Curating Inspiration for Creative Work

Roberta Morris, a freelance designer and creative director, discusses with host Kaila Sachse how to foster creativity and productivity.

They journey Roberta's career through various cities, her experiences in nonprofit work, and the importance of creative spaces. Their conversation delves into managing time effectively, the significance of community support, and the lessons learned in communication and boundaries. Roberta shares valuable advice for aspiring freelancers, emphasizing the importance of networking and finding one's niche.

About Roberta Morris
Roberta Morris is a Memphis, TN-based designer and founder of Leave It to ’Berta, her own freelance design firm. Her passion is helping organizations to brand and promote their products in a consistent and thoughtful way. 

With a long and varied career, she started out in advertising and boutique design in Dallas, TX. She then lived and worked in Paris, lived in San Francisco for 20 years, and recently relocated back to her hometown of Memphis. 

Roberta has over 30 years' experience working for a wide-range of organizations, clients, and agencies, providing them with fully-integrated digital and print design. 

She regularly dedicates her design talents to nonprofits and charitable causes. When she's not designing something, ’Berta enjoys writing about colorful and creative topics on her Martini Minute blog.

leaveittoberta.com

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Transcript

Roberta Morris (00:00)
I had to kind of give myself permission.

There was a minute there where it was all about Marie Kondo and minimalism And I have to say, I'm not really a minimalist. And so sometimes I kind of worry, like, do I have too much stuff? Is it too colorful in here? Is it too crazy? And then I discovered Iris Epfell and I was like, no, it's not.

Kaila Sachse (00:20)
Welcome to the Bringing Up Business podcast, where we talk about business and parenting. I am your host, Kaila Sachse, owner of marketing and creative agency, Yumari Digital, specializing in websites, email marketing, and more. I am also a mom of a toddler, specializing in tantrums, potty training, and getting my kid to eat at dinnertime when he's not hungry. But I know that he will get hungry right before bedtime. I'm excited to chat with today's guest, Roberta Morris.

She is a designer a nonprofit educational publisher, and founder of Leave It to 'Berta, her freelance design firm. She will review her colorful career from Dallas to Paris to San Francisco to Memphis, Tennessee.

Roberta, I'm so glad you could join me today and welcome to the show.

Roberta Morris (01:09)
Thank you, thank you, I'm pleased to be here.

Kaila Sachse (01:11)
Yeah, yes, let's dive in a little bit. Tell us about your story. I mean, you've worked out of various cities, you've lived there. What's going on?

Roberta Morris (01:20)
Woman on the move I mean, don't want to say I'm nomadic because I'm not I'm not quite to that extent. I'm not living in a van I'm not into that. But anyway, ⁓ but yeah, it's just like I'm along with Sagittarius and I think Yes. Yes, and that is you know, how Sagittarians are we like to move around we like to travel we like to be in different places So that's kind of I think a lot of it

Kaila Sachse (01:34)
Me too!

Roberta Morris (01:47)
Also, I think as someone who likes to travel and as someone who's in the branding and design space, you know, it's like you're not going to, I don't think you're necessarily going to achieve what you need to achieve creatively if you're sort of isolated and maybe like a potentially a smaller place. I find that when I'm out and about, especially in cities and in, you know, in big markets,

You're exposed to lot of different people. You're exposed to the competition. You're exposed to the bigger clients. And it just like helps to groom you, I think, to be a better designer and better creative. Because especially like when I was living in Paris, you want to talk about inspiration? It was everywhere, everywhere. I I originally went there actually. I was in Dallas. I started my career in Dallas. I was there for about six years and I was working in advertising and it was kind of, it was a lot.

Kaila Sachse (02:21)
Yes.

Roberta Morris (02:42)
And I decided I needed to take a break from it. And so I went to France for a while. And it was great because I sort of went on a sabbatical, but I was also like doing my freelance work and stuff. And it was, I had more creative thoughts in that space and in that time. It was just like, it just wouldn't stop. was like a overflowing fountain, you know? And at some point when I came back to San Francisco,

Kaila Sachse (03:06)
Yeah.

