Buoyant: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Becoming Wildly Successful, Creative, and Free

by Susie deVille

Overview

The strongest lifeline is the one that leads you back to the gut of who you truly are.

You’re burned out, lost, and rudderless. Susie deVille was where you may be now: drowning in debt, in the grip of unhealthy habits, with a marriage and business that had come crashing against the rocks.

Today she is thriving. Not only did she dig out from debt, she paid for her children’s educations in cash, funded her retirement, and embraced a healthy and joyful lifestyle. Most of all, by reconnecting with her creativity, she reclaimed her confident, true self and discovered how to draw her ideal clients right to her. And in Buoyant, she teaches how you, too, can tap into your innate creativity to find your way back to feeling more alive as you effortlessly connect with and captivate your market.

In this transformational guide, deVille shares life-changing insights and exercises, along with her personal journey and those of clients, to take you on a Creative Rebel’s Voyage™. As you travel this path, you’ll discover how to transmute feelings of overwhelm and fear into decisive action and confidence.

The prevalent advice to entrepreneurs is broken: go all-in, maximize productivity at all costs, and live to work. There is a much easier path to success, joy, and flow. It’s time to wake up, stir your soul, and reach your intuitive longings. Will you accept the grand adventure of living your inspired, true nature?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781774581810
Publisher:	Page Two Books, Inc.
Publication date:	09/06/2022
Pages:	296
Sales rank:	1,084,548
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Susie deVille is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs build wildly successful businesses by rediscovering their creativity and leveraging the power of their true nature. An author, coach, and entrepreneur who built and sold a highly profitable real estate firm, she has been researching innovation and creativity since 2005. She is the founder and CEO of the Innovation & Creativity Institute and trained as a coach with Dr. Martha Beck. She lives in Highlands, NC. innovationandcreativityinstitute.com

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Why I've Chosen Nautical Imagery and Metaphors for This Book 11

