Sustaining Creativity Podcast
Sustaining Creativity Podcast
Creativity Captured with Jake Isham
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Creativity through the lens of an Award Winning Film Maker, published photographer, Content Creation Agency owner
"You don't have to be an artist to be creative."
Jake Isham is a filmmaker-turned-brand strategist
who helps founders and entrepreneurs turn their
expertise into authority through powerful
storytelling.
Over the past decade, Jake has worked with more
than 150 entrepreneurs and companies—
including Grant Cardone, Callaway, 5.11 Tactical,
and Travis Mathew—creating content that’s
generated over 1 billion views online.
Blending his background in filmmaking with deep
marketing strategy, Jake helps B2B leaders cut
through the noise by crafting content that builds
trust, drives visibility, and creates true
omnipresence across platforms.
Whether scaling a founder-led brand or launching
a thought leadership show, Jake brings a unique
creative lens and proven playbooks that turn
storytelling into growth.
https://www.youtube.com/jakeisham
https://www.instagram.com/jakecapturedthis
https://www.facebook.com/jakeisham
Welcome to the Sustaining Creativity Podcast. I'm your host, Mari Reisberg. Over the past several years, I've combined my degrees in acting and somatic psychology to share my sustaining creativity techniques with performers. And now I've decided to share it with a bigger audience that includes you. I believe we are all creative, and this podcast is all about that. I'll be interviewing people from all backgrounds, ages, and creativity experiences to share just how creative we all are. Today I'll be chatting with Jake Isham, award-winning filmmaker, published photographer, and content and creation agency founder. Please enjoy Jake Isham. Welcome to the Sustaining Creativity Podcast. Today I'm chatting with Jake Isham, award-winning filmmaker, published photographer, and content creation agency, owner, founder, worker, employee.
SPEAKER_02All the above. Yeah.
MariI love it. Well, welcome to the podcast.
SPEAKER_02Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.
MariI'm excited to dig into creativity and your creative journey because I can only imagine how that has been in your life. But why don't you take a couple of minutes and let us know a little bit more about who you are and what it is you do?
SPEAKER_02Uh well, it's definitely been an interesting creative journey. Uh, I I'm very fortunate to, well, I'll start with this because I think it's the underlying I'm unbelievably fortunate to have two parents who are artists and who make a living with their art. And so being an artist was never, oh, get a real job. It's it was the opposite. It was all right, go figure it out. And so it was great, but at the same time, it was never go get a job. It was always all right, you want to be a director, you want to be a musician, you want to like go do it. So, like, my and I'm the oldest of four kids, and all of us are essentially artists and make a living as artists or as creatives, you could say. And um, and it's it's it's so very different childhood, but I feel like it's almost like the cliche LA childhood. So like I grew up being an actor and a musician and a performer, and uh around 16, 17, I was pretentious and was like, I don't want to do this audition game anymore. I'm gonna write and direct my own movies and just cast myself. You know, Pan Affleck can do it, and Eastwood can do it, I can do it. Yeah, okay. You know, 16-year-old Jake not knowing anything about anything. Uh, so I I started to mess around uh with a DV camera. I'm gonna date myself for any. I mean, you and I seem close in age, but uh, you know, for any younger listeners don't even know what that is. Yeah, so shot on tape back in my day. God, I feel old, and I'm not even that old. Uh, so you know, went to film school, did all that. At the end of film school, I forgot that I even grew up acting and wanted to act. I just fell in love with the art of directing. Post film school. Basically, the didn't really have any mentors besides, you know, my parents, and my parents were like, I don't know, you want to be a director, go direct, figure it out. Yeah, and basically, my dad gave me the best advice, uh, which I repeat to any upcoming artist, which is figure out how to get paid to practice. Because that's what he did. So he grew up uh being a jazz trumpet player. Oh, wow, and wanting to play trumpet and specifically jazz, but there's only a limited amount of jazz gigs, and there's a very limited amount, especially if you want to be the band leader, which is what he wanted to do, have his own band.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02And so he got paid to practice. He would take any job that would keep a trumpet in his hand, you know, from Chinese funerals, walking. So they would do these Chinese funerals in the streets of San Francisco, yeah, where it would be this big spectacle, and he would play trumpet in that to the holiday inn, to the orchestra, to anything that allowed him to play and practice trumpet, yeah, and get better at that skill, he took. And so I basically followed that advice, and I was growing my own social media really, uh, really well. Uh, this was over about a decade ago now. Wow. Um, and this was kind of when you know you would still poke people on Facebook. Again, I'm gonna date myself, and um so I kind of freelanced and was like, you know, becoming a social media guy. And from there, I, you know, built this agency while at the same time uh making films. So I've made over 25 short films. Uh, I've also traveled the world as a photographer, and yeah, it's been a it's been a wild, fun journey.
