The Apricot Memoirs l Tess Guinery
Conversation with Tess Guinery
Tess Guinery is a true artist, designer and poet, as well as, a dedicated wife and mother to three girls, Peaches, Junee and Hopps. She joined us along with her incredible Business Manager, Holly Masters, to discuss creativity, keeping things fluid and truly surrendering to your life purpose. There’s so much to discover in Tess’ dreamy and whimsical world, filled with beautiful inspiring words and sunny rainbows. She takes us through her journey so far, from being brave, taking leaps of faith and embracing a more artistic way of life which her soul was craving.
“Purpose - it’s a soul thing, it’s something that’s inside of you. The expression will forever change but the purpose will always stay the same.”
There is so much beauty to discover within Tess, we chatted with her and her incredible Business Manager, Holly, in our One Wild Ride studios and it was clear from the moment they walked in, the love and care that they have for one another.
Holly looks after the business side of things so that Tess can be her very brave, wild and creative self. Holly, also the other half of printing company, Morgan Printing, shares her wisdom on working with creatives and the importance we all have in supporting their work wholeheartedly.
Tess has had many brave adventures over the past years… Closing down a thriving design studio and going on a year sabbatical where she dreamt up her very her first book, The Apricot Memoirs. Becoming a mother to twin baby girls and discovering a new found creativity which led to her painting bright sunny rainbows.
Her rainbow paintings were quickly shared and marvelled at around the social worlds and when the purchase requests came flooding in she created a line of canvas artwork, prints, as well as, bed linen with her collaboration with, Dazed and Amazed.
It’s a mix of hustle, rest, repeat for Tess. Together with her stuntman husband, Caleb, their work passions ebb and flow around family life. Tess and the girls often pack up and go with Caleb when he works away, then it’s back to life in their sunny Queensland candy-coloured home where Tess can focus on her next project. They make it work by completely surrendering to the unknown and embracing the uncertainty that comes with project-based work. They’re fiercely determined to remain focused on their true soul purpose while living a beautiful life.
Sure she needs to rest in-between the surges of creativity and the next-level multitasking required with twin babies and a five year old. But there’s no stopping this whimsical and magical lady. There is a lot more beauty to discover in Tess’ dreamy world and we can’t wait to see what comes next.
Mentioned in conversation...
The 2am wake up call that led Tess to taking a year-long sabbatical
The process of saying no to less than her hearts calling and stripping back to soul purpose
The fluidity that is essential in her daily creative process
The importance of appreciating creative folk and their heart-led creations.
The support she receives to hold space for twin babies, a 5 year old and her creative work
Follow Tess here:
Tess Guinery Website
Tess Guinery Instagram
Tess Guinery Facebook
Tess Guinery Pinterest
The Apricot Memoirs is available here
Images courtesy of Ilsa Wynne-Hoelscher Kidd
Full Interview Transcript - Tess Guinery, The Apricot Memoirs
Pru: Sometimes in life, you cross paths with people that seem not quite of this world. They're whimsical, magical kind of beings, who seem to have evolved way past ego and beauty just radiates from them.
Pru: Tess Guinery is one of those people.
Pru: I've followed Tess for a number of years and have always been struck by her positive almost rose-colored glasses-style view on the world. As an incredibly successful designer that, in what seemed like the peak of her career, she listened to a strong call in her heart to take a sabbatical. To forego the cash, the security and the reputation. To strip herself bare and return to her true soul purpose. She's captivated the hearts of many of us for being true to herself and so generously sharing her soul with us along the way.
Pru: This was a really special episode to record.
Pru: Tess, having just celebrated her twins' first birthday and recovering from an incredible year had, well, what felt like lifetimes of wisdom to share.
Pru: She brought with her, her incredible business manager, Holly Masters and it was clear from the moment they walked in, the love and care that they have for one another.
Pru: Holly, also the owner of Morgan Print, shared her wisdom on working with creatives and the importance we all have in supporting their work wholeheartedly.
Pru: I'm sure you'll enjoy this episode as much as I did.
Pru: Welcome to our Friday afternoon chat in our Byronbay Studio.
Pru: One Wild Ride is the exploration of a more meaningful life. Here I share real conversations with ordinary humans doing extraordinary things. From activists to entrepreneurs, to sportspeople and scientists, these are the people that inspire me on the daily.
Pru: Theirs are stories of positivity, hope, expansion and evolution.
Pru: These are unscripted conversation where we dive deep into their highs and lows, their challenges and their triumphs.
Pru: I'm Pru Chapman and this is One Wild Ride.
Pru: (singing).
Pru: Tess and Holly, welcome to the show.
Tess: Hey
Holly: Thank you.
Pru: I'm really excited to have you guys here, here in Bryonbay. And you guys had an amazing event last night?
Tess: We did. Yeah, it was my first ever speaking gig, so definitely out of my comfort zone and excited to be here today because when you're doing something brave, why not do something else that's going to push you-
Pru: Exactly, double courage. That's it.
Tess: Totally. So, first speaking gig last night and first podcast today.
Pru: Yes.
Holly: Ticking goals.
Tess: I've feeling very privileged.
Pru: Ticking goals. And where else to do it than Byronbay which is pretty fun. All righty, all righty, so goodness. I did a huge brain dump of questions last night and there are just so many places where I think our conversation could go today, so I'm really excited to have both of you here, both from a creative side and from a business side as well.
Pru: And I just know that our listeners are going to hear so much gold within this coming from both of those sides so, yeah, thanks so much for being here.
Tess: Thanks for having us.
Holly: Thank you for having us.
Tess: I'm all excited.
Pru: Yeah, me too. All right, now Tess, you are a designer, an artists, a poet, many, many creative things and I've read recently something that you'd said, it was a Biblical quote and it is, "Discover beauty in everyone." So I was just hoping that we could start there and you could share a little bit about what that quote means to you?
Tess: Cool. Yeah, a beautiful place to start. So yeah, that's just a scripture that has stood out to me just over the years. Just through my readings and there's actually a little bit before, it says, "Discover beauty in everyone." It says, "Don't hit back, discover beauty in everyone." And I really like that because I think it's a really beautiful life lesson in it. And even just from a vibrational way of living, when you are looking to discover beauty in everyone or everything, you're keeping your eyes up and you will probably live a better life, because people are going to hurt you in life and it just basically says to me that the final justice of things, no matter what happens, or comes our way, is not in our hands and just to surrender those things and it's a principle and I've just applied that principle in my life and not always done it well, definitely not. Not always seeing the beauty in people.
Tess: It's just something I hope to base my life on. But when I have placed that principle in place, I've just seen almost magical things happen.
Tess: Things turn around. Situations turn around for better and really good relationship, good friendships because you can pull out those beautiful gold bits in people and see who they are and who their made to be. And it's just a nice way to live.
Pru: It's a wonderful way to live. And I think that really comes across from, I guess, your brand for want of a better expression of how to say it, but... and I mean that just by all of your touch points, so whether I'm on your website or on your Instagram, it's just like there's this real grace that emanates off you which, I think, I don't know, it feels like maybe it has its home in that saying and then it just spills out from there.
Tess: Oh.
Holly: Yeah.
Pru: Awesome, awesome. Okay, so creatively you have a lot going on. So many things and Holly's I'm sure helping out with a bunch of that and we're going to come to you very soon Holly to talk all about that. You also have a husband that works sometimes at home and sometimes away, twin babies, also another small human in peaches, so do any two days ever look the same for you?
Tess: To be honest. No week, day, minute, hour, looks the same for us but I love it so much and the more we do it this way, the more I love it. Like it just works with both my personality and Caleb's. Just for some context, he's a stuntman. He's been one for the last five years. So his job is very unsure. Like we could be getting rumors of a contract of a movie in another country and then it could fall through overnight. So we could be getting ready to go somewhere and then it falls through. Or we could find out a week before that we're moving to another country, which has happened before. And then have to pack up our whole life in one week and then move to South Africa. And then there's other things, like local stuff that happens. He might get a movie on the Gold Coast which is always idea because we don't have to move around, and that could be a three month stint, but even that, I don't know his hours, I don't know if he's going to be working Saturdays, he could be working until midnight one day.
