Life can often feel like a never-ending hustle — especially when you feel like you’re working harder than ever but getting poorer results.
Deadlines loom. Responsibilities pile up. And the bills keep coming.
It’s so easy to get swept up in the daily grind and feel like you’re constantly in the middle of a storm that just won’t let up.
Before you know it, the love you once had for your work starts to dim. And frustration and burnout take hold … leaving you with a persistent feeling that you’re merely going through the motions.
Sound familiar?
If so, I think you’ll really appreciate this episode. My guest today is my mentor, teacher and good friend Peleg Top.
I’ve known Peleg for 14 years. He’s had a huge influence in my life and in my business. And he’s the person who encouraged me many years ago to become a coach. I’ve learned a ton from him over the years, and much of that inevitably seeps into the work I do with my own clients.
I wanted to bring Peleg on because what I’ve been seeing in our business over the past year troubles me.
I’m seeing a level of frustration, burnout, doubt, fear and uncertainty among creative professionals that I haven’t seen in a very long time. So many solo creative professionals are feeling rudderless and uninspired.
They’re tired and deeply in burnout territory. They want to change. And they’re trying their best to improve their situation, reinvent themselves and create something new. But they feel plagued with a lack of clarity, fear and self-doubt.
Peleg believes that these symptoms are a clear sign that your inner muse is inaccessible. It’s locked up in a prison cell made of routine, stress and self-doubt. And in order to break through and create the change we want, we must unleash this inner muse so we can tap into our core creative potential.
I couldn’t agree more.
In this conversation, we get right into this. We explain what this inner muse is all about. And how we can start embracing it to open up pathways to new ideas, emotional healing and a profound sense of fulfillment—both in our professional and personal lives.
An Invitation
One more thing. A few months ago, Peleg and I felt called to do something about the challenges we’re seeing among creative professionals. We wanted to do something more profound and life-changing than a podcast episode.
Don’t get me wrong. You’ll get a lot out of listening to this conversation. But we’ve also decided to co-lead a retreat this September in Santa Fe, New Mexico. And it’s something I’m super-excited about.
We’re calling it the Unleash Your Inner Muse retreat.
This is a 5-day event where we’ll work together to help you rediscover and nurture your creative spirit, unlock your full creative potential and craft a compelling vision for your personal and professional life.
You’ll reconnect with a profound joy and exhilarating freedom that will make you wonder how you ever lost touch with this divine spark within.
And by the end of our journey together, you’ll walk away with:
- Practical tools to reignite your creativity
- A renewed sense of motivation and direction
- A process that nourishes your authentic self and reconnects you to a creative energy you haven’t felt in years
If what we share in this episode resonates with you, I invite you to listen to the end, where we talk a bit about that event. I’m also including a link with all the details in the show notes page for this episode. Or you can go straight there by visiting www.unleashyourinnermuse.com.
The notes that follow are a very basic, unedited summary of the show. There’s a lot more detail in the audio version. You can listen to the show using the audio player below. Or you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Key Topics and Bullets:
- Finding joy in the creative process
- Importance of maintaining curiosity
- Transitioning from constant doing to embracing abstract and creative practices
- Creating a daily creative practice without judgment or pressure
- Consistent practices for self-expression and individuality
- Embracing a variety of activities to prevent boredom
- Providing a safe, judgment-free environment for self-expression and growth
- Nurturing the inner muse for authentic creative output and well-being
- Various forms of art and their role in expressing joy and pain
- Engaging in art for personal growth and enjoyment
- Art as a pathway to taming the inner critic
- How engaging in art helps individuals embrace diversity and take more chances
- Connecting with the inner muse for authentic creativity
- Nurturing the inner muse to sharpen intuition and guide decision-making
- The impact of societal emphasis on productivity and the need to reestablish a connection with one’s true self
Timestamp Overview:
00:00 Ed– Peleg. It’s great to have you here, my friend. You often talk about creative free spirit. You talk about your inner muse. And I’m wondering if you can maybe share a little bit about this concept, what that is, and, and how we can start tapping into that part of ourselves to access all this creativity, love, this boundless energy that can really transform our lives and and our work for the better.
Peleg– So the concept of inner muse refers to this source of inspiration and creativity that lives in each one of us. I like to think of our inner muse as this guiding spirit or this voice that encourages and influences our creative expression. It’s the purest part of our creative self. It’s free from pressure. It’s free from judgment. It’s free from constraints. And that part of ourselves, that muse, if we don’t nurture that part of ourselves and give her the space to live in us, we will very quickly meet ourselves in a space of disconnection from our creativity or that burnout or the block. You know? So when we connect with that inner muse, it ensures that we are creative, our creative output is authentic.
