Ep #147: Investing in Yourself: The Edge of Your Belief

Today, I want to share with you this one thing that was the biggest power move, the best money move I have made yet. This is what would become the solid foundation for so many other great moves and so much more expansion and evolution.

What turned things around for me was when I decided that if it is really true that your thoughts and your beliefs create your reality, then I was going to be a capital C Creative and go all in on that. If that’s true, I thought, then here is what I choose to believe, and therefore create on purpose.

I get paid to be me. And the more I am me, the more I get paid. I make money and a life living what I love. Believing this, practicing this – oh my god, the practice. And then living this has changed everything for me. It changes the game for my clients as well. And it can do the same for you. And it is why I am including it in this particular episode, which is part two of a two-part series on investing; investing in your whole life, how to be somebody who 10X at least, that’s conservative, anything they invest in, how to be that powerfully creative.

I hope this episode inspires, empowers you to make your own bold powerful money move because why I am doing this is to build that paradigm of empowered creative humans who know, if they have a dream or desire, they can fulfill it. And in the process of fulfilling that, not only do their lives become more enriched and they’re building soul. But that powerful empowered healing work they do in their own lives when they step into their full creativity, that creativity that heals, empowers, enlivens, and enlightens, that just means there’s more of that in the world.

And that flows out beyond their own life in enormous ripples that we can’t even yet comprehend. That’s not too big of a vision. We all can be part of that. As I’ve said before, what we invest our attention and our energy in is what grows. So, I’m so glad you’re here to invest your precious attention and energy in growing this hopeful, uplifting vision. Thank you for being here and I hope you enjoy this episode.

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.

Welcome, welcome everyone to another episode of The Art School Podcast. Oh my goodness, it has been such a wonderful week. I want to send a huge shoutout and thank-you to all of those participants in our three-day Affluent Artist Immersion. Like I said on the call today, I am so grateful for the energy you brought, your presence, your contributions, the investment of your time and also bringing your goals, your dreams, your challenges, your questions, your light to this space.

It went by so quickly and I am feeling so lit up after that, so thank you. You are just brilliant and I am so grateful. This week too, these are the last few days, leading up to the Art School 2021, which as I said in the last podcast is going to be the last 12-week Art School I offer for a year. And while I’m not saying it’s the last Art School ever, as I said last week, this one is going to be off the hook.

I decided that the energy that I want to pour into this one is as if I never get to do this again and really playing to my edge, taking everything I have learned over my own past, since I graduated from law school and started making this transition. You know, that’s been 16 years, going on 17 years. And then, about 10 or 11 years that I have had my coaching business officially, and since 2018, when I offered the first Art School.

And I am getting set to make some changes and quantum leaps myself, and as I’ve mentioned, really did some soul searching over the summer and sensing into, feeling into what I next, a lot of gathering of energy, and poured a lot into what is coming for these participants in the next 12 weeks, and very excited to enter this space and this experience with them because this is going to be our most successful class yet. And that is so much in part to the contributions of everyone who has been in every other class.

I wanted to really honor their contributions by learning from them and learning from the experience as I go and using those to continually improve and continually grow. And I’ve also done a lot to continue to invest in my own business and in my own personal growth. Because as I mentioned last week, I love it.

And it works. And it up-levels. And I also see that every time I invest in myself and in my dreams, I see a direct correlation between that and my efficacy, my ability as a coach, as a teacher, as a writer, as a leader, as an example. And I’m very excited to share so much of that in these next 12 weeks, and also with you, my dear podcast listeners. So, thank you too for being here.

You know, one of the reasons that I love this topic of investment is because it is so meta for the process of becoming Creative, capital C Creative. It is so meta about doing the work to shift from feeling like you are disempowered and at the mercy of external forces in the world and shifting into a place where you are self-referencing, referencing your spirit, attune with your own truth and open in living and participating in the world. Rather than feeling like you’re actually separate from that world but you have to gain permission to be who you want to be. And likely then, you won’t gain permission and it becomes this oppressive regime instead of this experience of being autonomous and also a piece of a contributing constructive collective and a sovereign.

And all of that stuff is awesome too in theory and in philosophy, in concept. And the thing that is beautiful about using the context, the actual specific experience of investing as it comes to being in terms of a financial investment, in terms of money, is that it takes it from being abstract and ethereal cool ideas, to rubber meets the road, can we actually do this in real life? Can we marry these philosophical concepts and considerations and can we actually create that? Just like if you think back to the history of this country, the United States, which I know is deeply flawed, and also, we are not finished, as the poet Amanda Gorman so eloquently wrote.

When you think back to the constitution and the ideals of democracy, this great American experiment, this experiment of democracy and freedom, that was so radical at the time. And it started as ideas. It started as concepts, as a philosophy. And then, there has to be an implementation to actually make a difference. There was the experiment part of taking an idea in theory and putting it into practice.

And I think in a micro way, that is an invitation we have. That is an invitation to the work that we have when we do this investment, this money work, when we do things like the work that I’m offering in the 10X Any Investment workshop.

