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We’re delighted to bring you this interview with Irene Smit, co-founder of one of our favourite magazines, Flow.

If you haven’t seen Flow you’re missing a treat! It’s an inspirational magazine created for women who live busy lives, who enjoy making things, who are interested in practical philosophy and positive psychology, and who want to live in the moment and make different kinds of choices.

Over the last seven years Flow has become an international sensation. Having started out as a small Dutch magazine at the height of the economic crisis in 2008, it’s now available in four languages across 20 countries, proving that if you follow your heart and your passion, anything is possible. Packed full of papery goodness, it’s a wonderful celebration of creativity, imperfection, and life’s little pleasures. Enjoy! ~ Rachel

Irene Smit. Credit Marloes Bosch Fotografie

1. How are you ‘doing what you love’?

When we (that’s me and my co-founder Astrid van der Hulst) started Flow magazine we came up with the line: you can create the most beautiful things when you dare to follow your feelings. So that’s what we did and still do today: make a magazine that is based on our instincts, intuition, and that comes from our hearts. We are both creative directors of the magazine and all the products we make. We love what we do. We especially cherish Wednesday mornings when we sit in a nice coffeehouse, drink Latte Macchiatos and talk about the magazine and products we are making. We generate the best ideas during these inspiring sessions.

Co-founders of Flow magazine: Irene (L) and Astrid van der Hulst (R). Credit Marloes Bosch Fotografie

2. What did you do before this?

I was features editor in chief at Marie Claire magazine in the Netherlands.

3. How did Flow come about?

We felt it was time for another kind of magazine, a magazine that was about us instead of trends and fashion, about real lives and real people, with ‘life lessons’ about daily subjects we dealt with. Things like perfectionism, letting go, feeling guilty (towards our children, friends or family for not spending enough time with them), accepting life as it is, etc. Just before we started we both did a mindfulness course. It was really inspiring and it offered many valuable insights about life and how to get the most from it. We wanted to share that message, together with our passion for paper, creativity and illustrations.

4. What is the philosophy behind Flow and why is it so successful? 

Flow is a magazine that helps your reflect on life. Flow celebrates creativity, imperfection and life’s little pleasures. We focus on four themes (feel connected, live mindfully, spoil yourself and simplify your life) and each section is printed on a different kind of paper. We also always add two paper goodies in each issue, like notebooks, calendars, postcards, etc. And we make special editions around one theme, like for example Flow Mindfulness.

Besides that, we also produce products like calendars, diaries and notebooks. I think we are so successful because Flow really comes from our hearts, and it fits so well in the zeitgeist. People are looking for new ways to live their lives: strategies to help them find their passion and purpose, escape the increasing pressures of the digital world, and to make time to relax and just be.

5. Flow is such an inspiring read. How do you come up with such great ideas for content?

Inspiration is never a problem for us. We look into our own lives, the things our friends deal with, read things in newspapers, and then we have tons of ideas for articles. As for the paper part, we love visiting children’s bookstores and stationery gift shops. You can do so much more with paper than print letters on it, and we find ideas everywhere for these paper presents in the issues. We add them because we want Flow to feel like a present, something you indulge yourself with and we want to surprise the readers with these paper gifts.

Me (R) generating ideas with Astrid (L) 

6. The economic crisis hit in 2008, just as you launched your first issue. How did you get through this, and the digital explosion that followed, and what big lessons did you learn along the way?

The crisis wasn’t a problem for us in fact I think it helped us grow because we were reassured that people really did want to read more about the kind of subjects we were planning to feature in our magazine. At the time there were many issues with welfare and people seemed obsessed with wanting more – everything needed to be bigger and better – but the financial crisis brought about a shift in thinking. Now people seem more focussed on downsizing, living a simpler life, connecting to people with similar values and interests, discovering what really matters to them, etc. And these are the topics we cover in our magazine. I think people are spending less money on holidays in far away places and instead they are looking to make small changes to improve their overall quality of life and that includes enjoying every day pleasures like treating themselves to a magazine like Flow!

As far as the digital explosion: that’s not a problem for us, on the contrary, it fits so well with what we do. Our magazine and our products are for paper lovers who love the tactile feeling of paper and it’s this, combined with the endless possibilities the digital world brings, is what helps us grow. For example: we work with illustrators worldwide and we find them by social media. Pinterest and Instagram are invaluable to us as they enable us to connect with creative people all over the world. And through our website and social media sites we are able to let people all over the world know that Flow exists, give them a feel for what we do and offer a subscription to the magazine.

In the end we hope people go out buy a paper version of the magazine, but we are also delighted when people read our blogs, or comment on things we do on for instance Instagram. With help from social media we can be a platform for creative people worldwide. We have also produced some apps for tablets and iPhones, and we think there are tons of possibilities on the Internet for Flow. We don’t have enough time to work on them yet, but we have big plans for more online Flow-ish things.

7. What are your top three highlights since Flow started?

In 2010 we launched our first international edition, in English, in very low circulation (5,000 copies). That was a special day. Before that we received lots of letters from people all over the world who found us but could not read our magazine, and who asked us what Flow was about, and then they started to write us, saying things like: ‘what a great magazine, this is about me and my life, you feel like friends to me.’ And these letters came from everywhere, from Tokyo, New York, Sydney and more. Every time we receive a letter like this from somewhere in the world, we are so grateful.

Flow magazine – International issue 11

In 2014 we did a talk in a very beautiful bookstore in Tokyo: Tsutaya Daikanyama. It was wonderful to walk into a bookstore, see all our Flow products there and to meet Flow fans from all over the world. Last October we had a similar thing: we did a talk in New York, in Barnes and Noble bookstore on Upper East Side. We talked about our love for paper and hosted a workshop with illustrator Allison Cole. Again it was a really special day with some lovely inspiring people.

