Do What You Love interview – Danielle LaPorte

If you want to put a rocket under your ideas and ambition, start or grow your own business or revolutionise your current business, and make your own choices and your own money, then you need to meet Danielle LaPorte. She is one white hot woman. She made me think differently about aspects of my own business, and I wanted to share some of her magic with you.

Danielle is the creator of www.daniellelaporte.com, and has brought out a new book, THE FIRE STARTER SESSIONS, which helps entrepreneurs rock their career with integrity, audacity and their truest strengths. Danielle is a former news show commentator, and director of a Washington-DC think tank, where she managed a team of analysts studying global trends for the likes of the Pentagon and the World Bank. She is the lead author of the Amazon bestseller, Style Statement: Live By Your Own Design, and has been featured in Elle, Vogue Australia, Body + Soul, The National Post, Entertainment Tonight, and The Huffington Post.

Here she gives us insight and some awesome advice…

1) Following the global recession, you are encouraging entrepreneurs everywhere to blaze their own trails and set the world on fire. Why is it important to you and how does it feel to be making a difference?

Because liberation and self reliance are amazing things. Because cubicles are hell. Because the system is broken.  If you want to make lots of really good stuff happen, then that’s really exciting — for all of us. If you want to earn a living by doing meaningful things—then that’s exceptional.  This truth is most evident: we entrepreneurs, artists, and change agents define ourselves on our own terms.
Does it get better than that?!

2) What are the Fire Starter Sessions and what do you want to revolutionise with them?

A guide to creating success on your own terms, my book The Fire Starter Sessions reframes popular self-help and success concepts to cut through dull thinking and fear, and get straight to one’s core desires, pragmatism, and courage — and burn some illusions to a crisp. My intention is that people will start heeding the call of their core desires.

“Revolutionary” is basing your strategic plans on how you truly want to feel, not chasing external things and hoping they’ll make you feel a certain way. “Revolutionary” is using grace as a measurement for success, and generosity as part of your bottom line.

3) What does it take to spark genius?

Hunger. An open heart. Flexibility.

4) What is your superpower?

Listening. I also have a knack for getting people just the right gift. But that goes back to listening…

5) What is the one piece of explosive advice you can give to entrepreneurs trying to transform their dream into a rocking business?

Let ease be your metric. Here’s what I mean by that:

Using the “ease factor” as a metric for making right choices is counter-culture, of course. It’s been drilled in to us to work hard. Blue collar, white collar, dog collar — hard work pays off. Pay your dues. Put in your time. Prove yourself. Check the right box. Stay the course. Meet expectations. Train in pain, and then reap the rewards.

Doing what comes easily to you isn’t about shortcuts or cleverness, and it’s certainly not about making mediocrity acceptable. It’s about leverage. It’s about casting your seeds on the most fertile soil. It’s about your best chances for success.

I don’t do it if it’s not easy. That simple. That fun. That rad’.

Are you ready to make this year that you do what you love?

• What do you want to revolutionise?
• What do you find toughest (or what are you most afraid of) about going it alone?
• What do you love about it?
• Why is it right for you?
• Are you ready to start living the life you really want?