Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Dear Young Entrepreneur!

I was asked to write a letter to the consortium of "young" entrepreneur education - speaking to young people (and maybe some young older people)!

Here is what I was guided to write:

The best advice I can give anyone about embarking into the business of CREATIVITY is dive in, get it all over yourself, and don't look back! If your heart and your head won’t shut up because they are so excited about seeing a creative thought become reality, than hang on and ride the ride ahead.

Start with the following if you need some guidance:

a) Don’t ignore your idea or thought (you might even have an excited sensation in your chest; feels much like a rush of adrenalin during a bungi jump or skydive). You want to scream inside (and out), and I suggest that you should… scream for goodness sake… there’s nothing like a good scream when you’re riding an exciting new ride. If you ignore these thoughts and ideas, you will regret it every day of your life. This is your higher power guiding you to be who you already are!

b) See the idea in your visual mind. See yourself creating the thing that you envision. Close your eyes and perhaps mime the action of the creation with your hands. Keep a separate journal of ideas. I have many of them.

c) Take a step each day in the direction of this dream that you have created. This might mean picking up the phone to find someone in the business that you want to be in and ask him or her to be your mentor. Most people are honored to be a mentor; it is validation that they too are heading in the right direction of their dreams. And remember dreams never end - they continue to EXPAND.

d) Live and breath your dream. Speak it into being! The words you speak are the power and belief of your dream. If this isn’t already happening, then you MUST seek a way to make it happen. BUT, don’t fall into the STARVING Artist TRAP – been there done that… it was NOT pleasant! I CANNOT eat tuna fish anymore…

e) **This is the biggest one!** DO NOT ask for approval from other people – I don’t care who they are! Your dream is YOUR dream! It belongs to you and NO ONE ELSE! Dream thieves live among us in the millions, and many times they are the people we trust most in our lives. Just do your dreams, and YOU will inspire someone else to do theirs.

If someone told me that I would have completed 3 murals in Los Angeles, received 20+ awards for photography, co-starred in a movie-of-the-week with a screen legend, authored a children’s book series, have a patent pending, and was going to continue producing creative ideas that were endless; AND, I was going to love every minute of every creative day of my life… I would have jumped on that train when I was 16. Don’t wait till your forty-two like I did to live your dreams, do it NOW! Although, if you are 20 to 100 and still haven’t decided to live your creative passion, I’m proof that it can still happen and is continuing to happen every minute of everyday!

Either way, follow your heart and your dreams; your passion will never fail you. And never forget: Only the ones who believe ever see what they dream come true!

Creative blessings forever and ever,

Carla

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