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00:00:01
Whit Bolster
0 Playsin 9 hours
Thanks for listening to our episode with Whit Bolster.
To keep up with or connect with Whit:
✨ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/whit-bolster/
✨ Website: https://ampersand.wtf/
✨ Substack: https://whitbolster.substack.com/
To stay in touch with Meredith and Medbury:
Follow Meredith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meredith-farley/
Follow Medbury on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/medbury_agency/
Subscribe to the Medbury newsletter: https://meredithfarley.substack.com/
Email Meredith: Meredith@MedburyAgency.com
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Transcript
Introduction to Whitney and Ampersand
00:00:00
Speaker
Whitney, thank you so much for doing this. I am so excited to get to have this conversation with you. i think you are just the coolest. I'm so happy to be here. For anyone who doesn't know you, can you say a little bit about who you are and what you do?
00:00:15
Speaker
Sure. i am the founder and creative director at Ampersand, which is a women-run identity design studio based in Atlanta and New York, but with clients everywhere.
00:00:28
Speaker
really been important to me that we are women run. It's really cool. I know we've talked on this and I've talked about it on the podcast before. So folks who listen will
Feminine Energy in Leadership
00:00:38
Speaker
know. Medbury, that's the road I grew up on in upstate New York.
00:00:42
Speaker
And in Old English, it means a castle built for women or maidens or something like that. And that that means a lot to me from a personal perspective, but I don't always talk about it that much. It's not front and center on the site. And I've actually been rethinking that because it's, do you feel like it has brought you the type of clients that you like to work with more? Or how do you think that direction has impacted your brand or not brand business? That's what I mean.
00:01:08
Speaker
Yeah, I use those terms, branded business interchangeably as well. And I know that there are different sides of the same thing. When I first started Ampersand and decided that we would be women-focused, I, at the time, was
Balancing Authenticity and Business Needs
00:01:23
Speaker
based in Atlanta.
00:01:24
Speaker
My family is very Southern and there was this concern about you're cutting out. I think somebody specifically said to me like, but you're cutting out so many people with money.
00:01:36
Speaker
And I think it's really beautiful that we are in business because of women. yeah And we do work with brands that are owned by men. We've done a lot of hotel work and have worked with teams that aren't just women run.
00:01:50
Speaker
But when I think about the feminine energy, there's a curiosity and a willingness to trust our intuition that I think is particularly unique to women.
00:02:02
Speaker
And there's been a lot of research on women. how women leaders can be in a lot of ways more effective than men. And I think bringing that kind of leadership style and that kind of lens or perspective to the work that we do is something that I also want our clients to be conscious of when they reach out to us.
00:02:21
Speaker
So I think in the earlier days when i would describe ampersand, our tagline was, let's be human together. And now over the last 12 years, I've just more fully stepped into our truth of being women led and women run.
00:02:40
Speaker
And I think it just feels more honest in a way. I really like that I'm doing for some brands to have that preference for that work, but to not maybe want to say it for that reason you mentioned where they're like, we don't want to alienate good plain paying clients. We need clients and we need money right now.
00:02:59
Speaker
I have a lot of complex thoughts about what is and isn't authenticity and the way people talk about it, but it's Honest really rings true there. I do want to talk about your site. but We'll put it in the show notes for anyone
Branding Philosophy and Emotional Connections
00:03:10
Speaker
listening.
00:03:10
Speaker
Go read it. Succinct and beautiful and so cool. And I think when I first talked to you, I said something to the effect of reading your website felt like magic. I felt like I was like feeling who you are through the website.
00:03:25
Speaker
And you use terms like portal, intuitive downloads, metamorphosis minded design studio. and I'm wondering, you're touching on it, but one question I had for you was, how do you talk to your clients about the more mysterious, intuitive and artistic sides of commercial work? Because I have found that great commercial work is all of those things, but sometimes, especially because I'm in the B2B space, I have found it complex to communicate to customers in a way that just doesn't sound like bullshit to them, essentially.
00:04:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think that those are all great questions. This industry space over intellectualizes itself all the time. And there's a lot of invention around that, the rationales that are built about like why there's a curve of an R here or how this texture of a pattern echoes whatever, the icon is a poem.
