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5/07/14

20: Caitlin Crosby – How To Build A Business With Purpose

“There are so many people that have this gold in them but there is no one to encourage them to change their lives.”

This week’s amazing NIONradio guest is my long time friend, Caitlin Crosby. Not only is she a super talented musician, but she’s also the founder of this amazing company called The Giving Keys. They’ve blown up in the last few years, and I see people wearing them all the time. They are these key necklaces and bracelets that have a word stamped into them. You wear one until you meet someone who you think needs the word inscribed on it, then you give it to that person. The story and vision behind this project is amazing, which you will hear in this episode.

Caitlin has a beautiful heart, and is out to change the world. She truly cares about everyone and inspires me to become a better person. She’s passionate about issues that could have an impact on someones life and make them feel less alone. Her Giving Keys are a prime example of this movement that she has created. Caitlin is full of love, and we even talk about her journey of falling in love on this episode.

“Unless you’re willing to fight for me, to fight to keep this relationship alive, then I have to walk away.”

[smart_track_player url=”https://soundcloud.com/nickonken/caitlin-crosby-songwriter-and-founder-of-the-giving-key” title=”Caitlin Crosby – How To Build a Business with Purpose” image=”https://nionlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/20_CaitlinCrosby_NIONradio_02.jpg” color=”de4b9b” ]

Some things we learn in this podcast:

  • Growing up in Los Angeles
  • The funny story of how Caitlin Founded The Giving Keys
  • On building a business with a team of stranger homeless friends
  • How to build a for purpose business slowly and consistently
  • Embracing the pay it forward concept
  • Amazing stories of helping homeless recover
  • Managing rapid growth in a for purpose organization
  • Applying lessons learned from Youth Group
  • Where Caitlin gets her ideas for her songs
  • How to cultivate a thriving relationship/marriage
  • The story of how she met her husband
  • Advice for women seeking the right man
  • Cultivating a way of being that attracts great people
  • Strategies for manifesting confidence

Links mentioned:

Connect with Caitlin Crosby Instagram | Twitter | Website

LET'S CONSPIRE & CREATE

CULTIVATING YOUR VISUAL UNIQUENESS AND STREAMLINING YOUR BRAND'S EVOLUTION

“There are so many people that have this gold in them but there is no one to encourage them to change their lives.”

This week’s amazing NIONradio guest is my long time friend, Caitlin Crosby. Not only is she a super talented musician, but she’s also the founder of this amazing company called The Giving Keys. They’ve blown up in the last few years, and I see people wearing them all the time. They are these key necklaces and bracelets that have a word stamped into them. You wear one until you meet someone who you think needs the word inscribed on it, then you give it to that person. The story and vision behind this project is amazing, which you will hear in this episode.

Caitlin has a beautiful heart, and is out to change the world. She truly cares about everyone and inspires me to become a better person. She’s passionate about issues that could have an impact on someones life and make them feel less alone. Her Giving Keys are a prime example of this movement that she has created. Caitlin is full of love, and we even talk about her journey of falling in love on this episode.

“Unless you’re willing to fight for me, to fight to keep this relationship alive, then I have to walk away.”

[smart_track_player url=”https://soundcloud.com/nickonken/caitlin-crosby-songwriter-and-founder-of-the-giving-key” title=”Caitlin Crosby – How To Build a Business with Purpose” image=”https://nionlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/20_CaitlinCrosby_NIONradio_02.jpg” color=”de4b9b” ]

Some things we learn in this podcast:

  • Growing up in Los Angeles
  • The funny story of how Caitlin Founded The Giving Keys
  • On building a business with a team of stranger homeless friends
  • How to build a for purpose business slowly and consistently
  • Embracing the pay it forward concept
  • Amazing stories of helping homeless recover
  • Managing rapid growth in a for purpose organization
  • Applying lessons learned from Youth Group
  • Where Caitlin gets her ideas for her songs
  • How to cultivate a thriving relationship/marriage
  • The story of how she met her husband
  • Advice for women seeking the right man
  • Cultivating a way of being that attracts great people
  • Strategies for manifesting confidence

Links mentioned:

Connect with Caitlin Crosby Instagram | Twitter | Website

5/07/14

20: Caitlin Crosby – How To Build A Business With Purpose

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“There are so many people that have this gold in them but there is no one to encourage them to change their lives.”

This week’s amazing NIONradio guest is my long time friend, Caitlin Crosby. Not only is she a super talented musician, but she’s also the founder of this amazing company called The Giving Keys. They’ve blown up in the last few years, and I see people wearing them all the time. They are these key necklaces and bracelets that have a word stamped into them. You wear one until you meet someone who you think needs the word inscribed on it, then you give it to that person. The story and vision behind this project is amazing, which you will hear in this episode.

Caitlin has a beautiful heart, and is out to change the world. She truly cares about everyone and inspires me to become a better person. She’s passionate about issues that could have an impact on someones life and make them feel less alone. Her Giving Keys are a prime example of this movement that she has created. Caitlin is full of love, and we even talk about her journey of falling in love on this episode.

