In this moment, I should be sending out a sales letter reminding y’all about my final, upcoming in-person workshops.

But I’m feeling more philosophical.

In other words, I’m feeling more like myself these days.

Less inclined to craft a pitch…even though the Entrepreneur part of being a Creative Entrepreneur requires something of a 50/50 balance of effort to make it all really work.

Truth be told: I’m NEVER inclined to craft a pitch.

I’d rather spend three or four hours writing you a love letter.

Which is what I did just now.

Note: I can feel this is going to be a long post. I hope you’ll read it leisurely. With a beverage of choice. We’re going to have a virtual chat, the way I do with my friends around the world over skype. You can add your thoughts and comment to the convo, below.

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A few weeks ago, I arrived back at home base near San Francisco, CA, after living abroad in Mexico for a year and a half.

In preparation for this weekend workshop, I’ve been culling boxes of ephemera and papers and art supplies.

Due to marching orders from my friend and Feng Shui Master / Interior Design Mistress / Soul-Retrieval Physician, Suzy Foy, I am no longer allowed to keep anything boxed up and put away.

My art supplies…and my life…are being unpacked.

This process of living unpacked…of having all of my tools and supplies and…yes…much paper in the form of sketchbooks and manuscripts in process within arms reach…

is profoundly opening doors, windows, secret passageways of my heart and soul…

Open. Wide.

I’ve never Ever before in my life lived without any moving boxes at the ready.

In case I need to move…I kept saying to Suzy. For the first half dozen times she asked me why I was storing empty boxes.

I’ve never fully unpacked and moved into my loft…which is the dream home I bought for myself (and my inner artist) eight years ago.

I’ve actually not even lived here that much. I mostly have lived elsewhere…Sydney, Australia, Los Angeles, Mexico ( a few times), long trips to Europe and Africa, too. I still keep an apartment in Mexico…but will be letting that go.

I want to see what happens when I fully inhabit my space. When I claim it all for myself. It’s been a public / private space, in the spirit of a live/work warehouse. After this weekend workshop, no more workshops here. This is all very different and surreal to me.

In the unpacking, I want to share with you something I found.

For what reason I don’t know.

Especially when I should be writing sales emails. (Is this a bad example to set for my fellow Creative Entrepreneurs?)

Heart-Shaped Maps

If you’re at all familiar with my work, you know I am obsessed with maps, charts, globes.

These elements are constantly finding their way into my visual art and writing.

 Above, Back view: My plastic envelope of Valentine ephemera. A message in a bottle filled with heart-shaped maps. And a little booklet of the heart.

Front view: the self-addressed envelope inside…inviting interaction.

 The contents of the plastic envelope. (upside down)

This little package was my “valentine” contribution back in 2007, when one of my dearest friends, Carol Parks, hosted valentine exchanges.

Carol had many books inside of her. Ideas that never took form. I am speaking in past tense because few years ago she passed away suddenly in her sleep. I’ve never found a way to write about this loss publicly. Maybe I never really will. I haven’t even been able to write about it privately.

Except to say that life—and what we want to create—is here, and now, and that’s it.

Some day, maybe any moment, someone we love won’t wake up tomorrow.

That someone will eventually be us. Life being a one-way ticket and all.

No one knows how much time they have. How long we get to procrastinate. How many more years we might let fear triumph over love.

Fear being any form of resistance that shows up. Love being code for what we Really Really Really want to be creating or doing or expressing while we are still in physical form to do so.

In preparing for the upcoming for the For Love & For Money workshops, another layer of clarity opened up about this crazy work of Creative Entrepreneurship.

Being a Creative Entrepreneur is mostly about courage.

Courage flows from the heart.

Or it doesn’t.

But then fear, in all of it’s insidious disguises, wins.

My friend CP was brave and courageous and bold. She had a strong personality that wasn’t for everyone. I was intimidated by her. A lot.

CP was generous and a true believer in my work. You can see her work throughout the pages of my book, The Creative Entrepreneur. When I was on deadline, she came up to San Francisco from LA and we rented a hotel suite, ordered room service and she supervised my final edits under the wire.

There was a rain storm so fierce the Golden Gate bridge was closed for awhile. This confined us to work. Instead of shopping and eating, then writing and painting, which is our usual art date.

