What happens when a lifetime of being told "no" finally meets the one voice that says "yes, do it anyway"? In this conversation, Rich Wright sits down with author, book coach, and creativity mentor Amy L. Bernstein for a deeply honest and soulfully resonant exchange that every creative who has ever doubted their right to create needs to hear.

Amy is the author of Wrangling the Doubt Monster, a widely praised guide for creatives and professionals navigating self-doubt, the critically acclaimed speculative thriller Be Real, the award-winning YA novel Fran the Second Time Around, and the forthcoming family saga Tent City. She is also a book coach, workshop facilitator, and Substack writer whose platform Doubt Monster has become a gathering place for creatives who are done hiding.
In this episode, Amy tells the truth about the journey. The drama kid who moved states and lost her creative community. The college application she fought for by advocating for herself when her father said no. The publishing internship that ended before it began. The man who sat her down and told her women could not write for a publication like the Village Voice. The morning on the train platform when she stood moments away from walking out of her own life. All of it unfiltered, all of it real.

Amy and Rich explore the seeds of self-doubt planted in childhood and how they live quietly inside creatives for decades. They dig into the difference between allies and adversaries in the creative journey, and why the people who love us most are often the ones who fear our risks the most. They talk about the psychic cost of making art, the long game of gradual reinvention, and why permission, not talent, is the thing that most creative people are actually missing.
Amy's tagline says it all: "I write stories that let readers feel while asking them to think."
Whether you are a writer, visual artist, musician, designer, or any kind of maker who has been told to be practical, this episode is the permission slip you have been waiting for.

Connect with Amy:
Website: https://amywrites.live/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amylbernstein/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/AmyLBernsteinAuthor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amylbernstein
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCscYRJs-r3aeNLu_2Qmg_3w

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#CreativeSelfDoubt #OvercomingSelfDoubt #CreativeRecovery #ArtistRecoveryPodcast #WranglingTheDoubtMonster #AmyBernsteinAuthor #BookCoachForWriters #SelfAdvocacyForCreatives #CreativeBurnout #SelfDoubtAsACreative #WritingThroughSelfDoubt #PermissionToCreate #CreativeResilience #SensitiveCreatives #HealingThroughCreativity #ArtistMentalHealth #FindingYourCreativeVoice #MentoringCreatives #CreativeLifeTruth #CreativeReinvention #CreativeJourneyPodcast #ArtistPodcast #HowToStartCreatingAgain #CreativeConfidence #DoubtAsACreative #richwrightartist #richwrightunlimited #richwrightunltd #beaguest #podmatchguest @PodMatch_com ​

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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 has 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.

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 and 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.

Topics covered:
~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 PTSD
~Why 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

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

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Always remember, Listen to your Heart and Be Kind to Your Mind! -Rich Wright

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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, 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 fine
This episode is for the 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

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

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Always remember, Listen to your Heart and Be Kind to Your Mind! -Rich Wright

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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 story

Whether 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.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelwendroff
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mwendroff
FB: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelWendroffAuthor
X: https://x.com/mwendroff

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#ArtistRecoveryPodcast #MichaelWendroff #WhatGoesAround #DebutNovelist #BloomsburyPublishing #HowToGetPublished #BookMarketing #AuthorMarketing #CreativeEntrepreneur #MarketingConsultant #ReincarnationThriller #PandemicCreativity #HowToWriteAThriller #PublishingIndustry #NYUMBA #GlobalMarketing #AuthorInterview #WritingProcess #CharacterDevelopment #BrianWeiss #ManyLivesManyMasters #SpiritualCreativity #CreativeBusiness #BookLaunch #CreativesPodcast #HeartCenteredBusiness #richwrightunlimited #richwrightartist #richwrightunltd #podmatchguest #beaguest @PodMatch_com ​

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Always remember, Listen to your Heart and Be Kind to Your Mind! -Rich Wright

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What happens when a rebel artist stops fighting the system — and starts building her own?
In this episode Rich Wright sits down with Julia Stege — pioneering graphic designer, branding artist, and creator of Magical Marketing — for a deeply honest conversation about creative identity, resilience, and what it truly means to build a heart-centered business.
Julia's story is one that artists, creatives, and soul-driven entrepreneurs will recognize in their bones. From being rejected by her high school Art Honors Society three years in a row, to getting fired from every Manhattan design job she was brilliant enough to earn, to eventually helping thousands of out-of-the-box creatives build authentic brands online — Julia has lived the full arc of the creative recovery journey.
In this episode:
→ Why creative children are systematically discouraged — and how it follows artists into adulthood
→ How her rebellious spirit became the engine of her entrepreneurial success
→ The shift from revolutionary activist to heart-centered brand strategist
→ Why authentic marketing outperforms hype-driven tactics every time
→ The Law of Attraction meets branding: how "like attracts like" is the most powerful marketing strategy available to soul-led entrepreneurs
→ Why you don't have to niche yourself into a box — and what to do instead
→ The concept of the "world-changing message" that unifies everything you do into one magnetic brand identity.

