There are SO MANY shared lessons on building healthy romantic relationships and joyful, sustainable creative passions that Lauren and Rachael HAD to discuss it for this episode. In examining their dating experiences, they give key insights into the practices and postures that have allowed them to keep the spark alive on their chaotic creative journeys.
There are SO MANY shared lessons on building healthy romantic relationships and joyful, sustainable creative passions that Lauren and Rachael HAD to discuss it for this episode. In examining their dating experiences, they give key insights into the practices and postures that have allowed them to keep the spark alive on their chaotic creative journeys.
Episode Mentions:
The transcript for this episode can be found here!
Rachael: Before we jump into the episode, I wanted to do a quick little plug for my in-person Dress for Yourself course that I'll be doing in Chicago on Sunday, November 10th.
It's going to be a big event of Dress for Yourself Day; so, we'll start the day with the workshop and then the participants of the workshop will be able to stick around and do a clothing swap. So, after we've noodled on our personal style and started to gain a little bit more understanding, we can do a little secondhand clothing exchange.
And then in the afternoon there's a slow fashion and sustainable fashion market and there'll be a DJ. It's at a really cool venue and you can get your tickets and more information at the link that we share in the show notes.
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Lauren: It feels good to be chosen. It feels good to be wanted. It also in this economy, the financial security of having a dual-income household is nice.
Rachael: I'm trying to be a DINK, double income no kids.
Lauren: Hello and welcome to the new setup of Chaotic Creatives, the show about embracing the chaos that comes from living a creative life.
Rachael: We are your hosts, two self-proclaimed chaotic creative gals. I am Rachael Renae. I'm an enthusiastic style gal, and I'm here to hype you up to Prioritize Play to live a big, juicy life.
Lauren: And I am Lauren Hom, better known as Hom Sweet Hom on the internet. I am a designer, lettering artist, muralist, and most recently chef.
Rachael: What are we talking about today? Lauren, I'm really excited about this one.
Lauren: We're talking about a topic you and I discuss privately all the time.
Rachael: Every single time.
Lauren: That we've finally I think been able to translate into an appropriate for the public conversation.
Rachael: We'll see.
Lauren: Today we are talking about the parallels that we've noticed over the last year between finding love and finding your creative spark or the thing you want to do creatively. As both of us have been dating over the years, we've realized that a lot of the advice tends to have some crossover about intuition and figuring out what you like and what you don't like. Knowing your deal breakers, knowing the things-
Rachael: To let go.
Lauren: Yes, and a lot of times these things that can feel pretty ambiguous when it comes to creative decisions, career decisions, we actually have a lot of experience with this when it comes to dating. A question we get asked a lot is how do you know when to end a creative project or when to try something new or change career paths? And there is no easy answer, but we were talking about this the other day. How do you intuitively know when it's time to end a relationship? Or whether you've been on three dates or whether you've been dating for three years, you just kind of have that gut feeling of this is not working for me anymore. And I think we've been able to apply a lot of those same feelings across dating to creativity and vice versa.
Rachael: Absolutely. I think I've been trying to be aware of my own practice of doing this, of building up the muscle of my intuition. The more that you can trust yourself, and we talked about this in a previous episode, last season about making decisions and then expanding your capacity for discomfort. Even if it's just going to a restaurant, ordering something that you don't normally order, finding out you don't like it, you learn something and it's you trusting yourself instead of hemming and hawing and asking the ... We talked about this when we went for my birthday dinner, asking the server, what do you like? And then really looking for validation on the choice you had already made. If you can be decisive, you learn to trust your gut even in those very small sort of situations that don't really have a huge impact. Like, okay, you don't like your food, that sucks.
Food gals here, we've got our snack selection in front of us for those of you that are not watching the video. But I think it's about learning to trust that intuition and building it up as a muscle. And the more you can do that with little decisions, the more it impacts the larger decisions in your life. Like what to pursue creatively or what to pursue in love.
Lauren: Absolutely. The thing that just came to mind was, I don't know if you've seen that meme that's like, "I don't know why the love of my life can't just come find me in my home."
Rachael: Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Lauren: And it obviously resonates with so many people because people don't want to leave the house. But if you want to find love, you know that what you have to do is date. Go on actual dates or at least get on an app or go meet people somewhere. You just have to meet people somewhere and then you have to test the waters.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: Literally trial and error of do we have enough in common? How does it feel? And we've all had those experiences for anyone who's dated online too, where the vibe seemed great online and then you meet in person and you're like, "What the fuck?" And really that's a testament to the fact that you have to try it out. And I think the parallel here to creativity is it's so easy now we have access to so many creative tutorials to inspirational maker content where it's like, oh my gosh, this person sculpted that thing or sewed this thing and we have like eyes are bigger than our stomach kind of approach to choice paralysis almost. We don't know what direction to go in because there's so many good options.
And I think a lot of times people say the same thing about what dating apps have done to dating where it's like there's too many options. And honestly, what you have to do is just make a couple connections and go from there, what you have the capacity for. And so with creative stuff, we talked about this in season one. one. Of my pitfalls is I'll wake up on a Saturday morning being like, okay, today is craft day, today's art day, experiment day, and then I go on Pinterest or YouTube, watch a bunch of tutorials and feel overwhelmed when I should have just jumped in there myself and figured it out for myself because I have an intuition on how to make something. I just was, like you said, looking for reassurance from external sources that my way was going to be the right way when there's 100 ways to get to from point A to point B.
Rachael: And I think getting that validation from an external source is something we all are always going to be pursuing. But I think one of the things that I feel like has made me so confident in who I am is just knowing that other people don't know me as well as I know myself. This kind of mindset shift happened. I've talked about my style journey a lot, wearing my fun monochrome fit today.
Lauren: Love it.
Rachael: Also, we haven't commented on the set. I know that this is a podcast, but we do record video and we made the cutest little set with a combination of mine and Lauren's artwork and it's very fun. I brought the pink.
