How to Activate Your Creativity with Brit Morin

Get to Know Brit (1:14) 

The Journey of Brit & Co (3:03)

Developing Self Made (6:48)

What Being Self Made Means (9:54)

In December of 2020, 140k jobs were lost by women, 16k were gained by men.

What Gives You the Most Energy? (12:49)
a) Eating well
b) Sleeping well
c) Drinking more water
Answer: Working on the thing you’re passionate about.

You make time for the things you care about, you make excuses for the things that you don’t.

How to Test a Business IdeaWithout Going All-In (15:24)

Self Sabatoge (17:58)

Giving Yourself a Timeline (20:30)

Pivoting in Business (21:41)

Vision Casting & Creativity (23:08)

Links
brit.co
tryselfmade.com
facebook.com/groups/tryselfmade
Podcast: Teach Me Something New

Review the Transcript:

Jess Ekstrom:
Hey everyone. Welcome back to Business on the Bright Side. Today, I have a special friend on the podcast, Brit Morin, creator of Brit + Co. You've probably heard of it before Brit + Co, was one of the first ever blogs to post about Headbands of Hope, and now they have just exploded.

Jess Ekstrom:
I was a part of their Self-Made program as a coach. I really got the chance to know Brit, more of her story. You'll see that like most entrepreneurs, it was not linear. One of the things that she's really good at is just finding ways to be creative. If you head to brightpages.com, you can also take Brits pathway finding creativity in the every day. Without further ado, please welcome Brit Morin.

Jess Ekstrom:
What's up, everybody. It is Jess Ekstrom and welcome to Business on the Bright Side, the podcast where you can learn how to make a living and make a difference at the same time. Life is short and so is my attention span, so let's get started.

Jess Ekstrom:
When I was just getting started with Headbands of Hope, it was year one or year two. Someone texted me and was like, "Oh my gosh, Headbands of Hope is in the Brit + Co gift guide," I about lost it. I'm so excited to have our speaker today. Brit Morin, founder of Brit + Co. I'm going to bring her up here. Hello!

Brit Morin:
Hey, how are you?

Jess Ekstrom:
Long time no talk.

Brit Morin:
This is so fun. Thanks for having me.

Jess Ekstrom:
Oh yeah, absolutely. I feel like we were on a roll talking with Self-Made and haven't caught up in a bit. I have been so jealous of your snow pictures. Where have you been?

Brit Morin:
Well, I'm not there anymore, but I was in Montana.

Jess Ekstrom:
Because you've been Van Life for a bit, right?

Brit Morin:
We did Van Life- I know. I felt like you, I was doing Van Life, we, Van Lifed it to Montana from California and spent four weeks there. So two of which I was not working over the holidays. And then two of which I was trying to work remotely, which I need your tips on still because-

Jess Ekstrom:
We just did a session. Jake and I did a session for Airstream on Friday called Staying Connected. And it was how to work remote on the road. Literally my husbands talking about all the things he does. 'Cause I just tell him, I'm like, look, I need, I need wifi by this time. He's like, okay, I'm going to figure it out. And so when I'm on this panel with him, just standing there and he's like, well, first we turn on the booster and then we do this and do that.

Jess Ekstrom:
I'm like, Oh my God, I had no idea. He did so many things to make sure that we had wifi.

Brit Morin:
Yeah. Well, and then throw in the fact that I have a four and six-year-old and no childcare and that made working remotely very exciting. So.

Jess Ekstrom:
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Well welcome. Thanks for being here. So Britt and I worked together recently on Self-Made, which I've caught up with Anne is in full swing, which is so awesome.

Brit Morin:
Yes.

Jess Ekstrom:
But tell us just a little bit about one of my favorite parts of Self-Made was actually the first session where you kind of showed how you got started. And I remember you showing the screenshot of the chalkboard logo that you guys had and what was what was the beginning? What was the seed that was planted in you? And then what was version one to today?

Brit Morin:
For Brit & Co or Self-Made? [inaudible 00:03:42] For Brit & Co. Yeah. So I was born and raised in Texas. I fell in love with creativity as a little girl, I was obsessed with everything creative. I wanted to be an inventor. I didn't know what entrepreneur was or how to spell it more importantly.

