September has a fun kind of fresh-start energy.

Not quite January. Not quite “new year, new me.” More like… something is shifting, and maybe you can feel it too.

In this episode of The Complete Creative, I’m introducing something new: a monthly activation designed to help you pause, notice where you are right now, and be intentional about what you want to create next.

Because as creative entrepreneurs, our businesses don’t exist in a neat little box separate from the rest of our lives. Our creative work, business, relationships, routines, energy, and actual human lives overlap—and when one shifts, we tend to feel it everywhere.

So instead of immediately turning September into another giant list of goals, I’m inviting you to notice first.

What has fresh energy right now? What are you excited to return to? What did the past few months teach you about how you want to live, create, and work? And what might you be completely ready to leave behind?

Then we’ll look ahead together—not from pressure, but from possibility.

In this episode, I talk about:

And here’s the question I really want you to take with you:

If you arrived at the end of December and looked back over these next four months, what would you be so grateful—and maybe even amazed—that you created?

It can be ambitious. It can be playful. It can be financial, creative, personal, practical, or completely different from what you thought you wanted in January.

You’re not the same person you were at the beginning of the year.

So maybe you don’t have to keep creating from an old plan.

What feels worthy of your attention now?

As a creative entrepreneur, success is about so much more than how your business is doing.

My friend Anne Miller and I took this conversation to the trail—literally. I’m pushing my grandson in the stroller, we’re getting a little winded on the hills, and we’re talking about how much our definitions of success have changed over the years.

We talk about money, health, relationships, creative work, business, getting older, and how easy it is to keep working toward something simply because you used to want it.

Sometimes that feeling that something is a little off is worth paying attention to. Maybe you’ve outgrown a goal. Maybe your priorities have changed. Or maybe it’s simply time to get clearer about what you want now.

We also talk about being happy with what you’ve created while still wanting more—and making small recalibrations as you go instead of assuming you have to change everything.

If you’re building a creative business, this is a chance to zoom out from the usual measures of success and think about the whole thing: What do I want my life to look like, and how do I want my creative work to fit into it?

We also mention my conversation with Allie Kuhland about Human Design and creative work:

⁠Listen to Human Design & Creative Work with Allie Kuhland

Connect with Anne Miller:

https://www.rethinkingsuccess.life/

→ If you're ready to work in seasons but aren't sure how it could be possible for you, schedule a Work Your Way Breakthrough call with Brie HERE.

This episode is part of the Work Your Way Summer Series — a collection of conversations about rethinking work, creativity, and the way you move through your days. Explore the full series: www.creativemindscoach.com/podcast/work-your-way-summer-series

What if your business didn’t have to look the same all year long?

I’m sitting outside at what we affectionately call the “swing set sanctuary” with my friend and fellow coach Kolette Hall for a conversation about doing business in seasons—and giving yourself permission to build work around the life you actually want.

Kolette has intentionally created a business that changes with the seasons of her life. For her, summer means something very specific: Long Live Summer. She steps away from much of her regular marketing, pauses her newsletter and podcast, keeps a small number of client calls she genuinely enjoys, and creates more room for reading, family, travel, reflection, and simply being.

And her business still works.

We talk about what it takes to trust a way of working that might look different from what everyone else is doing—and why experimenting is such an important part of figuring out what actually works for you.

Because building a creative business isn’t about getting everything exactly right the first time. You get to try things, pay attention, make little course corrections, and keep walking toward the work and life you want.

In this conversation, Kolette and I talk about:

One of my favorite questions from this conversation is ridiculously simple: What if you could?

What if you could take the time off? What if your business could work differently? What if you could build your schedule around your creativity, your family, your adventures, or whatever matters most to you?

You don’t have to know exactly how yet.

Maybe you just get to start walking toward it.

Long Live Summer.

Connect with Kolette Hall:

⁠kolettehall.com

→ If you're ready to work in seasons but aren't sure how it could be possible for you, schedule a Work Your Way Breakthrough call with Brie HERE.

This episode is part of the Work Your Way Summer Series — a collection of conversations about rethinking work, creativity, and the way you move through your days. Explore the full series: www.creativemindscoach.com/podcast/work-your-way-summer-series

Katie Pulsifer spent years being the kind of employee every company wants.

High-achieving. Trusted. Loyal. The person you put on the important project because she will figure it out and get it done.

Then, one day, it was over.

