#1: Leap into the Unknown: Overcoming Fear and Building Courage in Your Jewelry Journey

In this debut episode of 'Jeweler's View', veteran jeweler Courtney Gray shares her journey of overcoming fears and self-doubt to succeed in the jewelry industry. With 25 years of experience, Courtney discusses her path from working odd jobs to creating one of the most elite jewelry schools in the country. She explores essential traits for success, like curiosity, perseverance, and the courage to make mistakes. Courtney also offers valuable insights on balancing life and career, embracing imperfections, and staying motivated. Join her as she guides listeners through practical steps to ignite their passion and achieve their creative goals in jewelry making.



00:00 Welcome to the Jeweler's View
01:01 Taking the Leap into the Unknown
01:54 Courtney's Early Journey
04:11 Exploring Different Crafts
07:28 Starting a Jewelry Business
08:15 Embracing the Unknown
Overcoming Perfectionism
16:22 Inclusive Crafting
18:49 Entrepreneurial Mindset
22:58 Perseverance and Success
25:06 Homework and Next Steps

Be sure to follow The Jeweler’s View so you never miss an episode! I’d love it if you could leave a rating and review on the main show page, this helps the podcast reach more amazing listeners like you. 💎 Have thoughts to share or just want to say hi? Reach out anytime! I’m so grateful to have you on this journey with me.

– Courtney
Helping Jewelry Creatives access the knowledge, resources, and mindset they

need to achieve goals they once thought impossible.

Connect with me:

🤗 Linktree: All My Links

🎁 Get your FREE guide: Courage, Clarity, and Customers

Transcript

 Welcome to the Jeweler's View. I'm Courtney Gray, and after 25 years in the jewelry industry, 15 of those running one of the most elite schools in the country, and working with masters and aspiring makers from across the globe, I've experienced the highs, the lows, and everything. I've consulted for organizations, both large and small, and I work one on one with makers who are building their own creative businesses.

In this podcast, I'm here to help you do the same. Whether you're just starting out, maybe you're dusting off the bench after a year or so, Or looking to elevate your craft to the next level. We'll explore topics that build confidence, tackle challenges, and help you achieve your goals. So what's holding you back?

Let's dive in together.

   📍 Welcome  to the Jewelers View. I'm Courtney Gray. joining you here on this new podcast. I'm super excited. And today I want to talk to you about taking the leap into the unknown. This is about overcoming fear and building courage in your jewelry journey, whatever that looks like.

I started  in this industry about 25 years ago. I wanted to start this podcast  to meet you on your level, wherever you're at, whether you're trying on a new technique and feeling scared, whether you.

Thinking about taking a class you've had your eye on for a while ,  

but maybe you think your skillset isnt there yet  maybe you're dusting off the bench and getting back to making, or perhaps you haven't even started yet, which is perfectly fine. Welcome.. to this space. I want to join you all weekly and talk to you about some  topics that we all face when we're making or building a business.

Let's talk today about what's holding you back. . So let's dive in.

Let me tell you a little bit about myself. And my early days when I was just a kid, I was always drawn 

To working with my hands. Whatever that looked like. I think my parents would find me in the garage like hammering nails into two by fours just to feel the sensation and see what the result might be.

I wasn't building anything, just using the tools and wanted to get dirty, I don't know. I went on, of course, to grow up. I was drawing in high school, , and ended up working in customer service at Whole Foods Market in Houston. Great company. Totally loved it.  Great community, but I found myself in the bakery slicing bread and handing it over to customers who could be a little picky.

I learned how to handle those challenges, learn how to work with customers, amazing experience. But I remember the moment. That I woke up and had, I don't know, we could call it a download or a moment of clarity of What am I doing with my time and what am I learning here at this point in my journey?

So I made the decision right there to only work at jobs where I would work with my hands, learning new tools, learning how to build things, how to fix things. I wanted to fulfill that desire I'd had since I was a child. So made the choice, step one. Once I made that choice, I think I was out in the back taking a break and they were renovating part of the whole foods at the time, met the guy in charge of the construction nice man.

Seemed nice enough at the time and asked him if he had a job for me. He. said, not really. And I think I went back and asked him two more times and he said, you know what? I need an assistant to help me, juggle these different construction projects that we have help with the crew, get lunch, and I'll show you some, drywall and painting techniques.

