Last time, I had more that I wanted to talk about in my season recap, so here’s a few things I missed touching on, but are none-the-less important.

This season’s interviews were packed with insights, and today I want to focus on three big themes that kept showing up: execute relentlessly, advocate aggressively, and stop over-preparing. If you missed Part A, go back and listen to that one too—these two halves complete each other.

1. Execute Relentlessly (and Kill the Toxic Romanticism)

One of the most persistent myths in creative culture is the “struggling artist” rite of passage. We treat it like a badge of honor. But as I said in the podcast:

“If you’re romanticizing the struggling artist, then that means you are leaning on somebody else to support you, while hopefully your art takes off.”

That’s not noble. It’s dependency disguised as destiny.

The artists I interviewed this year kept circling back to the same idea: you don’t have to starve to make art. You can build parallel income streams that keep you afloat while you develop your craft. Writers can ghostwrite. Filmmakers can work on other people’s sets. Musicians can teach or produce.

And if you don’t want to work in your industry? Fine. Get a job that pays well, save aggressively, invest wisely, and buy yourself the freedom to create. Think of it as “retiring into your real career.”

Micro-Focus: Filling the Cracks of Your Day

One of my favorite strategies is micro-focus—using the tiny pockets of time you normally waste. I recorded this very episode while driving home from a side job. You can dictate chapters, brainstorm scenes, or outline ideas during commutes, breaks, or downtime.

As I said in the transcript:

“Develop a micro focus. Fill all those gaps of your day with your art, no matter how small they are.”

It adds up faster than you think.

Finish Something

A lot of creatives drown in half-finished projects. I used to be one of them. Starting is easy; finishing is a discipline. Completion teaches you more than perfection ever will.

2. Be Your Own Advocate (Aggressively)

The second major theme this season was marketing. We live in a world overflowing with noise. If you whisper, you will disappear. If you remember my guest, Bria Rose, you might remember her saying something to the effect that:

“If I don’t talk about my book or about myself, who will?”

Your family might cheer you on, but their network is tiny. You need to be clear, concise, and loud enough for strangers to hear you.

Know Your Message

If someone asks, “What’s your book about?” you should not freeze. You wrote it. You should know. Many authors stumble here, and it kills momentum.

Build Your Email List

Multiple guests hammered this point: email still has the highest open rate of any platform. Social media is rented land. Your list is yours. A newsletter isn’t glamorous, but it’s effective.

Validate Fast, Fail Fast

Some creative work is deeply personal, which is fine. But personal doesn’t always mean marketable. Test your ideas. Release small things. See what resonates. If it doesn’t, adjust.

As I said in the episode:

“Sometimes we write things that are important to us, but they have no audience.”

If that’s the case, create those projects in your spare time. Don’t expect them to pay your bills.

3. Stop Over-Preparing and Start Doing

I spent ten years preparing to become a full-time writer and filmmaker. That part was intentional. But once I finally made the leap, I fell into a new trap: preparing to be successful instead of producing work.

Last year I had both feet operated on, which left me stuck in bed for months. Even after recovering, I found myself obsessing over audience-building instead of creating.

Multiple guests reminded me of the same truth: If you want to be a writer, write. If you want to be a filmmaker, film. If you want to be a podcaster, record.

James Rollins said it best: stop focusing on marketing and start focusing on your creative work.

Creativity Thrives Under Limitations

You don’t need perfect conditions or the best gear. A studio is expensive. You need momentum.

Restrictions force innovation. I’ve built thousands of houses and worked in many others as a finish carpenter, and the limitations inherit in every house always sparked creative ways of getting the job done and making it fit the client’s vision. The same applies to art.

Grab a cheap camera and mic. There’s plenty of free tools out there, even AI. Leverage your friends an family. Use your commute. Just start.

My guest Sheila Slick stated: “Progress over perfection.”

If you wait for perfect, you’ll wait forever.

Looking Ahead

The next year of Like Minded Arts is shaping up to be even more experimental. I’m planning panels with local writers, more interviews, and some storytelling-lab episodes where we improvise stories live, no editing—and later turn them into radio dramas.

I’m also releasing several books soon, including my dictation guide for writers who want to create in the cracks of their day.

If you want to support the work, the best way is simple: buy a book and leave a review. I make about a dollar per book, but the reviews matters far more than the royalty.

