What if the thing standing between you and your best work isn't a strategy problem? It's a permission problem.

Christi Johnson spent ten years as a wedding photographer, earned a master’s degree in piano performance, and later burned out so badly as an online business manager that she stopped sleeping and had to shut her business down for six months.

Now she runs the Dream Biz Playground, teaching creative and neurodivergent entrepreneurs to build businesses through creative play instead of hustle.

In this conversation, Christi walks through what her crash and burn actually looked like, why she had to relearn how to sit at a piano without judging herself, and how a five-minute photo walk became the thing that pulled her back.

Highlights

Success on the outside doesn’t mean you’re okay on the inside.

Christi was fully booked. Her online business management clients were happy. From the outside, everything looked like it was working.

“We were booking clients, we were successful and things were like on the outside going really, really well, but I was extremely stressed... it got to the point where I was having panic attacks.”

She kept pushing past the signs because she didn’t want to let her clients down, or her team, which included family members she’d hired. Eventually her body made the decision for her. She got sick for three months straight, and the exhaustion turned into a full breakdown.

Maybe the metric you’re using to check in on yourself isn’t “is it working.” Maybe it’s “how do I feel while I’m doing it.”

Permission over motivation.

After the burnout, Christi assumed she’d never run a business again. Her coach’s first assignment wasn’t a strategy session. It was homework to lay around and watch TikTok without feeling guilty about it.

“She gave me homework like that and we really focused on tapping into what actually really is fun for me.”

Christi didn’t need a better system. She needed someone to tell her it was allowed to be easy.

The self-judgment shows up long before the finished thing does.

Christi has a master’s degree in piano. She went eight years without sitting down to play for fun, because in her head, playing meant working toward something impressive enough to post.

“I had to make a conscious choice to allow myself the freedom to just sit down and play for fun... only recently haven’t I been able to sit down and just play for fun, play for five minutes, play whatever I want.”

Notice what actually blocked her. It wasn’t lack of skill. It was an audience that existed only in her head, judging a video she hadn’t even made yet.

Naming the block is the first move, not the last one.

When Christi missed a business goal she’d set for herself, her instinct was to perform positivity about it. It took her coach pointing it out for her to admit she was actually disappointed.

“I had to recognize, you know what I’m, I’m actually disappointed... I think the first step is like admitting it. Hey, I have this block. I’m discouraged about it.”

Only after she named it could she ask the more useful question: what would be fun to try instead.

Dream life exercises work because they collapse the timeline.

One of Christi’s favorite tools with her community is having people build a paper zine mapping out a day in their dream life, then finding pieces of it they can bring into today.

“What often happens when we do this exercise is that you will find really specific ways that you actually can bring your dream life to today... I don’t have to wait five, 10 years to pull these things into my dream life.”

The exercise shows you that the gap between where you are and where you want to be is smaller than you thought.

Leaning into what makes you you is the actual differentiator.

Christi’s brand has nine colors in it, against every piece of conventional branding advice. It came from a piece of art she made in therapy.

“The more you lean into yourself, the more you will attract people who want to be around that and also repel people who don’t.”

You don’t need a bigger platform or a smarter funnel. Just stop editing of the parts of you that already work.

Christi’s Challenge for You

“With every single piece of content that you put out there... can you just ask yourself, how can this be more me? Or how can this be more fun? Or how can this be easier?”

Closing Reflection

Christi’s story isn’t really about photography, or piano, or even business strategy. It’s about what happens when you keep overriding your own signals long enough.

She didn’t get her creativity back through a better routine. She got it back by giving herself permission to be bad at something, to rest without guilt, and to admit when she was disappointed instead of performing okay.

What would it look like to ask “how can this be more me” about the next thing you create?

Let us know in the comments.

The things that you obsess over, like the music that you listen to, the aspects of your personality that are unique to you, the things that come easily to you, the things that are really fun to you, like, those are all clues to the most important work that it is that you should do and your strengths that come naturally.

I've been working with my current coach, Tracy Stanger.

She's fantastic and she talks a lot about, like, utilizing your strengths in your offer and what is going to be the most meaningful work for you.

So I really do think the more you can lean into who you actually are, the more you're going to stand out.

And so if you're like, oh, this part of my personality is too weird, no, it's probably not.

It's definitely not.

That's probably the thing that you should lean into.

So I think those are the keys of what you should lean into more.

Share more of those things in your content, share more of your weird personality quirks, share more of the things that you're interested in and really focus on what is unique to you.

What do you like?

What would be fun for you?

What would be easy for you?

Welcome to the Standout Creatives where making money and creating meaningful work go hand in hand.

You're already passionate about what you create.

Now let's turn that passion into a standout business marketing.

Your work doesn't have to be overwhelming.

The can actually amplify your creativity.

I'm your guide, Kevin Chung, and this podcast is your roadmap to creative business success.

I'll show you how to turn your unique talents into a business that truly represents who you are.

Let's get started.

Hey.

Welcome to another episode of Standout Creatives.

And today I'm on my friend, Christy Johnson.

Christy, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, the work you do and how you got into it?

Yes, absolutely.

I'm so grateful for you.

To you for having me.

Thanks for having me.

So I am a business strategist and I have a group called the Dream Biz Playground and I teach strategy through creative play because I really believe that creative play is the key to unlocking what is inside your imagination, tapping into your intuition.

And I run that group to help creative and neurodivergent entrepreneurs build joy driven businesses that actually feel good to run.

Ones that are not overwhelming, that are not just kind of a drag.

Like, I really believe your business should be fun.

So that's why I run that.

My background is actually kind of a long and winding story and if there's Anything that you want to deep dive more into, we definitely can do that.

But I have a background in wedding photography.

That's kind of where I started the backbone of my business.

I'm also a creative person.

I'm a musician.

I have a master's degree in piano performance.

And so I was paid my way through school by teaching piano and doing wedding photography and that was really fun.

I also had a short little stint as a online business manager because I realized I was really good at systems and things.

But that business really burnt me out and I ended up having a pretty bad mental health crisis.

And after that I realized, wait a minute, I really need to put like my joy and my peace and having fun at the forefront.

Rather than just doing things that I'm skilled at, I need to be doing things that are actually fueling my joy.

So that led me to coaching and helping other people do the same thing.

And so that's a little bit about my background, who I am and what I do and how I got here.

That's, that's great.

I love the ability to pivot.

And I think you're probably a multi hyphenate because you did all those things and all those, that creative stuff has been like a through line.

What were your first memories of being a creative person in your childhood?

Was it something like piano or did you do something else?

Yeah, definitely.

Piano was the biggest one that I started playing the piano when I was 6.

And really for me, I just loved working at things and I loved how piano actually gave me a framework to work on something and be good at it.

And it was also something that I really, really enjoyed.

So the I, I kind of grew up in like a very like high control environment and so I tried to put my, the best that I could into piano.

And it actually wasn't until later in life that I actually allowed myself space to be a creative person without trying to be right about it.

Because I think that was a belief that I had, was that if I'm going to do something that needs to be done the right way.

So I would often play pretend a lot with my friends, you know, as we do when we're kids.

We would play house or we would, you know, make up stories with my dolls or whatever.

