I admit it: my hero is a car thief.

Well, okay, a former car thief, but still.

Who is my hero? Chris Guillebeau, whose Unconventional Book Tour for his new book, The Art of Nonconformity, starts today.

Okay, the car thief part is a bit inflated, though Chris did indeed steal a car at age 15, a tidbit I learned in a Question the Rules (affiliate link) interview. What he’s done in the intervening years, though, is a lot more interesting than this sensationalist factoid.

And truth be told, I have a lot of heroes, both the long-dead kind (Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth I, Sojourner Truth, to name a few) and the contemporary kind (Gloria Steinem and Jill Robinson spring to mind).

But Chris occupies a special place in my pantheon of heroes for a few simple reasons:

1) Timing

(Mundane, but true, and the only reason that has nothing to do with Chris. Timing may not be everything, but it’s a big thing.)

When I first discovered Chris and his blog, The Art of Nonconformity, my life was at a turning point. I’d tolerated “pretty good, but not what I really, really want” for years, but a series of personal crises had gotten me to a place of desperation. I was finally ready to make a change, but I had no idea how.

Right at that moment, this guy appeared on my radar who was actually living what he really, really wanted. Not settling for what the world told him he could get, but dreaming big, and really going after his dreams.

And making a living at it, to boot!

Chris showed that maybe what I really, really wanted was possible after all. I was primed to listen and learn.

2) He’s a beacon for the rest of us

Chris isn’t just living the life he wants; he’s also leading the way for all of us who want to live the lives we want. His writing, his impressive line of Unconventional Guides (affiliate link) – all are crafted to help people with big dreams to make them reality.

Chris first shows you that it can be done, and then helps you do it.

3) He makes his own rules

From stealing a car (okay, probably not something to try at home), to dropping out of high school yet still graduating with two bachelor’s degrees in two years, to volunteering in Africa for four years, to creating several profitable online businesses, to setting a goal of visiting every country on the planet by the time he turns 35 (at the time of this writing, he’s at 149/192), to creating a massive following and thriving business through generosity, to self-funding a 63-city book tour, Chris has never done things by the book.

4) He goes after big goals

Did I mention his goal of visiting every country in the world by his 35th birthday? And writing a book? Then there’s the World Domination Summit he’s in the middle of organizing, to bring like-minded nonconformists together in one place for a few days.

Oh, and I think changing the world counts as a pretty big goal.

5) He models generosity

It’s all very well to create the life you really, really want and step on people along the way. Or to make a fortune from exploiting people. Chris is just the opposite.

Not only is he generous with his time (he gave me a fantastic Thriving Artists Project interview), his energy (did I mention 4 years of volunteer work in Africa?), and his information (unlike some people I know, Chris is not tight-fisted here), but he’s generous with his money as well.

The Unconventional Guides affiliate program (yep, that’s an affiliate link), which has paid me back and then some for all of the courses I’ve purchased from him, has a 51% commission – the most generous I’ve seen.

But that’s not all: Chris is donating 20% of all royalties from the sale of The Art of Nonconformity to the AONC partner project with Charity: Water for at least 12 months following publication. And for each reader he meets who purchases the book during the Unconventional Book Tour or World Domination Summit events, he will donate an additional 80% of his royalties, for a total of 100%.

Is this guy cool, or what?

6) He’s a model of running a profitable business ethically, and with customer service that cannot be beat

So this one is kind of embarrassing (for me, not for Chris).

Months back, I wrote a review of the $100 Business Forum, an online course that Chris ran with Pam Slim. The course was top-notch, but I found the Ning platform they were using frustrating. I was writing my review late at night, when I was tired and cranky, and, well, I clicked “publish” when I would have been a lot better off sleeping on it and reading it again with the objectivity that a good night’s sleep can bring.

When you’re tired and cranky, sometimes you don’t realize how much it infects everything you write…

The next morning I woke up to a personal email from Chris, and a complete refund for my course tuition.

Needless to say, I felt awful, and I immediately purged the gratuitous crankiness from the review.

(I also made a mental note to never publish a review when I’m tired and cranky.)

And Chris instantaneously became my Customer Service Hero, because I realized that with that $100, he had bought himself a customer for life. And isn’t that what all of us business people want?

7) He doesn’t let fear stop him

On page 59 of The Art of Nonconformity, Chris shares a few of his fears:

• I’m only on chapter 3. Will I ever finish writing this book?
• What if it sucks? What if I get bad reviews? (Or worse, what if no one pays attention?)
• I’m afraid of the forces of mediocrity and lethargy. I’m afraid of becoming too comfortable or getting lazy.
• When I travel, I’m afraid of trying to speak another language.
• Sometimes I feel paralyzed. People say they want to travel with me, and I think, “Oh no–then they would figure out that it’s not always that exciting.”
• I’m afraid that people will think I’m faking it.
• I’m scared of getting older and missing out on something I should have already done. (In the words of John Mayer, “I’m only good at being young.”)

Did you see the one about being afraid of trying to speak another language? Yet Chris has been to 149 countries (and counting).

