Online businesses must transcend the digital if they want to survive.

Awareness of the harms of the social internet and associated technologies, and how corporate greed and lackluster policy have made it so many of the harms outweigh the powerful good, is continuing to increase. So what's an online business to do?

This is the audio version of an essay first published at thinkpiece.fyi

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sarahmchappell.substack.com

When I narrowed the scope of what is possible, I found more possibility.

A paradox perhaps, but true. Trying to keep all paths open, to never choose, to have it all is what prevents growth, creativity, and clarity.

Listen to the full audio essay here and then join the conversation at thinkpiece.fyi

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sarahmchappell.substack.com

Artists feel the temperature shifts of our culture and economy before others even think to walk outside and see what the weather is. At this fulcrum moment of the Algorithmic Age, artists are up against some challenges: Generative AI threatens jobs, algorithms are overloaded and make it harder to reach customers, and niche communities have become professionalized at the expense of true connection.

But Edgar Fabián Frías isn’t afraid. Edgar is a boundary-breaking multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles with degrees in Psychology, Studio Art, and an MFA in Art Practice from UC Berkeley. Their immersive works blend diverse artistic disciplines, challenging conventional categories, and placing them directly at the intersection of creativity, innovation, and the Internet’s constant shifts.

In this conversation, Edgar explores the changes in the online marketplace, how they effect them as an artist, and the boundaries required to make good work while advertising their art and therapy practice. Even as the present Internet threatens to undercut art careers and flatten creativity, Edgar shows us how to find the space for the play required to innovate, and the connections required to thrive both personally and professionally online.

Tune in to learn:

* How artists like Edgar hack the Internet to create new economic and relational opportunities

* Why web3 was so maligned, and what that has to do with Generative AI

* The crucial boundaries Edgar enforces to protect their artistic work

* The business of art, and the skills Edgar has had to learn in order to thrive

* And more

Activate your imagination by listening here or wherever you get your podcasts.

Connect With Edgar

Artist website

Therapist website

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sarahmchappell.substack.com

Who gets to touch the world? Spatial computing replicates the core human desire to impact our surroundings while preventing us from doing that at all. This is the audio version of an essay published at Think Piece.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sarahmchappell.substack.com

AI AI AI. It’s all anyone online can talk about. What is it? Does it do anything useful? Who will it harm, and how? Can creative jobs even exist in the age of machine learning?

For artists, creatives, writers, and other intellectual property-driven professionals, the generative AI platforms continue to provoke confusion and dismay. How were these corporations able to train the Large Language Models that support these tools on a vast corpus of copyrighted works without permission from or compensation of the creators?

Attorney and art historian Katherine de Vos Devine is uniquely positioned to discuss these challenges. As an expert in fair use who works extensively with artists through her firm, Katherine has a deep understanding of the history and legal precedent that undergirds this moment.

In this episode of The Think Piece Podcast, Katherine offers a calm approach to the swiftly changing AI landscape. We discuss the current lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft, the history of fair use, and how the courts may approach these cases as we explore the role that each of us has in shaping the future, and ultimately ask: what world do we want to leave behind?

Connect with Katherine

Implement Legal

Instagram

LinkedIn

Katherine's essay series on Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sarahmchappell.substack.com

Who would you be without your business?

Your mind may first go to the financial impacts: without your work, you might struggle to pay your bills, save for retirement, or care for your children.

But that’s not the only potential challenge: would you completely lose your sense of self if your identity as a business owner were gone?

In this episode, I’m joined by coach and creator Khe Hy to discuss the challenges of creating a post-achievement life, one governed by your aliveness rather than the endless search for external validation.

Khe is the popular creator behind Rad Reads and The Examined Life Podcast where he helps ambitious professionals find lasting career and life satisfaction. Khe is intimately aware of the challenges that come from subverting the status quo and trying to build a life that fits you, rather than what you’ve been told to desire.

Dive deep with us to explore your obsession with and learn how to build a life you don’t want to escape from.

Connect With Khe

Twitter

YouTube

Instagram

LinkedIn

TikTok

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sarahmchappell.substack.com

I finally did it.

After years of wrestling with Instagram and trying to figure out how to use it in a way that supports my work without making me want to die, I have left the platform professionally.

I tried to outsource it.

I tried only posting promotional content.

I tried only posting personal content.

I tried content buckets and content maps and content plans and content repurposing systems.

And while I have made plenty of money from these hacks, none of them have solved the problem: my work relationship to Instagram is fundamentally addictive and dangerous.

In this episode of The Think Piece Podcast, I tell the story of what finally pushed me over the edge.

Whether you are challenged by Instagram, some other social media platform, or have a relationship to a person, offer, business, or place that makes you feel powerless, I hope this episode helps you provoke a change in your life—or at least feel less alone.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sarahmchappell.substack.com

Hustle? Find it? Like it’s a good thing?

If you read that title and wondered if you’re on the wrong podcast feed, I get it. I’ve spent years decrying the hustle, and trying to help founders and creatives break out of that mode to create a more holistic approach to business.

But sometimes, we just have to do the thing. Sometimes, we just need to get paid. Sometimes, we have to hustle.

As a business grows, we naturally shift our sights to longterm sustainability. But that often comes as a cost: we lose agility and innovation. It can be easy to stagnate, and the fear of hustling can actually be the thing that keeps your business from growth.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to activate your hustle when you need it so you can tap into the hunger that drove your initial success.

Short-term thinking isn’t always a bad thing, and can be exactly what you need to reach your next goal.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sarahmchappell.substack.com

Winter is coming in the Northern Hemisphere, and the shortening days are foregrounding the experience of time. The shift this year is intensified by the relationship to time, information, and engagement online as the world reckons with the horrific Hamas attack on Israel and the resulting violent and indiscriminate retaliation on the people of Palestine.

Time is speeding up even as the days come to a swifter close. There is a tension between the known, the unknown, the need to know now, the impossible to know until later.

For business owners and other online denizens, time is a challenging needle to thread. We have our own material needs. We have our need to feel, to grieve. We have our outrage. We have our fear of disappointing those who support us, and our fear of the consequences if we get it wrong.

We also have the time of our business, the natural shifts in our attention, interest, revenue. Time’s elasticity underpins the experience of entrepreneurship, expectation and reality rarely converging.

This week I’m talking about time. Tune in.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sarahmchappell.substack.com

We’ve entered the last quarter of 2023, and with it the pressure to push for last-minute sales. Entrepreneurs try to pack a lot into this season, and critical short- and longterm planning goes undone.

In this episode, I explore what to do now to make the most of the end of the year, as well as how to harness the momentum of the moment to lay the groundwork for the year to come. From prioritizing your sales process (don’t leave it to the last minute again!) to anticipating your growth needs in 2024, now is the time to pause and assess so you can effectively navigate this busy season.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sarahmchappell.substack.com