00:00:06 Hello, I'm Bonny Snowdon ex corporate person and mother turned successful artist entrepreneur. It wasn't that long ago though that I lacked the confidence, vision, and support network to focus on growing my dream business. Fast forward past many life curve balls, waves of self-doubt, and so many lessons learned. And you'll see ignite my thriving online coloured pencils artist community,
00:00:27 a community that changes members' lives for the better, and gives me freedom to live abundantly whilst doing what I love and spending quality time with my beloved family and dogs, all whilst creating my best artwork with coloured pencils and mentoring others to do the same. But this life wasn't always how it was for me. It used to only exist in my imagination. I've created the,
00:00:47 it's a Bonny old life podcast to help increase people's confidence, share mine and my community's experience, and hope through fascinating personal stories, champion the other amazing humans in my personal, professional, and membership community and create another channel through which I can support others to realize their dreams. If you're a passionate coloured pencil artist or an aspiring one who's looking to create their best work and a joyful life you love,
00:01:11 you're in the right place. Grab a cuppa and a custard cream, let's get cracking.
00:01:17 I had a fascinating conversation with my next guest all about marketing, how we can make it a little bit easier for people making things much simpler and I think you're gonna really enjoy it, actually. Fabulous. Julia from Australia, we talk about all things from being, working mothers to being entrepreneurs, and I really, really enjoyed chatting and meeting Julia and I and I hope you enjoy our conversation too.
00:01:49 Hello. Hi. Hi Julia. How are you?
00:01:51 I'm good, how are you?
00:01:53 I'm really well, thank you. Oh gosh, you look like you've got a real old crafty busy studio behind you.
00:02:01 I do. That's my crafty den that, that's my, that's my office. Come craft room. Come escape room from everybody.
00:02:10 Amazing. Oh gosh. Oh, I'm really, really looking forward to our chat because you are definitely a woman after my own heart. You've done so much stuff, but you want to, you want you, you've got all of your creativity,
00:02:28 you do all of the marketing stuff, you've done so much. You've had like a big move and I'd love to know loads more about it and, and what you're up to now and where you got to where you are.
00:02:43 Okay. Where would you like me to start?
00:02:46 So you are in Australia, but you are not Australia, are you?
00:02:51 Correct. I'm originally from Estonia and I've been in Australia since December, 2000. So it's, I've been been here longer than I have been overseas.
00:03:05 Right. Gosh, so been what, so 23 years you've been in Australia. Oh what, 20 20, 22 plus, Yeah, 20 Going on 23. Yeah. It's a long time.
00:03:18 Amazing. And so you help entrepreneurs and, and I'm thinking it's in your, on your website it says mompreneurs, mompreneurs entrepreneurs, so basically helping moms work and spend more time with their families. Is that right?
00:03:37 Yeah, I, after becoming a mom, which wasn't that long ago, it was very recent, I now see things very, very differently. Not only I'm passionate about, you know, building a life and the career for myself, but also as a mom you want to be there for your children. So you want the best of both worlds and why not? So why can't you have a successful business and why can't you work, you know, as little as you need to and try to maximize your effort and enjoy your work and then enjoy being home with your kids.
00:04:18 So I'm really passionate in helping moms start something for themselves and not just feel like they just either have to have a job where they don't see their children or be home and just be a stay-at-home mom if they really enjoy working. So yeah, why not? And I, I'm pretty sure I heard somewhere that moms or you know, women with children starting businesses is like a very high growing market at the moment,
00:04:47 or like very, very high percentage of new startup businesses are, you know, women in that position where they just, they want to do things like that and they want to be able to have that flexibility.
00:05:01 Yeah, and I think, I don't think there's any better time to do that at the moment. We have the most amazing platform with like the internet. We also, I think we have a bit of a change in mindset that, you know, before a job was nine to five. Now people talk about side hustles, they talk about doing this, they talk about doing that, you know, even the, the virtual assistant side of stuff as well. You know, people are earning a colossal amount of money for doing things for, you know, basically sitting at home and doing what they love. And I just think it's, it, I think it's opened up a huge amount of opportunities for people to actually start working in doing work and things that they love doing, you know, and I, and I don't think there's ever been a time like we're going through at the moment, you know, I think that whole work thing has been sort of turned on its head and people are doing stuff that you wouldn't necessarily class as work 10, 15, 20 years ago, which is fantastic. This it is amazing.
00:06:14 Yeah. In my, cuz I've got another business which is technical telecommunications business. I've been in with that company for over 20 years and what I did a lot, well, I mean I still do a lot of traveling, but one of the things was that I really enjoyed about that side of the things is that I travel a lot and living rurally, I travelled to a lot of small towns and a lot of thing places that are far away. And my job is business to business. So when I travel places, I just discovered all these different businesses in like industries that I never knew existed. And that was just really exciting and interesting for me. I would turn up to places and I just have a look around and ask some questions to see what, you know, what business they're in, like what would it's about because I never even knew anything like that existed.
