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How are you investing your time?

Everybody wants to leave their mark in the world. Everybody wants to be productive, to have that ‘can do’ attitude, to possess a winning mindset. The real question here is - what steps are we taking in order to make that happen. This was pretty much the discussion CreativeMornings Lisbon raised to its audience in February.

When João Vitória took the stage at NOW BEATO in February for the latest event of CreativeMornings Lisbon, he had a full room ready to listen to what he had to say. This event was a record in terms of sold out tickets (1 day for 100 tickets) and number of people in the waitlist (sorry, guys!).

“If you invest in something you’ll get something in return.” - this was one of the things he mentioned to this curious audience.

With a long experience in working on innovation projects, as well as with brand communications and digital platforms, Vitória has also worked in TV and journalism, hosting Portugal’s first consumer technology TV show. Last year, after completing an MBA at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership, he decided to fly solo and introduced us to SHKR, his latest project.

It was pretty inspiring to see someone who’s had more than 25 years of work experience not being afraid to try and do something new: studying, writing, filming, launching new projects, leaving a job. Every single action helps to build resilience and a resilient man is what we see in João Vitória. And gosh, did we laugh with him!

Once again, our event was held at Now Beato, whose cosy atmosphere made everyone feel at home.

Nomadx was again our sponsor: they offer the breakfast catering by Kitschen, allowing our beautiful audience pay special attention to each month’s talk because their bellies are filled with love and delicious food.

Having said this, here’s some food for thought:

- Identify exactly what scares you, what are you afraid of. After doing that, just go and do stuff.

- Creativity is an attitude, not a department or a measurable task.

- Everyone has the potential to be amazing at something. One of greatest impediment to creativity is our impatience.

Roots and Creativity

2020 has finally arrived with so much to give, so much dream, so much sparkle to spread! New year, new beginnings. It’s time to restart, reconnect, rediscover, rebuild, re-something… And at CreativeMornings Lisbon the same happens.

And this new year brought a major change. We have a new host! Rafaela Mota Lemos is now Lisbon chapter’s new host and there couldn’t be a better start for this fresh, smiley and cheerful girl: organizing the first event of the year! And what an amazing event it was!

Roots was the global theme for this month, which was definitely a nice way to begin the year and to plan our journey for the next months. Everyone has roots and it’s incredible how they define us, even in tiny, little details. Vanessa Teodoro's roots are all around her work as an artist. And that’s what she has talked (and shown!) through the last event.

Vanessa was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and lived there until being 8 years old, when she came to Portugal. She still has an accent, which is something that she tries to preserve as it helps her to stay connected to her roots. And her African roots remained with her, hugely expressed in her art works. She feels inspired by Africa and tribe, so all her works definitely have these connections. Vanessa loves to do monotones, black and white graphics and to draw female heroes. She showed several works and drawings where these characteristics were very intense, very present and very unique at the same time. 

As time went by and throughout the evolution of her work, it became cleaner and cleaner. Which also happened to her name. She used to sign her work as Super Van, possibly inspired by female heroes, but she recently changed her signing name to Vanessa Teodoro.

To avoid getting bored in her daily work, Vanessa started to go out of her comfort zone and her work went from papers and paintings to a different stage of materials. She decorated a Jaguar car with her patterns, a dress, a bag or even an out-of-the-box Christmas tree for Ritz hotel. Trying different mediums and adapting to each client makes her keep improving and evolving. It’s a vast and miscellaneous portfolio, where her African roots keep showing up! 

Finally, Vanessa gave some tips to the audience, somethings that she has learned through her experiences:

Be proactive. 

Focus on your own work. 

Be competitive with yourself.

Not everyone will like your work. And that’s actually good.

Network your ass off. 

And I must add: be faithful to yourself and to your origins. That’s how you’ll get your unique masterpieces, if you’re an artist, an engineer, a writer, an architect, a teacher, or whatever else. Be you. 

It was an a fun and exciting morning. Everyone was connected to Vanessa, wanting to know more about her inspiration and her creative process. And she was so cool that she offered one of her prints in a very cool giveaway! Someone from the audience was really lucky and will never forget this event!

