The Business of Creativity with Aura McKay | RR250

Go Hello everyone, and welcome to

relationships rule, a podcast where I interview amazing

people. And we talk about relationships and the power of

relationships. And also, I love to find out lots about my guests

and their take on what they do. My guest today is aura McKay.

And aura actually lives in the same area that I do in

Vancouver, Canada, which is very unusual that I have someone

local here. So welcome to the show. Aura. Thank you. You're

welcome. All right, is the founder of Business of

creativity and award winning professional photographer and an

inspiring business coach. And in the little bit that I've gotten

to know her, I can see how inspiring she is just the way

you talk, the way you approach things, you have such energy

about you that I can see how that would be inspiring. So I'm

going to stop there because one question that I think I asked

you this when we first met, but it intrigues me. And I want to

ask again, because I forgotten the answer is how you got your

name, or I said was I asked you, I think was it? Is it your real

name? Or was it like a Numerology thing, something

because it's unusual, and it is unusual.

And I learned, I got my name from my parents. It was,

I'm a product of the 60s generation. So I was born in

1970. Those of you doing the math? Yes, I am almost 54. So

it's happening. But it was at a time when my mom and dad whose

names are Sue and Bob, which, you know what I mean? Like,

they're completely different, they really wanted to lean into

empowering me with the idea that I could be anything and that

there were no limits, and that I didn't have to live within the

constraints of normal society, even like that there was a lot

of freedom to be had. And that actually shaped my life

considerably moving forward in terms of how how the kind of

burdens I carry, and also the kind of opportunities that I get

to see. And an interesting thing about my name, though, Janice is

that when I was about six years old, I was so frustrated because

I was trying to make relationships, I was trying to

make new friends in school. And I was trying to figure out,

like, you know, where's my place in school, and I was often the

new kid and I had a weird name. And my parents were hippies. So

I didn't have the right thing in my my lunchbox, and I didn't

have the right clothes. And all of these sort of outside

accoutrements are what allow us to belong to belong in a group

or belong in, in a place or to connect and make relationships

with other people. And so I changed my name. And I actually

called myself Kathy, love it nine years.

I get it, I get it. Because I was a school

teacher in my first life. And I taught elementary school. And

names were really relevant to how a kid was in school. And so

I've always felt curious about names and and remember, kids

that had struggled with certain things and they usually had

unusual names and your name to me is beautiful. And, and it's

very, of course, spiritual, and all of that good stuff. And yes,

I, I was gonna say Your parents must have been hippies and, and

I get it. And it's just, I don't know, I mean, it does shape you

for sure. And I remember my daughter, my second daughter had

a little girl in her grade one class who changed her name to

from Jessica to not Kathy but something really simple like,

and then now is back to her. Her true name as well. But yeah,

it's so important what you name children because it's, it does.

Well,

like even thinking about being adults, and being

entrepreneurs and running our own business, you can, like even

a business name can help you feel more trusting or give you

insight into who you might be working with. And so names in

terms of building relationships can be really integral to that

part of that building block and, and also like how we feel about

it can really make a difference. So now

do you think Well, I'm sure We're your

parents, creatives as well?

Yeah. So my mom is still very creative. She is 81

and she is an actor and She is in some of the things that you

see on Netflix and local, like family law and things like that.

And so she, her name is Su Spurlin. Okay, so she is still a

creative and growing up, she was a mental soprano opera singer. I

mean, she didn't, she worked as a secretary, but she did all of

this creative stuff. My dad is absolutely still creative. He

and his wife live on Saltspring Island, he is a woodturner and

an artist and he works with his hands, and she is a painter, and

so very much creativity and you know, growing up with that as an

as a, as a kind of a grounding or as like this is the this is

how we live is we live with the possibility and anything is

possible, it actually created what I call the burden of

extraordinary.

