Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Meredith Maltby Jao. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Meredith Maltby, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
I need a steady stream of interesting materials to be inspired by. Books, audiobooks, podcasts, movies, you name it. If I don’t have a cue of interesting things in the line-up I feel a bit creatively unfulfilled. We need to make time for our creative selves, whether that’s seeing a play or just daydreaming.
If you’re also a creative person, you may know that when it comes to ideas, they never run out. There are always more ideas. I learned this primarily from my day job in advertising. When you’re brainstorming or expected to produce creative outputs on demand, when creativity is a job, I started to see that there’s an unlimited well of ideas if we just look at things from a new angle. I remind myself of this to keep my creativity burning on.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I live in New Orleans, Louisiana and work as an advertising strategist along with a budding career in children’s book writing.
Last year I published my debut picture book “The Hesitant Hedgehog” about a homebody hedgehog who wants to stay in his comfort zone. My husband illustrated the book and I wrote it. If you like all things cozy, this is the book for you.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Having clear goals, and writing them down. The act of writing down your goals is the place to start.
I keep going when others quit. There might be no positive feedback for a long time, but your big breakthrough might be right around the corner, so you have to keep going.
Lastly, and somewhat surprisingly – simplicity. I recently heard the quote: “Doing something really well is incompatible with being busy.” I focus only on what’s most important to get me to my goals and forget the rest.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
I’ll cheat and give you two. The best books I read this year were The Pathless Path by Paul Millerd and Pathfinders by JL Collins (and they also have similar names)!
The Pathless Path shows you how to follow your unique life path and how it can often get clouded by society’s expectations for you. My pathless path would probably be traveling around and writing children’s books about animals. I had a lightbulb moment when I realized that despite this, if I hadn’t done my advertising job all these years, my creative pursuits would have gone nowhere. I was an English major up in my ivory tower, writing alone with no idea how consumer goods, marketing, or commercial art worked. I know now that I would not have understood what people wanted to read nor been successful with publishing my first book if I hadn’t had my “day job.”
Pathfinders, on the other hand, is a collection of real-life stories of folks’ path to financial independence. It’s so incredibly insightful to peek in on others’ lived experiences.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.readwithmere.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/letsreadwithmere
Image Credits
Meg Melleaux (Melleauxphoto)
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