Sage Woman Chronicles

Marketing Your Creative Work

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“Humans are not ideally set up to understand logic; they are ideally set up to understand stories.” ~ Roger C. Schank, Cognitive Scientist

Vinnie Potestivo is an Emmy® Award-winning Media Advisor who grows personal brands & founder-led companies by scaling content distribution, brand visibility, & media reach.

Vinnie is the Editor-in-chief of I Have A Podcast® and is responsible for discovering and amplifying the voice of independent podcasters worldwide.

As a network executive at MTV Networks (98-07) he discovered talent and developed new ways to support their goals, pioneering the way brands and business owners could contribute to their public narrative by making them stars and producers of their own television series. Early hits include Punk’d, The Osbournes, TRL, 8th & Ocean, Wild n Out, & The Challenge. Since then, he and his team at VPE.tv have continued to be well-trusted connectors who develop and distribute original content across all media platforms. Especially podcasts!

You can listen to Vinnie dissect the creative process with some of the stars and creatives who helped launch his career such as Mandy Moore, Danielle Fishel, TJ Lavin and Ananda Lewis (to name a few) on the award-winning “I Have A Podcast” audio experience which is available everywhere you watch and listen to podcasts.

Personal brands Vinnie has helped elevate through the use of original content include Mandy Moore, Diane von Furstenberg, Ashton Kutcher, Jessica Simpson, Beyoncé Carter, Ashlee Simpson, Carson Daly, Nick Lachey, Sharon Osbourne, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Wilmer Valderrama, The Simmons, Russell Simmons, Nick Cannon, Lindsay Lohan, TJ Lavin, Vanessa Lachey, Benji & Joel Madden, Aly & AJ Michalka, Kelly & Jack Osbourne, Tyrese Gibson, Molly Sims, Lauren Conrad, Kristin Cavallari, Danielle Fishel, Carmen Electra, Sisqo, Dave Holmes, Susie Castillo, Damien Fahey, Quddus, La La Anthony, DJ Clue, Suchin Pak, Gideon Yago, Brianna Keilar, Tracie Strahan, Erika Martin, Sway Calloway, Sean Hannity, Alan Colmes, Matt Pinfield, Tom Green, Ahmet Zappa, Pauly Shore, Jerry Springer, Snoop Dogg, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Morgan Spurlock, Will.i.am, Ebro, Andy Milonakis, Kelis, Aubrey O’Day, Hasan Minhaj, Patti Stanger, Chris March, Danielle Staub, Beth Ostrosky Stern, Audrey Gruss, Dottie Herman, Peter Thomas Roth, Tinsley Mortimer and Leah McSweeney.

Corporate brands VPE has worked closely with include Macy’s, Samsung, Nikon, MLB, Peter Thomas Roth, June Jacobs Spa, Naturally Serious Skin, Kiehl’s, Hope Fragrances, Ciroc, Dow, Lady Foot Locker, AARP, Prudential, and AllState.

Vinnie’s social media: Website, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, eSpeakers, TikTok, ihaveapodcast.com

Internet Movie Database, IMDb

How to submit your podcast to IMDb, https://www.audiolinked.com/

The Creator Accelerator on LinkedIn, Follow Vinnie for an invite.

Story-Power guest, Tara Watt-Treslove Ep. 40 “Our Bodies are the Least Interesting Thing About Us”

PodMatch

This episode is brought to you by PodMatch, the dating service for podcasters. They introduced me to Vinnie Potestivo, and I’m so glad they did. I hope you’ve enjoyed our conversation and remember that if you have a podcast or something to share with the world, check out PodMatch at my affiliate link at PodMatch and tell them Lucinda sent you.

Dream Messages

“Creativity is an intensely vulnerable gesture. All the risks and challenges are worth your efforts. This is a good time to go for it.” ~ Tarantula from spirit-animals.com

The other morning I had an extremely vivid dream just before waking. As a rule, my dreams are in black and white and are kind of a jumble. I don’t often remember them. So, if I have a vivid dream complete with colors and distinct images, I pay attention.

In this dream Barry and I were home, not the one we live in now. You know how dreams are. We were sitting on the couch and I had my feet up with a throw over them. I noticed several, maybe 10, tarantulas walking across the floor. I didn’t feel afraid, just curious and said to Barry, “How did all these tarantulas get into the house?” All I noticed before I woke up was how colorful they were. It was one of those dreams that make me go “hmmm”.

I tried to look up the spiritual significance of tarantulas that day, but didn’t find anything satisfactory. However a few days later I changed the wording of the search and found this site above, with a message that was exactly what I’d been feeling about my day to day work.

I have lots of creative balls in the air right now and I had begun to feel a little overwhelmed with the amount of extra social media posts I felt I needed to do. There was a part of me that said, “There is no need to tire myself out. All I need to do is one or two tasks a day. That will be like planting seeds.” And then I had the tarantula dream. The message of tarantula is to trust and allow things to unfold in their own good time. It was a confirmation that The Universe has my back and that I’ll receive guidance when it’s time to do something new.

