Diary of a Creative

Follow the multi‑hyphenate journey with your creative housemate: @margaretlefton

🌀 This week, I finally tell a story I’ve been meaning to share for a whhiiillleeee: Why I walked away from being a therapist or coach years deep into studying it (and felt like a crazy person for doing so). Yes this involves a guided trip on the 42nd story of an NYC apartment building led by a major CEO, as is on brand for me.

TL; DR: this a story of what happens when "doing the work" actually stops you from having authentic connection anymore

🔮 The psychedelic trip that showed me the shadow of taking like 20+ therapy and coaching trainings

📚 My time at Naropa University (grad school)

🌀 How learning the work made me feel more disconnected and hyper critical of myself

🎓 How I was performing coach/therapist when I wasn't ready, and why I'm returning to a version of coaching now

If you’re in the coaching, therapy, or healing world (or left it), or if you’ve ever felt like someone else’s framework was muting your voice - HOPE YOU CAN RELATE (minus the metaphorically throwing up in the NYC apt thing... whatever you guys get me.).

📬 Leave a comment, review, or share with a friend if you want to support another dreamer living her favorite life (so I can keep making these for you guys) <3

📸 Instagram: @margaretlefton

🎓 Work with me

🎙️ This week we're slowing it waayyy down (getting in that winter/holiday restful spirit) and tapping into the most under utilized tool in the game: the breath.

Stay tuned for several highly specific, tactical breathing techniques you can implement today to navigate high stress creative entrepreneur situations (pitching a VC, public speaking, on-camera hosting, etc.).

So fun fact: I hate breathwork. Then I met Elsa Unenge⁠ (founder of ⁠Breath Curriculum⁠ - working with everyone from Oscar winners to athletes to Fortune 500 leaders) and decided to be open minded and learn more. This week's episode bridges the gap for anyone breath-curious (or, perhaps, as opposed as I was) into a tool that you can start using to shift your relationship with stress - immediately.

We get into:

🧠 The science behind how breath actually affects your nervous system

🫁 Why most of us breathe dysfunctionally - and how to fix it

🌬️ How to use your breath to prep for auditions, pitches, and high-pressure moments

🛑 What not to do (hint: taking deep chest breaths might be making things worse)

✨ Simple practices to reset in under 30 seconds - even on planes, or before... say... the holidays with your family

Try Elsa's work for 30 days free with code: FIRSTFREE

Follow Elsa’s work: @breathcurriculum

🦄 Follow Margaret’s adventures: @margaretlefton

Follow the multi‑hyphenate journey with your creative housemate: @margaretlefton

🧙‍♀️✨ Today's episode is some witchy guidance (whether you're woo or not) for the year ahead. This basically is listening to two soul siblings laugh while reading magic (I promised Hogwarts guys).

One of my fav humans Ashley B. Jones - intuitive guide, “Favorite Self” coach, and three‑time returning guest - joins us for our annual Year Ahead Reading for creatives, entrepreneurs, and anyone building a magical life on their own terms.

We talk about:

🔮 What “Favorite Self” actually means - and why it’s better than “best self” or “higher self”

📅 Why intuitive mapping and tarot are powerful tools for creatives and entrepreneurs (even if you're like wtf is this)

🌙 A month-by-month 2026 energetic reading through June for the collective creative field

📌 Find Ashley:

✨ Instagram: @ashley.b.jones

🔮 2026 Year Ahead Readings: book your own!

🦄 Follow Margaret: @margaretlefton and @multihyphenateuniversity

🎓 Work with me

Follow along with your creative housemate: ⁠@margaretlefton⁠

WELCOME TO THE POST VIRAL ERA or so says Bia: so what's next?

This week, I’m joined by Brazilian ROCKSTAR ⁠⁠Bia Granja⁠. Bia is the founder of YouPix, Latin America's biggest consultancy, accelerator, and conference for the Creator Economy. After selling the company she's become an independent consultant and remains one of the most trusted voices in the industry.

✨ If you’ve ever thought “I want to build a creative business… but not like that. I hate how all the hooks and visuals look the same - how can I be myself?” - THIS ONE'S FOR YOU (and/or you touch the creator economy in any way bc there are so many pro tips here).

