make sure you take care of all your commitments and keep working towards your financial goals

So now you have your list of desired systems. Now pick one system and start designing it.

3. Start with research – search online, read books, articles, and talk to people who are already good at it.

4. Then design and assemble a prototype system. It won’t be perfect but give it a good shot.

You basically need a few rules or clearly marked-out steps for whatever the system is.

For example, you might decide to practise the guitar for 30 minutes after breakfast, or write one blog post a week, or answer your email at 11am and 3pm only, or start a trial of some new accounting software.

5. Next, test your system – give it at least a week and at most a month, to see how your prototype performs.

During this period, it’s essential that you stick to the system – if you start improvising or ignoring the system, you won’t find out whether it works or not.

Be prepared for some discomfort! If you’re learning to touch-type, it will be slower to begin with than your old system. If you have a new system for email, you may feel anxious when you’re not constantly checking it.

6. When the test period is up – review your system. What is working well? Where are the problems? What changes can you make to iron out the problems?

Once you start designing systems, and see them working like magic to free you up and make your life easier, you’ll discover that designing systems is a creative process in its own right. And you start experiencing moments of magic when unexpected things start to happen.

And when your system is really up and running properly, it will free you up to be present and focused on whatever you’re doing in the moment.

You can hear an audio version of this article on this episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast, starting at 7’18”.

The post Systems Can Set You Free appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

In this episode she shares her contrarian approach to marketing for creatives – from reframing disempowering beliefs to spotting creativity in the world around you.

‘Creative people are the only people who are good at marketing’ – Naomi Dunford explains why marketing and creativity are inseparable. Listen to the episode.

Episode summary

Naomi Dunford

Founder of IttyBiz and author of irreverent marketing advice for solopreneurs, Naomi rewrote the rulebook on content marketing for small and unusual businesses. She recently retired and passed the baton to her long-time assistant, but generously returned from retirement to share the insights she’s gathered in over 14 years of helping ‘weirdos sell things on the internet’.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Marketing is creativity – advertising and content are fundamentally creative pursuits, and artists already have the essential skills.
• Recondition your beliefs – replace self-defeating narratives about marketing with empowering ones to build confidence and momentum.
• Content shock is opportunity – in a crowded media landscape, doing something truly odd or extreme helps you stand out and build a loyal audience.
• Reverse-engineer your strategy – look at what the most successful examples do, then work backwards to create your own version step by step.
• People still matter most – genuine relationships and reputation are the single most evergreen element of any marketing effort.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Collect creative marketing moments – for seven days, note 25 ads, subject lines or sales pages that strike you as especially inventive, to prove that creativity and marketing live in the same house.
• Embrace normcore marketing – following simple, proven rules isn’t a betrayal of your artistry, it’s the engine that amplifies your unique voice.

Where next?

Explore Naomi’s complete body of work in the IttyBiz Karma Store on pay-what-you-can terms, with proceeds funding micro-loans via Kiva. Dive into her books, courses and audio programmes – all designed to turn your marketing doubts into creative superpowers.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demand

The post Naomi Dunford on Marketing for Creatives appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

But it can also be addictive and feel like a waste of time – when you find yourself cycling through your news and social media feeds, you can end up feeling anxious, unfulfilled and annoyed with yourself.

The phone fills the gaps in the day, but it can leave you feeling empty. It offers instant gratification but creates dissatisfaction.

But what else can you do? If you only have a few minutes between meetings or tasks, you don’t have time to read a book or watch a movie or exercise or have a proper conversation with a friend. Checking your phone is quick and easy.

Here’s a novel suggestion for you:

Pick up a poem instead of your phone.

Like your phone, a poem is something you can pick up and read in a minute or two.

But unlike your phone, it won’t leave you unsatisfied.

It can take you somewhere mind-blowing in a few short lines.

It can rearrange your thoughts.

It can make you laugh, or cry, or catch your breath.

It can give you a fresh perspective on your own life, or an insight into someone else’s experience.

It can transport you on a flight of fancy.

And a good poem will stay with you – a line can lodge in your mind like the chorus of a song.

And like a song, you can experience it over and over and find something new in it each time.

A poem can fit into your day the way your phone fits your pocket.

It can can fill a gap in your day and leave you feeling that you got something worthwhile from it.

You read a book of poems bit by bit, nibbling at it like a good cheese, or sipping it like a fine whisky.

Over the course of a week, you could read a whole slim volume by a contemporary poet.

Over a month, you could read an anthology.

Bit by bit, poem by poem, your world can grow bigger and richer.

If you like that idea, here are some practical tips to get you started.

Firstly, I recommend you don’t read poems on your phone or tablet. Poems get squashed on a screen and you don’t get the full experience.

Also, there are too many other distraction on your phone. You already associate it with a certain state of mind – scattered, distracted, impatient – that is antithetical to appreciating poetry.

So get an actual book, and keep it within reach – on your desk, by your bed, by your favourite chair in the living room. Or in your handbag or briefcase.

Better still, get several books and keep them in all these places, so you always have a poem within reach.

If you don’t know where to start, get an anthology, which will give you lots of poems by different poets. And once you find a poet you like and you want to read more, then look for a ‘selected poems’ edition of their work – this will give you their best work in a single volume.

A couple of good anthologies to start with are The Zoo of the New, edited by Nick Laird and Don Paterson, and Staying Alive edited by Michael Astley.

Once you’ve got your book, train yourself to pick up a poem instead of your phone.

Start by trying to notice the urge to pick up the phone before you actually do it. It’s amazing how often I find I’ve picked up my phone without even thinking of it!

If you find yourself doing this, put the phone down immediately and pick up a poem instead. And after a few tries you should start to notice the urge before you pick up the phone – then you can pick up a poem instead.

Try this as an experiment for a week and see what difference it makes to your life.

The post Pick up a Poem Instead of Your Phone appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

This week he explains why smaller can be smarter, how a Bandcamp subscription funds his art, and what the rest of us can learn about making creativity sustainable for the long haul.

‘My priority is twenty years of meaningful creative practice – everything else serves that.’ – listen in to discover Steve’s contrarian blueprint.

Episode summary

Steve Lawson

Steve Lawson is hailed by Bass Guitar magazine as ‘Britain’s most innovative bassist’. Eschewing bands, he layers melodic, ambient textures live with loop pedals and a MIDI controller, creating expansive soundscapes from a single instrument. Beyond the stage he is equally radical: shunning mainstream streaming services, he releases several albums a year through ‘Steve’s Ever-Expanding Digital Box-Set’ on Bandcamp, where a modest annual fee gives fans his entire back-catalogue plus every new release.

The result is a tight-knit community whose support pays his rent and frees him to make music – and teach – entirely on his own terms. In this conversation Steve unpacks the thinking behind the model and offers a refreshing alternative to the ‘million streams or bust’ narrative.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Sustainability first – measure success by how long you can keep creating, not by viral numbers.
• Curate a micro-audience – a few hundred committed supporters can outperform mass indifference.
• Story beats algorithm – invite listeners into an unfolding journey instead of chasing playlists.
• Value through abundance – frequent releases make a subscription feel like a bargain and fund future work.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Retrain your listeners – explain why your new platform benefits them and give them time to move.
• Hold your nerve – early indifference is normal; persistence turns a good model into a livelihood.
• Lead with curiosity – let ‘I wonder what happens if…’ drive both art and business experiments.

Where next?

Immerse yourself in Steve’s music – and explore the subscription – at music.stevelawson.net. His main site stevelawson.net hosts essays on creativity, tech and the changing music economy.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Making Music Sustainable with Steve Lawson appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

In this episode we dig into two of Joanna’s freshest obsessions – razor-sharp productivity and the fast-moving world of audio – and discover why both matter more than ever in an era of lockdowns, online everything and voice-first gadgets.

‘If you can change a writing habit you’ve had for years, what else might be possible?’ – tune in to hear Joanna’s toolkit for reinvention.

Episode summary

Joanna Penn

Joanna Penn is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling thriller writer (as J.F. Penn) and the host of The Creative Penn podcast, a fixture of the indie-publishing world since 2009. She has turned her fascination with the business – and neuroscience – of creativity into a series of practical handbooks that help writers thrive in the 21st century.

Her latest titles, Productivity for Authors and Audio for Authors, arrived just as the pandemic pushed millions of creatives to master new routines and new media. In this conversation Joanna shares field-tested tactics for getting work done at home, plus a tour of the audio landscape from podcasts and smart speakers to AI-generated voices.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Redefine ‘busy’ – separate meaningful creative work from background noise, then guard it with clear boundaries.
• Build an audio ecosystem – podcasts, audiobooks and voice assistants let you reach listeners far beyond the page or studio.
• Experiment with AI narration – synthetic voices will slash production costs and open fresh formats for storytellers.
• Use crisis as catalyst – forced change can reveal new habits, skills and business models you might never have tried.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Start with your body – ergonomic tweaks and movement breaks are the hidden engine of long-term productivity.
• Think ‘one creative groove’ ahead – if a ritual stops working, change the soundtrack, the venue or the method and keep writing.
• Record your voice today – the quickest way to overcome mic fear is to hit ‘record’, answer one question and listen back.

Where next?

Dive deeper at The Creative Penn where you’ll find Joanna’s podcasts, courses and a library of free resources for writers. Fiction fans can explore her thrillers at jfpenn.com, and anyone curious about voice tech can test a sample of Joanna’s AI-generated voice on her site.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Joanna Penn on Productivity and Audio for Creatives appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

From this Victorian workshop in the heart of Bristol, Nick runs the Letterpress Collective and The Department of Small Works, reviving endangered printing skills while collaborating with poets, musicians and designers on fresh-as-today posters, books and playing cards.

‘If you are a wizard, these are the materials you make magic from.’ – discover the spell of antique presses and modern creativity in this episode.

Episode summary

Nick Hand

Designer-turned-printer Nick Hand founded The Department of Small Works and the Letterpress Collective to safeguard Bristol’s last working presses and type. He produces fine letterpress prints, teaches workshops and documents British craft through cycling expeditions that have become three celebrated books of maker interviews.

Big ideas in this conversation

• ‘Own the means of production’ – keeping historic presses working lets creatives control every stage from idea to finished object.
• Slow technology – setting type by hand invites reflection, precision and a deeper relationship with words.
• Old tools, new twists – laser-cut plates and modern design sensibilities keep letterpress fresh and relevant.
• Cycling for stories – Nick’s trips round Britain, Ireland and the Hudson River capture endangered crafts before they disappear.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Start small – a lino block, a spoon and kitchen-table ink can launch a lifelong love of print.
• Embrace accidents – ‘printer’s pie’ and worn type add character no digital font can match.
• Seek out workshops – pottery, sewing, printing or tailoring: hands-on craft restores balance after too much screen time.

Where next?

Browse Nick’s prints and book a workshop at the Department of Small Works, or explore press history and events – including the annual ‘wayzgoose’ – at the Letterpress Collective.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Traditional Crafts in the 21st Century with Nick Hand appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Du Sautoy’s latest book, The Creativity Code, asks whether algorithms can compose music, paint pictures or write poetry that genuinely moves an audience. Our conversation ranges from AlphaGo’s famous ‘move 37’ to the jazz-improv powers of Sony’s Continuator, shedding light on the opportunities – and limitations – of AI art.

‘Mathematics is a highly creative subject.’ – listen in as Marcus reveals how numbers, patterns and neural nets could reshape the arts.

Episode summary

Marcus du Sautoy

Professor Marcus du Sautoy holds Oxford’s prestigious Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science. Renowned for demystifying mathematics on television, radio and in seven books, he now turns his attention to algorithms and art. The Creativity Code explores how machine learning is rewriting the rule-book of games, music, painting and storytelling – and what that means for human ingenuity.

Big ideas in this conversation

• AI as collaborator – algorithms can act as creative partners rather than competitors.
• Surprise plus value – true originality lies in moves like AlphaGo’s ‘37’, which shock experts yet still win the game.
• Embodiment matters – code may compose dazzling passages that prove unplayable by human hands.
• Tools and telescopes – today’s systems help artists see further, even if they have no inner world of their own – yet.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Use constraints creatively – like poets and composers, impose rules to push work in unexpected directions.
• Shine a light on bias – DeepDream and other visualisers reveal when training data skews an algorithm’s vision.
• Treat AI as a sketchbook – harvest its outputs for riffs, motifs and patterns you would never invent alone.

Where next?

Experiment with Marcus’s recommended tool at deepdreamgenerator.com, explore his research and media projects via the Simonyi Professorship website, and pick up The Creativity Code for a deeper dive into AI’s creative frontier.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Marcus du Sautoy on AI and the Future of Creativity appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

From cutting scrap steel with a 45,000 °F plasma torch to painstakingly shaping gemstones for life-size anatomical mosaics, Vargas shows how audacity, craft and a good story can ignite a global audience for handmade art.

‘I’ve always made things since I was a wee little kid.’ – dive into the episode to hear how that childhood spark became a blazing career.

Episode summary

Rachael Que Vargas (formerly John T. Unger)

Vargas is a 21st-century artist who forged her reputation with Sculptural Firebowls – recycled-steel fire-pits collected by Calvin Klein, hotels and public spaces on four continents. Now presenting publicly as Rachael, she is tackling her most ambitious work yet: Anatomy Set in Stone, a touring suite of fourteen seven-foot marble mosaics after 16th-century anatomist Bartolomeo Eustachi.

Her story weaves poetry slams at Lollapalooza, bartering mosaics for a mortgage, and harnessing early blogging and e-commerce to sell more than 2,000 firebowls worldwide.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Art as narrative fuel – memorable stories propel sculptures into magazines, museums and music festivals.
• Internet-age craftsmanship – blogging and social media let a self-taught artist bypass galleries and sell direct.
• Turning scrap into luxury – recycled steel and bottle-caps become heirloom objects through design and grit.
• Scale and ambition – investing firebowl profits into a museum-grade marble project aimed at immortality.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Raise the bar on what you already do well – stretch strengths rather than fixating on weaknesses.
• Think centuries, not seasons – choose materials and formats that can outlast trends, even outlast us.
• Seek offline stages – digital buzz matters, but nothing matches the impact of encountering work in the real world.

Where next?

Explore Rachael’s firebowls and mosaics at rachaelquevargas.com, watch her working on projects on her YouTube channel.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post John T. Unger (Rachael Que Vargas): 21st Century Artist appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

The argument I made, and that I make week-in-week out in my work as a creative coach, was that there’s no career ladder for people like you and me – no clearly mapped out career progression, via a series of promotions, pay rises, and increasingly fancy perks and job titles.

As an independent creative, or at least an independently-minded creative, if you want to progress in your career by doing more fulfilling work, earning more money and attracting more opportunities over time, you should focus on creating assets.

As I said back then, an asset is something you own and control, that generates value for you over time. Traditional assets include things like a company or an investment portfolio or real estate that you own, that earn you money while you’re busy doing other things.

And if you’re a creative, you can create certain categories of assets out of thin air – for example:

• Your portfolio of creative work – which can earn you money and also attract opportunities
• Intellectual property assets – such as the copyright in your works
• Social and reputational assets – such as your network of professional contacts; your own brand, and your association with other prestigious brands, such as your publisher gallery or record label.
• Online assets – such as your website or blog or youtube channel; your mailing list or your followers on social media

The most successful and the most fulfilled creators are the ones who spend as much time as possible creating new assets.

Life is very different when you have a back catalogue of great work, an audience for your ideas, a great reputation in your field, and a network of great collaborators. You can get more done and earn more money, in less time, with less effort.

Creating assets is not enough

It’s vital that you carve out regular time to create new assets. But to realise their full value, it isn’t enough to just create them. Otherwise that collection of files on your hard drive would magically earn money for you every month.

To make the most of your creative assets, you need to actively manage them.

At the bare minimum your track record should be clearly visible on your website. If no one knows you did all that work, it’s not helping your career. Yet it’s amazing how many creatives I talk to who tell me they’ve been ‘too busy’ to update their website with this.

If you sell, products, they you want to make sure these are available on your website and in all the relevant retail outlets.

For example, if you’re an author, you’ll want to make sure all your books are available in all formats – print, ebook, audiobook. And in all the bookshops where your readers like to buy.

And again, I meet plenty of creatives who haven’t found the time, or who even forgot, to make sure all of their products – which could be earning them money every month – are available to buy.

Licensing is another source of income and opportunity that is often overlooked.

If you’re an author, licensing your books for translation into foreign languages opens up another source of income, without having to write anything more than your signature on a contract.

If you’re a musician, you could license your work for soundtracks. If you’re an artist, there may be surprisingly lucrative opportunities out there to license your images for use in a range of different settings. And so on.

You don’t even need to license your work to someone else to generate extra income from it. You could repurpose your existing work into multiple different formats.

You could turn your album into a live show, or your live show into an album. You could write the screenplay of your novel, or vice versa. You could turn a series of blog posts into a book or a workshop or an elearning course. You could turn your book into an audiobook, or your podcast into a book.

These very words you are reading are available in multiple formats – as well as publishing them in this article, I’ve recorded them for this episode of my podcast, to reach people who would rather listen than read.

The are all kinds of ways you could generate reach a wider audience, extract more value, and attract more opportunities from the work you have already created so far in your career.

I know you’d rather be creating something new

The trouble is, we’re creators, not extractors. We’re so keen to get on with the next exciting new project that we often overlook the potential of our back catalogue. Extracting value from old work looks boring compared to creating something new. Plus we may not know how to do it, and the return on investment isn’t clear.

Now I have to admit, by nature I’m the world’s worst at this – I always have several new projects I want to get going on, so the idea of stopping and going back over old stuff isn’t very appealing. But if I don’t do this, I pay the price.

For example, my main website had the same design theme for over a decade. I knew it needed updating, but the site basically worked OK so I could never get excited about revamping it.

