Soul Shelter

“The American malady is a spiritual one, the commercialization of spiritual goods on an enormous scale, in the same way as material goods are commercialized. Everything which sells has to sell on advertised merits which are not its true quality, everything which is made, is made to satisfy a demand artificially stimulated by sales propaganda.”

The English poet Stephen Spender wrote these words in 1949 following a visit to the United States. By “spiritual goods” Spender was referring to works of art. It was true more than half a century ago, and it’s true today: works of art and sales figures, creativity and commerce, rarely jibe (dynamic entrepreneurship excepted).

We all know American culture is consumer driven. By and large, Americans live in, by, and for the marketplace. And in today’s age of global business, the effect of the marketplace is a great leveling out of culture, a homogenizing of experience. The marketplace likes broad appeal, it likes high sales figures, it likes a mass audience. It does not thrive on slow contemplation, individuality, eccentricity, or introspection. All of these things, which are at the core of real art — both creating it and experiencing it — are in fact a threat to the happy clatter of the cash drawer.

Thus, strange things happen when that which is spiritual, personal, and irrational meets that which is profane, collective, and statistical — in other words, when art meets commerce.

This phenomenon is explored beautifully in the transfixing 2007 documentary My Kid Could Paint That, by director Amir Bar-Lev. The film focuses on Marla, a four-year-old girl who loves to paint. Marla lives in upstate New York with her parents and her little brother, and her life is much like that of any other healthy, delightful four-year-old who loves to paint — except for one thing: Marla’s colorful creations have made her famous.

Where most child artists stick to butcher paper and fingerpaints, Marla creates large vibrant canvases using fancy acrylics, brushes, and a variety of application techniques ranging from smears to splatters to complex overlays of colors. Marla has exhibited her work in exclusive shows at numerous galleries in the U.S. and abroad. Her works have sold for upwards of $20,000.

“The paintings are incredible,” says gallery owner Anthony Brunelli in the film. Brunelli was the first to curate Marla’s paintings in a solo exhibition. That show, highlighted by the New York Times, sparked widespread interest in the petite genius’s work. Soon TV networks began calling. Marla became a media darling. “Even if a four-year-old didn’t do [the paintings],” says Brunelli, “you’d like ‘em. The fact that she is four makes it really incredible.”

The kid’s canvases are gorgeous, to be sure (see the online gallery at MarlaOlmstead.com), and there is something indescribably moving at the thought of such beauty flowing so easily and unselfconsciously through the brush of a girl yet to lose her baby teeth.

“When I am in Marla’s presence,” says Brunelli on Marla’s website, “there’s a weird feeling ‘cause I know there’s something inside this girl that many artists look for their whole lives and never have.”

Marla’s paintings vibrate with the mystery of childish wonder, of magical freeness and unhampered creativity, and this mystery is the lyrical heart of My Kid Could Paint That. The film makes us linger on questions like:

– Where does such purity and ease disappear to later in life?

– At what point do we surrender the productive freedom and harmonious accidents of play for result-driven work — and why can’t we retrieve what we’ve surrendered?

At one point in the documentary, New York Times chief art critic Michael Kimmelman comments:

There’s a spiritual element to it which appeals to people … People could read all sorts of things into her pictures. That there was some force at work, something larger than even Marla. That this child is speaking almost as a medium. And her innocence also says something about the ultimate cynicism of the art world…. [where] probably the worst thing you could say about an artist is, ‘Everything this artist does is joyous and wonderful and openhearted and just simple and great.’ … Some of the appeal … of the Marlas of the world is that it seems pure innocent joy, no cynicism, no irony, no sarcasm, none of that kind of stuff that goes along with modern art. Nobody’s saying ‘f—- you’ in this picture. They’re just saying, ‘I’m a happy girl who loves painting.’

With increasing media attention came a fervor for Marla canvases in the art market. Her prices soared. As of February 2005, after less than a year in the limelight, wee Marla’s work had earned her more than $300,000. But that same month brought a blow that sent the family of this miniature master reeling.

Though Marla herself was the embodiment of innocence and spirit, her bright canvases — those reverberant spiritual documents — had nevertheless become commodities. And the commodification of a thing, given the unavoidable cynicism that attaches to money, is necessarily a cynical process. So with widespread commercial attention came a qualitative shift in the public’s fascination. The clamor surrounding Marla went from adoring to suspicious when TV journalist Charlie Rose hosted a 60 Minutes segment examining the Marla craze.

He interviewed Marla’s first curator, Anthony Brunelli:

-Charlie: So what do we have here?

-Brunelli: You have a genius.

-Charlie: Genius?

-Brunelli: Yes.

-Charlie: (leaning forward, bearing down) Is there any other explanation?

Rose also interviewed a child psychologist, an expert in gifted children who’d observed Marla painting. The pyschologist’s remarks were a mother lode to a primetime program lusting for an exposé:

I don’t see Marla as having made, or at least completed, the more polished-looking paintings, because they look like a different painter.

The art world was unnerved. Major media hungrily took up the possible scandal. Was the kid a fake? Were her parents pulling the wool over the eyes of art aficionados? Was this four-year-old girl no more than a public stand-in for her dad, a brush-wielding trickster?

If it was all a fraud, the stakes had become very high. Large sums of money had changed hands, after all. People got nasty and Marla’s parents were harangued with hate mail.