The job she loved ended unexpectedly, and suddenly the identity that had served her so well for decades didn’t fit the business she was building next.

In this episode of The Complete Creative, I’m joined by Katie Pulsifer, master certified life coach and creator of the Golden Coaching Certification, for a conversation about what it looks like to stop following business advice just because it’s popular and start paying attention to how you actually work best.

Katie shares how she moved from a long career in fashion, product development, and corporate leadership into coaching, then spent five years helping grow The Life Coach School before returning to her own business at 55.

And yes, she tried ALL the things.

Facebook ads. Webinars. Freebies. Software. Hiring too soon. There are apparently stacks of old course binders in a closet, which made me feel much better about every business experiment I’ve ever quietly abandoned.

What Katie discovered is that her business grows through something much more natural to her: conversations with real people.

She builds through connection, relationships, thank-you notes, cheering people on, and asking herself who she wants to “put love on” that day.

We also talk about how to tell the difference between something feeling uncomfortable because it’s new and a genuine full-body no, why data matters when you’re deciding what to keep or release, and what happened when Katie stopped trying to force herself into the “do one thing” rule and embraced multiple revenue streams instead.

This episode is part of my Work Your Way Summer Series, and I love Katie as an example of what’s possible. You do not need to copy her business. You don’t need to quit Instagram or start a Substack.

But you can start asking better questions about your own.

⁠Visit Katie Pulsifer Coaching

Katie also has a short reflection quiz on her website for those moments when you know you’re meant for more but can’t quite put language around what that is yet. She personally sends back a voice memo with her reflections on your answers—which feels VERY on brand for this whole conversation.

⁠Read You Are Golden on Substack

We talk about trusting those full-body yeses and nos in your business. If that piece made your ears perk up, listen to my conversation with Allie Kuhland about Human Design and creative work:

⁠Listen to the Human Design episode

→ If you're ready for work to feel different but aren't sure how it could be possible for you, schedule a Work Your Way Breakthrough call with Brie HERE.

This episode is part of the Work Your Way Summer Series — a collection of conversations about rethinking work, creativity, and the way you move through your days. Explore the full series: www.creativemindscoach.com/podcast/work-your-way-summer-series

Building a business can feel surprisingly lonely, especially when you're trying to figure everything out on your own.

We could spend so much time looking for the next strategy, marketing tactic, or productivity hack that we forget one of the most valuable assets we have as creatives: the people around us.

In this episode of The Complete Creative, I'm joined by Brian Thompson, who co-founded the CreativeMornings Austin chapter and now serves as Content Manager for the global CreativeMornings community. Through his work creating social media content and the weekly newsletter, Brian has a front-row seat to the power of creative communities around the world. We talk about why the relationships you build can shape your creative work, your confidence, and the opportunities that come your way.

Brian shares how CreativeMornings has created a space where thousands of creatives have found connection, encouragement, collaboration, and unexpected opportunities simply by showing up. We also talk about curiosity, following the energy, and why meaningful relationships often become the catalyst for our best work.

If you've ever felt like you have to build your business by yourself, this conversation is your reminder that you don't have to.

Why community is one of the most valuable investments you can make in your creative business

What makes CreativeMornings such a powerful space for connection and collaboration

How simply showing up can lead to opportunities you never could have planned

The difference between networking and building genuine relationships

Why curiosity creates more opportunities than having all the answers

How following the energy can shape both your creative work and your business

Why the people you surround yourself with influence the work you create

CreativeMornings: https://www.creativemornings.com/

Brian's coworking community, Stoke the Coals: https://stokethecoals.com/

Connect with Brian on Instagram

Artist and longtime CreativeMornings Austin visual storyteller Ami Plasse: https://www.gonzoviz.com/amitaiplasseartist

A special shout-out to Ami Plasse, whose live visual storytelling has become such a memorable part of the CreativeMornings Austin experience. His work is incredible, and I highly encourage you to check it out.

Brian and I also touch on an idea that's become a recurring theme throughout the Work Your Way Summer Series: money is energy. If that part of the conversation caught your attention, be sure to listen to my conversation with Crystal Hiatsma, where we explore how your relationship with money shapes the way you work, create, and grow.

→ If you're ready for work to feel different but aren't sure how it could be possible for you, schedule a Work Your Way Breakthrough call with Brie HERE.

