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The creative process is twenty percent magical, eighty percent mechanical.  The necessary ingredients of progress are consistency and focus and commitment and grit.  Inspiration is helpful, but it’s not a predictable construct. And that’s okay. Because once a creator starts humbling himself as blue collar, middle class, job holding, clock punching, hardhat wearing, factory working, manual laboring, elbow greasing, wage earning, bread winning, rank and file, mercenary for hire,…

All open mic nights are the same.  Show up early, put your name on the list, get a drink, pretend to care about other people’s art for two hours, get up on stage, fumble around with a crappy sound system for five minutes, do your allotted time for seven minutes, thank the audience for judging you, pray that people come up to you after the set say hello, get…

Busking is a profoundly honest, simple and vulnerable way of sharing art.  Because all you can do is be good and rely on the goodwill of others. That’s the code.  I’ve been performing music in public for several years now, and the best piece of advice I was given was to treat every patron as a ten second love affair. After all, it’s brief but beautiful moment you share together….

If we don’t believe our dream is feasible and worth the effort it will take, if we can’t be trusted to make the changes and improvements that will give our dream a greater likelihood of success, if we’re not completely willing and able to carry that dream to fruition, and if we don’t possess the resilience to overcome setbacks along the way, we’re in for a world of disappointment….

All creativity begins with the moment of conception. That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here. Based on my books in The Prolific Series, I’m going…

Just because you miss a day, doesn’t mean you’re a piece of shit.  There’s no need to pull out the whip and start walloping yourself.  Because for every act of exertion, there’s an equal and opposite moment of acceptance. That’s the true mark of a growing, deepening practice. And it’s a deeply liberating, relaxing and satisfying place to be.  You’re disciplined, but you don’t have to beat yourself up….

The world loves to tell us there’s no money, there’s no jobs and everybody is going bankrupt.  The problem is, that script feeds perfectly into our sense of panic. It makes us small. It constricts our sense of possibility and closes our vision to the very opportunities that might actually earn us money. And then, that mindset restarts the cycle all over again.  But make no mistake, there’s plenty of…

I’ve been wearing a nametag every day for the past sixteen years.  Suffice it to say, there’s been a significant amount of resistance and rejection. People have given me death stares, walked away mid conversation, ripped the label right off my shirt, even started fights with me in the middle of the street.  All for wearing a nametag. Go figure. You’d be surprised how many things people are not…

We declare that money is not that important. There are more valuable things in life. That it’s noble to take a vow of poverty. That there’s pride in living on a shoestring. And that making a good living isn’t the sole arbiter of happiness and fulfillment.  But while those beliefs might be true, there’s a fine line between false modesty and financial irresponsibility.  A mentor of mine recently asked…

Where will the money come from?  That’s the looming question for any professional with unpredictable, episodic or portfolio based income. Handy addressed this crucial issue in his treatise on entrepreneurship nearly thirty years ago, and his response was fascinating. Because for a person living a cash flow life as opposed to a salary life, where money comes in fits from multiple sources, it’s almost impossible to answer that question with any…