making space for creative credo

My palms are a bit sweaty. I'm taking deep breaths. I feel a bit misty, and, I'm smiling. This is a monumental decision for a bloggity being like me…here goes:

I'm putting the comment function on WhiteHotTruth out to pasture.
Comments are hereby closed.
Gulp. Sigh. Namaste.

I need to heed my own creative credo:
1. Keep it pointed to where you want it to go.
2. Pay close attention to your creative fantasies.
3. Keep it lean and keep it clean.
4. Art involves risk.
5. Form informs feeling.

1. Keep it pointed to where you want it to go.

If we've had a beer or walked the Sea Wall together (I know, only two of my friends are putting their hands up - I'm reclusive,) then you've heard me say, "All I want to do is write and speak. Write and speak. Write and speak." Pretty clear. For flavour, I've been adding in, "You know, I just wanna work like Hunter S. Thompson, but without all the bad drugs. Or guns. Or ex-wives. Or..." Okay, the point is, I neeeed to Write and Speak.

And live -- and living means making up stories with my six-year-old magic boy. And eating fresh food with friends. And interviewing Rabbis and Lamas and waiters about the nature of desire...So that I have more stuff to write and speak about.

When people start calling you a "power blogger" (I love the label, don't stop, seriously,) you're tempted to think that power = blogging. And it can. You just need to keep your eye on your real power source, or you get all fancy and you start wearing sunglasses when you sit down at the computer.

And here's the thing with being "in touch" with thousands of people everyday: it can fuck with your head, not in a Howard Hughes go-looney kind of way, but in a "there are a whole lotta of people in my living room, and my bed, and my car-kind of way." You see, I THINK about YOU a LOT. I want to be the best damn hostess on the Internet. I want everyone to know that I read every word that is sent my way. I want to be loved, darling, loved!

Which brings me to…

2. Pay close attention to your creative fantasies.

I've been romanticizing the old days of authorship. You bled on typewriter keys, couriered your six inch-high stack of manuscript papers to your editor; and your book came out four years later. If someone wanted to send you love letters or hate mail, they wrote to your publisher, and your publisher asked you if you wanted your mail forwarded to you that year.

That Jurassic and gruelling process is everything I work counter to. I take publishing into my own hands and ship my art ASAP. Howevah...this imagery (I can even smell the dusty dust of old paperbacks, and the ink of typewriter ribbon,) has been surfacing in my thoughts these past weeks and it's telling me to make the space I need to create more.

If I have more psychic space, I can write more, and write mo' better. And THAT's where I want my vocation to go. All good things (like affluence) will come from honouring that core desire. (Quicky clarity on that: affluence = fluid ideas + influencing positive happenings + cash flow.)

3. Keep it lean and keep it clean.

I was reading the Communicatrix's latest newsletter (Colleen Wainwright slams down the wisdom on a monthly basis and I take in every word.) "Everyone now knows that social-media creep is just as dangerous as TV-creep..." And she advises us to "review your landscape, trim your reel...so I we can be…100% available to the moment."

And then it hit me: Let go. More. Which is scary, but…

4. Art involves risk.

Seth doesn't have blog comments. Havi doesn't even do email. When Leo at Zen Habits asked some of his blog-migos what we thought about him closing comments on his site, I was like, "Dude, 'Zen' connotes comment–free, you need to let go and let it flow." But it's different when it comes your turn to "burn down the barn so you can see the moon" as the poet, Masahide put it.

You start fretting about people calling you a narcissist (wouldn't be the first time I've been misunderstood,) or your readership plummeting (which, uh, couldn't possibly happen because my material is just going to get HOTTER…promise,) and about being lonely (I still have those two friends to drink beer and walk the sea wall with.)

And…I worry that my new artistic format might come across as ungrateful. And that would suck hard, because I am so deeply, madly, appreciative of every heart that clicks my way and gives some extra meaning to all of this. The value of being recognized as useful cannot be overstated.

5. Form informs feeling.

I want to foster a quality of spaciousness here. Like sitting around a campfire, under a big sky. We need room in order to hear, to be with our thoughts. We banter and converse and show up enough "out there," don't we?

