Global Expert Panel: "How To Get Unstuck"

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

Welcome back friends to our podcast, Unlocking Your World of Creativity. You know, one of my favorite parts of this podcast, this job I do here every week is talking to practitioners everywhere about how they get inspired and how they organize ideas and most of all, how they gain the confidence and the connections to launch their work out into the world.

So I wanted this week to present a special global expert panel. I reached out and asked them to answer a single question. How do you get unstuck? So in this episode, we'll hear from six experts on how they get unstuck and overcome the obstacles to launching their work. They're going to give you tips, techniques, advice, specific methods from their experience.

Welcome today, Alexandra Beller, Michael Brent Collings, Nick Courtright, Sean B. W. Parker, Terry Rich, and Stimson Sneed. So let's get started. Let's hear first from Alexandra. How do you get unstuck?

Hi, I'm Alexandra Beller. I'm the Artistic Director of Alexandra Beller Dances, which is a dance theater company and an education company.

I work with artists to work on their creative process and support them in finding their voice and vision and putting that out into the world. I am answering this question, how do I get unstuck and overcome obstacles to launching my work? One of the things that has come from me over the years is that I believe that we all need both instinct and analysis and they're both essential to everything that we do when we're a creative in any way, but they don't work well together.

They don't play well at the same time. So I believe that we need to be mindful about when we're using instinct, intuition, gut, and when we're using analysis, intellect, cerebral patterning. What I see happen often is that when people are using instinct, their inner critic will come in with analysis, although an uneducated analysis, and start poking holes in the intuition.

Why do you think you're doing this? What do you think is going to happen? Where is this going to go? What's that going to become? And the same thing happens when we're using analysis, that sometimes that gut. That response will come in and it'll often be in the form of sentimentality or what we sometimes call preciousness and an inability to throw things away, to edit.

I find this in my writing, I find it in my choreography. It's really hard to throw out an idea or you feel like you should honor somebody's work that they put into it even if ultimately what they made, no matter how good it is, just isn't the right thing for that piece or what you're making. And we get too attached.

So, I feel like non attachment, when we're working with analysis, and non judgment, when we're working with instinct, are both really essential. Sometimes the toggle I'll have long duration, so I'll be an instinct for a while, and then suddenly I'm feeling lost and I'll jump in with some analysis. Why am I feeling lost?

What's not working? What's going on? Or I'll be in analysis and I'll feel myself pulling and pulling and getting sentimental and I'll say, stop, just stay with what I see, what I know. What's in front of me and I'll, I'll feel back into it later and sometimes it's very quick back and forth. I'll make a decision analytically and then I'll sit back and say, okay, let me see that.

What does it make me feel? Okay, great, and I go back and forth until I feel like I'm not stuck anymore. I'm Alexandra Beller. You can find me at Alexandra Beller dances. Dot org or alexandra bella.com. I'm on TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, the Instagram, and. YouTube.

This is Michael Brent Collings, international bestseller, screenwriter, and owner of Bestseller Life Incorporated at bestsellerlife.

com, where I teach authors and creatives how to write, publish, and market their work, talking to you about how to get unstuck and overcome obstacles to launching your work out into the world. For those of you who are unfamiliar with me, first of all, I forgive you. I would forget my own name if it wasn't But I have done okay with my career, even though I have definitely faced a few obstacles in my life.

I tried to be a grown up. I was a lawyer because I really did not want to be one of those people living in his mom's basement, inviting ladies over and saying, Any day, baby, I'm gonna make it big. So I got a job as a lawyer and ended up in my mom's basement because my wife got sick. from a full time partner to a part time lawyer caretaker and was invited to leave the law firm.

I couldn't get another job, it was right when the economy imploded, so I turned to the only other thing I'd ever been good at, which was writing. I started writing... I sold some scripts, uh, some screenplays, I became a bestseller, but life wasn't finished with me because right around this time, I was also diagnosed with major depressive disorder, suicidal tendencies, and psychotic breaks, which are as fun as they sound.

