Introduction
The fact that you picked up this book leads me to believe that there is something you’re seeking. Perhaps you’re searching for more fulfillment. You might be craving more creative expression. It could be that you don’t yet have clarity on exactly what you desire, but you’re clear you want things to shift. I hear that and I am here to light a path forward to where you yearn to be.
Every day I am witness to lives being built based on what people think they are worth. The words you’re about to read are a representation of my hand reaching out to you, to help you understand how much you’re worth and how you truly can decide your destiny.
I would not write these words if I didn’t wholeheartedly believe that we have the power to craft our own realities. I’ve seen it in my own life and more than 200 times through interviews on my podcast, “Don’t Keep Your Day Job.” I also see it every day in the most unexpected places.
I’ve had the pleasure of sitting down with brilliant and courageous souls, from world-renowned leaders such as former chairman and CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz to self-starters on the precipice of life-changing success, from aspiring bakers to bloggers and painters. My podcast has grown into a worldwide community of souls in search of their life’s work. I meet people all over the world who are doing what they love and adding value to their communities and beyond. I’ve talked to more than 100 role models, including Bobbi Brown, Danielle LaPorte, Jonathan Adler, Angela Duckworth, Martha Beck, Jenna Fischer, Julia Cameron, and Gretchen Rubin, to name just a few. It was an honor to hear their stories, and I am excited to share their advice with you.
I receive hundreds of messages a day from people who share how the lessons discussed on the podcast inspire them to redirect their lives, find new ways to contribute, and reach new levels of fulfillment. I love that I am able to create a space where they can meet and assist one another.
In the coming chapters, I’ll draw on the experiences of entrepreneurs, designers, actors, artists, and friends who share their stories about how to create profound shifts in your daily mindset, life’s vision, and business’s impact. We’re also going to hear examples from everyday people from all over the world—from Lagos, Nigeria, to Perryville, Missouri—who have used everything that I share in this book to transform their lives.
I am the first to admit that I’m a constant work in progress, but sometimes that progress doesn’t feel like it’s going in the direction I want.
I often tell my therapist, “I just get so frustrated about this thing or that thing.”
Her response means everything.
“Well, I’ve been a therapist for 40 years, and I wouldn’t be a therapist if I didn’t know that people can change,” she replies.
Isn’t it incredible that we can change?
It’s important to remember that we’ve been in a process of conditioning since birth, our every experience wiring our beliefs. Our first seven years of life are almost like hypnosis. It can pose challenges and create impediments to the life we want to create.
There is good news. We can change those scripts and limiting beliefs. We can change our behavior. We can change our ability to dream bigger, see further, and become more ourselves.
This foundation, this beautiful temple of your being, is where we will start. As you solidify this, we will begin to talk about concrete steps to take toward crafting your new life. We are going to get in alignment with what we want to build, how we dream of serving this world, and where to direct our energy.
I will help you see the greatest version of you and give you clarity on what’s possible. I will provide practical tools and techniques to transform your craving into action steps. The entire process is, at its core, a journey home and back to yourself.
You are wiser than you give yourself credit for. If something in this book strikes you as true, it’s because you already knew it on a deeper level. Think of the voice that you hear as you read this book as your internal knowing, a deep-seated wisdom that you were born with.
The time to listen to what’s whispering to you and enjoy the adventure of being alive to the fullest has arrived. I invite you to make the decision not just to read this book but to put its teachings into practice, because a new sensation of what it feels like to move through this world awaits. You can do the thing that you’ve always, truly wanted to do.
After all, what you seek is seeking you.
1
Don’t Keep Your Day Job
The opposite of depression is not happiness. The opposite of depression is purpose.
—Cathy Heller
It’s a fun title with a rhythm to it, but there’s so much more to this idea than simply building a business that allows you to literally quit your day job. It is about finding your life’s work and waking up every day with purpose and gratitude for the ability to live that purpose in a powerful way.
Your “day job” is really a synonym for all the uninspired, routine, and mundane parts of your life. As you begin to design your life around purpose, how you move through the world will change. You’ll want to foster more supportive and positive relationships that help you serve the world.
