Ep #145: How to Become an Affluent Artist

“Affluence includes money, but is not just money. It is the abundance, the flow, the generosity of the universe, where every desire we have must come true because inherent in having the desire are the mechanics for its fulfillment.”

I get to talk to people all the time about their dreams, their heart’s desires. And if I had to summarize those responses with one word, it would be that we desire affluence. We desire that ability to know that we are in such a generous flow, that if we have a desire, we do have the mechanics, the means for its fulfillment.

So, as I was working on today’s episode about affluence, I was also writing, jotting down notes for other episodes. That’s often how I work, whether in painting or poetry or coaching. I like to have various things going at once. They all seem related and they are all related. They feed into each other and off of one another.

And as I was writing this one about affluence, which I’m also doing because I am offering a three-day immersion, Three Keys to Becoming an Affluent Artist here at the end of August, I was also working on content, newsletters, a post, information for the upcoming Art School that addressed two of the questions that I get asked most often.

And those two questions are, how do I keep going when I want to quit on the dream I’ve been working on for so long and that I’ve been working so hard for? And the other question is, how do I know I’m not just being delusional as I’m working on this dream?

I love all of these questions. I love the questions that are aimed at, you know, how do I align myself with affluence? How do I become an affluent person? An affluent creative? And how do I keep going when I want to quit? How do I know I’m not just being delusional?

Here is why I love these questions. These are the kind of questions that are master key type questions. You know in your bones the answers to me and it unlocks so many other doors in your life, including what it takes to transform delusional to truth and dreams to done.

This is the kind of transformation that I live for. This is the hart and soul of the work I do with private clients and in the Art School and I’m giving you a taste of that in today’s episode. I hope you bookmark this, dogear it for those times when you’re needing to realign yourself with affluence, you’re wanting to take that affluence to the next level, or when you find yourself between a rock and a hard place and asking those questions.

How do I keep going when I really want to quit? I think you’ll love the intersection of these topics. And when you get the answer to these, truly, it’s a practice, but you’ll be golden.

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 back to another episode of The Art School Podcast. So, that golden energy, I am feeling it these days. And as you will hear, that doesn’t just mean things are always sunshine and rainbows and coming up daisies.

As we will talk later, I’m sure we’re going to talk about alchemy, and that is the art of changing base materials into gold. You can see how powerful of a metaphor that is for all of life and for being truly capital C Creative and particularly how that is necessary if you want to become affluent, you want to create affluence, live in an affluent state and become an affluent artist.

You can also maybe see where I’m going when we address these questions of how do I keep going when I want to quit and how do I know I’m not just being delusional? Part of what I’m going to share with you today is how you approach those questions, how you approach your process and your life, so that you can perform the magic of alchemy and that you can become affluent and create greater and greater affluence in your life.

So, I’m feeling the golden energy. I’ve been using that palette a lot in my paintings lately. It’s early August 2021 when I’m recording this for you and still summer here in Michigan. And it’s a very waning summery golden kind of days vibe. Also, we are just enjoying savoring the last bits of summer.

And I’ve been thinking a lot myself, digging deep into experiences I’ve had throughout my life and also this summer and thinking for myself. You know, where are the places where I have been able to mind my experiences and turn that into gold? Not just money, but also that soulful gold where your life is richer for it and you can multiply, amplify the abundance that you’re able to contribute and share with the world.

So, fi you look up affluence, you’ll see references to wealth, references to property. You also see references to flow. I do particularly love the definition from Deepak Chopra that I shared at the beginning, “Affluence includes money, but it is not just money. It is the abundance, the flow, the generosity of the universe, where every desire we have must come true because inherent in having the desire are the mechanics for its fulfillment.”

This resonates so deeply with me because it also, to me, speaks to a definition you could use for creativity, for capital C Creativity. That if you have the dream, you have the means within that dream, and within yourself, for its fulfillment.

