How We Stay Creatively Conscious with Claire Venus

In a world that often feels noisy, fast-moving, and full of other people's expectations, how do we stay connected to ourselves? How do we know what's truly ours, what lifts us up, and what might be shifting us into someone we were never meant to be?

This week, I’m joined by Claire Venus, writer, mentor, Substack strategist, and founder of Creatively Conscious. Claire is someone I turn to often for encouragement and guidance on creativity, community, and showing up online in ways that feel more human, more intentional, and more like ourselves.

The thought Claire brings to the podcast is to stay creatively conscious. Together, we explore what that means in practice and how creativity can become more than something we do. We talk about building a life that feels like our own, the freedom that comes from questioning the rules we’ve inherited, and the importance of paying attention to what uplifts us rather than what leaves us feeling depleted. Along the way, we touch on self-trust, visibility, nervous system awareness, burnout, creative expression, motherhood, and the challenge of staying open and curious in a digital world that can sometimes feel overwhelming.

Claire Venus is an award winning Engagement and Audience Development Consultant, author, Substack Expert and Mentor.  She lives on the Northumberland Coast in the UK with her husband, two children and dog; a blue whippet called Stella. In 2015, Claire left the city and followed the call to live rurally, buying a 100 year old home that needed renovation, stepping into her lifelong vision to live by the sea. After a twenty year career in worldwide festivals and events, she pivoted to start her company ‘Creatively Conscious Ltd’ and expanded her brand to work with artists, writers and female founders globally online.  

Claire is the author of 6 books including How to Build a World Class Substack, an Amazon bestseller, and Invisible Trust. She has been featured in The Telegraph, The Sunday Times and ipaper. She writes to an email audience of over 19,000 subscribers and has popular social and YouTube channels too.

Website | Instagram | LinkedIn | YouTube

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Leonie Dawson 

Emma Gannon

Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale

Creative Health Alliance 

Brené Brown's TED Talk on vulnerability 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Hi and welcome to this week's episode of A Thought I Kept, a weekly podcast about the one idea that stayed. I'm your host, Claire Fitzsimmons. I'm a well-being writer and coach and the co-founder of If Lost. Each week I sit down with someone to explore a single idea that they've held on to. You know, the one that stayed. Even when so many others fell away. My hope is that these thoughts might be ones that we carry into our week too. And maybe into our lives. Particularly in moments that life can feel noisy or uncertain. Or just a lot. This week I'm talking to Claire Venus. Claire is an engagement consultant, a mentor, and a Substack strategist. She's a writer behind Creatively Conscious and Sparkle on Substack, a global top 10 publication. She hosts the podcast Sparkle on Substack, and she co-authored How to Build a World-Class Substack. She's someone that I turn to constantly for advice and information about how to be on that platform in ways that actually feels really good and intentional and aligned with what I want to do. She's also somebody that I really like listening to and being around because of how she talks about how to show up online and in our creative lives. And how we might do both in ways that feel so much more human, so much more spacious, and so much more connected to ourselves. I really wanted to talk to Claire because she's someone who I think offers us something that many of us are searching for. And that's a way to stay open and curious and maybe even kind in a digital world that can feel overwhelming and performative or just exhausting. There's a real steadiness in how Claire approaches creativity and community and life itself that feels, I think, really grounding and maybe even hopeful. So in this conversation, we explore what it does mean to stay creatively conscious in a noisy world, how we can navigate rejection and visibility, and how we might hold boundaries around our time, our energy, and our attention. We talk a little bit about burnout, and we talk a lot about how to come back to this idea about trust in ourselves, in others, and in the work that we're here to do. There's something to hear about when we explore and when we stay. And what we stay with, whether that's voice, whether that's creativity, whether that's our own pace. Particularly in a world that feels like it's speeding up too. So let's discover together the thought that Claire Venus kept. And whether you want to carry it with you into your week, or maybe into your life beyond that. Claire Venus, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Oh, thanks so much, Claire. It's so lovely to be here. I'm really excited to get into some of this stuff. Nobody's ever asked me these type of questions before, so let's see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

It's an interesting one, isn't it, to think about when we think about the idea that stays with us and the one thought that we kept. I mean, how did you approach that?

SPEAKER_00 3:45

I think I froze to start with. I was like, wow, like it's such a big question. And so when it came through again on email yesterday, you reminded me I'd had a few thoughts, but I was still sitting with it. Spoke to my husband about it, and he was like, Is it this? And I was like, Yeah, it is that. So yeah, that's how it worked out. Was he surprised by the thing that you were thinking about? No, no, I think it sometimes the things that we overthink are the most obvious. So it was just one of those moments where it was like, Oh, yeah, it's that.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

I think that's true. I think sometimes there is a real second guessing, isn't there? And that's true of everything in life. That there's a sense that, oh, it ought to be this thing, or we ought to be feeling this, or we ought to be thinking this. And the the thing right in front of us, the most obvious thing. That's the one, isn't it? That holds something to us, that holds some energy for us. Okay, so let's find out. What is the one thought that you kept?

