EP153: REPLAY: Words of Wisdom for Creatives from Past Guests

I'm going back into the archives this week because it's been a bit of madness around here this month (in a good way!). This is a replay of EP 128 from last year where Heather and I asked past guests and audience member to share some words of wisdom that they've learned through being working creatives and/or running their own businesses. And they did not disappoint! It's an inspiriing episode with some fabulous nuggets from some exceptional women. One of my favourite quotes that I remind myself of over and over again came directly out of this episode!

You can find the original show notes right here (with links to all of the episodes these women appeared on)

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This week's episode of the and she Looked Up podcast is brought to you by our premium subscriber community on Patreon and Buzzsprout. Their ongoing financial support of the show ensures I can continue to bring the podcast to you. Want to help out? Head over to patreoncom forward slash and she looked up. That's patreoncom, forward slash and she looked up. There. You can join the community for free or you can choose to be a premium supporter for $450 a month, and that's in Canadian dollars. Paid supporters get access to a monthly exclusive podcast episode only available to premium subscribers. You can also click the support the show link in the episode notes on your podcast player to support us via Buzzsprout, where you will also get access to each month's exclusive premium supporter episode. I can't tell you how much I appreciate all our monthly supporters. They are the engine that keeps the podcast running and they're a pretty cool bunch too. And now let's get on with the show.

Speaker 1: 1:16

Welcome to the and she Looked Up podcast. Each week we sit down with inspiring Canadian women who create for a living. We talk about their creative journeys and their best business tips, as well as the creative and business mindset issues all creative entrepreneurs struggle with. I'm your host, melissa Hartfield and, after leaving a 20-year career in corporate retail, I've been happily self-employed for 12 years. I'm a graphic designer, an illustrator and a multi-six figure year entrepreneur in the digital content space. This podcast is for the artists, the makers and the creatives who want to find a way to make a living doing what they love.

Speaker 1: 2:01

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the and she Looked Up podcast. As always, I'm your host, melissa, and this week is going to be a replay episode. We are going back into the archives to last year, partly because the last few weeks have been insanely busy for me and, while there are new episodes sitting waiting to be released, I have not had time to go in and edit them, unfortunately. So today we're going back into, back to episode 128. And this was a great episode. We solicited some words of wisdom from past guests and from audience members to share with all our listeners, and we got some really great tips and little nuggets of wisdom, and it was one of our most popular episodes last season, if not the most popular, and so I thought it would be great to put it back out there for those of you who maybe haven't had a chance to listen to it or you're a new listener and you haven't discovered this one before. It's a great one to go back and listen to Some very exceptional women sharing some of their knowledge with all of us.

Speaker 1: 3:15

So, with that said, I hope you all enjoy this. And if you are a premium subscriber to the show, there is a new premium episode also going up this week for March. So there will be something new for all of you to listen to. And if you're not a premium subscriber and you'd like to become one, you can head over to either our Patreon page or our Buzzsprout page. And not only will you get access to the new March episode, you'll get access to almost a full year's worth of subscriber only episodes. So there's all kinds of good stuff in there. So, with that said, I hope you are all having a fantastic March. The weather here has been very March like and I'm loving it, even the rain, which it is doing right now as I record this. So I hope you are all having a great kickoff to spring and we will be back in another two weeks with an actual brand new episode, but in the meantime, please enjoy this very fun rerun that Heather and I did last year.

Speaker 1: 4:20

Today we are going to do a different kind of episode. We are going to be looking at our collective wisdom as women of a certain age, I guess and today's episode is going to be about the things that we know now that we wish we could go back and tell our younger selves, either as a form of advice or a form of reassurance, or I don't know, just a little confidence boost. And this is something I don't know about you, heather. This is something I've been thinking about quite a bit. I think I've mentioned on the show before, but I think we should be able to do that. So I'm going to be talking about the things that we know now that we wish we could go back to.

Speaker 1: 5:00

I think I've mentioned on the show before that I turned 50 in August, and I think it's always interesting with these milestone birthdays, because it's not so much that I'm thinking about like oh, is this what 50 feels like? Like I don't know. I guess this is what 50 feels like, because this is how I feel. It's more just. I think those kind of birthdays always give you pause to look back on where you've come, but also look forward to where you're going, and I think 50 is an interesting one, because that's like you know in your head you're probably past the halfway point, right? So you really start to you really start to think about what you want the second half to be like.

Speaker 2: 5:53

Yes, and I've been thinking about that too. Funny enough because I'm turning 45 in March and the sort of halfway markers like 40, 45, 50, all like to me that's.

Speaker 1: 6:05

I mean.

Speaker 2: 6:05

I love. I'm a birthday girl, I love her, so that's. But so every year is like it's my, and in fact every the 28th of every month is my birth anniversary. So just a fun fact here, everybody. So I have been thinking about it and I, particularly funny enough, I spent and you know this, I just spent a couple of weeks visiting with my parents in Florida and it was so nice to stay in a warm place, but also it was so fascinating. My mom and I were talking about my grandfather, because it would have been his 106th birthday, which you know he did not live to 106th, in fact, he died at 52. And so he had been dead longer than he had been alive. And my mom just turned 70.

Speaker 2: 6:55

I'm 45, almost, and so I was just sort of thinking about their life, like holy crap, what they have through. And you and I have talked about our shared Eastern European ancestry and the life that our parents and grandparents lived as a result of that. And and then what? Like I, constantly I'm like, wow, my mom at 45 was so different than me at 45. And not just because we're different people, but like the world has changed. There's so much that's different, and that's why I? Because I'm with you on the like is this what 45 feels like? Is this what 50 feels like? And I think it's because of our perceptions. Like Christ on a Cracker, the Golden Girls, right, like we're told that they they're the same age as I think the Friends Cast would be now I believe, in terms of like they were only playing mid 50 year olds or something Like it wasn't.

Speaker 1: 7:51

But they felt. It felt like they were grandmas, you know like like they were old ladies, old ladies.

Speaker 2: 7:57

Obviously we are a lot younger. Old, old ladies Like yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:01

Yeah, and it's so interesting now, like just what, what 50 is today? It's so different. But one of the things I have definitely noticed and this is something I've been warned about for years is that when you sort of hit that 50, you become invisible, and I've definitely felt that in the last year and a half. I would say like I've just disappeared from the face of fear, and I think it's really interesting, because 50 is, I would say, probably having been through my 40s, I feel like 40s is the decade where you get really comfortable with yourself. Like that's when you're just like you figured out who you are and you're getting comfortable with it and, if you've had kids, your life is starting to free up a little bit and you can really be you as opposed to being mom or wife or yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:03

So I think when you hit 50, that's when you start to realize like wow, I know a lot of stuff, Like I've done a lot of stuff and I know a lot of stuff, but nobody really gives a crap.