We might say, “I’m powerful. I believe I have potential. I believe in human potential.” But do I really? Do I believe in my own? What are the limits of that? How can I – if you want to play to your edge, which that’s a magical liminal space, that’s where the magic, the growth, the expansion happens. If you want to play to your edge, bring money into the equation. If you want to play to your edge, really consider, where is that edge? How far does this belief that I am creatively powerful, how far does that go for me?

And I know many of you listening to this podcast, you probably would not still be listening if, like to some extent, you didn’t believe in this, that your thoughts and your beliefs have something to do about the reality that you create and the reality you experience. You probably would have turned this off a long time ago. Or maybe it triggers you when you hear me say this, and for some reason you’re still listening.

Like, a part of you is still coming back, trying to figure out why you listen to this girl that drives you nuts. But if we are going to consider that our thoughts and beliefs have something to do with our reality, that our minds are that powerful, then it behooves us to ask, where does that belief start to run out for me? Where is my edge with that belief? And that is why I created the 10X Any Investment workshop.

Because that, for a lot of people, is their edge. To say, “Sure, I think I can probably make something back. I think I’ll get something from it.” Or other people would be like, “No, it’s just a crap shoot. Maybe it will be worth it. Maybe it won’t.” Then we’re going to get into the conversation about, are you a consumer or are you a creator? Which I’m going to talk about in a minute. But really asking yourself that question, does that challenge my belief? Do I believe, could I even be a little bit willing to believe it might be possible for me to be so powerful that if I decide, I make that my thought, I’m going to think this on purpose and it’s going to be the engine that drives my results, the engine that creates my reality, this thought that my beliefs do create my reality, you’d be so aware and intentional with what you were thinking.

You would say then, well, ask yourself, what do I choose to believe and therefore create on purpose? And this is the process I did. I shared with you at the beginning of the episode, there was a time where I was on the struggle bus and working so hard, burning the candle at both ends, investing in so many ways, and really overworking and underearning.

And it wasn’t working for me. That formula of just persist, just try harder, just work smarter, oh my god, I was. And I was miserable and sometimes physically sick and that was a gift for it to not work because I couldn’t keep trying. I had to stop and settle and listen to that voice that was like, “You know, maybe the reason this isn’t working isn’t because you suck. Maybe the reason this isn’t working isn’t because you’re just being tortured, like by being given these dreams and this sense of potential, but actually you’re not because go back to point one, you suck and you’ll never be able to fulfill it.

Maybe those things actually weren’t true. Maybe it’s just that this way I was going about of just try to do what everyone else is doing, conform to what everyone else is doing, follow the process, follow the path, follow the formula, just do it harder and better than anyone else. That’s how you succeed.

Maybe, Leah, that formula is actually very flawed and not meant for you. And the reason you keep having doors slammed shut in your face and keep burning yourself out and having very little to show for it is because that’s not your way. There is another way available to you.

And many of you know the end of this story. There was a better way. There is a better way. And it’s so much of what I teach and what I coach and again, it’s another reason I love this topic of investment and how meta it is. Because it’s really about the energy that you are investing in thoughts and beliefs. Because what you give your attention and energy to is what you give your life force to. It’s where you are investing your life force, whether you are investing in the form of cold hard cash, time, your thoughts, your heart space, your general consciousness, or whether it is the dreams that you choose to dream for yourself and what you allow yourself.

So, whether you are investing in your past and what you have done already, whether you are investing in what the world says is the way things are done, or whether you’re investing in this vision you have, in this sense that, yeah, nope, that traditional way is not going to be your way.

So, going back for a moment to when I was having this conversation with myself about, “Hey, Leah, maybe we should clear something up and decide it once and for all. How in are you on this philosophy that your thoughts and your beliefs have something to do with creating your reality? How much of something do you believe there is? How much power are you really willing to claim and claim responsibility for and ownership of? And where are you like, no, I draw the line, I’m creative but not that creative?” Like asking myself, how far am I willing to take this idea? And where do I really think is the edge? And is there a difference between the edge that I believe in philosophically and what I am practicing in my own life? Is there an edge in what I believe is true for others and then there’s what I practice in my own life? Where do I want to decide on purpose and in practice and live from, where does that belief run out?

And I really started to think about what the downside was of kind of being half in and half out, of being like, “Oh, totally true philosophically, totally true for other people, all these other people that I admire and respect and look up to, all these golden shadows. And half-true for me.” That just did not sit well with me.

And I also thought, you know, I looked at all the downsides of being just half-in on that being a truth for me. And like, what am I afraid of here and what am I trying to protect by no going all in, and am I actually protecting anything?

Is that sense of hesitation and that sense of hedging my bets because I’m afraid to be wrong? And that’s really what it was, the fear of being wrong, like I was so afraid of being wrong about that, so afraid of being wrong about myself. Part of me wanted to believe I had this immense potential, like so much immense potential and that it is true that I’m that powerful, that my thoughts and my beliefs are creating my reality and another part of me was so scared to find out that I was wrong about that.

And I’m like, am I scared to find out I’m wrong about that, or am I more scared of being wrong? And if I’m going to risk being wrong about anything, isn’t this a place to do it, this one life I have? I’m not getting a second shot. Why don’t I go all in on this? And I haven’t gone all in yet. So, how do I know it’s not going to work?

