Success Stories : Lisa Crone's Secret Journey — A Bead in Time

Creativity Success Story

My ‘Secret’ Journey

Publishing ‘A Bead in Time’

By Lisa Crone

In the summer of 2007, I was skimming the pay-per-view movie channel guide for something to watch and came across a movie called "The Secret." I had never heard of it before, but was intrigued by the summary information and decided to check it out.

From the start, I was hooked, but I know that I can be sort of gullible when it comes to a sales pitch, so I had my guard up. The more I watched, the more I wanted it to be true!

The interesting thing is, I connected with each one of the speakers. I agreed with their beliefs about positivity and felt the same way as they did about the destructive effects that negative thinking and speaking can have. They all spoke so calmly and matter-of-factly about the laws of the universe, the law of attraction and using positivity along with gratitude to get rid of negative thoughts and mental blocks. So simple! Tap into your inner spirit, set your intentions and expect it to happen. Hey, that sounded vaguely familiar.

I didn't want the movie to end and thanks to cable's on-demand capability, I started it over again. That was the beginning of this journey. I made my gratitude list and my "wish list" and began focusing on that. I ordered the DVD and watched it several more times.

I began researching a little more on my own at that point and decided to put myself on a path to enlightenment so I could improve on myself and my current existence. Having worked for the same company for many years, I had felt like a change was needed more often than I felt a sense of achievement or contentment. I now had a spark of hope that maybe I could break away from negativity, fears, low self-esteem and safe routines that weren't fun or comforting any more.

I announced to a co-worker what I had discovered and what I wanted to do. It was her that I credit with stopping my negative self-talk. One day, soon after that, she very sweetly and gently told me that when she heard me talk negatively to myself, it made her feel bad. I told her I would stop it and that was the end of it for the most part. It is hard to believe that I was able to just stop after years of doing it. It had actually been one of my tools for making other people feel good about themselves. I started to notice that people weren't feeling as comfortable around me once I stopped reminding them of what I loser I was.

I stuck to this plan and the more I read, the more I wanted to discover. I always believed there was something magical in the world, but didn't understand how to find it. It was at this point I decided to try meditation. I had looked at some great websites, but I found six five-minute podcasts by the Baba Institute and really connected with it. I began listening to them in order as I walked during my lunch hour. I started thinking, "I can do this, it will be easy." I practiced several times and in the beginning had to put a mask over my eyes and take the clock in the other room because I was so easily distracted.

I was finally able to remove every thought, what a milestone. It didn't happen for long periods of time, but I started to notice that I found myself saying, "wow, what a coincidence" quite a bit more often than usual. Things just seemed to have good timing.

Time for the Beads

One weekend, I had decided to get my beads out to make a piece of jewelry. I hadn't done that in quite a while and thought it would be uplifting to play with some sparkly beads. I had everything spread out on the coffee table, but couldn't come up with anything! I had recently been looking at some vacation pictures from the previous year when we took a trip to Niagara Falls and they were still out on the coffee table. This was a seriously inspired moment, reminiscent of the old "you got your peanut butter in my chocolate" commercial.

I picked up the pictures which made me very happy looking at the sparkly water and sunshine, remembering the beautiful weather and fun we had. I thought, "hey, I wonder if I can make a bracelet to represent Niagara Falls so I can remember the trip and use that for some extra positivity." Now that I knew the importance of raising your positive energy level so great things can happen, it seemed like something fresh and new to me.

I planned a trip to the bead store to find just the right beads to bring the falls to life. I think I was as happy with the outcome of this 14-strand bracelet as I was when I was in Niagara Falls! How cool! It felt great so I started looking through other pictures. I picked one of the Golden Gate bridge from our trip to San Francisco. The next weekend, I headed to another bead store and found the exact beads I needed to make this project. It was really something. I had a thought about wanting to share this concept with other beaders, but wanted to see if I could take the idea a little further.

I selected a beach photo from a trip to Grand Cayman Island in the Caribbean for its colors, brightness and the happy feeling it gave me to look at it. The very next weekend, I set off for the bead store again, found the perfect beads and created a piece of jewelry with these gorgeous colors from of the sand and sea that make me so happy. That is when I actually said out loud, "I need to share this with other beaders!"

For many years, I had a habit of suggesting to other people that we start a business or write a book about something. I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit, but never felt like it was something I could do or would want to do on my own. Until now! The idea finally struck, "I'm going to write a book about this!" I was surprised at my level of confidence and honestly believed it was going to happen, what a change! While brainstorming about how to pull this together and really get the idea across about this technique, I thought, "I know, I'll make this into a scrapbook!" The funny thing is, I had never scrapbooked before, but I have a love of paper products and thought it sounded like fun!

Continue to page 2 »