I want to welcome you to the 200th episode of our podcast. Unlocking your world of creativity,

Who would've thought two years ago, that we would sustain this momentum of interviewing 200 creatives from around the world, and how they get inspired. It's been wonderful.

You know, I set out to learn by interviewing authors musicians, restaurant tours, marketeers scientists, and actors; I even interviewed a celebrity dentist from "Extreme Makeover."

I wanted to invite a few of the guests to give you an update on what they're currently doing. so you're going to hear in this episode messages from many of the creatives that we've talked to, but I also thought I'd give you kind of a six-point recap of my main takeaways and it inspired me.

I'll be doing a future episode on some of the takeaways from all these interviews, but I thought for now I would give you six points.

1. Number one is that all of the great creatives I've talked to had a signature method, there was some process or style that they could name and describe and document and teach that became their own brand of creativity.
2. Number two, they have resilience. They don't just brush off rejection, but instead, they have a true drive to fulfill what they think is a creative dream. And even on the level of a mission, these creatives literally didn't take no for an answer. They learned from their mistakes. They adjust to advance, but this persistence and resilience was something I was really inspired by.
3. The third thing I took away was the collaboration. these creatives sought collaborators that they could work with, who would complement their craft, and who could accelerate their art. It might be a producer, it might be another artist. It might be a songwriter to complement their, you know, a lyricist to complement their song. So there might be another rock band to interview, and there might be other writers to collaborate with.
4. Number four was a grasp of the numbers, the data, the finances, you know, successful creators viewed their craft as an enterprise, a business that also needed financial management, even profit and loss. So I spoke with an accountant. I spoke with, producers who were focused on the financial management side, not just the creative production. I talk to people who taught classes, even on pricing your services, to get an idea that we don't just get paid by the hour or by the download. But by the value of our creative work,
5. number five is that we have contingency plans. There's a sense of what if we know we're going to face obstacles. So we have to have backup ideas, several angles. We have to try even in times of difficulty. So I was impressed by the creatives who, you know, tried one way and went one medium and tried another one or that somebody might have even tried a pseudonym, or I tried to perform under one name and I decided to go back to my original name. All of these stories were quite inspiring.
6. number six, the last thing I took away was the leadership that we not only admire leaders and emulate leaders in our industries, but also leaders in all industries, but also people who embrace their own leadership and recognize they need to serve as a role model and an example to others. And that might be speaking to you that says, you know, you can look outside your craft, but what about inside to see what sort of mentorship and leadership you could provide?

So enjoy these conversations and updates from the guests.

also, remember, and I mentioned this at the end of almost every episode, I do have an eBook of about 12 or so interviews from our very first series of "a world of creativity," plus some bonus content. And this is the full eBook. This is 200-plus pages of interviews. You can find it at my website, mark-stinson.com. It's right on the homepage, easy to download the PDF of the full eBook of the world of creativity.

Hey, by the way, the next episode will be highlights of all the music we've featured in our podcast. So I hope you'll come along then, but for now enjoy these guest messages from:

Christof Zürn - linkedin.com/in/creativecompanion

Deborah Claire Procter - linkedin.com/in/deborahclaireprocter ; clearinsight.co.uk 

Dennis Morrison - linkedin.com/in/dennismorrison ; audiencemagnet.com

G Mark Phillips - linkedin.com/in/gmarkphillips

Angela Soffe - linkedin.com/in/angelasoffe ; https://www.angelasoffe.com/

Mark Graban - linkedin.com/in/mgraban ; markgraban.com/ 

Yiqing Zhau - linkedin.com/in/yiqing-zhao-329a11a6 ; coaching.yiqingzhao.com 

Diego Kolsky - linkedin.com/in/diegokolsky ; diegokolsky.com 

Jude Warne - https://judewarne.com/

Wayne Mullins - linkedin.com/in/fireyourself ; UglyMugMarketing.com

Rebecca De Ornelas - linkedin.com/in/rebecca-de-ornelas ; https://www.yourstoryartisan.com/

Well, this is mark, and I just want to welcome you to the 200th episode of our podcast. Unlocking your world of creativity,

Tap into your most original thinking, organize your ideas, and create the opportunities to launch your creative work. Unlocking your world of creativity with bestselling author and brand innovator, mark Stinson,

