What Will Motivate You To Change?

I had the very good fortune to attend Engage!16: The Breakers last week. I have been each Engage! (this was the 17^th) and it is remarkable to me what can come if community is allowed to flourish. None better in the luxury wedding world to create and grow this community than Rebecca Grinnals and Kathryn Arce.

As you would expect, great ideas flowed at Engage!. Everything from technological innovations to social media trends and platforms (hello Snapchat) to new business opportunities. And, of course, more than not, tried and true networking with those who would otherwise not ever have the opportunity to be together.

I consider myself a catalyst at any conference I attend, especially Engage! My goal is to create conversations with creative business owners and to challenge any preconceived notion of the way things are. Translation: I like to poke the box. I am a change agent, there to question everything and inspire a vision of what might be. It makes no difference to me how large or small a creative business is, how long the business has been around or what it has accomplished. Truly, if I am doing my work well, it is to unearth what roads might lie ahead.

Back to reality. Change sucks. It is hard, ugly and inertia is a cruel mistress. Leaping is not for the faint of heart and if there is a chance to stay still, most of us choose to stay there. Unless there is wanderlust, a yearning to discover what can be beyond the limitations you place on yourself, your art and your creative business, you will not move. Where the potential joy overwhelms today’s happiness is where change becomes inevitable.

And that was the overarching theme of this Engage!, true for all creative business owners and their art. Paraphrasing Cindy Novotny and Jes Gordon – vulnerability is courage, standing in your rawest self is where the soul of creative business lives. The story has to be stripped of Pinterest, derivative work and exposed as fundamentally unique to your client. Theirs and only their story, from your mind, your gift.

Of course, the question is what that looks like for your creative business. How will you shape your future? Will you reach out to someone like me or Dane Sanders who will challenge and your creative business to find the platform which your art most belongs.  To (firmly) push you past your own conventions. The first question is not where do you want to head, but rather, where can you no longer go? Will you have the courage to say no? You cannot change if you are unwilling to close a door.

Opportunity certainly abounds. Conferences are full of hope, endorphins and the collective spirit of what could be. Reentry is hard in the sense that what you currently say yes to is what greets you at the door. Good enough is always good enough until it is not. The question you have to ask is when you are willing to make the decision to move.

I would suggest to you that if you are unable to say, “I built this for you and only you” you are sitting on a time bomb whose fuse runs shorter every day. The first step in any change is to acknowledge the power of selection. You will not be for everybody. You can only be vulnerable, have courage, demand your own identity, play on the stage where you, your art and your creative business most belong to those that care. Change starts with your willingness to ignore the rest. Not only do they not matter, they are the very definition to stagnation. Your world, your choice, your community. Your gift. Box poked.