The And She Looked Up Podcast
Every other week The And She Looked Up Podcast sits down with inspiring Canadian women who create for a living. We talk about their creative journeys and their best business tips, as well as the creative and business mindset issues all creative entrepreneurs struggle with. This podcast is for Canadian artists, makers and creators who want to find a way to make a living doing what they love. Your host, Melissa Hartfiel, left a 20 year career in corporate retail and has been happily self-employed as a working creative since 2010. She's a graphic designer, illustrator, writer, community co-founder and has owned and operated a multi-six figure a year creative content business. She resides just outside of Vancouver, BC.
The And She Looked Up Podcast
0624 Subscriber Soundbite: What I'll be Listening to This Summer!
The main podcast is on hiatus for the summer but I'll be launching a minisode series in July to help everyone prep for the holidays! In the meantime, here's what I love to listen to and watch to keep my creative juices and entrepreneurial/marketing brain feeling inspired through the summer months (plus a few things that are purely for entertainment!
I'll be emailing Buzzsprout supporters a list of all the podcast and YT channels I mention in this episode!
You can connect with the podcast on:
- Instagram at @andshelookedup
- YouTube
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For a list of all available episodes, please visit:
And She Looked Up Creative Hour Podcast
Each week The And She Looked Up Podcast sits down with inspiring Canadian women who create for a living. We talk about their creative journeys and their best business tips, as well as the creative and business mindset issues all creative entrepreneurs struggle with. This podcast is for Canadian artists, makers and creators who want to find a way to make a living doing what they love.
Your host, Melissa Hartfiel (@finelimedesigns), left a 20 year career in corporate retail and has been happily self-employed as a working creative since 2010. She's a graphic designer, writer and illustrator as well as the co-founder of a multi-six figure a year business in the digital content space. She resides just outside of Vancouver, BC.
Hello everyone and welcome to June's premium subscriber-only episode of the and she Looked Up podcast. Thank you all so much for being here and for your ongoing support, especially over the summer when we're not producing new episodes. I really appreciate it. It means a lot to me. So thank you all so much. It is almost the end of June, which means we're almost halfway through this year, which is a little bit frightening the speed at which it's going by. But, as you all know, we're on our summer hiatus and although it is a summer hiatus, I'm actually not taking the summer off when it comes to the podcast, like I usually do.
Speaker 1:I did take a bit of a break, but I spent most of that prepping old episodes of the show to get them ready to put up onto YouTube so that we can get our entire archive on YouTube, and I have successfully finished that task. The episodes are all uploaded. They are being released one a day until we are caught up, which I think will be around July 8th. But it has been such a big weight off my shoulders to get that done and I was in a bit of a rush because I am planning a new mini-sewed series that is going to start in July and is going to run probably all the way until the end of the year. It's going to be called I haven't actually decided on the name of it, but it's going to be something along the lines of prep for the holidays or your holiday prep checklist, something like that and the idea behind the show is that it will be a series of very short episodes five to 10 minutes, 15 minutes max with each episode focusing on a specific task to help us as creatives makers, artists, content creators, creative service providers get ready for the busy holiday season, and the idea being that when each episode airs, it will air at the time in the year when you should be focusing on that task. So it'll kind of be like your own live interactive checklist to get ready for the holidays, and I'm really excited about it.
