Kerry Burki had an idea simmering in her head ever since high school. She wanted to make all women feel beautiful. This idea sat in her head for years before she would finally unleash it.
Kerry's story starts like a lot of our stories. We have a kernel of an idea that sits in our heads. Sometimes we act on it, but more often than not, we let it sit. Then, something pushes us to act on it. Kerry's push came twenty years later in the form of her time in Marie Forleo's B School.
Kerry was working on a blog called Handmade Success, which helps people sell their work on Etsy, when her kernel of an idea crept back in her head. The only difference was, this time, instead of pushing the idea away again, Kerry decided to pull the trigger.
She asked women of all different ages and sizes to come over for a photo shoot. And with the help of a photographer friend, she began the first shoot of what became Kerry Magazine. She was finally doing her part in making all women feel beautiful. What started off as a small idea in her head has evolved into a full-blown magazine with three issues under its belt.
In this episode, Kerry talks about letting your younger self guide you, learning to say no, and shifting your mindset, among many other things.
Here are three things you can learn from Kerry:
We all have ambitious ideas when we're young and naive, before life gets in the way. We believe the whole world is our stage. We believe we can do anything.
Most of the time we let those ideas go and we lose our way. Just like Kerry did. "I feel like we have things about ourselves when we're younger that could guide us as we get older, you know, for what we want to do in the world, the changes we would see and everything, but sometimes... you can get really way off track. And that definitely happened to me."
While most of us never act on those ideas. Some of us do. All it takes is listening to what your inner voice is telling you to do. Because if you do it right, executing your ideas can change your life. "Sometimes I think it is kinda important to get back in touch with your younger self and see if you can remember what some of those ideals were and see if some ideas pop up... because since I've been working on this, it's been awesome and amazing and so fun, and it's not even anything I was thinking about over the last twenty years and there's some stuff that we knew when we were younger that I think we've forgotten."
One of the things that plagues many people is our discomfort with saying no. When people ask us to do something, it feels uncomfortable saying no them. But that's exactly what Kerry did.
Instead of agreeing to lead a class for kids' yoga, she decided it was best to say no. Because once that door was open, she was afraid she would be known as someone teaches kids' yoga. "I didn't want that to be what I'm known for, and it's not what I do. So it was interesting to have to come and figure out who do I want to help, what do I want to be doing, and to say no to things that don't go with that."
Kerry was afraid that she would fill up all her time with things she didn't want to do. Instead, she asked herself who she wanted to help and who she wanted to align with. Doing this would help clear her path forward. "I felt like I could have filled myself up so that when something did come along, I would have been like I don't have time for it. Right? And that would have been hard, you need to find where you need to be aligned , who you need to be aligned with... I started adding to what I say to myself in the morning... in the beginning of the day to say 'Please allow the people who are going to light my path to easily show up in my life today.' And when I read that, I said I need to start saying that every morning. Open myself up to allow the right people to come in that will help you see the path of you where you want to go forward."
One of the keys to Kerry's creative breakthrough was changing her mindset. Like most creatives, she used to have a mindset of fear and scarcity. After all, doing nothing is much easier than doing something. But once she re-framed her mindset, things started to work in her favor.
"I feel like there's a lot I've learned. That you have to come from a place of being open to receive instead of fear of that scarcity. Like I'm not going to be able to figure it out or people aren't going to want to do it. That's just an easier place, your thoughts just go there easier, and again I just started coming up with re-framing those types of thoughts and repeating it... a lot and saying 'It's all going to work out. It's all going to come together.' And... when I do that regularly, it works."
The biggest mindset shift comes from looking at things in a positive light. When you expect good things to happen, they really do start to happen. "Really, if you can switch to being open and expecting to receive good to come your way... it's almost like a light switch. It can really start to shift things."
This is a replay of episode 28 with Mike Roy. Mike Roy is an expert on the myths that hold artists back. He has explored, examined, and dissected these ideas, and explains how they hold us back from our true potential. There's a lot we can learn from Mike, so check out our great conversation.
---
Mike Roy is the creator of Artist Myth, a site dedicated to helping artists overcome the things that hold them back. In this episode, Mike talks about the common myths artists believe, what people can do to overcome those myths, and how to find work you love.
Here are three things you can learn from Mike:
Artists who want to make a career out of their art must first overcome the ideas that hold them back. According to Mike, the best way to do this is to ask questions.
Far too often we let others influence our beliefs. If you truly want to become an empowered and inspired artist, you must discover it for yourself. Don’t believe everything you hear.
How do you do this? First you must ask why, then you must follow up and find out why. This allows you to make your own informed and educated opinions.
Many people want to live a creative and fulfilling life, but don’t know where to start. If you are in this boat, you can follow Mike’s three spotlight method for finding the work you love.
First comes your passion. If you want to live an inspired life, you must find out what gets you excited.
