Tuesday Talks with Darleen
Creativity Meets Business: The Art of Showing Up with Emma Veiga-Malta {Ep 17}
Welcome to Tuesday Talks with Darlene Podcast, the show that goes deep into the topics of spirituality, intuition, the chakras and business. I will be building on the traditional knowledge of all of these and being a rebel by busting myths. There will be solo episodes and also episodes with guests. I'm your host Darlene, let's get started. Welcome everyone to Tuesday Talks with Darlene and I'm so excited because Emma Vega-Maufer is our beautiful guest today. Now I do have to admit I've got a little bit of a business crush on Emma. I've actually looked at everything she's done and gone. Holy crap, that's where I want to be. That's who I want to be when I grow up. Emma's from the creative business hub and she's a creative mentor with 23 years under her belt so she must be, she must start when she's like 16 as an artist designer and business owner. She started exhibiting her art week in Geneva, Switzerland in 1999 which I didn't know at all. And today alongside her mentoring program she runs a successful design business with clients globally. Now also Emma has two children, a supportive husband and also a grumpy cat. I know who you might end theowing of it. She wants snacks. I've given her snacks. I've been shut up and now we're chatting. Do you love it? Animals always love to be on. Whenever I'm on a video and animals just come in and I think it would be because of the absolute energy. Now I'd love to actually, you know, for you to start off with more about, you know, yourself and how you actually got in to bring an artist and everything? Yeah, well, I have a degree in fashion design from a university in London and I was absolutely rubbish at fashion design. I ended up being quite a rebellious student in London Fashion Week. I put down on the runaway of a really anti-fashion catwalk show which got to the front page of the newspaper in London. So I did my fashion degree, graduated and then I moved to Switzerland with my boyfriend so I was in London and I moved to Switzerland with my boyfriend. Because of these issues, I couldn't get a proper job. Even though I was in the market, I'd done PR and I'd worked in a magazine after my degree. I couldn't get a job but I'd also been to art school. So I was still an artist and I was drawing and painting and sketching and that's the thing I really loved for my degree. So I was in Geneva and I thought I can't get a proper job but I've got this skill set. Why don't I just start painting and drawing and exhibit my artwork. And that was 1999. I had an exhibition in a cafe called Café des Arts Cafe in Geneva and I sold out 80% of my nudes and my architecture sketches. I made money and I went hmm, there's something in this. And the rest is history, that's how I started. I'm on a Saturday. I love it and you know what's so fascinating is I actually did a two year fashion degree when I left high school. Did you? Did you? I didn't know that. By the end of it, I've just gone nuts. I ain't doing this, so I never ended up finishing it. Oh right, no, I didn't enjoy it by the end of it. I found the fashion industry really challenging in many ways. And yeah, so I was much happier going down the art route just through necessity really because I couldn't get a job in Scotland. And then it just moved on from that really. Just my art, my design work. And now I live in Sydney in Australia. It's been a long journey. I think it's 23 years. So what made you move from, because I know you're still an artist because you may realize that Emma's background is an amazing background. And so you create these awesome backgrounds that business women can actually use. They can go to conferences and everything and use them. So what actually moved you from that to also being like a business mentor? Well, I realized in my journey, I realized that everything I'd done to try and make money from my art, whether it's exhibiting, I mean, cafes, having a market store with my art or setting big pieces of work for private and homes or my shop, whatever I was doing, I had a test, startup business, the thread running through it was always my art, always my drawing. And so when I started my design business, bespoke backdrops and branding, I wanted to use my artwork in a way that was useful. So it wasn't like I'm an artist and I can paint you a nice picture. It was I'm an artist, but I can help you in your business by making your videos look better. And so even though I run the creative business hub, which is a mentoring program for other creatives, I still want to keep my foot in the door with design work. So I have a second business bespoke backdrops and branding. And that sort of gives a bit of credibility to my mentoring, because I'm still in it. I'm still an artist, I'm still a designer, I'm still in the game as it were. So that's the progression. It's just that how can I use my art that's useful for other people, beyond just being art? And I can balance the business world and it's moved along from there, really. Yeah. And, you know, like, eventually people will actually see like, I know when I've seen your backdrop. And when you came out and you