Rock on.

****

In short, Chris is my hero because he inspires me, and helps me believe that I can set big goals and achieve them too.

Would you like to be inspired? Do you want to set your own rules, live the life you want, and change the world? (And help out a great cause at the same time.) If you’ve ever thought, “There must be more to life than this,” The Art of Nonconformity is for you. It’s an easy read, but the kind of book you’ll want to go back to again and again.

In the words of Tyler Tervooren from Advanced Riskology, it’s How To Change The World for $10.08.

You can’t get better than that!

PS – I also recommend catching up with Chris in person on his Unconventional Book Tour. If you make it to the San Francisco stop, I’ll see you there!

So how’m I doing in my quest to re-invent my life, follow my evolving Blisses and create the life I really, really want?

Here’s the funny thing: I was finding it hard to tap out my thoughts on the keyboard tonight, so I decided to just record them on video. But being me, I couldn’t quite stop there, so I still typed in (and expanded upon) the important points below.

Which is, perhaps, a good lesson that recording myself on video may be a good way to clarify my thinking. Note to self. (And important point #5, if you think about it.)

Important points:

1) Purge and sort to get some clarity back into your life

Thank you to Lori for her comment on my last video post. I don’t like to clean/sort/organize/purge, but I always do better when I’m surrounded by order, rather than chaos. Still, I’m so resistant to doing it, that I needed the reminder of how beneficial it would be.

Hooray for reminders!

2) Back up your blog(s) and website(s)!

Don’t procrastinate on this one. Seriously.

Johnny B. Truant‘s recent post, Freaky WordPress catastrophes and site crashes, and how to prevent them, was a painful reminder of my own experience (pre-blog) of my ecommerce ketubah site being downed by hackers almost a year ago. For a month.

Oh, the pain.

I’m grateful to Johnny for kicking me into gear. The systems I already had in place (daily automatic database backups and every-few-days backups of everything on my hosting account), though good, are not enough to save my @ss if the unthinkable happens again.

So. Several hours that I could have spent making art, or writing blog posts, or doing client work, went into researching backup and security systems. Much less urgent (seemingly) than a lot of the stuff on my mile-long to-do list, but a helluva lot more important in the long run.

The upshot?

1) I set every one of my developed domains up with Sucuri.net, which monitors your sites, detects unauthorized changes (ie, hacks and malware), and (best of all) cleans everything up if they ever are hacked.

2) I bought and installed Backup Buddy, a premium WordPress plugin that allows you to back up not just your database, but your entire site. Automatically. And restores your site if you ever need it. You can back up to your server, Amazon S3, a FTP/FTPS account, or an email.

I also just signed up for Amazon S3 and sent my backup to their server with the click of a button. Voilá!

I will definitely sleep better at night knowing my data is backed up!

(Now go back up your stuff!)

3) Changes are afoot: I’m partnering on a new site!

I’ve hinted about this, but now it’s official: I am the new partner in charge of a yet-to-be-launched site called 365 Days of Genius (the link is not working at the time of this writing… stay tuned).

365 Days of Genius is just one of several networked sites in the 365 Days of Everything family, a network which so far includes 365 Days of Style, 365 Days of Growing Things, 365 Days of Startups, and about 20 others (and growing).

The 365 Days of Everything concept is the brainchild of Heather Claus, who has brought together an amazing group of partners to run the various sites, and I’m excited about the opportunity to learn and grow in this community!

Given my (ahem) complicated relationship with the concept of genius, I found it especially amusing that Heather tapped me for 365 Days of Genius, which, in case you’re wondering, will be all about creativity, out-of-the-box thinking, innovation, how the mind works, and yes, genius.

I’ll share more later as we move toward launch. The point for now is that launching this new site is going to take a lot of my time and energy for the next several months, which will probably mean fewer posts here for awhile.

Just FYI…

4) Become an organ donor

One of my mentor/heroes, Tim Sweeney, has been ill, and today I found out that he is going to need an organ transplant.

Major shit, people.

But Tim being Tim, the email he sent to keep people posted of his condition also included an appeal to do a simple thing that could save a life (probably not his own): register as an organ donor.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had the little “donor” button on my driver’s license since I first got a driver’s license. What I didn’t know until Tim’s email, though, is that there is now an online registry.

A few clicks on your keyboard, and – bam – you’re in the system, and should the unthinkable happen (which, of course, we hope never does), you’ll be logged as a donor whether you have your little donor card on you or not.

Did you also know that one donor can save eight lives?

Think about it. Make a difference. Do it, now, and tell your friends and family to do the same.

—–

Whew! For someone who couldn’t get any words out a few hours ago, I still managed to write a lengthy post. Nobody would ever accuse me of being concise.

As usual, write your comments below.

That’s it for this week!

Plotting her next pee-on-the-bed escapade. (I have a sneaking suspicion she's on the Anti-Icky Poo payroll.)

Author’s note: I am not on the Anti-Icky Poo* payroll. I do not get kick-backs. I do not own stock in the company, though perhaps I should. Just sayin’…

One of the great pleasures of having a cat is cuddling with it in bed.

