Meg Lewis on being uniquely you, embracing your personality, and attracting your dream projects

Meg Lewis is a designer, comedian and performer working to make the world a happier place with design, comedy, performance, education, novelty fonts, and more! With over 200 happy brands served, Meg specialises in transforming serious corporate worlds into delightful, intentional playgrounds.

In this episode, you will learn the surprisingly simple strategies for building an authentic brand, how to stand out by combining your unique skills and passions, the trick to attracting big clients like Adobe, Pinterest, Slack, Microsoft and Facebook, why collaborative artist agencies might be right for you and so much more!

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Welcome to the show Meg, I'm so excited to have you!

Yay! Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Let's chat!

People will have just heard a little bit about what you do right now but I read a little bit about your history online and I know that you have a background in Improv comedy and clowning! I would love to hear the cliff notes version of how you got from clowning to what you do now. So, tell me a little bit about that journey.

Yes. Wow. So when I was a kid, I wanted to be a comedy actor. It was truly my dream to make people smile and to make people happy. I wanted to be a comedy actor or I wanted to just have money so that I could hand out cash to people on the street. When I was a kid, those were the things I wanted to do when I was an adult and a dream job. I don't know how I was going to get that cash but that was my goal. Anyway…

So when I was a kid, I went to comedy camps, theatre camps, and anything that would allow me to be funny as a child. And there are not that many opportunities to do that, so I ended up becoming basically a child actor working with adults. I really wanted to do comedy stuff though and that was the problem that eventually they push you, they filter you into musicals. And I did not want to sing. In the town that I grew up in there just wasn't more opportunity to do more than that. So eventually I started doing miming and started learning how to do clown. And as a child, that was so fun for me, and I still do it now.

Now I live in New York City, so there's a lot of comedy education here and opportunities to perform as a comedian, so I do a lot of improv. I do clowning still. I do a lot of mime and physical comedy really. And I love it! I think that specifically In the physical comedy world and the clowning world a lot of what you're doing is you're using your expression, you're using who you are in your most raw, most vulnerable, most human self to make people happy and to make them feel a certain way. And so it really feels like an extension of who I am and it bleeds into my work so much because that's what I do with my work. I take what I have that makes me who I am. It makes me different from everybody else. And I just translate that into visuals. So it feels like it's all very cohesive in one thing, even though they're seemingly very different from one another.

A hundred percent. And when you look on your website and all the things that you've done, you will be able to see that you definitely incorporate those things still into your speaking, your teaching, your illustration, like there’s a lot of clownery still happening and a lot of performing.

How did you start becoming a visual artist illustrating, designing, and drawing - where did that come from?

I was always not the “creative one” growing up, which was really sad for me. I grew up around a lot of creative people and I was the one that wasn't creative.

With a capital C, Creative. I would always enter into colouring competitions and I like couldn't do it. I feel like I wasn't a perfectionist enough for that. So I would never win and I didn't enjoy crafting. I just didn't have what I felt was everyone's definition of what creativity meant and so I just never really thought that would be a career path for me.

What ended up happening was I went to school for a fashion program that wasn't fashion design, it was more like styling and designing spaces, retail spaces and things like that. And that for me was a way that I felt like I could get my creative brain out into the world in ways that were a little bit more non-traditional by creativity means.

So I knew that I could put together a space and I knew that I could put together an outfit but I wasn't able to use my hand with any kind of tool to make art. I was able to find creativity in a way that worked for me and I enjoyed doing that. But I realised in the process that at the time I was going to school in Los Angeles and the fashion industry in LA was not for me. It's very competitive and not very kind to one another, and I was just getting eaten alive out there because I'm too scared of confrontation and I'm not a competitive person at all. So it didn't work for me. But what I ended up doing was just having a period where I followed what was most exciting for me and interesting for me and that's truly what I've been doing ever since.

What I think you'll notice with my career is I'm constantly doing different things, and that's simply because I am following what's the most fun for me at the time. So you'll notice that I'll be doing something for a while and then all of a sudden I won't be doing that anymore, I'll be doing something else. And that's simply because I found joy in something else.

