Shows / Gifted Underachievers
Gifted Underachievers
A podcast for midlevel creatives with delusional ambitions
giftedunderachievers.substack.com
Episodes
Gifted UnderachieversHow to Use Speaking Gigs
In this segment, Gifted Underachiever Dobes is just in from the opera house, where she did a high-profile speaking engagement and had them rolling in the…
Gifted UnderachieversThe Sumo Honeymoon (Silly)
Here in the Gifted Underachievers clubhouse, we’ve been talking about travel lately. Spanish cities James would like to visit include Barcelona and Madrid…
Gifted UnderachieversMinor Leagues for the Arts World
What “career” pathways exist for creative writers, visual artists, and actors? Is there anything analogous to the training grounds of the minor leagues in…
Gifted UnderachieversMacroeconomics for Creatives
The median income for all employed artists in all domains according to the NEA in 2023 was $70,170. Meanwhile, the value that all of that creativity delivers…
Gifted UnderachieversFree John Irving! (silly)
After 100 episodes the gifted underachievers have decided it is time to release John Irving from controlled captivity in the Gifted Underachievers’ clubhouse.*…
Gifted UnderachieversGrowth Plans for Creatives
James and Pat ask questions, discuss options, and debate financial and productivity growth plans for creatives. The debate: Pat must convince James that it’s…
Gifted UnderachieversWhen to Ditch or Delay a Creative Project
The gifted underachievers have lots of ideas. We’re not saying they’re good ideas, but sometimes you don’t know how a creative project’s going to work out…
Gifted UnderachieversPodcasters vs. the HR Department
The Gifted Underachievers’ corporate HR Rep has installed a livestream device in the content creation clubhouse, pissing off the two biggest GUs in the whole…
Gifted UnderachieversOur Minds Need a Break
After a very busy and at times emotionally challenging past year, the Gifted Underachievers discuss what it felt like to be a kid looking forward to summer…
Gifted UnderachieversContests & Grant Apps: Who’s Your Audience?
Two experiments are running in the GU Clubhouse, each with the goal of developing an extra income stream and getting some new lines on our creative CVs. Our…
Gifted UnderachieversThroat Clearing Silliness
Pat is lecturing James on the difference between a sweater, a Jumper, and Kurdistan when her throat seizes sending the Gifted Underachievers down yet another…
Gifted UnderachieversThe Value of Pitching to Non-Artists
A brief conversation with an avid reader leads Dobes to a valuable insight about pitching ideas to your audience: sometimes it takes an ‘outsider’ to the field…
Gifted UnderachieversGo in Hot: Lessons from a Creative Retreat
Gifted Underachiever Dobes returns from a month-long creative retreat (with some remote work sprinkled in) bearing pure gold—golden advice, that is! She got a…
Gifted UnderachieversHow to F*ck Up and Survive the Experience
You might not believe this, but it’s true: We Gifted Underachievers sometimes make mistakes. In this segment, we discuss why mistakes happen, what to do when…
Gifted UnderachieversKath Montstream
After a hectic few weeks (lifetime, really) the Gifted Underachievers gave in to their underachieverness and are taking a week off for calm reflection. But…
Gifted UnderachieversWhat Makes Your Creative Work Matter?
James comes out of the marketing wing of the Gifted Underachiever clubhouse feeling disillusioned. The marketers are coming up with catchphrases, but they’re…
Gifted UnderachieversFearless Dumb Questions
Yes, even bright, well-intentioned people can display an uncharacteristic ability to ask dumb questions. We do it at work and at home. (And if you do that of…
Gifted UnderachieversWe are Nymphs ... & That's OK
Well, we’re not proud of this, but here in the Gifted Underachiever Clubhouse we’re starting to believe we might never blossom into our full creative…
Gifted UnderachieversCuts to Arts & Adapting Business Strategy
Trump and Republicans decimated funding for the arts in the US with immediate impacts to creatives. This is a loss not just to artists and other creatives but…
Gifted UnderachieversPension Projects for Creatives
Pat is excellent at thinking ahead and taking action to help herself down the road. Her month-long writing trip to [undisclosed location on the Spanish coast]…
Gifted UnderachieversStress and Brain Function
Both Gifted Underachievers have been through chronic stress for extended periods, and yes, it’s made us even less achieving than we normally are. We discuss…
Gifted UnderachieversWhat's Your Biggest Creative Fear?
