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Hey, crystal lovers and welcome! I’m thrilled to be connecting with one of my favorite multi-passionate creatives. This is Joi from Joi-Knows-How.
We’ve been playing tag on Instagram for a little while, trying to bring you guys this interview and I’m so excited that we actually finally get to sit down and do this today. Joi, thank you so much for being here.
D’Ana Joi: My pleasure. I’m super excited. Thank you.
You’re kind of known as the queen of helping people embrace their multi-passionate creativity.
Can you tell us about the work you do and how you inspire others to follow the path that you’ve created for yourself?
Joi: Sure, I love that. I gladly embrace that title. The Queen of Multi Passionate Creativity. I’m a person who has always had a lot of different creative outlets. From music to writing, photography and everything in between, and for a long time, it just held me back from ever pursuing anything with any level of seriousness because I felt like until I could choose one thing, I wasn’t going to be successful because that was the overarching advice I had been hearing or I would tell people what I was interested in. I could tell they would just brush it off like, “Oh, it sounds like another new idea.”
It started this negative cycle for me where I really struggled to take myself seriously. I felt like anything I was going to start, I wasn’t going to finish so what was the point of even going after anything meaningful? Then one day I woke up and I literally just decided, you know what? I’ve tried picking one thing and that’s not working, what if I just do the opposite? That’s when I started my blog. I started my blog as a space to put all of my passions in one place. Rather than choose just one passion, if that makes sense.
Ashley: Absolutely.
I have a few blog posts about crystals because that’s one of my passions.
Joi: It started off as space for me to put everything I loved in one place and not feel like I had to choose for the first time. That really created a ripple effect of blogging consistently and seeing that people were enjoying what I was writing. Then moving to Instagram and telling more of my stories there and seeing that people were starting to resonate with the part of my story that was about being multi-passionate and never really knowing how to navigate that.
Once I saw how many people were resonating with that message, literally having breakthroughs, just from me saying the word multi-passionate creative. People are finally realizing, “Wait, there’s a word for that and I’m not totally crazy?” I realized that, “Okay, there’s a need for this.” That’s really where all of my content is headed these days. I’m super focused on creating a community around being multi-passionate and creating resources for multi-passionate creatives. Because we generally have a lot of the same struggles. Really doing as much as I can through my content and also through one on one coaching to guide multi passionates to living a life of what I like to call ‘creative abundance’.
There’s a quote on your website that I absolutely love and I think it really sums all this up, you say, “I believe having multiple passions is a gift, not a burden.”
Ashley: That was so powerful for me the first time I read it because people know me for the crystal work that I do. But they might not know that I also love interior design. I love horticulture, gardening and plants, I love so many other things. I also love painting. There are so many things that I think we each want to explore in this life. Especially those of us who are really tapped into our creativity, that expression comes out in so many ways. You started this journey with your blog and just doing this for yourself. Now you’ve really transformed this into a business inspiring others and showing others how they can embrace all those different facets of their creativity and do it in a way that they can be successful with.
Tell us a little bit about your coaching, because I watched an Instagram story or a series of little mini stories from you. Where you were wide open about this work that you do and you spilled it totally. Where this is what fills me up in my life right now. This is the most meaningful work and I’m just wondering, what exactly is it that (opens in a new tab)”>you do in your coaching? Why are you so passionate about this?
That’s a beautiful question. There was a pivotal moment and what’s interesting is I had this insight, and when you get an insight it literally feels like a light bulb.
Joi: It’s so cliche, but it’s like something just turns on and you think, ‘How did I not see this before?’ or, ‘Has this always been here, and I just finally caught up with that energy?’ but I realized one day, it was a Tuesday, just a random day. I’ll never forget, I was cleaning my floors. I remembered the day because I don’t do that very often. I was cleaning my floors that day and I was hit with this spark of inspiration, where I realized if I could start this journey as being confused and conflicted and I’m not really sure which way to go.
To showing up and sharing consistently and seeing the confidence boost that blogging gave me. Seeing how after I started my blog, I felt confident with starting an email list and an Instagram and all of these other places where I was able to start showing up.
Now I have a Facebook community and then the blog was assembled for so much more. Once I did something my way and I did it consistently, there was a part of me that unlocked. Then I realized that I could retrace my exact steps.
