Season 1 – MC13: Fighting for What You Love with Mike Rohde

What this episode covers

In Episode 13 of The Mindful Creator, I chat with designer Mike Rohde about finding that deeper determination to fight for the work that you love. Mike is a designer, author, illustrator and sketchnoter with a passion for simple and usable design solutions. He has published two books on sketchnoting, The Sketchnote Handbook and The Sketchnote Workbook, and has provided custom illustration for New York Times bestsellers, REWORK and REMOTE by 37signals, The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau and The Little Book of Talent by New York Times bestselling author Daniel Coyle. In this episode, Mike and I discuss the evolution of our creative processes and how to push through when real life struggles threaten to pull you under. Link Love Writer Pro (Mike uses for his books) Showing up can be simple Music For Focus and Creativity (what I use for writing/creating) – The American Dollar plannerhack.com (Mike mentions in our segment on productivity hacking) In this Episode * Mike talks about his 20+ year journey as a designer and an illustration. * The evolution of Mike’s design and illustration processes and how this introduced intentional limitations into his work. * The advent of sketchnoting, or “visual note taking,” in Mike’s process and how that led to a variety of opportunities at conferences and an eventual book deal. * How Mike’s willingness to accept and seek out limitations in creative projects forced himself to be present in his work and find more satisfaction in the grind. * The journey of writing and handling all of the production work on his first book, and the struggle to be creative and see this project through while dealing with serious family challenges. * Using challenges as a way forward. * Leaning on learning from your struggles when everything seems to fall apart. * Why my failure to place “purposeful limitations” around creative work has led to incomplete or unfinished projects. * Why we can’t always choose our situations, but we can choose how we creatively respond. * Learning to recognize the true nature of your struggles through self awareness and acceptance and reframing them. * Mike – “Sometimes fighting for what you love means pushing against a situation and finding a way to change it.” * Why accepting where you are can help you get passed denial that keeps you from moving forward. * Why acceptance is about creating space to take the emotion out of the equation so you can gain some objectivity to deal with creative struggles (which is really hard when you’re deeply attached to your work). * Mike talks about the real tests of determination that he faced on higher-stake projects and how he overcame them (note – every big project Mike has done h...

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