Thankfully for my cats, there are other pleasures besides this one, because the fluffy one’s maddening habit of peeing on the bed has barred both of them from the bedroom.

Honestly, I am not a violent person, but finding a puddle of cat pee on the bed is enough to make the most dedicated pacifist go ballistic.

I’m talking fantasies of throwing the cat out the window.

The second story window.

(Fantasies, people. Fantasies. Geez. Don’t have a cow. Admit it, you’ve had the same fantasy.)

The thing is, when you get into the habit of keeping the door to the bedroom closed at all times, the cats obviously don’t get into the bedroom, so no peeing on the bed occurs, and you kinda forget that the reason the door is kept closed in the first place is precisely because one of the little monsters has this lovely habit.

And when your bedroom is at the back of the house on the second floor, it doesn’t get a lot of air circulation. So when there’s a heat wave it gets pretty darned stuffy and you think, “Gee, maybe I’ll just open the door for a few minutes to try and get some cooler air in there, so maybe I can, like, sleep.”

And you know there’s a reason you vigilantly keep the door closed all the time, but it’s been so long since the cat peed on the bed that it just doesn’t seem like a big threat. And it’s so hot, and you’re only keeping the door open for a moment, and for good measure you even put an enormous box left over from a recent delivery in the doorway, completely blocking the lower half (knowing full well that this doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of keeping a determined kitty out, but surely [you think] it’ll be fine for just a few minutes).

And then you blithely head into your now much cooler bedroom to get some much-needed sleep, and you reach down to pull back the comforter…

And it’s soaking wet.

[Expletive deleted.]

[More expletives deleted.]

[Foot-stomping, teeth gnashing, eyes blazing expletives. Also deleted.]

So you grit your teeth and strip the bed, doing your darnedest to keep the puddle of cat pee from dripping onto un-peed-on parts of the bedding, which is really, really challenging, because there are, like, a zillion different layers to deal with — the top and bottom of the comforter cover, the two-layer really expensive organic wool comforter, the top sheet, the bottom sheet, and the mattress pad.

(Which is, thankfully, waterproof, because long before your brain took a vacation and allowed you to leave the door to the bedroom open for a brief moment when you knew this was not a good idea, you had an intelligent moment of realizing that if you had to clean the mattress one more time you would more than likely go completely postal. So you invested in a waterproof mattress pad. To which the fluffy kitty at this moment quite likely owes her pathetic, fluffy little life.)

And you somehow manage to shlep all zillion pee-soaked layers downstairs and into your tiny little backyard to drape across the patio furniture, the bicycle, the rosemary bush (lacking any kind of clothes line) (in the dark, I might add, because the outside light went out before you even moved in and you have never managed to figure out how to open it to change the bulb).

And you spray the sh*t out of both sides of everything with Anti-Icky Poo*, which you buy by the gallon*, because although as previously stated you normally keep the door to the bedroom closed at all times (and sure as hell will be again, starting now), the fluffy kitty doesn’t limit her peeing escapades to the bed.

However, because the fluffy kitty doesn’t limit her peeing escapades to the bed, and you’ve been trying to get rid of the persistent kitty pee smell that welcomes visitors by the front door, there’s not a whole lot of Anti-Icky Poo* left in the spray bottle, or the gallon bottle. Which puts you in an even crispier mood.

And then you still have to put clean sheets on the bed, by which point it’s about an hour or maybe even 90 minutes later than you had intended on going to sleep, which also doesn’t help the mood situation.

If anything will put a girl in a ranting mood, that will.

Next time, I think I’ll opt for a Chia Pet.

*Yes, that’s an affiliate link for Anti-Icky Poo, so I’ll make a few cents if you click through and buy it. I buy it by the gallon at my local, family-owned pet store (support your local business!) This stuff works, though be forewarned, it can take weeks for the smell to completely go away.

Despite the image above, this post is not about love, or romance, or anything remotely like it.

The pic is a gilded section from a ketubah I just completed and shipped off today. After days of high-intensity work to get it and some other client projects done on deadline, for much of today I found myself spinning my wheels.

Yeah, I completed some big projects (I even painted a painting this morning!) But the afternoon I was slogging through quicksand.

And what happened? Instead of allowing myself a little break, I beat myself up about not being productive enough.

I couldn’t seem to get a blog post written to save my life, so I made a video instead. Just some thoughts spinning around in my head, about spinning my wheels, and being gentle with myself.

Let me know what you think.

So how’m I doing in my quest to re-invent my life, follow my evolving Blisses and create the life I really, really want?

First, a story:

Back when I was 19, I collided with a car while riding my bike to my summer job teaching nursery school.

I was zipping down the sidewalk on the left side of the street (a no-no), and came up to an intersection where a car on the cross street was about to turn right. The driver was looking to his left, watching for oncoming cars, so he never saw me, bearing down from his right.

I thought he would stop. But he didn’t stop.

And by the time I realized he wasn’t stopping, it was too late for me to stop.