And I always found myself being in the position of like being in charge.

I think.

I like whenever we play house, I was the mom.

Whenever we would play like store or something, I was obviously running the Business, like being the manager.

And so I think there's, like, inklings of my creativity through those things.

But also I had this really deep desire to, like, do things the right way and to be right, I think because of, like, a little bit of the environment that I grew up in.

So I found myself, like, really being into playing, pretend playing.

But, like, as far as being an actual creative person, music was the thing that really drew me in at first when I was a very young child, and then I got into photography when I was a teenager, and that started with just taking photos of things that I thought were really pretty.

So, like, sunsets, flowers, still life, things like that.

And I really loved to bring those things back in and put them into a computer program and, like, change the color.

So I was doing a lot of those, like, goofy things that we don't really do anymore, like making one thing color and everything else black and white.

Like, just being a kid, kind of, like, experimenting with those things.

And I think that's where I started to kind of fuel my creative passion of just, like, doing whatever I wanted to do and just doing what felt fun and, like, looked cool to me as a teenager.

So photography is really where I found that outlet of like, hey, I can do this thing because I like it, because it looks cool.

And I'm going to share with my friends and say, hey, look at this cool thing that I made.

Yeah, I always find it such a tough balance of wanting your creativity to help you in business or making money versus doing it for the sake of having fun.

Yeah.

Usually when you're.

You're doing it to make money, you.

You lose the passion for it is what I found.

Yeah, I actually experienced that as well.

Like, I remember when I was doing photography, I still do a little bit of photography.

Been doing it since I was a high schooler.

But I remember that whenever I would go out and take photos, it was always just for the pure enjoyment of taking photos.

Like, I would get together with my friends and we would be like, hey, let's do this really cool photo shoot.

Here's the idea.

A lot of times we were copying, like, different bands that we saw and trying to do really cool things, or our friends, we saw them doing cool things.

And so we did a lot of stuff like that, but also was doing my own things as well.

And I would have so much fun with it and do, like, 20 totally weird angles that were totally weird.

And then as I started to learn a little bit more, you're like, oh, you're supposed to do this, you're supposed to straighten your horizon lines.

You're supposed to follow the rule of thirds.

You're supposed.

Supposed to make sure that you focus on the eyes.

And yes, those things did make my photos better.

And at the same time, it kind of started to inhibit me a little bit because then I was starting to make sure that I'm following all these rules and everything.

And I remember, like, having this moment during one of my sessions with some clients.

And I was just so focused on, like, doing my job and doing it correctly, and I wasn't really having fun with it.

And the couple that I was photographing at the time said to me, hey, can we do something different?

I feel like we've been doing this one pose, like, the whole time.

And that's when I realized I wasn't really having fun with it anymore.

I was just kind of trying to go along with the flow and of the flow of what I had been taught.

Like, this is what you do, and then you do this and then you do this rather than going out there and having fun with it.

And so it kind of became this thing that I never really did for fun anymore.

And even now I've been doing photography for about 15 years.

Like, I don't go out there and pick up my camera to have fun anymore like I was doing when I was a kid, because it has kind of become associated with my job.

And this is what I do for work.

And it's kind of sad, actually.

I mean, there's.

There's always the opportunity to go back, right?

Exactly.

Just because.

Just because we've lost the thing that used to feel us doesn't mean that we can't pick it back up again.

And I think the most important thing about that is, like, give yourself the permission.

Or if you need to, some people need other people to give them permission.

I give you the permission to have fun with your photography.

So that way you're not stressing about it.

Don't worry about the rules.

I think the rules are great because they teach you what works, but once you know the rules, the ability to break them is much better because, yeah, you know what's supposed to happen.

So when you take the.

The opposite approach or counter it, that's when your.

Your stuff starts to stick out a little bit because everyone else is doing the.

The proper things.

Yeah, agreed.

And actually I did have a period of time recently where I was going out and taking photos.

It was when I was burnt out.

When I was burnt out a couple of years ago, I needed that Creative outlet.

I needed time to just do whatever I wanted to because I was so.

My schedule was like so full of meetings.

And so I made it a priority that at least once a day I was going to go out on a walk around the block and I started taking photos of flowers and things like those things that I was doing when I was a kid.

And that gave me like so much joy.

I think it can be really difficult as a creative.

Like, this is something I experienced with music too, like, and this is something that I had to kind of conscious, conscientiously break from.

Was I.

So I went to school for music.

I got a master's degree in piano performance.

And after I got my master's degree, I went about eight years without really sitting down to play the piano anymore.

Because I thought that every time I sat down at the piano it needed to be really good.

I also needed to be working on something that was like, quote unquote worthwhile.

I needed to be working on a Beethoven concerto or Rachmaninoff Prelude or something that was gonna be big and impress people.

And so that my really in my brain, what is going on there is that I wanted the friends that I had who were big time classical music nerds.

I wanted them, like, if they came across my video of me performing this thing later, that they would like it.

And so as I'm sitting down to like, just try to play for fun, I'm already thinking about that far in the future of like, I'm going to learn this piece, I'm going to post it online.

These friends that are.

That were my musical friends in school, they're going to see it and they're going to think it's worthy and they're going to think it's good.

And that like immediately having this like, big goal that I needed to do, like, stifled everything in me to just want to sit down and play for five minutes because it's like, oh, well, that's a lot of work.

Like, I have to learn a whole Rachmaninoff prelude.

Like, come on, I don't have time for that.

And so then I would just give up.

And I had to make a conscious choice in recent years to allow myself the freedom to just sit down and play for fun and to not judge myself while I'm playing.

Because that was the biggest thing is the self judgment of like, oh, this is bad, this is not good.

People are going to not like this.

And you really do have to remove that conscientiously and just be like, I'm just going to see what sounds good.

It's easier said than done, obviously.

And so only recently haven't I been able to sit down and just play for Fun.

Play for 5 minutes, play whatever I want.

And I'm glad I'm able to do that now.

But it is a conscious choice that I had to make to remove those voices of, of self judgment and whatever I thought my friends were going to think, which to be honest, they're probably not even watching.

Yeah, I, I think you, you've shared a bunch of videos of the parties that you've started hosting where people things for fun.

And it reminds me of those, you know, painting classes where somebody's kind of teaching but you're free to really do whatever you want.

There's no rules and just like let go of all expectations.

Because when you go into something like that, people are not expecting masterpieces.

Yeah, exactly.

It really is about just not editing yourself.

And that's something that I had to work on in with my therapist too, my therapy.

My therapist does a lot of art in her practice and I remember like the first time she had me do some art because I've never, I actually have never considered myself like artsy until recently because I thought in order to be an artist you have to be good at art.

And I'm like, well I don't, I don't know how to draw or know how to paint or whatever.

So I'm not an artist.

But I think that if you make art, it doesn't have to be good, it's, it's for the sake of making art.

And so she would have a piece, like she would give me a piece of paper.

And I remember the first time being like, what do I do?

What should I do?

What's the right thing to do?

What's the correct thing to do?

And she kind of had to coach me and be like, well, you could do this, you could do this, you could do this.

And just kind of teaching me to make choices in a low stakes environment to then realize, hey, it's not that big of a deal.

