We recently connected with Cindy Yantis and have shared our conversation below.

Cindy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?

For the longest time, I felt like an imposter if I told people I was a writer.

“What do you do?”

I’m a writer was not the first thing that easily fell off my tongue. It wasn’t what I did for a “living.” Which in and of itself is a misnomer. What do you do for a living? When did making a living or doing a living become synonymous with being paid for it? When did living and money become bed partners?

I digress. But, not really. The truth is I started writing stories in grade school and won my first competition at age ten. Winning the competition wasn’t the thing I recall the most. It was the first time the notion of being a writer entered my echo chamber. It was a whisper that rang true to my core. A whisper that came from my core. Writing felt like a living.

While growing up and leaning into what I believed society’s standards were for me, writing and creative pursuits became hobbies, and “making a living” took center stage. I have no regrets, as I also believe in divine timing and that—when in awareness—all choices can serve life’s purpose. I chose a center-stage career in television advertising. I enjoyed and made the most of it, all the way to a corner office and a “good living.”

But the whispers in the echo chamber never ceased. I continued to write “on the side.”

And, at the same time, the other practical voices (others that became mine) said success as a writer was only indicated by what you sold or who hired you as a writer. So, I couldn’t say I was a writer as that indicator hadn’t happened yet.

Along the way, along with writing screenplays and stories, I wrote consistently to understand what I was thinking and to make sense of things by tapping into life’s metaphors. I started sharing those writings publicly in essays and blog posts, and the sense of my 10-year-old’s purpose got louder. And, as it resonated with readers, it felt like purpose. A living purpose. Writing as a living purpose.

Until “I’m a writer” was the first thing that fell off my tongue when asked what I did. Even as I still toiled away in the day job.
The louder voice I started to listen to finally was my own. That voice says I live my life as a creative. My life is creative. It’s not tied to how or if I was paid for it, and yes, I am now paid for it.

So, the being misunderstood and mischaracterized, was primarily of my own doing. Once I took a stand as being a writer, I understood I was a writer.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

As often happens in midlife my careers and passions have merged. I am a creative “making a living” as a writer and a creative coach/consultant. Creativity is the portal for merging all the lanes moving forward.

My company, Abundant Creation LLC, was formed to foster creative abundance via stories and collective journeys abundantly creating life, art, words, work, relationships, family, ideas, and legacy.

My writing is found on my blog and newsletter, as well as through essays in Thrive Global, Writers Cooperative, Illumination, Better Humans, Midform, and P.S. I Love You. My screenplays have placed in the Austin Film Festival and the Nicholl Fellowship competitions, and I currently have a dark comedy feature with a production company. My debut novel is forthcoming.

When the situation is in alignment, I offer my services as a ghostwriter. Writing areas of expertise: Screenplays & treatments; narrative – short stories and long prose; website/blog copy; internal memos, sales presentations, emails & letters; speeches and award scripts; and newsletters.

As a creative coach, I help creatives abundantly create their projects, passions, and purposes. One of my specialties and areas of magic is a creative jam session experience. I guide artists and entrepreneurs through deep creation that moves beyond what’s bubbling on the surface. It helps them tap into their optimal creativity. These sessions have been known to “create an outpouring of ideas that flow endlessly” and have been called “mind-blowing and heart-opening,” and “beyond expectations.”

I’ve become known as a word shaman. It was a moniker given to me by a client a few years ago and it stuck. Simply put, a shaman is a guide. As a word shaman, I have a gift for guiding words and capturing the unusual and interesting combo of words for a given situation.

As a former sales executive, my career spanned three decades in broadcast media as a television station account executive, national group sales manager, and vice president of sales. My specialties included a collaborative management style, big-picture thinking and creative vision, situational positioning, effective presentation skills, working a room, superior negotiating, project managing, team-building, and client-focused consultative selling through all aspects of the sales cycle. And, I was a go-to writer in the company for crafting internal communications, writing executive speeches and training documents.

Often as a creative coach, my corporate experience and aspects come into play, particularly when providing career counseling and guidance as well as next life chapter envisioning.

In a nutshell, I offer my expertise at getting to the heart of the message and the story’s center, whether it’s a personal essay, a creation of fiction, or guiding a client to theirs.

I work with individuals and teams, in person and on Zoom. And I teach workshops and courses, digitally and in person.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

It was the middle of the night. The year was 2002. I tossed and turned, thrashing in and out of the sheets as I alternated between sweating and freezing. No, I wasn’t ill. No, I wasn’t having a hot flash. But my breath was hot as I sighed, the weight of the world on each exhale.

I was having what is known as a “dark night of the soul.”

The origin of the phrase goes back to a 16th-century poem by the Spanish Poet St. John of the Cross, where the poem narrates “the journey of the soul to mystical union with God.”

