I kind of followed my own advice from my previous blog post when I decided to shut up and do my work. I decided to drop away from most meetings that were not assignment related and almost all extracurricular activities including most social media outlets or any web surfing to get several projects completed.
The primary project has been to get all of my branding materials including website, business cards, documents, emailers, etc. to have one consistent look. No three elements of my materials were consistent in either content or design with each other.
It is amazing to me how few of the businesses that are in the business of working with companies on branding materials have their own materials in order. I’ve been just as guilty, and needed to get my house in order.
Unfortunately, the only way I know to get anything which requires extreme focus done, is to drop away from everything that is not urgent, even if it is important. Because I’ve made a commitment to get the MindFire newsletter out twice each month, I focused particular attention on getting that written and shipped. And of course, there are those assignments which actually keeps the mortgage paid and the power on, not to mention groceries in the cupboards.
But virtually every social and business engagement that is not urgent on any given day got cut. That means having hurt some feelings of people who are important but don’t have urgent needs to respond to. But, of course, when someone thinks their matter is important, it becomes urgent to them. Thus, some singed emotions.
I have been trying for some time to stay slightly engaged on all fronts without any noticeable slippage. But what slips is not seen on the stage necessarily, it’s behind the curtain of life. Most of it comes in the form of diminished mental and physical health when we never let down on our outside appearance of being “on.” The other areas that get a hit are those that require a lot of focused attention such as writing or creating a new vision.
What I’m having to come to accept is that, as an introvert at heart, I need time away from engagement with people to regain energy and focus. I also need my own permission to exit and take this time away. When I do re-enter, I’m always charged up with renewed energy and excitement because some of the pressure to get important stuff done is relieved and I have attention to share with people again. It’s a very good thing. But, as much as I get tired of explaining that to others, I get even more tired of having to explain it to myself.
Charles
Tagged as:
Attitude,
Branding,
Creativity,
Photography
My mind is on the creative process a lot as I move through my day. As an artist, I am constantly battling with where to allocate the time for creative thinking, planning and the execution of my projects.
There are a number of titles that I’ve heard for the small business owner, including owner-operator or solopreneur. The title I’ve given myself is artist-operator because, even though I am an artist first, it’s the process of operations and sales that moves a business forward and gives a hope of being profitable. The corollary is that the operation of a business can easily overwhelm the time and space for creative work to be conceived and brought to life.
I talk with a number of creative people on a regular basis who are, in various ways, waiting for the creative “muse” to arrive and create that space in time for them, or they expect the “muse” to meet them on their journey and inspire them to produce.
I have found that the “muse” doesn’t sit and wait. Nor does it come to find us. The “muse” must be sought.
Even knowing this, I found myself grumbling recently about a self-directed project that had stalled because I was spending so much time and thought on the operations and sales processes. And then the “muse” spoke. It said, “Shut-up with the talking and come find me.” The moment I started working on the “doing” of the project rather than the “talking” about the work, the muse met me and the project was completed within days.
Julia Cameron, in her book “The Artist’s Way,” talks about the need to show up at the page. Good writing doesn’t get written unless the writer shows up at the page and writes anymore than a structure gets built without the builder showing up and building.
Are you showing up to do your work or waiting for the “muse” to find you and bring the work along?
Charles
Tagged as:
Attitude,
Creative Muse,
Creativity,
Emotions,
Thinking,
Writing
I had an unusually wonderful meeting with the Director of Development of a non-profit this week. The meeting was set up to discuss photography coverage for a fund-raising event this fall, but instead evolved into a broader discussion of how we could work towards incorporating photographs into their overall branding and communications efforts.
My desire is to do more than simply shoot pictures. I want to use imagery to create awareness, communicate stories, and capture emotions. I want to inspire imagination.
Most of the people I talk with seem to be satisfied – no, compelled – to stick with the status quo. Although it’s seldom spoken, the question that seems to hang in the air is “How can we just get it done for the least amount of effort, for the lowest possible cost?”
