Creating Space for Creativity with Miranda Anderson of Live Free Creative - 012

This is Law and Wit, Episode 12: Creating Space for Creativity with Miranda Anderson. Welcome to Law and Wit, Creative Counsel for Entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Brittany Rettell, mother of 4, entrepreneur, naptime lawyer, and attorney for creative entrepreneurs. I'm here to share inspiration and action so that you can tackle your business blocks and confidently own your business in every sense of the word. Thank you so much for being here. Okay, in full disclosure, I know it's super cliché that before every interview a host will say, "I'm so excited for this interview!" Like, what are you gonna say at this point? "Hey, we got a real downer in front of us, but I really just hope you push through and dedicate the next, you know, 35 minutes of your life." But in all honesty, this is a great episode, so I'm just gonna jump in and give us a brief framing and then let it rip. Miranda is going to be talking all about how she has created space in her life for creativity and really created space to have an intentional lifestyle with creativity. And that spans all the way from the way that she creates content for herself, for other people, and the way that she's become kind of a functional minimalist and the minimalism experiment that she delved into with her family the last year, which is a really cool thought as someone who's a mom of 3 and a crafter and a maker about how she's managed to balance those interests and those loves of her, but also found ways to be more thoughtful about her consumption. And I think it's especially meaningful as someone who is in the industry of still selling products and does that as part of her blog and her business. And yet she has this great perspective on what things should mean to us and how we should bring them into our life and what we should be thinking about when we bring them into our life. Miranda also talks with me about being authentic and that buzzword, you know, authentic and intentional and what does that really mean and what does that mean to her? And I love that she has really walked the walk in terms of balancing the needs of the community and what— and creating beautiful content but also being true to yourself and your value system and eternally asking yourself the why. Why are you creating content? What is your purpose? How is it adding value to others? And how is what you're reading and consuming adding value to herself? So all of it really useful exercises. If you want the freebie upgrade for this episode, you're going to find it at BrittanyRettell.com/12, as in episode 12. That's where you'll get the quotes and some of the practices that Miranda recommends. So head to that after the episode if you're in a place where you can't take notes. I think that's really going to help you take some of these lessons on the road with you.

Hi everyone and welcome back. I am so excited to introduce our guest today, Miranda. Miranda is a maker, adventurer, creative mama, and the blogger behind Live Free creative company. She shares design ideas and inspiration to live a simple life with less stuff and more adventure, as well as DIY projects to inspire creativity. Her sweet husband and her 3 wild kiddos fill up her life with joy and continue to teach her about setting goals, making priorities, and believing that the small moments and successes mean just as much as the big ones. So, um, welcome Miranda.

Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.

Awesome. Yeah, us, us as well. And Miranda is joining us from Virginia where she's living now. And what I love about Miranda is that she not only has kind of lived in a couple of different places and, you know, been really easygoing in terms of rolling with the punches, but her kind of creative journey has had lots of different twists and turns, which I think is really cool in terms of how you start in one place and find something that you love and that you connect with, and then that morphs into something else. So I wanted to kind of start with a little bit of her creative origin story about how she kind of established her brand as she knows it now.

Yeah, thank you. You know, it's so funny, my— I am not one of those people who started out with the idea that I was going to be a businesswoman, I was going to be a blogger, I was going to run this thing. And I, you know, it— the whole thing, my whole business as it exist today, you know, I would have had no idea what I was getting into. I went to school to be a nurse. I'm an RN, and I just envisioned that I would be a nurse working nights as I raised my children. You know, I don't know what I thought. Actually, in the middle of nursing school, I decided that I actually didn't love nursing very much. I didn't like wearing scrubs. I didn't like blood. I fainted a couple times. I was like, I don't think this is for me.

Not sure this is my calling.