Speaker 2: 9:18

And what's also incredible and this is like, oh, the stupidity of youth, when we thought we knew everything. Now, at 44 and three quarters, I know so much more. And what's even more incredible?

Speaker 1: 9:36

is I now?

Speaker 2: 9:37

know that there's so much more.

Speaker 1: 9:39

I don't know so much more. I got to figure out Like I got to learn, and I've only got. You know, I'm halfway through.

Speaker 2: 9:48

Yes, and I thought honestly and I'm saying he heard it this morning in anticipation of this episode was I thought like I remember sitting and looking at my parents and thinking God, it must be so nice to be grown up. You don't have to come to the homework, you don't have to go to school all day and have people tell you what to do. Man, I would trade, I would go back and be a student all over again the adulting. But also, at the same time, there's so much homework that I think just life gives you right and that's the like we're always doing as adults. You're always doing homework and you're always going to school and if you're not, you're missing it. That's in my mind. If you have this, evolution stops and you don't, I don't know, it's like the people and you're like you peaked in high school and you've stayed there.

Speaker 1: 10:49

Yeah, and there are a lot of people that you went to high school with where that's true. But there's an awful lot of people you went to high school with who suddenly became so interesting when you meet them again later in life.

Speaker 2: 11:03

Yes, oh my gosh, and that's I mean. I have reconnected with girls that I went to high school with, and it's not to say that we weren't friends. We were friendly, we went to the same high school, we were in the same graduating class, we socialized-ish. But I didn't call all the check where they were going to be on Friday night. We just so happened that we would end up at the same place. So it was sort of that type of they went to university, we went to university. I never kept in touch. Then we, particularly with your internet, you come back together and some of those what I'll call peripheral friendships have been some of the most surprising and like wow, we have so much in common or you so surprise me, you. And I love that. I love that. I love being people who then surprise me with their awesomeness, with what cool things they've done, with what they do in life. And I don't mean that I had low expectations from them, not that at all. Just, I find it so cool what people do with themselves.

Speaker 1: 12:06

Yeah, and I think when you're a teenager you're so busy trying to fit in that you kind of soften all those things that make you cool and interesting, because you don't want to be the different kid and usually what makes you interesting is what makes you different, right? So you're just so busy trying to cloak that when you're in your teens and so very often you don't even know, your friends don't even know it's there until you get past that really awkward stage. So yeah, I think learning is what keeps us young. To be honest, I think the minute you stop learning and I'm not talking about book learning or stuff like that, but just being interested and curious in the world Totally Curious is such a great word. I love it, because when that stops then your time is probably done, to be really blunt.

Speaker 2: 13:10

That's why I love meeting new people, but also reconnecting with old, because I'm always like tell me more. Oh, tell me more, tell me more, tell me about, how did you get from here to there? Tell me more. And I think that also comes with the wisdom of age I got.

Speaker 2: 13:27

Love talk as we podcast together, melissa, I love talking. I could talk to days. I have lots of interesting things to say, but I've learned that there is a group so much to be learned from just shutting up and asking questions and being super curious about other people and the world around you, because that's when I do open my mouth and say things. I want them to be more informed, more enlightened, and have other people say, wow, she knew a lot, she enlightened me. I'm curious now to learn more. It's like sharing of stories and being a better storyteller and absorbing more about the world around me. There's so many cool podcasts to listen to now, all of this stuff, man, you had to listen to radio station tapes to hear some of the stuff that we can just like. Oh, internet, I can hear this now.

Speaker 1: 14:28

Yeah, it's amazing what we have access to today. Yeah, so that's basically what today's episode is going to be about. We're going to be sharing some of the things that we have learned over the years that we wish we could tell our younger self. But we also asked our friends and I put a call out to the and she looked up audience and, interestingly enough, I didn't have any listeners respond, but a lot of past guests responded. So that'll be interesting to see what some of the ladies who have been or do we use the term ladies anymore? I don't even know Some of the women who have been on the show previously some of the things that they wish they could tell their younger selves. So I think that'll be fun. So let's kick it off with you, heather. What is the one thing you wish you could go back and tell younger Heather? Not necessarily business related, but just in general, to ease her mind or make her feel better, or, yeah, what's the one thing?

Speaker 2: 15:37

So it lands in both. When I was thinking of this, I divided it up into business advice I would give younger business Heather or Heather or sort of in her twenties-ish was sort of where I was thinking. And then in life, and what ended up in both buckets were the words dream bigger. And it's interesting to say that because I've done a lot of cool stuff in my life and I've done, I've had neat jobs and had cool experiences. But I would say a lot of it just sort of happened and I would go back and tell myself there's so much more that you can dream of and so much bigger that you can dream. And same thing in business you can dream bigger, you can be more ambitious, you can do more. And yeah, like dream bigger and I part of this, I think, stems and we've talked about it a lot, but I my like dream was to be a stay at home mom, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. That was my dream and if I could trust I would, but I want to.

Speaker 2: 17:02

To me, the dream bigger is more about not changing those dreams but almost embracing the improv mantra of yes and so stay at home mom, heather, and and have your five children and live in the house and the ballfoot station wagon and all the things that I envisioned. Yes, and you can also do this, do that. You could have an art studio and sell paintings on the side. You could be the best damn you know assistant craft teacher on Wednesdays at your kids' school. And yes, and yes, and, and I think that that I limited myself to thinking of doing one thing, and I think that's where the dream bigger comes in, and the yes and comes in is that the world is a huge, massive place. We all have huge amounts of skills and things that will peak our curiosity. And I think the days, unless you're like I want to be a doctor and you've always wanted to fix people, or you know my, my brother, for instance, I always wanted to be a musician. He's a musician, but but what peaks his curiosity influences how he makes his albums, just like an artist, what peaks their curiosity and so we can change tax and that's the yes.

Speaker 2: 18:28

And, like you and I have both had multiple careers doing vastly different things, they're common thread and that common thread is what makes you unique and what me make me unique, and I think, if I have been encouraged to say yes, and I would have taken bigger leaps to embrace more of what makes Heather unique and do maybe bigger things. Yeah, and I'm only just starting to realize now that, like I've always joked, world domination is my goal. But now I'm actually just realizing, I'm like I could accomplish that, I could do that and that. That I feel like and it's not that nobody told me I couldn't do awesome things. Do you know what I mean? Like I was very positively encouraged in all of that, but I think it was that me telling me Heather, yes, and like be bigger, be bolder, do more, dream bigger for yourself and because you can do it, and if you can't, you'll figure out how. I think that's the. I think that was the thing that always stopped me.

Speaker 1: 19:41

It's interesting because our inner voice is the voice we listen to. It has the biggest influence over who we are, far more than anybody else outside of us, and what you just said there about how it had to come from you to dream bigger, like that's such a classic example of your inner voice being the one who's holding you back, that it's not the people around you that were saying you can't do this. It was you that was saying, yeah, this isn't, this is enough. Yes, that's enough, yeah. So this is really interesting how how loud our inner voice is and how and I think too, you know you open yourself up.