Lauren: I love that it worked out. To give you some context, this set is from the photo shoot we did for season two to announce season two. And we loved it so much that we were like, "Why don't we keep it and try recording from here?" Because we shot photos sitting on this workbench, and I think that's also a testament to letting yourself adapt and explore and play. This was just supposed to be for the photo shoot, but once we actually tried it on similar to how you try on a new outfit or style, and then you're like, "Wait, this feels great." You can surprise yourself really, because I think the older I've gotten too, this applies to creative stuff, dating, you just get a little more set in your ways where it's like, "No, I'm this kind of person." That wouldn't work for me. And then you try it out and you're like, "Actually that was cool."
Rachael: It's keeping that curiosity that we've talked about.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Okay. So yeah, back to my story. Sorry, it's side quest. I feel like I was drawn to so many more "unique styles" and wasn't really sure how to implement that in my own wardrobe. Had a lot of trouble with defining my personal style, and I was looking for this external validation like, "Oh, I need to dress like these people I admire. I need to dress a certain way." And once I started to play and experiment and just really feel how I was feeling in the clothes, I was able to recognize that even if someone said it didn't match, or even if someone said it was too fancy for this thing because I literally had people that I care about say, "Why are you wearing that? You look so much better in just like jeans in a t-shirt." I hate wearing jeans in a T-shirt. You will never catch me in jeans. Maybe once every six months I wear jeans. I want to wear pink trousers, slacks, I don't know the term pants, fancy pants.
Lauren: Pants for the legs.
Rachael: Pants for the legs. Anyway, all of this is to say that you have to practice, you have to follow your own curiosity, and then you have to trust that you know yourself best. You know when it's time for a relationship to end. You may stay in it a little bit longer trying to make it work. You also know when it's time to let a creative project go. You recycled that one project we talked about in season one. It can be low stakes as far as learning to trust yourself with the decision making, with the menu items. Or it can be high stakes like ending a long-term relationship, but all of it boils down to trusting yourself. And you just have to keep practicing and trying things and staying curious to find that trust and strengthen it.
Lauren: Absolutely, when you mentioned long-term relationship. So I haven't talked about it a ton here because we mostly discuss creativity, but again, the parallels, I got out of a seven-year relationship and I see a lot of parallels to that. And if you've been on a career path for 7 years, 10 years, whatever it might be, there's actually a thing in the entrepreneur world that they call the seven-year itch. Whereas, after working on let's say a startup, a small business, whatever it might be, around the seven-year mark of working on the same thing, most creative brains start to get a little antsy of what's my next thing? Regardless of the amount of success you've seen with the thing. And that's just something people have noticed.
Rachael: Interesting.
Lauren: And so I really think that lines up, at least for me around the 10-year mark is when I went to culinary school. And I think when it comes to long-term relationships, I've noticed that ... What am I trying to say here? Now that I'm getting back into dating after being in a seven-year relationship, there was a lot of hesitation on my end because one, I'm out of practice. Two, I feel like I'm a completely different person from the last time I was single. But the only way to figure out who you are now and what you're going to want for dating is to get out and date again.
And a lot of advice you'll see too is if you've gotten out of a long-term relationship, just go on some dates, don't put the cart before the horse because a lot of times, especially now that we can look at someone's full on profile, you start projecting, will this person make the perfect long-term partner? You really don't know until ... Just go get coffee. Did you enjoy yourself? Did you like the conversation? Was it clunky? Maybe even go on one more date if you feel like it was a maybe.
But until you get to that point where you definitively know, you don't know, so you have to just go on some dates to figure it out again. And I mean, Kristle and I talk about this all the time, inertia is so powerful. The more you sit back and don't do anything, the harder it is to get back in there. And so you got to build up the muscle, as you said, and just put yourself out there. It gets easier over time once you get into the swing of things and realize that, "Oh, it's not the end of the world if I spend an hour getting coffee with someone who isn't my soulmate," because most likely they're not. And that's, it's still contributing to you finding your next partner.
Rachael: I'm also realizing how parallel, of course it is, this is to finding friends as an adult.
Lauren: Yes.
Rachael: And I think that that's something that a lot of people have asked me questions about on the internet because I feel so strongly about having really nourishing female friendships. And I have so many incredible friends, which we've talked about. Sometimes I overload my social schedule because I have so many great friends. But I think one thing to do is to find what lights you up as an individual and then put yourself out there and do those things, whether it's joining a ceramic studio, taking a sewing class, joining a book club, joining a bowling league. These things are meant for us to meet people. You might not meet your best friends, you might not meet the love of your life, but you are at least starting to surround yourself with people with shared values. And then if you join a bowling league, realize you hate bowling, again, valuable information, then you join some other league and you're meeting people and you're putting yourself out there.
I am not on the dating apps. I don't think that my brain is suited for that. I don't like the Pinterest of it all where I see someone, I'm attracted to them, and then I do project all of the good qualities that I want them to have. And then I'm severely disappointed often when I meet up with someone or I tend to see the best in people, and I think that's one of my endearing qualities. And then I'm disappointed.
And so instead, I'm trying to meet people organically. I have really put a pause on actively pursuing dating because I felt like there were a lot of things that I wanted to do for myself to really lean into my creative practices and learn more about myself. And now that I have, I've spent the last almost year doing so, I feel like I am more open to finding love. And I'm also more confident in what I'm looking for.
Before we started recording, we were talking about Halloween. And on my list, I literally have a list of what ideal attributes an ideal partner would have. I don't expect someone to meet every single thing on this list, but there are some things that are non-negotiable. And then there are some things that are nice to haves. If you're buying a house, for example, you have non-negotiables and you have nice-to-haves.
And one of my nice-to-haves sneaking up toward the top of non-negotiable is liking Halloween, which is, it's such a silly thing on the surface, but actually, it means so much to me. I love Halloween. I love the spooky season. I love the fall. I love all of the foods associated with the fall and Halloween time. I love making a costume. It's one of my favorite forms of creative expression that is literally once a year I'm not making costumes for other things usually. I don't put any pressure to monetize. I just have a really good time. And if I have a partner that is not interested in Halloween, like you said, they're going to yuck my yum and I'm going to have a bad time-
Lauren: And have a me time in the spooky house.
