Bonny Snowdon 00:06
Hello, I'm Bonny Snowdon, ex corporate person, a mother turned successful artist entrepreneur. It wasn't that long ago though that I lacked the confidence, vision and support network to focus on growing my dream business. Fast forward past many life curveballs, waves of self-doubt and so many lessons learned and you'll see Ignite, my thriving online colour pencil artists community, a community that changes members lives for the better and gives me freedom to live abundantly whilst doing what I love and spending quality time with my beloved family and dogs, all whilst creating my best artwork with coloured pencils, and mentoring others to do the same. But this life wasn't always how it was for me, it used to only exist in my imagination. I've created the It's a Bonny Old Life podcast to help increase people's confidence, share mine and my communities experience and hope through fascinating personal stories, champion the other amazing humans in my personal, professional and membership community, and create another channel through which I can support others to realize their dreams. If you're a passionate colour pencil artist, or an aspiring one who's looking to create their best work, and a joyful life you love, you're in the right place. Grab a cuppa and a custard cream, let's get cracking.
So I have been listening to quite a few podcasts recently, and it's funny, I, I have podcasts that I listen to on a, on a regular basis and just kind of scroll through and, and just listen, you know, as each one comes up. But I've had, But I've had some that have just sort of been either recommended or, you know, I've just thought, Oh, I'll listen to that. That sounds quite good. And the, the thing that has the common denominator in everything that I've been listening to just recently and something that, and, and I, and I guess it's just one of those things, and I don't know, it could be the algorithm listening to me or I, I don't know, but many, well, all of them have had this common denominator around belief and faith, not necessarily around religion or anything like that, but all around belief. And it's really, it's something that I am very, very conscious that I have and, and I feel is probably one of my deep-seated values is the faith that I have in myself and, and the belief that everything is going to be okay. So I was listening to one podcast, It's the Diary of a CEO and it's a guy called Steve Bartlett. Is it Steve Butler? I'll just double-check. It is Steve Booklet. Yeah, Steven Barlett. It's a really fantastic podcast. I have to say. Diary of a ceo, I don't know, I dunno whether it's a bit ambiguous, a bit the, the name. I dunno whether would would put you off. But the, the interviews are absolutely fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And I was listening to one podcast, a guy called Julian Favor, and he's a speaker. He has TED Talks and very, very, very interesting conversation. And it went on for probably about an hour and a half.
And I listen to these podcasts when I'm drawing sometimes a lot of the time when I'm in the car, when I'm kind of going swimming or if I'm taking, you know, going somewhere. And I, I really, really, like, I don't listen to the radio ever anymore. In fact, I don't, I try not to listen to any news at all. I don't want to have my internal whatever being, whatever it is, I don't want it to, to, to have all of this doo and gloom. I I don't need that in my life. And it's not about me, you know, burying my head in the sand or anything like that. I can believe or I can choose to believe in whatever I want to believe. And I choose to not have all of that dreadful, negative media talk in my head. Anyway, I was listening to this podcast with Julian Var and he was talking about all sorts of different things. A lot of it was around talking and, and it led me to believe how, how I, or it led me to, to think about how I talk. And he was talking about all of the, I think, I dunno whether he's a voice coach, but he kind of does that kind of thing, but how sound is so important. And he was talking about sound and he's kind of a sound person. He, you know, that's what he does. But then he went on to talk about, or they went on to talk about values and, you know, the, the conversation kind of drifted from one thing to another thing to another thing. And the values thing really, really stuck out for me. So we all have a set of values that we live by. It's almost like our, our, our blueprint for life. And he was talking about his, the four values that he really lives for.