We’ve grown up in a system that doesn’t always support our highest good. The system was in many ways designed for factory workers. It wasn’t built to consider each person’s unique gifts or the particular ways each individual can add to the whole. From a young age, we’re placed on a timeline that we’re expected to follow. We’re praised for following the rules of the game by receiving good grades and the ability to advance to the next level. We’re taught to check the boxes from school to university to career, with experiments and side projects regarded as distractions from the big picture. The system promises that you’ll arrive at middle age with a successful career without taking into account your individual talents and passions.
Most people reach their forties and find themselves walking from the parking lot to the elevator feeling like something is missing.
We think we’re doing okay because we landed the corporate job, got health benefits, and set ourselves up for a life that someone else wanted for us. We often ignore the pain for too long and lie to ourselves … until we receive that giant wake-up call. Our bodies or circumstances reach a breaking point. I have experienced this and I’ve spoken to many people on the podcast who have as well.
We might get sick, like Sarah Knight, who was having panic attacks while working at a New York publishing company. We might lean on drugs and alcohol to keep up with the life that isn’t serving us. We might wait so long that we find ourselves at the bottom of a ditch—like Jen Sincero, who found herself in her forties surviving on canned tuna and living in a garage. We might face the loss of a loved one, as Emily McDowell did—her best friend’s death shook her awake. Sometimes we don’t get the obvious wake-up call and risk settling for the rest of our lives—unless we make the decision to change.
We’re not constructing classrooms that teach people how to harness the magic inside of them. We’re not cultivating that consciousness. We’re not being taught to think outside of the box, and we’re certainly not praised for being messy. But in order to find solutions and make things, we need to explore and have space to develop ideas.
The phrase “day job” is a synonym for the system that’s told us to stay in line. Most people spend their lives building someone else’s dream. I want you to build your dream. I want you to find your work. You have something to do in this world that only you can do. I know you are seeking fulfillment, and I’m on a mission to help you find it.
There’s a new American dream. The goal isn’t necessarily to become famous or beat the competition within someone else’s paradigm. It’s about simply finding a way to make a living doing what you love, stepping into the space where joy commands your compass.
It is possible to feel immense confidence and ease by simply surrendering to the thing that’s been whispering to you all your life. It may seem hard to discern. Maybe you pushed it aside or brushed it off. Maybe you have loved several activities, industries, daydreams and never known which to choose. Perhaps you never felt like a standout at any one thing in particular. Whichever it is, I promise that there is something you’ve felt drawn to, and others notice what you add to the world. There’s a seed there. There’s a clue. We must get back in touch with our ability to feel our truth and follow it. There’s deep wisdom I will help you uncover that has been with you all along, hidden in plain sight.
I’m entering my forties having fully surrendered to this whisper within, and now I feel in the current. People will ask me about New Year’s resolutions or where I’ll be in five years, and I can confidently respond: I don’t work that way. I set sail and chart a course in the direction of whatever is calling me. I lean into my joy and curiosity. I know that I’ll be shown where to go next. I don’t want to control it, because I’m much more interested in what will happen when I stay in that flow. I want to walk toward the feelings.
I don’t have to be Beyoncé. I don’t need to be Bill Gates. I want to be in service, doing my thing that gives me joy. I want to do something I love. Success to me isn’t the bank account or the fame. Success is feeling like you are living your life instead of the life someone else wants you to live. You are leaving your mark, and the world is better for it.
I’m going to declare a new measurement of success that matches up with the new dream: Success is how often you’re swimming in that joy of being alive. Success is the feeling that you’re on an adventure that’s going to continue evolving exactly as it should. Success is feeling purpose and being paid for it.
What might happen if you stopped resisting it and instead set sail? Chart a course in the direction of your joy. You will be shown where to go as long as you stay in the flow.
How I Got Here
Who am I to tell you all this? And how do I know? I don’t think it is fair to ask you to dig deep into your very soul alongside me throughout this book without first sharing my journey.
I didn’t always feel the way I feel today: I wake up every day true to myself.