SPEAKER_00 4:40

So the name of my company is creatively conscious, and the reason I called it that is because for me, as long as I bring everything back, everything in the world back to being creatively conscious, it works. And so, yeah, that's why I chose that company name, and that has set me on such a wonderful trajectory in building something that belonged to me and not something for other people. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Where did that name come from then? When did you first have a sensible idea?

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Yeah, so I knew I wanted to do something just for me. I was playing around with blog names at the time, it was around 2017. So my son, my firstborn was two, and I'd been building in the arts and cultural sector for a long time, and I was definitely in that sort of feast and farming cycle around project funding and being commissioned. I'd been freelance since 2008, and I was like, I just want my own thing. Like, I just want to be known for the thing that I do, not like Claire will come and do this, and Claire's an amazing project manager, and Claire can do fundraising and Claire can plug in with these young people over here. Like, I just wanted my thing shaped by me. And so throughout all of the journaling, I was just really trying to connect to source and being like, if I am here to do something other than work in the arts and cultural sector, like I need support with what that is. Like, what is the thing? Like, how do I create the thing that I wish existed, have it pay me, and also support all of the lovely creative people and founders that I love to work with. And so this concept of being creatively conscious came first. So consciousness in terms of raising consciousness amongst women, female voice, but also our environments. So bringing more TLC to the environments that we were living in, the ways that we were consuming. And I think it was all just starting around that time. I get very hyper-focused. So I was very hyper-focused on taking each room of the house plastic free, one by one, just seeing if it was possible, you know, through like my makeup bag to the things we were using, the things that we were buying, like how supermarkets were presenting. So I would just set myself these little challenges and then blog around them, set up an Instagram account of the same name. And my whole intention was just to breathe into that concept and just see where it took me. And then now you're meeting me and it's like nine years later.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Did you always have a sense of a consciousness, a sort of an intentionality around things? Was that something in response to what was going on for you in that arts and culture sector that you'd found yourself in?

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Yeah, so I've always sort of felt like there was a piece of me that you know, when you just have that thought like there's got to be more than this. Like I think I've always been that type, I was that type of kid, and then grew up in a really small village and just wanted more, like just knew there was more, wanted more, was fascinating with big landscapes and cities and doing things differently, meeting people that were doing things differently. And so obviously, in our lifetime, the internet's exploded and all of that stuff's shown to us. But I think part of my quest of figuring out who I was was the piece of solo travel. So I traveled a lot as a solo female, you know, and just explored the world and connected to what was possible in new places, new towns, meeting new people, understanding new cultures, because I just felt like a lot of the people around me were just very happy with just going through the motions and routine. And I just never was. I was itchy, creatively itchy. And I'm very settled now, you know, we've lived here for 10 years, but at that time there was this pull to explore more of the world and what might be possible for me in the world, both as a creative founder, but also as a mother.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Was there ever a sense that you could see that itchiness as something that that wasn't helpful? Or was it something that you were because I have a similar thing where I that sense of itchiness I absolutely respond to. And it's something that I fully embrace and accept about myself and I love about myself and that need to explore and to keep in the world in a sense. But there have also been moments where I have felt, what is wrong with me that I can't stay where I am? And what is wrong with me that I can't show up in the way that maybe has been expected of me given where I came from? Have you ever had a sort of similar like dichotomous relationship to it?

SPEAKER_00 8:59

No, I think you know, I'm just very aware of voices that I embody. So, you know, my question back to you as a mentor would be whose voice is that? You know, because that's not your voice, because your essence wouldn't speak to you like that. So there's an essence, isn't there, that we connect to, and then there's the way that things are shaped in our reality by the people that are in our reality. So they say, don't they, that you're shaped by the five people that you spend the most time with. I just think it's so true. And it's like there's always going to be a rub if we look around and feel less than because somebody over there is doing that thing. And then I think societal constructs obviously they're big, you know, we buy into them. We're all bought into societal constructs, but I quite like rebelling against them. Like I like that. I'm just like, what if we just didn't? I think just that feeling of I never really felt tethered. I think, you know, there's a sadness in that as well because I didn't have a sense of home for lots of personal reasons. So I think home started to live in here in my heart. And then from there, because you're not tethered, you're not looking to be tethered, you're not looking for familiarity, really. Well, you might be looking for it in your morning coffee, you know, in terms of like that's a nice ritual. But I think part of it is about that. So there was definitely a freedom that came with the shadow side of not feeling at home anywhere because I didn't need that. Where do you feel at home now? Well, here. So, like, you know, boiling the kettle and looking out to sea. I just feel so congruent, I think is what I want to say. Like, I just feel like we were always supposed to be here. Like I was supposed, always supposed to be here, like have my children here, like do what we're doing here. There was another itchiness that came a few years ago after the pandemic, because for us, the pandemic really revealed so much about the people that we're living next to. I'm sure it did for everyone. And you know, it's quite horrifying in some ways. The judgments and where people go with all of that stuff, the rules, you know, the societal rules, the just unspoken rules. Me and Dave are real free spirits, so that was tough. And so maybe we were like, okay, like maybe we're done. But then things sort of resolved, partly because of his health, partly because my daughter's still very young, she's only five, and partly because routine and ritual is very healing. So, you know, because Dave's not been very well, we've needed that. And also it's been medicine for me to sit with it and go, This is uncomfortable now. What am I gonna do to bring the peace back in? And what do you do to bring the peace back in? So it's a lot about feeling really grateful for the life that I've created. So we were chatting before this, weren't we, about our careers previous to what we do now? And there's definitely this like beautiful gratitude that just swells over me every day about the fact that I don't have to do a commute, I don't have to drive 50 minutes to plug into a project in a difficult area, I don't have to go and write a report for a commissioner, I don't have to prove my worth and pull in lots of complicated attributes into a funding bid. I literally just get to do what I want to do within my business every day. And I just think there is so much beauty in that. The fact that we now in 2026 can create our own reality online as women and speak to people across the globe. Like it blows my mind. I'm so incredibly grateful for that.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