Then I noticed my search rankings had dropped and discovered Google was penalising sites that weren’t mobile-responsive. Even that didn’t get me to take action – my old design theme literally started falling apart, with bits of the site disintegrating before my eyes, before I finally updated it and hired a developer to rebuild it for me.

Now it’s looking much better and my search rankings have bounced back. I can sleep better knowing it’s delivering a better experience for my website visitors and doing a better job for my business.

Another asset that I originally created almost ten years ago is The 21st Century Creative Foundation Course. This is a 26 week creative career course, that teaches you the fundamental creative and professional skills you need to succeed in a creative career. I give it away for free via email. So as well as helping students it helps me grow my mailing list and communicate with my audience.

After 10 years, some lessons were showing a bit of wear and tear, with broken links and advice on some topics that was getting a little outdated.

So once I finished Season 3 of The 21st Century Creative podcast I rolled up my sleeves and went back over the entire course, fixing all the broken links and updating some of the content of the lessons.

I’m still working on some of it, but the course is in a much better place now. Re-reading it for the first time in a while, I was quite pleasantly surprised, I think it’s a great course I’m proud to be sending it out and helping my students every week. (If you haven’t enrolled on the course, you can sign up right now for free here.)

Now, going back and revising my old website content wasn’t the most exciting work I’ve done this year. But I’m really glad I made time to do it.

And let me tell you it felt great to get back to creating something new when I started recording Season 4 of my podcast.

So I’m getting better at this, but I still have plenty to do. On my to-do list for later this year are print editions of two of my books, plus audiobooks of all four of them. I’ll let you know when I get them done.

How to make the most of your creative assets

So what can you do to make the most of the assets you’ve already created in your career so far? Here’s a good way to get started:

1. Go through your website, your hard drives, your studio cupboards, your filing cabinet etc. Make a list of all of your assets in the following categories:

• Your portfolio of creative work
• Intellectual property assets, such as the copyright in your works or the trademark associated with your brand;
• Social assets – your network; your audience
• Reputation assets – your brand; association with prestigious brands (publishers, galleries, record labels etc); prizes and awards
• Online assets – a website; a blog; a podcast; a mailing list; a social media profile
• Systemic assets – a productivity system or specialist creative process; a business model that generates value for your customers and your business.
• Business assets – your product range; your company

2. Write down all the ideas you can think of for extracting more value from these assets. Start with the simple stuff like updating the portfolio on your website, or making sure all your products are available for sale. And don’t forget to think about repurposing your work into different formats.

3. Look for specialists in different areas who can advise you of how to generate more value from your assets. For instance you might talk to an agent or consultant about how to go about licensing or translation deals.

4. Reward yourself with work on something new! A good approach over the longer term is to alternate intensive work on new creative projects with bursts of work on managing your assets, in between projects. This will maintain your creative energy as well as taking good care of your assets.

You can hear an audio version of the article in this episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast, starting at 4’38”.

The post Make the Most of Your Creative Assets appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

In this episode she talks candidly about writing her chart-topping album The Sovereign One, creating the award-winning show Mulatto Math and why improvising with your body’s wisdom can change everything.

‘You were born exactly the way you were supposed to be’ – hear how Monique turns that conviction into music and theatre that heals.

Episode summary

Monique DeBose

Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter, playwright and coach, Monique’s third album The Sovereign One debuted at No. 2 on the iTunes Jazz Chart. Her one-woman show Mulatto Math: Summing Up the Race Equation in America weaves stand-up, storytelling and original songs to spark honest conversations about identity and belonging. Off-stage she helps clients live ‘fully expressed, clear and unapologetic’.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Tumour as teacher – a medical diagnosis became the catalyst for radical self-expression.
• Improvisation for healing – letting the body ‘sing’ uncovers hidden emotions and creative fuel.
• Owning every facet – integrating the parts we’re told to hide makes art – and life – magnetic.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Voice your body – daily, ask one body part to make a sound and let it out without judgement.
• Use family stories – personal truth can open universal dialogue when shared bravely.
• Integration beats perfection – stop chasing an ideal and channel the voice you already have.

Where next?

Stream the album on Spotify, catch clips from Mulatto Math and future tour dates at mulattomath.com, or explore Monique’s music and coaching work at moniquedebosemusic.com.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Voicing Your Truth with Monique DeBose appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Before you solved the problem it dominated your life for weeks or even months on end. It sucked up all your time and energy and mental bandwidth. It felt like life and death.

When you thought about life without the problem, having achieved the outcome you wanted, you imagined it as a life of bliss. A promised land of freedom and pleasure and possibility.

“If I ever get there,” you may have said to yourself, “I’ll never sweat the small stuff again. Nothing can be as bad as this. Life will be so great and I’ll be so grateful. I’ll enjoy it and appreciate every moment.”

Then one day you solved the problem, or it solved itself. It was out of your life and it was such a relief! You were free! You experienced the rush of pleasure and relief for real. You basked in your new found freedom and felt truly blessed.

But afterwards, you found yourself getting concerned about something else. Something that only came into view once you had solved the big problem.

Perhaps it was an unintended consequence of the solution. Or maybe it was something completely unrelated, that you had forgotten about while you were preoccupied with the old problem, but which now started to loom uncomfortably large.

Maybe it was weeks or months before you found yourself worrying about the new problem. Or maybe you were surprised to find it popping into view within a few days or even hours of solving the old one!

However long it takes, however strong your intentions, once you solve one problem, then sooner or later you find yourself facing another one, and if you’re not careful, getting worried and anxious about it.

I call this The Conveyor Belt of Worry – however many problems you solve, there’s always something new for you to worry about. The conveyor belt never stops, so your worries are never ending.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Look at little closer and you’ll see that one of the drivers of worry is a frustrated expectation. The unspoken demand is for a life free of problems and difficulty, where you can relax into uninterrupted pleasure and success, with nothing to bother you.

You’ve probably noticed life isn’t like that. It’s constantly presenting us with new challenges. And very often, new problems don’t simply replace the old ones, they are the direct result of previous solutions or successes.

You pass an exam, and you feel great – then you have to deal with the pressure of next year’s exams.

You land a job or get a promotion, and you feel great – then you have a whole new set of responsibilities to deal with.

You release a hit single or a book or a product, and you feel great – then you have to cope with the glare of publicity and the weight of expectation around whatever you produce next.

You have a good year and earn a lot of money, and you feel great – then you have a big tax bill to pay, and a new set of decisions to make about how to manage your money.

And so on.

Life will never stand still, and it will never be easy for long. Which means new problems will always be hoving into view, shortly after you’ve dealt with the last one.

But this doesn’t mean you’re stuck on the Conveyor Belt of Worry. Because what’s really on the conveyor belt are just problems, or challenges, or difficulties – things you need to deal with, or solve or overcome.

The worrying part is optional. And as we’ve seen, it’s partly caused by that unspoken demand for a life free of problems. As long as you’re fighting the reality of having problems, as long as it doesn’t make sense or offends your sense of the way things should be, you’ll experience frustration and worry.

But if you accept that you will always have problems in your life, then the conveyor belt is simply a Conveyor Belt of Problems. You need to deal with them, but there’s no need to worry about them, and there’s nothing wrong, because that’s just the way life is. One problem after another. (Not to mention one pleasure after another.)

So next time a new problem appears in your life, just after you solved the last one, don’t worry. Remind yourself that this is the way things should be. When you do this, you’re no longer on the Conveyor Belt of Worry. Which means you have more creative bandwidth for solving the problem and rising to the challenge.

You can hear an audio version of the article in this episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast, starting at 2’36”.

The post The Conveyor Belt of Worry appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Enter Ilise Benun, the ‘Marketing Mentor’ who has spent three decades helping designers, writers and artists promote their work with the same imagination they pour into it.

‘Generosity and curiosity are under-used marketing tools’ – listen in to learn how Ilise turns them into a practical plan.

Episode summary

Ilise Benun

Founder of Marketing-Mentor, Ilise coaches ‘the creatively self-employed’ to earn what their talent deserves. A HOW Design Live programme curator, conference speaker and host of more than 300 podcast episodes, she specialises in turning marketing from dreaded chore into rewarding habit.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Bat-signal content – create material that lights up the exact clients you seek and nobody else.
• Three-tool toolkit – strategic networking, targeted outreach and pain-point content work best in concert.
• Marketing is creative work – apply the same curiosity and experimentation you use in the studio.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Commit 30 minutes a day – make business development a non-negotiable creative practice.
• Let the market speak first – identify the clients who value you most, then tailor your message to them.
• Use generosity & curiosity – ask smart questions, share useful insights, and trust that visibility will follow.

Where next?

Explore Ilise’s free Quick Tips, her downloadable Marketing Planner and details of one-to-one mentoring at marketing-mentor.com.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Bat-Signal Marketing for Creatives with Ilise Benun appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

So I suffered the fate of most young creatives – frustration and confusion. My clients’ lives were being changed, so I knew I was doing good work. But there were never quite enough clients, so I was constantly anxious about money. I was also confused: If I was so good at my work – and my clients told me I was – then why was I struggling?

Then I rolled up my sleeves and decided it was time to get my hands dirty. I was going to learn to promote my work, and make my business a success. So the intention was there, but the knowledge was sadly lacking – you see, I didn’t realise there was a difference between marketing and sales.

These days, I know that making a sale is just one small step in a larger process, of developing products and services for customers, and letting the world know about what you have to offer. And that larger process is called marketing. But in my mind back then, it was all the same thing.

So I sat down with a telephone and made lots of cold calls to companies. I’m talking hundreds of calls. I hated it. It scared me to death. Some days I procrastinated nearly all day. A few days, I actually did procrastinate all day. But I still made a lot of calls. And I eventually brought in a lot of business.

So I succeeded at sales without doing any proper marketing. But it was painful. Like doing surgery without an anaesthetic – it worked, but nobody would choose to do it twice. There had to be a better way.

I went back to college and did an MA in Creative & Media Enterprises – a kind of MBA for creative entrepreneurs, where we studied theories of creativity, intellectual property law, and the creative economy alongside traditional biz subjects like strategy, business models, and marketing.

Then one day while researching for marketing essay, I came across an ebook by Seth Godin that changed my life.

Seth explained that if I started writing something called a ‘blog’ I could get my ideas out into the world, and create new connections and opportunities. This was back in 2005 when most people had never heard of blogging, let alone thought of using it as a marketing tool.

That sounded more like it! Instead of cold-calling people who had never heard of me, I could sit at home and write, and people would call me!

It was great in theory, but not so straightforward in practice.

When I looked around at the successful bloggers on the scene, I saw them being clever and insightful and wowing people with their ideas. So I tried to do that. But for some reason, my blog didn’t take off the way theirs did.

I even had one person who unsubscribed from my blog leave the comment ‘Not as insightful as Seth Godin.’ Ouch!

I floundered for a while, trying different types of blog post – reporting on industry news, going to events and writing about them, sharing links to other people’s blogs, sharing my thoughts on creativity.

I also began sharing some of the actual ideas and techniques that I was using with my coaching clients. After a while, I realised that these were the most popular posts, and the ones most likely to attract comments, links from other bloggers, and even business enquiries from creative studios.

The penny finally dropped when I decided to stop thinking of my blog as a marketing channel, or a platform for my ideas, and start using the blog as a coaching tool.

I shared as many practical tools and techniques as I could. I described the creative process of famous artists and creators, and what we could learn from their examples. I shared stories of my own struggles and successes, and what I had learned along the way.

And my blog took off. Month by month, I received more visitors, subscribers and new biz enquiries than the month before. I released a free ebook, Time Management for Creative People, and it went viral.

Writing that blog transformed my business and changed my life. It brought me readers, clients, customers, friends and even business partners from the other side of the world.

And there was a paradox at the heart of that blog’s success: I only succeeded at marketing when I stopped thinking of it as marketing.

I stopped seeing it as separate to my work as a coach. I made my marketing an extension of my work into the wider world. A way of helping more people than I could reach in 1-2-1 conversations or workshops.

Everything I’ve created for my audience since then, not just the blog but my books, my elearning courses, my free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course, and my podcast, has been designed to extend my coaching out into the world and help you, wherever you are in the world.

So when it comes to your marketing, stop thinking of it as ‘marketing’. Instead make it an extension of your work.

Don’t start by asking ‘How can I persuade someone to buy my stuff?’ Instead ask ‘how can I share my work and give someone a real experience of it?’

If you’re an artist, put your art out there so we can see it.

If you’re a writer, publish at least some of your writing out there in public, on your website or your blog or on Medium, where we can all read it for free.

If you’re a musician, let us hear your music.

If you’re a coach or teacher, put your teachings out into the world, in writing, in videos, on a podcast or whatever.

If you’re a speaker or performer, get someone to film you in action and share the video.

And so on.

Not only is this the best way to reach people and give them a sense of the real value of your work. It also takes away the artificial division between your work and your marketing. So you don’t have to divide up your time into ‘doing your work’ which you love, and ‘selling your work’ which you hate.

There’s no real distinction any more – it’s all just different aspects of your work. Some is for public consumption right now, online. Some is exclusively for your customers or your clients. And all of it is authentically you.

You can hear an audio version of the article in this episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast, starting at 2’32”.

The post Stop Marketing – Start Sharing Your Work appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

In this lively episode the London-based author of What’s Your Excuse for Not Succeeding as an Artist? explains why excuses feel protective yet keep us small, and shares practical ways to turn fear into forward momentum.

‘I wanted the book to be a hug on a shelf’ – listen to hear Deborah’s no-nonsense compassion in action.

Episode summary

Deborah Henry-Pollard

Deborah is the founder of Catching Fireworks, a coaching practice dedicated to helping creatives turn big ideas into finished work. Her clients range from West End theatre companies to independent artists and writers. In her debut book she lists the most common self-sabotaging stories – then offers quick, coach-tested antidotes for each one.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Excuses are over-protective friends – they arise to keep us safe, but ultimately fence us in.
• Confidence is renewable – a personal ‘success list’ can reboot self-belief on demand.
• Success is self-defined – knowing what achievement looks and feels like to you is a daily compass, not a distant milestone.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Create an anchor – a physical object or phrase that drops you instantly into your ‘bigger self’ before pitches, launches or shows.
• Compile a ten-item confidence list – record wins large and small; revisit it whenever ‘not good enough’ strikes.
• Reframe self-promotion – sharing work isn’t indulgent, it’s a public service: ‘Your country needs you!’

Where next?

Dive into more excuse-busting tips, coaching options and Deborah’s tango-inspired short film at CatchingFireworks.co.uk.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post What’s Your Excuse for Not Succeeding as a Creative? with Deborah Henry-Pollard appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

In this conversation Robert draws on his bestselling manual The Freelance Way and his experience founding one of Europe’s largest freelance communities to share battle-tested advice on money, pricing and reputation management – the essentials he believes every creative needs to master.

‘Freelancing is a way to do business on an individual level without big capital or huge risks’ – listen in for Robert’s roadmap to sustainable independence.

Episode summary

Robert Vlach

Robert is the founder of Na Volné Noze, a 150,000-strong network of Czech and Slovak freelancers, and runs a Prague-based think-tank exploring the future of independent work. His English-language book The Freelance Way distils interviews with hundreds of freelancers, plus insights from thought-leaders such as David Allen and Austin Kleon, into a practical playbook for anyone who works for themselves.

Robert’s own journey – from burnt-out coder to vineyard hand to consultant – fuels a pragmatic approach: freedom is the prize, but solid business systems are the price of admission.

Big ideas in this conversation

• You are your capital – skills, reputation and networks replace factories and funding.
• Price is a signalling device – raising rates filters clients and pushes you to raise your game.
• Finance is self-management – cash-flow tracking and reserves turn feast-and-famine into stability.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Record every penny – monthly income and spending data reveal patterns (and anxieties) at a glance.
• Adjust rates several times a year – stay aligned with demand, capacity and growing expertise.
• Craft a coherent story – a clear narrative of your career helps others spread your ‘good name’.

Where next?

Explore the book, download free resources or contact Robert for consulting at FreelanceWay.eu – the hub for tools, strategies and community events built around The Freelance Way.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post The Freelance Way with Robert Vlach appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

You meet a business expert and get into conversation about your work. At a certain point they give you a sympathetic look, maybe put a hand on your shoulder, and tell you you’re doing it all wrong.

What you should really be doing, they explain, is designing your business so that other people do the work for you. That way you can scale it and earn a lot more money. If you do a really good job, you can sell it for even more money and retire early.

What you have now, they tell you, is just a ‘lifestyle business’. And in their world, a lifestyle business is a bad thing. It’s for amateurs and people who don’t understand the realities of business.

I’ve had this experience a few times. One of the most common has been the person who tells me that if I really want to succeed as a creative coach, I shouldn’t be doing all the coaching myself because it doesn’t scale.

Instead, I should hire other coaches to do the work, and license them to coach people according to the Mark McGuinness Branded Creative Coaching System. Then I could take a percentage of everything they earn and serve more clients while making more money. At a certain point I’d have such a successful business that it could run it itself, and eventually I could sell it for a lot of money and retire early.

It makes perfect sense. And when I think of doing it I feel like I want to go and lie down and forget all about coaching.

Because I didn’t start coaching because I wanted to make a lot of money or grow a scalable business or sell it and do nothing for the rest of my life. I did it because I wanted to coach inspiring creative people.

If I hired other coaches, they would do most of the coaching, and I would spend most of my time managing them and finding them clients and I have no interest at all in doing that. Why go to all that trouble so that someone else gets to do all the coaching?

Yes, I could probably make more money like that, but if I just wanted to make money, I would go and work in a bank.

And if I had a business that involved managing a team I wouldn’t have enough time for writing. And writing is one thing I am not going to give up.