So the creative calls that I host with my community members, the first thing I say to them is like, this is not about perfection, this is about self expression.

So if you have a voice that says this is not good, let's silence that.

And instead we're focusing on the free flowing ideas that are going to come to you.

So whatever idea you get in your head, just go with it.

Yeah, there's, there's a book by, I think he's a Dr. Stuart Brown.

Have you read it?

Play?

I have it and I haven't read it yet, but it's on, it's in my nightstand.

It's on my to be, to be read list.

Yeah, there's, there's so many.

Good.

I would definitely recommend reading that book, especially since you're in this new discovery phase of play again.

But he just advocates for, know, thinking like a child again.

I think that's the common advice when you're stuck or you know, having expectations is just to, if you have a kid, you can obviously do some crafts or something with them and it'll free you up because their expectations are like rock bottom when they're just learning how to create.

So how, how do you get back into that?

So I think a lot of people to get back into things if they have kids is to make art with their kids or if you don't have kids, I guess you can, you can find a different way to do it.

Maybe you have nieces or you know, like somebody else that, that you can help free yourself up from the expectations of creating for value or creating for whatever thing that you want to find like some sort of validation for.

Yeah.

And I always tell people, like, even if you, if you don't feel like you are able to do that for yourself right now, because maybe you feel like there's a creative block or something or you don't have kids, you don't have nieces that you can go to.

Like it's totally okay to go online and buy a kit of like a paint by numbers or a needlepoint kit or a diamond painting or whatever it is that has a guide for you.

Like it's totally okay to go out and do that if that's, if that's what you need to start to feel like you can be creative again.

So really one thing that actually helped me was doing a practice called Mindful Drawing that was developed by one of my clients, actually Stacy Peters is her name.

And she has a YouTube channel called Mindful Drawing Studio and she has draw along videos.

And if you're the type of person that you need someone to go along with you, then she has those videos for you.

And it's a style of drawing similar to like Zentangle, if you've ever heard of that.

But we.

It's just focused on making repeated lines and it also incorporates using the element of chance into your drawing, which I think is really important because so much of having a practicing creativity involves letting go of that self judgment and just letting things happen, letting them flow and so her style of drawing, mindful drawing that she has developed incorporates the element of chance, where you're taking objects like a paperclip or a stone or something and dropping it on your paper and letting chance kind of take over.

And wherever it falls on your paper, you trace it.

And then you keep doing that repeated practice of just letting it, wherever it drops, you trace it.

And try to have yourself not come in and make executive choices, but just let it happen.

And then, and then you come through with some repeated lines to give a pattern to it.

And it's about just letting the art unfold.

And it's a really great accessible way to start to remove control and remove that voice of, oh, this has to be perfect.

Because literally, like, what's the worst that could happen?

Like, your drawing turns out not how you wanted.

I actually think that's great.

I think it's really awesome to be surprised by the art that you create.

So that's a really good and easy accessible way to get started.

And she has videos on YouTube.

And that really helped me to allow myself to make art, even as someone who doesn't.

Didn't consider myself an artist because there was a framework there, it was easy for me to follow.

And it starts to develop those skills for me of just letting things happen.

And so now I'm able to have a more like, less guided creative practice if I want to and just go with the flow.

But it really started by having these, like, specific rules to follow, which was very helpful for someone who's like, who was.

Grew up very rule oriented.

I love having rules.

And then having the ability to break those rules is also really good too.

Yeah, there's somebody on Instagram or TikTok or somewhere that is making drawings out of coffee spills.

So they intentionally just spill coffee and then they just create this whole little world based on just the starting point.

And I think oftentimes, like you said, you can start with something random like that, or you can start.

Start with.

Restrictions are also very good.

So say you can only paint with whatever.

Maybe just try with your opposite hand.

You don't.

Your expectations should be super low for your.

Your opposite hand.

So see what that does for you.

Or say, I don't know, paint only using a random object that you.

You have in your house, like a penny or something.

Just use that as a stamp and, you know, create forms with that.

So there's, there's a whole lot of ways to constrain yourself.

Yeah, I love that you mentioned that.

I actually experienced that one time My cousin had me draw, challenged me to draw a picture of him with my left hand.

And it was so interesting because my, the stakes were low.

Like my expectations were low and, and the stakes were low.

He wasn't going to be, you know, mad at me if the drawing didn't turn out good because it was just a little challenge.

So the stakes were low and my expectations were low because it's with my left hand, my non, my non dominant hand is my left hand.

And so I didn't have any expectations for the drawing.

And so I did the drawing and it actually turned out really good.

Probably better than I would have been able to do with my right hand for some.

I don't know how that happened, but I think the lesson from that, for me at least, is expectations can sometimes be a hindrance to us.

When you have expectations for how something is going to go and this can apply to literally anything in your life, like a social situation or a business endeavor or anything like that.

Like, if you have these expectations, it's actually removing the ability to be surprised and removing the curiosity element from it because you're always trying.

If you have expectations that you're trying to fill, fulfill, you're going to be disappointed.

It's like going to see a movie.

I always love a movie when I don't have expectations.

Like, not always love a movie, but I generally love a movie more when I have lower expectations because then I'm able to be surprised.

But then when I have high expectations for a movie and I'm like, oh, they didn't do what I thought they were going to do or whatever, like, then I'm disappointed.

So I think a lesson in creativity and growing, even growing your business can be to, can we remove expectations somehow and instead focus on curiosity and like having more fun and just enjoying yourself along the way?

Those are usually my things that I kind of go to is curiosity and enjoyment.

Like, how could this be even more fun?

How could this be even more interesting?

How could you put a little bit more of yourself into it?

I think that just allowing yourself to go with the flow without expectations is really, really helpful.

Yeah, I love that.

And I also like the opposite end of the spectrum where you say, what's the worst that can happen?

And the worst thing that can happen is always like such a small, low risk thing.

But our brains are tricking us into believing it's like terrifying and like it's going to change our lives forever.

But really what's the worst thing?

Especially with something like art, but literally what's the worst thing that can happen.

You can start over, or you can paint over it.

If you're doing something like painting completely with white or a different color and take it from there.

A lot of artists intentionally make mistakes and then start over just because they're.

They know that the stakes are not going to be that high unless it's for something along the lines of, like, a contract that you've agreed to or whatever.

But those, like, stakes are different in different situations.

But if you're talking about being stuck and trying to get out of that, I think making intentional mistakes can be something you do as well.

Oh, yeah, I love that idea.

Like, I.

That could even be a great activity, like, for music, as a musician, like, saying, okay, how can you.

Let's actually make a mistake.

How can you actually make this sound bad?

And then it might give you some really cool music from it that you wouldn't have done if you weren't giving yourself the freedom to make mistakes.

Yeah.

I think when we're stuck, we're always trying to do the same things.

So what is it that you can do outside of the norm?

Because that's usually how you get unstuck.

It reignites your interest or passion for things again, just like, just do things differently.

Because if you're.

What's the definition of insanity?

Is doing the same thing over and.

Over again and expecting different results?

Yeah, exactly.

I really think that removing stakes is such a powerful challenge for yourself.

So asking yourself, what's the worst that could happen?

Like, we're not doctors.

People's lives aren't in our hands, thank goodness.