Yes, okay. Yes,

I was told you can do anything, you can be

anything, you're so talented, you're so creative, you're so

smart, you're so intelligent, you could do anything like

you're an extraordinary human being go go. And I was like, Oh,

that means that anything I choose to do, I have to be

extraordinary. Or I have to choose something in life, that's

going to be extraordinary. So I think that there's a lot of sort

of external pressure and expectation that we kind of

carry with us throughout our lives and can really impact how

we move forward in terms of when we are meeting people, or we're

trying to move into a new marketplace or create new

relationships. So let's, that

makes me think to sort of switch to the other

side, in a sense, so you and bear with me for a second. So

you have been a photographer for professional photographer for 20

years, you may have been that route. Now you coach creatives,

photographers, designers, artists, I'm guessing musician

so much artists not so much. So thank you for that

distinction. I like to work with visual creative freelancers,

people who are using their creative talents in service of

others not so much as to create artwork that's a self expression

and then finding a market for it but creating using our creative

talents and skills in service to others. So Visual creative

freelancers. Yeah.

So visual, creative freelancers, like

photographers,

videographers, graphic designers, illustrators,

those are popping up.

Okay, because what I was going to say, and I'm

just curious to get your take on this because your upbringing

made you see or allowed you to see the possibilities and no top

on that possibility for the creative. Profession

professions. Yeah, but we I remember hearing all the time

that there was everyone in that was a starving artist. Yeah.

This is why I have a job like this is part of my

business exists, Janice is that partly to dispel that mindset

that creative people are starving artists and you'll

never make money. And if you follow your heart or follow your

passion, you know, you'll live a happy life, but you'll live a

poor life. Or the other one that I grew up with was, oh, just do

what you love. The money will follow. Oh, just you build it,

they will come Yes. Both of those are not really very

supportive worldviews if you are a multi passionate, creative

person who's looking to bring your voice to the marketplace

and contribute your ideas and creativity and innovation. So

that's really one reason why I built a business of creativity

was because I wanted to challenge that mindset. I wanted

to challenge that belief system. And I wanted to challenge that

reality in the marketplace because it was based on mostly

creative people not being given the training or the skills they

need to be successful. It wasn't that it's not that creative.

People are incapable. It's just that

they don't have the background. They don't have

the training and traditional

business models. So one of the things that you kind

of left out of the biography there is before I became a

photographer, I was an accountant.

Oh, that's right. And I had that in my notes here

actually. Yeah,

so that allowed me to get really clear about what

are some traditional business models how to how to traditional

businesses go about setting out plans and revenue goals and

finding clients and marketing and doing all of those businessy

things. And then I looked at myself as a as a freelancer and

went That's not gonna work. Yeah, that's not gonna work,

like no wonder people fail. So how can I support myself and

also support others in finding ways to do business and be

successful in this gig economy as a creative? So

you are, you're the anomaly really, though, to

have the left brain, right brain thing to, you know, good at the

numbers and so on. So when you're working with the

creatives that you're coaching, and they're yawning, when you're

talking about numbers, or they're like pulling their hair

out, because they're so right brained, that they can't handle

it at all. I'm guessing you don't do it for them, but you

probably encourage them to have, you know, to have other people

do that for them, but then they can't afford it. So how do they

deal with it? Well,

that's a really good point you're making Janice is

that most of my clients are solopreneurs. So they're not in

a position of creating team or going into leadership or wanting

to even create an agency or expand into an enterprise model.

They really like the solopreneur business model. And so then how

do they take care of all those things that do make them pull

their hair out, or like yawn and fall asleep instantly. And that

is the challenge, because there are things that we need to know

about business that are about business, like we keep score

with numbers, money is how we keep. So we have to know the

numbers and be able to keep score. So part of how I support

them is I have created a magic unicorn spreadsheet that has

color codes, and you only have to fill in the yellow things.

And then you look at the blue one and the pink one and the

green line. And that helps you figure out your minimum price

for profitability, it helps you figure out what your monthly

income needs to be, it helps you figure out what your sales goals

are. And I do it in a way that has a lot of repetition. Because

there are some people that learn this way. And some people that

learn this way. And a lot of my clients have neuro divergence in

their in their makeup. And so I need to as the instructor and

the coach and the supporter, or rather, I choose to I actually

love finding multiple different ways of have helping people

access the information, they need to be successful in

business in a way that actually works for them and for their

brain. So that's the challenge for me is how do I stay relevant

to everybody? That's really,

really, that's the mind of a teacher, to my

mind, that is the mind of a teacher, because we know as

teachers that, you know, children learn in different ways

adults learn in different ways as well, they, and you need to

find the way that's going to work for them. So that's a bonus

again, in what you're doing. And so being an I love that, I

identify and love the idea of the color coding, because when

it comes to the numbers and all of that I can only do what I've

been taught to do to keep my business on track. Otherwise, I

get a headache. And it's not that I'm a completely right

brain person. But I don't know, I just have a lecture from my

husband about numbers. So yeah.

