Ep #23: Your Creative Mindset Audit

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” T.S. Eliot. In this episode, I’d like to introduce you to one of the most paradoxical, profound, and yet simple discoveries I’ve made about the journey to my goals and dreams, even the biggest of them; the moon-shot.

It’s something I’ve observed in all of my clients as well. It’s not something I invented, of course. It’s a discovery that has clearly been made by so many others and then passed down through wisdom, including those lines I just quoted from Eliot.

It was something I knew intellectually, but it wasn’t until I did this work of having a sacred twin intention, of following a call and fulfilling a dream, while also knowing that the way of being I am cultivating along the way, who I am being and becoming in mind, body, and spirit, is also an inextricable aspect of that sacred dream.

I know that if you apply this, it has the potential to create the kind of shift for you where nothing has to change, and yet you finally know that, at last, you have truly arrived.

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.

Well hello, everyone. Greetings from Savannah. I am recording this from this beautiful Antebellum mansion in Savannah that is on one of those hauntingly beautiful squares with the moss dripping from the trees. We’re just a block or so from Forsyth Park, so I got in earlier today and had a nice dinner and got the mastermind going and looking forward to talking to all of you and getting up early tomorrow morning to go for a run before we kick off – well, it will be a surprising next few days because I’m here with my coach and my fellow masterminders.

So it’s this group of 10 really extraordinary women entrepreneurs and, again, the mansion is gorgeous. No ghosts yet, but just beautiful. And there is even a personal chef who’s cooking this amazing clean, vegetarian even, or just something-for-everyone meals, and yeah, two surprises this weekend. So I’m excited to see what that is.

And these are also called get you-know-what done retreats – still trying to keep this clean because my kids listen sometimes. So, they’re get it done retreats, and so I have a lot of exciting things to work on this weekend. And it’s lining up really well too with the work I’ve been doing back home with my own people in The Art School because this was week eight in the Art School.

This was our integration week. There is something magical about week eight. I need to ask my numerologist and tarot and astrological friends about the number eight, because something kind of crazy astonishing happens in week eight.

So I set this as the integration week, and we started the week and I had everybody set intentions for themselves and I had them hold that highest intention for themselves that something that they needed and were desired and dreamt of, that they wanted to shift around, that they’d plant that seed of intention this week and that we’d all just exponentially collectively focus on the power of our intention, on everyone else’s intention in the group and collectively, that they’d take root, nourish, grow, and rise.

And it’s been a crazy magical week. There will be other things to report later. I planted seeds of my own which are already starting to sprout and bloom and I will share more about that in upcoming weeks. But even things like – how awesome is this – like two of my masterclassers who didn’t know each other before they took the first round of Art School were now in this master class and they decided to do a side road trip. Anna Drew is an amazing contemporary artist and Hope Dunbar is an extraordinary singer-songwriter.

They got together and went to Nashville, have been there, are there now for four days doing their own retreat, recording songs, recording them in the studio, and they’re stunning. They performed them live on their last master class call and there was not a dry eye. It was so powerful and electric, and now they’re shopping them around.

So, coming soon to a radio station near you and headed for the Grammys. I tell you what, you heard it here first. So I do hope they will allow me to play those songs once they finish the editing process here. But if you’re worried about having to wait that long, never fear. I have you covered today because I also have a special surprise for you.

I am so excited that today, at the end of this episode, I get to share with you a sampling of Hope Dunbar’s music. She is, to me, like some of my favorite Midwest mystic poets. There is something about that grounded sensibility and wisdom and earthiness, and then also there’s this mystic quality, I believe, biased, but to these poet mystic songwriters, and that’s what she is.

She’s the real deal. She’s down to earth, but she’s also connected and dialed in and she’s just brilliant. So I’m really excited to be able to share some of her work with you. And I also want to let you know where to find her. So, her website is hopedunbarmusic.com. And you can find sites where she’s on tour, places she’s on tour on her website.

She’ll be in Chicago this May, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and later in the year she’s in Southern Indiana, Saint Louis, and Nashville. And there might be some dates added as well. So definitely check that out. See if she’s coming to your area. Definitely get her albums. I love them. They are a constant on my painting playlist and also just around the house. I love her songwriting. I love her voice.

