Are you dreaming the dream or doing the dream?

It's Friday, and that means I am breaking a rule by breaking out of my writing bubble, but I trust that it's ok to give myself permission to do that.

My current work in progress describes how the Celtic Sovereignty Goddess guides women through the transitions of modern life. Why write a book about crowning the queen within if you can't rewrite a few rules along the way? Especially when I'm taking these moments to write to you and the rest of my beloved community of healers, writers, and creatives.

Right now, I have a candle burning on one side of the laptop and my open journal on the other. I just got up from the meditation cushion and the beautiful clutter of sacred stones and tarot cards that surround it. Before I shut my eyes to dream into the work, I had scribbled several pages of notes that just might make it to the typed page.

My little one is home with me today, and it might make more sense to hit the grocery store and put away all that laundry so I can empty the baskets and start the whole process again. But, instead, I'm giving myself permission to let her watch Moana for the twelfth time and I am using this stolen hour to do the dream.This is new for me. Until just a few weeks ago, I'd never allow myself to sit down and work on my creative projects before the kids' bedtime. It seems the Sovereignty Goddess is whispering: it's time.

Dreaming Time and Doing Time

This life I lead, as a mother and a creative entrepreneur, it offers ample time for dreaming.

Driving the kids around, throwing together yet another soup, dealing with all that laundry... When the girls amuse one another and when I remind myself that it's ok to turn off NPR (the madness in Washington will go on whether I listen to every news report or not), I find new vast new territories within my own mind.

Yes, this life with small children may give me time to dream, but it often leaves very little time to do. I have time for my clients, of course. I have time to co-create the podcast. But time to actually do my own writing? That has often seemed impossible...

But then, this book project awoke within me. Re-awoke, I might say, but I am not 100% sure that's a word.

With the spring rains, with the rising tides of my own life, and the churning waters of these tumultuous times in the collective, the Sovereignty Goddess rose out of the earth, out of the past, and out of my own past studies and told me it was time. (Get a taste of her magic here.)

And so, the S.G. gets my creative doing time every Friday, and she gets lots of dreamtime in between. And I feel more alive than I have in long, long time.

Out of the Barren Territory of "Just a Dream"

I'm realizing how much effort I have put into dreaming the dream, and how little I devoted to doing the dream. This long time habit has left me feeling barren and lost... I was terribly accustomed to the bitter cycle of feeling inspired and then feeling disappointed as all those ideas just faded into the ethers.

What about you... are you able to dream the dream but just don't have the time and space to do the dream?

I'd love to talk with you about how I can help you capture that creative energy and turn it into words on a page that touch the hearts of your readers and potential clients.

Book a 15 minute session and we'll talk about how writing coaching can support your creative practice and transform your professional practice.

On Being A Transformation Professional During The Season Of Selling Stuff

On Being a Transformation Professional During the Season of Selling Stuff | By Marisa Goudy, Writer & Storytelling Coach

It’s hard be someone who offers creative transformation services when the emphasis is all on STUFF.

And no stretch of time is tougher for us evolutionary service providers than all these themed shopping days that hang about Thanksgiving like so many tantalizing, calorie-packed desserts.

Our sky looks different from the warehouse scaffolding of box stores and the online giants. We offer stillness and introspection. We offer healing that may sting before it soothes. These time-honored paths to growth and lasting peace seem absurd in our doorbuster, free shipping, instant gratification holiday climate. There must be a lotion or a pill or a fuzzy slipper set that can do the same thing, right? Sigh. Of course not. But sometimes it seems like we’re the only ones who know that.

First, remember what it means to be in the transformation business

This weekend, I went to a "Small Business Saturday" event with a group of local women selling a number of products. It was a lovely little gathering. I came home with some budget-stretching makeup, super cute leggings, and a huge case of "not enoughness." Everything seemed so fun and effortless and it all smelled delightful. Selling clothing and essential oils seemed so much simpler than sweating over sentences for a living.

On the walk home, doubt and Christmas budget worries started to take over. But then, a friend reminded me, “They're selling something, not creating anything. That’s not what you do, is it?”

