What happens now? The truth of creative success.

From a reflective week in Kiama navigating endings, beginnings, and the discomfort of growth, this episode explores what success really feels like.  We will hear about Warwick Thornton, internationally acclaimed director who made a career by telling deeply personal Indigenous stories on his own terms. 

Welcome to Beyond the Template!

Key Words: 

Creativity, Creative Process, Creative Motivation, Motivation, Encouragement, Creative Success, Australian Filmmakers, Indigenous filmmakers, Australian directors, Warwick Thornton, Independent film, Cannes Film Festival, Beyond the Template podcast 

 If you feel like you have done everything possible to get going and keep going with your work… including even taking courses or using coaches… but somehow you continue stalling, that’s what I am here for.  To fill a gap that SO many seem to need.  It’s one thing to know what you want to do, it is quite another thing to actually do it with consistency and perseverance, especially when everything (including your own brain) seems to be getting in the way.  I am here to serve as the creative strategy partner who gets you through to the next phase of you work.  I offer individualized solutions and approaches for my clients that are pumped about their ideas and won’t settle for less than achieving their goals. 

My business, Âme Collaborative offers emotionally intelligent partnership to diverse thinkers, creatives, innovators, and artists feeling the pressure of completion and delivery. My job is to remain by their side and work with them, not against them, to accomplish something that feels too overwhelming alone… while upholding the soul of their work.  If this sounds like you, and you have an idea you are excited about but need help with making a reality, reach out!  

You can email me directly at camelieleboeuf@gmail.com to book a FREE, 30-min 1:1 with me to explore how I can help.

And if you want to learn more about some of the ways I work with my clients, you can visit www.amecollaborative.com wher...

