Embrace the Quirky: Exploring the Joy of Random Creative Bursts

Guest Writer: Chad Marcus Smith

In the vast landscape of our minds lies an intricate web of thoughts, ideas, and whimsical musings waiting to be explored. Often, it’s the unexpected, the random, and the unconventional ideas that pave the way for our most creative endeavors. And through it all,  such as they are, these ribbons of randomness pulsing through our brains can be the intellectual lightning storm,of innovation  new ideas or leading us down imaginative paths  we never knew existed.

Photo by Steph Wilson @stephwill

Our minds are fascinating realms where chaos and creativity collide. Sometimes, in the midst of our daily routines, a random thought emerges - an idea that seems to come out of nowhere. It could be an unusual combination of words, a peculiar image, or a quirky scenario playing out in our heads. These seemingly inconsequential thoughts are the raw materials of creativity.

Embracing Playfulness

Embracing these random thoughts often requires a dash of playfulness. It’s about letting go of the constraints of practicality and allowing ourselves to revel in the joy of imagination. Engaging in creative play, such as doodling aimlessly, engaging in word associations, or daydreaming, can provide fertile ground for these spontaneous bursts of creativity.

Cultivating Creativity

To nurture these random creative thoughts, creating an environment that encourages exploration is key. Surrounding oneself with diverse experiences, exposing oneself to new art forms, literature, music, or even engaging in unconventional activities, can stimulate the mind and encourage unconventional thinking.

Turning Quirkiness into Innovation

Many groundbreaking ideas have originated from seemingly bizarre or unrelated thoughts. Take, for instance, the story of the Post-it note, born out of a failed attempt at developing a super-strong adhesive. Embracing the randomness of creative thoughts can lead to unexpected breakthroughs and innovative solutions.

Photo by Ian Schneider @goian

Embracing the Journey

Exploring the realm of random creative thoughts is not just about the destination—it’s about enjoying the journey. It’s about relishing the process of discovery, embracing the unpredictability, and finding joy in the surprises our minds offer.

Conclusion

In a world that often values structured thinking and linear progress, the beauty of random creative thoughts lies in their spontaneity and unpredictability. They remind us to embrace the unconventional, explore the uncharted territories of our minds, and find joy in the simple act of letting our imaginations roam freely. So, the next time a peculiar idea pops into your head, embrace it, play with it, and see where it takes you—you might just stumble upon something truly extraordinary.

How to Integrate AI Into Your Creative Practice

Guest Writer: Shauna Friedman

FreelanceMikey offers an irreplaceable human touch for your business and creative endeavors with services like idea brainstorming, coaching, and editing.

How to Integrate AI Into Your Creative Practice

Whether you’re a writer, designer, composer, or other creative, it’s time to sit up and take notice of AI, if you aren’t already. As you likely know, AI is increasingly being incorporated into work processes because it saves so much time and effort, and offers several AI-specific benefits (like big data analysis). This includes creative processes – everything from digital design and content development to music-making and film.

The HBR sums it up nicely: AI won’t replace humans – but humans with AI will replace humans without AI. Incorporating AI into your creative practice can help you offer a better quality of service and reduce your workload.

Below, FreelanceMikey Creative Consulting offers a mini-guide on how to integrate AI into your existing creative endeavors.

Understanding the collaborative role of AI

AI works by analyzing vast data sets, identifying patterns, and then outputting results. AI can’t replace human creativity, imagination, and emotions – but it can inspire, augment, and enhance all three. It can give you a boilerplate to build from, refine, and add to, and it can collaborate with you to make your work easier.

Building a collaborative workflow

To make full use of an AI tool in your creative practice, you can build a collaborative workflow that integrates an AI app or tool. Creatives can find specific AI apps for their niche (such as image generation software if they’re a designer). Or you can use a general-purpose AI tool like ChatGPT.

Here’s a working example of how to integrate an AI app into your workflow:

• Initial human manual prompt: First, you provide the AI with a clear set of guidelines, parameters, or examples of works related to your desired output. If you’re designing a webpage, you can input a theme (type of website), some style guidelines, and script interactivity.