And if you want to follow along, visit my podcast, the LightMinded Arts Podcast, to hear the latest about what I’ve got going on and how you can use it to help you.

Here’s to the next year. Let’s make something worth finishing.

Last year was a crash course in creativity. I talked with writers, filmmakers, financial coaches, and life coaches — people chasing clarity, craft, and meaning in their work.

The biggest lessons weren’t just about art. They were about how to live as an artist without losing your sanity, your family, or your financial footing.

This is Part 1 of my season recap, where I talk about some of the things that stood out most to me. Not that this is all there was, but hey, for my journey, this is what I got out of it. Maybe you found something different.

1. Don’t Fall for the “Struggling Artist” Trap

Almost everyone I spoke with said the same thing: don’t quit your day job too soon.

When you’re starting out, your world is small. Every job, every person you meet, every weird argument you have becomes raw material for your art. John DeDacus reminded me that every job is grist for your fiction, and he’s right. My years in construction, real estate, and even telemarketing shaped how I write and how I see people.

And yes, your day job pays the bills. Art rarely does at first. I learned that the hard way when I tried to turn writing into a side income while raising a family. I had passion but no craft. It took years of rewriting, studying story structure, and building discipline before my words started to work.

2. Discipline Beats Inspiration

I’m terrible at working from home. Every interruption shattered my focus. So I started waking up at 5:30 a.m. to write before my family stirred. That single change transformed everything — I could focus fully on my creative work, then give my family my full attention later.

I treated writing like a job: one to two hours every morning, sometimes during lunch breaks, and study sessions at night. That rhythm built consistency, and consistency built skill.

3. Learn to Think Like an Entrepreneur

Art is a business. Daniel Rogers reminded me that hard work doesn’t guarantee sales. R.L. Carpenter said it plainly: you need business sense.

If you want your art to be sustainable, you have to understand:

• Who your audience is
• What they want
• How to manage money, contracts, and marketing
• How to value your time and creative output

When I calculated the true cost of publishing a book — editing, cover design, formatting, marketing, and time — it came out to roughly $35,000. That number shocked me, but it’s real. Your time is worth something. If you don’t value it, no one else will.

4. Diversify and Systematize Your Income

Jeff and Rory — two guests who live this principle — taught me that creative success often depends on multiple revenue streams.

Your art might not pay the bills right away, but your skills can. Writers can teach workshops, filmmakers can sell tutorials, podcasters can monetize their insights. Find ways to repackage what you know and turn it into adjacent income.

And remember: “passive income” isn’t truly passive. Every stream requires maintenance. But those streams can buy back your time, letting you outsource tasks and focus on what moves your creative work forward.

5. Build Freedom, Not Escape

After years of balancing business, writing, and family, I finally stepped away from my company and handed it to my brother. Now, I’m diving back into filmmaking and creative storytelling full-time, not because I escaped the day job, but because I used it to build freedom for the day job I wanted.

If you’ve followed the podcast this season, thank you. If you’ve found value in these lessons, the best way to support the work is simple: pick up one of my books and leave a review. That’s how this creative journey keeps going.

Key Takeaways

• Keep your day job until your art can sustain you.
• Build discipline through routine, not mood.
• Treat your art like a business.
• Diversify your income streams.

I sat down with Jay Corso. I didn’t know him beforehand, but this turned into an engaging and refreshing experience for me. We talked about things ranging from AI and creativity to identity.

If you didn’t check out the podcast, you should. Its so hard to capture the raw enthusiasm he portrayed here in a blog, but I’ll do my best.

The Custodian With A Secret Identity

Jay works two jobs. Custodian during the week. Security on weekends. And in the cracks between those shifts, he’s building RoboPulp, a sci-fi pulp universe stitched together from the things he loves. Bradbury. Ellison. Gibson. Abandoned industrial photography. AI tools he refuses to pay for. The scraps and leftovers of his day.

He calls himself a scavenger. Hey we all get scrappy from time to time.

We talked about how strange it feels when someone asks, “So what do you do?” Because the answer you give is rarely the answer that matters. Jay says he usually tells people he’s a custodian. It’s easier. Most people don’t care about the thing that keeps you awake at night. They care about the thing that keeps your lights on.

I do the same thing. I default to contractor or investor or whatever feels least complicated in the moment. It’s not that I’m ashamed of the creative work. It’s that I don’t want to watch someone’s eyes glaze over while I talk about the thing that makes me feel alive.

