You—author, publisher, and entrepreneur

If you’ve long dreamed of following in his footsteps, or have dreams of becoming a creative entrepreneur yourself, you’ll want to start investing in one specific area: yourself. Since your talent can be likened to a business’s capital, you need to maximize it, feed it, nurture it, and connect with those who stimulate it.

Aside from regularly flexing your creative muscle by actually creating, there are a number of other things you can do to keep stay creative and keep your ideas, your process, and your productivity working in your favor. We recently caught up with Kleon to find out what three things you can do as a budding entrepreneur to ensure success.

“Read, read, read, read. You’re a mashup of what you let into your life, so read deeply and widely outside of your own area of specialization.

Keep a swipe file. Have a notebook or a scrapbook in which you can copy down good ideas and random thoughts you have as you engage with the world. Keep it nearby at all times and consult it often.

Share something small every day. Find one little bit of your process every day that would be useful or interesting to the people you’re trying to reach. Little daily bits of effort add up into something big over time.”

Further to this, you’ll want to invest in your creativity in a range of ways. Try setting aside time each and every day to focus on your craft, even if nothing flows particularly well. Waiting for inspiration to strike is often a mistake. Most big ideas come from loads of small ideas accumulated over time as you’re creating, or even thinking about creating. Stephen King once said, “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” Take your daily creative routine as seriously as you would your real job. Show up on time. Do your best. Don’t forget to have some fun. And when in doubt, follow the below steps.

1. Create what you want created. Entrepreneurs know where to look for their next best idea—it’s in the gaps. In 1993 Jay Sorensen patented the coffee sleeve. Which means until then patrons were heading to their local coffee shops for takeaway coffee that was much too hot to carry. These days, we’re all prancing around with Starbucks in hand, protected by trusty coffee sleeves. Look at words, art, photographs, and drawings in the exact same way. You will be inspired by what’s out there, and by what other people are creating. You will get ideas, and you will see places where something is missing. Suddenly you’ll be wanting to find, watch, view, or read something that doesn’t exist—yet. That is your prime opportunity and place to begin creating.
2. Invest in your hobbies. Some of us have hobbies that pertain to our creative work, but some of us do not. Regardless of whether your hobby is attending art and photography exhibits around the globe or simply hopping on your bike every Sunday for a cycle, you are breathing new life and thought into your routine. Getting out of your day-to-day routine places you in the path of new and interesting stimuli. It is tempting to dedicate all your time to your creative projects, especially if you are under deadline to yourself or others. But missing out on your hobbies in your free time will not feed you, or your current project.
3. Explore every creative inclination you have. Some of us are generalists whilst some of us are experts. There is no right way to be. If you are a talented illustrator and also try your hand at photography, amazing. If you have a beautiful way with words and couldn’t draw something if your life depended on it, no problem. The key is not what you can and cannot do, but that you follow every creative urge down its path. You may not think your creative talent stretches outside of the narrow focus you have maintained until now, but that is not necessarily the case, nor is it the point. A poet does not need to become the best illustrator out there. But if a poet feels like drawing, he or she should, if only for one’s self. There is much to be gained by indulging in what brings us joy, and what prompts us to try new things. Aside from a true enjoyment of our free time, we may come up with ways to advance our current creative projects.
4. Consume as much content as you can. Inspiration can strike anywhere and everywhere. Which is why you should be reading, seeing, visiting, and consuming as much content as you can, or that interests you. This includes indie magazines that don’t pertain to your craft, as well as business magazines that may not touch on your creation processes. Consuming outside of your area of expertise will offer you a look into how other people in your country and around the globe are thinking. And you’ll become more aware of the local and international zeitgeist.
5. Share your work. Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Lovesays it best on her website, “It has never been easy for me to understand why people work so hard to create something beautiful, but then refuse to share it with anyone, for fear of criticism. Wasn’t that the point of the creation—to communicate something to the world? So PUT IT OUT THERE. Send your work off as much as possible, show it to your neighbors, plaster it on the walls of the bus stops—just don’t sit on your work and suffocate it.” No matter where you are in the creation process, spread the word. Show your friends, your family. And when someone asks what you do, don’t be afraid to say you’re a writer, or a writer and an artist, or a photographer and a poet. The reason you are any or all of those things is because you are creating. You are working on them day in and day out. Which is how you’ve become a creative entrepreneur in the first place.