You Know It is Right When It Feels Right

I hope you're one of them. I hope that this podcast inspires you to be more connected to your intuition and I hope that by doing that we make the world a better place. Thanks for coming on this journey with me. My guest today is an outdoor enthusiast, whether it's kayaking, cycling, or camping. She seems to recharge your batteries when she gets outside. She's also a kickboxer and not only is she an animal lover, but we're going to have her dog Ziggy join us today.

She's intelligent, creative, intuitive. She is my web designer and I'm grateful for her ability to connect with the message I need to share. I'm also grateful for her patience. My guest today is the creative director for Greenlight Design, Renee France LeBlanc. So thanks again . Are hosting me today. We're actually in your house. You're welcome. So tell us a little bit about yourself.

So if I talk about myself work-wise, I am the creative director for Greenlight Design celebrating 13 years, two days ago. So that's exciting. Like you 13. And I love what I do. I've been doing graphic design work for my whole life before starting green light .

So they knew that you were able to do this on the side and it was under absolutely. Yeah . Cool. That doesn't always happen. It doesn't know . And um, you know, it was my managing editor that had the idea of, you know, starting this. It was, it wasn't never something that I would have thought of on my own, but, you know, I was quite young at the time. I was 26, so it wasn't really something that I would think about.

I mean the corporate world was something that I was , um, what I thought was meant to achieve and I did achieve that, but um , didn't work out that way. Right. Well And isn't it cool or sometimes we get pushed to be your best selves by other people. We kind of put limitations on ourselves. I know I do. Anyways, but , and then you have somebody come along the like they almost spew information at you and you go, Huh, am I suppose to do that or not. Yup . That's exactly how I felt.

I mean I had no idea what a business even entailed. So , uh, it was, it was a learning curve at the beginning, but um, you know, it was all worth it in the end. And we are still here. Yeah. And you've got employees as well.

And then just recently had one of those people spew information at me and it was an opportunity to it appeared like an opportunity to get me away from Facebook and this, this platform, sorry, I kind of said, okay, I'm going over here Renee. And you were like, okay, sure. Like whatever. off you go and I don't know what you were thinking on your side, but you were just like, okay to me. And so off I went and this platform is incredible.

But for somebody like myself that has no, no, I like, if you give me the world, I'll be like squirrel. And that's what I did for about two months. Ah, and so I , he , we'd have conference calls and then I put it away and he'd come back and poke me. Did you do anything with that? And I wasn't doing anything with it cause I, I just realized I didn't have the capacity. And so push came to shove and I was like, I gotta do something. I'm like, hi Renee Grovel Grovel can you take me back.

And you're like , sure . And I'm like, but do you have this? Like the previous me was like, okay, were you using wordpress ? And that didn't take in my brain. And you were like, yeah, we get so you can totally use . And I was like, yeah , yeah . And it was curious to me because like it was a nudge to go, go explore this platform. And yet it showed me how with my brain and my creative, like I'm just like a firecracker that goes off hold and do that. Oh, okay.

But then to actually do it, like there's no fizz left in the fire cracker to actually do it.

It's so fun for people to throw themselves into this part of their business because you know, it's where your creativity will flourish. And I think it's important for a lot of people in the sense that we don't do that enough in our worlds. I do, but I think a lot of people don't, so when they see the word marketing and they see the words, you know, photos and it just, it, it brings a spark in their eye and they want to do it all at once.

But the truth is if you want to do it right, you know, we have to do it in pieces. And I think that's part of my job is to kind of hone down on that and make sure that people understand that you'll get better results that way if you break it down into chunks, into pieces. Well and it's always been curious to me because when you've run away and done stuff and then you're like, what do you think of that? I'm like, oh , I never thought of that actually. Right.

Or like, because some of my market is females, but now that I'm doing this podcast thing, I don't care what sex you are. I actually want to reach just as many men as I want to reach women. And you came back with throwing men in my website and everybody's like , oh , I liked the guy on that page.

So vibrations , um, that bring me into my areas of where I create and how I create. Wow . Cool. So if I meet someone, I bring that feeling with me when I go to work. And it's difficult to understand in that sense because you know, you, you can be a designer and you can learn to be a designer.

Right. So I need to tap into two different types of intuition. I need to look at my PR, the person that I'm working with first and foremost, and then I need to think about who's going to look at this. Who's, who's the customer here. So it's kind of a two prong step, you know, it's hard to put into words because when I'm sitting in front of my computer, I don't think about it, you know, just, yeah, I just let it happen. It's something that's within me.

I can't really explain, you know, people have told me before that they like my work and I don't really know why. Why, why I have that talent. Um, you know, where it comes from, but I just let it happen I guess is what I want to say. Yeah . So what even brought you to this career? Yeah , I'm very organized when it comes to like, again, it's , you know, for a designer, I think that order is not something that every designer has.

No. Um, I think there's a lot of pieces floating around and you know, that's the business part. Like I think there's a business part and there's the artist part and those two need to match when you're, you know , doing this type of work in visual communications. I think being at the paper helped me a lot with responsibilities, with deadlines at a young age. Um, I think that's why I was there to learn that aspect of it first.

It might not have been my quote unquote business course, but you know, it , it gave me the tools , um, right to start that for sure. Did you count with education, I did what took you into that education as a high school kid. So what I wanted to be was an architect. Okay. If you look at my yearbook in high school, it says architect. And you are yes. In a sense. Yes. And I did start at the university with the goal to become an architect.

