The Art of Selling Online Courses

246 From 1 Viral Instagram Post to 1.1M YouTube Subs

• John Ainsworth • Season 1 • Episode 246

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What happens when a digital artist with 1.1 million YouTube subscribers decides she wants to work less, not more? That's exactly where this conversation went.

I sat down with Flo Visser, the founder of Art with Flo, one of the most popular Procreate tutorial channels on YouTube. Flo started the whole thing almost by accident, after a friendly Instagram competition with her boyfriend spiralled into a viral post, a Patreon membership, and eventually a full creative business built around teaching people to draw.

We talked about how she structures her Patreon, why she's been on the platform for seven years and still has a love-hate relationship with it, and how she's built a library of over 250 tutorials across multiple subscription tiers. But honestly, some of the most interesting parts of our chat were about everything else.

Flo is training to become a yoga teacher, planning creativity retreats that combine drawing, improv, yoga, and real human connection, and she recently became the only person in her voice acting class invited to continue to the next level. She's also figured out that her elbow is her early warning sign for burnout, which I thought was brilliant.

This one was different from most episodes. Less funnel talk, more about what it actually looks like to build a business around the life you want rather than the other way around. Flo's got a clarity about what she enjoys and what she's moving toward that I found genuinely refreshing.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Check out Flo's work:
🌐 http://artwithflo.com
📸 http://instagram.com/@floortjesart
▶️ http://youtube.com/artwithflo

Cold Open And Big Turning Point

SPEAKER_02

Instagram was the starting point. I had this little competition with my boyfriend. We were just like battling, checking out who broke their audience the fastest. I started sharing my art and I noticed that whenever I shared my process, those posts would perform better. Then one day my whole account blew up and I had a post that went viral and then I won the competition. Well this is my price. Having a YouTube channel, having this business, that's the price. I want to do the things that I enjoy. That's the main thing. I need to enjoy it, and the students need to enjoy it. Eventually I want to create less video content and do more in-person stuff. I want to bring back the joy because so many people lose the joy of creation.

SPEAKER_00

Hello and welcome to the art of telling online sources. We're here to get winning strategies to see for hand. Top performance in the online sources. My name is John Antwerp. Today's guest is CloFister. Now Flo is a digital artist and educator in the Netherlands and the founder of Art with Clo. Owner of a popular procreate tutorial channel on YouTube. Now her background a bit of a winding road, so she studied psychology, then she worked as a professional wedding took her, and then eventually found a way back to digital art when she picked up an iPad Pro and started sharing her process online. What set her apart with her approach? A genuinely beginner-friendly tutorial that actually teach you why, not just what to do. She's built a thriving paid membership community, created her own line of custom Procreate brush packs, and posted a new free tutorial every week. And her mission, in her own words, is to bring back the joy of creating.

Why People Stop Enjoying Art

SPEAKER_02

And what a great intro. Absolutely, I want to bring back the joy because so many people lose the joy of creation. Like when they are little, um I've heard so many stories of people that are being told like they're not good enough, um, that their drawings suck, or they just get like demotivated to create, and there's just so much pressure on people, especially nowadays with social media, you see so many like great artworks, and people are like, Oh, I need to create. Uh that that's like a standard, I need to to be there. But that I I believe that's not what it's about. It's about just creating and just relaxing and uh yeah, like the joy of making something and then being happy with the results and also like being in a mindful state while creating. So yeah, that's that's what I want to share.

SPEAKER_00

Why why do you think it happens? Why do you think people lose that joy?

SPEAKER_02

Because of pressure from society, from other people. Um it's just like yeah, people get they they have expectations or expectations from others of how something should look, what a drawing should look like. And um when you're when you're still a little kid, you just create. You don't care. You just pick up pencils and you start creating something without any expectations. You just do it because you enjoy it. But then people are starting to ask you, oh, what's that? Um, it doesn't look like a polar bear or whatever. Um and then you get these expectations and and bars that you that are being set and it's not necessary. I hear so many people say, Oh, I can't draw and it doesn't look exactly like what it's supposed to be, or it's not recognizable. Who cares? Just create the way you want to create. So many people just lose that that joy.

SPEAKER_00

Do you think people get the same in singing and music and other kind of creative endeavors as well?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Of course, yeah, when you when you play like an instrument, I guess there are some some basic rules or if you want to create a melody, but but still, you can just like do like improv music and and just create whatever you like. I think it's it's just like with Picasso that broke free from he broke free from realism and just started doing his own thing. Yeah. If if everyone just follows like the the crowd and creates what all the other people are creating, where do we get like the new stuff? So don't care. Yeah, yeah, I don't want people to care about what others are creating. Just do whatever you want to do.

Instagram Growth Through Process Posts

SPEAKER_00

How long ago did you get into we I was saying in the intro that you'd you'd uh eventually found your way back into um into into this and you start sharing your your tutorials. When was that? When did you start doing uh YouTube or however you started sharing online?

