You're good at what you do. Your income doesn't show it.

BUILD MY MAP

A FREE MAP OF WHAT'S IN THE WAY AND WHAT TO FIX FIRST

1/13/16

75: Nick Onken – 5 Tips for Setting Up Your Year

My vision is to create a positive mental change through art and design.

Welcome to the first episode of 2016. The new year is a great time to reflect on where you are going and where you want to go in the next year of your life. You want to set goals for yourself, but more importantly, I like to ask myself, “How do I want to feel?”

This year I’m really excited about the three verticals I’m working on – photography, this podcast, and my typography art projects – really coming to life. Plus I’m launching my new brand, Nion Life, which I can’t wait to see out in the world.

Speaking of moving up and creating more, my team is looking for new interns. Interested? Listen in to hear more about how to apply.

For me, feeling creative resonance is huge.

[smart_track_player url=”https://soundcloud.com/nickonken/setting-up-your-year” title=”Five Tips for Setting Up Your Year” image=”https://nionlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/75_SettingUpYourYear_NIONradio_02.jpg” color=”#de4b9b” ]

Some things we learn in this podcast:

  • Why I’m pursuing shooting more influencers and celebrities [1:40]
  • Why I want to grow this podcast [2:10]
  • The growth of my art and typography project [2:55]
  • How I’m launching my new lifestyle brand Nion [3:55]
  • The importance reflecting and being grateful [4:35]
  • Why you have to set goals for yourself [5:05]
  • How to be the jedi of your own mind [6:15]
  • The power of positive thinking [7:35]
  • Why you should learn everything you possibly can [8:25]
  • The value of having a mentor [9:05]
  • How to apply to become an intern on my team [10:15]
  • Why you have to be able to execute [10:50]

Links mentioned:

LET'S CONSPIRE & CREATE

CULTIVATING YOUR VISUAL UNIQUENESS AND STREAMLINING YOUR BRAND'S EVOLUTION

My vision is to create a positive mental change through art and design.

Welcome to the first episode of 2016. The new year is a great time to reflect on where you are going and where you want to go in the next year of your life. You want to set goals for yourself, but more importantly, I like to ask myself, “How do I want to feel?”

This year I’m really excited about the three verticals I’m working on – photography, this podcast, and my typography art projects – really coming to life. Plus I’m launching my new brand, Nion Life, which I can’t wait to see out in the world.

Speaking of moving up and creating more, my team is looking for new interns. Interested? Listen in to hear more about how to apply.

For me, feeling creative resonance is huge.

[smart_track_player url=”https://soundcloud.com/nickonken/setting-up-your-year” title=”Five Tips for Setting Up Your Year” image=”https://nionlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/75_SettingUpYourYear_NIONradio_02.jpg” color=”#de4b9b” ]

Some things we learn in this podcast:

  • Why I’m pursuing shooting more influencers and celebrities [1:40]
  • Why I want to grow this podcast [2:10]
  • The growth of my art and typography project [2:55]
  • How I’m launching my new lifestyle brand Nion [3:55]
  • The importance reflecting and being grateful [4:35]
  • Why you have to set goals for yourself [5:05]
  • How to be the jedi of your own mind [6:15]
  • The power of positive thinking [7:35]
  • Why you should learn everything you possibly can [8:25]
  • The value of having a mentor [9:05]
  • How to apply to become an intern on my team [10:15]
  • Why you have to be able to execute [10:50]

Links mentioned:

1/13/16

75: Nick Onken – 5 Tips for Setting Up Your Year

Business

infuse your vision with a fresh breath of  creativity and vitality

BOOK A BRAND PHOTOSHOOT

GET THE DETAILS

GET THE DETAILS

infuse your vision with a fresh breath of  creativity and vitality

PODCAST

BRAND INTELLIGENCE

CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE

LIFE INTELLIGENCE

My vision is to create a positive mental change through art and design.

Welcome to the first episode of 2016. The new year is a great time to reflect on where you are going and where you want to go in the next year of your life. You want to set goals for yourself, but more importantly, I like to ask myself, “How do I want to feel?”

This year I’m really excited about the three verticals I’m working on – photography, this podcast, and my typography art projects – really coming to life. Plus I’m launching my new brand, Nion Life, which I can’t wait to see out in the world.

Speaking of moving up and creating more, my team is looking for new interns. Interested? Listen in to hear more about how to apply.

For me, feeling creative resonance is huge.

[smart_track_player url=”https://soundcloud.com/nickonken/setting-up-your-year” title=”Five Tips for Setting Up Your Year” image=”https://nionlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/75_SettingUpYourYear_NIONradio_02.jpg” color=”#de4b9b” ]

Some things we learn in this podcast:

  • Why I’m pursuing shooting more influencers and celebrities [1:40]
  • Why I want to grow this podcast [2:10]
  • The growth of my art and typography project [2:55]
  • How I’m launching my new lifestyle brand Nion [3:55]
  • The importance reflecting and being grateful [4:35]
  • Why you have to set goals for yourself [5:05]
  • How to be the jedi of your own mind [6:15]
  • The power of positive thinking [7:35]
  • Why you should learn everything you possibly can [8:25]
  • The value of having a mentor [9:05]
  • How to apply to become an intern on my team [10:15]
  • Why you have to be able to execute [10:50]

Links mentioned:

1/13/16

75: Nick Onken – 5 Tips for Setting Up Your Year

When you need a trusted creative partner in the room.

