The Creator's Journey tracks

I first learned about Mitch Joel while reading Chris Brogan’s book “Trust Agents” and immediately bought and consumed Mitch’s first book, “Six Pixels of Separation” and then later his 2013 release, “Control, Alt, Delete” which was named one of the best business books by Amazon that year.

Mitch is President and the chief Media Hacker of Mirum – a global digital marketing agency operating in 20 countries with over 2500 employees. Marketing Magazine has dubbed him the "Rock Star of Digital Marketing" and called him, "one of North America's leading digital visionaries."

He is a columnist for the Harvard Business Review, Inc. Magazine, and The Huffington Post. After attending the very first PodCamp conference in 2005?, he started his weekly podcast also called “Six Pixels of Separation” and has incredibly, racked up over 500 episodes and counting. Mitch also produces a blog post nearly every day with a combination of original and well-curated content. And has done so for 13 years.

Laurel Stark is a self-proclaimed word nerd. She’s worked as a copywriter – both on staff and as a contract Creative Director – for more than a dozen companies and ad agencies. But she more than just a wordsmith. At heart, Laurel is a very strategic storyteller who considers overall design and the user’s experience in everything she creates or collaborates on.

I first encountered Laurel’s leadership watching a video of a panel discussion she was co-facilitating at the 2015 3% Conference called the ‘Next Creative Leaders’.

As I did a little digging into Laurel’s work, I was intrigued by a number of things that I want to explore in our conversation today.

Lissa Cowan is a storyteller.

She’s worked as an editorial director in the book publishing industry, as a copywriter, and as a magazine writer for numerous publications. She’s also published her own novel, Milk Fever. All of this experience has combined to give Lissa a solid grounding that gives her the expertise to help other writers find their footing and confidence.

That’s why I’m excited to have Lissa join me on today’s episode to share her thoughts on how we creatives can find our voices and deal with the uncertainties and noise in our heads – while still producing and shipping our work.

Her love of reading and her list of recommended books sealed the deal to make me want some time with her mind.

Peter Coughter has worked in the advertising and communications field for many years, including his role as a principal in the ad agency Siddel, Matus & Coughter for 20 years. Peter also worked as a TV director prior to that. In 1995, Peter left the agency he helped found and started his current enterprise, Coughter & Company, to help ad agencies and other companies learn how to more effectively present their ideas and business communication solutions to their clients. Peter's clients include most of the most influential advertising agencies in the U.S. and abroad.

Education and development of up-and-coming talent is of great importance to Peter. To that end, he's been a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University's Brand Center since 1997 with an apparent mission to help students as well as professional creatives understand that they need to invest a portion of the time they spend in creating great work into learning how to present it in a way that ensures it actually gets used.

I first learned about Peter's work while I was filming a conversation with a creative director for The Creator's Journey. He was raving about Peter's book, "The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills That Win Business." I immediately bought and consumed it, and have been looking forward to the opportunity to have a conversation around the topic for the show.

Rachel Gogos is a serial entrepreneur and brand strategist with a passion for helping business owners and individuals discover, develop, and market their authentic souls online.

With over 20 years of marketing and communications experience, her career started at the United Nations headquarters in New York City – where she helped create the look and feel for the organization’s first website. She’s held writing and editing positions at The Wall Street Journal and DowJones.com as well as launched four companies including her current company, brandiD, which she started in 2007.

She was also a contributing author to the #1 selling personal branding book on Amazon.com, Personal Branding For Dummies.

I met Rachel in the summer of 2014 after participating in her workshop on branding at the Good Life Project Camp and started following her work on social media.

We’ve had a couple of chats since then, and I’ve found her to be a most generous and kind soul.

If I didn’t already have a strong inclination to be a fan, I’d certainly be convinced by one of Rachel’s top three convictions: “Life is too short for bad coffee and bad company. Surround yourself with great people.”

Travel Videographers Dorene Wharton and Troy Young On How Travel Can Change Your Perspective


“We just encourage small steps. Small things can lead to so many big things. There are just so many little steps that have equated to so many large things for us.” ~ Dorene Wharton

The World Domination Summit, held each summer in Portland, Oregon, is a wonderful place to meet some pretty amazing people. That’s where I met Dorene Wharton and Troy Young, my guests today. They were leading a MeetUp gathering of people interested in living and working as fulltime travelers. Down-to-earth and practical, Dorene and Troy were helping folks navigate the process of shifting from employee to self-employed while traveling.

