As we continue the theme of showcasing Aligned x Design alumni, I'm thrilled to welcome Rudy Hexter to today’s episode.

Rudy is a man of many talents. He’s a builder of homes that are designed to facilitate thriving as well as a teacher of Qigong and the Life Mandala Training.

While navigating a chaotic upbringing full of instability where love felt conditional and fragile, Rudy found himself drawn to embodied practices as a way of grounding himself.

On the podcast, he shares how building community and engaging in circle work has helped him explore many limiting beliefs about his relationships to others and to himself that were preventing him from feeling a sense of acceptance and home.

Join us in the first of this two-part interview as we explore how community and deep inner reflection can help us learn to nurture ourselves and, in turn, teach and support others.

Today I’m continuing a conversation with Safiya Carroll Labelle, who was featured in our previous episode.

Safiya is a multi-passionate artist, musician, web designer and founder of Wildlight Creative, who I had the pleasure of getting to know during the beta launch of my 12-week program, Aligned x Design. 

In this episode, we talk about how Safiya learned to create structure around her artistry during Aligned x Design to allow for greater creative expansion. From feeling lost in a swamp to being exhausted by screen time, Safiya shares about career challenges she’s faced and how she uses art as a healing balm to bring herself back into feeling and community.

Join us in this second half of our conversation as we explore how we can create the conditions we need to thrive creatively.

To Join Aligned x Design, head over to:

http://alignedxdesign.com/

More info about Safiya can be found here:

https://linktr.ee/Softfirearts

IG: @softfirearts

IG: @wildlight.creative

Welcome Safiya Carol Labelle to the Art of Lost and Found Podcast!

Safiya is a multi-passionate artist, musician, web designer and founder of Wildlight Creative, who I had the pleasure of getting to know during the beta launch of my 12-week program, Aligned x Design. 

She grew up on a small island in BC, Canada, in the loving embrace of a vibrant artists’ community. She shares what it was like to grow up in such a free-spirited place and how a traumatic parental divorce and uprooting move with her mother caused her to lose her sense of belonging at the tender age of six.

From finding community to fighting traditional constraints as an artist, our conversation was so rich and nourishing that we’re splitting it into two episodes. Join us in this first half as we dive into trusting yourself in the midst of the unknown.

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My conversation with Safiya doesn’t end here–tune in to our next episode for the second half of our conversation where we’ll talk about strategies for building the structure that allows for creative expansion in your life and business.

To learn more about Aligned x Design, head over to: http://alignedxdesign.com/

Journey of Creative Healing: From Loss to Authenticity

Today we welcome Veronica Lichter to the podcast. Veronica was one of the original students in my signature 12-week Aligned x Design Program, and had a profound transformation that resulted in her quitting her full-time teaching job and making the leap into being a full-time artist.

Reflecting on the emotional and nostalgic aspects of the creative process, Veronica shares about importance of gratitude in letting go of things that no longer serve her, including past traumas, limiting beliefs and restrictive identities. She shared her experiences of feeling disconnected from her creativity and intuition, but through self-awareness and cultivating stillness, she was able to reconnect with her true self and activate her creativity in a whole new way. 

"There is so much power in trusting in the creative process and surrendering to the magic of life."

We explored the concept of trauma and the importance of meeting one's own needs as part of the process of maturing and growing as adults.  By acknowledging and processing our own traumas in order to break the cycle and create a different experience for our children, in particular, Veronica's 6-year-old-daughter, Mazzy.

The main takeaway from this episode around the importance of self-awareness, resilience, and bravery in personal growth. These qualities can help us navigate challenges, connect with our true selves, and create a meaningful vision for our lives and work.

To learn more about Aligned x Design, head over to: http://alignedxdesign.com/

#neurodivergence #alignedxdesign #designyourlife #onlinebusiness #creativepodcast #theartoflostandfound #clientspotlight #studentspotlight

In today's episode, I finally share my own life story.

It's also the origin story for my signature program, Aligned x Design.

I didn't just achieve my lifelong dream of living in Spain or running my own 6-figure business overnight. Mine is a story of wayfinding, humbling learnings, and constant course correction.

This is the story of my own transformation, and how I developed the frameworks for Aligned x Design.

I'm thrilled to share where this life design strategy has led me and dive into how I'm using what I've learned to help guide like-minded creatives, coaches, and entrepreneurs in the process of building a business that supports your life rather than eclipses it.

The main take-away is simple: Design for the life you want, not the life you think is available to you.

“Moving into product sales with my templates have given me so much more time. There's been a weight that's been lifted off of my shoulders. I'm not chained to like client responses and deadlines. I'm free."

- Melissa Lunt, Brand + Website Designer, Template Designer

Today on The Art of Lost & Found Podcast, Melissa Lunt discusses her journey as a creative entrepreneur. She shares about her childhood love for art, struggles with depression and bullying, attending an art magnet high school, and eventually realizing the importance of college for her career- and the challenges of balancing creativity and business.

We explore how her transition from creating art for self-expression to using her creativity for business led her to study graphic design. She eventually shifted from doing custom work to creating templates, which gave her the opportunity to explore and grow as a designer and attract the her ideal clients.

