We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kimberlee D. Murray. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kimberlee below.

Kimberlee, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

My parents greatly impacted my career by teaching me the importance of not giving up and being an independent thinker. I always remember them telling me to not follow “the crowd” and to go after the things I’m passionate about. While I was away at college, I ended up making one of the biggest decisions in my life and I would not have had the courage to do so had they not instilled this mindset. During my sophomore year of college, I was double majoring in Dance and Communications but felt I needed more dance training than the program I was enrolled in AND, I realized I wanted to study Media Communications versus the theory of Communicating. Talk about a doubly whammy. Every day I had this unsettled feeling inside of me that I needed to make a change, but I was also scared to take this big leap into the unknown. Remembering what my parents taught me about standing on my own is what inspired me to research other schools and find the programs I was meant to be a part of. Without telling anyone, I applied to a different school on a whim and a few months later, I was accepted! I was so shocked. I immediately felt gratitude for being brave enough to go after what I was truly passionate about. It was the first major decision I made for myself that directly impacted my entire career. I would not be where I am today without that drive that was instilled in me by my parents.

Kimberlee, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a professional dancer/actor currently performing in ‘The Hours’ at the Metropolitan Opera. I’m also a content creator and most recently a small business owner. I can say for sure that I definitely have a lot of interests! Living right outside of NYC, my mom always took my sister and I to see musicals which started my musical theater obsession. I loved the idea of spontaneously bursting into song and dance. As a child I took dance lessons off and on but it wasn’t until I was around 11yrs old that I started taking classes regularly. Between classes during the year and musical theater camp during the summer, I was hooked! Surprisingly though, it wasn’t until college that I started to believe I too could be up on that stage. After obtaining my degree in Communications while training in dance, I decided I wanted to pursue a career in the arts full time. My first professional gig was dancing on a new Disney Cruise Line ship. As cheesy as it sounds, it really was magical. Since then, I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to perform both nationally and internationally, from ice skating rock shows to musicals, and now the opera. I never could have imagined how far dance would take me. But, with the highs of performing comes the lows of the ‘in between.’ The moments where you aren’t performing and are balancing auditions, several survival jobs, and life in general. It can be difficult because you just don’t know when the next opportunity will come. A few years ago I was in between jobs and feeling unfulfilled. I was scrolling through youtube videos to pass the time and was feeling like the content I wanted to see wasn’t there. I was on my natural hair journey but didn’t see hair that looked like mine, I was newly vegan, but didn’t see people who looked like me, and I was struggling with acne and felt like everyone was promoting expensive products that I couldn’t afford. I decided I wanted to shake things up and create a little corner of the internet for the things I wanted to see with the hopes that people like me would benefit from it. Not the lux life but the budget life and that’s how my Youtube channel got started. It’s been an amazing journey seeing how one little idea sparked a whole knew passion for me and I’m most proud of creating this new community to help people live their best lives. It’s another way of connecting with an audience and inspires me to keep creating. Most recently I started designing notebooks, journals, and planners with the hope of continuing to spread motivation and joy far beyond the stage, far beyond a video, and into daily life.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My creative journey on all levels is driven by my passion to empower people. Getting clear on my intentions as a content creator is the same way I approach my artistry as a performer. When I know what the goal is, everything I do along the way has a specific purpose. Now that I’ve journeyed into starting a small business, I take the same approach. I ask myself what I want to achieve, what I want to avoid, and how I can make my intention clear to the consumer.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist, and creative, is knowing the direct impact you can have on someone’s life. It fills me with gratitude knowing that I could be a small part of someone else’s journey in whatever creative outlet I explore. Thinking of how I have felt in the past when inspired by someone or something is what drives me to continue on my own journey.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kimberleedmurray.com
• Instagram: @hey_kimberlee
• Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/c/HeyitsKimberlee
• Other: Shop my motivational notebooks, journals, and planners here: https://www.amazon.com/shop/heyitskimberlee/list/1A56O0B35UHJC

Image Credits
James Jin, Albert Leong Photography