by Linda | May 24, 2016 | my creative journal
This month I decided to watch the video interviews on CreativeLive by Chase Jarvis and get some daily inspiration, motivation and wisdom. I’ve decided to blog about the series, logging my thoughts and takeaways…
Day 23 creative genius – Neil Strauss.
I’m actually not familiar with Neil Strauss and his work. But this interview was definitely captivating and introduced me to his personality and cleverness. I think that he’s an amazingly interesting person to listen to, if not also talk to!
There were lots of nuggets of wisdom and chatter about the creative process. However, there’s nothing new in what Strauss is trying to tell us. The age old tips that most creative professionals will tell us about are all the same. In a nutshell…
Neil Strauss says… Embrace your fears, accept them and do it anyway.
You can watch this interview by signing up for FREE – 30 Days of Genius at CreativeLive. Enjoy!
* Please note there are affiliate links in this post. That means if you purchase after clicking through, I might receive a small commission (at no cost to you). All opinions are my own and thank you for supporting me!
by Linda | May 23, 2016 | my creative journal
This month I decided to watch the video interviews on CreativeLive by Chase Jarvis and get some daily inspiration, motivation and wisdom. I’ve decided to blog about the series, logging my thoughts and takeaways…
Day 22 creative genius – Austin Kleon.
I’m familiar with Austin Kleon’s blackout poems and his two popular books I have read – Steal Like An Artist and Show Your Work – I’ve blogged about it previously. He’s super laid back and I love his general philosophy of being an artist. Refining all that we intake to create our own version, our own interpretation. He also encourages you to create lots, no matter if it’s bad, because that’s part of the process to arrive at what’s good.
Choose to find the inspiration.
I loved Kleon’s point about how his life is probably pretty mundane to many. He lives in the suburbs, he has kids and does all the normal family things. It’s a bit how I feel in taking care of little kids. We are super busy with just that part of life, it’s not like we are out trekking the mountains or hopping bars at night to get inspiration or “live it up.” Yet even in the everyday and seemingly mundane, there are gems of inspiration. It’s a frame of mind really. Perhaps that is the challenge, to find the inspiration and interesting bits that are worth mulling over and exploring – whatever our lives are like – wherever we are. Very cool.
There are many other amazing nuggets of wisdom. I suppose Kleon is very quotable… ahah!
Live below your means.
Monetary freedom is creative freedom.
Instead of do what you love, just love what you do.
Instead be yourself, be your best self.
Forget the noun, focus on the verb.
So many great tidbits. You definitely should listen to this interview.
You can watch this interview by signing up for FREE – 30 Days of Genius at CreativeLive. Enjoy!
* Please note there are affiliate links in this post. That means if you purchase after clicking through, I might receive a small commission (at no cost to you). All opinions are my own and thank you for supporting me!
by Linda | May 22, 2016 | my creative journal
This month I decided to watch the video interviews on CreativeLive by Chase Jarvis and get some daily inspiration, motivation and wisdom. I’ve decided to blog about the series, logging my thoughts and takeaways…
Day 21 creative genius – Daymond John.
I was not familiar with who Daymond John was, until I heard FUBU. I remember the brand, sure thing. His story is definitely inspiring… of one who did choose the road less travelled… of one who chose the more difficult road… but followed his heart. He was humbled and admits his faults, but always forges onward. Pretty cool.
People make things happen.
I really like how Jarvis pins this point in the interview. That ultimately, people get things done, it’s not that it happens to people or some kind of magical event. No, it’s just the hard work of people, who follow their passion to see it through.
Who are your friends?
Another great point about how important the people around you are… when it comes to psychology of things. The idea is that we can lift each other up and help inspire each other. Motivation and excitement feeds off each other and certainly we don’t want negative people around us either.
Visualize your future.
A classic for many of the successful folks out there is all about visualizing what you want. You have to be able to imagine it to achieve it. Not that it happens without work though!
You can watch this interview by signing up for FREE – 30 Days of Genius at CreativeLive. Enjoy!
* Please note there are affiliate links in this post. That means if you purchase after clicking through, I might receive a small commission (at no cost to you). All opinions are my own and thank you for supporting me!
by Linda | May 21, 2016 | my creative journal
This month I decided to watch the video interviews on CreativeLive by Chase Jarvis and get some daily inspiration, motivation and wisdom. I’ve decided to blog about the series, logging my thoughts and takeaways…
Day 20 creative genius – Brandon Stanton.
