Ep #93: (Part 2) The Art and Skill of 10X-ing Any Investment

Today’s episode is the second of a two-part series taken from a workshop I offered for The Art School entitled The Art and Skill of 10X-ing Any Investment. To set the tone for today’s episode, I want to share with you two quotes from the woman who wrote the book on being a badass at making money, Jen Sincero. She writes, “All of us are connected to this limitless power. And most of us aren’t using but a fraction of it.” She also wrote, “So often, we pretend we’ve made a decision when what we’ve really done is signed up to try until it gets too uncomfortable.” Both of these quotes are so relevant to the information I’ll share with you today. So, dive in and use this information and really apply it to your life. Because I know mastering this skill, becoming a creator rather than a consumer, and being able to 10X any investment is one of the cornerstones to financial freedom. And that is a tool that every creative powerhouse needs to have in their toolkit. You are listening to The Art School Podcast; a show for artists and creatives who want to become the next greatest version of themselves. Learn how to cultivate an extraordinary way of being and take the mystery out of making money, and the struggle out of making art. Here is your host, master certified life coach, artist, and former lawyer, Leah Badertscher. Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Art School Podcast. I am joining you today from my beautiful screened porch. You can hear just, like, nice bird sounds and the breeze through the trees. It is so lovely out here today. And I have been working so much inside today, recording videos for the upcoming fall Art School and working on various other tasks indoors while my husband was so kind to take the kids to the lake today to ride bikes, so I could have a quiet house to record in and just batch a lot of work. And so, it was so glorious out here, I thought, well, I will just do a porch set with y’all and enjoy this air out here. I am really soaking up the last of summer. And if it’s summer where you are, I hope you are as well. And whatever season you’re in, I think in the midst of everything we’re focusing on and creating, remembering to live the whole life too, right? We talk a lot in the Art School about process being so important and focusing on this way of being that makes results inevitable. And I know a way of being is that I want to be present with all aspects of my life. And so, again, enjoying these last days of summer, in many ways. We’ve had family visit in different chunks. So, one part of the family at a time. We usually do a big week together on Lake Michigan, all together in the summer. But that wasn’t possible this year because of COVID. So instead, with the new house and the room that we have for everyone, different parts of my family came out in shifts at different weeks. And that has been wonderful. Lots of family dinners. And I love cooking for people. Lots of cousins running around having a great time, just enjoying the summer weather, going to the lake. And then just simple things, like yesterday I finished up with work late afternoon. And my daughter and I went to the pool. The pool is able to open, like, limited capacity and in shifts. So, I had us signed up for the evening shift. And she and I went for an hour and a half. And it was so wonderful. We swam in the lap pool for a little bit. I swam some laps and she actually joined me for a few. And she’s getting to be a good little swimmer. She’s seven. And then we went and played in the bigger pool and it was just good living. So, I’m grateful for that. I’m also grateful again for the quiet house and quiet porch right now. And also, there has been some big amazing things like Liz Gilbert picking up Dr. Trent’s book. So, I’m just going to put this out there, that Liz Gilbert is an Art School Podcast guest. So, declaring that. And as I was telling a friend, it took me a few minutes after seeing that post where Liz announced that she’d picked Tererai’s book for her book of the month club, it took me a few minutes for it then to sink in that that means that she read my story that I contributed for that book as well. Which was utterly goose-bump, surreal, amazing, the big magic creative goddess herself. So, that was awesome. Also, just recently, an interview I did with Podcast Magazine a couple of months ago, that came out in their August issue. So, I was thrilled to be featured there. They did an amazing job of the article. I read the article and I’m like, “Wow, this art school sounds pretty awesome. Sounds familiar. Wait, that’s because I created exactly what I wanted.” And really neat to see someone else write about it and get their take on it. So, please check out Podcast Magazine and The Art School Podcast feature in that. Also, other exciting news, I have been canvassing my community for what can I do to support you in this time, what can I do to support your creative thriving, your flourishing, the thriving of your life in all areas? And so, I will continue to offer, obviously, the podcast, free group coaching calls, Facebook lives, the newsletter. And I also thought, let’s up the ante, and what would be different that I haven’t done yet, and really powerful? The Art School Immersion this spring was so powerful. And that gave me a taste into sometimes little chunks of things can give people just the dose they need. So, I’m going to do that, another supercharged vitamin dose of C, creativity, at the end of this month. We’re going to have a creativity catalyst challenge at the end of this month. And I say challenge, but it’s really going to be a four-day free mini training series at the end of this month. There will be four classes, four meetings, lots of value. And every