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome back to Beyond the Template, everyone. I am sitting here listening to a huge storm sweeping in through Kayama, a beautiful beachside, tiny village, like um it's sort of like a town, about two hours away via train from the south of Sydney. Wiggles, the Terrier Mix, is next to me sleeping soundly under a very soft blanket right now. His ears have actually perked up. He's listening to me talk about him. Um wildly enough, his owner warned me he was aggressive and didn't like belly rubs, but after one day with me, uh he was letting me hold him, snuggle him, wrestle him, and rub his belly forever. Wiggles has also been my full focus this week. This town is very much like New Zealand in that everything is somehow uphill. And uh two two-hour hikes with Wiggles on ocean cliffs and cobblestone sidewalks have been more than enough to accomplish during the day. Not to mention the sun and the southern hemisphere is like being in a microwave to someone who has been blessed with at most 4% melanin. I'm also finishing up my contracts with my large client this month, something both exhilarating and frightening at the same time. And I received my voiceover reel this week. It was really strange hearing myself in such a new context. And it was also something both exhilarating and frightening. This podcast and social media led me to embracing something I've always wondered about but never had the courage to do. So thank you, listeners and followers of this journey I share because I hope to inspire you all to embrace all of the amazing gifts you hold and bring them into the world. That said, this week has me thinking about how scary it is to be successful after so many years of wanting it. I only have two weeks remaining in Australia. It's time to really think about how to keep going on this road that I've started out on. I can't turn back now. I I don't think I couldn't even if I wanted to at this point. Um, so once you get to the intangible, actually into tangible, used to be intangible, now it's tangible. It, what happens? What's next? Is success what you thought it would be? And I don't think it ever is because I don't feel successful, even though this is the most I've ever been paid in connection to how hard I work, the most adventurous I've ever been, and the most expressive I've ever allowed myself to be creatively. And yeah, I have this ick inside of my stomach. The okay, great, but um, what do I do now? Our expanders have each gone through the exact same thing time and time after again. Hey, great job on that. Here's an award. Now you have to come up with something brand new. Good luck. We might hate it. That's exactly what we all go through, I think. So here I am thinking about my own experiences in creative and innovative success, considering who has helped me get here and seeing that we, including me, must accept. Number one, we may never feel like we have arrived. Number two, all of us need to take more moments to see where we've come from instead of always constantly worried about where we are going. Although that's still important, bills got to be paid, right? When we reach these pivotal milestones, this is number three, it might be best to focus on the immediate next steps to continue forward because often these moments feel like catapulting off a cliff versus a short climb up to the next hilltop. I'm very sorry, Kayama has my brain wrapped up in damn hills and hiking metaphors. Did I mention that I am exhausted? I did 9K this morning and I have to do another walk with him this afternoon. All that to say, and honestly, no one should be surprised at this point because I full-on practice what I preach. This week I realized that the season of Beyond the Template may need to end sooner than later. And before, definitely, certainly, absolutely before, I am back in the States, so I can really give my focus to those next steps. As with any creative work, plans are great, plans set up, plans set us up for success. But when you feel the end coming, it doesn't make sense to continue dabbing on paint or chiseling away at wood or restitching something perfectly fine as it is. So instead of forcing myself to continue, I am instead looking back at the 25 episodes I've already written, produced, performed, and published. I've moved forward past 95% of the people trying to create a podcast for the first time. And I'm proud of what I've created so far, and I'm really proud of what we've all done together. We have researched the ins and outs of finding purpose and meaning behind our work in connection to needs, parameters, and logistics. We have heard the inspiring stories, many in the film industry and many outside of it, of those who have done the work and gained perspective on how long things actually take, how stopping and starting is normal, how isolation makes success impossible for large-scale projects, and how one success doesn't mean we've made it. Most importantly, we've explored the realities of the creative process together. The truth is that being creative is a forever state of being for those who pursue it. My business is inspired because I know in my bones the truth of what it takes to move through mental, creative, personal, and professional barriers and how often we give up, even when we know what we want. We have a dream that pulls at us when we gaze off when we're bored, or get frustrated at the limitations of working as someone else's passive income, or something we inherently know we are meant for and have known since we were children. But for some reason, we can't seem to get going. Knowing that I have had people listening each week has served as enough of a reason to push myself. I have continued, despite simultaneously packing up my life and then myself, over 10 times in the past four months. So thank you for being here with me. Thank you for being my creative partners in this. And I've so very much enjoyed researching and creating stories for all of you while traveling based on the individuals who walked in the same spaces I have been in in New Zealand and now in Sydney. It's why I've been so heavily focusing on those in the film industry. But this podcast is so much more than just people who did well in film. Next season, we will have a broader expander range again, and I'm gonna bring in some interviews. So that's exciting. Um, you know, to focus on the people who only succeeded because they kept going. They used all of their resources and they asked for help. My original list I created had me telling the story of Warwick Thornton today. Before I decided to pivot the season, again, I got through about 80% of his story and I looked at it and realized that it felt prescriptive. Like it felt like it was prescriptive. So damn it to hell. The Beyond the Template podcast should not feel like a template. Poop on everything, poop on everything, poop on all of it. You all deserve more than additional forced narratives. So I'm gonna wrap and instead focus on my business, my social media presence, my new VO ventures, and planning next season. Next week will therefore serve as the last episode, episode 27, the final full week of my experiences in Australia before I head home, and final words before we all head off onto our own adventures. And the moon will be void and Libra in my 11th house, so it's a perfect time to end something creative for my audience in connection to career. I hope you appreciate I bring in astrology sometimes. It is the reason why I'm on this trip right now, so I have to do it every once in a while. If you followed through with your own big projects this season, as I hoped, post our side-by-side preparation phases last fall, it's time to wrap as well for you. By now, you should have either finished something you're proud of, prepared something that makes sense with where you want to take it next, or just finish the stage in your creative process. Because all of that is important and all of that is impactful. And it's time to share your success, whatever that looks like, with the world. Please let me know your own milestones, learnings, and successes. I would love to hear from you. Okay, so let's hear a bit about Warwick Thornton now. Knowing this season is at its end, I'm just gonna summarize what I've learned about him instead of our norm. He will be our last expander of season one. So this person is considered like Australia, it claims as one of their most successful and impactful directors, but I'd never heard of him until, you know, this this podcast is getting me learning about people that I've never, I never would come across. Um, so I hope you you appreciate that as well. Warwick Thornton, who knows? Um, Thornton was from the Northern Territory, which I was informed just about today, walking wiggles, actually. A neighbor was walking his own fluffy little terrier, and he told me that the Northern Territory of Australia is an area likened to the southern United States, as in slavery was abundant in building it into what it is today. This neighbor then said, I'm comfortable talking about this because my grandmother is indigenous and she told me stories. So just like in my own US