Creative Careers

In his instant self-help classic, the international bestseller How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, Michael J. Gelb identified seven aspects of da Vinci's genius that contemporary readers can emulate and apply in their own lives.

Traditional business structures love stability and predictability. Yet many organizations believe the two essential ingredients for long-term success are creativity and innovation. Kirsten May and Alex Varricchio, founders of the marketing agency UpHouse, call the relationship between these two opposing expectations the Proximity Paradox - the belief that those who are closest to a subject are best-qualified to innovate for it, when, in reality, intense proximity limits creativity.

God's word is life and healing to you. The Bible promises God's children perfect health, so you don't have to be sick another day of your life. As a Christian, you have all of God's authority to change your world with your words. And when you speak the word of God, it is just as if God is speaking. God's Creative Power of Healing by Charles Capps is the perfect resource to equip you with teaching and healing scriptures in order to receive your promised healing.

The founder of the Science of Mind and Religious Science wrote the book in 1919, and we have distilled this book into a synopsis and short VIP summary. This little book is an attempt to explain what each soul must discover for himself, that he stands in the midst of an eternal creative power which presses itself around his own thought, and casts back to him glorified all that he thinks.

Successful leaders of creative teams have mastered the difficult transition from doing the work to leading the work, and this book shows how. Todd Henry picks up where The Accidental Creative left off and provides an indispensable handbook of on-the-ground, tactical advice for new managers of creatives.

Remaining relevant as a creative professional takes more than creativity—you need to understand the language of business. The problem is that design school doesn't teach the strategic language that is now essential to getting your job done. Creative Strategy and the Business of Design fills that void and teaches left-brain business skills to right-brain creative thinkers.

Social innovation and entrepreneurship are rising forces in the world. As stakeholder capitalism takes root, and as the extent of systemic challenges becomes clear - from climate change to income inequality to food security to health care and beyond - more and more of the best and brightest will hear the calling to become innovators and entrepreneurs who develop and deploy solutions to the world's thorniest problems.

Figuring out how to make a living from your creative work poses unique challenges and obstacles. From choosing the right business model to building a brand, from managing your time to scaling up your production—starting your own creative business often means doing it all yourself. Enter The Creative Business Handbook by Alicia Puig and Ekaterina Popova, the dynamic duo behind Create! Magazine. With its conversational tone and accessible advice, this handbook lays an essential foundation for anyone wanting to earn a living with their art—no fancy business degree required!

Humans have always been creative hustlers—problem solvers who seek to live beyond the limits suggested by society. Yet we live in a world where the place you were born, the amount of money you have, and the level of melanin in your skin indicate the precise path you are expected to follow. Too many of us silence our creativity and let our hustle calcify as we settle for the roles assigned to us.

Creative people tend to see the world a little differently from everyone else. But that doesn't mean they can't zero in on their goals, get focused, get organized, and not only accomplish what they want to achieve but earn money doing it. In Get It Done, a beloved teacher and successful writer, actor, and comedian helps you get a handle on your own particular - even peculiar - creative process and harness your energies in positive, productive, and income-generating ways.

For generations, we’ve been taught there are two ways to succeed - either from talent or practice. In Decoding Greatness, award-winning social psychologist Ron Friedman illuminates a powerful third path - one that has quietly launched icons in a wide range of fields, from artists, writers, and chefs, to athletes, inventors, and entrepreneurs: reverse engineering.

We have been spoon-fed the notion that creativity is the province of genius - of those favored, brilliant few whose moments of insight arrive in unpredictable flashes of divine inspiration. And if we are not geniuses, we might as well pack it in and give up. Either we have that gift, or we don’t. But Allen Gannett shows that simply isn’t true. Recent research has shown that there is a predictable science behind achieving commercial success in any creative endeavor, from writing a popular novel to starting up a successful company to creating an effective marketing campaign.

In 2015 Manoush Zomorodi, host of WNYC's popular podcast and radio show Note to Self, led tens of thousands of listeners through an experiment to help them unplug from their devices, get bored, jump-start their creativity, and change their lives. Bored and Brilliant builds on that experiment to show us how to rethink our gadget use to live better and smarter in this new digital ecosystem. In this fascinating new audiobook, Manoush explains the connection between boredom and original thinking.

“The Creative Dealmaker” isn’t a technical business book. It’s a fable. A story about a buyer and seller who meet and transact on a business acquisition. It’s a gritty tale of a motivated buyer and seller who embark on their first ever business acquisition and exit.

Derek Sivers was a professional musician before he started a music distribution company that helped 150,000 musicians sell their music to over four million people. So after years of living the problems, he was able to learn the solutions.

Former Nike CMO Greg Hoffman shares lessons and stories on the power of creativity drawn from almost three decades of experience within Nike. A celebration of ingenuity and a call-to-arms for brand-builders to rediscover the human element in forming consumer bonds, Emotion by Design is an insider’s guide to unlocking inspiration within a brand and building stronger emotional connections with consumers.

This is an excerpt from the Military Veterans in Creative Careers book. It includes only the sections on writing books and screenwriting.

This is an excerpt from the Military Veterans in Creative Careers book. It includes only the section on writing books and video games, and interviews with veterans in video games.

This is an excerpt from the Military Veterans in Creative Careers book. It includes only the section on acting and interviews with actors.

Are you over-extended, over-distracted, and overwhelmed? Do you work at a breakneck pace all day, only to find that you haven’t accomplished the most important things on your agenda when you leave the office? The world has changed, and the way we work has to change, too. With wisdom from 20 leading creative minds, Manage Your Day-to-Day will give you a toolkit for tackling the new challenges of a 24/7, always-on workplace.