Kellee Wynne Conrad: Well, hello. Hello everybody. I am so extraordinarily excited about today because it's the anniversary of Color Crush Creative. Hey, I'm Kellee Wynne and you're listening to the Made Remarkable Podcast, where I usually interview really remarkable people doing remarkable things, but sometimes I show up for a solo cast, and that's what today is.

 I figured I'd dive into the story, the journey of my business, and celebrate this anniversary with you, and give you a list of 10 things that I've learned so far in the six years since Color Crush Creative began. Now, just so you know, I've been in business a lot longer than six years, but I really think about April 19th, 2017 as the start of my.

Journey to making money on an online business teaching art, which has eventually led me here to coaching other artists. Yes. Before that, if you go back to some of my earliest podcast episodes, I talk a lot about my journey in other entrepreneurial ways that I've created everything from selling art to curating in galleries, working for the Maryland Federation of Art and a whole lot of other things.

Well, we don't need to go into that now. What I will say is that all along the way, I kept sharing my voice and my thoughts and my words about my journey and gaining community. And somewhere along the line that community became Color Crush Creative. And as I've maybe told you before, I just had this Facebook group of artists that I was encouraging to keep them creative, to keep them motivated, to keep them making more art.

And one day, you know, as you do when you have a Facebook group, you're prompting them, you're asking questions. And I said, what do you need from me right now? What would help you? And someone piped up and said, I'd love. To have better choices for color palettes. I seem to keep going for the same colors over and over again.

 And I'm like, huh, okay, well that makes sense. And two hours later, color Crush creative and the whole concept came together. And it's honestly been a really fun journey, but very rocky road. I don't even know how to tell you this, but it's been a super rocky. A lot of ups, a lot of downs, but I feel like that was the pivoting moment that I really stepped in with a solid idea for building a business.

[00:02:53] So that's why I say April 19th, that's the day that I, the idea came and I posted on social media and, and that was it. It was like the rest has been history. Yes, I almost lost Color Crush Creative. I've talked about this in previous episodes, but at one point I allowed myself to change the Instagram handle from Color Crush Creative

to the name of my membership, which was True Colors and. I don't know why I did that, because the history there with Color Crush Creative, was just so powerful. I guess I was looking for some congruency, and the mistake that I made was not just naming my membership after the thing I had already established.

So to all of you listening, continue down the path that you're already going. Don't change things up, and I'm gonna dive deeper into that today on this podcast episode when I talk to you. About the lessons I've learned running my business and growing it to multiple six figures annually.

And as of this date, I'm crossing the threshold of 1 million dollars earned in revenue in the last five years. And that to me is mind blowing. But between courses sold, the membership, art sold, and coaching, I've reached that point now and I'm ready to grow. I'm still. Heart set on making a million in one year, but we're gonna find out what does that actually mean?

Because what your revenue is and what your take home pay are two totally separate things yet. I have to say thank you to each and every one of you for being there by my side for being part of Color Crush Creative or True Colors, or the Virtual Art Summit, or any of the other things that I've put out into this world, and whether you've been a longtime listener and watcher, or somebody who's actually signed up for a class, it means the world to me because I wouldn't be able to continue doing what I'm doing without the financial support from my community. I wouldn't be able to keep giving what I'm giving now. I wouldn't be able to do the virtual arts summit. I wouldn't be able to create free content for those who can't afford it. And I realize that it's a bigger circle than just the income I can generate. And on top of that, the income I generate then supports so many other businesses between the people who support me directly in my business..

[00:05:23] To the services that I can hire for, and even the smallest things of buying local and handmade. I know that every choice I make from here on out, every dollar that I'm earning makes a difference in the long run. And especially important are the lessons that I've learned on this journey that I get to pass on to you.

So anyhow, before I dive into those 10 juicy things, I wanted to tell you that we are having a real quick blitz sale just today. So if you're listening to this on April 19th, 2023, we've got a special discount, coupon code. I'll put it in the show notes you'll get an additional 25% off all sales, even all the sale prices on every art course.

So for those of you who are still listening to me, Making art and liking the art courses I put out, now is the time to do it. If you're listening to this just a little bit past this day, don't worry because this summer we have another big sale coming up and also mark your calendar cuz I think every April 19th for the rest of here until we no longer exist as Color Crush Creative, I'm gonna be having a big sale because I just really feel like this is a day to celebrate and I love to bring you all.