Roberta Morris (03:09)
that's when I started in publishing and started working for a collaborative classroom at that time. And it was, publishing and education is completely different. So that was a learning curve, learning to work in nonprofit space, learning to work in publishing and in education. And it was just very different. And that kind of kept me creatively busy. However,

I think being with a firm for a long time and then also being in a market that's so expensive, I was just working like crazy, like constantly just to afford to stay. And now that I, via some personal circumstances have ended up back in Memphis, which is my hometown, It's been great because again, it's like, there's just more room to breathe.

Kaila Sachse (03:42)
Hmm.

Roberta Morris (03:54)
you know, there's more room to breathe financially, there's more room to physically. and I just rented an art space actually about 10 minutes from me and I'm setting it up real cute, everything like I do. And it is gonna create and it's like, it's again, bringing that spark that I had when I was in Paris, I feel like it started to come back. I'm actually in a group show at the Memphis Art Salon right now called Art Speaks.

Kaila Sachse (03:59)
Hmm.

Mmm.

Roberta Morris (04:21)
And that's in the Minglewood building. And it's really fun to create, but also to connect with people here. It's a completely different vibe. People are very supportive. It doesn't have that same competitive tone to it that a lot of markets have. It's just different. And I'm really diving into it. And I've got like, again, a ton of ideas.

of things that I want to create in my art space.

Kaila Sachse (04:53)
I love that. so if you're receiving all of this creative inspiration, how do you choose what to pursue and what is just an idea that's supposed to just flow through you and not necessarily land anywhere?

Roberta Morris (05:08)
Ugh, ⁓ if I had an answer to that, it's really hard because before it was like, I just don't have time to do any of this. So in that sense, it was probably easier. The only thing that I sort of made time to do was do a drawing class. I was studying with Herb Davis-Lale and...

Kaila Sachse (05:19)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Roberta Morris (05:30)
She was a trained Atelier, in the Atelier method. And so she trained myself and some other artists in that sort of process, which is a process. You don't just pick up a pencil and start drawing portraits. It's not like that. It's a very tedious and very methodical process. And what was great about that is it was something to do with my hands creatively, but it wasn't.

I wasn't trying to like, scratch a creative itch in the sense of like, my God, I have to come up with this idea. It has to be great. It was literally just drawing exercises. but it was kind of just mechanical, I guess you would say, and technique.

Kaila Sachse (06:05)
Yeah.

Mm.

Roberta Morris (06:11)
So

that's a completely different frame of mind. Now I'm in a space where I'm like, wanna create all these ideas that I know I'm not gonna be able to do all of them. But what I'm trying to do is sort of prioritize the series that I feel like have the most legs or the pieces that I feel like I can generate the quickest and the easiest.

And then the other ideas that I have, I put in my tool, my toy box or my toolbox for later. You know, I put it up for later. I take it out and play with it later, or I put it up because I don't have time for it right now. I hate to kill any ideas. Most creative people do. We suffer from a problem of having too many ideas and not enough time. mean, maybe there's a service of selling ideas to people. Like here's just the napkin sketch here.

Kaila Sachse (06:55)
Yep.

⁓ that could be fun.

Roberta Morris (07:03)
⁓ that'll be $500 or whatever.

Maybe there's a business model there.

Kaila Sachse (07:07)
my goodness.

I think we're onto something here, Roberta. Yep. So tell us about your freelance work. What is that centered around? What is that about?

Roberta Morris (07:11)
I think we're on to something.

Yeah, so my freelance work is centered around mostly nonprofit and solopreneurs and small firms. ⁓ kind of had my fill when I was in advertising for working with big multinationals. And it's kind of a lot. So ⁓ personally, I like interacting directly with the client, with the end client. ⁓ I don't like to go through

Kaila Sachse (07:38)
Yeah.

Roberta Morris (07:48)
too many filters, find that to be, it's like playing telephone and you're never really, ⁓ the satisfaction is not there and you never really know what the other person is promising them or not promising them or whatever. So I like having that, that direct communication. So when I'm working, because I have worked in nonprofits for long time, I have several clients that are nonprofits and then I have several that are solopreneurs starting small businesses and ⁓

Kaila Sachse (07:53)
Okay.

Yeah.

Roberta Morris (08:17)
then I also do more pubs. It's like I do more book work. There's a platform that I am on called Rezzi and it's great because I've done, I mean, the projects come to me and I've done everything from crime fiction to self-help to curriculum to children's picture books, fiction, nonfiction, lot of, know, EPUB, print. It's been,

Kaila Sachse (08:40)
What?

