Destiny Allison's Blog, page 13

Pay It Forward

As promised, I’m going to spend a little time talking about moments in my life where someone lent a hand and furthered my journey. The concept of pay it forward isn’t new, but it’s still important.

Paying it forward means doing a good deed for someone without getting anything in return. The truth is, when we do something for someone else, we get a lot in return.

Recently, Michael Norton gave a TED talk on how money can buy happiness. In it, he describes how spending money on other people radically effects how happy you are. If you’ve got ten minutes, the video is worth watching.

On some level we all know this, but it is often not part of our daily consciousness. We’re all so busy trying to survive, get ahead, and take care of ourselves and our family that we don’t think about the small things that make all our lives better.

In 2002, I was working like a slave building my art career. I’d paid my dues and it was going well. For the first time in my life, I had money in the bank and wasn’t living paycheck to paycheck. Then, the unexpected happened.

My youngest son had just entered 7th grade. Against my better judgment, I had allowed him to attend a local public school. Santa Fe is known for its poor education system and his school was no exception. Almost immediately he was bullied. His clothes were thrown in a toilet and some tough kids shoved his head in also. I didn’t know this. All I knew was that he wasn’t happy.

I did all the things mothers do to try to resolve the situation, but nothing worked. Eventually, in a meeting with his teacher and the principal, a long tale of bullying came out. My son was terrified to go to school and miserable while there. He was failing all his classes and I worried for his mental health.

When all recourse failed, I pulled him out and put him in private school. The tuition for the remainder of the year was $7,000 – everything I had managed to save. It was just before Christmas and I had planned on purchasing a plasma cutter. For those of you unfamiliar with direct metal sculpting, a plasma cutter is a critical tool. It’s also really expensive (around a $1,000) and I was so happy I would finally be able to buy one.

My son’s tuition set me back more than a year – a year I couldn’t afford if I was going to continue developing my art and my business. Nevertheless, his education and mental health were more important so I did what most mothers would do – sacrificed what I wanted and needed for him.

At the time, I had just started seeing someone. Over lunch with him, I burst into tears recounting my tale of woe. My date and I had known each other professionally for years, but we weren’t close. He offered to buy the tool for me. I turned him down. Our relationship had not developed to the point where I was comfortable receiving expensive gifts from him.

My refusal crushed him and, over days, I discovered something about him I had not known. Deeply committed to the importance of art, he truly wanted to help. Even if I weren’t in a relationship with him, he would have made the same offer. Eventually, he convinced me and the tool jumped my career exponentially. It cut my time in half and vastly improved the quality of my art which led, of course, to increased sales.

I married this man and he is still the love of my life and one of my greatest inspirations. To this day, he continues to help creative people achieve their dreams through gifts large and small. Even strangers are recipients of his generosity. In honor of him, Pipe Dreams will be released on our wedding anniversary.

I’ve been fortunate to have had several people reach out to me when I needed it most. Those of you who have read Shaping Destiny know what the foundry owner in Boston did for me. There are many others. Sometimes the gifts were large. Sometimes they were so small as to be almost imperceptible. Regardless, each moved me forward on my journey.

I’m going to pay it forward with, Pipe Dreams, and I hope you’ll help.  As I noted yesterday, 25% of the sales from my launch will be donated to someone so they can further their dreams.

How about you? Has someone gifted you what you needed at a critical moment or furthered your path by being generous?  Let me know. I love hearing from you.

Gearing up for the Launch Party

I know I’m the only one doing metaphorical somersaults about the launch of my new novel, Pipe Dreams. Everybody and their mother has a book out these days and in the age of the Indie, writing a book doesn’t carry the same weight it once did.

But I think it’s wonderful that so many are finding ways to express themselves and live their passions. We’re not all Faulkner or Michael Angelo. What we are is growing, learning, and becoming the people we want to be. So I think every book, artwork or green seedling in the garden is cause for celebration.

I also know how hard it is to find the time, energy, and money to pursue those passions. So my launch party is going to be a little different. Instead of making it all about me, I’m going to make it about all of us.

And I’m asking for your help. The book will be launched on my wedding anniversary — Monday, June 3rd. For the entire month, everyone who helps to promote the book will be entered into a drawing.

At the end of the month, I will give 25% of my sales to one winner so that person can get a boost toward pursuing his or her passion. Do you need an editor? That expensive tool you’ve been eyeing? How about a weekend away? We all can use a little help.