The atmosphere was incredible, everyone seemed to be having a blast! The food was delicious, and the venue was perfect for this first event of the year! A lot of talks, networking and bonding! And that’s what CreativeMornings is all about! 

Text by Ana Sousa

Photos by  Irina Konova and Sónia Ramalho

Muse.

In ancient Greek and Roman stories, it was one of the nine goddesses’ daughters of Zeus that could give encouragement in art, literature, music and science areas.

Muse.

It is defined as a person or personified force who is the source of inspiration for an artist.

Muse.

After all is inspiration, motivation, source of creativity. And CreativeMornings Lisbon September event had it all!

It took place at Beta-i once more, starting with an amazing and marvellous breakfast provided by Allways. So tasty, so yummy and wrapped in such a city view! Perfect conditions for a perfect and special event: CreativeMornings Lisbon 3^rd anniversary!

The atmosphere was amazing and there couldn’t be a better speaker for this muse and anniversary event as Patrícia Alves Oliveira! She has been a volunteer for this chapter for more than 6 months and now we could see her on stage, presenting her amazing PhD project! She presented a robot, YOLO (Your Own Living Object), that she developed during her PhD research, thought to stimulate children’s creativity. YOLO was designed to engage and inspire children to create stories, being a participant in their storytelling. It has motion and touch sensors to understand how the kid is using it and was trained to react in certain ways during the story that the child is creating.

As a psychologist this work was truly challenging for Patrícia, she had to learn a lot about mechanics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), electronics and programming. It was amazing to see some videos of her during the robot’s manufacturing. Being outside her main area of studies she overcome many obstacles of this project, also co-working with many institutes and students from other areas. It is important to notice that all the manufacturing process of YOLO was made with children, they were part of the process in each step of it. YOLO construction instructions are open source, so that anyone interested can buy the materials and build their own creativity robot. It’s amazing and delightful to hear Patrícia talking about all the process, all the challenges, all the achievements!

She also talked about the psychology part of this project, mostly related to the human-robot interaction and how humans feel around these machines. Examples of developed robots all around the world were shown, from human to functional robots, and how people see them. Although there are a lot of ethical questions about this type of technology, Patrícia showed and proved the benefits of a creativity robot such as YOLO. Any child should have a YOLO. One could almost say that each and everyone needs a YOLO in their lives, to stimulate creativity and increase the motivation!

After this talk one could say that all Patrícia’s work was creative and inspiring! She developed something to stimulate children’s creativity, she was creative during the process and she made something out of the box. Something that could absolutely live with our children and make them interested in storytelling without borders and limits.

All about robots. All about muse. Can a robot be a muse? Patrícia showed that definitely yes! So here in CreativeMornings we could change a little bit muse definition.

Muse.

It is defined as a person or personified force or a robot-like toy who is the source of inspiration for an artist. Or a child. Or anyone who loves storytelling!

Text by Ana Sousa

Photos by  Eglė Duleckytė, Irene Konova and Tessy Morelli

Justice. Equality. Feminism. Human rights.

CreativeMornings Lisbon August event was about these huge and powerful concepts, about a subject that is still actual, unfortunately. The sexual harassment suffered mostly by women in Portugal. It’s present in our society, in our families, through our friends, and most importantly it is still present in our action and words. And this shouldn’t go on.

So, on the last Friday of August, the morning started with another amazing CreativeMornings event hosted by Beta-i with a nice venue, particularly the balcony with a view to the city of Lisbon, and a marvellous breakfast, co-provided by Allways.

We had a full-house and the atmosphere during the breakfast was amazing, everyone chatting with each other, eating something good and drinking the expected morning coffee, so characteristic of CreativeMornings.

To talk about Justice and Equality we had the #NãoéNormal movement, with Ana Esteves and Diogo Faro. They started by presenting this movement, how it started and what it aims to be. Diogo was the one doing this presentation with his sense of humour reflected in his speaking as he is a known Portuguese comedian. First, as a man, Diogo never truly thought about how it is to be a woman at school, at work, at public transportations… How women can suffer from being observed, some comments from their bosses or just some kind of pick up line in the street that is everything but that… At some point, some months ago, he decided to do some humoristic work about these types of sexual behaviours of minor importnace and how they are so frequent within our society. Through his social media, Diogo asked women to share some story they have lived concerning this subject. He wasn’t expecting more than 30 testimonials… But he got more than 200…! He continued to receive messages sharing stories of sexual harassments and that made him understand that something had to be done, something that overcame his initial idea, that something must change. This is not normal!