Second is your talents. What are you good at? How can you use these things to fulfill your creative purpose?
Last, you must find your market. Discover those who want what you have to offer. They are your tribe.
When you are able to combine these three things, you can begin to build a business around them.
It’s very hard to combine your passion, talent, and market. If you already know them, you are ahead of most people, and now it’s time for you to take action.
This is where many people fall off the wagon. They can pin point everything they need, but they find it hard to do the work. But that is the most important, and most difficult part.
You do this by putting your work out their and getting validation from it. If you want to know if people will buy your work, you must put it out there.
Doing this will give you valuable feedback on what people like and don’t like about your work. You can use this to grow your business and become a better artist.
Read more shownotes with Mike Roy
A recap of episode 74 of the Cracking Creativity podcast. If you liked it, check out the full episode with Dave Conrey where he talks about the importance of connecting with others, some of his keys to building a creative business, and getting started.
Dave Conrey‘s path to becoming a full-time artist is not a simple one. Growing up, he wasn’t that passionate about art, but over time, and after a series of jobs and ventures, he has finally dedicated himself to the idea.
After going to school for art and graphic design, Dave had two separate stints as an art director, but was laid off both times. He also spent time as a author, podcaster, and creator of Fresh Rag, which helped artists sell their work.
After years of feeling unfulfilled, Dave finally decided to put everything else on hiatus to pursue his art full-time.
In this episode, Dave talks about the importance of connecting with others, some of his keys to building a creative business, and getting started.
Here are three things you can learn from Dave:
One of the most important things we can do as artists and creatives is building a strong connection with other people. When Dave hosted the Fresh Rag show, people listened to it because his conversations felt deep and meaningful.
His conversations felt fresh and different because he didn’t try to force conversations with people just because they were famous. He just tried to build a report with his guests so they would have great conversations. “The most important factor for me is having a really good conversation, rather than just two people that might not know each other very well, talking about it, and the conversation is happening, but it’s kinda weird because there’s no real relationship built up. It’s just two people talking about it. And I want to have people that I know on so that we can have good conversations about it. And their experience level is less important to me than how charismatic they are in that conversation.”
The best way to build up to those great conversations is by building and fostering relationships with people. You are much more likely to have a great conversation with someone if there is a mutual trust and respect for each other. “It really comes down to having and building relationships with people over time. I mean, the people I’m going to have on the show are people that I’ve known, sometimes for a few months, and sometimes for years.”
Dave is a believer that there are a couple of keys to building your creative business. The first is building a brand that people love. The problem with branding is many creatives don’t know what their brand is. They believe good branding is just selling great products. But having a good product is not enough. “If you’re building up a brand that people love and adore, they follow you, not because of your product. I mean you make good products, that’s just important to make great products, but they’re not… on the edge of their seat waiting for your next Instagram post because your products are good. It’s because you are telling good stories and you… have good customer interaction and you have these relationships built.”
Another important factor for creative businesses is getting over your fears. Dave helped his audience get over their fears by having them participate in thirty day challenges. These challenges helped to change people’s mindsets from one of fear to one of action. “In my opinion, mindset is very important to how we do the things we do and so the idea was to create this thirty day challenge where you do a certain thing every day, or every single time you pick up a new challenge, whether it’s daily, weekly, or whatever. You pick up this challenge and do this thing, and it helps you kinda grow as an artist and grow as a maker. And whether its super actionable things you can do to… change your marketing program or it’s something you do in your head, getting outside of fear, the very first action is very fear based… fighting fear.”
One of the most easily overlooked, but incredibly important, aspects of creative work is just getting started. This may sound like an obvious suggestion, but often times we wait too long before taking action. We are so worried about failure that we instead of releasing something imperfect, we release nothing at all.
Dave believes we need to stop worrying so much and just get started. “Let’s say somebody wants to sell their photographic art prints… Figure out where you want to sell it and then just go put that stuff up there. Don’t worry about failing. Don’t worry about getting it wrong. Don’t worry about who’s going to see it because chances are nobody’s going to see it at first. Don’t worry about making sure you get your logo just so… don’t worry about any of that. Just get out there and post that thing up and then repeat the process, and then tweak as you go.”
Something that holds many creatives back, including myself, is the desire for perfection. But perfection is not only elusive, it’s impossible. You can’t wait for the stars to align because they never will. There is no better time than now. Remember, you can always start now and tweak later. “It’s less important for you to get it right and more important for you to get it out there and fix and tweak later because that makes all the difference. The ones that who take the action today, right now, are the ones who are going to win. The ones who are sitting back thinking ‘I don’t know. I’ll launch my show next month when I have everything just perfect,’ or ‘I’m going to buy that new microphone,’ or ‘I’m going to start my blog when I have enough money to get the really great theme that I need.’ Forget it man, just go.”