I also to have been thinking about this one definition that occurred to me for being affluent is a way of being where you are fluent in the abundant creative ways of the universe, of life. I think this definition came to me and resonates with me because many times when people want to work on creating more financial abundance in their life, a lot of it is that they don’t feel fluent in that aspect.

They feel fluent in other places in their life. Maybe it’s in creating their art, no matter their medium, or their professional work. Or maybe they feel fluent, comfortable with their health or relationships. But money, not so much.

So, they’re searching, seeking, desiring to cultivate a greater fluency and their ability to create with money and knowing and trusting that truly, that financial dream they have, inherent in that desire for the dream are the mechanics for its fulfillment.

So, think about that. If you truly believe that, within a goal that you have or a dream you have, that it’s not just there to torture you. But within that dream are the exact mechanics necessary, the means necessary for its fulfilment. How would that change things for you?

So, I sent out a newsletter today with a quote from Lady Gaga that I’m sure I’ve referenced on this podcast before. It’s one of my favorites because it speaks to the work that I do and why I love doing the work that I do. And it’s this, “I want people to walk around delusional about how great they can be, and then to fight so hard for it every day that the lie becomes the truth.”

That’s the work that I do with clients in the Art School. That’s the work I do with my private clients. That’s the work I have done myself and continue to do. So, that to me also speaks of affluence.

You have this dream. You have this knowing of how great you can be. And then, within that is everything you need to fight for it, to make it become the truth. And if you don’t like the word fight, then use the word work. That works for me too.

If you think about the part of my intro where it says I’m here to help you take the mystery out of making money and the struggle out of making art, or the struggle out of making money and the mystery out of making art, really that’s at the heart of what Deepak’s quote was, that inherent in having the desire are the mechanics for its fulfillment. And what Lady Gaga says about walking around so delusional about how great you can be, and then fighting for it so hard that the lie becomes the truth.

If I could get people to just really internalize how powerful they are, how creative, capital C Creative they are, that would quiet the chatter and that default network in our mind, that inner critic. And then you could just go to work.

You could know that that’s who you are. You could know that creating what you have only seen before in your imagination, in your heart, in your mind, that is absolutely available for you. And then, that would change the failures, the shortcomings, the roadblocks, the bumps in the road, the setbacks that came up along the way, if you truly knew that you had it within you to make inevitable whatever you could dream of.

And yes, this is work. It does require work; inner and outer work. But not probably the work you’ve been used to. Not the grind, not the hustle, not the depleting yourself or exhausting yourself.

So, with this in mind, I am crafting new content for the Art School, new practices, new components. And I also am offering and have created a new mini training that starts before the Art School. It’s a three-day Affluent Artist immersion.

So, this is for you if you are tired of playing small, tired of being stressed out about money, even when you’re making more money, tired of feeling like the pressure and demands of life and the expectations of others are squeezing the living daylights out of the time that you have and the energy that you have to be truly creative. Not to mention also successful and thriving and enjoying your work as a creative and your life along the way.

So, if this describes you at all, it doesn’t mean that you’ve been doing it wrong. It does not mean that you aren’t cut out for your goals or your dreams. And also, it doesn’t mean that you have to just work harder and find a better way to hustle and grind.

Conversely, it also doesn’t mean that it’s time for you to just throw in the towel and dial down your dreams while downgrading your purpose and settling. There is another way.

And you’ve heard me say this 100 times now. If you’ve heard me say it once, if you’ve been following me, there is a way. It’s the way it’s inherent within you, within how you’re built. It’s your own creative process. It’s built into that desire or dream you have.

And this way too, you can universally, I think, I universally describe it as the way of the affluent artist. Because no matter your medium, whether t’s paint or poetry or playwriting, movies, music, raising a family, delivering babies, healing, spearheading social change, leading an organization, or simply reimagining your life so that it looks and feels more like you, no matter these mediums, I know that you have an artist’s soul.

