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: http://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 

Talking with Allen C. Paul and we had a great discussion about hour our creativity fits into the value systems we have as followers of God.

Often you think of a follower of Christ being drawn into the ministry. For Allen, it was the opposite. He was being called out of it.

This is a question I’ve definitely wrestled with in my own career. Can I make the art I want, or do I have to use my art to preach?

The Childhood Blueprint

Allen grew up in this very structured world. His dad built a dental practice from scratch. His mom put him at a piano before he could form memories. Church was wrapped around all of it like a warm blanket and a rulebook at the same time.

And that’s where the trouble starts, right? Because when calling and faith and service all get braided together, you start thinking they’re the same rope. You tug on one and the whole thing moves. And maybe that’s true. But its also more complicated than that.

Somewhere in there, a lot of us pick up this belief that if our art isn’t explicitly spiritual, it must not count. Or worse, it must be wrong.

The Rule He Made Up Without Realizing It

At one point in the interview, Allen said he said he spent years avoiding secular music. Not because God told him to. Because he told himself to. How many rules have I invented for myself over the years. How many invisible fences have I built and then blamed on God or the industry or whatever else was convenient.

We do that. Creatives are great at building cages and then decorating them so they look intentional.

Allen tried all the respectable routes. Classical pianist. Band director. Worship musician. Full time ministry. All the things that make people nod approvingly. None of them fit. Not in the way that matters.

He hit that wall where you start asking if your calling is broken because your career doesn’t look the way you thought it would. That’s a rough place to stand. It’s also the place where things start to shift if you let them.

Calling vs Career

Allen said God didn’t call him into ministry. He called him out of it.

Not because ministry was bad or because gigs were better. But he had tied his identity to a role instead of a relationship

Your calling is the why. Your career is the how.

If you mix them up, everything gets weird. You start feeling guilty for charging money and taking gigs that don’t look spiritual enough. Anything that isn’t wrapped in scripture or symbolism beats on you.

You shrink your art to fit someone else’s expectations. You shrink yourself too.

And somewhere in that shrinking, you start believing God is disappointed in you for wanting to make things.

Allen walked into his first secular gig like he was sneaking into a crime scene. I laughed when he said that, but only because I’ve felt that same weird tension. Like you’re doing something wrong even though no one told you it was wrong.

But he found God there. Not in the lyrics or the atmosphere, but in the people. Turns out God doesn’t stay inside the walls we build for Him. He never has.

Allen says he’s not a guru. He’s a Sherpa. Someone who climbs the mountain, comes back down, and helps the next person up. He’s still creating, still performing, teaching, and serving. But now it comes from a place that isn’t trying to prove anything.

My Favorite Lesson

I keep thinking about the creatives who feel torn between what they love and what pays. What feels spiritual and what feels allowed. Balancing what people expect and what God actually wants.

My favorite thing I learned from Allen though, was his analogy of the shoemaker. The shoemaker doesn’t show his love to God by building a cross into every pair of shoes he makes. He shows it by making the best pair of shoes he can.

That will be my lesson going forward.

You’re supposed to starve. You’re supposed to treat poverty like a personality trait. And if you don’t, well, maybe you’re not a real artist.

Would you ever give that advice to somebody? Then why do we give it to ourselves?

Kern Carter spent some time in that trap, but found out for himself that it didn’t have to be that way. Lets dive into how he flipped the script and wrote his own future.

Making Money As A Writer

He told me he knew he wanted to be a writer at eight years old. Eight. Most of us were still trying to figure out how to ride a bike without crashing into a mailbox. Kern already had a direction. But life didn’t exactly roll out a red carpet for him.

He said, “I had a child when I was 18. I ended up dropping out of high school. Me and my daughter’s mother lived on our own.”

That’s not a poetic backstory. That’s survival. But Kern kept going. He said artists have this idea that being broke is some kind of rite of passage. Like you have to suffer to earn your place. Like you need to be homeless or writing novels in your car to prove you’re serious.