00:04:22
Speaker
And the end of the day, branding is wayfinding. You don't have a lot of real estate or a lot of time to communicate every single thing about what you are as a brand.
00:04:33
Speaker
You really have to rely on that split second feeling or spark of connection that you hope that your brand incites in people, right? Yeah. The people who will need your product, use your product, where your product will improve their quality of life.
00:04:49
Speaker
I don't talk about, there isn't like a cerebral how brief that I take them through. Here's how we bring woo into the world. Science to support that.
00:05:02
Speaker
I think when clients come to us that they have the feeling that we want our work to be imbued with. And so by showing up in a true and honest and complete way to every engagement, our clients are having the experience that they want their customers to have.
Business Model Inspired by Nature
00:05:24
Speaker
And of that is more important than an explanation. um i feel like the best metaphor would be like pheromones. you know like It's in the ether. Yeah. And a lot of the language on our website Running agency is soul crushing work.
00:05:44
Speaker
You have to care so much about what you're working on. And in the early days, you might be working on things that you don't care about. And so you have to manufacture care, which is something that we don't do anymore.
00:05:56
Speaker
So I don't feel a connection with the product that you're offering or the brand that you're building. or if I don't believe in you, then we can't do the work because showing up to that kind of work relationship just makes me feel grief.
00:06:15
Speaker
Yeah. yeah So I think that's the first step is do we connect? And I think that after going through so many Seasons of running a business and just feeling buried in the administrative stuff, choked by timelines, just felt like I was like opening my computer in the morning and free falling into the day.
00:06:37
Speaker
It took a long time, but last January, i was like, okay, we're ready to completely redefine how we present on the internet, our website. That's how most people find us. That's the first thing I direct people to.
00:06:53
Speaker
i really wanted our website to be, I'm like, we are not building out RFPs full of long-winded PDFs with briefs for every opportunity. Everyone should be able to just get a link.
00:07:04
Speaker
And if they like what they see, then they should, we should have a conversation. Last January, my design director, Lydia, and i went to upstate New York and basically I wrote the web website and she does all of our drawings.
00:07:20
Speaker
My main focus for that offsite was i want to run a business that feels like nature, that acts like nature. We need to have winters, which are seasons of not death, but incubation. That's where the hardiest life is made. Maybe the highest energy part of something growing is happening in the winter under the ground when no one can see it.
00:07:47
Speaker
It's unrealistic to think that we're always going to have all this space around the creative work that we do. So we need to be ready for spring, which is bursting and growing and a lot of work and energy and it's hot.
00:08:00
Speaker
And then the summer is where everything just keeps getting bigger. And then in the fall, what's not working? What needs to strip away? What should not survive through a winter?
00:08:11
Speaker
How do we think about our clients through this lens?
Overcoming Business Challenges and Fears
00:08:14
Speaker
Every client who comes to us I say metamorphosis minded because we want to help our clients change to become their fullest potential. The other side of a metamorphosis is a butterfly.
00:08:29
Speaker
It's a caterpillar to a butterfly. That is what we want to do. We want to start thinking about the work that we do in ways that aren't so militant. Like deadlines, execution.
00:08:42
Speaker
These words that we use are so violent. never thought about execution. Never forget that. all right. Keep going. I've been working with Katherine Wilkinson for many years across several projects.
00:08:54
Speaker
And she is always good about finding the nature reframe for some sort of violent production word. That definitely influenced the way that we talk about ourselves. I also wanted to be careful in the language that we use on the website that we're not using terms that feel so esoteric that nobody can relate to what we're saying or we're over-defining to a point that we're not saying anything.
00:09:19
Speaker
I'm glad that metamorphosis minded resonated with you because that was one of my made up words. but Even as people, we want to experience metamorphosis. And as women, we do that a lot.
00:09:31
Speaker
Yes. Well, I do want to ask some really specific questions in a moment about the work you all are doing, which I think is so cool. I think sometimes the things that get in the way for me of being able to embrace more of the approach and vibe and process you all are taking is a lot of fear, scarcity thinking, worried that I wouldn't, we wouldn't get clients if I took that approach. And I know you guys have been very successful for a long time. And I'm curious about what has like your metamorphosis been around money and revenue for the business, if there has been one, or have you always been someone who's a little more able to be like, this is what I'm doing. And I trust that they'll come.
