What Would Your Life Be Like If You Did Only What Was Easy?

This is an exclusive sneak peak from THE FIRE STARTER SESSIONS by Danielle LaPorte. Prepare for some soul sizzle…

What would your life be like if you did only what was easy? 
Let me repeat the question:
What would your life be like if you only did what was easy? 

It’s almost unsettling to go there, isn’t it? When I try to answer that question for myself I squirm a bit. Lazy dilettante. As IF. What would I do with all that extra time I’d have if I just did the easy stuff? Hmmm . . . maybe I’d have more time to enjoy what I’ve got and get more of what I want. Maybe things would be . . . easier.

Ease. The concept confounds most of us. Here’s why: 

Pay your dues. Put in your time. Prove yourself. Check the right box. Stay the course. Meet expectations. Soldier on. Nothing worthwhile comes easy. Good things come to those who wait. Blue collar,  white collar, hard work pays off. No pain, no gain. Thomas Edison put it this way: There is no substitute for hard work. 

We’ll call these, collectively, the Myth of Endurance: a concept that you can choose to believe in, in varying degrees, or not. “Easy” is also a concept that can be just as useful to you. The easy way is a direction that leads to spacious places.

Choosing easy is smart, efficient, elegant; a fantastic form of self-compassion; giving yourself a break and getting out of your own way. Choosing easy is letting inspiration be your compass. Choosing easy is allowing for the things that you’ve been asking for to enter your life. Now, let’s be clear, there are two types of easy. Quality easy and cheap easy. We’re aiming for Quality, with a capital Q.

THE QUALITY KIND OF EASY 
Quality easy has a sense of fluidity to it. There’s a gravitational pull forward. Quality easy relies on his inner strength. Quality easy has an abiding respect for herself. Quality easy has fewer things on the to-do list and is a brilliant delegator. Quality easy trusts the timing of things. He knows it’s better to hold out for what’s right than to deal with the mess of extracting himself from a bad compromise. The minute resentment and irritation set in to a task, Quality easy goes on red alert. She steers clear of aggravation, annoyance, and repetitive misery. Over time,

Quality easy gets comfortable saying no, thank you, to things that are just too complicated and too distant from what she really wants. She is willing to let it go, get over it, and walk  away— because she
has better things to do with her life energy. It’s that simple, most of the time. Quality easy brings a sense of expansion to things. Quality easy is
compelling—because when you say yes to grace, you’re saying yes to the natural flow of life. You lift your face toward the divine, like flowers lean into the light.

THE CHEAP KIND OF EASY 
Cheap is a sucker for a discount. Cheap easy can’t see that some losses are gains. Cheap easy stays in a stifling relationship because it seems easier than facing the heartbreak and dividing up the furniture. Cheap easy is frequently in a rush, a smidge desperate, and usually scrambling for options. Cheap easy tells little white lies to get things done. The path of least resistance isn’t about shortcuts, cutting corners, or being clever. And it’s certainly not about making mediocrity acceptable. It’s about optimizing the truth. It’s about casting your seeds on the most fertile soil for your best chances for success.

START WITH THE EASY STUFF 
Easy is sublimely logical. Consider all of the things you want to create, produce, accomplish, put out in the world, and  experience—so many roads that could lead to satisfaction. Start with the project or the aspect of the project that is the easiest. What do you already know the most about? Where are there already ambassadorship and alliances? What are people already asking you for?

The same goes for creating satisfying relationships. What’s already going well that you can lean in to? What do you adore about the other person that you can focus on? The easy stuff is right in front of you and totally doable: simple kindnesses freely given day to day. Start there and you can approach the big hairy issues with some lightness.

Instant gratification has gotten a bad rap. I’m all for it. Why would you want to delay gratification? Within the constraints of morality and maturity, you should do whatever you need to do to feel gratified in the moment. It may be as subtle as choosing a more positive thought or reminding yourself to smile. Maybe it’s taking two minutes in your car or at your desk to do nothing but just feel into the day. Maybe instant gratification is fifty sit-ups for an adrenaline rush, ordering dessert first, giving an unexpected hug, signing the lease, or telling your boss to shove it. You can be responsible to those around you while creating immediate pleasure for yourself.