day, you will walk away with an invitation to an assignment that, if you do it, I absolutely know you will get results. This is going to be a very results-oriented value-packed four days. So, I would love to have you join us. We will have information available on the website to sign up for that. If you go to www.leahcb.com and sign up for the creativity catalyst workshop. We would love to have you. Again, it will be free. And also, bring friends because the more the merrier. Success is contagious. Inviting other people to this work is amazing karma and a rising tide lifts all ships. This is really an extraordinary community where people are collaborating together, celebrating one another’s success, because truly understanding that the success and breakthrough of one contributes to the all, and that it is very contagious, this thriving within the creative community. And it is a movement. And I would love to have you join us and be a part of that. So, look for information on that on my website. And also, if you sign up for my newsletter, you will also be sure to not miss any news about that free offering or anything else that I’m doing, including the Art School fall, which is coming up at the beginning of September. We do have space remaining, but it is limited because I am still coaching everybody, I am still teaching live and I want to make sure that everybody has a very high-quality experience and that it really is like the premier program for creativity coaching, for helping people create exactly the results they want, and also in a way that is life-affirming, that is sustainable. So, this is you gain the meta skill of learning to create exactly what you want, and also the meta skill of having agency over your creative process, over your experience of it, over the character, cultivating your way of being, who you are becoming through the process. That is not just an art skill. That is a life skill. And I would love for you to join us with that. So, any questions about the Art School, you can also shoot us an email at support@leahcb.com. So, now, onto the episode. This is the second in a two-part series, the Art and Skill of 10X-ing Any Investment You Make. This is an excerpt of a workshop I offered for the mastermind and the Art School participants as part of the Summer Workshop Series. So, to have access to the entirety of the workshop, that will be available to you if you sign up for the Art School fall 2020. That as well as any summer workshop we offered. And we also go into much greater depth on this topic and many others necessary for you becoming the creative powerhouse you’re meant to become in the Art School. And you also receive the benefit of individual coaching, you know, being coached yourself in the group community, and also witnessing the group coaching, which is oftentimes even more powerful than being in the hotseat yourself. So, to introduce this segment today, which again, I’m including a part of a class that I taught. So, you want to make sure you go back and listen to the previous episode if you haven’t. I’ll include another part of that class today. And so, here’s why I wanted to cover this topic, 10X-ing any investment you make, before we launched full on into the mastermind and the Art School fall. And that’s because I know that ability to take full responsibility for your results is essential to becoming a creative powerhouse and that knowing you have the ability, having the creative resourcefulness within you to know that you can create the amount of money you want to create and in a way that is in alignment with you is an essential part of you tapping your creative potential and bringing that big, bold, beautiful dream and vision of yours to life, and in a way, again, that honors you and honors the process. So, here’s something I wanted to share with you that I just posted on social media on Instagram. I posted a picture of the image of the Art School. Which, if you haven’t seen it, it’s simply the words The Art School, box letters, within a box. And that came to me literally in a vision. And it has many different meanings. But I’ll just read to you what I wrote here. One of my visions for the Art School was literally born of a vision of the logo you see now. I’ve come to understand various interpretations for this image, all true, including the one where the gift of the Art School is that it is a dream in a box. It’s that simple. It’s that profound. Here’s what I mean by a dream in a box. If you say yes to yourself and the process – and yes in my world means full commitment – it is like being handed your dream in a box. From the work we do together in the Art School, we can take what seems like the most complicated, overwhelming, daunting, impossible thing in the world, your biggest dream, your vision for the greatest most powerfully creative, fulfilling, healthy, successful, authentic life. And we bring those visions to life through a simple yet profound process. You follow this process because you said yes, because you are committed. And together, we walk each other home until one day you are standing right inside that dream, waking up to it every single day. I was reflecting on this, this afternoon, as I was working from within a dream I created with this process. I realized that not only am I working in my dream business, but I also am working physically within another dream today, one created very much by this process. This room – scroll through because I included pictures of one of my dream rooms in our new home, the library – this home, this farm was once a vision, once a far-off seemingly impossible dream, as was a thriving career as an artist, as was a booming coaching career, as was waking up to emails from clients, sharing the breakthroughs and dreams they’ve created and are waking up to now