Bethany Kelly is founder of Courageous Creatives — a company designed to support creative entrepreneurs, authors, speakers and coaches make money with their creative gifts.

In her own career path, Bethany exchanged her creative pursuits (primarily in music and performing) for the stability of work as a graphic designer.

While she had an invigorating career as the creative director for a production team, she eventually found herself stuck behind a desk expending enormous amounts of energy doing work that was not a match for her creativity or vitality.

A few stressful years of this culminated in a debilitating breakdown in her health. As part of her recovery, she made the commitment to change her life, step into her dreams again and pursue them with gusto. The result: Courageous Creatives.

Bethany now helps creative business owners package their expertise into programs and products that stand out in the market place, captivate their audience, and generate passive income. Enjoy her exclusive Business Heroine interview…

BH: You support creative people making money with their creative gifts. Why is that important?

Bethany: I’ve struggled so much in my life trying to adapt to an environment that hasn’t always been kind to my creative sensibilities. As a creative, my brain works differently. I think differently and want to operate differently. I’ve felt like an outsider. Like I didn’t fit in. And while there is a part of me that wants to be unique, being different has been a cause of suffering in my life.

There are relatively few established arenas in today’s world where it is permissible for us to express ourselves authentically and creatively.

Arenas like dancing, writing, music and art. But when it comes to making one’s living through any of these creative mediums, there suddenly so many limitations that want to control or constrict that authentic expression. I believe the ways one can express themselves creatively and authentically is unlimited. We put limits on ourselves or we allow ourselves to be limited by others. I help people remove those limitations so they can fully express themselves while making money. I want to remove the “starving artist” or “struggling musician/writer” stigmas that exist. We can express ourselves fully and get paid to do it.

Entrepreneurs are some of the most creative people. They have stepped out of the mold of what is expected. They are expressing themselves uniquely in the world. They have taken action to make money with their gifts. I love supporting that because the experience of doing that for myself has been so important.

Bethany’s Personal Blog: LetMusicInspire.com

BH: Was there a defining moment when you decided enough is enough?

Bethany: As a child I was very creative, and my experience has been shared by many other children who are different. Creativity and authentic self-expression can be punished, squelched, medicated or shamed out of us. It became clear to me early on that the only way to survive and succeed was to conform and adapt to the expectations around me. While some rebel, I went inward and did my utmost to conform.

All the success I experienced in my life was predicated on my ability to adapt and conform to expectations. I succeeded in adapting, but it came at a high price. The price was my happiness and eventually my health. It took so much energy to fit into systems and roles that weren’t a match for me, and didn’t allow me to express myself or feel comfortable as myself. My whole life felt like a role I was playing. This got really exhausting. And the more I repressed my true self, the more numb I became, to the point that I didn’t recognize my own unhappiness, and I had pretty much lost touch with who I was.

Eventually my body had enough. My health broke down in a very significant way. I got sick and stayed sick for two years. Among other things, I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease and fibromyalgia and the doctors didn’t know how to treat me. I was bedridden and in pain for nine months. I couldn’t work and I couldn’t parent my daughter the way I wanted to. It was a really dark time for me. At the time it felt like my whole world was falling apart. I didn’t know if I was ever going to recover or if I was going to remain debilitated for the rest of my life.

Looking back, this was the wakeup call that I needed. I realized that what I was doing was not aligned with anything that brought me joy and vitality and inspiration. I had become a fraud. I was an actor playing the wrong role. I had good intentions. My intention was to serve, but I was serving in a way that was not a match for who I am. Becoming so ill was a watershed moment for me and that’s when I decided that I needed to make some significant changes. It’s been a wild ride and I’ve had to take some flying leaps of faith–the kind where you jump off the cliff and hope that there will be ground underneath you or you will develop wings on the way down.

I had been living in Mexico at the time I got ill. When I finally recovered, and it was time to move back to the US, I sold everything that I owned that I couldn’t fit into six suitcases. With only my daughter, our suitcases, a box of books and my guitar, we started life anew, with me fiercely clutching the dream of starting my own business, and creating a life and environment that supported me, my gifts and what I want to create in the world.

Sometimes I worry that people will think that I’m crazy, but the truth is, that is how I roll! And the Universe is supporting me step by step. It’s coming together. I look back and I think, “Wow, I survived!” Not only that but I am beginning to thrive. I’m doing work that I love and supporting people in ways that bring me joy. I’ve never been happier. I’ve never felt more alive, I’ve never felt more comfortable being me.