Pleasure makes everything easier. Gratification builds the momentum, motivation, and muscle for you to choose the work ahead of you that will require more patience and stamina. It warms you up
to shine. Easy does it.

For more by this author, visit DanielleLaPorte.com

Escaping from what? Your pain, or your power?

Escapism. Most new-age gurus say we’re expert in it. I can’t disagree. We’re distracted. Denatured. We’re overbooked. We tend to be disconnected from our divine nature, the food we eat, the shit we buy, the eyes we look into — our own and others.

We buffer/numb/avoid/distract ourselves with TV, caffeine, drugs, getting off, gossiping, complaining, having otherwise meaningless conversations, shopping (more aptly, “stuffing”), working, tweeting, surfing work email, work, work -– all to avoid feeling particular things. This is what the Buddhists would call “The Principle of Death.” Keep it safe; keep it small. At all costs, avoid life.

The self-help book aisle is busting with the theory that what we’re running from is our demons. Sadness, grief, emptiness, loneliness. Pain.

Pain management
Personally, I haven’t run from my pain. I compensated for it. I spent so much time accommodating it, “working with it”, paying attention to it –- not avoiding it, that I neglected my very agency and power: my joy. Unbridled, unabashedly sweet, essential joyousness.

I’m a recovering metaphysical overachiever. After I got done being a good Catholic girl I moved on to being a good new-age girl. Subtly, I just swapped one gospel with the other. I just wanted to get it right, you know. I was up for facing demons. Bring them on — and the more analysis, the better. Crusading all the way.

Continually staring down your demons can be an act of avoidance all it’s own.
Recapitulating the reasons for your hurts, isms, and faults can become addictive in and of itself.
Eventually, you have to stop picking a fight with your true nature and decide to seek the joy that underlies it all.

Bliss is big
I got caught up enough in going where the pain was (“brave”, “evolved”,) that I avoided going where the delight was. And here’s what I figured out (later than I hoped but just in time): I have not shied from pain. Oh no. I have shied from ecstasy. Surprisingly, (thankfully!) ecstasy is quite patient. After all, she starts with a slow burn.

When I take the certain routes to awakeness, through the portals of breathing, laughter, stillness, spontaneity; when I exercise the courage to not fill up space with empty conversation, with the tube, with busyness, it’s not my pain that I most often meet in such presence — it’s my power.

When I override my senses, refuse to bend, when I check my email just one more time before I make time for me, when I eat even though I’m full, when I hold myself back from a bursting expression of “I love you so much!” because I don’t want to be too much, it’s not my pain that I’m avoiding — it’s my very life force.

So which of these concepts would you rather investigate?

Avoiding your pain, or avoiding your power?

The cosmic twist is that both routes lead home. But how you make the trip to enlightenment is up to you. Pack light.

For more wisdom from Danielle, visit daniellelaporte.com.

Photo credit: Anastasia Photography

In Praise Of Women: Adoring, Fang-Baring, Fiery Witnesses

Michelle at Wicked Whimsy inspired me to go deeper with a comment that I made in an interview:

I often hear “women are our own worst enemies” in terms of our culture. I’m tired of that argument. I think everyone is their own worst enemy, and I don’t think it’s about something women have specifically against each other.

The uh, broadness, of my experience with the women throughout my life leaves me humble, optimistic, proud and grateful. I’ve been screwed over by females in business and love, and I’ve planted a few land mines myself. But those enemy-making times were the results of bumbling, struggling humanness, not ovaries or hormones. We could argue the bio-instincts to procreate, protect and feed that spurs some nasty behavior from chicks, or about Queen Bees and Wanna-Bees - all very real social dynamics, but I’m here to give witness to the force of pure Goddess positivity that is the hallmark of my life. Word.

MY LIVED EXPERIENCE? WOMEN SIMPLY ADORE WOMEN:

• A woman makes a cup of her heart. She carries your concerns and fears with you, for you. When your eyes fill up with teary news, so do hers. It happens with women you’ve known for years, with women you just met at the grocery store, in the ladies room, in a prayer circle. She carries your story with her. She mixes honey with it and re-tells it to you and helps you notice how great you’re doing, in spite of everything, because of everything.