And an artist soul is built to flow. It’s built for flow. Sometimes, that flow is the flow of inspiration and learning and training. Sometimes, that’s what nourishes us. And other times, it’s stillness, silence, and that great big quiet fertile void that we need in order to rest and lay fallow.

At yet, other times, it’s more than you know what to do with and an embarrassment of riches kind of flow. That’s the flow of opportunities. Support, enthusiasm, from others and yourself. Recognition, breakthroughs, success, money, and the kind of meaningful, fulfilled living that fills your heart with gratitude and takes your breath away.

These are all examples of flow states that can be the hallmarks of an artist aligned with affluence, aligned with their purpose, capital C Creativity, and the generosity of the universe.

Maybe less desirable, maybe not, but just as important and just as necessary for cultivating affluence and aligning with affluence are those occasions, those times and eras in our life of adversity, of challenge, of difficulty. And with those, the ways that we find reservoirs of strength within us that we didn’t know we had, capacities that we didn’t know we had, including the capacity to ask for help, to reach out, and not do it alone because we can’t and because we aren’t alone.

Also, the self-love and the compassion and the forgiveness and the self-forgiveness that are required by adversity and by times of challenge and growth and healing. Because it’s with these times too that we are able to come into a knowing. Because it’s been tested. A knowing that we are capable of and can handle what comes our way. These things too are very much aspects of affluence.

I want to pause just here and ask you to think about that and not let that part wash over us. Because we can be really resistant to accepting and allowing adversity and challenge to be a part of affluence. But the thing is just, if you think about this, there is just a fragility and the kind of success – that if we desire success, that means we never have to go through difficulty.

Because just fundamentally, inherently understand that challenge and difficulty are part of the human condition and also part of what forges us. And so, how much greater actually is our capacity for affluence when we’ve been through difficulty and we’ve learned how to navigate it, we’ve learned how to be with ourselves and others through it and we can not just think, “Oh, I can handle it.” But we can look back and say, “I have. I did handle it.”

And we can look too to the ways in which others have helped us through those times. We can look to the ways in which there seems to be a grace that carried us through times that we didn’t think we could make it through or possibly even survive.

So, in this way, low times, challenges, setbacks, failures really prepare us to embrace the truth of the way of the affluent artist. And that is knowing whatever you dream, whatever you can imagine, you can create. Because inherent in having the desire are the mechanics for its fulfilment.

So, what would it take to live and create in this way and what does it take to become an affluent artist? This is going to be the subject matter of the three-day immersion that I’m offering later this August. It will be Tuesday, August 24^th, 25^th, 26^th from 11:30 Eastern to 12:30 Eastern, three 60-minute group calls via Zoom, a pop-up Facebook group for written coaching by me and also for connecting with, mutually encouraging and inspiring your kindred spirits, your likeminded others.

This is where you will find and connect with your people. And as always, recordings are available for any calls that you can’t attend. There are more details on my website and the link will be available in the show notes.

But for now, I wanted to go back and revisit this question. What does it take to become an affluent artist? In that three-day immersion, I will be talking about the three master keys. I’ll be introducing strategies for creating time, proven strategies. So, this is what has worked for me, worked for my clients, worked in the Art School. And how, within this process of time creation, using time as an affluent artist, how to do better and better work that is meaningful to you, work that you love, whether that is traditional artwork or the work that you do when you apply these creativity processes and concepts to your work outside the realms of traditional art and how you can do better work that you love, that’s more satisfying and fulfilling with less effort, and like we all want, less needless suffering.

We will introduce what blocks the flow of inspiration and how to align yourself with the kinds of creative energy that nourishes, inspires, and sustains you and your next great work.

Finally, you’ll also gain an awareness of what it takes to align with abundant opportunities, how to create those. You’ll also learn new possibilities for making the kind of money that affords the life you’ve always dreamed of.

On day one, you’ll learn the fundamentals of becoming an affluent artist. You’ll learn about aligning with the flow of creative inspiration, what blocks you from doing it, and what works for you in order to align with it.

