147: Mini Series: Teach What You Know Part 1 - Overcoming the Naysayers
See the show notes for this Episode here.
This transcript has been automatically generated.
Bonnie Christine [00:00:00]:
Well, hello there. Welcome to this episode of the Professional Creative Podcast. Today, I have a topic that I wanna talk about that's been really on my mind and on my heart recently, and it's one that I think might be somewhat controversial. I'm not sure. I don't like talking about controversial things, but this one I think is really, really important. And so I'm gonna be talking about why I believe we are, as creators, called to also be educators. I wanna talk about why I think it's so important that we teach what we know. I'm Bonnie Christine, and this is where all things creativity, design, business, and marketing unite.
Bonnie Christine [00:00:51]:
I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains running a multi 7 figure business doing the most creative and impactful work of my life. But when I first set out to become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today, I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you spend your life doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly profitable. Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast. This episode is really complimentary to one that I did a long time ago. It's episode number 6 called creator or educator.
Bonnie Christine [00:02:01]:
So we'll link that in the show notes if you want to go back and listen to that one. That episode really covers what I live by as an artist and an educator, my path to becoming an educator even though I really never set out to teach in the 1st place, and then how you can really perfect your craft and increase your purpose through educating as well. So I think you'll love that one. If you've ever considered teaching or being an educator in your industry. Now, I am so incredibly grateful for the people who have gone before me, and then also decided to kind of open up and share about how they got to where they are. I can point to someone in almost every area. The only area that I can't point to someone in is surface pattern design, which is the hardest thing I've ever learned, and I had to learn it on my own. And that was really what called me into teaching in that arena because I was had such a heart for helping other people kind of accomplish what took me so long to accomplish.
Bonnie Christine [00:03:12]:
But I'm so incredibly grateful for the people who decided to teach what they knew, and I think that you'll find the same thing when you think about the people who have taught you, or shown you the way, or made it more easy as well. The thing that I think is difficult is that, you know, I am in a couple of different masterminds. I have a coaching program. And oftentimes, when someone is considering beginning to teach what they know, there's this hesitation. There's a concern about what other people will think, or what other people will say. And I think that that criticism is what I'd really love to, kind of, change our thinking about here. They only hesitate to teach because of what they've heard or what they've seen other people say. And so if you're not aware, I think in the creative industry, in particular, there's this kind of underlying, like, feeling that if you turn to education or begin to teach what you know, that your work is somehow not as pure as it was before.
Bonnie Christine [00:04:28]:
And so, sometimes, we hear the term, like, selling out. But, my friends, teaching is not selling out. It's not abandoning your craft. It's a way to go deeper with it. It's a way to expand it. It's a way to share your passion and help others and inspire others. And it's a really powerful way to deepen your own practice. There's another kind of underlying criticism that monetizing what you know devalues your art or your craft, But in reality, why why would we ever be upset about someone having financial stability from teaching? Right? Teaching allows artists and creatives to make to take more creative risks and invest back into their craft, back into their industry, sometimes it allows them to provide employment opportunities for people in their industry, And overall, it just increases the success of what we're all trying to do here.
Bonnie Christine [00:05:35]:
And so I thought it might be fun to just talk about some historical figures that also had education as a part of their practice. And we can go way far back, like, we can talk about Leonardo da Vinci who took students and apprentices. He taught them the techniques that he was developing and refining. Bach, he was a musician, right, was not only a prolific composer, but also an educator. He taught young musicians, instructing students in music, and leading the music for churches in his city. Albert Einstein taught at various universities, including Princeton. His teachings and theoretical work influenced not only science, but also the philosophy of science. He paved the way and increased knowledge and understanding for generations and generations.
Bonnie Christine [00:06:30]:
Georgia O'Keeffe, before she became a major figure in American modernism, O'Keeffe worked as an art teacher in Virginia, Texas, and South Carolina. Her teaching experiences completely shaped her views on art and her approach to it, and that continued to evolve throughout her entire career. Maya Angelou, in addition to her prolific career as a poet and an author, Maya was a lifetime Reynolds professor at American Studies at Wake Forest University, and she taught a variety of subjects that spanned her interests, like philosophy and ethics, theology, science, theater, and writing. There are so many examples of how creators for many, many, many, many hundreds and hundreds of years have always felt a calling to teach what they know. And so I want you to feel that as well. I feel that it's our responsibility to teach what we know, not hold on to our secrets. And so this is a broad topic that I would love to talk more and more about. But today, I want to give you ten reasons why I think you should teach what you know.
