SPEAKER_05 0:05

Hi, friend, and welcome to the Dreamers Podcast, the show where we explore bold dreams, highlight inspiring stories, and the real journeys behind them. I'm your host, Lydia Ingenieri, and each episode I sit down with creators, founders, visionaries, and everyday people who dared to imagine more and did something about it. This isn't just about success. It's about the setbacks, the turning points, the late nights, and those moments when quitting felt easier than continuing. So whether you're building something new, standing at a crossroads, or simply searching for inspiration, you're in the right place. So take a breath, lean in, and let yourself dream a little bigger. This is the Dreamers Podcast. I am so excited that you are joining us today for another amazing conversation based on creativity and dreaming. And real quick before we go any further, I want to encourage you if you have not subscribed to this podcast, would you take a minute and subscribe and download the episodes so that you can follow along and not miss anything that's happening with the Dreamers podcast? But I'm so grateful that you have joined us today. And we're gonna have a fabulous conversation today with Lara Pilcher. She's my incredible guest. And Lara and I are actually new friends and are getting to know one another over these recent months. But Laura has been working in the creative industry for years and years and has an amazing heart for creatives, has even written an incredible book called Audacious Creativity, which we're gonna talk about a little bit later. But has all of her insights and experience and encouragements for creatives, which I cannot wait to dive into some of these points because you can just tell that you are someone who is living this yourself, has walked through all of this yourself and just wants to pour out your wisdom to other people. Um but Laura is also a very highly qualified coach, which I also want you to share about that and what it's like to coach creatives. But Laura, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_04 2:26

I'm so glad to be here.

SPEAKER_05 2:27

I am so glad to have you. And you drove all the way in today from Atlanta.

SPEAKER_04 2:31

Yeah, it's only three hours. It's only not bad.

SPEAKER_05 2:34

Well, still, thank you so much for the effort that you took to get here. Pleasure. And uh, you are married, you're a mom and two babies.

SPEAKER_04 2:44

Yeah, one is in grade six, one is in grade five. Okay. So that middle school mama.

SPEAKER_05 2:49

Yeah, you're that middle school mama. You probably hear the beautiful accent, which is another reason why I am so excited for this podcast today because I love accents. You're from Australia.

SPEAKER_04 3:00

I'm Australian, but most people get me mistaken for British because I did live and work there for nearly eight years. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 3:06

They can sometimes sound very similar, but they're very distinct. Um, but we're so grateful to have you here today. And I always like to start from the beginning and I want to give our audience just an opportunity to get to know who you are. How did your journey begin? How did you discover I'm a creative, and how did you launch out into that? So take us back to your childhood.

SPEAKER_04 3:30

Yeah, I think of the most isolated city on earth, and that's where I grew up. Wow. I actually grew up in Port Headland in Western Australia, which literally, if you look at a globe, we're going down and then down some more, and then even more isolated in Australia. But the amazing thing about growing up there is that when you don't grow up with opportunity and you have a creative mum, I could just let myself be creative. I could climb trees and and and talk to the wind and weird things, and I would put on concerts and invite the neighbours to come. I love it. I didn't get to go out and see theatre or watch artists or anything like that. So I would just perform for the neighbors, invite them, charge tickets, and for some reason they came. So like I know I did 50 cents, I remember, charging my neighbours, and my mum just let me, and she was super creative and open to creativity. So I think I always got to be a creative soul because of her.

SPEAKER_05 4:30

Yeah, yeah. So was it like singing, dancing, like acting? I didn't know. What kind of creativity? Oh, you did it all. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 4:37

Dance was my first thing. Um, mum put me into ballet from a young age, and but when the the neighbours come, I would sing, dance, I the musical theatre. I I later went on to get my master's in musical theatre in London. So it became my my jam. Yes, that's my jam. Um, and I loved it, and that's what I was doing in London.

SPEAKER_05 4:57

Was what is your favorite play?

SPEAKER_04 5:00

Music theatre play for to perform in or to watch.

SPEAKER_05 5:03

Well, either one.

SPEAKER_04 5:04

Probably to watch. I mean, I did enjoy Hamilton recently, but I've seen so many and been to so many that I think um it changes all the time. But I do these days I tend to go less thrilly, more depth. I want I want some story and some grit. Yeah. Where at the start I was more like razzle dazzle. Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_05 5:29

Yeah, for sure. Totally. Yeah, that's amazing. Okay, so you were you grew up in this isolated place putting on these concerts for your neighbors. When did you first actually see the stage or experience the stage? And what did that do for you?

SPEAKER_04 5:45

When I was 12, mum and dad decided we're going to move to Perth, which was a city, but it's still very isolated. If no, it's the opposite side of Australia to Sydney. Um, and most people don't visit there when they go to Australia, they go to Sydney or Melbourne or Queensland or but um we we went there and they had me audition for a special dance high school, which meant I never got to do PE, so I'm still really bad at sport because all the sport was replaced with with dance subjects, and so it was kind of like going to um almost full-time ballet school. So we would all I would be doing dance every day of the week. Um, and that gave me exposure, but I still didn't get to go and see stuff or go to the theatre much or or anything like that. And at 17 I auditioned for a conservatory, an arts conservatory in Sydney. Um and I moved out of home at 17 and went and did a degree in dance at at only 17 years old. So that was hard to leave. And that was the first time I went to go to the Sydney Opera House and go and watch incredible theater and see stuff for the first time. Really like big productions for the first time was when I was 17, 18. Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 6:56

Yeah, and the culture in Sydney is incredible. Yeah. I've I was there in 2007, got to travel there uh to do a weep a uh conference, and I grew up in Europe, and what I felt was so unique about Australia was it was it felt very European in culture, yeah, but it had kind of the vibe and feel of a really big American city as well. So it was like this this combination of both, and it was incredible. So do you remember feeling just awe and like overwhelmed by all of that? Or did you feel like this is mine, I'm taking it?

