Speaker 1: 0:06

Colleen, thank you so much for joining me on. We Woke Up Like this today and we've had this on the books for a while, so I'm really excited to dive into this conversation with you all about creativity and creative expression, and you are definitely one of the most creative women that I know, so I want to ask you what creativity means to you and why is it such an important aspect of your humanness.

Speaker 2: 0:32

Such a loaded question. Creativity, for me, is simplified, really, and it's really come back into just being able to have free expression. I had to really re-embrace my creative spirit and allow myself to really play with what is creativity and how can I express it. Once I kind of realized, you know what, I'm not fitting into this corporate model, I'm not fitting into this standard. Here's what you do cookie cutter life.

Speaker 2: 1:02

And so creativity has been always part of my life. I've always played with my hair. We were kind of talking before this about my hair. I've always been one of those people like, eh, it'll grow back, like it'll be fine. So I've played with color, I've played with different cuts, and so that part of creative expression has always been part of my life. And as I've gotten older, really that, okay, how can I express myself through color in my clothing? How can I express myself through these different avenues? And then eventually then became part of my work and now a full-time editor, like what I love to do, and they're like, oh, editing, how creative is that? But helping someone really get that last like 20% of where they were to where they want to be. There's a lot, lot of creativity in that and I love it um, and I think people complicate it. They make it seem like this big scary thing and it's not, it's just expression.

Speaker 1: 1:54

I love a different recipe which I don't cook, but making a recipe can be creativity yeah, I love that and I feel like a lot of people will say I'm not creative. I'll hear that a lot. I'm not creative and I'm like everything you do is creative because everything you're doing is creating something. You're always creating an effect right from everything that you're doing. And I love the idea of what you just said about putting creativity into editing, because editing seems like it would be just such a analytical you have to notice all the details kind of work. So tell me how you're applying your creative genius into the editing work that you do.

Speaker 2: 2:34

There's a lot of analytical to the editing, to note rules and all the things, but you also have to know when to break the rule. So there's a lot of creativity and being like, yeah, we can break that rule. Yeah, that makes sense there, and helping people really be like okay, are you using that word to express this or this? Like, what are you trying to convey? Because we can use a different word. So there's a lot of creativity there. That comes with being able to clarify someone's message and be able to clarify that vision, to create clarity in someone's work.

Speaker 2: 3:05

I think one of my favorite things to do is help someone who is very verbose in their writing to take it and make it clearer and more concise, which is, for a lot of people, very challenging, very, very challenging to take out the excess words and be like oh, but that's how I talk, because converting how you talk into how you write can be very challenging. So we have a lot of ums, a lot of like, a lot of filler words that we say that don't convert into writings, knowing when to take those out and knowing when it does actually convert into something where it's like oh, we needed that there because that conveys that moment of uncertainty, or you know any of those things, or we don't need that there because you are very certain.

Speaker 1: 3:49

So being able to be that like analytically creative, so much fun for me. I just love it and I think that's such a gift to bring that creative mind into analytical work and it sounds to me like when you're editing a book and you're helping someone to edit something, that you're actually more like a creative partner who's also noticing you know, here's an error, here's where you did this, here's where you could do that. But I love that. I love that idea of having somebody else's eyeballs and their creative brain on your writing and your work to be able to say here's an alternative or more simple way of saying this thing that gets your point across maybe even better, more effectively.

Speaker 2: 4:22

Right, yeah, and that's what I love about what I do, because I love to do that. And it's funny because there's a lot of coaching in editing and I was really leaning away from the concept of coaching at all. I was talking to Betsy Clark about it. I'm like I don't know if I want to do coaching and she's like what do you do? And I was like saying the same things back to her. She's like you are a coach. And I was like, oh, so I started adding book coaching into my offerings and it's just fun to help people be like, oh, I do, that is the book. I do have a framework, I do know what I want to talk about, like, oh my gosh, I could say 30 to 60,000 words about something and to pull that out of people and have them like kind of be like, yeah, all right, let's go, let's do it. It's just so much fun for me because I love thinking outside the box and be able to connect the dots for people on certain things that they have been too close to.

