Published on September 21, 2017 | Last Updated on September 21, 2017

I’m super excited to kick off the Cultivating Kindness series today! The idea for this series came about a couple months ago when I was chatting with a couple of my friends about how even though it doesn’t always feel like it, there is so much positivity shared through social media. I wanted to figure out a way to highlight some of the talented people who always choose to uplift and empower in hopes to inspire others to do more of the same!

Without further ado, let’s get started! Today’s interview features Allie Nute of Verb House Creative. I met Allie last summer through a mutual friend and within an hour our get-to-know-you conversation with a bottle of rosé quickly escalated into dancing to Spice Girls on our imaginary dance floor. I guess you could say we hit it off?! 😉 Since then we’ve kept in touch through social media and I always look forward to seeing her posts. Not only does she create gorgeous imagery for the clients, Allie does a great job sharing thought provoking questions and engaging her audience to share more than your typical surface level responses. One of my favorite things about Allie?? She writes exactly how she talks (#goals!) and her witty responses make you feel like you’re having coffee with your best friend. I know after you read her responses you’ll love her too!

DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS?

Starbucks gift cards are my jam. One of my clientfriends, E. Frances Paper, has this amazing product that they call Little Notes, cause they are quite literally little notes. They’re so fun to write random fun things on them and leave them in random places, like one in the Target dressing room that says “you look good!” or simply at the bottom of my husband’s lunch bag. I love those little things and think the whole wide world should carry around Little Notes so we can just deposit Little Notes of happiness everywhere we go. 🙂

FAVORITE PICK ME UP WHEN YOU’RE IN A RUT?

Ooooh, man – admittedly, there are quite a few, ha! An absurdly long hot shower in the middle of the day never fails to snap me out of it and leaves me feeling refreshed when the day has been a drag. Taking time to thoroughly enjoy and appreciate the freedom my career allows me by reading a book by the pool or at the coffee shop for an hour on a random afternoon, going to an afternoon movie on my own, or having lunch at one of my favorite cafes never fails to perk me back up. And most importantly, spending time in community with others. Best rut buster there is. I find when I’m in a rut it can be for a number of reasons, of course, but usually, I’ve just been in my own head too much and need to get out and appreciate the little things again.

FAVORITE GUILTY PLEASURE?

Well, I don’t really believe in the guilty part of pleasure, because if it brings us pleasure should we really feel guilty? No way jose. So, reading for hours on end, copious amounts of Starbucks green iced tea, British chocolate (it is seriously way better than any of this U.S. chocolate stuff), beautiful coffee table books, magazines, pizza, insanely early bedtimes – I love all of these things to the moon and back again.

TELL US ABOUT A KIND ACT SOMEONE DID FOR YOU RECENTLY? BIG OR SMALL!

In the Spring I was hit with a pretty tough personal battle that I had absolutely zero control over. I let a few of my clientfriends know that I would perhaps be a bit harder to get in touch with over the next few days and soon I had not one but TWO separate Farmgirl Flower deliveries from two of those clientfriends, and a generous Starbucks gift card from another. These sweet acts brought me to my knees – each clientfriend recognized the difficulty in the situation, offered their love and full support, and knew that flowers and Starbucks could make me smile. It was the sweetest of acts.

I swear my life isn’t all hard at all, but this has definitely been one of the more difficult personal seasons I’ve walked through in years. Last month, when still walking said hard personal path and on a particularly difficult day, my best friend packed up her 9-month-old baby and drove six hours from Lubbock, Texas just to come sit at my house and be with me. I will forever remember this selfless act and the way she showed me true love and grace and friendship for all the days of my life. 

IN WHAT WAYS DO YOU USE YOUR BUSINESS TO SPREAD KINDNESS?

In every single thing I do, act on, agree to, and say. I believe kindness and joy can come in many different forms, and I try to make everything I do with Verb House feel invigorating, truthful, encouraging, limitless, and FUN. Life is way too short and hard to take ourselves so seriously all of the time, to not speak our truths, and to not find the fun in the everyday tasks and minutes that make up our days. I love to gift random Starbucks gift cards to people, I love to send random text messages of encouragement (trying to move that over to snail mail!), I love to surprise clientfriends with something special or unexpected, I love to speak about the hard things that most aren’t talking about, but in a way that will hopefully uplift us all and tie us closer to one another. There are so many ways to spread kindness and the most radical one of them all it seems, is simply BEING KIND. Crazy, right?

WHO INSPIRES YOU MOST AND WHY?

Hmmmm – gosh, so many people inspire me in so many different ways. I’m always inspired by the way Grace Bonney of DesignSponge speaks out on topics that matter in the art and design community, culture and society, and just being a human being in general, Kate Arends of Wit & Delight inspires me to the moon and back in every single day – business, design, motherhood, womanhood, everything. My clientfriends inspire me like all get out – they have some seriously creative brains and awesome products. Meredith, YOU inspire me too! That’s why I want to pick you up and fold you into my pocket and just carry you around with me all the time. Baby can come in the pocket too when she’s born. 🙂 Random, badass ladies I find through Instagram who are crushing life and business really inspire me – those are often more short bursts of inspiration to stop procrastinating and get back down to it, but hey, still inspiration, right?

#WORDSTOLIVEBY:

Walk in love and this verse gets me through life, time and time again: “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” John 13:7

Allie Morris Nute is the boss lady and your new business bff behind Verb House Creative. She provides content creation, digital marketing management, and consulting services to incredible businesses – with personality, heart, and dedication.

Definitely addicted to Starbucks’s iced green tea (venti, no water, no sweetener, light ice, please) and a color lover who believes life and business should be fun and small talk is pointless, Allie lives in the Austin, Texas area with her cute British hubs (she’s makin’ him a Texan one way or another!) and their two wild Goldendoodles. She geeks out over her client’s successes, spends her free time devouring books and trying to quiet the never ending list of ideas in her brain, and swimming and running and playing outside like the kid that we all still are.

KEEP IN TOUCH WITH ALLIE:

Follow along on Instagram @verbhousecreative | Verb House Creative Website