An place for creative entrepreneurs/ creative business owners seeking resources on creative business solutions, how to promote a blog, and social media marketing for creatives.
I saw a video yesterday that made me tear up- A Dog saves a Dog. It was just the most heartfelt moment to see another animal save his own kind. This video stuck with me and I realized that the reason I offer advice and suggestions to other creative professional like myself is for the same reason- to save my own kind.
I know I don't bring tears to any of you guys eyes, but I do hope you see benefit in what I offer on this blog. I try my best to give suggestion and advice on what I feel and other creative professional feel is important to their creative lifestyle. So this blog post - is more or less about how grateful I am for being a member of the CREATIVE KIND.
Watch the video - And tell me if this video isn't the most wonderful thing ever.
And by the way- if there is anything that you want to know and I've have not discussed it, please send me message.
Fashion Blogger, Travi Gevinson - Style Rookie "I try to make everything creative because it's stimulating."
Media Artist, Zachary Lieberman - OpenFrameworks "We have computers and cameras and equipment all around us, and I try to bring humanity to them,"
Creative Director , Alessandra Lariu - SheSays: McCann New York "My most hated combination of words is 'girl power, It implies you don't have any."
President, Patrick Awuah -Ashesi University "The people in college will be running the country one day, We must teach them to be compassionate and ethical problem solvers."
Rapper , Jay-Z - Roc Nation "I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man,"
Ive been called the Jack of all trades- Master of none and this is what I call myself. I am totally the jack of many trades, but I really don’t want to master any. If I did master any one task I would never have time to do the other things I’m interested in.I’ve been interested in lots of things – I worked as a visual merchandiser, modeling instructor, sales associate, makeup artist, corporate trainer, recreational camp counselor, graphic designer, actress, Senate intern, fashion show producer – do I need to go on.. and I am still interested in learning and doing lots more.
Does this sound anything like you- if you too like and want to do lots of things and can’t makeup your mind, then I would consider you a person who's all over the place. I learned this task by reading I Could Do Anything: If I Only Knew What it Was, by Barbara Sher.
If you know and have issues with being all over the place, then this post is for you.
1st step -why are you all over the place, who are you really and why do you want to do so many things. 2nd step is once you get that all together – you can then move on to developing a plan for a life that suits all of your interest. ( Step 2 will be discussed in part 2)
So with all that out of the way- lets start with step 1...
Who Are You?
You are a SCANNER. You are a person who loves doing all things that delight you in the, being a SCANNER is a talent – it is the key to a very good life as Barbara Sher states.
SCANNERS want to do and live life doing everything that brings them joy. SCANNERS have skills that are unbeleiveable . We love what’s new. Manycreative typesare SCANNERS. How am I doing so far…? Is this still you? If so, then read on.
Here's the Problem.
The problem is SCANNERS have a hard time finding joy in the work they do. Basic career aptitude test tend to miss the benefit of being of being a SCANNER, because these types of test show SCANNERS equally skilled in 3 or more career areas. This was me. I took several test and they all said the same things. I could be writer, researcher, documentary filmmaker, fashion designer, explore, hiker, salesperson, and a teacher. ( The funny thing I'm doing most of these things now).
People in our lives have program us to believe that we only have one life to live– but to Sher saids it best, SCANNERS have the option of one life sounds like someone saying “You can have a coloring book or you can have crayons, but you can’t have both.” Scanners know this way of thinking is bull sh*t.I know, you know life is too generous and abundant - it going to take an action plan to get the ball rolling.
The Action Plan (video)
Note: Plan of Actions has been learned from Barbara Sher's I Could Do Anything, If I only Knew What it Was.
I hope you spent sometime thinking and visualizing about all the things you will be able to do in your life. Because today I going to show you "How to Have it All!"
In yesterday's post and video I talked about SCANNERS as people with special talents who love what's new, and who tend not to have an hard time making decissions. But there is one thing that gets in the way of SCANNERS- We want what we want now. What we have to realize is that 1- there's more time to do about anything, 2- being in a hurry is not the most effective, and 3- we can drive ourselves crazy trying to fill every hour with something .