I know what it is to go a 10^th of a percent in. I know what it is to play in the shallow end and splash around. I know what it is to watch other people swimming in the deep. But what would it be like for me to do that? And do I want to find out? And the answer was yes.

And so, I thought, if that’s true, if it’s true that my thoughts and my beliefs are creating my reality, are shaping the results that I get, then what do I want to choose to believe and therefore create on purpose? Where do I want to invest my mental, emotional, spiritual, creative psychic energy? Because I know that that’s what I am growing.

And so, what I chose to believe and therefore create on purpose was something that can be summed up in these three lines that have become mantras for me, core beliefs that I return to, engines for my creativity and my business and my art and in my life, and particularly as you’ll hear, as it pertains to money. Because money for me, exploring this place was really a place where it’s me playing to my edge.

I could believe it in other areas, but then I saw my belief running out when it came to the context of money. And so, that’s really where I wanted to grow and test. So, the beliefs were, “I get paid to be me. And the more I am me, the more I get paid. I make money and a life living what I love.”

So, there came the point where I decided to again play to my edge and find out where that was. And therefore, the 10X Any Investment workshop, I shared the genesis of that in the last episode. I also shared there too three key points of why I think this topic of investment is an essential capital C Creative skill, not just for artists or creative entrepreneurs, but for any human being who wants to be sovereign, empowered, creative.

And again, part of the reason for its origin, the reason for its existence was because I saw all the ways that I was holding back from investing in my own dreams and goals because I did not believe in my ability to create a financial return from that. And I could feel myself talking out of both sides of my mouth. Of yeah, I believe in myself and my potential. But not so much that I will actually be successful.

And what really got hard for me then too was the more I started to coach and the more and more money work came up so many times, especially for my creative and artist clients. And also, for my clients who weren’t creative and weren’t artists who are staying in jobs or careers that were more traditional and have this collective agreement stamped on it, which is illusory, about yes, as a lawyer, you will make a certain amount of money and it is secure and it is guaranteed. As a doctor, in corporate, yada, yada, yada, there is this level of security here.

And in a lot of the coaching that I was doing with these people, even the ones who really enjoyed their work and were grateful for it and what it provided for them and their families and they found it intellectually stimulating, so many times what would come up in coaching was, “Really though, I’ve always wanted to be in a band, but god, that’s irresponsible.” Or, “I’d love to take three months out of the year and travel the world with my family, but man, the business would fall apart or my partners will never agree to that.”

And so, you can only listen to other people speak so long about how they have these dreams that are a reflection of their values and just the dream they have had for their life, many of them since they were a child, you can only listen to them talk about that for so long and then finish their sentences with a, “But I just have to be responsible and an adult and that’s so unrealistic and I really should just be grateful for what I have.”

Like, I could only listen to that for so long and feel the heartbreak in that, feel the stifled life force and dreams on a shelf in that. And that’s painful enough. And then recognizing that these people were also, at that time, holding up a mirror to my own pain, to my own frustration, to my own ways where I was settling because I was in agreement with what’s really possible for me. Here’s where that line is. Here’s where that edge it.

Turns out, it doesn’t go out very far when I think about how powerful I am when it comes to creating money. And I couldn’t really tolerate hearing this over and over again, and I couldn’t tell them things I wasn’t doing myself. Also the beauty in having conversations that are this honest and meaningful with other human beings, where they’re sharing, you cut the crap and talk about what’s really true for them, the beauty of being able to witness that is, well, that you cut the crap and you are having honest conversations about what’s really important.

And I think there are ways in which we can talk ourselves out of the pain that we experience when we tell ourselves no and hold ourselves back from what is our truth. We develop a tolerance for that in ourselves. But there is something about witnessing other human beings doing it that, I mean, I have a very low tolerance for.

The feeling it creates in me and perhaps it was because – it probably was in a great part because it was triggering was true within me, the pain that I should have been experiencing because I wasn’t aligned, wasn’t working towards being aligned with what was true for me.

And so, I thought, well, here is an opportunity then. I can just sit here in despair about the huma condition and we’re this advanced in time and we’ve overcome so many things, and yet we can’t figure this out like we have iPhones, these supercomputers on our wrists, in our pockets. We can send men to the moon, now on private ships, soon, into space. We can send a mission to Mars. Like, all of this, we can split freaking atoms and we can’t evolve past this?

So, I thought, well, as long as I’m doing this, what should I give my attention to? What is the part that I can contribute? What to me right now seems like is a moonshot for me kind of blows my mind, seems impossible for me. But by God, if I figured this out, how would my life change? And by God, if I figured it out, I know I’m really good at imparting things to other people and helping them untangle their knots and stuck spots. I know I’m really great at helping people shift energetic stuck spots, experience illumination, experience their own truth, move into what is possible for them. That’s just one of the roles I know I’m here to play in life as a guide.

