#2 When It's Scary To Jump: How to move forward and grow as an artist and in your business.

Are you scared to make a decision that will help you move forward? It can be hard to take a leap but sometimes you have to do it if you want to grow into something better.

In today's episode I share my story on how I got to this point in my artistic endeavours and how I'm still learning, growing and making mistakes. I also share 5 key points to help you take action and build confidence.

Remember you're not alone and we all have ups and downs as artists and people. 

Here's a glance at this episode:

• [6:00] I had a friend who had just the most amazing radio voice. 
  You can just imagine those movie trailers, his voice fits perfectly into that style of advertising. He introduced me to the local radio station and some of the people there. And I ended up with this summer job at the local radio station. I actually had my own daily live show. It was called, Believe It Or Else and my radio host name was Heather Hope. 
• [10:00] We all have creativity in us. But I feel as though it's been racing through my veins since I was just a small child. And as far back as I can remember, I've always been in love with art and all forms of it. Now, of course, I haven't always been an artist, obviously. 
  I've had a number of different roles and responsibilities.
• [12:00]I remember sitting down with my husband saying, I need to make a change. I'm very upset. I'm frustrated. And I even went through a small stage of depression. I really felt insignificant. I didn't feel worthy. I kind of felt like I wasn't of benefit to anybody. How was I contributing to my family by not doing anything, which couldn't be anything further from the truth. I was home raising my son being a mother. 
• [13:00] I decided to take a small little floral design course. And in my mind, I was going to open up this florist retail shop. I was going to find the perfect building, and I just envisioned myself selling these beautiful floral displays. Well, obviously that did not work out. Things fell apart.
• [00:14:00] an opportunity presented itself from this company that installs crash mats in school, gymnasiums the manager called and said, Hey, you know, we need somebody to come in and create and paint a mascot on a school gym mat. And you know, this individual has moved. And would you like to come in and just do this for us as this one-off project? And I went in not knowing anything. 
• [17:00] I do believe there are certain cues or prompts that present themselves. Whether they are ones that come from our inner voice or from something somebody tells us. I think they're light bulb moments that help guide and direct us down the path we're truly meant to take. 
• [18:00]I learned a lot about running a business and being a solo entrepreneur. But after 10 years, again, the driving really started to wear me down. It fatigued me, getting in my car and spending several hours at a time driving to and from schools.
• [19:00] it was 2016, at least that is when I first started my own account on the platform. It wasn't initially as an artist, however, it was more of a fitness type account.
  And I really thought I was going to move in that direction and I even attempted to sel

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Transcript

[00:00:00] When it feels scary to jump in. That is exactly when you jump. Otherwise you end up staying in the same place for the rest of your life. And that I cannot do.

Jane: Have you heard that before? It is so powerful. Just stop and replay that and allow those words to sink in. 

I've come across those words several times on Instagram. And as you know, these types of quotes are really popular on social media at the moment. And this one is one that truly resonates with me. 

Well, hello there, my friend, and welcome to the curious creator podcast. Can you believe it? It is officially here. And in the coming weeks and months, I really want for you to grow as a confident artist and really expand your knowledge. Be able to do those things that you want. 

And that may be different from one person to another, but I know that we all want to be confident ones. And [00:01:00] successful in the sense that we are able to create art that we're proud of and we're able to sell. And then of course expand our offerings and services within our community and social media audiences. 

In this episode, I want to share a little bit of my backstory on how I got here. Now in future, obviously I'm not going to be focusing on me because well, this podcast is about you and how I can help.

But I'm hoping that the experiences that I share with you today, and some of the steps that I've taken to get here to this current moment in time, they're going to inspire you as well as allow you to know that again, you're not alone and depending on where you are currently in your own journey, that they will bring you comfort and understanding that these are all things we have to go through. That we're all going to make mistakes. We're all going to take the wrong direction, but eventually [00:02:00] we're going to get on that right path and we're going to do those things that lead us to success and happiness. 

I'm not sure what it is with the artist's personality, but we tend to have that trait where we lack a lot of self-confidence. We don't have that type A persona so it's really important that we have the community so we can build self-confidence and we can bounce ideas off one another in a safe environment. 

So, I don't know if you're one of these people that over analyze things. And sometimes that can have a negative mindset, have a negative impact on you. And perhaps you're not sure then if you should move forward with something and take action. 

Or maybe you're one of those people that just says, Hey, you know what, I'm just going to take the plunge. I'm going to go with it. And dive in headfirst

And that's actually how I feel about this podcast. Just [00:03:00] diving in headfirst. That's what I'm doing. But sometimes you just have to do it because if you sit too long and think about it, You're never going to move the needle forward. And

the worst thing that could happen is that it doesn't work out it fails big deal it just means you move direction and take a little bit of a different path a detour but that failure just helps you in creating that step closer to success. 

