The Business of Being Creative

As I have mentioned several times on the blog, Elizabeth Warren was my law professor while I was at the University Of Pennsylvania.  She taught me contracts and bankruptcy law.  She is remarkable and beyond the best teacher I have ever experienced.  Professor Warren, to this day, is one of the country’s foremost experts on bankruptcy law.

She made understanding the Automatic Stay in bankruptcy really relevant to me.  If the noble goal of bankruptcy is to give a chance for anyone (person or corporation) to either start over, reorganize or wind things down, then there has to be a mechanism to freeze everything to give everyone a chance to figure things out.  Enter the automatic stay.  When a bankruptcy petition is filed, the automatic stay kicks in and everything stops — lawsuits, bill collection, etc.  Now, you can petition the court to lift the stay as it may not apply to you (matters of family law for instance), but you cannot just ignore the filing, you have to petition the court to waive the stay.

So why oh why does this matter to creative business? Because regardless of what you believe the world to be and regardless of what might be written in a contract, the reality is different from what you understand.  And you have to act accordingly.  It will make for different decisions and different thought patterns.

Enter repeat clients.  Everyone loves them and you should.  So why should you give them a discount?  If anything you should charge more.  Better clients should pay more not less.  Say what?  Yes, the reality of the world is not as you understand it to be only as you perceive it to be.

On the one side, you, the artist, have a benefit of knowing your client’s preferences and idiosyncrasies.  You have a head start on the next project and so, theoretically, the next project will be easier. Theoretically.  I will give you that.

Equally true though is that your client knows you, your art and your creative business. Oh, and the ONLY real reason they are coming back is because you are really, really good at what you do.  Not because you are nice, not because you are offering a discount, or any reason other than you can create the transformation they seek.  Simply, they want to see what you can do next for them.

Which then leads to the next point.  Better clients should pay more not less.  Presuming the more a client pays the more they will receive from you and your firm, the opportunity to invest ever deeper in you would be welcome.  Your desire to debase yourself by way of compromise serves no one. The aim is not to try to accomplish the project with one hand behind your back, it is to have all that you need to go further.

Finally, let us talk about celebrity and recommendations.  If a particular client offers you exposure because of who they are, perhaps that helps you get on the stage.  Fine. But if you are already on the stage?  You are an equal debasing yourself for the sake of exposure.  Yeah, not so much.  And if your client is a sneezer, how exactly will a discount inspire them to recommend you?  The reason they are recommending you is because you are awesome.  If you make it about the discount, that is what you will get back.  How about you not do that.

The axiom will always be true.  Great work will beget great work.  The value you offer is it own reward if only you can point to the value offered and earned.  Hold the cards you actually have and understand that you are an equal at base to your client, if not the leader. The only thing you owe is your best work and the fairness and integrity of what it will take to get it.  The rest will take care of itself.

Marketing or meaning?  Emotion. Storytelling. Design. Luxury. Beautiful. Tasteful. Elegant. Sophisticated.

None of these words really mean anything without context.  It is up to you to make them valuable or banal, rich or colloquial, layered or trite.

Throughout my career I have seen creative businesses take the easy way out.  Rather than own the idiosyncrasy and beauty of art, these creative business owners reach for labels that will define them as something from which they might profit but which they are clearly not.

Let’s talk about the word “design”. To me, design is technical term in that it means you, the designer, are asking your clients for a decision – yes/no and/or pay me money.  What it does not mean is what you think about the purple sofa.  A true designer stands in the light of her convictions and will go a long, long way before giving up the vision.  Yes, you have to be willing to fight for the purple sofa if you believe it is the right thing for the space.  Calling yourself a designer does not make it so.  Pedigree and exposure might provide access, grit, integrity and clarity is what will keep you there.

So what does it mean for your creative business?  Our post-COVID world will not let you hide anymore. You have to live to the truth of why you do what you do and when.  You have to deliver value and get paid specifically for the value and then you have to earn the right to move on to the next value point.  Rinse and repeat until the project is complete.