Personally, I believe the girl’s for real (what kind of four-year-old could pretend to be a painter without, at some point, spilling the beans?). But whatever the truth, a peculiar thing had occurred. While in the wake of the 60 Minutes bomb people still appeared to be talking about Marla and her work, the engine of the conversation was no longer art and beauty, it was money. The market had intervened in Marla’s creations, and people had begun to buy — not Marla’s paintings themselves, so much as the story of Marla’s paintings. And as buyers began to suspect that they weren’t getting the story they’d paid for, trouble ensued.

Recall Stephen Spender’s words: “Everything which sells has to sell on advertised merits which are not its true quality.” Was the art still beautiful? Of course. But money had muddled that truth. The “value” of the paintings had become an exclusively monetary matter. Aesthetics were suddenly irrelevant.

The story of Marla’s quasi-scandal epitomizes the clash of commerce and creativity, two often uncomplimentary forces. For anybody seeking the fulfillment and spiritual enrichment that comes of art or creative work, the crucial trick is to remember the natural opposition of spirit and commodity — and perhaps to rebel quietly against the American mindset author Morris Berman calls “the reduction of values to commodity fetishism,” a mindset so money-warped that it can fail to behold the still evident beauty of a painting regardless of its authorship.

Toward the close of My Kid Could Paint That, journalist Elizabeth Cohen observes:

The whole story, really, is about grownups. It’s really not about this kid. She’s just a little girl painting in her house.

Marla’s art did not begin from the base concerns of the dollar. No child’s art does. We start from joy, exuberance, inquisitiveness, and serious play. And to the extent that we maintain and cultivate these attributes as creative adults, the more life our creations will possess — and the more readily we will recognize beauty and be inspired by it.

The dollar is a different matter altogether.

You might also enjoy:

“Nourishing the Creative Impulse (Creativity Vs. Commerce part I)”

“Let Us Begin”

“Trust Thyself“

When you reach a certain age, you start to resemble what you eat—and that’s bad news for people like me, who crave chocolate, beer, and croissants.

A few years ago my back gave out when both my kids jumped on me at the same time. After a doctor visit and x-rays confirming the absence of serious injury, I received the standard issue medical advice for 90% of all back problems: “Take it easy and it will clear up in time.”

I did, and it did, but the experience was a stunning reminder that nothing can replace the good fortune of health. I stared in alarm at a photograph of myself: a sagging-posture “office physique” 40 pounds heftier than what I weighed in college. Without change, my physical condition would slowly deteriorate.

Well, it took time and hard work, but I’m finally back in shape. Though I’d never formally considered how I went about it, after reading Get Fit Slowly, I sat down and tried to distill the key points of my “program.” Here’s what I came up with: Four Simple Steps to Getting Fit (they’re not easy, but they’re simple).

Step 1. Stop eating while you’re still hungry

Most of us are accustomed to eating until we feel full. But if you feel full, you’ve already overeaten. Stop. Think. Chew your food slowly and thoroughly, and pay attention to how you feel as you proceed through your meal. If you attend closely to your eating, you’ll feel yourself gradually filling up. Stop eating when you feel about 80% full (don’t worry, you won’t starve. In Japan, this is known as hara-hachibun: the “80% full” policy—it helps you distinguish between eating to refuel and eating because it tastes good). If you decide to drink alcohol with your meal, eat less food to compensate for the additional volume (remember, stop when you feel 80% full). From the standpoint of losing weight, this 80% rule is the most important of the Four Steps.

Step 2. Weigh yourself twice a day

Weigh yourself first thing in the morning and again before you go to bed at night. Do this not to obsess about results, but to see what happens when you drink a beer late at night, or how constipation or poor elimination affects your weight. Weigh consistently, and you’ll quickly see the results of Step 1 reflected in the numbers. An enormously successful Japanese diet plan consists of doing nothing but recording one’s weight—writing it down in a special journal—several times per day. Paying attention to and becoming conscious of your weight is an extremely effective strategy. Do it religiously and the rest of your behavior will fall in line.

Step 3. Drink plenty of water and take psyllium fiber daily

Drink a couple of big glasses of water as soon as you get up, and after breakfast, drink another big glass of water or juice with a hefty teaspoonful of psyllium fiber (Metamucil is an inexpensive but poor substitute—it has tons of added sucrose). The fiber will fill you up, and—to put it rather undelicately—make you crap like a horse. And no, unlike laxatives, which loosen your bowels through chemical action, fiber strengthens your guts by making them work harder. My doctor recommended this as a way to reduce my high blood pressure, and I’ve been a fiber fan since.

Step 4. Start an exercise routine

This is the least important Step from the standpoint of losing weight, but the most important from the standpoint of becoming fit. Sticking to an exercise routine—just like the routine of weighing yourself, the fiber regimen, and the habit of conscious eating—strengthens your overall program. I got professional help from a corrective exercise specialist, who immediately perceived my biggest problem—poor posture—and designed a trunk-strengthening program for me.

Well, that’s everything I know about losing weight and getting fit, and therefore my first and last post on the subject. It’s all well-known stuff, but I learned the Four Simple Steps by doing them, and they worked for me. Maybe they’ll work for you, too.

A slightly modified version of this post first appeared at Get Fit Slowly.

