When I first started writing my blog more than ten years ago, I said that journaling is the best way I know to get to the essence of your creative business. If you really want to share your authentic truth with yourself first, the world second – journal. My thoughts are more resonant today than they were then as we have been compelled in these ten years to own the raw depth of who we are as artists and business people else suffer in the sea of sameness. Here are the links: First Postand Second Post.
You could ignore all of this and just focus on how you are doing things now. Try to ramp up your current efforts for what is coming (cue banging head against wall). Or you can choose to be uncomfortable and do the work of looking inside. I am confident you will find a disconnect between what you are selling the world and what you really believe. Then you can fix it. Speed up by slowing down.
Let’s be specific in the effort: four days of journaling, a day to review and find disconnects and then two days to use the journaling pages to change your statements to the world — i.e., your copy on all collateral. The ongoing effort will be to redefine how you are going to talk to clients (potential and actual) and structure your business to reflect your discoveries.
Journaling 2019 Edition– For the next four days, before you go to sleep, think of a question you have about your creative business. It really does not matter what it is, just as long as it is on your mind. Could be should I raise my prices? Hire/fire an employee? Get a new website? Anything related to your business. Write that question down at the top of the page. Go to sleep. When you wake up, before you get out of bed (even if you have to use the bathroom), write for ten minutes in response to the question. You will find your mind wandering away from the question or maybe you will not even answer it at all. Does not matter. Keep writing. You must write for ten minutes straight. You cannot stop for any reason, especially to pause to think. Pen or keyboard never stops moving. You may not read it back when you are writing it or when you are done for the day. Write for ten minutes and then put it away. Nobody sees it until you finish your four days. Only on the fifth day are you allowed to read them all back and to begin to search for the disconnects between what you wrote and what you are currently putting out there.
An example: say you are a florist and you keep coming back to the idea that you need to have direct contact with your clients and that you need to be involved in the design process from the start. And yet on your site is a wonderful portfolio and verbiage about how much you love what you do, just nothing on being in direct contact with your clients and stressing the importance of being involved from the start of the planning/design process. Your pages told you how important it is to you. Are you going to listen and now tell the world? How will you shift your business to make it clear that this is going to happen? Will you get paid for being involved early? Why will it be “worth it” to the client/planner to have you there?
Here is the thing: your truth is your truth and to paraphrase Shakira, your subconscious don’t lie. If you give yourself permission to go there, then you will find yourself as both an artist and businessperson. The disconnect(s) you will find are your wake up call. If you have not already, you will find quickly that hiding from yourself (by making your business a chameleon) when you know you are, in fact, hiding is unsustainable and literally soul sucking. You have nothing if you cannot look at yourself, employees and colleagues and say this is you as both an artist and creative business, take it or leave it.
Today, more than ever, people do business with people. There is nothing more personal than creative business as it is the ultimate indulgence in ourselves. The depth of what matters is what we all crave (you, your clients, employees alike). It is too easy to be the regular kind and monstrous investments are being made to sell the regular kind, just different. No doubt, you will make a living there but you will never find joy. Joy comes from fulfilling the promise(s) you make to yourself for clients that get it, really get it. Dare to listen to yourself. Hey, if not you, then who?
For those willing to do the work, I have to walk the proverbial walk. If you would like to share your pages with me, I will let you know what I think versus what I can see from the outside (i.e., your site, social media, etc.). Remember, it is you versus you and I will just be the interpreter. What you do with the information will be up to you. I will do my best to point you to the road you most want to travel down. sean@thebusinessofbeingcreative.com. If not me, then make sure you share them with those you want most for you to be you (as both an artist and creative business), not their version of you. It does not get any more vulnerable and raw than your pages, so make sure you are safe and secure in the support of those you choose to share them with, else do not.
Happy journaling.