The worst that could happen, like you said, is you paint over it or you're out, you know, 30 bucks on the art supplies that you bought or whatever.

And when you're in a position, when you are blocked creatively, I always love to ask myself, okay, number one.

Okay, I'm feeling just like, to recognize the block.

Okay, There's a block.

Because when you can recognize what's going on and you kind of acknowledge it, then it, like, helps you to be free to move forward.

Because sometimes you can.

Sometimes it's scary to admit that you're blocked or that something is not going the way that you wanted to.

I just did this with my coach, for example, with my coaching program.

I had a goal that I wanted to hit before a certain date, and I didn't hit the goal that I wanted to hit before the date.

And I kept trying to be positive about it, and I kept trying to say, well, it's no big deal.

I know that doesn't matter.

I know that this was just a self imposed date that I had.

I know that I can get those people in by another date or whatever because I was trying to be positive because I felt like, oh, well, that's what healed Christie would do was she would be positive about it.

But then I actually had to recognize, you know what, I'm, I'm actually disappointed.

Like, I'm disappointed that I didn't reach this goal by this time.

And even just me being able to voice that to her was so helpful for me to recognize.

Yeah, this is disappointing.

So if you have a block, you can recognize, hey, I have this block.

This is disappointing.

If you're not happy with the work that you're producing right now, I think the first step is like admitting it, hey, I have this block.

I'm discouraged about it.

Then from there, once you recognize it, then that's when you can start to get really creative about how you move forward.

Right.

So removing those expectations of, hey, I need this to go a certain way or else something terrible is going to happen.

No, it's not going to happen.

Nothing terrible is going to happen.

And if something terrible does happen, like, you're going to be able to pivot and you're going to be able to find a way through.

So recognizing the block and then saying, okay, what would be really fun to do right now?

What would be really easy to do right now?

And I think that can kind of reinvigorate you and give you permission to do what you really want to do.

You know, sometimes I've told my coach, like, I really just want to try this.

And she's like, okay, let's try it.

So admitting that there's a block can be really helpful.

And then you can move forward in a new and inventive and creative way.

That would be fun and easy.

Yeah.

I've heard that people will also give their, their blocks or their inner whatever devil, a voice, like a personality or something, and you have like conversations with it.

Instead of letting it, like, consume you, you treat it like, oh, this is a person.

If I were to help somebody else that's not me, what would I say to this person?

And you just, you, you essentially just heal yourself by, you know, recognizing this is a thought, not who I am.

And you're, you're trying to give the advice that you would want to receive if you are trying to talk to somebody else.

Because we can easily solve other people's problems.

Right.

But we cannot solve our own problems.

That easily.

Yeah.

So embodying it, personifying it can be a really great exercise for you.

Yeah.

Can you talk about the moment of burnout, what you were doing during that time, and then I guess, making your waste out of that?

Yeah, I would love to talk about it.

So I was working as an online business manager and the reason I became an online business manager was because I was at a place where I wanted to make more sustainable income, not from wedding photography and from photography in general.

Because a lot of the sessions that I was doing were family sessions, portrait sessions, weddings.

My specialty is really working with people in that way.

And most of those sessions take place on nights and weekends.

And I really wanted my nights and weekends free.

And so I was kind of starting to brainstorm ways that I could make money in a way that would not involve working nights and weekends.

And, you know, an easy thing would have been like, hey, you can go and get into branding, photography or whatever, or do studio portraiture where people come to your studio and they book sessions with you during the day.

But that was not where my passions really were leading me.

That was not something that I just wanted to do.

No really real reason other than I didn't want to do that.

So I started as a photo editor because I was like, obviously I can do this and I have the skill.

But once I actually started getting clients, I hated my life because I was at the computer nonstop all the time and I was working like busy season.

I'd be working like 15 hour days and it was terrible.

It was not for me.

I was like, I definitely need something that involves people, people, because I love working with people, I love collaborating with people.

And that's what like fuels me.

And I was just constantly stuck on my computer screen.

So that didn't work for me.

So I was like, what can I do?

So it's kind of brainstorming with some of my colleagues and, and, and they were like, hey Christy, you have all these skills, like in running your business.

You really should become an online business manager.

And so I'm looking up what is an online business manager do?

And I'm like, yeah, this sounds like something I could do.

And basically what I was doing was managing people's teams, managing their backend of their businesses.

So it was a lot of building out email funnels, a lot of organizing their files, a lot of managing their calendars.

So just all types of things that involve managing their business.

And that part of me who really likes to do things right and really likes to do things well was really Thriving on this.

Like, I really enjoyed that.

That was really good and a match for me.

But I think that what I was missing was I was doing something that I was skilled at, but not necessarily something that I really enjoyed and not something that I just kind of dreamed about doing and wanting to spend my time in with.

And also it wasn't allowing me to have the full essence of who I am, like, on display in my work.

I wasn't really able to be my quirky, creative, like, weird self that I am.

It was more like, this is business version of Christie, this is professional version of Christie.

And so that's what I was doing.

And it looks like a lot of meetings.

I had meetings at 8am all the way till like 5pm and it was a lot of backend work once again, at a computer, sitting there all day working on things on my computer.

And really what like, happened that kind of like led me to get burnt out is I kept putting these expectations of other people ahead of what I was really feeling and how I was really feeling.

Because I had actually grown my team and I had brought on some family members to help me in my team.

And so the idea of like switching pads didn't seem right because I would be letting down not only my clients, but also my family members who were, who were working for me and growing the business with me.

And so I really let it go on for longer than I should have because I really wasn't happy.

And I was stressed out all the time and my brain was constantly thinking about client issues all day and all night.

And it got to the point where I wasn't sleeping and it was just a big mess that led to me having a mental health crisis because I wasn't sleeping.

If you're not sleeping, that's really bad for you.

You need sleep.

And so then I ended up having like a really big crash and burn moment because I let it go on for so long because of these expectations that I had.

So that's what I was doing and kind of what led to the burnout.

Yeah, I think we get so wrapped up in like, money and the need to feel like we have to do things a certain way that it can lead to not only not fulfilling, but it can actually completely destroy you, like internally and then that has an effect externally with your health and all this other stuff.

So it's really important, especially if I think you own your own business versus if you're working for somebody.

Because if you work for somebody, the ball game is completely different.

You have to handle Expectations and stuff completely differently.

But when you're in charge of a business like that, it's, it's so hard to, to let go, especially if it's successful.

Right?

Yeah, I mean, that's the thing.

Like we were booking clients, we were successful, and things were like on the outside going really, really well.

But I was extremely stressed and I was happy.

It got to the point where I was having panic attacks and I just wasn't at the time willing to admit that it was not working for me because I didn't want to let all these people down.

And so eventually my body was like, hey, we're going to, we're going to make you shut down because you're not listening to me.

And so like the first thing that kind of manifested was illness.

I was, I actually was sick for like three months with maybe like two week breaks in between it because my nervous system was like kind of working overdrive.

And then like, it really wore down my immune system.

And so I got a regular cold, which then later turned into the flu, which then later turned into COVID 19.

And then I was having like lymphatic issues and everything because I was just like letting myself maintain this like, high stress without doing anything about it.

