Funny story. I’ve had this topic, being a good boss, on my list of upcoming podcast episodes for months. Literally. For week after week after week, I’ve had this episode marked down as the next episode I was going to write and record for this podcast. And I kept pushing it back. I kept saying to myself, “No, I want to talk about this other thing this week. This other topic is more on my mind.” And so this episode, the one you’re listening to right now, kept getting shoved to the back burner. Finally, after months of doing this, I asked myself, why I was doing this? Why was I refusing to work on this episode, even though I knew I wanted to have an episode about being a good boss? The answer: because of all of the topics I’ve discussed in the past 28 epidodes of this podcast, this is probably the area where I personally struggle most. So, more than anything else I’ve ever talked about here before, today’s episode is for me. We’re going to talk about what it means to be a good boss, when you’re your own boss. Today’s episode is going to look at how to have a good boss as a creative entrepreneur, which begins with being a good boss.

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Hello, thriving artists, and welcome to episode 29 of the Starving Artist No More podcast. I’m your host, creative entrepreneur and creative entrepreneurship coach Jennifer Jill Araya, and I am so excited you’re here with me for this discussion about what it means to be a good boss to yourself within your creative business. As I mentioned in the introduction to this episode, this is a topic that I need to absorb and internalize and act upon just as much as any of you listening right now. Why being a good boss matters, and how to do it, is a topic of incredible importance to creative entrepreneurs.

Before we truly dig into that topic, though, I’ve got lots of news I want to share with you. The next few weeks are an exciting time in the Starving Artist No More community. First, I am offering a completely free, no-strings-attached 2-hour workshop on July 5, 2023, from 7-9 pm ET. This workshop will dig into how to set goals and priorities within your creative business. Goal-setting is something we usually talk about at the end of the year, as we’re making our plans for the coming year, but goal-setting is a process that can be helpful to you any time of year. This workshop will be offered live, but even if you can’t attend as it’s happening, you should still sign up. I’m going to record the workshop, and afterward, I’ll send a link to the recording to all registered attendees. But you have to be registered for the workshop to get the recording. If you’d like to register, just visit the Events page of my website.

And just a couple weeks after the free goal-setting workshop, the next cohort of my Taming the Muse Group Workshop will get started on July 19, 2023 and last through the end of September. Every time I teach this program, it’s a powerful 3 months of learning and growth and expanding. I love teaching this workshop and helping creative entrepreneurs as they figure out how they can build a creative business that truly works, one that supports them holistically: personally, creatively, and financially. And by going through this process in a group workshop setting, everyone who participates benefits from the support and encouragement of those in the trenches with them. It’s a powerful curriculum that I know can make a difference for you. Registration is still open. To learn more about the group workshop, or to register, just visit my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com.

And finally, in perhaps the most exciting bit of news, I have two scholarships available for creatives who want to participate in the summer cohort of the Taming the Muse group workshop but who need financial support to do so. If that description applies to you, then you should absolutely apply for the scholarship! The scholarship will cover 75% of the cost of the Taming the Muse workshop, for whichever workshop package you choose. To get more information or to apply for the scholarship, here is the scholarship link. The scholarship is due at 11:59pm PT on Sunday, July 9, 2023, so don’t delay! Submit your scholarship application right away.

As always, if you are listening to this episode in the future, and all of these events and dates have passed, I encourage you to visit my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com. I’ll always keep my website, especially the Events page,  updated with information about the events, workshops, and courses I have coming up. Who knows, maybe I’ve got an event coming up that will cover the exact topic you’re interested in! That was www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com.

Ok, that’s the news I have to share today. I am so excited about all three of these items – the free evening workshop on July 5^th, the new group workshop that will get underway on July 19^th, and the scholarship opportunity – and just had to share them with you in today’s episode.

But now it’s time to turn to the main topic of our discussion: being a good boss.

Understanding what it means to be a good boss is super important for creative entrepreneurs because most creative entrepreneurs are their own bosses! The very nature of a creative business means that you, the creative, are the one calling the shots and making the decisions about what specific tasks those who are working in the business need to do. You’re the boss.

And you’re also an employee. Yes, you’re the boss and you’re calling the shots, but you’re also one of the ones working in the business. Many artist business owners are solopreneurs, meaning they are the sole person working in their business. Many artist business owners do have helpers – perhaps a contractor or two who takes care of specific tasks related to their business, or maybe even a part-time executive assistant who helps with some of the administrative tasks within the business. But even for artists who do have those contractors or assistants working with and for them, essentially, most artists are doing this creative entrepreneurship thing by themselves. They are essentially “solo” entrepreneurs.

