36. Let Your Freak Flag Fly with Holly Ryan

What  does it take to be real? To create something pure in a world addicted to replication? To stay true when the cost of that truth is everything you've built?

Today we enter the alchemical world of Holly Ryan,  — a bespoke jeweller, environmental pioneer, and founder of iconic Australian brand Holly Ryan Jewellery, and together we explore what it means to let go of a vision you've spent your entire adult life creating. 

Holly shares her thirteen-year journey building a cult brand to global heights —from Vogue to Bella Hadid, from fashion weeks to prestigious retailers worldwide — only to face the complete dissolution of burnout that demanded she dismantle everything at the peak of her career.

This is a story of personal alchemy and metamorphosis. We witness the bone-deep unraveling that cracks you open and strips you bare, the exhaustion of creating something pure in a world addicted to replication, and what happens when your truth becomes everyone's tagline. Holly reveals the pivotal moments that shifted her trajectory — from fighting greenwashing, to reconnection with source and stepping back into her power as an educator and voice for radical transparency.

You'll hear about how to befriend the liminal space between worlds, to trust what intuition whispers beyond the noise, and to embrace the process of personal alchemy with radical honesty and courage.

This episode is an invitation to every creative navigating dissolution and resurrection. It's for those standing at the threshold, feeling called to evolve, and seeking permission to let their freak flag fly.

Key Topics Explored:

• Cultivating her craft — how nature shaped Holly's earliest understanding of creation and transformation
• Building a cult brand — from fashion week to global recognition, and the price of pioneering sustainability before it was cool
• Being ahead of your time 
• Greenwashing and heartbreak 
• The anatomy of burnout
• Letting everything burn
• The liminal space — inhabiting the sacred threshold between dissolution and resurrection
• Reconnecting to source
• Personal alchemy — how melting down precious metals became the map for melting down and remaking yourself
• From visibility to intimacy
• What it takes to be real
• Redefining success
• The other side of people pleasing

SHOW LINKS:

- Explore Rachael's 1:1 Creative Partnership

- Explore Holly Ryan Studio & Holly Ryan Jewellery & Holly's website

- Link to Holly's short film - El Agua Mágica

- Chris Hood - Jeweller from Tasmania

You can follow The World Needs Creatives on Instagram HERE.

Explore working or collaborating with Rachael at rachael@rachaelsardelich.com and learn more about her work HERE.

You can join the wider conversation and our community over on Substack via THIS LINK.

The original painted work in the show design was hand painted by artist Sarah Darling.

The creation of our original musical score was created by Camilla Rose Sullivan.