So you're feeling the pain, right? And, and that's

it like a lot of the work as you said, it starts with that

mindset of, oh, I'm a creative, I'm never going to be

successful. And it goes and we look, you know, oh, what other

kind of beliefs do you have about who you are in the world?

Well, I'm never going to be good at numbers, they're always going

to give me a headache. And it's like, you say you're right

back. But yeah,

my, one of my main rather than leaning into the

weaknesses, or the perceived weaknesses, or the perceived

lack, I like to lean into what are you awesome at already? What

in your business is already working for you? Where are your

clients already coming from? How can you get more of those,

rather than, Oh, you should be on Instagram, you should be on

LinkedIn, you should be using like I don't like to should on

anybody, you know. So it's really interesting. There was a

book called the Clifton Strengths Finder that I used

when I was working in corporate. Because I did work in corporate

I was an accountant and working in corporate work and marketing

did all of that kind of stuff before I became a freelancer.

And the Clifton Strengths Finder is really interesting because it

really does lean into what are your strengths and how can you

use your strengths to tackle some of the challenges? So how

can you use your brilliant brain when it comes to relationships

and building relationships and understanding human beings? How

could that possibly work for you when it comes to numbers? Yeah.

Like, how could that line be drawn? And exploring that and

getting curious about? How can we make it work for the

individual?

So do you find that? I mean, I know everybody's

different people are unique and different, but are there like,

two or three specific things that often or most often come up

when you're when you're working with creatives then is one of

them numbers, for example, their lack of

them is absolutely numbers, for sure. There's five,

because you know, we're creative. So we have lots of

different things. Yeah. But one of them is about like, clarity,

and focus and direction. And like, I have all of these ideas

and all these things that I want to do, and all these things I

could do. And all these, like different marketing is so

overwhelming, as you know, yeah. Which is why it's so brilliant

that you have focused and simplified this is the this is

the tool that I'm going to use this is the tool that I know

works for me is relationships. So for them, the first thing is

getting helping them just get clarity and focus and direction.

And then the next one, interestingly enough, is self

management. It's time management, boundary management.

So it's things like overwhelm, and burnout, and impostor

syndrome and self doubt and confidence in running a

business. So those two kind of foundational things is where we

usually start, and then we get into numbers, we get into

pricing and numbers and understanding the numbers that

are important, and how to interact with numbers in a

different way and change your relationship with numbers. And

then we get specifically into clients and really understanding

looking at clients. I don't know if you've found this generous,

but one of the things that I find a lot with solopreneurs, or

people who are using their own skills as their service is that

they tend to look at their business only from their

perspective. And in order to be successful at relationships and

marketing, we have to really put ourselves in somebody else's

shoes. Yeah, we have. I

know, for me on LinkedIn, it's like creating the

profile. Optimum, in an optimum way. I'm trying to say a word

that I can't say optimally. optimally. optimally. Thank you.

You have to have a client facing if you're an entrepreneurs,

solopreneur or business owner, not the about you. And that's a

misnomer that a lot of people do on LinkedIn. So yeah, so you

have to see it from other people's perspective. For

sure. Yeah. So that's really the fourth thing

that we look at is really understanding your clients. And

then once we have all of that, then we can go into marketing

and sales. Yeah, we can go into marketing clarity, what is your

marketing message? What is your brand voice going to be like?

And then what is the sales model that's going to work best for

you to connect to your clients and get successful sales? Yeah,

earn more money, stress, less, grow with confidence, just do

it.