On that kind of fun journey with me. Okay, so I just wanna say this has been such an amazing ride. And many of you have been with me since the beginning, maybe even before Color Crush Creative. I started my Instagram account in 2014. I remember it very clearly because at first I'm like, I don't know what I'm gonna share on here.

And then it was like, I'm an artist and I started sharing my art. And from there, A community grew and grew and grew, and I've made so many friends. I've made so many connections. I've done collaborations with many, so many artists, and I don't know where I'd be without. The benefit of having social media, and for all of you who have those moments of feeling pretty wary that Instagram's change.

We've been saying Instagram's changed since we've been on the platform. It's gonna keep changing. Social media is gonna keep changing, but what it is is still a free resource for you to get the word out, to show up, to be able to build a business for free, unlike the previous. Prior to the internet, it was paying for ads and magazines and billboards, and radio and television.

[00:08:02] It was really the only way you were gonna get your message out other than word of mouth and door to door. So, Don't begrudge the thing that's supporting you, and I'm gonna put this as my number one, honestly, is the consistency. The consistency that I've had in some areas of my businesses really made a difference.

[00:08:23] I wouldn't say I've been consistent in all things. I've changed my mind so many times. I've flipped and I've flopped, and I've reinvented way more times than I should have. But what I have been consistent in is showing up. Almost every single day since the beginning. And prior to Instagram, it was Facebook and then Pinterest and you know, you get my point and sometimes it feels exhausting, but at other times I realize this is my job.

I wanna build a business. This is my job, is to show up consistently. The other thing I've done consistently since I started an email list is use my email list and grow my email list and send. Messages, newsletters, connections, and just continue to nurture my audience. So it's this consistency of doing something over and over again and being where people will find you, being there to connect with your customer, with your community, with your circles.

[00:09:28] This really, honestly, this consistency is probably the number one thing that you need in order to grow a business. All the other things are really important, but if you're not showing up consistently, if you're not spreading your message and your ideas and your art, and your creativity and your love consistently, no one's gonna know who you are.

And I would say that this has been one of the biggest shifts for me. It started. On April 19th, 2017, well, it shifted. I was already consistently online, way too much, but that day, everything shifted because I was showing up with a very specific message, and I showed up for a whole year sharing color palettes, sharing color tips, sending that email every single Friday consistently for a whole year before I made my first offer, and it made all the difference in the world.

I'm not saying you have to wait a whole year after setting off and doing something, but I am gonna say that that consistency of showing up, that consistency of giving, of nurturing, of caring, of building community is going to make all the difference in the world. in whether or not your business will thrive and survive.

[00:10:45] All right, so I'm also gonna tell you number two on my list is play the long game. I never got into the business of art. Of creativity on a whim and with a flop, turned my back and walked away every time. It was hard. Every time I felt deflated, every time I felt like I wanted to give up. I knew that my vision was the long game.

I still know that to this day, and that's been the biggest testament of building a business, is knowing that I'm not just in it for now. I'm in it for the long game until the day I'm ready to retire. When I'm an old craggedy lady who probably can't even speak on on the microphone anymore because I'm gonna keep going well into my eighties.

I have no doubt about it because I'm the kind of person. Who thrives on this, and even when, there are times where I've been completely burnt out, completely distraught, honestly, days where I've cried, weeks where I've cried, and weeks where I've been elated. It's never been about, it's not working.

I'm outta here. It's always been the long game for me. It's always been. What do I need to do? Where is my reset? What do I need to learn from this? How do I turn and keep going? Because the people who win at this game are the people who stick in it for the long haul, and that's really all there is to it.

You know, if you quit, yep, that's over. That's it. But if you have that diehard entrepreneurial, Passion in you. That's something that I know I was born innately with a desire to do business to create an experience for others to be an entrepreneur. I just knew it and I knew that I wouldn't quit.

Until it clicked. So when you're in it, if you wanna succeed, you just gotta keep going. As my son jokingly said, you know that 90% of people who gamble quit right before they win. And I just laughed. I'm like, well, of course, because most people quit. But this isn't a gambling game. This is something that's just a long-term commitment.

