Did you know strong executives think
like artists!
It’s true!
The most successful people think like artists! They dream big, do not fear
failure, create a picture of success, and color outside the lines. Regardless
of what industry you are from, what your job title is or where your company is
currently at in your success model, thinking like an artist is an important
part of your success.
I am
currently a hotel executive and I own a public art studio and gallery. My life
appears to be the perfect balance of creativity and corporate living. What most
people do not understand is that my whole life is centered around being an
artist or at least thinking like one! People often question how I can live so
easily in the art world and be so successful in the “business” world. Artists
are not business people and business folks are not creative, right? WRONG! The most successful business men and
women are creative thinkers and adhere to the same ideals and understandings as
artists.
Dream Big!
This is rule
number one for successful people. Successful people are dreamers! They allow
themselves to reach for the stars by setting large goals. They do not listen to
others who tell them what they are reaching for is not achievable. In fact if
you tell a dreamer they will never be able to reach their goal, they will laugh
at you and push farther! Dreamers believe that anything is possible. Dreamers
are the corporate successes of the world who did not listen to others who couldn’t
share their vision.
So many of
us grow up and forget how to dream. We have been conditioned to make goals that
are achievable and safe. We are trained to not share ideas that are out of the
norm. We grow stifled and afraid of sharing our dreams with one another due to
fear of being ridiculed or made fun of. It is so sad to me that the older we
get, the more we give our personal magic and power away.
Dreaming big
does not mean making foolish choices, it means daring to choose something
better and giving ourselves permission to achieve that which others may feel is
unachievable. By daring to dream we honor our being, our originality. When we
do this we can sculpt a life of passion and success!
Do not fear
failure!
When an
artist is going to start a new project there is always a great inner burst of
excitement and eagerness to tackle the mountain. There is a drive to express
and create a vision. There is a hunger to see the vision complete and fulfilled.
When was the last time you thought this way about a project that you were
working on?
The reason that
an artist has all of these great feelings about a new project is because they
are passionate about what they are doing! They may have a lot of technical,
visual and even financial hurdles but these are small obstacles to the artist. Most
often to a business executive technical, visual and financial obstacles create
a fear vibration which in turn dampers the whole project. When the executive
create this fear vibration around a project they then in turn transpose this
fear feeling to those who are working on the project and down the line the fear
vibration travels.
When we as
executives are starting a new project where we have dreamed big and now we may
be looking at the more business factual side of things it is easy to become
fearful that our ideas or designs will not work. Some discernment is needed
here, yes… but fear is not.
The planning of a
project is the passion point. This is the point where things will go towards excitement or
towards fear of failure. So often great ideas are canned because we at the
executive level cannot think creatively enough to find solutions to execute
them. We are trained to be like blood hounds and seek out everything wrong with
an idea before the idea is ever started. We call this behavior a lot of things
such as being responsible, looking out for the best good of the company and so
on. The truth is we have found “responsible” sounding words to give us
permission to instantly approach things in negative or fear driven ways.
An artist will not start
out looking for everything that is wrong with a project, nor will the artist
initially search for every reason why it will not work. An artist will seek out
every reason why the idea needs to work and everything that is right with the
idea first!
By looking
for what is right with something and being clear on why the idea needs to work,
passion and excitement lead. By looking for what is wrong with an idea and all
of the reasons why it cannot work, we are promoting negativity and fear based vibrations
which are exactly the opposite of passion. It is important to be logical in our
choices, but there is no harm in looking for all the good in something before
we evaluate what is not desirable.
Create a
picture of success!
Artists are
visionaries! As an artist I spend much of my time thinking and visioning
inward. As an artist I tend to look outward and see patterns of how things fit
or work together. As an artist I wear rose colored glasses as often as
possible. As an executive, I do exactly the same thing!
I spend a
lot of my time before I begin a project defining what success is. Is success
high sales, is the success higher morale, is the success training and understanding,
time management, clear communication channels or an ease in operative procedures?
Could success be learning or growing? First I answer what success I am seeking.
Next I determine what defines that success? If I choose higher sales, I need to
have a goal and a tactical plan made of many little goals to keep my success
measureable. Measurable steps or bench marks are the steps to success and
reaching our goals. As an artist with each project I take on, there is a vision
of success and an understanding of what parameters define that success.
So often in
the business world, there is no picture of success painted! Many times we determine
what needs to be done to improve our positions and then we dream up an end result
which we then explain to our teams. We express why we chose said direction A or
B and how we arrived at C amount of result but there is no planned picture of
success. For us to have a clear, focused success, we must have all of the little
steps and flicks of brilliant color that makes the picture whole! We must set
our teams up to succeed! We must develop plans filled with steps for them to
walk upon. Artists understand that it is all of the little steps between start
and finish that create a tapestry of beauty. When each color is put in proper
order only then will the image be complete.
Color
outside of the lines!
Obstacles
are simply part of the territory. We are all going to come across situations
that will challenge us regardless if we are artists or executives. Artists are
famous for creative solutions because of that whole Dream Big philosophy. When
we get to a place where we are stuck it is important that we return to the top
of the list and work our way back through the creative pipeline. In dreaming
big, not fearing failure and creating our pictures of success we can rework our
ideas in a way that the passion and excitement can be sustained. It is
important that we are able to see the parameters that we have drawn and that we
evaluate them next to the parameters which were impressed upon us by our
superiors, the market, our business environments along the way.
So often we
will set our parameters in a circle and then others through their needs will
impose on our circle something that looks more like a jagged square. It is
important that we are able to see the difference between the pictures so we are
able to adjust! Artists are able to turn would be mistakes, or undesirable
outcomes into “happy accidents” where once a rock sat, an artist in moments,
can plant a tree! This is true for executives who have daily decisions to make
where time management, staff development and supply and demand come into play.
I hope you enjoyed my
quick notes on thinking like an artist. In the future I will be speaking more
about this publicly; blogging and I will be building workshops around this
idea. Let me know if you are interested in learning more about thinking like
and Artist!