She also has a bomb podcast with her sister Emily. I’ve mentioned it before; The Prompt Queens. If you love creative process, if you love especially the process of singer-songwriters, but I think anybody would benefit from this podcast, and it’s so funny. So check that out too. And again, look forward to her music to carry you out at the end of this podcast.

And I’ve a really special subject for you today. So I thought it would be timely because we’ve ended quarter one. We’re a couple of weeks into quarter two, so it’s a good time to review the end of quarter one, looking ahead to quarter two, how did you do quarter one? Like, to do your own sort of creative audit.

So this is something I often do with clients, either explicitly I’ll call it that or that’s just what happens de facto. But today, I just wanted to offer you a sliver of that process so that in case you’re discouraged, because I know that can happen, especially if you’ve set big goals and maybe you didn’t hit the mark the last quarter, means nothing. You cannot let it mean anything about your ability going forward.

The only thing it can mean is information for you and feedback about what worked and what didn’t. But you cannot let it mean anything about your possibilities going forward. Just use them as data points, but not as strikes against your character or as decreasing the probability of your future success.

So, the process that I wanted to share with you today I have mentioned or alluded to in brief on earlier episodes. And that is this process of taking stock, taking inventory, doing an audit of the stories you’re telling yourself, doing an audit of your mindset, because it’s crucial that if you are attempting what’s a stretch for you, if you are joining in with me on the moon-shot challenge – and in case you haven’t listened to that, that’s episode seven.

And just for anybody who is unfamiliar with that, a moon-shot is something, a goal, that causes your mind to expand so that you have to think from a completely different perspective so that you have to grow and shift into new ways of being and thinking. You have to shift into new innovative ways of being and thinking and new possibilities emerge in your mind, and then in your reality.

And one of my personal moon-shots is that within three years I will make two million dollars in a year as an artist and as a coach and as a writer in order to be an example of what is possible as a creative person, in order to break ceilings and thought barriers and limitations that people have where we have been constricted in the past with that starving artist tortured artist myth, and to instead show what is possible when you have the right mindset and you are intentional about cultivating your mind body and spirit in deliberate ways along the way.

For instance, many of you have probably heard that old story about Roger Bannister and when he broke the four-minute mile and how everybody had said, “Well that’s not humanly possible.” A lot of scientists said it’s just the human body will break down. That’s just a barrier we cannot cross. And then he did it, and then the really, the next amazing staggering thing that happened was that within a couple of weeks more people were doing it and more people were doing it.

And now, we know it’s still very extraordinary, but that it’s no longer thought as outside the realm of human possibility. So for me, I thought, what barriers can I break down, both within myself, but then also to serve as inspiration and leadership and example for others? What road can I pave so that other people who have visions and dreams inside of them know how to go for it and can see, if she can do it, I can do it. Because I don’t have a formal degree or training in art.

I didn’t start with the wealth of capital. This has been something I built by scratch. And a lot of people say, “You cannot make money as an artist and you cannot make money – it’s very few.  It’s 1%.” So this is what I would like to do is to break that four-minute mile, break that equivalent for artists and for creatives and for us dreamers and visionaries and doers. Because I do know that when we do that, good is going to come of that and that goodness we’re going to create is going to heal the world and inspire the goodness to be evoked from other people as well.

So, coming back to quarter one review and we’re looking ahead at quarter two – it was also timely that last week was spring break and on Friday for spring break I took my kids up to the air zoo in Kalamazoo and I totally got to geek out over all the space history and memorabilia that was there, including revisiting Warner Von Braun’s autobiography and Einstein and so many other great thinkers of that time.

So, I was collecting inspiring quotes with all of you in mind. So before I dive into the practice, here’s one that I wanted to make sure to share with you. This is from Warner Von Braun, “I have learned to use the word impossible with the greatest caution.” Now, that is from a human being who made it possible for us to get to the moon.

And I know, for myself this week, that I had set some really big intentions alongside my clients and their intentions and holding their intentions for this integration week of The Art School. And I also, coming down to Savannah, I have a practice of, when I go on retreats like this, I set an intention that I’m going to grow in some way and I’m going to receive, no matter what happens throughout the retreat, that I’m going to get exactly what I need and it’s going to move my growth forward. I’m going to receive a lesson I need to learn, do some sort of growth, and know that my soul and body are in that place for a reason and that when those wheels lift up off the plane, something’s put in action, and that when they touch down, something has shifted.