became a mentor, I just went, I'm going to have to work with them. I don't know. It will. I just need to do all this learning that I'm doing. Yeah, you're doing so much at the moment. You're, yeah, too much. Too much. Yeah, in your life, whether that's the thing, like, I'll never stop learning whether it's formally or informally. I think I think I'm the same, actually. Hence, I want to keep my design business because I'm always learning how to improve my business, how to improve my art, my skill set, my marketing, and then I sort of bring that into the creative business hub. So I'm always learning as well. I don't think we ever get to a point where we know as much as we want to know. No. And being creative, I would love to know what else you do in your life that's actually creative because for me, creativity is whatever brings you joy. It's not traditionally, you know, yes, it's art as well. Whatever brings you joy. So what brings you inside your grumpy cat? I do what brings me joy every night. It's a non-negotiable in my life. I read every night. So that brings me enormous joy. It's kind of consuming creativity as opposed to producing creativity, but I have to read every night. I've always got a book on the go. So that's something I do for joy for pleasure. But from an actual active creative point of view, I go to life drawing classes. I love life drawing. And what's so wonderful? I'm going to one next week. It's got nothing to do with clients, nothing with money, nothing to do with even the outcome. I can do a really crappy design, a crappy drawing. And it's like, who cares? It doesn't matter. But I just enjoy, I love the human body. I think the human body male, female, whichever form it takes is just beautiful. And I love drawing. It's that's what I do for my sort of downtime, but being creative at the same time. Oh, that's so awesome. And that's what I love, you know, like doing something that is just for you, whether it's, you know, as you said, whether it's crappy or, I can't imagine you doing crappy drawings at all. It's just an awesome rule. But no matter what the outcome, doing something that's so joyful for you. Yeah. Another thing, like being in business, you know, especially our mindset, how do you actually cope with your mindset? You know, how do you allow, like, especially if you have like a crappy moment or something, what do you actually work through that? Because I think that's, that can be especially if you're new, or even if you've been in for a little while and not making money or something, your mindset gets to you. Yeah, I tell you what, I had a massive challenge about 10 years ago. I don't know if you know this, but my husband and I went through a real financial crisis of our own about a decade ago. And my mindset obviously took a massive hit because of confidence, all kinds of things. And I realized that I'm so bad to one point that we couldn't cross the Harvard Bridge in Sydney without me going, you know, it was, we lost, we had a quite a nice life. And then we lost a lot, a lot of those, the trackings of the nice life. And I had to, I realized that I had to start making money properly for my husband and I to get out of this, this mess that we found ourselves in. And my mindset had to start from like scratch again. And I curated what I listened to, what I read, who I spoke to. I didn't have crappy morning radio on, because that's someone else's idea, someone else's thoughts coming into my head. I didn't watch reality TV, I don't watch it anyway, but it's negative that I couldn't control. I got rid of for a good couple of years, I curated everything I read that I listened to, TV, I watched the people I spoke to, the books I read. And that got me into learning really properly about business in about 2012. I did my best proper business course. But the mindset thing was just curating what was going in to my mind and what my experience would be, because that would then influence my reactions and my actions. And from there, I took control again. And here we are, a decade later, and it's all good. And you sort of write, mindset is so important. Yes, you know, we've got all the business stuff that we need. Mindset's so important. In for me, who's got mental health challenges, mindset is actually higher than anybody else. Like, I need that. And I really want, you know, business women to understand how important mindset is. Yes, having mindset and business mentors and everything is fantastic. Yeah, the mindset is so important. And not being stuck inside all day. You know, getting out of things. Yeah, absolutely getting out there and taking control of your experience of life. Because for me, my experience of life just came from the inside. I think it's an inside job. That's why I've curated what was, you know, coming in towards me so that I could then project something better out. And that sort of helped my mental step in, because I didn't want to be dealing with other people's thoughts, other people's problems, other people's, this, that, the other, even if it was just a radio talk show, I was like, no, I need to be very careful what goes into my head, because we were looking really down the barrel of a gun at one stage. And mindset, my, I