of A, these echoes are still tightly spaced from their origin. Time has not passed long enough to create gaps large enough to breathe easy through them. They exist like wrought iron bars. We might be able to see past them, but it is impossible to move past them yet, nor should we even attempt to. I'm crucially aware of how privileged I am in my life and how those privileges have led me to this moment of living abroad. Expander stories haven't just been a way to entertain you all. They have served as a reminder to be grateful and present each day, and also give myself grace and my own process and accomplishments on this journey. Warwick Thornton's story was no exception. I was thrilled to hear about his successes. It gives me hope of possibility, which is so needed, I think, for everyone right now when it all seems like things are falling and failing. So, Warwick Thornton was heavily influenced by his mother, who was also a creative and a founding member of the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association, or C-A-A-M-A. In his career, his goal in filmmaking was to bring indigenous stories to the world without a romantic or easy-to-swallow twist or lens. From his short film, Nana, in 2007, to his well-known award-winning indie film, Samson and Delilah, that killed at Cannes, and beyond to other feature films, all focusing on telling stories about people who typically aren't made to be the stars or the heroes in Hollywood. Finally, he also went to afters for his degrees in cinematography and direction. I had no idea again. That's where he gathered a really, really strong network. And I think this is wild. And this is what I'm talking about. Tying my travels to individuals who have used their talents and voices to make a change in the world has added such a cool layer to this experience. Being in the same spaces as these creative success stories is beyond inspiring. And that might be inspiring to you too. Like if there's somebody that you admire, shorten the distance between you and them. If there's a way for you to do research about them and to visit spaces that they've actually walked, you quickly realize that everything is attainable if you just believe it is, because it's no longer fantasy, right? You bring it into your reality. I think, I think this might actually be a super impactful psychological trick for those who sort of put people on pedestals. I typically do that. I'm like, oh, you know, they're so, so talented and so creative and so famous and so, you know, successful. And if I've done anything well, it's literally going, oh, well, I've been to afters, I've taken classes at afters, this person did the same, this person did this, why not me too? It's fantastic. Highly recommend if you can. To wrap things up, see, I told you it was going to be a summary. Warwick Thornton did not wait for perfect conditions or large budgets to tell his stories. He started with what was around him, who was around him and what he knew deeply. So, as our final prompt of this season, no matter whether you were in the beginning, middle, or end of your work, I want you to look at it and ask yourself, are you sharing your stories or someone else's? Are you overlooking something powerful because it actually feels too close to home? And if you are, consider what is already in your environment, your history, or your perspective. What story or idea keeps showing up when you have not that maybe you haven't taken seriously yet because it is yours? And what would it look like to begin with the resources and people already available to you as opposed to outsourcing and reaching too far? Because that's what each of these expanders have done. The reason why these stories have been prescriptive is because they they kind of are similar, right? They start with maybe a couple of you know resources at the beginning of their lives, you know, and it hasn't been easy for any of them, but they believe in themselves, they network, they find those helpers, they go out, they look for additional resources, they think outside the box in terms of financing, you know, projects that they want to do. But it really is about like building that supportive community for the most part. Some of them have more resources when they when they grow up, like this individual had a great mom. I don't have one of those. So I wouldn't be able to use that as a resource. But to find somebody like her seems like a lot. So for me to be successful, I have to look at who do I have in my life right now? What stories do I already want to tell? What what experiences do I have in my life that I can use in my own storytelling and my own narratives? Um, and that's what I hope my business to actually be. I've been thinking about my own experience, my own frustrations, my own hangups. Um, you've you've seen this podcast to sort of represent how I like to change my mind. When I'm being creative, I don't like forcing myself or forcing myself through creativity at all. I think it's horrifying. And I just refuse to do it. And I don't think that's what we're meant to do. I think that kills the human spirit. So I've been very representative of what I, you know, what I preach. Like I said, I practice what I preach. Um, so just this podcast in general. Uh I've used the resources. I've been able to travel because my aunt has taken care of my cat and my car, and I'm so forever grateful for her. You know, I've been staying at people's homes. This trusted house sitter thing, I have not spent thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to do this trip. I've been using resources, I've been applying myself, and it really has made all the difference. There's no way I could have done this otherwise than without that network, without trying to share and collaborate and network and partner. Um, and I know house sitting might not seem like something in that group, but it absolutely is because I was able to do that, I was able to afford going to these cool Airbnbs. I was able to afford going to networking events, I was able to afford making my first voiceover real. I was able to afford taking very expensive classes. They were not cheap at afters, at a place that I didn't even think was within my reach just last year. I never would have considered doing that. So because I sort of tapped into let's do this creatively, let's be more spontaneous, let's be more open to not a direct way to get something done. Oh my God. Like I don't even think me last year would recognize me today. And I can't wait to have the same thought this time next year after another season of Beyond the Template is done and another year has passed. I'm sure FutureMia is going to say, yes, she had no idea. So if if something like that can happen for you, where you can maybe look around, see who you know, consider maybe you haven't tapped into everything so far. Maybe you have a story to tell where you're like, oh, nobody wants to hear that, but it's yours, so you can put your passion behind it. Um, my business is is full of passion. It started off very analytical and it has transformed into no, no, I need to really, I need to really be myself on this. I need to really say, these are my stories. I have the empathy because I've experienced it myself. So I understand where you're coming from and I understand what you're going through. And so I can help because I've been there. So if I can leave you with anything, it's that there is no right way to move forward. There is no one path to completion, and there is nothing wrong with taking as many side quests and side steps as you need to get where you have set in your heart. And finally, when it feels like the end, it probably is. So don't push yourself to perfection. If you feel like you've done everything possible to get going and keep going with your work, including even taking courses or using coaches, but somehow you continue stalling, that's what I'm here for, to fill a gap that so many seem to need. It's one thing to know what you want to do and even what you need to do, but it's quite another thing to actually do it with consistency and perseverance, especially when everything, including your own brain, seems to be getting in the way. So I'm here to serve as the creative strategy partner who gets you through to the next phase of your work. And I offer individualized solutions and approaches for my clients that are pumped about their ideas and won't settle for less than achieving their goals. My business, Collaborative, offers emotionally intelligent partnership to diverse thinkers, creatives, innovators, and artists who feel the pressure of completion and delivery. And my job is to remain by their side and work with them, not against them, to accomplish something that feels too overwhelming alone while upholding the soul of their work. If this sounds like you and you have an idea you're excited about but need help with making a reality, reach out. My contact is in the description for you. Until next time or last time. Keep it up, keep it creative.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

I was lying at all, so you dreams, my dreams are crazy. Waited low on the ground, grass with beautifully.