And if that’s the case for you, like it is for so many who work in creative and artistic industries, then you are your own boss. You are a boss in your business, and the main employee that you’re managing is yourself. You are both working in the business – doing the day-to-day work of producing the product that your business sells – and you are working on the business – handling the larger long-term planning and task management duties within your business, the kind of work that CEOs do.

For any employee working in any business, the nature of their relationship with their boss will play an important role in how much fulfillment they derive (or don’t derive) from their work. And even though you are both boss and employee in this metaphor, the truth of that statement doesn’t change. Being intentional about being a good boss to your “employee” self will make a huge difference in how much fulfillment you derive from your creative work.

What are some of the characteristics of a good boss? In preparation for this episode, I looked up descriptions of what makes a good manager on a bunch of different business management forums, and I found a few commonalities. Almost every list of the characteristics of a good manager included these things:

• Good bosses are honest about the current state of the business. They know what the business needs and have a plan for getting those tasks done.
• Good bosses are honest about the strengths and weaknesses of their employees, and they’re willing to delegate tasks away from themselves when needed.
• Good bosses regularly check in with their employees so they know what’s going on. They know what’s going well and where the pain points are, and they are proactive about addressing any difficulties.
• Good bosses are intentional about fostering the growth and professional development of their employees. Their employees are not just factories who check off tasks on a list. They care about their employees as people, and they do what is necessary to help their employees grow.
• And finally, good bosses assign work that matches the skills, capacities, and passions of their employees. They ensure that the amount of work and the type of work they ask of their employees matches the employee’s ability to deliver successfully.

When I work with creative entrepreneurs, I often find that they aren’t very good bosses to themselves.  They don’t ever take time to really think about the business side of their business, and they have no plan for helping their business thrive. They aren’t realistic about the amount of work they can handle, so they accept way too much work, or sometimes way too little. They aren’t honest about their own strengths and weaknesses, and so they accept projects that aren’t a good fit, either because they are scared that better projects aren’t available, or because they haven’t even taken the time to evaluate what projects are the right fit for them. They neglect their ongoing growth and don’t take time to intentionally develop their skills. All of those tendencies would be bad enough, but so often, I see artists who have turned these tendencies into bad habits. They have developed ingrained habits around being a bad boss to themselves, and sometimes they don’t even realize they’re doing it.

A few years ago, that was me. And in all honesty, that’s still sometimes me. I mentioned at the top of this episode that this is a topic I’ve been planning to talk about on this podcast for a really long time, but I kept pushing it aside and just not doing it. Anytime that happens, you can guarantee that there’s a deep mindset block keeping you from doing the thing you know you need to do. And for me, that mindset block was knowing that this episode would hit really close to home. Although I know what I should do, I am not always a good boss to myself. I often find myself falling into the bad habits and tendencies I just described. I know better, and I definitely do better than I used to as a result of some hard-won lessons, but at times, I still find it hard to really live up to those “good boss” characteristics.

The year when I struggled the most with being a good boss to myself was 2021. In December of 2019, I did my year-end goal planning, like I always do. I set really ambitious goals for myself in 2020, and despite the world-upside-down nature of 2020, I actually achieved almost all of those business goals. I was so excited about where my business was going and where my work was taking me. Come December of 2020, when it was time to make my strategic business plans for 2021, I was riding the high of a really good business year, so I charted a really ambitious path for myself. I picked five big goals in five main areas of my business, and I set up strategies for each of those areas. This wasn’t all that unusual – remember, I had set big ambitions in front of myself for 2020, and I’d had an incredible year! But in my goals for 2021, I went too far.

In those 2021 goals, I forgot that I am more than my business. I set a plan for myself that was so ambitious that it was actually unattainable. I didn’t leave myself any time at all to take care of myself and of my relationships. I established strategies for my business that tied my every moment to my work.

It was a tough time for me. For a while, I toiled away, straining to get everything done and grinding myself to a pulp with the “hustle” of desperately trying to keep up with the goals I had set for myself. The boss version of me had said these things needed to be done in a certain way and on a certain timeline, and the employee version of me was doing everything she could to fulfill those completely unrealistic expectations.