Jay has a different way of dealing with it. He treats his creative identity like a secret agent file. Something you only slide across the table when you know the person on the other side will actually read it. He waits for the code phrases. Chandler. Dick. Gibson. If someone says one of those names, he knows he’s found someone from his tribe.

I love that idea. The quiet identity. The one you protect until you know it’s safe. I frankly want to go the other direction myself. I’d rather be superman who takes a break every now and then to put on my glasses and walk around as Clark Kent.

Jay’s Thoughts On AI And Time

Jay also talked about AI. He sees it like an exoskeleton. Something that amplifies what you already are. If you have intention, AI gives you reach. If you don’t, it gives you noise. He’s seen both. He’s made both. He’s learned to tell the difference.

But the part that stuck with me was his idea of micro focus.

Jay doesn’t have long stretches of time to create. He has ten minutes here, twenty minutes there. A quiet hallway. A slow moment at the clinic. A break between security rounds. He pulls out his phone, opens Google Docs, and writes. Not because the conditions are perfect. But because the conditions exist and there might not be another opportunity if he didn’t.

He said he used to resent his schedule, the jobs and the lack of time. But somewhere along the way he realized that waiting for perfect conditions is a trap. You wait and wait and wait, and the work never gets made. So he stopped waiting. He started conditioning his brain to create in the small windows most people waste.

You can wait for the retreat in the woods, or you can train yourself to work now. If you train yourself now, the retreat becomes a gift instead of a shock. You arrive ready.

The struggling artist trap isn’t just money or time or attention. It’s the belief that creativity only counts when the conditions are perfect. Jay reminded me that the conditions are never perfect. They’re just present. And that’s enough.

Key Take Aways

Your identity as an artist doesn’t disappear because you have a day job or two. It doesn’t disappear because you’re tired or busy or stretched thin. It’s still there. You get to decide when to reveal it. You get to decide who gets to see it.

And you get to decide when to create. Even if it’s ten minutes at a time.

Jay calls it micro focus. I call it survival.

That’s the real secret identity of the working artist. Not the job title, but the decision to keep making things in the small spaces. The decision to keep the creative part of you awake, even when the rest of your life is loud.

Jay’s building RoboPulp in those small spaces. I’m building LightMinded Arts in mine. And if you’re reading this, you’re probably building something too.

Keep going. The windows are small, but they’re yours.

We’ve all heard the myth that great art can only be born from chaos, substance abuse, and financial ruin. But does creativity actually thrive in the fog? 

I got to talk with life coach, mentor, and author Daryl Dittmer to bust these myths. Dittmer, author of When I Stopped Fighting and its sequel When You Stopped Fighting, shared his powerful journey from a blue-collar farmhand battling severe addiction to a successful entrepreneur, author, and coach. 

If you are a creative trying to balance your artistic passion with practical success, Dittmer’s hard-earned wisdom offers a roadmap to getting out of your own way. 

1. The Myth of the Clouded Genius

Many creatives buy into the romanticized notion that drugs, alcohol, or chaotic lifestyles fuel the creative muse—often pointing to legendary figures like Ernest Hemingway or Lewis Carroll. Dittmer, who hit rock bottom on New Year’s Eve in 1984 before entering treatment, strongly disagrees. 

“I believe that clarity and the love for the work are the two things that fuel that creativity,” Dittmer says. 

When you are constantly searching for your next distraction or coping mechanism—whether it’s substance abuse, poor health habits, or endless doom scrolling on social media—your world becomes incredibly small. True creative expansion requires a clear mind. When you clear out the fog, the creative “juices” can actually well up and flow effectively. 

2. Breaking out of Your “Box” Requires Self-Honesty

We often inherit or build boxes around ourselves based on our upbringing, family, or culture. We tell ourselves stories about who we are allowed to be. To break out of these self-imposed limits, Dittmer outlines a three-step internal process: 

• Get sick and tired: You have to get utterly sick and tired of being stuck in the same old patterns before you will summon the courage to change. 
• Become teachable: Humility is just another word for being teachable. You have to admit that you don’t have all the answers and look for new ways to grow. 
• Summon the courage to drive forward: Stop living life through the rearview mirror. Regret and guilt only cause you to crash. Use the rearview mirror solely for calibration and orientation, then look out the windshield and drive forward. 

