A Phil Svitek Podcast - A Series From Your 360 Creative Coach

It's been a while since I last posted an episode and that's because I've been focusing on learning and doing what I can to be an ally in the Black Lives Matter movement. Part of what I'm reflecting on is my longer term role in this social cause. What happens a year from now? I also think about why I think there is pushback from people on certain ideas which stem to me from this idea that we need t...

James Lott Jr. (@JamesLottJr) is a very good friend of mine and someone I admire because even though he's 51 years old, he has the energy of a teenager. This combines perfectly because his wisdom is vast and he has the ability to put it to use. I have learned a lot from him and am honored to call him a mentor. In this episode he joins me for a powerful conversation about race is America. He's expe...

Ashley Drew Jones (@OkDrewJ) is a dear friend of mine and she was kind enough to join me for a discussion on the various racist systems and structures plaguing America. She did this hours after her brother suffered at the hands of the police. I am in awe of her strength and fortitude to keep fighting for justice and with this interview I aim to amplify her voice and the voice of other's like her....

There are times in life where you have to look beyond yourself and step up in a significant way. This is one of those times. I believe we have an inherent desire to make history. But if we're being honest, it's a selfish desire to BE historical, not to truly shape history. At least that's how I've acted in the past. And so in this episode I share my experience, directly aimed at white people, so y...

Almost a month ago I did a video where I stated I'd do a 21-day no-complaint challenge ( https://youtu.be/MGWn1VZMr2k ). In this episode, I highlight the result and findings from my experience. What you start to realize is that complaining doesn't make your problems go away. It instead means that you're stuck ( https://youtu.be/b78XklNMrr0 ). And when you realize this, you can gain some agency ove...

In the past few weeks, I noticed that as a country, America hasn't really had the ability to mourn and grieve this pandemic. We have lost lives to Covid-19. We have lost lives due to natural circumstances. And we've lost jobs and the economy. This deserves to be processed so we can move forward. And because of this thinking, it hit me how allowing grief into your life can actually amplify your gra...

Many people have started up podcasting, which is great. And Anchor.fm is a great FREE tool to publish and distribute your podcast. (FYI, here's an article I published on how to get start in podcasting from equipment to publishing: start a podcast: https://philsvitek.com/get-started-podcasting-with-both-audio-video/ ) But what about a website for it? How do you build that? In the past ( https://phi...

When I was writing my first novel (Elan, Elan), I knew I needed someone to help me with structure, grammar and basically all things book related. Enter Emily Krempholtz. I've now known her close to two years and she's been a tremendous asset to me. In this episode she joins me for a discussion on the storytelling process, what it's like to be an editor and work with other writers, tricks and habit...

Within my circle of friends, I keep hearing them lament how if only these were ideal circumstances they'd know what to do and how to move forward. Sorry to break it to you, but there will never be ideal circumstances to life. Unexpected things happen all the time, sometimes as tragedies (whether 9/11, the stock market crash or a pandemic) and other times it comes as "luck". But we don't get upset...

Last week I spent a good chunk of time on the submission process. I submitted my feature film "Idyll" to various festivals in LA, San Diego, Paris, Prague, and Boston that had May 25th deadlines. I did this through FilmFreeway.com. I also spent time sending query letters for my novel. Each one taught me something. From a more creative standpoint, I talk about editing my friend Richard Vission's pr...

For over 5 years, Demetri Panos (@DemetriPanos), Marisa Serafini (@SerafiniTV) and I did a movie series called Anatomy of a Movie ( https://bit.ly/3gksPn6 ). To call it a review series would be a huge disservice. As fans of movies, we gave our opinions but we also went into the behind-the-scenes making of aspects and tried to showcase our love of movies by helping bring to light how hard the filmm...

Google's CEO is advocating for less wordy presentations and I couldn't agree more ( https://www.inc.com/carmine-gallo/how-googles-ceo-creates-brain-friendly-presentations.htm l). I have seen far too many "professional" pitches that looked more like treatments and business proposals than slideshows. This is a huge hinderance in your ability to get the message you want across. It's like all art form...