And then, uh, a bit after that, I woke up one morning paralyzed from the neck down. I can move around, I can walk and, and use my arms, but every single day I do deal with physical and mental health issues, sometimes crippling ones. Sometimes they're just horribly inconvenient. Sometimes they keep me from functioning day to day, but they're always there.

And yet I still have managed to have a longterm successful career. And people do often ask me, how do you deal with all this? What's your secret? I don't have much of a secret, but I do have a couple of tips that I recommend for people dealing with their own challenges, obstacles, and issues, but who's still desperately want to get their work out there.

The first tip, remember that you can never be the most successful person in the room. You just don't have that control. You can't decide I'm going to walk in and be the top dog, but you can be the kindest and most professional person in any room. And that yields incredible results personally and professionally.

A few years ago, the market changed as it so often does. I'm an independent author primarily and Amazon changed their algorithm and a lot of the ways they're a pumping workout. and my business tanked. I quit. I had to feed my family and I couldn't do it writing. So I announced I was going to retire and immediately was flooded with emails and texts from major authors, huge names who were saying, you can't leave.

We want you in this business. And Part of that was because hopefully they liked my writing, but most of it was they just wanted to keep me around as someone who adds not just to the profession in terms of output, in terms of product, but also in terms of tone and what I add to their lives. That was a huge part of what kept me in the business and made me more successful only a year later than I'd ever been.

The second tip is revel in your ignorance and feed your curiosity. As we age, it gets harder and harder to just say, I don't know. Uh, I do remember as a lawyer, that was something I was never allowed to say because you can't say, I don't know, and 400 bucks an hour. One of the best parts of being an author is I get to be professionally ignorant and I can ask...

What does that mean? How do I do that? Could you show me that? To anybody and anyone. My family, my kids, everybody, they know that if they're driving around with me, they run the risk of me seeing an interesting building and just pulling off to the side of the road so I can go in and say, Hey, what's going on in here?

Which gets me some funny looks, but it also teaches me an incredible number of things. I can adapt to almost any situation because I've mastered the ability to say, I don't know. And then followed up with, How do I do it? And learn. The third tip is to surround yourself with supportive people. This is such a tough world for anybody, and if you're trying to break out in any kind of a creative or entrepreneurial fashion, you are going to face so many lows.

And it helps so much to have people in your corner who aren't there to feed off of you, but who are there to catch you when you're down. And the way you do that is to be a supportive person. Again, it goes back to being that kind and professional person. Not just with people in your business, but with everyone in your life.

Do what you said you would do. And if you can't do it, we all fail. Let them know. Give them the dignity of letting them know that you couldn't live up to your standard, but you will do better next time. Ask for support and aid and be willing to give it on your uptake. days. And the fourth thing, going along with that, is what I call the secret to immortality.

I noticed when watching movies, uh, right before somebody dies, the same thing happens every time. They go, tell my girl I love her, and they exhale. And then they forget to inhale. So I've determined I'm going to have somebody follow me around all the time. And if I ever exhale like that, they need to scream, breathe, and I'll inhale and keep living forever.

And I say that tongue in cheek, but the reality is. That's how we need to approach life. So much of it is failure. So much of it is difficulty. And we have to remember this is not our final breath. This isn't our final moment. This too will pass. Breathe in. Say, how did I fail? What should I do? Be curious.

Allow yourself to be ignorant and then go in there determined to live that kind, professional life that has gotten you this far. And if you're listening to this, Be aware you have gotten farther than many, and you can go farther than most. Again, this is Michael Brent Collings with Best Seller Life at bestsellerlife.

com, or you can just find me by googling the name Michael Brent. Yes, it's all one word, and yes, I'm the only one out there. I hope you have a fantastic Successful and wonderful day.

Hi, I'm Dr. Nick Cortright, founder and CEO of Atmosphere Press. We're a hybrid publishing company, uh, based out of Austin, Texas.