SPEAKER_02

Time flies, but I think it's about um eight years ago, I think. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

And was YouTube the starting point?

SPEAKER_02

No, Instagram was the starting point.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

I had like this um little competition with my boyfriend at the time. He had like a photography Instagram account, and I did my art thing. And we were just like battling, uh, checking out who grew their audience the fastest. Um that was a nice competition. And um yeah, I started sharing my art, and I noticed that whenever I shared my process, uh, those posts would perform better. And then then one day my whole account like blew up and I had a post that went viral, and then I won the competition. What did you win? What was the prize? Well, well, this is my prize. Having a YouTube channel, um having this business, that's the prize. And of course, honor. Um, and it was just nice to win.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But he won as well because he is in the business as well. We are just partners.

SPEAKER_00

It worked out well for both of you.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it worked out for both of us.

SPEAKER_00

So he's happy to uh so he's still doing the the photography Instagram as well?

Building A Patreon Subscription Model

SPEAKER_02

No, no, no, he he he quit. He was like, No, no, he just jumped on my boat and started helping me. Okay, cool. So he's like the brain behind the videos. He's always um like he he raises the bar for me and he looks at the videos and he especially in the beginning, he was like, Oh, this is not entirely clear, I don't understand. You need to um explain it in a more clear way. Um so that way we were working together and we still are. He's uh yeah, he's like a strategic mind and also um greatly involved in the video editing. Interesting. Okay. Yeah, so he's a winner too. And how big's your team? Is it just a few years? It's just him and me, and we have like an extra editor, but she's not really like in a team, it's just like a freelance uh editor.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Now one of the things you're doing and a little differently from what I could see from from most people I track talk to is you're not selling courses exactly. You've got like the Patreon and people can access everything through that. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's just a subscription.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. And what made you decide that was the the the way to do it?

SPEAKER_02

I guess I just saw other creators using Patreon and I was like, oh well, let's let's try that out.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Let's just start it. And my my boyfriend was like, Are you are you sure? What are you going to offer? I don't know. And I was just like, I'll I'll just try it and we'll see. And we'll just grow along uh along the way. So I just started and and like no well, not perfected it. Um it's never perfect, but I I just developed it along the way. Um I think I've been doing that for seven years now at Patreon. And it yeah, it just evolved. And then especially during COVID, which was a great yeah, it for me it was just a great time. Of course, everyone was at home. Uh people suddenly had time for their hobbies. So that was like a major uh like uplift for my for my channel and also for my Patreon.

SPEAKER_00

Nice. Yeah, a lot of course creators that was like a big, a big jump up at that point. How do you find Patreon? Are you like delighted with it? Everything's fantastic, are there any kind of niggles that you find like, oh, I wish I could do this or that? Or how is it? I I don't I never had anybody use it, so I don't really know.

SPEAKER_02

It's a love-hate relationship.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

I really like the people in the team um um at Patreon, but there are just some some things that that are missing or just it's it's hard to navigate. They have really improved their um their system, like the the page, but still if you have a lot of content like me, I have more than 250 tutorials on there. It's hard to navigate for for users, and there are just some small things that that don't work that well. Um, like in the app, you can't download any attachments from the post you need to use or browsers. Yeah, it's just little things that um aren't perfect. But um yeah, still I'm it's for me, I I'm just stuck with Patreon, of course, because I have so many subscribers there and it would be like a total nightmare to migrate everyone. Yeah, because Patreon is in all my YouTube videos. Um I'm yeah, I do like promote it in every video. Yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I'm just I'm just a whole load of kind of levels to it. Super fan, eager learner, so on what's the kind of uh what do people get from one level to another?

SPEAKER_02

Um super fans just like uh more like support support me uh tier. They got they get a couple of tutorials, but nothing uh nothing more. It's more like a yeah, it's just like a tip uh tip jar, I guess. Then the next level uh people get like every week at Patreon I uh post a new tutorial that's exclusive. And at the um the next level tier, people get those tutorials from the current month and the previous three months. So they get quite a bunch of tutorials and also my uh sketching classes, and then at the like$15 tier, they get everything that I've ever posted. So that's like more than 250 uh tutorials and a new one every week. And then I have a new top tier um that I recently launched. That's the Flow Creator Academy, and that's more well, they get everything, but also uh master classes every month and uh feedback uh sessions, live sessions. So it's more of a personal touch, more interaction with me.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, okay. And how are you finding that if that's new? Is that is that enough time to kind of know how well it's working for you?

SPEAKER_02

Um, yeah, I'm I'm I'm still figuring figuring it out. It's it's like a couple of months, and I'm not sure if it might be a bit like too much work for me. I'm not sure if it's going to stay. Uh it's pretty intense. Um, so I'm still yeah, also still developing, still like tweaking things uh to see how I'm going to make this work uh for me and for the students.

