We are here to help others. Creativity is a gift I have been given. Actually, you all have it. I simply have chosen to take a life path which allows me to use my creative talents all day, every day. I must in order to be happy. It’s who I am.

And once you have lived life as a creative process, ever-unfolding, for so many years as I have done, I have come to realize, sadly, that just not everybody thinks like me. (*shocked. LOL) When I started my Creative NUDGE business and concept, ohh, so long go, I found it sad to hear people say “I’m not creative…I can’t sing…I can’t dance…Or you fill in the blanks. Everyone, without exception, is creative.

Now, more than ever before, creativity is crucial to success in the workplace, in looking for employment, and of course business, now more than ever before, rewards and works hard to recruit and retain, creative talent.

Years ago I got a call from a Visual Artist in Montreal who wanted Creativity Coaching. I sensed she was really just scoping me out, and my business, in order to do the same thing I was doing. I wanted to share, but of course, wanted to be paid for my time and talents like a good business owner must do. On that day, I did not help her.

And I will never forget her email response: “So just when did creativity become a business?” … basically she was pissed off, hurt, upset, as she had hoped I would share openly and freely of my creative talents, knowledge and wisdom that I had spent years developing, thousands of dollars in education to learn everything I had studied, and she wanted something on the phone for free? I blew it. Not a beating myself up type of “blew it” but today I can see, that I could have made a difference that day. Or did I blow it?

Every day in business I can make a difference. It is a matter of choice and attitude in every single moment.

Looking back now, of course I did not blow it. I did what I believed at that time, and I learned from that phone call, and I feel so strongly that right now, in business and in life, that we need creativity more than ever before. We need creative thinking, we need to live as if in the midst of a creative process. People are desperate for help right now, financial help, career help, help with saving their businesses. I can give  thing … my knowledge.

If you want a Creative Boost for your business, or if you are an artist-creative-type who is stuck, or you have a creative block. From Creativity Retreats, Creativity Workshops, Creativity Speaking Engagements and Creative Business Consulting I know that you can find and use the creative talent you have right under your nose in your huge corporation, or in your own home-based business. It’s there.

So please, call me, email me, look me up, I’m all over the internet online, and let’s connect, and you might just Get the Creative NUDGE!

- Brenda Johima -
YOUR Creativity Consultant

My blog flew the coop.

Actually, I opened the door and asked it to jump out the door and off the cliff.

Yes, I deleted my old website and blog. I chose to right now, manually input certain blog posts only, from the past. Most developers would say I am nuts.

However, I have done this for many reasons, and the purge feels fantastic! And, my childhood love of pink and purple websites, and the one I had for 8 years, has moved to a more minimalistic, black, white and gray, as you can see, and I am loving this new direction.

Short blurb for now, finish up later.

- Brenda -

As many of you know, I took the courageous step to delete many years of blog posts and my old website, which had been very highly ranked in multiple categories, for many, many years.

I have been experimenting with a new look, new colors, a new brand, and whether to go with a full WordPress CMS site, or what I had before, which was a static main site, with a blog attached.

Now that my research is complete (for now), I will be doing a review of all of the premium WordPress themes that I have purchased, tried, and evaluated.

I am pretty techie and creative, and, what I have learned through the premium WordPress theme maze, is that the developers are extremely good sales copy writers! Your average person, without the web design training that many of us have, might have difficulty implementing premium themes, as they promote them to be used.

The end result with premium WordPress themes can be fantastic and a time saver, however, in the development and customizing phase, it is not as easy as they make it out to sound.

So, bottom line, there are some fantastic (paid) WordPress themes and content management systems that I now believe in, and so look forward to my writings and recommendations shortly.

- Brenda Johima -

Gutsy. Courageous. Happy. Talented. Smart. Brilliant. Kind. Biomimic. Wanted. Loved. Attractive. Bend-Over-Backwards-Helpful. Courageous. Can Do It. Not The Norm. Business Not As Usual. Creative. Artistic. Dynamo-In-Waiting. Grateful. Intuitive. Deep Down Can’t Be Fooled. Deep Knowingness. Positively Positive.

