Creative Career Coach: Clarity to Confidence

Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00] Lauryn: As artists, as multi-passionate people, we have a lot of different ideas of where we want to spend our time and what we want to do. And we love so many things. And, so really getting clear on, your big vision and then breaking it down into smaller steps, smaller, actual steps.

[00:00:19] Lauryn: So that. You know where you're going and you don't have to like, worry about all the pieces, Today I'm going to take these small steps and eventually I'll get to here, you know, or whatever that, step leaves me too.

[00:00:37] Isotta: This is Art Is… a podcast for artists where we brainstormed the future of the art world and the creative industries.

[00:00:44] Isotta: Welcome to season three. I'm really excited about the underlying theme of this season, artists leveraging tech.

[00:00:53] Isotta: A major focus of ours here is understanding what digital strategy and digital leadership looks like for artists and creatives. This is an emerging concept that I believe to be central, to our mission, that of brainstorming the future of the art world. So to do so.

[00:01:07] Isotta: We will tackle it from different angles and perspectives with many guests throughout this third season. But I wanted to start off with a conversation on self-awareness and intention, something today's guest knows a lot about. Lauren Hale is a creative careers coach based in LALauren. And I met last summer when I partook in one of her free online career clarity consultations, her ideas and perspectives are very powerful and resonated with me deeply. So I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did by the way, this season I've decided to create short format episodes.

[00:01:45] So part two of my discussion with Lauren will be published later on in season three. So look out for that and I hope you enjoyed this new episode format.

[00:01:54] So I'll give you a, short peak into my life. I studied illustration in college and, after college I started working for an art gallery in the Napa valley. I currently live in Los Angeles. so I worked for this art gallery for about six years. And. That's where I sold close to $4 million of other people's artwork. paintings, photography, sculpture, things like that. and after working there, I moved to Los Angeles to work for the international art book, publisher Tosh. which I worked for about six years and I sold about $13 million worth of books.

[00:02:36] Lauryn: Fine art prints to museums up and down the west coast bookstore. Galleries boutiques and, national accounts like pottery barn and restoration hardware, Nordstrom, things like that, and developed a lot of relationships. so that's kinda like my corporate history and, my personal development journey started close to eight years ago when I got.

[00:03:01] Lauryn: So I struggled with alcohol and drug abuse, and that was like a really pivotal moment in my own journey of seeing that I could reach out to other people for help when I was struggling. And I,I had a lot of difficulty with that growing up. And, after starting that journey, I started finding coaches.

[00:03:24] Lauryn: For other parts of my life, because I felt, oh, wow. there's people out there that know what they're doing and they can help you. And, devoting the money that I was making into that to developing whatever, part of my life that I needed help in was so amazing. And then I was like, wow, there's something really to this.

[00:03:43] Lauryn: And the tools that I was learning. I was like, I want to start teaching these. I want to share this with the world. And, and so that's when I developed my own coaching business. I've been coaching for three years I now do career coaching for creatives specifically. it's interesting because even when I was working for Tasha and. Here in LA. The first couple of years, I had this insight that I wanted to work with artists. And, you know, I noticed while I was working at the gallery, that artists just struggle with the business part of it, you know, like That's not.

[00:04:14] Lauryn: Their talent, their talent is making art and, you know, some people develop those skills. Some artists develop those skills, some creatives, like me, you know, I was like, all right, I want to develop these skills. So I started finding ways to do that. and. I had this idea of being some kind of artist manager, representative agent type of thing.

[00:04:38] Lauryn: And that was, early on. with my own personal journey, I really got into health and wellness and, I just felt like, oh, maybe I want to be a health coach and help people, with their living their positive. Journey. And, their lifestyle changes because I had changed my lifestyle so much and seen so many benefits from it.

[00:04:57] Lauryn: it was this convergence of two different paths. And then what I realized is it's really all connected. So, you know, having those positive lifestyle and the spiritual part of it as well, listening to your intuition and really, you know, setting boundaries and all of those things. that's kind of like my passions and my strengths.

[00:05:18] Lauryn: I just combined everything to create this position for myself, this business.

[00:05:23] Isotta: You said you've been working now for three years and you mentioned the classic pitfall of art and business and artists struggling with the business side of their practice. What has your experience been so far working with different kinds of artists and creative.

