It’s firmly Fall and Rachael and Lauren are back! They discuss what’s been going on in their worlds, and how they’ve been navigating seasons of change. While new territory inevitably brings about weirdness and uncertainty, your Chaotic Creative gals share insight on how having the resolve to move toward your core values can not only allow you to grow; but also broadens what it means to be playful in our everyday lives.
It’s firmly Fall and Rachael and Lauren are back! They discuss what’s been going on in their worlds, and how they’ve been navigating seasons of change. While new territory inevitably brings about weirdness and uncertainty, your Chaotic Creative gals share insight on how having the resolve to move toward your core values can not only allow you to grow; but also broadens what it means to be playful in our everyday lives.
Episode Mentions
The transcript for this episode can be found here!
Lauren: Yep.
Kristle: You didn't even count. That was amazing.
Lauren: Wow, look at that.
Rachael: Professionals in season two.
Lauren: Damn. Okay, cool.
Rachael: Great.
Lauren: Hello and welcome to Chaotic Creatives, a show about embracing the chaos that comes from living a creative life.
Rachael: We are your hosts, two self-proclaimed chaotic creative gals. I'm Rachael Renae. I'm your internet hype gal, and I'm here to encourage you to use play to live a more fulfilling and confident life.
Lauren: And I am Lauren Hom, better known as Hom Sweet Hom on the internet. I'm a lettering artist, muralist, and most recently chef.
Rachael: Welcome to season two.
Lauren: We made it.
Rachael: We made it. And I think today we are going to talk about the changing of seasons.
Lauren: Yes. It's fall now. Firmly fall.
Rachael: Firmly fall.
Lauren: Yeah. We've had a month of transition weather and I think we just wanted to talk about what we've been up to and also just navigating seasons of change in our creative live. There have been some big-ish updates.
Rachael: Yeah. How do you want to start?
Lauren: I guess I can. I can, sure.
Rachael: Sure, dive in.
Lauren: I can go for it.
Rachael: Dive in.
Lauren: Yeah. So the biggest update for me is I am working on my own for the first time, in the sense that I'm no longer represented by an agent and I'm just managing all of my own business for the first time in a decade. Which is pretty wild. And it's also simultaneously been a slow season of work, which has been honestly, I guess after a decade for this to be happening for the first time, I'm grateful. It doesn't feel like that in the moment.
Rachael: Of course not.
Lauren: That's been a big thing that I've been navigating is, not only from a day-to-day financial standpoint of the business, but just it's really hit me emotionally more than the financial part. Where it's like, "Oh, am I bad at my job?" I've really internalized a lot of, "Oh, this is clearly all my fault." Blah, blah, blah. When I've had to take a step back and realize that this is par for the course when it comes to self-employment of any kind. And there are so many forces at play when it comes to how much work is coming in. And yes, I'm sure there are things I could do and I could've done, but I can't bear all the burden of, "I'm terrible. This is all my fault."
Rachael: Totally.
Lauren: It's not going to help anything.
Rachael: Yeah. And I think building up those expectations of things have gone well historically for the last 10 years, and you've become used to an established practice of business as usual.
Lauren: Totally, rinse and repeat.
Rachael: If this had happened maybe five years ago, you would've reacted differently because you were establishing yourself. But after a decade you're like, "Whoa, this is different than par for the course, and so I must have done something wrong." When in fact, it's just a lot of different factors and he nature of the beast of being an entrepreneur, working for yourself. You've been so lucky to not have to navigate a lot of changes. And now, like you said, we're in a season of change we're... I'm in it with you.
Lauren: Yeah, that's a really good point.
Rachael: I'm not part of the Hom Sweet Hom business umbrella, but emotionally I'm here.
Lauren: But I also think that as one of my close friends, you get, I don't want to say the brunt of it, but you get a peek inside what it's like in real time.
Rachael: Honored to, honestly.
Lauren: And you made a good point. It's like a long-term relationship where I've been doing this for such a long time where you do get set in your ways with anything. Where when there is a shift in how things operate, you get used to certain things. You're like, "Oh, okay." It does feel like a bigger deal, I think. And so it's been interesting to send my own invoices and negotiate my own projects. And as scary as that has been, it's also been empowering in the sense that these things that else was doing for me that I got used to someone else doing for me, I am capable of doing. And it's this retaking of ownership over my business and what I do. And so I'm trying to reframe it that way, because it is also just more grunt work, I suppose, being my own admin. But it's okay.
Rachael: Actually, I was talking... Talking. I wrote an Instagram caption today. Talking to my friends. And I was reflecting on birthday week. So my birthday is tomorrow, but it'll have been passed a month by the time our episode goes live. But I'm in the middle of a style challenge right now, which has been very exciting to me. I know we've talked on previous episodes about me going in and out of the fashion and personal style space on Instagram. It's so much a core part of who I am and how I show up in the world, but the theme for this week is birthday. So because it's my birthday, I am like, "Well, every outfit that I wear is a birthday theme." And it would just be fun, some people might dress like a clown, some people might dress like funfetti cake or whatever their interpretation is.
But I made a post and I was reflecting on how around this time every year and certain seasons, I've talked about journaling practices and reflection that I've done throughout the year, but I also do it on my birthday. And I was thinking about how, I love to think about the big and small joys, but also the really hard moments that I was able to, not even power through, but get through.
Lauren: Navigate.