Who would've thought two years ago, that we would sustain this momentum of interviewing 200 creatives from around the world, how they get inspired. It's been wonderful. You know, I set out to learn by interviewing authors musicians, restaurant tours, marketeers scientists, actors. I even interviewed a celebrity dentist from extreme makeover, and I wanted to invite a few of the guests to give you an update what they're currently doing. so you're going to hear in this episode messages from many of the creatives that we've talked to, but I also thought I'd give you kind of a six-point recap of my main takeaways and it inspired me. I I'll be doing a future episode on some of the takeaways from all these interviews, but I thought for now I would give you six points. Number one is that all of the great creatives I've talked to had a signature method, there was some process or style that they could name and describe and document and teach that became their own brand of creativity.

So I think that's something we can all learn from number two, they have resilience. They don't just brush off rejection, but instead they have a true drive to fulfill what they think is a creative dream. And even on the level of a mission, these creatives literally didn't take no for an answer. They learned from their mistakes. They adjust to advance, but this persistence and resilience was something I was really inspired by. The third thing I took away was the collaboration. these creatives sought collaborators that they could work with, who would complement their craft, who could accelerate their art. It might be a producer, it might be another artist. It might be a songwriter to complement their, you know, a lyricist to complement their song. So there might be another rock band to interview, and there might be other writers to collaborate with.

I really took away this partnership idea that we didn't have to work alone. Number four was a grasp of the numbers, the data, the finances, you know, successful creators, viewed their craft as an enterprise, a business that also needed financial management, even profit and loss. So I spoke with an accountant. I spoke with, producers who were focused on the financial management side, not just the creative production. I talk to people who taught classes, even on pricing your services, to get an idea that we don't just get paid by the hour or by the download. But the, by the value of our creative work, number five is that we have contingency plans. There's a sense of what if we know we're going to face obstacles. So we have to have backup ideas, several angles. We have to try even in times of difficulty. So I was impressed by the creatives who, you know, tried one way and went one medium and tried another one or that somebody might have even tried a pseudonym, or I tried to perform under one name.

And I decided to go back to my original name. All of these stories were quite inspiring. And number six, the last thing I took away was the leadership that we not only admire leaders and emulate leaders in our industries, but also leaders in all industries, but also people who embrace their own leadership and recognize they need to serve as a role model and an example to others. And that might be speaking to you that says, you know, you can look outside your craft, but what about inside to see what sort of mentorship and leadership you could provide? So enjoy these conversations and updates from the other guests, but also remember, and I mentioned this at the end of almost every episode, I do have an eBook of about, 12 or so interviews from our very first series of a world of creativity, plus some bonus content. And this is the full eBook. This is 200 plus pages of interviews. You can find it at my website, mark hyphen stinson.com. It's right on the homepage, easy to download the PDF of the full eBook of the world of creativity. So for now, thanks for coming by, Hey, by the way, the next episode will be highlights of all the music we've featured in our podcast. So I hope you'll come along then, but for now enjoy these interviews. And we'll talk to you again soon.

Hi, this is Angela. So I first want to say congratulations to unlocking your world of creativity, 200 episodes. That's amazing. Congratulations. And thank you so much for having me on as your guest. I want to tell you about something exciting that I'm releasing my third single solo record, it's called bloom. And this record is coming out of Nashville. And these songs, each of the songs is about something personal to me or about my fans. And I went back and forth to Nashville during this time when all the airplanes were empty and it was just me and a bunch of amazing musicians in Nashville working on this record. And I owe so much to my team and I'm very excited to be releasing this. So I've been dropping singles, right, and left. So the full record it's on Spotify. And if you go to my socials, you can find links.

I've had some collaborators on this. That's been really special. Some artists I love, I love visual artists and I've had a woman from Ukraine paint, one of my single covers while she was in hiding and her home was being bombed. And I've had a woman in Mexico city paint the cover, the album artwork. And I'm just so honored to have such a collaborative spirit about this whole record. So I would love to have you join me on this journey. You can join my mailing list, which is a bunch of like fun stories and you get access to behind the scenes stuff and you can join it at Angela. so.com a N G E L a S O F F E. Sounds like, and it looks like Angela Sophie, and you can also follow me on all the socials. It's Angela. So music on Instagram and Facebook. I also have a coaching business called hero where I teach women how to turn their passions into their income. And if you're interested in that, you can find more about that as well at this is Heroku. Thank you so much for having me and congratulations and wishing you all the creative success in the world.

