Oct 17

Maximizing Creativity + Navigating the Messy Middle with Scott Belsky

Scott Belsky is an entrepreneur, author, and early investor in companies like Pinterest, Uber, and Periscope, and others. He also co-founded Behance in 2006, sold it to Adobe in 2012 and recently became Adobe’s Chief Product Officer.  But more than his list of accomplishments, Scott is a passionate advocate for creativity. He has that rare perspective of the world-class artist and entrepreneur with the ability to communicate VERY clearly about the ups, the downs of the messy middle. ... And... read more ›
Oct 10

The Most Important Conversation About Life… Death with Michael Hebb

Michael Hebb is an artist, activist, restaurateur, long time friend of mine and probably the closest thing that comes to an expert on death. He is a hyphenated renegade, seemingly more comfortable swimming upstream and addressing taboo subjects than he is going with the crowd. He co-founded Portland’s unsanctioned underground food movement, was my co-conspirator for Songs for Eating and Drinking, and he recently wrote a powerful book about death that will change the way... read more ›
Oct 03

Redemption and a Thirst for Change with Scott Harrison

Scott Harrison is the founder and CEO of one of my favorite non-profits:  charity:water which has brought clean water to 8.49 million people around the world. They’ve raised $320 million to date—and put it to good work. Scott just released his first book Thirst: A Story of Redemption, Compassion, and a Mission to Bring Clean Water to the World and it’s about time. He’s an incredible storyteller and, both in his book and in this... read more ›
Sep 26

Tim Ferriss on Creativity, Simplicity and the Power of Audio

You know him, you love him, you’ve heard him here before… today’s podcast guest is A DEAR friend and a legend by any measure. It’s the one and only, Mr. Tim Ferriss!  Author of five #1 New York Times best sellers, including his most recent Tribe of Mentors, star of his own TV show The Tim Ferriss Experiment, and host of one of the most popular podcasts in the world, The Tim Ferriss Show which... read more ›
Sep 19

Imagination and the Power of Change with Beth Comstock

One of the world’s most powerful women in business, Beth Comstock, recently left a 27 year career at GE as their Chief Marketing Officer and Vice Chair to go in a completely different direction - to a new life beyond the enterprise-exec world where her new areas of focus include writing, art, exploration and discovery.  Rarely do we see or hear of these evolutions - where someone like Beth who is so accomplished in big... read more ›
Sep 12

NBA All Star Detlef Schrempf on Success, Community, and his cameo in Parks & Recreation

Detlef Schrempf is certainly a hometown hero for myself and my 90’s Seattle basketball brethren...but he’s also a living example of a self-described “awkward” kid who, after stumbling his way into basketball as a teenager, discovered something he loved...and pursued it. Schrempf went on to play at pinnacle of his sport where he was a 2-time Olympian and a 3-time NBA All Star with the Seattle SuperSonics. That said, we learn in this interview that... read more ›
Sep 05

An audience of ONE is all it takes

QUESTION:  What if you only made work that YOU loved, and you were certain that you would be paid top dollar if you did...Would you do it?  Of course! Most sane creators / entrepreneurs would jump at the opportunity - and such is the topic of Srinivas Rao’s new book: An Audience of One: Reclaiming Creativity For Its Own Sake.  The problem is, so many of us are watering down our work making it for someone... read more ›
Aug 29

1,000 Paths to Success with Jack Conte

When it comes to career trajectories, Jack Conte is my brotha from anotha mothA !!  Our paths could not be more similar.... He started his career as a musician, was a YouTuber making videos, and turned tech entrepreneur by co-founding Patreon, an incredible tool for artists to get paid directly by their fans (just like Beethoven used to…) You are going to love this conversation. Jack’s career—be it in music, videos, or business—has been forged... read more ›
Aug 22

Start Before You’re Ready — with Humans of New York’s Brandon Stanton 

If you don’t know Brandon, you definitely know his work. Brandon is the creator of Humans of New York which has accumulated over 25 million followers and has since evolve to include two NYT-bestselling books (Humans of New York and Humans of New York: Stories) and a Humans of New York show on Facebook Watch. It has also spawned an entire genre of similar blogs, photo projects, with thousands of aspiring creators having been inspired by HONY’s... read more ›
Aug 15

Stop Trying To Get Everyone To Like Your Work

When I talk to creators and survey the industry landscape, I see a zillion creators trying to have all their work liked by all the people. This comes from our social animal DNA, but it's the completely wrong approach to success - whether that be measured by your work being licensed, sold, etc, or by getting hired, shown, talked about, displayed, whatever. Simply said, by trying to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one,... read more ›