SPEAKER_04 7:32

Like I was how scared you were. I was not ready to take the world at all. Like I was so timid and scared, and I remember ringing mom and going, I didn't I'm looking at the supermarket aisle and thinking, I don't even know how to shop for myself. I'm like not ready to be a grown-up. Yeah. Um, and yet on the other side, it was invigorating. I I also remember not being able to walk because I had never danced so much in my life. I mean, it's full-time dance conservatory and pain, pain, and then I'm staying in student housing on the top floor and trying to get upstairs with muscles that aren't working. Yeah. Uh it was really, really exciting as well, the sort of stuff you'd expect from being in an arts conservatory. And it was Christian, it was planted by an American from Juilliard. Okay. So it's like there's this American thread through my entire life, which um we can talk more about later. But I end up um going to see theater and just it's just electrifying. And I really wanted to just perform full-time. Like that became my thing. Some people were like, I want to do ministry full-time, some people wanted to because it was um theology and the art. Some people wanted to choreograph full-time, some I was greedy. I wanted to be in the acting department, I wanted to be in the music department, I wanted to be in the musical theater, I wanted everything, and then I also wanted to represent the students as the student rep, which was the person who stood there and went to the staff meetings, and I wanted to be a leader. So I wanted it all, and I've always been a bit greedy like that in a good, healthy way, like just hungry to live and to go crazy after all the things in my heart that the Lord's put there. Yeah, and that was a real time of forming, a time that I really felt God speaking in and not only forming me as an artist but as a leader as well.

SPEAKER_05 9:18

Wow, that's incredible. So that hunger, that drive, that's really what pushed you. So, when did you transition from dancing to also singing and acting? And how did you balance all of that? Because that's a lot. Did you work on it all at the same time, or was it in different seasons?

SPEAKER_04 9:37

The degree was creative arts, but I would go over and take extra singing lessons or extra acting, or the musical was extracurricular. And I just didn't mind if I was there. I had more contact hours because of the path I had chosen within my degree. Um, I had more technique hours, and I was fine with that. I was like, give me more. Um just so hungry, yeah, so hungry. And by the time I was in third year, another American had traveled over um to teach us because of the Juilliard um plant. Um he had a lot of contacts with Americans, and an American had come over and invited me to go and dance in Israel with her at the Feast of Tabernacles in what was the first company with ballerinas from around the world. Wow. And so that was my first trip overseas, and I got to dance in the desert. Qumran, I got to dance every night of the week for crowds of people. It was rigorous, like we worked really, really hard. Yeah, but I met another American there who I ended up years later going and working with her company in San Francisco, and then going to New York with her, and then meeting uh Radio City Roquette who said, Hey, I'm looking for someone to do this in Australia. I'm like, Hey, so this this thread of Americans in my life, and and here I am living here. It just keeps happening.

SPEAKER_05 11:01

That is crazy. So just kind of going back to like all that you were doing, like, did did you experience burnout at all? Or did it just invigorate you so much that that wasn't an issue for you?

SPEAKER_04 11:15

No burnout, so invigorated, so alive. One of the things I know about me is I was desperately hungry for the Lord. And through this entire time, I was chasing after him with everything. Now, when I moved at 17, I was broken. Like I was like, I don't know how to do life. And it put me in this place of desperateness where I would be that girl who would be in my room praying and crying out to him and saying, Help me. And I think that desperation of just feeling too young to have left home and not ready to stand on my own two feet. I threw myself into the Lord and into leadership, and that pursuit alongside my artistry is what opens so many doors. There you go. That's so good. Yeah, and it wasn't like just this ambitious I my talent was growing and I was good. Um, and and it it was strong, otherwise I wouldn't have had those invitations. But my character, my heart for God, my humility, my ability to work with me. Like that's just like that's just yeah, you know, fact. Um, to I was easy to work with. And I think we know that about ourselves because there's you you know a tree by its fruit. Um, and and people would say, Laura, you're just really easy to work with. And maybe that's partly cultural. I'm like, yeah, I was chill. I was a bit of a people pleaser back then.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 12:38

I was a little bit um probably didn't really know how to have uh stand up for myself or be assertive. I I had skills to learn, but generally I was pliable, respectful, yeah, just thankful, grateful. That's so good, yeah, and hungry for God. Yeah. So hungry.

SPEAKER_05 12:54

Exactly. So it just it sounds like it was just this warp speed, like formative season where your inner man was being developed as much as your natural gifting and talent was also expanding. Absolutely. How cool is that?

SPEAKER_04 13:12

Yeah, and I remember like the the yearbook quote that I wrote, they ended up putting it on the back of my the yearbook that I was in was like, this is a season for God's refining fire to work in your life if you let it. Um something like that. And honestly, it was like three years of just that refiner's fire where I was like, Lord, just form me for your kingdom purposes and form me for what you want to do with me as an artist. And I had a very strong sense that he wanted to use me in the nations, and so and a lot of doors would open, but I didn't know that as a 17, 18, 19 year old. Yeah, but many doors would open for me from that place of humility and just desperateness for the Lord.

SPEAKER_05 13:58

Our story actually sounds very similar because I was about that same age too, where this desperation rose up on the inside of me, yeah, knowing that I was called, yeah, you know, knowing that I had, you know, a gift that God had given me, but I had already spent years as a teenager, you know, working on that gift. And and there was this moment, this like crossroads, where it was this isn't just a talent that I possess.

SPEAKER_04 14:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:25

I think there's an anointing here that God is telling me, I've given this to you, and and it's your job to steward this.

