171: When Saying No is the Key to Success: Prioritizing Your Best Yes

Hi, my friends. Happy Tuesday.

I really love my Tuesday episodes because I'm not sure if you can tell, but they're not scripted. They're just completely kind of off the cuff. Thoughts, ideas. I give myself permission to just use Tuesdays to talk to you about the things that I'm working through. And so one of them right now is that our focus for this year has been to get really focused. And I think this is applicable to all of us as creative entrepreneurs because, you know, some people call it shiny object syndrome or squirrel syndrome or whatever. I often think that as creative entrepreneurs, ideas are really our superpower. It's like our success is is directly linked to our ability to have a good idea and implement on it. But the kryptonite for us is our ability to focus because there is something so enticing and so exciting about a new opportunity or a new way to do things. And I just kind of took a look at all the things that we were doing earlier this year because as you can imagine, as your business grows, the more opportunities to kind of do different things, you know, grows as well. And so there's like so many options and so many different, like, rabbit holes and passion, passion paths that we can go down. And I'm pretty quick to jump on one. I'm like, that sounds amazing. Let's do it. And so this year I just kind of looked at a bit of all the things we were doing and how kind of scattered they seemed. And exciting as that was, I wanted our focus to be on getting really focused. And for that I really mean getting really, really focused on our number one priority, which is serving the surface pattern design industry.

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.

The illustration industry is my heart, it is my goal, it is everything that I love wrapped up into one career. Still to this day, it's my number one passion. And so I very much feel like it's really my, my mission, but also my purpose to serve this industry. And when I looked at all the different things we were doing, some of the, some of the things just didn't really align. Meaning our focus was divided. And when your focus is divided, it means that the one true calling that you have can't get all of your resources, all of your mental thought, all of your, all of your kind of direction. Right. And so we decided to just really start focusing. One of the ways that this came to fruition was, well, there's been many, many things and many really difficult decisions as well. I'm going to talk about one in a, in a minute. But I think focusing well, it's difficult because it's not just saying no to the bad things. And then it's also not just saying no to the sort of bad, sort of good things. It's also saying no to some really, really good things in order to reserve your yeses for the very, very best of the best. And that third tier, like saying no to some really, really good things is one of the most painful parts. We've had to say no to some really, really good things this year. I mean, one that just had me in tears last week. And I kept coming back to our focus of getting really focused. And that's a good thing. It's a good thing. It's a refinement that must happen. And so one of the things that this makes me think about is that earlier this year we had an in person team strategy session. And part of our strategy session was to really iron out the entire year. So the entire year at a glance was 12 months from when we were. So we were there in May and we were making the calendar for the next 12 months and so we had this really big conference on the calendar. I'll tell you all about it, but don't be excited, don't get excited. So we were going to call it the Professional Creative Conference and we were going to focus on creative entrepreneurs. And I had like this list of just, you know, all star guests that we were going to get on board for the conference. And we hadn't talked about it out loud yet, you know that I also have the Immersion Live conference. So we were now going to do two conferences in a year. And at the end of our strategy session I just looked at the calendar and something about it just felt off. It didn't feel in Alignment with really our number one focus was to get focused. And so I just took my finger and I wiped it off the board and I said, how does that feel? And you could literally feel like the collective sigh of relief in the room. Everyone's shoulders dropped. The calendar all of a sudden felt way more manageable and we ended up leaving it as it was just wiped off the calendar. And that was, I think, a great testament of saying no to something really, really good. That would have been incredible. In order to reserve our best yeses.

Hi everyone, it's Bonnie Christine and I've

got some really exciting news to share.

Team Bonnie Christine is growing and we're currently on the lookout for some amazing new talent to join us. So if you've ever wanted to be a part of a team that's passionate about creativity, education, and really making a tangible, real difference, I would love to have you consider joining us. We're hiring for a few key roles, including a full time content writer, a full time digital marketing specialist, as well as a freelance video editor. These positions are all fully remote. We offer competitive pay, flexible hours and a ton of great perks alongside being able to just work with an incredible team. So we're looking for people who are really eager to help shape our mission of supporting creatives really worldwide. If that sounds like you, or maybe someone you know, go ahead and head over to bonniechristine.comcareers to learn more and apply. And hey, if you know someone who would be a great candidate, please, please send this page to them as well. Applications close October 21st, so don't wait too long. We can't wait to welcome some new faces to the team and to know you again. That's bonniecristine.com careers. I can't wait to get to know you.

I'm sure you're wondering, like, what's your best? Yes. Right. So I'll tell you what really getting focused looks like for us, it means absolutely serving our surface design industry. The first way we're doing that is through a product shop. Now, you might wonder how, because a product shop looks like it's a new revenue stream for us and it will be, and I hope that it is incredibly successful. But more so than anything, we want to set an example of what's possible for our students. So we teach a lot about how to have a shop, how to get your artwork on products, and how to create money from your artwork. And our number one goal is to be living, breathing proof of what's possible when it comes to having a product shop. And really be able to help our students who are coming up behind us with their own product ideas and shop ideas. So that's really the heart behind the shop. The second one is licensing. Now I license my artwork. I've licensed it for years. I license it all over the world. However, I sometimes, okay, most of the time, run very low on having time to reach out to for new licensing opportunities. And so just this past week I have hired a. Well, how much do I want to share? I I b. So instead of working with an art agent, I have basically hired an in house art agent who's going to take over all of my licensing outreaches. So it's someone on our team, I'm sure will an episode about this once. We really have a system that's up and working for you to learn from. But for now it's very new. But this person on my team is going to be my in house art agent. Always at the forefront of new licensing opportunities. So really, really excited about that. We have some new surface pattern design classes in the works that we're really excited about. Our art licensing handbook is something else that we are so incredibly excited about. It's been incredibly successful, but most importantly impactful. And so we're looking to really make an impact for our students and help them find success. And it's just been incredible to see what kind of impact something like this has had in such a short amount of time. We're also working on a magazine. Now this is internal, so the magazine is called the Flourish Journal and it's currently for members of our Flourish membership only. But we have wanted, no promises here, but we have wanted a publication like a journal for our industry for a really long time. And we've just slowly and methodically

just

increased the one that we're working on. It used to be like a syllabus and then it ended up turning into a multi page kind of quarterly review. And the one that we just released is really a full blown E magazine called the Flourish Journal. And so we have big hopes and plans for this as we move forward. We're moving through it slowly, but we are looking to enter kind of publishing and publications. We have a book in the works, more on that pretty soon I'm sure. And then we also have some really big hopes and dreams for the future that require us to get really aligned right now, really focused, put our blinders on, go in one direction, which is really, really aligned and focused in our industry. And so it's been painful, but refinement is often painful and it is also often really worth makes me think of that, that simple saying, like, do more of what works and less of what doesn't. And it's so simple and actually so complicated in practice. So that's what we're working on, is getting focused. I hope that you can use this almost as a filter for the things that you're doing. Where do you really need to get focused? Or what good things do you need to say no to in order to reserve your yeses for the absolute best things that you really need to do in order to be aligned? How can you do more of what's working and less of what's not? My friends, create the beauty that you want to see come alive in the world. And remember, there's room for.