MariI love it. I I love the that's what you want to do, figure it out.
SPEAKER_02Support it been it's been very awesome to have parents who are so supportive, yeah, of of a dream like that, and but or who are also living testaments of like you can do it, where my parents didn't have any connections. If anything, both of their parents were like were the cliche of like get a real job, right? You know, and um and they're both living testaments of like, you know, it takes heart, it takes you know, grit determination, heart, hard work to to do it, and you can do it.
MariYeah, I love it. I I hope more people listen and can follow that as well because it's important if it is a passion and turn and I uh you know figuring out how to get paid to practice. What a great just piece to live, live creativity by or art by and so many struggles.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it it's an interesting because I started a kind of like a solo podcast basically just documenting the lessons I'm I've learned, but I had to learn pretty early on in this journey that if I want to be a successful artist, I need to be a successful entrepreneur, right? Because the key word again in that message was get paid to practice. Yeah, so you have to find people who need and want your services, and then you need to sell them on your services. Yeah, and it's something I talk about and try to teach upcoming artists is you need to not only be unbelievably talented at your work, but you could be the best painter, and if you don't show anybody your paintings, you could be the best trumpet player, the best filmmaker, the best photographer. But if you don't show your art to anybody, you will never get paid for it.
MariRight.
SPEAKER_02So you have to be entrepreneurial in the sense of you do have to be a salesman, you do have to be a little bit of a promo and a marketing guy. You know, all these I see a lot of jokes online, which is like I wanted to be an insert artist, but there's a lot of you know, musicians. I see this is, you know, I I wanted to be a musician, not a marketer. Why am I making social media? It's like, well, because you're being your own record label. That's why you don't have to give up 80% of your income to a record label, right? Right, 90% of your income. You can do it all on your own, but you're gonna have to do it all on your own.
MariRight. Yeah, that's the entrepreneurial spirit. You also have to have that, and that that's that's a a big piece of creativity as well. So I can appreciate both of those coming together.
SPEAKER_02Or, you know, I have a lot of friends who are amazing photographers and work at agencies and you know, who are amazing filmmakers and work in marketing because that's where their skills are needed, yeah. And they get paid to keep a camera in your hand. Like I get paid to make marketing videos, yeah. But I'm not driving Uber, I'm not working at Starbucks, I'm not working at Amazon, I am working with a camera. Is it the most creative? No, but I can make it creative and I can get into do what I love while still working on the passions of making films and working that until that actually gets me paid.
MariI love it. Yes. Well, with all of these pieces that are collectively creative, what does it mean to you to be creative?
SPEAKER_02There's a lesson my mom taught me very early on, which was you don't have to be an artist to live creatively. A beautiful dinner can be highly creative. The clothes you wear makes you creative. The way you do your hair, the like, and I'm not saying you need to like put crazy dye and a hair to like it can just be that you present yourself really beautifully and really aesthetically as a guy or girl is creative. Yeah, I look at entrepreneurs, and it's something that I, you know, as I said, I talk to a lot of artists, but I also talk to a lot of entrepreneurs, and I go, look, all of every single entrepreneur I know is an artist because they're creating something that was never there before. Right, they're creating a world that and a product, a service that was never existing before, and solving a problem that's creative. So, what does it mean to be creative? It means to literally put aesthetics into the world, to create something that has never been there before, or put a new twist on it that makes people go, Whoa, that's awesome.