SPEAKER_00

That's the thing, isn't it? It's gotta be good for the students because that's otherwise you're not getting enough money from it, but it's gotta work for you. Otherwise, what was the point in the first place of of setting it up? You know?

Avoiding Burnout With Better Planning

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. I want to prevent burnout or yeah, or just not I I want to do things that I enjoy, so that's the that's the main thing. I need to enjoy it and the students need to enjoy it.

SPEAKER_00

Talk to me about burnout, because I know you you told me some stuff in advance about how you try to manage that. So is that something you have experienced? Have you gone through a period where you burn out or have you always managed to stay on top of it?

SPEAKER_02

I've I've never experienced like real burnout. I think I've I've been close to the edge probably, um, because well, it's um it's pretty stressful having to come up with new content every every single week. But um Yeah, in recent years it has gotten better because I'm pretty structured and I have like a whole planning system, and whenever I come up with an idea, I'll put it in my planning system. So I'll already have video ideas ahead of time, and I schedule my uh recordings and overview as well. So I have a a clearer um like overview. Well, before that, uh every week I was like, oh well, what will I make next week? And it was pretty pretty hectic.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. So that was really stressful. And now I'm working like a hit. I have like three weeks of videos already, um, it's already done. So if I have an off day, if I have a bit of a creative block, I can just uh take a day off, go outside, and then inspiration will will come to me again.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. I had a point about I don't know what it would have been. Like a number of years ago, 2021, maybe something like that. I remember I re I realized I'd hit a point of burnout, which I kind of heard people talk about it, but I didn't quite know what people meant. But I I was at a conference and I went and said hello to somebody. And I'm in this group called the DC, and it's like people who run online businesses and they're location independent. So a lot of people who travel a lot, a lot of people who are um kind of into lifestyle design, like basing their whole life around their hobbies and however they want their life to be. And uh so I'll see a lot of these people in multiple cities. So I'll see them in Bangkok, and then the next time I'll see them will be at the next conference in Mexico or in London or wherever. And I went up to somebody and said hello, and they're like, Oh yeah, uh John, we've we've met. And I was like, Oh, I must have met them at a previous conference. This happens, you can sometimes forget someone's name, whatever. And they're like, We talked on Zoom three weeks ago, like about my business, and I was like, Oh no, that's not good that I don't remember that. But I I had to really, I'm not amazing with faces. I'm really good with names, I'm not amazing with faces. Like, I have to kind of pay attention to to make sure I remember them. And so I was like, Oh, that could have happened. So then I got them to tell me about their business, and I always remember about people's businesses, like that sticks in my head for years, and I had nothing. And I was like, Oh, I'm not I'm not in a good way, am I? That was like, I knew I wasn't, I knew I was tired, I knew my brain wasn't working properly, I knew my memory was was getting a little worse, but that was like, oh, that's that's a I have to pay attention to this warning sign. Like if I look back in six months and I go, Oh, I should have noticed that warning sign, and I didn't, then I'm gonna really regret it. And then it happened again with another person at the same conference, and I was like, okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00

So I started taking off one day a week and then one week a month, and that was like my okay, I'm still gonna work, but I'm gonna try and just really dial it back and see what I can do. And you know what? Everything was fine. Everything was fine. It was there was no emergencies that happened. Oh, it helped loads, yeah, yeah. Took like, I think six months before I was back to kind of um a really good state, but it was like, yeah, it's totally fine. So now I notice it a lot earlier. I kind of notice, oh, I'm not sleeping quite as well. I can't remember the name of the actor straight away off the top of my head. Um, and then I start to go, okay, let me just dial it back a little bit and just chill a little bit more. And but I think I'm kind of like you in that I've got the freedom to do that. Yeah, like I've got two things I do basically. One is uh this podcast, and then the other one is building AI tools for in the business. And if the age AI tools take a day longer to get done, it does not matter. It's like everything, the entire business runs super smoothly, I'm not involved, everything's fine. So it's like I kind of got the freedom to do that, which is like a amazing.

SPEAKER_02

That's a great place to be in, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. It sounds like that's what you're like from the what you said that you kind of you don't have like a lot of things uh scheduled at a certain time or another.

SPEAKER_02

No, no, still I I do pressure myself. I do feel like I need to work harder because I always have new ideas. Right now I'm also working on a book project. Ooh. And of course I want I want that to be finished like well, it can't I can do it in a couple of weeks, but I wish I could finish it like this year, but I know it's not realistic. Um but uh yeah, I I do pressure myself into new projects and new ideas. Uh so yeah, but but I I have a nice um work um life balance at this time. And when I usually when I get like issues with my arm, that's when I notice that I need to Oh, that's like your warning sign, isn't it? Oh yeah, well I think it is my warning sign, my arm. Once I get like issues with my elbow, uh then I know that I need to slow down a little bit.

