No Cure For Curiosity

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, SnapChat: so many social media venues to explore, learn from and network on. But for creativity and productivity, is social media the great equalizer or the greatest time drainer ever? We dig in, discuss and debate how to get the most from social media, without getting sucked into a black cyber hole.

These days, safety is big. “Stay safe.” “Safe travels.” “Find your safe place.” But can we be deluded when we make creative sacrifices for what we assume to be a “safe” job? And can that supposed “safe” job actually be anything but? Hell, is there any job today that can actually be considered safe? We explore these questions, and provide some tips from experts as well as from our own experiences — both good and bad — to help you consider whether the “safe” job is right for you, or whether it’s career suicide.

It’s one thing to motivate yourself to create, but what does it take to motivate others to create with you—either on your personal project or for a professional project. As creatives who have all spent time as creative directors in addition to being filmmakers, musicians and writers, we explore the approaches we take to motivate others, as well as the approaches others have taken to motivate us. Links: The different creative direction styles of Larry David and Ricky Gervais: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gWgVr545yNA

What’s the biggest obstacle to your writing that short story, shooting that sunset, composing that song? If you’re like a lot of us, it’s the fear that what you create will be bad shit. So instead of risking it, you just don’t create. Well, we say, make bad shit! Get comfortable with the fact that what you make may not be as good as you want, and may actually be shit. Because if you start out thinking it will be shit, you won’t be disappointed, and you’ll have absolutely no excuse to stop creating. Yet, when you start out thinking it may be shit, the only place you can go is up. And the more you create, the more you can surprise yourself with creations that aren’t shit. In this episode, we describe our own creations that turned out to be shit, and how even doing shitty projects can help you ultimately to create not-so-shitty projects, and maybe even damned good projects. Show notes at: https://wordpress.com/post/nocureforcuriositypodcast.wordpress.com/48

Based on our personal experiences and those of other creative professionals, we take on the eternal challenge of finding the perfect balance of creating for ourselves, and creating to make a living (spoiler alert: we don’t quite find it, but then again, no one else has, either). While we may not have achieved the perfect balance — yet — we have somehow managed to eek out a living and raise families while still creating music, films, comic books and more. So we share the tips and tricks that have worked for us so far. Show notes at: nocureforcuriositypodcast.wordpress.com/2018/07/02/episode-2-will-it-blend/

Talk about putting serious mileage on a phrase. Everyone — and every business — is now a storyteller. But what stories are they telling, and are they actually stories? Or are they thinly veiled promotion pieces? Stories are supposed to entertain while they inform or educate. And there are tried and true practices to making a story compelling, either in the arts or in business. Unfortunately, those practices are often ignored. We discuss the storytelling phenomenon, and what it takes to make a story, well, a story. Full show notes at: https://wordpress.com/post/nocureforcuriositypodcast.wordpress.com/4