ABOUT
Welcome to Daring Studios
a facilitation and strategy coaching company for solopreneurs, freelancers, and creatives.
My mission is to help you gain the clarity and direction you need to get the freedom you want.
What do you want to be different in your business and life?
What do you want to sustain?
What does clarity FEEL like for you?
How might you create and integrate the supportive services and processes you need to move in the direction you want?
These are the questions I ask myself and the questions we ask you to guide you to your most meaningful path forward.
My Story
Daring Studios is the container I created to give myself the structure I needed to get the freedom I wanted as a solopreneur, facilitator, and business owner.
Let’s rewind for a quick montage. I grew up and went to college in Kansas, moved to DC for a job working educational conferences, and joined a growing consulting company as the first fully internal person. As I worked that 9-5, I dove deep into exploring and growing facilitation, human-centered design, strategy, design, and visual thinking skills through meetups, trainings, and conferences.
Then, came a realization and a pivot point. I realized that I wanted to leave my current job, that I didn’t want to find another 9-5. I wanted to explore the freedom of working for myself.
I wanted to be self-employed!
Knowing I would need to balance that freedom with structure, I created Daring Studios.
- A visual brand that holds client work and customers.
- A trademarked name that anchors my tax and business identity.
- And a dynamic container to support my personal and professional growth in new directions.
The journey from the founding of the company to the present has explored a range of skills, expertise, and pivots. These are all milestones in the growth and strategic direction of Daring Studios.
Visual and Virtual Facilitation
Teaching & Workshops
Strategic Consulting
Meetups, and more.
And the story continues…
THEMES & VALUES
A creative studio is a place to create. It provides an invitation to design and play with vulnerability, authenticity, and daring. We design the studios we work in. If we don’t design it, we default to a box that might not fit, meet our needs, or support the progress we want to make in the direction we want to go.
The design of Daring Studios has consistent underlying themes and values threaded through the journey.
I work at the intersection of strategy, people, and design using human-centered methods. And Daring Studios holds space for the collision of our inextricably intertwined personal and professional lives.
Freedom
The ability to be my own anchor and engine. To follow my energy around my time, attention, movement, and work. To have the freedom to explore, play, and adventure.
Structure
Embracing the power of structure, routine, and constraints to increase a sense of safety, build needed support, and act as a launching board for creativity, experimentation, and growth.
Curiosity
Approaching the world with a mindset of openness, wonder, and a desire to explore what if. Embracing the inherent complexity and wildness of humanity with generous assumptions and a desire to learn more.
Authenticity
Showing up as we are, as I am, consistently and with courage.
Hi, I’m Rachel Thompson
Learn More & Connect:
ADVENTURER, EDITOR, FACILITATOR, GUIDE
I’m a facilitator, editor, designer, business strategist, educator, and retreat host. As the Founder and Strategic Director of Daring Studios, I love working both IN the business and ON the business.
I have over fifteen years of professional experience as a facilitator and business consultant including strategic facilitation, virtual meeting design and facilitation, meeting design and production, workshop facilitation, conference, summit and retreat design and facilitation, human-centered design and design thinking workshops, storytelling, experiential learning and teaching, business coaching, visual template design, worksheet design, website design, copywriting, marketing, branding and podcast production.
I hold a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology and French from Kansas State University and am a Certified Professional Facilitator (CPF). I’m is a member of the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), International Association of Facilitators (IAF), and International Forum of Visual Practitioners (IFVP).
