#12: Meet the Mark Makers Mastermind

I have such a treat for you today. I'm so excited for you to meet the ladies in my Mastermind. So you're about to hear from some of the most incredible creative entrepreneurs, big hearted women I have ever met. I have been with all of them for a year, but many of them for the last three. Three years. So I host a mastermind called the Mark Makers Mastermind every year and it's a small group, There are only 30 of us and it's a year long commitment and so it is so much fun but also so impactful to be in a room with these ladies. And the last intensive that we had I invited them to sit down and record some audio for for you. They had two questions that they could choose from to answer. Number one was what was one of the best habits in 2022 that has attributed to your success? Or number two is what was time very well spent for you this year? What activity has given you the best ROI or return on your investment? And so I am thrilled to introduce to to you the ladies from my Mark Makers Mastermind. We are linking all of them up over on the show notes. So if you want to go dive into their world, just head on over to professionalcreative.com blog12 in order to meet all of these incredible entrepreneurs. Let's dive in. I'm Bonnie Christine and this is where all things creativity, design, business and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains, running a multi seven figure business, doing the most creative and impactful work of my life. But when I first set out to become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today. I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you spend your life doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want and is wildly profitable. Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast. Hi, I'm Emily Drew. The best habit that has attributed to success this year for me is asking the question, who can do it well enough? Who can do it well enough? I do a thousand things every day and not all of them have to be done by me. It feels good to be in control and to know that something's going to be done the way I like it or need it to be done. But other people are extremely capable and better. Even so, I'll give you an example. We have a nanny, a young girl who comes over two days a week and helps me with the kids while I work at our home studio. And she's wonderful. She takes care of the kids, she plays with them, she helps them with their chores, and she brings games for them to do. But I realized that she also enjoys cooking. And so I have given control of dinner over to her when she's at our house and it's not a gourmet meal. She's still learning, she's still looking up recipes and still trying things out. But she does it well enough. And I buy the ingredients for recipes for her to make and our family enjoys them. And it's one more thing that I don't have to do just by asking the question, who can do this well enough? Not everything has to be done by me. And just having that mindset in every little aspect has really, really helped me focus and change my perspective on what are the priority things that I need to be doing that only I can do. Hi, my name's Raquel. With the little rose shop and the habit that I want to share that has made the biggest difference this year is batch work and really creating a schedule that prioritizes batch work. The way that I've implemented this in my daily life is each day of the week I choose a theme of what I'm going to work on that day. So for example, one day of the week I do anything tech or email related and I batch it all together. And then I'm able to go much deeper, focus, there's less margin of error because I'm not scattered between 50 million zillion things as we usually are. And I'm actually focused on one task and I end up doing it better and more efficiently. And then let's say the next day I focus only on product photography, I sell products. So I end up taking a lot of photography and like videos for my content. And I don't do it all at once. As in I don't take the photo, write the caption for social media, post it at once, I batch it. And so I take all of my visuals on one day. And then how I described a different day, I do all the tech side of it and so then I already have all the images and now I just have to come up with the captions and schedule the posts. And so by batching things, I end up doing a better job, I end up doing it quicker. And like there's less margin of error and I don't feel scrambled and I actually feel more accomplished. And, and when you feel that way, it's really empowering to not feel frazzled. I hope that you can find something in your business that you can start batching so that way you can truly see how empowering it is. This is just a quick note to Bonnie from Raquel. I just really wanted to say thank you so much for everything that you have given us in this mastermind. And just the experience and the opportunity, it's made such a huge difference in my life and I'm gonna get emotional, but I'm just so, so grateful for your heart and everything that you give. You have talked a lot about how we get confidence by setting a goal and sticking to it and actually accomplishing it. And that's what I've definitely gotten from your mastermind. Because there was such a long time in my life when I was a single mom and just living in my parents basement thinking that I would never, you know, be financially stable, I would never feel secure in my future, that I was kind of destined to just always scrape by. And it's been a real privilege to be in this group because I finally have financial security and I did it. I did the dang thing and it's so empowering and I have so much confidence because I, I did it and I never, I never thought I would, but now that I have, it's. It's. I can't even describe the feeling. And I just wanted to say thank you because you've given me so many tools and I know we haven't connected as much one on one, but I just feel like I have a little Bonnie on my shoulder with just all the wisdom and encouragement that you have given throughout this entire experience. And I just wanted to make sure you could hear how thankful I am. So I hope this is a little surprise for you. Thanks. From Raquel. Hi, this is Mindy Young from Indie Bloom Design here with you. I just want to share something that has really attributed to my success and it's been just showing up every day when I plan and make sure that I have time to do