: the manifesto of encouragement.

The response to this post was a big, gorgeous surprise for me. It's been my wildest fire to date. It's been Tweeted and linked to over 4000 times. I'm going to make it into a print book...maybe sell the movie rights (just kidding on the movie deal.) It starts like so:

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.

READ THE FULL MANIFESTO, and add your own mantra. This lightship is in orbit. Full speed ahead.

: building trust and other tactical bullshit that you probably don’t need. Next time you stumble upon a theory from someone older, wiser, and (allegedly) more enlightened, ask yourself: do I really need this? READ THE FULL POST, and burn off the fog.

: confidence vs. blind faith: rock ‘em both. Confidence is an arrow ommming to the target. Blind faith rolls with chance and destiny. Fancy yourself the rock 'em, sock 'em type? YOU GOTTA HAVE BOTH.

sightings + soul merch

: save the date. Check, check, 1-2-3. On Sept 9, I'll be speaking at SHIFTED: a synthesized showcase of challenge, failure and success. 6 pm at District 319 in Vancouver. Hop on board on Facebook + Twitter.

: burn, baby, burn. The Fire Starter Sessions is a digital book-meets-video seminar to help you rock your business...your way, right away. Watch this video and I'll tell you all about it.

"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

"The Fire Starter Sessions is the new, bad-ass Artist’s Way.”
– Linda Sivertsen, co-author, Harmonic Wealth, and Generation Green

$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

Click here to view the full
Table of Contents!

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

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

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.

. . . . . . .

SPREAD THE RA-RA. ADD TO THE MANIFESTO. ENCOURAGE.

Post script:

(In just the first hour of publishing this, we've got the spark of something seriously thrilling and luminous. Shall we go for 1000 encouragements? Are you with me? Spread it. xoxo)

"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.

: Is earned. No exceptions. There are NO short cuts to initiation. Ever. It's law. You can do it quick n' dirty, (think: near death experiences, starter marriages done at the Lusty Lady Chapel in Vegas, trauma and tragedy, the 1999 dot com boom, winning the lottery.) Or you can do it slow, like, over life times kind of slow. But confidence is the result of insight and insight comes from experiencing things on a very deep level.

: Confidence is an arrow ommming to the target. Ommm. Spwack! Bull's eye.
: Confidence has a past. She has lost something before. (Dignity.) She's been shaken (even if she never showed it.)
: Confidence wavered and then went on to finish the race.
: Confidence goes in eyes wide open.

You need confidence to lead, to sustain, and to offer the kind of straight up compassion that transforms people.

blind faith

: Is exhilarating, caffeinated, giddy.
: Blind faith is like a race car. He white knuckles the wheel and hopes he makes the curve. Fhew.
: Blind faith is fresh. She recruits chance, destiny, and the good will of others. She prays, wishes, crosses her heart, and cozies up to luck, symbols and "signs." (It's a sign!)
: Blind faith gets carefree and careless confused. (It's okay, this is healthy chaos.)
: Blind faith tends to give up more easily, but regardless of that, blind faith is incredibly endearing.

You need blind faith to build confidence.