Day two, we will be escaping the time and efficiency stress traps. I love this subject. By learning how to create better work with less stress and taking back control of your time, your energy, and your peace of mind.

And day three, another topic I love – obviously these are all topics I love because I’m choosing to teach about them. But day three, you’ll learn how to make more money, but in a way that energizes and doesn’t deplete you.

I want you to be able to walk away from these three days knowing that you’re meant for affluence and that you can live the creative life you’ve been dreaming of, and on your terms. If you already know this, perhaps you will join us because you could use a reinvigoration. You could use an infusion of this kind of energy and it will be there in spades.

You’ll also leave having learned how to set yourself up to achieve your biggest creative goals and how to do so from a place of joy and energy and fulfilment. And this is overall in your life, not just your work. So that you wake up in the morning excited about your day, looking forward to what you’re doing, going about your work in a way, again, that energizes you, that brings you life, that gives life and that, when you put your head on the pillow at night, you might be tired, but it is that blessed, sacred, solid feeling of, “That was a day well-spent. That was a day well-lived.”

Going to bed satisfied, feeling complete, reflecting on the day having learned something, having grown, ready to rest deeply, and then also excited to wake up in the morning and greet the day anew.

So, now that I’ve given you an introduction to the framework of the Affluent Artist, an overview, if you want to take that deeper, please join us for the three-day immersion. It is a very accessible price point. I’m so excited to teach this. It’s also a great way to get a taste for what the Art School is like.

And if you are already enrolled in the fall sessions for the Art School, there is no need to register for this. It’s included. You don’t have to pay the extra fee. That’s all included as part of your fall Art School enrollment. And again, if you have any questions, the link will be in our show notes and you can also email us, support@leahcb.com for more information. We’d be happy to help you.

And again, now that you have that framework for affluence and how to become an affluent artist, I wanted to weave in now this discussion about what do you do, how do you keep going when you want to quit on the dream? The dream that you’ve been working on for so long and just pouring your heart and soul into. And how do you know that you’re not just being delusional?

Because I see these two questions as being things that throw people off track and out of alignment with affluence. I’ve talked in other podcasts and with my Art Schoolers about how costly these micro-quits or creative U-turns can be for us.

And our brains can be so persuasive in telling us too that we’re not quitting. We’re just going over here for a while. There’s a difference between a micro quit and taking a break. And here is the other thing that I know. You can be saying and even thinking that you are pursuing something, that you’re going for it. And yet, if you check in and part of your brakes are on and you’ve just been half in, half out for years and years, that’s not the time to ask yourself if you should quit or if you are being delusional.

Really give yourself the chance to go all in and go all out. I know when I used to hear that term, go all in, it was like nails on a chalkboard to me. I just thought it meant it was just going to be one more area where it was like trying to get blood from a stone, from myself. Where I was going to have to throw myself into something and work so hard and exhaust myself.

But that was when I was still coming so much from survival mode and didn’t even realize how malnourished I was and how depleted I was. And I think malnourished in terms of the wealth spring of life available to my psyche and what I was trying to operate on, but also physically and energetically.

And it’s one reason why I approach the Art School, these 12 weeks as an immersion. Because it gives yourself the opportunity to learn how good creating from a wholehearted focus and alignment can feel, from a wholehearted being all in. You get to learn, when you are in this immersive environment, that it’s not extracting from your soul. But instead, nourishing and supporting you.

Challenging you, yes. Asking you to work, yes. And also teaching you how to take extraordinary care of yourself so that you realize what that actually feels like to be supported, to be nourished, to be inspired, to have that kind of energy within you, to have your spiritual legs. It, like, gives your heart and soul legs to be nourished in this way with this kind of ideal creative ecosystem.

So, an immersion in that kind of environment, that kind of focus for 12 weeks, and you get to learn how good it feels to experience what belief feels like, true belief. I think a lot of times, we’re so exhausted because we think we’re believing, but really it’s like we are operating on like 5% belief and pushing against 95% of our disbelief, like rolling this gargantuan boulder up a hill.