My childhood was complicated. There was a lot of sadness, and I never felt at ease at home. My parents fought nonstop. I used to hide under the sheets while my parents would fight. I dreamed of a day when I’d be far from there. I lived in fear of my dad’s anger. My mom was always exhausted, and my dad was always frustrated. My mom could barely get out of bed, she was so unhappy. She spent much of her time under the weight of a dark depression. One of my earlier memories is her taking me to breakfast when I was four and explaining how miserable her marriage was and how she regretted not following her dreams.
I became my parents’ therapist at the age of five. I would sit patiently listening to their grievances. I gave them the very best advice that my innocence could provide, but I felt deeply exploited and unseen. My existence seemed to matter only to the extent that I could make everyone else feel good. I had so little practice speaking that teachers started to notice. I was sent to speech therapy in first grade because nobody could understand me. It sounded like I spoke with marbles in my mouth. The therapist told my parents that I needed to have time to talk at home too.
I would watch movies and wish I could magically appear at those dinner tables where people were present and someone saw me. I wanted to be somewhere I felt safe. But it wasn’t all darkness. I watched a lot of eighties TV, played with my older sister, organized talent shows outside with friends on my block, and there was MUSIC!
My mother was almost like Peter Pan. She would encourage me to stay up until midnight to watch reruns of The Honeymooners. She let me eat ice cream for dinner, and she would ask me to skip school and go to the beach with her. She had incredible highs and dramatic lows. She was magical anytime that she felt good, but unfortunately she was down most of the time.
My mom applauded creativity more than traditional smarts. She brought out the artist in me at such a young age: Sitting with me to make collages and reading to me at the library. She tucked me in bed at night. It was always her idea to take off our shoes and feel the grass between our toes or stop to notice a hummingbird. She took me to dance lessons and piano lessons and drove me to theater rehearsals. Music was our vehicle for connection and expression.
My mother’s greatest tragedy was that she never had the energy or confidence to act on her potential talent. Growing up, she had been the star of her high school drama department. She was an incredible actress. She had great depth and presence on the stage, but she didn’t have the courage to explore that path. Since she was a child of the 1950s, she was told she had to choose between being a mother and having a career. I saw firsthand the impact of leaving your gifts untapped.
We were so close when I was young, which made it even more painful when her sadness started to overcome her completely. She always had a touch of melancholy, and it wasn’t uncommon for her to feel depressed or cry while singing at the piano, but those early moments of pure light and love stayed with me. I was around 14 years old when her anxiety took over and the darkness reigned.
It took me decades to realize that so much of my mother’s desperation came from the choices she made not listening to her gut. I felt her frustration, and I did not want that to be me.
Once my parents split, it went from bad to worse. The crash of abandonment became too much to bear. I too felt deeply betrayed, but I had to become a cheerleader for her life. I brought home flowers and pep talks until the day I wondered why I had never tried being angry about it.
“What about me?” I pleaded. “Aren’t I enough reason for you to want to live?”
Her response shook me: “You’re not enough. I can’t live for you. I have nothing left to give.”
That one moment unknowingly set me down the path that I continue to walk this day. My mom tried to commit suicide one night. Overwhelmed, I drove to my dad’s house in the dark to ask for help. His response—that I should not come over when his girlfriend’s children were sleeping—shook me. I drove home with little will to live.
I felt invisible, and I never wanted another person to ever feel that way. It took years, but it was this mission that brought me to where I am today.
Identifying this vision and the road to embodying it was winding. I had to become a truth seeker first.
My childhood left me with the giant misconception that people grow up to become unhappy adults with unfulfilling marriages and stressful jobs.
During my teenage years my grades dropped, and I rarely did any schoolwork. I was barely surviving those years. I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. I would not have graduated at all but for one teacher who understood me and said, “Get the hell out of here.” He gave me a grade that I didn’t deserve, which allowed me to graduate. Thankfully that set me on my quest to finally find some answers.
I was squeezed into college. I started at a state university that put me on academic probation on day one. I began to look around and wonder about the state of the world. I enrolled in religion classes where the teachings of Buddhism and Judaism started to shed light around the idea of purpose. I read every spiritual book I could find in search of the answer to the existential question: Why are we here?
