Ep #61: Truly Committing to Your Moonshot

“Perspective shifts will unlock more than smartness ever will.” Astro Teller. A little over a year ago, I released an episode entitled The Power of Moonshot Thinking. Moonshot is a goal or a dream that is astronomically ambitious to achieve. It’s named after the first attempts at the moon landing, which at that time seemed like an impossible task, especially in the very short timeframe that it was aimed to be completed within.

The purpose of a moonshot is that it makes us stretch the bounds of our imagination beyond what we think is currently possible for us, by imagining ourselves in the future as someone with an expanded capacity, a more limitless mind, and an expanded imagination. In the past year, I have spent hundreds of hours coaching clients, coaching myself on moonshot dreams and on moonshot thinking.

From all of that, so many amazing patterns and breakthrough opportunities have emerged and there is one in particular that, over and over again, I have found to be essential. Not doing this can result in decades extra of heartache and time lost and resources not being used as efficiently as they could. But to implement this tool and to be all in with this tool is truly like rocket fuel.

You are listening to The Art School Podcast; a show for artists and creatives who want to become the next greatest version of themselves. Learn how to cultivate an extraordinary way of being and take the mystery out of making money, and the struggle out of making art. Here is your host, master certified life coach, artist, and former lawyer, Leah Badertscher.

Happy New Year, everyone. And welcome to 2020. I know I said Happy New Year on the last episode, but I was actually recording that in 2019, if you remember, so I wanted to say it again. And I have to say, I did feel something remarkable when I saw that number 1/1/2020. And our New Year’s Eve was probably lowkey by many people’s standards, but it was really wonderful. By ours, we were just home with the kids. We’d been traveling a lot. We thought about going somewhere, but we have traveling coming up too, and we just thought it would be nice to be snug at home, have the Christmas lights on. And we had a nice little family party and dance party. Our kids still think that’s fun. And they were asleep by 8:30, which is a miracle.

And I did actually stay up and just stayed up to write and write and write. And once I got started, I found it hard to stop. And the next day, I woke up early and went for a great run. It was beautiful. While the kids were playing that day, I wrote some more, and so much of it with you in mind.

And so, I’m excited about what I have planned out for episodes to come. And when I was thinking about reflecting on my last year spent in moonshot thinking and coaching in moonshots, just that area, that discipline, that practice alone has yielded so many insights and so much growth and so many new ideas. It has also actually yielded something that was kind of a revelation to me, but then once it was revealed, I was like, “Oh yeah, I guess I’ve always known that.”

So, it was spending the year in moonshot helped me realize the bigger moonshot lies within, but I’ll talk about that more towards the end of the podcast. Because what I wanted to share with you today, and I don’t know whether to call this a tool or an idea – probably just a way of life and approach – you have heard me say, if you’ve been listening, you’ve heard me say over and over that central to what I teach is that it’s not only about the results. It’s not only about the dream. It’s about the sacred twin intention.

It’s about the dream and who that dream asks you to become. Another way that I say that is that it’s not only about the results and the dream. It’s about cultivating an extraordinary way of being, mind, body, and spirit, that make those desired dreams and results inevitable so that you work to become the kind of person, the force of nature, the soul, the human that creating those things is just naturally what you do. It’s what you were built to do and you’ve removed all impediments, obstacles to that process, and you’ve also honed your character and your skills and your courage and your creativity to channel things in such a way that extraordinary results are inevitable.

And so, again, I think I’m going to call this right now a way of being or a practice, a way of life. But it’s that to be powerfully creative, with a capital C, meaning you create your life, you command your destiny, to really own how uniquely human and also divine the power of commitment is. Being truly creative, to me, is owning this power of commitment where once you make a decision, you decide that it’s done.

And so how I see this as radically different – because that might not sound so revolutionary or like a creative revolution or evolution, except that just go out in the world and listen to how people talk and listen to the way they talk about their goals and dreams. There’s a lot of ifs and whether and there’s a reluctance to fully commit because god-forbid we should be wrong.

And I think even too, this might sound strange to some, but at the same time, I have so many people tell me this in, you know, private conversations when they feel like they’re revealing something that is unique to them. It’s like this fear of Icarus flying too close to the sun, that is really, we command this much creative control in our lives, if we commit to something and say that it’s done, we fear we’re going to somehow be struck down or someone’s going to come for us.

I know I experience this and it’s at once completely irrational, and at the same time, completely understandable because our world is very hard on people who put themselves completely out there and then are wrong. It was interesting that this is the topic I had slated for this podcast today, and last night we, as a family, watched a movie and the kids chose the movie the Aeronauts, which I had no idea what it was about.

