Episode 68: Heidi Bennett – Bringing multi-creative dreams to life

How do you build a life and career that fulfills your passion, if you’re passionate about multiple things?  This is a question that Heidi Bennett helps people answer. Heidi is a business and wellness coach for multi-creative professionals – i.e., people with a multitude of interests who can’t limit themselves to doing one thing only, day in and day out. She helps her clients design their own careers by bringing all their interests and talents together into different projects.  Heidi is also the host of the Vibrant Visionaries podcast, where she has candid conversations with multi-creatives from different fields and industries.

On this episode, Heidi shares how she helps multi-creatives overcome mental barriers like negative self-talk, imposter syndrome and fear, while guiding them to practice their strengths, decide what impact they want to have in the world, and find the life and work that aligns with their values and creative processes. Heidi also describes some of her coaching techniques and strategies that help her clients, and can help you too!

Learn more about Heidi at her website www.HeidiBennett.com and listen to her Vibrant Visionaries podcast at www.VibrantVisionaries.com.

The episode transcript is below.

CAROLYN: Today, on Beyond 6 Seconds…

HEIDI: I’m not really teaching you something new. I’m just reconnecting you to things that you’ve probably maybe forgotten about yourself, about how awesome and capable you already are, and just sort of shining that lens back on you.

CAROLYN: Welcome to Beyond 6 Seconds, the podcast goes beyond the six-second first impression to share the extraordinary stories and achievements of everyday people. I’m your host, Carolyn Kiel.

On today’s episode I’m speaking with Heidi Bennett. Heidi is a business and wellness coach for multi-creative professionals as well as a compassion teacher and podcaster. She’s a California native currently residing in Oakland. You can often find her chasing squirrels with her Tibetan Spaniel Poki or at estate sales digging for buried vintage treasures with her husband Brian. Heidi, welcome to the podcast!

HEIDI: Thank you so much for having me on Carolyn. It’s great to catch up with you and make a recording of it.

CAROLYN: Yeah it’s great to be talking with you as a fellow podcaster; always great to do episodes with my fellow podcasters. So thank you so much for being on the show. You really specialize in working with multi-creative professionals. What is a multi-creative professional?

HEIDI: Yeah so, a multi-creative is someone who is not satisfied with a singular creative track. They would never identify as just a singer or just a painter or just a podcaster, you know they’d be someone who lives a slash life. You know there’s a whole bunch of different ways of putting it. There’s all these ways that people throw out different words or combinations of words to say like I’m a dabbler or I do a lot of different things, I’m a master of a few things, you know, there’s different ways of talking about it, but yeah a multi-creative is somebody who like myself, I’m a singer and a podcaster and I love crafting and I’m a photographer, I like doing interviews, and it’s kind of stifling to imagine thinking of just doing one thing. And so I really wanted to support fellow multi-creatives and help them with some of the struggles that we have with moving forward with our projects or narrowing things down to a few things that you know really resonate with us and help us figure out sort of what are our skills and values and passions are, so that we can turn them into thriving businesses and just have a wonderful livelihood that’s very varied.

CAROLYN: Oh that’s really cool! So would a multi-creative be someone who maybe has a 9 to 5 job, sort of the standard, either a corporate thing or one thing that they do, but they have a bunch of passions and hobbies, or is that literally someone who makes their own job out of all the different things that interest them?

HEIDI: That’s a great question. Most of the people I work with are folks who work for themselves and so they’re self-employed creatives. Somebody who maybe is an illustrator and also does graphic design and is also pursuing a life in comedy or something like that.

One of my clients, she teaches sewing and fashion, but she’s also a prolific blogger and is really into vintage costuming, so it’s sort of a combination of passions that maybe are bringing in money, and then ones that you know you could almost say well it’s sort of more of a hobby and maybe I make a few bucks off of it, or the hobby sort of supports the other things, like she likes to go to vintage fashion fairs and vintage events, but then she blogs about it, takes photos, and that sort of supports the marketing side of the sewing and teaching about fashion. So yeah they tend to be people who work for themselves and have sort of created a very interesting multi-creative life for themselves that’s flexible, gives them a way to do things like travel or work at unconventional hours. They’re not tied down to that 9 to 5.