In this episode:

📉 Why virality isn’t a strategy and the post-viral/growth era (also, what to do if you DO go viral)

💭 Bia's 10 tips for creators (from "not everything needs to be a business" to why you shouldn't call yourself just "talent")

🎭 The art vs. content trap - how to make work that actually feels like you and maintain your craft

💖 The definition of success and how making money made Bia unhappy (and what she's been up to since selling YouPix!)

Guys my fav moment that had me howling: we're not looking sugar daddies, we're all looking for sugar brand deals (branddies)😂

🔮 Work with me!

📸 Follow Bia: @biagranja & her Substack with all her hot takes POV: Creator Economy

Welcome back to Multi-Hyphenate University: your campus for magical creative entrepreneurs and artists building their biggest dreams.

This bonus episode is not a how-to, this is a how-it-feels-to [... go viral and hit a mega expansion]

A vlog diary: the live musings of a creative in expansion burnout after being flooded with both visibility and opportunity.

In another episode I'll get more specific and tactical - today we're grabbing some tea together in our dorm room and processing LIFE: aka after several days of euphoria, I naturally contracted into an overstimulated burnout.

This episode:

🌀 What no one tells you about the “after” of being seen (aka the vulnerability hangover)

🎢 How to navigate expansion/contraction

🧠 The disorienting feeling of being met in a new way after being in an energy of trying & proving for so long

If you also oscillate between cycles of euphoria and crying-while-watching-christmas-movies you're in good company

🦄 Follow the journey: @margaretlefton | @multihyphenateuniversity

✨ Join the campus: Multi-Hyphenate University - coming soon

I made a full recovery from chronic depression.

Need to kick off with a couple important notes...

1: I put together a list of all of my resources and notes from my journey (including how to find a therapist): here

2: Nothing here is medical advice, a magic bullet, or a checklist. It is simply sharing pieces of my personal journey - because when I went through it the resources I found told me it was a lifelong disease and I'd never get better. I would rage, cry, and feel defeated all the f***ing time. I wish I'd had someone to prove to me that WASN'T. TRUE. So hi! I'm proof it's possible.

This week's episode was a doozy to record and edit - it's the most vulnerable I've been on the podcast so thanks for being here with me guys <3 Honestly, I have no idea if this is helpful for anyone else, and it felt important for my own art to get out of my system and out into the world.

I spent the first 27 years of my life struggling with chronic depression, emotional swings, sadness, and the inability to believe anything in my inner world was true or of value. The version of myself I am now daily - I only experienced in small spurts and was otherwise masking how low I felt. Around age 19, I started a journey that would take me to places I couldn't imagine and ultimately end up making a 100% recovery from chronic depression and suicidal ideation.

In this episode:

🌫️ Boarding School - masking, loneliness, suicidal ideation, and not being helped (aka the land of : too [fill-in-the-blank]. too sensitive, too dramatic, etc. F*CK THE TOO'S)

🧠 What helped (& didn’t) - school therapists, CBT, trauma therapy, multiple failed meds, and the turning point via an accidental hospitalization off a med

🌿 The shift into spirituality and imagination - energy work, ritual, finding meaning and believing myself for the first time, and very literally rebuilding my inner world through deep astral work with a witch

💖 Confronting why I was scared not to be depressed anymore (this was so hard to admit when I was in it, but I had no idea who I was without it)

🏡 Expression as healing - how creativity, storytelling, and building a life in color brought me home to myself

🌈 Life on the other side of chronic depression - what no one tells you about “after the healing” and learning to build and bond through joy, instead of just survive

In conclusion, IMO: in the head, in the heart, in the hands.

We heal, and find wholeness in our experience of life through: our words (head), through work with our soul (heart), and through expression (hands). When all of those are flowing together, life feels a little more manageable.

This episode was heavy for me to record and washed up a lot of old stories - I realized after even with an hour I left out what feels like hundreds of small micro shifts and moments. ANYWAYS. Love y'all.

❗If you're in immediate crisis or having active suicidal thoughts: Please please call or text 988 (US), or reach out to local crisis support. If phone calls feel scary, I HIGHLY rec the crisis text line as well. You can even use them just to vent! I used this several times. Text HOME to 741741 to reach a live volunteer Crisis Counselor.

Follow me @margaretlefton

Sherpa'ing people to their dreams: work with me

Follow the Multi-Hyphenate journey with your creative housemate: ⁠@margaretlefton⁠

This solo episode is an update on everything I'm currently learning about and trying in the creator journey... From podcasts to greek mythology.