So many things seemed like divine timing that I should watch that movie the night before this episode. It’s based on a true story from the 1860s in London. And I won’t go into it all but just to give you a little bit here, one of the main characters was the first meteorologist. In fact, he called himself a meteorologist and the scientific community kind of scoffed and scorned.

He was also scorned by society because he had the ridiculousness and the audacity to believe that the weather could be predicted. And that just seemed like utter rubbish and nonsense and foolery and a waste of intellect to so many people at that time. And I pointed it out to the kids as a great example of, “Look, that wasn’t all that long ago when people thought that was just beyond imagining, that you could predict the weather. But someone had an inkling of something and was willing to go for it, and not only risk being wrong, but also risk rejection and ridicule. And then look how much farther it has taken all of us to understand the universe and the way that he helped facilitate our understanding of the universe, how it moved humanity forward, to be able to understand that there is a pattern to weather and to the environment.”

And one of the lines – he was talking with the pilot of the balloon that took them up. And he said, “Together, we brought the stars closer.” And I think that that is true for so many of us who are in pioneering areas, where people might scoff and scorn at what we’re saying, or say, you know, “What if you’re wrong?”

I find that, “What if you’re wrong,” is such a killer of so many dreams, and also of the energy that it takes to go for your dream, especially one that’s daring and different.

If you recall the conversations we’ve been having about the wind horse, about this reserve of energy, this energetic capacity that you must have if you are going for something like this, if you’re going for your dreams. Pulling back is like having a strangle hold on that wind horse. It’s like pulling the reins too tight, kind of choking the horse and holding it back.

It think there is something just very primal in us about humans that shrinks a little bit when we give ourselves the invitation to commit to something so strongly that we say, “You know what, my word is gold. I said I am going to do it, and I am going to do it. I said that’s who I’m built to be, what I’m made for, and I’m not going to take no for an answer.” That is the soul and the life that I came to build and I am building it in this lifetime.

I do feel like, in some sense, our psyche pulls back, like we’re trying to steal fire from the gods. And we all know how that turned out, right? It’s that character from Greek Mythology; Perseus maybe, I can’t remember, but the guy that stole the fire from the gods and then was put on top of the mountaintop where an eagle cam every day to eat his liver. And then it regrew, and then the eagle came back every day to regrow his liver.

Those things live in our collective consciousness. Those kinds of things, not wanting to steal the thunder from the gods, not wanting to steal the fire from the gods. But if you look at the flipside of that story, those seem like strictly cautionary tales from a patriarchal society meant to keep not only women, but men, from claiming their full creative power, which is often thought of as a feminine natured power, but how it moves humanity forward to attempt to fly, as Icarus did, as it moves humanity forward, to have had fire, to have had light, to shoot for the moon and to aim for the stars.

And so, I think that is a collective healing that’s available to us is that our creativity is a gift that is meant for us. And the more we pioneer and reach for it and the more we do it together collectively as a community, the more quickly we are going to heal and restore our full creative power to ourselves, to our own lives. And I do think fully embracing our creative power in our own lives makes the rest of our lives work so much better.

If there is a deficit in any area of your life, financial, love, feeling of physical wellbeing, security, you name it, I am willing to bet that not fully embracing your creative power has something to do with that deficit. And a key to fully embracing your creative power is to be willing to commit, be willing to be that powerful that your kind of creativity is the kind of creativity where you decide on an outcome ahead of time.

You have the audacity to say, you have the power to say, that is what I am doing, you are willing to risk being wrong, being judged, being unloved, failing many times, losing many times because here’s the key; you know that true commitment, meaning no other option is available takes off the table whether it’s going to happen. It’s not done.

So now, what’s left to you is the hero’s journey in between where you learn to be with yourself and to summon resources within yourself that you didn’t know you had. You learn to have such a trust and a love for yourself and you learn what it means to be somebody who does what they say they’re going to do. You learn what it means to you that your word is gold.

I began the episode with that quote from Astro Teller, “Perspective shifts will unlock ore than smartness ever will.” I’ve talked before about the perspective shift that moonshot thinking facilitates. So for instance, the moonshot goal I shared last year of being within the next two years now a two million dollar earner with half of those earnings being generated by my art so that I can grow into the person who does that naturally, that that flows inevitably from who I’ve become, and also so I can be an example of what’s possible, what’s possible for people who are entrepreneurs, to women with young children who also want to have a robust and vibrant family life, so that I can be an example of what’s possible to artists.