Tess: So, just his job alone is like it varies so much. But it also excites me. I'm always waiting for a job posting. I'm like, "Get a job in Italy, or..." So I get really excited by that. And then you throw that in the mix, we're parents, we have a five year old daughter. She's in school now, which kind of feels a little bit like it's toyed with our fluidity a little bit, because that kind of keeps us in one place a little bit for now.
Tess: And twins, that's a whole other thing. They've got a schedule that we try to stick to so that we can get sleep and then my job kind of ebbs and flows through all of that, so I'm very fluid, that's just my personality. I'm an improvisor. So it kind of works because my husband's job kind of takes the lead and a bit, because obviously wherever he gets contracts, we go. And then I just weave what I'm doing in and out of that. And it works well because for example now, he's got no sign of a job. He just finished a three month movie and now, it's a bit of playtime for me, so he will... he kind of steps in and goes, "Okay, what do you want to do?" And I've got a bit more free time. So, yeah, it's always changing but I love it.
Pru: Yeah, it sounds likes there's a huge amount of surrender in that as well.
Tess: So much. Even financially, everything. Like we don't have a normal income like we don't know what our weekly is sometimes. We have to be very smart, we have to put a lot of our wage away because we don't know if... like there's no sign of work for Caleb right now. There's rumors but we don't have anything in place, so we're both... well, I'm working to a degree, but we're pretty much unemployed right now. So we're just waiting for a phone call.
Pru: Oh wow. And it sounds like when they come they take you some pretty cool places.
Tess: Yeah, there's been some really cool opportunities that have come and Caleb's done a bit of solo stuff too, but we kind of make a rule of thumb that if it's over three weeks, I go with him. If it's under three weeks, I stay home.
Pru: Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. And I guess as you just said, you've got a bit of playtime now because he's not on a job, so what are you playing with. What's alive in you right now?
Tess: Well, to be honest, after he finished this gig, I actually needed to have a holiday because it was like a really hard three months. We had the twins and then he had nine months off. So there was nothing on. No sign of any work. And it just actually worked out so well. We were able to sustain ourselves in that time because we'd planned. And so he was home for nine months and then he got this job and it was sort of going from learning how to have twins for the nine months together and then he was gone for three months. And he was very hands on in that time, so the last three months for me have been quite strenuous, figuring out what twins looks like as a mum on my own while he's been away. And then having that realization that I have twins. It was like my first realization. "Oh yeah, I have twins, Caleb's not here, wow." And then feeling completely exhausted. So I've just had a couple of weeks of recoup. We had a little mini holiday. And now I'm starting to get that excitement back. I'm writing a lot at the moment.
Tess: I won't say too much, but there is another piece in the works.
Pru: Oh.
Tess: And it's in close to finished stages so.
Pru: Amazing.
Tess: I'm just playing with that at the moment. And after we've done this Byron trip, that's going to be my focus, just really putting some heart into that.
Pru: Yeah. Amazing. Good point. Really good point and I think it's something that's so often missed these days is that, like when you do go through those times of, not necessarily stress, but just like a lot of work, or holding a lot of responsibility, is actually, "Have a little rest afterwards."
Tess: Yeah.
Pru: Like just actually recoup. I think particularly business owners, a lot of business owners that listen to this. It's like, they push, push, push, hustle, hustle, hustle. And they think that that's sustainable and it's just not. It's just like if you go to the gym, like you have to have a rest afterwards. You don't just go to the gym all the time.
Tess: Totally.
Pru: And then get fit. The rest is so important. It is, it really is. Yeah. And I think from a creative perspective as well, I know, even when I don't get enough sleep, it's a disaster. There's no creativity coming out of a lack of sleep. So, I imagine three months with twins and a five year old, sleep is required.
Tess: Yes. Lots of sleep. I even booked myself into a hotel for the night by myself.
Pru: Good one.
Holly: Smart lady, smart lady.
Tess: It was just like a little bit of a, "You did it." And then me and Caleb went away for two nights, just us. Without the... it was the first time we left all three kids and then now, this has been our little family holiday. So it was like I undid, me and Caleb undid together and then now, we're having a little holiday as a family.
Pru: Perfect. Perfect. Okay. So in these kind of times, I guess like, actually maybe your whole life, but I guess particularly in times when Caleb's away, what does your support crew look like? Like who's around you because surely you can't do that alone?
Tess: It's funny, when we first had the twins actually, I remember we had like floods of help. There was family flying in and Caleb's parents actually stayed up for two months and I was kind of denying myself of the help and Caleb was like, "What are you doing, like you're denying yourself of the help." And I was like, "They're all going to go and I'm going to have to figure out how to do this without the help." And he was like, "That's so silly. That's a silly way of thinking. Like what if you're denying yourself of all this help and then there's someone meeting you on every corner for this whole journey. You don't know what the journey is ahead." So, he's like, "Just surrender to it, take it." And I decided to do that and obviously it takes some vulnerability to take help because you're showing your weakest parts and they're coming in and supporting you. Especially in the early days of twins, it was messy and learning how to breast feed two babies, and no sleep and just crying a lot and being emotional. So that was... you know letting people into that space.
Tess: And it was so true now I look back at what Caleb said, because literally every moment of the way has been someone on the street corner at every turn and bend. Even when Caleb started this job we had beautiful neighbors upstairs, they've moved out now, but they have retired and the day he set out on his job, they came down and said, "We're here for you. We're here through it all, don't be afraid to call on us." And I think they kind of figured out that I wasn't going to really call for help. Because I was like, "Oh they're busy, they've got their life." So they would, every day, knock on my door and some afternoons rock up with their pram... they had a pram because they've got grandkids. And they'd be like, "Oh we're taking the twins for a walk." And they just kept showing up, like every day and even school drop off because that was new to us this year. They'd rock up, "You need to go and pick up Peaches, we'll stay and watch the twins. So they've become like family and they've actually moved out now, but Caleb's home."
Tess: So just all the timing, I've just found.
Pru: Serendipitous.
Tess: Yes. As always.
Pru: Oh that's so amazing. The kindness of strangers hey? It's everything.
Pru: And another amazing support in your life is here today. Holly, welcome to the stage.
Holly: Thank you. I wasn't there with hands, but I was there on the phone.
Pru: You were there with heart.
Tess: You were there on the phone.
Holly: I was there with heart.
Tess: Yes. Yes.
Pru: So Holly tell us a little bit about your role and how you guys... well, maybe just how did you guys meet actually, I don't know?
Holly: Yeah, it's an interesting story.
Pru: We have all the time, please go ahead Holly.
Holly: So my husband and I are in another company, Morgan Printing, that we've had for quite a few years. He's been working in that for about 25 years. And we're really blessed, we have a really good client base. But many, many years ago, five, six, I don't even know how many, a long time ago, I was following Tess's design work on line and I really liked it and I just had this call to reach out to her. I don't really reach out to people in that kind of sense. But I was just like "Hey. I just love your stuff. You're awesome. This is amazing. If you ever need help with your print or anything, just let me know." And it wasn't even really like a chase for work. It was just like I thought her work was... it was different, it was really good. And she replied. And I was like, "Oh, awesome." I've since found out that she said, "I never reply."
Tess: Honestly I wouldn't... you know how you get lots of emails on different things. Especially in the design industry you get people like, "Do you want to try out my paper samples." But I just felt to reply to her. And I'm so glad I did. It's like, "Let's do this."
Pru: Seriously?
Holly: So the next stage of the journey. Yeah, so we bantered about and she was like, "I need new business cards." I was like, "Can you just leave it with me, is that okay?" She was like, "Yeah, sure." And so I kind of went all out.
Tess: You did. Foil and all.
Pru: This relationship is built on foil.
Holly: [crosstalk 00:15:28] high spec printing.
Pru: As every good relationship is.
