Ep 114: Mind to Market

Streamlining the Journey from Concept to Completion

SUMMARY

The graveyard of great creative ideas isn't filled with bad concepts. It's filled with brilliant ideas that got stuck somewhere between that initial spark and the final delivery. If you're a creative professional struggling to turn your inspiration into results, you're not alone—and more importantly, there's a clear path forward.

In this episode of Creativity Made Easy, we're building a highway from your mind to the market, eliminating the bottlenecks that kill momentum and creating sustaining systems that turn inspiration into results.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ Map Your Creative Pipeline: Document every step of your last three projects to identify where ideas consistently get stuck and momentum dies.

• ⚡️ Implement Decision Deadlines: Set specific dates when key decisions must be made, regardless of whether you feel ready—feelings can be elusive and hinder momentum.

• ⚡️ Perfect Your Handoffs: Create standard templates that preserve context and creative intent when passing work between team members to prevent the loss of momentum.

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 "Your processes and your systems should serve your creativity, not limit it."

  💬 "The distance between your brilliant ideas and successful execution doesn't have to be measured in months or compromised by committees."

  💬 "When you spin in cycles of indecision, it costs you and your team momentum, morale, and market opportunity."

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️ 4D Creative Process - Get the complete framework for defining, dreaming, designing, and developing your creative projects

• ⚡️ Sprint by Jake Knapp - Learn the five-day framework that takes you from complex problem to tested solution

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

TRANSCRIPT

The graveyard of great creative ideas isn't filled with bad concepts. It's filled with brilliant ideas that got stuck somewhere between that initial spark and the final delivery. Today we're building a highway from your mind to the market, eliminating the bottlenecks that kill momentum and create sustaining systems that turn inspiration into results. Let's get into it.

Welcome to Creativity Made Easy, the podcast where we transform creative chaos into clarity. This is a podcast for all creatives, designers, photographers, writers, and all creative entrepreneurs who are seeking practical and actionable strategies to grow their creative business through efficiency. I'm your host, Dustin Pead, creative process coach and consultant, and I help creatives know themselves, their process and their teams to create with efficiency as they scale together.

Before we get into today's episode, I want to invite you to subscribe, rate, and review wherever you're listening to this podcast. That just helps get this content out even further to those like yourself who can benefit from it. And while you're at it, share it with someone else that you feel like could benefit from hearing this content. I would greatly appreciate that share. If you're watching on YouTube, the thumbs up to like it. It does the same thing, helps get the content out further.

Subscribe and ring the bell so you're notified every time we drop new content, which is at least every single Thursday when this podcast comes out. I want to remind you, can go to dustinpead.com slash free. That's D-U-S-T-I-N-P-E-A-D.com slash free for any of my free resources, templates at your disposal built specifically with you in mind. Go download those for yourself today. And lastly, you can follow me on social media, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, all those places at Dustin PEAD, D-U-S-T-I-N-P-E-A-D. All right, let's get into today's episode.

Maybe you're like me in this, but I feel like I have probably close to a hundred amazing ideas every single day. Yet when it comes time to execute on them, I've learned over time and I know myself enough and I know my process well enough to execute on them consistently every single time. That's why I say at the top of the show, I help creatives know themselves first and then their process and then their team so that you can execute consistently every single time.

So in order to do that, the first thing you need to do is you need to map out your creative pipeline. There's a hidden journey from concept, hey, I have this idea to completion where creatives never seem to map that journey. And so because they don't map that journey, they get lost in navigation. They get lost in understanding what it's gonna take to get them to the destination at the end, right?

Thomas Edison said it brilliantly. We talk about it on here all the time, that genius, right? Someone who reaches the end is considered a genius. A genius is only 1% inspiration, 1% idea, but it's 99% perspiration. It's putting in the work to go from that concept, to go from that idea to completion. And the first step is you have to map it out.

Now experts say there's about seven critical stages of going from concept to completion. First, it's the inspiration, right? Hey, this would be neat. And then there's a concept around that idea. Like, this is what I think it could look like. And then they get into the development of it, right? And then they get into the approval. Is this working? Is it not? Is it a review, right? And then after that, they get into the production mode. Now we're going to actually produce the thing that we developed out and designed in our mind. And then they deliver it, and then they review it. And it's a cycle over and over over again.

I simplified that with my 4D creative process that I've adapted from all sorts of creative processes over the years. My four Ds are first to define it, right? We don't know how to solve the problem until we know what problem we're trying to solve. And that's what we're doing out here with all of our creativity, all of our art is trying to solve some sort of problem, right? So what is the problem? Define it is the first D.

The second D is to dream about it. What could be possible to solve this problem, right? What could potentially solve this, what could potentially be the fix here, right? And then the third D is to design it, right? This is where we're the blueprints, if you will, of how we feel like we're gonna actually take some of those ideas that we came up in the dream phase and design them and put them to work. And maybe some things that work within our budget and our time constraint. And now we have a fully packaged design of how we're gonna do this.

And then lastly, it's the work. The fourth D is develop. This is where we put all the defining, all the dreaming, all the designing to work. This is the 99%, right? Just develop part of the 4D creative process.

But look, you have to audit your own current pipeline for bottlenecks and dead zones. Where in the process, where in the process from concept to completion are you getting lost? Where are you getting stuck? Where does it feel like every time I get here, just don't get any further or when I do get through it, finally, it's not as good as I hoped it would be in the beginning. Those are the bottlenecks. Those are your dead zones. You need to identify those as often as possible.

There's a difference between necessary steps and bureaucratic bloat, right? We're not trying to overcomplicate here. Your processes and your systems should serve your creativity, not limited. Say it again, your processes and your systems should serve your creativity, not limit it.

So try this out. This week, walk through the 4D creative process. How do we define things? How do we dream about things? How do we design things? And lastly, how do we develop things? And adopt that for your team and what works best for you. Redo the language. Every creative process is different because every creative is different. The bulk idea of defining the problem, dreaming about what could be, designing the solution, and then developing the solution is pretty much the same across the board. I've just simplified it over the years.

All right, so we've identified those bottlenecks from concept to completion. So let's work on eliminating those bottlenecks, right? And some of the most common bottlenecks are there's decision paralysis, right, in the concept development. And when we start talking about the design phase, we get decision, well, it could be this, it could be that, it could be, it could be, it could be. We get so we tend to over edit and over complicate. So what happens is we get decision paralysis and we stop right there and it kills it, right?

There's also approval delays, right? The bureaucratic approval, right? I'm waiting on this person because they didn't understand that this was part of the process. And this person over here, they're not getting back to me because we didn't set up clear communication guidelines from the get-go. And that will delay the project and ultimately kill the momentum.

Thirdly, there's resource allocation confusion. Well, I thought we had this much time and this much money to be able to do this. But in fact, we have a whole lot more or we have a whole lot less or a different or it's coming from a different place that we didn't understand about or this person is going to be involved. Not these people, right? All that confusion is not the clarity that you need to go from chaos to clarity, right? To go from concept to completion.

Fourthly, communication gaps between team members, right? Maybe there's some breakdown in communication. Oh, I didn't notate this properly for them when we were doing the handoff process, which we'll talk about here in a little bit. I didn't understand their motives. I questioned their authority over this project. All these different things are things that can bottleneck the concept to completion process.

And lastly, quality control. Quality control can become a gridlock if you're not careful. And we're going to talk about how to use it in the right way here in just a little bit. But you need to identify where do the ideas go to die in our process? At what point does it fall off the cliff? Where is the biggest speed bump for you and your team each time you create, right?

You can use different tools for this, different journaling tools throughout the process, the time and energy audit from Dan Martell that we use all the time here to find what the biggest time sucks are, the biggest drains of the time and energy. And you'll start to kind of identify that cliff when it's out of your brain and out of the feeling around the team and on a whiteboard or on a black and white piece of paper, on a computer screen where you can say, ah, yes, I see it right there. It dips right there. That's the point that we need to work on.

Listen, sometimes you need to block out everything else and just sprint, just sprint from concept to completion. It's the whole create quickly thing that I've talked about here on this show before and a lot of me and my creative partners, we use this concept a lot when we can say, I'm gonna set aside a half a day or a day or a week to just focus on this one thing and I'm gonna sprint towards it. Now, I will say, make this an exception, monthly, quarterly, not the rule. Don't make it the, this is how we do things all the time because if you're constantly sprinting, then you're gonna burn yourself out and your team.

But in this concept of sprint, I want to introduce you to the sprint method developed by Jake Knapp at Google Ventures, right? It's a five day framework that takes you from a complex problem that define, right, what the problem is to the tested solution, right? The solution has been tested, has proven in one week. It's in five day sprint.

So on Monday, they map out the challenge. What are we trying to solve here, right? It's been a whole day identifying what the problem is they're trying to solve. On Tuesday, they sketch out possible solutions. This would be my dream phase, right? They spent a whole day sketching out different possible solutions from all different angles.

On Wednesday, they decide which the strongest one is, right? That's probably the first half of my design part is to take all those things and refine down to what actually is gonna work the strongest. The other half of my design part they do on Thursday. That's where you prototype, right? And you kind of understand what, start to kind of put the pieces together of all the ideas that you've done so far. And then on Friday, you test it with real users.

It's fast, it's structured, and incredibly effective. And what makes it powerful for creative teams is that it replaces the endless debate with action. There's no time for overthinking because you're sprinting, right, towards the action. And what we can learn from this is we can learn clarity. We can learn clarity through the concept to completion. We can go, you know what, that's not necessary to junk up the process right here. What we need is clarity and doing these sprints occasionally will unlock that for you.

So imagine applying this to your next big initiative. What could you unlock in just five days as you sprint towards the finish line? Again, the exception, not the rule, because you don't want to burn yourself out or your team.

Next, I want to talk about decision making. There's a cost associated with creative indecision, the people that over edit, the people that can't make a decision and lead the team or lead the project forward. The cost is momentum, team morale, and market opportunity. When you spin in cycles, the downward spiral of indecision, costs you and your team momentum, it costs everybody morale. They're like, man, we had such a good thing going and now I know if we can ever finish it, right? That's a culture killer. And market opportunity. Other people are gonna pass you by while you're sitting there overthinking. So don't overthink, just create.

In order to do that, there's a couple things I need you to think about. Number one, build some decision trees around common creative choices to help the project not stall out. So you've identified where the project stalls. Now, are there some easy decision trees? If you don't know what a decision tree is, it's basically just a visual graphic or a graph that says, is such and such true, yes or no? If it's yes, here's what you do. If it's no, here's what you do. And you follow that all the way down into completion. So build those easy decision trees for the common creative choices to help the project not stall out.

These could be things like frequently asked questions. What questions do your team constantly come to you and ask? Build a decision tree for it. There are questions that you answer from your team and your client. About 80% of the questions that you answer from your team and from your client are pretty much the same questions every single time. So why don't you notate those down so you can go, here's the answers to the questions that you're probably gonna have. Let's go ahead and get that out of the way right up front so that you understand clearly what we're doing. That's how you prevent the project from stalling out.

And occasionally you just need to adopt the good enough to keep moving standard, right? This kills the perfection paralysis. Perfection will paralyze you and your team. And lastly, create a clear decision making authority at each stage. At each stage, so the define, the dream, the design, the develop, who is the ultimate authority at each stage? Who is making that final decision? Let their voice be the loudest and call it out to keep the project moving from concept to completion.

You can do this when you're using my do versus due framework, the DO versus DUE framework. You can set those decision deadlines that will create forward momentum. These decision deadlines will go, okay, I know this is coming, so we're gonna go, go, go, go, go. And then you get to it, and when you get to those deadlines, it doesn't stop there. It propels you further down the process to go from concept to completion.

So three things to consider when you need to make decisions. Number one, does it solve the client's core problem? Go back to the why, go back to the define. What is the problem that we're trying to solve here? Why are we doing this?

Number two, is it feasible within our constraints? This is kind of that design mode, right? Like what are we doing here? Is what we're doing feasible? Is it within the budget? Is within our timelines? Is it our talent? Is it within our people that we have available to us, our contractors, our team members, right?

And number three, does it maintain our creative standards? Is how we're gonna do this, does it maintain our creative standards because you don't want to sacrifice creative standards. And so many creative professionals do this. They get in a time crunch. They go, I had the concept, I had the momentum, and then I hit a dip and I gotta deliver it. I gotta deliver it. It's D-U-E, right? I gotta deliver it. So we sacrifice on our creative standards, right?

Don't do that. When you can implement this decision framework and you can implement understanding what parts are bottlenecking, you can start thinking about anticipating those so that you can so that you can maintain your creative standards all the way from concept to completion.

Now, earlier I talked about how we were going to talk about handoffs, right? There's certain parts of the process where it hands off from this team to this team, to this team member, to this team member, from client to creative team, from creative team back to client to creative director to art director, like there's all these different people that are involved, right? There's all these handoffs.

We know from watching sports and football that a lot of error happens in handoff, right? That's why when you watch a quarterback and a running back so closely, you can see how much intention there is and how much careful approach there is to handing the ball off from quarterback to the running back. It's because there's the handoff crisis. This is where context and this is where games get lost and momentum dies, right? We don't get the first down. We don't get the touchdown. We don't get the victory because we didn't pay attention to the handoff, right?

And so the handoff is where context get lost and momentum dies for creative projects. You need to go back to the beginning and utilize creative briefs, not just with your client, but for internal team transitions as well. And we covered this several episodes ago when we talked about briefings. But essentially what we're saying is that you need to be able to clearly identify to your team members along the way. This is what we're doing. Remind them every step of the way. This is what we're doing. This is what we're doing. This is what we're doing. Right? That's the context that they need in order to preserve that creativity throughout the entire pipeline from concept to completion.

Future you, which I talk about often, about notating things to say future you up for success for the context of what you're doing when you get to it again, right? Future you is also future us. So understanding what does my team member need to know when I hand this off to them so that they can pick it up and run it and run with it all the way into the end zone, right?

Lastly, build feedback loops that improve rather than derail ideas and I think the best time for feedback loops is after a project, not during the project. They can be on one-on-ones, they can be in a team gathering, but don't stall your momentum by going, you know what, how does everybody feel this is going right in the middle of a project? Now, write it down so that you have real-time notes as to what's actually going on so that when you do have those feedback loops at the end, you do have those evaluation times to sit down one-on-one or in a team after a project.

You can look at it and go, hey, at this point, I wrote down this note. This is how I was feeling. This is what I was facing. This was the dilemma. How can we fix this so that next time we don't do it again? That is the mark of a great team and seamless handoff systems.

Before we wrap up, I do want to talk about quality control. Now, quality control can accelerate or it can delay, but what we're going to focus on is quality assurance that happens throughout the process. Last episode, we talked about checklists and that's exactly what we're talking about here. Building in these quality checkpoints that don't slow down production.

You need to implement those feedback systems that improve ideas rather than just catching errors, right? Notate that stuff down, save it for afterwards, fix it, move it on, right? And train team members to self-quality control using your clear standards.

Now, side note, if you don't have clear standards for what you're looking for from your team and what you're going to deliver to your client, then just stop listening to this episode right now. Go take a journal out into the middle of nowhere away from your screen and just write down what is it at the end of the day that are the standards for us that we want to hit every single time and then communicate those over and over and over again to your team. And when you're sick of hearing yourself saying it, that's when they're start to understand it. So just keep saying it, keep communicating those standards every step of the way.

You can use templates, just like we talked about last week, to create project journey maps for your team that will include the quality touch points at each stage. So we talked about identifying the concept to completion, what that map looks like. When we hand off from one section to the next or one team member to the next, in that process, in that map, we're also going to say this is the quality it needs to be at before we move on. This is the quality, this is the quality, this is the standard, this is the standard every step of the way.

So what do we do now? I'm going to give you five immediate actions to streamline your concept to completion pipeline. We already said all these already, I'm just going to review them for you.

Number one, map your current journey. Just take a couple of hours documenting every step of the last three projects that took you from the initial concept to final delivery. This is not identifying your ideal journey. This is mapping your current journey. Because then number two, what you're going to do is you're going to identify your biggest bottleneck from the mapping exercise. Number one, you're going to pick one stage where projects consistently get stuck and you're going to tackle that first before anything else.

Next, number three, you're going to create decision deadlines. For your next project, I want you to set specific dates when key decisions must be made regardless of whether you feel like it's ready or not, right? Those feelings can be elusive and they can be false and they can hinder your momentum from concept to completion.

Number four, build a handoff template. Create a standard, again, going back to the templates from last week, create a standard document template that preserves context and creative intent when you're passing the work between team members. Remember, it's not just about future you. It's about future us as well.

And then lastly, implement a weekly review of your pipeline. Just schedule 15, 10, 20, 30, not very long minutes every single Friday to review what's moving through your pipeline and what's getting stuck and where it's getting stuck at.

I want to remind you of the resources that I talked about in this episode. There's a book called Sprint by Jake Knapp. That's K-N-A-P-P with Google Ventures and talks about their sprint process. I also mentioned the 4D creative process. That is available at dustinpead.com slash free so that you can begin to implement that with you and your team immediately.

Listen, the distance between your brilliant ideas and successful execution doesn't have to be measured in months, compromised by many committees with the right pipeline, your creative work can move from mind, your mind, to the market with momentum intact and quality preserved.

If you're ready to build your own concept to completion highway, head to dustinpead.com for the free resources or get on my calendar for a free coaching session. I would love to coach you through this process specifically for you and your team. Hop on my calendar at dustinpead.com, click on the Let's Chat button.

Reminder to follow me at Dustin Pead on all social media for daily insights and to keep your creative pipeline flowing.

Next week I have a very special guest, Blaine Hogan. Director Blaine Hogan is going to be in the house to talk about an article that he wrote called Execution is Everything. Oh, speak to my heart, Blaine. I can't wait to talk to you. I can't wait to share that conversation with you next week on Creativity Made Easy. Have a great week.

Ep 113: The Power of Templates

How to Create Reusable Assets Without Losing Your Creative Edge

SUMMARY

Most creative professionals fear that using templates will make their work look cookie-cutter and generic. But what if I told you that the most innovative agencies actually rely on templates to free up their creative energy for what matters most? Today, we're exploring how to build reusable systems that save time while amplifying your unique creative voice.

The Template Mindset Shift: From Constraint to Creative Freedom

The biggest misconception about templates is that they're creative constraints. In reality, they're creative enablers. The key is understanding the difference between process templates and creative templates.

Templates eliminate decision fatigue around mundane tasks—like client onboarding or meeting structures—so you can focus your mental energy on the actual creative work. Your clients will start commenting on how much more polished and professional your process feels because you have templated results every single time.

Process Templates vs. Creative Templates: What Should You Standardize?

You're not going to use the same look and feel creatively for every single project, but you might use the same flow in which you conduct the project. The work itself—what the client sees at the end—should remain custom. But how you do the work and how you go about getting the right information should be templated.

Use my DO vs DUE Framework to identify opportunities to create margin. Where in your process are you spending too much mental energy doing the same thing over and over again? Things like:

• Sending invoices

• Writing contracts

• Organizing files

• Communicating with clients

These repetitive tasks are perfect candidates for templates.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ Key Takeaway #1: Templates eliminate decision fatigue around mundane tasks, freeing up mental energy for actual creative work and impressing clients with consistent professionalism.

  ⚡️ Key Takeaway #2: The 80-20 rule applies to templates—standardize 80% of your processes so you can innovate on the 20% that has the biggest impact on your business.

  ⚡️ Key Takeaway #3: Templates should be living documents that evolve quarterly, with clear version control and team feedback to ensure they remain effective and current.

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 "If brain surgeons and pilots that we trust our lives with are using checklists, even they understand the power of checklists to produce excellent results every single time."

• 💬 "You want to standardize 80% so that you can innovate on the 20% because we know that 20% of what we do has 80% of the impact on our business."

• 💬 "Let the questions be templated. Let the answers be custom every single time.”

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️ Book: "The Checklist Manifesto" by Atul Gawande

• ⚡️ Free Tools: DO vs DUE Framework, Future You note-taking methodology, Time and Energy audit template - all available at dustinpead.com/free

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

TRANSCRIPT

Most creative professionals fear that using templates will make their work look cookie cutter and generic. What if I told you that the most innovative agencies actually rely on templates to free up their creative energy for what matters most? Today, we're exploring how to build reusable systems that save time while amplifying your unique creative voice. Let's get into it.

Welcome back everyone to Creativity Made Easy, the podcast where we transform creative chaos into clarity. This is a podcast for all creatives, designers, photographers, writers, all creative entrepreneurs seeking practical, actionable strategies to grow their creative business through efficiency. I'm your host, Dustin Pead, Creative process coach and consultant, and I help creatives know themselves, their process and their teams to create with efficiency as they scale together.

Before we get into today's show, I would love to invite you to subscribe, rate and review on YouTube. If you're watching, you can hit the like button, the thumbs up, subscribe and ring the bell. Any audio podcast platform that you're listening to—a subscription, rating or review of any kind helps get this content out further to those like yourself who could benefit from it.

I also want to remind you, I have a ton of free resources for you at dustinpead.com slash free. That's D-U-S-T-I-N-P-E-A-D.com slash free. Go download as many as you like. They're completely free. My heart is to help you as a creative professional be the most efficient you can be so that the world can see what you're creating. Lastly, you can find me on social media at DustinPead—D-U-S-T-I-N-P-E-A-D. You can follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, all those places.

So that's all the business stuff. Let's get into the power of templates, creating reusable assets without losing originality. Listen, I know many of you may have already checked out. You're like, templates, ugh, boring. Same stuff over and over and over again. But what we're trying to do here is free up your mental energy. Templates eliminate decision fatigue. It's often around the mundane stuff, like the way that we onboard a client or the way that we conduct our meetings so that we get the same information every single time.

It's not even about controlling your creative process. It's about freeing up your creative process. Templates can take you from chaos to clarity, and your clients, I can promise you, are going to start commenting on how much more polished and professional that your process feels more than anyone else because you have templated results every single time, a templated formula for how you carry things out every single time.

So first, let's get into this template mindset shift. They're not creative constraints. They're creative enablers. The difference between process templates and creative templates—you need to understand those. What I'm talking about mostly here is process templates. You're not going to use the same look and feel creatively for every single project, but you might use the same flow in which you conduct the project.

First, we're going to storyboard things out. Second, we're going to put together a mood board. And then we're going to have our team, our brain trust, kind of get centered around the whole idea of what it looks like to dream this thing through. And then we're going to kind of evaluate what is actually possible. And then we're going to, and then we're going to, and then we're going to. And it's that same process over and over again that gives you those results.

So how do you identify what should be templated versus what should remain custom? I believe the work itself at the end of the day, what the client sees, should remain custom but how we do the work and how we go about getting the right information to maximize the work, to onboard the clients, to give them what they want, to deliver, to get the feedback—all the things that we talk about in this show should be templated.

It gets as simple sometimes as using a simple template like my DO versus DUE framework—the DO versus D.U.E.—and you can use that framework to identify opportunities to create margin. Where in that process and when you work from the DUE date all the way back to when you're actually going to start doing it, where in that process should it be like, hey, I'm spending too much mental energy doing the same thing over and over and over again. It's just I have to write—I have to send the invoice the same way. I have to send the contract the same way. I have to send files the same way. I have to organize our files the same way. I have to communicate with our clients the same way over and over and over again. So use templates as much as possible to create that margin for yourself.

There's an amazing book that nerds like me love to reference called The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. And if I butchered that name, I'm so very sorry. But this book suggests that even surgeons use checklists, not because they don't know how to operate. It's because consistent processes prevent errors. Let me say that again. Consistent processes prevent errors. And the book says it frees mental bandwidth for complex problem solving.

So if brain surgeons and pilots, like we've talked before, are using checklists—checklists are templates, right? They're using checklists to make sure that we did this, we did this, we did this. Nothing gets missed when you use templates and checklists. Even brain surgeons and pilots that we trust our lives with when we're dangling from, you know, floating in the air in the clouds from one town to the next, even they understand the power of checklists to be able to produce excellent results every single time.

When you land in that city on the plane and you thank God that you're there, it's because that pilot had a checklist and he made sure every single thing was hit with precision the same way he did it a thousand times before that. And that's how you got there safely. And trust me, if you have to have the unfortunate circumstance where you have to have brain surgery, you definitely want that brain surgeon to be using a checklist. You don't want to leave anything to chance.

So if we're doing it there, why do we think it's not important for us to do it in our creative systems and processes? It is important. And believe me when I say this is not a constraint. This is a freedom that allows you more mental energy to think about the actual custom part of your creativity for your clients.

So we've mentioned some different ways that you can use templates already, just kind of loosely mentioned them. But let's identify some high value template opportunities in your workflow. Let's first start with client onboarding sequences. The way that you onboard your clients is a lot of—sets the tone for how they are going to work with you and how you're going to work with them. And to be able to set that tone off right and to impress right off the gate and go, wow, we really have our stuff together. We are very professional and we get stuff done and we get it done to the standards that you have for us. Those client onboarding sequences to be able to do the same thing every single time with excellence are highly invaluable.

Project kickoff materials—all right, we got them on board. Now we're gonna have a kickoff meeting to talk about what the project is. The way that you do that kickoff, the way that you do project kickoffs, whether with the client or internally with your team, sets the tone every single time. This is how it's gonna go and it makes sure that you have the information that you need.

Speaking of information, creative briefs and discovery processes. Again, great to have templates. Here's a checklist of questions that we ask every single time. When I was in ministry, we had what we called a series briefing questionnaire. This was—you go to a modern church today, you often hear a series of talks or messages or sermons centered around one type of category or theme. And so those are often referred to in the church world as a message series or collections of talks.

So what we would do is we would sit down way in the beginning, 12 weeks or so out before. We would sit down with those who were gonna be leading us through on staff. We would sit down with those and say, okay, here's the same questions we're gonna ask of every single series that we get into. Every time we sit down to have a briefing about this project, this vision that you have, we're gonna ask the same questions every single time because it's gonna get us the results, it's going to get us the answers to the questions that we so desperately need in order to communicate and to execute this project with excellence.

Status reports, progress updates, all those things sound super boring, but I promise you, those are those communication pieces that we've talked about before on this show. Those status reports and progress updates are going to be huge, and you don't want to have to rewrite them every single time. So make a template for it. It's super easy. You can automate your CRM to give you those updates. We've done it with many clients before. It's super, super easy.

Invoicing and contract structures. We talked about this before as well. Do you really want to have to write invoices and proposals and contracts and estimates and all these things? Do you really want to write those from scratch every single time? No, that takes way too much time. You could be using that time to be creative. Let's protect creative time by using these templates in all different areas from the client onboarding process all the way through the invoicing process. Again, it's about freeing up the creative work that you really want to do. It's about freeing up that mental energy and that time.

The 80-20 rule applies for templates as well. You want to standardize 80% so that you can innovate on the 20% because we know as entrepreneurs, as business leaders, as creative professionals, we know that 20% of what we do has 80% of the impact on our business. On the other 80%, let's not focus our creative energy on that. Let's use templates to standardize those things so that they can produce the same results consistently every single time so that we can focus in on that 20%, the 80-20 rule.

I've talked about my Future You methodology note taking methodology before on this podcast and it's one that I use in my coaching with our consulting clients all the time about setting up future you for success and templates are that. They are messages to your future self on this is how it needs to be done again. So you don't need to remember how it was once done before. You can always be refining those templates. But it saves you the mental energy from having to remember how did we do this last time. Take really good notes for future you. Use that Future You note taking methodology with your templates every single time.

So really when we get down to the practicals, let's walk through just an example of what a discovery template would look like to allow you to maintain structure while allowing for specific customization for your client. You're gonna ask the same things, the who, what, when, where, how, and why as much as possible. You're going to look for vision, but you're in that it's the answers that are going to give you the customization. It's not the question. The questions will remain the same. Again, you might tweak those throughout the life. And it's always kind of a working document to ask better questions. But it's the answers that are going to give you the customization. Let the questions be templated. Let the answers be custom every single time.

So you're walking through a discovery process with them. You're understanding why is this project so important? What problem are they trying to solve? When you're asking how, is there any particular communication methods or anything like that that we can do for you that would really help you feel like you're winning throughout this process while we do what we do? So you got the why, the what, you got the how. How about the who? Who's involved in this? If you don't ask those questions, then when it comes time to get feedback, you'll be wondering who even needs to get the feedback.

So then you got the when and the where. So when does this need to be done? When is this DUE to you? We use our DO versus DUE or the DO versus DUE framework to work backwards there. When, when do you need this by, when are you actually going to use this? Let's get a little bit of margin in there about when we're going to get it to you, a little bit of margin in there about when we're going to see revisions, when those time markers are. And lastly, it's the where. Where do these things need to be sent? Where is this going to be used? Where is the target market for this campaign? Where is the target market for this project? Where do these files need to be saved? Where are these things being published? All of these where questions.

So you're going to ask the same questions throughout the discovery process. Same type of questions. You can get as nuanced as you need to in order to get the proper feedback that you need to win with your clients every single time. It's the answers that are going to allow for client-specific customization. And don't give them the answers. The client will know the end result of what they want. You focus on how to get them there. And you focus on what you're going to deliver. But really, don't tell them this is what they need. You want to deliver what they need, not tell them what they need every single time. Now, if they ask you, then be ready to open it up for sure. But the client-specific customization comes from their answers, not your answers.

All right. As I said before, templates aren't just set it and forget it. They need evolution over time. They're working documents. They're wet cement. So quarterly, if you have an operations person, and if this would be something that they would do, this is something that we do with our clients—we have reminders that go off quarterly where we're going to audit all of our templates to improve those templates and improve those opportunities every single time. So every quarter, every three months, we're going to take a pause and just overhaul, edit, audit. Are these templates working? Are we using them to their full advantage? Do we need to change any of questions? You can do them more often. You can do them in real time. But at the very least, you want to quarterly audit those to identify improvement opportunities.

You want to make sure that you're gathering feedback from team members who are actually using the templates. Hey, are these templates helpful? Is there anything in there weird or confusing? Is there anything in the verbiage that doesn't sound like us, is not sound on brand? And then use version control for template libraries, which is the latest version of this. I love to use when it comes to version, instead of version one V1, V2, V3, I love to use just the simple six digit date formula. So today when I'm recording this is Tuesday, June 3rd, 2025. So I would sit there and I would mark the end of that. If I'm updating a template, I would mark the end of it 06-03-25. So when I look at it, I know, oh, this was last updated. On the file name, not even yes in the document, but on the file name at the very end, I'm going to put, oh, this template was last updated on June 3, 2025.

So let's break this down for a second. Imagine that if you started with just three core templates, just three, whether it be onboarding, discovery, delivery, invoicing, whatever. Just three templates. And over time, you were able to evolve that to, let's say, 20 specialized versions. You would then reduce the project setup time by 70% while improving client satisfaction scores. Just with three templates, you're able to improve that much. So why would you not want to do that? Use templates to increase client satisfaction and increase your efficiency every single time.

And lastly, when it comes to using templates, listen, clients understand and value professionalism. They value thoroughness. Positioning templates is a way to say, look, we have proven methods here. We don't take shortcuts. This is the way we do it. We are thorough. We are professional. And because of that, it sets clear expectations from the jump for you to be able to say, oh, I know exactly what we're getting here. And it reduces scope creep in the end because you're asking the questions that you need to ask now. And you're setting the standard out the gate with the templates, whether it's at the beginning of the project or the end of the project, the middle of the project, wherever you're using the templates, these standardized processes can actually justify how much work you're putting into it. And then you can charge more. So it justifies premium pricing. Look, look at how much work we're putting into this. But, you know, behind the scenes that these are just templated process because you have proven methods. You have proven methodologies that you can use for your thoroughness and your effectiveness every single time.

So what do we do now? I want to give you five immediate starting points to implement templates in your creativity right away. First of all, audit your repetitive tasks. Now, the way that I do this and the way that I lead this through all of my coaching and consulting clients as we use Dan Martell's time and energy audit. I created my own template for that. You can find it at dustinpead.com slash free. You can download that template and you're going to spend one, at least one week tracking every single task that you do. And as you do that, you're going to start to see repeat tasks come up over and over again. And because it's an energy audit as well, you're going to see which ones are draining you of your energy. And I bet it's the same stuff that you have to do over and over again. So that's a great place to start of how to implement systems and identifying where you need to implement templates.

Then start with just one high impact template. Choose your most time consuming. So you've done the time and energy audit. Which is the most time consuming recurring process? Is it client onboarding? Is it project briefs? Is it email communication? What is it? And then create your first template this week.

Now, when you're doing that for every template, you need to identify at least three to five places where customization could happen, and mark those areas clearly so that you can remember to personalize them. There's nothing worse than sending something out that was made from a template where it has a bracket that says insert name here. That's embarrassing. So make sure you, if you need to highlight it digitally or physically, whatever it takes, you need to bold it, italicize it, draw arrows to it, whatever it takes, make sure that you're personalizing those things before you send off a template. It's just that. It's a template. It's not what's meant to be used. It's something that you create from.

And then over time, number four, create a template library. You can set up a shared folder for your team on Google Drive or Dropbox, whatever you use. You can have those clear naming conventions and the version control like we talked about earlier with the six digit dates on the end.

And then lastly, schedule template reviews. Put quarterly, just a quick two hour block on your calendar. So once every three months, you're going to take just two hours to look at all your templates and how you can improve those existing templates based on what you learned over the last three months.

All right, let's talk about some featured resources here as we close today's episode. There's the book that I mentioned earlier, the nerd book, but it's again, super, super helpful for everybody in all walks of life. And no matter what profession you're in, it's called The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. That's A-T-U-L, G-A-W-A-N-D-E. Also, I've mentioned many of my frameworks here, the DO vs. DUE framework, the Future You note taking methodology, the Time and Energy audit template that I have for you, all available at dustinpead.com slash free. And you can use content management systems for template capabilities like Notion or Airtable or Asana or Google or Dropbox, whatever it is, use those to your advantage.

I want to remind you, templates are not about limiting your creativity. They're about amplifying it by removing friction from everything that's not creative. If it's not creative, use templates for it every single time. Use the standardized. Standardize the predictable. When you do that, you create space for the remarkable. Again, I'm say it again. When you standardize the predictable, you create space for the remarkable.

If you want to dive deeper into building systems that free up your creativity, go to dustinpead.com. Click on the Let's Chat button. I would love to have a free coaching session with you on anything that I've talked about in any of these podcast episodes.

Next time on the show, we're going to talk about mind to market, how to streamline the journey from concept to completion. This is where a lot of creatives get held up and we're gonna map out how you can move ideas efficiently from that first spark, that first idea through the execution into final delivery without losing momentum or quality along the way. That's next time on the Creativity Made Easy podcast. Keep creating the world needs what you're doing. You are valuable. Cannot wait to talk to you next time on Creativity Made Easy. Have a great week.

Ep 112: Culture By Design

Building Teams That Support Your Creative Process

SUMMARY

What if the reason your talented, creative team keeps missing deadlines and producing inconsistent work isn't a talent problem at all? It's actually a culture problem that you can design and fix. In this episode, culture expert Blake Behr and host Dustin Pead break down how to build a culture that becomes your creative team's operating system, turning chaos into clarity and supporting your best work.

Blake Behr, co-owner of The Culture Base and author of "Uncultured," shares his journey from experiencing toxic work environments to building thriving organizational cultures. Through his work in construction—an industry with 70% annual turnover—Blake's company achieved just 4% turnover by focusing on three key areas: appreciation, growth opportunities, and culture with communication.

This conversation reveals why structure doesn't kill creativity but amplifies it, how to hire beyond talent for character and process-minded individuals, and the crucial balance between autonomy and consistency that allows creative teams to thrive.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ Culture is Your Operating System: Culture isn't ping pong tables and perks—it's the foundational environment that sets the table for everything else. Like a garden, it requires intentional design of soil conditions, location, water sources, and variables that enable growth, development, and connection.

• ⚡️ Structure Amplifies Creativity: The myth that structure kills creativity is backwards. Structure doesn't eliminate creativity—it amplifies it by creating consistent conditions for excellence. Just as organic food requires more intentionality and effort than conventional farming, organic creativity demands structured environments to flourish.

• ⚡️ Hire Character Over Talent: When building creative teams, look beyond talent to find people who can articulate their creative process. If someone can't explain how they solved a complex problem, they likely can't repeat that success. Focus on core values alignment, work ethic, and process-oriented thinking rather than just skills and qualifications.

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 "Structure doesn't kill creativity. It amplifies it by creating consistent conditions for excellence." - Blake Behr

• 💬 "If you can't articulate the process, you can't repeat the process. And what we want is repeated success over and over again." - Dustin Pead

• 💬 "Innovation can be about your processes, your rituals, the way you create things. Follow the 70-20-10 rule: 70% of innovation on what you already do, 20% on adjacent ideas, and 10% on pure invention." - Blake Behr

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️Featured Book: "Uncultured" by Blake Behr - The key to preventing your team from self-destructing

• ⚡️ The Culture Base: theculturebase.com - Organizational culture consulting

• ⚡️ The Culture Base Podcast: Available on all podcast platforms and YouTube

• ⚡️ Free Resources: dustinpead.com/free - Tools for creative efficiency and scaling

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

TRANSCRIPT

What if I told you that the reason your talented creative team keeps missing deadlines and producing inconsistent work isn't a talent problem at all? It's actually a culture problem that you can actually design and fix. Today, culture expert Blake Behr and I are going to break down how to build a culture that becomes your creative team's operating system, turning chaos into clarity and supporting your best work.

Let's get into it. Taking creatives from chaos to clarity. Welcome back to Creativity Made Easy, the podcast where we transform creative chaos into clarity. This is a podcast for all creatives, designers, photographers, writers, and all creative entrepreneurs who are seeking practical, actionable strategies to grow their creative business through efficiency. I'm your host, Dustin Pead, creative process coach and consultant, and I help creatives know themselves, their process and their teams that they can create with efficiency as they scale together.

Before we get into today's episode, I want to invite you to subscribe, rate and review wherever you might be listening to this podcast. Or if you're watching on YouTube, we're so glad that you're here and we would love for you to hit thumbs up button. That's the like button and subscribe and ring the bell so you're notified every time new content on this channel is dropped. I'm working on some new additional content for this channel besides just the weekly podcast. So definitely want to get in there and check that out while you can.

You can find any free resources that I offer at dustinpead.com slash free. It's loaded with resources for you and your team to create with efficiency as you scale together. That's dustinpead.com slash free. Lastly, you can find me on social media at dustinpead. That's D U S T I N P E A D.

All right, today's focus is intentional culture design that supports the creative process and drives results. My guest today, Blake Behr, is the co-owner of The Culture Base with me and author of the book Uncultured. So as we get into this, I want you to ask yourself, have you ever worked somewhere with really talented people but really chaotic results due to the lack of clarity on your processes. So today's episode, we're going to talk about creating culture as your creative teams operating system. Let's get into it.

Welcome back to the show. Long time friend, supporter, partner. Some may say deep lover. No, I'm just kidding. That might be. Sure. Yeah, it is. It is 2025 partner can mean whatever you want it to mean. Blake Behr in the house, author of uncultured. We're going to talk a little bit about this today. The key to prevent your team from self-destructing. A lot of things that we talk about right here on this podcast, Blake, we're talking about going from chaos to clarity and Blake also partner with me, the business kind, with our organization called The Culture Base. We're going to get into that in just a second. But before we do, Blake, I'd love to know just kind of share your background for those that are newer to the show that might not have been around to see your pretty face before. What got you in? What led you to focus so much on organizational culture?

Yeah, nobody just says I want to focus on stuff like that until you've experienced the other side of it. Right. So I think I think that my path led to this point when I experienced hyper extreme other side of this. Right. Like what it looked like to have horrible organizational structure, what it was like to never want to go into work. And so, you know, I'm I've been a lot of things in life. My path is not a linear path. It is very back and forth. Like, hey, I'm going to be a pastor. And then you met me for more than two minutes. Know that was a good choice that that didn't happen. And then I went into roofing. And then it was just like, hey, all my friends are on meth, so I should probably go do something else. And then I went, was like, oh, I actually got a pastor gig. And maybe I should have a trade as well. And went into electrical. And then I went to go for business finance, decided I didn't want to do any of that kind of stuff. And now, a couple of years go by and I start running someone else's company for them.

And was doing it for three to four years and just realized I can never make those final cultural decisions that impacted people, impacted strategy, impacted direction. That I could only do it up to a certain point. And I finally had someone come to me and just said, you know, I know you think that going and trying to fix this thing is going to be the easier solution. However, I'm telling you, just go in and starting your own business doing this and building it how you want to will be infinitely easier, which it was easier than trying to fix something. It wasn't easy. I don't want to make it sound like that, but.

So we basically said, hey, let's start this business that focuses on the three areas that why people leave business and why people leave a company. And those three areas are appreciation, the ability to grow or perceived ability to grow, and then culture and communication. So we focused only on those areas. In an industry where there's 70% turnover a year, we're 4%. In an industry where the average age is 48 to 52, ours is 26.

I'm not trying to flex those things outside of saying culture has been the whole focus. We're in construction. We don't have the ping pong table or dartboard or Margarita Fridays. We don't have that. We have to build our culture in such a way that we find the right people and we develop the right people and the right people stay. We, that's been that part. Now I'm going into other businesses and doing a lot of other things and AI robotics and things that I never thought I would be in because when you start focusing on the right people and start focusing on creating organizations in the right way, it doesn't matter what you do. You get to go and play in a lot of different sandboxes.

I think that's great for me because as you heard my story is a story of extremes. Well, it's also a story of being a generalist, you know, and even though I can specialize in things, I really find joy in getting to play in a lot of things, but mainly how do you meet psychology, which feels like it only has one area of the world. Like, oh, go be a therapist, go be a psychologist, but it's not true. Like how do you take theoretical psychology and understanding and people and all these other very extreme variables and put them into business, the place that we spend a third, if not more of our life. So.

Yeah, man, you said a couple of things in there that I want to hit on. One, since we're talking to creative professionals on this podcast, you talk about the ability to innovate and it opens up when you set the foundation of that good culture, it opens up the door for us to be able to do so many more things that we didn't think were possible, which we could spend a whole episode on limiting beliefs. And maybe I'd love to have you back to talk about that. But speaking specifically about with culture base, with the culture base, what we basically do is we come in and we set up culture as your operating system, right? Like it's, Hey, at the end of the day, you don't function without good culture and good communication and what that clarity brings. And that's clarity and processes. It's clarity and vision. It's clarity in how you hire and fire. It's all across the board. It's not just ping pong tables. And you talked about that as well. So talk to me Blake for a little bit about the difference of culture as an operating system versus just ping pong tables and how can that affect the creative professionals that are watching and listening?

Yeah. So culture as an operating system, think it is. So first, before we move on, culture needs to be defined. We need to be using the same words. If I say the word God, everyone has a different perspective. If I say the word family, everyone has a different perspective. There are definable aspects of culture. And if I gave a one word, definer of culture, it's environment. That's, that's all it is. If I, if I had to simplify all culture into one thing, it's environment. I, in in my book, take it to a different point to say that it's the environment for growth, for development and for connection, right? Like that's, those are the things we're looking for growth of the person, the individual, the ability to have a vision and connect to that vision and do it meaningfully with the people you want to be doing it with.