SPEAKER_04 14:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:35

And same with me. God called me out early, he called me out from my home at the age of 17. Uh, we were living in Norway at the time. I moved back to the United States on my own and lived with very dear family friends, but was given a ton of opportunity um to be able to grow in that. But it was just this crazy experience of like you're you're tethered in your heart and in your soul to your family, but you're not physically with them. And and you have to learn early and quickly how to tether yourself to the Lord. And you're learning all these things anyway, because you're, you know, a teenager, you're 17, 18 years old, and discovering who you are, but also knowing that there's something special, which which isn't arrogant, uh, it but it's this understanding of no, I think God wants me to do this for him. It's actually part of the reason why I'm on this earth. Yeah. And I too just began saying yes to all these opportunities, but those are the things that that shaped me and molded me. So, how did you meet your husband?

SPEAKER_04 15:40

Oh gosh. It was one of those stories that it came along way later than I wanted. I mean, seriously, I most of these years of doing these things around the world, dancing in Israel, dancing in Sydney, going to New York, I didn't have anybody. Um I was on my own. Um, my husband and I, however, were at the same church in Perth, Western Australia. Okay. Um way back before you ever moved. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:05

Okay, so you knew him from when you were you were younger?

SPEAKER_04 16:08

No, like he he became a Christian later. I was in Sydney and I would come back every holidays to to be in my home church and and dance and help them with their production at Christmas and all of those things. Um, I didn't meet him till long after that, and I I came back after my degree and I actually started a Christian um, I like to say a dance studio for Christians. Um and so I had a lot of young students. I ended up having about 200 young students, and I just wanted them to have a safe place to learn the arts. Yeah. Um, so it was a room, it was crazy. Again, an American um was in my church working there, and he said, he said this to me. What can I do to put wings on your dreams? I mean, who says that?

SPEAKER_05 16:55

Oh my gosh. Who says that? That's powerful. And I'm like, What can I do to put wings on your dreams? Can you imagine if every creative had somebody who would have been?

SPEAKER_04 17:04

And that was my leader. That's crazy. And I looked at him and went, That's amazing. I need a dance floor in the church. Um, and then I'm at a party, and this lady says to me, You don't happen to know someone who needs a secondhand dance floor. I mean, who sells a dance floor? So I mean, God was just threading, it was just crazy. And I was like, I do. And then this man, again an American, says to me, Well, let's raise the funds to do it. There's a wiring in Americans. There is a wiring and a dream and a go-get it-ness that I needed. And the Lord knew that, and he kept putting them in my path. You guys have that redemptive gift that I don't know if you know, if you carry, but that's why there's so much leadership on America across the entire world when it comes to the arts and missions, and it's just incredible. Um, so I'm thankful for that. And yeah, so I am like helped by this amazing man, and um, I get a studio with mirrors and bars and everything, which opens more doors, and I'm able to do more things and raise up this generation of incredible, beautiful people, and I have this dance school, and I'm 10 years doing this, but deep down, really wanting to perform, like and have more opportunities. But there wasn't any opportunities where I was. So I always say, like, when you're somewhere where there isn't, there's opportunity to create opportunity. Yeah. But the existing opportunities that I long for, they weren't there. But my husband was on the worship team, and I would walk past, and I was praying for a man that played, to be specific, two musical instruments and song. And my husband. Wait, you were praying that you would play two instruments reading like that. And have and be told dark and handsome. Like, that's awesome. My husband knew.

SPEAKER_05 18:51

You're so bold.

SPEAKER_04 18:52

You're like, no, this is what I want. Crazy. He's got dark hair, he plays flute and piano and sings. And he um so I said to him, Could you come and perform with me a musical theatre duet? Because it in Australia at Christmas it's summertime. So we were doing Carols by the sea, and so there's a stage down at the sea where it was being televised, and he played my husband in it. Art reflecting life. I don't know. How prophetic, how prophetic, amazing. I love it. And the whole time I'm like, please really marry me, but he took a while. He took a while. He was very shy, he's half British, and he's like Mr. Darcy. If you know who the I do know Mr. Darcy, he's a little bit bumbling and he's not very confident when it comes to girls, so um, which was good because he's not a flute, which is a great quality. There you go. There you go. I love this situation. He needed a little help from me.

SPEAKER_05 19:47

Oh my gosh, he needed some prompting. So you're the bold one in the relationship. Um but clearly God brought the two of you together, and I have met your husband. He is wonderful, he's an everything. Yes, and God is so good like that to bring us those men who will who will be that partner to help also support your dream and help launch what's in you while you're also doing the same for him. So it's been really neat to just hear, and you guys have such a heart for marriage, and I know you've helped a lot of marriages in the creative industry. Talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_04 20:20

It's so funny because so much of I I know that you understand this, but so much of what we love as creatives and being big dreamers, so much of what I was chasing when I moved out of the ministry space. I I went to London and I'll come full circle. As soon as I stepped out of that ministry space into pursuing my art at the professional level, which I don't think was wrong in itself. I just wanted opportunity. Very quickly, though, I realized it had become an idol. And that wasn't the most miserable I've been as an artist, is when I started to try and pursue it for my own identity. Um and I went through that in London. It was the first time that I was like, Where are you in this god? Like I'd always had it was always easy until that point. Um and I so my husband is just this amazing person who no matter what season I've gone through, has has walked with me through all of those London years and and and all of the above. But the beautiful thing was is uh late last year, I said, God, I know that my husband and I have had such a beautiful, adventurous, incredible journey as a married couple all around the world, uh, from London to Australia to the US. And uh we've always done it together. We're 20 years married, uh together at about 22 or three years now in terms of dating before. But gosh, like the most beautiful journey together, and uh we just felt like God had something else for us, and I was hanging so tightly. Onto my identity as an artist. And when I was able to just slightly say, I don't, I'm not, God's not saying you have to let it go, but what else are you calling me to? How else can I be of service? Um, and how can I help the world around me? And I actually put on Facebook to a group of Christian friends, what do you see over my husband and I in the season ahead? And this is when we've moved to America. And this shocked me because of course everyone's like, Oh, you've got the arts, da-da-da. But so many people spoke about our relationship. How do you do this together? And I went away with that, and I I I really felt like there was wisdom in many, and I wanted to ask a select group because my Facebook, I've got the ability to isolate audiences, yeah, because I've always um had those groups. And my husband and I just from that were like, people want to hear about how we're doing this as a couple, how are we having big dreams, yeah, traveling around the world with our children, pursuing everything and not losing our marriage? Yeah, and that's where the marriage ministry started.

