Conscious Creators — Make A Life Through Your Art Without Selling Your Soul

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

On today’s episode, we have Cathryn Lavery, the founder of BestSelf Co. She shares how she started a successful business around becoming your Best Self. Learn how Cathryn transitioned from work in architecture to product design and entrepreneurship and hear about some of her best strategies for managing your time effectively.

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — click here to send a Tweet directly to Cathryn and Sachit or find Cathryn on Instagram.
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

Episode Highlights:

• Cathryn has always had entrepreneurial impulses. She sold cupcakes on the school playground and drop-shipped Dawson’s Creek DVDs to the UK in her teens.
• She is always trying to use her resources as much as possible and stretch a dollar as far as possible.
• Cathryn shares the story of how she got her first job in New York City and handled numerous setbacks in the hiring and onboarding process.
• She started doing freelance and design projects on the side to manage the uncertainty around her start date.
• When you’re managing people, instead of just telling them what to do, show them what success looks like.
• It can be very stressful for employees to always feel like they are messing up.
• She tried to learn how to deal with uncertainty.
• A year into making things and shipping them herself on the side, she was making more than she was at her day job.
• She took the measured risk to leave her day job by giving herself time to see if her business was going to work.
• She feels more productive when she has limited time.
• Initially, Cathryn was doing all the work by herself. Eventually, she learned how to hire a team and to create systems.
• As soon as she can optimize anything in her life, she will do it.
• Having systems has helped Cathryn be more creative.
• Her week is planned in a way that she knows when to be creative.
• Wednesday is a focus day for everyone without meetings or Slack.
• Sometimes your week can fill up with random meetings. You need constraints to give you some structure.
• Cathryn describes her hiring flow which was designed to capture people who follow instructions and will fit in well with the culture of her team.
• Cathryn describes why hiring her designer was an exception to her usual hiring process and why hiring a designer requires different criteria.
• Finding someone that likes to do what you want them to do for work in their free time is really good.
• Employees should prove their value.
• Cathryn has managed to maintain friendly relationships with people she had to let go of.
• Her philosophy on firing is that a company is like a rowboat. If not everyone is rowing, it doesn’t work.
• At the end of the day, everyone else's jobs are in jeopardy if the business doesn't succeed.
• In 2015 she launched a successful Kickstarter campaign for the Best Self journal.
• For three years Cathryn was spending a ton of time on self-development and learning about entrepreneurship. 
• She created a PDF that she wanted to turn into a journal but it was going to be too expensive to make so she turned to Kickstarter.
• She realized she was a product person once she had already created software and then had it ready to sell and didn't want to sell it.
• She also had an Amazon drop shipping company that taught her how to sell on Amazon.
• Cathryn’s public goal for the Kickstarter was 15k but her personal goal was 200k. 
• They hit their funding goal in 28 hours and raised $323k in 34 days.
• Cathryn created the product around lessons she had learned about productivity. Customers can fill out the journal and be successful.
• She has learned to productize what has worked for her.
• When she reached her stretch goal, it felt awesome but she was also exhausted after running a crowdfunding campaign for 34 days.
• Cathryn shares the why around Best Self.
• How do I help people become more intentional with their life without having to spend ten years learning how to do it?
• Time is the currency of life.
• Being productive so you can do the things you love matters more than saving time for the sake of saving time.
• Cathryn shares inspiring success stories from customers who have loved her products.
• Having a co-founder is like being married.
• She is grateful that she is at a point in her life where she gets to deal with the problems she deals with.
• Cathryn shares how she has grown in her business.
• She now knows how to weigh advice based on the person she's hearing it from.
• To learn about business, Cathryn picked twenty-two books in five categories and read them all before she quit her job.
• Best Self will continue creating products to help people improve their lives.
• She wrote a blog post about time management and later that became a product.
• Being your best self is about more than hitting your goals in one area.

3 Key Takeaways:

1.   One of the biggest lessons Cathryn learned before taking her business full-time is to provide clear expectations and show people what success looks like. 
2.   Having systems and optimizing her time has allowed Cathryn to be more creative.
3.   Cathryn has created successful products around strategies and systems that have worked for her personally. 

Tweetable Quotes:

“I'm always trying to make sure that I use my resources as much as possible, as far as possible.” – Cathryn Lavery

“As soon as I can optimize anything in my life, I will do it.” – Cathryn Lavery

"Time is basically what anyone has. It's like the currency of life." – Cathryn Lavery

“Being productive to get more done in your day so that you can achieve more goals or spend`more time with the people you love or do the thing you love. That is what matters more than saving time for the sake of saving time.” – Cathryn Lavery

“Being your best self is about more than hitting your goals in one area.” – Cathryn Lavery

Resources Mentioned:

• BestSelf Co.
• Shopify Build a Business Competition 
• Cathryn Lavery’s blog, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — click here to send a Tweet directly to Cathryn and Sachit or find Cathryn on Instagram. 
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

Welcome to the first episode of the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

On today’s episode, we have Phil Towle, a renowned performance coach who has worked with famous musicians and athletes such as Metallica, Dick Vermeil (Superbowl Winning Coach of St. Louis Rams), Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine) and many more.

