—Oprah Winfrey
Over the past ten years, I received notes from thousands of women (and men) worldwide who said that my first book, The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women: A Portable Mentor, changed their lives, gave them inspiration and hope, and allowed them to embrace their creativity again and run with it. In contrast, I have run into many women (and men) in my travels who react to the title of that book by saying “Oh, that's not for me, I'm not creative at all.”
My heart aches when I hear those words, as we are all creative in our lives, not just writers, artists, and actresses. Watch a healthy two-year-old child at play while they gleefully try out new projects, like throwing sand to see what happens, running after a butterfly to see if they can catch it, discovering the wonders of glue, and sticking together everything they can find.
As we know, the definition of creativity is “to make or invent something new”—to make connections. Children allowed to engage in free play (as opposed to being perched in front of a DVD) invent and make all kinds of original creations without intimidation or self-consciousness.
But something happens to many of us as we grow up—we freeze up creatively or disown our gifts. Then we get bad advice and often get on the wrong path. Thus, creativity goes underground. Or we follow a creative path but we don't treat our work as a profession and end up living on the margin, and we don't get the recognition or financial rewards that we deserve. Other people have a creative outlet that they consider a hobby, like knitting, and choose to have a different day job. But both the job and the knitting can be creative outlets, too. Part of our creative process is to craft the life and the business that we want.
Then there are women who actively choose to pursue their creative interest (or interests, very often), and become highly creative women. But even then, they may fall prey to bad advice, low self-esteem, not marketing themselves actively, and the terror of being seen. This book will help each of you, regardless of which category you are in.
You are creative—own it!
You have the potential to become highly successful.
Your creativity is an essential ingredient to building a successful career, business, and personal life.
You can learn to be successful creatively by following the advice in this book.
You can potentially change your entire life and lifestyle to honor your creative gifts and finally feel free, fulfilled, and prosperous.
You have an inner brilliance that allows you to solve problems with novel and innovative solutions, help others, and profit from it.
This book is your ticket to becoming the highly creative and successful woman you long to be. But first, you have to do some healing work, learn new professional development and lifestyle strategies, and empower yourself as an entrepreneur or as a key contributor to an ethical, quality organization where you enjoy working. Even if you choose to spend some time working for someone else, you need to keep your eye on the door, your skills and your About Page updated, and a strong network going. Your best security is to grow yourself. You need to follow a special path for creative success. It will reawaken that creative little girl who either got squelched or silenced or went out on the creative path with the wrong guidance and has been stumbling along. If you are already operating as a highly creative woman, this book will propel you to the next level of growth, stretching your comfort zone and pushing you to step fully into a CEO mindset.
THE MAGIC OF TWELVE
Many of you may be wondering why I am writing another book with the title “12 Secrets” in it. In doing a little research, I discovered that 12 is the number of a whole and perfect harmonious unit. There are 12 months in a year, 12 signs on the zodiac, 12 inches in a foot, 12 face cards in a card deck, and 12 basic hues in a color wheel. And of course we have 12-Step Recovery Programs that are very powerful and teach a complete outline of what works. So my intent with this book is to share with you my model for the 12 secrets of highly successful women, compiled from my own life journey, the myriad of clients I have coached over thirty years in my business, now called Creative Success LLC, and the wisdom of the thirty women who I interviewed for this book, some of whom have been powerful mentors to me. Some of these women are multimillionaires and on television, while others value their lifestyle more than just money, and make business and lifestyle choices around those desires. Many of the women are trying to have balanced lives and be wealthy at the same time, or have already achieved that balance. They all work hard, feel strongly connected to their work, and feel called to express it in the world as a gift to others. Their stories are meant to illustrate the 12 ingredients that I outline that are essential to the soup of success for you.
DEFINING HEARTFELT PERSONAL SUCCESS
In my thirty-plus years of experience helping people to heal and create a life of fulfillment, I have been struck repeatedly with how essential it is for each of us to do the necessary soul searching to design and live by our own definition of our success. In this celebrity- and media-crazed culture we live in, it is easy to get confused about what composes a high quality and successful life for ourselves. Defining heartfelt success is a very personal and unique endeavor.
I have worked with thousands of clients who have been tortured by the agony and confusion of living according to someone else's values, misconceptions, scripts, or formulas. Just because your mother thought you were overly dramatic doesn't mean you are or that being so is even a liability. While the media or your family might worship fame, money, entrepreneurship, or corporate ladder-climbing, none of these pathways guarantee happiness for you unless you freely choose them. We all deserve prosperity. The starving artist syndrome serves no one. Yet fulfillment in life means knowing what we want while appreciating what we already have and having the self-worth to think independently and create a life that's original.
Webster defines success simply as “a favorable or satisfactory outcome or result.” I like to add the adjectives “heartfelt” and “personal” so that you can visualize results that express your true self. Whether you are twenty-four or eighty-four, it's time to stop the lies. For example, I have a client now who keeps brainstorming with me about ideas for this elaborate international consulting business. But if you look at her overall life goals, she really wants to only work twenty-five hours a week. That means that her business plan has to be carefully designed to target the work that can be done quickly for the most fulfillment for her in terms of either impact or financial reward. It may take her several years to achieve this model. The best time management strategy in the world is letting go of fantasies and working within your own desired paradigm. Successful people focus on the outcomes that resonate for them—creating viable businesses that service their customers and clients—and so they can revel in the joy of that heartfelt, personal set of goals.
The best time management strategy in the world is letting go of fantasies and working within your own desired paradigm.
I interviewed many successful women for this book. Here are some of the unique elements of their definition of success.
Ali Brown, millionaire entrepreneur, mentor, CEO of Ali International llc, member of the Inc. “500 in 2009,” and leader of the Millionaire Protégé Club and the Shine Conference:
Success for me, in the beginning, and this may be true for everyone, was liking the stuff. I wanted the house and the car and I love my creature comforts and I love beautiful things. But once I reached these goals, I looked around and said, “Okay, now what?” I've got this gorgeous house on the beach and I have a wonderful life; what is this all about? And I realized that success is truly being just true to myself and that whatever I define success to be, that's what it is. And I think women need to give themselves permission that success can look like exactly what they want it to look like. I'm here in a big way and building