all the things, I make sure they're in my schedule and I get ready to start the day. I refresh what I've written down and I just make sure that I show up in every aspect of all of those things that I wrote down. When you create a habit of being able to show up every day for yourself and accomplish those things, you just continue to build on you Know your confidence and feeling awesome about like being able to check off the list. But as I say that, I kind of cringe because I don't want you to make like checklists. I want you to be able to realize how much just showing up for the things that you wrote down really helps you accomplish the things in your business and gives you the confidence to continue to conquer more things that are more, more elaborate and scarier on your calendars and on your checklists. Those are the things that have helped me the most in my business is just being consistent and showing up every single day. So as you start to think about the way you want to plan. Planning for me is huge. I really like to plan out all the important things first. So I would go by Planning all my family stuff is usually number one for me because my family comes first in everything. So I usually plan all those things and then I fill in everything else next. And usually it's work stuff and just any other errand type things usually come last. I just start going through and checking out all those things that I've been working on. And I as I continually accomplish all those things and I can look back at my year that I've planned and I can see all that progress that I've done. I just feel so good. And I try not to over plan my schedule. I try to make sure that I have like three things that are my, my main things that I've got to get done every day and everything else can come later. And you'll find that when you're showing up for yourself and you're just consistent in what you do, you just find more success and things just seem to roll smoother and things are never smooth. As an entrepreneur, I can honestly 100% tell you that. But as you start to just create those habits of consistency, you'll find that things just become easier for you and you'll really start to enjoy your work and you'll enjoy showing up when you don't feel overwhelmed. And I totally understand how that feels. So when you're feeling overwhelmed, usually it's because you have too much on your plate and you just need to start with the most important thing first and then just kind of like X out the next thing, one thing at a time. So remember to start just where you are. And if you have a lot on your plate, write those things down that are the most important things that you need to get done. And that's actually something that I learned as a child, is to get the most important things done first and Then everything else you'll have time for in the rest of your day. So I leave that with you. And I hope you guys are able to establish a habit of just showing up for yourself. And I hope it helps you in your entrepreneur dreams. Hi, this is Jenna Blackburn. And the best habit that has contributed to my success this year is saying no to things, which is so hard for me. Saying no to things. In order to accomplish my big goal of creating my indesign your portfolio course, I would decide each week what I needed to get done in order to stay on schedule and each day what my most important task was. And it made it really easy to see what I didn't have time for. Every yes is a no to something else, right? So saying no to things that came up is the only way I was able to achieve this really big, important goal that felt daunting and like it was never gonna get done. And I was really amazed at the power of how much time I had when I just started saying no to the little things and thinking about if I take on this little thing, I'm saying no to this much bigger thing that means a lot to me. And when I framed it like that, it was really powerful and really, really helpful. Hi, this is Ashley Padgett. And the biggest habit that I have taken up this year that has contributed to the success of both my mind and my body is continuing the habit of going on hour long walks four to five times a week to clear my head. But while I'm on these walks, I will consume content, whether it is an audiobook or listening to a podcast. And I switch it up. I switch it up between fiction books or I will oftentimes listen to business podcasts such as this or other educational material while I'm walking. And so I feel like I'm crossing two birds with one stone by getting both my body and my mind nourished at the same time. This is Ali Becker of Three Dotted Penguins. And the best habit that I kind of restarted or started in 2022 was to give my creativity more room again, because my business would not exist without my creativity. It's kind of my highest good. And over the years, while building my business, I've had less and less time. So I gave my creativity less and less time. And so one thing I decided this year is to make my creativity priority again. So I attributed one of my best times, my mornings to my creativity without an agenda. So I gave myself time to create, to experiment, and that way also grow creatively again without having a set Agenda. So that was my best habit of 2022. Hi, my name is Alicia Wilfert. And the activity that has given me the best return on my investment this year is. Has been really a mindset of choosing me, not waiting for someone else to tap me on the shoulder and pick me to do something, but to pick myself. And I've done that in three specific ways this year. The first way is that I wrote and published a book I didn't wait to pitch to publishers. I found a program that would teach me how to really write an engaging book, and then I worked with a publisher to publish it. The second way I have chosen me is joining Bonnie's Mastermind. You know, raising my hand to be a part of this mastermind, and then following through and engaging and working with everyone in it. And then the final way I chose myself this year has been through radically nurturing my inner child. So thinking about all of the things that I really dreamed of and wanted to do as a and then figuring out how to give myself the things that I couldn't have as a kid. So things like really writing the book was part of that learning to believe that I could do it and believing in myself and really following through on that action. Bonnie tells us so often that the way to build confidence