You always knew you could do great, out-of-the-box things and wanted the world to see your greatness, brilliant ideas or unique sense of taste, but….
The greats of this world have been in a similar situation, and often much worse, who also had only an idea and enthusiasm at the beginning, and a lot of failures along the way.
And specifically who are we talking about? J.K. Rowling, who created the Harry Potter saga and is on the list of the world’s richest women, started writing in a café she visited while walking with her daughter. She was divorced, suffering from clinical depression and living on unemployment benefit while raising a child alone. Her first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, was rejected by a dozen publishers. Until it came to Bloomsbury Publishing, who decided to give it a chance. What the story went on to become, you know…
Quite a similar story full of failure before success can be shared by another writer Stephen King or Walt Disney, who as a kid worked hard to support his family’s livelihood. His great passion was drawing and he did it at every possible opportunity, trying to sell his work. He cared so much about drawing and believed so much in the potential of what he loved that he got employed by an advertising studio and worked there for free for a while. When he took a job in publishing a few years later, he lost it very quickly. The reason was … a lack of imagination and creativity. Can you believe it? Winner of the Oscars, creator of iconic characters and a whole fairytale world and business.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?
As we look at his story we can see that he got up stronger and even more determined from every stumble. Along the way he went bankrupt, lost more businesses and fell victim to fraud. And yet he started again and again because, as he said…
The way to start is to finish talking and take action.
And these are words we sign up to with all hands! Want to know how to learn new things so that you can develop a business based on your own creativity? Just start doing them… Knowledge and basics are important too, of course, but you can believe us that you will achieve more when, for example, you plan and organise an exhibition of your photographs instead of enrolling in yet another training course or buying a manual with golden advice like “how I started selling my photos in 100 days”.
Can you expect the results exactly as you planned? The answer is no. You cannot perfectly predict where this project will take you and how it will develop. But you can be sure that the experience you will gain from it will make you look at things with different eyes and see things you didn’t know existed, including your own potential and skills you didn’t know you had.
As they say, “no risk, no fun”, meaning remember that you have to have fun in the process first and foremost, don’t be afraid to make mistakes, experiment and look where others are afraid to look. With all this frenzy of creativity, also take to heart the old maxim that ‘patience is the virtue of the gods’. Be patient and don’t get discouraged too quickly. If Edison had been discouraged after his 1000th failed attempt at inventing the light bulb, it would probably have taken mankind a long time to enjoy the benefits of electric lighting.
“The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.” Mark Twain
Do as much as you can and don’t be afraid to get tired. In our team that makes up kreatywni.online, we always say it’s better to do too much than too little. Running a small marketing agency, we are committed to helping, talking, meeting. Does this always translate into a financial outcome? Absolutely not. We can’t even count how many brilliant ideas, contacts or projects born out of such activity never see the light of day, let alone recoup their costs. But we do agree that striving for a goal is important, but the journey itself is just as important, indeed often even more important, because along the way we stumble, sometimes we get lost, but in doing so we learn, develop, get to know others and ourselves. And we create something completely new.
But back to spiritus movens, or where do we find Edison’s motivation or Disney’s determination? One key may be the concept of ‘deferred gratification’, or the ability to deny oneself an immediate pleasure or benefit in order to receive a greater reward at a later time. It’s about making an effort while consistently achieving daily goals and consciously choosing what will benefit us more in the future. Research carried out in the 1960s by Walter Mischel (the so-called Marschmallow test) proved that there is a strong link between the ability to defer gratification and being successful in life. Czyli wytrwałość i samodyscyplinaThat is, perseverance and self-discipline – scientifically proven! – to udowodnione naukowo!
One would like to write “be like Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive” 😊 , but we will write “be like Walt Disney”…
And as we have him called to the board again, we want to draw your attention to yet another aspect of his work. Walt Disney – creator, artist, entrepreneur – brilliantly built his personal brand when the world did not yet know the concept and the marketing industry was just crawling. Quite simply, he made it into a global brand that has grown into a gigantic industry encompassing not only film studios, but theme parks, publishing, licensed gadgets, media, technology etc. Its value is estimated at many billions of dollars.
How did it succeed? Unwavering character, consistency and creativity in problem-solving and courage – it was around these values that his life revolved and they became the foundation of the Walt Disney brand. Consistency of action with beliefs always guarantees authenticity, which also becomes a brand value. And, of course, there are those who will say that corporate values work best as a slogan on the reception wall, while in fact companies are all about three very simple things: money, more money and even more money.
There is no denying that when we buy a brand’s product we are also buying what is known as added value, i.e. an idea, a vision, prestige, ecology, belonging, the need to express ourselves, and so on. And Walt Disney used to say that he produces films not to make money, but he makes money so that he can produce more films. And how not to believe him?
Remember that no matter what you do, YOU are the brand.. Be aware that the foundations in building a brand are:
We, as communication professionals, can only add at this point that this is a very broad subject, so look out for further posts 😊
A good START, or what to do to get off to a good start.
On motivation, potential and personal branding.
How much is it worth - or how to price your work
How not everyone will like you
How not to lose balance on the seesaw called entrepreneurship
Design thinking, or keep calm & Design Thinking
