All Episodes
Gifted Underachievers — 301 episodes
How to Escape Someone Else’s Dysfunction Trap!
Contest Update: Narrative Sends James a Nice Note
Listener Profile: Beyond Craft by Joe Ponepinto
The Fabulous Amber Petty!
Gifted Achiever Richard Kelly Kemick
Are AI Hallucinations Taking Down Creatives?
Diversifying Your Market Across Borders
Who Are We Without Our Captives? (Silly)
Are You Heading Where You Want to Go?
Does Creative Detritus Imprison Us?
Introducing Listener Profiles
Your CEO Meeting: A Case Study
Your Network Signals Who You Are
The Fuel That Powers Artistic Glory: Cheese
Tipping Point Acts: Steps Up the Ladder
Space Overhaul for Creative Optimization
PSA: It's Tick Season, Folks!
Immersive Creative Careers: Social or Antisocial?
Do You Suffer from Time Zone Insensitivity?
Nietzsche on Loving Your Fate
Case Study: Pitching for High-Value Projects
Newsflash: GU Launches Extraction Team in Response to $1B Academy Lawsuit
Optimizing Your Creative-Adjacent Biz
Critiquing Other Creatives
What’s Your Personal Narrative as a Creative?
Newsflash: Academy Sues GU for $1B! (silly)
What is a Gifted Underachiever?
Sustainable Creative-Adjacent Careers
Releasing John Irving
Can Constraints Release Creative Flow
The GU Bee Oscars for Below the Line Crew (silly)
British Social Time (inane)
Grant Experiment Update: the Agony of Bread Loaf
GU Finds the Clock (silly)
Metabolize Your World Through Art
How do you define success?
Grant Experiment Update: Another Near Miss
James' Pearl
Reset Your Creativity
How to Use Speaking Gigs
The Sumo Honeymoon (Silly)
Minor Leagues for the Arts World
Macroeconomics for Creatives
Free John Irving! (silly)
Growth Plans for Creatives
When to Ditch or Delay a Creative Project
Podcasters vs. the HR Department
Our Minds Need a Break
Contests & Grant Apps: Who’s Your Audience?
Throat Clearing Silliness
The Value of Pitching to Non-Artists
Go in Hot: Lessons from a Creative Retreat
How to F*ck Up and Survive the Experience
Kath Montstream
What Makes Your Creative Work Matter?
Fearless Dumb Questions
We are Nymphs ... & That's OK
Cuts to Arts & Adapting Business Strategy
Pension Projects for Creatives
Stress and Brain Function
What's Your Biggest Creative Fear?
Creative Retreat: A Case Study
Protect Your Intellectual Property
How to Juggle Many Projects at Once
Both Lived and Professional Experience Matter
Work for Free? Depends
Creative Trip Prep: Nitty Gritty Edition
Banish Self-Sabotage in Grant Applications
A Stencher in the Making
We Know Podcasting! (An Underachieving How To)
Here’s to Spring
Tax Time for Creatives
Health & Creative Workers
Judge the Work, Not the Network
Case Study: How to Organize a Big Creative Project
Creative Work Cannot be Rushed…Mostly
What’s YOUR Brand?
Grant Update: Virtue Signaling & Other Sins
Pat Receives an 'Apparatus'
Nihilism, Agency, & Creative Work
Explaining Your Creative Work
Permission to be a Self-Centered Creative
How We Successfully Underachieve
Cowlick Jim Quaker Cowboy
SitReps as 2026 Begins
Rigid Mentorship (NOT a double entendre)
Gaining Creative Agency
The Winter of Our Discontent
Pitching a Platform: The Experiment
Creatives & Money: Ways to View Debt
It's a DIY Creative Life
Gifted Underachiever Germaphobes
Case Study: Alternate Revenue Streams
Competition Experiment: Better Data & Better Targeting
Candy Karen (Silly)
Nancy No-Mates Know-it-All (silly)
Unsaturated Opportunities to Sell Your Expertise
Happy New Year!