I pray that the new spaciousness is appreciated, even savored. Like a paperback book that you can hold close for a few minutes while you make your way through the world.

Ever true and always grateful,

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depression vs. sadness: the power of mincing words

"When you're depressed, nothing matters. When you're sad, everything does."
- Gloria Steinem, via @spiver, aka Susan Spiver, author of The Wisdom of a Broken Heart

"So you're feeling a sense of hopelessness," the therapist said to me.
"No, I'm feeling despair," I clarified.
"Same thing. You're feeling hopeless," she came back.
"Nooo, I don't feel it's hopeless, I'm experiencing despair. I feel disheartened, but there's still hope here," I said.
"Hope and despair are pretty similar," she said.
"Look it up." I shrugged. "I'm going with despair."

(We didn't last too long as therapist/patient.)

I relish in semantics ("the meaning, or an interpretation of the meaning, of a word.") The more you know about the true definition of a word, the more powerful it is when you speak it. Precision is power.

Depressed and Sad are two very powerful, similar, misappropriated words. Portal words. Sacred words. And if we look more closely at them, we can claim what's true for ourselves and set about transforming depression and sadness into their contrasting states.

Sadness hurts but it signals that you are very, very much alive.
Depression may be the cousin of sadness, sometimes the defended response to unyielding sadness, but it makes you feel anything but alive. It dulls, weighs, and messes with your memory of your true essential nature -- which is that of joy.

I've been through wrenching heart breaks. I've left a decade-long relationship that is still intertwined with my DNA; been devastated by betrayal in business; said goodbye to overseas love that was doomed from the magical start. I've cried those guttural cries that dying animals make, I've canceled meetings because grief caught me off guard en route. I moved arthritically, lugging my heart in a wagon, to get groceries and tend to life on the surface. And through it all, I've felt undeniably, and intensely alive. And this, this is sadness. Acute, sometimes enduring, but always sensory and evocative, sadness.

When you're sad, you're feeling. Sometimes, more than you want to. You wish you could be despondent, but the sadness is sharp and it bleeds your attention from you.

Depression -- a term our med-happy nation uses much too glibly -- dulls one's feelings. Where sadness makes you feel raw and skinless, depression is like wearing a snow suit and mittens and wondering why you can't feel the caress of life. Sadness strips you. As I was just reminded, "Sadness is so f--king cleansing." Depression is muddy and muffling and numbing.

Depression vs. Sadness
Each comes with different gifts, challenges and assignments
Each is a sacred state. Both divine and brutal.
But not the same.
When you respect the difference, you're closer to the cure.

. . . . . . .

INTERVIEW
"If you could give any piece of advice for someone that feels stuck, what would it be?" READ ON AT Pure-Habitat.com

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THE secret to success. this is IT. for reals.

In one form or another, I've been asked this question a few hundred times:

What's the secret to success?

Variations:
What's the single most important thing you've learned on your journey?
What's your key piece of advice for meaningful livelihood?
What's the greatest cause of failure? How do we overcome fear?
What's your pearl of wisdom for getting unstuck?

Here it is. You heard it here first, lovahs.

The secret to success:

No need to read any further really.

If we all just did what we said we're going to do, we'd experience an evolutionary leap in consciousness more brilliant than solar power and the invention of the wheel. But in case we slip, here's a bit of bolstering...

Do what you say you're going to do.

NO: rounding up what you say, no blowing it off, assuming that they'll forget what you said, hoping that they didn't really hear you, or believing that it's kosher to let it slide. Letting it slide is a slippery slope that leads to sleepless nights and eroded integrity which all adds up to a whole lot of yuck.

Aim for impeccable. There's a great scene in Jerry McGuire, where one of the Zig Ziglar-like "mentor guys" in a polyester suit says in his heavy southern accent, "If I don't return yer call in 24 hours, well, you can rest assured that I am dead." I want that guy on my team.

Mean it. You can ask my home girl, Steph, to go mountain climbing, hook you up with the Mayor, and meet you back for a cold beer all in the same day, and what you'll hear is, "DONE!" She says "DONE!" a lot. At first I didn't know if it was like, a tic, or a truth. But guess what, she gets a lot done -- everything that she says she will.