Hello, mark Christoff here. Christoff turn creative companion, founder of music, thinking.com and member of the me group think tank, mark, congratulations to the 200th podcast. I really, really love the podcast and what an honor to be on one of them. You asked me to given a few minutes an overview, what happened after our conversation? And I'm happy to do this was my first podcast conversation ever. And after that I heard back and I thought, Hey, wow, that sounds good. And that's, also a compliment to you. And, because of you, I started my own podcast. The power of music thinking went online, last May 19th. And the power of music thinking is a podcast where I talk with people that are doing something special and are musicians because music thinking that was the main theme that we had in our conversation is still my, my main theme.

And I ask people from all over the world from Finland to California, to Cyprus, I ask them about music. I ask them about the business and because they are working in business and doing something special and also musicians, these two, three fields they merge and that's the essence of the work of the podcast. So there was one thing I started and I look back to, I don't know, I think it's already 15 conversations, so I still have a lot, a lot of conversations to go. So you are in that sense are the big master, but there more happened. And that's, I finished my book. I finished the book, the power of music thinking it's published in, in Europe, in, in April this year. And it will be in the us in August. So if you, if you go to the website, music, thinking.com, there, all the information, also the information where you can buy the book and the book is about what music thinking all about.

It starts with what is music. I explain my framework of listen, tune, play, and perform. And I dive into all the cues, six cues like empathy, personality score, jamming, agility, and REMS. And I show people how they can use this kind of thinking in a business term. So that's one thing about the book. Another thing is there are a lot of exercises and, nearly all of the exercises have a template that you can download from the website. So use can directly from the book via QR code, but as a tip, if you go to music, think.com and you look for the download page, the templates are already there. Plus every week from April on, I also posted a key visual, a key visual, like you, you might know this, like a squiggle, a squiggly you do on a, on a piece of paper.

So something chaotic. And I realized that to get out of the chaos is like something like a sign wave going up, going down. And so this sign wave is for me a symbol from getting out of the chaos via a musical way and making something, something, interesting further in the book, in the backstage chapter, there are also some kind of playlist, and there's one playlist that I want to share with you. If you know a house of the rising sun, I dove into Spotify and we're looking for different versions of house, of the rising sun. And there, I made a playlist of them where you can listen to 25 different variations interpretations with text, without text of house of the rising sun. So if you really want to dive into music thinking and take, let's say house of the rise exam as some kind of score, then you can listen in 25 ways how this score is realized. So mark, thank you very much for your inspiration, with your podcast and having me as a guest and you see what comes out of it. It's a podcast, it's a book and still going strong. Thank you very much. Good luck and yeah. Speak to you maybe in one of the next, 200 episodes.

Mark, thank you so much for inviting me to be a part of your 200th episode. That is awesome. Congratulations. I too look back on those interviews fondly and I learned so much from those guests. It was such an opportunity. So thank you for pitching that idea to me. I really appreciate it. So what I've been up to, let me just, put this in a nutshell here for you, but I still love the podcast medium. I love the audio media, but for the time being as a solo creator, you know, you have to make some tough choices sometimes about where to put your time and energy. That is in projects that are the most meaningful and fulfilling and satisfying to us. I'm sure you can relate in your guests and listeners can relate. So that's what I've been doing is moving more toward video content and also a gradual shift, a gentle, gradual shift away from business and lifestyle topic to more social and humanitarian and cultural topics.

As I see what's happening in the world and the USS involvement in what's happening in many parts of the world in, in different countries and some of the, you know, humanitarian issues that are arising. I never thought I would be on my soapbox or using my platform to talk about, you know, humanitarian or, or social issues like I have been doing, but I've been compelled to do that as I see what's happening in different parts of the world and, and really the, the suffering for lack of a better word that human beings are experiencing because of, you know, various situations. And like I say, foreign policy that the, the us is involved with the us does a lot of amazing things and we're a special, great country, but when we get it wrong, we really get it wrong. And that's one of the things that I've been using my platform to talk about in that vein.

