What happens when the thing they punish you for turns out to be the very thing that saves you?

Kirsten Rudberg: author, screenwriter, producer, and host of the Bite-Sized Blessings podcast, lived most of her life outrunning a label she didn't yet have: artist.

Born in Illinois, raised across continents of Guyana, Pakistan, and the American Midwest, Kirsten grew up navigating worlds that didn't share the same rules, the same language, or the same idea of who she was supposed to be. That early exposure to multicultural landscapes, hand-embroidered pillowcases, and the vivid chaos of Lahore's streets wired her for something. She just wouldn't know what for a long time.In eighth grade, school officials banned her from the library. She'd been reading 94 books a year and winning competitions. They were worried she wasn't developing socially. The girl who graduated class bookworm would graduate high school four years later as class clown — not in spite of being forced out of her sanctuary, but because of it.

That's the kind of story Kirsten tells. The kind where the wound and the gift are the same thing.This episode follows her through decades of invisible creative laboring the ideas that percolated while wiping tables and busing dishes in Portland, the corporate Jumbotron moment that sent her packing her entire life into a U-Haul bound for Bellingham, Washington, the 700-question seminary personality test that finally named her an artist and gave her permission to become one. And then the pandemic arrived, the muses sat on her shoulders, and everything she'd been holding for twenty years started pouring out.

Rich and Kirsten go deep on hyper-vigilance as a childhood survival tool turned creative superpower, the Catholic concept of charism: the sacred gift you're born to bring into the world, the liminal space between what science calls real and what the rest of humanity has always known, and why art, at its core, is always about becoming.If you've ever felt like your gifts were too strange, too slanted, too dark to be worth sharing then this one is for you.

Topics covered in this episode:

~Growing up across continents: Guyana, Pakistan, and the American Midwest

~Cultural identity, belonging, and learning to "speak the language" to survive~Being banned from the library — and why it changed everything

~Creativity suppressed by trauma, survival, and the 9-to-5

~The seminary personality test that finally said: you're an artist

~The pandemic as a creative awakening

~Charism — your sacred gift and your only real job

~Hypervigilance, highly sensitive creatives, and complex PTSDSocial justice woven into children's books, short films, and audio storytellingWhy art dies when you take it too seriously?

Connect with Kirsten:

Website: https://bytesizedblessings.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirsten-rudberg-2021361ba

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/edisonsucks1

Connect with Rich:

Website: ⁠https://www.theartistrecovery.com⁠

LinkedIn: @richwrightunltd

Instagram: @richwrightunltd

FB: @theartrec

Instagram: @theartrec

Artist Rich Wright’s WOW Essential Spirit Paintings: ⁠https://www.theartistrecovery.com/white-owl-wisdomJoin

Podmatch: https://www.joinpodmatch.com/artistrecovery

#ArtistRecovery #CreativeJourney #ArtistLife #podmatchguest #MultidisciplinaryArtist #CreativeResilience #Becoming #Charism #HigblySensitivePerson #SoulForward #LongFormPodcast #IndependentArtist #CreativeRecovery #Polymath #ArtistPodcast #richwrightartist #richwrightunlimited #richwrightunltd #beaguest ⁨@PodMatch_com⁩

What does it look like when a creative keeps building while quietly carrying the weight of imposter syndrome, a fractured family foundation, and a soul still figuring out if it wants to stay?

Paul Delaurier has spent decades answering that question through his work.A strategic designer and creative technologist born and raised in Detroit, Paul built his career from the ground up — literally starting in a basement office, pitching nail salons and pager stores in suits, cold.

From those early hustle days co-founding Eclipse Productions with mutual friend Dennis Leigghio, to leading brand work with Harley Davidson, The Black Keys, and Hickory Farms, to senior product design roles at NerdWallet and GTB Detroit — Paul's creative journey is a masterclass in quiet resilience.But behind the portfolio was a story he hadn't told.

In this raw and deeply human conversation, Paul and host Rich Wright — who've known each other since the Eclipse days — finally pull back the curtain. Rich shares his own suicide attempt for the first time with Paul, and what unfolds is one of the most honest exchanges the Artist Recovery Podcast has produced. Two creatives from the same orbit, each carrying invisible weight the other never knew about.

Paul opens up about:

Growing up in Warren, MI and how his parents' divorce at age 8 quietly installed a lifelong fear of failure disguised as ambition

✦ Mad Magazine as his first portal into graphic design thinking — and why that fold-out back cover literally rewired his brain

✦ Building Eclipse Layout Services with Dennis Leigghio in a basement, wearing suits to pitch pager stores

✦ The chaos of living, working, and trying to grow up all in the same condo

✦ Navigating imposter syndrome through agency work, startup pivots, and a commute he hated

✦ How a nearly empty gym in a Detroit apartment building changed his body, his mind, and his entire relationship with himself

✦ Why it took until 2020 — and his wife's courage — to finally walk into a therapy room

✦ What he discovered when he stopped pretending everything was fineThis episode is for every creative who shows up to the work while quietly wrestling with something no one else can see.Because the design on the screen and the story behind the hands that made it — they're never the same thing.