[00:05:37] basically like the three main areas that, we struggle with as creatives, the first area is clarity. So really getting clear on your values. Your talents, your skills, your accomplishments, like all the things, your desires, just having this inner clarity of who you are, what you're here to do and why you want to do it.

[00:06:03] people really struggle with that because that takes a lot of time. That takes a lot of effort and it's hard to sit down with yourself sometimes and figure that out. that's a really, a main part. In figuring out what you want to do and how you want to do it, and then being your own advocate too.

[00:06:20] and then the second part is really prioritization. And setting boundaries with your time. I think, as artists, as multi-passionate people, we have a lot of different ideas of where we want to spend our time and what we want to do. And we love so many things. And, so really getting clear on,your big vision and then breaking it down into smaller steps, smaller, actual steps.

[00:06:46] Lauryn: So that. You know where you're going and you don't have to like, worry about all the pieces, Today I'm going to take these small steps and eventually I'll get to here, you know, or whatever that, step leaves me too. And then the final piece is really the confidence and the internal blocks.

[00:07:05] Lauryn: this is the piece I think people struggle with the most. the, the limiting beliefs and the turmoil, you know, that the comparison, the,I'm not good enough, why should I even start like the overthinking, all of these things that are really paralyzing.

[00:07:20] creating these like small mindset shifts that are going to reframe the way that you think so that you can actually take empowered action instead of just sitting there and thinking, I don't even want to get started. I'm a perfectionist or I'm, I'm not ever going to be good enough.

[00:07:40] Lauryn: So that's really like the main things that I think, as creatives that we struggle with the most.

[00:07:47] Isotta: how do you think about breaking down those emotions and like overcoming them oh, it comes down to awareness, really having awareness of your thoughts and beliefs, which again, you know, it takes work to. The conscious to question your thoughts. And that's what I help people with in my coaching. as an outside perspective,sometimes it's easier as that outside perspective to grasp onto those statements of, no one wants to sign up for my mailing list or, Well, no one wants to see my art when I share, they're just going to get annoyed, you know, are those true?

[00:08:24] is that a fact, you know, questionings thoughts like that so that you can instead of, you know, seeing you're having that thought and then instead of focusing on that, you can change perspectives by creating other thoughts. Probably more true. you know, shifting to, okay, well, what's your intention for sharing? it's healing for me to share. Like when I share my art, it feels healing for me. So that's a thought you could choose instead.

[00:08:54] Lauryn: and then also, switching to a thought, maybe that something like, oh,if I share maybe just this could help one person. and if I could help just one person or inspire just one person, that's why I want to share. So switching that from, this is going to annoy people when I share too. If I share maybe this will help just one person, and making sure that it's believable for yourself and just.

[00:09:23] Lauryn: Knowing. Oh, there's that thought coming up again and switching to the other, sometimes it takes really breaking it down, like writing it down, going over, like, Okay.

[00:09:33] Lauryn: I see this is a lie that I'm telling myself, how would I act? How would I show up differently? If I was to believe something different or tell myself something different, because really The circumstances neutral, and your thoughts create feelings in yourself, which then you're showing up with a certain type of energy when you're taking action and then that's creating a result for you. So if you're wanting to change the results, you just have to show up with the different thoughts, which create different actions.

[00:10:08] Lauryn: Different energies. That's kind of how I break down the switching, perspectives and the limiting beliefs.

[00:10:15] one thing you were saying before, which really resonated with me is that idea. Oh, well, if even if this resonates with just one person or someone likes it and it just makes me think of how dehumanized we've become with thinking about the internet and technology and thinking about like, those are actual people behind those accounts.

[00:10:33] Isotta: And so imagine if you got only four likes on a piece of work that you've shared, if four people came up to you and complimented you. I mean, that would be so wonderful and so impactful. And we just associate with that so immensely and I, myself, I'm so guilty of it at the beginning, working in podcasting and looking at statistics and the analytics and looking at listener numbers and stuff, it was so alienating.

[00:10:59] Isotta: And then I realized, wow, like these are people who actually have lived. To something I said and enjoyed it. that's so powerful. And that's why I'm excited about niche, small communities online. I think that's the future of technology,

[00:11:14] Lauryn: that's so fascinating though. I hadn't really thought about it that way of just, in real life, if someone came in and told you that they liked something, you did, how much more powerful that is than online, because it's, you know, we break it down to statistics and. Yeah, really taking a step back to think, because we're not confronted with their reaction in real life.