Hey there. I'm Jane Monteith 

[00:04:00] 

Jane: all right. Well, let's dive in and start with a little bit of a side story. 

I was asked the other day. From a member of a community that I'm in a business, Facebook community. 

And the individual said, Hey, I see you've started a podcast. And, where did you learn how to do podcasting? Did you take a course from somewhere? And my answer was no, I have no idea what I'm doing. I am literally just going with the flow. And taking things all in stride day by day. And so when I asked you if you're one of those artists that overthinks things, or if you just dive in head first, I [00:05:00] am diving in headfirst. 

And really that's the way I like to do things. I feel as though when you take the plunge, headfirst you really don't have time to think about the things that could go wrong. You really have to go with the flow and allow the journey to take you where it will. And as I said before, it may lead you to great success and happiness. 

So don't overanalyze things. Cause as soon as you start doing that, it creates that fear of failure. And you just won't take that first step. 

But this individual's question also got me thinking about some knowledge that I actually do have. 

I moved from England to Canada, with my family. When I was 10, my Dad got a job opportunity and we moved to a small town in Eastern Ontario called Brockville. I think it has around 25,000 people still, but it was a wonderful place to grow up, make friends and go to school. And while I was a teenager there in high school, [00:06:00] I had a friend who had just the most amazing radio voice. 

You can just imagine those movie trailers, his voice fits perfectly into that style of advertising. He introduced me to the local radio station and some of the people there. And I ended up with this summer job at the local radio station. I actually had my own daily live show. 

It was called, Believe It Or Else and my radio host name was Heather Hope. You can just imagine it now. It was funny. It really was. Every day I would come onto the radio live, so no room for errors here, and I would just share gossip sort of like entertainment news on a daily basis. And if you can remember this far back, I'm actually 50 upon making this recording and I was [00:07:00] 16 at the time. So you do the math, but it was a while ago and we didn't have cell phones. We didn't have social media. Sure we had some computers, but really no internet. 

I think I was just starting to learn DOS if you can really envision that, that really showcases my age, doesn't it? But anyway, in order to come up with the content for the show. I researched magazines, whatever I had on hand

and my mom recorded all of these episodes. Long story short and to present time, I ended up recording over my recordings because they were created from a cassette tape. And I ended up rerecording something over top and I was devastated. So I don't have any episodes. From my days as Heather Hope which is really sad because they would be so much fun to share with you. 

You would really get a laugh from them. Obviously completely different information and hopefully this podcast will be of [00:08:00] greater value, but it really has made me think and come full circle to the fact that I was actually in a radio station as a teenager, creating a show. And here I am today creating this podcast and sharing new information with you. 

And maybe right now, you're wondering who is this? Jane Monteith? Who am I? Who is this person sharing this personal information with me? But maybe you do know me as well. And if you do follow me on social media, on Instagram @Janelovesdesign. Thank you so much. I truly appreciate you. I'm always honored when somebody says they've been following me for several years on Instagram. It blows my mind that anybody even wants to pay attention to what I'm doing. So I'm honestly really grateful for that. 

And even more honored when an artist reaches out and shares their story with me. With a way that I've inspired them to help them grow, learn something new, create new work, sell their art, whatever it may [00:09:00] be. It makes my day, my week, my month, my year. And if I'm just helping one other artist, then it's all worthwhile that I do that. 

And again, I'm hoping this podcast is just another way that I can reach you and help you in some shape or form with your art. Whether it's learning something from this podcast. Or maybe taking one of my online courses or even just belonging to my newsletter. Again, it means a world to me that you're here and sharing those experiences with me. 

And I'd love to share some of my own personal experiences with you and the journey to how I arrived here. Now I've always been a creative individual. I know that sounds a bit cliche, especially when I'm chatting from one artist to another. It's probably a given that we're all creative. Well, we are, we all have creativity in us. But I feel as though it's been racing through my veins since I was just a small [00:10:00] child. And as far back as I can remember, I've always been in love with art and all forms of it. Now, of course, I haven't always been an artist, obviously. 

I've had a number of different roles and responsibilities. Before becoming an artist and arriving online and building a social media following and selling art and courses. And of course now sharing a podcast. But I started off in corporate in my younger years, in my early twenties. When my husband and I lived in Toronto. And I worked as a communications coordinator in American express. 

I was there for a number of years before I became pregnant with my son. 