It is extraordinary, isn't it, to think about what you can shape with what's available to us now and how you can do that as women and also support other women going through that? There was a piece of what you said that you wanted to have your own thing and to have something shaped by you. When I think about your work, I think so much about other people, that what you offer, how you bring them in, this sort of reciprocal generosity. And there's a such a huge piece of this that's about like how you connect and connection. How have you learned to do that when you think about the sort of creatively conscious piece? Like, what is that sense of the collective, the relational, the other women in that for you?

SPEAKER_00 13:02

So one of my early mentors in this work, Leone Dawson, has this beautiful meditation, and I remember it was around about 2020, maybe 21. And I remember it was really early. Um, I was yeah, my daughter was very young, so and I can remember breastfeeding her at the time. So I was listening to this meditation, I was breastfeeding her and I was connecting to it, and she was talking about all of the people who are already excited to turn their light on for you, you know. So that sense of expansiveness across the world. And she's someone who's built that and been building it on her terms for a lot longer than I have, 20 odd years now. It was like the actual blueprint just landed in me, and I was like, oh, right, I get it now. I think I was stuck almost in like, you know, like um, like a jack in the box sort of vibe where, you know, it's gonna pop up eventually. So, like I was trying on Instagram and I was trying on a blog, and I was like, okay, so we're building all of this, and then something's gonna pop up eventually, whether that's going viral or being recognized or some, you know, brilliant other person recognizing what I'm trying to do or whatever. And then all of a sudden I was like, oh no, like I need more space because that's me. I need more expansiveness. I need long form, I need video podcasts, articles, like long form blogs. That's what I need. And so I just saw it really clearly, like, that's what I'm to do. I don't know how yet, but that's what I'm being called to do. And these people are already waiting to do it with me. So it wasn't like I've got to find them and sell to them and figure it all out. It was like you just do the thing and then they come and that's it. And you know, and I'm I am a projector in human design. So since I've learned that lens, that's also really helped because it sounds a little bit off the wall to just know what you're here to do and then almost receive a blueprint to do it. But that's literally what happened.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

And you were right at the beginning, it feels like very close to the beginning of what was happening with Substack. So it felt like there was something that, you know, there's this lovely sense of like you're out of the box. There are all these things that you realize that you want to connect to. There's a way that you want to do that with that other people. At what moment does Substack come into that for you? Like at what moment were you like, this is it? And this is sort of my home now, in a sense, where do you want to start growing this?

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Yeah, for sure. So I think because I'd always found tech quite complicated. I'd done a podcast for one of my creative projects and it I'd found it quite difficult, you know, and I all I could ever get it to do was sort of live on SoundCloud. I couldn't work out how to link anything up or do anything. And then all of a sudden on Substack, it was like, oh, you just record it and then you tether it to Spotify and Apple, and there we go. So when I realized that, I realized the mixed media opportunity for Substack for me for creative self-expression long form. So that piece of the puzzle was like April 2022. And I'd seen a tweet from Emma Gannon, who, if you're not sure she's she's a best-selling author, she's incredible, real creative heart, also like a super geek. Like she's, you know, she's amazing, but she's like so geeky about creativity and her own practice and you know, all of that. And I think very bold, you know, should have very interesting and bold journalistic style. And so she had just moved to Substack then. So I was like, okay, Emma's here. That's a good sign. And then on my newsletter that wasn't a newsletter at the time, Creatively Conscious, I just called it Creatively Conscious because that's the name of our business, right? And I was like, let's just see what happens with this. And I just focused on invites and permission slips. And I don't want that to sound twi, but at that time on Substack, there were a lot of rules. There was a lot of like, you can't be here if you don't know correct grammar. And I was like, this is absolute BS. Like, we could do what we want, self-express how we want. If we've got a working class background, me, then we can still be here. Like, don't say that we've got to have some sort of PhD in the craft of creative writing or some sort of, you know, best-selling book. Like, we can do what we want. Who are these people? So that really spurred me on to start the Stay Creative on Substack series. So I used to just send an email every Friday with how I was staying creative on the platform and invite in other people to do the same. There was a lot of sort of cloak and dagger around how much people earned. So if you're on there now, you'll be sick of hearing about how much people earn, multi-repair and revenue, all of that stuff. Like it wasn't that. Like people were very secretive. So I lifted the lid on a set of sums around what people could be earning, around is Substack a side hustle? That post went viral. And then I got like another download during the in the middle of the night to build Sparkle on Substack in 2023. So Sparkle on Substack, my all-in-one membership and Substack Education space was born in 2023. And I still run the two spaces because they are two different sides of me. Like Creatively Conscious is my business home, and Sparkle on Substack is a project within my creative business.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Substack has evolved so much. There's so much. At the moment at the beginning, I get a sense that there was sort of early adopters, people who were figuring it out. You were very much breaking it out with other people and showing them how to do this. Now, when I go on there, I get a real sense of there is a lot of noise. And how do you steady yourself in that noise? And how do you find your way through it and help other people find their way through it so that it doesn't just become like another thing to do, another thing to consume, another thing to berate ourselves with because we're not doing it right. Like, how do you find your way through it so it still feels good to you? Because you, my sense of you is you still feel really hopeful about it, really excited by it, really joyful about it. How do you keep that?

