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Kia Salter started her career as a self-taught web/graphic designer at the age of 18. And at the age of 21, she owned and operated a web company that worked with known celebrities and notable brands. Wanting more, Kia decided to document the things she loves, life lessons, and 17 years of design experience into a blog.
Her mission: To inspire readers to design their own lives and appreciate different forms of design around them.
Kia, a native of Newark, N.J., currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia. She’s also the author of the book Dare To Rebrand and product creator of her own capsule collection of art posters.
To purchase her book and her many other products, visit www.kiasalter.com.
Transcript:
Welcome to The Art of Living big. My name is Betsy Pake entrepreneur, author and personal success coach. This is the show that brings you stories and small ideas to help you live a big life. I hope this once a week podcast will inspire you, motivate you and encourage you to think differently about what could be possible for your life. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let’s go live big. Hey, everyone, thanks for listening to another show of the art of living big. I’m here today with my friend Kiera Salter Hekia Hi, Betsy,
how are you?
I’m good. Thanks so much for being on my show today. Excited to
be here. So tell everybody a little bit. I’m excited to get into this today because there’s a lot of plus I want to pick your brain about some stuff for myself. So tell them hey, buddy, what you do? And give us the rundown.
Okay, well, my name is Kiera Salter, as Betsy just pointed out and I own the blog. Key assaulted calm. I have 18 years of experience in web and graphic design. And currently, I’m focused on aspiring blog, my blog readers to design their own lives and appreciate design in all its forms. I’m also a first time author. brand, yeah, which helps bloggers redesign and fall back in love with their own brand. I’m debuting my first art poster collection, which I’m very so that’s super cool. Yeah. And later on this year, I plan on offering office hours to bloggers and companies who need web design advice. So is it busy for me?
Oh, yeah, that’s so okay. So many good things. I love you. Okay. So I really love that design their own life. So you help people. So talk to me about that?
Well, well, when I first started blogging, it was really a place for me to just talk about the things that I love, like most bloggers, yeah, I know, six. And that was six years ago, I had no idea that in 2017, I would now be focusing more on helping people design their lives. I think what happens is you so in a rut every day that you forget that you’re important to Yeah, and need to literally stop and smell the roses and just enjoy yourself. And a lot of people don’t do that. I’m learning myself to do that. Yeah,
yeah. You know, I like that. You know, I was just saying yesterday on Facebook that I have felt in a rut. And so I decided to just do everything the opposite of what I usually do. I like even like silly things like usually, like, you know, I get up like I stick my hair in a bun and then I brush my teeth. But I didn’t do that I brushed my teeth. And then I put my hair in a bun and it sounds silly. But changing the way I do stuff. I grabbed my mug with my left hand. Like it made me see different things in the world. And I experienced the world in a different way. Because I did that.
I think people get caught up a lot of the times and no, I have to do things this way, only this way. And when you do that you miss. You miss so many things. Yeah, you miss so many things. And I ended up really teaching myself that last year my fiance unfortunately passed away. So he passed away. It was literally an eye opener for me, believe it or not, yeah, I get that. game changer. It was a new normal completely. I moved from New Jersey, which I still miss a lot to Georgia. My mother said, Oh, no, you’re coming with me. Yeah. Yeah, is to Georgia and literally got myself together and completely just changed my outlook on thinking and really focus on self care, and designing my entire life all over again. Yeah, not being scared to do that. Because people are scared to do that.
Oh, it’s Yes, it’s petrifying. And a lot of that’s like you’re designed to not like your brain, your amygdala stops you from change, because it doesn’t know if you’re gonna get beat, you know, eaten by a tiger. Right? So, absolutely. But when you’re in the web design world, you learn that it’s not. And I don’t mean to say it this way. But I’m very blunt. So excuse me when I say this, but
you it’s not all about you. Yeah, with the clients, you dealing with what they want to do, how they want to do it, what’s their vision, so you come out of yourself and focus on someone else. And when you do that, it’s a little bit easier to deal with change in your own life. Believe it or not, it sounds weird, but it really is a bit easier. Well, it’s hard, but it’s easier.
