April 20, 2012

The Courage to Connect

Today I’d like to discuss making connections, online and offline. An essential part of developing your creative business is forming meaningful, helpful connections that will encourage your work.

When we talk about making connections and forming meaningful relationships, what we’re talking about in the end is love. You can get sources of love from your parents, your family, your partner, your kids, your pets, even from professional relationships in a broader sense.

Anytime you’re getting support and encouragement from other people, I see that as a form of love. Obviously we all want to increase these positive connections in our lives, because the more loved and connected you feel, the more creative and productive you’re going to be. It’s important to value and honor all of your supportive personal relationships.

“Love is life. All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love.”
- Leo Tolstoy

Women have a gift for creating new connections, but we often tend to be the givers and caretakers in our relationships. That’s a very admirable characteristic, but it’s also necessary for us to be able to receive. We must all work on being open to receiving support, and love, and encouragement in our relationships – whether they’re personal relationships or professional relationships.

This can start with something as easy as being able to receive a compliment. When people tell you, “Oh you look great today, what a pretty dress!”  you can practice not immediately saying, “Oh this old thing!” Instead, try responding with a generous, simple, “Thank you!” Practice accepting the love that is behind the kind, supportive statements you receive from other people.

I know this is easier to say than to do, and I tend to use the denial strategy quite often as well. When people pay me a compliment on something I’m wearing, I tend to say, “This? I got it at the thrift store.” But I’m practicing being more open and receiving, and I hope you will, too. It could open some new, undiscovered doors for support and love in your life.

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
- Anais Nin

During the past several months, I have been traveling through Europe and interviewing many successful women who are publishing books, developing e-courses, and living out their creative, entrepreneurial dreams. It’s easy to get awestruck and overwhelmed by their accomplishments, but I hear again and again that these amazing women often have incredible, supportive networks behind the scenes. No one can do everything alone.

Your job is to build your own personal support system.

Who could give you more time to work on your creative work? How could they support you with paperwork, email, housework, cooking meals, and/or child care? We’re all responsible for building our own supportive networks; this is essential to making our creative work a priority.

“Success occurs in clusters and is born in generosity.”
- Julia Cameron

Surround yourself with optimistic, positive people who are realizing their dreams, and it will definitely help you move closer to your dreams at an increased speed. Be generous with giving compliments (and with accepting them!) and keep good, focused energy in circulation. The flow of positive spirit and generosity will multiply and come back to you in surprising and unexpected ways!

Also, seek out people who are doing what you would most like to do – and don’t be afraid to contact them! People are more accessible these days than ever before through email, Twitter, and Facebook. Often, creative people are happy to answer questions or they might be future collaborators for a special project. You do need to think about what you can offer your collaborators in exchange: what kind of a creative project could you come up with that would benefit both of you?

Don’t be shy. Don’t be afraid to ask others for their feedback and ideas.

Get in touch with the people you admire. Don’t see them as competitors, see them as peers and potential collaborators. The more you can help them, the more they can help you.

We’re all in a network together. The old-fashioned way of thinking is very protective, closed, and doesn’t let other people see what we are doing. The newer, more positive way of thinking is accepting that we are all in a network together, that we have the possibility to connect and collaborate with one another, and that we can help each other in the long run. Making those kind of connections is one dynamic key to getting your creative work out into the world.

One last thing to remember: Once you’ve formed these connections – once you’ve planted the seeds, you must go back and water them, nurture them, and give them light and sunshine and energy, just like with a garden. Plant the seeds of your relationships carefully, then take exquisite care of them so they can grow and flourish.

How do you make most of your personal and creative connections these days – through the Internet or in “real” life?  Have you made real life contacts with people you’ve “met” on the Internet?

Have a great week!

xo

Stephanie

Filed Under: creating action, creativity, Plot Notes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , 7 Comments
April 19, 2012

Why you need to embrace all of your passions

Everyone knows someone who can slam dunk a basketball, kick a field goal, and serve an ace all with relative ease. It’s the same for the creative arts. Most creatives fall into the category of multi-talented individuals. We can play three or four different instruments and we can knit, crochet, and embroider with skill. A painter enjoys gardening, an actor masters arias, and a dancer can sculpt a mean tea cup.

So why don’t more people embrace their multiple talents? Why don’t we see dancers sculpting tea cups after their performances?

The problem lies in the fact that everyone constantly tells us we can only focus on one thing. We need to find our strength and stick with it. We need to find our niche and dig in. We can be a master of one trade or a jack of none (or however that silly phrase goes).

But is that how you were as a child?