MariI love that. I have and those two pieces, the piece that your mom shared, and then just literally putting new things out into the world and other people having reactions or responses to it as well. I think, yeah, I can appreciate both of those, but that you don't have to be an artist to be creative, creativity can be a part of everyday experiences and life, and it's how we how we look at our life and the world through that creative lens.
SPEAKER_02100%. And it's you know, it comes down to just putting aesthetics. What is aesthetic? It's just things that literally go, Whoa, that's awesome, right? Like it, it, there's nothing tangible about it. It's it is very a I look at it as a very spiritual thing, as a you know, it's it's just what kind of that it just kind of hits you in your chest, and you go, Whoa, something that moves you, and like and it could be, I mean, there's a great moment for me that's like what was something that was not obvious but highly aesthetic. My wife and I were in New York recently, and there was a gentleman who walked on the subway, and he was in a fantastic suit. Again, he's he's probably late 20s, early 30s, a good-looking black man, and but just dressed to the nines, great shoe, like the entire suit, pocket square, the bow tie, uh, fedora hat on, everything matching, everything color coordinated, and that was aesthetics, that was creativity. That man took time every morning to do that. He doesn't need to do that, but he chose to, and I actually went up to him and was like, Sir, your suit is gorgeous. Just curious, how many do you uh do you have of these suits? He's like, probably around 18. So, this is a man who chooses who who knows what he does. He could work in finance or in something, but he was clearly not just a man in a suit. This was a man who chose to take the suit and be creative about it.
SPEAKER_04I love that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's where the aspects of like you know, creativity is not just oh, I'm a filmmaker, I'm a painter, you know.
MariRight. It's not just a title, it's a way of life.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. A beautiful dinner that a friend puts together and the way they put it present the food, that's creative.
MariYeah. Well, I feel like we are kindred spirits in this world of creativity. Um, but with with filmmaking, with entrepreneurship, with photography, who or what is inspiring you, or where do you draw inspiration for projects and pieces that you are curious about, or I guess I'm curious about there's a great quote.
SPEAKER_02I forget, I think. I mean, there's a sm there's a book on it, and I forget the author's name, but I think this this quote's been around, and lots of people have said versions of this quote, which is good artists borrow, uh, what is it? Good artists copy, great artists steal. And you know, for me, that's I get inspiration on everything, you know, from every movie I watch, every painting I see, every museum I go to, every song I listen to, uh, just even just traveling, you know. I I try to consume as much art and talk to people, and you know, even on social media, being like, wow, you know, look at what they're doing, and you know, try to stay away from any, you know, which you get sucked into all of the uh ridiculous other things on social media, but sure, you know, if you curate your your feeds well enough, it can be unbelievably inspiring.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so, but then also just letting myself, my mind wander and just going, oh, what could, you know, like as a filmmaker, I go, like, okay, well, what's the box I'm in while I have this one location? Well, what could take place in what what's what problems could occur here? What characters would come to this location? What characters could get stuck in this location? And there's a little bit of just allowing yourself to allowing your mind to just wander.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But then on the flip side, giving yourself hard targets of like it needs to get done today, and targets breed creativity. So there's the balance of don't let just like put yourself on a box, force yourself to work, and take away all distractions. So it's a balance of all of it. Sorry for ranting. No, no, you're asking such great questions that I don't typically get because I go on a lot of entrepreneurial and business podcasts, but to be able to talk to another artist is like so lovely.
MariI understand. I love I love all these, and like hearing the where inspiration comes from and how anything can be inspiring. I mean, as artists, I think you know, we have peaks and valleys in our creativity. When you find yourself in a valley, or maybe you don't find yourself in valleys often where you need a to pause or something feels a little harder than it typically does. How do you navigate those moments?