And I feel like when I look at the different like generations of my own website, I can see my own growth. And you know, we were chatting right before we started, I found a copy in the trash of my very, very first homepage. And it’s amazing because it’s so bad. And like it evolved. It’s beautiful. Yes, it’s beautiful. But if it made me go, oh my god, I just started which was great because I didn’t really know what I was doing. Look at how far I’ve come, which means there’s probably a lot more to come which is really cool. But you can almost see like how my brain changed like and we can talk get into more of like The web design pages but like your about page, Mm hmm. In the beginning, my about page was really about me. All that stuff I’ve done and like get to know me. It’s an About Me page
is that it’s nice and thick.
Yes. But now my about page is really like how I help you make it’s much shorter. You know what I mean? Like, I don’t have all the pickets nobody cares. Mm hmm.
I agree. Yeah. Because sometimes you speak to people, they say, Oh, yeah, about page should be this. And you need to include that. No, you need to be blunt. I don’t know how to stress that enough people. And I don’t mean to say this, but people don’t read anymore. I’m a reader. Yeah, a huge reader, but you have at least at least 60% of the population that don’t read anymore. Yeah. Yeah, it needs to be short, concise, to the point, this is what I do here. Here’s who I am. You want to work with me, please? Just, you know, look around my site and see if you want to work with me and contact me. Yeah, you know, I think
that, um, our society now is more of like snippets of content. And so like, we want just a soundbite?
Yes. Yeah, that’s good.
And I think like anybody listening, even if you don’t have a website, but you still have to communicate with people. I think like learning how to cut out the fluff really goes a long way. Like being direct, more direct, can really help people. Like just say what it is you really want or need, you know, three, three, but
talk about I think, Yeah, go ahead.
I think the problem with that is you hear conflicting answers. Like if you go on a webinar, for example, some someone will tell you the fluff is good. The fluff gets search engines going, you know, people find you, but if people find you in a bored to death, yeah, they will stay. Yeah. And I think sometimes when you hear that you don’t hear the other side of it. And unfortunately, being a web designer, you literally have to hear Yeah. side of it. So yeah, it pays. Okay. It pays to be as long winded as you want on certain things, but on others? No.
No, and don’t you think like, with good design? And maybe it’s you tell me if it’s the same thing, but I think of like the design of the site as one thing? And the copy as the other thing? Yes. So to get the message across good copy is so important. And how important is that? In the design? What would you say?
I would say that, and I know this is a general answer, but it comes when you’re doing anything with design, especially web design and graphic design, it always comes down to your why. What is your reason? for wanting to start this blog or start this website? What is your reason for wanting to help and inspire other people? What is your WHY? And from your y comes a little bit of your own personal style, what you want to see how you want to present it. From there you go into Okay, your y correlates into what you want to write because what you write has to definitely match what people are seeing visually.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it’s all got to be consistent, like cohesive kind of diary. And people
sometimes forget that. They think, okay, I saw a black and white website. I am so in love with that. That looks hot. Yeah, what I’m gonna do is I’m going to build a black and white website, knowing good, doggone well, so like my mother now. No, good. Well, I love pink. But I’m gonna build a white black website and then have copy of something that I think is successful that other people are doing. And I’m going to be successful at that. No, you’re not. Yeah, yeah, you’re not. And you literally have to know your y you have to know your reason for existence. You have to know what’s your passion for starting what you’re doing. You have to know that it starts with that.
Yeah, yeah. And then you it’s much easier to find your voice
in that yes. Yeah. People that your why is literally everything. It dictates what people will see when they come to your website, how with design, what features you want, so that the reader feels like it’s easy for them to maneuver. What what copied it takes everything.
Yeah. Like when you go to a website, what what do you think are the key components to making a good site? Like one that sticky that people want to stay on?
Okay, this question is a loaded question. And we literally need a whole nother. But I’ll give you a few one I would say I see a lot of his people copying other people’s journey. Um, you cannot copy someone else’s design journey. You can’t. You just can’t and if you do, you’re doing yourself a disservice. And what so explain that more? What do you mean by? I think people have a tendency to say, Okay, I love that that has a parallax feature, you know where the image stays, but I love that that has this particular feature where the, you know, where the video is playing, and I’m going to put that on my site, and it’s going to work,
right?
Not necessarily, if you’re that person who’s doing that may have an idea of what they want to do, where their journey is, may not be where your journey is. Yeah,
yeah. So it just doesn’t feel right. When somebody goes to it. They’re like, this doesn’t seem right.
