The Creator's Journey tracks

The Creator's Journey

The Creator’s Journey is a podcast serving creative people who are committed to shipping their work. Each week, I’ll interview creative leaders who consistently push through the fears and obstacles that every creator faces to produce their work. Because ideas and inspiration by themselves are not enough to carry you through times of anxiety, we’ll talk about the processes that allow each guest to persevere when darkness settles around them and obscures both their light and direction. Please join me each week for the words of encouragement that our guests have to offer to challenge you to create – and ship – the work you do so that you can make an impact. I would be honored if you would share the show with one person who you believe would be encouraged by it. ~ Charles Gupton, Host

  1. 05/29/2018

    ChrisDenson_Using Curiosity and Micro-Failures to Crush the Innovation Box #67

    Chris Denson is a man of many talents and interests. After earning a degree in packaging engineering and working for a few years as an engineer for Daimler-Chrysler, he packed up his Isuzu Rodeo and moved to LA based on a passing invitation from a TV executive who invited Chris to meet with him if he ever came to LA. Although the meeting never materialized, Chris stayed and began his illustrious career riding life’s roller coaster as an innovator in the marketing world. While still in college, Chris began doing stand-up comedy in clubs, a pursuit that he continued for a number of years into his career. Most importantly, it was that work that built his skills and confidence in writing, developing a sense of timing, and dealing with rejection from others. He then carried those gifts into screenwriting, production, and building an expertise in marketing based on thoughtful innovation. In 2014, Chris launched his podcast, Innovation Crush, where he hosts conversations with leaders in the world of innovation. This year, he also released his book, Crushing the Box, 10 Essential Rules for Breaking Essential Rules. In our conversation, we dig into several areas that we share in common: persistence in the face of adversity, curiosity and asking more effective questions, a willingness to live in a moderate amount of uncertainty, constantly learning through an abundance of ‘micro-failures,” and the positive and negatives of being multi-hyphenated polymaths.

    1h 6m
  2. 03/25/2018

    Nicole Ogoff_Power of Stories to Build Deep Connections #66

    Nicole Ogoff is the Chief Marketing Officer and a Managing Partner at Story Worldwide in New York, a creative branding agency known for authentic story-making on behalf of its clients. Nicole has built a reputation around her relentless pursuit of effective solutions for her clients which she does by giving enormous attention to details and setting high expectations for both her team and client relationships. Although I highly value intelligence, there are a lot of brilliant people out there, especially in the world of advertising and branding. Finding people like Nicole who are smart and excel at building deep human connections with their teams as well as clients is much rarer to encounter. As much as I’m obsessed with the story-making process and the impact that narratives have on our lives, I’ve found very few ways to measure their effectiveness for a business that uses engaging stories to connect with its audience and customers. Listening to a presentation at the 3% Conference by Nicole and Jacqueline Lieberman, the Managing Director at Story Worldwide, got me excited about sharing their approach with you on this episode. They talked about their process of business story-making and, more importantly, of measuring impact for their clients using an assessment process that I’ve not experienced. One of the insights was the way they use the twelve archetypes of narrative character development to identify a brand’s personality.

    59 min
  3. 12/03/2017

    Anissa Ferris_Understanding Yourself and Others Through the Enneagram #62

    I first met Anissa Ferris at a birthday celebration for a mutual friend, but her reputation had preceded her since my wife Linda had already spent most of two Saturdays in Anissa’s workshop on the Enneagram, a powerful tool to increase self-awareness and help us understand others. After only a brief conversation, I was equally taken with Anissa’s enthusiasm for how understanding and applying the Enneagram process can transform lives. I immediately signed up for her next workshop. Anissa holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in social work. In 1998, she opened her psychotherapy practice in Raleigh, NC, focused on working with adolescent and adult women dealing with stress, anxiety, depression and grief. She offers practical guidance to her clients through support and insights that help them to solve problems and achieve positive change. Her chief aim? To help them develop greater self-awareness that then leads to making more conscious and useful choices and living a more fulfilling life. Anissa has also been a certified Enneagram teacher in the narrative/oral tradition since 2013. She finds the Enneagram very helpful in providing clients a paradigm for personal growth and lasting change. “The Enneagram is a powerful and dynamic personality system for self-awareness and understanding others. It describes the structure and dynamics of nine distinct personality patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving that represents these nine strategies that we can relate to ourselves, others and the world.” As an avid gardener, Anissa uses the illustration of a kinked hose to explain how as human beings, we become equally twisted up and kinked. “We all do this. We lose our flow. We all have certain gifts that we can offer the world. The Enneagram really highlights what our gift is. When we’re kinked up – stressed out, angry, fearful, sad – that’s the kink in the hose. Instead of pausing and going to where the kink is and undoing it, we often jerk on the hose and try to pull out the kink. We all know how that goes. It doesn’t work. ‘The Enneagram helps you identify where the kink is. Some of us are kinked up with fear, some of us with anger, and some of us are kinked up with a frustration that we’re not affirmed or seen. When you put the power of the Enneagram to work, you don’t have to walk all around the yard looking for the kink. You’ll know exactly where it is.” Building on the work of psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankel, Ferris explains that the Enneagram provides the awareness needed to make healthy choices in our lives. "Frankel said that in-between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space is the power to choose. If we can learn to pause, for even a moment, as we make decisions about how to respond, we can lead a more intentional life.” Each of the Enneagram personality types offers a different lens on the world. “If we can understand how we see the world and then maybe understand that we can learn from someone else and how they see the world, that creates the potential to work together.”

    49 min
5
out of 5
25 Ratings

About

The Creator’s Journey is a podcast serving creative people who are committed to shipping their work. Each week, I’ll interview creative leaders who consistently push through the fears and obstacles that every creator faces to produce their work. Because ideas and inspiration by themselves are not enough to carry you through times of anxiety, we’ll talk about the processes that allow each guest to persevere when darkness settles around them and obscures both their light and direction. Please join me each week for the words of encouragement that our guests have to offer to challenge you to create – and ship – the work you do so that you can make an impact. I would be honored if you would share the show with one person who you believe would be encouraged by it. ~ Charles Gupton, Host