04:10 Peleg– It’s for the sake of solving a problem that will ultimately bring a result to our client. That’s all good. That’s blessed. But that doesn’t really tap into our creativity in a way that expresses who we really are. It’s not who we truly are. We’re channeling our artistry in our creative abilities in, you know, in this process of supporting a client in the work. But we’ve also abandoned ourselves in that process and who we are as artists, who we are as creatives. And if we don’t have a practice where we are on a regular basis meeting that part of ourselves, right, that muse is just gonna fall asleep. That muse is gonna say, well, he doesn’t really need me. He doesn’t really care. You know? Clearly, he’s too busy with using his creativity for these projects and these clients. So I’m just gonna check out for a while. And, you know, sometimes that reservoir of creativity that we have in us can last us for a few years, sometimes a few decades, but there will come a point where there’s this sense of I I can speak for myself that there’s a sense of emptiness that I have nothing more to draw from. You know? Especially, you know, I remember when I was doing creative work as a designer, I started feeling like I’m kind of repeating myself with every project. I’m kind of, like, doing the same thing, going through the same process. The results are starting to kinda feel the same.
07:08 Ed– You talk a lot about the difference between doing and being. And, you know, you and I have worked together for a number of years. You know this better than most people, but I have generated quite a bit of success in my career over 30 plus years just being really good at the doing. And in fact, you know, a big part of what I teach and what I coach people on has to do with the doing. More and more, however, I have come to the realization, not just in my own work as a coach, but me as a person, as a professional, as a human, that real success, real happiness comes from also focusing on the being. And I think I’d like to get your thoughts on this. I think sometimes you have to hit rock bottom, or you have to go through a period of significant burnout to meet to suddenly realize you have to meet yourself differently, to suddenly realize that, you know, another tactic or another strategy or another, you know, more effort, more doing is not necessarily the answer, at least to get you out of where you are right now from rock bottom. So can you talk a little bit about this idea that sometimes, very often, when you have hit rock bottom or you feel like you’ve hit rock bottom or you’re close to that, you’re burnt out. The questions you ask yourself really matter. And questions around what can I do are probably the wrong kinds of questions. And if you agree with that, Peleg, what kind of questions should y
Peleg– You bring up a really important aspect of being human, the idea of doing versus being. We live in a country that celebrates the doing, celebrates the success. We grow up with that model, and we create a mindset that promotes doing, doing, doing. And I don’t know about you, but over the last, you know, 10 years or so, maybe even 20 years or so, it feels like the world is getting faster and faster. You know, we continue to look for hacks to save more time, to be more efficient, to get more done in in less time, to be more productive to and along the way, when we are consumed with all the doing, it’s very easy for us to forget who we are, you know, because the doing begins to define who we are. And when the doing loses its essence, loses its power because we have neglected who we are, that part of ourselves will signal to us, hey. There’s something wrong here. You’re disconnected and misaligned from your essence, from who you really are.
12:58 Ed– I just wanted to go a little deeper there because I feel so many of us are have been living in a world of doing for so long that some of these ideas and concepts seem to resonate at some level, but can still feel a little fuzzy because they’re not as concrete as the doing, as the checking items off, as the effort, that we’re so used to expending. In terms of daily practice, I want to come back to something you were discussing a little earlier. You talked about how you have a daily practice. Tell me a little bit more about what some of those practices might look like. What elements could you include in a practice like that in order to really tap into your creative free spirit and your inner muse.
Peleg– That practice is an ever evolving and ever changing practice. I know for myself that I can get bored really easily if I do the same thing over and over again, even if it’s something that I love to do. So I have a variety of things that I do that support who I am as an artist, support who I am at my core, at my being, activities and practices and rituals that allow me to express myself. Now that self expression may not necessarily ever see the public light of day. It’s between me, myself, and I. And those practices, you know, they came out of many years of playing and experimenting and exploring. So there’s a variety of things that I do. But there’s few things that are consistent that no matter where I’m at in my life, I know that I can always rely on this practice to help me connect to myself.
14:14 Peleg– For me, it’s journaling. It’s writing. It’s sitting down with a blank journal book and just writing what I think, allowing my emotions to express themselves on the page. That is a constant practice that I do almost daily, and I’ve been doing that for decades. It keeps me sane. I mean, I have bookshelves and bookshelves of journal books that I’ve collected over the years. But that meaning of myself is the idea that we wanna think about. So it may look very different for every person, but there’s something really powerful about journaling, about sitting down and writing without the inner critic in place, without the in place, without the inner editor in place.
18:27 Peleg– I would say 95% of the art that I make never sees the height of day outside of my studio because it’s my medicine. So if we wanna tap into that creative flow of creativity and keep that muse alive and healthy, we have to do some work. We have to engage in a practice. So, you know, I teach many practices to the students who come to work with me, and, ultimately, they have the choice of either using some of the practices that I teach them or develop their own practices that feel right for them. And that’s what’s most important here. It’s to develop a way for you to express yourself on an ongoing basis that nourishes you. That act of self expression is nourishing. It is the energy that you are feeding yourself that then you can take out into the world and apply it to your professional self, to your social self, to the other places in your life where you need to tap into your creativity.
