Recently in Creativity Category

On April 26, I embarked on a 30-day Twitter Experiment, with an open heart and mind, excited to see what focusing intently on connecting through social media might bring.

 

It was a wild 30 days, and it did bring with some amazing opportunities, as well as some new insights.

 

Here's what I learned:

 

1) Real connection can't be faked, bought, or sold.  If you connect to people from your heart, then benefits abound.  If you just "talk the talk" without authentic intention, however, it reveals itself quickly.

 

2) If you're on the lookout for great things, great things come.  In these past thirty days, I've received requests for two radio interviews, a potential TV opportunity, several speaking gigs in Peru, great new participants in my Women Succeeding Abundantly research, two amazing new clients, and the list goes on.  These opportunities are not necessarily directly related to my being involved on Twitter more, but it's all connected to putting yourself out there.

 

3)  When you're clear about what you're doing and what you want to come to you, you're better able to filter out the noise and the unwanted (and there's a lot of that too!).

 

4) The more you share, the more feedback you get, so you need strong boundaries that allow you to connect continually with who you really are, in the midst of lots of new energy.

 

5) It's a heck of a lot more fun to be in community than to be alone (when you like your community!). 

 

6) If you think there's not enough to go around (of anything - help, advice, support, friends, creativity, opportunities, work, gigs, money, etc.), it's time to think again, and make some changes in your life.

 

7) The need to be very concise (140 characters!) about what's happening in your life is a terrific challenge, and a great gift.  It makes you efficient at articulating only the meat.

 

8) And finally, it's a friendly universe - yes, struggles and pain are everywhere, but I've found that it's a loving, compassionate and supportive universe, when you commit to seeing it that way.

 

I'd highly recommend doing your own 30-Day Twitter experiment, and sharing the results with your community.  Please let me know when you do it - I'd love to follow and learn from you!

 

Here's to connection and community!

 

Last night, I went to a very stimulating workshop called "Write Yourself Free" in CT, offered by The Editing Company, and held by two wonderful and empowering writing coaches/teachers, Susie Horgan and Patrick McCord. The program was designed to help aspiring and published writers overcome their fears and blocks, and make movement in their work, bringing forward their gifts and talents into the world in a bigger way than ever before.  As a breakthrough coach and an author myself, I brought to the workshop an open mind, keen interest, and great enthusiasm, but not much hope that I'd have a breakthrough.  How wrong I was!

I experienced a huge shift in those two short hours, one that opened me up to new realizations that truly rocked me (in a good way).  Through the exercises of writing and reading to a stranger what I'd created, I learned this about myself - even though I've undergone the extreme rigor of researching and writing a self-help book for women (and by most accounts a good one), and have had it published by a very reputable publishing firm, my heart beats fast and furiously (and my knees knock together loudly) at the thought of my next project I'm longing to write - a powerful screenplay about a spiritual occurrence that flips the main character's world upside, and changes her and her family's life forever.

Why does the idea of moving forward on this particular project make my fingers turn cold and my chest throb?  Because for me, that's as real as it gets.  The story is autobiographical - it's raw, authentic, and revealing.  It's about the true me - not the image I may project to others.  It's very scary to let the "real" you out in this world that's all about image, posturing, and control.  I realized too that I'm intensely concerned with being "credible" and to be deemed "credible," I go to amazing lengths to prove that I'm a studied expert in any given topic I'm covering.  But needing always to feel credible is a futile and wasteful exercise - sometimes it's enough to just "be" instead.

I made a commitment last night - to myself, to the group, and to my new writing partner - that I will write 15 minutes a day on my screenplay.  That's all - 15 wee little minutes.  Not a lofty goal by any stretch, but a monumental one for me.  The mere promise of 15 minutes sets new worlds into motion, and releases blocks that have kept me for years from focusing on what I truly want to - living and connecting to your true spirit in life and work.

So I'd love to offer you this challenge today - ask yourself this: "What are you deeply longing to do, but are absolutely terrified of trying?  What one project do you fantasize about taking on, but it makes your knees knock together in fear, because it's as real and revealing as it gets for you?"

It's in this question that you'll find some nugget of the truth that's waiting to be told about your life; some aspect of breakthrough in you that's longing to emerge so that you can finally get on with the life you're meant to be leading, not someone else's.

I hope that you'll share answers to your breakthrough questions here.  We'll all learn from you, because basically we all fear the same thing.  Can you guess what that is?

What's your breakthrough waiting to happen?