What happens now? Creative Ends and Beginnings

Season 1 of Beyond the Template in on the books!  With one final story of expansion and resilience, we finish up our last week of traveling in the southern hemisphere and culminate our creative work together. 

Key Words: 

Creativity, Creative Process, Creative Motivation, Motivation, Encouragement, Creative Success, Resilience, Expansion, New Zealand, Australia, Film and Television, Voiceover Artist, Travel, Exploration, Road Trips, 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_02 0:03

It's the final episode of season one for Beyond the Template. Hopefully, last week's announcement of ending it a bit early wasn't too much of a disappointment. But as I sat looking at all that is to come for me over the next several months, and while I'm very sad to leave you all, I know it was the right choice. If you want to stay in touch and continue to follow along, please find me on social media. I'm going to pour my creative juices into my three Instagram accounts. One for continuing my voiceover endeavors at CarolineAmelie, one to continue adding new updates on my travels and other experiences from New Zealand and Australia at COMily Travels, and my business account where I'm still branding out how I can really help people at Um Collaborative. So it's Easter Sunday today, and it's actually Easter Sunday for everyone in the States at this point. I just spent about six hours planning and budgeting. That's always celebrated. Fun, right? The thing about living on the edge in life often means missing out on the norms that everyone else gets to enjoy, but that's okay. It's all worth it. Since we last connected, I left Kayama and sadly wiggles the dog to a couple of days at the famous Bondi Beach in Sydney. I spent most of my time thinking and writing while looking out at and listening to the waves crashing and surfers browing out with one another. It was such a treat. Now I'm in my final house sit with Jack, the 19-year-old black, now dark gray cat, who seems to be getting jauntier each day we are together. He may interrupt me while I'm trying to record. I don't know yet. He is asleep downstairs right now. I can hear the trains coming and going through the slightly ajar sliding window, along with all the somewhat familiar but still strange bird calls. I won't ever get over how rampant parrots are in Australia and how without teaching them to speak words as domesticated birds might do, these are wild and guttural in their calls, grunting and screaming, but I still like it. Last night I went into the city for some improv, strolling into a vibe that I have missed very much. I met two people at Afters in the Voiceover Workshop who have taken many, many classes at this place. It's called Improv Theater Sydney. Um, and they're actually about to start doing their own official shows. Um they weren't with me last night, I was with another friend, but I am a little sad to miss their official shows last night was fun, though. It's always inspiring for me to watch people just go for it without worry of what other people think. To be expressive is to be cringe and you just can't care. Uh I didn't care in the voiceover workshop, and I instantly felt more alive than I have in eight years. And I can't wait to keep exploring this side interest of mine. I swear that if you don't have this feeling in your own work, something is not quite right. And you might need to keep searching until you find it. This might mean you have to be slightly uncomfortable or slightly falling forward. Like that feeling you get when your head crashes to the side after slipping into sleep sitting up. That feeling. I didn't have this feeling when I started this podcast last September. I was still moving in a direction that I thought would be helpful and thought would add to the conversation online for creatives. Do you hear that? I was thinking too much and not feeling anything. Then heading into the expander stories helped me think and feel my way through how I could better show versus tell other creatives how to continue moving towards their goals and dreams. Now, here at the end, I'm inspired to start networking to find exemplary individuals who are doing things in the now, rather than those who were up against different barriers and timelines. With everything in such a fluctuating state, maybe hearing from people who are navigating it in the moment would make the biggest impact of all. So I'm excited to announce that next season will pepper in interviews with those who are making things happen beyond a template. I will share my own stories and still be finding great examples of people who showcase those expander qualities, but I'm thrilled that I have had four separate individuals reach out to me this season with an interest in their own stories being told on this platform. And as a responder, you know I'm always paying attention to where the energy is being placed. And this feels like a great way to support those who are already doing things their own way by providing them a space to share their narratives as well as offer listeners more inspiration to do the same. So exciting times. I am pumped and I'm very honored that four people reached out to me. So now that I have felt what it's like to manage a podcast, I may tweak the dates and number of episodes for the coming seasons, just as we learned last fall. It's necessary to adjust, readjust, and adjust again with our creative work. So the next iteration will take a form that makes the most sense for your feedback, needs, and interest. If you have any ideas or if you would actually like to be showcased on this podcast, pre-please, please, please, please, please reach out to me. I will be designing the podcast through August 2026, once I'm settled again. Since we're heading into some fun new directions, and as this is the final podcast of the season, I thought I might share with you one final expander of the week story. Fun fact my business coach was the individual who originally taught me the word expander last year, and she told me that if I sought out these individuals regularly enough, I could retrain my brain to think differently about what I was capable of. So today I want to tell you a little of my own story because I believe that I am now also an expander. And I have a feeling that you, my lovely listeners, are too, if you believe that about yourself with all your soul. I was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1983 to a couple of boomer parents who were a bit wild and more inclined to want to volunteer over work, smoke pot over smoke a turkey, and drink over parent. My mother was a part-time flavor of the moment employee, and my father was convinced that he could somehow travel the world, be married with a child, and take over business for his then mentor without trying that hard. We lived in a small apartment that was originally part of one of the old homes on Charlotte Street in downtown Charleston, with wrought iron gates, cobblestone walkways, and palm trees all around. My mother actually took me once to see this home, which was a great idea, until she decided that it was okay to walk past the gates into the private grounds to stand and point at windows. She often decides her own reality and rules that exist in it. Living with two parents who weren't really made to be responsible, stable, traditional, or apt to sacrificing their own joy for love and safety taught me very early on to rely on myself for those