Ep #74: Giving Yourself Permission to Thrive

“Tough times don’t last, but tough people do,” Dev and Boyd Campbell. Now, I know many other people may have used those words, but the first time I heard them was from my parents, Dev and Boyd Campbell. I was a young girl when the farm crisis in the 80s was going on and, as I’ve mentioned before, I grew up on a farm. My parents are farmers.

And so, this was a phrase that wasn’t just a pretty little truism, but something that had become a family motto that my parents lived by and was instilled in us at a young age. And little did I know, back then, how well it would serve me as an entrepreneur, as an artist, as a coach, and now leading others in this time.

So, listen in today. I want to share some things that will help you weather the storm. I’m not going to talk about how tough it is now. You know that. What I want to give you is the love part and the nitty-gritty of how to get through it and how to stay creative, and also to talk about giving yourself permission to thrive in these times.

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. So, I am recording this for you the day after April Fool’s Day, the Holy Fool’s Day. And holy smokes, I’m glad that day is over because my family, my kids, really made the most out of that day.

And I kicked it off really playing the part of the fool because, I will tell you this story – so, I got up in the morning and the kids get a kick out of this kind of stuff, April Fool’s Day. And I thought, well, I need to get started with my day and make hay while the sun shines, which is basically, now that we’re homeschooling, I make a lot of hay before the sun shines, before everyone gets up.

So, I had the thought of, okay just get to work. And then I had the thought, and you only have so many April Fool’s Days with your kids at home in this lifetime, so do something that will delight them and maybe they’ll remember it and it will be delightful for me too. Let’s not lie about that part.

So, I was like, well what to do? And then I remembered an April Fool’s from when I was growing up and my mom newspapered our bedroom doors shut, so that when we opened our door in the morning, there was just a wall of newspaper. As kids, it was pretty hysterical. So I was doing that and trying to do it quietly and the dog and the cat were not participating in helping me to do it quietly.

But anyway, I was part way through doing this. Well, I got one door done and the other door was, like, almost done, and feeling pretty proud of myself. And then I remembered, I think today is March 31^st and not April 1^st. So, I did play the part of the fool and was fooling a whole day early and could have been getting to my work.

But still, it was worth it because – well maybe worth it – the kids thought it was hysterical and they loved breaking through the newspaper. But then it kind of backfired, because instead of them having one heyday of April Fool’s day, because I had kicked it off early, then it was like an extended holiday extravaganza. So, then they had two days of just being in this silly mood and also everyone’s home so it’s all pranks all day long.

So, other ones that they also – thanks, mom – got from my mom, you know, the old one where you rubber-band the kitchen faucet sprayer. You know, if you have one of those old-fashioned ones, which we do in this farmhouse that we’re currently in. So, they leaned a water bottle up against the kitchen faucet sprayer and then asked if I would get them drinks.

So, something in my mind should have taken note of the little glimmer in their eyes when they asked for drinks of water when they came in from playing, but I just didn’t stop to think anything of it. And I went to get them drinks, turned on the water, and sure enough, sprayed me everywhere, sprayed the kitchen behind me with water because I was flabbergasted a little bit and did not shut it off fast enough while my brain was trying to figure out what went on.

And they proceeded to do that kind of thing throughout the day, including play pranks on each other, which sometimes I had to intervene, but sometimes I intervened too late. Like when my oldest came to me and he was giggling because he couldn’t contain himself. He was so proud.

He was like, “Mom, I played a great one on Sammy and Blaize…” because usually every night I read to the littlest two in one bed, Sammy and Blaize, and I’m like, what did you do? And he’s like, “I put water in their bed.” And I said, you did what? He’s like, “I put water in their bed.” I’m like, buddy, what, like a cup of water? He’s like, “No, I dumped a whole bunch of water in their bed.”

And I said, “Oh my gosh, Elijah, you can’t do that, bud. That ruins the mattress. That makes for a moldy mattress.” And I felt bad because he was just then deflated and he was so proud of this prank, we wanted them to lay down and be like, “Oh my gosh, someone wet my bed.”

And I was trying not to giggle, and at the same time, like, trying to get across it is not okay to dump water on our mattresses, and then also trying to comfort him because he was so bummed that his prank wasn’t going to get to play out, and instead, he had to go inside and begin the process of wet-vac-ing it up.