What’s Your List?

- brenda johima -

My goodness, that almost sounds nasty. No, it is just a gentle reminder, … just a little creative nudge.

I post my quote here again, as it has been posted on my blog and website before in the past. A great reminder, for creativity in business, and life.

If I do not have the courage to stand out, to get noticed, to be different so that I can be remembered, then what business do I really have? Happiness and success in business is about courage, taking risks, living and working like there is no box.

When everyone else is trying to think outside of the box in business, you always know there is no box and there never was a box. All an illusion from the past, and from sheep following sheep, with a catchy phrase.

Conform and you will be bored. Conform, and you will not express your true creative potential, for creativity does not conform to any mold or formula. It constantly changes, evolves, moves, starts and stops, and you never know where it will go, into the unknown.

The life of happiness is one of courage and passion. How many businesses do you know, which do not, and did not conform? Which ones were the pioneers, leading, at the head of the pack with no fear … or maybe even with fear … but they lead the way anyway.

Creativity requires that we not conform, and take the path less travelled on the creative process route. You never know where you will end up if you have the courage to not conform. Beat your own drum. Dance your own dance. Sing your own song. Write your own story.

And, run your own business like it is the most brilliant and unique thing that has ever come along since … well, you fill in the blanks. “Run” your business. Run it far and run it wide, run it through the side streets and through the back alleys and down the country dirt roads and up the mountainsides, where you are alone, and only your ideas carry you to your next destination of success.

Some say it is lonely at the top, and yes it can be, but only for awhile. You will not be alone for long.

The rest will follow, because eventually followers will join and conform.

So I ask you a creativity question. Do you want to lead, or do you want to conform?

Afterall, Conformity is the Shortest Route to a Boring Life.

~Brenda Johima~

Ha. Ha. Technology is FUN.

8 year website plus 3 years of blogging posts, and POOF!

Back to you soon.

Brenda Johima

I have been working for some time on a re-design for the three websites I own and maintain … this one, Creative Nudge, JOHIMA Designs, my graphic design company, and Brenda Johima, my fine art and photography site.

My goodness!

Web design has become so complicated. I have been successful using the same websites for a long time … and now, yes, it is time for a change and an upgrade … and my, my, there is so much to think about. It has become much easier and simpler for the end user (and design clients) … however, now, most web design requires more computer programming skills than design … yes the visual design does and always will matter, but in my opinion, computer programmers have the upper hand right now.

You really want to think it through, a new site. Plan, plan, plan. It is time consuming and expensive (for most folks, although I do my own) … and to fully take advantage of all of the social media, newsletter and email marketing opportunities, there is a lot to work through, and to plan, plan, plan ahead.

I think that I know what will happen. I will have worked on these re-designs for months … then finally happy to launch, get it out there online and Poooof! Things change and I will be behind again. LOL.

You never are behind really.
You are where you are, and it is all good.
We are all exactly where we are meant to be at any given moment.
- Brenda Johima -

We all get to our destination when we are meant to.

We reach our goals in our own way, in our own most creative and capable way. We do the best we can with whatever we have. And it is all good.

You are on the right track. So am I … and it’s never too late for anything.

Speaking of never too late … I recently turned 48 and forty-eight is great! I am a late bloomer photographer.

I am IN LOVE with photography. I started in around 2004 experimenting with my first borrowed SLR while on a trip to Montpellier and Paris, France, but did not even have my own camera until 2006. I did not have to convert to digital … I started digital after only a few months with a borrowed film camera to learn the basics, aperture, F-stops, etc.

My skill with composition, color, design, form and lines … the basics of art and photography were learned in design and fine art school, and easily transferred to photography. I just had to (and still have to) learn the technical end of things, and that learning I believe, never ends. It is an ongoing pleasant journey. I love it.

So, along with three new websites in the works to be launched soon, I am excited to announce two, what I call, personal passion photography projects:

Call me at 1+ (250) 335 – 1195 to book your sessions:

• Senior Dogs. I LOVE senior dogs. Do you have a senior dog? I want to photograph your dog.
• Alpacas and Baby (cria). I LOVE alpacas. I am nuts about alpacas. I want to photograph your alpacas at your location on your farm.

