8. Gabrielle Siegel: On Taking Creative Risks
What if the secret to a creative life isn't waiting until you're ready — it's deciding that ready is overrated?
In this episode of The Creative Collective Podcast, Emily and Allie sit down with Gabrielle Siegel — founder of The Aura Creative design agency, writer published in Teen Vogue and beyond, fiddle player, and competitive Irish dancer who walked into her first class in her twenties with zero training and quietly decided she was going to make it to the top anyway. Gabrielle writes a Substack called Everything Hurts about what it actually takes to pursue the things that matter to you, and in this conversation she gets into the decade of creative risk-taking that shaped that philosophy — from a secret goal she told almost no one about, to why she still can't hit "post" without fighting the voice that tells her no one wants to see it.
In this episode, they discuss:
How tagging along to her younger sister's very first Irish dance class led to a decade-long competitive pursuit she never planned for
The secret goal she set for herself and kept quiet for years — and what she learned when she didn't reach it
A childhood memory involving a zip line and a ten-minute standoff with fear that became her go-to method for pushing past creative paralysis
Why self-promotion feels "cringy" even when the work is something she's proud of, and the mindset shift that gets her to hit post anyway
The real cost of not pursuing the thing — and why the pain of not trying is so much harder to live with than the pain of trying and falling short
Why having no end goal for her fiddle playing might be exactly the point
Resources & Links:
Everything Hurts — Gabrielle's Substack
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And this is your reminder that you don't have to be an artist to benefit from creativity. You're welcome, as you are, in this creative community.