• Human screening of AI output: The AI will generate some output for you, which you should screen for quality and accuracy. You can ask the AI to make changes to the output or use the output as a new prompt to generate a different (related) output.

• Manual human refinement: If you like the output, you can make changes to it manually, based on your unique experience, skills, and talents.

• Final human-AI combined result: Once you iterate your work enough, you have the final result, which is a mix of AI and human-generated work. Ideally, you want an output that optimally leverages human and AI strengths (and covers each others’ weaknesses).

The quality of the results you receive will depend on your initial prompt and the AI tool in question. Many AI tools also learn as they go (machine learning), offering better results the more you work with them.

Which creatives can use AI?

Almost all creatives that work with computers or use computer-related apps and tools for their work can use AI. This includes writers, designers, poets, game developers, architects, photographers, music composers, and more. You can check AI trends for your unique niche if you’re curious.

Can you fully automate creative processes?

The answer is yes, although with some caveats. The work produced isn’t always high-quality or original – AI doesn’t have a human identity, emotions, perspectives, and experiences. These things can only be simulated to a degree. It’s not real enough, essentially, and a trained eye can spot the difference.

AI does excel at automating recurring processes, however – if you have to do the same thing over and over again, an AI tool can do it perfectly every time. This has more applications in the business world, which involves a lot of recurring processes like accounting, as opposed to the creative world, which has much more nuance and originality.

You have to add a human quality to creative AI work

Ai can’t generate high-quality creative work by itself – it needs your creative training and input. You need to know what quality work looks like to be able to produce original quality work yourself (with AI assistance). If you’re in the content development niche (marketing, writing, or similar), you can learn about quality content through online resources.

Conclusion

Keep in mind that AI is still a work in progress and has several limitations, especially when it comes to creative work. While it can make your creative practice easier and automate some recurring tasks, it doesn’t always produce quality work, and you’ll still need a trained human eye to get the most out of it.

Image via Unsplash

Hi, everyone!

Hi All,

Checking back in after a long hiatus from the website blog to give you an update on the goings-on at freelancemikey.com and beyond.

Life has been moving a little more adventurously lately, as I’ve moved into a new home since my last post. With that said, I’ve still been working on several personal projects including a film that I should be finished writing within a few months. I’ve also ventured out into new sources of income and expanded my financial future through them. I will continue to work in consulting, marketing, copywriting, and music production and I hope that you’ll join me in my journey.

In the coming months, I’ll be writing interviews in blog form with various artists of all genres and walks of life, and having some fun, and maybe even making some new friends along the way.

Keep rollin’,

Mikey 

Seeking Artists and Creative Business Professionals for Interviews

Hey there, all! Some exciting news!

 If you are an artist or creative business professional who would like to be profiled on the FreelanceMikey Blog, please contact me here or at my preferred email at mike.lapenna@gmall.com.

I’m also taking some time to aggregate some content on here to create a more expansive experience. I’m excited about where things can go in the next few months.

I’ll be revamping and re-populating some of the comments  sections soon as well. Stay tuned!

Yours,

Michael LaPenna

Create With Us!

Business is expanding more quickly than I could’ve imagined, and for the better. The blog posts may continue to be a bit more curated or sporadic in the near term. Of course, if you would like to blog with us, more specifically, with me Mikey, Fill out your information at the “Work with us!” section at the contact page here and I’ll get back to you usually within 48 hours. 

Keep creating,
Michael LaPenna

Four of the Most Important Freelance Jobs to Hire Out for Your Small Business

by Courtney Rosenfeld, gigspark.biz

There are many advantages to hiring out freelance work for your business. If you run a small business, for instance, you may have realized that you don’t need a full-time staff. Or, perhaps you would like a full-time staff but can’t afford it. Either way, hiring freelancers can free up time and money for you to spend on growing your business in a way that would be much more difficult than if you were paying a full-time staff. 