SPEAKER_00 18:40

So I have a highly curated feed. So I read what I love to read. So there's a lot of really soulful creative self-expression in there. There's a lot by artists and creative thinkers, like anyone that is original, that's who I subscribe to. I think the difficulty and what happens with capitalism is people want to get to a place quicker and they sort of override their nervous systems. They override what they think they should be doing or what they're called to do because there's a blueprint over here that's going to help, like help them, right? And I'm constantly getting people to reconnect to themselves and take, yes, brave and bold steps for sure. Like we have to do that. But I haven't got the magic wand for them. I can just hold the mirror up for them. So once people get that and just keep coming back to themselves, keep curating that feed so they're not highly influenced by, you know, what such and such is doing over here. Like quite often I've got some beautiful colleagues now that I track to a lot, and they'll be like, Oh, have you seen this person? I'm like, no, no, I have not. Like, because I've already muted them, because that's not for me, you know. So I think it's getting really sharp on what is for you and what is tripping you up. And that is a nervous system response. It's actually not that difficult to do. You know, you do it over a couple of weeks with your notes feed. If anything makes you feel like a tightening or a set of shoulds, you get rid. If anything makes you feel uplifted, created, taken care of, you know, whatever it is that you're looking for in your creative practice. Our creative practices are unique, but I've got a lot of work on this inside of Creatively Conscious. And it's basically about figuring out what you need as a creative to thrive. So for me, I need solitude. I also need time and water. Like it's bizarre to say, but like, you know, we live by the beach. I need my feet in the sea, but I also need to go to the spa once a week. Like it's a non-negotiable because it is so cleansing and it helps me re-embody and get rid of everybody else's stuff. I am quite sensitive, you know. So sometimes obviously things do get under my skin. But I think this is part of the conscious evolving that we do as women as we're trying to self-express and work out what are the barbs getting stuck in our throat? Because they're not meant to be there. Like we're meant to be here in self-expression. That's what we're meant to be doing. And if we're not, then we're just literally like shuffling papers around and hoping for some sort of different result. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

You said that it's very much a nervous system response. And I was thinking about this idea about like the mind-body connection. Often we don't think about showing up online and being an embodied person. Or we think we show up online and there's a moment that, you know, we type something into a laptop or we send a note out into the world. But there's so much of embodiment about what you talk about. How do you kind of reconcile the two between like who you are online and who you are offline?

SPEAKER_00 21:26

So for me, it's like stepping into a frame every time I come online. So there's a set of like little rituals I'll do before I come on Zoom. It's hand cream, lip gloss, organize my desk. I'm like settling in to work, right? And then when I'm on my phone, this is where the boundary gets blurred. But I will allow myself to consume on my phone, you know, if I'm just like catching up with things or doing comments and things like that. But it is a different portal for me. So because it's an extension of my hand and it's not like at a desk at work, I think, you know, we have to be more conscious that we're still stepping in, but it's like were behind the scenes stepping in, whereas this type of stepping in, like if I was gonna go live on Substack today, that's like my biggest lift. So I would make sure I'd been like had my hands in the soil, been in the garden, like been for a walk with the dog, whatever. Like I'd feel the big expansive universal energy. And then I'll be like, okay, so it's less about me and more about okay, what am I bringing? What is helpful? Like what what do my readers need today? What is going to help them? What is not going to bamboozle them? All of that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

What can help if you're somebody who feels like they are showing up and they're getting to a point of burnout. So there is the constant like a lot of energy going into this work, a lot of vulnerability, a lot of like attempts at consistency sometimes for some of us. How do you respond to an idea about creative burnout and what you see around there?

