Category: inspiration

Owning it #3: My 3 Fave Business Podcasts for Creatives

Posted on by katesoleildances in Blog, business, business tips, creativity, inspiration

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This past year has been full of changes in my personal and professional life. One of the biggest changes was that I decided to start building a creative dance business. I’ve been dancing for over 10 years, but it was only this past year that I decided to explore turning my art into a creative business.

It has been a year of insane highs and lows as I navigate what works and what doesn’t work for me. I left a higher paying, but stressful, day job for another day job that is less stressful in order to have more energy to devote to expanding and growing my art and business during evenings and weekends. I’ve taken business building workshops and started working with an amazing business mentor. I also started listening to podcasts, and I have to tell you guys, I’m seriously addicted; I honestly wonder what took me so long to get on the whole podcast bandwagon!

There are a lot of business podcasts out there that don’t resonate with me, but today I’m going to share 3 that do. All three of these podcasts discuss different aspects of building and operating creative businesses, particularly as women. I love all three of these because they not only offer great insight and advice, but delve into the heart and soul of being a creative running a business that is authentic fulfilling. As someone who relies heavily on my authentic voice, my soul, to direct my creative and business path, this definitely speaks to me. All three of these podcasts are available via iTunes subscription.

Explore Your Enthusiasm with Tara Swiger

Why I love it: I absolutely love that Tara is so honest, open, and authentic. She is a business advisor, but instead of giving you a checklist of things to do to grow your business, she offers tools for you to reflect on, to challenge your preconceived notions of what a business is, or should, be, understanding your blocks and your style. I also deeply appreciate her anecdotes and the insight she shares from her own challenges, successes, and failures as a creative business owner. To me, listening to her podcasts often feels like I’m getting a mini coaching session and pep talk with a healthy dose of inspiration.

https://taraswiger.com/

Make It Happen with Jen Carrington

Why I love it: Jen is a creative business coach whose insight into building a sustainable, fulfilling creative business is wonderful- she offers honest, heartfelt, holistic, nurturing insight and inspiration to creatives. I haven’t listened to her newest season yet, but I listened to the season before that and loved it. The newest season (season 7) is an audiobook version of her recently published book broken into mini episodes. The season before (season 6) focused on interviewing other creatives about their journey of building their business. What I liked specifically was that each interviewee shared openly and honestly the struggle and the ups and downs of their business, including their mistakes, their doubts- something that I found very helpful in navigating this first year of building my business. I also recently saw that Jen has teamed up with Sara Tasker (see below) for a new podcast called Letters from a Hopeful Creative. I haven’t listened to it yet, but plan on subscribing.

http://www.jencarrington.com/

Hashtag Authentic with Sara Tasker

Why I love it: Sara’s podcast is geared towards helping online business creatives find their creative online voice, particularly on Instagram, but still has a lot to offer to those who are not operating online or online only businesses. Honestly I was very skeptical about this podcast because I’m one of those people who is/was very, very judgey about Instagram. I never really checked it out and assumed it was just going to be nothing but soulless hipster selfies and picture of food- and there is definitely some of that. However, after listening to this podcast I not only realized Instagram would be a beneficial social media tool for my business, but that I didn’t have to approach it in a soulless way. Sara’s podcast isn’t superficial, but really delves into the creative heart of small business.

https://meandorla.co.uk/

These podcasts are not only informative, but give me a dose of inspiration when I need it and help remind me that I’m not alone in this crazy journey. For those of you who are thinking about or are already operating a creative business, I hope these provide inspiration and education for you as much as they have for me.

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Owning It #1: Clear Vision and the effect of inauthenticity

Posted on by katesoleildances in Blog, inspiration

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I’m going to start by saying that I did not intend my first post to be on such a personal note or related to such a delicate topic in the dance community. However, I recently had an experience that provoked a deep reflection on how I want to navigate my authentic personal space especially as it regards body tipping (for my non dancers, I’m referring to the common practice of accepting tips in costumes for belly dancers in the U.S.).

More simply, below is an example of the effect living inauthentically recently had on my creative life and career.

Please note, this is not an opinion piece on body tipping v.s. not body tipping. I practiced accepting body tips for years because it is the norm for belly dancers in the US. I do not care if anyone accepts tips this way or not- just do you!

While performing for a wedding reception a man came up to tip me on behalf of the group. I saw him going straight for my cleavage so immediately crossed my arms over my chest and shifted my body away while saying “don’t tip me there, please”. I then held out my hand telling him to either hand the tip to me or give it to a staff member to give me later. The man ignored me and tried once again to stick the bill between my firmly crossed arms to get to my cleavage. Louder, I yet again repeated, “not there!” and stuck my hand out to take the money. He still single mindedly attempted to get at my cleavage. More forcefully, for a THIRD time I stated very directly, “don’t tip me in my cleavage” while also turning away to shield my chest and go continue dancing with the bride. As I’m turning away, he tried to step around me to still get at my breasts. So I yanked the bill from his hands and threw it away, leaving to continue dancing my set with the bride.

While I know this was a very extreme situation that doesn’t often occur (at least not to me), this experience left me feeling vulnerable, defensive, depressed, feeling violated, and wondering if performing professionally was really for me. Maybe I should just stay a hobbyist? Maybe I’m not cut out to be a “professional” belly dancer since I’m not okay with strangers touching me, even in “appropriate tipping places”, like all the other dancers? If I choose to not take tips on my body anymore do I have the energy to defend myself against the resistance and opinion from other dancers, clients, etc?   

Then I felt ashamed that I was being so negatively affected by this experience. I should toughen up, get over it, not let one bad experience out of hundreds of good ones affect me so much, right?

Needless to say this experience pointed to a deep tension I had been carrying yet ignoring inside of me. I realized that I had not been living authentically in certain details of my dance life, and by not living authentically I had actually caused an internal instability that then was HURTING my dancing, my creativity, my career.

For years I forced myself to be okay with not only strangers but friends and other dancers coming into my personal space to tip me in my costume. I smoothed over the discomfort again and again, but it only took one bad experience to bring this tension tearing to the surface again. However, I’ve gained greater insight into how I want to live into my dance life and below I share some things I’ve learned from all of this:  

-True respect comes from authenticity. You can’t control whether or not others respect you, but I can guarantee you won’t respect yourself unless you’re being true to you.

-Being inauthentic makes you inconsistent. For years I’d alternate between accepting body tips and not. My message was inconsistent and sometimes confusing for others. Being consistent with your authentic voice helps solidify who you are and the image you project to others.

-Living inauthentically even in the little details can hurt you creatively. In my body tipping example I was aware of my discomfort around tipping but ignored this detail for years. Neglecting to be authentic to myself in how I accept tips eventually brought me to a point where I questioned whether I wanted to dance anymore.

-We won’t always be fully conscious to the fact that we’re ignoring the details that are causing us to live inauthentically…and that’s okay.

Creative living is a lifelong journey and a lifelong choice. When we’re ready tackle the places where we’re living inauthentically they’ll inexplicably rise up. Yeah, I could tell you to cultivate mindfulness, greater self awareness, etc, etc, and that really would be sound advice…but honestly sometimes sh*t is just going to come up. Just never forget in those moments you always have the power to decide whether or not you want to do the work.

Never forget you always have the permission and the right to be true to who you are, because living authentically not only will make you a stronger dancer, a stronger creative, but it’ll lead you to a better life.

Love,

Kate