NO/BS Vol. 2

Picture this: it’s March 2020, days before the first pandemic lockdowns, and you walk into a never before seen digital conference, aptly titled NO/BS. The speakers deliver bold and candid talks that help you feel less alone and normalise a lot of the experiences you’ve had working in the creative industry. And while we had no idea that the world was about to change forever, I soaked up every single second of that first conference, graphic recording every talk. Little did I know that 3 years later I’d get a text from NO/BS Founder, Jason Soultan, asking me to be a speaker at Vol. 2 in 2022!

My talk, title What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You More Creative, was an extension of my CreativeMornings Melbourne talk early that year… but with handdrawn slides and way more sass. Legendary US design educator Chris Do from The Futur was the keynote so I knew I had to pull out the big guns to impress the crowd. Not only did I nail my talk, I walked off that stage with my work validated and a newly acquired insatiable thirst for public speaking.

Condensing my thoughts down into 30 minutes was no easy task, so I put in the hours (about 50 or so) to fine tune it. The creative process of putting that talk together reminded me that anything worth doing is worth doing well and takes a LOT of effort. We shouldn’t be afraid of putting in that amount of effort either, because the rewards always far exceed the input. I had an opportunity to share something I’m really passionate about, learn from some of the world’s brightest creative minds and made lifelong friends who live all around the world – what more could a girl ask for!