Rachael: And it was tough, but also it forces growth. Those tough times force growth. And that is what you're experiencing right now is, "Okay, this is a shift from what I'm used to. I can't just ride the wave. I have to," let's continue with the surfing analogy. "Paddle really hard to get back on the board."
Lauren: I love that neither of us surf.
Rachael: I know, but I really just, that one worked really well. That is a goal for me for my 35th year is to take a surf lesson.
Lauren: Wow.
Rachael: I'm really excited.
Lauren: Noted. Any surf sponsors listening.
Rachael: Yeah, I'm just trying to live out my Blue Crush fantasy.
Lauren: Hit us up. And when I say us, I mean Rachael, because...
Rachael: We can get the sunblock sponsor and you can be sipping a bev on the beach.
Lauren: Hell yeah.
Rachael: Supporting me from the sand.
Lauren: I would love to do that.
Rachael: Thank you. But I think hard times are obviously really hard when we're in them, but they do force growth and also increase capacity for joy. And I guess in the case of a creative business, increasing your capacity for appreciation for yourself and what you can accomplish. Yes, you're taking a step in a different direction as far as doing more admin work, but you're giving yourself the boost of, "Oh yeah, I did this once. I can do this again."
Lauren: Even if it has been a decade. And before we started recording, we were talking about how times like these, and this is for anybody who is also experiencing a slower period of work. Times like these are actually when being a chaotic creative really comes into play in our favor. Where there's a humility, I think, with being self-employed, where it's like, "Okay, what can I try? I'll try anything, everything. How do I make this work?" Because you're just so invested in running your own business and doing things your own way. Where I've been teaching mural workshops, we have a new background, and that is a product of me teaching mural workshops all summer. So this has been swapping in and out. You probably noticed in later episodes of our last season, it was changing. And I've been giving more talks. I'm getting back on the speaking circuit, and I've been marketing my work more.
So I'm doing things to start circulating more opportunities, but I'm just down for whatever right now because it's out of necessity. And yes, things were smooth sailing for so long and now they're not.
Rachael: Smooth surfing, I think you mean.
Lauren: Smooth surfing. And now they're not and so I'm like, "Okay, what can I do to just get things back on track?" And not even back on track the way things were, because I think that's also a losing game to try to get back to exactly where you were, to hold yourself to this standard that you arbitrarily passed, you arbitrarily set. And I want to just keep going and experimenting because like I said, there is a humility in just being willing to try things. Whether it's teaching, whether it's selling new products, making offers and seeing how your customers respond.
Rachael: And I think it also, the seasons of change in a creative business also depend on what's happening in the world. You used to do so many online courses and then we all had to be online for a couple of years, and many of us are still working more online than in-person. And that shifted you to do these in-person mural workshops, because it's, we are craving in-person connection now.
Lauren: That's what I was craving, totally.
Rachael: And so it's not fair to hold yourself to that arbitrary standard that you set or this expectation of what was in the past because the parameters have changed, the whole ecosystem has changed.
Lauren: Yeah, a hundred percent.
Rachael: So proud of you for navigating this.
Lauren: Thank you.
Rachael: Yeah. I think for me, I'm not in any sort of creative season of change at that scale. But I think I'm at this point in my life where I have my day job, I have my creative business, I'm trying to grow my creative business. So I've got a lot of ideas and I don't feel like I have time to execute them. I don't feel like I have time to build up these offerings that are in my brain. I have a million pages on a Notion template and also written on scrap pieces of paper around my home, of things that I want to do or ideas that come to me. And I just keep feeling very agitated, like I don't have time to work on it. And I really need, it's time for a sit down with myself to be like, "Okay, what are you prioritizing instead of that?"
And for me, and we've talked about this on past episodes too, I pack my social calendar .and I love it because connection is so important to me. My friendships are very intentional. I get a lot out of them. But I also have to remember that I can still maintain my friendships and not have to see someone every night of the week or every other night of the week. It's a lot. And the people who love me will respect that I'm working toward a personal and professional goal by, "Oh, I can't hang out tonight. I'm recording the podcast." Or, "I can't hang out tonight to work on this thing." Or, "This weekend needs to be me knocking this out." And it's a tough balance because I feel like I've been able to do it, but I'm at a point where my creative business is now taking a little bit more energy, and so something else needs to fall away.
And right now what's fallen away is my personal creative practices. And so all I wanted to do this past weekend was just hermit in the basement and sew something. But I had a million things I needed to do. I had plans with different people, ended up canceling some plans because I was like, "I do not have the emotional energy to see another person." And I didn't do any of the things on my to-do list. And I made a dress and it felt great. And it was a reminder to myself, you need to build in rest time. You need to build in time for creative play, which are the things that I talk about to other people. Prioritizing play, my whole thing.
Lauren: Easier said than done.
Rachael: And so I guess that's the season of change I'm in right now, is navigating the balance that is always ebbing and flowing of maintaining personal relationships, growing my creative business, navigating the other responsibilities like work.
Lauren: I think what you're going through is still a pretty big one because how your personal... Your personal life, if we're talking about being a chaotic creative holistically, that's a huge section of, it should be a huge section of your life. And I think, the people in your life who love you and support you will understand if they can only see you once a week or twice a week, whatever that may be, their love for you is not predicated on seeing you whenever they want. And that's an important reminder, because I think that's a question I've gotten a lot over the years, as I'm sure you have too. Of, how do I balance having a family or just being near my family, being close to people and also wanting to prioritize these other creative goals while also trying to pursue, let's say a romantic relationship? All these things that we want. And there really is no perfect formula for it. Al.
