Releasing the ROI Mindset and Letting Creative Play Lead the Way For Your Business Strategy

Intro: [00:00:00] After generating over a million dollars in sales and selling one of her businesses with a single email, your host Kathryn Thompson, takes an unconventional approach to marketing and sales. So if you are ready to tap into a more powerful way to be seen, heard, and a Sought after Entrepreneur in your industry without having to spend endless hours marketing your business and chasing clients, you are in the right place.

Be The Sought After Entrepreneur Podcast is here to help you ditch the cookie cutter one size fits all approach to marketing, and use your unique energy to effortlessly attract the most aligned clients. When you do this, you can spend less time marketing your business and more time doing your soul work and enjoying the richness of your life.

Welcome to Be The Sought After Entrepreneur Podcast, and here's your host, Kathryn Thompson. 

Kathryn Thompson: Hey, hey, Superstore, that you're tuning this week's episode. I cannot wait time in today's topic [00:01:00] because I wanna elaborate on the last few episodes that I've been sharing about, you know, finding your authentic voice and my process of using astrology, human design, and genies to really tap more into my authenticity and uncovering different parts of myself that are really wanting to come through in this next iteration or evolution of my business.

And I wanna share with you one of the. Biggest sort of blocks that I am navigating as I uncover that my creative expression is really wanting to come out in the work that I do. Not that I haven't been creative in the work that I do, but when I say creative expression, I mean. Creatively showing my work in a way that I probably haven't to date using photography.

Maybe like some filmmaking, some writing that isn't really like business writing. Maybe like mo more poetic. Um, there's this sort of like urge to maybe do some, you know, [00:02:00] illustration or painting. All of this stuff is starting to kind of really emerge as I contemplate what that next evolution sort of looks like.

But I wanna share with you like a block that I am bumping up against as I contemplate this. And I shared a little bit on the last episode where I was working with a client who was wanting to find their authentic voice and didn't know how, right? I think that's a common one. We don't know how to find it or we don't know how to express it.

And I've shared on that episode that the reason we often struggle with sharing our authentic voice is because we're trying to filter it through the lens in which we're looking through. For example, if you were somebody who is very creatively expressed and you're looking at the business model and the marketing space and you're going, but I express myself this way and I don't fit that model that I'm being sold or told I need to use.

We get into like this sort of [00:03:00] bind within ourselves because we have, we start to think, do I have to compromise my expression in order to fit this sort of mold? And I shared on that episode why I love to help people separate from the business marketing sales element of it. What things need to look like on Instagram and how they need to be and, and all of those sorts of things, and separate themselves from that, just for a moment to really uncover what that authentic expression is.

For example, a lot of women that come into my world. Feel this need to be professional and be perfect in the expression, be polished. Right? And oftentimes that comes from being in a professional setting for many years. It's something I unpacked when I left corporate and went into entrepreneurship. I. But there's this other side to them, this very humorous, maybe dry humor, maybe a bit.

Um, you know, they use satire. Maybe lots of people speak in metaphor. I've had people say like, I speak in [00:04:00] gifs. Literally, like if we could just have a con conversation in that, but they don't know how to integrate that into. Quote unquote, their business because they're looking at their business through the lens of, I need to be professional, right?

For people to take me seriously. I need to be professional so that, you know, I present myself well, whatever it might be, I. And I hear that a lot, and I've unpacked and unraveled that very much having left corporate and then coming into a brick and mortar wine business where I was like, I can wear jeans and a t-shirt.

In fact, scrubbing out in the store was what you needed to do because I was constantly working with wine, so I couldn't wear nice clothing because I'd likely have red wine or white wine spilled on me at some point throughout the day, and so I needed to wear. Quote unquote, scrub your clothing, which was such a drastic change from when I was in corporate where I had to dress up every single day, right?

To quote unquote be professional. I'm sharing this sort of [00:05:00] bit from that episode with you because I wanna share with you where I'm bumping up against my internal blocks because of the way in which I'm looking at. The block in and of itself and the limitation I'm putting around it. So I've been feeling the call to be more creative, get back into taking photos, start writing like maybe some poetry, start maybe painting or illustrating or things along those lines.