So, he met with some friends, Ana included, and they created #NãoéNormal, a movement to promote gender equality and to deconstruct acts of sexism that are too much rooted in our society. This has been quite a process for Ana, Diogo and the other co-founders as they understood and gained conscience that each one of them is also part of the problem. Não é Normal is not particularly targeted for rapists, it is targeted for the “normal people”, it aims to help enculturate new and small daily behaviours that could change society mindset. What this movement does, as a call for action, is sharing ideas through social media and going to schools to promote debates about this among the youngsters. Essentially it is about getting conscious about these issues, make everyone think about them and understand how each one of us is part of the problem. And then, they hope, get to change something: some acts, some sayings, some prejudices.

It starts with small things… Society gained ideas that are spreading this issue, such as “you’re a lady, you must know how to cook” or “bad driver? Must be a women” … These ideas that grow with us… And must definitely change!

After Diogo presentation, Ana tried to make some debate, promoting audience questions. For her, this is a matter to discuss, to make everyone think about it. That is the only way to make a change. There were a lot of questions and shares, which truly made everyone understand how real it is, how this is something that everyone should think and care about.

This month theme was serious and somehow tough. CreativeMornings event was a place for shares, for thinking, for understanding the urgent need of justice and gender equality. August event was a time for networking, as always, for bonding and for social impact discussions. Always full of creative minds and inspiring people, in an innovative and inspirational place as Beta-i, where startups are accelerated and launched to create impact. We couldn’t think of a better way to end August month as with this inspiring, touching and reflective event!

Justice is about true equality, when man and women are treated as equals, having the same rights. It’s about knowing that whatever you say can, and most certainly will, affect the other person and will enter their own individual space. We should all think about this and gain consciousness that through our lives we had situations when we felt as victims and other where somehow, we contributed to these minor sexual behaviours. We should all care. Something must change. This is not normal.

Text by Ana Sousa

Photos by  Eglė Duleckytė and  Maria Narciso

CreativeMornings Lisbon last event, in July, took place in Selina Secret Garden Lisboa, a recent place in our amazing city. It was the first time that our event was hosted in this venue and what an experience it was! As you enter Selina Secret Garden you immediately feel inspired and belonging, it is somehow familiar, creative, artistic and fulfilling all at the same time. It is visible how every detail counts in Selina’s, which makes this place so magical. You also get the feeling that you are entering some not-that-big place but when you start going around you feel surprised as in every corner a new space comes in front of you.

Selina has a hostel, with some deluxe suites, a pool, a restaurant, a co-working space and an amazing rooftop, full of beautiful flowers. Even the shared kitchen is amazingly decorated and immediately makes you want to kook something, just to immerse in that space. The outside space is something that also contributes for this sense of magical place. A lot of art works fill the walls, many paintings with the finishing touch of flowers and plants that fulfil every place and make you feel like you’re not in the middle of the city, but you are close to nature. Also, the pool is an attraction at Selina’s, as it is the perfect in-between-buildings pool that totally matches its surroundings.

The co-working place has hot and permanent desks and was full in the day of CreativeMornings event. It maintains the creative and naturally inspiring décor of the rest of the place, with a professional and working touch that makes anyone want to join with their laptop. You have chairs, sofas, outside chairs and benches… the sky is the limit to co-work there.

For CreativeMornings Lisbon July event Selena was the perfect match, to talk about Ends in a never-ending place, with so much to discover. It definitely is a creative place to discover in Lisbon, to work, to have some dinner with friends or even to have some good night sleep.

As a final secret thing about Selena, a rooftop bar is soon to be opened, which seems like the perfect excuse to return to this amazing and inspiring place. Wanna come?

Text by Ana Sousa 

Photos by Irina Konova

CreativeMornings Lisbon is about community. We believe that speakers are equally important as volunteers, audience and venue.

