Intentional Change

We are all faced with a new world order.  Post-Pandemic.  What does that exactly mean?  Whatever it might mean for you as a person and your realm of reality is profound in its own right.  Your creative business though?  You are confronted with so much.  For some, it is boundless opportunity.  For others, it is figuring out how to start again.  For all, it is about what to do to set your business and art on the desired path.  The answer could be do nothing, stay true to who you are and what you do and just dig deeper roots.  Craigslist.

Doing nothing does not mean you are staying stuck, it just means that you are staying still.  You are figuring out what will move your clients ever further into your purpose and mission for them.  However, you are not setting the stage for evolution as much as you are living within yourself, your art and your creative business.  Own it, be proud of it and ignore those who would shame you for doing anything other.  If you are nurtured by your creative business in every way — financially, physically, even spiritually — let it be enough. Because it is.

For the rest, those who wish to move towards opportunity, change awaits.  It is going to suck.  I love all things Seth Godin, but none more than The Dip.  Fourteen years old and never been more relevant.  The hard work of change is to consciously reset the foundation to dramatically expand the value of your culture.

Five words.  What are they and how can you live them?  How can everyone around you live them, do everything in their power to bring meaning to the work in the image of these five words?

The reason change is hard is because the foundation is the effort not the ultimate result.  Whether your business grows revenue or finds new areas is useless if it comes at the expense of culture.  I cannot tell you how many clients find themselves with double, triple even ten times the revenue they have ever had only to discover a misery they never knew possible.  Culture.

Dive in knowing the abyss awaits. Who knows what the future will bring once a new foundation is set.  The entire point is that no one does and yet you persist.  The only thing you can control is to endure the pain of change.  And do not call me Debbie Downer.  Change is brutal.  Always.  It is just that the benefit of the change or, more precisely, the hope of the benefit is why you leap in the first place.

Two caveats beyond The Dip.  The first is that if you leap, you will have to swim, no turning back. Commit to seeing yourself, your art and your creative business through the change else the pain of turning back will make leaping look like a pin prick.  Once you are on the other side, you can always choose to swim back.  Ahem, that would be another leap. Do not kid yourself.

Last, and most important, if you intentionally embrace the change — seek to redefine and expand your culture around your five words — then there has to be an end. The end is the time when you say, “here, I am done, your turn now”.  Whether that turn is for your employees, colleagues or production partners, it makes no difference.  You are done and have to let it go. Prometheus you are not. Intention and purpose are the point of the change and you are to resonate in the freedom and opportunity of redefined culture.

We are here now.  Never convince yourself that change is your burden.  It is and will always be your choice.  Choose wisely.  Integrity may follow conviction, but without purpose it will likely just be folly and even delusion.  With purpose and awareness, however, you will find hope.  Live there.