Welcome to In The Boat With Ben
“In the boat” is a phrase I use to describe the people in my life who are directly impacted by the choices I make for my freelance business (or any other choices for that matter). For you it may be your partner, children, parents or other live-in relatives, or even your pet turtle… For me those people are Rachel, my wife, and our five young boys. As someone who is balancing family life with a creative pursuit, I have come to realize the value of connecting with others and sharing the experiences of those who are walking a similar road, which is why I am here… to create a space where we can walk this road together, ask questions, challenge and encourage one another and share our stories.
Stop Being a Starving Artist
I Was An Artistic Child I self identified early on as an artist... When I say artist, I mean one who is generally interested in and cannot help but to express his or her self through some or many forms of artistic mediums. For me it has been a variety of things,...
How to Love Doing What You Don’t Love
You Gotta Love Business I co-host a bi-weekly podcast with my good friend Sean McCabe over at seanwes.com/podcast, where he and I talk about (to put it generally) creativity and business. During a recent episode we were discussing the business side of freelance work...
My Workspace, My Helm
Today I'm going to talk to you about a place where I spend most of my time. My home office. I used to spend most of my time in coffee shops, working on my laptop. As my office took shape, I found myself addicted to working here. Our office is actually an offshoot of...
Anhalt Hall
Goals and Summary: The goal of the logo is to convey the rich history of the dance hall, while highlighting the fun, light-hearted, community spirit that people experience when they hold and attend events there. A refresh of their branding will help Anhalt Hall to stand out more prominently in peoples’ minds when they consider […]
Why You Shouldn’t Quit Your Day Job
Pursue Your Passion, Do What You Love, Follow Your Bliss, etc. I am a big fan of the idea of "pursuing your passion" or "doing what you love" or "following your bliss". After all, life is too precious a gift to waste it on something that doesn't matter to you. While I...
Dealing With the Reasons We Seek Distractions
Distractions come in many forms these days. From social media, unexpected e-mails, phone calls or visits, to distractions in our environment, it's really easy to let ourselves get distracted. Sometimes I find that despite my best efforts to build barriers that should...
Why You Don’t Need More Time, but Need to Do More With Your Time
Playing Tetris With My Time I have a habit (one that I think is a pretty healthy one) of sitting down periodically and taking stock of how I'm using my time during the week. My goal when I do this is to squeeze as much work time into my schedule as possible without...
The Value of Zooming Out and Essential Conditions for Dreaming Out Loud
Stay-cation! A few weekends ago, Rachel and I sent the boys away to the grandparents for a few days, something we try to do quarterly, so we could spend some time hanging out just the two of us. We call it our "stay-cation" because our house is actually a fun place to...
Managing Extra Work Time With Your Family
During the past few weeks I've experienced both the pull from family away from my work, and from my work away from my family. I try really hard to keep family time and work time very separate, but these past few weeks have been somewhat of an exception. I found myself...
The Permanence of Present Circumstances
The Daily Struggle Today is a struggle. I get up early most days because if I don't get a jump on the day I end up losing more time and productivity because of all of the noise in my world. Most of this noise comes from my wonderful children, playing, laughing and...
The Surprising Role of Belief In Accomplishing Your Goals
How Important is Belief? I've often heard and even spoken a lot about how important belief is for accomplishing goals. For this reason I have practiced self-belief, visualization, writing down and carrying my goals with me, etc. But, as helpful as those things can be,...
Coheed And Cambria
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Here’s what you can expect from this newsletter:
Weekly updates including the following information:
-Things I am learning and fun projects I am working on
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-Updates about new products and projects
-Stories about personal experiences that stem from my creative pursuits
-Anything else I feel might be of value