00:07:09 And then once I find out about it, it's like, yeah, it makes sense. There is a need for that, then it is a need for that product or for that manufacturing or for that facility. So it all makes sense. But when you think about, like, say if you are a, a teenager and you're thinking about getting a career in something,
00:07:26 these are sort of jobs you don't even realize exist. You, you think about your standard things like becoming a doctor or becoming an artist or becoming a lawyer or, you know, those standard jobs. But then there's like this whole world out there of different work that unless you kind of, and some of them are very niche and unless you grow up in a family or you somehow exposed to it, you wouldn't even know about it or how even have much opportunity to get into that industry. And now, like you mentioned, this global market opened up so many more opportunities. Things are a lot more niche now. You can find information about anything online these days. So that means that there is now even more opportunity to be even more niche, to be even more specialized,nto even have more strange and weird career and something. Because if you can think of it, he can pretty much have a career in it these days. So now it's like even exploded in that sense.
00:08:25 Yeah, no, I mean, even down to, I'm doing a lot of work or trying to do a lot of work around TikTok at the moment and trying to learn more about it. So I'm doing a course which is very interesting, but even down to being an an influencer, I mean, I, I'm not planning on being an influencer, but you could be an influencer on TikTok and they're earning, what did they say, 3000 pounds per post. Somebody could earn 3000 pounds per and, and, and upwards and upwards and upwards.
00:08:57 And this, this has now started to become a way of earning a living. And we, that is something that, I mean, my, my parents, my dad kind of looks at what I do and he goes, I, I just don't understand it. I just don't understand it. How can you possibly do that? In my day and age, we did what my father did. We, you know, we went into the family business, this is what we did. And, and I, I just think it's absolutely incredible that you could just, like you say, just basically do anything you want. It was amazing.
00:09:28 Yeah. When, when I was growing up, we didn't really have internet. We, we got a computer sort of not long before we left. That was what, very end of 1990s. And we left. That's right. We moved here in 2000. So it was very end of the nineties. So we just had a computer, didn't really have like a printer or anything like that. So, and I was, my whole life I was into art and creativity and drawing and all that sort of stuff.
00:09:58 The way I learned was just copying pictures from books, watching cartoons and you know, you just sort of pause the video after you've recorded it and you try to copy it and all that sort of stuff. I think eventually, maybe even when I moved to Australia, I actually got like a drawing book where you can, like, where they had like some tips on how to draw and that sort of stuff.
00:10:20 And when I was growing up, I really dreamed about like becoming an animator and doing all the, you know, animation, movies and all that sort of stuff. And I was always told the only people that'll make they'll ever make money from it are the people who actually produce the stuff. Like the animators actually don't make any money, so this is not a career that you should even consider.
00:10:39 And now anyone can start do like, put anything on YouTube themselves. They can make a, a movie themselves and put it up on YouTube. But actually a friend of mine also from Estonia, that's what she does now. Like, she, she went into like the digital art and started doing like video games and all that sort of stuff. So she does it for a living now,
00:11:00 now is a completely different world to what it was then. So there's just so much opportunity. Like you can, anything you want, you can make money out of these days and there's pretty much no barrier to it, really. A lot of things you don't need money for, like you would've back in the day and a lot of things you can do without education as well.
00:11:21 E even talking about the same, you know, art classes and all that sort of stuff. When I was looking at digital arts and that sort of stuff, I've known some people who have gone through prestigious schools and they'd pay like a hundred grand for it, you know, to go through a school. And yet here, here is my friend who never had that education,
00:11:39 never had that inclination. She didn't really do any drawing at school and now she does that for a living. So she just fell into it, like she just found a job, enjoyed it and stayed in her. So like, you know, opportunity for anything.
00:11:53 Brilliant. So what was it, what was it then that that made you take that step?So you were working in, was it marketing or, or were you No, I think you were the CEO of this, of your other business, aren't you?
00:12:06 Yeah, so I've started in the family business. It's a telecommunications business and I was in it for many, many years and through like through all that I've had side hustles with art and art hobbies and I, I had scrapbooking and I was doing like scrapbooking classes and tutorials. That's what I never took off as a business. Then I really got into watercolor painting and I sold a few paintings and I was also doing like tutorials and things and then that really never took off as well. Like I had a baby and then I didn't have time to practice and do all the, all the stuff. So I like, I still really enjoy all that as a hobby, but it never took off as a business. And then Mona was actually last year I've been sort of, I've consistently been like Searching, soul Searching trying to figure out, like I knew there was something else out there that I needed to do. I didn't, I, I knew I wouldn't always just be doing like my telecommunications work. I was always Searching for something, just never quite felt fulfilled. And one day I woke up and I'm like, I'm gonna start my own business. I, up until that point, I never intended of starting my own business. I actually always thought that only a crazy person would go into business for themselves.