I also recorded my first comedy special, which again is part of that gentle gradual shift of moving more into alignment with who I really am and my core values. And that's something that's been really exciting to explore. My top three core values have always been fun, freedom and full self-expression. That's what the, the channel and my content and my, media business has been about from the very beginning. And it's been very interesting to see and really get in tune with myself and, and ask myself, okay, is your content in alignment with this? And to that point, a lot of my content was not fully in alignment with the fun aspect. And so as I bring more fun into it, like I said, I created my first comedy special. You can find that at Gmarkphillips.com/comedy and, you know, that's something that I'm really ex really looking forward to exploring more in the future. So look for more of that, you can find all of my stuff@gmarkphillips.com and also at GmarkPhillips on every social media platform. So thanks again for inviting me for your 200 episode. That's awesome. Congratulations. And I look forward to listening to it and hearing all of your guests share their piece about where they're at and what they're working on. So thanks mark. Have an awesome day.

Hi, this is Jude Warren here, the rock biographer and music writer. I wanted to say, congratulations, mark. On the 200th episode of your fantastic podcast, unlocking your world of creativity. I had such a great time when I got to appear on it and discuss my book America, the band and authorized biography, which was published and released in 2020 in conjunction with the band's 50th anniversary. There is a new book coming out about the band Bob Dylan's band for a time who created a legendary career of their own and illustrious lauded catalog that I wrote a chapter for the book is called rags and bones and exploration of the band. And the chapter that I wrote is called caught in the spotlight, the band's performance anxiety in stage fright in which I analyzed the entire great album in detail. And I discussed the group's career at that time.

That was so fun to work on. And the book is being published via university of Mississippi, press with a release date of December 15th of this year, but you can pre-order it now on the publisher's website, as well as amazon.com. I'm also developing a new book of my own that traces the career and analyzes the catalog of a legendary pop rock artist who started in the sixties and rose to greater prominence in the seventies, and then through the early eighties and who still works in tours today. And I hope to have some exciting news to announce about that very soon. In the meantime, you can check out more of my work and writing on my website, which is aptly named www dot Jude, warn.com. You can also follow me on Instagram and Twitter at the handle Jude warn writer. Thank you so much. And congrats again, mark,

Mark. Congratulations on 200 episodes. That's a huge accomplishment. So really happy to hear, that you've hit that milestone. this is mark graban here. I really enjoyed being a guest with you. Here's a little bit of the update on what I've been doing. I was working from home for 23 months because of the pandemic, but I've been back out on the road a lot since February, working with a healthcare client. So it's really good to be back out there, working with people in person, you know, we're tapping into really the world of creativity that exists in the different healthcare professionals who are involved in sterilizing and prepping instruments, surgical instruments for surgeons and their patients, you know, improving the quality of, how that work is done. Well, a new project that's continuing is, a, a business podcast called my favorite mistake, where I interview business leaders.

And I think other really interesting people from all sorts of different fields and backgrounds about their favorite mistake and their career, you know, what, what makes a mistake a favorite? Well, I think a favorite mistake is something that turned out to be a learning opportunity. It's something that opened new doors in an unexpected way. I've interviewed over 180 people over 18 months asking them the same question. What's your favorite mistake? And you know, the podcast really explores learning from mistakes, why it's important to be open about mistakes, how that helps us as individuals, how it helps us as leaders and organizations. So I've really enjoyed doing that podcast. I I'm I've, I've just started writing where I'm working on a book, kind of based on the stories and the lessons from the, my favorite mistake podcast. So I'd invite people to check it out. They can search wherever they're listening to this podcast. They can search for my favorite mistake. You, you you'll find the she Crow song my favorite mistake, but if you search my favorite mistake podcast, you're, you're probably more likely to find it. Maybe that was a mistake in naming the podcast, or you can go to my favorite mistake, podcast.com, but mark again, congratulations on your 200 episodes. And thanks for inviting me to share this update with you and your listeners.