is to tell yourself you're going to do something and then follow through on that action. And writing the book was a way to radically nurture my inner child. I've also done really fun things like give myself voice lessons and work with a personal trainer and do silks. So there have been some fun things. But that all comes back to the idea of not waiting to be chosen, but to choose myself. And the return on investment has been confidence. It's been financial, it's been been relational and emotional. It has amplified my life in ways I didn't even know were possible. So I hope that you will choose yourself in the year to come. Hello, I'm Nancy Peet and I'm a watercolor artist. And I'm also a member of Bonnie's Mastermind group. The best habit that has attributed to my success is to just keep moving forward. Since I've been in Bonnie's Mastermind, I've created some pretty big go because she encourages us that the sky is the limit. But sometimes I might know what my goal is, but I just don't know how to get there. And even though I learned how to create a roadmap throughout this Mastermind, sometimes the roadmaps just get a little crazy still and a little Bumpy. And that's when I just need to keep moving forward. So I keep moving forward. I have things mapped out, but like I said, things get bumpy. And sometimes you hit a fork in the road and. And sometimes you don't know which way to go to go the left way or the right way. And sometimes you just need to move forward and just choose a route and keep on going. And that route might be kind of scary and there might be a rattlesnake or some bad barriers in the way. So what do you do? You just turn around and you go back to the other choice that maybe you should have had. Because that's okay. Because you've learned even though you weren't supposed to go this way, you got something out of it. And sometimes when you think, think it is the right way and it's the easy way, it's not the right way, maybe you should have taken the harder way. But the secret is that you just need to keep on moving. You know where you're going, but sometimes you just don't know how to get there. So just keep on moving. So that is my tip. That was the attribute that I learned from Bonnie's mastermind. And Bonnie, I thank you for letting me be a part of it. So thank you very much. Hello, this is Tessie Faye. I'm so excited to be here and talking about the past year, about 2022. The best habit that I discovered in 2022 that has really attributed to my success is creating daily affirmations. I always thought that this was kind of a silly thing. It wasn't something that I was interested in. It seemed a little cheesy, but I was challenged to do so. And. And it has been one of the most amazing experiences to review these affirmations every day. I don't love the word affirmation, so I renamed mine. I created a Google Doc and I call it my Daily Truths. And it has about 10 things that I want to remember about who I am, what I'm about, what my life mission is, what my business mission is. And it has been a game changer in the way I show up in the world. So what this looks like is each day before I start my work for the day, I like to spend some time in prayer and meditation. And then I open up my list of daily truths and I like to write each one down on a piece of paper. Something about the act of writing it helps me to internalize it. It's just this beautiful form of recentering and it helps me to be able to show up better in my workday. So I wanted to share with you just one of the affirmations that's made a big difference that isn't only one that I write each morning, but also that I remind myself throughout the day anytime I'm feeling those perfectionist tendencies that sneak in, you know, you know how that is. Anytime you feel like you're getting a little nitpicky, going around in circles, thinking you have to redo something because it's not quite right, I try and remind myself of this, of this truth. And it is that I don't need to be perfect. I just need to serve. Because I find that anytime I am wanting to be perfect at something or going around, I'm really worrying about myself and how other people are viewing me, and it's kind of all about me. But if I can turn that around and remember, I don't need to be perfect. All I need to do is serve. I just need to serve. Then it takes it and turns it to the people that I'm creating these things for. It helps to remind me what my job is. To create light, to uplift, to spread joy. And this amazing thing happens as soon as I remember I don't need to be perfect, I just need to serve. And I start thinking about the people I'm creating this thing for. Something magical happens where I just can let the little things go. And it's helped me to be able to create content much quicker and get things out in the world quicker and just not worry about those little things and not sweat the small things. So that's been my best habit in 2022. Hi, this is Bearbelle from Bearbell Productions, and I'm here to tell you a little bit about what I have done in my business this year that has given me the best return. And so this year, I have made so many big things, so many new things in my business. For example, I created this, my big opt in a lead magnet that would help me build my list. I have also, for the very first time, actually done Facebook advertising in a more serious way that I have before and managed to do that on the backend with all the things that it means in a way that actually worked. So these are big things. But the biggest thing that I did was to launch my course, which is eight weeks long. But none of these things were actually what has been the most helpful thing for me this year. So it hasn't been building my list or creating new revenue. The thing that has given me the best return of my Investment, so to speak, is actually to build my team and to have people help me do things, to take some of the tasks off of my plate, to free up time so that I could spend it on the things that I should do. And that is, I have now three people on my team and they are helping me with community support and also helping me broadcast and publish my courses and my lessons. And I think this is something that I'm also going to continue work on next year. So this is what I think has been the most valuable activity for me, the most important investment, and that has given me the most back. Hi, I'm Nancy Scott. The best habit that has contributed to my success