CAROLYN: Oh okay. Yeah, oh that’s interesting. So how is coaching a multi-creative person different from coaching in general?

HEIDI: Yeah I think, you know, overall being a certified coach, you learn techniques to help somebody achieve whatever it is they want to achieve, whether it’s more quote unquote “work life balance,” and I think, I say it that way just because that’s kind of a loaded sentence, or they want to move up in the corporate world or you know maybe they’re a new mom or something like that. You know, a great coach can help you wherever you’re at in your life and whatever transitions you’re trying to make.

But to answer your question, somebody who’s working with a multi-creative coach, the things that are a little different and what I really specialize in is the questions that I’m asking them and the way that I’m helping them look at their life is that we are examining who they are at their core creatively. Let’s take sleep for example. If they’re not an early riser, I’m not going to try to make them be an early riser. I’m going to help them work with the rhythms of how they are naturally. I’m not going to ask them to change their habits or their sleep patterns. I’m going to see how they can work with those sleep patterns, unless that’s a high value of theirs that they want to try to change that, then I would help them maybe incrementally experiment with seeing how they might change their sleep patterns or something like that, but also how their creative process manifests things. So creative process is so dubious. It’s not something you can pin down real easily, so I’m going to help them experiment with different ways that they do things creatively, whether they’re more of a writer, maybe they like to learn in a group setting so as we move along through their coaching, maybe they’re more in a group coaching situation where they’re talking with others, or maybe they like to do more inner work that’s in an isolated space so they’re going to work by themselves.

But what we’re really doing is creating their vibrant vision. We’re taking inventory of all the different things that’s about them: what their values are, what their skills are, what their passions are, what their belief system is, how they like to do things, so that’s that creative process I was talking about, and then we start talking about their goals. So they’re really sort of writing their owner’s manual for themselves, and we’re going to delve into things like what usually gets you tripped up, you know, is it an imposter syndrome situation, or are there you know, typically we all have self doubt in one way or another, sometimes it’s an inner voice that’s telling you something that’s not very useful, you know something that’s saying you don’t deserve to have happiness or you don’t deserve to move forward in your goal. So we’re going to tackle those with some coaching techniques, with some self compassion techniques I went to school for, compassion cultivation training when I learned a lot about how to help people by being kinder to themselves, so we might work with some mindfulness and compassion techniques, but it is really, to answer your question more succinctly, to work with a multi-creative is to work with somebody to help them really reveal their soul, their core creativity, who they are, truly let them tell their story through writing and creating, and then just helping them along in that journey to discover what it is they really want to bring to the world.

CAROLYN: Oh wow, so yeah it’s really kind of delving into the depth of who they are, what their portfolio or their bevy of talents are, and how they want to show up in the world and make those contributions.

HEIDI: Yeah and it’s so different for each and every person. In fact, you’re probably quite familiar with when you’re working on your own website or the way that you’re going to market yourself, one of the things I need to answer for people is, well what do you do for your clients? What is the end result? What is the benefit that they’re getting out of this and what are they looking to do? So for my clients what they’re looking to do might be different for each and every client. I think what’s the same for all of my clients is that they’re looking to have some sort of impact with their creativity, whether it’s writing a script or creating a podcast or creating artwork, but whatever it is, it’s some interesting combination of things that is from their soul, from their depths of vulnerability. You know it’s something where I need to create a space that feels incredibly safe and judgment free so that they can tell their story to me, sort of reveal all their inner thoughts and inner demons and inner dark side and light side and everywhere in between. And I’m there to be a friend and a supporter and always have their back. And so they get to feel very heard and understood by me, and then that can in itself be something that helps transform how much they understand about who they are and what they want to bring.

