What if I told you that I was in possession of a 12-week course that would teach you the keys to your personal, creative and financial freedoms — and all you would need to do is show up, follow a certain number of steps, accomplish the goal and be on your merry way?
It would be great, wouldn’t it?
I agree.
Here’s the only problem:
I am thoroughly convinced that when it comes down to discovering freedom, you cannot simply follow steps, instructions or course modules to get it.
That’s because freedom is not an indisputable, objective, capital-T Truth that means the same thing to everyone. Your definition of freedom is highly personal and subjective, and reflects your core beliefs, wants and desires. Even still, your definition of freedom will be constantly constantly changing and evolving throughout your life, according to where you are and what you need as you learn, grow and awaken into a deeper state of being.
So, a 12-week course with tidy instructions really does sound brilliant — what an easy investment it would be to make!
But no amount of static instruction or course steps can instill in you, or answer on your behalf, how YOU ought to pursue YOUR personal definition of freedom, and how to embrace it fully, and how to cultivate it every day of your life.
(Yes, you do have your own unique and personal definition of freedom, even if you’re not very aware of what it is or how to perfectly put it into words.)
Freedom is an interpretation: a feeling of fulfillment that directly reflects how you honor, cherish and abide by the core, fundamental beliefs that are bound up in your spirit like the pillars under a tower.
Freedom is a state of mind, it’s a state of being, it’s a state of love that must be practiced and cultivated every single damn day of your life. And when you think you’ve “found” freedom, you suddenly realize that one young definition of it was just an imprint of a footstep upon a long, wonderful trail that wishes to lead you into total liberation.
I’m talking about that first love who seemed to give you the world. And then it ended, of course, and years later you look back and say, “I thought at the time that that person with me in that relationship gave me total freedom, total union, total partnership. Boy, was I wrong.”
Every such learning experience is a step upon the path.
And no matter how hard we try to master the unknown with knowledge, and conquer circumstance with preparation, and minimize uncertainty with rigorous and regimented thought, sometimes, you just need to start walking. Start falling in love and having your heart broken. Start writing your lifelong masterpiece by writing a some seriously shitty books in between.
Life is not mastered with letter grades.
There is no blueprint you can discover, no method or system to be found that will give you freedom.
My friend, you soul is immaculate, and without fault or flaw; you seeing your truth looking back at you in the mirror is my dream. Your living situation, your struggles, your circumstances, your work and family and friends, everything else in our lives is so incredibly fluid and ever-changing. You may well discover a very nice, tidy, easy-to-digest 12-week program, course, or methodolgy to deliver one single promise or point of learning. That’s all fine and well. And I’m not sitting here to rail against learning, or courses, or how-to advice — not by any stretch.
What I *am* saying is that if you want your own definition and understanding of freedom to be truly realized — and then forged every day, and then cultivated throughout every aspect of your life — a guide, a book, a course is not going to teach you how to do it.
You need to learn it by living it.
By walking in those shoes every morning, afternoon and night. You need to become your freedom. You need to live your leadership — not over a weekend at an annual conference for like-mindeds, but year-round; not just on your personal blog where you preach in anonymity, but in the conversations you have face-to-face with strangers on the street; not weekly at your Sunday mass, but standing upon a box in your town square, preaching of love and equality for all while washing the sins of doubt from those who desperately wish to believe.
Living it means committing to the commitment.
It means making a decisive choice — or having the choice choose you — because life is short, fear is petty and you deserve the brilliance that’s out in the world awaiting you.
That’s what my writers’ group wishes to give to you.
The Literati Writers is a tough sell for a lot of people. They think,
“$197/quarter? That’s about $800/year! What am I really paying for? How will I know if I’ve gotten my dollar value? How can you promise it, guarantee it, ensure it?”
The reasons that some writers feel wary for joining a premium-membership writers’ group are multiple.
For one, many writers aren’t committed to themselves. They think they are, but they’re really self-saboteurs who feel completely undeserving of happiness, freedom and love. Second, because many writers know that they’re not truly committed to embracing writing as a lifelong practice in freedom (one in which an artistic journey reveals, empowers and enlightens the journey of life itself), many writers thus feel entitled to self-suffer for free. “Why should I pay when I know I’m lying to myself?” their dastardly subconscious minds whisper.
And third, the reason why genuinely committed writers who share the values of our community hesitate to apply to join our writing family is because The Literati Writers is not billed as a 12-week course with a fixed price that will tell you to follow a certain number of steps, produce X words in X days, and hold a tangible result that says at the end of the day, “Ah, this is what I paid for!”