Speaker 2: 20:26

By simply even having that thought of opening myself up, that that all of the people perhaps the yes and would also have come from people around me because of they would have seen or felt that willingness for the yes and from me. So the person who gave that positive feedback well, you're really good at this, heather, I would have. I hopefully, by embracing the yes and in myself, they would have seen it and said you're really good at this, heather. You know we might have a because they saw that maybe I would bite. Do you know what I mean? And it's not to say that they didn't see that I would bite.

Speaker 2: 21:04

I was offered opportunities and some I took and some I didn't. But like I don't know, I just feel like if you put it out there or you sort of struck through the world with that, that maybe more of it will manifest itself. I know that's like I should just hang some crystals on my head and I don't know, I just dream bigger and take more risks. I think would be the big one. I would go back and in my delorean and tell younger Heather.

Speaker 1: 21:33

I think for me actually I don't think, I know for me I wish I could go back and tell probably my 15 or 16 year old self, or maybe my 14 year old self, and probably again my 20 year old self and my 30 year old self would be, because it would need reinforcing multiple times would be to stop worrying, stop worrying. So when I look back at how much of my life I have spent worrying about things that never happened or some of them did happen, but most of them didn't what a complete and utter waste of time and mental energy and stress I inflicted upon myself, and I don't know if there's a way I could have avoided all of that. I think you just have to get through the life experience of realizing that, yeah, crappy things are going to happen, like this is the thing. Nobody gets through life without crappy things happening. It's impossible. That's just how life works. You get good things, you get bad things and you have to deal with them.

Speaker 1: 22:49

But I think the thing that I've come to realize is that, yeah, we get dealt bad things and, let's be honest, I am a white woman living on the West coast of Canada in one of the most beautiful places in the world with one of the best standards of living in the world. The bad things that have happened to me are on a global scale. I have a house, I have clothing, I have food, I'm doing okay, but it doesn't diminish.

Speaker 2: 23:20

It doesn't diminish.

Speaker 1: 23:22

It doesn't diminish the bad things will still happen. But the thing is humans. Have you seen some of the interviews going around with Brendan Fraser with his new movie, this Come Out the Whale and he's getting a lot of Oscar buzz for it and the clip that they keep showing is him saying in the movie that human beings are amazing. And we are Like.

Speaker 1: 23:51

I hear that line and it gives me chills every time I see it on screen. Because we're so frickin' resilient, oh, frickin' resilient. We think that all these things are gonna happen that are gonna break us, but they don't. We just keep going. And that's pretty remarkable, right, and I think that's kind of what I wish I could go back and just tell myself many times is like just stop worrying, you're going to get through all the hard things. It's gonna be hard, there's gonna be days where it's really hard, but you can't stop bad things from happening. So worrying about them is not going to make them stop. They're gonna happen one way or the other. But yeah, just so much stress and anxiety that I have inflicted upon myself from worrying about everything and I think somewhere in my 40s I kind of let go. That's not to say I don't worry anymore. I do, but nowhere near on the scale. I think part of it is. I'm just so flipping tired some days I don't have the energy to worry.

Speaker 2: 25:06

But yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:08

And I think that worry also plays into the whole dream. Bigger thing that you said is like I was just always one of the things I worried a lot about was what people would think, and just such a waste of time. Like, of all the things to worry about, that is the biggest waste of time to worry about what other people are going to think. And yet when I was younger, that was so important to me and I wasn't worrying about like, do people think I have enough money or that I'm successful enough? That's not the stuff I was worrying about. I was worrying about like, will they still like me? Like, so rooted in self-esteem, right?

Speaker 2: 25:53

Honestly, that's like 90% of being a teenager, right? And that's your figure self-esteem is figuring yourself out.

Speaker 1: 26:02

I never really grew out of it. I was still struggling with it within my 20s and my 30s and I think yeah. So anyway, that would be. My big piece of advice would be to just stop worrying, take some deep breaths and just keep going. You'll figure it out. And that's the thing. We all figure it out, like we all get presented with situations we'd never dealt with before, but we figure it out.

Speaker 2: 26:30

Yes, oh my gosh, yes, and I think to you know, we. I think one of the big things, particularly for me with the worry and stress, is actually realizing that I am giving people way more credit than they deserve, the energy that they spend thinking about me and right and so they're worrying about what you're thinking about them, right, and or, for instance, like you're thinking to yourself oh gosh, you know what?

Speaker 2: 27:01

I haven't seen? X person, it's gonna be. There's this, there's gonna be that that person is thinking about cleaning their bathroom before you get there. That's what they're thinking about. They're thinking about their kids soccer tournament. They have to get ready for the next morning. They're thinking about like they're thinking about their things and you're thinking about your things. Your things might be concerning them, but it's in relation to you, but it's easier said than done, it's so much easier yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 27:26

I've given that advice to a million people for in a million different ways. And then I found myself on a for a family event this summer just agonizing over this, that, the other. And then I realized that nobody else actually gave a fuck and like, heather, get off, get off of yourself.

Speaker 1: 27:43

Yeah, okay. So let's talk about it from a business standpoint. So if you could go back and tell younger Heather one thing, business wise, that you wish she could know, what would it be?

Speaker 2: 27:58

Ooh, this is a big one and I've been thinking about this for a long time, but funny enough, your recent episode with Pamela from Sand Dollar Financial Mm-hmm, her man. If people have not listened to that episode, go listen to that episode.

Speaker 1: 28:11

It was a good episode. Yeah, it was a good episode.

Speaker 2: 28:14

There were a bunch of zingers that she delivered that hit me like a ton of bricks, that truly like if I could put her in the DeLorean with me and take her back. And it's not even to business Heather starting my own business, like, say, a decade ago this is going back to like, I would say, heather moving out on her own, being an adult, get to know the numbers. Understand the numbers. Understand what it is you're signing when you take a visa out. Understand more about your mortgage than what the person across the table that's sliding the papers across the table from you is telling you. Understand like the numbers. Understand the numbers.

Speaker 2: 28:58

I really internalized really early on that I was not good at numbers. Yet I excelled in things that related to numbers. Like physics was one of my favorite classes. That's all, it's just applied mathematics, that's all physics is, and I excelled at it. I just had to figure out how to fit 35 concentric circles that were five and a quarter inches onto a canvas that is six inches by 48. And I did that using math, without a calculator, I will tell you. And I managed million dollar budgets for clients.

Speaker 2: 29:35

But I have always been very scared of, let's say, solidifying the number knowledge because it would solidify what I don't know. And not knowing the numbers makes me very scared and part of Pamela's like values and what you internalize that really hit me on the head In terms of just some of the fears that I've always had about money I realize now come from experiences that I had and where why I treat money the way I do and I never understood the why of that. It sort of just bang, it was like bang light bulb, oh my gosh. But I have probably in the last five years I don't wanna say regret because I don't have regrets, but I feel like I could have dreamt bigger if the financial literacy and the understanding of how I can make money work for me was more applied early on, like in my 20s and 30s.

