Brand Voice Development for Values-Based Business

Beginning with this seventeenth episode of the podcast, I’m changing up the format a bit. Rather than straight interview-style shows about one person’s creative business experience, I’m moving toward a more conversational, collaborative, topics and issues-focused format. Also, many shows will feature two guests at once to really rock out the varying perspectives on the lives we live when we choose creative entrepreneurship as our life’s work. I hope you dig this new format — and can tell the difference! — as my guests and I lean into it. I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment after this post and let me know what you think!

Alison Gresik

On today’s show, I’m chatting with Alison Gresik from Gresik.ca about artistic identity, building a life around one’s creative work, and the importance of community in getting our artistic work done. Alison’s a creativity coach for accomplished writers and artists. She has lots to say on this topic and is launching something really cool that’ll help us move toward an art-committed life. Listen in.

Here are links to the people and ideas we talked about:

• Alison’s pillar post on creative labyrinths
• Shatter the Mould creative coaching for accomplished writers and artists
• Novel Doctor
• Louise DeSalvo

and .  . .

• Alison’s Hours for Art Telethon – I’ve made my pledge. Will you make yours?

Listen in as we talk about not getting addicted to feedback from readers/beholders, how getting clear on your right people makes all the difference to your biz, and keeping your artistic identity at the center of your life.

Right click here and select Save Link As to download the podcast to your hard drive, or left click to play in-browser.

P.S. Have feedback for me or Alison? Let’s talk in the comments. :)

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Luster dust.

Sounds so pretty, doesn’t it? But what is it really, and what does it mean for you when it starts flying in and around your creative business?

LUSTER DUST {noun, metaphor}:
the glint-y stuff that starts flying off of you when you’re moving
in your most gorgeous, most natural, and most powerful brand platform;
your right people want to bathe in your luster dust

If you’re new here and lost, luster dust is what we make when we work together in a Lustermaker, my 80-minute signature brand editing service. :)

Most of my clients past and present bring to me a similar question and it goes like this:

I think I’ve got a good idea of who my right people are, but when they show up, how do I know if it’s really them?

I decided to put together a webinar — my first one! — to share with you the 7 signs that’ll start showing up in your life when your right people are getting you. And yep, it’s 7 actual things — lovely luster dust metaphor aside.

Additionally, I’m including the 3 signs you’ll see when your not quite right people are hanging around.

Plus, one of my clients will share her before, during, and after-Lustermaker scenario with you. She’s seeing herself and her creative business in a new light and her right people are, too.

And there’s a special bonus for those who sign up. So sign up! Seats are limited.

Sign up here for my free webinar From Smoke Signals to Luster Dust: 7 Signs Your Right People Are Getting You.

Can’t wait to share this content with you.

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It’s been a long time since our last open thread post around here. {An open thread post is one in which the blogger asks a question, then steps back and lets readers fill in the blanks.}

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we as creative entrepreneurs know what our next move is.

Photo by dennis courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons.

How do you decide/figure out/discern/intuit/shift into/lean into/fling yourself into the next phase of your business?

I’m assuming that you want your creative enterprise to grow, that you want to build it sustainably, and that you want the next iteration of your work in the world to be an even more apt expression of you and your talents.

So how do you do it? Where does your sense of knowing come from?

Who do you listen to for guidance? What inspires you? Which internal voice do you listen to when you’re figuring out what your next move should be?

I’m all ears and I can’t wait to hear how you do this.

{For bonus points, let us know what your next move is.}

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Are you what Barbara Sher describes as a scanner?

If so, know that I mean no offense by what I’m about to say in this post. I think being a scanner sounds pretty neat.

But I identify more with what Sher calls a diver, and by design, what I have to teach and model — nichification, ruling your realm, upping your addictability factor, honing in on your right people, ruthlessly editing your brand platform until it’s the strongest, most gorgeous, and most natural expression of you — tends to be more diver-oriented.

I’m a diver! That explains my ocean metaphors.

And so I think, that by nature, I’m probably not the best creative pro to support scanner-types in the way that works for them. Divers, on the other hand, love me — and the feeling is mutual.

Here’s what Sher herself says about Scanners versus Divers:

“Well, specialists aren’t Scanners, obviously. If you’re someone who is happy being completely absorbed by one field, I’ve labeled you a Diver. Some clear examples of Divers are professional musicians, scientists, mathematicians, professional chess players, athletes, business owners, and financiers. These people may ‘relax’ with a hobby, but they’re rarely passionate about anything but their field.”

There are three things I’m madly passionate about in my life: entrepreneurship, writing, and health/fitness.

But I usually don’t toggle between them well. I don’t fly over the garden of them and seed them all regularly, watering each patch in its turn. Nope.

When my business life is thriving {like right now}, my creative writing {fiction, poetry, essays} isn’t getting its due time. And my health and fitness piece? Totally off the radar for now.

Whenever I decide to get off my izzy, clean up my eating, and start working out like a fitness pro competition aspirant, my business focus tends to sliiiiide.

Balance has never been my strong suit. Whatever I’m into, I’m really into. And nothing else feels as important.

I’m not incredibly attracted to the balance doctrine, either. Every time I’ve tried to balance, I feel like I’m working against my natural rhythms. So I chase flow and intensity instead.

The Abby Kerr Ink doctrine is about going deep, but it’s about intentionally pursuing that which feels most natural to you and developing your business model, unique point of view, and brand platform around that.

‘Natural’ to you may mean building your business around the material that lets you work from a point of flow and intensity {as it does to me}. Or it may mean building your business around what appeals to you as gentle, fun, and easy. I’m not judging your work habits or preferred creative state of mind. But I think you should seek the place where, as Danielle LaPorte says, you feel the way you want to feel in your biz life.

This is one of those ‘right people’ moments where I’m calling you out. If you know this is you, everything in you will rise up and say yes to the next thing I’m saying.

Choice is power. Refusing to choose {as Barbara Sher terms it} is a fluttery way to be in the world.

I love a client who loves to make decisions. To do your strongest work in the world, you don’t have to just ‘pick something.’ But you do have to pick you.

And this is the reason I believe my right person is more of a diver than a scanner. If I’m talking to you, grab your swimming cap. Because you and I are about to go in the deep end.

Scanners, divers, one and all: how does your focus-obsessed OR your refuse-to-choose mentality shape the way you experience yourself in your own entrepreneurial life?

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