If You Are a Creative Person You Need to Create.

-

And if you are an entrepreneur, your creativity is your superpower.

But as your venture grows, your time for creativity declines. The tyranny of the urgent takes away your ability to think up new approaches and work "on" the business instead of "in" the business.

The flip side of this problem is the creative entrepreneur who has a million ideas and is always planning something new but never able to start. Over and over, I’ve seen that the most creative people have the hardest time focusing and deciding which idea to pursue.

So for any entrepreneur running a business, there is a creative sweet spot where one continues to be innovative but not paralyzed by the abundance of possibilities.

There are three things you should do to stay in that zone:
  • Schedule time to be creative every day: You need to fight daily for space where you can explore, dream and think. I like spending an hour in the morning with my coffee and my ideas. And then I try to schedule quiet blocks of time where I can work uninterrupted on new ideas.
  • Stay focused on your mission, your purpose: It is so important to have an understanding of your own personal and organization mission as you play in the arena of your creative ideas. These give the freedom to explore new things without devolving into activity without impact or execution. Ideas are not things to be admired but concepts to guide us to further growth and new opportunities.
  • Finally, every idea finds it's power in concrete action steps: What is the one thing you are going to do today about your idea? Who are you going to call? What are you going to write down? What small step is going to bring about the future today?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Accidental Janitorial Company: Freedom Cleaning Services

-
Sometimes opportunity finds you. In 2003, Cherry Hills Community Church called Baby Bud's Director Dianne Sager with a question. The recovery organization that had been cleaning their facility had just closed and Cherry Hills needed a new partner. Would Baby Bud's be interested in cleaning the school at Cherry Hills? Normally a retail baby store would think twice about committing to a job completely unrelated to its core business. But Dianne had 20 years of experience managing a janitorial company prior to Baby Buds. She saw this as a new opportunity to employ more single moms. Within a couple of weeks, Baby Bud's added five single moms for a cleaning crew and Freedom Cleaning Services was born. Within a year, the business had grown to employ ten women with several other churches and commercial businesses as clients. One of the challenges to any business start-up is maintaining the focus on your core business when other opportunities arise. Sometimes it's good to pursue
Read more

Opportunity Knocks at Belay's New Beginnings

-
Image
If an ex-offender finds a job upon exiting prison, research shows that his or her chances of going back to jail are significantly reduced saving the $50,000 a year it costs a state to incarcerate an individual. With that in mind, Belay Enterprises' latest start-up New Beginnings Custom Woodworks employs and job-trains ex-offenders like Patrick Stewart in a faith-based cabinet shop venture t hat was recently profiled on 9News and in the Denver Post . "I got out of jail 9 years ago, but was unable to find a job because of my past offense," Patrick says. "It was only when New Beginnings was willing to take a chance on me was I able to get off welfare and start supporting my family."  Before starting at New Beginnings, Patrick had never built anything before. Now he's become an expert in crafting beautiful custom cabinets. "At one point in my life, I was just empty flesh walking around," he told the Denver Post , "Now, I have
Read more

For a long time there has been a hole in international development and business as mission in the area of sales training.

-
I was excited to be introduced to the Whitten & Roy Partnership recently over lunch by one of its consultants. There are so many great organizations implementing ideas in the developing world that are not realizing their full marketing potential because of a lack of training in sales tactics or a sub-par sales plan. I've had many long conversations with a sales professional friend discussing the need for high-quality help in this area. A well thought out sales approach in developing communities can even be a force for bringing about systematic change in disadvantaged communities: This company is redefining sales tactics for the base of the pyramid SAN FRANCISCO — Scott Roy, co-founder of an international sales consultancy, was doing research for a potential client in Cambodia when he heard about a sales tactic he found appalling. A team tasked with selling toilets to families would roll into villages with a set of latrine components. In order to close th
Read more