Idea2actions Formerly Rhythm Of Profitability | I2a Creative Marketing Strategies

Throughout your life and career, you are tested.  As you run your business, you are tested.  Many times the test is unwanted.  No matter what we say we're up for, deep down we would prefer things to be easier.  The only way you can get there is to be willing to accept test with an open heart.  Tests are tough.  You hear no and internally, if you don't look at that rejection the right way, you hear "you're not good enough".  But, what if instead of that, you say to yourself, thanks for the test, how can I make this better?  This week, start looking at how fast you succeed or fail.  How much actual testing of your ideas, your art, your passion are you doing vs. talking about how great it's all going to be, or how it could fail.

Maybe.  What an awful word.  Maybe is worse than yes or no in my book.  Maybe means, continue to be confused, continue to wait, continue to think it over.  I know it doesn't always feel like it when the answer is no, but isn't no 100x better than a maybe?  Maybe can drag on for months putting your life on hold.  Maybe you'll get that new job.  Maybe you'll take that vacation.  Maybe you'll make it big!  Well, I want you to stop thinking about maybe and use this week's podcast as a way to create some certainty in areas of your life where you have too many maybe's.  Don't think about listening to this podcast.  Maybe you will, maybe you won't...NO!  You'll either listen or you won't.  Get out of maybe-land.

As we celebrate one year with Rhythm of Profitability podcast, I want to ask you how important things are right now.  When we look at where we are in our lives, careers, relationships, many of us have a difficult time being content with the now.  Regardless of the level of success we've achieved, we want that next goal to hit now!  Sometimes, we wish things were the way they used to be.  We wish now was how it used to be.  How much of now do you enjoy?  Are the accomplishments you've achieved in life good enough for you now?  Hopefully, you are able to balance your ambitions with your contentment.  Are the things you want in life only important right now?  Do you have an idea that if you have to wait 5 years to get it, isn't important to you?  Is now all you're fighting for?

There are plenty of challenges we have as artrepreneurs, but two common ones that exist around our ideas are 1) We have a great idea that no one understands and we're afraid everyone is right.  2) We have a great idea that everyone thinks is a good idea and then when we pursue it, we realize it's not right for us.  There's probably 100 more ways that list could be expanded, but the point is, sometimes yesterday's great idea is tomorrow's regret and that's okay.  The important thing to know is why it's no longer a good idea.  Are you running away from your idea or do you see the long-term vision doesn't look so appealing?

Are you a person that waits until things are perfect before you move forward?  It's important to do things the best you can, but the best you can doesn't amount to much if you never launch.  100% of perfect is worthless if it means you missed an opportunity to get out there and pursue your passion.  Sometimes, you have to choose the right battles to decide how much perfection is worth it vs. 50% if it means you get in the game.  One of my mentors was a man named Shad O'She and he used to say "50% of something is better than 100% of nothing".  What about you?  Are you willing to start with 50% instead of waiting and waiting and waiting for perfection?

Doubt.  Doubt can hold us all back from time to time.  It seems sometimes that when we're venturing out to dream big and live bold that we have that small thread of doubt that holds enough power to make us pause.  What if I jump and the parachute doesn't open?  When you're doing something creative, it's can feel like a huge risk.  It's your idea, your vision, what if I'm wrong?  You seek advice, but sometimes the more advice you get, the farther away from feeling confident you get.  Well, yes everyone feels like that sometimes.  There's no way to avoid doubt and confusion, but there is a way to address it.  Take a step, then another, then another.  Put one foot in front of the other and pretty soon you're running towards success.

Do you have a theme song for your life?  What about several theme songs?  Throughout our day, week, month and year, we experience so many different emotions.  Sometimes we're stuck, sometimes we're looking for answers, sometimes we want to scream at the top of our lungs.  Music creates such a deep connection with us all.  It helps us in times of sadness, grief, joy and celebration.  This week, I want to play a portion of some popular songs out there that can say so much about how an artrepreneur feels.  Maybe you'll identify or it will prompt you to go out there and find some songs about you.

Being an artrepreneur can feel like a very lonely role sometimes.  You're on your own trying to create something that is your passion and yours alone.  What are the right moves?  How do you avoid the depression that can come with being on your own?  You have well meaning people out there reminding you that what you want to do is tough, maybe you need a plan b.  One can be lonely, but if you're truly alone, you're just being a phony.  There's plenty of community out there ready to mentor you and share with you.  Learn how to overcome the loneliness of being an artrepreneur.  Dan Miller, 48 Days to the work you love is mentioned, Coaching with Excellence is mentioned and Sutton Parks is the featured music artist.

We all start off our lives with a huge imagination filled with magic.  We believe we can achieve anything regardless of how much fantasy is involved because we live in a very big dream state.  Over time, realities, disappointments, worries take over our thinking.  Our reality state begins to occupy the majority of our minds and our dream state gets smaller and smaller.  How can you reconnect with your dream state?  Make the impossible feel possible again.  How positive would your life be if you could think the way you did as a child.

There are a lot of things going on in our lives on a daily basis.  New challenges, new threats, new opportunities.  It gets really mixed up and sometimes we put on the game face, go out there and mingle, work..survive.  Then, once we're alone again, the smile gets put away and is put on the shelf until the next time we need to hide our feelings.  Sometimes, we just need to be able to take a true temperature check on how we're feeling.  But how?  This week, I'm going to ask you 5 questions about you that will give you an opportunity to change your perspective.  If you do nothing else this week to improve your mental health, use these 5 questions to your advantage.

