15 - Lori Siebert: Practice, Practice, Practice: Mastery in Creativity

Lori Siebert is an artist, designer, teacher & businesswoman. She has worked with clients like Universal Studios and licensed her work for products that are used around the world and now is featured on BloomTV. She runs art retreats and you can often find her running super fun art challenges on Instagram. Today she sat down with me to share how after some difficult life events caused her to disconnect from her creativity, she was able to find her way back to it, what she did when her company grew into something she no longer enjoyed, and towards the end of the show, she shares the number one important thing she thinks we can do to cultivate our own creativity. Lori is so sweet and genuine and candid I really enjoyed talking with her. 

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Lori is really good at knowing when to and being willing to reach out for help. Whether she was navigating the isolated darkness of depression & anxiety and needed friends to remind her of the JOY inside her, or when she has found herself in the uncertain terrain of uncharted territory of a new skill - Lori has allowed herself to reach out for support - been willing to receive others guidance and allowed herself to be open to learning and being influenced -  or collaborating with others around her. She has made a habit for herself of reaching out to people and allow them to influence her when she has been on unsteady ground. 

Her ability to do this has pulled her out of depression, allowed her to redirect the course of her business when it was causing her burnout and has allowed her to step into new realms of her creative offering that she may not have otherwise ventured into on her own. 

After her brush with burnout when her company had grown without conscious intentions from her about what she wanted it to be, Lori has learned to be really good at self-referencing and asking herself if the things she is embarking upon are actually what she wants. This has helped her build a business that meets her creative needs AND falls within who she is as a person and what she wants. 

I was touched by Lori's willingness to be so open with us about how she struggled when she lost her parents, losing herself for a time to the grief of it and then later not wanting to be a Debbie Downer and keeping it to herself. 

Finally, she realized that she not only needed to give herself Grace to go through that and not put pressure on herself to be somewhere that she wasn't, she also learned the importance of reaching out to her people. Ultimately it was in feeling all her feelings and reaching out to her people that she was able to lift herself back up again. 

I was really glad she shared what she did about how her life went off the rails when her company grew to a size that overwhelmed her and I loved her clarity that it was because had been making decisions based on what she thought she SHOULD be doing - rather than by what her creative heart actually wanted. 

Realizing that what you thought was your dream isn't actually working for you and stepping back from it can be terrifying, it requires bravery and is often the only way to find the life of your dreams.  

And I think she is right that so many people seem to be unconsciously waiting for their dreams to come and find them… waiting for their big break… when actually it's up to us to do the reflection, find out what we want and then go out there and make it happen. 

I think what I learned from Lori is that just like life itself, creativity is a bit like a rollercoaster ride -  we get inspired, we get to work on it, we find out we don’t like it, we rework it, we like it, we make a change, we think we’ve ruined it then an unexpected moment happens and leads us to something we fall in love with and for all of it -  we're just along for the ride. 

I pulled the word trust for today’s episode, so I will leave you with this:  What would be available today if you trusted the creativity inside you, and let yourself be taken for the ride of your life. 

Kate Shepherd: website | instagram | facebook

Lori Siebert: website | instagram | https://www.facebook.com/lorisiebertstudio