We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Gabriel Garcia a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Gabriel , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

I have been doing creative work full time for about 5 years now. It has been the scariest most satisfying thing I have ever done. I do believe in hustling for what you want, but I also believe that there are strategic moves that one needs to make in order to achieve short and long term goals. One move that I made early on was to join an awesome community called Geekdom. They are a community shared workplace that believes in the investment of start ups here in San Antonio. I met so many great people the helped me in my journey. It is where we have our office and headquarters set up. I started off fighting for tables and wifi at local coffee shops, now we have an office on the top floor of a historic building overlooking the downtown skyline.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I started my journey 11 years ago taking photos for my church. Before I knew it I was doing photoshoots every weekend, whilst working a full time construction job as well.

As I progressed I began offering more services such as video , graphic art and web design. I had no idea what I was doing but I made it my goal to learn a new craft every year. About 6 years into my journey I decided to quit my construction job and do creative work full time.

Fast forward to today, we have a full creative agency called Summit Creative Group. We offer all media services along with SEO and market research for your product or idea. We are happy to have clients like Chick-fil-A, San Antonio Rodeo and Hearst Media Group to name a few.

We also have another company called SA Creatives where we curate relationships through art. We provide a safe place for creators alike to network and grow together! We invite all creatives to join us in helping the community discover the best versions of themselves.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

This is something that is so important to me. Maybe it was instilled into me at a young age because my dad was in the military. Morale is something that cannot be forced or faked. This is an organic movement that should come from a place of humility and love. I believe that if we do small things consistently we build morale that cannot be shaken by waves that come our way. It’s important for my team to know that I am in the “trenches” with them and commanding at their level and not from a place of arrogance. Buying some sweets for the office or even a pat on the back can go far in a persons life.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I love to see people succeed. I love to hear that are meeting their goals small or large. If we can be a small part of that, I am satisfied at end of the day and can sleep well. I am constantly in communication with my clients, even when our journey has ended. In fact by doing so, we have brought many back that only needed us for one small thing. Some now use us for much larger campaigns. This happens because we care about their journey.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.summitcreative.group
• Instagram: @creativebysummit
• Facebook: facebook.com/creativebysummit