L things take time and investment and energy. And it doesn't surprise me when I hear, let's say entrepreneur stories of, how'd you build your business in your thirties? And it's like, "Well, I forsaked all..." What is it? Forsaked all others or, I gave up having a social life in order to build my business. That's a very classic entrepreneur bro story.
Rachael: Yeah, tech bro story.
Lauren: Or, I didn't see my kids for five years. Obviously that's an exaggeration. I mean, I'll be honest, anyone who romanticizes my career, it's because my career was my primary focus for the last 10 years of my life. And it doesn't mean that I didn't get to do other things, but I traveled, I worked, I was in a long-term relationship, and that was really it. I maintained some friendships, but I didn't do anything else. I have occasional hobbies, but it was really just that was my primary focus.
And when I say maintained friendships too, I always tell you, you have the most packed social calendar of anyone I know. And I'm envious of it because I never was able to maintain that, I still can't. Because I love seeing people. I'm an extrovert, I love doing things, but again, I have prioritized other things. I probably hang out with somebody socially once a week, and that's my budget for that. And it's been enough for the last, gosh, 10 years. Maybe if there are friends in town, sure, it'll be a little bit more, but I'm a pretty reclusive person. Which I think surprises a lot of people because you and I are pretty online for business, but that doesn't mean we're going out all the time.
Rachael: Yeah, I think about that too, because even though I am very social, I'm not doing a lot of stuff. I'm not going to a lot of events or shows or this or that.
Lauren: You doing backyard hangs.
Rachael: Yeah, I'm going to dinner.
Lauren: Love it.
Rachael: Yeah, it's great.
Lauren: I'm purchasing food.
Rachael: I am purchasing food. Yeah, it is fascinating and an interesting thing to navigate how I want to change what I've established as the norm.
Lauren: Yeah, it's the season.
Rachael: Yeah. I think I would like to be you and see someone maybe once a week. And I tried to implement a plan with myself where I'm like, "Okay, I'm only going to make plans socially on Thursdays or Fridays."
Lauren: That's a nice container to set for yourself.
Rachael: And it feels like sometimes that can't happen, there's a baby shower on a Saturday that I need to go to. Sure. But if it's a plan that I have control over, if I can stick my Monday, Tuesday, Wednesdays to myself, that feels good. I need to have more days alone is what I'm learning. Because I too like to be reclusive, I want time to process and work on creative things, because that's how I'm navigating my emotions and getting things processed in my brain and resting. And when I'm always stimulated with, I have to do this and then I have to jump to this, it feels overwhelming.
And it's interesting because I traveled a lot in August, last month as of when we're recording this, and so I didn't do a lot of Instagram stuff. I didn't do a lot of creative business stuff, and I felt so out of sorts when I got back, even though I had a great time on doing all of my vacation and traveling and stuff. It just felt like, "Oh, I feel behind." And to me, that tells me that I needed to have a better balance going into that, instead of just completely putting one thing on pause so that I could focus on this. I'm working on that. And I know, people have told me online, you make me feel bad because you do so much.
Lauren: Whoa. Who's saying that? That's an inside your brain thought.
Rachael: And I don't think they meant it in an accusatory way, but it's also like, "Well, maybe you don't do a lot and I'm doing too much." It's how my ADHD brain navigates my life, is just like I can fit it in, I can do it all. And that is now coming to my detriment in the form of I'm approaching burnout.
Lauren: Everything's a trade-off, and I know through the lens of social media, everyone's life looks better than our own. When we're taking a shit or laying in bed on our phones, looking at other people's zhuzhed up lives. You're like, "Wow, my life sucks. This person's life is great." But we're all doing that to each other.
Rachael: Yeah. And if you are following people that consistently make you feel bad, don't follow them.
Lauren: Oh, yeah.
Rachael: I don't care if you're my best friend. If I make you feel bad on the internet, don't follow me.
Lauren: Yeah. Full permission to unfollow.
Rachael: Or mute.
Lauren: Yeah. At least mute. But what I was going to say is, you're going through a recalibration of, I went through this really fun, maybe hectic summer of travel. You got to do a lot, but now you're feeling like things are a little out of balance, and so you're trying to reconfigure things and reprioritize. Because it really does come down to priorities. It doesn't mean that you don't care about your friends, or if you're going to work on your business. The same way that if you are going to hang out with your friends, it doesn't mean that you don't care about your creativity or your small business. It's just, we only have so much time in the day, and there are seasons for...
The summer tends to be a more social season anyways, and so we're about to go into the colder months, the cozy months, and I think that that's the perfect time to hunker down. My friends, Apang and I used to always joke that people in New York, designers in New York work on so many personal projects and get so much shit done because it's so gross from November to February. But I guess it's gross in a lot of other places too. But if you live in a climate where it's going to be a little yucky outside and you're not a snow lover, because I know there are some snow lovers out there. I'm not trying to denigrate you. But as a Californian, not my cup of tea, even though I live in a cold place. Have lived in many cold places for the last, gosh, 15 years. Now is a great time to be like, "Okay, I'm just going to hunker down, get cozy and work on my stuff. And when the sun's coming back out, then I can put on my cute sundress and go frolic."