Increasingly, I’m finding that the lowest expenditure brings the lowest impact. Sometimes (but not always), a little more effort and money can bring an amazing return on investment. But the major difference is in the planning and thought given to the outcome desired and how the work fits into an overall strategy. By asking in advance, “What is the impact we ultimately want to have and will this use of our resources bring us closer to achieving that goal?,” we can use what seem to be very limited resources to produce a far greater outcome than we could have imagined.
I believe the same is true for individuals as it is for organizations.
I have a buddy who has amazing talents. Amazing. But he uses most of his time and energy under-utilizing his gifts. In his case, the expenditure is not of money, but of heart — a willingness to allow passion to be publicly invested. By relying on the status quo in thinking about how people should serve and help others with one’s talents, his impact is far less than it could and should be. It’s not that he’s having no impact. It’s just that using the same time, with greater thoughtfulness and focus, could lead to a greater outcome, in my observation.
Is there an area where you can be making a greater difference by being more thoughtful and proactive? Is the status quo around you compromising your heart and ability to serve?
Charles
Tagged as:
Attitude,
Creativity
When Linda and I took a sabbatical from our communications work several years ago and ventured into organic farming, I spent an inordinate amount of time doing the work of laying irrigation, preparing the soil, fencing pastures, and other necessary tasks to allow us to produce the various crops and products we ate and sold.
But over time, we found that the most important work that we did was not the growing of food, but the growing of the relationships with our customers. The points of contact where we were engaged with the people most affected by our efforts – whether it was delivering produce or attending a farmers’ market meeting – did more to deepen the relationships and fuel our hearts than anything else we did.
We came to understand that it’s not just about work, but “The Work.”
As I was sitting in a recent peer advisory meeting where we were discussing the metrics that were most critical for each of our businesses to succeed, I had a profound revelation. I had been setting the number of client and potential-client meetings that I was having as the most important metric to count. After all, no business can have sales without customers.
The revelation was that I was not establishing any metrics for nourishing my creative heart. I was counting meetings as having the most value in my life, but not anything connected to producing my art. It was truly an ‘A-ha!’ moment.
As soon as I started writing down the “The Work” my heart wanted to achieve, the other work I needed to get accomplished seemed to be so much more approachable and less burdensome to consider. Just as I’m far more inclined to enjoy any work I do when I’m physically rested and fed, my heart is far more engaged when it’s rested and fed.
From the moment my heart got attention, everything else I did was energized. I’ve been told a number of times in the last several weeks that I walk into a room with a renewed energy, and every meeting I’ve been involved with has more new possibilities than before. I don’t believe the situations have changed, but my view of them has.
My current metrics now include accountable projects for both my heart and head, and my heart is enjoying the process of being included in the census.
What about you? Are your feeding “The Work” that feeds your heart or is the work consuming your life?
Charles
Tagged as:
Attitude,
Creative Juices,
Creativity,
Emotions,
Feeding the Heart,
Relationships
We’d decided to take our first tandem bike ride of the season and I was digging around for my riding shorts, a t-shirt and socks when it hit me that I had too much crammed in the drawers. A minute later, I had the contents of the drawers all dumped out on the bed, making piles of what I did want to keep and other piles of stuff that needed to go.
For months (maybe years?) Linda has tried to get me to throw out well-seasoned articles from my wardrobe. I said they had character. She said they were ratty.
Although she couldn’t understand the nostalgic value of a t-shirt I played tennis in through high school, she’d shake her head and fold it away for me. But why was I keeping so many pairs of “Sunday undies” (you know, they’re holey)? And did it matter if most of my socks were mostly like new if they were all threadbare in exactly the same spot?
I wasn’t sure what was causing the wave of desire to clean the drawers out, but I did it anyway. Linda wasn’t even around. When she came in to see if I was still going to ride, she found me going through every piece. If there was any question, I gave her final approval over its merit to stay.
For the last couple of years, I’ve been putting an extraordinary amount of attention into business development. Very little of my time and resources have been invested in my heart and art.