Great. Working with my hands, learning how to build. So I showed up and after a while, realized I was kind of  of

an ornament at the time. I was really cute back then. I think I was like 18 years old and decided, I don't know, this may or may not be the right fit. So the beginning of that kind of exploratory journey began.

And I went on to work in the sheet metal working union in Houston, Texas, interestingly enough, The first project I worked on was like a 17 story building. We'd get on an elevator that hung on the outside of the building and ride it up to the top of this, sky rise that was being built  📍 in Houston.

 right below the, was my middle school. So I remember at seven 30 in the morning reflecting on middle school days while I was putting on the hard hat. I was the only female on the entire site. There's some benefits to that and there's also some challenges with that. But I kept showing up and it was good.

I did learn some things. I learned what it's like to work in a union. I learned how to wrap air ducts and hang them from. The rafters so that they have proper air conditioning units installed on each level. And after that, I decided, okay, let's keep moving. Ended up moving to Austin and going to.

Welding school deciding maybe I want to put things together. Like really, work with some metal here. So I went on to do that. Gosh, I did so many things in this period of time, you guys, and I know this is my youth, this is a long time ago, but I just kept showing up for different things, trying to zoom in.

What is this hand working desire? Like, how am I going to fulfill this? What does this really look like? And eventually how am I going to make a living? . I was a ceramicist, laser at a pottery studio. I worked in a glass studio. Eventually I ended up wire wrapping and  beading  for a pretty large brand name in the jewelry industry at the time.

And again, sitting there, what am I doing with my time? Is this exactly what I'm meant to be doing? So I decided, gosh, loving metal, loving the material itself. I think I. want to learn how to make jewelry, how to  do the metal part of it, not the wrapping or the beating and move forward and Excel 

kind of 

learn how to do some more in depth techniques.

So I approached the local casting company that was working with the company I was beating and wire wrapping for. And I think I had to show up about four or five Different times over a series of probably about three to six months and just show up, just ask, Do you have a, do you have room for me? I  no how to use a torch.

I'm going to welding school. And where could you put me? He was resistance for a while. And after a while, he said, You know what? You'd probably make a good casting technician. So I entered the field at that point and the rest is history. I fell in love with  the process. I had been doing some large scale sculpture work, loved the idea of doing small, wearable, sculptures that could be presented on a person's body as adornment as an heirloom.

We did a lot of high end platinum work at this manufacturing company. Great experience learned so much. . So what is my point to all this ? I just remember not giving up on this idea of I'm going to figure out something creative to do with my life.

And it's not going to be slicing bread for people with very intense allergies at Whole Foods. Anyway, moving forward I was able to  learn how to cast gold, silver, how to do the finish work,  and eventually went out and started my own business 

 that, a school, one of the most elite schools in the country, it grew and grew. And I got to run that for 15 years of my career. Talk about a learning curve. I learned so much through that experience, sitting with students at the beginning of their climb, and having the honor of coaching them through those experiences and guiding them.

It can be overwhelming. , there's so many different avenues to take under this umbrella we call jewelry. It's limitless. I don't think I'll learn it all in my lifetime and I doubt that you will either. We keep going and we keep learning and we keep adding new tools to our So let's talk a little bit about Embracing the unknown and gaining clarity throughout our journey. For me, it's about making the choice, make the decision. And once you make that choice begin, and this can look like tiny little steps. This can be big moves. This can be small moves. The point is movement and momentum, and I believe and I think I've proven to myself over and over again, that movement and momentum will bring clarity on what your next steps need to be.

A lot of this, can be self talk. The way that we talk to ourselves, we're not always treating ourselves very kindly. There's a lot of struggles with that. The feelings of defeat, if we're not successful right away the what ifs, what if I waste material on this new project and it doesn't work out?

What if nobody buys from me? What if I just simply am no good at this? The one that gets many of us, I think too, and we'll talk about this in later episodes is what will others say or think? I don't want to say that I like being underestimated, but it brought a challenge when I would show up as this only woman.