You may also enjoy:

“What We Really Need to be Happy“

“The Risk of Happiness“

“A Moment of Fulfillment“

(This post comes to us from Chicago writer Simon A. Smith, a contestant in our Soul Shelter First-Person Essay Award. Enjoy.)

_______________________________

• These Things Happen by Simon A. Smith •

Right before the President called me into his office and told me to leave, I was getting ready to send another one of those long e-mails I’d become famous for around the office. I have a tendency to over explain myself and edit the living hell out of every last word before pressing send. Let’s see… should I point out that I already touched on this during previous correspondence or would that be too harsh… Delete. Noooo… hmmm… delete. Start over.

“Mr. K would like to speak with you in his office.” I’m not sure when he had arrived, but suddenly there my manager was standing over my shoulder. His legs and hips were all twitchy, like Elvis dancing, and I thought he might lose his bladder if I asked any questions, so I just got up and left without finishing the e-mail.

President K was seated at the head of a large conference table in his office. He looked so lonesome and bewildered sitting there by himself. I wasn’t used to seeing him like that. “We’re waiting for Pete,” he said, poking his glasses up higher onto his nose. Pete was our HR guy. That’s when I knew something serious was going on. I knew Robbie and Norm and Heather and Liza had all been let go earlier in the week, but I just didn’t think they were going to get rid of me. I was the only one in my department. After a long pause, K pointed to a clock on the wall and told me how he had gotten the thing custom made for himself in France, his own last name painted on it and everything. I lied and told him it was nice. Everything about the exchange was clumsy and rehearsed.

Get ready. That’s what I told myself. You’re getting canned today and you’ve never experienced this before. Today you’re going to feel things and think things you’ve never known, and I want you to soak them up. This is part of the human experience. You’re a writer. You might use this.

Pete came in and before he could join us at the table, K was already starting in. “You know there has been a lot of restructuring going on at the corporate level,” he was saying, “and there’s going to be a lot of changes…” And that’s when I lost my concentration. I tried focusing on Pete’s mouth as he followed up, but all I heard was a long series of hums, hushed motor noises, some wet tongue clicks, more mumbling and then… “These things happen. It’s nothing personal.” When he stopped talking I felt like I had woken from a dream. I think I actually said thank you. Why would anyone say that? Pete handed me a box and told me to collect what I needed and take off. How odd that they had a box all ready for me, sitting there like a grocery basket beside the door.

“Everyone should go through this once in their life.” I said that as I carried the box over to my desk and began loading things into it. One of my close friends stood up from behind her cube and hugged me. She wouldn’t stop crying. I told her not to worry about me.

At first I started cleaning everything on top of my desk and inside it and then I stopped. I dropped everything in a heap in the middle of the table. “What the hell am I doing?” I asked. “I don’t work here anymore.” I couldn’t think straight. I felt like I had to keep checking my pockets for my wallet and car keys. As I closed the box I told myself, Remember this. For the rest of your life you’ll know what it’s like to fill one of those cardboard boxes with all of your belongings. Before this, you only saw it in movies or read about it in books.

I took the train to Lincoln Square and ordered lunch at Costello’s. While I was waiting at the table for my number to be called, I realized that I couldn’t even remember what sandwich I had ordered. I looked down at the soda in my hand on the table and wondered what in the world I had filled the damn thing with. Had I even taken a sip yet? I was sitting in a pit of Jello up to my neck.

That’s when I heard something slap down hard onto the floor. “Oh God!” I heard a man exclaim. And then there was crying. Little baby crying and lots of it. The man’s son, maybe nine months old, had somehow managed to tumble from the stroller onto the floor and was lying face down, kicking and screaming in agony. It was clear the man was flustered. He had to first run to the closest table and set down his drink and sandwich and napkins and forks that had all been wedged under his chin before he could reach for his child, and you could tell how awful that made him feel, like he was choosing his silverware over his son, but I understood what he was going through. He picked him up and cradled him to his chest, but before he could sit down he tripped over the wheel of the stroller and nearly fell to the ground himself. He made it to the chair and hoisted his son to his shoulder and just as he was about to comfort the poor soul and all eyes were on him, the man from behind the counter came up and handed him the boy’s bottle, a blanket and some toys he had left by the cash register. “You forgot these,” he said.

All the air went out of the room. I thought the dad was going to cry. I wouldn’t have blamed him. But instead he stood up, thanked the man, folded everything under his arm, put the baby back in the stroller and battled his way out the door.

I empathized with that man. If I had had a child with me today, that’s exactly what would have happened to me. And I wondered what could have happened to him to make him feel so dizzy and helpless, so lost and confounded. Anything. Maybe he had been fired last week or maybe his mother had cancer. Maybe his wife was upset at him and threatened to leave.

Remember these thoughts. Go home and write about them. Write a story about him and the way he reminded you of yourself. Analyze things. That’s what you do. Use it to your advantage, and in the morning, look up job ads that read “NOW HIRING: LONG-WINDED, EMPATHETIC, DAY-DREAMING, SHOE GAZER WHO WANTS TO WRITE ABOUT EVERY DAY LIFE.” Go wherever it says to go and tell whoever greets you that you are ready. You were born ready. Ask them what took so long.

You might also enjoy:

“High Anxiety & Happiness”

“Time for Everything”

“Opting Out of the Deferred Life Plan“

Tired of your job? Dreaming of striking out on your own? Eager to transition into a career that builds on your strengths and interests rather than competencies developed through happenstance? Ready to pursue what you love rather than stick with what’s boring—but hard to give up?