Holly: Yeah, I agree with you Pru. And yeah, it just started from there. And then we just had this great relationship and obviously we were doing a lot of work with Tess with all the clients she has, and her business was really starting to grow and grow and grow. And then she went to South Africa with Caleb for his job. And you know Tony was doing a lot with her because she was dealing with different time zones and she was working literally in the middle of the night sometimes. I would walk into our office and Tony was on like a videoing layouts to her.
Pru: Dedication. Total dedication.
Holly: Yeah. And I'm like, what are you guys doing? And then Tess would send one back and she's on like the bathroom floor in a hotel room. I'm like, "What is happening?"
Pru: It's a print affair.
Holly: And we just really... we formed a friendship out of that. We just really... talking to each other all the time and yeah, we were working like that for a long time.
Tess: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Holly: Then, I mean Tess should probably tell the story about, she accidentally wrote a book. Which is quite hilarious. That she accidentally wrote a book when she was on the sabbatical. Started it while she was on the sabbatical and she mentioned it to me one day, like, "A mentor of mine's read this stuff and thinks I have a book." And I was like, "Let's go, were on it. Let's do it."
Tess: Yeah.
Holly: And you know she talked me through a bit of the writing. She wouldn't let me read the writing until closer to the end, which was highly irritating, but you know, I got the real feel for it and I just started to see it. And I know... paper, I started sourcing paper, and doing lots of research into the mules where I'd get the paper from and what the feel of them was. And yeah, and that's how it started. Tess then, we decided a print run to self-publish and to do it in such a high spec way was expensive, it wasn't cheap. And so Tess did a beautiful job of just surrender and going to Kickstarter, which is huge. I think it's really big with that type of work, because that writing is her heart's work and-
Pru: That's a very vulnerable leap isn't it? To put it out on something like... like to put it out at all, and then to put it out on Kickstarter and say, "Hey, please help."
Tess: Do you want to back this? Back my heart?
Holly: It was huge and she was heavily pregnant with the twins at that point and then one day she said, "I just want you to look over the Kickstarter campaign." And you know, her sisters Bonnie and Shiree had done amazing visuals on all that for it and I was like, "It's going to be amazing." And she sent it over to me and I was looking at the figures and the options she had and I was like, "Oh, no, wait, hold on, everyone."
Tess: Brakes, brakes, stop.
Holly: Hold on. And I was just like... we had a good relationship so I could say it to her. I'm like, "This is not going to work." You haven't thought through the financial aspect of what you are trying to achieve in order to hit your first print run. And I just said, "Leave if with me." So I kind of turned it upside down.
Tess: Did magic.
Holly: Just went back over it again and looked at more in depth options that we had. And Tess was so open and trusting and you know, we went with that process and hit start. And I remember Tess was, "Do you reckon anyone will back it? Like is anyone going to like it?" And my husband and I-
Pru: Kind of.
Holly: We were just laughing. We would honestly laugh at that idea. And we're like, "It'll go over." And she was like, "No, no, no, no, no." And then the first thousand had come up, she was like, "A thousand. Hold on, a thousand." And you know, yeah, it kept going and going and going. And midway... midway?
Tess: Yeah, half way through, we... I think. Oh no, it was eight days in it hit.
Holly: Yeah. Hit the goal. And I think by the time it closed, what did we end up getting to?
Tess: Almost fifty thousand. It was like forty-nine thousand and something.
Holly: Yeah.
Pru: Amazing.
Holly: Yeah.
Tess: Yeah.
Pru: Congratulations you two.
Holly: Yeah. And then.
Pru: And that really kicked off a whole new journey didn't it?
Holly: Yeah.
Tess: Definitely. It really did.
Holly: We went up to visit Tess and Caleb after they had the twins and were having a nice dinner and Tess was like, "I've got a question to ask you." I was like, "Oh no. This is such a nice meal what are we do [crosstalk 00:20:07]?
Pru: It all got very serious.
Holly: What's wrong? And she was like, "I just want to know if you would consider being my manager?" And she actually did it really beautifully. Because automatically I said, "I'll help you a hundred percent, I'm here, I want to help you." She was like, "No, I don't want it like that. I don't want help. I want you to manage me but I want you to go away and think about it." So I did. I went away and thought about it and I was like, "How do I, how am I going to fit this in?" And then my husband said, "Yeah, but let's just talk about do you want to do it?" And I'm like, "Hell yeah."
Pru: Smart husband.
Holly: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I called back and said yes and this is where we are.
Pru: Amazing. Amazing. Now I offer it to you Tess, it's like what were you... because you... not every creative asks for support like when they when they should or they shouldn't and so, what was it inside of your that thought, "I need a manager?"
Tess: Yeah, good question. So previously like on the sabbatical, like I took a little sabbatical in Cape Town. The reason being was that I had this graphic design business that was getting really busy. It was doing really well. It was on the precipice of rolling over to the point of maybe needing to hire people. And it was getting really busy and in that moment in Cape Town I had a 2.00 a.m. moment actually, where I was like, "This is so stressful." And "This is so taxing on my body." I don't know if you have those moment where your body is stress. Like everything in you is like, "If you cut me open, I am stress." And it was ironic because I had tried so hard to get these clients that I had finally got. And I was so excited to be working on their projects. And they had budgets that I could do really cool stuff with, with paper and all that sort of thing. But it was like in the middle of the night when I'm working on this stuff on layout and liaising with the printer, with Tony and Holly and doing the videos, my soul was sad.
Tess: It was just like, this is really beautiful and creative and I can kind of see where this is going to end up. I could see the road map if I wanted to keep going with this and I think the artist in me was like, "You're obviously going to be sad." And I was kind of in this place of, "I want to live my purpose and a purpose to me isn't the things you do necessarily." It's not like I'm going to be a graphic designer and these are the things I do to be a graphic designer. I felt purpose is a soul thing. It's something that's inside of you. And the expression will forever change but the purpose always stays the same. And I felt like the extension of what I was doing actually wasn't connected to what my soul purpose was. I didn't know what the soul purpose was at that point. I just knew it was wrestle. And I was like, "This doesn't feel right." So in that moment I said, tomorrow I'm going to change my life. And I do say a lot of romantic things, because I'm... I say these things in the moment. "I'm going to change my life." And then the next moment, "Oh, all right I'll just keep going."
Tess: But I actually woke up the next morning and changed my life. I actually stopped designing altogether in that moment. I was loyal to the jobs that I had in that moment. And saw them to the end, but then any client I had I referred them to another designer. I just needed to stop. And I had nothing sure that I was going to be going into. But it was just this deep revelation and conviction that I couldn't keep going. It would get too big maybe, and then it would be too hard. It was just like this is a now or never. And it made no sense.
Tess: So skip all the way back to Holly's story, I'll skip forward to Holly's story. When all this stuff happened with the book, it was never intended to be a business. It was this is a soul piece and because I'd given up some big things and they were big decisions because it meant cutting a whole income, which my income was the buffer for like, Caleb's obviously getting contract work and my job was just always this little buffer in between. So cutting that out was a big decision.
Tess: Stopping something that I'd studied really hard for. The client base, there was just so much to consider. Then stopping all that. Creating this book accidentally in that time, and then suddenly it's launch and we could feel the demands kind of coming. Like the wholesale orders were coming in and I was like, "This feels like it could... I don't know, but it feels like it could get big or it could could get big if I have someone with me, helping me.
Tess: But I don't want the thing that I created in a moment of not being busy, not wanting to to be busy to be the thing that then makes me busy again.
Pru: Yeah.
Tess: Does that make sense?
Pru: Yeah.
Tess: I'm like, that would just be a walking, talking contradiction and I will end up exactly in the same spot at 2.00 a.m. probably doing something crazy and then what have I done? I've just recreated the same pattern and I'm doing the same thing with a different expression of work and I was like, "I'm not doing that again."
