success

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.

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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.

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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

 

cake walks + fire walks: beginner’s mind

I walked on hot coals once - barefoot. Across a bed of white hot embers about twenty feet long. When you walk off the fiery path you step into a puddle of water and you can hear your feet sizzle and see steam rise. And lo', thanks to mind over matter, I didn't even blister. Hot damn.

I raced home at midnight, under a full moon, with a note card tucked into my Levi's: "I, Veronica Danielle LaPorte walked on fire. I can do anything."

Would I do it again? Ummm....I....dunno. The evening of that fire walk workshop I asked some of the repeat walkers how it was for them. I was surprised to hear that a lot of them burned their feet on their second walk. "Say whu?! But you already slammed these coals once." The prevailing response: "Yeah, but I got cocky the second time around." Every walk requires a fresh meditation.

Ask any athlete or elite performer. Writers, salesmen, speakers, very big project managers, wide-awake lovers: Success can dull your senses. Each win is a new win, earned with intense focus and an open heart.

Do not take your expertise or natural talent for granted. Stay awake. Hunt. Kill your old material. Listen for new information. Tell a different story in a different way. Crush your gimmicks. Let the page be white. Kiss him like it's your first kiss.

Let your heart race and concentrate. Then and only then, begin.

 

life is subject to change: what happened when I raised my rates

I announced via Twitter and Facebook last week that my Fire Starter Session fee was moving to $500 (from $300.) And I also mentioned it in my post that went out late last night. And then...

Deluge. Chuck wagon outta control. Four-alarm fire. Standing room only.

I've been wrestling with how to handle the gorgeous demand. And my conclusion is this: I need to handle the demands of my heart and loved ones first, then career (which is an extension of my heart.) The profundity of that statement for me is colossal. It's taken me yearrrrs to be able to say it and mean it. Before I grew up (which is really just in the last few weeks, actually,) I would have tried to fit everyone in, even if it meant weekends, and getting a baby sitter, and apologizing to my man because, once again, "I'll be in my office tonight."

And in this case, I almost went there. I adore my Fire Starter clients and I'm so passionate about entrepreneurs rocking it with integrity, that I was leaning toward booking into spring 2015 at my old rate and "fitting it all in somehow." Why? Because I don't want you to think I'm a discompassionate bitch. Because money is fun. Because I used to think self neglect was cool. (It's not.)

The logic and love of raising my Fire Starter session fee:

a) It's worth it. (Any clients who want to chime in on this, uh, feel free to back me up here.)

"Danielle’s Fire Starter session is invaluable for you at any stage of your career --from early idea to well established rut. She is thorough, quick and intuitive. Her soft spoken style is deceptive. This woman won’t mince words to let you know what you need to hear. And you will be better for the listening. Her questions alone are priceless, but add the brainstorming, cheerleading, taped session and list of resources and you can’t go wrong."
- Ten People to Rock Your Career in 2010
CoachSpotlight.com, Pearl Mattenson

b) 2010 is all about creating content that can serve many thousands of people. I need focused time to do that. I love writing in long, long stretches, getting absorbed, and consumed, and used up by the gods of poetic sound bites and how-to's. I need space to make stuff that will be effectual and lasting ... and sell like white hot cakes!

c) I want to live more. Repeated late nights "catching up" on things leaves you with the feeling that you are always needing to...catch up.

d) I'm keeping it pointed to where I want it to go: creativity, freedom, passive income, wider broadcasting, multimedia. (I'll talk more about how my Hedgehog allows me to stay so focused on this next week.)

All that to say:
My $300 Fire Starter slots are (more than) full, and effective immediately, I'll be booking in at $500. Email me directly to book your session.

Further clarity:
I work exclusively with active and progressive entrepreneurs, or those on the verge of breaking out with their own enterprise. I am not a business or career transition coach (read: I suck at it.) I’m a High Priestess of Practicality and I'm about standing ideas up in the most elegant, kick-ass way possible. Strategy makes me hot.

When in-transition job folk or people who want continual coaching to lift a project off the ground come to me, I steer them to the following coaches. Each of them is amazing.

: Lianne Raymond is a clear-thinking, strong-hearted, Martha Beck-certified coach. Only works with women.

: Ronna Detrick has "renegade conversations." She is spiritually-based and powerful.

: Tanya Geisler is a strong and compassionate...and funny.

: Dyana Valentine is a brilliant force of nature who has kicked my creative butt into shape. She's gifted, I work with her regularly.

: Michelle Ward at When I Grow Up Coach is a high energy Gen Y'r focused on getting people to their best career.

: Hiro Boga is a masterful intuitive. Not a coach or business developer, but gifted at surfacing the issues that may be blocking success. I recently had a session with her and it was stunning.

If you're a coach and you want to say so here in the comments, feel free to do some self-promo. Today, I welcome it.

