Amanda Lederle from Create Being

 

“Telling my parents that I was diagnosed with depression was the most courageous I have ever felt.  It’s a reveal, there is no hiding and I think that is what is so amazing when you get to share your story. This is me raw, no hiding, not filter. I feel like the amazing part about being courageous is that you really have the opportunity to check in with yourself.”

In 2016, I was diagnosed with Major Depression. I took a year off of work, and I was able to re-evaluate what I really wanted to dedicate my time to, and how I wanted to express myself moving forward. I realized that dedicating myself to helping others to focus on self-development was really exciting to me. I believe that through figuring out who you are, by way of self-expression and checking into yourself, I was able to give that positivity to others and to myself.

It originally started when I wanted to have more positive messaging on Instagram. I just wanted to give something inspiring to people, that’s all it was at first. One evening I was trying to figure out the name and I said to myself “let’s just start it, who cares? I don’t know what I am doing, but that’s my intention”. The next morning, I woke up and I immediately thought CreateBeing. It felt like it was really the message I wanted to put out. It’s about being creative, being a human being, having the power to create and to become whoever you want to become. That’s how the name came to be. I am usually someone who would want to know what others thought, but I was so into the name that I didn’t care so I just went for it. That was three years ago. It didn’t really become a full-time gig until recently. Creativity to me is also problem-solving, so I love when people tell me they are not creative. I ask them if they solved a problem today, because that is creativity as well as expression.

Telling my parents that I was diagnosed with depression was the most courageous I have ever felt.  It’s a reveal, there is no hiding and I think that is what is so amazing when you get to share your story. This is me raw, no hiding, not filter. I feel like the amazing part about being courageous is that you really have the opportunity to check in with yourself. I always have to ask myself if I am being honest with myself, because I am the one who wakes myself up and puts myself to bed. I’m the one responsible for me, so I have to take care of this person.

When I reflect on the tough areas of being an entrepreneur, for me it’s definitely navigating exactly what am I am trying to do and what my mission is. I’m always trying to figure out what the hell my mission is. I wrote it down in the beginning, but I am open to change and to the idea of it being flexible. I also don’t want to look at numbers and stats, because that’s not my thing. It’s also difficult to find the balance between being okay with that, but also knowing that I want to be able to feel financially secure. A lot of the time I am also not around a lot of people every day, so feelings of isolation have been tough for me as well.

What keeps me moving and inspired through the tough parts of running a small business is when I hear other people’s stories. That is what inspires me the most. That’s when I feel really lit up – when I hear the experiences of others, and how they came to be. Growing up, I was really interested in film and how someone could make something where you get to witness such a journey – that always interested me. Out of all the other jobs I have done, what I have always liked the most was helping people figure out what they wanted to do. I realized this recently because I learned that it’s stories that really connect us. I think when we try to be so different and unique we end up forgetting how similar we are, whether it’s in our passions or that we are all human beings.

 

Follow the important work that Amanda is doing for our community…

Personal Instagram: @amandalederle

CreateBeing Instagram @createbeing

Website: createbeing.com for resources and events in Toronto that focus on mental health, creative expression and self growth

Upcoming projects include podcasts and workshops.

Written and illustrated by Stephanie Chinn @stephaniechinnart

Edited by Katie Bull @bull_katie

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Or Har-Gil

“Creativity for me is the time for internal focus. When I am in it, it feels playful and spiritual. It feels like a time where I am trusting myself, and opening up to receiving messages from something bigger than myself.”

I pick a word at the beginning of each year to guide my year. I don’t really do resolutions at the beginning of the year, but I do choose a word to set an intention with and to keep my focus. The word that I chose for 2018 was effervescent, which is what joy feels like to me. It’s like champagne – it’s light and bubbly and joyful, and to me it’s when I feel so creative and in my element that it just spills out of me and over to other people.

I am an art therapist, and I also host creative workshops. The intention behind my workshops is to create a safe and playful container for people to show up and look inward and bring out whatever feels most pressing to them. In all of my workshops, I really stress that it’s about being in the process, it’s not about the product. Sometimes you’ll make something that you think is aesthetically pleasing, and sometimes you won’t. The power of what you are doing is in the process and in the way that what you’ve created is authentically communicating your experience, not how beautiful it looks.

Creativity for me is hard to talk about, but when I am in a creative process, it’s not about waiting for inspiration to strike but about the time that I block off for it, the ritual I have around it. The table where I do my making is where I do my tarot, so it’s a very special space for me. Even if I just come and sit down at that table it already feels like a special moment that I am taking for myself. Even if I just take five minutes and play around, or I sit and make nothing, or I end up spending hours making something, it’s about just being with my thoughts, and not on my phone. So much of my life is so externally focused. Creativity for me is the time for internal focus. When I am in it, it feels playful and spiritual. It feels like a time where I am trusting myself, and opening up to receiving messages from something bigger than myself.

