My new book, Creative Success Now, was just published! It’s a roadmap on how to ignite creativity and inspire creatives of all stripes to get their ideas out into the world and thrive in today’s world. I was inspired to write my new book thanks to my experience with hundreds of creatives, teaching at Yale University’s School of Music and coaching and training professional musicians, arts leaders and creative business professionals on how to be successful.
Creative Success Now lays out the secrets to creative success with:
- The right mindset
- The purpose-driven authenticity set and
- The skillsets of success
My audience is “creatives”, defined as those who use their imagination to solve problems and generate innovative solutions. Those solutions can range from filling an empty stage or an empty page to a new app or process or program—anything that does not exist and that the world needs.
Filled with inspirational stories, this new book also provides research-based practical strategies and tools to help readers coach themselves to success.
How I Wrote My New Book
People often ask me how I came to write this book.
Back in 2014, I read a great book called Steal Like An Artist by a graphic designer, Austin Klein. In fact, this book was one of the top picks from my bookshelf for inspiration on creating success.
The book sets out 10 rules for creative people. The one that resonated most for me was Rule 3:
“Write the book you want to read.”
Reading this phrase made me realize that I was eager to write a book. The question was what to say.
Calling All Creatives
At this point, I had been writing a blog for 4 years where I shared my observations from teaching and coaching musicians at Yale as well as Juilliard and other music conservatories. In my private coaching business, I was also coaching musicians, entrepreneurs, creative lawyers and business people. In addition, I was training arts leaders at Carnegie Hall and through Opera America, as well as teaching in two career transition programs at Pace University, one for lawyers and another one for business professionals who wanted to move to the “do-good” sector.
All of the people with whom I worked-the musicians, composers, arts leaders, lawyers, business leaders, entrepreneurs– resonated with creativity, the problem-solving process of generating and actualizing new ideas. They also had a lot in common:
- They were highly intelligent and talented;
- They tended to thrive in the world of ideas and problem solving;
- They cared about being true to their values and their purpose;
- They were committed to being of service; and
- They were motivated to make things happen.
In other words, they were all creatives.
The Creative Success Now Methodology
Moreover, these creatives resonated with my approach to creating success: to show people how to change their thinking, be their best selves and to find the inner motivation to pursue their big dreams.
This, then, became my three-part Creative Success Methodology:
- Adopt the Mindset of Creative Success: Positive, Persevering and Proactive;
- Tap into the Creative Success Authenticity Set: Values, Passions, Strengths and Purpose; and
- Master the Creative Success Skill Sets: goals, TM, networking, Branding, Financial planning
Writing My New Book
I sat down to write the book in the summer of 2018. First, I created an outline with my three parts, divided into 12 chapters. I then selected the stories that illustrated my points. Armed with my blog posts and class and workshop notes, along with a healthy dose of passion, I wrote every morning from 6-10am, 6 days a week and finished the first draft in a month! The result was a lumbering, 100,000 word manuscript that I delivered to my publisher, Indie Books International.
Working with my fabulous editor, Henry DeVries, CEO of Indie Books, we sculpted the manuscript down. In the process, I learned how to tell a story and present my material in a digestible, easy-to-follow way. It was an amazing learning experience and the result is the book you see today.
Bottom Line:
If you are looking to change your mindset, discover and align with your best, authentic self and learn the skills for creating success in the fast-moving, ever-changing world of the 21st Century, this new book is for you
