Caitlin’s Creative Business Bookshelf - Episode 1
Well, isn’t this exciting!
This post is to accompany episode 1 of my brand new podcast, Caitlin’s Creative Business Bookshelf - transcript is below, and you can listen to the episode below too or find it on whichever podcast provider you use.
Hey, welcome to episode one. I literally have no plan whatsoever for this episode, so if you want to turn off, please do, I guess!
So for the first episode, I thought it would be nice if I just gave you a little bit of an introduction as to who I am, what the reasons for me starting a podcast is, and yeah, and what you can expect from the show going forward.
So my name is Caitlin. I'm sure you know that if you've clicked to listen. And I run a business under Caitlin the Creative, where I'm a creativity coach and general small business cheerleader.
I've been in business since 2020, and I started my business off as a virtual assistant and then pivoted last year into offering support with helping business owners be more creative.
It's a subject that's really close to my heart just because creativity is such a big part of my life. And it's something that when I went through a personal bout of burnout myself, I realized that actually, it's something a lot of us struggle with. Self care, generally when we run businesses, I think can be a real struggle for a lot of us. And I think in some ways, it's kind of normal, I guess, just because running a business is really, really flipping hard, especially if it is a creative business where we're kind of putting a lot of ourselves in our businesses right, and having to engage our creative muscles.
And I think it means that sometimes when we leave that part of us, it can be a real, real struggle. And recovery from burnout, for me, looked like engaging with those creative parts of myself again because during my personal time of burnout, which was at the end of 2021, which feels like a lifetime ago. But it was a really formative experience in my business, I think.
And what kind of helped me get through really was getting in touch with all that stuff that I used to really enjoy when I was younger or the stuff I used to enjoy before I started my business, which was things like reading books, playing games. I bought a sewing machine just before lockdown and that has been a really big part of how I express myself creatively. Definitely.
And reading is a huge one as well, which is kind of where the idea for this podcast came from, really. I was doing Instagram Lives every week where I was kind of chatting about topics that I was thinking about in my business, kind of giving like creative pep talks and things like that.
And I've also done a few podcast appearances myself as well. And if you are interested in hearing me talk on someone else's podcast, if this episode wasn't like too much Caitlin, then you can go and check those out. I'll link to them in the show notes* and stuff as well.
But yeah, but I really enjoy doing this. I really enjoy talking about creativity and thinking about the positive effects it has on us, and especially when we are like business owners and we're having to engage our creative muscles a lot more, I would say, than people perhaps in traditional nine to five jobs, perhaps especially because the whole wearing five hats thing, five. I don't know why it was as specific as five, but wearing all the hats, that's what I meant to say. I have no idea where five came from.
Those Instagram lives I was doing this year and the end of last year, I guess I really, really loved doing them. And actually, I remember starting my business and being very uncomfortable with sharing my opinions and sharing my voice and my face and whatever. But I think when you are like an online business owner, specifically, you do kind of have to get used to it quite fast. I found that actually, I really like talking and I really liked communicating with people and building relationships and things like that. And it was like a source of real fun and joy for me, actually.
So obviously, the next thing I kind of thought was, well, how about a podcast? I guess that makes sense, and especially because I like being on the Instagram platform some of the time. But then I kind of thought, well, I like listening to podcasts and I'm sure other people do as well. I've heard they're quite popular amongst a lot of people.
So, yeah, I thought, you know what? 2023, let's do a new project. The way I'm treating this is very much like as an experiment.
One of my favorite things about engaging in creativity and encouraging other people to engage in creativity, too, is the fact that it helps us to frame our creative outlets and things like that as experiments and also being absolutely cool with them not working out and them failing, dropping the F bomb there.
But I think failure is like a really important part of creative projects, actually, and it certainly has been for me. And obviously, as business owners, not everything we work in our business always works. And it can be very difficult sometimes to come to terms with that.
But I found that the more creative I am away from my business, not only the more creative I am in my business, but the more resilient I kind of feel about things like this, I guess, and about actually taking action to do the thing and accept that if it doesn't work, then it's absolutely fine. Now, it's taken me a really long time to get to that point, full disclosure, but I definitely noticed that, yeah, when it came to thinking about this, I think a part of me previously would have just gone, well, that's not for me. I guess that's a thing for other people, or, oh, my goodness, who would want to even listen to that anyway? And all the kind of things we tell ourselves, like, a lot of that inner dialogue, that isn't always immensely helpful.