And the block that I'm coming up with is, well, there's kind of two blocks integrated into one, but the one that is huge, and this will probably resonate with you if you're a high achiever and ambitious is, but what's the point? I. Like, what am I gonna get from just playing and dabbling with photography?

What am I gonna get out of it? And I think that's a big one that can cap a lot of us, because we want to know the certainty of where this is gonna [00:06:00] take us. As entrepreneurs and business owners, we're often taught to look at the return on investment. Everything we do needs to have a return on investment.

It needs to produce more sales, it needs to cut costs, whatever it might be. There has to be a return on investment. And so we're looking through that lens, and that is a lens I've been looking through since I graduated university in my undergraduate in marketing, right, because everything was through that lens.

What results are we producing? And what is that return on investment? And if there isn't a return on investment, then it's not worth our time. But also then we gotta re rethink and rejig this, right? And so that's the bump that I keep bumping up against, or the block I keep bumping up against because my intuition saying, go be creative.

Go create, just create. Right When I was sitting in meditation and I asked, what's the next aligned step for me? Create, the word create came through so potently and [00:07:00] then my logical mind's like, but what? And so then I asked that question and it's like, go play with your photography. Go read your photography book again.

Like these are the actions that it's, you know, leading me to take. But the block is, but for what the mind wants, the certainty, the mind wants the control and is a highly ambitious, high achiever. I'm looking at it through the lens of return on investment, which to me, I know is the very thing that's capping the creativity because I'm not allowing myself to go just create and go play because I want that certainty on the other end of what it's going to give me.

This is a huge realization and a huge lesson for anyone listening to this. Um, and I'm hoping you're taking some things away from it, but it's the surrender to the unknown and the uncertain things, right, of the, not having it always figured out, but also not always having that clear path forward. Just knowing that.[00:08:00] 

When we trust that intuition that's leading us down this sort of path that, and we have no expectation wrapped up in what it's going to quote, unquote give us. Right? That we open ourselves up to things that we obviously might not expect, but things we, we couldn't have even dreamt up if our, if our, if we wanted to, because our mind.

Can't go there. There's the limitation around the mind that's saying, I need the ROI or I need to know that when you're putting in the time that it's productive, that it's producing something of value, which brings me to my very next block that comes up on the back end of this, right? Because if I go, okay, well I'm gonna go create.

I'm gonna go play, then the block is, but if you're creating. What value does that have to your people? My brain instantly wants to monetize it, right? As an Entrepreneur, my logical brain that wants the ROI also wants to monetize it. So if I'm [00:09:00] going to play and create a. Then I need to turn it into some sort of monetization.

And that I know is not what my system is asking me to do. It's to go and create and play and what comes off the back end of that, I, I actually don't know. Right? I have to trust and have faith and take that quote unquote risk of just playing and who knows what that's gonna bring me. But the other piece of it is it gets entangled with this money value exchange where I think a lot of us have been trained or conditioned to believe that the value lies in what people will pay for.

And so we approach business and we approach marketing from that perspective where we have to create what we think the market needs Now. Granted. I understand as a business owner and as an Entrepreneur, some people might argue, well, yeah, Catherine, if you're creating things that people won't pay for, then you don't really have a [00:10:00] business because they're not gonna pay you for the thing.

And I under, I understand that philosophy very well. However, I think when we're leading from that perspective of having to create something that. Only has value if someone's willing to pay you for it. That in and of itself caps our creativity. So I'm not saying we, we don't, we wanna dismiss strategy and business and return on investment and all of that.

I'm not saying that like we throw that by the wayside and we just go freely create with, with no concept of the other. Right. I think it's finding a balance and harmony within the process, but I also think it's. It's starting with the creative process initially, like creating something that you feel really joyful about, stepping into the unknown uncertainty of what it, where it might lead you, and then looking at it from that perspective of monetization.

But I [00:11:00] think when we, we create and we attach our value, we attach the value of ourselves and the offers and the work that we do. To what people are willing to pay us for. It's a very slippery slope that then leads us to being underpaid, discounting our services. Collapsing in on ourselves and spiraling down when someone criticizes the work, right?

Because so much of the worth and our value is wrapped up in that, and we have to sort of separate that. And a big part of the work that I've done to date is being deliverable work, right? I write copy and then people pay me for that because they get the copy. And then there's value to that because the copy's then converting, right?