You get to learn what it feels like. It feels good. Again, it’s work, but it feels just deeply good to cultivate that way of being, that mindset, to learn the skills of mindset development, emotional mastery, how to take care of your psyche and spirit. I talk about nurturing the numinous, cutting the psychic drag. You learn to experience how good it feels to be somebody who completes and follows through.

Oh my gosh, that feels good to me, just even saying that. That is a practice I have myself that I cultivated intentionally and on purpose, and that’s something I’ll teach you in the Art School. But right now, you can get a taste of it just by trying that on. What is it like to be somebody who does what she says she’s going to do? She completes it. And in a way that’s nourishing and fulfilling and meaningful.

You get to experience what it feels like to bring your desire, your goal, your dream, your vision to fruition, to experience what fulfillment feels like. And again, just a little hint, it feels good and solid. It feels like soul-building. It feels like things are falling into place, life is working, and you’re working.

So, this 12 weeks, this kind of approach to creativity, this kind of approach of using a wholehearted focus and alignment, the difference between doing that for 12 weeks and going not wholehearted, let’s say half-assed for five years is tremendous. It gives you life. And going this wholehearted, all in creative mode nourished approach to creativity for 12 weeks, it can put you years ahead.

I think so many of us have never really experienced what it is like to be supported, to work from a nourished place, to actually create from a creative place. So, don’t underestimate the power of kind and nourishing consistency and frequency and tapping into the right kind of desire, tapping into utilizing, learning how to generate the right kind of energy.

It’s an energy within yourself, but also in your environment, the kind of energy that surrounds you and supports you. Because here’s the thing. You do have what it takes to fulfill your dreams, to fulfill your desire. And you have to also give yourself what it takes, the energy that it takes to support that and carry that out.

You have what it takes to become the best that you can be. And things like immersion and focus, which you’ve heard me talk about here, that at various times I was really craving, that’s because I knew I needed a gathering of my energy, a gathering, a bringing my attention back in from all the distracted places it had gone, seeing where my energy and attention had been fragmented and disintegrated, and bringing it all back, doing some whole-making work, doing that integration work, that wholeness work. And then creating from that place.

It’s a world of difference. There is such a difference between creating from wholeness and focus and being deeply nourished versus a survival state where you’re constantly feeling scattered, spread thin, distracted, not enough, and depleted.

So, that one aspect is an important aspect when you’re asking yourself, you know, how do I keep going when I want to quit? Ask yourself if you have given yourself a fighting chance, if you’ve actually set yourself up for success or if you have been doing what I used to try to do and what I see so many clients do, run on fumes and try to extract some soul or some blood from a stone, like you haven’t been adequately nourishing and supporting yourself.

And then, there are those times when I have a different response for my clients after we’ve gone through that route. Like, are you being nourished? Have you set yourself up for success? Have you established the proper creative ecosystem?

And also, just a sidenote – I’ll talk about this more other places – proper ecosystem for a creative soul, for an affluent artist, is not just something that meets your bare minimum needs, but the use, creativity, the soul, they love more than enough. They love things that the rest of the world thinks are superfluous. You know, luxuries. And so, just keep that in mind because if your intuition, your soul is telling you, you know, it wants a beautiful desk by the window and you’re like, “Hey, now I’ve got this corner cubby in my closet and it’s full of junk, I should be able to get by.” That thing isn’t going to fly with your muse. So, more on that on a different podcast, like giving yourself more than enough and what you actually want.

So, bringing it back to, how do I keep going when I want to quit? How do I know I’m not just being delusional? My first response after doing the creative audit, the creative ecosystem audit, is to ask why they want to quit. And often, the responses I get include they’ve tried many things, spent a lot of money already, and invested a lot of time in trying to create this particular goal or dream.