SPEAKER_00

Interesting. That's like one of those old uh old sailors, like I can there's a storm coming, I can feel it. You know it's in my bones. So what happens with your elbow? That's so that's so interesting.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's just start it starts hurting. It got yeah, it gets more sensitive, and then I know um that I'm just getting too tense, probably, and my shoulders and my neck. Yeah. Yeah, so that's my early warning sign.

SPEAKER_00

And then what do you do?

SPEAKER_02

Do you just do you just work less or is there anything else that you actually I work a bit less, I try to have like shorter periods of time than I'm drawing, I just go out more, but yeah, I feel like I already take quite some quite a lot of free time. Yeah.

Putting Daily Emotions Before Goals

SPEAKER_00

Even more, yeah. Even more, yeah. It's like whatever it is, whatever works for you, right? It's like I had this uh this coach and uh like a uh mindset coach, he was like ex-Israeli special forces, he's a complete badass, and he's like um, but he's he's my impression when I first met him was gonna be like, oh, it's gonna all be about like be tough, push through, be strong, whatever. And he's like, he said to me, I think all of that stuff's bullshit. It's like you've got to figure out what's holding you back and like how can you let go of that so you move more easily, that you you have less weight that you're carrying rather than trying to push harder. I was like, oh, okay, that's that's not what I expected from someone like that, right? And uh I was talking to him about I think I think I've talked about this on the podcast before. I was talking to him about um he asked me what were my goals for my life, how did I want my life to be? And I felt pretty smart because I had this list that I'd written and I'd really thought about of like, I want to be in this kind of physical shape, I want to have this much money, I want to travel this much, I want to work only this much, all these kind of things, right? And I want to have these emotions. And I was like, I'd really thought about it. I was like, these are the things that actually matter to me, not just something I've kind of come up with. And he said to me, How come the business stuff is at the top of the list and the emotions are at the bottom? And I said, I don't know, it's just it was in a random order. He's like, I don't think it is. I think the business stuff's at the top because it's easiest to measure money, and the emotions are at the bottom of the list because it's hardest to measure emotions. I was like, oh, and I realized I basically had said to myself, All these emotions, I'm gonna allow myself to feel whatever, proud or calm or what have you, once I have achieved all of these other things. Which meant basically, like, you know, I I don't know, some point in the future, rather than what he and I talked about was how can I feel those emotions every day? Yeah. How can I feel them now? How can I feel calm and proud every day right now? And if I'm doing stuff right now to try and make more money in order to feel proud later, but it's stopping me from feeling calm now, then that's insane because it's like what you you don't get to have this day again after you've like made the extra money or something. No. So I really try and think about that. I'm like, how do I want my days to be? What do I want my days now to be like, and how can I get that while working towards the goal at whatever pace I can sustain, you know?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so now your emotions are at the top of the list. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Everything else is subsidiary, so everything else is I'm gonna do all these things so that I can feel those emotions. Yeah. Not uh, and when I have, I'll allow myself to feel them.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that that's great.

SPEAKER_00

So what what what does your perfect day look like? Oh, nearly every day is my perfect day, it's so dope. So I've got um I've got a friend who I hadn't had a flatmate in like 20 years, and I had a two-bed place, one place, one room was set up as an office, and uh he had had split up with his uh girlfriend and he was looking for someone to live. I said, Why do you move in with me? And this is my workout buddy. This is the guy who I go to the gym with. So now you're gym bro. Jim Bro, full full gym bro, yeah, absolutely. So every day we get up at seven and we uh I make a cup of tea, he makes himself a coffee, and we take the piss out of each other and just talk shit for like an hour. And then at eight o'clock we get to work and we've got like a um like a playlist that goes on. This is the get to work playlist, get yourself in the right headspace. Work for like three hours in the morning, and then and then we go to the gym, and we've got like the best gym bro gym that just around the corner, like five. Oh, that's great. Go there, work out, take the piss out of each other some more, come home, have lunch, work for another couple of hours, see my girlfriend in the evening, hang out, watch a movie, or go out drinking or whatever, repeat the next day. And it's like That's perfect. It's so good.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, that does sound like a really great day.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's awesome. It's just like uh I moved to this place because my girlfriend lives like uh her the train that she takes into London, I'm in London, um quite central London. Her London, her train into London gets to like a 10-minute walk away from here. So it's like super easy for her to come around before work or after work or whatever and and hang out. So it's just like great, I just get to have my ideal day. It's like groundhog day, just again. Yeah, again.

SPEAKER_02

Doesn't it get boring?

SPEAKER_00

No, it's fucking awesome. I've got like a lot of friends in London, and so it's quite hard, even managing to keep up with them all. So it'll be like some it'll all there'll be slight variations, you know. Like we'll go out, okay. This time I'm going out with Noel and Shoner. Next time I'm going out with my buddies in uh you know, go partying, like like Saturday night when out partying until I don't know, three or four in the morning, something like that. Um so like that throws off the next day or something.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, you can get up at seven then, I guess.