Tess: So I think like, how I said before about people meet you on the street corners. I've just seen that so, so much in my life and I just call these people earth angels and Holly has been definitely one of them, just so naturally. Like she knows so much about me, my work ethic, my processes, my why. So when it came to that point of seeing the book kind of... just getting that feeling like of the tremors. You know when you're going to feel the tremors of this thing. "This could get big or it could just... no-one might want to buy it after the first run, I don't know." So it was a massive faith step, but it just made sense to... it was an impulsion. I couldn't imagine anyone else doing it. I don't want to have interviews. It's an intimate thing to me. Holly was a friend a work colleague, but she was already managing me. She was like, "This girl needs help."
Tess: So she was already doing it and it just made sense and I didn't want her to do it out of obligation, because when you know, how she said, "Of course I'll help you." That's just Holly, like she would help me until forever, but I wanted it to be an exchange. And because her time's worth something to me. And it needed to be a decision that she would go away and make, because it's a magic thing so, that's why I have Holly and I'm... yeah. I don't know if I'll have her forever. And I said this to her the L;KL;, I don't think I'll have you forever, because I actually see, there's a really big call on your life and some big things are going to happen for you, so I'm just really grateful that I have her while I do and you can't hold on to people because if you discover the beauty in everyone, you can see that there's things on people's life that they need to do eventually. But while I have her. I am very grateful.
Holly: We're very grateful.
Tess: And people were trying to poach her last night at my event.
Pru: Hands off people.
Tess: They were coming up and saying, "Do you do this for other people?" I was like, "No, she doesn't."
Holly: No. She doesn't.
Pru: Amazing. And Holly, working with creatives is... it's such a unique and special relationship with so many nuances. I know that from mentoring a lot of creative women over my time. And I think there's a real... I guess from my experience it can be a real push, pull relationship. Love to find out what you think about this, but I think, if you're similar to me, which I get the kind of feeling you are, it's like you can see the potential and so, for someone when you are this kind of driven individual, it's like, "Great, well let's go there and let's... we can take the big leaps and make it happen." But then also knowing when to pull back and nurture that creative spirit, or allow the space for what needs to unfold, to unfold.
Holly: Yeah.
Pru: So I feel like it's a really, it's a fine balance.
Holly: Yeah, I think it's definitely a delicate game to play. I think Tess and I have a lot of bonuses in the fact that as Tess said, I knew her. I knew who she was a woman.
Pru: You'd been dating for a while.
Holly: Yeah. I knew who she was, and I knew what she was doing with her work. And I utterly believed in that. But more so, and still more so now, I believe in her over her work and so yeah, I wanted to back her before we came into this. You know, me managing her. It's definitely a delicate game to play but I think, it's imperative to me that I don't inhibit her creative identity because that is her business. That's her. What's she's doing is an extension of herself. If I inhibit that with, "I've got these great ideas, this is what we're going to do." That's just going to dampen her spirit and her work is not going to shine. So I think that's really important to me.
Holly: So I actually try to let her stay in that whimsical land that she lives in as much as she possible can. And let her be creative and let her be wild. But over the course of the last year, it's really been about me... there is some business decisions you have to make. This is the situation you're in now, you have a business, it's real, but I'm going to streamline those things. I'm going to make them really efficient and effective so that your decision making is easier.
Pru: Beautiful.
Holly: So, I'm presenting you with this really clear, it's a yes or a no, here's my guidance on what I think is best. But you need to make that decision.
Holly: And I think that that's really important with creatives when they start out. They do have a struggle between both things.
Pru: Yeah.
Holly: But when they get to that step where you know, "Who's my first hire, or what's the first thing that I do?" I think it's really important to maintain your creative identity and don't have someone barge over that with a truck to say, "You know we can make money by producing this, this and this and this." They work for you, so make them work with your blend. Like of course there's times I say to Tess, "You have to make a decision on this." But for the most part, it's my job to lay out those logical pathways for her to flourish and then just follow her zig zag. I just try and be a little bit ahead of the zig zag so I can be like, "You know, I got you, I'm on it." "I'm on it." Which is tricky sometimes, I'm like, "Whoa, we're turning left." But yeah, I think it's important that she stays in that space.
Holly: Yeah, I've had to pull her to a bit to that business side, like so you know that stuff. But what's she's doing's magic right? Why are we going to destroy that with saying, "Tess I'd like you to learn how to read a profit and loss statement."
Tess: Oh my gosh.
Holly: That would just kill it. It would kill it.
Tess: Yeah. Absolutely
Pru: You're listening to the One Wild Ride Podcast with Pru Chapman. That's me. And I've snuck in here for a quite minute to let you know that shortly I'll be opening up places for my four month mentoring program. Built for creative folk to scale up their businesses. Now, I only two intakes a year and the next one will be in August. So if you're a creative looking to scale up your business, your impact, your knowledge and connect to a like-minded community, this is the place for you. The results are off the hook. For details, head over to theownerscollective.com/mentoring where you'll find the full run-down on my high end hustlers mentoring program. I look forward to seeing you there.
Pru: Cool. All right. Well, take me back... I love it we're zig zagging around here because the sabbatical... I think when I, because working with a lot of creatives, I knew about you quite a while ago. And had followed you and as you say like your business was really getting to that point where you were getting a lot of attention. Every second person I was talking to was going to you for design and they were really excited about it and then this sabbatical dropped. And it was like, it really made me sit up and pay attention I guess coming from more the business side of things. It was like, "Wow, everything's going really well. Everything's on this trajectory, and so what a strange time."
Pru: Obviously I'm not on the inside of your mind.
Tess: No, no.
Pru: But what a strange time it seemed like. And that's why I'm so glad you shared with us your two o'clock moment and I just think you explained that so beautifully and probably just articulated what so many creatives feel at so many different points. And that real kind of intuition around what this could be going forward and just to stay in my soul's purpose. Such a beautiful way to describe it. I guess within your sabbatical... because I've thought about my own, was it tough at any point to stay away. To stay in your sabbatical I guess. Because I think when people whimsically talk about sabbaticals it's like, "Yes, I'm going to go to Italy and I'm going to learn how to make pasta." But there are the realities of food on the table and those kind of things. So did you feel like you just found your sweet spot there and you were good to tap out or was it a challenge to stay in it at any point?
Tess: Yeah totally. So at the beginning was exciting. I was saying this yesterday, but it felt rebellious. Not against anyone, but in my own way. I'll just like, "No."
Pru: I'm not doing it.
Tess: I'm not doing it. It's just like a liberation. It was like the feeling of closing something down that's good. It just felt really weirdly rebellious, I don't know why.
Pru: It seemed rebellious from the outside too.
Tess: I was wasn't it. [crosstalk 00:33:47]. I'm not going to do this any more.
Pru: Yeah.
Tess: And the liberation of just like the demands going and even just not knowing what was next.
Pru: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tess: But I knew it was going to be good. Like I had this knowing that it was going to be good but yeah, there's this beautiful pattern that's happened in my life where I have felt these prompts in the past. It's a common theme where you're listening to your intuition as a prompt, you feel very intentional about it and you can't delete it out of your mind and it's normally based around surrender to me. So there's something I'm doing or something I need to change and I usually act out of obedience to that thing. And then I see this beautiful thing meet me. And it just takes me to the next. And it's just happened a lot. It's like you surrender the thing comes and you move. And it's just been this dance through my life. So when this happened, I actually expected the same dance.
Tess: I was like, I'm going to give up design and there's going to be this beautiful moment. Something amazing is going to happen and we all have deep desires of our heart and there's things that I have in my heart that I haven't seen come to fruition yet and I'm sort of always waiting for those moments. I know it's going to happen one day I'm not going to force it. So I'm just going to let it happen in its own timing.
Tess: So I'm always thinking, "Is this the thing?" And so yeah, at that time, at the very beginning of the sabbatical, it felt freeing. I was reading books I was sitting up crying. I was having moments of prayer and I had these beautiful songs. I actually have a playlist of all the songs at that time and I would just sit on the floor in Cape Town and I'd just be crying. I was just undone. I was having those beautiful moments of prayer with my Creator and just coming back to purpose. It was almost like I was being shown who I was created to be. So I get a bit emotional talking about it. So it felt like a life moment because I knew from this moment I would never create out of a place of things needing to be my identity. It was like work's not going to be my identity. I am going to be making things from a place of who I'm called to be. Sorry.