She shares how her website templates have allowed her to liberate her time while also helping others transform their creativity into a website that feels like them.

CLICK HERE TO GET 20% OFF SUPERHERO DESIGN TEMPLATE:

use coupon code 'creativeamplifier' at check-out

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To learn more about Melissa's work, you can follow her below:

www.superherodesign.co

@superherodesignco

“When you become just a number, not a person, but just a number there to execute the work, It's not sustainable. But I had invested so much in this and the pivot felt like a failure. I needed a change, but I didn't know what to change to since this was all I knew.” - Phil Lashley, Motion Graphics Designer

Phil grew up in Barbados with three brothers in a middle-income family where their primary entertainment was their own imagination. After becoming fascinated with TV and visual motion design, he developed the the dreamed of becoming a motion graphics designer. His vision, hard work and commitment led him all the way to the "dream job" working in Hollywood on some of the most successful movies of all time.

While Phil was honored to have made it all the way, he felt that his life was slowly eroding. That his dream job had in fact, taken over his entire life. Health problems started to show and he knew that something had to change. But after so much time, energy, resources and money had been invested in his education, it felt daunting to even consider what came next.

Pivoting to a new career felt like a failure. Carving out a new path for himself has been incredibly challenging, yet also a beautiful process of self-discovery and personal growth.

Now Phil travels the world with his wife helping entrepreneurs use the power of motion graphics to tell more engaging stories across new media platforms.

On the podcast, Phil walks us through his proprietary framework called, FRAME, which he used to help guide his clients towards a higher level story that helps share their message in a more resonate, creative and profitable way.

To learn more about Phil's work, you can follow him below:

www.phillashley.com

@phillashley

To learn more about Brand Builder's Group, get your Free Personal Brand Strategy Call here:

https://freebrandcall.com/be/

Today we welcome Ana Juma (@anajuma), Founder of @prophsee.  She is a creative entrepreneur who believes the art of journaling can be a powerful therapy for anxiety and depression.

Through her own process of learning to dance with the darker parts of herself, Juma developed a consistent and deeply supportive journaling practice that she is sharing with the world through her publishing house, Prophsee (@prophsee). 

Juma recently published a book of her poetry called 'Back to Earth'. It is a confessional poetry book that tells the story of undertaking the journey from loss and heartache to reclaiming one's truth and sovereignty. 

Note: This episode was recorded over a year ago, but so much of what she shares is absolutely timeless. ✨

To follow more about Ana Juma's life, find her on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/anajuma/

“It can feel like we aren’t worthy of putting ourselves out there or carving out a little corner of the internet because we haven’t achieved something yet.”

- Amanda Bucci, Author of Followed: The Content Creators Guide to Being Seen, Facing Judgment, and Building an Authentic Personal Brand.

Before garnering nearly half a million followers on Instagram, Amanda Bucci struggled with some of the same insecurities that so many of us face. And regardless of having "made it", she still navigates many of those same emotions today.

During our wide-ranging conversation, Amanda dives into how judging creativity with a letter grade or some measurement of achievement drained the fun out of her creative expression. As she surrounded herself with science-based studies, she found herself thinking that the creative part of her simply didn’t exist.

Cut to the present, where Amanda is a professional content creator who nurtures her creativity every single day as a tool for self-actualization.

As we talk about her book, Followed: The Content Creator's Guide to Being Seen, Facing Judgment, and Building an Authentic Personal Brand, Amanda shares a core insight from her journey in entrepreneurship: her creativity isn’t only meant for marketing. She discovered that using her creativity purely to connect to herself with no outcome attached was her cure for burnout.

This conversation is wide ranging. We cover creativity, social media, non-monogamy, coming out online, being triggered and so much more.

Join us as we explore what it means to be a content creator in the age of social media in the face of being seen, feeling judged, and striving to listen to your own authentic voice.

“Money’s not the end-all and be-all because you can’t spend it from a casket.” - Landen Conner

Have you ever found yourself thinking, “Is this who I am? Is this what my life is now?” You’ve put so much effort into getting where you are, only to look around and feel like something is off. This isn’t where you’re supposed to be.

If you’ve ever felt out of alignment like this, then today’s episode is a must-listen.

After establishing a career in pharmacy, Landen Conner had a serious health scare that forced him to stop in his tracks and deeply evaluate the direction his professional life was taking him.

Landen was able to redirect his trajectory through the insight that pain may be necessary to help you get to a specific goal, but only when your actions continue to align with who you want to be as a person. Unnecessary pain comes from when he starts doing things that aren’t in the makeup of what he believes in or who he is. If he forgets to follow up with people or gets short-tempered, he knows it’s a sign he’s out of alignment and needs to shift.

Landen found his calling as a personal branding photographer with a unique coaching technique that helps his clients overcome limiting beliefs, insecurity, and pain when it comes to being on camera. He believes that having one truly good picture of yourself can brighten any bad day by reminding you of who you are and who you want to be.

Join us as we dive into his monumental pivot, exploring how realigning his actions with his heart fundamentally shifted his quality of life and his perspective on how pain shapes us.

You can learn more about Landen at LandenConnerPhoto.com or Impact-Branding.com.