We all have fears. If you don’t, check to see if you might either be a sociopath or the poster child for the Dunning-Krueger effect. In this brief segment, Pat…
Gifted UnderachieversCreative Retreat: A Case Study
Despite what James claims to see on the screen as this episode is getting taped, there’s no tequila in Pat’s apartment during her creative retreat in Spain…
Gifted UnderachieversProtect Your Intellectual Property
You may know of a few online platforms that match up creative service providers with clients who need help with their projects—writing a book, creating a brand…
Gifted UnderachieversHow to Juggle Many Projects at Once
James has taken on a rational amount of work in the last several months, but some of the projects that have left his hands have entered new phases that require…
Gifted UnderachieversBoth Lived and Professional Experience Matter
Both of the Gifted Underachievers have personal lives as well as their professional creative and creative-adjacent work. We’ve both had careers in other…
Gifted UnderachieversWork for Free? Depends
In her creative-adjacent work as a developmental book editor and consultant, it is common for Pat to offer prospective clients a sample edit. In fact, it is…
Gifted UnderachieversCreative Trip Prep: Nitty Gritty Edition
Pat is on the verge of leaving for [undisclosed location] for a month-long writing vacation. Think of it as a self-sponsored writer’s residency without other…
Gifted UnderachieversBanish Self-Sabotage in Grant Applications
The grant experiment has been a mixed success. Let’s just call it a near-failure. Let’s just call it a nightmare. James has applied with equanimity, while…
Gifted UnderachieversA Stencher in the Making
Something has gotten into Pat. A love of [undisclosed location] meats? The desire for warmth? The stench of privilege? Nope (well maybe the latter one). Pat is…
Gifted UnderachieversWe Know Podcasting! (An Underachieving How To)
A critical aspect of being a midlevel gifted underachiever with delusional ambitions is massively overestimating your abilities and capacity to learn. In this…
Gifted UnderachieversHere’s to Spring
Spring has not quite sprung, which means it’s the perfect time to ponder your priorities for the season. For the Gifted Underachievers, spring means changing…
Gifted UnderachieversTax Time for Creatives
The highly organized and business-oriented Pat offers great insights for how to prepare, be prepared, and remain prepared for tax time this year and every…
Gifted UnderachieversHealth & Creative Workers
Hey guess what? As writers and dedicated keyboard jockeys, your Gifted Underachievers have developed musculoskeletal issues and repetitive strain injuries…
Gifted UnderachieversJudge the Work, Not the Network
Like Sisyphus forever pushing his boulder uphill, James and Pat have been circling around the topic of creative grants and residencies for many months. In this…
Gifted UnderachieversCase Study: How to Organize a Big Creative Project
James writes books. Lots of books. Pat wants to know how he does this—what is his process for organizing, managing, and executing a big creative project like a…
Gifted UnderachieversCreative Work Cannot be Rushed…Mostly
Money, clients, our personal goals can add up to constantly feeling the need to rush in a very anxious way. And yet, we know that high-quality, thoughtful…
Gifted UnderachieversWhat’s YOUR Brand?