Which brings us to Crazy Eddie.  Tax evasion and cooking the books aside, Eddie Antar built a very big business at the dawn of the consumer electronics age in the 70s and into the 80s.  Anyone of my generation from the East Coast remembers the actor, Jerry Carroll, screaming that consumers should come to Crazy Eddie’s because his prices are INSANE.  How did it work?  Just like a car dealership.  If Crazy Eddie’s wanted to sell a VCR for an average of $125 to make a profit, it would price the VCR at $175.  Some customers would just walk in and pay the $175.  Others would negotiate and pay, say $150.  Some would go crazy and even get the VCR for $100.

Remember, this was pre-Internet and there really was no expedient way to figure out what a VCR should sell for.  Really the only way was to go to a bunch of stores to find out.  Most people just did not want to do that and trusted, wrongly, that Crazy Eddie’s prices were fair.  And it worked, sort of. But then came the price guarantee from Circuit City that meant if you found the product cheaper, they would match the difference.  Circuit City was effectively CarMax (which was started by Circuit City) offering better information on real pricing.

What does this have to do with creative business?  If you earn a percentage and ultimately are in the throw it at the wall game as so many are, you start at say $100 but design to $400 hoping all along to wind up at $200.  Any dollar above $200, you win.  Sometimes you might have to go down to $150 but, on average, you “value-engineer” to a number above $200.   Then came the Internet but really COVID.  Grandma learned Zoom and how to shop online.  Better information blows the car dealership shuffle to bits for just about every designer in every creative business out there.  You are left with only conviction and faith in you do what you do with a pre-agreed amount of clay.

However, it is hard to flip the switch when you have built your business on buzzwords that have no there there.  Storytelling only matters if you can hold tension and risk losing your audience.  Emotion means there is only feeling not “rational” understanding. Beautiful is not pretty but a manifestation of emotional resonance.  Truly, it is beautiful when it is done.  Tasteful matters to those who appreciate your wisdom, talent and experience.  Same with luxury and elegant.

It is beyond time that you do the work of idiosyncrasy; to care about what you do simply because you do, without apology.  Make your entire business about getting paid for the idiosyncrasy as what matters can only matter because you say it does.  That makes it your truth and it is beyond time for you to own it with a conviction that matches why it was you thought it possible to start your business in the first place.

The absurdity of what resonates with our culture is never lost on me.  I wanted to have a little bit of fun today to illustrate the point that the difference between legacy and a whimsical moment is often nothing more than a conviction to the absurd.

In 1975, Gary Dahl, an advertising copywriter, was at a bar and thought it would be hilarious if he could market a pet rock and ship the rock in a box with care instructions.  They would not have all of the fuss of live pets and the same enjoyment.  Oh, please, the legacy of inanimate objects of pets lives on even today with Chia Pet (over 15 million are still sold annually), even Potato Parcels (over $1mm in sales).  Gary went on to sell approximately 1.4 million rocks in a few months and earned a profit of over $1million.  Still though, most of these marketing ideas are fads and footnotes in capitalism.

On the other end of the spectrum are Beanie Babies.  Ty Warner was an unsuccessful actor, but consummate salesman and knew the world of plush toys well, having worked for Dakin until 1980. In 1986, he mortgaged his house, used his inheritance to launch Ty, Inc.   He started selling plush toys of his own.  In 1993, he introduced Beanie Babies and methodically reduced supply to maintain demand.  As of 2020, Ty is number 359 on the Forbes Richest Americans list with an estimated net worth of $2.3 billion.  Plush toys.

Today, the pressure to perform under extraordinary circumstances as an artist and creative business is at a fever pitch.  The “seriousness” of it all lets you believe that what you are doing is any more important than a pet rock or beanie baby.  It is not and yet it wholly is.  We all have heard stories of how people used to camp out waiting for the release of the next beanie baby in the collection.  Just like people are willing to pay for NFTs today.  No, the reason your work matters is because you believe it does and are willing to live wholly in that truth.

