The price of success is conviction. You have to leap. You have to crash. You have to get back up. You have to stand in your own shadow. You have to leap again. And again. And again.
If failure terrifies you, owning a creative business is not for you.
You, your art and your creative business will be exposed. Daily. Clients will say things to you and your employees you would not wish on your worst enemy. They will try to break your spirit, the essence of your integrity in all that you seek to create. They will tell you how your job is fun. Employees will believe they are you without their name on the door. You will be bullied, humiliated, debased, misunderstood, ignored and vilified. You will feel like everyone is against your success and the world is a zero sum game (I win, you lose and vice-versa). We are all colleagues until there is blood in the water. Then we are all sharks.
Except you are in the business of creating joy. Art drives your business, not the other way around. Art changes the world and you are the person, the business to make that happen. We live in a time where hate has a growing voice. Art reveals hate’s ugliness and ultimate self-limitation. Art matters. Your work as an artist and creative business owner demands gravitas. You might have fun creating joy but there is nothing “fun” about it. Conviction.
You cannot see through to the other side. Nobody can. The only thing that you can do is to walk the path you choose with intention and integrity. Confidence comes in actually walking the path, not knowing where it will take you.
Other endeavors can be buttoned up, protected, contracted for. Creative business demands that you be exposed. You are tasked with, ahem, creating what heretofore has never existed. To create, you have to invest in the relationship. It is personal. Inherent in the relationship is the idea that you see what others around you cannot. You must be the guide and walk with a firm hand regardless of circumstance. Conviction.
You, your art and your creative business do not exist to be someone’s friend or colleague. Your art and creative business has to have a purpose greater than the thing. It will never ever be about the couch and always about what the couch evokes.
Conviction has to be hard. You have to be challenged. If you, your art and your creative business were not, you would never discover the courage you never knew you had. Courage is the knowledge that you actually know better and the willingness to act in that knowledge.
So please do not wing it. The path, your path for your art and your creative business, is only there if you define it with resolve, not just because that is the way it is. Work tirelessly to understand the purpose of each step of your creative business, resolute in the step’s necessity and place. Everything must exist for a reason. To those who wish to shake you from your center, you have to be able to appreciate the value of your own faith in the path you have created and your unending desire to walk it. Gravitas, conviction and faith all require hard, painful, testing choices. Success is the willingness to walk towards these choices and not run away. Running is its own demise.
It is your art, your vision, your gift. Live there.
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Thank you. Conviction is hard, and misunderstood by many.
Yes!
A successful creative business is not built in a day, not in a season, or in a year. It’s built over years of falling, scrambling, hurdling, and wading through uncertainty and getting back up. That’s paired with great accomplishments, proud moments, and learning lessons. Stay on your path and do you. We live by the motto of a Seahawks player who always says “stay in your lane.” These four words remind us to stick to our guns and our craft, stay on our path, and keep doing what we’re meant to be doing!
Great piece, Sean!