So, yeah, I thought, you know what? Let's just give it a go. That's my long winded way, basically, of saying to give it a go. But, yeah, I guess I just wanted to talk a little bit more about who I am and what kind of led me here, and the fact that I've chosen to focus on, like books mainly in this.
The way I'm envisioning this podcast working, by the way, is one week you'll get like an episode from me chatting about a topic related to creativity and related to the books that we're reading together as well. And then the alternate week will be me talking about a specific book or definitely curated from my many, many shelves of books on creativity and all that.
I feel a lot of the books I'm going to be talking about are not aimed at business owners. But I do feel like unintentionally, a lot of the lessons we learned from these books can be filtered through a business lens and actually do have quite a lot to teach us and to inspire us in our business, I guess, because I don't really think that all business books should be about productivity and life hacks and how to do practical things. I guess. I think those books are very important and I'm glad they exist. There's been many that I've enjoyed, but I definitely find that when it comes to business books, there's not a lot, I guess, engaging in the more kind of esoteric non tangible stuff like creativity.
It’s always been an interesting experiment to bring that I always find when I talk about what books I'm reading, like on my Instagram or in my emails to people, that everyone is always very interested, everyone's always wondering what I'm reading, have I enjoyed the book, would I recommend it and stuff.
So yeah, what I'll be doing during the book episodes and not as kind of a book club thing. If you want to read the book with me, you're very welcome to, and I'll share a link to where you can check out the books that I'll be talking about on this season.
But I mean, for it more to be like a this is what I learned from the book, this is how we can maybe apply it in a business context and would I recommend it or not? Spoiler alert, the answer will almost always be yes. Because I feel like I wouldn't recommend a book or talk about it on here unless I absolutely loved it or absolutely hated it. And that doesn't happen very often to be fair. I feel like I'm probably quite kind and generous when it comes to books.
So I've set out the books for season one over the next two or three months, I think. So yeah, we've got twelve weeks. And that's going to be twelve episodes that I'm bringing to you and six, hopefully new to you, book recommendations as well.
So I wanted to close off by just sharing what I believe my manifesto to be for Caitlin's Creative Business Bookshelf. I want in any experience or anything I offer people, fun, joy, and creativity is always at the top of my list. Those are like the three things that I'm always striving for in my work and they are always the three things that I'm striving for you to feel when you come into contact with me. And as well as those things, I also ask the only thing I ever really ask from anyone when I kind of meet them, or if they come into my membership group, which is Co Creativity Club, and I'll leave a link to that in my show notes as well, or one to one, or through events I offer.
The only thing I ever ask of people is that they come in with an open mind and a willingness to be surprised. I think I've seen some really amazing things during the time I've practised my creativity work and shared my creativity related work with people. And I'm always surprised at what people share with me, and I also see that surprise in other people, if that makes sense.
So I definitely see a lot of people surprised at what they can do and things like that, which is always really amazing to see. I really, really love it.
So, yeah, I hope this podcast makes you feel good. I hope it gives you lots of book recommendations. I hope it makes you feel something, I hope it makes you want to practice your creativity in whatever way it looks like to you. That's the important thing I want to end on.
Running a creative business does not look a specific way, well, running any kind of business, really, but I also very much want to share that creativity does not have to look one way. If you've gotten this far and you're thinking, well, I can't draw and I can't paint, neither can I, it can be found anywhere. I get creative inspiration from anywhere.
And like I said at the start of this, I feel like the more we can practice it, the effects that happen in our businesses are really amazing. And I want to share that with you because I think it's a really powerful thing and it's something that I really, really love sharing with other people. And now with this, I get to share it with even more people, which is amazing.
Let's wrap it up there. So, yeah, that was just a little bit about me to kick off season one next week.
In the next episode, I'm going to be talking about Keep Going by Austin Kleon, which is a little cute book that I love and that I think a lot of us should check out. But anyway, that's spoilers for next week. We're not going to get into that now. It's been really lovely chatting with you.
Please let me know what you think of this week's episode. I'd really love to hear from you. You can always find me on Instagram at Caitlin The Creative and my website, https://www.caitlinthecreative.co.uk, if you want to check that out as well. And, yeah, I will catch you at the same time next week. Have a lovely restful, joyous week.
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