Speaker 1: 5:18

Would you help somebody if they have an idea and they want to write a book or they know something that they want to write about, Would you help them structure the content of the book, how you would lay it out, what the chapters might look like? That kind of thing for somebody.

Speaker 2: 5:30

Yeah, I just started doing that this year and it's super fun. People are like well, I have the idea, and helping them really figure out how easy it could be to walk beside them. And it's simple in the fact that, like, once you have your framework, once you know what you want to write about, where you want to take the reader, it's a lot easier to be like oh yeah, I know what I'm talking about. And a lot of people think that they have to be an excellent writer or they have to have know all the things, they have to know all the grammar rules in order to do things. That's why we have editors Get 50% of the way there. We be like this chapter would be better up here earlier in the book and be able to help people really like no, you can do it, you can put together a book if you want to.

Speaker 1: 6:11

So we're talking about editing and hiring somebody for editing. So I wanted to just say about that as a person who recently finally hired a VA to do the things that you know that she does better than me, which are those detail oriented things and making sure this gets done and that gets done, and saving time for my creative work, which is what I'm the best at. So I think there's so much value in hiring somebody to do those things, but also having an extra set of eyes I think is amazing.

Speaker 2: 6:45

Oh my gosh. Yes, you know, editing is just part of the process and there's different levels of editing, but it's so helpful and even if, like you, are an excellent, excellent writer, I just worked with someone who is a technical writer and she writes a lot, but it was her first book that she was writing. That was not a technical book, so it was just like regular memoir type book. We're writing so, so good. But she was very verbose, very verbose. So we cut a lot and we had to trim stuff and be like all right, where are you taking the reader? So hers was more. We were really just tweaking her message and being like where do you want to change things? That wasn't focused as much on correcting sentence structure or any of that stuff, but it was really focused on her message and clarifying and refining and polishing that message.

Speaker 2: 7:36

Where I had another book I've worked on just recently where she did a complete download, she just got the book. She's based on energy healing and she just downloaded the whole book, sent it to us. So it required a lot of restructuring and a lot of more work in terms of figuring out all right, how do we want to structure the book. But the important thing was is that she got it all down, so she had all the things that she wanted down, so that we could then be like okay, now how do we massage and move it around and make sure that the words are right? So that was a longer editing process, but it's just. It's so fascinating to see how people give them one little nugget of information or one little what. If you did, I think you can see their minds explode with creativity and just be like oh, I didn't even think about, and then all this stuff come out.

Speaker 1: 8:29

What do you find in working with people who are writing books or like birthing a book, because I think it's really a birthing process right, when you're letting this whole creation come out of you and through you, and especially through the medium of words. What do you find happens to people in that process? Do you see a growth change, a soul growth change? What happens with people through the creation like that?

Speaker 2: 8:53

gosh. So it's very cathartic, especially non because I work primarily with non-fiction authors and primarily people are writing memoirs or self-development, spiritual development kind of books, and so it's very cathartic, you know, especially because some of them are just writing because they need to get the story out. Here's where I was and how I got through whatever this was, and I need to share that. Someone else can do this too, and so watching that happen is just so beautiful. And then I was at a writer retreat last month and every author was in a different stage of where their book was Right at the beginning and other people were putting their final pieces together and everybody was I can't believe I'm doing this, or this is where I'm at, or it's book number two. I can't believe this is where I am.

Speaker 2: 9:43

And there's this kind of overcoming an imposter syndrome that happens for a lot of people. Oh my God, I can do this. Oh my God, I do have all this knowledge and wisdom inside of me to share with people and I work with some first-time authors and when they come through they're all of a sudden there's an acceptance of their wisdom and who they want to be, which is really really beautiful. Some people, they're really fast and they're able to put something out and get it written in like three months or less, and all of those people who are able to buckle down and do it. I've worked with authors that were writing for 25 years and tweaking their book over and over and over again. So the stepping into that trust to have someone else even look at it is like handing over your baby. You're just like here's my child, please don't kill it. Trusting someone with something you put your heart and soul into and it's just beautiful to watch that. And at the end there's just this I did it. Superman pose.

Speaker 1: 10:43

I did it. I love that and it's true because there's so much vulnerability when you're writing something and putting it out there and you're sharing your knowledge and you're giving like in essence, you're giving away like everything that you know that's inside of you, and then you're handing it over to a stranger, in essence, and going what do you think? How can you help me make this better?

