To My Fellow Creatives

All my creative friends, fellow advertisers, freelancers, filmmakers, artists, brothers and sisters, we are in a precarious position as of when I’m writing this. We live in a constantly precarious position, if I’m being completely honest. We are the weekend warriors of feast and famine. If you relate to this, you feel me that we’ve all experienced times when we have so much work we don’t know how we’re going to survive and so little work we don’t know how we’re going to survive. 

I’m not here to perpetuate this hysterical fear. This blog isn’t about that. This blog is about hope. You see, we all have a choice every day about how we respond and how we act to each and every little thing that happens to us. We choose whether it’s riotous anger or calm understanding. We are in a smaller market, yet have still been impacted by this issue. We’ve had our own work postponed, but it’s hurt to watch all of you suffer the loss of SXSW, March Madness, Houston Rodeo, NAB, and so on. None of these events happen without folks like you. No businesses thrive without folks like you. 

So, where’s the hope?

I’m glad you asked. Your clients and our clients are about to need us more than ever. You’re feeling the heat now, because they’re feeling the heat. Unfortunately, we will always be affected by the trickle down. Our clients have to come back and they have to come back swinging. So yes, we have to buckle down currently and be smart about our businesses like everyone else does. But, that doesn’t mean we cower in fear, accepting whatever fate is handed to us. We’re creatives, we SOLVE PROBLEMS for a living. We take the problem and find a solution. We work it out.

What exactly am I telling you to do?

Well, I can’t tell you how to run your business, as they’re in varying degrees of difference from our own, but I can tell you what I think will help. Check on your clients and I mean this genuinely. I’m not saying to email and ask “Hey I know you’re shut down, are we gonna ever shoot again?” I’m saying actually see how they’re doing. How is this affecting them? What are they experiencing currently? LISTEN to what they have to say, because you will hear problems and from there you can design solutions. When this dumpster fire clears up, they will need us more than ever. We’re the grease that gets them back on track. It won’t be fast, but if we work diligently, we can help them get back to where they were. 

There is a GREAT song called “Drive” by Incubus that I LOVE to jam. Whether it’s in the car or on the guitar, this song always means a great deal to me. It talks about having control of our reactions, particularly to fear. I’ll put the video link here and you can listen to it, but I strongly urge you to PAY ATTENTION to the words. 

My last bit of encouragement and I’ll let you go: Reach out and talk about what’s going on in your life. Bottling it up and holding it in will only hurt you. I guarantee there are a million other creatives feeling EXACTLY the way you feel right now. I find in conversations like that, where I can get vulnerable and actually put what I feel out on the table, I’m presented some of the greatest solutions. Even if they aren’t solutions to find me more work, they’re solutions on how to deal with the anxiety and stress that this kind of situation creates. If you’re a creative of any sort and you feel the squeeze put on by the current events, reach out. We’re glad to talk and listen. We’re all in this together.