Episode 126: Creative Devotion, Messaging, & Brand Strategy: Becoming the Messenger of Your Work with Luna Battalia
Podcast
Episode 126: Creative Devotion, Messaging, & Brand Strategy: Becoming the Messenger of Your Work with Luna Battalia
"The biggest creative block is people getting disconnected from the source of the motivation that made them start.” — Luna Battalia
This episode is your invitation to explore creativity through the lens of leadership, branding, and creative devotion. I’m joined by leadership mentor and founder of Caru Creative, Luna Battalia. Luna supports service-oriented women and entrepreneurs in building brands and businesses that reflect the deeper purpose behind their work.
Luna introduces us to attraction-based branding, a philosophy where your brand presence, messaging, and content work together to magnetize aligned clients before a sales conversation even begins. Instead of convincing or chasing clients, the brand experience itself builds trust and clarity so that when someone reaches out, the decision to work together already feels natural and aligned.
We also explore Luna’s belief that creativity is a co-creative process between us and something greater whether you call it the muse, divine inspiration, or creative potential. Luna shares how creative ideas often “choose” us, and our role as creators, leaders, and entrepreneurs is to say yes, nurture them, and bring them into form.
This conversation is a powerful reminder that creativity flourishes when we trust our ideas, follow the creative energy, and stay connected to the deeper purpose behind the work. Reminder: Luna encourages founders to develop intimacy with their brand (creations) by listening, observing, and allowing its message to emerge naturally through them as the messenger.
Resources Mentioned:
Messenger Course – Luna’s program on becoming the messenger of your brand and clarifying your voice and positioning use code CARLA for 10% off.
Quotes from the Episode
“Creative blocks are really a lack of energy and a lack of intimacy.”
“Your messaging and brand presence should be doing the work before the sale.”
“Creativity is responding to the ideas that want to be birthed through you.”
“Your job is to breathe life into the brand so that its voice can be heard.”
Questions to Reflect On:
Sit with these questions: Journal, take them on a walk, create a voice note, chat with a friend, or sit with a cup of tea and reflect on them. Leave a comment below or connect with us on Instagram @chefcarlacontreras & @lunabattalia to share your takeaway from the episode.
1. What creative idea has been “tapping me on the shoulder” that I’ve been hesitant to say yes to?
2. When I feel creatively blocked, what doubts or stories are actually underneath that feeling?
3. If I saw myself as the messenger rather than the creator, how would that change the way I show up?
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform while you cook, clean, or create. Get the full show notes & transcript below.
xo Carla
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Luna Battalia
Luna Battalia is the founder of Caru Creative, a full-spectrum branding, messaging + website studio, and the creator of Animist Branding™, a psychology-driven approach to marketing shaped by her 15+ years at the intersection of digital marketing and buyer psychology.
She partners with leading mission-driven women entrepreneurs who are building a personal brand world that reflects the depth and impact they lead with.
Through her messaging + AttractionBrand™ strategies, she helps clients transform their voice, build legacies over businesses, and communicate with bold, unignorable confidence through her 1:1 work and a suite of self-paced digital products.
Find + Work With Luna
Carla (00:01):
Welcome to Nourishing Creativity. The cycle of the last few years has left you and me feeling mentally, physically, emotionally and creatively drained. Nourish your very full life through interviews with creatives and entrepreneurs about how they create and move through their creative blocks. If you don't know me, I'm Chef Carla Contreras, a food stylist and content strategist. You can find me Chef Carla Contreras across all social media platforms and more information in today's show notes. Luna, welcome to the podcast. Can you share with us who you are and how you serve your community?
Luna (00:46):
Yeah, I am a leadership mentor. I help women personally and professionally at that intersection to scale and grow their lives and business. And then I founded a brand studio called Career Creative and we offer all the full spectrum branding from messaging to visual identity, business and brand strategy and web design. And so people can kind of come in and either do a la carte or a lot of people kind of bundle all those services or three or four of those. And so that's how I've been serving my community. And I serve primarily women like mature, service oriented, want to put themselves out there, not necessarily because of them and being seen, but deeply because of the care that they want their lives to contribute. And so it's this really beautiful full circle experience of service and just kind of keeps going and going. I'm really grateful.
Carla (01:41):
What was the last experience that sparked creativity for you?
Luna (01:45):
I've had a bunch of friends who gave birth recently and there was something about the creation there and also that these were very close friends. So feeling like I'm going to be in this kid's life forever, that I was like, "Oh, I want to make a quilt." And I'm like, "I've never made a quilt." But I know how to sew and I know how to pattern. And I was just like, "Okay." And so I decided, it's funny when my friends have babies, I'm like, "Give me some old t-shirts and some interesting things that have your energy that you love." And then I'll mix fabrics. And so I've been making two quilts, really three, but I haven't started the third one. And it's fun because it's out of ... It gives me creativity. And I have a lot of things that spark creativity outside my business.