Take the Fit Check

Be seen at the level you’re stepping into.

Hey! I'm Nick.

PHOTOGRAPHER
BRAND ALCHEMIST
TEACHER

At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus qui blanditiis praesentium voluptatum deleniti atque corrupti quos dolores et quas molestias excepturi sint occaecati cupiditate non provident, similique sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollitia.

Build authority from the inside out.

Emanate is a creative-direction-led photography experience for entrepreneurs, speakers, and thought leaders in a moment of expansion. This isn’t about better photos. It’s about aligning how you’re seen with who you’ve become. For seasons of rebrand, visibility, and next-level leadership.

Magnetic Authority is a self-guided container for people who feel visible, but not fully anchored.

If your message keeps shifting, your brand feels inconsistent, or your presence doesn’t match your capability yet. This is where you build the foundation before you scale.

Take the Fit Check

Start Here

For founders, creatives, and leaders who want a trusted long-term partner. This isn’t coaching or traditional consulting.

It’s an ongoing creative partnership focused on bringing your personal brand identity to life.

Your brand. Your website. Your visuals.
All shaped as a direct extension of who you are. The work also includes a bespoke process of identifying and aligning the right experts when needed, so nothing gets built out of sync with your core.

Explore the Partnership

Quiet. Precise. Highly Selective.

read the latest

A performer's world stripped to essentials, artistry carrying without production

I’ve photographed Justin Bieber several times and seen fame up close. His stripped-down Coachella set showed the thing I keep relearning about creative work: production amplifies, and only artistry carries.

Calm Jamaican coastline, a nervous system coming all the way down in creative burnout recovery

You recover from creative burnout by treating it as a nervous system state: build real down-cycles, read your own signals, and return to the work you love.

Mountain landscape in New Zealand, one clear thread running through a magnetic personal brand

A magnetic personal brand comes from coherence and one clear through-line. Here is how entrepreneurs build one, in order, and the trap that keeps most brands scattered.

Hiking a New Zealand mountain trail, learning at your own pace in midlife

I spent a month training kung fu in Wudang at 47, the oldest and slowest learner in the room. What being a beginner again in midlife taught me about pace, comparison, and starting anyway.

Photographer walking a snow-capped mountain ridge in New Zealand, the long practice of seeing that develops taste

You develop taste through thousands of reps of looking closely and deciding what works. A photographer’s honest answer on how taste gets built.

Silhouetted figure leaping from a sea cliff at sunset, committing to one coherent personal brand identity

You make a personal brand more coherent by naming the identity underneath it, distilling a one or two word through-line, and bringing the four layers into agreement. The full path, in order.

Nick Onken travel image, Life Intelligence essay on travel as creative input that sharpens the eye

You cannot pour from an empty well. Travel is how I refill mine. Here is why new places are creative input rather than a break from the work, and why output without input runs dry.

Nick Onken portrait, Creative Intelligence essay on the creative act versus performing one

There is a difference between making something and performing the act of making it. Here is what I learned about the creative act, content, and why the resistance is the whole game.

Nick Onken portrait, illustrating that personal brand identity is human-built with AI as the tool on top

AI can generate endless brand content, but it cannot construct the identity underneath it. Here is the real line between what AI can do for your brand and what only you can.

Nick Onken portrait, Life Intelligence essay on nervous system regulation and creative recovery

Burnout is less a willpower problem than a nervous system running with no recovery. Here is what I learned about creative recovery from social media burnout and a reset in Costa Rica.

Elevated Realism brand portrait by Nick Onken, a subject looking unmistakably like themselves

Most brand photographers take good photos of you. Few capture who you actually are. Here is what to look for when hiring a brand photographer so your images match your authority.

Nick Onken portrait, Creative Intelligence essay on taste and the discipline of seeing

Taste is less a gift than a discipline you build through thousands of reps of seeing. Here is what twenty-five years behind a camera taught me about the art of seeing.

Nick Onken portrait illustrating visual frequency of authority, presence matching identity

Visual Frequency of Authority is the energetic signature your images transmit before anyone reads a word. What it means and why two people with the same credentials read so differently.

About the Blogger

I was born in a low middle class conservative religious family in the suburbs of Seattle. Art was and always has been my passion, and more than that a way of life. Starting as a graphic designer, I taught myself photography, built a commercial/editorial business shooting for the worlds biggest brands like Nike, Coca-Cola, Adidas and more. I've also had the opportunity to photograph the world's biggest celebrities like Justin Bieber, Usher, Jessica Alba and more. I've curated a lifestyle around creativity and have learned a lot along the way which I get to share here. 

I was born in a low middle class conservative religious family in the suburbs of Seattle. Art was and always has been my passion, and more than that a way of life. Starting as a graphic designer, I taught myself photography, built a commercial/editorial business shooting for the worlds biggest brands like Nike, Coca-Cola, Adidas and more. I've also had the opportunity to photograph the world's biggest celebrities like Justin Bieber, Usher, Jessica Alba and more. I've curated a lifestyle around creativity and have learned a lot along the way which I get to share here. 

NICK'S STORY