Firstly HELLO if you’re new here! Come in, come in. Sit down. Would you like to see some illustration job listings? Here they are. Help yourself. Ok, on with the post.

Sitting at my Edinburgh College of Art desk early one morning in 2016, I was tip tapping away at the battered rainbow keys on my ancient laptop.

Edinburgh has this nice blueish dark light as the sun is rising in winter, and there’s nooo finer time to browse the entire internet. I had the studio to myself.

Knee-deep in Facebook, a video ad caught my eye - this friendly blonde Australian lady was talking about “money blocks”.

WTF is a money block? I clicked.

Watching this money blocks webinar in the almost-dark studio, I could feel my brain cells expanding in the glow from my laptop.

That Australian lady on the Facebook ad turned out to be Denise Duffield Thomas.

From discovering Denise, I then found Leonie Dawson ❤️ and Marie Forleo and and and.... I gobbled them all up hungrily. There was so much new knowledge - it was the most knowledge-delicious time of my life. My brain cells weren’t just expanding, they were exploding (in a good way.)

But there’s this unwritten rule at art school

And that is:

You shouldn’t want to make money.

Yes, you might make money accidentally from being so brilliant at your creative work… but wanting to make money on purpose? **gags** Horrible. Unacceptable.

Anyways, long story short: I got over it. 😆

Fast forward to 2025.

I’m earning a sustainable income from my creative work, and I have multiple income streams. I have the freedom that I dreamed about at art school (afternoon naps and hanging out with my 3-year-old. I can take as much time off as I need to. I can travel if I feel like it.)

And somehow, last month, I ended up on a business mastermind retreat in Australia with Denise Duffield Thomas, Leonie Dawson and a load of other incredible entrepreneurs.

In the words of my Dad:

Eh!???

It’s very hard to meet people who have changed your life and not grab them by the face and say YOU CHANGED MY LIFE!! I’D DEFINITELY STILL BE KEEPING MY EUROS IN A SOCK DRAWER IF IT WASN’T FOR YOU.

I didn’t want to make it weird. I felt very shy and awkward to start with. Then I calmed down a bit by day 3 and had a lovely time.

This was my first business mastermind retreat.

Before I even went on this trip, I was excited to write about it. I knew I would learn loads. I knew it would turn lots of stuff in my mind upside down.

On getting home, though, it’s felt like all of my ideas have been fighting to get out at once. They got stuck. People would ask how Australia was and I’d just do a kind of “uhuh! Good!?”.

GAHHHH, KATIE. ALL YOU CAN SAY IS ‘GOOD’?” A nice big long walk around the river and through the trees sorted me out, and I remembered how much easier it is to write when there are specific questions to answer.

I asked for questions here the other day and that has done the trick! I can write again! THANK YOU! 😆

The questions:

What was this business mastermind retreat? How did you end up on it?

A couple of years ago, I was invited into a group chat on Facebook Messenger by my fake Aunty, Leonie Dawson.

Wait, who is Leonie Dawson? And why are you calling her your fake auntie?

In 2019, I tripped over Leonie on the internet and promptly devoured all of her courses, one by one. Being a complete course nerd, heavy implementer of newly learned things and chatty-internet-person, we became internet friends.

Essentially, I online-course-swotted my way into being Leonie’s fake niece.

ANYWAYS, back to this group chat.

Last year, some people from that group chat all went on a mastermind retreat. I was watching from the sidelines 👀 thinking, ‘That looks so cool. I wish I could go.’ But baby E was still only 1 year old, and going that far away without her felt 0% doable.

Someone in the group chat said

‘You should come next time, Katie!’

And that is how I ended up on a business mastermind retreat in Australia with lots of incredible business women.

Phew.

Next question, please.

What sectors did the other attendees work in?

Here’s who was there. In no particular order. And what they do.

• Tash Corbin - Business and strategy coach & mentor (consent-driven)

• Michelle Swan - Photographer @ Eyes of Love Photography

• Rebecca Saunders - Video producer & community-bringer-togetherer/biz mentor

• Amanda Daley - Health coach & mentor for health coaches

• Tina Tower - Business coach

• Clare Wood - Business profit coach

• Leonie Dawson - Online business mentor & author

• Denise Duffield Thomas - Money mindset mentor & author

• Kerry Rowett - Business energetics mentor

• Victoria Gibson - Human design expert & business coach

• Jana Kingsford - Business mentor & ‘big dreams genie’

• Katie Chappell - Hiyaaaaa 👋

What did you do during the retreat?

Nobody asked this question, but here’s how the retreat week was planned out:

Monday: arrive, get settled, meet for dinner (I arrived stupidly early but Rebecca arrived early too and let me hide in her room until my room was available.)

Tuesday: Photoshoot all day, then a pub quiz in the evening

Wednesday: Hot seat coaching & free time

Thursday: Hot seat coaching & free time

Friday: Home tiiiime!

