About
Brand Therapist. Side Hustle Evangelist. Dad-joke maker.
Get to know me and how I became a Brand Therapist—or skip to the part where I explain what brand therapy is.
Hi! I'm Naya the Creative.
My goal is to help you get what you want in your career, business, and creative life faster than you thought you could.
You might know me from...
Becoming a brand therapist wasn't the plan.
So, how’d I get here?
I’ve always been a creative who loved tech. And a good side hustle.
I started my creative life as a musician, writer, and arts & craft junkie (before it was called DIY)—I love creating things by hand. However, I was also born in that sweet-spot generation of people who used floppy disks and rotary phones, but somehow can’t function without WiFi and a phone charger today.
Looking back, it makes complete sense that I ended up working in advertising as a creative and techie. Writing ads, designing billboards, building websites—I’ve done them all. Both in the USA and UK. And I’ve done them for companies you know.
Of course, I had my side hustles. I made t-shirts, logos, websites, and designed bags of rice (dead serious). It was my side hustles that taught me how to solve problems that my clients couldn’t explain, but it was my last 9–5 that showed me what problem I’m meant to solve.
I expected my new-to-business, side hustle clients to struggle with branding and strategy. But, when I realized that my clients, who could afford to pay £100,000 for me to make a website, were having the same problem as my clients who could only afford to pay me a few hundred dollars, I knew I was doing the wrong work.
My clients, regardless of education or budget, had the same issue: they didn’t know what their brand was. They didn’t know how to connect with audiences because they didn’t know who they were themselves.
After a few clients told me “talking to you is like talking to a therapist. I always feel better afterwards and I’m excited to get back to work!”, I changed my professional title to brand therapist. It fits like a glove.
As a brand therapist, I help my clients make meaningful connections with audiences who appreciate what they offer and can pay the right price to work with them. It’s a hugely humbling way to use my hustle mentality and creative muscles to help people succeed—just by being who they are.
Soon after that transition, I founded Side Hustle Business School to help creatives and young people make their first dollars as entrepreneurs.
Since then I’ve expanded my services to help 9–5ers use their career brands to earn higher salaries, land better jobs, get sponsorship for career-related passion projects, and hold political office. It’s lit!
I can proudly say I’ve helped hundreds of people level up and secure more bags with their brands—and I’m ready to help thousands more.
So uh...what exactly is brand therapy?
(No, I don't talk to logos about their relationships with their moms.)
Brand therapy is a way to help a brand through a transition. That transition could be going from no one knowing your name to having clients lined up to work with you or having multiple employers handing you big dollar offers all at once. Same idea, really.
If you want people to treat the thing that makes you money (your career or your business) differently than they do now, your brand needs to transition.
As a brand therapist, I facilitate clarity and help you take real actions during your brand transition. Successful branding, especially for niche brands, is personal. Your brand stems from your personal story, the personal story of the brand’s founder, or even the personal story of an ideal client. Your story, messaging, purpose, and actions connect you with your target audience—no matter who they are.
We all intend to sell—in business, in our careers, and in our personal lives. We are consistently selling an idea or a perspective and need other people to get on board so we can meet our goals.
Any experienced branding expert can tell you that people connect with people, not products or services. Whatever we’re selling needs to come from something that, at the very least, feels human.
That’s the purpose that brands serve.
A brand needs personality. It needs character. And, like most people, it probably needs therapy. Not because it’s broken, or depressed, or failing, but because in order to connect with others, it needs to confidently be who it is. Only then can it successfully serve its audience.
so, I kinda have a type…
Are we compatible?
I’m into working with clients who:
- Want to change careers or want to make a name for themselves in their industry (or a new industry)
- Are rebuilding a brand and don’t want to wait five years before they start getting paid this time around
- Struggle to hire or retain employees who do their jobs well and bring something special to the company
- Can’t figure out what their passion is and feel like they’re running out of time to figure it out
- Have fifty-eleven ideas and talents, but can’t figure out how to make them “make sense” together
My not-so-secret talent
I work very well with creative folks who have multiple passions and can’t quite figure out how to bring their ideas together cohesively. Seriously, I’m like a freakin’ creative-type whisperer. It’s part of what makes me such a great brand therapist.
And, no, I’m not shy about saying how good I am at my job. I think everyone should feel confident about the good they do in the world—I’m just leading by example 🙂
Before we hop in the DMs
You should contact me if
- Your brand isn’t getting you results
- You’re struggling to grow or transform your brand
- Your career is going nowhere even though you have a ton of experience and have been doing your boss’s job forever
If any of those sound like you—and you have the budget* to work with a professional—you may be a perfect candidate for brand therapy with me. You should see here ASAP.
*If your budget faints at the sight of my 1-on-1 prices, I have some low-cost options that may work better for you right now.