In reality, there was no way I could have successfully implemented the business goals I set for myself in 2021. I was not honest about my own strengths and weaknesses, and I wasn’t delegating successfully. I wasn’t checking in with myself to make sure I had the resources I needed to actually succeed, and to figure out new strategies for the problems I was facing. I wasn’t doing anything to help myself grow because 100% of my energy was devoted to my completely unreasonable task list. And I definitely wasn’t taking into account my own skills, capacities, and passions as I was assigning work to myself. In every way, I was being a terrible boss to myself. I had a really bad boss that year.

I eventually hit a really low point and took a step back for some serious self-reflection, and in the 3^rd quarter of 2021, I took a huge step back from working in my business. I re-evaluated where my business was headed and what goals and strategies I’d set for myself. I finally did that check-in that I had neglected for months, realized I was on a completely unsustainable path, and took steps to make corrections.

That’s not to say it was completely smooth sailing from there. Like I’ve already mentioned, this is one of the mindset areas in my business where I have to be really vigilant to stay focused and helpful. It’s really easy for me to slide into “bad boss” territory. But at least now I’m a bit better about recognizing when I am a bad boss, meaning I notice the times when I need to change my own behavior so that my boss self is kinder to my employee self.

In other words, when I’m telling you how important it is to be a good boss to yourself, I know firsthand that this is true. And I also know firsthand that it’s a really hard thing to do.

You are the boss in your business, not the other way around. Yes, your identity as an artist and as a business owner is a huge part of who you are and what you do on a daily basis, but that is not all that you are and do. Don’t be a bad boss to yourself. Don’t let your business rule your life. Recognize that you are a whole person and that your work is just one facet of who you are. Be a good boss to yourself.

So how do you do that? What are the specific actions you can take to be a good boss to yourself? Well, the answer to that question lies in the list of characteristics of a good boss that I already mentioned. Let’s look at those characteristics one by one.

First, good bosses are honest about the current state of the business. They know what the business needs and have a plan for getting those tasks done.

This is so important and is definitely “good boss item #1” for creative entrepreneurs. This embodies the “working on your business” characteristic of what it means to be a good boss. It’s so easy to get sucked into the day to day working of your business that you completely ignore the bigger picture. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the creative process of your work and lose sight of the forest for the trees. But if you think about the important duties of a CEO of any big company, setting the direction for their company and making sure that the company is doing what it needs to do to grow in that direction is basically the CEO’s most important job.

You are the CEO of your business. Setting the direction of your business is your most important job. Only when you are intentional about planning how your business grows can you ensure that your business will give you what you need over the long term. You don’t want a business that is doing great today but falls into complete irrelevancy next year. You want a business that fulfills you over the long haul, that allows you to continue being your creative best year after year after year. And being honest about the business’s current state of existence, and making plans for that business going forward, are what allow you to do that.

This is why my group workshop program, which is starting a new session in July of this year, is focused on helping creatives build a business that works. This is why I offer free opportunities like the one-night goal setting workshop that’s available next week, on July 5^th. Knowing where your business is right now, where you want it to go, and how to get there is the most important element of being a good boss to yourself, of being kind to yourself as an artist, and I care about helping creative entrepreneurs do that.

If you can’t answer the question of what the current state of your business is, or if you don’t have a plan for allowing your business to thrive, I encourage you to take some time to figure that out for yourself. What exactly a thriving business entails is different for every creative, so I can’t tell you that it looks this or that. Only you can answer those questions, and I hope you’ll take a bit of time out of your week to figure out what that means to you and how to get there. And if you’re not sure how to answer those questions, then reach out and get help.

Like I said, I offer help with this through my free goal-setting workshop and my group workshop and my one-on-one coaching program, but I’m not the only place you can find help for this. You can also reach out to your creative colleagues. Ask someone who’s a little further along their entrepreneurial journey than you are if you can pay them for an hour or two of their time to help you figure out where you are and where you want to go. Or, if you already have a business mentor in your creative industry, reach out to them for advice. You may be working in your business as a solopreneur, but you don’t have to do this by yourself. Help is available so that you can be honest about where your business is right now and so that you can make actionable plans for how to move forward.

Next, good bosses are honest about the strengths and weaknesses of their employees, and they’re willing to delegate tasks away from themselves when needed.