Jess Ekstrom:
You and I both, yeah.

Brit Morin:
I was like, what is that word? So I thought I wanted to be an inventor, but then I found the internet as a teenager, as part of the children of the nineties and was like Whoa. And I learned to code, I took computer science. And so ultimately [crosstalk 00:04:19] I came out to Silicon Valley when I was 20. I started working at this place called Apple, which at the time was [crosstalk 00:04:26] yeah, it was, I was working in iTunes when it was just music. It was still hard to sell iPods to people. There was no phone, there was no movies, none of these apps.

Brit Morin:
And I was just like, Whoa, this is crazy. And then I went to Google for a few years and I realized that Google, that "how to" searches, how to blank were always the biggest searches at Google or YouTube, which I would also work on at Google. And then it's skewed female, women wanted to learn shit. And the search results behind these things were really terrible as a creative person who always wanted to learn shit. I was Googling that stuff too. And I was like, [crosstalk 00:05:05] [inaudible 00:05:06] What's this? And so.

Jess Ekstrom:
I just Googled how to make meatballs, yeah.

Brit Morin:
It's gotten so much better. But back in the day, it was not good. And so I was like, well, I want to learn how to do shit and so do all of these women that I know, why don't I help teach them? No, one's really done that since Martha Stewart, back in the day.

Brit Morin:
And, so Brit & Co was born and the chalkboard logo is so embarrassing, but it's significant because that was part of creativity, right. It was this hand made touch to a website, all of that stuff. [crosstalk 00:05:43] So that's how it was started.

Jess Ekstrom:
I used to be embarrassed as to what our version one was. And I have to dig up the original headbands of hope website. It was chevron background. There was blades of grass growing up at the top-

Brit Morin:
Butterflies or something.

Jess Ekstrom:
Oh my gosh, totally. It was awful.

Brit Morin:
If you're not embarrassed by your first website, then you aren't doing entrepreneurship right.

Jess Ekstrom:
Exactly. Exactly. And now I'm like, Oh yeah that's that's where we started.

Brit Morin:
Totally. We just launched a new Self-Made website, a few days ago. 'Cause I was so embarrassed by the old one. We put it together-

Jess Ekstrom:
But old one was really good.

Brit Morin:
No, it's terrible. I was really embarrassed by it. We put it together in two weeks on Squarespace and I was just like, Oh, we need to change this. And so now it's you can see it, try Self-Made.com. You can see the change of the website.

Jess Ekstrom:
Tell us a little bit more about, about Self-Made and how that got started out of everything that Brit & Co is already doing with online. [inaudible 00:06:47].

Brit Morin:
Well, it's interesting for the last 10 years, Brit & Co has become pretty well-known brand by women in their twenties and thirties, early forties. Teaching them how did you all kinds of things, but a lot of it, how to be more creative in many ways, how to find your passion. And so many women in our community have found their path. One girl was like, I actually on the side, love making flowers out of paper, but that can never be my job.

Brit Morin:
Right. And I was like, no, could totally be your job. And so naturally in the content and a lot of the classes we offer, we started offering some business courses, and these women would quit their jobs in accounting and go start a paper flower business and love their life.

Jess Ekstrom:
Right.

Brit Morin:
When the pandemic happened and Black Lives Matters movement happened and women and women of color were disproportionately impacted financially. I was just like, screw this. I'm going to make it my mission to help women learn how to make their own money. It's not that hard to become an entrepreneur. I can teach them in 10 weeks, they can start accruing money or they can grow the business they already have I'm going to bring in my girl gang of my mentors, all the top women in business that I know.

Brit Morin:
And we're all going to teach each other how to make more money.

Jess Ekstrom:
Yeah.

Brit Morin:
Self-Made was born. And I thought it was going to be this one-time thing that just, you so kindly participate in as a coach. And, but then it was I was bawling on the 10th week saying goodbye-

Jess Ekstrom:
You and I both, yeah.