 And both my husband and I decided we wanted to move north of the city to plant our roots and begin our lives with our son who is now 20. I might add, oh my goodness. Time really does fly. Doesn't it. [00:11:00] Anyway, after my mat leave ended and I returned to American express, I realized how much I was not enjoying it. It was a struggle and even more so having to commute every day to, and from work. 

Get in our cars, drop our son off to daycare. I was always the first to drop him off and always the last to pick him up. And that really weighed heavily on me. And if you are a parent you can certainly relate and understand how that may impact your life with your children. So I knew that this was not going to last for me. I couldn't do it. 

The commute itself was very fatiguing. If you're one of those people that has to get in their car every morning and drive over an hour in traffic to, and from work, it's really draining and it weighs on you over time. I was not one of those people that could do it for too long and i knew that i needed to make a change.

And I remember sitting down with my [00:12:00] husband saying, I need to make a change. I'm very upset. I'm frustrated. And I even went through. A small stage of depression. I really felt insignificant. I didn't feel worthy. I kind of felt like I wasn't of benefit to anybody. How was I contributing to my family by not doing anything, which couldn't be anything further from the truth. I was home raising my son being a mother. 

 And that in itself is a hard full-time job. As we all know, being parents. It's one that sometimes is not recognized. As well as it should be, because well we're not getting paid for it. And I knew that I wanted to have a job at some point that paid something monetarily and that I could help and feel as though I was supporting my family, even though my husband was at the time and still is extremely supportive of me.

 Now after several months of moping around and trying to figure out what I wanted to do, [00:13:00] I decided to take a small little floral design course. And in my mind, I was going to open up this florist retail shop. I was going to find the perfect building, and I just envisioned myself selling these beautiful floral displays. 

Well, obviously that did not work out. Things fell apart. And at the time I again was really upset, and sometimes the dreams that don't work out are oftentimes the best things that can happen because it means that other doors and directions can open up for you. 

And still not really knowing where I was going or what I was doing. I ended up at a nonprofit organization so completely in the opposite direction, I worked at United way with a number of different agencies. And was there again for a number of years but really felt as though something was missing. 

 After some time, my sister-in-law's friend who was in a creative niche was moving out west. And so an [00:14:00] opportunity presented itself from this company that installs crash mats in school, gymnasiums the manager there called and said, Hey, you know, we need somebody to come in and create and paint a mascot on a school gym mat. And you know, this individual has moved. 

And would you like to come in and just do this for us as this one-off project? Of course I was over the moon and was ecstatic. They had heard, I had a creative ability. And I went in not knowing anything. 

No clue as to how to paint this, what I was painting exactly, what the process was. What tools I needed the paints I needed, nothing went in blindly and they said, here are the paints. Here's a photo of what we need painted, and we need you to get this done and, two days, something like that. 

And I said, okay. So again, one of those things that had no idea just kind of went in. head first and got this done. 

[00:15:00] And several weeks later, they called back and asked if I could come in and do another project, which again, I was really happy to do so. After that job was completed. I asked the sales manager. I said, well, how do I get this to a point where it's a more permanent position and while they didn't hire any artists to do any of these jobs, they were all referral-based. So there wasn't really an answer. There was a lot of uncertainty. 

But I decided then and there that I wanted to pursue this path. And I made the decision to quit my job. Even though, I didn't know what my income level was going to be doing this, but I thought if I didn't change direction, then who would know when this type of opportunity would present itself again. And I didn't want to miss out on that.

I also realized too, that I did have support of my husband. And that there was that secondary income [00:16:00] coming in as well. And that certainly alleviated some of the stress and pressure that came along with making that decision. But it still meant that I had to work really hard. I knew in my bones that this was the right direction I needed to take. I went with my gut. I had that inner voice saying, yes, this is what you need to do. You need to take that plunge, dive in, even if it sounds scary, just like the initial quote that I shared with you at the beginning of the podcast. 

Granted there is a little bit of a safety net there with having the support of your partner or spouse. But at the end of the day, you still have to do something that makes you happy. You have to create a life that is fulfilling and a large percentage of that boils down to what you're doing in your job. 

Now I'm not a believer of luck, fate or destiny per se. However, I do believe there are certain cues [00:17:00] or prompts that present themselves. Whether they are ones that come from our inner voice or from something somebody tells us. I think they're light bulb moments that help guide and direct us down the path we're truly meant to take. 

So this decision made at that time of my life was a pinnacle moment for me. Even though I didn't realize it at the time, but deciding to make that change, even though it felt scary is what has helped lead me to where I am today in my business. And even though I'm no longer painting mascots on crash mats, it put me on the right path. 