Friend, that’s your brain playing tricks on you.
Our brains love to compartmentalize big concepts into tidy little boxes, and throwing numbers and steps and oversimplifications upon huge, key, most-fucking-important-things-in-our-entire-lives just doesn’t work. It’s a lie. And it’s a dangerous self-deceit to believe that joy, love and freedom will be found by another’s instructions.
I’m not here to give you instructions that you must follow, or you “fail.” I’m here to set you free.
I do that by sharing the tools that are bound within your head, heart and soul — to help you to learn that you are all you need, that people are what writing is actually all about, and that embarking upon the creative journey is a masterful experience in artful living that will have you dancing, singing, and fist-pumping in ecstasy every other day of the week.
The truth is that I could change my marketing, alter my offering, and turn The Literati Writers into a static-content, 12-week course. It would be an easy sell. There would be word-count goals and worksheets, pre-scheduled this over here and drip-content over there. You’d be like, “Holy shit, I’m getting so much for my money!”
But would you do the work? Maybe.
Would you learn something? Oh, sure.
Would you actually retain what you learn, and understand how to live it every day — through the good and the bad, the high highs and the low lows?
Would you live what *I* preached?
Would you alter and evolve, innovate and reshape my own words and ideas to fit your own? How? How could someone else’s static instruction help you to see the essence of what lies beneath your skin; to comprehend the quiet gifts bound within your soul that you tend to dismiss, or miss completely; the motivations that move your feet every day?
The chances are that you wouldn’t. And I could sell you something and not give a shit about that, but that’s the problem here.
I can’t bullshit you. I refuse to.
And I would be bullshitting you if I told you that you would find freedom in your life through writing by following steps. I would be bullshitting you because I would know in my heart of hearts that I wasn’t helping you understand your definition of freedom, I would be deceiving you into believing that you’re discovering what I feel freedom means to me, right now — not what you believe it is, right now (and let alone what you might call it in 1, 5 or 15 years).
I really can’t — I won’t — bullshit you when it comes to these sorts of things: liberation, joy, feeling fucking good just by being you.
Those things matter the most to me, and if I lied to you about how to reach them then I’d be lying to myself — a fraud, a sham, a coward.
But, this really isn’t about me. This is about you. And why I do what I do is all about my helping you. It’s what I’m called to do. And every iteration of my writing, exploration, pursuit, struggle, success and failure is this: freedom. I want to help you be free, to understand what freedom means to you, and how to reveal the underlying essence of your freedom in your life, no matter who you are or where you are.
Freedom defies circumstance. It’s the cornerstones of your belief — things that are revealed by exploring the depths of your values, your desires your dreams, and all your wills for yourself and for others around you — that you begin to understand how to explicitly cultivate them by choice, with dedicated practice, and regimented self-belief.
And it just turns out perfectly that writing is a divine vehicle for revealing those sneaky, intangible, but so-damn-important elements.
What you will learn in The Literati Writers is why your art matters: why it’s not a hobby, it’s a vehicle for opening your heart and soul in ways you could not imagine.
You will learn that there’s other people out there, just like you. That you’re not alone in your struggles and that you will, in fact, figure things out for yourself — even when you start too soon and don’t know what the hell you’re doing it (let alone the much deeper, underlying “why” behind that).
You will be welcomed with open arms by around 50 active members from 7 countries who, beyond their age differences and beliefs, their unique goals and personal dreams, are just like you because they want to live and love their journeys in life!
You will learn relatability, connection, empathy and compassion — the true cornerstones of effective storytelling. You will learn to reclaim your voice. You will learn to give and lead by example, why writing is the divine art, how to build something that matters, how to sell it to others, how to be more creative, how to help family and friends understand why you’re called to write.
You will gain inspiration from published authors who we interview, and vital feedback from peers on your “I’m not sure if this is genius or crazy!” ideas. You will be immersed in a wonderful support system — a cultivated environment that is tilled, weeded, tended and watered with vigorous care by me (that’s my role, here) — that will allow you to learn, grow, and flourish.
Try to find all of that in a 12-week course. :)
So, is this for you?
Even if the answer is a resounding, “Yes!”, you’re still bound to face your hesitation, your doubt, and that breath before the leap when you’re about to commit to commitment. Making any leap is scary. Making a leap that has a more-significant price tag than you’re used to, even more so.
But I’m here to ask you to commit to your freedom, friend — whether you find that in The Literati Writers or not. Please, choose your freedom, choose it now. And if you hear yourself saying, “Okay, I will — but where and how do I actually begin?” Fill out this form.
Join our community.
And you will begin to find your way.
