In it’s infancy the whole idea felt distant and therefore attainable. As any big idea looks from far away, it appeared small and manageable. Something happens once you give an idea momentum – it gets closer, and looks bigger, until you suddenly realize you might not be able to pick it up by yourself. Such was the case with the Promoting Passion Convention. It was so simple to say that I wanted to create an event, but so difficult to pick that event up and take it where it needed to go by myself. So I got help.

First with Christine Heidel to help me secure a location, and then from Kate Hailey to help me find sponsors. After that, it was just me and Kelly working every day to make it come together.

There were three distinct times when I almost cancelled the convention altogether. The first time was before I announced it publicly. I was having a hard time finding sponsors to support a smaller, first-time event. I was having trouble communicating with the location. And I had nerves about getting anyone to show up. So just before I announced it online, I thought about canceling it and waiting until I had all of the sponsors in place so that I didn’t have to worry about money. The second time I almost canceled the convention was the day I announced it. Logically I knew it would take time for people to sign up, but in my imagination I was hoping for a massive success and that people would be beating down the door to sign up. When registration felt like crickets chirping, I panicked. I came much closer to actually shutting it down that very day that I announced it. The third time I nearly canceled was one month before it was set to begin. I didn’t have enough sign-ups to cover my costs and I was really worried about how much I might have to pay out of pocket.

The excuses I made are riddled with two attributes that I, as a general rule, don’t feed. And yet, in this case, I fed those traits everyday, with the most fattening food I could. Those traits were greed and shame. By canceling the event because I wasn’t making money, or because I’d have to spend my own money to make it happen, was just plain greedy. Perhaps I thought there was some rulebook saying that in order for something to be successful it must also be a monetary success. This has never been true and will never be true. The act of doing the thing is the success, and anything else is extra. The shame came from not wanting to look silly in front of everyone. I kept envisioning showing up and having there only be a few people at the event and feeling embarrassed that I couldn’t pull more people in.

But I realized that none of these things would be true. Success is not measured by money, and shame is something that can only seem a reality if you manifest it outside of yourself. The moment I act ashamed is the moment others can see my shame. The moment I cancel the event is the moment I draw attention to my own fears. So I turned my thoughts around entirely. I remember very distinctly writing down five reasons why no matter who came to the convention, it would be okay:

1. There will be a better sense of community with a smaller group.

2. There will be more 1-1 time and individual attention.

3. There is more room for audience participation.

4. The speakers can be more personal and interactive.

5. The attendees will have a better experience to spread the word for next year.

The moment I wrote out those five bullet points, I felt calmed. Sometimes all it takes is seeing the other side of a situation to silence your inner demons. And when I did, I was healed. We didn’t end up filling our seats to capacity, but when all was said and done we were only 10 people shy of that, and I found that to be a success. Because you see, no matter what the situation ends up being, there is always success to be found in the smallest triumphs and the biggest failures. There is goodness in all things if we choose to see it. There is a way to give thanks and a way to let it crumble, and I would rather be thankful, always.

I wanted to share very openly about my struggle in putting the event together, as I did throughout the convention itself, because we are not alone. I realized, as I stood on stage for the first time at my very first convention, that it would be easy for me to look out at a room of 100+ people and act like it was no big deal putting it all together. But that is the lie we tell ourselves. That is the lie we perceive about others. I thought that I must have looked so professional up there, lights blaring down on me, as I looked out at the amazing individuals who came out to support the event. But that is the lie, and this is the truth:

We are all scared.

And being scared should not stop us from realizing our greatest potential. It should not stop us from pursuing our greatest dreams. The moment it does is the moment fear takes over and quiets the voice inside that shouts at us to be more. It is that voice, coming from within, that should be listened to, never the voices from outside telling you all of the reasons why you will fail. They are cocky, overloaded, booming voices that speak from a place of hatred and never love.

In the midst of the convention, people started asking if I would be hosting another one next year, and I found myself automatically saying yes. The environment was so encouraging and loving that there was no space for that negative voice to be nurtured, and so I answered as my most loving self. I said yes. And in that moment I realized that I had missed something on my list of reasons why the convention would be a success, no matter what.

Someone would be deeply touched, no matter how many people showed up.

And that person, along with so many attendees, was me.

But aside from reflecting on the things we’ve done, it is a chance to start anew. It is a chance to evaluate if you really are the person you want to be, or if you need to change something. For me, there is always something to change. The only question is what I am going to change. I spent the last year of my life changing course. I stopped doing a lot of the things I had done before – business and personal – and laid the foundation for a new life. This year, I am living it. Year 28 will be one of discovering my dreams. Dreaming bigger. Dreaming in my own way. Letting dreams define me.

