This marks the 50TH EPISODE of Craft Talk, so I invited my wife Amanda to join me and celebrate the milestone!

In this episode, Amanda shares her journey into becoming a Physician Assistant (PA-C). Her early interest in the medical field and her own personal medical journey led her to wonder what career avenue is best suited for her. After bouncing around many different types of programs and jobs such as physical therapy or nutrition/dietetics, she ultimately decided to obtain a pre-med undergrad degree so she can apply to PA school.

This conversation led us to talk about self doubt, confidence, and fighting for balance while pursuing our careers. We also chat about her love of all things houseplants, animals, books, interior design, and Taylor Swift!

Amanda’s intelligence, empathy, and perseverance is something that I admire about her everyday, and I am absolutely honored that she’s open to sharing her experiences and vulnerability on this chat with you all.

Enjoy!

About this Podcast : Craft Talk is a collection of interviews with people of different disciplines ranging from creativity, business, and lifestyle. By diving into my guest's story and learning about how they approach their craft, I hope that these conversations help you find different ways to improve your own!

Say hi to me on Instagram @crafttalk.notes

Website -  crafttalk.net

Eric Novak and Maurice Hogan is the creative duo behind Visual Cake (formerly known as 31 and Up Media), a Production company that specializes in video and photography for social media. Their company services many local businesses from schools, pizza shops, fashion designers to HVAC companies. As much as their business is technically driven with cameras and microphones, the team sees their role as more than just a “tech” or a “videographer”. Their ultimate responsibility is to helps their clients share their story in a fun, informational, and authentic way.

In this chat, we explore the idea of translating different skillsets into our current work. Having experience as musicians, they are familiar with key skills such as improvisation and collaboration, which are crucial elements to possess in fast paced live environments such as grand openings, ceremonies, concerts and weddings.

As I got to know Eric and Maurice, I observed that their superpower is the ability to make people feel comfortable. Having this in their tool belt elevates their craft because creating a comfortable environment allows the client to feel at ease, which results in a better performance on camera, which ultimately provides the best end product.

I really appreciate having them on Craft Talk and we hope you enjoy our chat!

About this Podcast : Craft Talk is a collection of interviews with people of different disciplines ranging from creativity, business, and lifestyle. By diving into my guest's story and learning about how they approach their craft, I hope that these conversations help you find different ways to improve your own!

Say hi to me on Instagram @crafttalk.notes

Website -  crafttalk.net

Joe is a cartoonist based out of Greenville, South Carolina.

In this episode, we explore playful topics such as Dungeons and Dragons, childhood memories, and storytelling. We also dive into more heartfelt and vulnerable ideas like creative doubts, mental health, and belonging.

Although we’ve been Instagram buds for some time now, this was my first time formally meeting Joe. I really enjoyed discussing some of the similar thought processes that we go through. I also appreciate how open he is about the struggles of burnout and balancing your passion with daily life. I feel like it’s something that all of us deal with in some shape or form, so a lot of the things we chatted about really resonated with me and I hope it does the same for you.

Enjoy the episode.

About this Podcast : Craft Talk is a collection of interviews with people of different disciplines ranging from creativity, business, and lifestyle. By diving into my guest's story and learning about how they approach their craft, I hope that these conversations help you find different ways to improve your own!

Say hi to me on Instagram @crafttalk.notes

Website -  crafttalk.net

As creative minds, we are on a life long pursuit of finding our uniqueness. Surrounded by talented and seemingly original people all around us, it’s easy to start thinking:

In this episode, I share a few concepts and ideas that help me unpack this topic, and I also share a practical exercise to provide a visual representation to guide us into realizing that all work that we do inherently has our unique fingerprint embedded all along.

Enjoy!

About this Podcast : Craft Talk is a collection of interviews with people of different disciplines ranging from creativity, business, and lifestyle. By diving into my guest's story and learning about how they approach their craft, I hope that these conversations help you find different ways to improve your own!

Say hi to me on Instagram @crafttalk.notes

Website -  crafttalk.net

“While I can't change the entire art world, I can change my small corner of it. Art has only ever been in my life because it was made accessible to me. I will always work to keep my art accessible to you, because art should be accessible for everyone.” - Erica Helder

Erica Helder is an abstract artist based out of Brant, Ontario.

Erica’s creative journey did not start in the abstract art world; actually, quite the opposite. As a child who grew up in challenging circumstances, Erica found incredible support from her local community and was sponsored to be an apprentice of a local community artist where she learned the craft of oil painting and photorealism. As she developed her skills and grew her experience as a gallery represented artist, she realized that the life of galleries and the style of photorealism did not resonate with her goals.

As her journey continued over the years, Erica discovered a love for a more nuanced artistic expression. She found herself experimenting by blending her photorealistic training while embracing the imperfections. Over time, her style evolved even more into a medium that expressed the human condition such as bittersweet emotions, deep personal loss, and change.