Yeah, not quite sure. Yeah, so I actually, I did go into to nursing education. I did diabetes education, and that was back in 2008. And blogs were just sort of popping up as this kind of new social media thing. And so my husband actually began our blog. We were living abroad for a summer. He started it and said, here's a way that we can keep in touch with friends and family without, you know, I don't even know. We had cell phones, but they definitely weren't smartphones. Like, I don't even, that feels like so long ago, right? That's 10 years ago. And so we started writing. I started writing on the blog to share with friends and family. And you know, those next few years, if any of you blogged or remember those days, everyone had a blog and there was like a blog roll and you'd go check in with your friends every couple days and see like what people were up to. And Facebook was not a thing. Instagram was not a thing. And blogs were the way, that was like the beginning of social media. And so we were all keeping up with each other in this new way. And I really loved it. I always have loved to write. I've always loved to take pictures. So sharing in that format felt really natural to me. And after a couple years of kind of just, you know, sharing what I was up to and some of my creative projects, I also, you know, as a child, I was a creative person, a maker. I learned to sew when I was 8 years old. I have always loved to make things with my hands and experiment. And so I was doing those things and sharing about those in just the context of the story of my life as I was kind of journaling, you know, for all my friends and family. And I started to notice that people were blogging really intentionally, and they were sharing things not just for friends and family, but like for people they didn't know on the internet. This was like this new thing. There were people who didn't know. And at that point, it still didn't look like a career, but I started to share, kind of lean, I was still sharing a lot of personal stories and highlights, but I started to lean into the creative stuff as something that people would find value in who didn't know me, who maybe aren't interested in my kids and our weekend adventure, but that they could find that they could follow a tutorial or that they could get some inspiration because of this apron that I made and how I made it. So I started to have a little bit more intention behind it, and I was still working as a nurse and having and raising children. And sewing sort of started to kind of become a side gig for me. I had always known how to sew, I had always liked sewing, and with the I think Etsy coming onto the scene really helped that too because actually here's a funny kind of side story in the middle of this. This is really clear memory. I don't remember what year it was, but I had, we were in, my husband was in school and we were on a student budget and I had gone shopping and bought a pair of shoes that I really liked, but they were a little bit more expensive than like I felt comfortable with, but I really loved them. So I was like, okay, well, I don't worry about it because I am going to make some extra money to pay for them with a sewing project. And I had seen Etsy had just released this thing where you could, you could like pitch ideas or people, people would ask for ideas and you could submit to make them, you know. So, so I remember someone asked, they needed a ballet bag, like a ballet bag for their daughter. And so I drew a sketch of a ballet bag and I sent it off through Etsy and I was chosen and it was going to be like $30 for me to make this bag and send it to this lady. And I was like, sure. So I, um, so I solicited a couple like custom sewing ventures that way through Etsy. It was called Treasury. It doesn't even exist anymore on Etsy. And made a little bit of money, and there was this little inkling of, oh, maybe in addition to what I'm doing as a nurse, I could have a, you know, creative hobby moneymaker, you know, on the side. Um, through making things and selling them and then sharing about them, I started to acquire more and more custom sewing orders. And so there were a couple years in there where I was doing a lot of custom sewing, and especially Halloween time, I made, you know, one year I made like 30 or 40 custom costumes and sent them off. And this hobby blog had started, somehow morphed into a custom sewing business. And my blog was how I was acquiring customers. I wasn't making any money blogging. I was making all of my money sewing and sending those orders, but it was all tied together. And somewhere in there I decided to, because my blog was kind of this outlet or this, I guess, input for business for my custom sewing, I started to take note of some blogging conferences that were happening in the country. Alt Summit was the one that I kind of set my sights on because I knew a few people who were going. It was in Utah, which is where I was from, even though we were at the time living in the DC area. And but it was a lot of money. I mean, it was like $400 for a ticket. This is in 2012. And I, I did— I mean, that was a lot of custom sewing for me to make $400. And I did it. We were still— that's a lot of—

that's a lot of ballet bags. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a lot of ballet bags. And I thought Well, if I am going to do this, I better take myself seriously. And so I remember in 2011 seeing the tickets go on sale and deciding next year I'm going to buy a ticket. They would sell out in like 5 minutes or something back then.

I think they still sell out pretty quickly, but it was 2 hours this year, right?

Yeah. So it's still, it's still, they're still, they're still hot commodity. So, but I decided I'm going to save up this year. I'm going to be intentional. I'm going to go to that blogging conference with some sort of an idea of what I want to do. And I'm going to invest in this as a business. And I think that was a big mindset shift for me, and it was kind of an overnight shift, but it was a whole year that I spent blogging. At that time, I was blogging daily, and that blows me away now. I was writing 5 blog posts a week, working and raising my babies while my husband was in school. And I'm like, I just, that's so much more hustle than I have now.

It was a mindset shift for all this. That's just an insane schedule. I mean, it's incredible.

Yeah. Like nap time, I didn't, you know, and a lot of the blogging I was doing was, um, was DIY posts and those take so much time and you know, it's just crazy. But anyway, so fast forward, I buy the ticket, I go to Alt Summit and I start to see people like see blogging itself as a business that people are making money on their blogs through sidebar ads, through inline sponsorships., and that blogging could be a career. I was nowhere near that, having it be my career, but it started this idea that it could be. Funny enough, that blog conference, that very first one in 2012, really impacted me in a lot of ways, personally as well as professionally. I went home and told my husband, "I think blogging is so fun. It's been a great thing for me. There's so much potential." I'm going to stop blogging for this next year because I want to have another baby. He was like, "What? What are you talking about? You just spent all this money to go to this conference." Again, it's like this unexpected sort of twist. I think I had started to ask myself the question, "What do I want?" instead of doing the things that came in line. This thing follows this thing. I start selling these things and then people are finding me through the blog, so I have to keep blogging about what they're finding me for, and then I keep taking orders, and then I'm sewing orders. We create these cycles almost for ourselves that are hard to break out of, and these routines that then it's easier to just do what we're doing than it is to make a change. What Alt Summit had done for me at that point was allow me the perspective to know that I was still in control of my own life and I could choose. And because I think it was easier too because my blog wasn't making any revenue. It wasn't my business. My business was sewing. My blog was just how I gained business. And so it was not like I was walking away from this big—

It wasn't paying your mortgage yet like it is for some people where, yeah, that's a lot to—