And so there, there is such an intertwined. Thing here that then blocks or caps, I think the money and the abundance coming through [00:12:00] because we're so conditioned to believe that in order for me to be a value, I need to produce something that people are willing to pay me for. And I think that the creativity and the creative process then gets diluted.

Now, when I was working in corporate, we had this process in the art department, basically the creative directive department, where we would come up with a bunch of ideas, and this is what I'm talking about, right? Is that. We would come up with all of these ideas and we would just creatively play. And that was the first process.

We had no idea. No idea was off the table. We could throw, like there would be the most craziest ideas that would come out of it. And then from that stage, right, we weren't thinking about what does the audience need? What do they want? What do they need to hear? We had the concept or the idea, right? So when your intuition drops in an idea and it co and it hits, like for me, go create.

Go play with your f. [00:13:00] Photography again. Go through your photo albums that have never seen the light of day. Um, go read your book again. Right. I don't know where that's leading me, but I'm willing to take sort of that step in advertising. That's what we did. We had no idea. Everybody had the wildest ideas that would come up, and then from there we would allow sort of the ideas to gestate a bit, and then we would play with them even more to sort of mold and form them.

Where I feel like I'm gumming up on the bump is that I'm strategically thinking through my expertise and skills. What do people need and what do they want? And then I create from that place first rather than creating from the space of. What is it that I actually really wanna create and what's sparking joy for me?

Now, this hasn't always been my process. Spellbound dropped in very intuitively, which many know the story. It dropped in very intuitively and I ran with [00:14:00] it right. Prior to that, I was very much in the strategic and very much coming up with ideas that aligned with my expertise, of course. But were from a place of what do I feel like is gonna work in the market the best, rather than what do I actually want to create and how do I really want to help people?

And then what does that sort of look like? And Rick Rubin talks about holding this. Thing gently in our consciousness, like having a problem, having an issue, but also having an idea that sort of pops in and then literally holding it gently, which is the very thing I'm sort of talking about here with my blocks that I'm sharing, is that our need for certainty and our need to control the outcome and put all these expectations on it, is actually the opposite of holding it lightly in our consciousness.

And that is the, the, the, you know, the doorway for me to take right now is [00:15:00] to release the control of what wants to sort of come through, setting the intention of what it is I want. Taking that first aligned step forward and watching things sort of unfold. That takes a lot of self-trust, takes a lot of surrender.

And I'm realizing the reason why the surrender's feeling harder in this stage is because creatively I'm looking at what will people pay for. That is the money value block that's coming up for me is I'm going. Well, if I just start posting my photography and doing those sorts of things, like what's the offer, right?

The entrepreneurial brain goes, what's the offer? What are you selling? What are people gonna buy from you? Right? And that is the additional block here that needs to be transcended because in order for me to fully step into that creative process that I'm being asked to sort of step into, [00:16:00] I have to release the attachment.

To the idea that I have to turn this into some type of offer right now out of the gate, right? Sure. Maybe that's gonna present itself. I don't know, and that's what I'm wanting to share with you is that if you feel like you're at this. Crossroads or cusp in your business where you're like, I just, I'm feeling called in this direction.

I have all of this expertise, I have all of this knowledge. I've been doing this thing for years, but I feel this pull to go in maybe a slightly different direction, but it's really scary because I don't know what's on the other side of it. And your mind and your brain's going. What's the offer and what value we're offering, and is this gonna meet people's needs?

And if it's, if you're not being productive, then what's the point, right? If it's not giving you an ROI, what's the point? Then I would love to invite you to step into this vortex of uncertainty, and it doesn't have to be a full leap, I think [00:17:00] again. We kind of live in this all or nothing society, like you gotta go all in on your dreams, otherwise they're never gonna happen.

And I think that for some people, yes, that's a hundred percent, they jump feet first and they just go for it. But I also think creating sort of a gentle bridge approach to this is also really beneficial. So not burning the thing down that you have, but. Playing in this space of uncertainty while also sustaining what you've built and what you have so that the thing can naturally unfold without the pressure of feeling, I need to make money.

I need to make money. I need to make money, right? Because the financial security piece of this will often come into play where you feel like I need that financial security, so I'm willing to sacrifice my creativity for it. Out of pure survival, right. In our modern society. So I wanted to share those particular blocks with you of the things that I'm bumping up against.