was, there was a lot of ugly crying in the shower that I had to organize my head around. Yeah, mental health is important for everyone. It is, isn't it? Yeah, like just, like, and, you know, really, for me, recognizing that I had mental health challenges, and then, I mean, I mean, I mean, that that was important for me. And then understanding that it's actually important for everybody. Yeah, not just for people that do have mental health challenges, it's for everybody. Yeah, we need to look after our mental, mental state. And I think our physical state also informs how we are mentally getting out there, doing exercise. It doesn't mean going to the gym and sweating it out for hours. It's going for that walk. It's putting your feet across, going to the beach or in the mountains or wherever it is, all your local park, just being outside and moving your body, then all of a sudden you're in dolphins kicking. And I find I get quite creative on an out warm age, because my sinuses are firing off in different sequences when I'm not sitting at my desk or at home. And it's really great, my creativity as well. Yeah, being out there. Isn't it just amazing? And, you know, just socializing with friends, not necessarily going to business meetings, although they're fantastic, you know, or the workshops and everything, but just being with other people's world is really important for mindset. Because when you're enclosed in your, your house and you're online all the time, you know, you're not getting that beautiful interaction that we need. Absolutely. And if you sort of stay at home the whole time by yourself, and I love being by myself, you get this tunnel vision, and you don't realize all the other opportunity, use and ideas thoughts, and you just sort of get sort of in this sort of set way of thinking. And that can also maybe lead you down as viral if you do have mental health issues, or you've got a challenge, a mindset challenge at that moment. Yeah, and it also reduces your creativity as well, because when you're so closed in and you're not expanded, your creativity is like, it's not not there as much. And you're looking at business going, what am I doing? And then you realize, Oh my goodness, you know, I'm consistently not expanded. Yeah. And sometimes it's getting out there. And it's not about learning a huge heap of something, or me, still I'm really amazing. It's that one little nugget, or one little bit of conversation, or one little thing that you see that just changes your whole perspective on something, or gives you that bit of inspiration. It's just that little spark, and it might just come from a walk or meeting somebody doesn't even have to be earth shattering. Like, that's so to see. Yeah, and that seat will stay there for a little while. And then suddenly you'll be like, Oh, now I get it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and that's why, you know, I love getting outside and everything. And yet, you know, sort of with all of this, how do you balance, you know, being a business mentor and an artist as well, because it's sort of kind of two different things that's right in life. Yeah. Yeah, well, this is the thing I realized, I'm very right in left brain. I realized that. And so having the mentoring program and being an artist kind of answers both with those two halves of the brain together. And I realized that's quite useful for a lot of creatives who maybe don't have the lens, brain, right brain thing working together. So it works really well for me. The thing that I find challenging right now is I have two businesses with two different business models. And I am learning, I mean, either my design business is really ticking over. I'm fully booked with my clients. I don't have to do too much marketing to find clients. I got to that stage, which is great. But the creative business hub is only a year or a couple of years old. And it's a completely different business models. I'm learning so much about, you know, holding space in a group, creating content, marketing, it's a completely different fish. So it's kind of exciting to sort of use my brain completely differently now, while still, you know, being an artist, you know, it's a challenge. But I love it. I'm very excited. Oh, no, isn't that what's great about being in business is is being excited. And that's why the mental health is so important because it keeps us, if we have great mental health, it keeps us excited about our business. Yeah. And there's something to look forward to, something to get out in bed for like, Oh, what am I going to do today? You know, Yeah, it is a whether it's, you know, being creative or whether it's being, you know, doing the business stuff. If we can enjoy all of that, our mental health is better. Yeah, absolutely. And I find for me, and I like a bit of structure in my life. I'm still creative. I like, you know, spontaneity and free flowing, but I like to have a bit of structures. That's why for me and my sort of mindset in my mental health, I bookends my days, I start quite early in the morning, and I have a certain little ritual that I have with my exercise on my breakfast. I have to have a specific cup to have my Chiata in the morning, and