00:10:21
Speaker
great In the earlier years, I had dreams of being this high profile agency that was going to bring in all this money and do eight figures, whatever.
00:10:34
Speaker
And as I started, so about two years ago, when I was at this point of, should I scale up or should we stay this size? Is this the right size or should we get smaller? And we ended ended up getting smaller.
00:10:45
Speaker
Because what I noticed is as we grew, it created this machine that required that we say yes to things that did not feel honoring.
00:10:58
Speaker
And I don't mean that we, there is nothing on our website that I'm not proud of. And there are no clients, you know, who we've said yes to, haven't been wonderful. I think where the hardest match occurs is when a client doesn't understand what we do and where they don't understand there isn't trust.
00:11:19
Speaker
When that happens, that creates a lot of, as women, over-explanation, which is very draining. And once you get to a certain run rate, you have to say yes to everything. You can't afford to say no. That's how I felt.
00:11:37
Speaker
So that's one side of it was like running a $12 million dollars agency versus a million dollar agency is basically like, how big of a headache do I want?
00:11:48
Speaker
yeah For me, that was my experience. But I'm also a creative in the work. And there are a lot of agencies who have directors and new business people who are like, I'm all of those things. So I have to really protect my energy.
00:12:01
Speaker
We have various runways. that are different lengths at different times based on the clients who we have on roster and where the work is rolling on and off. I would say that the work for me has been in cultivating my own energy, my personal energy, like protecting my piece.
00:12:23
Speaker
Getting to
Whitney's Creative Journey and Notable Projects
00:12:24
Speaker
a place of belief that there will be clients who are going to come, that what we are putting out in the world is going to resonate.
00:12:38
Speaker
I'm not going to have the kind of forecasting around revenue that a bigger shop might have. But what we're all experiencing right now is so much uncertainty anyway, is what I'm describing even different than having a full-time job with benefits, especially in our industry space.
00:12:57
Speaker
But we are the most successful when my energy is right. I practice Reiki, I meditate, I take long walks. I also eat at nice restaurants sometimes as a pick-me-up or I go to a museum. When I'm feeling concerned that we may not have another client coming in the most important thing for me to do in that moment is to get inspired.
00:13:22
Speaker
We're tuning forks. Yeah. And whether you believe that or not, it's true. And so when we show up to a call, when I would show up to calls with fear, like if this person doesn't say yes, then like it's over. We're not gonna, I was like clutching that call versus showing up to the call and being in inspired, jar which is what people want to hire. People will pay almost anything to be inspired. And I'm not just talking about agencies.
00:13:49
Speaker
That's what we want people to deal with our products is inspired. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh, you just said so many things. i could I feel like I could pick your brain for eight hours straight. Obviously, we won't do that today, but I'm also a long walks and a meditation person. But it's funny you say Reiki because I've actually been thinking about getting a little more into Reiki.
00:14:09
Speaker
Every small business owner, whether you're a creative or not, going through Reiki 1 and learning how to clear your own energy Especially as creatives, we're so sensitive.
00:14:20
Speaker
Someone paying you to do your work doesn't change how sensitive it is to do it, period. And so finding your rituals that are like a cold rinse for your soul, we have to have that.
00:14:33
Speaker
It's essential. It's part of the work. And people can feel that you're doing that when you talk to them. You don't have to be listing off all the things that you did to prepare for the call. They can feel that you're there.
00:14:45
Speaker
right. You guys do such incredibly interesting work. Can you talk through the work that you focus on? Maybe some of the projects you're most proud of and things you're thinking about right now around the branding work that you do?
00:15:01
Speaker
Sure. We worked, we've done a lot of boutique hotels and I love hospitality. First of all, people who work in hospitality are smart and they are so good at what they do and they're so generous.
00:15:14
Speaker
And people who open hotels are like optimists, like high vibe, zest for life people because they're building something that's very hard to build.
00:15:27
Speaker
It takes a long time to make money in a hotel. And a hotel is meeting people on vacation, which is what we work for in America. And boutique hotels are like really juicy because there's so many touch points and everybody wants to be dazzled.