Brit Morin:
The progress that they've made, the companies that I want, that they launched, So we did it again in the fall and it was incredible. We doubled the audience and now I'm like, we're just going to do- this is a thing now. And we're going [crosstalk 00:08:31] to keep doing it over and over again. And I think it really jives well with Brit & Co because Brit & Co's all about how to find your passion and Self-Made is how to turn that passion into money and own it, with the girlfriends-

Jess Ekstrom:
For me, being the coach, it really, it re-energized myself and my own business by bringing it back to the roots and the basics. 'Cause I feel like sometimes when you have been running a business for so long or you're at a certain point, you can drift away from oh yeah, businesses are created to scratch an itch or to solve a problem or to meet the needs of someone else. And I think that I had drifted a little bit because I'd been in it for so long and doing, and being a part of Self-Made and hearing all of these amazing women's business ideas. I don't know. I just felt, a whole new energy for my business after that. But let's talk about what does it mean to be Self-Made and what can someone who is like "I would love to have control of my own life.

Jess Ekstrom:
I would love to have the freedom to make money where I can but I don't even know what to do or where to begin." What would you say to that person?

Brit Morin:
I think being Self-Made is living life on your own terms. And that means that you're financially living life on your own terms and that you can craft your day based on how you want to spend your time. And that I know that seems like a pipe dream for so many of us, but it's so real. And that's why I think this past year with the pandemic has accelerated the idea because women largely have had to quit their jobs to take care of their kids, to homeschool their kids, to whatever. So in December 140,000 jobs were lost by women. 16,000 were gained by men. All of the jobs [crosstalk 00:10:26] in December were women's jobs.

Brit Morin:
So that's what I think Self-Made is. And to be honest, I think that for me, it's this idea that you don't have to know what your perfect business idea is to even join this program. We help you find it and I really truly believe that every one of us knows in our heart one or two things we're passionate about that could also be a business and you might not know that connection point yet. So we do this thing that we're going to do again in mid February called the big idea bootcamp for free for three days, I've worked with you to help you figure out what the thing that you love doing is that could also make money. [crosstalk 00:11:11] [inaudible 00:11:11] That's the key part of it, right? Because if you don't [crosstalk 00:11:16] know what you're going to start a business about how do you start a business, right?

Jess Ekstrom:
Yeah. So with that though, I've heard people, I don't particularly have this mindset, but they feel like monetizing a hobby or a passion will ruin it. Oh, I don't ever want to charge people for these bowls that I make or these aprons, because then that would take away the fun of me doing it. Is that something that we should be concerned about when trying to monetize some of our passions or what do you, what do you think about that?

Brit Morin:
Well, that's why I think we start with when we go through this bootcamp, the whole idea is we brainstorm a lot of ideas because maybe you love to paint and that is sacred to you. Maybe painting is not the thing that's going to make your, be your business.

Jess Ekstrom:
Right.

Brit Morin:
Probably a bunch of other things. And so we talk through, I passion by passion, which one of these also could create a great business.

Brit Morin:
And I mean, at the end of the day, I know so many designers and artists and, even me, I get to, my passion is helping women [crosstalk 00:12:26] and yeah, it's, it's hard. The business part of it. I sort of discombobulate late from the helping the mission, right?

Jess Ekstrom:
Right.

Brit Morin:
There are days where it's really hard, I have to do PNLs and accounting stuff and that's annoying. Yeah. It doesn't discount my love of what I'm doing. The first question we ask people, maybe we can do this in the comments right now. Which gives you the most energy, eating well, B) sleeping well or C) drinking more water? So in the comments, if you think which one of these do you think is giving you the most energy eating well, A) sleeping, well, B) drinking more water C).

Brit Morin:
I can soup them. But the answer is, none of those is a trick question because what actually energizes you is working on the thing that you're passionate about, because the reality is, you're going to stay up till midnight some days, because you're just obsessed with this idea and I got to get the website out and it's so exciting and fun. That doesn't feel like a job to you.

Jess Ekstrom:
Totally.

Brit Morin:
Guess what you're going to find the energy somewhere. Cause you're just so excited about it. And of course you need to sleep well eat well and drink water. But I hate when people are in jobs where they're drained every day and come home exhausted, they hated their day. They can't wait till Friday, till they get to the weekend, that doesn't have to be your life.

Jess Ekstrom:
Right.