This is Rebecca Darren Ellis. And since being a guest on unlocking your world of creativity, I have launched two seasons of my podcast, the waystation, and I'm currently recording my third. You can check out the podcast on YouTube at the waste station pod, and also check us out on apples, Spotify, and wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts,

Mark, congratulations on 200 episodes. I'm so happy for you, but I'm also so happy for the impact that you're having on the lives of so many others. So many creatives around the world. I know that whenever I need creative inspiration, whenever I need a new idea, your show always sparks ideas. For me, it always helps me connect the unconnected things. So I just want to take a second and say, thank you so much for the work you do. Thank you so much for the energy and the effort and the love that you put into your podcast. As for me, we are in the process of renovating some office space here at ugly mug marketing. we're finally expanding into the last portion of our office. So now we have all 4,000 square feet making room for some new people, and we've got this really cool mural.

We just had some local artists come doing our wall. And we, we had this couch, reupholstered, this couch had been in the building since the seventies, and we had it reupholstered in this crushed velvet pink fabric that matches this amazing mural these artists did behind us. So, you know, it's just, it's always fun to watch what other creatives are doing, whether that's with their hands. Reupholstering a culture with paint on a wall with a mural. And it's such an inspiration for me, someone who spends my days being creative in the marketing world, in the ad world in create creating campaigns that are unique and that are different. So that's what we've been up to here at ugly mug marketing. But again, mark, thank you so much for the gift that you give the world. Thank you so much for pouring your time and attention into your podcast. So from all of us out here to you congrats on 200 episodes and here's do many more.

Hi, this is ING. I am an award-winning actor, filmmaker and creativity coach for artists and entrepreneurs. I help passionate, multihyphenate overcome burnout, get clarity and get results. And what I've been working on recently. Well, in Q1 this year, I've set up my all women production company, fearless cutie pie productions. And we made a short film called made in heaven. It's a romcom about a closeted Asian lesbian coming out. So a very fun story. we're also developing a feature alongside with my coaching. That's what I've been doing. so yeah, this year has been full of creativity sparks. I moved into a new home with my puppy, Lucy, and everything's been going well. So where can you find me? I have so many links, but I'm going to give you this one link of my link tree. That's L I N KTR dot E E slash Y IQ I N G Z H a O.

There you will find all the links that you're curious about to find more about me. And I'm also giving away a freebie called seven questions to get you unstuck. It's a fillable PDF worksheet to help you quickly generate momentum and take the next step. take the next actionable step. So, you can subscribe to my newsletter if you want that PDF. my website is coaching dot Y IQ I N G Z H ao.com. I also hang out on Instagram a lot, so you can find me on Instagram. So yeah, that's, what's been going on with me and I hope you are doing wonderful. Stay tuned. I am also going to start a podcast called creative genius captivated. So stay tuned for that as well. Let's hang out and I wish you all the best stay creative. Stay well. Take care and talk soon.

Hi mark. This is Deborah Claire Proctor from Claire insight productions. It's lovely to be here celebrating the growth of your podcast. I was episode 36. So my episode was back on the 7th of January in 2021, which was just near my birthday. I'm in, in the same line of loving to experiment, loving to find new perspectives. my company clear insight productions has been busy working with Oscar Adelstein, who has six releases of new music, been working together on videos for each of those. And there's two tracks of my vocals, El Rio and Mary POA Electrica. So I encourage you whether you are a hundred percent or not, a hundred percent clear, insightful, or productive to just keep finding a way and realize that creativity and your rational side and your logical side can go hand in hand. I found myself embracing Excel, which I don't use particularly perfectly, but I found it a very good way to be able to track all the different elements of the work in the projects I'm working on.

That involve video. They involve sound clips, and I need to work out if I, if it's the right sound clip, if it's the right video, the right archive. So for me at the moment, my creativity is also very much connected with my ability to organize information. So I use a tool called Mac journal, which is actually free, which is an amazing digital notebook and everything I do gets a file made and I can easily get my hands on information. That's what I think really creativity is about for me, it's about not wasting time doing things that I can do once and never have to do again, which will give me more time to sit in the sun because here in buenos aires, it's beautiful. And, and that's my biggest learning as a mid-career artist that I encourage any younger professionals to keep going and not to think there's some perfect version of everything it's really staying on.