Well, sure, selling is part of what every small business person has to do, but when you’re a coach, a therapist, a healer, or anyone else who offers time in support of another’s evolution... selling comes second. And it’s probably not the sort of thing that people are going for during the busiest shopping weekend of the year.

Time for a transformational reframe of all these "special deals"

I just came across the phrase "self-evolved small business." This feels like balm to my tired, over-extended entrepreneur's soul right now.

All of us could use the reminder that we've all done something tremendous in hanging out the proverbial shingle and essentially creating something from nothing more than our passionate, creative caring hearts.

Creating something, offering something that comes from the core of who you are and standing in your truth... that's a truly special deal.

So, in the midst of all the consumerism and the holiday's special offers, I just want to invite you to stand in what you've created this year, stand in the space that you have created for so many people.

Breathe into enoughness. Breathe into your evolution. Breathe into the evolutionary spaces you create for your clients. Just breathe.

What's your alternative to a holiday sale?

When you realize it's ok to sit out the late November salesy blitz, it's not an excuse to opt out of marketing your good work. Rather than creating reactionary social media posts about a sale you just thought up, use this time to plan how you'll promote and sell your service or other offering when the time is right.

Rebecca helped me see something else during our conversation this weekend… While we don’t sell stuff that’s going to look nice under the tree, we DO offer something that will help our colleagues transform their 2017.

If you’re a therapist, this is a great time to join our community, The Practice of Being Seen. And, since the one truly good thing about all these themed buying days is #GivingTuesday, we’re donating a portion of the community enrollment fee to the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center when you join today. Learn more & join us

Stop asking your writing to be original. Ask it to be meaningful.

What do I have to say about how to live a good life that hasn't been shared or said a million times before?

Jonathan Fields asks this question in the introduction to his brand new book How to Live a Good Life.

I know you've asked yourself the same thing. My clients wonder - and worry - about this all the time. I know I've wasted too much delicious writing time stressing about whether the world needs my words.

Truth is, whatever it is, it's almost definitely been said before.

You probably don't need proof on this one, but here it is. I had written most of this post before I picked up Jonathan's book and saw my own concerns reflected back at me. But, he wrote on and trusted his voice. Since that's what I invite people to do every day and since I do try to take my own advice, I'm publishing this anyway.

A loving reminder for you, the writer who is afraid to dive into a big topic because the luminaries in your field have already written brilliant books on the subject:

WRITE IT ANYWAY

The big names... they're fulfilling their mission to awaken and inspire the multitudes. The rest of us - the brilliant "not yet household names" and the beautiful "don't care to ever be household names" -  right now, our mission is to make those messages REAL for people.

A reader may be ready to change everything thanks to Love Warrior, but all Glennon can do is inspire from afar. Daring Greatly may crack a vulnerable heart wide open, but Brene isn't a clinician, she's a researcher. Jonathan charges $1000/hour for consulting, and while I believe that's a completely worthy investment for certain people, there's a lot of vital, sustainable work to do at the $100/hour level too.

You're in the transformation business, not the originality business

The desire to transform, to be happy, to lead meaningful lives? These are timeless human needs. Wise people have been trying to crack the good life code and help others do the same from the very beginning. (Honestly, listen to Rob Bell's series about the Wisdom tradition and prepare to be amazed at how ideas presented in the ancient Hebrew feel utterly contemporary.)

Yes, all the truth tellers in the world of transformation, healing, and consciousness are essentially talking about similar things. That happens when people start discussing what's true and what's real.

As a healer, a therapist, or a coach it's part of your job to take the stuff "everybody" talks about and make theses truths your own. And, it's your job to help people own these truths.

You dive in and connect these big, ubiquitous concepts to your own stories. You bring the essence of who you are to the page. You don't speak to everyone, you speak to the ones who you wish to serve.

And then you put your work on your blog or in elsewhere in your marketing because you know people who are seeking and hurting need your perspective - and your help.

That's how you show your potential clients that you get it, that you get them. That's how you build a business and change your corner of the world.

It's not about being the first and only creature to share an idea. It's about speaking the right words in the right tone to the people who have access to you and your transformational magic.

It's about making meaning and building a connection with the people who matter.

Write it anyway. Write it now. Click the button for a printable PDF that will remind you to make it happen.