For a long time I found it hard to shake off the idea that I was somehow doing it all wrong. Then one day I read Derek Sivers’ book Anything You Want, based on his experience of founding CDBaby.com and ‘accidentally’ growing it into a company he sold for $22 million dollars.

“When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you control all the laws. This is your utopia.”

This rang true for me in a way that the logical advice never did. And I realised I was living in utopia.

In my utopia, I get up every morning and walk my children to school. Then I spend the morning writing. In the afternoon, I coach inspiring creatives, or interview them for my podcast. Then I go downstairs and play games with the children before their bedtime. Then I enjoy a nice dinner with my wife and we watch a movie together.

Some days, I meet up with clients and we’ll spend the whole day together, working on the next phase of their amazing career. And that’s pretty utopian too.

I’m struggling to imagine a better way of spending my working days. It feels like a dream come true.

And it’s not just about me, it’s about helping my clients and readers and listeners. Because as Derek Sivers goes on to say:

When you make a dream come true for yourself, it’ll be a dream come true for someone else, too.

So that’s my utopia. But everyone’s utopia is different, which means everyone’s ideal business is also different.

A great example of this is Michael Bungay Stanier, who was a guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast back in Season 1.

Like me, Michael is a coach, but he said in that interview that fairly early on he realised he wasn’t so much fired up by coaching people himself as by unlocking the potential of coaching in organisations. He’s on a mission to help managers and leaders become better coaches for their teams.

So he has built a team who are coaching and training people in organisations all over the place and they are doing an absolutely terrific job of it. And this inspires Michael to give his best every day, and he’s having an outsized impact on the world.

So even though we’re both coaches, Michael’s utopia is very different to mine. Chances are your utopia is very different to either of ours.

And even if your business doesn’t grow or scale in the traditional ways, as a 21st Century Creative, you may find it does scale in unexpected ways.

In my case, there are other ways to scale than hiring a team of coaches. As a coach, I work exclusively with creative high achievers, so every person I coach has an outsize impact on the world, and I can make a big difference through my work with them.

And my books and this podcast allow me to reach many more people than I could reach through coaching, even if I hire a team of coaches. So I’m not at all sure that I’d make a bigger difference by hiring a team.

Another example is Laurie Millotte, who also appeared in Season 1 of the podcast. She took her knowledge and contacts as a designer specialising in branding for the wine industry, and created a whole new business, Outshinery. She uses a very small team and computer-aided design to send her winery clients photo-realistic publicity shots of their latest vintage before the wine has even been bottled! This way she can creative more images, at lower cost and more consistent quality than doing things the old way, by shipping bottles to be photographed.

Or Tina Roth Eisenberg from Season 2, who has created a series of unusual creative businesses and projects via collaboration and technology, including a series of Creative Mornings lectures in 204 cities worldwide every month.

Or Daniel Boettcher, also in Season 2, who creates, one-off, timeless pieces of exquisite jewellery?

Or CJ Lyons in Season 3, who self-published her thrillers and sold over 3 million books.

They are all creating their own utopia, and creating surprisingly scalable and successful businesses in the process.

So the next time someone offers you well-meaning advice about how to grow your business, listen with an open mind. It may be that they have thought of something you haven’t – and we should always be open to new ideas.

But don’t assume they know better than you, even if they have more experience or success than you do. They may know the traditional business world better than you do. But they don’t know you better than you do.

And only you know the kind of utopia you want to create.

You can hear an audio version of the article in this episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast, starting at 2’32”.

Illustration: Utopien 04 by Makis E. Warlamis

The post Your Creative Business Is Your Utopia appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

In this episode Erik – whose credits include HBO’s Band of Brothers and From the Earth to the Moon – explains the seven-part test he uses to decide whether a story concept is truly worth months (or years) of drafting.

‘If the writer doesn’t start with a rock-solid idea, they’re building a house on sand’ – listen for Erik’s blueprint for the foundations of success.

Episode summary

Erik Bork

Erik is an award-winning screenwriter, producer and script consultant best known for helping Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg turn epic true stories into acclaimed HBO mini-series. His book The Idea distils decades of industry experience into a practical checklist that shows writers – for screen, stage or page – how to tell at a glance whether their concept could capture a mass audience.

In this conversation Erik recalls breaking into Hollywood from an assistant’s desk, writing under the pressure of multi-million-dollar productions and why he now believes 60 per cent of a project’s success is decided before you outline a single scene.

Big ideas in this conversation

• The 60/30/10 rule – why the logline matters more than structure or dialogue.
• Seven tests of a viable story – a PROBLEM must be Punishing, Relatable, Original, Believable, Life-altering, Entertaining and Meaningful.
• Iterate before you write – refining the premise saves months of futile drafting.
• Borrow and twist – how to generate fresh concepts by tweaking one element of a favourite classic.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Slow down at the start – spend more time thinking, less time typing.
• Pitch early, pitch often – test the temperature of your idea with trusted readers before diving into pages.
• Emotional stakes are king – audiences invest when a dilemma feels life-changing.

Where next?

Pick up The Idea: The Seven Elements of a Viable Story for Screen, Stage or Fiction on Amazon, read Erik’s blog and explore his coaching services at FlyingWrestler.com.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post The Essential Elements of a Successful Story with Erik Bork appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

I’m asking because I’m guessing you probably don’t. And that therefore you could probably benefit from establishing a Credit Practice in your life.

Now you may have heard of a Gratitude Practice – this is where you set aside a little time every day to remember all the good things you have in your life, that other people have done for you, or that your environment and your surroundings and your society provide for you.

A Gratitude Practice is a wonderful thing to do, and if you haven’t tried it yet, I encourage you to give it a go, it can make a big difference to your level of happiness and contentment in your life.

But by definition, a Gratitude Practice is about what you receive from others and from elsewhere. It leaves out what you bring to the party, and for a certain kind of person, that leaves out a big source of dissatisfaction and unnecessary suffering.

On a bad day, a Gratitude Practice might even leave you feeling worse about your situation:

Look at all the great things other people have done for me, and I’m still not happy!

If you heard the interview with Rich Litvin from Season 3 of The 21st Century Creative, then you might remember what he had to say about the downside of success:

I’ve been a high performer for a long time for most of my life. I’ve always aimed high. I’ve always been really ambitious. Still to this moment, to this day, when I have a success in something or rather, I give myself, see if you recognize this one. I give myself about 25 seconds to acknowledge myself before I look at how could I have done it better, bigger, different, improved it or I’m looking into the future like what am I doing next.

And this is the blessing and the curse of being a visionary, of being a creative.

I can certainly relate to Rich’s words here. But where Rich and I are lucky is that we are both coaches to high achievers, so we know this isn’t just us – in fact, this attitude is epidemic among high achievers.

We have high standards, we push ourselves, we’re not satisfied with good enough, the way most people are. Which means we can achieve great things.

But the flipside is that we’re never satisfied, even when we do something amazing. We can always see the flaws other people don’t notice. We can always compare ourselves to someone else who has done something similar but far better.

So if you relate to this, and you find it hard to give yourself credit for your achievements, then I invite you to experiment with adding a Credit Practice into your life, where you deliberately give yourself more credit than usual.

Every day, or at least once a week, stop and give yourself credit for any and all of the following things you’ve done today or this week:

• The effort you put into your work
• Any specific achievements you can point to
• Any times when you were brave and did the scary thing
• Any times when you were tempted to take a shortcut or compromise your principles, and you did the right thing
• Any times when you were irritated with someone else but you were compassionate and kind towards them

Even if you can’t think of much in any of these categories for today or this week, you can always go back and remind yourself of things you’ve done in the past. You still did them, so they still count!

The Credit Practice is even more powerful if you do it with someone else, such as a friend or your partner.

My wife and I have a tradition of doing a Weekly Review on a Friday night. We have a glass of wine and look back on the week and tell each other all the things we did this week that we’re proud of. We also remind each other of great things the other one did that they overlooked or forgot about.

So whether it’s been a good or bad week in terms of results and outcomes, it’s a great way to start the weekend – we both feel good about the efforts we made and it makes it a little easier to relax and let go of work and enjoy a well earned rest.

Another aspect of a Credit Practice is to set up physical reminders of your past achievements, so that even you can’t forget about them and dismiss them.

One corner of a bookshelf in my office is where I keep all the magazines my poems have been published in, and all the anthologies and collections of competition winners. So if I’ve had a particularly disappointing rejection, or I’m feeling doubtful about what I’ve written today, I sometimes look at that shelf as a reminder of the successes I’ve achieved.

Now, there are a couple of concerns I sometimes hear about when I invite a client to begin a Credit Practice.

Firstly, they don’t want to turn into an egomaniac, with an inflated sense of their own importance.

And secondly, they don’t want to get lazy. They have achieved a lot by being hard on themselves, so they worry that if they ease up on themselves, they might start to be satisfied with achieving less.

But look – if you can relate to my description of the high achiever who doesn’t give yourself enough credit for your achievements, I think you can probably relax on both fronts.

You’re probably not going to turn into an arrogant idiot overnight. And even if you did, you probably have enough people in your life who would tell you!

And I think it highly unlikely you will lose your motivation to achieve great things. It’s much too deeply rooted for that.

The Credit Practice is a counterbalance to your tendency to be too self-critical. So you would have to give yourself a hell of a lot of undeserved credit for you to shift the balance so far that you lost your perspective on things altogether.

And a Credit Practice isn’t about singing your own praises all day every day. It’s for the end of the working day or week, when your energy is depleted and you’ve given it your all.

On Monday morning, when it’s time to start work again, you can be as rigorous about your work and as demanding of yourself as ever.

The only difference is, if you’ve really given yourself credit and taken some time out to recharge, you’ll probably find you have even more energy and enthusiasm for your next big challenge.

You can hear an audio version of the article in this episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast, starting at 1’50”.

The post Do You Give Yourself Enough Credit? appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Her ‘mindful drumming’ blends frame drums, clay darbuka and classic kit work into melodic soundscapes that invite listeners to breathe, slow down and feel every beat.

‘When I first sat behind a drum kit it felt like coming home’ – join Maria to hear how that moment sparked a lifelong journey into mindful rhythm.

Episode summary

Maria Bovin de Labbé

Maria is a Swedish drummer, artist and teacher whose ‘mindful drumming’ prioritises presence, lightness and melody over volume and speed. Trained in styles ranging from hard rock to Middle-Eastern hand drums, she now performs solo, with her trio Sweet Like Time and at intimate events, using rhythm to create contemplative space.

In this interview she explains how drumming aided her recovery from anorexia, why silence is as important as sound and what she learned by drumming with pregnant women for a music-therapy research project.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Mindful drumming – connecting body, mind and spirit through rhythm rather than raw power.
• Silence as music – spacious pauses give each beat its emotional weight.
• Art as healing – the drum became Maria’s refuge during illness and stillness remains central to her practice.
• Finding your own voice – abandoning ‘play like a guy’ expectations unlocked her distinctive melodic style.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Practise awareness first – notice your intentions before you strike a note.
• Drop the wrong battles – work on weaknesses that matter, let go of those that do not suit your nature.
• Anchor creativity in the body – listening to your heartbeat is a daily reminder of rhythm at its most fundamental.

Where next?

Experience more of Maria’s music, videos and teaching at BovinDeLabbe.com, and follow her rhythmic experiments on Instagram or YouTube.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Mindful Drumming with Maria Bovin de Labbé appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

In this conversation he traces a journey from graphic designer to globetrotting seeker, artist and coach, sharing hard-won insights into fear, love, money and the creative spirit.

‘We only have two choices – we can come from fear or we can come from love’ – hear why that distinction matters for every creator in this episode.

Episode summary

Peleg Top

Peleg Top is an Israeli-born artist, writer and speaker who spent eighteen years running Top Design, producing more than two hundred album covers and branding for The Grammy Awards and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Hitting every external marker of success, he realised fulfilment was still missing and embarked on a decade-long exploration of personal growth, spirituality and creativity.

Today he lives in Santa Fe, painters’ apron on one day, coaching hat on the next, guiding creative professionals to balance prosperity with self-awareness and to lead from love rather than fear.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Fear versus love – every decision comes from one or the other; only love unlocks real creativity.
• The ladder on the wrong wall – outward success can conceal deep misalignment until we pause to look inside.
• Money as creative energy – financial freedom arises when you trust your ability to create value and serve.
• Pure service – moving from pleasing clients to truly serving them transforms both relationships and revenue.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Slow the dial – practise daily self-observation to notice whether fear is steering the wheel.
• Give to receive – cultivate abundance by intentionally giving money away with joy, as in Peleg’s Creative Challenge.
• Nourish the free-spirit – engage in non-commercial play (for Peleg it was culinary school) to reignite artistic fire.

Where next?

See Peleg’s latest artwork at ArtbyTop.com, follow his creative adventures on Instagram or explore coaching opportunities at PelegTop.com.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Peleg Top on Fear, Love, Money and Creativity appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

In this episode Nadia opens her toolbox – revealing why a strict 32-page format, a perfectly timed page-turn and the odd shocking punchline are all part of the magic of a picture book.

‘I’m on the side of my reader before anyone else. I am on the kids’ side.’ – listen to discover what that means for every page.’

Episode summary

Nadia Shireen

Nadia Shireen is an award-winning British children’s author and illustrator whose hit titles include Good Little Wolf, The Bumblebear, The Cow Who Fell to Earth and the bestselling Billy series. Her bold artwork, mischievous humour and refusal to patronise young readers have earned her a devoted following among children, parents and booksellers alike.

In conversation with Mark McGuinness, Nadia explains how she balances words and pictures, respects the emotional intelligence of her audience and squeezes maximum impact from every spread.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Two stories at once – text and image should complement, not duplicate, opening a ‘gap’ the reader joyfully fills.
• The 32-page constraint – a fixed length forces clarity, pace and inventive page-turns.
• Respecting children’s feelings – young readers can handle surprise, tension and nuance if you trust them.
• Pacing through design – intricate artwork slows the reader; white space accelerates action.
• Self-amusement keeps the work fresh – in-jokes (a Bowie-inspired cow, for instance) sustain creative joy.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Research your market – know whether you’re writing a picture book, middle-grade or YA before you pitch.
• Use limits as levers – constraints such as page count or trim size can spark originality instead of stifling it.
• Re-discover play – spend 30 minutes doodling with no goal to loosen up a tense creative mind.

Where next?

Explore more of Nadia’s work at nadiashireen.org, follow her lively commentary on Twitter or browse limited-edition prints in her Etsy shop.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Good Little Wolf and Other Stories with Nadia Shireen appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

In this episode Alastair joins Mark McGuinness to explore the surprising overlap between epic expeditions and artistic ambition, from conquering impostor syndrome to squeezing big dreams into the margins of a busy family life.

‘Replace ‘can’t’ with ‘choose not to’ and see where that takes your thought process’ – join the episode to discover how.

Episode summary

Alastair Humphreys

Named National Geographic Adventurer of the Year, Alastair has cycled 46,000 miles through 60 countries, rowed an ocean, trekked deserts and pioneered the global ‘microadventure’ movement. His latest book My Midsummer Morning chronicles a month-long journey across Spain with no money, relying on a beginner’s violin to earn each meal – a feat that reframes adventure as a state of mind rather than a postcode on a map.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Microadventures – short, local escapades that deliver the thrill of exploration without the airfare.
• Rewriting excuses – swap ‘I can’t’ for ‘I choose not to’ to expose self-imposed limits.
• The inner journey – why the mental game of adventure mirrors the creative process, from fear to flow.
• Five-to-nine thinking – carving out 16 off-duty hours for bold experiments when the nine-to-five feels immovable.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Begin before you’re ready – the first pedal-stroke or sentence is harder than the next ten miles or pages.
• Make constraints your ally – time and money limits can spark ingenuity rather than kill ambition.
• Go public for accountability – sharing work (or a wobbly violin recital) raises the stakes and the learning curve.

Where next?

Pick up Alastair’s latest book, explore his website for microadventure ideas, or follow his day-to-day escapades on Instagram and YouTube.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post What Creators Can Learn from Adventurers with Alastair Humphreys appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Founder of Copyblogger, StudioPress, Further and the Unemployable podcast, Brian has spent two decades proving that a tiny, fiercely creative team can out-punch lumbering corporates – and live life on their own terms. In this opening episode of Season 4 he lays out a playbook for anyone who quietly suspects they are ‘proudly unemployable’ too.

‘You can build a very lucrative business out of just yourself or a very small team, or with the aid of freelancers.’

Episode summary

Brian Clark

Brian is the writer-turned-entrepreneur who created Copyblogger – once dubbed ‘the bible of content marketing’. With zero outside investment he spun that blog into an eight-figure suite of digital businesses including StudioPress themes, Rainmaker software and two widely read newsletters (Copyblogger and Further). Today he hosts the Unemployable podcast, championing small, high-profit ventures that prioritise independence over headcount.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Audience first, product second – build the relationship, then create what those people ask for.
• ‘Seven-figure-small’ – lean teams plus technology can out-earn bigger rivals and keep the owner sane.
• Content as leverage – free, useful media does the selling, provided you offer something other than adverts.
• Freedom over scale – growth only matters if it buys you choices, not extra bosses.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Write for the client you want – publish answers to their questions and they will come to you.
• Create your ‘responsibility tribe’ – decide which people you choose to serve, then obsess about helping them.
• Test before you build – use content to prove demand long before you invest in products, staff or code.

Where next?

If Brian’s approach appeals, visit Further.net for practical guidance and real-world examples to help you shape a nimble, profitable practice on your own terms.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Brian Clark’s Career Advice for the Unemployable appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

And you know what? That’s a good thing.

If you find yourself resisting this idea, maybe because you know what it’s like to suffer with an over-active Inner Critic, then pause for a moment and consider all the mediocre work you’ve encountered in your field. You know, the half-baked stuff that looks like it was put together in five minutes. The stuff devoid of taste, originality, authenticity, and/or basic craft skills.