[00:18:00] Because I think if you're in this phase in your business or your life right now where you're contemplating the direction, I'm sure something of this is coming up for you of, but is this something that people will pay for? What's the value I'm actually providing? What's the offer? What am I selling?

Before the creativity and the creative expression has even had a chance to sort of really fully emerge and sort of come out. We've already started to put limitations and restrictions on it because we're shoving it through the business marketing entrepreneurial lens, and maybe your idea's dropping quickly and you move very quickly on it.

That can happen for me as well. But I feel like in this stage, this is, this is a pivot to more creative work, which not saying that my work to date hasn't been creative. Um, it has been, but it also is very strategic and tactical oriented. And very tangible in a lot of ways. Right. With systems and marketing and [00:19:00] messaging and all of that, which can be very creative.

Sure. But there is a analytical and strategic element to it. What I feel like I'm being called to do is to step into my creative expression. That is my, my work that comes out into the world rather than supporting business owners on the back end with their work. Not saying I'm gonna get rid of that altogether, but I'm saying there's a part of me that wants my own creative work to come out into the world.

What that looks like, I have no idea, but, but also supporting people through their own transformation, which is what I've been doing. But there's, there's a, there are hybrid here that's sort of happening, and so for me it is taking that sort of gentle step forward to sort of play. But I wanted to share with you the limitations that keep coming up in my brain, that logical brain that wants certainty and wants to really control the outcome.

But also want some predictability of it through an ROI or or that sort of thing. And at the reality of it [00:20:00] is, is that all of that's really an illusion. I know many people sell the certainty, the guarantees, the promises, all of the things. But there is no certainty, right? There is no guarantee in anything that we do.

And I think that's the deeper surrender here, is that we actually don't know. Sure we can set the intention. Sure, we can take the aligned action. Sure, we can put the systems and the strategies in place, but we actually don't know the timing of things. We don't know the timeline it's gonna happen. That all is really great marketing that wants to sell us on those promises that they know that in 90 days, if you just do this thing, this will happen.

Sure. There are proven processes out there that. If you do the thing, um, you will get the results of it. But when the results happen, how they happen, what it looks like, nobody knows the intricacies of each human being. And I think that's the piece I wanna sort of share is that I. Everybody's so nuanced and nobody [00:21:00] knows the full depths and essence of what you're going through, what you're navigating, what your lived experience is.

So it's easy to say, well, if you just do what I tell you, you will get the results. The problem with that is, is that we actually don't know the blocks that we're gonna bump up against until we're in it. And that's what I'm saying is that I'm in this process of uncovering and unraveling and. I don't, I don't know the blocks that are gonna come up until I'm in it.

And so if somebody would've sold me, like I can help you uncover your creative expression in the next 90 days. Cool. That seems alluring. However, it's more of an emergence. We don't know until we're, until we're in it. And so to me, what is more appealing in this era of my life is. People that are gonna support me in creating the conditions necessary for this work to emerge.

Similarly, what I do with my clients, right, is that [00:22:00] I'm not telling them what to do, how to do it, when to do it, follow these exact steps and you'll get what you want. It's more of how can I support you in creating the conditions necessary for you to navigate the blocks you're gonna go through, for you to cultivate the courage that's necessary.

To step towards this path of authenticity, right? All of the things that need to sort of come up and, and emerge within you. And until we're in it, we don't know what's going to emerge. And so I can't predict that for you. I can't even predict that for myself, right? As I, as I'm sharing. And so I just wanted to share those sort of two blocks because if you're in a season of your life, like I said, where.

A lot of your work has been tied to the value of what you provide others and what people are willing to pay for. I would love for you to explore that and how you could be of service and of value without that. Where does that exist in your life right now? And if you're stepping into this sort of creative path [00:23:00] or feeling the the desire to be more creatively expressed in your life.

What sort of arises as you think about that? Because for me, like I said, it was like, well, if I am more creative, what will people pay for? What's my offer? What's the pathway to sell it? Da da da da. That's my marketing training and my expertise coming through, through and through. But my soul is saying, that doesn't matter right now, and my brain is going, but we need certainty and control.

So I wanted to share those with you because I think they're really too. You know, caps or blocks that might resonate with you and. Asking yourself, you know what, if what you're creating and the value you're providing is something people will pay for, but it's not something that you value, right? Or something that you value anymore.