I emailed someone the other day about a big project I’m working on. His response was “This is an absolutely crazy idea”. And that made my heart soar with joy. “Yes,” I thought, “that is the kind of life I want to live.”

Getting older means learning lessons. It means failing miserably. It means succeeding wildly. It means changing perspective on life. And this is what it has meant to me:

2. Life cannot be quantified in years. If I died right now, I will have lived the best life possible. This I can say with absolute confidence and love.

3. I would rather be crazy than boring. After all, I am the only one I can count on to entertain myself.

4. Not everything will work out, because if it did, we wouldn’t be able to see the gems through the dust.

5. There is never an excuse for boredom.

6. Being present in all that you do means you will never feel like life has passed you by.

7. Being genuine will get you farther than attempting to please people.

8. When you refuse to compromise your beliefs, you attract like-minded people into your life.

9. If you treat failure like an old friend, he will always be there to help you back up when he knocks you down.

10. Kindness should never be dependent on someone else’s actions.

11. Fears are friends wearing masks. Get close enough to see the face of fear.

12. Give your love without need for reciprocation. Receive love like you deserve it.

13. The words “best” and “worst” should never be used to describe someone. We will only look foolish when we are proved wrong.

14. Tell someone why you love them.

15. Live your life to make someone else’s life better.

16. Look forward to each day you grow older. The alternative is death.

17. If you build a community, take care of that community.

18. Dream as though it will happen.

What I have learned this past year can be summed up in these words: Love wholly. Give repeatedly. Create selfishly. Challenge yourself regularly. Live beautifully.

Goodnight, 27.

Good morning, 28.

—

If you would like to send along a birthday gift (trust me, this is not a crazy narcissist sentence…) you can donate to the Fibromyalgia awareness campaign I have running, create an image with a butterfly to raise awareness, or join me on May 9 for the Caterpillar Walk. Alternately, you can donate photo equipment for the photography school I am starting in India for survivors of human trafficking – The Light Space. Signing up for the new After Dark conference will help donate to the school. Or simply check out my Giving Back page for ways to get involved.

]]> https://www.promotingpassion.com/promoting-passion-week-61-birthday-reflections/feed/ 19 https://www.promotingpassion.com/what-is-success-anyway/ https://www.promotingpassion.com/what-is-success-anyway/#comments Tue, 04 Nov 2014 14:42:22 +0000 http://www.promotingpassion.com/?p=2244 Read More Read More

“He did each thing as if he did nothing else.”

We live in a world built on pressures; the pressure to be successful, the pressure to be happy, the pressure to be someone great. We are taught, not necessarily by our parents but certainly by other influences, that we both need to reach higher yet stay in our place. We are taught to get a stable job and work for the promotion. We are taught to seek someone wonderful to marry so that we may find stability. We are taught that we should have dreams, yet work for the good of the team. And indeed, each of these things can be individually rewarding. Yet the lessons we are taught by those who influence us, especially as we grow, are very often contradictory.

Instead of being taught to dream big and do what we need to do to achieve that dream, we are taught to dream realistically. Instead of being told that we can be great, we are told to try and be great while staying inside the confines of what is socially acceptable. Each of these paradigms is what ultimately holds so many people back from doing what they love or defining happiness for themselves.

Part of the problem is how widespread we are as individuals. We do what we think we need to do to serve others, and in doing so, very often, forget to serve ourselves. We please our parents and we please our friends and we take care of children and we help our boss, yet behind all of that is a sense of self. We are taught that we must please those higher up than ourselves, that we must obey our parents, that we must, must, must. And behind all of those “musts” is what we need to nourish our souls.

“He did each thing as if he did nothing else.” I think this quote is so powerful for two reasons. One is of presence. To be present is to perform each task as if it were the only one; to get rid of distractions and embrace a life in the now. The other reason why I love the words so much is what it implies about the man himself. In order to do each thing at such a level, one must place value on the self so as to see value in doing anything at all.

I do not believe that this quote indicates he did everything better than other people, but instead that he placed value in each thing that he did and was engaged enough to focus his energy into them. So much of our problem today lies in two places: distractions and self-doubt. We doubt ourselves because we are told to, whether directly or unintentionally. Take going to school for art. If you are someone who has done this, it is very likely someone along the way told you how impractical that would be. In my case it was deciding to be a photographer. I had no training and no idea of how to run a business, but my heart was set on it. And as a result opinions came out of the woodwork, and I was told of how practical I needed to be.