And so as far as what those benefits are, what they get out of the experience, one of them is just feeling understood, which I think for all of us that feels incredibly helpful and useful and healing, just to know like there’s somebody out there that understands my story and my struggles and everything, you know, my whole person unadulterated, unfiltered, and then what I find with every single client I’ve ever worked with is that because they’re revealing their thoughts, their inner thoughts, their skills, their motivations, they’re experimenting with their gifts and how they do things, their creative process and all that, is that the more they do that, and the more they have a compassionate lens towards themselves, then they can turn that compassionate lens towards others. They’re better able to express themselves. They become more confident in their creative voice. And so that’s ultimately what they’re getting out of this, is they just feel more confident. They step forward more quickly, make decisions from a place that feels like “I am standing in my creative genius and am able to put out more interesting things in the world and oh this one might work, this one might not, but I feel more confident and just trying a bunch of different things” and ultimately they’re able to get more of what their inner creative spirit is out there because they’re less hard on themselves, they’re less self punishing, which a lot of times we do that without even noticing it over time, is that we’re just limiting ourselves because of fears and because of some inner feeling that we don’t deserve what it is that we want in the world.

And so you know, as a coach I get to help along with that journey too and help you change those voices in your head to things that are more useful and positive and friendly and less doubting and mean spirited.

CAROLYN: That’s great. Yeah I mean that’s important, you know, especially for people who are creative and a lot of times trying to create things that may be brand new to the world, so just helping to establish that safe space to start off and teach people those techniques for kind of removing a lot of those barriers, many of which we set up inside our own heads with negative self talk and imposter syndrome and things like that, and then you know, helping them practice their strengths and you know, in some ways I imagine that they come into their own knowledge of what their creativity is and what kind of impact they want to have and how they can do that. So that’s really great.

HEIDI: Yeah really well put there. I think, you know one thing that I have written on my website and that I always remember is that you know, I’m not really teaching you something new. I’m just reconnecting you to things that you’ve probably maybe forgotten about yourself, about how awesome and capable you already are, and just sort of shining that lens back on you and going like “Hey remember this awesome person or remember these awesome ways that you’ve already showed up and been brave and incredibly creative and different and unique? Well you can still tap into that.” Or you know, maybe that’s something you were able to access more as a child, you know, let’s play around, let’s experiment and let’s have fun!

CAROLYN: Yeah that’s fantastic. So how do you usually find your clients, or do they typically find you?

HEIDI: That’s such a good question. Certainly, like for many folks, a lot of my early clients were you know, friends and then friends of friends, and then I started doing workshops in my neighborhood in my area here in Oakland and Alameda, Sacramento which is an area I lived in for about 20 years, so I would come and do workshops, whether they be ones where you’re doing envisioning of, like I said, this vibrant vision, so I’m helping you kind of figure out where you want to be a year from now by delving in and asking questions and in a group workshop situation, or we’ve also done vision boards, we’re really going in again and like asking very specific questions, so it’s not just like “Here’s a picture of a car I’d like to have in a year. Here’s a picture of my ideal kitchen” or something like that, but you know, really go in deep and sort of talk about what it is that motivates you and where it is you’d like to be, and make an art piece for yourself. That’s a vision board art piece.

So doing things like that, doing workshops, and then certainly doing the Vibrant Visionaries podcast where I’m talking with clever compassionate multi-creatives about their projects, process and lessons learned along the way. So I’m talking with filmmakers and writers and illustrators and comedians and all sorts of interesting multi-creative people. So people get to hear those stories and be inspired by those folks and kind of learn about what it means to live successfully as a multi-creative and also hear you know, a lot of our challenges. They’re very candid conversations, but that, the podcast has also brought me some clients too.

CAROLYN: Oh that’s great. I remember you started your podcast Vibrant Visionaries I guess sometime last year I think you started. Was that an extra project that you wanted to try out podcasting as something new or, what inspired you to start the podcast?

HEIDI: Well what inspired me to start the podcast is my absolute obsession with podcasts. I’ve been listening to them for many years over five, I don’t know six or so years, and I just absolutely love the medium, I love especially listening to a lot of comedians talking with other comedians, I love hearing directors and actors and all sorts of other performers talk about creative process and just have candid conversations.