The difference between Gary and Ty is the vision to carry it through and allow the tide to carry you forward.  I have no comment on the character of Gary or Ty only that they each had a thought and Ty kept going and going with it.  The real question for you is your own conviction, the desire to find gravitas within first and foremost.

Nobody needs what you do no matter how much they scream and yell.  Want and desire is a powerful tool from which you can remain the center of an ever growing storm.  The entire point is to own the illusion and the reality all at once.  The power of faith is the willingness to overcome the moment to get to tomorrow.  This is your responsibility as an artist and creative business.  Truly, it is your choice whether to be Gary or Ty.  No shame in going either way, just own the legacy you create for yourself and let it be.  Your voice matters because you say it does.

If Gary Dahl and Ty Warner can teach you anything, let yourself bathe in the idea that there are no limits to your conviction, only those you set for yourself.

Way back when in pre-COVID days, it used to be that you could get away with just about any business model.  Charge by the hour, get a percentage, take a flat fee, it really did not matter as you would likely get what you needed at the end of the day.  Yes, there was A LOT of slack in the system.  At the end of the day, the power of art could cover for a host of business sins.  Sure, this disconnect with business structure and strategy to the intended business process was getting eroded by all things technology pre-COVID.  It was just that it was more of a glacial erosion than, say, ice melting in a glass.

Thank you COVID.

As I have said ad nauseam since COVID, we have had a perfect storm of massive emotionality, hugely increased demand for transformative creative business, and a surge of awareness by all involved as to the inner workings of a creative business. I love it because nothing exposes pretenders and those who do not fully embrace what value they provide and when than raised expectations.

So here we are talking once more about knowing what you need, no more no less, to do the work you want to do and how much you would like to work to get it.  Otherwise, you will be based on maximizing revenue from each project.  Pricing from the bottom up is a recipe for greed and it is a fools errand.  I am not talking about other sources of revenue here.  I am talking about certainty of value delivery.  That certainty is your responsibility and COVID has forced you to own it.  Thank goodness.

More afoot here is understanding philosophy and purposefulness about what your creative business is all about.  Do you get paid once the work is done?  For product driven businesses, and, more broadly, all capital asset businesses, I get it.  Pay for you food once you have it prepared for you, not before.  Even more, pay for the service based on the volume of service provided.  Want five hours, pay for five hours, and so on.

Most creative businesses are set up that way today.  Payment after or just before delivery of the final product.  Umm, never made sense and makes even less sense today.

If you are paid after the fact, you are constantly chasing money by using yesterday’s work for pay for current expenses.  Or, if you are on a percentage, looking to maximize the sale (long in the future by the way) to pay for all that has come into the project.

It is axiomatic that you would rather have $10,000/month than $120,000 up front since most of us suck and managing cash flow.  Certainty.

If you know what you need and when, then you are able to communicate that value directly to all involved.  You will be able to control time because decisions will occur when you need them to happen, not when a client wants to make them. And energetically you will be agnostic to price, of course, but also to the vagaries of a project.  Meaning, you will be getting what you need every time you need it — you will not be worrying about whether the client is going to give you their production budget in order for you to make payroll; or if they are going to accept your hours this month given how far and how much you have already billed.

So why does it all go kablooey?  Because you do not know what you need and how much you want to work and pricing becomes an exercise in greed — how much can I get from this project vs. what do I need to do my best work for this project.

Which leads me to the final point of this post.  If you are getting what you need to do the work, you then have to focus on the second promise you make as a creative business: will you stake your ENTIRE reputation on this project.  Is it big enough to matter?  Do you have enough money to do what you do?  If you cannot answer that question with a straight face either to yourself or your team, you have to walk away.  Both promises have to be true — do only your best work (not your best work under the circumstances) and stake your entire reputation on every project you undertake.

