Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexandra Palting.
Alexandra, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I started my company, The Hustling Creative, when I was twenty three, two years after I graduated from the University of Delaware with a voice and music history degree, and a certificate in musical theatre from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. After leaving school, I discovered that the leap from student to professional actor was thrilling and rewarding, but also heartbreaking and confusing. Worst of all, much of that heartbreak and confusion is shared by most artists. Why are we taught the difference between major and minor scales, but not the emotional elasticity necessary to getting rejected for a living while also being vulnerable in auditions? Why are performers taught to project their voices, but not how to project confidence onstage with the knowledge that aspects of our personality, skill, and physical appearance will be subject to private and printed scrutiny?
Uncovering question after question, both in community with my peers and by using my own career as a case study, finally pointed towards the one question that really matters for our company— what would the world look like if artists were given the tools they need to make a meaningful life they love by those with the empathy of lived experience?
Has it been a smooth road?
Nothing about being an artist and a CEO is smooth! I’ve made tons of mistakes and at times, I still feel overwhelmed with how far our business still has to go. But the bedrock of our work is a posture of service. And to be of service to our artistic community, we have to go through our creative journey alongside them. If we are asking artists to own their authenticity, we have to show up alongside them, even if we do so imperfectly. If we are asking artists to claim their space to provide value to their audiences, we have to do that alongside them, even if we don’t feel ready.
Before starting a business, I used to think things like “once I book that job, I’ll be safe,” or “once that agent signs me, I’ll be safe,” or “once I make x amount of money, I’ll be safe.” Where I think creative professionals are tempted to despair is once we realize that the hustle never ends– we’ll never actually be “safe.” So choosing to stay in the game, or not, requires changing the definition of what it means to win: choosing a life of passion doesn’t keep you safe. It makes you strong.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
The Hustling Creative is a professional services company for artists on a mission to bridge the gap between knowledge and wisdom. Our vision is a world where artists are free to hustle with vigor and to create with abandon.
The company has strived to fill the gaps in artists’ professional lives in whatever way possible. Before the pandemic, we gave seminars on creativity at national conferences, and workshops on consent in NYC. We offered resources and consultations for arts organizations on how to make their spaces radically accessible for all. So in this crazy time, we are continuing to look for new ways to support artists.
We sensed that creatives needed to feel a sense of normalcy, so starting the week of the nationwide shutdown in March, we held virtual stage combat workouts at 9am every morning for twelve weeks, sometimes joined by over 1k participants. For those using this time to hone their brand, we are designing marketing material like websites and logos. When we thought about what we could do to help promote anti-racism in the memory of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Marquez Arbery, and countless others, we found that nothing is as democratizing as information and as empowering as financial freedom. So The Hustling Creative is now a studio for artists starting sole proprietorships, LLC’s, and nonprofits–some as supplemental side-hustles, and some as true career pivots. It’s not nearly enough. But it’s a start.
As soon as the world turned upside down, we knew we wanted to create some kind of meaningful way that artists could use their gifts and share beauty with the world in order to create the energy, awareness, and money needed to actually help people. So starting five days after the shutdown, over one hundred artists from six countries came together to perform about 24 hours of content: musicians from Maryland and Colorado created new songs together, bands from California and dancers from Broadway shows paired up to make music videos, and authors from Australia and voiceover artists from Sweden all collaborated to create new content. Most of these artists had never met before! The community raised the money for over 60,000 meals to aid Feeding America provide for children who would miss meals due to school closures, and over $5,000 for RAINN, the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, for people for whom “stay at home” isn’t “safe at home.” Our next virtual event will be all about using the arts to help get the vote out among minority communities.
Coming together in this way was so healing for all of us. For me personally, I was made my first Off-Broadway offer the week New York shut down (which is now indefinitely postponed), and for the company, we were contracted to give our first workshop at The Kennedy Center two weeks after Washington, DC shut down. Most of the artists who volunteered their time and talent had all suffered similar losses. We all agreed that there was nothing as empowering and purposeful as feeling like we were coming together to make a difference for people suffering from the pandemic worse than we were. Meeting so many generous people I otherwise may not have crossed paths with makes me so proud to be an artist.
Pricing:
- Business Strategy Coaching: $97/hr (first session free)
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thehustlingcreative.com
- Email: [email protected]
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