Here we are at the crossroads. The intersection of science, humanity, civilization, politics, and, of course, self-determination. Do we reopen now? How exactly do we do it in a way that does minimize the threat, but more importantly allows us to understand the value of our interaction? How do we overcome the damage (physical, psychological, financial, spiritual) that the Coronavirus pandemic has caused?
Make no mistake CV-19 has indelibly changed our culture. Maybe your young children will run up to each other and give hugs to their friends, but your high schooler? College student? You? We have now been taught that human interaction can be lethal to us and everyone we know and love. Unlearning this lesson will not come easily or quickly, no matter how much we want to get back to “normal”. So let’s stop focusing on the time when this threat (or one just like it) is gone. Instead, let’s talk about acceptable risk and emotional value.
Unless the emotional return outweighs the emotional risk, no-one with a shred of empathy will want to engage in the activity no matter what the government says. We have to feel safe enough to be compelled to find ourselves where we will be — in the theater, at a wedding, an office, a sporting event, a bar. No amount of statistics or safe practices will convince anyone who wishes to live in fear. Instead, we have to remind each other of the purpose of why we choose society, relationship, friendship, connection.
What does that mean for you, your art and your creative business? You must come to learn that the person across from you must see your interaction as a profound investment in themselves and the life they most want to live if you have any hope to move forward. Seth Godin’s “people like us do things like this” has never ever been more prescient. Your process will be that which builds trust and moves power and faith from you to you.
I have said it many many times, trust is as real as the air you breathe. Every single moment of your work is in relationship to the creation and management of trust. If you move, even for a second, into the notion that you are selling a product or ignoring trust to get to the end (“trust me, you are going to love it”), you will find the cost of transacting with you insurmountable. Trust is the proverbial grease to the friction that is permanently (well, at least until all of us are vaccinated) part of your relationship.
Not only do you have to own that you are the best in the world at what you do today, you, your art and your creative business have to be a risk worth taking. If you are incapable of real empathy, sympathy, connection, to listen and be heard, you are going to be ignored. These are the true building blocks of your 3W’s (i.e., where were you, where are you, where are you going). Empathy, sympathy, connection and the ability to deeply listen and be heard are also skills. Yes, some might be naturally better than others, so what. It will take work, real, persistent, daily (hourly?) work to hone these skills. Every time you slip into selling the “thing” you are absolutely doing it wrong. Fear is a virus and if your process allows it to slip in, you will find yourself not just in a difficult situation, you will find yourself excised, shunned even. Hyperbolic? Maybe, but do you really want to find out if I am right?
Of course, this is intense and unbelievably scary. Just a few months ago, you could sell pretty and get away with it (to my huge dismay). Yeah, those days are toast. So why not come at it with a sense of love, light and kindness. Grab a colleague and a friend. Have a Netflix party and watch a few episodes of Middleditch And Schwartz (hilarious), make up your own setting (about your business or not) and then do it yourselves. They go on for twenty-five minutes, how about you try for fifteen?
You can listen to all of the pundits, experts, consultants, etc. (myself very much included) as to what you should be doing and nothing will change you more than the above exercise. That does not mean the advice you will receive is not valuable, it is, it is just that when you truly come from a place of “yes, and…” you will be simultaneously contained and free. From there, evolution is possible. The responsibility of relationship is yours. Pretty is gone (thank goodness), earning trust every day with intention and purpose is the gravitas you will need to go forward.
The result will be the following: instead of shoving your clients over the threshold with promises of portfolio and price, you will be inviting them in with open arms and an open heart. You will be given the power to great work and you will never have to take it and in that transfer you will be nourished simply because your clients have chosen to invest in themselves through you, your art and your creative business. Ignore the reality of transaction costs of physical interaction at your own peril.