My mother can tell you that I split my days between the important tasks of tooting on the recorder, drawing masterpieces in crayon, building terrariums for caterpillars that never made it into butterflies, and doing impersonations of Tom Brokaw (please don’t ask).

So if we are multi-talented as young children (or at the very least multi-passionate – because believe me, I had no talent at the recorder or at butterflies), why are we afraid to embrace that in our work? Why do colleges dislike people (like me) who pursue more than one degree?

Why are we told we can’t be amazing at two things – only one?

A few months back I had this itch to embroider. It was such a silly desire because the last time I had sewn, I was 12 and my grandma was teaching me how to make day-of-the-week tea towels. Besides, I was an illustrator! I didn’t have time to sew! And if I did have time, there was no point because it wouldn’t bring in money and wouldn’t I be better off bringing in food money?

Well, the itch turned into a nag and finally I caved. I stitched one of my illustrations onto a piece of fabric and posted a picture on my blog, feeling entirely stupid about sharing it. Within hours, my blog lit up! Everyone wanted to know how they could sew their own!

I had inadvertently created a new product line by following a whim. That itch, founded on one of my other passions, now brings in a whole field of new customers to my shop. I’ve added a new medium to my work, going from paper to cloth. Plus, they allow me to take routine breaks from my drawing and entertain my other love. But the best part is that these patterns and kits allow people to interact with my drawings on a much deeper level.

Pretty good for a whim, right?

If I had listened to that fear of wasting time and potentially losing money, I never would have created my embroidery line. (And I wouldn’t have given my grandmother something to share with her quilting circle.)

So if you love more than one thing, embrace it!

If you hear a little voice telling you to coach, to sing, to dance, to paint, to make tea cups, LISTEN! You never know where it could lead you.

Just please, for your family’s sake, leave the recorder to the kids. My brother investigated and there is no such thing as a professional recordist.

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April 9, 2012

reprise: bad artists copy. great artists steal.

In light of recent posts about artistic license and copyright (Are We Pinning Yet? and More Pinning by Liz Kalloch), we thought we’d reprise Gwyn Michael’s post from June 2011 for yet another perspective.

For those not familiar, the title is actually a quote by Pablo Picasso and has to do with drawing inspiration from something while putting your touch on it. I guess he should know. Picasso is often attributed as the Father of Cubism when in reality he and Georges Braque worked together on the theory and were directly influenced by Cezanne, who had begun breaking up the picture plane in less abstract ways.

I have been sitting on this topic for some time now and a recent post from Bridget Pilloud brought it to the forefront. Bridget’s post is about outright stealing, using another’s content as one’s own. As a visual artist this is a sticky topic for me.

The thing is, I was accused of stealing from someone that used to be a friend. I had created some new photo collages based on an idea I had in college, after seeing her do something that reminded me of it. My images and hers were very different but both were made from buildings, different buildings (of course, no one has made art from buildings before). I credited her as an influence and she accused me of stealing outright. This, by the way, all happened on flickr where actual stealing is a regular event.

I don’t agree with her and I did not take it personally, but it made me think long and hard about how we are influenced. I could have turned it around and claimed she stole my college idea which was influenced by I don’t know what at that time. Instead I let it go, but the concept has been nagging me since.

What is originality in art?

In this age we are so bombarded with imagery (artistic and not), music, ideas, and plain old stuff that it is impossible for me to entertain the notion of true originality. That is not to say I can’t be uniquely creative in my interpretations, but that I have been influenced is not a question. The image above contains a painting by Piet Mondrian on the top left, one by Van Gogh top right, one of mine from 2003 bottom left, and a photo collage of mine from 2009. Trees all, but not the same, although there are comparisons one could make: the use of blue, red, and gold, the textural qualities, the patterns of branches. While I love Mondrian and Van Gogh’s trees, I can’t say I had either in mind when creating my trees, yet they are in my memory bank. My point is, how can we know how much is coming through as collective experience?

Is art simply a manifestation of memory?

Are “original” concepts simply the rearrangement of our perception of what we have seen, heard, felt, and experienced?

Seth Godin has this to say about originality:

I get two kinds of mail about this. One group points to organizations or individuals who are stealing my ideas. “Stop them!” they say. The other doesn’t hesitate to point out that I’ve never had an original idea in my life, and that I’m merely a promotional hack.

Now, more than ever, we can see the work an artist (in any medium, any endeavor) produces over time. If all an artist can do is steal, the truth will out. For the rest, though, a lifetime of consistent provocation, inspiration and generosity can’t help but shine through. Inspirations and all.

