Creative Endurance: 56 Rules for Overcoming Obstacles and Achieving Your Goals - Plus 20 Interviews with Leading Artists and Athletes

by Mike Schnaidt Narrated by Ron Butler

Overview

A must-read guide for any creative, Creative Endurance offers practical advice and inspiration for staying motivated and achieving your big-picture goals.

Are you experiencing creative burnout? Using the effective strategies for creative endurance developed by creative director of Fast Company and accomplished marathon runner Mike Schnaidt, you can remain imaginative and inventive through any tough situation, throughout your life and career.

Featuring inspiring stories from designers, astronauts, illustrators, ultramarathoners, chefs, photographers, and an Olympic Gold medalist, Creative Endurance provides a unique combination of practical advice, in the form of 56 “rules,” alongside inspiring examples to help you overcome creative obstacles and thrive.
*

• Learn from graphic designer Sagi Haviv, the creator of the US Open logo, as he shares his experience of generating over 6,000 sketches for the iconic design.
• Join photographer Peter Yang behind the scenes of his most memorable celebrity shoots, including with Barack Obama.
• Hear from astronaut Jeanette Epps, who went from a Ford Motor Company employee to a member of NASA's space crew.
• Get tips from celebrated cookbook author Molly Baz on crafting compelling recipes.
• Discover the mental preparation strategies of Olympic Gold medalist Billy Demong.
• Learn expert tactics and advice for maintaining focus and motivation in your career from endurance racing legend Hurley Haywood.

With lush illustrations across four sections of increasing time increments (Your Day, Your Project, Your Job, and Your Life), Creative Endurance will guide you through the daily grind of work to the big-picture goals of your life. Learn how to overcome obstacles in your daily routine, develop focus and imagination, and establish a sustainable practice. Refine your creative process, pitch ideas to clients, and handle negative feedback and massive projects. Discover practical tactics for hiring, budgeting, and navigating career challenges, along with advice on finding your creative voice and making a lasting impact in your industry.

Each chapter concludes with an interactive and inspiring spread of suggested activities.

Creative Endurance is the ultimate guide to achieving your goals and thriving in your creative career without sacrificing your well-being.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Lucky reader, you are the beneficiary of Mike Schnaidt’s insatiable curiosity. I can’t think of many other books about creativity that include interviews with a nine-year-old and a seventy-six-year-old, a Black woman astronaut and a bank vice president. In Creative Endurance, Mike offers practical, digestible tips to help reenergize creatives—and just about anyone else who is feeling a bit blocked.—Stephanie Mehta, CEO, Mansueto Ventures

A stunning and inspiring meditation on design by an insightful practitioner. Schnaidt's take on creativity will delight your eyes with a breathtaking design and stimulate your thinking, offering a unique guidebook to fuel your work and personal best.—Robin Landa, Distinguished Professor, Kean University, and author of The New Art of Ideas

Bang! Kapow! Zowie! I cannot imagine a more knockout, more energetic, more useful, or more rewarding guide to building a creative life than this beautiful book. I just wish I had access to all of these stories and insights and anecdotes a whole lot earlier in my career. But I have it now and that helps me sleep better. Bravo, Mike.—Brian Collins, COLLINS

A serious compendium of thoughts, advice, personal stories, and complicated rituals that enable a broad group of designers to cope with those moments in careers when a good idea seems illusive. Every designer experiences this, and every designer can relate to both the struggles and satisfying solutions that are recounted within this book. Also, as a bonus, it happens to be beautifully designed.—Paula Scher, Partner Pentagram

Reading Creative Endurance is like having a supportive, design-savvy friend at your side to help work through creative roadblocks. Schnaidt’s advice is supported by essays and interviews with art directors, photographers, and illustrators as well as race car drivers, marathoners, and a host of others, taking a wide view of how humans summon their creative powers. The book’s beautiful page structure and information hierarchy draws from editorial magazine design: It’s fun for a reader to hop around between the smaller bites of information and longer passages of text. Each section is color-coded, making it a snap to separate the content into easily-absorbed lessons. Type-nerd alert: The typography is stunning!—Angela Riechers, Program Director of Graphic Design at University of the Arts

Mike Schnaidt does the impossible: He teaches you how to crush your goals while moving the mountains in front of you with wit and insight. It's like The Power of Positive Thinking meets The Little Engine That Could for creative people.—Anthony Giglio, author, sommelier and motivational speaker

I've borne witness to the author's best work emerging in the crucible of a midnight magazine close and consider him to be a creative partner of the highest caliber. This tome distills the ethos and impulse behind that regal beard and driven mindset—and applies it to conversations with an equally captivating cast. A must-read for anyone ambitious looking to chart a path through the sometimes messy, often exhilarating world of collaborative art.—Matt Bean, SVP Content and Performance, Tonal

Creative Endurance is conceptually unique and it keeps you hooked throughout. The layout, stories, and knowledge in it are a great source of inspiration to all. I personally love how this book celebrates creative individuality and embraces patience and perseverance as key values. The creative industry is not a ‘one size fits all’ scenario and this book understands that! This charmingly honest read is a must for your bookshelf.—James Martin, author of Made by James: The Honest Guide to Creativity and Logo Design

In Creative Endurance we see that creativity isn't just developed through hard work and discipline, but also by keeping an open mind, experimentation, and play. If your creativity seems trapped in a cage, Mike Schnaidt provides a key and, if you're like me, you come to understand that the door has been wide-open the entire time.—Dean Karnazes, NY Times bestselling author & ultramarathoner

Creative Endurance is sui generis: hard won wisdom, never before collected, directly from the minds of some of the most successful creative talents of our age.—Cliff Kuang, author of User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design Are Changing the Way We Live, Work, and Play

Creative Endurance is the rare book that is equal parts style and substance. It's as informative as it is pretty, and let me tell you: It is dang pretty.—Tim Leong, author of Super Graphic: A Visual Guide to the Comic Book Universe

Product Details

BN ID:	2940160466453
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	01/16/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos