My eight-year-old daughter was struggling with her homework. She was frustrated and said, “I cannot figure it out. I just do not know. I feel so dumb.” To which I said, “The smartest people in the room are always the ones that say I do not know.” Did not help her frustration or give her the answer but made her stop to ask me why.
What we know is always a function of time. One plus one may always be two, however, sometimes two is not better than one. Curiosity, humility, persistence, hunger are all drivers behind “I do not know”. The point of the search is the search, not the ultimate answer. The answer should always beg another question.
As much as I love all that the Internet and the digital age has done for us, its shadow lies in those out there that portend that they have the answer, that they know. You need only Google seminars for your industry in creative business, business coaches, life coaches, etc. to see the proliferation. I can see the allure. If there were an answer, a formula, an actual right and wrong, then the fear that you are flying blind might somehow be assuaged. Fear being the key word. Instead of helping you move in and through your fears as a creative business owner, these so-called experts tempt you with the idea that you can just run from them. They know and so can you. For $x dollars, they will let you in on their secret. Like anything else, it might even work – for a while. Hey, a broken clock is right twice a day. Eventually though, the external power runs dry and you are left with your own reflection – the I do not know.
If you have a loaded gun to your head, you should be scared. Authentic fear. If you feel like you are lost in your creative business, terrified that you will go broke, frustrated that the business you want is just beyond your fingertips, please do not call that fear. It is the uncertainty we must all live in, the call to search for the clearest, most transparent version of what you, your art and your creative business stand for. You have to move towards that uncertainty, not away from it. When you call it fear and give in to the power of another, you are really just hiding.
What if it does not work when you lay it all out there? Isn’t it better to keep things going than, hide a little bit, than to have no one respond to my transparency? The experts who have the answer might say yes. Business is business they might say. You have mouths to feed, a future ahead of you where none exists if there is no response to the truest, most transparent you. And if you use my process, my formula, my answer, my system you will not starve. To which I would say, the universe is neither kind nor cruel. It just is. If you are not able to make a living doing your best work, for your best clients, the way only you know how to do, might I suggest you need to move on. The value of being in “I do not know” is that when you find the answer to the question (i.e., you do not have a business), you can ask another question (i.e., what is next). Compromise for the sake of maintaining an illusion is just a fancy way of deluding yourself that the future you seek is possible, while what is meant for you remains hidden.
On the other hand, when you do not compromise, when you recognize uncertainty is not fear, and when you find response to your truest, most transparent self, you can get down to the perpetual process of stripping away any noise that will inevitably creep in. From there, the future will unfold, undoubtedly boundlessly larger than you would envision.
That is the light of the digital age. There are amazing resources out there if you stand ready to move into what “I do not know” means to you, your art and your creative business. They have lots of wisdom and answers, just not yours. You are the only one that can provide those. Here are some of my favorites: Jonathan Fields, Danielle LaPorte, Simon Bailey, and, of course, Seth Godin.