[00:11:35] Lauryn: We're so far removed from it. it's such a different process. It's so interesting.

[00:11:40] I'm interested also in this idea of unlearning our current, digital habits and, getting excited again about people it doesn't really matter what the tool is but the fact that it's another person who you're connecting with and recognizing that the internet and technology is a tool and we have to start using it more as a tool rather than the end product.

[00:11:59] Isotta: the end is another human that we're being connected to. I personally am really excited To start connecting with other humans, rather than just like feeling this need to, push content and be active or have engagement, all of these, tech buzzwords that don't really mean anything anymore.

[00:12:16] and using tech as an new way of actually making meaningful connections again, you know, despite. The amazingness of seeing people in person. I also really love meeting international people from around the world and getting connected with people who I definitely would never have the chance to meet otherwise.

[00:12:32] I see that as so valuable, and I want to make a concerted effort to start changing the way that I interact In general online so that I can start making more friendships and less just empty follows how do you see like technology now as a tool for creatives and like, how do you work with people to ensure that's a positive relationship and not something that, adds to, you know, negative self-talk or whatever it is, that's ailing that person.

[00:12:59] Lauryn: really seeing that technology is a tool and just like anything, we have to have clear boundaries with it. So just noticing, if you're getting triggered by a certain person.

[00:13:11] Lauryn: online because of jealousy or envy or whatever like sometimes it's fine to just mute them for awhile, and really work through those feelings. Yeah, Allow yourself to show up differently and not be triggered. I meet with a lot of different people all over the world, who are interested in coaching and there's this trend of, quite a few people that are wanting to create these community.

[00:13:36] Lauryn: These online communities of helping and giving and sharing with each other, but in a smaller way where there's not this big corporation pushing its agenda, behind it. and I think that's going to be a big shift in the coming years, especially now that so many people are waking up to like, how we were living, what we were doing was not working things need to change.

[00:14:02] Lauryn: this great resignation that's going on. So many people quitting their jobs and shifting, changing jobs and figuring out what they want to do with their lives. I think we're really gonna see a focus on small business and these groups that are forming that are about sharing and about community rather than making profits and harming people with no regard to, The individual how can we help each other rather than just this one powerful source? be the entity that's in charge. I'm just thinking back to the structure of AA. It's this system there's no hierarchy, the meetings run themselves.

[00:14:47] Lauryn: There's a structure, but no, one's you know, the, the person in charge it's really interesting. I'm just thinking about like how that applies to, how we could change the systems and like the tribes that we create I don't know how many people you can hold in your head. I'm trying to remember what it was like 150 people information, about 150 people. You could hold in your brain at a time. And thinking about like thousands and millions of people that are following you on social media, like what's the point, there's only so much we can handle that our systems can handle.

[00:15:21] Lauryn: And so, you know, getting back down to the. Tribe like mentality of, having real relationships with one another and supporting.

[00:15:32] my full name is Lauren Hill, which is similar. There was an artist, a hip hop artist, Lauren Hill. our names are spelled the same, L a U R Y. which is fun because living in LA, sometimes when I make reservations places, they assume someone else is going to show up and I've actually got my hotel room upgraded because of that, which was pretty sweet.

[00:15:56] so there is benefits to having a famous name, but when you search me, it's hard to find me. So my business is called curated splash, curated, like a curious. Curated splash. So you can find me a curated splash.com or a on IgG at curated splash. I do offer free consult one hour.

[00:16:19] Lauryn: One-on-one consult calls to talk about getting career clarity, I call them career clarity sessions, with others that are interested in finding a career coach and learning more about it.

[00:16:30] Isotta: Thank you for listening to art is a podcast for artists. This was season three, episode one. I'd like to thank Lauren Hill for generously sharing her thoughts and ideas with us. I would also like to thank the awesome community web. I love creatives

[00:16:48] Isotta: for facilitating our introduction and providing a place for creatives of all kinds to showcase their work and services. Check it out. I highly recommend

[00:16:57] Isotta: if you feel like it, please leave Art Is… a podcast for artists a rating and review in apple podcasts. It really helps others find. You can support the work I do by subscribing wherever you listen. And by donating to the podcast, the link to do so is in this episode. Also, I really love hearing from you. So please keep reaching out on Instagram at artists podcast or by emailing me at listen at artists podcast. Okay. That's it for now. Thanks so much and see you next Wednesday.