Marie Forleo B-School: Week 4 Reflections

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

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Marie Forleo B-School: Week 4 Reflections

My brain has felt like mile 17 of a marathon this week. Ideal Customer Avatar interview data. Course materials. Group coaching calls. Previous work from the last month of B-School. Facebook discussions. All powered me forward, but my legs are heavy. I am sunburnt and thirsty and feel like I might throw up from all the thinking and vulnerability. This week has been an opportunity to dig deep. I finished a marathon in 2000. At mile 17 I had to make a decision. (Most marathoners talk about hitting the wall at mile 21. I hit the wall at mile 17.) I had to quiet doubt and fear. I had to be steel. I had to stand up from my fetal position on the side of the road and get on with it. I had to fix my eyes forward and cross the finish line. I have drawn on my marathon superpowers this week. It has been a good week.

Week 4 Successes

Trying on Various Futures

I finished up Start the Right Business (STRB) this week. I started STRB before Module 1 was released. I thought through several possible futures. I thought through what my life would be like following a non-fiction writer’s path, a grant writer’s path, a curriculum developer’s path, a professor’s path, and several other paths that are too crazy to even recall. Working through my futures brought additional clarity to my thoughts. I want to write non-fiction. I love to write. It always comes back to writing for me.

Clarity Comes From Engagement Not Thought

This week I ran toward engagement with full on force. I have had a website since 2007. Since building an absolutely shitty first website, I have always used designers and developers. The thought of driving the bus of my own website intrigued me for about an hour. After playing around with the web builder choices Marie offered in the web site module, and being reminded that my gifts do not include web design and development, I decided to engage 99 designs (Thank you Time Ferris for pointing me in the direction of 99 designs.) in designing a new landing page for my website. Next week I will have designs to choose from and then hire a web developer to make it happen. Also on the engagement horizon, my passion for writing has been front and center in my mind during B-School. I have loved Martha Beck for many years. I have looked to her to help me find my North Star. Martha Beck, with support from Elizabeth Gilbert, will be leading a writing workshop, Write Into The Light, starting in April. I enrolled. I want to make writing and developing my craft central to my life, so this workshop is the next step toward doing that. B-School has moved me from a period of perpetual thought and fear to engagement with my authentic self.

Learn, Credit, Share

I am a voracious reader. I love documentaries. Curiosity courses through my veins. I got a Ph.D. because I love to research, find information, and connect dots in new ways. Storytelling is my research agenda. The idea of learning, crediting, and sharing makes me think of the connectedness of all ideas, the inherent generosity of true learning, the natural circle that surrounds all inspiration, and the honesty required to fulfill the contract between learners and teachers.

The Forces

Unwavering belief that you can do it, whatever it is. Clear vision. Success Rituals. Relentless Flexibility. These are the forces that lead to success. I had heard bits and pieces of this message before, but Marie pulled it together for me in a mantraesque way. I want to write the forces 100 times to bring them deeply into my consciousness. I want to speak the forces 100 times to embed them in my breath. I want to dive into the forces and swim in their potential and leave fear and doubt on the shore of my past.

Big Magic

I blogged about Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic right after it was published. Her work has amazed and inspired me for years. It was truly fitting I would watch the episode of Marie TV with Elizabeth Gilbert discussing Big Magic this week. I Love Love Love that book. It fits perfectly with where I am right now as I navigate the waters of the ocean of my creativity. The idea that we must dance and love and embrace our creativity and not rely and expect and force our creativity really makes sense to me. Seeing creativity as a trickster, coyote, magician, scoundrel, edge pusher, and boundary breaker makes the creativity journey more of a dance than drudgery. That feels joyful to me.