If you haven’t heard of Chase Jarvis, you want to check out his site and ALL the awesome education he offers at creativeLIVE!  Last week, he did a great blog post called “10 Things Every Creative Person (that’s YOU) Must Learn!”  I can’t think of a better way to start the week than to start with this list!  Number 2 and Number 7 are two of my FAVORITES that we often discuss in our CONFIDENCE Workshops.  I’m sure past attendees will recognize a few more on this list.  🙂  Be encouraged to go for it this week!

Happy Monday!

xo,

m

By Chase on October 11, 2011

Here is a list of 10 things I’ve learned the hard way that every photographer, designer, creative–hell, every creative person–should know.

1. Experts aren’t the answer.
The blogs, the teachers, the mentors, the seminars aren’t the answer. They’re not there to tell you exactly what you need to know. If they’re good, then they are there to give you some ideas, some guidelines, or some rules to learn and subsequently break. This isn’t about the expert, it’s about you. In creative pursuits especially…what’s going on inside you is where the answers can be found. Hear what experts say, but don’t always listen to them.

2. Clients cannot tell you what they need.
Clients hire you because they have a problem. They need a great visual representation of something, a solution. They think they know the best way to photograph something, but they don’t really. That’s why they hire you. Take their suggestions to heart, because they definitely know their brand, product, their vision–perhaps even shoot a few versions of the images they THINK they want to see first–but then go nuts with own vision. Add value. Show them something they didn’t expect. Don’t be a monkey with a finger. Remember why you got hired…that YOU are the badass image maker. If you are good enough to get selected for the job, you should be good enough to drive the photographic vision.

3. Don’t aim for ‘better’, aim for ‘different’.
It’s funny how related “better” and “different” are. If you aim for ‘better’ that usually means you’re walking in the footsteps of someone else. There will often be someone better than you, someone making those footsteps you’re following… But if you target being different–thinking in new ways, creating new things–then you are blazing your own trail. And in blazing your own trail, making your own footprints, you are far more likely to find yourself being ‘better’ without even trying. Better becomes easy because it’s really just different. You can’t stand out from the crowd by just being better. You have to be different.

4. Big challenges create the best work.
If you get assignments that are pushing your vision, your skills, then awesome. Kudos to you, keep getting those assignments. If you’re not getting those assignments, then you need to be self-assigning that challenging work. Give yourself tough deadlines and tougher creative challenges. You do your best work where there is a challenge that is clearly present and 10 feet taller than you think you can handle.

Click Chase’s Blog to read the other six!

p.s.

Winter CONFIDENCE Workshops are happening on East and West Coast! Early Bird Registration and our Payment Plan is going on now!  (Christmas is looking REAL GOOD for some special ladies! )   CLICK HERE to find the city nearest you and get ALL the juicy details!