SPEAKER_00

No, no. We got up at like midday. Oh wow. Got up at midday and just like lay on the sofa and we're like, okay, let's just let's just chill out here.

SPEAKER_02

Another perfect day.

SPEAKER_00

What about you? Do you have a do you have a perfect repeatable day?

SPEAKER_02

I m my my days are not repeatable. No, every day is different. I don't have like a a set schedule. It's just like every day I'm like, okay, what a what what will I do today? Is the sun shining? Oh, the sun is shining. I'll go out. I'll go for a walk. Um so yeah, every day is different. In every week I have like yoga sessions scheduled. So that's like my um relaxed time and lots of parties and I do improv theater, uh, classes. So yeah, I have lots of hobbies and I just work around those whenever I have time and when um the sun's not shining. And then kind of fill in the rest of the day. Yeah, I fill in the rest, yeah. Yeah. And if and if it's if the weather is nice, then yeah, well, screw it. Then I'll just uh clear my schedule and I'll just go outside. Especially right now, like early spring. I need to get that vitamin D. Um, so yeah, then I'll just think I'll I'll work later or I'll work in the evening as long as I can get some sunshine. So every day is like a surprise.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

I think that's the thing I don't do enough of. There's a bit I live like um right by if you know London at all, like the Tate Modern and St. Paul's Cathedral, that kind of stuff. And what I don't do all that often is go and just walk down the south bank of the river, which I really part of the tier. It's is lovely, yeah. And I there's a the bridge from the Tate over to um St. Paul's called I think Millennium Bridge. And whenever I walk over it, I'm always like, oh, this is so cool. Because you can see the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye and St. Paul's and the Tate and the River and just everything. And I'm always like, oh, this is cool. And I don't do that walk often enough, so I have to figure out like where's that fit. Maybe just every time it's sunny, I should just go Yeah, you should just go. Just go for a walk.

SPEAKER_02

I've been to London two times, both times the weather was great, and I just loved hiking around the city, and especially along the river.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I would definitely I would be hiking every day. Here in Amsterdam, it's great too. I just I hike every day.

SPEAKER_00

It's a very walkable city, Amsterdam, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and especially when the sun is shining, it just makes me so happy.

Moving From Videos To Retreats

SPEAKER_00

So, what's next for you? What do you want to do with the business? What do you want to be working on this year? Was it just gonna see what it's a surprise?

SPEAKER_02

You'll see whether it's no, it's not an entire surprise. I do have something that I want to work on, and I don't it's not gonna happen this year yet, but I wanna start hosting creativity retreats. So that's something I'm working on developing. So that's also why I'm also becoming a yoga teacher. I'm doing yoga teacher training. Um, so I wanna I wanna host creativity retreats for my uh followers and whoever wants to join. And that'll be about like drawing and painting, um, improv, yoga, maybe some uh dancing, just whatever gets your creativity flowing. So that's that's something I'm working on right now, and I wanna start with the first retreat maybe next year somewhere. How many people are you thinking?

SPEAKER_00

What kind of thing?

SPEAKER_02

Maybe like 14 to 16, maybe.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Yeah, yeah. That's very manageable. I just I so I ran a conference many years in London. That was like a hundred people. And in as conferences go, that's not absolutely massive, but it was just a like a hobby thing, right? It wasn't for making any money. I didn't make any profit from it. Um and it was just like, oh, this is quite a lot of extra work. This is quite a lot of stress. And I just ran one in Lisbon for 17 people, and I was like, oh, that was lovely. You know, that was really just delightful. I got somebody else to do all of the organizing of like, you know, booking restaurants, booking a co-working space, all this kind of thing, and then just like rocked up and hosted it. And I was just like, oh, oh yeah, that's that's my kind that's more my kind of thing. 14 to 16 sounds like totally doable. But how how long would that last, do you know? For a week, I guess like a week. Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking right now, but we need to um yeah, figure everything out. Um so I'm just I'm going to a bunch of retreats myself to check out what it's like.

SPEAKER_00

See what you like, what you don't like, what have you.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so really looking forward to that. And that's really something I want to move towards. Um eventually I want to create less video content and do more in-person stuff and work on books and just um go out to see the sunshine more.

SPEAKER_00

I'm trying to remember who it was. I had somebody on the podcast a little while ago who they were doing both. And I just think if I can find the episode if I can find the episode number, I'll send it to you. Because it might be interesting to kind of hear from the perspective of someone who's doing doing those two things. I don't remember what they were doing. It was something like mosaics, I think. So not the same niche, but not like so miles away that it wouldn't be relevant. Um I think this lady, Tammy Masala. Um, she's runs the Santa Barbara School of Mosaic Art, and they run Mosaic Arts Online, and they run total. Yeah, I'm gonna send you through. It's episode number 208, and I'll send you through the link after. Nice.

