Creatives Prevail

Claude Silver, Chief Heart Officer at VaynerX and author of Be Yourself at Work, discusses how creators and industry leaders can balance empathy with accountability, build healthier teams, and create environments where people feel supported enough to contribute and grow. 

We also talk about her background in psychology and brand strategy, changing workplace expectations, responsible AI adoption, and mental health.

Follow Claude:

Website

Follow Creatives Prevail:

Instagram

TikTok

Website

Attention fellow creators! Check out the Creatives Prevail Resources page for guides, tools, and additional ways I can help you build your creative career.

Enjoyed the episode? Leave a review, it helps more creators discover the show.

Host: Michael Zimmerlich

Produced by: Omelette Prevail

Post-Production: EarthtoMoira

Music by: Daphne Greene

Gear Used in this Episode:

Mic and Headphone Setup:

Limelight Dynamic Mic (512 Audio / Warm Audio)

Vocaster One (Focusrite)

MBS9500 Microphone Boom Arm (On-Stage)

Pro X2 Headphones (Logitech)

Light Setup:

Litra Beam (Logitech)

Glide Lively Wall Lights (Govee)

Squares (Twinkly)

Key Light (Elgato)

In this interactive workshop we pick a random topic from the audience and build a complete content creator blueprint live, breaking down brand positioning, platform choice, content structure, and growth strategy in real time. Featuring artist and content creator Daphne Greene.

Follow Daphne Greene:

Instagram

Follow Creatives Prevail:

Instagram

TikTok

Website

Attention fellow creators! Check out the Creatives Prevail Resources page for guides, tools, and additional ways I can help you build your creative career.

Enjoyed the episode? Leave a review, it helps more creators discover the show.

Host: Michael Zimmerlich

Produced by: Omelette Prevail

Post-Production: EarthtoMoira

Music by: Daphne Greene

Gear Used in this Episode:

Mic and Headphone Setup:

Limelight Dynamic Mic (512 Audio / Warm Audio)

Vocaster One (Focusrite)

MBS9500 Microphone Boom Arm (On-Stage)

Pro X2 Headphones (Logitech)

Light Setup:

Litra Beam (Logitech)

Glide Lively Wall Lights (Govee)

Squares (Twinkly)

Key Light (Elgato)

Creatives Prevail celebrates six years and more than 280 episodes! We look back at the podcast’s move into video, what’s performing best across YouTube and social media, how AI supports the production process, and what’s coming next for the show.

Follow Creatives Prevail:

Instagram

TikTok

Website

Attention fellow creators! Check out the Creatives Prevail Resources page for guides, tools, and additional ways I can help you build your creative career.

Enjoyed the episode? Leave a review, it helps more creators discover the show.

Host: Michael Zimmerlich

Produced by: Omelette Prevail

Post-Production: EarthtoMoira

Music by: Daphne Greene

Gear Used in this Episode:

Mic and Headphone Setup:

Limelight Dynamic Mic (512 Audio / Warm Audio)

Vocaster One (Focusrite)

MBS9500 Microphone Boom Arm (On-Stage)

Pro X2 Headphones (Logitech)

Light Setup:

Litra Beam (Logitech)

Glide Lively Wall Lights (Govee)

Squares (Twinkly)

Key Light (Elgato)

Music manager and founder of Vitalize Projects and Vitalize Records, Steff Agathis, talks about managing artists beginning at 11 years old, building an artist-first company, and why persistence matters when creating opportunities. We also discuss trust, artist development and TikTok’s influence on the music industry.

Follow Steff Agathis:

Website

Instagram

Follow Creatives Prevail:

Instagram

TikTok

Website

Attention fellow creators! Check out the Creatives Prevail Resources page for guides, tools, and additional ways I can help you build your creative career.

Enjoyed the episode? Leave a review, it helps more creators discover the show.

