Welcome to The Practical Guru

“The guru is you…I just work here.”

You are intelligent and driven; fairly successful so far, making at least five figures. You have a strong desire to make an impact on the world, to make your mark, and contribute to making it better, but you’re not sure how to do that.

You value personal growth over money, and wonder if your present career track will take you to personal fulfillment.

You are passionate about connecting with people and being your best self. Your goal is to get out of the career/money trap you are in and use your creativity to build something aligned with your values.

You want to feel successful while having a sense of meaning, and contribute to something larger than yourself. You want to know what your purpose in life is.

And you landed here. …maybe there’s a good reason for that.

IF YOU ARE FEELING…

Anxious about everything that isn’t working in your life…
Angry with people who’ve wronged you…
Frustrated by opportunities you haven’t received…
Limited by obstacles that prevent you from making changes…
Discouraged by failures and setbacks…
Lost and without a compass or direction…
Disappointed in yourself for making the “wrong” choices…

…then congrats you’re human. We all feel these things at times.

Maybe someone told you, “The answers are all inside of you,“ but neglected to mention how to to look inside to FIND those answers; how to utilize them to make the needed shifts in your perception; alter your behavior, habits, and mindset to permanently make the changes in awareness and action that actually bring about your dearest aims, goals, and desires.

This is the mission of The Practical Guru.

Here’s what you can expect by letting The Practical Guru be your guide on this journey.

First, here’s what we’re not about:

Philosophizing about change instead of acting on it
Abstract theories that you can’t apply to the real world
Sharing vague motivational slogans

Here we will show you how to actually make the personal shifts you desire. This is not a “why” site, it is a “how to” site.

You are going to learn simple actionable steps, strategies, and techniques that you can apply in your daily life––to make immediate positive change.

We’ll show you how to create personal success, engagement, meaning, and purpose in your life…which right now is probably way more complex than it needs to be.

No one is going to hand you an extraordinary life…
You have to create it.
…The question is, are you creative enough?

My story is probably much like yours

I was a quiet, creative loner type of kid. (An INFP for all you Myers Briggs fans). I grew up watching my father, a GE engineer, do pretty much nothing other than work, come home tired and frustrated, and yell at his kids.

I decided early on that this was not a good life choice. When I told my parents that I wanted to major in theatre in college, they made me take a minor in physics as a fallback to “pay the bills,” otherwise my dad wouldn’t pay my tuition.

At the end of my sophomore year, I informed my dad that I was dropping the physics and centering on my passion, the arts. He replied, “Great, another penniless artist. You’ll never make a good living.” To which I replied, “Dad, I’d rather be broke doing what I love, than make a good living being miserable — that’s what I call failure.”

…He didn’t have an answer for that.

Once I graduated, I only took work in the theatre. I never took a “job job” and consequently I “starve starved” …for a while. Eventually, I made a great living …doing what I truly loved.

What I loved was not only being an artist, but delving into the mysteries of what makes us creative, and what that means for creating the life that we want.

I discovered that everything we do is rooted in our creative nature. The capacity for new thought drives everything in life forward, whether it be in the arena of work and productivity; life and relationships; or personality and enjoyment of life.

Over the course of many years, I teased out the secrets of accessing what I call Creative-Actualization.

Gary Izzo is known as a pioneer of the interactive theatre genre, an innovator in improvisation, author, teacher, and expert in personal creativity awareness.

What is Creative-Actualization?

Creative-Actualization springs in part from a Jungian theory about opening up a dialogue with one’s unconscious in order to trigger a shift in how the conscious and unconscious minds work together.

Jung saw the unconscious mind as the psychological wellspring of creativity, vitality, growth, and redemption.

Creative-Actualization is also inspired by the work of Abraham Maslow who believed creativity to be one of the higher capacities of human beings, and thought that to nourish one’s creativeness was simultaneously to move in the direction of one’s higher self.

“My feeling is that the concept of creativeness and the concept of the healthy, self-actualizing, fully human person seem to be coming closer and closer together, and may perhaps turn out to be the same thing.”
— Abraham Maslow

If the unconscious mind is in fact the home of or portal to the creative and vital currents of life, then discovering how to best use and tap into it seems entirely reasonable.