Speaker 2: 11:03

Here's my life story and you're going to say, hey, no, we got to change this, pull this out of here, that's not important. And that's super scary, especially in nonfiction, because you're putting your identity on paper for the world to see. Whenever you're putting a personal story into your work, or even when you're putting it into your marketing materials, it's kind of scary.

Speaker 1: 11:25

You're putting your identity out there for the world to see and it's like you can take it in front of the world. Right, it's like, here I am here's all of it.

Speaker 2: 11:34

Yeah, it's, it's unnerving, but even like, the books that I've been published in were um collaboration books, so I just did a chapter, but it's something very scary. That information about me, that part of my story, is out there. Forever Forever Ever and ever and ever. And it's unnerving. I've shared my spiritual journey. I've shared my stepping into confidence journey.

Speaker 1: 11:56

I know and I find that I know for me I mean, I always share all my my whole life journey is an open book really. But I find that, you know, none of us are alone in the journey that we're walking. There's always somebody, or more than one somebody who relates to your story, because they're sharing the same story. I once heard a long time ago that there's only seven stories in the whole world, so everyone's sharing one of seven stories. So, as a person who reads a lot and edits a lot, do you think that's true?

Speaker 2: 12:22

Yeah, it's pretty similar. We're actually at the writer's retreat. We were talking because there was a bunch of people were writing about spiritual issues and we were sitting around a campfire and someone was like I think that we all have to go through something to get to this point and I was like, yeah, everyone has that moment, that trauma, that something that kicks you into. Okay, I need to be aware, I need to know more, I need to focus on this, I need to figure out what this higher power, the meaning of my life is, and I think without that, if everything is sunshine and roses, why would you look deeper? If everything's going well, what's the purpose? So I think that there's a lot of overlap in people's stories, a lot of overlap. The only thing that really changes is the location, the time, the age that people are going through things, and you see yourself in the stories a lot, which is super hard not to go. We're going to be best friends now, parts of their stories, because I'm seeing that, but they're not seeing any of my life.

Speaker 1: 13:31

Yeah, and the difference is like how I mean, like even growing up in a family, when you have siblings and you go you're going through essentially the same traumas, but how you each interpret those traumas and how they affect you and how you live with them and how you process them is so different for each and every person.

Speaker 2: 13:44

So different and you think about who your parents were At each stage of your siblings lives and completely different. You're being raised by different parents Than your siblings, at different ages. So true, and my cousin and I were talking about that and how her experience with her parents as the eldest Is very different from the youngest, who had, I think, two or three years when she was the only one in the house, so I'm an only child, so I don't know, you know. So her experience is very different than the elders. So it's all the same, but different.

Speaker 1: 14:18

You know, I came across this thing recently that I really loved, that I wanted to bring up to you, and it was the five states of being. And so they said that the first one states of being, and so they said that the first one, of course, is physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, but the fifth state of being is creative. And I really loved thinking about our creativity as humans as our fifth state of being and what that means and what that looks like. And I'm curious with you from your standpoint and the work that you do and working with all these creative people who are putting all this work out in the world, and you yourself being a creative, how that lands for you. And I can just see your brain like digesting that right now and how you're putting that in.

Speaker 2: 14:59

I love that because you think that artists are like the canary in the coal mine. The canary in the coal mine, like art, is the reflection of life in terms of books, physical art, in terms of paintings and stuff that reflect the challenges of life, that reflect what's happening in in life. Satire, reflecting the challenges of the political and people in power. There's just so much that when you're able to just sit there and create, there's a lot of freedom in that too. I love that because it's definitely a different state of being and it's close to manifestation as well. To manifest, you have to be in a state of believing you can create and that everything we need is here already. That's. Felicia Searcy says that. You know I love her example. I just she spoke last week at my chapter of eWomen, so I have this example in my mind. She uses the example of airplanes. We've always been able to fly. The materials have always been here, but you know, you need to be able to have the knowledge and put all the things together in order to do it.

