I am treasure-mapping my way to growing my business, and sharing the honest actual story, AS IT HAPPENS, as I fumble along this path with creativity, heart and soul. If you want to follow my adventure:
- Part One is here: What no one tells you about marketing + creative business
- Part Two is here: Be open to the adventure of being where you are
- Part Three is here: The Path to creative business success.
- Part Four is here: A plan emerges from the treasure map
And this is my map as it is today:
It’s got 2 new steps since last time I shared it.
Funny, hey?? The next step was: All The Magic Is In The Inner Path.
Being able to see the outer path (which is what my last post about this was all about) only led to the reminder that all the magic is in the inner path.
And that clear plan I created in the last post?? That was just what I needed to get to the next part in the journey.
Sometimes a clear plan is just to help you feel more about feeling confident, sure and ready to move forward – it’s not necessarily something that you end up actually doing.
This is pretty common in Creative Dreaming, because each step you take alters the whole path.
I like having a plan, it helps me feel safe and sure.? But I rarely follow them all the way through.
Obviously, in business you’re supposed to have a Clear And Solid Plan Full Of Proven Success Strategies and then follow it to the letter to guarantee success.
Blech!? I’d just as soon get some stupid job than run my business that way.? Treasure Mapping is more complicated and infinitely more rewarding.? (Also more creative, honest, true, free and fun – all the things that matter to me most)
To explain where I am now, I’m going to go back a few weeks ago, when I was drawing a Mandala in my journal.? I was drawing away when my Mandala spoke to me.
GROWTH can be COMFORTABLE and FUN.
Huh.
So much of my work is about making inner growth SAFE so that the kind of radical transformation we really want is POSSIBLE.
COMFORTABLE and FUN felt a little foreign, and a little exciting.
As you know, the past few weeks I’ve been re-focusing my creative energies and channeling them into creating more engaging + inspiring promotional stuffs, instead of creating a new product.? Audience-growing.
Audience-growing is an uncomfortable thing for me.
When I decided to move my in-person creative-spiritual work online and turn it into more of an I-can-quit-my-day-job business, I understood that I had to build up an online audience in order to do that.
I created a free e-course, advertised and promoted it, and quickly grew my email list to about 2,400 people.
With 2,400 people enjoying my e-course it was not hard for me to find coaching clients.? And the clients I was getting were such lovely people that I felt like my whole email list was full of lovely people, so this size of a list was comfortable to me.
But the thought of having it grow was NOT comfortable.
And so my list stayed stagnant for about 3 years.
People came and went and the overall number stayed at 2,400.? Even though I understood that I could grow my business faster if I grew my list faster, the thought of emailing 2,500 people made me very uncomfortable.? 2,400 was definitely my limit.
And then I decided it was time to grow it.
We did some work around VISIBILITY in the Creative Dream Circle in late 2012, early 2013.? Exploring it, making friends with it, finding ways to collaborate with it.? (The recording from that class is still available in the Circle, so if you want to explore visibility, join us!)
I’ve totally changed my inner relationship with visibility.
Today my email list is over 3,100.? And more than 7,700 different people visited my website in the last month, visiting over 20,000 pages.? I am pretty visible!
(Last month I only had about 3,400 different people visit my website.? The big thing that made a difference this month was my Mandala post which currently has 1.5K Facebook likes and brought in about 3,000 new people just in a few days)
Earlier this week I started feeling anxious.
Tuesday I actually had a panic attack, which has not happened in at least 10 years (since I discovered The Art Of Extreme Self-Care).
Wednesday I woke up feeling good but found I was getting more anxious as the morning went on, so I grabbed my journal and my to-go journaling kit (which thankfully also includes some very soothing essential oils and treats) and went to the park.
Where I made a new friend.
He was so darling!? He stood there for a good long time, then I guess he decided he trusted me enough to come out of the hole.? He lounged in the sun in the grass while I started journaling.
Then a plane flew overhead.
I wondered if he’d freak out or if he is used to airplanes, since he lives to close to the airport so this must happen a lot.
He moved closer to the trees and flattened his body against the ground.
He made himself small in the face of danger.
Nature tells us to make ourselves small in the face of danger.? So making yourself more visible, which is like making yourself bigger, goes against nature.
But it felt like there was something more for me to see in that, and I thought about it for the rest of the day.
And then I said: You know what?? That’s not true for me anymore. I mean, there are lots of legitimate reasons to be afraid of visibility.? And all fear is legitimate and deserves to met with love and compassion.
But I’ve already done SO MUCH work on this.
And so what if more than 7,700 different people visited my website in the last month.? Just like the plane flying overhead wasn’t a true danger to the prairie dog, this is not a danger to me.
While that might seem obvious to YOU, that did not feel obvious to ME just a few months ago.? I do have a LOT of personal experiences of visibility being scary, uncomfortable and dangerous.
The prairie dog showed me just how much I have gotten over that.? And how much I am ready and able to create whatever sense of safety I need for myself, without having to be in hiding.
I saw that I really am ready for growth to be EASY.
So that’s what I’m working on now.? I’m using the creative soul alchemy techniques I teach in the Circle to shift my energy and align align my whole being with EASE, and fill my relationship with my dream with EASE.
This is when I got the next message from my Treasure Map: Ease is the Ticket
I just got this message yesterday, so I don’t know what it means yet.
I am looking forward to exploring it and I can already see that this dovetails perfectly with JOY.
JOY is our theme for the August Creative Dream HOLYday.
HOLYdays are a 3 hour tele-retreat/playdate that we do every month in the Circle.? They are also known as How To Fill Your Life With So Much Magic It Actually Sparkles.
HOLYdays have transformed my life in more ways than I can say – HOLYdays are THE BEST.? I always come out of them with a giant energy shift and a big goofy smile on my face.
I highly, highly, highly recommend YOU joining and playing along – this one is happening on August 3.? It’s the best energy healing ever and you get to play all the way through it.
If you can be there live you can even get coaching from me while we’re on the phone!? If you can’t be there live everything is recorded and we’ll be playing with the material all month long.
What happens to my plan when I Let Joy Be The Fuel?? What happens once I’ve got my Ease Ticket?
That’s what I’m exploring next.
I’m planning daily meetings in the CrazySmart Wisdom Council in the Creative Dream Circle where I can get, well, CrazySmart Wisdom about this.
I’ll be looking for clues as I prepare for our JOY HOLYday.
And I’ll report back next week.
If you’re enjoying reading about my adventure I want to encourage you to join the Creative Dream Circle, so YOU can access all of these amazing creative playful transformative tools.
Plus you can get advice and coaching from me once a month during the HOLYdays and I’ll be cheering you on every day in the forum.
Let’s make YOUR dream REAL!
?To find out if the Circle is right for you, start with the (free! and amazing!) Creative Dream Initiation, right? here.