Creativity Applied
in the World of Work

By Patricia Aburdene

An excerpt from CONSCIOUS MONEY: Living, Creating, and Investing with Your Values for a Sustainable New Prosperity.

The power of individuals to leverage their creative talent and earn Conscious Money has dramatically accelerated in the last twenty years, due in large part to advancements in personal computers. Putting the right tools in the hands of people, all sorts of people, not just experts, has powerfully catalyzed greater creative genius and more Conscious Wealth.

Remember, in the Economy of Consciousness, the most valuable resource is not land, industry, information or even technology itself. It is instead the power of human consciousness. The economic power of artists, writers, and high tech geniuses can now rival that of business icons and heads of state, to say nothing of royalty.

Several years ago, Forbes estimated that J. K. Rowling, renowned author of the Harry Potter books, had in a few short years accrued a net worth of $1 billion. Prior to her success, she was a single welfare mother living in Edinburgh, Scotland, who wrote stories in local cafés as her infant daughter slept. She then endured numerous literary rejections before finally landing a publisher. Ms. Rowling’s swift ascent epitomizes the financial power of creativity and higher consciousness. So does this amazing fact, reported by London’s Sunday Times in 2003: J. K. Rowling is now wealthier than the queen of England.

Creativity can appear gradually over the course of many years, as it did for J. K. Rowling, or it can come in the classic fashion as a bolt “out of the blue.” Either way, creativity can potentially earn you a goodly sum of Conscious Money, as artist Lynne Sausele discovered. Lynne felt “life as she knew it” was over. She and her beau of ten years had split up for good, around the time that her youngest son would leave the house for college, exacerbating her heartbreaking empty nest feelings.

Lynne says her challenge is to remember to ask for guidance. “I can get so caught up that I forget the most obvious solution, just ask!” Fortunately, in this case, she remembered. “What now?” she prayed. The surprising answer came in a flash: “Lamps!”

For two decades Lynne had painted in oil and acrylics, showed in museums, sold to private and corporate collections, and created a striking one-of-a-kind jewelry collection. But now, seeking a change of pace, she had vaguely thought about creating a line of table lamps. Creativity and her higher consciousness clearly confirmed the idea. “That single word from the cosmos came to me like a soothing balm of love, inspiration, and energy.”

In the weeks that followed, she hand-painted fifty-seven lamp bases with simple designs befitting modern or traditional décor, assembled their inner workings like an electrical pro, and marketed the lamps at shows and fairs. When an interior designer saw the colorful creations, Lynne won a commission to design the light fixtures for a fashionable new restaurant. All told, Lynne’s brilliant inspiration earned her more than $50,000 in income in a single assignment.

Lynne’s one-word solution illuminated her journey to a new life, demonstrated that she was far more capable than she’d imagined, and expanded her role from an artist to that of a micro-manufacturer. “It greatly helped heal the love lost and set a brand-new course for meeting new people, travel, great abundance, and eventually my new love.”

“Know that the answers are there for all of us,” Lynne advises. “Be ready and waiting. The answer may surprise you.” •

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