SPEAKER_02

Um she also does like courses and retreats. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Super interesting. I think she does like three I think she does like three or four a year, something like that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's what I want to do, like three or four um different places in the world would be great. Um why?

SPEAKER_00

Why is that the direction you want to go?

SPEAKER_02

Um, I want to do more like in-person stuff, and I'm super excited about the form of yoga that I'm doing that has changed um my life, um, the way um I feel in my body, and I want to share that. Um and yet it's just all of all of the things I like combined. Recently I did um like an ikigai uh exercise, you know, ikigai, the Japanese word.

SPEAKER_00

I've heard of it, but I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_02

It's like um like the overlap between what you are good at, yeah, yeah, what you enjoy and what people uh need.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And creativity retreats, they have everything that I love and that I'm um I think I'm good at and that people will enjoy. I think, especially nowadays when everyone is stressed out because of the state of the world and because of social media. And I think it just would be great to have a week without your phone and really interact with each other and to get in touch. No, I won't be taking them away, but like during sessions, you won't be on your phone. And I really want to connect with people and get them to connect with themselves and their own creativity and their body. Yeah, it's just something that really inspires me that I feel like I need to share.

SPEAKER_00

I'd totally forgotten the name, Ike guy, but that was basically the process I went through when I was starting the current business. So I I'd run a business, uh, it wasn't totally suiting my it was it was really I was really passionate about it and the world needed it, but it didn't pay a lot of money and it didn't really fit my lifestyle that I wanted to have in terms of travel. And so I shut it down, which is for I found that was very difficult for me to do. Um, but then I uh went through that exercise and I was like, what are the things that I'm good at and what audiences might need that and what's going to fit with the lifestyle and like all of these kind of things, trying to line all of those all of those bits up and figured out this current business, which has worked out much better, which is like it was a really good exercise to have done. I talk to people about it a lot in terms of when someone's trying to figure out what they should work on next. Yeah. Because I just so many people I talk to have got like a thousand ideas, and it's like, okay, well, you definitely can't do all of those. But really, you probably shouldn't do more than like maybe one and maybe two or three. So if you're really trying to think about like what else am I gonna do next, it's like you've gotta consider all of these options. Yeah. All of these factors, you know, like from Mikagai to try and narrow that down.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's a really great exercise. Uh I'm happy I did that. And it I was already thinking about the retreats, but once I did that exercise, I was like, yeah, that that's the way I need to need to go. Um I get so much energy from meeting people in real life. I'm just like at at parties. Um I I just I get energized and I can totally imagine getting super energized from meeting uh followers at a retreat and giving them a good experience and sharing my knowledge, sharing yoga and meditation and stuff. Yeah, I think it's going to be great.

Finding Your People Through Communities

SPEAKER_00

Nice. Nice. I go to a lot of these the the DC conferences that I was mentioning. Like, I don't know, for a year or something. One of the things I find tricky with it is it's too many people for me. So, like, if I go out for dinner, then I set a maximum normally of six, including me. You know, so I was like, okay, this is I can have we can all have a conversation together. It's not too noisy, it's not overwhelming. My brain kind of manages that pretty well. Um, and then I go to some of these conferences and there are like 400 people there, and I know a lot of people there. I've met a lot of them before, and I do a lot of stuff in the community, so a lot of people know me, and people all want to like come up and say hello. And I'm like, Oh, how do I get out of this without being rude? Like, I just have to go hide away some some places.

SPEAKER_02

You just need to go to the bathroom, it's super easy. Oh, I'm sorry, you need to go to the bathroom, and then you just don't come back. You just don't come back again. Yeah, that's it. It's so easy. That dude spends a long time in the bathroom.

SPEAKER_00

What's wrong with him? He used to go all the time. But that's okay.

SPEAKER_02

It does sound like fun, those uh DC conferences.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, they're great, they're phenomenal. Yeah, like it's an amazing group of people. My friend Jody has this theory that um the more crossover you have with people in terms of things in common or interests, the better you'll get on with them. So, as in, if you're both into skiing, you may or may not get on. That's quite good, right? But if you're both into skiing and um love traveling a lot, it's like, okay, then we've kind of taken a step up. There's more, it's more likely that you're going to be the same kind of person, you're going to be have stuff in common to talk about. If you're also an engineer who loves skiing and loves traveling, it's like, okay, you're set. This is gonna be grand. It's like the chances of you not getting on are low. And so everyone in the DC pretty much is running an online business, loves travel, and is really into the idea of lifestyle design. So, like, how do you kind of set up your life around how you want your lifestyle to be?

SPEAKER_02

Those are my type of people, definitely. You should join. Come along.

SPEAKER_00

I'll send you the details.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, please do.