Tess: And so at the beginning, it was all very beautiful and very real and I was feeling things. I was smelling things I was writing the words were just in the wind. I could not stop writing and I'm not... I wouldn't call myself a writer, I was just getting these pieces of poetry and prose and I was putting them together and it was like these revelations and it was all making sense. And then we flew back to Australia. And I wasn't sure if I'd pick up design again. This is like three months into my sabbatical. I was just open and got back and I was still felt tenacious. I was like, "I can't get back into design." It almost felt repulsive at that point. It was like, "I cannot go there." Something magic's happening in my spirit, in my soul and to go back to that would just be so counter.
Tess: It would... I felt like it would have just undone everything that had been done in my heart in such a weird way. And I'm not saying design's bad. It was just for me personally, it wasn't where I was meant to be going. And then Caleb got back or we all got back together. He got a gig on another movie and then that contract ended and then we were unemployed, both of us. And we had money saved, but we literally had a year off and then the bank account was just going down and down. We had to live off all our savings and in that moment, that's when I was like, "I've done the wrong thing." There's no provision. I don't know what I'm doing. I had moments with Caleb, I'd be like, "I should probably go back to work, hey?" My job was the buffer and the finances getting low and there's no talk of any movies coming up and even being put forward for anything that we know of yet. And I don't have a job.
Tess: So there as definitely moments of extreme doubt. And like almost terrified. It was like, "Have I done the wrong thing." Because it was really good and we were making a really nice income and it was our provision. But then still, it was such a conviction I couldn't, even out of that place of being so frightened financially. You know you get to those places where you're just out of a place of trust. You're not trusting and you just think, "Oh, we're going to end up on the streets." It was some of those moments and even in those moments Caleb believed in my conviction too.
Tess: Even though we had those moments were like, "This is crazy, nothing's making sense." He was like, "I've never seen you do something like this, so this makes sense that you have to keep following your heart." And like I said before, that beautiful thing where I've surrendered and then something could meet me there. It was not until like a year and a half later. So for a year and a half, there was no sign of really anything. But there was lots of miracles in there. Like I fell pregnant with twins in that time. And intuitively in that season I felt to go on a detox which was... I'm not talking about health, but like that was just a random thing that I felt a conviction to do and I was in that season, so healthy, so rested and even now, that was a part of the greater plan because my body carried twins and that's a miracle in that time.
Tess: So the sabbatical created twins. It created an expression. I was writing. I started painting rainbows on rocks, just randomly with my daughter. And then people wanted to buy the rocks, which was... I was like, "No." I'm not selling you a rock.
Pru: Holly might but I will not.
Tess: But DM in [inaudible 00:39:21] oh, I'll give you $70 for that rock. And I was like. I just was like=
Holly: I was just having a sip of tea then, I nearly spat it out. "Can I buy your rock for $70?"
Pru: Oh $70 a rock.
Tess: I was like, "No."
Pru: [crosstalk 00:39:40] Holly's doing numbers on it already.
Tess: She's already got it.
Holly: We should actually do something. Tess Guinery will shortly be releasing rocks.
Tess: But it was just like again, another thing that's such an intuitive process. I was just painting these rainbows with my daughter, someone saw it and then. I was like, "I might a rainbow on a print and then I created this beautiful print and then someone wanted to buy it." And I was like, "Oh, I guess a print. I'm happy to sell a print. It's not a rock from the beach." So this woman was just desperate for this print. So she came over and bought it and then she told her friends and then her friends were emailing and saying, "Can I buy your rainbow." So then, I just found myself literally painting rainbows. Like just painting rainbows and I'd started sharing my poetry at that time online and so then people wanted the poetry and the rainbows. And that was happening. And it was again, another accidental business. But I still knew it wasn't the thing.
Tess: It was just for that time it facilitated whatever it needed to be, people needed rainbows in that time. They did. I just went with it. But I knew it wasn't the thing. I was like, this is not what I've given up graphic design for, painting rainbows. So yeah. It was just funny going back to what you said like, "Was there moments?" Definitely. "It was up and down and left and right and yes I'm doing the right thing, no I'm not doing the right thing. I've made the wrong decision. No, I've made the right decision." And it wasn't until we did the Kickstarter that moment was very scary, but when it reached its goal, that was a real relief moment. That was a year and a half later after the sabbatical. And that was kind of a little bit of a, "You did the right thing." Like you did the soul work and you did the thing that you felt to do. And it wasn't an intention to write a book, but it just felt like a, "You're not crazy."
Pru: Yeah.
Tess: So yeah. It was an interesting time but I'm really grateful that I went through it.
Pru: Yeah. Amazing. What a journey. The sabbatical. That's a book in itself really isn't it? I guess for anyone listening to this, or my good self, who was considering this sabbatical, would you give any advice on it?
Tess: I think yeah, the word sabbatical... I didn't even know what a sabbatical was. I didn't actually know the word when I took it. I just went, "I'm going to have a year off." Like I just knew it needed to be a year or whatever. And then I can't remember who it was, but someone said, "Oh, you're taking a sabbatical?" And I was like, "Oh that's a pretty word." So I remember Googling what it was and it was in, I think back in the Bible times every seven years the shepherds would rest. Or in the crop growing scenario like every seven years they would clean the soils to then reharvest. And I was like, "I really like that concept." Like every seven years just... And then I started reading more about design studios that would do it. Like every seven years they would just take a moment to breathe, dream.
Tess: So, yeah, I just didn't really know what a sabbatical was until I looked into it and I think there's a lot of the word sabbatical's going around a lot here. A lot of the times it sounds very glamorous but I think going into it's not glamorous. It's probably something to really consider. It is full surrender. It's like full surrender. It's not romantic. It sounds romantic. There's definitely beautiful things that grow out of it. I think the most beautiful things will grow out of it, but it's not quick response.
Tess: It's not like, "I'm going to take this sabbatical and in a week's time, I'm going to see fruit from this." It is, your intention needs to be clear and I think it needs to come from a conviction not a fancy idea. And I think most people that are going to take a sabbatical are probably in that head space if it's quite a serious decision, because to give up income for a year or give up your trade or your passion for a year or however long your sabbatical's going to be whether it's six months, whatever it is. It definitely should come out of a place of conviction I think.
Pru: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Amazing. I have been tempted for a while. It's really interesting as you say like the cycle of sevens as well. I haven't actually thought about that for a really long time.
Tess: Yes.
Pru: But there is really a beautiful pattern around sevens isn't there? And about of refresh and renewing and toiling that soil. And a lot of academics, I think we just... with the sabbatical as well, a lot of academics had their sabbatical time built in and paid by the universities.
Tess: Yeah, which is so good.
Pru: Which is so amazing. And makes so much sense as well. Break free of that stigma of mind.
Tess: Yeah.
Pru: And go and, yeah, just rejuvenate and replenish and maybe strip bare at the same time as well.
Tess: Yes. Yeah.
Pru: Amazing. All right. Goodness. So many things to ask you. You get so caught up in the journey, could sit here all day.
Pru: Okay. So I want to also ask you a little bit more about your creative process as well. And recently I was perusing your website, which I'd definitely recommend that everyone goes and checks out. It's so visually beautiful to look at. But I also stumbled across one of the blog posts that you had written which was about becoming a freelancer. And so smartly written by you by I guess how many DMs you get from people just saying, "Should I do it, should I not? What do I, you know, it's [inaudible 00:45:02]. So very, very smart that you'd written it all there. And there was a couple of points there that you'd written that just really resonated with me. The first one being, surrender yourself... sorry, surround yourself with dreamers and only a handful of realists.
Tess: Yeah.