Speaker 1:It's an idea that I came up with a few months ago, and as soon as I thought of it, it just kind of took hold of me and I knew I had to do it, and so I am hoping to do those as video episodes as well, so you'll be able to still listen on your regular podcast platform, but the idea being that you can also go watch them on YouTube and you'll actually get to see me. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but you will. And there's also a little bit of strategy behind that, because Heather and I have been talking about doing our joint episodes during the regular season, which will start in September as per usual. We've been talking about doing those as video episodes because we record them on Zoom and we are on video, so we are looking at each other while we're talking and I think a lot of what goes on behind the scenes gets lost because you can't see the while we're talking, and I think a lot of what goes on behind the scenes gets lost because you can't see the things we're pointing at or the faces we're making at each other, and so we thought it might be fun to create those as videos as well and put those up on YouTube. I don't think I'll be doing guest episodes as videos, because most guests get very nervous when they find out that their Zoom call is being that the video is being recorded even though we don't use the video, and I think it puts a lot of pressure on people wanting to feel like they need to show up looking their best, and some people don't want to be on video, so I think we probably won't go that route at the moment, unless we have a guest who's really into it. But anyway, I wanted to get used to editing the video and work all the bugs out with this mini sewed series before Heather and I start doing it on our much longer episodes. So that's kind of where we're at for the summer.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, so. So those the mini, the mini sewed series will probably start airing, uh, probably the second week of July. It'll be in that timeframe, so so not far away, um, and I'm really excited about it. But, uh, for the summer, I know that a lot of us are out doing other things. We are hopefully enjoying the great outdoors here in Canada that we have access to. So I know it's a time where we're doing trips to cottages and campgrounds and road trips and airplanes and all those places where we listen to podcasts and audiobooks and YouTube videos and streaming to pass the time on those longer journeys, and it's even stuff that we do when we are lying out in a hammock in our backyard, and it's even stuff that we do when we are lying out in a hammock in our backyard or sitting on our patio sipping a cold drink or just walking the dog.
Speaker 1:So I thought what I would do for this month's episode is share some of my favorite podcasts the ones that I listen to a lot and some of my favorite YouTube channels, Because, frankly, some of my favorite creative entrepreneurs to follow are actually over on YouTube. I probably spend more time there than I do on Instagram or Facebook when it comes to following creatives. So, yeah, I thought I would share some of those with you because, generally speaking, if you like listening to podcasts, you're always curious what other people are listening to. I certainly am, and so I thought I would share mine with you, and I would love it if you have a podcast that you love to listen to. I would love it if you would leave a note in the comments over on Patreon. Unfortunately, if you support us on Buzzsprout, you don't have that ability, but you are welcome to drop me an email at andshelookedupatgmailcom or DM me on social media or something like that, but I'm always interested to hear what other people listen to and watch on YouTube and on their favorite podcast apps.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about podcasts first. I tend to listen to podcasts in three kind of genres. There's the small business podcasts that I listen to, there is the creativity podcasts that I listen to and there's the ones that I listen to just for entertainment, and so a few of my big favorites. I'll go into those in a little more detail and then I'll just list off some of the other ones I listened to without as much detail. The podcast I probably listened to more than any other show is the Creative Pen Podcast with Joanna Penn, and I have mentioned it many times on the podcast so you're probably already familiar with the fact that I listened to it.
Speaker 1:But Joanna Penn is a self-published author, both fiction and nonfiction, and she has been podcasting for I don't even know, it's probably close to 10 years now, maybe even more than that. She's one of the OG podcasters and I have been listening to her probably for seven or eight years a long time and seven or eight years a long time and her episodes kind of get divided into episodes about craft and, for those of you who don't know, I am a freelance writer so I do a lot of writing, so I'm always appreciative of episodes of, I'm always appreciative of podcasts that talk about the craft of writing. But she also talks about the business of being a self-published author as opposed to a traditionally published author, and I find the publishing world particularly self-publishing so interesting because it is so entrepreneurial. So she talks about the business of that a lot of marketing type episodes when it comes to marketing your author business and she's also a bit of a futurist. She loves to talk about the role that technology plays or could play in our creativity. So she talks a lot about AI a lot about AI, which you may or may not want to listen to Sometimes.
Speaker 1:I don't find the more technical episodes particularly interesting, but I do love her thoughts around AI and she's definitely made me think about it from a different perspective, and that perspective is that it's not all negative. I think it allows us she often uses the phrase that it allows us to double down on being human in our work, and I think that is such a great way to look at it. She's also very open about the challenges of AI and the dangers of AI and the things that we need to be aware of, and I do think, as artists and creatives, we need to be very thoughtful about AI and we need to be very aware of what it is and its potential and understand how it can be used as a tool, but also how it can be a danger to us. So I think, yeah, I love the way she approaches it. So, yes, like I said, I've been listening to her for years. I find her both very practical, very inspirational, and her guests that she has on are usually very interesting.
