#63: Designing What’s Next: Melissa Muir Interviews Courtney Gray

 Navigating Creative Crossroads with Courtney Gray

In this unique podcast episode, jewelry educator and tool expert Melissa Muir steps into the interviewer role to explore key questions about focus, direction, and aligning one's work with their life stages. Muir opens up about her journey, struggles with time management, and lack of clear direction in her business. Courtney Gray discusses how her program can help creatives like Muir zoom out, identify their priorities, and create a sustainable, joyful business rhythm. The conversation touches on the importance of defining vision, managing creative distractions, and using time management effectively. Both speakers emphasize that real transformation requires self-adoption and personal commitment to the process.

00:00 Introduction and Context
00:52 Meet Melissa Muir: Jewelry Educator and Tool Expert
01:22 Balancing Life and Business
02:28 Finding Direction and Focus
03:22 The Importance of Zooming Out
04:48 Course Structure and Benefits
06:03 Navigating Creative Challenges
07:57 Implementing the Framework
13:41 Conclusion and Final Thoughts 

Transcript

 #63: Designing What’s Next: Melissa Muir Interviews Courtney Gray

​[00:00:00]

Courtney Gray: Before we begin, I wanna share a little context for this conversation. This episode is a bit different. Jewelry educator, and tool expert Melissa Muir, kindly offered to step into the interviewer seat and ask questions that she was already struggling with and her own work

as we talked, it became clear that these weren't just her questions. They're ones I hear from jewelers again and again, questions about focus direction and how to shape your work in a way that fits the life that you're in Now, we decided to share this conversation here on the podcast because it reflects a moment that many makers find themselves in a pause, a crossroads, and an opportunity to zoom out so you can zoom in and look.

 More honestly at what's next, let's dive in. 

melissa muir: Hi Courtney. I'm so glad to meet with you today. So thank you for agreeing to record this. I know that we've got a several [00:01:00] mutual friends that have gone through your course, and so I've talked to them . So I know a little bit about your program but I've got some questions for you as well. To give you an idea. I know that everybody thinks that I am so on top of things and just have it all, and it's a really good smoke and mirrors game. In that respect, I feel because there are so many different things that I want to be doing and, being a mom with kids still at home in school you have to very careful of your time and protect your time. And then with all the travel that I do, 'cause I know that everybody's seen me here and there and everywhere . I'm very protective of where I give my time, but one of the things that I've really been thinking about lately. As my kids are growing up and soon I will have none of them in the house.

It's only a couple more years, and so I've been thinking, okay, then it is time [00:02:00] to get ready for the rest of my life, right? Because that little phase will be done and it's time for the next phase, and. a mad mess, I don't wanna own that, but , my story of when I got started in jewelry, like it was just a thing that I was doing as an creative outlet,

Courtney Gray: Yeah. 

melissa muir: And and it grew into what it is. And that was never my intention. It just, it happened. because it grew like that and because that was never my intention, I never really treated it as a business with a clear direction. so now what I'm really hoping to do is to. Have some more clear direction and start to guide this business so that I can treat it as a business, not just as, Hey, whatever comes, we'll come and I'll just say yes or no, or we'll do it, or we won't do it, and then I can be a little bit [00:03:00] more focused, a little more successful with the things that I'm trying to do. So with that knowledge. How would your program fit with me? How can that help me?

Courtney Gray: So great questions and then , you're at such a crossroads and I totally relate to this because I think our kids are in similar ages, right?

melissa muir: Yes, very similar

Courtney Gray: Yes. And it becomes more and more important to zoom out and to look at our lives and to say, okay, what are we doing? Are we doing the same things that we were 20 years ago 10 years ago, even two years ago?

A lot of my students are coming from the same place, right? My question to myself was, can we build a course that is, or a framework that will walk people through, no matter what age, what stage they're at, walk through discovering what this looks like, right?

How do we get from what we think is working to what's actually working, and [00:04:00] how do we do that in a way that's in flow with our lives now? Create a rhythm that's sustainable, that's fun, that's joyful, that's not draining us.

melissa muir: And one of the things that you did those little master classes and I was fortunate to help you out with that as well,

Courtney Gray: Yes, thank you.

melissa muir: been really helpful for me to look at what systems do I have, which

I don't have system.