3. You Are an Artist, But You Are Also an Entrepreneur

One of the biggest traps for creatives is mastering the art but ignoring the business. Whether you write books, make indie films, or paint, you are essentially a mini-entrepreneur. 

Dittmer admits that in his own ventures—rehabilitating historical homes and marketing his books—he knew how to do the “art” part, but struggled with the business side. His advice? Stop trying to be a lone cowboy. Surround yourself with professionals who understand the business, and allow yourself to take their advice and be helped. Growth often lives right on the other side of the things that make you uncomfortable, like marketing or public speaking. 

Two Golden Rules for the Creative Journey

When asked how creatives can actively avoid the struggling artist trap, Dittmer boiled it down to two core principles: 

Rule I: Accept That Life Is Difficult

Borrowing the famous opening line from M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled, Dittmer reminds us that “life is difficult.” Social media promises us constant ease, comfort, and convenience, but building a creative life is a grind. Don’t be surprised when it sucks or when roadblocks appear. Expect the difficulty and do the work anyway. 

Rule II: Understand That Everything Passes

When you hit a creative wall or a financial dry spell, keep exploring your options and staying open, because the bad times will pass. Conversely, remember that the good times pass too. Riding these waves in stride keeps you grounded. 

“When the roots are deep, there is no reason to fear the wind.”

— African Proverb

By focusing on internal growth first (“first things first”), building deep roots, and treating your craft with clear-headed professionalism, you can firmly step out of the struggling artist trap and into a fulfilled, sustainable creative life.

To learn more about Daryl Dittmer’s coaching, life story, and books, visit: https://www.daryldittmer.com/

You can listen to the whole podcast here:

I remember when I used to spend hours tweaking my podcast audio levels. Maybe you spend three weeks meticulously tweaking the intro of your video. You log into your editing software and spend three grueling hours slicing out every single “um,” “ah,” or slight pause from an interview track because you want it to sound flawless. You refuse to launch your podcast or publish your book until you buy that $400 microphone or get your official business cards and LLC perfectly aligned. 

You tell yourself it’s because you care about quality. You tell yourself that you are a true artist who respects the craft.

That endless obsession with polish isn’t commitment to your craft. It’s a shield. It is a highly sophisticated, socially acceptable tool for procrastination driven entirely by a fear of being judged. 

When I sat down with Rory Paquette—a professional podcaster and coach who manages ten active, thriving shows. What Rory revealed turns the entire “expert” narrative of the creator economy completely on its head. 

If you are a writer, filmmaker, podcaster, or creative who is tired of playing the role of the struggling artist, it’s time to look closely at the perfectionist trap. 

1. Stop Buying Shovels

The loudest voices in the modern creative space love to tell you exactly what you need to succeed. They sell you the courses, the perfect virtual setups, the high-end audio mixers, and the viral video blueprints. 

I said this on my show, and I believe it:

“The people who sell the shovels are the ones making the money. The people digging for gold are coming up with nothing and they keep going back to the guy selling shovels.”

If you think your lack of an audience or your lack of income is because you don’t have a fancy enough shovel, you are falling for the mirage. Audiences don’t connect with expensive lighting or flawless audio compression. They connect with raw, authentic human substance. 

When Rory first decided he needed to get his voice out into the world to help other men and fathers navigate rock-bottom moments, he didn’t wait until he had a studio budget. He was coming off the heels of a collapsed business and a severe life crisis, working three jobs on just one hour of sleep a night. 

His setup? A free recording software called Audacity and a cheap, $49 starter headset he ordered off Amazon. 

It wasn’t polished. It sort of worked. But it was enough to launch a podcasting empire. 

2. “I Don’t Edit Anything”

If you want a masterclass in breaking the perfectionist trap, look at Rory’s current production workflow for his ten active shows:

He doesn’t edit. 

“I don’t edit anything,” Rory admitted. “If it’s a train wreck, I’ll re-record… But I don’t edit at all. Because I just can’t spend that kind of time trying to make something perfect. What I think is perfect, someone else isn’t going to think is perfect. So who am I doing all the editing for?”

Think about the sheer amount of creative energy, mental bandwidth, and time you burn trying to fix tiny, unnoticeable flaws in your work. When you spend three hours editing a 30-minute conversation to make it flawless, you aren’t actually improving the core message. You are just delaying the terrifying moment when you have to hit “publish” and see if the world cares. 