And he'd given them an acronym of FLAG. And the first one was faith. And as I was listening, you know, I was thinking, Oh my goodness, this is just, and he was like, he said, faith. And then he said, not in a religious sense, you know, it could be a religious, but in, in his case, it wasn't in a religious case, it was just the faith that everything was going to be okay, the belief that everything was going to be okay. And he lives his life along the lines of whatever happens, it's all gonna be okay and it's going to work out. And that really, really resonated with me because that is exactly how I live my life. I have always lived my life with the, with the thought that, you know, know what it's gonna work out. It's gonna be okay, Whatever happens, it, it's gonna be alright. And that it, it just really, really resonated with me. The second one, which was l is love and not, and he was saying, you know, it's not love around, you know, loving somebody deeply, but it was love of everything, love of life, love of living in the present, love of people, love of animals, love of doing what you love. And, and again, I was like, Oh my goodness, I need to change my values. These are all my, these are the values that I, I really, really resonate with. The third one, which is a, is acceptance. And this one I listened to and I thought, gosh, you are just absolutely spot on with this. Accepting people, accepting other people have their opinions, accepting their, there are opinions and there are facts accepting that everybody is different, accepting, you know, you as, as you are accepting how things are kind of turning out. Just that acceptance. And he gave sort of like an example of, you know, when you're having sort of like a, like a, like a, I don't know, you might be driving along and somebody cuts you off or you know, you might be walking along a street and somebody bumps into you, whatever. And he was talking about this acceptance almost being that internal voice in your head. And sometimes we can outwardly say stuff that sounds really lovely, but internally actually, we're quite sour and a bit mean not only to ourselves, but to other people. You know, somebody cuts you up in the car, you could be sort of like, you know, you could even say loud for goodness, say, you know, you are blah, you know, beep, beep, beep saying read things. And he was saying, you know, his acceptance of people allows him just to let people just carry on. And, and he's like, you know, I bless you, bless you. Not again, not specifically in a, in religious case in his case or, or or my case. But it was just like, you know, bless you, have a lovely day. And kind of being like that, it allows you not to get really hung up on stuff. I know that I can get a cut off in a car or somebody can say something mean to me on social media or whatever, and I know that I can allow that to totally and utterly ruin my whole day if I choose to allow it to. And this is for me, this is what I've been working on over the past sort of six years. All of the, I didn't realize this is what I was doing, but I now, I get it now and I have a choice as to how I can react to other people, how I can react to what's going on in social media. I have a choice as to what I listen to, to what I look at. You know, we all scroll through social media and there will be things that really, really irritate us. And something that I've been doing for the last couple of weeks, actually, which is, it's really interesting.
I have kind of been, you know, you're a part of groups and this, that and the other. I'm part of a, a really a different array of groups. It's not just all art groups. I'm, I'm, I'm a, you know, I'm a member of groups about memberships, about money, about entrepreneur, about all sorts of different things. And sometimes somebody's post can really trigger and it, and whatever it says, you, you sit there and you think, oh, for goodness sake, and I've got a kind of, in the past I might have said something and, and, and maybe been a little bit, you know, almost like my opinion was the right opinion, if that makes sense. I mean, I'm never aggressive or nasty or anything like that. But, you know, some things can really, really trigger. And, and just recently I've kind of read, read the, whatever it was, felt a little bit of a trigger and then thought, ah, do you know what, this is this person's opinion. This is how they, they have a completely different view of the world to me. So who am I to be telling them that they are wrong in what they are thinking or doing or acting or, you know, reacting or whatever. Who, who am I to tell them that they're right and I'm wrong? I'm nobody to tell them that. And actually it's meant that I find social media a little bit of a nicer place to be because I've chosen to understand that other people have got opinions and then they're not always the same as mine. And that's okay because we all see the world from totally different eyes. So that was the, the acceptance bit.
And then the G was gratitude. And again, something that I'm hugely, hugely, I would say hugely big on, that doesn't make any sense at all. Gratitude is so important. Not just, you know, thanking people in the supermarket or thanking people if you go out for a meal or whatever, but, but, but thanking, just being grateful. Just being grateful for being alive. Just being grateful for, you know, having a window that you can look out of regardless of, you know, the scene outside grateful that you, you can go out into the fresh air, grateful that you've got amazing people around you. And it was that sort of flag that, that he had created that acronym, a acronym around his values thought, Do you know what that is so great. And he, and he had just the four and they were very simple, but a really eloquent man. And no wonder his TED talks, I think they're in the top five of most listened to Ted Talks. Really beautiful voice to listen to, really, really, really great interview as well. And it just, you know, again, it made me realize that how I believe in things, I believe in myself. I believe that everything's gonna be okay. I believe that everything's gonna work out. And if you're a member of one of my groups, you'll know that anytime anybody posts anything that is somebody's, somebody's having a bit of a struggle or somebody's having a hard time and or, you know, it's all about, oh gosh, I'm just, you know, the world's a horrible place and nobody's by my art. And that's because of the, the, you know, the financial crisis and all of that kind of stuff. You, you will know that I will respond and you know, I'm not gonna poo you. I'm not gonna say you are wrong, but I'm, I'm gonna proffer up a different opinion, an opinion that actually you can, you can make a choice. You can decide how you're gonna react to stuff. And my thinking is that actually, you know, and this is, this is, I see myself as a bit woo, but this isn't woo, what you think ends up happening is, I mean, it's just, that's a fact. It is a fact. Our brains have this particular activating system, part of our brains that sort of sort through everything that we are thinking. We get billions and billions and billions of thoughts and things and whatever going through our brains every single day.