Humble creator of the Humans of NY, Brandon Stanton is a photographer, writer and speaker. Even if you don’t know his name, you have probably heard of or come across his work. He has so many followers and he is really straightforward about always focusing on his work, the stories of others and not himself. It’s not self-promotion.
Definitely an interesting perspective and a bit different for those of us who do personal work and have a lot of our identity in our business, so it’s difficult to be so behind the scenes.
One thing he said about social media that he dislikes is that it seems as if people are promoting themselves by showing how great their lives are… or how much better their lives are, because it’s all curated in social media. That is a harsh yet true statement, that often what we see is just a small window of the person’s life. Perhaps looking at someone’s social profiles is just like the new way of flipping through magazines and books of what people choose to publish.
On the flip side of things, I know that we all don’t want to share everything about our lives, impossible, right?
The big takeaway from this interview was when Stanton emphasized outworking people. As with others in this interview series, he talked about how your effort – how much you work – is what you can control. So he vowed that he would work hard. He also talked later about how following your dreams is about working hard. It’s not an excuse to not work…
Just enough… not enough.
Stanton was talking about how you have to work hard and obviously spend your time on your dream… if that’s what you claim to be following! True dat! In way, it’s like tough love, to really drill in the point. I totally understand that it’s easy to slip into excuses… so we need to be checked.
You can watch this interview by signing up for FREE – 30 Days of Genius at CreativeLive. Enjoy!
* Please note there are affiliate links in this post. That means if you purchase after clicking through, I might receive a small commission (at no cost to you). All opinions are my own and thank you for supporting me!
by Linda | May 20, 2016 | my creative journal
This month I decided to watch the video interviews on CreativeLive by Chase Jarvis and get some daily inspiration, motivation and wisdom. I’ve decided to blog about the series, logging my thoughts and takeaways…
Day 19 creative genius – Kevin Rose.
Founder of DIGG, the discussion about founders was a bit up there and seemingly out of my league. It was a lot about creating amazing new technologies, but at the same time, Rose talks about how it’s just starting with your idea and keeping at it.
Passion and aptitude.
Definitely there was the discussion around needing to have the aptitude to do great work, but that you also need that internal passion and drive. Without which you will not make it pass the obstacles. I think this is the case with anything. If you are able to stick it out, you’ll keep going and achieve some points of success. But when you come upon a hurdle, if you don’t really believe in your work, you will abandon it. I think it’s true with everything in life.
I think the idea is if you keep at a project, you’ll pivot and work through the struggles to find a way to move ahead. It might change the course of what you had imagined previously, but you keep moving forward. Perhaps it’s just the age old idea of hustling – hard work and perseverance.
You can watch this interview by signing up for FREE – 30 Days of Genius at CreativeLive. Enjoy!
* Please note there are affiliate links in this post. That means if you purchase after clicking through, I might receive a small commission (at no cost to you). All opinions are my own and thank you for supporting me!
by Linda | May 20, 2016 | my creative journal
I’m super excited and grateful to have created a little illustration for my friend Tanja Osswald to help promote her latest crochet pattern release – Snow Falling on Shadows. It’s a lovely shawl with multiple color blocks, beautiful, yes? And it’s crocheted! Definitely check out the pattern if you are interested – it’s on Ravelry here.
If you ever need illustration for your business from web to print to design, definitely drop me a line!
by Linda | May 19, 2016 | my creative journal
This month I decided to watch the video interviews on CreativeLive by Chase Jarvis and get some daily inspiration, motivation and wisdom. I’ve decided to blog about the series, logging my thoughts and takeaways…
Day 18 creative genius – Sophia Amoruso.
Founder of Nasty Gal and author of #girlboss, Sophia Amoruso is what Jarvis calls a powerhouse.
It’s amazing that she had such initiative at a young age, although she says she didn’t have a plan or really know what she was getting into. Quite simply, she hustled and kept trying different things to test out what worked.
I love how down to earth and straightforward she is in her conversation. She talks about how you don’t need to know the lingo or have influential friends to do what you want to do. She seems like such a calm person, it’s a bit bizarre against her brand “nasty gal” – huh?
I think this interview really brings big success and a fair amount of fame, back down to reality. It’s not untouchable, it’s not impossible and it can very much happen in our universe. Possibility, I suppose?
You can watch this interview by signing up for FREE – 30 Days of Genius at CreativeLive. Enjoy!