Phil shares how he finds fulfillment in helping others become the frontman of their own dreams. Learn how Phil moved past egoic motivations to find his true calling and how we can make serving others a priority that will help us connect with our highest selves.

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — email Sachit and he’ll share it with Phil.
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

Episode Highlights: 

• This episode begins with lyrics from one of Phil's songs, titled “Hitchin’ a Ride”.
• “Hitchin’ a Ride” meant he knew he wanted to get to a place beyond where he currently was. It functioned as a compass.
• Phil had a long, rich career in psychotherapy and was on the verge of making transitions into using psychology to help people achieve their highest potential at the time he wrote the lyrics to “Hitchin’ a Ride”.
• Everything that he did, in earthly terms successful or failure, has been part of getting to where he is now.
• Phil knew he was meant to accomplish something special but didn't know what it was yet. 
• He learned that where he was then was not about being a frontman, but about helping other people become the frontman of their dreams.
• When his ego was pushing him to self-centeredness, he didn't feel comfortable.
• The best part of humanity is in serving the greater good.
• Trial and error will help us see when discomfort is healthy and when it is not.
• Phil defines a crisis as a self-inspired intervention or interruption in a direction you’re heading that needs to be re-evaluated.
• A crisis can be a gift because it can help you refocus.
• People generally come to Phil because they're stuck or there's something they feel uncomfortable about.
• Even people at the top of their game face discomfort, they just choose to take action.
• The best part of emulating someone else is seeing that they've found a way to achieve at a high level in their profession.
• Trying to be who you are not or sacrificing your dreams creates mental illness.
• When we allow fear to decide our dreams for us, we can feel depressed.
• Every famous person that we know carries unresolved fears.
• Many times they will ride the wave of external validation at the expense of their own personality.
• Please pay attention to your own personality and the things that may get in the way of your own ambition. 
• Consider doing some of the inner work now.
• External validation can never replace self-worth.
• When you're getting external validation it can be hard to look inward.
• When the pain of avoiding our personality hurts enough then we start paying attention.
• There are some individuals that can teach us that there's a sensible way to go about success.
• Tragic figures teach us in their own way to pay attention.
• You can ask what needs to change. Transformation is within our grasp if we can be a little more patient and a little more self-reflective.
• Fame has become an outcome rather than a tool.
• We don’t understand fame until we get there.
• Fame in itself as an end-game is an illusion. There's a lot that gets sacrificed.
• There are many people who have taken their responsibility as someone who is famous to start projects that serve humanity.
• There is an intrinsic part of every one of you that understands that part of our spiritual DNA is to serve our sisters and brothers.
• Phil challenges you to follow up and write to Sachit about how listening to this episode inspired you to serve someone. (Email Sachit)
• The objective of the Conscious Creators Show is to share stories so people can learn from them.
• There's a common thread of people wanting to be part of a cause.
• There's no solo act that achieves anything of greatness on its own.
• Self-serving becomes more important when we're afraid.
• Service is an automatic priority when we want to improve relationships. We must acknowledge what our part in it is.
• With bands, Phil is most happy that before every concert and public appearance they come together in prayer. They need to have a moment before they go on stage that signals togetherness.
• When we give grace to our relationships, when we give gratitude to our relationships, in that moment of time we are speaking the truth about ourselves, our love for one another, and the human beings that we come in contact with.
• Conflicts in our relationships are projections of our own fears and insecurities.
• As creators, we face conflict about whether to go for something or not.
• Phil feels good that he's taken risks even when he has failed.
• Many of the big things he's done he wasn't necessarily ready for.
• You have to decide for you when it's a red light, a green light, or a yellow light.
• Be prepared for a yes and know what your motives are when you offer to help.

3 Key Takeaways:

1.   Everyone carries unresolved fears. Through patience and introspection, we can work through aspects of our personality that get in the way of our ambition.
2.   Making serving others a priority will help us connect to our inner being and our highest selves.
3.   You can choose to feel good about the risks you’ve taken even when you fail. 

Tweetable Quotes:

“When I am helping other people fulfill themselves, that's where my satisfaction and fulfillment and calling is.” – Phil Towle

“It's trying hard to be who we're not or sacrificing our dreams, whatever those dreams are, that in some ways creates mental illness.” – Phil Towle

"The people that have achieved at the highest level, that I've worked with, are no different than anybody else. Perhaps we could say they did not allow their fears to become more important than their dreams." – Phil Towle

“External validation can never replace self-worth.” – Phil Towle

“Collaboration has to become more important than self-serving.” – Phil Towle

Resources Mentioned:

• Phil Towle Website, LinkedIn

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — email Sachit and he’ll share it with Phil.
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.