The coronavirus crisis has opened up our eyes to the idea that we're very dependent on others for basic things in life. Now, I'm not saying we don't need people. We all need human interaction. But, we can't, nor should we, rely completely on the outside world to provide us with everything. Even food. There are steps you can take to have more sources of revenue and provide your own food. Now is the...

I've often heard that anger is the externalization of fear but I've never heard complaining be explored until recently. What I learned was that complaining just means you feel stuck in a situation or on a problem. IDK about you, but I never realized this before. But now that I do, I recognize it as such and can move towards solutions. It's a signal that says "hey, something needs to change." In pr...

Oftentimes I've said yes to things I really wanted to say no to. Or if I did say no, I gave a long winded reason why because I didn't want to hurt the other person's feelings. Neither helps. In the first scenario you're doing something that you don't want to be doing and in the second you're opening yourself up to debate. A simple no is far more effective. And it's all in the way you say it. "Than...

Another week of quarantine in the books and one big decision I made during last week was to control what I focus on. It didn't mean I wasn't informed, but I was much more aware of how I consumed information, thereby controlling my creative output and thoughts better. Part of how I took a hold of my thoughts was by selecting what media to consume. And in this case I decided to watch some film noir....

I'm a big advocate of naps to increase your alertness thereby productivity for the 2nd half of your day. Many successful people make it part of their routines. Churchill certainly did. But there's been a silent few who have drank coffee before their naps. WTF? Why? That seems counterintuitive. Not really because coffee takes about 25 minutes to kick in. AND in order to gain the benefits of a midda...

Alex Wehrley (@AlexWehrley) is a dear friend who has been in a content creator for a long time. She started out reporting in Illinois before moving to LA where she hosted for AfterBuzz TV—which is how I got to know her. From there she's hosted for E! News Now, ABC.com red carpets, FOX, Yahoo!. In 2015, she got the chance to host Miss USA, which was a full circle moment given that she'd competed as...

Gratitude is being thankful for your blessings, not pretending that your struggles don’t exist. Yet too many of us negate our suffering as if it doesn't exist because who are we to suffer where people in the world have it far worse than us? Or perhaps you go the opposite way (unknowingly) and think people aren't taking your pain seriously and that their hurt isn't on the same level as yours. This...

Tim Ferriss often asks himself, "How am I complicit in creating the conditions for my life that I don't want." This is a powerful question because as much as we'd all like to put the blame on someone else, it's just not true. It's a question of setting boundaries for ourselves. We allow things to happen to us that affect the quality of our lives. We have to accept this. Good news though is, once y...

There's a lot of undue pressure from various people on social media that claim if you don't come out of quarantine with a new business, skill, etc then you didn't lack time. This is false in my eyes. We all progress through life at a different pace. We're all in different phases of life as well. Who is anyone to define what you need to have accomplished during quarantine. Quarantine is not this ma...

As much as I'd love to be able to just tune everything out and be creative, right now it's increasingly hard to do that. In this episode of my vlog I talk about how the "Plandemic" conspiracy theory affected me personally as well as politics in general. I talk about how Jay Shetty's 5 stages of coping helped me with these ( https://jayshetty.me/5-stages-of-coping-with-change-you-cant-rush-creating...

On a recent podcast episode of "The goop Podcast", Craig Malkin talked about how kids learn to perform in order to survive, rather than be a person ( https://goop.com/the-goop-podcast/healthy-narcissism-with-craig-malkin/ ). When I heard this it really got me thinking how we're not machines, we're not meant to just perform. We're humans. And especially as creatives, we have very lofty goals. That'...

For my money's worth, you're always going to need an element of luck. You can't account for how and when it happens, but you can actually increase the surface area with which luck with stick to you. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence. And while I can't back these ideas with science per se, it does harken back to the notion of the "law of attraction".  Tune in and hear the full lesson and th...

Throughout history, there's been the troupe of an asshole boss or leader. Why is that? Simply put, because it works. But is that the best method? No, there's a better way to achieve the same thing and it's called Radical Candor, termed by Kim Scott ( https://www.radicalcandor.com/ ). In this episode, I explain the four quadrants of her principle: ruinous empathy, manipulative insecurity, obnoxious...