Ep #167: What Does Going All In Mean to You?

“I was simmering, simmering, simmering, and Emerson brought me to a boil,” Walt Whitman. Now, I referenced that quote on the previous episode of The Art School Podcast. And I wanted to use it to introduce today’s episode.

One thing that fascinates me endlessly, that I study, that I research, I think about, and then I implement with my clients is, what does it take to create the kind of breakthrough where something switches on inside of us? Those latent, dormant powers that have been just waiting to be sparked and woken up, they finally do. What is it?

I think so many people are simmering, simmering, simmering, and if they could only find the thing that brings them to a boil, their entire lives would change. I know one of those things is life coaching. I know another of those things, as an artist, as a creative, can be encountering a new kind of art, seeing someone doing it in a way that’s never been done before, seeing someone who is an example of what is possible.

So, what I want to share with you today is a stunning, powerful example of what is possible. It aligns with so many of our recent episodes, from 164 on, where we’re talking about the power of our commitment and the power of aligning ourselves in mind, body, and spirit, with the unequivocal, the unapologetic, the unabashed full goal, the full glory that our soul craves, that we just know at the deepest part of our being that we are really meant for.

This story, this artist, it’s so incredible, so beautiful so powerful, and so instructive. I hope you love it as much as I do. I hope it sparks something within you that brings you to a boil.

You are listening to The Art School Podcast; a show for artists and creatives who want to become the next greatest version of themselves. Learn how to cultivate an extraordinary way of being and take the mystery out of making money, and the struggle out of making art. Here is your host, master certified life coach, artist, and former lawyer, Leah Badertscher.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Art School Podcast. What I have for you today is something that I shared in a newsletter recently, an email to my community. So, I want to read it to you.

When news came out about Brandi Carlile’s five Grammy nominations this year, including being the first female songwriter ever to receive two Grammy nods for the Song of the Year in the same year, it reminded me of one of my favorite parts of her memoir Broken Horses. It was striking when I first read it. And I’ve thought about it so many times since.

In this particular section, she describes a moment on New Year’s Eve 2017 when she made a kind of line in the sand of the universe, commitment to her destiny. This is such a powerful story because, to me, it’s then clear. It’s no accident that within 18 months of making this promise to herself, she won three Grammys and had one of the most remarkably defining moments of her career performing The Joke at the 2019 Grammys.

It was a totally transcendent otherworldly performance that made her a household name and jettisoned her and her career and her band to new heights.

It may look like the 2019 Grammys was the creative breakthrough that changed her career and life. But that night was actually forged in the trenches over her 20-plus year career. Actually, I think you could argue that her career is much longer than that because she’s been in the music business one way or another, in heart and soul, since a child.

That meteoric rise to rockstar status was made by countless choices, made in the dark, far from the limelight, oftentimes far from any glimmer or promise of great success.

I know one of those most profound turning points has to be the one she shared in the section that stood out to me so much, that as soon as I grabbed that book, it falls open immediately to that dog-eared page and this heavily underlines, annotated, starred, and hearted many times over passage.

She writes, “I’d made a promise to myself on New Year’s Eve 2017 that I was going to make the biggest impact on music that I had ever made and I was going to do it by really being myself. I was committing to working harder than I ever had in my life, for one year. I talked it over with my wife and she wanted to help me. Even knowing that we would have a newborn, we would say yes to everything. I didn’t care if I got paid. I was tapping into some of the worth ethic that sustained me and Sovereign,” her horse, “In my youth.”

So, a Grammy may or may not be the epitome of your creative dream. But as a metaphor for those of you with goals that smack of kismet, stardust, world stages, becoming the kind of artist and person you are meant to be, doing the greatest work of your life and living from your creative genius full out by being fully yourself, I think this story is worth so much more than a Grammy. It’s priceless.

Because when I ask people what it would be worth to them to make their greatest creative dream come true, the most common answer is, “Priceless.”

So, take a page. Literally, make it this exact page, number 244 from Brandi Carlile’s book, and apply it to claiming and creating your own greatest creative destiny. Success and extraordinary creative dreams come true leaves clues. Too often, we don’t actually stay with them long enough to do the work necessary to change our own lives.