SPEAKER_00

It's uh and because of that, you kind of just you can just talk to everybody, and everybody's very open, everyone's very um Like I I don't know. I get I I have heard that at certain places, if you go to a conference, everyone's trying to put on their front to show the the thing they want the world to think about them. Whereas at this, everyone's just like open and vulnerable and just like here's all of the stuff that's difficult, here's all the stuff that's good, no one's judging and getting bothered and jealous when somebody else has got lots of stuff that's good and no one's like judging you too harshly if stuff's bad. It's just like, oh okay, cool, let's see how we can help you out with that. And it's just a lovely place, you know, very lovely group to be around.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's just great when you meet like-minded people. I have like one friend that I there's like this artist, um Loish. Um I'm not sure if anyone has heard of her, but she's pretty big in the in the art community, and I have been a fan of her since I was like 21. And uh during COVID, Patreon did like um an interview setup with a couple of creators, and I was invited for that show, and then I saw that she was invited too, so I was like, whoa, that's so awesome! She's my she's my hero. And then we started chatting, and we we totally clicked because well, she's like doing the same thing, yeah. And um, yeah, now we're like best friends and we meet up regularly. She was like, Oh, I wanna I wanna meet you again, I wanna I wanna uh chat more. So yeah, she she was already my hero, but now she's already also my friend, and I'm like her hero in a way too. So it's crazy. But it's really nice because it's so hard to find people that do something similar.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Especially in daily life or like among family or friends, no one's doing something like this. Everyone is like stuck stuck in the grind.

SPEAKER_00

Pretty much all of my friends are doing something kind of like this. So it's I got some wrong friends, I guess. If you come over to London and hang out, I'll introduce you to people. If anyone else listening is interested in the DC that I was saying about there, it's called uh dynamite, I think it's dynamitecircle.com. You can go you can go check it out. I know at least one person has heard me talk about it on the podcast and join because I met him in in um Thailand. Oh wow. I was in Bangkok at the conference.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, I love Bangkok.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, you're John Ainsworth, right? I listened to I heard your podcast, I I heard about the DC, I joined, and then I I come here, and it's like, and then we just I was like, oh wicked. So Awesome.

SPEAKER_02

And that's such a great excuse to go to Bangkok.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I'm always looking for excuses to go there, so it's great.

SPEAKER_00

Conferences in October, I'll see you there.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, in October.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah, that's where they started. They did their first their first conference was in was in Bangkok.

SPEAKER_02

I guess October is Bangkok.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, I'm gonna check my uh schedule. Yeah, there's a May one in Mexico and then a uh I'm going to Barcelona in July, which is a hot time to go to Barcelona.

SPEAKER_02

Barcelona is really nice as well.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And a bit closer, closer to home.

SEO Videos Books And New Hobbies

SPEAKER_00

So it's one of my favourite places. Lisbon and Barcelona are like my two go-to places in Europe that I'm just back to all the time. Um I'm looking forward to that one. Yeah, and then and then they they started out doing it in in Bangkok, and they I hear stories from people about how the area where the that we've done it, they've done it in the same hotel for like 14 years. And the area where that hotel is, people are like, oh, it used to be in the middle of nowhere, and now Bangkok has just built up around it. So it's how it's so busy here. Yeah, crazy place. Yeah, crazy city, but I love it. Wicked. Okay, so the retreats, are you doing anything else? Is there anything else you're working on with the business? You're working on like trying to grow Instagram more, YouTube more, anything like that, or is that like just a little bit?

SPEAKER_02

No, it's yeah, it's pretty steady. Um I try, I'm trying to work a bit less um to make some shorter, shorter, more um like videos that people will will search for, um SEO optimized uh videos a bit shorter with tips just to balance things and to um make my workload a bit less because I'm all also working on a book and the retreats and um the flow creator academy. So yeah, trying trying to yeah, to like balance things a bit. Um so that's the main thing like with um with work.

SPEAKER_00

One of the things I've been I've been working towards for a long time is like when I have energy, I can just go build a load of stuff and make things work better so that when I don't feel like working, I'm just like, oh, I've done I've done everything. Everything's it works it works for you, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I'm kind of getting towards that point. Um the podcast is a is one I've got to figure out because it's like I I was booking them up two months in advance episodes sometimes, and that means if you go, Oh, I don't fancy working this week or next week or the week after or the week after that, then it's like, oh you kind of I had to plan my holidays two months in advance. I don't plan anything too. I don't, you know, I know I'm going to these conferences, that's the only thing. It's like I don't know what I'm doing the weekend after next. It's like it'll be fine, I'll figure something out. So that's something that I think is uh you're saying about like working less, and I think that's an interesting one that I kind of want to maybe take some inspiration from. Of like, I I do want to make sure I get to that point where I'm just like, okay, cool, I can just go screw it this week's off and going to Greece or whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's just perfect. Yeah, I want to work less but keep everything pretty much steady. And uh yeah, then I'll see what I'll be doing in a couple of years. Maybe I'll just be I'll only be doing a couple of retreats uh every year. Who knows?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and I'm also another crazy hobby. I'm into voice acting uh these days. I'm following a course in voice acting, and I think it would be so awesome to be like the voice in an animation movie or a series. So that that's also my crazy goal right now. What okay.

