Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in personal development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Krista Kankula, founder of Krista Kankula Coaching & Creativity Studio, located in Dutton, Canada.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
I work with people who daydream about being creative, making beautiful things and expressing who they truly are but find themselves feeling blocked by fear, bored of what they're creating, or simply uninspired.
As a Creativity Coach and Abstract Artist, I focus on helping adults use play and creative self-expression as a way to get to know and celebrate themselves and fill their lives with more fun, joy, and meaning!
Tell us about yourself
I picked up the paintbrush when I was looking to satisfy the ache I had to express myself creatively and relieve stress. Through painting, I discovered how being creative connected me to my intuition, sparked my imagination, and helped me express my ideas. I'd never experienced anything like that before, and I felt so alive every time I sat down to paint.
The more I painted, the more I found myself having conversations with other people about the things they wished to create but felt they couldn't because they didn't believe they were artistic or creative people. I found myself wanting to help them be playful and bring out their creative side.
Eventually, I started hosting process art and creativity workshops, and that evolved into starting a business. My business went through many experiments to get to what I offer now. While I didn't always feel this way, I now see those experiments as something that has enriched my life and background as a coach.
What motivates me each day is thinking about that ONE person whose life is all work, no play, and they have an ache to explore their creative side and begin making all the things they daydream about.
Thinking about the creative potential that's inside every person and how we could channel that creativity towards coming up with solutions and imagining different possibilities for our communities and world also motivates me to be a part of shifting the way we perceive and use play and creativity.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
My business journey has gifted me the opportunity to get to know and love and trust myself in a way I never have before. To me, that's my biggest accomplishment.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
I believe it's navigating the thoughts and feelings that may come up from uncomfortable experiences like a failure or selling and marketing our offerings and learning to support, encourage, and coach ourselves through those thoughts/feelings.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Get to know your strengths, what helps you access your creativity, imagination, and intuition, so you can integrate them into your business and your weekly or daily rhythms.
- Create a ritual of reflecting each week, month or quarter so you can check in with yourself, celebrate your progress, and recalibrate your approach.
- Think of your business or the business you're starting as an experiment - where you constantly get to be curious, have FUN, test and create things and learn as you go.
Is there anything else you'd like to share?
You already have the capacity to be wildly creative and imagine radically different possibilities for your life. It's all there inside of you, just waiting for you to access it. Give yourself a few minutes to stare out the window and daydream about you being interviewed by your favourite podcast host five years from now. Imagine they're asking you about your journey, your business, the contributions you've made to your community and the causes you care about, what you do for fun, what you've overcome and learned from.
Now write down or record a voice memo about what you just visualized and how it felt. This is just one simple way to flex your creative muscles and begin picturing what you desire and what's possible through your imagination.
Download free resources and access coaching to bring out your creative side over at https://kristakankula.com/creative-toolkit
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://kristakankula.com/
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/kristakankulaart/
https://www.instagram.com/kristakankula/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
Feel inspired to start, run or grow your own subscription business? Check out subkit.com and learn how you can turn "one day" into day one.