SPEAKER_05 23:06

So that is amazing, and that is a needed conversation when it comes to creatives. We're gonna have a 2.0 where we talk about marriage. Yes, because Scott and I also get asked that question all the time is yeah, how do you guys do this, especially with your kids? And now that our children are older and are now walking in their giftings and callings, and uh we get asked that question so much. Yeah. So now you're what in your mid-20s, early 30s, you've been doing this for a good decade, you're married. And did people start coming to you? Because I would kind of like to dive into this now coaching part. Yeah. So you had this mentor say to you, How do I put wings on your dreams? I can imagine that that probably sparked something in you that maybe was already there beforehand. But um, how did you then start to in turn coach other creatives and give room for them? Yeah. Like talk about your heart for the creative community at large and what led you into coaching because you have a very successful coaching career. Yeah, you are accredited on one of the highest levels of coaching, which is phenomenal. So talk about that.

SPEAKER_04 24:29

Yeah, it's so funny because uh the honest rule thing is that I've helped, as you would have, artists for so many years. And I was like, I have something to say, kind of a little bit arrogantly. I'm good with helping people, and so I put myself in, well, I will just get a qualification to go with that, to to and then I go into this training, which puts me in the top 3% of coaches in terms of it's called an ICFPCC uh professional certified coach, and it's the gold star of coaching and um with the International Coaching Federation, and I find out that I don't get to have my opinion or my story or my narrative or anything in a session, and if I did, I would fail because I had to go through these a hundred mentoring hours being watched as I'm coaching, and I did fail once because if I went into any narrative or or took their story and made it my own, wow, that is not what we're trained to do. Um, and so it's not mentoring, correct, and I never go into my story, but at the end of that, um I I say to them, if you have because they often come in saying, I want to ask you questions about you and I want you to tell me what to do. And I'm like, Well, I'm gonna take you through the science of a session, and at the end, you can ask me questions. Um, and so that's funny because I I just went into coaching really just to put a a qualification to what I thought I was already doing. Wow. Realizing this is a very different skill set. Um, and it's been so beautiful because it's really taught me the art of listening and questions and how to empower someone to actually get out of the parts look. I can sit on the arrogance side of things or the confidence side of things. But when I would go through a session and I think I know everything, I've been doing this for 20, 30 years, whatever. I am constantly amazed with how little I know and then how much is in my subconscious, like that I'm not aware of that I'm completely unaware that I'm thinking. So it's being able to find that and pull that out and help somebody be free, yeah, incredibly empowering. And then of course you can couple that with the Holy Spirit. The course I did wasn't a Christian course, but there's just so much beauty.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:49

But at the end of the session, I actually had a client ask me one time, she's like, What is it about you that enables you to keep showing up as an artist after all these years when so many of us quit? And I said, I I was gobsmacked. I'm like, I I I need to think. And I said, It's because I'm willing to go through difficulty over and over again, over and over again. And that is what I've signed up to. And my dad would say, Lara, you're a sticker. You're a sticker. It's a very Australian sticker, stick at things. You're a sticker. Yeah, you sticker. I love it. You stick at things, that's so good. You persevere. That's so good. That quality, and I and I see that quality, and and really um ultimately, and we can talk about it later, but that is what led me to to actually write Audacious Artistry was because I realized I thought everyone knew this stuff. Yeah, I thought everyone did. So coaching's been a beautiful transformation in my life of being able to really help people at a level that I didn't actually realize I'd signed up for. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 27:55

Well, I just want to say this one quick thing about mentoring versus coaching, and then let's dive into your book. Um, but for those listening who maybe don't know the difference between mentoring and coaching, both are so powerful. Both, yeah. And we all need good mentors, and we all need good coaches. Yeah. And I'm a product of both. I actually don't know where I would be if I didn't have mentors. I mean, as far back as I can remember. But mentors are those that come alongside you and say, Let me teach you my ways. Let me show you how I've done it and teach you this way of doing it. And then it doesn't mean that you have to do it exactly the way that they would do it. You know, you can put your own spin on things, but um, but this is my way, this has worked for me. But the coaching, like you said, you couldn't go into these sessions and say, This is my way. You had so coaching is pulling out of the person, helping them put words on what they're feeling and why they're doing what they're doing, and and it's learning how to ask the right questions to help them identify certain things. Um, so and and both are needed. So for you listening and watching, you need to have a good mentor that'll just walk with you through life. Yeah, and and and coaches can do that too, but sometimes coaching too can be very seasonal or for or for a specific thing. Um and both are just amazing, but audacious artistry, audacious creativity. Yeah, um, you have really walked this out, but what it takes to bring creative work into the world, let's dive into that. One of the things that I know you're very passionate about talking about, you've written about it in your book, is this thing that you call the real creative crisis, which is the fear of disappearing, yeah, uh, being afraid of being drowned out and overlooked. And I think if we're all honest with ourselves, I know I've had moments in my life where I have felt that. Yeah. Um, and this is where identity is so key, is so crucial, is knowing who you are and who you're not. Yes. Um but I think every creative has this crossroads. It's a real fear, it's a real thing. Here in Nashville, where everyone is good at everything, which is honestly awesome. Yeah, but it can feel like a threat if you're not secure in yourself. But talk to us about this and and your insight and the revelation that you have on this topic of fear and not feeling drowned out and overlooked. Talk about this crisis.