Those types of things are what a lot of our culture is like setting the table for whatever it is that we do that brings brilliance to the world. So culture as an operating system is foundational, right? It is setting the table for everything else. It is making sure you'll, if you heard me say, talk about culture before, I can't not talk about the idea that culture is like a garden. It's the ability to go in and set the variables for growth. Like that's what it is. It is going in, making sure the soil is clear and clean, making sure there's not a ton of rocks, making sure it's locationally and geographically in a place that's going to get some sun. Where's your water source? Where are all these other aspects that have to be there for your business, your garden to work and so, or your creativity.

Because 100% for the creative professional, your creativity has to be turned on and off in certain aspects. So variables need to be set up for stuff like that. And that's not easy. There's this idea that this kind of structure, that this kind of culture setting, it isn't real unless it's novel or new or like you're going to lose the creative aspect of it all. I, know, Dustin, you and I have talked about this before that structure versus creativity mentality. Like do you bring in structure and creativity at such a level? And, um, and we make them opponents, but they're not like they're two sides to the same coin.

And so like structure doesn't kill creativity. It amplifies it by creating consistent conditions for this excellence. Right. And so one more time for the kids in the back. Say that again. Structure doesn't kill creativity. It amplifies it by creating consistent conditions for excellence. And so when you have this and this is like, think about this too. If you do nothing, if you want the organic creativity to just flow in, um, like what organ, like if you did nothing to a garden, is anything produced? Yes. We need, we need to are produced.

I don't know why we think that the things that are beautiful in life just naturally will happen with no tension or any structure having to be had. That's not true. Think about, I don't just wake up and get a good body. You know what I mean? My body doesn't naturally just all of a sudden get fit. But creativity is definitely, no, that's not true. You have to put in effort. My brain doesn't naturally just get smart. I have to put into it. My, I mean the weeds naturally come, the fat naturally comes. It, yes, it takes me putting shit into my body, but like at the same time, organic creativity, actually, if you want to get really good organic, like let's just, I'm going to stay in this food concept. Organic food more or less expensive? More expensive. Way more expensive. Why?

Because a lot more intentionality and effort has to go into having creative or having organic food. You want the shortcut? Get pesticides. I think a lot of times we want a pesticide lifestyle that turns into organic creativity. And that's just not real or true. What you're going to get is you're going to get shit food. You want organic food. You want organic creativity. You have to set the environment to do so, which requires a lot of consistency and requires a lot of work effort, but it's worth it when you get the good stuff.

Yeah. So let's talk about that work. Let's talk about that effort next. What are some, some practical rituals or rhythms or tactics from uncultured in the culture base, uh, that creative teams can start implementing immediately to set this fertile soil?

Yeah, I just, so I, I use, like I was saying, I use a lot of AI. Get a lot of quotes on my daily like stuff. One of them hit today that just like it's by Simon Sinek, fan girl over him, of course. Oh yeah. We know, we know him well on this show. He says, dream big, start small, but most of all start. And I think that there is an aspect that any of your rituals, if they don't happen with just starting something, just beginning and Dustin, you and I have talked a ton about this on air, off air period, just about like so much creativity is tripwire, right? Like it isn't something that you just produce out of the front cortex of your brain. A lot of it's out of the back part of your brain and the subconscious that we have. And a lot of it is tripwire from other things. Right. And so creativity and innovation, a lot of times it just needs first off consistency. Needs creating really shitty stuff. When I wrote my book, the thing, my one rule was begin, write 500 words and I don't care if 499 of them are the word poop. And like, I just type that the same over, over, over, just getting things moving and then all of a sudden it happens, right? But it requires that starting. The pain of regret way outweighs the pain of discipline. And when you can just get into that process and start doing these things, you're going to start creating really good stuff that took a discipline to get there. I love that our greatest things in life take discipline because it makes it rewarding. If it didn't, what we would create wouldn't even really be that rewarding.

And so I think that's one aspect. The other that we've talked about quite a bit is like I love innovation, but it's really easy to turn innovation into invention in our minds. And so innovation can be about your processes. It can be about your rituals. It can be about the way you create things. It can be whatever. But we've I've had to really force myself to follow that 70-20-10 rule when it comes to innovation, which is 70 percent of your innovation really needs to be on thesis for what you do in your common work. Right. Like we can benefit what we're already doing if you focus those areas and your creativity on 70% of what you're already doing. Make it better. Make it better. Exactly. How do you adapt? How do you adjust? Like, and we don't always love that because it looks like process and looks like it's wearing overalls, right? And so it's a little challenging.

Yeah, I love it. That's why I do what I do. Exactly. So the next part is 20% that's adjacent to that. Something similar. It's inline, but it could help you lead to a new idea, a new breakthrough in what you're already doing. So this is like a adjacent thesis. And then 10% of it invention, right? Like this is the, what do I wanna create that is outside of my realm that I promise that 10% that you spend your time on actually will help the 70 and the 20. Like it's weird how it happens, but that kind of like time where you're focusing energy effort, that 70-20-10 rule and just beginning is more powerful than just waiting for inspiration. Like just way more powerful.

Yeah. And I think what we're saying here too, taking this practical step towards building the right culture for your creative team, for the team that surrounds you focused on innovation is really is like what gets reinforced gets repeated, right? So you're talking about taking that 70% of your innovation and reinforcing back into what you're already doing. And so I think it's important for us to understand the difference between just innovating or just creating for creative sake. Like that's their space for that, right? Like that's your 20 and your 10 really. But to really get down to it and put in the work for the processes and systems that support the creativity that you want to do. You can't go do the 20% and the 10% without the foundation of that 70% in your innovation, right?

Let's switch gears a little bit as we're talking about culture and creative teams. You know, lot of the creative professionals that I've talked to that they don't know when to hire or who to hire or how to hire. And they're afraid of making the wrong decision because it's their money and at risk. You know, these are business owners or solopreneurs and they're just like, I don't want to waste my money on somebody that's not going to work out. So let's talk about some hiring processes here? How do we identify people who are both creative and at least process adjacent minded during our hiring focus?

Yeah. So if I'm, if I'm talking to people right now who are having to hire for their own team, is that what you're saying? Like it's that, Yeah. I just hired a virtual assistant. So what, what would I be looking for in that? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So this is like my favorite part of everything, which is the weirdest thing for a business owner to be like, I love hiring. Um, but it's almost like, if you look at it, look, not like I need to fix a problem, but I need to invest in a future. Um, hiring becomes really exciting. And so when you start thinking about investment for future, you you've got to look at your own future and say, what, what do I value? Where do I want to go? What do I want to create? And so your values matter. Uh, how hard you're gonna work matters. The type of needs for your weaknesses matter. And so I don't think you can even touch this part of process until you've spent time in that part of process. Okay, so until you know, don't go higher, it's a waste of your time. Okay, it's a waste of your time, it's a waste of their time. And you're not going to, you're gonna all of a sudden come to fixed mindsets that people suck and nobody wants to work hard. That's bullshit.

Like a 4% turnover rate in construction. Guys, people do care about purpose. They do want to do something meaningful. So you've got to find the right ones. And are they all sitting at home waiting for your call? They're not. OK, so you've got to find them in the right places, but you've got to identify the right people you need to go look in those right places. So you can't not have core values. And I'm not trying to be like every other consultant who comes in and it's like, have you thought about your values? But like you really need to because you don't know what kind of people you want to work with. You get to choose. When have you ever got to choose who you get to work with? Yeah. Like one of the greatest joys in life is getting to do business with my friends. Like seriously, I love it.

I love being around people who love being around me and who can handle me. And then I love going and doing business together and going in because what business is, is creating. Like we get to be in a creative world and we get to go create and innovate and come up with new ideas and try to say, um, like, like I love looking for the right enemy, which is a little sub tangent here. Um, and my biggest enemy is the way it's always been done. I love fighting against the way it's always been done. Yeah. Yeah. And so guess what? I look for people who also hate the way it's always been done. And if they don't hate the way it's always been done, then I don't know if they're my people. Now, again, I don't I'm not saying I don't care about legacy and how things were created. But if it's a well, this is just the way we've done it and we've never tried anything new. That's that's that fixed mindset. Yeah, So now.

You figure those things out. And this is this is hard because a lot of times in creative world, you're looking for maybe subcontractors to be on your team. You're looking maybe W2. I don't know. But. It's hard to not focus on talent first. But talent is not effort. It's just something someone has. OK, so it's like if they had a really cool hat, would you hire them for the cool hat or would you hire them because of the person under the hat?

There's some people that I know that may actually hire for the cool hat. I'm not going to hire and I respect that. You can do whatever you want. OK, especially if you own like Catworld or something. Yeah. So but what I'm saying is talent's important. But the person under the talent or who holds the talent or holds that tool, that's what you want to know about. And if you are a grinder and you want to grind and go. Like, hey, we're just slant for the next three years. We just slam and we're busting out. We're working 50 hour weeks together. We're side by side and we're ready for this journey. You need to look for people who are ready for the journey. Yeah. Okay. And this is that whole, I don't know if it was Kevin Durant or some other person who said that, and it might even been Kobe that said, um, hard work trumps talent when talent fails to work hard. And so you want to find people who are hard workers, who are the right character, who in times of grinding know how to grind. But then like in a creative world, maybe you're looking for people who are looking for more like, how do you get through? I don't know. Like, what's your creative process? Like, how do you solve a problem nobody else could figure out? You're asking interview questions to like excavate that mentality. And when you can say like, hey, nobody else could solve through this problem. You solved it. What was your process?

And if they can't articulate their process, then maybe in the interview go, Oh, so you got lucky then then see what they say after. Can't articulate the process, you can't repeat the process. That's exactly right. And what we want is repeated success over and over again. So we talked about moving beyond the talent to hire and you kind of threw some things out there just now of like, here's what to look for. Ask them about their creative process.

As we wrap up this conversation on hiring, before we wrap up the show, what else do we need to be looking for when we're hiring beyond talent?

So definitely core values if you're looking beyond talent. You're looking, so real heavy process oriented people, if you are in an industry that needs people who can live in weeds, you need to find people who can live in the weeds. If you need people who can stay above the clouds, you need to look for that. So you've gotta almost break out your job description, understand.

And this is where people tend to fail is they look for the qualifications of somebody, right? The talents of somebody who fits this role and not necessarily the type of person or character of a person who actually fits this role. And I think there is, and I'm guilty of that. Like there are times that I have a need that I'm trying to fix a need, but if I'm trying, like I said earlier, to invest in a future, then what I need to do is find who is the right person who can.

Like maybe they don't have all the qualifications, but they can mold into the qualifications and then take this role and transform it to another level later. That's what you got to look for. So I think, I think you've got to look at job descriptions different and you got to look more at people who fit that kind of role. Yeah. And I love what you said too, about being in the weeds or in the clouds. And what came to me in that moment is it's really about the altitude of the, of the person that you're looking for. And there's nothing wrong with the person that lives in the weeds because you need those people to go back to the garden analogy. You need those people to cultivate that soil at the ground level, but then you also need the people in the clouds, right, at that altitude to provide the rain to kind of go, hey, here's some fresh ideas. Here's some fresh wind, right, coming from the clouds. And so I don't think there's anything wrong. I think people think that there's somehow less important if they're a weeds altitude versus a clouds altitude. And we need the balance of both. But I think what you said is so important is what do you need the most in that season? Do you need a cloud altitude or do you need the ground level altitude and go find that type of person, not the type of talent necessarily type of person and ingrained in who they are as a person, because that's what you'll be able to grow and develop and cultivate, right?

Let's wrap up this conversation today talking about the balance between autonomy and consistency. A lot of the people listening to this show are creative leaders. They're leaders of their businesses. They're leaders of their creative teams. And they're constantly challenging. Most of my clients that I talk to, have to coach on how to delegate. Right? And so it's a lot of that. And how much are you willing to give up? And at what level can you give autonomy? Can you talk a little bit about the, how to give creative autonomy while maintaining consistency.

Hmm. Yeah. This is another one where it's like, these aren't opposites. Two sides of the same coin kind of mentality. Like I heavily believe that.

Let me think of a right way to ask this question.

Do you want to trust the people who work for you? Yeah, for sure. Do you think anybody doesn't want to trust the people that work for them? I don't. I don't think so. When we overstandardize every aspect and overprocess every aspect of everything we do, there's an aspect of that that says I don't trust. There is an aspect that says I want to make sure we standardize certain things.

But when you standardize when bathroom breaks happen, we're starting to not trust. And so, and the further someone grows in your organization and on your team, the more autonomy you should be able to give them. And the less clear you should have to be. And I know that's going to sound so contrary to everything else, but I do believe part of the brilliance that they're bringing to the team is what they can create in the autonomy.

And when you overstandardize everything and overprocess everything, what's important? I don't know what's truly important when you overstandardize everything. There are aspects of our business and aspects of our creativity that are permission to play. No chance anyone's coming in here and being like this or doing it this way. But if you don't and if you hold to that, but you hold to that on everything, nobody's gonna know what's actually true, okay? So there is a lack of trust that happens. And when you have a lack of trust, you will have a lack of innovation. You will not get innovation without trust because people will protect what they value at that point because they don't feel trusted to bring, it's like show and tell, but the teacher's like only showing what they have and not letting the kids participate and basically making fun of everyone else's stuff that they have. Who wants to show Intel at that point? You've lost that. You've lost that when you, the teacher said, this is the only thing you can bring to show Intel. Okay. You've lost creativity. So there is guard rail mentality versus straight jacket mentality. And I think that you've got to find that balance.

Yeah. There's still autonomy between the guard rails. Yes. There's no autonomy in a straight jacket. That's exactly right. And Autonomy is saying also, I care about personality. I care about the personality you bring to this. Here is how we're getting there. Or here is the direction, the vision. Here are the things you can't. I'm going to say you can't do because there are cants. And it's important to clearly identify those. And then you say, now go create. And you're like, here's point A, here's point B. How are you going to do it and create the best vehicle to do it? And everyone's creating these cars. And then some dude creates a plane that gets there and you're like, I didn't even think about that. That's fantastic. Okay. That's personality and innovation you want to have received because you had one vision of what it was and now you've got 20 visions. Right. Which goes back to the hiring conversation that we were just having. We hired for your weakness, right? We hired for what your greatest need is. You have the one part covered. So why would you stifle the, what you just brought in because you needed them to think differently and act differently and perform differently than you in that matter.

Man, so good. So good. Let's wrap up today by just if there's one thing that you want creative business owners to remember from our conversation today, what would that be?

Innovative teams take effort. I that would be it. You can't, you can't happen and accidentally upon greatness, but it takes a lot of effort and that effort requires consistency. I love it. I love it. That's what it's all about. Um, real quick before we go, can you tell us about the book again? One more time for those who are watching here. Is right here. The book is uncultured on screen there for you. Uncultured Blake Behr's book, the key to prevent your team from self-destructing. Is available on Amazon. Tell us about that book and the main premise and the target audience.

Yeah. So the target audience is anybody who has a team, you know, and more specifically in businesses, but it dives into like why businesses fall apart. That seemingly seemed like they had all the successful pieces, but then kind of fall apart because of a lack of understanding on culture and what actually gets greatness out of people. So teaches you how to create, fix, build, and maintain a thriving culture in your business and to do it scalably, right? Like you can't just be like, I go from zero to the perfect culture and you got to give yourself some forgiveness and some growth, growing pains. And again, it's, it's heavy in consistency, heavy in mindset and heavy and just doing the thing over and over so that you build something great.

Yeah. And the book is really kind of the, the, the genesis of our business, the culture base, right? And it was kind of born out of our working relationship in the years past. Uh, and what we do at the culture base is like I said, kind of born out of this book and everything that we've been talking about on this podcast today is what we do at the culture base. So if you're in need of helping any of these categories, reach us, reach out to us at the culture base. That's BAS. The culture base dot com. We also Blake and I co-host a podcast over there as well. It comes out a couple of times a month called Get Ready For This. The culture based podcast. I know it's the most creative. It's the most creative title ever. We just took our business name and added podcast to the end of it. No one's ever done that before. We're turning down interviews all the time about how we named it. And I'm just kidding.

Go check that out everywhere where you can listen. It's on YouTube You can search on YouTube for the culture base or the culture base podcast and you'll find them Blake I'm so glad you're with me today, man. I really appreciate your time and I look forward to having you back. We're definitely need to talk about that limiting belief What will make that happen soon, too? Cool. Thanks for having me man. You bet

What an incredible episode we had for you today. Like I said in the interview, you can find out more about us at the culture based dot com. If you're interested in any part of the conversation that we had today, you can also subscribe and listen to that podcast, the culture based podcast. Can Google us on or find us on YouTube and anywhere where audio podcasts are available. I to remind you that you can pick up Blake's book uncultured on Amazon.

Definite must read for any of you that are watching or listening to this podcast on a regular basis. Next week, we're going to talk about the power of templates. And I know that sounds super boring, but listen, we're going to be able to create some reusable assets without losing without losing originality and creativity. So I want to remind you that creativity thrives with the right structure support.

And if you need help with that, I would love to come in and help you with that, whether it's as simple as one on one coaching or it's more complex and to consulting with us at Chief Creative Consultants. I would love to talk with you about that. Go to DustinPead.com. That's P E A D and click on the let's chat button. So keep thriving. Keep doing what you're doing. Don't quit. The world needs you and your creativity. I cannot wait to talk with you next week on Creativity Made Easy podcast.

Ep 111: The Feedback Loop

Structuring Revision Processes That Don't Derail Projects

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xx4oSvpcVs&w=200&h=113]

SUMMARY

The average creative project goes through nine rounds of revisions, with each round decreasing creative quality by 15% and increasing timeline risk by 30%. If you've ever found yourself stuck in endless revision cycles with clients who can't seem to make final decisions, this episode is for you. Host Dustin Pead dives deep into the psychology behind feedback, introduces the revolutionary feedback funnel method, and shares practical strategies to structure revision processes that elevate your work instead of derailing your projects. Learn how to establish healthy boundaries, implement effective feedback systems, and guide clients toward their original vision while protecting your creative integrity and project timeline.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ The Feedback Funnel Method: Structure feedback in three strategic stages - concept (the why), structure (the what), and details (the how). This prevents backwards feedback that starts with minor details and works up to major conceptual changes, saving time and maintaining creative quality.

• ⚡️ The 3:1 Feedback Ratio: Psychology research shows that effective feedback requires three positive comments for every one negative critique. This ratio activates reward circuits in the brain rather than triggering defensive stress responses, leading to better client reception and collaboration.

• ⚡️ The Goldilocks Principle of Revisions: "Just right is better than perfect." Implement revision limits and understand that diminishing returns begin after the second revision round. Establish windmill dates and change order processes to prevent scope creep while maintaining client relationships.

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 "Your clients don't know when enough is enough and that's why they hired you." - Dustin Pead

• 💬 "Just right is better than perfect. There's no such thing as the perfect project, but you can get it just right." - Dustin Pead

• 💬 "Feedback always feels personal, even when it's not. That's because we're passionate about our work and your client is passionate about their work." - Dustin Pead

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️Featured Book: Thanks for the Feedback by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen

• ⚡️Free Resources: DustinPead.com/free

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

TRANSCRIPT

Did you know the average creative project goes through nine rounds of revisions and with each round decreasing creative quality by 15% every round and increasing the timeline risk by 30%? Today we're going to dive into how to structure feedback loops that elevate your work without derailing your projects. Let's get into it. Taking creatives from chaos to clarity.

Welcome back to Creativity Made Easy, the podcast where we transform creative chaos into clarity. This is a podcast for all creatives, designers, photographers, writers, all creative entrepreneurs who are seeking practical, actionable strategies to grow their creative business through efficiency. I'm your host, Dustin Pead, creative coach and consultant. And I help creatives know themselves, their process and their teams so that they can create with efficiency as they scale together.

Before we get into today's episode, I want to invite you to subscribe, rate, and review wherever you're listening on whatever podcast platform you're listening on. Or if you're joining us on YouTube, go ahead and hit the thumbs up. That's the like button. Subscribe and ring the bell if you haven't already. That way you'll be notified every time new content just like this drops every single week.

Also want to mention that you can find all my free resources at DustinPead.com slash free. That's DustinPead.com slash free. And lastly, you can follow me on social media, Instagram, LinkedIn, all those places, Facebook as well at DustinPead. All right, let's get into today's episode.

Today we're talking about the feedback loop and how to structure revision processes that don't derail the project. So we've all been there before, right? It's the client that has requested endless rounds of revisions. And what that has taught me over the years about feedback systems is this. It's very simple. It's going to sound very narcissistic and a little bit too elementary, but I need you to just hear me when I tell you the truth is that your clients don't know when enough is enough and that's why they hired you. Your clients, they don't know when enough is enough and that's why they hired you.

We need external feedback. That's what we're talking about here today is how to have the feedback with the client. This is not the internal Pixar creative ink type of feedback. Today we're talking external feedback when working with your clients to deliver their original vision to life.

So let's first talk about the psychology behind feedback and creative feedback, right? There's always an emotional component. And I know this because I'm a very emotional being Enneagram four it doesn't take anything for me to cry. I cried watching a movie just this week, but listen, feedback always feels personal, even when it's not. And that's because we're passionate about our work. Your client is passionate about their work and you are passionate about your work and thus we all feel connected to it personally.

Psychological safety also plays a huge role in feedback. We're going to talk a lot about that today, but psychological safety creates an environment where team members can give and receive critique without it feeling like a personal attack. Wouldn't that be nice? If you've ever been in a moment where you received some feedback on a project and it felt like a personal attack or you gave feedback on a project and it felt like a personal attack. This is important because creative work, like we said, is deeply personal with creators, us creators. We have significant emotional investment in what we create. And just like your clients, they also have significant emotional and financial investment in what they're asking you to create for them.

So what I'm asking you to do right off the gate when we talk about the psychological perspective of these feedback loops is to take a stakeholder perspective. And here's what I mean by that. Clients often lack the specialized vocabulary to precisely decide the creative elements that they're looking for, right? There's a gap between what clients can envision and what they can actually verbalize. There's emotional reactions involved to creative work because it precedes all logical articulation and it makes feedback feel really challenging. So many clients, they struggle to distinguish between their personal preferences and their strategic needs. And that's where you come in with the stakeholders perspective.

And the stakeholders perspective is understanding the end goal here. It's removing all the emotion from the table, it's removing all the personal preferences from the table. And at the end of the day, the stakeholder just wants success for the actual project, for the end for both companies, right? For their company. So what you're going to do is you're going to enter into this feedback loop, not with a personal perspective, but with a stakeholder perspective.

Listen, without a structured feedback loop, clients, they're going to default, right? They're going to default to vague unhelpful feedback. Have you ever heard this before? Just make it pop. I just want it to pop, right? Just make it super creative. Well that's, that's really subjective. We don't really know what that means. What's creative to me might not be creative to you. What makes it pop to me may not make it pop to you. It's going back to those briefings that we talked about just a few episodes ago, understanding what the literal vision is, painting it, being able to see colors and textures and type fonts and motions that resonate with them and their vision ahead of time, obviously is going to create a much better feedback loop as you move forward.

There's an abstract nature to creative concepts that makes them difficult to describe before they exist. Imagine we talk about Thomas Edison quite a bit on this podcast. Imagine Thomas Edison trying to describe the light bulb before it exists, right? It's like a little fire inside of a glass case that you can turn on and off with a flick of a switch. What's a switch? I don't know. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's all, it's really abstract, right? And so it's difficult to understand. But as many questions as you can ask upfront and as many clarifying questions you can ask in the feedback loop, the better off you'll be.

So let's talk about the science of effective feedback. There's actually neuroscience studies that have been conducted. The neuroscience of criticism versus constructive guidance reveals that a fundamental brain difference is actually in place, right? Criticism triggers the brain's threat response system, right? That activates the amygdala and releases stress hormones that inhibit learning and creative thinking while constructive guidance that focuses on growth opportunities activates the reward circuits. Right? So we've gone from the threat response system when you're receiving feedback, it activates the amygdala immediately releases the stress hormones, right? It's a threat system. It's a, there's feedback coming at me. Someone's coming at me. And so it's an immediate negative reaction and that releases dopamine eventually that enhances cognitive function.

And so what we want to do is we want to focus on growth and guidance, not tearing down. So we're working on building up and not tearing down because you're immediately going to get two different types of interaction as soon as you do that. What the neuroscience shows us about this criticism, right, is that we come and we, if we come to the client and we say, this isn't working, then their immediate guard goes up and they're immediately stress hormones involved and it's all defense. But if you come to them and say, you know what, I feel like this could work better if, right, then it goes up and not down, thus releasing dopamine and enhances their cognitive function and their reception to new ideas.

Also timing. Timing is everything on feedback, right? We don't want to let it linger too long, but we don't want it to be so immediate that it's off the cuff. So immediate off the cuff is usually what I struggle with. That's where I need to kind of stop, collect my thoughts thoroughly and put together a more rational, well thought out critique or feedback, right? Whereas other people may take so long to put that together that the other party involved assumes everything is great. And so there's got to be a good balance there of knowing, I always recommend at least 12 to 24 hours on some of these things. It's just kind of the sleep on it rule, right?

And then you also, when you're giving this feedback, the ratio used to be, we used to call it the Oreo feedback, right? Where you would say, you'd give a compliment or something positive, you'd put the negative in the middle, and then you would conclude it with something positive as well. It kind of a two to one right to wrong ratio. Hey, this is right, this part is wrong, but again, this part is right as well. So now in society, psychologists have told us that, sociologists have told us that the right ratio now is actually three positives to one negative. So think about that. Every time you give one piece of negative feedback, you're going to have to have it equal in that moment, not later, in that moment, three pieces of positive feedback as well in order for them to properly receive it. Think about that next time you're engaging in feedback with your client.

All right. So we talked about why feedback is important and the psychology behind it. Now let's talk about how do we actually structure effective feedback process as well. It's going to sound like a broken record here, but it all goes back to that briefing. It's expectation management from the very beginning. When you have that creative briefing, say this is how it's going to go. This is how we're going to do feedback. And this is how we're going to understand when the project is actually done and we're done with revisions, which we're going to talk more about here in a second.

Also creating feedback guidelines for the client in that briefing, right? Again, we're saying, here's how we're going to do feedback. Here's how we're going to move forward. Here's what the round of revisions are going to look like. Here's what the timeline is going to look like. You set up all that stuff in the beginning. It's a lot less conflict feeling there towards the end when you're having to make final revisions to get it done. And speaking of revisions, you also want to establish those revision limits from the get go in writing in the contract. How many rounds of revisions are you willing to give at this price and be very clear and upfront about that, not just in writing, but verbally during the briefing as well.

So let's talk about this feedback funnel method, right? It's a strategic versus tactical feedback, right? We're separating the big picture from the details, that's kind of the first thing you need to understand is the feedback funnel is going to separate the big picture from the details. And the feedback funnel is three stages. Number one, it's in the concept, right? Feedback in the concept will save you from struggles later on throughout the project. So understanding what it is that we're setting out to do to begin with, it's painting it, it's getting that good project brief, that's going to create the most effective feedback for you.

Step two, or the second stage in the feedback funnel approach is structure. How are we going to structure this thing? How is it going to look in the end? It's more of the what. It's less of the why and more of the what. The structure is going to be how we're getting there in the end. And then the third stage of the feedback approach is the details. This is where it starts to get muddy. But the more clear you can be with it, the better. So we're going to have feedback at concept.

We're going to have feedback and the structure of it. We've kind of to use the 4D process, right? We've already dreamed about what it's going to be, the concept now and the structure. We are designing what we want it to be. We took the concept, we took the dream and we narrowed it down into the design. That's the structure of what we're going to be. And then the details is the development phase, right? What is, what's going to happen when and next and how is it all going to flow? Pre-production, production, post-production, all those things, right? We're rounds of revisions. That's the detail. So those are the three areas in which you want to have feedback. You want to have feedback at the concept, or if you're using the 4D creative process, you want to have feedback at the dream phase. How does everyone feel about where we're headed in our brainstorm here, or where we're headed in our definition of what this thing is going to be? It's the why. And then in the design phase, that's the structure. Now we're narrowing it down to what it's actually going to be. How are we feeling about this? Getting feedback there. And then lastly, getting feedback on the details. Because if the first two are right, then the details are going to be minor details and not major details.

Listen, this funnel, this feedback funnel method, feedback at the concept, feedback at the structure, feedback at the details, it's going to prevent feedback that works backwards. You're not starting at the details and then moving to the structure and the concept. You're starting at the concept and then the structure and then the details because each step will get you closer and closer to that final vision that you wanted from the beginning.

So how do we do this? You can create feedback templates that can guide specific responses. You definitely want to consolidate those feedback systems as much as possible. One channel, one to and from, whatever the communication path is. It could be a simple form. We're going to talk about some technology here in just a second, but you want to be able to use one system and one source and ask the same questions every single time so that you can track changes and control the variation of versions as it goes further and further into revisions and the final part of the project.

All right, we talked about how we're going to mention some different tools and technology for feedback and we're going to talk here specifically visual feedback. So we're talking specifically here for the visual artists, some audio artists as well may be able to use a few of these, but visually speaking, it's the markup tools, right? Those are going to give you the most contextual feedback when they can circle something and say it's this font right here that I don't like. It's this color over here. It's this texture over here. It's this photo that we used, things like that. So Adobe, Canva, Figma, all the ones that are out there, everything out there now has the ability for collaborative design feedback. Now, this is not saying that you're going to give them design control. You're inviting them into the feedback process, not the design process. That's yours, not the creative process. That's yours, but you're going to invite them into the feedback so that you can closely align to the original vision.

If you're into video, if you create video for your clients, Frame.io or other platforms like it is really great for them to be able to pinpoint the exact millisecond of what they're talking about, comment on it, and then it'll show up in your editing software for you to be able to go exactly to the point, see the client's revision right there, and execute it to perfection because it's in the exact right moment. It's clarifying, right? At the end of the day, we're using these tools to clarify exactly what it is that we want, the contextual feedback. We don't want to be confused about what they're talking about in the feedback. So create and grab those tools and technology for visual feedback.

All right, the last thing I want to talk about today, because when we talk about feedback, we talk about equally, we talk about revision. So let's talk about how do we manage the revision process, right? We want the Goldilocks principle of revision. Just right is better than perfect. I need you to hear that creative. Just right is better than perfect. And maybe you need your client to hear that as well. Just right, the Goldilocks principle, is better than perfect. And what I mean by that is that nothing is going to be perfect. There's no such thing as the perfect project. You may think you created the perfect project at one point. I got news for you. You didn't.

Your client doesn't have the perfect pitch. They don't have the perfect vision. They don't have the perfect concept. At the end of the day, there's no such thing as perfection. It's a lie. But you can get it just right. We nailed it. We nailed that vision. There's going to be flaws in it. There's going to be little dings and mistakes that are going to come along the way. My father-in-law, who was a craftsman for many years, he would just call those humble spots. That's just a humble spot to keep you humble, to know that it's not perfect. And every time I do a project, I can clearly point out from across the room, there's the humble spot. But just right is better than perfect.

So what I need you to be aware of here in this revision process is beware of the diminishing returns after two revisions. Now, I know many of you go, well, really it's going to take three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine revisions. It's true. But after the first two, you're going to start to see diminishing returns. You're going to have to understand from the get-go the cost benefit of those multiple revisions. After the second revision, the time and the energy that it takes for you to complete those revisions is going to cost you more and more in the long run. And on the bottom line, and we're talking finances here, we're not talking time. It's going to cost you, yes, it's going to cost you time, but it's going to cost you more and more and more. Or it's going to cost the client more and more and more because in your contract you said I'm going to give you these revisions but after that it's going to cost more.

So you need to understand that the just right is better than perfect. The Goldilocks principle is a win for all those involved. So going back to setting those healthy boundaries from the beginning you implement revision limits. You do this without alienating your clients. You don't want to say listen now you're going to get two and no more. That's a little bit too hard headed. You can say, hey, in this price, we've laid out time for two revisions. If there's more revisions that have to happen, which we typically don't find, we typically hope that we get it right in the first couple of revisions. But if we need to go further, then that will be an additional charge. And here's what that will look like. You can use in the construction world, they call it a change order. Use the change order approach, right? That's going to prevent scope creep to say, hey, listen, we talked about this a few episodes ago. Hey, listen, back when we went to the beginning of this project and we kind of laid out that concept that we talked about and the feedback. When we nailed that and we nailed the structure of it all, we seemed like we were on the right spot. But now that we're in the details, it feels like we're not really getting it. So where did we miss it along the way? That will help prevent scope creep. And you can guide your clients back to the original vision of the project. And if you're really unsure how to do that, just you can use some different AI scripts to be able to professionally push back when you need to push back, but do it with grace and do it with kindness and it will always be well received.

So when it comes and that final review has finally arrived, you're going back to the beginning and saying, look, we've identified and predetermined the decision maker. This is the person who has the final say. They have the final say. Who is that person? Now it's time to bring them in for that very purpose to finish the project with the final review.

You also need to use a single point of contact. This is going to streamline communication. Whenever you're getting feedback from three or four different people on their team, all coming at you from all different directions, that's not healthy feedback. You're going to say, look, y'all can have multiple voices in the feedback. I just need y'all to get together on the feedback on your time and then come back and give me one single, this is the feedback that we decided as a team that we're going to go with. And that's just healthy communication at the front. Also at the front, we want to implement what I refer to as a windmill date, a windmill date. And what I mean by this, if you ever watch Back to the Future, part three, they were in the Old West and they reached the point on these tracks past the windmill. Once you get past the windmill, there's no turning back. We're going to proceed with the mission to get back to 1985.

So set a windmill date for preventing last minute changes. Say, look, I know this is really important to you to have it done by June 1st. So our windmill date is going to be May 15th. After May 15th, there's going to be little to no changes whatsoever so that we can deliver it to you when you said you wanted it to begin with.

So what do we do now? First thing we're going to do is we're going to implement a feedback funnel on your next project, the concept, the structure, and the details. If you don't already have a client feedback guide template, create one for you and your team. I'm happy to help you with that on your also if you need to audit your current revision process is your revision process way too complicated and we made it way too simple for you and today's episode go ahead and take a look at that set clear revision limits in your next proposal start at the beginning but most of all just choose one feedback tool to master this month and make one little difference if it's a windmill date if it's a single point of contact if it's the feedback funnel.

If it's feedback guide templates, if it's auditing or your revision process, whatever it is, just choose one of those to master this month. Don't overwhelm yourself or your team trying to get the perfect feedback. There is a book out there that I want to point out by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen called Thanks for the Feedback. Highly recommend that book to check out. But in conclusion, don't overwhelm yourself or your team. Just try one tactic to create better feedback loops.

A reminder, you can get all my free resources available on my website at dustinpead.com slash free. If you'd love to work together, I'd love to work together too. So go to dustinpead.com and click on the let's chat button. We'll get a free discovery call on your calendar for us to be able to see if it's a good fit for both of us and how I can help you in your particular growth areas from the inside out in your creative endeavors.

Next episode cannot wait. Going to have a special guest on here from one of my other organizations that I'm heavily involved in and part owner of, the Culture Base. Blake Baer is going to be here. We're going to talk about culture by design and how to build teams that can support your creative process. That's next time on the Creativity Made Easy podcast. Talk to you then.

Ep 110: Meeting Minimalism

Communication Frameworks That Save Time

SUMMARY

The average creative professional spends 23 hours per week in meetings. Yet research shows that over 70% of those meetings actively prevent your best creative work from happening. As creative entrepreneurs, we often find ourselves trapped in an endless cycle of meetings that drain our energy, disrupt our creative flow, and ultimately hinder our productivity. In this episode, we dive into the concept of meeting minimalism and explore practical frameworks to help you reclaim your time and boost your creative output.

When we think about meetings, we immediately recognize the visible costs – the time blocked on our calendars. However, there are hidden costs that often go unnoticed. Context switching can take up to 25 minutes before we regain deep focus. Creative flow disruption breaks our ability to produce our best work. Decision fatigue drains the energy needed for making creative choices. And let's not forget the financial impact – calculating the hourly rates of everyone involved can be eye-opening. Perhaps most significant is the opportunity cost – what creative work isn't getting done while you're sitting in that unnecessary meeting?

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ Create a Note-First Culture: Write things down before requesting face time. Documentation-first approaches eliminate unnecessary impromptu meetings and help you determine if an issue can wait for a scheduled meeting or be handled asynchronously.

• ⚡️ Implement the Meeting Decision Tree: Before scheduling a meeting, ask four critical questions: Is immediate two-way interaction required? Does this require multiple perspectives simultaneously? Is complex emotion involved that text cannot convey? Is this a relationship-building moment? If you answer "no" to all four, use an alternative communication method.

• ⚡️ Use the Right Communication Tool for the Job: Status updates can often be handled through Slack messages, project management software updates, or Loom videos instead of live meetings. Create a decision matrix for your team to determine when to use chat, email, video messages, or actual meetings.

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 "Not only do you have the calendar visible cost of that meeting, but you have preparation time and then follow-up time as well."

• 💬 "On average, it takes a person 25+ minutes to regain deep focus when they have to switch context."

• 💬 "Establish the feedback criteria even before you review the work, right? So that we understand this is what it is. We're not coming in here with different criteria."

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️Book Recommendation: "Read This Before Our Next Meeting" by Al Pittampalli

• ⚡️Free Download: Creative Meeting Success Framework

• ⚡️ EOS Level 10 Meetings: Learn the Identify, Discuss, Solve (IDS) method

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

TRANSCRIPT

The average creative professional spends 23 hours per week in meetings. Yet research shows that over 70% of those meetings actively prevent your best creative work from happening. Today, we're going to dive into meeting minimalism and how it can change the game for you and your team. Let's get into it. Taking creatives from chaos to clarity.

Welcome to Creativity Made Easy, the podcast where we transform creative chaos into clarity. This is a podcast for all creatives, designers, photographers, writers and all creative entrepreneurs who are seeking practical and actionable strategies to grow their creative business through efficiency. I'm your host, Dustin Pead, creative process coach and consultant, and I help creatives know themselves, their process and their teams to create with efficiency as they scale together.

I'm so very excited to be with you on this episode, episode 110 of the Creativity Made Easy podcast. We wouldn't have gotten this far without you. And so thank you for listening. While you're listening, I would love for you to subscribe, rate, review on whatever platform you're listening or watching on. Listen on all podcast platforms and you can watch on YouTube. Just search creativity made easy on YouTube and my channel will pop up and while you're there subscribe rate and review there as well.

I want to direct you to some amazing free resources that I have on my website. You can go to Dustin Pead dot com slash free that's D-U-S-T-I-N P-E-A-D dot com slash free for all sorts of free resources, including the ones that I may mention in this episode. Lastly, before we get into today, I want to remind you, you can follow me on social media at Dustin Pead - follow along a little bit of behind the scenes action there and anything that we have coming up to promote or just some really great conversation centered around creative production. All right, let's get into today's episode.

I do have a confession to make. I really love meetings and it's because I'm an extrovert. It's because I like to be around people as much as I can. I get that energy, but here's what I don't love. I don't love meetings without purpose. I don't love meetings without an agenda. I don't love meetings without a set amount of time, without a goal in mind for that meeting. And so today we're going to talk about this meeting minimalism and some different frameworks that I have, communication frameworks that can save you time from these endless amounts of meetings that are taken away from your creative production.

All right, let's talk about what the true cost of meetings in creative businesses are, right? There's the visible costs, right? You can look at your time on your calendar. And you can see, look, it's taking up time. Not only is it taking up time when the meeting is actually happening, but it's taking up preparation time so that I can actually be prepared for that meeting and be ready to discuss whatever it is that we're hopefully know what we're going to be talking about, right? There's also the follow-up time after that meeting. It's the meeting after the meeting in which you have to go follow up and, on the things that you talked about in there, maybe there was decisions made that you need to follow up on, or if it's a, wasn't such a great meeting, maybe you need to go get clarity on what just happened in that meeting, right?

So not only do you have the calendar visible cost of that meeting, but you have preparation time and then follow up time as well. There's also some hidden costs that I want to talk about here for a moment. And the first one is this, and we've talked about this many times on the show before, but it's this idea of context switching, context switching meaning that our brains have to go from focused on one item to now being focused on another item and it takes our brains a moment to catch up to the context in which the new thing is happening for us to really realize it's where we talk a lot about the future you note taking methodology that I talk about on this podcast all the time is where we get into that context and we can we can quickly remember what it was that we're supposed to be doing in that it's that future you note taking methodology.

But in this world of meetings, there's a hidden cost here of context switching and on average, right? It takes a person 25 plus minutes to regain deep focus when they have to switch context. So imagine that an average of 25 minutes, there's a hidden cost layer of you switching from one thing to the next for your mind to be able to get context. And you'll notice this. Sometimes you'll be sitting in a meeting and it'll take you almost 25 to 30 minutes usually before you feel like, okay, now I understand what's going on here and now I can start to contribute to the overall success of the topic in which we're talking about.

There's another hidden cost too, and it's very real. And you might feel it more than it is hidden, but it's creative flow disruption, right? Meetings break up that flow state that we've talked about in previous episodes that help us produce our best creative work. And let's be honest with these meetings, another hidden costs, again, it might not be super hidden. It might be really on the forefront of your conscious, right? But it's decision fatigue, right? Too many meetings can drain our decision-making energy. And that energy is needed for creativity. It's needed for our creative choices.

Some other hidden costs associated with meetings, obviously there's financial impact, right? You can calculate the actual dollar cost of a meeting. Who all is in the meeting, what their team hourly rates are, how long that, you know, multiplied to how long that meeting is. So, just for simplicity sake, let's say you had a team of five and they're all in that meeting and everybody in that meeting makes $10 an hour. Then that meeting is costing you $50 for one hour. So obviously numbers are a lot bigger than that. $10 an hour. My son makes that at his job at 14 years old. But you get what I'm saying, right? You have to understand the financial impact that you're spending on that meeting. Is it actually worth it?

And another hidden cost that I want to talk about before we wrap up to here is opportunity costs. And what I mean is what creative work isn't getting done while you're in that meeting, what opportunities to advance the current projects and what opportunities to create new to create new connections or new project opportunities. What what of those are being lost because you were in a meeting instead?

And so there's lots of upfront, very visible costs. We talked about calendar time during the meeting, before the meeting, after the meeting. But then there's the hidden costs, context switching, creative flow, decision fatigue, financial impact, how much is the meeting actually costing you to have, and then the opportunity costs as well.

All right, let's get into some communication strategies that can help minimize all of these meetings that we find ourselves in every single week. The first thing is this is be a note first culture or a documentation first culture. You need to write things down before requesting FaceTime. And here's what I mean by this is like, Oh, I totally meant to ask Ted about this one thing. I'm going to pop over in Ted's office real quick and ask him about this thing and see if he has a moment to talk about this. See if he has quote unquote five minutes, right? To talk about this, which he talked about in last week's episode. Let's if he has five minutes to talk about this.