If it's apropos, take a page from my book. What do you value and what's the value you give? How can your career support your life? Are you pointed in the direction you want to go?

With much Love,
Danielle
xo

 

fear management vs. fear leadership

The song of an entrepreneur...
Secretly, I'm afraid we won't raise the money. But it's okay. I can plow through that fear. We'll raise the money, and everything will be okay. We'll raise the money and stand the business up. We'll have to hit our targets, get the customers in the door, run hard with the marketing plan. Yeah, it's scary. What if they don't come? What if they come but don't buy? What if they buy, but not enough? It's okay, I can manage that fear. It'll work. I'll make it work and everything will be okay. We'll do this.

What if you don't do it? What if you, say, "fail"? Does that mean that fear wins? How much do you need to be more than "okay"?

While we're busy managing fear, fear can be managing us. It's still creeping in, grabbing at our pant leg, begging to be paid attention to. And fear can always find a reason to get your attention - that's it's job - to get you to feed it. But what about the flu? (feed me!) But what about the market? (feed me!) But what about ten years from now? (feed me!) But what will they think? (feed me!)

Beyond coping with fear there is fearlessness. Because, here's the white hot truth: if you go bankrupt, you'll still be okay. If you lose the gig, the lover, the house, you'll still be okay. If you sing off key, get beat by the competition, have to hand in the keys, you will still be okay. Ask anyone who's been through it. They're more than okay. People survive and they learn to thrive. It's life. It's business.

Don't manage your fear. Lead your fear. Take charge. When fear climbs on your shoulder and starts nattering in your ear, here's what you do: You stand as a master. You tell Scaredy Cat where you're going, risks and all, and you convert Scaredy into a champion to help you get there. You say, lovingly but firmly (because ultimately the Scaredy Cat in you just wants some love and you've got plenty of it to give,) "Yep, we may fail, it's possible. This is risky shit. But we'll still be okay. Because that's who we are. We're the kind of people that are okay, no matter what. So remember that invincibility and let's get to work. There's a new land to discover and the only way to find it is to keep going - cliffs, cash flow, agony, adulation and all. If you keep your mouth shut and your eyes wide open, we'll get there sooner. We're doing this. We're doing this because we want to. Because this is what it means to do life."

And then watch what Scaredy Cat does. She'll look perplexed for a minute. She'll nuzzle up, as if to say thank you. And then she'll strut down the street to help you recruit some new business.

 

the psychedelics of strategic planning

The last time I did mushrooms, I was on my honeymoon. They were a wedding gift. (We have the best friends.) And the last time I dropped acid I was wearing shoulder pads and listening to The Flock of Seagulls. It's been a while. But since then, I've learned to alter my state, unassisted, and heighten my possibilities.

If you've done any psychedelic drugs you'll know that the "best" trips leave you expanded. You get a backstage pass to the Super Hero Concert of Life and you feel pretty freaking invincible. You see yourself in new shades and shapes. You score some privileged information. You come back to Earth with your groove on.

Wouldn't it be great to feel that mighty when you were mapping out your New Year, or writing your business plan? Wouldn't it be invigorating if, as you strategized, you really believed that anything was possible? That's the high of dreams. The divine stretch. Blue sky'ing. And it's essential to dynamic, robust strategies.

If you want a vital outcome, you need vitalized input. You gotta dance, shake it up, go extreme, hollah back and then come back to center where both possibility and pragmatism synergize. You've got to cross the line and get new information. That's why I ask some of my clients, "Look, if you, like dropped acid and wrote your business plan, what would it look like?" Works every time.

HOW TO UNLEASH YOUR STRATEGIC PLANNING POWER

1. The trip-prep: Analyze your dream fatigue. Sometimes you just get worn out from thinking big - especially entrepreneurs. Years of hard work, mid-course corrections, failures that lead to success, success that leads to failures. I've been there. After I left the company I co-founded last year, I could hardly bear to think about profit margins and wheeling new, big deals. I just wanted to write sutras and make soup. But dream fatigue will lift when you fully admit to it. Take stock, integrate your lessons - your new facts - and then move on, wiser for the wear. You simply cannot stop dreaming. You must, you must, dream a new dream.

2. Dream extreme. Loosen up. Unleash. Go wild. BE IMPRACTICAL. Get out of your box and stomp on it. Try egomania on for size. The phone rings. It's Oprah. Her staff have been reading your blog and they want to fly you to Chicago. Buddy in the cafe overhears you talking about your business plan and wouldn't you know it, he's a Venture Capitalist looking to unload some coin before the tax season ends. Your product is flying off the shelves. Bestseller. Soul mate. Awards. Radiance. Empire. The cover of Fast Company. TED Talks. Adulation. Overnight success. Euphoria.