SPEAKER_04 30:42

It's funny because I don't think a lot of artists have identified the real fear, um, which is part of the work of um the subtitles Reclaim Your Creative Identity and Thrive in a Saturated World, which is a beautiful picture of what is going on in our world because we're now dealing with not just when I was going through my degree of being in the studio with six other females in my particular class. Now we've got social media, we've got podcasts, we've got so much coming at us in the streaming platforms as artists that it feels overwhelmingly saturated. And I was at a filmmaker's meetup the other day, and I said, What do you think the greatest fear of an artist is? And of course, they're like rejection or all the perfectionism and those sorts of things. And I said, Is actually the fear of disappearing? Complete what about feeling completely insignificant as an artist, invisible it is the biggest fear that we have. And it comes from a basic identity question, and that identity question is do I exist? Do I matter to you? Do you matter to me? Do you see me? Wow. That is identity, and so the thing that people don't realize, they're like, learn your identity. But identity we give and receive from each other. We are born to a mum, and then we seek their eye contact. You know this. You've got a lot of kids. Yes. That baby will be distressed if you don't look that baby in the eye, even from its very young straight away. That identity is, do you see me, mom? And then that same pattern is we we grow up and we like we want to fit into a community and then we want to find our place in that community. And then as artists, we want to fit in and find our place, and yet we put ourselves in a career that goes against the very psychology of human um design that we will fit into a community and find our place in that community. And so we end up in this place of constant cycling of do you see me? Do I have value to you? Yeah, do I matter to you? And that we do this on a loop. So when I moved to London, like I went to the professional industry. It's like Broadway, West End. It's Broadway. I did my master's in musical theatre at a leading conservatory, and this is where I started to see this pattern of push, push, push. I want my identity. If I can just get seen, if I can book this, I'll be respected, and then people will, then I'll have a voice, and then I'll be able to do the things I want to do, and then I'll be in that circle, and there's this rat race that happens of all of this stuff. And it's funny because I went through this for years and years and years, and man, it's hard. It's so hard, and it's not wrong, but it it is really hard because you are working against a natural psychology. Yeah, and so um I end up getting a job my first year in America, which is only about four years ago, teaching at a conservatory as an associate professor of acting, and I'm still feeling these sorts of sense of I need to get that big ticket um yes from the industry in order to be seen as worthy, blah, blah, blah. And by now I've already got heaps of jobs and heaps of things, and it's never enough. You get here, and then you're like the next big booking, or there's another circle, or there's a better dressing room with a bigger star that's closer to the stage. It just goes on and on. And I was in a room full of actors, they were young, and they were all talking about themselves. And I looked and I'm like, wow, this is really ugly. We're all talking and looking at videos of ourselves and watching our work, and yeah, it's part of the craft, but I'm like, oh my gosh, that's me. That's what I've been doing for the last time. I've been totally focused on myself, and because we're surrounded with other creative people, it just feeds that. Yeah, and we're not kind of getting that health and that identity sometimes from another place. And I was like, Larry, you're already enough, you've already done enough, you already are eons ahead of where these students are, and yet you haven't accepted that or walked in that authority or stepped into that authority because you are still chasing validation. Wow, you are enough, you've done enough, and I felt God said it is finished. Wow, and that's when that's when I was like, No more chasing. Wow, no more, and I still have dreams and I still have things that I'd love to be able to do. But what I recognized was it will never be enough. And so I went into writing this book. That's the start of the book. I was like, what is the framework that has enabled me to keep showing up as an artist in all of the different things from the church to the professional Broadway of London, which is the West End. Um and I did I designed a framework that's like this is what it takes to keep showing up. And that came from the place of I can't do anything else right now. I'm in America, my visa stopped me working. I had just moved to Atlanta and I had to pivot my creativity into something else. And I have this great metaphor where I'm like, well, if one creativity is a mansion, and if one door is shut and I couldn't perform in America because of my visa, I'm gonna go to another door in my mansion because creativity is that great. And I pivoted and started writing.

SPEAKER_05 36:13

That's good. Wait, say that again.

SPEAKER_04 36:15

Creativity is a mansion, it's a mansion, yes, with a lot of rooms. Yeah, and I was like, I can't do the acting one right now, and I'm gonna write. And so I pivoted to another door in my mansion, and it's a beautiful picture. And this came too from a client I had who had throat cancer, and she's a singer, and she's like, Laura, I can't sing anymore. Wow, and I I know other um singers that can't sing, and I'm like, I know that it's hard and I want to be with you in your pain, but also creativity is a mansion. Yeah, it's time to pivot and open another door.

SPEAKER_05 36:50

That's so encouraging.

SPEAKER_04 36:52

Don't stay stuck because God has an amazing mansion of creativity for all of us. Oh, that's so good. And I didn't know how to write. I'm like, yeah, but I have creativity and I needed to use it. Yeah, and I also knew from looking at those students that I had lived so much life at this point as an artist that it was time to write it down. There you go. But my book journey was a crazy story in itself, but it was time to write it down, so it began writing for me and getting this book. That is incredible.

SPEAKER_05 37:26

What an incredible insight. I love that. There's another thing you write about in your book called the Invisible Seasons, yeah. Which are those seasons where nobody else sees you but God. Yep. And there are some very deep things that happen in our hearts and in our souls, um, in the invisible seasons. Yeah. And you write why artists grow most when nobody is watching. Talk to us about that concept.