[00:13:10] Okay. So my biggest lesson that's held me back from making my goals, honestly, I will tell you, I think I would be a lot further along in this business. If I hadn't changed things so many times. In fact, this weekend's kind of been a hard weekend for me because I've been really reflecting on how many times I've changed and how many times that set me back, how many times I've changed my mind about what things are gonna be called.

So I've redesigned everything, how many times I've changed which platform something's on. So I've moved it to another platform, how many times I've changed a format of something or redone something or scrapped an entire project, like my membership in exchange for what I had a whole big, wild idea and instead it was like reinventing the wheel over and over and over again.

And yeah, I made a little bit of progress each time. And yes, I grew my business a little bit each time and I made money selling courses after selling membership pivoting into coaching. But it was changing it so many times. That really kept me from. Being able to move forward. It, it kept me doing so much busy work.

 I mean, it was so much wasted time working on projects that I didn't need to work on. I should have just left that alone. In the time that I was in true colors, that was two and a half years. I redesigned the logo more than once. And the name of it changed and the format of it changed until I got so fed up with myself and I quit the whole thing.

And I'm just confessing to you as I reflect on this, that had I stayed consistent, true colors, probably would have over a thousand members right now, and that would've been much closer to the kind of goal that I wanted to have. Now I can admit that. I was struggling with the membership model and I was struggling with a lot of other things at the time, and it was 2020.

Our capacity at that point, after six months of being in a pandemic, anyone would acquit. And so yes, I, I changed and I changed my model and I feel like in the long run it's gonna pay off. But changing that and then changing to the course format and then changing from it being. One brand to another brand.

[00:15:35] Do you get my point? Too many changes is so much wasted time and it's holding me back from being able to make the progress I need to make. So now I've made a decision and I've promised my team, we've designed Color Crush Creative the exactly the way I want it right at this moment. And I said to my team, if I go to try and change my mind before five years has passed, then you have to tell me no..

Because right now this is it. I love the feel of it making meaningful, playful, mixed media art. That's the purpose of Color Crush Creative. Before that, I was pretty confused and I didn't do all the foundation work I needed to do when I pivoted from true colors to color crush creative. But now I'm there.

I'm very clear about the customer, about the journey. That they're on, how we're serving them, how we're showing up, the branding and how it feels, the messaging, the clarity of that has finally come and has only taken me, oh, I don't know, six years because it's the anniversary right now, but that's okay.

Those iterations have been pretty enlightening now. Do I wish I had just picked something and stuck with it at the beginning and then grown it to the million dollar business within a couple years. Sure. But I don't think I could have done that because I didn't have all of the experience and failures that I have now to be able to understand that.

[00:16:59] So I'm gonna say you'll get a lot farther in your journey as an entrepreneur and a business owner, if you stop making changes every other week, just stay consistent. Oh wait, that takes us back to lesson number one. Okay. Number four, today I'm gonna tell you that one of the most important things I've learned is to continue to expand your.

Reach your community, your customer base, to continue to try new ways to get the message out there and look at all the different angles. Not to do 'em all at once because I'm gonna say this for sure, when you try to do all the things, when you're trying to do all the platforms and the blog posts and the Pinterest and the newsletters and all of that, you're going to reach a max out capacity really fast and not do any of 'em well.

But if you're going all in on one platform, learn all the different ways you can reach people, more collaborations with other people who are on that platform, challenges that you can host. Go live. Reach out and make connections with other people that are using the platform that you're on. Find new ways and innovative ways in which you can expand your circle, basically your customer base.

Because if you're not finding ways to bring new people in, whether it's. A free offer or hosting fireside chats, whatever it is that you need to do. Free workshops or small paid workshops asking other people to collaborate with you. This has been something that's made a big difference in building my brand because I didn't really use a lot of different platforms.

I've mostly just used Instagram this whole time. Yeah, you can find videos on YouTube now. We've just started posting those in the last few months. You can find videos. , reels that we've repurposed on TikTok and putting pins on Pinterest, but that hasn't been my focus for the majority of this time.

It's just been Instagram and. The goal has always been, how many ways can I just reach the customers that are there? And that's one of the reasons why my business continues to grow and thrive, is because I'm connecting with these people and I'm getting them on my email list because that's where the gold is, honestly.