Rachael: In the spooky ... Exactly. And we want the mood to be spooky and fun. So I think the more that we can really reflect on what we're looking for, whether it's a creative project or love, what do I want to get out of my creative practices? Am I doing this just to clear my mind, move my hands, disconnect from screens? Am I doing this because I want a creative career? Do I need to try a little bit harder to produce consistent work and find my personal style as it relates to art? Or am I just looking for a fun thing that gets me excited about a holiday? It's reflecting and understanding what you're looking for in your creative practice and then leaning into it. I think you have a really good analogy that I want you to talk about the watered down version of yourself.
Lauren: This was actually the impetus for this episode months ago when we were having dinner, we were talking about how oftentimes we present a watered-down version of ourselves that's going to be more palatable for let's say the average person. And if you think about it from a dating lens, you're not trying to get everyone's attention. You're trying to attract and appeal to someone who's perfect for you, which is honestly, let's say locally or five people. Who wants to even go on five dates? Five dates is a lot of dates.
Rachael: Five dates is a lot of dates.
Lauren: Do you actually want to present the most concentrated version of yourself, like flying your freak flag as we've talked about, showing your weird early? So then someone doesn't fall in love with their perception of a perceived version of you that is more sanitized, watered down. And the analogy that we have used is don't present a watered down version of yourself, because think about a watered down drink. No one wants a watered down lemonade or martini. No, every watered-
Rachael: I probably do want a watered-down martini because they're a little bit strong.
Lauren: That is fair. But like a splash, right?
Rachael: Yeah. The appropriate amount.
Lauren: Everyone wants a different thing. Present your full self because when you think about dating, I think oftentimes when we think about, let's say how we present our creative businesses online, oftentimes you're like, oh, the more likes, the better. The more palatable I can be to a larger audience, that'll mean I'll get a larger audience. That's not the case. If you try to please everybody, you'll be so boring. One analogy that I heard was, that's similar to the water down version that really stuck with me. I can't remember who said it, but they were talking about how if you try to make yourself palatable to everybody, you literally come off to the audience as if you focus grouped everything, which is so boring.
No one wants to be like that. And honestly, let's say, so I'll speak from my own experience. Oftentimes I'm sanitizing myself a little bit to be a little more brand-friendly. Maybe I curse slightly less or I make one fewer dick joke. Completely understandable. You think about how your, let's say, typical boomer parents raise you to be in a polite society.
Rachael: Well, and I think when you just said that, it just reminded me, I am authentic at my day job, but I'm holding back a little bit.
Lauren: Yeah. You have to calibrate for the room you're in. It totally makes sense. But if you just are yourself from the get-go again, online, you can be whatever you want to be. And yes, there's a certain era of professionalism, but there's a little more leeway for creatives on the internet. And so I think that I have to tell myself, no, be more of yourself because then people won't be surprised at the version of you that they thought you were presenting, because then you'll have less fun sharing and making stuff too, if you're filtering it through, what will the average person in my audience think? The average person in your audience isn't going to be one of your thousand true fans anyways.
Rachael: Right. And I feel like a lot of the marketing newsletter stuff that I've been really enjoying lately, me learning from other people and talking about really engaging with your audience is you want unsubscribes. I think you might've said that from something. I know we read a lot of the same newsletters, but you want people to be like, "Ooh, that was too much." Because if it was too much for someone else, it's exactly right for your right person. Or if you're talking about politics and people are like, "Stay in your lane, sit down." It's like, "Nah, it's all connected, baby. We are not staying in our lane because there aren't lanes." So it's important to let your freak flag fly. That's a tongue twister.
Lauren: It really is.
Rachael: And as the youth say, find somebody to match your freak, both in a creative expression sense and in a dating sense and in friendship. You want to find people that accept and love you for being your full true self. And your audience for your creative expression is also going feel seen and understood by the truest expression of your art.
Lauren: Yeah. And I mean on this topic, in my long-term relationship, I met my ex when I was 25. I was a baby. And it's been really interesting having gone through that experience of being, I think a lot of people listening in your mid-20, this, when you typically tend to meet one of your first long-term relationships, please go for it. Rachael is sneaking a snack right now, which is perfect.
Now that I'm 33, I find that I'm dating with a renewed sense of confidence in who I am. And I honestly think because of the specifics of what I'm looking for, it has narrowed, shrunken my dating pool but in a good way. You don't want infinite options. You really don't. Choice paralysis is a real thing. And when I was 25 and I met Tom, people know my ex's name. It's fine. Also, there's a lot of Tom's in the world. When I met Tom from MySpace ... Could you imagine?
Rachael: Oh man, should have stayed in it, babe if it were Tom. I like the Tom from MySpace, like got in, got out.
Lauren: I know. He's great.
Rachael: He's not one of the tech icons that we hate. He's just Tom.
Lauren: It was funny that he-
Rachael: We don't know what he looks like besides his one-
Lauren: He made everyone be his friend, though.
Rachael: That's a pretty sick move. He's like, "You can choose that I'm not your right audience or I'm not your friend.
Lauren: Of course.
Rachael: Okay. Anyway, sorry.
Lauren: I was so young when I met Tom. He was also pretty young. I knew I was looking for a relationship, but if you had asked me at 25, I could not have told you what I wanted out of a long-term relationship. And honestly, it was a really beautiful time. We spent together figuring out what we wanted in real time alongside each other as we started to knit our lives together, only to realize seven years in like, "Hey, we're actually different people and we want different things, and this is so painful, but we need to split." And I'd rather know that sooner than later.
Rachael: Absolutely.
Lauren: And I think that there's plenty you can do, again, in a practical sense. I understand why we partner up. It feels good to be chosen. It feels good to be wanted. Also in this economy, the financial security of having a dual income household-
Rachael: Oh yeah.
Lauren: ... is nice.
Rachael: I'm trying to be a DINK, Double Income No Kids for those of you that didn't know that term.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: I was like, "Oh, everyone knows what a DINK is, right?" But when I first heard it, I was like, what the ...
Lauren: Yeah, it sounds like a slur.
Rachael: It does.
