Introducing The Creative Life Show

‘I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life – and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do’ – Georgia O’Keeffe 

The Creative Life Show podcast is live. I’m ridiculously excited.  

Firstly, a short story. 

In 1908, a talented student laid down her paint brushes for the last time. She was frustrated by being told that she couldn’t aspire to being an artist as a woman. Her family were unable to afford the college fees any longer, and she felt duty-bound to support her bankrupt, depressed father and her TB-stricken mother. She got a job drawing for adverts, and then moved home to help run her parents’ boarding house.

In 2014, Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No 1 sold for $44.4m, more than double the record for a female artist.

How did she go from abandoning her craft to becoming of the 20th century’s most celebrated painters?

We hear the ends of success stories. We sometimes hear the beginnings. But the real truth lies in the middle.

The middle is almost always messy. The middle is fraught with challenge, and resistance, and people who don’t believe in you.

The middle is fraught with let-downs, betrays, disappointments, rejections.

But the difference between success and frustration isn’t talent, or luck. It’s how we deal with those challenges. What we do, how we do it, and with whom. How we think. How we act.

In The Creative Life Show, I want to hear the stories of the middle. I want to know the challenges, the struggle, the what, the how and the who.

I’ve been interviewing wonderful creative achievers about how they’ve got to where they have. I’ve quizzed them about the hard times, the challenges, and, importantly, how they got through it. 

You have a creative fire in you

 A fire that can burn a path through the world, with your message and your voice.

You have a fire that can inspire.

And yet, sometimes the world seems to be suffocating it from all sides. Overwhelm, exhaustion, pressures to earn a living, support a family, nurture or lead others: they’re all part of it. 

So I want the Creative Life Show to be for you.

I want it to be the place you come to for inspiration, motivation and resources when nothing’s going according to plan, and for even more energy when it is.

There are three episodes live, and each week, I’ll be releasing a new interview. (I’ve got some fabulous names coming up!).

Episode 1: How’s your creative life? Your personal unstuckness audit

I take you through a really great tool that helps you understand where your creative resilience comes from. How well equipped are you to get yourself unstuck? The answers might surprise you. You’ll also find out more about me, and what The Creative Life Show is all about.

Episode 2: How to discover unlimited creativity when you’re totally stuck, with Noah Scalin

It’s a thrill to launch Creative Life Show interviews with the artist and activist Noah Scalin. On the surface, Noah is a successful artist, consultant and writer. But his story started as a frustrated, bored graphic designer, desperate to get himself out of a rut. On a whim, he committed to making and sharing a new piece of art a day – a Skull a Day. The project became a global viral hit, and led to a whole new creative business and life. If you can’t find the idea that inspires you, then my interview with Noah has some great ideas for how starting small can lead to extraordinary results.

Episode 3: How to stop people-pleasing and be really productive instead, with Grace Marshall

Do you ever feel that there’s just too much stuff getting in the way? Or find yourself prioritising what other people want from you? If so, my conversation with Grace Marshall is essential listening. Grace is the author of two fabulous books on productivity, including her latest, How to be Really Productive, published by Pearson, and she’s been inspiring me for years with her sane, humane wisdom on how to get more done and free up creative brain space.

How to listen to the Creative Life Show

If you’ve never listened to a podcast before, it’s very easy. There are 3 very straightforward ways of listening.

• LIsten here (or follow the ‘podcast’ link above).  
• Go to iTunes via this link and choose the episode you want. 
• Use a podcast app, such as the iPhone’s native one, or Overcast, and search on there for The Creative Life Show. 

Leave a comment below (or under the podcast episode), and tell me what you discover. Thanks for listening!