Those are my favorite kind of podcasts, and podcasts have really helped me as somebody who is a multi-creative and works for myself. I crave community but don’t always have access to that 24/7 because I’m at home you know, doing my thing, working from home oftentimes, so listening to podcasts helped put in my ears inspiring stories, funny stories, candid stories, so I just absolutely loved it. So I started actually by doing podcasts in the movies by minutes category, that world started mostly by Star Wars Minute. I decided to do one on Spinal Tap because that’s one of my favorite movies. This is Spinal Tap. So I did one called Spinal Tap Minute, and if you’re not familiar with the movies by minutes format, each episode you’re talking about a minute of the movie. So for example, the first episode of the podcast we’re talking about the first minute of that movie, and so on and so forth until we’ve gotten to the end credits of the last minute of the podcast.

So I went through that, it kind of helped me get my sea legs and my co-host on that, he did the editing. So we sort of share duties. I’d booked the guests and did all the marketing and PR et cetera and he did the editing. Then I also did Cabin Minute Cast which was for The Cabin In The Woods, and that was with another co-host. And she did the editing and I did the booking and the marketing, and then Vibrant Visionaries was my turn to put on my big girl pants and learn how to do editing. And as you know, that takes quite a bit of time and concentration, and I’ve found actually that the editing is extremely rewarding and I really enjoy whittling things down to the essence of what I think are great conversations. And so yeah, so it’s my third foray, but it’s my most personal one. I just love having conversations with multi-creative professionals, and last year I got to go to Fantastic Fast and interview genre and horror film directors in person and it was just wonderful and I hope to do that again this year. So it’s been an amazing opportunity to meet a bunch of different folks that I never would have met if I didn’t say “Hey would you like to be on my podcast?”

CAROLYN: That’s awesome. It is cool to ask people to be on. I’m always really happy and grateful when people say yes. And it is such a great way to meet people and because you’re having these candid conversations, you really do get to know them on a deeper level than you would otherwise. I definitely can relate to all of that, so that’s awesome.

I’d love to hear some of your success stories, like how you’ve been able to help your coaching clients achieve their goals or any kind of success stories from your podcast. Anything like that would be great.

HEIDI: Yeah absolutely. So yeah I have one client who was actually working a 9 to 5 job and hating it. When she came to me, I knew she was a very creative person and had an arts background, but at the time had been working a secure job, but one that was really not feeding her soul at all. And within the first few weeks of talking with her and defining her values, which is always where we start, it can tend to be quite revelatory for people to really sit down and take the time to discuss what their values are and realize oftentimes that they’re not aligned at all with those values, like the life that they’re living at that moment is quite a bit to one side away from those values.

So she actually quit that job and then did some experimenting by working for some other artists and working in some other creative fields. She started teaching locally some art classes and then realized “Oh wow this is really the thing that I love doing” and being a multi-creative, she also loves to officiate weddings and to host people and she loves to bake and cook and really be a hostess for folks. So she was able to combine a lot of that and actually open her own studio, and in that studio, it was a place that had a fireplace. It was a place she was able to decorate in her own funky creative style, it was a place where she could have nights where she did sort of a potluck style thing and people were doing crafting, she was able to teach children certain arts and crafts, so people could come at sort of all different levels of ability and learn a bunch of different things from fine art to more kind of artsy craftsy art, and then because she was doing this on a regular basis, she also got hooked up with a local business that was able to pay her to teach children that were less fortunate children who would not usually get the opportunity to have art classes. So they were a charity organization that was able to pay her to teach these children, and it was very rewarding for her. So she ended up with this life really filled with all the different creative things she loved to do, and again make her own hours, so she wasn’t having to get up, put on her corporate duds and go work for the soul sucking organization. She was able to experiment with what hours she best worked and best created and make those when she had her classes. She was still able to really have this life that is varied and interesting and fun, and fun was a top value of hers. So it was really something special.

