My Interview in “Make Your Creative Dreams Real”
SARK asked me to be in her new book and here’s my interview:
Do you have a creative dream?
I used to read books that would tell you to follow your dreams and I heard stories of people who had done just that. However, hearing those stories, would make me cringe because at twenty-seven I didn’t think I had a dream. I didn’t have a passion that I knew I was born to do or a road I felt I was meant to travel. I wanted a dream, but didn’t know how to get one and was jealous of those who did.One day I ruffled through my childhood belongings and discovered story after story that I had written when I was young. I also found magazines I used to make and sell, books I had created complete with drawings and my journal from when I was eight years old. It was in that journal in which I boldly declared, “I am going to be a writer when I grow up.” Reading that line was like waking up; I not only remembered my dream, I remembered myself.
It would take me a while to be comfortable with that one dream and act on it, but once I did, I didn�t look back. In fact, it just led me to dream more and bigger.
Does anything stop or scare you?
The same thing that scares me about being creative is the same thing that excites me � possibility.Knowing that any dream I have can become a reality if I just work at it both terrifies and thrills me. It’s scary to think that only I can hold myself back and that by working hard, I can have what I want. Sometimes this creates so much pressure that I just want to stop everything and wait until someone else will do it all for me, which, of course, never happens. At the same time, I enjoy the freedom of not having to rely on someone else to make my dream come true.
The challenge of making a dream real also excites me; it’s as though I test myself continuously by seeing if I can do something I’ve dreamed about. If someone says to me, “That’s not possible” or “You shouldn’t do that” I grin and think Oh, really� I get excited just by thinking about how I can do something someone told me I couldn’t.
Would you describe yourself as living your dream?
I know I’m living my dream because I wake up every day with wiggling toes and the feeling of possibility I didn�t have when I was an executive.What have you done to live your creative dreams?
One day I decided to stop living the life I thought I was supposed to have and instead, began to live the life I was meant to have. To do this I had to stop listening to other people_s dreams and gain confidence in my own. I did that by reading books on writing, asking lots of questions but most of all, by doing something every day that would help make my dream real, instead of just remaining an idea.What other creative dreams can you imagine doing?
I used to think my creative dream was to write, until I did that. Then I realized that the fantastic thing about creativity is that one idea leads to another and now, I have so many creative dreams that will last me until I am at least 102. Dreams such as selling artwork, opening an art collective, running a bed and breakfast in the South of France, acting, drawing the perfect stick figure, creating the most pink cake, writing travel books, singing in places other than my shower, and many more that I�m not aware of just yet.Why are your creative dreams important to you?
When I began my corporate career in my mid-twenties, I gave up dreaming for being practical. When I did this, I became disconnected to myself; I was no longer happy, hopeful or excited about each day and instead of having dreams, I had nightmares. It took me years to remember a little dream I had of one day writing, but just remembering that one dream gave me hope. Having hope helped me to act on my possibilities and change from someone who existed to someone who lived. Without dreams, there is no hope, and that is essential for anyone�s survival.
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