This is one of the areas where I personally struggle a lot. It’s hard to be honest about the things that I’m good at – society teaches us to be humble after all – and it’s also hard to be honest about my weaknesses – no one likes to admit that they’re not going to be able to do a good job on a given task. I also seem to default to thinking that I can do a good job on every project that comes my way, regardless of whether or not that project is actually a good fit for me and my business.

There’s two problems here. The first has to do with the types of projects I accept. If I’m not honest about my strengths and weaknesses as an artist, I’m going to accept every project that comes my way, regardless of whether or not that’s a project that really is a good fit for me, and regardless of whether or not it’s a project that lies in my Creative & Financial Sweet Spot. It’s sometimes hard to admit that a certain type of work isn’t something that you can truly excel at, and it’s definitely hard to turn down that type of work when it’s paying work that is offered to you. But only by being honest with yourself about where you can truly succeed can you craft a portfolio of completed work that truly represents who you are as an artist and showcases the very best of what you can do. Honesty about the types of projects that best suit your unique creative gifts is what will allow you to craft a career where you’re able to be fulfilled financially, personally, and creatively by your artistic work. If you’re interested in diving deeper into this aspect of being a good boss, I encourage you to listen back to Episode 7 of this podcast, which is all about how to find your Creative & Financial Sweet Spot, and once you’ve identified it, how to build a business that allows you to work in that space. Honesty about your strengths and weaknesses allows you to identify problems and tackle those barriers with an open mind. This gives you the tools you need to shape your business into one that truly allows your artistic self to thrive.

The other problem that comes from not being honest about your strengths and weaknesses is that it keeps you from delegating the work that you just don’t do as well as someone else would. If you aren’t honest with yourself about the things you can do well and the things you can’t do as well, you’ll default to thinking that you can do everything yourself and that you don’t need anyone else’s help. 

Nothing can be further from the truth. No matter how skilled you are in the business side of your business, or in the artistic and creative side of your business, for that matter, you can’t do everything and be everywhere at once. You can’t do it all on your own all of the time. Every entrepreneur needs help at some time and in some way. In my own journey as a creative entrepreneur, it was only once I recognized that there are tasks in my business that I can do extremely well, and others that I can’t do as well and where I need help, that my business started to become truly fulfilling for me. Once I gave myself the gift of that honesty, it allowed me to focus on what I can do best. I then found contractors who could help me with the things I can’t do as well.

If you’re working on something in your business but keep hitting your head against the wall and just aren’t able to complete this thing well, then that’s a sign that this might be an area where you need to seek the help of someone else. You need someone else’s help, someone else working in your business, to get this thing done well. Outsourcing is definitely not the answer to every problem in your business – and probably not even the answer to most problems in your business – but it can make a huge difference if you use outsourcing strategically to supplement your weaknesses and highlight your strengths. In Episode 22 of this podcast, I go into way more detail about how outsourcing can be used effectively in creative businesses, so check out that episode if you want more information.

The next element of being a good boss to yourself is taking time to check-in with your employee self to see how things are going. Good bosses regularly check in with their employees so they know what’s going on. They know what’s going well and where the pain points are, and they are proactive about addressing any difficulties. And since you’re both the boss and the employee, you need to take time to have those check-ins with yourself.

If you worked for a large company, rather than being both the boss and the employee in your own creative enterprise, you would have check-ins. In the corporate environment, these meetings are often called “one on one” meetings, or even just “one on ones.” My husband, Arturo, is the team lead of a software development team in a Fortune 500 company, and he has one-on-one meetings with the other engineers on his team so that he can stay aware of what’s going on with each member of the team, where they’re excelling and where they need some support, and so he can make sure they’re getting access to the resources they need to get their work done well. And he also has one-on-one meetings with his boss, where his boss does the same for him.

Since you’re your own boss, it’s important that you take time to have those check-ins with yourself. I’ve mentioned before that I set aside a little bit of time every other week to take a step back from the day to day work of my business. I take time to evaluate how things are going. What’s working? What’s not? What is causing problems, and how do those problems need to be addressed? These check-ins make all the difference for me. I’m able to identify problems at the outset and take steps to address them right away, rather than letting them fester. It helps keep my business humming along smoothly. If I had been doing these check-ins with myself back in 2021, when I set such huge and unattainable goals for myself, I would have realized right away that there was a problem and been able to make corrections, rather than limping along and feeling like a failure for 8 months before finally recognizing the need for a change.

