Creativity Unleashed: Spotlight on C.A. Kobu

5 Jan

Today’s spotlight shines on a very special person. She’s someone I connected with about a year ago, but it’s only in the past couple of months that we really clicked, and I’m so glad we did because she is magical. She is C.A. Kobu and she’s just launched an extraordinary project called A Year with Myself.

You may remember her from the month of self-care; her contribution The First 66 Days of Taking Better Care of Yourself was not only a very popular piece but she generously shared a free workbook to help you on this path.

My first conversation with C.A. left me inspired, energized and buzzing with ideas. She calls herself a creative alchemist and project midwife, and that was certainly my experience of her. She’s also an idea generator!

But she’s so much more. She’s one of the most generous people I’ve met; sharing her gifts with others, showing up as a resource and bringing people together in ways that instantly work. Could be that alchemy she speaks of!

Can you tell? I’ve got a serious friend crush on this woman!

She is up to some extraordinary things and I’m delighted to have her here in the spotlight.

Enjoy!

1. Why are you here?

I’m here to serve my kind. That means serving courageous and wild women who want to grow, create and change their world. These are women who have entrepreneurial spirits. They are venturesome and fertile in heart and in mind.

I want to hold their hands and make it easy to rediscover their wholeness and their powers, to reconnect with themselves, and to translate their authentic gifts into fulfilling and change-making feats.

I want to wake them up and help them flourish.

{Note from me: You can see why I’m crushing over here, can’t you?}

2. What is your future self calling for?

My future self is calling for a deeper connection with my kind. That means interacting and growing together with creative women who are fired up to give birth to amazing things.

What I yearn for is some sort of alchemy that takes place on different levels.

I think I started having a taste of it recently with the launch of my latest project A Year With Myself. I strive to be as useful as I can.

{Note from me: Over 300 women signed up on launch day! I think she’s connected with ‘her kind’.}

3. How do you honour that calling?

I think I’ve begun to honor that calling by being courageous and by prioritizing the projects that would serve it well. I simplified my list of projects and got rid of everything that was not directly related to my calling. And then I took action and also risk right away. Will I succeed? I don’t know. I’m just doing what fires me up and what I’m good at.

What will happen if I fail? Then I’ll start again. For the ego it’s a big deal. But in truth, it’s not a biggie, really. In the past, I used to care a lot about what other people would think. But not anymore.

Life is too short for that.

4. What is both effortless and life-giving to you?

Coming up with creative ideas. Like Mr. Monk says, it’s a blessing… and a curse. It’s effortless but at times, it can become my biggest drawback. Sometimes you just have to focus on that single idea and not even turn to look at another brilliant idea passing by flirtatiously. Otherwise, you can’t go deep. That’s my biggest weakness and my biggest strength. It’s something I wrestle with all the time. But I’ve developed enough methods to deal with it.

Also, when something I create touches and transforms another person in a positive way, I feel I’m the happiest person on Earth. All the fatigue goes away, and I feel I’m doing something that really matters.

{Note from me: She’s quoting TV’s quirkiest detective??? Gotta love her, no?}

5. What do you do best?

My fortes are crafting vision, structure and systems. That is what I used to do as a job. I can envision the different stages of a project even when it’s just an idea seed. I can picture the different routes a project can take and the possibilities that surround it. All the fine details? They don’t matter at the beginning. The magic is taking the first step and blending improvisation and creating systems and structure as you go along. I find this so inspiring.

Being able to be like a river and jumping over or flowing around stones and rocks, changing course as necessary, fine-tuning and sharp-shooting. Another thing I’m good at is learning. Every single day I’m hungry to learn. It rejuvenates me, it gives my life and meaning. I think if I no longer had the opportunity to study and learn, I’d lose my joie de vivre.

6. What is extraordinary about your work?

My projects are vibrant because they reflect my boldness and passion. I’m very courageous and even audacious at times and I can get a project going in a very short while because if I’m really fired up, I won’t listen to my frightened inner voice who pleads me to stop and be rational. I don’t like being rational. I like speed, risk-taking, experimenting. And if I fail, who cares! I’ll try again.

I have to be like this because I have a perfectionist side that can easily make me to suffer analysis paralysis and information overload. But if you’re fired up, if you’re really in love with your project, you won’t procrastinate. The best medicine for procrastination is doing what fires you up. If you want it that badly, you’ll find a way to do it.

{Note from me: I think I’ll invite her back to share what she’s learned about managing her lizard brain so well!}

7. What is guaranteed to inspire you?

A vibrant conversation with a like-minded cohort, in a mind-nourishing environment with carefully selected friends, silent time spent with myself, going to a library or a bookstore and losing myself between the isles, an empty journal, a pen, some colorful yarn, fabric, a Bergman or a Woody Allen movie, and every single minute spent with my Mr. Kobu.

8. What will your epitaph say if you’ve lived life on your terms?

She was a fiery soul who was forever hungry to learn, do and be. She has changed the lives of many women and helped them do magnificent things and change their world. May she play in peace with enough juicy ideas and creative projects on the other side!

C. A. Kobu is the Creative Alchemist and Project Midwife. She is also a community builder and curator. C. A. loves serving her own kind, whom she describes as courageous, creative, entrepreneurial women. Her website is CigdemKobu.com and her latest buzzing project is about juicy journal prompts and a yearlong adventure of self-discovery and self-empowerment.