Live Inspired
To live a creative life, I often ask myself; who inspires me today? There are many inspirational women whose life work I admire, and follow. Here are four in particular I would love to share with you today and here is why.
Marie Forleo – Her Wisdom
Kristina Karlsson – Her Story
Elizabeth Gilbert – Her Words
Yeonmi Park – Her Bravery
Marie Forleo – Her Wisdom
As a newbie entrepreneur, I draw knowledge and inspiration from listening to Ted Talks, podcasts, key note speeches, and many other audios that inspire me along my business journey. Shortly after leaving full time work to pursue my art, and work for myself as a freelancer and entrepreneur, I discovered Marie Forleo. Marie is a web and TV host and was named by Oprah as a, “though leader for the next generation.” Marie’s video series, “Marie TV,” provides my daily dosage of knowledge and inspiration as she encourages individuals to create a business and life that you can be excited about. Marie presents thought provoking, yet simple advice about establishing a successful business that worked for her, and that has now worked for many of her students that are apart of her Business school program.
Through her endless free content, available to all entrepreneurs from her website, and YouTube channel, Marie’s knowledge gave me confidence in the decision to leave full time work and run my own business. Although running my own business can be at times daunting and scary, with Marie Forleo’s guidance, I certainly never feel alone.
Kristina Karlsson – Her Story
Kristina Karlsson is an award winning retailer of the stationary brand kikki.K with boutiques stores all round the world.
My Architecture background has given me an appreciation for modern, minimalists designs. I love how Kristina Karlsson has applied these design principals to stationary. As an artisit, I’ve always had an obsession to own beautifully designed stationary. Kristina Karlsson inspires me because her passion, story, and choice of business really resonate with me. Her humble beginnings and how she got started, is inspirational. When she moved from Sweden to Australia in 1995, Kristina had little to no business training. Despite this, she manifested her passion to share stylish, Swedish inspired stationary, which begun in her tiny one-bedroom apartment. After a restless night at 3 am in the morning wondering about what to do with her life, her partner Paul (now CEO of Kikki.K) encouraged her to write a list of what was important to her in a career. On that list, she wrote that she wanted to be excited not just on Monday mornings, but every morning, she wanted to work with Swedish design, and run her own business. 10 years have passed and Kristina now has boutique stores across Singapore, Australia, Sweden, and an online store that services the world.
I first read about Kristina’s story and her success with the Kikki.K brand when I first moved to Canada in 2014. She inspired me to create a business and life that I am excited about. Without the inspiration of how she started from humble beginnings, to a global boutique empire, I may have never begun my art venture. I see Kristina’s story as a blueprint to what I will achieve with my art. It would be a dream come true to be one day mentored by this entrepreneur icon.
Elizabeth Gilbert – He Words
Like any person would experience in creative industries, fear can invade my thoughts, and stop me from taking action. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of risking it all; the list of fears are endless. When I picked up Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, “Big Magic; Creative Living Beyond Fear,” I was presented with the paradoxical idea that creativity is scared and it is not sacred. Here is a excerpt from Elizabeth’s book that explains this paradox: “My creative expression is the most important thing in the world to me (if I am to live artistically), and it must also not matter at all, (if I am to live sanely).” Elizabeth encourages creatives to: “make space for all these paradoxes to be equally true inside your soul, and I promise – you can make anything.”
This beautifully written book that approaches the idea of fear in the realm of living a creative life, is both whimsical and comical. It has helped me cope with the idea that although I have the dedication and discipline to achieve success, I cannot hold myself responsible for the outcome of my art if it fails. I can however, continue to do what I love doing despite all challenges. This is because no matter the outcome, whether it is succeeds or fails, it will always make me happy to continue to create and share art. This is how I choose to, as Elizabeth puts it, “live a vividly decorated life.”
Yeonmi Park – Her Bravery
Yeonmi Park is a North Korean defector and human rights activist. I stumbled upon the speech Yeonmi Park gave at the One Young World annual summit (2014) on YouTube, and was moved by her courage to deliver a very vulnerable recount of her life story. Despite all the adversity she has experienced, Yeonmi Park is now an influential leader and human rights activist. In her book “In Order to Live,” Yeonmi tells the story of how she survived poverty, starvation, and human trafficking in search of freedom.
Her story is a rude awakening of the pressing problems that are happening in our world today. It not only makes me more grateful to lead the life that I have, but it also motivates me to make philanthropy a bigger goal in my life. While I toil in writing blogs, entrepreneur challenges, product shoots, and social media campaigns, there are millions of people living in this world who do not even have access to basic resources like running water, food, and shelter. Yeonmi’s story compels me to ask the question, “How can I help?” and “What problems can products/business help solve?” As we live our day-to-day lives, we often forget that we are so privileged compared to many people in developing countries. I hope to one day become as influential as Yeonmi to encourage positive change in this world.
Until next time, I hope that you also seek role models so that you can live a creative, inspired life!
Sincerely,
Ave