So, something I think of too when I’m on these planes is if someone like Warner Von Braun can say, “I’ve learned to use the word impossible with the greatest of caution,” and I’m sitting in an airplane suspended in midair, then I think to my moon-shot goal and I’m like well I don’t actually have to send anybody to the moon and I don’t actually have to figure out how to do all the parts to keep this airplane afloat.

And in contrast, like, my moon-shot, piece of cake. So, I wanted to share that with you because it is part of framing your story and framing yourself as a powerful individual within the story. So, a little earlier than usual in the episode, this is where I want you to coach with me. We’re going to do more than listen. We’re going to do more than listen. We’re going to workshop this.

I want you to lean in and work with me and take this information and make it transformational, make it work for you. So, you might have remembered from earlier podcasts where I talk about the simple tool I have of taking two note cards and on one I write old self, patterns I’m trying to break, or mindsets, habits, ways of being that are holding me back.

And then I list all those out bullet point style on that. And then on the second index card, I write who I’m becoming. What is the greatest expression of my true self? And I write that out.

So, this builds off of that. And I believe it’s important that you first do that old self part first. You need to empty out and know and make conscious what is your old story, because you need to make it conscious so that it’s no longer unconsciously running as your default programming. So make it conscious. And you do that by writing it out and looking at it.

Then you want to look at that and see, identify specifically, what are the thoughts that are on repeat that re really holding you back and really causing you a lot of needless suffering? And as you’re looking at those old self attributes, habits, and you can do it lovingly and you can do it from a place of compassion. We’re not shaming ourselves. We’re not shunning ourselves. We’re not telling ourselves, like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe I did that.

Something that I have a hard time hearing from people sometimes is when they reflect back on their earlier self and they’re like, I’m so embarrassed that I put my art out into the world or I’m so embarrassed I put that work out into the world, I had no business doing that. My heart hurts when I hear people say that because it’s not honoring where you were and it’s not honoring the fact that we really are doing our best at any given moment.

And I think it also undermines your courage to put yourself out now and in the future, because you’re always going to be evolving. Life loves to grow. You never cease from exploring, as Elliot said. So it’s really important when you look back at your old story that you’re doing it to mine it for wisdom. And wisdom looks for those data points through the eyes of compassion and with a heart filled with compassion, and decide, do I want to hold onto this story anymore? Do I want this story to be the programming that’s’ running my life, if you want to use a computer analogy. Is this the software I want running in my brain that continues to create certain results?

And then once you have consciously said, “I can see, I can understand why I might have been doing that for a while but I’m ready to let that go,” you go through that process and then you move over to your new card. And this is you writing your new story of your new thoughts. And then here is where we take it up a notch from what I’ve told you about in earlier episodes.

The part that I see people missing most often and the part that I saw missing form myself was that we really underestimate the work and the energy that we need to pour into pruning back that old story and into cultivating and giving attention to and watering, nurturing, nourishing, encouraging that new story.

So, I want to give you, as a guideline, what I think is a magical creative ratio. It’s a ratio of at least 10 to one, so at least 10 times the amount of your energy should be devoted to this new story, as opposed to just that one time going into the old. So 10 times the amount of energy about who you are becoming and what you are creating and what’s possible, 10 times more than the energy you give to the old story.

And here is a way that you can put that into practice that maybe you’ve already started in certain aspects of your life. Because most of us have heard by now all about gratitude and how important gratitude is for us. And that could be, and will be, in the subject of future episodes, but I think it’s a good place to start with this, because if any area in your life is suffering, a suggestion I always have, and I do this myself, a magical remedy is this 10 to one ratio.

So, if you are grateful for something and practice gratitude 10 times more than you focus on what’s not working, if you focus on what’s working and what’s good and what’s blessing your life and what’s amazing in your life, or even the simple pleasures, if you were focusing on that 10 times more than you were focusing on what’s wrong, your life can’t help but change. You can’t help but be changed by this practice.

And I want you to pause for just a minute here and do a little self-reflective audit of your mindset and where your mind tends to go and just be compassionate and honest with yourself. Do you think you currently spend 10 times more of your energy devoted to what is working and what’s good about you and what’s good about your life and what’s good about others and the beauty and the blessings that are there? And again, not to shame and not to judge, but just to notice and observe because it is that simple awareness that can so profoundly transformational.

