masterpiece you

let’s take off our disguises at the same time

I just spent the most magical week at Madeline Island School of the Arts teaching my “Unafraid Storyteller” retreat. Each time I present my perspective on writing and the art of living our lives with authenticity I am blown away by the amazing people I get to entangle myself with.

This week was no exception. I was honored to be joined by a slew of open-hearted souls who help remind me of the power of connection and empathy. For five days we laughed like crazy, shared our stories and dug into our hearts to look for hidden gold.

As we sat next to each other and explored the vast wilderness inside of ourselves all week, I became obsessed with a single word:

Imposter

Talking about writing with other writers during my “Unafraid Storyteller” retreats can be a really intimidating situation for a person like me who often feels like a fraud. I don’t come to these events trying to act like an expert who stands atop the mountain handing out my “10 Commandments” of writing. There is no hierarchy. I am not the kind of teacher who serves as more of a river guide than a guy with all of the answers. I’m not the one who carved the river we are floating on. I’m just the guy who is saying “Whoa- would you look at that wildflower over there?”

I have found that if you put 30 writers in a room together you will have 30 different and unique journeys. There is not one path or set of writing advice that works for each writer. That is what makes it fun. It’s not about a system of putting words together to me - it’s about embracing our own epic adventure.

The thing is nobody can tell us how to tell the story of our lives. Nobody can be the author of our epic tale. We should all be embracing the purple nebula inside of us!

Last week, I just published a book of poems called “Fitting In Is For Sardines” about the concept of treating our lives as unique never-been-seen-before masterpieces.

You can find my new collection of poetry right here!

This idea of embracing the once-in-a-trillion-year event of our existence applies to writers and non-writers alike. We are the only version of ourselves that will ever exist in the history of everything - so, we have nobody to compare ourselves to.

Each of our songs will only be sung once in the history of the cosmos.