Join the crowd.

Maybe there’s just a thing or two holding you back. Maybe you lack a “big idea” around which to build your own business. Maybe you’ve yet to discover what you love to do. And maybe, like many, you don’t fully understand your own strengths and interests.

Not to worry. Here’s a plan for going solo, even without a so-called big idea—and even if you’ve got only a shaky grasp of your capabilities and interests. The single requirement is that you are currently employed.

First, a word about the Big Idea. Here’s what James Allen wrote more than 100 years ago:

A man should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart, and set out to accomplish it. He should make this purpose his supreme duty, and devote himself to its attainment, not allowing his thoughts to wander away into ephemeral fancies, longings, and imaginings.

While Allen was talking about self-control and personal development, he might as well have been offering powerful wisdom to aspiring entrepreneurs. His advice to conceive a legitimate—or a great—purpose, then single-mindedly pursue it, is precisely the way entrepreneurs go about building middle-market or high-potential businesses.

But what about those of us who lack a great purpose, yet desire to be self-employed or to run our own businesses? Some people conceive of and pursue a great purpose, but let’s face it: Most of us do not. Nevertheless, Allen has powerful advice for us, too:

Those who are not prepared for the apprehension of a great purpose, should fix their thoughts upon the faultless performance of their duty, no matter how insignificant their task may appear. Only in this way can the thoughts be gathered and focused, and resolution and energy be developed, which being done, there is nothing which may not be accomplished.

This is precisely the way many of us can become entrepreneurs—maybe not great entrepreneurs like Mohammed Yunus or Bill Gates, running businesses destined to change the world—but at the least we can create “lifestyle ventures” that provide us with a satisfying livelihood. So for those lacking a great purpose, a “big idea,” or even a clear direction, here is a step-by-step guide to going solo.

1. Commit Yourself to Going Independent on a Specific Date
First of all, decide that you will go solo a year or two years from now. Set a specific date. Once you make this resolution, everything you read, hear, feel, touch, and search for will seem different—life takes on new shades of meaning when you know that you’re going into business for yourself. Don’t worry about what kind of business you are going to start. That comes later.

2. Concentrate on Your Current Work
Read that James Allen quote again, especially the part about about fixing your thoughts on the faultless performance of your duty. The problems you experience at work today will provide invaluable hints for your future business, whatever it may be. Focusing wholeheartedly on the tasks at hand may seem like a roundabout way to achieve your goal of independent business ownership, but actually, it’s the quickest way. An old Japanese proverb refers to a foolish traveler who encountered a steep mountain blocking his path. Rather than hiking around it, he decided to save time by climbing over. But the treacherous summit forced him to descend and walk around—the very choice he first disdained. The moral translates as “when you’re in a hurry, take the long route.” Focus on the job you have now; do it better than anyone else and without compromise.

3. Let Your Job Teach You
Imagine you’ll be forced to leave your job two years from today. Imagine your workplace as a classroom where you will not only learn skills but identify market needs you’ll serve a couple of years from now. The work assigned to you today—the work you’re involved with right now—will take on new meaning and start to glow with the promise of instilling new skills, new knowledge, better understanding of customer needs—and will gradually reveal opportunities awaiting you.

Whatever you’re working on—accounting, sales, personnel management, clerical work, heavy labor—will become invaluable when you start your own business. Engage yourself deeply in your work and it will teach you invaluable lessons (you may even learn to like your job; deep concentration has that effect).

Find something you enjoy at work. When I worked for Kodak, many aspects of the job grated, but I enjoyed the occasional involvement with market research, and that had a big impact on my subsequent career. Even if you’re an unhappy fast food worker, you should find some aspect of your job likable. Maybe you got a kick out of training the new guy, or supervising the kitchen for a few hours when the night manager was late (if you can’t find anything you like, you’re out of luck).

4. Discover Your Core Competence
Use your work not only to develop new skills, but to identify your core competence: the thing you do best. For anyone lacking free time and capital, the best way to start a new business is to identify and exploit your core competence.

How? Performance appraisals and comments from coworkers help, but customer input is most valuable. If you work directly with customers, ask them straight out: What is it about my work that you value most? You may be surprised at the answer.

I’ll never forget the day I asked a critical customer what he found most valuable about our services (and this was after I started my business!). It was a tremendous relief, because he valued a secondary service—the one I personally most enjoyed—over the primary service we were offering. We promptly changed direction, with tremendous results.

Hint: Finding something you like and discovering your core competence go hand-in-hand.

5. Score Some Small Successes at Work
Build a track record of successes during your one or two-year “get ready to solo” period. You don’t need huge wins; small successes will do. Just try to do your work better than anyone else could do it. Your successes will point to your core competence, build your confidence, and give you some “talking points” to describe your accomplishments to future customers.

Use your final year or two at your job to learn everything you can about running a business. Remember, people who are successful as salaried workers also tend to be successful as independent businesspeople.

6. Define Your New Business Based on Your Core Competence
Once you’ve defined your core competence, you’ve defined your new business. If you’ve been paying attention at work, you will have discovered a number of work-related problems that are fixable using your core competence.