I don’t have an MFA, so I could be an example, if I can do it, surely those that are trained and educated extensively can do it, but also an example to the self-taught. If I can do it… And it’s all been generated by this attention I’ve given to cultivating an extraordinary way of being. And something that has been such a catalyst to this process, again, has been learning what commitment really is.

So, this brings me to the part of the podcast where I want you to do more than just listen. I want you to lean in, really work with me, coach with. Take this information, implement it, think deeply about it, chew on it, contemplate it, challenge it, see what it means for you hen you process it through your own life experience and filters. But integrate it into your life in a meaningful way so that it’s not just information, but it’s transformational.

So today – and maybe you can tell by my voice – I feel very fired up about this. And I think it’s because I have had some consults lately and also conversations where I’m continuing to drive this home for current clients, what this means to shift into a perspective where you’re somebody who is powerfully creative, who knows the creative power of commitment and almost what a magical power that is, but available to all of us.

And I think that’s part of the reason I do feel emotional about it. we all should be taught this. Not only should we all be taught that we’re creative. I find sometimes I get frustrated in conversations when I’m talking about what I stand for and that everyone is creative. And it gets interpreted as everyone could do watercolor or everyone could enjoy gardening.

And I do think that those are not insignificant. But it’s also not this creativity with a capital C that I’m talking about, this creativity that’s available to all of us where we could have so much more command over who we become in life and what we create and contribute to life. And it’s not only an opportunity, but I want to offer to you too, for all of us to move forward, it’s a responsibility, and even to me sometimes, feels like n obligation to figure this out.

That sounds burdensome, but I don’t think it needs to be. You can take in on as a labor of love, as your calling in life. And so again, I’ll have conversations with people and I can see if they are getting wishy-washy results, or kind of these halting start-stop-start-stop or they’re just in a frustration loop or on the struggle bus, or even if they have been consistently performing at high levels and now they’re wanting to evolve as a person but they have fear about the identity change and the shifts that would be required, I know that one of the things at the heart of that is not fully understanding this power of commitment and that how it frees up so much of your energy to no longer wonder if something is going to happen or whether it’s going to happen and to no longer have your life be dictated by things always entirely out of your control, but how dramatically you could transform your life.

Your life could be so amazing for you if you could be willing to make the commitment that your word is gold, and that if you really commit to something, it’s done.

So, what I want to offer you today in today’s coach with me is, where in life are you holding back from what you really want to create because you still have some of this questioning in your mind or this kind of ambivalent on-the-fence energy about whether it could actually happen for you. And just be honest. Be really honest.

I said I would share, at the end of the podcasts, what one of my own revelations was this year. And it was like, once the year got going and I got in a groove, to be honest, two million no longer seems like an impossible goal. It no longer seems like maybe it qualifies as a moonshot. I am completely going to follow through and it’s done. I’ve committed to it. There is no way I am not doing it.

And it also revealed to me that once I had committed to that, it freed up so much energy in me to think more creatively about what that two million even meant for me and it made me realize, years ago, I had cut out, from Vanity Fair – there was a cover with Julia Roberts on the cover, looking as beautiful as she always does. But that wasn’t why I tore of the cover and put it in this album I have.

It was because eon the cover it says, “The $25 million woman.” And something about that sent all of me alive and ticking, like parts of me stood up and said, “Hello, here we are,” parts of me that I didn’t know existed. And I was ashamed of it at the time. I thought that shouldn’t matter to me. That shouldn’t be something that just felt like it woke up parts of me.

But I also had enough sense to not completely shut it down, so I tore it out, put it in this journal I had, and I’ve kept it over the years. And I’ve written in different places, you know, what could that mean, $25 million woman? And I remember reading the article and it spoke about how she was commanding that much as an actress in Hollywood at the time. Maybe she’s got to be worth far more than that now, but I think that was the general sense of the article.

But for me, what I felt the message was, I saw that and something in me recognized something that could be possible for me. And at the same time, it challenged so many ways I had grown to know myself and think of myself and conceive of myself. It challenged the many limits of my imagination. It showed me where my feet were still solidly tied to the ground and I was tethered down.

But I have kept that for years and it was through this last year, going through the course of the moonshot, that I realized one of the many things I’ve come to understand about my two million moonshot and why I also am so passionate about helping my clients get to a place financially that’s desirable to them, whether that’s 20,000, whether that’s 200,000, whether it’s two million, whether it’s 20 million, those are all actual numbers that I’m currently working with, clients from The Art School all the way up to private clients.