And I think that's, that's a big one. And then the creative piece of it is, is if you're being called to creatively express deep in that [00:24:00] authenticity, step more into your authentic nature is like. What if the thing you're being asked to do has nothing to do with your business, but it's going to uncover sort of the path forward rather than I need to only take the steps necessary that are gonna provide the outcome that I need or desire.

And I see this amongst not only myself, but a lot of my clients. You know, I had a client recently who came to me who was creatively blocked, and she's a writer, and she was like, I'm creatively blocked. I can't. C come out of this. And there was two reasons she was blocked. There was the critical self-talk that I think a lot of us go through at various stages of our creative journey.

It's not good enough, all the things. So every time she sat down in the morning to try to write, she would write a few sentences and then she would chuck it, right? Or she would self edit and then she would get frustrated and she would sit there and try to force herself to write, because that was [00:25:00] the habit, right?

That was I get up, pour my coffee, sit at my desk. Try to write in the morning when my brain feels sort of the freshest. Problem is she was completely blocked for critical self-talk, but also she was trying to force that creative expression to come through. And I suggested to her, well, I don't know why I am suggesting this.

Oftentimes it'll come through. Um, but I said, have you ever thought about like going and sitting in a coffee shop, like maybe in the morning going grab your coffee from a coffee shop rather than making it in your house? Go sit there and just kind of observe the people. Like, don't bring your laptop. It's not about writing, but it's just about being in other people's energy and taking in the scenery and just observing people, like people watching.

And she was like, but that doesn't really feel productive. And I get it. Right. I, I get that hesitation because. Our guilt will come in going, well, no, you should be working. Right. But the working that she was doing wasn't [00:26:00] working. So a really easy way to. Shift the energy and to release some of the blocks is to shift the environment, to change the environment that you're in or change the regular ritual habit that you're taking every single day.

And I think that is a big one for any of us ambitious people. We just keep going and going and going and doing the thing because that's what we need to do. Right. And we can't see outside of. That habits that we're taking, the consistency that quote unquote, we're sold daily. You need to be consistent. You need to be consistent.

Get so ingrained in our brains that we are like, sit at computer for self to write or sit at, sit at your desk, lock yourself in your office and just do the thing. Right? And I'm not saying that that doesn't, we don't require that from time to time, but I think there's again, a balance. Right. If if the thing you're doing isn't working and you've been trying and trying and trying, then we've gotta mix it [00:27:00] up.

And for me that was intuitively coming through as I was sitting with her. Like, go sit in. People watch. And the funny thing about it is, is that she loves to people watch. So I can see why it was coming through. 'cause I was like, she's like, I get so many ideas and stories and I just love and, and like character elements and stuff like that from people watching.

And I said. So that's very productive, right? And then she was like, oh man. So of course she starts integrating that into her schedule of going to be at a coffee shop and being able to experience just the world around her. And through that was really able to unlock and push through, unlock this block of being able to write.

And all of a sudden she comes back to our next session and she's like, I have a full idea for a story. This is what it is, the, these are the characters. And I was just like, that is so amazing. And that was from sitting at a coffee shop where the intention wasn't to work, it was just to observe her surroundings and be in it.

For me, changing my environment, [00:28:00] quite literally is kind of getting my hands dirty. That for me is. The change of environment. And by hands dirty, I mean cooking. Um, it could be making a puzzle, it could be reading a book that might not really equate to getting hands dirty. But I mean, like holding a book in my hands, reading a story, going out for a walk in nature.

And I know these seem basic. I know it might seem very simple, but if you're. Just on that track and that path, and you're repeating the same things over and over and over again, and you're getting the same results over and over, over again, and they're not what you desire. Then we've gotta change course.

Right? We gotta shift gears and sometimes that that is just shifting the environment that you're in. Maybe it's actually. If you're working at home and you're in your office and that's where you sit every day at that desk with that computer, it's like maybe it is taking the computer and going to a coffee shop, or maybe it is picking it up and going to a public library.

Or [00:29:00] for some people it might just be traveling. It might be I need to be on a boat bus or train or plane or whatever. Right. That just in motion. Being in motion, and I've heard this. I get so much work done on an airplane, right? And that for them is. They're a way for them to switch up the environment that they're in, but also they get a ton of creative ideas by being in motion.

