Hey friend, Katie here.

This email contains the most important lesson you will ever learn.

It’s the most important lesson I’ve ever learned, and I’ve been learning lessons for a long time (academic + teacher here).

To explain it, I’ll start by saying:

You’re reading this because you’re creative, and you found me because I’m creative.

As creative people, we know one thing for sure: Being creative is hard.

These are some of the challenges I’ve experienced as a creative person, which you may have too:

• I’m sensitive to the world
• I see things differently than other people
• I’ve had times I’ve felt alone and misunderstood
• I’m at times overwhelmed by information and stimuli
• I find it challenging to balance creative work with self-care.

Yet as a would-be creator, I’ve always had huge ambitions for myself, not knowing quite how to realize them.

I’ve pushed forward blindly, driven by instinct, drawn to the fields of productivity and self-development.

Why?

I was searching for the path I was already on.

Self-actualization has no blueprint. It’s bound up in your self.

I recently wrote about Maslow’s hierarchy reimagined as your ship of needs.

It’s a holistic metaphor for all your needs working together, driving you towards self-fulfillment.

You are a uniquely integrated set of needs and talents.

In pushing forward as a creator—in becoming a personal brand and business—all your potential is contained within your person.

As I recently posted on X, your brain and your body are your business.

You are incorporated.

What is incorporated is:
→ combined into one
→ included as part of a whole
→ constituted as a business entity
→ contained within a bodily form (ie. embodied).

This means all parts of your person must be working harmoniously to help you achieve your full human potential.

Your
• habits
• health
• spirituality
• environment
• employment
• relationships
• self-relationship
all need to be working together for your highest good.

All of these factors are bound up in your personal preferences, decisions and actions—and in the life challenges you work to overcome.

No one else will have your exact same set of parts, or the same life events or outcomes.

As a result, your creator path is uniquely yours to carve and walk. Your personal brand and business can only be your own.

As you work to develop and apply your talents to your personal enterprise, the following also need to be incorporated:

Your
• skill
• style
• brand
• design
• customer
• marketing
• sales mode
• operations
all need to be interworking, aligned parts of you.

The most important lesson of your life is therefore this:

It’s all one.

Everything you do is crafting the outcome.

Every
action
reaction
interaction
collaboration

Every
call
offer
post
video
service
product
meeting
newsletter

Every
intention
thought
choice
deed
word (*we’ll come back to this)
is shaping who and what you are meant to become.

Let this integrated self-conception guide every decision and system you make, with your highest self in mind, and it can only lead to one result.

You, Incorporated.

*As starred above, I’m crafting a super fun and useful tool for your creator journey, that you will love. More to come on this.

Stay tuned for deeper dives into the personal and business aspects of your incorporated self, with actionable tips for each one.

All warm best,

Katie