Episodes

Have you ever wondered if you're a real creative, or if you're just pretending? Dwight has asked himself that more than once — and in this solo conversation, he walks through the map he wishes someone had handed him years ago, tracing a path from doubt all the way to belonging. He traces it back to the hardest season of his life, when he sat with someone who'd been a constant presence for twenty years and watched them leave this world. Nothing prepared him for that. In the unraveling that fol...

What if the scariest part of your creative life isn’t the making, but the moment you finally let yourself be seen? In this solo episode of Community and Becoming from For the Love of Creatives, Dwight sits with that familiar, stomach‑dropping fear of judgment that shows up every time we hit “publish,” hang something on a wall, or share a piece of ourselves with people who might not understand. He names the tug of war so many of us live in: wanting our work to matter and be visible, while quietl...

Have you ever felt like you’re drowning under deadlines, admired for what you make… and still painfully alone in the process? In this intimate solo episode, Dwight opens up about the quiet tension so many creatives live with—the feeling that we have to carry it all, deliver flawlessly, and never show the frantic paddling happening just beneath the surface. He shares tender stories from the pandemic, becoming a caretaker for his partner with advanced liver disease, and the grief that followed wh...

What if the sound of your creativity could keep someone’s love alive long after they’re gone? In this conversation, Breck White shares how a tragic loss at fourteen, a grave under a tree, and a chorus of wind chimes slowly turned into Love Chimes—a business rooted in memorials, story, and the frequency of love. Breck talks about becoming the kind of person who trusts her own intuition enough to create what she couldn’t find anywhere else: one-of-a-kind wind chimes that hold ashes, names, life s...

Have you ever delivered something beautiful, heard the praise… and still thought, “If only they knew—I’m not really that good”? In this solo episode, Dwight sits down as your “Connections and Community Guy” and names the quiet, lonely experience so many creatives carry: feeling like a fraud in the very work that matters most to you. Drawing from the original research on the “imposter phenomenon,” Dwight explores how high achievers and artists twist their own stories—overworking, procrastinating...

Have you ever looked at other artists and thought, “They’re the real creatives… I just dabble”? In this solo episode, Dwight names the inner landscape so many heart-centered creatives quietly live in but rarely language out loud. He walks us through what he calls the Creative Journey Framework: the doubting creative, the awakening creative, the emerging voice, and the authentic creative. Instead of treating these as steps to master, Dwight invites you to notice where you recognize yourself, whe...

What happens when your inner world wakes up… and your outer life refuses to catch up? In this intimate conversation, jazz singer-songwriter and producer Lizzie Thomas shares the story of an awakening that asked everything of her: her marriage, her beliefs, her relationship to patriarchy, and the version of herself she’d been performing for years. Songs began arriving through dreams and meditation, carrying lyrics and melodies that pulled her toward a truer life, even as old structures and exp...

What do you do when a “fun little hobby” quietly becomes the truest expression of who you are? In this conversation, Sarah Lentz shares how a throwaway comment from her husband – “you should just make them yourself” – pulled her into a world of wax, wicks, migraines, markets, and slow, deeply human becoming. Sarah doesn’t arrive as a polished brand; she shows up as a woman who loves candles, lives with chronic headaches, and cares enough about other people’s homes and bodies to spend two years ...

What if “becoming” isn’t about fixing yourself, but finally coming home to who you’ve been all along? In this tender, expansive conversation, Priyanka Khandalkar traces her journey from overachieving engineer and burned‑out business builder to soul‑led creative, healer, and mother who finally trusts her own voice. She shares openly about growing up in a toxic home, carrying a deep father wound, surviving childhood abuse, and learning to equate love with performance, over-giving, and people‑plea...

What if every big project you care about secretly feels like a test of your worth, not just your skill? In this intimate solo episode, Dwight takes us inside the lived reality of imposter syndrome for creatives... far beyond the Instagram carousels and fluffy posts. Drawing from Dr. Pauline Clance’s original research on the “impostor phenomenon,” he traces how the imposter cycle shows up in our bodies, our timelines, and our inability to celebrate our own wins. From being “the talented one” in ...

Take a quick listen to know what's brewing at the For the Love of Creatives podcast... This is Maddox & Dwight! More than anything, we want to connect and communicate with you. We don't want to think of you as listeners. We want to think of you as community. So, scroll to the bottom of the show notes and click the SUBSCRIBE link. Thank you! Thank you for listening to the For the Love of Creatives Podcast. If you are enjoying the podcast, please scroll to the bottom of the show notes and ...

What happens when a boy who lip‑syncs Diana Ross, gets shoved into the bushes for being “too much,” grows up believing he’s not creative at all? In this conversation, Grant Miller sits with Dwight and Maddox and slowly unravels the years he spent making himself small—first as a gay kid with no role models, later as a teacher, and even as an author who still couldn’t claim “I am a creative. Grant shares the moment his students re‑enacted his childhood in a grad‑school video and he sat in a unive...

