Life itself is the adventure...

[00:00:00] Hey, it's me, Kellee, you know, from that podcast Unfold that was supposed to end in August and start again under a new name. But here I am giving you a few in between episodes before we launch season two and a whole new way forward. If you don't know me, I'm an artist, an author, a mentor, and a pretty passionate person.

[00:00:25] I love everything. I'm excited all the time. When you talk to me, you'll see my enthusiasm just shines right through. I have so many ideas, so many things I wanna get out into this world. And so instead of waiting until January to talk to you, I figured why. Start telling you what's happening right now in a lot less formal way.

[00:00:49] So again, I'm carrying on with another episode in this in between series as I plan out 2023 as I prepare for Nepal, which is coming up in just two weeks as I grow deeper in my spiritual practice and learn how to love better, how to serve you better. And how to build my business bigger and and more impactful than it's ever been before.

[00:01:20] So I'm really excited about the journey that I'm on and I mean, what better way to help share everything that's happening? What better way to help you in your journey than to just go ahead and share my journey? So that's where we're. Right now, it's late on a rainy Sunday night, getting ready for Monday.

[00:01:47] You're probably listening and looking at the whole week ahead of you. Hopefully you're excited about what's about to happen, new plans, people to meet, things to accomplish, whatever it is. I hope that you're going about it with joy and gratitude because what better way than. You know, looking hopeful towards each day.

[00:02:13] I was supposed to be in Ocean City with my family at a three day festival concert that we lovingly called the Middle Age Concert, and we were dragging our kids along. We're supposed to go see everything from Dave Matthews Band to Cindy Loper, and was really looking forward to sublime and dirty heads.

[00:02:37] But the hurricane that hit all the way from South and Florida through our area seemed to dump a lot of rain and wind and well, they decided to cancel the concert. And I have to be honest with you, I don't think I'm disappointed. I don't know what's happened. I don't know if it was. The business that I've been running for years from home, or the pandemic that shut everything down, but I'm such a homebody now.

[00:03:06] I don't really need the noise and the chaos and the, and the go, go, go all the time. So, you know, I was like, oh darn. I'm gonna spend the weekend at home, cozy and rainy day, making art, writing, planning out my future, listening to podcast. Listening to books on tape, spending time with the family, going out to dinner like this is definitely a lot more preferable for me, especially with this big trip to Nepal coming up knowing I need to kind of conserve some energy and not give it all out for some big three day festival.

[00:03:47] But we were going because that's what, my husband just loves music and we wanted to have a fun family. A adventure that we'd never really had before. You know, my kids have never been to a concert. I don't know what's up with this generation, but that's all we did when we were kids, when we were teenagers. In my early twenties, that's all we did. We went to, you know, all the music. So I guess because it's so readily available on their phones, I don't know, But they were willing to go even. To listen to the old people's music , but hey, things happen. We bend with the way things unfold, right? So this week's been interesting in a lot of other ways.

[00:04:31] I wanted to catch you up with my plans for Nepal. I spoke the organizer of the trip. She's the owner of the company that I'm going with enlightened Globe Truckers. It's a cultural trip, so it's not just site seeing. We're really gonna immerse ourselves. In with the local people. We're gonna go stay at a Buddhist monastery.

[00:04:56] We're gonna be treking through the foothills of the Himalayas on the Anna Perton Trek. It's a very popular trek to do without having to actually go to Mount Everest Space Camp, which would be a little bit above my pay grade here. I at home, I'm already training enough because it's not exactly easy to track for five days in a row, but I'm up for.

[00:05:20] I've been doing my best to train. Not as good as I should be doing. As I said last week, I could be doing it far more often, but at least I've been practicing and getting my body moving. Maybe I'll go hike up and down the stairs. As long as it's raining outside, I'll just, I'll use my. Three stories of stairs to go march up and down every day until we go, Well, I don't know.

[00:05:45] Maybe that'll end up exhausting me, but I've got my gear. I bring in a sleeping bag. I'm bring in the wool socks and the brand new boots that I've been. Breaking in and all the gear, my brand new Gore-Tex rain jacket, just in case. And, and, you know, a few comforts from home. I'm, I'm checking everything off that list, but one thing that I was really concerned about was, The coffee situation.

[00:06:16] I know that seems so ridiculous. It's like, all right, fine. I'm gonna walk for several days. We will probably be using outhouses. I'll probably be taking horse baths, you know, a little sponge wipe off, but that's about as good as it's gonna get for the hiking. But what am I really concerned about? The coffee because I've been drinking coffee for like the last 25 years every morning.