Speaker 1: 30:39

Financial education. Financial literacy in this country is pathetic. It's I'm just gonna put that out there. It is possibly the most important thing that you could learn in high school and it's not taught. It's not taught anywhere near the way it should be. And I'm not talking about like really in-depth financial knowledge. I'm talking about the basics, like how interest works and how what happens when you take out a loan, and things like that, like just completely lacking.

Speaker 1: 31:15

And Pamela and I talked about this and, for those of you wondering, this was episode 126, money Mindset Matters for Working Creatives. If you wanna go back and have a listen to it, we'll put it in the show notes. Yeah, again, and this is where you have these situations, particularly budgeting, which you need for life and your business. You need to know how to budget. Where you have people who don't know how to do that, and it makes life really challenging. It makes running a business really challenging. And we're in this situation now where we're seeing these interest rates going up and up, although they seem to have stabilized a bit, and we've still got people freaking out about a 3.5% interest rate. But I'm old enough. This is one of the benefits of being an old lady. I'm old enough to remember my parents when they had a mortgage that was at 13%.

Speaker 2: 32:05

About to say like people had things at 18%.

Speaker 1: 32:09

It was like Our next door neighbors lost their house because they wound up having to renew at 17%. And so in the back of my head, if I were buying a house, that would be in the back of my head like what happens if interest rates skyrocket by the time I have to renew my mortgage or if I do a variable rate or whatever it you know. So when you haven't had the experience of living through those things, it becomes kind of like a like an esoteric kind of thing, like yeah, interest rates could go up, but that never happens.

Speaker 2: 32:46

Totally and honestly and truly, like I've had this discussion with girlfriends. I mean, brian and I are very open and our finances are completely blended finances and it is household finances, and that transparency lends well to the transparency of our marriage and which is all obviously a very healthy thing, particularly when so many people know that financial issues are the root of so many people's marriage issues.

Speaker 1: 33:20

And it's one of the reasons I'm still single and why I never got married.

Speaker 2: 33:25

I have relations with people who are like, oh my gosh, like I have a credit card, my husband doesn't even know about it and I'm like, what the fuck, like that is?

Speaker 2: 33:38

I think if the financial literacy had been there, those choices would not, people wouldn't, we wouldn't make them as flippantly, we wouldn't. I don't know. There's so much and I love so much more to learn and, honestly, I bet you a million dollars which I don't have that if Brian was hearing this right now, he would be rolling his eyes because he and I have conversations, lengthy conversations about my, not conversations. He educates me on things. He'll be like okay, here's what we're doing and not. Here's not what I'm doing, but here's what we're doing. I'm wanting your buy-in and if you don't understand what we are doing as a family, as a unit with our money, I need to educate you on that so that you're not just nodding blindly and being like, yep, I trust you, because that's not. That's great that I trust my husband, but that's not in my best interest. Like we should both know what's going on, brian could disappear tomorrow.

Speaker 1: 34:39

I don't mean that in, but this happens to so many women. They lose their husband, either through divorce or death, and all of a sudden they're like I don't have a credit card, I don't have a credit rating, I don't have, I don't know where we keep everything I don't know. Like and this is so important for us as women to be financially informed where it pertains to our well-being. You don't want to be a 60-year-old woman suddenly finding yourself with that you didn't know existed, or not being able to get credit for whatever reason, or being in a situation where you can't afford your home, like nobody. That's not the point in your life where you want those things to happen to you.

Speaker 2: 35:30

So yes, it actually brings a lot of peace, like you can. Actually. That's where you can dream bigger. That's where you can do the things because you can say yes and with the confidence that the finances back you up, that you understand what you're walking into, you know what you're signing all of those things, I think.

Speaker 1: 35:47

Definitely 100% degree. Yeah, really practical one, I think, for me, if I was to go back and tell myself, give myself a piece of business advice and I actually think I learned this fairly quickly, and this may be just because of my personality type, but it was it is one that I do wish I had known earlier, and that is that mistakes are good. It's good to make mistakes, like do not be afraid of making mistakes. It's how you learn, it's how you grow, it's how you get better at things, and mistakes are just learning opportunities, and that was a huge one.

Speaker 1: 36:31

My personality type tends to be just like okay, that happened. It was crappy, which is funny given how much I worry. But when the thing actually happens, it's like okay, well, that happened, okay, so we won't do that again, so now we'll move on and we'll do something else. Yeah, I need to be more prepared next time, or I need to research better next time, or I could have handled that differently, now I know. So I think that's one that a lot of people need to hear is that mistakes are part of it, and I think you get yourself into more trouble by trying to avoid mistakes than by embracing them, because when you try to avoid mistakes, you don't take any risks and you don't dream bigger. You get stuck in that one spot because you're just too paralyzed.

Speaker 1: 37:24

And I see this all the time. I see it all the time in groups that I'm in with my clients, where they just get mentally stuck because they're terrified of making the wrong decision. Yeah, and really the decisions we're making. I know in their head they seem huge, but in the grand scheme of things they're not huge. Like, but if it doesn't work, just put it on ice and go on to the next thing.

Speaker 2: 37:49

Yes, yes, and I mean I've done that. I used to feel really badly when I would finish a canvas and I'd be like, well, I could have done better, Like I made a mistake here, and it's not to say mistake, but artistically I put something here that I shouldn't have. I put a swoosh there. The swoosh should have gone there and I used to knock myself and be really and I this is partly money, but like I was a waste of a canvas. You should have thought about that before you put the swoosh on there. But mistakes happen and sometimes, like I had a painting that came out of all accidental swooshes. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2: 38:31

So, sometimes like when you're not caring about whether a mistake happens, and it's not to say you don't sort of plan, particularly on a financial, if you're taking a risk. But I would say artistically, even if you're taking a risk, mistakes can't happen, but they can also yield some really amazing results, right.

Speaker 1: 38:56

Exactly, and if I think most of us know that, but we don't know it If that makes sense, like when I'm starting a new design for a client and I open up Photoshop and I have a thing in my head and I start working on it and I'm looking at it and I'm like it's just it's not right, you know, like it's just not right, but I can't put my finger on what's wrong.

Speaker 1: 39:20

And so you move something around and you're like what if I move this over here? And then the mouse slips and you end up moving it to a spot you weren't planning on moving it to and you're just like, oh hey, well, that's interesting, right, and it's because you made a mistake. So I think, just being open to letting mistakes happen because so much good stuff can come out of mistakes and mistakes move you forward, and anytime you move forward, good things come out of that. So I feel like when you're not making mistakes, you don't grow, you don't move forward, nothing, you're just static, and that was boring, and it just it doesn't. Nothing happens, you're stuck, and nobody wants to be stuck, we don't, that's not.