So, ever since I've been all over the place in such a wonderful way that if I looked back at any point in my life, I would have never guessed that I'd be doing some of the things that I'm doing now, and I love that about my career. Like even later this year, I don't know what I'm doing. I have no goals or interests or idea of what will happen later this year or next year. I hope that I can keep that mindset because so far it's proven to me that I always end up off in some sort of far-off direction that I could have never seen coming for me, and that is so exciting because I think whenever I set specific parameters or goals for where I want my career to go. I think that's what happens with goals. You meet them and then you set yourself a new goal. That's boring to me. I like having no goals and then just following what's exciting for me and seeing where that ends up.

I'm currently learning how to fight in a stunt performer school right now. I would have never thought I would be doing that but I'm having a really fun time learning how to kick people. And this week we learned how to pull people's hair and throw them around the room. It's so fun!

I love that! That's amazing! That's one of the questions that I was going to ask you about later but maybe we can talk about it now… is the fact that you do so many different things and I love that about you. I think that's such a good example for creatives because one of the questions I get all of the time and people worry about is “I'm a multi-passionate creative, but I worry that as a brand, I have to narrow myself down and I have to only do one thing and I have to be known for this one specific thing, and if I bust out of that one thing, it's going to be a disaster and everybody's going to be confused.”.

So tell me your thoughts on that in terms of building a brand and being consistent, but still having all of these different passions and following all of that. Because there's this balance of being consistent and building a brand, but still allowing yourself to follow all those passions.

Absolutely. It's like the age-old conversation of “Should I be a generalist or a specialist?”.

And so I will say it's absolutely helpful to have a ‘thing’, a recognisable thing that places you in people's minds as being the person that does that thing. I get it. I do that a lot. That's the reason why I've worn these glasses for so long because it really helps people to remember who I am. It's very helpful even just navigating my life on the street, in my neighbourhood. People immediately remember me because of my glasses. It's like a way to place me. And it's so helpful to just have a thing because it's easier for other people when you do.

So, there are a couple of things here. There's another way to have a niche that I found, and it's by allowing your brain to be your thing. So now I'm a generalist in that truly I'll do absolutely anything as we know. I'll paint a mural, or maybe make a Christmas album, or start a magic show or, like… I'll do anything!

But I allow my brain to be my speciality. So as long as I'm staying true to what my unique brain has to offer and I'm filtering that through everything I do, I think it's a very artist's way of thinking about work is I make sure that my brain is what's coming through.

So my brain, my unique brain, is my thing. And I'm allowing that to filter through in whatever medium that wants to come out at the time. I think in doing that also helps other people realise and be more comfortable as being a complicated person. We're all so many different things combined. We're all really multi-faceted and really complex and have many different interests and interests that don't go together. But they do go together because they exist within us.

I think that humans are just not trained to think of other people as complex individuals. We like to categorise, and bucket, and just place people in our minds so that we can move on and solve our other problems. That does a lot of harm to a lot of people. So what is helpful for me is to remember that doing this helps other people to be like, wait a minute, I'm complicated too and maybe there's a way I can figure this out for myself as well.

I love that. And I think that's so right how you have approached it because that's how I think about you. I'm like, okay, Meg does all these different things but how I remember you is through your style. I feel like all of the different things you do have a consistent style across the resources that you make, the workshops you host, the clothes that you wear, all of the things have this consistent style. Also I guess your mission is always the same, right? We were talking about making people have fun and helping them be happy and all of that stuff. So, the mission is the same throughout all of the different mediums, and that's what I always associate with you regardless of the medium that it's coming through.

I think that’s definitely a helpful approach for artists to think about “No matter what medium I'm doing, what is a different way of niching myself down or creating a brand in different ways?”.

We have a lot of options now and I think that's a really wonderful thing. There's a lot of room for designers and creatives to work. We have two options. We can work as what I would call “problem-solving” designers where you have to put your own taste and style aside in order to solve the problem for the brand or whatever you're working for. Or you don't have to do that.

You can work more as an artist, as a creative, where you can have your style and then people hire you for that style. I think we've spent a lot of time arguing over whether should designers have a style, but I feel like there are just two tracks. They're both valid. They're both very needed.

And so I think that there's not necessarily a need for that argument. It's just, do you like solving problems? Do you like changing your style a lot? Then do that. That's an option, where you usually get paid more to do that option. I used to do that option. But if you feel like you have a really strong sense of self and style and you feel really fulfilled by communicating that to the world, then take that path. There's room for both.