So, anyway, there were some other things including then Sammy came in giggling into my room late at night and said, “When Elijah brushes his teeth in the morning, he’s going to get a surprise,” because he had put minced garlic in between the bristles of his toothbrush.

So, anyway, all of that to say, I’m relieved that April Fool’s Day is over because I don’t feel like I’m walking on eggshells in my house anymore wondering what’s going to happen to me. So, there’s that. So, I wanted to bring that in some levity because I think we could all use some of that. And again, it’s not – I’ve been talking to so many people who are wise, loving, compassionate people wanting to be compassionate and be helpful in these times, and then also feeling this strange pull to not be happy because of the suffering that other people are experiencing.

And I am well aware an I work with a lot of people who are suffering. We have been touched by suffering in our own family and close to home. And a lot of that is not mine to share on this podcast, or I’ve thought it through and I really think about what, in my experience, is mine to share, and what is helpful for me to share with you.

So, today, I start by bringing you stories of my kids’ April Fool’s antics because I do think that’s helpful to share. And I also want you to know that it comes from a place of I’m well aware of what has gone on. And again, our lives are touched by that, my clients’ lives, close family and friends. And the way that I choose to move through it, one of the ways I choose to continue to find strength for myself, for all of you, the way I continue to find empowering and inspiring useful things to share is to continue to redirect my mind to what is going to be helpful, is to reflect and get quiet and listen for what is needed now. What wants to happen through me? What am I meant to be vessel or a channel for?

I’ve mentioned in an earlier podcast listening and asking for what’s the very next step. And it’s in the spirit of the answers I received that I’m creating this podcast and doing the coaching that I’m now doing. And another answer that I receive is that now is the time for me to be a source where people can hear – if you want to press pause and you feel you need to cocoon and gather yourself, that’s great.

And if you also are pressing pause because you feel guilty and like, well now’s not the time to thrive, now’s not the time to make money, now’s not the time to go for my dreams, that’s being inconsiderate, that’s being insensitive – then I am here to be the one to say you don’t need permission to continue making money, to continue finding ways for your business, your art, your dreams to grow and thrive, you can go ahead and do that without shame. And you can do it with passion. You can decide to be compassionate and love others and help others. And you also can thrive.

So, what I want to make available in the coming weeks and what I’m going to be offering through the Art School Immersion program – so that’s our pop-up four-week immersion program for the Art School, which is set to begin April 14^th. I believe I misspoke on an earlier podcast and said the week of April 6^th. So, just like how I got the April Fool’s Day, I was a day early for that, I was a week in talking about the immersion program. So, that’s April 14^th.

I want for people who want to continue to stay focused in a constructive, creative, empowered way during this time to have opportunity to do that, to be a source of love and light and strength in the world and also continue to take care of themselves, their families, their businesses, and their dreams.

And I don’t think I can say enough times – because I keep having this conversation over and over with different people – there’s this Wayne Dyer quote that I love. And he had said, “You cannot be poor enough to help someone out of poverty, just as you cannot be sick enough to help someone who’s ill be well.”

So, knowing that taking extraordinary care of yourself and your dreams is what is going to give you the foundation, the leverage, the platform to amplify your values and take care of others in ways that maybe right now you can’t even imagine. So yes, be generous where you can be generous, but don’t feel like you have to be a shamed of thriving, ashamed of your health, ashamed of continuing to go for your dream.

Don’t feel like you have to dull your shine, pull back, or press pause at this time. You don’t only martyr yourself in that way, but you martyr your dreams, you martyr your bank account, and it’s with thinking that understandably there’s compassion, and there’s thinking that just gets undisciplined and you start to take on a contagion of thinking that has very real effects for your bank account.

Because I don’t know how many emails I’ve answered, received in the past few weeks, coaching calls, coaching sessions I’ve done with people who have thoughts about how now, with money in particular, that their finances are going to suffer. And believe you and me, we have seen – I’m laughing – a huge drop in our investment portfolio. So, it’s not that I’m not aware of numbers. And at the same time, I see the questions and the thoughts coming in about continuing to make money going forward and it’s like people are just abdicating any responsibility and just like, “Well, we’re heading for a recession, we’re heading for a depression.”

When I’m glad they reached out. Because with a quick course-correction, there are still ways you can make money. There are also ways where, if you’re unemployed, there is so many resources out there. So, make sure your thinking is clean before you decide what your money situation is. Because I see, with a lot of thinking, there is a blind spot when it comes to money and people are literally leaving opportunities and money on the table simply because of their thinking.