I love Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree.  You, your art and your creative business might be simultaneously the boy or the tree.  You might find solace in the unconditional sacrifice but the abundance of your apples will be lost forever.  Oh and the desire to ask everything of the tree is myopic.  The reason you price as you do has nothing to do with the project at hand.  You price as you do so that you have permission and enthusiasm to embrace the next one.

On April 14,1975, Karen Ann Quinlan went out as someone in their early twenties did and does.  She went too far though and passed out at the bar after drinking too much and taking too many tranquilizers.  Her brain stopped functioning after she stopped breathing for at least two fifteen minute periods.  All of the doctors confirmed she did not have any brain activity and that the breathing machine and feeding tube were the only things keeping her alive.

When the hospital would not remove the breathing tube as the family wished, the family sued the hospital.  The family finally prevailed in a landmark legal case that went all the way to the New Jersey Supreme Court.  Her breathing tube was removed but, miraculously, she continued to breathe on her own.  In 1981, New Jersey broadened the right to refuse medical intervention to include the removal of feeding tubes.  The Quinlan family decided not to do that to Karen and she lived on her own breath until June 11, 1985.

After the Quinlan case, many states and courts proscribed ways in which an individual can ensure that their wishes are maintained if they are not then able to let those wishes be known.  The dawn of the Do Not Resuscitate and Health Care Proxy Statements many people now have for, heaven forbid, situations where your wishes need to be known but you are not able to express those wishes.  If you do not make your wishes known, your next of kin does have a significant (and in some states absolute) right to determine your fate.

What does this have to do with your creative business?  In as much as your potential client is interviewing you for their project, the opposite must also be true.  Unless you want your fate determined by someone other than you, it is your obligation to let your wishes be known.

This means you have to be specific and intentional about your words and your requirements.  Saying you need your client to have great taste and a healthy budget will just not cut it.  You need to let them know what your real expectations of them will be and why it matters.  Yes, you have to define success as you see it.  For instance, requiring singular choice could be your touchstone.  For some it might be ultimate trust — a quick meeting and then get out of the way.  For others, it might be tremendous hand-holding.  Truly, it is your vision that needs definition.

So the exercise is specific.  Choose three to five words that describe what you need from your clients.  No, not your ideal client and whatever that vision might be.  First, no client is ideal and we are all many things.  This is brass tacks work.  What you need to make sure that you, your art and your creative business have the best chance for success.  Something like, “our clients truly value making effective permanent decisions if they are given all they need to make those decisions.  We strive to discover the single best choice to be made and appreciate those that can say yes or no to that single choice.”  The word is “decisive”.  Rinse and repeat three to five times.

Now with your “this makes you our client” list in hand, publicize it however you choose — whether in writing, on a video or other graphic medium.  The entire point is that this is not anecdotal or up for debate.  Like a DNR or Health Care Proxy, it is as specific as it gets and known to everyone.

Karen Ann Quinlan and her long and storied legacy should teach all of us that we can and should determine the course of our fate, whether we can speak for ourselves or not.  Post-COVID, the intensity of the creative relationship has been redefined.  It is up to all of us to make sure that those who truly care about you, your art and your creative business know why they care and can meet the expectations you have given.

The power of story is to hold and resolve tension as you and only you can imagine.  Not only do you have to own the power of your role as storyteller both for your art and your business, you have to make sure that the client across from you is deeply invested in the story and willing to be an active participant with you. 

Leave platitudes to amateurs and those who mistake the creative process as just another service.  The process is a journey and you are the guide.  Leading cannot be stolen or forced.  It has to be earned and honored with integrity and singularity of purpose. There has to be an investment on both sides and you are the one who has to define the investments to be made and when.  Pretty never was the goal and most certainly is not today.  Transformative and remarkable work is all that matters for today and ever more.  Five words to shape it all.  What are yours?

What is the value of an idea?  Simultaneously infinite and worthless.  No single idea has value.  The value of the idea is its influence on the next idea. The series of ideas creates action, action creates movement to manifestation, manifestation transforms during its process and finally in its result.