my kids think I'm a bit mental, but I don't have a specific cup. And that starts my day. That's the bookend at one end. And at the end of the day, I look forward to the fact that no matter what's happened in the day, I go to bed relatively early and I read for a good hour or so. That is the structure that I love in my life. And whatever happens in between is great, but I know my morning and my evenings have a routine, and that keeps me on track as well. And I get up in the morning quite excited because I've got something to look forward to. And that's so important is having that beautiful routine, you know, whether the morning is, you know, you take your stay in bed for a while and just do stuff, or, you know, you're the type of person to get up and do stuff immediately, but end your day as well. Like, that's, that really does help our minds. That's so much, especially being creatives. We need something that is like that. Yeah, a little bit of structure. I think it's very easy to fall into the trope of, oh, I'm a creative, therefore I've got to be chaotic. And no, you don't have to be. I firmly believe in having boundaries, a container, which people could call boundaries, but it's not restrictive. Within that container, within your routine and your boundaries, you can go crazy. You know, you've got that safe container in which to be creative in. Otherwise, I find it's a little bit too I go off on tangent. So I do like to have a bit of structure and creativity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm the same as you. Like, if the day is just, oh, yeah, whatever. I'm just like, well, what am I doing? What am I meant to be doing? Like, you know, and I just, and it can end up where I don't actually get anything done at all for that day. So I'm loving the boundaries and structure. I'm, it's really funny. I'm actually systems and process girl, because I'm also left and right brand. I love the creativity as well. So I'm both in use. Yeah. Yeah. I love all that. But I think it's come from working in the healthcare field as well. Right. Yeah. You know, like a client, a patient would come in and this is the system we go process. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so the clients that you work with in your business mentoring, do you find them all left brand or do you find there a bit of both? They're a bit of both. I mean, they're very creative in, in the sense that like, like we were saying, some of them are actually artists and some of them are creative thinkers. So they're not artists. They're not creatives in the traditional sense. They might be right not like this. They might be healers and people that are at reality, but they use their creativity. So I find there's a there's a huge sort of slant towards the creativity side and a lot of people are needing that sort of structure and that guidance in business, which is why I started the creative business up. I realized there's so many creatives out there or creative thinkers who just don't have that structure, don't know how to run a business. And I'm very much about the running of the business, like what goes all behind the scenes. Yes, there's marketing and we have guest experts come and teach us things, but it's very much about that journey of running the business behind the scenes, which a lot of people struggle with. Yeah. And I can totally understand that because when I first started, I was a healer. So I think I learned Reiki or something and I went, oh, I can heal the world. Okay, it's just putting it out there. Yeah. That did it. Yeah. In fact, one of my members is a healer and she has so many tools under in her belt. And yeah, Reiki and hypnosing things like that, but you still need to have that process. How do you how do you take your client from A to B? How do you run your own business behind the scenes so that you can be creative, but yet have that structure so that your client knows what's going on. And you know, how do you build a business that allows you to be creative? It's for alias. You don't have time to be creative, but yet it runs a sensible business that actually pays you money. That's another thing. A lot of people, they create this particularly and pay themselves. Well, not very much. Surely they don't even think about money. And it's like, it's got to be yourself. Totally. And that's where it goes from being a hobby to being a business. Have that mindset of, okay, what is actually happening? What am I doing? Am I earning money? Am I paying myself? Yeah. When you realize that you've actually got a business. Well, exactly. And I think with creatives, we love what we do. We're so good at what we do. It always feels wrong sometimes to ask for money. But I think anxiety has done us a massive disservice by weaving in that starving artist's ethos that we've all grown up with, whether you're creatives or not. Oh, art's not a proper job. You're going to be poor if you're an artist. You're going to be tormented. You're going to give it away for free. You know, you want to find clients. And I really interest that in the program because I think it's so creative as a whole. But I do think that we shouldn't blame society so much for weaving that message. The