inspiration

super hero syndrome + the practical response to crazy ambition

or, "How to Accomplish Great Big Stuff in a Short Amount of Time"

Technically speaking I created THE FIRE STARTER SESSIONS in under twelve weeks. The holy spirit of digital love and audacity entered my soul and MacBook Pro and said: GO FORTH AND CRANK IT, LAPORTE! Maybe it's Catholic residue, but I felt called. So I set an impossible deadline for myself and I declared that the e-book was done--that it actually existed somewhere on the cosmos already, and all I needed to do was pull it down from the ether into pixel form.

I was crazy. Ca-ra-zee. It's a good thing that I revere Crazy. Crazy gets stuff DONE. Crazy eats impossible for her afternoon sugar fix. And if I may use some Kerouac to pat myself on the back, "Here's to the crazy ones."

That said, having been around plenty of start-ups and politicians in my career, I've seen a whole lot of the stupid-kinda-crazy.

STUPID CRAZY is the unrealistic, delusional, (and often inflated) thought that you can accomplish big, fast, amazing professional things while keeping the rest of your life in a state of "balance." Young dudes/dudettes in Silicon Valley and other such wanna be's have this one down--and they get dumped by their fiancees, quietly deal with anxiety, and know little about life outside...their life.

It's the Super Hero syndrome: I can do it all! I can squeeze more hours out of the day; keep up my exercise regime, be romantically attentive; well groomed n' stylin'; AND! launch a brilliant, brain-powered innovative, substantive product in record time. Nothing will change. I'll just fit MORE in.

Of course you have to do MORE. You have to expand in order to reach new heights. But that critical more-ness needs to be poured directly into your project, not spread thin amongst a bunch of pre-existing obligations and habits. Focus your moreness.

AT THE START OF YOUR CRAZY AMBITIOUS PROJECT:

1. Ask yourself what you're going to have to give up in order to pull it off. It's a total downer of a question and Super Heroes hate this part of strategy. In order to launch THE FIRE STARTER SESSIONS on time, I gave up: most all TV, a lot of sunny weekends outside, about a 40% of my monthly income (I had to cut back on clients to have more creative time,) and pretty much all socializing. You cannot pull off energy intensive big-wins in a state of harmony. It happens in bursts and fits and pushing and grooving--innovation by nature is disruptive, not easy going.

Something will have to give so greatness has room to emerge. So give it up before it takes you down.

2. Line up some "multi-dimensional" support. When it's nose-to-the-grindstone time, we tend to get the grindstone kind of people on board--suppliers, designers, editors, marketers, "work/task" people. But this is precisely the time when you need some spiritually-informed intelligence to back you up. Within the first two weeks of starting on the e-book I worked with Bindu Wiles for writing coaching; I signed up with Dyana Valentine; I plugged into a wonderful Naturopath, Dr. Diane Chung, who works virtually; I had a session with Hiro Boga; and then I consulted with astrologer Ophira Edut about the best or worst time to launch. All that woo-woo love and insight helped me navigate the heavy-duty logistics on a daily basis.

3. Declare your intentions as widely as possible. Announce that you're going "away" for a while. When you're proactive about announcing your short term, utter neglect and blatant unavailability to the rest of the world, you solve some problems before they start. I told my friends that I was going into the creative bubble and would be up for air late May. And so when I missed a birthday, and when I had to repeatedly say "no thanks" to tea dates, it was not only cool, but I didn't feel guilty and anti-social. I felt responsible and supported. Bonus!

Half of getting where you want to go is KNOWING WHAT IT TAKES TO GET THERE. Crazy ambition requires radical practicality. Otherwise, it's just stupid.

. . . . . . .

INTERVIEWS

: $11K in 11 Hours, a tell-lot's interview on how I launched with The Launch Coach himself, Dave Navarro. READ HERE
: My take on "burnout", an interview with Rock. Paper Scissors. READ HERE
: The truth never attacks, an interview on My Courageous Life. LISTEN HERE
: The effect of social media on marketing with MacDonald Marketing. READ HERE

. . . . . . .

LOVE FOR THE FIRE STARTER SESSIONS

"Blown away. Energizing, motivating, authentic, relevant."
- Lori Race

"Every page is rich, rich, RICH in intersecting resources, ideas and strategy. Glorious multimedia: audio, videos, workbooks, oh my. And the words….poetry in power. Truth bombs rang in my ears long after I put it down."
- Tanya Geisler

$150 for the full-tilt love.
And! $5 from every copy goes to the charity you choose.

Click here to view the Table of Contents!
Click here to watch the video!

. . . . . . .

GROUP COACHING WITH LIANNE RAYMOND

Lianne Raymond is kicking off a program to support women who are ready to step into the "ring of fire" with a group coaching program designed specifically around THE FIRE STARTER SESSIONS.
GO FIND OUT MORE FROM LIANNE.

 

i get around: latest report

Where I was last month, and a bit...

INTERVIEWS
Lindsey Mead asked me Very Big Questions about meditation & presence.
"I’m more interested in observing my mind than trying to control it. Easier said than done, because there are soooo many others things that I’m also hooked on controlling."

The Get Inspired Project asked me where my inspiration comes from. I think I said something inspiring.

A conversation about style.

