Where am I going?
What have I been up to in the last six months? Before I tell you that I think it’s useful to go back a little bit and talk about why I launched The Creative Switch podcast.
Why the Creative Switch Podcast
After I published pivotal and the pandemic was over, I settled into a period of time where I was juggling my writing and my coaching business but I didn’t feel like I had an overarching, clear direction.
At the time I was in a business membership group with other entrepreneurs and one of my fellow entrepreneurs was looking at my website and asked the question, did I want to be a successful writer, or did I want to support other people to succeed as writers? That made me sit back and think what am I trying to do here?
It just wasn’t clear, and if it wasn’t clear to her, then wouldn’t be clear to anybody else. And I realized it wasn’t even clear to me,
So I needed to take a step back and look at what I wanted, how I wanted to spend my time, and who it was for. It sounds very existential, but basically I needed to explore what I was trying to achieve and how to tell my story.
So I decided to work with a personal brand consultant Rachel Kapinski Smith and through our work together a clear way through emerged. I could get away from juggling my coaching and writing, and to have more time to create, but still support and inspire others.
As is often the way, the answer is one we already have inside us. The solution? A podcast, which I had an idea for in the back of my mind already. It meant that I could satisfy my own creative needs at the same time as supporting other people. As a mentor and coach I’d already been doing this on a one to one basis, but through the podcast I could reach many more people. And so The Creative Switch was born.
It took a bit of time for the podcast to become a reality. I through myself into learning all the tech, how to edit, what was needed for the production and the promotion, and in the space of 12 months, produced 24 episodes. I wanted to run the podcast in seasons so that I could work on the podcast and then work on my own projects in between.
Who am I Creatively
After season three I decided to look even deeper into what creativity meant to me, and the how best to deliver my message to other people about the importance of embracing and expressing their creativity with the most impact.
I felt like I understood my creativity well but I wanted to explore further and in early 2024 enrolled on Confidence Flow and Finding You, a course by Nick Haines who runs the Five Institute and based on his experience and extensive knowledge of Chinese Philosophy. What a revelation!
It helped me get really clear about who I was, how I like to work, what works best for me creatively, how to fit in everything that matters to me. And how to stay true to myself. A way to define my unique creative practice and live creatively. I then did some further work with Helena Holrick where we explored how I could make a practical plan to put all that self-understanding to good use. How to do it my way.
It became really clear that I wanted to be a creative adventurer. I wanted to live without boundaries, to not feel boxed in by labels, to pursue multiple interests at the same time, and to show people that that was okay, that you didn’t have to be a specialist. You could spread your interest and follow your it wherever it took you.
I knew that I could still inspire other people to follow in my footsteps and act on their unexpressed creativity, but I could direct them to the resources and the people and the courses that they needed once they’d been inspired, without having to be the person that delivered those resources to them. Giving me more time to spend on my adventures. The message about the importance of creativity is bigger than my work and our individual creative expressions. It’s fundamental to human sustainability, a vital part of who we are as humans, and impacts on the individual, their wellbeing and fulfilment, but also on all the people around them, and ultimately on how we look after ourselves and the planet. But there was a problem,
Time for a refresh
The shift in my focus and the clarity I had gained was nowhere to be seen in my online presence. Everything was out of date! My website, my branding, my social media profiles, none of it reflected all the new things I was doing and the new direction that I had taken. It was time to commit to a brand and website refresh. I went in search of the right people to help.
A personal brand. A team effort
Chloe and her team at Supportal began the work of pulling my personal brand, the story, the images and the message together into a new presence online.
They worked first on the logo, and I was blown away by their ability to interpret what I meant. I did keep my colours (that’s a whole separate story – deep blue for authenticity and reliability, turquoise for innovation, inspiration and a sense of freedom and newness, and orange for creativity.) I’d chosen many years before without knowing colour theory or the messages they portray. So the brand guidelines were set, images created and the new logo was ready.
Next, I needed new images of me. I wanted a visual representation of the real me, approachable, optimistic, creative, open-hearted, fun-loving me. I booked a brand photo shoot with the fabulous Tigz Rice (one of my guests on The Creative Switch, that episode is brilliant, so you need to go and listen to that as well) with hair and makeup by Nikimakeup.
Luckily my home and workspace already reflected my brand, light bright and vibrant but I felt it was time to refresh my own image and discover the style and colours to suit the new me. Tigz introduced me to Abbey Booth from Stories with Clothes. After a style and colour consultation, I experienced my first ever personal shopping day. What a joyful treat! Abbey was able to understand who I am and help me to push the boundaries of how I chose to dress. And it was very much more than the clothes. It was a transformational experience. And it felt like coming into my own skin. I can express myself through the choices I make. No more saving things for best and loads more dopamine dressing. (Yes, it really does work!)
Pulling everything together
On the day of the shoot Tigz sprinkled her magic across two locations taking shots at home and in my work studio and at The Hub on Verulam, a local restaurant café and co-working space who kindly agreed for us to film there too.
For the final big step, Chloe set about interpreting my vision for the website, pulling everything together. With her skill in terms of design and usability, she created a site that is totally representative of what I imagined it could be. The last piece of the jigsaw, the copy -which you might think is really easy for a writer but absolutely wasn’t- was down to me. I looked at what was already there, what was still relevant, what wasn’t relevant, what needed to be added, what I was trying to say, who I was trying to say it to. And that took a bit of time. Putting everything together, it’s been probably four months, maybe three, if you take out Christmas. What a collaboration. It has truly been a team effort, and I’m really chuffed with the result.
And now?
Working on this project has been a bit like a wedding. It’s not about the preparation for the day. It’s about what happens after the day and into the future. The launch of the website is to say, here it is in the world. But it’s really there to represent everything I do and say, who I am and what I’m trying to achieve, and who it’s for. Hopefully you will be able to use it as a resource on your journey, on your creative adventures, to take you where you want to go, decide where you want to explore, what you’re going to find out about yourselves. I’d love to hear all about that.
So, in honour of creative adventuring, I have some exciting activities planned. I’m going to be speaking to some of these brilliant people who’ve helped me get where I am for the website and brand refresh and there’s going to be a special giveaway too, with details coming very soon.