This episode is part of the Work Your Way Summer Series — a collection of conversations about rethinking work, creativity, and the way you move through your days. Explore the full series: www.creativemindscoach.com/podcast/work-your-way-summer-series

What changes when you start treating your nervous system as part of your business strategy?

In this episode of The Complete Creative, I’m joined by nervous system coach and educator Leah Davidson as part of my Work Your Way series. We’re talking about how nervous system regulation affects the way creative entrepreneurs make decisions, handle uncertainty, respond to stress, and keep moving forward without letting pressure take over.

Creative entrepreneurship asks a lot of us. We share personal work, make decisions without guaranteed outcomes, try unfamiliar things, invest in ideas, and regularly move beyond what feels comfortable. When that pressure builds, it can show up as procrastination, fear of being seen, difficulty making decisions, resistance to investing, or the feeling that something must be wrong with us.

Leah offers a more compassionate and practical way to understand what’s happening. These reactions may not be signs that you’re unmotivated or incapable. They may be signs that your nervous system is trying to protect you.

In this conversation, Leah explains why regulation does not mean feeling calm all the time. A healthy nervous system gives you the flexibility to experience activation, emotion, creativity, and uncertainty without becoming completely overwhelmed or shutting down.

We also talk about how stress from your business can spill into the rest of your life, why your body often notices dysregulation before your mind does, and how to recognize the “yellow lights” that signal it may be time to pause.

Those signs might include:

Leah also shares her three-step Safety Sequence, a simple practice that helps bring your brain and body back into communication.

You’ll learn:

Leah is a nervous system coach and educator, a speech-language pathologist with 27 years of experience in traumatic brain injury, and the host of the Building Resilience podcast. She also offers advanced nervous system resilience training for coaches, therapists, and helping professionals, along with Resilient Brilliance journals and mental health stationery.

⁠Learn more about Leah Davidson and her nervous system work

⁠Explore Leah’s Resilient Brilliance journals

Listen to Leah’s Building Resilience podcast through her website or your favorite podcast platform.

→ If you're ready for work to feel different but aren't sure how it could be possible for you, schedule a Work Your Way Breakthrough call with Brie HERE.

This episode is part of the Work Your Way Summer Series — a collection of conversations about rethinking work, creativity, and the way you move through your days. Explore the full series: www.creativemindscoach.com/podcast/work-your-way-summer-series

What if your relationship with money isn’t actually about money?

What if the way you check your bank account, receive payment, spend money, talk about numbers, or feel pressure to “make it happen” is showing you something deeper about safety, self-worth, shame, receiving, and trust?

This is another episode in the Work Your Way series, and I’m talking with certified life coach Crystal Hiatsma about rethinking your relationship with money as a creative entrepreneur.

Crystal brings such a grounded, expansive perspective to this conversation. We talk about money as energy, money as a mirror, and how the way we relate to money often reflects something deeper about safety, self-worth, shame, receiving, control, and trust.

Instead of treating money as something to force, fix, or fear, Crystal invites us to notice what money brings up in our bodies and beliefs. Those little money activations — checking your bank account, spending money, receiving money, talking about numbers, or feeling pressure to “make it happen” — can become clues. Not because anything is wrong with you, but because your relationship with money may be showing you where there is more room for healing, openness, and self-trust.

In this episode, we talk about:

Why money can feel so emotionally charged

How money mirrors our beliefs about safety, worthiness, productivity, and belonging

The connection between money, love, receiving, and shame

Why the energy behind your actions matters in business

How nervous system regulation can support money work

What money triggers can reveal about subconscious beliefs

Why “hard work equals money” may not be the whole story

How money can flow through us in ways that support our lives and communities

What it can look like to bring more creativity, openness, and possibility into your relationship with money

This conversation is an invitation to look at money differently. Not as something that has to be heavy or stressful all the time, but as a relationship you can bring curiosity, compassion, and even a little more fun into.

Because how you’ve been taught to think about money is only one way.

Mentioned in this episode:

→ If you're ready for work to feel different but aren't sure how it could be possible for you, schedule a Work Your Way Breakthrough call with Brie HERE.

This episode is part of the Work Your Way Summer Series — a collection of conversations about rethinking work, creativity, and the way you move through your days. Explore the full series: www.creativemindscoach.com/podcast/work-your-way-summer-series

We’ve all been taught to manage our time.

The planner. The habit tracker. The perfectly color-coded calendar. Very cute. Very organized. Sometimes even helpful.