This is the kind of work produced by people with an under-developed Inner Critic, or even no Inner Critic at all. Your Inner Critic is your own Critical Faculty, which is essential to producing great work. It’s the part of you that can appraise a piece of work and tell you what works and what doesn’t—and why. The part of you that knows you can do better and can point you in the direction of how.

And yes, it has a downside. Left to its own devices, the Inner Critic can run amok, giving you a constant negative critical commentary, not just on your work, but on you as a person.

‘You’re not a real artist,’ it tells you. ‘You’ll never amount to anything. What makes you think you can achieve anything worthwhile when you churn out crap like this?’ Ad nauseam.

The Inner Critic can be hard to live with, yet a finely honed Critical Faculty is one of the things that separates a successful professional from the legions of amateurs.

So how can you get the benefits without the downside?

Think of a highly-trained sushi chef. One of his prized possessions is a razor-sharp knife. The sharpness is essential for the delicacy and precision of his work. So the knife needs handling with care and attention.

But what does the chef do at the end of the day? He puts it away. Safely out of reach. Where it won’t injure anyone. Then he leaves work and spends time with his friends and family, enjoying the fruits of his labours. Next morning he comes back refreshed and sharp for a new day’s work—just like his knife.

What he doesn’t do is stick the knife in the back pocket of his jeans, or sling it in his rucksack, or twirl it casually in his hands as he saunters home from work, or use it to point or gesture while he’s having a beer with friends or dinner with his family. He knows what damage the knife can do, so he leaves it behind with his work.

Treat your Critical Faculty like that sushi knife.

Keep it sharp and finely honed—by keeping up with the latest work in your field, as well as learning from the Old Masters. Engage your peers in discussion about the merits of the work you discover. Read critiques and reviews of other creators’ work and think critically about what you read. Get expert feedback on your own work. Learn to assess your work with a coolly objective (not over-critical!) eye. Write articles or give talks about your creative heroes, articulating why you think their work is great.

The more you consciously exercise your Critical Faculty, the more you take ownership of it—so the less likely it is to manifest as a low-grade, nagging voice at the back of your mind.

Be particularly watchful for the fatal shift from critiquing a piece of work to criticising yourself. Whether or not you’re a ‘real artist’ or a deluded amateur isn’t for you to decide. What is up to you, every day, is to get better at appraising your work and making it better.

And at the end of each day, put your knife away. Let go of the urge to critique, and don’t take it seriously. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt until tomorrow morning, when you can start afresh.

You can hear an audio version of this article in this episode of the 21st Century Creative podcast, starting at 5’11”.

The post Be Thankful for Your Inner Critic appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

With more than 2.5 million books sold and awards ranging from the ITW Thriller Award to USA Today bestseller medals, CJ joins the show to reveal how true stories of courage, trauma and hope power her fiction – and how she built a resilient career when traditional publishing almost derailed her debut.

According to CJ, ‘The six most important words in the English language are: “Let me tell you a story.”’ – and she tells some great ones in this episode.

Episode summary

CJ Lyons

CJ describes her work as ‘thrillers with heart’. After seventeen years in emergency medicine she swapped the trauma bay for the keyboard, translating real-world heroism and horror into page-turning fiction. When her first publishing deal collapsed she self-published, built a direct relationship with readers and hit the New York Times list – proof that a doctor’s determination can also save an author’s career.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Stories are survival tools – humans have used narrative to make sense of danger for at least 50,000 years.
• ‘Thrillers with heart’ – honest emotion matters as much as explosions and car chases.
• Know yourself, your story – and your audience – CJ’s three-part formula for creative success.
• Failures can be springboards – the cancelled debut that became a self-publishing triumph.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Delight your readers first – every business decision starts with ‘What will make them dance with joy?’.
• Give something away – a gift builds trust faster than any advert.
• Create your own definition of success – money, impact or mastery – decide what really counts for you.

Where next?

Download Snake Skin free, discover CJ’s other series and join her ‘Thrillers with Heart’ newsletter at CJLyons.net – you’ll also find links to her young-adult suspense, writing resources and live appearances.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Storytelling: a Matter of Life and Death with CJ Lyons appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

You spend ages staring at the screen, writing, deleting and rewriting, over and over again. The harder you try, the more you work, the more stuck and confused you feel.

In my experience, this tends to happen when there’s something big at stake – when you’re writing an important proposal, or a book, or a sales page for your business, or an article or presentation designed to raise your professional profile.

For our purposes today, I’m not talking about writing fiction or drama or poetry – those are specialist areas that often require other solutions. I’m talking about non-fiction writing, to do with education, or business, or personal development, or leadership, or creativity or something else to do with your work.

In my own experience, and my experience of helping coaching clients with their writing, at least 8 times out of 10 there is a simple reason for the problem:

You’re trying to work out HOW to say something before you’ve worked out WHAT you want to say.

This is why you can’t get that sentence or that paragraph right. You say it one way, but that doesn’t quite hit the mark. Or it leaves out something important. Or it doesn’t make sense unless the reader already understands something else.

So you delete the sentence and say it another way, but that doesn’t hit the mark either. It has all the same problems in a slightly different configuration.

If you find yourself in this situation, I have a solution that is so simple and easy that you might struggle to believe it would solve such a complicated and difficult problem.

I’ve used this myself, countless times. And with many coaching clients, when they’re stuck writing their book or their proposal or their website copy or whatever they’re working on. And it nearly always does the trick. So here it is.

You divide your writing into two stages.

Stage 1: WHAT do you want to say?

Stage 1 is where you write down WHAT you are trying to say, in the simplest, most basic language you can think of.

Your aim at this stage is to create an outline of the flow of your argument – an ordered list of the key points you want to make and the key examples you want to use to back them up.

And when I say ‘use basic language’, I mean basic! I’m talking caveman language, Tarzan language, 3-year-old language.

You don’t need sentences or paragraphs. Just a few words or key phrases. It helps to number your points, so you can see the sequence clearly. You can even add drawings or diagrams if that makes it easier to grasp.

If you’re more visually-minded, you might want to draw your outline like a flow chart with arrows connecting the points, and maybe even add some little pictures. Or you might want to use Post-It notes with a note for each point. The nice thing about doing this is that you can physically move the Post-Its around to re-order them. (Or screw them up and throw them in the bin!)

For example, if I were writing an article about how to get over stage nerves, the beginning of the outline might look something like this.

1. Public speaking is scary.

2. Because it’s scary, most people avoid it – top 10 fears etc.

3. So if you can overcome your fear, you become special.

4. Define special – an expert, an authority, charismatic person etc.

5. Being special can really help your career – list career benefits.

6. First step in overcoming fear = Realise it’s normal.

OK that’s enough to give you the idea of an outline. It’s not elegant, but it’s actually more polished than I would normally write, otherwise it wouldn’t make much sense to you.

Once you’ve done the outline, you’ve finished working on the piece for today. You can pour yourself a cup of tea. And relax!

When you come back to it the next day, you’re ready for Stage 2.

Stage 2: HOW do you want to say it?

So what do you find when you arrive at your desk the next day?

A beautifully clear outline, telling you what to write! It’s like the story of The Elves and the Shoemaker, where the shoemaker cuts out the pieces of leather the day before and the elves sew the pieces into beautiful shoes during the night.

At this point, you know WHAT you’re going to say, so all you need to do is work out HOW to say it clearly and engagingly. Which is easy! All the intellectual heavy lifting has been done for you. It’s like colouring in or joining the dots in a puzzle book.

Why does this work?

Why is it so much easier this way? Because you are only doing one thing at a time, so you can give that thing your full attention.

At Stage 1, you’re putting together the building blocks of your argument. It doesn’t need to be pretty, but as long as you build a strong foundation, it will bear the weight of the blocks you put on top.

If you realise you’ve missed a step, or that there’s a big hole in the logic of your argument, it’s not a huge problem to fix. You don’t have to go back and rewrite pages of text. You just need to add a new point to your outline, or delete a point and replace it.

At Stage 2, you can focus all your attention on finding the right words to express the ideas laid out in the outline. You can take time and pleasure in finding just the right word, or phrase, or analogy to get your point across.

Sometimes you get started on stage two and get stuck again. This usually means you’ve identified a hole in the logic of your argument. If that happens, go back and fix the outline before you continue writing the text. Once your outline is clear, the words will start to flow again.

One of the big benefits of writing outlines is that you can cover a lot of ground quickly. So if you’re writing a book, you can spend a morning writing outlines for lots of different chapters. That sets you up nicely for a week or two of writing up the outlines, and by the time you’ve run out of outlines you’ve made great progress on your book.

The same applies to a series of articles, or the different pages of your website, or (cough) a series of blog posts or podcasts.

And no, I’m not suggesting you write like this all the time. Sometimes you start a new piece and the words flow easily and you’re in the zone. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it! But if you get stuck on a piece of writing, then separating out the WHAT and the HOW can help you get unstuck fast.

You can hear an audio version of this article in this episode of the 21st Century Creative podcast, starting at 2’17”.

The post Writer’s Block: A Surprisingly Simple Solution appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

In this episode Emily shares the no-nonsense principles behind her acclaimed book Brutally Honest: No-Bullshit Strategies to Evolve Your Creative Business – from firing a client a year to telling over-helpful customers to back off.

‘Parent your clients, prune your portfolio and specialise to survive – tune in for Emily’s trademark tough love.’

Episode summary

Emily Cohen

Based in New York, Emily has spent three decades advising design-studio principals on pricing, positioning, staffing and new-business strategy. Her straight-talking style has made her a sought-after speaker at HOW Design Live and AIGA events, while her self-published tome Brutally Honest has become a cult manual for creative entrepreneurs.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Parent your practice – staff and clients thrive when you set clear rules, praise good behaviour and enforce consequences.
• Choose a specialism – industry, deliverable or process expertise makes you memorable and raises your fees.
• Referrals are not a strategy – proactive outreach keeps you in control of the work you win.
• Executional vs strategic – decide whether you sell labour or insight, then build systems (and prices) accordingly.
• The five silent roles – business vision, operational leadership, creative leadership, business development and financial management all need an owner.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Fire one client a year – dropping the weakest account frees capacity for better opportunities.
• Say ‘no’ to create space – every refusal is an invitation to a more valuable ‘yes’.
• Build your village – curating external allies (lawyers, accountants, suppliers) is as vital as hiring staff.

Where next?

Explore more of Emily’s resources – including her downloadable proposal template – at CasaDavka.com, and order a copy of Brutally Honest (complete with neon ink and fold-out infographics).

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Brutally Honest Advice for Your Creative Business with Emily Cohen appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

In this episode he explains how a single sloppy blog post catapulted him from a cubicle in Nebraska to the cafés of Silicon Valley, and on to Medellín where he now writes, codes and records his hit show Love Your Work.

‘Motivational judo, fortress fallacies and typing before you open your eyes – press play to find the heart to start.’

Episode summary

David Kadavy

David is the author of the Amazon-top-20 hit Design for Hackers and, more recently, The Heart to Start. Through his weekly podcast he interviews creators, entrepreneurs and scientists to uncover practical tactics for thriving in the idea economy. His own journey – from Apache-filled all-nighters in the Midwest to a location-independent writing life in Colombia – proves his methods in real time.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Motivational judo – use your perfectionism against itself by ‘barfing’ out a messy first draft.
• The fortress fallacy – grand visions paralyse; shrink the project until action feels inevitable.
• Curiosity convergence – combine seemingly random interests to occupy a niche no rival can reach.
• Listen to ‘the voice’ – capture half-formed thoughts before the critical mind shuts them down.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Type before you wake – tap out 100 words with your eyes still closed to mine dream-state insights.
• Ship, then sharpen – publishing something imperfect today creates momentum – and material – to improve tomorrow.
• Question every rule – when Jason Fried sliced 30-page proposals to one page, clients said yes faster.

Where next?

Download Kadavy’s free Self-Published Sunday email mini-course and explore his books, blog and podcast at kadavy.net.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post How to Find the Heart to Start with David Kadavy appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Fed up with a system where only 4 per cent of venture capital backs female founders, Vicki created SheEO (now Coralus) – an ecosystem where women lend money, expertise and market access to game-changing ventures on radically generous terms.

‘What if capital kept circulating in a perpetual fund – and every loan came with 500 mentors?’ Listen below to find out.

Episode summary

Vicki Saunders

Canadian serial entrepreneur, mentor and author, Vicki has floated a company on the Toronto Stock Exchange and advised governments on innovation. Through SheEO she invites cohorts of 500 ‘Activators’ to contribute $1,100 each, creating zero-interest loans and a powerhouse network for women-led, impact-driven businesses.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Radical Generosity – crowdfund capital and community, then recycle the money for ever.
• The perpetual fund – repayments from one venture bankroll the next, generation after generation.
• Collaboration beats competition – ventures divide the pot themselves and share skills to multiply impact.
• Post-hero leadership – step aside from winner-takes-all and design systems where everyone rises.
• ‘Everything’s broken – hooray!’ – when old structures crumble, creativity gets room to rebuild.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Clean your people closets – curate a circle that lifts you up and ditch voices that drag you down.
• Follow flow, not force – ease is often the sign you’ve found the right solution.
• Profit ＋ purpose – measure success in both finance and social impact.
• Start with what feels simple – solving the ‘easy’ part can unlock a market-changing idea.

Where next?

Discover how to become an Activator – or apply for a zero-interest loan – at sheeo.world (rebranding to Coralus).

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post SheEO: Women Transforming Entrepreneurship with Vicki Saunders appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

In this conversation Rich reveals the hidden costs of excellence, why the world’s top 4 per cent focus on 4 per cent gains, and how collecting ‘no’s can be the fastest route to a life-changing ‘yes’.

‘Your next breakthrough lives just outside your comfort zone’ – listen below (or on your favourite app) to learn the real price of playing at the highest level.

Episode summary

Rich Litvin

Author of the coaching bestseller The Prosperous Coach, Rich works exclusively with elite performers – from Hollywood directors to Presidential candidates. He also founded 4PC, a mastermind that brings the top 4 per cent of coaches, entrepreneurs and creatives together so they can multiply each other’s impact.

Big ideas in this conversation

• The 4 per cent rule – world-class growth comes from stretching just 4 per cent beyond today’s limit.
• Achievement ≠ fulfilment – chasing titles and trophies won’t satisfy a deeper calling.
• Collecting ‘no’s – reframing rejection as a scoreboard for bold action.
• The loneliness of leadership – why the view from the top can feel empty without the right allies.
• Zone of genius laziness – when work feels effortless, you’re probably on the right track.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Dream bigger  –  step smaller – pair audacious visions with tiny daily moves.
• Say ‘no’ to rise higher – the next level demands ruthless focus.
• Find your 5 uncomfortable conversations – progress hides behind what you’re avoiding.
• Play at intersections – creativity sparks when different worlds collide.

Where next?

Learn more about Rich’s work at at richlitvin.com.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post The Price of Being a High Performer with Rich Litvin appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Until a few years ago, when I bought a Kindle, and then downloaded the Kindle app on my phone and realised I could have a library in my pocket. I would never be without a book again. It felt too good to be true.

But after a while I discovered a downside. Ebooks gave me practically unlimited choice – no sooner did I think of a book than I could download a preview and start reading it. Which was great, but I soon noticed I was starting many more books than I was finishing.

Years ago, if I was stuck on a long train journey or a wet weekend away with just one book, I would persevere with it, even if some bits were a bit dull or difficult, and read it to the end. But with the Kindle, as soon as I got a little bored with a story or an argument got a bit difficult to follow, I would flip to another book, and start reading that. Until I got a bit bored with that book, when I would flip to another book…

Soon, reading books began to feel like browsing the web or flicking from app to app on my phone – diverting at first, but eventually frustrating and boring.

I missed the pleasure of getting lost in a book. And the satisfaction of finishing a book. One of my biggest joys in life, and my main sources of stimulation and ideas, was in danger of disappearing.

Then I solved the problem by devising a simple system for reading books.

My system means I always have a choice of things to read, but I never have more than three books on the go at once. It also means I’m rediscovering the pleasure of being lost in a good book, and finishing more of the books I start.

Friends and clients report similar results when I share my system with them, so here it is in case you want to try it for yourself:

1. Create your ‘reading channels’

The first step is to think about the types of book you read, and allocate a ‘reading channel’ for each type. For example, I have three channels: one for Poetry, one for Education, and one for Entertainment.

Poetry is – well, it’s poetry.

Education is any book that I’m reading to learn something, whether it’s a book of literary criticism, a business book, a book on personal development or spirituality, or a handbook of Japanese grammar.

Entertainment is anything in prose that I’m reading for fun. It’s mostly novels, biographies and history books, with a bit of football and pop music. It doesn’t have to be fine literature or improving in any way.

2. Read one book at a time in each channel

The second step is to adopt a rule that you can only read one book at a time in each channel.

So right now I’m reading Jorie Graham’s Selected Poems in my poetry channel. In the education channel, I’ve got The Poem, Don Paterson’s book about how poetry works. And in the entertainment channel, I’m reading Cured, Lol Tolhurst’s memoir about the early days of The Cure, which is certainly entertaining!

3. Finish a book or abandon it

The third step is another rule: every time you start a new book, you have to either finish it or make a conscious decision not to finish it, and take it out of your channel. And there’s no shame in giving up on a book, if you really don’t want to finish it.

That’s it!

What this system means is you always have a choice of what to read, but your choice doesn’t get out of hand.

I think it works because a lot of the temptation to switch books comes from not being in the right mood, or not having enough mental energy, for reading a certain type of book.

For example, if I’m wide awake and alert, there’s nothing I’d rather read than poetry. But if I’m tired, then I may not have the energy or inclination to figure out what Geoffrey Hill or John Ashbery are talking about. So I would rather read something less demanding and more entertaining – and my entertainment channel will always give me that option.