Brit Morin:
I just want more women to see that, what I'm saying is truth.

Jess Ekstrom:
Yeah.

Brit Morin:
And that changed their lives.

Jess Ekstrom:
I mean, you make time for the things that you care about, you make excuses for the things that you don't. I feel like when I'm not finding the time for something, it usually means that I don't really care about it that much. Or if I'm trying to work on this, I was trying to work on this book last year, I was like, Oh, I'm going to write another proposal. And now I actually have one that I'm excited about. But every time I would go to write it, I'd be like, well, let me just check Facebook real quick. Let me, let me just see if anyone has emailed me or whatever. I'm like, why do I keep opening up other tabs when I should be excited about writing this book? And it kind of started to feel like, okay, well maybe this just as an indicator that my energy level isn't here, it's not the thing for me.

Brit Morin:
Yep.

Speaker 3:
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Jess Ekstrom:
If someone is like, okay, I want to just test this, but I don't have a lot of capital to buy a bunch of inventory or do something. What's the low hanging fruit, starting a business. How can someone try it without going all in? Yeah.

Brit Morin:
Oh, this is my favorite part that we, we use a lot of in the class. We teach a bunch about this, how to actually get user feedback on your ideas. And actually one of the cooler things about having Brit & Co and Self-Made together is that we have this embedded audience of women that can get feedback on ideas, hopefully. And actually one of the sort of features of Self-Made we're thinking about blowing out. And I ain't even told you this. That is, that its a concept store that we can send to the Brit & Co audience of almost tender, yes or no.

Brit Morin:
Is this a [inaudible 00:16:14] business idea or not? Would you buy this or not? Just get rapid feedback. You don't even have to have a real product behind it. It's sort of like Kickstarter, right? Where you would put up a landing page and see if people are interested and if they are, then you can make the product real and you have upfront payments, maybe that they've given you, so you have money to go invest in it. So that's one, one way.

Jess Ekstrom:
That's amazing.

Brit Morin:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:16:36] I think the other thing is I'm a venture capitalist in my third job, I have three jobs, and it's insane, but I told you what you're passionate about. You have energy for.

Jess Ekstrom:
Absolutely.

Brit Morin:
So I am a venture capital investor, mainly in technology startups, really early stage. People that have not even launched yet or have just launched and ask for money.

Brit Morin:
Fundraising is a really big, important part of becoming an entrepreneur. And we teach you how to do that in Self-Made, whether it's venture capital, grants, loans, friends and family investments, bartering through equity. All of these things are ways to get off the ground without having to put in your own dollars. And I think that's one of the biggest blockers, especially for women [crosstalk 00:17:25] who [inaudible 00:17:25] bit more risk adverse.

Jess Ekstrom:
Well, in talking about biggest blockers, I feel like Self-Made has probably been such an interesting case study as well, too. What is the thing that's holding someone back from doing this? Have you found that this is the most common roadblock, whether that's mental or resources. And then this is how we combat that.

Brit Morin:
Oh, 50%. If not more of the battle is mindset. So for some reason, and I'm obviously female and I'm not... I'm generalizing.

Brit Morin:
I'm not saying 100% of women do this, but women self-sabotage themselves way more than men do. We think of all the reasons why we probably shouldn't do this thing. We aren't good enough. We aren't smart enough. We don't have enough money. We're not going to make it perfect enough. It's not the right idea. Maybe it's the right idea, but you're not sure. Will people buy it. Just all that's your thought process before you've even tried? It's crazy. And I see, especially in the venture capital world that I'm in, men come pitch me a thing that's never launched, they swear it's a billion dollar company, they're going to crush it. They are just hitting this ball out to outer space and I better get along for the ride. And they talk to me as if it's done already.

Jess Ekstrom:
Its as if they've already won.

Brit Morin:
Yeah. And it's crazy to me. So we attack mindset and self as you know, Jess.

Jess Ekstrom:
Is that though, the mindset that we should take as women coming in, you as a venture capitalist, should someone come in with the utmost certainty that this is a slam dunk and you're missing out. Or should they come from a place of more open curiosity of, you know what I mean? What is the mindset that we should have?