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Yeah. So think consistency is like one of the biggest lies of our time. I know we've been fed that a lot on Instagram, you know, well if you're just consistent, that's what the algorithm wants. So the algorithm wants that because then we spend more time on the apps, their advertisers get paid, you know, blah blah blah blah blah blah. Like it's not about consistency. It's about what's right for your creative practice and we all have an innate creative practice. So if we don't know what that is, we have to figure that out. So for me, I like the deadline self-imposed deadline of writing weekly it works, but that wouldn't work for everyone. And then also I'll say to people if you feel like you want to write weekly say three times a month so that you give yourself breathing space so that you give your pieces breathe in space. If that feels too much then say once you know once a fortnight you'll do. So I think people see what other people do and think that's what to do. But algorithms are so tricksy and audiences are so tricks. Like some of the pieces that I've seen go viral recently that are like long form posts are absolutely incredibly written and thought about and there's they might have been thinking about that piece their entire life, you know so that's why the consistency bit is just a bit odd, you know, it's a bit at odds with what we're supposed to be doing. So if your goal is to bring in more audience, if your goal is to convert more of your audience to paid, then the missing piece is always your creative practice because subscription models are forever and you need to work out what that means to you. Like if you feel terrified by that thought then we have to sit with that because it's not that it's not for you but you need to figure out where's the fear coming from because the fear is going to have you in a freeze response and then you're not going to write your work. If you go viral overnight which has happened to a few of my colleagues now, you know and tens of thousands of people landing is your publication robust enough for that is that okay do you feel all right about that you know so there's an online self which is a parasocial self that other people build up a sense of and you have to love them. You have to love the fact that that person is not you but it's someone you're able to project into the world that other people have a sense of so kind of like projecting a hologram it's not inauthentic. It's just not taking anything from you you are safe and fine for that to exist on the internet.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

What surprises people about meeting you in real life they just say I'm exactly the same.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

So funny yeah yeah they just say I'm exactly the same and they're shocked by that. I've met a lot of people recently that I built relationships with online. I think a lot of us have now haven't we um but yeah they just say you're exactly the same.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

There's something really lovely about that isn't it when you when you meet the person offline that you met online and there's a real sense of congruence a real sense of relief like I was so hoping you would be the same and you are the same.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

And it gives a great more adorable I think isn't it you know when you're like fat like I absolutely love adore some of the people that I've met online because on your doorstep you know you have conversations with different people you might see your friends now and again but you know you're online besties that's like another realm of knowing each other it's just really special you're just like instantly best friends it's very cute.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

Yes there's a sort of intimacy isn't there like instant intimacy to okay let's go back to your thought um you were talking about so there's two pieces it sounds to this that's sort of creatively and sort of conscious I'm really fascinating creativity for in in lots of different ways and because of my background and I'm curious about how your creative expression has evolved as you've been doing this work. And I think I saw something about like you know watercolours and this sort of this very tangible and tactile and what does creative expression look like to you right now?

SPEAKER_00 26:31

And so I think this has really evolved since I've become a more so it's a lot about creative flow and I don't think I would have had the articulation for that. Like I always had loads of special projects going on when I was a kid loads of bonkers special creative projects but I would almost like burn out in hyper focus as a kid whereas now the flow piece fuels me. So like if I work with watercolours like we work with Sharpies a lot in the membership coloured Sharpies and I'm like get your Sharpies or whatever you know your tool of choice and I think treating yourself like a kid in a sweet shop when it comes to stationary and things that you love and things that feel nice really help with that creative flow. Like I love being in the garden I talk about that a lot and it's that kind of haven so you always know where to start you always know you can put colour on a piece of paper and then crumple it up in the fire or bury it in the compost if you want but that's how it's all going to be unearthed. So yeah materials are great. I do like you know the more of the kind of row by row style of knitting and um embroidery and that kind of paint by numbers vibe on a weekend when I'm relaxing because it helps me untangle things in my brain but if I'm looking at yeah like visioning and what there is to do and how a project's going to work and all the different bits that it's going to need then that's like A3 paper, sharpie pens or like watercolor first and then write all over it.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

I think I saw two things. One that you said that you were were living inside the vision board sometimes. Yeah all the time yeah and also this idea about the well-being benefits of creativity and that's an area that I'm really fascinated in because I felt like when I worked in the arts there was a real separation and now it is something that we are more able to bring creative expression creative places together with how we feel in our lives like how we show up in our lives. What are you seeing around this idea about there being a well-being framework for the arts now that feels kind of exciting and accessible and something that we can all use and go to.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Yeah so it came in around 2018 2019 I think and it's something called it's very interesting actually it's something called the Wen Webs framework. So it's out of Warwick University and it's a measurement tool where you'll use it with participants at the start of their journey and then you'll use it again at the end of the journey. And it was the first time that I'd been asked to measure wellbeing in that way in my projects and it was fascinating. And then there's a whole organization I forget the name of them now but we can look it up for the show notes and that I used to be subscribed to that was around wellbeing and creativity's impact on wellbeing within the arts and cultural sector that was doing really, really good work. I think the interesting piece and where it aligns with government and where it's all come from is in a lot of the places that I worked there was a general sense of apathy for the world, for themselves, for what was possum frameworks was to try and get people to have more self-agency and to be really thinking about okay, like this has made a difference to me and where will I take it now? Like what'll be next? The issue that I had with a lot of those projects was that we would fly in and out with millions of pounds worth of funding and then yes there's been an impact but not enough of an impact on those areas for them to feel enough confidence and agency to do the things that they are called to do because of their background and what's what's gone on for them in life. So that was actually really heartbreaking to be part of because it doesn't go far enough.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

But that's one of the reasons I had to leave yeah and but now do I get a sense that you're going back into it sometimes too though like I've seen that you do things in the arts sector as well. So there's a sense of like there's some pullback to it.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