"Call you tomorrow" ... "I'll send you the link" ... "I'll do my best." If you don't mean it with heart and precision, then just don't say it. Pause. Say thank you. Express an intention. Say nothing. Habitual convo-filler is bad for the environment. I can't scientifically prove it, but empty promises suck wind.

Of course you can't always do what you said you would. Minds change and some prerogatives need their exercise. Batteries die, tragedies happen, the best intentions can get rained out. When you can't or choose not to honour your word, then say so.

Tell the truth, tell it fast, deliver it with sincerity and care.

Words are arrows.
Aim.
You can't always hit the impeccability bull's eye, but even if you're off a smidge, your words will land on integrity.

. . . . . . .

INTERVIEWS

Kira Zuma at the Mathematics of Glamor asked me who my heroes were...when I was 8. READ HERE.

Laura at The Journal of Cultural Conversation and I talked about vocational karma. READ HERE.

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monthly round up: july was…encouraging

If you're just dropping in and want to catch up on what happened here this month... (more...)

 

how much money do you want to make this year?

I work with a lot of serious entrepreneurs. By "serious" I mean devoted, aware, hungry, keen. At conferences and party do's, I come in to contact with plenty of hobby-preneurs, freshling-preneurs, just-getting-on-the-path-preneurs. I adore them one and I adore them all.

But this takes the wind right out of my strategic cheerleader sails:
I ask: "So how much money do you want to make this year?"
Reply: "Um...I...well..." Knife in my heart. Hole in my sails.

You're in business to make money, right? (BTW, I operate on the premise that you're doing work in the world that you love, and by virtue of that you're likely making the world a better place. I don't flippantly assume vocational integrity, but if people want to jam with me, I assume they're in the neighbourhood of meaningful work. And once that's established, it's time to focus on the money, honey.)

Question 2.5 in The Burning Questions of The Fire Starter Sessions and with my 1:1 clients is this:

How much money would you LIKE to be making?

As Naomi Dunford put this question to me, "The best way to think about this question is this…we want the number that would make you happy. Not resigned. Not elated. Just happy. Somewhere between eating Ramen noodles and buying a yacht. For many people, this number is about the salary they would be making if they worked outside the home."

Aim for that.

DECLARING HOW MUCH MONEY YOU WANT TO MAKE IN A YEAR:

1. Gives you a goal, for Chrissakes. Goals are to manifesting what a microphone is to Lady Gaga: essential and effectual.

This may sound over-simplified, but when you know what you want to make in a year, you can do what it takes to...go make it. You can break it down. You can aim. You want to make $150K? Great. How many units do you need to ship? How many clients do you need to service? What does your profit margin need to be? What kind of a raise would you require?

Considerations:
What if you have a set income, like a salary? Don't let that hem in your earning desires. There are raises, and surprise opportunities, and frequent flier miles, and Aunties who will you their Cadillac and investments that soar. Make.the.declaration.

"I wanna rake in a million bucks this year! (says dude who just launched his first blog or has $50K in credit card debt.) If your declaration has a flavour of rebellion or feverishness to it, you might want to reign it in a bit. The desire has to come from a peaceful place. I'm not saying don't aim high - quantum leaps and breakthroughs happen all of the time. But aim to where you'd feel proud and fulfilled. This is about creating wellness, not gluttony or exhaustion.

2. Puts it into perspective - and fast. You may add up your financial goals with the number of hours you work in a month and realize that you're really making $15 bucks an hour after you pay your overhead. In order to hit your target you may have to raise your rates, work from a coffee shop, or invest in the kind of expert help that gets bottom-line results. And remember, it's not completely about what you bring in, it's also about what you keep in your pocket. Where can you simplify? ("Simplify" is a much more attractive term than "cutback", don't you think?)

3. Makes you feel capable, and when you feel capable, you act capable. With your desire declared, you'll magically start to see ways of making things happen -- in ways that work for you. If you're more productive in the summer, you'll crank for 3 months and wind down in the fall (to count your money.) You'll see potential collaborators more clearly. Your dormant ideas will rise to the surface again and they'll have strategies to back them up this time.

4. Sets you free for non-earning pursuits -- for living. As you near your fulfilled aspirations, you can let enough be enough and take the day off.