In this episode:

🎭 What I learned in my first-ever LA acting class (and why the camera is an x-ray)

🧠 Why solo podcasting can feel harder than interviews - and what helps

📚 Mythology, Joseph Campbell, Vedic Philosophy, and how all of this weaves into being a creator

🌟 Flashlight vs. Starlight Vision: two ways of seeing the world

Resources & Mentions:

📖 The Power of Myth – Joseph Campbell

✨ Magic Maker – Pam Grossman

🧃 Philosophy Talk – James Beshara (@jamesbeshara / Magic Mind)

🧚‍♀️ Follow Margaret’s adventures: ⁠@margaretlefton⁠

🎓 Join Multi-Hyphenate University: a space for magical Creatives & Entrepreneurs - coming soon!

Follow the creative journeys of a Multi-Hyphenate with your favorite housemate: @margaretlefton

🦄✈️ If you dream of leaving behind an office or "normal" life path to travel the world and make art: this is for you.

Scott Sporleder - longtime adventure photographer, filmmaker, and Creative Director at Matador Network - joins me to unpack what it really takes to design a one-of-a-kind creative lifestyle. This isn't just about career: it's about losing the map, trusting your voice, and unlocking the magic of a life that finds stillness in motion.

In this episode:

• 💼 Scott’s journey from $25 freelance gigs to a dream career

• 🌏 Stories and advice from traveling the world - from life-altering moments in the Outback to his “no headphones” philosophy

• 🎨 What it means to be a multi-hyphenate (and whether you really need to niche down)

• 🗣️ Why you need to stop trying to “find your voice” - and realize you already have it (check out 40:50 for my favorite moment)

As someone who once commuted into NYC at 21, dreaming of a nomadic life and bingeing travel podcasts... This episode is one of my absolute favorites.

📸 Follow Scott's Travels: @spoart

🎒 Matador Network

🦄 Follow Margaret’s adventures: @margaretlefton

🎓 Join Multi-Hyphenate University: coming soon

Follow the internet's creative housemate adventures: ⁠@margaretlefton

This episode is for the neurodivergent artist trying to navigate creating in the age of AI without betraying their twirly wonderful brain and artist belief system: from 2 artist witches.

(so.. not another tech bro hustle podcast on optimization).

Aneri Shah is serial founder, comedian, writer, podcaster, and creative technologist who is pioneering the use of AI in Hollywood and entertainment. After a 45 minute conversation on a street corner in downtown LA - we decided to hop on the mics together. 

I’ve never gotten more confusion and pushback from creative peers than when I started talking about AI.

To be honest: I was shocked - I’ve been on Chat GPT since it’s release and constantly creating bizarre use cases for it; mostly to create alternate realities and story worlds to explore my world within.

This is an opportunity to provide a different lens and framework for creatives who feel like AI is the death of creativity - I encourage you to approach the topic with curiosity (and come to your own conclusions: even if that’s still hating it!).

We talk about: 

• Expansion and Contraction periods as an artist
• Why neurodivergent creatives are positioned to be the new superheroes in this era
• How to view AI as a new type of paintbrush: from a healing tool to reprocess your childhood, to putting your exes in a room to all meet each other, to creating dream worlds
• Why Tarot Readers are the best positioned to succeed in AI
• Live demo as we call Aneri’s voice agent Gabby that she has calling Hollywood producers on her behalf

🧠 Connect with Aneri

🌈 Follow my daily sparks on IG: @margaretlefton

🎓 Check out my offerings to uplevel your creative life ⁠here⁠

Keywords: AI and creativity, neurodivergent entrepreneur, creative business, gentle productivity, ADHD entrepreneur, creative tools, mental health and AI, sustainable entrepreneurship

Follow the journey of your creative housemate on campus: @margaretlefton

& WE'RE BACK to talk spending $55 on stickers, The Artist's Way (+Homestar Runner), and also business coaching. A normal assortment.

But for real: today is an excellent dorm chat on....

• The Artist's Way: why you should be prioritizing weekly Artist Dates (solo date) - AND, a modern definition to fit different lifestyles to ensure you can make space for this practice
• Social Energy: when your lifestyle shifts how you want to show up (ie... not EDM concerts)

• Business coaching with Cassidy Ceresa: what I've learned about learning design, building a course, and sales
• Authenticity & confidence building as a creator: "when am I me enough?"

Questions, thoughts, etc.?

Leave a comment (I respond to every one personally!)

Find my meditations here