(02:33)
I goldsmith, I'm constantly learning about how to make and carve wax and jewelry and gold and stones and things like that and flower arranging. And my partner got me a ton of feng shui books for Christmas. And so those kind of things spark joy. We're designing and building a home. So that's like a huge creative thing that takes up space. And I feel like a lot of my life is really centered around visioning and creating and not just the visioning, but actually supporting those things to come to fruition.
Carla (03:02):
Can you tell us what attraction-based branding is?
Luna (03:06):
This is one of our inter-brand studio trademarks, which is called Attraction Brands. And it's really about building a brand where your brand strategy, whatever that is, your brand strategy is not just social media content. It should be a lot bigger than that, is doing the work for you so that by the time you get to enrollment or discovery call, people shouldn't really have questions. People shouldn't be clarifying if you're the right fit. You're messaging your content, the way that you're presenting yourself in the world should be giving them an experience where they know, okay, dope. If I'm getting this experience from her free content, from her emails, from her blog, from her social media, from my little interactions with her when I comment and then she responds, if that vibe is consistent and it's what I want to feel, they're already a yes. And so the brand presence across all these different platforms is doing the work to magnetize and attract people in.
(04:08)
It's like the difference of like, not that ads or anything like this, it's an energy that is basically, here I am with all this epicness to offer that I'm really confident about. And I'm telling you that if you want to hang out in this brand world, these are the type of people, this is the experience you're going to have, these are the feelings that are going to be evoked. And you're having that experience through all these touch points so that by the time there's a sale, which could be a few seconds from introducing to the brand or many months or years for certain people, that there isn't a lot of like this outreach of like trying to get that energy towards you. It's like you're emanating your brand presence and people are really being attracted to it. And then the sales are easy. I would say almost 100%.
(04:59)
It's like 98% conversion rate for high ticket sales. My low ticket sales conversion rates are three times industry standard averages for conversions. The bump offers sell at 50, 60%, which is way higher than industry standards. And all of this to me happens because my messaging and brand presence is doing the front loading of the work so that conversions are easy and they're higher and literally sales call for 18, $20,000 packages are like, cool, does a bank transfer work? They're the easiest calls of me just like actually vibing with this person and getting to know them and having a fun call as if it's a new girlfriend that I'm super excited to connect with because everything that I've already put out there has already answered all their questions. They know it's for them, they know I'm the right fit, but very rarely do I get like, "Oh, I'm shopping around.
(05:56)
I'm talking to a bunch of brand designers." They're mostly like, "I know I want to work with you. I've wanted to work with you for a long time. I'm really excited. I'm ready to do this. " And so that to me is like, I'm attracting the right people and my brand presence and my messaging is doing that work for me on the front end.
Carla (06:10):
Can you tell us how you define creativity when it comes to your work?
Luna (06:15):
Yeah. I would say that there's this analogy that I use a lot, call it God, creative potential, the muse, whatever thing you want to use, word that you relate with. I think that it comes and it taps you on the shoulder and it's like, "Hey, Carla, you and me, I want to make a creative baby with you. Your energy and my energy together can bring this idea into form. I'm going to plant the seed of this idea and I want you to say yes. I want to create with you. " And then we get to be like, "Oh, I'm scared and I don't want to bring this book to life." And I'm like, this idea has been, thanks for planting the seed of this book that I dream about, think about, write notes about, but never do anything with. And it's like dating where the relationship is going to thrive when you show up and you allow yourself to be courted and you allow the energy in and you actually respond and show up and say, "Yes, this is so awesome.
(07:14)
I want to create with you too." And your actions reflect that. So to me, creativity is responding to the creative potential that lives in all things and then really receiving the ones that are for you and co-creating with whatever energy that is that you relate with. I call it the muse sometimes, I call it God sometimes, and putting my energy there so that it can grow and thrive. If I'm just like, "Yeah, that sounds like a hot guy asks you out on a date." And you're like, "That sounds great." But you don't really show up and you're just like, "Yeah, that sounds great. Sounds like a great idea." But you're not like, "Yeah, I'd like to do that. I'm not available on Wednesdays." You're giving them something. It's similar. So I think creativity really, our creative things that are being asked to be birthed through us into form, which is what women do.
(08:02)
They bring the invisible into form. It's like amazing that this is naturally within our alchemical design is you got to show up and say yes. And that showing up and saying yes requires getting over yourself, not making it personal, getting out of perfectionism, getting out of your own freaking way and really being in service like a child, like creating a child, birthing something, really being in service to its life, right? It's not about us. And so what you were talking about with the becoming the messenger in your holy work is like, I believe that people have legacy work, they have holy work, their divine contribution that they're bringing forth that only they can bring forth. Could be the same niche, same idea, same audience, but it's going to have a specific blueprint and flavor because it's you and creative potential or the divine create whatever, muse.