Branding and marketing are in the same room, but they’re not the same thing. Branding involves capturing the essence of who you are in a few pithy words—the…
Gifted UnderachieversGrant Update: Virtue Signaling & Other Sins
The MacDowell Colony is perhaps one of the most revered and elite artist residency programs in North America, and it also ranks highly around the world. In an…
Gifted UnderachieversPat Receives an 'Apparatus'
During a meaningful discussion on guilt and creativity that rose to a high moral and intellectual plain, things fell apart rather quickly and devolved into…
Gifted UnderachieversNihilism, Agency, & Creative Work
If an aspect of your creative work isn’t going well, it can be tempting to think it’s solvable. We might see our work as a system, with a set of tools and a…
Gifted UnderachieversExplaining Your Creative Work
Have you ever been to a party where another guest asks you what you do for a living? What do you say? Do you confess to being an artist, writer, performer or…
Gifted UnderachieversPermission to be a Self-Centered Creative
Life gives everybody more than enough to feel guilty about. It’s endless. Creatives, by contrast, are given a double helping of guilt. In this segment, Pat and…
Gifted UnderachieversHow We Successfully Underachieve
Gather around, creative friends, and listen closely. It’s clear that here in the Gifted Underachievers clubhouse, we are underachieving all over the place…
Gifted UnderachieversCowlick Jim Quaker Cowboy
When the Gifted Underachievers meet for their Friday meetings they usually spend about an hour laughing and telling stories. During one such period of…
Gifted UnderachieversSitReps as 2026 Begins
The dumpster fire known as 2025 is in the rearview mirror and your Gifted Underachievers are taking stock. Pat’s welcoming the new year, while James suspects…
Gifted UnderachieversRigid Mentorship (NOT a double entendre)
Working with a respected mentor—either within the classroom or one on one—is often seen as a steppingstone toward greater things for creatives. However, a…
Gifted UnderachieversGaining Creative Agency
Pat and James explore how creatives can be more prone to feelings of helplessness due to the subjectivity of success as a creative, constant rejection, and the…
Gifted UnderachieversThe Winter of Our Discontent
“Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody’s willing to do anything about it.” With this agreed, Pat and James discuss their rather different strategies for…
Gifted UnderachieversPitching a Platform: The Experiment
Submissions to literary mags can involve lots of rules, lots of waiting, and lots of rejection. Writers send their bright jewels of stories into the void to…
Gifted UnderachieversCreatives & Money: Ways to View Debt
In any small business, whether it’s an art, a craft, or a trade, there is this tension between paying for the tools and training you need while at the same…
Gifted UnderachieversIt's a DIY Creative Life
No matter where you live, no one will build the creative life you want for you. In fact, no one will build anything for you to help you live the creative life…
Gifted UnderachieversGifted Underachiever Germaphobes
It’s winter and boy-o-boy are there a lot of nasty bugs floating around. So far, Pat has had the flu and James survived a bad bout with Covid. In this first…
Gifted UnderachieversCase Study: Alternate Revenue Streams
In this groundbreaking segment set in the Interview Lab of the Gifted Underachievers clubhouse, James asks Dobes to explain her ability to come up with…
Gifted UnderachieversCompetition Experiment: Better Data & Better Targeting
We are always looking for better data on who our audience is and where they live. James has found that his part of the Gifted Underachievers competition…
Gifted UnderachieversCandy Karen (Silly)
We’ve all felt an innate sense of coolness—even, perhaps, superiority—when watching some dink act like a dink to a hip cashier at any checkout line. And then…
Gifted UnderachieversNancy No-Mates Know-it-All (silly)
Welp, Pat tries to give James a little ‘flu guidance,’ which leads to James calling Pat a ‘Nancy no-mates know-it-all.’ Then we’re off and running down a…
Gifted UnderachieversUnsaturated Opportunities to Sell Your Expertise
As every creative knows, the big-ticket, long-term creative projects that sell for thousands require some time to conceptualize, produce, and sell…and that’s…
Gifted UnderachieversHappy New Year!
As the calendar flips over to January 2026, the Gifted Underachievers discuss their plans and goals. Pat’s ambitious to stop the hamster wheel she’s…
Gifted UnderachieversOutsourcing Sh*t to Live a Creative Life
After creating a list of his daily and weekly tasks looking for those that could be outsourced, James realizes he needs to hire a maid, valet, and cook. Pat…