I could look back over my journey and the first thing I did was I accepted that this is who I am.
First, I stopped being apologetic for it and decided to embrace it. I stopped trying to make other people comfortable and I let that go and I created a safe space for myself to show up and share. Also looking at the formula of how I did it, and that’s when I realized if I can look at that formula and it works for me.
I have the opportunity to serve and support fellow multi passionates who’ve been waiting for someone to tell them, ‘you’re going to get through it, it’s okay if there’s something wrong with you, let’s figure out a way that works for you in service of your creativity instead of stifling your creativity’.
That’s when I knew that I had to start coaching. It came from this sense of wait a minute, the bigger purpose of why I started a blog led me to realizing that if I can help one fellow multi-passionate person overcome their creativity blocks, get out there in the world and start sharing instead of hiding because they feel like they’re not worthy. That makes everything so much more powerful and so much more meaningful.
Ashley: This is the opposite of what we hear in the business world all the time. Right?
Joi: Yep.
Ashley: Like in the business world, where they’re telling you to pick one thing. Pick one thing and niche down so far and only do that, and put all your focus there.
The way that you’re approaching this is so much more in alignment with a lot of creatives. Obviously multi-passionate creatives, but also spiritual entrepreneurs, we often feel this way too.
I hear from my students all the time, that they want to start a crystal healing practice but have these other things that they really love and they want to find out how to work them into their businesses. This is the formula for how to do that. I love that you’ve looked at your own personal journey and you’ve gleaned that long, hard road. Which I’m sure it was, to get to that place where you finally were on the other side of it. You’ve taken the best parts of that, and all the decisions and turning points that get you closer to where you want to be and you’ve laid them out in a path for people to follow.
Joi: Exactly. My path is not the path, right? I always say it’s not, “Hey, you’re multi-passionate. Come with me. I’ll coach you, You can start a blog”. The blog is a symbol, I don’t care how my clients show up or what format they show up in. It’s about showing up consistently for yourself in service of your creativity, unapologetically. Part of what I do in my coaching is, I really get into the mindset of my clients.
Has anyone ever told you that it’s okay to have multiple passions?
Well, no. First of all, no one’s ever told them it’s okay. We do that, taking them from, ‘let’s handle that first’. Then it’s, ‘Do you understand how amazing it is that you’re interested in so many things, and you see the value in so many things and you learn so quickly?’. You get bored easily but that’s because you always see a better way of doing something. I mean, it’s just empowerment and coaching where all of a sudden, you just want to dig in there and see what they can give you because you realize that your creativity is something that you can serve and it can serve you.
Do you ever find through this work in your own journey and in the coaching that you do with your clients, where once people really start to embrace this idea, and they start to tap into all these different creative outlets that they have, and all these different passions that they have, do they start to form one cohesive thing?
Do they ever sometimes just come together into a business where people get to enjoy all these different parts?
Joi: It really varies from person to person but what I’ve found with most of my clients is when we look at all of their passions, actually look at them on paper together in a session. We can normally see there’s, I don’t know where I got this from, but I call it a ‘golden thread’. There’s like a golden thread that weaves through. A lot of times, what we feel is so scattered and people aren’t going to understand that ‘I like this and like that’. A lot of the time there’s the golden thread of who you are is weaved into all of that. Sometimes it turns into, “Okay, what could it look like for you to have a personal brand?” Sometimes it can turn into having a business that encompasses all of those pieces.
However, on to that same effect, I don’t coach and say that our goal is to take all of someone’s passion and then make them into full-time businesses because that is the quickest way to become overwhelmed and burnt out.
I’m all about mental health as a creative and that’s not good advice. I have to always be very aware of speaking that piece out loud because I think my message can get confused if I don’t say, “Oh, multiple passions, just do everything at once,” but there’s a way to define what’s going to serve you in this season and still feel confident about who you are creatively, versus choosing one thing because you feel pressure to choose it and then ignoring all the other parts of yourself. It’s not always that there’s an overarching business, but there is an overarching sense of creative confidence no matter what you choose to do in that season.