3. The Counter-intuitive Truth About Losing Followers

The perfectionist trap often tightens its grip when creators finally do gather the courage to share their work, only to watch their numbers drop. 

When you transition from being a regular person posting pictures of your dog or your family vacation to posting about your new book, film, or podcast, people will unfollow you. And according to Rory, that is exactly what is supposed to happen. 

Your casual friends and acquaintances from high school are not your target market. When you begin sharing your true creative voice, the drop in your follower count is simply the algorithm weeding out the spectators so you can actually find your true audience. 

Panic at this stage forces creators to pull back and stop. The successful ones recognize the trend, embrace the drop, and keep swinging. 

4. Keep It Simple, Stupid

If you want to escape the struggling artist trap, you have to strip away the structural nonsense you use to complicate your life. You don’t need a flawless marketing rollout, a shiny automated email sequence, or custom business cards before you’ve even made anything. 

Insecurity loves complexity because complexity gives us an excuse to hide. 

The antidote is simple:

• If you want to write a book: Sit down, pick up a pen, and write. 
• If you want to make a movie: Grab a camera, write a scene, and shoot it.
• If you want to start a podcast: Open your phone, hit record, and talk. 

Put the work out there into the world while it is raw, honest, and full of friction. Once it exists, you can decide if it’s worth investing money to make it better. But until you actually hit publish, you aren’t an artist chasing excellence—you’re just an insecure creator hiding behind a beautifully edited curtain. 

How many of you have heard this bit of advice:

“Just follow your passion and the money will follow.”

It is printed on posters, preached by well-meaning mentors, and echoed across every corner of the internet. It is comforting, it feels deeply inspiring—and it is an absolute trap. 

Believing this myth is exactly how highly talented, deeply passionate artists spend decades trapped in survival mode, completely broke, only to reach the end of their lives looking back with nothing but regret. 

As I interviewed David Prosper aka The Clarity Guy, he exposed the toxic underbelly of popular self-help culture and laid down his structural blueprint for how creatives can actually survive and thrive. 

1. The Four Chilling Words of Deathbed Regret

David Prosper’s obsession with helping people move from stagnation to absolute certainty didn’t come from a textbook. It came from a hospital room in 2016, where he watched his mother transition from life to death. 

“I’ve walked with people on the end of their journey,” David shares. “Most people that I’ve walked with who transitioned—my mother included—never talked about the things they did. They talked about the things they wished they could have done.”

On her deathbed, David’s mother cried out four devastating words: “I wish I did enough.”

That moment became a catalyst. David realized that millions of creatives lock themselves inside the “prison of public perception,” compromising their intrinsic gifts just to satisfy the opinions of people sitting safely on the sidelines. They chase superficial checkboxes of “success” while entirely starving their sense of fulfillment. 

2. The Illusion of Talent: Why Creatives Get Stuck

If escaping the trap isn’t just a matter of working hard or being talented, what is it? We all know blindingly gifted writers, musicians, and filmmakers who are entirely paralyzed. 

David breaks this down into three strict elements: State, Story, and Systems. 

The Element	The Creative Reality	The Psychological Framework
State	Are you operating from fear, bitterness, and anxiety, or joy and clarity?	Your emotional and physical state directly dictates your capacity for courage.
Story	The automated, toxic loop playing in your head (e.g., “I’m an imposter,” or “What will they think of me?”).	You must intentionally swap dis-empowering narration for empowering reality.
Systems	The predictable, unshakable rhythms you use to execute your craft day in and day out.	Elite athletes rely on warm-up systems to perform under pressure; creatives must do the same.

Without structured systems, raw talent simply evaporates into the fog of everyday survival. 

3. Why Passion Alone Sets You Up For Failure

This brings us to the core lie: Following your passion. 

David takes a refreshingly blunt, highly practical axe to this concept. If you are deeply passionate about something that does not solve a real-world problem or create a genuine luxury, the market will let you starve. 

Imagine someone who is incredibly passionate about cooking, but frankly, they suck at it. Telling them to quit their life to open a restaurant isn’t inspiring—it is engineering their financial destruction. 

    PASSION  ────────► Fleeting, emotion-driven, often ignores reality.

    GIFTING  ────────► How you are uniquely wired and built to serve others.