I think that's such a good distinction for sure. And speaking of having a good sense of self and style, that's another thing that I always associate with you. It’s something I told you before we started this call is that I always use it as a great example of somebody who has a very unique and authentic sense of just being yourself and being, just Meg. And you teach other people how to do that as well. You have workshops and classes.

So what do you think has helped you the most with getting comfortable with being yourself online and building a brand and being unapologetically Meg?.

So it's definitely not as easy as it looks and I still struggle with this.

If I wake up and I look at my phone immediately, and I open up TikTok or whatever, and I end up on there for an hour and a half, I, too, forget that I am an individual person.

All of a sudden my brain becomes soft and smooth and then I'm like, “I also want to buy everything that everybody just told me I should. I also want to do more makeup and skincare” and all of a sudden, I've begun my day like that.

Then I'm choosing my outfit, and all of a sudden I'm choosing something that doesn't align with me, it's like what they were wearing. And then I just start going through the problems of the day and I look at the news and then I forget that I'm like an entity, like an individual person. I forget who I am completely. So I still struggle with that. So it's difficult to assume that anybody can just immediately be like authentically themselves all the time because we're going up against a lot that is pushing us in the direction of trying to be like everybody else.

But I think that it's really helpful specifically for me to constantly every day remind myself, I give myself a little pep talk of who I am, why I'm amazing, and what my purpose in this world is, and that really helps me to align myself. So that way, whenever people are telling me to buy things or to do things or that I'm wrong as I am, I can deflect that information and bonk it off, and get it away and know “Okay, this does not apply to me.”

I'm thriving right now because I'm in the middle of doing this right now, and I'm in a phase in my life where I’m at one of my many peaks at this very moment - so this is a great time to chat. Because I'm currently in the practice of doing all of the activities that make me as an individual, me specifically, whole.

So, I'll go through phases in my life where I'm not feeling as good about myself, and then I'll look around and I'll notice that I'm not doing any of the things that I uniquely need to do in order to feel like myself. And those activities, for me, are very different from anyone else in my life, and so it means that I have to go out and do a lot of things by myself, which I think we're conditioned to not want to do, and it feels awkward and uncomfortable, especially if you're out of the practice of doing that.

But it's very helpful for me to constantly be doing things that make me feel whole. For me, that is like doing circus performance stuff, and trying new activities like stunt school. I have to be dancing. I have to dance a lot. I love dancing, so I have to do that a lot. I have to walk a lot and I have to try new things a lot. And so that means whenever I need to feel in touch with myself, I have to do all of these things very often and have them as a regular part of my schedule so that I can feel in touch with what makes me amazing because I find that if I just start to mush into the lifestyle of the people that are around me and I start to just do all the things that they like, which I also enjoy, but those are the things that other people like and I like them because I'm enjoying them with my friends, but there are so many other things that are so important to me that make me feel so fulfilled that I need to constantly do regularly and practice doing that, and giving that gift to yourself really bleeds into so many other things.

It gives me a beautiful mental clarity of who I am and what my brain has to offer that's separate from other people. It gives me the comfort of being alone with my own thoughts. I have so many more epiphanies and ideas and my creative brain is just on fire when I'm in these types of periods in my life.

It helps me make better work. It helps me feel more fulfilled. It also just makes me feel so much more in tune with who I am outside of the person that the world is trying to pressure me into being all the time, which none of us are that person. So it's so helpful just to have this regular practice of separating yourself from all of that noise and being by yourself and constantly reminding yourself, “No, I am unique. I am not the person they want me to be. I'm this other person.”. And then get into that practice regularly with yourself because once you get it, it's easy to keep the momentum up and it doesn't feel as awkward spending so much time alone after a while.

That is such good and practical advice. It's advice that makes me go, “Oh, duh.” Because I think when people think about how do I build this authentic brand or how do I show up authentically there's all this strategic social media advice, and you think about “I have to do this on Instagram, or I have to post in this way” or whatever, but the most practical advice is to just go and be yourself and just go and do things that are you. Then by doing that, it's gonna automatically, like you said, flow into the rest of your life and just help you to be yourself.

That's such a good point because all of last year, I got in my own head too much about exactly what you're saying. Where you're like, “What am I supposed to be doing? What is the right way to do things?”. I was constantly asking myself that. Somehow I got very out of touch with where my brain normally makes decisions. 