Pru: Which I think is so amazing as well which is, "Know the creative process isn't always cups of tea and fun music. Sometimes, it's a choice. A choice to create whether you feel it or not."
Tess: Yes.
Pru: So talk us through that last one. I'm curious about that last one. I mean, does that bring in sort of that business side that with were saying once you have created this thing sometimes, or I guess, Elizabeth Gilbert I think adheres to this as well as she says, "It takes discipline." For her, it takes discipline to be creative as well. To sit down even if she doesn't feel like writing that day, to sit down at the same time each day and have the discipline to write.
Tess: No, a hundred percent. Yeah, I liken the creative process to life. I think life is the creative process. So like everything you do. The way you wake up and, my mum has done this her whole life. Like everything she does, the way she makes breakfast, the way she makes the bed, I always saw her walking out the creative process I guess. Like she's just an improviser and very resourceful. So it kind of... I didn't really know that I did this, that I was doing my creative process through my day, but as you start to sit down with other creatives and you talk about things, you start to put together what you do and what your process is and it isn't all cups of tea and it's not all that. Sometimes it's hard, and you don't feel creative, but when you're week and your lifestyle's set up, and creativity is a natural part of your everyday, whether it's the way you decorate your porridge, or the way you make your bed or the outfit you put together.
Tess: When that's all actually an expression, your process will just be... it's very natural, it'll just come. So yeah, my process is definitely improvised based. It comes from a lot of play and there are times when I definitely don't feel creative but I put things in place intentionally. Once a week, without a doubt, I will always paint. And I have three children. So for me it's just picking the time. It's always night times. And I make that a beautiful experience. I have music or I listen to a podcast, I light candles or have a glass of wine. I set the table up and it's just a... that's my weekly thing.
Tess: There's some weeks where I can't do it and that's fine but it's important to have those things for me because when you are feeling that creative cup, even in those times when you're not feeling creative, you'll find when you do enter that creative time, you are so receptive to creativity, you can just pull it. It just becomes like a tap. Like you can turn it on. You can draw from your day pretty much because your receptors are on.
Pru: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tess: So, I try not to let process be separate to life because even the work that's being created now that I'm playing with, it actually, if you break it down is actually all part of my life. So every painting has got a story about my life, so that's a process in itself. It's like, "Well, how does that experience interpret into a painting? How does that experience interpret into words?" And the writing process creatively, that's every day. Like I'm always writing. I don't even know that I am, but I'll be mulling over something that's really getting me down, or I don't understand or that's unjust. And you just find yourself, you know when you loop things. And then I find that I need to write it into a sentence to put a full stop and a revelation to that because it's just going to keep going round. So that's my creative process is life. When it's writing, I'm living, interpreting what I'm seeing and then it's coming into sentences and words.
Pru: Amazing. It sounds like a really deep integration.
Tess: Try living here.
Pru: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tess: It's not fun sometimes. Not being like work and life and creativity. But rather it's just all this one beautiful mess.
Pru: Yes.
Tess: And I think we're all creative. I think everyone is.
Pru: Me too.
Tess: There's not a type. I think a dentist is creative.
Pru: Absolutely.
Tess: I think someone that does concrete slab... we all are and we're all created, so we are creative. And I just think tapping into that in your own way. Not everyone's process would be the same, but everyone can tap into that somehow and all look different. Everyone's expression and everyone's process will be different, but yeah.
Pru: And I love the way that you've just described your mum as well because there's such beauty in that. It reminds me of a yoga teacher. Once I was doing a yoga practice and he just to always drill home about being mindful of how you moved between the poses.
Tess: Yeah.
Pru: And it was such like... it wasn't just like do one pose and then get to the next one and then get to the next one. But it was like be mindful of how you move in between. And within my yoga practice, that's now where I find so much creativity.
Tess: Yes.
Pru: Like the spaces in between.
Tess: Yeah.
Holly: Yeah.
Pru: And so, I love what you've just said there like whether it's the way that you make your bed or you decorate your porridge. It doesn't need to be spending a whole day painting, it can just be literally like, how you present your cup of tea to yourself or something like that.
Tess: Yeah. Life is art. I know that's said a lot but life is the art work. And everything that is created outside of life is just an art extension. So yeah, life is the art.
Pru: Yeah, Totally. Art, love all of the things. All of the expression of the same thing really in different ways.
Pru: Awesome. So recently I've had a bunch of my guests talk about creativity and also the component of vulnerability that is involved in creativity as well.
Pru: I might actually throw this one to you Holly. You work with Tess and obviously so you see her at some, probably incredibly vulnerable times.
Holly: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Pru: And maybe many other people that you've worked through, sorry work with through the business. I guess, I guess, what's your take on it. This vulnerability, I guess what I'm seeing is the, maybe the articulation and the languaging of vulnerability for creatives now and just that willingness. I think that Tess has kind of brought it throughout this podcast, it's like that willingness to step into the unknown can be where beautiful things are born from.
Holly: Yeah, I mean working in a creative field, being a creative person, producing or creating anything, I think is so closely tied to vulnerability. If you think about the work that people working in business. There's still creative elements to that. But there's a lot more rights and wrongs, yeses and noes. Does it balance, does it not? All of these types of things. But when you're working in a space that you know, you're pulling out parts of yourself to make something, there's something to be judged with that.
Holly: Producing a balance sheet. There's not a lot you can judge a person on that. You can say they did it really beautifully, but you can't judge them on that, whereas you're looking at a painter, or a writer or a graphic designer, and they're pulling out parts of themselves, and parts of their brain. And they're putting it out there and now saying, "And what do you think of that?"
Pru: That's the ultimate vulnerability.
Holly: The ultimate vulnerability. And because we do live in a society that is highly judgemental, we're constantly reviewing, scanning, what other people are doing and passing judgment on that with probably not even noticing and knowing how that could affect the other person. But I think being a creative person, you know, is the ultimate bravery really. Especially in today's society. Especially in the way that the world is today. We so desperately need those people to write pieces of poetry that crack at our heart and make us realize that we're raw and we can access that too. But then we put them in the spotlight and make them feel scared at the same time.
Holly: So I understand it and I completely understand it when I see people, graphic designers coming to produce the work. The fear that they have is huge. And I guess that's an internal battle how you conquer that, but Renee Brown, let's start reading her and everyone reading her is like... that's where the pinnacle is. You're never going to know what it's going to be unless you walk gently into that. It doesn't have to rush, it doesn't have to be loud and I'm out. Gently walk into that knowing that you have value regardless of what someone has to think of your work because it's perspective. But oh, the struggle is real.
Holly: I'm not sure, I mean I work within a realm of creativity but I'm... I would find it incredibly hard to put myself out there that way. You're calling upon yourself every single day to be brave. That's another day, "Be brave, be brave, and be brave." And it's hard. It's really hard. But I think that we can encourage people in creative spaces more and appreciate them more, pay for their work and really appreciate what they're doing. See their value that that might encourage them to share their work more.
Pru: Yeah, oh, beautifully said. Beautiful. And I think from our artists, our creatives, our designers, our musicians, you know, supporting things that are real and that are handmade and that are heart made. We had Emma who's a dear friend of mine from the plant room in here a little while ago. She was here a few podcasts ago. And we had such deep discussion about the importance of having handmade things, like made by actual people. And she said it in a really beautiful way, which was along the lines of, "When someone makes something with their hands, it's made from their soul." It's an extension of their soul. So of course that's what you want to put into your house is things that are soul filled rather than anything else.
Holly: A hundred percent. Yeah definitely. I think that there's been a wave where we've forgot the tangibility of live. And we're human beings and we need our senses to come alive in many different ways. And it just can't all be digital. It can't all be just your eyes confronted with information and graphics and we forget about those other touch points. And there's some actually some interesting research about that, the multi-channels of marketing and how they affect a consumer and how likely a consumer is to engage with a brand based on how they are marketed to.