I feel the most myself when I am sitting at my table with my cards and my art supplies and tuning everything else out. That is when I feel the most centered. It’s like I don’t have to perform or do anything, I can just be. I also feel really myself when I am in close conversations with friends. When we just get into the most intimate conversations about our souls, that is so validating because I am always craving and seeking that. It took me a long time to find my people where that is what they are seeking too, so there is something so nurturing about those moments.

When it comes to calling myself an artist, I feel much more comfortable saying that I facilitate creative processes for other people. Calling myself an artist is really hard, and I think part of that is because my focus is not about the thing that I am making or about gaining mastery over technique, even though that can come over time. It’s more about the process and the experiential part of it, and I think that sometimes art tends to be intertwined with the object and that is not necessarily where my emphasis is.

I really struggle with making a structure for myself that works and gives me enough breathing room, but still ensures I get things done without just cuddling with my dog or reading a book or scrolling Instagram. Perfectionism is something I struggle with as well. It’s tough to know when something is good enough and it’s not constructive anymore to spend any more time thinking about it. I am a big over thinker I spend a lot of time reflecting and introspecting which I feel is one of my strengths, but I can get stuck in that too. When I reflect on emotions I struggle to express, anger is a hard one for me to feel. I think that is the case for many women, because we are told that is not appropriate. Allowing myself to feel and to express anger is something I still struggle with. I tend to hang onto it rather than express it. I am trying to work with myself on being more connected to how I am feeling moment to moment, and expressing that as I feel it.

There are so many things that I don’t know but what I do know for sure that I am here for a reason. I don’t always know what that is, but I have a feeling about that.

 

Or Har-Gil is an art therapist based out of Toronto. She helps others to ignite their creativity so they can learn, grow and thrive.

You can follow her path and see the amazing and inspiring work she is doing for our community at  www.orhargil.com

Curated by Stephanie Chinn @stephaniechinnart

Edited by Katie Bull @bull_katie

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Sonja Seiler of Nurture Retreats

“I just shattered, and in that moment of shattering it was like this small voice that made me feel the most love I’ve ever felt in my life. It felt like pure unconditional love, and I thought that if I could feel that love at my most broken, then the error is not in the fact that I’m not loved – it’s that I’m not I’m not giving myself that kind of love.”

I started following the intuitive pulls when I was going through what I affectionately call the long dark night of the soul. I was feeling completely creatively, personally, and professionally stagnated and stuck, and I had a kind of personal spiritual epiphany. I felt at my most broken and in that moment, on my knees crying on the floor, it felt like everything was gone. I had tried everything under the sun – journaling, meditation, therapy, everything. I still wasn’t able to do the one thing that I felt was necessary in order for me to feel okay with myself. I just shattered, and in that moment of shattering it was like this small voice that made me feel the most love I’ve ever felt in my life. It felt like pure unconditional love, and I thought that if I could feel that love at my most broken, then the error is not in the fact that I’m not loved – it’s that I’m not I’m not giving myself that kind of love. When I thought about how I love myself, and how I could do better, I thought about giving myself the space to try the things I love and want to do more of. It was really simple at the time, and it is simple in concept, but it wasn’t necessarily easy. I started following these pulls or tugs to go into this store right now, or to start investing back into singing. I love hosting people, cooking, art, writing, and photography, so I started to do these things with no agenda, and it was remarkable how within a few short months my life changed. I was using my creativity in this innocent way, for nothing other than my own soul, and that really affirmed myself. I suddenly felt like I had this way through, as opposed to thinking that I needed to be something other than myself in order to achieve being okay with myself.

One day, I was on the street car following an intuitive pull. The street car stopped and I walked up to what I thought was a new yoga studio in my neighborhood. There was a woman in the window, and she looked at me and her whole face lit up, and she beckoned me to come inside. I thought that was strange, because I didn’t know her, but I went inside and she held out her hand and was like welcomed me and told me that this was her new coworking space – and then she asked me what my biggest dream was and how she could help make it come true. She looked right into my eyes and asked me that question. No one had ever really asked me before, but I told her that since I was eight years old, I had dreamt of buying an old farmhouse and renovating it to use as a co-working bed and breakfast where creatives could come together. I have always loved the symbolism of the dinner table, and I loved the idea of having everyone there sit down to meals together and cooking for them. Of course, she didn’t have a magic wand to give me the farmhouse, but she asked me if I had ever thought about hosting retreats. I hadn’t, but I was very interested in it, so she asked me to go home and write it all down – and I did just that. When I took it back to show her, she told me it was perfect and not to change a thing. She was like a catalyst for the whole idea. I had never owned a business or ran a retreat before, but I had a lot of experience hosting and in leadership, and I had a corporate job at the time, so I pulled my skills together to create this retreat.

