Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on November 2010

Courtesy of Soness Stevens

Florida native Soness Stevens moved to Japan 13 years ago for an MBA—and, she jokes, to fulfill her dreams of “becoming a ninja.” Today, the effervescent 35-year-old spends her time jetting around Asia to run a range of life-enhancing courses and consultations.

“Have you ever wanted to get from point A to point B but can’t figure out how—or even forgot what point B was supposed to be?” she asks. “I help people clarify their goals and intentions to make visions more tangible.”

Stevens teaches what’s known as Vision Boarding, a process that gives people a road-map to success by making a “personally tailored tactile and visual representation of what you are creating in all areas of your life.” She combines this with contemporary feng shui, working on the belief that arranging your environment properly can lead to positive changes in other aspects of your life.

At the same time, she facilitates a seasonal 12-week program based on The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron’s bestselling guide to creative expression. Over a series of discussion groups at expat haven Ben’s Cafe in Takadanobaba, artists are helped to recover and nurture their mojo—and if you want to know whether it works, just ask Ben’s owner. “Yoshiko had given up filmmaking to run the cafe,” says Stevens. “After the first course of The Artist’s Way there, she rediscovered her desire to make films, and is now finishing up a documentary she made about the second course we held there.”

Stevens has also found time to produce a documentary herself, due to be completed in January. The film examines what makes people happy—by asking them to hula-hoop. “Hooping puts people in a primal state: you can’t help but be happy, so you don’t get the usual BS answer,” she explains. “You’d think happiness would be different for a salesman in Hong Kong and a traditional Maori in New Zealand, but put them in a hoop and it’s not. At our core, the same things make us happy.”

The third course of The Artist’s Way will begin in January. For details, see www.soness.com or www.thepinkhoop.com.