I'm sure you've noticed social media feels really weird right now and everybody's tired of being virtual. It’s like people are just fatigued. Last year I was very much like I don't know what people want like normally I can read the room and know how I can be helpful but I couldn't read the room. I couldn't figure out where culture was going and how I could be useful. I couldn't figure out what people needed me for so that I could help.

So I was asking so many questions and trying to figure out what was going on so much that I wasn't able to do anything. Like I truly wasn't. I was very confused and I didn't know how to move or like what I should be doing with my time cause I was trying to figure something out. And I don't know how this happened to me. I don't know why I was having such a crisis because I don't normally do this. Normally, I just do my own thing and I'm not even paying attention really to what everybody else is doing. I'm just out there living and sharing what I'm doing. But last year for some reason I was just very hung up on trying to understand what was going on and what I was supposed to be doing and I think that's what happens a lot with people where you're like, okay, how do I play the game? How do I do this right? What are the steps I need to take? And exactly what time should I post? What should it look like? What does the caption say?

There’s just so much that we're constantly asking ourselves and I think I was trying to maybe do that last year. But anyway, this year, I think I just needed to wait for my brain to have its own little clarity moment and I just hit a point where I was like, I actually don't think I'm gonna figure out what's going on or where we're going, but I'm just gonna allow everybody else to figure that out and I'm gonna do my own thing.

And somebody actually reminded me that we as creative people are actually the ones that everybody else looks to tell them where we're going as a culture, we're actually the people that get to decide. And I was like, oh, I don't know if I'm ready for that responsibility.

But I do feel like we're at a place where the world is on fire, everything's terrible and the most evil parts of the world want no humanity, no individualism, no joy, no happiness. They want to suppress us and turn us into the same person and so it helps me to have this greater purpose of bringing that humanity, that joy, that curiosity, that play back into the world before it's too late, and we all can't do that anymore. And a lot of us can't do that, so while I can, I will. That's the epiphany I had this year is that if I can at all be in charge of culture in any way, I want to move the world into a more beautiful place and at least help people find fulfilment in some way in their own lives and bring some of that humanity back into the world. But yeah, it's complicated. My God.

I know. Just a little. That's my vision as well. That's always been the Maker & Moxie vision is to make the world a more creative place, one brand at a time. And that's exactly why is because the world is more colorful, more joyful, more emotional. It helps people connect. It helps people feel heard, and seen, all of the above. It helps people start conversations, all of that because of creativity. So I think you're right in that regardless of how we do it, the strategies behind it, how many times we post it, whatever… the more that we can just share what we're making and how we're creating it and just put it out into the world and put it into people's lives, the better.

I think there's also something worth mentioning which is that I think a lot of times people don't share things because they think it's off-topic and people won't be interested. When we were talking about being one thing versus being multifaceted, a lot of people are like, “Well, in my spare time I also do this hobby, but it's not related to my work and nobody cares”. I always share with people to share your joy and share your interests with other people.

Even if people aren't interested in the things that I share and talk about, nobody's interested in those things but the wonderful thing is that I think whenever people see me loving something or enjoying something they don't care about their reaction is, “Oh, Meg, I'm so happy for you. I don't care about that thing and it doesn't interest me but look at you enjoying that thing!”. And I love that.

That's the world I want to live in where we're each celebrating our own unique interests and allowing each other to have them and celebrating those things for those people at the same time.

It's just really fun. I hope that more people are able to do that and feel like they don't have to just be one thing all of the time because that's impossible and so difficult to suppress yourself like that.

Yeah, and it's just a little boring. I think if you hadn't just been like, “Well, I'm just going to draw stuff and I'm not going to share that I also like clowning and improv and all of that stuff”, it never would have led you to where you are now. You just made a class with Skillshare that was a hit class for creativity, which is so cool and creative and wild but was born from what I understand, because you were just like, I love this hit class energy and creativity, and there are two passions combined. And if you didn't combine those interests and share those things, those things would never have happened.

There are a lot of creatives out there who are like, “Oh, I'm an artist, but I'm also really interested in fantasy books” and then they get to design book covers. It's those combinations of our interests that get us to these unique places in our careers and in our lives that lead to really beautiful places. And so I think that's the beauty of sharing the weird and wonderful things that you love.