I’ve felt that. I think most creatives have. Kern had to unlearn that. He had to pull that belief out of his head like a splinter.

And then he got hit with a reality check from a professor who told him it would take five years to learn to write, five years to build readers, and five years before he’d make any money. Fifteen years. Not fifteen minutes or fifteen viral posts.

Fifteen years.

Most people would hear that and quit. Kern heard it and thought, “Okay. So this is the timeline.” It gave him permission to slow down. To stop expecting magic. To treat writing like a craft instead of a lottery ticket.

But the real turning point wasn’t the timeline. It was the moment he realized he could make money as a writer even if he wasn’t making money as an author.

He said, “Once I figured out how to make money as a writer, not as an author…”

That’s when everything shifted.

Copywriting Ghostwriting Websites Campaigns

He used the same skill he’d been sharpening since he was eight, but he used it in a way that paid the bills. And once the bills were paid, something interesting happened.

The writing got better.

He said it wasn’t an accident that he got published after he became financially secure. Because creativity doesn’t thrive in panic. It doesn’t bloom when you’re counting dollars and hoping your car doesn’t break down this month. It needs space to breath.

And once he had that space, the books came. He made a movie, and readers started discovering him. He sold fifteen thousand books in a year without a massive social following. Not because he suffered harder, but because he stopped believing he had to.

Take away:

“Commit. So every decision after that is easy.”

Commitment isn’t glamorous. It’s waking up early and saying no to the wrong opportunities. and choosing the long game when everyone else wants shortcuts.

That’s also the moment the starving artist myth loses its grip. Talking with Kern reminded me that the dream doesn’t change. The identity does.

If you’d like to catch the whole interview, check out my podcast. https://brentxp.podbean.com/e/lightminded-arts-33-writers-dont-make-money-he-made-hundreds-of-thousands-proving-them-wrong-kern-carter/?token=c729849361d493251c3d5f38094b8c09

If you’d like to learn more about Kern Carter, visit him at: https://www.kerncarter.com/

Art doesn’t always pay the rent. Daniel Rodgers traded his dream for the financial reality most of us have to deal with.

The thing is, he didn’t get stuck in a rut. He found an outlet for his creativity in his work, and later, focused that into art as he discovered his financial stability.

The Poor Years

He grew up sketching in the margins of his notebooks, chasing the kind of imagination that makes teachers sigh and parents worry. But when you’re born into poverty, passion isn’t a career path, it’s a luxury. So Daniel did what survival demanded: he traded art for a paycheck.

He was the first in his family to go to college. Debt already waited for him before graduation. So he typed “highest-paying degree” into Yahoo and landed on computer science. It wasn’t the life he imagined, but it was the one that paid the bills.

And yet, even inside the logic and code, he found something unexpected, creativity. Design pods, user experience, systems architecture, it was like art, hidden inside the science. He built programs at Microsoft and Google, but the artist in him never really left. It just learned to wear a badge.

Years later, his son Gavin picked up the pencil Daniel had put down. Born premature at two pounds, Gavin fought for his life in a NICU while Daniel read stories through the plastic walls of an incubator. That ritual of reading, imagining, and creating, became the heartbeat of their home. By seven, Gavin had written his first seven-chapter book. By nineteen, he’d published fifteen.

And Daniel? He became his son’s cover artist, watching the next generation do what he couldn’t. But the story doesn’t end with redemption. It ends with a warning.

Escape The Clock

Daniel wrote Escape the Clock because he saw the same trap catching every creative he knew: the belief that passion alone will save you. This is not true.

He spent twenty years learning finance the hard way, cycling through seven financial advisors, building spreadsheets, and realizing most of them were selling products, not wisdom. He discovered that ignorance isn’t just expensive, it’s predatory. The system is designed to keep you leveraged, distracted, and broke.

His solution was a program plan for your own life, a kind of blueprint corporations use to hit impossible goals. Because when you treat your creative career like a business, you stop being a starving artist and start being a working one.