Lauren: But yeah, there comes a point where once you come into yourself and realize who you are and what you want, and through trial and error, figure out your non-negotiables. And honestly, the things that ended up splitting up me and Tom were things I realized while I was in the relationship. And yeah, it was painful, but I don't fault myself for that because I was so young when we first met.
Rachael: Also, so much growth is painful.
Lauren: Exactly. But there is, even though I would say that a year out, I'm still grieving from the heartbreak and grieving a version of my life that I thought I was going to have. But when people say, "Oh, do you ever think you'll get back together?" Or I have so much clarity and certainty that no, that was a beautiful time in my life, but I've made the right decision for me and now I can move forward. I don't want to call it a fork in the road, but I just have so much certainty that this new path that I'm on, I will be able to live a more fulfilling life. And that's all you can hope for in a friendship, in a creative relationship, in a romantic partnership, is you hope that you're on the same path for a long time. You want to be partners, but once it's no longer working for you, you do have to call it at some point, and that's the kinder decision.
Rachael: And I do think much like we've talked about in previous episodes where deciding that a creative business is ready to be put to rest, I think that we as a society should be shifting our mindset to see a 7, 10-year relationship, marriage or otherwise deciding to part ways as yes, a very painful thing, but ultimately the right decision. And I mean, not every 7 and 10-year relationship ending, but if you've consciously made the choice and come to the understanding together that, oh, this actually isn't serving us anymore. I think that's really beautiful. And it's not a failure.
Lauren: Still a success, yeah.
Rachael: Still a success. Yeah. It doesn't matter if it ends. And I think that especially in American culture, we're taught that you have to get married and stay married forever. And so some people feel that they're failing and then they're not satisfied or not fulfilled in their lives because how magical is it for someone to meet at 25, grow as an individual and stay growing at the same pace and in alignment with another person? It's incomprehensible for me, especially at age 25, where I just wanted a hottie.
Lauren: Yeah. Because you take the off the shelf prescribed versions of what an ideal partner is from your parents, from society, and you're like, "That's what I do really want." And then you get into it and you're like, "Why am I so deeply unsatisfied?"
Rachael: But I feel like at that time in my life, I didn't even have the self-awareness to be like, "Oh, this is dissatisfaction in my relationship." I thought it was just like, "Oh, I'm depressed." But I think probably some of it was mental health, but a lot of that is ... The root cause was that I was deeply unfulfilled in my life. And I talk about that in the Dress For Yourself course because clothing and fashion has been so much a buoy and a parallel in my mental health journey. I've talked about that before. And you've mentioned this just in our casual personal conversations, every iteration of dating that I've experienced has been growth.
Like I am grateful for most of my past relationships, and I think I learned things about myself just as much as learning about what I'm looking for in a partnership. And I think so much of younger versions of me, past versions of me were looking to appease and attract someone in instead of, "Hey, is this person the right fit for me? Am I fulfilled by what they're offering me?" Not, "Can I be a cool hot version of myself and get a catch?"
Lauren: And I have said this to you, we've been friends for eight years now. Every single relationship you've had, I've noticed you've learned from the previous experience and tweaked the formula and been like, "Okay, that didn't work. I think I want to find someone who's more like this." And you've jumped from more spontaneous partners to slightly quieter partners. And we all have our hypotheses about what we think we're going to like, and you really don't know until you try it on. And sometimes you date for three months, six months, six years, and you really have to feel it out to know if it's going to work.
And it's been such an honor to watch you iterate and get closer to finding your perfect person.
Rachael: Thank you.
Lauren: And I get so excited about it as your friend.
Rachael: Yeah, thank you.
Lauren: And there's a lot of parallels between that and watching someone come into their own creative voice., right?
Rachael: Which you've also watched me have an incredible evolution in my creative journey, whether it was from the stationary business to what I'm doing now. I feel like, yeah, there are parallels in relationship with people and with your creative practice.
Lauren: I mean, you and I have seen each other through ups and downs with dating and stuff. And it is nice to have some trusted people too as a sounding board to be like, is this ... We all have our group texts and our pals who are like, "Am I fucking crazy? Is this okay?" Again, it's okay to look for some external validation, you just need another opinion. Was this out of line? Am I asking for too much? Because we all learn from each other. We exist in a society, in a community where we're sharing experiences and trying to have a little bit of better lives for everybody.
Rachael: Yeah. Ultimately, for me and my journey of finding love and finding my perfect balance of creative practice, I think so much of it is just self-reflection. And I did not have the tools to do that when I was younger with any of my creative practices or my relationships. When I was younger, I used to make it really easy to date me. I was-
Lauren: I think so many people can relate to that.
Rachael: I am a caring and generous person with my time and attention in general. And it's again, one of my qualities that I really like, but that can tip over into putting other people's needs before my own. And I think what I used to do is I would say to a potential partner like, "Oh, let me plan this date. Let's hang out this day. What date are you available? Here are my calendar dates."
And I would do all of the emotional labor and then we would start dating because wow, how easy is it for me to date someone like Rachael, who's planning all the dates, who's doing all the things? And then very quickly that would turn into resentment. And there's a quote that I have a mental health quotes saved note in my phone. And one of the things that always sticks with me is resentment is a mirror showing you when you're putting someone else's needs before your own, which has historically been my experience in relationships where I make it super easy to date me and then I get mad at my partner when I actually want things to switch. But they're used to that version of me because that's what I presented from the beginning. And so it's not fair to me and it's not fair to them. It's a misalignment.
So the more that I could show up as myself and take a step back, even though I like to plan dates and I like to be organized and get things on the calendar, I want someone to take initiative. So it needs to be mutually energy matched and freak matched.
Lauren: Oh, I mean, that makes so much sense. One of my biggest questions because I've been slow to start dating again after my last relationship is in journaling, doing a lot of reflection on exactly what you said, do I like this person or do I like the feeling that they picked me? It does feel good to be desired. It feels good to be wanted, but it's like, no, we should like each other for each other and not just what we can do for each other, but how we feel when we're together. Really, again, one of us isn't the one that's pulling all the weight in the relationship. And I think it's easy when you're younger to just be like, pick me please. Someone just choose me. I'll make it so easy for you to like me. And I think that energy though, I see it with creative work a lot of times, and I've myself have done this, especially when you're just starting out and you're so desperate for new clients.
