creativity flows where the heart goes

It’s why an author’s debut novel has the most urgency.
And why a band’s first album makes the deepest cut.

Pursue the topics that set your soul on fire, and your best work will come.
Without even trying.

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At least once a week I used to lose myself in unbridled fantasies about how orderly and powerful my life would look, if I was a normal person who calmly ran and built her service company where all would find peace and solace in yoga, mentoring, and read articles that lifted the heaviness of their burdened souls.

All the while knowing perfectly well that I am ruled by my creativity.
And that merely the act of fantasizing that way, is already a testament to how deep the rabbit hole goes.
When topics most people are drawn to or emotionally invested in, get visited by me:
Never.

All popular Dutch television shows from the past ten years or so?
Watched zero episodes.
Because if you have your own television set in your head, things just work differently.

The thing doesn’t have an Off button though.
Which is why The Inner-World tv series is playing pretty much all day and, if all goes well, automatically switches to one of the After Dark Channels, at night.
Shifting to a mellower mood, more suitable for the time of day and ending active thinking mode.

Although my ability to really dive into a topic did not become apparent until the topic became yoga, earlier adaptations of my desire to study things I am interested in would be Brad Pitt, Bon Jovi, or the person I was in love with at the time.
I also did a lot of work studying Madonna, in particular (as far as we’re talking about the first expressions of my artistic roots) from 1990 to 1994, what I would call her Erotica Era.
After her True Blue/ Like a Prayer albums, which I didn’t even own, I could feel her work was changing in 1990, and becoming more aligned for me.

My interests dominating my thinking, has been a lifelong fact.

However the walls of where we are called out to take responsibility for how we spend our time, and to work towards our goals or at the very least to do  something productive, useful, and in service of someone or something;
Well, sooner or later those walls will have closed in.

At some point, on a cognitive level, you will have started believing your creativity is a self-care activity with which you can reward yourself after you have fulfilled your worldly duties.

Only to see yourself sacrificing sleep, relationships, being on time, exercising, daylight, meals, and keeping the house clean or at least above the level of a stable;
In order to attend to your creative flow.

My personal boundary was that I never sacrificed personal hygiene, but the rest went overboard in a heartbeat.
All, to follow creative flow.

So if that’s you, I hear you. I know this is madness, and that you (like me) are probably wishing that you still had that luxury of being able to cut watching tv, to get more creative time.
Instead of cutting the parts that would have been so nice to have in your life.

And also the moment that you start doing your version of fantasizing about how beautifully organized and contained your life would look, if you did not have this Passion ravaging anything that looks like control, intention and just general Life Together-ness.

I got you, and I understand.

But you know as well as I do that your creativity is the real thing. And that wishing for a less chaotic life would mean cutting yourself off from everything that inspires you. Meaning from everything you love.

Even though I loved fantasizing about my creativity to go, deep down I knew that to wish for creativity to go, means closing your heart and no longer being able to be in meaningful relationships.
Not with my work, and not with other people.

Ultimately?
All those moments fantasizing about how life would look without creativity, or maybe it were all the hours thinking about marketing and business, who is to say;
But ultimately, it paid off.
Big time.

And maybe this is what will help you too in staying true to what your creative heart wants, while also having the satisfaction of being productive.

I will be speaking about this in the upcoming years as well, but today is the first time I mention it.
Because it’s really fresh!
But what I am about to tell you has silenced the ongoing battle in my head.
I no longer fantasize about how clean my life would look without creativity.

If you are a creative who loses hours in their creative work, but also wants to be in their business.
Someone who understands that in 2024 and probably for the rest of our lives, being an artist is about being visible as much as it is about creating the art?
And that our real job is to sell it? Not to create it, since that, give or take,  goes automatically.

I have found the way to silence the voices of doubt, and to let your art work for you. Not against you.

I call it Portfolio Marketing, and I will speak about it frequently.
This is how it works;

You let your marketing, your daily messaging -> BE <- your creative work.

So for some of you, the creative work already is the marketing.
Like Andy Warhol used to be an illustrator of fashion, early on in his career.  These drawings are now art of course, just like all his other art that was  immediately created as such.
If, in 2024, making reels is your actual creative expression, then that is your marketing.
Every reel is then not just content, but providing you save or post them where they are preserved, they also build your portfolio.
Naturally, you can also be an artist who includes temporality in their art. Then the art having vanished after 24 hours becomes part of the art, and although the piece itself is not preserved and not added to a physical portfolio, the art has existed.
The immaterial art portfolio is still being built, but more in the way like performance art.