CAROLYN: Wow that’s really cool. And I’m wondering, listening to the story and especially of the example of your client who wound up leaving a 9:00 to 5:00 that was not aligned with what she wanted to do but still was sort of paying the bills, and then taking these chances to explore and find other ways to express herself and generate income, I don’t know how often it happens that people come in and they have jobs already that they don’t like, but maybe they’re afraid to leave them because they’re worried that they can’t make any money or get enough income to support themselves from their art and creativity. Is that something that comes up a lot that you help people with, and how do you guide them through that whole conversation?

HEIDI: Yeah that’s a good question. So most of my clients have been people who already identify as and are already creating a life as a creative. And I’m oftentimes just helping them tweak what it is that they’re doing because maybe certain parts aren’t quite working or they’re realizing maybe that they’ve kind of strayed off the path that they wanted to go on and I’m helping them adjust. But I have worked with a few people who are working a job that maybe they know ultimately they don’t want to be at. And some of the things that we are working on are really their fears. You know they actually have the support, and they have financially and you know family and friend wise they have the support to make that transition. And I’m not asking them to do something bold like “Well just quit it, you know, and just go off and do your other thing.” I mean we all have this maybe fantasy of like “live your dream life” you know “just do it and it will all work out.” That is a fantasy. I mean I work from a place of reality of, if you do want to make this switch, we’re going to talk about what that means. You know, what sort of protocols you need to put into place so that you can make a transition that makes sense for you, whether it’s you know for a writer say, they’re going to you know make a new habit of doing X amount of writing per week, and also what that gives you a chance to do is realize like, oh yeah my writing habits are this, I tend to want to do it at four o’clock in the morning, right, you know I tend to want to do it at midnight, or oh now that I’ve been writing for the last month I realize I don’t really want to write what I thought I did and it’s not really my passion. So part of it is just kind of figuring out what it is you think you want to do and start integrating that into your life and seeing how that feels.

But another thing is that why they haven’t done it yet is often because of a fear. So we’re going to tackle that. We’re going to look at it, and when I say tackle I mean it from a very loving and friendly compassionate place, but we’re going to delve into like, well what would it be like if you did this? What’s coming up for you emotionally you know what’s coming up in your body? Are you starting to hyperventilate when we start talking about you know what is the impact that it’s having on you? Is this inner voice coming up saying you can’t do it? Yeah then there’s coaching techniques, you know, some of the coaching techniques, just to give an example, this is a shortened version of how you do this but, you can name that inner voice person. So if you recognize that there’s an inner voice, we’re going to actually name that person. The client’s going to tell me what it is that that inner voice is telling them and we’re going to talk about where they first heard that voice. It’s oftentimes from you know maybe a teacher or maybe a parent or someone like that from childhood. We’re not going to name that inner voice your parent’s name or your teacher’s name. You’re kind of giving them, they’re almost like a little character or a gremlin is what they called it in the coaching school I went to. You’re going to name that character, you’re going to have a little conversation with them. Oftentimes I’ll ask the client to make an art piece. Then you know if you’re a sculptor you’re going to sculpt it, if you’re collagist you can collage it, if you like to draw or paint, you can you know, however you want to make it. That’s the other thing is when I work with people, we always work in the way that they like to work. I’m not going to try to force you to do something that’s not your style. But we’re gonna name this little gremlin, we’re going to make them into a little piece of art, and we’re going to talk with them and we’re gonna find out this gremlin has been there all along to try to protect you, you know, from being hurt or being disappointed.

But that now that you’re an adult, you’re going to talk with that gremlin and let him know, “you know what, I can take from here, I’m more capable than I was when I was younger and I’m ready to take this on on my own and go out into the world without you, I don’t really need you. Thank you so much. I appreciate what you’ve done for me.” And then you’re going to send that gremlin off to do something else, you know and it’s really, can be quite a powerful exercise to do. I’ve certainly done it myself, I’ve done it with many clients, and it can be a place that feels vulnerable while still sort of playful, and also you know, it’s a creative space to talk about what it is that’s been tripping you up all these years. But instead of just like, I’ve heard in other places just saying like, “well just tell that inner voice to just take a hike” doesn’t really often take care of it. And even with this gremlin, I’m not saying this gremlin’s never coming back. I mean maybe you can banish them to somewhere else and they’ll never come back, but you know they might come sneaking back here or there, but you’re lessening their impact on you. Their voice isn’t quite as powerful.