But if you are feeling called now to alter the trajectory of your life by making a powerful commitment to your destiny, don’t just read the following questions. This is the part of the podcast where I want you to work with me, coach with me. Don’t just take this information and be entertained by it. Don’t be a passive student. Be an artist. Be someone who is internalizing it, who is creating transformation within themselves and the world.

Contemplate these questions. Dig deeper. Reach higher, farther, find the answers that give you the goosebumps and then go out and do the thing you were born for.

So, my questions for you are, what is our version of a Grammy? What promise can you make to yourself this New Years to make that dream come true. And side note, outside of my writing here, for those of you who cringe when you hear, “What are you going to promise to yourself?” because you have not kept promises in the past, that does not need to be a prediction of how you are for yourself in the future going forward.

Don’t settle for that. It’s a skillset. It is not a character flaw. It is not a spiritual shortcoming. It does not mean you are a terrible person. Learning to keep your promises to yourself, learning to follow through, learning to have your own back is a skillset. It’s a potential we have as humans. But it’s not something that we’re taught is a skillset.

We’re taught more this superstitious, more holistic stance of you’re either a good person or you’re a bad person, a very kindergarten, primitive view on what it actually is and is required of us as humans. So, don’t beat yourself up for that.

If you have not yet learned how to keep promises to yourself, promise yourself this first; that you’re going to figure that out and that it is figureoutable. It so is. It is not, again, because you are a bad or a deficient or flawed person. You just haven’t learned how to do it.

It is a learnable skill. Don’t settle for believing that you’re a terrible person and that you don’t know how to keep promises to yourself and that you can’t. Decide, promise me that you’re going to decide to change that. Seek help. Seek a coach. Find the coach that ca actually help you do this. Learn to keep promises to yourself. Or find a therapist. Find anyone, anything, any book.

But again, here is a place where too many people stay simmering. They’ve got so much potential, but they’re afraid of breaking their own hearts. And that, to me, is a heartbreak and a tragedy because we’re left with this feeling that it’s somehow our fault, instead of having someone say, “No, sweetheart, it is not your fault. Here’s how you do it. I will show you how to do it.”

There is so much healing available to you there and there is so much power and growth and ability to access your potential and ability to be someone who creates the results that you want. So, I digress. I just could feel, when I said, “What promise can you make yourself?” I could just feel the heartache and I wanted to speak to that.

You are not a terrible person. Don’t settle for the heartache. Keeping promises to yourself is a skill and you have everything it takes to learn it.

I used to be someone with a similar kind of heartache. I have worked with countless people to help them heal this heartache and to become absolute badasses at keeping promises to themselves, but first learning to love themselves and then learning to consider the possibility that they can change and love themselves even more, to downright owning now their badass skillset at keeping promises to themselves, and also owning the skillset of having a lot of compassion and grace for the times when we don’t. Because that’s an essential part of it, actually.

So again, I digress. Back to the regular program. What is your version of the greatest impact of the world and the particular corner of the world you so love? What would doing it by being yourself look like for you? And what are your committing to, for the next year, to make this dream come true by being you? What are you saying yes to? And what are you going to tap into to sustain and support yourself? What could you create in 18 months if you were really all in this time?

Here’s another part where I want to digress. Do not use, “I don’t know how to go all in. I fail at all in. I can never do all in the way other people do all in.” Nonsense. First of all, your all in will look completely different from every other person’s all in.

This used to be another area where I would beat myself up. I would see examples of people, including coaches and mentors, in their all in. And I just knew that I don’t operate that way. I can’t sustain that. And so, then I made the mistake of thinking that means I’m someone who can’t go all in. When what I have learned since – and I want to spare you the years and the heartache and the lost energy – is that going all in, your heart and soul, your entire being actually loves that.

But it has to be an all in that is the true and right fit for you. And knowing and learning what that is, is a beautiful process of learning more about yourself, of discovery, of unfolding. It is really an art. So, don’t look at someone who gets up at 4AM and had their workday complete by 9AM and is meticulous and organized and has green smoothies every day and has rock-hard abs and is always on time for things and is making a million dollars and has a flawless Instagram and is always on point.