But if you just pause for a second before you get up from your desk and walk over to Ted's office and you write down what it is that you actually need to talk to him about or what the question is, you will begin to observe it for what it is and know, you know what? That actually would be better served in a meeting that we already have set up. Maybe it's a one-on-one, maybe it's a departmental meeting, maybe it's an L10 leadership meeting if you're doing the EOS model. That'll be better served to bring up in that case. I'm just going to hold that for now. I'm going to stay focused on what I'm doing right now. I'm not going to disrupt Ted from what he's doing right now. We don't need an impromptu meeting for this. So document first or note first or writing down first, creating that culture among you and your team goes a long way.

Another opportunity here is progress updates. Some, some meetings don't need to be meetings. All right. We talked about this before and we're going to talk about this later on in this episode as well. Some meetings just need to be an email or a Slack message, right? If it's a progress update, structure your daily and weekly updates to eliminate these status meetings, right? And I love status meetings. One of my favorite meetings that I talk about all the time is what I call the maps meeting. It's a meeting about project status, right? And what, but what we're really talking about here is not just what's the status, but where we're going. And that's why I like to call it the maps meeting because hey, where are we going next? Where do we need to shift next? It's a little bit of an editorial style meeting.

But if it's simply just, hey, this is where we're at on these projects, then we're a simple Slack message away. I do like to hold a short, less than 15 minute meeting at the beginning of the week just to say, here's what's ahead this week. I've already sent you this. Everybody already knows what's on their schedule for this week, knows what's expected of them this week. Are there any questions that are worth being asked with all of us here. If not, we'll take it offline. Have a great day. Check in when you need to check in, that kind of thing, right?

So progress updates, get in the habit of using those digitally, whether it be an email or a Slack message, whatever it is, structure those into your daily and weekly updates so that you can eliminate status meetings. And there's a few tools here that I want to recommend for you. Obviously, any type of project updates or status tracking can be done in your project management software. For us, that's Asana. Also, knowledge of how to do certain things. Maybe we don't need a meeting for that, but you can easily have those things documented in your Google Docs or your Notion, whatever you use for all of your company-wide SOPs and structures. And then lastly, Loom videos. So huge. I talk about this all the time. You can get a free Loom account. You can have a video that goes up to five minutes for free. And you can shoot a quick explanation instead of five, instead of live walkthroughs over and over and over again. You can shoot that one video once, send it to your team and go, hey, I know you're probably gonna forget this later, but just hang on to that link, save it somewhere where you can reference it when you need to relearn it or remember the steps for this over and over and over.

So use your project management system for updates and statuses. Use your Google Docs, your Notion for knowledge management, and use Loom videos to explain things instead of having constant live walkthroughs. Listen, last thing I want to share with you about these communication tactics, and I'm not going to go super deep into it because I've already done this on a few episodes ago. It might even have been last week's episode when we talked about the creative brief mastery. But written creative briefs, these detailed briefs, are going to eliminate these constant clarification meetings, right? If you have something that you can go back to each and every time to realign yourself or your team around what the project is supposed to be about, because you did a really good job at your creative brief document, then it will eliminate needs for all of these clarification meetings over and over and over again. So go back and listen to last week's episode on the creative brief mastery for that.

Now let's talk about when we need to meet versus using some of these alternative communications, because there are actually times when a meeting is helpful, right? And we've talked before about, like, I have on my website the five ways to make every creative meeting successful. It's the Creative Meeting Success Framework. You can go to dustinpead.com slash free and download that now. And a lot of the things I'm going talk about here are included in that as well.

You need to have what's referred to often as like a meeting decision tree or a meeting decision flow chart, right? Number one, ask yourself, is immediate two-way interaction required? Or can I just send this out and whenever they get to it, they can respond? How immediate is this two-way interaction for the meeting? And if it's a super immediate, then you know you need to have a meeting. And if it's not, be honest, maybe it can wait and you can wait for return communication back.

Number two, does this require, does this issue, right, or does this meeting require multiple perspectives all at the same time? Really get ruthless about this. Does your meeting, does this issue that you're working on, does it require multiple perspectives all at the same time simultaneously? If it's a brainstorm, then obviously yes, you're gonna need to have that kind of energy in the room. Or if it's a go off, work on this, come back and reconvene, then you can talk about that there. But ask yourself, does this problem require multiple perspectives simultaneously?

Third question to ask yourself when deciding if you need to have a meeting. Is complex emotion involved that text cannot convey? This is where a lot of leaders mess up by canceling meetings across the board is because they think I can just read the text and understand I can read the email, I can read the Slack message, I can read the Teams message, whatever it is, I can read that and understand exactly what's going on. We don't need a meeting for this. But if there's complex emotion involved, something that's being shifted or added or taken away, we're still dealing with people here. If there's complex emotion involved, that a text just can't convey, then yeah, it's time for a meeting.

And then number four, this is my favorite one as an Enneagram four, is this meeting a relationship building moment? Now, not just social time, but deep relationship building moment, a moment to build trust, a moment to develop each other in a one-on-one or a team department environment. Is this meeting a relationship building moment and if the answer is yes to any of these if is immediate two-way communication or immediate two-way interaction required if you can answer yes to that meeting does this require multiple perspectives at the same time if you answer yes have the meeting is this art is complex emotion involved that text can't convey if the answer is yes have a meeting and lastly is there is this a relationship building moment or opportunity if the answer is yes.

Again, be ruthless with these yeses, right? Don't just say yes to everything because you want the meeting. But if you can say yes to any one of these four, then the meeting is valid. With that, let's equally talk about some meeting alternatives. If we don't necessarily need to have a meeting, if you answered no to those four things, then what can we do? All right, so first thing, create a decision matrix for different communication methods, right? Like, hey, is this something that's going to be really more complex and detailed? Then I'm going to If that's the case, then the matrix is telling me that I need to send an email with attachments and yada, yada, yada. Hey, if this is just a quick question, can I put it on Teams or Slack and schedule it for later? What does that look like? What are the parameters for when it's just a quick question versus it needs a meeting? That's going to be different for you and every organization. Ask yourself when you should use, again, like chat versus email or video message versus a meeting, a loom video versus an in-person meeting.

Have those decisions. And if it doesn't fit the criteria of a meeting, then use the alternative that it does fit. And lastly, respectfully decline unnecessary meetings. And I say respectfully because you don't want to come across as a jerk that just says no to all meetings. But you need to learn how to do it with grace and understanding and communicate why that this meeting at this particular time with this agenda just isn't necessary for you to be in. And that will begin to set boundaries with you and your team and your clients that will go a long way.

The whole this should be an email test, right? What does that mean? This should be an We always say this meeting should just be an email. We love texting each other while we're in meetings. We're not the one running the meeting, and we're just saying this whole meeting could just be an email. So what are three questions to ask before you even schedule that meeting to avoid the, should be an email, messages going on in your meeting while you're trying to run it.

Number one, is this primarily one way information sharing? Is it just information sharing that's coming from one to all or one to the other? Then it could be an email or Slack message or Teams message. Number two, can decisions be made without real FaceTime discussion? If you, if that other person has the autonomy and they need to make the decision, you can say, Hey, here's the issue. I trust you to make the decision. Keep me posted. Bam. A meeting does not need to happen. It's an email. It's a Slack message. It's a Teams message. And then number three, can we achieve the same outcome in less than half of the time with some digital or written communication? So going back to the other alternatives in the meeting, can we achieve the same outcome with those alternatives? Then we can with half the time. If we can, then it doesn't need to be a meeting. It can be written or digital communication.

So we've also all been there. We've been in a meeting where like, yeah, we've run through the decision matrix. We've asked all the right questions. This does need to be a meeting, but God help us. This meeting is terrible. So let's talk about how to run some efficient creative reviews and feedback sessions. These are the types of meetings that we find ourselves in as creatives quite a bit. And so there's this focus feedbacks methodology that we need to talk about.

And the focus feedback is this. Number one, set clear objectives for the meeting or for the review, for the feedback. What are we trying to accomplish here? Every meeting should have that right at the beginning. One person leading the meeting should say, is what we're trying to accomplish in this meeting. So that everybody knows when that happens or else otherwise it becomes what's known as a marathon meeting. And no one really knows when it's over because we don't know what the objective for the meeting was to begin with.

Number two, establish the criteria before the meeting, right? Establish the feedback criteria even before you review the work, right? So that we understand this is what it is. We're not coming in here with different criteria. We're saying, hey, this is the criteria in which we're reviewing this. This is the criteria in which we're providing feedback on. And that's what this time is for. All other ideas, those are for other times. For now, this is what we're using. And then you can also use time boxing techniques right so like a 10 minute review rule so hey we're gonna set a timer right now We're gonna talk about this for 10 minutes and when the timer is over we've talked about it enough. And if the problem still isn't solved get better at leading that discussion. Learn from it and move on have another separate private conversation if you need to but be ruthless about those time boxing techniques.

Again, we talked about ways to accomplish the same thing without actually having a meeting. And so let's use this whole review feedback kind of topic in the same light here. So a way to avoid it is to set up some collaborative tools for feedback. Asana, Frame, Google Docs, Loom videos, all these different things will allow you to get that feedback digitally without having to have a verbal conversation about it in a digital or in-person meeting.

Create those feedback templates that streamline responses. Hey, what are the five things that we're looking for every time we review this type of work? Those are the five questions. Those are the five areas. We're going to have them be multiple choice or ranked or whatever. And that way the feedback is streamlined and consistent every single time. And it leaves little room for these rabbit trail conversations that happen in a meeting all the time. You can do that outside of a meeting to enhance your review process.

And the last thing is to use video annotations for detailed visual feedback. Again, this is where Loom coming in handy. Someone sends you a design, you need to review it, open up the design on your computer, start a Loom video, it's got yourself in the bottom corner of it. You can talk through, use your mouse to point at different things, go, like what you did here, I like the texture here, what I'd like to see is something different in this region right here. And you're able to verbally give those annotations and reviews and feedback on the Loom video with some visual feedback rather than take less than five minutes to do that rather than having an hour long meeting about this one design that needs to be reviewed.

The last thing I want to mention here on how to have effective meetings is we talked a lot earlier about the EOS. If you don't know what that is, it's the Entrepreneur Operating System. It was developed by a guy named Gene, Geno, is it Geno Whitman? Geno Whitman? Geno Whitman, I think is his name. Incredible. lot of people use that type of methodology and he has in there all sorts of different types of meetings, but one that is extremely streamlined that we use a lot in my businesses is the level 10 meeting or the L 10 meeting. And this is, uh, has a segmented agenda with very strict time boxes. We're going to spend five minutes kind of warming up to the topic. Then we're going to talk about some major kind of upper level issues and then we're going to spend the bulk of our time.

Called the IDS method the bulk of our discussion the bulk of this meeting is going to be around IDs which is identify Discuss and solve we're gonna identify the problem We're gonna discuss the problem and then when it's all said and done guess what we're actually gonna solve the problem So level 10 meetings EOS check them out use the IDS method every single time identify the problem discuss the problem solve the problem.

All right, in closing, so what do we do now? We have these meetings that are taking up way too much of our time. They're unorganized when we have them. It's just a complete time cycle. Most of them should be in email. So what do we do? I want to give you some options. I don't want you to do all of these. I just want you to pick one over the next quarter, month, and try these things out.

Number one, conduct a communication audit to evaluate your current meeting culture. This could be an easy survey monkey or Google, Google form survey that you send out to everybody on your team and say, Hey, look, just rate how you think these meetings are. Do you think we have too many meetings or not enough meetings or our meetings productive or not productive? Are they too long or are they too short? Ask those questions to get some feedback.

Another option, create a two week experiment where you're going to implement meeting minimalism as a trial. Just say, Hey, you know what, for the next week, we're going to be our next two weeks. We're going to be extremely ruthless about saying no to unnecessary meetings and just try it and see how it goes. Obviously do with respect, do with grace and kindness and be upfront about that communication. Don't just shut them down and say, we're trying something. Trust us. No one buys that. Be upfront about how we're going to do this over the next couple of weeks to try that out.

A third option. This is a big option, but it's a really big, it's, it's a really worthwhile option is to get some team buy-in, get everybody on board with new communication frameworks. I know this is going to say like, are you telling me to have a meetings to have less meetings? Maybe, or maybe you should shoot an email out there. Hey, everybody, we want to get better about the way that we communicate and we want to get better about how often we have meetings and the quality of those meetings. So we'd love to get some ideas from you on how we can improve that. Right. Send it out there, get some buy-in with the team.

Number four, track certain metrics around your current communication strategy. Measure the impact on productivity and creative output. Are the meetings that you're having, are they increasing productivity and creative output or are they decreasing? Why or why not? And lastly, if you want to start with a gradual implementation plan with one team or project before you expand it out to your entire.

I want to leave you with a few resources before we wrap up this episode. There's a great book by Al Pitamampali. I hope I'm saying his name right. It's P-I-T-T-A-M-P-A-L-L-I. Al, we love you, but I don't know how to say your last name. Google that. Check it out. This book. Read this before our next meeting. Fantastic book. A lot of things that we talked about here in that book as well. do have that template for you on dustinpead.com slash meetings is the creative meeting success framework. Go download that. There's pre-meeting strategies in there, meeting structure, feedback systems, templates, follow-up formulas, all of that in there. Also check out the L10 meetings, the level 10 meetings from EOS to identify, discuss, and solve problems in your meeting more efficiently.

I want to remind you all resources can be found at dustinpead.com. Would love for you to follow me at Dustin Pead on social media for more content just like this. cannot wait to be with you for our next episode. We do have some very fun special guests coming up that I cannot wait to talk to you about. We'll catch you next time on Creativity Made Easy podcast. Have a great week.

Ep 109: The Focused Creator

Productivity Systems for Distracted Minds

SUMMARY

Is your creative genius being hijacked by notification pings, endless emails, and the irresistible pull of social media? You're not alone. In this episode of Creativity Made Easy, we explore battle-tested focus systems specifically designed for your creative brain to help you reclaim hours of deep creative flow amid a world designed to fracture your attention.

As creatives, our minds are uniquely vulnerable to distraction, but also capable of incredible flow states. Traditional productivity advice often fails creative professionals because our brains don't operate in strictly linear ways. We need specialized systems that honor both our need for structure and our natural creative processes.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ Design Your Environment for Creative Flow

• ⚡️ Practice Energy Management, Not Just Time Management

• ⚡️ Implement Focused Work Sessions

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 "Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch a little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch a big fish, you've got to be willing to go deeper." - David Lynch

• 💬 "A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days, catching whole days." - Annie Dillard

• 💬 "What you pay attention to determines the quality of your life and the quality of your creative work." - Cal Newport

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️Deep Work by Cal Newport

• ⚡️ At Your Best by Carey Nieuwhof

• ⚡️ Full Focus Planner by Michael Hyatt

• ⚡️ Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell

• ⚡️ Free resources at DustinPead.com/free

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

TRANSCRIPT

Is your creative genius being hijacked by notification pings, endless email and the irresistible pull of social media? Today, we're exploring battle tested focus systems specifically designed for your creative brain. We're going to help you reclaim hours, deep creative flow amid a world designed to fracture your attention. Let's get into it. Taking creatives from chaos.

Welcome back to Creativity Made Easy, the podcast where we transform creative chaos into clarity. This is a podcast for all creatives, designers, photographers, writers and all creative entrepreneurs who are seeking practical, actionable strategies to grow their creative business through efficiency. I'm your host, Dustin Pead, creative process coach and consultant. And I help creatives know themselves, their process and their teams to create with efficiency as they scale together.

Before we get into today's episode, if you're listening to this podcast, I would love for you to subscribe, rate and review wherever you're listening or watching. You can watch this podcast on YouTube or you can obviously listen to it anywhere where podcasts are available. I want to let you know I have all sorts of free resources just for you on my website at DustinPead.com slash free. Go there, check it out, download as many of them as you would like. That's Dustin Pead, P E A D dot com slash free for your resources. You can follow me on social media as well at Dustin Pead. I'm on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, all the big ones. You can reach me there again at Dustin P E A D.

All right. So today we're going to talk about this topic of the focused creator, productivity systems for distracted minds. And I was once at a place where I had lost a full day's work after constantly switching between client emails, Slack notifications and projects. And I knew that there had to be a better way to help me reclaim my focus. If you're like me, you have multiple screens at your desk. If you're kind of in your in your main office setup. And you switch from screen to screen, from desktop to desktop, constantly looking. And so our brains are not wired for that. Specifically, our creative minds are uniquely vulnerable to distraction, but also capable of incredible flow states, which we've talked about on this podcast before. So building on last week's discussion about creative briefs today, we're going to explore how to protect the mental space needed to execute on those projects efficiently.

So let's start by kind of defining and differentiating what creative focus is versus just general productivity, right? So traditional productivity advice often fails creative professionals because we creatives, we don't think necessarily that way in a very structured, organized manner, right? Creatives tend to rely strictly on the right side of their brain, which functions for ideas or artistic expression and left siders focus only on getting things done. If you're the unique combination like me and Enneagram four wing three, you sit in the middle of Enneagram four traditionally being a really creative mind, but also an Enneagram three being one that is focused on getting things done, checking things off the list. And so that's why I feel like God is kind of built me up to share these types of things and enter into this space from my unique perspective.

The impact, like most things, is kind of somewhere in the middle, right? It's not fully left, it's not fully right. It's when both sides of the brain equally work together to create something special. There's this thing called the open loop problem where creative work requires holding multiple concepts in our mind simultaneously and context switching or screen switching or focus switching, whatever you want to call it. Those costs are higher for creative tasks than they are for administrative ones. Listen, multitasking. It really is a myth and it's devastating to our creative output.

David Lynch says that ideas are like fish. If you want to catch a little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch a big fish, you've got to be willing to go deeper.

So let's start pretty practical, right? Let's talk environment, environmental design for creative flow. You'll notice here in my office, if you're watching on YouTube, I have I'm constantly evolving the environment in my physical space. I have a couch if I need to lay down and rest. I have a chair where I can kind of walk away from my screen. Those are the things that you see in your in your screen right now or on your view right now. I also have notoriously gone through several iterations of desks. I choose my paint color. I have different spaces, very particular. I have a simplified drawer system. I have mood lighting all over that I can dim brighter or lower if I need to. Everything in this room is super intentional to create an environment for creative flow.

So here's some considerations for your physical workspace. There's a massive importance of dedicated creative zones. I really pick up a ton from Austin Kleon on this, who uses an analog desk and a digital desk. And me and my wife, our studios are right next to each other. There's a doorway right here that separates the two of us. And in her space, we have kind of a shared analog desk. And if there are times where I need to work at a desk that's not cluttered with anything digital at all, then we go to the analog desk. There's nothing digital screen wise on the analog desk at all. It's craft supplies, it's sketchbooks, it's wide open space to kind of cut up some things if we need to and we use it all the time.

There can be visual cues for that. It's time to create, right? So you have different things around you that inspire you. I have a print just past this camera right here that says work hard, trust God. So I know when I sit down here and I see that it's time to work hard and trust God with the results, it's a visual cue that it's time to create. There's sound management. If you like silence or ambient noise or music, all of those things play into the environment. And like I mentioned already, there's psychology behind lighting and its impact on creative thinking. We don't have time to dig into that, but trust me, it's real. You can go research that on your own.

But let's talk your digital environment as well while we're on this topic. I will often see, look over the shoulder of a creative and their desktop is loaded with icons and the icons really aren't even like applications. It's there's, or even folders. It's just documents all over the place. And that can cause great distraction when you're trying to context switch from one type of project to the next.

So let's minimize the browser setup as much as possible. Let's close some tabs. It's going to be all right. I'm 100% guilty of being a tab user beyond the norm, but maybe close some tabs to get your focus right. You also want to adjust some different notifications, right? So you want to be able to have different focus modes, as what I use in the Apple world translates from all the devices that I use when I say, hey, listen, this is my work focus mode. Here's what's allowed to come in. Here's what's not allowed to come in. Who and the type of notifications that I receive.

But listen, you also want to think about some transition rituals to help your brain shift into creative mode. When you're thinking about this space, create a physical gateway activity that that signals it's time to be creative. It could be lighting a candle or putting on specific music or walking from one side of the room to the next. Whatever it is, do that and use it consistently. A pre-work routine to prime up your brain, whether it be prayer, sketching or journaling, whatever it is that will massively change the environment for you to trigger your creative mindset.

So you've done all the things you're sitting in the right spot. You got everything ready to go. Now it's time to review that creative brief or project goals before beginning. Don't just jump right in. Take three deep breaths, over the creative brief that's in front of you and mentally reset between tasks. It's important too, and we're talking about creative flow here, to make sure that you communicate boundaries upfront to your team and your clients to let them know that you're in focus mode. I love, my wife does this really well where she will have a certain time of the day that an auto reply email will go off and say, hey, you caught me in deep work mode. I'm not checking my email right now. I will check it here in a little bit. If it's an emergency, here's how you can reach me. But otherwise, I will get back to your request the next time I check my email, which is going to be during this time frame. That's great communication to be able to set up, set up the expectations for your team and your client.

Austin Kleon who we quote and love on this podcast so much. He says this about your physical space. He says your studio is a place where you can lose yourself in your work without worrying what the world will think. Doesn't that sound nice? So let's be intentional about setting up that space for optimal creative flow.

All right, let's talk some time blocking techniques because that's gonna really affect our creative flow as well. So I often talk to my clients in our coaching sessions about energy management versus time management for creative work and energy management is, I pick up a lot of my stuff here from a book called At Your Best by Kerry Nieuwhof where he talks about your green, yellow and red energy zones throughout the day and making sure that you have protected your green zone as much as possible. That's a green energy. That's when you're firing on all cylinders. For some people, it's first thing in the morning. Some people it's midday. Some people it's later in the evening. It doesn't matter, but identifying that and protecting that energy is going to be super important for your creative flow.

That's obviously different than time management, right? Like, are we procrastinating or are we wasting time or are we scrolling through social media? That's not necessarily energy management as much as it is time management. So referring to the at your best book, highly recommend it. It's good to notice to kind of create what I might refer to as like a heat map for your most creative hours. So you start to kind of notice as you go through that book. He'll walk you through some steps to notice when you're at your peak creative hours. And that's when you you want to you want to be able to take notice of that, put it on your whiteboard and say, that's when I'm most creative and that's when I'm going to protect my time and my energy the most so I can get the most out of my day.

Now, I use kind of like Kerry Nieuwhof's at your best and Michael Hyatt's full focus and Dan Martell's buy back your time kind of all of those three things to design my ideal creative day. So for me, 7 a.m. to 11 ish a.m. that's peak creative energy hours. I don't like to take meetings before 11 a.m. if I can help it. It happens sometimes, but on the regular, that's not something that we we've set up for myself. So that time is super protected. The middle of the day is a little bit more of my yellow zone. I can still contribute some things, but it's better for meetings and collaborations and things like that. And then my red zone, which is pretty stereotypical for a lot of people. Most people fall into this where their red zone is going to be anywhere from like three to four o'clock up until about six or seven o'clock where they're really not going to be good for anything that has to, they have to use much mental energy for they're going to, be better off using their time on something physical that does not require admin tasks, things like that that don't require a whole lot of thinking. That's the time that you use that for.

And so you can map out your ideal creative day. You can communicate that with your team and your clients so that everybody understands when you're going to be at your best and why you're protecting your schedule the way that you are.

Let's talk some time management approaches for different creatives. So for writers, there's different times for you to write drafts and there's different times for you to edit. Understanding what those times are and then being intentional about those times will massively change the game for you and your creative flow. Designers, are you exploring, right? Is this like an ideation situation or are you refining these designs in this block? Photographers, are you shooting or are you editing? Obviously big, big difference. Physical space, mental space, all of it. Marketers, is this time for creative development or are you having to be a little bit more analytical and review some things?

But what do we do when a client emergency inevitably happens, right? We know it may not be an emergency to us, but it's an emergency to them. And we need to be able to deal with it without derailing our entire day, right? So here's some things you can do. Number one, you need to implement like a triage system for client requests. And they come in, we go, okay, if this is a level five, then we're shutting things down and we're and we're pivoting to that. And we can do that because we use the do versus do framework and we have the margin to do that because we know those emergencies are going to happen. But as it comes through the filter and you're like, it's really more of like a level two or level three. It's not so much, you know, end of the world kind of thing. We can still get to it later. You'll document it. You'll put it in your project management system and you move on for later.

You need to figure out a way to have some template, templated responses to these things. So maybe it's a "Hey, at a level five response, it's gonna be a phone call. At a level one response, it's gonna be an email, right? And understanding how to communicate those things during those common, urgent situations. And here's a great hack for this. Use the five minute rule, right? If it truly takes less than five minutes, then go ahead and handle it immediately. But be honest about if it actually takes five minutes or if you're just thinking that it takes five minutes or your client will just say, hey, I just need five minutes of your time. Do you really just need five minutes of our time? Or are you kind of using that as a generalization of a few minutes, which turns into an hour and a half phone call?

So with those strategies, you also want to kind of create some type of containment strategy to prevent the spread of those quote unquote emergencies. You need to protect your team and their time as much as you protect yourself and your time from those emergencies kind of breaking through. So you're gonna protect your best creative hours with these focus shields or even focus modes like Apple uses.

Author Annie Dillard says it best. She says, "A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days, catching whole days." A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. Now, there is time for whim, right? But we don't want to be dictated on the regular by chaos and whim. So scheduling things can be that net for regaining whole days back into your creative flow.

All right, we touched on a little bit of this digital clutter stuff before, but I feel like we need to speak a little bit on this digital minimalism in order for you to kind of really gain this creative flow, right? The attention economy that we live in right now specifically targets a lot of creative people because of FOMO. We constantly feel like if we're not on Instagram, that we're going to miss out on the next big opportunity or the next big creative hack or angle or idea and it's gonna pass us by and we're gonna be left in the dust. And we all know that that's just not true. It's just a tactic to keep you distracted. So do not be distracted. Do not let FOMO take you down in the digital space for sure.

Here's a great way to do that. Why don't you go through your phone once a month and declutter some of the apps that you have in there that you just don't ever use. probably, if I were to guess right now, I feel like I probably only use about 30% of the apps that are on my phone. That's a lot of clutter, that's 70% clutter. So I need to sit down, probably gonna do it right after this recording, and go through my phone and delete some apps that I just don't use.

Here's a great tip too. We talked about the kind of the analog desk, right? earlier that my wife and I have down here in our studio spaces, use some analog tools. Paper, pens, a camera that's not digital. Use some analog tools for different creative processes. You don't have to have your entire creative process from beginning to end be sitting in front of a screen. I promise you're not gonna get the most creativity out of that every single time. So break it up. Maybe your dream phase is gonna be outside with a sketch pad and your design phase is gonna be in front of your laptop and your development phase is gonna be at your desk. There's different things you can do, right, according to the 4D creative process that I talk about often on this podcast.

So let's create some digital boundaries, right? We talked about decluttering your apps and things like that, using some analog tools, but you can also batch email. You can have different social media boundaries on your phone. Your phone will actually just say, hey, you're not allowed to use this unless you punch in this code, know, kind of like self protect yourself, know, protect yourself from yourself, right? Of getting onto the social media so much. So, and then I love this too. I'm sure all phones do this. But my iPhone will often tell me how much time I've spent on certain apps throughout the week or throughout the day. And so that's a really good indicator of going, man, I spent six hours on my phone this week on average every single day. That's some hours that I could be getting back, right? And I know that sounds crazy, but if you really stop and think about it, most of us are on our phone that long.

Cal Newport, who is a productivity genius and author, he says, "What you pay attention to determines the quality of your life and the quality of your creative work." Let's think more and more about what we are paying attention to.

So speaking of Cal, I want to end this episode with some, with some few, a few takeaways that you can kind of walk away with that. That's not just from me, right? Number one, Deep Work by Cal Newport. Great book, fantastic way to different strategies in there to keep yourself focused on the work at hand that needs to get done. There's a method out there that I want to share with you as well. It's called the Pomodoro technique. And this has been adapted by lots of creatives, but traditionally the Pomodoro method is that you work for 25 minutes and then you take a five minute break. You can change this obviously in your creative flow because sometimes you might need a little bit longer than 25 minutes to really start to get into it before it stops. So you can extend those focus blocks 50 to 90 minutes for deeper creative work. And then instead of a five minute break, take like a 15 minute break. This is the one that I use all the time.

Timers are really great for this too. I bought this timer is like less than $10 on Amazon. And I simply just turn it like this and it and hit start. And I go, I'm going to do this for the next 60 minutes, set it to 60 minutes, hit start, and then, and then just let's it go. And it's real digital and simple right here in front of me. Know if you can see it on. Yeah, you can see how I just turn it like this and boom. And then I hit start and there it goes. So timers are a great way to keep yourself focused.

And even this past week, I threw out to everybody in our community, does anyone want to hop on a focus session, like a focus mode session? And what we did is we took about a 90 minute block. We started out for the first 10 or 15 minutes, just kind of talking about some things that are going on in our world and what we're going to be working on. And then we all shared, hey, these are the things that I want to get done in the next hour, the next 60 minutes. And then I set a timer for 60 minutes. Had one of my clients share some tunes. We all listened to the tunes together. We all saw each other right there on our side screens and we went to work. And when the timer was off, throughout, let people know, here's how much time we have left. When the timer went off, everybody was really eager to share, here's everything that I got done. Now, if you're not a social person, that may sound like just complete hell to you. But for a social person like me, an extrovert like me, it was fantastic. And we were really able to get a ton done in that one hour because we had that accountability of staying focused.

So in closing, I want to just remind you, focus is a practice. It's not a personality trait. Do not tell yourself that that's just not who I am. I'm just not a very focused person. That's not true. You can be focused because focus is a practice, not a personality trait. The most prolific creative professionals are often the most disciplined about protecting their attention. It is possible to be both highly creative and highly structured. It can happen. I have seen it happen all the time. Small changes to your focus habits. They compound dramatically over time.

So that's it for today's episode. I want to remind you to share your focus challenges on social media using the hashtag creativity made easy and mention me at Dustin Pead. Please rate and review this podcast. I cannot wait to share next week's episode with you. And it's going to be a great one. Y'all have a great week. We'll talk to you next time on Creativity Made Easy.

Ep 108: Creative Brief Mastery

Getting It Right the First Time

SUMMARY

Are your creative projects suffering from the "revision loop of doom" because nobody understands what the client wanted in the first place? In this episode of Creativity Made Easy, we dive into the art of creating bulletproof creative briefs that align expectations, prevent costly revisions, and make your first draft feel like the final one.

Recently, I worked with a client who had gone through several rounds of revisions on a project only to realize that the brief hadn't properly captured their vision. This cost them weeks of work and thousands in billable hours. Many creative professionals treat briefs like a box to check rather than what they truly are: the strategic foundation of successful projects.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ Key Takeaway #1: A great brief must be concise yet comprehensive, including clear problem statements, specific objectives, target audience definition, brand voice guidelines, technical requirements, timeline with milestones, and budget parameters.

• ⚡️ Key Takeaway #2: Document all discussions and decisions in writing or with recordings. This documentation serves as a boundary-setting tool that prevents scope creep and provides a reference point throughout the project.

• ⚡️ Key Takeaway #3: Use the brief as a living document throughout the project. Start each meeting by referencing it, establish formal change request processes, use it as evaluation criteria for internal reviews, and train clients to refer back to it when providing feedback.

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 "Every creative brief needs to start with the problem. That's starting with why—why are we doing this in the first place? What problem are we trying to solve?"

• 💬 "The brief is a contract, not a suggestion. If you spend the time asking the right questions and building the right brief, then it's a simple work order at that point."

• 💬 "A great brief does not constrain creativity—it focuses it. Taking time upfront saves exponentially more time during execution."

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️Creative Meeting Success Framework - A free resource with specific sections for brief creation and review, plus questions designed to uncover hidden client expectations

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

TRANSCRIPT

Are your projects suffering from the revision loop of doom because nobody really understands what the client wanted in the first place? Today, we're going to dive into the art of creating bulletproof creative briefs that align expectations, prevent costly revisions, and make your first draft feel like the final one. Let's get into it. Taking creatives from chaos to clarity.

Welcome back to Creativity Made Easy, the podcast where we transform creative chaos into clarity. This is a podcast for all creatives, designers, photographers, writers, and all creative entrepreneurs who are seeking practical, actionable strategies to grow their creative business through efficiency. I'm your host, Dustin Pead, creative process coach and consultant. And I help creatives know themselves, their process and their teams to create with efficiency as they scale together.

Before we get into today's episode, I want to invite you to subscribe on YouTube. If you're watching, go ahead and like and ring the bell as well. If you're listening on audio podcast platform, I would love for you to rate and review it on whatever platform you're on. This helps get the content out further to those like yourself who can benefit from it. I want to mention that you can gather any free resources that I mentioned that I've created or I'm available to share with you. You can get them at Dustin Pead dot com slash free. That's D U S T I N P E A D dot com slash free. And lastly, you can follow me on social media. Instagram is where I'm the most active, but I'm also on LinkedIn, Facebook, places like that too. At Dustin Pead, D U S T I N P E A D. All right, let's get into today's episode.

Creative brief mastery, getting it right the first time. So recently I worked with a client who had gone through several rounds of revisions on a project only then to realize that the brief hadn't properly captured their vision. And it cost them weeks and weeks of work and thousands in billable hours. Listen, many creative professionals treat briefs like a box to check rather than a strategic foundation of successful projects. Building on last week's discussion about automation systems, today we're going to explore how a well-crafted brief can prevent the need for some excessive revisions and keep your automated workflows running smoothly. So I want to kick off with a story from a company that you've heard of and a company behind the company that you may not have heard of.

Oral-B, we all know them as the toothbrush giant, right? So they hired this company, IDEO, to help them develop a new product, this cross-action toothbrush that is now world famous, right? So they detailed the design brief, focused strictly on the user experience, like the customer journey, right? Like, how are they going to use it on a day and what matters most to them? So the brief included a lot of research about brushing habits that revealed insights that customers really care about grip and pressure and reach, all these different things, right? And so the results were the cross action toothbrush became one of Oral-B's most successful products with over a billion dollars in sales. The point is this, the investment in a thorough brief led to a breakthrough in innovation and it saved countless hours of revisions. Today I want to walk through a few areas that will help you create the best brief possible and get rid of those countless hours of revisions.

So let's get into the first point. Let's talk about the anatomy of an effective creative brief. What should be in the brief? Well, first off, a brief should be brief. That's right. You guessed it. It should be concise, right? Yet comprehensive. We're not trying to deliver, you know, a three ring binder full of information. We're just trying to give them enough information, but really good information that we need for both the client and us to be successful. So there's some essential components that every creative brief must include.

All right. So number one, it's got to include a clear problem statement. So we say all the time, creativity is problem solving, nothing more, nothing less. So what's the problem that we're trying to solve here? You need to include that. It needs to be super clear, specific as possible. And speaking of specific, you need to have specific objectives. What does success look like? What does a win look like here? Brené Brown says all the time, paint done for me. When it's all said and done, what is a win or success look like? It needs to include the target audience definition. So who is it that we're that that is going to that we're hoping will receive this this design, this video, this photo the best way, right? So we want to have the target audience in there, but we also want to know just a little bit more. not just saying like, it's humans, target audience is humans. Okay, let's get a little bit more specific than that. Is it Latino Americans, male ages 35 to 45? See that now we're getting specific.

It also your brief needs to include brand voice and tone guidelines. These are so huge because this is where you get to lean in, I think a little bit as a creative, because most organizations don't really know a brand voice or tone guideline, especially if they're a smaller organization. They don't even really understand what that means. But every brand is a reputation in the world, whether it's a personal brand or a company brand. Every brand has a reputation. It would be super weird to see Coca-Cola in a blue bottle. Right. Everybody knows Coca-Cola comes in a red wrapper or red can or a red bottle, right? So how understanding that voice and those tone guidelines go a long way. And this could be as simple as saying, Hey, do you have any brand identity guidelines for your, for your organization or for yourself? And if they say yes, great. Send those on over. We'll include it in the reef. If they don't, then we can start to walk through that process with them and Hey, maybe you have another job out of it.

The brief also needs to include some technical requirements and constraints. Are there anything that's going to stop us from getting this done and what do we actually need in order to get this done? The creative brief needs to include a timeline with key milestones in it because we've talked about this before with our communication with our clients. We don't want to just go, all right, the project's kicked off and we'll see you when it's time for revisions. We want to have key milestones built in there throughout the process. So a clear timeline with clear key milestones is a must for a creative brief.

And lastly, you gotta have budget parameters, budget parameters. Now know everybody doesn't like to talk budget because we don't want to show our cards or we don't want to show our margins or we're afraid of the budget being too small or so big that it intimidates us. But understanding those budget parameters goes a long way because then you know, then you can serve the client better. Hey, we've got this much money for this project. Great. Once we get up to that amount or as we're approaching that amount, then you can say, hey, look, I know your budget is this. I want to be sensitive to that. Here's where we are on this project right now and how we got there. All of that to be included in the brief will create a successful creative brief. So clear problems, specific objectives, target audience, brand voice and tone, technical requirements and constraints, timelines with key milestones and budget parameters.

Look at the end of it all. There's a difference between prescriptive briefs and descriptive briefs. Prescriptive briefs tell how it needs to be done. And as creatives, we don't like prescriptive briefs. Don't want to, we don't want to be told how to do it. We have our own process and we have our own angle that we would like to take, but descriptive briefs, they explain the what and the why, and that will get to a win every single time. Stefan Sagmeister, who's a famous graphic designer, said this. He said a good brief is worth its weight in gold. Listen, he says it clarifies thinking and established shared and establishes shared expectations even before a single pixel is pushed. That's why these creative briefs are so, so important.

All right, so it's time to actually make this creative brief. And that often comes with interviewing our clients and figuring out what it is that they actually want. Listen, clients often don't really know exactly what they want. And I know that you know that already, and I know it's funny and we joke about it behind the scenes, but they don't. So what we need to learn to do and what will keep us from further headache is to ask some really great questions so that we can help them discover what it is that they actually want. So I'm to give you some specific questions to ask here when you're working on when you're developing this this creative brief with your client.

All right. Number one. What problem are we really solving here? We talked about how every creative brief needs to have that. And that's exactly what we're talking about here. We have to start with the problem. That's starting with why. Why are we doing this in the first place? What problem are we trying to solve? Hey, oral B, it's that we're trying to have a career with the problem that we're trying to solve is a more exciting experience for people to brush their teeth so that they will brush their teeth more often because we care about dental health. Exactly. Right. So what problem are we really trying to solve here?

Second question. How are you going to measure success beyond just liking the creative? Right. So besides just like, I really like that video. OK, great. But when you go to use that video, what does success look like for you on the other side of that? Because for us as creatives, we need to think beyond just what we're creating and think about the impact in which it's going to have because understanding the end goal, understanding the impact that it's going to have will help us to create more targeted and more effective creative every single time.

Third question, what's an example of something similar to what we're trying to do here that you really admire. Now this is getting some preferences. This is getting a little look into what they really like. This is an opportunity to find out like, oh, I see that they really like this campaign or they really like this video or this design or this photo treatment. And so you go, okay, if that's what they like, then I can get a little closer to that style in which they like.

Next question. What approaches have you tried before that didn't work? Did you try a man on the street style video and you didn't like that? Have you tried client testimonial videos and you didn't like that? Have you tried a photo shoot outside and you didn't care for that or inside or with this color or this jacket or all these different variables, right? What have you tried before with this project or this style of project before that didn't work? This is a great question to ask because it avoids you from ever even going down that road or that path. And it's going to save you so much time and frustration.

Last question. Who needs to approve this work? And what are their priorities? You might not be meeting with the ultimate approval, approval or decision maker, right? So what's their, uh, if it's someone else, other than who you're on the call with, what are their priorities and really start to kind of get that at the end, at the end of the day, understanding the, the decision makers priorities will allow you to hit the target closer every single time.

So when you're in this call, last tip I want to give you when you're in this kind of interview with the client, the tip that I want to give you here on this is to document those discussions and decisions. Now you can do it in writing or you can record if it's a digital if it's a digital meeting, you can record the zoom. I use Fathom for all my zoom meetings because it automatically records and takes notes and summarizes the whole meeting. If you have a zoom paid zoom account, it's absolutely free to use. So I super love that. And then we will send that out to the person that we met with afterwards that they can see the exact recap in a succinct form of this is what we talked about. This is what we decided. This is where we're going next. Right. So document those decisions and those discussions and writing or a recording the discussion and that brief that you create those two items. They're going to serve as a boundary setting tool that prevents the all dreaded scope creep because you can constantly go back, refer to it we'll talk about that next and what I call red flags in creative briefs.

All right, so we told you what to include in creative briefs. Now I want to talk about some things that you need to avoid. These are red flags. When these things pop up, you need to pause and regroup. Number one, and this is the most common, this is the most common sin when it comes to creative briefs, is vague language. You ever gotten a creative brief and it just says, ah, just make it pop or we just want something really creative. What does that mean? Something really creative or something that pops could be completely different from one person to the next. So we got to we got to avoid that vague language.

Another red flag is contradictory objectives. We want it sophisticated, but playful. What does that even mean? How can you be both sophisticated and playful? At the same time, we need a little bit more clarification here on what that looks like.

Another red flag, missing approval processes or undefined stakeholders. What we're talking about here is if there's no accountability as to who's supposed to be in charge of what part of the process and there's no expectations clearly defined, if those things are missing, that's a red flag.

Another red flag, unrealistic timelines relative to scope. This one happens all the time. People will come in your office or they'll hop on a meeting with you and they'll lay out this grand idea and everybody's really pumped about it. And you're like, man, this is going to be a great project over the next couple of months. And you go, all right, so let's talk about when, would you like to see this by? And they're like, oh, next week. That's not possible. Right? So unrealistic timelines relative to the scope of the project is a red flag every single time.

Next red flag is a lack of budget transparency. We talked about what's supposed to be included. So obviously the opposite of including realistic budget transparency is the lack of budget transparency. If there's no mention of budget whatsoever and it's not clear or transparent, that's a red flag. You've got to regroup on that part of the brief.

Next red flag is constantly shifting the targets. And here's what this sounds like. It sounds like, I don't know what we want, but we'll know when we see it. Now you got to ask better questions that that's not going to work. Not going to we won't we won't even know what target to hit, much less shifting targets. Right. So you have to address each of these red flags professionally. Emphasis here before the work begins and you do that with a proper and effective brief.

And in this process, once you have this brief, I just want to empower you for a second. You have to have the courage to push back on problematic briefs. It's gonna save everyone time and frustration. They may get annoyed at all the questions that you're asking, but they hired you for a reason. They need to trust you and you need to be able to walk in that confidence that you're there for a reason and have the courage to say, I know this is a lot of questions, but trust me, it's gonna help us hit the target for you more effectively and quicker if we can just work through these difficult questions a little bit.