I also tried out the heated outdoor pool (nice) and a swim in the sea (cold). I took my workout clothes in case I had a different personality in Australia. I was so jetlagged and weird-feeling that working out didn’t even cross my mind.

WTF is “hot seat coaching”?

Everyone sits at the table. When it’s your turn for the hot seat, you stand up, explain who you are and what your business does, and what you’re working on / maybe needing help with.

Then everyone gives you feedback. We wrote letters too, in case everyone didn’t get a chance to pitch in.

I drew illustrated notes as my feedback because A: It helped me listen and sit still for 2 half-days, and B: It was a nice present to give fellow retreat attendees.

Where did you stay?

The Goldcoast! Here’s what my room looked like. The accommodation (and everything in Australia, actually) felt really affordable because of the currency conversion. A posh coffee was like $5 Aussie dollars - roughly £2.40 at time of writing which is UNHEARD OF in the UK right now. Also, everything I ate was delicious. I got really tired of delicious food and demanded beans on toast when I got home. Also - nobody has asked this but the mastermind retreat itself was free, I just had to get there.

Also, everyone was so friendly. I felt weirdly untethered without any sarcasm or self-deprecating humour.

How did you adapt the insights for art and illustration for your business?

Y’know something really interesting?

This retreat showed me that ALL businesses and business owners kind of have the same things going on if you zoom out enough; work-life balance, profit, enjoyment levels, satisfaction, support and teams.

There wasn’t a moment during the hot seat coaching where I was like “Welp, this doesn’t apply to me. Time to go home,” because EVERYTHING was applicable in one way or another.

Mostly, I realised that it’s all a numbers game. More eyeballs on your work = more opportunities to work with people. I reckon that applies to…all businesses ever? 😅

What are you gonna start doing differently now?

Up until this year, I’d had this story in my head that I *had* to earn more from my live illustration than my teaching-about-illustration, otherwise it didn’t count. It would be naughty and bad to make more money talking about illustration vs. doing illustration.

The Good Ship Illustration work was only ok if I was earning the same (or more) from my Live Event Illustration(???)

I bloody love being a mentor. Since starting this Illustrator Jobs Board, I’ve been doing a couple of 1:1 Golden Pencil portfolio sessions per week, as well as VIP 1/2 day live illustration business strategy sessions (message if you’re interested in those - they’re only for live illustrators) *and* launched the Live Illustration Course.

It’s safe for me to enjoy mentoring and coaching other illustrators.

This retreat made me realise how much that “those who can’t, teach” story had been scaring me away from enjoying the teaching / sharing / mentoring stuff.

In the wise words of Mary Oliver (from her poem Wild Geese),

THE SOFT ANIMAL OF MY BODY LOVES BEING A MASSIVE BUSINESS STRATEGY NERD AND HELPING FELLOW ILLUSTRATORS AND CREATIVES FIGURE BUSINESS STUFF OUT. There. I said it.

Phew.

One of my absolute top favourite things in the world is when we get Good Ship Illustration messages to say that someones been published, or won an award, or created work their really excited about. And hearing about jobs board subscribers getting jobs? I CANNAE COPE. IT’S TOO EXCITING.

What surprised you the most, and also were you scared of the spiders in Australia?

I didn’t see a single spider the whole time I was there!

Disappointing.

Aaand what surprised me the most was that everyone was really normal 🤣 I don’t know what I was expecting - maybe I thought some people might be all fancy and maybe a bit rude? But turns out multi-millionaire business owners are just…people who figured some business stuff out?

And they have clothes steamers.

I’d never used one before. When I got home I bought a steamer. It is great.

What surprised me most is that I was there. It all felt very surreal.

Considering what you learned, is there anything you wish you had done differently when you were first starting out with your business?

Err, not really actually! Wait, no, that’s a lie. I wish I’d got more therapy earlier on 🤣 I thought it was expensive. It is not expensive. It is essential. Starting and running businesses is really intense on the ol’ brain.

I’d like to know if there were conversations about doing ‘good’ with money when you know you have enough? How do you make that part of your business plan? Do you just strive for more & more? (Always keen to know the ethics of people who have really made it financially!)

Sooo while there wasn’t really much chat about this, I do know that (almost) everyone does something charitable with their money. Maybe everyone - I didn’t get to know everyone that well yet!

They’ve built schools, donated to environmental causes, invested in girls, donated to GoFundMe’s etc. Because the hot seat coaching was focused on problem-solving, philanthropic stuff didn’t really get talked about.

What assumptions did you smash wide open? Did you rewire any beliefs about money, people with money or success? 💜

There are no too-big-for-your-boots police.

You get to decide how big your boots are. Also, everyone’s tooo busy looking at their own boots anyway. You’re fine.

Right, there are way more questions, aaand I’m at the email length limit, apparently. I also had a lovely time in Sydney on my way home from this retreat so I will write a part 2 soon.

Thank you for reading. Chuck any more questions you have in the comments. I’ve really enjoyed answering them.

Byeeeee.

xx Katie