00:15:43
Speaker
So it's really, my design team loves when we do hotel projects because it's like the notepads and the merch and the signage, and there's so many wonderful things about it. And then doing the research on different areas, like we've done, we have several hotels in Palm Springs, some in California, a lot in the Southeast, one in Costa Rica, all over the place.
00:16:06
Speaker
So that's fun too, because you're getting to like travel and get vacation-y as a part of the work. so So that's really fun. But we've probably spent most of our time with CPG brands.
00:16:18
Speaker
So consumer packaged goods. And that started with the Honey Pot Company. i did their rebrand in 2016. At the time, Ampersand was a production company. So I was directing commercials.
00:16:33
Speaker
And we were producing in the early aughts of Instagram, like Instagram videos for clients. And we would be hired to do like TV spots. And then I would sell them a couple little clips that they could put on Instagram. but It was all very new.
00:16:49
Speaker
And when Beatrice, the founder, came to me with her co-founder, she was like, we need a new look. And they had gotten a call from the buyer at Target.
00:16:59
Speaker
So that was the first branding project that I did. where I literally drew the packaging. We took my drawings into the meeting with the buyer at Target and she was like,
00:17:12
Speaker
This is a target brand. Wow. was huge. And I opted to be a part of that meeting, which is, that's the other part is put yourself in those big moments, be a part of those big moments with your clients, because that's really like where the magic happens.
00:17:28
Speaker
And getting to hear her say that, I kept telling Bea, I was like, I don't do branding. I'm not a designer. And she was like, you're doing it. You're doing it. And we did that initial fit. All of our packaging lived in Target for forever. They made some updates over the years.
00:17:44
Speaker
And then last summer, they had a partnership opportunity to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. And she just called me and was like, I'd like to bring you back.
00:17:57
Speaker
Would you be open to that? And that was the coolest full circle career moment. of my life. I think I'll always point to that as just being such a neat moment. I was on vacation with my family at the beach and she and I always had that kind of connection.
00:18:14
Speaker
Yeah. So now we've been rolling through the portfolio with their team and it's really fun. They have a very complex portfolio. There are so many things for us to think about in terms of building a visual language that is truly scalable for a company that is incredibly innovative, always developing new products and to build a brand that can hold that is a really unique and cool opportunity.
00:18:42
Speaker
And we did something with their new packaging, which you can see on our website, but we did something with that new packaging that's really exciting. It's the first time we incorporated hand-drawn artworks, which is something that most brands wouldn't do because it's a hard thing to scale.
00:18:59
Speaker
And it's a hard thing to commemorate with rules and guidelines. So a lot of times when people think of being on brand, they think of something that has to be totally stripped down. And so we had the opportunity to develop this look for the brand that is, we called it in the wild.
00:19:16
Speaker
And so all of the herbs, normally when you see herbs, so their pads are infused with herbs, which is like the... Yeah. So cool. And they have a new herbal infusion that just hit the shelves like a month or two ago. It's a calming blend and it smells amazing. Has ashwagandha and lavender, lemon balm. It is literally ah spa treatment in your underwear. It is the best.
00:19:42
Speaker
Like the best. Even if you think you don't wear pads, you should wear these. ah And so we were like, how do we show... Like what's in the pads on the outside of the packaging without it feeling medicinal. It is medicinal. It's ancient medicine, but how do we give it that poetry? And so the herbs are all fully expressed.
00:20:05
Speaker
Like what would they look like growing in the wild? Not what do they look like chopped up and assembled in little bouquets like you see in like a whole foods or something. And so the art like wraps around the packaging. It's like growing around the packaging.
00:20:21
Speaker
Originally the branding was very apothecary forward. And one of the things that makes something look apothecary is containers. If you think about like medicine jars. Yeah. Like the forms that used to be in the apothecary times type into like analog style, right?
00:20:38
Speaker
So we had built the brand like that with all these boxes and containers that were outlined. And in these new designs, nothing is outlined. So it's like breaking out of containers. Really, Honeypot has always been zeitgeist, like at the forefront of feminine care.
