Alternate:Words

Esplanade, orig­i­nally uploaded by Thorsten Becker.

Over the years I learned an impor­tant les­son when it comes to busi­ness that I’d like to share, espe­cially with cre­atives: If any­body can do it every­body will do it, even­tu­ally. That means if some­thing is easy to do and doesn’t require much effort it can and will quickly be repli­cated by some­one else. This is cer­tainly not a rev­o­lu­tion­ary insight. There is plenty of advice out there urg­ing artists to be unique and authen­tic. But how to accom­plish that? By being you. Any­thing you do must relate back to who you are. Do not try to arti­fi­cially invent your­self or spend a tremen­dous amount of time com­ing up with a really clever idea. Chances are that by the time you’re ready some­one else has already done it, and done it bet­ter, because it was in their blood.

On the other hand there is a con­stant lure of quick fame and money (though it’s dimin­ished a bit in this econ­omy). It may be tempt­ing to exe­cute on an idea with­out fur­ther refine­ment hop­ing to instantly turn it into a rev­enue cre­at­ing busi­ness. The prob­lem is that the result­ing product(s), at that point, often lack char­ac­ter or per­sonal trade­mark, some­thing that con­nects them in a per­sonal man­ner with their cre­ator. The result is often a con­stant fear that some­one will “steal” the idea or copy the prod­uct. Again, if it is easy to do then oth­ers will do it even­tu­ally, it’s com­mon human behav­ior. We imi­tate the moment we are born. This is how we learn, this is how we acquire skills. But here is the impor­tant part: while we learn and grow we have to come into our own. We have to expand on the knowl­edge we’ve acquired by inject­ing our unique per­sonal traits, any­thing that makes us ‘us’ – the way we hold the brush, the way we see and pho­to­graph our envi­ron­ment, the way we hear sounds and melodies, the way we talk, walk, feel, per­ceive and judge.

We could dis­till the pre­ced­ing para­graphs into “be your per­sonal best at what you do”. And while doing so do not com­pare your­self to oth­ers unnec­es­sar­ily (it’s fine to admire but it should be left at that). There is a sur­pris­ingly fit­ting text in the bible:

“But let each one prove what his own work is, and then he will have cause for exul­ta­tion in regard to him­self alone, and not in com­par­i­son with the other per­son.” (Gala­tians 6:4)

How impor­tant and valu­able are our own refined skills, how much of a dif­fer­ence does it make when we do things accord­ing to who we are? There is yet another inter­est­ing pas­sage in the bible:

“Have you beheld a man skill­ful in his work? Before kings is where he will sta­tion him­self; he will not sta­tion him­self before com­mon­place men” (Proverbs 22:29)

Admit­tedly we may not lit­er­ally offer our work to kings and nobles but we do want to put out work before peo­ple that admire it for it’s inher­ent qual­ity and crafts­man­ship just like kings of old desired to have the best work in their palaces; skill­ful work will earn its rewards and recognition.

How­ever, becom­ing skilled takes time. A Ger­man say­ing goes “gut Ding will Weile haben” mean­ing “a good thing takes time” (Eng­lish equiv­a­lent: Rome wasn’t built in a day). Qual­ity can­not be rushed. But it also can­not be eas­ily repli­cated or copied. I find that qual­ity and pas­sion always show, even in prod­ucts that at first may not reveal all the blood and sweat invested in them. They tend to emanate the per­son­al­ity of their cre­ator. They also seem to attract a loyal fol­low­ing for years to come. And they cer­tainly deter poten­tial copy­cats. Again, peo­ple who copy other people’s work do so when it’s easy to do and promises instant grat­i­fi­ca­tion. Once the mar­ket has been flooded with sim­i­lar prod­ucts sales quickly trail off and the repli­ca­tors move on to the next thing. There­fore be your per­sonal best at what you do and you will suc­ceed and not be bogged down with anx­i­ety. Put your work on a solid foun­da­tion and inject it with your per­son­al­ity, let your well honed skills shine and you will accom­plish impres­sive things that not only you enjoy but oth­ers appre­ci­ate, value and cherish.

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