1 Breaking Free 15

How to Get the Most Out of This Book and Approach the Exercises 28

The Alchemical Power of Journaling 30

Exercise: What Do You Love? And What Are Your Anchors? 34

Inspired Creating Is the Surprising Answer You Seek 35

Boarding the Boat of Inspiration: Sketching to See 40

Exercise: Sketching 45

2 Opening Up To Inspiration 47

Exercise: Healing Your Creativity Scars 51

Curating a Beautiful Mind 53

Inspiration's Foundation: The 5MS 59

The Open Focus of a Creator 69

Creativity Space 72

My Shack in Woodstock 75

Exercise: Finding Your Shack in Woodstock 79

3 Accessing Your Creativity Back Channels (By Bringing Yourself Alive) 81

Exercise: The Elephant in the Room 86

Exercise: Blind Contour Drawing 90

Creating Your Way to Freedom 93

Getting Started 97

Exercise: The First Step 100

Exercise: What's Blocking You? 106

Finding Creative Flow and Your Window of Possibility 108

Don't Make Your Tools Precious 111

Tools, Architects, and Gardeners 113

Exercise: What Creativity Tools Do You Have? 116

Becoming an Insider to Your Creativity 118

Exercise: Where Are You Not at Home? 121

Exercise: What to Do When You Are Lost 123

4 Putting Your True Self Back at the Helm 125

Archaeology of the Self: Digging for Your Authentic Nature 131

Exercise: Making a Mind Map of Your Ideal Self 136

The Tyranny of Perfectionism 138

Igniting Your Inner Rebel 141

Exercise: Reclaiming Your Joy Sources 142

The Beginning of Remembering 144

Exercise: Energy Levels and Elemental Waters 147

Truth-Telling as the Art of Living 148

Creative Incubation and Your Identity 150

Exercise: Spotting Patterns in What Stops You in Your Tracks 151

5 Protecting and Fueling Your Creative Energy 153

More Mister Rogers (Less Hustle and Slay) 158

Exercise: On Boundaries and Drains 161

Getting Sober Everywhere 165

Exercise: Your Numbing Agents 169

Discipline and Desire 169

Exercise: Your Gifts to Yourself 172

The Cure for Anxiety and Overdoing: The 7-Inch Plate 173

Exercise: What Are Your Real Goals? 177

6 The Provenance of Becoming 179

Exercise: Your "Before" and "After" Pictures 186

Letting Go 188

Exercise: Letting Go (With Watercolors) 192

The Power of the Unscripted Self 193

Exercise: The Wild You 196

Seeing and Being Seen 197

Exercise: Reconnecting with Your Playful Heart 198

The Thing Keeping You from Your Greatness 201

Exercise: Your Wildest Dream 203

Exercise: Writing a Poem 206

The Only Way Out Is Through 207

Exercise: Focusing Your Perspective 210

7 The Artist and the Entrepreneur 211

Your Business (Art) Is a Mirror 218

Ignoring What Everyone Else Knows 223

Exercise: Sketching Your Ideal World 225

Becoming Indelible 226

Exercise: Revealing Your Unique Voice and Vision 228

Creating Your Future by Journaling 230

Exercise: Writing Multiple Passes 234

8 The Grand Adventure of Being You 237

Exercise: A Legacy 241

Letting Go of Self-Improvement 241

Asking for Help: How to Come to Terms with Disorder and Grief 246

Saying Yes to What Is Calling the Artist within You 251

Trusting Yourself 256

Acknowledgements 259

Recommendations 265

Notes 271

Editorial Reviews

10/24/2022

In this inviting guide, business coach and entrepreneur deVille introduces readers to the “Creative Rebel’s Voyage,” her signature coaching methodology, crafted to help readers achieve transformative change in their lives and careers “by reclaiming and reconnecting with inspiration and innate creativity.” Written for overwhelmed entrepreneurs and creatives on the verge of burnout and facing self-doubt, Buoyant offers simple, practical advice to not only spur creativity in readers but also show how to be attractive in the changing marketplace, all while extricating themselves “from the chaotic spiral of pursuing success.”

Using the friendly, motivational tone of a coach, and drawing upon experiences from her personal 17-year transformational journey, deVille has prepared a simple framework emphasizing the importance of creativity and inspiration to achieve true freedom and agency. It’s built around her 5Ms: Meditation, Morning Pages, Movement, Moments of Inspired Learning, and Making Something. deVille urges readers to incorporate the Ms into their daily routines to “dislodge old sludge within the veins of our thinking, beliefs, and actions.” Journaling exercises and prompts are designed to show readers how to shed old habits, limited belief systems, and self doubt—and how to replace them with creativity, awareness, and clarity. Although some main points parallel advice familiar from other titles, deVille warns readers not to fall into the “trap of pursuing endless self improvement.” Her advice: be mindful, reflective, and intentional when creating change.

deVille has expertly woven in her personal stories and those of her coaching clients to drive home the value of the 5Ms and the effectiveness of her methodology. She asks for some reader trust in exercises that call for, say, 18 minutes of drawing, yet she always makes clear why and how inventive techniques connect to the larger project. Readers looking for ideas for cultivating real change and achieving success will find much to dig into in this polished, inspiring guide.

Takeaway: An inspiring, reflective guide to achieving success through creativity and self-awareness.

Great for fans of: Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, Gay Hendricks’s The Big Leap.

Production grades Cover: A Design and typography: A Illustrations: A Editing: A Marketing copy: B

BookLife Reviews

When entrepreneurs want to grow, they often think they have to work harder and faster which leads to burnout and depletion. Susie deVille shows another way: by understanding our unique voice and vision and tapping the natural patterns of our creativity, we generate sustained energy, strategic clarity, and ease while we grow.”
Pamela Slim, author of The Widest Net and Body of Work

“Buoyant is exactly what a creative thinker needs to help them gain control of their journey and get back on track.”
Sylvia Wehrle, creative director experience, Publicis Sapient

"Buoyant demonstrates how to break through blocks or stuckness using creativity as the overarching tool. But don't be intimidated by the limiting belief that you are not creative. There are doable exercises to walk you through the process."
Lori Petersen, founder and CEO, AccountSolve, LLC

"Buoyant will alter the way you view the world around you, the way you regard your own abilities, and will unlock your potential through creative activity. Susie deVille inspires us, through a series of exercises, to see the world of subtleties we may ordinarily ignore. The reader is guided into a consciousness of appreciation—greater appreciation results in greater creativity, no matter the application—and takes us into a new understanding of ourselves."
Knight Martorell, founder and CEO, Martorell Studios

“A supportive and reflective guide for entrepreneurs to help release the creativity that has been hiding inside of us. Buoyant helps us leverage our creativity in a bigger way so we can create a stronger business filled with new ideas and attract our ideal clients.”
Susan M. Barber, executive coach and author of The Visibility Factor

From the Publisher