So many people, I think they're like, “Oh, well, I'm a brand designer. How could I possibly do brand design in a way that nobody else has?”. It feels like everything's been done. That's such the secret to figuring out how you can do things in a way that nobody else could is to take your interests and filter them into your work.

In that series you were talking about, I'm teaching people creative exercises. We're doing things like still life drawing, little sculptures, newspaper blackout poetry, like exercises that have been done in videos. If you look up those exercises on YouTube, there will be thousands but we're doing it in a way that nobody else has done it before, by mixing a workout video set with sort of fun characters and unique sound effects. It’s using my interests and my style and filtering my comedy style into the work to where it's creating an experience that nobody else possibly could have created because it's such a representation of my brain.

That's the secret to figuring out how you can strategise, market, and position yourself as offering something unique that nobody else could possibly offer. It's all very exciting.

Yeah, I agree. Speaking of the class with Skillshare, congratulations by the way, I saw it and I was like, Oh my God. Incredible. No one else's brain could have come up with that. And I love that!

But I want to know… You have had so many cool experiences like this with Skillshare, and you've worked with so many cool other brands, like Adobe, Pinterest, Slack, Oatley, like a million. Tell me about how these come about these opportunities. Do you reach out to these brands? Did they reach out to you? For artists listening who are like, I want to do stuff like that… tell me about it.

It's being loudly yourself. So the louder I am, the more me I am, the more I talk about my diarrhea, the more I excitedly share who I am, the more opportunities I get and the opportunities are specifically in line with my interests. So I'll be like, “I'm in clown school again.” And all of a sudden I got to work for a clown museum specifically because of that. They saw that and they're like, “Oh, Meg's a designer and a clown? Hired.” Stuff like that.

I was talking about diarrhea so much for a while that at one point Facebook was like, “Can you do a diarrhea sticker pack? Like a poop-related sticker pack for us?” and so I think that the amazing thing that happens is a brand will need something so specific and they'll be like, “Okay, we need a poop sticker pack. Who comes to mind?” And so then they'll search it up, and then they'll find me.

The louder you can be about your niche interests, the more it bonks into people's heads that you are associated with this word.

So, whenever people think of Meg Lewis and a cluster of words forms in their head. If diarrhea happens to pop in there, that's great. I'm okay with that because sometimes it gets me work. So, that's been so helpful for me.

The second thing is the old-fashioned way of showing up and doing really good work, being great to work with, being a delight to work with, and enjoying what you're doing to where you allow the other people that you're working with to enjoy what they're doing. That really goes the furthest way because I would say that the majority of the clients that I have were former clients of mine who worked at a different company. That's the magic of the tech/media space in general is that people do not stay at jobs very long, people move around a lot. So you’ve got to maintain those beautiful, wonderful, fun, positive relationships. And I don't believe in professionalism, but I just try to make friends with everyone all the time. So I have no boundaries, clearly.

So whenever I'm working with somebody, I feel like I'm just becoming friends with them. That's so important to me, and I think because of that energy, it helps to create a wonderful relationship where we want to work together again because we're friends now. And so that's been really beautiful and wonderful. I would say the majority of projects that I have are repeat clients that just moved companies.

You’re also part of a collaborative agency called Co-loop. How does that help with getting work, and managing work? I'm sure there are a lot of Illustrators and Artists who are interested in management, collaborating with their friends, all of that sort of stuff.

It's really fun. It was a confusing situation because prior to to becoming represented by an agency, I was more of a designer than an Illustrator, and doing more brand work and marketing work than anything. And so I was also doing things like speaking, sometimes like creating content for brands, occasionally.

So I got represented by this agency that specifically represents people that do things like me now where I do a little bit of art, I do a little speaking, I do a lot of stuff on camera, combined with education, combined with art stuff, like illustrations and design. So they brought me onto this agency because I was doing some of that and the growing pains were that people who hire designers are not used to being met with an agent. Most designers don't have agents. Agents are really for Artists, like fine Artists, and Illustrators. A lot of times branding clients would be like, “Hey Meg, we'd love to work with you.” And I'm like, here's my agent. They're like, what?