And we have to be able to filter out the stuff that we are interested in because otherwise we'd be completely overloaded. Can you imagine having all of these things, I'm sitting here now talking and, you know, I would have the dog snoring. They'd probably be able to hear the dog snoring. I'd have, I've had somebody just walk past the house. I've got stuff blowing in the wind across the road. I've got a noise coming from my computer, I've got a noise coming from my chair, I've got light coming through, I've got, And if I allowed all of that stuff to come in, it would just be like, Oh my God. Overload, overload, overload. We wouldn't be able to do anything. So we have this filtering system within our brains, and this filtering system filters out the stuff that is important to us and filters out the stuff that has no relevance. We don't need to concentrate on that. And what, what we, we concentrate on are the thoughts that we are thinking are the things that we're saying out loud and, you know, plan of action, you know, or goals, all of that kind of stuff. So if you are constantly have a negative internal voice going on and on and on and on and on, this is what your filtering system is going to pick up on. And this is why people talk about people being lucky. Oh, they're really lucky. They always get this, or they, oh, they're doing really well, they're really lucky. It, it isn't that people are lucky, it's that they have thoughts that allow them to pick up on opportunities, pick up on good things, pick up on things that are going to allow them to get to their goals. That's what they're thinking, that's what's going on in their heads. And it's, you know, I am perpetually a cheerful and positive person. I have my down times, absolutely, but on the whole, I am a cheerful person, so I, and I have an awful lot of resilience and bounce back. So what happens when something bad happens, I can pick myself up relatively easy and, and quite quickly somebody who doesn't have that re that, that level of resilience finds it a lot harder. And the, the way to build that resilience up and be able to kind of bounce back from things that aren't particularly nice, even if it's something like a, somebody saying something, you know, a little bit off on a social media that can send people into a downward spiral. Absolutely. You know, and the way to get over that, the way to be able to kind of get back on track is to start these really, really positive habits. And it takes little tiny steps, but on a regular basis, just doing it all the time. And I've talked about this before, you know, tiny little steps make it a habit and all of a sudden you start having a more positive sort of internal voice and everything.
And that for me is where my belief comes from. I don't allow myself to get into a negative slump. I get excited about stuff. I, I live for the moment. I, I don't look backwards. I obviously plan for my future, but I plan in a way that if things don't, don't look as if they're kind of going to go in that direction. I'm very agile. I can move, I can go down a different path if I want. I also listen to an awful lot of incredibly inspiring people. And everybody that I listen to, whether it's a recommendation or just that I stumble across, they always have a very similar outlook. It might come out in a different way, but all of the stories kind of lead to this self-belief, this the positive vibration, all of that kind of stuff. The energy I listened to or I, I li I watched a, a fabulous webinar with a guy called Jeffrey Allen, part of the Mind Valley program, and it was a free webinar and he is an energy healer. He used to be an engineer, he's now an energy healer. And we had sort of like an 81, I think it was 80 minute webinar where he was showing how you can start to really feel energy. And this might sound a little bit strange and everything, but oh my goodness, you know, they, they have millions of people sign up for these courses and energy comes before anything physical. And if we allow ourselves just to sort of, you know, be open, open-minded about all of these things, you can end up with the most fantastic and fascinating conversations and doing different things and opening up to a whole different world. And I think it's, I I just think it's absolutely wonderful. I'm, I'm, I, I, I was, I went to see an animal communicator a few weeks ago and, and that was just like, Oh my goodness, this is just amazing. You know, my son, my son was like, Mom, what a load of rubbish. No way anybody can do that. And he's allowed to think like that. He, he is allowed to have that opinion. I'm allowed to choose to actually believe that this lady can communicate with my animals, with animals wherever they are. And I think that's absolutely wonderful. And I, and I love to think that, and again, it just opens up this whole new opportunity for me. You know, when my dogs kind of look up and look at me, I'm thinking, Oh, you know, what, what are you actually thinking? And it just, it makes my life so much more enjoyable to be able to open up to all of these different things. So a bit of, a bit of a, a garbled con conversation. Again, I tend to move from one thing to another. I need to get in with this Julian favor, do I, and get my, get my talking a bit better.