They’ve worked hard to overcome a pattern of feeling limited and playing small and want instead to be experiencing flow and success, whether that is through making more money with their art, stressing less and enjoying their work and life more, having a healthier balance of work and personal time, but without sacrificing economic security and responsibility, having their creative work recognized and celebrated by a major player or players in their industry, or getting some other big break in their career that launched them from struggle-bus and getting by, into that rarified air next level.

So oftentimes, people that they’re so disappointed, even to the point of being almost debilitated by it because nothing so far has worked. They are still on the heartbreak road, and understandably, sick and tired of it.

I’ve been there. Sick and tired of it. So sick and tired of it. they afraid that because it hasn’t happened yet, if they continue believing and trying, that they will just be fooling themselves. Then there too.

So, here is my follow up response. And not because I’m a jerk, although at first it may sound like it. But because this is the way to really get free. This is the way to unleash your creative genius and liberate yourself, to live your best life.

This is, in fact, the very kind of conversation I have with myself in my own low times. I hear you and I get all of that. I understand the heartbreak. I know it up close and personal and frequently. More frequently than I’d like. I’m not diminishing the heartbreak. And I’m not diminishing the work that you have done and what you have invested in this dream.

And yet, you haven’t answered my question. Why do you want to quit? I mean, isn’t this your dream? So, I ask them this and they look at me like I just sprouted a few more heads, or like they’re embarrassed for my stupidity and slowness. Because right, isn’t it obvious? All this heartbreak, all this disappointment, that’s a reason to quit. Isn’t that obvious?

But contrary to what a lot of society might thin, it is not. It is not obvious that you should quit just because – and again, I’m not diminishing, but it’s not a good reason – because you’ve poured yourself into something. It’s not a good reason to quit because you’ve experienced a lot of failure. And the fact that it hasn’t happened on the timeline that you thought it would or in the way you thought it should by now, also not reasons for giving up.

Failure and heartbreak are not signs that you are delusional. They are not reasons or signs that you should quit. Neither does failure mean that you are a failure. Because after all, isn’t the greatest failure when fear wins and you never go for it?

Also, and I hope this goes without saying, but I know I benefit from the reminder, so here it is. Heartbreak, it doesn’t make you a failure either. Brené Brown says that the bravest among us are the most brokenhearted. So then, the choice to love and put our hearts on the line and our love out into the world, which hello anyone who is living creatively, all of this is a very, very brave choice.

And yes, my work may be – actually is – flawed and falls short of some ideals, many ideals. My ideas may fail. They have at times. My contribution may be judged. It will be judged, criticized, and rejected. And this all sucks.

And many times, it still does for me. It still sucks so much of the time. And I will let you know when I’m enlightened. And none of that bothers me anymore. But in the meantime, it hurts.

In my eyes though, what is worse than that is the choice not to be brave. What is worse than that hurt is the choice not to live what I love, not to allow the light that I have to shine and be shared for whatever it’s worth.

In my eyes, I might not be able to guarantee that a contribution I make makes it to the bigtime on my estimated timelines. But I can guarantee that my life is far better off when I continue to believe in myself, keep my eyes on the prize, and trust that that knowing within me that tells me that I do have what it takes, even if I haven’t made it yet, that trusting makes all the difference in the world.

I can guarantee that my life is far better off when I trust that I am learning not only what it takes to make it, but most important of all, along the way, I am learning to make something beautiful, meaningful, strong, and good of all of my life, including the failures and the heartbreak and the difficulty along the way.

What I know for sure is that not being brave and holding myself back, not going all out for it – and I want to pause there with the going al out for it. That too, I used to hear and I’d be like, “Oh god, no, another thing that’s going to grind me into the ground in exhaustion.”

But that too, when I was coming from a place where I was going all out for things that actually were not in the wheelhouse of my values and true desires, when you’re doing what you love and more and more of what you love and you are intent on doing less and less of anything else that is not in integrity with you, you naturally want to go all out for it.

So, what I know for sure is that when I am holding myself back and not being brave, that’s me being small and playing small and disconnected from my truth. And again, small, it’s completely a subjective, internal thing for me.

