{"id":863,"date":"2011-11-01T16:02:39","date_gmt":"2011-11-01T20:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/?p=863"},"modified":"2011-11-01T20:02:10","modified_gmt":"2011-11-02T00:02:10","slug":"worst-of-the-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/worst-of-the-best\/","title":{"rendered":"The Worst Of The Best"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is not megalomania to say you are going to be the next so and so.\u00a0 Why not you?\u00a0 Presuming talent, desire, fortitude, courage and a heavy dose of good fortune, making your vision a reality is a distinct possibility.\u00a0 To which, I am amazed at how low the bar most creative business owners (and their businesses) set for themselves.\u00a0 Be it money, icons, volume or quality of work, the relative value between you and them makes no sense to me.\u00a0 Why would you want your business that does $200,000 now to make $350,000 in 3 years?\u00a0 If you are happy with the $200,000 then you need not want $350,000.\u00a0 But if you want $350,000, then $1,000,000 would be more appropriate.\u00a0 Irony of all ironies, you are far more likely to put the effort necessary to get to $1,000,000 than you are to $350,000 so your chances of getting the $1,000,000 are far greater than getting to $350,000.\u00a0 Your first million is impossible, your second inevitable.<\/p>\n<p>And although I am categorically against looking into someone else\u2019s wallet or their lawn, if you must, make sure it is worthy of your envy.\u00a0 You may marvel at the price a fashion designer can command for couture gowns, but take no note of how badly her reputation for service is in the industry.\u00a0 What glitters on the outside, probably does not on the inside.\u00a0 You cannot eat sparkle.<\/p>\n<p>All of the comparing, contrasting, self-flagellation, self-aggrandizement, and posturing, makes me wonder what league you want to play in?\u00a0 I just watched the first episode of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foodnetwork.com\/the-next-iron-chef\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">The Next Iron Chef, Super Chef\u2019s<\/a> edition.\u00a0 In the episode, Spike Mendelsohn, who came fourth in Season 4 of Top Chef, lost his cook-off to <a href=\"http:\/\/marcussamuelsson.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Marcus Samuelsonn<\/a>, one of the greatest chefs of this generation and winner of Top Chef Masters.\u00a0 Spike has come a long way since <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Top_Chef_(season_4)\" target=\"_blank\">Top Chef<\/a> and cooked an amazing dish.\u00a0 Marcus was just better.\u00a0 Disappointment?\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 Shame?\u00a0 None.\u00a0 Of course, this is television.\u00a0 However, you only have to read Anthony Bourdain\u2019s last book, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Medium_Raw\" target=\"_blank\">Medium Raw<\/a>, to understand how competitive chefs as a group are.\u00a0 Spike wanted to win and thought he could.\u00a0 Being worst of the best served Spike well and will most certainly only help his career in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n<p>We all must seek to be better.\u00a0 If we refuse to work to improve, we will suffer our own ennui.\u00a0 However, if we move only to say we caught the turtle, we are kidding ourselves.\u00a0 Dare yourself to play with the big girls.\u00a0 You might get squished but probably not.\u00a0 Either way, you will learn what it takes to get where you want to go.\u00a0 You may discover that you do not want to be there at all.\u00a0 That is actually better than good.\u00a0 Then you can set about staying where you are, living there, savoring that you are there.\u00a0 The point is to find your focus, be truthful about your and your creative business\u2019 purpose and to deliver it.\u00a0 Floating around on talent is its own myopia.\u00a0 So is turning a $200,000 creative business into a $350,000 one.\u00a0 Dare yourself to be better than your hopes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is not megalomania to say you are going to be the next so and so.\u00a0 Why not you?\u00a0 Presuming talent, desire, fortitude, courage and a heavy dose of good fortune, making your vision a reality is a distinct possibility.\u00a0 To which, I am amazed at how low the bar most creative business owners (and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-strategy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":865,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863\/revisions\/865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}