Daniel’s book became a bestseller and won multiple awards, but the real win was time. Financial independence isn’t about money, it’s about reclaiming the hours you’ve been giving away. It’s about creating before fate forces your hand. Because if you wait too long, you’ll get the wake-up call every human eventually gets: the realization that time is the only currency that matters.

So here’s the truth Daniel learned the hard way, and the one most creatives avoid until it’s too late: Passion without a plan isn’t noble. It’s a trap.

If you want to make art for the rest of your life, you need to learn how to make money first.
Not because money defines you, but because it buys you the one thing your art can’t survive without: time.

LightMinded Arts — with Joseph Bolton

Sometimes the stories that mean the most get lost to us when we lose the only people who knew those stories. 

Joseph Bolton had to dig to find his family stories, and they turned into an obsession.

When he sat down with me for this episode of LightMinded Arts, he didn’t come in as “the guy with the illustrated book series” or “the retired space-operations officer.” He came in as someone who had lived long enough to understand the weight of the stories he never got to ask about, and the urgency of preserving the ones he still could.

From Paratrooper to Space Operations to… Folktales?

Joseph’s path is one of those zigzagging creative journeys that only makes sense in hindsight. He enlisted in the Army straight out of high school, became an airborne paratrooper, got pushed toward West Point, served as an infantry officer, and eventually ended up in space operations. Yep, actual space systems, satellites, classified missions, the whole thing.

Not exactly the résumé you expect from a guy writing magical, illustrated folktales.

For Joseph, that place didn’t reveal itself until 2013, when his younger brother died of ALS. Grief has a way of stripping your life down to the studs. For him, it cracked something open. He started writing a blog where he explored science, history, philosophy, whatever his mind needed to chew on.

And then he stumbled into something that changed everything.

The Ancestor Who Refused to Stay Quiet

Joseph had always been curious about his family’s roots in Quebec, but curiosity turned into obsession when he started digging deeper. DNA tests. Church records. Old documents. And then he found her.

A young woman living in Trois-Rivières in the 1600s. Married at 22. Two children. A Mohawk raid that killed her husband and kidnapped her children who she never saw again. Five years later, she remarried a French settler and rebuilt her life from scratch.

When she died, the pastor wrote a single line about her:

“She lived a full life of dignity, respect, and love.”

That sentence hit Joseph hard. Because you don’t get a line like that unless you earned it.

Why He Chose Folktales Instead of Historical Fiction

Most people in Joseph’s position would’ve written a straight historical novel. Names, dates, battles, marriages, the usual. But Joseph didn’t want to write a textbook. He wanted to write a myth.

He wanted to tell her story the way her descendants might have told it around a fire. With trickster animals. With magic. With the kind of symbolism that cultures use when the truth is too big for literal language.

So he built a world, part history, part imagination, and then he did something most writers would never dare: he illustrated almost every page.

Hundreds of illustrations. Multiple artists. Storyboards. French translations. Years of work.

This wasn’t a book project. It was a cinematic universe disguised as a folktale.

The Cost of Making Something That Big

Ambition costs money. And time. And sanity.

Joseph didn’t sugarcoat it. Hiring illustrators wasn’t cheap. Coordinating storyboards wasn’t quick. Translating the books into French wasn’t simple. And doing all of this while still working part-time as a teacher?

It’s the kind of project you only take on when you’re old enough to know what matters and young enough to still chase it.

But here’s the twist: Joseph doesn’t think younger creatives should wait. He thinks they should start small, collaborate with peers, build a portfolio, learn the craft. . . but start.

Because the only thing harder than creating something big is wishing you had started earlier.

The Moment That Almost Broke Him

Joseph’s moment came from a bookstore owner who looked at his book and said:

“I hope you had fun creating this, because it’s going to fail.”

Imagine hearing that after years of work. After hundreds of illustrations. After pouring your family’s history into a story that felt sacred.