I had an awesome time chatting with Erica. I am so fascinated by creative minds who allow their intuition to guide them in their work. To be able to observe the world around them, absorb it, and be able to translate extremely complex feelings and emotions into a medium that communicates to everyone universally is amazing. There are so many lessons in this chat that we could all transfer into our own life and work so we hope that you enjoy the episode!

About this Podcast : Craft Talk is a collection of interviews with people of different disciplines ranging from creativity, business, and lifestyle. By diving into my guest's story and learning about how they approach their craft, I hope that these conversations help you find different ways to improve your own!

Say hi to me on Instagram @crafttalk.notes

Website -  crafttalk.net

Vita Artreche is a Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) that has worked in countless events ranging from conferences, trade shows, weddings, and fundraisers. She is currently the Conference Director for Jesus Film Project where she leads the event team with day to day operations, strategy, and professional development.

This was such a fun conversation. For about a decade, I worked in the hospitality/convention industry with an audio visual company so being able to share stories with Vita brought back so many memories (the good, the bad, the stressful and everything in between)

I absolutely loved hearing about Vita’s wisdom when it comes to setting high quality standards, yet employing empathy and teamwork during the entire event planning process. Her ability in finding collaborative ways to digest creative vision, and execute while being able to effectively set expectations is truly an art.

Enjoy this chat!

About this Podcast : Craft Talk is a collection of interviews with people of different disciplines ranging from creativity, business, and lifestyle. By diving into my guest's story and learning about how they approach their craft, I hope that these conversations help you find different ways to improve your own!

Say hi to me on Instagram @crafttalk.notes

Website -  crafttalk.net

“Being brave doesn’t mean you’re never afraid. It means you do the thing DESPITE of the fear” - Beni Artreche

This line from a conversation I had with Beni inspired me to record this episode of Craft Talk on the topic of bravery. In this episode, I share some quotes about this subject that allows us to observe this idea within ourselves, and also share a really amazing method to help us potentially make practical steps towards a more courageous attitude.

Enjoy!

About this Podcast : Craft Talk is a collection of interviews with people of different disciplines ranging from creativity, business, and lifestyle. By diving into my guest's story and learning about how they approach their craft, I hope that these conversations help you find different ways to improve your own!

Say hi to me on Instagram @crafttalk.notes

Website -  crafttalk.net

Rachele Wright is a jack of all trades, and a master at ALL OF THEM. She is a pianist, a musician, an educator, a business operations specialist, a marketing strategist, and the list goes on and on.

Given all of the tools and skills we possess, it’s only natural to start building strong identities with these different disciplines. We seek the validation based on our performance within set goals and plans, and we put much value in how productive these different parts of ourselves are.

What happens when these different ideas of ourselves are no longer as active as they once were? What if music or teaching is not playing a primary role in our current day to day work? Does it feel like failure? Can we still identify ourselves with those titles? How does it feel when those identities that we held on to for a majority of our lives start to crumble.

These are the questions that we discuss on this episode. I had a great time working through this with Rachele and I’m looking forward to more conversations like this.

Enjoy!

About this Podcast : Craft Talk is a collection of interviews with people of different disciplines ranging from creativity, business, and lifestyle. By diving into my guest's story and learning about how they approach their craft, I hope that these conversations help you find different ways to improve your own!

Say hi to me on Instagram @crafttalk.notes

Website -  crafttalk.net

Robby Fischer is the owner of Dogtown Studio located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is a staple in the music scene in GR and has been a honored recipient of an Ovation Award given out by the Michigan Music Alliance for Dogtown Studio’s positive contribution to the local music community.

Robby is also one of my best friends and I consider him to be a close partner in creativity. (It’s like “partners in crime”… but with creativity… get it? anyways…) Whenever I have new ideas or thoughts that I’m working through, he’s one of the people I bounce stuff off of and I have so much appreciation on his positive and energetic outlook on creative work. As someone who has the tendency to overthink or can be overwhelmed with negative thoughts about my work, it is crucial that I have friends like Robby around.

In this special episode, we chat about a really interesting concept regarding familiar and unfamiliar. What makes something “good”? and what do we really mean when we say something is “bad”?

Outside of running a studio business and winning prestigious community awards, Robby is a musician at the core. I also got to hear about his latest music project called “Unsummer Club” and learned about his thought process on how it came about.

Enjoy the episode!

If you’re like me and often feel like your work or skill is not quite exactly how you envision it, this episode might be for you.

I share a concept from Ira Glass called “The Gap” and highlight previous guests experiences with this very subject.

Here's my favorite video of it. https://vimeo.com/85040589

If anything, I hope this episode makes you feel like you’re not alone in feeling like this, and you making efforts to get better is actually work well done.

Enjoy the episode

About this Podcast : Craft Talk is a collection of interviews with people of different disciplines ranging from creativity, business, and lifestyle. By diving into my guest's story and learning about how they approach their craft, I hope that these conversations help you find different ways to improve your own!

Say hi to me on Instagram @crafttalk.notes

Website -  crafttalk.net