We are all a little bit crazy. We have our tics and quirks that make us, well, us. You can probe the depths of your crazy in a therapist’s chair. Doing work on yourself is always fruitful. But there you are.
For creative business owners, it means that what you should do and what you need to do are often two different things.
Many, many times a creative business can make more (often, much more) by doing a whole lot less. Simplest example: if you do 100 projects today at an average price of $2,000, you make $200,000. If you do 50 projects at an average of $4,100, you make $205,000. More money for half the work. Except money might be lumpier – you might make more but it will not feel like it since less projects means less absolute payments. And let’s face it, managing cash sucks. Not all of us have a great controller that will tell us when we cannot spend the money in the account. Oh, and you are bored doing just 50 events. You need to flex that creative design muscle and 50 projects just does not cut it.
It is actually a bigger conundrum than you might think. To lose the 50 projects means you have to build a creative business that only talks to the 50 projects that matter (i.e., the ones paying you more than $4,000). That is a different language and it takes an incredible amount of focus and effort to stay true to the message. If you can get 100 of the “right” clients, fantastic. Likely is, though, you will not and certainly not immediately.
So there is a vacuum between the “should” and “need” for you, your art and your creative business. Ignoring either guarantees its power relative to the other one. Do only what you “should” and the desire to have more projects or the illusion of more money will grow larger every day. Ignore the “should” and you will go broke in every sense of the word.
Live the “should” but honor the “need”. Do the things you need to do to give yourself the freedom to fully embrace the “should”. Go do 15 projects that do not fit, will not make you any money, but will not kill you either. Indulge the crazy because it is not going anywhere anytime soon. Just do not delude yourself that it is the path. It is not and will never be. “Should” will always be the right answer and “need” will be there to embrace the should until you can allow yourself to let it go. You might never be able to let it go for whatever reason and that is okay. Call it the price of doing your creative business.
Conscious containment and acceptance is what matters here. Defend the existence of the need to no one but keep it where it belongs. Never make it relevant to the actual business, only what you need to move the business forward.
Appreciate that giving your need its due runs counter to every piece of rational business advice you will receive. Making more doing less IS the right answer. Who cares. If allowing your need to exist will keep you sane enough to allow for real growth in every sense of the word; if it eases your fear about the should, so be it. Use it. Whatever gives you the strength to live your, your art and your creative business’ deepest truth, I am all for.
Yes, please work to embrace the new reality you seek, the new language you speak, the story that fits best. Truly, there is joy in the reality that tells your, your art and your creative business’ best story. Honor the process to get there though. We all do things we have to to bring ourselves to the place that will shift us. Your creative business is no different.
