Claim OwnershipThe Unmistakable Creative Podcast
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© 2021 The Unmistakable Creative Podcast
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Timeless Practical Wisdom For Living a Meaningful Life
Inspiring stories and practical advice from creatives, entrepreneurs, change-makers, misfits, and rebels to help you become successful on your own terms
Our listeners say, “If TEDTalks met Oprah you’d have the Unmistakable Creative.” Eliminate the feeling of being stuck in your life, blocked in your creativity, and discover higher levels of meaning and purpose in your life and career. Listen to deeply personal, insightful, and thought-provoking stories from the world’s leading thinkers and doers including best-selling authors, artists, peak performance psychologists, happiness researchers, entrepreneurs, startup founders, artists, venture capitalists, and even former bank robbers. Former guests have included Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin, Justine Musk, Scott Adams, Rob Bell, David Heinemeier Hansson, Elle Luna, Jordan Harbinger Brett Mckay, and Simon Sinek.
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1702 Episodes
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Jeff Wald, author of The End of Jobs and CEO of WorkMarket, examines how robots and AI are creating the fourth industrial revolution—a massive power shift from workers to companies that mirrors past technological upheavals. Drawing from labor history, on-demand platforms, and regulatory battles like California Prop 22, Wald reveals why the lifetime employment contract was always a myth with average job tenure at 5 years in 1960 and 4.2 years today. He introduces the hard tech vs. hard human framework: thriving in automation requires either technical skills like software, AI, and data or human skills that machines cannot replicate such as creativity, empathy, and sales. Wald unpacks how income inequality, personal responsibility, and opportunity gaps threaten societal stability, why unions must reinvent themselves through movements like Fight for 15, and how lifelong learning became non-negotiable when skills now decay within 4-6 years instead of lasting a 30-year career. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jeff Spencer, former Olympic cyclist and performance coach to Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods, and Olympic gold medalists, breaks down the precise architecture of champion-level achievement. From losing his father at age 10 to competing in the Munich Olympics to coaching nine Tour de France victories, Jeff reveals the eight sequential steps every prolific performer navigates: prepare, perform, achieve, pause. He explains why most people burn out by chasing every opportunity instead of choosing goals with appropriate return, why rest is not weakness but a competitive advantage, and how to focus on the critical 1-2 percent that must go right rather than everything that could go wrong. This is the operating system of sustained excellence. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1Jason Naylor, artist and author of Live Life Colorfully, shares how growing up as the second of seven children in a Mormon family in Salt Lake City shaped his caretaker personality and his eventual escape to New York where he discovered creative liberation. Naylor reveals the symbiotic relationship between color and messaging in his work—the more positive and uplifting his messages became, the more color naturally emerged because he couldn't visualize kindness without bright hues. Drawing from color theory and neuroscience, he explains how yellow triggers hunger, why fast food brands use red and yellow strategically, how bright saturated colors ignite short-term memory while muted colors remain in long-term memory, and why a woman in a red dress commands attention not just culturally but neurologically. Naylor explores how color impacts space design, fashion choices, and personal presence, arguing that the right color is not about inherent qualities but about how confidently you wear it and how it makes you feel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jacob Sager Weinstein, comedy writer for Dennis Miller and author of How to Remember Everything, shares how growing up in privileged Washington DC where the vice president's daughter was in his debate club gave him confidence to walk into any room but delayed his understanding that not everyone has equal access to opportunity until he reached Princeton. Weinstein reveals how writing for Dennis Miller taught him to find the Venn diagram between his voice and another's—a skill that translated perfectly to children's books where kids have the same BS detector for mechanical writing. He makes the case for memory in an information-saturated world: you cannot synthesize facts Google knows, only facts you know, which is why students must memorize foundational knowledge before creating something new. Weinstein introduces the memory palace method for turning hard-to-remember abstract information into easy-to-remember visual locations and explains the curve of forgetting where 75 percent of information vanishes within 24 hours unless you use spaced repetition to stretch retention from days to weeks to permanent memory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Hillary Weiss, brand strategist and positioning coach, reflects on growing up in suburban South Florida where attending the same school for 14 years meant everyone remembered who peed their pants in pre-K yet created lifelong friendships that watched her evolve from emo to punk rock to professional white woman. Weiss challenges the dangerous mindset mantra in entrepreneurship, arguing that privilege and circumstance—like having a home to return to if everything went belly up—allow some people to take risks that others cannot afford. She introduces the elevator framework: going one floor down beneath surface-level statements like I help clients find their voice to uncover the golden thread that makes someone exceptional. Weiss explains why imitation is a reasonable starting point but becomes a trap when entrepreneurs copy successful people's maps without understanding why they do things a certain way, resulting in indistinguishable businesses wearing outfits not made for them. She warns against the Protestant work ethic that led her to six figures by 25 but also total burnout from working seven days a week. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Gautum Mukunda, Harvard professor and author of Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter, reveals the paradox at the heart of leadership selection: the more effort you put into picking a leader, the less it matters who you pick. Drawing from decades of presidential history, Mukunda introduces the concept of filtered versus unfiltered leaders—George H.W. Bush represents the filtered ideal with 44 years in government before becoming president, while Barack Obama exemplifies the unfiltered wildcard with only three years in the Senate. Filtered leaders are predictably competent; unfiltered leaders are remarkable for better or worse, usually worse, because there are far more ways to fail than succeed. Mukunda argues that America picks unfiltered presidents half the time, more than any other major democracy, which explains both George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt at moments of crisis and spectacular failures in between. He warns that winning Russian roulette doesn't mean you should keep playing and explores why Indian American identity, immigrant narratives, and cultural preservation matter in an era when the president said his community's success damages America. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Cal Newport, computer science professor and author of Digital Minimalism, argues that the better analogy for social media is not big oil that must be broken up because it's vital to society but big tobacco that must be culturally rejected because it's unhealthy and dispensable—people don't care if you tell them to leave Facebook for six months but petroleum deprivation changes lives. Newport reveals Facebook's PR pivot after 2016 when defectors like Sean Parker exposed addiction engineering: Cambridge Analytica let Facebook redirect media attention to fixable privacy and content moderation issues instead of unfixable business-model problems like bleeding users' attention through steam whistle tweets. Drawing from Mark Harmon quitting Twitter and Neil Stephenson's famous essay Why I Am a Bad Correspondent, Newport explains the novelist's dilemma: each tweet is a steam whistle that bleeds energy needed to fuel the boiler for producing lasting work. He dismantles the myth that creators need social media to grow, arguing that people talking about your work on their channels matters infinitely more than you promoting yourself on yours. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Computer science professor and bestselling author Cal Newport explains why cognitive fitness matters as much as physical fitness for elite performance. Drawing from his work with NBA teams and hedge fund managers, Newport breaks down the connection between attention control and exceptional achievement. He challenges the myth that social media grows your audience, revealing that craft—not constant self-promotion—drives lasting success. The conversation explores why our social brain can't process text-based connection, the engineering behind platform addiction, and how working backwards from deeply held values creates lasting behavioral change. Newport introduces the concept of "analog social media," explains why privacy debates distract from the real harm of digital overuse, and shares why protecting your cognitive resources from being bled out "one steam whistle tweet at a time" is essential for producing meaningful work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Psychologist and bestselling author Ethan Kross breaks down the science of *chatter*—the internal voice that can either empower or paralyze us. Drawing on decades of research in neuroscience and emotion regulation, Kross explains how introspection, while powerful, can often backfire, leading to rumination, anxiety, and impaired performance.In this conversation, Kross explores how our inner voices are shaped by parents, culture, and adolescence—and how we can take control through deliberate tools and techniques. He unpacks the emotional chaos of teenage years, the benefits of aging on self-regulation, and why older adults tend to be happier. He also discusses the dangers of toxic positivity, the importance of acknowledging negative emotions, and the underrated power of normalization in helping people understand they’re not alone in their struggles.This episode offers a clear, evidence-based roadmap for anyone seeking to calm their inner critic and build a healthier, more productive relationship with their mind. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Eric Barker, bestselling author of Barking Up the Wrong Tree and Plays Well with Others, reveals what decades of social science research says about relationships, friendship, love, and meaning. From his journey through Hollywood screenwriting to the video game industry to running one of the most-read personal development blogs, Eric explains his obsession with translating peer-reviewed research into clear, entertaining, actionable insights. He breaks down why so many questions about happiness and connection have already been answered by science but locked away in ivory towers and how making this knowledge accessible became his life work. This conversation explores the frameworks that govern human connection and why relationship skills might be the ultimate meta-skill. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Brea Starmer, founder of Lions and Tigers, challenges the outdated workplace model that measures face time over impact. Drawing from her experience as a mother of three running a company during COVID-19, she introduces the concept of "highest and best use"—a real estate framework adapted to human potential that prioritizes outcomes over hours logged. Starmer reveals why 11.5 million workers quit their jobs between April and June 2021 alone, with burnout as the number one driver and women of color disproportionately affected. She unpacks how traditional workplace structures fail parents, especially mothers, who navigate staccato schedules dictated by sick kids, COVID testing, and survival-mode 15-minute work chunks. Through Lions and Tigers' model of flexibility, inclusive culture, and organizational clarity, Starmer demonstrates why companies that center their people's actual needs achieve better collective results—and why the eight-hour workday built for a different era must be dismantled. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dylan Beynon, founder of Mindbloom, shares the deeply personal story behind building the first at-home ketamine therapy platform. After losing his mother and sister to severe mental illness, Dylan became determined to bring psychedelic medicine into mainstream healthcare. He explains the neuroscience of how ketamine creates neuroplasticity—allowing the brain to rewire itself—and why these treatments are showing 10x better outcomes than SSRIs. From navigating FDA breakthrough therapy designations to dismantling decades of stigma from Nixon-era drug policy, Dylan reveals how Mindbloom is democratizing access to treatments that were once only available in $5,000 in-person clinics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Douglass Vigliotti, author and creative, explores the tension between doubt and conviction that defines the creative process. Drawing from his parents, his father relentless drive and his mother empathy, Douglass reflects on what it means to pursue creative work when society constantly asks if you want more. This conversation examines the uncomfortable questions creatives must answer about their work, their purpose, and whether they are willing to embrace discomfort in service of something meaningful. From wrestling with exposure to navigating the intersection of art and survival, Douglass offers a candid look at the emotional labor of creating work that matters. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Donny Jackson, poet and psychologist, reflects on growing up as a working-class black kid in Pittsburgh where his father was a postal worker for 35 years and his mother was a nurse's aide—parents who instilled work ethic, integrity, and honor while navigating a world not built for young black children. Jackson traces the roots of American racism to the legacy of slavery where black people started as chattel on unequal footing and never shed that history, creating an internalized stain on both sides of the racial fence. He explains how separate but equal was never true, how tribalism prevents empathy development because it is much harder to oppress someone whose feelings you have taken into account, and why redlining and subtle discrimination in apartment rentals remain part of the disease of living a racialized life. Drawing from Isabel Wilkerson's research, Jackson highlights how FDR-era policies designed to improve American life excluded black people, creating structural racism that takes a toll. He warns that 70 million Trump voters represent at least 70 million reasons to remain fearful even after Biden's election. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Bjorn Ryan-Gorman, professional snowskater and LGBTQ+ advocate, shares his journey from hiding his sexuality behind aggressive board sports to building a life of authenticity in Portland. Growing up in Montana as a sponsored snow athlete, Ryan-Gorman used snowboarding and skateboarding as outlets for self-hatred and denial, pushing himself to dangerous extremes before hearing a podcast that changed everything. He reveals the complex reactions from family—his mom's unexpected resistance, his dad's surprising embrace, and grandparents who rejected him entirely. Ryan-Gorman explores masculine drag within the bear community, the importance of diverse LGBTQ+ representation beyond stereotypes, and the persistent question that haunts him in rural spaces: Am I safe here? This conversation challenges assumptions about what gay men look like, explores how coming out should be celebrated but not sensationalized, and offers insight into the ongoing struggle of navigating safety, identity, and belonging in America. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
