This week I would like to introduce everyone to Boho Beautiful. Boho Beautiful is a YouTube channel run by a husband and wife couple, Juliana and Mark. They provide the world with 20 minute yoga, pilates, and meditation classes. Their passion in life is fitness. And I believe they are creative for many different reasons. They are creative in the fitness world, video editing, and marketing.
First let’s briefly explain why I think they are creative. They have revolutionized yoga practice. Juliana was one of the first fitness instructors to post yoga videos on YouTube. Not only was it innovative to post yoga classes on YouTube, the videos themselves are creative. She always does her yoga in stunning outdoor locations: anywhere from Turks and Caicos to Tibet. Mark is the creative force behind the brand’s video editing. Mark beautifully and seamlessly edits the videos, creating beautiful shots while having a simple view for participants to understand the yoga poses. They also are creative in their marketing. They don’t sell only yoga. They sell a lifestyle. They promote vegan diets, wellbeing tips, and travel. Here’s a snapshot of what their classes are like and what they sell.
Now let’s talk about what I can gather from their creative process. They have an incredible amount of intrinsic motivation. They dropped their life in a cozy home in Canada to become wanderers. They now live in a van and travel the world constantly. They gave up the security of their 9-5 jobs and house in Canada to follow a dream that they weren’t exactly sure was gonna work. That is some intrinsic motivation. Mark recently said in one of their videos that no one tells them to do this. They are entrepreneurs. It is up to them and their own motivation to create content. They have no boss telling them when to get up or what to do. They are their own boss, further proving their intrinsic motivation. Now that their channel has hit over 1 million subscribers, extrinsic motivation is playing a larger role in their creative process. They get sponsorships from major companies like Fabletics. They are YouTube famous. This extrinsic motivation has grown over time but their initial motivation and the motivation still at the core of Boho Beautiful is intrinsic.
This team is a great example of what we talked about is class this week: collaboration. Personally, I am in awe of their collaborative ability. As we saw in the example of Tversky and Kahneman, creatives working together can often see conflict and arguments, some of which may do permanent damage to their creative relationship. Juliana and Mark have found a perfectly maintainable creative relationship. They can be creative together while also preserving their marriage. They play off of each others strengths to create premium content. Mark provides video editing and film making skills while Juliana creates the fitness content.
Juliana must experience insight. Her philosophy is one of love, yoga, and being in the moment. She promotes meditation and focusing on breathing. She derives inspiration from nature. I bet she experiences a lot of insight from her yoga practice: noticing what her body needs and what her subscribers might want. Meditation clears the mind which can lead to flow states, which probably spark her creativity.
What I love the most about their YouTube channel and their creative process is that you can see a clear development of their creative capacities. If you watch a video that they posted 4 years ago versus now, there’s an incredible difference. The quality of Juliana’s instruction has developed and the video production has changed in amazing ways. I feel that it is important that they haven’t taken their lesser quality videos down. It shows that creativity has to be worked on and developed. Maybe a creative person has a great idea and weak execution but that doesn’t mean that the dream is over or that creativity is burnt out. It means that it just needs some development.
All in all Boho Beautiful is a fantastically creative yoga YouTube channel. I highly encourage everyone to try one of her videos and get a glimpse at the creative force behind the fitness movement. Here's the link to their page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWN2FPlvg9r-LnUyepH9IaQ
It is incredible to see people actually live out their dreams and be successful in their field. Youtube is a visual domain, so there is a large gray area between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Though their endeavor may have started out intrinsically motivated, the popularity, fame, and money can quickly turnover their intentions. Just to play devil's advocate, another Youtube couple, PrankvsPrank's Jesse and Jeana, eventually admitted to solely being extrinsically motivated at the end; their commitment to their brand masked the tension going on in their relationship and lives. The couple ended up breaking up. How have Mark and Juliana balanced their lives with being so present in the media? How do their efforts of collaboration complement and support the other?
ReplyDeleteLooking through some of their content I totally believe they started from an intrinsic place of motivation although it is very hard to argue that now. When you are aware of a large impact you may have on the world of social media, you cannot only think about doing this for yourself anymore because one wrong move and you could lose followers. When the number of followers/views is what is maintaining your livelihood, I believe that there is actually a large amount of extrinsic motivation involved despite us wanting to believe otherwise. I would love to think my favorite YouTuber's make their content purely out of enjoyment, but I feel like reality would say otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your blog post about Boho Beautiful! I do not watch a lot of Youtube myself, so I have not heard of Juliana and Mark before. However, I did a lot of sports in high school and am still very active today, so I can relate to the fitness lifestyle part of Boho Beautiful. I have never really seriously tried yoga before, but I think I will now! I agree with you in that since they have gained a lot of publicity, their motivation has become partly extrinsic. Although most of us see intrinsic motivation as humble and extrinsic motivation as greedy, I don't think extrinsic motivation is a bad thing, especially in their case. Like you said, they dropped everything and are traveling the world living in a van. They need to make money somehow. Very interesting post- thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing about Boho Beautiful and the wonderful married couple behind it! I was intrigued by the creative process you mentioned in the post.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as much as I'm convinced that they are heavily intrinsically motivated (you provided good evidence), I also believe that they are in some way extrinsically motivated, given how social media (especially YouTube) can change people. Emily brought up a very good point here -- I feel like a YouTuber or influencer in general may start off being intrinsically motivated, but after a certain amount of time when they've gained a decent amount of followers, they start to shift from their original intentions towards maintaining or increasing their number of followers.
Arguably, without followers/subscribers, Juliana and Mark would probably not be as passionate about yoga as they are now, knowing that at least 1 million people are watching them. I know that this may be a very bold statement to make, but I'll leave it to others for discussion.
Anyway, this was a great read!