things, and to expect the unexpected from those around me. That's why selling my home to live abroad without much of a plan was so easy for me. My safety and security comes from trusting my instincts, my gut, and my hyper awareness of my surroundings now turn super skills into empathy and mediation. I grew up with violence, first with them turning towards one another, and then with them individually often turning my way. And to counteract those experiences, my imagination expanded to the point of cocoon sized, allowing me to leave reality whenever I needed to as an escape into worlds that would never place me in harm's way. Living with a single mother who has I don't even know how many, who knows how many personality disorders, only solidified this ability to separate myself from the world, and living with a father in his new family taught me to stay out of the way unless I was being useful. And guess what continued to be handy in order to live in a room with a door closed? You got it. It would take me about 40 years to start blending the two spaces for myself again. This trip is proof that I can exist in both, and I'm excited to see what else is possible. When you live in your mind and then the world separately, you tend to undercut the value of your dreams and fantasies. You don't take them seriously, you don't give them value. They simply serve as a fun, uplifting, safe space. So to try to bring them into the real world setting means that the safe place can no longer be. It has to break down to integrate. Losing that safe space when it was all that held me together for so long was the most scariest thing imaginable. So to be sure that this didn't happen, my life didn't mirror my imagination ever. While in my mind I lived and acted a certain way with zero worries about judgment or failure, in my own life I played it safe. Wildly, I still had people who saw me as a risk taker, which just shows that who you choose to keep around you might affect you more than you realize. These individuals were amazed at me going to college in another city, interning at large arts festivals, doing the Disney College program after I graduated, becoming a massage therapist during the 2009 financial crisis, traveling abroad alone to Europe, getting a master's degree, interning in Florida with Disney again, moving to the mountains. But if you look at each of these choices, I was seeking something but not quite finding it by achievement. Instead of really going for one passion that made me feel alive, I was tiptoeing around it just on the edges where there was structure. Moving is easy, getting a degree is easy, interning is easy, getting a job is easy, there is a start, middle, and end to each of them. Feeling accomplished comes naturally, but what then? In our last episode, I talked about how there can be no real end to creative pursuits, only milestones. We never arrive, nor should we. But with everything I've done up until 2024, I felt little to no pressure to actually try with all of the skills, abilities, assets, and gifts that I have. I didn't apply for scholarships to go to a school that would offer me programs that fit my talents. I didn't choose majors that pushed me out of my comfort zone. I didn't try networking with people who would lead me towards something greater. I didn't master skills or attend programs which would open doorways. Instead, I came, I saw, and I went too many times to count, and I called that success. The shift that I have mentioned this season towards wondering, why not me, is a powerful one that I hope anyone who pines for something greater than the norm can manifest. Traveling and being in the same spaces as people I told myself were better than me, more talented than me, unreachable, separate, existing at a higher plane or tier, only showed me that this was not true in the slightest. Working through the gutting fear of being seen publicly, something so, so many of us have, and blundering through to try to figure out how to show up consistently has proven that it's okay to continue to fail, as long as that failure helps move things along. And finally, seeing how while I could look back and feel only regret over past Caroline's choices, it's better to appreciate her and all that she did. That's made me see that anything I choose to do now has value, no matter what that choice is. It's not the choosing, it's the remaining still that worries me the most for myself and for you all. It's why I want to partner and collaborate with those who deserve to shine and speak up with all of myself and why my business is transforming rapidly into a new organism. When I was in Bundai, I came across a lovely little community book exchange out in the elements on the sidewalk under a very old awning. While I was looking, a man came by in his tiny convertible and pulling out three bags of books, he poured them onto the sidewalk, slammed his trunk, and literally sped away. So I put on my I used to work at Borders Bookstore cap and I started organizing them on the shelves while checking each one out for myself. I figured that if I sort of part-time worked, it was okay that I didn't really bring any books, even though I planned to take a book away. There I saw the Midnight Library, which I put aside immediately. And I finished it less than three days later. This book spoke to exactly this same concept. There is no wrong life or wrong direction. There is only awareness of the value of your life as it is. So before I head off into the sunset, literally, it's past 5 p.m. now. Uh, here are your reflection questions that I hope you will take to heart. Number one, take a moment to think of every person your life touches and how their own lives might shift if you all of a sudden weren't part of theirs. Take a look around your space and find a way to be grateful for it and for what you've accumulated in it for your space should be a reflection of your life. And finally, if you were to fully express your imagination through creativity without getting bogged down with whether it was good or done in a certain approved way by society, would it be through your chosen medium or are you still playing it safe? What would cringe worthy creativity look like for you if you just went for it and said, Why not me? Thank you all lovely humans for joining in this season. Please keep in touch, send me your notes, your feedback, and your ideas for next time. And if you haven't checked out my website yet, please do and let me know if there's anything confusing or strange or unclear. It's so helpful. Please, please, please. So it's www.omcollaborative.com and it is in the description for you. For those who are still feeling stuck, I encourage you to continue following me at Om Collaborative on Instagram. I'm going to be pulling together a free webinar this year to support creatives who need to get going through the next phase of their work but can't do it alone. And if you are ready to partner up, I offer a free one-on-ones to chat about your ideas and to see how I can support them. To each of you and to everyone else listening, keep it up, keep it creative.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Follow your dreams when that dream's crazy. I was swimming alone with something under me. Follow your dreams, but dreams are hazy. I was flying a top rose of orchard tree. Follow your dreams, when dreams are hazy. Waited low on the ground, grasping beautifully. But dreaming can only give you some floor. With dust in your eyes.