Yeah, to give up. And so I decided to put the blog on hold and I didn't know if or when I would come back to it, but I got pregnant. At the same time, that same year, my husband took a new job across the country in Texas, so we moved from D.C. to Texas. It was a good thing that I had kind of backed up some of my responsibilities. I had space in my life to move. We built a house in Texas. I had the baby. All of these things happened. I was still at this time working PRN as a nurse. And, and I blogged, my blog, I posted just a couple times that year, you know, as partnerships with friends and stuff like that. And then my daughter was born, and, and I told my husband when my daughter was born, when she was about 5 months old actually, I said, I think that I am gonna try to just not work. Like, I'm not really fulfilled by the nursing gig right now, or ever actually. I mean, I love it, you know, And so I thought, I'm just going to quit my nursing job. I have 3 kids. He had a good job. We were finished with school at that point. And so I thought, I'm going to take a step back. And that lasted for like 4 months, I think. And then I just said, I just, I don't, I don't want to, you know, it's not that like motherhood wasn't enough because it's more than enough. It was that I wasn't being fulfilled in all of the ways that I need in order to feel happy in my everyday life. And I noticed this deficit of creativity. I noticed a deficit of productivity. I noticed a deficit of emotional and emotional stimulation as I'm thinking about, you know, new ideas and projects. And so I said, I am going to start blogging again. But not as a hobby. I know that blogging can be a career. I know that people can make money from it. I know that it can be a really cool creative job, and so I want to do it that way. So I jumped back into blogging with the new idea that I had stopped taking sewing orders when we moved, and so blogging was gonna be my gig. And that was in 2013, I guess. So I took off that year, the beginning of 2014 maybe. So now it's been 4 years with blogging. I would, like, my primary income and my primary business is from blogging. And most bloggers would tell you that it's not just like a single line income. Like, what that looks like is content creation for myself with sponsorships of who I work with. It's also content creation for other blogs. I write and style photographs for other people and other blogs. I teach craft and sewing workshops. And again, I acquire my students through social media and through my blog. But those classes take place obviously in real life somewhere. I'm doing some upcoming in Austin actually next week that I'm excited about. So there's lots of different, even within the umbrella of blogging, there's lots of different venues of where I'm actually making an income. And what my blog has been about has kind of morphed and changed over time too. It went from a lot of personal sort of just journaling through a lot, a lot of creativity and DIYs, and then in the last couple years has sort of stepped out of being so DIY heavy into more of a, what I call it, a creative lifestyle blog. I'm sharing about intentional living. I'm sharing about design and DIY. I guess it is like a lot of lifestyle, but with, I maybe share it in a less intimate way. So I'm trying to, I ask myself the question when I'm writing a blog post, what value will this add to my readers? People who know me, who don't know me, people who followed me for a long time, or this is the first blog post that they land on. What value is this message going to give them in their lives? And that allows me to kind of take out what might just be anecdotal and add things that will actually benefit people, which is my hope with the message I share.

Right, have a little bit more meat to them, substance. I like you, you mentioned that was one of your first questions that you asked yourself back in the Blogspot days of, What value is this bringing to others? It comes back to so much of value. It reminds me a lot of your interview that you did on Allison Faulkner's Her Brand School Boss Babes, which I know was a favorite from a lot of people. You talked a lot about bringing value and asking those kind of tough questions of yourself. What is your brand really about as a blogger, as an influencer, as a content creator? When you approach someone, which can be scary, and you've, I'm sure, seen that as your career has, you know, gone in highs. And I'm sure when you got back into the game, like, those first few emails—

Yeah, totally. They're like, I have to really dig deep here to figure out what you're gonna get out of this partnership, but I promise it'll be good.

Yeah, yeah. But being, you know, creative and thinking, you know, I know I have something, everyone has something, but yeah, I have to wrap my mind around what I can offer.

Totally. And I think that in the modern game of social media and blogging, if I can call it a game, the tendency is to expect that what we can see is what adds value. So like how many followers you have and how many subscribers you have, what your engagement is like, what your You know, all of those like really visible things that everyone can see easily, things you would put on your media kit, for example.

Yeah, your metrics.

The analytics, yeah. And it really has been helpful. It was helpful for me a few years ago, and it's still helpful for me now to ask myself, what do I bring to the table that isn't objective? You know, what is outside or in between those numbers and those metrics that is important? And, and I think that that's allowed me to feel confident contacting people with ideas because maybe what I have is an idea, and maybe that idea is creative and interesting enough that a company will want to work with me to use that idea to tell a story. And they have the numbers, they have the metric, they have, you know, a billion fans, but I have an idea. And an idea can be really powerful.

Yeah, I mean, one good idea— I mean, if you think about it in relation, like, what does it cost to hire someone and to pay them and pay their healthcare and train them and put them up in an office? And then you hope that you get good ideas out of it, but sometimes not. Sometimes, you know, it's a gamble. For every time a company hires someone and for you to offer your one good idea with really none of those other strings attached just as a package and ask for compensation which is assuredly going to be less than all of that, that's a good deal for a company, for a brand.

