This is a letter to.
Dear Sara,
.
To say it is a Go, must be the biggest understatement of our entire 1 year and 8 months together.
Which is probably not saying that much, since understatements have never really been my thing.
But when I say Rock Star Yoga is a Go I mean I ve given myself 48 hours, to clean up my Rock Star Yoga website (remove ads f.e.), create a sales page, get back with my Rock Star Yoga YouTube AND my Rock Star writing – all of which were designed as a Spare Time When I Feel Like It Projects.
Just like all my other work.
Which is probably not saying that much, since understatements have never really been my thing.
But when I say Rock Star Yoga is a Go I mean I ve given myself 48 hours, to clean up my Rock Star Yoga website (remove ads f.e.), create a sales page, get back with my Rock Star Yoga YouTube AND my Rock Star writing – all of which were designed as a Spare Time When I Feel Like It Projects.
Just like all my other work.
.
I had spent the past months (and this is the ironic part) dismantling my business (yoga teacher and writer) and curating the fun parts as creative endeavors, only to see the Crisis vaporize the chances of getting a job.
I think I already knew it with our last conversation, but that it was so shocking it took many more days to sink in:
But my best bet for a steady income is no longer on a job, Sara.
It is ON ME.
To stay an entrepreneur.
But my best bet for a steady income is no longer on a job, Sara.
It is ON ME.
To stay an entrepreneur.
.
As much as I could very well sell my out-of-the-box marketeer skills, to one of those organisations going through such a hard time right now?
After how many conversations?
At what salary?
At what cost?
Even though I am in quarantine and my conversations with others are so limited – I can just FEEL how much I am, for the normal world to cope with!
How different I am!
That my energy is so disruptive to people who are used to doing things a certain way. My best work is going to trigger resistance, simply by the nature of who I am.
After how many conversations?
At what salary?
At what cost?
Even though I am in quarantine and my conversations with others are so limited – I can just FEEL how much I am, for the normal world to cope with!
How different I am!
That my energy is so disruptive to people who are used to doing things a certain way. My best work is going to trigger resistance, simply by the nature of who I am.
.
Even if my solutions could save a company, it would mean that they would have to trust me in all my uncontrolled wildness, and I would have to trust them with my true me.
That’s a lot of blind faith for uncertain times.
Even if my solutions could save a company, it would mean that they would have to trust me in all my uncontrolled wildness, and I would have to trust them with my true me.
That’s a lot of blind faith for uncertain times.
.
Crisis C. put all those plans in the freezer for now, and for many more months to come.
And I don’t count on ever having to get them out and defrost them.
And I don’t count on ever having to get them out and defrost them.
.
I ve got BUTTERFLIES from sending an email to a bank inquiring about their business accounts and with which one I would be able to setup a credit card payments!
I m on it!
And I don’t count on my new business, the company I m giving myself 48 hours to set up – to NOT work.
I m on it!
And I don’t count on my new business, the company I m giving myself 48 hours to set up – to NOT work.
.
In a way that is strange, because from all my endeavors Rock Star Yoga has been the one I never monetized. It’s the smallest name with the tiniest of followings that I m choosing-
Yet, maybe it is precisely for that reason, that my belief in Rock Star Yoga is solid.
In a way that is strange, because from all my endeavors Rock Star Yoga has been the one I never monetized. It’s the smallest name with the tiniest of followings that I m choosing-
Yet, maybe it is precisely for that reason, that my belief in Rock Star Yoga is solid.
.
I could have chosen LS Harteveld as my main biz:
I have 10 books out, and about the same number in manuscripts.
I ll get back to that – I have some exciting news!
I have 10 books out, and about the same number in manuscripts.
I ll get back to that – I have some exciting news!
.
I also very well, could have chosen my normal, local work as a yoga teacher, as my main biz.
I officially retired from that last December, but I never stopped teaching friends.
And most of all, I spontaneously started an online yoga studio last week!
It’s really low-key, just aimed at friends and people who vibe with me.
But this is a good time to be a yoga teacher who is really comfortable in front of the camera. I started making YouTube videos in 2015, I am a veteran.
And my yoga classes (live streams) were amazing!
I was like: “How on earth is it possible that I rock live streams like an absolute pro?!”
But it’s because I ve been following Katrina Ruth’s live streams on Facebook, since December 2016.
It a Soaking-It-Up-Like-A-Sponge Training, that has prepared me for this live work, for over three years.
I wouldn’t say I was born ready as an online yoga teacher, but the classes proved I was certainly ready now!
I officially retired from that last December, but I never stopped teaching friends.
And most of all, I spontaneously started an online yoga studio last week!
It’s really low-key, just aimed at friends and people who vibe with me.
But this is a good time to be a yoga teacher who is really comfortable in front of the camera. I started making YouTube videos in 2015, I am a veteran.
And my yoga classes (live streams) were amazing!
I was like: “How on earth is it possible that I rock live streams like an absolute pro?!”
But it’s because I ve been following Katrina Ruth’s live streams on Facebook, since December 2016.