The horse, I think is, is the biggest part of the game. Staying motivated, staying inspired. I do my monthly or not always monthly newsletter because I also want to share things that are going on within my community, within my colleagues. I was a great addict of coffee, shop tables, information tables, and, library notice boards because, you know, there's always there maybe one workshop, one, one class, one talk that can really change things for you. So I always think of myself as a lifelong learner. I think of culture as this amazing way that we can stay connected and anthropologist, Victor Turner talked about community task. That rare sense of togetherness. And I think coronavirus the killing of George Floyd that was so emotive at that same time. And now what we are experiencing globally, it really becomes a moment to be building bridges, not walls, to finding ways to connect. So thanks mark. And I look forward to more of your podcast.

Hi mark. Thanks for inviting me to be featured on your 200th episode. I'm Dennis Morrison from audience magnet. And I want to tell you what's been happening here over the last couple of months. Now, the creative industry has been seriously impacted over the last couple of years. My mission is for creatives to have the financial freedom that they desire without waiting to be chosen by someone else with our a B business storytelling program. I'm really nicheing down. And I'm focusing on film and video professionals and graduates with their training skills and expertise. They are perfect to offer business storytelling services, to companies who are struggling to connect with their ideal audience market, their products and services, and sell more. So this is an opportunity for them to use their current skills and transform it into offering services to businesses who, to be honest, don't have that creativity and have that skill yet.

They need it to grow their business. The business storytelling program helps them gain a real skill that can help them create the life that they desire and design. I want to remove the feast and famine cycle of working in the creative industry, going from job to job, waiting to be chosen. And at the moment, many people are looking for jobs and they're just not there as a creative, we have a special secret source and we deserve to be paid for the skills we bring to the table. This is an opportunity to be able to offer a service that's highly sought. After that commands premium rates. This will lead to more financial freedom, which means more creative freedom, free to choose the projects you want to work on free to choose who you want to work with. The audience magnet business accelerator is a 10 week intensive program.

That includes 12 months of business mentorship and support it's cohort based. And we're opening up enrollments in June within the program, you have all the tools and resources. You need to build a lucrative service based business. If this interests you and you want to find out more head on over to audience, magnet.com, click on, apply now and get added to our wait list. I'll be in touch with you as soon as enrollment opens up. And if you'd like to connect with me, head on over to LinkedIn, go to linkedin.com/in/ Dennis Morrison and mentioned that you heard me on the unlocking your world of creativity podcast. I can't wait to hear from you.

Hey mark. Wow. 200 episodes. That's one of those numbers that is, hard for the human mind to grasp, to really understand what it means for 200 creatives to share, you know, their dreams, their visions, their methods, and how they work. It's been quite a right for all of us, for you, but also for us. So thank you so much for putting that together. I think it's one of the most prominent creative forums that I visit. There's just so much there and so much more to come. It's, it's great. Take a deep breath. You deserve it. As for me, we talked at the beginning of the pandemic and not by chance. I think my work revolved more around families, sports and health. We, with my business partner, we helped create firstly, which is a budget calculator for families that integrates different accounts, helps people stay on top of their finances.

We also work with progeny, fertility benefits company creating, a digital brand for them. And we also had a lot of fun working on fitness, both with Kumo and a very secret project. That's about to launch and also with a boxing clubs network, that's still going on. It's it's really, really cool. And it keeps us thinking that we're athletes, even though we're totally outta shape. And now we're about to start a, a service design project for a hospital network that is trying to integrate the health to be more holistic and more human centered transcending, all the barriers that the, the health system that we all know has a lot of troubles keeping up so lots going on, but you know, today we're celebrating you and unlocking your world of creativity. So here's to your next 200 episodes and inspiring many more of us to keep our creativity growing. Cheers, mark. Thank you.

Thanks for coming by. Thanks for listening to any and all of the 200 episodes that we produced. And I, so look forward to bringing you more, Hey, by the way, the next episode will be highlights of all the music we featured in our podcast. So I hope you'll come along then. We'll talk to you again soon.

Unlocking your world of creativity with bestselling author and brand innovator. Mark Stinson. This program was produced by BSB media creators of in leadership stories, unlocking your world of creativity and thepeaceroom.love