Speaker 1: 16:07

Yeah, it's powerful to sit in and think about that, because I've always said you know, you see all these manifestation coaches and people out there, and I'm always like you're already manifesting. I always want to say this to people like you're already doing it, because I feel like as a fifth, as our fifth state of being, like I don't have to think about my body, it is. I don't have to think about my mental, it is my feelings, they are my spirituality, it is, and so is being creative, because we are created to create. And when we can become conscious creators, I feel like that's when. That's when the game changes, because we're not changing, we're not creating out of habit, we're not creating out of those patterns anymore. Now we're creating like innovatively, like you just said that we're getting new ideas and having the courage to put those out in the world, and so I think that's what I that just actually segued in is like what do you feel is that link between the courage to be innovative, to create something new, as opposed to just creating what you've always created?

Speaker 2: 17:04

Oh my gosh, I've been working on that for the last year-ish. I feel like I've been in this incubation period of okay, we need to change and innovate and do things differently. I went through a lot of coaching in 2023, but it was also the year that I discovered my neurodivergence. So there was a lot of like shifting, changing all the things, and I learned last year. I've been trying to implement lot of like shifting, changing all the things, and I learned last year and I've been trying to implement all that but I learned was meant for my brain. So I've had to integrate and change and tweak and take all that in. And so it's that courage to trust your intuition, that you have the knowledge and you have the wisdom to do and create what you want to create. I think it's lifelong practice to trust your intuition and to really lean into, to listen to this little whisper of a voice that's telling me to do this thing, but all the experts are saying, no, don't do that. I really want to do it.

Speaker 2: 18:04

And it was a really, really hard cognitive dissonance for the last year and I had to find another community of entrepreneurs that were like no, we can do it, that way that it was a group of neurodivergent and then a group of people with energy limiting conditions, like my own, that were like this is I love the name of it. They call it the mess of success summit, and it was just beautiful, because we are unable to do what everyone else is capable of because of our energy limitations. So this is how we make our businesses work with us, not despite us, not around it, but with it. And so I was like, oh my God, it was like this big permission slip from the universe to just be like well, yeah, you know what, this is what I'm capable, this is my capacity, this is what I want to do. Let's make it work. Let's tweak it, let's change it, let's make it work for my brain and that courage.

Speaker 2: 18:58

Sometimes you just need to see someone else is doing it and it kind of comes back to that. I need to see that my story is also out there, that there's someone else out there that's done it so that I can do it. So sometimes it's just that Practicing imperfectness. Oh yeah, then a big part. I had this little sketchbook that I gave myself permission to use. Every page badly.

Speaker 1: 19:22

I love that. Use it badly.

Speaker 2: 19:24

That's so perfect Use it badly to stop a design to be like I hate this. I'm not going to keep going just because I feel like you have to finish your picture. I don't like this picture. It's ugly. I know New page Very freeing. Created a lot more of that.

Speaker 1: 19:41

Yeah, sometimes sometimes you just have to start again. Yeah, you know what I love so much about imperfection and I've always said I am a happy imperfectionist, like I don't need everything to be perfect. Thank god I'm like that, that I'm like I don't need everything to be perfect. That seems really stressful. To try to put myself or anybody, to put themselves in that place of self-judgment and self-criticism which I think is where really perfection is coming from is that fear of being judged, and so they're judging themselves, and fear of being criticized, so they're criticizing themselves, so nobody else can, and it's exhausting. And I also really love how you have reframed and found a group. I found a community who are also in that same reframing of neurodivergency, and how did you call being energetically what? I found a community who are also in that same reframing of neurodivergency, and what? How did you call being energetically? What'd you say? Energy limitations, limitations. So what is that? Because I know a lot of people listening right now are probably going. What did she say? What is that? Because they're relating to it.

Speaker 2: 20:40

Yeah, so I have an autoimmune condition and it causes energy limitations, so there's days where I just can't like nope, um. You know and and so a lot of people with energy limiting conditions might be familiar with spoon theory or their spoonies that it was a theory created by someone with ms to help a friend understand how the difference between how the same activity uses a different amount of energy For her, taking a shower might take four spoons and for her friend it might take one and you might have 12 spoons for the whole day and someone with an energy limited condition. And it goes to the idea where we all have the same 24 hours but we don't, because we all have different conditions, we all have different budgets. We all have the same 24 hours, but we don't Because we all have different conditions, we all have different budgets, we all have different needs that we need to take care of. So it's not an accurate one-to-one comparison.