In our TikTok, Instaeverything world we live in today, we confuse the process of idea building with the notion that the grand idea is the goal.  Silver bullets never were but they persist in our culture because it is wonderful to live in that hope.  The issue is not the beauty of what change can bring but the sacrifice necessary to make it happen.

How many times have you heard (or, come on, said) my role is to make your life stress free?  How often have you compromised yourself, your art and your creative business in the guise of making the client happy?  The client is always right after all.

Except, for creative business, the client is always wrong.  Well, maybe not always.  A broken clock is right twice a day.  The entire point is that if they could see the world as you do, you would not exist. You know more about them in this context than they could ever hope to know themselves.  So your advice, even if it was not what they were thinking (because how could they?), is actually a better version of themselves.  Period.

Now seeing someone (or a select group) as they are will make those people all at once happy (who does not deeply desire to be seen?) and terrified (being seen beyond the surface is the stuff of intimacy and why mental health professionals will always be in demand).  The value of an idea is to give you permission to use that idea to bury deeper with the next idea.  The next idea and the one after that is what gives dimension to the project, vision to those who have not yet seen.  It means you have to hold the center as an artist and creative business owner.

Fear of the unknown is a powerful demon. When you see indecision, the unwillingness to meet a budget, the desire to get ever closer to the Monet painting, it is fear.  If you have done your work well you will be the one that has either created the fear or at least brought it to the surface.  Your willingness to find resolution is everything today. 

To those of you who wish to compromise, placate, ignore or otherwise, good luck.  You are about to get run over.  The overhang of emotionality from all things COVID to the stark reality that issues caused by the pandemic are far from over.  Everything from PTSD, to current disastrous situations, to disruptions in supply chains continue to wreak havoc on all of us.  And it will not end any time soon.  Emotionality begets desire which exacerbates anything you and your creative business are tasked with.  The sofa never was just a sofa but man o man is it not today.  It is all about what the sofa represents about your client, why it matters for them to own it and your willingness and sacrifice to both imagine it and bring it to life.

It is a fools errand to ignore the value of an idea and its impact on the next idea.  Truly, there are no shortcuts.  For every YouTuber/TikTokker/Instadarling out there that seemingly struck it rich with their branding, there is equally an artist out there seeking to reach those that care the most.  While it need not be a dichotomy, we have made it so in our culture.  Social media needs to be the start of a conversation, not THE conversation if you really do want to make change happen.

My high school daughter is taking constitutional law this semester.  I love constitutional law and all of the twists and turns the Supreme Court has and will take in its interpretation of our constitution.  I have given her an underpinning of the first two cases she has read.  Think less cliff notes, more highlights without judgment.  Something to give her a wedge in to what she is reading.  From there she can dig in to the opinions with a sense of direction and discover the nuance for herself. She might very well end up with a different viewpoint than I have with the help of her very very skilled teacher.  And that is the entire point of me giving her a wedge in.

The purpose of your idea is to earn permission to reveal the next one.  If you feel like you have done what is necessary to earn that permission, let that be more than enough. Fear may paralyze your client and then you can be grateful in the acknowledgment that they might just not be ready for you to see them as plainly as you do.  Oh, and everyone wants to believe they are ready even if they are not. When you know the wall is immutable, let it be.  Move on.  The value of the idea is for those who wish to see what is next.

There are three fundamental points here.  If you are not invested in the value of an idea and earning the permission to show the next one, the time to start doing that work is yesterday.  Next, if your clients do not appreciate the value of your idea despite your investment, that is on both of you.  Again, do your work on how to be a better communicator of the idea(s) you hold so dear. Last, if you have done the work, feel confident in your communication, but meet the immutable wall of fear and/or indifference, then allow yourself (and build into your agreements) the permission to be done.  You can never compromise those that deeply care about you, your art and your creative business with those that really do not.