Speaker 1:So one of my favorites probably the one podcast I listen to more than any other yeah, and that is consequently that's why I tend to mention it on our show so often. One of the other ones that I listen to more than any other is the Smart Passive Income Podcast by Pat Flynn, although I think he just calls it the SPI podcast now, because it's less about passive income, and I think when he started the show, he was talking about passive income in a way. That is not how we talk about it today or the way that a lot of the tech bros talk about it, and so I think he's tried to distance himself a bit from that. But I've always found his shows really interesting for somebody who runs an online business or who is a self-employed entrepreneur or small business owner, and some of his guests are very interesting. But one of the things I really appreciate about Pat is he is a really good interviewer, and I appreciate that so much more now that I have a podcast and I have had to learn how to interview people.
Speaker 1:I was a terrible interviewer when I first started. I think now I'm probably a pretty mediocre interviewer. Basically, what I'm saying is I have a long ways to go. I still have a lot of learning and a lot of practicing and a lot of improvement to do, but I love listening to Pat because he makes it appear so effortless, and that is what a good interviewer should do. So effortless and that is what a good interviewer should do. They should make it feel like the entire interview is a conversation where the guest is so at ease that they start talking about things they had no intention of talking about and sharing things that they may not have thought they would be comfortable sharing, and he does it so, like I said, so effortlessly, and so I really enjoy listening to him. I also really enjoy listening to Tom Power, who does the Q podcast on CBC, where he interviews mostly musicians, actors, other people in the arts, and I think he's a really a tremendous interviewer as well, so I enjoy both of them for that reason. So those are the two that I probably listened to the most.
Speaker 1:I also listened to a couple. I listened to a lot of product podcasts for people who sell physical products, because, as a maker, I do sell physical products at markers, at markets and on my own online shop and on Etsy, so I listened to several podcasts in that genre. One of them is the Product Powerhouse podcast. I've been listening to this for probably about two years now, and one of the reasons I like it so much is that the host is also a Shopify website designer. The reasons I like it so much is that the host is also a Shopify website designer, and so she does a lot of episodes on how to optimize your Shopify website without getting super technical, but she also brings on a lot of guests to talk about other aspects of selling your products online, and so I have found this. I found this super helpful when I was setting up my Shopify site, and now I still find it really helpful, and I was a web designer for a long time, so I'm not a stranger to how to create a great website, but having somebody who knows the ins and outs of Shopify and and and e commerce websites was really helpful, so I've really enjoyed that podcast.
Speaker 1:I also listened to the product boss podcast. In fact I went through their multi-stream machine program that they offer. It's one of the many programs that they run uh, paid programs that they run and, uh, that is another podcast that was really instrumental to me when I was getting started selling products from my artwork, and I found them through the Biz Chicks podcast, which is another podcast I listen to. I used to listen to it quite regularly. I don't so much anymore. I can't think why. Off the top of my head, I feel like Spotify hasn't been putting it in my feed lately, so I should probably go investigate why that is. But one of the product boss podcast has evolved a great deal since I first started listening to it. But every week Jacqueline Snyder, who is the host she's the sole host now. There used to be Jacqueline and her co-host, mina Mina, has left the show, but Jacqueline does coaching calls once a week with one of her students in the various programs that they run, and I find coaching calls to be so helpful that those were the episodes of the Biz Chicks podcast that I really enjoyed too, where you get to hear another business owner talk about the things that are causing them blocks in their business or they're at a crossroads in their business and they're not sure where to go, and to be able to listen to another business owner talk those things through in their own words and then to have an expert sit there with them and show them things that they may not have considered or help them see things in a different light. And this is why I find them so helpful is because you're getting different points of view and sometimes I might be going through the same issue in my own business and then to hear somebody talk about it who comes at it from a completely different place and makes me think about something in a way that I hadn't even considered before, and you get a lot of aha moments with those kinds of podcasts. So I really enjoy those. So those are the like I said, I listened to a lot of different product-based podcasts.
