Most creatives didn't start their business to burn out.
Wealthy Creatives is a conversation with videographers, photographers, designers, musicians, and creative service providers who are building businesses that actually give them their lives back.
Hosted by Jonathan David Ray — a musician, creative director, and business coach who's spent 21 years in the trenches — each episode explores what it really means to be wealthy as a creative: not just financially, but in inspiration, margin, freedom, and the kind of work that makes you come alive. Expect honest conversations about finding inspiration to create your best work, pricing your work, building a client base that values your craft, and living a creative life as an entrepreneur you don't need a vacation from. If you're a creative who's tired of being talented and broke, this is your show.
Three years ago I played Red Rocks twice with Zach Bryan's tour, and at the after party in Denver I couldn't stop thinking about one thing. Why does one artist break through while my friends who are just as good stay unknown?
I've done over 250 consulting calls with creatives in the last five months, and the ones who stay stuck under 10k a month are almost always making the same five mistakes.
The time money treadmill. The identity swap, where you slowly become the bookkeeper and the account manager and barely touch the craft anymore. Pricing paralysis. The founder monkey trap, which comes from a real trap hunters build out of a gourd and a handful of nuts. And the commodity trap, where you become one apple in a basket of apples and the cheapest apple wins.
Underneath all five is one root cause, and it isn't talent.
Free 18 question audit: audit.wealthycreatives.co
Connect with Jonathan:
Instagram: @jonathandavidray
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathandavidray/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jonathandavidray
If you're a creative service provider who's tired of being talented and stuck, check out Wealthy Creatives Coaching → [link]
Chapters:
9 Sept 2026
Stop Pricing Your Work, Price The Outcome
You wrote the proposal, read it ten times, and your finger flinched before you hit send. That pit in your stomach isn't a pricing problem. You sold the wrong thing.
Two creatives quote the same job with the same scope. One gets two thousand, one gets fifteen. The difference is what they made the client believe they were buying.
In this one I walk through the whole model I run with clients. The outcome ladder, where you keep asking what the work actually does until you land on something with a number attached. The four questions I ask on a discovery call to get those numbers without ever making it feel like I'm asking about money. The math itself, which lands somewhere between 10 and 30 percent of the value your work is helping bring in. And why you send three tiers instead of one price.
Derek, a DJ I work with, booked 5k in his first week after we changed one thing at the end of his calls.
Free custom GPT, the Pricing Architect, is linked in the notes.
Connect with Jonathan:
Instagram: @jonathandavidray
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathandavidray/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jonathandavidray
If you're a creative service provider who's tired of being talented and stuck, check out Wealthy Creatives Coaching → [link]
Chapters:
9 Sept 2026
If I Started Over As A Creative In 2026
Real artists aren't starving. The creatives who care most about the work are the ones who figure out how to get paid for it.
I've spent 20 years in creative fields and done about 250 consulting calls in the last six months, almost all with people stuck between 5k and 15k a month, working full time hours and quietly losing their love for the craft.
So here's exactly what I'd do if I wiped it all and started over. I call it the five ones. One target market, one product, one conversion tool, one traffic source, for one year.
I get into why most of us are running the Walmart version of our business when we should be running the Coach version, the Snickers bar wrapped in a paper towel, and how Hosanna hit 12.5k in her first month of coaching after she picked one channel and stayed there.
I also tell on myself about TallBear, the band my friends called the best band that never was. I wrote ten songs and released three.
Connect with Jonathan:
Instagram: @jonathandavidray
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathandavidray/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jonathandavidray
If you're a creative service provider who's tired of being talented and stuck, check out Wealthy Creatives Coaching → [link]
Chapters:
9 Sept 2026
You are the story / with Joseph Baum from Maniac)
Joe grew up without a television and then went to film school. That paradox is where this one starts, and it goes further than I expected.
Joe co-runs Maniac with two friends from film school. The three of them started it together during COVID and run it as equals. Before that he was a student at Regent when eight professors got terminated overnight. He and his friends borrowed camcorders from the marketing office, turned an empty dorm room into an interview studio, recorded students all night, and papered the campus with posters that were just a big white 8 and a QR code. They almost got expelled. A couple of those professors kept their jobs.
We spend a while on westerns. High Noon. Unforgiven. The scene in 3:10 to Yuma with Christian Bale and his son that is the entire reason you watch the movie.
Then it turns into the question I actually wanted to ask him. How do you stay yourself in a marketplace that has to put a price on the thing you love?
I love how Joe thinks about storytelling. You don't write stories, you are the story. The business is just a harder canvas, and the way you handle fear or courage is the thing you're really making.
We also get into partnership, the loneliness a lot of creatives are living in, why the church model in the West is buckling, and a Scottish pig farmer named John Brown who had a speech impediment and taught the neighborhood kids in his barn anyway.
Connect with Jonathan:
Instagram: @jonathandavidray
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathandavidray/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jonathandavidray
If you're a creative service provider who's tired of being talented and stuck, check out Wealthy Creatives Coaching → https://wealthycreatives.co/
Chapters:
8 Apr 2026
The One Thing That Destroys Every Relationship You Have / Dr. Mark Matthews
Join Jonathan David Ray and Dr. Mark Matthews in this powerful deep dive into the foundational principles of identity, presence, and high performance. Discover practical frameworks to cultivate self-awareness, overcome judgment, and unlock authentic growth both personally and professionally.