So, by not being brave, by playing small, by holding myself back, really that’s the only heartbreak road that I am not willing to walk. So, when I say failure and heartbreak are not reasons to quit, that they do not mean that you are delusional to believe in yourself and your dreams no matter what, I am not at all advocating that you put your head in the sand and force yourself on, just denying data. And I’m not advocating that you repress your feelings along the way.

Quite the opposite. I hope that you keep your eyes clear and open, your heart clear and open, mind and spirit wide and open and learn all that you can while also taking deep, extraordinary, loving care of your courageous, and yes, sometimes raw self.

Lick your wounds when you need to. Tend to what needs tending within you and outside of you. And learn everything you can. Soak it up. Learn everything you can about how to love yourself and others even more. And let this whole process deepen you, ripen you, change you for the better. That is up to you and I to do. And after all, we are paying for it. we are paying rent one way or another. So, let’s milk those failures and heartbreaks for all they’re worth.

I am 100% an advocate and champion of learning everything that these experiences hand you and that you can also evaluate what you are doing and learn as you can go. That is some real-world, real-life experience and that’s how innovation and creativity work and happen.

This also is how we gain wisdom and build soul and become the kind of extraordinary creative forces of nature that make the world sit up and take notice.

I say – and I use – the word extraordinary because it is a very out of the ordinary way of being compared to what a lot of the world advocates for, does, for someone to refuse to let their life and path and happiness and, here’s the kicker, even their success be dictated by the notion that heartbreak and failure are the reason to quit on your dream.

It takes courage, a very strong mindset, a sturdy soul, and a lot of love and self-compassion to have that kind of persistence, to decide and commit and practice defining yourself and defining success for yourself from within, unconditional on anything outside of you. It also helps, oh god does it ever help to not be doing it all on your own?

This is the kind of extraordinary courage and creativity and living in community that we normalize in the Art School. You’re surrounded by a tribe of accomplished, creative, courageous, extraordinarily supportive people who are intentionally creating lives of their dreams, big dreams on their terms, and having the time of their lives while doing it.

Or, as Martha Beck writes, “They are filling their time with life.” So, I wanted to quote here from Jay-Z, when asked the secret to his and Beyoncé’s astronomical success as artists and businesspeople, and he said, “The genius thing we did was we didn’t give up.”

So, for you, use all your failures and heartbreaks as any creative genius, artist, alchemist would. All those iterations and feedback, that’s all the material for your masterpiece.

It turns out, Jay-Z had something to say about that too, “I will not lose, for even in defeat, there is a valuable lesson learned. So, it evens up for me. All I got is dreams.”

So, for you, listener, all that heartbreak and struggle you’ve been through, you can take that shit and turn it into gold. That is alchemy. That is a true artist at work. So, whether that gold you create is your art, your own dear, wiser, deeper, stronger, more loving, and resilient heart of gold, or whether that gold is literal cold hard cash.

And for all of you listening, I hope it’s all of the above. And if you take a look at the alchemy present in so many major artist’s work, including contemporary ones like Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift, you will see master alchemists at work. And maybe not just gold in their cases, but even platinum.

So, that road to creating your dreams, when it starts to feel like it’s paved only with heartbreak and failure, that can be very uncomfortable. It can bring up feelings of shame and self-doubt, confusion, feeling lost. You may have been trying for so long that you’re just about out of try, or completely out, scraping the bottom of the barrel, and quite close to wanting to give up, if not there already.

In my experience as a coach and personally, those that don’t give up at that point, when I haven’t given up at that point, what I find is that same road that I’ve been on, that they have been on, that we were sure was only a heartbreak road, that there must be a better road, that we’re just missing something, we just have to fix the GPS and get on the better road, well it turns out that, all along, actually that was also the road of progress.