The Mirror that Reflects Your Beauty and Gifts

She said to me one evening after a marathon talk in front of her fireplace: I tell you things I’ve never told anyone. You bring out a part of me that I don’t show anyone. You help me see my gifts and my beauty.

I took that in. And then I told her: You know…so many people have said that to me. I wonder why that is so?

I’ve learned that that’s what my work is about. Perhaps disguised as business strategy or web design or a marketing plan that works. But it’s really about holding up a mirror and showing you your gifts and your beauty. That’s what we’re uncovering in For Love and For Money.

Creative Entrepreneurship begins and ends with love. Money is a nice by-product of getting certain tweaks of the dial right. That all happens in the middle, like the filling of a sandwich. Love would be the bread that holds it together.

The main thing when it comes to my form of Creative Entrepreneurship concerns what happens in our hearts.

How do we open to the Great Work, that love of our project or idea that wants to take form?

And where to we turn away, or shut it down because of fear? Feeling overwhelmed or too busy? Or not talented or special enough? Or because we are missing just a few bits of helpful information that would set our ideas and passions free?

Carol curated a dozen artists every year to send in valentines. We each make one for all the participating artists, and then a bunch of extras. Carol then boxed up and sent beautiful boxes of valentines to people who were shut in, alone, ill, or had experience a really hard year.

Following is the email I sent Carol to go with my contribution to her Valentine’s Day swap.

It’s a long-ass email. Be warned that there are some choice curse words, which is how she and I talked with each other. There are machinations about my love life and strong words regarding Valentine’s Day. But it goes with the story. It’s how I can share about my relationship with Carol (CP) without writing any more.

Have you ever read collected letters, published by writers and artists? I love correspondence between friends…those people who see us for who we are. Go gently…this is so personal to share.

On Feb 10, 2007, at 12:09 AM, Lisa Sonora Beam wrote:

CP-

There is so much that goes on in the creation of something new.

Probably it’s observing what goes on in my head as I work that is the most interesting thing to me about making art. For the longest time, I never thought of what I was making as art, but that’s another story for another time.

Lately, I’ve been making what I call “liner notes” to go with my work. I think the stories behind the work are as important as the work.

Anyway, my head is clogged with another cold and I’m not so articulate right now, so these liner notes will be somewhat raw.

First of all, I hate valentines day. I hate most holidays. Holidays as a kid always put a glaring spotlight on how abnormal my life felt compared to the rest of the “normal” people outside of my family.

Holidays as an adult have this weird vacuum of disconnection from place, belonging, the rhythm of history. Disappointment of fantasy compared to reality.

I agreed to participate in your valentine exchange because: a) who can say no to Carol Parks? and b) you made me feel like I belonged in this circle of artists you admire. So. Auk. I found myself saying yes.

And then saying, No! I can’t do it! My life is too busy and fucking crazy. And I hate valentines day. I hate hearts and boxed chocolates and doilies and slinky lingerie and red satin and not to mention roses (Am I the only person who hates red roses?) and all the crap that spells romance for those special enough to have a special someone (who is romantic enough to make the overture).

You’d think I was some bitter single woman ranting on, but I have (or maybe had, we’ll see) a boyfriend who is pretty romantic, but for some reason I just haven’t been able to let go and let this guy love me. It’s weird. There is something missing that I want to experience and haven’t yet. But how would I know it’s missing if I haven’t experienced it?

Even though there is kindness…there is this lack of…something. Something missing that I cannot name.

I have often felt there is something missing in me (a.k.a. a heart) that allows normal people to form bonds and not be terrified of good things like love turning into the inevitable other shoe dropping. A few weeks ago we separated and since then, I’ve had this aching pain in my heart. Not because I miss him, per se. But because I miss whatever is missing. The missing part of my heart?

It’s the same kind of pain I started having last spring, when I actually thought I was having a heart attack. Turns out that’s what an anxiety attack feels like, and so that’s what this last month has been. Anxiety and stress a part of my “successful” business that seems to encroach on my life 16 hours a day seven days a week.

Let me try and get to the valentines and the liner notes. I spent the weekend with artist Gail Reike. Finding a kindred spirit in journaling and travel. It seemed humanly impossible to take the whole weekend off, but I did. Was so bleary from all the work and no play. I felt clogged and uncreative.

My stress began to unravel during the weekend. My heart stopped hurting. I felt this genuine love and acceptance for my boyfriend, whatever form our relationship takes.