Most people would’ve folded. Joseph didn’t. He kept going. He kept promoting. He kept showing up. The people who dismiss your work are never the ones you made it for.

The Creative Regret That Haunts Us All

“By the time you realize the questions you should’ve asked… the people who had the answers are gone.”

That’s the regret he carries, and it’s the regret he’s trying to save others from. Your creative life isn’t just about what you make. It’s about what you preserve. And if you’re a creative — especially one trying to build a life that pays, that’s the lesson hiding underneath all of this:

Your most valuable stories aren’t the ones you invent. They’re the ones you inherit.

Learn more about what Joseph is doing at: https://oldgrandmotherstree.com/

Catch the podcast at: https://brentxp.podbean.com/e/lightminded%e2%80%afarts%e2%80%af31%e2%80%af%e2%80%93%e2%80%afcreativity-regret-and-roots-with-joseph-bolton/?token=7b3cc03c84cf9e5b5cb8c081302b4e27

As an artist, do you ever feel like you’re playing truth or dare with your reputation and sanity? Did you really really sign up for this.

I’ve hit that moment more times than I want to admit. And talking with Justin reminded me that I’m not the only one.

The Struggling Artist Mindset

Justin said something that made me laugh because it was so familiar. That whole “I’m an artist, I need to suffer” thing. I’ve worn that badge before. Probably polished it a few times too. It feels noble. It feels like you’re proving something. But the longer I sit with it, the more it feels like a trap we build for ourselves.

Suffering doesn’t make you better. It just makes you tired. And tired creatives make strange choices. We’ve all been there. When you pour hours into something like a video audition, then find out no one even pressed play, you start wondering if you’re invisible or if you were never good enough to begin with. It’s worse than rejection.

And the thing is, you start shaping your whole identity around that feeling. You start thinking the pain is part of the process. Like if you’re not hurting, you’re not doing it right. Meanwhile, the people who aren’t buying into that mindset are quietly building careers while you’re over here trying to earn your suffering badge of honor. It’s wild how fast that belief can settle into your bones.

The people who shape you, for better or worse

Justin talked about teachers who didn’t help him grow. I’ve had a few of those. A bad teacher doesn’t just give bad notes. Sometimes they don’t even give you any notes at all.

And that silence can mess with you. You start filling in the blanks yourself, and the blanks are never kind. You start thinking, well, if they’re not saying anything, maybe I’m not worth saying anything about. Maybe I’m not worth the time. It’s strange how quickly you can internalize that. One vague comment from someone who barely knows you and suddenly you’re rewriting your whole creative identity around it.

Justin didn’t have some big Hollywood breakthrough where everything suddenly made sense. He started a podcast. He talked to people. He connected. He learned how to show up in a room without shrinking. He learned how to breathe when everything felt like it was falling apart.

That’s actually one of the things I really felt a kinship with. When I started my podcast and YouTube channel, I wanted it to be all me. But I found out that I couldn’t do it all alone. I got burned out and finding others like me, talking through their experiences, both the successes and failures, really helped me learn and grow and keep the dream alive.

And somewhere in all of that, you start realizing that the thing you thought you had to protect yourself from, the world, the industry, the rejection, whatever it is, isn’t actually the thing that breaks you. It’s the isolation. It’s the silence. It’s the belief that you have to figure it all out alone. Justin talked about how podcasting forced him to meet people. Forced him to talk. Forced him to be a human being again instead of a walking ball of ambition and anxiety. I get that more than I want to admit.

And that’s the thing I keep circling back to. He didn’t get better by hurting more. He got better by learning who he was and what he needed to stay in the game. He got better by being consistent. By being curious. By letting himself grow instead of collapse.

Where this leaves me

You need to survive long enough to make it. And survival looks a lot less dramatic than we pretend. It looks like stability. Let the dream be a dream again, not a dare. Letting it breathe a little. Do meditation if that helps. Find a tribe of like-minded friends to commiserate over and bolster with.