Less than a year earlier, they had resigned from their jobs, sold virtually all of their possessions (ncluding their home in Toronto) and headed for Thailand, the first stop on their new adventure. Prior to that, Dorene had worked in advertising and marketing, and Troy in broadcast television.

As of right now, they’ve settled in Medellin, Colombia, as a base to travel the region and focus more attention on creating high-impact videos and marketing consulting for the travel industry.

Dorene and Troy talk about how travel can be the biggest accelerator for change in your life and how there’s nothing stopping you from trying something new.

I met Nicholas Sailer just minutes after his presentation at Creative Mornings/Raleigh several weeks ago. He’d just rocked the space at the Contemporary Art Museum in Raleigh talking about his new book “A Story Each Day”.

Although the handful of stories he read were riveting, just about all I could focus on were the mindset and processes he must have had in place to generate an original story every day throughout 2014, when his project was initiated.

In 2015, Nicholas posted each of the stories that he’d written on that date, from the year before. Throughout the year, he built a following for the project, launched a Kickstarter campaign to publish the collection, then had the project completed and in circulation by the end of the year. All this while working full time as a creative leader at Betabox Labs.

Nicholas is an accomplished filmmaker as well, having won recognition for a couple of short films, including an official selection screening of his film 'The Strong One' at the Cannes Film Festival in May of 2012.

Before leaving the advertising agency environment, Nadine Prada worked in the roles of both art and creative director at some of the most recognizable agencies in the world including Ogilvy & Mather, Arnold Worldwide, Saatchi & Saatchi, and Young & Rubicam. During that time she racked up numerous awards for ad campaigns created for clients including Dove, American Express, Volkswagen, Toyota, and Tylenol.

But six years ago she left that world to become a freelance art director so that she could devote more attention to her own vision as a painter. Nadine is also passionate about encouraging other artists to create and make a living from their work and to educate the public about how to demystify and enjoy art.

We met as presenters at Essential Edge, a conference for artists in Raleigh this past year and I was intrigued with both her work and thought processes. I immediately asked Nadine to carve out a time that we could chat some more.

Willie Jackson On The Power of Empathy

“I would recommend observing the things that make you feel something. What makes you angry, what frustrates you, what’s intensely triggering for you, and why? And as you sit with those things, and as you look at the common elements between them, ask yourself how this shows up in your work, if at all? Are there common elements here? Do these observations relate to your work in any way? I would start there as a means of infusing purpose and passion and meaning into the work that you do.” ~ Willie Jackson

My conversation today is with Willie Jackson, the founder and publisher of Abernathy, the magazine for black men. I knew I wanted to talk more with Willie when, after sending him an email about 9 o’clock one night, he phoned me immediately to chat about the possibility of us having a conversation for this show.

Willie is a take-action, live-in-the-moment guy who sizes up information quickly and apparently makes smart decisions! Willie’s formal education, and most of his real-world work, has been in the area of technology solutions, including stints at W3 Edge, a Boston-based interactive web development and marketing agency. He served as chief technology officer of The Domino Project, a publishing company in New York City started by marketing guru, Seth Godin, and has been an IT consultant with Accenture in Atlanta, Ga.

What peaked my interest in sitting down with Willie for a conversation is his move to being a writer and publisher, and the processes he relies on to build a publication’s voice.

Willie tells us that the trajectory of our lives and the adventures we experience and the quality of our lives is largely defined by how we deal with fear and uncertainty.

Through storytelling and through empathy, Willie believes we can affect change in the hearts and minds of people.

Pam Slim on Creating a Body of Work

“The purpose of our lives is to create a body of work that we’re proud of, and the definition of a body of work is everything you create, contribute, affect and impact throughout the course of your life.” ~ Pam Slim

Although I just met Pam Slim for the first time when she was in Raleigh, N.C., recently for a stop on her "Indispensible Community Tour," I’ve been following her writing for several years, including reading her book, “Body of Work,” when it came out in 2014.

Pam’s blog and her first book, “Escape from Cubicle Nation,” came out of her work as a consultant to large corporations such as Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab and Cisco Systems, where she worked with thousands of employees, managers and executives.

Through the years, she has coached thousands of budding entrepreneurs, in businesses ranging from martial art studios to software start-ups, and is here today to encourage creative leaders to focus on processes that will build a more cohesive and impactful body of work.

Pam advises listeners to get clear about what they want to create, what form it needs to take, and what work mode is required. Then, she says, just do the work and get it out into the world!

She also reminds us that we’re in community, whether we like it or not. Be strategic about who you’re connected with.