What do we do when the things we have always been so passionate about, no longer drive our enthusiasm?  When the fun, the challenge are sucked out and it's work and apathy.  It happens.  The burden of difficult customers, financial struggles, setbacks, it's enough to make someone want to just run away and give up.  And sometimes, it can make a person feel they've lost their passion.  How do you know if it's your passion or your circumstances that are causing you to feel like this?  Are you fighting against currents because what you want to achieve isn't what the market is telling you?

This week, we said goodbye to one of the most influential pop culture artists of our time, Mr. David Bowie.  The thing that was so amazing about David Bowie for me was his confidence to be weird, and make it cool.  Again and again, he challenged normal but in a way that wasn't meant to alienate, more to tell you, please join me, but I don't need you to have a good time.  He was never chasing what was cool, he was doing something and letting the cool factor catch up to him.  What about you?  Are you busy chasing the next trendy topic, or idea, or are you doing something that challenges everyone's sense of comfort, but leading with your creativity and letting cool catch up with you?  Between your birthday and the date you die, there's a span of time for you to create something bigger than a paycheck, bigger than fame, bigger than the largest house you can afford.  It's the opportunity to create something that is so bold and true that you're happy for people to join in, but you don't need approval by committee t

We're barely into the new year and already, things are changing that could very well get your 2016 plans off track.  That is unless you planned for change, planned for distractions, planned for new opportunities.  My business has a mission statement, but beyond that, I create a mission statement for my year too.  Each year, I think of the goals I have and following that, I define the year I expect to have.  This allows me to weigh each of my decisions against that mission statement.  If it doesn't line up, it doesn't make the cut.  This week, I review an article written by Bryce G. Hoffman called "Nine Things I Learned from Alan Mulally", the former CEO of Ford.  Mulally has an incredible business management style that brought Ford back from the brink of bankruptcy, and I want to talk about his leadership values and how you can incorporate them into your own.

If you're a creative person with ambitions of being profitable with your art, then chances are, you've been told not to try at all.  You've been reminded how hard it is to make a living with what you dream to do with your life.  Well, hear it enough, you'll learn to believe it.  Believe it, you'll be sure to create a self-fulfilling prophecy, not making it.  I don't want to start the year off angry, but I am mad and I want you to get mad too!  Get mad enough to succeed in 2016.  It's up to you, let the doubters say what they will, but this year, you're going to do it! You're going to get mad enough to succeed in 2016.

I'm not much of a New Year's resolution person.  I'm very goal focused, but don't really think about the resolutions part of my year.  Then, I started thinking about some solutions I have been repeatedly needing to address, year after year, same things.  I thought, I can't believe I need to re-think this solution.  I need a RE-SOLUTION to this problem.  This week, we're going to focus on creating solutions that will stick in 2016, so that in 2017, they will not longer be a problem we're facing.  Get ready to create your New Year's Re-Solutions to solving some problems once and for all.

We all have challenges when it comes to becoming more successful with our work.  Each year, we strive to get better, do more, earn more.  Sometimes, we find ourselves not reaching the goals we set and it creates frustration.  We look around ourselves and want to pinpoint where the point of failure is, who's stopping me from being more successful?  A competitor?  A friend?  Well, sometimes we needn't look any further than the person in the mirror.  Sometimes, we inadvertently are not giving ourselves permission to succeed.  Even worse, we sometimes are waiting on someone else to come along and forgive us for becoming really successful.  This week, we discuss how to stop waiting for permission to succeed.

On December 18th, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is being released.  Star Wars is more than just a science fiction film, it's an entrepreneurial success story.  How it was made, the special effects that led to Industrial Light and Magic, Kenner toys saving Christmas with a big gamble that paid off.  For artrepreneurs, Star Wars is our story.  How we face adversity, how we overcome financial challenges, objections and even the dates on a calendar.  Code Elektro is featured music.  Dream Big, Live Bold and Create Your Rhythm of Profitability.

As the end of the year edges closer, it's pretty common to start reflecting on the good, the bad, or the ugly that occurred this year.  Hopefully, it's more good than bad or ugly.  The new year can be like shedding your skin.  It's a chance to let go of some of your habits you don't like, to change and challenge yourself to do things differently next year.  This week, we talk about how focusing on the good things you accomplished this year and knowing that you also need to change even the best of practices to make a bigger impact next year is key to making 2016 your most successful year ever!

This time of year is pretty tough for artrepeneurs.  The holidays are going to be a huge distraction and a time when your passion can begin to feel deflated.  You’ve set goals but they are so big and 2016 is so close, it seems like you can’t realistically tackle them.  On this week’s podcast, I discuss the importance of keeping your passion inflated by setting tiny goals for yourself.  The best way to keep moving forward is to a) not give up and b) create momentum for yourself by taking big goals and turning them into several small victories.

Many artrepreneurs start off struggling with sales.  One of the biggest reason for this is that our passion gets in the way of our sales process.  We focus on trying to solve our own problem of proving we're good enough, proving we can make it happen.  We're focused on our problem instead of the problems of our market.  There are plenty of problems out there waiting to be solved by someone just like you.  If you're having trouble selling, it's probably because you're not focused on those problems and how you can solve them.  This week we focus on a process in how you can identify your market's problems, and learn how to craft a product leveraging your passion.  You can also download my free worksheet to go along with this podcast by visiting http://www.passionproduct.com.  Music spotlight this week features Kevin Washburn.