Now, it’s one thing to clean up all your thinking and decide, I need to look for options B, C, and D. But make sure that you’ve done that work. For example, I had a coach client and an artist client come with two very similar sessions, separate private sessions. And both had said, my revenue has dried up. I haven’t sold, the artist said, any new pieces of work. And my coaching client said, and I haven’t signed any new clients.

And I’m just getting – I’m preparing, I’m bracing myself for the new normal. I can draw from savings. And they were thinking that they were heading constructively down an emergency plan route. Which is great. But I said, well wait let’s back up a second. Let’s say we were not in the time of corona and you had come to me and said, I haven’t sold any new art, I haven’t signed any new clients.

You know me, as your coach. What do you think I would have asked you? And both paused for a moment. And you could see it come over their face. They said, you would ask me, how many offers have I made? And in both cases, they hadn’t been consistently making offers.

So, I said, okay continue with your emergency plan, that’s fine, but how about too you stick with plan A and we go down the route of what would we have done to solve this if we weren’t just jumping to the conclusion that there is no solution because #corona.

And so, they both went out and said maybe this is the time where maybe what changes is we increase the sales ratio. You increase the number of offers. Maybe it’s the time to offer something different. Think about what your clients, your customers would need or want right now and approach it differently. Which is not to say, for all of you listening, this is not to discount. So, that’s a different podcast.

And then they came back and within a week, my coaching client had 8K in sales in terms of new clients or packages that she had sold, people she had followed up with. And my art client had over $3000, almost $4000 in art sales.

And so, long story short, that would have been money left on the table if we had just stopped at the conclusion of, of course this is happening, everything’s dried up.

So, don’t leave money on the table. This last year, I joined a business mastermind that focuses heavily on selling. Because I know that, for my artist clients, that’s one area where I want to become more and more masterful with, being a more masterful teacher of selling. And one of the takeaways from the coach that leads the group there, Stacey Boehman is she always saying, “ABS, always be selling.”

And I know this grates on the nerves of many artists when they first come to this work or many creatives, as many women – I’m not going to say all women because I know some extraordinary powerful women who are amazing at sales who don’t have this bias any longer – but always be selling.

And I know it can be such a triggering thing for people to hear right now. And that is why I feel like I have to stand up and take the heat or take the fire and still say it because I care about my clients continuing to thrive and thrive financially. And if you don’t hear it from me, you’re going to continue to think there’s some shame or stigma about it, that there is a huge difference between continuing to create your own opportunities, continuing to create your own fortune and destiny, a big difference between continuing to create opportunities for yourself and being opportunistic.

And you know yourself. You know the difference between those two. So, if money is something that you want to continue to work on – and money is such sacred work. I love doing money work. The more you do your money work, the more the rest of your life shifts in powerful ways. And if you find yourself shying away from that during this time, then for sure, join us in the Art School immersion program. I know it’s going to be a very important theme and I’m going to focus heavily on that for those in there that want that.

And if, in general, you want to stay focused and in love with the dream that you’re creating, even while the world in evidence around you is fluctuating up and down, if you want to become not just at the effect of the world but you want to create an effect in the world and hold steady in being one of these tough people that outlast the tough times, you’ll want to be in the Art School Immersion group.

So, that brings me back to that quote that I shared from my parents in the beginning. “Tough times don’t last but tough people do.” And I know there was a time in my life where I had a hard time with that quote. There was a time when I embraced it wholeheartedly and then a time when I had used it against myself because I was approaching resilience from a more brittle place, not from loving myself but just from pushing myself, from gritting my teeth and bearing it.

And what I know now is that the real tough work is doing this work of loving yourself unconditionally, no matter what. Because the more you do that, the more your natural resilience unfolds, the more you have access to your natural strength and resilience. And then the more open you are to taking on the kind of things you need to take on in order to be the person who creates the dreams, who creates the results you dream of creating.

If you don’t come from this place of deep love, then you don’t have the safety to put yourself in scenarios that are going to be tough. You don’t believe that you’re going to outlast the tough times.

So, I remember being really young. I’d say maybe I was in kindergarten, maybe a little bit younger. Because my brother, remember my brother Andy was two years younger than I am and he was a little guy too. And I remember we had snuck down the stairs and were listening to our parents as they were talking in the kitchen. And we have this narrow staircase in the old farmhouse where I grew up, where my parents still live.