“Unless you’re willing to fight for me, to fight to keep this relationship alive, then I have to walk away.”

[smart_track_player url=”https://soundcloud.com/nickonken/caitlin-crosby-songwriter-and-founder-of-the-giving-key” title=”Caitlin Crosby – How To Build a Business with Purpose” image=”https://nionlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/20_CaitlinCrosby_NIONradio_02.jpg” color=”de4b9b” ]

Some things we learn in this podcast:

  • Growing up in Los Angeles
  • The funny story of how Caitlin Founded The Giving Keys
  • On building a business with a team of stranger homeless friends
  • How to build a for purpose business slowly and consistently
  • Embracing the pay it forward concept
  • Amazing stories of helping homeless recover
  • Managing rapid growth in a for purpose organization
  • Applying lessons learned from Youth Group
  • Where Caitlin gets her ideas for her songs
  • How to cultivate a thriving relationship/marriage
  • The story of how she met her husband
  • Advice for women seeking the right man
  • Cultivating a way of being that attracts great people
  • Strategies for manifesting confidence

Links mentioned:

Connect with Caitlin Crosby Instagram | Twitter | Website

5/07/14

20: Caitlin Crosby – How To Build A Business With Purpose

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I’ve photographed Justin Bieber several times and seen fame up close. His stripped-down Coachella set showed the thing I keep relearning about creative work: production amplifies, and only artistry carries.

Calm Jamaican coastline, a nervous system coming all the way down in creative burnout recovery

You recover from creative burnout by treating it as a nervous system state: build real down-cycles, read your own signals, and return to the work you love.

Mountain landscape in New Zealand, one clear thread running through a magnetic personal brand

A magnetic personal brand comes from coherence and one clear through-line. Here is how entrepreneurs build one, in order, and the trap that keeps most brands scattered.

Hiking a New Zealand mountain trail, learning at your own pace in midlife

I spent a month training kung fu in Wudang at 47, the oldest and slowest learner in the room. What being a beginner again in midlife taught me about pace, comparison, and starting anyway.

Photographer walking a snow-capped mountain ridge in New Zealand, the long practice of seeing that develops taste

You develop taste through thousands of reps of looking closely and deciding what works. A photographer’s honest answer on how taste gets built.

Silhouetted figure leaping from a sea cliff at sunset, committing to one coherent personal brand identity

You make a personal brand more coherent by naming the identity underneath it, distilling a one or two word through-line, and bringing the four layers into agreement. The full path, in order.

Nick Onken travel image, Life Intelligence essay on travel as creative input that sharpens the eye

You cannot pour from an empty well. Travel is how I refill mine. Here is why new places are creative input rather than a break from the work, and why output without input runs dry.

Nick Onken portrait, Creative Intelligence essay on the creative act versus performing one

There is a difference between making something and performing the act of making it. Here is what I learned about the creative act, content, and why the resistance is the whole game.

Nick Onken portrait, illustrating that personal brand identity is human-built with AI as the tool on top

AI can generate endless brand content, but it cannot construct the identity underneath it. Here is the real line between what AI can do for your brand and what only you can.

Nick Onken portrait, Life Intelligence essay on nervous system regulation and creative recovery

Burnout is less a willpower problem than a nervous system running with no recovery. Here is what I learned about creative recovery from social media burnout and a reset in Costa Rica.

Elevated Realism brand portrait by Nick Onken, a subject looking unmistakably like themselves

Most brand photographers take good photos of you. Few capture who you actually are. Here is what to look for when hiring a brand photographer so your images match your authority.

Nick Onken portrait, Creative Intelligence essay on taste and the discipline of seeing

Taste is less a gift than a discipline you build through thousands of reps of seeing. Here is what twenty-five years behind a camera taught me about the art of seeing.

Nick Onken portrait illustrating visual frequency of authority, presence matching identity

Visual Frequency of Authority is the energetic signature your images transmit before anyone reads a word. What it means and why two people with the same credentials read so differently.

About the Blogger

I was born in a low middle class conservative religious family in the suburbs of Seattle. Art was and always has been my passion, and more than that a way of life. Starting as a graphic designer, I taught myself photography, built a commercial/editorial business shooting for the worlds biggest brands like Nike, Coca-Cola, Adidas and more. I've also had the opportunity to photograph the world's biggest celebrities like Justin Bieber, Usher, Jessica Alba and more. I've curated a lifestyle around creativity and have learned a lot along the way which I get to share here. 

I was born in a low middle class conservative religious family in the suburbs of Seattle. Art was and always has been my passion, and more than that a way of life. Starting as a graphic designer, I taught myself photography, built a commercial/editorial business shooting for the worlds biggest brands like Nike, Coca-Cola, Adidas and more. I've also had the opportunity to photograph the world's biggest celebrities like Justin Bieber, Usher, Jessica Alba and more. I've curated a lifestyle around creativity and have learned a lot along the way which I get to share here. 

NICK'S STORY