Brit Morin:
You know, I think if there's a pendulum and let's say the male mentality, I just explained as a 10 and the female mentality explained is a one, I think it should be at a seven. So I don't think you should be so sure of yourself, especially if you haven't launched yet. But I think you need to be confident enough to state, this is my business plan.

Brit Morin:
You can triple check my numbers. I made the model based on these data inputs and we are going to own 10% of the category and I'm not going to stop till we get there. You know? And it's like, Whoa, okay. Because at the end of the day, as an investor, I'm investing in people and a great idea when nothing has launched yet, those are the only two inputs I have. And so I need to know that you will bulldoze that wall in front of you and not stop until you figure it out. You know? And I can't have somebody that's sitting there like, well, we might, if we're lucky and all these 10 things go right. Be at this much revenue and [crosstalk 00:20:26].

Jess Ekstrom:
As far as our line. Yeah, yeah. [inaudible 00:20:30] Is there, is there a time when you should give up on an idea, have you... There's so much language now I think around like, Oh, just push through, you got it, keep going. But at the same time sometimes I think knowing that you can give up, isn't a indicator of weakness. It's a reminder of choice, if something just isn't, if the tire isn't hitting the road or when do you look in the mirror and say should I pivot or...

Brit Morin:
Oh, for sure. I mean, I gave Brit & Co six months.

Jess Ekstrom:
Yeah.

Brit Morin:
[inaudible 00:21:11] to work or not. I saved up enough money to bootstrap it for six months. I told myself if this doesn't work out, I'm going to go back to my gut job at Google or get a different job. I know I can find something. Maybe it wasn't meant to be. But I would also say I would caveat myself now 10 years later and say, the first thing to question is the business model or the way that you're going about fulfilling this mission you have.

Brit Morin:
Right? Because at Brit & Co my whole strategy initially was an app based strategy, we're going to create a collection of apps that each had their own sort of commerce function. Some would be service-based, some would be products you could buy and different categories, blah, blah, blah. We created the content site just to have a marketing funnel to drive people to the apps. And then what happened was we started making these apps and no one was downloading them. They were just wanting more content. And so there was a point in time where I'd be like, Whoa, I mean, I've never run a media business before, nor have I ever done advertising as a business model. But that's what my user is telling me she wants, so I guess I'm doing this. And so I shut down the app and then moved to become a digital media company.

Brit Morin:
And, and that's what started the foray into the Brit & Co as we know it. And so instead of giving up, because the app wasn't working, I looked at the numbers and realized something else was working. What if I shifted the model and pivoted into that? So that's step one. I think if you do that two or three times, and it's still not working then sure. Maybe you should, you should try something new, but A, you need to give yourself enough time to kick the tires a bit and get real user feedback. And B, you've got to look at the metrics to see which parts of the business are working and how you can potentially shift your, your vantage point.

Jess Ekstrom:
Starting, and to kind of wrap this up, I feel like you're the queen of creativity. When I think of you, I'm... just think of Brit &. Co in general, I feel like it just lights this fire to creativity, which we need when running a business or we need just kind of to walk through life.

Jess Ekstrom:
I feel just to be creative. When you're in those creative ruts, if you will, I consider myself a creative person and then sometimes for a week on end, I have no idea why, but the cupboards just empty. How do you rediscover yourself? Do you journal, do you give yourself some time to breathe? Do you force yourself to do something creative? What are some ways that we can tap into our creativity?

Brit Morin:
Yeah. Well, my 2021 new year's resolution is actually all about this. Well, also part of, as part of Self-Made we did, we do vision boards, as you might remember, Jess and I did one for 2021. I was like, this is what my life will be in 2021. I'm making my vision cast now. And on it I put, I would have half a day a week without meetings, to block off my time, to fully throw myself into something creative, a creative project. It's on my calendar. 1:00 PM on Friday, no more meetings. I getting off my computer. I don't know what I'm going to- it starting this week actually. 'Cause I was in [inaudible 00:24:34] [crosstalk 00:24:33].