SPEAKER_04 37:59

Yeah. Now this is an invitation because when nobody's watching, I call it, um, and in the book I write about it, like the it's like I call it the dark night of the soul. Because so often, and there, yeah, very many times I've been in these seasons. Yeah, these seasons can break us. They can also cause us to just sit and wallow in self-pity and depression. And I think we do need to grieve and recognize that a lot of the time there is a lot of unprocessed emotion, a lot of grief. Maybe for dreams that we thought we would have, uh, accolades we thought we would have, or how we thought the journey would look. I do believe that we need to feel those feelings and grieve in these quiet times. But in these quiet times, there's also an invitation. So for me, that's looked like okay, after that crazy season of moving to America, which was really hard. I sat in Atlanta with no ability to work because I was my husband had a visa, he was working, and I had my children, but I had these long days at home with no friends in a new country. Um and I'm like, I'm just in a vortex of writing with the Holy Spirit, which was which was the beginnings of audacious artistry, but it wasn't that at the time. And it's in that season that I so much, I I think I began the writing journey to heal and to process and to grow and to reflect and to learn. Um, and I think so many of us, and I've had seasons where I haven't done that. I've laid on my bed for I don't even know, days turn into weeks, into months, and that's depression. Like I've had that too. Um, but when you allow yourself to actually feel your feelings, like write, write, sing whatever it is that you need to do, walk through an art gallery. Um, let yourself be released in these seasons and allow yourself to just be somewhat, you know, under the shadow of almighty wings, you know, Psalm 91.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 40:02

Um, beautiful things can happen. And so in this season, I'm writing and I'm writing and I'm writing, and at the beginning, that was not at all what I ended up writing in the book. It was a very healing journey for me of just putting down all the things that I had learnt and was growing in and reflecting. And um funny story about that is that I got picked up by a literary agent, worked with an editor for a year on on the first version of this book, and then they dropped me. So, and you know, like I have this dark season where I'm writing, and then I get this great thing where I get signed, and then I have a year of progress, and then I get dropped. And again, another dark night of a soul lying on my bed, looking at the ceiling. What am I doing with my life? I've moved to America, nothing is happening. At this point, there's now an industry strike. I can't act. Um, I have my visas just come through, now there's a strike. Um, the industry just that door is just not opening. Um, and I did get signed with an acting agent, but the the the the Atlanta industry had shut down. And so I get dropped and I'm like, fire. This, you have a choice in these seasons. I got the fire of God in me, and I went, I have something to say. I have a voice. And when you're going through grief and you're going through this stuff, yeah, there has to be something in you that says, I have something to say and offer this world. Come on. I have something to bring to the table. Even if there's a feast out there, I just want to bring my little dish and put it on the feasting table because I can't disappear.

SPEAKER_01 41:38

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 41:39

I can't disappear. So I get on my bed and I'm like looking at the ceiling, going, gosh, I just got dropped again. Lord, where are you? I get the fire of God in me. I call a writing coach. I'm like, what am I doing wrong? And I start getting teaching, like expensive writing coach. I rewrite the entire book. It's what I really want to say. I pitch again. Somebody says, I'll give you a hybrid offer, which is where you pay to play. It's a lot of money. Right. I'm talking, I don't even know. I think it's like six grand. And I was like, oh, wow. I don't know where I'm gonna get that money, Lord. And I was close to going because I was like, I want this book out there. And I just did, and I backed out, and I got offered a London traditional publishing contract. After all that pain, all that hardness, all that, I actually got so refined in that fire that I wrote the book that I really wanted to say and got a traditional publishing deal because I found my voice in that pain. Come on. So this is what this is the voice.

SPEAKER_05 42:45

I hope you're listening.

SPEAKER_04 42:47

This is so powerful. Your voice is in the pain if you go over there and you don't numb yourself out.

SPEAKER_05 42:53

Your voice is in the pain, yeah, and you don't numb yourself out. Because what we naturally want to do is we want to run from pain, we don't want to feel it. Yeah, but pain is actually that thing that will help you go to that next level, and it's it's crazy. I I had a dark night of the soul season myself about four or five years ago, and listened, and that's exactly what God did with me. There were some days I sat for literally a year, actually, more than a year. Yeah, and some days it was tears from grief, and other days it was just tears because I knew God was so near. Yeah, but I had to learn to sit in my pain. And I've I've I've shared this testimony publicly now many times. Yeah, but I've never allowed myself, and I'm gonna use this word, which is gonna sound so weird to associate pleasure with pain. Yeah, but I gave myself the pleasure of sitting in my pain and actually learning what it was like to feel. And it deepened me. Yeah. And it took me to a place, a real place. Just like what you said. Yeah. A real and authentic and audacious place. Yeah. That I knew I could go, but hadn't dared yet to go.

SPEAKER_04 44:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:20

And I wrote and I prayed and I sat. Some days I did absolutely nothing. You know, quote unquote, nothing. I don't think if you're married and have a four children, that you're never not doing nothing. Um but sometimes it felt like nothing. Yeah. You know. And from that year, I wrote my anchor album.

SPEAKER_04 44:44

There you go.

SPEAKER_05 44:45

You know, and God brought me, of course, amazing co-writers and and trusted friends. Yeah. Where I would sit in these co-writes and go, well, this is what I've been doing for the last month. And this is the one scripture and the one thing God has taught me from this. And here's the melody and the and the chorus. Will you help me write something that explains this? And out of the goodness and the graciousness and the kindness of their hearts, you know, but that's how some of my favorite songs from that record, like Oh My Soul and All of You, and you know, some of these songs that have just gone on to be part of my testimony, you know. But listen, there is there is something beautiful and powerful that happens when you allow yourself to feel pain.

SPEAKER_04 45:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 45:33

Yeah. There really is.