FEEL THE HIGH OF THE EXTREME DREAM. Close your eyes and let your cells plump up with it. You should be peaking right about now.

3. While you're still tripping, imagine hanging with the Super Heroes of your industry. Assume that you are their contemporary. Ask for their grittiest stories and advice. Jam. Observe. Tell them your ideas, give them your pitch, sing them your song. Pay close attention to how they respond.

4. Come back to earth. Map out your plan - exactly from where you are. You may have found some courage or sagacity on the other side of the extreme dream. You may have imagined new possibilities. You may be thinking waaay bigger, or maybe much smaller, more precise. Either way, you'll know what super powers you want to focus on developing. And that's how you learn to fly. High.

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smart, kind, helpful people: my resource hot list

 

the ridiculous pursuit of being well-rounded

Multi-disciplinary, general studies, political correctness, easy to get along with, in moderation, “nice”...these are all ways that we polish off our edges to be socially acceptable and useful - even though it's your edges that give you traction and make you interesting. Your “edge” - where the genuine You meets external reality, is where your strengths are, your genius, and it’s way more fun hanging out there than in the middle ground.

Being well-rounded is highly over-rated.

Employers who are trying to multiply the strengths of people are missing the point. Entrepreneurs trying to do it all are bound to go in circles. When you focus on building on your natural strengths, on doing what comes easiest to you, you get some serious momentum. It may be counter-intuitive, it’s certainly counter-culture because it’s been drilled into to us to work hard (all you Catholics and Ivy Leaguers say hey!) but truly, optimizing your second nature is the surest way to get a return on your investment.

Ever since I read Marcus Buckingham’s The Truth About You, I’ve been stopping strangers on the street. “Hey, get this. You know what a strength is? A strength is what you do that makes you feels strengthened, vital! And...wait, it gets better, you know what a weakness is? A weakness is stuff you do that makes you feel weakened!”

Deceptively simple. Revolutionary.

Why does this make me wanna do back-flips? Because this changes everything, people. And it goes back to my root theory in life, that it’s all about feelings. It means that all that crap that you don’t really like to do, but that you’re really good at ... you get to dump it! No more faking it to make it.

So what about good old-fashioned hard work? I’m all for it - when you’re moving towards the real you. No more trying to be a PR genius when what you do best is paint landscapes or make the widgets (hire a PR genius.) No more trying to come up with blue sky five year plans when you’re a short-term focused details guy (get a coach or a visionary friend to help you see the possibilities.) For me, that means I will never care about cooking the Thanksgiving turkey, being good at parties, or rocking Excel. Never gonna happen.

THE STRONG / WEAK EXERCISE
Buckingham has a powerful exercise that I loved. For one week I wrote down what made me feel strong and what made me feel weakened/drained. This showed up on my "weak" list: unqualified meetings make me feel like a loogan.

I was scheduled to have tea with an acquaintance of an acquaintance. I trusted the referral and so I made the date in haste, with a quick “sure, how about the café by so and so’s.”

A few weeks later when I was walking to the meeting, I was feeling really resentful and pissy. WEAKENED. Because I hadn’t bothered to ask, I had no idea why the person actually wanted to meet. And I was feeling like I’d betrayed my time, my priorities. (And sure enough, the meeting could have happened in 15 minutes over the phone and I wouldn’t have had to find parking or rush to pick up my kid.) Conclusion: I feel strong when I ask, when I clarify, when I know The Point. I feel weak when don’t value my own time.

The masters focus on what they do best ... on their NATURAL CAPACITIES. They stay in their zone ... and the zone is what feels good, damn good.

So I what makes you feel strong?
Do more of it. And more still. Find ways to get even better at it, sharpen your saw as the old master of effectiveness, Stephen Covey puts it. Push your edge. Dare to be focused on your natural capacities. Say yes to what you love, what inspires you, what lights you up. It takes some kahunas, but it beats well-rounded mediocrity any day.

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FIND MARCUS BUCKINGHAM
His site
The Truth About You
Now, Discover Your Strengths
Twitter: @mwbuckingham

 

anticipate the grind and rock on

 

unfetter your happiness (you know you want to)

How are things?

Good. Yeah, good.

Fine. Things are fine.

Let me ask that question again:

How are things?

Fabulous. It all feels like an adventure right now. I have synchronicities piling up everywhere. I’ve got all the money I need, in fact, it’s flowing good n’ steady. My skin is glowing. Most nights we dance in the kitchen. Even sex is better than ever. I giggle everyday. And really, sometimes when I smile at a stranger in the market I can feel my heart swell. In fact, I swear I felt bliss while I was walking home the other day. Yeah. It was bliss.

Happy?

Then say so.