Don’t use that as your barometer for all in. Use instead a sense of feeling like nothing gets in the way of you and what you most love and want to do in this world. That, to me, is the sensation of all in. And then, how I get to approach that is a lot more intuitive, is a lot more in touch with my own rhythms and flow. I feel that it’s a lot more natural. It’s not forced.

If you’re trying to do someone else’s all in, it will feel restrictive. It will feel maybe punitive. It will feel scary. It will feel tense. It will put you in a survival mode, possibly even a trauma response. That’s not what all in means to me.

Being all in means to me that state of being where you’re so at home with yourself, you know there is nothing that can keep you from you and who you’re meant to be and you and who you’re meant to create. There’s nothing you’re going to tolerate in the way of that, including not loving yourself, including being unkind to yourself.

So, okay, there again, I digress because I could, once again, just feel for those of you out there, when I say commit, when I say promise, when I say all in, that you kind of get tighter in your shell and you shut down a little bit and your energy goes down and your heart breaks a little bit. And I can feel the hurt, and I want to say, no, no, no there is then a completely different way you can look at this.

There’s so much that I wanted to teach you and share with you on that this path towards being your most powerful self, your most creative self, your most successful, flourishing, wealthy, happy, healthy self is not a punitive path. It’s not an external standard that you have to kowtow to or an oppressive system that you have to figure out how to bend yourself to.

It’s not some sort of harsh external standard that you have to measure up to. It’s not that at all. It’s, as Saint Teresa of Avila said, “All the way to Heaven is Heaven.” It’s learning how to make your life, your process a Heaven on Earth. And from that place, from that energy, you’re going to be stunned at what you’re able to create.

And that’s one of the reasons I so loved this part of Brandi Carlile’s book because, not only did she make that commitment to going all in on her music. But she said, “By really being me,” I think that is one of the biggest golden breadcrumbs that she leaves in that book.

So, again, back to what I was saying, what could you create in 18 months if you were really all in this time, being you, showing up for it, an entirely new level because you’ve downshifted? You’ve found out, remembered who you really are, and more, more you than you have ever been, and more of you showing up than you’ve ever done for anything before in your life.

So, for those of you listening with Grammy-level dreams – and I want to say there too that that, to me, means something that your soul is craving. It doesn’t have to look big to anyone else. You don’t need to qualify it with, “Well, it’s not a Grammy.” No, if it’s precious to you, if it’s calling you, if you want a garden, if you want to build a swing set for your kids with your bare hands, if you want to raise a family and write poetry in the mornings, if you want to be an art mogul, if you want to perform on world stages and have people sing along with your songs and everyone know your name, if you want to be a household name, that is all between you and you and you and your soul and you and your God. And if you don’t identify with that word, you and the universe.

My point is, with that level of dream where you’re not holding anything back about what you really want, for those of you who want to set big things in motion this year and are committed to creating the necessary skillset and cultivating the capacity for the energy that’s required, that’s a big part, cultivating the capacity for the energy that’s required. There is more there than we think.

We think we should just be able to pull it out of the remains of the day. But too many of us are running on fumes and we don’t know it. So, cultivate, create the skillset and the energy and the capacity to see our commitment al the way through until you’re standing on what’s that proverbial stage for you.

Here’s what I want you to hear. That dream, that is real. It is yours. But you have got to claim it. Commit to it. Own it. And you get to do it. And you can only do it – this is the beautiful part – by being you.

Thank you so much for listening to another episode of The Art School Podcast. You know a dream that I would love to claim – well, I am claiming it – that I’d love to own and I’d love your help in doing so? A million downloads for The Art School Podcast. Help me make this happen. This is so fun. I appreciate your enthusiasm and am blown away by your support and encouragement.

So, if you want to continue to join in, and yeah, help me bring this to light, you can do so by sharing this podcast far and wide. Do so on social media. I would love, love, love to connect with more of you on social media. It’s so fun to have tags pop up in people’s stories of people that I had no idea you were listening. And then, all of a sudden – I mean, I imagine you out there, but something special happens in my brain, in my entire being, when I see a story pop up with a screenshot of an episode you’re listening to as you walk your dog, as you cook dinner.

