We’ve worked, solely, in creative services, for decades. We’ve won lots of competitions—and judged others—for creative output. In our role as Creative Director, we’ve been responsible for such disciplines as graphic design, copywriting, directing, video editing, layouts, logos, jingles... you name it. Some of it may be artistic, but is it—is any of it--art? That’s the topic of this article. What’s the difference, say, between an Art Director and an Artist? The DNA dilemma More often than not, creative professionals are artistic people. That’s not always the case: some people move laterally from management positions, or get the assignment thrown at them. That’s less than ideal, for reasons that will soon become apparent (if they aren’t already). But that’s more of an outlier scenario; here, we’ll stick with what’s common. To repeat: Creative professionals are artistic people. Which begs the question: What is an artist? You can find lots of definitions online and in various dictionaries, but here’s ours: An artist is someone who is compelled to create. And that’s it. That’s our entire definition. We’ve found it to be quite useful, and accurate, over the years. This definition is noteworthy for what it doesn’t contain. It never mentions “drawing.” Or “taste.” Outrageously, it never even mentions “talent”! “Good” and “bad” art are subjective, anyway. That’s not what makes an artist, an artist. What makes an artist an artist is the fact that they just do it, with no one telling them to. Isn’t that great? No. It’s not. It’s a curse. The artist’s trap If you’re an artist, you’ll know it. You’re drawing things. You’re writing things. You’re sculpting things. Composing tunes. Making things. You’re not thinking about doing them. You’re too busy doing them. You can’t stop. It’s like you’re possessed, by a force greater than yourself—because you are. If you’re not an artist, the above description should scare you. How would you like to be beholden to some innate-yet-alien force that compels you to create stuff, very often when you should be doing other things, such as earning a living? It can be brutal. There’s a reason that “starving artist” is a trope. Who on earth would pay for your suffering, up in your garret, while you compose poetry? The crazy thing is, the business world needs artistic (“creative”) things accomplished. There are billboards to be designed. Taglines to be written. Jingles (although not enough of them these days; see our well-articulated rant) to be composed. And non-creative people can’t do them. Hard as they may try. So the non-creative people need the creative people. It’s not altruism, like a dog needing a family and vice versa. It’s business. At its coldest level, it’s greed. Channeling the energy A businessperson is the antithesis of the artist. This is someone with outstanding self-discipline. Someone who can lead a team, or be a member thereof, with easy agility. This is someone who does what needs to be done, when it needs to be done. Someone who makes deadlines, not excuses. Pardon our French, but holy crap. How on earth could you ever find a “creative professional”? The answer: It’s hard. It really is. There are businesspeople who long to be creative, and there are artists who long to be successful businesspeople (or at least, pay the bills), but the twain rarely meet. You want a perfect blend of creative-yet-buttoned-down. Too often, that “creative professional” will be off-balance. Their creative won’t be creative enough, or their business demeanor won’t be businesslike enough. Nothing beats experience We were fortunate (? debatable) to have some innate creative chops, which we worked to hone over the years. You’re not born an old master; even Mozart had to learn to read music. So you can sharpen your skills. You can become a better writer, a more accurate painter. But that hardly prepares you for the world of business. As we mentioned at the outset, we’ve been at this for decades. What we didn’t mention, but should now be obvious, is that we’ve made our share of professional mistakes. And all of the biggest ones were at the beginning. We either didn’t understand the rules and nuances of the business world, or we were unable to divorce ourselves, emotionally, from our work in order to accept business-driven criticism which would (and here’s the important part) satisfy the client and impact the bottom line. Today, we’ve been at this so long, it’s relatively easy for us to switch hats: To eliminate distractions and get into the zone for pure creative ideation (read our great article on “Self-Hypnosis And Finding The Voice”), or to jump onto a conference call and lead a marketing strategy discussion among business executives. And the instant we lift a pencil, or hit “Save,” we’re able to separate ourselves from the work and look at it dispassionately, as a client would, without taking any suggestions other than professionally. This all leads up to two takeaways for you, whether you’re looking to improve your skill-set as a creative professional, or seeking to engage one who will meet your needs. One: An experienced creative pro will always be better at straddling the artistic and business realms, due to all of the previous skinned knees, now long healed. And two: If you’re younger or earlier in your career, look to the older folks. Don’t just ask how they handle things. Watch. See how they actually switch hats and shift gears. Infer what prior experience informed their current behavior. Then take a good look at yourself, and see where you can profit, quickly, from what took them years to learn. Need creative services, delivered with impeccable professionalism? Call us. We’d be delighted to discuss your needs.