I notice this in my self, I see it in other people: the happiness muffle. We feel the sparkle, really we do. We feel rich with gratitude, we’re keenly aware of a true smile curled in our cells. We tend to live on the light side of things. But we don’t pronounce it. As a new friend just put it, “we butt back the joy because... happiness is a form of power.”

Is that anyway to treat happiness?

Happiness is power. Happiness is carbonated consciousness. It wants to spill out and radiate and be articulated. And every time we downplay our joy we confuse our synapses. Our brain is firing smiley neurons and our mouth is short circuiting them. Repeated happiness muffling numbs our senses. If you keep it under the surface too long, it just might stay there ... a light under a bushel.

So do us all a favour. No matter what the weather, the odds, the circumstances, the company, if you’re happy and you know it, by all means, say so!

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RELATED + RESOURCES
The Happiness Project

what is your relationship to life?

how to be depressed

 

i’m loving: bruce mau, gretchen rubin, kira zmuda, charity: water

Ever since I discovered Bruce Mau's Incomplete Manifesto for Growth I've been smitten with his notions for change and possibility. His mind is like a kaleidoscope of solutions and problems and questions. This promo for the 2010 Denver Biennial of the Americas is a typically elegant and impassioned call to action. I think I need to be there.

Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project blog is one of the most respected and visited personal dev sites on line. Gretchen is not only a deep thinker, but she's a big thinker. And she just released The Happiness Project Toolbox, complete with personalizable inspiration boards, one sentence journaling, and my fav, a collection of people's "secrets to adulthood." Gretchen has hit this one out of the park and I'm so excited for her.

Mathematics of Glamour is a smart site "multiplying reflection, adventure, and the factors in between to personal beauty." The very thoughtful Kira Zmuda is on to something magical, I think, with the self portraits that are starting to roll in to her blog. I just sent off my own self-perspective and the sketch was an interesting exercise, not unlike writing a short bio. I was happy to see that I see myself as ... very happy.

I have two favourite charities: Women for Women International and Kiva and now, I have to make it three with Charity: Water, a non-prof organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations. It was started by self-described self-absorbed Manhattan nightclub owner, Scott Harrison, who decided to do something more meaningful with his life, and man, has he ever made good on that choice. Charity: Water has been monumentally, rapidly successful. Read more in this Sunday's New York Times. Chris Gillebeau's book next year will be a joint project with them.

 

are you positively addicted?

So here’s my new favourite concept: positive addiction. I just love the sound of it. It’s righteous and honest ... a great combo. “I’m hooked, but it’s all good. No, really. I’m addicted, but it is positively healthy.” Like it.

I was talking to a friend today (okay, it was my shrink,) about my almost, no my definitely insatiable need for the entrepreneurial rush. “It’s a total high for me.” I explained. “Going from zero to sixty. I mean, the very definition of velocity makes me horny {distance over time.} I love having an idea when I’m walking the dog late at night and then in about six weeks actually making money from that late night glimmering, or seeing it on paper. And Christ, when I can help other people get a rush on it...it's pure juicy juice. I need that juice. Want...more...juice.”

“So what’s the problem?” my Jew-Bu shrink asks.

“Well...I’m not sure that kind of boldness is meaningful. Truly meaningful. Like, love and closeness and friendship.” I looked out the window, looking for the answer. Looked at him, ‘cause I’m paying him for answers.

“Positive addiction,” he diagnosed. “It’s a healthy high, it makes you stronger. As long as the craving for it doesn’t take you over, then it’s cool.”

Dr. William Glasser wrote a book about it (in like, 1976), aptly named, Positive Addiction. “A positive addict uses his extra strength to gain more love and more worth, more pleasure, more meaning, more zest from life in general.” Sounds about right to me.

He gives positive addiction these six criteria:

1. It is something noncompetitive that you choose to do and you can devote an hour (approximately) a day to it. {how about forty hours a week, minimum?}
2. It is possible for you to do it easily and it doesn't take a great deal of mental effort to do it well.
3. You can do it alone or rarely with others but it does not depend upon others to do it. {That rules out sex addiction if any of you were thinking that, but it clearly does not rule out masturbation, just in case you were thinking of that.}
4. You believe that it has some value (physical, mental, or spiritual) for you. {you betchya...me and the world, baby, the world!}
5. You believe that if you persist at it you will improve, but this is completely subjective - you need to be the only one who measures that improvement. {Like Churchill said, "Never, never, never give up."}
6. The activity must have the quality that you can do it without criticizing yourself. {That rules out consuming chocolate, because I still tend to criticize myself for mass consumption of Skor bars.}

Whether my drive for strategic creativity is a positive addiction or not, the very notion of re-framing it is incredibly liberating. I want what I want because it feels good. And it's taken me a good part of my adult life to fine tune my circuitry of sensation to be clear about those life-affirming desires - the good, the bad and the positively addictive.

What's your positive addiction? Fess up and be proud.