(Note to self: when in doubt, stop. This is true for many things in life, not just moving vehicles.)

Suddenly my front wheel slammed into his right front wheel, and I was airborne.

Thankfully, neither of us was going highway speeds, or I might not be writing this post right now. Later I would discover the my front wheel was totaled, but at that second I knew only that I was flying. Then, wham — I found myself perched on the hood of the car, impossibly balanced on my left hip.

In the rush of adrenaline, a zillion thoughts spun through my mind:

You f*cking moron! You didn’t stop! And you didn’t even look to see if the coast was clear!

Geez, I’d better make sure I stop and look right when driving…

Am I okay? Did I break anything? (Yes, and no, in that order.)

Dang, I should have slowed down and stopped when I saw that car in the intersection…

Now I’m going to be late for work!

What sticks with me most from that experience, though, is the memory of being perched on the hood of the car. For a second or two, my body was so perfectly balanced on the pivot point of my hip that I literally couldn’t move. The world seemed to stop for a moment. It felt like I might be frozen there forever.

At this time in my life I was heavily, passionately into dance (my first serious Bliss-following endeavor), about to head off to Juilliard in the fall, and I remember marveling at how balanced I was in that moment.

Dang (I thought), if only I could find that kind of balance doing pirouettes in my dance classes!

Of course, I did eventually manage to tip off of my hip and slide off the car, the world started spinning on its axis again, and life proceeded to lurch along at its normal pace.

The ever-elusive quest for balance

That instant after the crash has been something of a metaphor for my life ever since: I’m always seeking a state of balance, rarely achieving it, and when I do, it’s for a fleeting moment (and ironically, now that I think of it, frequently after some kind of radically imbalancing crisis.)

This week was a great example. After months of craziness before and in between music camps, things are settling down again, I’m finding a groove. And this week, art, music, life, business — all seemed to converge and harmonize in the most beautiful way.

To wit:

:: The Universe is sending me cool validation for my writing

I’m guest posting!

The Abundant Artist published the first in a series of guest posts, which was then picked up on Brazen Careerist. Plus I was invited to guest post on Scoutie Girl.

And most exciting of all, a sweet opportunity landed in my lap to be the top mover and shaker for another website.

But until it’s official, I’ll just leave it at that. Stay tuned… (Yeah, I’m a tease. I know.)

:: I’m making art! And okay with being a beginner… mostly

The huge revelation this week was that my goal to make art every day is not about adding inventory to my business, but about allowing myself space to be in kindergarten. This finally got me painting again, playing and experimenting in a brand new medium.

Result: I made five paintings in five days.

Canvas #5:

I’m even managing (mostly) the inevitable anxiety that pops up around whether I like my work or not. I posted painting #5 above precisely because I didn’t particularly like it when I painted on it (though it’s been growing in me). But as I wrote in my guest blog post, art is in the eye (and pocketbook) of the beholder. Even if you don’t think your work is art, or of value, somebody else might!

Although I wrote this (and thanks to everyone who retweeted it), I still have to remind myself of it on a regular basis… Going back to kindergarten as an adult is never easy. I want to be facile, now. But the fact is, with every canvas I paint, I’m learning what it’s like to work in this medium. And baby step by baby step, I’m finding my voice.

Patience, patience.

It’s all herky-jerky newborn limb-flailing at the moment, which is frustrating, but exactly as it should be.

:: The Thriving Artists Project is moving forward

Yes! I had two fantastic interviews, with Chris Guillebeau and Will Edwards, with two more scheduled for next week. Forward movement is good!

:: Music gig opportunities are springing up all around me

The Universe has sent me some clear validation for my music lately:

• I got to debut my ukulele playing (and my new ukulele song) at today’s gig at the Palo Alto Festival of the Arts. Sold some CDs, gained some new fans on my mailing list. Took a step forward in my goal to master the art of performing solo. (And discovered I need to triple my repertoire of uke songs before I can carry an hour all by myself! Ah, well. More herky-jerky newborn limb-flailing. Or perhaps toddling.)

• A friend invited me to sit in on his gig at the Unity Day fair on September 19, offering me a portion of his brief, 45-minute set, simply because he likes my music and wants to support me and see me getting more exposure. (How awesome is that?)

• Another friend with the same intention invited me to sing on her radio show, the Sisters of Sizzle, on September 29. (Ditto.)

• The day after that, September 30, I have a lunchtime gig at the SF Arts Market. (Gotta find an accompanist, since I’ve got an hour to fill, and tripling my repertoire in a month is a tall order…)

:: And among it all, work got done

Amazing how that happens. Somehow, I’m managing to follow my various Blisses while at the same time completing client deadlines.

And going to two potluck music jam parties.

And spending time with important people in my life.

If I’d managed to get a night of Argentine tango dancing in, life would pretty much be complete.

Ah, well. Perhaps next week.

The ever-elusive quest for balance is, after all, ever-elusive.

That’s it for this update.

If you haven’t guessed by now, your intrepid correspondent can be a bit… obsessive sometimes.

