Creative or ‘non-Creative’: which one are YOU?
Yesterday I attended an 8 hour seminar for independent business people and came home with a lot of my opinions and judgements about “normal” business people totally 180-ed. Thanks to Bart van de Belt from The Success Academy, a baby-faced juggler and sleight-of-hand wizard who 10 years ago decided he was going to help us all be better business people.
Some people have a built-in ‘gay-dar’, I have a built in ‘nay-dar’: I can almost smell a nay-sayer from across the room. And in a group of business people they are almost always the ‘artsy’ types.
“But artists are the ones with the open minds,” I hear you protest. I’ve been in enough networking groups and creative groups to know that when business people get together, the creatives are the ones who:
1. Sit at the back
2. Dress un-business-like aka with too many scarves, Chuckies, baggy paints ,rainbow hair
3. Talk out of turn, too loud and want all the attention (they want the stage)
4. Have the most to say about why things CAN’T or WON’T or DON’T
Artists have an open mind to new ideas if they’re the ones who have thought of the ideas.
As soon as someone comes round with a new way to do things that will challenge them, they start throwing a circuit and sputter and nay-say everyone around them.
For instance, these are the things that I hear creatives say (or better put, nay-say):
1. There’s no money in that
2. Nobody will pay for that
3. I can’t do that, that’s just not me
4. I’m not made for that
5. I can’t wrap my head around that
6. The world is against me
7. Nobody understands me
Etcetera, you get the idea.
Creatives are special, right?
No.
Everybody’s special, even your boring neighbor/spouse/friend/colleague/child is special.
We have ALL been gifted with creativity (that’s what makes us hooman) and left- or right-brainers (if you believe in that) and everyone else in-between, have the capacity to be creative. Granted, some have more ability or wherewithal than another, but we’ve stopped comparing a long time ago, right? You gotta work with what you got, and with what you’re not.
So, if you are a creative artist and you think a ‘non-creative’ is just that, it is time to re-adjust YOUR so-called open mind and embrace the fact that you need those business folks as much as they need you.
Because what is difficult for you can be amazingly simple, and even enjoyable for someone else. And you need to partner with them. Get to know them. Embrace them. Make them part of your tribe. Hire them!
No, we are not all artists and yes, we are all creative. Get unstuck, open your mind and connect.