But if I’m feeling in the mood for poetry or to learn something, then I’m generally happy to read whatever’s in the poetry or education channel.

You can hear an audio version of this articles in this episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast at 4’02”.

The post A Simple System to Help You Finish (and Abandon) More Books appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

In this episode we discuss Christina’s unusual route into journalism, why she believes kindness beats cleverness, and how the crisps-and-fizzy-wine philosophy can lift even the darkest day.

‘When everything falls apart, the story you tell yourself will decide what happens next’ – listen below (or on your favourite app) to learn Christina’s art of staying upright.

Episode summary

Christina Patterson

Christina wrote a much-loved column for The Independent, interviewed figures from Gordon Brown to Boy George, and now contributes to The Sunday Times and The Guardian. Her memoir-cum-survival-guide The Art of Not Falling Apart distils the lessons of loss, illness and joblessness into hard-won wisdom for anyone on a precarious creative path.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Failure as material – turning personal disaster into a story that helps others.
• The columnist’s pulpit – writing to move hearts as well as change minds.
• Deceptive simplicity – why short words often land the hardest punch.
• Kindness over cleverness – success is hollow without compassion.
• Everyday joy – coffee, cake, crisps and fizz as creative fuel.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Feel it first – if the writer laughs or cries, the reader will too.
• Write 1,200 tight words – precision breeds power.
• Let curiosity steer the story – discovery happens on the page, not before.
• Simplify relentlessly – aim for Matisse-level clarity, one cut-out at a time.

Where next?

Dive deeper into Christina’s writing, interviews and speaking events at ChristinaPatterson.co.uk.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post The Art of Not Falling Apart with Christina Patterson appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Just about every client I’ve coached who was struggling to make sales when they knew who they wanted to serve and when they were good at the actual work, was failing to do one or other of these things – or doing them the wrong way round, or striking the wrong balance between them.

The first thing you need to to is inspire your potential client with a vision of what’s possible with your help.

If you’re a designer you can do this with a portfolio of beautifully designed work. And maybe an Instagram feed that’s a feast for the eyes. Or a product or project of your own.

If you’re a copywriter you can do it with a beautifully and persuasively written website, with examples of beautifully written website, sales pages and other work you’ve done for clients. Plus articles and a book or two that are helpful to your kind of client.

If you’re a web developer or programmer or offering another kind of technical service, then you could write articles or produce videos with solutions to common problems experienced by your clientele, and explaining – in clear, everyday language – how your technical skills can solve problems and deliver results for your clients.

If you’re a coach or consultant, you can produce educational material that will be helpful for the kind of people you would like to serve as clients. This can include books, a blog, a newsletter, a podcast, videos or e-learning courses.

I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea – whatever your line of work, put something out into the world that is not just marketing material, but an extension of your work for clients. This gives potential clients a taste of your work, and the right kind of prospect will be inspired by this.

Inspiration is essential – if you don’t inspire someone, if they don’t get any feeling of excitement or interest when they see what you’re putting out into the world, then why would they be interested in working with you? And why would they want to work with you instead of the thousands of other options out there?

But inspiration is not enough.

You also need to inspire confidence that you will deliver results. That you are a professional with the necessary skills, knowledge, experience, commitment and integrity to deliver for them.

Obvious ways to do this include adding your qualifications, your client list, and some testimonials to your website, or offering a guarantee.

It also inspires confidence when your website, especially your About page and Services pages, effectively communicates who you are, who you serve, and how you help them. And don’t forget to talk about WHY you love doing this kind of work, and serving this kind of client – the best kind of client will want to know that you care about your clients and that there is a purpose to your work beyond merely earning money.

One very powerful way to inspire confidence is to have a first step in working together that is available at a modest fee, or even no fee at all, where you get right down to work with the client and demonstrate the value of your work for real.

For example, whenever I receive an application from a potential coaching client, if I think we may be a good fit, then I will block off 2 hours in my diary and coach them for real, at no charge. By the end of that 2 hours, we have a very good idea of how well we work together – and whether we both want to continue.

Similarly, I’ve worked with editors who undertake to edit a short chapter or article before they will commit to working on a book with a client. Or designers and copywriters who offer brand consultations up front, to understand a client’s situation and aspirations, and advise about options, before they will take the client on.

As well as inspiring confidence in the client, this kind of preliminary engagement also helps you. Because when you work with them you see how they show up in the relationship, and whether they are prepared to do their part of the work, and let you do yours effectively.

You learn whether you enjoy working with them, and whether they represent an opportunity to do your best work.

If you do both of these things, in this order – inspire first, then inspire confidence – your schedule will fill up with the right kind of clients.

Some people like the inspiration part – they love putting out blog posts or videos, or engaging with people on social media, or networking and meeting new people, or speaking at events. Inspiring people is fun! But if you fail to follow through by inspiring confidence, your positive energy will fizzle out, without bringing you the clients you want.

Maybe your website looks a little old fashioned, or it doesn’t explain what you do and how to become a client. Or maybe you get nervous when you’re talking to a prospect, so that they like you, but they don’t feel confident trusting you with their business.

Other people make sure you are aware of their impressive qualifications and client list, but they don’t share or inspire. If this is you, and someone lands on your website or meets you in person, they may be impressed, but also a little intimidated. Or just not engaged enough to want to work with you.

Even if you do both, you may encounter dry spells in your business, so thinking about inspiring + inspiring confidence can help you diagnose and fix the problem:

1. If you’re not getting enough attention, in the form of readers, listeners, website visitors, and ultimately new enquiries, then you need to reach out and inspire people more. Write a book, speak at conferences, launch a podcast or a live event.

2. If you’re getting a decent amount of attention or social media engagement or website traffic, but not enough enquiries, or not enough enquirers are signing up and becoming clients, then you need to look at how you can inspire more confidence.

Look at everything from your website to your client enrolment process, and ask yourself: does this really inspire confidence, and demonstrate who I serve and how I can help them? Does anything raise a doubt, however small?

If you’re not sure, ask a colleague, or better still your existing clients. You may be surprised by what you learn – and hopefully, inspired to act on it…

You can hear an audio version of this article on this episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast, starting at 2’45”.

Image credit: Michelangelo, Raphael and Bramante in a sales meeting with Pope Julius II, by Horace Vernet

The post Two Essential Factors in Signing the Right Clients for Your Creative Business appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

In this episode David explains why brands with a purpose ‘do better and matter more’, how storytelling rescued 400 skilled makers in Cardigan, and why every creative should seek hard problems, not easy wins.

‘A brand’s power,’ David says, ‘is the 18-inch journey from head to heart.’ Listen below (or on your favourite app) to discover how he makes that leap — and how you can too.

Episode summary

David Hieatt

Entrepreneur, author and speaker, David champions businesses that fix problems rather than chase margins. With Hiut Denim he reignited Britain’s largest jeans workforce; with The Do Lectures he inspires others to marry profit with purpose.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Purpose first – brands rooted in a mission spark loyalty far beyond a simple transaction.
• The power of questions – great companies (and careers) begin with asking something original.
• Content factory + product factory – world-class storytelling is as vital as world-class making.
• Reframing competition – stop fighting to be cheapest; aim to be best.
• Hard dreams – choose challenges that stretch you; easy ones rarely change anything.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Lobby for love, not attention — make customers feel something.
• Paint the floor — small symbolic acts unite a team against mediocrity.
• Measure growth in community, not just turnover.
• Ask one great question every day for a week and watch your perspective shift.

Where next?

Read Do Purpose — David’s manifesto for mission-led business — via The Do Book Co.

Explore Hiut Denim and the Cardigan factory revival at hiutdenim.co.uk, and watch hundreds of free talks at TheDoLectures.com.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators – including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Don’t Just Sell Something: Do Something! with David Hieatt appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Her latest guide, The Healthy Writer (co-authored with Dr Euan Lawson), tackles an awkward truth: long hours at a screen can wreck a creative’s body and mind. In this conversation Joanna explains how she swapped painkillers for yoga, loneliness for community and “exercise” for joyful movement — lessons that apply to every creative discipline, not just writing.

‘Creation is therapy,’ Joanna says. ‘But you need a body that will carry you the distance.’ Listen below (or on your favourite app) for a practical, myth-busting guide to becoming a healthy creative.

Episode summary

Joanna Penn

Author-entrepreneur, podcaster and speaker, Joanna bridges commercial success with candid talk about the physical and mental toll of a creative life. Her collaboration with Dr Lawson distils medical research and personal experience into a survival manual for anyone who works at a screen.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Creation as therapy – writing heals trauma and boosts mood, but only if the body is cared for too.
• From discipline to pleasure – swap ‘exercise’ for enjoyable movement and ‘diet’ for mindful food.
• The ergonomics upgrade – desks, laptop stands and voice dictation can prevent years of pain.
• Combatting isolation – online communities, conferences and group activities reverse the health risks of loneliness.
• Myth-busting the tortured artist – you can be prolific, ambitious and well-rested; suffering is optional.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Scan your body – notice tension or aches before they become injuries.
• Schedule movement – morning writing; mid-morning yoga; afternoons for admin.
• Reframe rest – evenings and weekends off aren’t indulgent, they’re fuel.
• Find the right teacher – a supportive instructor can turn exercise hatred into lifelong joy.

Where next?

Explore The Healthy Writer — packed with medical insights and practical tips — at TheCreativePenn.com/healthy-writer or your preferred retailer.

Follow Joanna’s weekly articles and The Creative Penn Podcast at TheCreativePenn.com for advice on writing, publishing and making a living from your craft.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators — including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post The Healthy Creative with Joanna Penn appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

In this episode we explore how Tyler blends randomness with precision, why he ships each print with the very algorithm that made it, and what generative art might reveal about the future of creativity.

‘When I surrender control to the programme, it surprises me — and that surprise is where the art lives,’ Tyler says. Listen below (or on your favourite app) to hear how he turns code into colour.

Episode summary

Tyler Hobbs

Tyler is a leading voice in generative art, a discipline that uses algorithms to produce images. Collectors buy single-edition prints — each accompanied by the code that generated it — and his essays on process have become required reading for artists and programmers alike.

Big ideas in this conversation

• Painting with code – why Tyler swapped brushes for algorithms to create one-off artworks.
• Randomness as collaborator – giving up control lets unexpected forms (and new ideas) emerge.
• Emotion in the machine – how to move viewers with lines of JavaScript, not brush-strokes.
• Collecting the programme – each purchase includes the source code, turning buyers into curators of the creative process.
• Future horizons – from pen-plotter paintings to AI and VR sculpture, where generative art may lead next.

Advice worth hearing in full

• Trust your reaction – judge success by the emotional jolt the image gives you, not technical cleverness.
• Use constraints creatively – tight rules (or a Fibonacci sequence) can unlock startling results.
• Embrace surprise – the ‘aha’ moment often arrives when the programme misbehaves.
• Let curiosity drive iteration – small code tweaks, run repeatedly, can reveal whole new series.

Where next?

Explore and collect Tyler’s generative artworks — and read his essays — at TylerXHobbs.com.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators — including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Tyler Hobbs: the Artist Who Paints with Code appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

If you’re a novelist, journalist, poet, or screenwriter, your medium is the written word.

If you’re a comedian or a conference speaker, your medium is the spoken word.

Conversation is the medium of chat show hosts, psychotherapists, consultants, and podcasters.

A photographer or painter’s medium is made up of light and shadow, colour and composition.

Musicians play with rhythm, harmony, and melody.

Movie directors work with actors, crew, and script.

Mastering your medium is the bedrock of your creative practice. It’s how you do your best work, the work for which you will (hopefully) be remembered.

I say ‘find’ your medium rather than choose it, because I don’t think we have a choice in the matter. When you find your medium, it’s more like discovery or recognition than a decision. When I was a boy, I used to draw and paint all the time, but as a teenager I fell in love with poetry and left my art behind. There was no choice to make.

To achieve mastery, it helps to have a teacher and a group of peers to spark off, compete with, and measure yourself against. It could be a class, a group of apprentices, the writers’ room on a TV show, or the creative department in an agency. And whether you work alone or with others, there is no substitute for practice.

Mastering your medium is essential — but it’s not enough. As well as a means of expression, you need media — a means of communication.

Your media is how you share your work with the world. Without media, your medium won’t amount to much more than a pile of manuscripts in your cupboard, or a hard drive full of brilliant work that no one sees.

In some cases, your medium and your media may be similar or even identical.

If you’re a columnist then your columns are your medium, and their appearance in the newspaper constitutes your media.

If you’re a photographer, then it’s a short step from taking a photo to publishing it on Instagram.

If you’re a writer who publishes on Medium, then your articles are your medium, and — you guessed it! — Medium is your media.

But in many cases a creator’s medium and media are different but complementary. The non-fiction writer with a blog. The stand-up comedian with a YouTube channel. The artist with an email newsletter. The (ahem) poet with a podcast. And so on.

While I don’t believe you choose your medium, I do think you can choose your media, and even change it.

Choosing and building your own media platform can be a fun and rewarding challenge in its own right. And it may well evolve and change over time — as the media landscape changes, or you discover new and exciting ways to get your work out there.

Like your medium, your media will take time to master. You may well need a different teacher and group of peers to help you with this. Here are some other considerations:

It must not take too much time and creative energy away from your medium.

It must be enjoyable for you to produce — otherwise it won’t be sustainable.

It must be attractive enough to your intended audience. It would be hard work promoting classical music on Snapchat. A 5,000-word essay may not get people into your cartoons (although it worked pretty well for Hugh MacLeod, so don’t rule anything out).

It should slot easily into your schedule. You could have a daily routine of sharing photos on Instagram or Tweeting from your phone. Or a weekly rhythm of recording video or audio, outside of your writing or painting or rehearsal time. So it becomes an integral part of your creative life.

Find your medium. Choose your media.

You can hear an audio version of this article on this episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast, starting at 9’39”.

The post Find Your Medium, Choose Your Media appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

This conversation explores why the celebrated Hero’s Journey is just Act One. The real work begins afterwards, when a creator confronts their gift, turns professional and learns to shuttle — hour by hour — between inspiration and logistics. If you feel you’re resisting a call, or wonder how to balance mystique with mundane discipline, you’ll find Steve’s insights bracing, practical and reassuring.

‘Every book I’ve written surprised me,’ Steve says. ‘The works themselves tell you who you are.’ Listen below (or on your favourite app) and decide whether you’re still questing on your Hero’s Journey or already walking the artist’s road.

Episode summary

Steven Pressfield

An ex-advertising copywriter turned historical novelist, Steve has written nineteen books across two intertwined careers. His Ancient-Greek battle epics such as Gates of Fire inspire the US Marines; his creative handbooks — The War of Art, Turning Pro, Do the Work — pepper studio walls from Hollywood to Hackney. The Artist’s Journey distils forty years of that experience into a field-guide for anyone who feels called to make meaningful work.

Big ideas in this conversation

• From Hero to Artist – Campbell’s template is only Act One; the artist’s real apprenticeship starts when you answer your gift. (Think of Good Will Hunting — the film ends where the Artist’s Journey begins.)
• A universal pattern – Luke Skywalker, Odysseus and Dorothy follow the same twelve beats because those beats are coded in us. George Lucas even pinned Campbell’s checklist above his desk while drafting Star Wars.
• Mysticism + mechanics – Rosanne Cash’s late-night epiphany led to athlete-style training and militant diary-keeping. Great art is forged in that daily oscillation between the ether and the calendar.
• Creative bottoming-out – Burn-out, boredom or addiction often precede the decision to turn pro — Steve’s favourite business example is the guilt-stricken Vietnam veteran who founded FedEx.
• The Creative Challenge – Map yourself: are you mid-quest, or have you crossed the threshold into your own Artist’s Journey?

Advice worth hearing in full

• Practise the shuttle – Cultivate the rapid movement between intuition and technique, dozens of times an hour.
• Spot the threshold – Life simplifies the moment you accept the Call and stop running.
• Design your day – Discipline isn’t swagger; it’s the scaffolding that lets inspiration land safely.
• Ask a sharper question – Not ‘How can I be original?’ but ‘What gift am I withholding from the world?’

Where next?

Explore The Artist’s Journey in e-book, print or audio at BlackIrishBooks.com or your preferred retailer.

Read Steve’s weekly ‘Writing Wednesdays’ essays at StevenPressfield.com.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Hosted by creative coach and award-winning poet Mark McGuinness, The 21st Century Creative podcast helps you succeed as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st century.

Each episode features insights from Mark and interviews with outstanding creators — including artists, writers, performers, commercial creatives, directors, producers, entrepreneurs and other creative thought-leaders.

Make sure you receive every episode by subscribing in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Join the mailing list to have every episode delivered to your inbox, along with the free 21st Century Creative Foundation Course.

The post Steven Pressfield on The Artist’s Journey appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Patricia is also the author of Dream Plan Do, an annual planner journal to help creative entrepreneurs reflect, plan and take action throughout the year.

One of the themes of The 21st Century Creative is ‘something old, something new’ and Patricia is a fantastic example of this – many of the creatives she helps are living in remote areas, using traditional craft skills that go back generations, and they are often working in super-specialised niches.

Patricia helps them thrive by reinventing their business model and their marketing communications so that they can reach their customers wherever they are in the world.

I’ve known Patricia for years and worked with her on several occasions, running workshops or speaking at her events. It’s always fun to go to a Design Trust event, because you’re guaranteed to find yourself in a room full of talented and enthusiastic people who spend their lives creating all kinds of beautiful and useful things.

In this interview Patricia gives us the benefit of her experience of working with hundreds of creatives, about what it really takes to succeed in a small creative business. She has a lot of interesting things to say about the intersection of artistic tradition and our modern connected society.