I think this is what Picasso means by “great artists steal.”

Great artists steal – they take the idea, theme or pattern and they make it their own. When you steal, you take away the whole thing – this particular idea no longer belongs to the original author. You take it apart, you figure out how it works and you put it together adding your own unique touches. Now it is yours and once you are done with it no one will even remember it used to belong to someone else. You started with something that was not yours, but the end product can no longer be called a copy, imitation or knock of because it stands on it’s own. You’ve successfully stolen something, and gotten away with it.
- Luke Maciak

If this is the case then why is it still such a sticky topic? In my case, I am not really concerned that my work will be copied. Posting everything I do on a website and elsewhere on the internet makes it unlikely it won’t be. Rather, it really upset me to be accused of stealing. I don’t know how one can clearly define the space between inspired work and out-right forgery. I like what Jim Jarmusch has to say:

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.”
— Jim Jarmusch

I think I can agree that originality is obscure at best, at least in the way it has been defined. Perhaps a new definition of originality can be created? Or maybe we can agree that “All creative work is derivative” and just get on with creating our art?

What does originality in your work mean to you?

How do you incorporate influence, inspiration, and experience in your work in new ways?

Filed Under: Conversation Starters, creative thinkers, creativity, Plot Notes Tagged With: , , , , , , 6 Comments
March 23, 2012

The Courage to Prosper


Money is an emotional issue. It has to do with our deepest survival instincts. Some people are obsessed with money and measure their complete personal worth through their bank account, while others reject money as a source of evil, greedy, nasty capitalist values.

How to have a healthy, balanced relationship with money? There are countless books on the subject expressing every conflicting view imaginable.

Julia Cameron, in her book The Artist’s Way, describes what I feel is a positive view about creative work and money.

“What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us.”
- Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

It is an essential truth: When you are doing what you most love to do, you are setting yourself up for the greatest flow of abundance and prosperity in your life.

I deeply believe that now, but it took me a long time to get there.

Now, I haven’t earned millions of dollars with my creative career, and I will not promise to give you the secret on how to do that (although there are plenty of other books and courses that make those sort of claims).

I may not be a millionaire, but I do feel that I lead an abundant, prosperous, rich, and fulfilling life. This feeling has to do with the fact that I get to do what I love every single day.

Yes, we all want to earn enough money to feel comfortable and have the things we want, but at the same time, I want you to remember this:

Leading an abundant, prosperous life is not solely dependent on money.

Thoreau put it this way:

“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life, which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“Well,” you may be thinking, “that’s all good and fine, Stephanie and Henry, but somebody around here has got to pay the rent and buy the groceries.”

You are right. However, I want you to keep in mind that the goal is to create a beautiful, flowing life full of joy and color and love.

Money is part of that equation, and, some might argue, a big part of that equation. But money alone will not buy you happiness.

Our views on money are often influenced by how our family feels about money and finances. As an adult, you may now have similar views about money as your parents, or you may have rejected their ideas completely. Or you may be struggling somewhere in between.

A few people grow up believing there is plenty of money to go around, more than enough, and that it is easy to earn all you need doing exactly whatever you want in life.

If you grew up this way with a positive outlook towards money, you are very lucky. Most of us have psychological issues from our past revolving around money. These issues – positive or negative – influence our current feelings about money.

Over the years, I have learned that the more positive, relaxed, and trustful I can be about money, the more of it flows in my direction. Showing generosity, gratitude, and appreciation towards others, and learning to network and form mutually supportive relationships – rather than competing – have all been important factors in this equation.

If you get too stressed out and negative about money, you will turn people off.

When you send out signals of desperation and panic, people will not want to buy your creative products and services.

It is sometimes hard to do, but you must get yourself in a positive, confident state before people will want to work with you and send you money.

If you are someone who, deep down, feels guilty for receiving money in exchange for your creative work, remember that the more money you receive, the more you can also help other people who are doing creative things. As you become successful, you will have greater opportunities to support others who are doing their own creative work.

“While prosperous thinking means many things to people, basically it gives you the power to make your dreams come true, whether those dreams are concerned with better health, increased financial success, a happier personal life, more education and travel, or a deeper spiritual life.”
– Catherine Ponder, Open Your Mind to Prosperity

Don’t underestimate the power of taking a few small steps each day to reach your goals. As a creative, thoughtful individual, be open to your own exciting and brilliant ideas. These are exactly the creative ideas you need to make more money.

Start by making notes and acting on at least three small steps towards earning money with your creative work today.