Roberta Morris (08:45)
a real mix and it's been really fun.

Kaila Sachse (08:49)
⁓ and what is the name of that platform again? It's EPUB.

Roberta Morris (08:52)
It's called Readzy, R-E-E-D-S-Y. And it's only publishing.

Kaila Sachse (08:56)
Okay, got it.

Okay, okay, and it's a directory for clients to connect with artists?

Roberta Morris (09:05)
all, know, illustrators, typesetters, know, cover designer, interior designers, editors, copy editors and the like. And so, yeah, it's like I come in as the designer. So I design, I prefer to design cover to cover. Like some people are just cover designers. Some people are just interior designers and they're like, no, like I...

Call me crazy, but like I like to be a cover to cover designer. And so, yeah. And like I said, I have had projects that ranged like working on one now that's like a dinosaur encyclopedia and it's all the scientific knowledge and all the figures that go with it and all these tables and dinosaur, you know, bones, all this stuff. I know, right? Well, this is, this is quite the scientific and kind of elevated, but

Kaila Sachse (09:36)
Okay.

⁓ my kid would love that.

Roberta Morris (10:01)
And then I'm working on a book that's about germs, you know, and that's for kids about germs, you know, and like how it's important to understand about the immune system. then there's another one that, know, I just wrapped up that was a memoir of a lady, you know, her mom, who was part of like the military, you know, women in the military during World War II and all of this. And it was, you know, it's just completely different genres, completely different topics.

Kaila Sachse (10:31)
time.

Roberta Morris (10:31)
I'm also working on a series for an author friend of mine whose name is Bill Black and he's writing ⁓ a series. Erica Banks is like this assassin and she's like killing people. And it's a series, you know, it's a series of her like doing all the murderous things that she does. And of course I'm doing the covers and they're all spooky and crime bodily and all this. It's fun.

Kaila Sachse (11:00)
How fun. So if you get a project that is in a space you've never worked in before, say the dinosaur encyclopedia, you've never worked on a dinosaur encyclopedia before, how do you get inspired? Where do you find that from?

Roberta Morris (11:15)
Yeah, well, I mean, a lot of it is combing through the interwebs and just seeing what other dinosaur books are out there, like seeing what people are doing, and also, of course, understanding the tone. I have worked on a dinosaur book before, actually, that was for children, and it was like a workbook and like songbook and whatever. And that had a completely different vibe. And I've done a lot of children's books, so that was kind of easy. But this one is more of a scientific

anthology. And so I just looked around, seeing what other publications were out there. But then I ended up landing on something that sort of a cross between a tome and you know, like an encyclopedia kind of dry. It's but I didn't want to be dry. So like, I actually created a design that's much more sort of coffee table book. It's not really like that. It's it's a bit more

But it's got some nice kind of textures and a nice color palette. It's kind of earthy and the fonts are kind of interesting. I I'm just kind of making it visually appealing so that it's not just like black and white text and figures. I didn't want it to be too dry.

Kaila Sachse (12:23)
Yeah, that sounds lovely. No,

right, right. No, that sounds lovely. I'm sensing a connection between, with your inspiration, you have to go out into the world. And you mentioned before that during all of your travels, the different places you lived, that was a huge source of inspiration as well, because you were out there, you were seeing what was going on. So it sounds like it's really important as an artist or even as like a freelance designer to

experience more of the world instead of just living in a bubble. Would you agree? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Roberta Morris (12:56)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It really it's really key and I have clients from all over the world sometimes depending on, you know, who's contacted me and it's like, I think it's really important. Also, if you're designing for the market to understand, the cultural differences, like the palettes that appeal the type of imagery that appeals and things like that. then, you know, obviously Paris.

really inspirational for fine arts and that sort of thing. But there was just so much cool typography and posters. There's posters everywhere that are all really groovy. And then of course, like traveling in Asia and there's like a whole other sort of cultural style there. And it's, yeah, I find that it broadens the mind and it just gives you more to work with.

Kaila Sachse (13:32)
⁓

⁓ man, am, ooh, I'm a sucker for typography. When you mentioned that, I got all excited. Okay, so tell us about... ⁓

Roberta Morris (13:51)
Thanks.

