CREATIVE PROSPERITY
Prosperity and creativity should go hand in hand. The number three way that people become rich in America is a proprietary idea. One great creative idea is all you need. Multiple creative ideas multiply your prosperity potential. Prosperity and creativity should go hand in hand. But they don’t. The world is full of wonderfully talented, creative people that never prosper. The starving artist is an archetype. So is the poor poet.
(If it has neither rhyme nor meter is it actually poetry? The purest form of poetry today from the perspective of rhyme and meter is rap music. Ever notice the number of rich rappers? They know how to make creativity into prosperity.)
There are three reasons that creatives fail to prosper from their creativity. And if you don’t count yourself as a creative I’ll show you why the same three reasons apply to you.
Creatives fail to prosper from their creation because—
THEY CREATE FOR THEMSELVES
If you’re a writer your job is writing. If you’re a painter your job is painting. If you’re a singer your job is singing. Are you seeing a pattern? Your writing job is writing what readers want to read. Your painting job is painting what people want to hang on their walls. Your singing job is singing something that people can relate to. If you want to prosper. If you don’t want to prosper write for yourself. Paint for a market that isn’t there. Sing to a crowd that isn’t there.
I like deep preaching. I can go so deep that you drown—right after your head spins around three times. And in my early days I did drown a few people preaching deep messages that dealt with profound issues that left heads spinning. Then I realized that I wasn’t helping anyone. So I started preaching practical messages filled with positive insights that bring prosperity in the fullest sense. And people prospered.
Whatever you do, creative or not, you’re doing for the market you’re in—create for yourself at your own peril, you may find it a market of one.
THEY DON’T VALUE WHAT THEY CREATE
Joe Rector was a good painter. He was not a great painter. But he was a good painter. And he made a very good living being a good painter because he knew how to put value into what he painted.
Joe was a body builder who had some Cherokee blood in him. So he painted extremely muscular Native American figures. The owner of a Japanese company became enamored with his paintings and purchased one for over two hundred thousand dollars. I don’t know that Joe ever sold another for that amount but I do know that gave him a basis for placing a value on his paintings. I still have a painting in my office that Joe gave me years ago when he found inspiration in one of my messages. I don’t know what it is worth but I do know that it has value. Because Joe put a value on what he did.
What’s the value in what you create? What’s the value in what you’re doing? Even if you’re working a machine in a factory, punching out the same pieces all day long, what you’re doing has a value. You prosper as you put a value on what you’re doing.
THEY DON’T PROMOTE WHAT THEY CREATE.
Back in my traveling days I used to tell pastors as I sold them on promoting my meetings, “He that tooteth not his own horn getteth not his horn tooted.” Which is a funny way of saying that you have to promote your value, if indeed, you have value. That’s true in whatever you do, but especially true if what you do is creative.
Every successful entrepreneur has an “elevator pitch”—an encapsulation of their product or service that can be said in the time it takes an elevator to get from the first floor to the top floor. Fortunes have been made in that time. Successful entrepreneurs promote what they create.
You may be thinking—“I’m not an entrepreneur and what I do isn’t creative, so I don’t need to promote what I do.” Who do you think is going to get the next promotion where you work? The person that has promoted themselves. Don’t just ask for a raise—perfect your “elevator pitch” and give the reasons that you have earned a raise.
BTW—Joe Rector was tall, muscular, blue-eyed, always dressed in western attire, and promoted constantly. Someone told me, “With those blue eyes he doesn’t have much Cherokee in him.” But it didn’t make any difference. He promoted himself as a Native American artist and that was enough. And there are blue eyed Cherokee—he was one.
I started thinking about all of this a few days ago when a talented young woman that I have known all of my life told me that she was taking a break from college to pursue the life of a creative. I gave her a little advice. (I could do that—really, I’ve known her since she was a baby.) Then I realized that I needed to add to that advice. When you go “Behind The Door” you’re going to read “Nine Questions For A Young Creative.” You may be neither young nor creative but you will find that the same questions apply to you. That is—if you want to prosper in what you’re doing.
It’s a new month so you’ll have to get the new password that takes you “Behind The Door.” To be the password hit the sowing button and sow a seed of any amount. The default setting is twenty dollars. Many of my readers raise that amount—some considerably because they recognize the value in what they read. A few lower that amount. I set it up that way so that anyone who puts a value on themselves can make an investment in themselves and get the inspiration, insights, and information that always awaits “Behind The Door.” Why don’t I just make it free? Because I value my creativity.