is setting goals, being super clear about what I want to accomplish, the exact details, what do I want to do personally, professionally and in my business. I write those goals down, get them out of my mind, get them onto paper and get super focused on them, do some refinement, get into my heart with them, think about them and get really, really specific about what I want to accomplish. I then become one with my goals. The goals are a part of me. I am my goals. My goals are me. They're not something foreign. They are part of my soul. I embrace my goals. I love my goals. I work consistently on my goals. I don't just write them on paper and put them on a shelf to visit. When I have spare time, I give them a seat at the kitchen table where I can interact daily with what it is I want to accomplish. It then becomes super easy to take consistent action on those goals. And that consistent action leads to success. Hello friends, my name is Sarah Watts. I'm so excited to be here. So I wanted to talk about how I have worked on something that is very, very important and it's something that artists tend to put aside and that is your health. So I was the quintessential self destructive artist that didn't sleep very much. I, you know, piled my plate full of deadlines and would come into the office and just think like, okay, how many things can I get done today? Like, how much can I produce? And it was all about produce, produce, produce, right? And I hit a major burnout. And it occurred to me that I wasn't taking good care of myself. I wasn't sleeping good. I have two kids now. I have a three year old and a five year old. So, you know, obviously that played into things being different. But I realized that I was still operating on that, you know, hustle mentality of I gotta get a hundred things done today. And if I don't get through my to do list, then I failed. And it's just not, it was not working. And it all starts with mental health. So I spent years going to therapy and therapy was always part of my life. But mental health is more than just going to therapy. Obviously we need that. We need to take care of our mental well being in order to be able to function as an artist. But your mental health includes a lot of different things. It's talking to yourself kindly, it's treating yourself the way that you treat your friends and loved ones. And it's loving yourself in a way that gives yourself space to mess up or to not be productive. 24, 7. And I had to work on that. I really had to work on that because I was one of those people that defined my success by how much stuff I got done. And now my success is defined by how happy I feel, how good do I feel right now, you know, and it's, it's a big deal. It's a big deal to take care of your mental health. And so, you know, there was lots of different things that I did in order to start feeling more peaceful. I tried to start saying no to more projects. I, I started going to the gym every single day. This started in the pandemic time period when it was at the, you know, when the mass mandates were starting to lift a little bit. And right around then I was like, I got to start going to the gym because I feel, I feel tired all the time. I feel like I need to get strong. And I wanted to really build my strength. And so that, that fed into my mental health, taking care of my body. I started sleeping more. I started making sure that I got seven hours of sleep. I wish it was eight or 10, but sleeping more became a priority. You would be amazed, I mean, amazed when you're having a hard time in your life. You would be amazed at how much of it has to do with not getting enough sleep. Sleep is so precious. It is a vital, a vital thing for artists. And I think we just don't take it very seriously sometimes. You know, it's kind of glorified in art school. Like staying up all night, getting your work done, you know, slamming energy drinks and never leaving your desk. Like that was the, that was the training that I kind of was surrounded with when I first came into this industry. So I had to do a lot of undoing. So, you know, therapy, awesome. Taking care of my body. I started working out daily. It was, it was, it became part of my schedule. I was not going to sacrifice it. And I still am doing that to this day. That is a huge part of how I have the energy to be there for my students and for my family. And the other thing that contributed to my mental well being was to schedule things. I. I've been doing a lot of classes over the last two years, and I just. Routine is something that most artists are scared of. We think that it's creatively stifling. We think that it'll get boring. But the truth is, when you give yourself permission to have a space to create because you've scheduled your entire life, you will be so much more creative. It really made a huge difference for me to start scheduling things. So the way that I operate now is I get into the office, I write down three things that I'm thankful for. This sets the tone for the day to help me to practice a gratitude mentality. I tend to be a. I can be a pessimist sometimes. So this was a mental shift as well. Is just, you know, first thing I do when I get in is I think of three things that I'm thankful for. At least this is going great. And that, that made a huge shift in my day. I use the bullet journaling method to schedule out my day. I also do annual planning. I do quarterly stop and thinks. And then I kind of have resets every Monday, and I also have resets at the beginning of the month. So I just. It's like, what is the ideal schedule? It's not going to happen every day. You know, we have. Some of us are caretakers, some of us, you know, have illnesses. Like, there's so many things that come into play. But in an ideal world, what is that schedule for you? What does that schedule look like if you had control over it and all you do is you go through your week and you just try to get back to. To that baseline. It's not a requirement. You don't have to follow it, you know, to the T. But it's a very beautiful thing to have a scheduled baseline that you kind of go back to. It becomes. It feels safe. It. It starts to feel safe. I know I have creative time planned. I know I have fitness time planned. All of these things I have planned. And, you know, even if life happens and things get in the way, at least I know that I can go back to that, you know, that default schedule. So taking care of my fitness, taking care of