I write to do list, but I've quickly learned they just get in the way of me actually doing what I want to do. The plan is - if you want to do all of these things - then you have to set a plan in motion.
Ok - yesterday you participated in the Ten Lives exercise. We now need to move on to Part 2 of this post "Having it All".
Available Time
Note: Plan of Actions has been learned from Barbara Sher's I Could Do Anything, If I only Knew What it Was. If you want to learn more, please purchase her book. It has help me find my true career path.
Get out your list. Quickly answer the following questions about each one of your Ten Lives. Try not to think to hard on each question, put down the first answer that pops into your head as you read each question.
Which can you do this year- 2010?
W hat can you do once you finished the first thing?
What can you do a little bit at a time?
Is there anything you could do on the weekends?
What about just every so often?
Having It All (Video)
Learn more about SCANNERS and how to live a creative purposeful life - check out Barabara Sher's book
If you think others would enjoy this blog- then please pass it along. If you haven't subscribe to this blog- to recieve special invites to creative thinking sessions or other tips & advice of creative living - then subscribe by email NOW. By the way- if you have any questions or comments - post them at the bottom of this post or shoot me an email at designsbyalease at yahoo dot com.
Running a business is one of the toughest challenges you can choose in life. In fact, sometimes it can place unexpected demands on your time and energy, it can require lots of nurturing and love, it can keep you up at night, it demands structure and discipline, it teaches us valuable lessons about ourselves and although we spend many long hours working our business, it is the most rewarding thing we could have done for ourselves.
I’ve talked to many business owners who sometimes get overwhelmed with the daily demands of owning a business that they lose focus on why they started a business. They want to have it all – a business and a life, but many of them just don’t know how to get there.Here are a few things that many business owners struggle with:
·Time
·Money
·Effort
I too have struggled with balancing business with my personal life. But I had to make a choice personal or professional- what I learned that I had to change my priorities around a little. My personal priorities needed to be in order and this meant that I had to place my family first and business second.Boundaries had to be established to when I worked and when I played.
So I created a detail list of my personal priorities that I wanted to set for my life. On my list now are:
Institute a weekly date night to talk with my mom on the phone.
Have dinner with my extended family every other week.
Schedule a lunch date with a friend once a week.
Sign up for a dating service (I found a great guy!)
Take a real vacation twice a year.
Go to the movies and take myself out to a nice restaurant once a month.
These are few of mine, but whatever your personal priorities are, commit to them and develop a plan for bringing them into your daily life. Bring joy back into your life – I did and it has been rewarding to my personal and professional life.
The key point to keep in mind when working through these stategies were that you are engaged in a personal reflections. You were reflecting and testing ideas in your everyday artist life. You were integrating them and building on them, in the light of your actual life expereinces.
For instance - Strategy # 6 - Redefining the Way You See Things, you start to notice the social definitions that rule many situations in your life. You begin to recognize how your behavior is shaped and controlled by the definitions in use:
"I'm an aritst" - thorefore I should be creating artwork like other artist - We now know this not to be true- An artist is a person who creates beautiful things - not what others have done before.
You start to see how important or unimportant social definitions are, you can start to redefine situations in ways that run contrary to your own life goals. And when you are able to redefine situations, you then are able to Get in Touch with Your Emotions. You can move on to recongnize the way you think generates the emotions you expereince. Redefining situations can empower you to learn from your emotional experiences.
This is the way to intergrate these strategies into your daily life. The more thought provoking you are about your life as an artist the more your begin to become an skilled and insightful thinking artist.
Share
If you did get a chance to share your experiences - please take this time to share them with us.
I'm a member of Sigma Gamma Rho, Inc. and I clearly understand what it means to part of a group. But what I learn in being in a sorority in college is that group memberships can make stronger and weak. Sigma Gamma Rhomade me a stronger person. I learned to ask for help,speak in front of hundreds of people, to give back to needy organizations and how to promote and brand myself. All of these qualities are good ones, but sometimes we can encounter negative influences on our lives. Strategy # 8 is all about analyzing the influences (good & bad) a group may have on you.