Yeah, totally. I think they recognize that more and more. I think that's why blogging is still growing as a profession. People are becoming bloggers today. I don't think it's over and I don't think it's going away. Article that I read recently that said that the expectation or the forecast was that more personal, you know, day-to-day lifestyle blogging is gonna make a comeback. I think the last few years people have been saying no, people are really only finding things on Pinterest, or people really only interested in the very like impersonal 5 tips to blah blah blah, and, and people are craving connection. I think we've gotten hyperconnected that we feel totally disconnected. Does that make sense? And so people are craving wanting to know real people and wanting to have, you know, wanting to hear about the story of what happened at the grocery store yesterday, you know, not only, you know, the 5 ways to choose healthy vegetables when you're shopping at Trader Joe's or whatever, you know. So adding some personal back in there, it was interesting to see that forecast as something that will likely make a comeback. We've tried to pull ourselves so much out of it. It's interesting to think of the idea of putting ourselves back in it with a little bit more heart and a little bit more intimacy, I guess.

Yeah, and I think you could see that how the pendulum has maybe swung too much in one direction and there's likely to be a correction in the market and the way that people connect with each other and their content.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, you touched on it a little bit, but I love, you know, kind of in your story about a time, you know, and I kind of asked, is there a time when you got stuck in your business and kind of how you moved forward? Is there, I mean, other than the fact that you knew for you that you needed to pull back for that year and to raise your baby and to kind of switch directions, once you kind of were back in the game and were like, okay, I'm putting my business girl hat on, like we're going to do this and make it real. Did you have any challenges? What was hard about starting that journey?

Yeah, so I laughed when I saw that question and thought, I feel like I'm kind of always a little bit stuck. Is that weird? I'm like, it's not easy. It's always hard. I mean, actually yesterday or the day before yesterday, I have a mastermind group that I'm part of, and actually that's one of the solutions, having some people who understand what you're going through and can, whether or not they've gone through something exactly the same or not, but just having kind of a group of peers to discuss issues with. I got on my mastermind group and said, I just don't know if anything that I'm doing feels worthwhile, you know, should I just do something else? Like, am I not good at this? You know, and I was just having one of those days of self-doubt and of concern. I think that it stemmed a little bit from not having a really regular schedule the last few months and, and not feeling like I was accomplishing as much as I hoped for, my expectations for myself not being met. And all it took was, I mean, reaching out and talking about it. That always helps me because it helps me verbalize the actual core of the problem and what my concerns are, so then I can start to like mentally resolve them. It helps me to sit down and actually do some real work. I think I spend a lot of time thinking about working. I spend a lot of time stewing about working and like planning on working and getting ready to work and reading and reading and listening to other people's ideas about working.

Yeah, I know, I know a girl who has those same problems.

You're right.

Yeah. And I'm like, just seriously, just sitting down. I talked to my friends in the parking lot of Starbucks. I said, I have 2 hours, I'm just gonna go down and pound something out. I sat down at Starbucks where I had no distractions. I couldn't do the laundry, I couldn't, you know, pet the dog. I just like sat down, I spent 2 hours just totally focused on creating some content that I had been working on. And doing the work helps so much. It also has helped me a lot when I feel stuck. You know, I look back on the last few years and some of the time— so I'm very experimental. I'm a little bit reckless. I am just by nature have probably more confidence than is good for me because I have no problem just like trying things. Like I'm just gonna go for it and just see how it goes. And sometimes I don't think through it all the way and I just try, you know. So I mean, I've done it with lots of different ventures. And I think that sometimes when I feel stuck is when one of those things that I'm trying, like a passion project or a new venture, isn't working. And I don't know if it's not working because it doesn't work, or if it's not working because I should try harder. And when I feel that way, I have to allow myself to think about what happens if I work harder. How does that feel? And I just imagine this, like, how does it feel if I work harder and I spend a lot more time and energy on it? And then conversely, how does it feel if I stop? How does it feel if I just say, you know what, this isn't working, and I cut my losses? And most of the time for me in my experience, the solution has been cut your losses. If it's not working, it's not working. You can kind of feel the flow. I think in the situations when it is, like for example, a couple days ago when I'm like, should I just stop blogging? I just don't know if it's even worth it. I sit down and I work really hard at it for a couple hours and I come out feeling like, yes, I wanna do this. I'm good at it, it's worthwhile, I'm making a difference. And so then the solution is not to stop. The solution is that it feels good to work hard.

The work energizes you.

The work energizes, yeah. Then in other situations, for example, I have had a couple, multiple shops with actual products and have sort of systematically closed each one. Last year, I guess the end of 2015, I don't know. Anyway, my years are off. Over a year ago, I had been running this shop for like 4 years. It was these really cool t-shirts that I had designed and kind of stumbled into. I designed them, people wanted them, so I was making them and selling them. And then I, I couldn't keep up with the demand, so I was manufacturing them and selling them. And it was like going fine, but it was taking a lot of time and a lot of energy. And I was like, I just don't know. And when I thought to myself, maybe I should stop, maybe I should close this shop, I felt immediately relieved and better. And so I closed that shop, and what did I do? I went ahead and opened a new one where I was hand-making things. And I really love to make things, and I love to share those with people. And I get a lot of requests for people when I make something. They say, oh my gosh, you should sell that. And so then sometimes I do. And just, just this last Christmas, I finished out the holiday season with my handmade shop called The Free Creative Company. It's in conjunction with my blog. And I felt like, I think that I'm spending so much more time and energy on that than the return on investment that it brings. And, and stopping makes me feel unstuck. I feel stuck. And stopping, closing the shop and not doing that piece anymore for a while— I'm sure it will come back in some iteration sometime, but for now Being able to have the courage to say, this isn't working exactly the way that I want it to, and that's okay. And that doesn't mean that I suck at making things or no one wants to buy my, you know, 'cause they do and they did. And I mean, it was going okay. It was just taking way more energy than it needed, than I wanted to spend on it. I have finite energy, resources, time, and it was the right thing to say, to say maybe this isn't what I should be doing, maybe I need to focus my energy elsewhere.