8. What gets you up in the morning? And keeps you up at night?

It’s not the magazine but my kids. Of course all the great things that are happing with Flow, the worldwide growth and the new products we are making, are always in my mind, but hey, in the end it is my family that counts.9. How would you describe the way you live? Do you ‘go with the Flow?’

Ha-ha, I wish! If I did ‘go with the flow’ I don’t think I’d be so inspired or productive, especially when it comes to the magazine. I am always busy, I get restless easily, I have tons of creative ideas, and I’m a real perfectionist. Sometimes I have to consciously stop my thoughts, particularly when they aren’t useful, and this is usually when I go off for a run or meditate. Astrid is sort of the same. We aren’t living a Zen-like life at all, but we try to be mindful in all we do.

10. How do you juggle being a great mum and having a fabulous career?

I have two lives. I work a lot when the kids are staying at their father’s house as we are co-parenting. When they are with me I make time for them. So, my working hours are very flexible. I work a lot at night or at the weekends when the children aren’t around. It feels great that I can combine my hard work for Flow with being a mum this way. I also think that part of being a great mum is to show your children how great it is when you’re passionate about your work, and how happy it can make you when you create things you like. I try to raise my children mindfully, so the wise lessons I learn from the magazine I implement at home. I hope that helps them in life.

11. What are the simple pleasures in your life?

I love allowing myself to have a relaxed Sunday morning with a pile of newspapers and café latte. Starting the day without any plans or to-do lists is difficult for me, but I really try. I live close to the beach and I have a very tiny beach house with a friend, and this is such a great place. Wifi often doesn’t work there and it is so quiet. I love looking at the waves, taking a walk on the beach, smelling the sea.

12. What does creativity mean to you?

Creativity is a very special gift to me and it brings many benefits: it enables me to come up with new ideas easily, find good solutions for problems, and connect ideas in my head. However sometimes it can be a nuisance. My mind works 24 hours a day pulling me in many different directions, and I have difficulty quieting the noise. I often spend too much time pondering life, asking ‘what if…?’, playing out different scenarios in my head, and worrying about what he/she thinks, etc., which can be exhausting. As for creating things, I am not a star when it comes to drawing, I wish I was, but I can crochet and I’ve done several courses in silver smithing.

13. You believe in being mindful. How do you practice mindfulness in everyday life and what benefits does it bring you?

I’ve taken several courses in mindfulness and they have really helped me to change the way I live my life. When I find myself mulling over things too much, I try to look at my thoughts in a mindful way – from a distance – and try to find out what is real and what is just fantasy.

Mindfulness gives me a more realistic view on life: I don’t have to be happy all the time; I don’t have to do everything the best I can; I don’t have to be nice to everyone all the time. Things come and go, feelings come and go, and when I look at myself from a distance, things often feel often a lot better. But as I mentioned before, I am not mindful at all most of the time and I can laugh about that. I write a blog about my attempts to be mindful every Friday on our website, so people who want to read about the ways I try to be mindful can follow me.

14. How can showing ourselves compassion, and embracing minimalism, make us happier?

Well, I think a lot of people – especially women – are too harsh on themselves. We have all these demands and expectations and ideas about how life should be, how we should act, and how we should look. If we can speak to ourselves the way we would talk to a friend, with love, kindness, and compassion, we would stop being so hard on ourselves. I try to remember that when I have these voices in my head like ‘’hey go on, you can’t give up’’ or ‘’it is weak to stop now,’’ etc.

Seeing the bigger picture often means you have a clearer vision of what makes you happy in the end. To me that doesn’t mean earning more money, working harder, owning a bigger house or anything else. What makes me truly happy is the tiny pleasures in daily life. Things like living in my neighbourhood – a place where we support each other in little ways, my children being happy when we bake a cake together, my friends sending me a card, or my colleagues bringing me hot soup just when I need it.

15. What are your New Year’s resolutions?

I never make resolutions because they make me unhappy. I decided a few years ago to stop thinking about what I want to do differently and start focussing on the things that went well last year. It’s a more gentle way to approach the New Year: thinking about what I liked and what I want to bring from that to the next year, such as the great Sunday mornings when I allow myself to do nothing. In the end the result is the same: it means I will try to put less pressure on myself and do more of what I love.

(Our founder, Beth Kempton, is using this very diary this year to plan all her adventures)

16. What’s the big dream for Flow magazine, and for you personally?

For Flow, I hope we can keep conquering the world. We have now licenses in France and Germany, there are French and German teams working on the issues and they are doing a great job. We produce the international (English) edition ourselves here in the Netherlands, I hope one day I can have a bigger team and make more ‘’local’’ issues in for instance the States, UK, Australia or Canada, and work with local teams there also.

Personally, I hope my life will carry on the way it is, balanced with work, my children, and a new love who lives in the south of the Netherlands  – a stable rock in my hectic life. And in coming years I also hope I can find more time to do another course in silver smithing, finish all the crochet projects I’ve started, learn how to draw, start my own e-shop selling paper products, re-decorate my house with new wallpaper, plants and lots of other green items, go to Cuba with my children, renew the floor in my beach house because it’s in a horrible state, and organise some drinks for the people in my neighbourhood! And well, let’s keep dreaming!

Image from a Flow paperback book

For more information about Flow magazine, visit flowmagazine.com. You can also follow Flow on Twitter: theworldofflow, Instagram: Flow_magazine and Pinterest: FlowMagazine

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