Here’s a hint: It’s easier to sell something that reduces costs than it is to sell something that promises to increase revenues. That’s because businesses will immediately buy your product or service if you demonstrate they will save money by doing so. So the quickest “instant business” is to sell a subset of your services to your current employer (as a contractor, not as an employee) for half your salary (or more). Your employer gets the same or better benefits at lower cost, and you work from home or go in twice a week, eliminating useless meetings, employee “chat” time, and unnecessary commuting (see why concentrating on your current work is so important?).

Now you can sell your service or products to other customers, too.

7. Acquire Your First Customers with Freebies
But let’s suppose converting your employer to a client is impractical or undesirable. Here’s another way: “Buy” your first customers.

While planning our Do-it-Yourself Import Center service in 1994, we faced a Catch-22: We had no exporters for visitors to see, and no visitors to encourage exporters to sign up. So we built simple Web sites for about a dozen companies, for free, to “populate” the service before launching. That encouraged consumers—and other exporters—to use our service.

You can do the same thing. Let’s say you’re going to start a financial planning service. Promise six friends or acquaintances you’ll take them out to dinner if they let you practice your new service by giving them a free retirement planning session or financial analysis. Following dinner and the consultation, invite them to become “clients” of that one-time service at no charge in exchange for writing testimonials for your business. Most will happily agree, and afterwards you can point to your satisfied “customer base” when cold-calling or talking with people you don’t know. Prospects feel safer when they see a customer base in place (and you may convert some of your “freebies” into paying clients).

8. Set High Gross Margins
People without business experience often misunderstand why markups on common goods and services seem so high. A book that costs $2.50 to manufacture, for example, sells for $20 or more (if it didn’t, writers, editors, publishers, distributors, and retailers would have absolutely no incentive to create and sell books). It’s amazingly expensive to make goods and services conveniently available to buyers.

So aim for a gross margin of seventy to eighty percent when you start out. If that’s too high, try to achieve at least a sixty-percent gross margin on your product or services. That may sound aggressive, but you’ll be surprised how fast cost of goods, cost of services, overhead, and other expenses add up.

Service providers such as accountants, consultants, and software programmers achieve high margins naturally because they’re essentially selling only their labor. Also, even if your marginal profit is lower, you can create a very good business by selling high-priced items such as jewelry, collectibles, or automobiles.

9. Strive to Work On Rather Than In the Business
Michael Gerber fans will immediately know what I’m talking about: There’s a huge difference between working on your business and working in your business. That’s a whole new story for later posts, but it’s one key to balancing fortune and fulfillment—and to keeping your passion from being suffocated by administrivia.

Well, there you have it: How to go solo without a big idea—or even without a lot of clues. We’d love to hear how you went solo—or how you’re planning or contemplating your own entrepreneurial journey.

This post is dedicated to Soul Shelter reader Robyn, who starts her new business this month. Congratulations, Robyn!

You may also enjoy:

“Three Things I Wish I’d Known Before Starting My Own Business“

“Entrepreneurship: A Primer”

“Three Questions Seekers Must Ask Themselves“

At Soul Shelter we proudly advance a simple idea. It’s not a new idea, but it seems to be increasingly unorthodox in our hyper-materialistic age. The idea is basically this: A happy, harmonious, and fulfilled life needn’t be one that revolves around the dollar — earning it or spending it.

Money, while of undeniable practical importance, has a funny way of making itself boss, and needs to be kept in its place lest it despoil the beauty, purity, or vivacity of an undertaking. So we talk a lot on this blog about the invaluableness of unconventional thinking, the joys of creativity, and the importance of focusing on, working for, and gaining fulfillment from something more than income.

Thus I wanted to use my Monday slot to direct readers to a fascinating, exuberant conversation about creativity, aired on National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation a few weeks back. The half-hour episode begins with the following provocative question:

How come so few of us tell stories with words and pictures, when almost all of us did that when we were kids?

The show’s guest is teacher and graphic artist Lynda Barry, who’s got a bounty of ideas to share on the subject.

“Something happens to us as we get a little older,” says Barry early in the show,

Adults would never consider [drawing] on a piece of paper and then just throwing it away afterwards. In fact, unless it’s valuable afterwards, most adults don’t think the experience was worth it. So that’s kind of what the book is about. It’s about what happens. What happens to that creative urge.

The book she’s referring to is her own latest publication, What It Is, which explores adult creativity, or, in Barry’s whimsical words: “the formless thing that gives things form.” See some gorgeous examples of the book’s artwork here.

This Talk of the Nation includes some wonderfully insightful back-and-forth with callers, such as the following:

-Caller: I started drawing at age six … and I know I started doing it primarily because of praise. … But about age sixteen to eighteen all of a sudden everything was money-oriented and it seemed as if it wasn’t involved with money, nobody took you serious [sic]. … Even with my parents … they wouldn’t even admit their son was an artist until finally I started making money at it.

-Barry: It seems like, as adults, unless what we’re doing has value to someone else, we really get the feeling that we shouldn’t be doing it. Unless it’s watching television!

Today’s link to this discussion kicks off a new post-series on a topic relevant to anybody looking to balance fortune and fulfillment: Call it Creativity versus Commerce, or Spirit versus Commodity. My three-part discussion on this theme will unfold over the summer months.

Meanwhile, I hope you’ll give yourself 30 minutes to listen to this inspiring discussion with Lynda Barry.

