As we wrap up this decade, and marvel over all of that has happened (or not) to all of us, I thought it would be fun to offer twenty wishes for creative business professionals as they head into 2020 and beyond. They are in no particular order and are offered in the spirit of giving and warm wishes for all that is to come. See you in 2020.
1. Choose yourself — start a podcast, write a book, start a community. Your voice matters and knowing why you are the artist you are is everything.
2. Learn to learn — whether it is an improv class, on-line coding course, a conference outside of your field (i.e., storytelling, creative writing??), or even a dance class, challenging yourself to learn not just new things but how to learn new things will never cease to serve you. 2030 is just a decade away and it will look nothing like 2020.
3. Read The Goal – Iconic process will continue to become the sine qua non of creative business. If HOW you do business does not align with the art you want to create you will find yourself on the scrap heap of the marginal ever faster. And, yes, my 20 minute offer stands until March 1st.
4. Discover your outrageous promise and your outrageous demand – knowing the one thing that matters to you, the one thing that transcends time is a bedrock. Without the pillar of truth, you cannot ask for the radical effort you are going to need to deliver that truth every time you undertake a project. In a sea of pretty, authentic design is what really matters.
5. Take a walk every day – Hey, if Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet can all take the time each day to just think about what is to come next, so can you.
6. Become a better communicator – I am not talking about Toastmasters (though a great organization). Creative businesses are the ultimate translators — you listen with your ears (and maybe your eyes) and then have to express what you heard in a way that conveys your understanding most often in another sense – perhaps sight, touch, taste and smell. That is hard, really hard since likely the person you have to communicate back to is not nearly as versed in that sense as you are. Yet, the tools of presentation have never been better and are literally exploding before our eyes — 3D (rendering and printing), virtual reality, etc. If you become a better storyteller with your ideas, the more likely these ideas will see the light of day.
7. Understand that value is temporal – The shelf life of ideas and effort is ever shorter. Once you deliver on a promise, failure to get paid (either with a decision and/or dollars) will be ever more problematic. Easy — know your value, deliver your value and get paid for it. Every day.
8. Ignore the noise — All creative business is about relationship, whether for a week, a month, even years. The idea to scale or not, sell, sell, sell, go this way or that is a fools errand. Look at your feet, then look up. See where you want to go, now walk there. Radical authenticity does not mean a transformation, it means specificity and intolerance to platitudes. You do you without compromise. See where that takes you in the 20s.
9. For 2020, change one big thing each month — If you really built your creative business to serve those that care the most, then you will be able to dramatically improve one thing in your art and/or your creative business each month. Yes, the Apple Tree always needs pruning.
10. Let your business be creative – the story your business tells exists to support the story your art tells. Better said, what your business requires to be successful is meant to exist so that you can create and produce your best art every single time you are engaged to do so. If you are doing what is expected as a business, you are fitting a square peg in a round hole. Yeah, do not do that and have the courage to stop without apology.
11. Your work matters – If you do not believe you art exists to transform the lives of those it is created for, who will?
12. Everything you do can be done cheaper – just not by you or your creative business. See “your work matters” above.
13. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered – if you are in business to maximize today, you will never understand the value of tomorrow. Your community is built one person at a time. Long term, ongoing investment and return on that community is the proverbial tortoise to the hare of the immediate. And we all know how that story turns out…
14. Weeds spread, trees deepen their roots – choice is yours.
15. Have meetings like the Blue Angels – what is your mantra? It is never personal and the idea is to be better and what you are already amazing at. HT David Stark.
16. Surround yourself with those who will make you the very best you can be – yes, plug for The BBC Collective, but firmly of the belief that those who are or who have participated in The BBC Collective are markedly better as creative business owners. No matter what, join a group where there are no sacred cows and no-one has the right answer. You cannot make a diamond without extreme heat. Just saying.
17. Never say no, only yes on your terms — but do not waver from your terms. You know what it takes and those who care will value what you do to get the transformation they seek from your art and your creative business. You cannot lose what you never had and making space for the right opportunity is its own reward.
18. Take one less client – ignore those who celebrate their “full calendar”. Creative business is, by definition, a scarcity business. Letting go of the marginal opportunity is permission to be better.
19. Build it to sell it – your creative business might feel like your baby, but it is not. Understanding who might be interested in what you have created will focus you on what you actually care about. No worries if your creative business ends when you do, but contemplating legacy is a great way to honor your ego and then move past it all at once. What you do is bigger than you.
20. Love is not a cliche – deep, un-abiding love for the people you work with and for, together in a singular mission to make a difference in each other’s lives requires humanity and the desire to connect beyond the transaction, the thing. Art is the glue to our culture and you, the artists and creative business owners all, its shepards. The axiom transcends time and is the gift afforded all of you. Do the work of responsibility and we will all benefit and be in your profound debt.
Happiest of holidays and bring on the 20s.