00:20:54
Speaker
The feminine care aisle at Target started with the Honeypot company. When I went into that meeting, there was not a feminine aisle. I think we just take that kind of stuff for granted. It's been in the last seven or eight years that's been a thing, the tagline that I wrote for the Honeypot Company, and that be heard. That's part of the magic too, right?
00:21:14
Speaker
That you as a creative are like, oh, sparking on something and that the person you're working with is that's it. They're the one. And so it's made for humans with vaginas by humans with vaginas, because it takes one to no one.
00:21:29
Speaker
Pay attention to this part. So the tagline is made by humans with vaginas for humans with vaginas because it takes one to no one. We wrote that in 2016. New York Times comes out with an article that's Gen Z just wants you to say vagina.
00:21:45
Speaker
ah That's people talk about zeitgeist and all these kinds of hot air kind of words, but that's what that is. Is having that partnership where you, it's safe for you to just spark off ideas and you're working with a partner who can also be in it with you and hear what's happening and have an ear for that as well.
00:22:09
Speaker
It seems like you're naturally good at this. It's interesting to me that at the start of that, you were almost saying, I'm not a branding person. I don't do branding.
00:22:20
Speaker
What do you think changed in you? Was it just that particular project where, okay, I just did something enormous and incredibly beautiful from and impactful from a branding
Role of Intuition and Creative Sensitivity in Branding
00:22:32
Speaker
perspective. I guess I am a branding person or what was that internal experience like for you?
00:22:39
Speaker
I had my daughter at 22 and when i got pregnant, my father's insurance would not cover a daughter's pregnancy.
00:22:49
Speaker
So was uninsured. actually found out I was pregnant at a Planned Parenthood, which is one of my favorite things to say because they are providing women's health care. yeah So I needed a job that provided health insurance.
00:23:02
Speaker
And so I became a teacher and I ended up being a teacher for eight years. i was an English teacher in public schools in Alabama. So when I left by way of video production, picked up little video jobs,
00:23:18
Speaker
And then found, this was also early days of Facebook, would find Facebook business pages that had big followings in Atlanta. I was living in Auburn, Alabama, and would go there, would offer to make videos for them about some issue that they were talking about or an event that they had or whatever.
00:23:36
Speaker
We would make the videos and i would send them to local publications like Atlanta magazines. Gout mob was a big thing at the time. Yeah. And they would release the videos and someone at BBDO saw those videos. I made a video about a record store.
00:23:51
Speaker
He saw that and called me and I had to get someone to cover my class to go outside to take the call. He wanted me to put together a video shoot for Embassy Suites. And it was like a leap year campaign.
00:24:03
Speaker
And the campaign never made, but that phone call, I was like, this is what I should be doing. Like I shouldn't be teaching. So I cashed in my 401, which was a disappointing amount of money, to be honest.
00:24:15
Speaker
It's certainly not worth staying and teaching for. And moved to Atlanta and then just naturally got a lot of production gigs because I understood that space because my boyfriend at the time was in that space.
00:24:27
Speaker
So by the time I got to meet Beatrice and doing the Honeypot Company, had been three or four years, and I was really clear that I didn't have the pedigree or the experience that a person would need to have.
00:24:41
Speaker
So I really started Ampersand because I was like, I have a child, I'm already directing like, I was directing like Demons Beautyrest mattresses commercials and developed a whole like multi-million dollar campaign for a credit union.
00:24:55
Speaker
I was like, I'm not gonna go learn my way up through an agency. I'm a writer. I already have clients. So I was just saying yes to anybody who wanted to work with us and putting work up on our website that we had done, which attracted people who wanted that work.
00:25:10
Speaker
So yeah, I saw myself as like a producer or a content creator now, I guess is what people would say. but that intuition piece is what makes me really good at branding and the ability to see patterns and things that and not everybody does. And I think most creatives do. That's what sensitivity is, access to awareness and access to information that other people aren't accessing.
00:25:36
Speaker
yeah And that just made me, I just have always continued to move towards things that feel interesting and easy for me. And so just naturally led me there, but I'm not a designer.
00:25:49
Speaker
And that still is a thing that if I could go back and be a designer or go to school specifically for design and not for like fine art design and literature, which is when I graduated with, I would totally do that.