• Women shake their cosmic pom-poms. Go, sister, go! How many times has a girlfriend told you, that you got it going on, before you head out the door or the dressing room? That even though your new haircut makes you look like a mushroom, your ass looks grrreat. They’ll be looking at your ass all night, not your hair. Really, you’re hot. Just keep your hat on and don’t sit down. Go get ‘em.

• Women feed each other – literally and figuratively. Think of all the meetings or retreats you’ve been to. Who brings the cocoa and sparkling water? Who remembers that you’re lactose intolerant? Who asks you if you have everything you need?

• Women bare their fangs for you. Like when Tammy threatened to butt her cigarette out between buddy’s eyebrows if he didn’t leave us alone. He walked, we rocked.

• Women hold on. It’s like Audrey Hepburn said, “Never throw anyone out.” It’s like my soul sister Donna says, “We’re all bozos on the same bus so just go with it.” Meep meep.

• A woman will sacrifice without calling it a sacrifice. Leila was three months pregnant. I was moving cross-country (again.) Road trip anyone? We U-Hauled our way from Seattle to Santa Fe with Leila coughing her cookies at every truck stop. I made it to my desert home and she flew back to the coast. And named her little girl Phoebe Danielle.

• Women bypass history. A good sister listens to you bitch about the same jerk for years, she helps you pack when you’re smart enough to leave, and she stands by you when you repeat the same lesson with the next emotionally lame lover. She loves you enough to let you do it your way – again, and again, like it was the first time. No drama is too big for big women.

• Women push. Push babies out, push babies into the world. Baby ideas. Baby thought-forms. Baby parts of you. “But Danielle, it’s just a thought-form that you can’t take more,’” Navjit told me. “Don’t constrict. Expand.” Boundaries, pushed.

• A woman howls to help you remember what matters the most. She loves you enough to intervene. She will drag you out of your comfort zone and into the moonlight to say “What the hell are you doing? You may have temporarily forgotten who you are, but I haven’t and I’m here to remind you.” Like when Karen told me over green tea, “D, maybe it’s all about the divine feminine for you, maybe that’s the question to live. It’s time to move on from playing small.” Arooooo!

• Women touch you. Michelle and I went to visit a friend in the hospital recovering from surgery. Miche brought lavender lotion and massaged Friend’s feet while she lay achy and groggy. I’ll never forget that stunning moment of loving service.

• Women know how to navigate the layers because they love the layers. Folds of skin, the sediments of time, the stories that build into the present. Like how Candis not only remembers what I love but knows why I love it. She is reverent, keen, actively interested in the why of me and that is what it means to be witnessed by a woman.

For more wisdom, visit whitehottruth.com.

Photo credit: Jerine Lay

20 Personal Prosperity Practices (Emotions + All)

More than most subjects and matters of life, we tend to leave money wisdom to the experts. Fitness - we get that we need to do what works for us as individuals. Sex – you know that you’re the mistress or mister of your own domain. But money - few of us, would proclaim that we’re money experts. But just like your body and your heart, if you’ve created a relationship to money that works for you in some way - then that makes you your own money expert. You don’t need to know a thing about stock trading or how to read a profit n’ loss statement to be Chief Operating Officer of The Bank of You.

We don’t talk about money like we talk about diet tips or how to get the best bikini wax. We should. The more we talk about money amongst ourselves as friends, the more power we have. We demystify expertise, we expose fallacies and schemes, we neutralize emotional charge, we redefine success, and we help each other prosper.

Talk to your friends about money this week.

20 personal finance perspectives that took me most of my adult life to clarify and got me to a place of grooving prosperity

My money philosophy summed up: Be very attentive. Don’t cling. Practice generosity. Go for pleasure – now (which leans toward instant gratification, not delaying).

1. Talk about money. I have a kind of fiendish curiosity about how people create their financial freedom … or misery. “How much did you pay for that?” “What do you mean by ‘a lot’ of money?” “How much is enough?” “Where do you shop?” “Whatchya gonna do with all that money?” “What did you spend all that on anyway?” From food stamps to gold bullion under the mattress, I’m fascinated by how currency runs through our lives. So I just ask.