Exactly. But and I can see the passion you have

for what you do. So. So talking about that word, I couldn't say

I saw that you love big words. I do. Okay, so talk to me about

that. Are you a Scrabble player? Or do you do CrossFit

not? I have my love of big words. I, one of my core

values is communication. And one of my worldviews is that

circumstances or circumstances, and it is the stories we tell

ourselves about those circumstances, that creates our

experience of life. So if we say it's raining, and it's terrible,

and it's cold, and oh, that's awful. And that's a story that

we can tell ourselves about something that we have no

control over. And through our language, we can change the

story that we tell ourselves. And so we can start telling

ourselves like, oh, man, what a perfect day to stay inside and

what a great excuse to cuddle up in front of the fire. And, oh,

I'm so grateful for the heater in my house. And we can we can

change our focus through our language. So that's where my

love of language started. And then I started to learn really

cool words like anthropomorphic size and consilience and

reification. And, and I got excited about that. There's

words and language that we don't use on a regular basis that are

so rich and descriptive and wonderful. And it's actually now

my Achilles heel when it comes to marketing And because I want

to communicate using words and language that are important to

me, me facing. And what I need to do to be successful is use

words and language that my clients care about and resonate

with. So the hard lesson in communication is that it's not

about me, it's about the listener. Yes,

but I'm loving and talking business right now.

I'm just like, I love words. And I love the etymology of words.

But I don't know. Like, do you read the dictionary word? All

these words come from where do these words come

from? Conversations? No, come

on. No, no, no, no, because 100% words that you

just mentioned, never heard of them. So. So yeah. I'm talking

to the wrong people, obviously. Right. And

I think that that's, that's really the thing about

are you talking to the right people? In your relationships?

Like, are you having the conversations that light you up

that give you new vocabulary, or new perspectives and new

possibilities? And, and really well, and then the other piece

about where I learn new words, is, I run a book club for

freelancers. So this is a free book club. anybody listening is

absolutely welcome to join this book club. We meet twice a

month, we usually take a full month to read one book, and

they're all business or communications books

fun. Okay, so I

make them and how this started is I had a short

shelf of shame. I had a shelf of books that I was like, oh, I

should read that. I should read that. And they were starting to

like, kind of weigh on me. Yes. And so I started this book club

as a way of doing the reading that I wanted to do, but doing

it in support and in relationship with my community.

And so now I get all of these new words. And then I share the

books with other people. And then we get to have

conversations where we get introduced to new language.

Yeah,

to talk about that offline. So I've had a

different challenge. Like, I find that I'm listening to

podcasts. I do. I admit, I do watch television. If it's not a

basketball game, though, or a tennis match, it's, you know,

something on Netflix, or I'm a movie buff, I love really

interesting films, not necessarily movies, but Maestro

that just came out. Some people loved it. And some people hated

it. Because it's an art film. It's not for everybody. But

anyway, so I love that kind of thing. But I have in the last

few years, the only books that I've been reading really are

books of people that are on my podcast, or books, business

books, and I can't get myself back to reading a novel. So I

bought this book six months ago, because I heard or I saw on CBS

Sunday Morning, the author was being interviewed. And it looks

really interesting. And she's done amazing with this book.

It's called Lessons in chemistry. Which in Yes, I've

heard of it. Yeah. So it sat on my bedside table. Every night, I

would pick up my iPad, or I'd pick up my Crossword Book, or my

People Magazine, and I would never open the book. Now the

show lessons in chemistry, it's been made into a limited series

on Apple TV, and I see it occasionally they're gonna go

nope, I'm not gonna watch it until I've read the book. Right.

So I finally started the Book Three nights ago. I'm going to

Chapter Three now. So I'm going to try and make it through this

book. But I lose attention span. That's the problem. I'm so busy

with thinking, I've got to write this newsletter, or I've got to

listen to this podcast, or I've got to check this person's book

out that I never get back to novels anymore. And I love

this is interesting, because the first books we read

were things like finding focus and an age of distraction, and

atomic habits. And now habit. And so those tools help me to do

the things that I want to do. Also a really interesting thing

about procrastination that I learned and that I see as

helpful for the people that I work with it really, I mean, for

myself, let's be honest, is the idea that procrastination is not

a problem. It's a symptom.

Okay, probably, you

find yourself procrastinating. It's a symptom

of something else happening. Because procrastination is

different from avoidance. avoidance is like I'm avoiding

doing the dishes. I don't want to do the dishes, and I'm just

gonna avoid it. Procrastination is like having your foot on the

gas for something you really want to do, but having your foot

on the brake at the same time. Have you know, I want to read

this book because I hear it's great, but I'm not reading it.

So what's that about? And usually procrastinate emotion is

coming from a place of fear. I'm afraid I'm not gonna like it.

