We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amanda Cisneros a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Amanda thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s go back in time a bit – can you share a story of a time when you learned an important lesson during your education?

When I was 25 and going through my graduate program to become a Marriage and Family Therapist, I was asked to give a “self of the therapist” presentation. This gives a therapist a chance to reflect on their own personal experiences and challenges and how this shapes them as a provider. At the time, I was going through what I will refer to as my *first* quarter-life-crisis and found that it was really impacting the work I did–both creatively and therapeutically.

At the time, my art business had taken a bit of a backseat due to the demands of being a grad student, which lead to feelings of longing and guilt, especially as a life-long artist, because art was such a huge part of my identity. I was also a very green therapist, and had not yet developed a sense of confidence in my clinical skills. While completing my clinical hours at my internship, I found myself daydreaming about my art business, and when I did sit down to create, I found myself drowning in guilt because I wasn’t pursuing my clinical ambitions.

I kept telling myself I had to “choose one” path and that pursuing both was impossible. This was a fork in the road– or at least, that’s what I told myself. Through the help of my colleagues, I came to discover that this rigid dichotomy was completely self-imposed and that I could be two things at once. I could be both an artist AND a therapist– in fact, I already was! Not to mention, I can be many more things than that too, a daughter, a friend, a partner, a woman… the list goes on and on!

As a society, we place so much importance on what we DO that it becomes who we are. Work becomes an identity that we wear and when that identity gets shaken, our own sense of self feels unstable. I feel thankful to have learned this lesson at the age of 25, because now it’s something I can pass onto my clients in my therapeutic work. I had to learn to give myself permission to BE more than one thing and to DO more than one thing. In therapy, we sometimes call this a “dialectic”, which is a fancy philosophical term for two opposing things BOTH being true at the same time. The easiest way to shift your mindset about things is to move away from using the word “but” and replacing it with the word “and”. For example, I used to think: “I’m an artist BUT I’m a therapist”, which lead me down the path of feeling like I had to choose one. When I change that statement to “I’m an artist AND I’m a therapist”, suddenly there is room for both identities to exist together in harmony.

This small mental shift has really informed so much of my life, both as an artist and as a therapist. It has made me realize the power it allowing my brain to marry these two identities together and to allow both disciplines to inform each other. I guess if I had to sum up the moral of this story, I would tell others not to be hasty with putting themselves into neat little boxes because there is beauty in being everything that you are, all at once!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I am a one-woman show! I am the owner, artist and social media manager behind Creative & Caffeinated. I specialize in creating stickers, mugs, totes and other accessories from my digital designs. Many of my products are centered around the themes of creativity and coffee (hence the name), but I also like to include designs that focus on mental health and breaking down the stigma of going to therapy. As a therapist, and an artist, this is how I make an impact in my field beyond my individual work as a therapist.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I’ve always known that I wanted to turn my art into a business. Ever since I was 3 years old, I was selling my scribble art to other kid’s parents and preschool. I started formally selling my art every summer from the age of 8 to 17. When I moved away to college, I discovered comic conventions and artist alleys. Bck then, I was selling my art under my social media name “Amanda Elise Art”. I had a small following on YouTube and had a big dream that I was going to be able to do art full-time. When I signed up to be a vendor at my first comic con, I dropped a lot of $$$ on art prints that inevitably didn’t sell well. For years, I beat myself up for it– I didn’t do enough market research, I didn’t start small… I ended up literally trying to give the inventory away. The most embarrassing part is, I made this mistake about two more times before I realized… “I don’t think art prints are my best sellers”. I took a good long look at the data and realized that art prints were not only my most expensive inventory to produce, but they sold the least. When I decided to start from scratch and launch my business Creative & Caffeinated in January of 2021, it was really the consolidation of all the lessons I’d learned previously. I made most of my inventory in house, in small batches and I focused on smaller launches so I could see what sold well before continuing to develop products. Not only is it much less stressful, it also feels more sustainable. All these years later, I’m so proud that I haven’t let my dream go, but I’m also proud that I’ve been able to adapt and adjust my dream based on new knowledge I’ve picked up along the way.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I launched my shop’s instagram page a few months before launching the site. During the first few months, I kept it a secret from my friends and family, still holding my breath incase it all somehow didn’t work out. But I started following other small businesses, getting to know them. I felt so encouraged by that community to be loud and proud about my own small business. I know it all sounds cliche, but having a perfect instagram feed isn’t really all that important– yes your photos should be professional, and post content that aligns with your business and certainly don’t be afraid to sell. But at the end of the day, I feel that my audience connects with me online because I make content that is, at times, genuinely silly. I’m authentic in talking about my mistakes and people really appreciate that. Today’s social media landscape is ever-changing. Stop trying to keep up with the trends and remain consistent in what you are there to do– sell and be yourself. You can do both in a way that is professional and authentic. The accounts that I follow who do this well outlive the trend-cycles and remain valuable to their followers for more reasons that just pretty pictures and funny videos. Another important way to build an audience and a community is to lift up other voices. Be vocal about causes that align with you as a person, and don’t be afraid of that having a negative impact on your business– people want to know that there is a heartbeat behind the profile picture and sharing your values about social causes is a really impactful way to do that!

Contact Info:

• Website: creativeandcaffeinatedshop.com
• Instagram: @creative.and.caffeinated.shop

Image Credits
N/A