Today we are introducing you one of our community members. Beatriz Canas Mendes, a constant presence on our events since February.

Beatriz Canas Mendes came for the first time to a CreativeMornings Lisbon event in February. She decided to come once sge saw we were having  Rita da Nova as our February speaker. Since then, she never missed a single event. Every month you can see Beatriz seating on a front row, taking notes or talking with people with an enthusiasm that made us want to get to know her.

Beatriz is a Portuguese teacher for foreign people. She does private classes and organizes workshops for groups. Creativity is an important skill on her job, as she is always looking for new ways to reach her students goals and ways to make it easier for them to understand and learn such a complex language as Portuguese.

Author of the blog “Procrastinar também é viver”, lately, she was feeling the need of connection. Being a very social person, Beatriz was finding harder to connect with like-minded people. She was even feeling disappointed as the post-graduation she is doing did not meet her expectations in that field. That was what kept her coming every month. At CreativeMornings, or so she tells, she realized this lack of connections was not a personal issue but rather a matter of looking for it at the right place. For her, CreativeMornings represents a safe place to talk to others, exchange ideas and learn new things.

Outside CreativeMornings, Beatriz is an only child, grandchild and niece. One of a kind, we would say.

For breakfast she normally eats “Nestum com Bolacha Maria” or toast with milk shakes.

We couldn’t be more thrilled to learn the impact CreativeMornings Lisbon can have on people’s lives. Beatriz, Thanks for keeping coming and make our community such a special one.

Text written by Elisa Baltazar

Photos by Irina Koronova

The end. It all starts with ends. Last Friday started with an amazing End, at least for those who were at Selena Secret Garden Lisbon that hosted Creative Mornings Lisbon July event about End. With the proper and inspiring environment, an end is most certainly a new beginning. And that is what Nelson Nunes has done in this Friday morning, surrounded by the beautiful and fulfilling Selina Secret Garden outside space. He shared with us his view and his experiences with end(s).

First, about the place, Selena Secret Garden Lisbon is, as I may describe, a wanna-be-it-all place. It’s an hostel, an hotel, a restaurant, a pool, a co-working space, a soon-to-be rooftop bar… The list of facilities could continue, but Selena Secret Garden Lisbon is much more than those. It’s an art exhibition, a hangout place, a brunch place, an event venue… It’s inspiring, it’s cool and has secrets in each corner. Everything is made with such detail that you really feel like you’re entering some magical place. Opened for only 3 months, this place has already hosted dance events, a cooking worshop, bar drinks and other workshops and private events and has received people from all over the world. This month has also received an inspiring and creative event, Creative Mornings Lisbon. And what a morning it was!

Nelson doesn’t believe in ends or starts, he believes in experiencing. For him it’s what he experiences and his background that has been inspiring him as a writer. He started writing with 19 years old but has started reading with 4, which definitely left an impression on the adult that he became. He has recently published his 5^th book, Preciosa, which is about domestic violence seen by a child, truly inspired by what he has lived in his childhood. It is impressive how Nelson talks about this and other dark places where he had already been. Being close to the end is somehow familiar to Nelson. But it is the way he managed these episodes of his life that really made a difference. Was it an end when he pulled back from a balcony? And at the second time he did that? Or was it just a beginning of something else? “We are already dead” he said, “we are just doing some stuff until we get there”.

And great stuff he has been doing, taking advantage of unexpected ends, such as unemployment, for example. If he didn’t get unemployed some years ago, he wouldn’t get addicted to comedy shows and he wouldn’t get interested in the art of comedy and wouldn’t have written his “Com o Humor não Se Brinca” book, with some of the most known Portuguese comedians.

About his creative writing process, Nelson’s never thinks “I have to start writing this book”, this kind of scheduled pressure doesn’t work for him. He believes that when he starts thinking about some new novel he is already writing it, it is already part of the writing process.

He also has some interesting view about finishing writing a book. Is it the end of it and then it ceases? Wrong! The book is just starting! Because after he finishes writing the book goes to the readers, and that’s when it really starts!