We were founded in: 2015

So I'm going to talk a little bit about that. So first, about generating content. One quote that always stuck with me is that writer's block is really nothing more than a failure to type. Uh, that you just sort of need to grind on through and have fun. that something good will happen. Uh, I've found again and again with writers, both myself and others, that they just stare at the blank page, they're not letting anything happen, but then as soon as they buckle down and just start typing, eventually, you know, they might write junk for a little while, but eventually...

Good stuff will start to happen, the energy will start to flow, the blood will be pumping, the ideas will start pouring forth. So, I always recommend just sort of fight through it, create content, and really, in a counterintuitive piece of advice, lower your standards. Uh, if you go into it with really high standards, you're gonna be frozen with those high expectations, uh, making it difficult for you to just...

Crank out material. So I recommend having really low standards and then just making words, making art, and then later after you have something, that's when you can bring the high standards back in. So that's about a little bit about generating content when it comes to actually getting it out there, launching your work out into the world.

I, as a publisher with atmosphere press, I, Honestly, I recommend reaching out to us. I think that's something that'll be helpful whether you want to publish independently, publish traditionally, or work with a hybrid press like we are. We have a bunch of resources that will help you know what the right step is to take.

For example, on our website we have a quiz that's about publishing potential that you can take, answer questions about your feelings about book cover design, how you feel about, you know, editorial revisions, marketing, all of these sort of things. And then we'll give you a actionable feedback and advice based on your answers.

Uh, so that's something that's a really, really great resource. We also do free, uh, consultations with editors just to talk about your work, about your publishing potential, what it might look like to. Get your work out there. So a big theme that I always emphasize is just, you know, take charge of your publishing future.

You know, it's up to you to make a difference. If you just sort of wait around for something to happen, it might take a long time. But if you go out there, put yourself out there, you know, don't have fear about it and just sort of open yourself up to the world, uh, then good things could happen. As they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

So, that was some pieces of advice that I have, uh, again, you know, my name is Dr. Nick Courtright. Uh, I am the CEO of Atmosphere Press. You can find out more about us at atmospherepress. com or at my personal website, nickcourtright. com. Uh, and I will certainly be wishing you all the best with creating your work and getting it out there into the world.

Hi Mark, this is Sean B. W. Parker. from the south coast of England in Sussex. I'm a writer, artist, musician, and academic. I've written uh, the nine books and contributed to four more. Cultural studies, poetry, and just reform in general. And in terms of how do I get unstuck and overcome obstacles to launching my work out into the world.

I tend to have a multi purpose notebook, which is a diary, uh, but a big thick one with big pages on which any idea I get at any hour of the day, I will scribble in there, whether it's a lyric or interesting phrase, idea for a painting, all of the color of thoughts that creatives have all the time, half can fly away and half can stay.

And I find it helpful to kind of gather it all up. Into a place which you can then, uh, work on when you're in a better place to a bit later on to try and systematise your creativity that way, you know, not too much. You don't want to control creativity too much. You don't want to edit yourself out of being interesting, but at least you can refer back to that thought.

It will open up what you were thinking at the time and then you can start kind of working on whatever that was. As I say, best, best not to over edit yourself after that point as well. Just use it as a jumping off point for whatever thought you haven't. Let go into the ether. Thank you again. I'm Sean BW Parker.

You can get my books from Amazon. Follow me on Twitter at Sean BW Parker. Thanks very much.

Hi everyone. This is Terry Rich. I'm president of the Rich Keynote LLC. I speak internationally on. Innovation and techniques, uh, how to create new ideas, become the idea dude. And, uh, my past, uh, I started in cable television, uh, then went into my own companies at age 50.

I decided to retire, but then someone called and I ran a zoo for seven years, helped turn a zoo around. And then finally, I got a call from the governor said, Hey, would you run the lottery? And so I ran the lottery for 10 years. And during that time helped crack the largest lottery fraud in us history. So.

For Mark and all of you listening right now, the question, how do I get unstuck and overcome obstacles to launching my work out of the, out in the world? I found thinking about ways that have worked in the past for you. I, I loved listening to earth, wind and fire fantasy, and I was trying to come up with an idea of how to help promote a local town centennial and came up with the idea to adopt a celebrity.