sleeping more, definitely. Fostering relationships with people that support you and, you know, being very present and there for your family and your friends that are there for you and then scheduling things. Those are my favorite things that I've implemented this year. That helped a lot and I hope they help you too. Hi, this is Christa Elvey. The habit I have formed that has made the biggest impact on me and my business and also my personal life is very intentionally saying no more than I say yes. And the way that I've done that is through something I like to call consulting my pillow. So. So before I say yes to an opportunity, whether it be personal or on the business side, I like to sleep on it, you know, so to make sure that whatever that opportunity is will serve me and my business goals and also bring me joy. Because joy is such an important thing to cultivate and because I have said no more than I've said yes. It's given me space. Free space. Headspace to think. We don't get enough space to just think and plan these days. We're all so busy. But when you say no, it gives you back your time. And when you have that time and that space, you can get really clear on what your goals are. Before you jump to one thing and another, you can get really clear and make sure that you're spending your time the way that you want to spend your time and you can do it more effectively and efficiently. And in doing so, that will bring you great success in both your business and your personal life because you're aligned with your own values. What brings you joy and your own life? This episode is sponsored by me and my Start simple and Surface Design Guide. Truthfully, I will never forget the moment that I learned what Surface Pattern Design is and that it's an incredible career opportunity. I mean doodle for a living. Yes please. Surface Pattern Design is the work of creating artwork in the form of a repeating pattern for products that that require it, like fabric, wallpaper, gift wrap, tape, and any product that you can think of. After working professionally for over 13 years and teaching thousands of others how to create their career, I've made the ultimate guide to Surface Pattern Design and I'm giving it to you for free. This guide is 44 pages long and it will take you from start to finish on how to jumpstart your career in surface design and get started. You'll learn how to set proper goals, build a solid foundation, find inspiration, work in collections, pitch your work, and create a career while doing something that you love. So don't delay. Go over to bonniecristine.comguide to download your free copy of Start simple and Surface Pattern Design Today again, that's bonniecristine.comguide B O N N I E C H R I S t I n e.com forward slash guide and I will see you there. Tiffany Emery so the thing that I learned the most this year in mark makers was about systems. And our company has been at a transition phase and seeing how Bonnie runs the various systems of her business on her team, how they communicate over projects and then also how they're applying these higher level concepts, ideas like the queen bee role and how we protect it and how we as the visionaries of our company actually have to start taking steps back from our business and start learning some of these harder things like how to hire, how to capture the systems and the things that we, that we think only we can do. But certainly that's not the case and learning directly from Bonnie and having these mirrors into how she is doing this with her own is just so much more incredibly helpful than just learning about the concept on paper or in a book. It's the real life application. And just taking those baby steps really for the duration of this year has been a really amazing process for our company. We have completely reorganized our company's systems and how we communicate based on just some of the tools that really are industry standard like Asana and Slack, but more importantly how those tools work together and really just creating standard operating procedures around every single thing that we do so that I can be freed up to do the creative work that is the deep work that I really want to be doing. And really it's the work that has the most potential to move my business forward. My name is Janetta Gonzalez. The best thing I did in my business in 2022 was to hire someone to help me with my newsletter. And that was a repetitive task that would take me a very long time. And I knew that bringing somebody in monthly to help me get that done would really free up a lot of head space and time. So I hired someone to migrate my Mailchimp list to ConvertKit and they design and schedule my newsletters monthly. I write them in a Google Doc and provide all the photos and everything for them to design and I pass it off and I don't have to think about it again or look at it again until I get approved back and then we just go through the approval process at that point. But that is the chunk of time when they're working on it that I would have been doing it. And that time is now reclaimed for me. I will continue to delegate and hire much more as I expand my business and continue to use my calendar in a really thoughtful way. This has been a form of self care for me and I now feel like I'm a lot more in control of my business and my schedule as well. Hi, this is Lissy. I'm an artist and designer and art educator. I live in Oklahoma. Almost everything that grew in my life this year was a direct result of time spent with others. I've had a very busy year. I've had a lot of growth in my business. I've become a team leader in some ways to kind of help all the growth. But there was a time in the beginning of this year where I truly just didn't stop. I've also learned the value of rest during this year. But truly it wasn't really that I wasn't resting. It's that I was working and I was thinking, I just don't have time to spend with my friends today. I just don't have time to cook dinner tonight. And a lot of those days put together quickly became very draining. And I immediately knew, probably around April or May, that that was not how I wanted to run my life or my business. I really needed to break and spend time with people. And the moment that I did that, the moment that I stepped back and reached out to a friend and said, I have not been available and I really miss you and I would love to go have lunch with you, even in the middle of a really busy workday, I got