Main Topics:
* The importance of entrance into others’ worlds and cultivating deep presence
* Identity development and aligning goals with who you are becoming
* The role of standards and the nervous system in sustainable high performance
* Overcoming judgment and embracing vulnerability for a deeper connection
* Practical strategies: 6-week cycles for experimentation and growth
In this episode:
* Dr. Mark shares his origin story of loss and how it has shaped his mission to serve others.
* The power of entering another's world and creating deep presence using non-judgmental awareness.
* How to set intentional focus and use breathing techniques to anchor presence.
* Frameworks for managing grief, judgment, and self-worth through identity and core worth.
* The significance of aligning standards with your identity for lasting change.
* The science behind the nervous system and its influence on certainty, comfort, and burnout.
* Actionable tools: 7-day sprints, habit stacking, and the importance of reflection cycles.
* The meaning of wealth as responsibility and the pursuit of freedom and lightness over heavy burdens.
Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction to the conversation and Dr. Mark Matthews' background
02:09 - Mark’s origin story of loss and resilience
05:02 - The impact of losing a parent at a young age on decision-making and growth
09:19 - The universal human gap and the obsession with closing it
13:10 - Framework for helping others: Entering their world with presence
16:38 - The importance of non-judgment and acceptance in connection
19:02 - The role of presence in facilitating change and growth
23:45 - How setting intentions guides meaningful interactions
27:53 - The significance of focus and eliminating distractions
32:25 - Judgment as the biggest obstacle to presence and connection
36:45 - The roots of the human need to judge and seeking certainty
40:41 - Suspending judgment and expanding beliefs through presence
44:21 - The connection between exposure, authenticity, and spiritual safety
48:55 - Cultivating non-judgmental self-worth and its impact on leadership
54:55 - The biblical sequence of loving God and loving others: The importance of sequence
60:48 - The power of being versus doing and integrating presence in personal growth
66:55 - The "Rest Work" equation: Rest as a state of being, not doing
73:34 - The concept of core worth and its influence on motivation and contribution
78:45 - Kobe Bryant’s story: Unconditional love and intrinsic worth-based achievement
87:07 - The dangers of over-reliance on AI for strategy versus being
90:37 - Developing discernment through reflection cycles and experimentation
98:42 - Overcoming inaction in creatives through data and risk-taking
108:15 - The role of identity, standards, and the nervous system in high performance
114:39 - The three levers: identity, standards, and nervous system regulation
121:13 - The 7-day sprint framework to embed growth and discipline
126:02 - Building responsibility, wealth, and freedom without burden
131:26 - Closing thoughts on the power of deep thinking and intentional growth
Resources & Links:
* Face My Fear on Instagram - https://instagram.com/facemyfear
* Jonathan David Ray on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jonathandavidray/
8 Apr 2026
If Money Can Solve It, It's Not a Real Problem / Brandon Smith
Brandon Smith started his career pushing a broom on a construction site at 18. Today, he runs New Vision Projects, a residential and commercial construction company in Vancouver, and is launching Trade Up Coaching to help trades and home service businesses scale.
Brandon gave me my first-ever podcast guest spot, and I still love having him on now, months later. We talked about founder dependency, hustle culture, what it actually costs you to bring your best to work and your leftovers home, and why the people who push back hardest on investing in themselves usually have a value problem, not a price problem.
Brandon also brought some amazing leadership frameworks. Clouds and dirt. Sometimes you need to be up in the vision. Sometimes you just need to get down in it and do the work. Knowing which day it is matters a lot.
If you are building a business and you feel like it cannot run without you, this one is for you.
Now live on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
Comment PODCAST and I'll send you the link.
Guest Brandon Smith | New Vision Projects / Trade Up Coaching Instagram: @buildwithbsmith | @newvisionprojects LinkedIn: Brandon Smith
DM Brandon "scale" on Instagram if you own a trades or home service business and want support growing it.
Host I'm Jonathan David Ray, a business coach for creative entrepreneurs and founder of Acadia OS. I help creatives build businesses optimized for money, margin, and meaning. www.acadiaos.com
Connect with me:
Instagram: @jonathandavidray
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathandavidray/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jonathandavidray
If you're a creative professional who's tired of being talented and stuck, shoot me a DM for a free strategy call. walk away with the next 2-3 things you need to focus on. Shoot me a DM on socials to schedule.
Chapters:
21 Mar 2026
Your Product Isn't Broken. Your Story Is Hidden. / Joseph Ibarra
Welcome to the very first episode of Wealthy Creatives.
This podcast celebrates creative professionals doing the work. Videographers, photographers, musicians, coaches, designers, and builders of all kinds. We're going to talk about what it actually looks like to run a business as a creative. The struggles, the lessons, the things you've had to overcome, and what keeps you inspired when it gets hard.
Joseph Ibarra is the perfect person to kick this off. He's a videographer, founder of Porchlight Productions in Atlanta, and one of the most thoughtful people I've talked to about what it means to build a creative business without losing yourself in it. We met not too long ago and I knew immediately I wanted to get him on here.
We talked about niching down, flat rate pricing, why your close rate tells you everything about your prices, and what AI video actually does and doesn't do for your business. But honestly, the best stuff came at the end when we started talking about what wealth really means when you're a creative with a family and a faith and a life you're trying to protect.
If you've ever felt like your business was eating you alive, this one's for you.
Joseph's got a line I'm still thinking about: they know their story. They just don't know their ICP's story.
Guest - Joseph Ibarra | Porchlight Productions porchlight.productions | @im.joey.joe
Host - I'm Jonathan David Ray, a business coach for creative entrepreneurs and founder of Acadia OS. I help creatives build businesses optimized for money, margin, and meaning. acadiaos.com | @jonathandavidray
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