Rachael: Yeah. It's interesting because I like to think that that would work for me, the seasons of high productivity and seasons of play. But I think I am really a routine kind of gal, and so when I am away from my routine, it stresses me out. Even though I love to travel, I like to go explore and do new things.
Lauren: So those three weeks of travel threw you off of your routine?
Rachael: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: That makes sense.
Rachael: So I think what I need to do a better job of is planning, "Hey, I'm going to be going on vacation for three weeks. Are there things that I could set myself up for to do 10 minutes of getting this email sent or this...?" Just to feel like I'm staying consistent to what I'm used to. I dream of having a life where I'm like, "I'm going to go live in Paris for three months and write, and then I'm going to come back and hang out in Detroit in the best months and just play." And I know that that won't work for me. It's interesting to dream about that, but then when I get tiny little snippets of what that would look like by traveling for 10 days, and I'm like, "I hate this." I don't hate it.
Lauren: I think that's part of maturing too, is realizing that some of the things we romanticize, or there's a difference between the life that you think you want and then the life that you actually have and that would actually work for you.
Rachael: And I think I try to get people to reflect on that in the prioritize play workshop and in my content, because if you're dreaming or envious of someone that you follow on the internet. Is it because they're doing something different than you or because they're doing something that you wish that you could be doing or think that you could do better? If we play around with the idea of, "Okay, I'm going to go stay in this city for a month and see what happens." Which of course is what a privilege to be able to decide to do that. I've never gone and stayed somewhere for a month. And maybe that's the key, is staying for longer. When I'm dreaming about this life of three months here, three months there, I've only ever spent five to seven days because it's truly vacation. But playing to figure out what you actually enjoy, what lights you up. And then, can you build that into your life? Because I see people that are homesteading and I'm like, "Oh, that looks so romantic."
Lauren: Oh yeah, I'm homestead curious.
Rachael: I would hate that. I don't like those kind of chores. Why would I think...? And it's just because it looks so dreamy and I'm like, "I would love to have my own source of eggs." Instead, I'll be your neighbor and come over and take your eggs and offer you, I don't know, friendship in return.
Lauren: Yeah, exactly. Or maybe you would have a chicken someday, but you don't want a whole farm.
Rachael: I don't. I don't like cooking. I'm not trying to make my own bread every day. No way.
Lauren: I understand. I love making bread. It really isn't worth it.
Rachael: I love eating the bread that you make when you make too much. It is so hard cooking for one. Oh man.
Lauren: Even I was trying to explain to Kristle today, when you offered me, "Do you want to keep some of the birthday cake that I made for you?" I was like, "It felt wrong to keep any cake that I made for someone else." But I also understand that it's hard for you as someone who lives alone too, to eat a whole cake.
Rachael: Bless you for thinking that it was hard for me to eat the whole cake. Yeah, you're right. It was so hard. Not like I ate it every single meal.
Lauren: Did you do the sliver method where you just cut off?
Rachael: No, I cut huge chunks. Sliver method's not my style. I'm like, "We're going."
Lauren: Incredible.
Rachael: Yeah.
That is another thing though, thinking about cooking and how I talk so much about how I hate it. I do think it's because I don't make time for it. Because the week after I got back from my vacation, I had no plans. I intentionally kept my calendar open. And it wasn't hard, I just said, "I'm not available until this day." And so I need to remember that. But I took the time to look up a couple of recipes, go get groceries. I made a couple of meals over a couple of days, and had extra because it's just me. And then I was like, "Oh, I'm capable of doing this and it wasn't that bad, because I made one meal and it made three and I just had time to do it." And so I was really reflecting on that.
I still don't love cooking, but it wasn't as hard as I make it out to be. It's just I don't ever build in time to do it. Because it's, I go straight from my job to working on my creative job or to hanging out. I have time for one thing after work, so is it getting groceries? Is it cooking? Is it going to yoga? Is it hanging out with someone?
Lauren: What you just said is, oh, that is so real. Because in my season of change, that's one thing I've had to recalibrate in the last couple months actually, is I love cooking so much. And what you said, it is not fun to cook when you're pressed for time or you don't have a stocked pantry and you're just throwing stuff together. That is not fun, because I luxuriate in cooking so much, it isn't always the best use of my time when I have to manage a bunch of other stuff in my life. Like keeping my business on track when things are kind of nutty right now. And so I've had to tell myself, in terms of priorities," Hey, I know you love cooking, but is it really worth your time today?"
Like you said, you work during the day, you're tired, you have room for one activity in the evening. Is spending three hours baking bread, instead of setting myself up for either relaxing, socializing, or working on a personal creative project. Am I going to choose baking a loaf of sourdough bread, which I love, but isn't going to get me closer to the other things that I say I want, the other goals? And so I've made the decision to cook a little bit less, even though I still cook every day. I cook more than the average person, but I've had to curtail that in order to make space for the other things I also keep saying that I want and care about.
And I think that's what you're doing right now too with your social life is as a chaotic creative, there's a lot of stuff we want. And there is room for all of it, just not all at the same time, unfortunately. That is such a tough pill to swallow, one that I have to force-feed myself every day, but it is what it is. So I completely understand what you mean. And I think that especially, I think it'll be relevant to a lot of people listening because a lot of our listeners have full-time jobs. I think the average person online following creative people, even someone like me who does this full-time, most people have full-time work, and it isn't realistic to have five hours a day to work on your passion projects. I understand that you might only have, again, one, two good hours of juice left in you at the end of the day, and you just have to be intentional with it.
