Rare beauty, busy-ddiction, and not holding it back

I’m so jazzed to launch my Burning Questions interview series with some wit and wisdom from the one, the only, (put your hands together for…) Dyana Valentine. Lady Dy came to one of my events in LA this spring. It was a magical night, due in part to her shimmer and substance. Dyana is part Aphrodite and part Clarissa Pinkola Estes, with a heaping dose of the Grandmaster of Funk, George Clinton. And as my creativity coach, she’s helping me tear the roof off the mutha f*cker (aka my next book.) Her claim: “Helping self-starters self-finish, one project at a time.”

1. What are you trying to discover?
Ways we can connect and collaborate to make electrifying changes in the way business is conducted and life is lived.

2. What do you believe that you didn’t believe before? What changed your mind?
I never believed that relaxing into something would get you anywhere; that and that being calm could be productive. Oh, shit–where do I start? Every time I stop this autobahn-style schedule; rest for a day or so; take a day of silence–magic (and yes, I mean MAGIC) happens. Clients roll in; I have a productively inspiring dream; a new workshop springs out of a well-crafted, slow dinner at home. The evidence is there for the powerful productivity of peaceful energy–and so is the devotion to my busy-ddiction.

I still schedule myself within an inch of my truth, but on those remarkable days when I shut up and sit down–the beauty is there. Maybe I need to reexamine my belief that beauty is rare, huh?

3. What do you know the most about?
Photography, cooking, parsing large concepts into easy-lingo, connecting seemingly disparate ideas and making sense of patterns.

4. What book(s) are you always telling people to read?
Dan Roam: The Back of the Napkin
Malcolm Gladwell: Blink
Alice Waters: Chez Panisse Vegetables
Allan and Bargara Pease: The Definitive Book of Body Language

5. Inspiration flashback: When is the last time you thought, “Yes! That person has so got it going on!”?
Seriously: in June at the Fire Starter about YOU (mischievous sage, laser-lens witness). Melanie Orndorff (wicked smart idea mine); Jeni Herberger (stunner, visionary, ass kicker), Steve Gordon, Jr. (design a go-go, psychiatric nurse calming presence)

6. I’m going to give you a word. Tell me what the first thing that comes to mind when you read it… Ready? The word is: fecund.
Pregnancy, potential, creating conditions for miracles to happen; world-wide distribution; name in lights; striding across a stage with a cheek-mic rocking some prada-meets-patagonia superfly duds and TELLING IT.

7. What question are you currently living?
Knowing what I know about myself, my values and my goals: how dare I hold back?

Dyana, darling, You? Even more unleashed? I dare you.

find Dyana:
http://dyanavalentine.com/
on Twitter: @DyanaValentine

Next week’s Burning Questions Interview: Chris Guillebeau, world traveler and founder of The Art of Non Conformity

With Love,