Creative currency is a concept I created for myself to give these very abstract feelings a measure that I could explain—both to myself—and to others as I needed to. 

It’s a similar thing to “having capacity” or “the bandwidth” as people say, but for some reason that never felt like it captured it for me.

There are at least 4 components or four types of “dollars” that make up this creative currency:

* Creative dollars. (Obviously.)

* Energy dollars.

* Brave dollars. (Hardest to earn, easiest to lose.)

* Emotional dollars.

Knowing how our creative stores are going, (what are we rich in, what are we poor in) then empowers us to “budget” so to speak for our projects.

Plus, it also helps us to pinpoint why we can’t take on a project we otherwise would love to. We might have the creativity for it, the energy etc, but our brave dollars are being required of us elsewhere in our lives.

And of course, knowing how to ‘earn’ back our dollars can help us know where we need to focus next.

Sudden depletion = unexpected expenses

It’s also important to know there are times that we can have massive payments withdrawn from our creativity, energy, emotional or brave accounts, sometimes unexpectedly, and it can bring our balance back to zero so easily. 

Rejection or criticism can take a toll, for example. Bad news, sickness, stuff of life—(getting h**ked anyone?!)—can all put our creative currency into “debt”.

I can absolutely say I felt that immediate bankruptcy of my my brave, creative, energy and emotional dollars all in one in the last couple of weeks after being hacked online.

I’m now needing to spend some time earning my brave dollars back especially. But in other areas too.

This is why we need to know not just where our ‘bank accounts’ are at, but also how to earn those dollars back and refill our stores…

Which is exactly what we look at in this episode.

This concept has been so helpful to me, so I’d love to know if it helps you too?

If you’re a creative or just someone who is sharing their work in any capacity - particularly online, you’ve probably found that in your pursuits of creating content or developing your website, or product descriptions or anywhere you need to write about your brand… 

…that you’re not sure what to say, and how it’s meant to sound. 

And all of the research you’ve done has led you to the conclusion that you need to spend some time figuring out what your brand voice is. 

And that’s actually totally true. Brand voice matters and it does involve some very specific, intentional, strategic choices for the actual words you use, the tone of voice, sentence structure as well as topics and content your brand will cover. 

All of that is necessary for brand voice, I’m not here to try and say that’s all bogus - it’s not. It’s important.

However…

I recently realised that this whole idea of ‘voice finding’ is something that doesn’t sit well with me. It’s the terminology of ‘finding/discovering your brand voice’ that I find a bit jarring… 

And while we gave ourselves this container of “voice finding” to help us figure out how to communicate with our audience well, it’s brought with it a couple of (or 3, as I go into) reverse-helpful things.

So, in this episode I’ll dive into those 3 things and then offer some new handles for that container so you can feel a bit clearer about how to approach your brand voice…

And I can already imagine that this is going to have to be a part of a series, because there are so many layers and different things to this idea of voice, so I will circle back with more episodes on this to explore some of those in more detail. 

But for now… 

Let’s dive in to why it’s time to stop trying to find your voice, and what you can do instead…

Listen to episode 2 above & let me know how you go!

Oh, and as promised in the episode, here’s a Blupee.

Ok, tell me if this is not the most poetic way to begin a podcast - we’re actually going to be talking about voice. 

In the first 2 episodes we’ll be looking at ‘voice’ from a couple of different angles. 

Episode 2 is more about your brand voice and how to find it - (or rather why ‘finding it’ isn’t actually the answer…) but this episode is more about…

Coming out of hiding to begin…

…Using your voice. 

Speaking up. Showing up. 

Why do we hide?

Hiddeness: Unseen, unheard, concealed, obscured, buried, covered, invisible, undercover, disguised, screened, cloaked, masked, unrevealed…

When we think of hiding it can imply that we’re really only speaking about something visual - but actually, we can be completely visible, but still in hiding…

Coming out of hiding is not just about being seen. It’s about using your voice.

We can also be showing up, in our business, our work, our life, our art - but not using our voice. We’re creating, but we’re not creating what we know is on our heart to make and share.

We keep pushing it down… sometimes not even knowing we’re doing it. 

But why do we do this?

There must be a myriad of reasons - but in this episode I’ve got 2 I’m going to look at here as to why we hide and silence ourselves.

So make sure you listen to the episode to dive into those reasons, and also what we can do about it…

And also! We talk about this moment:

Because maybe right now, it’s not so much about ‘finding your voice’ as it is about releasing it…

Taking those things you’ve kept in a hidden folder and beginning to share them with the world…

Unhiding that website from ‘under construction’ mode…

Finally sharing that idea…

Starting that business…

Launching your blog…

Beginning your podcast…

Allowing yourself to show up online, on social media or even writing to your email list…

…It’s time to release your voice.

Listen to the episode and let me know what you think!

Much love,

K

The What I Wish I’d Said Instead podcast launches next week.

Can’t wait until then? No problem. Here’s a short & sweet trailer for you…

Throughout the podcast we’ll be looking at the stories we tell others: (emails, website copy, about pages etc) and the stories we’re telling ourselves. (Perfectionism, imposter syndrome & more.)

Join me with 6 binge-ready episodes (I’ve got you) **15th Feb, 2023 on Apple Podcasts & Spotify.

This is for:

The slashies/thé don’t-fit-in-a-box-ers/the “real job by day”ers/the dream big-ers/the starting again (and again), (and again)-ers…

…my fellow square pegs. 

This is for you. ** Edited to add: Immagonna need a couple of days grace on that. Resetting everything after being h**ked has been a thing.