In addition, I will feature people who are helping to promote the book on my blog, twitter, and facebook so that we can share in each other’s goals, pursuits and achievements. The more I sell, the more I give away.

Why? Because people have helped me all the way along and I want to pay it forward. More on that in a future post.

I’ll be giving more details as we get closer, but today I’m hoping you’ll let me know if you think this is a good idea and if you are willing to help.

Let me know in your comments.

Live Twitter Chat

I hope you will join me on Monday, May 20 at 6 pm MST for a live twitter interview and chat with Andre Gensburger.  You can stream the chat  by going to tweetchat.com and using the hashtag #misterwriter.

The interview and chat will focus on writing, art, and life in general and should be a ton of fun.  My twitter handle is @sfsculptor. Andre’s is @MisterWriter. This came about because Andre read my first book, Shaping Destiny. Here’s his Amazon review of the book:

“When I first bought his book I expected a simple mix of a life of an artist. It only took a page to find myself immersed in a raw journey quite aside from the journey of a sculptor; rather a beautifully written and profoundly expressed reflection of my own life’s questions seen through the eyes of someone I have never met. What Destiny writes about is life, raw, unadulterated, brutally honest, haunting, and yet somehow poetic in the complex meanderings that brought out, for her, her true self, her passions, her career, a deep understanding of life and death and, perhaps more importantly, of motherhood. It is only after she has run full circle through her past, her pains, the loss of her father and grappling with an understanding of her own self-worth, that she ends in a place of optimistic peace, still taking on challenges, but without the tempest that had preceded it. At the end, it has become a dance.

I had to read this straight through. I could not put it down. What Destiny sees and feels in her art, I see and feel in music, words; what I observe when I hide in a corner and watch the world without the world seeing me. I was fixed to her brutal honesty, the raw pain conveyed without the cliched obscenities or graphic violence we expect of writers. Her words flowed smoothly, thoughts to actions to feelings to emotion, all the while tying the lessons to the threads of her art, her growth as an artist, told in tandem, each leading to the next lesson until she has fully emerged.

Life is pain with love sprinkled throughout. Or life is love with pain sprinkled throughout. There is a lot of sprinkling of both, along with hope and understanding. I highly recommend this book and look forward to her next one. And here I thought she was a sculptor!”

I was deeply honored by Andre’s review and, over time, we’ve become good friends. I have a great deal of respect and admiration for him. He has several interesting ventures. To find out more about him and the upcoming event, visit his website by clicking here.

Hope you can join us and weigh in on the conversation.

Please Help Find Nichole

Reblogged from M.S. Fowle:

I've never said this to any of you, but PLEASE REBLOG THIS! We need as many people as possible to see it, even if you live overseas - PLEASE REBLOG or REPOST!

This past Sunday night, a local teenage girl went missing and no one has seen or heard from her since.

15-year-old Nichole Kristine Cable of Glenburn, Maine was last heard from Sunday night at around 9:20pm.

Read more… 277 more words

Regret

Reblogged from helenvalentina:

I regret most

the moments of indecision

Relinquishment to fear

Words unspoken

Deeds undone

Though their mere utterance

or action may

have torn the world asunder

Instead now in this slumber

of nothingness

I regret

I regret more

the glance averted,

the turning head or back

Love's ending

in false beginnings

Though the move to an embrace

or yet a kiss may…

Read more… 17 more words

Loved this.

You Get What You Deserve

The crumbling shale on the small cliff beckoned, siren-like. There were fossils there – seashells and ancient worms, bits of bone and feathery plants – each a testament to time and mystery. I stopped the car, grinned impishly at my husband, and bolted across the worn, dirt road.

Without thinking, I scrabbled up the steep slope, grabbing bushes, rocks, and dirt to keep from sliding. At the top of the ledge, I began digging amid the rubble. There were fossils everywhere and I was, for a moment, a child again.

After the initial rush, I slowed some to savor the cool air and mountain scents – pungent pine, gooseberry tickle, wet earth coursing with spring. It was then I noticed the poison ivy growing dark and glossy along the edge of the cliff. I pointed it out to my husband and continued to search for ancient relics.

We found more than we could count and eventually tired. The enthusiasm had waned and the day was losing its battle with low clouds and light rain. We discarded our treasures, shared a kiss, and scampered back to the car.