00:13:25 There's just so much risk because I've been running businesses for so long, like I've been managing them for 15 plus years and I've seen businesses go through many different stages. Like, you know, there was nine 11, there was all sorts of stuff happening over that time, but then I thought, this is what I'm meant to do. I felt that I was called to start a business.
00:13:45 I started as a virtual assistant, quickly realized that wasn't for me. I wanted more impact. I, I realized that what I wanted was more impact in others' businesses in a bigger way. What I enjoyed really with my other work was actually going into business and helping them, like getting them online and answering questions. If they're struggling with something, I would explain to them what was happening and why it was happening and how it can be solved.
00:14:16 And that's what I liked. And then I realized I could translate what I liked there into something that I really enjoyed doing was marketing. So that's how I kind of ended up with marketing niche. And that was actually through B, B D when I started that and I was trying to figure out my niche. That's kind of how I landed on the marketing.
00:14:36 And I was, as I was trying to figure out the sort of services and the automations, because as he can probably tell, I've got a very analytical mind and also creative mind. I thought, well if I'm doing a very, you know, logical job during the day, I always sort of complimented it with my hobbies at nighttime. But what if I could do both as work?
00:14:59 So as I was sort of trying to figure out, you know, these automations and trying to get all these funnels and that's kind of like creative and logical and strategic and it's all very fun. I wasn't quite sure how I was actually going to deliver that service. And that's when I was got on one of the hot seats at B B D and they're like,
00:15:21 well, you just gotta get on calls with people and start asking questions and start talking to people and just have conversations. I'm like, okay. So I started getting on calls with people and I've had a few calls and then I realized that everyone's struggling with the same things. Everyone needs help with the same things. And it's usually the foundations, foundations of business,
00:15:39 the marketing, you know, the niche, the the offer, the how they're going to solve their problem. And after I've had those calls, I just realized that what I did was coaching and then I realized that this is actually what I really enjoy doing and if I could do that for the next few years, 10 years, 20 years, why not?
00:16:01 So that's how I ended up being a marketing coach. Brilliant ab and you know, so I, I teach people to draw, which is great. Inevitably what happens is they get to a stage in their drawing and people start to ask them if, you know, they can do commissions. And even if some people don't go down that route and they just have it as a pure hobby,
00:16:27 but a lot of people go, oh, hang on a second, I could make a living outta this. I could actually do something that I really love. And what stops them in their tracks is marketing. That word marketing is so terrifying to so many people because it almost encompasses this whole different world. It's like, oh my, oh no ma,
00:16:52 I don't do marketing. It's, oh gosh, no, that's far too scary. That's what big businesses do. I don't understand it. And, and actually all marketing is, is just being yourself and putting yourself out there and having the confidence just to, you know, put yourself out there. And I, I do do these business drop-ins within my membership because I'm naturally pretty good at marketing. I'm naturally pretty good at putting myself out there. I have got a marketing, I think I've got a marketing diploma. I was in a job sort of back in, I think it was 2015, I was put through a diploma on marketing and I basically, I think I did about three models modules out of, I dunno how many, and I, and I still passed it with quite high percentage because to me a lot of marketing to me ma just makes sense. It's just, it just makes sense. But I really struggled and had to learn a whole new way of working when I started my online membership because traditional marketing just isn't the same. And we were doing email marketing, we were creating mailing lists. We were, we had sequences, we had funnels, we had pipelines. And my brain honestly was just blown. It was just like, oh my god, w what is this? And I guess I felt then how my students feel with the traditional marketing. Is there anything that, you know, if you were to give anybody any advice when they're just starting out with their business and they, they're really excited about it and then along comes that scary marketing word, is there anything that you, advice that you can give that would make it less scary? What, what would be the first things that you would sort of say to somebody when they were starting out on that, you know, that very first sort of tiny steps in marketing?
00:18:44 Yeah, it's, it's hard to sort of understand how, what, what people are thinking. You know, what, what trips them up. If I can relate it to myself and the things that trip me up is more the fact that you kind of get hung up on the word or a like a statement or a description of something and it's because you just don't understand how it works.
00:19:07 But once you understand, like once you actually figure it out and go through it, it makes all the sense and you realize that it's just, you know, this, this and that. Like why was I, why was I so hung up on it? It's just very simple. And that's, I mean, that's all marketing is. I mean there's so many things to do with marketing and I think many people think about marketing like large companies do.