BH: What unique challenges do creatives face in today’s world?

Bethany: Many creatives are right brain visionaries. They think, feel and operate differently. There is so much pressure to conform to the many structures, systems and processes that exist in this world. The way this world is set up does not favor uniqueness, individuality and unique expression. There are two choices–conform or rebel. There is suffering attached to each of those choices.

The very sensitivity and the very thing that connects creative people with their gifts and genius and that enables them to think differently and create something amazing in the world, is also the very thing that causes the greatest hurt and internal wounds. I believe there is healing that is needed. At least that has been my experience. When I decided to come out into the world in a bigger way with my gifts—stuff came up that I had to work through—fears and resistance and parts of myself that I wanted to protect and felt I needed to hide. I wanted to protect myself from the rejection I might experience from authentically sharing those parts of myself with others. The more I have healed, the more I am able to bring my work into the world and experience the joy and inspiration that I long for.

Creative people have so many ideas. They are usually extraordinarily gifted individuals and there are many things they are capable of doing. It can be a challenge to focus their energy into something that will produce great results. Depending on how that’s done, focusing energy can feel constricting and limiting, and that’s something I never want—not for myself or for my clients. I like to think of it more like funneling or directing the energy. When I’m working with someone, the question on my mind is “How can their unique creative energy and natural expression be directed in a way that is going to create the best results for them?”

BH: What services does Courageous Creatives provide that help creative folks make money?

Bethany: I have a background as creative director and project manager and what I do in my business is help speakers, coaches and experts creatively package their expertise and gifts into products that they can sell. I typically work with those already established in their body of work or their gift or their business. When people come to work with me, they have filled their one-to-one practice and now they need more time. They want to create leverage and start communicating with more people and leave a legacy of their expertize or body of work.

When I’m finished supporting someone as they create something new, I want them be proud of the results and think, “This is an accurate representation of me, of my uniqueness, of my message, my personality and what I’m up to. I’m proud to put this out into the world.”

I also want my clients to have a great creative experience. When you’re unsupported, the creative process can seem hard or feel like it will take too long, or the details and technology can feel overwhelming. You may not know where to start. I walk you step by step through the process. I manage the parts that you don’t want to or don’t have the knowledge for, so that the experience of creating something is a great one and the finished product is high-quality, beautiful and elegant.

BH: How can our audience work with you?

Bethany: There are a few different ways.

First, if you go to my website, CourageousCreatives.com, you can watch a free video, “Three tips to rekindle your creative genius”. That’s a great place to start. By signing up for that video, you’ll become part of my creative community.

Second, if you’re someone who might be a “closet creative” and your creativity has been repressed and you’re ready to reconnect with it and start bringing your gifts out to more people, you’ll want my home study program, Secrets to your Creative Genius. It is a series of four videos and a full-color workbook that helps you reconnect with that creative place inside of you, and find alignment within yourself and the courage to bring your gifts out into the world.

Finally, I would love to offer a strategy session to anyone who is at the stage of their business where creating a product is the next step. If that’s you, I’d love to have a conversation with you to find what you’ve got going on and discover how I can best support you. There is a place on my website where you can sign up for a strategy session.

BH: What advice do you have for the creative Business Heroines out there who find themselves in a left-brained world?

Bethany: Make time to do that creative thing you love to do. Schedule it if you must. It might not be part of your business right now, but there is something you do or can do, that lights you up, that gets you excited, that gives you energy and juice. If you’re an entrepreneur, chances are you spend way too little time doing that thing. So my best advice is make time to be creative–whatever that looks like for you. When you are coming from that creative energy, life starts to flow more smoothly.

Life can start to feel hard and uninteresting when we spend too much time in our left brains–which is where we go when we need to be tactical and strategic. There’s a lot of left-brain stuff that we have to do in business, and if you’re in that left-brain energy, sometimes the idea of carving out time to be creative can feel like one more thing to check off your todo list. But make time for the fun stuff. It’s my firm belief that we don’t have enough fun in life. Whatever it is that you love to do or that makes you happy, do more of that!

To learn more about Bethany and Courageous Creatives, visit:

Website: CourageousCreatives.com
Facebook:  Personal Blog: LetMusicInspire.com

January 2014 Issue