What I’ve found, it’s that number at which something inside of you settles down and can get to work on wat it came to get to work on. And so for me, and I think also in combination with that Julia Roberts article, it was this woman who was living as an artist, a woman artist, and a mother in the world, and commanding that.

And while I am sure she has her moments too, it was also the way that she seems to do it with a groundedness and a grace. And it made me think about when that would have been a moonshot for another woman, actress, or artist, and especially those two in combination and what that does for all of us, not just artists, not just women, but for all of us as humanity to claim that we can be that creatively powerful and prosperous, and then once we’re there, how we can use that to amplify our values and amplify the work that we came here to do, how it’s going to change my daughter’s life to see – and my sons as well – to see the way that I am navigating when charting these waters and how I know it changes my clients’ lives to have this group of people who are also doing this work.

And so, when I had that revelation, I knew I wanted to share that with you because I’m also a work in progress. And I realized I had gotten to a place with the two million where I’d dialed in, it’s locked in, I know it’s happening and I also have built the business systems and the momentum so that my brain is also settled down about the how and things like positioning and all of that stuff.

But with the 25 million, it is asking me to become an even greater artist and it’s asking me to be more and more centerstage with what I think is the bigger purpose of all of this work and how I really keep returning to that Mary Oliver quote about how artists may not make the world go around, but they do make the world go forward.

And I think that’s true of any visionary. So whether you are creative as a physician, whether you are creative as a podcaster, as a dancer, as a mother, as a painter, as a poet, as a CEO, we all have opportunities to look up for what is really possible, to not let our lives be defined by what others have done and say is possible, but to ask challenging questions, to look for all of the possibilities to dream again, and then to have the courage and summon the power within yourself to come through for yourself and others.

Leave behind any trace of if, whether, well when this happens then I’ll do it, if the stars align. Get rid of any vestige of disempowered or victim or reactive, and instead, commit. Create your destiny first by committing, declaring it done, then go out and cultivate who you are becoming. Then go out and decide who you want to be on this journey and how you are going to walk yourself home and with whom.

Thank you for listening to another episode of The Art School Podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, if this podcast has been useful for you – and I really hope it has. It is my highest intention that this moves the needle for you in very meaningful ways, that art babies are born, that your greatest work flows through you and the money flows to you.

If it’s helped in any of those ways or inspired you and moved you along your journey, I would love it if you would go to iTunes, subscribe, and leave a review. I would love it if you would share it with your friends, loved ones, allies, even your enemies. Because hey, a rising tide lifts all ships. And I know, my listeners, you don’t have enemies, right?

So, what you can also do, if you want to take this work deeper, is to go to my website and make sure you are on my mailing list. The community on my mailing list is the first to hear about early bird discounts for retreats, group programs, like The Art School group program, private coaching offers. And I also aim with the newsletter to send out meaningful inspiring content that’s fresh and something you don’t also hear on the podcast, so it’s a little bit different.

I also wanted to give you a little bit of an update about what’s coming in fall 2020 with The Art School. So, one of the things that I have been so inspired, or maybe I should say lit on fire by in the last three Art Schools is that I can now see patterns with the size that the groups have been. Even the people are from varying backgrounds and varying disciplines and varying places along their journey. Definite patters are emerging.

So I am taking the winter to become a crackerjack at solving those problems in the most precise and powerful and efficient way. Someone asked me in a social setting recently, they said, “Well you’ve been doing this coaching thing for a while, so you’re probably not intimidated anymore.” And I don’t know what the look on my face was, but judging by the look on their face, I think I looked appalled because I have never been intimidated coaching.

And I don’t say that to be arrogant. I just have decided from the beginning to get out of the way and I absolutely know everyone has an in, and I will find it. And it’s like I get out of my own way and I listen deeply, and I know, if someone comes to me and they are fully committed, they know the result they want to create in life, they know what they’re built for, I am the coach that will help that person do it.

And so with The Art School and with the groups, what I am so on fire for as well is I see the power in the community and in the group dynamic for people to learn more quickly from one another’s coaching. And so what I want to do is create a system, a training, a curriculum, that supports and facilitates that process to be as lean and powerful and efficient and laser focused as possible.

So, just as dialed in and absolutely sure I am of someone when they come in for private coaching, that if they’re willing to do the work, I am the coach to get them that result, to help them live into that dream. I also want The Art School to have this reputation of being a training program, like an Olympic training program, where people come in, and if they are ready to work, it’s a process that works.

It takes out the guesswork, it takes out everything I was talking about in the podcast today about the if, whether, self-doubt, all those various ways that we do violence and disservice to our dreams and to the greater purpose of why we are here.

