How to Be Successful as a Creative Entrepreneur

Throughout his entire life he felt he fooled the world into thinking he was special.  In fact he was dumbfounded that people actually cared anything about his personal life.

Even after he had received the Nobel Prize, was considered the second most popular and trustworthy man on the planet in the ‘30’s, a key creator of the State of Israel, facilitated the end of World War II, an inventor with many patents, and of course, was declared a genius, the father of modern physics, and labeled the most important scientist in history.

All this meant little to Albert Einstein.

In fact, he felt he was a failure because he was not able to develop a certain theory!  It didn’t help that his colleagues thought he was wasting his time on it.  Yet he ignored them and continued with his research.

For more that 20 years.

And towards the end of his life, he gave up.  The Unified Field Theory (also known as the Theory of Everything) would have to be someone else’s discovery.

But Einstein didn’t hold back from trying.

He advanced the theory in an UnReasonable way so that today it is a hot topic in theoretical physics.  Scientists are working to innovate and create an answer to what Einstein felt would advance our planet by understanding how the various forms of energy and physical elements all work together in one “field” (space between particles).

Innovators at any level, especially when they are entrepreneurs, are truly a special breed.

Highly innovative entrepreneurs (usually) are:

  • allergic to dealing with details
  • challenged with staying focused
  • careless with managing time
  • even worse with managing people
  • love chasing the next “shiny object”

Does any of these characteristics describe someone you know?

That’s the bad news.

Yet the good news for highly creative entrepreneurs is they are:

  1. stubborn and don’t give up easily… important in business.
  2. game changers when their innovations work.
  3. usually the most successful in business.
  4. crucial for solving today’s environmental, social and economic challenges.

 

How to Excel as an Innovative Entrepreneur

The most important asset highly creative people have is their ability to see what others cannot.  But to be successful in business, this creativity must be managed in a special way:

  • Have a vision—the “why you are doing what you do.  This becomes crucial in bringing others to the game plus keeping you focused, yet creative in what you are building
  • Build a team—for example, a business development person who can take your widget or service to market.  He/she is great at managing details and people, can keep you focused and the project moving forward.
  • Stay in the air—to continue creating.  Give yourself the time and space to build, write, design, and create whenever possible.
  • Keep current—stay on top of what is going on in the business and world.  Creates more useful and effective innovations
  • Balance tasks—know when you must come down to earth from the air to deal with things like staff challenges, marketing issues, pricing strategies, competition changes and so on.  Create a system in your schedule to manage these items.

Working with creative entrepreneurs is by far the most fun and rewarding for me.

It is amazing what some of these guys are building.  For example here in NYC they’re creating UnReasonable solutions to rooftop farming, energy management of buildings and eliminating the use toxic chemicals in the large companies.

Yet like so many others, their key to success is in harvesting and channeling that creative energy in a focused and strategic way.

Just like Einstein had to do, and eventually became a master at.

 

Action Steps for the Week:

Concerned you have some or all the above-mentioned characteristics of a highly creative entrepreneur?

Don’t be.

Start by using your creativity to get crystal clear on your company’s purpose: the why.  Build your company vision from this.

Next, leverage this vision to find someone to keep you focused, organized and managing the tasks at hand.  This person should have strong skills in business development and if possible, people management skills.

Keep in mind, when you have a powerful vision it makes it much easier to find help on a limited budget.

Then find a routine to organize your time to be creative and “in the air” vs. “on the ground” dealing with daily important tasks at hand.

Last, remember to stay focused, stay engaged, and stay UnReasonable!