Outsourcing Sh*t to Live a Creative Life
Kill the Magic for Creative Growth
Merry Yule from the GU Clubhouse
Adaptation & Transformation for Creatives
Sigma Riz Contest Update
The Most Elitist Muffin
Anne Ramallo: Poet, Editor & Publisher
Get Inspired with Isaac Hirotsu Woofter
Virtuous Feedback Financing Loop
If Not Writing, What?
Thanksgiving with the Gifted Underachievers
Perfectionism & The Comedian’s Mindset
Defanging Chaotic Workflows
Podcast Merchandise: Lessons Learned
The Contest Experiment Begins
When Opportunity Knocks You Up
Our First Fight
Literary Agents Ghosted, Oh My!
Getting Unstuck Creatively
John Irving: Holiday Prepper
The Grant Experiment Pivot: DIE HARD
Functional Fixedness
The Hard-Easy Effect in Creative Work
Marketing Starter Kit for Creatives
How Good Are You?
The Perverse Farmers' Market (Silly)
Finding Creative Fodder in Other People's Art
Overcoming Nihilism as a Creative
7 Simple Phrases for Creative Collaboration
1 Technique to Regain Your Creative Confidence
Death by Misadventure
Are Creatives Too Nostalgic?
The Future for Creative Workers
Dobes Gets Her Groove Back (silly)
Overthinking Your Art? Try This.
Theatre Talk with Gifted Underachievers
Overthought & Underdone: the GU Revenge Fantasy
Lessons from a Year of Applying for Creative Grants
AI Use Policies for Creatives
The Sixth Pinkie: A Polydactyl's Memoir
Halo Effect & Building On Marketing Powers You Already Possess
Finding More Capacity with Email Equanimity
Welcome to Canada: Have a Caesar!
Things Don't Happen in August
High-Volume Creative “Solopreneurs”—How Do They Do It?
Proving There's An Audience For Your Work
Call for Guests
How to Test Your Craft Capabilities
Michael Palin, Avoidance, & the Creative Archetype
A Curious Boy
Is Consistency Overrated for Creative Work?
Is There An Audience for Your Work?
Where Do Ideas Come From?
Work Habits & Workflows for Creatives
Keep John A-thrive
Can Art Still Drive Social Change?
Every Creative Needs Grit
Should Art Carry Trigger Warnings?
Episode 54: Gifted Achiever Joe Ponepinto
Thinking Bigger About Grants
The Gifted Underachievers Go Waaaay Off Track
From Fumbling Around to Finding Your Creative Style
Custom Pitch Lists & Using AI to Grow Capacity
How to Make Time for Passive Income
How Could $10k Best Serve Your Creative Life?
How to Work in the Summer (& all the seasons)
Are Men Done with Fiction?
How to Respond When Opportunity Knocks
An All-Male Publisher & Representation
The Science of Island Cows
Your Creative Future & the ISC
Inauthentic Marketing: How NOT to Do It
Regenerative Creative Retreats: Risks & Rewards
The Palermo Incident
Creatives: Who Can You Disappoint?
John Irving Wants Out for the Summer
Our London Bee Costume Goal
Special Guest: Gifted Achiever Sharon Louden
Gifted Underachievers Delusional First Lawsuit
A Possible Upside of Losing US NEA/NEH Grants
Grant Update: The Yes/No Result
Ad Stalking on Social Media (Silly)
Is a Home Office the Creative Ideal?
When You're Ready to Quit
Richard Kelly Kemick: Best Ever Grant Advice
Bugout Bags for Creatives
Creatives Serve the World
5 Golden Tips for Getting Grants
What's Your Local Ecosystem?
Is the Simplest Pitch the Best Pitch?
Interview with Gifted Achiever Nadja Lubiw-Hazard
Introducing the C-Squared Fallacy©
What's Your Creative Persona?
How to Write a Novel in 3 Days!
Building Economic Capacity & Dealing with the Beauty Contest
Capacity Building for Creatives #2
Overwhelmed and Dissatisfied?
