You started your creative business to be your own boss. So why are you treating yourself like the worst boss you’ve ever had?

You make progress, accomplish awesome things, and keep learning. Yet somehow, it’s never enough.

We’ve convinced ourselves that being hard on ourselves is how we get better.

But what if that’s not true?

In this episode of The Complete Creative, I’m questioning the relationship between self-criticism, ambition, and success. And why the way you’re measuring your progress might be keeping you from enjoying what you’ve worked so hard to create.

We’re talking about:

• Why creative business owners can be their own harshest critics.
• The surprising difference between wanting to improve and believing you’re not good enough.
• What The Gap and the Gain reveals about how we measure success.
• Whether your inner critic is actually helping your business.

I believe we can learn, grow, and change without constantly looking for something wrong with ourselves.

And I’ve got a question that might change how you think about your business.

If something in this episode got you thinking, I’d love to keep the conversation going.

Let’s talk about your life & business. Have something you’d love to work through and haven't figured out how to do it on your own? Schedule a free CLARITY CALL. We’ll talk about what you’re creating, what’s happening now, and what you want to do next.

https://link.creativemindscoach.com/widget/bookings/free-clarity-call-brie

Find me on Instagram. Come say hello! I share thoughts on creative entrepreneurship, mindset, and building a business that works for you.

https://www.instagram.com/creativemindscoach/

Read along on Substack. More of my thoughts on creativity, business, and the way we choose to live and work.

https://substack.com/@briestockwell

Explore the Work Your Way series. A podcast series and companion field guide for creative entrepreneurs like you who want to rethink the way you work.

https://creativemindscoach.com/podcast/work-your-way-podcast-series

October is here, and if you’re a creative entrepreneur, chances are you’ve got a lot going on. Client projects, launches, holiday preparations, and all those things you planned to accomplish before the end of the year.

And maybe it’s all going really well!

But when we’re busy creating and doing work we love, how often do we actually stop to notice what’s happening?

For this month’s activation, I’m inviting you to Look Up. We’re taking a few minutes to notice what’s working in our lives and businesses, where things might need a little attention, and how we can make this season even better.

We’ll explore:

• What you might be missing when you’re busy running your creative business
• Why noticing what’s going right matters
• How to recognize where a small adjustment could make a difference
• Three questions to help you check in with what matters most

I’ll also share a simple invitation to notice the changing season and a beautiful poem that feels especially appropriate for October.

What if something in your life or business is already working better than you realize?

Work Your Way Podcast Series + Field Guide — Explore the series and find new ways to work in your business.

Connect with me on Substack — More thoughts on creativity, life, and creating success in business that feels great.

What if your creative business didn’t have to fit into someone else’s blueprint?

This is the final episode of my Work Your Way series, and I’m looking back at what changed for me as I explored a bigger question: How can we, as creative entrepreneurs, build businesses that work with our energy, our capacity, our creativity, and the lives we actually want to live?

Because being a creative entrepreneur gives us a lot of freedom. We get to decide what we create, when we work, what we sell, how much is enough, and even what success looks like. Which is awesome. And also…that’s a lot of decisions.

Over the course of this series, I started paying much closer attention to what I actually want from my own business. That led to Me Mondays, rethinking how many days a week I want to work, getting clearer about who I want to serve, and questioning some pretty deeply rooted ideas about hard work, money, value, and success.

I also realized I don’t need to figure out the perfect way to run my business. I can experiment. I can change my mind. I can keep recalibrating as I learn more about myself, my creative energy, and what I want my life and work to look like.

In this episode, I’m sharing:

• What the Work Your Way series changed in my own creative business
• Why I created Me Monday and what it showed me about my beliefs around work and value
• How I’m thinking differently about energy, capacity, and how much I actually want to work
• What it means to create a “right-size business” instead of chasing someone else’s version of growth
• Why creative entrepreneurs have an opportunity to design work around the way we actually operate
• Why I’m letting my life and business overlap more instead of trying to keep them in separate little boxes
• How experimentation has become part of the way I create and make business decisions
• Why wanting something different can feel uncomfortable—and why you don’t have to rush to do anything about it

If you’re a creative entrepreneur who has ever wondered, “Does my business really have to look like this?” I hope this entire series gives you a big fat permission slip to ask a different question:

What if it could work your way?

Explore the Work Your Way Field Guide + Podcast Series and use the questions inside to start thinking about what working your way could actually look like:

https://creativemindscoach.com/podcast/work-your-way-podcast-series

If you want support getting clear on what you want and how to bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be, book a Life Design Breakthrough Call:

https://link.creativemindscoach.com/widget/bookings/work-your-way-breakthrough

You can also learn more about working with me inside the 90-Day Life Design Intensive:

https://creativemindscoach.com/life-design-intensive-90-days

Work Your Way may be wrapping up, but I’m taking this question with me: How can I keep creating a business—and a life—that feels more like mine?

September has a fun kind of fresh-start energy.

Not quite January. Not quite “new year, new me.” More like… something is shifting, and maybe you can feel it too.

In this episode of The Complete Creative, I’m introducing something new: a monthly activation designed to help you pause, notice where you are right now, and be intentional about what you want to create next.