Instead of chasing a feeling (passion), you must audit your specific gifting. How are you structurally wired? What can you build that directly serves others? Do what you are intrinsically designed to do as your commercial focus, and keep your mismatched passions as beautiful hobbies. 

4. The Financial Strategy: The 9-to-5 vs. The 6-to-9

Let’s talk about money. When you are in survival mode, burning out is incredibly easy. But according to David, creative burnout doesn’t actually happen because of intense pressure or long hours. It happens because your perspective is entirely warped by short-term transactions. 

If you view your art strictly as a machine that must pay your immediate electric bill, you introduce a toxic wave of anxiety into your prefrontal cortex, blinding you to long-term opportunities. 

The financial blueprint for creative survival is simple:

• The 9-to-5: Work it ruthlessly to buy your basic survival, feed your family, and remove immediate financial panic. 
• The 6-to-9: Work it obsessively to build your ultimate purpose, exercise your true gifts, and create a lasting legacy. 

5. Marry the Process, Kill the Vehicle

To guarantee you never repeat the tragic deathbed cry of David’s mother, you have to adopt one final, crucial perspective shift: Hold tightly to the vision, but hold loosely to the vehicle.

You might have a clear vision of your destination, but you become so deeply codependent on one specific vehicle—whether that is a traditional publishing contract, a legacy movie studio greenlight, or a specific corporate path—that when the vehicle stalls, you let your vision die with it. 

There are thousands of alternative routes to your ultimate destination. David wanted to operate in media and communication; when traditional corporate media routes didn’t fit, he built a custom ecosystem of podcasts, books, and direct-to-audience coaching. 

Commit to the work, build the discipline, and adjust your strategy without fear. Because as David proudly states: 

“Marry the process, and the outcome is inevitable.”

I’ve been wanting a conversation with Jared Moses for some time now. Him and his team over at One Brilliant Arc (OBA) have helped me edit some of my works, and they’re doing great things.

One of the things, aside from just being a book and screenplay editor, is that they are helping people with marginalized voices get heard. This has a lot to do with Jared’s earlier life, and I wanted to understand his take on writing, and building community.

The Box

One of the issues Jared talked about, was being boxed in. He said it so casually, like he was reading off ingredients on the back of a cereal box.

African American. Schizoaffective disorder. ADD. A lifetime of people deciding who he was before he ever got to say it himself.

He didn’t sound angry. This is how it’s always been. This is what I grew up in. But you could feel the weight behind it. The way those labels weren’t just labels. They were ceilings and fences. They were the quiet rules people make about you without ever asking who you actually are.

And I think every creative knows that feeling in some way. Even if the labels are different. Some people get boxed in by their family. Some by their background. Some by the industry. Some by their own fear. Some by the algorithm.

The Shift

There are whole groups of people being told the same thing. This is the kind of story you’re allowed to have. This is the ceiling. Stay here.

And instead of trying to fight his way into someone else’s room, he built his own. Because most of us spend years trying to get picked or to get noticed. We think we need permission. My biggest guilt is that we chase an audience.

But Jared didn’t do that. He started talking to people. Actual people. One conversation at a time. Reddit threads. Substack comments. DMs. Just showing up and caring about what someone else was making. And somehow that turned into a community, not just an audience.

There’s a difference. An audience watches you. A community builds with you. An audience claps. A community answers. An audience disappears when the algorithm gets bored. A community stays because they’re part of the story.

The Scary Part

He also talks about exposure and vulnerability. The feeling of being seen before you’re ready. The fear that the real you isn’t enough.

And then he said the thing that tied everything together. When someone reads your work and says, I see you, it changes everything. Not because they liked the story. But because they understood the person behind it. That’s what many creatives are chasing. Not fame or money, well not always. Sometimes what people want, is connection and belonging.

Talking with Jared reminded me that in this world where we consume media, and we create it just to throw it up and hope it sticks, there’s a better way. We can create communities by being real people and treating others like real people too.

Julian’s life reads like a map of restless searching: born in London, raised under the Spanish sun, chasing meaning across continents until he landed in America. 

Julian talked about the financial panic, the spiritual exhaustion, and the constant tug-of-war between survival and creation.

He told me about selling two massive paintings for twenty-five thousand dollars, a moment that should’ve changed everything. And then… nothing. Months of silence.

How is that, when you get a taste of success, and you think, finally, I’m seen. But the art world moves on.