00:26:02
Speaker
Interesting. sounds like you drew the imagery for the first. So you are a great illustrator. Yeah, I'm actually drawing more right now than I have in a really long time on my sub stack. I've been like drawing probably because writing was like felt so hard that I was like, let me draw it.
00:26:20
Speaker
But yeah, I think I've always had like a sensibility, but I don't have the skills to carry out what I see ah way that I know it needs to look or the way that I know it needs to be. So I can draw. It it does make sense. Actually, i have a sketch pad right here and I've been drawing a lot more too lately.
00:26:37
Speaker
Yes. Me too. And I remember her saying some quote of hers is that she never got blocked as a writer because she always had drawing. So she could always go in between the two. Would you consider yourself to be a creative director? Is that a term you're comfortable with?
00:26:50
Speaker
Yeah, I do. Creative director is what I've always identified as. In the earlier days, I would have identified more as a writer or maybe a strategist. But creative director has stayed true throughout my whole career.
Creative Leadership and Personal Well-being
00:27:03
Speaker
And that is a title that I think has really been diluted over the last... Really, maybe since COVID, I feel a lot of people call themselves creative directors. And I'm seeing schools offering creative direction degrees, which does not make sense to me.
00:27:22
Speaker
A creative director
00:27:26
Speaker
has to have a team. And they have to have a heart for creatives. The only way to really have a heart for creatives is to be nurturing your own creative spirit so that you can lead your team with compassion and you can future-proof ah right the road to work in a way that is like, this is going to be a sticky spot.
00:27:54
Speaker
And I think being a creative director is not about making everything smooth for everyone. It's about naming the places that might get sticky and doing your best to be there with them while you're going through the sticky parts.
00:28:09
Speaker
That's really important because we can't always, while I do believe in the seasonality of work, we can't control when those seasons hit the way that Even nature is unpredictable in that way. But I think if somebody wants to be a creative director, if that's what you imagine that you want to be, the most important thing for you to be able to do is work well on a team with a focused talent or like a clear way that you can contribute to be a great team player.
00:28:38
Speaker
so that you can be a really effective creative director. And then you also have to have all those other things, taste, discernment, and a willingness to make decisions and stick by them.
00:28:49
Speaker
I think a lot of times i used to like jokes and I felt like my job was basically to make decisions and stand by them.
00:28:57
Speaker
It's interesting. i agree with everything you've said. And when you say to not point out the parts that might get sticky, but to not make the road smooth entirely for everybody, I think sometimes really creative people are often very empathetic people and seeing their team's discomfort can be very uncomfortable. ah Does that make sense to you? And like, how have you maybe dealelt with that over the years.
00:29:25
Speaker
Because creative work can be hard. To go back to what you said early on about agency work, it can impact your soul sometimes in different ways. And I think seeing that happen, even in a tiny instance for someone on your team,
00:29:38
Speaker
can be hard. But at the same time, everyone has consented to do this work. And as the leader, you can't take on everybody else's pain and everybody else's problem all the time.
00:29:49
Speaker
Does this resonate at all with you? And if so, what are your thoughts or bits of advice? Totally resonates. And I would just say that you cannot avoid the feeling of, are we going to have a good idea this time?
00:30:05
Speaker
like It is a question on every single project. Every writer you talk to, will I ever write another book? Will I ever make another painting? Like, how can I possibly access the creativity that I felt during that? Will it happen again?
00:30:18
Speaker
there has to be tension in order for the work to occur. Like even when we think about back to the beginning of our conversation, the metamorphosis. Yeah. If you watch a caterpillar become a butterfly, it looks really hard.
00:30:32
Speaker
Tickle legs. ah Dressful. And then it's beautiful. And what an upgrade. From a caterpillar to a butterfly, major upgrade.
00:30:44
Speaker
And creative work goes through that too. Like maybe your caterpillar is sketches. Maybe your caterpillar is mood boards. Maybe it's thought starters. But it's not finished yet.
00:30:55
Speaker
And getting to a place of being finished is going to require some effort and some energy and some discomfort. The point is not for us to be comfortable all the time, but for us to learn how to navigate seasons of discomfort in a way that we can trust ourselves. I was telling you earlier before we started recording that I've been doing ice baths and saunas.