We could quietly creep down the stairs. We knew which step we could sit on and it wouldn’t creek and we could still pretty well eavesdrop on what was going on in the kitchen and hopefully remain undetected and then go back up to bed before they knew we were out of bed.

And so, I remember being this young and hearing my parents talk in very worried voices. And it wasn’t something they had done during the day around us, which I think struck us as remarkable. But we pretty much gathered that it was around money.

And again, it was during this time of the farm crisis. And what I know now, I know so much more about what was happening then that I don’t know now. And it really had come to the point where the bank was coming to take the farm away; the farm which had no mortgage on it and which my dad had owned outright.

But anyway, that was what was at my parent’s doorstep, on their minds. And my brother and I understood, like, not enough money, we got across that something was very wrong and there was not enough money and it was making our parents really worried.

So, he and I, in our little child ways, got our favorite toys together and the next day told our mom and dad that we would sell those if they needed money. And I just remember them hugging us and saying that’s so nice but you guys don’t need to worry about any of this. That’s not going to be necessary.

That memory always stuck with me, as did this thing that my parents said throughout the whole time we were growing up and beyond whenever we were in a challenging spot, “Tough times don’t last but tough people do.”

And my mom always had this other quote too about how deep roots outlast the frost. And I didn’t realize how much that would serve me. I guess I just didn’t foresee my future as an entrepreneur. But it has served me over and over again to remind myself that who said all of life was going to be easy? Who said this creation of my dreams was always going to be easy or this flat linear upward trajectory?

And again, I’ve mentioned that I really think through the personal things that I share. And I’ve shared this story with some clients and they said they found it really helpful so I thought I would share it here as well because even as recently as last year, I had really been going through this upswing in my business. So, there I was thinking I was riding the upward, you know, that linear line all the way up to my moonshot.

And about this time last year, as I mentioned before, I got the flu, influenza, thought I was getting over it, took care of my family, and then I came down with pneumonia, a pretty severe case of pneumonia. And what I didn’t mention was just everything else that seemed to happen along that same time because I was so sick.

I missed out on these two major opportunities that I had been working on and planning on for months, including I’d already paid for the flights. I ate the cost of that. I missed out on that income opportunity.

Around the same time, I had three new clients who don’t know each other and then simultaneously something went on in each of their lives where they were like, “Yeah I’m really sorry…” We had started working together, like, “I’m really sorry but something has changed in our family’s financial situation and I can no longer coach.” So, I refunded their entire investment.

I also had had hired someone new to come on and help take over a lot of the administrative work and invoicing and something had gone wrong and invoices didn’t go out. And so, long story short, I had like two months where half of my clients that were on scheduled payments, it was bumped out two months. They hadn’t been invoiced, and because they were corporate clients and it goes through their accounting department, it meant it would be either six weeks or two months until I got paid.

So, long story short, this was to the tune of $30,000 of a cashflow deficit that I had been planning on. Not just speculation, but I was like, it’s a done deal. So far as I knew. And I had also just spent 25K investing in my business.

So, you can do the math there. And so, although I had been on this swing up of having months where I had 50K months, I had 20K months, I had 10K months, then all of a sudden to take a hit like that and then also I had to decrease my workload so I could continue to meet all my existing obligations with clients, I was flat on my back in bed on mandatory bed rest and then also feeling kind of flat on my back in other ways.

And I remember starting to feel so ashamed. Like, oh my gosh, I am a bad business person. If I were a great life coach, somehow I would have seen this coming and I would have prepared for it. Oh, here was the other thing that had happened at this time too. I had been asked to do these two commissions that were going to be the awards for my children’s school for this beautiful award.

It’s a big deal in the community. They give out a leadership award and they wanted something really stunning. And I poured my heart and soul into these paintings and they were stunning. I was so in love with them and it meant a lot to me that it was going to such a meaningful cause.

And then the morning that I woke up to deliver them after the resin had finally dried, I noticed a hair had fallen into the resin of the painting and I was to deliver them that night. And I was like, oh my gosh, talk about the fly in the ointment. It just seemed like one thing after another.

And again, I started to feel like when I was flat on my back, not able to do anything about it, I started to feel the shame come. And then I just said, you know what, I’m not going to go there. I’m not going to do this to myself. I am going to ride this out. And what do I know about myself but how strong I am?