And that was not the only experience, the construction site where I was the only female. I'll tell you more about that later. I kept finding myself in these situations and I think they would look at me like who does she think she is? What is she doing here?  she can't handle this.

I think deep down I use that as a momentum and kind of a dare. I I don't know. I'm a little bit of a risk taker instead of letting that defeat me or push me down or hold me back from making the choice to do something new, of used it as a little bit of fuel, a little fire underneath me to get me moving in the direction that I thought I could handle and that I wanted to take on.

So anyway, I think that's a big one, you guys. And we're going to talk about that next week. If you continue to join me here, we're going to go into some really great topics that I think we all need to be talking about and working through daily to continue moving forward, the more we move forward, the easier it's going to get to identify what aligns with our goals and what doesn't. The more small steps that you can take, the more success you're going to find. I have to tell you guys, in my 20s, when I decided to start my school, I remember the moment. I think I was sitting at the computer thinking, okay, what's next? What's next? What am I going to do? So and so told me I should run a school.

I should start a school because I was already teaching on a small level for a local art school and starting to get into that headspace of teaching more and really enjoyed it. People received it  well. I remember the moment and when I named it and everything and the choice just became so clear.

It allowed me to move forward and just completely pivot into that  mind space of what do I have to do to build this? I had a one year old baby. When I made this choice, I don't know if I suggest that, but that's the timing that it came to me. And I remember I had one hour, maybe one and a half hour of time per day during nap time.

If I, if that's, if I got lucky, you guys know, if you're mothers, you never know what you're going to get some days, especially in early days. And I remember that hour and a half, I had to be so efficient. And so on point and I was able to build up my first courses in that time. So my point with this you guys is even if your life is busy, I don't care what stage of life you're at, you can make these choices, you can pivot, you can reinvent yourself, you can Make a new business decision.

There is always time to make these moves and make it happen for yourself. So don't let anything hold you back. I've seen people pivot and reinvent themselves again and again. We all know, coming out of COVID, I think everybody had to pivot at that point and reassess and revisit their goals and their mission.

and their purpose and decide, okay, what am I going to do now? And how am I going to make it work? There's always a solution. So don't be afraid, make the moves, make the big moves, make the small moves and just keep at it every day. If it's not working, make a different move. Just keep trying things on.

When I started the school, it was amazing to me and so gratifying and interesting that. There were so many different people,  coming from different backgrounds. Some were doctors. We had a preacher who came, we had bartenders, lawyers, stay at home moms 

the sky was the limit. They were  all ages, all backgrounds, some from corporate America, some from marketing firms who had  been sitting on this dream of maybe you can relate making jewelry and building their own business. These people came in with, I always said the first step was just  walking in the building or making the phone call to get more information.

And as soon as they walked in and felt that sense of community, the reward of learning something new, taking your time at the bench to practice these techniques and go through it with patience. Woof. Take some patience. You guys anyway, many of them went on and still to this day have successfully pursued a jewelry business.

And these can be, this could be a side business. It could be a side hustle. This could be a full time. This I, this is what I want to do and I'm going to build it. I think it just depends on your goals, but I want to tell you right now, it's absolutely possible. It's been proven time and time again.

I've seen it in front of my very own eyes and through the eyes of my instructors at the school. Let's talk a little bit about common traits  that these successful makers have. I think one we've made clear is that curiosity and desire. A lot of people that find success in any endeavor, I believe have this kind of curiosity.

They stay curious. They come in a very open minded space ready to learn something new, something that's going to challenge them, and they don't feel defeated when it doesn't work the first time.

  That desire has to be there. It can't be something that you're forcing on yourself or somebody told you, to do and you Oh I guess so. It needs to be like this  essential desire that will keep you curious, keep you in the state of learning and growing and willing to go through the challenges that will come with any kind of change or growth.

So what I want to say is these people took the leap. You never know and you never grow unless you do. They all had the courage to make mistakes,  and let go of that pesky perfectionism trait that I think we all have. I was thinking about perfectionism and we're going to talk about this in another episode as well. 

I was thinking You know, it's funny, I think if somebody came to me for jewelry, they probably want me to be a perfectionist because it is such fine detail work. And they want a nice result, but it can be torturous to be living and letting that keep you up at night as far as being absolutely perfect the first time.

