So, first up, trick title! It's almost impossible to follow a formula and simply arrive automatically at a good business decision. It also 100% applies to any of your creative projects. This episode is more about making sure you come up with ideas that are true to you, giving yourself time to rest and ideate, treating the ideation phase with the respect it deserves, and not being afraid of bad ideas. Is that right? We recorded four days ago and I'm sure I'm missing something!

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Also, don't forget the podcast is now available as a video on Youtube and Spotify!

If you want to listen to Naval Ravikant on the Tim Ferris Podcast, follow this, this, or this link (he's in three eps!)

We talk about how much easier your creative journey becomes when you start to get an understanding of what you can and can't control. That means taking a moment to filter as much as you can through the lens of: controllable, not controllable. Just doing that sorting can help relieve stress and alleviate the sense of helplessness we can sometimes get when things don't go our way. This is a tool you can use to stay more process driven, not get rattled as much by setbacks, and generally enjoy your journey more. When I don't actively practice this, I feel way more out of alignment.

Don't forget that James will be sending out a newsletter every week reflecting on the podcast episode and giving you some life updates! You can sign up for it here.

As always, we sustain ourselves via the juicy succulence of your ratings and reviews!

This week, we interviewed the NYT bestselling author of the Nevernight Chronicles and my favourite fantasy novel of last year, Empire of the Vampire, Jay Kristoff. We had so much fun interviewing Jay. It’s great to talk to a fellow Aussie and he was both extremely funny and wise. We discussed: transitioning from muggle job to writing full time (even though Jay's "muggle" job was as a creative in the ad industry, it's still a really interesting story); why writing and doing creative things is a worthwhile pursuit regardless of the end result; how Jay has had to learn to slow down after an intense first few years as a full time writer; why studying history is great for fantasy authors; and much more!

If you want to check out Jay's books (and I strongly recommend you do), you can find all the relevant links through his website. He also writes great YA novels with fellow Aussie writer Amie Kaufman. 

Don't forget, we will be sending out a newsletter to accompany our podcasts starting this week. You can sign up here.

Today we have an awesome guest for you: two time Crossfit Games Team Athlete, owner of multiple businesses, actor, and head coach at our gym, Natasha Kaz. We talk with her about the similarities between elite sport, business, and creativity. Going back to being a beginner when you've already been an expert/master in another field. The importance of admitting to yourself that you want to be great at something. Talking to friends and family about your creative dreams when they already have an established idea of "who you are". The lessons that Tash took from sport and business that she now applies to acting. Seeking out embarrassment and rejection to inoculate yourself against fear of judgement. And much more!

We're really excited about this episode because we've been banging on for years about the intersection between sport and creativity and Tash is a living example of it! 

You can checkout Tash's instagram here

This episode is largely a discussion of Fantasy Author Brandon Sanderson's incredibly successful ($40 million) kickstarter that finished recently. We talk about why other artists being mega successful is a good thing for us. Why we should be excited to see big names pursuing avenues usually used by indie artists. How there isn't a finite amount of money to go around each artistic industry and much more!

Don't forget you can now watch the video version of the podcast on Spotify and Youtube.

Thank you for being on this journey with us!

Why is it so hard for non-artistic types to understand what we do? And why is it so hard to commit to a consistent creative practice? These two questions seem unrelated but they actually stem from the same issue: We are unable to conceptualise of sticking at something that we aren't making money at for 5+ years. 

Let's grapple with this concept and learn how to use it to make us better artists!

Thank you so much for your support and your reviews.

A reminder that the Procrastination intensive is happening on the 2nd of April, 6 PM AEDT. You can find more about it here.

James asks Amie to coach him through a rough patch as he starts receiving rejection letters for his second novel. They talk about how much rejection can hurt, why it's so painful trying to get people to notice our art, how hard it is to ask for help, and how to support yourself or loved ones when you're feeling hopeless. 

Recording this episode helped me (James) so much. Thank you Unpublished community for giving me a place to talk through the struggles of being a creative!

If you'd like some coaching from Amie, don't forget she's running masterclasses on Social Media and Procrastination over the next few weeks. Details are on her website, or click here.

Let's talk about failure! We tell the story of a recent "failed" product launch and how they bounced back. We talk about the power of reframing, seeing mistakes as a guiding light, soothing ourselves through failure, treating adversity as a necessary step on the path.

This isn't about not feeling pain, or denying our reality, it's about giving you a tool that can help when things aren't going perfectly.

Amie is running two intensives in a few weeks' time. One on Social Media and one on Procrastination. We'd love to see your faces there.

As always, we love to read your reviews so thank you to everyone who's been saying nice stuff about us recently :)

We're talking about how to trick our brains into taking action on long term goals. Humans aren't great at working on big, abstract things with distant or ill-defined deadlines. So, we need to think of ways to make our brains think we are accomplishing something RIGHT NOW. That way, we can feel good about our work, start early, and generally have an easier time of things.

This ep a little rambly as we try to get our head around this concept. Thanks for being with us at our earliest stages of idea generation!

We're following up from last week's episode by answering your questions! How do we deal with taxes? Thing we wish we knew when starting our business. How do we handle variable cashflow? And much more. We also remind you that this is how we do things. Your business will be unique to you and you should always do what works for you!

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