The dream doesn’t have to be this giant, fiery thing that consumes your whole life. It can be something you tend to little by little.

I used to watch a show called the Red Green Show. At the end of it, he always said, “I’m pulling for ya. We’re all in this together.”

Wise words.

And maybe that’s the real point here. Maybe the thing that keeps creatives broke isn’t the industry or the competition or the lack of opportunities. Maybe it’s the belief that we have to do it alone.

Maybe because I saw pieces of myself in Jeff Kikel’s story, or maybe because it reminded me how fragile the whole idea of “security” really is, but I felt an immediate kinship to this entrepreneur.

Luckily I never went through the same demoralizing treatment he received.

The Novelist Who Ended Up in Finance

Jeff told me he wanted to be a novelist when he was young. Not a financial planner (I was the opposite). He said, “I wanted to write novels. I thought I was going to be the next Hemingway.” And I could picture that version of him, probably with a stack of books on his nightstand and some half formed idea about what a writer’s life might look like.

Then life did what life does. It nudged him sideways. He drifted into advertising. Then into finance. Not because he planned it, but because the bills showed up first. But isn’t that how life goes?

Seven Tries and One Brutal Review

A lot of us who’ve started businesses have failed with at least one of them. He burned through seven of them. I’ve been there. Its hared when a business is threatening your very ability to pay for life’s necessities.

There’s one story though that I couldn’t help laughing at, though it was no laughing matter at the time. It was about this one performance review he experienced. It was the thing that actaully got him started on the path he’s on now.

His boss looked him in the eye and said, “You are the worst employee we’ve ever had.”

I had to laugh for a second because the way Jeff tells it, he wasn’t even surprised. He knew he didn’t fit the mold. He was too independent. Too willing to just go do things without asking permission. The exact traits that make someone a creator were the traits that made him a terrible employee.

Jumping Without a Net

He quit without a plan or parachute. Just a man who finally realized he couldn’t keep trying to fit into a system that didn’t want what he naturally brought to the table.

And the next few years were rough. He told me they almost lost their house. They burned through retirement savings. They lived in that tight, breathless space where you’re not sure if you’re building something or destroying everything.

But he didn’t go back. That part matters. He could have. He had the resume. He had the experience. But once you see the truth, it’s hard to unsee it. A job can fire you faster than you can save yourself.

A Bucket List in the Middle of Nowhere

Later in his journey, he ended up at a resort in California for a work event. Alone. No distractions. Just time. They handed him a bucket list journal. He didn’t plan to use it. But he did. And what came out surprised him.

He didn’t write down yachts or mansions. He wrote down experiences. Things that moved or flew or floated. A Lamborghini at the F1 track. A WWII bomber flight. A speedboat straight out of Miami Vice.

And he realized most of them cost about five hundred dollars. That number became a turning point. He asked himself, “What can I do to create five hundred dollars a month?”

The Five Hundred Dollar Shift

Jeff decided he would generate five hundred dollars a month and use it to check off one bucket list item every month for a year. Twelve months. Twelve experiences. Twelve reminders that he could create income on demand.

That year rewired him. It taught him something he didn’t learn in finance. Something he didn’t learn in corporate life. Something he didn’t learn in any of those seven failed businesses.

He learned how to make money. Not earn it. That skill became the foundation of his Freedom Day.

Where This Lands for Me

Talking with Jeff reminded me of something I keep relearning in my own life. The moment you stop trying to fit into a system that was never built for you is the moment you start building something real.

It doesn’t happen all at once. It doesn’t feel clean or cinematic. It feels like late nights and doubt and tiny sparks of clarity that show up when you least expect them.

Freedom doesn’t start with a giant leap. It starts with a small number that suddenly makes sense. Five hundred dollars. One experiment. One moment where you decide to create instead of wait.