Never in the hundred years of this little town had a hundred, uh, you know, hadn't had in a hundred years. Anyone famous. So we sent letters out to everyone and said, Hey, uh, we'd like to adopt you for a day and lo and behold, a little town of 50 had 12, 500 people show up on the day of the Centennial. But more importantly, we got a chance to go out and tell the story on Johnny Carson's tonight show.

Well, I thought, wow, you know, all you got to do, it's better to have tried and failed than to succeed at doing nothing. See, you need to take that step forward and go ahead and try and not just quit after that, that first effort. The other thing that I found is as I took that idea of doing something and working with the Tonight Show who talked about uplinking to the satellite to do the actual Johnny Carson Tonight Show.

I should take that idea and take it to different cable companies and try to do free previews for HBO and, and other networks. And lo and behold, when I went in to pitch the largest cable operator, I was early. I was in Denver. So I stopped by and got a cinnamon roll and hash browns and a medium diet Coke, went in and within five minutes landed a quarter of a million dollar job.

Every time I went to do something else or I had a big TV appearance that I was going to do, I went in to get my mind in the right frame of mind to have that hash brown, and the cinnamon roll, and the medium diet coke, and I felt so much better. Now, many of you may do that with lucky clothes, lucky shoes, lucky socks.

And of course, I ran the lottery for 10 years, gave away a billion dollars. Uh, I'm not really superstitious, but what it does for me is to have a smile on my face thinking I've been successful before, I'm going to be successful again in creating this new idea. So Terry Rich here, uh, my website is Terry Speaks.

com. You can catch me on LinkedIn or YouTube, uh, and also on Facebook. But. Those are my ideas. So have a great day. Keep trying, keep plugging out there because happiness doesn't happen when you hit that goal. Happiness happens on the way to success.

My name is Stimson Sneed and I'm a director and filmmaker.

How do you get unstuck? How do you get your stuff into the world? And how do you make the world notice you? Well, the hard, unfortunate truth is there's nothing you can do to force the issue with the second part. You cannot force the world to notice you. You cannot make the world love you. What you can do is keep generating content.

What you can do is create the opportunities for the world to notice you and notice your work. And to do that, as a creative, you have to create. There's no two ways about it. If you're a painter, you need to paint. If you're a writer, you need to write. And if you're a filmmaker like I am, you need to keep making films.

Whether they're big, whether they're small, whether they're shorts, whether they're features. Even if you have no idea how to get this stuff into the world, the act of creating will keep those doors open to you. For myself, I've experimented enough on the independent scene to know that I only want to do features.

So for me, I always have a clear and hard business plan in place. But to be clear, a business plan still leaves a lot of room of flexibility. So when I'm making a film, I'm having a plan to how I'm going to sell the film, I already have a list of contacts in mind for who I'm going to take it to. You don't need this!

To make a film, for the record. What you do need is an idea you can sell, and an idea that you can afford to lose. When you make a film, you're gambling. Just as you are with every piece of art. So you have to go into this with the assumption that you're going to fail. Because if you assume you will fail, you are giving yourself the protection to take risks.

The only measure of success is making the film. And then if you sell it, even better. Artists have to create. Keep doing that, and you will find the ways open to you. My name is Stimson Sneed, and you can find me at Instagram and Threads.

Well, thanks again to our guests. I hope you've enjoyed this global expert panel on how to get unstuck and overcome obstacles to launching your work out into the world.

My thanks again to Stimson Sneed, Terry Rich, Sean B. W. Parker, Nick Cortright, Michael Brent Collings, and Alexandra Beller. And join me again next episode. We're going to continue our around the world travels to talk to creative practitioners everywhere about how they get inspired, how they organize ideas, and most of all, how they gain the confidence and the connections to launch their work out into the world.

So until next time, I'm Mark Stinson, and we're unlocking. Your world of creativity.

Unlocking your creativity. With best selling author, Mark Stinson. This program was produced by BSB Media. Creators of Entelechy Leadership Stories. Unlocking your world of creativity. Thepeaceroom. love