Some associate business with spreadsheets, but I think business more closely resembles an art project. One needs lots of creativity to build a remarkable company—to solve problems for customers and do it in a way that’s financially sustainable. The challenge is that creativity is commonly stunted by three elements: busyness, stress, and fear.
1. Busyness
Most business owners’ days are loaded with operational tasks: doing the day-to-day stuff that nobody else is hired to do, or managing the people that you hired to do the day-to-day stuff (or managing the people that you hired to manage the people who were hired to do the day-to-day stuff!). If you own a business and have the luxury of focusing on strategy alone, you’re in a very fortunate minority. Rare is the business where the person at the top has little on his/her plate. Moreover, even if you do find some time, it can be difficult to transition from operations to creative work. Ever try to go from a management meeting to writing poetry? Our minds don’t take that turn quickly or easily.
The solution is obvious: Regardless of how busy you are, you need to make ample time for creativity; it needs to become a priority. Creativity and it’s resulting innovations are easy to ignore on any given day, but they’re absolutely crucial for the long-term success of your business. If you find that the operational tasks of your business simply take up too much of your time (assuming that all of those tasks are essential), you’ll need to either:
- Find a way to automate some of them, OR
2. Stress
It doesn’t matter how mindful you are, or how many CBT techniques you know—running a business is stressful. And when our minds are stressed, they enter fight or flight response. Nothing really creative or artistic happens when you’re overwhelmed.
Have you ever seen a business with obvious problems spiral into bankruptcy? Maybe you can see simple, creative solutions to those problems that the owner can’t. For example, maybe they just need a better happy hour, or they need to change their tacky signage. (I know an excellent little bakery that’s failing, I’m convinced, because people walk right by and don’t notice they’re there). There’s a downward spiral that occurs when a business isn’t doing well: Sadly, just when the business really needs creative solutions to right the ship, the Founder is too stressed to engage in creative problem solving.
To keep a mind creative, one must find a way to lower his/her stress. The actual process of this is different for different people: some play music, some go outside, some exercise, some get up early, some stay up late, some reach for coffee, others alcohol (which I don’t typically recommend). However, I think the secret is to make creativity itself your stress reliever! Everybody loves to come up with ideas, it’s the most energizing part of a project, before the slog of execution. Having ongoing creativity be a requirement to your business success is a gift, because it’s an opportunity to go back to that joyful and exciting place, even if just for a little while.
3. Fear
You’re highly productive—like, answer-50-emails-before-noon-productive. So, why aren’t you making progress on your most creative and most personal projects? Your YouTube channel is inactive. Your blog is outdated. Your Twitter is quiet. Your book is hidden in an old folder on your computer. The truth is you’re not making progress because you’re scared! You think, “What if people don’t like it? What if it isn’t any good? What if I embarrass myself?”
When we create something and let others read, watch, or interact with it, nothing bad can really happen. People might not like it—so what? Maybe it’s not for them. Consider this: Every best-selling book has one-star reviews. Every groundbreaking piece of art was hated by a lot of people at first. But say you create something and it’s not very good. That’s okay, and perhaps necessary. Comedians know that to make it in stand-up you need to get on stage over and over again and bomb! The ones who succeed in the business aren’t those who don’t have lots of bad nights, it’s the ones who keep at it. Ira Glass, Creator of This American Life, discussed in an interview the process of developing his blockbuster show. He explained that when someone begins a radio show they usually have good taste, and it’s difficult for them to publish their shows because they know, for years sometimes, the episodes are nowhere near as good as they want them to be.
The answer is both simple and difficult. Get on stage as much as you can. Create as much as you can. You’ll get better only with practice. And I promise, nothing bad will happen.
Author:
Anthony Centore Ph.D. is Founder and CEO at Thriveworks--a counseling practice, focused on premium client care, with 80+ locations across the USA. He is Private Practice Consultant for the American Counseling Association, columnist for Counseling Today magazine, and Author of How to Thrive in Counseling Private Practice. Anthony is a multistate Licensed Professional Counselor and has been quoted in national media sources including The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, and CBS Sunday Morning.