Because our bodies are designed to take on stress, but we have to also have a way to process and release the stress.

And I just wasn't giving myself any time to process and release the stress.

I was just constantly going, going, going, going.

And so, yeah, I burnt out pretty badly.

And I actually had to take six months off my business because I, it got to the point where I couldn't work.

And so like, if anybody listening out there, like, I don't want this to be a story of, oh, when it has to end in crash and burn, like, that's not how it has to happen.

The reason mine did crash and burn is because I just ignored the signs for so long and didn't let it didn't take care of myself.

I didn't put myself first.

And it.

And so then it resulted in a huge crash and burn for my business because I couldn't work and my team wasn't able to take things on from me yet.

I wasn't yet at the place where they could support things without me.

And so when I was unwell because I was the bottleneck, then we had to refund clients, cancel contracts, and I had to tell my family, hey, I'm not going to be able to do this anymore.

You need to find other work.

And then I would, I tried to get back to work again.

But I was so burnt out from owning a business.

I was like, okay, I'm never going to be a business owner again, even though that was my passion.

Like, I've been a business owner since I was 16 years old.

I don't know anything else, really, other than, like, summer jobs.

And I really love the freedom that being a business owner gives me.

I love that I get to be in the driver's seat.

I love that I'm not bound to someone else's schedule, someone else's needs, someone else's expectations.

Like, I love.

I love being a business owner.

But at the time, because I was so burnt out, I was like, oh, I'm never gonna be able to do this again.

So I try to get, like, real jobs, regular jobs, uh, and.

But it.

It didn't work.

I was having panic attacks still, because really, I think my heart was telling me, like, christy, you're made to be a business owner.

You just need to do it in a way that works for you and fuels you and brings you joy rather than stress.

So I worked with a coach and my therapist.

I recognize I'm very privileged to have been able to afford a coach and work with a therapist as well.

And not everyone can do that.

And I'm very grateful that I was able to, because working with them both helped me to get back on track.

And so my first priority was just, you know, wellness, like, regulating my nervous system, getting back to a place where I wasn't having panic attacks.

And that's where those photo walks for fun kind of started to come in and just doing things for fun.

And so for a while, it was really just focused on recovery.

Because once, because I had to recover from the burnout and just the state that my nervous system was in, just being in high stress for a prolonged period of time.

So I went through a period of, like, recovering from that burnout.

And then I started thinking again about my business, what can I do for my business?

And the first kind of strategies that I had were really born out of fear, because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to make up the money that I had lost by my crash and burn, because I lost a lot of money, because I had to refund clients, cancel contracts, and let go of my team.

But I also had to make sure that my team was, like, not just immediately let go.

Like, I wanted to pay them for a period of time, so I lost a lot of money.

So the first iterations of my strategy were really out of fear.

Like, I Have to make up this money.

And so I would come to these strategies with my coach, and she'd be like, okay, I don't know that you're ready for this, but this is what you're saying you want to do, so I guess we'll go with this.

But then, you know, like a week later, be like, this is stressful.

I can't do this.

And she'd be like, yeah, I thought you might say that.

So I really worked with her on having my work feel more like play rather than work.

And that was a huge mindset shift for me because I was operating out of this fear.

So she would give me homework that was like, lay around all day and watch TikTok and don't feel bad about it.

And I'd be like, what do you mean?

Like, I can't do that.

I gotta be productive.

Like.

But she was like, no, I just want you to not feel bad about chilling out for a while.

So she gave me homework like that.

And we really focused on tapping into what actually really is fun for me.

And once I was kind of able to be okay with resting and be okay with doing things just.

Just for the heck of it, which I really wasn't okay with, then I was able to start dreaming up things that were actually exciting and things that I really wanted to work on.

But it took a long time of relearning old habits because the old me was like, no, this needs to be efficient.

This needs to be productive.

This needs to be a really solid plan.

This needs to fit all these, like, molds or whatever rather than, like, no, what's going to be the most fun and energizing for you?

So I kind of had to flip that narrative that I've been working with, operating off of for so long through the help of my coach and my therapist, before I could actually move forward from a place of joy and ease and fun.

Yeah, I think the first lesson is like, just listen to your body first and foremost.

If things are, like, stressing you out too much and you're having panic attacks and stuff, first figure out what is the cause of it, because it's not always going to be business.

Right.

If you're something else could be causing it.

So listen to your body.

When does it feel stress and how do you help adjust and re.

Refigure out life so that you're not that stressed all the time?

That's number one.

And then number two is that we have been, as a society, built these expectations, and that's why we feel a need to have to be productive all the time.

But society is all just made up.

Right.

So what is it that we can do to live within our own selves, the ways that we can live?

Not everybody has the privilege to do that, obviously, but if you do and you can figure out a way to do it, like, how do you.

How do you build a life that's better for you and that doesn't stress you out all the time.

Yeah.

And I think that obviously I'm going to be an advocate for working with a mental health professional to help you with your life.

If you're not at the place where you can afford working with them because the system is broken, then really honing in on what do you enjoy and how can you operate from a regulated place rather than a place that is constantly on edge and operating out of fight or flight, which is kind of.

It takes a whole mindset shift and it kind of takes the ability to kind of divest from our capitalistic culture, which is all about hustle and productivity.

And for me, that was my priority for so long.

And then my body kind of paid the price now because I went through that burnout crisis and I never want to experience that again.

My priority is not productivity and like optimization and efficiency.

Like, now my priority is how do I feel while I'm going throughout my day.

And I think that the best step is to start working on ways, micro ways to regulate your nervous system so that then you can start to.

Because if your nervous system is like on high alert all the time, you're not really even going to be able to be creative and follow your creative pursuits and follow those ideas that you have that are going to lead to more enjoyment and, and fun in your life.

So step one is like, yeah, listen to your body like you said, and really regulate your nervous system.

And then from there figuring out, okay, what would actually be really fun for me to do, because if you can tie that fun into it, it's going to feel a lot better.

And I also think it's important to have boundaries, to have boundaries around, like letting yourself be a human.

Like letting yourself have time to eat lunch, to move your body, to spend time with the people that you love.

Which I didn't have time for that before because it was just.

Everything was just scheduled.

And it's like, even my time with the people that I loved was like, scheduled, which is fine.

Like, it's okay to have schedules.

I'm not saying don't have schedules, especially if you've kids.

Like, I know we all need our schedules.

But is there a way that you can set up your schedule to give yourself those things to be a human?

Eating, spending time with loved ones, moving your body, and doing something creative?

I just saw a post recently that was like, we need to be doing crafty things at least once a week, which I think is true.

Like, if there's.

I think that's also a part of being a human is being creative.

And so allowing yourself that time and setting up those boundaries that are going to help to give you that time, so then your workday can be full of creativity and ease and.

And flow rather than like, oh, my gosh, I'm so stressed all the time.

Yeah, I think one of the things that you did last year, at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, were these calls where we had the.

We created these little zines about your dream life.

Can you talk about that?

What was the inspiration behind that and what.

What were the results of some of the.

The.

The things that you made?

Yeah, I'd love to talk about that.

So really, the inspiration of that was working with my coach that I worked with last year.

That's not right.

I think it was the end of 24.