But for creative entrepreneurs, there’s something even more important to pay attention to: your energy.

In this episode of The Complete Creative, I’m talking about one of my foundational beliefs: your energy is one of your greatest business assets. We’ve been taught to optimize our schedules, track our habits, and squeeze more into our calendars, but that can easily become the wrong focus.

Instead of asking, “How do I get more done?” I want to ask a better question: “How can I design my work around the way my energy actually moves?”

I’m sharing the Creative Compass framework and focusing on two powerful pieces: aligning your energy and designing your rhythm. I’ll walk you through how this has looked in my own life as I’ve shifted into full-time travel, adjusted my workweek, created Me Monday, and learned to protect the energy that helps my business thrive.

In this episode, I’m talking about:

Why your energy may be a more important business asset than your time

How the Creative Compass framework helps you clarify your vision, anchor your identity, align your energy, and design your rhythm

Why designing your calendar before understanding your energy can keep you stuck

How I redesigned my workweek around travel, marriage, creativity, coaching, and rest

The difference between work that energizes you and work that drains you

Why creative entrepreneurs do not have to follow a traditional Monday-Friday schedule

How to ask better questions about time, work, environment, capacity, and life

Why protecting your creative energy can help your business grow in a more sustainable way

This episode is an invitation to stop forcing yourself into systems that were never built for you and start becoming a student of your own energy. Because when your work supports your life, your business gets to become lighter, clearer, and more extraordinary.

Mentioned in this episode:

The Creative Compass framework

The Work Your Way series

Human Design and Creative Work with Allie Kuhland

→ If you're ready for work to feel different but aren't sure how it could be possible for you, schedule a Work Your Way Breakthrough call with Brie HERE.

This episode is part of the Work Your Way Summer Series — a collection of conversations about rethinking work, creativity, and the way you move through your days. Explore the full series: www.creativemindscoach.com/podcast/work-your-way-summer-series

Have you ever caught yourself thinking, “Maybe I just need a better system, more discipline, more clients, or a vacation”—only to discover that the heaviness is still there?

In this episode, I’m exploring something many creatives and business owners experience but rarely stop to examine: the difference between work that is hard and work that feels heavy.

Hard work can be meaningful. It’s often where growth, learning, and creativity happen. But heaviness is different. It lingers. It follows you when you’re away from your desk. It drains your energy and keeps pulling at your attention.

Instead of rushing to fix it, what if the heaviness is offering valuable information?

In this episode, I share how to recognize when you’re reaching for quick fixes, why your brain wants immediate answers, and the questions that can help you uncover what’s really happening beneath the surface. If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, misaligned, overcommitted, or simply tired of pushing harder, this conversation offers a different approach.

→ If you're ready for work to feel different but aren't sure how it could be possible for you, schedule a Work Your Way Breakthrough call with Brie HERE.

This episode is part of the Work Your Way Summer Series — a collection of conversations about rethinking work, creativity, and the way you move through your days. Explore the full series: www.creativemindscoach.com/podcast/work-your-way-summer-series

What IF the primary purpose of your business isn't to serve the world, it's to make you rich? And, service is just the byproduct?

That's the kind of assumption-flipping you hear from Amber Smith, my coach and the author of Quiet Wealth, who joins me this week to talk about what she calls a "right-sized" business — one built around what you actually want, instead of what scaling culture told you to want. Amber shares the moment she sat in a room full of entrepreneurs planning their company exits and realized she didn't want one — she wanted to know her clients' names, not just their account numbers. I share my own version of that: deciding I needed a "me Monday," immediately judging myself for it ("who takes a full day during the "work week" to do whatever they want?"), and then realizing that day isn't selfish — it's the seed for everything I create the rest of the week.

We also get into the practical side: how "the math has to math" — what you charge has to actually fund the life you want, on the hours you actually want to work. And how an energy audit (looking at what gives you energy versus what drains it) can show you what to keep, change, or hand off entirely.

One of my favorite moments was when Amber said: "It's good for the world when you get what you want." That idea has stayed with me since we recorded.

In this episode, we talk about:

→ If you're ready for work to feel different but aren't sure how it could be possible for you, schedule a Work Your Way Breakthrough call with Brie HERE.

This episode is part of the Work Your Way Summer Series — a collection of conversations about rethinking work, creativity, and the way you move through your days. Explore the full series: www.creativemindscoach.com/podcast/work-your-way-summer-series