I'm afraid I'll start it and get distracted. I'm afraid it's

going to be a waste of my time. I'm afraid whatever it like

there can be an it can be really subtle in terms of what it is

that that's causing us to stop it. So I think for me, like once

I realized that procrastination wasn't a problem, and it wasn't

a flaw, and it wasn't something wrong with me and I wasn't bad.

It was like a symptom. It was like a headache or like, oh,

there's a rock in my shoe, I need to look at it. It gave me

way different access to being able to get curious about my

behavior and what was behind the behavior. Okay, so

going on that theory? I certainly am. Now I've

opened that door of that challenge to read the book. If I

don't like the book, I won't continue it, because, but I'm

liking it. So far. I'm liking the way that she's writing it.

And I think, for me, if it was anything, why I procrastinate is

because I feel so short of time for all the amazing things that

are out there that is this the thing I should focus on? Yeah,

much better to focus on People Magazine. Yeah.

This is the thing though, Janet. No, I don't

remember that. The second thing that I really help people with

is sort of that self management time management mindset

management thing. One of the biggest access points to

understanding your relationship with time is to start looking at

your time not on a day to day basis, not in a 24 hour chunk.

But to look at it in terms of a week, you have 168 hours in a

week, and start to do start to do a breakdown. Okay, I want to

I usually I want to sleep eight hours, but it's usually six, or

how long am I in bed, and just start to look at it. And some of

my people who are the most overwhelmed and burnt out, are

trying to do 175 hours worth of stuff in 168. Some of my people

who are most afflicted by procrastination, find that they

only actually are filling 150 hours with intention. And that

there are all of these ghost hours that just seem to

disappear. And once they're aware of it, they can make more

intentional choices.

That's really a great lesson. So here you are

coaching me and thank you for that. I find that very

interesting. I might do

FYI, when I when I binge watch, because I totally

binge watch my schedule. I have I booked time for it, because I

know I'm gonna do it anyways. I binge watch Home Improvement

shows. Oh, I love those two. Yeah. And what I really like

about it when I'm watching them is it's not completely zoned

out, because what I watch about them is I pay attention to

there's the home rental person. And then there's the client. And

the questions that the home rental person asks the client is

like doing a creative brief. And it's it's really doing a needs

discovery. It's like a sales call. And then when I noticed

throughout the show is that keep coming back to Oh, you want this

outcome. So you know, yeah, we're going to fix all the

plumbing. And we're going to do all of this so that you can have

your spa bathroom. And finally so it really focuses on outcome

based conversations, outcome based cars, like promised

watching the twins. I've been watching all of them. I think

I'm on repeats for everybody.

That's the one they all have. So it's

it's really interesting to me to be even

just observing, where can I learn about how relationships

work in a service based industry? How can I pay

attention to what can I take away from what somebody else is

doing? I mean, one of the beautiful things I was going to

grab it off my my corkboard because it was usually over

here, but I moved it. After our first conversation, Janice, you

sent me a thank you card. And you personalized the Thank You

card. And you created something that I thought like it really

made an impact on me. I remembered it I have it saved

for me. And it's like that kind of when you can make that kind

of connection with someone and then have it have some longevity

is super powerful.

Thank you. Yes, I agree. I think especially if

it's something tactile. Yeah. Because it takes people from

their head to their heart. And that's the hope anyway. Okay, so

this has been delightful and did I know I was getting Get

coaching here. No, I did not. But I

did ask permission. I did not, but I hope it's okay.

I'm

open to it and I love it. So um, I know that you

what was I gonna say you have a podcast to your podcast you do

solo episodes Correct? Or do you do interviews as well? I'm not

sure.

I'm only doing solo episodes right now I'm looking

at. One of the things that I really love is evidence of

awesome and celebrating wins and progress and process and really

encouraging ourselves like even when we do something that feels

really minor, like, oh, I sent that email. Yeah, I know. Like,

I'm really all about that. So I'm looking at possibly in the

future, expanding my podcast to include opportunities to feature

some of my clients embrace them. At the moment, it's more of kind

of like edutainment, I pick specific topics. And I usually

give about eight to 10 minutes worth of Bite Size little

I saw that I listened to, to one or two and

yeah, very useful for your for your target audience for sure.