“People don’t make money selling art. You need a backup plan.”

These words are commonly spoken and meant to be caring most of the time. Yet at the same time, they inadvertently tell the person to whom they are spoken that they are not good enough, will not succeed, and should not try. With messages like this floating around everywhere, self-doubt is a disease that plagues many, and understandably so.

What if we could channel some of that Charles Dickens magic and create a world for ourselves where we did each thing as if we did nothing else? What if we made decisions that could change our lives, and do change our lives, and we lived them as though nothing else mattered? To be present, to get rid of distractions, to believe you are worthy of pursuing such goals…that is the ultimate in finding your voice and finding a story for your life.

How can we get rid of the doubt and the anxiety and the distractions? Two simple ideas: The first is that few people care about you as much as you care about yourself, and the people who might care more are the people who will try to keep you safe. You need to take risks. You need to do something scary. And those who love us most will often hold us back, in the kindest way possible and for the very best reasons. Yet we need not listen. We must move forward. The second thing to realize is that you are the only one making decisions in your life. If we place the blame on other people for offering their opinions, we are living life in the shadow of someone else. A journey in the shadow of another is a very dark road.

Every single person has an incredible, unique story and vision. That story needs to be told, and that vision expressed, and to do so is to empower others to do the same. Dream big and dream often. Find your voice and share it. Tell the story of your life through your own words. And next time you take a leap and do something important, do it as if you did nothing else. Do it wholly, with confidence and pride, and do it with love…for yourself, as much as others.

**Image by my friend Seth Cashman, who is as kind and true as he is talented.**

Give me a nasty comment online about my photos and I shrug it off. If someone doesn’t like the work I create, it doesn’t hurt me. I don’t spend my time looking into negativity. I don’t spend my days worrying about if people like what I do or not. What does get me, every single time, is how people experience me as a person. I put a lot of pressure on myself to be at my best all the time, and it physically pains me to think that I have given someone less than that.

Everyone deals with disappointment in different ways. It might be disappointment in a product, in someone else, or in yourself. In my case, I have trouble dealing with disappointment in myself. I hold everyone and everything in my life to high standards, but none more than me personally. I don’t deal with disappointment well. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I get physically ill. Sometimes I want to stop everything that I’ve worked for so as to never feel that feeling again.

Just a couple hours ago I said, out loud, that I wanted to quit my job. I didn’t want to move forward with any of the projects I’ve been working on for fear of being judged, rejected, or disappointing someone. Yet even as I thought about quitting, I could hear my future self, the one who wants to push harder and move further, talking rather loudly in my ear. She was telling me that if I never put myself out there I can never be a positive influence in the world. If I never put myself out there I can never do what my heart is set on doing. Yet the other side, like a little devil sitting on my shoulder, told me that I will do too much harm to make it worth it.

I will let people down. I will be a disappointment. I will never be what someone wants me to be.

Yet all the while, I will be myself. I will try to work on my journey and how I see the world and how I interact with it. I will try to be a better person. I will try to touch people’s lives for the better. I will try, and trying is all we can expect of each other.

That is a truth that I know intimately. It is a truth I have come face to face with many times. There are days when I want to quit. Right now, at this very moment, I have that desire deep in my bones. I don’t want to mess up. I don’t want to be a disappointment. Yet even greater than that is the knowledge that when one perseveres, tries harder, and becomes a better person, other people will benefit as well.

I might fail a hundred times, but if I succeed at only one thing, I hope it is to help someone, somewhere, in some way. In any way. To spread the love that I feel inside. And should I fail, I will welcome that failure with open arms. I will regret nothing because I tried my best. I will work to correct my mistakes. I will progress. I will challenge myself. I will try.

Let yourself feel what your body wants to feel. Let yourself be emotional and scared and understand, in those moments, how terrifying it is to put yourself out there. But when that feeling passes, even if only in a small amount, remind yourself of how incredible you are. You are only one small human, and yet in being so, you are powerful beyond measure. Next time you fall, remember that if you never did, you could not understand the immense honor of reaching peaks. All of life is made up of valleys and mountain tops that seem out of reach, yet both are attainable. We will fall and we will rise again, and we will do so understanding more about life each time.

We are not perfect. It is easy enough to say and we get told enough times, yet truly realizing that and being okay with others realizing that is something else entirely. I want to be perfect. I think that is a normal human reaction to life. We want to live as much as we can and give as much as we can and find perfection in our own ways. We will inevitably fail, yet striving for it nonetheless is the human condition.

