Creativity as a Way of Life with Morgan Harper Nichols

<p><a href="https://morganharpernichols.com/" target="_blank">Morgan Harper Nichols</a> might be the rarest bird in the entrepreneurial aviary: she was actually <i>looking</i> for a nine-to-five job when she started as an internet sensation. After a half-decade on the contemporary Christian music scene, she was tired of hustling. “It’s a hard industry to be in,” she says. She was looking for something more stable, but, she laughs, with an English degree, “there aren’t a ton of Indeed posts out there.”</p><p>In 2016, she put her frustration <a href="https://morganharpernichols.medium.com/when-you-start-to-feel-like-things-should-have-been-better-this-year-316f467cccc2" target="_blank">into words</a>, shared her personal poem on Pinterest, and then forgot about it. But in a few short weeks, that poem had been repinned over 100,000 times. She had gone viral without really trying to. </p><p>From there, she’s launched herself as a visual artist and poet, been picked up by publishing company Zondervan, amassed more than 1.7 million Instagram followers, done collaborations with <a href="https://twitter.com/morganhnichols/status/1084560616029712384?lang=en" target="_blank">Coach</a>, <a href="https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2021/03/31/morgan-harper-nichols-art-illustrates-the-intricacies-of-human-connection.html#gs.1fj60l" target="_blank">Adobe</a>, <a href="https://vogue.sg/vogue-singapore-in-bloom-morgan-harper-nicholsisation-of-words-shapes-and-shades/" target="_blank">Vogue</a> and <a href="https://www.ae.com/aerie-real-life/2019/07/24/real-talk-with-morgan-harper-nichols/" target="_blank">Aerie</a>, and launched <a href="https://www.thestorytellerco.com/app" target="_blank">The Storyteller App</a>, where, for $2.99 a month, subscribers receive a daily infusion of her poetry and art. </p><p>She credits her followers for the push that got her where she is today.  Back in 2017, a DM in her inbox requesting an illustrated poem netted her fifty dollars—her first commission—and the sense that this was something she shou