#97: What If You’re Ready for Something Different?
Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome to The Jeweler's View. I'm Courtney Gray. I've spent nearly 30 years in this industry running schools, doing custom work, coaching, consulting, and working with makers at all stages. Over time, I've started to see the patterns, the things that actually move a creative career forward and the things that can quietly hold it back.
I built this podcast to cut through the noise. Less time in your head or down the research rabbit hole and more time building something real. Let's get into it
What if you know something needs to change, but you have absolutely no idea what comes next? I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to know. If this business doesn't fit anymore, what should I build instead?
If I don't wanna do shows anymore, where am I going to sell? If I've outgrown the work I'm making, what am I [00:01:00] supposed to make next? What does that look like? If I don't wanna work this hard anymore, been there, done this, what does the next version look like? We want the answer before we're even willing to admit that something has changed, And I think we may have that backwards. Welcome back to The Jeweler's View. I'm Courtney Gray. Last week, nearly 500 of us gathered for Evolving Creatively.
Now, I've had a few days to sit with what happened in those four hours. I've thought about things that Holly Gage, Francesca Watson, and Teresa Kiplinger said. I've thought about the roundtable and what people shared in the chat, and some of the things that came out of my own mouth that I didn't completely realize I believed until I said them out loud.
That's one of the things that I love about a good conversation, is you don't always know where it's [00:02:00] gonna go. I keep coming back to one sentence. I said it before we'd even really gotten started. You don't have to know what you're evolving into to recognize that you're evolving
That really sank in when I actually said it out loud. But after listening to these three women, I think I understood it even more. Holly's conversation was about vulnerability, about being seen, about what happens when life changes you, and how much energy we can spend worrying about everybody else's reaction to us francesca talked about resilience after big life hurdles and rebuilding after losing her studio. Not just rebuilding a building, but figuring out what the next version of her life and business and community could look like
teresa talked about creativity through some enormous life [00:03:00] changes, radical acceptance, and the way our creative voice changes as we do. Three very different women, different stories, but none of them really had the whole map, if you think about it. They responded to what was actually happening. They adjusted.
They tried things. They changed their minds. They let things go. They kept making. And sometimes they didn't know what the next version was gonna look like until they were already living inside of it. I think we forget that we're allowed to do that, especially in business. We want change to arrive with a strategic plan and a spreadsheet, preferably color-coded.
I'd also like estimated revenue projections and maybe a nice little arrow telling me you are here. That would be helpful, wouldn't it? But that's not usually how it works. Sometimes the first piece of [00:04:00] information you get is simply, "This doesn't fit anymore." That's information. Maybe you're tired of making what you've been making.
Maybe wholesale worked beautifully for you for 10 years, and now you're starting to resent it or dread it. Maybe you've been saying you wanna teach, but every time an opportunity comes up, you don't actually want to do it. Maybe you're still calling your jewelry business a little side hustle thing, even though it's been taking up half your brain, half your life for the last seven years.
And maybe you built the business you thought you wanted, but now you're standing inside of it thinking, "Huh, I don't think I want this anymore." That doesn't mean you failed. It may simply mean that you've changed. Things have changed, and your business or maybe even your hands haven't caught up quite yet.
One of the things that Teresa talked about during Evolving Creatively was [00:05:00] developing a visual vocabulary in your work. I loved the way she described it. You bring things in, you try them, you use them for a while, You drop some things and you keep others.
Eventually, your voice becomes more refined and recognizable. But it's really hard to refine something that you haven't explored yet. You have to make a bunch of stuff, some of it fits, some of it doesn't, some of it leads somewhere, and some of it winds up in a drawer where perhaps it's okay if it stays there forever.
That's part of making. That's part of creativity. And I think our businesses develop in much the same way. We're pretty comfortable with experimentation at the bench. You can make a ring, you could hate it, you could melt it down and call it learning. But you make a business decision that doesn't work, suddenly we're holding a congressional hearing.
"What went wrong? [00:06:00] Why did I do this? Should I even be in business? Maybe I'm terrible at this." Maybe it's just you tried something, and now you know more. Toward the end of evolving creatively, we were talking about all the different ways we can build creative lives and businesses, and we stumbled onto something else.
There are no rules. There are no rules here. We get to design this. What do you want? What do you want your Tuesday to look like? What do you want your life to look like? And then, if you want a business, how do you build one around that?
That's a question I've been much more interested in The reality is the business that fit you 10 years ago, it may not fit you now.
The business and your style of working that fit before kids, aging parents, a move, a loss, retirement, health changes, or [00:07:00] simply getting older yourself, it may need to change. And sometimes nothing crazy dramatic happened at all. Maybe you simply want something different now for this stage.
Now, here's the thing, you do not need a catastrophe to justify changing direction. You don't have to hate what you built before you're allowed to build differently, and you don't have to know exactly where you're going before you acknowledge where you are. I've certainly seen this in my own life. I've been a jeweler, I've run two schools, I've taught, I started a casting company, I've built curriculum, I've consulted and coached and podcasted, i'm actually making more at the bench again. I sing in a band. I bought the damn motorcycle after wanting one since I was a teenager.