It's impossible. Watching adults, decrease the amount of perfectionism they brought to the bench over and over again. It was, that was, I think, one of the most challenging things, but stay loose, stay open, be willing and have the courage to make those mistakes. Failure is where the learning begins.

One of my teachers said this a lot and I really resonate with that statement. You can't learn something unless you screw it up a couple of times. You don't know the melting temperature of the metal until you melt it. Don't be afraid. Let's take some leaps together. Let's make some moves 

I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised by showing up And practicing,  as much as you can I love jewelry because it is such an inclusive craft.

I'm telling you guys, people would come in from all these different backgrounds and all these different stages of life. We even had people with physical impairment. So if if you're listening right now and that lines up with your situation, I want to reassure you. We had a woman come to our school who had one hand.

She was born with a short arm. And. It was slightly functional, but not a full five fingers. Like most of us are lucky and blessed to have.  I remember her boyfriend took a class with me on casting and he came to me after he was so jazzed up, so excited and was wondering, he was thinking of her.

And he said, Here's my girlfriend's situation. We have six kids together. She's very busy she was born with this kind of, not impairment, but a shorter limb than the most of us. He said, what do you think? Do you think that she could succeed at this? And I thought about it and I took a deep breath and I thought, why not, why not try?

Okay. And I told him, I said, you know what, bring her in for a class and let's see how she does. And how we can make this work for her. Cause a lot of things we do in jewelry, two hands are very helpful, very important. Sometimes a third hand would be great. , he did that, he brought her in  I will tell you guys, she was one of the most humbled.

Amazing students and talk about the humble effect. She humbled everyone right around her who were struggling with, I can't hold onto this well, I can't, I can't. And they would watch her. working quietly and working with this, impairment on one, one hand.

She would use it to brace. It was amazing to watch you guys. It was so inspiring.  I had another student who was blind in one eye. We would put her in the front of the classroom every time and she excelled. She made beautiful work. So, Don't let these things hold you back or the idea that I can't because. Take the leap, anything new anything worthy I feel does not come without a certain level of underlying fear that we have to reassess and work through Almost daily.

I want to talk about diving in wherever you're at. That's exactly where you need to be. If you're beginning, if you're just getting started, if you're 20 years into your career and feeling unenthused,  with your current process, let's shift it.

Let's shake it up. move things around so that you find your true passion. And for me, , if there's no purpose in what you're doing and it's not really helping anybody or serving others in some kind of way, I feel like it's pretty easy to lose that passion. Don't you? It's very lonely otherwise.

So I feel like finding some way to tie  it to a way of service or a way of empowering somebody else. The sooner we can do that. The better it keeps us really impassioned in our businesses. Slow down though, you guys, I'm reminding myself to right now, take a deep breath and just slow down.

Take one thing at a time. I feel like overwhelm is one of the biggest setbacks for entrepreneurs and we want to get it all done. We want to make it happen and we have a vision. Don't forget the amount of time and effort it's going to take and patience to go through the process to get from A to Z.

And honestly, I don't know if we're ever finished, so why not do it at a slower pace? I say dive in and start swimming, but Find the pace that works with your life. I loved what a colleague had mentioned at one point is build your life how you want it and work around that. I love this approach and if you can adopt it from an early stage in your career rather than having to backtrack later like me.

It's going to set a tone for your business and your creative life that balances out with your daily life, your family, the things that really, you know, deep, deep down are the essentials to love and life. So pace yourself, trust the process. This is a process. We have to trust it  while taking action at the same time.

I had some students who would come to me, you guys, and they would they're so jazzed up and some of them did have these time limits. How do you work with that?  Time expectations. I had one student come in and ask, okay, I'm here. I've heard great things about your school. I've heard it's faster paced.

We're not spending a lot of time on lecture. I have six months. Can you turn me into a jeweler? This caught me a little bit off guard. And I think my answer was something like,  that depends on  how you show up and how much devotion and energy you want to give this.

Can you be a fantastic jeweler in six months? I don't know if I can answer that. I think that depends. I've seen some highly successful students come in and, Get it right away. Others, it takes a different amount of time. So I want to encourage you to give yourself a lot of grace through this journey  wherever you're at, that's where you need to be.