David Epstein, author of Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, dismantles the myth that early specialization is the only path to excellence. Drawing from research on elite athletes, musicians, and scientists, David reveals how individual variability in learning means there is no one-size-fits-all approach to skill development. He reframes the Tiger Woods and Mozart narratives, showing how their success came from internal drive, not just parental pressure. From his own journey—leaving Sports Illustrated to investigate drug cartels—David demonstrates why sampling periods, lateral thinking, and diverse experiences create more adaptable, innovative problem-solvers than narrow expertise alone. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Ayelet Fishbach, motivation researcher at University of Chicago, dismantles the fantasy-driven approach to New Year's resolutions and goal-setting. Drawing from data spanning multiple years, she reveals that while temporal landmarks like New Year work for initiating goals, only 20% of people still pursue them by November—the difference comes down to whether you're fantasizing or planning. Fishbach explains how fantasies (envisioning yourself already achieving the goal) actually decrease motivation to send job applications or take action, whereas concrete plans ("I will call my connections, work on my resume, here are the steps") drive execution. She introduces the critical balance between "why" questions (abstract purpose that prevents you from giving up) and "how" questions (concrete steps that enable execution), warning that goals become too abstract when they reach "I want to be happy" and too concrete when you lose sight of why you're doing them. The conversation explores Michael Phelps' visualization strategy (preparing for goggles filling with water, not just winning gold) and why optimism without planning is just delusional fantasy masquerading as motivation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Daniel Stillman, author of Good Talk: How to Design Conversations That Matter, reveals how conversations are designed—whether we realize it or not. Drawing from his background in design thinking and facilitation, Daniel breaks down the components of conversational architecture: openings, turns, power dynamics, and interfaces. He explains why physical and digital spaces fundamentally alter what conversations are possible, how to slow down heated exchanges through pacing and tone, and why the most important conversations we design might be the ones we have with ourselves. From boardrooms to Zoom rooms, Daniel shows how small changes to conversational structure can unlock radically different outcomes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dandapani, former Hindu monk who lived monastically for 10 years, shares teachings from his guru on treating the mind as an operating system that must be understood before it can be mastered. He explains the critical distinction between a focused life (giving undivided attention to whoever/whatever you're engaged with) and a purpose-focused life (where your life's purpose defines priorities that drive what you focus on). Drawing from Napoleon Hill and his guru's book *Merging with Siva*, Dandapani unpacks sexual energy transmutation—asking: if one sperm created a person who could change the world, what could a million create if that energy were harnessed instead of wasted? He reveals monastic teachings rarely shared: how to sleep, wake, eat, breathe, sit, and shower to put energy back into your body. Dandapani argues that without understanding how your mind works, you can't focus long enough on yourself to achieve self-reflection and discover what you truly want—making intentionality impossible before mastering the fundamental operating system we all carry but were never taught to use. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Cal Newport unpacks his framework for Slow Productivity, built on three core principles: doing fewer things, working at a natural pace, and obsessing over quality. He introduces "pseudo productivity"—the toxic heuristic that emerged in mid-20th century knowledge work when visible activity became a proxy for useful effort because traditional productivity metrics (Model Ts per hour, bushels per acre) no longer applied. Newport argues that pseudo productivity was tolerable until the digital office revolution—email, Slack, mobile computing—enabled visible activity to be demonstrated at incredibly high frequency, anywhere, anytime, creating a performance theater that drains actual productive capacity. The conversation explores how to build custom AI systems for daily planning (using GPT models trained on transcripts and book notes), the three levels of working with large language models (training from scratch, fine-tuning, and software intermediaries), and why specialized vertical AI will dominate the next wave of innovation. Newport makes the case for abandoning industrial-era proxies and reclaiming knowledge work as a craft that requires depth, patience, and quality over constant performative busyness. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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4 types of facts
One more finger snap ....please inform your guests that tapping on a desk or finger snapping is baddd! you should add this to your contract, as well as - if the interview is not to a specific standard we won't publish--- this person is full of BS, because Seth gave her an opportunity doesn't mean that everyone should go mad hiring her and interviewing her, full of crap, nothing of real value here! Take risks and don't self-sabotage leaving space for people like this to take your place!
Very biased. Or at least very opinionated.
This was such a great episode, so helpful and enlightening, thank you!
The number of, "uuh, uuuhs" this guy used was so distracting, I had to skip the episode.
This is great!
interesting but too many commercial interruptions. Goner
It's refreshing to hear you talk about your book not selling well. Everyone who does write a book goes on and on about it, pretending they're best-sellers, when in reality, most books aren't. Thank you for sharing this experience. I'm a PhD candidate, and this helps me deal with how my dissertation will be taken when finally completed, and throughout the editing process.
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