Finding Hope, Creating Magic!

Do you ever have those people who you know you can just be you with? You know, the ones you talk over plans and dreams and kick around ideas you’ve been mulling over in your own mind. I like to call these folks “my tribe.”

This past weekend, I went to Eureka for a fiber festival and show. I particularly like this event be-cause it’s one of those hidden treasures, and I usually consider it my weekend getaway in the middle of my festival circuit. I also like this event because a lot of the vendors feel the way I feel about it. It’s a breath of fresh air.

A lot of us camp right there onsite. This is where the magic truly happens. Sure, we all have booths and product, and work hard for this show, but at the end of the day when we throw covers on our items and walk out of the venue, we get together. We sit outside by the camping area, these fiber folks from all over, and we talk, we laugh, we brainstorm and we run ideas by one another that we’ve had since the last time we saw each other. There’s something completely magical about it.

This year, after the event was canceled last year, seemed more low-key and more down to earth. Yet, it felt like there was more magic being created than I’ve ever seen before. I heard more conversations about ideas, new products, new ventures, new collaborations. I saw customers and vendors connects in ways I hadn’t really experienced before. It was such a welcome sight, and feeling.

While a lot of creative people, myself included, like to be in our quiet space, our zone, and seclude ourselves from things around us to give us our own energy and thoughts to create, in many ways we also crave the time we spend with other creatives.

The interesting thing about when tribes get together and chat and dream is that not only does it feel magical, it’s where the ideas start really taking shape. People in your tribe want you to succeed. They help iron out the details, they offer suggestions, cautions, and pieces of the idea that may not have been thought about before that really bring it to life.

I should walk away from these shows exhausted. They are work, often a lot of work. Some of these folks have family or spouses and significant others who go with them on these festival adventures who help them set up camping spaces, booths, load-up, break-down, etc. I generally don’t, so all of those things are on me. Physically, by the end of a show, I’m wiped. But mentally, and creatively, I’m psyched. I’ve just come from a weekend where I’ve been encouraged, where some of my dreams and ideas have become more real and I’m ready to put things in motion to make them happen.

I often have substantial travel time from a show to get home and I find myself recording notes on my phone, of people to contact, things I need to do or order, or more ideas on the creative aspect of the project. My mind is racing. I’m rejuvenated and ready to get back to work.

For more than a year I, like many others, didn’t get to have these in-person connections. For a year my work felt monotonous, boring and uninspiring. I had no motivation to create, and less mo-tivation to think about what to create. I didn’t have the people, in-the-flesh, at these shows I’ve come to love, to encourage me, feed my soul and remind me that the things we all do are im-portant.

We should all have those people in our lives that encourage us and remind us what we do is im-portant. It doesn’t’ just go for creative folks. I think all of us need our group of people we run our ideas past, who believe in us and want us to succeed. If you don’t currently have these people in your life, I’d highly recommend finding them. They will be the people who you come to find yourself drawn to and they will be the people who are honest, yet supportive.

From my perspective, we all need them. And once we find them, we need to offer the same thing they offer us, which in the end, really, is hope. If we don’t have hope in something, and our tribes of people who continue to give it to us, we remain lost and don’t live up to our full potential. We aren’t part of something bigger than just us and, in my opinion, we miss out on so much.

So my advice… find your people, find your tribe, and watch yourself soar into new things, new ad-ventures and watch the things you’d only dreamed of magically come to life.