as well, including but not limited to just this week, an artist client who made 15K in less than 10 days. Another client celebrating publishing a book. Another client who just hot her once impossible goal, in quotes, financial target. And she has five more months left in the year. I know there are so, so many more dreams this sacred container and community and movement and experience that is the Art School has left to yield. I know there are more novels in this box, memoirs, book deals, breakthrough roles, and bigtime opportunities, songs, albums, record deals, sweet dreamy gigs and grand stages, creative blocks dissolved, and plateaus that turn out to be launching pads for your own moonshot goals, growth of character and trust in yourself to follow through and come through for yourself of every single thing that truly matters to you, an ability to trust yourself deeply, follow your heart, and create something both from your grand vision, and also from the grit, grace, and humble consistent persistent gumption that leaves others wondering, “How did he or she ever manage that?” I know there are new bodies of best-yet work in this container, new tax brackets, dream homes, dream vacations, relationships healed, grown, families. There are Emmys, Tonys, Oscars, Grammys, bestsellers. There are career-pivots, next acts, one door closing, windows opening. There are dreams that put down real roots and spread strong wings. And so, so much more. I know that the trail blazed by those who leave the Art School always better than they found it because that’s who we are, is a boundless bright one, generously paved by courageous pioneers that are laying down the tracks that make it so much more clear that thriving creative is the new paradigm, and being intentional and creative about the process we engage in to create the dream is also the dream. So, let me ask you this. And this is not a rhetorical question. I really would love to hear from you. If I could hand you a box containing your dream, what would be in yours? What would you love to say yes to in this lifetime? And will you? If you haven’t yet, why not? And what would it take for you to be a yes, for you to be fully committed? So, with that, enjoy this next part of the workshop and I will see you on the other side. — And then this brings me to number eight, emotional risk. And so, when you’re evaluating your investment mindset, because sometimes we’re working with someone and they’ll be like, “I want to make a million dollars this year.” So, let’s talk about what you want to do. Then it becomes clear that they’re not wanting to do, like, “I love to read and I love to learn and I’m in this program and I’m in that program. But nothing has worked so far.” Because that’s where you know, if you hear yourself saying that nothing has worked so far, you’ve got to own that and be like, “I haven’t worked it yet. I’m learning how to work it. I’m still implementing it,” but don’t say it’s not working, it’s not working yet. Because that just is like – there’s nowhere to go from there. The same with, “I haven’t done it before.” We can’t move forward with that. You have to be thinking – I was reading this article the other day about this guy that had tattooed on his arm, like, arrow signs pointing forward. And I have no interest in getting a tattoo, but if I did, that would be pretty great, two arrow signs, forward. Not back to how I have failed or who I have been or haven’t been. Where am I now? And then what am I creating going forward? Because that’s where your return on investment is, is in the future. Mine the past, for sure, bet you’ve got to take that lead and be an alchemist and create gold with it and not just be like, life just gave me a bunch of lead. So, with that emotional risk part, look for the places that you’ve been unwilling to go. And I don’t say this as – this is not a Machiavellian, you know, the ends justify the means. That’s not what I’m saying at all. Because to me, if the dream looks like it runs roughshod over your core values, then it’s not the dream. And then we need to go back to the drawing board. But if you’re in a space where you are like, “I have this dream but I just feel like I’m being a terrible wife, friend, mother, what have you if I do this,” then that’s a place that I want to look at a little bit more deeply. And I’m using, like, that one was one of my personal ones where I really had to excavate, so is it really true that me pursuing and becoming an artist and a successful entrepreneur so that I can create freedom and abundance, which I also plan to share for my family, my vision includes my family, is that really true, that my family is going to be worse off? And then having a conversation with fear. Not just shoving it down and being like, “No, no, no.” But having a conversation where I could be like, “Here are the parameters in which I’m going to create. I’m not going to work 80-hour weeks. I am, like when my kids were young, I didn’t work, like, 40-hour weeks even. It was just my choice that I wanted to – I’d start to get things in play and rolling, so that when they were in school, then I had some things built up. But it was a conversation with fear where I could take the part that just wanted to shame me, I think. And then, from that, draw out the pieces where there was authentic value. My family is a core value. I do want this amount of family time and this quality of family time. And how do I see that coming together? And what can I realistically anticipate for how much time I have to spend with my art and how much time I have to spend with my business. It’s a value’s-informed process that creates your dreams. And if it feels like it’s not, it’s time to come back and have a conversation again about, “Well, what is the values-informed process that creates