Tag: purposes

Paradoxes, Purposes and Ponderances: What a Difference a Week Makes.

paradoxes-purposes-ponderances

Until recently, I never considered myself a business person or an entrepreneur.  I never had any desire to be one either.

I never really had any intention of going into business. The whole idea was distasteful to me. Life experiences, though, have led me down this path of becoming a professional freelance artist. And that means I have to be a business person if I want to succeed.

Last week, in thinking about this, I was almost bleak–desperate.

I was contemplating my weaknesses more than my strengths, and I was reckoning with the realities of my capacities versus my incapacities when it came to business oriented tasks.

I wasn’t throwing in towels by any stretch. I was just getting real about my needs and asking for help.

And help I got.

I posted a blogpost about needing direction as an entrepreneur  in several online locations, and I received moral support, concrete suggestions, resources and enthusiastic direction.

I have connected with people all over the country who are interested in helping me succeed. I have some interesting business ventures to consider and lots of new opportunities. I have contacted some resources in my own community that are designed to help people just like me, and I am realizing that I am not as lost as I may have thought I was.

I am being deliberately vague here, as it would not be prudent to discuss some of these opportunities publicly. I do, however, want to share my hopefulness about this process of developing myself as an Artist Entrepreneur.

My situation is far from fixed. I am still a hopelessly right-brained person needing a left brain.

I have discovered, though, that I have an ability to attract people of integrity to help me with certain needs. I am now feeling that I can do this, which I am not sure I could say last week.

Some things that I have learned about business this week that have been a pleasant surprise to me:

  1. There are people out there who genuinely want to help you succeed. Especially among women entrepreneurs, I have experienced a real “Pay-it-Forward” approach of women reaching out to other women to help them get going in business.
  2. Women-owned businesses are projected to be a game-changing force in transforming the future of the workforce.
  3. The fact that our economy is so bad right now means that there is a lot of support for new small businesses. There is also a lot of forgiveness and less pressure to succeed instantly in the business world, because, quite frankly, everyone is struggling.
  4. Social media has turned traditional marketing on its head. Authenticity is back in style.
  5. Being a creative artist with limitations in certain skill sets does not necessarily mean I am destined to fail at business.
  6. I am actually, sorta kinda, enjoying this process of learning and developing new skills!

Stay tuned to see where this adventure leads…

Life is an Adventure!

BZTAT

Paradoxes, Purposes and Ponderances: The Right-Left Brain Dilemma

Paradoxes, Purposes and Ponderances

You no doubt have heard incredible stories where people have compensated for certain incapacities with increased capacity in other areas.

A blind person with a highly acute sense of hearing. A hearing impaired person who can catch visual nuances that the rest of us miss, and can “hear” by feeling vibrations.

It seems as though the human body and spirit finds ways to excel in opposite directions when faced with areas of weakness.

I think I am like that.

I am capable of creating wonderful things. I can paint paintings and capture the spirit of animals through art that inspires awe in many people. I can write and create stories that charm people, and I can illuminate thoughts in many different ways.

But my creative strengths are offset by other areas of weakness.

As much as I excel in so-called “right-brained” activites (creative and intuitive), I really suffer in the so-called “left-brain” activities (analytical and sequential).

Looking at this chart, I am clearly in the right brain realm of dominance in my mental processes. And the further I go into my creative abilities, the less organized, structured and sequencial I become.

That is a very real problem for someone who is trying to develop a business out of being an artist. You really need to be disciplined in a number of left brained activities to be successful in business.

So how does a highly creative artist develop a means to meet a waiting audience and succeed in the business world? How do I get all that left-brain schtuff done without sacrificing the immense creative potential that is awakening in me? I really could use some answers, folks.

I am well connected in social media. I get a lot of lofty advice from gurus inspiring me to “meet my creative potential”. The interesting thing I find is that most gurus tend to appeal to the left-brain person in an effort to try to open up their creative right-brain. They don’t say much to the creative person who can’t seem to manage their money very well.

Where is the guru who can help me have the patience and the skill to sit down and do basic bookkeeping and accounting?

The conclusion that I have come to is that I need to stop worrying about getting better at the things that I am no good at. I think I need to find a good left-brain person who likes to do the schtuff that I hate to do, and partner with them. Together we could create a really dynamic business venture.

I think that I need someone whom I can trust to make a viable business out of my creativity, in a way that we both prosper and both enjoy our collaborative process.

Idealistic? Perhaps. But I have to start somewhere.

What do you think? Do you know anyone like the potential partner I described? Do you have other ideas for my dilemma? Please let me know. I am open to suggestions.

Paradoxes, Purposes and Ponderances–Project52

My friend Liz Hover encouraged me to sign up for a blogging challenge called Project52. Project52 is a blogging community that focuses bloggers to set a goal to write at least 1 new article per week for 1 year.

It is not a stretch for me to post weekly here. I already do that. Currently, I post 2-4 times a week.

Most of my posts, however, are very image rich, meaning that I post mostly images of my artwork, with some writing about them to give them context. Either I write about the process of creating the work, or I post a quote that gives a “Thought for the Day”.

I like to write about other things, however. Often, I am too lazy or too caught up in other activities to write about them here, however.

So my Project52 personal challenge is to write weekly about something beyond my images. I will continue to post the other things, but I want to add a new element to my blog.

I am calling it “Paradoxes, Purposes and Ponderances” because these are the things I intend to write about.

I am constantly amazed by the paradoxes and ironies in life. I seek to serve different purposes in the various directions of my life. And I often ponder about ideas, events, opportunities, etc.

So once a week, I intend to write about some idea or activity or poetic reflection here in this space. it maybe about my cats. It may be about my adventures with social media. It maybe about my journey to become a professional artist, balancing the creative as well as the business activities in which I must engage.

Or it may be just some stream of consciousness reflection or piece of poetry.

I might throw out some questions to get ideas from my readers.

Whatever I do, I intend to WRITE. Lets see where this new adventure takes me!

Life is an Adventure!

BZTAT