Yes, it still costs money. But it can cost less money than paying a staff over time, and the growth and reduced stress you experience will likely make it more than worthwhile. Determine what kind of projects you need done, set your budget, ask around for referrals, and review job boards. Once you have a candidate in mind, send them a test project. If they return a completed project to you on time that meets your standards, you may have a keeper. If not, keep looking until you find a freelancer in that specialty who provides the product you’re envisioning. 

Finding the best freelancer you can at a price point you can work with will help you focus on the tasks you need to, and it will ultimately help your business flourish. While there are many different types of freelance work, these four are some of the most essential ones to consider. 

Virtual Assistants 

Any successful business owner will tell you that delegating tasks is vital to effectively running a company. When you delegate tasks that don’t come naturally to you and that will waste your time, you can spend time on things that grow your business. There are many tasks that can be taken care of by a virtual assistant, and looking on the right job board can direct you to qualified, reliable candidates. Essentially, a virtual assistant can do anything from administrative support and scheduling to customer service and data entry. 

Web Designers

It’s no secret that an awesome website is necessary for any small business. There are many platforms available today that allow someone with minimal design knowledge to build a website; however, these websites are often easily spotted, and the limited features of these platforms can make it difficult for your site to stand out among the crowd. Bringing in a web designer can give you a unique, high-quality site with responsive design technology. Also, a professionally designed site will be more reliable, run more efficiently, and increase your company’s search engine optimization (SEO). 

Content Writers

Providing audiences with written content has become increasingly important for small businesses of all kinds. Having a blog on your website that discusses industry-related subject matter and offers expert advice highlights your company’s credibility. Qualified content writers can write about topics your audience cares about in a readable way. Furthermore, they can clearly translate ideas that you don’t know how to put into words, and they can provide an unbiased view of your products and services.

Social Media Managers

Finally, hiring a social media manager can prove invaluable to your business. Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter offer affordable (and sometimes free) marketing tools, and bringing in a professional who knows how to utilize and manage those tools can free you up to work on the things you’re best at. A social media manager can lay out a strategic plan for your social presence, consistently post meaningful content, promote your brand and products/services, expand your customer reach, and ultimately boost your sales. 

As a small business owner, virtual assistance, web design, content writing, and social media management are all jobs you should consider hiring out to freelancers. Remember to find the best candidate you can within your budget, and test them out before committing to multiple projects. Hiring qualified freelancers can free up your time to focus on the projects you do best so that your company can grow and thrive as much as possible. 

Photo Credit: Burst

Courtney Rosenfield started her career in the gig economy after several years of enviously watching others do the same thing. She started Gigspark to be a resource and a first step for people who are looking to join the gig economy, either to supplement their income or as a way to fulfill their dreams of becoming an entrepreneur.

Coming This Fall to FreelanceMikey.com!

I’m back with a quick update about this blog. Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and non-binary patrons and readers!

Life is getting busy as I get ready to ebmark on several new endeavors, and with all this, I’m going to be transforming this blog into an information and interview portal into the hearts and minds of creative professionals from every walk of life from America to Indonesia and any and all points in between. (I’d go into space if I could). My goal is to take you on as many fun journeys into the worlds of creative business art and the art of creative business In ways that are at once focused and fun, comprehensive yet conversational.

Interviews and features will include any of the following:

• Entrepreneurs

• Educators

• Business leaders

• Visual artists

• Musicians

• Actors

• Comedians

• Novelists

• Screenwriters

• Playwrights

• Graphic designers

• Home stagers

• Multimedia artists

• Psychologists

• Sociologists

• Biographers/historians

Join me this fall as we take a journey into all this and more!

Don’t Call It a Comeback: The FreelanceMikey Blog Gears Up for That ‘New New’

A formal occasion (not my wedding)

Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and nonbinary digital natives! After a long hiatus, I’m back to update you on all the goings-on of late with FreelanceMikey Creative Consultation and what has been the cause of this long but much-needed sabbatical. The FreelanceMikey blog has been dormant lately due to shifting dynamics in the business and in my own life of late. I’ve been focusing on my editing, music mixing, and keeping up my physical health working with a physical therapist (due to my cerebral palsy).