I fail for words for it, but that got me going too, to think about it not just for myself, but then I would be studying this as I go, figuring it out for other people as well. And I thought, well, that would resonate with other people too, how many people believe that if they invest in something, that it’s just math, they will be able to 10X it? It doesn’t have anything to do with being morally better than anyone else, but it is just like a process, a human skill that we may not be trained at, skillful at, I guess a human capability, a creative capability that we have that is innate that we may not be trained in yet.

Just like you’re born, many of us, with the ability to dance, but it takes cultivation to do a pirouette. So, that also launched and inspired this. and particularly I was inspired to do this for creatives because we make such huge demands on ourselves as creatives, like pulling things out of the ether that have never been created before, channeling something that has never been created before. And I think we are really unreasonable in our expectations for ourselves.

We’re unreasonable in that we’re not willing to invest in ourselves and in our lives to set us up with the conditions that we’ll make it really likely that we’ll succeed and be healthy in the process. And I think this is the opposite of entitlement. It’s just smart. And it is also just physics. Like taking laws of nature, taking care of one’s self, having the ideal ecosystem yields good results.

So, oftentimes, the way I’d see people not investing is not creating the at least necessary, if not above and more, what the use needs to create in terms of space and environment and spaciousness in our lives.

Not investing in community, the whole idea, the bad idea of the lone wolf, I for sure thrive in a certain amount of alone time and also know there are times when I need to be in my pack.

And again, the energy of the five people that you are with the most and the way that being in the energy of others who have an elevated and expanded energy, they will elevate and expand you. You cannot be surrounded by people who are elevated and expanded and vibe-high and creative and not be changed by that. It’s the opposite of the old idea that you can’t ride someone else’s coattails.

Like, hang on, because I have ridden other people’s coattails just by being in their presence and I am more than happy for as many people who want to, to draft in any sort of up-current that I am creating. Please come along.

They’re not willing to invest in mentorship or coaching that would develop their minds, help them recondition their bodies to be aligned with the destiny, with the results that they want to create. They are reluctant to invest in rest, not just minimal baseline like rest so you don’t get sick, but the actual rest and restoration from which you them become a wellspring of ideas and creativity and then a channel of healing creative energy for others, just naturally. Not because you’re trying to be a good person, but it’s because that’s what a well-sourced human does. That life force that flows through them flows out naturally to other humans. Being resistant to investing in education and health, in beauty, so important, and inspiration, in all kinds of nourishment.

So, part of my intention with this episode, generally and always, is to convey a certain sort of energy that, again, you can slide into if it’s a match for you and be like, yes, something about what Leah is putting down is lifting me up and making me feel more buoyant, more uplifted, and so there’s that. And then, I also have a few more specific points on 10Xing your investment that I wanted to share with you today that I have pulled from the materials of the 10X Any Investment masterclass that I will be offering through the Art School this fall.

And the key point for this week, making the shift from being a creator and not just a consumer. This is so essential if you are going to be someone who is a strategic empowered investor. And I also want to introduce a caveat I guess here with be a creator, not a consumer. Because I definitely don’t want to shame you out of the ways that you find inspiration. I don’t want to make this sound contradictory about yes, invest in inspiration and nourishment and guidance and mentorship, and then you’re like, didn’t she also tell us not to consume?

So, there’s difference. And there’s nuance there and I just want to say that for this point, because I don’t want to get too far off course and that’s an entire other episode in itself. Definitely, inspiration has its place. Definitely learning from others, soaking up, like I said, inspirational energy from others and learning from that, modeling that, drafting off that has its place. And I also want to assert that you know the difference. Like, you know the difference between I’m staying in this cycle of taking things in, but I’m not doing the integration work. I’m not applying it to my own life and getting traction, making changes, moving my own work forward.

There is like an exquisite dance between the two where you’re not a creator in isolation and a vacuum, and then the far opposite side would be that you’re just consuming everything everywhere and you’re really learned, but you’re not creating anything.

It’s another reason why I am updating this 10X Any Investment for the next Art School is because, obviously, with the Art School, I want them to be immersed in amazing, uplifting energy. And then I want them to use it to then start generating their own magic and creating their own transformations and feeling that sense of solid growth within themselves, and then also obviously reflected in their external world and what’s happening outside of them, the results that they are getting, the transformation that they see where they are like, “Oh my god, I did that? I’m loving my work. I’m loving what I’m creating. This is working.

So, the next key point I wanted to talk about is taking a long-term view. I thin this really keeps you out of the hazard of entitlement. So, for instance, I talk about when I invested in a Martha Beck workshop. I didn’t 10X that the first year. Then later, I was thinking of another story when it was at Martha Beck when I was like, “I want to work with her. I want to hire her. I want to be one of her coaches.” But then, at that time, it was impossible to hire Martha Beck as your coach unless you’re Oprah. And also, going through her coaching program, she had so many amazing teachers. But I knew for me at that point in time, I wanted to work with her.

I knew for me at that point in time that being in proximity to a very specific teacher or mentor was what I wanted and what I needed. Yes, I just trusted that instinct. But it was at that workshop where then I had heard about someone who had been a student of hers had gone off and started a life coach training certification. And that woman’s name was Brooke Castillo. And I kept hearing people rave about her.