Yes.

Her name's Katrina Widener.

She is fantastic.

And her whole thing that she worked on with me was making your work feel more like play.

And so as I was working with her, I started to realize that what really pulled me out of my burnout was creativity.

It was giving myself the freedom and the space to be able to follow my creative pursuits just for the heck of it, like, not giving myself, oh, I need to create this project, and it needs to look this way and fulfill these requirements, but, like, no, just to have fun.

Just for fun.

And so through my work with her, that's when I started to go around and do photo walks just for fun.

That's when I started to play piano for five minutes just for fun.

And so one of the things that she had me do was create.

Well, this is something that I got from my therapist, actually, was to create a joy menu.

And the joy menu was.

The idea of this came because I was in a support group with neurodivergent entrepreneurs, and people with ADHD really struggle with routines and forming habits can be really hard.

And so the concept that we were talking about in the support group was how can you make the habits that you have more flexible and more of, like, a fun menu of things that you can do in your routines, rather than, I need to do this specific thing every single day.

So we talked about the idea of, like, menus for doing your morning routine, menus for cleaning, the chores that you're like, doing chores around your house, all these things.

And so then I came up with the idea of, oh, what about a joy menu?

Because I was really struggling with joy in that moment.

I was not feeling joy really about anything in my life at that time.

And so I made a list of things that I can do that would bring me joy.

And it was like dancing for five minutes to my favorite song.

It was putting on makeup, doing my hair, going outside for five minutes.

Like, really easy things that I could do that were super low lift, that didn't require a lot of energy on my part.

It's like, no, I just need to make a decision, what feels good, kind of lean into that.

And so when I started doing all these more creative things, that's when the idea to me, the idea to create what I called, what I said to my coach, was a play hour for business owners.

Because I had just had so much fun doing all these things for doing all these things for fun.

Because, like I said, I had gone eight years without sitting down and playing piano for five minutes.

Like, it always had to be this big project, I felt like.

And so I wasn't giving myself that permission to do these fun little things.

And so then, because I know a lot of business owners struggle with burnout, and a lot of traditional business strategies are focused on optimization and efficiency and hustle and how can we do this in a really efficient, high level way?

I'm like, cringing as I say that.

Because they're like, high level, let's do it.

I'm like, no, let's just take it easy.

But, like, I know that it's a huge thing for so many business owners.

And so I really wanted to listen, like, speak to creative people and people who are like, maybe this traditional way of doing business, like, is not for me.

Like, anyone who has felt like just disenfranchised by traditional business groups or just left out or whatever, like feeling like there's something wrong with you, I was like, no, I want to bring back play.

And so I had all these ideas for fun things that we could do.

And after my mastermind kind of was like, winding down, that's when I Decided, hey, I want to do some free calls for business owners.

And I.

One of the fun things that I did with you was we created zines, which are basically, we took a piece of paper, folded up, and made a little booklet out of it.

And one of my most powerful exercises that I love to lead people through is a day in your dream life, Living a day in your dream life, and kind of stepping into a day in your dream life.

Because what often happens when we do this exercise is, is that you will find really specific ways that you actually can bring your dream life to today, to the day that you are living right now.

And you can realize, like, oh, I don't have to wait 5, 10 years to pull these things into my dream life.

It's like, no, I can do this now.

So I developed a bunch of exercises while working with my coach, and one of those exercises was a day in your dream life.

And the zine I actually got from the person that I mentioned earlier, Stacy.

Stacy Peters, who does mindful drawings, she created some mindful drawing zines.

And so I was like, oh, that's so cute.

That's so fun.

I want to do my dream life exercise with my people on my call and turn it into a fun little zine.

So it really was just a combination of two fun ideas that I thought sounded really fun, and it really was fun.

And basically, we made this little piece of paper, and it goes through, like, what does your dream life look like?

What do you have on your dream life?

And I actually have mine, like, with me here.

And I have, like, a little picture.

I don't know if this is video podcast, but it has water on it.

It has a laptop, it has sunshine, it has music and smiling faces.

And another section with core values, which are just all of the words that kind of speak to me that I want to embody in my business.

And then another section with, like, some mantras to help me live more into the present.

And so, yeah, I just love doing these little fun exercises with people.

It's something that I've now brought into my group coaching membership.

And we actually develop your strategy for your business based on the creative play exercises.

Because I've had people who've gone through this dream life exercise tell me that it was so impactful for them.

Now they know.

They feel like they know what they need to do to reach this dream life and to bring this dream day into their reality.

And so in my group coaching now, we do creative exercises, and then we're like, okay, from that creativity, once you've tapped into your imagination, your intuition, like your heart.

What do you actually want now?

How can we bring that into your business and into your daily life?

And so we worked that out in some more like, strategic questions and things like that.

But not in a stuffy, weird, high optimization way.

In like a, hey, what would be fun and easy kind of way.

Cause that's how I roll.

Yeah, it's such a fun thing too, because one thing is like, say, up front, don't have expectations of it needing to be art or whatever.

Just have fun with it.

I think that's the thing that we have been conditioned to think everything should look good.

But if it's just for ourselves, and if I want to look into my book, I'm the only one that's going to be judging me.

And if you're just doing it to say, oh, you need five minutes, go play outside with your dog, or, you know, walk outside in the sunshine or read a book for, I don't know, 10 minutes, all those things create your dream day.

They're such simple things.

And it's just a reminder that we, we don't need to be setting ourselves into a box that says, here's how we need to set up every single day.

Or this, this is what you need to do all the time.

We get to decide as we're living, how we can live our best lives.

And obviously there's constraints to that.

There are things that we can't control all the time.

But the things that when we do have the time to set for ourselves, we can control what we're doing versus doing the things that we think we need to be doing.

Yeah, absolutely.

And like, the reason that I do these creative exercises is because it really gives you an opportunity to, like I said, tap into your imagination and use some of those things that you were naturally doing as a kid.

Like, when I was a kid, I was outside making forts with my brother, you know, creating scenarios of playing house or playing store or whatever with my friends and building things and creating things and having fun and just imagining scenarios.

And we are really naturally gifted at doing that as children.

As adults, we kind of have to work at it and develop a practice of giving yourself space and permission to tap into your imagination and be silly.

Because we're, you know, we're so concerned with how we look, we don't let ourselves be silly.

And I think that being silly is a really great thing for you to do to, number one, like, just have some more fun, but also to kind of lower, like, your sense of ego a little bit.

Like, let yourself look silly for a little bit.

Because what is incredible on the side of that, on the other side of being silly, like, it might tap into something that you had no idea was there.

I did.

One of the things that someone at my support group did was we did improv for a little bit, and I was, like, so nervous about it going into it, because I didn't know how I was going to do improv.

But she gave us some parameters.

She gave us a scene.

Like, she gave us these things that we needed to be successful during the improv scene.

And then I ended up, like, creating a Persona of myself that was so ridiculous and hilarious.

And I was like, you know what?

I actually want to be more like that Persona that I created in some instances in my life.

And I never really would have.

I don't think I would have thought about that if I hadn't given myself that permission to play.

And so I think it's so important to have a practice of letting yourself be silly, letting yourself get creative, to tap into your intuition and your imagination and be like, oh, what do I really want?