If you run a creative business of any kind, you’ll find plenty of practical inspiration in this interview. And if you see yourself as good at your creative work but clueless at business, I recommend you listen right to the end, where Patricia points out how your artistic skills could actually be the key to unlocking your success as a creative entrepreneur.

The 2019 edition of Patricia’s Dream Plan Do planner journal for creative entrepreneurs will be available to pre-order in October – if you want to know when it’s available, sign up for updates at Dream-Plan-Do.com.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Each episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast features an interview with an outstanding creator in the arts or creative industries.

At the end of the interview, I ask my guest to set you a Creative Challenge that will help you put the ideas from the interview in to practice in your own work.

And in the first part of the show, I share insights and practical guidance based on my experience as a Creative Coach since 1996.

Make sure you receive every episode of The 21st Century Creative by subscribing to the show in iTunes.

The post Creating a Business You Are Proud of with Patricia van den Akker appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

She works with senior leaders and teams in the creative and media industries, education, startups, and female entrepreneurs. In The SHED Method she shares the principles and techniques she uses to help her clients perform at their best under pressure.

Like all top coaches, Sara enlists the help of other coaches to help her reach her own goals. So when she signed a publishing deal for The SHED Method, she came to me for help in getting the book written, and also with making the transition from coach to writer, as she saw that, as a coach who writes books, I had been through the same process myself.

As I worked with Sara and read the successive drafts of her book, I was struck by the down-to-earth nature of a lot of her advice, for top performers. Things like getting a good night’s sleep, staying hydrated, watching your diet and taking time out to exercise – especially when you’re busy.

The kind of things it’s easy to overlook while you’re pursuing your ambitions – especially if you’re a working on a computer, or creating imaginary storytelling worlds, or on a punishing schedule of live performances.

Reading the draft, I got a few flashbacks to my own experience, and times where I hadn’t taken care of myself very well, and had paid the penalty. So I thought it would be helpful to invite Sara on the show to share some of the ideas from the book with you.

In this interview Sara invites you to ‘become a scientist on your own behaviour’ by observing what works and what doesn’t work for you, and experimenting with new ways of doing things.

As well as the foundation of SHED practices, she gives you a new and user-friendly way of looking at your brain, and working with it rather than against it, when you’re trying to achieve or create something extraordinary.

She also talks about her experience of going from a creative practitioner towards becoming a thought leader with a public profile in her industry. So if you’re on a similar journey, from working alone in your studio or with clients, to stepping into the public eye in print, online, in media of any kind, Sara offers a great example of how to find the inspiration and the courage to go for it.

You can get tips and updates about The SHED Method on Facebook and Instagram.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Each episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast features an interview with an outstanding creator in the arts or creative industries.

At the end of the interview, I ask my guest to set you a Creative Challenge that will help you put the ideas from the interview in to practice in your own work.

And in the first part of the show, I share insights and practical guidance based on my experience as a Creative Coach since 1996.

Make sure you receive every episode of The 21st Century Creative by subscribing to the show in iTunes.

The post Making Better Choices When it Matters with Sara Milne Rowe appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Josh hails from Australia and has spent the last few years living and working in the United States. He was one of the founding hosts of HuffPost Live, the innovative online TV network run by the Huffington Post. There he interviewed guests including Russell Brand, Jeremy Irons, Michael Moore, Liz Hurley and Jesse Jackson.

Josh is currently hosting a radio show for ABC, the Australian national broadcaster.

Many of you will know of him through his podcast, #WeThePeople LIVE. The show’s tagline is ‘make debate healthy again’, and it features live panel discussions in front of an audience Josh describes as ‘as wise as it is drunk’, as well as in-depth interviews and very lively discussions with guests including Scott Adams, Richard Dawkins, Joe Rogan and Louis Theroux.

Josh is never afraid to speak his own mind, but one of the hallmarks of his podcast is his willingness to invite people with radically different viewpoints to his own, and to attempt to engage them in a respectful and productive debate. The results are sometimes considered controversial, but never boring.

#WeThePeople LIVE has hit the No.1 Position in the iTunes comedy podcast charts on numerous occasions. And Twitter explodes with outrage on a regular basis.

In this interview Josh talks about his own path to success, and tackles some of the big questions about old and new media and how they relate to each other. He also has some great advice for those of you who want to carve out a career in the media.

Listen to #WeThePeople LIVE on iTunes or get the raw audio feed here. You can follow Josh on Twitter here and get updates about the podcast here.

In the course of the interview Josh mentions a feisty encounter between Madonna and David Letterman, which you can watch on YouTube here.

Episodes of #WeThePeople LIVE he references in today’s interview are his conversations with Ben Shapiro, Scott Adams and Andy Kindler. He also talks about his interview with Jeremy Irons, some of which you can see here (at 2m 8s).

N.b. Josh used to spell his name phonetically as “Zepps” earlier in his career. But as he modestly explains, ‘Now that I’ve become the world’s most successful broadcaster, the original spelling of “Szeps” will do’.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Each episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast features an interview with an outstanding creator in the arts or creative industries.

At the end of the interview, I ask my guest to set you a Creative Challenge that will help you put the ideas from the interview in to practice in your own work.

And in the first part of the show, I share insights and practical guidance based on my experience as a Creative Coach since 1996.

Make sure you receive every episode of The 21st Century Creative by subscribing to the show in iTunes.

The post Josh Szeps on 21st Century Media: TV, Radio, Podcasting and Beyond appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Having earned her own MFA – which for those of us outside the US, is a Master of Fine Arts degree, the main creative writing degree in the States – via the traditional academic route, she founded DIY MFA, to make this kind of education available to writers without the time or money to invest in a degree program.

She teaches via her website DIYMFA.com, her book DIY MFA and her podcast, DIY MFA Radio.

This interview will obviously appeal to you if you’re a writer, but even if you’re not, Gabriela has a lot of valuable insights to share about the mindset it takes to achieve in any creative profession.

One of the big themes of The 21st Century Creative podcast is that it’s up to you and me to take responsibility for our own careers – for making things happen rather than waiting for opportunity to knock. And DIY MFA is a great example of doing this with your education and professional development

Listen to Gabriela and you’ll hear how passionate she is about taking control of your learning process, just as much as you do for other aspects of your career or business.

Whether or not you’re not a writer, I recommend you take on board Gabriela’s approach to education and see what you can take from it and apply to your own professional development.

This is the DIY MFA pie chart, which Gabriela refers to in the interview:

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Each episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast features an interview with an outstanding creator in the arts or creative industries.

At the end of the interview, I ask my guest to set you a Creative Challenge that will help you put the ideas from the interview in to practice in your own work.

And in the first part of the show, I share insights and practical guidance based on my experience as a Creative Coach since 1996.

Make sure you receive every episode of The 21st Century Creative by subscribing to the show in iTunes.

The post DIY Professional Development for Creatives with Gabriela Pereira appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

If you visit Daniel’s website you’ll see he greets his visitors with the words ‘We love to share your joy’ – this is the guiding principle of Daniel’s business and his mission in life. And if you visit his office in Washington, then he tells me you will see jewellery pieces you won’t see anywhere else.

All Daniel’s creations are custom-made for his clients, and he goes to extraordinary lengths to make something special and appropriate for each client – not only does he spend time getting to know them and their tastes, he also travels the globe to source the materials and craft skills he needs to make the pieces.

In a typical year Daniel and his Vice President Joshua Collier rack up hundreds of thousands of air miles, as they visit mines, industry fairs, private dealers, and craftsmen and women who are the living embodiment of generations of artistic tradition.

As well as serving private clients, Daniel’s jewellery is worn by the USA’s two times Olympic judo champion, Kayla Harrison, and by 10-year-old Clarissa Capuano, a Global Down Ambassador, who raises awareness for people with Down Syndrome.

I’ve been working with Daniel for a few years, and never cease to be astonished by the boldness of his vision and the lengths he is prepared to go to make it a reality. He’s also a very sharp and engaging chap who is excellent company, so it was a pleasure to sit down with him in London to record this interview.

In this conversation Daniel talks about what motivated him to create a very unconventional jewellery business, and how he has dealt with some of the challenges he faces in an industry that has some very well established conventions. He also talks about his approach to designing and creating a unique piece of fine jewellery for each of his clients.

Listen to this interview for an inspiring example of what it takes to succeed in a high-end creative business. You’ll also learn the surprising and charming story behind the name The Intrepid Wendell.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Each episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast features an interview with an outstanding creator in the arts or creative industries.

At the end of the interview, I ask my guest to set you a Creative Challenge that will help you put the ideas from the interview in to practice in your own work.

And in the first part of the show, I share insights and practical guidance based on my experience as a Creative Coach since 1996.

Make sure you receive every episode of The 21st Century Creative by subscribing to the show in iTunes.

The post The Business of Sharing Joy with Daniel Boettcher appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Jarie is inventor or co-inventor on over 10 patents and has published three other books besides The Entrepreneur Ethos: Frustration Free Technical Management, #ENDURANCE tweet — A Little Nudge to Keep You Going, and Business Basics for Entrepreneurs.

He blogs about ‘tips, tools and techniques to be a better entrepreneur’ at TheDailyMBA.com. He also gives talks like this one at San Jose State University about How Not to Be a Jerk.

Not content with the rigours of the startup world, Jarie is also a keen endurance athlete – when I once asked for his definition of endurance athletics, he told me that it’s ‘any athletics event that is so demanding that you can’t finish unless you eat while you’re doing it’.

I met Jarie years ago, when I worked with him as a coaching client, and we have kept up our friendship ever since.

When he told me he was writing a book called The Entrepreneur Ethos, I knew it was a topic I wanted to feature on the podcast. Because there’s so much attention paid to the external aspects of entrepreneurship – the money, the fame, the public controversies and so on. But like any creative endeavour, the internal factors such as mindset, motivation and intention, are critical to success – and are often overlooked.

Jarie’s done a great job of addressing the human factor of entrepreneurship in The Entrepreneur Ethos and it’s a book I will be buying for coaching clients for years to come. In this conversation he shares his thoughts on what it really takes to succeed as an entrepreneur – behind the scenes, away from the spotlight, where the hard work is done and the difficult conversations take place.

He talks about the motivation of top entrepreneurs, and makes the perhaps surprising claim that it’s not about the money.

He also shares some of the unexpected traits of the entrepreneur, including awkwardness. And he touches on some of the problems in the startup sector, particularly in its treatment of women and minorities, and what needs to change for a true Entrepreneur Ethos to emerge.

Jarie’s words about endurance are particularly poignant due to the fact that a few weeks before we were due to speak, his wife Jane died of cancer. I asked if he wanted to postpone the interview, but he was adamant that he wanted to go ahead – partly because he had written the book in response to some of the challenges Jane had experienced as a female entrepreneur in the male-dominated startup world.

In this conversation you’ll hear Jarie speak from the heart about his own journey and what it takes for any of us to overcome the personal and professional challenges life places in our way.

Jarie’s Creative Challenge

At the end of the interview, Jarie sets you the challenge of writing a Business Narrative for your creative business or project. This article will help you complete the challenge: Writing your business narrative.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Each episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast features an interview with an outstanding creator in the arts or creative industries.

At the end of the interview, I ask my guest to set you a Creative Challenge that will help you put the ideas from the interview in to practice in your own work.

And in the first part of the show, I share insights and practical guidance based on my experience as a Creative Coach since 1996.

Make sure you receive every episode of The 21st Century Creative by subscribing to the show in iTunes.

The post The Entrepreneur Ethos with Jarie Bolander appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Mimi was born in Tehran, Iran and grew up on the Isle of Wight in England. She is the author of eight collections of poetry published by Carcanet and the editor of several anthologies. Her latest book is The Very Selected Mimi Khalvati, published by smith|doorstop.

Her awards and commendations include a Cholmondeley Award and being shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Mimi is also the founder of The Poetry School, where professional poets teach the art and craft of poetry at its London centre and across the UK.

Fifteen years ago, I walked into Mimi’s class at the Poetry School, and it changed my life. Mimi challenged and encouraged me in a way no other writing teacher has ever done, and I owe her a huge debt of gratitude for the difference she has made to my poetry.

Mimi has a rare gift – not only is she an outstanding poet herself, but she has an extraordinary ability to read other poets’ work and give them feedback that helps them get to the heart of their own writing.

I’ve been quoting Mimi’s words of wisdom for years, with coaching clients, in my books and on this podcast. So I’m delighted I was able to record this conversation and let you hear her for yourself.

In this conversation Mimi talks about her own practice as a poet, and offers some unusual insights into the nature of the creative process, especially the role of criticism, that will apply to you whatever your creative discipline.

Not only that, but Mimi also reads several poems from her latest book, The Very Selected Mimi Khalvati. (Amazon US. Amazon UK.)

Portrait photo of Mimi Khalvati by Caroline Forbes.

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Each episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast features an interview with an outstanding creator in the arts or creative industries.

At the end of the interview, I ask my guest to set you a Creative Challenge that will help you put the ideas from the interview in to practice in your own work.

And in the first part of the show, I share insights and practical guidance based on my experience as a Creative Coach since 1996.

Make sure you receive every episode of The 21st Century Creative by subscribing to the show in iTunes.

The post Poetry as Discovery with Mimi Khalvati appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

I joked with Todd that he is also the grandaddy of creative podcasters – he has been producing his show The Accidental Creative and sharing “weekly tips and ideas for staying prolific, brilliant, and healthy” since 2005. So if you’re not listening to his show yet, I highly recommend you check it out.

Todd was originally a writer and creative director; these days he consults for creative businesses who want to unleash the full talent of their creative teams. And his latest book offers a lot of insight on this topic. It’s called Herding Tigers – Be the Leader that Creative People Need.

In this conversation I ask Todd about the challenges faced by creatives who make the step up from team member to team leader. He talks about the big shifts in your role and your identity, and the balance of power with your former team members, and the big challenges you will face as a result.

Todd also shares lots of practical advice on the day-to-day business of creative leadership, including what to track to make sure creative projects stay on track, how to keep people fired up to create under pressure, and the surprising importance of stability for creative work.

If you are a creative director or leader of any kind, or you’re about to make the transition into a creative leadership role, then this interview will be essential listening for you. And even if you aren’t – yet – in a leadership role, I think you’ll get a lot out of Todd’s insights about what it takes to create outstanding work in a demanding environment.

And if you think your own boss could do with a little help in getting the most out of your and your co-workers, and you’re feeling brave – and maybe even a little tigerish! – then perhaps you could share this interview with your boss!

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Each episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast features an interview with an outstanding creator in the arts or creative industries.

At the end of the interview, I ask my guest to set you a Creative Challenge that will help you put the ideas from the interview in to practice in your own work.

And in the first part of the show, I share insights and practical guidance based on my experience as a Creative Coach since 1996.

Make sure you receive every episode of The 21st Century Creative by subscribing to the show in iTunes.

The post Todd Henry: Leading Creatives Is Like Herding Tigers appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

Born in Argentina and raised in Venezuela, he achieved national fame with the band Claroscuro before moving to the UK in 2000.

Javier will need no introduction for fans of Stereophonics – he was the band’s drummer for 8 years, recording albums, touring the globe and playing to packed stadiums, including the Live 8 concert in Hyde Park that was broadcast worldwide in 2005.

These days he records his own albums, as well as playing drums with the likes of Phil Manzanera of Roxy Music, and Zak Starkey. He also produces other artists, composes soundtracks for feature films and documentaries, and creates music for brands including Uniqlo, the BBC, ITV and Hasbro.

Javier on stage with Stereophonics at Live8

As a listener to the 21st Century Creative, you are already familiar with Javier’s work – he composed and recorded all the music and sound effects for the podcast, and his production agency Breaking Waves, produces every episode of the show.

UNIQLO campaign featuring Javier’s music

For this interview we did something very different, which was Javier’s idea. We met up in Hammersmith in London, and walked along the bank of the river Thames while he told me about his journey, from growing up in Venezuela to achieving success with Claroscuro, to moving to London, playing with Stereophonics, and his current work as a composer and producer.

Along the way, he shares his thoughts on what it takes to succeed as a musician, and how the music business has changed radically in the time he’s been involved with it.

As we walk along the river, you can hear the sounds of birds singing, passers-by talking, planes flying overhead and traffic coming and going. Javier wanted to capture the soundscape and to give us a glimpse of what it’s like to live in his world, where he is acutely aware of the sounds around him and the feelings they evoke.

When I listened back to the interview, it reminded me of some of his work for films, where the sounds in the background have a subtle but important effect on the people in the foreground. To experience the effect for yourself, I hope you’ll join Javier and me on a walk along the river and a journey into sound.

You can follow Javier’s further adventures on Instagram and Twitter.

Trailer for The Book of Judith, soundtrack by Javier Weyler and Aleph Aguiar

Music from Dead Seem Old – co-written, produced and engineered by Javier

About The 21st Century Creative podcast

Each episode of The 21st Century Creative podcast features an interview with an outstanding creator in the arts or creative industries.

At the end of the interview, I ask my guest to set you a Creative Challenge that will help you put the ideas from the interview in to practice in your own work.

And in the first part of the show, I share insights and practical guidance based on my experience as a Creative Coach since 1996.

Make sure you receive every episode of The 21st Century Creative by subscribing to the show in iTunes.

The post Javier Weyler: A Journey into Sound appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

It’s taken several months, many hours of work, and in the case of one interview, several thousand air miles, to put the new season together. So I hope you’ll find the result a helpful source of inspiration over the next 10 weeks.

We start Season 2 with an interview with Tina Roth Eisenberg, a designer and entrepreneur based in New York City. She’s known to millions of readers as Swiss Miss – the title of her blog, where she’s been sharing design inspiration since 2005.

Her ventures include Friends Work Here, a co-working space; Tattly, a temporary tattoo business; Teux Deux, a productivity app; and Creative Mornings, a series of free lectures for creatives currently taking place in 183 cities around the world. She also just launched ‘the LinkedIn of the creative world’, called CreativeGuild.

