The 21st Century Creative

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Javier Weyler, musician, composer and music designer.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Welcome to the start of Season 2 of The 21st Century Creative, the podcast that helps you thrive as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st Century.

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

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.

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.

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.