Speaker 2: 40:06

And I would say honestly, at the worst, a mistake just offers a funny story for later.

Speaker 1: 40:13

Yeah, and then the truth is, most of us are not doing things where our mistakes are going to cause some kind of drastic traumatic life altering consequences. Right, we're not brain surgeons, we're not in charge of the nuclear plant. You know, we are artists and creatives and makers. And maybe you'll lose a client Happens to all of us at some point. We're all going to lose a client or a customer, yep, so yeah.

Speaker 1: 40:53

So let's move into some of the responses we got from the audience, because I think there's something I think we're going to we'll have some good things to talk about this. So our first one is from Katrina and Lexi from Gaiola, and so, if you remember Katrina and Lexi, they were on episode 120. They're in the process of launching their own fashion brand based on their Latin American roots, and so the piece of advice they sent in is be your own biggest advocate and cheerleader, because if not you, who will? And I think that is very, very true. I think we all tend to wait for and expect other people to say how wonderful we are to the world, and the truth is, we have to get ourselves out there first, and I think there's a difference between being an advocate and a cheerleader, and I think you need to be both. Yeah, like when you go to the bank and you're trying to get financing for whatever you want to do.

Speaker 1: 42:01

You need to be your own biggest advocate because nobody else is going to tell the bank manager yeah, you know what Heather? Heather deserves a loan. She's a nice person, exactly Right, like bank manager is going to be sitting there going. Who cares? I don't care if she's a nice person, I want to know if she's going to pay the loan back in three years. So you have to be the one who stands up for yourself in all of those kinds of situations and I think as women, we find ourselves in those situations frequently where we need to be more vocal about. We need to stand up for ourselves more. Or we need to stand up and say that's not right. What you're doing is not right. Or we need to stand up and say you know, I deserve this, I've worked hard for this Because, yeah, nobody else is going to do it for you, nobody else.

Speaker 2: 42:54

No.

Speaker 2: 42:55

And even listening at the resume, even listing out your skills, why I deserve this loan, why I should be featured in your magazine, why I and those things I find and this just to go back to why I would tell myself to dream bigger I was always told I had a lot of confidence.

Speaker 2: 43:15

I have had a lot of confidence my whole life, and one of the things that I I dreaming bigger would have required putting more confidence out there, and I was already being told I was confident, and so to the point that I did not want to be that girl who was just high on her high horse. You know what I mean. Yeah, I think people would see me that way, but really I would have just been putting my best foot forward, Right, yeah. And in terms of being your own advocate, you have to have the confidence in the things that you have accomplished, that you got you where you are to say I've done this and say it was such a plumb that you, right, like it's and it's even tone of voice, it's attitude, like all of those things really own it, own your credentials and I think that's a that's a big one.

Speaker 1: 44:12

And I think this is something that gets a little easier as you get older, because I think you can look back and see more of the things that you've done and this is so interesting.

Speaker 1: 44:21

So I didn't ask her if I could talk about this on the podcast, but I was having a conversation on Instagram with a former guest and she was showing in her stories some work that she had done and she was kind of she had put it all together as a body of work in a physical form so that she could see it. And the reason she did is because she was trying to decide how to lay it out in a way that she could present it in a physical form to potential customers. And I just sent her a message and said something like isn't it cool to seal your work together like that? Like don't you feel really satisfied by that? Because I think that is something we tend not to do. We tend to forget the things that we've done. Yes, and so when you actually put it together in a physical space where you can see it and I feel like you'll get this same feeling when you have your gallery show is to see it and be like wow, like I did a lot.

Speaker 2: 45:27

Like, yay, me, I'm already having a feeling because the stack of paintings that I've created like is getting bigger and coming off the wall and every time I walk past it I'm like, well, that's getting big, heather. And I pat myself on the back because, man, I'm proud of what I've done and that I think that I should confidence. I think that you I wish I had had it earlier on in the like you talked about in the like and girlfriends and I, when we all turned 40, I felt like that was when we really embraced the hold on. Let me get the acronym IDGAF. I don't, yeah, right, that don't really embrace that of. I don't give a flying fork what your opinion of me is. I know who I am, I know what I'm doing. I'm marching through the world. That's one of the best parts of turning 40 yeah.

Speaker 2: 46:23

I think some of that would have facilitated the dreaming bigger in the youth.

Speaker 1: 46:29

If that, if that and I think that goes to what you said is that self-confidence and that worrying about what other people think, it's like all combined right yes, and on that note, I'm going to interrupt with another point from a former guest, and this one is from Sharon Marie White, and she was on episode 90. So Sharon is a country music singer and songwriter, yeah, and her episode was really interesting because we talked about ageism in the music industry and in the creative industry as well. So, and Sharon had a really interesting story, she's been singing and writing songs her entire life and performing, but she took a break when she had her kids and stopped performing and now that they're flown the coop, she's gone back to it and you know the music industry you don't see a lot of older women in the music industry particularly and and yet she's out there doing it. And so her piece of advice plays right into what we were just talking about, and that is to be braver and not care what other people think. And this is, again, easier said than done. But I do think this is something that comes with age, where you're just like I think you just realized, like you know, it is that sort of epiphany moment where you're like I've got more time behind me than I have ahead of me and I really want to get these things done like. These are important to me and I really I want to do them. I want to get out there and see if I can be a successful touring musician, or I want to get out there and see if I can have a gallery show, or you know, I want to get out there, I want to see if I can paint, I want to see if I can do needlework. I want to try all these things because you're starting to realize, like you know, if I don't do it now, when am I going to do it? And I think that starts to trump what other people think about you, because you just realized I don't care, I don't care, I want to do this before time runs out, so I'm gonna do it right. So, yeah, that was a great one. Thank you, sharon.

Speaker 1: 48:31

Another one that I want to bring up because I've got a few, and then I know you've got a few, so I'll toss it over to you one that came from this is actually a listener. She is a small business owner, but she's a scientist, and so she she's somebody I would love to have on the show, but she's not in a creative field, but she has so much wealth of knowledge. Wealth of knowledge, is that how you say it wealth of knowledge, which is sound of really funny when I said it. Anyway, her name is Jennifer Andrews and she runs Fresh Leaf Marketing and she helps life science brands grow. So basically more like medical and life science and things like that. She helps them with their branding, their marketing, all of that and a lot of what she does.

Speaker 1: 49:20

Yeah, it crosses over into what we do, but she just has a different target market than we do, and she left some advice on LinkedIn, and I think this is really a really solid piece of advice. It's one that I actually need to be reminded of quite often, and in her words, it is basically that you don't need to do everything all at once. You go through seasons and sometimes it's your time to rest, sometimes to aim for the next big thing. Not all your biggest milestones or memorable experiences need to happen at the same time. It's okay for things to take time, and she mentioned that she is constantly working on that too.

Speaker 1: 50:02

But I think and it reminds me of a Tom Cochran song and I love Tom Cochran, I love his lyrics.