00:19:34 And I've done my diploma, what early two thousands. And that was all based on large businesses. You never really will implement, implement those things as a small business. However, there are certain things that they talk about that makes sense as well and that has a lot of foundations. It's just the way that they talk about it is different to how say an online business marketing expert or business coach would talk about it.
00:20:05 So it's, it's really about just the question I like to ask myself is, what if it was simple? What if it was easy? What would happen then what, how would it need to look if it was simple? And just take the first steps because once you take the first steps, then the next steps w won't look as difficult because you've already done part of it.
00:20:31 So breaking it all up into smaller things and just focusing on one thing at a time, because one, you don't need to do everything and unless you're a large corporation with big budgets, you're probably not gonna be able to afford everything either. So you just figure out what makes sense to you. And it's good to actually have a coach or mentor or even like a peer group of people who can,
00:20:56 you know, share things and explain what they have done. It. It's really, it's really just this idea of working and the people get hung up on. I was talking to a colleague the other day and he has a, another telecommunications business actually, and he, he's got a few people, he gets a lot of business. He's been in business for a few years,
00:21:20 so similarly from the outside he looks like he's successful. And I was talking to him about marketing and he says, I just don't get it. I don't understand marketing. I need help. I need someone to explain it to me. I'm like, you've been doing marketing for all these years. That's what marketing is. That's just getting, you know,
00:21:41 putting yourself out there, giving people a way to contact you, to communicate with you, to find you ultimately see what you have an offer and be able to pay you for it. Like that. That's all marketing is. It's people talk about branding and all those things. To me, everything, branding, sales, everything is marketing to me because marketing is just how you present yourself to potential clients,
00:22:12 how they can find you, learn about you, learn about your products, see if they resonate, see if they like you, and then basically contact you to buy. That's all it is. And I was talking to a client the other day as well and the question they, oh not, not so much a question is they, they just wanted someone to help them with marketing because they just wanted to do it right.
00:22:38 And I asked them what they were doing so far for marketing, they said mainly referrals. I'm like, referral is a great marketing tool. It's probably one of the best ones. You've got social proof and everything and someone else is doing marketing for you. That is marketing. Everything is marketing. You don't need to do something very, very specific. It's whatever works for you.
00:22:59 That's brilliant. Yeah, and I think that that, I think that you're absolutely right. I think it can get completely complicated and people overcomplicate things and as soon as you start worrying about something as well, you know, that kind of, that that worry can just get bigger and bigger and bigger, can't it? And then it becomes this, this block and you just can't get over it and it just ha it,
00:23:23 it's almost like you just need somebody just sort of hold your hand and, and either guide you over the block or round it and just go, do you know what, actually, it's actually quite simple. This is all you've got to do. Yeah. I I I think when you are learning something new, it's always a bit challenging. Change is always tricky. Yeah. You know, but I think that's really great advice actually. You know what, what if it was simple? What if it Was easy?
00:23:53 Yeah, I mean when, when you're learning to draw, you don't learn how to draw portrait straight away. You learn about the shapes, like how to then turn a multiple shapes into a figure and how that moves and then how the light hits different shapes.
00:24:09 And, and then when you have a figure out of those shapes, how then the shading and the highlights will work on that shape. You don't learn all that straight away. You have to start from the basics and build up. It's the same thing.
00:24:24 Yeah. It's the same with everything. Yeah. And I think, you know, I did a session last week on the levels of competency, you know, the unconscious incompetence right through to the, you know, unconscious competence type stuff. And this, this again is every time we learn something new and it's exactly the same with marketing. You know, we get excited, oh, I'm gonna do this Facebook page, and then you've got your Facebook page and then you suddenly realize you have no idea how to use it.
00:24:52 And then it's like, oh, I'm just not gonna do it then because it's far too scary. And I, I I, yeah, I think it's a lot of it is around confidence, getting your confidence up to be able to go ahead and, and, and do something. But I think trying to think of it as those very small steps and that actually marketing isn't a scary word,
00:25:13 it's just, it's just you putting your stuff out there, you know, which I think is, I, I think is really yeah, really, really good. So your, your target audience then, are, are you, do you specifically work with moms who are wanting to start a business?
00:25:35 Not specifically. I mean, a lot of women are moms who are starting business Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, Really and just really resonating with women and the position they're in around the children and the family life and all that sort of stuff. So that's why I use that as my niche. I also work a lot with spiritual entrepreneurs like intuitives healers. I'm just really passionate about that side of things as well. And I can really help them because their services sometimes can be a little bit hard to explain to people. So that's what they often struggle with and I'm just really passionate helping them with that as well. And you've got a, how old's your baby? Mine's 19 months. Oh gosh. That was, it's, it's, you know, it's really funny. I've talked to, I've talked to three people this week and, and babies have been sort of like the, the main conversation. That's a really lovely age actually, isn't it?