2. When you get it, don’t spend it right away. Wait to cash your check. Hold on to the savings as long as you can. It sends a message to your psyche that you always have enough, that there is no need to be desperate, and that you have something to look forward to. Restraint makes for good foreplay, which makes for good … release.

3. Make money a CENTRAL priority. This has nothing to do with greed and consumption, and everything to do with life force and power. In their right place, priorities do not consume, they enhance. This isn’t about fixating on money or hinging your self-worth on your hedge fund. IT’S ABOUT FOCUSING ON CREATING FREEDOM.

4. Online banking gives me control and ease. I do everything online. Everything.

5. I pay my bills as soon as they arrive and I say thank you to every bill, even the whopping dental expenses I just had, “I’m so glad I have the means to take care of this.”

6. I rarely think of money as lost or wasted – a less-than-stellar meal, a broken gadget that didn’t last long, bad business debt … it’s all feeding someone somewhere; the money will come back again, and complaining keeps you stuck.

7. I never, ever say I can’t afford it. Rather, “Buying a yacht is just not what I want to do with my money, darling.” Focus on priorities, not limitations. And I never say to my kid that we can’t afford things. I tell him we’re rich in love and life, and we can afford to be generous. When he wants to buy crappy, overpriced plastic toys, I say, “That’s not the best use of our good money, we’ll find something that’s better for you and the planet.” He gets it. (That said, he has enough Legos to build a large condo.)

8. Ask for exceptions. Can you waive the fee? How about that rain-check deal? Call your credit card company today and ask them for a better interest rate so that they can keep your business. You’d be surprised how easy it is.

9. Pay someone to do it. This flies in the face of some theories: “Why work an extra week at your job to afford to hire someone to paint your living room? Work less and paint the living room yourself.” Um, no thanks. My theory is this: Earn your money doing something you’re passionate about, and pay people to do what you’re not passionate about but needs to be done for you to fulfill your mission. D-I-Y is like, not part of my driving strategy.

10. Save receipts. I take shit back and I complain about poor service (very politely, of course … most of the time). Hollah with your dollahs.

11. I give my money accounts sappy, positive-affirmation titles. My bank statement reads like so: BOOMING LIFE + BUSINESS; BUSINESS TAX PAID (I see it as done!); HOME PAID FOR; ADVENTURE + CARE (from trips to acupuncture).

12. I’m setting my kid up for the future. Investing for him gives me very deep peace. Everyone deserves a leg up.

13. I hold out. I waited seven weeks for my Aeron chair because I wanted grey instead of black. I sat on the floor in my living room for three months because I wanted a couch that was three inches lower than the in-store model. I went four months without any creative-type support because I hadn’t found a winner yet.

14. I’m upfront about shopping for a deal with sales people. I’ll tell Dealer A that I’m going to Dealer B to compare. This ain’t a date, this is a numbers game.

15. I avoid big box stores and dollar stores. I buy organic and shop more often for food. I’m more meal focused than “cupboard” focused. More nourishment, less spending.

16. I pay for my music. It’s clean. It supports art.

17. I buy my friends’ stuff. If we’re good pals and you write a book or knit a sweater, sign me up for two. Love is really basic sometimes.

18. I get stuff repaired, even when it might be just as much to buy new (especially with electronics). My goal is to keep stuff out of landfills.

19. “Never a borrower or a lender be.” I always thought Shakespeare was incredibly prudish because of this. I lend; but, I prefer to just give. “It’s a gift.” Done.

20. I pay for convenience and speed. I consider my time so precious that I think, “If I do valet parking for the event tonight, I get an extra 15 minutes to be with my kid or write.” That’s worth 15 bucks, and so is staying out of the rain when I’m in suede boots. And besides, DVDs mailed to the door and express services make me feel all luxy and taken care of. And when you can create instant gratification, you’ve got the energy to create more to be grateful for.