[00:19:25] Which brings me to number five. Your email list is your gold If you are not building an email list. You are really gonna struggle to build your business and I've found that that's been one of the things that I'm so, so glad that I started long before I knew what I was even emailing people about. I started it before I even had Color Crush Creative, but as soon as I had Color Crush Creative it, it began to grow because just being on the list and getting color for your inbox, which yes, I've had for a very long time now.

Color for your inbox started. In 2017 and of course it's changed and morphed and it's come back now. I revived color for your inbox probably. Two years ago, maybe 18 months ago. And we've been consistent with it ever since. And I say we, because it's not just me writing things now, it's not just me doing things, but I wrote it most of the time.

I was the one who was laboring over these color palettes and teaching color theory and finding connections in ways that people can be excited to open that email every single week. And that's my goal still to this day. I want that newsletter to be something that my audience, my followers, my subscribers, look forward to opening and enjoying and learning from.

And so we put a lot of heart and soul into that and I continue to grow and build that email list and. And my purpose is to nurture it so that people wanna stay on it and not just leave the moment that they feel like everything is just spam, but rather I'm giving value. And so I'm really proud of color for your inbox and I'm really proud of my team helping me with that because they're probably better at it than I am.

Well, not probably. They are better at it than I am. And so we have something really good going for us. I would say if, if, if you can do anything right now other than consistently showing up online, start that email list because now, even though you have no idea what you're gonna say or, or what you're gonna do with that list, start the list now.

Like literally just ask a few people to be on it and start coming up with creative ways that you can continually. Give value because that's it, that's the key. Um, not everyone's gonna be able to buy from you, but if you can continue to give value for everyone no matter what, then you've got a whole huge community that wants to support you.

[00:22:04] Along the lines of changing things all the time, six is an idea that I'm beginning to really comprehend now. I'm still guilty of wanting to change things. I'm still guilty of. Coming up with new ideas even recently, I'll be honest with you. So this number six is about building the bridges to your island now and getting them right, instead of trying to build new islands, new bridges all over the place, your pathways here and there and new ideas.

But honestly, I mean, and I did this just recently, I'm guilty of it and I feel like I so frustrated with myself because I started Last fall, and then I picked it up again this spring, a print on demand company. Why in the world would I do that? Right now, I haven't reached my first goal and I've already set a second goal.

So now I've color crushed creative, and I have made remarkable, and I don't wanna give either of my babies up, but. Why would I add more to it on top of that? Why would I make another art course at this point when I have 12 art courses? Why would I start a print on demand company when I know for sure that that alone would take up 50% of my time and all my attention really needs to go to Color Crush Creative, and what I'm in the early stages of building with Made remarkable. And so I'm gonna tell you this and I know I probably shouldn't have started, made remarkable before I had build every bridge to Color Crush Creative. But we're building those bridges. And what I mean by that is if Color Crush creative is my business, whatever business idea you have, that's your island.

That's the part that you need to get everybody. Right, so you need to be building every bridge. You need to be plugging every leaky hole. You need to make sure everything, every screw is tightened. Nothing is loose. Work on it until it is working like such a magnificent, wonderful, amazing machine. Or the destination that nobody can say no to, to get to and build those bridges.

That means that once you have one thing figured out, once you've mastered Instagram and you get people on your email list, what's the next thing you can do to build the business? Master Pinterest, master YouTube. Figure out seo, podcasting, PR guest spots. Write a book. I don't. Anything, anything more that you can do to build that business so that it's better, more efficient, your customers are happier, you are delivering better, everything should be done right first before you move on to anything else.

And this has been my biggest flaw. I always wanna start the shiny new thing that's very normal for creative people and for entrepreneurs, but it's like the nail in the coffin for success. So if you are feeling overwhelmed and you're wondering why you're not making any money and your business, it's probably because you have.

 Too many things, too many ideas, and too many places that people need to look and you haven't even finished building all the pathways into the one business that you have. So my goal with Color Crush Creative right now is to not add anything new. We have a beautiful suite, a vault of amazing courses that I've spent the last three years.

perfecting. . Redoing, redesigning some of them, re-editing some of them, adding new content to 'em and making sure that they're all first class content that takes the customer, the artist, or the student on a journey and gives them real value and understanding. The beginning, middle, and end of creating whatever the subject is, whether it's florals or landscapes, or collage or oil pastels, and that they have all the tools and resources that they need to be successful with their art courses.