Julia founded Graphic Girls in 1995 and built brand identities for clients including the Museum of Modern Art, Carnegie Hall, Burger King, Café Gratitude, Birkenstock, and Julia Butterfly Hill. In 2006 she became a certified Strategic Attraction Coach. By 2011 she launched Magical Marketing — a brand built on the principles of authenticity, intuition, attraction, and transformation.
Her message is clear: the creative economy rewards those who are willing to be real.
Whether you're a healer, artist, designer, coach, or any kind of creative entrepreneur asking "how do I build a brand that actually feels like me?"

Connect with Julia:
https://magical-marketing.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/magicalmarketer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MagicalMarketer
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soultribeattraction/

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

#AuthenticBranding #SoulLedEntrepreneur #CreativeEntrepreneur #ArtistRecovery #MagicalMarketing #JuliaStege #richwrightartist #richwrightunlimited #richwrightunltd #artistrecoverypodcast #LawOfAttractionMarketing #HeartCenteredBusiness #BrandingForCreatives #PersonalBranding #YouDontHaveToNiche #RenaissanceCreative #SoulTribe #WorldChangingMessage #GraphicDesignCareer #CreativeIdentity #AuthenticMarketing #SpiritualEntrepreneurship #CreativeResilience #ArtistBurnoutRecovery #BrandingStrategy #FemaleEntrepreneur #IntuitiveBusiness #CreativeBusinessCoach #AttractionMarketing #AuthenticEntrepreneur #HealingThroughCreativity #CreativeConfidence #ArtistMindset

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Always remember, Listen to your Heart and Be Kind to Your Mind! -Rich Wright

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What happens when a child with a photographic memory, ignored by his parents and silenced by nuns, decides to figure out the human race — on his own? You get Jim Marshall.
In this episode of the Artist Recovery Podcast, host Rich Wright sits down with one of the most quietly revolutionary thinkers alive today — author, inventor, and polymathic scholar Jim Marshall. With over 50,000 hours devoted to studying human development across psychology, theology, engineering, philosophy, law, parapsychology, and metaphysics, Jim didn't just learn about the human experience — he mapped it.
Jim is the creator of Septemics — a groundbreaking periodic table of human nature consisting of 35 seven-level scales that decode patterns in human behavior for analysis, prediction, and transformation. After 40+ years as a human development engineer, treating and training hundreds of clients, and 28 years of formal education, Jim turned decades of empirical observation into a single system that anyone can use to understand themselves and the people around them.
Rich and Jim explore:
~ Growing up in New York City with parents who paid him no attention — and the moment at 8 years old he decided he was on his own
~ How a strict Jesuit military prep school became the first place Jim truly felt at home — because the teachers were as serious about knowledge as he was
~ The link between writing Latin poetry at 17, meditating daily for over 40 years, and engineering a system that dissolves anxiety and depression at the root
~ How Septemics was born — the 1995 breakthrough moment when a 6-level scale revealed its hidden 7th level, and the mathematics embedded inside changed everything
~ The practical application of 35 scales for relationships, finances, creativity, addiction recovery, and mental health — without chemicals, without guesswork

Jim also shares the hard-won personal story behind his career: the son who grew up without a father's acknowledgment, the decades of scholarship and meditation that replaced emotional noise with clarity, and the quiet, unshakeable confidence of a man who has never made a house payment, never worried about the stock market, and never stayed in a conversation longer than it deserved.

Connect with Jim:
Website: https://septemics.com

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

#Septemics #JimMarshall #HumanNature #SelfAwareness #HumanDevelopment #Polymath #MeditationBenefits #AnxietyRelief #UnderstandingPeople #EmotionalIntelligence #HumanBehavior #ArtistRecoveryPodcast #RichWright #SpiritualDevelopment #PsychologyAlternative #BiofeedbackTherapy #SocraticMethod #HighAchieverMindset #CuriosityAndLearning #MentalHealthAlternatives #BehavioralPrediction #HumanPotential #LifeTransformation #SelfImprovementPodcast #ConsciousnessExpansion #MotivationalPodcast #MindsetShift #richwrightunlimited #richwrightartist #richwrightunltd #podmatchguest #beaguest ⁨@PodMatch_com⁩

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Always remember, Listen to your Heart and Be Kind to Your Mind! -Rich Wright