so much from that and I needed that and they needed that. What I found when I really put my priorities back on community and my people was that I actually had more time to give to my business. I actually had more time to give. Even though I thought, oh, if I. If I stop for this, I'm not going to have time to finish this work and I'm on a deadline. No, it was, it was so beautifully surprising that I was able to cultivate not only better friendships and to get out of myself, but also better rest, better energy, and better productivity. I had more energy to give to them and I had more energy to give to myself and I had more energy to give to my business. And so I think it's really important that we prioritize connections. What I found in August, I took that mindset right into my business and this connection that we have with our audience as entrepreneurs, as an educator, I was able to get in front of my audience and just face to face. I want to get to know them, I want to be able to serve them. So that was something that was very important to me. And lastly, as I sit here in North Carolina with Bonnie and this mastermind, I could not have done what I have accomplished in this year if I hadn't been surrounded by a creative community. These are the relationships that have grown my business internally. So much I learn I am somebody who now can truly lean on the wisdom of those who have gone before me. And we each have something to give to each other. So I'm so grateful to be here. I'm so grateful to be doing what I love and just feel true momentum and also just the energy and excitement of everybody that is here. So this has been the year of connections for me, and that is the one thing that has impacted my life and my business the most this year. Hi, this is Skye McNeil, artist and designer. And at the beginning of 2022, I set a word intention for the year. And the word I chose was commitment. And I chose the word because I'd been thinking a lot about daily habits and the habits that I was trying to cultivate but always fell off on, such as drawing every day, finding space for that in the morning, and habits that would really progress my business and give me lots of new work. But I didn't realize at the time that the word commitment would go so much deeper for me, because my personality or my. The way my brain works is all about that first burst of inspiration, the first idea. And I would get really excited. I do get really excited. And I write down all these lists of all these ideas of, you know, I see one spark of inspiration, and I want to do 20 different art collections based on it. And I see the color palettes. And so the only way to do all of this work and all the ideas is to cultivate these habits. And they're very trackable habits. But inevitably, what always happens with me is that that energy, it's like this burst of energy, and then it fades. And then I get in the weeds and I get overwhelmed and they fall off. And when I'm down in the weeds, I get discouraged and I get questioning. I have. I've always struggled with self doubt and just imposter syndrome, all the things that we struggle with as artists. But I had so many instances this year. It was a hard year. I did a lot of experimenting this year with different paths for my business, different types of product, different platforms for product. And especially when you're in that starting phase of a project and you don't have any results and you're just kind of floating out there with less feedback, it is really easy to just start doubting everything and want to give up. And I've been doing my business now for six years and with like a year and a half break in the middle because of a period of burnout. And I have wanted to give up a lot this year. I have considered going back to day jobs. I've. I've thought about completely switching careers many times, but I kept coming back to my word commitment. And the biggest commitment I made was just not giving up, just every day thinking, nope, you're never going to get there if you give up. And you might fail a lot and want to give up, but just keep committing to going forward. So I went forward every day and things are going well now. Not as well as I would like, ever. None of those projects are that much further along. But I've had a mental shift with just believing that this is the thing that I have wanted to do and that I won't ever really be happy or settled if I'm not doing it. And it's going to look different, it's going to keep changing. But I've committed to doing what is in my heart. And that word has served me as, as a habit, but also as something that has. It's not a return on investment in a measurable way, but it choosing that word at the beginning of the year really gave me this anchor point to come back to. So just keep going and commit to yourself. That's what I keep just telling myself. Hi, I'm Stacy Bloomfield and I want to talk about the biggest return on an investment that I've made for my business in the last year and that biggest, like, wonderful thing that I've done for myself and my business is hiring out the things that I just hate doing. You know, a lot of people talk about it as being your drudgery zone. It can also just be the things that don't excite you in your growing business. And when I think about my entire business running a product based business called GingerBrr, it has been hiring early out the things that I just hate doing. Gosh, I mean, 14 years ago it was hiring out packaging and shipping because goodness, I just hated that repetitive work. Even whenever I wasn't making much money really, really quickly, I found someone for like five hours a week to come in and help me package and ship my few little Etsy orders and a handful of wholesale orders that I was getting just here and there. And so when I think about over the past 14 years, I've just seen how helpful this has been for Me and my business and my enjoyment as a business entrepreneur who wants to keep scaling and growing. So this past year I did something really scary. And I'm sure for a lot of artists out there, it's going to seem impossible, but I actually hired a full time illustrator to come in and illustrate under my brand, Gingerbread. Now this has been my baby for nearly 14 years. GingerBR is my art, my heart, my illustrations. It is what I'm feeling. Sometimes my artwork feels like a diary, a bearing of my soul, maybe a little bit of an overshare that I put on greeting cards, on