5. Sends a message to your subconscious, and your subconscious takes things way too literally (this is one of those times when you want your subconscious to take you way too literally.)

6. Summons the Idea Fairy. The Idea Fairy is on the edge of her seat, waiting to hear your dreams so she can get to work on your behalf.

7. Signals to your tribe that you're in it to win it. The people who love and respect you - friends, coaches, mentors, partners -- will not only hold you accountable, they'll likely do whatever they can to help you get where they want to go. Throw a party for all of them when you get there.

. . . . . . .

INTERVIEWS

Join the Convivial Women Society. I did. READ HERE.

This is a great piece, from HiLife2b.com on the first steps to take in creating the life you want, from 16 bloggers. READ HERE.

. . . . . . .

RECENT RAVES FOR THE FIRE STARTER SESSIONS

"Danielle LaPorte's passion for her mission leaps off the page, and reading a few chapters of this book will ignite you into action."
- Gretchen Rubin, author, The Happiness Project

"Please fasten your seat belts because The Fire Starter Sessions is the revolution you’ve been waiting for, it will shake-up and wake-up every aspect of your life. Danielle LaPorte combines soulful wisdom with razor sharp business advice to create a blue print for moguls, spiritual rockstars, and lovers of life. Skinny dip head first into this hot and fabulous book. I dare you."
- Kris Carr, documentarian, Crazy, Sexy, Cancer

 

embracing creativity + our longing for narrative: Francesco Clemente with Charlie Rose

Charlie: How do you find your voice as a painter?
Francesco: You have to make room.

This interview reads like a meditation -- at least it does for me. Clemente's longing for a sense of wholeness and completion; the struggle to find his voice and break away from the order of things; the surrender to one's desire. "Painting is not so much about decisions, it's more about acceptance." Ahhh...

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE INTERVIEW ON CharlieRose.com

thanks to Natasha Lakoš, one of my favourite graphic designers, for sending this to me at just the right time. xo

 

 

the manifesto of encouragement

right now:

There are Tibetan Buddhist monks in a temple in the Himalayas endlessly reciting mantras for the cessation of your suffering and for the flourishing of your happiness.

Someone you haven't met yet is already dreaming of adoring you.

Someone is writing a book that you will read in the next two years that will change how you look at life.

Nuns in the Alps are in endless vigil, praying for the Holy Spirit to alight the hearts of all of God's children.

A farmer is looking at his organic crops and whispering, "nourish them."

Someone wants to kiss you, to hold you, to make tea for you. Someone is willing to lend you money, wants to know what your favourite food is, and treat you to a movie. Someone in your orbit has something immensely valuable to give you -- for free.

Something is being invented this year that will change how your generation lives, communicates, heals and passes on.

The next great song is being rehearsed.

Thousands of people are in yoga classes right now intentionally sending light out from their heart chakras and wrapping it around the earth.

Millions of children are assuming that everything is amazing and will always be that way.

Someone is in profound pain, and a few months from now, they'll be thriving like never before. They just can't see it from where they're at.

Someone who is craving to be partnered, to be acknowledged, to ARRIVE, will get precisely what they want -- and even more. And because that gift will be so fantastical in it's reach and sweetness, it will quite magically alter their memory of angsty longing and render it all "So worth the wait."

Someone has recently cracked open their joyous, genuine nature because they did the hard work of hauling years of oppression off of their psyche -- this luminous juju is floating in the ether, and is accessible to you.

Someone just this second wished for world peace, in earnest.

Someone is fighting the fight so that you don't have to.

Some civil servant is making sure that you get your mail, and your garbage is picked up, that the trains are running on time, and that you are generally safe. Someone is dedicating their days to protecting your civil liberties and clean drinking water.

Someone is regaining their sanity. Someone is coming back from the dead. Someone is genuinely forgiving the seemingly unforgivable. Someone is curing the incurable.

You. Me. Some. One. Now.

. . . . . . .

