Updates, updates!

Hey All,

Just a quick update from yours truly from the FreelanceMikey headquarters in beautiful suburban New York. I’ve had to take some time to handle my health in the past two weeks, but now it’s time to get back on the horse! I’m currently in the process of booking interview segments for the blog here on the FreelanceMikey website.

If you're a creative person who kind of views life from a 45° angle (as George Carlin used to say) or just looking to showcase your work in a way that is accessible, talkative, intuitive, and fun, contact me here or on Twitter and Instagram @FreelanceMikey! i’d love to talk shop with you about  your contributing influences, meandering pathways, and your highest moments of creative clarity in life, art, business, personal growth, and more. I look forward to chatting with you soon!
 

Updated 5/23/18: New Blog Interview Series Coming! Conversations About Creating with Michael LaPenna

(We are slightly delayed due to the tornado-like weather that hit the New York area last week. Thanks for being awesome and patient).

Do you like art at 45 degree angles? Do you like people who paint spaceships and sing jazz? Do you like yoga AND psychology? So often, creativity is thought of as a static thing like painting, theatre, music, writing, and the like—but what about what's between those nooks and crannies, between the cracks, the twilight between all these?

I'm interested in the inspiration behind creative work and the lives inspired by that spark.

New things are coming your way and evolving starting with a new blog interview series called Conversations About Creating. Conversations About Creating will explore everything from creative yoga for for healing mental trauma, to neo jazz funk music artists to make you love life just that much more! Join me, Michael LaPenna, for free-wheeling, art-loving, music-jamming, sculpture-making, groundbreaking conversations With creative people from a wide range of fields and feels In the world of art, science, craft, writing, music—and a whole lot of good feelings! It’ll be good times with some good minds, and I can’t wait!

Don't miss Conversations About Creating coming in the coming weeks to FreelanceMikey.com!

Expect to Succeed—Even If You Don't

Expect to succeed—even if you don't.

So often as a creative consultant, I'm asked what my advice is for basic success in anything and everything from creative project planning for your boss' all-inclusive, multi-cultural holiday party featuring a traditional Nigerian Christmas, to writing a confident letter to HR so that you can create your own job title as Director of Photography for the new website for that antique shop in Topeka. My answer is almost always the same: "See the success as if it's already there, and then, take that feeling, and let it fuel all the excitement and ideas it can!" Some ideas will be great and some horrendous, but the whole point is in the doing. In coaching and in cognitive behavioral therapy, this is often called "acting as if." It's a practice that primes the thinker to feel what it's like to be where he or she wants to be. More to this point, the science has shown that, very often, our emotions and biological systems can't tell much of a difference between the feelings of our imaginations and the arrival and actualizations of our goals.  (Read a full text on how acting, and imagination create experience, empathy, and more here.) The more you do this, the more practiced and proficient you'll be come. Try it now. I'd like you to picture yourself in your ideal job. You're in a chair you like. You're talking with people you enjoy working with. Janet just had a great idea for that new project way before the deadline! You smile and feel excitement in your belly!

Now, look at the above scenario and notice how you feel when you're thinking about whatever relatable scenario you have for your own life: planning a trip with your partner, starting that new business you've been putting off. Take that exact thing, that exact wonderful feeling, and feel it as if it's right there in front of you! Notice how you can't stop smiling! Notice how many multitudes of ideas pop into your head! Notice how "in the zone" you feel or  how going "with the flow" becomes your natural state. (Read more on flow psychology here.)  You see yourself succeeding, getting that promotion you've known is coming, and that relationship you're picturing seems so good! You sit better. You stand better. You speak clearly. You're willing to take chances. Go right ahead! Try that new cardio salsa class; take that trip to Indonesia; write that book based on that epiphany you had in tenth grade. When you act from that joy and that right feeling, you don't rush from a place of fear and make rash leaps into a void of no return; rather, you act with a level head and being willing to fail a bunch and figure it out as you go. In this much, practice doesn't make perfect as much as it just makes learning and grows a belief that your goal is possible.