So I have over 12. I can't remember the last time I counted. I have over 12 courses though, summer collaborations, and I have a virtual art summit, and I'm coming up on my fourth year of doing the virtual art summit. So there you go. With consistency. That is something I'm still patting myself on the back for because I'm very likely to abandon ideas and move on to the next one for the excitement.

But honestly, it's when we get bored or frustrated or. Not understanding the path. We don't have the clarity. We wanna change paths, but I know Virtual Art Summit works. I know that it serves thousands of people every year. I know that it highlights the most talented, amazing artists every year. I love doing the Virtual Art Summit, even if it's a.

Every year doing the same thing. But I'm, I'm glad for that. I'm proud of that. And so my goal right now with Color Crush Creative is to continue to just build every pathway in so that people can find us good articles are written, blog posts are posted, videos are put on social media, whatever we need to do as a team and as, a company to make sure that the bridges are built to the island.

And I'm gonna tell you the same thing. If you want to make a lot of money doing what you do, don't add new things. Multiple streams of income are not necessary until you have perfected your primary source of income. So hopefully that's not too much of me standing on my soapbox as of right now.

[00:27:50] I'm gonna tell you a big old truth bomb here, and number seven is mind your money. What in the world do I mean by that? I just told you that in five years since I made my first online art course offer, I've grossed. A million dollars, but grossing your total revenue brought in and actual income are two very different things. There are a lot of expenses to running a business, and I hired an accountant a couple of years ago to make sure that I was doing it right and that I was maximizing how I was, paying taxes by saving money in a 401k and paying things properly.

All the things that I needed to do, and I'm glad that's money very well spent. However, I've had years that were better than other years, and last year has been soberly smacking me in the face. Because I spent way more than I needed to. Now, fortunately, the margin for income on an online business is really great.

You know, the overhead in expenses don't have to be a lot. However, I do have a team and I hired a coach who was very expensive, and I took trips last year and I bought a lot of other education, and in the end, my profit margins dropped from over 50% the year before to maybe at best, 15% last year. It's not as bad as going negative and going into debt. However, better choices could have been made and I wanna give that little piece of advice to you. Mind your money, pay attention to where the dollars are spent, spend it wisely and you know, spend on what you need to spend on.

[00:29:41] But be thoughtful about the splurges and the excess, because it'll catch up with you really fast. Okay, so I'm gonna move on to number eight now, and I'm gonna tell you, US is just really. Mash right in with everything else I'm saying. So maybe I'm being a little repetitive, but maybe it's something that I'm just having a big aha about this weekend, as I've really thought a lot about the business and thought a lot about where I'm at.

Right at this moment, and that's that I can't do all the things, not just like as in an island and bridge building and starting new businesses, but I literally am at the point where my health is starting to suffer both physically and mentally and spiritually because I set. Amazing goals for myself and that I do not follow through.

I don't have the best habits and I will spend way too many hours trying to do all the things for work, for my business to make it thrive and to satisfy all of my wild ideas. And yet the one thing that I will never get back again is my health. And I think it's been taking a beating. Anyone else out there who's been running a business for a while and realize that you've put the extra pounds on, you're not as flexible as you used to be cuz you've been sitting on your butt too long.

Maybe you've let some of your connections with people or some of your spiritual practices fall to the wayside. Because you put the must, get this done first before must take care of myself first. I can't do all the things. And I've been trying to do all the things and I've been super motivated and I just hit a real big wall this week.

So along with realizing that I'm not always spending money the way I should within my. I, realize I'm not taking care of my health the way I should with my business. I'm not prioritizing the way I should. Really my work life balance, and it simply just comes down to me trying to do all the things. You know, you can run a business and still have boundaries, and have healthy habits, and have time for your family, and have time for yourself, and time for your growth, and especially time for your health.