A few first steps could be:

  • brainstorming creative services or products you could offer to fulfill a need that isn’t being met.
  • collecting ideas about local and/or online opportunities to show and sell your work or creative services.
  • listing media possibilities to publicize your work and make valuable contacts (blogs, magazines, websites).
  • researching classes you’d like to teach or attend to help you get the skills and information you need (online/offline).
  • contacting successful people in your field you want to meet, interview, or assist.

Here’s what Seth Godin, in his thought-provoking book Unleashing the Ideavirus, has to say:

“…if you can get people to accept and embrace and adore and cherish your ideas, you win. You win financially, you gain power and you change the world in which we live… Ideas, not products, are the engine of our new economy.”
- Seth Godin, Unleashing the Ideavirus

What special something can you offer the world that people want, need, and are willing to pay for? It could be something you make with your hands, like a craft or artwork – or it could be skills or ideas that you teach or provide others.

When you are doing what you most love to do, and you are sharing your gifts with the world to help others – you will ultimately find your greatest financial success and personal rewards.

Know that it is possible to earn money with your creative work. If you’re not earning as much money as you want just yet, be patient. Don’t accept the opinion of anyone who tells you it is impossible, because it’s not.

Find your voice, live your passions, muster up your personal courage, and celebrate your creative work. Prosperity loves fresh, creative ideas, and abundance follows courage.

xoxo
Stephanie

P.S. I’m sending you heaps of creativity and courage from Europe today! You are personally invited to join our community of creative, courageous women meeting here, starting up April 9.

Filed Under: Buy You, For You, creating action, creative thinkers, creativity Tagged With: , , , , , , 2 Comments
February 24, 2012

Leaping in Leap Year 2012!

Are you ready to leap in 2012?

I love that 2012 is Leap Year because it reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way: “Leap and the net will appear.”

Sometimes we must take blind leaps of faith for our creative work. If we don’t believe in our work, who will?

If you treat your creative work as a hobby, it will remain a hobby. That’s fine, and there is nothing wrong with that. Hobbies can be very life enhancing.

But if you want your creative dreams to come true, you must respect them and reserve enough time and energy to make them reality.

We must honor our creative work with time, materials, space, adventure, and love.

Everyone wants a magical, fulfilling life. At times, it is easy to become discouraged and lose focus. Sometimes through the normal stresses of daily life, we can become so burdened by our mundane routines and daily tasks that we forget about our creative dreams.

It is your sole responsibility to take care of your dream, to let it be born through you, to allow your individual, beautiful soul shine through and inspire others.

Dreams can be scary, overwhelming. When I started my 12 Countries in 12 Months project, I was terrified. I had serious doubts, I had moments when I wondered what on earth I was getting myself into.

This weekend, I’m traveling to the eighth city on my tour: Budapest. It’s a place I’ve never been, I don’t speak the language, I have no idea what awaits me – and I am thrilled. Thank goodness I pushed through my fears of the unknown to get to the place I am now. I’ve found a place where I can enjoy my own creative projects, and excitement has replaced terror.

Believe and trust that the universe wants you to express your dreams. You are on this planet for a reason; now make, leap, create, do!

Stop waiting for the perfect time and the perfect space; jump in, get your feet wet, don’t worry about perfection, and start now with whatever it is that you want to do. Don’t make excuses about why you can’t anymore, decide that you can and go, go, go!

“Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.”
- Simone de Beauvoir

Respect and honor your time, use it wisely, and don’t ever feel guilty about the time you are spending with your creative work. It is just as important as exercising, eating well – and much more important than your next Facebook update! See your creative work time as something you are going to build into your life. Every single day.

We are responsible for our own lives – for making our lives the most exciting, creative, interesting adventures as possible. Sometimes, it is bitter medicine to realize that we are the ones in command, but we are.

If you want an epic life, you must stretch your imagination, expand your possibilities, and move forward to build the life you want.

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
- Helen Keller

In the end, if you really believe deep down that you can do something, you can do it. And if you believe that you can’t do something, then that’s usually true too.

I hope you will value your creative work and see your creative dreams as a garden. When you honor, respect, nurture, love, and spend time with this garden, the more it will grow. Plant the seeds of your creative dreams, water them, give them sunshine and love – you will watch them flourish!

Sending you hugs from Munich, Germany today!

xo

Stephanie

p.s.
If you’d like to join an international, supportive community of women who are working towards their creative dreams, I’d like to invite you to join us for the new Spring Session of Creative Courage here.

Filed Under: creating action, creative thinkers, creativity, Plot Notes Tagged With: , , , , , 1 Comment