All successes start with an idea of what's possible. A thousand years ago, could anyone have predicted the iPhone? Think even farther back to the wonders of the ancient world. Could the rulers of the Egyptian dynasties—in all their belief in the bedazzling power of the Pyramids of Giza and the Egyptian people's unwavering confidence in the most advanced knowledge entrusted to the great Library of Alexandria—have conceived of some of the poorest people on our planet now having access to the ubiquitous LIBRARY OF EVERYTHING that we call Google? Nope. All these miracles or creativity first had to be imagined and believed possible by their inventors. It's the faith in what could be possible, (what psychologists refer to as growth mindset. Read here.) that creates ideas, technology, etc. It's this growth mindset that I really believe fosters a willingness to experiment and make mistakes that lead to eventual success. I can attest to this in my own work. Some of the best music mixes I've made have been by accident, and I sometimes write scripts and stories after a mishap like falling down in my kitchen while saving a chocolate cake from splattering onto my kitchen floor. This kind of "pro-mishappenstance" mentality is even more useful and even fun when one considers, that, to paraphrase Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert in her book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, art and the arts—on even the broadest of spectrums—are not, nor have they ever been fatal to a well-lived life. There are no botched surgeries caused by a smudged painting, no loss of life from a flubbed lyric at a Kanye West concert, and neither your health nor your finances will likely ever be compromised by your hatred for Salvador Dali's Mae West lips couch, (despite your mother's thinking to the contrary). Your creativity can afford mistakes.

Last, but never least, I want to leave you with the notion that you should find joy in the steps: the journey, the air you breathe, the path you travel. Life doesn't wait for you to be happy when it's over. Choose to be happy now! Choose to expect to be happy with all that life gives you. You will fail, and you will succeed. You may have to change plans and mix it up, but staying expectant of good things will make you enjoy and see all the good that is, and seeing this positive growth will most likely encourage exploration in you. You'll find yourself getting more done and being happier: happily failing and succeeding, and dreaming maybe a little bigger and a little more boldly each time. So, take chances, fall down, get up, make mistakes, innovate, invent, and reinvent—and expect to succeed even when you don't—and in the words of the late Joseph Campbell, follow your bliss! 

How to Build Your Confidence 101 With Thomas Edison

I feel like flow and intuition—with also a willingness to believe great things are possible—are the keys to pretty much every success. When your mind, body, spirit, and actions, don't conflict, WATCH what happens! Inventors such as Edison have always seemed to know this. There is power in this kind of knowing. 

Mikey out!

A New 'Plogcast' to Fuel Your Creative Fire!

This audio  is totally unedited, The ambient sound you hear the mic picking up is my mischievous ceiling fan whooshing....

Mikey here!

Do you have a compelling story about your business or creative passion that's uniquely interesting that you want to share?

Do you have a job or a hobby or side hustle that's uniquely suited to who  you are that you've mastered and want to share with the world?

Are you fueled by your passions and your desire to create something great?

Do you believe limits are only things to be overcome or to be used as tools to make us better at what we do?

Well, my fire-fueled friend, I'm exceedingly excited to announce something I've been thinking about for a long time now: FreelanceMikey Creative Consulting is happy to announce the Fueling Your Creative Fire Plogcast here on the FreelanceMikey blog! Each episode will delve into the deep of what it means to be creative and what it means to be a creative in a world filled with inspirations from any and all walks of life and influences. I'll be getting extremely real with you and my guests to find what makes them light up with that create fire that fuels their every passion and proclivity in business, art, design, performance, tech—and all points in between!

If you would like to be on the show, contact me by any of the methods listed here on the site and bring your best creative story along with your most profound, personal insights to share on the show!

After all, you only get one life to be awesome, so you might as well share your passion with the world!

Mikey out!

FreelanceMikey.com Now Accepting Guest Bloggers!

Let's vibe and blog about the business, about the art, about the creative business!

Here at FreelanceMikey, my colleagues and I all believe that much can be learned from others. Whether you're a traditional business owner with extensive knowledge, or an interesting conceptual artist, writer, actor, musician, scientist,  or chief cook and bottle washer in a unique job that few people have heard of even existing, we want to hear from you on how you make the world a little brighter with what you do!

Contact us here in the comments and by any of the means listed in the contact information.


Onward and upward,
Mikey