Dave Barnes is a Nashville-based singer/songwriter and recording artist. His songs have been recorded by dozens of artists, and he earned a Grammy nomination for song of the year for God Gave Me You, as recorded by Blake Shelton. On this episode, we discuss the craft of songwriting, the intricacies of collaboration, the temptation of comparison, and how he hones his practice every day.
When the pressure is on, and uncertainty is rearing its ugly head, there are traps that even the most experienced leaders fall into. When you fall into one (or more) of these traps, you put an impediment in your team's path, and introduce dissonance into the organization.
On this episode, we share four common traps that leaders fall into when the pressure is on: deferring, blaming, bending, and hovering.
Workloads and expectations are increasing. It’s not a cliché, it’s a fact. It’s the single biggest (confidential) complaint that I hear when spending time with companies. I was speaking at a conference in Florida, and in the short Q&A at the end of my talk a man stood and said “We are doing more with less. We have fewer people than ever, but our project load continues to increase. However, the quality of our work is not allowed to suffer. What should I do?” On this episode, we share some principles for dealing with a crushing workload. What do you do when you're overwhelmed?
As a creative pro, it's your job to advocate for your client, your company, or your audience. That means refusing to settle for less than the best, and pushing until you get the results that you're striving for. On this episode, Jordan Harbinger, host of the Jordan Harbinger Show, shares his thoughts about how to ask questions that get quickly to the heart of the matter and how to be an advocate for the people you serve.
A time chunk is simply a dedicated amount of time, an hour or two if possible, to immerse yourself in the important, but not urgent work on your plate. Rather than relying on the non-time-committal nature of a task list, time chunks ensure that you will spend a certain amount of focused effort making progress each week. You know that interruptions or other distractions won’t get in the way, because you’ve built a bulwark against them.
On this episode, we share 6 simple rules for establishing (and keeping) time chunks on your calendar so that you make progress on your critical creative work.
Meetings are necessary to a healthy team, but when you spend most of your day in meetings, it makes it challenging to accomplish any of the real work for which you’re accountable. Worse, when meetings are stacked one after the other, it sometimes means little time to think or be strategic about them. On this episode, we share five quick tips from Herding Tigers about how to make the most of your meetings.
In many ways, the quality of your work is defined by the questions you ask. Those who ask the best questions ultimately get closest to the heart of the situation, and in many cases ultimately win. However, you are also defined by the questions that you choose to avoid. If you run away from important questions because they're uncomfortable to address, then you might compromise your body of work and never fully achieve your potential.
When you are growing a business, it's tempting to allow yourself to get pulled into the million little things that demand your time. However, there is something that your business needs from you that only you can do, and you're the only one who knows what it is. On today's episode, Jen Gotch (co-founder of Bando), shares her thoughts about social media, growing a business, leading creative teams, and how to keep yourself inspired and focused when your business is too big to be small, and too small to be big.
Here is a core truth of leadership: if you are not inspired, you cannot inspire. Take time each week to inspire yourself and to connect with the deeper stream of your motivation. On this episode, we share three simple ways to stay inspired so that you can earn your...
Have you ever been in a business pitch, a conversation with a peer, or an argument and thought "I wonder what they're really thinking?" On this episode, Mark Bowden, author of Truth and Lies: What People Are Really Thinking, will offer advice for how to apply critical thinking to how you interpret body language so that you can better discern what's going on inside someone's head.
If you control the work of your team, their capacity never scales beyond the scope of your personal involvement. Great leaders set effective rails to help their team members make good decisions in the face of uncertainty. On this episode, we share the elements of a...
No matter how talented and driven you are, sooner or later you're bound to feel stuck. When you'e at a standstill, the worst thing you can do is to keep staring at the problem and digging yourself deeper into a rut. On this episode, Todd Henry shares 25 simple, but effective questions to help you get out of your creative rut and get moving on your work.
If you want to accomplish much of anything, you need to focus. You have a finite amount of attention to allocate to problems that matter. However, many creative pros struggle with questions about what they should focus on, when they should focus on it, and whether the thing they're doing is even the right thing. On this episode, Todd Henry shares three questions you can ask each week to help you allocate your finite attention in the best places, and get more of the right things done.
Your team needs to know that it will have the time and attention necessary to do the work. However, organizations are often their own worst enemy, and it can be difficult to protect your team from the onslaught of demands and pressure that can get in the way of...
Who is your ideal customer? If you're a freelancer, a small business owner, or even someone designing or writing within an organization, this is a critical question. But you can't stop by identifying that customer, you also need to understand how to communicate in a way that will resonate deeply. In other words, you need to uncover their "secret language".
Jonathan Willis is a globe-traveling photographer. His work has been featured by some of the biggest brands in the world, and he's dedicated himself to becoming a true master of his craft. However, over the past few years he's also engaged in a number of "passion projects" as a way to stoke his creative juices and to challenge himself.
You've probably heard them before. You might even believe them. However, the myths that exist about creative people in the marketplace can affect your ability to engage in and do your work effectively. On today's episode, I share five common myths about creative people, how they limit our ability to bring value to our clients and organization, and what we can do about them.
When you create for a living, you might find yourself frustrated with your management or client and not even know why. When you can't articulate what you need, it's really difficult to thrive. On today's episode, I share the few things that creative people need in order to do their best work, and how you can ask for them so that you can be prolific, brilliant, and healthy.
To do brilliant work over the long term, creative people need a great coach. As a leader, you need to understand what motivates the people on your team, and help them align their work around what they do best. On this episode, I share insights from Chapter 5 of...
How do you make decisions in your work, about your career, or for your life as a whole? If you don't have a clear framework for making those decisions ahead of time, then you'll be tempted to compromise your values in the moment. On today's show, I share a simple framework for identifying some of your core drivers so that you are prepared to make decisions before you get into those high pressure situations.