I fell in love with a dog I met on the street. I could feel my longing for permanent bond, like the kind you would have if you had a dog. Or a kid. These thoughts were scary, but I just felt the dog love and left it at that.

I could see the innocence in the alcoholics I met going in to the Dogpatch Saloon, coming from some kind of meeting (an AA meeting, no doubt) where they had to wear HELLO name tags.

One man had a St. Jude medal hanging around his neck. They let me photograph them in the street in front of the saloon. I explained that I was on a photo safari. That I am documenting the beautiful and teeming moments of life. That I take pictures trying to capture the aliveness I see.

It’s so ephemeral, life. But I see the beauty everywhere. In these men, going to drink at noon. Probably still hung over from yesterday. After a morning attempt at sobriety. Like the fathers in my life. I can see inside them. Somewhere, sometime, before they decided to sucuumb to self destruct, they were innocent and uncumbered. And this is the beauty that I see.

I could see that these men, at some point, did not feel love or let love in. And thus turned elsewhere for comfort.

There before the grace of God go I. Right? At least I know that nothing outside can fill the empty void of love. Not that I haven’t tried. I know you get it.

Something happened in those moments of loving what is, the world, the mistakes we humans make, our vulnerabilities and brokenness. There was a sort of earthquake then in my own open (not empty, but open) heart space…and then I knew what was missing that I couldn’t name before.

Connection.

A feeling of real connection. When you have it, it’s there. When you don’t…the void is gaping and uncrossable. And the lack of connection is what makes me feel so lonely while in the presence of another.

The grizzled men outside the Dogpatch Saloon stood smiling, smoothing out wrinkled jackets and flyaway hair for my photos.

I wasn’t afraid to tell them: I see your beauty. Their eyes sparkled back. One smiled through watery held-back tears. My heart was wide open now. Another gave me his name tag for my sketchbook. I told them my real purpose behing all of the documenting with camera and in sketchbooks: I do art so I don’t totally self-destruct.

Maybe that makes me a kind of cliche, but whatever. It’s the honest truth. Have I gotten to the fucking valentine liner notes yet?

Gail Reike’s Valentine-a-Thon

So Gail has a valentine-a-thon every year at the San Francisco Center For The Book. It happens the Monday after her weekend class. Sitting there Sunday, hearing about it for the first time, my rebel self, said: I’m going to play hooky from work tomorrow and come back. Just to be around Gail’s energy some more. Well, and, I guess I should try and fulfill my valentine commitment for your swap. But I didn’t expect to really produce anything.

On Monday at noon, I arrived at SFCB with a cup of tea and a tuna sandwich from Starbuck’s. By lunchtime, I had already put in a day’s work and took off from the studio not having eaten a thing. But I got there. The valentine making was in full swing. I was proud of myself for showing up.

Gail had boxes of valentine making supplies and other stuff to pick from. There were the usual doilies, hearts, pink, red, vintage naked ladies, ho hum. I sifted through stuff. Took out my bag of papers, ate my sandwich, wandered around, admired Gail, drank my tea.

Nothing was really happening for me. Everyone else was diligently creating with a purpose. Lots of valentines had vintage papers. It’s not a look that resonates. If you see it once, that’s enough. But there are whole ‘zines filled with this stuff. Absolutely do not like vintage music paper. Why does it have to be central to collage these days?

These slightly crabby thoughts abounded as I wandered the room, waiting for lightning, or even just Cupid himself, to strike me with the same crafty fervor of the other valentine makers.

Flipping through a box of books Gail brought for us to cut up, suddenly a graphic caught my eye. It was an illustration in a sailing instruction book. I seized on it, full of amazing graphics, and started cutting out hearts. This kept me occupied for the afternoon.

Having all the hearts made up of weird illustrations in a big pile on the table was more dramatic than seeing them individually. Wish I would have photographed that before I placed the hearts inside sealed envelopes for the swap.

Some lucky person has a heart-shaped map that shows a drawing of a pile of red dynamite under a guy’s ass. Whatever that signifies. Too bad I didn’t keep that one. It probably is just going to be offensive to whatever gentle, doily-loving soul opens up that valentine from the box you send out.

I marveled at these complex and detailed instructions for navigating a vessel on water.

What about our hearts? Our lovers? Relationships?

Where are the instructions? The guidance? The coded diagrams that orient us according to weather, storms, compass points, optical illusions, problems of perception?