The next morning, I woke scratching. By the time my eyes were fully open, I was clawing at my skin. Sure enough, the distinctive rash was blooming and you don’t want to know how much I itch.

Why am I telling you this? It’s not really to elicit your sympathy (though I wouldn’t mind it – I’m a baby when it comes to stuff like this). I’m telling you because the experience is an apt metaphor for life.

We all rush sometimes. Whether it’s to get to a final destination, because we’re so excited about what we’re doing, or because we’re tired and just want the project – book, sculpture, painting, exercise routine, whatever – to end. The problem is, rushing never works.

How many indie books are improperly formatted or riddled with poor writing, grammatical mistakes, and typos? How many artists rush to finish a painting and mess it up because they didn’t let the previous layer dry all the way? How many idiots like me go tramping through the woods without paying attention to their surroundings and end up with poison ivy, a twisted ankle, or even lost?

Laurence Gonzales wrote a great book called Deep Survival: Who lives, Who dies, and Why. In it, he talks about how and why emotions overrule logic in heightened situations and reveals that those who are fully present in the moment are the ones most likely to survive. If you haven’t read it, pick it up. Even if you don’t spend much time in the woods, what he talks about can be applied to any stressful situation (and by stressful, I mean anything that makes your heart hammer, be it joy or terror).

Deep Survival is one of my favorite non-fiction books and I should have known better. If I had been fully attentive, instead of consumed by my excitement, I would be writing a different post today, my wrist wouldn’t be raging with itch, and I wouldn’t be scouring the internet for relief. Then again, if I weren’t, I wouldn’t have found this nugget on Wiki How:

“Use gasoline as an absolute last resort. If you’re camping, have an extremely itchy rash and have no other options, gasoline, like alcohol, can help to dissolve oils from poison ivy or poison oak. Never go near an open flame if you’ve applied gasoline to your rash.”

Oh my god! I laughed so hard when I read that. Again, the urge to get what we want often dilutes common sense and creates much bigger problems for us to deal with.

The moral? Impatience breeds disaster. If you don’t slow down, pay attention to the details, and care about the process as much as the destination, you’ll get what you deserve. I did and it’s not fun.

How about you? Do you rush when you’re excited? Are there ways you calm yourself down enough to stay steady and do it right? Let me know. I love your comments.

Act or React? Living with Fear

We spent some time at Trinidad Lake State Park yesterday –skipping rocks, finding treasures, fighting wind. Desolate and beautiful, it was just what we needed. The raw land, empty shores, and cloudy skies were a validation and a purge. Standing on a small bluff, amid crumbling shale and petrified wood, all I could think was, “This too shall pass.”

It’s been a little rough lately. My regular business hit a bump and my partners and I have been in reaction mode. It’s my least favorite place to be.  I like the creative stuff — getting my juices flowing and staying up late plotting new and different ways to connect with our market and positively impact our little corner of the world. Unfortunately, our community is currently divided over a multitude of seemingly inconsequential issues. Warring neighbors, rigid in their own beliefs, dominate the feel of the very air we breathe.

The biggest debate? Chickens. Some days, it’s comical.  Most of the time, it just hurts. As the issue has swelled in local media, the fight has gotten even uglier. In reality, only a few people on each side really care. Locked into a group think mentality, they are like automatons chiming a pre-programmed ideology. There’s no listening, conversation, or solution. As this debate wages, vicious and loud, other issues are popping up all over and our community continues to escalate the tension.  Fear of losing a particular quality of life has destroyed the quality of life each side is trying so hard to protect. Some days, I want to plant a series of stop signs along the edge of our commercial property. The last seven signs would read Please. Stop. Fighting. This. Is. Our. Home.

While my partners and I work to mitigate the damage, I am simultaneously struggling with how to launch the novel. Terrified of making mistakes, I’m diddling with things instead of moving forward with my plan. My fear is silly. The beauty of self-publishing is that I’m not locked into any one method. If something doesn’t work, it’s not fatal and I can change it. Logically, this makes sense, but emotionally it doesn’t matter.