End writer's block now.

Why Writing Means So Much to the Creative Entrepreneur

What becomes possible when you own “creative”? Use it as a noun or an adjective. Use it as a title. Use it as a source of inspiration. Let it express your very reason for being.

What happens to your work, your process, and your own view of yourself when you dare to declare yourself a source of new stories and solutions?

Not that you asked, but I can tell you that claiming “creative” changed everything for me.

If You Want to Be a Writer, Write. If You Want to Be Creative, Create.

The secret to owning “creative” is in the act of creating, of course. (If only it were that simple!)

My husband nearly threw himself into the Atlantic the morning of our wedding because he found writing his vows so frustrating. (We blame fear of writing, not cold feet!) He’s the last guy to give writing advice. But it’s the non-writer who can put it most plainly: If you want to write, write!

He suggested that when I was a bored hourly employee and when I was stifled at my salaried management job.

Later, he might have said something about “just write” when I was forcing myself through various marketing and website design biz ventures, but I couldn’t hear him over the pounding of my scared, success-starved heart.

How “Just Do It” Really Works for Creatives

“Just do it” fits nicely on a tee shirt, but it’s not advice that will change your life until you’re ready to hear it. And do it.

When my second child arrived, I saw how ragged my dreams and my reality had become thanks to a four-year-long entrepreneurial experiment. I’d learned too much to force myself into momtrepreneurship times two kids without making fundamental changes to my approach.

That’s when I realized I had to source my entrepreneurship in something other than “I have to make money for my family and be available to them at the same time” (the fundamental drive of the mom entrepreneur).

I had to devote myself to work that satisfied more than my need to be the super mom who makes the dinner and pays for it too (even though both those things still had to happen).

And so, even as my mothering responsibilities increased, I traded the identity of mom entrepreneur for “creative entrepreneur.”

Suddenly the professional title I gave myself didn’t indicate that I was an over-scheduled, under-rested woman who negotiated contracts during diaper changes. What I called myself was inspiring and invigorating rather than draining.

How Will You Connect the “Entrepreneur” and “Creative” Dots?

Yes, my daughter's birth made me realize that I wanted to leave the mom entreprepreneurs’ playground and find a place in the creatives’ studio, but realizing and doing are two different things.

Finally, I was able to listen to that wise husband of mine.

I wanted to write, I always had. I was going to write my way into the creatives’ circle. Enough with thinking they'd never admit a fraud like me who had the hopes but not the word count to prove she wanted to be Diana Gabaldon someday.

But what about you?

Writing isn’t the only way to step into the “I create things” arena, but it’s the way that is most immediately useful to the entrepreneur.

We know that creating content is essential for marketing your business and that words and stories are still the most important way to do that.

By learning how to write your book - even if it’s not the sort of trade non-fiction aimed directly at your current clients - you’re gaining skills related to story architecture, idea sculpting, and platform building that are indispensable for the entrepreneur.

Enter Sovereign Reality, Enter Tracking Wonder

Last summer when I was juggling client work and trips to the beach with the kids (it was supposed to be a vacation), I somehow stole an hour for a webinar for anyone writing & publishing a book led by Jeffrey Davis of Tracking Wonder. I'd known Jeffrey as an esteemed colleague and as a dad from the preschool and knew I loved his work, but this experience was somehow different.

I still felt like a fraud as I tuned in, there amongst the "real" creatives doing the work to become "real" authors. But over the next hour, I was filling my journal not only with Jeffrey's practical advice, but with scraps of plot and character names and ideas about the bigger themes that my novel needed to explore.

Sovereign Reality, the trilogy of novels, became real to me. And the entire concept of “sovereignty” began to take shape as the backbone of my professional work.

On that summer afternoon, I stepped on to the path. I had a work in progress. I was going to be an author. I had a new perspective on my dreams and what I had to offer to my business.

 I really was a creative entrepreneur.

Making the Commitment to Creativity, Story, and the Book that Matters

By October of 2014,  I found myself surrounded by a select tribe of Jeffrey’s dedicated writers at the Your Brave New Story Authors’ Intensive at Mohonk Mountain House. Immersed in my story and the importance of my compatriots’ books, I felt every bit as alive and fearless as I did in those blissful moments after childbirth - even though I was only at the very beginning of my fiction writing journey. 

