Your Gift

People ask me all the time about what I was most proud of while I was with Preston.  Most expect me to talk about the money earned, deals made, international exposure, even the business model we crafted.  Do not get me wrong.  All of those things are wonderful and were really fun to work on and be a part of.  But when I get right down to it, the thing I am most proud of is that the world got to see Preston’s gift as he was meant to share it.

Preston imagines an unbelievable fantasy world that is to exist for but a moment.  Truly, there are probably ten people on our planet of seven billion that can conceptualize the environments Preston does for his events.  Yes, Preston has many gifts (his ability to listen and be present at the forefront), but they are a distant second to his artistry, the size and breadth of his vision.

I did not make it possible for Preston to play on a grand stage, I just helped his business get out of the way of him actually being able to.  His gift did the rest.  And that is the point – your creative business has to be structured so that it supports the stage you want to play on.  Not all of us want to or can play on Preston’s grand stage.  So what.  You are to play on your own stage – the one that most celebrates the gift you have been given.  If I had to say what I do really well for my clients, this would be it — help them play on the stage that best suits them.  When you allow the way you do business to hinder the celebration or stop it entirely, you are not just robbing yourself of opportunity (which you most certainly are) but the rest of the world of what you are most meant to contribute.

Here is a fact.  When I was with Preston, we deliberately made less money than we otherwise could have for certain of Preston’s international events.  Why?  Because a) it was still a lot of money and b) it was really based on the notion that the bigger the stage for Preston the better.  More important to get cheaper the bigger the event than squeeze the very last dollar we could.  If you charge $100 fee for a $200 event, you are crazy expensive.  But if you charge the same $100 fee for a $1,000 event, not so much.  Add some zeroes and you get the idea that the bigger the event you had the more enticing was it to have Preston design it for you. When I joined Preston he had yet to do a million dollar event. When I left his largest was far more than fifteen times that and I can only imagine what it is today.

All too often I see artists compromise themselves and their creative businesses in the name of, well, business.  The art, the emotion, the love gets sublimated to the shoulds, needs and have tos of the business.  You talk yourself into doing things a particular way because you cannot imagine another way.  More particularly, you cannot imagine talking about what matters most to you and what you deeply want to give to your clients.  Whether it is because it is about the sale, the desire to please or even that you are not fully in touch with what you most want to share, I really do not know.  What I do know though is that it is a shame since you are keeping part of your gift in the shadows.

I had the good fortune to have dinner with Vicente Wolf this week.  He has been a designer for 37 years and has as much enthusiasm for it today as he did when he started.  Just oozes out of him.  I asked him why.  He said it was about emotion, his need to create, to share his art.  Regardless of the fantastic success (financial and otherwise) he has achieved, we both agreed he could have made much more if he were willing to compromise his design integrity.  He just could not though and is ever proud of it.  He knows who he is, believes in the gift he was given and refuses to ever hide it.  Call it what you will – I call it spirit; something larger than you from which you are simply the delivery vessel.  Yes, you have to get out of the way as we all do to let that spirit go as far as it can.  So too with your creative business.  It is there to serve you and your art.  Never ever ever the other way around.

When you find yourself upside down, the work is to acknowledge why you create in the first place.  Joy of expression has to be the end all be all.  If you lose it, come back to it and refuse to allow your creative business (clients, employees, vendors and colleagues included) to ever mute it.  An incredibly simple thought, overwhelmingly difficult to implement, but unbelievably freeing if you do.  It just has to begin with the idea, nay the faith, that your gift is to be shared fully with the world, never in compromised sound bites.