Speaker 2: 21:35

And when you have an energy-looming condition, I might have one good hour today to focus and get something really done. What can I do today that is still going to be working on funding my life. I do not have a full battery. My battery might start at 15% today, and if I give 100% tomorrow, I will have 2% for the day. So it's one of those things where you have to learn how to pace. There's an idea called like soft selling, where you're constantly soft selling, where you're just like here's what I have on offer, and it's just always this rolling kind of idea, being able to work with that.

Speaker 2: 22:11

That's also been the work of the last, since last May, that I have a device it's called visible I'm not affiliated, but it's called visible and it tracks my heart rate all day and helps visibly identify those spoons so I can track my energy throughout the entire day and be like, oh, I have used my entire energy budget already at 11. I need to find some rest, find some things that are actually going to give me energy back, which is biggest challenge, um, and then put aside so where am I at? And be able to kind of plan that so you're not going in these huge peaks and valleys and you're kind of just like on the kiddie ride instead of avoiding forever, which is the key.

Speaker 1: 22:56

You are energetically limiting yourself through distraction and I know that when I sit down and set my focus and I use that silly tomato timer thing, I know that I can super focus on this one thing as an as another neurodivergent person like I can focus on this one thing for 30 minutes and not do anything else and not get distracted. And when I do that, it's amazing how much you can get done in an hour or in 30 minutes of completely focused attention.

Speaker 2: 23:33

It's also giving yourself permission to let something slide. Okay, I have this much energy right now, I can sit down and do part of my project, or I can wash the dishes and, depending on the state of being that day or the state of how long the dishes have been allowed to slide, I can choose one or the other. Well, the dishes have been sitting there for three days. Let's do that. That's the better activity today. Or we have not sat down to work at all this week. Let's do that. So it's figuring out that peak and valley and being able to know your energy peaks, like, even if you're not in an energy limiting position, learning where your peaks and your valleys are. I used the Rise app, which tracks your sleep and tells you what your sleep deficit is. Okay, you're groggy for this period of the morning, and then here's your first energy peak. You're going to be in a lull for this period in the afternoon and then here's your first energy peak. You're going to be in a lull for this period in the afternoon and here's when your energy peaks again.

Speaker 2: 24:31

It was just kind of an interesting. I only did the trial Because it gave me I felt like enough information, but it was interesting to be like okay, yes, I am truly a night owl. This is when I should be settling down. I need this much sleep. This is my first 90 minutes of my day. Don't talk to me. I will be very groggy and forgetful. And then where does my energy go from there?

Speaker 1: 24:59

These are such great tools for people to use and I always say you can't change what you don't track. I'm the same way. I love tracking myself. Otherwise, how will I know? Because you think you'll remember, but you won't. It's like you will not remember how your last week was. You remember don't remember how your last days were, or how what you ate affected you, or how your sleep affected you, or when your energy was high or when your energy was low. I just love these, tracking these, and I also think that I feel like neurodivergent people, like for the work that you're doing, the work that I'm doing. It so suits us because we get to do a lot of different things rather than being just stuck in one thing, which my version of hell would have to be doing like taxes for eternity. I would just know.

Speaker 2: 25:38

Because that's an old job. I used to be a CPA and most of my experience was in tax and and the last tax position I was like kill me now. I don't want to, never again. I don't want to be here anymore. It's very frowned upon to be creative in the accounting world and they want the numbers to be right. But even like I was always that person that was like this spreadsheet is ugly, it needs to be color coded, it needs to be. Why did someone not make all the columns the same size?

Speaker 1: 26:10

So I would be, and then I'd get in trouble for spending an hour making the spreadsheet pretty, still being creative even when you're doing what you're doing. Yeah, yeah, oh, my gosh, it was so funny because I do all the money and stuff in our house. I remember my husband once looked at the account and he goes how come there aren't any, there's no change listed on anything. And I said, oh, because I always round down. And he goes what? I said yeah, that way we always have more, there's always a surplus. But like but it's just easier to round down Because I found that at the end, if I'm trying to reconcile and I'd be like, why is this thing off by 10 cents and I would just lose it, and so I'm like okay, well, you know there's a surplus, whatever, it's good enough, I mean that's obviously why you hire a bookkeeper not my zone of genius and and why I will be hiring you to work on my book, because that helps my book that I'm writing Well, maybe books, who knows but the one that I'm in the middle of now, because it's that same thing of like I can do the brain dump I can be like here's the whole, here's everything for my chapters and my outlines and what I'm thinking.