Now, whether you look at the copy, and then you’re looking at what they’re putting out, and this kind of some people don’t catch it. But me being doing this for 18 years, I’m completely turned off.
Yeah,
yeah, I turned off nine times out of 10 and may not be 50%. But I guarantee you at least 30% of people are tuning out hitting that eggs, and nothing you can do is gonna get them to stay on your site. Yeah. And
there’s a big, like intuition piece to it. Like where people just know in their gut if something feels right, or it doesn’t feel right. So they may not know, like, well, the copy doesn’t match the design like you would, but they just know this doesn’t feel right. Peace out.
Right. You think you actually think you’re pulling the wool like my grandmother would say you pulling the wool over someone’s eyes? Which really?
Yeah,
not you have to literally be true and authentic to yourself. Yeah. And the first thing I always tell people is like, what is the number one thing don’t copy someone else’s journey that’s yet to when you are deciding when you figure out your why. And you figure out what you are at least where you want to go. Try to keep your fonts to a minimum. Yeah, this chart. to a minimum two to three fonts is enough. Yeah, yeah.
No, no. No Papyrus?
Oh, my God. Oh my God, can we just like have a funeral for that? Can we?
I was somewhere somewhere in Atlanta. And I saw like a juice bar or something like that. And the font was Papyrus, and I was like, oh my god.
It looks dated. I’m not saying you have to be modern asleep, but at least be updated with the time
Yeah,
yeah. No, we need a funeral for that font. Seriously, I’m serious on that. We need a funeral like a whole everything. Yeah,
it’s so funny. You know what I noticed now?
The what?
I said no cursive to sans serif. And serif. Figure out how you want to do that people will tell you, all you need is serif and the body and sans serif title you need to see in serif don’t believe any of that. That font,
confusing thing, like I spent a lot of time on Pinterest, trying to figure out like what fonts go together? Right?
I’m going to be really simple. Okay. Don’t listen to a lot of the things you see. Yeah, please follow this rule. If your title or your your header, whatever your blog post title is, serif. Now serif is the font that has the little lines at the bottom. Okay.
Yeah. So each letter has like a little platform sort of it’s on Yeah.
So it has that line. It’s a serif. If you have a serif title, a good rule of thumb, have a sans serif body text. Okay, and what sans serif mean, sans serif is usually the font that’s the straight on you can see it a lot on a lot of fashion designers. fonts. Yeah. Yeah. Real straight. blocky and sleek. Yes. Yeah. That’s a sans serif. I You don’t have to get that thick or anything. But you know, use that as the body. Yeah,
yeah. I use that. Brandon. Goat grotesque. Do you know that?
Yes. Yes. Yes. That’s a good one. I like some more. One. Yeah. Now, if you’re going to use a sans serif title, blog post, Mm hmm. Then your body text guess what your body text should be? Oh serif, right. Plain and simple. You need contrast. Contrast is the thing. Yeah. rule for me has not changed in 18 years. Yeah, yes. This wage No, you need this and it needs to be they’ll do it. Right. You need on tracks your AI needs to be able to see something that’s not the same because if you’re seeing the same, everything looks the same. If you notice, yeah. And the next thing one, you’re seeing something else in the same font. Everything does all of a sudden start melding together, so then you don’t even notice that there’s a title like you. It’s acklins Yeah, exactly. You need contrast. That’s what everything they’ll tell you. I’ve seen some stuff out there I’ve seen Oh no, you need a sans serif title and a sans serif body together. Don’t do it.
Yeah. Do it.
I don’t care who you know, they can come talk to me and we can have a healthy discussion on it. But if yours, yeah, don’t do it.
What’s the deal recently with everybody and I’m okay with cursing. Like, I think words have energy, but some
type of show.
But some people have all this cursing on their website. And I’m thinking of myself, like, you’re just copying, like the middle finger project or like, you’re not as like, Why Why is that a thing? Now? Everybody’s got like, like, leave your effing life for whatever the heck, it’s like all of this cursing. I don’t get it.
It goes back into copying someone else’s journey. We talked about that earlier.
Yeah, yeah, you’re right. Yeah.