SPEAKER_02It's typically, I find myself in valleys is when I get swamped with work for me. I get swamped paying the bills, right? Building the company, making sure making payroll, you know, all that jazz. The the fun entrepreneurial game that I'm got myself into.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I found myself in a creative slump. And the only way to get yourself, and this is gonna be the most trite, cliche, annoying response ever, but the only way to get yourself out of a creative slump is to be creative. Yeah, you have to literally force it. And there's not there's no wait for divine inspiration. You have to literally force that shit. I don't give you an exact, I'll give you a way that I've applied this. So year or so ago, uh I was deep in corporate content. We were getting a lot of like not even like creative clients, we were getting into very like working with dentists, doctors, lawyers, professional services, which is why is my plastic surgery uh office better than the one next door? Well, I can make your boobs even better. It's like I I can make your nose look even better. I'm like, there's only so much of about this stuff I can I care about. Like this is and it's the same shots, there's the same lighting, it's the same script every single time. Yeah, and so I just said, screw it. And my wife and I, I'm very fortunate. My wife's also an artist, she's an actress and a writer. And we made 14 short films in four months. Oof, wow, and we again forced it. We just went go, go, go, go, to the point where in one weekend, we the first weekend we did this, we shot four different short films in one weekend in 48 hours. And now, look, all of those are like you know, two minutes long, one to two minutes long. So they're not like a 10-page long, short film, but they are four different ideas, four different locations, you know, different actors in every single one. And we just did it, you force it, yeah. And then, yeah, are they the most brilliant thing ever to be made? No, but it led, it got the rust off. Creativity is a muscle that needs to be worked the same way, like sports, you have to practice it, yeah, and the more you just do it, the better you get.
MariYeah, that's what is the is it my Angelou who says the more you use it, the more you have creativity.
SPEAKER_02I I love that quote.
MariYeah, I think that's I appreciate that the forcing it or the creativity has to find you creating, even if it's in your eyes shit or not good, or we just have to allow a creative moment to happen and be expressed in whatever way that is.
SPEAKER_02One of the things my my dad, when he does lectures or seminars on this, when they're like, What if you're in a um creative slump, but I'm looking at the word like uh burnout? Burnout, that's not particularly burnout, but um like looking for inspiration. There's a word for this, but I'm blanking on it right now. Um right, and you're like, you don't know what to write. What one of the things he does, it is one of one of two things. One is there's a piano inside the house, not in his studio, and he'll just play again. Just just play anything, yeah, and just go, okay, great. Oh, that sounds good, but he'll change locations. That's so that's the point is change locations. If you're typically right in a you know, in your house, go to a coffee shop and write, right? Just change locations. If you paint typically in, you know, inside, just go to your go to a backyard, go go to the beach, go to go to the mountains, go in the middle of the street somewhere and paint.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Then the other thing he does, again, just to give you use it to to inspire you, is he'll turn off, he'll click record on his on his program and but turn off the volume and just play. Hit the keys randomly, play anything, random chords, not even knowing what he's playing, not listening to it for a couple minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, however long, and then turns the volume up and plays it back and sits back and just goes, okay. And then eventually there might be a part where he goes, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, wait, that right there. I'm gonna build this off of that moment at minute, you know, seven. Seven minutes and 32 seconds. There was that chord change that was really beautiful there. I'm gonna use that. And then deletes everything else and starts writing from there. I really force it, yeah, whatever that means to you, but it's basically the simplicity is go make your art.
MariYeah, go do the thing.
SPEAKER_02Or yeah, I um it's not gonna be good to start with, fine.
MariRight, you don't have to release it, right? But you have permission to suck. You give yourself permission to suck.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, which I I ironically, literally, I just released an episode like two weeks ago or something like that on my podcast. Literally titled Be Willing to Suck. Talking about this exact thing. Be willing to suck.
MariI love it, it's so important, and and that it's okay to be a beginner and make bad art. It doesn't have to go.
SPEAKER_02I'm talking about this. Is somebody like from my Father, who's been doing this for close to 50 years.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I hate to be pretentious, but you know, this is somebody who's won awards and like is yeah, one of the top in his fields. Everybody goes through this.
