Is success linked to the creativity connection?
“If it doesn’t sell; it isn’t creative.”
I walked along a US Forest Service road with a cherished VIP coaching client a couple of days ago. The day was sunny and the air was still, giving no indication of the intense storm that would arrive later in the day and shake the entire ridgeline of Whiteside Mountain.
Along the gravel road, sparkling with tiny shards of mica, we chatted and delighted in the day and the season. Evidence of spring was just beginning to show in buds on tree branches and in tiny and brave wildflowers.
Around the 1.5 mile mark, a lone tree about 150 feet in the distance stopped us in our tracks. Standing in a thicket of naked poplars, birches, and oaks, this mysterious sentinel boasted a canopy of dense, white, puffy blossoms, appearing to have time-traveled from early May back to us.
An offering from Mother Nature whispering, “You made it through a long winter…here is a little gift.”
Choosing Your Season
We stood and marveled at its beauty and defiance of the season. We wondered what kind of tree it was. Why it was already in bloom. We couldn’t help but notice how it stood out in a stand of gray trunks and branches that were holding back their creative fire until warmer weather and the position of the sun gave the nod to make an entrance.
It was a bold move for the tree to step onto a stage that held lots of uncertainty. Late March is notorious for curve balls in the form of surprise freezes. The tree chose to believe spring was already here to stay.
What season are you choosing to be in right now? Are you stepping forward with big, bold moves, or are you holding back your creative fire, fearful of the unknown?
It is easy to caught in the trap of believing that the environment we are in and the focus of our minds give us evidence of the current season. Naked branches and cold mornings in the form of stock market fluctuations, global concerns, and our own business and personal landscapes suggest we wait.
The conditions just aren’t perfect for our creativity connection yet.
Our Creative Fire
I fall prey to this thinking when I let thoughts slip past my awareness unaddressed. I make unconscious, timid choices and feel the squeeze of scarcity thinking in my chest. It takes shallow breathing and a slight case of vertigo to wake me up and prompt me to ask: Why do I feel so weird, off?
Even though I spent years writing a book about the creativity connection to business success and personal joy, I, too, can easily forget that I am in charge of my own creative fire, regardless of the season.
We are told that we need to work harder if we are in a slump or cannot seem to find traction in the market. That productivity and discipline will pull us up and out of cycles of no sales. To embrace fear as a motivator, an internal whip to push us to slay, hustle, grasp with sweaty hands.
All of this traditional advice to entrepreneurs and creators is broken. It ignores the success and creativity connection.
The foundation, the key to success is creativity.
Tapping into Our Creativity
How do we tap into the success and creativity connection?
We begin by asking: What do I need to do to free myself? Where do I feel leaden? Stuck? Rowing against the current of my true self?
Journal your answers. Look for one creativity connection you can work on. One habit to stop. One habit to start. One limiting belief to turn around.
How we feel is our best barometer in knowing when to stop and investigate. Seek more information. Are we repeating old patterns? Are we exhausted? Are we filled with self-doubt?
Next, we open our focus and allow inspired action to bubble up from within. I discuss this in my forthcoming book:
When we have the open focus of a creator, we are more optimistic, which ushers in our ability to see more possibilities, creativity’s raw material and driving force. We muster up courage to make bold moves in our work and lives. We refuse to stall out and stay stuck. We discern and decide, letting our choices power our creativity with a confidence born from focusing on what we love. We more easily find meaning and enjoy feelings of fulfillment, a greater engagement with the world, and access to success.
The ability to hear ourselves think is a sacred and rare superpower. When we get out of the clamor, we can come to know what is and is not us. When we turn away from the din on our screens, we can feel and tap into the verdant void of silence and stillness. The quiet and calm are unnerving at first, but if we recognize we are merely reacting to old habits of distraction, we can settle into this new state.
Open focus provides us with an expansive state of being that bends time and coaxes us across the threshold from clinging control to empowered self-trust. Once through this portal, we inhabit a world of momentum, working with a tempo kept by the drumbeat of us. Energized and expectant of serendipity, we seek and find what our minds believe to be true and create what only we can create.
Success and the Creativity Connection
Success and creativity are inexorably linked. Our creative fire is the way to season-proof our enterprises. It is the source and the end result of our being bold and willing and tolerant of what we cannot yet see.
If we choose to fuel our creativity connection with inspired action and tend it with mindful care, we can stand out amongst the gray and lifeless masses and display the full color of who we truly are.