Connect with Paul:

Website: https://www.pauldelaurier.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauldelaurier

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paulmdelaurier

Dribble: https://dribbble.com/pauldelaurier

Connect with Rich:

Website: ⁠https://www.theartistrecovery.com⁠

LinkedIn: @richwrightunltd

Instagram: @richwrightunltd

FB: @theartrec

Instagram: @theartrec

Artist Rich Wright’s WOW Essential Spirit Paintings: ⁠https://www.theartistrecovery.com/white-owl-wisdom

Join Podmatch: https://www.joinpodmatch.com/artistrecovery

#ArtistRecoveryPodcast #CreativeMentalHealth #ImposterSyndrome #GraphicDesignCareer #UXDesign #DetroitCreatives #PaulDelaurier #MentalHealthForMen #TherapyForCreatives #HealingThroughCreativity #BrandDesign #CreativeEntrepreneur #DesignPodcast #NerdWallet #HarleyDavidsonBranding #EclipseDesign #CreativeCommunity #ArtistBurnout #PhysicalHealthCreatives #CouplesTherapy #VulnerabilityMen #CreativeResilience #DesignCareer #SeniorProductDesigner #MentalHealthPodcast #DetroitMichigan #HealingJourney #BrandStrategy #ArtistLife #CreativeWellness #richwrightartist #richwrightunlimited #richwrightunltd

What happens when a boy raised between two worlds — a rabbi's son in an all-gentile neighborhood, a scholarship kid in the middle of Manhattan — refuses to stop learning, creating, and evolving?Michael Wendroff's story is exactly that kind of full-circle journey.

In this episode of the Artist Recovery Podcast, marketing consultant and debut thriller author Michael Wendroff joins Rich Wright for a conversation that spans Queens, New York City, global boardrooms, and the pages of a book that began with a mother's words whispered at birth: "How nice to see you again."

From growing up quietly on the outside of things — finding his first real sense of belonging on a track field — to earning his MBA at 21, working inside a literary agency before anyone knew his name, and building a 30-year global marketing career, Michael's path was never a straight line. It was always a spiral. Always coming back around.His debut thriller What Goes Around, published by Head of Zeus/Bloomsbury and now available in hardcover, ebook, audiobook, and paperback — with foreign rights sold in Italian, Japanese, and Hungarian — explores reincarnation, unbreakable bonds, and the question of whether the soul really does keep returning to learn what it hasn't yet mastered.

In this episode we explore:~Growing up ostracized, and how solitude became a superpower~The publishing world from the inside — agents, editors, and the art of the query letter~The psychology of men's hair color (yes, really — and it goes deep)~Why the pandemic became the permission slip to finally write~What it means to grieve a fictional character you had to kill off~The 50/50 reality of being a traditionally published author today: 50% writing, 50% marketing~Reincarnation, Dr. Brian Weiss, soul bonds, and the spiritual thread woven through this entire life storyWhether you're a writer, a creative entrepreneur, a maker working through your next chapter — or someone who has ever felt like an outsider who somehow ended up exactly where they were supposed to be — this conversation will stay with you. Connect with Michael Wendroff: Website: https://www.michaelwendroff.comLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelwendroffInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/mwendroffFB: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelWendroffAuthorX: https://x.com/mwendroffConnect with Rich:Website: ⁠https://www.theartistrecovery.com⁠LinkedIn: @richwrightunltdInstagram: @richwrightunltdFB: @theartrecInstagram: @theartrecArtist Rich Wright’s WOW Essential Spirit Paintings: ⁠https://www.theartistrecovery.com/white-owl-wisdomJoin Podmatch: https://www.joinpodmatch.com/artistrecovery#ArtistRecoveryPodcast #MichaelWendroff #WhatGoesAround #ThrillerAuthor #DebutNovelist #BloomsburyPublishing #LiteraryAgent #HowToGetPublished #BookMarketing #AuthorMarketing #CreativeEntrepreneur #MarketingConsultant #ReincarnationThriller #SoulForward #PandemicCreativity #HowToWriteAThriller #PublishingIndustry #QueryLetter #NYUMBA #GlobalMarketing #AuthorInterview #WritingProcess #CharacterDevelopment #BrianWeiss #ManyLivesManyMasters #SpiritualCreativity #CreativeBusiness #BookLaunch #CreativesPodcast #HeartCenteredBusiness #richwrightunlimited #richwrightartist #richwrightunltd #podmatchguest #beaguest @PodMatch_com ​