Unlock Your Creative Potential: Thrive Amidst Change and Uncertainty
The world is changing fast.
Conventional approaches to professional and creative growth are being constantly disrupted and have become increasingly irrelevant.
How do we survive and thrive within this constantly shifting and unpredictable landscape?
My mission is to help creative professionals like you navigate the chaos and uncertainty of today’s world.
You’re here because you want to build a meaningful, balanced, and successful creative life.
You’re tired of outdated promises and looking for a way to thrive that feels authentic to you.
I understand the challenges you face and the passion that drives you because I’ve been there, too.
Hello, I’m Jeff Tyack, an artist, designer, and educator with over two decades of experience helping creatives like you thrive in dynamic and uncertain environments.
Why is this important? Let me share a personal story.
Surrounded by a manic red, white, and blue crowd shouting, “Four more years!” all I could think was, “Holy crap, I just wasted my last four years.”
The President of the United States was finishing his speech accepting the Democratic party’s nomination during the 1996 presidential election as I briskly walked through the aisles of the Chicago convention center, pockets full of 35mm film canisters.
My sole responsibility was to ferry exposed film from dedicated press areas on the convention center floor to a jam-packed trailer filled with mobile film development labs and then travel back with new film for the very busy, very focused press photographers from the wire service I was working for.
Having just graduated with a B.F.A. in photography, where I had spent countless hours perfecting the art of manual black-and-white film development and printing, I was witnessing in real-time how an entire skillset I had mastered was becoming almost irrelevant overnight.
Another wire service, a direct competitor to the company I worked for, had just switched to digital photography.
Instead of ferrying film canisters, their new hires were transporting memory cards. Instead of taking 10-15 minutes to develop and scan the film, they uploaded images straight to the “wire” for worldwide publication.
From a “news business” perspective, that 10-15 minute difference meant our photographers might as well not have been at the speech.
It became clear that every technical skill I had learned over the previous four years would soon become less valuable and less viable as a career opportunity.
Every goal I had set, every expectation of how to move forward creatively and professionally, would have to be drastically altered and, in some cases, thrown out altogether.
This lesson was repeatedly taught to me as I worked to build a life focused on creative endeavors in fine art, commercial photography, design, and even that fallback teaching career in higher education.
I’ve witnessed how the creative industries can change seemingly overnight, disrupting fragile career paths and rendering current skills obsolete.
But I’ve also seen creatives who embrace change, learn continuously, and view uncertainty as an opportunity rather than a threat.
These individuals develop behavior, learning, and connection systems that Nassim Nicholas Taleb describes as “Antifragile.”
They don’t just survive chaos, unknowns, and constant change; they thrive because of it.
I’ve dedicated my career to helping fellow creatives embrace this mindset through education, community building, and resource sharing.
I invite you to join me and your fellow creatives as we support and guide one another in building viable, balanced, creative lives.
Together, we’ll explore the endless possibilities of creative development and build a network of incredible creatives, learning from and supporting each other every step of the way.
Let’s get started!
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