What if we had an operations manual of the heart? Wouldn’t that be a handy valentine?

Could I learn how to love the way a person could learn to steer a boat and not crash it or sink it? Cutting out the heart-shaped maps with their hieroglyphic patterns and language of deep waters and high winds made me feel optimistic about such potentialities.

I thought about love and fear and how they’re pretty much exactly the same thing for me. And remembered the Mary Oliver poem about rowing for your life toward that love/fear that, years ago, inspired an entire visual journal.

I made it as an extended love letter (uh, oh, maybe it’s a valentine?) or series of stories to this man I keep dreaming about. Real, night dreams, I don’t mean day dreams. We talk in my dreams, and then I write down stuff we talked about. If I ever meet him, he’s going to get the book. I can’t believe I just told you about that. It’s pretty weird, right?

The negative space the cut out hearts was even more beautiful to me. They needed to be covered in mylar, which I found in the scrap box.

That’s as far as I got Monday at Gail’s workshop. On Tuesday, I kind of worked, but mostly art-directed my assistant designer and then rushed over to my kitchen counter to cut and paste my little poem books with the mylar heart cut-outs together.

These turned out to be kind of elementary school looking and anti-climactic. A paradox of my granola eating, eco-conscious, (not birkenstock wearing) green marketing life, is the simple fact that I have a thing for plastic envelopes. I like mylar. I like plastic covered fabric, like the stuff on the diaper bag you gave me.

Plastic. I like being able to see through, to see inside. I like to make beautiful, intriguing little packages for people to open. I’ve been obsessed with making collage ephemera packs. I like to gather the pieces of things discarded. The edges. The scraps. The discards. The parts. Together, they fit and belong in their little plastic universe. Becomming a part of the whole, a potential waiting to be made new, to become something that has not yet existed.

It’s my message in a bottle. It’s a gift of my seeing to those who can see the beauty that exists in all the seeming random pieces. They are not random. It just seems that way.

Actually, making these bags of goodies is like making a journal page or collage painting, without the glue. I think the ultimate gift (in presents or in art) is to give something to the recipient that inspires them to create something of their own.

So that’s my valentine.

Heart-shaped maps to help you navigate the paths of fear and love. A booklet made of a transparent heart (the metaphor emerged after the fact, not before) containing Mary Oliver’s poem. A mixed plastic envelope of things to create with, and then share again.

My way of “signing” the piece was to include a self-addressed stamped envelope, making it virtually impossible (I hope) for someone to resist sending me something (anything) in the real mail that is not a bill.

The fact that I coaxed my printer into spitting out the envelopes without jamming is a miracle of nature in itself. ok. I’m tempted to re-read and edit this. But I won’t. I’m too tired and clogged and also striving for imperfection. These are my imperfect liner notes that I hope illuminate something of my very first valentine swap process.

This is the Mary Oliver poem:

West Wind #2

You are young. So you know everything. You leap

into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me.

Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without

any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.

Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and

your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to

me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent

penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a

dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile

away and still out of sight, the churn of the water

as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the

sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable

pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth

and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls

plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life

toward it.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(West Wind)

p.s. Forgive me, CP, but the line about the dead dog was disturbing, so I didn’t put that in the booklet. I think it takes away from the momentum of the piece. If I were editing Mary Oliver, I would have crossed it out in red ink and told her that.

CP responded:

Brava! I am printing this out to take to the tea! I love you, Lisa Sonora. I really do. If I were a man, you would be mine but I am not so I will just have to remain your big old chartreuse muse! Hug, CP

//

I wish Carol’s book about her lifelong valentine journey would have been written, so we all could be inspired by it.

What I wish for you is that you have the courage to work on whatever is pulling at you right now.

Especially if its a love letter.

If you are in need of help finding or shaping your vision, reach out here, or somewhere. Ask for help. Seek out answers. Commit to taking the next step.

Cut up or draw a heart-shaped map.

Write a message on it.

Dare to send it out into the world.

We all need more courage, love, connection, daring.

I know that I do.

You started your own business so you could do more of what you love, right?

That’s the Creative part. It takes massive courage. Good on ya!

But who knew it would be so wrapped up with a bunch of things you probably don’t love doing?