SPEAKER_04 45:34

That's so true. And that's where your authenticity and your creative voice is born. That's right. And what's so beautiful is they're the songs that transform nations. There's a power in them. It's not just anointing, it's like authenticity. And that's what resonates. That's what resonates. Authenticity is what resonates. It does. And that's what cuts through saturated world. That's how you reclaim your creative voice.

SPEAKER_05 45:58

Come on.

SPEAKER_04 45:58

There is no way to stand out in this world without being able to access fully who you are. And to find yourself, the Lord uses these dark nights of the soul. But it's so easy to numb. It's so easy. And sometimes we don't know we're numbing, but numbing looks like where you kind of lose your desire to sort of keep showing up, and maybe you just watch TV nonstop, or you just scroll sort of mindlessly nonstop. Um and you feel sad, but you're not letting yourself kind of process it or journal it or talk to a coach or a mentor, and then you kind of go out and you do your thing and you come back and you do that again. And a lot of us don't realize what it looks like, so we don't know that we're doing it. And I know because I've been here too, you've been here too. But in this place, man, this is where we find out the most beautiful creativity and the most beautiful way to actually cut through the noise of this world and all of the noise out there to stand out and actually have something to say. That's so that's worth saying.

SPEAKER_05 47:02

Yeah, no, yeah, something that's worth saying. And that even doesn't even sound like what everybody else is saying too. I mean, like I mean, sorry, but sometimes I feel like things just sound the same all the time, and people are just saying the same thing, but I think there's something so unique about just being willing and daring just to say the thing that God has put in your life and walked you through. So true. Oh man, that is so good. Yeah, and and and just and just you know, like guys, it's just it's risky. Yeah, it it is. There's like no guarantee that you know what you're working on and what you're doing is is gonna be that thing that is gonna reach millions and millions of people. But is that why we're doing this? Yeah, or is it is it even if it's just the one or the hundreds or the thousands, you know, like that's something that we just we have to leave the results in the hands of the Lord and just be willing to do whatever God tells us to do. But obedience is risky, and there's a faith that has to be lived out, which you talk about in your book, and just being willing, you know, like there's especially in these last like 10 years, I feel like everything we've done, me and Scott, um, has had a really big risk. Yeah. And here's the thing people aren't always gonna understand that or agree. Yeah, or agree with you. They're gonna think you're crazy, yeah. They're gonna actually tell you you're crazy, that you're irresponsible.

SPEAKER_04 48:39

That's a big one.

SPEAKER_05 48:41

That's a big one, like, and it stinks, honestly, when it's like your friend or your family member or somebody saying, uh, are you, you know, and it's you're a dreamer. And listen, I know sometimes it's well intended and it's out of care for you or whatever, but honestly, guys, sometimes you just have to shake off the comments, yeah, the well-meaning, well-intended comments, and and just be like, God, what are you asking me to do? Because I know this is the most important thing. And and sometimes the rewards of your obedience and of your risk, they're not even gonna manifest themselves sometimes until years down the road. And listen, part of our our calling to move to where we live now here in Nashville, a lot of it wasn't even for us, it was for our children. And how could we have known that at their young, tender age when we moved, that they would be living in and doing the things that they are now doing and experiencing and getting the opportunity simply because we said yes to move to a certain part of the nation, yeah, you know, for them. Alignment. So alignment, that's exactly right. Alignment with the word of the Lord. Lastly, let's let's talk about showing up before the success.

SPEAKER_04 50:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 50:01

This just willingness to steward your gift, which is something I'm really passionate about. You'll you know, you probably hear this in multiple podcasts and multiple interviews, because it is something that is so important. But why success isn't the finish line, which you talk about in your book, yeah, but it's a rhythm. Success is a rhythm, yeah, it's a direction and it's a practice. Will you talk about your perspective on that?

SPEAKER_04 50:24

Yeah, it's so funny because so much of us we we feel like if I can just get here, whatever success is for you, then everything will happen.

SPEAKER_01 50:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:34

And so often, particularly in in the arts, and I know not everybody's necessarily an artist, but so often we believe that narrative, like if it's an actor, if I just book that one job in Hollywood, then, or I get that record deal, then, or I get that West End or Broadway role, then. But what happens is it's not a ladder, it's like it's it's actually a rhythm because it goes more up and down, and success is a funny thing. And then I found myself like if I just do this and then I do it, and then the bar moves, and it's an insatiable thing. So for me, what success looks like now is this is a step towards my true authentic creative voice today, that is my success. That's good because if I can keep finding my creative, authentic voice in the quiet times when nobody's looking and no one's accolating, there's and I'm not distracted with the likes, the shares, the views, the subscribers, the how many clicks on my profile, whatever it is, if I'm not distracted with that busy work and I'm in my own creative voice and showing up to that, I don't know when those beautiful projects that I'm creating from my authentic self, if ever, are going to be so-called successful. But that's success for me. So my book it comes out of that place because um I'm in the place where it's like this month is it's officially out. Yeah. I have written it, I have done the work. Okay, so when did your book come out officially? February 24. So we're really, really close. Yeah, really close. Um, and so it's in pre-order now. But what the crazy thing about this journey is that you go, okay, what's success? I wrote the book. That's success. But then I'm like, I need a publishing contract. I get a publishing contract, that's great. But even that journey, there's all these readers and they have to green light it, and then from there you're going, success has moved again because now that I have a publishing contract, I need to show up for the next however many years to promote this thing and get this thing out. And this is there's the follow-through. There's so much, and it doesn't end. No, yeah. So all I can do on every day so that I do not fall apart is just take one step towards my true authentic creative self and my dreams. Yeah, that is all I can control. Um, and that's why I see that as success because I cannot control that if it becomes a bestseller. I cannot control if I get a contract for this thing or that dream or whatever. I can't control if it's going to make me money. Um, so that's why for me, I kind of with clients as well have lowered what the success bar is because our nervous system cannot cope in that place of overwhelm. It's like the design of how we are when you learn to work with God's design for the human body. Yeah. It's a beautiful thing the way he's made us. And if we get into fight, fight, faint, um, foreign freeze, which is that nervous system overwhelmed us, then we we often lock down and do nothing. We achieve nothing. It's just too hard.