 

I made so many mistakes in the beginning because I had never owned a business before. Eventually we got this really unique and amazing team of women together, and the whole idea was to bring women together so they can learn from one another through whatever creative languages that they use to inform their own lives. We did everything from floral design to macramé to calligraphy to cooking. That retreat then grew – we have seasonal dinners now, and out of those retreats a community has grown. What I am looking to create through Nurture is a space where people feel safe to be nourished in their valleys as well as their peaks. I think so often, the focus is more on people talking about their brand, but I think that we get more from listening to other people’s stories as entrepreneurs. There is so much that creators go through, and there is anxiety from being someone who has to constantly make all of the decisions. It’s important to have a community to candidly talk about those things with in a way where you’re not going to be judged for not knowing how to set up a Mailchimp account.

 

I get inspired a lot by other people, by the spark that other people have and the way they see the world. I love encountering different world views and areas of excellence, that’s one thing I am always looking for. I love to bring people together, but I really love the curation of people who I know will spark one another in exciting ways. When I am putting together my dinner series I always sit people down by those I feel they should connect with. What can sometimes personally get in my own way is my own thinking. I feel self-conscious sometimes about sharing my own struggles, especially as someone who runs a company focused on self-care and feeling supported and nurtured. I’m a recovering perfectionist, so if I don’t do something right immediately then I often will judge myself for that. Running a business is so public, and because you’re the one creating it you can think of feedback about your business as feedback about who you are, and that connection is a difficult one to break. I’m trying to break in a more public way, I want people to know that we all make that connection as creators.

 

 

To check out the magic that is Nurture Retreats check out her website HERE or you can follow her on Instagram at @nurtureretreats

Curated and illustrated by Stephanie Chinn @stephaniechinnart

Edited by Katie Bull @bull_katie

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Coko Galore

I feel the most in flow as a performer when I am not in my head on stage. When I get in my head there is almost a sense of clenching, like I am retaining the energy instead of letting it out. I flow best when I am free.”

I knew I wanted to be a performer, I just didn’t know where exactly my talent was. After trying music and blogging, I started acting classes and fell into improv comedy when an instructor suggested it to me. One of the things I’ve discovered is that I used to look at comedy from the perspective of just writing jokes, but now I think that what’s funny to me is more so real life, and how seriously people take the things that happen to them. I find people very fascinating. I love people watching, and the comedy I do is based off of my fascination with the very small details that people execute. I once stood outside and watched one of my friends clean the top of each can in such a meticulous fashion, and I was wondering what was going through his head. I find people fascinating when they do the small everyday things, like what people do when they are sitting on the subway.

 

I feel the most in flow as a performer when I am not in my head on stage. When I get in my head there is almost a sense of clenching, like I am retaining the energy instead of letting it out. I think I flow best when I am free. Freedom is a big inspiration of mine. Bill Cunningham was a street photographer that worked for the New York Times, and he has this quote that money is the cheapest thing and freedom is the most expensive. He was such an artist, in the sense that he would try to capture what he thought was beautiful and he hated the exchange of money for it. He thought there was a sense of ownership to art and that art should be available to anybody. I think for me, there’s a constant question of how do I become free from systems that are built in our minds that get into our heads. What inspires me is to constantly fight back again them and try to break free myself.

I feel the most courageous when I am fighting for equality. I try my best to be a person that stands with marginalized folks, and I try to be as informed as I can be. I feel the most courageous because I feel like it’s not just me, it’s me standing on the shoulders of everyone before me, and I am simply one of many in the pyramid. I am very vocal in person; I’ve been like that since I was a kid so I don’t feel like that is courageous for me necessarily. I’ve been surprised by how courageous and vocal I have become online about certain things. I remember writing a post in 2016 after a number of black men had been murdered by police, and thinking that once I posted it, it would be permanent and people would see it. I eventually turned it into an article when someone asked me to. I feel like there is a sense of permanence in writing that scares me a little, but also makes me feel brave.