MariRight. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So everybody does this. You are not special because you're just starting out.
MariRight. Right. Right.
SPEAKER_02Top of the top. Go through this.
MariStill, still experiences this. Yeah. And and the beauty of they have a few more years under their belt of knowing, okay, I just I gotta do this in this way to get back in my groove or get back into that inspiration space. Yeah. It's it's nice to know we're not alone.
SPEAKER_02Very much not. Very, very much not.
MariFor sure, for sure. Well, when you know, if people are starting in any of the industries that you find yourself in filmmaking, photography, entrepreneur, content creation, what are the things you wish you had heard when you first started?
SPEAKER_02Make more art. Just like the the amount of art you need to make and practice and practice is beyond anything you can comprehend. Like it's a lot more work. And the only way to get good is to practice and be willing to suck and do as many jobs for free as you're gonna feel like you're gonna get taken advantage of. But every everything you do for free, every art you just make and you invest, you're going to get better. And to me, it's really apparent when I cast uh actors for my films, and I see hundreds of auditions, and you really see the talented versus not talented actors, and it just and there's the only reason is because of practice, and yeah, you might be even worse than the majority. The only way to get better is to get better through practice, and I know the amount of work I've lost because I'm not good enough, and it only comes down to just being good, and so you always have to be learning. And if you're at, you know, if you're getting figuring out how you get paid to practice, and it's not something you particularly love, right? But you need to be learning every with every job, every time you do your art, you need to learn something new. And you need to, and it and it's a lot of confront. And if you go through the tears, the anger, the whatever emotion you go through, fine. Yeah, but you just have like the volume that is needed is so high more than ever, because the barrier to entry now is so low. It has never been easier to be an artist and to make a living as an artist. It has never been easier, yeah. That means the competition has never been higher.
MariRight. Right.
SPEAKER_02But I mean that to be inspiring in the sense that so you know, I give when I give a lecture or seminar to a group of artists, the first one of the first things I ask is how often is everybody here working on their art? And that could be literally doing anything on their craft. And I go, at least once a year, everyone raises their hands. And then I go once a month, you start seeing some hands drop. And then go once a week, seeing a lot of hands drop.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I go every multiple times a week, more hands are dropping. Every day, multiple hands are dropping. More than an hour a day, more hands are dropping. Right. And it really goes to show it's like if this is something you want to do as a career, if you want to do it as a hobby, if you want to like, I just love painting or I just love playing music, and I want to be able to like show off, you know, I want to be that guy at the bonfire who can play guitar and like be like, oh, cool. Hey, can you play this song? Yeah, you know, or I want to take photos of my kids, or I want to just like, you know, when I go out travel, I want to photograph birds or landscapes, and you just want to do it for fun, great. But I'm talking to the artists who want to make a living doing their craft.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02If you want to make a living doing your craft, you have to treat it like a job first. And what is that? It's eight hours a day. Now you might not have eight hours a day, but the more hours you put into it, eventually it will become a job.
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, sorry to go on these rants.
SPEAKER_02No, these are not ranging. We're talking about like the thing that I am arguably the most passionate about in my life. Like this is the thing I love. Like, screw all business. Like, I'd love to help upcoming artists because I'm yeah. So I love that you have this podcast to talk to, you know, four artists because it's this is the the topics that don't get talked about in art, which is like, what does it take to actually make it?
MariRight. Yeah. And how do we overcome the challenges that we face? Because we all face them. And how do we find inspiration when we are feeling uninspired? And how do we, you know, all of those pieces are the things that I love to talk to people around the world about because it's so different and in varying industries, because that every time I hear someone who's a lawyer or a doctor or someone talking about the creativity that shows up in their industry, I'm like, oh, amazing. I can take bits and pieces of that and bring it into my own life and try try on some of those creative ideas or moments.
SPEAKER_02So what has been in the six years you've been doing this podcast? What's been the one or two, or you know, what's the one advice or tidbit of information that has stuck with you the most?