It a Soaking-It-Up-Like-A-Sponge Training, that has prepared me for this live work, for over three years.
I wouldn’t say I was born ready as an online yoga teacher, but the classes proved I was certainly ready now!
Rebooting my career as a Dutch online yoga teacher, would be the most logical thing to do in the world.
.
Yet I didn’t.
.
Today I had an unofficial call with my new business mentor, the one I will be working with at the hub I am registering for.
It was supposed to be about my contract which I was filling out, but it accidentally turned into our first coaching call, and he was basically forcing me to CHOOSE.
And I knew I wanted this….
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I know I will never choose when it comes to choosing for an/ one outlet for my creative work (more exciting news about that later too!!!) but my plan for these C-months is to totally go in on my own business, so that in a couple of months I know if I actually still need a job from a financial perspective.
It was supposed to be about my contract which I was filling out, but it accidentally turned into our first coaching call, and he was basically forcing me to CHOOSE.
And I knew I wanted this….
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I know I will never choose when it comes to choosing for an/ one outlet for my creative work (more exciting news about that later too!!!) but my plan for these C-months is to totally go in on my own business, so that in a couple of months I know if I actually still need a job from a financial perspective.
.
My thoughts on a job have not changed.
But my need for it has.
But my need for it has.
.
I ve always believed that although I acknowledged that in 2020 I would need the job for an income: That I ultimately never wanted to be dependent on that.
In the long run, a job or career, was just because I didn’t want to work from home and never see people.
In the long run, a job or career, was just because I didn’t want to work from home and never see people.
It was a sensible choice from a social perspective, I craved and craved to have colleagues to interact with. But with context. I certainly didn’t crave, crave hanging out in bars with loud music or going to the movies with friends or something:
I was specifically motivated by the social context offered by a job, over the solitude of being a writer/ yoga teacher.
I was specifically motivated by the social context offered by a job, over the solitude of being a writer/ yoga teacher.
.
But now it is as if the C. crisis, where I am after all not seeing anybody week after week, is training me to be an entrepreneur.
C. is telling me:
“You got this!”
It is tough right now, but THIS situation (where I can’t even see my friends) is way tougher than a “normal home-entrepreneur situation”, where I would still be seeing my friends.
C. is teaching me to cope without seeing anybody, but with the ultimate benefit of me finding out that not having colleagues as an entrepreneur, is totally doable.
No biggie.
C. is telling me:
“You got this!”
It is tough right now, but THIS situation (where I can’t even see my friends) is way tougher than a “normal home-entrepreneur situation”, where I would still be seeing my friends.
C. is teaching me to cope without seeing anybody, but with the ultimate benefit of me finding out that not having colleagues as an entrepreneur, is totally doable.
No biggie.
A job as a good and fun way to make an income, still stands.
But I no longer need it for social reasons.
But I no longer need it for social reasons.
.
And when this business makes the income, I no longer need it at all.
And when this business makes the income, I no longer need it at all.
.
When I wrote “this business” in the previous sentence, I deliberately did not say “Rock Star Yoga”. Because although I m changing my business name to Rock Star Yoga, although Rock Star Yoga will be for many people the only thing they know me by;
I m keeping at the two other activities on, that I both see making money.
I m keeping at the two other activities on, that I both see making money.
.
I still want to write and publish as LS Harteveld – both of those two news updates I promised you concern “her”!
And I still want to keep the online yoga studio for friends.
I currently have a Rock Star Yoga class there (English) and perhaps I ll separate that, but maybe not:
It can very well be, that I m sticking to Rock Star Yoga being a (free) YouTube offer, that the low-key online classes I m teaching now will remain the same;
And that the only thing I sell, is Rock Star Yoga online coaching and public appearances.
I currently have a Rock Star Yoga class there (English) and perhaps I ll separate that, but maybe not:
It can very well be, that I m sticking to Rock Star Yoga being a (free) YouTube offer, that the low-key online classes I m teaching now will remain the same;
And that the only thing I sell, is Rock Star Yoga online coaching and public appearances.
.
Because that’s ultimately where I believe my strength lies:
In speaking up about where to get the real juice, the real energy, and in helping people giving themselves permission (basically) to go for it.
The unfiltered, triggering self, the self that is way too full-on in daily life, is the part people “get” and understand, when it’s taught as Rock Star Yoga.
But mostly the mindset part.
Because as tempting as it is, to “package up” the actual yoga, into a monetizable thing:
Is that really what I want?
And: Have I just asked a rhetorical question?
😉
Because that’s ultimately where I believe my strength lies:
In speaking up about where to get the real juice, the real energy, and in helping people giving themselves permission (basically) to go for it.
The unfiltered, triggering self, the self that is way too full-on in daily life, is the part people “get” and understand, when it’s taught as Rock Star Yoga.
But mostly the mindset part.
Because as tempting as it is, to “package up” the actual yoga, into a monetizable thing:
Is that really what I want?
And: Have I just asked a rhetorical question?