That's the thing - writing a book is a journey and you need a tribe and you need a guide to support you. Jeffrey offers that all year long through various programs and consultancy options, but especially with the Your Captivating Book mentoring program.

If this really intrigues you, email me - act by April 30 and I can get you a special discount and maybe even a free initial consult with The Book Papa himself.

One final reason to think about writing that book that has been holed up inside you and to do it with Jeffrey's help: he's about more than just books and authors... He is distinguishing himself as a major voice for doing business as UNusual and speaks directly to the needs of the business artist, AKA, the creative entrepreneur.

What Your Creative Entrepreneur's Autobiography Reveals

The Prologue to Your Creative Entrepreneur's Story

It’s not enough to dedicate your working hours to support someone else’s commercial dream.

Following the rules as they’ve been set out, and even doing the work you’ve been trained to do won't always sustain you. Not if it’s not yours. Not if it doesn’t have meaning.

You need to make things - a sculpture that will endure; a dinner that will linger, even if only in memory; a poem that describes a perfect moment in time. This creative process is usually more fulfilling than thankless, so you keep on reaching to find the true expression of your vision.

Soon, your private creative process resists being confined to the edges of your day.  You feel restless, empty of purpose even as you're full of inspiration, and you're unable to conform to that workaday reality you tried to accept as "normal."

Like the creative imperative, once “I am an entrepreneur” lodges in your heart, you never quite escape it.

And so, you leap. Or you tiptoe. Or you stretch until you realize you’re prepared to open a business based on your passions, your art, and your calling to make something that matters.

Become Sovereign In Your Own Reality

Long before I had the courage to say “I quit!” and declare I had to design and control my own work life, I had my brushes with sovereignty.

I’d found myself in a rather un-magical world - newly married, working, spinning my wheels on a spiritual quest when I really wanted to fly to some other dimension. As I tried sort out how I was going to lead a meaningful life, I made my way to a place where I could dance with the unknown.

When my teacher and mentor declared the point of everything was to “become sovereign in your own reality,” I knew I’d found it.

The seed was planted, but then I kind of forgot about the epiphany. Since it didn't offer an immediate escape from the day job, I kept searching.

Though starved for attention, that seed survived. It nourished me through the start of motherhood, the death of my own mother, and the sudden freefall into entrepreneurship. It rooted me through the subsequent years of self-discovery as I dealt with all three of those events occurring in the span of a few months.

Your Creative Entrepreneur's Autobiography is Your Sovereignty Story

It just may reveal the heart of your work - your sovereign story - in a way you've never understood it before.

It's going to be a story of hopeful meandering and dead ends, of running full speed in the wrong direction. You'll likely describe collecting blossoms of inspiration and losing sight of your creative dreams when immersed in busywork. There will be breathless successes, long pauses, and soul shaking defeats. You'll talk a lot about seeking, finding, and planting the seeds that you pray will deliver a good harvest.

Wandering is actually the most direct route to Sovereignty.

Whatever truths are illuminated in your creative entrepreneur's autobiography, recognize that there is a story to be explored and told, an historical map that needs to be drawn. This indispensable map will guide your next steps.

In looking to your own past, collecting the experiences and lessons and "ah ha!" moments, you gain perspective on where you truly stand today. With such an understanding you'll be ready to articulate the vision and craft the message that will take your work into a future that glows brighter thanks to your contributions.

It's possible to build a nice business without diving this deep into your history, your vision, and your reason for braving entrepreneurship. But didn't you leave that secure, "normal" world because you hated the way personal, creative expression and earning a livelihood were always held at arm's length?

Isn't it worth going deeper and going further?

beyond unique. beyond engaging.

Be Sovereign.

As a creative entrepreneur, you do more than just run a business…

You dare to make a livelihood in service to your passions.

You speak your truth to a select tribe that yearns for a life more beautiful or bearable or bold.

You’re confident that your work has both value and magic... both describing it and getting it out there is a sacred mission.