This view of writing, that actually can be about anything else, is really positive and inspiring as it removes the pressure of “the process” to get there, and you can lightly enjoy the journey. And quoting Nelson: “at the end of the day just think: Did you do what you wanted to do with this day?”. And at the end that’s what it really matters.

Nelson is not only a writer but a story teller, in the true sense of the word. The audience was fully engaged with how he embraced end(s) and how he empathizes with his experiences. He admits to be a true fan of failures, they are cool as they open a lot of new opportunities, some not even imagined in the past. So, end is not really the end of something, it is just a fluid passage through life experiences.

There couldn’t be a better place for Nelson to share some sensitive and kind of ending experiences with us as Selina Secret Garden. The area for the event is really cosy, familiar and somehow intimate. And that made it all! Selina Secret Garden is a never-ending place. Perfect match for this month End theme. 

The end.

Or is it just a beginning of something else?…

Text by Ana Sousa 

Photos by Irina Konova

I’m Ana, I’m from Lisbon and I’m currently doing a PhD in Biomedical Engineering. This could be a CV introduction… But it does not truly describe me… I work with youth groups in a catholic context, I’ve been 1 month doing a mission in Mozambique in 2017, I’ve done volunteering with the homeless and more recently with the elderly, visiting them in their houses. I love to work with teenagers and youth groups and to share my life experience with them. I love to travel, to read, to sleep… I have latin dances classes. I’m passionate about people and how we can grow with each other, and I’ve started working as a volunteer at Creative Mornings Lisbon in January. It has been 6 months of this incredible adventure! I’ve gone from “surreal” to “wonder” in a few  months and it has been quiet a journey!

First, I need to share how I got there, to CM events. I started attending CM Lx in September 2018 through my friend Lucia who was a volunteer at the time. She always said amazing things about the event, about how inspiring and happy she got there in each month. So, moved by her sharing and by the need to attend some seminars for my PhD, I started coming to CM Lx. I must thank my friend Lucia for sharing this amazing gift with me. I loved the event, the talk, the breakfast… but most of all I loved the relaxed and yet inspiring environment, where everyone belongs. That month’s theme was Chaos and I felt so empathized by the speaker and his life… My life was very chaotic at the time… I felt I had no direction… So incredibly (and completely true) Creative Mornings did change the things! I enjoyed being there, it made me feel good, belonging and it made me re-think my projects and my life. And the most important: it helped me gaining motivation, particularly for my PhD project. I attended all the events after that and then suddenly I saw on Instagram that they were looking for volunteers… I felt tempted to immediately answer but then I heard all those little voices in my head saying “can you manage to do it?”, “do you have the time?”, “you have been crying to have some available time and going to start another thing in your life?!”… well,  but as I was already living in chaos and I already attended the event each month, it was just adding some extra work to it during the event. So, after some days I sent an e-mail saying that I would like to be a volunteer in the event, I wanted to be part of it… And here I am, a volunteer for 6 months.

I’m usually responsible for check-in, so I see and talk to everyone when they arrive. I’m the first morning face each attendee sees. And I like that. I also help packing up everything when it ends and I talk to volunteers, attendees and the speaker after the talk… I like to casually talk, to network, but with no pretensions of this or that. Just for the pleasure of meeting new people and to chat a little bit about the theme, about the speaker, about how inspired we all feel this Friday of the month… For me Creative Mornings Friday is with no doubt the best Friday of the month!

I could continue saying amazing things about the event, or the themes, or my tasks, or… but I would like just to share how fortunate I am for having this project in my life, for the team where I belong and for this creative and inspiring environment, where I feel completely integrated even with all my geekness and my insecurities.

Thanks Creative Mornings, you motivate and inspire me to continue pursuing my dreams and projects each month! Let’s keep this thing up mate!

Text written by Ana Isabel Sousa

Photos taken by Irina Konova and Tarlis Schneider from Acurácia Fotojornalismo.

The theme for our event this month is WONDER and although there can be many different interpretations of the word, I would like to stick to one: ‘a feeling of amazement and admiration, caused by something beautiful, remarkable, or unfamiliar’.

