We recently connected with Lizethe S. Rivas and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Lizethe S. thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
I believe as humans we need to constantly be creating to show ourselves what we can do with our own hands, things that started in our mind, making the imagination tangible. I see the beauty in the effort of trying and doing. I love seeing the way one person who previously thought they couldn’t, surprise themselves and become inspired to continue to create more. I have been painting for over ten years, and i realized it was time for me to expand my skills in painting and leadership to bring more people together to create in places that do not stimulate creativity enough like retirement homes, Shelters and communities. We come together and encourage each other in the process of creating, in turn creating a place of bliss and safety.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Creative Studio 22 is a place of growth first and foremost. I dropped the idea of “perfection” because there is no such thing. We are constantly learning and growing into our next chapter, our next lesson and next mission. I believe in the power of learning two ways, either from experience (doing) or from someone with experience, (usually older and wiser). And i feel like as an instructor and leader in my community i can provide both to anyone interested. I always think to myself “I wish I had me when i was 18” and that is true for me because at 18 i thought i needed peoples opinions, their insight, advice and acceptance, i was scared to go to places alone and fear ruled my life. Now, older and wiser, I know you need to be only your true authentic self and as long as i operate with integrity, honesty and kindness, what anyone thinks about me does not matter. With that being said, too many people are scared to go after their dreams because they might disappoint someone or fail. To that i have two things to ask yourself; First, what do “YOU” want? NOT what do “THEY” want? And second, if everything we do in life has a chance of failing OR succeeding. Why wouldn’t you bet on those odds? Not everything will be a success and not everything will fail. Take more leaps of faith into your truly unique dreams designed just for you. My job is not about teaching perfection, its about the coming together, laughing, enjoying your experience, feeling safe and getting inspired to do more.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Resilience is a power word. It holds more weight than most words in our vocabulary because Resilience can make or break someones dreams and career. My journey started when I was about 12 years old. i had a dream, about being an artist, a tattoo artist to be exact. I loved Ed hardy, old traditional tattoos, the idea that he had his own style and did that full time amazed and inspired me. So i started to draw and paint right away. I did not become a tattoo artist but I know at that moment I realized i wanted to be an artist full time and that it was possible for me, if i just tried. Since then, i have had many creative ventures, about 4 businesses i have launched since i was 15. When i was 15 i started doing nails and when i was 17 i started my cake business. It was called “Cake Me Away”. Then i stopped the cake business and started nails again. Stopped the nail business and started a custom shirt and cup business along with creating logos and designs for companies. Every business was a success, but i didn’t see that until later. Resilience kept me going, taking leaps of faith into my next ventures Each venture taught me something important, a new way of doing things, a new skill, new people, new connections and most importantly doing it to see if thats what i really want to do for the rest of my life instead of just dreaming about them. Resilience will allow me to flow into my next mission without thinking too much about the outcome but more about the excitement and journey.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
Meet with your team as often as you can, we start our day 30 minutes before opening so we can catch up in our morning meeting because throughout the work day i don’t get to have actual conversations or many interactions with my team members. You should see and treat your work team and your second family because you see them the most aside from your family at home. if you’re going to be 8 hours of your day with other people, make the most out of it. Find out how their days was, find out how their family is doing, or what keeps them motivated. We start our morning with a “quote of the day” that we break down, to see what it means from everyones perspective because we are all so different. It’s a fun way to get to know a little more about each other. Then we go over our wins from the day before either personal or work wins they are all welcome. Lastly we talk about our mission. It’s important to remember our mission & why we are going at this every day with all of our energy.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: Studio.22.artco