Success in the arts comes down to focus and consistency. But we are too impatient for success to happen, so we jump from idea to idea. Pace yourself like other small businesses. Be consistent in what you create, and stay the course. How long should you wait to judge yourself successful? Successful entrepreneurs find something viable and focus their energy for 3 – 5 years.
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Hi. I’m John Paul Fischbach, the CEO and Chief Alchemist here at the Auspicious Arts Incubator. I welcome you to this week’s Hot Tip Tuesday. The theme this week is be consistent and stay the course. If you can find someone who can stay on mission, on task with focused intensity I will show you someone who is world class in their arts practice. In his great book Outliers Malcolm Gladwell writes that one of the keys to unusual heights of success is spending 10,000 hours of practice at your chosen craft.
For us, for artists 10,000 hours if you work a 40 hour week kind of averages out to about five years. It’s about knowing that you stayed focused on your particular arts practice for five years. What we say to artists is to understand that you’re running a small business. Compare yourself to other small businesses.
The rule for small businesses, it takes three to five years for a small business to succeed. You’re in for the long haul. Small businesses dont succeed in the first six months. They dont succeed in the first year and they dont know that they’re going to succeed for three years. That’s okay. Take a chill pill there.
Most small businesses fail from lack of focus and most small arts businesses fail from the shiny object syndrome. You know what that is like right? We have this incredible tradition in Australia of create it, dump it, create something else, dump it, create something else and dump it.
What I’m encouraging you to do is be consistent and stay the course. Focus on the thing, keep focusing, keep working, stay the course, 10,000 hours, five years because for success in the arts it’s about viability not profitability. Viability has two criteria. Do you still want to do it? Is it still filling you with passion and is there a market for it? Is it viable not is it profitable so pull back, keep going, 10,000 hours but every once in a while look up and say, do I still want to do this? Am I still passionate about this and are people still loving it? If so you’ve got a viable business. Here’s to staying on mission, on task with focused intensity. Being consistent and staying the course.
If this Hot Tip was helpful to you please like the video. If you know someone who has that shiny object syndrome and keeps changing their focus please share this video with them. We want you to help them be consistent and stay the course because that is where the success comes from.
Let’s start a little bit of a dialogue below. Tell us what you’re focusing on. Tell us what is viable in your life that you’re going to be focusing in the next 10,000 hours on because here at the Auspicious Arts Incubator we want you to more than survive. We want you to thrive and the best way to thrive is to subscribe so I’ll see you next week.
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Great, Tips.
I do want to get more infomation and have lessons with you guys
Darren
It has been so long now that i do not feel very viable in my art anymore. I would like to fire up my creativity again and put on exhibitions, workshops, start an online art supplies business, learn more about photography And get a websige up and running. But first i need to know how to put in a submission for grant.
wow that’s amazing, I’ve just been journaling about the need to make a plan that looks beyond the coming year, a plan for the next 3-5 years. And then I find you saying the same thing. I’ve shared my journal with my connections on LI hoping someone will have some words of wisdom for me. My no. 1 goal is to expand my network. 2. Develop the short fiction I started s Buber of years ago. 3. Develop at least one performance piece in the next two years. And I just remembered : 4. Start reading my poetry wherever there’s an opening. Is that too many goals??