Eckhart Tolle defines it as, “…a collapse of a perceived meaning in life, an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaningless…what has collapsed is the whole conceptual framework for your life, the meaning that your mind had given it.”

This was where I was, in the middle of the night in 2002. My mind was engaged in a war of purpose, while I pleaded, cried, and even screamed in prayer.

A dark night of the soul can be triggered by any number of things that can rock your current existence.

But, as Eckhart also said, the dark night of the soul “awakens you into something deeper… A deeper sense of purpose or connectedness with a greater life. It’s a kind of re-birth.” A spiritual awakening.

It had been four years since I’d uprooted my life in Michigan to pursue the arts in Los Angeles. I’d had a few trickles of success: as an actor in some local theatrical roles, a co-star on NYPD BLUE, and several national commercials (McDonald’s paid for the renovation of my West Hollywood condo). And, I was writing more seriously than I’d done before. I wrote and starred in a short film that helped me get a theatrical agent. I wrote pieces for a staged workshop and I wrote my first script, which placed well in the prestigious Nicholl Fellowship screenwriting competition and helped me land my first literary manager.

What led to the dark night of the soul was the increased pressure and stress of the uphill climb. I knew I had a gift, but I felt split. I enjoyed the making of the art, but the business was daunting. Plus, I was working and climbing the ladder in my intense corporate day job (which, with a job transfer, enabled the cross-country move).

At that point I had to admit, I knew I didn’t want the acting thing badly enough to do what it was going to take. I didn’t enjoy it. And, truthfully, I didn’t think I was good enough to break through the fray of others who really, really, really wanted it.
The writing was a more comfortable muscle, although I didn’t know where to go with it at the time.

So. That night. With the soul. Those unvoiced and hidden truths were swimming around in my subconscious. Some I wasn’t ready to admit because I was determined to succeed, and I didn’t give up easily. As a lifelong seeker that was an innate force.

My body ached as I stiffened on top of the mattress; my mouth was dry and my heavy sighs became an audible pleading.

“God, what am I to do? Why is this so difficult? If it’s my purpose, shouldn’t it be easier?”

The silence was deafening until another sigh of desperation exploded from me.

“They say talents are God-given. Why did you give me these gifts?”

More silence. My cat came slinking into the room like she wanted to hear the answer to this as well.

“Please help me. What am I supposed to do?”

And, then it came. An answer I wasn’t expecting. It was direct, short, and surprisingly sweet. It bolted me up from bed.

“Write meaningful prose that will change people’s lives.”

It was a directive. A mission. Words that came from beyond me.

“Write meaningful prose that will change people’s lives.”

That’s when it became the “aha night” when I heard the call of my soul. My body, mind, and spirit relaxed as I settled into this mission of truth.

The mission that has carried me ever since. Centering my life around writing became organic. I’ve evolved into a powerful storyteller, my wheelhouse being characters, primarily women, who are in self-discovery. Smart, sardonic women with big flaws. Heroines who also have dark nights of the soul.

Then, later a deeper extension of the mission was revealed and it expanded everything.

“Write meaningful prose to change YOUR life. Share what you learn to change other’s lives too.”

The deeper message I got was that the more I dove into my truths, pains, revelations, and transformations, the deeper the connection will be with those who read it, connecting to that deep wanting and truth within themselves too. Plus, the fictional characters I created after receiving that message were richer and more layered with their own truths.

My first blog, Thought Changer, was birthed from that mantra as it’s about changing your life, an idea, an expression, a thought at a time. And, I continue writing from this mission on my new Substack publication, Abundant Creation.

I write what I’m learning and curious about and I love to share those whispers and nuggets with readers.
That is a calling that still rings true. As I continue to answer it, I find helping others create and realize their creative passions, projects, and purposes is a big part of my purpose as well.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

It was during the pandemic when pivot became the name of the game for so many.

I took a personal leap while in work-from-home mode for the corporate job. I packed my bags and my home office and moved from LA to Austin to spend the time near family. Within a few short months, I built a house, moved in, and just as it felt like home, I was laid off from the corporate gig in a company-wide restructure.

Although I was initially a bundle of nerves with a new mortgage, it was the nudge I needed to fully step in and pivot into full-time purpose work. Soon after, I launched my company Abundant Creation LLC and signed my first official creative clients. Along with some freelance writing assignments, finishing the first draft of my debut novel, and working with a talented roster of creative clients, I launched Abundant Creation Academy where I will be teaching courses and workshops in abundantly creating life, work, and play. The first course, “The Art of Journaling: to Transform Your Life and Live Your Purpose,” is available there now. More to come!

When I think about it, it was really less of a pivot and more of an elevation to the playing field on which I was always meant to play.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://cindyyantis.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewordshaman/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cindy.yantis/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cindyyantis/
• Other: https://linktr.ee/cindysueyantis

Image Credits
Brio Photography, Austin TX