You might also enjoy:

“Poverty, the Pulitzer, & the Beauty of Letting Go”

“Life Without Principle (or Interest)”

“Happiness is Turning Off The Computer“

Last week J.D. Roth wrote about seeking one’s fortune or pursuing fulfillment, calling it “closing the gap between dreams and reality.”

Here’s a specific technique for closing that gap. It’s an easy-to-use version of “gap analysis,” a two-dollar MBA word for a simple idea. My version involves asking yourself three crucial questions.

Keep in mind that this three-question method is designed for complex, long-term goals. Shorter-term, less complicated aims such as studying PHP, saving for retirement, or planning a trip to Korea are best achieved by simply taking action, as J.D. advises. But if you’re planning a new career, starting a new business, or seeking a significant life change, these three questions—and most important, thoughtful answers—will prove indispensable. Here they are:

1. What is your goal?
This question lies at the heart of gap analysis. Let’s say Joan’s goal is to start a restaurant (a really poor idea for the overwhelming majority of aspiring entrepreneurs, but for some reason one that enthralls many people). We can envision Joan’s situation using the diagram below.

Point A is Joan today, without a restaurant. Point B is Joan in the future, with her restaurant. In between is the “gap.” Think of it as a goal map: Joan wants to journey from Point A to Point B.

Now, once the goal (Point B) is established, shouldn’t it be a simple matter to figure out intermediate destinations (milestones) separating Point A from Point B? Joan can read books, talk with half a dozen restaurant owners and chefs, query food suppliers, and do plenty of yummy market research by eating at establishments comparable to the one she imagines. As she uses multiple data sources to research how to start and manage a successful restaurant, recurring themes should emerge that enable her to identify specific steps needed to travel from Point A to Point B.

In fact, determining those steps is the easy part. The hard part is deciding upon the goal. Most failures to achieve result not from lack of know-how, but from lack of clear goals. Everyone’s heard the self-help cliché that “if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” That says it all.

2. Do I have the right strategy to achieve my goal?
Next, it’s time to reality-test your strategy. Your strategy is simply the set of intermediate steps you’ve recorded in detail in response to Question 1.

The best reality-test is showing your strategy to knowledgeable non-competing parties (obviously you wouldn’t show it to potential competitors). In Joan’s case, chefs, food suppliers, real estate brokers, and others who might eventually benefit from her establishment should be willing, even eager, to critique her plan. They’re likely to point out weaknesses—maybe even fatal flaws—she hasn’t considered. They may well identify unforeseen opportunities or strengths.

3. Can I execute the strategy?
Now for the tough question: Can you execute? In other words, do you have the personal, professional, and financial resources to accomplish each of the steps you’ve laid out? Can Joan hire, train, and manage people? Does she have, or can she raise, enough money to fund her venture? Does she possess the grace and stamina to take a lower-level job with a restaurant to gain needed experience? Some answers to this query may become evident during Question 2; some will require soul-searching or further feedback from knowledgeable outsiders. In any case, if you can answer “yes” to Question 3, you’re off and running. If not, return to Question 1 and revisit your goal.

This post was inspired by a wonderful article I use in all my entrepreneurship classes, “The Questions Every Entrepreneur Must Answer,” first published in 1996 by Amar Bhide.

So do yourself a favor: Skip the fancy “gap analysis” and focus on the Three Questions, the most important of which is, “What is your goal?”

You may also enjoy:

“Three Things I Wish I’d Known Before Starting My Own Business”

“Pursuing Fortune and Fulfillment with Blogger Extraordinaire J.D. Roth”

“Entrepreneurship: A Primer“

Herewith, we present a new essay from our Soul Shelter First-Person Essay Award submission pool. We think you’ll find Seattle writer Terri Davis Smith’s story as inspiring as we have. (Also, be sure to read “Lighting the Way for Others” by contest entrant Melissa Hanser).

Remember, if you’re contemplating submitting your own 400-1,500 word essay on the subject of balancing fortune and fulfillment, our entry deadline is July 1, 2008. Take advantage of our no-entry-fee setup, and get a shot at publication on this blog and a $1,000 grand prize.

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• A New Fortune: How Panic Attacks Enhanced Perspective on Life by Terri Davis Smith •

A panic attack has a way of heightening your perspective — there is nothing more real than the feeling of losing control of your thoughts and senses. When a panic attack subsides, it’s time to take stock of your circumstances, which is what I did at age thirty-nine.

I had the corporate job, a wonderful husband, two amazing children, and even the dog and picket fence. Instead of enjoying these so-called accoutrements of success, I was constantly filled with anxiety, and my career-bent days did not include fulfillment. There was a distinct imbalance, and I can thank panic attacks for making this clear.

I spent seventeen years climbing the corporate ladder during the time when dot-coms and IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) were, literally, a dime-a-dozen. The company I worked for experienced two and three-way stock splits and mergers and acquisitions. My co-worker would reload the Nasdaq quotes page for fun, to find our company stock sometimes jumping ten dollars in one day. I joked that she had the Midas touch. My stock options granted me Hawaiian getaways and a vacation home.

All in all, life was good, right? Apparently so, until that Friday afternoon when I left one of my weekly department meetings. I was on my way back to my desk, chatting with colleagues and, as usual, kvetching about the meeting. As I walked up a staircase I had walked up probably five-thousand times during my tenure, I began to feel light-headed and dizzy. I knelt down on the stairs. I remember my friends and co-workers gathering around and offering comforting words, but all I could say was, “I’m afraid and worried about my girls.” The paramedics arrived. I saw my husband holding my younger daughter, her head buried in her papa’s chest.

