Jonathan,

Excellent article. I saw the price first hand in the face of a client yesterday. Although he has been in business nearly 20 years, he has allowed marketing and sales to slide and has not reinvented his operations so that they became outdated, requiring layoffs to remain profitable.

When I explained some of what he needed to do to return his business to profitability, his face showed frustration and weariness. I understood his pain. That was yesterday. Today, we began righting his ship.

Lewis,

Regarding your client experience: I know that look -- that crestfallen expression a client has when, at the bend in the trail, he sees miles of more trail ahead.

But you're right. First, you empathize with the pain. Then, step by step, you move beyond it. There's no other way.

Over the years I have somehow gravitated to the newest marketing techniques and always having to learn something new. It stared with photography, then audio visuals, then producing extravaganza events using multiple slide projectors on large screens, then interactive media, then Internet and now Social Network marketing.

Was it the right approach? I really don’t know. I sometimes envy people who get to do one thing over and over again. Then I remember the excitement of finally “getting it” and making the new approach work. Is it hard to change, but harder to not adapt and pay the price?

Life changes, business changes, best to adapt and find the excitement in it instead of the dread.

Over the years I have somehow gravitated to the newest marketing techniques and always having to learn something new. It stared with photography, then audio visuals, then producing extravaganza events using multiple slide projectors on large screens, then interactive media, then Internet and now Social Network marketing.

Was it the right approach? I really don’t know. I sometimes envy people who get to do one thing over and over again. Then I remember the excitement of finally “getting it” and making the new approach work. Is it hard to change, but harder to not adapt and pay the price?

Life changes, business changes, best to adapt and find the excitement in it instead of the dread.

That's why we have named our agency Kainoto. It means change. It is what we do every day. No project is the same, no task has the same content as any previous.

But you need to love this. You must have it in you. And it feels great, to do something I have never done before. If I had to do it twice the same, it would loose that feeling. :-)

So it isn't just about the price of creativity. It is also about the outcome of it?

I have to tend to agree. I feel less threatened by change and trying new things than my peers because quite frankly I am younger than them and haven't really earned my stripes yet. Many times I can throw new ideas out only to have them shot down because no one wants to take the time to learn to do these new things. As you said no one wants to be the newbie. I couldn't agree more with your article Jonathan.

Creativity is responsible for every achievement and progress ever made in anything and everything. Its the foundation of evolution. The risk is with those that refuse to embrace ideas and therefore stunt growth.

Fear is just one part of the price of creativity. Time and efficiency is another. As a creativity addict, I sometimes have to stop and ask myself if I am putting my creative juices to good use or just feeding my ego. I love to come up with new ideas. One of my favorite activities is a game we used to play in improve class: take an everyday object, then come up with new uses for it. For example, a role of toilet paper can be used to as a flower pot for silk flowers or as a door stop to keep door handles from hitting a wall. This is a great game to get the mind back on creativity mode if I'm in a slump. But, if I am already in the mood, it can be hard to focus and not jump from one interesting new idea to another.

Good luck to your wife and her book. Between work I've done for clients and working on my own book, I've read countless books on book marketing. I highly recommend "Plug Your Book" by Steve Weber. "1001 Ways to Market Your Books" by John Kremer is also an excellent resource, but can be overwhelming. "Guerrilla Marketing for Writers" by Jay Conrad Levinson, Rick Frishman, and Michael Larsen has easy to follow advice.

Nice post, Jonathan. Very true that's it's the price we pay for being creative:

http://www.annhandley.com/2008/05/14/when-a-bear-is-not-a-bear/

It's a shame people with so much experience have to market themselves endlessly to get by these days.

After 22 years in the corporate world of marketing, I am embarking on changing my career to collegiate teaching. I know exactly what your wife is going through, but the excitement of learning and getting to do what I am passionate about is overshadowing the price I am paying and the financial risk I am taking. Thankfully, I have a supportive spouse.

I very much identify with this post. Being creative in itself is being vulnerable and it's hard to open yourself up to that on certain days, weeks, months, years of your life. I've certainly found that, the more "noise" there is going on in my life, the harder it is to be truly creative. I don't think that's because I suddenly lose whatever talents I had yesterday but more because my soul is tired of dealing with something "elsewhere" and has nothing else to give.

Every creative act or work requires giving up or revealing something of yourself, which in turn requires bravery... and energy!

You have posed a good question, Jonathan, which begs similar questions:

What is the price of:
-PROFITABILITY?
-EFFICIENCY?
-CAPITALISM?
-EMPLOYEE BENEFITS?
-etc.

As "creatives" we must muse on your original question, but, as business professionals, we must also exlpore the full compliment of the balance we strike. And we must do this almost daily if we are to truly acquire that proper shade of gray that indicates the full and proper existence that we all desire.

It's not easy, but it sure beats cutting off an ear.