[00:06:40] I love it. I don't really have a plan of giving it up in my lifetime. However, I realize that coming off a coffee addiction while treking through the Himalaya is probably wouldn't be a good idea. So I did something absolutely. Mind boggling. My whole family thinks I must have lost my mind. But this week I switched to drinking tea. I was like, you know, it's either good coffee or none at all. So I better start practicing now to drink something that I know I can get my hands on, which is a hot cup of water that I can drop a tea bag in. Here's the thing with the coffee, I need it done a certain way with my O Milk creamer, and so I just don't think that's gonna be easily found.

[00:07:27] I can drink tea with no sugar, no, no milk, nothing. It's fine. So we're adapting early. To the huge shock that I'm gonna be going through as I hike through the Himalayas, as I travel through Catman do, and all the amazing sites that we're gonna see and visit small schools and learn how to make the food and.

[00:07:50] And celebrate, Uh, I think Diwali's happening at the same time. We're gonna be celebrating Halloween while we're there. It's 15 days, but I'm going a little bit early to stay and adjust time wise, elevation wise, and just mind wise and get into that space. We're gonna be doing yoga every single morning and meditation morning, and probably at night too.

[00:08:17] And that's why all. Things are like really, I don't know. It's just shifting how I'm thinking about it. It's like, why do, The question is why do I need something so big to change how I've been living my life? But we all need catalyst to change. We all need something that's gonna move us forward onto that next phase.

[00:08:40] And it's something that I've been wanting for years, at least the last year since I set some goals. So, Yeah. Moving forward with this, I don't know. I'm expecting it to be a pretty life altering experience to some degree or another. As with everything that we go through, we oftentimes find ourselves right back at home in the same old rut we were in before, but I'm hoping that something fundamentally changes. I already feel the shift. I've already been starting to make that move towards. I don't know, presence, just being in the moment and, and feeling what the people around me need and what the world needs and how I can show up a little bit more aligned and wholly present. And. With more empathy and concern for you, for you the listener, For the people that I meet along the way for, for family members that I've grown far apart from that, I realize I just need to keep coming back to that place of love. And so whatever this magical thing is that's happening, that even if it's just this wild, crazy trip to a place on the other side of the planet, Whatever it takes to keep pushing me forward, to keep pushing you forward to that next step that you need to take towards waking up.

[00:10:11] Coming back to that thing that I've said so many times, living a life by design and not by default, so part of this journey in. Being present about paying attention to what's needed, and living a life by design and not by default, means that I need to be taking the next steps forward with my business.

[00:10:34] And as many of you have been following me for years now, I'm an artist. I've got a published book, which is really pretty amazing that that happened. I've been teaching online art courses and my own business for. Years now, 2017 is when I started teaching and it's grown into something quite remarkable, to tell you the truth and watching it evolve. Uh, used to have a membership and I've talked about that in the podcast over the year and how I burnt out. And in 2020, in the fall, about two years ago, I shut it down completely because. Something wasn't aligning for me. I could see this higher vision of how I wanted to be able to show up and the way I had built the membership wasn't working.

[00:11:27] It was always this hamster wheel of having to create content and, and I didn't have all the right things in place to make it work. Right. And effortlessly and. I've, I've talked about that kind of struggle before and all the things that I know that I could have done different. There's one thing that I know for sure when I went through that phase of burnout and needing to shut down the membership, a lot of it had to do with this gut feeling, this intuition, this innate.

[00:11:58] Desire to go to the next place to serve, to the next place. That this first iteration of how I was showing up as an entrepreneur wasn't. The last iteration of it and that there was a place that needed to evolve. But in that burnout, in that place of not being true to myself or true to my calling, that burnout was really hard to recover from, and it's left me pretty stuck for a couple of years now trying to figure out what is the next best.

[00:12:32] Choice. And every time I step up on that edge of knowing, I pull myself back again. And this is. Been happening for months and years, to tell you the truth, because I have an idea, I have a plan. I buy the domain even, and I sketch all of it out, and then I come and pull back from it. And a lot of that has to do with giving myself time to recover from burnout and evolve into the next phase of what I'm supposed to be doing.

[00:13:05] But, I'll be honest. I also can look at it and see that I'm holding myself back out of fear, out of perfectionism, which perfectionism is and of itself. Just another tactic when you're afraid. That you use? It's just not right yet. That's because I'm not trusting in myself, and so I've been going through this. I've gone through I've, I've gotten coaches and friends to help me and I've gotten a lot of clarity this year. I've had massive breakthroughs, but part of that was me just evolving. Unfolding, if you will. To a point where I understood what that greater calling was supposed to be, what that sole purpose was.

[00:13:49] And last week I read a little bit about that from, um, from a passage in a book that I really love. Um, and so now I came this week, in all honesty, this week I head up against another one of my own self sabotaging blocks. I was co-working with my project manager, Inca. And trying to plan out what's happening next. And I have this like huge mountain of ideas and it's about getting some clarity and narrowing it down and seeing how all of the different pieces fit together. And as it becomes more clear, sometimes it also becomes a little bit scarier. It's like, if I choose this, Then I won't be able to do this. Or will this be right? Or would this be better?

[00:14:40] And so, I mean, straightforward. I'm gonna tell you I intend to work with. Creatives who are entrepreneurs and help them build aligned and profitable businesses. And really the missing piece is oftentimes they're messaging and their marketing, and I'm really good at that. I've helped a lot of artists in the past.

[00:15:03] I've coached art artists to build their own remarkable businesses, and it's something that. Lights me up. I get really excited about it, but I wanna do it on a deeper plane. I wanna make sure that it's coming from a place of, uh, I don't know, integrity. Integrity is the word that I'm looking for. It needs to come from a place of integrity and to work with people moving towards service.

[00:15:31] The way that they look at building their business. It's about reaching to every corner of the earth and serving each other, helping each other, doing things that light us up so that we can live our best lives so that we can continue to light other people up. And so when I get a chance to do this, when I'm in that zone, I just, I light up like sparkly.

[00:15:56] There's no doubt about it. I've been told. They're like, Okay, right there, Kellee. You light up when you talk about this. You realize that this is the path you should be on. I'm like, Oh, okay. Well, this week I hit up against another block and I wasn't trusting myself. I got so overwhelmed I had to cancel some meetings and just take a day to, to walk and shake it off. I was like, I just don't know what to do. If it's gonna be designed like this or built like that or what. And I think what I needed to do was just come back to this place of knowing and trusting my intuition, trusting my gut that I already have the answers, and that I can take it one step at a time.

[00:16:36] What's needed now in the next six months, in the next year is not what's gonna be needed forever and eternity, and that there's. This time to unfold and evolve. So whatever decision you're making right now as an artist, whatever decision you're making right now with your life, especially, tell this to my young men of children. my turning 20 year old, my 24 year old, and even my 14 year old, it's like, You have a lifetime to make new choices over and over and over again. Don't worry about what you study in college. That's not what you have to do for the rest of your life. Don't worry about what career you have right now. It's not what you have to do for the rest of your life.

[00:17:19] Go have fun, have adventures. Explore. Learn and discover who you are. And I'm like, Oh wait. I think that that's the same thing. I need to remind myself as I'm building this business, as I'm creating. Next phase as I'm coming into alignment with where I wanna be with it and how I'm gonna serve you. And so I just, Tuesday, I got a whole lot of clarity that yes, move forward with the plan that you have at at hand.

[00:17:49] Show up. Teach people how to make magic with their marketing so that they can have aligned and profitable businesses. It's what they're gonna need more than anything. As the recession ish is happening, I don't think that it's. 2008 problem. But when everybody feels this pinch and they're like, Okay, what's my next step? But even after that, what's the next step? How can I take this thing that I've always dreamed of doing? And actually, Make money with it, actually serve others, actually show up and make an impact, be seen, be visible, and grow my business. You know, this is an age old question that I've had for years. Struggled so much as I said.

[00:18:37] Um, I posted this week, I talked about the fact that it's been 10 years since my first art. 10 years ago, uh, this week was my very first art exhibit, and it took years before I made any money in my business. Um, probably about six, at least six years before I was making significant money because believe me, you know, making $10,000 a year when you're spending probably 15 or $20,000 a year on art supplies is not a profitable business. So there were so many years that it was like, just, what am I doing wrong? Why am I not connecting with the right customer, why am I not able to get my message out there and grow my business? I'm doing all these things and of course it took time growing, getting mentors, taking courses, and um, trial and error and it, then things began to snowball after that and I was able to turn a business that was making no money into a business that was a multiple six figure company.

[00:19:44] And those realizations along the way, those ways in which that I was able to build this business in a way that, generally speaking, has been very much fulfilling for me. Yes bumps along the way where I need to pivot from a membership to courses and whatnot, and then keep taking the next step didn't really hold me back from being able to grow my business. Because when I shut the membership in 2020, I actually grew more the next year. And so each time I take that next step and I learn more, and I learn what it takes to grow the audience, what it takes to grow the email list, what it takes to have a message that resonates what it takes to. To connect generously with a community and build a place where people feel nurtured and accepted.

