The Lie
Sartre's bad faith meets the brain's default narrator. Spot the comforting fictions you tell about what kind of artist you are, then burn the false script. Literally.
The Phoenix Formula · a six-month audio course
Lie less. Create more.
Twenty-four weekly episodes that take you through the stories you tell yourself, the fears that run your practice, and the rituals that make the work happen anyway. Presented by Mia Moore. Built from a year of Creative Conversations.
Why this exists
Every creative we interviewed had the same ghost. A sentence that starts "I'm just not the kind of person who…" and ends with the work they never made.
For a year, Creative Conversations sat makeup artists, painters, photographers, musicians and designers down at a table in a sixteenth-century barn and asked them how they actually work. Not the highlight reel. The shed after the business collapsed. The voice that says "you're stupid" when a brush is dropped. The £50 note set on fire at the bottom of a garden.
The same patterns kept surfacing. The Phoenix Formula is those patterns, turned into a six-month practice.
It borrows from Sartre and Barthes, from the neuroscience of the default mode network and the amygdala, and from the people who sat at that table. Each week is one episode, a short exercise and a journal prompt. Think of it as a very well-read friend who won't let you off the hook.
Six months, six thresholds
The arc
Four episodes a month. Each month is one threshold, and you don't get to skip the uncomfortable ones.
The Mirror
Metacognition without the shame. Map your creative process as a creature, learn to switch between your brain's networks on purpose, then set a timer and make something you're not allowed to care about.
The Ghost
The inner critic, the old tutor's voice, the amygdala on stage. You don't banish the ghosts here; you find out what they're protecting and put them to work.
The Ripple
Barthes, mirror neurons and the gap between what you meant and what landed. Your work has a life after you release it. This month makes peace with that.
The Ritual
Rule-breaking, thresholds, the sacred dullness of showing up. The neuroscience of habit, built into rituals that make creating inevitable rather than heroic.
The Return
Flow, intrinsic motivation and integration. Everything from the first five months braided into a practice you can keep, and one final piece to mark it.
Hear it first
Lesson one, week one
A Parisian café, a waiter who is performing being a waiter, and the question Sartre asked that still stings: aren't we all? The first five minutes of the opening episode.
"Every artist has their version of the apron. The question is: do you know when you're wearing it?"
Mia Moore, The Lie, week one
Sample · The Lie
Bad faith, and the waiter
5 min 4 sec · from a 24-minute episode
Who it's for
You, if…
- You make things, and you've got a drawer, a hard drive or a sketchbook full of the ones you never showed anyone.
- You've described yourself as "not really a proper" writer, artist, photographer or musician in the last month.
- Perfectionism, fear or inconsistency has quietly become your style.
- You'd rather be told the truth with some wit than be motivated at.
And who it isn't for
Probably not, if…
- You want a formula for going viral. There's a good reason the word "formula" is doing something else in the title.
- You're after lavender oil and affirmations. There's neuroscience in here and some of it is unflattering.
- You need it to be video. It's audio, on purpose, so you can listen while your hands are busy.
Founding members
The whole six months
£149£249Founding price, one payment, VAT included
- 24 weekly audio episodes and a short welcome, presented by Mia Moore
- A short workbook every week with the exercises and the journal prompt
- Listen in any podcast app through your own private feed
- Start when you like, keep it for good
Join the waiting list
One email when it opens. The founding price is only for names on this list.
No spam. You'll get the opening email and nothing else unless you join. Privacy notice.
Questions
Before you ask
Is this a video course?
No. It's audio first, built to be listened to on a walk, in the studio or on the way to work. There's a short welcome, then one episode a week, most of them ten to fifteen minutes long, each with a short PDF workbook for the exercises. You listen, then you make something.
Who is Mia?
Mia Moore is a makeup artist and co-host of Creative Conversations, the podcast recorded at the Granary. The course grew out of a year of those interviews: the guests' stories run through every lesson, and Mia's own early years in a new creative industry are the honest thread that ties it together.
Do I need to be a 'real' artist?
If you make things and some part of you wishes you made more of them, or braver versions of them, you're the person this was written for. Writers, painters, photographers, musicians, makers, and people who arrange things nicely and have never once called that art.
How much time does it take?
One episode a week, a short exercise, and a journal prompt. Most weeks that's under an hour. Some of the exercises will take longer because you'll want them to.
What does joining the waiting list commit me to?
Nothing. You'll get one email when the course opens, and the founding price if you decide to join. You can unsubscribe from that one email.
When does it start?
Soon. The course is finished: all 25 episodes and every workbook are ready. The waiting list hears first, at the founding price.