And even though I felt like I was just powering down physically in that moment, I remembered I had decided, here’s what I’m going to do no matter what. I’m creating this two-million moonshot. So, just because all of this stuff is happening right now, just because it seems like a negative domino effect, I can make that mean that something has gone wrong, but I will not make it mean that I am wrong and I cannot will not make it mean that I am not going to reach my dreams. It does not have to mean that.

If I go back to the place where I am committed to making this no matter what, there’s no way I’m not doing this, ten through that lens, how do I see all of these things? I don’t see them as the reason I’m not going to create my dreams or as evidence that I don’t deserve it, or as evidence that I somehow messed it up or got it wrong. I am just going to, like, well that’s the part of my story where, paraphrase that proverb, the Japanese proverb, you know, I got knocked down nine times, but I get up 10. That’s the kind of person I am. And I did not sign up for easy. I signed up for my dreams and I’m here for all of it.

The part I really want to emphasize is there were a lot of things happening where other people around me took it as a sign that, well, this surely means that what you’re doing is not working. So, there were hard conversations where I had to stand my ground and over and over again what has served me is to know that I need to believe in myself more than anyone else does.

They may not be able to see what I’m made of and how strong I am and how resolute I am. They may not be able to see my vision. They may not be able to feel the strength in my heart and the passion in my veins. They may not be able to understand my hard why, bit that’s okay. That’s not their job. And I can weather too that discomfort in relationships along the way. But there’s no way I’m not going to do this.

And I remember too having a conversation with my coach at the time, Susan Hyatt, and I was telling her about how this was difficult and she’s like, “Yeah, and so what’s the problem?” And not in a not-compassionate way. She’s a super-compassionate loving person. And I was like, “What do you mean?” She’s like, so all this happened and so what’s the problem?

And I said, “Well, maybe that I haven’t done this. I’m having thoughts that I’m not doing this right or I’m not doing this.” And she’s like, “Are you kidding me? You’re doing this.” And I was like, oh yeah, how did I forget I am doing this? Going through things like that is what artists go through. It is what entrepreneurs go through. It is what somebody building their dream goes through.

Going through the difficult times does not mean you’re not doing the thing. Going through the difficult times and not giving up, that’s not you getting it wrong or you screwing it up. That’s you being courageous. That’s you doing what you were built to do. Forget those memes that go around where people are sitting on the beach in a hammock and the sun is setting and it’s like #livingthedream.

Last year on bedrest, 30K out the door in cashflow that I was planning on, another 25K I had just spent and having a severe case of pneumonia that then lasted for several weeks, but fighting my way back, that is living the dream. And so are the times when, man, I have the 50K months and when I have day after day and session after session where I sit with clients, I untangle their minds, and I sit there thinking, I am so grateful, I’m doing one of the things I’m built to do, the days where I’m in my studio, where I get hours on end to make my art.

And recently, the flexibility I have where I’m in my studio with my daughter for hours and we’re making my art, that too is living the dream. All of it though is living the dream. Going through these times now and adapting, being resilient, that is also living the dream.

So, I mentioned before, I went through this period where I was kind of at odds with that old, “Tough times don’t last but tough people do.” But I think it was because I hadn’t gone through this part of my life yet where I learned that true strength, that tough people, that resilience comes from a deeper and deeper love. And that has been the greatest gift to cultivate.

But I would never have needed to reach those depths of self-love. I would never have found how strong I was without having been knocked back on my keister nine times or flat on my back and then getting up the 10^th.
And it’s precisely too because that experience is so fresh in my memory, I’ve had disappointing things for sure happen this last year. I didn’t get, obviously, to my two-million this last year.

I did get almost to a quarter of a million, which does not feel like a failure at all. I celebrated the heck out of that. And also, along the way, lots of disappointments, lots of failures. But that just tells me that I’m going for it. and the disappointment, the failure, and the difficulty that have even happened in just the last several weeks with all of the changes in the world, I reached back to last year because I started to feel a fear of, “Oh gosh, that again? Are we going to have a repeat of that again?”

And then I remember, I did that. I know I can do that. I know, if I get knocked down, I know how strong I am and I can get back up and I know this is a continued practice of digging deep and loving myself. And I have also cultivated things along the way, like having fun doing it, like making it as simple and easy as possible, like cultivating amazing friendships that mean the world to me along the way.