Julian realized something that every artist eventually has to face: The system won’t save you. You either build your own ladder or you stay waiting at the bottom.

He tried everything from running his own galleries, selling online, and moving across states and even back to Spain. Each time, the same pattern: a spark, a crash, a rebuild. And through it all, he kept painting. Not because it was profitable, but because it was what inspires him.

He realized something that matched the entire reason I got into writing and filmmaking also. If we don’t find time to pursue our artistic dreams, then the world will go on without us, and in the end we will have become nothing but dreamers. I prefer to be a doer.

It’s not about art either, it’s about your identity. It’s about refusing to die with your work still inside you.

Julian’s story isn’t a tragedy. In fact, he still sells his art. He’s not a rich artist, but he finds ways to support himself during the slow times. That’s a good lesson for many of us. Don’t discount a day job. We need to provide for ourselves, and the art isn’t always going to make us rich. Some of us will win the lottery and hit the big time, but until that happens, if it ever happens, keep your feet firmly planted on Earth and pursue both with a little bit of brains.

Biggest Lesson

There was one thing that I took away from our conversation that made a lot of sense too, and it was when he was talking about selling his art on the street. He would try to produce these works of art that spoke to him. Passers by would snub his art and go to the guy next to him and buy the cheap mass produced tourist art.

Another thing he mentioned was that when he built his studio in Spain, he did it in a wealthy area, and the people who had lots of money were more able to spend big on his paintings.

These examples lead to a couple poignant conclusions:

1. You need to get lots of eyeballs on your work.

2. You need to be priced right for the market you’re in.

3. You need to know what the audience that is seeing your art is going to value.

If you can align your artistic business plan with these tips, you’ll have a much better chance for success.

Sometimes I feel too busy chasing the my dream and shaping it into something real real, only to find that my dream and the truth bump into each other, and it’s not a gentle bump either. It’s more like walking into a glass door you didn’t know was there.

Talking with Ruth Douthitt brought that feeling back for me. I thought we were just going to talk about books and art and all the usual stuff. Instead, I came away with some really good tips that I want to incorporate into my business plan.

The Artist Who Never Planned to Be a Writer

Ruth didn’t grow up wanting to be a writer. She was an art kid. She wanted to teach art. Writing was just this side thing. From fourth grade book reports to poetry contests, it was there, but not important. But the little illustrated stories she didn’t think twice about eventually stuck and carried, even if subconsciously, forward into her adult career.

Years later, while her husband was deployed, she was alone in North Carolina, wandering the library like a lot of us do when we’re trying to figure out who we are. Well, I didn’t do that myself, not much. Okay, actually, I did do that quite a bit, I just forgot about that chapter of my life. I digress.

Ruth checked out books on illustration, scribbled down an idea about a boy and a dragon, then life piled on top of it for ten years.

Eventually she dug it back out of a filing cabinet and thought, alright, let’s see what this is.

She spent four years writing that book. After four years of late nights she finally typed “The End.” She had the same thought most of us have at that stage. This is it. This is the moment everything changes. Publishers are going to line up. People are going to see me.

Instead, she got rejected. A lot. For years. Back then, self publishing wasn’t very respectable, mind you, not like it is today.

Then one day, a stranger in a chat room mentioned a small publisher looking for fantasy. She sent her manuscript. They loved it. They signed her for three books. And in 2011, she held her first published novel in her hands.

You’d think that would feel like the finish line. It wasn’t. It was the starting gun.

The Part Nobody Warns You About

Once Ruth stepped into indie publishing, she learned the thing every creative eventually learns. You’re not just the artist. You’re the marketing team, the accountant, the social media intern, the publicist, the everything. You’re the whole circus and the person sweeping up after.

She was doing all of it. Writing, posting, promoting, researching, festivals, algorithms, the whole mess. And she was tired. Really tired.

Then she noticed another author had a virtual assistant. Her first reaction was the same one I think most of us would have. That’s for real authors, not me. But she swallowed her pride anyway and hired one.

Suddenly things started working. Her sales went up. Her launches stopped feeling like a tornado. Her audience grew. She wasn’t drowning anymore.

This is when I thought, man, I should look into one of these myself. As of right now, I don’t have one, but I think I’d really like to figure out how to get one.

The Tools That Actually Work

Ruth said something has taken me quite a while to learn: Email newsletters still work. In a world where everyone is chasing the next algorithm trick, the old stuff is still the stuff that actually moves the needle.

