by Laura West
I’m down in Sarasota, Florida attending and presenting at the Florida Creativity Weekend. I’ll be leading two workshops this weekend. One is on Doodling for Business and the second one is Practical Creativity for Business.
This week I was working on my workshop designs. For the Practical Creativity workshop I’ll be talking about how creativity shows up in business, what blocks our creativity and why we need to purposely cultivate an environment of creative thinking.
One of the exercises I’m taking everyone through is about the power of shifting your perspective. Specifically, getting insights from unlikely places and applying them to an everyday situation.
I created over 50 Wisdom Cards for this one exercise. Wisdom Cards are 5 x 7 cards you make with big interesting photos on them. I find the most amazing photos from National Geographic (don’t tell my Dad that I cut them up! He’ll have a heart attack!), Architectural Digest and Fast Company… and of course, O magazine.
I wanted to share my Wisdom Cards with the members of a program I’m in. They were asking all sorts of questions so I posted a picture of one card and asked them to think about a problem or opportunity. Then look at the picture and see how it makes you feel or what thoughts or ideas come up. How can you apply the feelings, thoughts or ideas to your situation?
Well, earlier I had just posted to this group how frustrated I was feeling about my marketing. I am feeling uninspired and like I’m walking through mud sometimes. (Yes, we all go through periods of this – even a creative marketing coach!) I love my coaching but the marketing was feeling hard and quite frankly, irritating.
So, I’m looking at the photo of the Wisdom Card I chose for the group.
I laughed out loud!
The Wisdom Card held the exact message *I* needed to hear.
Take something practical like a bathtub and totally break the rules of decorating. Make it fun, joyful, outrageous even!
That’s the message I needed to hear about my marketing!
I realized that after 16+ years I’ve made up a bunch of rules about marketing. It has to include this, be this way, not do that. Ugh! It’s been making me sick! (Literally, I’ve had a sinus infection for months that won’t go away.) If you follow Louise Hay’s work – she says sinus infections are a sign of irritation. Yes! I’m irritated with marketing.
Well, crap! I’m a marketing coach!
I love to delve into the unique creative brilliance of my clients and see how they can tap into their creativity and create a bold message to reach the people they are meant to attract.
It’s MY turn!
So thanks to the insights from my Wisdom Card, you may be seeing some new things from me.
I’m not going to put any pressure on myself AND I am setting an intention that I want my messages to you to feel fun, creative, joyful and create a real connection.
I thought I’d start this week with sharing a real deal situation from my own business and see how it applies to you.
So, I’m curious, what rules are you making up about marketing?
Where are you stuck?
Where are you irritated in your business?
Where do you want to break the rules and hang lots of creative 3-D pictures over the bathtub?
I’d love to hear what’s coming up for you!
P.S. Thanks to Architectural Digest for the photo inspiration.