And again, at that time, I didn’t want to be a coach but I just wanted to absorb the genius of the skillset to be creative, to be more creative, to help fulfill my creative dreams. And so, I followed Brooke for a bit and that was over 10 years ago now, I think. And now, if you know anything about Brooke Castillo now or if you don’t, I’ll tell you, she’s the founder of The Life Coach School. It’s now like a $50 million a year business. You can’t work with Brooke up close and personal like back in the day when I did it and when I enrolled, which I also baulked at again at the time, even though I was like, “Here are the keys to the universe, this set of skills. And I have so much to learn energetically from this woman.”

And I was like, oh god but I don’t have the money. I don’t have the time. All of the same objections I shared with you from last week. But I did it. and speaking of – man, I have more than 100X that investment. Now, obviously, you can’t hire Brooke to coach you. And to be in one of her training programs is, the last I heard, at least $25,000. And the last time I did it, I was in a group of about 10 for a long period of time, I want to say six months for my initial one, or maybe a year. And it was a few thousand dollars. Again, money I didn’t think I had at that time.

And then, a couple of years later, I did her master coach certification, again to me immersed in her space and the way she thought and the clear, strong, assertive, assured energy she had and to see how she was building a business from scratch. Very creative. And it was already helping me build what I was learning, I was clearly translating to breakthroughs in my own creative work.

So, I did her master coach training program, which was a year-long, again, not more, I’m trying to remember. Anybody who went through that who’s listening can tell me and correct me. I want to say it was $3000. It was not more than $5000.

And again, now I don’t know what that is, but it’s many times that and I have very easily 100X that investment and then some, and then parlayed it into all this growth in these other areas of my life.

And so, what helped me at that point though was taking a long-term view. And that continues to be a key factor in my ability to 10X any investment now because being shortsighted probably means you’re in scarcity. Being shortsighted probably means you’re really in this transactional mode where you are like, well I’m going to put this much work in and I better get this much benefit out, without really being willing to be invested yourself and do the work and follow it through and move through the creative process that it takes for you to internalize what you’re learning creatively and how to do it over and over again until it becomes your own.

Because it didn’t work for me to follow a blueprint or a formula that Brooke offered. I learned so much from her and am so grateful and she is absolutely brilliant. And I tried to follow the blueprint and I hadn’t yet done the work that I mentioned in the beginning, of truly believing that my thoughts, my beliefs are what are creating my results and of truly believing that I could do it on my terms.

So, what I’ve since integrated is that and her powerful example and teaching with my own very deep intimate ever-evolving and deepening understanding of my own creative process and understanding my own gifts and how to channel those and how to tap into those.

Another advantage – is an understatement – of taking a long-term view is that it helps you develop a very strong relationship with the inevitable long-term outcome, making that the most dominant part of your reality. So, when I wasn’t a thriving artist, developing that relationship, by taking a long-term perspective about, “Well I’m not a thriving artist now but that is where I’m headed, I spent so much time there thinking about it, thinking about what it feels like, thinking about how she thinks, being familiar with what she doesn’t think, with what she is not available for at that place. Like, what frequencies is she just not available for? What thoughts is she not thinking? What emotions is she not having? What results does she just not create in her life?

And at that point, my goal at the time was just to make 30K a year with my art business. And then I wanted to get to the point, when I was there, where then I would be making more than I would at my legal job. And that didn’t happen in a year. That didn’t happen in two years, in a few years, the 30K from my art happened.

I was also working other part time jobs, but then from there, I used part of that 30K and kept reinvesting in my growth and grew again and again. Again, this idea of parlaying my investments and taking my investments and making better investments and strategic investments, and particularly in my mind and growing from there.

Also, when I took the long-term view, I was able to actually slow down and work on my self-worth. And from that place, I started to make different decisions. I started to make decisions from a place, by external standards, I wasn’t there yet. I was making decisions from a place of, if I am an artist that commands this much, if I am a thriving entrepreneur who commands this much an hour for her services, how do I show up differently?

And this is when I too started to lead more immediate shifts like the $18 an hour yoga jobs, I was like, no more. My thriving artist, she would not take a break from a studio where she’s painting paintings she loves and will sell for thousands of dollars, would she take a break, an hour break to get paid $18? Not unless it was like super fun, but not out of necessity as a job.

And so, then I just started to inch my way out, up and up until eventually I knew I was going to price myself out of yoga jobs. I did the same for my freelance writing jobs, again, taking a long-term view was, well, in the short term it’s very uncomfortable for me to ask people for more money. But in the long term, I don’t want to be struggling and broke like this. So, why don’t I do myself, my future self a favor and start ripping off all of these Band-Aids now because, if I’m being honest with myself, I am staying impoverished because I am uncomfortable asking for money because I have not stepped into my worth.

And so, I did that work over and over and I felt vulnerable and I was raw, and again, coaching helped so much. But oh my gosh, I am so glad I did that work then. And the ways that it has compounded since then have been invaluable.