And now evolving creatively. None of that was some master plan that I wrote 20 years ago. A lot of it [00:08:00] grew out of curiosity, necessity, opportunity, or realizing a season was ending. Not that any of this is easy. Sometimes I knew I wanted something different long before I knew what different looked like or how to let go of what I was already doing.
There's a difference between having no direction and not knowing the entire route yet. Maybe for you it's that you've spent years working in one technique, and lately you're being pulled towards something completely different
Or like many of us, you've invested in the tools, took the classes, got really good at something, and now you're thinking, "Shit, I don't actually want to spend the next 10 years doing this." Maybe the way that you've been producing your work is wearing you out physically. Your business has grown, which is what you wanted, but somehow you've been the person answering all the emails, packing the boxes, updating the [00:09:00] website instead of the person making the jewelry.
Pay attention to that stuff because then the business questions start to change. If you're changing the way that you make, does your pricing still make sense? If you want more time actually making, what needs to come off your plate? If teaching is becoming part of the big picture, how do you make room for it without just piling it on top of everything else?
If your body can't work the way it did 15 years ago, what needs to change? How do we shake it up? One decision starts affecting another, this is the work that we do inside Transform: From Vision to Success.
Now, if you're new here because you found me through Evolving Creatively, Transform is my live program for jewelers and makers who are ready to really look at their business and decide where they're going with it. We work through all the practical [00:10:00] stuff: pricing, customers, visibility, money and operations, systems, and self-leadership.
All of those pieces are connected. And before we start trying to grow or change anything, I want to know, what does success actually look like for you? Not when you started, not what somebody on Instagram says it should look like, not what the jeweler next to you is building.
You now. Once we know that, we can make better decisions around the rest of it. For one person, success might mean replacing a full-time income. Someone else wants to make enough money to pay for the materials. Totally fine. Maybe to pay for some travel and a few really good classes every year Someone wants a studio full of employees.
Someone else absolutely does not. Maybe you wanna teach. Maybe you wanna sell through galleries. [00:11:00] Maybe you want three solid days at the bench every week and enough breathing room to actually enjoy the life you're building this success around. Those businesses, they don't look the same, and they really shouldn't.
This isn't about figuring out how to do more. It's figuring out what actually belongs in the business that you're building now. I think that's probably one of my biggest takeaways from evolving creatively. And by the way, I wanna hear yours.
If you were there or you've watched the replay, send me a message through this podcast or through my email, hi@courtneygrayarts.com. I wanna hear, what was your biggest takeaway? I think mine was not that we should all reinvent ourselves, right? Not that change is always good. And certainly not that every uncomfortable moment means you need to burn the business down and start over
Please don't email me saying, "Courtney [00:12:00] told me to burn down my business." We had enough fire conversation last week. What I mean is much simpler. Pay attention when something no longer fits right. You don't have to immediately fix it, which I know we all love to fix things.
You don't have to announce anything to anybody else, and you definitely don't need a new logo by next Thursday. Just be willing to look at it. Maybe that's where evolution starts, not with knowing exactly what's next, just being willing to recognize what's true for you now. So here's my little bench note for this week.
One question. It's kind of a big one, though. What doesn't fit anymore? Now, let's make sure, it's not what do I need to completely change and start over. We're not doing that to ourselves. Just simple, what doesn't fit anymore? Maybe it's something you're making or the way that you're [00:13:00] selling, your schedule, a technique that you've outgrown, right?
You've kind of played with it. You're done. You're ready to move forward. Or something that you're doing because you've always done it and it feels safe. Or maybe it's an idea that you've been carrying around about what your business is supposed to look like.
Write down whatever comes up. You don't have to do anything with it today. Just notice it, recognizing that you're ready for something different isn't the end of the plan. It may be the beginning of one. Now, before I go, thank you again to everyone, every one of you who joined us for Evolving Creatively, and to Holly, Francesca, and Teresa for trusting us with their personal stories.
If you missed the live event, and you wanna hear those conversations for yourself, Evolving Creatively will be available. Head to courtneygrayarts.com for the current details on how to watch. And if this [00:14:00] conversation has you looking at your own business and your life a little differently, enrollment is open, my friend, for the next live round of Transform From Vision to Success.
You'll find all those details on the website as well. Next week, I wanna keep going with this because once we recognize that something doesn't fit anymore, the next question becomes: what are you building now? We'll get into that next week.
Until then, I'm Courtney Gray. This is The Jeweler's View. Be sure to hit follow so you get pinged every Tuesday when a new episode goes live. Thank you so much for being here. Onward and upward
Speaker 2: I'm glad you're here. This path takes a lot, especially when you're building something of your own. If you wanna go deeper, I share key takeaways and additional teaching through my email list at courtneygrayarts.com. Keep going. This part matters. I'll see you next [00:15:00] [00:16:00] week