It’s been a couple of years since I led the last of several groups of artists through Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way. In her book, Cameron talks about the need to clean out and de-clutter as a way to make room for the new and unexpected to come into our lives. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve experienced a shift in my heart and mind. Rather than list out quantifiable business goals as a part of my group accountability, I found myself interjecting some creative project goals. I hadn’t really given it much pre-thought. It just popped out. It was as if my heart said, “Enough. I want my turn.” Who was I to argue?
Although I’d started ruminating on what I wanted to do and how I wanted to proceed, I hadn’t yet taken any defining action. But as I was putting my socks and skivvies away, I realized my heart wanted to see some change, some cleaning out to make room for something new. This isn’t the end, but I had to start somewhere. So I have.
Fortunately, we still had time left for our ride.
Charles
Tagged as:
Attitude,
Creativity,
Emotions
A buddy and I were having breakfast this week and the discussion turned to commitments in relationships. Specifically, we were making comparisons between how people make and stand by commitments in their personal and business lives. One question that is still lingering in my mind is, can someone make a deep commitment to another person – or a company – if they don’t believe there is a commitment to them in return.
I believe that people who show commitment in their personal lives also display that commitment in all of their business relationships as well.
I’ve worked with a number of clients with whom I’ve felt the freedom to make mistakes – in other words, take risks. I feel a commitment from the client to the process and, at times, to me personally. I do my best work for those people because I believe they trust my integrity and my desire to do my best work on their behalf.
I’ve also done my share of work for companies that had a very low tolerance for mistakes, meaning that creativity or taking the risk of not getting a “safe” solution is not acceptable. In each of those cases, I’ve felt the work I’ve done for them was entirely transactional. There was no commitment to the process of getting remarkable work or to me as a person or artist.
The connection I often see is that the people who won’t make a deeper commitment to their business relationships often have very shallow personal commitments as well. I can get a fairly quick read on whether I’m going to be able to get a deeper connection with someone by assessing whether they have any deep connections at all, and if so, where those connections are in their life.
What does that mean for me and possibly for you?
One, if I do my best creative work for clients that I have a better connection with, why would I spend my energy trying to engage anyone who is only interested in the transaction of the moment?
Second, if I desire a deeper connection with new relationships, I need to focus energy on deepening my commitment to the relationships that already have significance in my life. If I’m not serving the needs of the people I say that I care about, how can I serve the needs of new friends and prospective clients?
What do you think? How do you see it?
Charles
Tagged as:
Attitude,
Creativity,
Relationships
I find it interesting that it’s when I’m not writing my blog posts that I’m most aware of what direction I want my blog to take. But because I don’t have the time to think and write as I want to do, I occasionally produce no posts at all.
The last couple of months have been well filled with assignments, numerous meetings, personal commitments and most discouraging, several weeks of on-going illness. As a result, I did not get to the regular morning reading and journaling that feeds my heart and sets some routine for writing posts. When I try to force something through the keyboard onto the monitor before me, all I feel is anxiety and frustration that I’m just trying to “git ‘er done” without regard to the direction I want it to go.
At the same time, it’s the process of pushing the words across the screen that gets the job done. One of the curses of perfectionism is that waiting for the time and circumstances to get it “right” often means not getting something done at all.
Of course, I know that my posts are neither perfect nor earth-shaking in anyone’s life. But I challenge you to find any writer who doesn’t have such grandiose thoughts of changing lives before starting to fill a page. The same for a painter, who wants to stir hearts before placing a canvas on an easel. Or a chef who wants to wow palettes when selecting a menu and its ingredients.
The key for a creator is to stop perfectionism from derailing the process before it even gets started.
Charles
Tagged as:
Attitude,
Creativity,
Perfectionism
The great thing about difficulty is that it keeps the mediocre from attempting great things
I’ve been working on the details for a class on creativity for business people that’s designed to help them unleash their right-brain thinking for business. I’ve heard it said that the devil is in the details and that God is in the details. It may be a mix of both, but I know every time I’m trying to launch something of significance, the minutia is what eats up my energy.
What keeps me going forward is: 1) if it really is important, then it’s important to see it through; and 2) it’s the difficulty that stops the mediocre people from trying. Most people go for the low-hanging fruit then quit when there’s any obstacle in the way.