There's a designer, Michael Barut, his approach is this. He says, the brief is a contract, not a suggestion. And I think many times creative professionals look at the brief as a suggestion. It's not a suggestion. If you spend the time asking the right questions and building the right brief, then it's a simple work order at that point. It's not a suggestion, it's a contract.

Speaking of it being a contract not a suggestion the last point I want to make is that once the brief is created and it's proper right you have to use the brief as a living document Throughout the project right so you're gonna start each project meeting referencing the brief page just to regroup This is what we're trying to do here right and again. It's concise So it's not gonna take very long to go through it then you're gonna establish formal change requests when objectives shift So what does it look like when the objectives shifts everybody has this from electrical contractors that I've worked with before to videographers that I've worked before. Everybody has a, has to have some type of process of what happens when we need to request a change, whether it's inside the scope or outside the scope. Need to have systems and processes in place for both of those. So what's a formal change request process look like when the objectives start to shift? Because that can happen. You can get half of the project and the top person comes in and says, know, I know originally we talked about the target is this, but the more we thought about it, the target is actually this. Great. Not a problem. We're just going to have to restructure the brief a little bit, readjust our timelines, understand what that change request looks like for both parties. Right.

But you're going to use the brief throughout the process as evaluation criteria when you do your internal reviews and revisions. So before it ever even goes to the client and you're looking at over as a team or you're doing the dailies, right? You're in the brain trust meeting like Pixar. You're going to have that brief in front of you and you're going to use it as your evaluation criteria. Is it hitting, is it actually trying to solve the problem? Is it hitting the mark? Is it within the budget? Is it all these things, right, that we talked about earlier that should be in the brief? You're going to have that for yourself so that by the time you actually send it to the clients, it's going to be way, way, way closer because you've already done those internal revisions using the brief as the evaluation criteria.

And then you're gonna train your clients to refer back to the brief when providing feedback. So you're gonna send draft one to the client, send the brief along with it and say, hey, just remember, this is the brief that we discussed and here's the actual creative that we made for it. Just would like for you to look at those side by side the same way we did and let us know if we're hitting the mark, right? And then throughout the process of, throughout this process of back and forth with clients, you're going to learn a lot of lessons. And so you need to document those lessons to improve future briefs. You should always be adjusting, always be adjusting your briefs. It's it's a, it's a wet cement is what I call it, right? Wet cement, meaning like it's, it's, there and it's, and, and, and, and it's, it's a foundational piece, but it's not sets and stones. So we can move it when needed. We're not going to move it just for moving it sake.

All right. So I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that you can find free resources at dustinpead.com slash free. One of them that's there is an effective creative meeting. And, and, and I know that we're talking about creative briefings, but a lot of times that that is birthed out of an effective creative meeting. So if you go to dustinpead.com slash meetings, you can download that. Has specific sections in there for brief creation and review, and some questions designed to uncover those hidden client expectations. To dustinpead.com slash meetings, or you can go to dustinpead.com slash free and pick that up absolutely free today.

So a few closing thoughts. A great brief does not constrain creativity. It focuses it in, it narrows it in. Taking time upfront saves exponentially more time during the execution, and the clients value professionals who guide them through a thorough brief development process because it tells them that you care and that you're paying attention to the details. The brief is your most powerful tool for managing expectations and ensuring project success.

Also next week we're back episode 109. We're going to talk about the focused creator, productivity systems for distracted minds because we all know what that's like. I want to remind you again, you can download the meeting resource at dustinpead.com slash meetings. You can follow me on social media at Dustin Pead. I would love for you to review and share this podcast. I cannot wait to be with you next week on creativity made easy podcast. Have a great week.

Ep 107: The Digital Studio Toolkit: Automation Systems for Creative Teams

Freeing Up Your Creative Energy

SUMMARY

Are you spending more time on administrative tasks than actual creative work? In this episode of Creativity Made Easy, we explore how the right digital tools and automation systems can free up your creative energy while boosting your team's productivity.

As creative professionals, we often find ourselves caught in the paradox of wanting more time to create while drowning in repetitive tasks. By identifying which activities generate the most value and automating the rest, you can reclaim your time and focus on what truly matters—your creative work.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ Key Takeaway #1: Apply the 80-20 Principle to Your Creative Work

  80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. The key is identifying which creative tasks generate the most value so you can automate or delegate the remaining 80% that drains your creative energy. Conduct a time and energy audit to identify where your time is going and which tasks only you can do.

• ⚡️ Key Takeaway #2: Automate Repetitive Business Activities

  Several common business activities are perfect for automation, including:

  Client onboarding and intake forms

  Project milestone notifications

  Invoice generation and payment reminders

  Social media scheduling

  Email responses to common inquiries

  Tools like AI (Claude), CRMs, project management software, and email automation can save you countless hours by handling these repetitive tasks.

• ⚡️ Key Takeaway #3: Regularly Evaluate Your Tech Stack

  Ask yourself these five questions quarterly about each tool in your digital toolkit:

  Does it help you save time?

  Does it clear up mental space?

  Does it reduce stress?

  Does it set up future you for success?

  Does it fit in your budget?

  If a tool doesn't meet these criteria, it might be time to look for alternatives or simplify your tech stack.

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 "Your technology should serve creativity, not complicate it." - Chris Do

• 💬 "Focus your creative energy on high-impact tasks while systemizing everything else." - Chris Do

• 💬 "The goal isn't to automate everything, but to free up your time for the highest value creative work—that 20%."

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️Time & Energy Audit Template - Free template based on Dan Martell's book Buy Back Your Time.

• ⚡️The Futur - Chris Do's website mentioned in the episode

• ⚡️ Recommended Tools Mentioned:

  • Asana - Project management

  • Slack - Client and team communication

  • Claude - AI assistant for automation

  • Loom - Screen recording for training

  • Spark - Email management

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

TRANSCRIPT

Are you spending more time on administrative tasks than actual creative work? Today, we're exploring how the right digital tools and automation systems can free up your creative energy while boosting your team's productivity. Let's get into it. Creatives from chaos to clarity.

Welcome back, everyone, to Creativity Made Easy, the podcast where we transform creative chaos into clarity. This is a podcast for all creatives, designers, photographers, writers, and all creative entrepreneurs who are seeking practical and actionable strategies to grow their creative business through efficiency. We do that a lot with systems and processes. I'm your host, Dustin Pead. Creative process coach and consultant. I help creatives know themselves, their process and their teams to create with efficiency as they scale together.

Before we get started on today's episode, I want to invite you to like, subscribe, ring the bell if you're watching on YouTube. If you're listening to this podcast on the audio podcast platform, I would love for you to leave a five star rating or review, whatever your platform allows that really helps get this content out further to those like yourself who can benefit from it. You can follow me on social media at Dustin Pead. That's P-E-A-D and you can find out everything that I have going on at DustinPead.com including some exciting new tools and events coming up.

But today let's get into this digital studio toolkit automation systems for creative teams. So I'm a mild tech geek. I don't necessarily go looking out for every single new thing that's coming out. But I am a huge fan of efficiency and I'm a huge fan of automating things to save me as much time as possible. And we're having this conversation here in the year 2025 and we have to bring up AI, right? And so there's two major tools, one being AI that I use, but Claude is the AI tool that I use and my CRM is a white label version of Go High Level. I've talked about it on here before called VidLead Studio.

Those two have automations that have saved me countless hours, whether I'm just kind of processing out an idea and what it could look like. I really use Claude to have conversations with. My wife makes fun of me all the time because I'm saying I having a conversation with Claude the other day as if it's a real friend of mine. But we have these conversations back and forth and we're able to kind of flesh out some ideas and some different things. And it prompts with a lot of really great questions that I had not considered before.

And then that leads to certain automations, one of which I just donned came upon earlier this week where I'm getting ready to onboard a virtual assistant. And a major part of a virtual assistant is email management. And so what I wanted to do was I wonder if there was a way, cause I'm only given a certain amount of hours. So this virtual assistant, I wonder if there's a way, for to have like an email recap automatically sent to her, every day at the end of the day, here's what, here's the came activity that came in on the inbox. Here's the activity that happened going out. The things that you need to know, action steps that need to be taken, things that need to be followed up with yada, yada, yada, right?

Simple kind of a summary rather than having every single email to pour through and look through that could take hours every single day. So Claude just recently announced that they have a Gmail integration. And so I went into Claude, I had a conversation with it for about 20 minutes on the other side of it. Now I have a system set up automatically where it will email out a synopsis to me and my VA every single day, Monday through Friday at 5 p.m. Eastern with a customized summary from clients, new business opportunities, all these different things, right? And action steps that need to be taken.

And so that's just one of many, many, many different ways that your digital studio can help you automate some systems that will save you and your team lots of time. The paradox that we face here as creative teams is that we want more time to create, but we also are drowning a lot in some very repetitive tasks. So building on last week's podcast discussion where we talked about project timelines and profitability in those timelines, and today I wanted to explore how the right tools can help protect those timelines.

Let's kick it off here with what's known as the 80-20 principle. Now, the 80-20 principle means something different in every single context, but the Pareto principle, how you pronounce it, essentially says, listen, 80% of the results come from 20% of our efforts. And so if that's true, which I believe it is, and I think if you look at kind of the past six, 12 months or so, you could probably even say that's true about you in your life as well, that it's really most of the results are coming from the very few things of the efforts that I'm putting in.

And so what's critical here is that we identify, right? We identify what that 20% of creative tasks are that generate the most of our value. If that way we can target automation at the remaining 80% that drains our creative energy. So there are some common business activities that are perfect for automation. Here's just a few of them, right? Client onboarding and intake forms. This is something I help my clients with all the time, specifically inside of a CRM. How are we bringing in clients? How are we onboarding them and moving them through the process of becoming a client of theirs?

Project Milestone Notifications. I'm going to talk a little bit, I think I talked a little bit about this last week, but really just like having some of that CRM automatic notifications built in customized to their project through their customer journey. Last week I talked about that pizza delivery system. You can go back and listen all about how that works. Invoice generation and payment reminders, like all that stuff, you should not be sending manually. All of that stuff should be automated.

Social media scheduling. This can go either way, right? Social media, especially ones like Instagram and Facebook, they, as far as organic reach is concerned, they prioritize those that use their app and use their platform organically. And so sometimes scheduling some social media may not be the right way to go for your reach, but if your purpose is more consistency and less reach, then social media scheduling could be a huge time saver for you, and you can do that through most CRMs as well, so it's kind of all in one platform.

And then email responses to common inquiries. There are so many different mail programs out there. I, being an Apple loyalist, have used Mac mail on my laptop and on my iPhone ever since I had a Mac laptop and an iPhone. But just recently I switched over to Spark email. One of my clients uses it and recommended it. And inside of Spark, you can have some automatic email responses to certain inquiries that come in.

Yes, you can do a simple out of office reply for when you're on vacation or you're not or it's in the time frame of the day that you're not generally going to be checking your email. But this is kind of a hey, listen for smart words and then respond accordingly back to that. So there are many, many, many ways to automate the other 80 percent of your activities. But this is just a few of them that I wanted to hit so far. So we talked about identifying the 20 percent.

So here's how I think you can help identify that 20% that brings the most value. Dan Martel wrote a book called Buy Back Your Time. I talk about it all the time. It's a fantastic book. My favorite part of the book, is in it he talks about doing a time and energy audit. So what I created for myself and for others in my circle is just a simple Google spreadsheet of how to be able to do this time and energy audit. But essentially, what it is is every 15 minutes or 30 minutes or hour or however often you wanna do it, you will write down exactly what you're doing, the task, right, that you're doing during that time block.

You're gonna also choose in mind, I have a dropdown menu of green or red. Did it give you energy or did it take away energy from you? That's important to know with the time and energy audit. And then, there is a value drop down menu as well. $1 sign up to $5 signs. Now it doesn't mean value in terms of monetary like financial value. It means the value that you are bringing to the table for your organization, right? What am I adding the most value here? Is this something that someone else could easily add value to? So $5 signs would be like, these are things that only I can do. No one else in the organization can do this and be real about it. Don't be so fully yourself to think that all your tasks are $5 signs because more than likely according to the 80-20 rule 80% of your tasks are not $5 sign value tasks.

So you go through there and you do that for about a week 10 days no more than that and then you can step back and look at the full picture and see as Dan Martell teaches us where your time and your energy is going to and so that's an easy quick way to go Okay, there's my 20% and everything else, the 80% I need to figure out how to automate or delegate or eliminate, right? Going back to that focus funnel.

There's a guy blowing up on social media right now, a professional creative as well. Fantastic dude. His name is Chris Do, D-O, and he is from his, his website is thefuture.com. There's no E on the end of future. What he emphasizes, we're going to talk about him a few times in this podcast episode. What he emphasizes is that focusing your creative energy on high impact tasks while systemizing everything else is what will create the best future for you and your company and you and your organization. So emphasize or focus on focus your creative energy on high impact tasks while systemizing everything else. That's exactly what the time and energy audit is telling us.

Now, if you want that template for the time and energy audit that I made from based off of Dan Martell's book, you can go to DustinPead.com slash free and click on the time and energy audit button and it will automatically send you a copy of that to use. So let's get into the next point. All right. The common water cooler talk when it comes to digital tools or the tech stack, if you will, around the water cooler is, tell me what you're using.

I love to hear what other people are using because if it's something that can help me and improve my systems and processes and help me be more efficient, then I wanna know about it. And it's just like, I've used Mac Mail for so long, but now I'm using Spark and it's really helping me kinda navigate through some things without having to check my email constantly, right? So I just wanna give you my kinda essential tech stack that I use. And this is not everything. This is just a handful of them, right?

But if you're brand new to the podcast, you've never heard me say this before. But if you've listened to five minutes of any other podcast episode that I've done, any of the previous 106 episodes that we've done here, you know that my project management system that I use is Asana. And I love to use Asana because it's easy for me to create templates to duplicate every single time when someone, when a new project comes in for me or one of my clients, I don't have to recreate the wheel every single time I go, Oh, you want this product? No problem.

I have a template for that, for that project, but timelines and everything, I'm going to duplicate it I'm going to, and then I'm going to quickly assign who it goes to and when the, when, when it needs to be done or you can have your project manager do that. Right. And so easily boom in a matter of seconds, we are up and running in the project and it's all added to our to-do lists.

A client communication platform that I use as part of our Chief Creative, which is my LLC, Chief Creative Consultants Community. We use Slack, which is just an internal communication tool, often like a Google chat or something like that. I love Slack because of some of the automation features in it. Has a ton of integration, like an integration with Asana. So let's say a client slacks our team and says, hey, could you guys take a look at XYZ for us? Sure, no problem.

What we're going to do though, in that exact moment, is we're going to click the button next to that Slack message that came in and we're going to create a task in Asana and we're going to assign it to somebody on our team and we're going to put a DO date on it. Right then and there from Slack, we don't have to leave the program to go do something else and worry about mind shifting or getting distracted. We're going to do it right then and there and then we're going to share that automatically back to them and say, look, we're on it. We created a task for it. It's in, it's in our Asana. Don't worry about it. We will get back to you on it. We will take care of what you asked us to do.

The other cool part about that. And then a little bonus like feature is that when that task comes up for us to do in the task description, there's going to be a link to that exact Slack message where the request came in at. So if we, again, we talk about future you all the time and understanding the context of what we're dealing with immediately, all I have to do is click that it opens up my Slack and shows exactly what the context was of the conversation. Why this was a thing that is automatically in my Asana now. And I can boom off to the races, go ahead and take care of it. So I love Slack channels, DMS, all of it. So, good.

I'm not going to, there's not a product breakdown for Slack, but definitely, I recommend it a lot for client communication and internal team communication as well. My file management and asset storage, I just use Google Drive again because it's connected to so many different things. I talked about Claude earlier and my CRM. Google Drive just works so seamlessly with both. You could see already from my email thing that I was talking about earlier with Claude and then my CRM as well, all of it works in calendar and scheduling, also my CRM. Again, I like to try and do as much as I can in one central location. So calendar and scheduling is in my CRM as well.

And then time tracking, I'm testing out a couple of them right now and I'm mostly using time tracking for efficiency. I want to know how long are certain tasks taking me so that when a client or someone on the team asks, for a certain thing that we can go, okay, I know from experience and from documenting this, this is how long it's gonna take for us to do that. Or if I can look at it go, man, it took me three hours to do that. Why? I must've been distracted. I needed to kind of tighten up. And so I use my time tracking as a bit of an internal coach for me and my team. So I've been switching back and forth between Harvest or Clockify. Harvest works really well with Asana, which I really love.

Clock and both of them work really well within the like Google Chrome kind of web browser harvest costs. Clockify is free. You kind of get what you pay for, you know, when you're when you're thinking about these these little tools, but obviously costs all add up. So choose what's best for you. And then let's see what else do I have. The last one I want to talk about is Loom. I love Loom. Loom is a simple way to record what is on your screen with a little circle in the bottom corner of you while you're, while you're talking through and showing anything that you want on the screen.

So I use this two ways. I use it for client and team training. I can record it once, make sure that I'm addressing a generic crowd, not going, Hey Lauren, let me just show you this thing. You can, if it's for that one particular individual and a unique case, but this really allows us to build up kind of like internal courses and videos on here's how we do these things if they're done digitally on a computer or a phone. It has an app as well for your phone. So even if you're trying to show somebody something on your phone, you can do that through loom as well. That's L O O M.

I use loom every single day. But all in all, it's important to have whatever systems you use, whatever digital tools you use. It's really, really beneficial if you can have those systems talk to each other, create a connected ecosystem in your digital stack or your tech stack or your digital tool belt. But listen, we've all been there before where we put too many things in our pockets or refill the backpack or the luggage too thick or too heavy. And it's so exhausting to carry around. So sometimes less is more. It's why I love my CRM so much because I can do a lot in it with one tool. So just think about that as you're going through your tech stack, which we'll talk about here in a second, but another quote here from Chris Dew at thefuture.com. says, your technology should serve creativity, not complicated.

So let's get into automating some client communications and approvals. You can set up automated client onboarding sequences. We talked about that already. There are different client, or there are different templates that you can create for, for common client communications. It's difficult to say. So project kickoff emails, status update reports, feedback request forms, milestone celebrations. I know all this sounds like a lot of work, but you do all that work up front and then it frees up 80 percent of your time later because you've built out these processes and systems.

So implement approval workflows that reduce the back and forth, right? Use automation to maintain consistent client touch points. There's value. Right. There's value of creating client education materials once like we talked about on loom and then deliver them automatically over and over again. Listen, client portal systems. They're nice. Let's talk about that for a second. But for project communication, again, I use my pizza delivery method, which is just a simple way to be able to say, this is where you're at in the project. You think about the client journey, you ping them on those points of the client journey. You say, this is where your project is at right now. Same way that you would order a pizza for delivery. Simple.

So maybe you've built up a lot of tools over the last however long, or you're just getting started and you're like, I don't know which tools to use. Either way, there comes a point where you need to kind of reevaluate your tech stack or your digital tool belt. Here's some things to ask yourself. Number one, does this tool help you save time? If it costs you more time, now it's probably going to cost you a little bit of time in the beginning, right? Cause you're setting everything up. But overall, over a span of let's say three months or so, does this tool help you save time? If it does check, you're going to want to keep it and move on to the next, next part.

The next, measurement is does it clear up mental space? Your mind is the central processing unit. It is the central computer of everything that you do, your creativity, your thoughts, your emotions, everything comes out of your mind. So if it doesn't clear up mental space, then it's not for you. Number three, does it reduce stress? If it doesn't make you feel better, then it's probably not better. Easy, right?

Number four, does it set up future you for success? We talked about future you knowing that, the future you doesn't have the same context as what you have going on today. So does it set up future you for success to understand that context so it can pick right back up where you left off? And then lastly, does it fit in your budget? Do not break your bank trying to use all these tools. I think most of everything that I sent that I told you about today, I spend less than $300 a month on any of that stuff. And it's so, so easy to get things kind of caught up, just like in your subscription services, right? And next thing you know, you're breaking your bank for your digital tool belt. But listen, you don't have to do that.

So ask yourself these questions quarterly, just to ping yourself, set yourself a 90 day reminder on your phone or your project management task, project management tool, and just say, hey, it's time to ask yourself these five questions about the tools that you're using. Does it help you save time? Does it clear up mental space? Does it reduce stress? Does it set up future you for success? And does it fit in your budget? And if it doesn't, cut them out. And then you can keep your eye out for something else.

So before we wrap up, I want to remind you that you can get the time and energy audit that I created off of Dan Martel's book at dustinpead.com slash free. And remember a few things, technology should enhance creativity, not replace it. Just like Chris Dew says, start small with one automation, build up from there, right? The goal isn't to automate everything, but it's to free up your time for the highest value creative work, that 20%. And remember the best systems, they evolve gradually over time. Don't try to overhaul every single thing at once. And it's such an honor and a pleasure to be with you today. Cannot wait to be back with you next week, episode 108 of the Creativity Made Easy podcast. We'll talk to you then.

Ep 106: Profitable Project Planning

Setting Timelines That Protect Your Bottom Line

SUMMARY

Have you ever found yourself working nights and weekends on a project that should have been profitable, but somehow isn't? You're not alone. Many creative professionals struggle with timeline management and project planning that protects their financial margins. In this episode, we dive into the art of setting realistic timelines that not only keep clients happy but also ensure your business remains profitable.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ Key Takeaway #1: Creative professionals chronically underestimate timelines

  Creative entrepreneurs tend to fall victim to optimism bias, imagining best-case scenarios while failing to account for administrative tasks and client communication time. This "planning fallacy" leads to underestimating project timelines even when we have past experience telling us otherwise. Perfectionism compounds the problem by extending project timelines through over-iteration and editing, draining both emotional energy and financial resources.

• ⚡️ Key Takeaway #2: Implement a change request protocol to manage scope creep

  Scope creep—allowing the original scope of work to expand beyond what was initially agreed upon—is one of the biggest threats to project profitability. To combat this, establish clear project boundaries, overcommunicate expectations throughout the project lifecycle, and implement a formal change request protocol. Build in financial buffers of 10-20% to account for contingencies, just like builders do with construction projects.

• ⚡️ Key Takeaway #3: Create timeline visualizations clients can easily understand

  Keep clients informed about project progress with simple, transparent timeline tracking. Dustin calls this the "pizza delivery system"—just as pizza chains now show customers exactly where their order is in the process, creatives should implement automated updates that show clients the project status. This proactive communication prevents misunderstandings, reduces client anxiety, and sets appropriate expectations.

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 "Underestimating timelines can be a chronic problem that you need to address. There's a common challenge that creatives face, and that is underestimating time needs while overestimating the capacity of what it takes to deliver."

• 💬 "Small change adds up to big change real quick. It's a snowball effect."

• 💬 "Be proactive here. Profitable project planning is all about being proactive, not reactive. You need to protect financial margins. It's not greed, but it's essential for your sustainable creativity."

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️FREE LIVE Webinar: Join Dustin and Christian Brim (author of "Profit First for Creatives") on Wednesday, April 30th at 1 PM EST. Register here

• ⚡️ Connect with Dustin: Follow @dustinpead on Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube

• ⚡️Free Guide: Download the free guide to eliminating project pitfalls at dustinpead.com/pitfalls

• ⚡️Book Recommendation: "Growing Upward" by Dustin Pead - Available at dustinpead.com/book or wherever books are sold

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

TRANSCRIPT

You ever found yourself working nights and weekends on a project that should have been profitable, but somehow isn't still today? We're tackling the art of setting realistic timelines that protect your bottom line while keeping clients happy. Let's get into it.

Taking creatives from chaos to clarity. Welcome, everyone, to the creativity made easy podcast where we transform Creative Chaos into Clarity. This is a podcast for all creatives, designers, photographers, writers, all creative entrepreneurs seeking practical, actionable strategies to grow their creative business through efficiency. I'm your host, Dustin Pead, creative coach and consultant, and I help creatives know themselves, their process, and their teams to create with efficiency as they scale together. And before we get into today's episode,

Got a really cool thing coming up and just under a week on Wednesday, April 30th at 1 p.m. Eastern Time. I'm doing a free live webinar with Christian Brim. If you don't know Christian, he is the author of Profit First for Creatives. And he is having a webinar with just me and him and is absolutely free to you. It's called they tell they titled it.

Smells like creative chaos. Organize it, claim it, and get it done. But I'm going to be sharing a lot of principles that I teach on here in this podcast, sharing a lot of those with you in a live format so you have an opportunity for Q&A and all that stuff. But you can register for free if you go to dustinpead.com slash live. That's dustinpead.com slash L-I-V-E to register.

Also want to remind you, you can follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, all the places at Dustin Pead, P-E-A-D. All let's get into today's episode. Today is all about profitable project planning. That's right. We said it last week, the triple P's. We're going to set some timelines that can respect your financial margins. So there was a time, not too long ago, I was writing my very first book. It is the only book that I've written to date.

I have working on my second book right now. And I had just a very ambitious. I didn't know it was ambitious at the time. I had an ambitious goal of releasing this book in October of it had been twenty twenty four. And I don't know why October. Maybe I just thought I needed some time to get it done. And so I gave myself nine months to outline, write, and market the launch of this book. And let me tell you the biggest lesson I learned, not the biggest reward, the biggest reward was getting it done and having the book available for my kids. It's a memoir called Growing Upward. If you want to check it out, it's on my website. Go to dustinpead.com slash book. You can buy it there or Amazon or anywhere audio books are sold. It's called Growing Upward. Just search for my name and you'll see it.

But really what I learned was a valuable lesson in setting timelines. Nine months is not a lot of time to start from just an idea of the book all the way to launching the book. That is not a lot of time. And I quickly found myself having to block out entire days to write just because I needed to be able to stay on some sort of timeline tracker to be able to launch this book even semi successfully. And it got a really good reception with local friends and friends across the country, a self-published book. I didn't put really any marketing dollars into it, just some time, some sweat equity really to get it out there. But what I learned in that is that there's a common challenge that creatives face, and that is underestimating time needs and underestimating time needs while overestimating the capacity of what it takes to deliver. And so today we're going to build on last week's discussion where we talked about structure, how structure enhances creativity. So let's dive right in here.

The first thing I need you to understand is why creative professionals chronically underestimate timelines. There's a bit of an optimism bias here, right? We naturally imagine the best case scenarios. Oh, the client's going to come in. They're going to be super easy to work with. They're not going to demand anything extra. It's going to be something that I can offload to a contractor and I can make 3X margin on this. And that's going to be great. The problem is that we've failed to account for the administrative tasks and client communication time as well. There's this planning fallacy, right? Psychological tendency to underestimate even with the past experience of success, right? We talked about last week how we've released the album before and it was a big success and we could probably just do it again. But that's a planning fallacy. It's a tendency to underestimate even with that past experience is not always the case over and over again, especially as you scale. Perfectionism plays a big role in this too. Perfectionism extends project timelines beyond initial estimates. And it happens by over iterating and editing. I'm not going to, we've, we've talked before about perfectionism on, this podcast before, and I'm not going to spend a ton of time on that today, but if you're struggling with project timelines and deliverables within your budget constraints, the first place I would look is inward and ask yourself, are you demanding too much of yourself or too much of your team in this project? Because you're constantly over-iterating and editing and it's extending the timeline and it's draining mental and emotional energy across you and the team and it's draining your account, your financial account as well. There's a compounding impact of multiple underestimations across a project lifestyle that can be devastating to your organization. So you need to understand before we move even past really into the bulk of today's episode. Need to understand that underestimating timelines can be a chronic problem that you need to address.

All right, the second thing to consider when profitable project planning the triple P right is you need to take into account the hidden costs that scope creep can bring and how to account for those. So if you're unfamiliar with this term scope creep, I've written about it before on the blog. I've mentioned it and passing a few times here on the podcast. But essentially scope creep is allowing the original scope of the project, of the work to creep higher and higher and higher or more and more and more than originally estimated. And this leads to confusion. It leads to smaller financial margins. It leads to bottlenecks with other projects and stress across the entire entire team and even stress with the client, even though they're the ones that are more than likely inducing this problem.

So to identify scope creep early, you need to have some clear project boundaries. And we're to talk about some of those today. But to over communicate expectations multiple times, it's not just one time, but throughout the project, over communicate those expectations. Never there's people might get annoyed that with the over communication, but you'd rather than be annoyed with over communication than frustrated by the lack of communication and understanding about what's really happening. There's this fallacy in creative work and really a lot of work. I mean, I have friends that are electrical contractors too, and they're constantly dealing with these change orders, right? And the customer or the client will come to them and say, hey, just a small change, just a small change.

So there's this small change fallacy, right? It's seemingly minor requests that can create major disruptions. We've all experienced this before. It's a snowball effect, right? I just got this one little small change and that leads to another small change, another small change. And the next thing you know, small change, just like your change jar when you're saving up for vacation, small change adds up to big change. Real quick, it's a snowball effect. So. You need to implement in your organization a change request protocol and that's going to help you maintain profitability. So this happens upfront internally with the team. First, you're going to to build out this SOP, this standard operating procedure for how you're going to handle change requests. How will you receive them? How will you come back with them, which we're going to talk about here in a second? How will you process those internally? How will you divvy those up? How will it affect them? The bottom line, all of that thing, all of those things need to be considered. And then also the protocol needs to be communicated and implemented with the client themselves so that they understand when there's a small change, here's how we go about doing it.

And so let me just give you some language to use when addressing some scope changes with the client. They come and they have, just a small change and it's more small changes and more small changes. The first one is let's let's talk through this and what this adds to the scope. It could sound like this, right? Hey, this sounds like a great idea. This could really enhance the project. But just to keep everything aligned, let's talk through how this impacts the scope and timeline and budget so that we can plan accordingly. You see, there's some enthusiasm there. You're reinforcing. This could be a really great idea, but you're setting the tone and the expectation clearly, another way to say it is, look, I'm happy to explore that. Let's revisit, though, the agreement first. So the way you can say that is, hey, that's a great suggestion. Before we dive in, let's take a look at our initial agreement and see what adjustments need to be made to accommodate this shift. Again, staying positive up front, but clearly communicating this is what it's going to take in order to make that happen.

And then a third one, hey, we're outgrowing the original scope. It might be time to scale the plan a little bit more than we originally expected. And the way you can say that is, hey, it looks like the project has evolved beyond the initial scope, which is a good sign of momentum, positive reinforcement. But I recommend that we scale this plan to match. And so I'll put together some options and we can discuss those next steps. It lets them know that we're getting past that original scope. And we're going to need to build, we're going to need to kind of reevaluate the circumstances so that we can still hit your original goals, which we're going to talk about here later as well. You need to build this, build these appropriate, what we're calling like scope buffers into the initial project timeline. And I suggest using anywhere from 10 to 20% time and financial margin. As you're thinking about your financial margins, part of those financial margins isn't just profit.

Part of those financial margins is like a, what, what a lot of people will call in contracting world contingency, right? Our family loves to watch hometown, um, Ben and Erin, Erin Napier out in Laurel, Mississippi. It's a huge, uh, hugely popular show. We'll watch that show and they'll say, all right, your budget is a hundred thousand dollars. We're gonna, um, find you something for, uh, $90,000 and we're going to have a 10% contingency in there or they'll say, Hey, a hundred thousand dollars plus a 10% contingency in there because things are going to happen. Things are going to come up that were unexpected. And so same for you when you're building these scope buffers into your project timeline and project proposal, just think about like, Hey, part of that margin, part of that financial margin we're talking here, you need to account for some contingency here in that.

All right, so we talked a little bit of financial systems and things to consider there with the scope creep, but let's talk about the buffer, the scope buffers that we talked about. Let's talk about systems that we can implement to protect your team without inflating the estimates and getting in. And next thing you know, you're having to charge $30,000 for a $3,000 project just because you have all these buffers put in, right? So there's a difference between padding, right? Which is that financial profit margin, and then some strategic buffering, which is that contingency that we talked about. so, but when it comes to the physical product project itself, implementing the critical chain method for creative projects is super important, meaning, hey, who is critical in this project? And at what point are they critical in this project? And that will allow you to build out your system of time.

As well as financial margin as you plan in those scope buffers. You need to consider using time blocking to create some forced work sessions that might reduce some context switching. We've talked about this many, many times on this podcast that, today is a podcast day or today is a design day or whatever today might be for you and your team. Today, we're going to block off this day to do this type of task or totally work on this one project so we're not constantly context switching between projects. You can even use a ratio rule if you wanted to with your time. You could say, hey, only X percent of our available time is going to go to planned tasks and the rest of it we're going to leave as a contingency for those unplanned tasks. You could use a 60 40 rule, a 70 30 rule. It doesn't matter. But going into it, understanding that, OK, I have a contractor, I really want to plan out about 70% of his time and I want to leave about 30% margin there because I know things are going to come up that I need to throw on his plate. And when I do, I want him to have the margin for it. So it's planning that, that team capacity because that team capacity accounts for energy cycles, not just hours. need to think about, okay, we have a lot going on right now.

So that 70-30 right now may need to be more like an 85-15 just in this season. And we're gonna look at that. We're gonna keep our eye on that as we help lead and manage this team towards sustainable, creative success. And the last thing I wanna mention here is some time tracking tools can actually help you learn the actual time that you and your team are using versus the estimated time. This is something that I implement with my clients all the time, whether it be harvest or toggle or whatever time tracking tool you want to use. can use a timer on your phone. It doesn't matter as long as using something consistently to say this is how long it takes to do this type of project with this type of client so that when you go to make your next proposal, you can look at it and say, I know exactly how long this is going to take this contractor or this or our team to really pull this off. So here's how I'm going to estimate that project.

All right, so let's get back to some client communication strategies for this timeline management, because that's really where the profitable project planning really starts to come into play. And we really start to see things flesh out a little bit. It's in this timeline management strategy, right? So the first thing you need to do is set expectations from the very first client interaction. This is what we're going to do. This is what we're about. This is the timeline that it's going to take in order to do this type of project, because Listen, your clients don't know what it takes to get these types of projects done. That's why they're coming to you. So educate them without talking down to them. Just educate them about your creative process and the timeline. It's so, so valuable here. And when you're doing that, be sure to present timelines that include review cycles and revision periods. When we're looking at our tracking system, which we're going to talk about here in a second. we're thinking about the customer journey going from left to right. What we learned really quickly is that there's this time here in between the editing or the working on it. In between that and in between that and the deliverable, that there's this review revision time for us to say, OK, well, Maybe maybe maybe change this, maybe edit that, maybe maybe take this away, maybe spawn the new idea scope creep that I'd like to maybe add in. So being sure to present the timelines of OK, listen, we're going to have this X amount of time, two weeks, two days doesn't matter for review and revision. And that's how much time we're going to spend on review and revision. If we go past that, then we're going to need to reevaluate this whole project. And there's there's certainly ways that we can do that. So let's talk about how to do that.

Let's talk about when and how to push back on unrealistic deadline expectations. All right, so here's some times when you need to push back. You need to push back a little bit when the deadline sacrifices quality. Understanding that you know that the work is gonna suffer if we rush this. You need to push back when it affects other client commitments, that you risk dropping the ball elsewhere. You need to push back when resources aren't available. That, hey, I need input, feedback or approvals that don't match this timeline. So we're going to need to push back a little bit here. And then you need to push back if it wasn't part of the original plan. Hey, this is a brand new ask and there's no buffer built into this brand new ask. And then lastly, probably the most important, you need to push back when your gut says, this is not sustainable. Trust that gut. The more you do it, the more the gut will the more your gut and your instinct will be reliable because it'll be like, yeah, this just doesn't feel sustainable at all. And that's when you know you need to push back.

So let's talk about how to push back on some of these timeline things, right? So number one, be clear and calm. Just simply say, hey, look, I want to ensure that we meet your expectations without sacrificing quality. And Based on our current workload, this timeline would put that at risk. here's what I suggest. Clear and calm. Number two, offer a win-win solution. Or if you're like Michael Scott, a win-win-win solution. You do this by saying, hey, to keep the quality high, I can either extend the deadline or prioritize this piece and shift the other deliverables. Which would you prefer? Put the ball on their court.

Another way that you can communicate this kind of pushback, right, is to use data to support your case. Hey, we've had similar projects like this where we've seen that rushing this phase leads to a lot of rework, which could ultimately delay your launch time even more. So I think a realistic timeline would actually save us time overall in the end, right? It's using that data case, the use case, the business case before of what you've seen happen before. Another way to communicate this is to anchor back to their goals. hey, I know that this goal of yours that we talked about in the very beginning is a top priority, and I want to help you hit that in a way that lasts. And so to do that, we're going to need to adjust the timeline just slightly. And last way to kind of bring this up is to just keep it collaborative, don't be defensive about it. Say, hey, look, I'm on your team and I want to see this succeed because when you succeed, we succeed. So let's map out what's doable together so that you are set up to win. Creating that timeline for them is massively important so that they understand where they're at in that process so that when they come at you with some pushback then or with some scope creep, you can push back on them in some of these ways that I mentioned.

Last thing I want to talk about here today is to create a timeline visualization that clients can easily understand. A lot of times as I'm working with clients, it's like their clients are in the dark. They have a project kickoff meeting, everything's so exciting, things are getting rolling, and then they don't hear anything and they don't know what's going on or they don't know what's supposed to happen next or if there's something that they're supposed to be doing, right? And so something that we've started to implement across several of my clients right now, we've been nicknaming it the pizza delivery system. Listen, we know that pizza delivery is a thing already, but think about when you order a pizza, whether it's for delivery or for pickup or whatever, there's a pizza tracker across the top now with just about any major fast pizza chain, right? Unless it's some local place.

There's a pizza tracker across some hate we received your order and it's got a little Checkmark that we received your order writer some little pizza icon. Hey, we're preparing your order. We're putting together the pizza That's what that's what's happening right now and then goes into the oven and then it goes moves over there You said hey, we're putting this in the oven now Just once you know You don't need to know that they had to walk into the freezer to get the cheese and extra pepperoni and all these other things, right? You just need to know that things are progressing and then right now there's nothing required of you, but but the project is moving along all the way through your pizza being out for delivery and delivered to you. And so we've started working in our automated email systems through our project management to be able to let our clients know this is where your project is at right now. Just so you know, it's moving right along. Here's the details of your project. Here's what's happening with your project right now. Here's what you can expect next. We can attach things to those emails to let them know, to give them the information that we need if we need to.

Very very simple very easy way to do but it creates a timeline visualization So you want to go over that at the very beginning in your project kickoff meeting you you're gonna want to talk about Here's the steps and here's kind of the timeline that you can expect on those things and you're get updates throughout the project right and so implementing something like a pizza delivery system would go a long long way, so let me just Recap a few things here you remember to to know it and plan for it before you see it. You need to be proactive here. This is the project, the profitable project planning is all about being proactive, not reactive. You need to protect financial margins. It's not greed, but it's essential for your sustainable creativity. If we're here to sustain this creative organization, this business, right? We have to protect financial margins at all costs. then remember that realistic timelines lead to better creative work and happier clients.

So that's today's episode. Next week, we're going to talk about the Digital Studio Toolkit. We're going talk about some automation systems. We touched on a little bit of those today, but some automation systems for your creative teams where we're going to focus on essential digital tools and automation workflows that eliminate the repetitive tasks and increase your creative output. I want to remind you Then I have the free live webinar with me and Christian Brim, author of Prophet First for Creatives, will be on Wednesday, April 30th, I believe, at the time of this podcast recording that's only six days away. Wednesday, April 30th at 1 p.m. Eastern, you can register at dustinpead.com slash live. You can follow me again on the social media handle at Dustin Pead, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, all those places.

I would love for you to review and share this podcast in a way that you can. I want to remind you that you can get your free guide to eliminating project pitfalls at dustinpead.com slash pitfalls. Cannot wait to be with you next week on the podcast. You'll have a great week and I'll see you live on Wednesday, April 30th on the webinar with Christian Brim. Take care.

Ep 105: The Power of Process: How Structure Actually Enhances Creativity

Breaking the Myth That Process Kills Creativity

SUMMARY

Have you ever noticed that the most brilliant creative minds aren't just wildly chaotic, but actually rely on systems and structure to produce their best work? In this episode of Creativity Made Easy, Dustin Pead shatters the myth that process kills creativity and explores how the right kind of structure can actually set your creative mind free.

The common misconception is that creativity requires complete freedom. However, as Dustin shares from his own experience designing a Good Friday service with zero parameters, too much freedom can lead to decision paralysis. When given constraints and clear parameters, he and his team created one of the most talked-about experiences for years to come.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ Constraints expand creative thinking - Parameters and boundaries narrow your focus, allowing you to use 100% of your brain power on creative problem-solving rather than establishing the framework. Stanford University research shows that participants with moderate constraints produced more innovative and practical solutions than those with complete freedom.

• ⚡️ Structure creates ideal conditions for creative flow - The "flow state" (being in the zone) is where creatives produce their best work with effortless creativity. Having structured time, place, and rhythm creates the perfect conditions for flow by removing distractions and reducing decision fatigue.

• ⚡️ Systems multiply creative impact - As Scott Belsky famously said, "Creativity × Organization = Impact." Your creative potential is multiplied by organizational systems, not diminished by them. The most successful creative professionals balance innovative thinking with structured approaches to execution.

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 "Creatives love to tell people that they don't want to be put in a box, but when the rubber really hits the road, they need the box in order to create. They need the boundaries, they need the non-negotiables because they narrow the focus for you so that you can hit your mark each and every time."

• 💬 "Creativity × Organization = Impact. What that means is that creative potential is multiplied by organizational systems, not diminished by them. The most successful creative professionals are ones who balance their innovative thinking with structured approaches to execution."

• 💬 "The goal of structure is freedom. It's freedom, it's not restriction."

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️Free Guide: 5 Project Management Pitfalls and How To Avoid Them

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

TRANSCRIPT

Have ever noticed that the most brilliant creative minds aren't just wildly chaotic, but actually rely on systems and structure to produce their best work? Today we are going to shatter the myth that process kills creativity and explore how the right kind of structure can actually set your creative mind free. Let's get into it. Taking creatives from chaos to clarity.

Welcome back to Creativity Made Easy, the podcast where we transform creative chaos into clarity. This is a podcast for all creatives, designers, photographers, writers, all creative entrepreneurs who are seeking practical, actionable strategies to grow their creative business through efficiency. I'm your host, Dustin Pead, Creative Process Coach and Consultant. I'm here to help creatives know themselves, their process and their teams so that they can scale with efficiency together.

Today we're gonna talk about the power of process, how structure actually enhances creativity. But before we get into that, I wanna remind you, if you're listening on a podcast platform of any kind, I would really appreciate a five star rating or review. It helps get this content out further to those like yourself who can benefit from it. If you're watching on YouTube, I'm so glad that you're here. I'm constantly tweaking my look. So if you have any feedback about the studio here, please let me know. But this is my office and I'm super blessed and pumped to be able to work at such a cool space. So if you're seeing that, take a look around. If you have any questions about some things that are in the background, in the background, that's always changing because I change a lot. Please reach out to me and let me know. But I would appreciate like subscribe and ring the bell if you're watching on YouTube.

