Creativity, Spirituality, and Making a Buck

Book excerpt: A friendly, funny, practical guide for creatives and entrepreneurs, written by a four-time Emmy award-winning and two-time Grammy-nominated composer-guitarist-producer who has worked with Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Jerry Garcia, Lana Del Rey, and Krishna Das, among many others. Also a beloved and highly regarded Buddhist teacher, David teaches readers how to integrate their creative process with their spiritual practice and livelihood. “How do I make a living doing what I love?” “Am I a sellout as an artist if I want to be successful?” “How do I integrate my spiritual principles with the art of running a business? And actually, um, how do I run a business?” Wondering how to reconcile your calling with your need to make a living wage, or what to do once your art starts selling, or how to achieve success in your field, or what it even means to be successful? David Nichtern offers his lived, learned experience as an entrepreneur, musician, and Buddhist teacher to first help you figure out what “success” means to you and then show you how to get there. He offers advice on the creative process and principles of business and ethics—everything from “listen to the muse!” to “protect your intellectual property!”—and provides mindfulness exercises to help you integrate inspiration and aspiration, vocation and avocation—to go from surviving to thriving. Whether you’re a baker trying to grow from the farmer’s market to a brick-and-mortar or a CEO exploring how taking care of your employees can be the same as taking care of your business—if you’re trying to align your spiritual, creative, and financial pursuits and discover what it means to truly live well, this book is for you.