I know, right?

Type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type.

Kaila Sachse (14:06)
This is what happens when you put two Sagittarius together and who are, who are designers. Like we just, we have too much fun. That's the point of life though. It's so short. Just enjoy it while we can, right? ⁓ So, so tell me about your, your physical workspace that you work out of at any one point in time. I mean, do you, do you pay attention to that or does it really, does it matter to you? It does. Yeah.

Roberta Morris (14:11)
I know, what's going on?

Right.

Yeah, it does matter. It does matter. When

I have worked in office environments that were like the cute, know, the sort of Dilbert cube situation, it's like, it was, it was not conducive to being creative. Now I always kind of dressed my cubes up with as many, you know, little figurines and art and colorful, you know, desk items and things as I could. But yeah, I was just, eh.

And it's also really hard to work creatively when you're constantly interrupted or it's just kind of an open environment. So when I've had my own space, I really do it up. I mean, I do it up. Now, currently I'm working from home and of course my apartment is very creatively decorated because that's how I am. And then I, like I was mentioning, I just got a space and it's going to be a dual purpose, a design space and also an art space.

Kaila Sachse (14:57)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Roberta Morris (15:23)
And I've got, some funky wallpaper and I've got my art and my funky lamps. And I just got a little couch that goes in there. That's kind of like this low mid-century couch and it's got like the funky coffee table. And so when you see the spaces that I decorate and I work in, they're like, oh wow, that's really cool. Well, that's really cool. Oh, that's really colorful. It's really this, it's really that. And I had to kind of give myself permission.

Kaila Sachse (15:41)
You

Roberta Morris (15:49)
Because, you know, there was a minute there where it was all about Marie Kondo and minimalism and all of this kind of stuff. And I have to say, when it came to that, I'm not really a minimalist. And so sometimes I kind of worry, like, do I have too much stuff? Is it too colorful in here? Is it too crazy? And then I discovered Iris Epfell and I was like, no, it's not.

Kaila Sachse (16:11)
I love it. I love that you gave yourself permission to live in a way that works for you. It's so easy for us to just fall into what everybody else is doing, know, the whole keeping up with the Joneses mentality. That could be a huge drag, both on our creativity, but also on our wellbeing overall. Yeah. And I treat my workspace the same way that you do. has to be...

Roberta Morris (16:32)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kaila Sachse (16:38)
It has to feel curated. also has to feel for me, I need tidy because I noticed that I get a brain fog when I have things laying around. And it's the same way with my external, I'll say, I was about to say external world. I mean the world outside of my office. So it's like everything else. It's where my son likes to play and where my husband and I eat dinner and all of the rest of our home. Every space has

Roberta Morris (16:46)
Yeah.

Kaila Sachse (17:07)
an intention or a purpose. you know, our living room, hosts all the memories between my husband and I, including my son as well. All of his toys live out there. Now that sounds chaotic, but it's so nice for him to just go up and play with whatever he wants to play with. And like that's fueling his creativity because understanding that play and creativity are important for a kid's development. it's...

Roberta Morris (17:31)
yeah,

100%.

Kaila Sachse (17:33)
Yeah, so protecting that space is important. And it also sounds like you're protecting your time too. What does your time management look like?

Roberta Morris (17:40)
Well, I mean, it has not always been the best, but I'm really working on it. And what I'm trying to do now is really, I call it blocking, where I sort of segment my time where it's like, this is work time, this is errand time, this is self-care time, this is social time or whatever. Because working from home and then, I don't know, like, ⁓ should I?

I got to the dishwasher and also my is of the door and I got to get that package that just came and you know, and then I got a meeting and then I got these. It's just like, it was just too chaotic. when I'm kind of like visually, I don't like visual chaos either. It's like, I'm very tidy. And, and I find that mentally when my calendar or my schedule is like that is like all jumbled. It also has the same, it creates the same issue for me, which is like that I get like.

Kaila Sachse (18:14)
Yeah.

Roberta Morris (18:39)
almost like during the headlights, I can't even think. It's like, I can't think. I can't think. So I call it imposing order.

Kaila Sachse (18:43)
Yeah. Yeah.