I find myself talking with people every week who want to accomplish great things. But not only do they not have a plan, they quit when fate doesn’t just drop success in their laps. I feel as if I’m going to bleed to death some days from the small nicks of a thousand details. But I realize that charging ahead with a will to finish is what the average person lacks.
Is there something of significance that you need to see through to completion? Don’t let the details bleed your heart.
Charles
Tagged as:
Attitude,
Creativity,
Hope,
Success
What I appreciate about athletics – tennis in particular – is that sheer persistence, just keeping the ball in play, can often win the point and eventually the match. But there are times as well when one just needs to put the ball away. ‘Cause if you don’t, your opponent is going to. Trouble is knowing when to play it safe and when to go for a riskier, winning shot.
I decided some time back that I was going to play every shot that I could, as aggressively as I could. Even when I couldn’t get a clear winner out of a shot, I was going to try to set up a play so that the next shot could be. But my problem is that I lose a lot of points on very close shots. The upside is that when I win the point, I feel even better knowing that I wasn’t playing safe. Whether I win or lose the match, I go home with the knowledge that I played my heart out.
What’s required most days in my work, though, is persistence. Keeping at the tasks of the day – keeping the ball in play, as it were – is what keeps my day in motion rather than slamming one or two big projects or goals and feeling like I’ve scored a winner. What troubles me about a persistence mindset, however, is that it can draw me into a play-it-safe attitude, and I know after many years in business that playing it safe is one of the biggest risks one can take.
Playing it safe virtually eliminates exploration, which shuts down creativity. You can’t create without trying new things, which is what exploration is all about. And in this economy, when so many people are playing it safe on every front, what better way to set yourself apart in business, and in all of life for that matter, than being creative, attempting the unexpected? In other words, going for a winner, which is what taking risks is all about.
So how about you? Can you afford the risk of not taking risks? Are you playing to win or to just keep from losing?
Charles Gupton
http://www.charlesguptonphoto.com
On LinkedIn
On FaceBook
Tagged as:
Attitude,
Creativity,
Economy,
Emotions,
tennis,
winning
Every family has them. So it also seems with every office, church, PTA, community group or anywhere there are a handful of people gathered in real or virtual proximity.
They are crazymakers.
I got the term from Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” and they’re people who seem to have too much time on their hands to mind their own affairs, so they focus their attention on minding other people’s business to the point that it seems they stir up trouble for trouble’s sake. In Cameron’s words, they are “charismatic but out of control, long on problems but short on solutions…the kind of people who can take over your whole life. Crazymakers like drama…everyone around them functions as supporting cast.”
I hate to admit it, but when I first read the term I thought, “Ouch, I resemble that.” Creative people, I believe, are especially prone to become crazymakers when they become focused on something besides the work they need to be creating.
A number of years ago, I was cranking out a lot of very profitable but less than inspiring images in my work. Even though I was shooting a good number of photographs, very few of them inspired or even involved my heart. That seemed to leave me plenty of time and energy to “make crazy” in the relationships around me. Few people were safe.
Fortunately, I saw the problem in time enough not to dismantle all my relationships. What that period did do for me was cause me to see that: 1) my creative energy and direction was more important than merely focusing on the financial goals and 2) even more importantly, to recognize other crazymakers for what they are so that I can avoid being drawn down into their pit of uncreative despair.
This doesn’t mean that crazymakers aren’t creative – it’s just that most of their creativity goes into their drama rather than productive work.
All of this came up because a couple of crazymakers in different compartments of my life recently raised their heads and tried to make crazy. In the past, I would have reacted and been drawn into their game. But, being a recovering crazymaker myself, I called their bluff and turned back to the work before me.
So I ask, are you doing the work you need to do to keep you from making crazy in the lives around you? Or, are there crazymakers around you whose emotional baggage you need to jettison to make the way easier to be more productive in your work?
Charles
http://www.charlesguptonphoto.com
On LinkedIn
On FaceBook
Tagged as:
Attitude,
Crazymakers,
Creativity,
Emotions,
Julia Cameron,
Photography,
Relationships,
The Artist's Way