Rachael: Yeah, exactly. And I think intentionality is really key. And I like something that you said about, is this helping me reach a goal? I have that written on a post-it in my office. Is this decision helping me reach my goals? And some of my goals are connection, so it's not so much business tech bro, meet this revenue goal. It's meeting my goals for the type of life I want to live. And if I'm overcommitting myself and then depleted, am I actually showing up for those people that I'm making time for emotionally? Probably not. I'm probably a little crabbier and less generous with my time and attention and also then depleted for myself. So if I'm not making time to rest or to re-energize myself in my own way, which is being at home alone, I'm not really showing up as my best self.
Lauren: Yeah. It's, I think as chaotic creatives, it's almost fighting the urge to do too many things at 60% effort versus if you just pair back the number of things you're doing, you can really show up a hundred percent. And that in my experience has been better. It's yielded better results. I enjoy it more. The people around me enjoy it more. I also, in a professional sense, get more out of it. But there is that chaotic creative, like you said, ADHD, the buffet is closing in 15 minutes, desire to just cram it all in.
Rachael: Fill that plate. Make yourself sick.
Lauren: Get your money's worth.
Rachael: And I think you said it a couple times, but thinking about our listeners who have full-time jobs, have families. You and I are both single and no kids. Pretty light on the responsibility, obviously making money and paying our bills and creating the lives that we want. But our priorities are different than people who have maybe some more familial responsibility or maybe more draining day jobs.
So I think it's tough to prioritize play, and I hear that from people all the time when I am talking about that workshop. And I think that yes, we may only have one to two good hours of brain space. But I think we can break it down into really small chunks of, what is something that is a decision helping you reach your goal? But maybe your goal is to just have more time to play or experiment with a new hobby or find something that is energizing to you in your very limited downtime, like researching something, saving something on Pinterest, buying one ingredient for a recipe you want to try. Doing one small step instead of beating yourself up that you don't have a ton of time for it. Making small incremental steps toward that creative practice or that goal, I think is better than getting in your head and being like, "Well, I don't have time." Or doing what I'm doing and saying, "I'm going to make time," and then nothing gets done or I'm drained. So does that make sense?
Lauren: Yes, that totally makes sense. The thing that came up for me when you were saying that is one trap, I've talked about this before, but I still fall into it a lot. Is, I know myself enough as do you when you're like, "Oh, I haven't made something in a while. I really want to carve out time to create some personal work." And you're like, "Okay, cool. I've got this weekend." Again, single, no kids, live alone. I've got all the time and space, and then I get into this toxic-ass trap of getting on my phone, looking up inspo for the thing I think I want to make. Two hours later, my brain is zapped from looking at all this amazing work that other people have made, that my brain goes, "You could never make anything like that." And so I go, "Why even bother?" When what I should have done is put my phone down, picked up the clay, picked up the paint, whatever it was, and just got started.
Lauren: Put on music and start it.
Rachael: Or put on an episode of Chaotic Creatives.
Lauren: Exactly. Hearing me cough into the mic.
Rachael: One of our listeners just sent in a message and said that they made a jumpsuit while they listened to season one and sent a picture and it's so cool. A two-tone jumpsuit.
Lauren: I love that.
Rachael: So please keep doing that. If you guys are listening while you're working on your projects, we would love to see. Yeah. They said, "You're like my very creative godmother." I was like, "Yeah, that's us. We're cheering you on."
Lauren: What an honor.
Rachael: Truly.
Lauren: Wow.
Rachael: So I want to know, Lauren, I know you've been in this season of change, as have I, and I already mentioned that I haven't had any time to work on anything creative, but I made a dress.
Lauren: That's something.
Rachael: So yeah, I squeezed it in. I want to know, even though you've been navigating a lot of tough business decisions, not so much on the creative side of your creative business, have you had any time to play creatively? Have you made anything? Obviously the mural. Or did the workshop participants make this?
Lauren: So the workshop participants made this main wall that you're sitting in front of. This is going to sound so silly, the workshop participants did paint this wall as well, but because we re-shot my online mural class, we piggybacked off of the in-person workshop to take that energy and just film, re-shoot the online version. So I repainted this wall. So I guess that was fun. I was telling Kristle when we were shooting, painting the exact same artwork over my students' artwork, it did remind me though, this is the difference between a beginner mural and someone who's been doing it for 10 years. And not to negate the work that my students did, because they did amazing for beginners. Oh my gosh, so good. But I was like, "Oh, yeah, I have been doing this for a while." And it tied into the whole what I've been going through with my business of, "Yeah, I haven't managed my own business for a decade, but I can do this." I've been in the room, I've been watching.
Rachael: You also built it. It's not like you took over and you were creative director. You built it, and you used to do this kind of stuff in a different smaller capacity before you had an agent, and now you're just doing it in a different capacity.
Lauren: Yeah. I think I sent to you in a voice memo last week or the week before.
Rachael: We love voice notes.
Lauren: Yeah. I'm not sure when I'll get another agent, if I'll get another agent. Right now I'm just riding out the wave of getting my sea legs is what I've been saying, of managing my own stuff.
Rachael: I think you mean your surf legs.
Lauren: Surf legs. My surf legs and arms.
Rachael: Thank you.