I encourage you to make a habit of taking a little time each week, or every other week, or at least every month, to check in with yourself and with your business. Review what’s happened in the period of time since your last check in, and take a step away from the nitty gritty to look at the big picture. What went well? What didn’t go so well? What do you want to keep doing, what do you want to change, and what resources do you need going forward? Take time off from working in your business and doing the in-the-weeds tasks your business requires, and allow yourself to work on your business, evaluating the current state of affairs and developing strategies for moving forward. Just a little bit of checking in, if it’s done on a regular basis, can go a long way at heading off little problems before they become gigantic barriers.

Next, good bosses are intentional about fostering the growth and professional development of their employees. Their employees are not just factories who check off tasks on a list. They care about their employees as people, and they do what is necessary to help their employees grow.

If you remember back to episode 16 of this podcast, when I discuss the six components of a thriving creative business, you’ll remember that one of the necessary elements for your creative business to succeed over the long term (whatever that term means to you) is a plan for your ongoing creative growth. If you’re not growing and evolving and maturing as an artist, your creative business isn’t going to be able to thrive over the long term. Your artistic growth is essential for your business growth.

In the corporate world, good bosses will allow their employees time to complete job training and enrichment experiences. Arturo’s company pays for him to have access to educational resources and to attend industry conferences where he can be exposed to new ideas and make sure that his skills maintain relevance in a changing world. In contrast, bad bosses ignore this aspect of their employees’ development. They don’t give their employees time to do anything other than the specific tasks that are assigned to them. They view their employees as automatons whose only purpose is to get things done.

This is a trap I see a lot of creatives fall into, and I can understand why. Especially if you love the work that you’re doing, it’s tempting to get completely heads-down in that work and focus on nothing other than the projects you’ve got before you. You’ll go from one project to the next with no time to breathe in between, focused only on the work.

But doing the same thing day in and day out sells yourself short, even if that’s a thing that you love and are truly passionate about. Give yourself a chance to learn and try something new. Allow yourself to grow artistically.

What you need to grow artistically is unique to you, and it will change over time. It might mean things like going to the art museum and soaking yourself in the creative work you see there. Or it can mean spending time trying out a creative medium you’ve never tried before, not caring how “good” or “bad” you are in this new creative medium but instead savoring the experience of trying something new. Perhaps you will grow by taking a walk in nature and allowing yourself to get lost in the incredible creativity and resourcefulness of the natural world. Or maybe what you most need is to take workshops and masterclasses, getting expert guidance in how to grow your craft.

Whatever ongoing growth means to you, being a good boss means giving yourself time to engage in it. You are not static. Your art is not static. Give yourself the space and the permission to mature in your creativity.

Finally, good bosses assign work that matches the skills, capacities, and passions of their employees. They ensure that the amount of work and the type of work they ask of their employees matches the employee’s ability to deliver successfully.

There’s a lot to unpack in this final “good boss” descriptor. Let’s begin by looking at just part of that statement: good bosses assign work that matches the skills and passions of their employees. This refers to the type of work. If you were a boss in a corporate environment, you would determine which employee worked on which specific tasks based on the skills and passions of each employee. You’re not going to intentionally give one of your employees a task you know they don’t enjoy and that they don’t have the skills to complete well. You’re instead going to assign that task to a different employee whose skills and passions actually line up with the requirements of the task.

As a creative entrepreneur, this is a little difficult to do, especially if you’re in a place in your business where you are truly working alone, without any contractors to help you with your business tasks. Sometimes you’re going to have to learn to do tasks that don’t come naturally to you, like managing your business finances or writing project contracts, or any of a myriad of business-y tasks that are outside your area of expertise as a creative.

But being a good boss to yourself means that when you have to do something that’s outside of your skills or passions, you’re proactive about getting yourself the help you need, even if that means looking up instructions for how to do the task rather than actually outsourcing the task to someone else.

It also means that you’re not going to seek out projects that lie outside your skills and passions. You’re not going to pursue tasks that lie outside your Creative & Financial Sweet Spot. I already addressed this a bit earlier in this episode, when I was talking about the importance of being honest about your strengths and weaknesses, but it bears repeating. When you are thinking about the kind of projects you accept within your business, it’s important to take into account the projects that you are uniquely qualified to complete, the projects that bring you the most joy and that most line up with your unique skills in your creative industry. These are the projects where you will do your absolute best work, because you are passionate about them and you have the skills needed to complete them successfully. These are the projects that will pay you your best rates, because when you are doing truly high quality work, you will be able to command high quality financial rewards for that work. I cannot stress enough how much of a difference it can make to your business when you focus on working within your Creative & Financial Sweet Spot. Again, if you have questions about any of this, you can listen back to Episode 7 of this podcast to get more information.

