TAG: positivity

Strengths and Happiness Part I: How Strengths Help You Live Your Purpose

What are you good at? What energizes you? What motivates you to achieve your big goals? Welcome to strengths! Strengths are a major component of positive psychology, the science of what makes life worth living.  The strengths-based approach of positive psychology helps individuals to identify and focus on the positive aspects of their lives. In fact, research demonstrates that identifying …

Arts Leadership in the Post-COVID World: Start with the Creative Success Mindset

We are finally reemerging from COVID isolation and the world of the arts is beginning to open up! The past year has seen tremendous change in our field. The pandemic shut down the ability to perform for live audiences. On top of that crisis, we had a collective reckoning with race. Moving forward, today’s arts leaders and professionals are facing …

Building an Online Classroom Community: Top Strategies for Engaging Students on Zoom

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Last week, I was honored to lead a discussion with Yale University faculty on how to build an online classroom community.  The discussion was sponsored by Yale’s Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning. The Center provides a host of resources to students and faculty.  When Yale had to convert its classes to online learning last spring, the Center was instrumental …

The Coronavirus Pandemic: 5 Questions to Stay Positive Through Challenging Times

The Coronavirus pandemic has dramatically changed to our lives.  Social distancing has become the new normal and much of our life is now spent on-line.  Those of us in the education sector are now teaching through Zoom. When Yale School of Music students returned to school last week, they found a very different world. Online teaching for performing artists is …

How to Jumpstart Your Creative Success: Take the Creative Success Assessment

I am passionate about empowering creative success!  In fact, my mission is to help creative people achieve success so that the world is teeming with creativity. Why? Because I believe that when we put our passions and talents to work in the service of spreading creativity throughout the world, we are making the world a better place. The goal of …

Top Tips for Managing Your Portfolio Career: Embrace the 4 P’s of the Entrepreneurial Mindset

I have been collaborating with iCadenza, a fantastic resource that helps musicians think like business people and grow as artists. I am honored to have been included in iCadenza’s most recent blog post on “How to Manage a Portfolio Career: 7 Arts Entrepreneurs Share Their Tips.” My advice to successfully manage your music portfolio career? Start with adopting the mindset …

The Mindset of Today’s Music Entrepreneur:  The 4 Elements of Success

What’s the starting point for creating a successful career in today’s music world? To me, it’s having the mindset of success. I define mindset as your attitude and how you perceive the world based on your experiences:  how you feel about your ability to translate your musical talent into a successful career as opposed to the FACT of what instrument …

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The Elements of Career Success: 6 Steps towards Fulfillment

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What are the common elements in creating a successful and fulfilling career? This question is at the heart of my work with professional musicians and arts leaders, as well as creative business professionals—in short, anyone who is committed to incorporating her passions into her work. Here are the 6 steps to creating a career that is not only fulfilling but …

The Mindset of Success: Four Pillars for Today’s Music Entrepreneurs

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Note: A longer version of this post appeared in I CARE IF YOU LISTEN. It is a fascinating, challenging time to be a musician. Traditional institutions struggle to remain relevant as new technologies and new ways of performing, disseminating music and interacting with audiences are changing our very world. A new model and more entrepreneurial model of success is emerging. What …

Managing Multiple Passions: Taking Charge of Your Life and Living at Choice

One of the hallmarks of creative success is having a positive can-do mindset and feeling great about the choices that you make because this makes you feel in charge of your life.  This can be quite a challenge for those with multiple passions. I recently explored the challenges of having multiple passions and how to push through the fears that often paralyze those who love a lot of different things and are afraid to make the “wrong” decision. 

There is another big challenge in managing multiple passions: deciding which one to focus on.  When you love a lot of different things, it is tempting to want to do everything.  However, that is simply not realistic. In my experience, people who do “everything” wind up defaulting on their commitments, jeopardizing their relationships, feeling overwhelmed and often harming their health.  And yet, if we love doing a lot of different things, we might land up feeling resentful if we have to put off doing something we love.

Managing multiple passions is a function of choosing the activities that advance your goals and make you feel great about your decisions.  So here are a few strategies that can help you to focus your efforts and manage those passions!