Everything in life is uncertain and a choice.  Regardless of what your position is on the COVID  vaccine (though I sincerely hope it is pro), the dichotomy of how those who are unwilling to take the vaccine versus marketing of dangerous products is amazing to me.  For those who say marketing and storytelling do not matter, you have to be living under a rock.

Well into the late twentieth century, tobacco manufacturers fought the idea that cigarettes could cause cancer, let alone be dangerous to your health.  The first warning label mandated by Congress in 1969 was “The Surgeon General has determined that smoking is dangerous to your health”.  Not that it might cause cancer or lead to death from other diseases.  I was not until 1984 (1984!) until the comprehensive warning was mandated depicting all that could happen from smoking cigarettes.  And yet, today, in 2021 there are still more than thirty million smokers in the United States, the vast majority of whom know (or can know) the effects based on the warnings on every pack.  Think about that — about one in five adults in the U.S. know that what they are doing will likely cause serious disease and/or death and they still do it.  Marketing.

On the other side, about one in five (maybe the same adults, dunno) are refusing to take a vaccine that virtually guarantees you will not die from COVID or even need to go to the hospital if you get it (as of today, 99.7% of current deaths from COVID in the United States are among unvaccinated people, and 97% of the people in the hospital for COVID are unvaccinated).  The reason — the vaccine might cause health concerns we do not yet know about.  Marketing.

Why does this matter to creative business?  Marketing.  We have a singular moment.  An opportunity to define culture against the forces that have come before.  Forces that persuaded all of us that business practices that simply do not work any more are still viable.  Think Telex more than even Fax.  Anyone in creative business talking about supply and demand needs to exit stage right.  Yes, some businesses are at scale but when tech companies seek to serves millions if not billions, we are not in the same conversation if what you seek is ten, twenty, even a hundred, never thousands let alone tens of thousands.

Simply this: do you really want to be known as product salespeople?  Driven by all things price? Or do you want to be the expert you really are.  The very reason we characterize professionals as professionals is their ability to impact our lives powerfully when we need them.  And yet you are more interested in raising your prices ten percent than upending perception of who you actually are — the most important person in the room, just like any other professional when they are asked to be there.

You can go to your fancy and non-sensical business events, consider yourself learned when taught by fools.  Complain about those who have judged you to be insolent and entitled.  Worry that you are too expensive or that the good times will end in an effort to be greedy today.  Simply, you can pretend the world has not yet shifted or that COVID was an illusion.  Marketing will grab you to keep all things as they are.  You are just not paying attention if you do not see that power is not easily bestowed or shared.  Those who have it wish to keep it and will do just about anything to make it so, including telling you that what you need is to double down on your Telex.

Or you can seek out other.  To learn what could be, to listen to those pushing the boundaries of just about everything.  To dig in with responsibility that now, with everything on the line, you dare to go another way because you must.

I wish, truly wish, that those destined to upend culture, to redefine all that matters to those patrons who seek out creative business to shape their lives would be winning the day, but I am frustrated.  Their voices are loud to be sure but they are not as loud as the carnival barkers that represent the marginalization that was yesterday.  Uggh. My hope then is this:

We should all chart our own course much deeper than simply a strategy to find uncharted territory. Be true to your soul as an artist, where there are no boundaries of possible only the imagination of what could be. What would your creative business look like then?  Who says you have to charge any way that someone tells you to.  Fifty years next year.  1972 is when HBO launched. The first premium cable channel.  Who would pay a monthly fee for premium content?  We all know how that turned out.  Today, your creative intelligence has deep and powerful meaning.  Just look at theexpert.comto know how much patrons will pay for your brain.  What will you do with that information?  Same old same old just a little more expensive. Please, oh please, do better.

The beauty of the world we live in today is there is an audience for everyone. Grandma learned Zoom and you can reach her if you dare.  If you own your voice as an artist, a creative business owner, those who care will find it. But only if you stand up to say who you are without apology.  not what you do — the world does not need another wedding planner, interior designer, architect, we need planners, designers and architects with an authentic voice that matters.  Do not disappoint us all by looking exactly like the next creative business in all ways except for your art. Be iconic as a business with the understanding that you actually do not have the choice not to be.