Speaker 1: 50:10

He just has these incredible lyrics that just sort of drill down into the heart of life, and there's one lyric and I'm trying to think which song it's from I think it's Victory Day, one of his 80s songs where he says life isn't big, it's kind of small, made of small moments all strung together. And that is one of my lines music song lyrics that I try to live by is just to remind myself like, at the end of the day, it's all these small moments that come together to create your life and your business. Yeah, and it's very much like getting up and putting one foot in front of the other and it doesn't sound exciting or sexy or glamorous in the moment, but when you look back and you realize that all that putting one foot over in front of the other got you to a pretty incredible place. And I think that's really important to kind of remember is that you don't want all those things to happen in one time. It's overwhelming and it just is over. You wind up freezing.

Speaker 2: 51:15

Well, and I think and I think too that goes to the like you've got to do it all before you retire, or you've got to do it all before 40, or you've got to know like Julia Child didn't learn how to cook until she was 36 there's people who don't discover their, their, their thing until their 40s, 50s, 60s. There's people who who never picked up a paintbrush and started when they retired at 65 and and so I think trying to have it all and do all the things on some sort of deadline, it like strips us of the possibilities of of all the things that might just sort of encounter in life, and like I feel like you're just limiting yourself by forcing it all. Right.

Speaker 1: 52:08

I think this is one for all the moms of younger children that listen to the show, because I hear this so often with my mom friends. Not as much now, because we're all getting to the point where the where the kids are old enough to be much more self-sufficient, right, but when your kids are in the stage where they need you all the time, I just have so many friends who just feel like they're losing themselves, right, because it's all about the kids and I think it's just important, like this is. This is a season. They're not going to be young forever and you need to just remind yourself like I'm not gonna get this time with them back. Yeah, so it's okay to lose myself in this season, because it will come to an end.

Speaker 2: 52:55

Yeah, yes, and I think that's the thing to be all in, because I think and again it goes back to that self-consciousness like oh my, I don't see my friends enough, I don't do this enough and it's all. But it's okay to be all in. Honestly, I've been thinking about it in terms of my exhibit, like I'm, I'm all in and so I'm not going out as much, I'm not seeing as many people, I'm not freeing up as much of my time because I'm all in and I don't feel guilty about it, and the people who nobody feels shunted by it. I think, because I think everybody understands that I'm all in. And I think it's like if you lost a friend to the parenting of toddlers anybody who's pissy at you because you're all in parenting your toddlers it's clearly not a very good friend to have. Like right, like yeah.

Speaker 2: 53:44

I think that's the thing too is embracing. When your friends and family are in the all-in mode, yeah, and, and they come out of it. You get them back. You, yes, and there's. But also, you know, we had a friend whose parent recently passed and they didn't ask for help, they didn't need help. But I kept thinking to myself, if there's a way like they're all in, and dealing with that. If there's a way that I could just show up and be helpful, mm-hmm, shovel, drop off a meal. Yeah, in recognition in the fact that they're all in, yeah, I mean, whether it's all in in grief, all in and joy, all in creativity, all in in a career. I think that's our job as friends and people is to like support people better when they aren't asking for it, when they're pulling away because they're all into something good that's.

Speaker 1: 54:34

That's a really important point to make, because that's what happens when we're all in. We don't think to ask for help because we're all in, like it's all we can do to just tread water right. And so that's why I think I remember telling a friend, like, if I'm bitching and moaning and groaning to you, I'm fine, it's when I go quiet that you need to worry, because that means like I'm, you know, overwhelmed, right. So and I think that's really true I think it's when your friends go quiet, that's when you need to pick up the phone or send them a text and just be like hey, everything, okay, do you need anything? Like you know, sometimes just hearing from you is all they need.

Speaker 1: 55:17

So it's like oh, I've been forgotten exactly it yeah so I think you had. I have one more, but I'm saving it to the end because but I think you have a few that you wanted to yes, let me pull them up. Another word of wisdom that I'll pass on during this interlude is that technological challenges are always going to happen.

Speaker 2: 55:41

No, I got actually two and I think they actually play. I think they play off of each other. They're sort of okay. The same advice, and it's from a girlfriend of mine in Sandy night. She is actually, I believe she's a dairy farmer in Manitoba, and so she says be true to who you are, even if it feels like you don't fit in. So I think that that's part of that. Self-confidence and authenticity is empowering and fulfilling. And then her next one, I think fits into that, which is keep your circle strong. Surround yourself by those who inspire you, encourage you, support and celebrate you for who you are.

Speaker 1: 56:20

Yes, big one yeah, I mean, you hear that I don't know who originated it, but the whole thing, like you are the sum of the five people you spend the most amount of time with. Yeah, I, I think there's some truth to that. I don't think it's a hundred percent, but it definitely is. Like when you surround yourself with people who encourage you and who spark your curiosity and who support you, that's that goes a long way into making you a better person, and and and yeah, another friend of mine, catherine McLeod, and she put in your other people's opinions.

Speaker 2: 57:02

Oh, so it starts here. Nobody put you're doing. They think you are worried about what you think of them, right? Other people's opinions don't matter and that your people will eventually find you. And it's rare it happens. In high school and I I found my people when I was six. I've had friends and we've been friends literally since we were six and we still we're a super tight-knit group of girls and we talk about how off, how rare it is that we found each other and how long it's been. But one of the things that I think is most enduring about our friendship is that, because we met at a place that encouraged us to be our true selves, we met on a very authentic playing field, and so we have always known each other, warts and all, from the beginning it's so funny, yeah, that you say this, because I'm doing inco RIMO right now which is partly it's a marketing thing for my business, but it's also been really fun it's, yeah, it's

Speaker 1: 58:06

international correspondence writing month, but the idea is that in the month of February, you send a handwritten piece of correspondence to somebody each day, and so I've been sending stuff to people who asked to get stuff from me. I put it out on social media that I would send some goodies to people, but I'm also sending cards and letters and things to people that I'm close to people, to friends, and the first person I sent one to is my oldest friend. We've been friends since we were seven and this is what exactly. What I put to her in the net is that there is something like her and I are so different. We were best friends in elementary school. We drifted apart a bit in high school. We reconnected in university and we've stayed close ever since.

Speaker 1: 58:50

But we're vastly different people now and I honestly don't know if we met today, if we would be friends yeah, in the same way that we are. But there is something about that shared connection. From when you're that young, you know she knows, like she knows my parents. I know her parents. I know what it was like growing up in her house. She knows what it was like growing up in my house, and that is something that anybody who meet me now will never have. Yeah, so those people know you from, they know everything they know. They know all the bodies.

Speaker 2: 59:30

Honestly, I call it and it's so funny I coined this term when I was working at a law firm because I was assigned to do a bunch of stuff in the IP department and I was like, what's IP?