Speaker 1:One that I really uh used to enjoy was Crickets to Cha-Chings, which was an Etsy, uh specific podcast. That podcast has been sold to somebody new who's doing it, and I haven't seen any of their episodes since in my Spotify feed. I'm just checking it right now. No, they're still publishing about once a month, so not as frequently, so that's probably why I haven't been listening to it. So, um, but it was a really helpful one as an Etsy seller, um to to listen to. I learned a lot about selling on Etsy from that podcast, uh. So yeah, as I mentioned, I listened to a lot of product-based podcasts, but those are the ones that I listened to the most frequently. Um, and some of the some of the other business, businessy type podcasts that I do listen to but I won't go into as much detail because I don't listen to them as frequently are Promote Yourself to CEO with Rachel Cook. I have gotten a lot of really great mindset tips from Rachel's podcast.
Speaker 1:I also loved the Get Paid podcast with Claire Pelletreau. That was another really interesting one where she talks specifically about how people make money. She's kind of morphed that into course makers, which I am not, so I don't listen as often as I used to. But before that, when she focused more on people who and how they made their living, her first season was where she brought on small business entrepreneurs almost all women onto the show and talked about specifically how they got paid and they did a deep dive into their numbers. So it was so interesting to hear because we often hear this in the online space. I had a six figure launch and Claire was really curious what a six figure launch translated into when it came to putting money in your actual pocket, and it was a fascinating look at the difference between having a six-figure launch and having six figures in profit Very, very different. So I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 1:I also really liked the Side Hustle School with Chris Guillebeau. I've read quite a few of Chris's books. I really do enjoy them. He talks to a lot of different small business entrepreneurs and side hustle school is where he. They're very short episodes and each one features somebody who came up with some random side hustle and these are all over the map like some of the most random things that people have managed to turn into small side hustle businesses and then very often take them into a full-on career and it's just these little niches we don't ever consider could be a business and people who have managed to turn them into them, and I find that so interesting. It's the ultimate in entrepreneurship, so that's another one that I really enjoy.
Speaker 1:Um, I also listened to the strategy hour podcast quite a bit and the simple pin podcast with Kate. All those are both very helpful at times. Um, and I listened to a few influencer podcasts because a lot of my clients are in the influencer space and so I like to kind of keep up on what's happening in that space so that I can have intelligent conversations with my clients, which I think is important. And then there are a few more podcasts that I listened to that are more in the creative mindset space. Another one that I listen to quite regularly is the Creative Pep Talk podcast with Andy J Pizza, and this is my breath of fresh air podcast. This is the podcast I listen to when I am in a funk, when I am feeling really crappy world in general, where I feel, where I'm just feeling really down, and this is such a positive podcast. It reminds me very much why it is so important to nurture a creative practice that is outside of your business.
Speaker 1:I think when we create for a living, there's definitely times where there's an incredible amount of pressure on us to earn because we have to pay our bills, and so that can have a real impact on our enjoyment of creating. I guess I'm probably not using the right words here, but I think for me I need that reminder every now and then, that it is okay to create something without an eye to how I can sell it or monetize it, that it is crucial for me to have a creative practice that is separate from my work that gets monetized. And he also addresses a lot of the common mindset issues that we run into as creatives whether it's imposter syndrome or feeling that we're not good enough or you know all those things that we struggle with when we are creatives, whether you earn money from what you do or not and he addresses all of those in a way that for me, like I said, is just a breath of fresh air and a big exhale and just kind of there's a voice in my head that's just saying it's going to be okay, you're okay, you know you can do this, and I think we all need those reminders every now and then, and that is what this podcast does for me. So it is definitely in one of my top five. I don't listen to it every week, but it is one of my top five podcasts that I need to have, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:The next podcast I'm going to mention kind of crosses the line between being a business podcast, a creativity podcast and a podcast I listen to for entertainment and that is the Under the Influence podcast with Terry O'Reilly, and so I have mentioned this in a previous subscriber-only episode where I talked about the episode Terry did with Max Kerman, the lead singer from the Arkells, and Terry kind of encapsulates all the things I love. So I am fascinated with entrepreneurship, I am fascinated with small business, I am fascinated with marketing and branding, and that is a huge part of what this show is about. It is about how brands market themselves, how they get us to spend money, how they pull us under their influence. And I love pop culture. I love the psychology of what makes us buy, click the button, read the thing, go to the meeting, all the different things we do. When I was in university I did a history degree and my main focus on most of my thesis papers and bigger projects that I had to do was all around propaganda, pop culture and how that sort of came into our collective psyche and how those things were used in things like winning wars and, uh, that kind of thing. So I am fascinated by this kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Plus, the podcast is funny. It's just it's a very funny show and it is it. It originally was a CBC podcast. I don't think it is anymore, but it is extremely well produced in a way that makes it very entertaining, and if you love pop culture, you would probably really enjoy this show. So one of my favorites, definitely.