My favourite movie is actually The Matrix, and one of the reasons why is because it really is about being mentally free instead of being mentally enslaved. It’s the choiceless act of doing things. Doing things because its automated instead of doing things because you choose to do it, or doing it because of influences around you that are pushing you instead of you wanting to do it. I think awareness is a big thing there, because if you’re unaware then I feel that’s a lack of freedom. Being able to choose the choice you want is a sense of freedom. I choose my choice… I’m pretty sure that is from Sex and the City.

I have always been very inspired by my mom. She is such a giving person, and I try to be as giving as she. That comes through in my art because I try to look at art as a form of generosity so instead of holding it in or writing it in a diary I try to make it so that everyone else can hear it and learn from it. I hope that people connect to it, because you don’t know how people are affected by the things that you say and the work that you do. It’s taken time for me to convince myself that my art is worthy of an audience. It took me a lot time to be able to put that little label on Instagram as a comedian. They are just ideas in my head and what I think is funny, but through training and experience I’ve absolutely gained more confidence in that department. I do believe in myself… most of the time. I also believe in the 4 pillars of Moulin Rouge: Truth, beauty, freedom and what’s the the fourth one again, oh yes, love.

 

Coko is an actor, comedian and curator based out of Toronto, ON.

You can follow Coko on instagram  at @cokogalore

Here are some of her upcoming projects…

-Coko & Daphney 5 years Anniversary on January 4, 10pm, Bad Dog Theatre

– Black and Funny 3, Feb 1 and 2, Bad Dog Theatre

– podcast Coko +1, candid convos with Coko, to be released in 2019

Article curated by Stephanie Chinn @stephaniechinnart

Edited by Katie Bull @bull_katie

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Katie Bull

” I still look back at the whole experience and wonder how I did that. Whenever I feel my self-doubt creep in now, and I don’t want to do something out of my comfort zone, I remind myself of what I’m capable of. I think that was a big catalyst in my life, in learning how to believe in myself and what I can do. I just needed to prove it to myself.”

Creativity for me is finding ways to express the things that I’m not saying. I think that’s the biggest thing about writing for me. When I was a kid I often really struggled to explain how I was feeling. I remember times when my mom would ask me to write her a note and tell her how I was feeling that way when I was really upset and couldn’t verbalize it. I guess eventually I just started doing that on my own too, through journaling and finding ways to get the things I was thinking and feeling onto paper. I was very anxious as kid. I worried about everything, I was terrified to go to school, and didn’t like to be around people I didn’t know. I didn’t like talking or having to voice things, and that’s something I struggled with for a long time. Anything that was out of my comfort zone, even just staying the night at a friend’s house, was off the table for me. I never wanted to let myself out of the bubble of what I knew.

And then, when I was 19, my dad was working for the Arthritis Society. They used to have this program called Joints in Motion where participants would fundraise for Arthritis research, and then teams would travel to different places around the world to complete some kind of physical feat. They introduced an upcoming program where the team would travel to Rome and run the Rome Marathon, and when I heard about it I just said I was going to do it. No one thought it made sense, and they were kind of right – I didn’t know how to run, I didn’t like being around new people, I didn’t like spending the night away from home, and I had never been on an airplane, but for whatever reason I got it in my head that I was going to do it anyway. By the time the race came around, I was the only participant from New Brunswick. I got on the plane alone and met up with the teams from other provinces at the airport in Toronto, where we all flew to Rome together.

The race had a 7-hour time limit, and when people asked what my time goal was I always said 7 hours. I just wanted to finish it. It was certainly tough physically, but I think it was way more difficult mentally. I remember running the course that day and asking myself what ever made me think I could do it, that I was never going to make it to the end. I was rationalizing with myself that I just had to keep going, because even if I stopped I had no idea where I was or how to get back to my hotel, so I had to make it to the end to find the rest of my team again. When I was doing the training, I was told that even though the race was 42 kilometers they were only going to train me up to running 37, because at that point adrenaline would carry you the rest of the way. I thought that was kind of crazy at the time, that I would be exhausted by 37 kilometers and another 5 would feel like the end of the world at that point, but they ended up being totally right. I remember coming around the corner seeing the 37 marker, and thy had a DJ set up and when he saw the Canadian flag on my shirt he started playing “Hello” by Dragonette – that song still makes me smile whenever I hear it. I just kept going, and I made it to the end. When I talk about crossing the finish line, I still don’t really know how to express what that felt like. I remember calling my parents afterward, and they had been awake watching a live stream of the race online so they had just seen me finish. I don’t remember what any of us said, I just know that I cried a lot. I still look back at the whole experience and wonder how I did that. Whenever I feel my self-doubt creep in now, and I don’t want to do something out of my comfort zone, I remind myself of what I’m capable of. I think that was a big catalyst in my life, in learning how to believe in myself and what I can do. I just needed to prove it to myself.

