Bain - The book of doing and being : rediscovering creativity in life, love, and work

Praise for The Book of Doing and Being

Barnet Bains book gracefully conveys the thrill and discipline of the creative process. It will stretch you in unexpected ways that can unlock your creative heart.

Geneen Roth, author of Women Food and God and Lost and Found

This is quite simply the best book on creativity Ive ever read. It is an eloquent theory of where the creative spark lives and how best to access it, a complete toolkit for igniting your own creative potential, and a master class in the power of living life without a discernible compass. Follow its siren call, abandon the path of certainty, and learn to live on magic. Consider this a course in creative miraclesyour own.

Lynne McTaggart, internationally bestselling author of The Field , The Intention Experiment , and The Bond

Bain authentically demonstrates that BEING with the right attitude puts your aptitude on steroids, so that youll be active in DOING for your success.

Peter Guber, chairman of Mandalay Entertainment, co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and author of Tell to WinConnect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story

A glorious guide into our own possibility, into and past our blocks, to our true liberated being. Barnet Bain, a highly creative and innovative artist, helps us to unleash our gifts, talents, and vision. Bain starts with the premise that we each have a passion, a unique calling, and, if found, it helps us to live far more fully. Bain then gives us reason to believe in ourselves, and with some helpful steps, to realize our true nature, our calling!

Lisa Miller, PhD, professor and director of clinical psychology, Columbia University, author of The Spiritual Child

Bain masterfully leads us to activate our creativity, innovation, passion, and purpose. Be bold. Explore this book and expand your imagination.

Mark Van Ness, founder, Real Leaders Magazine

Barnet Bain is devoted to manifesting creativity in a way that not only gives his life purpose but brings meaning and hope to the lives of others. With this book, he reveals to us how we can do the very same thing no matter our age, education, culture, or experience. Put simply, if you want your life to count in ways youve previously only dreamed of you owe it to yourself to read this book!

Ivan Misner, PhD, New York Times bestselling author of Masters of Networking , and Founder of BNI

With brilliant clarity, delightful humor, and deep insight, Barnet Bain reveals in The Book of Doing and Being how everyone can unlock their inner potential for creativity and make their dreams come true. I highly recommend it.

John Gray, PhD, author of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

In this ode to the power of being, creativity, flow, and essence, Barnet Bain teaches us how to access our forgotten self so that we may live to our highest potential. Insightful, practical, and deeply compelling!

Dr. Shefali Tsabary, New York Times bestselling author of The Conscious Parent

No need to wait any longer for inspiration to strike or for the Muse to arrive in order to be creative. The Book of Doing and Being eloquently presents a treasury of creativity methods that you can use at any time.

Zhena Muzyka, author of Life by the Cup and founder of Zhenas Gypsy Tea Company

The Book of Doing and Being is the how to manual you have been waiting for! With enlightening wisdom Barnet Bain empowers us to ignite creativity and address the road blocks we encounter along the way.

Kelly McNelis, founder of Women For One

The Book of Doing and Being can be the catalyst to your next greatest creations, projects, and lifes journeys. Barnet has found the most eloquent and experiential way of awaking in us and drawing from our souls the very energy required to illuminate and electrify this planet with an unparalleled creative force.

Lisa Nichols, New York Times bestselling author of No Matter What , featured teacher in The Secret

If you havent yet experienced the delight of attending one of Barnet Bains workshops, this book will introduce you to a singular creative force: YOU. Experience your self as a spontaneous wellspring of fresh ideas, and put them into immediate action. Barnet will ignite your creative fire.

Stephen Josephs, EdD, author of Dragons at Work

If you think you are creative, you are. Even if you dont think you are creative, you still are. Either way, reading this book is an illuminating journey of discovery that offers to usher you into a state of aliveness through your full self-expression in day-to-day life.

Stewart Emery, coauthor of Success Built to Last

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FOR SANDI

When I was growing up in Canada, my dad was a butcher and my mom was a housewife. Around the dinner table, the conversation would often include talk about customers at my dads shop, neighbors, friends, and others in our community. On occasion, the conversation would turn to Grgoire, a wedding photographer and quite a good painter with a small studio in town. The scent of photo-developing chemicals and espresso followed Grgoire wherever he went. With his scarves, long hair, and French accent, he had a romantic mystique about him. My parents always referred to him as a freelancera word that packed a lot of meaning. Most important, it meant that he had no reliable income, therefore, no safety. It was both terrifying and exciting to hear about Grgoire and how he couldnt rely on the world for money, validation, or a certain future.

Nothing about the way I was raised had any rapport with the freewheeling idea of being a freelancer, and yet I have become one. I have created a blueprint that is sufficiently differentiated from the framework of my beginningsI created it, in part, by stepping beyond the bounds of structured imagining , which is something Ill teach you how to do in this book. And while I know there are no guaranteesno promise of assured good outcomes in my career, finances, health, love, or anything elsethere is also no turning back. Even if I wanted to turn back, the line to the anchor has been cut. Im too far from the shore, and there is no safe harbor to return to. I have to create safety, trusting that safety found within myself will show up in my experience of the world. Most of the time, I am on tranquil seas, and yet sometimes it gets stormy, tempestuous. I hit moments of stress and fear that call me to return to the trance, but I cant do it. I can only live on magic, fueled by my passion and commitment to the creative life.

When you seek out and explore creativity, as you will do by working with the exercises and practices in this book, it leads to an individualization from your original blueprint, which can be both exhilarating and unnerving at the same time. Instead of reacting to or rebelling against a framework that has been preset by others, you get to harvest what works of it and set about consciously creating the life you desire.

No matter what your vocation, you come to realize that life is a freelance affair and you no longer take anything for granted, whether its a paycheck, a marriage vow, or your health and well-being. You discover that none of these is outside of you. You cant put them in a vault to accumulate interest and guarantee a particular future. Everything that matters to you comes from an inner reservoir that is always available in the present moment.