Photo credit: donbuciak

The Secret to Self Promotion: Radiance and The Facts, Jack

Dear Danielle,

“Can I ask a question? I love working for myself and don’t want it any other way, but it seems that when you work for yourself you have to be a salesperson. I’m not a huge fan of salespeople and hate feeling like I’m pushing something on someone. If you have any opinions on that I’d love to hear them!” – Dani Griffin (via Facebook)

Dear Dani and the leagues of people who hate self promotion:

I never really understood people who are loathe to sell themselves or the stuff they make. But then again, my whole twenties (OK, and thirties) was solar-powered by the rays of my seduction. From boys to gigs to new age notions, I had a deal for you! “I got what you want and you don’t even know you want it. And I make house calls.”

Now? Meh. I’ve got what I’ve got, which is a lot. If that warms your cockles, let’s talk. If not, my engine is running, and I trust that your tribe is waiting for you elsewhere. Meep meep.

Do I sell my self? Damn straight I do. Every day, all day. I’m doing it right now. I’ll do it on Twitter, CBC TV, Facebook, this week’s speaking gig for the Travel and Media Association of Canada, and when the waiter asks me what I do for a living. But I’m no longer trying to convince you to believe and buy. Rather, (and this has been one of my most gnarly, redeeming spiritual journeys) I radiate and state the facts. That’s it. And it’s a helluva lot more efficient than sales.

So, why do you hate self-promotion?

1. Because … it makes you feel like you’re pushing something on someone? Passion is a force – and an essential one at that. If you’re not passionate about your service or your product, you shouldn’t be selling it in the first place. If you’re not passionate you have to fake it, and that’ll just make you feel like a sleazeball.

But let’s assume you are fully and truly turned on, and you’re offering the world something that you wholeheartedly believe in. Repeat: you’re anchored with integrity to purpose and meaning. That being the case, and the premise for everything I’m about to say after this, let’s proceed:

Don’t burn energy trying to assume how people will perceive you. What some people will read as enthusiastic stamina, others will interpret as pushy intruder. It’s your job to show up as you, passion and all, and let the right customers make up their mind about you.

2. Because … you’re shy? You have three choices here: a) Get over it. Nothing like motivation to put food on the table or achieve your life dreams to cure shyness. It happens all the time. b) Let someone else do the selling for you – a writer, a rep, an agent, a virtual assistant-type. c) Pray that your good intentions and the high quality or originality of your offering will attract customers and prosperity. This tact, on it’s own, never ever works.

3. Because it’s not a “strength” of yours? see #2.

4. Because you’re afraid that people will think less of you? That you’ll be less of an artist, social steward or true professional if you’re hawking your wares or blowing your own horn.

Then I have bad news for you: everything you do is promotion, so you may as well do it with aplomb. The good news? Everything you do is promotion. You are always radiating. From the personalized note that you tuck into your product shipment, to what you say at a party when someone asks you what you do, to how you pitch the art gallery or the corporation to get the big account – to the message you leave on a Facebook page.

HAPPY SELF PROMOTION = RADIATE your passion + STATE THE FACTS of what that passion generates – the results it brings for you and your customers.

I’ll go first: I’m really passionate about the practical applications of love and consciousness in life and entrepreneurship. I write and speak about it in every way possible. I ran a think tank without any formal education, I wrote a book that got the attention of Oprah’s producers, and now, in my current incarnation, I’m booked four to six weeks in advance with clients – many of them say they got enough love ‘n strategy in one hour to blow their circuits. I’m writing my next two books now and will launch them online this year.

That’s the passion, backed by the facts. Sometimes, at the start of your journey, all you may have in your inventory to “sell” is passion. And sometimes, that’s enough to open doors.

If you’re loving what you do and believing that it’s going to make a positive difference in people’s lives – whether it’s your wedding photography, your coaching methodology, or your zero point energy invention, then, you my friend, are ahead of the game. You’re light years down the path from the sorry sods who are grinning and bearing it in soul-sucking j-o-b-s.

So please, don’t devalue your currency. I’m so emphatic about this, I’m willing to get all Hallmark on you: a gift isn’t a gift until you give it away. Put a bow on it.

With much Love,
Danielle

Photo Credit: Anastasia Photography