Roberta Morris (18:48)
So I've imposed order on my schedule and I'm really trying very hard to bucketize, you know, and like when the work time's done, it's done. When the play time's, you know, the social time starts and, you know, and that it's all very kind of segmented like that. And there's not a lot of crossover.

Kaila Sachse (18:56)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that totally that completely checks out and resonates with me too. I find that when I have my my designated work time, I tell myself, hey, this is the only time I get to be at my desk. I also work from home. You know, I'm handling my things and my clock in time and my clock out time are are pretty stern. mean, ask my husband. There are some evenings where I just want to like keep going. The creative juices flow. Right. But.

Roberta Morris (19:30)
Mm-hmm.

Kaila Sachse (19:36)
I have to consciously tell myself like, no, no, that's it. Now it's family time. Gotta move into the next bucket. you know, there are those mornings where you wake up and maybe you don't wanna get to your desk, but that's the only time that you have blocked out. So that's that. And weekends for me, weekends are off. Weekends are family time only. Nobody touches my weekends. Those are sacred. You know, I gotta spend time with my boys.

Roberta Morris (19:52)
yeah?

yeah, no, that's great. I I actually, I try to exercise that with weekends. There are times when I'll use some of the weekend time to play catch up, especially on my freelance projects. ⁓ So I do do some work on the weekends, ⁓ but it's not too bad. I try to keep it, you know, to a dull roar. But I will say that I'll probably be spending some weekend time at the art studio. Like that's going to be kind of like,

where, you know, say Sunday afternoons or certain, you know, certain blocks of time during the week, I'm going to go there and work and again, have a time in and time out. But, you know, sometimes the weekend is, is, is the time that I have to do certain things. And I think it's okay to agree. I don't want to get crazy.

Kaila Sachse (20:36)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, no, 100%, 100%. It really boils down to what does your life look like? How do you want it to look like? How can you design your week in a way that works for you? So for some people, weekends are a hard no. For other people, yeah, it's completely okay to work on the weekends, take advantage of that time. It depends on how your life is structured and how you want it to be. So it's totally fine.

Roberta Morris (20:57)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Bye now.

Yeah.

Kaila Sachse (22:20)
You mentioned the art studio. Tell me more about that. What is that like? How did you find it?

et cetera.

Roberta Morris (22:26)
Yeah.

So the art studio is about 10 minutes from me. It's on, it's an, there's an arts district called Flickr Arts District. And I had been looking for an art studio off and on for several years. Actually, I would look at San Francisco and like, you know, for three or $400 or $500 or something, you get like a square foot or something. You can like stand up and have an easel. That's like, you know,

It was sad, sad. And it just wasn't, it just wasn't what I was looking for. And I've looked at coworking spaces and all these things. You don't have like a touchdown desk and all this stuff, but that doesn't really allow you to do like painting and whatever. So when I first, when I came to Memphis, I joined a makerspace and I thought, oh yeah, this is gonna be great, you know? But the problem with the makerspace is it's kind of far.

And it's this just big shared space and you can't really leave your mess out. You can't leave your supplies out. It's not your own space. And the storage wasn't enough for all of my art supplies. So I had put my name on waiting lists around town, you know, because you have to get on a wait list because there's not enough spaces for everybody. Right. So I would get a message occasionally from this guy like, Hey, we've got a unit available. You want to see it? And I would say, you know, yes, I'd like to see it.

sorry, somebody already took it, you know. Seriously? And that happened, I don't know, three or four times, I guess. So finally, the star is aligned and he reached out again and I'm like, yes, yes, I want to see it. And I went to see it and I paid the deposit. Like I'd fill out the paper. Like I did it immediately because I was like, don't give it to somebody else. Don't do it.

Kaila Sachse (23:54)
ouch.

Yours. Yeah!

Roberta Morris (24:10)
But it's like these old buildings, think they might've been from like the war or something. They're these kind of half dome, like corrugated metal, like roundish kind of buildings. There's a bunch of them there. And then it's just split down the middle of the hallway and then there's studios on each side. And so like one of the walls is curved, you know, and then it's got a window and you know, it's fun.

Kaila Sachse (24:31)
Cool. it sounds

so inspiring. What is the purpose of having an art studio for you? What is the benefit?