And I also always ask you to make a new statement, sort of your new power statement, that is the new story that you’re telling yourself, that isn’t the less than one, it’s the one that you can stand in and say “I am capable, I am able, I can do this, I’m worthy of this.”

So that’s a truncated example of the kind of exercise that we might do if you’ve got that inner voice that’s really keeping you from getting where it is you want to go.

CAROLYN: Oh yeah that’s really powerful. It’s really helping to reshape your thinking and your mindset. It helps you get your arms around these thoughts and feelings that maybe are hard to identify or maybe you’re just not looking at them. And it just kind of helps you put literally a name to something and change the way that you think about it. So yeah I could see how that would be really powerful. Are there any other tips or techniques that you wanted to share?

HEIDI: Yeah, I think the thing that I’ve really discovered, and these are certainly, they’re not new concepts, I mean the stuff I’m going to talk about isn’t new, you might be like, “oh yeah Heidi I’ve heard that before” but is that the tips and techniques for you are always going to be a little different depending on who you are and your style of living, your style of creativity, your style of like, people are sometimes saying like “well I just, I don’t know, I have too many things to do, I can’t get everything done in one day” or you know all that “well what’s the magic bullet solution” to that. But I mean there’s plenty of different ways that we can experiment with loosening up and lightening up your workload in the day, but what it all comes down to, and I think that the things that have been most useful to my clients over and over again is mindfulness and compassion. So the definition of compassion is to recognize suffering, to sit with that suffering, and if you choose, to work on eliminating or alleviating that suffering. So when you’re compassionate towards others, you see that perhaps, you know, I like to use examples like even if it’s stubbing a toe, you know, you’re like “Ooh I know what that feels like” yeah it’s like “oh I’m sorry you’re suffering right there, that hurts.”

And for many of us you know we also have experienced loss. You know, someone has passed away or someone has cancer, all sorts of things, right? So sickness and death and all that, that’s also suffering, so with other folks it’s often times a lot easier for us to recognize that suffering and reach out and be a loving person towards the person who’s suffering. At self compassion is what I found to be the basis for all of how I coach and how I teach and train my clients, and that is to learn to recognize that when you are suffering. And so again, that could be just like ooh I stub my toe, right? But a lot of times you could just like stub your toe and then just like go “oh walk it off walk it off. It’s not that big of a deal.” But it’s still kind of like throbbing down below. If you’re mindful and kind to yourself, instead of trying to walk it off and minimize that, you could sit down for you know 30 seconds and just say, “I feel this pain, this pain sucks, I wish this hadn’t happened, and if it’s still hurting in five minutes I might go take a painkiller, or you know, maybe I need to rub my toe or something like that” but it’s just this mindful awareness that suffering is happening.

So the way that we take that into our businesses and our lives you know, why I’m a wellness and business coach for multi-creatives, is that suffering can be when you take on too many things, when you say yes to too many things. A lot of times being a compassionate person to others we take on a lot. Or maybe you’re a graphic designer and you’re wanting to please a client. So you say “oh sure I can do that and I can have it done in two days” and then realizing “Oh that’s actually not reasonable. You know I should have looked more at how long this is going to take, and recognize that the weekend is ahead and I don’t need to work on the weekends, so why don’t I say by Friday next week. And if I can get it done sooner, then great. But I set myself up for this whole weekend of working because I was so eager to please.”

A lot of times we’re suffering from burnout because, also for multi-creatives, we like to do a lot of things. As a fellow podcaster you know it can be exciting to go “oh I’ve lined up another interview with this person, oh I’ve lined up another, oh no I don’t want to let that person go by and oh well why don’t I get them next week” and then all of a sudden your life is just filled with interviews, and actually the interviews start to not be as good because you’re tired or your voice is stressed or you don’t have the capacity to ask questions in a way that sounds intelligent because you’ve burned yourself out. Yeah so mindfulness and compassion is just really recognizing in yourself like, “oh I need to give myself more opportunities to say ‘no’ to one thing, so that I can maybe say ‘yes’ to another thing” or “I’m going to soothe myself and take a nap here instead of trying to push through and do something else, where I end up getting sick and then I’m not good to anybody.”

