Fan the Fire: 6 Gems to Keep the Creative Fire in Your Heart and Psyche Ever-Burning
The important role of every person's inner-fire and how to fan the flame.
"Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75." Benjamin Franklin
Is life without passion living?
To me, that’s what this quote is saying.
That each of us starts with something more precious than life and we can lose it while we still walk around.
That has certainly been my experience.
Every person I’ve met and taken the time to talk to has been highly creative and highly passionate, despite what they may say about themselves.
I’d even go so far as to say that every person is born creative, passionate, and bright. And if you look into anyone’s eyes long enough, you can see that spark even if they’ve forgotten about it themselves.
But there is a deliberately ominous note to that sage wisdom.
That something within you can die while you live.
And there’s truth in that too.
In fact, this is the status quo for many people. And it’s easier in a crowd of people over 30, 40, 50, 60+ to spot the ones who still radiate from a sea of burnt-out bulbs.
Many attribute their loss of passion and joy to the loss of youth. And justify that it’s normal to lose some of your light as you experience life and adapt to what is.
But when it’s also normal for most people to be tired, stressed, and burnt out…
Don’t ask how you can live like everyone else.
Instead, ask how you can keep the creative fire in your heart, soul, and psyche from ever going out in the first place.
The first step?
Remember You Have a Fire
Most people dramatically underestimate the role of passion in life.
That it’s something only some people have, that most people can’t channel it constructively, and that it’s okay to trade out passion for profession.
A reason for this is that not everyone will care about—and pay for—the same things that you intrinsically care about. And it can be hard to hold onto that creativity when the demands of the day are on you.
But your passion, excitement, and creative fire aren’t there to act as fuel for your work or to accomplish your goals.
They can be that.
And the more in touch with your inner-fire you are, the easier those things will be.
But if you only use your inner-fire as a forge for daily to-do’s, it won’t burn as bright as it once did for long.
That inspiration is the wrong kind of fuel for your fire: it’s urgent, and that kind of extrinsic motivation lacks the spark of energy required to execute.
If you keep burning this kind of fuel, you may find your fire flickering… and eventually shifting from your center as the reason why you seek what you seek and create what you create… to something you use to work.
It becomes a tool, something you use, instead of the way you are.
In reality, when you do this, you’re using yourself.
Until eventually, you are all used up.
You already know how I feel about “work.”
But the lesson here is much deeper.
Your creative fire does not exist solely for the sake of what you can do for others.
It’s a part of who you are that is meant to be central to your life.
And if you put it anywhere else, off to the side, or worse let it go out, it can be hard to know where your center is.
And hard to know how to bring your passion, your excitement, your fire, and your focus into the areas of your life that need it.
But the good news is, that fire never truly goes out.
But when it’s cold and dark it can sure as hell feel like it.
Fan Your Fire to Keep it From Going Out
We don’t have the same need for fire that our ancestors did.
One cold night doesn’t pose an existential threat to us.
But we each have a need for the sacred role in our lives to tend the inner flame.
Because without it, we can experience cold dark nights of the soul that pose a different kind of existential threat.
The risk of a society that does not recognize or prioritize each person’s creative fire, so that they may learn to control it and harness it, and most importantly see themselves in it… is that that fire can go out. In the hearts, minds, souls, and psyches of that society’s artists, dreamers, and visionaries. And then eventually, in every person as a whole people slumber, or wander around lost in the dark, which may as well be the same.
Once the light goes out, it can be hard to find your way back.
The Dark Ages began with the fall of the Roman Empire in 500 C.E. and lasted for over a thousand years, until the Renaissance in the 1500s. That’s a dozen generations of your ancestors living through the darkest times in human history. Telling stories down the line of when things used to be bright and full of hope.
Until eventually, one in a number decides it’s time for the generational dark ages to end—by reconnecting and reigniting their inner fire.
The way out is the same for us as it was for them.
By creating an inner renaissance, and putting why you do what you do, and how you do it, over what you do.
That’s easier said than done, which is why in this letter I’ll get specific with…
6 Gems to Keep The Creative Fire In Your Heart and Psyche Ever-Burning
When passion serves life, things are great.
But there will be many times that your creative journey will seemingly take you off course, into the unknown and uncharted territory and you must still follow it.
And ultimately, care for it—and for yourself.
This can be a lonely, but important journey in self-discovery and self-actualization.
Which is why today I’m sharing the 6 most important lessons I’ve learned from helping creatives, entrepreneurs and innovators tend their flame and keep their creative fire from ever going out.
1 - Avoid Extinguishers
The first lesson is to know that not everything is fuel to your creative fire.
And if you want a strong, enduring fire you need to know the difference.