stickers, on tea towels. My art really touches a lot of people and I have felt so protective of it. But then I realized that being a business owner means finding the bottlenecks in your business and then figuring out how to get out of your own way. And as much as I love making art, and I still make art, when it comes to running a business that's growing and scaling with other employees, where you have to work further and further ahead because your team has grown so much, I found that it was time to bring on another illustrator into my business. Not only that, I taught them how to draw like me. Now this illustrator is talented on their own, right? I found them on Instagram, but then there was this onboarding process where after I offered them a three month window to work with me to see if it was a good fit, I really decided to see if I could teach how I draw to someone else. And I've never done that before. And then I empowered them to let their own strengths as an illustrator shine through. She's so good at florals in a way that I am just not as strong. I could just watch her draw flowers all day and she's bringing such an elevated touch to all the artwork that she makes. So now for almost a whole calendar year, I have not been the primary illustrator for my products. If you'd asked me years ago if I could ever have done that, I would have said no way. My art is the business. And you know, my art is the business. Yes, but my vision is the business. And I creative direct and I create mood boards and I edit and I help a typography. But I hired out something that frees up my whole team to keep growing and it allows me to keep growing in my business as not just the illustrator, cuz I love drawing, but as the visionary of what's to come next. So that has been the biggest return on an investment that I've made. It's given me time, it's allowed me to scale my business better, and it's allowed me to make art just for me, not just for products. And that is something that I think I would never trade. So that's my answer. And I hope that you can think about a great investment you can make for yourself this year. And it might be scary, but the rewards will be bigger than you could ever imagine. This is Aubrey Davis, interior designer with ABC Modern. And I wanted to let you know that the thing that has been the most impactful, the habit that's been the most impactful for me in my business, is connecting my to do list on a daily basis back to an overall plan for the year or even bigger picture. Just a vision for my business. I have a dashboard that I return to daily, and at the top of the dashboard is the mission for my business and also a vision board of what I want my business to be in the next 10 years. And then also a plan for the year, and then that rolls down to what I'm doing today. And I think just always having that kind of big lens, small lens approach has kind of kept me moving in a consistent direction. So I think that's probably been the best habit and then the best return on investment for my business has been spending money on my own education and spending money on things that get me around people who are where I want to be, business wise. So, for example, being a part of Bonnie Christine's Mastermind has definitely affected my life and my business dramatically. And, you know, you always hear people say that your time, your life, your success is the product of the people, the five people that you spend the most time around. And in the digital era that we're in, we're so lucky that we can sometimes spend money, sometimes not to be around people who are doing the things that we want to do. And so that has been a great return on investment. Hi there. I'm Liz Kohler Brown, an artist, designer, and teacher. And I want to tell you about a big mindset shift I made in my business this year that has led to a lot more satisfaction in my work and actually more income as well. So a little backstory here. I have always had a bit of a weird style, and I've worried that my colors are too bold and my artwork is too busy. For years, I've had this insecurity, and this year I decided to finally just fully embrace my style without trying to make work that's more marketable or use trending colors. I really decided to just make whatever I want to do and I want to give you the example of a greeting card line that I finished this year. I wanted to do a play on the thank you card concept and make it a little more modern, a little unusual. So instead of saying something like thank you, I said, thank you seems insufficient. And instead of using some soft, gentle colors, I used bold, high contrast colors and then paired that with some botanicals. So, of course, I worried as I was creating this that it was too bold, it was too unusual, and no one would buy it. But in the end, the funny thing is, it ended up being my most popular greeting card line ever. And it also ended up being the one that generated the most negative comments. Because as we all know, if you share your art on Instagram or anywhere else online, people feel very free to tell you exactly what they think. But this experience has kind of made me realize that even if some people are saying negative things about your work, it's actually a good thing that you're getting people talking because it means that your work is really powerful. It's been making me think about this billboard that I saw when I was traveling in Thailand that had a very unusual watch on it. It had a lot of little knobs, and it just had kind of a strange look that not everyone would want to on their wrist. And the tagline was, this watch is not for everyone. And what I loved about that tagline is they're kind of calling out, yeah, this is kind of a weird product. But for the people out there who really want these features, this is exactly what you're going to want. So I've been using that as my mantra this year. My work is not for everyone. And that's actually a really good thing. So I hope that helps some of you out there who have felt some insecurity about your work and helps you realize that even if your style is a little unusual, if you can just create the work that you really want to make, you will find people out there who really love it. And of course, some people who really don't love it. But that's actually a really good thing. Hi, this is Lucia Pador. I think one of the best habits I know. I don't think I know. Okay, the best habits that I did this year that really helped me