Today, Seth Godin put up a great post on fear. He says, “Easier to avoid the fear than it is to benefit from living with it. I’ve heard the quote a thousand times but never really thought it through…”

What he’s talking about is pretty profound. Rather than face a fear, we avoid any action that brings us close to it. Instead of putting a work into the world, we keep tweaking it way past the moment when we should have called it done. Tweaking allows us to procrastinate and keep our fear of failure, or success, at bay. Instead of taking that car into a mechanic when the engine light goes on, we wait a few days, or a month, because we don’t want to encounter the fear that something serious might be wrong.

Then, when things come to a head – our business hits that rough patch, a deadline has been missed, or the car breaks down on the freeway, we go into reaction mode. Our blood pressure goes up, we stop sleeping well, and we blame ourselves. That blame does serious damage to the self-confidence we need to be successful.

Last year, my son invited us to go cliff jumping at a lake. Honored that he would include us (he was twenty two at the time) we went. I was content to watch my maniac son and his friends do back flips off a thirty foot cliff into the water. After awhile, watching felt silly. I stepped up to the edge and immediately was overcome by a horrible sense of vertigo. I could not do this. It was insane.

Then I got mad at myself for hesitating. I don’t live my life that way (or at least try to convince myself that I don’t). So, I took a deep breath and went for it, screaming the whole way down.

The water was a perfect temperature and, as it enveloped me, I grinned. Rising to the surface with a thundering heart, my screams of terror became screams of triumph. The cliff had never been my obstacle. Fear was. Facing it, I empowered myself.

Today, after a visit to a different lake, I am remembering what it felt like to conquer fear. In my regular business and in my art business (writing and sculpting) I achieve what I want and need when I jump. Acting, instead of reacting, I plow ahead, brave the cliff, and at least learn something from the experience that will help the next time I’m in the same situation.

The thing is, whether I face my fears or not, this rough patch will pass. So will the launch of the book. The question is, who am I in the process? At the end, as I look back on my life, will the words, “I did that” be a testament to my courage or my cowardice? I know what I want for myself. How about you? Let me know. I love to hear from you.

 

In Pursuit of Dreams

I don’t know how many times I’ve told people not to give up on their dreams. It seems to be a running theme for me and one I believe in deeply. What I didn’t know was how deeply this belief is ingrained in me or how it seeps through my subconscious into almost everything I do.

On Monday night, my family needed an escape so we went to see Oblivion. While watching the previews, all I could think about was finding the right title to my new book. As the movie began, it popped into my head.  My mouth fell open. Really.  I turned to my husband and whispered it. His eyebrows went up and he smiled.

When the movie ended, he asked, “Why?” I told him and myself at the same time. Without realizing it, I wrote a deep theme into a book I’d thought was just for fun.

Here it is: Not everyone achieves their dreams, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the pursuit, not the attainment, that enable change. Individually, we grow from our pursuits, whether we attain them or not. However, and perhaps more importantly, our individual yearnings — and the steps we take to achieve our dreams — work together to achieve collective change.

I’m part of a word press family called the Rome Construction Crew. This group is all about supporting and inspiring each other to go after and achieve different dreams.   Some of us may not make it, but along the way we’ll develop friendships and greater understanding of ourselves. Collectively, our individual trials and tribulations, may inspire real change beyond what we thought possible.

Think about the Occupy Movement, or the sixties sit-ins. How about different art and literary movements? What happens in a family where all the members have different, personal goals? The struggles of each individual impact the whole and create movement.

I’m going to be thinking and writing about it more — especially as I get ready to launch this book — and I welcome your thoughts, comments, and ideas. How has your pursuit of a dream created growth and/or change in people or circumstances? Please let me know.

BTW, the title of the new book is Pipe Dreams. You can find out more about it here. I plan to release in June. Hope you’ll check it out and, if you sign up for my newsletter, I’ll send you a link where you can download the first two parts for free.

Thanks for hanging with me as I pursue my dreams. Know I’m here as you pursue yours.

Rejections Fuel my Fire

Today, I got an excellent reminder of why I avoid the trap of working with or for creative institutions (museums, publishers, etc).

I won’t go into details, except to say a controversial article for which I’d been commissioned, and which received final approval yesterday, was killed this morning out of fear.

Creatives have long been held hostage by the gate keepers, but today the gate keepers are obsolete. There is no reason to silence yourself or believe you aren’t worthy just because someone behind a desk says so.

