A Ripe Time for Introverted Creatives & Entrepreneurs
There’s never been a better time for you to share your message and creative brilliance with the world.
Imagine if Jonas Salk discovered the polio vaccine, but cowered at the prospect of receiving publicity or criticism or of appearing vain by drawing attention to himself so he decided to keep the discovery to himself, that would be irresponsible, wouldn’t it?
And yet a few of us creatives somehow think it’s okay if we keep what we create to ourselves or that the world has conspired against us if it’s not showing up at our studio or shed doors begging to see and buy the antidotes to their suffering that we’ve created.
I know the World of Buzz can be deafening, but we don’t have to play by its rules to win.
Let me suggest this:
It is our responsibility not only to create. It’s also our responsibility to figure out, gain the skill sets, and enlist allies & mentors to get our distinct message out there.
Here are three tenets I propose for any introverted creative who is unsure about putting their work out into the world via promoting, marketing, shipping, publishing, distributing, fund-raising:
1. Now more than ever people and businesses need what intelligent, sensitive creatives have to offer.
Let’s start with what most people want. Many people whom I meet and talk to feel overwhelmed, zapped, fatigued, and harried. They often hunger for but don’t know how to find
- transcendence from the daily riffraff.
- awakening of a deep feeling state they lose or forget in the daily flotsam.
- an experience that reminds them of their own purpose or that reminds them that life is meaningful or at least beautiful.
Who can offer transcendent, awakening experiences? You.
Now more than ever we need well-designed art, music, stories, books, films, and events. Now more than ever we need teachers who can design experiences in which something real and true is brought out in us. Now more than ever we need intelligent, sensitive creative people to innovate ways to get their “medicine” out into the world, to their patch of the planet.
Why do corporations turn to artists? Why did Lincoln Motor Company – as part of its brilliant 2013 “Hello, Again” campaign – turn to Beck and designers and audio geeks to create a multi-media live and online “360-degree experience”?
Because as great as the new Lincolns are to drive (not your grand-daddy’s gas-guzzler), the experience of driving one is hard to convey. So, they’ve turned to story tellers, videographers, and musicians like Beck to sell the experience.
Cringe as you may at the phrase “sell the experience,” that is ultimately what intelligent, sensitive creatives do. They sell experiences – whether it’s the experience of a sculpture, a sonata, or a somatic writing workshop.
2. There are more opportunities than ever for intelligent, sensitive creatives to get their work “out there” and to shape or complement their livelihood.
None of us will save the world. But you can salve a patch of the planet. Your work does that.
Digital technology + new models for socially progressive businesses + new collaboration opportunities make the early 21st century ripe for you.
Disruptions in the world actually make this time ripe for creatives not just to create their medicine but also to make it known and find the channels for distributing it.
3. Intelligent, sensitive creatives “buckle” at opportunities to get their work more into the world and sometimes sabotage their own best yearnings.
Get the word out. Get your medicine out there.
Here’s where we paradoxical creative creatures set up false dichotomies and broken frames. Here are some of the unconscious or conscious broken frames that hold us and our creative medicine back:
- Being solitary, creating work alone, remaining quiet = good, authentic
- Being a bohemian pauper (an anarchist, all the better!) = good, authentic
- Promotion, Marketing, Distribution = big and loud and “bad”
Making a worthy livelihood that lets you distribute your message, affect more people, not burn out, and still experience life in its splendor = sell-out.
I know these broken frames intimately.
5 Things You Can Do
1. Attune and engage. Let down the armor and help others do likewise. As an intelligent, sensitive creative, you have an inner intelligence that can help other people. Be socially smart in how you give and take. Aim to build up your patch of the planet. Captivate them and in so doing elevate them.
2. Honor your native creative strengths. You create art and experiences that awaken, move, or crack open people. Corporations don’t. Own that. We need you to.
3. “Come out” on your terms. Promoting and distributing your creative medicine doesn’t have to be ego-centric, obnoxious, sleazy, manipulative. Own what the good story is that you and your creative medicine are about. Expand your circles your way.
4. Get plenty of productive solitude and productive loafing time. Use your alone time well – in your creative laboratory testing out the latest vaccine for zombie lifestyles or the latest antidote to the virus of reality tv culture.
5. Write to Lead. The act of writing helps you define your message and big ideas. The act of publishing your content consistently helps you grow your audience and spread your brand’s influence. With the right strategy, you can increase your impact, influence, if not your income. How? I created a booklet with 10 Kickstart Actions to get your going. You can check out the recently revised edition of this book here.
In our community you’ll gain weekly inspiration, access to special meetups, and opportunities to find allies online and in your region of the planet. Our free community is comprised of professionals, entrepreneurs, creatives, teachers, coaches, and consultants (many of whom align with being introverted) from 15 countries, dedicated to doing business from a place of authenticity and wonder. Join us.
Interesting this topic should come up — I was part of a much larger band of “introverted creatives” forced into early retirement, or perhaps just scattered to the winds; as of December 10, 2013. Each a muse to others, a support group no more.
That date may not seem important to some; but that was when the HuffPost “enjoined” it’s community to “verify” themselves through FaceBook (eeew) or give up posting altogether on their site, anonymity and its symbiotic creativity be damned.
Since then, we have been variously berated by Joe “The Nerd” Ferraro (nobody knows for sure if that is his “verified” name), “schooled” by Jimmy Soni, and treated like obstreperous anklebiters by Tim McDonald.
Arianna claims to have been subjected to death threats and rape threats while on her end-of-year trip to the U.K. No-one can doubt she has been subjected to some intemperate expressions of revulsion; but when you examine the above “replacements”, I think she should have anticipated any eventuality and steeled herself for the worst.
The worst? Her fervent dream of allowing AOL to turn her highly-trafficked powerhouse site into a monochromatic wasteland can therefore have been no disappointment.
A little closure would be nice. Contact with absent friends even better. A modest suggestion of healing follows: http://ranchero42.wordpress.com/ please be kind and don’t focus too keenly on the fact that it is awkwardly nestled among the scattered “gems” of my creativity.