I'm not saying stay stuck, keep moving forward, take those baby steps each day. And it's up to you how big and how successful you want your company to be. It's really up to you. You get to decide. And you also get to decide how you show up and how often you show up. Life gets in the way, I get it, but keep coming back to it.

Keep coming back to it. Put it on your calendar. Things don't really seem to happen for me unless I make a date and a time to do it. Give yourself some good goal lines. If you don't reach them, it's okay, push it a little bit, but keep coming back to that. Don't drop off and don't forget.

 Your decision that you made to start this thing or to pivot or to get back to the bench or to make this shift in your business, whatever that looks like. Don't forget that vision, that picture, that goal. I want you to hold that in the forefront of your actions.

And remember, there's a whole process to get there. Take your time, slow down, put things on the calendar.

 Perseverance is one of the biggest keys to success. When people tell you, you can't, or you mess up a piece and have to start over. It can really throw you keep coming back to it. Stick with that decision, make the mistake and learn from it and move forward. Don't take it personally.

Guess what? We all have to go through it. There is no maker I  have ever met, and I've known a lot of them over the years who has not made mistakes and had to go back and repair or, remake or reconsider their approach. So give yourself a ton of grace. You guys just one thing at a time. The last little piece of that entrepreneurial mindset is what's the next best thing?

 What's the next best thing instead of freaking out when things aren't going, right? How do you move forward? What is the next best step that you can take for your business your craft or your life? I think that it comes down to small decisions over lots of time.

So think about that I think the next time that you're faced with a challenge Remember, you're not alone We're all in the same game here. We're all learning to live and move forward. Dive in, take the risk, have some courage, remind yourself daily what your vision is and slow down a little bit, take your time with each step so things don't get dropped off.

Set the tone now for how you're going to approach this change. Don't wait, but pace yourself and trust the process. 

Adopt that mindset, you guys, Of the importance of persevering and sticking with that decision. Keep the end goal in check. Okay.  Along the path, make some mistakes, learn and grow. And decide from that, what's the next best step for you to take. Alright you guys,  hope you get some juicy little nuggets.

My gosh, I can talk for a while, can't I? And guess what? You get to join me every week as we work through some of these things. I want to leave you guys with a little bit of homework. Okay. I want you to think maybe  if you have a journal that you use, if you are a Google doc person, go for it, open a Google doc and let's get to work.

I want you to think about a time when things got tough. Did you quit or did you keep moving forward? What was the next best solution that you found? Do a little writing around this. I want you to remind yourself with this exercise. How bad ass you are, how you have gotten through tough things. You don't quit.

You just keep moving forward, right? secondly, I want you guys to take 10 minutes and let's think about one thing that you'd like to change in your career and what's holding you back from making even one small step towards that direction. 

And what's the one small step you can take that I promise you, if you keep taking these little steps, you will find success. You will get to that next level.   All right, you guys, I gave you plenty of things to think about.

I hope it's helpful. I'm going to show up for you every week as long as life will permit me to, I want you to come back and join me. You can follow me on social at Courtney gray arts, and I'll put a link in this podcast. You guys. Follow me. Let's hang out together. Let's talk through some of these things.

I'm going to be talking at you probably for the first, eight episodes and probably beyond that. But I'm also going to bring in some of the people I've seen find true success and balance their life with that success and are continuing to pivot well into their later years 

I'm going to bring in some beginners. I'm going to bring in some experts on things like imposter syndrome, things that we don't really. think that we need to work through or learn about, but I'm, I think we're, I think it's time. So I'm going to keep doing that. If you guys keep showing up for me, help me spread the word because with as many as possible and create a community we can support each other through these endeavors and through these shifts.

It's not easy being a soulpreneur. Trust me. I get it. I'm here to face those challenges with you. And I want you to stay in touch. So do that. I'm also going to be launching some really cool new things over the next year. and I want to make sure I know how to get in touch with you. So reach out, go to my website for new freebies and new resources I'm going to be adding for you that will support you on this journey at CourtneyGreyArts.

com .  Send this to a friend that needs to hear this today or tomorrow, keep coming back to the Jeweler's View. Till next time, onward and upward. Thanks for listening.