I’m gonna This is seems to be popping over here working over here. I’m going to do that. And it’s going to work for me. No, it’s not. Yeah. So you need to be very careful. Now, if you’re a cursor naturally, because I’ve met some natural cursors. That’s funny. Yeah. If you’re a natural curse, or even natural curses, don’t curse I’ve met even in New York, don’t curse as much as you think they curse. They curse. But they have that one particular word that they love.
Right. So
yeah, a lot of you’re the person that’s a natural person. You say shit.
Yeah.
It’s something I expect to see in your wording. Okay, yeah, fine. But I don’t expect that to see every paragraph or every sentence.
Right? Yes.
And do you go to work and talk like that? Because really, this is your public persona? Some people do? Yeah, no, some people do. Yeah. So if you do then put it on your website, but some people don’t like if you wouldn’t do that when you go to work, then don’t put it all over your website. I think that’s my personal opinion.
You’re correct. You’re absolutely correct. How are you to be authentic with your reader if you’re doing something that’s not authentic to you? Right? Yeah. Yeah, you’re absolutely right. If you’re not a cursor, don’t curse. I have my word.
Yeah. Yes.
At one word. I use it. And when I use it in a blog post, I use it a little bit different because I’m more sensitive to the fact that Okay, there may be 16 year olds reading, right? Yeah. Yeah. A little bit old fashioned, but that I will put sh and put the little asterik. Yeah. Yeah, I was a little bit respectful. Yeah. So parents who have kids that are 16 that are reading yet probably don’t want them to read. But if they do, you know, I’m talking about real growth stuff. But if they read, yeah, okay. I’m gonna put that aspect there. But you as a grown up, you know what I’m saying? Yeah, yeah, right. I stay true to myself. You can’t just stop cursing, offloading off. If that’s not you,
right? Doesn’t work. Yeah. Now, I found you on Twitter. And you actually took a look at my website for me, which was super generous of you, and gave me some really good tips. And I’ve changed a lot of things even since that update. After we talked, I thought more about some of the stuff you said, and I was like, Oh, this still needs to go, you know, but I think it’s like sort of, you know, like an evolvement, where you’re like, Okay, I’m evolving here. I’m ready to receive that advice, right?
It depends. Some people are ready, and some people are not. I think some people get the idea that when you’re a web designer, and they actually for advice, oh, she’s going to come in or he’s going to come in and say something like, Oh, I’m doing everything wrong. I try not to do that. When I approach a situation. If someone’s asking me, I literally try to say, Okay, I’m here to try to help you as much as I can. Let me be as sensitive as I can with you. Because when you said Okay, look at my site. That’s it. Oh, God. But I’m saying that and I said, because I got a lot to say you should have seen my paper to say, but I saw something beautiful. But this is not because you were doing things wrong, but I saw something beautiful. I saw potential.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. And that’s okay. This could really be something. Yes, it did. I need to be honest with her. And I need to tell her and then when I came back, I noticed your site again, and I said, Okay,
yeah. cleaned it up getting a little better.
Yeah,
it looks actually really good. If it didn’t, I will tell you trust me. One of the ideas that you gave me or one of the pointers or hints was that my podcast and I knew this, like instinctively, but I didn’t know what to do. You were on your podcast. The branding was totally different. Like my brand colors are light blue and orange. Right. And I picked it. I picked those colors strategically. And when I did my podcast, for some reason, I don’t even know. You know what I think the reason was, I had done some work to help my sister with some branding, and she had a purple that was pretty and so I just put the purple over. And then my podcast became purple, which wasn’t my branding, and I knew that but then it looks Good. So I was like, I’ll just leave it. And one of the things you said on your podcast page, your images need to match your branding. And I changed every single image. I mean, I had like 35 podcasts or whatever it was I went through, and I changed the image on every single one. And it looks so much better and feels better now. Oh, Betsy, what you say is, but a lot of people
are color and it looks so pretty.
Yes, there’s so many I do that a lot, though. I have to like, stop myself and go, Betsy. No, just because that looks good. And just because you like that doesn’t mean that has to be your thing. Like you can’t constantly be changing.