Analyze
Closely analyze the behavior that is encouraged, and discouraged, in the groups to which you belong. For any given group, what are you "required" to believe? What are you "forbidden" to do?
Every group enforces some level of conformity. Most people live much too much within the view of themselves projected by others. Discover what pressures you are bowing to and think explicitly about whether or not to reject that pressure.
Build a Creative Alliance
Read more on this topic, The Secret is Out- Build a Creative Alliance , here and if you have group you belong to that's supportive and inspirational - Give them a shout out!!!!
OMG, I am the most emotional person I know. I cry at a drop of a hat. I cry when I'm sad, happy, angry, and excited. Getting in touch with my emotions, I have no problems with. What I need to work on is understanding why I am having these emotions, what are they connected to and how can I overcome them when they are the most inappropriate.
Emotions are good and we should express them whenever we can, but we also have to understand the why behind them. So when you feel some type of emotions during the day, systematically ask yourself:
"What, exactly, is the thinking leading to this emotion?" For instance- if you are angry about something- ask yourself, what is the thinking that is making me angry?
What other ways should I think about this situation? Can I put a humor spin on it, can I just cough it up as just life experience and learn from it?
If you can, change the direction of the emotion, your emotions will soon shift to match the new thoughts.
Emotional Artists
An extremely emotional artist is not really the most productive and easy person to work with . If you ever get bad reviews on an art show, then suck it up and learn from it. Everyone isn't going to like your work, it 's their lost, not yours. Just leave the crying and emotional threats at the door.
A few of us may even get emotional when we are praised. (This is me.) When someone complements me on my work, I feel this overwhelming emotion come over me. And I know this is because I honestly don't feel like I deserve it, so instead of tearing up, I try to play down the complement, by saying " Oh- it took me no time to make it, or its no big deal."
Because of strategy #7- I am taking the time to observe these emotions and I'm trying use other comments that reflects pride and confidence in my work.
This strategy is my favorite strategy so far. In this strategy, you are to practice redefining the way you see things around you- turning negative situations into positive situations - dead ends into new beginnings - mistakes into opportunities to learn.
To make this strategy more practical to our everyday lives we have to set up a few guidelines.
Make a list of 5 to 10 recurrent negative contexts in which we feel frustrated, angry, unhappy or worried.
Then identify what might be the root cause of these negative contexts.
Allow the next step to be plausible alternative to solve the negative context- plan for a new response as well as new emotions.
"For every problem under the sun, there is a solution or there is none. If there be one, think til you find it. If there be none, then never mind it."
The quote above explains how I live my life now. I don't worry about things I can not fix and for those I can fix, I try to solve them with the simplest solutions. I swear since I've taken this role to living life, my life seems so much better. Learn to take the high road.
Today's Creative Thought Provoking Strategy deals with our egocentric thinking. Egocentric thinking is thought to be way in which we favor oneself. Well you might say -"What is wrong with thinking highly of yourself?" I too thought the same thing. I was taught to think good of yourself. But like anything we do too much of a good thing, can do us some harm.
Start to observe you egocentric thinking in action by contemplating questions such as these:
Under what circumstances do I think with bias of myself?
Do I ever become irritable over small things?
Did I do or say anything "irrational" to get my way?
Did I try to impose my will upon others?
Did I ever fail to speak my mind when I felt strong about something, to later feel resentment?
The key thing to learn from this strategy is to identify your egocentric thinking in action. Once you have identified a few of your patterns you can then replace them with more rational thought through systematic self-reflection. Like: What would a rational person feel in this or that situation?, or What would a person free of major egocentric thinking do?
In the case of egocentric thinking I'm not going to say to remove all egocentric thinking. That would be and feel to odd for an artist. I think we have to tell ourselves that our work is good, or better than others to continue doing what we do. I don't consider this egocentrism, I just call it being confident.
Try it out for yourself. Just be more aware of when the ego might get in the way of your success and learn how to replace this ego with more rational thoughts.
Next ...
My personal video journal on Egocentric Thinking .
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