So I think design clients often want more of a collaborative relationship, they want to basically just be able to have you at their disposal all the time, 24/7. And when they see an agent, they're like, “Oh, I probably can't do that then, can I?”.

So the growing pains were that I stopped getting most of the design work, specifically brand and marketing work, and more so started getting more illustration work, and that's why I think you may see a shift in my work around the time when I started working with Co-loop. And that's simply because of the artist management experience.

I'm so grateful for it because I've been able to be so much more creatively free working in this way, and it's lovely because having an agent is wonderful because I don't have to do any of the things I didn't enjoy doing before like project management and schedules and budgets and having a person that so if my clients being a little nonsensical or being silly and trying to do things they shouldn't do with me, I can just ask my agent to the take care of them for me. This is so great because I used to get pushed around all the time as that's part of my personality. People would just ask me for little things here and there, little extras... I'm like, yeah. And then, it's three months later, you're doing so much free work because you kept saying yes. Having somebody there that I can be like, “help me!” and then he'll swoop in and he will help me. It's great!

It's wonderful because we do have a collaborative sort of approach which is unique for artist management agencies where we work on a lot of projects together. A lot of times we'll get clients where they'll hire each of us to do, for example, the project I worked on with Pinterest was a huge sticker series for them. They hired, I think, everybody in Co-loop to do their own sticker pack. So we each got to do one, and it was so fun to see everybody's sketches at the same time because you get to see how different people are when they present sketches and what everybody does. Some people put them together in decks. Other people do what we in Co-loop call ‘loose JPEGs’, which is throw a bunch of loose JPEGs in an email and send it over. So it's so fun to work that way.

We've done some projects together for clients where we two of us designed murals together which was really fun. I love doing that when you have another creative partner and you can design a little bit and then pass it to them and they add to it and they pass it back and you can keep passing it back. So fun!

So, it's great. I love having community and friendship, and having people by your side when you're a solo business person in any way is so helpful and it's really helpful to lean on that kind of community.

Absolutely, it makes such a huge difference. Even if not working together, just having people you can ask questions or be like “Hey, do you experience this too? Cause I'm going crazy”. Just those things of being like, am I alone? Or just some people you can ask things to. It makes such a difference because otherwise, it can be really lonely. So, yeah, people you can work with or even going co-work next to, or virtually, or at least have a conversation with, it makes such a difference. That's why I love doing these podcasts too because I get to meet people and talk about things that we both experience. And I'm like, yep, I get it. You get it. We both get it. I'm nodding the whole time. It's so good. I love it! 

You have a lot going on with the client work that you do, the classes you create, the content you're making, the resources you put out, and all the stuff you do to help everybody. I just want to know how you balance all of that as well as building your brand, marketing your stuff and having time for Meg and your stunt lessons and all of that stuff. If you do?

You know what? Everyone's always like, “How do you have time to do all this stuff?” And I'm like, I just feel like my whole life is free time. I’m not sure if this is a mindset thing. I have no idea, but I feel like my life is just full of room for activities.

So the way that my day-to-day process works, which is so unique to my brain, and I'm sure a lot of people listening are like, “Oh my god, this sounds like a nightmare.”

I do not like routine, first of all. Which is very important to mention. I allow my body to sleep as long as it needs. That's a routine in itself. So I do not use an alarm. And my body wakes itself up at a reasonable time, which I'm very grateful for.

I look at my calendar when I wake up and I look to see what I have to do. I have deadlines on my calendar. So I look and I say, what do I have to do? And then I'm like, okay, I have a meeting at 1:30pm and I have this at 4pm but otherwise, my day is free. And then I get to ask myself, “Where do I need to be in order to do these things?”. A lot of times I can be anywhere.

I'll ask myself what I feel like doing between the meetings. Or like, where do I feel like working from? And what kind of environment would give me the most energy to do my best work that day? Or do I not feel like working at all? Do I feel like going and getting on a boat?

So that's how my life operates. And within that, because I don't pressure myself to sit down at my desk all day long and do work, what happens whenever I do get in that mindset where I'll be like, “Okay, you gotta put your head down today, Meg, you gotta do the work, or at least make some progress on your updating your website or something like that.” And so I'll sit down on my computer all day long, but what happens is I end up sitting at my computer doing like a bunch of nothing all day long. I’ll just be opening tabs, usually keep opening Instagram, I'll do some online shopping, I'll get distracted by something. And then I'm like, “Oh no, it's already like 4:30pm. What was I even doing?!”.