So that’s a lot of what I’m teaching and a lot of what my clients end up realizing that they need and sometimes we need to work on that for a while because we’re so used to either punishing ourselves or pushing ourselves or the hustle. Oh this has got to be a hustle, and in fact hustle just doesn’t work. It doesn’t mean that we can’t get a lot done, in fact most of us get more quality done when we give ourselves time, and creative process, I mean that’s of course a rather intangible thing that sometimes includes like say if you’re a filmmaker, you want to sit down and watch other movies you know and be inspired by other creators, or if you’re a painter you want to give yourself time to go to galleries or just go walk in nature and see what creatively inspires you, if you’re a singer you want to go see bands or listen to music or do a deep dive on reading a biography of your favorite artist. So you want to give yourself that time to take in creative inspiration and if you’re always working working working working, it actually impedes your creativity. So yeah there’s a few things there.

CAROLYN: Yeah definitely. That advice is actually pretty powerful I would think for anyone, not just multi-creatives, to in some ways be aware of not just your possibilities but also your limits, and in some ways, you know, saying no to one thing is basically saying yes to other things that you want to do. So it’s important to think about it that way.

HEIDI: Yeah and also to ask for help. I think asking for help in something is just reminding yourself you don’t need to know how to do everything. Like when you think of really high level thinkers and creators, like let’s take Oprah for example, like Oprah is not doing it all on her own. She hires the best people to surround herself and the best coaches to work with and the best folks in many different areas and the best support staff and everything so that she can do what she does best. And I remember, you know, my uncle who is a rich dude who works at a high level business that he runs himself. I remember a long time ago him telling me like, “I always hire people who,” and I know this is a quote I’ve heard many times you know in one way or another, but like you know, “don’t be the smartest person in the room” or something like that, it’s like, surround yourself with people who are really smart and also ask for help from people like, don’t think that because you’re working for yourself that means you automatically already know how to market your business and do PR and do all the different things that come with running your own business including like bookkeeping and all that stuff. Learn what you can learn but also ask for the help that you need and don’t think that you’re a bad self-employed person if you don’t know how to magically do everything just because you’ve decided to be self-employed. You need a team of helpers and that’s what smart people do.

CAROLYN: Yeah it’s important to keep that in mind. Heidi, thank you so much for telling me all about your coaching and really delving into a lot of the concepts and the techniques that you use with your clients. How can people get in touch with you if they want to learn more about your coaching and your podcast?

HEIDI: Yeah sure. So my name again is Heidi Bennett, and so I’m at HeidiBennett.com and you can find a little bit more about my coaching and all that there, and then for the podcast, it’s Vibrant Visionaries, and so that’s at VibrantVisionaries.com, and again those are conversations with a whole variety of multi-creative folks. I just interviewed somebody who’s opening a bagel bakery here in the East Bay who has the blessing of Noah himself of Noah’s Bagels, and she’s bringing the flavors of New York here and not California-izing them that she would say. So she’s trying to bring an authentic New York bagel experience here, and that was one of my kind of local podcast episodes, but I’ve also interviewed like I said, production designers, directors, writers, that’s a real variety of folks from all sort of creative places. And I even have a special episode on creative burnout. If you want to listen to that episode and hear more about how to combat creative burnout, then that’s one that I recommend, and that’s Episode 16 with Molly Bailen on self care for multi-creatives. And we talk much more about all the ways that we can help, you know, remain healthy and happy and creative.

CAROLYN: Fantastic. Thanks Heidi, it was great to talk to you today.

HEIDI: Yeah likewise it’s been a pleasure.

CAROLYN: Thanks for listening to Beyond 6 Seconds. Please help us spread the word about this podcast: share it with a friend, give us a shout out on your social media or write a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player. You can find all of our episodes on our website, www.beyond6seconds.com . Until next time!