22:57 Peleg– Being an artist is dancing with our muse as adults because we’ve abandoned that part of ourselves when we were children. Because becoming an adult comes with responsibilities, and it comes with commitments, and life can get in the way. Right? So oftentimes, you know, I think when we think of the idea of being an artist in the world and we look at people who are artists, those are the kind of people who have basically given their self expression a priority in life. Right? Everything else comes around that. So, I’m not saying that that is the path for everyone to lean into, you know, being an artist professionally and moving through the world as someone who is devoting themselves to art. But we have to remember that we are all artists. That art is the vehicle that helps us express who we are. You know, art is the vehicle that helps us interpret the world, and, ultimately, art heals us.
25:52 Peleg– It’s that’s that’s the beauty of art that there’s so many manifestations of it in the world. Thank God we have that. You know? Life would be pretty boring if art didn’t exist. Think about it. Life would be pretty boring if art didn’t exist. I often think about this idea of why do people go to museums to look at art? You know? What’s what’s really, really the core of the reason that people go to museums to look at art? Can you think of an experience that you’ve had when you went to a museum and you saw, let’s say, a painting that moved you? Right? Piece of art that moved you. You could feel something by looking at this painting. You could feel what the artist was feeling.
31:09 Ed– If the inner critic is really monopolizing the conversation, a feeling of lacking clarity, lacking direction, being frustrated, being anxious, it creates a vicious cycle because the inner critic feeds on that. When the inner critic feeds on that, it gets stronger, which furthers And exacerbates those emotions. So, you know, I wanna kinda start tying this together because I love where we ended up here. If you’re not careful, that’s gonna be the dominant force in your life. And if that’s gonna keep you from tapping into your higher self, from having access to your inner muse Yeah. Creatively spirit. And look. You taught me this. You can’t get rid of your inner critic. Your inner critic has a very important role to play.
Peleg– It’s actually it’s impossible to it’s impossible to actually align it, annihilate the inner critic. We need the inner critic to a degree because our inner critic, when we have a healthy relationship with the inner critic, becomes our adviser. Not our disciplinarian. Right? It it comes up when we are at moments where we need to make a decision or a choice in life. |
32:33 Ed– Interesting because one of the many things that I’ve gotten from an art practice has been and this is completely unexpected for me, was the willingness to take more chances. The ability to not be married to a specific outcome. Making art for the sake of making art. Right? And it’s such a powerful metaphor, and it’s really bled into so many aspects specifications, for example. Right. And it was frustrating if it, you know, if it didn’t meet the specifications, for example. And we live so much of our lives that way, that there was no room in my life for creating something just for the fun of it and taking chances and not being married to, I got this kind of vision in my head of what I wanna create, and then it ends up not meeting that and then being frustrated.
35:59 Ed– We can talk all afternoon about this. This is a fascinating topic. But as we wrap up, I want to make sure listeners not only have a lot to think about here because we’ve unpacked a lot. But I’m curious as to what might be a good simple next step that listeners could take toward a more inspired and creatively fulfilling life today. Right? You know, all these ideas, all these thoughts. Where would be a good place to start? A simple next step?
Peleg– Well, I would say create a new creative practice for yourself, something that fulfills you. So devote 15 to 30 minutes a day where you engage in an activity purely for the joy of it without the pressure of the expectations or the outcome. I mean, whether it’s doodling or journaling or playing an instrument or experimenting with photography or crafting, whatever it is, the key is to allow yourself to explore freely and express whatever comes up with that judgment. Just get into a space. Again, it could be 15 to 20 to 30 minutes a day where you’re simply getting in touch with that part of yourself. Now it might be a very challenging experience because I can guarantee you, you will meet your inner critic along the way. As you’re drawing, your inner critic will say, oh, this sucks.
42:48 Ed– I think it’s a beautiful step to take, and it’s 15, 20 minutes a day is not a big ask. And I think it could be in fact, I know it can be the start of really a different journey for people. I know it has for me. So you and I are about to lead a a retreat in September. I I love I love what we’re calling it. I I wish I would have come up with this name. It was your idea. Unleash Your Inner Muse.
Peleg– We’re gonna spend 5 days engaging in activities and practices that are going to quiet our inner critic. I mean, first, the inner critic will absolutely come alive because I’m gonna be, we’re gonna be challenging people with some creative activities that are new and are different. So, you know, new and different is definitely something that wakes up our inner critic. But the difference in this experience is that, a, you’re not alone. B, you have guidance. C, you are in a safe judgment free container where you get to play, where you get to express yourself in ways you never expressed yourself, and you get to make art. And that practice alone, you know, over the course of 5 days, you know, the goal is when we leave this retreat, the muse is alive. She’s awake.
44:20 Ed– It’s unleashyourinnermus.com and the dates are September 10th through 14th, as Peleg mentioned, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. All the details are on that website. So if this is resonating with you, I invite you to check it out. Any questions, reach out to me. And, you know, I hope to see some of you apply. There is an application process. We wanna make sure that we have the right set of people there who are ready for this work, because it’s important that we have the right, the right environment and the right, the right vibe there. So there is a short application process.
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