Catching Up on Hustle & Grace Episodes 7-13

I kind of can’t believe it but we’re already up to 13 episodes on Hustle & Grace!

(You can find quick recaps of 1-6 here). 

Have I mentioned what joy this podcast is giving me?

Now, honestly, as awesome as that is, it's not really the point of the podcast. It’s about bringing you value, takeaways, and inspiration, but an awesome bonus has been how totally delightful it is to dream up each episode, talk with fascinating people, learn a TON, and then share it with the world. Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening!

If you've taken a little summer vacay from your podcast listening routine, here's the dish on what you'll want to catch up on ASAP: 

Episode 7: Caitlin Pyle began her work-at-home journey after getting brutally fired from her $16-per-hour corporate job in 2011. She quickly replaced her lost income by freelancing as a proofreader. Then she transitioned to helping others build their own work-at-home incomes through her blog, ProofreadAnywhere.com and later through WorkAtHomeSchool.com. Through plenty of hustle and grace, Caitlin's freelance business evolved into the multimillion-dollar media company it is today.

In this episode, Caitlin shares tips she swears by in running her own business and creating the life of her dreams. We discuss the exciting project that brought us together: WorkAtHomeSchool.com.

More About Caitlin: https://caitlinpyle.co/

Caitlin’s podcast: Work-At-Home Heroes 

Episode 8: Lisa Rowan is a senior writer and on-air analyst at The Penny Hoarder, one of the largest personal finance websites in America. She also cohosts Pop Fashion, a top-rated weekly podcast about the business of fashion and culture. A former full-time freelance writer and vintage shop owner, she is well versed in the gig economy and the small-business landscape. Her financial advice has been featured in Women’s Health, Family Circle, Refinery29, Real Simple, The New York Times, and NBC News.

In this episode Hilary brings Lisa, millennial finance expert, all her burning questions about budgeting on multiple income streams, what millennials need to know about saving, and the finance trends everyone under 40 should be paying attention to.  

Recommendations from Lisa:
ThePennyHoarder.com
Get Money by Kristin Wong
Broke Millennial by Erin Lowry
Planet Money

Connect with Lisa on Twitter and Instagram @LisaTella.

Episode 9: Susan Shain is a freelance writer and digital nomad who's been traveling around the world since 2008. She's written about personal finance, travel, and food for outlets like The New York Times and CNN, and does content marketing writing for businesses of all sizes. She's also the founder of WhereToPitch.com, a website for freelance writers, and author of a pay-what-you-want eBook called "The Ultimate Guide to Seasonal Jobs: How to Have Fun, Make Money, and Travel the World."

In this episode, Susan shares how she has made a living living working in locations all over the world. She shares her tips for breaking into seasonal work and freelance writing and why community is a critical component of self-care for digital nomads and seasonal workers alike. 

Recommendations from Susan:
Duolingo
Trello
The Art of Nonconformity by Chris Guillebeau
CoolWorks.com
Pimsleur

Connect with Susan at SusanShain.com and on Twitter at Susan_Shain.

Episode 10: Austin Graff leads talent marketing, brand, and social media for The Washington Post and is a contributor to On Parenting, news, advice, and essays for parents from The Washington Post. Prior to joining The Washington Post, Austin led digital, social, and influencer marketing for Coca-Cola’s Honest Tea brand, America’s #1 organic iced tea company. He started out his career leading social media and celebrity relationships for International Justice Mission, the largest human rights organization in the world. After growing up in Russia and Kazakhstan and attending boarding school in Germany, Austin came to the USA for university. He now proudly lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, baby daughter, and two roommates.

In this episode, Austin talks about his career at The Washington Post, Honest Tea, and International Justice Mission. He also unpacks his unique philosophy of living with roommates while parenting, his time management hacks, and how he cultivates boundaries and balance in his life. 

Connect with Austin on Instagram and Twitter.

Episode 11: The Truth About Freelancing: In this episode, I unpack the state of freelancing in the U.S., the drawbacks of freelancing, the benefits, and 10 characteristics of people who thrive as freelancers. If you want to know more about my story and experience as a freelancer, go here. 

Connect with me on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Episode 12: Ashley Gorley has written 37 #1 singles and has had more than 300 songs recorded by artists such as Luke Bryan, Carrie Underwood, Florida Georgia Line, Blake Shelton, Brad Paisley, Jason Aldean and Darius Rucker.  He was named the ASCAP Country Songwriter of the Year in 2009, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, Billboard Country Songwriter of the Year in 2013, 2016, and 2017, and the NSAI Songwriter of the Year in 2013, 2016 and 2017.  Gorley has been nominated for multiple Grammy and CMA and ACM Awards, and has received the CMA’s Triple Play Award eleven times in his career, which recognizes songwriters with three or more #1 songs in one year. In 2016, he became the first songwriter to be honored with three CMA Triple Play Awards in a single year, for earning nine chart-topping songs in a 12-month period. In 2011, Gorley formed Tape Room Music, a publishing company with a focus on artist development. Writers for Tape Room Music have already celebrated twelve #1 songs and eight top ten singles by artists such as Florida Georgia Line, Sam Hunt, Keith Urban, and Dustin Lynch.