In this conversation Tina tells us about her journey from a small town in rural Switzerland to becoming a successful creative entrepreneur in New York, with an audience and network spanning the globe.

She talks about the challenges she faced, and the amazing opportunities that emerged as if by magic, when she followed her creative instincts to work on a series of labours of love, however unusual or commercially unviable they looked at first.

She has interesting things to say about the opportunities that can come to you if you are generous in sharing your work and ideas, and also has an unusual take on the challenge of bringing up children while running your own business.

Listen to Tina’s interview and you will experience a shining example of a 21st century creative – inspiring, generous, outward looking and consistently surprising.

Follow Tina on Twitter and Instagram.

Portrait photo of Tina Roth Eisenberg by Catalina Kulczar

What’s coming in Season 2 of The 21st Century Creative podcast

This the first of 10 interviews in the new season, including a leading poet, a high-end jeweller, an experienced TV and radio host, a serial entrepreneur and a musician who performed to a global audience at Live8.

And in the first part of the show, I share insights and practical guidance based on my experience as a Creative Coach since 1996.

Make sure you receive every episode of The 21st Century Creative by subscribing to the show in iTunes.

The post Tina Roth Eisenberg’s Labours of Love appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

So here are 21 insights from 21 years of helping professional creatives deal with the stresses and strains, joys and jubilations, of the creative life.

They have been road-tested with hundreds of creative professionals facing real-life challenges. So if you aspire to great things as an artist or creative, I’m confident that at least some of them will be relevant to your situation.

1. Everything is powered by love

If you don’t love your work, you can forget it as a creative. Psychologists talk about intrinsic motivation and tell us it is ‘proven to be highly correlated with creativity’. But let’s call a spade a spade: it’s love.

You can probably remember the day you fell in love with your creative work; the butterflies in your stomach, your heart leaping, the sense of a whole new world opening up before you.

Maybe you saw another artist, creator or performer doing something extraordinary, and found yourself asking: ‘Could I do that?’

And like all love affairs, it’s probably been a rocky road, with plenty of friction and suffering along the way. Maybe even a breakup or a trial separation. But you always come back, because this is the love of your working life.

It’s easy to neglect this love, with all the other pressures and demands on your attention. Especially if you work in a non-commercial art, where the rewards are not obvious as the risks.

But if you neglect your true love, it will poison everything else in your life.

So whether or not it earns you money, whether or not it will make you famous, whether or not it will ever bring you worldly success, you need to find time and space for your art in your life. And when you do that, magical things start to happen…

And it’s not just about the work. In the course of your career you will connect with many people – teachers, peers, partners, clients, customers and others. If there is no love in these relationships, if they are driven by fear, competitiveness and bitterness, is that really how you want to spend your days? And is that really how you will produce your best work?

So make sure you work with people you can respect and admire – and yes, even love.

Wake up every day doing work you love, with people you love. What more could you ask of your work?

2. Reach for the stars

We’re not here for long. So why aim low?

It’s so tempting to play it safe and aim for excellence in a familiar sphere. But by playing it safe, you risk selling yourself short.

My best poems are often written from a place of thinking ‘This is ridiculous but I can’t resist trying it’.

Like translating Chaucer.

He’s generally considered the second greatest poet in the English language, after Shakespeare. So who was I to start translating his masterpiece, Troilus and Criseyde, into modern English verse?

But I couldn’t resist… and I persisted, and was eventually awarded third prize in The Stephen Spender Prize, the UK’s biggest prize for poetry translation.

I hear the same doubts from my clients when they talk about the challenges they bring to creative coaching sessions: ‘This is ridiculous…’ ‘Who am I to do that…?’

Yet in spite of the doubts, and the obstacles in their way, they manage to create amazing things:

Fabrice Bourrelly is designing the future of virtual reality for the likes of Google, Thomas Heatherwick and Epic Games.

Jane Armstrong just emailed me to say she’s won a major grant for her writing, from the National Endowment for the Arts in the US.

Josh Zepps took time out from his day job as a TV presenter to launch We The People Live, a podcast that has repeatedly topped the iTunes comedy charts.

Nick Dunin is on a mission to change the world by building a network of floatation tank centres.

Laurie Millotte launched Outshinery, an innovative business serving the wine industry, from her laptop while on a year-long round-the-world trip.

Steve Fudge coaches elite sprinters to win medals and break records.

Daniel Boettcher created a unique piece of jewelry, by persuading one of the finest goldsmiths in Japan to design a necklace for a two-times Olympic champion judoka.

Emily Kimelman established herself as a best-selling thriller author while travelling across the US in an Airstream.

Javier Weyler has played drums with Stereophonics, Phil Manzanera and Zak Starkey among other artists, in between making his own albums and creating soundtracks for movies, commercials and documentaries.

(I asked him nicely, and he also created the music and soundscape for my podcast.)

Cornelius Frey quit his job as a successful consultant to found Opinary, a platform for sharing and tracking opinions used by Bild, The Times, NBC, Frankfurter Allgemeine, The Guardian, Toyota and Deutsche Bank.

All of them, like Aileen Bennett, are creating a job that doesn’t exist, in order to create things that have never been done before.

When we look at what others have achieved, it’s tempting to put them on a pedestal and say they’re, lucky, or naturally talented, or well-connected, or to find some other way to distract ourselves from our own dreams.

But I’ve seen up close what it takes to create something extraordinary. Mixed in with a lot of hard work, self doubt and determination, there is one quality we can all express if we choose: daring.

So reach for the stars. (And be prepared for the shock of reaching them.)

3. The bigger the dream, the bigger the fear

When you dream a big dream, it will enchant you and sparkle with anticipation. New vistas will open up before you. Promises will beckon you forward.

But once the initial rush of excitement has passed, you start to think of all the things that could go horribly wrong. And the fear kicks in.

Mother Nature provided us with fear, so let’s assume she knew what she was doing and work with what she gave us.

When you set yourself a big challenge, you should expect the fear to rise up before you. You should look out for it and even welcome it – because if you don’t experience much fear, it’s probably not much of a dream.

So this phrase has become practically a mantra for me as a coach:

The bigger the dream, the bigger the fear

Paradoxically, the fear is less intense if you don’t resist it. As John Eaton likes to point out, the message of fear is NOT to run away and hide, but to be alert, to face your challenge, and deal with it.

When you do that, the fear subsides as naturally as it arose – and your dream is still beckoning you forward.

4. Your creativity is your security

When I spoke to the careers advisor at school, creativity was seen as the risky option. I took it anyway, and paid the price with years of struggle compared to my friends who took the sensible jobs.

But the world has changed. Those sensible jobs don’t look nearly as secure as they did 21 years ago. Globalisation, outsourcing and automation have already gobbled up millions of blue-collar jobs, and now they are starting to gnaw at the white-collar positions.

No wonder some people are proclaiming the end of jobs.

The rise of the creative economy means that creativity and innovation are essential sources of competitive advantage and economic prosperity.

So far, humans have been more creative than machines, so jobs involving ‘genuine creativity, such as being an artist, being a scientist, developing a new business strategy’ are considered to be safest from the robots.

(Will the human advantage in creativity remain forever? I’d love to say ‘yes’, but with AIs teaching themselves Go, writing black metal albums and creating their own languages to speak to each other, I’m not as sure as I would have been a few years ago. We’re already starting to see automation encroach on such unlikely fields as acting, teaching and psychotherapy. But maybe as long as humans exist in their current form, we will value human creativity above the artificial kind.)

The most successful and fulfilled creatives I’ve worked with embrace change and reinvent themselves in response to it. They don’t sit around moaning about how the internet has disrupted their industry, or government funding for the arts has been slashed, or or publishers don’t pay big advances any more.

They ask themselves ‘What can I do to take advantage of this? What new opportunities are there here for me?’

5. Forget the career ladder – start creating assets

The traditional career ladder never worked for people like us, and now it’s not even the safe option. So what’s the alternative? How can we measure our success, and thrive creatively, professionally and financially in this brave and risky new world?

By creating assets that will increase in value over time, bring you opportunities, and make it easier and easier for you to create more, earn more and achieve more.

Your portfolio of creative work is an asset, so should always be your top priority. Keep creating work you are proud of, even if it has no perceptible financial value, and you may be surprised how many ways it will add value to your life and your career.

As well as the work itself, you also own the intellectual property rights in the work – which you can license, sell and or otherwise exploit.

There’s also a whole category of social assets – your brand, your network, your website, your mailing list and social media profiles; all of these allow you to connect with people, to delight them, to serve them, and to get things done in outsize ways.

Other types of asset include skills, systems, business models, companies and product ranges.

Life is very different when you have a back catalogue of great work, a popular product range, an audience for your ideas, a network of great collaborators, and/or a string of lucrative licensing deals.

In the long term, creating and owning valuable assets will give you far more security than any job where you can be sacked or made redundant.

So I encourage my clients to create the kind of assets that will help them achieve their artistic, professional and financial goals.

6. Personal development is professional development (and vice versa)

As a creative professional, your most valuable asset – and potentially your biggest liability – is always yourself.

You can lose your money, your job, your business, even the copyright in your work, but you can always create more of all of these things – as long as you don’t lose your creative Mojo.

So working on yourself, building your skills, your motivation, your mindset and your resilience, is the smartest investment you can make in your creative career.

Every year, I invest time and money on training, coaching, books, and other resources – to learn new skills and improve the ones I already have. I’m a learnaholic, so I’d do it regardless of the payoff, but when I look back on the last 21 years, the time I spent learning looks like the most valuable time in my working life.

From this point of view, even a spiritual practice like meditation, or an exciting trip to an exotic destination, or learning a new language, or learning the hard way from rejection or failure, helps you in your career, because it can make you a richer, more creative, wiser and more compassionate person.

And it works the other way round – every time your learn a new professional skill, such as public speaking, sales, marketing, negotiating, or financial literacy, it forces you to grow as a person.

7. Your struggle is a clue to your superpower

For years it felt like my poetry and my career were fighting a duel to the death.

Time spent on poetry felt like an indulgence when I was struggling to earn a decent living. Time spent on my business felt like neglecting my true calling.

Then my coach, Peleg Top, helped me to see that the conflict was an illusion:

My coaching supports my poetry, by providing time and other resources to practise my art.

And I wouldn’t be a creative coach without the poetry. It’s one of the things that makes my kind of client want to work with me.

Over and over, I’ve seen the same pattern with my clients: your unique brand of struggle and suffering, the very thing that has dogged you and resisted you for years, may contain a clue to your superpower – the thing that marks you out as unique, and helps you achieve things you’d never have thought possible.

So next time this pattern appears in your life, ask yourself: ‘What if this were an important clue about my superpower? What lesson could it be trying to teach me?’

8. Yes, the money matters

Sometimes we say ‘Money doesn’t matter,’ but deep down we know this is not true.

It may not matter in the same way love, art and world peace matter, but that’s beside the point.

It may not matter in the way we’d like it to – with artists and nurses being paid as much as bankers and property developers – but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.

If you’ve ever lain awake at night worrying about how you will pay next month’s bills, then you know money matters.

If you’ve ever said ‘no’ to a wonderful experience – such as a holiday, a day at the spa, or a meal with friends at a nice restaurant – because you couldn’t afford it, then you know money matters.

If you’ve ever sold something you’ve created yourself, then you know money matters.

If you’ve ever been paid a lot of money for one of your creations and seen the buyer’s face light up with pleasure-then you know money matters.

No, it will never take the place of your creative passion. But it can support and enable your art – by providing you with the time, equipment, materials, fulfilling experiences and freedom from mundane worries you need to produce your best work.

So don’t put money on a pedestal. But don’t look down your nose at it either.

9. Your motivations are always mixed

I often hear creatives talk about ‘working for love’ versus ‘working for money’ as if the two were mutually exclusive. They aren’t. But agonising over this false dichotomy is a great way to hide from your next big challenge.

All successful creative professionals have mixed motivations for their work – there’s an art to balancing them so that they reinforce each other instead of getting in each other’s way.

Here are the four most important types of motivation for your creative career, from my book Motivation for Creative People:

Intrinsic motivation – the joy of work

This is the ‘doing it for love part’. The psychologists confirm what we know in our hearts: intrinsic motivation is highly correlated with creativity. So if you are creative, enjoying yourself is part of the job!

Extrinsic motivation – rewards for work

The ‘doing it for money’ part. It’s not just about money though – fame, reputation and opportunity are other big rewards on offer for creatives. Research shows that thinking about this stuff while trying to make art will kill your creativity. But you need to factor it in at some stage, if you want your career to be sustainable.

Personal motivation – your values

This is what drives you as an individual – things like adventure, beauty, compassion, justice, pleasure and power. Lose touch with your values, and you experience all kinds of dissatisfactions, obstacles and even mental and physical health symptoms. Staying true to yourself is a biological as well as a creative necessity.

Social motivation – the influence of other people

You may like to think of yourself as a unique and special individual, but your thoughts and actions are influenced by other people every day. Competition, collaboration, commitment, tradition and rebellion are just some of these influences, which can be positive or negative. So think carefully about who you let into your life!

For a successful creative project, career or business, you need to harness all four motivations – if one or more are missing, sooner or later they will trip you up.

10. Play the game you want to play

These days we hear a lot about what the academics call disintermediation – the removal of barriers to publication in the creative industries, so that instead of kowtowing to gatekeepers (editors, publishers, record labels, movie studios) creators are now free to publish and promote their work themselves.

In this brave new world, we are told, only fools and fuddy-duddies would sign a book or record contract, or apply for representation by galleries or agents, rather than selling direct to their audience online.

But what if you know for a fact that the people you want to reach still look to the gatekeepers as imprimaturs of quality? People who spend a lot of money on art tend to spend it with galleries, collectors and auction houses, rather than Etsy or artist websites. Readers of literary novels are often wary of self-published books. And there are even people who still watch television on televisions.

Or what if you’re a little sceptical of the fact that self publishing and ‘going direct’ often seem to involve going via Amazon, Google, Facebook or Apple? (The academics call this reintermediation, meaning the replacement of one set of gatekeepers with another.)

Or what if you’ve always dreamed of being signed by your favourite record label or book publisher, or having your own TV show, or directing a Hollywood movie? Should you give up on your dream and turn to Facebook and YouTube instead?

Not if you ask me. I think you should play whatever game you want to play. Just make sure you’re clear about why you’re playing it.

If you really want to sign a book deal, or wait in line for a part in a movie, or hassle your agent to get you on TV, or network with the right people to get your art shown in the right galleries, then go for it.

As long as you’re aware that you are paying for the opportunity, by relinquishing some control and maybe some money, and you’re happy with the trade-off, then why not? (Just make sure you get get a good lawyer to read that contract first.)

And if you want to do it yourself, by starting your own blog or podcast, or self publishing your novel, or putting your album out on Bandcamp, then go for it.

If you’re in this boat, you probably don’t care what the New York Times critics or the people nibbling canapés at the private view think of your work. You probably relish the money and control more than their approval.

Just be mindful that no creator is an island, and don’t complain if Amazon/Google/Facebook change the rules overnight and make a dent in your plans.

Or maybe you’re a hybrid creator, looking to mix and match the best of both worlds, using the traditional channels when they work for you, and the direct approach when they don’t.

To me, the exciting thing about the 21st-century isn’t the fact that all the old media and gatekeepers and business models have vanished overnight, and been replaced by shiny new digital alternatives. It’s the fact that as creators we now have many more choices about how we make our work and get it out into the world.

So play the game you want to play, whatever anyone else says. And remember they are all games, so don’t forget to enjoy yourself!

11. Pick two out of money, fame and artistic reputation

You (probably) can’t have everything.

If you sign with a publisher, you give up most of the income from your book.

If you self-publish, some people will look down their noses at you.

If you work with a gallery, you could find yourself at the mercy of the owner’s neurosis.

If you sell your art from your website, you may not sell very much art from your website.

If you write avant-garde experimental poetry, you probably won’t become world-famous.

If you become world famous, people will queue up to say this proves you’re not a real artist.

And so on…

Yes, you can and should choose what game you want to play. And whichever game you pick will give you a shot at one kind of reward, and very likely exclude another.

So when considering your career ambitions, ask yourself: ‘If I had to pick two out of money, fame and artistic reputation, which would I pick?’

(Yes there are exceptions, the annoying people like Charles Dickens, Pablo Picasso and Bob Dylan, who manage to become world-famous, filthy rich and indisputably great artists all at once. But even if you join them, you’ll enjoy the rewards all the more if you are clear about which ones matter the most to you.)

12. Don’t let the crappy part put you off

Peter DeVries once quipped ‘I love being a writer. What I can’t stand is the paperwork’.

Joking aside, whatever creative field you choose, there will be a part you can’t stand.

If you’re a performer, it may be the hours and minutes before you go on stage or on camera. Or the spite of gossip columnists, or the intrusions into your personal life.

If you’re an artist of any kind, it may be the endless hours of loneliness, procrastination and self-doubt. Or the carping of critics, or the indifference of the public, or the infighting and backbiting of your peers.

If you’re a commercial creative, it may be the demands and ingratitude of your boss, your clients, your team, and/or your business partner.

Whatever your field, the crappy part will likely have more to do with people and politics than the work itself.

If you’re an amateur, you’ll use the crappy part as an excuse to avoid showing up, challenging yourself and committing to make something great whatever the circumstances.

But if you’re a pro, you’ll spot Resistance lurking in the crappy part, using it to distract and derail you. So you’ll resolve to succeed in spite of the crappy part – by ignoring it, or learning how to deal with it effectively.

Mainly this happens when you find work you love so much you’re prepared to put up with the crappy part. But it also comes with the realisation that whatever path you pick, there will always be a crappy part – so at some point you’re going to have to deal with it or give up altogether.