Creative-Actualization encompasses five areas that are key to unlocking human potential; Creativity, Purpose, Emotional Intelligence, Goal Manifestation, and Personal Empowerment. They make up the five premium courses in our Master Course Series.

The Five Frames of Creative-Actualization

Creative Fluency: This involves reclaiming your innate creativeness by building congruency with the unconscious mind, acquiring perceptual flexibility, unlocking spontaneity, freeing the imagination, mastering creativity skills and finding inspiration.

Creative Realization: In this next phase, creative realization leads to finding your life purpose. Purpose allows you to direct and focus your actions to achieve your desired outcomes, with strength, conviction, and clarity.

Creative Awareness: Creative visualization techniques teach you to clear the emotional baggage that blocks clarity of imagination and insight, allowing you to be open and original in your creativity and personal growth.

Creative Manifestation: Learn a powerful set of tools to create specific, measurable, and achievable goals. Find out how to maintain focus on results, overcome obstacles, and enhance motivation at will.

Creative Emergence: A powerful and inspiring course, blending creative technique and self-awareness, that will allow you let go of the past, feel free and happy in the present, and create a fulfilling future.

Learn More: Creative-Actualization Framework Explained

We are not taking advantage of our best resource.

We understand that the creative unconscious is constantly working to solve problems outside our awareness, however, we fail to harness this inner creativity because we are too busy or too caught up in our conscious thoughts, fears, and worries.

Not only does this have the unfortunate consequence of restricting our creative potential, but it also limits the texture, richness, and vitality that the unconscious can bring to our conscious life.

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote about the existence of little helpers from his unconscious, “who do one half my work while I am fast asleep, and in all human likelihood, do the rest for me as well, when I am wide awake and fondly suppose I do it for myself.”

It is curious this information is not readily acknowledged in our society; and that we are never taught how to tap into this vast storehouse of creative potential.

The teachings of The Practical Guru will give you strong connection to your own creative source, how can you utilize it, not only in your career collaborations, but also in your relationships, art, invention, personal understanding and potential in life?

Practical Change Made Simple

Reduce the complexities that leave you anxious and lost.
Find the direction in life that has true meaning for YOU.
Take the path that will bring you happiness NOW.
Remove obstacles, boundaries, and false paths.
Turn your work into play.
Live with passion and purpose.
Empower yourself and be able to empower others

Creative Fluency

Creative Fluency is the first frame to be offered and is the foundational frame for the other four. Though valuable in their own right as stand-alone courses, all benefit from the enhanced creative capacity that students in this course will attain.

Many people think that only those who partake in science or art can be creative. This is a mistake. You can be creative in any area of your life – in parenting, sports, relationships, your profession, or personal development.

There are scores of books, speakers, and consultants who can teach you how to collaborate with others in a creative way (I’m one of them), but the deeper question is “how can you develop the individual creativity that you must use in order to contribute to any collaborative process?” No one is teaching that…until now.

What You Will Discover…

How to overcome the cognitive & emotional blocks to spontaneity.
Explore the mental processes that activate creativity.
Discover your own unique imagination and “creativeness.”
Learn to recognize & use your intuition in life choices.
Develop congruency with your conscious and unconscious mind.
Manifest creative abundance in your life & work.

Learn More: The Creative Fluency Frame Explained

Now, where to start?

So, where do you start to befriend and utilize the power of the creative unconscious?

The simplest way is to join as a subscriber and get actionable methods and insights that anyone can apply, to make immediate improvement in your life, in your inbox each week or so–and lots of free stuff.

Learn more about the unconscious mind by going to my About Page and get the free download on Prime Directive of the Unconscious Mind.

Or you could have a look at the foundational posts that I have written so far to find something that helps you with your current issue or what you want to improve in your life:
Foundational Posts

Learn much more and make those changes and habits stick faster by using my in-depth premium courses.

In these premium courses you do not only get concise, in-depth written guides, but also instantly downloadable audio guides, workbooks to help you apply what you learn into your own life, and other very helpful tools that will help you to make positive changes that truly sticks for life.