Bonnie Christine [00:07:43]:
The first one is can be seen a little selfish. It's about really deepening your own personal mastery. Teaching is such an excellent way to just deepen your own understanding and the mastery of the subject that you're working on. Because while we teach, we also learn in a completely different way. In fact, I think teaching is the best way to really, really learn and hone your craft. This process of teaching just forces you to organize your knowledge, and think about it more critically, and explain complex concepts and simpler terms. And all of that just enhances your own understanding and your own skills. Number 2 is really about giving back and empowering others.
Bonnie Christine [00:08:33]:
Teaching allows you to give back to your community and your industry by sharing what you know and the skills that you have that can really help others. Whether it's helping someone start a new career, or pursue a passion, or solve a problem, or maybe even embark on an entirely new career. It can be profound for someone else to learn from you. Number 3 is how amazing it is at building a professional network. Educators or as an educator, you'll kind of just naturally attract a community of like minded people, and that can just wildly enhance your professional network. This community is incredible. It can provide support for you, encouragement, resources, collaborations. It can open up new career opportunities.
Bonnie Christine [00:09:28]:
Teaching puts you in a position of leadership and visibility within your field. And so, I don't think I realized this, you know, going into it, but now that I look back on it, I think being an educator has really been the thing that has led to the most opportunities for me in my field and with other professionals as well. Number 4 is related, but it enhances your credibility and really your authority. Teaching establishes you as the expert or as an expert and leader in your field. And so, by sharing your knowledge and making it, you know, available to the public, you gain credibility, and you gain authority. This recognition will often enhance your professional reputation, which will only lead to more success and thereby more credibility and more authority. So you'll get opportunities and invitations and and different ways to share what you know, and present it to people, and get your work in different places in the world because you have positioned yourself as a leader in your industry.
Bonnie Christine [00:10:43]:
Are you tired of spending hours crafting the perfect email only to be met with crickets in your inbox, or worse, having your emails end up in your subscribers' spam folders. I know that feeling, which is why I switched to ConvertKit as my email service provider many years ago. ConvertKit is the email marketing platform built by creators for creators. With ConvertKit, you can easily create and send beautiful personalized emails that your subscribers are not only going to open but also love. They have a drag and drop email editor that makes it easy to design emails that look and feel professional without any coding. Plus, their powerful automation tools make it easy to send the right message to the right person at the right time. But that's really not all. ConvertKit's tagging and segmenting tools make it so easy to send targeted messages to your subscribers based on their interests and behaviors.
Bonnie Christine [00:11:46]:
So for example, you can imagine that on my email list, I have people who are interested in buying my fabric to use in their projects and then also people who want to learn how to design their own fabric. And so through ConvertKit's tagging system, I can communicate to those 2 different groups of people so that I don't ever have to worry if I'm bugging the other group with something that they're not interested in. You can also use ConvertKit to actually build out a page and a form so that you can easily grow your email list and turn subscribers into customers. So you know that we always want you to be growing your email list. And I can tell you that if you dive into ConvertKit, you can start adding subscribers to your email list within a day of focused effort. It's not that difficult. It's super easy to set up, build a landing page, put an opt in in, and then start getting people on your list. So if you are ready to take your email marketing to the next level, I want you to head on over to bonniechristine.com/resources and sign up for a free trial on ConvertKit today.
Bonnie Christine [00:13:01]:
You can go ahead and dive in and get familiar with the program. Their support is amazing and see what you think. This is truly an email service provider who can grow with you from 1 subscriber to subscriber to 500,000. So again, head on over to bonniechristine.com/resources and check out ConvertKit today.
Bonnie Christine [00:13:24]:
Reason number 5 is because teaching helps you stay relevant and always continuously learn in your field. The world of education, especially in fields that are creative, it's important to stay up to date on the latest developments, the latest trends. What is up and coming? What is new? What are the new kind of technologies around it? What are the new ways to do it? That necessity for you to always be at the front end of, you know, everything that's new in your field pushes you to continuously learn and adapt, and it keeps your skills and your knowledge so incredibly fresh and relevant. And what it does is propel you further and further along the way than, for me I know that I would ever be without the push to do it because I'm an educator. Number 6 is really about making a difference. Teaching allows you to influence the next generation in your field, and sharing your philosophy and your approach and the way that you do things, it can perhaps change how things in entire industries are seen or taught or perceived. You make possible for other people incredible things through your willingness to just open up and teach what you know. That also brings just a really deep kind of satisfaction to yourself, which is my next one, number 7, personal fulfillment.