Brit Morin:
so I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm going to paint. I'm going to knit. I'm going to make cupcakes. I'm going to do photography, take a photography walk. I'm going to write. And just to have three to four hours without my kids, without a screen, fully embracing my creative self, I probably won't even share it on Instagram or anything. I just want this for me. And so that's my tactic now. But I think if you can find pockets of those moments throughout your week, or do you know something I did a couple of years ago called give it a week where you literally pick one thing you want to learn or try for seven days.

Brit Morin:
And you're only committing to it for seven days. It's not that crazy less than an hour a day. Whether it's guitar, whether it's singing, whether it's dancing, whether it's painting doodling, drawing. I did all of them. You can see them on my Instagram profile. I'm @Brit. I did one of these every week for 52 weeks. And it was incredible. The amount of creative flow I had from just doing something everyday for seven days. Also you can get really, you can get pretty good- [crosstalk 00:25:37].

Jess Ekstrom:
You get good at something. Was there anything that stuck that you were like, I'm going to keep going? [crosstalk 00:25:40].

Brit Morin:
Oh my gosh. So many things let's see. I mean, I learned lettering, which I still implore a lot, Guitar. So funny. I was watching a Taylor Swift documentary recently and I was like, Oh, I know what chord she's playing.

Jess Ekstrom:
I've bought a ukulele four times on Amazon and chickened out and not done it. I'm like, no, I got to do this.

Brit Morin:
Yeah. And I did other things besides creativity, I did a zero waste week or learned about all the shit that we usually throw away that should actually be recycled or composted. And I still sit to a lot of that. So.

Jess Ekstrom:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:26:16] Awesome. Well we, it's funny that you said that give it a week. Cause we were talking about our mission statements and stuff in this challenge and the things that we want to do or create. I have this thing that says, pretend to go all in. That's exactly how we decided whether or not we were doing the Airstream was we pretended for one month that we were going to do this and just saw what could happen from it.

Jess Ekstrom:
So I think give it a week is awesome. If you guys have for Britt, put them in the chat. One technical question: Is bootcamp open for signups now?

Brit Morin:
We have a Facebook group it's just called facebook.com/groups/trySelf-Made is the group. That's how we're sort of keeping everyone posted on everything new, including discounts, including swag, cleaning all the guest speakers that we're going to have this session. I mean, there's women like Gwyneth Paltrow joining. [inaudible 00:27:10] founder of Minted, Mariam Naficy, just incredible women that are going to be part of this. And I hope to see you there.

Jess Ekstrom:
Oh yeah, for sure. And then one more question. You said the whole list of 52 things is on your Insta @Britt. How did you get that handle? You were...

Brit Morin:
I was early OJ Instagram. My- yeah. My husband worked at Facebook. Then he started a Facebook competitor called Path, which really was an Instagram competitor. Kevin Systrom, The founder of Instagram was my buddy. My first day of Google. I just have this weird tech community network here.

Jess Ekstrom:
That's awesome. And lastly, definitely check out her podcast, teach me something new. It is one of my favorites. And you've had some star-studded guests on there.

Brit Morin:
Yeah. We've had Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis teaching you how to use acting for your job, which is incredible. Rachel Ray [inaudible 00:28:05] cooking, Adam Grant talking about organizational psychology, so.

Jess Ekstrom:
Anyone that surprised you that you were...

Brit Morin:
Oh, this is a funny one, but it's also fascinating. We did an episode on intuition with the Long Island, Medium Theresa Caputo, but then my deceased grandfather showed up while I'm asking her about intuition. Not even talking about dead people and then it became this whole crazy thing.

Jess Ekstrom:
Okay. I can't wait to listen to that one. [crosstalk 00:28:33] Awesome Brit, you are the best. Thank you for being here and just really proud to be a small part of some of the work that you're putting out there and what you're doing for women. It's been really great.

Brit Morin:
Well thank you for having me, so nice to virtually meet all of you, at least [crosstalk 00:28:47] in touch.

Jess Ekstrom:
All right. Thanks Britt.

Jess Ekstrom:
Thanks for listening to business on the bright side with Jess Ekstrom. I love to send out the episodes every Monday with a quick text and a quote from me. So text me the word podcast to (704) 228-9495. That's (704) 228-9495. If you want to see what the show notes are from this episode? Head to businessonthebrightside.com hit subscribe here, write a review and I'll see you on Monday.