Many things are extinguishers and you should seek to remove as many extinguishers from your life as possible.
Common extinguishers are:
Naysayers, doubters, and false friends.
Addictions, and junk food.
Shoulds, obligation and lack of autonomy.
Pursuing other people’s goals.
There are many types of extinguishers that create resistance and self-sabotage and they must be avoided at any cost.
Especially, if you’re trying to get your creative flame burning from an ember again.
But the more you trust yourself to know the difference and the stronger your creative fire gets, the more it can take on while growing stronger instead of going out.
The ultimate extinguisher?
The fear of failure.
But for someone who fears that their fire can go out but senses, that fear can be overcome. And courage can bring life back to your inner fire.
2 - Consume Obstacles
It’s interesting because the older people get the more wisdom they gain. The more they know themselves, the more they know for certain the way the world really is.
Compared to someone starting out, they know what their world needs and what they need with more clarity each day.
So, why don’t most people become enormously creative forces for good as they age?
It’s a highly personal question.
But for me, when I personally run the risk of letting my fire go out…
It’s because my obstacles terrify me.
I fear that I am smaller than them.
But when a problem isn’t a problem, it’s because my creative fire consumes it before it registers as an obstacle. It becomes part of the terrain, a part of the plan—it becomes fuel.
But other obstacles stand as mountains in my way, insurmountable.
So, what makes them different?
And why are some obstacles fuel, while others are walls?
It has nothing to do with the obstacles themselves.
I can’t control those obstacles.
But I can fan my fire.
3 - Seek Combustibles
When your fire is running on twigs at a time, it can feel like you’re only waking up to tend a flame with a weak heat that barely gets you through the night.
Only to start again the next day just above zero.
This can happen when you get cut off from the source of your passion.
The purpose of your creative fire isn’t to give you something to do every day.
To move for the sake of moving.
It’s to give your life the spark it needs for you to actualize your full potential in this lifetime. To move in that direction, and be at the full expression you’re capable of.
But that’s not going to happen if you seek twigs.
If you seek a succession of ordinary days and do just enough.
Your spark is seeking combustibles. It’s seeking energies that can lift you up.
Stop feeding your spark clumsy fuels. It wants gasoline, rocket fuel… nuclear fusion.
So, seek inspiration, meet idols, and witness magic. Seek outsider points of view. Try on alternate perspectives. Plunge into wonderland feet first.
Book a one-way trip. Make a big bet. Ask the most important question you can imagine. Do something you’re afraid of.
Seek combustibles.
Surprise yourself with how big you can truly be.
4 - Stay by the Fire
Many stop fanning their fire, because it’s not burning hot enough. It’s not capturing the gaze of others. Or not producing enough.
And if they don’t know how important their own fire is—they can seek the warmth of another’s.
It’s easy to do, especially when things are hard and your embers are turning cold, while others seem to have nurtured theirs in something like a bonfire at a beach rager, that attracts everyone around them.
Those fires are great and can be sources of inspiration, fuel, and even combustibles for your fire, but you can’t make them your home.
Because you need to tend your own.
If you tend another’s fire, you’re not tending yours’.
Your job as an artist, creator, or visionary is to act on your passion.
To recognize that it’s a fire in the center of your chest, mind, psyche, and soul, and standing by it means standing by yourself.
If you stop acting on your passion, it will stop giving you ways to act on it. It will stop producing the bursts of inspiration that turn a tough slog into a flow state and an easy day. Instead, resistance will grow in all the dark corners and the limits of a thorny brush will encroach on your periphery.
When this happens, don’t burn a path to another’s doorstep, or be drawn to their fire over your own.
Respect others, fuel them, but always stay by your fire.
It’s your center for a reason.
When you make the wrong fire your home, you can stay cold even in the company of others. Instead, fan your fire no matter how small it is.
It’s enough to be warm, and eventually, your fire can be the right kind of inspiration for others, when you lead by example.
5 - Breathe Creative Oxygen
A fire needs to breathe. If you cover it in all the things it should be or should have, should be able to produce you can and will smother it.
Your creative fire hates shoulds.
They’re extinguishers.
It’s only interested in what is, and what can be.
Should is an obligation.
It’s easy to think of ‘shoulds’ when all we do is see the results of what others create (and not the fuel and care that allowed those things to be created).
We wonder, why don’t our fires create things like that?
My fire? Spits out words.
Dean Kamen’s fire spits out patents.
Charlie Munger’s fire spits out Important bets and decisions for making them.
Your fire?
That’s for you to know, but a good place to start is to look at what is abundant around you.
But if your fire has shrunk and is literally like standing by a candle flame, instead of focusing on what your fire should be producing like a forge for your ambitions…
Just start by fanning the flame.
