James Cameron is a famous filmmaker known for his visionary approach and use of cutting-edge technology in cinema. Recently, we were both speakers at Festival de las Ideas in Puebla, Mexico, where he spoke about creativity and the creative process. On this episode, I share three big ideas that I drew from his speech that …

What separates high achievers from everyone else? And perhaps more importantly for those who lead a team, how can you create an environment in which high achievers can thrive? On this episode Robert Glazer is here to share core principles from his new book Elevate Your Team. We discuss the four core capacities that high …

What do you do when you encounter a challenging problem that seems to have no immediate solution? Rather than simply pushing forward on the work in a traditional way, you might try to leverage a “workaround”, or a less-direct method of solving the problem. Paulo Savaget has studied the tactics of many innovative organizations and …

The stories you believe shape your everyday behavior, including your collaboration and your ability to generate new ideas. Have you ever paused to consider the stories that are actually playing in your head? In this episode, Michael Hyatt shares insights about how your mindset affects your leadership, your intuition, and even your ability to stay …

It’s tempting to want everything to line up before you’re willing to commit to a project or opportunity. However, most of the time the valuable opportunities are those for which you may not yet feel fully prepared. In this episode, I share an experience from this week and why I chose to say “yes”, then …

You can develop your skills and experience, but without the proper mindset it can be difficult to accomplish your goals. On this episode, we discuss the core reasons why mindset is so important to creativity, leadership, and overall health. Then, we interview actor and author Anjali Bhimani about her book I Am Fun Size, her …

Most of us need good ideas consistently in order to do our work. Whatever your role, it’s likely that it depends on your ability to solve problems consistently under pressure. But, where do those ideas come from? On today’s show, I share a few ideas about the nature of emergent ideas – or what I …

There are some natural tensions that creative pros must wrestle with in order to remain effective. One that I wrote about in The Accidental Creative is what I call the process vs. product tension, which describes the dynamic of compromising the process in order to pre-maturely shape the product to match pre-defined expectations. Instead, we …

There are many things a good leader or collaborator does to help their team gain focus, stay motivated, and produce great work. However, there are also some very common mistakes that many leaders make that they don’t even know are killing their team’s ability to engage with their work. This is especially true when doing …

I don’t like to say “no.” I think it’s partly because I tend to gravitate toward possibility rather than pragmatics. But that tendency to always look for new solutions has at times significantly hamstrung my creative process and has, in the past, seriously affected my ability to creatively lead teams. One of the most important …