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What happens when a little girl who just wanted to please everyone grows up to help transform how an entire corner of an industry works? In this deeply personal episode of the Artist Recovery Podcast, host Rich Wright sits down with Jessica Rennard — President of NuSource, long‑time sustainable fashion operator, and one of the most quietly influential voices in the resale and circular fashion space.
But before the brand partnerships, the 7,000 resellers, and $9 million in revenue in 14 months — there was a girl on a bike, opening a bagel shop before school at 14.
Jessica’s story isn’t just about fashion or business. It’s about what happens when you stop trying to fit into spaces that weren’t built for you and start building your own.
IN THIS EPISODE WE COVER:
~ Growing up in West Haven, CT & Valley Forge, PA with divorced parents and the grandparents who helped fill the gaps
~ Being diagnosed with ADD in 7th grade — and how it ultimately became an advantage in fast‑paced, high‑chaos environments
~How working at Manhattan Bagel from age 14 quietly built her customer service instincts and love for serving people
~ Building a consulting agency with zero corporate background — and signing 14 clients in about a month
~ Where NuSource is headed next and what sustainable fashion really needs right now

WHY THIS EPISODE MATTERS FOR CREATIVES: Jessica never had an MBA. She didn’t follow a linear path. What she had was a mind that thrives in complexity, a nose for opportunity, and the lived experience of nearly every resale shop, thrift store, and consignment rack in a 40‑mile radius. If you’ve ever felt behind, underprepared, or like you’re building the plane mid‑flight — this one’s for you.
THE BIGGER MISSION:The fashion industry generates enormous volumes of clothing waste every year, much of it piling up in landfills and oceans. Jessica and her team at NuSource are working to flip the script — empowering resellers, partnering with brands, and helping move the needle toward a circular economy where clothing has a second (and sometimes third) life.

Connect with Jessica:
Website: https://nusource.io
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicarennard
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefashiondisruptor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.nusource
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/the.nusource
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thefashiondisruptor29

#ResaleFashion #SustainableFashion #CircularEconomy #SecondhandClothing #ThriftStoreBusiness #WomenInBusiness #FemaleEntrepreneur #ADDEntrepreneur #ADHDAndEntrepreneurship #MysteryBoxBusiness #FashionSustainability #WorkingMomEntrepreneur #SelfConfidenceJourney #ArtistRecoveryPodcast #RichWright #JessicaRennard #NuSourceFashion #ClothingLandfill #SecondhandEconomy #ResaleMarket #ADDSuperpower #FashionIndustryTruth #richwrightunlimited #richwrightartist #richwrightunltd #podmatchguest #beaguest @PodMatch_com ​

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Always remember, Listen to your Heart and Be Kind to Your Mind! -Rich Wright

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What happens when a kid who cried for three days because summer vacation started — ends up designing custom collectibles for Disney, The Tonight Show, and Nickelodeon from a basement in Nebraska? That's just the beginning of Paul Pape's story.
In this deeply honest and wildly inspiring conversation, Rich Wright sits down with Paul Pape — artist, designer, TEDx speaker, and founder of Gamify Business — to explore the winding, sometimes painful, always purposeful road of a creative who refused to be anyone but himself.
Paul opens up about growing up as the "black sheep" middle child in Omaha, finding escape in library books, and the sixth-grade teacher who tore apart his solar system project — and unknowingly lit a fire that never went out. From theater in high school, to a scenic design master's degree at UC San Diego, to winning the Princess Grace Award, to building a creative business methodology that translates traditional business into RPG game mechanics — this episode is a masterclass in creative resilience, self-awareness, and entrepreneurial reinvention.
But it's not just a success story. Paul shares the weight of sibling trauma, emotional compartmentalization, the loneliness that quietly followed him into adulthood, and how two years of therapy cracked open things he'd buried for decades. He talks about what it means to finally feel — and why his wife of 26 years has been the most important creative collaborator of his life.
And then there's the mission: helping the 97% of creatives who graduate with an arts degree and never use it, not because they lack talent, but because nobody ever taught them the business side. Paul's answer? Stop making business feel like business. Make it feel like an adventure.

In this episode, we cover:
~Growing up Gen X in Nebraska — creek walks, scrap wood builds & zero cell phones
~The teacher who punished creativity & what Paul learned from it
~Finding theater as an escape, not a fit — and what that difference means
~Being the "you'll be fine" person in every room — and the cost of it
~Surviving family trauma and the two-year emotional reckoning that followed
~How a single Dungeons & Dragons business session sparked Gamify Business
~Why creatives make the worst business decisions (and how to fix it)
~"Quit selling your sh*t — sell yourself." The philosophy that changes everything
~Comparison as the thief of joy — and the ruler analogy that will stay with you
~Books, coaching & accessible tools for creatives at every level
~Paul's closing truth: "Unlike a game, we do not have three lives. This is your shot."

Whether you're a seasoned creative entrepreneur or still figuring out how to turn passion into a paycheck, this episode will challenge you, move you, and send you back to that idea you've been sitting on

Connect with Paul:
Website: https://paulpapedesigns.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulericpape
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paulpapedesigns
FB: https://www.facebook.com/paulpapedesigns
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/paulpapesnougat/featured

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Always remember, Listen to your Heart and Be Kind to Your Mind! -Rich Wright

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