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Okay, tell me if this sounds like you. You've recently started a new business and you're trying to get yourself established...and you feel like you're drowning in all the things you need to do to brand yourself.

Setting up a website, getting a logo in place, starting social media accounts...it's completely overwhelming. You spend two hours adjusting a button style on your website, or you generate a hundred different AI logos and hate them all. You can't think of any ideas, and it just feels like you're spending an insane amount of time on these tiny things that don't add up to a complete picture.

If that's you, don't worry! There's nothing wrong with you. Branding for yourself is always the absolute hardest thing to “get right.”

I wanted to share 3 simple tools that I use to help get unstuck when I'm dealing with personal branding.

Listen on to find out more.

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I’m Cathy Davenport Lee, and I hope today’s episode leaves you feeling inspired and ready to push the boundaries of your creative career.

Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and sign up for Lunchbox Notes—my free encouragement and advice letter for creatives. Stay connected for more insights, tools, and resources to help you thrive. Until next time, keep creating, keep pushing, and let’s move this industry forward together.

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When you’re a manager of a team, you’re going to have to figure out how to make sure that the work that needs to get done, gets done. And you’re going to need to figure out how to do that in a way that makes sense - from a budget and a project perspective.

But you also want to make sure it makes sense from a HUMAN BEING perspective.

One of the biggest mistakes creative managers make (imo) is that the second they run into an extensive coverage need, first thing they do is throw their employee’s well-being out the window (usually along with their own). It’s “emergency mode”, all hands on deck 24/7, except that "emergency mode" doesn’t ever end because the requests and projects keep coming and coming.

Curious about how to plan coverage in a financially savvy, effective, and humanely balanced way — even in high-pressure situations? Listen on to find out more.

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I’m Cathy Davenport Lee, and I hope today’s episode leaves you feeling inspired and ready to push the boundaries of your creative career.

Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and sign up for Lunchbox Notes—my free encouragement and advice letter for creatives. Stay connected for more insights, tools, and resources to help you thrive. Until next time, keep creating, keep pushing, and let’s move this industry forward together.

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It's that time of year — you're tired, ready for a break, but there's roughly 1,483 tiny pots boiling over at work. Or if you're a freelancer, maybe you just got a windfall of client projects and you're afraid to ease off the momentum, even though you feel like you're sleepwalking during the day.

So how do you deal with the anxiety you feel about resting long enough to actually rest?

That's what today's podcast is all about. I'm going to give you some tips on how to set yourself up to feel rested all year round, not just in the holiday season.

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I’m Cathy Davenport Lee, and I hope today’s episode leaves you feeling inspired and ready to push the boundaries of your creative career.

Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and sign up for Lunchbox Notes—my free encouragement and advice letter for creatives. Stay connected for more insights, tools, and resources to help you thrive. Until next time, keep creating, keep pushing, and let’s move this industry forward together.

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Having worked on the brand side for a good length of time, I can tell you that there's one thing people do (agencies, vendors and designers alike) that results in major side-eye and skepticism when it comes time to review the creative work.

The good news? If you STOP doing this right now, I promise it will make your projects go far more smoothly.

It's really simple advice, but it can take time and care to pull it off properly.

Listen on to find out more.

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I’m Cathy Davenport Lee, and I hope today’s episode leaves you feeling inspired and ready to push the boundaries of your creative career.

Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and sign up for Lunchbox Notes—my free encouragement and advice letter for creatives. Stay connected for more insights, tools, and resources to help you thrive. Until next time, keep creating, keep pushing, and let’s move this industry forward together.

Follow for more:
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Networking: The horror! 😱

OMG...I hate the mere mention of the word.

But yet, you’ll dramatically increase your chances of being hired and finding more opportunities for advancement if you do it. So unfortunately, it’s somewhat necessary.

If you don’t like networking, I’ve found that it doesn’t help to hear about it from someone who LOVES it.

So I thought that today I’d give you MY take on networking as a registered, card-carrying, spectrum-dwelling INTROVERT.

Because sometimes the "networking" can feel like a test of how well you can be the "life of the party" — when in reality, that's not a requirement at all. It's totally possible to define networking on terms that feel comfortable to you.

Listen on to find out more.

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I’m Cathy Davenport Lee, and I hope today’s episode leaves you feeling inspired and ready to push the boundaries of your creative career.

Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and sign up for Lunchbox Notes—my free encouragement and advice letter for creatives. Stay connected for more insights, tools, and resources to help you thrive. Until next time, keep creating, keep pushing, and let’s move this industry forward together.

Follow for more:
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So today I have something that is kind of special to me. It's special because it's based on some advice that my dad gave me a very long time ago when I first started my career.

I don't think I'm over exaggerating by saying that might've been the most important advice I've ever gotten. In fact, the more, more and more I think about it, the more and more it applies to pretty much everything that I've done in my career.

Listen on to find out more!

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I’m Cathy Davenport Lee, and I hope today’s episode leaves you feeling inspired and ready to push the boundaries of your creative career.

Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and sign up for Lunchbox Notes—my free encouragement and advice letter for creatives. Stay connected for more insights, tools, and resources to help you thrive. Until next time, keep creating, keep pushing, and let’s move this industry forward together.

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When you're running a project, it's important to make your clients feel INSPIRED....but SAFE.

What am I talking about?

Well, I think people go to one of two extremes when they are creatively directing a project.

Either they are in full "razzle dazzle" mode - where they're vibing and exploring without a clear plan....

ORRRR they've got the whole project choreographed down to the MINUTE and if their client steps one toe in a direction that isn't in the plan, they bug out.

The thing is, BOTH "freestyling" AND sticking to a plan are actually vitally important to the success of a project. It's just that they have to be balanced.

I call this "structured flexibility" and it's what today's episode is all about. Listen on to find out more.

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I’m Cathy Davenport Lee, and I hope today’s episode leaves you feeling inspired and ready to push the boundaries of your creative career.

Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and sign up for Lunchbox Notes—my free encouragement and advice letter for creatives. Stay connected for more insights, tools, and resources to help you thrive. Until next time, keep creating, keep pushing, and let’s move this industry forward together.

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Back again with another installment in getting your work approved. Today I want to discuss the importance of leveraging precedence.

Because you can't effectively guide your client into green-lighting a new creative direction if you don't understand and don't have respect for where they've been.

It's kind of like knowing how to do traditional photography, even if 99% of the time you just do the same kind of effect with Facetune or Photoshop.

Listen on to hear more.

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I’m Cathy Davenport Lee, and I hope today’s episode leaves you feeling inspired and ready to push the boundaries of your creative career.

Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and sign up for Lunchbox Notes—my free encouragement and advice letter for creatives. Stay connected for more insights, tools, and resources to help you thrive. Until next time, keep creating, keep pushing, and let’s move this industry forward together.

Follow for more:
IG | Website