The other part of this final good boss descriptor is that good bosses assign work that matches the capacity of their employees. Your capacity as an artist includes your mental and physical ability – your skills and passions, which we just talked about – and it also includes the time you have available to complete the tasks. If the boss version of me assigns the employee version of me work that will take 16 hours to complete, but only gives the employee version of me 8 hours to complete it, that is the very definition of assigning work that is outside of my capacity. Taking into account your capacity as an artist includes making sure you have the time and resources needed to complete a task.

If I’m being completely honest, this is the area where I most struggle myself, and my difficulty here is why it took me so long to actually produce this podcast episode, why I kept pushing off this topic and talking about other things instead of tackling this.

I have what I like to not-so-affectionately call “Shiny Thing Syndrome.” For a lot of creatives, when they have an overfull schedule, it’s because they’re firmly on the feast-or-famine rollercoaster, and they’re reacting to a famine period out of a mindset of scarcity, accepting anything and everything that comes their way. For me, I often find myself falling into the same trap of overfilling my schedule, but it’s not from a scarcity mindset; it’s from the Shiny Thing Syndrome. A new project comes to me, one that I know I can do well and that fits within my Creative & Financial Sweet Spot. And I get dazzled by the shiny new thing, that new project that’s being offered to me, and forget that my schedule is already full of fabulous projects in my sweet spot that I was equally excited about when they first came my way. Everything falls away as I behold this new shiny thing, and I say yes to the shiny thing, even though I don’t actually have capacity in my schedule.

Every time I do this, I am being an awful boss to myself. I am ignoring my own capacity to handle a certain amount of work. I am assigning myself 16 hours of work but only giving myself 8 hours to complete it. Anytime I do that, I’m ensuring that I can’t do my best work, because I will never do my best work when I’m rushed and stressed. Doing your creative work and being your best artistic self takes time. No one can be creative when they’re overworked and constantly pressed for time. Being a good boss to yourself means acknowledging that fact and ensuring you have the time your need.

Recognizing what we have capacity for allows us to say no to projects that would cause us to be overscheduled. Being a good boss to yourself means being judicious about the projects you accept. Every project you accept means that you can’t accept a future project in that timeframe, so be selective about the work that you bring into your business. Your time is precious. Choose to spend it only on the projects that best fit your unique artistic self.

As a creative entrepreneur, you are your own boss. Commit today to be a good boss to yourself and to treat yourself the way your amazing, creative, innovative, artistic self deserves to be treated. Be a good boss, and you will have a good boss.

Thank you so much for being with me today for this discussion of what it means to be a good boss. I hope you enjoyed the conversation and that it gave you some things to think about over the coming week. If that’s the case, I would love for you to let me know! You can reach out to me on my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com. If you’d like to work with me, or if you’re interested in any of the learning opportunities I mentioned at the top of this episode – the one-night free goal-setting workshop on July 5^th, the summer group workshop cohort starting on July 19^th, or the Muse Scholarship, you can also get all of that information on my website as well. If you enjoyed this podcast episode, please consider leaving a rating or review and subscribing on your podcast player of choice. Ratings, reviews, and subscriptions are part of how new listeners find podcasts, and they really do help. And if you know a fellow creative entrepreneur who you think might be interested this episode, or any episode, of this podcast, please pass it along to them. Sharing is caring! I want to send a huge thank you to my husband and audio engineer extraordinaire, Arturo Araya, who makes sure this podcast sounds good when you listen to it, and who allows me to use his experiences as an employee as examples in my creative entrepreneurship coaching, like I did in today’s episode.

This week, I hope you’ll allow the things we’ve talked about today to inform how the boss version of you treats the employee version of you. Be honest about the state of your business, and search for the solutions you need proactively so little problems don’t become giant roadblocks. Be honest about your strengths and weaknesses, and get help when you need to. Check in with yourself so that you know what’s working well and where you need help. Give yourself time to engage in ongoing growth so that you can continue to evolve and mature in your artistic work. And only accept work that aligns with your skills, capacities, and passions. I can’t wait to see what you create.