Inspired Creators: Prioritizing Play and Preventing Burnout with Anita Stubenrauch

Sup squiggly brained intuitives! Welcome to our six-part series on Inspired Creators, where we’ll be chatting about everything from burnout, embodying your creator archetype, finding your flow-state, and what the witch wound has to do with our creative output.

This week we’re lucky to have the ingenious creative Anita Stubenrauch to talk about pushing through creative blocks and strategies for combating burnout as they appear. Over a 13-year creative career at Apple, Anita authored Apple’s credo, designed presentations given to Steve Jobs, and was Angela Ahrendts’ executive speechwriter. She currently lives in Murphys, California, where she's building a beautiful retreat space, The Land of Make+Believe while running her brand-vision agency, Cause:Effect Creative.


Join us IRL in April for Quantum Con:

Get Shit Done Weekend!

Join us IRL in April for Quantum Con: Get Shit Done Weekend!


There are so many bright sides to being a creative genius like you are. But there’s also a lot of shadows there.
— Michelle Pellizzon
As things shift back into, not what they were before because they can’t, but new normals of living in the pandemic, I think a lot of us have experienced space and growth in certain areas and certain pillars, but then others maybe have had a lot of pressure put on them. So we have these pillars that are maybe a little bit burnt out and these pillars that have been refreshed.
— Wallis Millar-Blanchaer
If you’ve reached burnout before, and had to go through the healing process through that, it’s hard to trust yourself to come back.
— Michelle Pellizzon
When we’re talking about copywriting, that good copywriting, you’re often flirting with your audience.
— Wallis Millar-Blanchaer
It is fascinating to have lived so many different lives in relationship to a company, and having been extremely burnt out and cynical, to falling in love, again, to being able to write that, to becoming super burned out and cynical again.
— Anita Stubenrauch
That’s the difference between burnout and overwhelm. With burnout, there’s just nothing left to give. Overwhelmed, you just don’t know which way to start or to go. Either side, you have to have joy somewhere.
— Anita Stubenrauch
When you find joy in a lot of things, that can be challenging as well.
— Anita Stubenrauch
Oftentimes, either explicit or implicit, you should be grateful for what you have and where you are.
— Anita Stubenrauch
How we place value on things related to money is so complex.
— Wallis Millar-Blanchaer
For my squiggly brain to get engaged in play is always about trying to find a way in an unexpected way into a problem. And even sometimes visualizing, what is the way to approach it from above and below from the side?
— Anita Stubenrauch
I think a lot of people are really good at making content and connecting a bunch of ideas but don’t always go a little bit deeper for themselves.
— Michelle Pellizzon

Show Notes

  • The pros and cons of being a creative genius

  • Pillars that are a little bit burnt out and pillars that have been refreshed

  • Doing your sacred work without sacrificing yourself and your wellbeing

  • How to recover from burnout as a creative person

  • How do you thread all different endeavors together in a way that people can understand a cause-and-effect relationship, and in a way that they care about?

  • Good copywriting as compared to flirting

  • How to get into that space of having fun with writing and the creative process

  • What it’s like working with toxic leaders

  • The difference between burnout and overwhelm

  • When joy suddenly turns into a challenge

  • Forcing a model of flexibility on people that isn't actually flexible

  • Face to face conversation versus virtual

  • Thriving to do so many things all at once

  • From being awkward to building resentment

  • What is the salary range of Apple employees?

  • How long should someone stick to a job?

  • How we can use play as creatives to reignite

  • The things that drive you and the things that might drive the people you want to connect with

Resources and People Mentioned