That made me feel better because when I’ve taken marketing and promotion courses, the mantra is always the same. You have to work hard to let people know what you’re working on. It’s all about push, push, push. Now, I really know nothing about marketing, but there is just something about that idea that always felt wrong to me. It just seemed like that left very little time for being creative. If felt like there has to be a better way.

Even though I don’t want to spend hours marketing my work on social media, I do have a different mindset about self-promotion. It looks more like making meaningful connections with people. I love talking about the things I’m creating and I like hearing about what other people are doing too. If I can help them spread the word about their work, I hope they will do the same for me, and hopefully we’ll become friends along the way. That’s my approach now, to develop relationships with past podcast guests and fellow creatives I meet through social media and trust that The Universe will take care of the rest. To that end, I think I’ll take a rest today.

It’s beautiful Saturday here in Southern Arizona. We’ve had some much needed rain this past week. Today is mostly sunny which always brightens my mood.

I hope you are doing well and able to find time to be creative.

Blessings,

The Space Between Time

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards.

Have you ever experienced life shattering events? Yeah, after the last few years, most of us have. In The Space Between Time, Jenna Holden gets slammed by her fiancé walking out, her mother’s untimely death, and losing her job all in one week. But she receives unexpected help when she finds her three-times great-grandmother’s journals and begins the adventure of a lifetime.

The Space Between Time is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords and for Kindle at Amazon, or you can find the ebook at iBooks or Barnes and Noble. If you prefer a physical copy, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. Stay tuned for news when the audiobook version is published.

Lucinda is also the host of Story-Power a podcast where she and her guests discuss their creative endeavors, and/or the stories that have changed their lives. It’s available here on Sage Woman Chronicles and on Apple, Google, and Spotify podcast apps. Please rate and leave a review. It helps people find me.

Patreon

I have some interesting patron only conversations coming up. I hope you will join us on Patreon and help me develop some fun activities for us to share.

I’m so passionate about stories that I created the Story-Power podcast and Patreon communities so I’d have an excuse to talk story with other story lovers. If you’re passionate about stories too, and want to talk about what you’ve learned from your favorites, come join me at patreon.com/StoryPower.

PodMatch

If you are a podcaster, or have a message or fantastic product you want to share with the world, I encourage you to check out PodMatch. Use the affiliate link and tell them, Lucinda sent you. Then contact me so we can set up a Story-Power chat.

Are You Living the Life You Want?

Photo by Hakeem James Hausley on Pexels.com

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“You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.” ~ Vernon Howard

Billie: “I’m happy. I got everything I want. Two mink coats. Everything. If there’s somethin’ I want, I ask.”

Paul: “That’s good as long as you know what you want.”

Billie: “What? Are you trying to mix me up?” ~ Conversation from the movie, Born Yesterday (1950)

This week Barry and I watched two movies with similar themes; sometimes when we get what we think we want, something is missing. And what are the things that are most precious to you that you wouldn’t want to lose? The two movies were, Leap Year (2010) with Amy Adams, Matthew Goode, and Adam Scott. The other was Born Yesterday (1950) with Judy Holliday, William Holden, and Broderick Crawford. They are both romantic comedies with serious themes. The main characters in both are the women, who think they are living the life of their dreams, but as the stories go along, they discover that what they thought they wanted isn’t at all fulfilling. They are just kind of existing.

For Anna, Amy Adams character, she thought she wanted to live in the most posh apartment building in Boston with a husband who’s a doctor. But just as it looks like she’s going to get that, her life begins to fall apart. In this case, it’s good because she’s made her dreams come true with military precision not questioning whether or not she would be happy. At one point in the movie, Declan, played by Matthew Goode, her guide to Dublin so she can meet up with her boyfriend, asks her a question that shakes her world. “If your house was on fire and you had only thirty seconds to grab the most valuable thing, what would it be?” When Anna can’t answer that question, she realizes that maybe she hasn’t stopped to examine what she really wants out of life.

When Declan asked Anna that question, my first thought was our photos. In my case, photos represent valuable relationships. The sad thing for Anna is that she realizes she has very few meaningful relationships, not even with her boyfriend. She built a sham life. One that looks good from the outside but is not in any way emotionally fulfilling. In the end she has to make a choice between what she thought she wanted and the more exciting life that has emerged in front of her.

Judy Holliday’s character in Born Yesterday discovers the same thing, which the above quoted conversation indicates. Billie is the mistress of a shady business man, played by Broderick Crawford, who has gone to Washington D. C. to “buy” a congressman who will introduce a bill that will benefit his business holdings. He hires a journalist played by William Holden to educate Billie so that she’ll fit in with the Washington crowd, all the time completely ignorant of the fact that he too could benefit from an education.