Speaker 2: 59:38

I know what IT is, anyway, it was a left and intellectual property, and that I call you those friendships, your intellectual property friendships. Those are the people that have the actual property to know and be like I call bullshit. I know, heather, but I also think and this is to her, to Catherine's point, like I do think too, though, that there's people who come to you later in life, like you and I met 15 years ago and we through work, and how often is it that, when you encounter somebody through work, that you remain friends and our friends with those people, and you and I stuck and continue to stick, and I think that's beautiful. And we don't have all that IP right, but we have so much more, and I would say there's friends who you would know more of me than even people who might have learned known me longer. Definitely, oh for sure.

Speaker 1: 1:00:33

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 1:00:35

Same goes. Yeah, and I would say it's because we met on such a and we've had such interesting exchanges, this podcast, but, like I, yeah, so I think there's and there's. So to me it's like there's value in the friends that you meet when you're six, and there's value and there's and all those friendships. I think that's one of the things. Friends come and go and those are like seasons too. You can have seasons with friends.

Speaker 1: 1:01:00

Yes, I was just going to say that goes right back to Jennifer's point, in that there there are seasons with things and some people are not meant to be in your life the whole time and some are, and there is a reason why people come into our lives and there's a reason why they leave, and it happens when it's meant to happen.

Speaker 2: 1:01:20

Yes. So and I think that's the big one is not fretting like, worrying if you, if, if friendships drift away? Yeah, about like if it really bothers you pick up the phone and call the person. Why, yeah, yeah absolutely.

Speaker 2: 1:01:34

And otherwise just rest in the confidence that if it's meant to drift back, it will drift back. You can always pick up the phone. Like the internet is there, you can find people very easily. Like it's not, you're not having to call up every Jane Smith in the phone book and write, but you're not read pages out of the phone. But you can find people. You can do it really easily and I and I've also.

Speaker 2: 1:01:58

This maybe will circle back to the very beginning of our conversation in the women of a certain age, but I have been thinking and this partly relates to my exhibition and the theme around childlessness, and one of the things I've been reading a lot about is menopause and perimenopause and the stages, and I I've been thinking about it a lot in terms of because, like, one of the things that really bothered me is that when I got my period, I was told you're now a woman and this because you have your period and because you're a woman, that's what makes you a woman is because you can have babies and we know that. That's, I would say, not an accurate description of what makes a woman a woman. There's lots of people who are not biologically capable of having babies and are women, right?

Speaker 1: 1:02:50

Yes, so y'all can't see me. Heather can see me, but I'm rolling my eyes because I'm right with her.

Speaker 2: 1:02:57

And so I think, and I would love and and we have also been fed the menopause is like the end Dump, dump, dump. This is it. You fade out, fade and end scene, right. And this is where the invisibility comes in. I I would like to challenge that.

Speaker 2: 1:03:17

And I think that when a young woman gets her period, that that's almost like a Super Mario Brothers game, that it's like do do, next level activated, and you go from childhood and then it's next level activated, and you're in this next level and you know, and now in peri, menopause, to me that's boop, boop, next level activated, and I've, I've leveled up. I'm like this isn't the end, I'm not fading into black, I'm fucking leveling up. That's a good way to look at it, right. And then, when menopause comes, that one day that's all menopause is is one day, right, it's the one day boop, boop, next level activated, and to like, to me, that's the way I want to think about it, because there's no ending. The ending is what we just decided is right, and so it's leveling up.

Speaker 2: 1:04:20

It has nothing to do with being a woman, not being a woman, it's just a phase of life, that's it. It's a season. It's a season. You have your period season, then you don't have your period for a season. Right, that's it. That's all it is, and and we put so much more stock into it. This is when you become a woman and then, when you have menopause, you're dead. Nobody will see you just go into your little crone world with your gray hair and pet your cats Like right, whereas if we reframed it all from the very beginning, I feel like women would feel more empowered, that this is like I'm. I can, yeah, I'm doing a grass.

Speaker 1: 1:05:04

Well, you know, I think you know, I was like I'm gonna say oh my God, my brain is just fried this week. Shoot, oh, I know what I was gonna say. There is freedom in invisibility. Yes, you know, like when you feel like you're invisible to the world, you can do whatever the hell you want, because nobody's paying attention to you, Like. So you know what you want to wear. This is why old women wear purple hats, right.

Speaker 1: 1:05:37

Nobody cares Nobody, right? They're doing it. It's them sticking their finger, their middle finger, up at y'all and saying we're wearing purple hats because you guys don't even put your hands up, because you guys don't even pay attention to us. So who cares, right? So I think you know there is a there's, there is freedom in invisibility.

Speaker 2: 1:05:55

I think that's leveling up the like I do your invisibility cloak right Of your fort it is. It's your invisibility cloak. And like where can you go and what can you do? To me it's like taking advantage of the fact that people are so stupid that they render. If their stupidity renders you invisible, that's their problem, that your invisibility cloak led you to do all that.

Speaker 1: 1:06:20

Use that cloak to wreak havoc. Yes, yes.

Speaker 1: 1:06:25

We have one more, and I saved this one for last because I really liked it. I liked all of them, like. That's not to say that the others weren't great, but this one really struck a chord with me, and this one was from Kristen Rainey. And Kristen Rainey has been on the show on two episodes, 86 and 99. She is an urban gardener and floral designer based out of Saskatoon and she does some really incredible work. She just had her fourth baby and is prepping for garden season already for her business.

Speaker 1: 1:06:57

So her piece of advice is that no one cares as much as you do. So stop stressing about everything being perfect. Good plus good equals excellent, especially if multiplied with consistency. I love that last line. Good plus good equals excellent. Multiply it with consistency and you have something pretty damn special. And I think this is such a big lesson. And it goes back to us saying you know, get up every morning, put one foot in front of the other and things will happen. And this is essentially what Kristen's saying is like it doesn't have to be perfect. Stop getting so caught up in perfection. It's like somebody who has always struggled with this. But if you're just doing good work, good solid work every day and you keep doing good, solid work every day, good things will happen. Yes.

Speaker 2: 1:07:56

And those healthy habits. There's a thing we listen to healthy habits are the building blocks of your life and all of those things and I have been thinking about that. I fell off the workout train. I'm trying to get back on and literally my metric is did I do it, yes or no? Whether it was half an hour or two hours, whether sweat or not, did I do it? Yes, Perfect, it's the consistency and doing and to me, good enough is good enough, and that's which is hard to let go of, I think sometimes.

Speaker 1: 1:08:27

It's very hard to let go of, particularly if you're struggling. I think where a lot of us struggle is like bringing help into our businesses because nobody will do it as good as we can. They don't have to do it as good as you can, they just have to do it good enough so that you can keep doing it every day and you can do other things that you're good at. And, weirdly, quite often, when you hire people to do these things that you're tired of doing or that you don't want to do or that you don't like doing, they're better than you. Yes, so that just compounds your progress towards excellence.