Host: Michael Zimmerlich

Produced by: Omelette Prevail

Post-Production: EarthtoMoira

Music by: Daphne Greene

Gear Used in this Episode:

Mic and Headphone Setup:

Limelight Dynamic Mic (512 Audio / Warm Audio)

Vocaster One (Focusrite)

MBS9500 Microphone Boom Arm (On-Stage)

Pro X2 Headphones (Logitech)

Light Setup:

Litra Beam (Logitech)

Glide Lively Wall Lights (Govee)

Squares (Twinkly)

Key Light (Elgato)

Musician, self-taught coder, and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree Zoe Wrenn shares how she went from touring and creating the viral song “Hailey” to founding Tamber, a suite of music technology tools designed to support the creative process. We also discuss handling rejection, raising funding, and building technology that keeps human creativity at the center.

Follow Zoe Wrenn:

Website (Tamber)

Instagram (Tamber)

Spotify (WRENN)

Follow Creatives Prevail:

Instagram

TikTok

Website

Attention fellow creators! Check out the Creatives Prevail Resources page for guides, tools, and additional ways I can help you build your creative career.

Enjoyed the episode? Leave a review, it helps more creators discover the show.

Host: Michael Zimmerlich

Produced by: Omelette Prevail

Post-Production: EarthtoMoira

Music by: Daphne Greene

Gear Used in this Episode:

Mic and Headphone Setup:

Limelight Dynamic Mic (512 Audio / Warm Audio)

Vocaster One (Focusrite)

MBS9500 Microphone Boom Arm (On-Stage)

Pro X2 Headphones (Logitech)

Light Setup:

Litra Beam (Logitech)

Glide Lively Wall Lights (Govee)

Squares (Twinkly)

Key Light (Elgato)

Andrew McCluskey, founder of musicto, shares how he left a successful career to become a musician and eventually build a global community around collaboration. We discuss why creativity requires time, how values guide difficult pivots, and how music can help strangers form real human connections.

Follow Andrew:

Website

Instagram 

Spotify

Follow Creatives Prevail:

Instagram

TikTok

Website

Attention fellow creators! Check out the Creatives Prevail Resources page for guides, tools, and additional ways I can help you build your creative career.

Enjoyed the episode? Leave a review, it helps more creators discover the show.

Host: Michael Zimmerlich

Produced by: Omelette Prevail

Post-Production: EarthtoMoira

Music by: Daphne Greene

Gear Used in this Episode:

Mic and Headphone Setup:

Limelight Dynamic Mic (512 Audio / Warm Audio)

Vocaster One (Focusrite)

MBS9500 Microphone Boom Arm (On-Stage)

Pro X2 Headphones (Logitech)

Light Setup:

Litra Beam (Logitech)

Glide Lively Wall Lights (Govee)

Squares (Twinkly)

Key Light (Elgato)

Monique Sar, founder of marketing agency De Vitesse, shares how she moved from becoming one of her firm’s top female financial advisors to helping creators, speakers, and brands communicate their value. We discuss why creators should charge more and how clear positioning can matter more than follower count. 

Follow Monique:

Instagram

Website

Follow Creatives Prevail:

Instagram

TikTok

Website

Attention fellow creators! Check out the Creatives Prevail Resources page for guides, tools, and additional ways I can help you build your creative career.

Enjoyed the episode? Leave a review, it helps more creators discover the show.

Host: Michael Zimmerlich

Produced by: Omelette Prevail

Post-Production: EarthtoMoira

Music by: Daphne Greene

Gear Used in this Episode:

Mic and Headphone Setup:

Limelight Dynamic Mic (512 Audio / Warm Audio)

Vocaster One (Focusrite)

MBS9500 Microphone Boom Arm (On-Stage)

Pro X2 Headphones (Logitech)

Light Setup:

Litra Beam (Logitech)

Glide Lively Wall Lights (Govee)

Squares (Twinkly)

Key Light (Elgato)

Music executive and Not Dead Yet Media founder Russ Rieger has worked with artists including The Replacements, Cyndi Lauper, Prong, Modern English, and The Prodigy. We discuss building diehard local fan bases, finding creative ways to break through, and creating sustainable careers without chasing short-term attention.

Follow Russ Rieger:

Instagram (Not Dead Yet Media)

Website (Not Dead Yet Media)

Linktree (The Indie Music Network Podcast)

Follow Creatives Prevail:

Instagram

TikTok

Website

Attention fellow creators! Check out the Creatives Prevail Resources page for guides, tools, and additional ways I can help you build your creative career.