Here’s a few samples for you of alpaca, cria (baby alpaca) and senior dogs … including my dog Toby who is now 12! The images have moved to brendajohima.com and phoDOGraphy.ca

Thanks for popping by today.

- Brenda -

P.S. I’m based in the beautiful Comox Valley on Vancouve Island, B.C., but of course, I am available for international travel. Who isn’t?

Do you ever need permission to just let yourself off the hook for something, for anything?

Well, I give you permission right now, today, to let yourself off the hook. Do you need to let yourself off the hook? Well then, do it, right now.

Here are my writing ramblings for the day:

Act and be unpredictable and unreliable …. it’s pretty cool to not be too perfect sometimes …. Maybe you will enjoy being off the hook?
At least let yourself off the hook for awhile … maybe you will stay unhooked?
Get off the hook and stay there.
I hereby give you permission to no longer be hooked.
Hooks are in songs.
Hooks are for hanging pictures and Captain Hook.
Hooks are for hanging curtains and shower curtains.
You don”t want to be hooked on drugs or hooked on chocolate.
You could take up rug hooking instead and let yourself off the hook.
You can hook up your TV and hook up your phone or you can even play hooky.
But please, let yourself off the hook.

Copyright 2008 Brenda Johima

There. I feel better. That”s my brainstorming for the day. And, I hope for you, that YOU DO let yourself off the hook, get out there, live life to the fullest, and enjoy this beautiful, all-to-short and precious life that we all were given to enjoy.

- brenda johima -
YOUR Creativity Coach

For a brief period of time, I lived with my sister and at that time, my 6 year old niece. I had my office/art studio in the basement, and I would love it when she would join me after she came home from school. I had an extra table for her, to color and draw while I was working.

I remember her coming home one day after school, quite visibly upset that she had “gotten in trouble at school” for coloring outside of the lines. When will teachers learn there are no lines? Has that old fashioned thinking not died yet?

It is time that we realize that self-expression and creative expression has no rules. It is time that schools and educational systems no longer allow coloring books in class. It is time that teachers stop printing off in mass, coloring sheets with pre-fab, pre-drawn things on it for the children to color. It is time that children express their individuality in school, through art with no rules.

“How are we to have creative business owners, and creative thinkers, when at the age of 6, we must stay within the confines of the lines of a coloring book? Please, try a blank sketch book.” - brenda johima -

At that time, my “day job” was as a Counsellor/Therapist, for an in-hospital drug and alcohol treatment program for Addictions.

After work that day, and during our time in my art studio together, I told my niece that “the next time the teacher says that to her”, tell her “there are no mistakes in art.”

Little did I think and know, that a few days later, my courageous and brave, and brilliantly creative young 6 year old neice then DID, in fact, go and tell that teacher, “My Auntie Brenda says There Are No Mistakes In Art.” Good For You! I thought. And, “Oh No” I thought, as of course, she once again, faced the repercussions at school, of being squashed once again, by that teacher, this time not for coloring outside the lines, but for speaking her truth about art.

My motto still is:

There are no mistakes in art, and there are no lines within which we must remain, there is no box, within which we must live. – brenda johima –

Color Outside The Lines, because There Are No Lines.

Wait! Don”t touch that delete button! Wait! Get rid of that eraser!

“True creativity comes forth with no edits, no censoring, and no mistakes. True creativity has no delete button and no eraser.”
- brenda johima -

Yes, even in business. Creativity in business demands courage. The courage to move fearlessly forward, even if you are alone.

We delete too much, we erase too much, we paint over too much, we repeat too much, we perfect too much and all the while, we stop creativity in its tracks.
- brenda johima -

What if you went with your gut, your intuition, your deepest dreams and inner longings in business? What if you went with your craziest ideas in business, that if you did, you think your business colleagues and competitors would think you were nuts?

What if you did and it worked?

“Who is really nuts? The one with the eraser.”
- brenda johima -
YOUR Creativity Coach and Creative Creativity Business Consultant