October’s global theme is ‘endurance’ and we are excited to welcome local creative consultant, multidisciplinary systems thinker, and B Corp Ambassador Kristy O'Leary.
Kristy is a multi-disciplinary creative whose practice has evolved through direct action and activism, multimedia and installation art, advertising and branding, public confidence and social license campaigning, into the world of impact management consulting. Her passion and purpose have coalesced into Decade, a boutique consulting firm with a focus on supporting companies in taking meaningful, tangible, and radical action on climate and social justice issues. She delights in supporting companies in becoming hope spots and helping people transform the mundane into magic. She believes her contribution to building a livable, equitable future is by trojan-horsing capitalism. Giddy up!
Kristy has developed disruptive, future-focused impact plans for companies internationally. She has transformed NIMBY’s into investors, worked with underdogs to transform public opinion from rejection to acceptance, and performed supply chain impact measurement for disruptive agricultural companies in the jungles of Latin. The team at Decade have supported over 150+ companies in redefining how they can leave the world better than they found it and 60+ companies in achieving B Corp certification.
Every month we like to ask our speaker a handful of probing questions to give us a deeper glimpse into their life and relationship with creativity:
How do you define creativity and apply it in your life and career?
Working with companies to identify, pluck, and strengthen the threads that tie products and services to purpose, regeneration, and renewal is how my creativity manifests. This work requires an aptitude for both the darkness and the light; each presenting their own unique creative challenges. Creativity makes it possible for us to scenario plan runaway climate change and cascading systems collapse, and have the wherewithal to imagine, design, and actually build regenerative systems that ensure there will indeed be a future. Creativity is more than art and beauty and all those things; it is the ability to look into the darkness and the endurance to create something beautiful and good and necessary. Creativity is relentlessly loving.
Where do you find your best creative inspiration or energy?
People and their stories and infinite possibilities. Right in the centre of those three things. I get these butterfly-in-my-chest-moments when people share the truths they have revealed as they deepen their expertise… it’s in those passion spaces, other people’s passion spaces, that’s where I light up. I’m always moving between the present and future tense for folks. My greatest joy is holding up a mirror to them – “Look at your greatness! Take it in. That’s you! That’s what you’re here to do! Now, let’s get to work.”
What’s one piece of creative advice or a tip you wish you’d known as a young person?
That creativity and thinking sideways are superpowers.
Who (living or dead) would you most enjoy hearing speak at CreativeMornings?
Carl Sagan
How would you describe what you do in a single sentence to a stranger? I help businesses embed social, environmental, and economic justice in their products and services so that every time they turn a dollar, something is left better than they found it.
If you could interview anyone living or dead, but not a celebrity, who would it be and why?
Carl Sagan
What myths about creativity would you like to set straight?
That creativity is for artists… I work with entrepreneurs and those folks create a lot of something from nothing and sometimes figure out how to embed justice in capitalism. I’ll take an impact business models are radical creativity.
What books made a difference in your life and why?
“The World we Made” – we all need a glimpse of a world made better. “The Council of Animals” – I think humans should eventually be judged by the creatures. “Never Let Me Go” – I don’t want to give anything away. “1984” – Do I need to explain this one? “Hillbilly Elegy” – This story hits dangerously close to home.*
If you could open a door and go anywhere, where would that be?
The future… obviously…
What music are you listening to these days?
Lana Del Ray, Jose Gonzalez, Sault, Sigur Ros, Beck, Michael Nyman, Max Richter, Carol King, Solange, The Weakerthans.
What was the best advice you were ever given?
There are three: 1. Never, ever, get good at anything you don’t love. 2. You’ll have three best friends in your life, make one of them your life partner. 3. When you buy quality, you only wince once.
What is the one movie or book every creative must see/read?
First, for those needing some inspiration and magic in their lives, “In and of Itself” – Derrick Delgato. You’re welcome. Second, for those trying to steel themselves for an uncertain future and need a taste of the sublime – “Meloncholia”. I’m sorry.
What keeps you awake at night?
Late-stage capitalism, climate chaos, perimenopause…
