The Long Road

Do you see your whole world in increments – days, weeks, months, even years?  Do you hold onto the idea that there is some sort of destination and if you do it right you will get there?  Do you think that if you do enough things, work enough hours, give the right advice, make the right investments, you will earn the reward you have set out to reap?

Today’s environment of immediate gratification, overnight gagillionaires, and the relentless demand on all of us to make things happen makes it very hard to not be in planning overdrive.  Yet, the lovely irony is that my richest experiences and greatest rewards have come from absolute surprises and when I just stop.  I had worked for Preston for almost a year with very little to show for it (other than plan upon plan upon plan) and then Marcy Blum insisted that Rebecca Grinnals come to meet me at one of Preston’s events.  Not only did I meet one of my great friends that night, but Preston’s Sandals deal was hatched — all in the span of twenty five minutes.  The deal lasted for almost five years and was a huge success for all involved.  The friendship thrives.

John Lennon was right: “Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.”  However, when I try to not plan, not think about how to get from point A to point B, I am equally consumed (not in a good way) by the chaos of the moment.  I need to know where I am going even if no one has ever been there before.  So, for me, if I did not make plans, it would be hard for me to embrace the life I have.

My resolution is to plan, have a direction and then let my feet, not my head, do the rest of the work.  Evolution is a painful, slow process taken in radical leaps of faith.  The expectation that results can be measured through financial success or failure creates a false sense of security for the road taken or not.   I would rather focus on whether I can feel joy at where I am and realize the reward from having that joy.  Money (especially the lack of it) can make you myopic to what exists around you.  I suffer terribly from the disease and wind up shaking my head when I think of all that I missed while I was thinking only of money.  Your creative business is bigger than the financial return you hope to create, especially if your thinking is short term (i.e., 2 years or less).

No, I am not recommending that you turn your creative business into an improv troupe or that you ignore the necessity to make money.  I am recommending that you see the choices you make in a context larger than what you originally intend.  And when your choices bring you to a place far from what you intended, you will embrace them as if they were expected all along.