And just create that space in your head, in your heart, your workshop, in your life for things. Yeah. And I mean, which— I mean, things— and maybe that's a good segue. You know, I wanted to talk a little bit about your minimalism experiment for people who might not be readers of your blog. You've talked a lot about it. I know people have been super curious, but you've been playing around with that. I love you're talking about being a realist minimalist because we all know, and we joked about it, those minimalists, the Netflix documentary and single guys with their little backpack. That sounds great, but where are the snacks for your kids?

Yeah, exactly. Those crazy people living in a shed in the wilderness. That's not realistic for me. That's great for them. It's really cool, but it's not realistic for me. So yeah, I think that the theme of my last several years of my life has been, like you said, making space, creating space for things that matter more. And that's taken so many different forms. And I realized as I got ready to take a real big plunge into minimalism, I was able to reflect and see in little ways how it's influenced, how the ideas of minimalism have influenced my life. Life. I like less decisions. I shop mostly at Trader Joe's because I can wrap my head around all the, you know, I know exactly what's there. There's only one type of ketchup, that's the one I want, and I get it and I don't have to think about it. And I don't want to, you know, it overwhelms me. Dave used to laugh when we were first married, we had a bunch of like gift cards to Bed Bath Beyond, which is a wonderful store, but I walk in there and I get so overwhelmed I can't even function anymore. He'd say, we're here for a blender, let's go to the blenders. And I'm like, but look at the pillows, honey. And Look at the— there's so much to see. I just want to look at all of it and think about all of it.

I do much better. Did you know that they have a special tool for avocados?

I don't think we have that tool. Exactly. We probably need it because we like avocados. What other special tools might I need? I get very easily distracted. I've noticed the benefit for me is to not— to not have unnecessary decisions in my life, to not go to places that overwhelm with options, more options than I need, and to not consider things that are not part of what I actually care about. And so before, so anyway, leading up to all of these things, I've always loved to purge. I'm not a packrat. I like to organize things. We've moved a lot of times. I think we're on our 10th or 11th move in 11 years. And so I've had ample opportunity to go through all of the things that I own and decide what I really wanna keep. And that, even just that practice is really clarifying.

But— And KonMari, you know, the shiz out of all of it.

Just move it, you know, all the things. Yeah, just what do I love? This doesn't spark joy, get it outta here. So at the beginning of last year, We decided— I just had this thought again, this kind of reckless thought of like, hey, you know what we should do? We have more than enough stuff. We have, you know, everything that we could possibly need and probably everything that we could possibly need for like a whole year. So let's not buy anything that's not a consumable item for a year. Let's just put the kibosh on all of the shopping and all of the, you know, just buy groceries, buy toilet paper, buy printer ink, the things that we readily use up to full consumption. And I had already been using a capsule wardrobe, so I thought I've got plenty of clothes for, you know, forever. My kids do grow, but we lived at the time when we decided to do this, we lived in Texas where all the seasons are some, you know, like it's very mild winters and I thought they don't grow that much, so if they grow out of something, I'll replace it with a like item, but I'm not gonna just buy them clothes and shoes for whatever. And we don't need any more toys. We definitely don't need any more books. We don't need any more furniture. And so we just decided that the things we had were enough, and we spent a year. And it was an experiment, and an imperfect experiment, and I'm the first one to say that there were a few things that we bought along the way, especially because we had an unexpected move in the middle of the year, and then we did need some things, and we got rid of way more than we, than we, you know, bought. But it was just this whole experience of feeling grateful for the things that we already had, recognizing this huge amount of abundance that exists in our regular life, realizing just very acutely how much time, energy, and money is spent on shopping, on consumption in a regular life. Even for someone like me that I don't love to shop and I wasn't like a shopaholic, so this actually wasn't that difficult of an experiment for us to undertake. It was amazing to be able to walk into Costco and know that I needed the rosemary olive oil bread and that I needed a ton of toilet paper and get those things and leave. All of the things that I pass as I walk to the back of the store. I didn't even think about it or consider it because I wasn't buying anything. So that in turn allowed us to spend that time and energy and money on things that I felt like mattered more. And that's where the less stuff, more adventure kind of tagline that I have created this last year comes in, that when we choose less time in Target, that's more time that we get to spend at the park with the kids. When we choose less money on clothes, that's more money that we might get to spend going on a weekend adventure. When we choose less time scrolling through social media, that's more time that we might be able to stroll through our favorite museum. And I think what we hope is that we can fill our lives with things that are meaningful. I mean, I think that's what everyone hopes, right? We want to feel grateful, we want to feel happy, we want our lives to be filled with abundance of the things that matter the most to us. Oftentimes we simply take what we're given, what messaging is handed us, what displays are front and center in the stores, and we forget that we get to choose. We forget that, you know, we're— that we're in control, that we're free to be able to make these types of decisions. And so freeing up some space and creating some, some Yeah, I guess space is the way to talk about it. For other things and for more choices has been really, really interesting and really hugely shifted the culture of our family in a positive direction.

