Are you exploiting your own creative labor? with Tara McMullin

The Autonomous Creative

“Self-actualization is not more important than feeding yourself.”

In this episode, Tara McMullin helps us understand why solving for your needs first is essential to running any creative business (with your humanity intact).

Tara is a writer, podcaster, and producer who used to be a business strategist (among many other things). But in late 2021, she pivoted to focus on her creative work. On this episode, we discuss Tara’s debut book, What Works: A Comprehensive Framework To Change The Way We Approach Goal Setting. Plus: how and why she left her successful coaching and membership business to be a writer.

More from the episode

• What’s the Passion Paradigm, and how does belief in passion-driven work contribute to labor exploitation?
• How the starving artist myth functions more like religious belief than you might expect, and what effect that has.
• How acknowledging your limitations is actually the key to feeling more capable than ever.
• How did an adult diagnosis of autism, and the emotional labor required to support her clients, play into Tara’s pivot?
• What leads to chronic under-commitment, and how can we become less tied to validation and achievement?

About Tara McMullin

Tara McMullin is a writer, podcaster, and producer. For over 13 years, she has studied small business owners—how they live, how they work, what influences them, and what they hope for the future. She’s the host of What Works, a podcast about navigating the 21st-century economy with your humanity intact.

Tara is also co-founder of YellowHouse.Media, a boutique podcast production company. Her work has been featured in Fast Company, The Startup, The Muse, and The Huffington Post. Her first book, What Works: A Comprehensive Framework To Change The Way We Approach Goal Setting, will be released in November.

Connect with Tara

https://explorewhatworks.com/

https://www.whatworkspodcast.com/

Additional Links

Always On: The Hidden Labor We Do Every Day

Seven Simple Business Models

For full transcripts, show notes, and more episodes, head to https://jessicaabel.com/acpod/