Okay, last question. No second last question. You may or may

not have seen on the sheet that I sent you. i And you know this

about me already, that I'm a curious person. So I always like

to get people's take on curiosity. So it's a two part

question. Do you believe that curiosity is innate? Or learned?

And part two is what are you most curious about these days?

Hmm. So do I believe that curiosity is innate? Or

learned? My answer is yes, both. So I feel like all human beings

have some curiosity, especially when we're born, because that's

how we learn. We get curious about things and we learn. I

think that the practice of applying curiosity with

intention does take some training. And I think especially

for adults, playing with what if rather than having to know, I

think adults are really uncomfortable with uncertainty.

And I think curiosity lives in uncertainty and getting. So

getting comfortable with being uncertain. So you can be

practicing curiosity, that I think is the difficult thing for

my clients is that uncertainty feels like anxiety. And I don't

know, and it kind of stops them and they get really fixed in the

uncertainty and don't can't really access curiosity without

maybe help. And I think that that's the really key piece is

that as solopreneurs or when you're by yourself, it's hard to

ask those curiosity questions and get new answers. Also,

though, having a comfortable array, a strong

sense of curiosity helps you with what you talked about

earlier, right in, in finding out from your client, what they

really want, and also what they need, because sometimes those

are different, and being able to pull that out of them. So yeah,

fair enough. And

what do you think that there's a lot of blocks to

curiosity, like, Oh, I'm not here to get curious, I can't ask

questions about my client, because it's gonna make me look

stupid, or like, I don't know what I'm talking about. So I

think that there's, I think the practice of curiosity as an

adult, and the practice of curiosity, in sales and in

business, is something that isn't innate, that how to do it

in a way that you feel comfortable with that, that

comes across as professional and that gets you the kind of

information that you need to move forward is something that

needs to be trained. And that's definitely part of how I focus.

So yes, it may and entering and then then that the last question

you asked, which is what am I currently curious about?

long I'm gonna share what's really on my mind, and what's

what's really personal, it's not about my business right now. I

have external forces that are happening and things that are

out of my control. My family member, one of my family members

is quite ill and got quite ill quite suddenly and will likely

pass in the next three to four days. And so my curiosity is a

place where I can lean into as a safe place to swim right now is

to okay, I can be curious about what is this process going to

look like and where what kind of resources can I get to and who

can I turn to support and How do other people are in this. So I

think that what I'm curious about is less important than

having curiosity as a tool to lean into.

Wow, that's huge. Thank you for sharing that. I

appreciate that. Because that that's a big message there. All

right, let's take the last question as knowing how

passionate you are about your work, and I see that I can tell

that your clients are probably really loyal clients, and lean

on everything that you tell them, I can just feel the

connection, the relationship that you have with them is

important. What would be one piece of advice you could share

with my audience before we wrap up about this?

Okay. So I'm going to share my core message for

success, which no matter what industry you're in, or where

you're at, and whatever phase of life you're in, or whatever

you're doing is what are the three core beliefs that are

going to help you be successful. And the first core belief is

around hope and possibility that you have to believe that success

is possible. And I think that this is what we were speaking

around earlier about the core messages that are like, Oh,

starving artists. And if you're creative, you'll never word and

all of this, this stuff. So changing that mindset, and being

able to believe that it is possible. And then the second

piece is that it's possible for you. There's all this like, oh,

other people can do it, oh, other people have more better,

different, whatever it is, but I can't because I have lack and

insufficiency and whatever. So really believing that success is

possible that it's possible for you. And then the final one,

which is the one that speaks to your relationship with numbers,

is that success is worth it, that it's worth it, to look at

the numbers and do the number part and be uncomfortable and be

in a place that's not your zone of genius, and really getting

connected to why it's worth it. Wow,

those are amazing. I appreciate that. So

good. And I thank you for being here and for, for sharing all of

your I love having conversations with new people that I've only

met briefly because so much more comes out. And I want to hear so

much more from you next time I talk to you kind of thing. So

thank you again, or for being on the show. I have the information

of where people can reach you, your website, business of

creativity.ca We'll put all of that and you have a YouTube

channel. You're on LinkedIn and you have a podcast. We'll put

all that in the show notes. Right and thank you to my

audience for being here for being loyal to me and for

listening. Please let us know that you enjoyed the episode by

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