To wit: just as soon as I make a public announcement that I’m not yet ready to commit to making a new painting every day, I go ahead and form the private intention to do just that.

Sometimes I drive even myself crazy.

But the truth is, way back in May I had my first (and so far only) life coaching session with Susan, in exchange for designing and installing for her a new WordPress website (not yet live at the time of this writing; if you click through that link, that is not the site I designed — check back in a few weeks). In that life coaching session I got very clear that I really, really want to be making art every day.

Did you catch that? Every day.

Because the thing is, when I’m actively creating, when I actually make art, the whole rest of the day goes better. I feel like I’m living in alignment with my life’s purpose, and I’m just plain happier.

My Irresistible Yogini line of artwork sprang from that life coaching session, which was awesome. And for a number of weeks I was making art every day. It was great. I was happier, and the whole rest of my day did (for the most part) go better.

But gradually my discipline dwindled, and I stopped making art every day.

Why? What would make me stop making art, when that was the exact goal I was going for?

Honestly, I was kind of stumped, and felt pretty badly about not following through.

Recently, though, I figured something out. I realized that although I love my Irresistible Yogini and I do want to fill out the line, after the first few days, working on that line didn’t actually satisfy the need that I was hoping to fill.

I wanted to play. To experiment. To mess around with color, get my hands dirty, and not worry about rules.

Think adult finger-painting.

Making Irresistible Yogini is a lot more about designing than experimenting. It’s fun figuring out how to turn simple brush strokes into a female form in a yoga posture, but after the first few minutes it doesn’t feel like playing anymore.

Instead, it’s redoing the same brush strokes 57 times until I get a version I’m reasonably happy with.

Then it’s calligraphing the words over and over until I get a version of that that I’m reasonably happy with.

Then it’s scanning and color correcting and messing around in Photoshop, which, while it can be fun, is 180 degrees from my original goal of messing around and “finger-painting.”

Which brings me to my four tips:

Tip 1: When you set a goal for yourself, make sure you’re very clear on the underlying reasons why you want this thing

My initial goal, to make art every day, was not really clear enough. I didn’t really just want to add a new line of art to my website (though of course that’s always nice). I didn’t want a new work assignment. What I really wanted was to use my hands to be in the creative zone.

As a result, my real goal would maybe have been better stated as:

To mess around with paint every day

or

To make a tiny painting every day in one hour or less, even if I don’t like it

or

To spend 20 minutes every day making marks on canvas or paper

Thankfully, I did finally get clear, and guess what — today is the third day in a row that I’ve made a painting! Knowing the real aim of my goal (to play, experiment, not feel bogged down by rules or expectations) helps keep me on track.

Getting clear on your goals is really important, but it’s just as important to do some processing to figure out why you want this particular goal, what you want to get out of it. If your goal isn’t in alignment with what you really want to get from it, you’ll run out of steam.

But if you’re clear that performing the tasks to get your goal will feed and nourish you, I’ll bet you that very little will be able to stop you.

Tip 2: Make your goals achievable

and a related tip:

Tip 3: Make your goals right for you

I am most definitely not making a public commitment to make a completed painting every day. I’ve already made enough big public commitments recently, thank you very much. But I did go out and buy 15 tiny canvases and 3 tiny boards, and I do have a goal of painting every one of them by the time I put up my booth at the To Life! festival in Palo Alto, California on October 10.

That is achievable. And if I do end up making art every day, fantastic! That would make me phenomenally happy. But feeling like I have to because I’ve made a public commitment, while a great idea in theory, for me right now would feel too much like yet another client deadline I have to meet.

For me, the whole purpose of this make art more often goal is to provide an antidote to all the client deadlines that fill up so much of my life. Besides, it’s always better to under-promise and over-perform than vice-versa — to yourself just as much as to other people.

Now you may decide that making a public commitment is exactly what you need to light your creative fire. Great! Fantastic! The point is to do some thinking about what is really going to work for you.

Tip 4: Set things up so that your achievable goals are as easy as possible to achieve

For example, if you want to make a painting every day (even if you’re not publicly committing that you’re going to [ahem]), it’s probably a lot easier to make that happen if you canvasses are, say, 4 inches square, rather than, say, 12 feet by 18 feet.

Just sayin’.

It’s also a lot easier to scan a smaller piece to reproduce it as a print and/or post it online. A few months back I bought some canvasses with the intention of playing in a new medium, and I used those for my first two paintings. They happened to be 10″ square, which is not a large canvas in the scheme of things, but it is an inch and a half too wide to scan in one pass on my desktop scanner.

Doh!

But no matter. I learned a wonderful lesson, and when I stocked up on more canvasses I kept them on the really small side. Clever monkey, aren’t I?

(It also doesn’t hurt that smaller canvasses cost a whole lot less, and use up a lot less paint, which costs money too. :))

To conclude…

It took me a few months, but I finally figured out what I really want from my make art every day goal. I figured out how to make my goal achievable and right for me, and I set things up so that my goal is as easy as possible to achieve.