So yeah I mean it's a good question. I don't really feel like I've got a measured answer. I because I've got a skill set I am curious around whether I can do pieces of fundraising for causes that I care about. So I'm working on one for the moment for my daughter's school which is a big storytelling project but the first day that I worked on it I felt really unwell and so there's still that piece of like maybe I'm not meant to be doing this and that that that makes me sad you know but it's like I'm just not prepared to force it anymore just because I can and so that might be that I have to chip away at that and it takes me longer and that's fine and I could have whipped that in in half a day before but I kind of just need to sit with that and work out what's going on for me with it.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Yeah yeah because there's something isn't there I definitely think we can have a very complicated relationship with who gets to be in that space um yeah and how you get to show up in that space. There's something kind of still it still holds something for me and I find myself going there's a project that I'm thinking about doing and I'm meeting someone about next week and I have the same like ooh like the embodied like it's not the full embodied yes like absolutely but there is some there's something there and I don't know what that is and that's the work sometimes that's not the project work but so much more behind before we even get there.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

I think it's in its boundaries for us isn't it because I think especially as women like we were just expected to go above and beyond but then also like we were wrung out by working that way um and then because you know systems didn't really catch up we were working inside of broken systems and you know all of that is just quite wearing and there's something really empowering about stepping away from it all I found it very very empowering. So there's definitely this piece of okay like if we can do this how do we do it where it actually has legacy and I think that's the piece where I'm like if the legacy's worth it and like real legacy you know not just like oh well you know there might be a little bit of impact for six months like real actual legacy what does that look like so yeah which you know it's a fascinating topic to me anyway I'm writing a book about it but yeah it's tricky. What do you think that legacy piece needs to be when you think about creative expression because sometimes creative expression can feel really like ephemeral or it can feel like really in the moment like how do you think about a sense of sort of longevity with that or impact I think it's just the ability to reconnect you know so if you feel disconnected I mean burnout is disconnection you know I don't want to be too spicy around this but like you're disconnected at some point if you burn out like you were either doing stuff for other people or you weren't listening to your own intuition you weren't listening to your body like you know there's there's that piece of reconnection that's always possible you know if we get off track like sometimes if I do in-person meetings and I don't do them often because um I do find them tiring and much easier on Zoom. But if I do them I find that I've taken on someone else's energy and I'm like buzzing you know and I'm like whoa like this isn't mine like I just need to give all of that back. But I think that's I didn't realize that you know obviously when you're younger as well like you know I did all this in my 20s and 30s when you've got a ton of energy and then things shift and change and you're like I could have that energy but then it's going to be depleted from somewhere else if I override my system with it.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

Yeah there's a real sense of the energetic cost to things now isn't there for sure and then just the narrative just push through just keep going and you there is nobody yourself to be thought of you just have to keep going somehow I wonder I just want to get onto this idea about wellbeing itself because I'm very conscious that there is something around your work and your practice that is about still living in the sort of this intention but also like living in the slow lane like life first idea of not always self-improving like not always you know fixing ourselves or believing that we're broken or connecting our worth to certain things and I'm wondering whether you always knew that life came first or whether there was a moment that really landed for you.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

When I met my husband so he's so slow like he's so measured and I was just like oh my god like he's so slow like it's wild like there's always time for another cup of tea even if we've got to leave the house everything is like prayer to him like he's fascinating to be around you know so it'll do the washing up and it'll be like a prayer it'll be like okay like I'm gonna listen to this and I'm gonna be with the bubbles so it completely changed what I was able to observe in myself because I'm very fast. Like I've not slowed down like my fast pace at all like my fast pace exists in my work but in my life it's slow now. So I'm not fast in my life.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

Okay. Yes I like how there's sort of a recognition of different speeds and the different places for that. Okay so let's go on to our three words as that we're like slightly faster round and I've just prepared some words I'm just really curious about what does come up for you. One of them is around is the word trust. I find trust really fascinating and how we do or don't learn to trust ourselves. What does trust mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 35:38

That's a beautiful question. I think lovely for everybody to ponder. So my book last year I'm writing a book a year for 10 years say that quite quickly because people are like wait what? But my book last year was called Invisible Trust the Hidden Rules of Influence and Reciprocity Online and the for the whole year I explored what trust meant it mostly in my body. So you know I was careful with the stories that I shared and but there's some really deep stuff in there that you wouldn't find anywhere else like it's in the book. And there's that self peace self-trust piece that you mentioned but there's also this really interesting juxtaposition of the parasocial because we have obviously just started trusting people online things online like go and download this and you do go take this supplement and you do. So there's this really interesting place of what if I just breathe in between whether I decide if this is something I trust or not. So I made the mistake of doing something this week it's a bit balmy but I've been implementing implementing Claude an AI tool and as a neurodivergent person it's massively helped me across life and business. It's amazing but somebody had said oh you know plug in the Google Chrome plugin and the Claude for Chrome or something like this. And so I typed it in to plugins and then found the first one and I was doing something else at the time so I was listening to something else like a webinar and that I plugged in the wrong thing. Because that person had gone do this, type this and get this but I hadn't used that breath to go oh that no that's not the right thing. That's the proper Snydy Claude like I don't know what it was going to take me to but I got I got it out straight away when I realized but I think it's that piece isn't it of like allowing the beat when it comes to trust I think it really hurt me when I was younger and somebody like you know we were talking you know you do philosophically and stuff at uni with your uni makes and stuff and somebody had one of them had said you know the only person you can really trust is yourself. I think it's a line from a film isn't it and I was like wouldn't it be so sad if that was true you know like and also if we evolve like where does that fit in you know and this is why you you have those years to be philosophical don't you and sort of navel gaze a bit but I think it's fascinating and I think that we have probably learned more than any other generation about trust in a faster paced way because of the internet.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

Yeah and I think that just really linked to my next word which is about collaboration because there is so much in that about trust as well isn't there and you're somebody that who really does collaborate and values supporting other creatives. So what's why collaboration for you?