But that all falls around. Learning how to say no to things and having the discipline to follow through on your commitments and not add new shit. I mean, that's really it. Kellee, I'm telling you this to yourself right now. Stop trying to do all the things. I'm in good spirits about it right now because I'm really proud of how far I've come, but I will tell you, It's, it was a tough weekend because, you know, there's just moments where it's like, what am I doing working 16 hour days?

This is not really a healthy way to live my life. Yes. It's because I'm so ambitious. It's because for so many years I dreamed of being able to do this For so many years. I was just a stay-at-home mom, and I'm really only saying that because that's how I felt. Because believe me, staying home with your kids is hard As hell. It was really hard years, and yet I still wanted something for myself that I could have my own identity, and this is it. It's been happening. This is the reason why I am so extraordinarily passionate about what I do, is because I built this from my imagination. I built this from hard work. I built this from consistency.

I built this because I have passion for it, but I also do it to the detriment of my own. You know, to even to some of my relationships, feel like I don't talk to my mom often enough and she's my best friend. I, probably could make more time for my teenage son who's going through high school right now and Get out and do stuff with him.

But in all honesty, we know how teenage boys are. They just wanna be with their friends or on the computer. So it's still not a justification. I'm just pouring my heart out to you right now because I realize that when I started this podcast, I was very motivated to live my life by design and not by default.

And yet, after all this time, I'm still in default mode. I will say I'm not letting my relationship with my husband suffer. That part has been growing more and more as the years go on, and I'm really proud of where we are. Cuz this year is our 25th anniversary and we do spend more time together now.

We have more interests together and dream more together. And. We spend time hiking with our dogs every weekend, and that is one thing I haven't given up, but one day of the week to move my body versus many. Hours of the week that I need to be moving my body. That's a whole different, whole different story.

So I will say that's a big lesson that I'm learning, that I'm going to s I will totally burn out again if I don't change the way I'm doing things. And the only way that things are gonna get better is for me to say no to more. And not yes to more things to focus on the things that I know are tried and true in my business and put them on repeat.

On repeat, on repeat, on repeat, right? So that is what I'm doing moving forward, is just the same things over and over again for the next five years, cuz I've promised that's what I'm gonna do. My vault, of course, is in Color Crush Creative. My virtual art Summit once a. My remarkable, my, my goal with the Remarkable league to grow it and my one course a year that will hopefully be coming out this fall, but I might have to push it off a little.

But my one course a year that I can launch to help those who are in the beginning stages of their creative business that they're doing, courses. Content coaching, community, collaborations, any of those wild ideas that are outside of the box of simply selling your art. And that course is gonna be super powerful and it will won't even matter where you are if you're just brand new at.

What you wanna do, if you just have the spark of an idea, this will be the course for you and the remarkable league. Let me tell you, we are off to an amazing start. I love it so much, and I'm honestly so glad I'm doing it. Even if it takes up a lot of time, and even if it was a new island to build, I don't regret it and I'm gonna keep moving forward with it.

[00:36:44] Ah, but yes, I can't do all the things. My number nine is the reason why I'm struggling with number eight. I let my health suffer a bit. I let my mental wellbeing suffer a little bit because of my extraordinary passion for what I'm doing, as you well know.

[00:37:02] And number nine, I'm gonna tell you that I've realized over the course of running my business that as much as I love art, as much as I love teaching, I love business and marketing and sales way more than I ever thought possible. I live, sleep, eat, breathe it. I love to watch videos about it. I read all the books about it.

I listen to the podcasts about it. I study it. I have probably 20 books on my nightstand. I don't have any interest even in fiction anymore. What's wrong with me? I just find it so fascinating. And I think I'm pretty dang good at it. Yeah, sure. I've done great. By most of your standards, you're like, wow, you've grossed a lot of money, you're making a lot of money, you're making a lot of impact. And I know that I have really big dreams for moving forward, but the way my mind works is that I'm always thinking of different ways to make the business run better.

Especially now that I've learned and been sticking to for the last couple years, doing the same thing consistently over and over again. I'm really beginning to see how it's going to pay off, that it is paying off, and because I am so passionate about business and marketing and sales. That's one of the big reasons why I've pivoted into, made remarkable, and the whole business model that I've been working on helping other creatives build their business because I just believe if I can do it, so can you.