I find that whenever I allow myself to operate in this way where I'm going to environments that I think would be the most energising for me and bringing along my iPad or whatever, that really helps me to actually become so creatively inspired that I find myself just wanting to do the things that I “should be doing.”

So I’ll decide that I’m going to go to a brewery today and then I get to the brewery and I'm like, this energy in here is fantastic, and that energy will inspire me to update my portfolio. And then all of a sudden I'm doing something that if I would have like frustratingly tried to do on my laptop at home, I wouldn't be able to do.

I think that it's a matter of just blending my work lifestyle into what my brain actually needs. A lot of people need structure and repetition but that is not what my brain likes so I think it's a process that works very specifically for me. So within that, I think that every day feels like I just have nothing but free time except for a couple of meetings. I feel like I just have so much time to do whatever I want, which is fantastic.

I'm the same with you on no routine. I hate having that.

Yeah! That's great to hear. I often don't hear from people who like no routine.

Yeah, no, I hate it. And that's why I can't have a “real job”. I hated having to be in a certain place at a certain time. I was like, I hate this.

I think once you also get used to the freedom, it's really hard to all of a sudden have someone tell you you have to be somewhere every day. How dare you? Rude.

Yeah. No, I will be wherever I want, thank you!

Okay. My last question is the question that I ask everybody and that is what is the biggest lesson or piece of advice that you would like to share with people listening about branding your passion? So either the biggest lesson that you have learned or the biggest piece of advice that you want to share about branding your passion.

I think my favourite thing is to stop looking to see what other people are doing.

I think we're taught so early on that if you want to do something, go out and look to see what the successful people are doing and then do what they're doing. But my goodness gracious, that does not work for everyone, that formula works for them. It's not going to work for you.

I have to constantly stop myself from looking at Pinterest, for example. If I'm trying to get inspiration for because then I am just as guilty as anybody. If I do that, I'll make work that looks like those other people. And oops!

Again, talking about portfolio sites, I think what we all do is we go and we look at other people's and then we just do that but with ours, and that's another way in which we all just ended up conforming and becoming the same person. It's another way that we just become beholden to trends. Trends exist in order to sell more things. Trends exist so that we feel discontent with how we look and what we're doing with ourselves so that we feel like we're behind all of the time and we need to buy more things to catch up.

If we're constantly just looking at what everybody else is doing and doing that too, we're just a part of that trend-following cycle. And so if we can figure out who we are that's separate from other people, and find a way to communicate who we are as individuals, visually within ourselves, and to communicate our personality and our lifelong points of inspiration that don't have anything to do with trends that are happening right now.

If we can figure out how we can just create a career and explore that and share it visually with other people, then we can show the world that we're doing something unique and interesting, and we'll probably end up becoming the people that everybody else looks at and studies what we're doing, but they shouldn't.

But we know that the people that are actually changing culture and actually catalyzing this wonderful, beautiful change in the world are doing things that are unique, that are refreshing and incredible and unlike anybody else. And the rest of everybody is just trying to conform because they feel they're not good enough and that's so sad. 

I think that my one thing is to just try and find a way to figure out who you are outside of what the world's telling you who you should be and try to identify who you actually are. It's the world's hardest thing. Most people can't do it. But try to be as loud as possible with whoever that is.

I love that advice, and if you are struggling with that, then you can look to Meg as a wonderful example. Not to be Meg, because you can't be Meg. But Meg will teach you how to be loud and proud and teach you how to clown.

So thank you so much, Meg. I have had an absolute blast talking to you and learning from you. I think people are gonna take so much away from this conversation, so thank you so much. Do you want to tell the people where they can find you or what you want them to go and check out?

Yeah! You can find me on the internet at meglewis.com. On social media, I am at @yourbuddymeg. Right now I’m working on a workshop that ties in all of these things together. It kind of ties in my stunt choreography with clowning, with improv, with design, and it's gonna be called a Creative Play Workshop.

So that's really what I'm working on right now. It's very exciting. I haven't even announced that yet. But yeah, it's very fun and I can't wait to show everybody once it's ready!

Woohoo, thanks so much, Meg!