Bonnie Christine [00:15:04]:
Teaching can just be incredibly fulfilling. Seeing someone else achieve understanding or success because of your guidance, or I always think if I was even a small part of your journey and I've been able to see how far you've come, it is really what lights me up. It's what gets me out of bed in the morning. It's deeply satisfying. That satisfaction of just making an impact in the lives of someone else and shaping the direction of your industry is really incredibly rewarding. And what it does is creates a ripple effect that you will really never understand the, you know, the full breadth of. Reason number 8 is developing skills beyond your field. The other thing that teaching does is it helps you develop really, really valuable soft skills, such as public speaking, communication, leadership, empathy.
Bonnie Christine [00:16:05]:
These skills are transferable to so many different things to any career, and they really enrich your personal and professional life as well. I would say that this is one of the things that I just never saw coming. I couldn't I'm not saying I can now either, but when I started especially, I didn't feel like I could speak well. I didn't feel like I could be in front of people. I didn't feel like I could be on camera. I hated the way my voice sounded and how I looked, and I would do things over and over and over and over and over again. And it's really been through teaching that it forced me to kind of step outside of my comfort zone and grow these other skills that have been transferable into so many different areas of my life. Reason number 9 is that it's a beautiful revenue stream to add to your business.
Bonnie Christine [00:17:00]:
Teaching allows you to just diversify your income and add multiple streams of revenue, and that can bring significant financial stability. For creatives, this means less dependence on selling your actual work alone, and more freedom to pursue projects that might be driven by passion rather than necessity. You know, for me, when I when I very first started, I was sewing, and I was making handmade aprons and tea towels and pillowcases, and I loved it. I mean, I loved it. But I also got really, really tired of it. Like, I was a machine, Go just, like, making just as many as I possibly could. And I knew that long term, it wasn't sustainable. And so I changed my focus to open up opportunities that had residual income, and that is where art licensing came into play, and then, eventually, education as well.
Bonnie Christine [00:18:02]:
As a creative, I think you should have as many streams of revenue as diversified as you can just to build in so many options to pivot and ways to go in your business because you never know what's gonna happen. You never know. The last 5 years have taught us that. You just never know what's gonna happen. And so the more kind of faucets that you can turn on and off or play with these different levers, your business will be better safeguarded because of it. Finally, number 10 is about leaving a legacy. Your teaching will go on much much longer and further than you will. It leaves a lasting impact that just extends beyond your immediate professional work.
Bonnie Christine [00:18:49]:
The knowledge and the inspiration you impart, it can influence countless individuals, and it can contribute to success and, by extension, the wider community and the world truly. That goes back to the ripple effect. Right? So you never know if you teach someone something that they pass on to their children, and maybe that one mindset shift or that one thing that made was made possible. You'll never even know that it was because of a seed that you planted, but it has gone on to impact generations for generations. So I just want to invite you to really think about our thinking on this one. I think that teaching what you know is such a beautiful thing for so many reasons. It goes beyond you. It goes beyond the person you're teaching.
Bonnie Christine [00:19:42]:
It goes on forever and ever. And there's so many different ways to teach what you know as well. It could be a course, but it could be so many other things as well, like workshops, and guides, and books, and ebooks, and all kinds of things in person or online. It's been so long. For so many years, if you wanted to be an educator, you had to go into a school. You had to be at university. And now we have so many opportunities to open up our knowledge to anyone in the world, and it really levels the playing field. Right? Like, anyone in the world can get access to the knowledge that you have, and that is such a beautiful thing.
Bonnie Christine [00:20:28]:
If you know someone who has been thinking about being an educator, or who has been maybe thinking poorly of someone else for adding education to their revenue stream, or if you just know someone who's hesitant because they're afraid. Send them this episode. Let them hear what my perspective is, and I hope that it has expanded the way that we think about this. And I would love to see you teach what you know. My friends, thanks for tuning in. Create the beauty that you want to see come alive in the world, and remember, there's room for you.