* Please note there are affiliate links in this post. That means if you purchase after clicking through, I might receive a small commission (at no cost to you). All opinions are my own and thank you for supporting me!
by Linda | May 18, 2016 | my creative journal
This month I decided to watch the video interviews on CreativeLive by Chase Jarvis and get some daily inspiration, motivation and wisdom. I’ve decided to blog about the series, logging my thoughts and takeaways…
Day 17 creative genius – Kevin Kelly.
Kevin Kelly is the founding executive editor of Wired Magazine. He is an editor and writer with a pretty famous blog, seemingly predicting what the next big things will be, in the creative community and technology. His latest book talks about the next 20 trends that will shape our lives, so you sort of get a sense of how he’s an idea guy.
Quantity over quality.
In his interview with Jarvis, he mentions the story of a professor that allowed students to be graded on the best project they submit – quality – or by weight, the quantity of projects done. It turns out that the best work comes from the group that focus on quantity… bringing up the point that we must do a lot, make mistakes and keeping going to create great work.
I really loved this point because I often get frozen in analysis or “perfection” of one thing, holding me back from releasing, trying, putting it out there. When in fact, it’s really proven to be more effective to create as much as possible! Another example of things that we sort of “know” but unable to follow through on, right?
Fail often… not a disaster.
At one point Kelly talks about failing often and it’s little things that you can handle. It’s a-okay. Instead of not tolerating failure and inevitably reaching a failure that brings our world down. That is so much worse! We must tolerate failure.
Lots of wisdom and creative talk, a great listen!
You can watch this interview by signing up for FREE – 30 Days of Genius at CreativeLive. Enjoy!
* Please note there are affiliate links in this post. That means if you purchase after clicking through, I might receive a small commission (at no cost to you). All opinions are my own and thank you for supporting me!
by Linda | May 17, 2016 | my creative journal
This month I decided to watch the video interviews on CreativeLive by Chase Jarvis and get some daily inspiration, motivation and wisdom. I’ve decided to blog about the series, logging my thoughts and takeaways…
Day 16 creative genius – Lewis Howes.
Inspiring story of hitting a bottom and working your way back up. It certainly makes you realize how good we might have it, compared to others and certain dramas. And it means we all have the same possibilities as everyone else in this world.
It’s hard to be grateful and angry.
I really loved how Howes said that, which is so true. Gratitude certainly helps to set our mind right and he talks about practicing it first thing in the morning to start your day right. On the vein of morning routines, Howes also talks about what he does and how it’s really about momentum of doing things. He says that he notices the difference on the days he does his morning routine versus not.
A lot of good nuggets and definitely straightforward inspiration from Howes in this interview, so you should definitely listen in!
You can watch this interview by signing up for FREE – 30 Days of Genius at CreativeLive. Enjoy!
* Please note there are affiliate links in this post. That means if you purchase after clicking through, I might receive a small commission (at no cost to you). All opinions are my own and thank you for supporting me!
by Linda | May 16, 2016 | my creative journal
This month I decided to watch the video interviews on CreativeLive by Chase Jarvis and get some daily inspiration, motivation and wisdom. I’ve decided to blog about the series, logging my thoughts and takeaways…
Day 15 creative genius – Ramit Sethi.
I’ve heard of Ramit Sethi before, but never got into his website or work previously. I was definitely intrigued after listening to this interview. I think his blog definitely goes to sharing nuggets of wisdom that might even seem like common sense at first. At least for the little of what I have seen so far.
I think the big takeaway is about getting to work and the possibility of whatever dream or passion you might have. Sethi speaks as if it’s all doable, you just got to figure it out. It might be hard work and take time, but yeah, it’s doable. Almost non-chalant.
I’m interested in exploring a bit more and checking out Sethi’s blog to learn more. Sometimes I feel a bit removed having little kids and not always being able to relate to xyz tactic or method. But I understand that it’s more important to learn concepts and apply strategy to my specific situation. What can I extract and use… even if situations are different?
Because obviously, we are all on our unique journey and nothing is the same. It’s never going to pan out exactly the same.
Although sometimes I feel like the claims are bit marketing salesy – I realize that there’s research that backs it up and perhaps I should listen up, before dismissing it all.
That’s actually a good point that was brought up in this interview, about how smart people sometimes want to skip the “known” stuff and get to the meat of things. Too much impatience and not building up the foundation. I must admit that is something I struggle with as well.
You can watch this interview by signing up for FREE – 30 Days of Genius at CreativeLive. Enjoy!
* Please note there are affiliate links in this post. That means if you purchase after clicking through, I might receive a small commission (at no cost to you). All opinions are my own and thank you for supporting me!
