BRAVE • FOCUSED • BRILLIANT 5 Things You're Not Managing (That Are Managing You) You’re talented, driven, and full of ideas. Why do you still feel stuck, overwhelmed, or like your best work is always just out of reach? In a recent conference talk in Scottsdale, Arizona, I shared five areas where creative pros must build discipline if they want to do meaningful work. In the latest episode of Daily Creative, I shared a live talk from Scottsdale, Arizona, drawing from my book The Accidental...
10 days ago • 3 min read
BRAVE • FOCUSED • BRILLIANT The Inner Game of Creative Leadership Whether you lead a team, your peers, or your clients, managing your inner game is essential if you want to end up where you intended. (Otherwise, you might find yourself far from where you set out to go.) Do you feel tired? I've been talking to a lot of leaders lately who just... almost inexplicably... feel exhausted. It's not like the workload is any more. It's just dealing with uncertainty, pressure, and emotional heaviness....
17 days ago • 3 min read
BRAVE • FOCUSED • BRILLIANT Banana Ball How Jesse Cole went from being a "bored out of his mind" baseball coach to creating one of the most epic shows in sports, with a little inspiration from Walt Disney. What if you could transform routine work into something... unforgettable? Most creative pros know the grind—the endless emails, the methodical process, the struggle to inspire not just clients, but even ourselves. But what if you scrapped the rulebook, let go of “professional,” and decided...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
BRAVE • FOCUSED • BRILLIANT How To Think In Systems In the face of uncertainty, understanding how systems work can unlock pathways you couldn't previously see. In this week's podcast episode, Robert Siegel and Seth Godin offer advice for standing firm in times of change. The world is moving faster than ever, with tectonic shifts in technology, culture, and business happening seemingly overnight. Old rules no longer apply, leaving creative pros to carve new paths amid the chaos. In this week's...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
BRAVE • FOCUSED • BRILLIANT Simplify Learning To Think More Strategically What if you could shift your learning from "just in case" to "just in time"? On this week's Daily Creative episode, Pat Flynn teaches the art of lean learning. It's too easy to find yourself overwhelmed with information, advice, and endless to-do lists, hoping that the next resource will finally unlock clarity in your work. What if the solution to doing your best, most impactful work isn’t about learning more—but...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
BRAVE • FOCUSED • BRILLIANT Working With Complicated People This week's podcast featured some great advice from Ryan Leak and James Kimmel about how to manage workplace conflicts and grievances. Ever fantasized about sending a scorched-earth resignation email or confronting that “complicated” colleague head-on? In this week's Daily Creative episode, we explore the messy realities and hidden costs of revenge in the workplace—and uncover healthier, more powerful strategies for navigating...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
BRAVE • FOCUSED • BRILLIANT Ideas Are Easy, Making Them Great Is What Matters Brilliant, impactful ideas are more like to be forged over time than to emerge in a flash of spontaneous inspiration. Are you dedicating the time and energy necessary to give your ideas their best chance at success? In the late 1980’s, a graduate student named Thomas Knoll was working on his PhD thesis at the University of Michigan when he faced a simple but frustrating problem: he needed a better way to display...
2 months ago • 4 min read
BRAVE • FOCUSED • BRILLIANT How To Stay Optimistic Optimism isn't "wishful thinking." It's a practical, necessary, forward-looking element of doing brilliant, brave work. And if you lead others, it's a critical part of getting others to follow you. In my most recent book The Brave Habit, I wrote about the two qualities that tend to be present when brave decisions are made: Perceived Agency, and Optimistic Vision. It can be difficult to maintain optimistic vision in the midst of uncertain...
3 months ago • 3 min read
BRAVE • FOCUSED • BRILLIANT Why You Get Stuck: Definition, Motivation, Systems Getting stuck when doing difficult, creative work is normal. However, staying stuck is a choice. There are three common, though not intuitive, places where you might be digging yourself into a rut. “Stuckness” is just a part of doing hard things. However, simply plowing through the work is not necessarily the answer. Creative paralysis, or “creative block”, is often the result of inattention to a few key areas....
3 months ago • 4 min read