(08:53)
It's going to have a unique little flavor and blueprint. And so that holy contribution is something that we have kind of nudging us from a young age and starts to take shape and take form. And I find a lot of women in particular are multi-passionate and so the path can look different. But for me, I look at my life and I'm like, oh, I've always been an artist since I was a kid. I've always been a creative person. I've always been creating art and it's looked a little bit different at different times in my life. I was a fashion designer. I did coaching in a different way, like branding. There's so many things, but the core purpose has been consistent. Create beauty, be of service, help people. It's pretty simple. And so when we're creating a business or a brand, I believe that we step into the role of the messenger because it doesn't have breath.
(09:46)
We give it breath. We breathe life into it. We animate it. And a big part of my approach is animus branding. That branding is alive, that your brand is alive, that everything is alive from the salt lamp to the cup, to the phone, to the chair that I'm sitting on. And what happens when I feel this chair is alive with a soul, with a being ... I have a different experience sitting on it. I'm not just not aware of it. I all of a sudden become aware of it. I all of a sudden feel supported differently. I all of a sudden feel a little bit more aliveness in myself because of this relationship that I'm having with the chair. And so I notice that that happens in the brand world and the business world is when we relate to our businesses and brands as something that we birthed into being just like a child, it has a life of its own.
(10:33)
I can say to a child, "I think you'd be a great lawyer." And it's like, "I want to be a weatherman, whatever." And so it's like, okay, how can I nurture? How can I create space to get curious, to ask you what you want, to attune to your needs, to listen, and then to create the environment for which those goals that might not be what I think should happen can thrive. My job is to create the environment for which my creation, whether that's a book or a painting or a child or a business can thrive. That's my role. And so with brand work, I invite my clients to step into the role as the messenger and really receive the message, have this relationship, cultivate intimacy with their brand entity, and really listen and receive. And it often can get really strong and kind of drown out all the distractions that disrupt our creative flow because we have all this input telling us to do it this way and YouTube videos and Instagram ads being marketed to us about how we should run our business with this strategy and that instead of just actually listening to our brand.
(11:40)
So because messaging is the foundation of all brand work, I invite people to step into the role as a messenger and I have this analogy of the word angel means divine messenger. And so you get to be like your little guardian angel to your business and you're the divine messenger and you're the one who's like breathing life and breath into it that allows the voice of the brand to be heard by many people, by you writing the blog, by you getting on Substack, by you recording the video, by you writing the email, it's the brand's voice that you're receiving and channeling and allowing to come through you, but you're the kind of amplification of it into the world because the brand can exist, the business can exist. Lots of businesses exist with no clients. It's amazing. You can create something and they can exist in the world and you can have a website, you can have marketing, you can have an Instagram, you can say you're a coach and then have no clients.
(12:32)
So that relationship is really important because it's that amplification of like really listening to the message that that creation wants to bring through and then allowing it to be heard. And we have to get out of our own way and it's like, "Oh, the brand is bold, but I'm not bold." Maybe. Or the brand has this certain archetype that I don't really embody so much personally, but the brand voice brings it through and I get to play with that as the messenger. I get to turn the dial up on an archetype, turn the dial down on an archetype and not make it about me and just be of service to the voice that is this brand entity.
Carla (13:06):
It was beautiful to get a glimpse into your process. It's amazing to understand the creativity that goes into creating a brand. I'm curious about your current relationship with creativity.
Luna (13:22):
It feels like creativity is just for me really being in a flow state. I was talking to someone yesterday about conflict and if we see like disease or illness or conflict as just like a lack of flow and energy or lack of electrons or in the body illness, conflict happens when people aren't resourced. Someone's either underslept, under fed or underfucked, that's how conflict occurs in relationships. And when you're not resourced, when your cup isn't full, then we're acting out from these places. And so I feel like for me right now, my business is in this really beautiful, naturally reciprocal, like it fills up, I pull forth, it fills up, I pour forth, it fills up, I pull forth, the clients come and I don't really have to do anything to make that happen. And because of that flow state, the strategy that I've built over time is now working in a way that I have a lot of spaciousness.
(14:19)
It's like my job is to make sure that I'm working out, I'm eating well, I'm well slept, I'm taken care of, and then that I have so much more space for creativity elsewhere. So I'm redoing a little section of the living room and always having like flower arrangements that I love to make in the house doing ikibana and just like creativity feels really abundant because there's, I don't have kids also just preface for anyone listening. There's nothing like really asking a lot of my energy. Of course, my clients and the business require a lot of me, but it's not like a drawing or draining. So I feel like because I've set up a strategy that has got me to a point where things are just really happening on their own every month and there's monthly, like a pretty high monthly recurring revenue and then all new clients are just bonus cash and they come naturally that it's allowed me more space to have creativity in other places where there's been times in my business where I'm like building, building, building, scaling, and then I don't have space for anything else.