I fell in love with the search for meaning and understanding the way human beings relate to our purpose in the big scheme of things. I felt called to speak and inspire. I became editor of my college paper. I had no real sense of what I wanted to do with my life, but that was one of the first times that I followed my inner compass. A whisper told me to inspire the 40,000 students who read that college newspaper. I graduated with a degree in humanities and promptly took off for a three-week trip to Jerusalem. I wanted to do some soul-searching. I wound up staying for three years.
Once there, I fell in love with Gd. You might use another word. Everyone must find their own north star, but I found a way to connect with the source of the world: The One who is, was, and always will be. As my teacher Rabbi David Aaron says, “We are each a masterpiece, a piece of the master.” I was mesmerized. It infused me with meaning and a sense of purpose. I felt connected to the infinite and knew that there was a part of me that was plugged into the source of all creation. I knew I was put here to serve an ultimate good. And it felt good.
Learning about Jewish tradition in 3,000-year-old texts became like oxygen for me. This, combined with my earliest experiences, transformed my outlook on the world and the way in which I moved through it. I woke up feeling inspired, as if every cell in my being was connected to this palpable abundance of energy, this sweet divine light that permeates everything and connects us all. There are no extras. We are each created for a reason. I learned that the world needed something that only I could add.
After spending three years absorbed in a world of mystics, I was ready to take action and practice all that I had learned in the Holy Land. I arrived in Los Angeles 16 years ago with the dream of becoming a musician. I can still remember my family begging me not to go, saying, “Success doesn’t happen for people like us.”
I loved music as a child. My sister and I would sit at the piano with my mom and sing and laugh. Alone I would scribble down lyrics too. It was my greatest refuge—a sacred release and portal to expression. I would whisper to myself that writing songs would be the ticket out of the darkness and into the spotlight. I craved being seen, dreamed of filling stadiums.
There was a healthy dose of naivety in my move to Los Angeles. My credentials were nothing more than a belief that I was destined to be an artist and the confidence built through my spiritual explorations. I had no friends, no connections, no trust fund. I put one foot in front of the other and very slowly my story started to unfold.
I found a job on Craigslist, enough to pay rent on a small room, and got to work researching how exactly one acquires a record deal and becomes, you know, a rock star. I thought the only way you make it as a songwriter was to sell records. It was the only path that I knew of. I worked super hard—I tried to meet anyone I could collaborate with, I saved enough money to create demos, and then researched contacts at the labels. It was all about asking the right questions.
What do I do to get from point A to point B? Who do I need to know? How do I get a meeting?
One belief that I say over and over again on my podcast is about how often we think it’s a lack of resources that stands in our way. We feel deflated when we don’t have the money or the contacts or the right zip code. I have learned that our greatest resource is our own resourcefulness.
The good news is that all those other extras—money, connections, a fancy college degree—might be nice but are in no way necessary. With a driving sense of determination and resourcefulness, we can figure anything out.
I was also born with an innate stubbornness to live and experiment and lead. My husband says I have the will of a small country.
I wrote songs for three years straight—some better than others—and I finally secured that fabled record deal with Interscope. I sat in the recording studio wearing my sleekest pair of True Religion jeans, watching veteran A&R executive and record producer Ron Fair record Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi,” and I thought to myself, “I made it. I’m here.” I felt like I reached the promised land—Starbucks order hand-delivered by an intern and all.
There was a quiet part of myself that felt like I was trying too hard to be someone else. I shushed that voice real quick, promising myself, “This is it. You will do it and this will be your life.”
I was driving my little car through Santa Monica three months later when I got a phone call from my producer. He asked me to pull over.
“We’re going to drop you from the label,” he said.
Silence.
“Look,” he said, not unkindly. “You have nice songs. It’s Michelle Branch meets Natalie Merchant meets Sheryl Crow. They’re conversational, but they are not pop sensations. We’re not sure if you can do this new wave of what’s hot on the radio. You have talent, but we just can’t take the chance.”
It was soul crushing. It felt like I’d met the Wizard of Oz only to find out that he had no power. I erased my dream of a music career. I went in search of a new identity.
