Outgrowing your dreams not only happens, but it will most likely occur when you least expect it.

So, is outgrowing your dreams a bad thing?  

Well, it really depends on how you look at it and what you do about it. The key is to focus on the part that really matters and not get caught up in the part that feels like a huge, blundering mis-step.

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To succeed in today’s economy, you gotta wear a multitude of hats.

If you get the hat-wearing part right, you will certainly survive and thrive as a writer, artist, consultant, or entrepreneur. Get it wrong and you risk the possibility that your Mojo will be buried alive in a pile of too many hats.

What can you do to protect your Mojo?  Know the connection between Hats and Mojo and take these three steps:

1. Count your hats.  Every one-person-show wonders how many hats are needed to make things work.  The answer: you need six hats.  There’s an art and a science to how this operates, but the number is six.  The six hats needed by every one-person-show belong to the creative director, the bookkeeper, the traffic director, and three specific members of the promotional sales team.

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Do you feel queasy about your opportunities to make money? Is lack of cash flow causing you to second-guess your talent and professional worth?

Stop.  It’s time to look at your situation differently.

When Money is scarce, special precautions need to be taken so that you don’t drive your Mojo away. Creative Thinkers,especially writers and artists, need to build a protective firewall between money issues and the interior space where creativity is nurtured.  Always remember that your Mojo is sort of funny about your relationship with Money. If you get too starry-eyed or frantic about pursuing the Mighty Dollar, Mojo will dump you like a jealous fiancé.

Now, wait a minute.  That doesn’t mean walking on eggshells about Money for fear that you’ll upset your Mojo.  Money is not a taboo topic. Clearly, we’re in a very tough and changing economic season. You need Money and you deserve to be paid appropriately for your Talent.  However, you can unwittingly cross a big line with your Mojo if your relationship with Money somehow means Money rules, and Passion and Talent are demoted to second-class citizens. Mojo hates that kind of Money Pickle.

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Writers, Artists, and Creative People, listen up.  At a very critical moment in your life, you may fall for a very common myth that could put your mojo at risk.  I’m talking about  the classic falsehood that says it’s your duty to stick with a day job you hate because it is less risky than trusting your entrepreneurial options.

Here’s the simple thing you need to truly know—just because you can do a job, doesn’t mean you should handcuff yourself to a run-of-the-mill opportunity at some mediocre place.  You know The Place.  It haunts your mind like a scary, cheap carnival ride manned by the same hooligans that your mother warned you would be lurking in back alleys after dark.

If you aren’t there right now, you probably once were.

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No wonder your Mojo escaped out the back door. Your internal clutter is like an episode of Hoarders. Your brain is so packed with odds and ends that your intellectual treasures are buried in mind minutiae.  Who wants to live like that? Not your Mojo.  Let’s take a close look at how you’ve been driving your Mojo away.

It starts with your Creative Side.  You probably realize that the Creative Side of who you are has its own unique identity, special interests, and silly hang-ups. What you may not realize is that one of your Creative Side’s primary duties is to serve as the proprietor of that strange little curio cabinet inside your head that is packed full of diverse skills, eclectic experiences, developed talent, and undeveloped talents.

Like most old-time curio shopkeepers, your Creative Side has a nagging secret.  Sometimes the collections of odds and ends get out of hand…waaaaaaay out of hand.

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