Roberta Morris (24:39)
I think the well the benefit partially is so that I can you know have all my arts supplies out and do that kind of creative work that's a little messy and whatever because I have two cats at home and it's just like they get in the middle of everything. Everything. I mean papers, paint like anything I would have like you know like scoot scoot scoot scoot scoot scoot there goes the you know the

water with my brush in it, you know, or whatever. It would just be a, it's just a mess. And also because it is a small apartment, there's not really a space to, you know, bust out, you know, your creative stuff and really set up anything. So I just needed that extra space and I needed to be left alone. I'm hiding.

Kaila Sachse (25:19)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that is,

yeah. Me and you both, I'm hiding from my son right now. I'm just kidding. He's with his dad. I'm not being negligent. He's out there with an adult, but no, it's like, yeah, you have to have that safe space that nobody else can touch. It's yours. You could do with it as you will. You can have all that creative flow without impeding on anybody else's space.

Roberta Morris (25:35)
you

yeah,

it's like when you're trying to do anything like on a table with children or pets or anybody, it's just like, it's just an invitation to pilfer and.

Kaila Sachse (25:58)
What thousand percent. Yeah, so you mentioned earlier how you noticed a shift between San Francisco and Memphis, how the people shifted. They were kinder in Memphis. You had a little bit more of a community feel to that. How do you think that has impacted your work?

Roberta Morris (26:19)
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I was, I was in San Francisco for 20 years. So it's not like I didn't have community there and there are many, many lovely people there. It's beautiful city. It's a beautiful area. but in the creative sphere, I never really like in the career space, like I would connect obviously with people that I worked with, um, and, you know, clients and whoever, but it wasn't like I belonged to AIGA.

I went to the meetings a few times, but I never could really click with anybody. And I just never really felt like I was part of the larger creative community. And since I've been here, I mean, of course, the South is known for being polite. That's just part of the culture, right? Now, yes, ma'am, and no, ma'am, and please, and thank you. I got schooled, because I've been away for so long that I wasn't...

Kaila Sachse (26:51)
Yeah.

Roberta Morris (27:09)
It wasn't an automatic thing to always say, you know, yes, ma'am, or thank you, or please or whatever. and so, yeah, I've literally had to relearn to be here because it's a very different vibe. Like if you're not polite, you're kind of a jerk. And so, yeah, so I'm forced, forced play. So like I'm polite, you know, the politeness part of it, but also instead of that.

Kaila Sachse (27:25)
Mmmhmm!

Roberta Morris (27:34)
competitive edge of like, well, my art's going to show better or I want to get a higher price or I'm a better designer and I'm going to knock you out. It's not really like that. It's very much supportive. Everybody's supportive. Everybody's like part of the community. Everybody's clapping and snapping for everybody's spoken word or whatever or visual pieces. It's just not as to the competitiveness, I think, is less. And I think it's partially because it's a smaller market. mean, you're not

It's not New York City, it's not San Francisco, it's just different. But yeah, it's affected my work, especially my creative work. I just don't feel like, I feel like I can create things and I can show them to people and not kind of brace myself that they might not like it or they might have something negative to say about it or it might, you know, they're like, no, it's not like that. It's just people really lift you up.

Kaila Sachse (28:27)
Yeah.

Roberta Morris (28:29)
it's like I appreciate it and I haven't quite slid into like the yes ma'am and no ma'am you know, still not there but like I'm working on it. The first time somebody said yes ma'am to me, I was like, what do think about an old lady or something? Why are you calling me a ma'am?

Kaila Sachse (28:40)
It's still working on it. Yeah.

are you calling ma'am?

Roberta Morris (28:53)
But I realize that everybody does it. To everybody. Or sir, or whoever. You know what I mean? It's just like, it's like saying absolutely or yes or yeah, 100 % or something like that. It's like, yes ma'am.

Kaila Sachse (28:55)
Yeah? Ow.

⁓ it sounds so lovely. ⁓ my goodness

Roberta Morris (29:11)
It is, it

is lovely. Except in the summertime. With all the bugs and the heat and the humidity. other than that, it's great.

Kaila Sachse (29:14)
Yeah, yeah, mm, mm, sounds... Mm.

my goodness. So tell me about a lesson that you've learned recently, either from working with the nonprofit or working as a freelancer. What is a business lesson that you've learned?