The only way you figure out how to draw boundaries a lot of times as a young creative, like freelancer business owner is to oftentimes have those violated where you bend over backwards to try to meet a client who's only paying you $500 needs. And then you feel that resentment of like, "Wait, they expect me to text them back at 10:00 PM about their question, or they expect me to make the 14th revision on this piece that I'm not getting paid more for?" And once you feel that intuitive sense of resentment or that you're being taken advantage of, that's when you start to put in safeguards and some guard rails of like, "Okay, no, I have a kill fee. No, you only get this many revisions."
And the same way we talk about how important communication is between you and your romantic partner, I think the same applies to communication between creative and client and creative and customer, where you can have very firm boundaries, parameters, but they need to be communicated upfront. And one thing that I've noticed in myself, I think a lot of creatives will be able to relate to this, is we don't always do the best job of communicating our needs and what it's going to take to work with us to clients because especially when times are tough and you're just like, "I need money, I need work." It's easy to say yes to that slightly overreaching contract or it's easy to say, "Yeah, sure, I'll do that." Instead of having the uncomfortable conversation of like, "Actually, if you look at our contract, any work outside of this scope is actually going to be billed at like $150 an hour."
I was telling Kristle this earlier, I got my eyebrows re-microbladed and a lot of beauty service providers have a, if you don't give me at least 24 or 48 hours of notice before you cancel, you don't get your deposit back. And people get mad, like so mad. But that's what was communicated and agreed upon. Not even buried in terms and conditions, but just on the page where you book the appointment. Imagine you're getting beauty services, getting your hair colored, that could be a couple hundred bucks. And the stylist has set aside those four hours in their day that they cannot refill, instantly rebook in their schedule. It's understandable. People will be upset. But back to my original point is like we do have to communicate our needs to clients and vice versa.
I don't think it's sustainable to have a creative career where you're doing all the work to cater to every one of your client's needs. You will resent your job, you will burn out and you will want to do something else. There's so much reciprocity baked into even running a business where it's like, "Hey, no, this is what I need from you in terms of turnaround time, in terms of payment upfront. This is my fee. If you can't meet it, understandable, but I can't work for less than this. Otherwise, I will become resentful."
It's the same thing where if you overextend yourself in a relationship. This happened to me and I think a lot of people will relate to this. You just don't have a conversation about it ahead of time. Before Tom and I moved in together, we didn't even talk about how we were going to divide domestic labor. We didn't talk about who was in charge of what. And we had to go through a lot of trial and error to hammer those things out when resentment did build up.
Rachael: It's so hard to come back once it's there.
Lauren: It's incredibly difficult. And the beautiful thing about if you're a service provider or if you do client work is you get to restart fresh with a new client, every single one. And so similar to me, complimenting Rachael on every one of your relationships I've seen you have over the last eight years has been an improvement on the previous one. I think the same thing applies to our creative businesses where you learn something from each client interaction, so then you can kind of tweak your process to make your business work for you.
And I was actually talking about this with my brow gal. We were talking about how oftentimes you'll get a lot of unsolicited customer advice of like, "Oh, could you offer this or would you be open to bringing this back?" Or, "I'd really love if you did this or if you changed this." If you say yes to every one of your customers' inquiries, demands, it's very much the old school customer's always right mentality. You might end up with a business one day that you don't like. If you don't want to be open from 8 AM to 8 PM don't be. If you don't want to take weekend appointments or do weekend work, don't. Even if it will make you more money, even if there's demand for it, if it doesn't feel right for you, don't do it.
The whole point of running a creative business is that you get to be in the driver's seat. No one got into this work thinking they were going to make bank or we would've chosen some other career path. The whole point of running a creative business is to make sure that you love it as much as possible, more than let's say a nine to five, where you have no control.
Rachael: And I think another reason that so many of us have chosen creative pursuits is because of the flexibility. I mean, I know I have a nine to five, but it is flexible and building your own schedule, building your life how you want to live it is I think one of the main draws. And so why would you not utilize that flexibility to your advantage? If you don't want to work on Tuesdays, don't work on Tuesdays, that's your day off. You build your own schedule. And I think one of the things when you were talking reminded me of, I don't remember where I read it, but you mentioned that the customer is always right. Apparently that actually came from the customer is always right in matters of taste about themselves.
And so it kind of came from the idea of if you work in a clothing store and the customer comes in and says, "I want an all pink outfit," and you think that's wrong, they are correct in matters of taste, but it's been skewed and manipulated into this idea, especially in American culture where it's like, "The customer is always right. You have to do what I say." And it's like, no, I'm not going to stop you from buying the thing that you want because your taste is different than mine. But many quotes, it's been misconstrued over the years, and I think that's really interesting.
And yeah, I could go down a whole thing about American culture and that, but I also want to say in terms of building a creative business and knowing when to quit, also I think is you talked about recognizing when you have that icky feeling in your stomach. And when you said that, I thought of three specific examples where a client asked for something that didn't make sense for when I first started doing hand lettering. Many of us did wedding stuff and-
Lauren: It's a rite of passage.
Rachael:
Yeah, you got it and if you didn't have to, good for you. But I remember I did this big seating chart scroll. It was like an eight foot long roll. And the Pinterest image that the bride sent had 50 guests and she had like 300. So of course I had to make the names way smaller, do three columns instead of two. And she was super disappointed when I sent her a picture and I redid that scroll three times. And I was sick to my stomach and I was like, "I will never do this again." And it took a couple more times of me being like, I'll never do this again to actually stop offering that as a service and just finding someone else to refer them to.
But I also had that experience with clients where they asked for endless revisions, and then you learn to put that in your contract where it's like, "Nope, you get three rounds of feedback and then this is an additional cost." And I think that is kind of true for relationships as well. It's like, "Ooh, I feel my boundaries being violated." It needs to be a conversation. And if it happens again, that's how I know that this person is not respecting me.