And if you are interested in learning more about me or what I can offer you in your creative business or your creative entrepreneurship, you can reach out to me and find me online at DustinPead.com or you can find me on social media at DustinPead. That's D-U-S-T-I-N-P-E-A-D.

All right, let's get into today's episode. Several years ago when I was in ministry, if you know my story, I spent almost 20 years in full time local church ministry, specifically in the creative departments, music, communication, tech, that type of thing. Right. And I was given the opportunity to design our good Friday service, which at the time of this releasing of this episode of the podcast tomorrow is good Friday. So this is a timely illustration story for you. I had the opportunity to design our entire good Friday service from top to bottom, zero parameters. I was like, man, this is the opportunity of a lifetime. This is every creative's dream to have given a full blank canvas and say, just create your whatever you want, just create it. And we trust you, right? It's an amazing feeling as a creator. I was paralyzed almost instantly with decision fatigue. I went back and ended up asking for some guidance and parameters and it ended up being one of our most talked about experiences for years and years because the common misconception is that creativity requires complete freedom. But in that moment, what I needed were parameters. I needed to know how long the service needed to be, what the feel of the service we were going for. mean, most Good Friday services are a little bit somber. Is that what we want to do? Or do we want to celebrate the cross? how are we? What's our angle here? What are we going to do? How much singing do we want involved? How much participation do we want involved? All questions that I needed to know in order to build this amazing experience for 45 minutes on a good Friday service and got those parameters and me and the team knocked it out. And it was, ended up being, like I said, one of the most talked about experiences for years because we had some really good parameters, but we still were able to kind of run our creativity lens through it.

So what I want to talk about today is this misconception that processes and systems hinder creativity. Let me first start with how constraints can expand creative thinking. Constraints, which it sounds like a negative word, but they're just parameters to work within. They're non-negotiables. They're boundaries. I often say that creatives love to tell people that they don't want to be put in a box, but when the rubber really hits the road, they need the box in order to create. They need the boundaries, they need the non-negotiables because they narrow the focus for you so that you can hit your mark each and every time, right? If you were to just walk out and fire an arrow, they would go, oh, you missed. Well, I wasn't really aiming at anything, right? It's the whole Wayne Gretzky, Michael Scott, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. You're not aiming at the thing, right? So some examples of constraints commonly are headlines and these things are going to sound just before I get into the list. These things are going to sound ridiculous. They're going to sound like I hate these things. Why would I invite these things into the process? Just stick with me here for a little while. But productive constraints, they can be deadlines. Nope, they can be the B word budgets, right? The money for it. Or they can be technical limitations like us and my early church days. We had zero budget.

So we had tons of technical limitations that we had to overcome. But listen, limitations and these constraints, they force us to think differently and find innovative solutions. There's a study that Stanford University did a few years ago on creativity and constraints. what they found was that introducing specific limitations actually enhanced creative problem solving compared to wide open parameters. Researchers observed that participants who were given a moderate amount of constraints, they produced more innovative and more practical solutions than those with complete freedom. And this is, they said that this was likely because of the constraints provided helpful starting points and narrowed overwhelming possibilities. I'm going to say that again. It narrowed overwhelming possibilities. If you're feeling overwhelmed today, and the possibilities of your creativity, it's probably because you don't have any boundaries on it. You don't have any helpful, useful, productive constraints. They went on to talk about how this phenomenon is sometimes called the paradox of choice, which is a fancy way of saying there's too many decisions, decision fatigue, too many options, right? And so what they did is they demonstrated that removing the paralysis of too many options, it allowed the participants to focus their creative energy more effectively. Do you see what I'm saying here? So they're not having to spin their brain power coming up with the parameters and then filling the parameters. They were already given the parameters. They can use a hundred percent of their brain power towards the creative problem solving.

The study concluded that the sweet spot for creativity involves providing enough structure to guide thinking without being so restrictive that it stifles imagination. That's not what we're trying to do. A prime example of this is Twitter or X or whatever it's called these days. Twitter, when it was first introduced and I'm pretty sure still now I haven't really used Twitter all that much. But Twitter had a character limit. And a character limit on Twitter blew up because people were like, oh, this makes me get more concise and creative with my communication. Do you see how parameters and some productive constraints can heighten your creativity?

All right, let's talk a little bit about this science, this brain science, neuroscience behind creative flow. You'll also you'll often hear creatives and athletes alike, people that are highly skilled professionals in their field. Writers will talk about this a lot. They talk about a phrase called the flow state. Right. And the first time I heard this, I thought it was just some mystic mumbo jumbo. And it can easily get there for sure. But flow state is actually a psychological condition where a person becomes fully immersed in an activity like imagine your kids when they're watching TV, they are fully immersed in that flow state. Although I would argue that maybe it's not the most creative activity to just sit around and watch TV, but you understand what I'm saying. They have a fully immersed in that activity. They're experiencing deep focus. They're obviously enjoying themselves and they have a complete distorted sense of time. It's, it's often described as being in the zone, right?

I know when I was writing my book last year, the very first day that I sat down and started writing, remember specifically I was sitting in my local coffee shop, I started writing and I just lost myself on all track of time, right? Because I found myself in this creative flow. I looked up and a few hours had went by and I didn't really understand where I was or how I got there because I was so immersed in the story. I was so in the zone, right?

So for creatives, this flow state, it matters tremendously because that's where you produce your best work with what seems like effortless creativity. And it bypasses all the self-criticism and accessing of deeper levels of innovative thinking. During this flow, creative professionals experience a heightened pattern recognition and make intuitive connections that might otherwise be missed during normal consciousness, right? So this structure around their time, this is the time, this is the place, this is the rhythm we're gonna talk about in a minute. This structure, it creates conditions, right? It's like, hey, there's hurricane conditions or there's storm conditions, because everything has kind of been set up and working in the right atmosphere, right? your right environment for that storm to happen. And we're trying to create creative storms every single day, right? We're even trying to create, wait for it, brainstorms. Okay. That's just a dad joke. We can get on past that for a second, but the structure creates the conditions that are needed for flow to occur by removing distractions, right? It's, it's a, it's a, it's a routine. It's a habit. It's a rhythm that reduces decision fatigue, Steve jobs and his outfits is a prime example of this. said that he wore the same thing, the same outfit, not the same exact clothes, but he wore the same outfit every day because it was one less thing he had to make a decision about. And so it freed up some mental bandwidth. so processes and systems, don't hinder creativity. No, no, no, no. They free up the mental bandwidth for actual creative thinking and when we work in systems and predictable workflows into our creative rhythms, they can actually reduce anxiety because we don't have to make all the decisions. We can just show up, understand our parameters and start creating immediately with 100% of our brain power. It reduces anxiety and it reduces creative blocks.

All right. If you're still not on board yet, let me give you just a couple of quick case studies of highly creative companies or people with some strong processes, right? If you've ever read the story of Pixar, you understand that they have a development process and brain trust meetings and they have their own process and they have these brain trust organized meetings where people can review the work that is constantly becoming out and everybody can collaborate and give feedback. But no one would ever look at Pixar and say they're not creative at all. Like Pixar has broken the mold on creativity time and time again in their industry. Apple, when they were under the designer Johnny Ive, he had this 10-3-1 model where he would say, we're going to have 10 ideas and then we're gonna narrow it down to the best three, and then we're gonna narrow it down to the best one. That little thing right there of saying this is how we're gonna do it, no one would look at Apple in that heyday and say, this is not a creative company. People longed to work for and buy Apple products because it made them feel more creative. Scott Belsky, who's with 99U and B. Hansen, all these companies over the years, incredible, incredible creative professional. One of his like all time bestselling books making ideas happen Please go buy that book. It's it's incredible. But in that he talks about how creativity is a quote. He says creativity times organization equals impact Let that sit in for a second creativity. We all have it Times not just plus but it multiplies with organization equals impact. And that's what we're all out here trying to do. We're all creating our art in order to make a difference, in order to make an impact, whether it's a financial difference or it's an artistic difference or a social impact difference. We all want that difference. And so the way to get it is creativity times organization. That's what equals the impact. And what he meant was that there's creative potential is multiplied by organizational systems, not diminished by them. At the most successful creative professionals are ones who balance their innovative thinking with structured approaches to execution.

All right, so hopefully by now you're convinced that processes and systems don't hinder creativity. And if you're a person that has little to no processes or systems, or you're still trying to figure out which ones you need, let's talk for a second about identifying which processes you need to implement first. And we're going to talk about First, first thing you need to do before you kind of go down either one of these paths, because we're going to talk about it for solo creators, and we're also going to talk about it for creative teams. But before we dive into either one of those, you need to be really honest. And sometimes this involves bringing outside help in someone like myself who can sit down and together, we're going to identify your biggest creative bottlenecks, your biggest creative bottlenecks. Is it internal communication? Is it communication with your client? Is it a repeatable processes and over and over? Is it that no one can find any documents or files that they need anywhere? Whatever it is, you're going to first identify your biggest creative bottleneck. And once you have that, now we're going to talk about the three most important processes for solo creators. OK, so you have your bottleneck in mind. Think about this. Number one, you need to have a consistent Idea capture system again. This is for solo creators, right? And yes, these things are important for creative teams as well But I'm talking just to the solo creator right now You need to have a consistent idea capture system that allows you to document inspiration Whenever it strikes I think about Jerry Seinfeld and always carrying around his legal pads with them all the time his legal pads have been noted at nauseam about how he would use those or wake up in the middle of the night and scribble stuff down the next day, he'd have to wake up and be like, what is this that I wrote? But he had a system. So when an inspiration was striking, he had a place to go. So it doesn't matter if it's a digital tool like our phones, or it could be a remarkable tablet, or it could be, I know, I anything else around here in front of me right now. It could be your computer, it could be Post-it notes, could be field notes. I used to love carrying around field notes. I need to get back into that. But having one place, not multiple places where it's scattered all over, because that creates chaos and we're trying to go from chaos to clarity, right? But having one place, whether digital or physical, that ensures that great ideas aren't lost. So you need to have an idea capture system.

The second thing a solo creator needs is structured time blocking rhythm that separates the idea time from the execution time from the administrative work time. You need to have three buckets as a solo creative. You need to have idea time should be blocked out on your calendar every day, every week, however often you need to do it, right? Execution time should be blocked off on your calendar every day, every week, however often you need to execute the ideas. And then there's the unfortunate administrative work. If you're solo, you also have to do the administrative work. So you have those three buckets for three distinct periods. And the reason you do that is it prevents the context switching, right? You don't have to switch your mind, go, okay, well now I'm in idea mode and now I'm immediately in execute that idea mode. And okay, now I've got to take a break for a second and do some admin stuff. Do you see the chaos that that begins to cause? It does not maximize creative flow. And that's what we're after.

The third thing for creative solo, for solo creators is a clear project completion framework that's going to be defined by milestones along the way so that you know you're tracking towards the right end goal and some finishing criteria, right? You, how do we know we're done? How do we know when we've won? Because the, the, the tendency here creative, if I can just speak candidly with you for a second, you know, the tendency is for you to fight against perfectionism and you'll keep editing and keep editing and keep editing and keep editing. And you've edited that thing to death. And it was at one point early on in those edits, like probably version three, four or five, somewhere in there. It was really, really great. But you kept editing it and editing it to death. And now you're left with nothing because you constantly are combating that perfectionism. So having a framework of your project completion is super important to know when you've done. What's the criteria for knowing that we're done? Is it a certain amount of edits? Is there a certain satisfaction rate amongst the team? Whatever it is, you gotta have that to ensure your creative work actually launches rather than remaining perpetually and that we're almost done. This is almost done. This is almost done. Almost done is like the worst phrase for creative production because almost done is never done. You know what mean? So those are the three things for solo creators, idea capture, time blocking, and project completion. You got to know when it's done. All now let's talk about the three most important processes for creative teams, okay?

For teams, yes, those things are important before, but teams are gonna, the dynamics a little bit different. So for teams, you need to have a standardized feedback protocol. And what this does is it establishes when and how their critiques happen. It specifies what constructive feedback looks like. And it ensures that the creative work improves without demoralizing the team, right? You don't wanna do that. You wanna be able to say, hey, look, I know this can be better. So how can we make it better together? So a standard feedback protocol, whatever it looks like, this is it. Everybody knows it. Everybody uses it. This is how we provide feedback like brain trust meetings at Pixar.

Second thing for creative teams is you need to have a transparent emphasis on transparent needs to be open so people can see it. Project management system. If you're like me, I use Asana, it doesn't matter. You can use Monday, you can use Trello. If you have to, just don't use Basecamp. But Post-it notes, it doesn't matter, whatever you use, as long as it's transparent and out there in the open for the entire team to see so that they can see their part in it. And they don't want to be the kind of the stick and the spokes that clogs up the process, right? So you want to be able to see that. But in that process, in that project management system, you need to clearly identify who owns what project task, whatever you need to establish clear deadlines and you need to make sure that the dependencies are visible so that the handoffs can happen smoothly. Right. So, hey, we can't edit the thing until we can't edit the video until the video is shot and they go, well, great. We can't shoot the video until we have a place to shoot it. Logistics. Well, we can't really think about the logistics until we know the story. Right. And so you understand those dependencies and how they all fit together.

So standardized feedback, transparent project management system. The third thing that creative teams need the most is a defined decision making framework. This is similar to our third point for solo creators, but a decision making framework that that will clarify who has the final approval, who's the head of this project and what is the criteria that's going to be used for making creative decisions? How are we going to resolve creative differences without constant revisions or a whole, let's design by committee. That's not what we're trying to do here. We still value independent creative work, but together, how are we going to make this decision? Decisions need to be made the same way over and over again. I actually just finished this great little book. you know the Do book series, just beautifully designed books, but this one right here is Les McCown. not, I'm sure I'm butchering his last name. He's wrote many leadership books, but this was do scale roadmap to remark to growing a remarkable company. And in this, talks a lot about making sure that you have a clear, clearly defined decision making framework. Again, what that's going to do is going to clarify who has final authority, what criteria is going to be used for making the decisions and how to resolve the differences when they come about.

So I've used the word framework a lot so far in this and I get it, it's an overused term. Essentially all it means is that you have a template and I use Asana, my project management system. I store all my templates in there so that when I have to use that template for something, it's a simple copy and paste it into the project that it needs to be in. And then from there, I'm just going to add the who's doing it and when they're doing it, right? It's D-O, it's not D-U-E, remember that. So wherever you want to put it, just use the one spot for these frameworks or these templates, however you want to talk about it, whatever word you want to use for it. But I use Asana. You can take these things to say, this is how we're going to do these things. You can kind of build that process out, build that template, that framework out in Asana or your project management system. Just don't just don't assign it to anybody or put any due dates on it. And then you can just copy and paste it. And then you add assignments and due dates to it. And boom, there you go. You're consistently using the same thing every single time.

In summary, structure enhances creativity. Structure enhances creativity. So I want to encourage you to just start with one process improvement. I've mentioned a lot in here today. But if you could just start with one process improvement, how you can implement it, how you can take the idea, write it down, capture it, put it in a template and do the same thing over and over again, that's what's gonna allow your creativity to thrive because you're using less and less of your brain energy trying to think about how something needs to get done rather than actually getting it done. So let's not, let's not be overly, let's not overwhelm ourselves with the how let's set ourselves up for success. The goal of structure is freedom. It's freedom. It's not restriction. Okay.

All right. So if anything that I talked to you about today has struck a nerve, this is what I do for a living. This is my business. This is Dustin Pead.com. This is chief creative consultants, LLC. This is what I'm spending my days doing now and I would love to help you with it. if you are anything that I said in today's episode kind of struck a nerve with you go to Dustin pead.com and hop on my calendar and let's chat about how I can help you go from chaos to clarity in your processes and systems.

Next week we're to talk about profitable business owners. We love that word profitable. Project planning. We're going to talk about how to set timelines that can respect your margins. And so a little bit more of what we today was kind of a lot of the why it's important. Next week, we're going to really start to get into it. Profitable project planning. I don't know how I came up with that one, right? Setting timelines that respect your margins. So feel free to mention me or the handle of the podcast at Dustin Pead. You can download any of my free tools at dustinpead.com. actually have a tool on there. If you go to dustinpead.com slash pitfalls, it's a guide to eliminating project pitfalls. Totally free. Just grab it, house around your team, nonchalantly slip it on your boss's desk and say, is how we're going to avoid this project pitfall again. But go to dustinpead.com slash pitfalls to grab your copy. Next week, the profitable project planning, setting timelines that respect your margins. Y'all have a fantastic Easter weekend. I'll talk to you next time on Creativity Made Easy.

Ep 104: Getting Things Done w/ Peter Hainsworth

Where Operations Meets Creativity

SUMMARY

Do you ever wonder how to bridge the gap from your creative dreams to actual execution? In this episode of Creativity Made Easy, host Dustin Pead sits down with Peter Hainsworth, Director of Operations at Ridgeline Electrical and founder of The Ops Group, to discuss the crucial relationship between visionary creatives and operations professionals.

Peter shares his journey of creating a community for operations professionals who often feel isolated in their roles. As the implementer of visions and dreams, Peter offers valuable insights on how operations people can support creative professionals while maintaining efficiency in their organizations.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ Operations professionals are vital for turning creative visions into reality. High visionary creatives often don't understand the effort required to bring their ideas to fruition. Having a strong operations person allows visionaries to focus on what gives them energy while delegating tasks that drain them.

• ⚡️ The customer journey is the most essential process for bridging creativity and operations. Mapping out the entire customer experience from first contact to loyal customer creates clarity for both visionaries and operations teams, ensuring everyone understands the path forward.

• ⚡️ Technology tools that centralize information are critical for operational success. Whether using Notion, Asana, or even Post-it notes, having a central repository where everyone can access information keeps teams aligned and projects moving forward.

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 "Hire people that are better at doing the things that you're not great at... Find their strengths, bring them on, and then work together as a team moving forward." - Peter Hainsworth

• 💬 "When we separate the vision and the efficiencies and the operations, we pull those apart. Now we have two opposing forces trying to work together going down the same road and it doesn't work." - Peter Hainsworth

• 💬 "Operations folks are so detail oriented. We want to see those little details, the minuscule number that's off to the side that some people don't care about. Those are sometimes the biggest impact on your organization moving forward." - Peter Hainsworth

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️The Ops Group - Peter Hainsworth's community for operations professionals

• ⚡️ "The Ops Guy" Microcast - Peter's podcast on Spotify

• ⚡️ASANA for Creative Teams eBook - Dustin's guide to implementing project management for creative professionals

• ⚡️Do vs Due Worksheet - Free resource for determining high-value activities

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

TRANSCRIPT

Do you ever wonder how you bridge the gap from your creative dreams to actual execution and seeing the thing come to real life? Today, I have a very special guest, Peter Hainsworth of the Ops Group that's going to join us to talk about bridging the gap from creativity to execution. Let's get into it. Taking creatives from chaos to clarity.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Creativity Made Easy podcast. I'm your host, Dustin Pead, creative coach and consultant. I'm here to help creatives know themselves, their process and their team so that they can create greater things together. Episode 104 is here with a very special guest. Like I mentioned in the intro, we'll get to him in just a moment. But before we do, I want to thank you for watching, listening, however you're consuming this content. If you're listening on audio podcast platform, I would really appreciate a five star rating or review. It helps get this content out further to those like yourself who could benefit from it. And speaking of that, why not share it with somebody who you know could benefit from it. If you're watching on YouTube, thank you so much for joining us. I would love for you to hit the thumbs up button. It helps the algorithm helps get this stuff out to more people just like yourself and subscribe and ring the bell to be notified of all content that is dropped on here on a regular basis for you.

Lastly, if you're interested in anything that you hear today on this podcast, or you would love my help, I would love to offer you a free 30 minute coaching session. You can go to dustinpead.com and click on the let's chat button that those buttons are all over the website, no matter what page you're on. I would love to chat with you and love to offer you a free 30 minute coaching session for your processes and systems and your creative professionality.

I'm super excited for today's conversation with Peter. He has a lot of amazing things to share with us. So let's dive right into it now. Well, Peter, thanks so much for joining us on the Creativity Made Easy podcast. I'm glad you're here, Absolutely, man. Glad to be here. We've been just a little behind the curtain. We've been trying to get this thing scheduled for a long time. And Peter is so popular. It's hard to nail him down, but I'm glad he's here today. Peter is director of operations at Ridgeline Electrical in Indianapolis, Indiana, one of the clients that I work with. But also what we're going to spend a lot of time talking about today is he is the founder of something called the Ops Group. Peter, what's the Ops Group? What's that all about?

So the Ops Group is actually kind of just like what it sounds like. It's a group for, I know, right? I came up with all these other names for it when I first started. You know, at one point it was director of results. And that's super cool name, but it doesn't really flow off the tongue. And I had someone actually involved with the group who just was like, you know, when I tell people about this, I never can remember the name. So I just call it the ops group. And I was like, that's it. Are you OK if I use that for the name? And they were like, yeah, for sure. No big deal. And so the ops group is a peer group that is designed for folks that are in operations or operation professionals, specifically targeted towards those of us who are making the day to day happen and feel that there are challenges that we face that put us kind of on the island. And I won't get too far into it, but the idea is let's get together and talk. Right. Yeah. No, I love that. love that.

Yeah. I mean, I think in any profession or any sector or hobby or anything like that. If you can build community around it, it just creates sustainability and a support system there. So specifically as we're talking to today, Peter, we're going to, we're going to use the lens of creativity because that's what this podcast is about. But for our listeners who are strictly creative professionals, we know that creatives are high visionary people. And that's usually where I come in. Right. And it's the reason why Peter and I get along so much because we make things happen. We get the things done that the high visionaries will cast vision for and then we'll and then we'll actually bring it to life for them and for the organization.

So so there'll be a lot of talk today about, you know, just in the businesses or in the markets or things like that, or even in the creative landscape of things, just know that we're going to be using creatives and visionaries kind of interchangeably. So if we say visionary, we're talking about a creative. If we say creative, we're talking about a visionary.

With that in mind, Peter, I would love to know what inspired you to even create the ops group to begin with? I know we talked about the community piece, but why do this? Sure. So actually before I get into that, I have to create another, give you another definition that we'll probably use interchangeably. Yeah. And that is when I talk about like a head of operations or director of operations or COO, Chief Operating Officer, or another word that's familiar with the EOS community as integrator. We're talking about the same person, the same role, right? Yeah. So the individual who is in charge of making things happen and executing on the vision, right? That's kind of the big picture of those roles.

So a couple of years back, Ridgeline Electrical, implemented fully into the EOS, method of business, which is an operating system. It's, it's set up as an accountability structure, things like that, right? I'm sure Dustin, you've done more talking about this than I can even go into. So, yeah, not a ton of EOS talk on this podcast, but the of behind the scenes with the clients for sure. So, okay. So it's, it is a, I'll give a high level then real quick. So we are on the same page, but, The idea is it creates accountability and transparency within your organization. Within that is a operational structure or an accountability structure, they call it, of how the business runs through a, quote unquote, chain of command. So as you've said, if you've alluded to, we've got visionary and creative, that would be your visionary within EOS. And then your next person would be your integrator or your chief operating officer, your head of operations, whatever you want to call that.

So a couple of years ago, Ridgeline implemented this system and I have been in operations for the last decade in one capacity or other. However, I've never been an integrator before. So when it was mutually decided from our executive team that that was gonna be my role taking on moving forward, I started asking a lot of questions that I didn't know answers to obviously. And I said things like, hey, you know, can you point me in the direction of someone who's done this before so that I can talk with them and, you know, have a mentor and, you know, et cetera, et cetera, because like, I've got this structure laid out in the book of how it's supposed to run, but I don't know what questions to start asking first. Where do I even start? Do I start with processes? Do I start with systems? Do I start with leadership? Like, where do I even go?

And, and the implementer that, that did the work for us, her name is Jen. Fantastic. She goes, I don't really know of lot of integrators in the Indianapolis area that you can connect with. Because it was a fairly newer concept back when we started. Not many people had implemented at that point. It's much more popular now, much more prevalent too. And so I started asking other people, hey, can you point me in the direction of someone who's done this? Or I even started at some point asking, hey, is there a group around of people who can do this? And everybody said no. We don't really know of anybody.

Couple months down the road that the answers changed from not really don't know anybody, but you should start it. That's what it went to is you should start something. And I said, absolutely not. I want to go to learn. I don't want to teach other people because I don't know what I'm doing. after a couple years of hearing that same messaging over and over again, it finally clicked for me and realized that not only is there nothing out there, but There is a need for this. There are other people who are interested in this. There are other people who would benefit from this as well. So I said, fine. In July of 22, after the urging from my visionary Blake and then also my wife and his wife, I said, fine, I'll do it. And I started the ops group. It was very different back then. We had a couple people come in and join me on the first week, the first month. We meet once a month.

And I very quickly realized that this was incredibly valuable for multiple reasons. And not just for myself, but for the other people that were there, they found great value from just hearing, hey, I'm not alone in some of these challenges I'm facing. let's get down to Brass Tacks here because the creative pros that are listening to this right now, the high visionaries, they're A lot of times they don't necessarily understand the effort that it takes to see things through fruition and actually see their vision come to life. They had success at some point in their life by squeaking out something that everybody loved. And so they go, I can just keep doing that again and again. But why do creatives or strong visionary people, why do they need a strong ops person?

Sure. in order to sustainably continue, and I say that because I think a lot of creatives, and at different times in my life, I've been in a position of creative, I've been in a position of visionary. When you're in that spot, and if that's where you live all the time, I understand this to an extent, having the vision of the OTS Group and building some of those things, we forget how hard it really is at times to, in your words, squeak something out that people love. It's easy for visionaries and creatives. And I'm not saying this as a blanket statement. This is just more of a generic, majority of folks are this way. It's easy to forget how hard it is to execute on things. And when you get into more people, it becomes much more complex.

Yeah, it's so much more complex to do that. And that's I think that's the biggest thing, too, is is realizing that as you scale, you can't do it all on your own. And nor should you. As a visionary or creative, you've got incredible ideas. And I'm sure that a visionary creative has felt at one point or another. My gosh, I could just I could have all so many more ideas and be so much better at putting this out there if I didn't have to just do all the work to right.

Right. So there's some quotes out there saying, and the basic gist is, hire people smarter than you. Yeah. I kind of agree with that. I would tweak it a little bit. Hire people that are better at doing the things that you're not great at. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Find their strengths, bring them on, and then work together as a team moving forward. Yeah, it's a touch of humility to be able to say that I'm not great at everything. Right. But I think an angle that I've been able to take Peter with with some of my clients who are creative pros is to go, yeah, not don't think of it as you're not great at everything. Think of it as what you really want to be want to spend your time doing. And what you don't want to spend your time doing.

Right. So you don't want most creatives don't want to spend their time doing the things that keep the operational wheel spinning. Yeah. If they don't do it and no one else does it, guess what? The wheel stops spinning, and there's no progress, there's no moving forward, there's no money making, there's no opportunity, any of that stuff, right? Then you're just relying on luck, which is an extreme gamble, right? But when you have this person in place, you could say, okay, I understand, I may not be able to get to the place in humility where I can say like, hey, I'm not good at everything, but I can at least easily get to the place and say, I don't want to do X, Y, Z. I only want to do A, B, C, and I'm going to hand off X, Y, Z to somebody else so that the proverbial wheel can keep going.

Peter, why don't you walk us through how a operations person can directly support the, I'm going to use both of these words, the creative vision. How can we support that creative vision? but also maintain operational efficiency. Before I go there, do you mind if I back up for a second? Go. Go, One of those things. Sure, I'm just closing the conversation. No, you're good. I love it. And I will get there. I promise. But I was thinking about this as you were talking. One of the things that I like to use as a tool to help people get to a point where they're willing to say, OK, I'm not the greatest at this without saying I'm not the greatest at it, is to ask them or ask yourself, what is the one thing that gives me the most energy. Yeah, that's right. And then go after that. And then conversely, what's that thing or things that robs me of energy? What is the thing that you find yourself putting off? You find yourself avoiding, even if it's a 30 second task, but you just don't want to do it because it takes away the energy from you. Those are the things that you should be bringing other people in to be able to take care of for you.

Absolutely. That way you can focus on your unique ability as a creative or a visionary to focus on moving forward. We'll come back to the question in a second too, but I love that you use the word focus. was just literally before we hopped onto this podcast recording today, I was writing a report for a client of mine after doing some research into all the things that they're doing. And we've been having these conversations in our coaching sessions about the focus funnel, right? What can you eliminate, automate, delegate, or procrastinate and bring back to the top of the funnel again? And it's the same thing, right? It's like what we first went through a time and energy audit, which is a Dan Martell, buy back your time concept, his book, buy back your time. You go through that audit, you basically write the things down that brings you energy, the stuff that you basically you're taking notes throughout your day of this brought me energy, this didn't, this brought me energy and it was high value. This, and this brought me energy and it wasn't high value. This brought me, this didn't bring me energy at all. And it sucked the life out of me. But it was really high value, you know, or this sucked the life out of me. And it was also extremely of no value. So you start to kind of see the quadrants of like,

Hey, if it sucks the life out of you and there's no value, guess what? Eliminate it. If it sucks the life out of you, but it's high value, delegate it to somebody else. If it gives you energy, but it's really low value, automate it. And if it gives you energy and it's high value, that's the sector that you need to be focused on. And like what you said, Peter, you need to surround yourself with the right people. But yeah, it's the stuff that you get. And I love too, you said the energy, you know, what gives you the most energy, not what gives you the most joy or happiness, because we know happiness is fleeting, right? There's what makes you happy today as a creative visionary or a person in general, doesn't matter what status you're in. What makes you happy today may not make you happy tomorrow, but it's about what feeds you the energy to continue moving forward. All right, as you were.

Okay, so your question was, now I gotta, can you restate? Yeah, I will. So how does the operational person support the creative vision but also maintain some operational efficiency. So how do we sit on that balance of I understand the vision, I understand the creative, let's dream a little, let's live a little, let's get our heads in the clouds for a little bit, but how do they also maintain operational efficiency while being able to get there as well? Sure. I think that is the question of the city.

I mean, I will not I will not sit here and pretend that I've got it all figured out. There is no way in hell that I have. But it's an it's an active, I would almost say day to day type of thing, you know, and part of it is, I think what's easy for the operational professional is to forget the vision, because we get and we want to be so buried in the efficiencies and so much in the process and the systems and making things turn and making things go. It's actually, I think it's a detriment to us to not see that vision. Yeah. So part of walking that balance is you as an individual, as the operational individual taking the responsibility to not own the vision, but have ownership with the vision. There you go. The vision becomes part of who you are too. And it will dictate how you move forward on things.

Yeah. Doesn't mean that you forget your efficiencies, but it means that you learn to understand that efficiency for efficiency sake is not the value, is not worth it, right? That's not the point. The point of the efficiency is to make sure you hit the big picture, is to make sure you hit your goals that are put out there, right? That's the point of the efficiency. Yeah. And when we separate them, when we separate the vision and the efficiencies and the operations, right, we pull those apart. Now we have two opposing forces trying to work together going down the same road and it doesn't work.

So I would say it's a marrying of both in a very, It's heavy responsibility in the operations person to understand and have a clear vision view of that vision. And sometimes that's hard to get, because we want to just put our heads down, get behind our desks and do our work. Right. We want to just get done. What it takes sometimes is sitting down with your creative and saying, here's what I think your vision is from my perspective. This is where I think we should go. Tell me, you know, is that are we on the same page? And then in EOS, it's called a same page meeting for that reason.

And it's, it's crucial that you stay in those and that you keep that that moving forward, because then you understand, truly understand where that vision needs to be to get there, because you're the one responsible for taking care of making sure that you see that vision and execute on it. And your visionary or creative is starting to get a picture of the steps it's going to take to get to that point. So their expectations are set realistically, your expectations are set realistically, and you can move together along that road.

Yeah, it's funny. We say on this podcast all the time that you have to learn to ask really great questions. then the method you talked about there too on the same page meeting is a great way to start that same page meeting is to repeat back what you think the vision is, what you think the direction is, and put it in your own words and then just kind of have that back and forth conversation until everybody goes, yes, you're visionary. Blake is a partner of mine and the culture base as well. And we often in our weekly meetings will have a lot of, this is what I'm hearing. Is that accurate? And it's usually four or five rounds of that before we both understand each other.

But you mentioned systems earlier. I want to get into that just for a few minutes here. What are some essential systems that you think every business needs to be able to take the vision and put it into reality? It's pretty basic, actually, depending on your industry. obvious, but basic to me that that I would say everybody needs. You got to start with a database. And by that, I mean like somewhere where your tasks and your projects live, some software or some Excel spreadsheet, whatever it is that you or everyone in the organization or within the department, whatever it is, can see and understand where, how to get to that data. That's absolutely crucial.

In Ridgeline, we use Notion and that holds my projects for the quarter. That holds all my tasks for all of my departments. It holds my meeting notes for every meeting that we do. It's the central location for all of that. I, if you don't have that, I would say as an operations person, that would be your first step to start with. Yeah. Get some centralized location of information.

Yeah, absolutely. It's a, tell people all the time, you know, cause I'm an, an Asana evangelist, but at end of the day, if you just had one wall in your office space and it was filled with Post-it notes, as long as everybody knew that that's where everything went and that's what they can reference. That's all that matters. It doesn't matter what platform you use. Like what you said, it's about having that central location that everybody knows. This is where you find the information and this is where information goes so that we don't forget it later on.

So what are some, processes that you think creative and visionary people need to start putting in places in order to disseminate these things down to their operational people and get the things moving the way that things need to be getting moving. Yeah, sure. I think one of the biggest ones that's most important to start with is your customer journey. What is it? What is the so good? What is what is from start to finish? What does that look like? Because a lot of visionaries have or creators have that vision in their head of what they want it to look like.

And then when you start putting it on paper, the ops person goes, oh, well, we're missing this. We're missing that. We're missing this. We have to fill these gaps, so that we can have that all the way through. sometimes when the visionary writes it out, they start looking at it going, OK, this is not actually realistic. I don't think we can actually do this. putting those things down as your customer journey is probably your number one process to have. And then after that, you've got your sub-processes of how do your sales work, how do your operations work, how do your finance work. Those things are secondary, but your customer journey will dictate all of that and how those run.

That's so good and so true. And it's just a simple to talk creative for a second. It's just a storyboard of your customer's experience. How did they find you? What did they feel? What was the pain point that they were feeling before they found you? What was their first interaction with you? What did that look like? What was the interaction? All of that stuff all the way through them being a full on loyal repeatable customer. Yes. How do they feel at that moment? It's their entire storyboard.

I love creativity Inc for this because they teach about storyboarding in that and how much they use it at Pixar. And it's the same thing. So if I could just speak creative ease for a second, it would be do a storyboard of your customer journey. I know you mentioned notion as well. I mentioned Asana. We even gave a shout out to Post-it Notes at one point. there any other tools that you would recommend for managing creative or visionary operations?

I mean, there's so many of them. You can use ClickUp. You can use monday.com. There's all these different products out there. As far as other systems for, if you're heavy into EOS, there is a software called 90, where a lot of your stuff can be put in there. I mean, I didn't talk about meeting notes earlier. What are you going for meeting notes? How you caption all that? Sure. a lot of that is within notion. I build out what our agenda will be on my meeting card or whatever you want to call it. And then it links directly at the bottom. put a link into our tasks. So it's fills out the tasks and then I will take notes within the tasks or within our meeting topics that are also listed in there as well.

And you guys are also using like an AI recording device for either in person or over the phone or digital meetings as well. What is that and how does all that work and why is it important to have that? We've got a couple actually. So I have an AI software called Fathom that sits over top of Zoom and Teams. It'll work with any of the virtual meeting softwares. I think... You're in any session with me, it's always in there. Exactly.

Same. You know, I think it's important to have one of those platforms, whether it's Teams or whatever you want to call it. We're not in the world of everybody goes to the office every single day. We're getting more towards, let's go to the office more, but I think the virtual aspect will always be there. The biggest value that I see of having that recording over the Zoom or whatever your virtual meeting space it looks like is the power of AI today is not just to record, but it also pulls out important and key parts of the conversation. It can pull out task lists. can pull out high level topics. can tell you how long you talked about something and whether it was important or not, right? There's all these things that can do for you.

And it's valuable to have that because there's been numerous times we've done what we call a project verification with Bridge Line. So we win a project. then go through the estimate and it's a handoff from our sales department to our operations department. I can't tell you the number of times that they've asked a question going, oh man, I don't remember what was, what was said about this. Well, I can easily pull up my Fathom recording and I don't even have to listen through the whole thing, I can look through the transcript and find that spot and then listen to the 30 second clip that I need to.

Yep. And it just creates that ability to go back and see that and have that clarity of data. And then your customer journey is continued properly because now you're fulfilling what was committed to by the sales team to the customer. Right. So if you're a fan of Mad Men and you're watching the women and the secretaries come into the room, sit in the corner and take notes the entire time or read this back to me. What was just said? It's essentially a digital version of that now. Correct. You don't have to pay anyone to come in. Pro hack or tip here. If you have a paid zoom account, it's absolutely free to use. Yeah. It's wonderful.

The other side of it that we do have is called plod. P-L-A-U-D, I believe it is. Yeah. And it's a recording device that connects to your phone and it does a mix of just recording, but it also will transcribe it through AI. You can create templates. So if you have a same meeting over and over again, you can create a template of how you want it to transcribe that into a summary or into details, however you want it to look. And then you have an active recording and transcription of in-person meetings as well for the same reason, being able to look back and compare notes or, hey, we said such and such is what we had determine was going to be the direct of moving forward or, hey, you said such and such details. We didn't realize that, but now we have the recording so we can move forward on executing on that.

And I think it's important to have those. And in a lot of times too, plot is really nice because I can click the button on the back and just speak and do it a note that I just want to remember for later or some idea that I had come up or something I need to look at. It's a great task list for that too. So that's another one. I think one area that probably with my industry, the construction side, we don't do as often, but needs to be done more as a customer relationship management tool.

There's a lot of those out there. HubSpot is obviously the first one that comes to mind, but there's some other ones that are just as good and better depending on what you need. And I think in the bidding world, which is where we live, right? We live in the space of we're not actively marketing towards our customers, our customers are sending us projects they want us to bid. In that world, we don't always do a lot of customer relationship management, a CRM, right? Because we think, well, we don't need to see that coming in. don't need to spend the expense on that.

But the reality is there's a lot of data within that that is helpful for you in making the decisions. OK, if I get 100 bid requests come in, which ones am I going after? I only have capacity to do 30 of them this month. So what 30 are they going to be? Well, if you have the backup data of who you've worked with before, what the project types were, all those things, you can sift through that data in a CRM and be able to make better decisions and be more strategic about, hey, I've limited time. Let me use this software to tell me where I should put that time to be the most successful. Yeah. Yeah.

I love that. We use a lot of that. heard me talk about these processes and systems before. We're walking through that all the time with our CRM. One that I specifically use and an ambassador for creative people is VidLead Studio. It is essentially a white label service of Go High level specifically designed for creative professionals. customer service is fantastic and it's super affordable. I would highly recommend it.

One last question for you, Peter. And then I want to know where listeners can learn more about the ops group, but how do we, if you have the ear of a creative professional or a visionary right now listening to this podcast, how do you, what, how do you convince them, to embrace systems and processes? Well, the first thing I think you would have to say is you don't need to do it. I can handle it. That's the first, that is probably the first step is like, Hey, look, this is, this will be on me moving forward.

Right. I think a lot of the challenge is for creative people or visionaries is they don't want to locked into a box. And that's completely understandable. Right. And if you had gone back five years from, know, from today, five years previous, 90 probably 98. I'm just pulling that number out of thin air, but probably 98 % of your softwares were you're locked in for a year or two years or whatever it is. It's a long-term contract and it's a big expense to put in upfront, et cetera. Right. Nowadays we are in the, in the age of month, the month we're in the age of plug and play things just pop up on your screen because you clicked. Yes. I want to try it. And you've got 14 days or 30 days and it's all right there. Right.

So the long-term commitments aren't there. So there's no locked into that box. There's also the aspect of, for the creative and visionary out there, our brains as operation professionals, we are soothed by a good software that works well and that we can implement properly. And implementation is probably one of the most difficult things to actually make happen. Yeah. But Operations folks are so detail oriented. We want to see those little details. We want to see the little things. We want to see the minute, minuscule number that's off to the side that some people don't care about. Those are sometimes the biggest impact on your organization moving forward. And a lot of that data comes from compiling it in a CRM or a system or a software that gives you instant reports.

That's probably what would be my biggest selling point to a visionary or a creative is, hey, look, you want to get to X. I want to get you to X as reasonably quick as possible. We want to get there. In order to do that, there are decisions that need to be made on a day-to-day basis. If I have to compile all the data from multiple sources, it's going to take us 10, 15 times longer to get there. If we implement this software, we can get that data instantly. Right. So we're maximizing our capacity while using a tool that exists for us. And the best part of it is I can send you the reports and tell you how to read them. You don't have to deal with it at all. Yeah. I love it.

I love it. Well, Peter, thank you for your time. Can we have people listening to this that are want to know more about the ops group? Where can they learn more about that? So there's two different ways. Actually, three if you think about it. If I think about it rather, you can go to my website. It's theopsgroupindie.com. Check that out. Just because it's indie doesn't mean I'm only in the indie market. That's where I'm at right now. But I'm willing to talk to anybody across the nation. Obviously, just keep in mind the time difference. But you can go there. You can check me out on LinkedIn or the Ops group page on LinkedIn as well. It's just the Ops group. And then if you want, I am in the process of pushing out a new microcast, I'm calling it, and it's called the Ops Guy. It's right now only on Spotify, but I'm working to get it other places, but you can find out more about me there too.

I love it. Love it. Peter, thank you so much for joining us today and walking us through how to bridge this gap between creative visionary to operations. Man, was, I know, really helpful for a lot of us. For sure, man. Glad to be here. Thanks so much. Awesome. If you're listening to this and you're interested in having me help you with your creative operations, you can head over to dustinpede.com and click on the Let's Chat button. But if you want just an easy kind of gateway into the things that I'm going to bring to the table, Go to dustinpead.com/resources and pick up the ebook Asana for Creative Teams.

Now, I know it says Asana, but all the practices that are in it could be used on Notion or they could be used on our faithful friends, Post-it Notes. It doesn't really matter. It's about the processes that you use. It's not about the platform. It's about the processes. So I think it's like 10 bucks on the website. Go pick up Asana for Creative Teams ebook. And then the do versus do worksheet for free at dustinpead.com/resources. I think that's all for this week. I cannot wait to be back with y'all next week on another episode of Creativity Made Easy.

