Sarah Peck
Who are you, and what do you do?
I help people tell their stories. By trade, I specialize in media strategy, content strategy, and communications. I like to get messy behind the scenes with brilliant people, helping them execute projects from idea conception to finished creation. I’m currently working at One Month, an online education company that asks the question: what can you learn in the next month? We focus on project-based accelerated education that helps people change their abilities, their careers, and their mindsets.
I also write, both on my own website It Starts With, which is a stories-based site about psychology, motivation and human behavior, and around the web. I’ve been featured on Fast Company, The Huffington Post, 99U, Psychology Today, and more. In my free time, I swim, teach yoga, write books, garden, and host dinner parties.
What forms of media have influenced you the most?
The written word is still an incredible invention to me. You can take ideas from inside your mind and put them in a place where someone else can find them later. It’s like time travel to me: when I sit down with a book, I get to dive into the ideas and minds of brilliant people — even if those people are sleeping, or long gone! Books are incredible.
I’m also in awe of the internet. I think the internet is only just beginning. Culturally, we’re unlearning the ways of broadcast media, and we’re re-learning how to have (and host) conversations. Online we can connect with anyone we want to, if we’re willing to join in the conversations. It’s an open arena.
What hardware / software do you use?
I carry a moleskine and an iphone almost everywhere I go — to take notes, draw, sketch, and capture what I see. I also work from a laptop (Mac or PC, either works), and spend a lot of time in Evernote, Chrome, and the Adobe Creative Suite. I’m learning how to code and build my own projects, too, which means I’m trying to learn a new application or program every week — or even every day!
What would be your dream creative setup?
I love being alone, and uninterrupted. I’ll break my machine and disconnect from wifi (or disable social applications) just to enforce silence in my life. Sometimes I’ll take long walks without technology just to find my ideas again. I think the art of getting lost and listening to your inner ideas for long periods of time has been dulled by our constant connectivity. It’s a double-edged sword. I try to find time to be both immersed in our digital worlds, and then far apart from it.
I also love movement. Whenever I move through the world, whether walking, swimming, or in yoga, I find my ideas change, my thought patterns become more free. The body is an ever-present machine, and it reminds us of our ties to time. I enjoy spending time in my body, feeling what it’s like to be alive.
*Photo Credit to Noa Griffel Photography they took Sarah’s awesome portrait and many others.