Here is another thing that I did that is related to being someone who thinks of herself as a powerful strategic creative investor. Is that I knew that someday I wanted to be a millionaire, like a self-made millionaire. And I say self-made meaning I didn’t get it from a paycheck, from a corporation, just meaning that was a revenue that I generated through my creative work and my entrepreneurial work. But I also fully appreciate that I am privileged to have many resources and benefits, including many teachers and allies and friends and colleagues and coaches and support.

So, just know, when I say self-made, what I mean is the revenue that come sin, the million dollars that comes in is generated from my creative work. So, from that place though, I decided that I wouldn’t make decisions from my $35 an hour yoga-self place. I knew inside me that I had so much to offer, so much creative potential left untapped that for many ways I was grateful for what I had created at that point. I knew I was also scratching the surface and I didn’t want to continue to make decisions from my $35 an hour yoga teacher place.

So, I practiced making decisions from my million-dollar a year artist, coach, creative entrepreneur place. And that also changed things. From that place I thought about, where would I look for strategic investments versus the short term fear month to month anxiety, the constantly looking to see if I was making a difference, if I was moving the needle. It’s like the way people describe when they’re trying to lose weight and then they step on the scale and it doesn’t move and it doesn’t move and then you’re on these emotional rollercoasters of is it working, is it not working.

I decided to step off the scale, stay out of those crazy amusement parks, and stay focused on where I was going, so focused on where I was going that I really believed it’s a done deal. It is just a done deal. Now I’m walking my way there.

And if I’m really in that place, then how do I make different decisions? The coach and entrepreneur and author, Rachel Rodgers describes this as the difference between broke-ass decisions and million-dollar decisions. And so, a mini coach with me here is to make an audit of the decisions you do make in life and, from a loving place, be like, if I’m being honest, is this a broke-ass decision? Is this a scarcity mindset decision? Or is this a power move? A money move that a savvy, solid, successful million-dollar earner makes?

So, this third point, it’s been woven through everything here and I just wanted to highlight it and give it spotlight and its own airtime. And that is to take full responsibility for results no matter what. Again, this does not have to feel like a shame fest or a burden fest. There is a place where you switch into a mindset where this feels like liberation. Because when you make that connection, you realize, if I do believe my thoughts and my beliefs are creating my reality, of course I would want to take responsibility for my results because then I can always reverse engineer and see what thoughts I had, what was my state of being that created these results?

Then, when I get to take full responsibility, that means in these moments, I get to be intentional. I get to be empowered by what I’m creating and I stay out, again, of those scary amusement park rides that are like, the rollercoaster goes up, I’m going to do this, the rollercoaster goes down, I’m not going to do this. The rollercoaster goes up, this is totally happening for me, the rollercoaster goes down, oh, it’s never happening for me.

Get out of there. Stay of the rides. Fix your sights on where you are going, what that long-term intention is, which I think is the same as an expression manifestation of your truth, and then be awake of the choices that you are making along the way.

So, the next point that I wanted to share with you which will support your own development of a mindset where you know you can 10X any investment is to cultivate the energy of affluence in your life, to see the world from an affluent consciousness and not a scarcity consciousness. Then you shift from ideas like, “Well, whatever I spend, it’s gone,” into, “I’m participating in the flow of generosity. I’m participating in a flow of abundance in the universe.”

When I examined what my millionaire consciousness would be like, this was an energetic signature of that consciousness, knowing, of participating in a generous abundant flow and that I wasn’t hoarding things, I wasn’t hoarding ideas, time, talent, any aspect of myself, I wasn’t hoarding money.

And then I also was open to receive, to receive so much more easily. And I have been practiced in this concept of whatever I invest in for my personal development or my business comes back to me tenfold. And this is an area where I’m also expanding and playing with other areas, looking for the edge in other areas. So, is it true that if I buy X, Y, or Z, does that come back to me? And I see all these places where it does.

Like flowers, for sure. If I buy flowers for myself or someone else, that’s easily 10X. Gifts for other people, for sure. I’m not just talking about what comes back to me financially. I just feel like the investment in whatever the gift is brings me 10X the joy to give it. And I don’t know what it means to the recipient, but I can hope that I know.

And I also feel that there’s this freedom in letting go and contributing to the flow, again, not hoarding, but being affluent, being fluid, being fluent in the energy, the generosity of the universe, swimming I that flow.

One other place where I for sure know this is true is that – I might have mentioned this. So, I purchased tickets to see Brandi Carlile at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado with my little brother Will. And it’s coming up in September, fingers crossed it still happens because already I have for sure gotten 10X whatever I paid for those tickets back in terms of the energy of anticipation and excitement and joy I feel every time I think about going. So, that was just another example that occurred to me that I am pretty stoked about.

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, not be a consumer solely, but be a creator. Be somebody who is practicing this art of 10Xing anything you invest your life force, your money, your time in.

And so, this coach with me, I’m also going to illustrate a few of the other points that I’ve pulled from the 10X Any Investment workshop. So, one invitation I have for you, if you have not done this already, I shared with you last week how when my husband suggested those years ago that I get a Ph.D. or an MFA, how I went and created my dream curriculum. Well, that dream curriculum has really become the backbone of the Art School and so many things that I wrote out in that curriculum I have done over the past 10 years.