Awesome, and I have loved following your reflections on this and how honest have you been about the times when, yeah, you had to change your plans or how, especially with an unexpected move and You know, surprise, we have seasons again, so kids need winter clothes.

And it's freezing in Virginia. Yes.

And, you know, things come along, but just, you know, the general attitude of being playful and experimental in terms, you know, what would change about us and what would become different if we had— if we just changed our attitude and pivoted a little bit in how we approach stuff and accumulation of stuff. So my, you know, as I've heard you talk about this, questions that have always come up in my mind is How did you do this in terms of that you still like to create stuff? Because for me, I, you know, I, I'm in love with the idea of getting rid of my stuff until I go into my craft room and I'm like, well, but not these things. These things are all holy relics of my crafting and I could never let them go.

So how did you approach that? Right. So I think that there's two parts to that because I was actually just writing about this and and it made me kind of internalize it more that creativity and crafting are different things. And so I'm very much a crafter, and it sounds like you are too. And so crafters have— usually have closets or rooms and bins and baskets and bolts of things to aid, you know, supplies for this hobby. And that's a creative hobby. And so yes, as far as like Craft supplies, I mean, I have more than enough craft supplies. And that's something that I chose not to add to last year. And I still have more than enough craft supplies. And actually, because of our move, all of that stuff went into, so in Texas I had a room that we called the studio that was my crafting room and sewing room. And that's where all the things lived. And then we moved, and as part of our move and part of this minimalist experiment, we decided to downsize from our 2,500 square foot ranch-style home in Texas to a 1,000-square-foot little tiny box of a Cape Cod in Richmond temporarily. It's a rental home while we look for a home to live in in the area. It's 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom, and I knew that my supplies fill up a room. They wouldn't fit. It was a good time to look for a studio outside of the house. It was actually a good push for me to find space, create a space. I'm talking about creating space, to create a space for my crafting. And, and so I actually found a studio. It's like a co-working studio where I have— I rent it, you know, I lease a space that is where it's a home for all of my craft supplies and my sewing machines. And that's where those things live. And it's been interesting too, though, because I And I think all of that stuff was in boxes for 6 months while we moved and were in transit, and then when I finally started to unpack, some of them I've outgrown as far as that's not the type of crafting that I love to do anymore, it's not the type of fabric that I would choose today. And so coming at it with a fresh set of eyes and with this idea of what do I really love, what's going to add value, has helped me to slim down, not totally eliminate, but slim down so I know that even the craft supplies that I choose are the ones that I really love Aren't just taking up space for no reason, but they're the things that I really like. And then being able to donate those other ones to people in places that need them more has been really great. The second point I wanted to share about that is that I feel like minimalism, by virtue of what it is, is creative. Like a more minimalist lifestyle means that you have less things, but you still need to do all the things you want to do. And so I feel like I have definitely been able to live more creatively as I've had to figure out how to use what I have in multiple ways. Even with outfits, how do I, you know, make 10 different outfits out of, out of these certain clothes? Or how do I decorate a room using only the items that I already have? How do I rearrange my furniture and have it feel new again because I'm choosing to not buy new things. I actually feel like I've been fulfilled a lot creatively without as much crafting as I used to do because I feel like every day is a little bit of a creative adventure as a functional minimalist or practical minimalist because I'm thinking about how to make things work rather than just getting the thing, getting the avocado tool. What do I already have that can be used in the way that it will work?. There's something really wonderful about exercising creativity in multiple ways. I definitely still have a bunch of craft supplies.

That's good to hear that you are still human in that regard. I really like that thought in terms of intentionally putting yourself in a place where you have to exercise more creativity because you're not going to buy the exact same, one exact thing that solves one problem. You know, you're looking at what do you have in terms of solving a myriad of problems and how can you change up your furniture. I mean, I remember growing up my mom always used to rearrange furniture and I'd be like, "What is she doing?" I get it now that I'm a mom and you get a new little hit, a little dopamine hit and it freshens up your space when you have the chance to move things around. Sometimes people talk about shopping your own house. Go rock around and see what you have to put it in different spot. So I really like the thought of that by having less stuff and purposely limiting yourself, you are actually making yourself be more creative and putting more energy and space into that.

Right. Yeah, it is a creative, intentional lifestyle for sure.

Well, you're living it. A lot of people— that sounds like a cute tagline, but you actually are walking the walk there.

And your cute vest that I know you've torn the sleeves off because you say you like to Used to be a jacket, now it's a vest, and I wear it like every third day.