Because as creative entrepreneurs, our businesses don’t exist in a neat little box separate from the rest of our lives. Our creative work, business, relationships, routines, energy, and actual human lives overlap—and when one shifts, we tend to feel it everywhere.

So instead of immediately turning September into another giant list of goals, I’m inviting you to notice first.

What has fresh energy right now? What are you excited to return to? What did the past few months teach you about how you want to live, create, and work? And what might you be completely ready to leave behind?

Then we’ll look ahead together—not from pressure, but from possibility.

In this episode, I talk about:

• Why September can feel like a natural reset for creative entrepreneurs
• How to notice your current energy before deciding what comes next
• Using the past few months as information instead of judgment
• Recognizing what you genuinely want to return to—and what you don’t
• Finding the parts of your creative work and business that have fresh energy
• Looking at your life, creativity, and business as one connected ecosystem
• Choosing what deserves sustained attention instead of another quick burst of effort
• Getting curious about what you want to create without requiring it to become profitable or useful
• Looking toward the end of the year without falling into “finish strong” pressure
• Two questions to help you choose where you want to put your attention next

And here’s the question I really want you to take with you:

If you arrived at the end of December and looked back over these next four months, what would you be so grateful—and maybe even amazed—that you created?

It can be ambitious. It can be playful. It can be financial, creative, personal, practical, or completely different from what you thought you wanted in January.

You’re not the same person you were at the beginning of the year.

So maybe you don’t have to keep creating from an old plan.

What feels worthy of your attention now?

As a creative entrepreneur, success is about so much more than how your business is doing.

My friend Anne Miller and I took this conversation to the trail—literally. I’m pushing my grandson in the stroller, we’re getting a little winded on the hills, and we’re talking about how much our definitions of success have changed over the years.

We talk about money, health, relationships, creative work, business, getting older, and how easy it is to keep working toward something simply because you used to want it.

Sometimes that feeling that something is a little off is worth paying attention to. Maybe you’ve outgrown a goal. Maybe your priorities have changed. Or maybe it’s simply time to get clearer about what you want now.

We also talk about being happy with what you’ve created while still wanting more—and making small recalibrations as you go instead of assuming you have to change everything.

If you’re building a creative business, this is a chance to zoom out from the usual measures of success and think about the whole thing: What do I want my life to look like, and how do I want my creative work to fit into it?

We also mention my conversation with Allie Kuhland about Human Design and creative work:

⁠Listen to Human Design & Creative Work with Allie Kuhland

Connect with Anne Miller:

https://www.rethinkingsuccess.life/

→ If you're ready to work in seasons but aren't sure how it could be possible for you, schedule a Work Your Way Breakthrough call with Brie HERE.

This episode is part of the Work Your Way Summer Series — a collection of conversations about rethinking work, creativity, and the way you move through your days. Explore the full series: www.creativemindscoach.com/podcast/work-your-way-summer-series

What if your business didn’t have to look the same all year long?

I’m sitting outside at what we affectionately call the “swing set sanctuary” with my friend and fellow coach Kolette Hall for a conversation about doing business in seasons—and giving yourself permission to build work around the life you actually want.

Kolette has intentionally created a business that changes with the seasons of her life. For her, summer means something very specific: Long Live Summer. She steps away from much of her regular marketing, pauses her newsletter and podcast, keeps a small number of client calls she genuinely enjoys, and creates more room for reading, family, travel, reflection, and simply being.

And her business still works.

We talk about what it takes to trust a way of working that might look different from what everyone else is doing—and why experimenting is such an important part of figuring out what actually works for you.

Because building a creative business isn’t about getting everything exactly right the first time. You get to try things, pay attention, make little course corrections, and keep walking toward the work and life you want.

In this conversation, Kolette and I talk about:

• What it means to do business in seasons instead of working the same way 365 days a year
• Why Kolette intentionally created a referral-based coaching business
• How she experimented her way into her “Long Live Summer” approach
• Letting go of the idea that consistency always means doing more
• Creating a life-first business based on what you actually want
• Paying attention when something in your business just doesn’t feel like a fit anymore
• Why your business can keep working even when you’re not constantly marketing
• Giving yourself permission to change something that worked before but doesn’t work now
• Dreaming bigger before you know exactly how you’ll make it happen
• Finding support that helps you keep walking toward what you want

One of my favorite questions from this conversation is ridiculously simple: What if you could?

What if you could take the time off? What if your business could work differently? What if you could build your schedule around your creativity, your family, your adventures, or whatever matters most to you?

You don’t have to know exactly how yet.

Maybe you just get to start walking toward it.

Long Live Summer.

Connect with Kolette Hall:

⁠kolettehall.com

→ If you're ready to work in seasons but aren't sure how it could be possible for you, schedule a Work Your Way Breakthrough call with Brie HERE.

This episode is part of the Work Your Way Summer Series — a collection of conversations about rethinking work, creativity, and the way you move through your days. Explore the full series: www.creativemindscoach.com/podcast/work-your-way-summer-series

Katie Pulsifer spent years being the kind of employee every company wants.

