Interviews & insights have appeared in
various publications and podcasts:
"When we talk about people, it’s very easy to talk about the things we don’t do well. We easily go to our weaknesses. My job is to encourage people to think about their strengths and what makes them a leading product". -Joanna Dutra The Story Behind Her Success Podcast March 2023.
So excited to introduce you all to Joanna Dutra, a confidence coach with a Fortune 500 background, also known as The Creative Confidant! Joanna is originally from Buffalo. She attended college in Washington DC, moved to Boston after graduating, and never left!
The south shore moms
Joanna is a member of the Forbes Coaches Council and a regular contributor. Eight years ago, she and her family decided to move out of the city for some more green space with the kids. While she still won’t consider herself a suburbanite, she loves the coastal living on the South Shore.
◇ Tell us what you love about The South Shore?
The towns are so picturesque and quaint – how many places in America can you have a view of the ocean while you’re pumping gas? We’re lucky to live here!
Guest contributor to Clandestine Kitchen, a “total body wellness” brand, fusing together clean nutrition with fitness, beauty, fashion and surrounding oneself with good, positive vibes.
Empowerment: A New year’s evolution
There have been a lot of surprising things about 2020…and that, my friends, is the finest understatement of the year.
But perhaps we can all agree that a horse named Authentic winning the 2020 Kentucky Derby couldn’t be more fitting. We strive towards authenticity in our daily lives. With the great pause the pandemic has offered us, and the forced introspection which has
accompanied it, we are able to better examine our insides and what makes us who we are.
Lately we’ve had some extra time to reflect on ourselves, and what better time to ponder who we really want to be.
Watch this edition of the Cake and Conversation series with Joanna Dutra of The Creative Confidant.
cohasset library
Our special guest, motivational speaker Joanna Dutra, will teach us ways of coping with the new normal and how we can keep a positive, energetic outlook.
Watch on the Paul Pratt Memorial Library YouTube channel, also on 143TV (Comcast channel 9)
Community Reflections
Published in The Hingham Anchor November 23, 2022
By Joanna Dutra THE CREATIVE CONFIDANT
Earlier this year I was asked by the incredible photographer Brooke Bartletta to participate in a community project called We Are Hingham.
I submitted a less-than-flattering black and white photo and some descriptors, and now it is on a banner draped in the football stadium at our high school.
When asked what community means to me, my answer was brief: Everything.
We choose where we live with high expectations of a good life. A community supports each other through life’s obstacles and its accomplishments.
It relishes in the success or anguish of its members, lifting them high up over the group’s shoulders. Any individual’s pain can be better shared, with problems solved and solutions offered.
The family we’re born into and the family we create with the friends we make are knitted together like a colorful quilt. We take that quilt with us when we leave for school and college and travels, through job changes and life changes.
Its pieces reflect the journey we’ve made and are a way of reflecting what we see in ourselves.
Community is not so much a place as it is an idea, an aspiration.
We strive to be better connected with how we relate to one another.
We strive to be communal as we approach our differences, with mutual respect and the ability to listen to differing opinions.
A community is an idea similar to a Field of Dreams: if you build it, Community will come.
It’s a constantly evolving place where everyone is welcome to live with their own dream; friendships sprouting from seeds planted generation to generation – a woven quilt of love and respect.
It’s interesting to look back on my own words which were written last year, before some recent losses of life here in our hamlet. The place many of us call home, Hingham, is hurting right now.
Is a community a reflection of its people? Is it a reflection of its pain?
When I was growing up, I had a card taped to my mirror – on the front was a quote from William James: “Wherever you are, it is your friends who make your world.”
Maybe I was inspired at a young age, but I really don’t think I had an understanding of how much friendships would mean as an adult.
Childhood can be wonderful with its innocence and laughter and absence of worries about the future. We also know it can be the opposite of these things.
But friendship. Well, that’s a more complex and fundamental property of adulthood. It’s critical.
You choose friends, you bring people into your life who share something. You build relationships with their kids and watch them grow – celebrate their milestones as if they’re your own.
In these times, we look to anything and anyone that brings us comfort. Good friends are a solid place to start.
Please check in with your friends, we know the holidays can be challenging. Life itself has been heavy.
As one of my own friends reminded me the other day, it comes at you hard, and it comes at you fast and you never know which one of those things it’s going to be in the next day or the next hour.
We have to stick together. We need each other. I am here for anyone that needs me. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, please reach out if you want a quick pick-me-up. I am here for you. You don’t have to be a close friend.
I believe we are in this world to feel better when we are knit strongly together like a big family.
With love and great respect to your friends and family you value most, I am grateful for you this Thanksgiving.
The Hingham Anchor
October 26, 2021 by Laura Winters
Hingham resident Joanna Dutra of The Creative Confidant will be a keynote speaker alongside NBC News Anchor JC Monahan for the sold-out South Shore Conference for Women on Thursday October 28th at the Marriott Boston Quincy. This annual conference aims to inspire, connect, motivate, and move women through every stage along their path. In addition to the two keynote addresses, there are breakout panels throughout the day comprised of three relatable and accessible experts.
Joanna brings a 20-year background in advertising and product marketing for Fortune 500 companies to a personal level. Believing in the power of making creative connections, she works individually with corporate executives as well as groups to build their best personal brand.
Joanna is active in the community, running confidence workshops for adults as well as students. Summer workshops targeted rising 6th graders were fun and interactive, helping them identify their unique talents as they approach middle school. Other workshops include adult and youth sports teams, college students and creative collaborations with local businesses. People of all ages can harness their creativity; Joanna’s passion is finding ways of unveiling and illuminating strengths.
According to one workshop participant: “Joanna speaks in colors, she is a visionary public speaker who weaves together analogies, anecdotes, and cultural touchstones to paint vivid pictures and masterfully illustrate ideas. She’s able to bring you out into the broader world as well as deeper within yourself.”
Joanna is also a frequent contributor to Forbes, where her vision of the world is a source of humor and positivity. Whether she’s making presentations or making people laugh, Joanna believes confidence is contagious. It's just a matter of finding the right view of yourself.
While the conference is sold out, the next opportunity to see Joanna is November 17th at an event called Cooking with Confidence, a local collaboration with Hingham Chef Jennifer Mullen from The Whole Jam. For more details and links to Forbes articles, visit her website.
Getting our Holiday Bearings
Published in The South Shore Moms - December 8th, 2021
by Joanna Dutra THE CREATIVE CONFIDANT
I had an unusual childhood. I grew up with a television but was never allowed to watch it. Except for Saturday mornings when my brothers and I could watch a few episodes of Sesame Street followed by a PBS-access show on the animal kingdom.
I haven’t bestowed the exact same rules on our two kids, but we do keep our house devoid of most technology. Unsurprisingly, nature documentaries are a staple, and David Attenborough a veritable demigod. Just the sound of his voice makes my girls snap to attention.
It’s easy to take cues from nature since it offers a constant source of inspiration. As we approach the changing seasons and how difficult it can sometimes be to say goodbye to the freedom and warmth that accompanies summer – I started thinking about bears. Did you know that bears consume 90% of their entire year’s food in just a few weeks? They store the food as fat that keeps them fed through winter hibernation. We should do this with our good vibes. We need to store up some good energy and fun memories to reflect on as we enter a time of our own hibernation.
It’s probably safe to say that in the past year all of us have been looking for ways to break out of our Covid cocoon and live in the most authentic way. We have been riding a wave of emotions – sometimes more like a roller-coaster – that can really mess with our internal chi.
I’ve always found it helpful to look for signs of hope around us. It’s hope, not happiness, which helps keep us afloat. But what happens when our hope is stretched thin?