Because then you can be like, huh, that was in there.

That was in my brain.

What can I do now to bring that into my life, like, more and more and more and have a more fulfilled, fun, enjoyable life?

Yeah, I think I remember you bringing this up, and it's my.

My suggestion to anyone who tries improv is just to let the first thing that comes to your mind happen and say it, because that is usually the funniest thing that you can say that leads to a whole bunch of series of events that would never have come at all.

And I think my.

One of my favorite things to see is when people create blooper reels.

If they're a creator, like a content creator or something, and you see a blooper reel of them, they're like.

Because that happens to everybody.

Just because what you see is, like, the polished version of something doesn't mean they didn't have to go through, like, a hundred takes in order to get to that point.

We all think they did perfectly on the first take.

And I don't think anybody really does unless, you know, you're, like, an anchor or something and you have to do stuff live or right.

So it's just like, how can we be more willing to let go, have fun, like you said, and do things that come to us, versus having to censor ourselves or figure out what the best thing to say is?

Yeah, it's like, what do they say to write drunk and edit sober?

It's like let your thoughts flow without self judgment and you'll really be surprised at what you find on, on when you do go through that practice.

I always tell my clients like, yeah, whatever the first thing is that comes to your head, go with that and just see what happens and, and you might surprise yourself.

Yeah, and there's always an opposite.

I love to show opposites of things.

The opposite is come up with as many ideas as you can, like set a very high limit for something.

And once you start getting towards the end of that list, that's where your really creative ideas come in.

I, I think earlier this year you had us create like a bingo card of things that we wanted to happen throughout the year.

And the first 10 are very easy to come up with, but by the time you get to like 20, 30, you're like struggling.

And that's where the real gold comes in because you're not thinking so much, you're just letting stuff come out because you have to.

Yeah, I love that too because it really does help you to realize that you can overcome challenges.

And also that's when you start to get the out of the box ideas.

So one of the, like, I've had this happen a lot of times.

And it was really cool because one of the things that she said, her name is Chelsea Foster and I was in her program and she was really awesome to work with.

And one of the things that she said was you'll start to get to like 30 and then you'll kind of draw a blank.

But then if you keep pushing through, you'll start getting these like really juicy ideas.

And that's also one of the things that I did to develop my creative exercises was I was just like, I'm going to think of as many things as I can and write all of them down.

And so I have list and list and list of creative exercises that I at some point want to do with people.

I may or may not do them because some of them are like not good ideas, but a lot of them are actually really good ideas.

Because that was like an exercise I did of like how many creative ideas can I get to to help accomplish this big idea?

So if you want to hear a little Bit about the process, like a little bit more is I gave myself a little bit of structure.

And for me the big idea is like, I want to give people support in the, in their vision of their business.

So the big picture, like, where are you going?

I want to give them support in the operations of their business.

And like that's what you do every single day, like day to day to run your business.

And I want to give them support in marketing.

And those are the kind of three areas that I have just given myself the structure to think about business because it's easier to think about things when they're in a little structure.

So vision, operations and marketing.

And I had this first idea which, which was the dream day exercise.

That one came to me like pretty easily.

And then also another idea that came to me was called Chuck the Suck, but I have another word in the place of Chuck for the adults.

And that is where we write down all the things that we hate doing in our business.

And then we can like throw it or we can burn it, or we can.

One person actually like in one of my workshops, she like put all the bad things together into a little ball.

And then she like made a game out of it where she was like, she made a goal out of a coffee cup lid.

She like cut out the center of it and made a little semicircle that was a goal.

And then she would like flick the ball of all the stuff that she wanted to chuck through the goal.

And so those are the first two ideas that I came up with.

And then I was like, oh, what can I do from here that would be really even more fun.

What are other things that I can do?

So I gave myself the structure of like, how can I do a creative exercise that helps people in their vision?

And I would just write down a bunch of ideas and then how can I help people with a creative exercise that will help them in their day to day operations?

Make it more enjoyable.

Came up with a list of ideas.

And then the same thing with marketing.

How can we approach marketing from like, how can I give some creative exercises that will help to approach marketing from a more fun and easy way?

Enlisted a bunch of ideas and then that's kind of how I developed the activities that I do.

And this is something that I plan to do over and over again to be able to bring in more creative activities.

Because some of them are going to speak to some people at a certain time.

Some of them might not.

But I think if you can start with a structure and say, hey, I'm Going to do this, like, doing the opposite of, like, doing, oh, I'm going to draw with my left hand, or I'm going to try to do as many things as I can, or I'm gonna only list things that start with the letter P. I don't know, whatever it is.

If you can give yourself a little bit of structure and then from there, get creative through it, like, it's so cool what your brain can come up with.

Yeah, it's.

It's such an interesting thing because constraints are what oftentimes feel creativity if you're really stuck.

Because like you mentioned earlier in the, in our conversation, if you're staring at a blank canvas or at the piano and you're figuring out what song you need to play or whatever it may be that you're starting from scratch, it's so difficult because the world of possibilities is infinite.

So giving yourself the structure to work within oftentimes helps you because the constraint forces you to look at it in this way.

And I. I think you can also, in certain points, combine certain things.

When you make long lists of things, you start combining ideas.

You pull something here and here.

Oh, this would never have happened if I didn't have to come up with 30 to 50 ideas.

You know that 30 to 50 idea range is where interesting stuff comes up because you're like, oh, this from here and this from here.

Combine them and you have something completely new.

Yeah.

By the way, have you scratched off anything on your bingo card yet?

I need to look again.

I forgot about it until we started this conversation.

So I need to go back in and check my list.

I scratched all four.

I'm really proud of myself.

Oh, nice.

That's amazing.

Cool.

A few more questions left.

Yeah.

Do you know anyone else who also runs a standout creative business and whether they do to stand out?

I do.

So I wanted to shout out my friend Camina, Camina James.

She is a coach who works with creative business owners, and she has a program called Create and Get Paid.

And she's all about helping creatives make money from the thing that they're doing.

And she really focuses on finding that one thing that you can really focus on to get paid from your creative work.

And she's a phenomenal person to work with.

And her motto is let it be easy.

And I just love that she's all about, like, doing the easy thing, because the thing that you find to be the easiest doesn't.

There are other people who don't find that thing to be easy.

And so if it's easy for you.

That's a clue that it's something that you want to kind of like keep on pursuing.

And so I just love that she's like, let it be easy.

That sounds good to me.

As someone who spend a lot of time making things really difficult and thinking that business should be hard and scheduled out, working all the time, like that really spoke to me.

So, yeah.

Camina James, she's fantastic.

She's an awesome person and her program is really great.

Yeah.

And when things are easy, you want to do them.

If the thing is hard or, you know, whatever.

It's like this the side of the spectrum where you would rather outsource it.

Yeah.

Or something along those lines.

You're.

You're not gonna do it because you're, you're dreading it and you're just push it, push it, push it until it's, it's never gonna get done.

I think ease and fun are like the two biggest things because, like, we'll do hard things as long as we're enjoying it and having fun.

So to me, I'm always asking, like, how can I make this easy?

How can I make this fun?

Yeah.

What is one extraordinary book, podcast, documentary or tool that has had the biggest impact on your journey?