responsibility stops with us. We have to pay as creatives. No, I'm not doing that for free. Going up money. And it's our responsibility to teach people how to treat it. Because how we treat it is, it's really how we allow people to treat us. So as a collective as creatives, we've got to stand out and say, no, I'm not going to work for free or for pizza or whatever. Exposure like, oh my god, don't even get me started on that. When you go for everyone, that one. I know. But get paid from what you do. It's like any other profession. You're going to start us creatives. You've got to start thinking of ourselves as professionals. Yes. Even though we love what we do, we are still professionals. I mean, there's a bit of that. Yeah, totally, totally. Now I'm loved talking to you. So I've got a couple more questions though. What the book that you're reading at the moment? Ah, I actually, I love murder mysteries and thrillers. And I'm reading a book called the Janice Stone by Ellie Griffiths. And it's a series of archaeological murder mysteries based in England. So it's a bit of archaeology, a bit of mythology, a bit of, you know, you've done it. That's what I'm reading. I love that. Oh, we don't have to go to the library, because I love those kind of things as well. Yeah, that's what I'm reading at the moment. Yeah. Now Emma dared me. She actually dared. We don't ask her questions. So I'm going to never dare me. I know. Nearly. Now, what is the biggest lesson in your whole entire life and universe? Ah, I was thinking about this. I knew you were going to ask me this. I mean, there's so many answers. But the number one mantra or the sort of the motto that I live by is that 80% of success is just showing up. Most people don't show up. They don't put the next foot forward. They don't take the next step. So 80% of success is showing up, whether it's going to that meeting, going to that event, writing that email, following up on someone that was interested in working with you, say hello to someone in a crowded room and you think, should I say hi, should I not? 80% of success is just showing up, because most people don't show up in life. That is so absolutely true. Like I've seen it so many times. And that's why having different things like there's nothing wrong with scheduling posts. So you actually show up. There's nothing wrong with it. Any of that, because you're going up. And showing up, my YouTube channel is the one that I'm really showing up on now. I've got three videos coming out a week now, because, yeah, to me, I struggle. I've tried on YouTube and I struggle to get, yeah, maybe one, but three, that you're amazing. Yeah, it's because I found, I love videos. Like when I first started off, still got the video on my Facebook page about four years ago. I think now when I first started doing videos, it is hilarious, like so funny. And I have it there because I want to show people, this is how I started on video, you know, wasn't that great. But now look at me like, you know, I wouldn't have even thought of doing interviews back then. And now it's like, oh, who can I interview now? And then when you see it, I went, oh my god. But that's the thing. 80% of success is showing up. I've noticed you, we've known each other for a few years. I've noticed you, you are always showing up. Yes, we all have our ups and downs and you have your ups and downs, but you show up. And that's part of your success. Yeah. And that's why we're here chatting, you show up. And that's what I think the biggest lesson in life is 80% of success is just showing up, whatever it looks like. Yep. And that's why I'm showing up really authentically now and talking about mental health challenges, because it's such a big deal. I really want it to become normal. You know, I like it. Exactly. We all have down moments. Every single one of us, no matter how successful we are, we always have down moments. Yeah. It may not have, you know, things like I've had depression all that. Yeah. Yeah. We're just showing up and that also helps our mindset as well. Showing up. Amazing. Absolutely. I love it. Well, thank you so much. I love talking to you. And I could probably talk for about another hour or more. I know I've got my cup of tea and I think it's keep chatting. No, it's important. I love it. Well, but thank you so much, Emma. I really appreciate it. And everyone, don't forget to subscribe, wherever that subscribe button is. No, that's where it is. I think it's down there, but don't forget to subscribe because I've got more amazing interviews coming up. So thank you again, Emma. I've really loved chatting with you. I love chatting with you. And thank you for inviting me. You're welcome. Are you interested in learning how to receive, trust, and believe your intuition so that you can use it within your business? Click the link in the description to book in a free connection call and let's chat about how we can work together. Thank you for listening to Tuesday talks with Darlene. Before we go, I would love for you to show some love for your favorite podcast. And yes, that is mine by leaving a review on your preferred podcast player, wishing you a beautiful day wherever you are on this gorgeous earth. [Music]