A fun interview with Yoyomama, "Being an introverted, controlling, Lone Ranger, Creative-type, it’s really the only way to go."

And this interview on Daily Whip Radio.

RA-RA CHEERLEADING:
I made this great list of 80 Small Business Twitterers You Should Be Following

White Hot Truth has been nominated for a Canadian Weblog Award. Cool. You can vote here.

And, did ya know, I'm one of "Ten People to Help Rock Your Career in 2010"? Uh huh.

WRITING ELSEWHERE
My article on Mothering.com on how unconscious grown ups can be when speaking to kids.

My guest post on IttyBiz: No Bullshit Branding & The Sustainable Empire of You

 

kissing ass, quantum leaps, and the power of being unqualified

(Disclaimer: this vocational approach does not apply to heart surgeons, shrinks, or pharmacists. Or the guys who engineer bridges.)

I took a survey last week looking for "unqualified successes," trolling for crackerjack people who bypassed the diploma, the pecking order, or the security guard to get to the top of their game. Here's what we surfaced:

The Top 30 College Drop Outs Who Made It Big In Business list, which includes: billionaires Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and Steve Jobs - who, by the way, took a Calligraphy class in college...and then dropped out.

Jimi Hendrix couldn't read music. Rachel Ray never went to cooking school.

Colleen in Calgary sent me this great list: John Fluevog went from working in a shoe store to his own shoe empire. Vera Wang was a fashion writer, and of course there was Coco Chanel, who had no formal training. And this was my favourite client story from Tanya in New York, she "traded risk management software to Investment Banks and on Wall Street...with only a fashion design diploma from South Africa." Yah.

Me? I'm The Poster Chick for Unqualified. I never went to college - except when I was in diapers. My mother, being eighteen when she had me, took me to school with her so she could complete her degree. I doodled in psych text books and played with my dollies in the back of the class. You could say I got my B.A. by osmosis. Maybe on a cellular level, I drew on my toddler days at St. Claire College when I formed my own communications company (representing a few Nobel Laureates and some old pop stars,) and managed a fancy think tank in Washington DC (stacked with PhDs). To be clear: I juuust made it the Right Side of the Tracks, and then ran like hell.

One of the best inadvertent decisions I made was to not go to university. I never had a box to get out of. And yah, yah, higher education partially makes the world go round, but I did what was best for me personally. I just couldn't see the necessity of school. I wanted to be in the world - asap.

6 1/2 WAYS TO BUCK THE SYSTEM, WALK THROUGH WALLS, AND EARN QUALIFICATIONS ON YOUR OWN TERMS

1. Kiss some ass. Yep, you can bypass The System, but there are no short cuts to initiation. You are going to have to smile, make coffee, drive that package to the airport with no gas in your car to get it on the FedEx airplane on time, and then race back to clean up after the party.

1 1/2. Kiss some more ass. Offer to work unpaid for two weeks. Give your ideas away for free - chances are you'll be asked to execute those ideas. If your ideas get hijacked, it will push you to learn that you've got more where that came from. If you're hungry enough, you will innovate.

2. Learn through obsession bordering on crazy-stalker. Immerse yourself in the culture of your choice. Swim in the industry. Eat information whole. Subscribe to every newsletter, read every book, attend every conference.

3. Take people for lunch, ask questions ceaselessly. Risk being annoying - it usually comes off as charmingly eager. Ask: what they're reading, what they'd do if they were you, where they see things going, the best advice they ever received. Keep in touch.

4. Get in over your head. Can you deliver within fours weeks? Just say yes, immediately. It doesn't matter that you don't have a staff, let alone a business card. Accept the mission and then figure out how to make it possible. Where there's a yes, there's a doorway.

5. Present yourself as…You. You can fake qualified here 'n there, but you cannot fake passion, essence or originality - and those are the exact qualities that fuel quantum leaps and barrier-obliteration.

6. Look super fine. If you don't think style matters, then you should probably go get a diploma and play by the rules.

EXTRA-CISE: Consider your dreams (the job, the gig, the love of your life). Write out:
: 5 reasons why your dream is ­unreasonable or the odds are stacked against you;
: 10 passions or beliefs;
: 5 persuasive, potentially outrageous actions that will create forward traction.

Then kiss mediocrity goodbye and prepare to move to the front of the line. Muwah!

 

the red lipstick reporter interview: the psychology of style + branding

The very dynamic Tamara Gold at The Red Lipstick Reporter interviewed me recently about style, being real, and life balance. Click below to hear why I think the "pursuit of life balance"" is bullshit, why I felt like a phat fake when I was running a DC think tank, how to "announce your unfolding," and three questions to ask yourself about branding your business.

CLICK TO LISTEN TO TAMARA + DANIELLE:
http://www.audioacrobat.com/play/WfB5Kh2Q

Tamara is all about women's empowerment -- from your soul to your, well, lipstick. You can sign up for the weekly Report on the home page.

xo
Danielle

 

my studio: i heart tufte

My collection of Tufte works (it's killing me that I'm missing The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition), Arboretum by David Byrne, makes my heart smile, God stuff that I dip into once and a while, little book I found in a thrift store in Seattle a hundred years ago. My great, great grandma's cook book published in 1887! My grandma Alma's birthday book. A thank you card from a friend.