So...Why do you want what you want?
Get THE AUTHENTIC DREAMING WORKSHEET
when you subscribe to WhiteHotTruth.com.
Go to the upper right box, next to me smiling...at you.

xo

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building trust and other tactical bullshit that you probably don’t need

I was on my way to a speaking gig in Austin, Texas. The taxi driver picked me up from the hotel so naturally he asked me if I was in town for business. "Sure am." I said. Then he asked what I did. (A question that always makes me sigh heavily inside. I teach people about the importance of having a "cocktail line," so lest I be a hypocrite, I have a smooth one liner that I can pull out at parties. This is NOT it:)

"I write, and I speak...on stage...n' stuff." (Severely LAME intro, my Fire Starter Sessions readers would be aghast.) "You're taking me to my gig tonight, actually."

"What do you talk about?" asked Bert.

"About being yourself," said I, Mademoiselle Motivational Speaker.

Silence. He was doing the math.

"Ain't it kind of sad that you gotta talk to people about being themselves?" asked Bert, thinking nothing of it. I laughed. Like, slapped my legged and threw back my head laughing. It was just the kind of relief that's sweet before you're about to go on stage in heels that will expire in precisely 2 hours.

"Yeah, it's sad. But if everyone were authentic, I'd be out of a gig, Bert. Some people need what I got. And if not, well I'm always good for a few jokes."
We laughed, together.

HAWKING WISDOM, AND BUYING IT
As a professional, I prey pray on the conundrums of the human condition. I get to polish my halo because we're all such fucked up, curious, perfectly beautiful messes. Cha-ching. I tell people things that are primary to some ears, and YES! revolutionary to other hearts.

As a peddler of stuff that goes into the collective field of consciousness, I'm responsible to wonder: Do you really NEED what I've got? I don't want to load the cultural landfill with useless know-what-ness.

Try this. The next time you walk into a bookstore, or stumble upon a seemingly helpful blog, or lean in to hear a theory from someone supposedly wiser or more trained than you, just ask yourself:
DO I REALLY NEED THIS?

When you ask yourself if you really need what someone is selling (from flip flops to life philosophy,) you start to rattle the trance-inducing phenomena of "popular," "pretty," "bestselling," "certified," "ordained," et cetera-rah-blah-blah-blah.

There are books that hit the NYTimes Bestseller list that are about the merits of being nice to people in business. About how, (hold on, this is breakthrough theorizing:) taking an active interest in people can help you build better relationships in the workplace; why asking people about their personal lives before a meeting can make them feel like they're part of team. (Wow. Is that like, statistically proven?)

Do you really need a blog to tell you how to...be nice?

And now there's a plethora of material about building trust, as if trust is a precious mineral that only some gifted folk know how to mine.

Do you really need a book to tell you how to...be trust-worthy?
Here, I'll tell you in one sentence and you can skip all those books: be yourself on a regular basis and don't tell lies. It's worked well for a lot of people I know. Renegades.

DO I REALLY NEED THIS?

It's such a fog-cutting, wake-you-up kind of question. It activates your smarty pants brain chemicals, it safeguards you like a big brother looking after you on the first day of school. "Do I really need this?" saves you cash money. (WalMart might consider this article propaganda.)

So when the blogger or the Buddhist or the Motivational Speaker in heels tells you the answer to your problem, maybe you don't really need that answer. You have your very own.

Take my word for it.

. . . . . . . . .


PROUD SELF PROMO, (NOT SO SUBTLY POSITIONED AT THE END OF AN ARTICLE ABOUT BUYING/NOT BUYING WISDOM):

"The Fire Starter Sessions is a huge gift to anyone who is an entrepreneur, is thinking about becoming an entrepreneur or might one day entertain the possibility of maybe becoming an entrepreneur. Danielle helps you light a fire that is truly your own sacred flame. She delivers on every level: smarts, guidance, authenticity, deep wisdom, intuition, killer business acumen and practicality. She helps you tap into your deepest truth and create a thriving business from there. She is an alchemist, high priestess and yes, a true fire starter. This is not just a book or some videos, it's an experience."
- Danielle Vieth, Marketing strategist, copywriter

$150 for the full-tilt love.

And! $5 from every copy goes to the charity you choose:
The Acumen Fund or Women for Women International


Learn more...

. . . . . . .

Need writerly wisdom? I can hook you up: Bindu Wiles' Diamond Cutters course just opened. 6 writers. 6 weeks to refine and shine. CHECK IT.

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