Speaker 1: 27:09

But, oh my gosh, to have another person to be able to look at it and say here's a better way to organize it, here's how the flow would work better, in a more logical way, because I really love your mind and how it is both analytical and creative. I just, I really think that's such a gift.

Speaker 2: 27:25

And that's why I love working with authors and working in nonfiction. When I'm allowed to do book doctoring, I get to help people really massage their content and I get to do some of the writing and I'll be like, oh, let's rewrite this paragraph. But it's just so much fun for me because I get to use that analytical side from the accounting days and really analyze things. Then I get to merge into that creative zone of okay, how can we expand this, make this better? And not only that, but I get to learn.

Speaker 2: 27:55

I'm getting paid to learn and because I'm such a learning nerd, I have a little bit of knowledge about so much random stuff in the world that it's really great as an editor Because I know just enough usually usually about whatever it is I'm editing, to be like someone can decide that or like this needs to be a little bit more information, because a beginner might not know um, where you're at. And I was working in one book where I was like um, that's a great stat, but I think it's outdated. I think I saw that that changed recently. I think I saw an article on that and it was one of those random things that like that fact checked and it was one of those random things that I just love doing. I love that, colleen?

Speaker 1: 28:38

how do you feel about people using AI to write their books for them? I'm sure you have thoughts about this, because I have so many people who are like I've seen these things come across my feed. That'll be like write your book in a day with AI and self-publish today with AI, so I'm very curious about your feelings and thoughts about that. As a very creative and analytical person who probably also loves and uses AI, I do love AI To a point to a point For a disclaimer.

Speaker 2: 29:07

I've been trained in AI. I've been working with AI for about three or four years, back when Jasper just changed to Jasper from Jarvis, so I have experience with it. I love it as an idea generator. I love it for when you're like I need a prompt, I need to organize this information that I have. It is garbage in, garbage out.

Speaker 2: 29:33

There's a lot of discussion currently about how the copyright laws are going to go in terms of how much has to be disclosed in your copyright statement on what was made with the AI. If it is 100% AI generated, it is not copyright a whole what a word. Can't use a copyright for something that's 100% AI generated, because someone else could do the same thing, technically right and you wouldn't know who was first. And so I like it for ideation. I find that the longer the chain gets in terms of what you're building with it, the worse it gets. So quality of the information really deteriorates the longer the chain gets and I'm like where'd you get that?

Speaker 2: 30:20

Uh-uh, that's wrong. So I like it for outlining, I like it for assessing a huge amount of data that isn't well organized and be like okay, he organized this for me, um, but for a whole book it's. I know it's been done. I know someone who has done it just wrote like one chapter of his book, um, he used a very robust disclaimer at the beginning. Then he was like I wrote this all with ai, just to kind of show people?

Speaker 1: 30:49

yeah, you can do it, but now that means that book is not copyrightable to him because he didn't write the book.

Speaker 2: 30:55

It's one of those gray areas because at the beginning it needs to have a significant human contribution for it to be copyrightable. That piece of it because he did, he contributed a lot. You know know, he gave a lot of the prompts, he contributed that chapter, all the things. So it's like portions. It's a whole book copyrightable. That's kind of where the gray area is right now.

Speaker 1: 31:17

That hasn't been settled I would rather not have the gray areas. If you're putting out all of the time and energy and effort to share your wisdom and knowledge and your idea with the world, you don't be don't be wanting to get it done in a day, don't be wanting to get it done tomorrow, because it does take time for that beauty, the authentic nature of our humanity, to pour through. We're putting our heart into our writing and I think that's something that AI can't duplicate. Is that energy of the human that comes through in our human experience and emotion?