So, if you’re hearing this and you hear tough times don’t last but tough people do, and if you find yourself cringing because you’re like, I don’t want to have to be tough, then work with me so that I can show you how to cultivate that sense of safety and that deep love so that you can discover how amazing and strong you really are, so that you can discover what you’re truly capable of.

Because it’s not just about being able to string together the consecutive months of hitting your income goals. It’s not just about being able to finish your book. It’s not just about whatever that desired result is, it is truly about getting to experience a level of strength and grace in yourself that maybe you’ve never been able to access before. It’s there.

And so, if something is calling you in this time, if there’s a dream still calling you, a goal to create, it’s calling you not just because of that dream or that goal. It’s calling you so that you can discover your heart and what you are really made for, what you are built for. You’re up for the challenge, my friends.

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 and coach with me. So, I want to give you this assignment. During this time, there’s going to be stories that emerge of people who are stronger because of this time, who emerged stronger. There’s going to be stories emerge of kindness, of people being a light for one another.

There’s going to be stories emerge of people who used this time to write their novels, to write their screenplays, to write 100 pitch letters to have ready to send out when the studios are back open again. There’s going to be stories about how people came up with their next business idea. There’s going to be stories of how people made more money than ever during this time. There’s going to be stories of relationships, marriages, families healed, who came together. There’s going to be stories of transformation.

And yours can be one of those stories. And I know that can be hard to envision your own story of transformation when maybe you’re just sitting square in the hard right now. So, I wanted to offer you this prompt as a different way of thinking of it.

Think first in the third person. Think of someone you know or that you can imagine who is going to emerge from this experience as being the hero of their journey. It will not be because they weren’t faced with challenge or difficulty. It’s going to be because they used everything that came at them and asked, “How am I going to use this to make me stronger? How am I going to use this to take me or someone else higher? How am I going to use this to become more of who I am meant to become? How am I going to use this energy coming at me to create my dreams instead of using it to be an excuse that I can’t?”

So, think of someone, if you can’t yet put yourself there. If you can put yourself there, do that first. But if you’re having a block there, think of someone else you know who you think, “Wow, they are strong, they are remarkable.” Imagine their story and then start to find the wiggle room. If then, why not you?

They have a human mind, a human heart, a human spirit. You’re made of the same stuff. If they can do it and if you can imagine it for them, then you can begin to incorporate those beliefs about yourself. We’re going to talk next week about incorporating beliefs in how to do it. So, do this assignment, and then join me back here next week for how to incorporate it and make it your own.

Thank you for listening to another episode of The Art School Podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, if this podcast has been useful for you, the best thing you can do to pay it forward is to share, to subscribe, and go to iTunes and leave a review. I read and am so grateful for each and every review. It also helps me bring this work to more people.

So, the best way to be a part of this rising tide and this creative revolution is to share the love and share your own creative spirit and light along the way. If you would like to take this work deeper, there are a few ways you can do that. I currently have a waitlist for private coaching. But if you email support@leahcb.com, we will take care of you and get you set up with everything you need to begin that process.

We also have the Art School Immersion coming up; two weeks here in April. So, hop on my mailing list, www.leahcb.com to register for that to be the first to know about that. And also soon, we will be opening enrolment or the Art School fall 2020.

To close today, I wanted to talk just briefly about focus. Because now that there has been an upheaval in most people’s schedules and structures, what I’m hearing over and over again, if not explicitly, I’m hearing the symptoms of people who are unfocused. Their energy and their mind and their spirit are not trained intentionally on what they want to create.

If you find yourself wanting to stay focused on this time in a productive way, in a meaningful way, in a creative and a heart-centered way, and also in a pragmatic way, meaning you can continue to move towards your dreams, towards cultivating those characteristics that are going to enable you to create the results that you desire, if you want to become the person you know you’re capable of becoming, that’s going to require an immense amount of focus at this time.

Which is why I wanted to offer a pop-up Art School, an immersive process where you are going to have the opportunity and you’re going to have your face coached off. You’re going to be trained intensely to stay focused on who it is that you truly are, what it is that you really want to build in this world, and how to stay in this role of agency and not become a victim to the circumstances of the world, but how to become this powerful creator who has an effect on the world and a contribution to give.

So, to close, think about this; tough times don’t last, but tough people do. Strong people do. People who are focused and don’t take their eyes off the prize in what they know they’re meant to do, who they know they’re meant to be. Have a beautiful week, everyone. I so appreciate you all. Thank you for being here and I will talk to you next week.