00:26:38 Very busy, but very fun.
00:26:39 So do you do lots of crafts and stuff then with, have you got a daughter, son?
00:26:45 No, well, I've got a son. We don't do any crafts yet. However, my craft room is one of his favourite places. All of the pens coming out, all of the paints, I've got a lot of little like sprays and tubes and stuff. Everything comes out, the lids come out and like, he, he loves to just scribble on things, so I'm just waiting for, for the time when he understands wh where he can draw and what he can do with, so that I can just sit him next to me and I can do my craft and he can do his Craft and we can have it together time here.
00:27:19 Oh, That's so nice. And and have you found the, how do you find being a, a working mom with I, I'm guessing you are sort of like at home and working around him, you know, how, how do you find that? Is it, has it been sort of like quite a, an easy thing to settle into or have you found any like, sort of quite big challenges with doing that?
00:27:45 Well, I'll put it this way. When I had him, I thought like I was hit with a ton of bricks as far as the lifestyle goes. So I traveled a lot for work, like with my other business and back when I had him, it was my job. I didn't, I dunno if I mentioned, but I took over that business last year as well after I started my marketing business. And that was a bit of a story to that too. So back then when I had him, it was my, like I was employed, so that was my job and I was on maternity leave for six months. But because I was pretty much like the sole worker in the company,
00:28:27 I continued working through my maternity leave with support. I was actually having people work out in the field, so I was still answering emails, I was still doing all the accounts and all the usual stuff, obviously minimum amount that I could do. But just during the naptime and, and all of that, I was under impression that babies slept all the time,
00:28:49 but they don't. So that was a surprise. I thought I'd, I'd catch up on all my scrapbooking and everything, but none of that got done. So yeah, I've continued working through my maternity leave and when I was ready to go back to work, like I've sort of transitioned with like a couple of days sort of working at home and my mother-in-law looks after him during the day,
00:29:14 so he's with like, with the grandparents, which was really handy. So that's, that's how I was able to do it. Like originally it was nap time and then as things were getting busier and as I started needing to like start travel again, it was, I would drop him off. So they look after him during the day while I'm working and I'm sort of traveling for work or working from home if I'm not traveling.
00:29:43 But then even that was different because my original idea was I would come back to work and things would be back to the way they were, except I would just have a baby. But then I can't leave too early because, you know, by the time we all wake up and you don't wanna wake up too early because you're probably woken up through the night anyway and then you've got a full day of traveling.
00:30:07 But then I can't come home too late like I used to, you know, do, and, and by lots of travel, I mean I, I drive six hours a day, so,
00:30:16 oh Gosh,
00:30:17 Yeah, I travel a lot And, and I really enjoyed it. But you know, that meant that I can't do as much work during the day. I can't do too many, you know, long trips. I was also breastfeeding, which meant I had to pump actually on the road. So I'd have like all my gear with me in the car and the ice box and everything. So I'd do that while I'm driving and, and then I have to make sure to be home in time to pick him up so that I still can spend an hour or something with him before bed.
00:30:49 You know, it, it just wasn't how I imagine it to be. Not that it's bad, but it just, the fact that I just didn't have as much time to do my work. And that's probably half of the things where I was thinking that I really want to do also something else. Like I want to have the backup so that if I didn't do this anymore,
00:31:10 I, I would have something else where I could work from home. And for some reason, you know, I started the business while I was doing that job, which meant that I had my job, a baby, plus a side hustle and, and I quickly figured out that I really didn't have time for it. So, which then led me to the next thing I mentioned earlier as I was trying to figure out how I was gonna make this all work, I got a notice that the owner of the company was retiring, so he was gonna close down the business. And I'm like, okay, so what do I do now? Do I go all in on business? Do I find another job or what happens? And then he turned around and said, well, do you wanna buy the business from me?
00:31:53 I'm like, yes, I'll get it. So I bought the business, I gave myself my old job back with more flexibility and so now I can spend time doing marketing and my other business. So that's how I ended up doing what I'm doing.
00:32:09 Amazing. You sound incredibly busy.
00:32:11 Yes, I'm busy, but I also get a lot of help.