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Yeah so I think for me obviously like I have built in plain sight on Substack. I didn't have a big online audience before I started my work on Substack. And so it's been really interesting to me because I was in at the time this space of vanity metrics mean something. So the vanity metrics of social media followers you know likes on a post all of that like I looked at that like I studied that I hyperfixated on it like I wanted that I thought I did. And so when I was building on Substack everyone was my colleague and they still are and so this is really interesting to me now because obviously I'm seen in a slightly different light. Sometimes you know I wrote the first co-author the first Substack book and that was like a whole time of self-promotion and like claiming that people started calling me the queen of Substack and I just sort of hid from that title and now it's like front and center on my Instagram and it's on my about page and stuff like that. So there's been this real public sense of like how I'm seen and who I am because I'll always see myself as a colleague rather than somebody who you know oh I couldn't possibly write to Claire like you know that sort of feeling where people say it all the time like oh I couldn't invite this person on my podcast because they're too big. And I'm like you know maybe they feel that or a sense of that and they've got a boundary around that. I'm not sure just knock my poster down and but I do think there's that sense of you learn pretty quickly who people are and whether those colleagueships are aligned and balanced by collaborating and then collaborations can go deeper and deeper and deeper. So I've definitely collaborated in the wrong places over the years which I wouldn't have known you know I think I'm just always like well everyone's my colleague so like this is what we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

Yeah you took the Queen of Substack idea and have you I've been watching all these Taylor Swift kind of I think she did some New York Times this week where she was talking about songwriting and the idea that you take the criticism you take the thing the one thing that could be most wounding and that becomes a thing that you're like oh how do I claim that and and reframe that and make that something else so there's something about you know the Queen of Substack that you're like well actually that could be about collaboration but in a way that actually makes us you know create community and reciprocity and joyful growth and all the things but to do it in your way and and it kind of brings it back in again doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 41:00

Yeah it definitely does and when I called Sparkle on Substack Sparkle on Substack there was that piece of knowing this is going to put a load of people off like bearing in mind no one was educating about Substack at that time and I'd seen how many you know Instagram educators had bursted onto the scene and like people make really strong business cases and all of that. So it was really interesting and again rebellious to call it sparkle on substack because if I'd called it like strategy on Substack or I don't know money on Substack or you know something like thought about okay commercially what's the best viable option here but I wouldn't have been happy like people have to get past the sparkle and be like oh sparkle fluff no and then another one I've had is like I thought you were all toxic positivity and I was like no my goodness like the whole reason there's sparkle is because of the shadows. Like that's the whole reason that there's light because we understand the shadows. So it's so much more sophisticated I think that that we can have something that is an online brand but repels people that aren't for us. And it's also really important because when I was launching the book like some awful things went on behind the scenes and I was like oh God. But it's because I co-authored it with Russell and he has a different take on you know we're very similar in some ways but like people just thought that as the female co-author they could just tear me down and it still happens it still happens in reviews of the book and all of that sort of stuff and I had no idea I had no idea that people would get so upset about that and if not everybody obviously but you're just like oh okay okay like this is where we're at okay is there ever a moment that you you think enough now so where I've got to is the voice that comes up that I think is my voice it could be like a voice of like an elder or something is that's not for you as in like so there was one yesterday in my Instagram comments and I just deleted it and blocked him straight away and but the voice was that's not for you so it doesn't go anywhere like it's just like jelly you know it just sort of bounces off now. But I mean that's taken a little bit of cultivating and I'm sure people could still be hurtful and I would feel hurt but no it's just usually it's like that's not for you.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

Yes that's a really great one that's not for you. Okay my last word for you is around my word of the year is visibility. I think it's really fascinating and um and it makes me think about like so much of your brand you know there's the sparkliness of it there's it's a very visual brand there's how you are very visible too in how you show up and with that congress and authenticity. And I'm wondering like what being visible is to you now.

SPEAKER_00 43:41

So there's this really interesting pull around voice. So I guess because I have built confidence around podcasting, going live, you know, doing my videos speaking to the sparklers doing all the tutorial stuff with them it's like if I was to stand on a stage and that's massively out of my comfort zone by the way I don't like it. If I was to stand on a stage and I had something that was like profoundly healing around creativity, around healing, you know, voice and pulling out all the barbs and all the things we've spoken about on this podcast, what would I say? And so for me, that's what I'm working with this year. Like I just worked with a mentor on it this week. Like I'm really trying to understand if I am meant to do this and I don't know that I am, what am I, what am I there to say? So if it was like, you know, when Brene Brown knew she was doing that TED talk and it was about vulnerability and it was about shame and it was about courage, and lots of us will re-listen to that at least once or twice a year because it's so profound. I want to know, do I have something to say on a stage? And if I do, and it is that level of visibility that exists in legacy, and then people connect to it asynchronously in the future, what is that? So yeah, big one.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

Yeah, and her response was really interesting to being visible that way. So she knew she had something to say. And also there's a moment afterwards where she was like, oh my god, how many people are watching this and taking this on? And the idea that it did go viral and what that meant. And I think that there are those different stages of visibility, aren't there? Like it sounds like this thing about, you know, voice and coming into it and being on the stage and what to say. And there's the legacy piece of what happens afterwards. What do you hope would happen afterwards for you?

