Last week I worked out of a coffee shop in Tyler, TX, my hometown. As I worked, a lot of memories flooded back to me from the last time I worked in Tyler, over 14 years ago. At the time, I had recently completed my graduate degree and was now working full time at a small print shop. While I was working, a good bit of my time was spent daydreaming of playing music full time or doing something more creative.
All I really ever wanted to be was a creative. Graphic design was the avenue that I chose when I was told I needed to get a degree so I could one day get a real job. And here I was after getting two degrees, designing business cards for local businesses using mostly clip art, based on client request. I was not getting the opportunity to help others present themselves in a better light or solve any real world business problems. After about 6 months working full time, I figured out that real creative work would not happen in Tyler. I needed to be trained and to gain experience working for big clients. To me, that opportunity was in Dallas at an advertising agency.
All of these emotions flooded back to me at once as I sat thinking about those earlier years. I immediately become greatful. God was reminding me that he made a way for me to be able to do what I had hoped to do. Now, I was sitting in Tyler, working from my laptop, solving marketing problems for big clients and helping them improve their digital presence. It’s not the same craft that I was working in when I left Tyler years ago, but it is as strategic or more so than I could have hoped for, even back then.
Now, I am a full time remote worker, no longer tied down by “where I work” or even how or when I work. And I’m getting to do the kind of creative work I only dreamed of back then.
Years ago I knew I needed to leave. Now I’m thankful that I can stay as long as I want. I have attained more time and location freedom through remote work that allows me to be even more creative than when I was tied to an office.
I wrote a personal mission statement for myself years ago. I wanted to use my creativity to draw others to God and encourage them into their own God given creativity. But for about 13 of these last 14 years, I have often felt confused or stunted in my growth. One step in this process of fulfilling my personal mission, what God created me to do, was to realize a dream to be creative in my work. To pursue the business of creativity. Which means, to not only be creative but to learn how to get paid, to bring “results” based on others needs.
I know this journey is not over and that any day the creative work could change. But I also know that I will be given the strength to navigate it and to make money doing it. And so, today, I am greatful.
What I’ve found in the pursuit of learning the business of creativity is that I needed to learn business and marketing. And then, writing, in order to get good at communicating what I know about business and marketing. This process of development has given me more autonomy to be creative. I needed to be able to conceptualize ideas and also communicate them. But only through the hard knocks of real world experience could I ever have hoped to help businesses and people be more creative. Which again, is all I’ve really ever wanted to do – to be creative. I needed to learn how to get paid to do creative work. And now I have.
And as I have grown I have learned much more about myself. I am analytical and logical. I am a deductive thinker. And learning to lean into those additional qualities has helped me to prove the value of my creativity. If there is no data to support it, then the creative product is only guessing. And that’s how I’ve made this whole journey to being a creative, in a digital world, work.
I’m good at challenging conventional wisdom and helping people think outside the box, then delivering the results. Which is hard to do in many jobs that want you to not buck the system. But I have no interest in systems that are for padding executives pockets alone, they must be for the best interest of others.
Many in digital want to create gadgets and then tell their clients what to think. The catch is that this model of doing business means that they choose to work long days and nights in order to make themselves look better. Or, even worse, they tell everyone else under them to work long days and nights so that they can look good. Or both. Either way, no one is willing to stand up and say, “This sucks” or “Shouldn’t we gather more feedback from our clients before we make these assumptions?” Because who gives a flip what we think? The problem is, the person that speaks up will get laid off.
I’ve never been good at pretending that something is working when it’s not. And being given the freedom to be told “if it’s not working, then go figure it out” is all I’ve ever hoped for in my work. But I needed to be drug through the mud a few times in my work life and to feel unappreciated enough times in order for me to determine what I really care about. And what I don’t.
I’ve seen the end of the road at jobs more than I can count. Despite this fact, I’ve worked to make the connections that I’ve needed to make in order to be given more freedom to do good work. But ultimately I needed to find a place that appreciated it. I’ve put in the time in order to begin to understand how to get paid to be creative. And I’m greatful that God believed in me enough to let me not quit until he moved me out of it. I did not give up and he did not move me out of it. He helped me move through it. At this point, I feel like I’m mostly on the other side of it and asking God to help me dream bigger. To over time, shift my creativity from just business to individual people. And in doing so, fulfill more of the personal mission statement that I created years ago.
Key takeaways:
- Years ago I knew I needed to leave (my hometown). Now I’m thankful that I can stay as long as I want.
- The process of learning who I am meant to be in my work
- God believed in me enough to let me not quit until he moved me out of it. I did not give up and he did not move me out of it. He helped me move through it.