How Not to Screw Up an Artist Statement or Bio
Dopamine Hits & How to Not Get Killed
The Captive Downstairs: John Irving Silliness
Gifted Achiever Richard Kelly Kemick
The Yaddo Gutshot
How to Celebrate Good News
Is This the Death of Blurbing?
Gifted Achiever Julianna Brazill
Doorbell Silliness
A Discussion of Time & Capacity
Special Guest: Gifted Achiever Miriam Ruff
Don’t Beat Yourself Up for Not Winning the Lottery
Grant Update: From Despair to Enlightenment
Gas Masks in the Basement with John Irving
The Search for Cheap Equanimity
Meaningful Conversations: What are they & how do you have more of them?
Pat & James Dilute the MAGA Brand (Silly)
Fitness & The Sedentary Creative
Grants Experiment Update – Good News!
Gifted Achiever Doug Harrison
How to Create a Life that Fits via “Unfolding”
Canada/US tensions, Tariffs, (Effing Trump) & Creatives
The Slacker Stalker
Who's Got Your Back?
James Hangs a Picture
Little Brainstorms
Tax Time (Ugh!)
Zoom Weirdsies
T-Shirt Silliness
What if Your Art is Considered Old-Fashioned?
Allostatic Load: Understanding Stress to Defang It
Sit Reps: What's Going Right in a Troubled Time
2025 Goal-Setting Attempt
Gatekeepers & Qualifications
YouTube Weirdos
Interview with Gifted Achiever: Carrie McConkey
Take the Pause
Using Music in Your Creative Toolkit
Headbands & Movie Set Delusions
Are Comparisons Odious in a Creative Career?
Situation Reports on Recent Pitches
Branding Silliness: The Gifted Part
Interview with Gifted Achiever: Kristin Hugo
The Grants Experiment is Kicking our Asses
The Holiday Season Slalom
Post-Nasal Drip Silliness
Cliché, Stereotype & Always Be Interesting
Small Creative Acts
Borat & Nabokov
Reinventing Your Looks: Does it Matter?
The Post-Gig Blahs: What to do
Communicating Like a Creative
Body Doubling: An Invitation to Listeners
Why Being a Midlevel Creative is Something to Celebrate
The Sandwich Generation & Creative Work
Podcast Delusional Silliness
DON'T PANIC!!!
The Gifted Underachievers Disclaimer
Exploring Subjectivity
Income Streams Update
Explain Your Fees: Yes or No?
Creatives' Daily Rituals
The GU Hard Launch! Lessons Learned
What's Wrong with Working for Exposure?
Do Smaller Creative Acts Have Value?
The Creative Subconscious & Getting Unstuck
Be The Character Actor or The Star?
How to Avoid Creative Money Pits
Being Strategic with Limited Burners
Create a Logline in Real Time
Interview: Kath Montstream
The Grant Experiment: Pat’s Update
The Grant Experiment: James’ Update
Delusional Marketing & Merch Drop Update
Kath Montstream: Cold Water Dipping Advice
Entitlement: What it Means for the Rest of Us
Whatever's Gone Wrong, it's Going to Change
Privilege vs. Grinding it Out
Doug Harrison of FEN
Gifted Underachievers: Focus on What Matters
Outtake: Tech Silliness
How to Get Grants: An Experiment
Is Creativity a Business?
Financial Stress & Creative Underperforming
Goals Must Change for Growth
How NOT To Do Guerrilla Marketing
Never Deliver a Problem
Accessing Gated Opportunities - Part 2
Ways to Gauge Your Creative Anxiety
The Frustrations of Working from Home
Failed Pitches and Gatekeepers
The Trundle Stories & Getting to Flow
Accessing Gated Opportunities - Part 1
Delusional Merch Silliness
The Transactional Nature of Mentorship
Online Dating for Agents & Writers
"Who, Not How" & Building Value
Just-Right Ambition
Money & Jobby Jobs
Goals & the Real World Part 2
Managing Constant Rejection
The John Irving Delusion
Goals & the Real World - Part 1
Branding for Creatives
The Call from Oslo
Disclaimer for first-time listeners