Courtney Gray: You have more than you realize, Melissa. Yeah.

melissa muir: system,

, absolutely loved the different concepts that you brought up in there and pointed out.

Courtney Gray: Oh, good.

melissa muir: you covered like five different points, so brief and it was just like duh,

I found that helpful and so that's really what got me thinking. Okay, if that one little 40 minute thing is like that, what is the rest of the course gonna be like?

Courtney Gray: Yes.

Because the fact is, we don't take time when we're, when we are in our businesses, wherever we're at or trying to build something, there's so much happening all the [00:05:00] time and coming at us, right? There's all these things that we have to keep up with.

What we don't do, what most artists don't do is zoom out and take a pause and say, okay, let me just look at what is it that I really want. Why am I even doing this? Still, I've been at that crossroads where it's wait, do I wanna shift gears into a different industry? What do I want now? And so I've been through this. So what I did is I took that framework that I went through. To discover. What I'm doing, and what does that look like now? It looks really different than what I thought it would.

melissa muir: A question for you on the meetups, because you know my travel schedule.

Courtney Gray: yeah. Hong Kong all over the place. Yeah, I know. Yeah. That's the challenge.

melissa muir: So that could be a challenge, but will those things then be recorded and I could catch them afterwards?

Courtney Gray: Absolutely.

melissa muir: Right.

That's another part of it too,

Courtney Gray: Yeah.

melissa muir: The program's pretty flexible, like how long would I have

Courtney Gray: You have access for a lifetime .

There's no [00:06:00] fitting yourself into a box here. This is about. Your rhythm, finding your rhythm now, and creating that, the life and the business that you want, instead of what you think it should look like or what people may be telling you that it should look like, or God forbid, social be media falling down that rabbit hole where it's Melissa's doing this.

I should be doing, no, Courtney, do you put your blinders on and do you, and so getting those pieces to all fit together over time is the goal.

But we're gonna start, we're gonna say yes and begin.

melissa muir: Anytime you take a class, if it's life changing, it wasn't the class, it was the work that the person does. So if it's gonna be life changing, it's 'cause I put the work into it. And I do recognize that but I definitely am at a point now where. I need somebody else's help navigate or say, Hey, have you thought about this?

Or Have you thought about that? And that's what I was [00:07:00] hoping, like I said, that maybe this course would do for me.

Courtney Gray: Yeah, and it's not even that, like I could sit there and tell you all day, Melissa, Hey, here's what I think you should do, right? But are you gonna do it? If I tell you

melissa muir: And it may

Courtney Gray: worse?

melissa muir: with what my goals are

Courtney Gray: My mission in this course and any coaching client I work with is let's figure out how you can design this, right?

And having a framework for that really helps having not only just the weekly meetups and the things to, to show up for it, but having it step by step, how do we discover what that is? Why that is, why we're doing what we're doing. And then putting it into action. So , I could tell you all day like, Hey, Melissa, here's what I see would work really well for you.

But until you adopt it yourself. You design it yourself, you're probably not going to implement it, we're strong-minded women, right?

We have to decide it for ourselves.

melissa muir: Right.

Courtney Gray: It's not going to take form. So defining the [00:08:00] vision, is the first week, right? And then we integrate that throughout the six weeks as we get into more, okay, now that we know what lane am I in?

What kind of jewelry do I want to make? Do I even want this to be a full-time business? . I've had women come out of it and say, you know what?

I'm retired. What am I thinking? Like, why am I taking this so seriously?. Maybe this is something lighter than that. Maybe this is more about just learning and creating right now. And that's fine. I'm never gonna tell you, Hey, you're doing it wrong.

You get to decide where you want to take this and, what is it for? Who is it for? How to find those people that it is for.

melissa muir: That's actually very helpful because like I said, I, for what I want to do, I am really looking for some direction of. Like you said, do I want this to be a full-time business? Yes, I do. 

Courtney Gray: Yeah,

melissa muir: but what does my business look like? Because I am involved in so much, right? [00:09:00] Everybody always is I think they're a little jealous 'cause my studio's awesome, which it really is,

Courtney Gray: you do have a kick ass studio.

melissa muir: Why do I have a kick ass studio? Because I'm a tool expert, right? I'm not an influencer. I'm a tool expert, and I help everybody learn the tools. And in order for me to help you learn the tools, I have to have the tools, and so there comes all of these different feelings that come with that.