We made three visits to the emergency room that weekend because of three subsequent attacks. The first two doctors muttered that I was fine and was only having an anxiety attack. The third doctor verbalized the same but also gave me some brochures about panic attacks. Reading through them, I found all the symptoms to be precisely what I had been experiencing. I finally understood that I was not going to die from having these feelings. This helped me calm down. I took a week off from work to recover. I became very introspective during this recovery period, and doubts about my line of work began to flood my thoughts.

I listed the pros and cons of my job. The “pros” column included the names of two co-workers who were great friends. It also included, of course, my salary. The “cons” column was quite extensive, and included: high stress; missing out on volunteering at my daughters’ schools; guilt for taking vacation time; less praise and appreciation received; more work received; less time allowed to do the work; the integration of corporate jargon in my everyday speech (i.e. “You must be nimble,” and “Do the right thing”); and the integration of sweater sets and pearls.

I realized that at work I had lost a sense of who I was-both on the job and off. I was unhappy and unfulfilled. Panic attacks brought me to the understanding that I needed a better work/life balance, I was lacking fulfillment, and I missed my family.

Nowadays, I have a clearer vision of what’s important in my life, and I’m taking baby steps to fulfill this vision. I left the corporate world and enrolled in school to learn and create new skills. I’m amazed at how the stress has vanished from my body-probably because I’m taking care of myself with more exercise and rest. School field trips, cycling, and snuggle sessions are in the picture now.

Lately, the panic attacks have become strangers. Their job done, they’ve left me alone. Coincidently, I’m more satisfied with my life, and I believe I’ve found a new kind of fortune.

You may also enjoy:

“The Barn of Fortune? (Thoughts on Happiness and Financial Freedom)”

“The Happiness Issue”

“You’ve Got to Jump“

Today marks the debut of Soul Shelter’s Entrepreneurs Live!, an occasional series of interviews with people who’ve chosen to strive for fulfillment as much as fortune in their work lives.

Kicking off the series is J.D. Roth, founder of the popular personal finance blog Get Rich Slowly (GRS).

The son of a serial entrepreneur whose ventures included software development, a nursery, a food grinding machinery manufacturer, an accounting service, and a custom box manufacturing company still in business after 23 years, J.D. went solo in March, just two short years after his blog’s debut. Today GRS boasts more than 54,000 subscribers and provides J.D. with a handsome income.

We caught up with the blogger extraordinaire over Thai cuisine at PokPok. Following are some excerpts from the conversation.

— You recognized your writing talent as a child and aspired to be a poet in high school, then a fiction writer in college. After years of holding “other” jobs, doing what you love at GRS and getting paid for it must be tremendously satisfying. But what about non-monetary fulfillment? Aside from the compensation, what do you find most satisfying about your new, entrepreneurial life?

It is rewarding to be paid for something I love to do. But it’s also satisfying to work on my own schedule. I know that’s trite - everyone says it - but it’s true. Before, I was squeezing the writing into the cracks of life. Now I write when the muse strikes, and don’t have to worry about other obligations. This leaves me time to pursue other interests, too. I’m going to play with photography again. For the first time in a decade, I’m exercising regularly. I’m training for a marathon. I never would have had the time or the motivation without doing this full-time. I may actually have time to take some classes. Aside from the money, the most satisfying thing about my new life is being able to pursue my other interests, the things that make me me.

— You have an extensive blogging history. In 1997 you started an online Web journal, adopted Blogger in 2001, switched to MovableType in 2002, and kept a personal journal called Folded Space for five years before launching GRS in April of 2006. That experience must have jumpstarted Get Rich Slowly.

The site was successful very quickly. I had 2,000 subscribers within two months. I simply told people about it-in my personal journal, on community sites, and elsewhere-not in a pushy way, just along the lines of ‘here’s what I’m doing’. I started GRS without really being aware that there were other personal finance blogs around. Sometimes—not always—it’s best to be ignorant of the competition!

— You’ve said that bloggers aspiring to go pro often underestimate the amount of work involved. What does it take?

Each situation is different, of course, but in general it takes a lot of time. A lot of time. For myself, most posts take several hours of work to research, compose, and edit. I think many people underestimate the value of editing. I spend at least as much time editing as I do writing, and I still think I don’t do enough.

As your traffic builds, there’s more community interaction that occurs. You need to reply to comments, to e-mail. You need to network with other bloggers in your niche. You need to focus on finding new methods of making money. Most pro bloggers are constantly looking for small ways to tweak their sites in order to bring more traffic or to make them more useful to readers.

Essentially, creating a successful blog is a full-time job. Literally. For the past two years, I’ve spent 50-60 hours a week on my site. I still do. Most of the successful bloggers I know also spend this sort of time on their sites.

— Recently you met a group of colleagues at a personal finance bloggers’ powwow in San Francisco. What was it like to meet face-to-face with people you’d long known only through e-mail? Any surprises?

The biggest surprise to me was how closely everyone’s personality matched his or her online persona. We often hear that the anonymity of the Internet makes people behave in ways they might not in ‘real life’. I’m sure that’s true in some instances, but I’m learning that online personalities are usually an accurate representation of actual personalities.

