Fighter, Musician, Martial Artist or Business man?
Defining Who You Are Is a 21st Century Occupation, How to make it work for you.
If I ask you what you are with option of either Martial Artist (or sportsman, musician, photographer Etc ) or Business person I know what the response is going to be, well at least most of the time I do…
We live in a world where defining who you are seems all important in with social media making electronic self expression easier and easier in fact almost demanding you define who you are and tell the world, when being a bank clerk or working on a building site doesn’t seem as cool or interesting as what you do in your spare time then suddenly you become the things that you do. In the last ten years more and more I see people who used to ride a bike become cyclists, people who do some fitness at the gym become Cross Fitters, Martial Arts students with a years experience become Fighters.
Just like the guy I was in a band with once who worked in the DWP for the government in what I could only describe as potentially the most mind blowingly dull profession on the planet if you checked this guy out on Facebook he was a full time musician…..or at least that’s what he wanted people to think. At that time I WAS a full time musician and I got it…when you’re talking to some hot chick in a club you aren’t going to say you work for the DWP you’re the lead singer in a band right? There is no harm in this assuming you stick with the lousy day job but the harm comes when you start to confuse your tasks, objectives and activities based on your definition of what you are first and foremost.
Its clear that the things you do in your life now define who you are more and more or at least they do in many peoples minds but where this becomes a little dangerous is when you confuse making a public definition with a personal objective. Now when your passion becomes your life and your work, your business and your income source its really important to get your mind set right. So why is this so difficult for many creatives when they go into business?
Simply put very few if any of us got into this game with the intention make money or to run a business.
That side of things came later, was secondary, was almost an after thought right? For many of us we fell into this…We quit our job to follow our passion, turned our backs on 9–5 forever…In fact you could say the reasons we followed this route were based on what we didn’t like doing as much as what we did. However once you have crossed that line if you want to become really successful then you need to adjust your inner thinking. Project what you need to outwardly and focus on your objectives internally!
A Few little things which will help:
Build Your Skills
In my recent article “Learn What You Already Know” I talked about taking your experience from your earlier skill sets and applying the principles to your business skills. Write a list, brainstorm everything you need to either find out about, know or learn to do. Make decisions on whether its better to do it yourself or pay someone else (accountancy for example or graphic design might be two skills you need but would be better off delegating than doing yourself if you are not that way orientated)
Work on it as well as in it!
The Old Adage of Work on your business not in your business is so true but so many people just completely ignore it. Once off the ground people have a tendency to just focus on their day to day routines and further development stops…Gary Vaynerchuk one of my favourite business guru’s says “The biggest obstacle you will face for future success is your current success” I love that phrase! I will talk about this in planning too but I find it useful to set aside an hour a day for development as a minimum with working holidays every month where I spend two or three days doing what I describe as Active Thinking
Separate your personal ID with your business persona
Social media will play a huge part in this and you should be making your social your business presence and keep it focussed, have separate accounts if need be. If your brand is you then this is slightly different but I heavily recommend reading Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by @GaryVee for the best up to date information on this. What I am adding to the conversation is more about your mind set becoming focussed on developing your business not massaging your ego.
The summary is simple. Once you make your passion your business then don’t lose the fun in it but realize that the separation between business and pleasure is no longer as apparent and focus on constant development and inwardly at least know you are a business person as well as a creative.
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