As almost any entrepreneur or creative will tell you, unexpected problems are to be expected. Below, you’ll hear some incredible stories that highlight and illustrate the kinds of issues and problems entrepreneurs and creatives are dealing with everyday. It’s not easy, but the silver lining is that dealing with unexpected problems is one of the best ways to develop antifragility.

Brian Scagnelli

Since as long as I can remember, I have always been drawn to the arts. I would draw on the paper tablecloths of the restaurants my parents would take me to and always had a pen or pencil in my hand. I had always known that I was going to go to college for art, and one day become an artist. My parents also knew this so it wasn’t a surprise when I attended the School of Visual Arts. Issues quickly arose at the end of my freshman year when foundation was over and it was time to decide on what I would take on as my major for the next three years. Read more>>

Priscilla George

I never expected that pursuing a career in the arts would have such a strain on my creative well-being. When you decide to do what you are passionate about you are so excited to finally be able to focus 100% on that. As the years progress and the daily demands mount and grow that passion and spark you had for what you do will dim if not taken care of. Especially now with technology, there is another layer added to being an artist. Making videos, posting, emailing, shows, and running a business all on top of making art. Read more>>

Meena Khalili

There are a few tried and true rules I maintain in my creative practice. I started noticing issues that most of us see as creatives: Issues with work/life boundaries, cutting loose in the brainstorming process, and as a younger creative I felt a lot of “imposter” experience. Specifically, wishing I had more time in the day to create a new body of work or learn something new, so I used these rules to create new rituals for myself allowing me to carve out more time to devote to my practice. Read more>>

Tatyana Kogan/Nemirovsky

For most of my life, I have identified myself with my job – being a Social Worker and later, Social Work Supervisor. My sole purpose was to attend to my impoverished, mentally challenged clients who lived in a constant state of poverty, self-neglect, and deprivation. I had to connect them with psychiatric and other medically necessary services, to prevent them from losing their home (if they had it) and if not, to find an affordable one. Besides housing issues, I had to present my client’s cases in Court, trying to undo the troubles they managed to put themselves into before I stepped in. Read more>>

Jason Hough

My wife Heather and I had an idea to take our collection of over 25 years (of celebrity autographs, artwork, and film/television memorabilia) and build a place where others can enjoy it as much as we do. At the time we were living in Huntsville Alabama and realized that Huntsville, a place of rocket scientists and tech companies, may not be the best place for a museum like this or the correct demographic of people that would appreciate it. So we decided to uproot and move 15 hours away to Austin Texas, but in order to make this expensive move we had to take out all of our savings and even my retirement accounts, but felt that in order to make our dream a reality some eggs had to be broken. Read more>>

Courtney Hall

Well, there has been a lot of unexpected issues and problems that have occurred during my time of shooting The Courtney Hall Show. The biggest issues were during Covid, while I was shooting The Courtney Hall Show live on Instagram. There were simple, technical issues that made the show hard to continue, but it taught me a lot. One particular interview, my guest lost connection several times. It was horrible, making it very difficult to do the interview. This was one of the first times I did an Instagram live interview and the first time I had so many problems, but it taught me to roll with the punches and it taught me the show must go on. Read more>>

Tennyson Tanner and Jonah Atkins N/A

Tennyson – One of the most unexpected issue we faced and it really threw us for a loop and still does from time to time was that we were way underbidding projects. At one point an agency told us our quotes were so low they were laughed at and couldn’t even be shown to clients. Being from a smaller town and smaller area this caught us off guard. We always delivered what we considered to be high quality projects, but we were just used to doing it with a smaller team and on an even smaller budgets. You never imagine clients telling you, we love your work, it’s just too cheap. Read more>>