Give yourself what you want, listen to, and trust your instincts.
That makes sure your fire can breathe.
It can be easy to smother your creative fire in expectations, judgment, and disappointment. But a fire can burn through all those things, if you fan the flames and give your fire what it needs—creative oxygen.
And the ultimate Creative Oxygen for your inner-fire is trust.
Trust in yourself, trust in the process.
Obviously, the idea of your creative fire is a metaphor. You can’t literally fan the flames and watch your dreams take shape. If it were that easy, we’d all be self-actualized.
But there is something you can do that’s just as good or better.
Trust yourself and the process.
That is how you let the creative fire in your heart and psyche breathe. The thought, feeling, and faith of trusting yourself and the process is like pouring gas on your inner fire and blowing into the embers at the same time.
It’s easy to trust your creative process if it’s a golden goose and everyone is asking you where the hell you’re getting all those golden eggs from.
But what if your creative fire spits out cocoa beans in a world that hasn’t discovered chocolate yet?
What if it’s lightning in a world that hasn’t given birth to Benjamin Franklin yet?
Which brings us to the next point, what if you are adept at fanning your fires, but what’s most exciting and inspiring for you, isn’t something others are ready for yet?
6 - Make Your Ideas Palatable For Others
Most people underestimate fruit.
The very idea that there is a whole category of food that is perfectly shaped for the human hand. It requires no cooking, no preparation, it doesn’t even need to be washed. It comes pre-packaged with many of the most important nutrients humans need, they grow abundantly in many conditions and fall to the ground when they are ready.
In a world of supermarkets, where you can get a pre-cooked meal wrapped in the same bright colors of those fruits they don’t seem as miraculous.
Most foods aren’t like fruits. They’re poisons until they’re cooked. They’ll outright harm you if you eat them.
They need to be cooked and made palatable.
That’s one of the most important roles humans have—to turn things that have potential into things that fuel life.
This is also the role of your sacred fire when it’s well-kept and it applies to far more than food…
It also applies to ideas.
First inspirations as they go through drafts, edits, and reach the eyes of others.
Inventions from the seed born of the problem they are born in, to prototypes, manufacturing, and distribution.
Designs as they go from dreams to drafts, to engineered marvels.
Many artists, creators, and innovators mistake their inspiration for fruit.
Sometimes, fruit does come and an idea requires no reworking, no second draft. It comes down, and through, and out in a fluid motion as it needs to be.
But not all ideas are fruit.
Most won’t be and require cooking to become palatable for others.
7 - Think Like a Creator
Ultimately, if you want to know what separates something that will support your creative fire and something that will extinguish it, or how to live as a more empowered creator—ask yourself,
“How would the Universe respond to this?”
(Replace Universe with God, The Creator, or whatever resonates with you.)
Whatever your point of view, the universe is a highly complex, mysterious, and remarkable system designed for creating.
We’re created inside this universe and our nature is like it—to be creators.
At our simplest, that’s what we are.
When we feel disempowered, weak, and unimaginative—we are not standing in our role as creators.
And you don’t need to base how you act, approach obstacles, or create based on any other person in your life. Tending your fire is a very personal journey, and if you simply do as others do, that fire can still stay cold. Because what works for them may not for you.
But you don’t have to mirror others.
Instead, mirror the world around you, because that is the best teacher for you.
Imagine the infinite resources of the universe, and know the answer to what it has chosen to create by looking around you now.
Know that you are looking behind the scenes of the greatest production in the universe, right now.
This screen is a part of it.
These words.
You and me.
You’re not just a creator.
You’re a creation, too.
We have so many ideas for what we should create, how we should be, and even for how the world should be.
But how is it?
Shoulds are extinguishers.
And one incredible thing about this creative universe is despite how different each person is, and even different planets and forms of life—they all follow the same blueprint for life.
Under that umbrella of creative laws, infinite forms of life and expression can take place.
Including me.
Including you.
We can struggle to turn our ideas into realities, know what we need to create now, trust ourselves, and the process…
But we are deeply immersed in that process now.
Living in a creation that we are intrinsically a part of.
Each inner fire is a star in a living sea.
Forgetting this is the quickest way to feel isolated, alone and disempowered.
And a life without passion.
Coming full circle and ending this letter with some follow-up wisdom echoed by Benjamin Franklin,
“To cease to think creatively is to cease to live”
Remember this is the key to co-creating in this universe from where we stand and remembering not only do we have a place in it, but we have a role as creations and creators.
Which at its most simple is to create and think creatively, so long as we live.
Want Help to Fan the Fire?
I share more about this in my workshop, Unearth, if you want to take the next step.
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