00:32:15 So Yeah. Do you know, one of the things that I get, and also I'm a busy person. I've always been a busy person. I started work at 17 full-time working at 17. I've always had a job. I've had three children. I was self-employed when I had my first two, so I didn't, I didn't really take any leave. I remember sitting the night before I had my son working with my legs up cause I had such, I had such bad water retention, I had my legs up on the desk and the next day I went in and, and I had my son and then a week after I was back working, I mean, not, not crazy working and I must say I had very supportive husband at that point where I kind of do, you know, look after the children during the day, during the sort of morning heap back in the afternoon and we'd kind of take over. So it wasn't like I was really trying to juggle children with jobs. I did have a lot of help, but I've always been really busy and I've always liked to keep busy and I've always really liked self-development. So, you know, like with you joining business by design, I'm the same. I I've also got some other bits and pieces. I'm doing the TikTok thing at the minutes. I have no idea how to use it. So I've bought a course in that I really like to develop and to learn probably too much. But, but busy is, I, I've always been busy, you know, and I find if I sit down and do nothing, and I do, I mean I do do an awful lot of doing nothing, but I'm also very good at just going, right, I'm just gonna relax now and not do anything. And then I really struggle to get back up and, and get going. And I, I dunno whether you have the same thing, but I have people who they tell me I'm doing too much and, and it's always from the goodness of their heart. It's like, why don't you just do too much? You know, be careful you're gonna have burnout. And I'm like, but this is me. This is how I've always been and, and this is how I thrive. And I, and I love it. And I actually have plenty of time to sit and watch tally or, you know, go swimming or do whatever. Do you find people kind of project their own their own beliefs onto you? If, you know, you sound very busy with your businesses, you've got your, your baby, all of that kind of thing. Do you find that people sort of almost project their, it's not values? Is it, is is their beliefs, I guess?
00:34:32 Yeah, the beliefs, yeah. I do find that a lot. Not that people are telling me that I'm doing too much kind. I've grown up in, in a very, in the time and the place where you just have to keep working. You just have to keep doing. So it, so I'm, I'm not told that I'm doing too much. However, I am projected a lot of own beliefs on, you know, the different risks or beliefs about money or beliefs about like the, the right way of doing things, you know, that kind of stuff. So that there's a lot of that. And then you have to discern for yourself and,
00:35:12 and like what you mentioned with the burnout and things like that. I think I, I, I feel like your brain works very similar to mine in many ways. It's kind of, you just compartmentalize a lot of things. So like, now is your time for fun. Like now you do your creative things, so you are always busy doing something,
00:35:30 but you kind of, this is my block of doing this, this is my block of like walking, exercising. This is my block of just, you know, having some wine and having dinner. Here's my block of sitting and watching a tv. It's kind of like, it's all scheduled almost. So it's, yeah, it's, it's all like,
00:35:49 it's all on the go. But it, like you, you have your time to relax as long as you sort of don't feel guilty, like you just, you have this time to relax, this is your relaxed time, then you have your time to have fun, like say craft or whatever. This is what you do. Then you have your time to do paperwork,
00:36:05 you do your paperwork. Yeah. Do you find your, the creativity side of stuff, do you find that that kind of is something that you need to, to just sort of reset yourself? Yeah, yeah, definitely. A lot of people find, you know, hobbies as, oh, it's a nice to have maybe when I have time or whatever.
00:36:27 Like, to me it's always been a unnecessary thing, especially with my job where it's very analytical and very logical and very technical. I've always felt like it was this creativity part that was missing from it. So I would always do something creative in the evenings. Now it's a little bit difficult with the baby, even though I do have time to do it.
00:36:48 I choose not to because I choose to either spend, you know, that time with the family or spend that time with, you know, working on my marketing business until, you know, it gets to a stage where I can maybe drop off my workload from the other business and, you know, pick up more of that so that it's a little bit more balanced there.
00:37:07 But, and, and also marketing isn't a bit more creative as well. So yeah, I, I found that it's always been an necessary thing for me. Like I've done it. I remember I first started drawing when I was in a kindergarten, so
00:37:22 Yeah, creativity I think is so, I mean my, my, my whole job now though, I don't really class it as a job is based around that creativity side of stuff. And I, I find that if I'm feeling tired or if I'm stuck in a rut or something like that, just sitting and drawing, it's just like, oh, it's amazing. I feel so, so, so much better when I've actually been creative. And there's been many times where on a Tuesday I do an art club,
00:37:52 live art club and you know, I've been kind of sitting there on Tuesday morning thinking, oh God, I'm so tired. I don't really want to do this. But, and then as soon as I get into it and I start drawing and I start chatting with everybody, I just feel this whole, I just get this whole new energy. It's,
00:38:08 it's amazing. I think creativity is so, so, so important. And if you can combine it with everything else that you're doing, and like you were saying with your marketing, the creative marketing, finding creative ways of creating like a new funnel or a new, you know, way of sending something out with automations and all of that kind of stuff. Yeah, it's technical, but you've got that kind of creativeness behind it as well, which I think is, is, is fabulous.
00:38:36 And it's not just visual, like visual creativity. It's, you know, in words and how, how you express yourself with the feeling that you can infuse into your work. It's, it's kind of, it, it's kind of like getting this picture of, of a story, you know, like of, of a movie almost out of your head and onto paper where people can see it, whether it's visual or, you know, audio or basically actualizing it into real life from your brain. That that's how I see it. And just over a different time I noticed my, my art and crafts reflect kind of what I'm needing in the moment too.