Roberta Morris (29:30)
So many business lessons I've learned through the years. mean, one of the biggest lessons that I've learned is about communication. And especially with designers, creative people, it's really, sometimes it's challenging to know how to be diplomatic or to know how to...

Kaila Sachse (29:32)
Yeah.

Roberta Morris (29:50)
talk in a way that, you know, it's like, it's hard. It's like, it's not something that came naturally to me. So I had to work with one of my previous bosses, Lisa was great, know, she was Lisa Bandini is her name. She is an amazing boss and she and some other folks have coached me and my therapist, everybody in my life has really helped me to learn, my boyfriend, you

has helped me learn to be a better communicator in all these different instances. And personal relationships and work relationships and neighbor relationships and family relationships. And it has taken me all this, I'm in my 50s, it has taken me all this time to learn communication in the right way.

Kaila Sachse (30:20)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Roberta Morris (30:38)
And that is the biggest, if you want to be successful in business and if you want to be successful in a community and if you want to be like, you need to learn how to communicate in an effective way, in a clear way, but in a respectful and diplomatic way. It's, you know what I mean? It's like, it's a very delicate balance to get a, like to be polite and to, and to put it out there the way it needs to be put out there, but to also be clear.

Kaila Sachse (30:43)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, you could be almost too nice, I'm putting it in air quotes, too nice to the point where people don't understand what you're actually asking for. Or if you don't word something directly, you're just kind of tiptoeing around it, they're not gonna catch, they're not gonna pick up what you're putting down, right? You have to.

Roberta Morris (31:07)
Right, it's like...

Mm.

they're not

gonna pick up what you're putting down. And it's also gonna leave you open to being like either taken advantage of or misunderstood or whatever. And it's just, you and especially in the creative industry too, in any work situation or personal situation, boundaries are really important. And that was really, you wanna talk about a hard lesson to learn, like learning boundaries around my time management, around not, you know, responding

Kaila Sachse (31:53)
Oof.

Roberta Morris (31:56)
in a millisecond when somebody pings me about something, you know, it's just like, it's that, it's that blocking. If somebody pings you over here, like, I need this thing. And you're just like, well, but I'm in the middle of this thing right now. Like, it's all about the balance. And it's like, you can't just run back and forth like that. It's like, you have to have like a process. And so I have worked really hard to communicate to people.

Kaila Sachse (32:21)
reach.

Roberta Morris (32:26)
You know, this is when you can expect this thing. This is when I'm available. This, know, and I just, I just don't answer, you know, like at some funky hour, whatever day or the weekends or something I tend not to answer on those days. Right.

Kaila Sachse (32:41)
Yes,

yes, you bring up spoken boundaries where you're saying, hey, I am not able to do this right now, but what I can do is get it by XYZ date and time. And then you also have the unspoken boundaries that you are setting. I would say, well, it could be intentional or unintentional by not responding on the downtime that you want to maintain for yourself.

Roberta Morris (33:01)
Mm-hmm.

Kaila Sachse (33:07)
And it is the same thing with parenting too, right? So if my toddler comes up to me with the whiny, I want crackers, I want, you know, I won't respond because I want him to know that he needs to communicate calmly, clearly, and as you put it, diplomatically. Because if he's not going to be calm and clear about what he needs, the world isn't going to respond well to him. Period.

Roberta Morris (33:34)
Nope, nope.

I was having this conversation with some of my colleagues. I belong to this bonfire group and we're a community online and we chat and the guy who runs it is named as Philip Undoos. I'm doing all the name dropping, know, talking, lifting up all my peeps. ⁓ But we were just, we were having a whole conversation about AI and using AI and

Kaila Sachse (33:50)
You

Yeah, as we should, as we should.

Roberta Morris (34:01)
And I use it a lot myself and we were discussing the fact that if you ask AI to do something, it'll give you you know, it'll give you like, you know, whatever you ask for. If you ask it nicely, it'll give you a better result.

Kaila Sachse (34:17)
Interesting. I wonder what the data is on that. That sounds fascinating.

Roberta Morris (34:20)
That's supposedly

a thing. It's like if you ask nicely, it will give you a better result. And in fact, I actually exercised that and I was asking it nicely. Can you please and this is great. I would like to see more of this and it actually responds more politely. Right. It'll say it.