SPEAKER_00 45:24

I feel like it's that sometimes I just think things have been so overcomplicated. And my gift would always be to be able to say something in a way that is simplistic enough for somebody to be able to remember it, embody it, and work with it. So I guess like Brene did with the vulnerability piece. Um so I am fascinated with storytelling and my own story, you know, and the work that we do around feeling safe in story is what I've done a little bit of with guest workshops in Sparkle the last few months because it's all layers, isn't it? And it's all layers of if we're saying this online, and this is what my book's about, if we are saying this online, building in plain sight, and we've also got kids that hopefully they outlive us and their kids outlive. Like, will it be weird that my kids' kids can just see their grandma like on the internet? You know, like it's just wild to me. So, but I do want to be conscious about that because there's something beautiful about the lasting memory of an elder that we don't have. Like for my great grandparents, I've got their names, I know their names, I know like a tiny bit. I never met them, like I never, but yeah. I mean, it just I know I'm gonna blow your mind, my mind, everybody's mind by like taking us there, but it's really special, actually. Like, if you want to claim that a bit, but it's also like, wait, what? No, just delete my whole internet presence when I die. Like, no, I didn't want any of that. So yeah, I'm sitting with that one.

SPEAKER_01 46:57

Um, let's go back to your thought that you brought about being creatively conscious. And I always ask my guests, like, how do you remember that? But it sounds like for you, you live it every day.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

Yeah, so live it every day for sure. And then I think when things get out of whack and I don't feel so good, like obviously we're cyclical beings anyway, and I'm in perimenopause, but I just need to be in the garden, or I just need to be in nature, or I just need to journal, you know. It's not for me, it's not difficult. It's just that somehow you've got out of whack, or like stuff's happened behind the scenes, or something's thrown you, or you've been ill, whatever it is. So I think that's the piece. Like, how do we get more conscious, bring more consciousness to everything, and stay connected to ourselves? And what are the tools and rituals and ways that make us feel really good about that? So lots of us connect to the moon and the moon cycles and stuff, and that can be incredibly helpful and also incredibly humbling. What an incredible thing that there's a moon in the sky. Like, what? What a thing that I can see constellations of stars outside my back door every day. What? Like, that's amazing. So, yeah, I think less ego, more stars.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

Claire Venus, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing your thought and all the different ways that it really does weave into your life. And I think it can really weave into other people's lives as well. There's so much connecting about it. So thank you for being here and sharing it.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

Oh, you're so welcome, and thanks for being such a generous host. Like I said, I was really excited about the conversation. It's lovely to be invited to speak on these topics and to figure out more of the distilled version of what you think. So thanks, Claire.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

So I'm curious whether the thought that Claire Bean has brought to the podcast this week is one that you will keep, forget, or share. Do let me know. Come over to my Substack, which is called More Good Days. There you'll find video episodes for paying subscribers. You will also find a thread that goes alongside these episodes. That's a great place for you to tell me what this meant to you. Tell me what being creatively conscious could look like in your life. I'd really love to hear how you found this episode and how you're finding some of the ideas that Claire brought to the podcast this week. If you want to continue to be in Claire's world, which I'm sure you do want to, I've added to the show notes details about how to find her work on Substack, how to connect with her, and how to be in the space that she's created for herself, but she's really creative for other people too. There's so much there. There's glossaries, there's like A to Z of Substack. There's advice and information. It's a place that I go to constantly when I'm thinking about how I want to not just improve my own Substack, but also make it something that feels really good still. Like I want to spend time in that space and I don't want to get burnt out doing it. Claire also shared that she is on a mission to write one book a year. And as part of that, and also her 12 chapters club, she has written Invisible Trust, which we touched on very lightly towards the end of the episode. That's a really wonderful book to download from her website. We have just published our first book. And maybe I'll borrow from Claire this idea about one book a year. That would be, I think that's something that would be a really fun idea to play with. The first book that Amanda Sherin and I co-wrote came out. It's called If Lost Art Here, Wellbeing for the Anxious, the Disconnected, or the Uncertain. I'm so proud of it. There's so much creativity that has gone into that, but also so much thought and intention. It's been a real joy to work on, and I hope it's a real joy for you to read and spend time with. Our hope is that it becomes maybe your manual for life, one that you create. There's lots of prompts, there's lots of creative exercises, there's lots of ways to shape that book yourself, and in so doing to shape your everyday life. I'm really excited that it's out in the world, and that we get to see what you make of it too. I will see you next Monday for another thought that one of my guests kept, and maybe you would want to too. Until then, bye for now.