Learn more about how Jeff’s Freedom Day Method can help you at: http://www.freedomdaymethod.com/

Check out the whole podcast at: https://brentxp.podbean.com/e/lightminded-arts-29-the-job-that-couldn-t-save-him-jeff-kikel/?token=d69449df8cdb4e31217ff1c888498ee1

And as always, if you want to support me and this channel, just check out my books and leave a review. 

I thought we’d talk about wizard schools and worldbuilding and maybe a little about Neil Gaiman sprinkled in for flavor. Instead, I walked away thinking about the one belief that I’ve been a proponent of over the last couple of years, but which Ryan challenged for me today.

It starts with a phrase we’ve all heard since we were kids.
Follow your dreams.

I used to love that line. It felt warm. Encouraging. Like a permission slip to go be the wild creative I always wanted to be. But when I asked Ryan about the worst advice he ever received, he didn’t even blink. He said it immediately. And then he explained why.

The Dream That Doesn’t Match Reality

Ryan grew up wanting to be everything. A zookeeper. A paleontologist. An astronaut. A Lego designer. Basically the entire cast of a children’s museum. And none of those dreams turned into the life he has now. He didn’t grow up thinking he’d be a teacher or a novelist. Those were accidental doors he walked through because life nudged him that way.

The dream you imagine is never the reality you get. Not even close. And if you cling to that one dream too tightly, you end up trying to force the world to match something that only ever existed in your head.

I’ve done that. I think most creatives have. You build this perfect picture of what your creative life is supposed to look like, and then you punish yourself when the real thing doesn’t line up. It’s wild how quickly a dream can turn into a cage.

When the Dream Starts Taking Instead of Giving

Ryan tried the full time artist life. Blacksmithing. Sculpting. Armor work. Costuming. The whole creative hustle. And he could do the work. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was everything around the work. The business. The sales. The pressure to say yes to every job because rent depended on it.

He told me it drained the joy right out of him. I could hear it in his voice. That quiet exhaustion creatives get when the thing they love starts feeling like a weight instead of a spark.

I’ve been there too. When your art becomes the thing that keeps the lights on, it stops being art. It becomes survival. And survival has a way of squeezing the magic out of everything.

The Year That Would Have Broken Anyone

And then he told me about the year everything fell apart. His father died. His grandmother died. His relationship ended. He was broke, working three jobs, and it was only March. I just sat there listening, feeling the heaviness of it.

He said it shut down his creativity for years. Not weeks. Not months. Years. And I get that. When life hits that hard, the creative part of you goes quiet.

The Pivot That Saved Him

What surprised me was what brought him back. It wasn’t doubling down on the dream. It wasn’t pushing harder. It wasn’t some dramatic comeback montage. It was teaching. A job he didn’t plan on. A job that gave him something he’d never had before. Stability.

A routine that didn’t drain him. A life that didn’t depend on his art to survive. And slowly, almost quietly, the creativity returned. Not because he forced it, but because he finally had room to breathe.

That part hit me. Stability fuels creativity. Chaos kills it. We don’t like admitting that because it feels unromantic. But it’s true.

Letting the Dream Evolve

Ryan said something near the end that I’ve been thinking about ever since. Have multiple dreams. Be willing to pivot. It sounds simple, but it’s not. It requires letting go of the version of yourself you thought you were supposed to become. It requires trusting that the creative life is bigger than any single dream.

And maybe that’s the real point. The dream isn’t the destination. It’s the fuel. It gets you moving, but it isn’t meant to trap you in one direction forever.

I think about that a lot. How many times I’ve held onto a dream long after it stopped fitting. How many times I’ve tried to force myself into a version of my creative life that didn’t match who I was becoming.

I don’t have a tidy conclusion here. I’m still sitting with it. Maybe the creative life isn’t about chasing one dream. Maybe it’s about building a life that can hold many. And maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s more than enough.

Learn More about Ryan AKA R.A. Consell at: https://stealingfromwizards.com/

For the full interview and more inspiration, check out the Light-Minded Arts podcast! https://brentxp.podbean.com/e/lightminded-arts-28-when-the-dream-stops-working/?token=2a842fa3881b762957fe704af9f36f34

Don’t forget to support me by buying and reviewing my books.