😉
.
So when I said “this business” I meant (yes) my income from Rock Star Yoga coaching, but also online yoga classes for friends, as well as my revenues as LS Harteveld.
As soon as those three together make me a baseline income, the job is off the table.
As soon as those three together make me a baseline income, the job is off the table.
.
And C. basically saved the day, to be honest…
.
So the two stories I promised!!!
.
Over the past year or so I ve started publishing my material for LS Harteveld, the new books, but every time I got stuck.
It’s SO MUCH.
I ve cleaned it up, but I m still looking at hundreds and hundreds of blog posts, divided over three websites and two languages.
It’s a place to get lost.
So what I have decided, is to publish ONE book with all my unpublished Dutch work, called “Blote Kont” (buck naked) the title I had always intended for this book.
And to publish ONE giant, US-letter sized book with all my unpublished English work. And I m calling it All The Things.
This book is then at a much later stage to be divided into smaller (dare I say “more readable”?) books, but at least the bulk of it is out there.
At least, somewhere, somehow, I ve already gone through it once.
And then from there I can start making selections of what goes where.
I think it could easily make 8 books, but it’s hard to tell.
It’s SO MUCH.
I ve cleaned it up, but I m still looking at hundreds and hundreds of blog posts, divided over three websites and two languages.
It’s a place to get lost.
So what I have decided, is to publish ONE book with all my unpublished Dutch work, called “Blote Kont” (buck naked) the title I had always intended for this book.
And to publish ONE giant, US-letter sized book with all my unpublished English work. And I m calling it All The Things.
This book is then at a much later stage to be divided into smaller (dare I say “more readable”?) books, but at least the bulk of it is out there.
At least, somewhere, somehow, I ve already gone through it once.
And then from there I can start making selections of what goes where.
I think it could easily make 8 books, but it’s hard to tell.
.
So me basically “hacking” how I can start publishing this unruly pile of manuscripts in the form of hundreds of blogposts, was the first good and exciting news.
.
And the other one, was that although I have not written one post from 1995?
I know I m going to.
It is tempting to just give the whole: “Oh LS Harteveld has left 2020” charade up, and start engaging for example on Twitter or Facebook.
But I feel I really NEED to mentally be/ stay in 1995.
I know I m going to.
It is tempting to just give the whole: “Oh LS Harteveld has left 2020” charade up, and start engaging for example on Twitter or Facebook.
But I feel I really NEED to mentally be/ stay in 1995.
.
I was right when I said Lauren Harteveld/ LS Harteveld, the most sexual side of me, simply cannot breathe here.
That she has no choice but to leave 2020 and save herself.
That she has no choice but to leave 2020 and save herself.
.
But in between everything that wasn’t working here in 2020 ( I still have uncontrollable rants about the disgusting level of civil obedience I see displayed in the Netherlands) (I speculate on this having something to do with why the Germans had no trouble invading the Netherlands) (and maybe I mumble something about backbones and balls being handed in when this crisis started) I could feel that my escape was still in 1995.
And this is how that story goes:
And this is how that story goes:
.
Lauren has joined a local yoga studio. Lauren has a yoga diploma, because her mother gives training to teachers and she enjoyed being around on those weekend retreats.
However she has never considered actually doing something with it, nor does she particularly enjoy doing her own practice.
But now a new yoga studio has opened up in her town, and she joins, and she finds it is being ran by a super hot man in his 30’s she calls Jon (..)
His wife just had a baby (this is not information Lauren particularly enjoyed hearing, and she hopes she never has to hear the word wife and baby ever again, for it interferes with her hot fantasies) and they can use all the help they can get, starting this new yoga studio.
So Jon asks Lauren to start sub-teaching three night time classes.
Lauren (untrained, overworked, but eager to impress Jon with both her yoga poses and her flawless teaching – neither one of which skills she currently possesses) accepts his offer, and pretty soon gets strangled in all the heavy duty work and wonders when the unadulterated sex bit starts.
However she has never considered actually doing something with it, nor does she particularly enjoy doing her own practice.
But now a new yoga studio has opened up in her town, and she joins, and she finds it is being ran by a super hot man in his 30’s she calls Jon (..)
His wife just had a baby (this is not information Lauren particularly enjoyed hearing, and she hopes she never has to hear the word wife and baby ever again, for it interferes with her hot fantasies) and they can use all the help they can get, starting this new yoga studio.
So Jon asks Lauren to start sub-teaching three night time classes.
Lauren (untrained, overworked, but eager to impress Jon with both her yoga poses and her flawless teaching – neither one of which skills she currently possesses) accepts his offer, and pretty soon gets strangled in all the heavy duty work and wonders when the unadulterated sex bit starts.
.
So that is my letter for today!
I feel it was extremely extensive, maybe we should rename it
All The Things
I feel it was extremely extensive, maybe we should rename it
All The Things
.
These may have been the two most exciting weeks of my life.
.
.
the writer currently residing in 1995
~Lauren/LS Harteveld
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.
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