In case you haven’t guessed, the image at the top of this post is today’s effort (see a side view below). I’ve got 17 more little canvasses and boards sitting on my drafting table. Watch for more little paintings to appear here (though not necessarily every day…)

And you? What’s one of your goals, and how can you tweak it to make it achievable, right for you, and as easy as possible to achieve?

So how’m I doing in my quest to re-invent my life, follow my evolving Blisses and create the life I really, really want?

The week started with a podcast interview, ramped up to a singing gig on Thursday (my first with my ukulele!), and wrapped up with art-making, a party filled with music-making, and finally girls’ night out to see Eat, Pray, Love.

Considering that the life I really, really want is one in which I’m regularly creating, making art and music, and spending time with friends (among other things), I’d say I’m doing pretty well this week!

Add to this the discovery of an excellent new auto shop just around the corner (and much less expensive than the dealer), and hot dang, life is good!

Still, I got hit this week by a couple of days of blues and blahs, and a post by Dave Navarro on Why You Need to Abandon Your Rescue Fantasy was just what the doctor ordered.

The curse of the rescue fantasy

You know that fantasy that a sudden windfall will magically disappear your debt? Or that your art/music/writing will be magically “discovered” and catapult you to fame and fortune? Or that you’ll win the lottery (even though you never buy a ticket) and all your money woes will be forever gone?

I confess, I’m as tempted as the next person by the lure of such rescue fantasies. Face it, life is hard, and sometimes you just want it to be magically made easy.

The problem is, dwelling on rescue fantasies keeps you immobile, and that stuckness provides very fertile soil for blues and blahs to settle in.

The solution: accepting responsibility

Awhile back I made a piece of art to address this victim trap, and to remind myself that I am:

However, I’m also as susceptible as the next person to drifting off track, and this week I had to face the fact that for several weeks I hadn’t been making art (except for clients, which is a different animal entirely).

Not making new art has been making me feel loser-ish and downright cranky. It was high time for a course adjustment.

Inspiration from corners both concrete and virtual

Thankfully, right at the height of my loser-ish cranky feeling this week, I stopped for tea at my friend Amy & Joe’s house, the walls of which are graced by Joe’s fabulous, fun and whimsical paintings. “Oh yeah,” I thought, “now I remember: I want to do that!”

Just a day or two later I discovered two cool websites, Scoutie Girl, an outside-the-box manual for creative living & mindful spending, and Creative Thursday, home of artist/illustrator Marisa Haedike, who (among other things) has a line of totally adorable daily paintings she’s been creating since 2006.

Wham! That was all the inspiration I needed to pull out one of the canvases I bought months ago and finally crack open some languishing tubes of paint.

And you know what? Even though I’m not utterly delighted with what emerged, I am utterly delighted with the experience I had creating it. And that’s what really matters.

I’ve been wanting to paint on canvas for ages, and can’t wait to play some more! (I’m this close to committing to making a daily painting, like Marisa of Creative Thursday… but not quite. Stay tuned…)

Juices are flowing again, and my Blisses back in sight.

For now.

Last week I had the pleasure of lunching with Ann Rea, successful painter, artist business coach and owner of ArtistsWhoTHRIVE.

Ann went from zero to profitable in one year of painting full time, and has been profiled by none other than Fortune Magazine. I interviewed her awhile back for my Thriving Artists Project, and I already knew she was one sharp cookie, but in person she’s even more impressive.

Ann takes no prisoners. She’s as creative about business and marketing as she is with her art. She thinks outside the box. She coaches other artists on how to make their own art careers financially successful, and of all the things we talked about over lunch, one thing really stood out:

The number one problem most artists have is not setting their goals high enough.

Think about it.

How do you achieve something remarkable? First, you pretty much have to imagine that it’s possible, and set a goal to achieve it.

If you don’t allow yourself to believe that something is even possible, how can you expect to make it happen?

Reality check: guilty as charged

Um, yeah. Confession time.

Case in point: I realized maybe a year or so ago that, without any conscious thought on my part, I had installed a glass ceiling over my earning power for my entire adult life.

In other words, I realized that somehow I was operating under the belief system that I was incapable of earning a lot of money.

I never actually articulated this thought to myself, but that didn’t make it any less powerful. The belief was still there: other people made a lot of money, not me. Making a lot of money just seemed … beyond me.

From a purely logical standpoint this belief is patently ridiculous. I’m intelligent, capable, multi-talented, good with people, driven — surely at least as much if not more than a good chunk of the global population. If other people could make a lot of money, there was no logical reason why I couldn’t, too.

But for whatever reason, the belief was there (no doubt installed very early in life [yay, something else to work on...]) As a result, I set my money-earning goals way, way too low.

How low? “All I want,” I remember thinking during my divorce, “is to make enough money to get by, and to have time to do the things I love to do.”

That’s right, just enough money to get by.

And guess what? I built a business around my art that made just enough money to get by.

In Silicon Valley, granted, which is nothing to sneeze at in the scheme of things, but just enough is not a high enough goal for me anymore — I want to pay off my debt. I want more security. I want the option of taking time off to travel more. I want to be able to buy things I want without agonizing over every purchase.