Lauren: I've honestly been so used to, for lack of a better term, having a handler, like a mommy or a daddy to hold my hand and do the hard stuff, say the big numbers so the client can sign off on it. And I'm like, "No, I'm 33 years old and I should be able to do this." So that's the current phase that I'm in. So I feel like my version of play right now is in running my business because it's new to me. It's like rediscovering, dusting off this old part of my operation that I just haven't touched in such a long time. And it's scary, but also exciting in a way. And so that's the newness in my life right now.
But other than that, I've been getting a lot of energy from teaching in person. I guess this is coming out in October. I'm back on the speaking circuit at design conferences. That's one thing I've been intentionally doing is, I feel like I did a bad job of marketing on my end, of letting people know that, "Hey, after culinary school, I'm coming back to my studio and I'm still available as a designer." I'm going to take my time monetizing cooking. I don't think I'm going to go work in a restaurant, so I'm back on the speaking circuit. And that also means workshops. So I've been getting a lot of energy from teaching, and I think that's something that... I started my teaching experience in person, I went online and now I'm back to in person. I still have online classes, but I think what's giving me creative energy right now is having dialogue with people in person and watching people do the thing.
And there's a lot of troubleshooting that can happen in real time in person that I always struggled with online, even though I love the access that online classes provide. I'm trying to figure out that balance of how much I do in person, or maybe it's a live webinar component and an online thing. So I'm reconfiguring those ratios in my own world right now.
Rachael: Yeah, great. Still very business play, but it's like a necessity right now.
Lauren: Yeah. It's weird. I wouldn't have previously said that things like negotiating my own projects would feel like play. But because it's new and it's been a decade perhaps, it does feel, it's almost just... I feel like an anxiety, but I also know it's a good anxiety.
Rachael: A motivator.
Lauren: The worst I can say is no. It's like dipping my toe in the water, seeing what happens.
Rachael: I love that. And I think because you are seeing this as play, it's just showing that you're working in alignment with your life and values and what you enjoy and your skill sets, the perfect path. Which obviously you have 10 years of experience and success in that. But I was talking to a friend last week, and when I launched this style challenge, this time it's a free challenge. I had previously just put the prompts on my Instagram and pinned it, and you could access it there. And instead of doing it that way, I wanted people to do a download so that I could have access to them and share more resources, but also share more detail. I am so long-winded and there's so much nuance to what I share, and Instagram is lovely, but it also, it forces brevity.
Lauren: Yes.
Rachael: And there's so much more to personal style for me, as you know because I talk about it all the time and all of you listeners know as well, than just the clothes. And so I wanted to talk about that, and I wanted to talk about the reflections, which are a very important part of doing these style challenges. So I created just a couple of page PDF download. And making that probably took me a couple of hours, but I was so jazzed after I made it. And then set up my automations to be like, "Hey, comment 'style challenge', I'll send this to you," and all of that. That stuff was working. And it feels really exciting to learn a new tool. And I think that people really hate on these like. "I hate the automated tool where it's like, "Comment this," and it's like you're not interacting with the person." Yes, but also I made the response, it's still me responding if you just want the download.
Lauren: And it's a way to engage more.
Rachael: Yes. Yeah. I want you to have access to this thing and it's faster than me responding individually, and you can get it immediately. And I think like any tech tool, if we use it with intention, it can be a benefit to our business. And so I think I hadn't thought about that as play, but you saying those things reminded me that, oh yeah, I'm building all of these things and expanding. I'm working on an expansion for the Dress For Yourself course. Because I have so much more to share about it related to packing and related to intentional secondhand shopping and my approach to thrifting. And I want to share all of those as resources. And that's so much fun for me to create those resources, which then again, is showing me, oh, this is in, all of this 'work' is in alignment with what I really want to do and what lights me up.
Lauren: Totally. I mean, anything can feel like play. One thing that can feel like play to you could feel like a slog to somebody else.
Rachael: Totally.
Lauren: And it's also how you approach it. One thing that came to mind when you were talking about the automations and stuff, I don't know if he still has this. But I could have sworn that years ago, this one illustrator that I follow who I really like, Mr. Bingo, I think he shared a screenshot online of his email sequence of when someone unsubscribes. It usually says like, "We're so sorry to see you go." His was just like, "I'm glad you're gone. Get the fuck out of here." You can be playful with these things depending on your personality and your brand, and it doesn't have to be so stuffy. You can make it playful.
Rachael: I literally call the mini chat feature, I call it my little internet or digital fairy friend.
Lauren: And I think when we talk about automations like that, the way that I think about it is it saves us time as entrepreneurs, but what is it saving me time for? Is it so I can do other creative things? Is it in service of something else, or is it just automated for automation's sake? And most of the time the things in my business that are automated are so I can do less of the sloggy work, that feels like a slog to me, and more of the stuff that lights me up.
And honestly, if I'm being completely candid, a lot of the reason why I do the work that I do, whether it's teaching or lettering, drawing, painting murals, it's selfish. It's because I like doing it and it's actually very important to me that I stay in love with the work that I'm doing, or else I will resent it and not want to do it anymore. And because part of my motivation for doing my work is because I didn't want a real job, and I want to like the work that I'm doing, and I want to make my own schedule. So it's actually an imperative that I stay in love with the work.
Rachael: Yeah. And I think me closing my stationary business is a perfect example of that. I could've continued on and powered through and kept growing it and kept creating things, but it wasn't lighting me up. I did not want to do those things. The parts of the business that became necessary for me to spend most of my time doing were the logistics things, and I missed just making a silly little project. I made this egg rating book.
Lauren: You showed it to me. It's so great.