You can charge a little (or a lot) more, tweak things, put lipstick on the pig all the way into oblivion. The issue with doing that today though, post-COVID, is that you are perpetuating power to your own ultimate demise.  Like saying you know smoking will kill you but it is just worth it.  Maybe vaping is the answer.  Umm. Sure.

Or maybe, just maybe, you can look inside to the artist you actually are, the one who had the courage to start in the first place, and live that truth. Be fearless in the notion that, if you can imagine the possibility, it exists and will be valued as you need it to be. Live the fantasy we pay you to dream for us. In your world, let “creative” rule “business” in the context of creating your business. Be disciplined in the outrageous and confident in its value for your business above and beyond your art. Let this be your voice.

I am afraid, well terrified that if you do not use your voice and convince all of the artists around you to use theirs to redefine how we all are to be seen — paid for creative first, stuff second — those voices, your voice, will be muted for a very very long time to come.  Should that come to pass, we all will lose.  The very reason Steve Jobs was fired from Apple was because he refused to let Apple become the purveyor of a commodity.  When is the last time you went shopping for vintage K Car?  Not a world any of us wants to live in ever again.  The choice to whether that world ever comes to pass again is entirely yours. Today more than any other day. Marketing.

Thirty three years ago today, my brother, 10 months younger than I, died. He was 20, my very best friend, full of life and dreams, a free spirit to my intensely narrow, driven nature. He fell from a roof. Gone in an instant.

The end of his life shaped mine forever more. I became more driven, more intense. Angrier. What I did not become was softer, able to own the pain my heart feels every day without him. That would come later, after many years of driving ever further. The pain was weakness and only age has taught me the wisdom of its strength.

I share my transformative moment because we all have them. They are there to teach us, shape us, bring us to our own humanity. I am forever richer for having suffered the loss I have, knowing, without question, that I would do just about anything to make it not so. My brother’s death brought me to the path I likely never would have taken. No unicorns and rainbows on this path, only confidence that I am the man I was meant to be.

My gift is to see creativity and the possibility that exists with its expression as a business. The wisdom my brother gave me is that art and creative business lives beyond the rational. Intellectual grounding and foundation is a must, but it is only the runway to the sky.

At the end of the day, I come to this: humanity, connection, our willingness to allow others to see our tapestry – our pain, our joy, our hope and our fear – is what binds us. Your willingness to bring this aspect of yourself to your creative business is a choice. 

I will not stand here and say, if you do not, you will not be successful. All I can say is that it is the place we all search for – to be seen, experienced and held as who we are. Most of your clients want that from you, your art and your creative business. After all, in so many instances, they are trusting you with some of the most precious times in their lives.  Today, more than ever.

Your art and your creative business exist to transform, to compel hope and vision, satisfaction and confidence, value, then your vulnerability, your tapestry might just be the best place to start.

Trust.

Trust is the one thing that is ephemeral, illusive and incredibly necessary to do great work.  If you are to engage in vulnerability, intimacy, it has to have purpose.  The purpose is to move your art forward, else the revelation is only arrogance and debilitating to the transformation you seek.

You might have become uncomfortable at learning of my brother’s death, find it way beyond why you are here — to learn more about your creative business.  Simply, you cannot relate or appreciate how my narrative impacts you and the growth you seek.  Arrogance would dictate that I say, “well, I am not for you then.” Humility says I understand and I will not bring it to you again.  I exist to transform my clients and so do you.  If the intimacy I bring is ultimately self-indulgent, then it is on all of us (myself very much included) to stop, acknowledge that this journey is for their transformation first and to return to center.

The entirety of the message of this post is that we are all flawed and it is never about the falling down, it is about the getting back up.  If we can see how we drew attention away from a client’s story with our own, then we must bring it back to theirs.  Empathy and sympathy require humility first and foremost, else we find ourselves a narcissistic pedant.  Fifty cent words for being a jerk that has just no place today.