00:39:18 Like at some stages I would go through doing scrapbook and it's just all like paper and it's all just gluing things together. And then other times it's very mixed media. I just slap a whole lot of paint and see what happens. And then I've gone through a long stage of just doing watercolor painting because I just felt like I needed to release control. Like I just, you know, put some paint on the paper and just see what happens with it. And you kind of go with the flow and you never can predict what happens. So it's kind of like, it's like your internal state and your internal feeling and the reflects through your art and through your creativity and it's almost like an expression of what you are needing for yourself in that moment. It's like you are sort of processing it through your body and it comes out, you know, actualized in real life.
00:40:07 Oh, I really like that. Yeah, ab absolutely. I mean I, I, I'm quite, I don't know, I only stick to one medium and I, and I, I've done a, I've done some oils and I've really liked that and I think if I stick, if I really concentrated on it and I did it more, if I put the hours in, I think I would be quite good at, at oil painting. But I just really love my pencils and I think it comes from like, you would, like you've just said, what your body needs kind of comes out in your creativity. My life is chaos. So, you know, I've got, I've got a house full of dogs and a house full of children. They're not really children anymore. They, they're young adults, but any, anywhere where there's a, a surface, there's, there's something piled on it. I've, I've had my sitting room redone and purposefully haven't put any surfaces in there, any like,
00:41:02 bookcases or anything because they'll just be covered. And I'm like, oh, this is great. There's nowhere to put anything, you know, kitchen table, the cats on the kitchen, cat lids on the kitchen table in a, in a box, not, not a covered box. She chooses, she chooses to live in a Box.
00:41:15 I bet, I bet they're like the classroom.
00:41:18 It's just, honestly, it's just chaos. And when I sit down with my pencils, which are so precise, so controlled, I know exactly where every single bit is gonna go saying that I am quite loose when I first start to, to, to kind of put the pieces together and then I tighten up as they go through. But I think it's that control that I lack
00:41:39 Yeah.
00:41:39 In the rest of my life. That is why I love my pencil so much. I'm, I'm,
00:41:44 Yeah, you can see how it like reflects, even though it, it similarly doesn't make any sense, but then when you start to think about it, it's like, yeah, it makes total sense because you know, there's, there's stuff happening there and here it's calm, here's very structured, it's very precise.
00:42:06 Yeah.
00:42:07 Calm and you know exactly what you're doing. It's probably slow. So like, it just that, you Know.
00:42:14 Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. The other really strange thing as well is, so I really rebel against being organized. I, I am organized because I have to be organized for the business and everything, but there comes a point where I'm, I really rebel against it and, you know, structure and everything like that. However, when it comes to my drawing, I, it's almost like a, a ritual. So I tend to draw only in the evening unless it's weekend, but I only listen to one thing when I draw, and that is Harry Potter on a loop over and over. And it's the only thing I listen to when I draw and it's, I guess it's become a, a habit, but it's kind of my, my thing, you know, I finish the whole set of the seven books, six books, whatever they are, and I go right back to the beginning and I just listen to the audio book on loop and I don't listen to anything else, but I hate being organized and I hate being structured yet. I'm so structured when it comes to my drawing. It's bizarre.
00:43:21 Yeah, It's, yeah, it's funny like that when I, I mean I've spent years doing creative things and then I sort of, and I really like, you know, the different incense and candles and all that sort of stuff. So I always have like, it's evening, like it builds a whole atmosphere. You know, there's evening, there's like certain type of music playing, there's the candles burning in there. I do my apps. So now when I've started my marketing business, when I wanna get in the creative flow, like doing content creation or whatever, I do the same. Like I put on the candle, I put on music and I'm just in this whole zone and everything. So it's kind of, it's like the thing that you build for yourself, like whether it's organizing or creating something that helps you work and thrive in that particular environment, whatever you need from it.
00:44:12 Yeah. And that, and actually that's a, that's a really, really nice idea to think it's, to think about too, you know, is to, to to set up like a, a lot of people have this procrastination, don't they, around starting with something or doing their art or whatever. And it's, I I think a lot of it stems from,
00:44:31 there's still that real challenge with doing something for ourself. You know, we tend to put a, a lot of women I think tend to put themselves like right down the list and everybody else comes first. And I think that's where a lot of the procrastination comes from. But actually, if you set yourself up like a little routine, getting yourself into the flow, getting yourself into that sort of creative space, I think it's, I think it's a really, really nice idea to do.