My writing varies. I do a lot of freelance writing for websites, but when I’m writing for me, it’s usually more personal essay style stuff. Sometimes it’s public and sometimes isn’t. I’ve started to write a little bit of poetry as well, but I’ve never published any of it anywhere – right now that’s just for me. I still feel uncomfortable sharing my writing sometimes, but I’m constantly pushing myself to do more of it. I’m often inspired by my own feelings, but I’m also always inspired by finding out more about things I’m curious about. I like learning about different perspectives and how other people see the world, how people navigate their lives differently. Music has always been something else I’m curious about, and something that inspires me. When I started to really get into music, I wanted to be on the business side of it more. Live music especially has always been something I’ve loved. I come from a really small town and bands I loved usually didn’t play anywhere close to where I lived, so I was constantly asking my parents to drive me around to shows. I think now the idea of being able to help bring music to people is really inspiring to me, because I know how much it always meant to me.

I used to think of happiness as being tied to success but now I think it’s more the opposite. I don’t necessarily feel happiness as a result of success, but I will feel successful when I feel happy. I used to think I would be happy once I accomplished certain things, now I know I need to find the things that make me happy and follow them. That is now my definition of success.

 

 

Katie Bull is a writer and editor based out of Toronto, ON. She is also the wonderful editor for this project!

To follow her on her creative journey you can follow her on instagram @bull_katie

Curated by Stephanie Chinn @stephaniechinnart

Edited by Katie Bull @bull_katie

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Almetri Santos

“When you have a calling that strong, it’s unlikely that you will be able to avoid it, and that was the case for me. I was scared, very scared, and I still am sometimes. When I’m faced with challenges I wonder if I can do it. When I teach, it doesn’t come from the book, it comes from the heart. I think when it comes from the heart, you know you’re doing what your meant to.”

I started my meditation practice like everyone else, wanting to learn more about it. I watched all of the YouTube videos I could find to get free resources, but even then I always had this calling that I wanted more. I was drawn to it in a way I couldn’t avoid. Eventually, I took a course. At the end of the course, I remember the teacher saying “if you want to do this, if you want to teach…” and I quickly realized that was exactly what I wanted to do. Shortly after that, I went to do my first certification. I’m certified at the Chopra center in California. I did all of my certifications with Deepak Chopra. Working with him was intense, real, raw, and fantastic.

When you have a calling that strong, it’s unlikely that you will be able to avoid it, and that was the case for me. I was scared, very scared, and I still am sometimes. When I’m faced with challenges I wonder if I can do it. When I teach, it doesn’t come from the book, it comes from the heart. I think when it comes from the heart, you know you’re doing what your meant to. Courage can be named many other things. It’s called compassion, or self-forgiveness, or kindness. It’s how strong your self-belief can be. It’s nothing short of amazing. I create my programs around who I am working with, so my language working with troubled youth will be different than the language I use when I am talking to health care practitioners or the CEO of a company. Meditation is not the same thing every day. Sometimes your mind is very noisy and even though I’ve been doing it for ten years, there is still something about that silent awareness, its unbelievably reinvigorating.

I am a firm believer that with everything we experience in this life, the one thing that makes sense is the ever-evolving process of self-discovery. I went through a lot of therapy when I was doing my training for hypnosis. When you go deeper and you find things about yourself that you never dared to face and the negative impact that they had on you, you realize that you’ve conquered those things and that you are going to live a better life. It becomes something else to take you another step higher in your own evolution of self-discovery, and nothing can beat that. That inspires me. I am also inspired by music. I am a jazz lover, and I also love Brazilian music. It just gives me that feeling that everything is going to be alright.

I believe your purpose is whatever moves you in whatever phase you are in in your life. It isn’t what you force yourself to do, not what you do as an obligation (and we all have those!) but what moves you beyond redemption. You have to do it. Your purpose today might be different then your purpose in a year. It is so much easier to do a job when you are told what to do, because then you just go and do it. Those days on your own, for anyone who is an entrepreneur or is starting a business, that is when we struggle with the fear and self-doubt. When that happens for me, I just go back to what I know for sure.

I know for sure that I am a part of something bigger. I know that I am the universe, I am made up of the same thing you are and everyone else, that we are all in this together. I know that for sure, I have felt it, I don’t need a book to tell me that or a scientist to prove it. We are the universe, we are pure love, but sometimes we forget that. I also know for sure that my voice, my message, and the gifts I was given by the universe or higher power – whatever you want to call it – it was given to me, and it does have value and it does have uniqueness and it’s wonderful that I can offer it. I can only offer who I am. I just offer my guidance and you go off of your own interpretation of that.