So it's about finding what sort of works for you. But I just wanted to share with you some of the creative blocks that I'm navigating and the limitations I'm finding I'm putting on myself, specifically around the creativity and needing to want to know where the creativity's leading me, but also wondering.

Is it productive? Is it gonna have a return on investment? And what's the offer around it? And that really isn't the point. Simultaneous. Similarly to. Being in the creative department and advertising agency, like the point wasn't that every idea that came [00:30:00] out was the a good idea, it didn't matter. We just threw the ideas out there, and I think we need to sort of get back to that in business in a lot of ways is really starting with that creative process.

What sparks joy for you? What's exciting for you? Dump a bunch of ideas down on paper. It doesn't have to be the right one yet. We get to play, and I know this can be really difficult when we are operating in a state of survival and needing that financial security. So I get that. So the question then is how do I release the pressure around that?

And that might mean needing a part-time job. That might mean I. Having a full-time job and doing this on the side, that might mean like getting resourceful with what that looks like. There is no failure to building your business on the side and having a job, right. I think oftentimes that gets a stigma, well, I'm not, must not be good enough, or I must be a failure.

But a lot of really great innovators and CEOs [00:31:00] created their business. While having other businesses to mitigate the risk and the pressure, because anytime we're under that survival pressure, it's really hard to create. So with that, I hope this episode has been helpful, just to give you a little bit more glimpse into the limitations that often come up for me and how I'm sort of navigating through it.

So for me, it is really quite literally to create and carving out, not necessarily all day long. I think this is where we get into that all or nothing society. It is like. Even 15 minutes of writing freehand, right? Just getting up and, and writing, or going through the photos and like looking at them again, or reading the book that I wrote, right?

It's doesn't have to be an all in commitment. Oh, I've gotta spend every waking moment to make this dream happen. It can quite literally be taking the breadcrumbs in the day. That you have 15 minutes, five minutes, 20 minutes, an [00:32:00] hour, whatever the time you have is, because I think this is another.

Limitation we put on ourselves. So I don't have the time. Then if I'm working full-time or I have a part-time job or I've got family or whatever, I don't have time. And I always love to unpack that because I'm going, well, how much time do you think you need to put into it? And it usually is an all or nothing.

It usually is spending every waking minute doing it and sure, if you went all in today on it, sure. You might realize that quicker. But speed and quickness isn't, again, I know we're sold that this is the measure of success. But it's not, you know, I probably have shared about DaVinci many times. I mean, it took him how many years to paint the Mona Lisa.

And oftentimes DaVinci would say he was never done with his paintings. Like they were never quite finished. Right. I was just watching an Instagram post of a woman who finally published her book and she said, it took me 10 years to do this. And [00:33:00] the reason it took her 10 years to do it was because she was collecting the data and information she wanted to talk about.

So it required her to do like. You know, 4,000 client sessions, it required her to do, you know, have 25,000 conversations. It required her that time and space to actually publish the book. That was from a place of true mastery and knowing and wisdom. And so I think sometimes we think, oh, I gotta have the idea today.

It's gotta be launched by the end of the month. I've gotta have clients in here by the end of that month. And it's, it's just rapid speed when oftentimes this, this meaningful, intentional work. I'm not saying that if you do it quickly, it's not. But meaningful, intentional work is a process that happens over time and is something that is built for sustainability rather than.

That rapid speed of idea to launch to whatever in no time flat. There is a beauty in taking your [00:34:00] time with things. There is a beauty of the wisdom that can come through when you give yourself the space and grace to do it right, and I love those examples of people that are sharing their creative work.

In a way that also shares and shows the process it took to get there and the time it took to actually produce that work of quote unquote art. Whether it's a book, whether it's a program or a course, whether it's a body of work that you're really proud of, it's not something that you're creating instantly today.

It's something that you're creating that's going to be living over a lifetime, right? Something that's being built to last, which requires. This type of work. And so, um, I hope this has been helpful and I cannot wait for next week. Cheers. 

intro: Thanks for listening. We'll see you right back here next time. You can also find us on social media at creatively owned and online@creativelyowned.com.

Until next time, keep showing up as [00:35:00] your authentic self.