I want a program that supports people’s greatest work in the world and gets it out and also helps them have in place the things they need to have in place in their lives. So if they have a financial goal, a health goal, it’s able to meet them where they are and help them get those results, and get them in such a way so that the entire coaching experience, whether it’s private, whether it’s a retreat, whether it’s The Art School has people leaving knowing that they are so better for that experience and they know that that goodness and who they’ve become is going to spill over and have far-reaching ripple effects.

Along those lines, I wanted to share with you a testimonial I received recently from one of my Art School alum. This is from Hope Dunbar, who is an amazing singer songwriter. You should definitely go check out her work. She just recently recorded two new albums that will be coming out in the spring of 2020.

And Hope writes, “When I started The Art School in the fall of 2018…” she has been a multiple time Art Schooler, “I was a touring singer songwriter, mother of three, part-time waitress at a roadside café, wife to an amazing husband in a small town in Nebraska. I had just gotten off my first European tour and I was getting some notoriety for my album The Black Crows, and thinking about my future. Sounds pretty great, right? The raw data might tell you one thing, but my heart was telling a very different story I was living a story of struggle and overwhelm, self-doubt, and burnout. I was living in a story that felt limiting and something was telling me I either needed to tear down my life to the studs or get help. The Art School as transformational. The Art School is transformational.

Thanks to Leah and The Art School, I have been sheparded into a new understanding of how my thoughts and emotions power my story and perspective. Thanks to Leah and her coaching, I see myself in a new light and I see my life in a whole new light. In a year and a half, I’ve toured more than I have any previous year and I did it with less stress and heartache. I made more money in one year than I ever have and it felt easy for the first time. I reached my goals and exceeded my own expectations for how it’s possible to fall in love with life without really changing much of anything, except for the story I tell, the thoughts and emotions I choose. The Art School is not like any other 12-week course you’ve experienced. This isn’t a journey that starts and ends in 12 weeks. This is a journey that starts for 12 weeks and then invites you to spend every week thereafter living and revisiting the tools Leah gives you.

Now, a year and a half later, I’m a touring singer songwriter, mother of three, wife to an amazing husband, about to go on my second European tour after recording two brand new albums. I live in a small town and my life is better and more vibrant than it’s ever been. Struggle and overwhelm, self-doubt and burnout are gone; gone, gone, gone. And that, among all the other things, has made all the difference.”

Thank you for that, Hope, and for being a part of The Art School community. The thing among the other things she mentioned that have made all the difference has also been that Hope made a choice to be committed to her life, living it the fullest to the next greatest version of herself, and she made a choice to be committed to her dreams, and to them coming true and to fruition in a way that is healthy and nourishing for her and her whole family.

I am very fortunate to have clients that are more than just interested in their dreams in life, more than just entertained by the idea of what they are capable of, and by the idea of a dream. They move beyond interest to commitment. And that absolutely does for my private clients and for The Art School clients, that makes all the difference.

So, do that for yourself. Ask yourself where you’re just interested in your life and dreams and be kind with yourself and also honest, and ask yourself where you’re truly committed. And how will you know? Because the interested keep waiting around for things to work out, for the stars to align. The truly committed believes that the stars are watching. The truly committed commit and decide to go create their destiny.

So, this brings me to a close. I wanted to share with you a line from the Aeronauts movie I watched last night. And it was interesting because I was struck by these lines, “Surely the sky lies open, let us go that way.” Those words were inscribed on the balloon that the two main characters traveled in.

And in the final scene, one of the main characters speaks the last words, “Look up, the sky lies open.” And I thought that was such a powerful metaphor for so many things, and so similar to conversations I’ve had with you here on the podcast.

To look around less and to imagine more, and also, when she says, “Look up, the sky lies open,” I wondered if that was a message to people watching the movie to look up out of their phones, to look up away from what you think is life right in front of you and to look up at what is truly possible. What happens when you raise your eyes to the sky and take in its vastness and limitlessness and contemplate your possibility and your future from there?

And I looked online for some articles, and sure enough, that’s what the director said. He said, “That’s what I really hope people take away from the film, to remember to keep looking up. We are so drawn to our phones, to the 24-hour news cycle. But it’s important to look up and to look around.”

So, in an episode where we’re revisiting the moonshot and talking about commitment, a commitment that will take you out as heroes, a heroine, an adventurer in your life, rather than just a spectator of others, I wanted to leave you with those words, “Surely the sky lies open. Let us go that way.” Have a beautiful week, everyone. Thank you so much for being here and I’ll talk to you next time.