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Your job: Find it As the work and assignments begin to pile up, you get that gnawing, unnerving feeling that they may overwhelm you. This is the typical cycle of business-related stress. Solving it may be easier than you think. In this article, we’ll take a look at some common stressors and their causes. We’ll show how you can defuse various situations. And we’ll give you the counterintuitive key to eliminating—or at least alleviating—a bunch of stresses, all at the same time. Where does it come from? There are two types of stress: actual, and perceptual. Actual stress comes when there’s simply too much on your plate, all racing toward the same deadline, to the point where you’re overloaded. If that’s the case, the solutions are actually quite straightforward. You need to develop a better strategy for proactively negotiating deadlines (see our article on that subject). You need to offload whatever you can to subordinates or perhaps trusted vendors. You’ll need to push off some other things on your plate (perhaps, unfortunately, personal) to free up some extra time. And you need to eliminate distractions, so you can focus on the remaining task at hand. As we said, these are straightforward. There shouldn’t be too much in that list above that comes as a surprise to you. Indeed, if you follow those steps, you’ll get the work done, and your overload-induced stress will disappear. Then how come it almost never plays out like that in real life? The second kind of stress If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll realize that we’ve been using our detailed advice about actual stress as a mere setup to the core subject of this article: perceived stress. This is the one that actually keeps you up at night, that messes with your digestion and your mood and impinges upon your personal life. As its name implies, this is stress based on what you think is overwhelming you. Now, just reading that definition should suggest a simple solution. But when it comes to matters of outsmarting your own hard-wired brain, it may be simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Or obvious. Surely, you’re thinking by now: “Isn’t there an overlap of actual stress and perceived stress?” Of course there is. So you might think that if you work to reduce the actual stress first, all that would remain would be the perceived stress, which would then be easier to identify and thus resolve. Wrong. Go about it the other way. Many times, if you can identify and alleviate the perceived stress, all stress magically evaporates. Where does it hide? We keep talking about “identifying” the perceived stress. And that’s certainly the key. If it were obvious and easy, it wouldn’t be a problem; there would be no need for an article like this. But it’s common. It’s insidious. You’ve probably sensed it yourself: You feel overwhelmed by given day’s (or week’s, or month’s) workload, but you also feel, somewhere inside, that that stress is somewhat irrational. If so, you’re probably right. The best way to find the perceived stress is actually by identifying the leading perceived stressor. Once you realize that, the rest gets surprisingly easy. Imagine you’ve got a dozen things on your plate. All hard to do. All due at once. That’s stressful. But does it outstrip your capacity? That is, is it truly actual stress? Here’s how you find out: Simply jot down a list of each one of those stressful assignments. Now look through that list, and find the one most stressful one on the list. This is the key. There aren’t two. There aren’t three. There’s always one on that list which has you the most stressed. It’s not necessarily the biggest project, or the one with the tightest deadline, although it could be either. More likely, it’s simply an assignment that you’re dreading, that has components you hate completing, or forces you into a situation in which you’re uncomfortable, in order to complete it. Now. Here comes your moment of Zen. Just for a moment, strike that item off your list. Ask yourself: “If that one item went away right now, would I still be stressed?” The answer will almost always be “No.” You’ll look at the eleven remaining items on your list, and laugh. They’re easy. Do they outstrip your capacity? Not at all! You could probably do 50 percent more, easily. What to do next Pat yourself on the back. You cracked the perceived-stress conundrum. You realized that it’s the mere presence of one annoying assignment on your list that has blurred your perception of the others—and your capacity for completing them. Now you’ve overcome the perceived stress. What’s left is actual stress. The best way to surmount it is to now prioritize that one annoying assignment. Bump it to the very top of your list. Put everything else on hold. Then use every trick in your book to knock that one out (and out of the park). It’s the hardest part, but once you’re done, you’ll feel wholly rejuvenated. Because 1) you’ve accomplished something real and can be justifiably proud and relieved, and 2) all that’s left are those eleven remaining to-do’s which are hardly worth stressing about. Offloading options As we’d mentioned earlier, when you’re confronted with actual stress, a go-to option is to offload the extra work to a trusted vendor. Like us. This is the type of work we handle all the time. Contact us today and we’d be happy to discuss your needs. Stress-free. |
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