Energy

I am a firm believer in energy.  What you put out to the world consciously or unconsciously is what will be returned to you.  I do not believe in direct linkage — nobody courts getting cancer or having anything horrific happen to them.  I think it is subtler than that — energy focused with specific intention manifests itself beyond what we think to be possible. If you shift and focus your energy, what comes back will also shift.

Even though, in my belly, I know energy to be a two way street, I am always amazed not just when I see it happen but how quickly it can happen.  In business, it is having the courage to change course to focus on what the marketplace most values.  For Zappos, it is delivering happiness.  Before they focused on customer service and delivering happiness, Zappos was just another on-line retailer.  For Apple, it is delighting customers with its functionality.  Remember, Steve Jobs got fired from Apple before he returned with his current vision.  Even Groupon, the fastest growing company EVER, started as a subset of its originally intended purpose of creating platforms for causes.  Once the focus shifted to social buying, in less than two years Groupon is on its way to $1billion in sales faster than any company in history.  Faster than even Facebook or Google.

For creative businesses, letting go of the energy that is impeding real value or blocking it altogether can have dramatic results.  I have a client who has firmly embraced her role as an event designer despite being in the planning and design business for over seven years.  She was willing to change her business model (yes, create a design fee and complete transparency to the cost of production) to reflect that role.  The upshot: I found out yesterday that she has been able to pay back over $50,000 in debt since April.  Even more importantly, a colleague in the event industry that is very jaded when it comes to websites and blogs sent me to her site as an example of one of the most well done sites he has seen.  Punch line: he did not know she was my client.  I am tickled for her.

And energy builds on itself.  Just look at the response Rebecca Grinnals has received for Engage!2011 after announcing it yesterday.  To her credit, Rebecca has always believed in the strength of what she offered at the Engage! conferences for the wedding industry and has never waivered from her model.  Like everything else, her success is hard fought and justly deserved.  Energy aligned with intention.

Change is brutal and will challenge the very essence of your being and that of your creative business.  Even though you (read: we) might think that there is no guarantee anything will come back to you, there is.  No doubt, it will not come as quickly as you would like or be the answer you would want, but your shift will shift all that comes to you.  I wish I could say that I expect to see the shift that comes back happen. I don’t.  I can say though that I am always surprised and delighted when it does, ironically, even if the result is not always positive.  It gives me faith to keep going and to be even more determined not to just embrace the possibility, but to expect it.