But belief, I belief is such a strong value for me. That belief that everything's gonna be okay, that whatever happens, you know, I can choose to make a decision, you know, based on fact or, you know, whatever. And I think, I think it's, I think for me, the reason that I have such strong belief is that I've opened myself up to all sorts of different things. And I'm also really, really, really thinking about other people and how other people have opinions and how, you know, I don't need to sort of, not that I ever have, but shut down other people with their opinions and everything like that. I also don't ever retaliate if anybody says anything unkind and, you know, everybody gets it. I saw this, I can't remember what her name is now, but this poor girl on social media, she said this, this person like trolling her and, and, and plastering stuff all about how she's been copying other people's, you know, drawings. And it's, and it's totally not true. And whereas that I choose not to plaster stuff, nasty stuff that people say that that's my choice. And there's no right or wrong, but, you know, it is just, it's so, it's awful that people do this. How I deal with that is I just, I know that if somebody's unkind and says something unkind to me, I know that it's not me. I know that it's coming from that other person. That might sound a little bit cliche and it's like, oh, you know, you're projecting brewer. But it's true, it's really true. If you are unkind to somebody, you know, and, and I've done this in the past, if I've sort of said something or, or gone to write something and then thought, Hang on a second, what's what has triggered me to start writing this from this perspective? And usually it's something inside me. Well, every time it's been something inside me that has made me bristle up a little bit and gone, and it, and it will be, and this is the same when you have these, you know, people saying nasty things that they, there's something going on with them that is making them unhappy and they have to take it out under the people. So my choice is to just totally ignore what's going on. You know, I don't want to feud their, you know, I don't want to fuel their fire even more. And, and inevitably, you know, that, that's, that if you don't, if you don't fuel their fire, then there's, it can just fizzle out. So, you know, people have different ways of being able to deal with that. But that's how I, that's how I deal with it. And again, I can make a choice as to how I respond, and I have the belief that everything is going to be okay. Sometimes it's, it's really tough, you know, sometimes it's really tough and, and it can, and it can really, really pull you down and, and that's, that is horrible when that happens. But then you have to kind of just, you know, remember what you're doing, why you're doing it. All of the, all of the with funny, isn't it? We always, we always pick up on that one negative comment when there are like hundreds and thousands of other amazing comments. It's always that one little negative one. So I choose to ignore those and I choose to concentrate on the, on the happy and, and the good stuff. And that inevitably, you know, enables me to leave it leader a happy and joyous life.
So I hope you got something from that. Probably not. Listen to Aria, a ceo. It's excellent. Stephen Bartlett, he's got the most wonderful interview with Maze Williams, who was Aria in Game of Thrones, a beautiful interview, I have to say, a quite sad at times, but a really rarely heartfelt interview. And listening to how he interviews people. He's in, he's incredibly kind. He's incredibly, he picks up on stuff, but he's not scared to ask questions. So he's, you know, if somebody sort of says, Oh, blah, blah, blah, he picks up on little things. He goes, Well, why, why did you say that? Tell me about what do you mean about what you've just said? And it, and it, and it, it means that you end up with this fascinating, multifaceted interview that has, you know, is sort of quite lighthearted in some places and really, really deep in other places. A brilliant, brilliant interviewer. I have to say, I'm very, very worth watching, listening to, Very Worth listening to. Anyway, so I'll leave you with that, my podcast about a podcast.
Bye. I really hope you enjoyed listening to this episode of my It's a Bonny Old Life podcast. If you did, I'd be so grateful to you for emailing me or texting a link to the show, or sharing it on social media with those who might like it too. My mission with this podcast is all about sharing mine and my communities experience and hope by telling your fascinating personal stories, championing the other amazing humans in my personal, professional and membership community, and to create another channel through which I can support you to realize your coloured pencil and life dreams. If you haven't done so yet. Please help me on my mission to spread positivity and joy throughout the coloured pencil world by following me on my socials at Bonny Snowdon Academy, or by getting on my list at bonnysnowdonacademy.com, and remember, I truly believe if I can live the life of my dreams doing what I love, then you can too. We just need to keep championing and supporting each other along the way in order to make it happen. Till next time.