High-achieving. Trusted. Loyal. The person you put on the important project because she will figure it out and get it done.

Then, one day, it was over.

The job she loved ended unexpectedly, and suddenly the identity that had served her so well for decades didn’t fit the business she was building next.

In this episode of The Complete Creative, I’m joined by Katie Pulsifer, master certified life coach and creator of the Golden Coaching Certification, for a conversation about what it looks like to stop following business advice just because it’s popular and start paying attention to how you actually work best.

Katie shares how she moved from a long career in fashion, product development, and corporate leadership into coaching, then spent five years helping grow The Life Coach School before returning to her own business at 55.

And yes, she tried ALL the things.

Facebook ads. Webinars. Freebies. Software. Hiring too soon. There are apparently stacks of old course binders in a closet, which made me feel much better about every business experiment I’ve ever quietly abandoned.

What Katie discovered is that her business grows through something much more natural to her: conversations with real people.

She builds through connection, relationships, thank-you notes, cheering people on, and asking herself who she wants to “put love on” that day.

We also talk about how to tell the difference between something feeling uncomfortable because it’s new and a genuine full-body no, why data matters when you’re deciding what to keep or release, and what happened when Katie stopped trying to force herself into the “do one thing” rule and embraced multiple revenue streams instead.

This episode is part of my Work Your Way Summer Series, and I love Katie as an example of what’s possible. You do not need to copy her business. You don’t need to quit Instagram or start a Substack.

But you can start asking better questions about your own.

• The identity shift from exceptional employee to entrepreneur
• The difference between a skill gap and a mindset gap
• What Katie learned from business strategies that didn’t work for her
• Why conversations and connection became the foundation of her business
• How she decides what to keep, change, or let go
• Why Instagram was a full-body no and Substack became a full-body yes
• The value of shedding the “beginner” identity
• Why “do one thing” isn’t the right advice for everyone
• Using values, data, and self-trust to make business decisions

⁠Visit Katie Pulsifer Coaching

Katie also has a short reflection quiz on her website for those moments when you know you’re meant for more but can’t quite put language around what that is yet. She personally sends back a voice memo with her reflections on your answers—which feels VERY on brand for this whole conversation.

⁠Read You Are Golden on Substack

We talk about trusting those full-body yeses and nos in your business. If that piece made your ears perk up, listen to my conversation with Allie Kuhland about Human Design and creative work:

⁠Listen to the Human Design episode

→ If you're ready for work to feel different but aren't sure how it could be possible for you, schedule a Work Your Way Breakthrough call with Brie HERE.

This episode is part of the Work Your Way Summer Series — a collection of conversations about rethinking work, creativity, and the way you move through your days. Explore the full series: www.creativemindscoach.com/podcast/work-your-way-summer-series

Building a business can feel surprisingly lonely, especially when you're trying to figure everything out on your own.

We could spend so much time looking for the next strategy, marketing tactic, or productivity hack that we forget one of the most valuable assets we have as creatives: the people around us.

In this episode of The Complete Creative, I'm joined by Brian Thompson, who co-founded the CreativeMornings Austin chapter and now serves as Content Manager for the global CreativeMornings community. Through his work creating social media content and the weekly newsletter, Brian has a front-row seat to the power of creative communities around the world. We talk about why the relationships you build can shape your creative work, your confidence, and the opportunities that come your way.

Brian shares how CreativeMornings has created a space where thousands of creatives have found connection, encouragement, collaboration, and unexpected opportunities simply by showing up. We also talk about curiosity, following the energy, and why meaningful relationships often become the catalyst for our best work.

If you've ever felt like you have to build your business by yourself, this conversation is your reminder that you don't have to.

• Why community is one of the most valuable investments you can make in your creative business

• What makes CreativeMornings such a powerful space for connection and collaboration

• How simply showing up can lead to opportunities you never could have planned

• The difference between networking and building genuine relationships

• Why curiosity creates more opportunities than having all the answers

• How following the energy can shape both your creative work and your business

• Why the people you surround yourself with influence the work you create

• CreativeMornings: https://www.creativemornings.com/

• Brian's coworking community, Stoke the Coals: https://stokethecoals.com/

• Connect with Brian on Instagram

• Artist and longtime CreativeMornings Austin visual storyteller Ami Plasse: https://www.gonzoviz.com/amitaiplasseartist

A special shout-out to Ami Plasse, whose live visual storytelling has become such a memorable part of the CreativeMornings Austin experience. His work is incredible, and I highly encourage you to check it out.

Brian and I also touch on an idea that's become a recurring theme throughout the Work Your Way Summer Series: money is energy. If that part of the conversation caught your attention, be sure to listen to my conversation with Crystal Hiatsma, where we explore how your relationship with money shapes the way you work, create, and grow.

→ If you're ready for work to feel different but aren't sure how it could be possible for you, schedule a Work Your Way Breakthrough call with Brie HERE.

This episode is part of the Work Your Way Summer Series — a collection of conversations about rethinking work, creativity, and the way you move through your days. Explore the full series: www.creativemindscoach.com/podcast/work-your-way-summer-series