We recently connected with Krista Kankula and have shared our conversation below.
Krista, appreciate you joining us today. How has Covid changed your business model?
Aside from needing to shift from in-person collaborations and workshops to online, I experienced quite a shift in the way I market my business and the services I offer as a result of learnings in 2020-2021.
Prior to covid I was offering creative art workshops and 1:1 services to business owners helping them articulate and package their ideas and expertise into their own workshops, programs and content.
The beginning of 2020 I experienced my most successful months revenue wise in my business and I was feeling really optimistic and hopeful and then things shifted a lot with the pandemic. Personally and professionally this was a challenging time for me – an experience I think many of us share in common, to varying degrees of course.
Taking a step back, re-evaluating my business and how I wanted to be helping people allowed me to begin offering creativity coaching and work towards now being a certified coach. In terms of marketing, last year I focused a lot on going back to basics, building my foundations and a strategy that plays to my strengths.
Krista, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Being a creativity coach and facilitating workshops was never on my list of career aspirations in high school, college or even when I started my career initially in fundraising and event planning.
I can’t point to one specific experience or training and say that’s how I became a creativity coach and workshop facilitator. It’s been a combination of formal training, experimenting and trusting those intuitive nudges.
A catalyst in my journey to getting to where I am now, was a point in my life 7 years ago where I found myself with this insatiable craving to be creative, wanting to try painting and feeling a bit desperate personally.
My life at the time was a bit too full, I was hyper career focused, over-committed and always striving to improve and achieve. I decided to pick up the paintbrush and do a 5-day painting challenge just for the fun of it. That challenge turned into a 30 day one and then 100 days and then into a full-on *I-CAN’T-LIVE-WITHOUT-IT* relationship with painting and fascination with creativity.
Through sharing my paintings, I began having conversations with people online and in person about all of the art and creative activities they longed to try. That became the motivation for hosting my first workshop, wanting to give people the space, tools and encouragement to play with paint, see themselves as creative and create for the joy of it.
The coaching aspect of my business came later through my own experiences working with a coach as well as the previous 1:1 through brainstorming and strategy sessions I was offering. The coaching I offer is motivated by the fact that I believe in the creativity, imagination, power, and wisdom each of us already possesses and coaching provides you with a space and process so you can explore, tap into and activate each of these within yourself.
As a creativity coach & creative workshop facilitator, I do what I do because of what I see + believe is possible for us as individuals and as a collective human species when we:
-> Reclaim our leisure time and make space to create things with our hands and imaginations that add joy, satisfaction, and wonder to our own lives (and the world).
-> Spend time playing with our friends, family, colleagues and community.
-> Believe in and nurture our capacity to be creative over our entire lifetime (not just when we’re kids).
-> Widen our perspectives and celebrate that creativity and play have value beyond just enhancing our productivity and profits.
-> Use play and creative self-expression to help heal the societal fractures and polarization that are putting our well-being, our communities and our ability to collaborate and solve collective problems at risk.
Who we become.
The beauty, appreciation, joy and satisfaction we get to experience, make and share.
How we can harness and use one of our greatest strengths – creativity as a force for good. What we get to discover about ourselves and one another.
The understanding, connection and curiosity we can foster.
This is the potential + power of being creative and playful.
This is why I do what I do.
Currently I offer 1:1 Creativity Coaching in single 1 hour sessions or a multiple month package, host process art and creativity workshops as well as facilitate group workshops for organizations and teams.
The coaching and workshops I offer are focused on helping adults – who are already tapping into their creative gifts – whether it’s through their professional work, business OR through their creative hobbies and projects.
They have plenty of ideas and daydreams about what would bring them an overwhelming amount of joy to create and so the coaching and workshop I offer help them to:
Begin making what you daydream about creating without having to quit your job or take a year long creative sabbatical in Provence.
Prioritize and dedicate your energy and time to personal creative self-expression, play and hobbies that matter to you and give you satisfaction and joy. We give so much of our time and energy to our families, friends, careers and causes we care about and sometimes our own personal creativity can feel selfish, indulgent or less important. Finding ways to protect and honour that time is so important
Feel free, playful and wild so you can create in a way that’s meaningful and satisfying to you, rather than feeling like you have to prove you’re creative enough or to satisfy some silly algorithm.
Learn how to work with and handle fears and doubts that commonly surface when we’re being creative and build belief in yourself and your creative and artistic abilities.
Cultivate the confidence to try new creative activities and pursuits regardless of your skill level and embrace making messy and imperfect creations
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
There’s three things I’d like to mention here, in a roundabout way they are resources, but more so they are perspectives….
1. The beautiful creations you long to make, evolve from the pieces of art you want to crumple up and throw away today. Being creative is a practice, it’s not an achievement. You create what you dream of creating, through continuing to practice.
2. You don’t have to wait until you become fearless or rid yourself of doubt before you begin creating and making art. In fact the idea of becoming fearless and never experiencing doubt again, is highly improbable. What is worth your energy and focus is practicing being compassionate with yourself, being willing to create even when you feel shaky and full of doubt and learning to work with the fears and doubts in ways that don’t block or confine your expression.
3. And lastly this quote from Tara Mohr, who’s body of work has inspired continuously in my journey and whose Coaching Way program was instrumental to my development as a coach.
The quote is this:
“We don’t have to change or improve ourselves to do distinctive work. We just need to do our real work, bravely and unblock the way to our own self-expression.”
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The first is the people I’ve met. Getting to know their stories, what inspires and fascinates them, and learn about the kind of creative contributions they are making and dream of making. Witnessing people in the workshops I host or the coaching I do, express their creativity, discover things about themselves, use their imagination and creativity to get unstuck and experience joy. It’s all so beautiful.
The second is through my own experience of focusing on and valuing creativity, it’s given me a deeper appreciation for the art other people make and the ways they express their creativity AND for all of the natural beauty and things to be in awe of that surround us.
Painting, hosting workshops and being a creativity coach have and continue to be two of the most meaningful and satisfying experiences of my life.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kristakankula.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristakankula/
- Other: https://www.pinterest.ca/kristakankula/
Image Credits
All images except the ACS_0265, photo credit: Lively Creative Co. Photography – Rachel Soulliere