Call me un-zen, but I want more!

(As for time to do the things I love to do? Well, yes and no. It depends what day you catch me on. I’m still working on that one.)

Time for a reset: the Debt Elimination Project

Building a business around my art was no small accomplishment, and it’s something I’m still proud of. But now it’s time to change the picture, and allow myself to believe that I can make a lot of money. From my art, and other things I love to do.

It’s time to set my goals even higher.

Which brings me back to lunch the other day. Ann suggested that it’s always a good idea to tie a project to a concrete goal. When I mentioned that I have a big goal of paying off my enormous mountain of debt and being debt free again, Ann didn’t skip a beat.

“Then why don’t you make your Thriving Artists Project your Debt Elimination Project?”

[Shocked pause.]

But… but… but… my enormous mountain of debt is… well… enormous. Making enough money to pay off my personal debt from one project? — my first big information product? — surely that cannot be done.

My overactive brain went into overdrive, thinking of reasons why eliminating my personal debt with the Thriving Artists Project is impossible.

Enough with the excuses, already

Now, I’m too embarrassed to state an actual number, but when I stopped panicking long enough to think about it a little, I realized that the truth is, if I were to create something really successful, if I put into practice the marketing lessons I’ve been studying hard to learn, it’s not inconceivable that I could make enough money from a single project to pay off my debt.

But my list is tiny, and the idea that my first big project could be that successful is, well, hard to imagine. So I said, sure, great idea — maybe the second or third or fourth information product could be my Debt Elimination Project…

“Hell no!” retorted Ann. “I don’t want to wait around for the next project! It’s this one, or none at all!”

Clearly I could benefit from some regular coaching, because Ann made me realize I was doing it again: not setting my goals high enough.

And so I thought, why not?

Why not make the Thriving Artists’ Project my personal Debt Elimination Project?

Why not set a really big goal, and go for it?

What’s the worst that could happen? Sure, I could fail. (Indeed, I still need to work on allowing myself to believe it’s even possible!)

But here’s the thing: if I seriously make the effort to make the Thriving Artists Project earn enough to eliminate my personal debt, I’ll sure as hell be working hard on it! A helluva lot harder than if I didn’t tie the Thriving Artists Project to the Debt Elimination Project. I’ve got a concrete goal to reach, after all, and a big one at that.

Brilliant.

The official unveiling

So it is with a fair amount of trepidation that I unveil for you my Debt Elimination Project.

Bold indeed, especially since I’m still in the process of creating the Thriving Artists Project, and don’t even have a launch date yet.

What I do have, though, is interviews completed, scheduled with, or agreed to by a whole slew of fascinating, creative people, including:

• Aimee Golant, metal artist
• Anna Kuperberg, photographer
• Chris Guillebeau, writer/traveler/fighter of the status quo (and owner of The Art of Non-Conformity)
• Cosy Sheridan, singer/songwriter
• Derick Sebastian, ukulele virtuoso
• Kristin Korb, jazz musician/singer
• Michael Nobbs, artist/blogger
• Phil Johnson, comedian/musician
• Verity Price, singer/songwriter
• Will Edwards, singer/songwriter/web designer

… and the list is growing.

Plus more ammunition in my arsenal (or whatever)

Not that I’m big on military metaphors, but what I also have is some excellent mentorship, inspiration and motivation along the way, including:

- The Third Tribe, an online resource (regular audio seminars and a rockin’ user forum) for internet marketing strategies that work (without being obnoxious)

- Guest Blogging, Jon Morrow’s brand new apprenticeship course in, you guessed it, guest blogging!

- Dave Navarro (The Launch Coach)’s More Buyers Every Month Group Mentorship

- The Empire Building Kit, Chris Guillebeau’s course and longest-autoresponder-in-history, which delivers an email in my box every single day with inspiration and tools to grow my business. (Plus more courses from Chris Guillebeau’s Unconventional Guides line: The Unconventional Guide to Art + Money, The Unconventional Guide to Freelancing.)

- Question the Rules, Johnny B. Truant and Lee Stranahan‘s audio course, which I return to again and again for inspiration and reminders that there are lots of ways to be a successful entrepreneur (or in my case, ARTrepreneur).

[Note: many of the links above are affiliate links, which means that if you click through and then buy something, I'll make a commission. I'm always grateful to the anonymous purchasers who buy through my affiliate links, but if you don't want your purchase to earn me money, just do a Google search on the thing and click through that way.]

Yup. I’m basically in self-paced grad school for using the internet to reach my Debt Elimination Project goal. Watch and learn.

And the wrap-up

So there you have it: the number one problem most artists (including me) have is not setting their goals high enough. Solution? Set higher goals, and work to achieve them.

Here we go!

And as Ann said at lunch the other day, once I’ve eliminated my debt, I can make the next goal my Mortgage Elimination Project.

Um, yeah. One thing at a time…

Newsflash: Well, sorry for the after-the-fact notice, but I was just interviewed by Dennis Charles on his show Build Your Career With Passion on BlogTalkRadio.