MariWho I don't know about like the there are so many little nuggets of inspiration or advice or things that I remember. Um I was speaking to uh, he's a, I believe an Ayurvedic doctor and naturopath. Um and he really spoke about growing up in India and experiencing um kind of neurodivergence and ADHD in a time and culture that wasn't attuned to it. And his journey of feeling like he was he there was a storm and chaos surrounding him, and he found the eye of the storm where the stillness was. And so I feel like there was just such a translation in creativity when we find ourselves in the pocket, in flow, in alignment, whatever you want to call it. And that really stuck with me. That was one, and then recently um I was speaking to a dancer, Alexandra Beller, and she and I had a conversation around the distinction between being a witness of art and being an audience of art, and how how those two are very different. Oftentimes we confuse them, and oftentimes, you know, what people are producing as art doesn't need an audience, it needs a witness, and vice versa. So I think those recently are the two pieces that are standing out. But there are, I mean, there are over 300 episodes of people that I've talked to.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, no, I wanted to know what you know comes to mind right now.
MariYeah. So those are the pieces. Thank you for asking. I appreciate getting to talk about creativity and all of these things. I have one last question for you.
SPEAKER_02Shoot.
MariWhat does it feel like in your body to be creative?
SPEAKER_02I mean, every emotion in the world. Uh, you know, you're going through it, you can have because it it it depends on honestly the degree of practice. It's changed over the years. I remember the first um my big senior thesis film in college. This was now Lord over a decade ago. And I went to school about an hour and a half away from my house, and I drove home crying the the night before the shoot. Freaked out, feeling not ready, not prepared. It's the biggest project I've ever undertaken to uh and I I didn't and so sure, you know, but you know, there are definitely and there's still today shoots that I walk on to that I'm like, okay. And you know, uh but while you're in it, you're just like, great, this is this is it. The so the more prepared you are, and I notice it's just the more prepared I am, the more relaxed I am, the more practice I've done, the the the the more confident I am. And so prep and practice is seen as a chore, but you know, it makes you the most relaxed for when it happens. Filmmaking is all done in prep, in my opinion, and art is all done in the prep. You know, if you take talk talk about a musician, you know, goes live on a show, like you get that hive from the show, but if you're not prepared, it's gonna it's gonna be awful, you know. Like if you don't you haven't done the work, and so and it's doing the work, yeah. You'll have every emotion, you'll have anger, grief, despair, boredom, enthusiasm, exhilaration, fine, those are just emotions, yeah. My opinion. So work through them the best you can, and then uh, but once when you're actually doing the art, there's a um there's a focus of just like you're locked in. It's not even a serenity, it's it's a it's a focus of like, ooh, we're going, we're going, we're moving. And uh you gotta fight through all the the other weird shit to get there.
MariYeah, it's so true. I appreciate all of those pieces. Thank you so much for taking the time to join me. If people want to learn more about the work you do have out in the world, how could they go about doing that?
SPEAKER_02Uh, well, this is gonna be the most pretentious answer in the world. Just Google me. But because I unfortunately I have so many social media channels, but uh the filmmaking stuff is under Jake Directed This on pretty much all channels. Uh, if you want to see my photography, it's Jake Captured This.
unknownUh-huh.
SPEAKER_02There's a little theme there. Um, otherwise, my marketing company is called Creative Minds. Uh, the website is Creative Minds Official, but uh you can follow me and uh on and you can message me or follow me on any of the channels that uh kind of fit your fancy.
MariPerfect. Well, I will put links in show notes so people have really easy access. And thank you so much for taking the time to join me. This has been such a fantastic conversation.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much for having me. I love this podcast.
MariThanks for listening to the Sustaining Creativity Podcast. We'd love to keep in touch, so follow us on Facebook and Instagram. We are at Sustaining Creativity. Make sure to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Tag your friends and family so they can listen to you. We'd love to hear from you, so leave your reviews, comments, and questions. Check out our website, sustainingcreativity.com, for upcoming offerings and creativity coaching. Tune in Tuesdays for our next episode. And remember, with creativity, anything is possible.