[00:20:40] Those are the things that have really made a huge difference in being able to build my business, plus a whole lot of innovative ideas and all honesty. I like to think way outside of the box and come up with things. Either aren't done often or have not been done before or have put my own spin on it, but all these things have added up to something that I'm really proud of and excited about and love sharing with others, Love seeing them come into their light.

[00:21:10] I love to see when. You've started a business, you've got your own art courses. You're wondering how to connect and find the right customers to come and join, and how you're gonna be able to touch people's hearts and light them up and get them making art, get them creating again, get them inspired, moving their bodies, connecting with nature, connecting with their spiritual being.

[00:21:34] All those different levels of what we do with our businesses and how we create them and how we, how we just show up. Those are the things that I love to help other business owners, entrepreneurs and, and budding, you know, into this whole new realm of making money and being your. Boss, your own CEO of a little small business.

[00:22:02] But why keep it small? Let's see what we can do to reach farther out, spread our wings and, and really. Lean into what makes us remarkable, what makes us amazing, and why we're able to start this in the first place. Take it to that next step, take it, take it even further. And so, because I'm so passionate about this, because I can talk about it for days and days on end and never get bored talking about it, and you know, thank goodness I have a circle of entrepreneurs who will listen to me because I'm pretty sure that my husband does not want me to be talking about business.

[00:22:39] At all anymore. It's like, okay, I've heard you've said that four times already, Kellee. All right, I get it. I get it. It's just for some people, you know, they have their sports they wanna talk about, they have their hobbies, they wanna talk about. For me, you would think that it's art that I wanna talk about all the time, but.

[00:22:59] I think art's taking a backseat to my passion for building a business, for building a business that comes from the soul, that comes from the deepest parts of your heart that wants to be able to connect with people across the world, that you know that you can make a difference, you can make an impact.

[00:23:20] You know, that's what lights me up right now and that's what keeps me motivated and keeps my brain turning, my heart lit and ah, keeps me true to who I'm meant to be. So if that's not enough information for you today, I supposed to be short little interlude in between Unfold ending and the new podcast beginning in January.

[00:23:45] Then . I don't know what to tell you, but I will say that I wanna end on a note of reading something for you again, just like I did last week because it was kind of fun to be able to share with you the things. I really touch me and keep me moving and keep me grounded. And so I'm gonna read to you a poem by Mary Oliver, and I have this habit.

[00:24:11] I'm gonna tell you first, I had this habit for probably a whole year, 2017 or 2018, that I'd wake up in the morning and the first thing I'd do before I looked at my phone, before I. Made my coffee is I read this poem and I think I'm gonna make a habit. It's like a little prayer for me.

[00:24:32] Why I wake early. Hello, Sun in my face. Hello, You who make the morning and spread it over the fields and into the faces of the tulips, the nodding morning lorries, and into the windows of even the miserable and the crotchety. Best preacher that ever was. Dear Star, That just happens to be where you are in the universe, to keep us from ever darkness, to ease us with warm touching, to hold us in the great hands of light. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Watch now how I start the day. And happiness and kindness.

[00:25:09] There you go. Marry Oliver for you. Why I wake early and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have to wake early and read this tomorrow, so if that doesn't start your Monday, . Beautiful and happiness. And in kindness. I don't know what could. But anyhow, thank you so much for listening. I am just grateful for all of you. I hope that if this touches you, if you're excited about what I'm talking about, you'll come and find me. DM me, send me a message, send me an email. Tell me what you've thought about this podcast post and even better. Leave a review, hit follow so that you don't miss beat.

[00:25:48] I know that that more information about Nepal is coming. I'm gonna do my very best to record some episodes while I'm actually there so that you get insights of the actual experience. And I'm gonna continue to share with you as my business starts to take shape and this next offer starts to open up. Um, so I just kind of wanna share with you behind the scenes as it's happening.

[00:26:12] Uh, so hit follow, give a review their iTunes or Spotify or wherever you listen and then share with your friends. Invite more people to come listen to the podcast because the more the merrier, you know, the more we can spread this message of love and kindness. The fact that you can do this yourself because you've got what it takes, and I want you to know that. All right? I love you so much. Thank you for being here with me. I will talk to you again in a week. Bye.

If you'd like to listen to or learn more about the podcast visit https://www.maderemarkable.com/blog  for our show notes and links to the main players.