Ep 103: Q1 Review & Q2 Strategy Session

Transform Chaos Into Clarity

SUMMARY

In this strategic episode of Creativity Made Easy, I walk creative professionals through an essential quarterly business review process. Looking back at Q1 achievements and lessons while mapping out Q2 opportunities, this episode provides a practical framework for evaluating progress and setting actionable goals for the months ahead. Whether you're a freelancer, agency owner, or creative entrepreneur, this systematic approach to quarterly planning will help transform insights into focused action steps for sustainable growth.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ Separate Emotions from Outcomes: When reviewing your Q1 performance, it's essential to objectively assess your results without emotional attachment. Look at the data, identify patterns across projects and clients, and measure results against your original objectives.

• ⚡️ Track the Right Metrics: Creative businesses should measure four critical areas: revenue versus projections, time allocation reality versus plans, client satisfaction indicators, and personal creative fulfillment. These metrics tell the complete story of your business health.

• ⚡️ Strategic Focus, Not Addition: Q2 planning isn't about doing more—it's about strategic focus and choosing key opportunities that align with your long-term vision. Use the 12-Month Outlook framework to organize projects through the 4D Creative Process (Define, Dream, Design, Develop).

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 "Your Q1 achievements aren't just metrics—they're evidence of your systems either working or not working. When something succeeds, you need to document that process."

• 💬 "The most valuable lessons don't come from what went right always either, but sometimes understanding why certain initiatives fall short of expectations are some of the most valuable lessons."

• 💬 "Quarter two is not a time to go wild, right? You kind of went wild at the beginning of the year, but quarter two is for beginning to narrow that focus."

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️Download the 12-Month Outlook Template

• ⚡️Do vs. Due Framework

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

TRANSCRIPT

If your creative business feels like it's running you instead of you running it, then you're about to discover the quarterly planning system that will change everything. In this episode, I'm going to show you exactly how to transform your quarter one insights into a strategic quarter two action plan. That's going to bring clarity to chaos and purpose to your creative work. Let's get into it. Taking creatives from chaos to clarity.

Welcome back to Creativity Made Easy, the podcast where we transform creative chaos into clarity. I'm your host, Dustin Pead, creative coach and consultant. And I'm here to help creatives know themselves, their process and their teams so that they can create with efficiency as they scale together. And part of scaling and efficiency is review and strategy. And it's that time of the year we've ended the first quarter of 2025 already. I'm not sure where the time has gone, but we're there and we are reviewing quarter one and now we are intentionally and strategically planning out our second quarter.

So if you're a creative of any kind, designer, photographer, writer, all creative entrepreneurs, this episode is obviously for you. Every episode is for you and I'm excited to dive into it with you today. So we're going to dive into how to review your Q1 performance and create a strategic plan for Q2 that will help your creative business go to the next level. But before we dive into that, I want to remind you that if you are watching on YouTube, I would love for you to hit the like, subscribe and ring the bell, all three buttons so that you can be notified every time we drop new content just like this every single Thursday, release a podcast here on YouTube and all audio podcasting platforms.

So if you're listening there, whatever your platform allows, I would really appreciate a five star rating or review that helps get this content out further to those like yourself who can benefit from it. Every Sunday I release a newsletter with kind of top five insights from the week. And then every Tuesday I release a blog post style article to kind of help some of the things that we're talking about as well for creative professionals. You can sign up for that newsletter and blog posts that comes out, each once a week, Sundays and Tuesdays. If you go to dustinpead.com and click on the newsletter button, or just go to dustinpead.com/newsletter.

All right, let's get into it. So we have finished quarter one before we move into quarter two, let's pump the brakes just for a second. And let's do some reflection here. No, I'm not talking about the kind where you meditate and close your eyes, which if that's your thing, go for it. I think it can certainly help some mindfulness practices, but that's not what we're talking about today. Today we're looking backwards so that we can move forward with intention. Your data or your insights from quarter one, it's gonna tell a story. And the question to ask yourself right now is, are you listening to that story?

Are you paying attention to it? Are you understanding the nuances, the strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities, the threats, right? The SWOT. SWOT is just a methodology, right? It's just a way to objectively assess things. So there's three things I want you to remember no matter what system or methodology you use when you are trying to objectively assess some past occurrences or patterns or results. Number one, you have to separate emotions from outcomes. Now this is super difficult for me. Enneagram Four noted here on this podcast for a long time. I really love my feelings and my emotions and it's hard for me to separate my emotions from the outcomes that I've seen.

There's some things in my business over this last quarter that have been blown me away. Wow, I didn't think we could do that. There's other areas of my business in the last quarter where I go, man, I feel like a failure because of that lack of outcome, but we have to learn to separate those emotions from the outcome. That's the first thing. Number two, you have to be able to identify patterns across projects and clients, right? So what are the kind of the same things that come up over and over and over again, whether it's internally with your team or with your project. Then thirdly, you have to be able to measure those results against the objectives.

So what are the patterns and what are the results that came out of it versus the original objectives that you had for the quarter? And if you didn't have any objectives for the quarter, this is a great time to start for next quarter so that you do have some objectives, some key metrics that any creative business should be tracking is right. Revenue versus projections. We're in this to make money. We're in this to provide for our families and for ourselves and grow our mission and our vision for what the company could be. So you have to measure, right? The actual revenue versus what you projected, right?

And so this is a great opportunity for me to plug the core group, not being paid by them in any way, shape or form, but I use them. The core group uses a profit first financial model and they specifically help creative businesses with their finances and they will handle all your bookkeeping and your payables and all these different things, right? But they will be able to show you your revenue versus projections. I just got my stuff in recently for a couple, about four weeks ago to show me, this is what actually happened, right? But they also know what I'm trying to project as well. So we were able to kind of analyze that.

Another metric that you need to be analyzing is your time allocation versus how much you actually planned for. The time allocation reality, versus how much time you actually planned for. So this is where the do versus do process comes in handy. Where I teach a lot of my time margin when it comes to projects is are you allocating for the time that it's actually going to take, not the dream land of, I can do that tonight. I can complete this whole big long edit tonight and I'll have it to the client first thing tomorrow morning. They're going to have no revisions. They're going to love it. And so there, everybody's going to leap with joy and dance and Lily fields.

We all know that's not going to happen, right? There's going to be things that come up. There's going to be revisions that come up. And so allowing yourself that margin time. And so did you allow yourself that margin time or did you not? And how can you better do that in quarter two? I would argue you could do it with my do versus do framework, DO versus DUE. You can look that up later. All right. Another thing you need to be measuring as a creative business is client satisfaction, right? Client satisfaction is a big deal. One thing that I've been working on just this week as the time of this recording is putting together just a short survey of, over the last 30 days, what has the journey of working with me been like for you?

And that's gonna help me see that. And as I do that every month, every 30 days over time, I'm gonna be able to see with individual clients and with the business as a whole, I'm gonna be able to see client satisfaction. And I'm gonna be able to see up seasons and down seasons. And I'm gonna be able to ask the questions why, and I will be able to lean in, keep my foot on the gas on the strengths and be able to lean in on the weaknesses that I can grow client satisfaction. We are here to serve our clients, so client satisfaction is ultimately what pays the bills.

And then lastly, you need to be measuring personal creative fulfillment. Now I know this is something that most businesses don't measure because it's just about getting the thing done and the bottom dollar and can we win that project bid? But listen, if you're not personally fulfilled in the creativity in your creative business, all the other projections and all the other metrics don't matter. And so you need to find the space for you that really fulfills you creatively and sit there as much as possible.

Now, if you're an owner, I understand there's other things that come along with this, or maybe you're a mid-level manager, or maybe you're at the bottom and you don't get to choose what you want to do. But at the end of the day, if your personal creative fulfillment isn't up part of a metric that you're measuring, then you're going to be miserable and your business is going to suffer for it. All right. So we talked about what we need to be measuring when we look back at our previous quarter, whether it's quarter one or whatever quarter you find yourself in right now, looking back at the previous quarter, we understand that your quarter, your previous quarter achievements, they're not just metrics. What they actually are is evidence of your systems either working or not working.

And when something succeeds, you need to document that process. Yes, you need to celebrate it when something succeeds, but you need to document the process because you're like, Hey, that really worked. Why did that really work? Let's document it so that we can do it again and again for not only the same client, but for all the rest of our clients, right? The most valuable lessons don't come from what went right always either, but sometimes understanding why certain initiatives fall short of expectations are some of the most valuable lessons.

So two major parts of this kind of extracting some valuable lessons, right, is externally with your clients and internally or retrospectively with yourself or your team. Right. Maybe you are the team, right. But maybe just having a time for yourself and you can reflect what worked, what didn't, why did it work? Why didn't it work is important, but also creating client feedback integration strategies are going to be huge for you as you grow your creative business, because you won't be able to identify always what worked and what went so well.

Maybe for you, it was just kind of average and okay, but the client really was wowed by it. Why were they wowed by it? Was there something, was there a part of the process that took it to the next level for them? And if so, maybe that's an indicator for other clients as well. I was recently sitting in a potential client meeting and I was sharing some things that I thought were extremely kind of average, mundane, like, yeah, everybody knows this, right? And the potential client was like, wow, that's, I never thought of that before.

And I'm going, what? You never thought of that before. And then it dawned on me as I was leaving that meeting, like not everybody sees that, not everybody thinks like that. And that is a unique value that I can bring. That's unique value that you can bring when you see that a client has a light bulb go off that was not a light bulb for you, right? That's a moment there to lean in, but really asking for their feedback. Don't overwhelm them with a 40 question survey, right? Send them five questions once a month at the most, right? About how they have, how they felt about working with you, what they felt about the outcomes, what they wish was better, what they really love, you know, all these things, right?

Those things as you track those along, whether you use it like a Notion board or Excel spreadsheet, it doesn't matter. As you track those, you're gonna really start to understand the meaningful insights and the valuable lessons that you need to grow your business from one quarter to the next. All right. So we talked all about looking back at the previous quarter quarter one, if you're listening to this episode or watching this episode in real time, when it comes out in April of 2025, whatever quarter you're looking at previously versus the next quarter coming up.

But specifically, I love the momentum from Q1 to Q2. It's very, very unique. And so let's get into talking about what Q2 can look like after you've reflected on Q1. All right. What I love about this moment in time, when we go from the end of the first quarter, which is the end of March, into the beginning of April, is this, by this time, you have probably faltered a little bit on your personal and professional goals. You set some high lofty goals back in January or the end of the year and now you're starting to see how it's actually shaping out, right?

Anything worth trying is worth trying for 90 days. Well, you just tried it for the past 90 days. How is it working for you? Do you need to shift some things? Are there some goals that need to be completely redone and re-changed? Is it the same objective as it was three months ago. Are the things that were super important to you three months ago, are they still the same things that were super important to you now? Sometimes they are, and that's great. Sometimes they're not, and that's okay too. But quarter two planning isn't about adding on, right? It's about strategic focus and choosing some key opportunities that align with your long-term vision rather than pursuing every possible direction.

Four areas here that I want you to think about as you're looking ahead at quarter two and you're stepping into it out of quarter one. We've learned some things, we've recognized some strengths, we've identified some weaknesses, some opportunities, some threats. And so now as we go into quarter two, there's these four areas I want you to think about as you make decisions about what you're going to focus on in Q2. Number one, strategic alignment. Your strategy changes, right? But your vision doesn't really change, right? How can you align strategy even more narrowed and even more focused and even closer into where you're headed with your vision?

I think a lot of times we start Q1 with this big wide list of all these things we're going to tackle. But I think as the year goes on, I see that road kind of narrow and narrow and narrow. And that's not a bad thing. That's a great thing. You can continue to shave off and rid all the fluff of the stuff that you wild ideas that you had in January. And you can begin to get really strategic about the alignment that your decisions are going to have in quarter two. Number two, profit potential. Profit potential.

This is what keeps the business financially moving forward. Are there some things in your business that are just making more money or that should you be charging more for certain things? Market change for that or clients coming too easy because you're so cheap. And do you not have enough money to pay the help that you need to get these things done in a scalable way? So look at the profitability potential as you move into quarter two. Number three, like I said earlier, creative fulfillment. This is a major factor in how you're going to be able to continue to push forward and in Q2.

If you're drained creatively from Q1 and you have no change in sight for Q2, by the time you get to the summer, you're going to really be wondering if you should just fold this whole operation or not. So find a way and find a strategy around creative fulfillment for your second quarter. And lastly, long-term business building value. Let's not just think in this only quarter two mindset, right? At some level, we want to look a little macro or a sorry, a little micro. But I think always in every quarter, there needs to be a hint of macro.

I know for me and my business right now, over the last three to six months, I've been working on a three, five and kind of a three to five year business plan with some long term goals and the 10 and 20 year time frame. Right. And I'm always kind of keeping those in sight as I'm adjusting. But as the road narrows and narrows and narrows, as I get closer to those things, then we understand we have strategic alignment. We have profitability potential. We're keeping creative fulfillment a factor, right? But we're also focusing on those long-term business goals and long-term business building value.

All right, there's one tool that I have used for many years that I just created one day on a spreadsheet because we needed it and I was just kind of fed up with having to constantly remember what has to happen each time every year in order for us to propel the momentum that we need to, especially in Q2 as we go into the summer, which we're going to talk about here over the next few months on this podcast and on the blog. But this is called the 12 month outlook or the 12 month rhythm, what are the 12 month planner, whatever it is.

And in every planner you get, you're going to open it up. And then somewhere you're going to see some type of an annual planner where it's going to have 12 months in there and it's going to give you an opportunity to kind of jot some things down. On my 12 month outlook, I pair it with the 4D creative process, which quickly, if you don't know what that is, it's a creative process that walks you from very beginning of identifying the problem all the way through delivering the final results.

So number one of the first D of the four Ds is to define the problem, right? Creativity is problem solving, nothing else. We got to define what it is that we're trying to do here. The second D is to dream. This is the brainstorm session. This is where creatives really love and thrive and they have all sorts of ideas. It's about quantity of ideas, not quality of ideas. And then there's the third D, which is to design. And this is where we're taking that big bucket of ideas. We're picking out the things that are work and we're putting together the blueprints of how we can see solving this problem coming to life.

And then the last D is to develop. And this is where we take those blueprints and we begin building out the solution that we worked towards over the 4D creative process. Now I use this 4D creative process on my 12 month outlook on the left hand kind of vertical. I'm not sure if it's the X or Y axis. I can never remember. I guess it's the X axis. I can't remember, but vertically on the left hand side, I have each stage of the 4D creative process.

And then horizontally across the top, have each month of the year. And so every single month of the year, there's an opportunity for me to be defining something, to be dreaming about something, project to be designing projects and solutions, and for me to be developing those. And so every single month of the year, I'm always doing at least one, I'm always moving towards at least one direction in on those creative process every single month of the year. And so you see that on the left versus the months across the top.

And what it allows you to do is just take a 30,000 foot view and be able to see, well, if I want to see my, just take this, say you want to write a book. If I want to see my book release in October, or let's just say December to get to the end of the year. If I want my book to release in December, this is the same method I used to plan out how I wrote and released my first book last year, growing upward. Check it out on my website. It's a short memoir about mental health.

If I want that book to come out in December, then I have to be developing it or writing it, right? Probably for a good six months. That takes me back to June. Now, the design phase of that would be really kind of narrowing down in my stuff and see how I'm working backwards, right? So if I need to start developing the last D in June. That means I probably need to be designing and kind of narrowing things down in mid April or May. And then that probably means I'm going to brainstorm about what this book could be in February or so.

And then January, I'm going to really kind of define the structure, say this is what I think the book needs to ultimately accomplish. And so as I'm walking through the year, by the time I get through December, I've walked through the entire 40 creative process using this 12 month outlook and staying on track. And I'm just looking at one month at a time. So when I come to May, I'm looking at all my projects that I'm defining, all the projects that I'm dreaming about, all the projects that I am designing and all the projects that I or the team are developing and having that strategically throughout the year will help.

Make your quarters in your months, the months and the weeks add up to months and the months add up to quarters and the quarters add up to years, right? And it comes, you know, as you get older, it comes faster than you think. And so there are opportunities there for you to kind of put your milestones in along the way so that you can remain focused. So every month on my whiteboard, I've got the four D's written out. What am I defining this month? What am I dreaming about this month? What am I designing or creating blueprints for this month? And then lastly, what am I developing this month?

And as I move across the timeline of the 12 month outlook, it moves along with me. And so as you're preparing for quarter two, maybe you're like, that'd have been great if I'd have had that in quarter one. It's okay. You can start it now in quarter two. Not all things have to end in December. You could have some shorter term things that end in September and you don't have to have a whole month for each D. It may only take you a week to really define it or less. It might only take you a day to define it, right?

Then you can spend three or four weeks dreaming it, and then you can spend a couple of weeks designing it and kind of laying out what it's gonna be, and then you can spend the bulk of your time, right, actually doing the work and making the thing happen, which we know again is where the do versus do framework comes in. So can grab your 12 month outlook sheet from dustinpead.com/free. That's dustinpead.com/free and click on the 12 month outlook and start using that today as you plan through quarter two and beyond.

All right, before we wrap up, I want to just kind of give us an action plan through quarter two here, because I think often what happens is we start our quarters out strong. And then by the time we get to that seventh or eighth week of a 12 to 13 week quarter, we're like, what am I supposed to be doing again? And so I think, yes, having these quarterly goals are a good thing, but you need to break them down into monthly milestones and you need to review those milestones and what we call like review, built in review checkpoints, right?

So every month, throw yourself a task, a monthly task on your project manager or a reminder on your phone or a post-it note that someone walks into your office and sticks on your forehead every 30 days and says, Hey, just review the milestones of what you said you were going to do this month. Where are you at on the 4d creative process? Where are you at in the 12 month outlook? Where are you at?

And what you said you were going to be narrowing in towards for Q2. And whether you have a team or not having a solid project management tool or system that's going to work for you is key here because you can't be expected to remember everything at all times and to be constant on everything at all times. So having those triggers to go off when they need to go off and remind you when they need to remind you are going to be big.

Now, if you do have a team, whether it's just plus one or plus 20, it doesn't matter. Some communication protocols here are going to be in place and you're going to need to remember in your one-on-ones. You're going to need to remember in your weekly you know, huddle ups, whatever you have, you're going to be able to, you're going to have to remember to communicate those on a regular basis. So that's the, if that means the old school way of writing it down on the palm of your hand so that you can remember it when you get in class, do that, whatever it takes, do it because the consistency is what's going to get you there in the end, every single time consistency is what wins.

And then you need to set up the systems and your, in your world and your business to be able to create that consistency. And that's what I help teams do every single day. We're creating systems and processes so that we can be consistent because consistency breeds excellence and breeds scalability. Quarter two is not a time to go wild, right? You kind of went wild at the beginning of the year, but quarter two is for beginning to narrow that focus, some focus metrics for Q2. That's what I want you to focus on in the next week as we're entering into this time period.

Create some time blocks for you to move towards those strategic priorities, right? We don't just happenstance come across success. It's because we planned time to move towards it, right? If you want to work out, that's a goal of yours is to work out every day. If you don't plan the time to do it, if you don't put it in your calendar, if you don't block out time in your day, then it's not going to happen. You're not just going to magically stumble into, look, I happened to work out today. Great. That actually lines up with my goals.

It's intentionality. So time blocking for these priorities is going to be big for you in quarter two. Don't let the month happen to you. Don't let the quarter happen to you. You can take a whole take hold of it with time blocking to pursue your strategic priorities. All right. You have to say no to some things and that's okay. But saying no, create space for some very strategic yeses.

All right. So remember reviewing Q1 and reviewing the past quarter is going to be key for you to understand how to move into quarter two the best. You can use my free tool, the 12 month outlook. You can get that at dustinpead.com/free. If you have any questions or comments about this, I would invite you to do that. Reach out to me on social media @dustinpead, P-E-A-D. You can email me, dp@dustinpead.com. You can find me anywhere online, my website as well. You can fill out a contact form or even schedule a call and we can talk about these things.

But I wanna thank y'all so much for joining me through this quarterly review time. Cannot wait to be back with you next week. We have a very special guest in next week's episode that I cannot wait to share with you. You're not gonna wanna miss it. Talk to you next time on Creativity Made Easy podcast.

Ep 102: The Art of Creative Leadership

Inspiring Your Teams Best Work

SUMMARY

In this powerful episode, Dustin Pead explores the essential elements of creative leadership that help teams thrive. He breaks down the four leadership archetypes every creative leader should embody: the visionary who sees potential others miss, the coach who develops individual strengths, the shield who protects creative space, and the bridge who connects client expectations with creative reality. Dustin also shares practical techniques for building psychological safety, a structured decision-making framework (RACI), and guidance on developing your authentic leadership voice. Whether you're leading a small creative team or a large department, these insights will help you inspire your team's best work while maintaining their well-being and creative energy.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ Leadership differs from management - management focuses on processes while leadership centers on people. The best creative leaders embody four archetypes: visionary, coach, shield, and bridge.

• ⚡️ Psychological safety is essential for creative teams because innovation requires experimentation and potential failure. Build trust through honest feedback loops, celebrating failures as learning opportunities, and modeling vulnerability.

• ⚡️ Use the RACI decision-making framework (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) to clarify roles and ensure proper communication when making creative decisions.

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 "Quantity of ideas over quality of ideas breeds the bravery that you need in a brainstorming session."

• 💬 "A lot of really great leadership is not about the direct actions or direct interactions. A lot of really great leadership is just being a really great example."

• 💬 "Clarity is kindness. Make sure you're actually communicating decisions. Have somebody in your corner that can constantly poke and prod you and say, 'We don't know what you're thinking. We need to be informed.'"

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️The Creative Leader's Guide to One-on-Ones

• ⚡️The Culture Base Podcast

• ⚡️Connect with Dustin: Website | Social Media @DustinPead

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome back to the Creativity Made Easy podcast, the podcast where we transform creative chaos into clarity. I'm your host, Dustin Pead, creative coach and consultant, and I help creatives know themselves, their process and their teams so they can create with efficiency as they scale together. I'm so excited for today's episode. Today, we're going to dive deep into the art of creative leadership, not just managing a team, but truly inspiring them to create their best work.

Before we jump into that, I want to remind you that you can learn all about me and how I can help you or your team at DustinPead.com. That's D-U-S-T-I-N-P-E-A-D.com. You can also find me on all social media at DustinPeed. If you're watching on YouTube, I'd love for you to hit the thumbs up button, like, subscribe, ring the bell, all that fun stuff.

I have a newsletter that I release every Sunday afternoon to get you ready for the week. Five things that I want to share with you before we dive into the work of the week. And then every Tuesday, I release a blog post episode to that same email list. So if you're interested in that, go to dustinp.com and look for the newsletter button and go ahead and add your email address into that. I would love for you to take advantage of that for that to anyone else that you might find it helpful for.

All right, let's get into today's episode, the art of creative leadership. I think it's important before we dive too deep into this that we start right at the top by defining what leadership is. There's a little bit of difference between some management and some leadership and we do need both. And there's going to be a time in your creative business where you or your, the director level, or they're going to have to be both. Right. But let me just break this down to you, right? Management is about processes, right? That's a lot of what I'm talking about usually on this podcast, but today we're going to talk about leadership and leadership is about people. That's why I say I help lead. Help creatives know themselves. Number one, you have to know yourself in order to know, and in order to know how to lead yourself and lead other people, right? Know their processes, the management side, and their teams, the people, so they can create with efficiency and scale together, right? So management is on the process side. Leadership is on the people side. I'm make that variation very distinguished here, right up at the top. Managers handle tasks and projects, right? Leaders inspire vision and there's gonna be like I said, there's gonna be a time where that might you might have to sit in both seats And that's totally okay. But as your team grows and scales you'll begin to lean less on the management side and more on the leader side.

So let's get into the creative leaders mindset a bit. So the creative leaders mindset is about cultivating strategic thinking. Versus what it used to be when you're managing is the tactical execution of it the who's going to do it, how they're going to do all that stuff, right? The creative leader mindset as well is balancing creative excellence, right? We still want to pursue excellence, but you also have to keep in mind team well-being. You don't want your team to burn out in the pursuit of excellence. The creative leader's mindset is also developing the emotional intelligence that you yourself need as a leadership superpower. That's where we talk about knowing yourself.

And so, what I want to talk about today is these four different leadership archetypes for creative teams. It's not an exhaustive list. This is just what I've seen in my observation. So you can kind of see where you might naturally lean into and then you can fill in the gaps around you. So I think there's usually what we see and really good leaders is that they're high visionary, right? A lot of really good ideas. But their superpower here is not their ideas. Their superpower is seeing the potential in things that others don't see. Seeing the threats in things that others don't see. Think about the leader at the front of the pack. You want them to be able to see the good and steer towards it. And you want them to see the bad and steer away from it. So the visionary leadership archetype does that really, really well.

The coach leadership archetype, think we need all of these there. Again, there's just going to be strengths, right? The coach part of your leadership is developing individual strengths, right? Some of the best leaders I know spend a good portion of their week coaching their teams, coaching their teams and how to develop their, their, each, each of their individual strengths. Then there's the protector, right? The shield is a third archetype, right? That you need to need to be kind of living in as a creative leader. That's protecting the team's creative space, right? The manager wants to do, do, do, do, do, right? That's me. Love to kind of get in there and make sure things get done. But the, also the leader part of me goes, Hey, we also need to make time for creative space and, and, and understand that we can't fill our agendas so much that there's no room for it. That's why I talk a lot about renewal days and creative fuel days and this podcast on my blog as well.

The fourth archetype is the bridge. I love this part of the creative leader because what they do is they connect the client's needs with creative reality, right? Sometimes the client comes in and says, we want the world. And you're going, it's really only possible to give you the state, right? We want everything. And you have to kind of come in and say, we can give you this much of everything. Can't give you all of everything. We can give you a portion of everything. So as you're developing the creative leader within yourself, remember the visionary, remember the coach, remember the shield, remember the bridge. You need to be acting in all of those types. There's going to be parts of you that are going to be stronger in that, parts of you that are going to be weaker in that, but you really need to be operating in all four types to be a great creative leader.

All right, let's talk about psychological safety for creative teams. I know that sounds like some big like, whoa, what are we talking about here? Listen, psychological safety is a shared belief that team members can take risks, right? They can also speak up and they can be vulnerable without fear of punishment or embarrassment. Essentially, what that does is it creates an environment where people feel safe to be their true authentic selves and in creative work. Obviously that safety is critical because innovation requires experimentation and failure and creative pros like ourselves, we need to be able to feel secure enough to be able to share some kind of maybe half formed ideas that aren't fully fleshed out yet. We need to be able to question some assumptions a little bit like, I know we've always done this, what if we, right?

And propose some possibly unconventional solutions. And we need to be able to do all of that. You need to be able to do it. Your team needs to be able to do it without fear of judgment, without fear of saying, I don't really know if that's going to work or you're always this or you're not enough this or you're too much this and you get your head out of the clouds because all that does, you know, it should be true for yourself. So it's obviously true for your team. All that does is stifle their creative potential.

So I wanna give you just a few techniques to kind of build some trust within your creative teams so that it becomes a place where psychological safety is a real active thing and not just some hoped upon goal that maybe one day it'll magically happen, right? We know that we need intentionality to make things happen in order for change to be made. In order for a change to happen, a change must be made. So make sure these changes are set up in your organization to build trust with your creative teams.

A couple of things I would recommend. Number one, regular and regular honest feedback loops. This can look different for so many teams and feedback loops can be standing around a water cooler or feedback loops can be sitting around a conference table or feedback loops can be one-on-one at the local coffee shop. But having them, having them exist and using them is what matters. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's going to be clunky and messy at first, right? But being able to say, hey, looking back at this last project, how did you feel we handled that as an organization? How do you feel you handled that project as an individual part of this team? And then just be honest and transparent about it without fear of judgment. That breeds that psychological safety into major part of the art of creative leadership.

Secondly, you need to celebrate failures as learning opportunities. One of my all time favorite clips. And I've said this many times in this podcast before I've said on stage and speaking opportunities before my favorite clips of all time is from a movie called Meet the Robinsons. It's an animated film and long story short, there's a kid who's really into innovation, loves inventing things, right? And he's sitting around the table full of this family, this highly creative family. And he has this peanut butter and jelly, like dispenser gun where it can make peanut butter and jelly really quickly. Right. And he's so excited to show the family shows the family and just like what usually happens with his inventions, it blows up and makes a mess everywhere. And he's totally embarrassed. And he's so sorry. He's like, being so hard on themselves and the family's like celebrating like, yeah, you failed. And he's like, super confused. Like what is happening right now? I didn't y'all just see the mess I just made and how the thing didn't work. And they lean into them and they're like, look from success, we don't learn so much, but from failures we do. We celebrate failure. And we, as the movie goes, you know, the phrase we keep moving forward.

Third technique for building trust with creative teams is you have to actually model this vulnerability as a leader. And I really do think that vulnerability is a practiced skill. It's a skill that's developed. And so the more that you can practice that around co-leaders, around other peers who maybe aren't in your organization, the better off that you can begin to model that in your own organization. Listen, a lot of really great leadership is not about the direct actions. It's not the direct interactions, right? A lot of really great leadership is just being a really great example. Man, I wish my team was more, was more vulnerable with me. Well, are you vulnerable with them? And I wish my team would model more creative research. Do you do that? Right? If the team will, will never supersede your, ceiling that you raise as the leader, right? So if you want your team to be at 80% on something, then you had better be at least 100% on something, right? And include, include, and this includes vulnerability as a leader. Let me give you an example of this.

In our 4D creative process, the second D is dreams. So the four Ds are define the problem, right? We need to know what problem we're trying to solve and you know, the parameters. The second D is dream. We're going to talk about that here in a second in this illustration. The third D is to design like, we've, we've, we figured out what we're going to kind of blueprint this thing out. And the fourth D is to go and develop it. Right. That's where the rubber hits the road and we do the work. I want to emphasize this on the second D real quick, the dream D or the dream portion of the creative process. This is where we brainstorm. Right. And anytime I lead a dream session or a brainstorming session, I only have a couple of rules. And one of them is that quantity over quality breeds bravery. I'm going say that again. Quantity of ideas over quality of ideas breeds the bravery that you need in a brainstorming session. Brainstorming sessions are not about the quality of ideas. That's for the design. That's for the third D. That's for the design phase. Then we can analyze all the ideas on the board.

Right? But if we walk into a brainstorm or a dream session and we immediately say, only the best ideas, please. No one's going to speak. No one's going to speak because they're so afraid of it not being a great idea. And so if you want to create this psychologically safe workplace, this it's it's it can be as small as in a brainstorm session. Hey, look, there's no bad ideas. No one gives any negative critique to an idea. You can only build upon an idea. And I like one of my favorite rules for dream sessions or brainstorming sessions is to start every, every idea with the phrase, if, Hey, what if we, or what if this didn't, or what if the thing that we thought was wasn't right? What if is a great place to start? So practical exercise here, quantity over quality and brainstorm sessions be vulnerable, model the vulnerability as a leader, do some safety check-ins at the beginning of creative meetings. How's everybody feeling? we in, are we feeling safe here today? Is this a safe place here today? And if not, maybe it's time to shift up that meeting and get to a safer place. Maybe sometimes it's more important than that meeting as a whole.

All right, the next part of being a really great creative leader is a part of being any great leader, and that's decision making. And so I want to talk a little bit about the decisions that we have to make every single day as a creative leader and how to make them, right? We face the onslaught of decisions every day, little minor design tweaks to major strategic pivots. It's a constant decision-making aspect of our lives as creative leaders, and it can quickly deplete your mental energy. It's a worldwide phenomenon known as, you know it, decision fatigue. But as the day progresses, creative leaders experiencing this fatigue tend to either make impulsive choices without consideration or they avoid the decisions altogether, which lead to bottlenecks. There's a model, this is not my model. There's a model that I found online that I think works really well for creative leaders to make decisions on projects. It's called the, I pronounce it the Rocky model, the R-A-C-I. So Rocky, Racky.

However you want to say it, because it'd be rassy. I don't know. But this is a great model for anyone who doesn't know where to start and making decisions. just go, I'm overwhelmed with decisions. Go, OK, great. Let's use this model here. Number one, who's responsible for this? Not looking retrospectively, but looking forward and making this decision. Who needs to be responsible for carrying out this decision? That's the R, responsible. The A, who is it accountable to? Is it accountable to you as a leader? Is it accountable to the client? Is it accountable to another director level or another person on the team or in the organization? That's the A. So responsible R for responsible A for accountable. The C here is who needs to be consulted on it, right? This doesn't, this doesn't mean that they're going to be a part of the project, but they at least might have some adjacent identification or some adjacent knowledge that would be useful to being able to handle this project in the best way. Maybe somebody within the organization, another department, maybe somebody not in the organization at all, or not even in your field at all, but you think it would be valuable to consult them on this particular project. So R, responsible, A, accountable, C, consulted, and the I is who needs to be informed. Now this is where leaders struggle the most. I think they're really typically okay at one or all of the first three of responsible, accountable, and who needs to be consulted, but who needs to be informed because the leader has had the thought and the conversation back and forth in their own mind so many times, they tend to fail to release that information out their mouth and towards the people who actually need to know the information who needs to be informed. So if you want to model some really good decision making yourself, we talked about modeling that right. Model who needs to be responsible, who needs to be accountable, you know, who are we accountable to for this project, who needs to be consulted for this project and who needs to be informed. Make sure you're actually communicating it. Have somebody in your corner that can constantly poke and prod you and say, Hey, listen up. I know you've thought this a billion times, but we don't know what you're thinking. We need to hear, we need to hear that we need to be informed of this information is clarity and clarity is kindness.

All right. The rocky, rocky, rassy, however you want to say it model, RACI is a great model for decision-making and creative projects, responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed. All right. There's another really critical aspect of creative leadership. And I mentioned it at the beginning when I talked about how great leaders are great coaches and in coaching usually happens in a one-on-one setting. And I do think you need to be having regular, fine regular is up to you, one on one meetings with everybody that directly reports to you, not everybody throughout the organization, but everybody that directly reports to you. And they need to be having one on ones with everybody that directly reports to them and so on and so on. And so I want to introduce to you a free resource that I have for you. It's called the creative leaders guide to one on one. And this is an opportunity for you to have something completely out for you that goes through the structure, progress reviews, growth planning, creative inspiration, all these different aspects of how you should be holding one on one, the who, what, when, where, how and why of one on ones within your creative team. I have it all there for you. Go to Dustin P dot com slash free and click on the giant thumbnail that says the creative leaders guide to one on ones. Make sure you check that out. I'm not going to spend a ton of time in that today, but you do need to dive into that in order to be an effective leader.

Lastly, just real quick, you need to be developing your unique leadership voice. If you want to truly embrace the art of creative leadership, you need to be embracing how to develop your own unique creative leadership voice. The key here is to be authentic. Don't try to be someone that you're not. People can smell a fake a mile away, and especially if they're less than a mile away because they're on your team. So be authentic with it, who you truly are, lean into that. That breeds that vulnerability that we were talking about before. To develop your communication techniques, right? Just communicate. There's some things that you need to gatekeep a little bit. There's some things that you need to be able to give some creative direction on. And there's some, and some or most things that you need to be communicating the why on, right? So gatekeeping some constructive feedback from clients maybe, or major business decisions a little bit, right? But for the most part, you want to be open, authentic and available and vulnerable. Give some effective creative direction and communicate the why behind decisions. And we've talked many times on this podcast before, I would encourage you to go back to an episode that I did with my friend, Darren Cooper of 1898 creative, where we talked about the power of storytelling and your creativity, the same thing in creative leadership. And we actually just covered this topic as well over on the culture based podcast with my partner over there, Blake bear, go to the culture base.com B a S E.com to learn more about that. But you have to learn how to provide, this is the delicate balance, right? You have to learn and there's it's really up to you to decide in your unique situation, but you have to put effort into learning how to provide critique that inspires and doesn't deflate. All that comes into your own unique, authentic leadership voice.

So today we talked about the four archetypes of creative leadership, right? The visionary, the coach, the shield, the bridge. We talked about the psychological safety and how to be able to do some safety check-ins and some dream session brainstorm rules and how to model that vulnerability as a leader. Talked about the rocky or rocky decision making framework, right? The RACI, who's responsible, accountable, who needs to be consulted and who needs to be informed and moving forward with how to make creative decisions. Talked about one-on-one meetings briefly. But I would highly encourage you to go to dustinp.com slash free to download your free guide to creative leaders one on once. And then lastly, we talked about how to develop your own unique leadership voice. The key here is to think about when you're going to communicate, how you're going to communicate and make sure you're communicating the why behind your decisions as often as you possibly can. Don't forget storytelling. Storytelling is key. Anytime you want to communicate a certain idea or culture value or direct vision, direction, whatever it is, stories always are stickier than just some poetic words that you can wax.

Next week we are nearing the end of the first quarter of the year. So next week we're gonna do a quarterly review check-in. We're gonna look back at quarter one and review some of that stuff with you. And then we're also going to look at a strategy session for Q2. We're gonna talk about some lessons that we learned in Q1, some achievements, and then some opportunities and actions that we can take in Q2. Again, I want to remind you about the free resource. All my free resources can be found at dustinpede.com slash free. But today go and download your guide, your creative leaders guide to effective one-on-ones dustinpede.com slash free. It's right there for you. Please take it, use it, send it to whoever who needs it. Send it up, send it down, send it sideways to peers. But I'm so glad that you are with me today. If you have any questions about anything that I talked about today, feel free to reach out to me on social media at Dustin P. E. A. D. Or you can email me D. P. At Dustin Pead dot com. I'm so glad that you are with me today. I hope you'll have an amazing week. Come back next week. We're going to talk about how to wrap up this quarter one and make quarter two the best quarter ever in our creative team. Can’t wait to talk to you then the creativity made easy podcast.

Ep 101: From Solo Creator to Creative Leader

Mastering the Transition to Leading Creative Teams

SUMMARY

In this episode, Dustin Pead explores the challenging but rewarding journey from being a solo creative professional to becoming a creative leader. Drawing insights from Jason Sperling's book "Creative Directions," Dustin discusses the mindset shifts needed, practical transition strategies, team-building approaches, and vision-setting techniques that can help creative professionals scale their business while maintaining their creative integrity. The episode offers valuable guidance for freelancers and solo creators who are ready to build something bigger than themselves.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ The transition from solo creator to creative leader begins with a fundamental mindset shift - changing your language from "I" to "We" and embracing your identity as a leader before you even build your team

• ⚡️ Know when it's time to expand by recognizing key indicators: reaching capacity thresholds, identifying skill gaps, evaluating ROI on new team members, increasing project complexity, evolving client needs, and assessing opportunity costs of handling lower-value tasks.

• ⚡️ When building your creative team, prioritize culture fit alongside skill set - hire people you'd actually want to spend time with outside of work, as shared values and compatibility often matter more long-term than technical skills alone.

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 "There has to be a point in your creativity, in your endeavor, that you have to shift your mindset. You have to go from this solo creator that everything begins and ends with me... to a leader."

• 💬 "Success is also going to come from having adaptable systems. You're going to have to have some structure, but the structure doesn't have to stifle innovation."

• 💬 "Are your projects managing you or are you managing your projects? There are some fundamentals that me and my team help go through."

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️ Jason Sperling's book: Creative Directions: Mastering the Transition from Talent to Leader

• ⚡️ Dustin's eBook: "Using Asana for Creative Teams" available at DustinPead.com/store

• ⚡️ Learn about Dustin's creative services at DustinPead.com

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

TRANSCRIPT

Okay, you've mastered your craft as a solo creative freelancer, but there's a nagging voice that keeps asking if you're ready to build something bigger than yourself, a team that can multiply your vision while allowing you to step into true creative leadership. Today, we're diving into the transition from solo creator to creative leader with insights from Jason Sperling's game changing book, Creative Directions.

Let's get into it. Creatives from chaos to clarity. Welcome back to creativity made easy. The podcast where we transform creative chaos into clarity. I'm your host, Dustin Pead creative coach and consultant. And I help creatives know themselves, their process and their teams that they can create with efficiency as they scale together. This podcast is for any creatives out there, whether you're just dabbling into what it means to be a creative or your full-fledged been doing it for a long time. Designers, photographers, writers, all creative entrepreneurs seeking some practical and actionable strategies to grow their creative business through efficiency. Right. That's what we're all about here is efficiency. That's what takes us from creative chaos into clarity. Today, I'm so very excited to dive into a topic that is near and dear to my heart from solo creator to creative leader.

But before we get into that, I want to remind you that you can find me online, Dustin Pead, P E A D dot com. There you can learn all about my creative services, coaching, consulting, and speaking as well. Got a couple of really cool speaking engagements coming up later this year. If you're interested in having me speak to your team, whether it be live in person or digital. You can go to that speaking page and fill out the form there and we can chat all about it. Would love to. You can find out all about me there and every way that I can help your team. All my free tools and resources all found right there on the website. You can follow me on social media at Dustin Pead, P-E-A-D, like I said. And if you're watching on YouTube, I'm glad that you're here. Would love for you to hit the thumbs up button to like it. Also subscribe and ring the bell while you're there as well. And you'll be notified every time we drop new content, just like this podcast every single week, you'll be the first to know about it.

All right, so let's get into today's episode. I want to just kind of set the tone a little bit. I was kind of thrusted into creative leadership without much preparation. So many of you know my story. You've read the book Growing Upward that I released last year. And I went to Liberty University to study worship music and ministry. Right. So there we learned a lot about how to lead worship, how to lead musical songs of praise in a church setting. Right. And so much of my leadership was about that. Those few moments each week, 20 minutes or so on stage and very little was taught to us at the time because the worship program was extremely new there about how to lead teams.

And so when I took my first job out of college at a church just south of Indianapolis, I immediately had a team of people that were looking to me. Now they were all volunteer, but still it was a team, right? That were looking to me for leadership. And I was like, I'm fresh out of college. don't, I mean, I can, I can tell you what I learned there, but I don't think y'all are ready for that. I like, I don't think we're there yet. And so it took me a few years to kind of trial by fire. And I wish I had this book back then. It came out in 2021. I have it right here. It's called a creative directions, mastering the transition from talent to leader right here. If you're watching on YouTube, I'll put the book up and let my camera do its focus thing. There's the book right there. I'm going to have a link to it in my show notes. Um, this is unofficially not, this is not sponsored by Jason. Um, in any way, but Jason, um, who I don't know, never met, um, but I've gleaned a lot from him over the years through this book. It really is a how to textbook from going from this solo creator to creative leader.

So we're going to reference it a lot in today's episode, but if you don't know about Jason, that name doesn't sound like a household name to you. Uh, Jason was a, uh, professional creative, uh, higher up in the ranks of Facebook and now owns his own agency and has worked with some of the top brands in the world. And so today we're going to dive into that journey that he kind of lays out in the book a little bit. And we're going to talk about leading a team a little bit, because next week we're going to talk about the art of creative leadership. So we'll, talk a little bit about leading a team here, but we're mostly going to be talking about strategies for transition, vision setting, growth management, things like that. So let's go ahead and dive deep in so that we can learn how to go from solo creative, solo creator, to a creative leader.