When was the last time you felt wonder about something? Even if one has already landed the unicorns of the perfect job, work-life balance or is a true mindfulness guru, grasping a moment of wonder in the middle of our city-based, industrialised lives have become more uncommon than we like to admit. In fact, what makes the feeling itself into a true wonder is the rarity of sharing that ‘wow’ moment with someone else.

It is that feeling of wonder that pushed me to volunteer for the CreativeMornings Lisbon team a little over a year ago and if you have already attended our event, you must have heard Elisa explain, that since Tina Roth-Eisenberg started it 11 years ago, it has grown to more than 200 chapters all over the world. What you may not know is that every once in a while this international community of volunteers comes together in a three-day event packed with joy, learning, face-to-face connections, hugs, and high-fives.

For me, it all started with Nadine’s visit to our Lisbon event in March (those who were there should remember her group-selfie skills). The longtime Cologne host was the one who motivated me to join the meetup with her contagious enthusiasm. It did not take much convincing to be fair and after a couple of glasses of wine in Park bar, I was sold.  

Set in the Scottish capital and countryside, the “wee” (tiny in Scottish) summit 2019, was to become my very first but surely not the last. The Edinburgh chapter team took on the role of the organiser and united a semi-European semi-global crowd of spectacular individuals into what became three days on wonder steroids.

As I left Lisbon at its warmest peak of the year so far, I could not believe my luck walking to the PRESERVE talk by Mary Johnston, in total sunshine. I must admit, at this point, I did not know what to make of the weekend to come since I knew practically no-one. Much like in every other event, it did not take long until that was no longer the case.  After the talk, and while we were still stuffing ourselves with delicious bagels, we debarked into a Constitution Street field-trip hosted by local writer Jemma Neville. Jemma took us on a walk around Leith, the buzzing port district at the north of the city of Edinburgh, while she introduced us to the history and background of her neighbourhood. Walking around the stone-house streets, surrounded by tall trees, little gardens and historical buildings, we were quickly moving past the prosaic ‘what do you do?’ ice-breakers towards more meaningful conversations.

One of the main wonders of this trip is how a group of strangers can overcome the notion of social time when they have something in common that they feel passionate about. In a remarkable energy cloud, we took the bus to Eden Leisure Village, singing songs like schoolkids and eating home-baked cookies by Elise.

Lost in the Scottish countryside with little wooden huts and firepits, we spent the rest of the weekend in what felt like a long-overdue wellness retreat among a family of like-hearted people where it takes zero effort to be yourself. From spontaneously dancing disco tunes to brainstorming, sharing heartbreaks or playing the highland games (some brave souls among us anyway), this weekend had it all.

As an expat, I am perhaps hard-wired for curiosity but the decision to attend the mini-summit of CreativeMornings volunteers in Scotland was by far the most unexpectedly rewarding, wonder-packed weekend of my life. Considering that multiple distractions showed up, none was important enough to keep me from fully emerging in this pool of emotional abundance.

Eventually, there are many reasons people choose to volunteer. Sometimes, it’s because they want to offer help to the people around them, support a cause they believe in, or simply boost their portfolio. But for some people like myself, it is a chance to get involved in what feels like continuous moments of wonder, and everyone is welcome!

My little how-to guide on finding wonder:

1. Try something outside your regular routine!
   It can be taking a new route to go to work, escaping the Netflix binge routine and walking around your neighbourhood instead, perhaps texting someone you haven’t seen in a while or just enjoying the life around you.
2. Travel ofter and don’t be afraid to do it alone.
   I know that one is heavy if you haven’t tried it so far, but it might be your closest chance to learn something new about yourself and perhaps make new friends along the way! ( there is usually a CM chapter nearby)
3. Don’t let little things steal your focus from what is important.
   What we define as little is anything that can be resolved with or without the support of wonderful people you keep around. It is my view that “accidents” come as reminders for us to appreciate how lucky we are and feel grateful for what’s important instead!
4. Keep the right crowd around. If you are in search of wonderful people then sign up for our next event, we have loads!

Fools look to tomorrow. Wise men use tonight.  - Scottish proverb

Text by Sofia Karakaidou (CreativeMornings)
Photos by Francis Augusto, Ellie Morag and Edith Whitehead