And you’re never going to do that, are you?

13. Learn from the best

If you want to do something amazing, the good news is, somebody somewhere has done something like it. So you can save yourself a lot of time, effort and suffering by tracking them down and learning from their example.

I’ve been blessed with a series of world-class mentors – John Eaton in psychotherapy, Mimi Khalvati in poetry, Brian Clark in online marketing, Steven Pressfield in writing about the creative life, Peleg Top and Rich Litvin in coaching, Kristin Linklater in speaking poetry.

I will never surpass any of them in their chosen field, but I don’t have to; I’m on my own path, and the point of mentorship is to take what you can from your teacher and apply it in your own way. When you have multiple mentors, a lot of the value you create comes from your unique blend of the different influences.

I say I’ve been blessed with these mentors, but it wasn’t entirely down to luck – in every case I either reached out to the person directly, or I did something that got me on their radar and led to a connection.

So whatever you set your mind to, make it your mission to learn from the best in the world.

14. There are four types of work (and one matters more than the others)

On any given day, there are four types of work you could be doing:

1. Ongoing – work you have to do every day, every week or every month.
2. Events – work related to one-off events, or events that happen at longer intervals than a month, e.g. an annual conference.
3. Backlogs – things you wish you’d done already, and need to catch up on.
4. Creating assets – investing time in creating something that will generate ongoing value in the future.

A rule of thumb:

Sustainable workload = Ongoing work + 1 Event, Backlog, or Asset-building project at a time

It feels good to clear a backlog, and great to take part in an exciting event. But over the long term, nothing will add more value to your creative career – artistically, financially, energetically, or emotionally – than creating assets. So make it a priority, not a pipe dream.

15. Your Inner Critic is (potentially) your best friend

The Inner Critic gets a lot of bad press – Google the term and you’ll find plenty of advice on how to ignore, banish, silence or obliterate your Inner Critic.

But if you think about it, you’d be in big trouble without an Inner Critic. If you didn’t have this internal quality filter, you’d be happy to churn out any old rubbish – and join the ranks of mediocrities.

Your Inner Critic is the part of you that wants you to do your very best, and won’t be satisfied with anything less. But all too often you lose touch with this intention, and the Critic degenerates into a nagging Grouch.

A finely honed critical faculty is one of the things that separates a successful professional from the legions of amateurs. When you can look at your work-in-progress and see clearly what needs fixing, it will help you get better every working day.

So sharpen your own critical faculty:

• get insightful feedback from someone who really know what she’s talking about
• look at classic and contemporary works in your field, and analyse what you like and dislike about them
• read good critics in your field
• take time out to review your own work and ask yourself: ‘Is this really the best I can possibly do?’

By consciously developing your critical faculty, you take ownership of it, so that it ceases to be a nagging voice at the back of your mind, and starts to be an integral part of your creative process.

16. Hustling is part of your job

If I had a bitcoin for every client who has told me ‘I’m really good at my work, so why am I struggling?’ I could fund a manned mission to Mars.

If you’re a maker or performer who says ‘I just need someone to deal with the business side of things, while I get on with my work’, or a creative service provider who says ‘Just put me in a room with a client, and I’ll get on with the job’, you are kidding yourself.

Dealing with the business side of things is your job.

Getting in the room with the client is your job.

Hustling – i.e. engaging with people and making things happen – is your job.

Yes, you can get great people to help you. But handing over ‘the business side of things’ lock stock and barrel to someone else is asking for trouble.

Until you accept this, you will suffer and struggle. The sooner you accept it, and the better you get at it, the sooner you will taste success and the more rewarding you will find it.

Yes, I know it’s hard and you would rather be doing other things. Maybe you don’t feel you are a born communicator.

Tell me about it! As an introverted British poet, I felt I couldn’t be less suited to hustling. But I made it my business to learn – and to find ways of doing it that are authentic for me. If I can do it, so can you.

17. Stop ‘earning money’ – start creating value

You create your own reality through the words you speak, the words you write, and even the words you think to yourself.

As long as you tell yourself you ‘have to earn money’, you are living in a world of hard work, drudgery and suffering. Money is tied to effort. So it feels somehow wrong to earn it without putting in a lot of effort. And you can easily – and mistakenly – assume that simply working harder will bring you more money.

But if you forget about earning money and focus on creating value, you enter a different world. A world where your income is not tied to the effort you put in, but to the value (emotional, experiential, practical, financial) you create for others.

A world where a single painting can be sold for millions of dollars, where a single song can touch millions of hearts, or a single book can change millions of lives.

One of the many wonderful things about being a creative is that there is virtually no limit to the value you can create for others, and therefore potentially no limit on the money you can generate. Just look at the money created by the most successful painters, designers, actors, musicians, authors, architects, entrepreneurs and other creatives.

So forget about ‘earning money,’ it feels too much like drudgery. It’s also too selfish, because it’s all about you – your effort, your money. Instead, focus on creating value – a.k.a. what you can do for others.

18. Stay small, go global

Once upon a time a small business was a local business – your local corner shop, restaurant, gallery or garage.

International businesses were big businesses, with fleets of cars, ships and planes. The reception at head office proudly displayed clocks showing the times in London, New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo where their branch offices were located.

For a while, ambitious small businesses went through a phase of pretending to be bigger than they were, with corporate-sounding brand names, and websites that said ‘we’ even when there there was only one person behind them.

One big exception to this pattern were the creators who became international stars – bestselling novelists, rock stars, TV and movie stars.

These days, you don’t need to be a big business or an A-lister to have a global audience or customer base. And you very likely can’t rely on your local economy to support you.

I’m not remotely famous and I deliberately keep my business small – it’s just me, my Mac, a handful of carefully chosen clients, and a handful of carefully chosen collaborators.

Yet many of those clients and contractors live on the other side of the world to me. And when I hit ‘publish’ on this blog post, it will be mailed out to thousands of readers all over the globe.

I’m proud to have created what Russell Davies calls a global small business. And grateful too – without the internet, and without other adventurous and global-minded creatives, it would be impossible for me to do this.

Keep your enterprise small and you retain your freedom. Making it global can bring you opportunity and security.

19. Enthusiasm beats confidence

I’ve lost count of the number of clients who asked me to help them become more confident – on stage, in front of clients, with money, when meeting new people, in their work, and so on.

My answer is usually to forget confidence, and tap into your enthusiasm.

Confidence is all about you – ‘Do I feel confident? Do I look confident? Do I sound confident?’ – so the more you think about it, the more self-conscious and the less confident you feel.

But enthusiasm takes you out of yourself – when you feel enthusiastic about something, you want to work on it, so you feel energised. You want to share it with others, which is infectious.

You get fired up by it, which means you come across as not merely ‘confident’, but also engaging, charming – and maybe even inspiring.

So next time you start worrying about confidence, forget it, and focus on the work or the topic in hand: What do you love the most about it? Why does it matter to you?

Keep asking until you feel the spark of enthusiasm, at which point you’ll know what to do…

20. You can have all the excuses you want

My life changed the day I realised I could have all the excuses I wanted – and I didn’t want any of them.

I was struggling to drum up business, caught in a seemingly endless cycle of rejection and disappointment, and running out of money and self-belief.

After yet another dispiriting phone conversation with a prospect who had turned into a time-waster, I realised I had every excuse to give up.

I could tell my then-business partners I’d done my best, that it was simply too difficult, taking too long, and they would totally understand. They’d be sympathetic and tell me how much they respected me for trying.

I could count on plenty more sympathy from my girlfriend, my friends and my family. No one would blame me for giving up.

I saw that I had plenty of excuses to hand – but at that moment, I realised I didn’t want the excuses, I wanted to succeed. And I was going to do whatever it took to make it happen. Which I (eventually) did.

If you ever get to the point of giving up – on a creative project, on a business, even a career path – remember, you can always find an excuse to give up. And there’s no shame in changing your mind.

Just make sure that giving up is what you really want to do.

21. Courage may be the missing ingredient

If you’re feeling frustrated and wondering why you’re (still) struggling, ask yourself:

When was the last time your heart was in your mouth as you started to write? Or you opened your mouth to speak? Or you stepped out on stage? Or you hit the ‘publish’ or ‘send’ button?

If you can’t remember, or if the answer is ‘It’s been a while’, then maybe it’s time to rediscover your courage.

Because maybe the problem isn’t the quality of your work, or the value of your services, or your branding, or your website, or your network, or any of that other stuff you’ve been trying to fix.

Maybe you’ve simply been playing small, out of fear.

The bigger the dream, the bigger the fear, remember?

So why not set out on a fear safari, and start hunting for the fear in your everyday life – at your desk, in conversations, in front of an audience, when you’re one-on-one, when you’re all alone?

And when you find some fear, big or small, congratulate yourself. Because you’ve just discovered your chance to step up and be braver, right this instant.

Now an acclaimed book: 21 Insights for 21st Century Creatives

When I first published this article, I received such enthusiastic feedback that I expanded it into a book: 21 Insights for 21st Century Creatives.

This is what Steven Pressfield said when I showed him the manuscript:

21 Insights for 21st Century Creatives is a real Swiss Army knife of all-around mental ammunition for those of us slugging it out in the trenches of this new century.

Steven Pressfield, bestselling author of The War of Art

I deliberately kept the book short, so that you can burn through it in one sitting for a burst of inspiration. Or keep it handy on your phone and consult it in the quiet moments of your day, or on those days when you need to dig deep for motivation.

More about 21 Insights for 21st Century Creatives.

The post 21 Insights from 21 Years Helping Creatives appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

This week’s guest on the 21st Century Creative Podcast is Aileen Bennett, Roving Creative Director and Idea Thinker Upper.

In today’s interview, we tackle a question that many creative people struggle with – what do you do when you look at the jobs on offer, and none of them seem the right fit? Not even the self-employed ones, like consultant or freelance designer?

Should you try to fit in, like a square peg in a round hole? Or should you do what Aileen did, and create a job that doesn’t exist?

I’m delighted to introduce you to Aileen and her work in this episode, she’s a delightfully creative thinker and maker, and a great example of how being yourself can help your business thrive as well as sparking your imagination.

You can find more inspiration from Aileen, including her books and illustrations, on her website and Aileen’s Notebook on Instagram.

The post Creating a Job that Doesn’t Exist with Aileen Bennett appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

This week’s guest on the 21st Century Creative Podcast is Kristin Linklater, the world-renowned teacher of voice work for actors and speakers, and the author of Freeing the Natural Voice and Freeing Shakespeare’s Voice.

I recorded this interview at Kristin’s Linklater Voice Centre, in her native Orkney, at the end of a week-long course on speaking Shakespearean verse. As a student of Kristin’s I have personally benefitted greatly from her teaching, and I’m delighted to be able to share her work with you in this interview.

Kristin has some very insightful things to say about creativity, authenticity and communication, based on a lifetime spent teaching voice work – so you’ll find it helpful whether you’re an actor or you do any kind of public speaking.

And as we discover in the conversation, working on your voice can have a very interesting and positive effect on your creativity, outside of the realm of performance!

If you want to develop an authentic connection to your own voice – whether for professional performance, creativity or personal development – I highly recommend Kristin’s courses. I’ve taken two courses at the Linklater Voice Centre and it was absolutely worth the effort of travelling to Orkney. As you can see from the photos, it’s a magical setting in which to do some powerful inner and outer work.

The post Freeing the Natural Voice with Kristin Linklater appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

This week’s guest on the 21st Century Creative Podcast is Nick Dunin, co-founder of Beyond Rest, a company that operates float centres in three Australian cities.

Nick is on a mission to help people get in touch with their best selves via floating. He’s also had a very unusual journey as an entrepreneur and he has a lot of interesting things to say about personal development, creativity and business.

I’ve been using floatation tanks for years, and I’ve found floating tremendously beneficial, for my personal and creative development, so I’m delighted to have Nick on the show to explain the what, why and how of floating for creatives.

Where can you float?

If you live in Perth, Melbourne or Brisbane, Australia, you can pop along to your local Beyond Rest float centre and Nick and his team will take good care of you.

I currently float at the Bristol Float Centre, where the staff are always friendly and helpful, if you’re in the area, I thoroughly recommend their service.

If you live somewhere else, Google ‘floatation tank’ plus the name of your town or city to find your nearest float centre.

The post The Floatation Tank: a Short Cut to Your Superpower? with Nick Dunin appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

This week’s guest on the 21st Century Creative Podcast is Jocelyn K. Glei, Founding Editor of 99U, author of Unsubscribe: How to Kill Email Anxiety, Avoid Distractions, and Get Real Work Done, and host of the Hurry Slowly podcast.

Jocelyn was instrumental in turning 99U into the iconic brand for creatives it is today – editing the magazine site 99U.com and the series of 99U books for creatives, and helping the team create the amazing 99U Conferences in New York.

In this interview, Jocelyn talks about the psychology of email – why such a convenient form of communication has become such a drain on our creativity and productivity, and how to reclaim time and headspace for real work.

And as we discovered in the course of the conversation, most of the advice in Unsubscribe is applicable beyond your inbox – the principles of email management can help you get your creative work done amid the daily whirlwind of news, social media and other distractions.

As well as reading the book, you can follow Jocelyn’s thinking on her website and on Twitter.

In the first part of the show, I talk about the four types of work we can spend our time on – and which one creates the most long-term benefits for your creative career.

The post Kill Email Anxiety and Do More Meaningful Work with Jocelyn K. Glei appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

This week’s guest on the 21st Century Creative Podcast is Michael Bungay Stanier, Founder and Senior Partner of Box of Crayons, a company that helps people and organizations all over the world do less Good Work and more Great Work.

Box of Crayons is best known for its coaching programs that give busy leaders the tools to coach in 10 minutes or less.

In this conversation Michael and I talk about the importance of communication skills for creative directors and other leaders of creative teams – as well as for all of us who interact with our fellow human beings in the course of our work.

Michael shares tips and insights from his latest book The Coaching Habit, a brilliantly simple (but not superficial) guide to becoming more influential and helpful to those around you at work.

Here’s the link for the 6 1/2 Habit Gurus download Michael mentions in the interview. You can connect with Michael on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @boxofcrayons.

In the first part of the show, I argue that in an uncertain world, your creativity is your security.

The post Say Less, Ask More and Communicate Better with Michael Bungay Stanier appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

This week’s guest on the 21st Century Creative Podcast is Joanna Penn, a best-selling, award-nominated thriller writer, as well as a publishing expert and host of The Creative Penn Podcast.

Joanna is here to talk about mindset for creatives – specifically, the attitudes and ambitions that distinguish creatives who struggle from those who succeed – according to their own definition of success.

She has written extensively about this topic in her book The Successful Author Mindset. For this interview, I’ve asked her to widen the focus to include all kinds of creatives – the essential psychology is the same, so this interview is not just for writers!

One new release from Jo that is just for writers is the new edition of her book How to Market a Book, which is now available for pre-order.

Jo is constantly researching publishing news and trends, and experimenting with the latest marketing methods. Whether you’re self published or traditionally published, if you want to know what works and (what doesn’t) in book marketing in 2017, this is the book to read.

Also for authors is The Author 2.0 Blueprint – a free ebook and email series on how to write, self-publish and market your book.

In the first part of the show, I talk about why 21st Century Creatives should forget the career ladder, and start creating assets.

The post The Successful Creative Mindset with Joanna Penn appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

This week’s guest on the 21st Century Creative Podcast is Laurie Millotte, designer and founder of Outshinery.com.

On a round-the-world tip, Laurie spent time in Vietnam, Thailand, Japan, Hawaii, Mexico and other countries. And not only did she manage to keep running her existing design business from her laptop, she designed and created an entirely new business – Outshinery.

Outshinery takes a new approach to product photography for the wine and beer industries, using 3D digital technology to create images without the hassle of shipping bottles of alcoholic liquid to photographers’ studios. It means they can deliver ‘bottle shots before the wine is bottled’.

The Outshinery team are spread across 3 continents and 4 office spaces, but use technology and teamwork to get things done together.

If you’re curious about the idea of combining exotic travel with your creative work, or if you’re a creative service provider who would like to have more income and impact without having to work longer and longer hours, you’ll find this an eye-opening and inspiring conversation.

As well as her websites, you can connect with Laurie via Instagram and LinkedIn.

In the first part of the show, I talk about why 21st Century Creatives should stay small and go global, for the sake of our creativity and prosperity.

The post Designing a Global Small Business with Laurie Millotte appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

This week’s guest on the 21st Century Creative Podcast is Fabrice Bourrelly, artist, architect and Virtual Reality designer.

As Fabrice talks about his development as a creator, the conversation ranges from the cave paintings of southern France, to raves in 90s Paris, collaboration with Thomas Heatherwick, Google and Epic Games, and how virtual reality will shape the future of fields as diverse as architecture, medicine and shopping.

It’s a mind-boggling journey that will be of interest to anyone curious about the role of the artist in the 21st century.

You can view some of Fabrice’s life drawings in the gallery of his website.

The video below gives a glimpse of some of his dazzling architectural visualisations. For more videos, and tutorials on how to create 3D worlds yourslf, check out Fabrice’s YouTube channel.

The post How Virtual Reality Will Shape Our Future with Fabrice Bourrelly appeared first on Creative Coach | Mark McGuinness.

This week’s guest on the 21st Century Creative Podcast is Steven Pressfield, author of the creativity classic The War of Art and a string of other bestselling fiction and nonfiction books.

In today’s show Steve talks about his latest novel, The Knowledge, which he describes as “the origin story of The War of Art“, based on his life as a taxi driver and struggling novelist in 1970s New York. He reflects on the relationship between truth and fiction in his writing, and explains the artistic and editorial decisions he made when fictionalising from his own life experience.

Steve also has some forthright and provocative things to say about some of the myths about creativity that we allow to hold us back – so I’m expecting howls of protest from some quarters this week!