I hear from some of you that I’m your standing Thursday coffee and then journal date. That blows my mind. And I’d love to hear about it. I’d love to see it. So, again, shoutout on social media. Find me. Tag me. I’m @leahcb1. Let’s connect. And let me know, what is it that you are creating? What is it that you’re coming to The Art School Podcast to support you as you are building and changing and transforming your life?

Because the more I know about you, then the more I’m like a dog with a bone. I can’t help but zero in, laser in, focus and help. And I so want this podcast to offer a transformation every single time. That’s my intention with every single episode, is that there is the content, there is the invitation, there is the possibility for transformation.

And you can help me make that possible, again, by sharing. But also, make it possible in your life by telling me more about you, by helping me connect to who you are and how you work and what your dreams are. I’m so looking forward to that. I’m so looking forward to connecting and getting to know many more of you. Thank you again for being here.

So, to close today, I’m actually recording this in advance because I know that the next time I would normally record this podcast, I’m going to be deep in preparing for the Art School Mastermind. And so, I’m thinking about them and then also thinking about all of you and thinking again about that- Whitman quote, “I was simmering, simmering, simmering and Emerson brought me to a boil.”

I’ve already just asked you, you know, let me know, reach out to me, tell me what exactly you’re needing, what you think it would be that would bring you to a boil.

I want to be able to be your go-to place for the relief of, “Oh my god, thank god I’m not going to be on simmer for the rest of my life. Can we just move on?” And the work I’ve done with some clients, like, “We need to write the first book because there are books two, three, and four in you.” There the career, there’s the next challenge. It’s time to move past the milestone. It’s time to move past six figures and then onto multiple. It’s time to move past that seven-figure mark and own – like one of my clients – the identity, the fullness of her truth, which is an eight-figure, an elite coach and business owner.

I have shared here before, I have declared and claimed that part of my vision includes the Art School as PEGOT Club, Pulitzer, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony. It’s this place where you can go and drop any pretense of being a small and limited human, and have your creative genius be nurtured, nourished. You can bring your simmer to a boil. You can feel that spark flair up into a great, burning light.

And one of the things that I’ve found is that there are, of course, these universal principles, these universal things we can learn, particularly, you know, with the aid of being able to marry neuroscience now with so many ancient wisdom traditions about, what is it that helps us to tap into the potential of the human mind and the human spirit?

What is it that allows certain humans to go from a simmer to a boil? So, while I love the study and the science of laws and principles, I also love what you can learn and know and how you can help someone by becoming familiar with the, by really getting them, their uniqueness as a human, as a soul, as an individual, the uniqueness of their particular creative process.

And the more I can attune to who someone is, then the more that I am able to find out, what is the secret language that they speak? And I can speak in that secret language because sometimes I think that’s what’s necessary to bring people from a simmer to a boil.

I try to say things in as many different ways as possible on this podcast because that’s part of me not knowing you specifically, but feeling my way into what might be the secret language of the people out there listening, where it’s that particular word that’s a particular way of saying something. It’s a certain story. It’s a certain energy. It’s an inflection that finally is the key that unlocks something for you and changes everything after that, or even just makes a subtle shift and some wiggle room that allows you some more traction, allows you to move the needle, and it allows you to move forward.

So, again, just request for reaching out, the best way, the most efficient way, and it’s also fun, is Instagram, @leahcb1. Let me know what you’re working on. Let me know what you think you need to go from a simmer to a boil.

Like I mentioned in last week’s podcast, I am making dreams come true this year and beyond. Yours, mine, my family’s, anyone in my orbit. I was telling my assistant, hers. And then, of course, my clients. My mastermind clients in the Art School, my private clients, we’re just going to be dwelling in the making-dreams-come-true energy this year, and I want to invite you along for the ride.

So, I want to know, what are your dreams? What would be a dream come true for you this year? What would bring you from a simmer to a boil? Have a beautiful week, everyone, and I look forward to talking with you next time.