I’ll be a therapist since I’ve done that for my parents.
I’ll become a yoga teacher because that’s been good for me.
I’ll take an interior design class so I’ll still be creative.
I tried to apply my craft to nonprofits, a floral design studio, a casting agency, a real estate firm. I was drowning in misery, and I couldn’t figure out why because all these occupations make a decent life … for someone. I finally found a job making connections for a commercial real estate mogul. It seemed like a great option B at the time. I was making well into six figures at age 25, driving a hot convertible, and enjoying all the sushi that Los Angeles could provide.
But I felt like a fraud, and I was completely NOT myself. It took two years to hit a breaking point, which of course happened in the car, as most critical moments in Los Angeles do.
I was sobbing on the side of the interstate when I decided, “I can’t do this anymore. I’m going to stop lying to myself and change course.” I remembered how my rabbi used to tell us to imagine a guitar being used to hold a plant or an iron being used as a paperweight. It is not doing what it was designed to do. I felt like I was not living my potential. I was not doing me. I was living someone else’s life. It was one of those moments that seem disastrous but is actually a blessing.
It was time to remember that there was something more I was born to do.
One thing I’ve learned is that the opposite of depression is not happiness—it is purpose. We’re all chasing a feeling of meaning, a sense that we’re contributing our unique essence.
It’s scary when you start to ask yourself these big questions. It’s threatening to people around you. It demands that you switch things up and get out of your comfort zone. It’s not easy to stretch yourself like that. But it is so rewarding.
I did not know how I would find a way to write music again, but I was ready to change my story.
Only then did the signs appear.
It’s an enigma that we’ll review again and again, but clarity follows action. Only once we’re willing to shed our well-designed plans of what the journey should look like can we get messy and figure out where we’re actually supposed to thrive.
I picked up a Billboard magazine for the first time in years that week. I opened it to a feature article on indie artists licensing their songs for TV series and commercials. A lightbulb went off.
This was a path that I had never considered. I had worked hard to get a record deal, but here was another way to make music. I would research, take notes, observe which kinds of sounds and lyrics were being used, and then intentionally write music that aligned with that. There are artists who might consider this below them, an inferior way to make it as a musician, but I said “no” to those doubts. There are so many ways to make a living even if it doesn’t look exactly like what you thought it would.
I started reverse engineering and found there were some incredible musicians making big waves in this space—including Regina Spektor, Ingrid Michaelson, and Christina Perri. I had my first big breakthrough.
I realized that the difference between a hobby and a business was caring about your buyer and not being inspired just for your own sake. I started to research what songs were being used in TV shows, films, and ads. I looked for consistencies in lyrical themes and production. I started writing with the needs of other people in mind. Then I researched the emails of producers and agencies. I found a way to pitch my music that felt genuine and memorable and broke through the competition.
I started to write music again with more energy than ever before. I called hundreds of music agencies, speaking to more than 40 people a day, not just in Los Angeles but in Seattle, New York, Milan, Paris, and Sydney. It was uncomfortable. I received 200 “no’s” for every “yes.” But I was willing to tolerate a high level of discomfort if it meant I could finally do what I wanted. It took massive effort, but I started to make real money.
A major retailer used one of my songs twice, and I received a check for $100,000! My annual income grew from $200,000 to $300,000 the next year. My songs appeared on TV shows like Pretty Little Liars, The Office, and Criminal Minds, as well as on commercials for McDonald’s, Hasbro, and KFC.
I did this year after year and grew a career where I got to write music but live in anonymity. Every day was a holiday because I was making a lawyer’s salary for going to the studio. I started to receive recognition through profiles in Variety, Billboard, and LA Weekly. They all shared the same message: Cathy Heller is writing her own check licensing songs. I didn’t even have a PR agent or a booker. I still don’t.
Artists began to ask me for help, but my identity as an artist was still very fragile. I believed that if I did anything but write music then I would be a sellout. But the artists kept coming so I finally decided to open an agency.
Why did it have to be an “either-or” when it could be a “yes and”? I could be an artist and help other artists. My production quadrupled that year with theme songs and end titles for movies and trailers.