I’ve studied with those people. I’ve studied those philosophies. I’ve lived from that. I’ve created that. I’ve practiced it. And it is part of, again, just my philosophy of living what I love and then finding all the ways that then that can amplify what I have to give and that makes me such a better teacher, mother, artist, you know, what have you.

So, if you haven’t already written out what your own dream curriculum would be, what do you think you would need to learn or develop in order to become somebody who creates anything that they want, in order to become somebody who is so adept at creating anything that they want, that they would be pretty passe about saying, “Yeah, and that includes 10Xing any financial investment.”

So, do that if you haven’t done that already. And then, the next invitation I have for you is if you are thinking about creating something, including 10Xing an investment, ask yourself, what would stop me from making that success inevitable?

Write it all out. Look at everything you’ve written down. And then ask yourself, how could I set myself up? What kind of conditions could I create in my life that would address everything that I said might stop me and that would make it harder to fail than to succeed?

This is about giving yourself the creative ecosystem then which you plant your seed and it will grow. Doing more with less effort, the law of least effort, really understanding what you need to survive and testing your limits. Like, how much are you willing to give yourself?

I’m not saying you have to do it. I hope you do. I am just saying write it down. Because so many of you are saying, “I don’t know how to create this.” Bullshit. You do. You do. You’re just afraid, if you write it down then you’re going to have to see how much you do know, and then you’re going to have to be taken to the next-level question, which is my question from last week, actually; what is stopping you?

So, write it down. What sort of conditions, if you could create this ideal creative habitat in your life, what kind of conditions could you set up so as if you plat your seed there, it will grow, it will flourish, and it will blossom into exactly what your vision is and make that dream of yours a reality?

I will share with you one of mine, even just this last year with everything happening with Covid, I was just feeling more pressure and like my consciousness is moving through some sort of cosmic pressure-cooker and experiencing a level of difficulty that I had not experienced before that I couldn’t look around to my current external environment and find any reason I should be feeling that way.

And so, when I asked myself, what do I need to thrive and survive this year, it was very specific. It was, I want to feel heard and understood. And I think particularly when I am very vulnerable, sharing my ideas often and out in the open, and yeah, vocal about it these days, that that was something that a deep part of me was needing. And while I am very fortunate in my life to have family and friends who I think do get me, I wanted to set myself up even more.

And so, I hired my friend Christie Inge, who is an incredible coach. And like incredibly intuitive. Because I didn’t want to burden anybody every week by being like, “Can you just see me? Can you just get me? Can you help me feel that I’m not crazy?”

And when I talk with her, sometimes I say like five jumbled incoherent sentences and she will come back with an articulation that I’m like, “Oh my god, that’s exactly what I’m thinking. That’s exactly what I’m feeling.” And that, for me, was something that really needed this year that was part of cultivating my creative ecosystem.

That was part of what helped me feel like, you know, no matter how hard things are getting or how many times I feel knocked down, I still felt this deep sense of wellness because I knew I could go and process and be seen and heard and understood.

My next invitation for you is to develop what I’m going to call now a resilience mantra. And that is, as you are moving through this process of learning to be somebody so powerful they 10X any investment, it’s knowing ahead of time, again, what stops you from succeeding.

And I know for me, it would just be forgetting how resilient and creative and powerful and strong and loving and kind I am and have been, particularly in the face of times when I would be disappointed with myself or encountering some difficulty or encountering feedback that made me question whether I really was those things.

And so, you can think of it like a reminder mantra, like a recognition mantra, being able to connect again with who you know yourself to be, a recognition, remembrance mantra. And I’ve written mine out various different ways. But I can share a few of the elements of what mine has been. And it’s things like, I am resilient. I am strong. I have done things before that I thought at one time were impossible. But look, now it’s something I do without even thinking about it.

I can do this. I am going to do this. There’s no way I’m not going to do this. I have such an extensive skillet. I can handle this. I have an emotional skillset. I have a mental skillset. I have a spiritual connection, resources, internal, external, divine that I can call upon. I have support that I can seek out. I know how to rest when I need to. I know that I am always deeply okay. I know how to care for myself. I can handle this. I always do.

So, I have a few different ones actually and at different times I will just write it out and kind of let it be stream of consciousness and flow whatever the words are most soothing. And then using your voice, vocalizing, the vibration of that, hearing your voice, speaking it makes it more real so that you are reminded, in times when you’re doubting your ability to do something big and audacious, that you don’t let yourself get so far knocked off course that it takes you longer than necessary to get back, when instead there’s this kinder approach in having something as simple as a scripted little prayer, mantra, reminder handy on post-it notes various places and also people in your life who will recite it back to you and remind you of who you really are. That’s invaluable.

So, the last invitation I have – and it’s similar to other suggestions I’ve offered for you, but maybe perhaps more specific and will help you think about opportunities or possibilities that you haven’t thought about before. And it’s similar to what I said before about investing in conditions that make it nearly impossible not to succeed.

And so, create a container. And I don’t want to be much more specific with that because I don’t want to offer suggestions that then filter out or eclipse what might come up for you when I say create a container. So, that’s like with the Art School. I have created a container.