Because I like my colleagues online, it’s no surprise then that I liked them in person. It was fantastic to be able to meet and to exchange ideas. It was edifying to learn that we’re all on the same page, with the same goals, all hoping to help educate people about personal finance.

— My favorite GRS post is The Worst Job I Ever Had, a hilarious essay in which you describe your short-lived career as an insurance salesman. Now you’ve created a life that couldn’t be more different in its financial and spiritual rewards. What’s next? What do you see yourself doing ten years from now?

Ah, this is a fine question, one for which I do not have a fine answer. For the past two years, I’ve been riding the tide of Get Rich Slowly, allowing it to take me where it will. This has worked well to an extent, but now it’s time to treat it more seriously, I think, time to consider it an actual business. I need to sit down and create a business plan.

Do I want to write a book? Do I want to develop skills that would allow me to lecture? Do I want to produce educational materials? Or do I want to move in a completely different direction? These are the sorts of questions I need to address, I think, if I want continued success. I’ve begun to make some preparations for the future, but I need to do more.

J.D.’s already launched one new venture: Get Fit Slowly, a fitness blog in the spirit of GRS. Having conquered debt, he’s now waging a battle against the waistline–and winning. He looks terrific and just finished running his first 10K race.

And like many entrepreneurs, J.D. now faces a happy challenge: Redefining his goals. Entrepreneurial decisions always resolve to one question: What is your goal? We’ll examine that critical issue in a future post, but in the meantime, here’s food for thought: What is your goal? What do you see yourself doing ten years from now?

You may also enjoy:

“Three Things I Wish I’d Known Before Starting My Own Business”

“Entrepreneurship: A Primer”

“Unleashing Ideas: a Four-Fold Approach“

“A thing is sometimes added to by being diminished and diminished by being added to.” — Tao Te Ching (XLII; 96)

Earlier this year, the It’s a Small World ride at Disneyland was closed for updates which included deepening the fiberglass waterways to accommodate today’s obese passengers. The Small World boats had scraped to a standstill a bit too often of late, slowing lines and resulting in complaints.

There’s no denying it: Americans are getting girthier.

Generally these days, we Yanks aren’t too good at moderation. While certain episodes in our national history (frontier settlement, The Great Depression, and the lean times of rationing during WWII) remind us that ours is a heritage of toughness and sacrifice, the modus operandi in our contemporary age of prosperity entails eating, shopping, driving, working, and being entertained — all in excess.

This puts us in stark cultural contrast to other thriving western nations. Take France, whose people work less, vacation more, and enjoy higher rates of personal fitness. Most coffee drinkers in France, heirs to the world’s finest café culture, find the demitasse espresso sufficient for their morning pick-me-up. In the States, on the other hand, we demand triple-shot double-grande caramel macchiatos. And where the French café-goer takes his coffee in cup and saucer because he values sitting as much as sipping, the American gets his grande on the go, the enormous paper cup a product of his perpetual motion (and a wasteful one at that).

We lack moderation not only in our styles of ingestion and consumption, but in our tireless ambition. Success is the holiest deity of our national cult — and our fixation upon success is, of course, good and bad.

I am certainly not without ambitions. Abundant opportunity and good ol’ fashioned bootstrapping self-reliance appeal to me as much as to the next guy. In fact, I’ve spent the last eight years, virtually without pause, in thrall to my own dreams and aspirations. I regret none of that time, and have achieved my own modicum of success — and an even greater deal of fulfillment. Hard work and dogged perseverance certainly have their place. (I’m enjoying Tim’s new Entrepreneurship thread as much as our readers are).

But recently, while chatting across the back fence with a neighbor about our impending parenthood, my wife and I were the beneficiaries of some lovely (and unconventional) advice: “Lower your expectations.”

With this wise directive our neighbor, a fulltime parent of two youngsters, was encouraging us to be realistic about our own goals once our baby arrived — in other words, to practice moderation in our personal ambitions. Lower expectations, our neighbor advised, would help us “stay sane,” and would keep us in the moment.

The advice, so wonderfully unique, has stayed with me. I’ve long advocated moderation where the dining table, the wallet, the automobile, or the church was concerned. But as for practicing moderation in my vocation, I could do better. I could strive to better balance work and life. I could take care to see that my passion doesn’t become compulsion. And what better time to seek such moderation than during the first months of my first-born’s life, when there’s so much happening that I don’t want to miss?

So I’m working on it. I’m reminding myself, daily, of the value (counterintuitive as it may be) in sometimes lowering my expectations, in not demanding so awfully much of myself.

Lao Tzu, the sage author of the Tao Te Ching, puts it this way:

Too much store
Is sure to end in immense loss.
Know contentment
And you will suffer no disgrace;
Know when to stop
And you will meet with no danger.
You can then endure.” (XLIV; 108)

I’m hardly alone in my wish for moderation. This subject seems to be in the air these days. In “Leaving Work to Watch the Sunset,” a recent segment on NPR’s This I Believe, journalist Laurie Granieri gives an eloquent testimonial about her search for moderation in her professional life. It’s well worth a listen.

And over at the Art of Manliness blog, you’ll find another fine piece on “The Virtuous Life of Moderation.”

Here’s to heeding Lao Tzu and “knowing contentment…”

You may also enjoy:

“On Slowness”

“Happiness is Turning Off The Computer”

“Let Us Begin“