The 21st Century Creative

Season 3 opens with a Steven Pressfield interview about his latest creative manifesto, The Artist’s Journey. If you know Steve only as the author of The War of Art or the novelist behind The Legend of Bagger Vance, this episode reveals the larger pattern that links his fiction, his non-fiction and — crucially — your own creative path.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Patricia van den Akker, the Director of The Design Trust, an organisation based in London with a mission to help designers and makers ‘create a business they are proud of’.

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.

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.

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Sara Milne Rowe, one of the leading performance coaches in the UK and the founder of the company Coaching Impact, and the author of The SHED Method: Making Better Choices When It Matters.

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.

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.

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Josh Szeps, a TV and radio host, political commentator and comedian, and creator of the podcast #WeThePeople LIVE.

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’.

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.

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Gabriela Pereira, a writer and teacher who is on a mission ‘to empower writers to take an entrepreneurial approach to their education and professional growth’.

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:

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.

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Daniel Boettcher, the founder of The Intrepid Wendell, a bespoke jewellery salon in Washington, DC.

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.

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.

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Jarie Bolander, a serial entrepreneur, living in San Francisco who has started and run several businesses in the tech, medical and PR sectors. His latest book is The Entrepreneur Ethos: How to Build a More Ethical, Inclusive, and Resilient Entrepreneur Community.

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.

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.

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.

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Mimi Khalvati, one of the foremost poets currently writing in the UK.

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.

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.

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Todd Henry, a speaker, advisor to creative companies, and the author of a string of best-selling books for creatives, including The Accidental Creative, Die Empty and Louder than Words.

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!

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.