What happens when you’ve spent more than half your life away from the place you were born, and still don’t fully belong where you’ve landed? In this conversation, Sudanese-born abstract painter and truck driver Nouman Gaafar shares what it means to live between cultures, between labels, and eventually, between old ideas of himself and the person he’s becoming. Nouman talks about seeking political asylum, returning to Sudan after twenty years, being arrested and tortured during protests, and rea...

What happens to us… when we slowly lose the ability to connect? Not all at once… but little by little. A message we don’t send. A conversation we avoid. A moment where we choose our phone instead of the person in front of us. Ely comes into this conversation not just through the lens of email… but as someone noticing a deeper shift… especially since COVID. People sitting together… not talking. Wanting connection… but not quite knowing how to reach for it anymore. Underneath his work is someth...

What happens to our creativity when our whole life is built on keeping everyone else comfortable? In this tender, far-reaching conversation, Kimia Penton shares how growing up as a firstborn Persian daughter, an immigrant many times over, and a lifelong “strong one” slowly pulled her away from her own voice—until her body, spirit, and art refused to keep performing. She talks about the breaking point that came in her early thirties, when constant self-sacrifice, caregiving, and people-pleasing ...

What do you do… when life doesn’t just nudge you… but completely levels everything you thought was stable? In this conversation, Megan shares a life that, on the surface, looks full… meaningful work, a growing family, a deep sense of purpose. But underneath it all is something even more powerful… a willingness to keep choosing who she becomes, even when life asks more of her than feels fair. From being called at a young age toward adoption… to building a life rooted in service, family, and int...

What happens when the life you’ve built… the work, the rhythm, the people… suddenly disappears? For many creatives, identity is quietly woven into everything we do. So when something disrupts that… it doesn’t just feel like change. It feels like loss. In this conversation, Lisa McKenna shares what it was like to move through a season where everything familiar fell away… her work, her community, her sense of voice. And not in a gradual way… but all at once. There’s a moment many creatives know...

What if creativity doesn’t begin with talent… but with the courage to look inward? In this conversation, Maddox and Dwight sit down with Erica Allaby, someone they’ve shared community with for years… yet realized they had never fully heard her creative story. What unfolds is a deeply human journey. Erica shares how she grew up with a quiet sense of being a lone wolf… connected to people, yet always searching for where she truly belonged. That search eventually brought her to Texas… a spontane...

What happens when you realize the life you built… isn’t the life that will outlive you? For many creatives, the path is rarely straight. It bends toward practicality. Toward stability. Toward the careers that make sense on paper. In this episode, Maddox and Dwight sit down with artist Jing Herman to explore a journey that began in childhood creativity, moved through the high-pressure world of finance and strategy, and slowly circled back to art. Jing grew up in Beijing during the 1980s, in a ...

What actually fuels creativity? Most of us think creativity lives in the mind… an idea, a talent, or a skill we develop. But what if creativity comes from somewhere deeper? Something that moves through the body… through emotion… through the very life force that animates us. In this episode, Maddox and Dwight sit down with Australian educator and facilitator Myola Woods to explore a topic many creatives sense but rarely talk about openly… the connection between sexual energy and creative energ...

Have you ever felt like the creative world makes sense to you… but the rest of the world doesn’t? Many artists, makers, and dreamers grow up believing something is wrong with them… too sensitive, too scattered, too much. They struggle in classrooms, workplaces, and systems built for brains that move in straight lines. And quietly, many are living somewhere on the neurodivergent spectrum. In this compassionate conversation, Lindsey Carpenter Kirkendall shares what it feels like to move through...

Have you ever been so close to your work… so deep in the tiny details… that all you could see were the flaws? In this conversation, mosaic artist and workshop founder Matt Yigit invites us into a powerful metaphor that feels almost too familiar for creatives. Participants in his workshops spend hours placing tiny pieces of colored glass onto mosaic lamps… leaning in close… noticing every misalignment… quietly judging themselves. And then something unexpected happens. The lamp lights up. What...

Have you ever reached a point in your creative life where the work itself starts asking something deeper of you? Not better technique. Not more exposure. But more of you. In this conversation, Brandi Jones opens up about the quiet, internal shift that happens when creativity stops being something you do and starts becoming something that shapes who you are. She reflects on growth, mistakes, and the way art gently—sometimes uncomfortably—invites us into a new version of ourselves. Rather than ...

What if the hardest part of creativity isn’t learning the craft… but learning how to stand inside who you really are? In this deeply human conversation, Nicko Coleman joins Maddox and Dwight to explore what it feels like to be in the middle of becoming… when the old identity no longer fits, and the new one hasn’t fully formed yet. This episode isn’t about labels, achievements, or artistic milestones. It’s about the quieter, more vulnerable work of listening inward and choosing honesty… even whe...