Speaker 1:Like I said, it kind of crosses the bridge between all of these things that I really enjoy, so definitely one of the ones that I listen to for entertainment as much as for information, and another one that I kind of listen to that's in that vein, but I can only listen to it in small amounts because it can be quite depressing and heavy at times. But that is the Life After MLM podcast. It's about a former MLM person. I think she was with Lulu Rowe I'm not Lula Rowe, I can't remember now but she interviews other people who formerly were part of MLM programs and talks about the world after that, because MLMs are another thing that fascinate me. Again, it's psychology and marketing and yeah, so I find that to be an interesting podcast when I am in the right mood for it and when it's covering an MLM company that interests me. Some of them don't, so I don't tend to listen to those ones, but yeah, that's interesting to me and then now we're getting into the ones that I listen to for entertainment, and another one that's kind of in that genre is American Greed, and American Greed is a TV show.
Speaker 1:It used to be on MSNBC and I used to watch it when we had that as a cable channel. Be on MSNBC and I used to watch it when we had that as a cable channel and now no longer have it on cable and it's very hard to find it streaming in Canada. So what the producers did and I thought this was brilliant is they stripped the audio from the TV show and turned it into a podcast, and the show is hosted by actor Stacey Keach, who has such a great voice for this, this particular show, and so it works really well as a podcast. And the funny thing is the audio is ripped straight from the television show. Um, it's exactly what you would be listening to if you were watching the TV show, and it still works without the visuals. You don't even need the visuals to enjoy this as a podcast.
Speaker 1:And it is all about greed. It is about fraudsters, people who are trying to bilk us out of our money, and so they cover off some of the biggest frauds in the current climate, but they also cover off some of the smaller ones. And what's fascinating about it and why the title is so great, is it's not just the greed of the people who are committing the fraud, it is also the greed of the people that they are scamming who have been promised money or fabulous growth in their investments and all these things. So the greed is on both sides and it's so fascinating to me. Again, the psychology of it, the yeah, I find it really interesting. So that's another one that I listen to just for entertainment.
Speaker 1:I really enjoy true crime shows. A couple of the ones that I enjoy the most are actually cold case shows. I am a mystery novel junkie. I have been since I got my first Bobsy Twins novel when I was like six years old. I've been hooked by the genre ever since. There is something about the puzzle of it. The just yeah, love them.
Speaker 1:And the two that I listened to they're actually hosted by the same fellow journalist, david Ridgen, and one is called Someone Knows Something and the other is called the Next Call, and these are basically cold case files the vast majority of them are Canadian that he goes out and tries to shed new light on in the hopes that they can be solved, and it initially was started with Someone Knows Something where he would actually go out and he would go to these communities where these crimes had happened and interview all the people who were involved and try to find new people to speak to. And then, when the pandemic hit, he was not able to travel and so he started a new show called the Next Call, where he was basically doing the same thing, but he was doing it all over the phone, and so both of them really interesting shows. They are done in seasons, so each seasoning it's like watching a season on Netflix of something. So each seasoning it's like watching a season on Netflix of something. So, yeah, really, really good, I enjoy them. If true crime and mysteries are not your thing, these probably won't be either, but I do enjoy them.
Speaker 1:And I actually really enjoy CBC podcasts as a whole. They are some of the best produced shows. They have basically any genre that you're interested in. They have a podcast that is extremely well done, and there are many that I have listened to and really kind of fallen in love with. And again, they're often like a docuseries, so there's a start and an end to them. They don't necessarily have season after season, so those are some of my particular favorites when it comes to podcasting.
Speaker 1:So let's talk a little bit about YouTube. I don't want this to go on too long, but I will just share some of my favorite YouTubers that I watch pretty regularly, two that are makers in a very similar space to me. Both of these women are based out of the UK. Both of them are stationery creators. They're also illustrators, so very similar to what I do. One is Catherine Kay from Catnip Illustrations and the other is Ellis Woolley, and a lot of what I watch from these two is their studio vlogs, where they just talk about the day to day of being a maker and an illustrator, and I've been following both of them for years, so it's been really interesting to see how their businesses have evolved and sort of in line with mine, and both of them were established before I started selling my work as an illustrator. So I learned a lot from them and, yeah, just, I find them both really interesting. Very different vibe. They both both very different illustration styles, very different, uh vibes when it comes to the type of businesses they have and, uh, but I enjoy them both really a lot.
Speaker 1:Another one that I really like to catch up with is the is Helen from the Coffee Monster Co. So Helen has a sticker business. She does some other stationery, but mostly it's stickers for bullet journalers, and I found her on Etsy. She has a massive Etsy store and she is located very close to where I live and just really fascinating. She started her business when she was 14 and she is now in her early twenties. She graduated, I think last year it might've been the year before from U of T and she has continued on with this business, which is huge. At this point she now has her own warehouse and studio. When she started it was just out of her house. She got help from her parents when it came to things like packaging and shipping and stuff like that, but she's just. It's been fascinating to watch her grow, both as from a child to an adult, but also as a small business owner, and her stickers are created from her illustrations. She's also a very talented artist and, yes, I really enjoy her episodes.
Speaker 1:I have been watching Bailey J, who is also a Canadian artist, and one of the OG, who is also a Canadian artist, and one of the OG YouTube art channels, right up there with Jazza and a couple of others and she has been around for years. She was based out of Vancouver. She now lives in Calgary and, again, so interesting to see how her business has evolved over time Um and the different ways that she earns money through her art business. And, yeah, definitely a must watch for um any Canadian creative, particularly if you have your site set on adding YouTube as a potential um marketing avenue or revenue generating avenue for your business. She has done almost every conceivable way that you can do YouTube. She has done it and it's been really interesting to watch her evolve as well. I also watch Emily Harvey Art not as frequently, but I do enjoy her. She's also based out of the UK. She is also an illustrator.
Speaker 1:Another creative in that vein that I've been watching for quite a few years is Paloma the Peach. She is based out of, I believe, texas and she is also an illustrator. She's a student. She's still going to school. I think she's still going to school. Time moves so fast Like I really honestly like lose track of, like where things are. And she. I like her because her art style is so different from what else is out there and she is very experimental in some of the things that she does, and so I find that really interesting to watch.
Speaker 1:She again has been very interesting to see how she has grown and evolved, and that's one of the things I really love about watching creatives on YouTube is there's like this visual record of how their art and their business have both evolved, and I think that's it's very encouraging to see that, especially when we're doing our own work and we sort of wonder, if we make a change, if people will like it. You know we're, I think we kind of get stuck in the same style because we're afraid that people will not like it if we, if we grow. But then you can see these artists who are slowly figuring out who they are. A lot of them are very young when they started. They're kind of figuring out who they are. As they become more confident in their style and their skills, they go in different directions and they take and then, as their style takes hold, their business goes in different directions and it's just a very fluid evolutionary process that I don't feel like you can really see anywhere else other than on YouTube. And one of the things I enjoy about YouTube is they're often talking through their process and their evolution as they're doing it, which, while you might be able to see this on Instagram, you don't necessarily get the commentary or get to hear their inner thoughts as they're going through this process, and so I love that.
Speaker 1:And there's a couple of new ones that I've started following recently. One is Uncomfy. She is a very introverted YouTuber. She does polymer clay miniatures super cute out of her apartment, but it has been. When she first started, she was like this timid mouse on camera, very kind of awkward and very upfront with the fact that she was extremely uncomfortable doing this. But again, to have watched her evolve to where she is, this confident young woman now on camera, and how that has also translated into her becoming more confident as a business owner, I've really enjoyed watching that, and she hasn't even been on YouTube that long, so that's been again one that I've really enjoyed watching.
Speaker 1:And another new one that I came across very recently that I have been enjoying is Kelsey Rodriguez. Um, she gets more into the business of of art, of creating for a living, and she looks more at specific business topics and in ways that you can generate revenue as an artist, and I just find she has a bit of a refreshing take on things. So I do really like to listen to her. There are a few others on there that I watched from time to time Shada Campbell I really enjoy her illustration tutorials. Another is Ashia Art. I have loved her watercolor. I used to just watch her watercolor videos to help me fall asleep. I love her art style.
Speaker 1:She is a Russian artist and it has gotten really interesting because since the Ukrainian-Russian war has broken out, she has left Russia, as many of the I actually follow quite a few Russian artists, and many of them have left Russia. She is also part of the LGBTQ community and just does not feel that Russia is a safe place for her to be anymore, and so she literally walked away from her life like just left Russia with almost nothing, and I believe she is in Georgia now Georgia in Europe, not Georgia in the United States and sort of trying to reestablish herself as an artist, and that has been really interesting to watch. And she is also moving because she wasn't able to take a lot of her supplies with her. She moved from watercolor to digital art on using Procreate, and so it's been interesting to watch that transition and how that has helped her to keep creating, even though she's been living up until quite recently, a very nomadic lifestyle, so that's watching an artist from a completely different perspective, which I've really enjoyed.
Speaker 1:Starla Moore is another channel that I really like to watch. She is a manager at E-Rank, I think, the Etsy SEO ranking tool, and she has a lot of in-skype scoop into Etsy and a lot of relationships with people at Etsy HQ, and she does a lot of videos on how to sell successfully on Etsy, and most of her content I find to be very based in data. She loves data, she's a data nerd like me, and so there's a lot of factual information behind her videos and I really appreciate that. It's been a great place for me to learn a lot about Etsy. Lot of um small business success stories and entrepreneurial success stories that they feature that I find really interesting. Um, yeah, those uh. There are others that I watch more, just um as pure entertainment. Uh I I'm also going to give a shout out to, uh shifting roots, which is Kristen Rainey's channel.
Speaker 1:Kristen has been a guest on the show a couple of times and she's a friend of mine and if you are a gardener, like I am, her videos. She is a flower farmer, so she's doing her videos cover both gardening and the business of being a flower farmer, and I've really enjoyed her backyard business series that she has been doing. So those are some of my favorites, the ones that I tend to watch regularly and learn a lot from, but also find really entertaining as well. So that's it for today. I think that was a lot, but I hope it gave you some some interesting things that you might want to check out and, like I said, I am super curious about what other people listen to and watch, so please feel free to drop notes in the comments.
Speaker 1:If you're on Patreon and, as I mentioned, if you listen to the premium subscriber episodes on Buzzsprout, you can always email me at andshelookedup at gmailcom, or you can DM me on any of our socials Instagram, youtube we're on YouTube almost every day right now or our Facebook page, and I'd love to hear from you. I'm always looking for something new to watch or listen to that's going to give me a little bit of inspiration or where I can learn something interesting, and so, yeah, please do. If you have something that you think would be up my alley, love to hear from you. Thank you all so much for your ongoing support. As always, I hope that you are having a wonderful summer.
Speaker 1:I hope that you will have a chance to tune in and listen to our Prep for the Holidays series, and if you have anything that you would like me to cover in these premium subscriber only episodes, please do drop me a note again at andshelookedup at gmailcom. I would love to hear from you. I am always trying to come up with episode ideas that I think you might find useful or enjoyable or interesting, but without feedback from you sometimes it's hard for me to know what that might be. So if there is something you'd like me to talk about, please drop me a note, and that is it for this month. I hope you've had a great June and I hope you have a fantastic July, and I will see you all next month. Thanks everyone.