I struggle with putting too much pressure on myself. I fail to recognize my success for as long as, perhaps, I should. The result is the need to do more. I want to live countless lives in one. I want to see everything, touch the hearts of as many people as possible. I want to live to live, not live to die.

I received an email from a very special person, someone who came with me on the artist retreat I hosted in the UK. In the sweetest, most motherly way possible, she told me that she worries about me. That she can see my energy drain by the end of the day. And she wants me to take care of myself. This sentiment is echoed by the friends in my life everyday, my family, and yet I ignore it as though a stranger were telling me my shoe is untied: Sorry sir, I’m late to an appointment. No time to tie it back up.

Life is such an interesting balance of contentment and restlessness. We strive to be content with what we have, yet we constantly search for more. We want to find happiness, yet when we have it, we know there is more out there. Life is an addiction that I love with all my heart. I believe it is to be cherished, yet also looked after. The decisions I find myself making, albeit for all the right reasons, aren’t always the healthiest for myself.

I need to slow down, this I know. I will burn out. My health will get worse. Yet I feel that burning desire to explore, adventure, inspire and be inspired. I am going to be on the road more than I will be home for the rest of this year, and I have more planned for the next. My point in writing all of this is not to say that I need to stop, nor even that I necessarily need to slow down in everything I do. I simply need to be more honest.

I need to find an honest place with myself and be able to share that with others. If someone asks me how I’m doing, I will always say wonderful. Because I am. I consider my well-being to be almost exclusively mental. I will answer that question with how I am feeling in my heart, not my body. And I believe that way of thinking is paramount to my personal happiness.

So this is me being honest with you. I am not always in good health. In fact, usually not. And to be honest, I don’t really care. I love experiencing life the way I do. It makes me that much more grateful when I can get out of bed and when I can push past my struggles. But next time I see you, and we ask how the other is doing, I might not be feeling so great. But inside, I’ll be the happiest girl in the world. So when I say I am wonderful, that is the most honest answer I can give.

Live in a world of gratitude, love and happiness.

How are you doing?

But then I got older, and I thought a lot more about what it means to truly be a leader. It doesn’t mean that you have people following your every move, or that you speak in front of big groups of people, or that you make epic speeches like in the movies. It is a solidarity with oneself, a resolve to do what makes your heart sing, and the confidence to move forward without following someone’s footsteps.

We are all leaders and we are all followers. What matters most is not whether you are predominantly one or the other, but if you are leading yourself. The rest will follow.

How often, in your own life, do you choose the road less traveled? How often do you give yourself permission to go where no one has gone before, or to do something out of your comfort zone. It is easier to follow because it is safe. We find security in knowing that someone else has been through what we will go through. Yet someone had to be first. Everything starts with something. Don’t live your life with someone else’s decisions.

Take hold of what is dear to you. Lead yourself through the unknown and trust in your instincts. Know that you have the power to pull yourself up should you fall, the ingenuity to break new ground, and the love of self to know it is worth it. The greatest things in this world are achieved through personal exploration. Do what you love because you love it. Don’t search the internet for an instruction manual. If you should fall, you will get back up. Falling is not failing, it is a lesson learned on the way to success.

Move bravely on your journey, and you may soon find others following in your footsteps.

Sometimes I feel it is appropriate to answer the question by saying it took no time at all. Or, maybe, that it has taken all the time in my life. I had a style before I picked up a camera. That doesn’t meant that my pictures looked how I wanted them to look. At the same time, they will never look how I want them to look…or if they do, for now, they inevitably will not later. The reason is because we are always growing and learning and achieving and failing. Failing, most importantly.

The length of time something takes is only important insofar as we can measure our life’s journey, and how content we were living it. The amount of time something takes is relevant if we make it so, and if we do not place emphasis on it, it no longer becomes something with which we measure ourselves against.

Never look into another person’s life and think that how they do something is the right way. Never watch someone else’s process and believe yours must be the same. Judge yourself based on your own timeline, or ignore it all together. Be present, be happy, and fulfill yourself.

On one hand I would tell you to lower your expectations, because expecting nothing of yourself means you are free to live how you want to live without being judged, by someone else or by yourself. On the other hand, I would tell you to set high expectations of yourself so that you are always reaching and growing and striving. Yet both are true. Desire. Grasp. Live. These are the goals we set for ourselves. Fail. Fall. Fly. This is how we walk the path to fulfillment.

Think not of time but instead of each moment as an opportunity. Do not worry about the future, or the past, or how you measure up against other people and the limitations they put on themselves. Think of your timeline as being forever in flux, moving with you and not ahead of you. You will go at your own pace. You will fail. You will succeed. And if you are willing, you will do it all in bliss.

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