In this vein, I want to take time to appreciate your visit to the website and the FreelanceMikey brand and blog, and I absolutely thank you for your patience. (I’m also planning my wedding these days, so my life rolls on hard—both in and out of my wheelchair ♿️).

New projects, new locations, new interviews, and new horizons are in motion for all of the creative campaigns that my friends, colleagues, and I aim to bring to the fore in 2019.

Currently, there are a few projects very key projects underway including general project consulting and specialized projects. Formats and pricing and listed in the home menu. Go to our services page for more.

Most absolutely, I want you to know that going forward as always, I definitely want to further my mission in helping you be yourself fully in whatever medium you choose to explore.

May you move boldly and follow your bliss,

Michael LaPenna

Sage Advice from Anna Akana on How to Write a Script That Makes Sense

Hey, people of the world! I’m back on the scene after a brief hiatus to bring you some sage Wednesday Wisdom from Anna Akana on how to write a script (and a pretty good script at that). Anna is someone whose work ethic, gumption, and generally humorous attitude toward life on this spinning spaceball we call a planet gives me cause to be very hopeful for the prospects of our generation where the arts are concerned. :)

Multimedia writer, actor, author, and awesomeness steward Anna Akana sits down to give her simple breakdown of what it takes to get started writing a script. Anna’s synopsis resonates with me in particular because it is a basic intro to screenwriting equipped with all the meaning and mastery of a Syd Field Screenwriting course or Joseph Campbell’s classic text The Hero with a Thousand Faces—but with a bit of a salve for all the nerves that a newbie writer might feel when jumping headfirst into the murky waters of a feature length idea with say, five pages of cohesive content and the rest of your text functioning about as well as a life raft with hole in it. Following Anna’s steps, you’ll at least stay calm long enough to keep your idea afloat until you can make something of it and have a working script that has a story to tell. Happy writing!

Anna Akana shares some great ways that you can turn your story into a script.

annaakana.com

Updates, updates!

Hey All,

Just a quick update from yours truly from the FreelanceMikey headquarters in beautiful suburban New York. I’ve had to take some time to handle my health in the past two weeks, but now it’s time to get back on the horse! I’m currently in the process of booking interview segments for the blog here on the FreelanceMikey website.

If you're a creative person who kind of views life from a 45° angle (as George Carlin used to say) or just looking to showcase your work in a way that is accessible, talkative, intuitive, and fun, contact me here or on Twitter and Instagram @FreelanceMikey! i’d love to talk shop with you about  your contributing influences, meandering pathways, and your highest moments of creative clarity in life, art, business, personal growth, and more. I look forward to chatting with you soon!
 

#MondayMotivation: How To Get What You Really Want: Nine Principles

Another installment of #MondayMotivation all about the mentality that helps you get what you really want out of life (or at least can get you there much faster than worrying).

The nine principles below illustrate Dr. Wayne W. Dyer's nine principles of manifestation for getting that which our most loving of hearts long for: purpose, direction, love, and happiness and the truest joys of life. They show us how to lift ourselves from the all too common doldrums of "I  have a desire to be something,' to "I am something." As you go through the list, take a few moments to visualize each step as you read it.

As I have written about this topic at previous sites, I come from a more secular humanist angle here so that these nine principles apply to religious and secular readers equally. These techniques are cognitive techniques to train your mind to be more allowing of good things and positive thoughts in your day to day.

 

Nine Principles of Manifestation

 

1. Live from Your Highest Self - "I have an ability to manifest and attract all that I need and desire." 

 

This is not a call to do drugs or to float whimsically out of your body and suddenly obtain that beach house in Miami you've wanted since you and Beach House Barbie dreamed of it when you were seven. It means to know you have a reason for existing and have found meaning in your work. Find meaning in your life's work and you'll find that even working long hours is a joy.

 

2. Learn to Trust Your Inner Wisdom - "I trust in myself and in the wisdom within." 

 

Simply put, know yourself and what works the best for you. We all are different in this regard. Some of us are athletes, some doctors and some of us store clerks. Some of us are funnier, while others more serious. But what truly is paramount to success is knowing your strengths and weakness for your strengths give you confidence and your weaknesses keep you humble. It's all about knowing how you can help, but also recognizing when you need help from others.