Ashley: That’s such a good way to explain it and I totally agree with that, that feeling of going through your cycles, as being someone who’s definitely multi-passionate. There are times in my life where I’m really, really deeply into this one thing. It’s all I can think about. I’m driven by my excitement about that thing and then I do that thing with all my heart. I get to that point where I think, “Okay, now I want to do this thing the same way, just really intensely live it and be in it and be in that creative place.” I think that it’s so rewarding when you open up to your creativity and you let it guide you and you are just in the moment with it, whatever that is. I love that.
Now, shifting over to crystals a little bit because I know you love crystals.
I have to ask you on this journey that you’ve been on, what are some crystals that have been little companions or pieces of support for you along the way on this journey?
Joi: Sure. The first crystal that I ever got, I actually have it right here. I’m just going to put it in my hand to receive its energy. The first crystal I ever got was a little Quartz crystal. I was reading a book called Creative Abundance and it has guided meditations after each chapter. At the end of one of the chapters, it said, “Hold the crystal in your hand during this meditation” and I was like, “Oh, I don’t have any but that sounds awesome,” so I went out and I got my first little Quartz crystal. Quartz has been a crystal that I always lean to, especially when I’m needing clarity.
As a multi-passionate creative, overwhelm is something that happens frequently and I need to come back down to earth and breathe. When I’m seeking clarity, I reach for my Quartz crystal. Another crystal that I have fallen in love with more recently which is also right here on my desk is Selenite.
Ashley: Yes.
Joi: It just clears energy. If you’re moving from one project to the next and you want to clear your own field, I love Selenite. I like to keep it around me when I’m working. It catches the light really beautifully so it’s inspiring. My soul crystal, I think I have two of them.
One of them would be Labradorite. In terms of being a multi-faceted person, I don’t know if it gets more multi-dimensional than Labradorite.
With that, flash. I have blue flash, purple flash, pink flash, any kind of Labradorite I can get my hands on. I’ve got my ring on right now. I have a pebble, I have a heart. I love, love, love Labradorite.
Ashley: It’s that crystal that suits any mood, right?
Joi: Yes, it’s just magical. It reminds you of what’s possible, in a sense. I don’t know. It’s so multi-dimensional. Then my good luck crystal is Tourmalinated Quartz. Am I saying that right?
Ashley: Yeah.
Joi: Tourmalinated Quartz with the black specs. When I got my first one I held it in my hands and I felt lucky. I felt like this is my good luck crystal. I mean, I could literally name every crystal and why I love it. But I find that what’s the best piece about crystals is the opportunity to be creative with how you play with them and how you interact with them because they are up for whatever you’re up for. If you want to put them on a shelf and look at them, then by all means do that, and they’ll appreciate that. If you want to create a ceremony or put crystals in a bowl and then put a jar of water on top and do that, there’s just so many ways to play and they are willing, always, to play with us.
The first crystal you talked about was clear quartz for helping you get that clarity and focus.
You actually have a free resource on your website, right? You’re Finding Focus Guided Workbook. Can you tell everybody a little bit about that and how they can stay in touch with you online?
Joi: Yes, I would love to. My Finding Focus Workbook is a very holistic approach to achieving focus. It’s specifically for multi-passionate creatives but even if you’re just in a state where you’re not quite sure what you want to give your attention to at this time, it can be really helpful. It walks you through looking at your core values and your core passions and what overlaps. It also takes you into subconscious beliefs around focus so it’s a very holistic approach and at the end is a Call-to-Action to join my Facebook community and that’s where we do live trainings.
I have guests come in, actually, I’d love to have you come in and do a training. It’s a place where you can really create a sense of community around being multi-passionate. Those are two great ways to keep in touch. The Finding Focus Workbook, we can put up in the show notes and if anyone has questions and they want to dive deeper, then by all means, you can just go to joi-knows-how.com/coaching and if you want to speak to me directly, you can schedule a connection call there.
Ashley: Of course, we’ll have links to those things in the show notes like Joi said. Joi, where can people connect with you on Instagram?
Joi: Yes, I’m @joi.knows.how. Instagram is like the party place. That’s where I party with everyone, where I promote new content and have a lot of connections. I also have a blog but if you’re with me on Instagram, then you’ll hear me talking about all of the things. That’s a really great place to connect.
Ashley: Thank you so much for being here today, for shining your light and sharing your journey. I really appreciate your time.
Joi: Thank you so much. Thank you.
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