Maybe even hate doing: asking for money, finding the right clients, (hell, finding ANY clients), knowing what to charge, if and when to discount, what to sell, how to sell…

That’s the Entrepreneur part.

The Entrepreneur part is what is extra tough for creatives.

It’s so hard, it can feel impossible.

So relax. It’s not you.

Every creative entrepreneur I know struggles with this. We all do.

Number Nausea

That feeling of being sick to your stomach…whenever you have to think about how much your business is making or spending.

Or getting hung up with the number of comments or subscribers or likes you got on a post.

Ah yes. Now we have even more numbers to contribute to the ick, shame and fear around how your business is doing.

I want to show you how spreadsheets are soothing.

And beautiful. And useful—when approached with love, compassion, and artistic flair—along with a few useful business chops.

Imagine if the Buddha had an MBA, and used glitter gel pens to sketch out your business plan.

That sort of kind/fun/loving/smart combo is you,

doing the Entrepreneur part differently. 

I want to share you some simple, elegant ways of making sales and marketing (and money) easier.

More effective. More fun, even.

Especially if the words sales and marketing make you want to throw up. Or run and hide.

In a moment, I’ll tell invite you to check out For Love & For Money, which will give you Buddha-with-an-MBA-and-glitter-pens mastery over your business.

But first, I want to tell you a story.

About how I got here to be here today,

talking with you through the magic of the interwebs,

about how you’re not alone in this.

Maybe I Watched Too Many Cartoons About Rock Bands In The 70’s

When I was still working in psych hospitals as an art/music therapist, I played keyboards in a Chicago rock band. The lead singer’s girlfriend was a jewelry designer, and I helped her out in a pinch, making jewelry for a big order.

Turns out I loved making earrings and necklaces. So relaxing! Sort of addictive. This was like my therapy. So I kept asking for more things to make.

The opportunity to tour with this band meant a hard decision: leaving my hospital gig.

I thought, I’m 24 years old, I have to go on tour.

Hey, this was my childhood Josie and the Pussycats fantasy come true. (I know you were probably wondering: What’s up with that Josie and the Pussycats picture?

Not Partridge Family. Not the Jackson Five.

I wanted to be a catsuit-wearing, keyboard-playing, meow-provoking redhead for while. Just like Josie. If she played keyboards, instead of guitar. I always did think that trio was missing a keyboardist…

There will always be hospital jobs, I reasoned. But the chance to tour in a rock band? Who knows?

I traded in my corporate outfits for thigh-high boots, fishnet stockings and teeny dresses from Betsey Johnson. Getting ready for work was suddenly fun. And now I could make my own jewelry to go with the outfits.

This was probably not the ideal step for building a resume and climbing the corporate ladder of in-patient, psychiatric care.

My Ph.D. applications were put on hold.

I tried to get the hang of applying false eyelashes on a moving tour bus.

Advice on the latter: Don’t.

My colleagues thought I’d had a nervous breakdown and joined the circus. Which was sort of true, depending on how you looked at it.

Downside: Playing in a rock band, even in a catsuit, didn’t really pay much. I made more jewelry to pay the bills. 

Note: I do plan to update this post with a picture of myself in said catsuit…but all of my photos are in my loft in San Francisco, not here with me in Mexico.

Hey…if you don’t want to miss what I wore when mistaken for a streetwalker…go ahead and subscribe to my posts now.

Then Something Weird(er) Happened

After just a few weeks of being on the inside of the wholesale jewelry business, I started seeing all sorts of waste. Ways we wasted supplies, time, and money.

I also saw ways to improve the financial aspects of the business and boost profits, by making little adjustments here and there. Those tweaks of the dial added up to big results.

Weird. Like Psychic Vision-Type Things

By seeing, I mean that in an intuitive way.

I had no business training. But I could see waste and I could see money left of the table.

It was clear and obvious to me. And easy. Just do a little less of this and more of that. Less stress, and more money. It created opportunities to expand…along with more freedom.

Within a year my friend’s local jewelry business went national. Then international. We hired people, giving them fun jobs with lots of freedom.

I never ended up going back to my art therapy gig in hospitals. I became forever addicted to the freedom of working for myself…and wearing whatever I pleased to work. I still don’t get false eyelash application, though.

Solving problems and helping people is my passion. That’s why I originally became a therapist.

Life can be better…no matter what. I made my own life better after an impossible childhood and no resources.