Kaila Sachse (34:37)
How funny. So it's not just a nicety,

it's a necessity.

Roberta Morris (34:42)
Yeah, it'll actually respond nicely. So like if you say, ⁓ that was really great. I'd like to see it a little bit more like this. ⁓ great. I'm really glad you liked what I gave you. Let me try it more this way or something. You know I mean? Like it's actually talking to you. It was really interesting. Yes.

Kaila Sachse (34:58)
What? It almost sounds like AI is mirroring you.

That social concept of mirroring where if we see someone and we want to be on the same page as them and want them to feel like they're on the same page with us, we mirror their actions, their facial expressions, their tonality, all of the things. And that actually helps our brains to sync together and feel like we are a team.

Roberta Morris (35:26)
Yeah, yeah, it really does. And it's like that mirroring and again, that's kind of part of communication too. It's like, I also use humor and kind of funny facial expressions. Like I try to put people at their ease. That's kind of one of my techniques, right? And then I try to use humor and whatever. And it's like, I just do that. It's like, now, does it work 100 % of the time? No, there are still some people that just aren't, you know.

Kaila Sachse (35:39)
Yeah.

Roberta Morris (35:51)
really responsive to that style of communication and you have to like come down like a hammer. That does happen sometimes, but it's a little more unusual. I it's not, I don't think I would experience that nearly as much as I used to, especially early in my career.

Kaila Sachse (36:08)
How interesting. Wow. I'm so glad that you brought up communication because communication really is foundational to business and to just enjoying our relationships as a whole. If we're better able to communicate with each other and enjoy each other, then that's the goal, right?

Roberta Morris (36:15)
Mm-hmm.

yeah.

Oh yeah, 100 % the goal.

Kaila Sachse (36:27)
Yeah. This has been

such a fun chat. What is a piece of advice that you would give to someone who wants to get into freelance, either full-time, side hustle, whatever it is?

Roberta Morris (36:41)
Yeah, yeah. part of it is work your network. mean, like word of mouth is much more reliable, I would say, than trying to do like cold calling and all this kind of stuff. And now you can do SEO and you can do social and you can put yourself out there on LinkedIn and post and resupply and do all the things that kind of get

noticed. But if you work your network, I think that is a really good way to kind of get at least get started. And I would say also find your niche, you know, generalist struggle, I think. I mean, do I do a lot of different kinds of design? Yes. But I say branding, it's the story, like branding is the story, you know, and that's the story that I tell. And because I do that, it's not as confusing to people as in the you know,

Kaila Sachse (37:08)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Roberta Morris (37:29)
like offering like 10 different services. It's like, let's just boil it down, you know? And then also I think trying to figure out who, you know, of course networking and, you know, business groups and whatever, but also who's your client? I tried so hard to do like tech companies and startups and all this stuff, and it was just, it wasn't a good fit. And so I think for me, the Solopreneur nonprofit space has worked for me.

Kaila Sachse (37:33)
Yeah.

Roberta Morris (37:59)
And it's like, find your space. So.

Kaila Sachse (38:01)
Yeah,

yeah, yeah. And it seems like the best way to figure out what your space is to just go out there and just start trying it and experiment. And eventually you'll figure out, okay, this is working for me, this isn't working for me.

Roberta Morris (38:13)
Yeah, or like what do you do best? know if you already have a career as a designer And you just want you want to freelance rather than being full-time or something like that Then yeah, I mean it's harder obviously. It's like chicken and feathers You know But if you again, it's like you just have to work you have to kind of always be Always be what was the thing the movie always be closing?

Kaila Sachse (38:16)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, that's great advice. Use your network, niche down, figure out what works for you because that's how you can produce your best work. Yeah. Definitely love that. Thank you so much for sharing. Roberta, where can people find you?

Roberta Morris (38:48)
Yeah, and figure out who your client is. Figure out who your clients are.

So they can find me at leaveittoberta.com, like leave it to Beaver, but leave it to Berta.com. my art venture is funomatics.com. F-U-N-O-M-A-T-I-C-S.com. funomatics.com.

Kaila Sachse (39:05)
cute.

Fun-o-matics?

Amazing.

Well, thank you so much for being on the show with me. I look forward to the next time we chat, whenever that will be. Hopefully soon.

Roberta Morris (39:24)
Alrighty,