That's all right, you know, we'll just keep recycling that. Hey, if it's a good thing, it's a good thing. Um, okay, so I wanted to kind of close just because I, I think that there's, there's such a conversation going on online in the moment about being real and authentic. Um, and I think that you have, um, you've done such a great job as you've built your platform and your voice in, and still being that for people that I just kind of wanted to get your two cents in terms of What do you think about what people are talking about and how can people be more real if they really want to be that in terms of online, even when— if they're still selling stuff, which is perhaps part of their business, which is a part of a lot of people's online businesses?

I think that authenticity or being authentic is such a buzzword, and it's a word kind of like minimalism that doesn't have— I mean, it has a Webster's dictionary definition, but we all create our own definitions of what that looks like. So what does it actually mean to be authentic? I mean, you could ask 10 people and you'd get 10 different answers, especially regarding social media, because some people think that means showing your house messy instead of clean. Some people think that means not wearing makeup instead of wearing makeup. Some people think that means just only promoting products that you would actually use in your life. And all of those may or may not be true, you know. So I think that it's tricky. I think that the conversation most recently, and, you know, it's a conversation that's been happening for years, is more about— the root of it is more about comparison in social media. It's more about perfectionism. It has a lot more to do with the consumer, I think, than it does with the creator. And, and so we definitely see more of each other's lives on the day-to-day than ever in the history of humankind. We know what people are eating for breakfast, we know what they're wearing, we know what they're putting on their face for their makeup, we know where they're shopping, we know everything about everyone, or we think we do. And whatever we don't know, we assume. And then with social media also becoming a business, kind of like blogging, you see this morph where blogging was originally just people sharing a journal online to where now it's like multi-million dollar businesses are built on blogs. People confuse the social with the media. I don't think we've ever seen a huge call-out for traditional media. Actually, I was thinking how funny it is that in a commercial where someone who's not an actor is used, they disclose that, like, "This is an actual person, not an actor." But we assume that in social media that everyone is living their real life. You know, if it's media, that's not necessarily true. I think that there are people who still very much use social media for the social piece, and there's a lot of people who use social media for the media piece, and they're using it primarily as a business. They're not putting any personal or real or unstaged, uncurated information there because this is their business. And, um, I think that it's good form to not always cross business and personal. You know, you'd never see a brand just like step out in their bathrobe, you know, for fun. Like, there's business to this as well. So I think that the problem comes when the consumer is confused. We think that that person, that blogger, that influencer— that we don't know, we don't understand that this post is media and that post is social. We think that it's all the same. And the FTA has some very specific standards and guidelines legally for the promotion of paid or unpaid merchandise that's being promoted. Now, whether or not influencers choose to use that hashtag ad, hashtag sponsored, or declare a partnership is up to them, but legally they're supposed to.

They're supposed to, yeah, or even use natural language. I actually, I have a free mini course on this on my website because it's a question I get so often that people are like, am I supposed to put a disclosure on, or can I just use like the Instagram paid? And I'm like, No, because the FTC has said like that might be okay, but is it clear to the person? Would it be clear to someone's like mom? Like if our moms or even our grandmas were on social media and they saw a post, would they understand that Tide is the one paying for this post? That you just didn't want to happen to talk about your laundry detergent today?

Right, right, exactly. So I think it's hard because there's some— the FTC has these really clear guidelines about that. And like I said, a lot of influencers choose to not use them still. I mean, they like, and it's not like people don't know about them. It's just, it's up to people to choose, right? But there are not any, there's not any guidelines or governing body to regulate the unpaid sharing of your lifestyle. And there's no one to tell you that if you, you know, post about your donut, that it has to be the actual donut that you ate at 9 o'clock this morning and not a donut that you took last week in a studio and Photoshopped it And, you know, and, and that's just the way that it is. So I think people have to— we as consumers need to take responsibility for what we're, what we're consuming. And I think, I think we do it pretty well in our regular lives. I think people are careful according to their own values and standards. People choose what to listen to, they choose what to watch on TV, they choose what movies to go to, what radio stations to listen to. And I think that we, we forget that we should be applying some of those same filters personal filters to the social media we consume. I always, again, I ask myself the question, what value is this person giving me? How is this making me feel? The same as I do as an influencer myself, sharing what value is this giving to other people.

And if we—

I wrote a blog post about this back in 2015. It's called something about 4 habits to 4 habits for a positive social media experience. And, and one of them is to recognize the difference— the why, the why of who you're following. So maybe you're following that fashion blogger because you love her clothes and you love the, the style tips that she gives. So if that's the why, then don't take it personally and think, well, she is totally pulled together in every picture and So that means that me in my pajamas at noon, that I'm a bad person? Because the why for her is that you like being inspired by her style. So allow her to inspire you and not take it personally. Just like with the why for maybe your sister or your friend who is being, you know, they're not a business and they're not doing it for this promotion of anything, that you can commiserate with them on other things. So I think it's a tricky thing, but I definitely, I mean, I'm on both sides of it because I've had days where I feel you know, bad or down, especially if you're already feeling emotionally low for some reason. I think social media is the worst place to go because you're, you're already taking everything personally. I also think that we need to be responsible though for our own, for our own consumption, and for especially as moms too, like the way that we teach our kids about social media and not letting them have free rein and making sure that their social, or that their self-esteem lies so far outside of those external badges of honor that we like to give each other. I don't know, it's a tricky issue, isn't it?

