Diamond Life and Style Podcast

(http://www.diamondlifeandstyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/DLS-PODCAST-ARTWORK-e1372036745504.jpg)                       So excited to share with you my FIRST Diamond Life and Style Podcast. Here is the transcription of the podcast - you can read along as you listen to my animated storytelling: Last year my music coach let me in on a juicy life-changing secret I (shockingly) hadn't heard of before.  For someone who has an avid passion that has led to a wall of self-help & entrepreneurial business books, this little nugget o' wisdom somehow never crossed my wildflower jewel encrusted path. I only wish I had known about it sooner... OK! It's hard to admit it, but I have perfectionistic tendencies - and they have a habit of getting in my way. I'm not a complete perfectionist or obsessive compulsive or anything like that - I just have really powerful multi-dimensional technicolor visions for what I want to create. I am also a Virgo - can I blame it on that?! When I find myself in circumstances that I 'm not yet able to pull-off something I vividly dream of, I have often felt overwhelmed and start to look like a deer in headlights. That feeling gets me trapped - like a dog chasing its tail, spinning in circles instead of finding solutions. And I know they are out there, or more profundly, in here (inside of me). I just might not have found them yet. (http://www.diamondlifeandstyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Iam-the-creator.jpg)                               Many years ago while living in a Zen Buddhist Temple (a colorful story for another time!) I learned about Right Action. It's the fourth aspect of the Buddha's Eight-Fold Path To Enlightenment.  Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh says "The basis of Right Action is to do everything in mindfulness." So, at numerous times I mindfully have found myself unaware of how to get from where I am to where I want to be. I  also have mindfully found myself to feel extremely emotional, anxious, afraid, and overwhelmed to the point of tears. My full-blown awareness might have actually made the whole jamboree a lot more painful, because as people often say "ignorance is bliss." At those times in an effort to soothe myself - I try to remember this line from a zen sutra - "How can you know the way as you walk, progress is not a matter of far or near, but if you are confused - mountains and rivers will block the way." Well I've been confused and yep, the wise one's were right - because I have felt like a huge mountain was standing before me, and how the $%#!! was I gonna climb my own personal Mount Everest?! Being a true artist, an entrepreneur and an original of any kind is a wild, exciting, winding, ever expanding and completely uncertain life. Sign me up! Oh wait, I really didn't have a choice - because you are who you are - and honestly, one secret about being human is that (like my morbidly honest 7th grade science teacher used to say) the only thing you can count on in life is- death and taxes. That was a jagged little pill for me to swallow at 12 years old. So back to my perfectionist tendencies (and maybe yours too) - they have stopped me from getting a LOT of things done in my life. There are books of songs sitting in my studio, and piles of unfinished recordings that I swear - you will never hear. Sorry - because honestly they just weren't good enough. Maybe for someone else, but not for me. There are art projects and short stories and videos and a lot of other things most people would think were brilliant - that I will never ever ever show the world. EVER! Now of course one has to have their standards!  Not everything Lennon & McCartney wrote was perfect (or was it!). Not everything Kandinsky, Klee, Picasso and Rauschenberg painted or sculpted was pure genius. We have to wonder: what treasures have they kept from their adoring fans?!