My inspiration, my plan for myself, and then what I’ve translated to the Art School was create a container, create a creative habitat, an ecosystem that is so charged with the energy necessary to rise and thrive that people would have to work not to succeed. Create a container where there are so many resources and so many opportunities to succeed and to develop and to practice these techniques and practice and practice and fail in a safe way and also in a wise way where you are learning from all of your experiences so that it makes it hard to get off the wagon and quit. It makes it almost impossible to get off the wagon and quit.

So, thinking – and I continue to think of all these ways of like, how can I create an environment where if someone wants to plant that seed of their dream, they want to find out what potential in them has yet to be unleashed because it’s just not been adequately nourished or provoked or evoked or challenged or called up on felt safe enough before, how could I make that happen in this container?

And again, that’s an approach I use in my own life and you can use this in your own life. You could try it over a weekend. You could try to set up a container every day. Again, I don’t want to offer too many specifics because I want to drop that prompt into your creative genius psyche and see what you come up with.

Another specific way that I did it this last year is I created a container for ensuring that it would be impossible for me to not complete and publish a poetry book. So, I invested in the Tiny Book course, Alexandra Franzen and Lindsay Smiths Program. And not only that, but I invested in the VIP option because I knew that my year would be so busy that the place where I would get off course would not be with the writing of the poetry or the compiling of the book or doing the writing part.

The place where, if I were going to have an obstacle, would be when it came to the graphic design, just the backend technical things. And so, I decided to pay for the VIP option where all of those aspects were done for me. And I knew I would have people who I have paid asking me for things on deadlines that they needed in order to do their job.

And that sort of community and, I guess you could call it accountability, but I really think of it more as it helped me bring my book to life for me to be in conversation with these people about it who are just expecting it from me, who are expecting what they needed in order to put things in chapter form, who are expecting my feedback on formatting and things like that.

It just made the book already seem like a done deal to me. So, that would be the last prompt I offer within this prompt. What can you do, how can you set yourself up so that it seems real in the world? So that it seems already like a done deal?

Because that my friends is what is possible for you as a creative in all areas of your life. What can you do so that 10Xing an investment for you just feels like a done deal? Because if you can do that, 10Xing an investment, where else can you do that? Where in your life do you want to take what is living inside of you and say, “Here’s what I’m going to do. It’s a done deal.”

Thank you for listening to another episode of The Art School Podcast. I so appreciate you being here and I will also say, this last week, I was able to meet several more listeners who joined the Affluent Artist Immersion and oh my god, that full-circle surreal kind of moment when someone has been listening to you, and some of you from around the world, and then you are like in my house, via Zoom, I got it. But still, we’ve made a closer connection. And that thrills me to know.

And especially when I think of those of you out there listening who I will get to meet someday and I don’t know it yet – maybe you do. But I’m really looking forward to that day. And in the meantime, I’m really happy that you’re here listening.

And if you want to close that gap a little faster, if you want to connect in the real world, still via Zoom and our online platforms and classroom space, which this year will be Slack by the way, then I would love for that to happen.

When you’re listening to this, this will be one week into the Art School and I don’t know if we will have space yet and still available, because I am hosting this on Slack and because of the involved high-touch individualized nature of the program and the coaching, spaces are limited.

But if you’re listening to this and you are like, “Oh my god, I have missed the boat,” and you find yourself at other places in your life having lamented, “Oh my god, I have missed the boat,” well, I will send a life raft back to the dock to pick you up.

So, if you’re listening to this and you’re like, “I should have done it. I should have done it this year,” consider this your second chance for the universe. Consider this, if you have been having a pattern of, “I missed the boat,” consider this your opportunity to disrupt that pattern and to put something else in play. Consider this the spot, the place in the universe where you make a different choice. And from that choice, everything else changes.

So, if there is a goal, a dream that you are committed to creating in this lifetime, if there is a person, an artist, a creative, a human that you know you are meant to be, a life that you know you are meant to live, I truly can think of no better way to invest in yourself and your life and make that happen than to join the Art School.

Again, we began August 31^st. This is our last 12-week session for the coming year. And I would love to have you join us. You can find out more information or email us, support@leahcb.com to claim any reserving spaces. We would be happy to answer any questions you have, happy to help.

So, here’s the parting thought that I have for you today. From Ralph Waldo Emerson, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

That’s one of those things, one of those wise words from a creative genius that I think we all love. And sometimes, we lose heart when coming up against our edges in life. Because yes, we want to be ourselves and it does seem like the world is insisting many times that that’s not possible, that there’s no way to do that. And I think using these concepts, taking this philosophy that I’m offering you and making it a functional – that means it works in the real world – creative – that means you take it and you make things in the real world – philosophy – meaning it’s the wisdom by which you live – that achieves what Emerson is saying is the greatest accomplishment.

You have not let yourself be defined by outside ideas, by outside paradigms, by external sources, or authority figures or powers. “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” And it is absolutely available and possible for you, my friends.

Have a beautiful week. Thank you so much for being here and I will talk with you next time.