2020 Feelings

Creative Caffeine came somewhat out of a personal crisis. I got shingles at age 26 from stress. While my business was going great, clearly, my relationship to work was broken. And so I spent a month in bed, in pain, reevaluating what went wrong.

What I realized was that doing great work is rooted in learning how to lead yourself in a healthy and effective way.

And that much of our problems, stress and limits are self-imposed. My situational stress level, relative to others, was probably normal. But my perception of that stress was wildly ineffective, unhelpful, and ultimately unhealthy.

I learned to recognize the chatter of the mind. I learned to lead myself creatively and shift the chatter to more empowering and helpful narratives and frameworks.

And, as my relationship with myself became healthier, so did my relationship with others.

CC – is the output of the years of learning about learning to become a healthy leader of myself first and then of others.

All so that I can live better; be less stressed, more confident, and more effective with how I work and live in the world.

As things developed, I realize what I’m seeing is nearly universal. That these stories, perceptions, abilities, anxieties, desires, creative blocks, helpful frameworks… generally fit within the realm of human experience for someone living in the world today.

I hear that shared experience from people every day. Through thousands of emails exchanged with readers like you, and hundreds of 1-1 meetings with artists, founders and creators around the world.

There’s something happening culturally around the globe as we shift into this digital age. And I think it’s important for people to recognize that “you’re not alone.”

These are 2020 feelings.

And so I will continue to share my thoughts as best as I can. I encourage you to write back, or share.

This newsletter is about creating healthy leaders and artists, or as I call them “generous humans.” People who do the difficult work to untangle themselves out of their own limitations so that they may show up and do their best work.

My promise to you here is to try and keep writing with more depth and explore more territories that feel risky, taboo, or difficult to discuss.

If you’d ever like to work 1-1 with me, I have a few different ways of working together.  

1. I help people discover what makes their brand unique and then communicate that to the people who matter.

2. I work with business owners in transition point with their business, helping them get their spark back and build on their vision for the future.

Just book some time to chat and we can see if there is a fit.

Tomorrow I’ll share some other projects I’m working on, so stay tuned for that.

As always, let me know if I can help,

xx David