If I can figure this out as a creative, as an artist, as, , someone who did not finish a degree in this subject, and yet I feel like I have a master's after the years of. Pouring myself into it and understanding how it works. Better understanding. The most important thing is that all of it, marketing and sales is just connecting with other people.

It's just a form of communication. It's just about opening your heart and genuinely and generously giving and serving. And seeing where it takes you. And if you do that, amazing things happen for you and everyone around you. Every one of the people in your community benefit from that generosity. And it's exciting and it's fun, and it can be a massive game in the sense that you're always creating a new experience if you do the marketing right, creating new fun ways to do marketing. You don't have to change your business model. And that's where I finally got to this point where it's like, okay, just stick with the business model.

Find fun new ways to reach out and connect with your community, and that's where the magic happens. And so I just wanna say this is something that I learned about myself through Color Crush Creative, and even since before that, that how to run a business has been my driving force. I wanted to know, I wanted to see how I could put it all together.

And it doesn't mean that I don't love art, it just means that I might love business just a little bit more.. And I can admit that at this point, and hopefully you still respect me after hearing that I love business. And finally, I would say the biggest lesson I've learned despite all these ups and downs, despite the fact that I've made a lot of mistakes, despite the fact that I changed my mind way too many times and wasted a whole lot of progress, a whole lot of energy.

[00:40:44] I think the one thing that I've learned the most is to be present. To savor the moment, and that is how I've found myself to be in the state of joy

[through all of the ups and downs. And I allow myself to experience the emotions, but I can still come back to center again and be present and say, Hey. Kellee, look at this. Look at what you've done. Look at the messages that you receive and the people that you get to connect with, and the friends that you've made, and the beauty that's out in this world, and it's all part of the life that you're living right now.

And it honestly, truly took me a long time to get to this place of understanding. How important being mindful and present and savoring the journey is to my baseline happiness because it's not about getting to the destination though. You know I am damn determined. To continue the consistency in building all of those bridges to the island and seeing where I can take it.

But in all honesty, it's the journey of doing it. That's the most satisfying to me, not the destination savoring this moment and the relationships that I have and the experiences I get to have connecting with other people, with the people in the remarkable league, with, those that I get to interview on this podcast with friends that I make like being able to meet Andrea and go to a work of heart studio and teach in person in California.

All these things, these little pockets of joy along the way, these little moments of things happening and connections made it's really completely changed how I live my life by being present and being in the moment and enjoying the process. And I really wanna pass that on to you no matter what it is you're working on right now.

Whether it's learning how to be an artist, learning how to make your own art in your own voice. Building a business, putting together your first course, making your first offer, coaching your first student, whatever it is that you're doing, savor that moment. That moment right now that you get to go through because it is your life.

[00:43:08] This is your life. This moment right now. What you're doing right now is your life, not the destination that you're striving for. So hopefully that's a little bit of, wisdom for you today as I reflect upon my anniversary of Color Crush Creative and of the journey that I've been on as an entrepreneur.

As you can hear my. Passion is for helping other people realize what they're made of, what they were born for, what their absolute true potential is, the impact that they get to make You who are listening right now, I want you to know that. You are made remarkable. So let's do remarkable things. Let's do it together. Stick with me for the next few podcast episodes. We're gonna be interviewing a couple of guest artists, and then we're gonna go right into the Virtual Arts Summit through May and into June.

And much like last year, I'm gonna be bringing back the summer business series because I'd love to talk more in depth with some of the things that I've briefly covered here in the podcast.

And hopefully it'll get you in the right mindset so that you can start making decisions. To start your own amazing, wonderful business or if you're already in business, to be able to uplevel it to the next level and make it work. Make this happen because you deserve it. Okay. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast and in the journey that I've been on.

[00:44:49] If you'll do me one favor. Please, please share this podcast. I'd love to have more downloads, some listens, some. New followers along the way. So the only way that's gonna happen is if you share it, share it in your stories. Tag Me Tag. The Instagram account for this podcast @maderemarkable.

[00:45:11] Or you can tag me @kelleewynnestudios. I'll re-share it. I would love to hear what you think. If there was anything that was a big aha or takeaway, just pop into my dms. I. Be happy to have a discussion with you to see which one of the 10 things I discussed today really made the biggest impact for you.

All right. Much love to you. Go and do amazing, beautiful things my friends. 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.