Speaker 2: 31:48

I agree. I mean, it can do some really great things, I think for articles it does a great job, but the longer the content gets, the more degraded it gets and that human element definitely goes away. There's a lot less heart in fully AI-generated pieces and you can kind of tell you can People who work with energy and are energetic communicators. I've noticed that their energy codes kind of come into their book, they come into that writing. They kind of communicate at a higher level of more like with light codes, so similar to light codes, so's like there's more being communicated through their book than their words. So if you add AI into that it degrades that as well.

Speaker 1: 32:36

I totally agree. There is like the frequency of you comes through in your writing and if it's a channeled writing or channeled download that's coming through, it's so important to sit with that and let that transmission come through. So I just wanted I was curious about your feedback on that and that was actually something I didn't know about the copyright, so that's great to know. Yeah, I just love that. Colleen, where can people find you? Do you have anything? You said something about slow content, things you have continually going on. Share where people can find you and what you have going on in your world.

Speaker 2: 33:06

Sure, so they can find me on LinkedIn or on my website, which is write, edit, et cetera, which is etccom. I am currently in build mode for a new thing, my new membership that is tentatively called embrace. That is really focused around embracing these elements of yourself, all elements of yourself, and it'll be focused around the pillars of leadership, creativity, spirituality and capacity. They're really the things I've had to embrace over the last few years as an entrepreneur and the things I think people struggle with as they're trying to do something new or they're trying to step into that authentic being of themselves that they are like. I don't even know where to start.

Speaker 2: 33:54

I was a reluctant leader. I am a reluctant leader. I'll do it if I have to. I'll take on type A personality if I have to, but it's not my preferred role, so there's going to be a lot about that and kind of leading from behind and different leadership styles. Of course, creativity, which I can nerd out on, and the spirituality piece, which I think is important for people. There needs to be for people a lot of people a permission to explore and see what else kind of comes through for them and what is their truth and what resonates with them, instead of just maybe what they've been taught their whole life. And so there's a lot there in that. That membership it's still. I'm still percolating, I don't know like what all the content and everything will be, but I'm going to be opening up that to founding members soon.

Speaker 1: 34:39

Beautiful, so people can get on your email list. Find out when you're ready to launch that and to find out all the things you have going on. Yeah, beautiful, that sounds amazing.

Speaker 2: 34:51

So necessary. And then anyone working on a book reach out. I'm happy to.

Speaker 1: 34:53

Yeah, absolutely, and I know you personally and have known you for a few years and know how your personality you're so delightful and easy to work with, very flexible, but also just so freaking brilliant. You are absolutely one of the most brilliant people that I know, so it's so awesome that you're doing this work. It absolutely one of the most brilliant people that I know, so it's so awesome that you're doing this work.

Speaker 2: 35:15

It feels like you've really stepped into this full expression of your zone of genius, really trying to embrace that expertise and brilliance. That still feel kind of uncomfortable and name dropping all over the place here, but, like Kate had to, kate Payne had to kind of say her definition of an expert for me to really step into it, which is to someone who is constantly learning um and growing. Yes, and I was like okay, that's me.

Speaker 1: 35:41

Yes, the way of mastery says a master is a student who never stops learning. And I love that. Yeah, yeah, because they're there to get to. It's not like you reach some place and you're like that's it, I have nothing else to learn, I have nothing else to know. I know everything, I've learned everything. Now I can ascend. Yeah, I don't see that as possible in the human form, especially when we embrace our curiosity and our creativity. Then it's just like there's this eternal field waiting for us to keep going.

Speaker 2: 36:08

Exactly, field waiting for us to keep going.

Speaker 1: 36:11

Exactly, there's just so much so much to learn about Exactly Well. Thank you so much for joining me and this has been such a great conversation and I really encourage anybody who wants to write a book, who's thinking about writing a book, who's in the process of writing a book, to reach out to you to investigate and check out what that would look like to work together.

Speaker 2: 36:28

I would love that. Yes, and I have lots of connections to publishers and different things to help people wherever you are in the process and, yeah, I'd love to chat with anyone. Beautiful Thank you Colleen. Thank you, it was so much fun.

Speaker 3: 36:44

Thank you for listening to we Woke Up Like this. Your likes, comments, shares and subscribes help this content reach new listeners. Listeners, and I so appreciate you. And remember, Luminous One, that your radiant and magnetic presence changes the world.