Hello creative folks! The woman in the picture above is not just another pretty face. She's a truly creative, funny, butt-kicking lady who will help you sort out all your issues. Well, your career issues anyway. The rest of them are up to you. And your therapist. Michelle is a career coach who focuses on helping creative folks get their businesses up and running, or booming even more than they already are. She is the force behind, and just completely is, the When I Grow Up Coach. I have been working with Michelle for 6 weeks now, and I've gone from zero to finalizing a logo, setting up the blog, and starting to work on things for the future shop. She has also helped define what I want Manusmade to be - an inspiration to everyone to basically get your hands a little dirty and make some stuff with me! And explore creativity in all its outlets!

I've mentioned before that I have a day job. It's a stressful job for a number of reasons, but it's also fantastically rewarding. Not only for the clients we work with, but also the people in our office. I love helping people, and I love when they turn to me for answers or advice at work. So it's not the specific job per se that I am trying to escape. It's the 9-5 (or really, since I tend to drag myself in some days 10-6), it's the dealing with frustrating policies, it's the whole system.

I always dreamed of working in a creative field but for various reason never followed that path when I was younger. It seems difficult now, at 40, to walk away from a good job when I have a mortgage, some debt, dreams of nice things and travel, and a husband who wants a really really nice race car. Would it be possible to walk away from it all and intern with a fashion designer or go back to school for interior design? Maybe, but I'd be happier in the long run balancing reality with my dreams. So what's a creative girl to do? Become the boss I've always wanted to be. Start a company I'd love to work for. Push myself to be the leader, the creative force, and the mentor, but follow my own rules. It's only been six weeks and I love it. I'm scared and excited, and Michelle helps me make it easy by taking baby steps.

I asked Michelle a few questions to get inside her head so I could share with you how she does it too. She followed her dream of setting up her own company: she got the experience she needed while working a full time job, and when she felt the time was right she left her day job and put out her shingle. It's been only just under 5 months and she is already sought after, talked about (in a good way!), and admired by all of her clients and fans. And she does it all without giving up any of her wonderfully fun personality!

Hey you! Let's get started: Part of the objective of Manusmade is to inspire everyone out there who appreciates handmade goods to start creating things for themselves. I love that sharing one idea can build a community of people who inspire each other and help each other out. What inspired you to inspire other people through your work? What a great question! Well, as a certified life coach and one who helps creative types through their career transitions, it was super important for me to view myself as a resource, whether by providing my own content/thoughts/ideas/exercises or linking back through to the great work that others are doing. I know my weekly blog column Tough (Question) Tuesday started this way, and my Resources page will continue to grow with this in mind. I also love the idea of creating your own community, and everything I've put out there has absolutely added to that! I have such a wealth of amazeballs peeps and tweeps around me that are scattered throughout the globe. I'm all about building relationships and making connections, so thinking of myself as a resource is a wonderful way for me to attract that. I know I sound hippy-dippy, but it's true!

Michelle, you come from an awesomely creative background of musical theatre. You continue to be creative in a different way now that you are an entrepreneur and a career coach. What have you brought forward from that earlier period in your life, and what do you think is the most creative aspect of a being a career coach? It's funny, but I took my big business lesson away from the time I spent pounding (my head against) the pavement, & that was to figure out how I was different, own it, & make it overly obvious. In all of my "business of acting" classes, I was taught how to be like everyone else - what the "right" audition outfit was and the "pretty" song to sing. It took me years, but once I realized I needed to let everyone know how quirky I was before I even walked in the room, I got a new headshot with a bright blue background, an audition outfit that looked like a dress made out of candy buttons (with a matching headband!), & decided to lead with the funny/loud song instead of the "pretty" one. It was amazing how many more auditions I would get, and how the people in the room would lean in as soon as I walked in the door and/or opened my mouth. I knew immediately that people "got" me, and I got more callbacks & more gigs because of it. I absolutely took that lesson directly into marketing myself as an entrepreneur, along with the thought that if some people didn't "get" me, those aren't the people that would be a good fit for me to work with. I'm about 80 clients in & I've yet to be proven wrong!

In terms of the creative aspect of being a career coach, I think it also comes in on all sides. I have absolutely unlimited options in what I put out there, and that's total creative freedom. I just started using iMovie and recorded a theme song for When I Grow Up that'll start every one of my videos from here on out (you can check it out at the beginning of this video). Yesterday I was drawn to, uh, draw my Vampire (which is what I call the voices in our head that suck the good stuff outta ya) even though I'm so not an artist, and I used it for that week's Tough (Question) Tuesday post. The possibilities are endless!

There are a lot of new entrepreneurs in the world, many of them women. You left your day job just this past spring, and have been a fulltime entrepreneur now for 145 days! Your business is booming and you seem entirely happy to be doing what you are doing. What is your favourite part of being an entrepreneur? I absolutely positively love not having to wear my "mask" for most of the day. In my previous day jobs, I had to adhere to what that company considered professional, and now I get to call those shots! I love getting to make the ultimate decision on that front, and that I can decide that, yes, putting "crapballs" in print is the way I want to conduct business. I always make the decision that's the most authentic for me, and I walk around all day now as myself. I wish that concept wasn't as novel as it's considered!

Speaking of booming business! How do you cope with the stress or anxiety of being an entrepreneur? I'm still learning that, Tania! I absolutely have learned the hard way that I have to create boundaries and enforce them, especially in regards to my self-care. It's so easy to get swept up in the mindset of having to work 15 hours each day and/or power through when you're tired/stressed/overwhelmed, but it's absolutely imperative to take those breaks and say "no" when needed. I realized a week or so ago that I couldn't take on any new clients until after Labor Day, and it totally scared me to have to tell the next person who said, "Let's get started!" that we couldn't for another 4-5 weeks. When the time came and I upheld the boundaries, I was shocked at the reaction, which was, "OK!" I think that absolutely taught me that a lot of the things I'm scared of are way more scary in my head than in reality!

And finally, what I really want to know: What do you do to get out of your head and into your hands? What do you when you have an idea and want to make it a reality? Two big, important words: Baby steps. They are so underrated, yet get you exactly where you need to go and do so really, really well. As a Renaissance Soul, I work best in 45-min chunks, and if there's something new I want to work on, I schedule it into my calendar daily or a few times a week or weekly - whatever I have the capacity for. When I wrote my free downloadable ebook (which you can get if you subscribe to my newsletter), I wrote all 20+ pages in 3 or 4 45-min time slots. It blew my mind. But if I know there's too much on my plate & I can't take the idea on right away, it goes in the back of my monthly planner, where I revisit it when the next month starts. Some ideas get worked on then, some stay in the monthly planner, and some go into my Michelle's Brilliant Ideas book, where I know they'll be safe until I need 'em.

Thanks Michelle! It was a blast interviewing you!

OK, folks, get out there make something happen!