And I know that's a very simplified version, but I think ultimately after your creative projects, just like you would after a first date, a second date, you got to sit down and think like, "Okay, what did I like about this? What did I not like?" And I am the type of person that I will kind of justify anything, especially when it comes to human nature. And I'll never forget, I went on this first date with this person and it was really clunky, and I love the meme on the internet that's like, "Girlfriend, you had a good time on the date because you're fun. It had nothing to do with the person that you went on a date with."
So we are the most fun. We have to think we're the most fun. We have to be our own hype pals. But I went on this date and I was hemming and hawing and it was very awkward. And I was trying to give this person the benefit of the doubt, and I was at a game night at my friend's house and her husband was like, "Do you like them? Yes or no?" And I was like, "No." And he's like, "Then don't go on another date." "Yeah." And it was just like, oh my God. Brutal. It took my friend's husband ...
And anyway, sometimes it's reflecting and seeing like, "What did I like about this client interaction? What did I like about this project?" I've asked myself that before doing craft fairs, "Did I have a good time?"
Lauren: Was the juice worth the squeeze?
Rachael: Yes. And if it wasn't, do I really want to do this again? Sometimes the money is a motivator. A lot of times, it's not. If you don't feel good after a client interaction or a craft fair or even just a year of doing your creative business, maybe it's time to pivot, create new boundaries, try a different expression. Stay curious.
Lauren: Oh my God, totally. And similar, you'll find just as much creative advice. That's a little bit like binary. Absolutely do this, definitely don't do that from people's own experiences, but you never know until you try it out yourself. Think about all the romantic relationship advice out there of never go to bed angry or there's no nuance. Sometimes you're going to bed angry, whatever.
Everyone's got their own rituals, their own practices that work for them. A lot of times we'll get it from our parents of like, "Well, you should date this way because I did blah, blah, blah." And oh, what was I going to say? Oh, this is in relation to trying stuff out with, you said craft fairs. A lot of my friends who table at let's say Renegade Craft Fair, some of them make a ton of money based on what they're selling. It has to be the right fit and how long does it take them to make their products, blah, blah, blah.
A lot of my other friends, they don't make a ton of money, but the volume of people coming through and them putting their business cards, Instagram handle, whatever, they might get a wholesale order a month later from a buyer at anthropology or something. And so you have to have your own experience of like, is it going to be worth it for me to table here, the fee, the energy? Because you did craft shows and stationary shows where you're driving, you're hauling a bunch of stuff to me to New York. It's so much [inaudible 00:45:18].
Rachael: Oh my gosh. Yeah, I rented a van, I built a booth, I drove it to New York. I paid to stay in a Holiday Inn in New York in Manhattan, which was so expensive and so small and so not nice. And I thought for sure, "Oh, me investing in this and following the path of the people that I admire is the right move." And it wasn't worth it to me. And I cried after the first or second day. I was like, "This isn't it."
Lauren: You viscerally felt it. You were like, ""Nope, this is bad. This feels icky.
Rachael: I'm so disappointed. This is not what I was expecting it to be. The people at that show were not my target market, and I had to learn that. And I also wasn't ready. I had the blessed confidence of someone new in the industry, which is lovely and love to ride that energy. But yeah, I wasn't ready. And it was an extremely disappointing experience, and I mean I don't have a stationary business anymore, but I would never do it again.
Lauren: And you never know. Maybe if you started a new facet of your business in 10 years, you have the experience, maybe you would do it again in a different context. But I think back to my own business where I sell no physical products, and that is for a specific reason. I've dabbled in it over the years doing print on demand stuff, or even I used to sell flasks that had ex-boyfriend tiers on them back in 2012, which a gendered project just feels so 2012.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: But it was popular people like them. I did a couple wholesale orders. It felt good. I hate shipping products. Even though, yes, there are lots of lettering artists out there whose work licenses really well. They sell a lot of prints, greeting cards, all of the physical products, with the exception of ex-boyfriend tiers, which I just did for the idea. My work has never sold particularly well as physical products. And for that reason, I cut it out of my business because it wasn't bringing me joy and it also wasn't making me money.
So after a couple tries, and I'd say I tried three or four different products. I just was like, you know what? Not my thing. You can find so much evidence online that it is other people's things.
Rachael: Absolutely.
Lauren: But you have to try it out for yourself, see how it feels in your to-do and then see what it looks like in your business because we are running businesses and if the juice isn't worth the squeeze, whether it's you either have to have money or emotional fulfillment, hopefully a little bit of both.
Rachael: Ideally both.
Lauren: Or a lot of both. But a lot of the times it's not an even balance per se.
Rachael: For sure. Yeah. I think that you talking about the physical product saying I did water down my creative expression when I had the stationary business to try to sell more happy birthday cards and more ... I was producing things for these arbitrary seasonal deadlines and the things that I make now as one-off things, I have so much more fun and they're weirder and they're for my perfect people. And I don't want to wholesale them. I don't want to have a continued product-based business. It's like I've been doing little launches of hats or socks or whatever and then being done, and that feels good. And we just have to figure out what's right for us, whether that's relationship or creative business.
Lauren: I know we're heading towards the end of the episode on, I want to give you plenty of time talk about Halloween.
Rachael: Thank you.
Lauren: But I know one other point we wanted to talk about was most of us are in our creative businesses or want to be in the creative industry long term. And so we were talking before we started recording, a lot of the relationship advice out there related to sustaining a romantic relationship, I've personally found really valuable in thinking about my creative practice and creative business of the cliche is you got to keep the spark alive, you got to spice things up.
And a new slide that I've been putting in my talks that I've been giving is keeping yourself engaged in the work as part of the job description. I wish someone had told me that because oftentimes we think of it as it's like love when you're 25. You're like, "Well, once we fall in love, then we're good, right?"
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: There's no work that needs to be done.
Rachael: There's no effort, yeah.
Lauren: And not all work is bad work. Effort does need to be put in to make sure you're still enjoying the partnership.
Rachael: Yeah. And I think I like that now. I really love communicating through challenges because I think it helps you connect deeper with your person.
Lauren: And your person is evolving too-
Rachael: Or your friend. Exactly.