And I did this for over a decade, traveling to hundreds and hundreds of schools within my province of Ontario year round. I learned a lot about running a business and being a solo entrepreneur. But after 10 years, again, the driving really started to wear me down. It fatigued me, getting in my car and spending several [00:18:00] hours at a time driving to and from schools. It really got to a point where I stopped enjoying what I was doing and I once again knew and realized that I needed a change.

Of course I loved being an artist, so I knew I didn't want to change that part. But I certainly knew I no longer wanted to get in my car and drive to and from work. I wanted a job that allowed me to work from home. And generate income that gave me the ability to keep doing the things myself and my family enjoyed.

So here I was back to the drawing board, although not starting from scratch because I knew I wanted to remain an artist and I knew I wanted to work from home. My idea was to come up with a plan before transitioning to whatever that new role or identity looked like. 

And for me, the obvious choice was doing something online. I had started following some people on [00:19:00] Instagram, back in. I think it was 2016, at least that is when I first started my own account on the platform. It wasn't initially as an artist, however, it was more of a fitness type account.

And I

really thought I was going to move in that direction and I even attempted to self publish my own little cookbook. I was going to write some of my own nutrition plans and I was going to sell them on Instagram. I was going to use that platform and monetize and generate income. But it was a complete flop I could not for the life of me, figure it out. 

Even though I was looking at others and trying to determine how they were doing it. It just, wasn't working for me, not to mention having to sustain the look of a body builder type physique. It's just not realistic. So my momentum and my energy really started going downhill. And I, once again, was starting to get frustrated because nothing was [00:20:00] working.

So I had to take a break. I had to step back and say to myself, what am I doing here? Why am I really going down this path? When my true passion and love is to do with art and the creative side of things. And I really had to sit down and almost brainstorm ideas. What am I going to do on this platform? How am I going to build my following and be known for something, what am I going to do that differentiates myself from other artists out there? 

And this is when Mod Minis were born. Mod Minis are short for a modern miniatures. It was something that came up through a brainstorming session. And the first kind of direction on Instagram for my art that enabled me to build a loyal following organically and begin generating income from it. And people really took to these little four inch type squares [00:21:00] of art made from alcohol, ink and resin. 

 And they sold really, really well very quickly. And in time, people became very curious. On my process and how I made them. 

And from that, my first online course was created, which you can still take to this day. I will say, however, my hair is a little bit longer and I do look a little bit younger, but the process is still the same . I take you through my exact steps for creating these one of a kind little jewels. I like to call them of art and there's so much fun. They're very bright and very colorful. 

And if you'd like to check those out or even perhaps make your own, then feel free to visit my website, taelife.com.

That's TAELIFE.com. 

You can browse the site and begin making your very own mod minis from the Alcohol Ink & Resin course. And I'll also leave links to that class in the show [00:22:00] notes. 

Now fast track to today. And obviously I was able to leave my job as a traveling artist. And pursue my art endeavors. I have several other online art courses and my art also sells online and within a gallery.

But I will say my art is always evolving. It's always changing. And I'm actually in the process of pivoting right now and changing direction. And that's all right, because I'm one of those artists who truly love to experiment. And I believe it is how we continue on our journey of learning and coming up with new and amazing things that are unique to ourselves and to our art.

And I'm very much the name of my podcast, The Curious Creator, which means I'm still growing, I'm still learning and I'm still making mistakes. 

I want to leave you with five key takeaways. Some things to remember.[00:23:00] 

• First always listen for and recognize your cues. Follow your intuition and your passion because your inner voice speaks volumes

• Number two, there is never a perfect time to do anything. Just start. Don't worry so much about the big picture and everything you have to do in the weeks and months ahead. Create a plan and just take that one step forward each day. Small, consistent daily actions truly do lead to big changes. 

•  Number three. It's scary to jump in, but remember, fear kills more dreams than failure ever will. Most people don't even try because they're too afraid to fail. 

• Number four, speaking of failure, you will fail. You will make mistakes, but know this is all part of the process. Everyone fails, and it's how we all learn and get better. 

• And number five. Know that it's okay to pivot or change [00:24:00] direction entirely. Finding your way takes time. Just keep moving forward until you begin to see positive change and you feel happy. The rest will start falling into place naturally. 

Well, that's it for today. My friend, I hope my story has brought some inspiration, motivation, and has given you some ideas or at least comfort in knowing that you're not alone when things don't go as planned. 

So never be afraid to try something new. I mean, obviously you have to stick with it for a while. Be consistent and remain committed. But by doing so it just may lead you to extreme success. And great happiness and who doesn't want that.

Links: https://www.taelife.com/courses (Alcohol & Resin Course)
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janelovesdesign