the dream?” Because the Theresa of Avila quote, “All the way to heaven is heaven.” It doesn’t mean it’s easy. I don’t think that’s what she meant at all. But it is, like, you can have the business you want, the career you want, the life you want and in a way that is aligned with your values. And again, it is being assertive enough to declare that your powerful enough. You get to do that. Like, crossing some sort of inner threshold for you and being like, “No, I am doing this. and I am doing it my way.” So that was eight, looking for where the emotional risk is. If you’re not sure where that is, look for the places you avoid currently. Do you avoid being seen? If you’re like, “My art’s just for myself,” look to see, is that a place that’s holding you back? Where can you push the envelope there and move beyond your comfort zone? This is a place where it’s like leaning into the sharp points. Like, when I first started the Art School, it was like a back and forth between exhilaration and just I couldn’t sleep. I was so, so, like my inner circuit board of we’re being seen and we are finally saying, like declaring to a lot more people in a lot more of an assertive way and we’re being a lot louder and we’re being a lot more visible. Like, oh my god, what’s going back? But it also felt true and it felt like, again, if I had those arrows tattooed on my arm and, like, okay, what’s forward in love? This is forward in love. and I also had terrible sleep for the whole first six weeks when I was first offering and launching that. And I kind of anticipated that, which is the purpose of a public statement like, “I’m doing this.” Because there is another side to this and I’m crossing the river of change, I’m swimming, like Dory in the movie says, “Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.” And it’s not easy. I like to sleep. I’m not fun when I don’t sleep. Taking care of children when you’re sleepless is not a lot of fun either. But I knew it was part of my journey and I could stay on this side of the river and be like, I just can’t handle six weeks of feeling that crappy. But if I know on the other side if I really know that this is so important with me, that I don’t want to go 10 years and not have done this, I don’t want to get to the end of my life and not have done this. Am I willing to trade doing it for six hours of really needing to feel a lot of anxiety and then having a lot of growth opportunities to manage my mind? Because it for sure brought all of my basement demons to the surface, the ones that I didn’t even know were there because I’m like, “I’m an introvert. I just like quiet and I like my one to one coaching practice. It’s private and it’s cozy. This is good for me.” But then, when I was really like, I think forward is this thing, I want to create this thing, then all of those demons who’d been in the basement lifting weights come up. And you find though that you can do it. Like, you are doing it. And I remember saying to my coach at one time when I was going through one of these rivers of change, “I don’t know if I can do this.” And she’s like, “What are you talking about? You’re doing it. You’re doing it.” And that’s a common thing you’ll hear too, and you can use that with yourself, where you’re saying, “I don’t know if I can do this.” Be like, “But I am. Right now, I actually am doing this.” And that is a good place too, where you can start to learn to trust the difference between your intuition and just the ego that wants to keep you small and quiet. Because I realized, this was something I used to use when I was training for triathlons too because I was trying to PR in several places, including running. So, I’d go run and I was entering this race where I wanted to run two sub-five-minute miles. And then there was a bike and a swim. And I had never done that before. And I’d go out and try to do it and I just felt like my whole entire inside of my head and body were screaming until, like, one run, I realized there is a difference. There is a fork. There is your body talking. There is a voice that speaks to you. And then there’s a screaming that happens in your head when you are pushing the envelope like that. And the voice that talks to you doesn’t scream. I’m like, what if I’m going to get hurt? This feels like I’m going to break. And then I realize, no, if you listen carefully, there are two voices. And a voice that screams is not the voice I want to listen to. It’s like your head, the one’s like, stop. It’s very painful. But if you can also turn into this other voice, and it was kind of like, it’s almost a silent voice, but it’s like a knowing. It’s like a mountain, the depth of it. And it would essentially what my coach said to me years later, “But you are doing this.” Because my brain would be like, “We can’t do this.” But then something deeper was like, “But actually, you right now we are.” Like, legs, body, arms, it’s all like – whatever that invisible force is, actually we are doing this. And so, that’s a question I get a lot, how do you know how to trust yourself when you’re feeling resistance? And part of it – it’s a skill, but also this art of if you keep trying to cross that river of change and move into the resistance, listen for where there is a divergence and the voices within you. Is there a difference in tenor and tone and frequency, and energy? And I think the tricky thing is that deeper voice, it’s so deep and so quiet, but not the same as silent. It’s there and it’s always there and it’s never left you. And I think that’s a good place to go back through all of your life and, again, recoup your investments on things, is to go back. And every place where you are just writing off as, “Well that’s sunk cost,” and instead be like, “Where is that deep voice? Always there.” And that, I think, also