Recent graduates are faced with disappointment in a college experience that implicitly promised a marketable skill and good money. Unfortunately, the ROI of a traditional degree pales in comparison to the alternative.

Every creative who leaves a day job to pursue their craft professionally is blindsided by a plague of time. No one ever sees it coming and no one ever warns you about it.

Where do good ideas come from? How does innovation happen? When do you decide what new project to start and how? I asked Pat this and he shared his whole idea validation process with me. The way great ideas come in to the world is not the way we would expect. Listen in to learn more.

In high school, nerds were the kids everyone secretly envied and feared. Perhaps because we knew that one day they’d sign our paychecks, and invent cool stuff like the iPhone and Twitter. One nerd in particular, is flipping the multi-billion dollar fitness industry on it’s head.

Looking at the author’s name on a book cover, it’s easy to think they did it all on their own. But when you turn the last page to find the acknowledgements, you quickly discover just how success is always born of community.

Without a network, creative work does not endure.

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If you think you can tackle your craft alone and hope for sustainable success, then you're kidding yourself. Be it writing, music, or business, you need people to reach people.

Books allow us to escape the confines of reality and explore the realms of imagination. Between the pages of a book, anything is possible, anything can happen. But sometimes, as Mark Twain said, "The truth is stranger than fiction."

Writers spend most of their time searching for a story. Whether it is one they pluck out of thin air, or one they discover on bookshelves of the Dominican Republic’s historical archives.

Robert Kurson is a treasure hunter. He writes the true stories of pirates you’ve never seen on the big screen. As it turns out, real life pirates are bigger than Hollywood portrays them.

After his first mentor died, young Luke Skywalker showed up to apprentice under Master Yoda. Luke thought he was hot stuff and even cut his training short. Incidentally, this resulted in his hand getting cut off. We may not lose a limb, but if we dismiss the value of apprenticeship, our craft will suffer a similar fate.

If you are trying to influence how a group of people thinks or acts, you are a leader by definition. As entrepreneurs seek to build their tribes and establish online communities, some fail to recognize their role as a leader.

With self-proclaimed “gurus” popping up across the internet, it’s difficult to discern true leadership habits from the cliche quips and memes.

Leadership is one of those topics everyone has an opinion about, but few are widely recognized as experts. Brad Lomenick studied under the godfather of leadership, John Maxwell, is the author of The Catalyst Leader, and was the visionary behind the iconic Catalyst movement for over 10 years.

As a writer first begins creating content, they quickly discover that narrowing the topic increases the growth of their audience. While writing for everyone is the quickest path to oblivion, niching down too far might get you stuck in the weeds.

This may shock you, but I don’t want to write about writing forever. I want to earn your trust as a reader and have the freedom to write about a variety of things. I am a writer and I’ve got my whole life to do this and explore new ideas.

None of us are one-dimensional. The challenge is what to do as you continue to develop as a creative. How do you embrace change without leaving your audience behind?

Many entrepreneurs get struck with a big idea and make the mistake of isolating themselves from two very important groups of people. Their customers and their team.

The trouble with creating in a vacuum is you have no clear understanding of what your customer needs. If you want to add value to your audience you must listen to them.

Pay attention to what people ask you for. And give it to them.