Okay, I'm going to share a tool.

This is someone, something that I learned from another coach that I worked with.

I've worked with a lot of coaches because I need help.

My coach that I worked with, Sarah Ziesler, she taught me this.

It is the intuitive time management tool and it is really easy and I need things that are really, really easy.

So it's a tool all about getting stuff done.

And I used to read a lot of productivity books that were like, wake up at 5am, have your deep work sessions, time, block your things.

And that type of advice really only works for like people who have control over their schedule.

And if you are a single parent or a stay at home parent, or you are neurodivergent, or you have a chronic illness or any number of things that you may have, like, those things don't work for you.

And like most of the business books out there pretty much cater to that, to that one specific type of person.

And so my coach that I had at the time, Sarah Ziesler, she taught me this strategy called intuitive time management and it really involves.

She was actually was on my podcast and she talked about it.

So you can search my podcast, the Dream Biz podcast and Sarah Ziesler Z I E S L E R It will come up and she talked about, basically, it's where you just do a brain dump.

Write down everything that you want to get done.

And when it comes time to sit at your desk and do work, you just do what you want to do.

Like revolutionary, right?

So you look at the list and you think, huh, what do I want to do right now?

And being able to follow your intuition of where your energy is.

So it evolves.

Sometimes I don't have energy to sit down and write a blog post, but I can, I do want to maybe do something that would be require less like brain work for me or vice versa.

Sometimes I'm like, hey, you know what?

Writing that blog post, that sounds really hard, but I have the energy for it and I think I want to get into it and I'm going to go into it right now.

So that's all it is.

Just practicing time management more intuitively and deciding and asking yourself, hey, what do I need right now?

Like, for me right now, I need to go eat some food, probably.

And doing things that way, just giving yourself that permission to follow your intuition.

Because the more you can tap into your intuition, in my opinion, the more you can get into flow and the more you can just enjoy your life.

And things come easier when you're doing things that you want to do.

Yeah.

And there's another fun thing that you can do is if you have list a bunch of things and you feel like you have a hard time choosing what to do, which is often my thing.

I have a hard time, like making a decision.

So I'll pick something randomly and look at it and be like, oh, this is not what I wanted to do.

And eventually you'll figure out what it is that you actually wanted to do just by process of, oh, no, that's not what I want to work on.

I love that you could even put it on a little one of those, like Wheels Online.

Put all your tasks onto a wheel and spin it and then look at it and feel like, no, I don't want to do that.

Do it again until you get to something that you want to do.

That would be a fun little.

That's exactly what my wife and I did when we were trying to pick, like, where to eat food.

We have a wheel, spin it.

Oh, no, that's not what we wanted.

We'll eventually find something we want to do.

Sometimes you have to make the decision to realize that's not what you wanted to do.

Exactly.

What is one?

What do you think makes a creative business stand out?

And what is one piece of advice you'd give to somebody based on your experience.

I really think being true to who you are.

This sounds like such generic advice, but I can go a little bit deeper.

The things that you obsess over, like the things like the music that you listen to, the aspects of your personality that are unique to you, the things that come easily to you, the things that are really fun to you, like, those are all clues to the most important work that it is that you should do and your strengths that come naturally.

I've been working with my current coach, Tracy Stinger.

She's fantastic, and she talks a lot about, like, utilizing your strengths in you, in your offer and what is going to be the most meaningful work for you.

So I really do think the more you can lean into who you actually are, the more you're going to stand out.

And so if you're like, oh, this part of my personality is too weird.

No, it's probably not.

It's definitely not.

That's probably the thing that you should lean into.

So I think those are the keys of what you should lean into more.

Share more of those things in your content, share more of your weird personality quirks, share more of the things that you're interested into that you're interested in, and really focus on what is unique to you.

What do you like?

What would be fun for you, what would be easy for you?

Yeah, I. I can't agree more because there are people who do exactly what you do, but in a slightly different way.

And every little distinction that you can make to help find the person that you're trying to work with or do business with or whatever it may be, the more likely it is that you're going to connect to make it as easy as possible for the people you want to connect with, connect with you.

Because if you're doing it generically or whatever, you'll find people.

But are they the people that you actually want to work with, collaborate with, do business with?

Yeah.

I recently started working with a client and she said that she knew right away from my website that she wanted to work with me because I have colorful hair.

My brand is really colorful.

And a lot of people are like, oh, you should only have two or three brand colors.

I have nine colors in my brand, and I'm breaking all the rules when it comes to that because my brand, my logo came from a piece of art that I made in therapy.

So it's like that represents me and that's what I'm going with for my brand.

And even if you don't have a personal brand for your business or whatever, like, there are still ways that you can lean into your skills and your strengths and the things that you're really good at, that things that come easily for you to stand out in your business, even if you don't have a personal brand, like, lean into those things that you're really, really good at and come really, really easy for you, rather than, like, what would look good or what would sell the best, like, instead, like, no, what do I want to do?

What's going to come easily for me?

What's going to come naturally for me?

Yeah.

Can you give the listeners a challenge on what they can take action on right away to start standing out?

Yeah.

So my challenge is with every single piece of content that you put out there, whether it is a blog post, something on substack, a video, something on your website, something on social media, can you just ask yourself, how can this be be more me?

Or how can this be more fun?

Or how can this be easier?

Because like I said before, I think whatever is fun, whatever is easy for you, whatever is more you is a clue to what you're meant to be doing.

So my challenge is over the next however many days you want to do it, 30 days, hopefully every day, just ask yourself, how can I make this more me?

Yeah.

I think we're all just taught to learn how to optimize for things, and that's usually not the most you version of.

Yeah.

The thing that you're trying to promote or the thing that you're having fun with, it's like, just be you.

Because that's what attracts the right people.

And if being you doesn't attract the right people, then you know, it wasn't meant to be anyways.

Yeah, it's like a magnet.

Like, when the more you lean into yourself, the more you will attract people who want to be around that and also repel people who don't.

Awesome.

Well, Christy, this has been amazing talking to you.

I think we could probably do this.

Forever, but, oh, my goodness, we absolutely could.

We have other things we have to do in life.

Can you let people know where they can keep up to date with you and all the stuff that you're doing?

Yeah, absolutely.

So you can keep up to date with me on Instagram.

I am hristyjohnsoncreative, and it's Christy with a ch and an I at the end.

Hristyjohnsoncreative.

You can listen to my podcast, the Dreambiz podcast.

Kevin was on it recently, and it was awesome having him on and you can also go to my website christyjohnsoncreative.com awesome.

Well, it's been really fun and hopefully we can collaborate on something else in the future.

I hope so too.

Thanks for having me Kevin.

This was so much fun.

All right, thanks.

Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Standout Creatives.

If you're feeling stuck, let's chat and see how we can help you start standing out instead of burning out.

You can sign up for a free strategy [email protected] if you want to keep up to date with everything I'm working on, including interviews, essays and upcoming projects projects.

Head to standoutcreativebusiness substack.com and if you have any thoughts on this episode or just want to chat, you can follow me on Instagram at Standout Creative Business.

Thanks again for tuning in and as always, lean into your creativity and curiosity.

I'll see you again on the next episode.