Lauren: You are as well. So you got to kind of keep the communication up of like, "Hey, do we need to tweak the formula at all?"
Rachael: Yeah. I really am a fan. I mean, I haven't been in a long-term relationship in a while, but I like the idea of, I think it was something that I read in a relationship book or something where you just do weekly check-ins. Like, "Hey, what was your favorite part of the week? Was there anything that I did this week that you didn't bring up that you want to bring up right now?" And I don't know, "What are you most looking forward to?" Or something like that where it's kind of just a quick check-in at the end of the week with your person.
And I did that once in a past relationship thinking some deep, deep things would come up or were just smooth sailing. And my partner was like, "You ate a sub in bed and it really made me mad because you got crumbs in the bed." And that's not something I would've ever considered as being a potential issue, especially because I would've assumed that my partner would've been like, "Don't eat that in my bed." But it was proof of the check-in, and I was like, "Okay, heard. Won't ever do it again. Easy."
Lauren: That's so funny.
Rachael: Instead of that staying in their head forever, and then I eat more subs in bed, and then it just becomes a bigger issue.
Lauren: Rachael won't stop Doordashing Jimmy John's to our bedside window.
Rachael: She won't eat it until she's in bed under the covers.
Lauren: That's so funny.
Rachael: So I think check-ins like that, quick check-ins also for your creative practice are really important. Am I still fulfilled by this? Am I forcing myself to finish this project because I started it? You don't have to, especially if it's a personal project.
Lauren: Totally.
Rachael: You can let it go.
Lauren: Yeah. You created it so you can end it.
Rachael: Yeah. Or I think I'm reading this book right now, I think it's called The Year in Practice, and we will link it in the show notes, but it talks about creative practice as it relates to seasonal cycles. And I feel really excited to be reading it because I find myself really doing a lot of quilting and producing projects for myself in the winter. I have a lot of ideas in the spring. In the summer, I feel really burnt out, and I am really hard on myself when I am not producing creative work in the summer. And I think what this book is going to help me do, I'm not very far into it, but there are prompts and reflection exercises, and it's going to help me recognize, okay, don't put any expectations on yourself for the summer because you know that you're traveling, you're social, you're doing stuff.
So instead of just me being hard on myself and feeling like I don't have time, just knowing like, okay, the summer's not your season, and I'm really excited about that. So I think what I'm getting at is that everything I talk about, reflection is so important, whether it's in a relationship, it's a check-in with your long-term partner. It's checking in with yourself after a first date. Or if it's your creative practice, you're like, "Why am I doing this? Am I miserable? Am I forcing my way through this? Am I white knuckling this painting project?: Like my self-portrait project I talked about last season where it was like I told myself I was going to do a portrait a day for a month, and I did five of them, and I was like, "I hate this. I'm going to stop."
Lauren: And I think it's whether it means switching things up, reflecting with the help of friends or peers, a lot of times when you're in something for the long haul, you committed to a challenge or you have a certain type of creative business, or you're in a long-term relationship, your world can become ... Everything's relative. So it's like what gets normalized in your day-to-day life feels normal, even if it sucks. And so having your friends as a sounding board to be like, "Is this okay?" Because day-to-day, when you're just trying to get through it can feel just normal. But I think a lot of times, like this happened to me in culinary school when I went to culinary school, oftentimes they say that one big change begets another big change.
And it's like when people cut their hair short, people are like, "Oh, she's up to something," which is honestly so true. When I put myself in a new environment, it allows you to see things from a new perspective. And I think that's why, whether it's creative peers to bounce ideas off of or going on a trip as a creative person, getting out of your comfort zone, trying a new skill, breaking out of your norm is so important for the longevity of your creativity because you'll have a lot of realizations when you break out of your day-to-day routine.
Rachael: Yeah. And I think that that's true in relationships as well as creative practice, because if you are trying to meet new people from your bed, which that's my dream, is to meet my perfect person without having to leave my house. But if you are doing the same thing, you're going to the same coffee shop every Sunday, you're doing this, you're seeing the same people, you're kind of on autopilot. If you force yourself to stay curious, push yourself outside your comfort zone, number one, you're expanding your capacity for discomfort. It could be a failure. You could get a flat tire. You could run into rain without an umbrella. You could have a bad meal, but you survived, and you're learning to trust yourself, but then also you are going to see things from a different perspective.
Even if it's just you go to the coffee shop at a different time of day, you're going to see different people. I think it's really beautiful when people are regulars at places. I also think it's really beautiful to go and explore your own neighborhood as a tourist, because yeah, breaking outside of those patterns, first of all, recognizing the patterns and then intentionally breaking outside of them is going to help you realize, "Oh, actually, okay, this pattern was really good for me. I really like getting up and going to yoga in the mornings. I tried it in the evenings. I'm not as energized. I'm crabbier. I'm hungrier. Whatever." You're learning and you're adapting to your changes.
Lauren: Absolutely. Yeah. So we are just about at time. I know we want to talk about something you're very passionate about. I know we usually end these with what are you working on that you're excited about? Would you like to ...
Rachael: I would love to share. It is October 28th at the time of the release date of this episode. And that means that Halloween is in a couple of days. I love Halloween. I mentioned that earlier. Inching up in the non-negotiable for potential partner. They have to at least not hate Halloween, but preferably like it. I love making costumes. I don't like going out, so I don't often have something to do on Halloween.
It is one of my friend's birthdays on the 27th, so yesterday, happy belated birthday Carly. And so she usually has some kind of party where I can make a costume. I love my leprechaun outfit that I made a couple of years ago that I used to have on my dating profile when I still had one, because you got to let your freak flag out. And if someone can't handle me at my fake beard leprechaun version.
Lauren: It was a really convincing leprechaun costume.
Rachael: It really repulses people, and I love that. It makes me so happy.
Lauren: It's not like a sexy leprechaun.
Rachael: It's not a sexy leprechaun. Maybe we could do a little pop-up of it.
Lauren: Yep.
