Welcome to Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur Podcast. Join the podcast mogul Phil Better as he interviews successful entrepreneurs that make their living in the digital world. Now let's join your host, Phil Better, as a special guest today on Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur

Welcome back to another enlightening episode of Invest in Yourself, the digital entrepreneur podcast hosted by me, Phil Better, the podcast mogul. And today, we have a truly exceptional guest whose multifaceted career spans the realm of art, education, and creative mentoring. This guest has dedicated their life to inspiring others through their art, and their contribution are nothing short of extraordinary. Our guest is an accomplished artist and an art mentor with a profound passion for nurturing creativity in others. They are distinguished author of several textbooks using college courses on art history and appreciation, demonstrating their expertise and dedication to education, which is very important. Their academic credentials are impressive, holding a BFA in painting and theater, an MA in ceramics, and a certification in film production. They do it all. This unique blend of skills highlight the versatility and depth in the arts.

Beyond the classroom, our guest has made significant strides as an actor and creative specialty specialist. Their commitment in the arts is not just professional but deeply personal as they believe in the transformation and healing power of creative expression. They have touched countless lives through their teaching, mentoring, coaching, and sharing their vast knowledge and passion of the arts. Listeners, prepare to be inspired and moved by their remarkable journey and profound insight of today's guest. It is with great pleasure and anticipation that I introduce to you Karen Dela Losh. Karen, thank you so much for being here.

Oh, it's a privilege. Thank you, Phil. What a great introduction. Thank you. I feel so honored.

I try my best. I look I grew up in the nineties. I love hip hop as well, so I always saw the hype, man. I'm like, oh, this this person always gets the crowd jumping. And then when we transition to a podcast, it's like my job's not to sing or dance or do anything. That's my guest's job. My job is to hype you up. So I'm your hype man.

I just hyped you up, Terry. I hope you are ready to go. So I'm gonna start with our first question. Why did you decide you know, you had a burgeoning career in academics, painting, and all this. Why did you decide to switch to become kind of like a coach

in this entrepreneurial world? Well, hello, COVID. I mean, didn't we all get shut down 3, 4 years ago? Yeah. Instead of going to campus and being live, now we're all going online, and so I was forced to become a a digital entrepreneur. No. I I really turned out to love it. I started taking classes and learning all I could about the digital world and including building social media. I'm I'm somebody that was, I mean, like, my daughter set me up for Facebook and that was it, you know. So it's a steep learning curve.

Let's just put it that way, but I wanna encourage everybody who's in our older generation that didn't grow up with computers, that it is a wonderful world out here in the digital land, and there's so much available and so much help, and I have turned out to love it. I mean, I would meet you. You're in Montreal. I'm in Charleston, South Carolina. We would never have met, you know, if it weren't for the digital world. So I love how it connects people, which is certainly very, very creative and and, entertaining to do that.

I I agree. Like, the the fact that I've been able to connect with so many people across the globe like not just in my own city but like I have people in Australia, I've interviewed someone from the Maldives like this is like the creativity and the world has exploded into a true global world. Thanks to the digital space. With what you've done so far, looking at art as self therapy, when did you connect? Like, I'm guessing you you've had it for a while, but when did you connect that? Like, that's your superpower in the entrepreneurial world.

You know, it it that's like such a great question because as an artist and an art teacher, you don't think about how much healing is represented in this field of the arts. And, you know, my sons and husband, they are musicians, songwriters. My daughter's a writer. Obviously, I have books. So we we incorporate a lot more than just, you know, visual arts as far as painting, drawing, and sculpture, which my kids are all studio babies, so they'd learn that. But they also because I I was in film school at the time, they all became part of movie making, in front of the camera behind the camera. They're very involved in that. So the arts became part of our world, and I found that, you know, my 4 children were raised into really very secure human beings, that there was something about engaging both, that logical critical thinking order, timeliness of the left brain in academics because we homeschool them.