Almeiri is the owner of Modern Meditators. You can find out more about her work, or book a session with her at www.modernmeditators.com

Follow her movement on instagram @modermeditators

Curated by Stephanie Chinn @stephaniechinnart

Edited by Katie Bull @bull_katie

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Sydney Crowe

“I have learned that courage is being so fucking scared of something, but doing it anyways. I feel like I am constantly creating and re-creating myself. That both excites and scares me.”

I am a goal-oriented person. I like to set goals, see myself achieve them and then find another one to work on. Weight lifting is something that is nice to maintain and it isn’t me jumping from thing to thing, like I tend to do. I used to do slam poetry, and now I am picking up dancing in heels for Army Of Sass. I am incredibly nervous about doing it, but I’m also very excited. My girlfriend has done it for years, and she finally talked me into it. I have learned that courage is being so fucking scared of something, but doing it anyways. I also feel closest to myself when I am moving or active in some way. I grew up with a really physical background my entire life. I’ve been lucky enough to play sports and be a really athletic person my whole life. I’m used to always being in a team mentality and meeting new people and connecting with new people. Having a team mentality translates into my everyday life and has shaped my personality.

I have always been inspired by powerful women. Being a feminist for me means paving the way for the younger generation of females. I did Improv comedy in high school and I went back to coach after graduating. When I moved to Toronto after I finished coaching them, everything I did here felt like a chance to share my experiences with them, so that when they graduated and came to Toronto they could have the things I learned with them and hopefully have a better experience than they would otherwise.

When I get up at 2 o’clock in the morning to get a glass of water and my hair is huge and I look in the mirror, I sometimes think “I don’t know why the hell anybody is friends with me, go back to bed”. I think that is my most honest being. If someone is going to be in my life, they need to be able to handle that moment. I feel everything at 100%, there is no in between. When I am happy it is pure joy, but when I am angry I just want to hide. I think that over-feeling sometimes can be a lot. When I am down, I often find me telling myself that I’m not good enough. That inner voice that says “because this happened you are not good enough. You were not good enough for that job, you were not good enough in that relationship, you’re not a good enough friend”. I think that just comes with the anxiety and the fear of not being good enough. I find that is at the core of why we hold ourselves back. It is always a work in progress. I have to remind myself not to listen to that part, not to let it take over.

I feel like I am constantly creating and re-creating myself. That both excites and scares me. Self-confidence for me has become recognizing that not every part of me has to be perfect, and I think I feel the most self-confident when I feel like I am achieving something. I tell myself “you’ve got this, look at all you have already achieved. Even though in this moment you feel anxious, also know that you are a successful person and the things you do matter.”

I am grateful for all of the experiences in my life but mostly for the negative ones. Those are the experiences that have shaped me the most, and I personally like failure more than I like success because of that. I hate failing, but I know I learn more when I do. The things that make me anxious and the failures push me harder to grow. I have learned that the heartbreaks we experience in life are the things that show you what you learned, because the things you miss about a person are not things about them, but things about you that you love, reflected in them.

I’m so curious about what the next year of my life is going to look like, because I have no idea! What I do know for sure is that next year will not be the same as last year. I know that my life is ever-changing and that in this moment, I am okay with that.

You can find and follow Sydney on her journey through IG @crowesyd

Curated by @stephaniechinnart

Edited by @Bull_katie

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Sophia Ruffolo from Femmebought

“When I reflect on what I believe in, the first thing that comes to mind is myself. I believe in myself. I don’t think you can pursue entrepreneurship if you don’t believe in yourself.”

I was very confident that we would see our first woman President of the United States of America in 2016. We had seen our first African American male President. I thought for sure a woman was next and we were breaking that glass ceiling together. That evening taught me that women don’t feel the kind of solidarity towards other women that I feel. I live in a bubble. It had honestly never really occurred to me that women wouldn’t support and vote for a woman. It seemed so obvious to me. I was a little devastated to find that some women didn’t feel this way. It was like having an outer body experience watching us reaching for the glass ceiling and see it get thicker and farther away. I felt a sense of guilt, that I hadn’t done enough to support women. That’s when I decided to go to the Women’s March in Washington D.C. There were so many women there. Women Supporting Women. It was exhilarating, powerful, historical, and also a pivotal moment for me. I realized that not all women felt supported enough to come to the march. Politics had gotten in the way of women solidarity. That’s when I decided it was my calling in life to create something that made women, ALL WOMEN, feel like they were part of something. That moment in time really shaped my new frame of mind which is to always support women. Buy women made products and tell people about it. Don’t just do it, but tell people about it. Don’t just talk the talk, but walk the walk. It’s one thing to do things, but you make a bigger impact when you tell people about it and encourage them to make a change, too. That is what inspired me to start Femmebought.