thrive became more fruitful in 2022 was eating well, being, you know, a creative entrepreneur and a businesswoman. For the past 10 plus years, I didn't have the realization of connection and food and being a business person. I was so involved in doing the busy work that food would be Just kind of became like a secondary thing that I thought about last minute and I'll just do it, you know, I'll just eat what's in the fridge. And it wasn't a priority of mine, but once I took. I went on this journey this year of like, seeing that the connection of food was actually either it was hurting me or it was helping me. So I, you know, started to do a food log, a food journal to see why was. Why was. Why was I feeling so tired all the time, why was I having so much brain fog and seeing that the connection of food was actually contributing to it. So I started to eliminate food that was causing inflammation, either making me inflamed or making me drained. Right? Those are the two things that wasn't helping me. So when I. When I started to do this food journey and food blog, you know, I realized that dairy was one of the things and greens was one of them. Once I started to eliminate that from my diet and started cooking really organic and clean food and actually food that complements my body, I know every single person. Once you go on this journey, I just want to let you know that everybody's different, right? So you kind of have to do this on your. Kind of take this initiative to do it on yourself. But you'll discover it's pretty amazing when you discover what that's gonna be healing or draining you. And so when I did this, I started to have, like, my body responded so well, and ever since then, I haven't gone back. And so, you know, so when I'm cooking, the things I say to myself, when I'm cooking now or eating good food, you know, making better choices, it's like, this is going to heal me. This is going to bring more energy into my life. I'm going to sleep better, and that helps me make better food choices. And I think that as a creative entrepreneur or either if a business person, if you took the time to really eat the food that would fuel you, you'd do better in the work that you do. Because we need that extra brain power. We need that clarity. We need the focus, we need the energy. We need actually sometimes, you know, things that help us rest better, you know, to do the work that we do as a creative entrepreneur, food is going to be the thing that's going to give you the extra oomph that you didn't realize you needed. And if we saw it as a. As something that's going to bring us more life to us and help us do the work better, you'll See that it's, it's one of the, I guess one of the secret things that most people don't talk about, right? I mean, you do it when you're on this journey to like lose weight or get healthy, right? But you don't think about it as a compliment to the work that you do when you're on this journey of being a creative entrepreneur and a business person. So, yeah, eating well and which eating well led to sleeping well and sleeping well to learning to do better work better work that I can serve better, give to my community better, and then be there for my family when they need it. So it's an all around beautiful thing that all of us could be more mindful of doing. Hi, this is Stephanie Slowinski with Fancy that Design House and Company. One of the best habits and activities that I implemented this past year was getting better at annual planning. I've been in business for 10 years and as I've grown, there are naturally things that I do over and over again each year. Planning these things out ahead of time leaves me space and initiates a sense of calm in my business. It takes away the last minute panic of I've got to get this done right now. I know my due dates for my fabric collections, I know my due dates for my own personal product that I add to my shop. And I just put that down on a calendar and work backwards from those due dates to know when I need to start certain projects. Annual planning has been a simple but great habit to implement. Hi, I'm Coley Kuyper. I own Coley Kuiper Art, where I sell artful products for intentional creative living. One habit that I think I've done this year that has impacted my business is seeking opportunities and ways that I can grow and continuing to surround myself with people that I want to learn from. I think this is true in life, not just in business, but a year ago, I didn't know what I didn't know and I didn't really know what direction I wanted to go in with my business. But I continued to ask questions and take risks and be vulnerable with people that understood the ups and downs of what I was going through. I believe that when we surround ourselves with people that want to grow, it will inevitably lead us to wanting to grow as well. And when I'm in the room with or watching others that are doing big things with their life and seeing them take risks, it inspires me to want to get to that level or that depth too. The growth I gained from this year wasn't necessarily in dollar amount, but growth in my heart and my mind and seeing the big picture more clearly than ever before. I grew in knowing that I can not only go after my big dreams, but that they're possible to accomplish and that I could dream bigger than I ever thought was even realistic before. And because I've been in this community and surrounded myself with these women, it has naturally led to growth in my business. So I think we have to start with the people we surround ourselves with and we have to start in the smaller places and in the deeper places. And naturally that will produce the growth in our business probably differently than we ever thought it would. And but it'll produce growth in our business better than what we thought it would. And that's what I've experienced this last year alone just by being in this group and surrounded by so many inspiring creative women. How impactful was that? So much wisdom just shared with you from everyone in the Mark Makers Mastermind. I am so lucky to get to spend all year with them. I hope that you enjoyed getting to spend this time with them again. If you want to dive into their worlds, head on over to the Show Notes for this episode, it's professionalcreative.com blog 12 to meet them and get introduced to what they do. Thank you so much for tuning in to this this episode of the Professional Creative Podcast. I'll see you next time.