Creative Callings

At our best, creatives are a humanized product of ideas and execution. Getting there is not so simple. The road in this line of work is all over the map. Frankly, I have yet to see someone that has chosen this line of work and has just gone to college, got a job, moved up, switched to a higher position, and then, became a thoughtleader.

Creatives are gritty, tenacious, and they are used to being the odd man out. This can be isolating at the beginning, but the makings of a visionary later.

The barrier to entry is low, but the imposter syndrome is high. At some point, you choose reckless abandon and ego hits over not doing this line of work. And that I would say is the true starting point of creatives at work.

You can learn every Adobe product, Sketch, Prototyping, SEO, Event Planning, but until you decide this is part of the calling that you are creating, those are all just skills. All of it is futile knowledge that is haphazardly thrown without a strategic play.

Being creative isn’t one size fits all; it’s about pushing boundaries, thinking in new ways, risk over reward, and sometimes, looking like a complete fool all to convey a message and evoke a thought.

The most important note is that anyone can be creative, but making creativity your calling is completely different.

Creativity is a practice of vulnerability. It’s truly a form of communication: to visualize data, tell a story, style a photoshoot, or design a webpage. It’s your internal world translated with materials. And the goal is to deliver a message while forging a connection.

Choosing creativity is a relationship not a job. The formulas don’t always work here, the algorithms are ever-changing, and there are always new trends to learn. The work is exhaustive but never monotonous. And for the most part, there seems to be an ever-present mix of imposter syndrome along with frustration about being undervalued.

But it’s all worth it. Every plateau soon breaks into a peak to summit. Time, patience, and the ability to laugh along the way is all you need to get started and keep going.