She started using BookFunnel. Her list went from 800 to 4,400. Her sales followed. Not because she got lucky, but because she built a system.

The Fear of Being Pigeonholed

Ruth writes fantasy, suspense, women’s fiction, and Christmas novellas. She paints animals and makes coloring books. She’s basically a one-woman creative department.

But the world loves to tell creatives to pick a lane. Stay in your box and don’t confuse people. Then she interviewed Melody Carlson, who told her, “Write whatever you want to write.”

That cracked something open for her. And for me too. Because the truth is, creatives don’t fit in boxes. Leave that to the people who want a simple repeatable workflow. If you are creative and passionate, follow that passion and make something truly inspired.

The Financial Reality

Even with bestselling books, even with a growing audience, even with all the things we’re told equal success, Ruth still works a full time job.

She’s not failing either. Her plan is simple. Work now, retire soon, then spend the rest of her life writing, painting, coaching, creating.

What I Took From It

If I had to put it into words, I think Ruth reminded me that art doesn’t save you. Learning how to take care of it does. Talent is the engine. Discipline, systems, and audience are what supports it. 

Ruth didn’t just become a working creative. She became a sustainable one.

Visit Ruth at: https://www.artbyruth.com/ Catch the whole interview at: https://brentxp.podbean.com/e/lightminded-arts-36-when-talent-isnt-enough/?token=665429634049e7959442947145c8ca78 Also, check out my books at www.LightmindedArts.com 

Bart Merrell spent his entire youth chasing one dream: joining the FBI.

He studied accounting even though he hated it, because that was the “easiest way in.” He did everything right. Then one experimental eye surgery disqualified him for life. Just like that, the dream was gone.

Often we face setbacks like Bart did. But when they come, that’s when we realize how good we actually are at taking the old adage to heart of: turning lemons into lemonade.

The Death of a Dream

“I was devastated,” Bart told me. “My dream job as a kid got blown up.”

We’ve all been there. Some of us seem to live there. Maybe its the rejection email, the canceled project, the silence after the audition. Funny how the world doesn’t owe you your dreams.

Bart didn’t stay there. He pivoted and went to Japan, helped build a bungee tower, and started pushing people off it for a living. That’s where his new identity began — not as an FBI agent, but as what he now calls the Side Hustle Samurai.

The Rebirth of Identity

Anything that crosses your path — good, bad, or ugly — ask, “Can I monetize it?”

He learned it from his father, a pig farmer who turned every opportunity into something bigger. Bart took that mindset and built a life around it. From DJ-ing high school dances at fifteen to training dogs and even monetizing his own amputation, Bart turned survival into strategy.

When he lost his leg in 2024, he didn’t just recover, he built a business helping other amputees navigate the same journey. “I knew it was going to happen,” he said. “So I asked, how can I monetize it?”

That’s what it looks like when you refuse to let tragedy define you.

The Creative Truth

Artists talk a lot about passion, but not enough about adaptability. Bart’s story reminds us that the dream isn’t the point, the mindset is.

He calls it Monetize Your Mindset, and it’s not about chasing money. It’s about turning what you already know and love into something that sustains you. It’s about asking better questions:
What do I like to do?
What do I need to do?
What am I already doing?

The gold, he says, bubbles up from those lists. And when you find the thing that lights you up, you’ll feel it. He says he can even see it in the countenance of the people he coaches. When they realize where their experience, passions, and abilities intersect to create opportunities, a visible change comes over a person.

The Lesson for Creatives

Bart’s story isn’t about losing a leg or missing out on the FBI. It’s about what happens when your identity dies, and you decide to build a new one anyway.

For creatives, that’s everything. Because the truth is, your art will break your heart. Your dream will collapse. But if you can turn that collapse into curiosity, you’ll find freedom on the other side.

As Bart puts it:

“Your dream dying isn’t the end. It’s the beginning of who you were actually meant to be.”

Listen to the full conversation

🎧 LightMinded Arts #34 – When Your Dream Dies and You Still Win
Available wherever you get your podcasts.

https://brentxp.podbean.com/e/lightminded-arts-34-%e2%80%93-when-your-dream-dies-and-you-still-win/?token=99bf146eb10e9a7cf5d0f8443be2900b

For more on Bart Merrell: https://ai.bartmerrell.com/blindspot