The Three “P”s of Creativity

Shawn Today

Let’s talk for a minute about business, entrepreneurship, leadership, and creativity.

I just recently began re-reading The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. In it, Ries defines a startup as this:

A startup is a human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.

If you’ve read Frank Chimero’s fantastic book, The Shape of Design, you’ll know there are a metric ton of parallels and overlaps between startup entrepreneurs and designers-slash-creative-folks.

Next, I listened to a recent podcast episode on the EntreLeadership podcast…

In the podcast episode, Dave Ramsey shares what his definition of an EntreLeader is. Which — surprise surprise — is someone who has the qualities of both an entrepreneur and a leader:

• Someone has entrepreneurial characteristics: being comfortable with risk, having tenacity, vision, and a genuine desire to provide value to others and make the world a little bit better.

• Combined with someone who has leadership characteristics: integrity, focus, diligence, discipline, servant-hearted.

And so — and stick with me on this — do you see just how much overlap there is between artists and creative folks and entrepreneurs?

Artists and entrepreneurs alike are both those who aim to live with diligence and focus in order to take a risk to create something new under conditions of uncertainty.

This person says things like:

“I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Or, my favorite: “This might not work.”

This person also cares deeply about doing their best work.

And so, here are Three “P”s that will help:

1. Persistence: Do you have the tenacity and discipline to show up every day?

2. Place / Platform: Do you have an outlet for showing your work, shipping your product, and/or showcasing your art?

3. People: This is multi-directional: Who are you providing value to? Who are you learning from? Who are you working with?

* * *

Starting tomorrow, and over the coming weeks, I plan to unpack these Three Ps. Both here on the podcast and also on my weekly email newsletter.

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