00:44:58 And also knowing what, what you need for it, like with, with art and that, especially if you are out of practice and you are kind of need to get yourself kind of motivated to, to start on the like or continue on the project just knowing what you need. Like for me, I knew that if I would have my say when I was doing scrapbooking, if I have my photos printed and prepared, it would be so much easier for me to just sit down and do it. Because if I had to edit the photo and then print it, nothing else would happen that day because I hate editing photos. So just setting yourself up for success really. Whether it's art, whether it's any other hobby, whether it's business. If you have, I know doing accounts and have all your receipts printed and in one folder it's gonna be so much easier because you've set yourself up for success. You don't have to dread this task of trying to find everything everywhere else. It kind of comes from organization a little bit, but it's also, you know, setting yourself up in advance so that it makes it easier for you to do the things that you really want to do. Yeah, no, absolutely. But yeah, definitely brilliant and yeah, I'm ho gosh, honestly my receipts and everything, well I've got a bookkeeper now, so I don't, I just, honestly,
00:46:12 I'm just like, oh God, I can't, I used to leave everything until the last, the last day and then I'd try and do everything that I got done for the whole year. Like Right, where's all my receipts for the whole year. And I'd be like, why do I do this to myself? You know, if I just, every time I had a receipt, just put it in a place or print it or do whatever. No, bizarre. I'm a strange Person.
00:46:33 I, I'll say accounts is not my strong point. That's, that's why I've got it on my mind cuz I've got receipts everywhere at the moment trying to catch up. But then while I'm doing it, I'm also putting a system together so that the next time is gonna be easier for me. Where before, yeah, I mean I do have an accountant, actually my mom's an accountant so it's, it makes it easy. So I just usually give everything to her and then she just chases me for everything. But yeah, it's, it, it makes it, like now I've got two businesses, you know, personal accounts as well, so now I have to be plus my husband's account. So I'm trying to yeah. Be a bit more organized so that now with minimum amount of time that I have to spend running two businesses, doing like coaching calls, doing all the travel, looking after the baby, doing all the things. I don't have time to spend all day looking for receipts. I really need to be organized. So it's kind of, it's those things, things that come from necessity to try and, you know, set yourself up properly.
00:47:31 Yeah, Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Oh gosh, well it is been an absolute joy talking to you. I'm guessing, what time is it with you? Because usually I talk to people in there earlier in the day. You are much later in the day. Yeah, it's nearly nine o'clock. Yeah. At night but Oh, at night, right? It's near Tuesday. Yeah, it's nearly nine o'clock Tuesday.
00:47:55 Yes. Yeah, we're nearly 10 o'clock in the morning on Tuesday.
00:47:59 Right. So bizarre Time difference wasn't a problem. I think global business would be a lot more global.
00:48:06 Yes, a absolutely, absolutely. It is. Or you know, although, you know, there is, there is definitely sort of ways of being able to, you know, kind of, kind of talk to people. Like again with your, if you've got people, your clients mostly in Australia or do they, do you kind of have them Everywhere?
00:48:25 Everywhere really anywhere. Everywhere. And they're anywhere. Yeah.
00:48:28 Yeah, yeah. So it's, yeah, that's when it gets a little bit tricky if you are having to work later in the night to be able to catch them in the, in the morning.
00:48:35 Oh, I was gonna say, I don't mind working late at night, but the, the window is only like one, maybe coaching call per night as opposed to a whole day of calls that I could potentially be doing.
00:48:46 Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, I really appreciate you taking your, your time out of your day to, to talk to me this evening, this morning both.
00:48:54 Yeah, thanks for, and
00:48:55 yeah, it'd been really, really nice to talk to you and, and I think there's some, there's some lovely messages in there as well, you know, you know, for people just starting out, just to take it, to make things easy, to make it simple, don't overcomplicate, which I think is, you know, is fabulous. So yeah, it's so nice to meet you. So nice to catch up with you. Hopefully I'll see you in the, in the the b b d group at some point. Yeah. Have a, have a lovely rest of your evening.
00:49:24 Yay. You have a good day.
00:49:26 Thank you.
00:49:26 Alright, see you later.
00:49:28 Bye.
00:49:28 I really hope you enjoyed listening to this episode of my, It's A Bonny Old Life podcast. If you did, I'd be so grateful to you for emailing me or texting a link to the show or sharing it on social media with those you know, who might like it too. My mission with this podcast is all about sharing mine and my community's experience and hope by telling your fascinating personal stories, championing the other amazing humans in my personal, professional, and membership community. And to create another channel through which I can support you to realize your coloured pencil and life dreams. If you haven't done so yet, please help me on my mission to spread positivity and joy throughout the Coloured pencil world by following me on my socials at Bonny Snowdon Academy or by getting on my list at BonnySnowdonacademy.com. And remember, I truly believe if I can live the life of my dreams doing what I love,
00:50:17 then you can too. We just need to keep championing and supporting each other along the way in order to make it happen. Till next time,