 

3. Honor Your Worthiness to Receive - "I deserve to experience good things."

With many of us growing up with traditional Christian concepts of being "unworthy of the grace and love of God," this step can be a tricky bit of business to explain. This step is not saying you don't make mistakes or that you aren't capable of doing wrong. It is to say rather that you are to think of yourself as intended to be in connection with that which made you, (what I call God) like being plugged into electricity moving through existence to serve your specifically gifted purpose.

 

4. Realize that You Are Not Separate from Your Environment - "I am one with my surroundings, aware of the connective energy between me and my world."

 

On a basic level, to realize that each thing that exists is part of and connected to a larger whole allows you see purpose and possibly opportunity for growth in each experience, good or bad. Also where direct human interaction is concerned, in India's ancient traditions there is the philosophy that says when you can see yourself in all others, you're no longer able to have true enemies and your anger turns to pity for the person who wishes you harm because you realize that the harm that you once thought only went one way actually goes all ways. In this mode, you'll now have a greater desire to be helpful, kind and the best you can be on all levels because the good you used to want only for you now extends to everyone and everything in some way.

 

5. Attract What You Desire - Visualize things working out and be solution minded if they don't.

 

In religion, Jesus in The Gospel of Matthew expresses that the Father desires to give good gifts to his children. You must believe you live from a source of giving, not lack. Think, "Good things are possible!" and they will likely show up. Please test this theory and write me back.

 

6. Connect with Unconditional Love - "I express the energy of unconditional love to all people and all things in my life."

 

Love big! Don't return negative actions with more of the same, but less. Always try to see the purpose as I said earlier. Love is the opposite of selfishness and the weird paradox of this love thing is that the less you care about the outcome, the more likely you are to receive great things with loving generosity.

 

7. Detach from the Outcome - "I trust that what need can come. I will take positive action rather than worry."

 

Stop worrying and do your best. Your stress is just a simple test of whether you have the will to succeed. Go forward and believe. If you fail, be adaptive and creative, and you will get through almost anything.

 

8. Acknowledge Your Results with Gratitude and Generosity - "I am deeply thankful for all that I've received, and I enjoy giving to others in the spirit of love and service." 

 

Think of as many things to be thankful for as you can each day. You'll be be surprised how much more you get out of life when you do this. Express love in some way every day as well and be of service to others.

 

9. Meditate to the Sound of Creation - "I meditate each day to increase my awareness of the divine power within me. Through meditation, I am able to realize the beauty, grace, and love that directs my life and fulfills my deepest desires."  

 

This just means notice and become aware of everything more: the sound of a laugh, the look of a bird. Yet, sound specifically takes a deeper concentration to notice and appreciate, and I think that's what Dr. Dyer's point is all about: appreciation.

 

Inspired the words of Dr. Wayne W. Dyer and by his book Manifest Your Destiny: The Nine Spiritual Principles for Getting Everything You Want

Thanks for reading. Leave a comment. :)

 

Expect to Succeed—Even If You Don't

Expect to succeed—even if you don't.

So often as a creative consultant, I'm asked what my advice is for basic success in anything and everything from creative project planning for your boss' all-inclusive, multi-cultural holiday party featuring a traditional Nigerian Christmas, to writing a confident letter to HR so that you can create your own job title as Director of Photography for the new website for that antique shop in Topeka. My answer is almost always the same: "See the success as if it's already there, and then, take that feeling, and let it fuel all the excitement and ideas it can!" Some ideas will be great and some horrendous, but the whole point is in the doing. In coaching and in cognitive behavioral therapy, this is often called "acting as if." It's a practice that primes the thinker to feel what it's like to be where he or she wants to be. More to this point, the science has shown that, very often, our emotions and biological systems can't tell much of a difference between the feelings of our imaginations and the arrival and actualizations of our goals.  (Read a full text on how acting, and imagination create experience, empathy, and more here.) The more you do this, the more practiced and proficient you'll be come. Try it now. I'd like you to picture yourself in your ideal job. You're in a chair you like. You're talking with people you enjoy working with. Janet just had a great idea for that new project way before the deadline! You smile and feel excitement in your belly!