So, how do you move from being a business owner who makes a nice living to standing sovereign -  in your life and in the marketplace of ideas and products?

You find your stories. You write your stories.

You share the stories that generate a special, signature energy that sustains both you and the community that invests in your work.

Is there a specific formula for sovereignty?

The fullness of what it means for a creative entrepreneur to "be sovereign" is still revealing itself.

I discover something new every time I write into “what is sovereignty and what does it mean to me and the people I am meant to serve?” (I'm taking option #1 when it comes to deciding what to publish when I'm writing the bigger story and sharing what I can as the bigger ideas coalesce.)

If you have any stories about how sovereignty shows up in your life, please share in the comments. sovereignty is about consciously standing in your own story, but that's only possible when you're connected to other trees in your shared forest.

Meanwhile, follow along with my #365StrongStories project. Get the weekly digest full of inspiration for storytellers, entrepreneurs, and seekers of sovereignty.

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How a 365 photo project makes you a better writer

The more pictures you take, the better writer you’ll become. Yeah, right, you say. Writing makes you a better writer, not messing around with photo filters and getting lost in the endless Instagram dinner plate captures.

From more than a year’s experience of daily shooting and posting, I can promise you that the process really does take you closer to your writing goals - especially when it comes to writing for the digital universe.

Five Things Writers Gain From a 365 Photo Project

• Discipline: In order to become the sort of writer you want to be you need to practice. Once you establish that you can do something every day, like taking a picture and sharing it to social media, you prove to yourself that you can do anything - including writing every day.
• Visibility: Being a writer isn’t just about writing - at least not if you want people to read your stuff. Daily images boost your overall online profile, even if they aren’t each perfectly aligned with the work you ultimately wish to promote. In 2014, I participated in the #365feministselfie project. Did all those pictures of my kids and me tell you about what I can do as an author and a writing coach? No, but they told you a lot about me and that’s what will really help potential clients pick me and future readers get excited about my books.
• Brevity: Photo projects aren’t just about the visual. The picture is worth a thousand words, of course, but the words you use to introduce and contextualize the image still matter. One of the most important skills for online writing is the ability to be engaging and yet concise. When you're limited  by what your thumbs can comfortably tap into your phone and you know shouldn’t say more than your distracted viewers will take in, you learn the skill of the the short and sweet. (Full disclosure: I have trouble with this and often write wicked long captions because they're still quicker than a blog post!)
• Outliers: To paraphrase Alice in Wonderland, you’ve surely imagined six visionary creative projects before breakfast, but they’re all outlier ideas you have to dismiss. They're “distractions” from your “real” project. What if your daily photo snap could be a five minute journey into those excess ideas? Your satisfying the muse and you're cataloging those ideas for later.
• Play: Though defined as “pleasurable and apparently purposeless activity," we know that play is so much more than that. It is what keeps us vibrant, engaged, and flexible on every level. You’re not a photographer. Your pictures will only occasionally be brilliant. Allow that and find delight as you mess around with something you don’t have to be good at.

Is there a downside to devoting a few minutes a day to a 365 project?

I'm an unabashed #365project devotee and I can't imagine I'll ever quit, the practice has so many benefits. If I stretch, I can find one downside though...

I take pictures to illustrate the story going on in my head, whether its actually from a piece of fiction I’m working on or part of my professional or personal story.

My images likely suffer since I’m grabbing the phone to snap a pic to explain a work in progress rather than seeing the magic of the moment or object itself. Taken out of context, the picture may not be all that meaningful to your audience (and you’re practicing brevity in those captions and don’t want to write a novel about each pic).

But that is the joy of a 365 project - you always have a chance to make a distinctive piece of art tomorrow! And again, simply showing up every day and creating a 365 piece puzzle has a magic of its own for your visibility. Every puzzle piece isn't meant to stand alone.

But really, should you just do a #Write365 project?

Yes, you could always do a 365 writing project… It would help you build discipline and visibility and maybe brevity, but there’s a great chance you’ll lose out on the play and the chance to explore those outlier ideas.

My project for the year is called #365SovereignReality. Follow me on Instagram or Google+ for a window into my 2015 as I discover what it means to “become sovereign in my own reality.”