After all these years, I still find artists/creatives struggling-to-earn-a-living problems the most interesting problems to solve.

From the Sublime…To the Ridiculous

After touring, I took freelance gigs at ad agencies and design firms, learning copywriting and design and marketing by doing. I figured that all of this stuff would come in handy for my own business.

Plus, ad agencies can be fun and surreal places to work. I got to meet the guy who did the Pillsbury Doughboy voice. I made mind-numbing PowerPoint’s about Kraft Cheese products. I made spreadsheets about which free toys from China went in to sugary cereal boxes.

Things I Fantasized About In Prison, in A Mauve-Colored Cubicle Forty Stories Above Chicago

At every job, on every project, I saw waste. I saw money and time and resources wasted. And I saw simple, seemingly obvious ways to turn it around. I especially saw ways to eliminate busywork…which, as a temp or freelancer, was usually the work thrown my way.

Because busywork is boring, I eliminated the boring part, got the work done, and then had another six hours on the clock to “look busy”. Which I used to write (on the word processor), and learn more software (this was before the Internet).

I was so bored I learned C-Programming.

One boss said: You have an uncanny way of automating yourself out of work.

Without knowing about our friend Pareto and his 80/20 principle, I was seeing how it’s 20% of the effort that creates 80% of the result. (Most businesses have this figure exactly backwards.) 20% of clients create 80% of the income. Hmnn… fascinating.

I fantasized: What if we were just given 20% of the time to get the job done? What might we do with the other 80%? Couldn’t life and work be more of an 80/20 proposition?

I dreamed of long trips abroad and wandering in foreign cities, a year-long stay at an ashram practicing meditation. I dreamed of spending the majority of my day devoted to what I loved: writing and painting. So that’s what I did. That’s what I still do today. 

I’ll Have What She’s Having

As an artist and freelancer making her way in Chicago, I was surrounded by others trying to make a living on their own terms. Massage therapists, yoga teachers, writers, bakers, music teachers, graphic designers, architects, clothing designers…these were my friends.

They wanted to know: how do you have so much freedom?

How can you…have your own apartment, spend so much time writing, go away for another workshop, buy so many books, wear whatever you damn please…all without really having “a job”?

Or at least…a husband?

So…What Is It That You Do?

I didn’t have the words for what I was doing. I still don’t.

Business Psychic?! Come on!

Maybe Business Therapist/Psychic*.

That’s even weirder, but that’s what it feels like to me.

Seeing into what could be tweaked when my friends showed me what they were doing in their business. The solutions were there, glaringly obvious to me. I could see where their waste was and how to turn that waste into something useful: profit, time, less effort, more freedom.

How about: Waste Whisperer?

Every business has waste. Every business has money laying on the table. Or the floor. By some quirk of personality, I abhor waste. Wasted effort, Wasted time. Wasted money.

The waste of talent and ambition and drive and hope that happens when your business is running on fumes and stuck in obscurity.

It’s a waste when you can’t take care of your kids they way you want or feel overwhelmed by how to make your business work.

I’ve experienced the waste of feeling underutilized, underpaid, unrecognized. See Mauve Cubicle section, above.

That is the worst kind of pain as a Creative Entrepreneur.

If this story seems long, it is. It took me years to get here…but I didn’t have the tools that I do now.

Success doesn’t happen overnight. That’s a myth. But it doesn’t have to take years. Or forever.

There are better tools for us now. New systems that apply to individual people, (even creative types) who want to do well in business.

The old systems work fine…if you’re a corporation.

Seeing Your Gorgeous Genius

For friends who didn’t have a business, but wanted to do something on the side, or start thinking of self-employment: the seeing was equally clear.

I could see dozens of ways they could take their own particular something and turn it into a viable business.

I could see their particular something (which I call Gorgeous Genius) even though they couldn’t.

Then, there were all the ways in which the marketing and sales parts of their business (the very parts that make it a business, rather than a hobby—or frustrating, feelings-of-failure-inducing enterprise) made them feel…icky. Less than. Not smart. Not good enough.

Not getting business or buyers made them feel like there was something wrong with them.

Can you relate? I can. 

In Which I Get a Wild Hair (and an MBA)

This pattern of helping friends with their businesses continued. The endeavor became equal parts “talking them off the ledge”, or helping them see their own value and worthiness, with the business “seeing” stuff being the other part.

