Today I share an inspiring conversation with photographer, musician and author, Marc Silber, in which we discuss some of his awesome life-experiences, many of which play a key part in his new book called Create – Tools from Seriously Talented People to Unleash Your Creative Life.

I was lucky enough to receive a copy of the book a few months ago and from the start it pulled me in and did not let go until I’d finished it. After reading the book I had the pleasure of talking to Marc for this podcast, so please listen to our conversation with the audio player above.

Interview Notes

Here are some of the notes that I took in preparation for our conversation:

Having read this book I can say with conviction that it is probably one of the most comprehensive books and guides to leading a creative life that I have read. Before we talk more about the book, we hear more about the man behind it. Marc tell us a little about himself and how he got started in photography.

Marc emphasizes at one point that for some people it’s not so much that they do creative things, but their very existence is creative.

In Marc’s conversation with Chris Burkard he touches on the fact that there are no shortcuts. Success comes from years of hard work, and goes on to say that there is an entitlement mentality in society. I feel these things to be so true. I’ve had people ask me for advice on how to be successful, and tongue-in-cheek I often reply that I work really hard creating my podcast every week for 14 years at this point, and still I have to do more. I want to emphasize that it’s not easy, and takes a lot of persistence and dedication.

Camille Seaman says a similar thing to Chris Burkard, mentioning that people want to be fed idea rather than coming up with their own. Camille talks about the importance of knowing what makes you happy and what makes you unhappy. I have built my business around doing things that make me happy, and that in my opinion is the reason I can devote enough time to produce quality products and services.

Marc recalled his experience falling out of a tree, initially telling himelf that he was dead, but then recalls being enlightened by the feeling of being alive. I asked Marc to tell us more about that experience.

On page 55 Marc writes “I am so grateful that I made creativity a major part of my life, it has kept me young by causing me to continue to imagine.” I love that sentiment, and can really relate to it. My wife calls me a 52-year-old school–boy.

In Chapter 4 Marc gets into the tools that we use, and there’s a great quote from Jeff Duntemann, “A good tool improves the way you work. A great tool improves the way you think.” I think it’s refreshing to see someone talking about the importance of tools like this, as it’s been fashionable for a while to discount the value of the tools we use. I’m a big believer that having tools that we can enjoy using feeds our creativity. (I do of course also agree that although being happy with our tools is important, it’s not necessary to fixate on the tools as a shortcut to great images. It’s the person using the tools that is most important.)

There was one point in our conversation when Marc showed us his Osmo, and also recalls a knife that he received from his father, and I captured these screenshots over Skype to show you what they looked like.

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Catch up with Marc

I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. You can catch up with Marc on his website at: https://www.silberstudios.com

Grab Your Copy of Create!

Note that although I mention that the book would go live on the day that I release this podcast, I’m actually about a week late, but you can get a copy of Create from Amazon.com with this link: https://amzn.to/2YuT1p8

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Show Notes

Get Create on Amazon.com with this link: https://amzn.to/2YuT1p8

Music by Martin Bailey

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Audio

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