Now, look at the above scenario and notice how you feel when you're thinking about whatever relatable scenario you have for your own life: planning a trip with your partner, starting that new business you've been putting off. Take that exact thing, that exact wonderful feeling, and feel it as if it's right there in front of you! Notice how you can't stop smiling! Notice how many multitudes of ideas pop into your head! Notice how "in the zone" you feel or  how going "with the flow" becomes your natural state. (Read more on flow psychology here.)  You see yourself succeeding, getting that promotion you've known is coming, and that relationship you're picturing seems so good! You sit better. You stand better. You speak clearly. You're willing to take chances. Go right ahead! Try that new cardio salsa class; take that trip to Indonesia; write that book based on that epiphany you had in tenth grade. When you act from that joy and that right feeling, you don't rush from a place of fear and make rash leaps into a void of no return; rather, you act with a level head and being willing to fail a bunch and figure it out as you go. In this much, practice doesn't make perfect as much as it just makes learning and grows a belief that your goal is possible.

All successes start with an idea of what's possible. A thousand years ago, could anyone have predicted the iPhone? Think even farther back to the wonders of the ancient world. Could the rulers of the Egyptian dynasties—in all their belief in the bedazzling power of the Pyramids of Giza and the Egyptian people's unwavering confidence in the most advanced knowledge entrusted to the great Library of Alexandria—have conceived of some of the poorest people on our planet now having access to the ubiquitous LIBRARY OF EVERYTHING that we call Google? Nope. All these miracles or creativity first had to be imagined and believed possible by their inventors. It's the faith in what could be possible, (what psychologists refer to as growth mindset. Read here.) that creates ideas, technology, etc. It's this growth mindset that I really believe fosters a willingness to experiment and make mistakes that lead to eventual success. I can attest to this in my own work. Some of the best music mixes I've made have been by accident, and I sometimes write scripts and stories after a mishap like falling down in my kitchen while saving a chocolate cake from splattering onto my kitchen floor. This kind of "pro-mishappenstance" mentality is even more useful and even fun when one considers, that, to paraphrase Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert in her book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, art and the arts—on even the broadest of spectrums—are not, nor have they ever been fatal to a well-lived life. There are no botched surgeries caused by a smudged painting, no loss of life from a flubbed lyric at a Kanye West concert, and neither your health nor your finances will likely ever be compromised by your hatred for Salvador Dali's Mae West lips couch, (despite your mother's thinking to the contrary). Your creativity can afford mistakes.

Last, but never least, I want to leave you with the notion that you should find joy in the steps: the journey, the air you breathe, the path you travel. Life doesn't wait for you to be happy when it's over. Choose to be happy now! Choose to expect to be happy with all that life gives you. You will fail, and you will succeed. You may have to change plans and mix it up, but staying expectant of good things will make you enjoy and see all the good that is, and seeing this positive growth will most likely encourage exploration in you. You'll find yourself getting more done and being happier: happily failing and succeeding, and dreaming maybe a little bigger and a little more boldly each time. So, take chances, fall down, get up, make mistakes, innovate, invent, and reinvent—and expect to succeed even when you don't—and in the words of the late Joseph Campbell, follow your bliss! 

How to Build Your Confidence 101 With Thomas Edison

I feel like flow and intuition—with also a willingness to believe great things are possible—are the keys to pretty much every success. When your mind, body, spirit, and actions, don't conflict, WATCH what happens! Inventors such as Edison have always seemed to know this. There is power in this kind of knowing. 

Mikey out!

A New 'Plogcast' to Fuel Your Creative Fire!

This audio  is totally unedited, The ambient sound you hear the mic picking up is my mischievous ceiling fan whooshing....

Mikey here!

Do you have a compelling story about your business or creative passion that's uniquely interesting that you want to share?

Do you have a job or a hobby or side hustle that's uniquely suited to who  you are that you've mastered and want to share with the world?

Are you fueled by your passions and your desire to create something great?