My goal with Femmebought was to create an inclusive community that invites all women, gives them a collective voice, and a space to support and empower each other. It’s an online directory of women-owned businesses, but we are also a movement that empowers more women to reach the top. This journey with Femmebought has been enlightening. It has taken me outside of my normal. I’m used to working in very tall buildings with people who wear suits, and now I’m also in this new world of trying to figure out how to start your own business and the personal risks that come with that. I’m learning about different people, what they do and how they do their lives. I always had a pretty narrow perspective, as an adult, about the right path to success and what it looks like, and now I am much more enlightened because I am seeing all these women who have businesses who are doing such creative things with their careers.

I’m so inspired when I see a woman who can get up and just lead people to action. I have had a couple of bosses who have done that. I had one boss who, when she walked in the room, made people want to DO, want to take action. Her ability to get people rallied around her, I found that to be a really inspiring thing. I think that self-confidence is figuring out what you want to say and just saying it. That comes with being true to yourself as well.

When I reflect on what I believe in, the first thing that comes to mind is myself. I believe in myself. I don’t think you can pursue entrepreneurship if you don’t believe in yourself. Trying to empower people and trying to find the good, you really have to believe in yourself, because most of the time people ignore you. Then there is this tiny population that says yes, and within that tiny population are the people you actually believe when they  say yes. You are not going to change that population of people who say no or the ones who don’t care, at least not at first, so you just believe in what you’re doing and that the right outcome will happen with the energy of those people who believe in you and the passion they generate in you. As a kid I was surrounded by very strong female role models, and now I have women tell me that I’m their role model, or I help inspire them, and that makes me really believe in myself and Femmebought even more.

In five years, I would love to have seen that I really helped people and the lives that I touched. I hope to see the women entrepreneurs who are part of our Femmebought community thrive and succeed and be a strong and meaningful voice in the economic marketplace. We’re already seeing that happen in just six months. I meet people who tell me they think differently in their buying habits, they’re deliberate with their spending. Personally, I hope to grow Femmebought into a multinational company with 20,000 members. It’s simple really. It starts with three women entrepreneurs hiring nine women as they build their business. If those nine women go out and do the same thing you end up carrying out an equation I keep in my back pocket called 3 to the power of 9. Essentially that translates into 20,000 women entrepreneurs hired.  That is where we are headed.

Curated by Stephanie Chinn @stephaniechinnart

Edited by Katie Bull @bull_katie

You can find Femmebought on instagram @femmebought

If you are looking for a woman business owner or are a woman business owner in Toronto, Nashville, Chicago or Tel Aviv; go to www.femmebought.com to find the directory or to ad yourself to the directory!

 

 

 

Lucas Bergantim

 “When I am sitting around and messing with my sketchbook and I find something good starts forming on the page, I sort of zone out and let my hand finish the work. That sounds weird but it’s very meditative and I find my best stuff comes out when that happens. It’s like a diary, I can put anything in there and I don’t have to show anyone if I don’t want to.”

Earlier last year, I went through a very heart-breaking experience. My girlfriend at the time cheated on me, and I felt like I’d be stuck there forever. Sadness is an emotion that I have always struggled to feel.  When times are tough my brain likes to dwell on it, which makes it worse. I’ve always felt self-conscious and kind of silly about getting sad. I think it might be because I’m a boy and I feel like I’m not allowed to show emotion, or maybe I’m just insane.

I’m inspired by Simon Pegg. When Simon Pegg was about the same age I am now, he went through a similar earth shattering, heart destroying, emotionally draining break up like the one I went through. He ended up writing the TV series Spaced about it, and that’s exactly what I am trying to do with my heartbreak. I don’t know if it’s going to be a TV series or if it’ll be a graphic novel or some other artform entirely, but the script is nearing completion and it’s definitely something that I want people to see. In the 15 years since Spaced, Simon Pegg has completed his own trilogy of films, as well as written and starred in a Star Wars and Star Trek film in the same year – basically all of my dreams rolled into one.

When I am sitting around and messing with my sketchbook and I find something good starts forming on the page, I sort of zone out and let my hand finish the work. That sounds weird but it’s very meditative and I find my best stuff comes out when that happens. It’s like a diary, I can put anything in there and I don’t have to show anyone if I don’t want to.