It was about this time that I took comfort in the idea: Maybe that expensive therapy degree and all that facilitator training is coming in handy after all. 

Fast forward through creative, spiritual and wilderness escapades. Including studying with one of my favorite painters in New York, living off the grid in Alaska, and teaching process painting for four years.

During the halcyon days before the dot-com crash, I facilitated process painting workshops for engineers and managers of high tech companies. The CEO of Pixar came and painted for a week! OMG! One degree of separation between me and Steve Jobs. It was a crazy time for all until that party was over.

Then I went to business school.

(Well, before that, I had (another?) early midlife crisis…but that’s all going in the book.)

I went to business school, because I was a romantic, backcountry wilderness-loving, vegan, tree hugger who had a crazy idea:

What if all the stuff I learned in advertising could be used to save the whales;

and help kids like healthy snacks better than sugar;

and get people interested in not wasting the big stuff: like our natural resources?

Just what the hell IF?

My idead was to learn the language and tools of business, the corporate type, so I could get inside big business with my ideas.

Like a trojan horse.

The MBA was my calling card. A fifty-thousand dollar tattoo of legitimacy. Or something.

Turns Out Music & Business Have A Lot in Common

Business school taught me the concepts and tools of business management.

I learned that the Japanese have a term, Muda, for identifying and eliminating waste as a lean business management style.

I finally could put words to what my intuition guided me to do.

Business school gave me chops and confidence and connections to go make a difference for the things I care about.

I learned that even though I was pegged as “bad at math” as a kid, all I needed to rock at finance was addition, subtraction and multiplication…and the ability to make my spreadsheets pretty to look at (so I would want to look at them).

It’s where I connected the dots between my artist’s love of beauty, and elegant communication design.

That the language of marketing and business was encoded on P&L Statements and Scenario Planning Spreadsheets.

Not unlike a piece of sheet music, or a jazz chart, which is the language that makes music possible.

Spreadsheets can be soothing.

They are the jazz notation of the beautiful business you are creating.

Bonus: Business spreadsheets are much easier to sight read (in my experience) than music.

The Company Wasn’t Called Green Goddess (That Was the Name of My Sales Alter Ego)

For the next 10 years I ran a boutique marketing and design consultancy that helped green and social “do-gooder” type businesses do their great work while also making a profit.

During that time, I wrote The Creative Entrepreneur, to help my clients do for themselves what came to me intuitively all those years.

The book was based on workshops I designed to help make learning and using MBA chops easy and fun for creatives. And fun for me, too.

You see, I’m not a teach by PowerPoint kinda gal. All those Kraft road shows did me in, I guess.

As a teacher I had to use art supplies to make it fun for everyone. Which led me to a whole other universe…and another story for another time. 

Meanwhile…

If you want to get over number nausea once and for all,

and finally get this making money-from-your-gifts thing sorted,

then invite I you to join me (and some amazing coaches and creative entrepreneurs) at For Love and For Money.

It’s a weekend intensive, live and in-person, designed for maximum personal attention.

Just 8 to 18 participants depending upon the location.

A small group of people who want to craft a bespoke, beautiful, practical, and do-able plan from where they are now…to where they want to be…by this time next year.

Go check it out and claim a spot now if it feels resonant.

Then come back and ponder / write about / share in comments: 

1. What do you notice people struggling with, that is so obvious and easy to you…

Maybe it’s so easy and obvious you feel you must have to be psychic or something in order to know what you know.

Let’s call these your private psychic powers…and let them be clues for where you might apply 80/20 vision to your business.

2. Where is the waste, do you think, in your business?

What does it look like, feel like, act like?

3. What if you had a sales and marketing alter ego?

What would you call her? What costume does she wear?

*Business Psychic Footnote: Almost a year ago, the lovely and amazing astrologer, and intuitive painting goddess, Chris Zydel, gave me a reading. She said that my business would be even better if I “came out” about my psychic abilities.

The work you do is magic, she told me. So go ahead and be a little more magical and mystical about it. 

O.K. Chris. I’m finally ready now. Thanks for the kick in the pants. 

How about you?

Did you check out For Love & For Money?

Enjoy this story? I’d be grateful if you shared it…use the share buttons, below or  some tweets I made just for you:

If the Buddha had an MBA, and used glitter gel pens to sketch your biz plan (click to tweet)

Feel icky about selling and getting clients? (click to tweet)