So you stick with your own dominant creative expression, and that is your marketing.

Contrary to how normal businesses do marketing, where what they post is tailored to building the audience, and therefor repurposing and even buying other people’s content (365 Days of Content bundles etc.) in order to get the job done;
What I call Portfolio Marketing means what you create to post should be Art in itself, or it should be related to things that were already in your portfolio.
For example a quote from one of your books, with a sales link to the book.

Now this is not rigid of course.
There can still be services you sell, or areas that you speak on, where you create a different sort of content that is not part of your dominant creative expression.
For example a written post on YouTube, when your dominant expression is being a videographer.
These written posts will never be collected and studied, and mused over what you meant, and so on.
But your videos could end up in a museum in 2060.

In this case the videos are the core part of Portfolio Marketing, and the post is not.

Working from the concept of Portfolio Marketing, gives direction to your creative inspiration (and you can engage guilt free)
And at the same time makes sure you do not spent your creative hours on marketing that ultimately does not have your heart in it.

Naturally creativity can also express in the service or product you are offering. 
This is definitely a more daredevil thing to do, and the stakes are a lot higher -leading your creative vein into art that can serve “just” as marketing is definitely less risky-
but it can be done.

What you then get, is that you are allowing the actual thing you are selling to change.
And the only thing constant?
Is you.

This is by far the most Rock Star thing anyone can do.
And I invite you to get comfortable with that idea as well.
To give it time to grow on you, that in the end, one day, you’re ONLY going to create whatever it is you want to create.
And sell it.

Then the whole marketing layer has dropped and it becomes to be building your Portfolio.

And this can be art (as in a painting f.e.) but it can also be a service.
Selling a new course every few weeks.

When your audience has grown accustomed to knowing you as a creator, a gate to another level has opened, where they are starting to come for you.
No longer your work.
This is what I call the Rock Star level, no longer Artist level.

It’s not a hierarchy, both models come with their advantages and disadvantages.

A business sells a generic service or product;
An Artist or a company with an “Art based” strategy, sells a unique service or product, brand or system;
But a Rock Star sells whatever they want.

This is the level where you have truly outgrown your business owner- service provider-jacket, and are now completely free to cross over to any other industry, at will.
You can do and sell whatever you please, as long as it is consistent with the values you stand for.

It is an interesting exercise to feel if that brings up any resistance and if you can bypass that.

Can you give yourself permission to let the art come out, in whatever way it wants?
And accept that you should perhaps resist calling yourself a * fill in any craft * because there is no way of telling what your medium will be in the future?

Can you let the art be the art?

And accept the possibility that the art was something else all along.
You. 

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~Suzanne Beenackers
Catacombe
become the Rock Star you were born to be

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THE ROCK STAR

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THE ROCK STAR, is Catacombe’s signature 3 hour session.

THE ROCK STAR is a one-time investment, and our conversation is confidential.

To book, email me at:
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Once we know we are a good fit, my price is accepted by you and you choose to make a booking;
We move.

It is possible the above story has already given you an outline of what you want to discuss.

If you think you would benefit from a broader approach, my suggestion will be to sort your story into:

1. the earthly plane
Your possessions, worldly matters, income streams, worries and responsibilities you fear you can’t meet.
A helpful term could be how do things look from the perspective of financial freedom, or worldly freedom.

2. your purpose
What is the work you love doing, what are the moments big or small, that you know you are aligned. Has God told you, what you’re here for?
This is about creative freedom, or even karmic freedom.
Are you free to do the work, that is yours?

3. your Rock Star expansion
What is the fullest expression you are here to bring?
And what are the areas you’re playing small, as if cut off from your powers?
We investigate if in those areas, the rules you play by are yours, or society’s.
“3” is related to sexual freedom.
Like anything, it is up to you if that is part of our conversation or not.

Because all three points are just a suggestion, they offer a good framework providing one hour for every topic, to go deeper looking for answers.
But the setlist is not fixed.

I have merely built the stage for us, and we have three hours.

It is up for you to take it.

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