You can’t. And I think a good rule of thumb when choosing colors, I just want to give this tip. Yeah, is I’m trying to give as much tips as I can. Yeah. On your podcast. A good rule of thumb is I know colors are pretty good. When you decide on a color for your brand. Go to your personal style. Yeah, always refer to your personal style, because you’re injecting a little bit of yourself into your brand, which people want to see, believe it or not. So if like I said earlier, if you like pink, pink should be there. Yeah, that’ll make just like it. I mean, like it to the point where if you wear pink, at least three times a week, right? Then pink needs to be in your site. If you love I’m a black and white, neutral person by nature. And I like a pop of color. Literally, my new website that’s going to be debuting next month is black and white by nature in a pop of red. Hmm, yeah. If that’s you, that’s what needs to be in your brand design. What are you doing? Yeah, what are you doing? Like, what are you doing? And if you feel yourself being the person that’s like, Oh, my God is pretty colors everywhere. Pretty, pretty pretty. And you can’t decide Yes. Have someone help you?
Yeah. Like that’s really is money well spent. Because moving forward, and I created a page like with my font, my brand colors like textures that I like, and I always go back to that and like, does that match? Does that match? Does that match? And it really is helpful? Because it is like a Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. Color is such an interesting thing. And I think that, you know, you can google I think that’s what I did. I googled, like, what do these colors mean? So I was drawn to certain things, but also I’m not very. I’m not super girly, you know? Yeah. Right. And it always sort of bugged me like, I wish I was a little earlier. Um, but let me the way you are stay there. Right. Well, I know. But it takes there’s a evolvement. Right, in order to get to that point. And when I was in high school, and I talked about this a lot on the podcast, but when I was in high school, my mother died in a car accident. And I think because I had to, like I was 16. So I had to be like, I had to be strong. You know what I mean? Like I had to, like nobody was going to stick up for me, no one was going to take care of like, I had to do it. And so I think it gave me sort of this hard edge. So I think the part of it that I’ve always hated was because I felt like it came from this negative thing. I had to change the way I saw that. But I wanted to bring that in my my logo isn’t like fancy. It’s my name. You know, and it’s those block letters. And it’s a color that’s that I love a shade of blue that I love. That is seems trustworthy, right? And then the red because the red isn’t, I mean, the orange because the orange is much more like kind of that hard edge. You know, like, it’s not all yeah. So yeah. So I think like coming to a point where you find something that really feels like you makes it so much easier to continue down the path and not have all those different things come in.
But you said something important in everything you just said I’m not sure if you recognize everything in your life will never be wasted. What you go through what you’ve been through and what you go through in the future shapes who you are, and who you are, should be injected into that site. I think people get that they think that you have to be you know, the top fashion bloggers of the world, the top fashion like I mean, the top lifestyle bloggers of the world. No, you have to be you. They got where they are. Because they are them. Yeah, yeah. And everything about you. And your journey should be injected into your design. There should be no difference, right? Yeah. Yeah, man. You’re a tough cookie. I mean, I should say, yeah, tough cookie. I mean business. I know what I’m doing.
Right? Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
When you talk about the why, because that’s something that I have struggled with a little bit. And I had what I thought was my why. And, and like, you know, you and I have talked about this, like, just get started, just move forward, just move forward. But I had a lot of people say to me like, Well, yeah, but But why is that? Like, it didn’t seem like it was really to the bottom of it, you know? And, and I was always like, I want to help, you know, I want to help people, I want to help people find their dreams I want to. And I went, I went and spent like a couple days with one of my girlfriends a few weeks ago, and she’s a coach, and she’s amazing, and asks really good questions. And we were talking about my mom. So like, I’m about to be 46 my mom died when I was 16. So I mean, oh, you look good. I mean, I look good. Yeah, I mean, look good. Okay. But I she kept asking me these questions. Yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but yeah, you know, how someone will say, but what about this? What about that?
And then she’s, like, you know, they can’t see it. But why?