Years ago, I was represented by a prominent gallery in Santa Fe. At the time I was young, inexperienced, and insecure. The gallery director had agreed, in writing, to pay me a 60% commission on sales. One day, I got a check for 50%. I called the gallery and was informed that the director no longer worked there. I asked to speak to the owner, but he refused to take my call. So I went down to talk with him in person. When I explained the situation, he said, “Do not talk to me. You don’t say a word to me until you are selling $100,000 a year. Until then, you’ll take what I give you. Now get out and don’t bother me again.”

He said this at the top of his lungs on a busy Saturday afternoon. By the time I left, I was in tears.

Fast forward ten years. The previous gallery had gone out of business shortly after my interaction with the owner and he had reopened in another location. I walked into the gallery, not knowing it was his, and he approached me immediately. “Destiny, how are you? What’s happening? You know, I’ve thought a lot about having your work here.” He continued for a few minutes, waxing eloquent about my accomplishments until I stopped him. Then, I said, “I’m sorry A, I sell much more than $100,000 a year now, so I really don’t need to talk to you.” As his jaw dropped open, I turned and left. The encounter was a victory.

Today, steaming mad, I was reminded of this earlier experience. The cowardly editor reaffirmed my decision to go Indie, build my own audience, and not be dependent on people like him. I’ve always used instances like this to push harder and my success continues to be derived by my own efforts, not as a result of some else’s approval.

I will publish this article and I will get slammed for it. That’s okay. I stand behind my ideas and feel like I said what needs to be said. Still, in spite of the nay sayers, some people will like it. They will share their support. Some of them may become friends, others might become fans.

Several people have been credited with this quote, “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” I agree with it. However, there’s more to it. If we give away our power, succumb to other’s opinions, and silence ourselves as a result, our ideas and imaginings will never see the light of day. Then we have not only failed in business, we have failed as human beings.

Fear is prevalent. Few institutions (agencies, galleries, publishers, museums, etc.) are willing to try something new when they have proven product available. They only embrace the new when it has proved itself to be commercially viable. We have a responsibility, to ourselves and the world, to ensure what we produce is good. We also have the responsibility to stand behind the work we do and let the world experience it. Rejections fuel my fire. Do they fuel yours?

Let me know. I love to hear from you.

Are You Good Enough?

I woke this morning to gray skies, cold winds, and a feeling of redundancy. Like the movie, Groundhog Day, it’s as if every day is the same. Wake up, have tea, hit the computer, edit. Edit some more. See if there’s something in the fridge. Eat a PB&J, edit again.

I am in pursuit of perfection. 

I will never attain it. 

I have to try. 

Craig McBreen wrote a good post today on being remarkable. He says, “Many people out there think: ‘I’ll create something remarkable (there’s that word again) and they will come.’”

I won’t tell you where he goes from there. You’ll have to read it for yourselves. Suffice it to say, I agree with him and it’s down right daunting to do the work necessary to achieve your dreams. I know. I did it once and now I’m doing it again, because just achieving one dream isn’t enough.

Creatives can’t settle. Which means they often quit before they’ve even gotten started.

Fear of not being good enough is paralyzing. There is a point (and I expect you to hold me to it) when a work is as good as it’s ever going to be. Then, you have stop, let it go, take a break, and start the next one. It’s the only way we actually make the dream a reality. It is the accumulation, via multiple works, of skill, finesse, and courage that culminate in unique voice and marked achievement.

People always talk about the overnight successes. What they don’t realize is that those successes took twenty years (or five, or ten). All the things that happened while no-one was watching are the things that drive the achievement. And those one-hit-wonders? They’re like lottery winners. Because they didn’t do the work, most don’t have the skills, savvy, or emotional maturity to stay in the game. By the time the money’s gone, they’re right back where they started.

To ensure I don’t get caught up in the tangle of “great,” I’ve set a goal for myself. The novel will be released by summer. No matter what. Yesterday, I finished Part 1. The other six parts are almost there and I will go through each of them carefully, just to make sure they are as good as I can make them RIGHT NOW. I know that next year, or the year after, I’ll look back at this work and smile. I’ll see all the things I didn’t know when I finished it. That’s as it should be because it means I’ve moved on, kept going, and added new skills to my arsenal.

How about you? Do you have a project you’ve been working on too long? Are you afraid of not being good enough? Does that fear stop you from starting or stopping? Let me know. I love your comments.