If you have been following Armed with A Book for a while, you know how much I love creativity! The Creator’s Roulette series highlights creative pursuits by hobbyists and professionals and I am always on the lookout for books that provide knowledge on productivity, creativity and more. I was excited when I came across Creative Careers by B. Jeffrey Madoff on NetGalley. This book has a plethora of information and will teach you step-by-step how to set up and be successful in your creative endeavors. Let’s begin with the synopsis:
How to balance business and creativity to earn a living doing what you love.
Ever since B. Jeffrey Madoff launched his Creative Careers class at Parsons School of Design in New York in 2007, it has been fully booked each semester. Now, in his first book, Madoff reveals the lessons and advice that make his course one of the most popular on campus to anyone looking to build a sustainable career.
Like the class, Creative Careers is based on advice from today’s leading entrepreneurs, artists, and business leaders — and can be applied to any profession or endeavor. Madoff guides readers through best practices for pursuing your creative interests in a successful way, supported with insights and advice from a variety of creative luminaries. Filled with questions and self-assessments throughout, Madoff teaches key lessons, such as “Where Is There White Space?” (never stop looking for new opportunities), “Which Ideas Have Value” (ruthlessly edit down your creative projects), and many others.
Creative Careers dispels the myth that artists can’t be good business people and vice versa along with many other myths about creativity so that readers can finally embrace all sides of themselves and reach their full potential.
Themes for Thought from Creative Careers
*pulls all the notes that I took from this book* Where do I begin?
Creative Careers is a workbook style book with real world examples, rooted in psychology, education, brain research and much more. The book is divided into five parts: identifying your vision, getting started, debunking myths about doing it all alone, utilizing the power of stories and branding, and, potentially the most difficult step of them all, determining your value and running ideas like a business.
I am a creator. I am a blogger. Though Armed with A Book is not a business and I don’t earn a penny from it, it is a creative pursuit that I continue to engage in for numerous reasons. I learned so many things from Creative Careers, and below I want to highlight a couple that stood out to me the most and related to my experiences.
On Myths
Every creative pursuit starts off with confronting some fears, biases and expectations. Whether it is our fear that we will not be successful or if we are asking too much money for our services, launching a career and putting value to what we do can be a daunting task. Creative Careers is a fantastic book that addresses a number of these aspects.
Ideas simply don’t come to us like a flash of lightning – they have been brewing a long time – nor do people work in isolation to get stuff done. I loved that through examples of working professionals and successful folks in the communities, Madoff exposes and debunks these and other myths.
On Processes and People
Have you ever wondered how I post everyday on here? 🙂 I do this because I have a process and I want to highlight this point that Creative Careers reinforced to me. Processes are an integral part of being creative. Creativity drives us to start new ventures but eventually, as things start to settle down, some tasks become operational and have to be done over and over. Consider the set up of my book reviews, for example, I tried a couple of different ways of posting and now, I have a template that I am satisfied with and use all the time.
Once those templates are in place, creators make time for other places to find creativity. But without a process to help us maintain the current creative pursuits, it can be challenging and frustrating. The process helps us free up time to learn more and creative more.
Related to processes are people. Creative work isn’t truly accomplished in isolation. Writers need readers. Artists needs subjects to draw and paint, worlds to re-imagine. None of us exist in isolation. Creative Careers presents strategies on how to engage with people, pitch something to someone, balance one’s belief in one’s work and expectations, while focusing on getting the right people that we need around us to continue to be creative.
Ariel is one such friend for me. We have had so many conversations that have led me to research ideas and ask further questions. That’s how we ended up making the reading experience graphic. With Layton, I dug deep into the preconceptions around Christian Fiction. When my friends share things they care about, they also provide me with a creative outlet to learn more and explore.
On Leadership
If you have not heard of Simon Sinek, Author of Start with Why and Find Your Why, you have been missing out on a world leader in leadership training. He makes a couple of appearances in Creative Careers to answer Madoff’s questions about creativity and business. I love his take on leadership, “The choice to be a leader is the same choice as being a better version of a human being.” Whether it is speaking up and being brave, or reaching out to be people to learn from them or pursuing an idea because you need it so someone else might too, creative pursuits fail without leadership and intrinsic motivation.
Education and schooling never teach every aspect of a career. You can go to art school and never learn the business side of opening a gallery. You can pursue higher ed and never learn how to do your taxes. It’s these gasps in knowledge that often paralyze us and stop us from taking the first step. This is why we have Proof of Concepts. Doing something which is potentially low risk to try out an idea and then figure out if you will stick to it.
When I started book blogging, it was a Proof of Concept. I started with trying my hand at reviews and then I signed up for NetGalley to see if I could be approved for and review books in time. All the while, I was innovating with the looks and feel of Armed with A Book. Once I gain more confidence, I started to make more time for reading and writing. I reached out to authors for interviews and publishers for books. Everything happened in a natural progression.
How does you journey as a creative match with mine and some of the lessons I mentioned from this book?
If you are looking for specific advice related to creative pursuits and starting a business, Creative Careers is the book for you. With multiple examples from all walks of life, workshop questions at the end of each chapter, this book explores creative careers are in depth.
** Creative Careers will be available in stores on June 16th. You can preorder or add it to your Wishlist using the links below. **
Amazon Print
Amazon Kindle
Many thanks to the publisher Hachette Books for providing me a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review. This has been an informative read!
Cover image: Photo by Zach Lucero on Unsplash
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