Enjoyed the episode? Leave a review, it helps more creators discover the show.

Host: Michael Zimmerlich

Produced by: Omelette Prevail

Post-Production: EarthtoMoira

Music by: Daphne Greene

Gear Used in this Episode:

Mic and Headphone Setup:

Limelight Dynamic Mic (512 Audio / Warm Audio)

Vocaster One (Focusrite)

MBS9500 Microphone Boom Arm (On-Stage)

Pro X2 Headphones (Logitech)

Light Setup:

Litra Beam (Logitech)

Glide Lively Wall Lights (Govee)

Squares (Twinkly)

Key Light (Elgato)

Kenny Feinstein from the punk rock bluegrass band Water Tower shares how busking, livestreams, and a unique creative identity helped him rebuild his band into a movement. We also talk about learning every part of the music business, building a recognizable brand, and his latest book, More Than Talent: 7 Steps To Attain the Brand, Acquire The Gigs, and Amass Lifetime Fans.

Key Takeaways

• Creators should understand every part of their career, even if they eventually hire experts.

• Strong visual identity helps people recognize you before they even hear what you do. For Water Tower, punk shirts, bluegrass instruments, and walking toward the camera became part of the brand.

• Good content takes experimentation. Kenny emphasized that it took years, hundreds of posts, and paying attention to comments before Water Tower understood what truly resonated.

  
  

Follow Kenny Feinstein:

More Than Talent (Book)

Water Tower (TikTok)

Water Tower (Instagram)

Water Tower (Website)

Work Smarter Music Marketing (Website)

Follow Creatives Prevail:

Instagram

TikTok

Website

Sign up for our newsletter The Monthly Scramble for featured episodes, reviews and more success stories!

We would love to hear from you! Please give us a review, this really helps get others to listen in. Any suggestions on how we can improve? DM us on Instagram or TikTok.

Host: Mike Zimmerlich

Produced by: Omelette Prevail

Post-Production: EarthtoMoira

Music by: Daphne Greene

Tech Specs:

Mic and Headphone Setup:

Limelight Dynamic Mic (512 Audio / Warm Audio)

Vocaster One (Focusrite)

MBS9500 Microphone Boom Arm (On-Stage)

Pro X2 Headphones (Logitech)

Light Setup:

Litra Beam (Logitech)

Glide Lively Wall Lights (Govee)

Squares (Twinkly)

Key Light (Elgato)

Larry Cummings of Off The Map Games joins the show to talk about system design, small teams, RPGs, and why games can teach us so much about collaboration, creativity, and how people work together.

Key Takeaways

• Small teams work because people need shared context, trust, and different perspectives to create something meaningful.

• Constraints do not kill creativity. They often give creators the boundaries they need to make stronger choices.

• Games are not just entertainment. They can reveal how people collaborate, solve problems, take risks, and tell stories together.

• Feedback, surprise, and things going wrong are often where the most interesting creative breakthroughs happen.

Follow Off the Map Games:

Instagram 

YouTube

Website

Follow Creatives Prevail:

Instagram

TikTok

Website

Sign up for our newsletter The Monthly Scramble for featured episodes, reviews and more success stories!

Want to take a moment to recommend RootNote, a platform that helps creators track their stats and growth across multiple platforms, and makes it easy to share clean analytics with potential partners without constantly updating your one sheet or sponsorship deck. It’s also especially useful for agencies managing creator rosters.

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Note: We ONLY make recommendations for products and services that we have tried ourselves and believe in their results as well as the people behind them.

We would love to hear from you! Please give us a review, this really helps get others to listen in. Any suggestions on how we can improve? DM us on Instagram or TikTok.

Host: Mike Zimmerlich

Produced by: Omelette Prevail

Post-Production: EarthtoMoira

Music by: Daphne Greene

Tech Specs:

Mic and Headphone Setup:

Limelight Dynamic Mic (512 Audio / Warm Audio)

Vocaster One (Focusrite)

MBS9500 Microphone Boom Arm (On-Stage)

Pro X2 Headphones (Logitech)

Light Setup:

Litra Beam (Logitech)

Glide Lively Wall Lights (Govee)

Squares (Twinkly)

Key Light (Elgato)