Yeah, but I like what you talked about in terms of putting the onus on the agent, on the individual, and I mean just general increasing our media literacy and making sure that we're asking good questions about value, about what is this person selling, What's their why? And is that in conformity with my own personal value systems? And if it's not, then maybe, you know, a discreet unfollow. I don't think that it's a good idea to— I don't think you need to send direct messages and tell people that you hate them or that you're making me depressed, because I think that's false logic right there. If you listen to any of like Bold New Mom, you know, she— I love how honest she is when she talks about like, no one makes you feel anything. And I tell my kids that all the time, but it's a false, you know, verbal trap that we get into, or that people can make us feel anything. You know, but we, we decide what we want to feel, and that should be liberating to people.

But sometimes— right, yeah, absolutely. And I guess just one last point from that. I think that maybe the way that I define authentic from an influencer standpoint is being able to— being willing to say no if the collaboration is not a good fit for you. And I know that that's hard, and I know it's hard because it still is hard. It's hard for me when I get an email that says, hey, we'd love to send you this free this, that, or the other. Or even worse, we'd love to send you this free thing and pay you $1,000 to share about it. And it's not something that I, A, actually want, B, would ever actually use in my real life, or C, aligns with any of my values. Because it feels like, well, I don't know, maybe I could, you know, you could easily say, I'll just take it. I could fudge a picture. Like, let me just share it. Like, I can hold it for this picture and I can get paid and then I'll move on. And, and I just, I feel like the authenticity piece for an influencer or a business owner comes when you say, you know, that, thank you so much, and I'm probably not the right fit for you. You know, I've never heard of your thing, or it's not even something I'm interested, you know, I don't know, you know, obviously you're gonna be, you're gonna be kind about the way that you, but But letting them know that it's not a good fit because it's going to be a lose-lose for both of you. You'll get some money, but you'll definitely lose some, some of your story and what you're sharing. And I don't know, so that's one that's been interesting for me, and especially, you know, this last year where we were not buying things for the year, and my job is to promote businesses and products, it was interesting to find ways and to still make it work. And I had one of the best years in a lot of ways. I had one of the best years that I've ever had on my blog because the partnerships that I formed were very in line with the things that I wanted to talk about, and that felt better than ever.

Yeah, they were thoughtful. Yeah, every, every piece of that. So, well, that's wonderful and a testament to you, to your confidence in your business and your businesswoman acumen, but also in what you're representing and the value you're bringing to other people. So I'm sure that comes out in your content, and that's why people have followed along all along that whole journey, you know, from, from nurse to master shibori artist and everything in between. So, well, I just wanted to close, but thank you so much, Miranda, for being on. If people want to know more about you and what you're working on, where can they find you?

I am often on Instagram at Live Free Miranda, and a lot of I love Instagram stories, so that's where I hang out a lot. And I'm on Pinterest as Live Free Miranda. I'm on Facebook as Live Free Creative Co. My blog is livefreecreative.co, not.com, but livefreecreative.co. And that's where, you know, we every, every week or a couple times a week, I'm sharing something that I think will add value to your life. So that's where you can find me.

Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Miranda.

It was great having you. Thank you for having me.

I appreciate it. Okay, wasn't that just wonderful? I really appreciated having Miranda on, and I loved our conversation that we had with the twists and turns, which honestly I think kind of make the best interviews, are really just listening to her and her experience. And as you can tell, she is a really wise woman in terms of the experiences that she has and how she's interpreted that and internalized them and used those as lessons to impact her life, her family life, and her business, to really try to live more creatively and more in tune with what she thinks will bring her the most happiness in all areas of her life. So really grateful that Miranda was on. If you are interested in some of— some more of the information that she talked about, including the show notes, please go to the show note page. You'll see them here on your podcast player. You'll also see them in the episode page on my website. So if you go to BrittanyRettell.com/12, because this is episode 12, you'll find that. I'll also have a freebie on there, which is an extra kind of download with some of my favorite quotes from this episode, as well as kind of some of the work, the exercises that Miranda suggested in terms of what you can do with your stuck. So if you'd like that freebie, kind of the episode upgrade, please go to the website. It'll be on BrittanyRettell.com/12. If you sign up for my newsletter, which is a really awesome resource that I send out every week, then you can get that resource and you can hear from me and get tips like when we have episodes like this coming out and resources and stuff that can help your business with— for when you might be facing some sort of creative roadblock. And I really try to make that email resource useful for you because I respect that you're busy and time and your inbox is sacred. I get that. I totally get that. So I don't want to waste your time and energy, but I've gotten really great feedback from everyone who's on it saying, "I love this. This is hilarious. Thank you so much for sending this out." So I wouldn't waste your time with it if I didn't think it was good. That's all for today. If you like this episode, please leave me a review or a rating. I'd really appreciate that. And I hope that you feel the courage and conviction to live a more creative life, whatever that looks like for you, and especially to be a more creative confident business owner, knowing that you can choose the path that you want your business to be on. You don't have to be stuck in that cycle of just doing what comes in the front door, that you're in the driver's seat truly, and that if you can embrace that position, then I think you'll, you'll be happier this day and every day after that. Thanks so much.

Bye.