004 - End of the year highlights, Creator Economy Love, and 2022 Intentions
Reflections on 2021 and intentions for 2022 as a creative entrepreneur committed to wellness practices and restoration.
Happy holidays! This year’s holiday season is incredibly special for me thanks to a planned trip home to visit my partner’s family. My partner is originally from Brazil and hasn’t spent a holiday with her family since the start of the pandemic. Earlier this year, we decided that it was important for us to spend time with her family this year, so through vaccinations, booster shots, weeks of quarantine before the trip, and several negative covid test results later – we were able to make the journey to South America stopping in Miami & Bogota along the way before safely landing in Rio de Janeiro in time to celebrate Christmas eve. My luggage was lost somewhere along the way, and even though a small inconvenience, it wasn’t enough to derail the reason we’d made the journey: celebrate with our family.
I smiled through it, had as much caipirinha (a traditional Brazilian drink) as I could handle, and practiced my Portuguese.
Feliz Natal!
My luggage showed up out of the blue today with only a few items missing and it was an opportunity for me to live one of the lessons I shared in my last post:
Don't give away what you can't afford to lose
My grandfather’s saying of counting things gone once they leave you, helped me in the moment because I was able to release my attachment to the material things, and really enjoy the blessing of the moment. Being able to hand out presents a few days late with smiles and tears because of our fortune was just icing on the cake.
This brings me to my next topic -
2021 Highlights: This is my last update of the year and I’m excited to share some of the progress made with our community of creators and collaborators!
Visionary Rising, the creative agency I founded in 2016, surpassed our annual revenue goal ($1.3M+) and worked with some phenomenal partners along the way:
LinkedIn Marketing
NYU Tisch School of the Arts
Nearside
Personal.ai, and many more
Launched #InSession: A Series for Creators, in partnership with Wethos, which helped over 500 creators level up their studio for scale in 2022 & win $150K+ in business in Q4 alone! If you missed it, check it out via YouTube & subscribe for updates when the next sessions launch.
Welcomed our inaugural class of creators in residence through the INTROSPECTION: Creator Residency program
… and here’s what I accomplished in my personal life:
Celebrated an engagement in May
Left my role at Apple to focus my efforts on the intersection of tech, the creator economy, and building in web3.
Accepted an Entrepreneur in Residence role with Decent Labs where I get to advise entrepreneurs building on the blockchain and shaping our future
Lost 25lbs., recommitted to my meditation practice, and living a balanced, healthy, and mentally fit life.
Safely resumed travel (5 trips!)
2022 Intentions. Earlier this year, I shared my reflections on what I felt I was being called to do in this season of my life. My desire is to focus less on the individual and more on the collective through knowledge-sharing, community, creation, and commerce. This year has been one marked by growth and expansion on all frontiers, and experiences that I now see were pushing me to step deeper into the work of advancing the future for all creators – especially those who look like me. It’s time for big, bold, and deeply intentional moves. There is no greater time than now to be a creator, so take a deep breath and do what you were born to do: CREATE.
Wishing you the manifestation of your greatest dreams in the year ahead!
Love + Light,
LaTecia Johnson
Twitter | lu.ma
Sponsored: When you’re running your own business, staying focused and clear headed is so important; and being a multi-tiered creative working across tech, agency, and venture, means clarity is also a commodity – that’s why I am so happy I found Open – a mindfulness studio designing a new way to practice wellbeing. They offer live and on demand classes on their app for breathwork, meditation, yoga, and Pilates. USING THE OPEN APP HAS MADE SUCH A DIFFERENCE IN MY DAILY ROUTINE, and I’m excited to share OPEN with you and invite to start your ritual today.
Join me in 2022 for a New Year Reset using the open app.
PODCAST
My last episode of the year will be out tomorrow & I’m reflecting on the lessons learned this year, what it’s taught me, and why EXPANSION is my word of the year. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast fix, to catch up on this year's episodes and be notified when new ones launch.
Want more? Follow @lateciarising and let me know how I can help you scale as a creator. Want to support this newsletter and get featured? Drop me a line & I’ll be happy to collaborate.