All along, it was the road not only of progress and not only to greatness, but the road of greatness, the road that makes us great. Because who else puts their heart on the line and really goes for it in life? Someone who lives by an ethos of courage, creativity, self-compassion, adventure, evolution, aliveness, someone with a heart and soul built for greatness. Someone who is meant to be affluent, someone who is meant to be an affluent artist, a creative genius.

So, are you deluding yourself with your goals and dreams? Or are you fighting for your truth so hard every day that those dreams become the truth? Your answer determines your destiny. The road you’re walking could be the very same road. But the way you answer those questions shapes who you are and how you live and walk it.

And if you happen to hear a voice in your head that beats you down and tells you, “Well, this is all well and good. But you are not Lady Gaga,” you can answer back with this. Neither was Lady Gaga.

Once upon a time, Lady Gaga was – and I’m sure in many ways still is – Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. But for all of us, including Stefani, Lady Gaga, all of us are walking a road in life and we have so much more power to shape what that road is, what our experience of it will be, and who we are walking it.

This is not delusional. This is what it is to be creative. So, 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 and really work with me, coach with me. Take this information, integrate it, apply it to your life, and make it transformational.

So, this will be a little redundant. I just gave you, a few seconds ago, the coach with me for today. What I want to invite you to think about is your answer to this. Are you deluding yourself with your goals and dreams? Or are you someone who is fighting for your truth so hard every day that those dreams become the truth? Those dreams that part of you or part of the world wants to call delusional, that’s what you’re fighting for and that’s what’s becoming the truth.

That answer determines your destiny. This is not delusional. This is what it is to be creative. And here’s the thing. If you need to hear it again, you are not delusional. You are so creative. More creative than you think. More creative than you’ve let yourself know. Take that information in, my friends. And be so brave with it.

Thank you for listening to another episode of The Art School Podcast. If you have enjoyed this podcast, if these episodes have been useful, meaningful to you, I would love it if you would continue to listen, thank you, share, subscribe, go to iTunes and tell a friend. Because that is the magic behind how podcasts grow. And I truly do appreciate your listenership and your support in helping me bring this to a wider audience.

And if you want to take this work deeper, transforming delusional to truth and dreams to done is exactly the work that I do with my clients. This is the work is that is the heart and the soul and the coaching and the community of the Art School.

So, if you have dreams about how great you can be, then getting on the road where you turn that dream into a truth, you are just one decision away. Enrollment is open for the Art School fall 2021 and I would love to have you join us. We kick off August 31^st and if you sign up before we begin on the 24^th, you’ll also receive that three-day Affluent Artist immersion at no additional cost.

If you have questions or know you want to join us for either or both the Affluent Artist immersion and Art School fall 2021, you can go to the show notes and find information there. You can go to my website, www.leahcb.com and look for the link, work with me, and that will take you to the Art School. You can also email us, support@leahcb.com and ask any questions or schedule a free exploratory call with a member of my team.

To close with today, I wanted to offer you just another little mini coach with me. And that is to invite you to imagine what affluence, what the energy of affluence would feel like in your life, going to that place of having done, just dwelling with it.

And as a prompt, I’ll also reread the quote from Deepak Chopra, “Affluence includes money but is not just money. It is the abundance, the flow, the generosity of the universe where every desire we have must come true because inherent in having the desire are the mechanics for its fulfilment.”

Just contemplate that. Dwell on that. Take it for a walk, meditate, journal, and feel your way into what is truly the energy of that? And also, you know, blessed synchronicity, I am about to close here and then go on upstairs and join my family to watch the Field of Dreams game, the baseball game between the White Sox and the New York Yankees that’s being played at the movie field, the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa. Which is where my grandparents are from and I just had the opportunity to see them and spend time with them last week.

And we’ve gone out to that field several times and that book, that movie, and me being from Iowa, plus just the movie being what it is, it’s one of my favorites. And just also, I think fitting to close out this night having talked to you about, you know, if you dream it, you can do it. Build it and they will come. Have a beautifully affluent, amazing week, everyone. Thank you for being here and I look forward to talking with you next time.