SPEAKER_05 53:40

We just get so overstimulated and overwhelmed that we shut down.

SPEAKER_04 53:43

And overwhelm is made up of a lot of emotions. It is. You know, so I I feel like, okay, well, if we can learn our, yeah, there's the big picture goal, but if we can learn to take that one thing towards our true self and our authentic voice instead of chasing what we think is going to get us somewhere, which means we're pulling some sometimes away from who we are, we end up wasting time chasing validation and never actually fulfilling what we really are after. And I love with a client to actually find what they really are after, and it often boggles them that they didn't have any idea what they were really chasing. So it's this identity question, of course, is always there. But I often will say to them, what will it give you when you get that thing? And they're like, Joy, or there's something else. And I'm like, Well, maybe there's other ways to get that thing that you highly value. Um, and it's not that any of our big dreams are wrong, but they can be so debilitating when we don't actually know how to walk them out. Wow. And I'm a big dreamer like you. Goodness, look at me, I'm in America. I know, crazy. I chased my dreams all the way here because I knew this was alignment for me and my husband. So we're aligned for opportunity, we're aligned for success, but I can't control all those outcomes. No, we cannot. We cannot.

SPEAKER_05 55:02

And you know, ultimately, success is obedience to what God's telling you to do. That's right. That's that's what it is. Yeah, that's what it is, and we have to settle that in our heart, we have to settle that in our mind that that as long as I'm doing what God told me to do, yeah. Just trusting the outcomes to Him.

SPEAKER_04 55:22

Yeah, I love the saying, trust the unfolding. And we can obviously add to that, trust the unfolding of the Holy Spirit. But to trust the unfolding is it's like there's you can show up and do the work, but then there's a part of surrender that you know, and I really do believe in working hard and I do believe in partnering with the Holy Spirit. Um, and I do believe that dreams take effort and all of the above, but there is this place of surrender and unfolding that where you let go and and let God and trust that in his timing, in his way, it may happen and it may not. There's many dreams that have not happened that I've chased for many years. They've happened in a little way, but not at the level that I want. Yeah, and that's okay because that's biblical too. That's right. I'm okay with that journey. Yeah, I'm okay with that. I'm surrendered to that journey, but I'm still trying. Yeah, that's right. Abraham and Sarah. That's right.

SPEAKER_05 56:16

That's right. As we bring this to a close today, I have one final question for you. What are you currently dreaming about?

SPEAKER_04 56:25

I love this because um I actually say to my clients, have you ever dreamed about having a healthier marriage? Have you ever actually set that as a new year resolution? Have you ever dreamed of ringing more friends a week to have a true connection? So I kind of flipped my big dreams because I have so many of them. Yeah. Um because yeah, I still want to be a serious regular in a really gritty faith, you know, redemptive story. Like I would love that. That's a big dream, and that's true. But what I really want and I'm praying for, which will sound really weird, is three really close friends that meet me halfway. Because I'm I'm new in America, so I'm still forming community, but will meet me halfway with my kind of, hey, do you want to get a coffee? So we kind of meet each other halfway. So it's like pickleball instead of like one person serving. And I would love for them to be able to do, you know, I don't know if you watch sweet magnolias, but they have like Margarita night where they actually catch up and just share all their funny those girls.

SPEAKER_05 57:29

I'm really I love that show.

SPEAKER_04 57:30

I like that's my dream right now. It's like that there'd be three, and that's what I'm praying for. Three people in my new life in Atlanta that would want to share their hearts, maybe two, because three would be the third. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 57:42

That is a beautiful dream. Isn't that weird? And that is no, it's not weird. We all crave that kind of community and friendship. And because that's how we're created. We're created for fellowship and for community. I think that's a beautiful dream. And I think that was actually quite bold of you to share that. Yeah. So for those of us listening or watching, we need to pray in this dream for Laura. Uh Laura, thank you for your incredible wisdom and insight today. This has been awesome. I have loved every minute of this conversation. And this book, Audacious Artistry, Reclaim Your Create Your Creative Identity and Thrive in a Saturated World. This comes out on February 24th. But they can pre-order now. Yep. Yeah, they can pre-order. Um, and how do people follow you and stay in touch with you?

SPEAKER_04 58:28

Yeah, my name, Lara Bianca Pilcher with No You, is everywhere. Um, so Lara Bianca Pilcher.com is my website, and on there is my social media. So I'm under Lara Bianca Pilcher on all the social media handles. The book is there at my website, but also it's everywhere. It's at I think it's called Barnes and Noble here, or if you're in the UK listening, it's Waterstones or Australia or wherever. Um Bambooks, all of the bookstores are selling it, so amazing. It's got worldwide distribution, which is really like a God story, as you know. Um, LarabiankaPilcher.com to get all of that. Awesome.

SPEAKER_05 59:05

Well, thank you, Laura, for your time today, for just pouring out your incredible story. What a blessing you've been to our audience. To me, this has been awesome. I encourage you to subscribe and to download uh the Dreamers Podcast and come back for our next episode. Thank you so much for joining us today. Dreams don't come with the roadmap, only courage, curiosity, and the willingness to keep going. If today's story resonated with you, let it remind you that your journey matters, even if it's still unfolding. Thank you for spending this time with me today on the Dreamers Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs a little inspiration today. Until next time, keep dreaming, keep moving, and trust that the story you're writing is worth telling. We'll see you on the next episode.