After watching that movie, I thought it was time to take a look at my life. Am I happy and fulfilled? Do I have valuable relationships? Fortunately the answer is a resounding, “Yes”. But there was a time when I thought I had the perfect job, which was then yanked out from under me. I thought my life was ruined, but sometimes The Universe helps us find something better that we couldn’t even imagine existed. That’s what happened to me. It took a long time, but I am finally completely happy with my life and all of the creative things I’m doing.

All I know is that it’s good to take a step back every once in a while to see if our lives are the ones we truly want to be living. If not, maybe adjustments need to be made. And as I learned, if we ignore the warning signs, we are forced to decide what is most important to us.

Those are my short thoughts for today. Have a wonderful weekend.

Blessings,

The Space Between Time

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards.

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Creativity: Your Intuition at Work

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“Humans are not ideally set up to understand logic, they are ideally set up to understand stories.” ~ Roger C. Schank, Cognitive Scientist

“Susan has spent over 35 years encouraging people to connect, develop and trust their intuition to enable them to make confident decisions in line with their true core values. “

But life hasn’t been that simple.

My life changed dramatically when my 20-year emotionally abusive marriage ended. I had to reconnect and rediscover who I was and what I really wanted.

How do you make the right decisions in life when, for most of it, other people had made them for you?

There was only one choice to make. I had to trust who I was and the decisions I was going to make. Yes, it wasn’t going to be easy and certainly not simple but it can be done once you learn to trust.

My strength lies within, as I rely strongly on my intuition to guide me towards my goals in life. I have learnt to trust this power and teach others to do the same through the tools I have developed over my lifetime. It is time to enjoy your journey and start trusting in yourself.

Susan Jane’s Book: Intuitive Flowers Empowering Your Emotional Goals

Susan Jane’s Social Media: Website, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Podcast: The Voice of Intuition Show

PodMatch

This episode is brought to you by PodMatch, the dating service for podcasters. They introduced me to Susan Jane, and I’m so glad they did. I hope you’ve enjoyed our conversation and remember that if you have a podcast or something to share with the world, check out PodMatch at my affiliate link at PodMatch and tell them Lucinda sent you.

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We are Powerful Beyond Imagination

Oregon Trail Wagon Wheel Ruts, by Doug Letterman

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“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.” ~ Buddha

“I Must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me and when it is gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” ~ Frank Herbert, Dune

Last July, when Barry and I were in the Pacific Northwest, we got to talking with my youngest sister, her husband, and their daughter about forming a family book club group. Then we met their new neighbors, who are now friends of theirs and they wanted to join in too. We’ve read two books together. The first was The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab. The one we are discussing today is The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. Each book was chosen by a different member of the group, but they have similar themes. The main characters make a fateful choice about their lives, and over the course of each book, they examine what their lives might have been like had they made a different choice.

There have been times when I questioned the choices I’ve made and what my life would be like if I’d chosen a different path, but now that I’m older, I feel grateful for the direction my life has gone. I’m living an extremely happy life. I didn’t choose the conventional majors in college and graduate school. I only worked a short time in the corporate world. When I was teaching, I rarely followed some of the, in my mind, silly rules that the administration wanted me to follow. I wanted to connect with and inspire my students, not be their jailer. Theatre is also an outlier sort of course to teach. High schools and colleges push the sciences rather than the arts. But, if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time you know I don’t believe most sciences can help us understand our emotions the way stories can.

With that in mind, I want you to know that my online course, “Saving the World One Story at a Time” is now live and I’m looking for more “test students” to take and rate the class. There are 18 lessons about 15 minutes each. The entire course is about 4 1/2 hours long. If you are interested in taking it, message me and I’ll send you the coupon code and link. Below is the landing page artwork created by my husband, Barry.

As I’ve developed my Story-Power podcast, and now this new course, I realize my mission is to help as many people as possible become more emotionally grounded and healed. If we want the world to become more loving, with humans connecting in vibrant and loving ways, we have to heal ourselves first.

I could go into all of the latest discoveries of quantum physicists which prove that we are all connected and that my perspective about the world around me, is completely affected by how I expect it to look. But I don’t want to do that much research to add here. I’ll just say that you might want to go read about two of the latest Nobel Prize recipients whose research proves that very thing.

We think that what we think and feel has little to no affect on those around us, but we are wrong. There is no hiding and there is no denying our responsibility for affecting the people and even situations in far distant locations from where we live. We are much more powerful than we ever imagined. Our choices matter, even seemingly insignificant choices like choosing how we’re going to feel and interact with those around us at any given time. Ask yourself, do I chose to be happy, or do I choose to grumble about my life? What outcome do you experience from those choices? When I’ve asked myself those questions I’m often surprised that I choose to complain and at times be miserable. Those are the thought patterns I’ve been working to change.

I’d love to know if you’ve ever thought about the choices you have made, and what you’ve learned from examining your life path.

Thanks for reading, liking, and commenting.

Blessings,

The Space Between Time

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards.

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