I’ve been thinking about this conversation ever since we wrapped it. When James Rollins joined me for LightMinded Arts, I didn’t want another surface‑level chat about craft or his characters. I wanted to dig into the part most people skip, the emotional and financial cost of living a creative life. What it actually takes to stay in the game once the dream starts paying the bills.

The Introvert Who Learned to Perform

Before he was a novelist, Rollins spent fifteen years as a veterinarian. He told me he chose that path because he liked animals more than people. I laughed, but he meant it (I totally understand this sentiment). Even then, he learned that success meant connecting with humans. “You’re half veterinarian, half psychologist,” he said. “You have to figure out who’s across that exam table.”

That skill carried into his writing career. He calls himself an introvert who learned to perform. “An extrovert leaves the stage energized,” he said. “An introvert gives everything out. We leave exhausted.” After forty‑five book tours, he’s mastered the act, but the cost never disappears. He can do it comfortably now, but it still drains him.

It reminded me how success doesn’t erase discomfort. It just teaches you how to manage it.

Building a Creative Life That Pays

Rollins didn’t leap blindly into writing. He built a bridge. While running his clinic, he joined a Sacramento writing group, submitting short stories and learning the craft piece by piece. “That critique group was my support system,” he said. “It gave me deadlines, feedback, and people who understood what I was trying to do.”

He wrote three double‑spaced pages a day, five days a week. Manageable. Sustainable. When his first book sold for a $25,000 advance, he didn’t quit his day job. He sold his clinic gradually, using the proceeds as a safety net while his royalties grew. “It was incremental,” he said. “I didn’t jump. I built a runway.”

That runway gave him freedom to write more, not less. It’s a model worth paying attention to. Stability isn’t the enemy of art. It’s the foundation.

The Business Behind the Books

Rollins has watched publishing evolve from snail‑mail queries to TikTok discovery. “Publishers now look for traction,” he said. “They’re watching who’s successful online.”

He’s also clear about marketing. “People don’t care about the book you’re promoting. They want to get to know you,” he said. “If I can sell myself, my books will sell.”

That line stuck with me. The creative hustle isn’t about shouting louder. It’s about showing up as yourself. He learned that lesson the hard way when his editor once told him Facebook was a flash in the pan. “That was the worst advice I ever got,” he said, laughing.

The Fear That Never Fully Leaves

Even after decades of success, Rollins admits the insecurity never disappears. He still keeps his veterinary license active, volunteering one Sunday a month to spay and neuter feral cats. “It’s not that I think I’ll need it,” he said, “but it’s a reminder that I can always fall back if everything collapses.”

The fear doesn’t vanish. It just changes shape. “For the first five or six years after I sold my clinic, I was nervous,” he said. “Now, I’ve got enough nest eggs. But the uncertainty never fully goes away.”

I think that’s the part most creatives never talk about. The quiet fear that keeps you grounded. The one that whispers, don’t get too comfortable.

Where It Leaves Us

Rollins’ story isn’t about luck. It’s about structure, patience, and self‑awareness. He didn’t chase the dream recklessly. He engineered it. He built systems that protected his energy, his finances, and his identity.

Listening to him made me rethink what “making it” really means. Maybe it’s not about escaping fear or discomfort. Maybe it’s about learning to live with them and still create anyway.

That’s the hidden cost of creativity. You pay with energy, time, and vulnerability. But if you build the right foundation, you get to keep creating long after the fear stops feeling new.

Don’t forget to check out Jim’s latest books: https://jamesrollins.com/

Catch the whole interview on my podcast at: https://brentxp.podbean.com/e/lightminded-arts-27-financial-fallbacks-even-the-pros-have-them-with-james-rollins/?token=c1d0f9dcbce7bec1366d9dbe933461b8

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