Holly: And there is so much data that is suggesting now, they need a tangible experience to then link back with the digital experience that they've had. And the same goes for people living their lives. You know, that touch element. Someone putting their hands to something is incredibly special, but it speaks to every one of us about igniting that part of our brain. That there's something that's special that's handmade. I wholeheartedly believe that in the artistic... you know the artistic soul really. The expression of the artistic soul and that everyone's got something to offer in that realm and that we should do it more and we should embrace that side of [inaudible 00:57:23].
Pru: A hundred percent. And I think that as consumers we have a real responsibility in that as well. That we're supporting our local makers where we can and we're supporting our artists and we're supporting musicians, on a... because there are those people putting their soul out there for the benefit of us all.
Holly: Yeah.
Pru: And for mankind as well. Like for this... it's.. How to mention this. I worked in an investment bank for a very short period of time when I was temping in London and one of the guys there was hugely successful, making a lot of money and he also played the violin and he was like... I remember him saying to me amidst this crazy, like we were next door to Buckingham Palace, like it was this crazy world that we were living in at the time and I remember him saying to me, "To become an artist, that will never die. Like it is the most valuable of things. Like an artist in terms of painting or writing or singing or playing music or whatever it is, is like a thing that's... no factory can ever take it for you. It can never be mass produced. It is priceless and that's always really stuck with me. Even when I talk to a lot of designers through my work and sometimes they're doubting themselves and just to say, "You have the creativity is the priceless thing. Like hold it and treat it like gold." So yeah, I think from both the maker and also coming from the consumers and the choices coming off the back of James' podcast about business doing good.
Pru: I think we look to big businesses to really drive this. But then the responsibility of us as consumers with where we're putting our money and what we're supporting because that is our future.
Holly: A hundred percent. I think it's a lot too about, there needs to be some, hopefully some sort of awakening on a consumer level, you know a deeper dive into how you are consuming. And not just by buying, but what you are taking into your brain, into your heart, into your life. I would love to see more consumer education in that regard. And you see businesses doing great things, trying to share really great messages about what they're doing. And I would love to see that awakening more. And as you said, that supporting of that local artist. The guy singing in the pub, he isn't really going there for himself and there's five people there. He's sharing his passion and he's doing that to ignite something in someone sitting having their glass of red on a Thursday night.
Holly: It is quite a selfless act I think in situations like that and yes, they're doing what they love, but it's not like playing at Wembley, it's not like playing at big stadium. They're doing it out of love out of that and it creates communities as well and-
Pru: It's a two-way conversation. It's a two-way exchange of energy.
Holly: Yeah.
Pru: It's give and receive and that's what makes and keeps the whole thing sustainable and growing.
Holly: Yeah, a hundred percent. I definitely see that in Tess' work. Tess has always chosen the artistic route. She's always chosen that route, she's always wanted the highest level of quality. She's always wanted to give to the people the highest level, you know, sometimes regardless of what price that has come at because she's that true artesian, she wants to give that. And she wants to pull in people that also believe in that ethos and then deliver that out. And that... when we first met all that time ago, it made me so unbelievably happy because she was creating work from a really, really authentic place, but then she didn't stop there when it got passed on.
Holly: She wanted the next person in the line to have that same sense of authenticity about the work that they do. So when it turns wrap around to her and her end client, they have these products that has her continuation the whole way through that. And I would love to see designers carry that with them as well. Like what your supply chain says about you and about your business. Just not when your job's done, how can you encourage and know that the whole process is done in that same sentiment that you created in.
Pru: Yeah. And because you feel it when you have the end product in your hands. You feel where that came from.
Holly: Yeah.
Pru: Like at every step of the way.
Holly: Yeah. Hundred percent. We just like tune into that a little bit more I think would be amazing.
Pru: Yeah. I think it's a huge conversation and I think it's around conscious living as well. Just being conscious with our decisions.
Holly: Yeah. And not being perfect.
Pru: No, of course not.
Holly: I think I've seen a couple of people say recently like we don't need five people doing this thing perfectly, we need hundreds of thousand people doing it imperfectly and trying.
Tess: Yes, so true.
Holly: And sharing what you're doing and trying. I think is beautiful. And if we all just tried, there's definitely things that I want to do better. Just listening to how other people do them, makes me want to try a little bit harder at it but you know, I'm never going to be perfect at it but I don't think we need perfection.
Pru: Absolutely not and because it's completely unrealistic and I think there's a great quote, I'll have to find it and share it, but it was just saying like, we need more people... it's kind of along the lines of, we need more people being imperfect. So if you still eat meat, but you buy recycled loo paper, good on you. Like if you... and just all these like, what would seem as contradictions, it's like we just need to change the narrative around society instead of trying to criticize each other. It's like, "Great if you make one decision in what we know to be in the right direction, then let's celebrate that one decision that you've made."
Holly: Celebrate it right? Instead of speaking poorly of what you don't like, just speak positively about what you do like. If you've made this great decision to buy the great loo paper, tell me how good your loo paper is. Don't say, you are terrible because you buy Kleenex.
Holly: It's going to turn people away. Show me your really great loo paper and I'm bound to go and-
Tess: Who gives a crap people? Get on with it. [crosstalk 01:03:41].
Pru: So awesome. So awesome. Oh business doing good. I love it. Like creativity, business, doing good, conscious consumerism. All the things, all the things. So good.
Pru: Okay. I'm going to just move us along. I just wanted to, before we wrap up, I wanted to tap into you being a mum and I think we kind of tapped into it a bit earlier as well with just saying, "It's heckers over there. There's a lot going on."
Tess: It's a mess.
Pru: But I loved how you described just being fluid in that as well. And the reason I wanted to ask you was because in mentoring a lot of female creatives, it can be... I think there's this fear, particularly when they're going from maybe their late 20s into their early 30s, like particularly around, it seems to be particularly around that time where there's this real fear like they've built up all this stuff and then becoming a mum is going to stop everything. So I was just wondering, I mean, I can't comment on that, so I was wondering if you could just... It sounds like you've made it. It's become part of your life and the fluidity of it, but I imagine it comes with its own amazing set of challenges as well.
Tess: Definitely. I think there's the fear based around children stop life. There's definitely that. I talk to a lot of my girlfriends that are yet to have kids and it's a real thing. And I remember feeling it the same. I waited until I was 30 out of a fear. Not that that's late, but I wasn't ready, because I was like, "I have so much things I still want to do." And now that I have children, I feel like they've actually created my greatest work, like they've actually inspired my... the things that I'm most proud of creatively. And I think the fear might come out of the... going back to that purpose thing. I think when we can find out what that central purpose is, it might take the fear away of the timeline. I used to really worry about timelines, and now from [inaudible 01:05:35], I think kids just make you surrender in every way. Like they take... they do, they take all your time, they take everything.
Tess: They're first, they're number one, they mess up your timeline. They mess up your ideas and your plans and everything and you get really good when you're a mum at just going, "Okay." You pull out all your paints, you think you're going to sit down and do a paint session and the twins both wake up and then they're tag teaming waking up and you go, "Okay, it's not going to happen today."
Tess: So that whole surrender thing takes place but I also have this faith that it's all going to work out, so I know that there's a plan and I know that it's creative and beautiful and adventurous and there's going to be ups and there's going to be downs and be hard things and good things. But I know whatever I was placed on earth to do, it'll happen in its timeline and I can't, I can't tinker with the timeline. I can definitely be diligent and have goals and discipline and find my way in it. And it's just that feeling, it's knowing your now. I say that a lot, like knowing what your now is. And that is a sense of relief to me if I... I often will check and go, "What's my now?" Because I am probably more so would lean towards hustling. Like I'm very motivated. I want to do stuff and I get really frustrated when I can't. But motherhood has actually taught me just to... I can't do that anymore because I have too many people that need my attention on the daily.
Tess: But I think, yeah, coming to that place of surrender and going, I know there's a purpose, I know I'm on earth for a reason, I know it's going to be beautiful, whatever it is. Like I say, there'll be ups there'll be hard things, good things, but it's all going to work out as it needs. And I think coming from that place, it just takes that angst away of like... and your greatest work might not be in your 30s. Maybe... like one of my closest friends, I love her, she's just like set me free in so many ways, she runs a business. And she said, "My greatest work is going to happen when I'm 50."