Like sometimes a little guilt, sometimes a little. Oh, what am I doing? There's definitely imposter syndrome and all of the things that go with that, right? I wanna continue to teach. I also wanna continue to make jewelry. I also want to do this and this and this.

Courtney Gray: The layering. Yeah.

melissa muir: I need some focus. , Help me identify the different areas so then I can dive in for the focus part of it, which is what I think I need. And 

Courtney Gray: that's the goal.

melissa muir: lovely neurodivergent people with a Adhd there's lots of squirrels [00:10:00] so I need some help caging the squirrels a little bit.

Courtney Gray: Yes.

melissa muir: don't mind exercising them. to cage them a little bit 

Courtney Gray: yeah.

melissa muir: And just be like, okay, now it's your turn. And now it's your

Courtney Gray: Yeah.

melissa muir: But it sounds like maybe would be able to help me identify each of the squirrels, put 'em in their cages and figure out their exercise schedule.

Courtney Gray: Yeah. I love the exercise. The squirrel. Can I use this? I love that.

melissa muir: could totally

Courtney Gray: Take a lap, squirrel, like you're good. Sit in the corner. Squirrel. This is so common for all creatives. We tend to lean towards all of it, right? We wanna do all of it. And so

what happens? Unfortunately is some of these layers become distractors.

Imagine having 10 pieces on your bench, right? And don't even look at my bench right now, but having so much in front of you that you want to do, and that's the fun part.

That's the great part is we're ambitious. We wanna have all of these things, right? We wanna do it all. When you have it all laid out in front of you, where do you begin? And [00:11:00] so what ends up happening is complacency, avoidance procrastination looking at social media, co compar, comparisonitis, which I love this word, right?

Comparing ourselves to who's already done the things and who's already further along because they chose a focus, honestly, right? That's where that comes from. When you zoom in and say, okay, I see the 10 things. I'm gonna move the seven over here because they're not as priority for me right now.

This is something for quarter four or Q2 or whatever we're gonna work on this then. So that's the goal here is learning how to use the calendar a little bit more to our creative side, applying it, not just for picking up the kids' doctor's appointments, but blocking out space and time to focus on each thing.

Doing it in an order that makes sense to get to the vision, to get to the overall, what do we want if we don't know exactly what it is we want or we want 10, 20 things we're [00:12:00] gonna be running forever . And I've been there, I've done it. That's why I wrote this was like, oh my gosh, how do we zoom out of , the 10 things and say, okay, here's the one, let's get priority in front of us. And put the others aside, back burner them. We're not gonna give up on them. They're a piece of this puzzle and the vision, but we cannot do them all at once.

When we try to do everything at once, something's gotta give, right?

This is for creatives. It's built for creatives, not even just jewelers. Really. This could be applied to any creative endeavor because we tend to do this. Melissa, and I know you well enough to know like, all right, let's add one more thing. Let's add one more thing, thinking that it's gonna get us to that clear space of

I feel gratified, I feel.

Successful, like I've accomplished what I need to do, but actually we have to do one thing at a time. So that's why I broke it down like this. Let's go week by week. Focus on the one thing at a time.

melissa muir: That sounds like what I need. That

Courtney Gray: We [00:13:00] need clarity. And sometimes honestly, we all need a little help. Somebody to help us zoom out and slow down and re reshuffle, reprioritize. And the truth is, this changes at every stage and every age. Because it's women from every age and every stage. I've had students call and say, but I'm only a year in. I don't feel ready. I'm not there.

melissa muir: that would be lovely to be only a year in,

Courtney Gray: and when you're building a business, there's a lot to think about. There's a website, there is insurance, there's all these things, right? And there's where do I even find the customers? Where do I, how do I price my work? There's all these overwhelming questions and it can be become very overwhelming and just make it all fizzle out if you're not careful.

We can do it one step at a time.

Thanks, Melissa. Appreciate the questions. Awesome.

melissa muir: you. 

Thanks for listening to The Jeweler's View. If today's episode gave you something to think about, consider sending it to a friend or share it on social and tag me at Courtney Gray Arts. You'll find tools, coaching resources, and [00:14:00] the transform course@courtneygrayarts.com. Remember you're not behind.

You're becoming exactly the kind of maker your business needs and that kind of depth. It takes time. I'll be back next week, same time, same tough love, onward and upward. I.