Do you believe limits are only things to be overcome or to be used as tools to make us better at what we do?

Well, my fire-fueled friend, I'm exceedingly excited to announce something I've been thinking about for a long time now: FreelanceMikey Creative Consulting is happy to announce the Fueling Your Creative Fire Plogcast here on the FreelanceMikey blog! Each episode will delve into the deep of what it means to be creative and what it means to be a creative in a world filled with inspirations from any and all walks of life and influences. I'll be getting extremely real with you and my guests to find what makes them light up with that create fire that fuels their every passion and proclivity in business, art, design, performance, tech—and all points in between!

If you would like to be on the show, contact me by any of the methods listed here on the site and bring your best creative story along with your most profound, personal insights to share on the show!

After all, you only get one life to be awesome, so you might as well share your passion with the world!

Mikey out!

A Manifesto of Sorts on Achieving Your Dreams, Failing, Being Adaptable, and Going for It

Dear Dreamer and Innovator, 

I haven't really known what to write about specifically due to all the "busyness" of business going on in my own life, but I wanted to touch base with you regardless as a means of reaching out to anybody patiently waiting for a reason to comment or contribute to the blog. FreelanceMikey is the culmination of a decade plus of tinkering, cultivating and conversing with all that has been inside my life: from the grand visions to various intermittent ideas and all points in between. Yet, most of all, everything I do for you and all of our clients is out of the belief in the dreamer, the doer. It is a realization that we have but one life to do everything we want to do in that life and that I want to help you do that thing, the special, superlative, awesome thing inside you and help you to reach for those things which bring you the greatest joy for your creativity and your business. From the screenplay in your heart that you may need some guidance on, or that multilevel website that seems too big to even know where to start—or that small woodworking shop that you want to open on the side because your heart calls you to it—FreelanceMikey was created for and to these ends. It is these things that make us human: they make a strive to be self-actualized and self-made (in so much as we can be in is that no person is living on a vacuum-sealed island away from the oxygen of other humans).

In creating FreelanceMikey, all involved strive to take your ideas and make them less scary and more exciting to you, to inject the verve, passion, creativity, and ingenuity that you feel you have been shouting into a void and to make them real and help you to realize that dream or something even better than your original dream: to boldly go where you haven't gone before in order to know that you can go there and grow even more confident in that dream and in that vision and clarify it.

We created this platform of FreelanceMikey because my colleagues and I wanted to bring more joy to the projects, to the purpose, and to the passions that you feel and give them a boost if they should need it. You've had people tell you all your life that your dream is going to be hard, that it's unrealistic and unmanageable; people have told you that the safe route is the best route, but that route has left you dead inside. Your best dreams keep you up at night with excitement and zest for life! I want to cultivate that zest, that power, and that flame inside of you that refuses to be extinguished. I want to do everything to make you feel that your idea is doable from concept to execution, or if it isn't doable, I want you know that you can fail, try again and try something else. FreelanceMikey aims to show you that, as Twitter co-founder Biz Stone says, your creativity is a renewable resource. What you do and what you want can have an audience and can be viable to a very willing group of people. I believe you were very likely born to be your best you and the only thing that can keep you from it is your willingness to go for it with a sound mind and a courageous heart.

So without further ado, please allow me and all of us at FreelanceMikey to welcome you to your sanctuary, your laboratory,  your motivational center. Welcome to a safe place that encourages experimentation and the willingness to fail and try something new and adapt to whatever comes to you in life—because you only get one life to be awesome, and it helps to have somebody along the way to have your back. Welcome to FreelanceMikey.com!

Keep tinkering,

Michael LaPenna, Founder and CEO

Welcome to the FreelanceMikey Creativity Blog!

WELCOME!

Hey  guys, this is a forum for free flow of ideas, verbal collaborations, discussions and more. I want to hear from you. 

What would you like to see out of your art or your business? What are your ultimate creative dreams?

FreelanceMikey's Michael LaPenna blogs about creativity and how to be more creative and where creative ideas come from. This includes creative marketing, creative writing, making art, how to inspire more creativity in yourself, and how to inspire more creativity in your business.