Speaker 2: 1:09:09

And even if they aren't. This is such a random connection. But a girlfriend of mine just got a cleaning lady and she was trying to figure out ways that she could just afford her life more time and she realized that that was one of the things that she could hire out and would give her life more value and financially she could afford it. So she decided to do it and I said how's it working out? She said well, she doesn't clean the bathroom as well as I would like. And I said yeah, but do you still have that time? Like what in terms of the value? So is good enough in that checkbox still worth the value that you're getting out of the found time that you're? And she said yes, and I said so, then it's a win.

Speaker 1: 1:09:49

Check the win column. Yeah, I mean it's. It's the same with, like, over the years, I've done several hundred day projects and I've done a couple 365 projects. And I'm doing a 365 project this year where I'm doing a doodle a day for the whole year and I'm posting if you want to see them. I'm posting them on Instagram every day. You can go check it out and and, and I'm trying to keep it in. I realized halfway through January that 365 days is a lot of days. Yeah, when I'm only on day 20, it's like I've done a lot of drawings and it's like I got 345 more to go.

Speaker 2: 1:10:27

You're going to have such a body of work when you're done.

Speaker 1: 1:10:30

Yeah, well, this is what's been really interesting is that Miss Doodle, who is this little cartoon character essentially that I draw? I was looking at her, the last few that I've done. February is Miss Doodle month. That's what I'm focusing on for Feb. I'm trying to give myself themes each month to keep it interesting for myself. So I was looking at her the other night and the ones that I've done so far for February and I was also pulling out some cards for an order that I was filling, which were Miss Doodle on the cards, and I was like, wow, she's changed a lot, Like. And then I was thinking you know the Miss Doodle on the cards and looking back to where she's, like the very first incident of Miss Doodle, and I'm actually thinking of posting this on Instagram at the end of at the end of February is like here's where she started.

Speaker 1: 1:11:18

Here's where she started. Here's where she is today, and I mean, if you've seen her, heather's seen her.

Speaker 2: 1:11:24

Yeah, I'm like, I'm so fascinated to see how she's evolved. She's a stick figure.

Speaker 1: 1:11:29

So you would sit there and think how much can a stick figure evolve? But it's crazy. And because I'm also following the Opus Art Supplies here in BC they run an Opus daily practice challenge every February where they give you prompts and I'm using their prompts with Miss Doodle to kind of give myself something to chew on, like give myself an idea, because coming up with a different idea for 365 days is a lot. So the prompts help. I'm not usually a prompt person but this is helping. And a couple of them have been kind of esoteric type prompts where I've been like I don't know what to draw and so I've been doing like studies of her. So I did a study of like one prompt was contrast and so I did this study of Miss Doodle and like she's basically round circles and wavy lines with straight edged shapes and straight lines, like that's what she is, it's not that complicated.

Speaker 1: 1:12:30

And then yesterday I did the prompt was emotion and I was just showing this is all the ways you can draw emotion with a stick figure. And I get a lot of that inspiration from Charles Schultz who drew the penis characters. You look at the penis characters. They are very similar to Miss Doodle round heads. They're not stick figures, but you know, and the amount of motion that he was able to convey in those kids, totally it's wild. Yes, so you know, that's what I was. I drew like this study of like all the different emotions that this little redheaded girl can feel and I was just kind of like, wow, this is so interesting how, how much she's changed over the years. And one of the things I realized is that she's so simple. Like when you break it down, she's a circle on a triangle with straight lines sticking out and wavy lines on her hair.

Speaker 2: 1:13:22

Anybody could draw her, but she is actually harder to draw than I was gonna say I don't think anybody, because I bet you, if I tried to draw Miss Doodle it would look like Heather's stick figure. No, it would miss Doodle.

Speaker 1: 1:13:38

And she's harder to draw than, like I also do. Little tiny houses like that are quite detailed, which which, when you look at them, you'd be like, oh that, that looks like it would be hard to do, but they're. To me they're actually easier. They take longer, but they are easier than drawing this little stick figure character and but. But the point is, it is taken. I don't know. I think it's been six or seven years since she first appeared. I think it was 2015, maybe 2014. So actually more more like eight or nine years.

Speaker 2: 1:14:10

Yeah, I have a Miss Doodle in my studio that used that name. That was, and that was a while ago, because I was still no less, so I think that's probably like seven or eight years old.

Speaker 1: 1:14:22

Yeah, Because she was established. When I said that to you, she wasn't brand new, but she first appeared on a trip I took to Montreal and Toronto when I was prepping for a conference. That happened in 2015. So that that trip may have happened in 2014. So so she's been around for a while, but just seeing the progression and that's what comes from getting up and doing the thing every day, doing the consistency, and that's why I love 100 day projects, because there you can see improvement. You can see what happens when you show up every day, yes, and when you're consistent, and that's why I loved what Kristen had to say. When you multiply it by consistency, something really special happens.

Speaker 2: 1:15:06

Yes, yes, I love that.

Speaker 1: 1:15:09

Yeah, I think that's a great way to end on, a great note to end on. Yeah so I think that's it for this week. Do you have anything else? No that was a lot. I feel like I need to actually do, and I don't know when we started recording a little bit more. We had some technical challenges this morning, so I don't know how long we've actually been recording.

Speaker 2: 1:15:34

A four hour episode with Melissa.

Speaker 1: 1:15:36

It's not been four hours. I know that much Before we wrap up. Heather, has been a little while since you've been on the show. It was back in. November, I think, was your last visit, so maybe let everybody know where they can find you.

Speaker 2: 1:15:51

Yes, you can find me on Instagram. I'm at Heather Travis and you can find me on my website, which is Heather Lynn Travis and my middle name is Lynn L-Y-N-N-E. Yes, so you can just Google me and you'll find all my happy art online. I have a variety of awesome prints available for sale right now.

Speaker 1: 1:16:10

She does, yeah, she does, and she is working on her first solo exhibit, to happen this fall, so that's exciting. If you follow her on Instagram, you can see all the work that she has been doing to prep for that show. It's going to be quite impressive when you're done. You have quite a body of work.

Speaker 2: 1:16:30

Yes, I won't be able to get into my studio to get to it, because I'm thinking.

Speaker 1: 1:16:35

All right, everyone. That's it for this week. We will be back soon with another brand new episode. Until then, a thank you for listening and we will talk to you all later. Thank you so much for joining us for the Anshi LookDepth Creative Hour. If you're looking for links or resources mentioned in this episode, you can find detailed show notes on our website at anshelookdepthcom. While you're there, be sure to sign up for our newsletter for more business tips, profiles of inspiring Canadian creative women and so much more. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe to the show via your podcast app of choice so you never miss an episode. We always love to hear from you, so we'd love it if you'd leave us a review through iTunes or Apple podcasts. Drop us a note via our website at anshelookdepthcom or come say hi on Instagram at anshelookdepth. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.