Rachael: And I just spent-
Lauren: Because Rachael loves eggs.
Rachael: I love eggs, and I am going to eat eggs.
Lauren: Specifically deviled eggs,
Rachael: Deviled eggs.
Lauren: Which are the superior eggs. I will die on that hill.
Rachael: I agree. I will die on the hill with you with eggs. And I wanted a way, so a friend of mine and I are going to eat a bunch of deviled eggs. That's our plan. And I made a score-sheet booklet for us, and I drew everything. I used Procreate, I brought it into Photoshop. I made it into a zine. I cut it out. I literally sewed it into cardstock. I ordered stampers for giving the ratings, and I have shown every single person in my life, I'm like, "Look at this egg book."
Lauren: Because you're jazzed about it.
Rachael: I'm jazzed about it. And that is what I missed from the end parts of my stationary business. It's so fun for me to come up with an idea and execute it, and it was the continuous production and the wholesale accounts. Maybe I should have hired those things out, but I wasn't making enough money to do that, and so it was time for me to pivot and be like, "Okay, this isn't actually lighting you up anymore. You need to try something else." And now I'm able to connect with people, and that is ultimately, I think what the core value of my stationary business was. Connecting with people by sending a card or helping someone feel seen because of a sticker that I drew of Jeff Goldblum's face or something. But that same value is in the work that I'm doing now. It's just being executed in a different way, and so it's just me getting clearer on what is going to continue to light me up to achieve those values in my life.
Lauren: Exactly.
Rachael: Yeah. It's imperative that we have fun, I think is the goal. You should make an egg.
Lauren: Yes.
Rachael: ... Score-sheet yourself.
Lauren: For anyone who is going through, I've been through this before where it feels selfish to enjoy your work. Because it's easy when you're doomscrolling to be like, "Oh my God, my life is so... Who am I to enjoy my work or enjoy my life?" Stop it. As artists, as creative people, as chaotic creatives. It is like oxygen. You actually have to do it for yourself. The same way we talk about taking care of mental health, physical health, that is part of your creative health. And all of us got into the creative work that we're doing or any kind of creative stuff, even if you don't do it for work full time, because you just felt a need to. It's something that you-
Rachael: You have to.
Lauren: It's something that you would do even if you weren't getting money for it. Even if you're not getting money for certain projects, you just have to do it. It's like a creative hygiene kind of thing.
Rachael: Totally. No one is paying me for that egg score-book, but it is the joy of my life right now.
Lauren: I guarantee you there's one person, at least one person listening right now who wants to buy that egg book from you right now.
Rachael: Yeah. Maybe it's a digital download. Maybe if we ever make a Patreon, I'll put it in there.
Lauren: Or have an egg sponsor.
Rachael: Egg sponsor. Can you imagine? Oh, I would love to have an egg sponsor so that you could make a bunch of different kinds of deviled eggs, and I would eat them. And we would eat them. Kristle, do you like deviled eggs? Great. All three of us. Perfect. On that eggy little note, should we wrap up?
Lauren: Let's do it.
Rachael: Okay. I already asked you what projects you've been working on, how you've been playing. But how about I ask, is there anything that you're jazzed about that's upcoming?
The same? More of the same.
Lauren: I honestly think-
Rachael: Sorry to put you on the spot.
Lauren: No, it's totally fine. I honestly think more of the same. I am just, for anyone out there who resonates with this, I feel like I'm just surviving this season of life. But I'm trying to do the thing that you were talking about, where life is a little bit more chaotic and unpredictable than it typically has been, and I'm trying to figure out what lessons I can glean from this kind of weirdness. Things are not dire, they're not horrible, they're just weird. And it's been a reset in a way. Because everything's up in the air, even though it wasn't my choice, it's been a opportunity to figure out, "Okay, all the puzzle pieces got thrown up in the air. Do I want to reconfigure them? Do I want to change anything up?" Because I have been so hands off with a lot of my business that it's nice to go in with the fine tooth comb and just see what I might want to change.
Rachael: Yeah. An opportunity for reset.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Yeah. And I feel like you caught your surfboard, back in the wave. Maybe you got thrown off-
Lauren: But I that had the thing with the cord and the ankle.
Rachael: The leash. What is it called?
Lauren: I think it's actually called a leash.
Rachael: I think it is too. You had it attached, it stayed attached. You grabbed your board, you've just now started paddling again. You're jumping back up. Why am I so stuck on this surf analogy? I'm going to go to Portugal next year, and I told Christina, I was like, I have been to many different countries where I wanted to take surf lessons, and the people that I was with either didn't want to or we didn't have time." And I wasn't adamant about it, and I was like, "I know this isn't for a long time, but I want to take a lesson in Portugal, so it's happening." Yeah. So we're on this surf analogy, but I think that's something that you should be jazzed about and proud of yourself for, and I'm proud of you as your friend.
Lauren: Yeah. What about you?
Rachael: I'm excited to share my surprise egg booklet with the recipient. I made the dress this weekend as a test run to see if I liked the pattern, and I think I'm going to do a modification and make another one in a different style, in different fabric, so it will lie different. Those are the two main things that came to mind. It's my birthday tomorrow.
Lauren: Oh my God. Yeah. That is really exciting.
Rachael: But I also feel like I've already been celebrating since last week because-
Lauren: As you should.