Rachael: Leprechaun Rachael sitting here with us. Anyway, I don't have plans this year and I still want to make a costume. There's no party happening. I don't want to go out to a bar, and so I'm just really having a hard time noodling on what to be, because normally I have an idea and I have an event, but I noticed there's an egg-shaped papier-mâché thing in your apartment. I think what I want to make, and hopefully I've done it by this time that this episode is released, I think I want to make a shell that I wear on top of my head and it's open and my head is the pearl. And I think that would be really ridiculous.
And I have a very specific approach to costumes, and I actually did a webinar about it once, which is really funny. I like being things that are not a character or something because I really don't want someone to have an expectation or a perceived idea of how something looks. And if I can't execute it exactly, I'm not going to be a Rugrats character because my body proportions are not that of a cartoon character. So if I wanted to be that, I would have to make a huge head and it doesn't feel comfy for me to just go as my regular size head and not match the proportions of a character. So I tend to choose things like a leprechaun, a demon sorceress is what I would-
Lauren: A little bit more open-ended where there's a lot of outcomes.
Rachael: A lot of different versions, or an inanimate object. One year I was a bowl of spaghetti because-
Lauren: Is that the one that was too wide to fit through doors?
Rachael: Yes. So I papier-mâché'd a big bowl, and I used really thick yarn as the noodles. I papier-mâché'd a meatball. I made a baguette, so it was a bread loaf, but it opened up as a bag that I could put my keys and phone in. And it was so fun and silly because you expect to see Frankenstein. You expect to see a power Ranger. You have these expectations of what a "costume" is. And I love to just surprise people because it brings me so much joy to come up with my own version of that thing, like I guess a clam with a pearl and we'll see if I do it.
Lauren: And you're just going to do like opalescent makeup or white face?
Rachael: I think face paint like opalescent. I mean, I have a really good face paint company that I found when I did my ... I was a sun goddess one year and I did all gold. So I think I can find an opalescent version of that.
Lauren: Amazing.
Rachael: Yeah, I feel like I wanted to talk about one because I'm just excited about this. And two, just by not having perceived expectations of what it should look like, it broadens my capacity for expressing my creativity, which I know I talked about when I did my play with Clay Workshop, I specifically told them that they had to make a trophy because we all kind of know what a mug looks like. And so if I had said, "Oh, we're going to make a mug," they probably all look the same. But if I say, "Make a trophy," everyone has a different perception of what a trophy is. It's a broader and less common item. So that's how I approach costumes. And so I'm really excited about it. And I know it's not related to our dating parallel-
Lauren: It is though because-
Rachael: Okay, tell me.
Lauren: ... My contribution to this conversation is I'm not a Halloween person, which surprises people. I like to say that in another life I could have been a pretty prolific cosplayer. It's too late for me in this life. And also I don't have-
Rachael: It's never too late.
Lauren: Okay. Technically never too late. This is a good example of I have the skillset, I just don't have the interest.
Rachael: Yes.
Lauren:
I'm not a lore gal.
Rachael: Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should.
Lauren: Yes. And you and I are really good friends. You love Halloween. I know you love Halloween. One time I showed up to Rachael's Halloween party a day early.
Rachael: And I was at a different Halloween party and she texted me and I was like, "It's tomorrow."
Lauren: And you saw me through your Ring camera.
Yeah. Oh, I felt so bad.
Rachael: But she still came the next day.
Lauren: It was so silly. But what I'm trying to say is to me, it's not non-negotiable, not a deal breaker. You and I can still love and respect and appreciate each other, not loving the same things. And I think it's great that you're a Halloween person. Actually, someone changed my mind about this. I'm Halloween neutral to maybe one deviation negative. I would never yuck someone's yum. But it's just spooky stuff is not my thing. And I was specifically talking about it in terms of going out in New York because I appreciate that you like Halloween, but not for the going out part because I think after seven years of living in New York, I'm like, this is the worst night to go out.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: Everyone's on their worst behavior and drunk in costumes.
Rachael: And I'm going to interrupt you for a second. The reason that I don't like going out are those two reasons. And no one appreciates the amount of effort that I put into the costume when everyone is just wearing bunny ears. And that bums me out that I'm like, "Okay, yeah, I love that we're all celebrating, but I want everyone to just ..." I want my level of enthusiasm, which is also what I want in a partner, and also what I want to feel when I'm pursuing a creative hobby.
Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. Because someone told me that Halloween is an interesting holiday because it's the one holiday of the year where it is socially permissible to let your freak flag fly. People who wouldn't normally dress eccentrically or in costume, which a lot of creative people, I think since we're in a little bit of a bubble, we wear whatever we want. I wear my big pom pom earrings, my tomato top, whatever.
A lot of people who work like let's say more corporate jobs or maybe were raised in slightly more conservative households, don't let themselves self-express on a day-to-day basis. And Halloween is the one day they get where, again, socially permissible, I think is the big part of it. And I was like, oh, that's actually a blind spot I had as a creative person, not realizing that Halloween is almost like a safe space for people to just be themselves.
Rachael: But then the brat in me is like, I want all of those people to work at being themselves every day and then go extra hard on Halloween.
Lauren: Because there's no reason why they allow themselves to every day, but I understand why people feel hesitant too.
Rachael: Right. Because you could be your "freak" self and be wearing what you feel most comfortable in, and no one's going to second guess it. And I think it all boils down to people's fear of judgment.
Lauren: 100%. And that fear is gone on Halloween because anything goes.
Rachael: Exactly.
Lauren: So I fully support your Halloween, love.
Rachael: Thank you so much. Yeah. We'll see. I might recruit you in your papier-mâché skills.
Lauren: I would be more than happy to help. I love making costumes. I just don't love wearing them.
Rachael: Yeah. And I won't make you.
Lauren: Great. Thank you so much.
Rachael:
On that note, I think we'll wrap up. Happy Halloween pals.
Lauren: Happy Halloween.
Rachael: I hope you've enjoyed season two so far. This is our second episode and our new backdrop if you're watching. We love it. We really-
Lauren: Hope you find love and creative fulfillment.
Rachael: Yeah, yeah. You will. We all will in our own ways.
Lauren: I know.
Rachael: Okay. We'll see you next time.
Lauren: Great. Thanks for joining. Bye.