Dennis is a wonderful interviewer, and he’s created a very interesting and inspiring show, which he podcasts weekly at 11AM ET/8AM PT.

Check out Dennis’ show at the link above, and you can listen to my interview here.

So how’m I doing in my quest to re-invent my life, follow my evolving Blisses and create the life I really, really want?

Theme of the week: Out. Of. Sync.

You know that feeling? When you’re kinda off track and just can’t seem to get back on? Yeah, that one.

I mean, I suddenly realized that it’s been weeks since I got back from music camp, and except for the yoga classes I have to get to because I work at the studio, I have completely forgotten to exercise.

Um, yeah.

What happened to my lovely habit of going on a walk on my non-yoga days? Gone. Kerploof.

And I didn’t even notice. That‘s how out of sync I’ve been.

But being out of sync isn’t necessarily all bad. One day this week I was in the City having lunch with Ann Rea of ArtistsWhoTHRIVE, brainstorming to see how we might join forces. So, a good thing.

And two days this week I was in the City, roaming the Impressionist exhibits at the Palace of the Legion of Honor and the De Young and the Fisher Collection at MoMA with my parents and my visiting aunt. Also good.

And – oh, yeah – I did manage to finish a new song and record a new video. Which also definitely counts in the good column.

But early departure times to get up to the City, combined with late bedtimes to get work done do not a happy camper make. And I don’t know about the rest of you migraineurs out there, but sleep disturbance is a really reliable recipe for a migraine.

And so it was.

The rest of the week followed suit: even more than usual I feel like I’m barely chipping away at my monstrous pile of things-that-must-be-done.

And meanwhile, the house elves have not been magically cleaning up after me, and messy surroundings invariably leave me feeling messy in the head

Bleah, bleah, and triple-bleah.

However, headway:

Lessons learned and forward progress

Do you ever feel so preoccupied with your growing to-do list that it renders you incapable of enjoying time away? Because you feel so guilty that you’re not chipping away at your to-do list that you can’t quite relax and appreciate what a cool thing you’re doing right now?

It’s a pretty common feeling for me, and given that we’re all living in a society that was brewed in a Protestant Work Ethic cauldron, I know I’m not alone in this.

Lately, though, I’ve been noticing that I always feel like there’s too much to do and not enough time to do it.

And also that I always manage to get stuff done when it really needs to be.

So in other words, the stress and anxiety is probably mostly (if not all) just a feeling.

Perhaps reality is not as stressful as I frequently feel it to be. Make sense?

I’ve also figured out that feeling guilty for taking time away from my to-do list is not particularly useful. In fact I’ve known this for some time, but I’m starting to make more effort to let those anxious and guilty feelings just wash off me when I notice them starting to cling.

Like meditation, it’s not so easy, but it does make a difference.

And a role model

Then I read a comment by John T. Unger on an IttyBiz blog post. In 6 Things They Mean When They Say They Have No Money, Naomi writes about customers who email to bitch and moan that they have no money and your product is too expensive (and btw, can they have it for cheaper — or free).

It’s a great post, and it got me thinking about how frequently I use that excuse in my own life (though it would never occur to me to send an email complaining and asking for a “feel sorry for me” discount), when in fact it’s not that I have no money, it’s just a matter of priorities.

For example, I’m feeling super-anxious about paying for an upcoming co-counseling workshop that will cost me close to $200 to attend, and a friend’s play that will cost me another $50. But when another friend emailed me a link for the Wine Country ‘Ukulele Festival today I was practically leaping to hand over the credit card I’m desperately trying to pay down in order to go to the festival for the whole weekend. (As it happens, they only take checks, so my credit card is safe.)

But what got me thinking even more than the post itself is John T. Unger’s comment. He writes:

Wow.

First thought: I am way more risk-averse than John T. Unger! Spending the rent money on anything but the rent would tie my stomach in knots.

Second thought: he really has a point. And I can see how such choices could make a person work harder.

Third thought: although I’ve been (possibly overly) frugal with my spending on things that will improve my quality of life and general happiness level, I’ve actually been following a similar plan to John’s, albeit with time instead of money.

As in going to special museum exhibits (during business hours) with beloved family members.

As in going Argentine tango dancing twice this week, instead of staying home to work all night (to make up for time away during the day).

As in spending Friday night and Saturday morning (ahem.. Saturday all day) abjectly not working.

Of course it wouldn’t work to not work all the time, but just like John T. Unger always managed to pay his rent, I always manage to get the critical stuff done. Sometimes it means staying up way too late, but stuff always gets done when it really has to be. (Note that this does not seem to apply to housework, which is why I’m rather annoyed the house elves haven’t shown up yet.)

So although I’m not quite ready to spend my rent money on other stuff I want, I’m pleased that I’m able to spend some time doing things that make me happy, even when I’m stressing out (as I almost always am) about all the stuff that needs to get done.

And just as it seems to take me three days of not working on a deadline to get me in gear to actually work on it, perhaps all the time out of sync this week is exactly what I need to get in gear and back in sync next week.

I’ll keep you posted.