00:31:19
Speaker
And that is all about meeting the discomfort and knowing that you can do it, that you're safe. And I think that's also the container that I'm, look, I'm not saying that I provide that in every work experience that anybody's ever had with me.
00:31:37
Speaker
Impatience is my Achilles heel. I'm so impatient and I'm probably the caterpillar rushing to become the butterfly and and injuring the wings or something.
00:31:49
Speaker
So patience has been ah big lesson for me and letting all the pieces fall. And waiting out some of those uncomfortable moments without striving to push through it faster or smooth everything out for everybody else.
00:32:07
Speaker
So i
Aspiring for Growth and Personal Reflections
00:32:10
Speaker
feel like I still have a lot to learn from a creative leadership perspective, but I am always curious about how I could be better, kinder.
00:32:23
Speaker
more patient and the work always benefits from the experience that the team has on it if it's a positive experience.
00:32:34
Speaker
But what gets you to the other side, it's the same thing in the cold plunge. I've done this before, i can do it again and it's okay to be uncomfortable. And that knowing is the piece where probably I add the most value is like, hey, we felt this before.
00:32:51
Speaker
We've always solved it. We've never had a scenario where we haven't solved it. The other thing is I used to be like, oh, I need to get up and work. But now it's more like I need to be rested to do work.
00:33:04
Speaker
And sometimes the best thing for the team is to push away from it for a little while and let it breathe and think about other things um so that you can come back to it with fresh eyes.
00:33:16
Speaker
Do you think you'll ever write a book about the work you're doing? I would read it. I'm really pouring a lot into my writing these days. And am starting to tiptoe into some of these themes on Substack.
00:33:31
Speaker
And i would love to someday have a book that I can share that has this stuff in there. I think right now i'm Like so much is crystallizing for me right now in this year where it's, I'm an empty nester. My daughter just started school this year. So I've had a lot of time to reflect on all of these things that we're talking about.
00:33:55
Speaker
And I have a sense that I'll know when it's like fully cooked. but where it's time to do that. But it means a lot to me to hear you say that. And I'll also say this.
00:34:06
Speaker
It's been a huge lesson in putting myself out there as a writer, just me, not ampersand, not our work, but just like me writing letters on subsect. has encouraged me, like over the last couple of months, I have been looking for new artists who are making new things to be that little gasp of encouragement.
00:34:27
Speaker
Cause you don't realize in the early days of somebody doing something new, yeah how important it is to hear that's really good. yeah really liked that. That really spoke to me. and so putting myself in that position has made me like, I'm going to tell five Like if I read something that I really like, i tell the person I really liked it.
00:34:48
Speaker
Yeah. ah We forget how important that is. ah Totally. And it's I feel like, too, the need, like accepting a little bit of a need for encouragement or validation can feel funny sometimes. It's like you don't want to need it, but sometimes that nice remark from someone keeps you going for eight more weeks or something like that.
00:35:07
Speaker
Where can folks go find your Substack? We'll put it in the show notes. Yeah, my Substack is under my name, Whit Bolster, and my letter is called Secret Breakfast. Is there anything that we didn't touch on that you would have wanted to say or cover?
00:35:24
Speaker
I've been thinking a lot about what I would tell my 30 year old self. um And I'm noticing that a lot of the people who I talk to lately when I'm talking to peers are in their early thirties.
00:35:35
Speaker
My early thirties was when i really started to get good at things. Like your talent is pretty well honed. You might be starting to build something of your own.
00:35:47
Speaker
And I think the advice or not, I wouldn't have listened to advice because I know people gave me advice, but the future voice that I would have listened to would be, it all works out.
00:36:01
Speaker
Everything that you think is like your whole career down the drain or just a total flop or just so hard, how could you possibly continue to go on?
00:36:14
Speaker
If you stay curious and you are fierce about saying yes to the things that make you feel excited to be a human doing this life, everything's going to work out.
00:36:31
Speaker
not going to be perfect, but it's going to be fine. And I think that would have made me feel a lot more comfortable. I'm in my late 30s. I'm 38. So I feel like anyone listening will probably have a similar experience.
00:36:46
Speaker
But I am obsessed with you. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for having me. Thank you.