(15:20)
And then I'm drained and then I'm like resenting the business entity that I've created. And because of the intimacy and the relationship that I've talked about for so long through animus branding, it's like I have to practice it. And because I can see the tangible results in how I relate to my business and even old patterns. So creativity for me right now is just like spaciousness to do whatever the heck I want. To me, that's the most creative thing is to like really feel that freedom to allow inspiration to come through and then to have the space and the energy and the resources to act on it, to bring it to life.
Carla (15:56):
Can you tell us about creative blocks?
Luna (16:00):
Creative blocks are lack of energy, lack of intimacy. I think it's really the source of it is doubt. And that analogy that I gave in the beginning of like the muse or God tapping on your shoulder asking to create something with you and it being like dating, it's like that doubt that creeps in it. "Oh, he doesn't like me and like someone like that could never like someone like me and I don't know what I'm doing and I'm not ready for this. "Whatever the thing is that we create in our lives that's like, keeps us away from the thing that we actually really want. And I think so many people do that in their business when it's like, " No, the muse picked you to bring this forward and only you because only you and the muse together with your two energies could create this specific thing.
(16:49)
"There's nothing to doubt you were chosen and you are following through. There's going to be times when it's hard and you have to show up and it's going to require more of you and there's this beautiful growth opportunity in that. But for the most part, I think the biggest thing that's a creative block is people get disconnected from the source of the motivation that allow them to step into that role. And so oftentimes for my clients, it's like, " Why did you start this business? "Connect back to that, connect back to it in like a somatic felt way, not just tell me the intellectual story about how you started your business, but like why are you doing what you do? And when you're connected to that, it's very difficult to be creatively blocked. When you're listening to your brand entity and you're creating time and you're not being distracted by all the marketing input that's coming at you, it's really like we do content fasts in my client work where people like block or mute all the people that are in their industry as peers or marketing people.
(17:52)
Ideally for two weeks, but even if it's a few days, it can be powerful. And the content fast really show you how much energy is being put outside of your creation and outside of your business, listening to somebody else who literally knows nothing about your business, nothing about you, nothing about your brand entity. And they're telling you a strategy that worked for them and their brand entity and convincing you that it's going to work for you when they literally know nothing about you or your brand entity. So my whole approach is like, come back to that relationship, nurture that relationship, cultivate intimacy, curiosity, listening, curiosity and listening. That's what makes usually the great foundation for a relationship, willingness to take the time to be there with one another and to not be so busy or be distracted that you don't have time for each other.
(18:42)
So to me, those blocks are really about where we're putting our energy. Is it towards the relationship? Is it towards the creation and connecting to the motivation and also like getting out of our heads, getting out of our heads, really getting into our bodies, disrupting ... Because if there's a story of like, " I'm blocked, I'm blocked, I'm blocked, "that's just mental chatter. And if you get into your body and you throw on a vibey song and you dance and you just let whatever comes through, even though it might not be what you think is supposed to be coming through, it's creativity. And so that flow starts to happen and you start to disrupt the mental patterns of doubt that block the creative flow and you move into being moved by that same energy that wanted to create this with you and you're creating something else, you're creating a dance, you're creating an expression, you're creating something.
(19:31)
And I think that that really can help to revive someone who might perceive themselves as having a creative block. I think it's a perception more than something that's actually happening because creativity is everywhere all the time. It's like a current.
Carla (19:46):
Amazing. Luna, thank you for coming on this podcast. Where can we find you? How can we support you?
Luna (19:53):
I loved being here today. I always love connecting with you, all my conversations with you, whether short and sweet, digitally or long form have been really nourishing. And I hang out in two places. One is lunaloveleadership.com. That's my website. The other is Luna Battalia on Instagram. We talked about Messenger and that's a course that you're in and enrolled in and enjoying. And so I would just love to offer your audience 10% off on that course Messenger with the code Carla. Messenger is a great place to start if you're really in ... Whether you could be in business for a long time and have developed a brand for a long time, but it's a really great place to reconnect and revive the voice of the business entity to feel more authentic, connect with the right people, have storytelling, and really focus on positioning and unique point of view that can separate you from the milieu of repetitious everything, ChatGPT, all the things that just everybody starts to look and sound the same.
(20:51)
It's my 15 years of doing this work, what I do with one-on-one clients, boiled down into a step-by-step self-paced program.
Carla (21:00):
Thanks so much for tuning in to Nourishing Creativity. You can find me chef Carla Contreras across all social media platforms and more information in today's show notes. While you have your phone out, please leave a review on iTunes or Spotify. This is how others find this show. I really appreciate your support, sending you and yours so much love.
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