This weekend, one of the most powerful, innovative, and lucrative electronic dance music (EDM) acts returns to his home in the Bay Area. Lorin Ashton, aka Bassnectar, will be headlining on Sunday evening at the Bay Area Vibez Festival. Set in way West Oakland at at park overlooking The Bay, the Bay Bridge, and the San Francisco […]
The Lowdown on Bassnectar: How a 7.0 Earthquake Inspired The Bay Area’s Most Indigenous Musical Genre
On Sunday, September 27th, Lorin Ashton and Bassnectar return to the Bay Area to play at the Bay Area Vibze Festival. Bassnectar shows have been some of the most profound and joyful experiences of my life. And because Lorin’s music has touched me so deeply, as a student of creativity and Self-expression, I’ve asked myself, and had […]
Deconceptualize Your Concept of Time
Conceptual time, our ability to uses watches and calendars to schedule, plan, and carry out those plans, is one of our most powerful tools for organizing our lives. It is essential in manifesting our creative insights. But it can also be a trap, preventing us from experiencing our lives directly by feeling either bored (too […]
The Best Chocolate Bar I Ever Ate (and Why)
Last week, I spent 4 nights in the former home of the president of Nicaragua, a home that has since been converted into a hotel and chocolate museum. During our stay, my wife and my two daughters took a course in the history of chocolate, and had the opportunity to make 4 different types of […]
Marketing and the Tree of Life
Do you long to THRIVE both CREATIVELY and FINANCIALLY? Check out Ann Rea’s course Making Art, Making Money Today. Marketing has been an essential and super-fun aspect of growing Creativity Matters. But it wasn’t always that way. There was a time, not so long ago, that I viewed marketing as a total drain, and something […]
[VIDEO] Creativity, Cosmology, and Communion: A Buddhist View of the Sacred Significance of Psychedelics
Austin Hill Shaw is interested in exploring the peculiar ability of psychedelics to root out both the karmic challenges and opportunities of the individual who ingests them, and their powerful way of delivering messages that, when seen in the appropriate light, allow an individual to move forward in life with a deeper sense of meaning, […]
[ARTICLE] The Psychedelic Miracle
Apply now for this year’s Healing and Self-Expression Plant Medicine Retreat in The Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu, Peru. “[Ayahuasca users] have become better partners to their spouses, better parents to their children, better children to their parents, better employees, better employers, just more responsible overall, bringing a higher level of ethical integrity to everything […]
It’s Official: Creativity Drives Business Results
Adobe recently asked Forrester Consulting for help in answering the following questions: Productivity and efficiency have been the traditional indicators of business health and performance. What about creativity? Does creativity also impact the bottom line? Does it lead to more business success? In other words, do companies experience a Creative Dividened? The answer: Yes! Companies that […]
Creativity and Darkness: Why I chose a black background for this headshot
When people ask me what I do, I say “I help individuals and organizations rediscover their innate creativity so that they can lead more connected, effective, and deeply meaningful lives.”Creativity is often viewed as something frivolous, something to engage in only after more important things are taken care of. But nothing could be further from […]
Bay Area Creativity and Innovation: Lesson 9, The Creative Vortex
This video is part of a series on San Francisco Bay Area Creativity and Innovation by creativity expert, Austin Hill Shaw. In this edition, Austin unveils the unseen forces driving Bay Area creativity and innovation.