Vulnerability is required, today more than ever, as is intimacy.  Just never lose the thread that is those you seek to serve, never the other way around.

I lost the client to another creative business.  The publication turned me down.  I was too expensive, too cheap.  If I go too far, all I will get is no.  My job is just to execute my client’s vision.  It is not about me or my firm.

The Moon is wondrous and beautiful in its reflection of the Sun.  The grace and wisdom of the reflection is never lost on me and something I, as an individual, will always savor and aspire to.  However, and it is a big however, at a certain point, if you are to live the truth of your creative business, you must choose to be the Sun.

Every statement I made at the beginning of this post is an example of the Moon.  No matter how we all got started, we were reliant on someone or many someones to give us the opportunity to do what we do.  On the most positive and valuable side, we all have those patrons who see us and give us the acknowledgment and opportunity we all crave.  A thousand shoulders to take a single step.

There is the underbelly though.  Those that become threatened with your success or the limitations of their own understanding.  The client that simply will not ever give you the credit you have rightly earned.  Even more, the client or colleague that judges you as less than.  Late payments, last minute changes, an unwillingness to accept the significance of your work to their lives.  Perhaps they even call you a fraud in so many words without using the actual words.  The light of the Moon is derivative to the Sun.  The power to shine brightly or be shrouded in darkness belongs with the Sun.  There are moments a Moon might block the Sun but they are as rare in allegory as they are in reality.

Ultimately, you have to be the Sun.  The light has to come from you directly as you know what those in front of you do not.  Just because your client has multiple degrees, an enormous bank account, and incredible gifts of perception and foresight does not mean that you are not equally brilliant at your work, your vision, your craft.  The two are meant to coexist.  It is your narrative that belittles the endeavor, your inability to live fully in their orbit.  The Moon.  If only you would own the power of yours.

An example I have given many many times.  An interior designer is tasked with designing a room for $7.  She finds the most exquisite, perfect lighting fixture for $2.  She knows the fixture is the star of the room and she pairs a couch that is the exact complement.  The couch is $3.  The rest of the room she fills in for the remaining $2.  When she shows the room to her clients, she stresses the beauty of the lighting fixture and how it is quintessentially “them”.  They say that if it is so beautiful and perfect, why is the couch fifty percent more?  Then they argue about the price of the couch and if the lighting fixture is so wonderful, go find a couch for $1.  Oh, the Moon.

The narrative that drives the decision to show line item prices, to engage in a discussion about relative value, to ask the impossible — for someone blind to value to see it as you do when the rational understanding eliminates the irrational — is based on your perception that you have to inhabit your clients world to access yours.  Except it is your light, literally your ability to see what they cannot, that is on order. If you cannot own that you must be the Sun, you will forever be frustrated in your inability to “sell”, to manage client’s expectations, to work truly on your terms.

Clients who recognize your creative business, your art as the Sun will demand that you make them uncomfortable, seek to move to the edge every time.  They will understand that backing off of your obsession is the effort not the search for yes. 

The power of power is to effect change.  If overblown, it will destroy faster than if it is derived from the Moon.  Noone needs pedants.  What we need are those willing to stand in their own light now that the stage is theirs.   Change your narrative by acknowledging the strength of you talent, wisdom, and experience without relativism.  Let it be enough because it really is and will be the foundation for the new story yet untold. 

One caveat: it cannot be a struggle.  It is a decision and a choice you must make for yourself, your art and your creative business.  Binary. Both the Sun and Moon are wondrous and horrific all at once.  I am simply acknowledging that those who choose to be the Sun have the opportunity to chart a path singularly theirs without asking permission.  The path is based on those who can say that they do in fact know better and see the ability to share that knowledge with those who seek it as a gift.  Not an entitlement, a judgement, or a value statement.  Just a gift that nurtures and transforms all involved.  Make the choice to be the Sun when it is time.  We will all be better off when you do.