Yeah. And it was so helpful. All of a sudden, I was almost horrified. Because I was like, Oh, my gosh, all along. I thought my why was like, you know, part of my whole thing is this start small to live big. And it’s a system that I developed and discovered in working with my daughter who had anxiety. So I always felt like that was my story. And as I was talking to my friend, a dare, she was asking me more and more and more. And when was the first time you noticed that? When was the first time you noticed this? And when people ask me about the first time of things, I always say, I don’t really remember anything before I was 16. Like, that’s my default. And I realized when she was asking me that, that was my way to not look at it. Right? Oh, okay, I got ya, cuz that freaking hurts. And I’m not gonna look at it. And I’m certainly not gonna look at it like, well, we’re here at Ponce City Market, you know what I mean? Like. But she said something, all of the sudden, like, I bust out crying in Ponce City Market. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, my whole life. I heard my mom say things that she wanted to do. Like someday, maybe I’ll go see the pyramids. Someday I might do this. I’ve always wanted to go skiing my but I have a bum knee like I, you know, all these different things. And I remember being like maybe 11 or 12. And I asked her, how come you don’t do that. And I remember like, distinctly, she said, Daddy, and I talked about it. And we decided I was going to be a mom right now. And so maybe later I’ll do those things. And then she freaking died. So now my mission and why it’s so important to me is that I help people reconnect with their dreams, so that they can an in strategies to achieve those dreams so that they can feel happier and more purposeful lives. Like that’s where it comes from. And all of a sudden, all of the branding and all of the website came together. Because it was like holy smokes, like everything I do, I want to drive you towards reconnecting with your dream, because we forget it, especially as women because we push it aside, right to be moms or to be this way to be that. And so when I really got down to my wife, so I say that whole story because I say like, you know, if you’re listening and you have something you want to share, and you’re not exactly sure why just start sharing, because over time, you’ll start to become to the point where you can get to the bottom of your Why don’t you find that when working with people?
I can’t even Oh my God, I teared up a little bit. I can’t even begin to explain to you how much your story. It’s a bit different. But it’s almost the same in the aspect of when my fiance passed away. I finally figured out my why.
Hmm. So tell me if you dare and by the way, that’s the first time I’ve ever said that out loud about my mom. Like I’m just starting to like really be okay that you know what I mean. But tell me if you are okay with that. I’d love to hear
about that journey. Hey, we had a similar to what you said you asked your Mom, what are your plans? We had a lot of plans. You know, we were engaged. So okay, we’re going to get married two years from now. That gives us enough time to save up money. I didn’t want to ring a number a little bit. I’m a little bit different of a woman. I wanted to house. Yeah. So you know, I wanted certain things for something. You can give me the ring later. Yeah, for right now. I could do a simple bam. But I wanted to do a lot of these things. And we had plans and suddenly out of nowhere. It was over. that quick. It was instant he died instantly. You get a heart attack and it was instant.
Oh gosh, Kenya.
And it was and I’m thinking and he died in our home. So I was sitting there thinking oh my like oh my god. Oh my god. I was in a daze for four months. Yeah, my mom, literally my mother like the mama cub. She is she took me And literally, between her my sister, my brother, everyone had me in this little cocoon.
Yeah,
yeah. until almost until I was ready to come out. Yeah, I’m a 36 year old grown woman and I At the time 35 and I was like, oh my god. Yeah, you know, I was out of it and somehow doing going through the process of grief, believe it or not, because you can’t A lot of people think that you can just bypass it. You have to go through it. Yeah.
Yeah.
It has to go through it. You can ignore it for a long time if you want.
But we still have to go.
Absolutely. So when my mother was like, No, you’re going through it because you’re not you’re not going to waste your time you’re going through it. And when going through it, leave her Ah, oh, my mother. Oh, Hello, mother. My mother is a straight shooter. She’s been that way all our lives. She’s a straight shooter. She doesn’t play any games. She loves you. And she’ll say, I love you. But I’m not your best friend. I am your mother. Yeah. And I am here to guide you. As long as I have breath in my body. She doesn’t stop. Yeah, you can be an adult and she won’t stop. But she was literally crucial with me. You know, what do you want to do? This is your new normal, this is your time to reinvent yourself. And people throw that word around a lot. But she was adamant. This is your time to reinvent yourself and going through the grief process. I figured out my why Believe it or not out of nowhere. I figured out Oh, this is what I’m supposed to be doing. What so this is why this happened? You know, yeah, this is, this is why this happened. It hurts. And I didn’t want it to happen. But obviously God loved him more than I could ever love him. This is why this happened. And this is what I need to do. And it changed my entire life. Yeah, my entire life. And then he set things up that I didn’t know about to put me in that direction. So it was almost like, in my opinion, God literally had this plan for me that I knew nothing about. And I thought this is what I was supposed to be doing. This is what I’m doing. And had nothing to do with that. Nothing. My blog before was nothing like it will be next month.
Nothing. Hmm, Isn’t that crazy?