All right, so the first thing is pretty simple, right? It's a mindset shift, right? Before you can make any strategic changes, practical changes, hiring, onboarding, whatever, bringing in people to help, there has to be a point in your creativity, in your endeavor, that you have to shift your mindset. You have to go from this solo creator that everything begins and ends with me, solo creator to a leader. And I understand that there's a lot of fears involved in that. And Jason in the book lays out some of those fears. So there's fear of creative control, right? We want to have our hands on everything from beginning to end. There's anxiety about diluting the quality or the vision that made your work successful to begin with. There's imposter syndrome, which, newsflash, that doesn't ever really go away. We all, all deal with imposter syndrome, but it leads you to kind of feel unqualified to even lead other people to begin with, right?

There's concerns about managing interpersonal conflicts among team members. Like, I don't want to babysit adults here. don't, don't want to have to worry about this person, my designer getting my web designer getting along with my photographer or, know, all these things, right? There's resistance to giving up the identity of being the creator and becoming the leader. We don't want to necessarily give up the title of creator because that's what we got into this thing for in the beginning, right? Was to create. We're going to talk about how to hang on to some of that. There's also fear of spending more time managing than creating. And that's a real legitimate fear. But if we, if, if we really do feel this thing, welling up inside of us that says we need to, we need to grow this, this is, this needs to be more than just what little reach I can bring to the table. Then we're going to have to conquer some of that anxiety.

There's concern about building systems that enable creativity rather than stifling it, which we talk about on this podcast all the time. You can listen to any of the previous episodes. And there's then there's resistance to the administrative aspects of leadership, right? Budget schedules, performance reviews, all of which I would say doesn't necessarily have to be you. And we can talk more about that. So we have to identify, we have to shift our identity from the doer of all things to the leader of all things. So mental mindset shift first. And the way that you can do this immediately is very, simple. Immediately start to change your language, change your language from, uh, here's what I do. Here's my work. Here's my approach to, to this prop, to this problem. Here's how I would tackle, uh, this creative project. Here's how I would lead this creative project, right. And start moving it towards your team.

We do this. We work with efficiency. We have a system for that. We solve problems this way. And just by saying that, even if it's just you, and I know you're like, well, that sounds like schizophrenia, like there's a lot of people in my head, right? But if you begin to make that mind shift immediately before you even bring in any other help, you'll start to operate. It's kind of like putting on the big boy or your dad's uh, suit, right? When you were a little kid and you felt, even though it was like too long for, you know, it covering up your hands. was way longer than your arms, right? You had an opportunity to kind of feel what it's like to be big. I feel what it's like to be an adult. Right? And so this is what we're doing. We're, we're, moving the language in our mind from it being just us, the small focus to we, here's what we bring to the table. And, honestly, folks, the more I work in this business, the more I realized is that other businesses that are going to work with you are going to understand that in order for you, for you to deliver on the scale that they want you to deliver on, you better have a team because if it's just you, you're limiting your impact. And we'll talk about all that.

So here's some questions to consider as you focus on changing your mindset. Right? So questions to consider when, uh, when did you know that it was time for you to expand beyond the solo work? Go back to that moment and think for yourself. When was it that I was like, I've got to expand this? Constantly remind yourself of that feeling, of that emotion, of that connection, and that will propel you forward into becoming the creative leader that you need to be. What were your biggest fears about leading others? When you think about leading others, what are the fears that you have? Write them out, right? Because then you'll be able to see the problem for what it is and you can tackle it head on.

And then think about your own creative journey. How did your own creative identity evolve? What were some key milestones? Did people speak into your life? Was it exposure to some new creative tactic or method or art form? What were the moments that kind of allowed your creative identity to evolve along the timeline of your life so far? Because when you understand those moments, you'll understand that every single time it took a leap, it took a step and there was some fear involved and there was some unknown involved. But being able to do that every single time, you realize, man, I'm so glad I did that because when I opened up Adobe Creative Cloud for the first time, I didn't know what was going on there, right? But I did it. And I said, I can do this. And I told myself I could do it even before I could do it, right? You tell yourself it's we even before it's we.

So you told yourself you could do it and guess what? Now you do it. Now you actually make money doing this thing using a tool that when you first opened it, it looked like a foreign language to you. Right. All So let's get into the next step, which is a transition strategy. All right. So there's a couple of different approaches you can take here when you're making the transition from solo creator to creative leader. You can do a gradual approach, which is probably smart in some ways financially. Right.

or you can do a rapid team building approach where you're just like, I'm going to hire a whole team immediately right now to come in and help scale this thing. And in Jason's book, he lays out a framework of understanding when to expand your team. And these are conversations that we are having right now in my organization as we look to grow what we're doing here for professional creatives. And he says, number one, think about your capacity threshold constantly having to turn down work or delay projects because you can't handle all that people are asking you to do on your own, it's probably time to expand. Skill gaps. He talks about skill gaps. Are there areas where you are personally limited and you're holding back the growth of your company or the growth of what you're trying to do or a project quality you need to possibly consider hiring someone specifically to fill in those skills gap. You don't have to be excellent and perfect at everything. You can be perfect at your one or two things and then you can hire out the rest of the things, right?

ROI or return on investment evaluation. You need to be able to assess what bringing on team members would, if it would generate enough additional revenue to justify the investment while maintaining or improving profit margins. in a couple of episodes ago, we spoke with Christian Brim, Profit First for Creatives, that him and the core group would be really good to ask. These are questions that I'm asking them right now because I'm a client of the core group and they are my fractional CFOs and I ask them all my money questions. And so the money question I just asked them a couple of weeks ago is, hey, based on what I've got coming in right now and what the projections are over the next quarter, do we have enough to hire these positions that I would like to hire? So evaluate that, bring other people in to see that from a different perspective, because sometimes you're too close to it.

Jason also talks about when you're trying to expand your team, the project complexity indicators. If a project requires multiple specialized skill sets that you can't reasonably master on your own, then that should be a signal to you that it may be time for team expansion, right? Another one, client evolution. talks about how as you as clients grow or as your clients grow, the number of them and the size of their organizations, they grow and their needs become more complex. Your team structure should evolve accordingly, right? If you're, if you're, if you're, if you are helping your clients grow, which you should be through your creative endeavors, right? If you are helping your clients grow, then you're going to have to grow along with them to be able to keep up with their ever-changing needs, right?

Another one that he mentions is opportunity cost assessment. Again, this is where I bring in the core group. Calculate what you're losing by handling administrative or lower value tasks instead of focusing on high level creative direction. Are there opportunities that you're losing because you're spending too much time doing the administrative work? That's time for you to go, maybe I should hire somebody to do some of these administrative tasks that I can't do or that I don't that I can do, but I shouldn't be spending my time doing.

The last one that he mentions in the book is a sustainability check. Evaluate, look, if your current workload and schedule, are they sustainable for your wellbeing and creative energy in the long term? Have you ever, at the end of the day, asked yourself, How can I keep doing this? Or said to yourself, I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this. That's a sustainability check. And that's a flag that if you do truly desire to continue doing this, then you're going to have to bring on some help.

So there are some first higher considerations. Do you need administrative support, project management, bookkeeping, doing all that kind of admin junk that creatives hate, right? Or do you need additional creative support? Do you need, hey, I've got more design work than what I'm able to do right now. I need to bring somebody else in to help carry the load of the work. Those are the two kind of lanes you need to look at, Outsourcing versus employees. Again, I hate to sound like a broken record, but I do go to the core group for this and ask them, should I contract this or should I w two this person? Uh, and they can help you walk through that. But I would always say no matter what you do, be upfront about trying it for about 90 days or so. 90 days is a good long length of time where you can kind of be like, wow, this is actually worth the money that I'm spending on this person. Or honestly, it's not.

But we're going to talk about how to onboard those team members here in just a second. So it actually is worth your time. The systems that need to be in place before hiring. This is one that I really work with my clients a lot right now is how do we multiply you as this solo creative and we're bringing on additional editors, additional designers, additional cinematographers, photographers. How do we multiply what you're doing? We have to document those things, right? We have to have some systems in place before we hire. And that's really where I come in and help, specifically as well in the project management fundamentals.

Do you feel like your projects are managing you or are you managing your projects? I'll say it again. Are your projects managing you or are you managing your projects? There are some fundamentals that me and my team help go through in all the episodes. I'm not gonna get into it today all the episodes and all the blog posts on my website, they can speak to that. Is there a clear scope definition and delegation skills when you're, when you're bringing on somebody, is there a clear understanding? Is there a clear definition? Is there a job description? Is there a clear understanding of this is where I end and you begin. This is where I'm going to let go. And this is where you're going to pick up. Right.

So, uh, Jason and his book has many, many case studies of successful creative transitions. Again, pick up the book, read all about it, keep it on your desk. Honestly, it's what I do and refer to it often. Let's get into the next segment though. And how do we team build for creatives? All right. So we've identified that we need someone. We've identified what to consider before we bring them on. Now, how do we actually team build around us as the creative leader? And I think it starts with hiring, right? It starts with finding the team members who compliment your creative style, right? Are you really good at coloring, but you might need to bring somebody in who's really good at the audio side of video, right? Or you're really good at layout print design, but you need to bring somebody else in who's more of a digital mobile web designer, right? Find those things that compliment your, your creativity, your creative limitations, but also your style, right? Are you really into post-modernism style, right? Of what's like the most hip out there, right? Cutting edge. Are you more of a traditionalist? Find some, find a yin to your yang, if you will, right?

When hiring, this is something that we talk a lot about at the Culture Base, the other company that I help run, where we help creative, we help leaders know what they're about, their processes and all that stuff, right? So that they can scale their businesses, like from the from the lens of their culture, but hiring for a culture fit versus skill set. This is a tough one. I, my opinion, and I, and I would say Jason does a really good job at kind of balancing both in the book. Um, my opinion is that you should always hire for a culture fit. Me and, uh, my team members or my clients will often talk about the people that we want to work with. And we, we use this kind of internal measuring stick when it comes to if we want to work with them, whether it's clients or whether it's someone that we want to actually bring on to our team. And we just ask ourselves, is this someone that we would actually want to spend time with outside of the work? Is this someone that we would actually want to go to a sporting event with, have a beer with, go to a concert with, have a date night with as couples, right? Like are these people that we want to hang around? Those are probably going to be good culture fits for you.

And I think long-term that it's more important to get a good culture fit as it is a skill set. Now, obviously the more immediate side of that is you do need someone with the skill set. So I think it's both, but I'm going to lean more in the direction of a culture fit versus skill set more often than not. That's probably biased because I help run an organization called The Culture Base where we help organizations grow through their culture. Right? But there's a different communication frameworks for creative collaboration all in the book. He also discusses, uh, managing creative differences, which is a big deal. We've talked about that before here on this podcast, uh, resolving creative conflicts constructively. So it builds up and does a tear down. And I, and I know that sounds like babysitting, but trust me, it's an opportunity for you to cast vision in and, and, and carry your ideals and your creative style further throughout, uh, the your organization as you grow it. And he also talks about having some feedback systems that nurture rather than stifle creativity. We actually talk about this over on the culture based podcast just recently. So check that out. The culture based dot com.

One more aspect here on team building that I want to hit on before we move on to our final segment of today is mentoring some junior creatives. One of my clients that I work with right now, we've partnered up with an apprenticeship organization who basically has students that connects students to growing agencies like my client's agency. And we can get the work at a fraction of a cost while building somebody up. Now, the great part about this is, yes, it feels good to kind of teach others and teach younger creatives how to do what you do. That's a feel good part. But the cost benefit is we can get them on a fraction of the cost than what it would a professional. Now, it may take a little bit more time in the long run to bring them up to your standards, but they're usually a lot more available. They're usually a lot more affordable and you can grow them in a way that fits your culture and the way that you do things right out the gate. It's not like you're having to teach an old dog new trick. So I would highly consider mentoring some junior creators through apprenticeships or internships. And I know it sounds like I'm just me. I don't really know how to have an apprentice. Um, it's a really cool old school technique to help grow your organization from the inside out and nurture the talent, uh, from, the very beginning, all the way through your organization.

All right, let's get into the last segment. There's many parts of Jason's book, creative directions and how to master the transition from talent to leader. As we said, uh, what we're calling this podcast from solo creator to creative leader. But before we end today's episode, I do want to talk just for a moment about vision setting and creative direction. And this is where he really kind of spends the whole rest of the book. And this is really the main reason that I leave his book on my desk at all times. But you need to create, you need to craft, I would say, a compelling creative vision that inspires. Right. So in my, this podcast, for example, at beginning of every single podcast, I say the exact same thing, is that why I'm here is to help creatives know themselves, their process and their teams that they can create with efficiency as they scale together. What I'm doing in that moment every single time is I'm reiterating a creative vision that will hopefully inspire you to want to listen. And so as teams get together and we talk about the projects that are at hand, it's an opportunity when we're all around each other.

It's an opportunity to continually cast that vision over and over. It doesn't need to be complicated. It just needs to be, hey, reminder, this is what we're about. Let me tell you a 30 second story this week about how we saw that come into play and how we saw that executed with excellence, right? And then we move on. But communicating that vision effectively to different personality types is a part of it too. And this is stuff that we talk a lot about too at the Culture Base when we're talking just recently in an episode about generational differences. One of my partners over there, Blake Bayer, wrote a book called Uncultured, in which he spends a lot of time diving into the psychological approaches that you take with different generations within your workplace and different personality types as well. We talk a lot on this podcast about Enneagram types and how to be able to work with certain Enneagram types and knowing their core motivations and core fears will help kind of nurture them up to where you want to see them.

But learning how to communicate that vision effectively to different personality types, that's just a part of creative leadership. It's a part of vision setting, and it's a part of creative direction. Documentation and reference systems. This is an area where creative direction, think, a lot of times people think that that loses its luster, right? That I'm a creative director and I work with big top brands and I don't have time to document and reference systems. The reason why most people are successful in life, no matter what area of professionalism they find themselves in, is because they have figured out a way to do the same thing over and over and over again, right? It's that 10,000 hours to become a genius at something, right? That genius is 10,000 hours.

So the 10,000 hours is the same thing over and over again, right? Well, as you're growing your team, in order for them to do the same thing over and over again, you have to create systems that they can reference and documentation that they can reference throughout so they can have this, so they can approach it the same way every single time. It's consistency. Consistency breeds excellence every single time. And there's times when you need to hold firm to the vision. And there's times when you need to adapt the vision. And Jason talks about this in the book. He calls it creative elasticity and vision adaption. talks about distinguishing between core and peripheral elements, knowing which aspects of your vision are non-negotiable versus which can be modified without compromising the essence of that vision. He talks about responsive adaptation, being willing to incorporate valuable feedback and new information while you preserve the central creative intent. He also talks about contextual flexibility. And when we're talking about, we hold tight to this vision or not, or do we flex it a little bit and adjusting creative approaches based on shifting the client needs or the market conditions or team capabilities, that stuff is always going to be changing, right? But you can do it without abandoning the original purpose.

He also talks about principled compromise that there are some finding some middle ground solutions that both honor your creative standards and the practical limitations of what's in front of you, right? Sometimes there's just, it's impossible to hold these standards. And so being willing to flex those things and having some grace on yourself and grace on your organization, your team members will go a long way. And lastly, progressive iteration. This is where I talked about viewing the vision as evolving rather than it's static. Allow for growth, allow it to flex and bend over time. This is why I like 10 year goals are amazing. They're a great roadmap, but really like no more than three, because things change constantly for you to be able to say, is where I'm going to be in 10. You can kind of aim for that, but we know that over time you're going to shift. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see me kind of use my hand as like a rudder or an airplane direction, right? We're shifting it just a little bit of a shift here and there can change that long-term target drastically. So that is the episode for today.

Creative directions by Jason Sperling. One more time. I'll it up on here on YouTube for you to see, make sure it gets all in the frame there. Yep. Jason Sperling, creative directions, mastering the transition from talent to leader. Highly encourage you to pick that up again. This is not sponsored by him anyway. I don't know Jason. I've never spoke to him in my life, but I'm telling you it's worth it. So pick that up. Another simple little tool for you to pick up is my ebook using Asana for creative teams. Now know many of you may not use Asana and that's totally okay.

I often say in my speaking engagements, it doesn't matter if you're using a whiteboard or Post-it notes or Asana or Monday or Trello, but the stuff that we talk about in this book and the stuff that John talks about in his book, it's just simple practical ways for you to implement and reiterate and grow your team from the inside out by having a consistent project management tool and the way that you use that tool over and over and over again. so check that out on my website, dustinpead.com slash store. You can pick up Asana for creative teams. it's 10 bucks. It's an easy to read ebook. You can disperse it throughout your team, your organization, let everybody read it, reach out to me if you have any questions or concerns about it.

And so what I would just encourage you today as we wrap up this episode is to just to take one thing that we talked about today. Take one thing. If it's a mindset shift, if it's a, hiring consideration, it's an onboarding consideration, if it's a systems and processes or project management consideration, just take one thing this week and put an action plan in place of how you're going to go from this solo creator, right, to creative leader. What's one thing that you can do this week to do that? I'll put the link to Jason's book in the show notes and I would love to hear from you.

If you're reading through that, reach out to me on social media at Dustin Pead, P-E-A-D, but definitely pick up that book and also pick up Using Asana for Creative Teams. My ebook, it's 10 books, 10 books, not 10 books, it's one ebook. It's 10 bucks, $10 on my website, DustinPead.com slash store. Next week, we're going to dive a little bit further into this creative leadership topic. We're going to talk about the art of creative leadership today.

I want to remind you you can pick up my newsletter, you can get a free coaching call, all that stuff on my website. I would love for you to check that out. But until next time, have an amazing week. Get out there, create with efficiency, and scale your creative work. I love you guys. Cannot wait to talk with you again on Creativity Made Easy.

Ep 100: The Future of Creative Business

From Creative Chaos to Sustainable Success

SUMMARY

In this milestone 100th episode, Dustin Pead reflects on the journey of the Creativity Made Easy Podcast while looking ahead to the future of creative professionals. He discusses the challenges creatives face in today's rapidly changing landscape, including AI advancements, workforce changes, and the need to stay relevant. Dustin shares strategies for building sustainable creative businesses through systems and processes that scale without losing creative essence. He also announces a new service - the Project Management System Optimizer - designed to help creatives streamline their workflows and reclaim time for creative work.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ Today's creative professionals face unprecedented challenges with rapidly evolving technology, growing anxiety about staying relevant, and outdated feast-or-famine business models that aren't sustainable.

• ⚡️ Finding your unique creative voice is essential for differentiation in the marketplace. Excellence should be balanced with authenticity to remain true to who you are as a creative.

• ⚡️ Building community with other creative professionals is becoming increasingly important, especially as many work from home offices and maintain primarily digital client relationships.

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 "I believe that it's in our creative systems and processes that allow us to scale our creative work and make it more and more special for our clients."

• 💬 "Every creative has that unique voice because we're all made completely different so finding that unique voice is a key differentiator. You need to show your personality it's okay to be vulnerable a little bit it's okay to be authentic. I tell people all the time that I love authenticity I'm always trying to help people grow in their creativity with excellence and authenticity we want it to be excellent but we also want it to be true to who you are as well.

  I also think community is going to play a huge role in the next chapter of the creative professional’s landscape looks and many of us are sitting in home offices just like if you're watching on YouTube right now you see that I'm sitting in my home office, so finding that unique voice is a key differentiator."

• 💬 "Success is going to come from having adaptable systems. You're going to have to have some structure, but the structure doesn't have to stifle innovation."

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️ Get 20% off the new Project Management System Optimizer with code EP10000 at dustinpead.com/store

• ⚡️ Visit the new service pages for speaking, coaching, and consulting at dustinpead.com

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

TRANSCRIPT

100 episodes ago, I set out to solve a problem that was plaguing creative professionals everywhere. The chaos of creativity was stopping brilliant people from building sustainable businesses and creative professions. Today are 100th episode. We're going to look at not just celebrating a milestone, but we're going to look forward to what's next for creative professionals. Let's get into it.

Taking creatives from chaos to clarity. Welcome back to the Creativity Made Easy Podcast. The podcast where we transform creative chaos into clarity. My name is Dustin Pead. Creative Coach and Consultant and I help creatives know themselves their process and their team so that they can create greater things together.

Y'all 100 episodes. I cannot believe it's finally here. I've been thinking about it. I've been dreaming about it and I am so pumped to get into today's episode with you. 100 episodes has been quite a journey. We've had some amazing conversations with all sorts of guests. We did an any-a-gram series. We spoke with creative coaches like Steven Brewster and Ben Armin's.

We've had a great time learning from countless creative visionaries. We've talked about client management, pricing strategies, workflow optimization, the whole due versus due, DO, DOE dates. We've talked about future you. We've talked about your messages and how to have review cycles in your creative process.

We've shared many transformation stories. All that to say, it's been an incredible journey. And I want to thank you specifically to everyone who has listened or watched or shared and implemented these strategies. It means the world to me. 2025 is going to be the best year yet for all that I have going on. We've already got two speaking engagements lined up already this year.

By the time this podcast comes out, I've already been a guest on a couple of podcasts as well. So tune in to my social media to catch those out. But we're going to be speaking at the salt conference in Nashville, Tennessee in early October of this year. And the other one I can't quite name yet, but I can tell you it's going to be in Oklahoma City in October as well.

So stay tuned for more information about that. We've got brand new service pages on my website service page for speaking service page for coaching and the other one for consulting. We are tightening up our processes and really kind of laying out. Here's what working with me looks like as a creative coach or consultant.

And if you're interested in having me come speak to your team, whether it be in person or digital, I would love to talk with you about that. Go to the aforementioned website, DustinPead.com. Click on the speaking tab and fill out that form. I would love the opportunity to speak some creative insight into the process and operations that you have on your creative team.

All right, let's look to the future on what creative professionals face today is a unprecedented time in today's creative landscape with things. Like AI, the growing and shrinking workforce. What does it look like for you and your creative endeavors as you begin to grow partnerships and opportunities in your own creative work?

There's like I said, the technology is growing rapidly. We're having to to to maintain our own education on what works and what doesn't. There's growing anxiety about staying relevant and maintaining the creative edge while also being profitable. There's the old feast or famine business models that just don't work anymore. They're not sustainable.

So how do we adopt losing what makes our creative work special? I believe it is within our systems and processes that allows us to scale those creative that scales are. I believe that it's in our creative systems and processes that allows us to scale our creative work and make it more and more special for our clients.

So some ways that we can do that number one future success. We always talk on here about future you right future you is simply just a mind. A mind approach, a mindset if you will of how you take notes when you're on a call with a client. When you find yourself need deep into situation and someone asked you to do something right future you is about having the opportunity to write that stuff down so that your future self will understand what you were asking it to do or what someone else was asking it to do when you come upon it.

We can leverage technology to enhance our human creativity and intuition and connection in that way by saying listen future self. I know you don't remember having this conversation but the client asked you for this very specific thing and if you want to wow them here's one quick idea that your past self lay down for you.

So let's let's go ahead and execute that now those are some ways that you can sustain and raise the level of your creative business here's what I think is going to have to happen in order for your creative business to grow in terms of your efficiency going along with it you're going to have to find your unique creative voice.

Every creative has that unique voice because we're all made completely different so finding that unique voice is a key differentiator. You need to show your personality it's okay to be vulnerable a little bit it's okay to be authentic. I tell the people all the time that I love authenticity I'm always trying to help people grow in their creativity with excellence and authenticity we want it to be excellent but we also want it to be true to who you are as well.

I also think community is going to play a huge role in the next chapter of the creative professionals landscape looks and many of us are sitting in home offices just like if you're watching on YouTube right now you see that I'm sitting in my home office.

And we're having these conversations with clients all digital and so having this community not only with your clients but with other creative professionals as well is going to make a huge difference and one thing that I'm committed to this year more than ever is to curate a creative community.

If that sounds like something you want to be a part of I'm still working out the kinks just shoot me an email dp@dustinpead.com tell me you want to be part of the community and I'll get you in right away we've been toying around with some digital community stuff already but especially are also I should say in the West Georgia area I'm working towards an event to build creative community that I cannot wait to announce later this year but you're going to need people you're going to need to surround yourself with people we've talked about partnerships.

On this podcast before we've talked about who you bring on your team all of that stuff is going to matter because it's going to take more than you at the end of the day in order to reach your desired creative dreams if you want to be able to build the business like you want to be able to build it if you want to be able to organize the structure of your creative team creative department or creative business is going to take some other people to come along side you success.

Will come but it's going to come from community as a big big part of it listen success is also going to come from having adaptable systems you're going to have to have some structure but the structure doesn't have to stifle innovation right we always laugh because creatives like to say well don't put me in a box when in fact creatives love to be put in a box they just don't want to admit it or label it as such

but if we can give some great parameters and say this is how I have met this clients needs time and time again I want to scale that to reach all the other clients as well it's going to come with some systems and processes for you to be able to organize that bring on more people to your team and scale that and I can help you do that we can help you do that

listen I'm not to into the weeds of the details to understand that every single creative person is unique in how they process their creativity how they structure it how they organize it or don't organize it

and I'm not here to say that that one size everything is going to fit everything you do that's why I want to come along side and work with you but I also understand that things evolve the things that I've brought my clients through a year ago look way different now

than they did a year ago because the landscape is changing the process is changing software is coming out new tools are at our disposal new education is at our disposal

there's all these things that are helping us grow at a rapid rate and so what me and my team are able to come alongside and do is to help navigate all of that organize it so that we can get it all together and basically free your time up to create because that's what you super love to do look

I'm committed to evolving this whole thing alongside you in this new era and with that comes a big announcement of a brand new product that I'm super excited to share with you it's what I call the project management system optimizer I know that's a lot of words going on I thought about a lot of words but listen to the end of the day

this is designed this product is designed to optimize your project management system and if you don't have a project management system I would argue that you probably do even if it's sticky notes or a mole skin you have some sort of project management system

and so with this optimizer does is it helps assess your workflow it helps identify bottlenecks where things are getting clogged up and not proceeding and it also helps to customize systems for your unique creative process and what you're going to get is you're going to get to work along with me and my team we're going to talk about client communication

we're going to talk about deadline management we're going to do a complete administrative overhaul to rid yourself of all the overwhelm that comes with the administrative of I got to keep up I got to keep up I got to keep up this client wants that client wants the deadlines are looming help me to maximize or I should say optimize your project management system by purchasing this kind of introduction package to what I can do for you the project management system

optimizer so here's where you can find that you can go to my store which is DustinPead.com slash store and you can click on the project management system optimizer right there and if you put in the promo code

episode 100 just EP one zero zero will be the code EP 100 if you're watching on YouTube right now I have it on your screen for you you put in that code I'm going to give you 20% off of this project management system optimizer

and I would love to get started with you on that we can expand that into our coaching program as well whatever you need I would love to set up a free consultation call you can use the link in the show notes for that

but I can tell you right now this project management system optimizer been testing it with some clients already and it's powerful stuff and I'm really convinced that if you give me an opportunity to work with you and your team in this that you're going to see a lot of gaps that are going to begin to close in a lot of hours that you're going to begin to buy back because you're using this optimizer

so some closing thoughts again I just want to thank everybody for listening and watching I'm going to remind you that I have a weekly newsletter that goes out every single Sunday a blog post that posts on my website and also gets emailed out every Tuesday

and of course the creativity made easy podcasts right here comes out every single Thursday on YouTube and wherever you can listen to podcasts I would love for you to share this with other creative professionals

and I'm not wait to be back with you in the coming episodes we've got some amazing episodes coming up I've got some guests coming up but specifically next week we're going to talk about how to go from this solo creator or this freelancer where you're kind of doing everything on your own to a creative leader

because as you're scaling your business and as you're scaling your creative process you're going to understand that you're going to have to go from the person that does it all to the person that leads some of it in cast vision

and go a little bit of leadership development specifically for someone who is used to being a solo creator of working on talk transition strategies

we're going to talk team building we're going to talk vision setting and we're going to talk growth management I cannot wait to talk to you about all that and all the future episodes

of the Creativity Made Easy Podcasts it's going to be a great time folks I'm so glad that you're with me let's continue the journey together we'll talk to you next week

Ep 99: Mastering Creative Business Finance

Profit First with Christian Brim

SUMMARY

In this essential episode for creative entrepreneurs, Christian Brim of Core Group breaks down the Profit First methodology specifically for creative businesses. Learn how to implement a five-account system for financial success, master value-based pricing, and transform your creative practice into a profitable enterprise. Perfect for freelancers, agency owners, and creative professionals looking to build sustainable creative businesses in 2025.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ The foundation of financial success isn't just tools—it's mindset. Creative professionals must first believe their work deserves profit before any system can work effectively.

• ⚡️ Financial clarity comes from strategic organization: Using five dedicated bank accounts (Deposit, Profit, Owner's Compensation, Taxes, and Operating Expenses) creates a simple but powerful system for managing creative business finances.

• ⚡️ Start small with profit: Begin with just 1% in your profit account. After 90 days, you'll be surprised by how much accumulates when you commit to the process.

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 "Nobody buys what we do... What they're buying is a feeling. And the feeling is financial peace, financial clarity, peace of mind." - Christian Brim

• 💬 "You can do something you love that fills your soul, that scratches that itch, and make a profit at it." - Christian Brim

• 💬 "Creative work is generally not emphasized, prioritized, or celebrated as much as the analytical... but that doesn't mean it's not valuable." - Christian Brim

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️ Grab Christian Brim's book, "Profit First For Creatives" here

• ⚡️ Check out The Core Group here

• ⚡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Purchase my first book, "Growing Upward: My Lifelong Journey with Mental Health" here

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

---

TRANSCRIPT

Do you find that when the money comes in from your jobs, you have no idea where it goes next or how to make it grow on its own? Today we're going to speak with Profit First Professional Christian Brim of the Core Group to get to the bottom of this issue once and for all.

Welcome to the Creativity Made Easy podcast, I'm your host, Dustin Pied, creative coach and consultant, helping you with your processes. I help creatives know themselves, their process and their teams so they can create greater things together. I'm very excited about today's episode, episode 99.

Before we get into that, I want to remind you that you can follow me on Instagram at Dustin Pied. You can find me online at DustinPied.com. While you're there, click on the tools page, DustinPied.com/tools. There will be many things for you there to peruse and download or link to Amazon and purchase on your own, including the book that we're going to get into today.

**Dustin:** Welcome Christian Brim to the Creativity Made Easy podcast. Christian, so glad to have you here.

**Christian:** Well, thank you for having me, Dustin. I'm excited to be here.

**Dustin:** Today we're gonna dive into this idea of Profit First planning. Should we talk about the Core Group first, or should we talk about what Profit First is?

**Christian:** Let's talk about Profit First. So Profit First was a method and a book published by Mike McCallewitz 11 years ago now, based upon his experience as an entrepreneur and how he had gone through three different iterations of businesses and ended up broke. He was like every entrepreneur - there's got to be a solution to this problem.

It's a fairly simple tool to implement, but I think the linchpin to Profit First is the intention, the mindset behind it. As a matter of fact, I start out in my book discussing that mindset first because the tool is just a tool. It will work or not work based upon what you are trying to do with it. Until you believe that your business should be profitable and that it can be profitable and you're committed to changing your behaviors to make it that way, the tool won't work.

**Dustin:** I love that because I'm reading a book right now that's speaking to the very same thing - that we have to have the right mindset before we can venture into anything with success. What you're saying is so true that we cannot pursue the thing with any level of success unless we can have the right mindset that the success can actually come, right?

**Christian:** Correct. And I think a lot of creatives struggle with that for a couple of reasons. Creative work is generally not emphasized, prioritized, or celebrated as much as the analytical. If you look around education, what do they emphasize? STEM - everything's gotta be science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. What are the first courses they cut? Music, art.

The whole idea of divergent thinking is not celebrated. Everything around the education system is about filling in the appropriate box. It's convergent thinking. So I think a lot of entrepreneurs with creative skill sets come to the table kind of thinking that what they do is not real work.

I think the other thing is it's really hard to grasp value around creative work. If you're doing something very technical like engineering or accounting, it lends itself to a more quantifiable value, but creativity is really hard to measure.

In my book, I use the example of the iPhone. When Steve Jobs created the iPhone, nothing like that ever existed. That was the ultimate in creativity - the idea of having this computer in your pocket that also functioned as a phone. And he was rewarded generously for that. The value of that was in the billions and tens of billions of dollars.

**Dustin:** Let's get practical here. I think at the end of the day, creatives just want someone to tell them what to do. What does revenue planning look like? We have the mindset now that we can profit from our creativity, our art can bring profit, we can have a sustainable and scalable business. What do we do when money starts coming in?

**Christian:** The core of the Profit First model that Mike developed is five bank accounts. You can think about it like how your grandparents used envelopes when payday came - they cashed their paycheck and put money in different envelopes for groceries, rent, etc. When that money was gone, it was gone.

It's a similar concept - you have one bank account that all your money goes into and that's all it's for is to deposit. It's like staging your money. A lot of creatives have project work and it can get uber confusing when they get big chunks of money at different times. The deposit account is your staging area. Then you have four other accounts that you allocate money to for specific purposes.

The four accounts are:

1. Profit Account - Set aside a portion (start with 1%) for profit

2. Owner's Compensation - How you pay yourself to run your family household

3. Tax Account - Set aside money for taxes

4. Operating Expenses (OPEX) - For paying your bills

The purpose of using these buckets is to give you a cash management way of running your business. It doesn't replace an accountant or tell you your annual income, but it allows you to spot red flags - like if you have to move money from your profit account to cover bills.

**Dustin:** For clarity, the profit and tax accounts are savings accounts that earn interest, while the others are checking accounts?

**Christian:** Correct. If you put a large amount in, that 1% of 1000 is more than 1% of 100, so you'll see that grow over time.

[Conversation continues about expense management, growth strategies, and value pricing...]

**Christian's Final Advice:**

Two key things:

1. You can do something you love that fills your soul and make a profit at it. If you're not making the profit you want, are you willing to do what you need to do to change it?

2. Start with that Profit account - put 1% in and wait 13 weeks. There's nothing better to prove a reality than cash in the bank.

Find Christian and Core Group online at CoreGroupUS.com and ChristianBrim.com. His book "Profit First for Creatives" is available in both print and audio formats.

Ep 98: The Balance of Creative Collaboration with PJ Towle

Leveraging Partnerships to Enhance Your Creative Process

SUMMARY

In this episode, host Dustin Pead speaks with PJ Towle of Forty: Three Creative about the power of creative collaboration and partnerships. They discuss how building genuine relationships with other creatives leads to better outcomes, happier clients, and a stronger creative industry. PJ shares insights on selecting the right partners, setting clear expectations, and maintaining healthy collaborative relationships throughout projects.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ Partnership goes deeper than collaboration, speaking to longevity rather than just a moment. Building partnerships allows creatives to focus on their strengths while delegating tasks they don't enjoy or excel at.

• ⚡️ The creative industry thrives when we help each other win instead of competing. There's plenty of opportunity for everyone when we don't gatekeep and instead build each other up.

• ⚡️ Successful creative partnerships start with good communication. Before discussing any other expectations, establish how you'll communicate, what channels you'll use, and what language will mean what.

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 "Partnership is a really fascinating word, even deeper than collaboration, because it speaks to longevity. It doesn't speak to just like a moment." - PJ Towle

• 💬 "We help each other win that way. It's not me versus you... There is plenty of opportunity out there for everybody in the creative space to make their money. We don't need to be in competition with each other." - PJ Towle

• 💬 "Continue building into our strengths and find people that are better at the things that we're weak at. If we can do that in relationship and in partnership and in collaboration creatively, I think that's a win-win-win for me, for my collaborator, and for the client." - PJ Towle

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️ Connect with PJ Towle at fortythreecreative.com or email him at pj@fortythreecreative.com

• ⚡️ Download Dustin's FREE DO vs. DUE dates framework

• ⚡️ Get Dustin's ebook "Using Asana for Creative Teams"

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

TRANSCRIPT

Are you tired of feeling like you have to do it all? And every part of the project solely rests on you. Today, I have a very special guest, PJ Towle of 43 creatives, talk about the balance of creative collaboration. Let's get into it.

Back to the podcast, everybody. My name is Dustin Pead, creative coach and consultant. I wanna remind you that I'm here to help creatives know themselves, their process, and their team so that they can create greater things together. We have a very special episode that I wanna dive right into. We're gonna have some resources for you at the end of it. So let's jump right in my conversation with PJ Towle of Forty:Three Creative.

So joining me now is Mr. PJ Towle of Forth:Three Creative. What up PJ? What's up guys? How are you? I'm good. I don't know how they're doing. They can't, I guess they can't hear me. It's not live. It's just you and me. It's just you and me right now, but later. Yeah. It's a bunch of us having this really awesome conversation. So PJ, great friend of mine, client of mine as well. Um, and, uh, I think PJ brings a unique perspective,

for a couple of reasons. Number one, um, it's another Enneagram four. So you don't just hear from this Enneagram for all the time. We're just going to say the same thing though. It's or probably, but you know how, like when your parents tell you the same thing over and over again, and then some other cool leader who's not your parents says this, says that same thing to you. You're like, Whoa, what? I've never heard that before. That's what today's going to be a lot like, or it's going to be like, this is the stuff that I say all the time, but now I got the cool.

like uncle coming in. Okay, okay. And he's gonna tell you the stuff and it's gonna be like, oh, wow, never thought about that way. I don't want to be like, yeah, see. Anyway, so today, we're gonna talk about the balance of creative collaboration. And we talked a little bit offline PJ about how we're going to use this phrase collaboration, kind of use it interchangeably with the phrase partnerships and you and I and some other creatives in our circle have been having conversations a lot about

partnerships, what does that just, let's just broadly start out there, what that means for, what that means to you and then why is it important for you to have partnerships when you're doing what you're doing? Yeah, I think partnership is a really fascinating word, even deeper than collaboration, because it speaks to longevity. It doesn't speak to just like a moment, you know?

I think we talked before about our similar backgrounds between being musicians and working for churches. And as a musician, you can collaborate with somebody on like a, you know, you can songwriter, you can collaborate in a moment or whatever, and do it as a one thing. But when you're making a commitment to somebody, you know, I wanna be in a band with you. I want to, I wanna.

date you and figure out if we're going to get married. You know, it's, it's a partnership where things start to build out that way. And it's not just a short term one-off project kind of situation, which collaboration can mean the depth of that partnership as well, but it doesn't necessarily always look at it that way. Right. And so you PJ and your work, just to backtrack a touch, cause I noticed I kind of jumped ahead. Cause I'm super excited to talk to you about this, but just to back up a touch.

Just give everybody just a brief elevator pitch about what you do. I tell everybody you're fractional CMO, but for those who don't know what that is or creatives are not quite in that marketing side of the circle, what is it that you do? Yeah. So as a fractional CMO, uh, I use the term creative director because it kind of lessens. Yeah. Everybody gets it. It lessens the hype behind it or the like,

pomp and circumstance, but being behind being a C level type of person or whatever. But yeah, so I take, I take on partnerships with my clients that are, my hope is to go deeper with those clients and do a lot for a few number of people versus doing, I'm sorry. Yes. I just said that right. It's doing a lot for a few people rather than doing a little bit for a lot of people. And so in that, my goal is to always build out long-term partnerships.

for creative direction, for strategy, for brand initiatives, for campaigns, for marketing, for video. We have partners for video. There's all those different kinds of moving parts. It's not just always the creative stuff, which is the stuff that we all like the best. Right. But when you get into those partnerships, you got to do the work. Yeah, and so I'd love to hear more about your heart behind.

like why other creatives should care about partnerships. I mean, you and I, and I think this conversation goes pretty kind of on point with the way we're all feeling post-COVID, no matter what age bracket or generation you find yourself in. But specifically in the way that we've been talking behind the scenes, PJ, about partnerships and

Oh, I know a person that can do this and you should talk to them and that kind of partnership and how we could all kind of be serving the same client from multiple different angles. Why is that important? Do you think for all of us to consider? I think the biggest reason that it's so important is because we help each other win that way. It's, it's not me versus you. It's not me versus another designer or another fractional CMO, because not every partnership is right. You know,

Um, not every, every relationship that you end up in in your life turns into a lifelong one. It might just be for a particular season. And so by recognizing that early in conversations, I can say to my buddy Josh, who's also a fractional CMO, Hey man, this might be a better fit for you than it is for me. Why don't you go talk to so and so, um, there is plenty, plenty of opportunity out there for everybody in the creative space to make their money.

Like we don't need to be in competition with each other. If we can help build each other up and not gatekeep, I think, I think we all end up winning. We all end up growing in the world looks better because of that. Right. It's, it's serving the industry as a whole, bypassing those things along. And what I want to clarify too here is that we're not just talking about partnerships in terms of like,

Hey, if you're a designer, find other designers that you can pass work along to that you don't want to do or doesn't fit for you. But it's also like, hey, if you're a layout designer and someone's asking you for web design work or print design work or things like that, like, can you like different types of, you know, avenues there? Can you recommend somebody else to come in or hey, I'd like to collaborate just to get back to the title of the podcast. I like to collaborate with this other person. It's like.

For example, I won't give the details, but PJ and I are collaborating right now on a client for a specific thing that I know that he knows better than me, but I know the client better than he does. And so we are collaborating right now on trying to get the biggest win for the client. It gives PJ a great introduction to the client. It helps me look good to the client because I'm bringing in experts and I'm coordinating the logistics and they don't have to worry about all those types of things. There's a benefit in that.

that type of collaboration. So let's kind of just go, okay, now that we've painted the why, let's talk about how do we get into these partnerships and collaborations, PJ. What qualities, when you're looking for somebody that you either want to recommend or partner with, what qualities make a great creative partner? Yeah, I think the thing that I jump to first is do I like spending time with this person, like being around them.

Are they somebody that I could go grab a beer and wings with and, and walk away feeling, not to use all the forwards, but you know, to, to, to walk away feeling heard and seen and it was a mutually beneficial experience. Right. And when we walk into all of the relationships that way at the beginning, to me, it sets a basis for we're friends first. Right. And I think sometimes we walk into it going.

Oh, this could benefit me financially. This could benefit them financially. And then we get stuck on a dollar amount or a bottom line or a revenue stream or something that becomes more of a problem. But if we're walking into it caring about the person first, caring about the relationship first, then I think a lot of that stuff gets easier down the road because we've built and established a relationship on trust. Got you. Yeah, I totally, totally agree. How.

We talked a little bit about kind of here are some scenarios where you could bring some partner in, but what are some, what are some potential areas that you've seen this as you're in the marketing space? I think of fractional CMOs and don't take this the wrong way, but I think of fractional CMOs is usually they're, they're great creative visionaries, but Jack of all trades, but usually master of very, very few, which if we're, if we're honest, that's a lot of us in the fields.