SPEAKER_00

Is that is that a realistic thing? Are there a lot of people trying to get to be the voices in animated movies and it's really hard, or is that like a oh no, you could do that.

SPEAKER_02

I'm not sure, but um, I'm in a group um doing a course right now with 10 people. And if you want to move on to like the next course, you need to be invited. And I was the only one invited from that little group, so yeah, who knows? Maybe uh maybe there's something, maybe there's a talent. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

You do have a lot of hobbies, don't you? Yeah, I do. I was chatting with my friend James, uh, who's phenomenal. I love James, and he is one of the calmest people that I've ever met, and he's just like he's got his life set up in order to just be super chill. So he works somewhere between two and twenty hours a week, two to fifteen hours a week, something like that. And so he runs a a membership for people who want to uh make more money from renting out their properties on Airbnb. And so he has his own properties that he rents out on Airbnb and somebody manages that for him, and then he he teaches other people how to do it, and he does a YouTube channel about it, and that's where his leads come from. And if he only wants he only wants to work a couple of hours that week, he just does whatever the calls are with the members in his membership, and if he wants to work more, then he does. And I was chatting to him about like things I was thinking of. I was like, Oh, I've got a bit more time now, I'm not quite sure what to do. He's like, How much time are you spending rock climbing? I was like, I go like once a week. He's like, Have you thought about just doing a lot more rock climbing? He's like, I can recommend it, it's really good. So me and him are gonna go do a week's rock climbing in Thailand after the conference in Bangkok. So I need to do a lot more rock climbing, like indoor stuff in the meantime, so I can so I can he's better than me already, and it's like, oh we're gonna be climbing very different routes.

SPEAKER_02

Such a great idea. Okay, yeah, I I'm just like I feel like yeah, I just feel like I do whatever I enjoy. So I I just saw this voice acting course, I saw um like um a commercial, and I was like, oh, that sounds like fun. I'm just going to do that. And I just can I keep following things that I think are fun, and then I jump into it and it leads me somewhere. Just with like with yoga, my neighbor told me about this forum of yoga, and I was like, oh, I'll try it out. And I had one class and I was like, okay, I'm going to do this the rest of my life. What kind of yoga is that? It's called critical alignment yoga. It was developed here in Amsterdam. I I don't understand why it's not bigger because it's it's amazing, um, amazing form of yoga. And um, yeah, I was so uh amazed by it. I immediately felt different in my shoulders and my neck, and it felt all felt so loose. And then I just thought I need to become a teacher as well. I'll just do the whole the whole thing. I just dive into um anything I enjoy, and then I'll just see where it where it takes me.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, I've looked it up to see where's the nearest critical alignment yoga studio in I don't think it's in the UK. It's in Amsterdam. Yeah. That's the nearest. Yeah, you should come over.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think it's only in the Netherlands, in Belgium, and in Russia, I believe. So I need to spread it all over the world. Maybe that should also be my mission.

Where To Find Flo And Closing

SPEAKER_00

I'll ask my uh my my friend's girlfriend is a yoga teacher. I'll ask her about it. I'm going to her class on Sunday. I haven't told her I'm going. I just thought it might be turned up and surprise, you know, just like to support her with it, you know. She's kind of new to it. It's like her her like side gig, you know, it's not a it's kind of kind of like Yuloga, I guess. It's um, I don't know, head of communications for some corporation or something like that as her job, and then this is like a thing that she really loves. Yeah. So I was like, oh cool, I'll come down and and try it out. I do yoga from time to time. Uh not very, what's the word? Consistent with it. We'll see. Been experience. Cool. Well, this has been absolutely fabulous. I I I've found great inspiration from our conversation, and I absolutely love what you're doing. So thank you very much for coming on and sharing that with everybody.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00

If people want to go check out your site, your YouTube channel, anything else, where should they go?

SPEAKER_02

They should go to youtube.com and then uh look up Artwithflow and then uh people will find me. And uh yeah. Yeah, they anyone anyone can follow my tutorials. So no worry, if you don't have any experience drawing, I'll guide you through it.

SPEAKER_00

Nice. The episodes that I mentioned before for everybody were 208, was the one with Tammy about mosaics and who does the retreats. And um the other one, if I can find it, with Itamar, the coach. Is there's an episode 80. Uh, but I think there was a more recent one with Itamar as well. I can't find that right now, but episode 80, how to know if your mindset is off with Itamar Morani. Um as always, thank you so much for listening, and Flo, thank you again for coming on. Thank you.