Tess: She goes, "It's going to start then." She goes, "I can just see it. I'll have more life lesson behind me, my kids will be grown, the things that really matter will probably really matter. Like all the things that really matter." And she's excited and she's doing really well. And her work is amazing and what she produces. But I just loved her whole take. There was no fear. She had not fear in that what was ahead, she's like... and she hasn't got kids yet either, and that will come and it'll mess up her timeline for a bit, but then, you know, you only really have your children at home for the first five years unless you do home school. But nothing's concrete.
Tess: Like you can do what you want to do. Like if you want to do the home school thing you can and you can take your kids with you and do these crazy travel things. Or you can have a bit more structure and have them in school and then there's some time all of a sudden. Or your kids are in school, and suddenly you've got time. Like it's... there's no rush. I don't know what this sense of rush is. Like what's the rush. Like what are we all scared about.
Tess: Are we going to miss out? "We need to produce it now. It's good things take time and while life's happening that's where it's being produced so I just... everyone's in a different situation with children. Some people can't have them and some people can. And some people don't want to and everyone's story is different, but I just... I don't think the juggle needs to be feared when it comes to children. I think there's so many... and what's important to you, you'll still make happen. Like I've never stopped painting. I've been probably more creative since having kids because it's important to me. And I'm a better mum when I'm doing it so I make the time whether it's late at night or early in the morning. It just changes a bit, but it's definitely a juggle. I've definitely been undone by it all, I've definitely been frustrated. I probably get annoyed every week because I want to do the things, but coming back to that, there's no rush. What's the rush? The life work's going to happen. It's already got a timeline. I just have to step into it daily.
Pru: Such sage advice.
Tess: A friend of mine, it reminds me, she said to me earlier in this year, because she's doing a lot of amazing work, and she'd just fallen pregnant and a mentor of hers had actually said to her, who, again like was... she was like 70 and doing her best work kind of thing. And she said to her, "Your diamond will wait." If this is your purpose, it will wait for you. Yeah, it's not going to go anywhere.
Holly: For a few years.
Pru: It's nice isn't it just to kind of take the deadline off it.
Tess: It's releasing isn't it? It's releasing. It's like...
Holly: It's what we... it's what you and I were talking about what success is when we've been brainstorming a couple of days about talking about what success is and I've always said I think it's really imperative for people in business, not in business or people starting out in business, to take some time to look at what does success look like to you? Try to remove the traditional means which is a dollar figure. Or if you're still stuck on that certain income then ask yourself, what does that income give you? Is it flexibility to be with your children. Is it to be able to lead a nomadic lifestyle and work out, like what does success look like?
Holly: And children do turn things upside down in the greatest of ways, but that becomes that period of time to step into yourself again.
Holly: What does success look like to me now? And so for me, success looks like having these businesses, managing Tess and taking my daughter to school every single day.
Pru: Yeah.
Holly: That's success to me. Does that mean that I'm not hustling as hard? Hundred percent it does. She's going to get sick of me when she's 16 right? So while she's uber keen for me to be there with her, I'm redefining success for myself for this period of time and then that could change in six months or a year.
Holly: And especially for new parents. Just redefine it for that moment in time and then you can keep on changing that as it goes along.
Holly: As I said, I can't wait to see what the 50s look like.
Pru: Yeah. And I will take that definitely out of this podcast is, "Knowing your now."
Holly: Yeah.
Tess: Yeah.
Pru: What is your now, what does your now look like? It's been different.
Pru: Awesome ladies, well, I'm going to wrap us up in a minute, but I'm just going to ask you some rapid fire questions that we ask.
Tess: Please.
Pru: And Holly, don't you be looking away, you're getting them too.
Pru: [inaudible 01:11:56] here we go Tess. No Holly so, Tess I'm going to ask you first and then I'll come to you Holly.
Pru: Oh goodness.
Pru: Tea or coffee.
Tess: Coffee.
Pru: All the way. My kind of girl.
Pru: Fate or free will?
Tess: I think we have a free will but there's definitely a plan for our lives.
Pru: Nice.
Pru: What daily habits do you have in place?
Tess: Coffee, creativity and always love.
Pru: Perfect.
Pru: If you could jump on a plane tomorrow and go anywhere in the world with anyone, who would you go with and where would you go?
Tess: I'd go to the US and do a tour to all the little bookstores that carry the book. And I'd take my family and probably Holly.
Pru: Amazing.
Holly: Cool one.
Pru: Let's do it.
Tess: I've just got back from California, it was so much fun. I went for ten days and it was just the raddest.
Holly: So good.
Pru: Who else would you like to see me interview on the podcast?
Tess: I actually had a thought about this earlier but I have a girlfriend called the Honest Joan. I don't know if you've heard of her?
Pru: I have. We have done work together before.
Tess: Oh, okay. [crosstalk 01:12:59]. I think she would be really interesting to do a podcast. She is quirky as heck and just... she'd be fun.
Pru: Such a great human.
Tess: So yeah.
Pru: Yeah, definitely. If you're listening Amanda give us a shout out.
Pru: And what's the best way for people to connect with you?
Tess: Probably email to Holly.
Pru: Holly will translate all messages.
Tess: She'll also [crosstalk 01:13:21]. Yeah, probably email.
Pru: Or what are your channels to follow you on actually?
Tess: So, like my social media handles? So just Tess Guinery's the main one that I use and then I have the Apricot Memoirs which is mostly creativity.
Pru: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tess: But I don't really connect through DMs. I like a good email. I like connecting that way.
Holly: So, stay out of her DMs people. But check out her wares.
Tess: When it comes to business or whatever, I'm very loyal to my emails.
Pru: Awesome. All right Holly. Over to you.
Pru: Tea or coffee?
Holly: I don't actually drink many hot drinks. I know, what's wrong with me?
Pru: Weird.
Holly: I know. I know.
Pru: Moving on.
Pru: Fate or free will?
Holly: Oh definitely a mixture of both. I think the floor plans are down, you decide where the doors are.
Pru: Oh nice. Never heard it described like that.
Pru: What daily habits do you have in place?
Holly: Oh, loving on my husband and my two kids every day, hard.
Tess: Yeah you do.
Pru: Nice.
Pru: If you could jump on a plane tomorrow with anyone and go anywhere? Who would it be? Where would you go?
Holly: Oh, I would surprisingly say. It would be two. Can I have two?
Pru: You can.
Holly: New York. New York City with my husband, kids maybe, can we find a nanny to come with us so we don't wander the streets again like we did back in 2012. And Ireland. I've a real feel.
Pru: We were just talking about [crosstalk 01:14:43].
Tess: You'll find us in Ireland.
Pru: Real draw to go there.
Pru: Who would you like to see me interview on the podcast?
Holly: Oh okay. A really talented woman by the name of Marie, she owns Palindrome a lingerie company. She creates things to make women feel beautiful and really big things happening and she's just an amazing... I call her a little minx because she's just so minxy.
Pru: I thank my really good friend Zoe Weldon has told me about her actually as well. So if you're listening.
Holly: Oh, she's amazing.
Pru: You know where to get in touch.
Pru: And how can people connect with you?
Holly: Well, via Tess' email. Yeah my own Instagram is just Holly Masters and Morgan Printing, but management at Tess Guinery.co if you wanted me to talk anything Tess.
Pru: Awesome. Ladies thank you so much for joining me today.
Holly: Thank you so much.
Tess: Thank you so, so much. It's been so much fun.
Pru: Thanks.
Pru: To close out, I want to say a huge thank you to Costa Ray for the tunes, to Animal Ventura for recording and production. To the Bungalung Nation, traditional custodians of the lands where this podcast is recorded. And of course to you our incredible community.
Pru: If you're hungry for more, head over to our website, One Wild Ride dot co, where the conversation continues.
Pru: (singing).