And so, during these times when we are evaluating where we are in relationship to where we want to be, for instance, at the end of the quarter and you’re looking ahead and you do want to improve, you can do that. You can do that and still be very mindful and vigilant and disciplined about having a mindset that calls everything, calls your experiences for the data points, learning that’s there, and then gives 10 times the energy into what you are still creating going forward. And so doing that audit too and say, do I tend to focus on all the reasons why it’s not going to work rather than focusing on the reasons why it is working and why it is going to work and why there’s always more on the way and why I’m always improving and I’m always receiving improving results?

So, what is your current ratio? Start there, just to take an honest assessment, and then ask yourself, how willing am I to move that to a 10 to one? And if you are willing, here is another little practice hack I like to do because I’m a visual person and an aesthetic person and this really helps me get this on a visceral level.

So, I start with those two note cards, and then I think, if this is a 10 to one, if that’s the magic creative ratio, then I should have 10 times as many note cards. So then I’ll fill out 10 times as many note cards with that new story and with affirmations and evidence of that new story. And I’ll have that visual up of the one note card of the old self and then 10 note cards I’ve filled out where I have given my brain the direction of focusing on creating this new story.

And that might be a journaling practice that I do for as many days as I need to do to make sure that my mind is in that groove and that my eyes are on that vision and that my heart and mind and soul are all aligned with that. Now, you might not want to do the note cards, but you can do the same thing in your journal.

You can have a morning pages practice where you just write stream of consciousness and you wander all over, and or you can also have a practice where you are teaching your brain to deliberately focus on this new story and what you are creating, because I know that when you connect to that new story and you familiarize it and it becomes part of your inner landscape and part of that creative ecosystem that you’re cultivating from your inner world until it flows out into the outer world, something shifts and things begin to happen.

And now, to bring this back full circle to the quote that I introduced this podcast with, and I’ll just repeat it for you now from T.S. Elliot, “We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

So, I told you something that I have found for myself and my clients seems truly paradoxical and profound and simple and yet we’re told it all the time, and yet when we discover it, we’re like, oh now I get what that means. And that is that you’ve been whole and complete the whole time.

The surprise is that when you accept yourself and you surrender, then the world opens up to you, when you’re at peace and you’re relaxed, then things start to flow. When you’re no longer in fear and you can be in creative mode, you really start to get some traction, but you’re no longer needing to do it out of the need to fix anything or get to a different place.  You know that, no matter where you go, the world is always and life is always going to be 50/50.

So, the only answer can be, then how am I with myself? If wherever I go, there I am, then how do I want to be with that, I am? And to me, the answer seems to be, then the point is to love being you and to love whatever moment you’re in, and again, to be able to hold that paradox of you can love whatever moment you’re in and in that moment allow in visions and dreams, because allow in that aspect of us that is life itself expressing itself and wants to grow and wants to explore, and yet also understand that we’re never going to be able to improve on our wholeness.

We are already whole and complete and human and deserving of this place that is ours and is us in the universe. Thank you again for listening to The Art School Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and would like some visuals to go along with it as well as some behind the scenes stories about this mastermind that I’m doing down here in Savannah and learn more about what a mastermind is like and see some pictures of this gorgeous mansion in Savannah – it’s the Wedding Cake Mansion, featured in O Magazine. It’s pretty spectacular – I’m going to be sharing those in a newsletter that’s coming out soon.

So you can subscribe to that on my website, and then you’ll also be the first to hear of other offers and discounts or news that sometimes I just share with that community or share first. So, it’s great to hop on there and I don’t email too much, I promise, and I respect your privacy. So I would love to have you join that community.

If you’d like to learn more about The Art School too, I have openings in the coming month for discovery consult, and we’re already enrolling and have a wait list going for The Art School in September. And my current private client list is filled up, although in mid-May I will have an opening for one more client, and then I’ll have an opening for two more clients towards the end of May, beginning of June.

So, if you’re interested in any of those spots, I’d love to hear from you. I work with creative powerhouses, rising stars, I specialize in creative genius and money work and holistic coaching, so that’s mind, body, spirit, and take the approach that what do we need to do to make life work for you and work extraordinarily well.

Thanks again, everybody, and I hope you have a beautiful week. See you next time.