Ideas circulate easily when my Creative Bank Account is full. The Creative Bank Account is an idea I got from an artist I follow named Jake Parker (creator of Inktober!) Like a real bank account, you can’t spend money you don’t have, and it’s the same with a Creative Bank Account. I like to fill mine with watching movies, reading books and hanging out and exploring the city with friends. To me, creativity is expressing yourself. Whatever medium is used in doing so is irrelevant, as long as your true self is coming out. Everybody has a voice and we all have different ways of using it.

What brings me hope when I am struggling is the quote “All paths serve the beam” from Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series. It’s kind of silly (and needs a hell of a lot of backstory), but whenever something bad happens in my life I tell myself this to remind myself that this is my path, that sometimes bad shit is going to happen and that’s okay. I’m on a path to my own Dark Tower, and regardless of how long it takes or how many bumps I hit along the way, eventually I’m going to get there.

 

Lucas Bergantim is an illustrator and artist based out of Toronto, ON. You can follow his work on instagram@lucasbergantim or go to his website HERE

Curated and illustrated by Stephanie Chinn

Edited by Katie Bull

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Lisa Zamparo

“I think I needed to go through that first phase of trying things on and adding to myself to recognize that the truth is actually the other way. Being more me and being more okay with me. I know for sure that you can never go wrong with trusting yourself. That feels really true for me.”

As a teenager, I set a goal for myself. I wanted to make 6 figures by the time that I was 30, because that would be success. Then, when I was just shy of my 30^th birthday and also just a few thousand shy of that financial goal, I had made it – but I was really unhappy. I wasn’t feeling fulfilled by my work, and it was making me really stressed out and cranky all the time. I realized that I had been so focused on that goal of financial success and having a certain salary that I forgot about living my life and the things that make me happy. I thought that once I reached that goal I would feel happy and fulfilled, and then I woke up and realized that I wasn’t.

I think when you’re making your first transition there is always a rock bottom, and I had a few of those moments in different parts of my life that told me that this thing with work isn’t just about work, it’s in all areas of my life. I’d say that being in that place in my life made me ready to go out on my own, and I’ve heard other women say that they look at a problem in their life and not only want to solve it for themselves, but to help others solve their problems too. I have always known I wanted to be an entrepreneur. My parents work for themselves, so there was always inspiration to have my own business, I just didn’t know when it would happen or what it would be. I looked at my own financial success on paper and wondered how I could empower other women to have financial empowerment, and to find it in ways that are fulfilling to them. At the time, I didn’t know what that would look like, and it has changed as I’ve been on this financial journey in terms of what my role is and who my target audience is, but the root of wanting to help empower people has always stayed the same.

One of my biggest struggles is FOMO. I fear missing out on my own life and what I am capable of, or missing an opportunity, and that’s why I over schedule myself. I say yes to everything thinking it could be the next opportunity. As I’ve become more interested in the law of attraction and seeing things come to you, it feels like everything is something and I don’t want to miss out on anything. I am learning how to trust myself and I link that with learning to say no when it feels right. Trusting myself with opportunities that are really a yes, and understanding the difference between being excited to learn about something versus being excited to invest my time and efforts into that thing. I’m learning to decipher between thinking something is cool and feeling that it’s something I want to actually bring into my life. Everything is a trade-off.

I think that 2 years ago, I wouldn’t have called myself a creative person. In my previous life on Bay Street, I would have never thought I was creative. I think through the process of healing myself and dealing with mental health challenges at the same time as starting a business and looking after my body made me realize that I am a creative person, just maybe not in the way that I thought was initially. I used to link creativity with art, but now I connect creativity with playfulness. I am very easily inspired, even sometimes just by an emotional commercial. The common denominator for what inspires me is other people just really being themselves. Seeing that makes me want to be more myself.

Where I am now is about stripping away things that are not actually me. I think I needed to go through that first phase of trying things on and adding to myself to recognize that the truth is actually the other way. Being more me and being more okay with me. I know for sure that you can never go wrong with trusting yourself. That feels really true for me. There have been times I’ve been really afraid to do what has felt right. Ultimately, I’ve regretted doing things I didn’t feel were right initially, but I’ve never regretted doing something that really felt like it needed to be done.

 

Lisa Zamparo is a CPA based out of Toronto, ON who specializes in start-ups and self employed individuals. You can read about her business and purpose on her website www.lisazamparo.com

 

Curated and illustrated by Stephanie Chinn @stephaniechinnart

Edited by Katie Bull @bull_katie