This moment in my career also sparked the realization that I could try out a massive amount of ideas and events and projects in order to figure out what worked. Why limit ourselves to one role? Why commit to one means of income when it is possible to build out and experiment and create a network of opportunities and resources? The messier that we’re willing to get, the more we invite synchronicity into our lives.
That’s exactly what happened for me when I was asked to appear on a friend’s podcast to speak about the music business. A friend listened to the podcast—which was a new medium for me—and asked: Could you start an online course to teach me and other artists around the world?
It took this request to make me realize that an online course could solve a major challenge: Artists were sending me tons of songs that weren’t quite right. An online course could build a foundation, teaching them what kind of songs we’re working on and how to reverse engineer what music supervisors need.
In any industry, successful people are not looking for opportunities. They’re looking to solve a problem for someone else.
Pregnant with my third daughter, I signed up for Amy Porterfield’s digital course on building online courses and held my first webinar as a result. A thousand people signed in live and the course went on to make $450,000 in its first year. It all felt too ridiculous to possibly be true.
The best part of all was that so many songwriters found success licensing their music. One participant with zero previous experience made $55,000 when his song appeared in a coffee ad. Another made $75,000 for his song in a beer spot. Almost 40 people placed songs that year, which meant the material led to results. This was huge.
It took another knock at the door to wake me up to the greatest adventure I’ve embarked on so far.
One of my students, Amy Loftus Pechansky, recognized that 85 percent of what I talk about applies not only to music but to anyone with a passion project. It’s not just musicians who need to hear this, but anyone who desires to make money doing what they love. It takes simple techniques—from caring about the needs of your customer, to sending cold emails, to pitching yourself—but the majority of people are in the dark on where to start. I had a million reasons to not add another project to my life, but there was that whisper again, urging me on.
I met with a friend of a friend who introduced me to the smart people who helped me launch my podcast, “Don’t Keep Your Day Job.” I doubted there would be more than 50 listeners on that first episode, but Apple thought it was worth a listen, so they featured it on their main page. Our podcast started rising up the charts from the #50 spot to #20 to #2 in the business category. Those first 50 listeners were joined by over 100,000 others, and the numbers just grew from there. A year later we reached one million downloads and it quickly multiplied to two million and then six million and on after that.
It became clear to me how important this message was: You are enough. You matter. You’re here for a reason. You have something unique that you, and only you, can contribute to this world. And we need you.
Today I host the podcast, coach, run workshops, and am mom to three girls. I still write songs and teach and run an agency. It can feel like a lot, but it is also the most fun that I’ve ever had and incredibly rewarding. I wake up at 5 a.m. every morning with more energy and excitement than at any other point in my life. I have finally found a method for helping others, and that feels like the greatest success.
Where Our Paths Meet
As with all creative processes, the soul of the project is often not fully revealed until the eleventh hour. It took months to realize the purpose of this book is so much more than business or motivation or worth.
It’s about trusting those hunches. Trusting your joy.
Imagine breaking free of the constraints of your current reality and learning new tools to tap into a flow where you are seamlessly led to the right opportunities, serendipitously find your tribe, and attract financial abundance.
If you picked up this book, then you’re curious about transformation and might hear that whisper that questions what life could look like if you really opened up. I’m going to take you on a journey to living more in tune with yourself. It is the most simple and perhaps most complex work that you will ever do.
JOURNAL ON “DON’T KEEP YOUR DAY JOB”
I’m going to share takeaways and writing prompts at the end of each chapter. I know you’re going to have so many ideas as you read on. Getting those out of your head and onto the page is one of the most powerful steps that you can take. Let’s begin!
If you could wave a magic wand and wake up tomorrow getting paid to do what you love, what would you be doing? Would you have your own bakery? Would you be in a Broadway show? Would you be shooting a movie you made? Spend 15 minutes allowing yourself to dream and notice how it feels. Also notice what self-doubt might arise. Don’t judge it, just notice it. We will talk about that later. It’s normal, and just being aware of it will help. Remember, thoughts aren’t facts.
Copyright © 2019 by Cathy Heller