And if we're even more vulnerable, a lot of us, we talk about offline a lot, a lot of us that have come out of the church world, the ministry world have a lot of that experience too because we had to, it was out of necessity that we had to be a jack of all trades in the creative arts world, right? So, but what are potential collaborators in the creative space for you? Or how have you seen those things come together? Yeah, I have very quickly identified that I do not love

sometimes all of the detail that goes into editing video. So I can do it, but it takes me way longer than it takes my video guy, you know? So I can collaborate with him and hand things off to him and he can process through those things. One of the things that you and I have been talking through even specifically on that front is the proofing, the typos.

the, you know, like you noticed that in processes that I go through is all the number of reviews that are involved. Like let me give creative direction, let me hand it off. Let me QC quality check right at the very end and then we can move on. Those are ideal situations, but photography is another one. Web design is another one. Layout, you mentioned layout design.

I love branding, I love making logos, I love building culture with companies and working their internal language that then informs their external language. So if I can sit in that seat with people and then bring other people in to kind of backfill some of those other processes, I think that's the best, those are the best types of ways for me to do it. But that might not be the case for a video guy. Might not be the case for.

a strategy guy, you know, might be really great at strategy, but he might not be great at sales and client communication. So he might need a partner on that. Yeah, I think the thing that we talk a lot about in our sessions, PJ, and that I talk with a lot of my clients about in the coaching sessions is what are the things that only you can do and the things that have the most value. It's a little bit of that Dan Martell, time and energy audit, buy back your time book kind of situation where it's like,

things that you only you can do and the things that are your that bring you the greatest amount of energy and the greatest amount of joy those are the things that we want to develop your schedule and your kind of ideal week around and everything else are things that we or the conversations we're having right now is what can we put through the focus funnel which if you don't know the focus funnel it's very simple it's just stuff that all the tasks that are on your plate a lot of the things that

There are things that only you can do and you should do, but everything else you can either eliminate, automate, or delegate. And those are areas. I think you put all three of those words together to say, I did, I did. Autogate, autogate, autogate, I like it. Autoglate, maybe that was it. I like it, I like it. But you can eliminate, automate, or delegate these tasks. And so what are some opportunities there for you to do that, to free up your time, to do the things that only you can do and the things that bring you them.

bring you the most energy and then add the most value to your organization. A lot of business coaches will say like, Hey, once you got your business running the way you run it to want it to run, and you can be a solopreneur and still have it run this way. But essentially, at the end of the day, you should be you should be selling and innovating. Those are the two things that at the end of the day that really at the top of the

I, this is my business has got my name on it. These are the things that I can really bring to the table. I need to be selling it and I need to be innovating it so that can we always be growing. Let's move on to expectations. So we've brought some people into the mix now. We've kind of put them through the filter of, okay, yes, you're a good partner to work with. You said it, like we often say, I wanna work with people that I can enjoy a beer with, whether that's beer, coffee, whatever. Yeah, right. Great meal. It doesn't matter.

someone that you can hang out with and enjoy that time hanging out with them and not feel like it's an obligation to hang out with them. Right. But now that you've got that, you've got them as a part of the project, or you you've handed a project, probably, let's just say, this isn't something you're going to hand off. This is something that you're going to work together on. What are some, let's talk about some expectations. What are some clear conversations to have about these collaborations before you even get started on the work? Yeah, I think the first communication or the first conversation is about communication. You have to.

set expectations on what communication is going to look like. The way you just reacted, I think you've said that a few times. No, I haven't. I was like, it was a little bit of a proud coach moment, but also just like, man, that's so good. The first piece of communication is communication. Before all the other expectations, how are we going to be able to talk to each other? If I say this, are you going to understand what I mean? Yeah.

bringing them up to speed on the client, then bringing you up to speed on the client or the project at hand, right? All that stuff. Yeah, I think even all the way down to like, what channels are you gonna use? I am horrible with text messages when it comes to business stuff. I don't know why that is. I think I just think of my phone as more of a personal thing. And so when I'm not sitting at my computer, if a text message comes in that's work related, it's really hard for me to respond to that.

And most of the time, then I accidentally click on it, and then I come back to my computer and I forget to respond to it, and it gets lost, and it's a whole extra thing, right? So even all the way down into the channels of how you're gonna communicate, and the words that you're gonna use, and all of that, I think is so, so important. I think the next one after that is understanding responsibilities and roles. So, you know, my video partner is a perfect example. He knows I can do video, but.

I hired him to do video. Or I'm bringing him in to partner to do video, whatever that situation in a partnership looks like. So he can pick my brain, but I don't want to have to do it. And so we're clear about that up front. But then the same thing goes when he brings me in on a branding project or a website project. He has some of that same know-how as well. So understanding who is doing what, and then trying to stay clear with that.

all the way through, but again, comes back to communication and where we're talking and how we're talking. I think another one is how you, with all collaboration, with all partnerships, is how you handle disagreements, is a conversation to have upfront to set an expectation of that. So we're not always gonna like the same colors. We're not gonna always think that the words are.

uh, think we need to use the same words. We're going to have different ideas and different focuses and different plans. And so if we can discuss that upfront, um, then that's going to really, really help clarify things down the road. And then it's a continual conversation when we get to it of a, Hey, this isn't about you. This is about the product. This is about the project. This is about making sure that our client is getting what they want because it's their vision a lot of times. Right.

their vision, their product, their plan that we're trying to push out. So, and then I think boundaries is probably the other big one that sticks out in my brain of what things are on limits and off limits as far as time, as far as what can be spoken into by those certain people. But I think I also want somebody that's willing to call me on my stuff. Like. Yeah.

Like, oh, hey, I think you might be getting too into the weeds on that. Let's refocus. Oh, you're right. Have those kinds of conversations. And sometimes I think those are easier with business partners than they are with my wife. But I think when we go into everything with open-handed communication, I think that's the best way to set those expectations. Yeah, and just to wrap up the expectation topic as well, I think it's important that we talk

the timeframe, you know, we, we talk a lot about on this podcast and PJ is probably sick of hearing me say it, uh, now, but like, when is the D U E date versus the DO date? Right. So like, yes. When the client wants it March 31st. So then we're going to back up and we're going to give ourselves an internal deadline of let's say March 25th. That way we have some margin in there. Right. But then working with the other person too and going, Hey, they have their own set of.

ways of doing things, right? Maybe you're really productive in the morning and they're really productive in the evening and at night. And there's like, okay, when are we communicating about this thing? It's just finding that ebb and flow of that expectation of time, not only when is the whole thing DUE to the client, but also a time of like, hey, I'm gonna be working during these hours. I'm gonna be working during these hours. Great, so then in that case.

an instant chat situation is probably not going to work if there are two extremely different times a day. Maybe you'll just need to email me when I get back into the mode the next day, I'll hop in on the email and see. Now that's a long distance digital form of collaboration, which is mostly what we're talking about here today. But sometimes a collaboration is right there in the room in the moment together, which again, to honor everyone's time. Hey, this is going to be 90 minutes, we're gonna have a clear agenda up front.

We're going to know what next steps are on the other end of that. And we're going to take it from there. There there are there's time and space. I want to say this to the creative who's listening to this going like, Oh, man, you're putting too much structure around my collaboration. I like to get in there and feel it out and see what happens.

There is a time and a place for that. 100%. Absolutely. Yeah, 100%. You have to have it. It has to be a part of your regular kind of rhythm and grind to creating. What we're talking about here in this particular episode is when we're bringing in collaborations to execute the vision of one of our clients or execute the vision of this particular project that we have in front of us so that we can best serve the vision of that project. Not necessarily a creative.

kind of free for all jam session brainstorm situation, which again, very helpful, very much needed, but not what we're talking about here. Anything you would add to that, PJ? No, I think you hit it right on the head. The difference between a jam band and an orchestra is really, really different. And they all have their moments, they all have their placements, but figuring out how and when to notice those things is really important.

The jam band versus the orchestra. I'm going to have to make some, some products around that. So now we'll quickly go through this next part, part, because this is the part where I lean in the most typically the project management part of we're in, we're in it now. We've been collaborating on this thing. We're going back and forth. We got vision. We got, we got revisions.

We've got all those types of things. What are the kind of the key components for you PJ in this project management phase of collaboration that you've got to have? For me, it's having you on board and anybody that's listening should hire Dustin. I know it was not a setup, but it's so true. Even this morning, I was on a call with a client and putting him through the DUI and DO due dates frameworks in that conversation of.

This is, he's a, he's a coach as well and on something else. And so it's like, This is the day that this project needs to be delivered to your client. So when do you need to have your D O dates for all your pieces so that then I can take it and put it through my team situation and, you know, walking through all that, honestly, your process has helped me immensely in that. And so recognizing that upfront.

to establish workflows and processes and document everything moving forward is huge. I think the way to think about it, the visual I got when you were saying that, especially you quickly said like, hey, you do your part here so that I can do my part here. It's a bit of a handoff, a bit of a relay race. Absolutely. You know, or, you know, it's football handoff.

track and field relay race, just those analogies. If you think about it in that visual that we can't wait, if the project is due again, just go back to March 31st. I don't know why that day stands out in my head. It just does. It's the end of the quarter and I get a lot of stress around it. I don't know. But let's just say it's March 31st is when it's, we're supposed to hand this thing over to the client. If I, yeah, I, if, if you, if I can't do my part until you've done your part, right? Just in order of dependency, right? Like, hey,

this part is me and I can't do it until I have this thing from you, then we have, we have to be able to say, okay, well then I'm going to need that like before March 30th. So that I have more than a day before I have to give it to the client. Right. So it's, it's those types of, I say it all the time on here. It doesn't matter if you use sticky notes or a sauna or whiteboards or whatever this, the project management kind of system that you use.

It's just about a mentality shift of understanding that in order for all of us to get this done, then there are certain times when I'm going to need you to do this thing so that I can do this thing so that this next person on the list can do that thing long before it's DUE to the client. So that's all we'll say about project management. Let's get towards the end of this conversation and let me ask you, how do you know that it's been a success?

working with other creators and creatives in this kind of collaboration partnership model.

Well, you're asking another four. So how does everybody feel at the end of it? Everybody's like, what's the what's the general vibe? Are we happy? Are we? No, I think there's always a constant like I'm a I'm a tweaker. Like I love to like do something and then at the end of it, see what I can do better next time. And so I think.

Again, with the communication piece, I think that comes down to we can have that conversation with the client. Does the client feel like it was a successful launch of whatever product or piece that we're working on for them with their vision? That's a pretty good success or failure metric is if they're happy with it. If they're not happy with it, then okay, what do we need to do better to fix it so that we can relaunch it or so that next time we do something?

we do it right, you know? And that's thinking deeper on, you know, a partnership with a client type of level. But obviously there's financial metrics that you can pay attention to if that's what you're running after. But I think, to use a sports analogy, are we moving the ball down the field the same way? Right. With any project, with any situation? Is...

Was it a success? Would I want to do this project with someone else again, with the same person again? Would I need to bring someone else in for something else to make it run smoother? So it's constantly evaluating that, I think, is really important. The partnership health, you know, at the end of it, did I do 80% of the work, but I was only supposed to do 40% of the work? Right. Which again, comes back to expectations.

Yeah, I wanted to say there too on the partnership health, we talked in the beginning about kind of setting up those expectations with with each other as we're collaborating or with the group as we're collaborating, right. And just saying this is what I expect. This is what you expect. Let's lay it out on the table. You mentioned as we kind of wrapped up some of the project management piece, like it's just kind of cyclical, right. We constantly need to be going back and revisiting this. And I think going back and defining that relationship with with each other as collaborators.

Uh, post project is important as it is pre project pre project. There's a lot of logistics involved. Post project is, do we want to do this again? And what would we change differently if, if, and when that opportunity arises? Yeah. Way back in Oh seven, I was starting out in the design business, just freelance doing way back in Oh seven, it sounds so long ago, but, um, it was.

Yeah, so when I was, I was like three lifetimes ago, when I was starting out with that though, I fell into kind of a relationship with a friend that he was doing the same thing. He was freelancing at the same time. And I was like, Hey, will you look at this piece that I'm doing? And he asked me to do the same. We started brainstorming with each other, turned into a really great relationship to the point that we started a business together. Full on partnership. If you want to break it all down, it was an S corp, you know, that whole thing. But

Um, we did that for seven, eight years, something like that. And towards the end of it, he realized, because we were in constant communication, he realized he wanted to get out of the design phase, the design end of things where we were sharing some of that work. And, uh, he wanted to get into print, um, specifically school yearbook printing. Like apparently there's a really niche market for that and he figured it out and he liked it and so that's what he wanted it to do. And so.

Because we were constantly in those relationship conversations all the way through, there's no hard feelings. It's not like, hey, you're leaving me stranded. You're leaving me bankrupt or whatever. It was a complete open-ended evaluating that all the way through, even to the point that when we still talk now, he's like, man, I always felt bad because you were doing 80% of the work and I was doing 20% of the work. I was like, but that's how we figured it out. Like,

It's just what we did. It was part of it. It was constant communication, constant evaluation. So I think being open handed in that to just make such a huge difference to put people first rather than the business or the goals just helps a ton. Love it. Two things to close our conversation today. Number one, I want to ask if there's anything that we haven't talked about when this topic of collaboration or partnership.

I'd love for you to share that if you have anything else you want to share there. And then number two, what are some ways that we can encourage each other to start looking? What are some action steps that we can take to start looking for collaborators? Yeah. We've covered so much so fast, man. Like, I mean, I feel like you could do a whole series on this whole topic and break it all down. I think I don't think there's anything else to say, but just to reiterate, it all comes down to communication.

clarity of communication makes so much, so much of a difference all the way through in everything. Not just in business collaborations or partnerships or client relationships or your spouse or your kids or any of that, but it all connects. And then I think even too, and this ties into your second part of being honest with yourself on what you are.

good at what you like to do, what you don't like to do, what things you want to spend your time on. And if you are fooling yourself on any of that, it's gonna become pretty clear pretty quick. The second part of all that plays out into being just really in that being honest with yourself is taking, I think a really important next step would be take stock of what you're good at. What do you enjoy doing? What are things that you wish you could hand off?

It's some of the ideal week planning that we've been talking about. It's some of the moving parts of the focus funnel. But in those pieces, being able to say, yes, I can do this, but I really need to hand that off. And so I don't remember if it was John Maxwell or who it was, but we've always gotten told all the way along, work on your weaknesses.

Well, really what we need to do is continue building into our strengths and find people that are better at the things that we're weak at. And so if we can do that in relationship and in partnership and in collaboration creatively, I think that's a win-win-win for me, for my collaborator, and for the client.

Yeah, I'll just reiterate a point and extend further to PJ was saying is just kind of understanding what the what the gaps are. What do you really love doing? There's stuff that you have to do right now that you don't love doing that you can invite somebody else into that process. That's an area open for collaboration as well. I would say to to to just start looking around you in your community and where you're working at already.

to find those people, because you're like, I don't really even know where to find those people. I'm sure there are... They're everywhere. I'm sure there are online resources and chat rooms and Reddit threads and stuff like that, that you could hop on. But just start asking around in your community too, because more often than not, there's more in your community than you think that's there. It's one of the things I've learned in the last year, just kind of having conversations with different people. But great conversation, PJ. If someone wants to collaborate with you...

How do they reach out? Where can they find you at? You can find my website at 43creative.com. There's a contact form. My phone number is on there. You can get ahold of me that way. You can email me at PJ at 43creative.com. That's all spelled out, the word 43. 43 is spelled out, F-O-R-T-Y, right? Oh, yeah, because I forget we're not just video here. We're also people listening. Yeah, so PJ at F-O-R-T-Y.

T H R E E C R E A T I V E dot creative force. Dot com. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get real fancy. So yeah, I'm always happy to have those conversations because I think that, uh, the more that we can link arms and partner, not only do we help ourselves, but we help each other and we build a wall of creatives that way. That would be really hard to knock down when we're all working together that way.

Yeah, we build that we build the industry to and we said that towards the beginning, but just want to end with that as well. Like we don't it's not about competing. It's about building the industry. The industry is thriving that is good for everybody. So just remember that I want to just throw out a quick tool resource for those that are watching and listening. If there's some methods in here that we've talked about, especially around the the do versus due dates, the DO versus DUE dates, I have that free framework you can download

the tools button and free resources, all that stuff. You can find it there. But specifically, if you're just like, I don't really know how to kind of organize projects to begin with, much less breaking somebody else in to the process. I do have an ebook for 10 bucks. You can grab on the website. It's called Asana, Using Asana for Creative Teams. And again, I've saved this all the time. It doesn't matter if you're using Asana or Postnotes or a whiteboard. The concepts in it will teach you how to go from living in this marginless chaos

understanding some peace and margin and being able to get more done than you ever thought possible. So check that out. DustinPeed.com. PJ, thanks for being with us on this episode. I love it, man. Yeah, man. Glad to be here. Until next time. Until next time, we'll talk to you on Creativity Made Easy podcast. See y'all.

Ep 54: Helping Your Team Realize Their Full Potential

SUMMARY

Are you wondering what it's going to take for your team to realize their full creative potential? As a leader, you know that creativity isn't just about individual talent—it's about creating an environment where every team member can thrive. Today, I'm giving you five simple ways to raise the creative tide on your team.

When I was really young in my career (and yes, I know it seems like I'm really young, but I turned 40 this year), I didn't know what I didn't know. I knew I couldn't build and cultivate this culture of creativity that I wanted in my organization on my own. Despite being so naive that I forgot to get leadership on board with what I was doing, I set out to build my dream team of volunteers.

Along the way, I had to make some very difficult and often unpopular moves to shift people off the team. But I also learned not to judge a book by its cover. Some of my most dedicated and creative team members over the years have been the ones that I least suspected to be so creative.

The biggest impact on my team's potential was me speaking into all the potential that I saw in them and in the creative culture that we were trying to build. You can't be silent about it. You need to speak. You need to communicate about it constantly.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ Confidence unlocks creativity. When you build confidence in your team members by reminding them of their importance, it builds their self-confidence—and when they have self-confidence, they're able to more freely be creative.

• ⚡️ Repeat your vision until you're sick of it—that's when your team just begins to hear it. Leaders often keep the vision between their ears, but you must repeat it out loud to your team ad nauseam. When you're sick of hearing yourself say it is exactly when your team is beginning to catch the vision.

• ⚡️ What gets celebrated gets repeated. Regularly celebrating wins shows your team that what they create makes a real difference. When they see their work creating impact, their potential skyrockets to new heights.

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 "The biggest impact on my team's potential was me speaking into all the potential that I saw in them and in the creative culture that we were trying to build. You can't be silent about it."

• 💬 "When you're sick of hearing yourself say the vision is when your team just begins to hear it."

• 💬 "From failure, we learn. From success, not so much." - Meet the Robinsons

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️Meet the Robinsons - A powerful movie about celebrating failure as a learning opportunity

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

TRANSCRIPT

Are you wondering what it's going to take for your team to realize their full creative potential? Today, I'm going to give you five simple ways to raise the creative tide on your team. Let's get into it.

Welcome back to the podcast everyone. My name is Dustin Pead, creative coach and consultant. I'm so glad that you're with me here today. Everything that I do is to help creatives know themselves, their process and their teams more so that they can create greater things together.

If you're listening to this on an audio podcast platform, thank you so much for listening. I would really appreciate a five-star rating and review. It helps get this content out to more people like yourself who could really benefit from it. If you're watching on YouTube, thank you for tuning in. Would love for you to like, subscribe, ring the bell so you're notified every time I drop new content. This podcast comes out every single Thursday on all those platforms.

You can also find me on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, all the places at dustinpead, P-E-A-D. And all my work is collectively held at dustinpead.com, including if anything that I'm talking about in these episodes rings true with you or feels like something that you need to really lean into more. I would love to talk to you about that. You can hop on my calendar for free at dustinpead.com. Just click on the Let's Chat button.

So today we're going to talk about helping your team realize their full potential. I did a blog post about this a few weeks back, but I wanted to kind of just dive into it a little bit more conversationally through this podcast platform.

When I was really young in my career—I know it seems like I'm really young, but I'm not, I turned 40 this year—so when I was young in my career, I didn't know what I didn't know, right? That's all of us when we're young in our career. I knew that I couldn't build and cultivate this culture of creativity that I wanted to in my organization on my own. And despite being so naive that I forgot to get leadership on board with what I was doing, I set out to build my dream team of volunteers.

And along the way, I had to make some very difficult and often unpopular moves to shift people off the team. But I also learned not to judge a book by its cover. Some of my most dedicated and creative team members over the years have been the ones that I have least suspected to be so creative.

The biggest impact on my team's potential was me speaking into all the potential that I saw in them and in the creative culture that we were trying to build. You can't be silent about it. You need to speak. You need to communicate about it constantly.

And so there are five things I want to share with you today that you can do to raise this creative tide on your team and allow them to really experience the full potential that may be hidden deep within themselves and maybe even deep inside you as well.

But here's what you need to do as a leader of this team or just someone on this team who's trying to rally everyone to a whole new level. You need to constantly remind your team of these five things.

One, constantly remind them of their importance. Their importance. Listen, each of them is a vital piece of the culture that you're trying to build. You need to remind them of this as often as possible to reinforce the confidence in them. And when you build the confidence in them, it builds their own self-confidence. And when they have their own self-confidence, they're able to more freely be creative.

You know, just like I know, that when you're really feeling it, when you get down in your studio and you get down into the space that you're going to create in, and you're really feeling it and you're full of confidence and you feel like I can create anything today, I can create something super amazing today—you know that that comes from a sense of self-confidence. So you want to build the creative potential in your team. The first thing you need to do is you need to constantly remind them of their importance and that'll build their self-confidence.

The second thing that you need to constantly remind your team of is the vision. The vision. And I know we talk a lot about this as leaders, but it's super important not to keep it just between our ears. You must repeat your vision out loud, not just to yourself, out loud to your team ad nauseam. Like the point where you're sick of hearing yourself say it. And if you hear yourself say it one more time, you just might not believe it.

Whatever the vision is for your team, for your organization, whatever you're shooting for, whatever you're moving towards, you have to say that until you're sick of it. Because when you're sick of it is when your team just begins to hear it. And when they begin to hear it, and they begin to catch the vision of where you're going, their creative potential will skyrocket.

The third thing you need to constantly remind your team of is your potential together. Together, that you're not alone in this thing. No creative person is greater than the sum of the creative team. You need to remind them of all the unseen results that could be seen together, dreams that could be realized, come true if we can work together. Collaboration is going to be a major key. Healthy collaboration is going to be a major key in your team realizing their full potential.

Just remember back to when you felt like you were stuck and someone came up to you and said, "Have you ever thought about it this way? Have you ever looked at it this way?" And even if you may have initially felt kind of, "Ah, this isn't your thing, you know, kind of back off, don't tell me what to do, don't tell me how to create"—when that pride settled and you were able to kind of go, "Huh, maybe they have a point," you realized the potential of what you were creating was so much greater because you let others into the process. And so you need to constantly remind your team of the potential that they have together, right?

The fourth thing that you need to constantly remind your team of is the wins. The wins. If you are leading your team with project after project after project and you're not sharing with them the wins of the projects that they've created, then eventually they're going to start to realize, "What are we even creating this stuff for? What's the point in all this if we're not making a difference?"

Did the client get to meet their goals because of something that we created? Did the organization grow to new heights because of something that we created? Was there really any difference made at all because of what we created? You need to verbalize and celebrate those wins as often as possible because you and I both know that what gets celebrated gets repeated and that's where potential comes in. That's where new heights of potential come in.

And when we can celebrate the wins on a regular basis—and look, do this authentically. Okay? Don't try to go out there and manufacture some mild, false win. Listen carefully to the results of what your team is creating and there will be wins, but don't manufacture it because there's nothing that a creative person hates more than some inauthentic, false, plastic celebration. They want real, genuine response to what they're building.

And so if you can give them that, you're going to see their potential skyrocket. Also, when you're reminding them of these wins—again, I put the word constantly, remind them of these things because this is something that you need to be doing regularly. You need to regularly celebrate the wins. I would say at least once a week, you need to share with your team about how something that they created made a difference, made someone else's life easier, made the organization better, made the client more successful. Whatever it is, you need to remind them of that.

The last thing that you need to constantly remind your team of is opportunities. Opportunities. Now, here's what I don't mean. I don't mean like opportunities that are out there far and beyond. Yeah, that's good to kind of strive for. What I'm really saying here is you need to remind them of how failures are just opportunities. Failures are just opportunities. You need to help them see that it's okay to fail because you're going to collectively learn to be better next time.

One of my favorite movies of all time, if you've ever heard me speak live, you've probably heard me bring this up, is a movie from Disney called Meet the Robinsons. And in this story, I won't blow the cover, but there's this family of entrepreneurs and inventors and they have this young kid sitting at their dinner table who is really excited to show them about an invention that he created. Well, it massively blows up in his face. It's a huge failure and he feels so terrible that he's failed so publicly in front of this family who is really awesome.

And instead of the family going like, "Man, that really stinks that you failed," they celebrated it as if it was the greatest thing that ever happened because they said, "From failure, we learn. From success, not so much." I love this line in the movie. And so there are learning opportunities in failure. You need to constantly remind your team of the opportunities before them in the lens of failure. It's okay to fail—it means you tried to do something. Create space for your team to fail and have those learning opportunities, and you will see their potential skyrocket.

So what do we do with all this? I think you need to put the five things on rotation. I think you need to remind them of their importance, the vision, your potential together, the wins and the opportunities—put them on a rotation. There's five days in a work week. Every single day of your work week, remind them.

Say, "Hey, every Monday, I'm going to remind them of their importance. Every Tuesday, I'm going to remind them of the vision. Every Wednesday, I'm going to remind them of our potential together. Every Thursday, we're going to celebrate wins together. And every Friday, we're going to look at different opportunities."

Now those days may not line up. You may want to start your week with vision or opportunities and end with wins, whatever. The point being is that you're going to have an opportunity there to do these things regularly. And after a few months, if you can commit to the discipline of doing this new habit, I can promise you, almost guarantee you, that after a few months of doing this, you're going to begin to feel the creative potential rising in your team. And you're going to see things coming out of your team that you never expected before.

So if there's any of these five that you need help incorporating into your team or into your own process and system, I would love to chat with you. Go to dustinpead.com, click on the Let's Chat button and hop on my calendar and let's talk about how we can help rise the potential of you and your team just by incorporating these five simple reminders at all times.

Listen, you can do this. It is not so big that you can't do it. Put it in front of you, write it down, write the process down, plan it out and work the process like we always say.

I cannot wait to be with you next time. We're going to talk about some keys to creative bravery. We have the potential now. Let's talk about some things that we can do to raise creative bravery in yourself and your team. I cannot wait to talk to you then. We'll talk to you next time on the Creativity Made Easy podcast.

Ep 53: From Chaos to Clarity

SUMMARY

Are the most creative people in the world just really lucky? You sit in your creative space, put the finishing touches on a masterpiece, and open up Instagram for a well-deserved mental break. A few scrolls later, you notice that the creative genius you follow just released yet another award-winning piece that makes your work look like child's play. How do they do it? Are they really that lucky?

I have a confession to make: I'm a very jealous creative. But what I've learned—even as recently as this morning while writing in my morning pages—is that comparison is the enemy of creativity.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ Comparison depletes gratitude, which is the fuel of abundance. When you focus on what others have that you don't, you lose sight of how far you've come and what you've already accomplished on your creative journey.

• ⚡️ Being "where your feet are" breaks the comparison cycle. Living fully in the present moment—not anxious about the future or dwelling on the past—frees you to create your best work without the weight of comparison.

• ⚡️ You are exactly where you need to be in your creative journey. You're not ahead, you're not behind. Everything you have today and the success you've achieved is exactly what you're supposed to have at this moment.

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 "Comparison is the enemy of creativity."

• 💬 "External comparison keeps their eyes on their external situation... thus depleting their food source of gratitude, which is the fuel of abundance." - Blake

• 💬 "How you live is truly a choice. What you're going to do and who you're going to do it with. Those are choices only you can make." - Scott O'Neill, Be Where Your Feet Are

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️ Be Where Your Feet Are by Scott O'Neill - A powerful reminder about living fully in the present moment

• ⚡️ Morning Pages practice - A daily writing practice to process thoughts and emotions

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

TRANSCRIPT

Are the most creative people in the world just really lucky? You sit in your creative space, you put the finishing touches on a masterpiece and you open up Instagram for a well-deserved mental break. A few scrolls later, you notice that the creative genius that you followed just released yet another award-winning piece that makes your work look like child's play. How do they do it? Are they really that lucky? Let's get into it today.

Welcome back to the podcast everyone. My name is Dustin Pead, creative coach and consultant. I'm so glad that you're joining us today. We're going to get into if the most creative people are really just that lucky. It seems like it sometimes. We'll get into it. But before we do, I want to remind you that I'm here and everything that I release content-wise is to help creatives know themselves better, their process and their teams so that they can create greater things together.

If you're listening to this on an audio podcast platform, thanks so much for listening. I would super appreciate a five-star rating and review. It helps take this content even further to people that are looking for it, just like yourself. If you're watching on YouTube, I'm so glad that you're with us. I would love for you to like, subscribe, ring the bell so that you are notified every time new content gets dropped for you. I release content several times throughout the week and podcast episodes every Thursday.

If anything I say today or any previous podcast episode is resonating with you and you would love to chat with me more about how it works in your unique life scenario, I would love for you to go to dustinpead.com—that's P-E-A-D—for a free consultation on your creative process or whatever it is that you're up against. You can go to dustinpead.com, click on the Let's Chat button and we can chat. You can also follow me on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn at dustinpead. That's P-E-A-D. Dustinpead.com for your free consultation. Let's chat.

All right, so today I want to talk to you about something that I think we all face as creatives. I think all people in general face it, but today specifically we're going to talk about how it relates to creative people. And that is comparison.

I have a confession to make. I'm a very jealous creative, very jealous creative. But what I've learned, even as recently as this morning as I was writing in my morning pages, and then I'll share with you a note that a friend sent me this morning as well, is that comparison is the enemy of creativity. Comparison is the enemy of creativity.

My friend Blake texted me this morning about comparison. He said, "Hey, I'm kind of in a space this week where I'm thinking a lot about comparison and I wanted to share this note with you and see if it resonates with you at all." And I was like, yes, I actually just wrote in my morning pages this morning that I need to stop comparing my current place in my journey with everybody else's place in their timeline, because what I have today and what's before me today and what I own today and the success that I have today is everything that I'm supposed to have. So why be worried about what I don't have?

And he sent me this note that he wrote in his kind of morning thought time. And it rang so true. And I asked him, I said, "Can I share this? I'm actually recording a podcast episode today about this very topic. Could I share this with everybody?" He goes, "Oh yeah, absolutely."

So I'm going to share the second half of this note. And it rang so true with me. And I think it will to you as well. This is what he says about comparison:

He says, "External comparison keeps their eyes on their external situation. And it drives people to a conversation of haves and have nots, I deserves and it's not fairs. Thus depleting their food source of gratitude, which is the fuel of abundance. Comparison does not drive us to internal development as we are more persuaded to believe that it does, but rather it pushes us to run to the open arms of that most comfortable thing. When we sit, the comparison assures us that all will be well as they lay us down into our grave."

He's using this comparison as, or using this metaphor that comparison is a person and that as we kind of start to freak out, the comparison reaches out to us and goes, "No, it's going to be okay," as they calm us down and lie us into the grave.

Listen, I believe, like I said, that comparison is the enemy of creativity. I think comparison is the enemy of a lot of things, but specifically we're going to talk about today how it's the enemy of creativity. And there are three ways—there are multiple ways, just get that out there first of all—but this is just three ways that I want to share with you today to combat up against this comparison battle we face often as creatives.

First thing, I want you to think about this as like a linear timeline for these three things. So we're going to start on the left of the timeline. Put yourself in the middle of the timeline as the present, right? This is the ghost of Christmas present, right, in the middle of the timeline. On the left side of the timeline, we're going to have the past. On the right side of the timeline, we're going to have the future.

So let's start all the way to the left of that timeline. And I want you to just for a second—I want you to close your eyes. And I want, if you're not driving, don't do it if you're driving. I want you to close your eyes and I want you to remember how far you've come. Think about that for a second. How far have you come in your creative journey? Do you remember the first creative work that you produced and you released into the world? Do you remember how that was? Think about that over time and how you feel now when you release content. What's the difference?

Think about how far you've come in your success. Think about how far you've come in life. All the things that you've been through, the highs, the lows, all of it. And be grateful for it. We've talked on here before, thankfulness is the key, right? Thankfulness is the key to get yourself out of this comparison trap. So the first way to combat up against the comparison battle is to look at that left side of the timeline and remember how far you've come.

The second thing you need to do is you need to—I love this phrase, it came up earlier this week in a separate podcast I was recording with a business partner—and he said, "You need to be where your feet are." And I looked that up. It's actually from a book made famous by Scott O'Neill. It's actually called Be Where Your Feet Are. And in this book, he says this: "How you live is truly a choice. What you're going to do and who you're going to do it with. Those are choices only you can make." That was his aha moment when he realized he needed to be where his feet are. That's so powerful. So powerful.

What you do and who you're going to do it with are only choices that you can make. So in that moment, let's be fully in that moment. Not necessarily worrying about the past. We're going to remember it and be grateful for it. Not necessarily having anxiety about the future or what may or may not happen because that hasn't even happened yet, right? Right here today in this middle of the timeline present zone, we are going to be where our feet are. That will help us stop the comparison battle that goes on in our minds and it will release us to create our best work yet.

So you're going to remember how far you've come. You're going to be where your feet are. And number three, you're going to trust that the end result is going to be all that it needs to be and probably more, if we're honest. And as you look back in that first step and you look at how far you've come, I bet there are many times, multiple times throughout that left side of the timeline where you thought that things were going to turn out mediocre, seven out of ten, right? And you got to the end of it and you're like, "Huh, that actually turned out better than I thought."

It's because you learn eventually over time that the result will probably be better than you think. In your mind you've created this scenario where it's probably not going to be so good because you're comparing it to other people's success, but then when you get there you're like, "Wow, that was actually better than I thought. It turned out greater than I thought. It had a better impact than I thought it would." Now that's not going to be every time.

But I will say that I think as you look at and you step back and you look at the grand scheme of things and you look at the totality of the timeline of what has been your life so far, where you're at right now and the trajectory that it's headed, I think you'll understand that when you get there, it's going to be all that it needs to be. It's not going to be any more and it's not going to be any less. So trust the end result will be all that it needs to be and probably even a little bit more.

So our call to action today, the thing that I would encourage you to do, the thing I'm encouraging myself to do in this episode is to live and work in the confidence that today, right here in this timeline moment, you are exactly where you need to be on your creative journey. You're not ahead of it. You're not behind it. You're exactly where you need to be.

If you need help with this comparison battle and how you can live in the moment and be where your feet are, I would love to chat with you more. Head to dustinpead.com. That's P-E-A-D. Click on the Let's Chat button. Let's just have an honest conversation about where we're at. Just two creatives talking about where we're at and how we can move forward together.

Thank you so much for your time today. I cannot wait to be with you next week on Creativity Made Easy.

Ep 52: Are The Most Creative People Just Lucky?

SUMMARY

Have you ever scrolled through Instagram after finishing a creative project, only to see someone else's "award-winning" work that makes yours look like child's play? You're not alone. As creatives, we face a constant battle with comparison—and it's literally killing our creativity.

The Hidden Truth About Creative "Luck"

Are the most creative people in the world just really lucky? It might seem that way when you're constantly seeing other creators seemingly effortlessly produce masterpiece after masterpiece. But here's what I've learned: comparison is the enemy of creativity.

This truth hit me hard recently during my morning pages routine, and it was reinforced by a powerful message from my friend Blake about how comparison depletes our "food source of gratitude, which is the fuel of abundance."

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ⚡️ — Your creative journey is unique, and looking back reveals just how much you've accomplished—be grateful for every step of the process.

• ⚡️ — Stay fully present in the moment instead of worrying about the past or having anxiety about an uncertain future—this releases you to create your best work yet.

• ⚡️ — Trust that your creative work will turn out better than you think, just as it has countless times before—the result will be exactly what it needs to be, and probably more.

NOTABLE QUOTES

• 💬 —"Comparison is the enemy of creativity."

• 💬 "External comparison keeps their eyes on their external situation and drives people to a conversation of haves and have nots, I deserves and it's not fairs, thus depleting their food source of gratitude, which is the fuel of abundance."

• 💬 "You are exactly where you need to be on your creative journey. You're not ahead of it. You're not behind it. You're exactly where you need to be."

EPISODE RESOURCES

• ⚡️ Be Where Your Feet Are by Scott O'Neil

• ⚡️ Morning Pages Practice (Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way)

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⚡️ Schedule a FREE Coaching Call here.

TRANSCRIPT

Are the most creative people in the world just really lucky? Right? You sit in your creative space, you put the finishing touches on a masterpiece and you open up Instagram for a well-deserved mental break. A few scrolls later, you notice that the creative genius that you followed just released yet another award-winning piece that makes your work look like child's play. How do they do it? Are they really that lucky? Let's get into it today.

Welcome back to the podcast everyone. My name is Dustin Pead, creative coach and consultant. I'm so glad that you're joining us today. We're going to get into if the most creative people are really just that lucky. It seems like it sometimes, so we'll get into it. But before we do, I want to remind you that I'm here and everything that I release content-wise is to help creatives know themselves better, their process and their teams so that they can create greater things together.

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If anything I say today or any previous podcast episode is resonating with you and you would love to chat with me more about how it works in your unique life scenario, I would love for you to go to dustinpead.com—that's P-E-A-D—for a free consultation on your creative process or whatever it is that you're up against. You can go to dustinpead.com, click on the "Let's Chat" button and we can chat. You can also follow me on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn at Dustin Pead. That's P-E-A-D. Dustinpead.com for your free consultation. Let's chat.

So today, I want to talk to you about something that I think we all face as creatives. I think all people in general face it, but today specifically we're going to talk about how it relates to creative people. And that is comparison.

I have a confession to make. I'm a very jealous creative—very jealous creative. But what I've learned, even as recently as this morning as I was writing in my morning pages, and then I'll share with you a note that a friend sent me this morning as well, is that comparison is the enemy of creativity. Comparison is the enemy of creativity.

My friend Blake texted me this morning about comparison. He's like, "Hey, I'm kind of in a space this week where I'm thinking a lot about comparison and I wanted to share this note with you and see if it resonates with you at all." And I was like, "Yes, I actually just wrote in my morning pages this morning that I need to stop comparing my current place in my journey with everybody else's place in their timeline, because what I have today and what's before me today and what I own today and the success that I have today is everything that I'm supposed to have. So why be worried about what I don't have?"

And he sent me this note that he wrote in his kind of morning thought time. And it rang so true. And I asked him, I said, "Can I share this? I'm actually recording a podcast episode today about this very topic. Could I share this with everybody?" He goes, "Oh yeah, absolutely."

So I'm going to share the second half of this note. And it rang so true with me. And I think it will to you as well. This is what he says about comparison: "External comparison keeps their eyes on their external situation. And it drives people to a conversation of haves and have nots, I deserves and it's not fairs, thus depleting their food source of gratitude, which is the fuel of abundance. Comparison does not drive us to internal development as we are more persuaded to believe that it does, but rather it pushes us to run to the open arms of that most comfortable thing. When we sit, it naturally assures us, the comparison assures us that all will be well as they lay us down into our grave."

He's using this comparison as, or using this metaphor that comparison is a person and that as we kind of start to freak out, the comparison reaches out to us and goes, "No, it's going to be okay" as they calm us down and lie us into the grave.

Listen, I believe, like I said, that comparison is the enemy of creativity. I think comparison is the enemy of a lot of things, but specifically we're going to talk about today how it's the enemy of creativity. And there are three ways—there are multiple ways, just get that out there first of all—but this is just three ways that I want to share with you today to combat up against this comparison battle we face often as creatives.

First thing. I want you to think about this as like a linear timeline for these three things. So we're going to start on the left of the timeline. Put yourself in the middle of the timeline as the present, right? This is the ghost of Christmas present, right? In the middle of the timeline, on the left side of the timeline, we're going to have the past. On the right side of the timeline, we're going to have the future.

So let's start all the way to the left of that timeline. And I want you to just for a second—I want you to close your eyes and I want (if you're not driving, don't do it if you're driving)—I want you to close your eyes and I want you to remember how far you've come. Think about that for a second. How far have you come in your creative journey? Do you remember the first creative work that you produced and you released into the world? Do you remember how that was? Think about that over time and how you feel now when you release content. What's the difference?

Think about how far you've come in your success. Think about how far you've come in life. All the things that you've been through, the highs, the lows, all of it. And be grateful for it. We've talked on here before, thankfulness is the key, right? Thankfulness is the key to get yourself out of this comparison trap. So the first way to combat up against the comparison battle is to look at that left side of the timeline and remember how far you've come.

The second thing you need to do is you need to—I love this phrase that came up earlier this week in a separate podcast I was recording with a business partner and he said, "You need to be where your feet are." And I looked that up. It's actually from a book made famous by Scott O'Neill. It's actually called "Be Where Your Feet Are." And in this book, he says this: "How you live is truly a choice. What you're going to do and who you're going to do it with. Those are choices only you can make." That was his aha moment when he realized he needed to be where his feet are. That's so powerful. So powerful. What you do and who you're gonna do it with are only choices that you can make.

So in that moment, let's be fully in that moment. Not necessarily worrying about the past. We're going to remember it and be grateful for it. Not necessarily having anxiety about the future or what may or may not happen because that hasn't even happened yet, right? Right here today in this middle of the timeline present zone, we are going to be where our feet are. That will help us stop the comparison battle that goes on in our minds and it will release us to create our best work yet.

So you're going to remember how far you've come. You're going to be where your feet are. And number three, you're going to trust that the end result, it's going to be all that it needs to be and probably more. If we're honest, and as you look back in that first step and you look at how far you've come, I bet there are many times, multiple times throughout that left side of the timeline where you thought that things were going to turn out mediocre, seven out of ten, right? And you got to the end of it and you're like, "Huh, that actually turned out better than I thought."

It's because you learn eventually over time that the result will probably be better than you think. In your mind you've created this scenario where it's probably not going to be so good because you're comparing it to other people's success, but then when you get there you're like, "Wow, that was actually better than I thought it was. It turned out greater than I thought it was. It had a better impact than I thought it would."

Now that's not going to be every time. But I will say that I think as you look at and you step back and you look at the grand scheme of things and you look at the totality of the timeline of what has been your life so far, where you're at right now and the trajectory that it's headed, I think you'll understand that when you get there, it's going to be all that it needs to be. It's not going to be any more and it's not going to be any less. So trust the end result will be all that it needs to be and probably even a little bit more.

So our call to action today, the thing that I would encourage you to do, the thing I'm encouraging myself to do in this episode is to live and work in the confidence that today, right here in this timeline moment, you are exactly where you need to be on your creative journey. You're not ahead of it. You're not behind it. You're exactly where you need to be.

If you need help with this comparison battle and how you can live in the moment and be where your feet are, I would love to chat with you more. Head to dustinpead.com. That's P-E-A-D. Click on the "Let's Chat" button. Let's just have an honest conversation about where we're at. Just two creatives talking about where we're at and how we can move forward together.

Thank you so much for your time today. I cannot wait to be with you next week on Creativity Made Easy.