But Low and behold, to me, when I was in my first year of university, I received a letter in August, starting my second year, that they were going to cut the course. And the second, third and fourth year students could continue their course. But the first year students had to find something else. Oh Gee , okay. This is , there's an intervention. So harsh one. Very harsh one. I get a lot of though. I think it's my personality. Like if they're not harsh, I won't listen.

So that was one of the early ones where it was, okay, you have a month to figure out your life and what you're going to do. And I spoke to my mom about it and thankfully she worked at the community college, India, so she was able to kind of nudge me into there , um , under this course called communications. Okay . And , uh, you know, part of that was , uh, in the printing industry. So I scurried over there and you know, found my niche through there.

When I was in school, I started doing the graphic design work for the Community College magazine. So, you know, and it all just suddenly became an epiphany of, oh my God, this is what I need to do. This is where I need to be, was a place where I felt comfortable doing what I was doing, it felt at home. So I knew right away I thought, okay, I get it. I know now what's happening. I don't, I'm not going to be an architect.

And it's funny because when I was in university, I didn't feel at home there at all. I felt very isolated. I felt out of place, you know, my parents told me, well, it's university, it's a new place. You know, it's not like school, you're gonna, you're gonna feel things, you know? And I just wasn't right.

So when I switched over to the community college and found this niche, it just completely changed my perspective to have such stark differences and environments and feeling and your reaction to them. It's like I'm full of goosebumps. I'm sure other people will resonate with that. Um , so it doesn't feel right. Go searching. That's right. Absolutely.

And that was probably something that was never really instilled in me was to go searching, and I'm not blaming anybody, but I think a lot of people feel that way is you know, you kind of don't follow that intuition sometimes and you find yourself in front of the brick wall sometimes and you realize, you know, there's no way out. But there actually is actually is. And I think too , as kids we don't think, about career choices as being an intuitive thing.

I'm thinking of career choices as being a very, I'm good at this, so I should do that. Or I like this. I should do that. Think sometimes when we're that young we don't have the words to put on it either. So you got to go and try stuff.

Um , I remember, yes, very much a cat person cookie was, you know, this little thing that I could leave for a couple of days without really thinking about it and she was fine and need an appointment to see her. Yes. And then she got sick and passed on and I was by myself or petless I should say for , I believe it was a year because I was told once that you shouldn't get another pet right away.

And I start googling cats and this little one, for whatever reason, popped into the search. Oh my gosh. So I couldn't really, if that's not divine. So I didn't really think about getting a dog. I knew what dogs were. I knew they were a huge responsibility. I'm not the type of person that would have ever, you know, thought about getting a dog in my life. Yeah .

But I, for whatever reason, clicked on this ad, and as ridiculous as it sounds, I fell in love with this little dog on Kijiji in Mississauga, Ontario. Oh my goodness. Oh Wow. So I just could not get her out of my head. I closed the ad down. I thought about it for two days. I thought, you can't, what are you? What are you thinking?

Getting a dog, you're in a Condo, you know, and then I see myself looking at condominium bylaws on what is the maximum poundage of a dog that you can have in a Condo, right. And how big do French bulldogs get and how long do they live and what did they eat.

And so, long story short, I've research Renee got involved, researcher Renee got involved, corporate Renee got involved, just looked at all the ins and outs of what it means to even own a dog, which was absolutely irrelevant because they're all different. I knew that now.

So I find myself, you know, within I think it was four days on face time with this Russian woman from Mississauga, Ontario who has a French bulldog puppy in her lap and showing me this dog and you know, I'm again falling in love with this little, you know, person. Yes. And uh , I, you know, put a deposit down and book the flight for her to come home. And the rest was history. She came home on Mother's Day, so, oh my God. Yeah , it was, it was a huge learning.

She was a puppy of very much a puppy. Oh my gosh. She was six weeks old. So I don't know if it was the motherly instinct that kicked in or what, but she, you know, she changed my whole life. I mean, you know, people don't realize when you're getting a dog, you're getting a child, you know, in certain ways. Especially a puppy. Yeah. So it was a lot of responsibility. Lack of sleep. Yep. Lack of sleep. I suddenly became a morning person. I wasn't a morning person, you know, as much as I felt.

I mean, in my previous relationship, u m, my ex wasn't a morning person, so I kind of dwindled into that habit by force, even though I felt like a morning person inside and I was before meeting him. Oh my gosh. Yes. So influence. Right. She's been my lucky charm. You know, there's a lot of things that I've wished for that since she's been in my life that have kind of appeared, she's definitely a kick in the butt. A f orce t o b e r eckoned with. Yeah. No, she's sweet. I'm such a people person.

People dog. Y eah. She loves people. Like most French bulldogs really gravitate towards people. They like affection. They like, they don't like to be left alone very long. So, so it works out that you work from home. That's right. That's right. That was part of my research too. Yeah , absolutely. Yeah. So in your world, intuitions played a huge rule . Yes. By the sounds of things to getting a doll , which was a flip . Absolutely. Has there been a time when you haven't listened?

Yes. And it's, it's not been good. It's kicked me in the butt when I don't listen to what I need to listen to. There's been a few times where I've made decisions that in my gut knew was wrong, even though people were telling me that it was right , it was right and you know it, it wasn't when the right on paper. That's a hard one too . That's right.

You know, I just, if I think of either past relationship, like not recent relationships, but you know, relationships that I've been in, people were around me would say, you know, this is a great person and you know, this is someone that did look at or, and it wouldn't, it just wasn't right. It wasn't the right match for you. Right. Yeah. Well thank you so much for your time today. You're welcome. Um, I really appreciate it. It was wonderful finally having a dog as a guest me and my dog .

I love them so much. Anyways, thank you again Renee . You're welcome.

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