Todd Henry is a creator for creators. He makes tools and resources that help creatives succeed, personally and professionally. His four books, The Accidental Creative, Louder Than Words, Die Empty, and his newest Herding Tigers, cover all angles of succeeding as a creative; from finding your voice, to being creative on demand, to managing teams of creatives. He’s an arms dealer for the creative revolution.
Whether you’re just starting a project and aren’t sure how to structure your days, weeks, and deliverables or you manage an entire team of creatives, Todd shares insights, tools, and tactics on how to ensure you cross the finish line being proud of the body of work you created.
In today’s episode,
- If you want to be a creative who is prolific for years to come, then creating habits that prioritize your longevity as a creator is mission critical.
- We are bad at judging our own work, so it’s important to surround yourself with people who will speak the truth.
- You’ve got to be very intentional about planning your time and then acting on your plans if you’re going to pursue your own vision instead of someone else’s.
Enjoy!
We can’t be our most creative amidst chaos.
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Some Questions I Ask:
- What got you started in the creative movement? [2:55]
- What do you mean by an “on demand” creator? [5:10]
- Talk to me about wellness, longevity, and self care for the creator? [7:35]
- What are some common threads around the habits and systems around building creativity on demand? [10:30]
- Do you find that creatives’ side hustle ends up being their next thing? [17:15]
- Why did you write Herding Tigers and what do we need to know about it? [21:00]
- What are some habits and patterns for individual creators? [25:10]
- Are you suggesting that it’s the leader’s responsibility to manage the team’s chaos to stability ratio? [32:00]
- What’s the healthy self talk for individual creators? [33:45]
- Give some examples of the great things that come from your Morning Pages routine? [35:55]
- What are some tactics for creating and following through on your own vision? [42:12]
- How do you find the people who will help you stay on course? [43:55]
- Inside of an organization, whose role is it to speak the truth? [44:57]
- What are your personal creative habits? How do you own your creative process? [46:10]
- How does the 20 mile march technique relate to flow? [51:20]
- What kinds of tools do you use to be creative? [56:45]
- When do you make it a point to track your daily practices? [58:45]
- How many daily tasks do you have on your list? [59:30]
- Do you share your dailies with anyone or is it private? [59:56]
- What’s next for you? [60:10]
- Give some advice for the folks who are going from 0-1 and for the folks who are going from 1-10. [62:20]
In This Episode, You Will Learn:
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- How I got a $9,000 bill for a popular video podcast back when you had to pay for your video bandwidth. [1:50]
- Todd started The Accidental Creative by scratching his own itch and asking himself “how can I stay healthy as a creative? [3:00]
- Why constraints are necessary if you want to make great work. [6:50]
- The most prolific creatives have the best rituals. [8:30]
- Why the most prolific creators prioritize focus- know what you’re choosing to work on and what you’re choosing not to work on. [11:47]
- How to use relationships to inspire your best work. [12:34]
- How to prune your perfectly good creative fruit to make space for even better work. [13:19]
- Why doing things perpendicular to your nature can help stimulate great work and great ideas. [15:00]
- Why, even if you’re a full time creator, you should make time for secret work. All of my most successful ideas came from starting side projects- my career in photography, Best Camera App, and CreativeLive. [15:45]
- How to transition from a great creator to a great leader. [23:00]
- If you’re managing creatives be sure to give your team stability, clarity, protection, challenge, and a clear why. [25:51]
- Why Todd uses Morning Pages to clear his mind and control the stories he’s telling himself. [35:30]
- How to approach your body of work with a healthy mindset. [39:39]
- Why you need to surround yourself with people who will speak the truth to you. [42:30]
- The lowdown on Todd’s morning routine, which he’s had for 15 years. [47:17]
- Todd’s unique writing habit that allows him to continue with his writing flow, day after day that he learned from Great By Choice by Jim Collins. [48:00]
- Check out Scrivener if you write. [56:56]
- How Todd tracks his daily activity, learnings and priorities. [58:18]
- Why it’s imperative to find people who will speak truth to you. [63:00]
This podcast is brought to you by CreativeLive. CreativeLive is the world’s largest hub for online creative education in photo/video, art/design, music/audio, craft/maker, money/life and the ability to make a living in any of those disciplines. They are high quality, highly curated classes taught by the world’s top experts — Pulitzer, Oscar, Grammy Award winners, New York Times best selling authors and the best entrepreneurs of our times.