At just 41, Nashville songwriter Ashley Gorley has written a mind-boggling 37 #1 hits. He has writing credits on over 300 recorded songs. Hilary got to sit down with the prolific songwriter, publisher, and producer to learn more about the hitmaker, what his day-to-day life is like, and why he prefers for Carrie Underwood to not do the singing in a writing session. 

Learn more about Ashley's publishing company, Tape Room Music.
Listen to the Spotify playlist of Ashley's #1 songs.

Episode 13: Melissa Guller, is the Head of Special Projects at Teachable - an online tool that allows anyone to create and sell their own online courses - and ever since she launched her first side hustle in 2015, Melissa has been hooked on online entrepreneurship and empowering people to go for their big, awesome dreams. A bit of a side hustle queen herself, Melissa has been a top-rated instructor at General Assembly NYC for 2+ years, and she has 1300+ students currently enrolled in her Skillshare course, “What Great Managers Do Differently.” Most recently, Melissa founded The Kindling, a community for millennial women building online businesses, blogs, and podcasts they love. 

Melissa Guller has made a career out of helping people monetize their expertise online. In this episode, Melissa and Hilary discuss tools to create online courses, Melissa's side hustle ventures, and why she swears by a "relaxed" list to avoid burnout.

Connect with Melissa on Instagram.

There is so much more to come in upcoming episodes I'm thrilled to share with you! Make sure you don't miss an episode by subscribing:  Apple Podcasts | Android | Google Play | Stitcher | RSS

5 Lessons I Learned from Viewing 4000 Pieces of Picasso's Art

Me and "Picasso."

Well friends, JC and I returned to the states on Sunday after a little over a week in London and Barcelona. It was an incredible trip that was jam packed with tours, museums and imagining what life was like in the shoes of some pretty influential, awe-inspiring people. Our days in London and Barcelona had us pulling back the curtain on the lives of Winston Churchill, Paul McCartney (and the Beatles), Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, C.S. Lewis, Pablo Picasso and Antoni Gaudí.

Today I want to share with you some of the lessons that stood out to me as I toured the Museu Picasso de Barcelona. The museum has a permanent collection of over 4000 pieces created by Pablo Picasso. The pieces are organized chronologically so we saw how Picasso's style evolved over the years, step by step. The first section was a collection of paintings Picasso created when he was about 14. The first thing I noticed?

1. You don't become a world class artist without starting with an unusual amount of natural talent. 

"Man in Beret" by Picasso, age 14

2. Talent must be cultivated. Picasso started formal artistic training with his father at age 7. He was enrolled at Barcelona's School of Fine Arts at age 13. And he never really stopped learning. In 1900 he moved to Paris, the art capital of Europe. He was influenced by many other artists and continued to grow.

3. Picasso was prolific. Picasso clearly did not just paint when he "felt" like it. While I saw some 4000 of his works at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, the total number of art works he created in his lifetime has been estimated at 50,000: 1,885 paintings; 1,228 sculptures; 2,880 ceramics, roughly 12,000 drawings, many thousands of prints, and tons of tapestries and rugs.

4. Evolution is integral. Picasso's style greatly evolved from the time of classical realistic paintings in his teens to his blue period (in which he only painted in blue shades for three years) to finally arriving at the cubism he is famous for creating. Change can be scary but it's important to grow.

"Science and Charity" by Picasso, age 16

Mother and Child, by Picasso age 23

5."Bad artists copy, good artists steal." -Picasso One of my favorite portions of the collection at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona was a series of 58 paintings Picasso worked on for an entire year in 1957. Picasso went deep analyzing and riffing on the famous painting Las Meninas by Diego Velásquez. Picasso donated the entire collection to the museum--the only complete collection in one place today.

This is what Picasso said about it: "If someone want to copy Las Meninas, entirely in good faith, for example, upon reaching a certain point and if that one was me, I would say..what if you put them a little more to the right or left? I'll try to do it my way, forgetting about Velázquez. The test would surely bring me to modify or change the light because of having changed the position of a character. So, little by little, that would be a detestable Meninas for a traditional painter, but would be my Meninas." -Picasso, 1950

Las Meninas by Velasquez, 1656

Las Meninas, by Picasso age 75

Creativity and contribution may not come from a completely original piece but rather a new take on something older. Maria Popova said it so well: “Creativity is combinatorial: Alive and awake to the world, we amass a collection of cross-disciplinary building blocks — knowledge, memories, bits of information, sparks of inspiration, and other existing ideas — that we then combine and recombine, mostly unconsciously, into something ‘new.’ From this vast and cross-disciplinary mental pool of resources beckons the infrastructure of what we call our ‘own’ ‘original’ ideas.”

I was awash with inspiration walking through the halls of these great museums seeing the work that has far outlasted the lifetimes of the people who brought these great creations to life. I've come back from vacation just a little more determined to leave something useful or inspiring behind one day. They certainly did life on purpose. I want to as well.

Have you ever encountered a performance, piece of art or history that made you want to take action yourself? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.