Yes. And it was. It is freaky to me because it wasn’t and frigging right. Yeah, but it was slightly freaky, because I’ve never, I’ve never seen all my life. I’ve never seen anything fall into place, the way this fell into place. So
what’s the shift? And like, what is your WHY? How would you describe it?
Literally, I never knew my philosophy and my whole existence, I believe, is to literally help someone figure out how to go through life and design their own lives. Hmm,
yeah, I didn’t know that. Was it? Yeah.
Okay. I’m a designer. I’ve done this. I’ve done that. Like the little things that I’ve done in my life, you know, okay, that has no bearing on web design. I just done that. You know, I am this that has no bearing on what I’m doing. It does. And it was it nothing like I told you before, nothing in my life was wasted. Nothing. Yeah, all of those experiences, all the things that I went through, culminated to this moment where now I can write an editorial on my blog, saying why I’m not married, and why you shouldn’t talk bad about people.
Yeah, yeah.
Why I can help you know, I can help you actually figure out I have another editorial and they came out of nowhere. This the ideas came out of everywhere, where I can actually talk to you how to deal with regret. I didn’t know that I’ve dealt with regret. As good as I did, believe it or not. Yeah, if you said to me, I’m like, okay, whatever. I can go in. Yeah, I didn’t know high five. I didn’t know that was me.
So your your website really isn’t just about web design. Like no really does go much deeper into like, life design.
It’s literally it I call it a lifestyle, you know, blog, but it’s literally a little bit more than that. I know a lot of people say lifestyle. Okay, you talk about food. It’s no, no. Talk about life.
Yeah.
Along the way I incorporate you know, design for formats. I talk about web design as well. I talk because that’s natural to me. I talk about interior design because I’m in love with interior design is like an extension to web design. Yes or no? Yeah, sure. I talk about those things that are everyday life as well. But then I get into Okay, let’s have a conversation. Right? Because I love to hear people’s opinions. I’m not the one that’s in the box where I only like my opinion and my opinion is is the thing,
right? Yes.
I love talking to other people. I love learning something new if I wasn’t learning something new every day I feel like I that I need to learn something new. I’m literally on the web like okay, what can I learn new today? Every day? Yeah, I I just that person and I’d love to share the experiences that I’ve been through.
Yeah, I love that. I totally think you know, we’re all on this journey. We’re all on like separate little tracks, right? But we’re still all on the same race track. And like if we could all just recognize that that we can all help each other with whatever path we’ve been on anything just really super powerful.
Exactly. And I just I don’t I just I’m actually having more fun. And I feel a little guilty about it. I’m getting over that because I feel like okay did not have fun when I was with him, but I feel like I’m having a little bit more fun and I’ve stepped into me.
Yeah, I totally think that’s the key though is tap to have fun. Like I think everything everything everything comes together when you live in joy. I think that’s the meaning of life is to be joyful every single day.
Yes. And to do it, you’re not feeling it. Fake it till you make it very nice. Yeah.
Like that doesn’t work. Yes, it does. It does. I when I used to feel like just down because I was still sad. You know, he just passed away. I would smile and my mother would say smile. Now’s like I don’t have anything to smile about and she will say smile. You’ll feel better. Yes, it’s true. Better to smile, continue to smell continue to say thank you continue to say, you know, thank you for thinking of me. Yeah, the talk continued anything. I don’t care if it’s just one word. She was really crucial. In me getting back to me and then also finding me. Yeah, I love that woman to death. Let me test powerful stuff.
I love Yeah, I love this. I love all of this. This has been so interesting. I feel like we could talk for another two hours but our time is running up. But thank you so much for blood on the show, man. I know I love you and so I feel like you know we’ll make sure we link but they can find you at your name right kiya? Salter calm, and, and there they can go to find out more about design designing their life and some of those awesome projects that you’re getting into now.
Absolutely. And one more thing, honestly, we need to do this again.
Yes, we totally do. I don’t
care. I don’t want to promote anything. I just want to talk.
I love you. Oh, well. Thank you so much for being on the show. I appreciate your time. I
love that Betsy. It was amazing. Thank you so much for inviting me. I’m so excited.
Thanks for having me on your journey today. I want to invite you to jump inside our free Facebook group. You can find that at SS lB community.com that stands for start small, live big community.com and we can just continue the conversation in there. And as always, here’s a little message from my husband.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