Rachael: We kicked it off together. Lauren made me a beautiful, delicious cake, passion fruit curd, strawberry and almond cake layers. I have eaten it every day until it was gone.
Lauren: I'm so glad. It was my first time making a Swiss meringue buttercream too, which is a lot different than a American style buttercream. And I don't know if you noticed, but it's a lot lighter than an American buttercream.
Rachael: Yeah, it was perfect. It was the perfect ratio. Oh my God, it was so good.
Lauren: Then we had a delicious dinner at She Wolf, got a free appetizer because our bartender overheard us gabbing about it.
Rachael: Humming and hawing. We both got tummy aches.
Lauren: Yeah. But we don't know if it was-
Rachael: From delicious food.
Lauren: Yeah. We don't know what exactly it was from.
Rachael: Yeah, I always have a tummy ache, so I'm like, I don't know.
Lauren: I never have a tummy ache, I was like, "Hey, are you good today? Because I'm not."
Rachael: Yeah. We still had a good time, though.
Lauren: We has a lovely time.
Rachael: It's delicious. And then, I think just I've been doing, last year I threw a big party, which sadly, you were in New York, you were missed. And I thought I would want to do something a little bit smaller scale, but still have a party this year. So I was talking about a tea party. I made Lauren and Kristle put it on their calendars months ago, and then a couple weeks ago, I was like, "I just don't..." Obviously, it's what I talked about the whole episode. I'm feeling exhausted, and I could not be bothered to plan a party and figure out, I wanted to have a tea party with little sandwiches and different teas.
Lauren: Hosting is a lot of effort.
Rachael: Yeah. And I wanted to do a good job, and instead I was like, "I don't have it in me. I just want to go to the ceramic studio and make little projects and just have an alone day." So I've done a couple dinners here and there, and I have a couple more the rest of the week. But I'm excited about that. I love getting older. Every year I feel very grateful for the lessons learned and the forced growth.
Lauren: Yeah, I feel like, I don't know if you feel this way, but every year my birthday comes around. I feel more like myself. I feel like I'm just, every year is inching closer to who I'm supposed to be.
Rachael: Yes. I love that. I wrote that in the caption today about forced growth. Also, just every year that I get older, I feel more like I'm being authentic to myself and figuring out what my values are and how I want to live my life, and I'm more sure of the person that I am.
Lauren: That's great. It means you're paying attention. It means you're living your life, but also paying attention. I also love forced growth, forced fun.
Rachael: Yeah. I love a forced activity.
Lauren: I mean, sometimes you have to, what came up for me was when you said forced whatever, it's like you have to parent yourself. It's like forcing your kid to jump in the pool with the floaties on. You're going to be fine, but do it. Do it.
Rachael: Yeah. Try it. You can get through this. Yeah, I think there were a lot of moments like that in the past year of me being like, "Oh shit, this is hard. But I'm learning a lot." And in the moment it's like, "Shut the fuck up, girlfriend," my inner fairy voice that's like, "You're going to learn from this and you're going to have growth." And sometimes you just want to cry and scream, but then after the fact, I mean, I love to reflect, probably too much. And so, it forced growth and lessons learned, and I'm a better person because of it.
Lauren: I can attest to that because I've witnessed it slowly in you over the last six or seven years. That is so wild.
Rachael: I think we're approaching eight.
Lauren: Whoa.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: My timeline is way off. Oh, I also just thought of something too, to answer your question. I have been jazzed about what I texted you about a couple weekends ago. I've been melting down old makeup into new makeup, because I'm turning into my hoarder grandmother. I have the inability to throw anything away, so I have just this bin of makeup that I either dropped or is dried up. And I've just been mixing old lipsticks and lip stains together with cocoa butter, shea butter, and just Aquaphor just into pastes, different colorful pastes and seeing what works. I've made some really nice colors, because it's, anything that I've bought or been gifted worked for me, and I can tweak the colors. The only thing I'm running into is the stuff that I've been making, maybe because I've been mixing it with pure cocoa butter or other oils and stuff. When I put it on my lips, it kind of tastes bad., so I haven't solved that one yet, but it looks good.
Rachael: That's your next step.
Lauren: Looks good, tastes bad. My memoir.
Rachael: Someday we'll write these memoirs. Looks good. Tastes bad.
Lauren: But that's been my own fun, playful process.
Rachael: I don't think that one's yours. Maybe that's the subtitle.
Lauren: Yeah. I'm wearing a cheek stain that I made out of an old sunscreen and some lip stain and a blush.
Rachael: Queen of sustainability. Wow.
Lauren: Okay. A simple one that anyone can do. Let's say you dropped a bronzer or something, or you just have a bronzer. Shave some off into some lotion that you like, and now you have sparkly lotion. Easy.
Rachael: Beautiful. That reminds me, there was a Jergens tinted sparkly lotion when I was in high school, and I was a cheerleader, and so we would just slather that on.
Lauren: Anything to glisten.
Rachael: I'm glad that glisten is back, because it was matte for a while.
Lauren: It was so matte for a while.
Rachael: Yeah. The natural sheen of my sweaty body is back in style, and I appreciate that.
On that note, let's wrap up.
Lauren: Great.
Rachael: Welcome back to Chaotic Creatives.
Lauren: Thank you so much for joining us for season two. We're so excited to share our, I don't know, insights, thoughts, rants-
Rachael: Chaotic energy.
Lauren: We're excited to share in the chaos with you.
Rachael: Yeah. See you next time.
Lauren: Bye.