helps you with your courage going forward, being like, “I always did it before and I’m always going to do it again,” that depth, that deep presence is always there. So, eight, looking for the emotional risk and conditioning yourself to be somebody who’s like, bring it on because I know what’s on the other side of that river. It is like, slow, slow, slow and you start to condition yourself to emotional risk. And then it accelerates. — So now, this brings me to the part of the podcast where I want you to do more than just listen. I want you to lean in, really work with me, and coach with me. So first here, I want to remind you of the two quotes from Jen Sincero that I shared at the beginning of the podcast. The one about how we are connected to this limitless potential and yet using a fraction of it. and then the other one about so often we pretend we’ve made a decision, when what we’ve really done is signed up to try until it gets too comfortable. So, if you could remember those two things, that you have limitless potential, if you really believed that, what would change? And if you were aware that a commitment makes something inevitable. That way, you know, when the siren’s song calls, that it gets too uncomfortable, that you won’t jump ship because a commitment means that you’ve tied yourself to the mast, you also are hearing that siren song, so you come face to face with the things in you that would rather have you jump ship and desert your dreams and desert charting the course to your destiny. So, consider that. And consider that you can make a commitment from a place that is so empowering and so loving, that is the way to the dream is also the dream where the process of creating yourself as someone who follows through no matter what on a commitment can be a life-affirming character-forging amazing hero’s journey and adventure. So, today’s coach with me, a series of question. Write these down after you’ve listened to them. Come back and actually answer them. And then take the information and decide what you’re going to do with it. One, do you believe for you, for your life, that you have access to limitless possibilities and potential? Two, if there is something that you really want to create and experience before this life is over, have you made a decision to sign up until it gets too uncomfortable? Or have you made a commitment and tied yourself to the mast? Next, three, if I could hand you a box, like the Art School experience, and it contained our dream, what would be in yours? What would you love to say yes to in this lifetime? Will you? If you haven’t yet, why not? And what will have to change in order for you to be a yes, in order for you to be fully committed? I know that if you could answer these questions, they will lead you to the place of accepting 100% responsibility for all the experiences in your life, which is like recouping all of your assets so that you can invest every single experience in your life, all the experiences in your life once learned from, without the emotional charge, can become wisdom. As Ray Dalio, very famous powerful investor has said, pain with no reflection is just pain. But pain plus reflection equals progress, equals growth, equals learning. So, use these questions as a way to reflect on all of your experiences, painful, good, otherwise, so that you can have the kind of growth that you’re capable of. 10X is just the beginning. Thank you so much for joining me for another episode of The Art School Podcast. I am so grateful for you being here and listening. I truly hope that this podcast and these episodes have helped you move the needle in your life in meaningful ways and have moved you closer to your goals and your dreams. And I am always grateful for your presence in everything you do, sharing, reviewing the podcast. And I also have an ask for you. If you’re so inclined, I would love your help in reaching a personal goal of mine this year. I would love for this podcast to hit 100,000 downloads by the end of 2020. I think we are all plenty aware it’s August 2020 in the midst of COVID, how powerful the viral contagion effect can be. But it can also be a force for good. And so, if you are so inspired or so moved, please help me spread the force for good, spread this message and share, subscribe, leave a review. Maybe if you’ve been thinking about any of these things for a while, maybe take this as the week when you send it out, you send out the email or share the email that comes from the newsletter. I greatly appreciate that. And as always, I’m grateful for you out here in this community and what is really growing to be your own, on an organic level, a creative movement, thriving creatives who are revolutionizing what it means to be creative and to be a thriving artist, to be a creative powerhouse. So, thank you. So, in closing today, I don’t have a quote for you, so much as a reflection question. Think of anything you’ve been considering investing in, in your life. It could be a coaching program like The Art School. It could be another program. It could be a personal mentor or coach. You could be thinking about going back to school. You could be thinking about a capital investment in a certain aspect of your career or business. It could be a variety of things. So, think about that investment that you’ve been considering, and think about what it would be like a year from now, two years from now, three years from now if you could 10X, 50X, 100X that investment, how would life be different if you made that investment and then applied the skill of at least 10X-ing that? That kind of possibility is available to all of you. Carry that energy with you throughout the rest of the week. You’ll have a beautiful one then for sure. Have a great week, everyone. And I will talk to you next time.