I’m definitely one of those hyphenates! Full time Creator-Producer-Marketer-Entrepreneur-CEO-COO in the yoga space for four years now. It’s clearly time to hire help and reduce the number of hyphens, but I’m procrastinating because I can’t decide which thing to outsource first.
Truthfully, I also don’t know how much I want to scale. I’ve had employees at other businesses I’ve owned in the past, and I do not like being the boss lady. I do better flying solo, and I like to have my hands in everything.
I appreciate the unique perspective you bringing to creator-dom through your very interesting history in this space.
Thanks for sharing your hyphens! I can totally relate to your feelings about not liking being a boss and procrastinating when it comes to bringing on help. I don’t think most creative people are very good at this side of things. But the workload can get overwhelming fast.
I have a more in-depth post on this coming soon, but in the meantime I would suggest writing down everything you do in a day. Do this for at least a week, then review it. It might surprise you. There are probably a few things you could start to outsource to a remote assistant. Not the creative work, but the repetitive administrative tasks. It could really free you up to focus on what you do best.
The age of the artist as purely that thing is over. The middle-men have consistently demonstrated enough bad faith that they can no longer be trusted. As such, all creatives must become hyphenates, as you call it, or entrepreneurs. Each piece of art we create is either a new business or a new product from the same business that is us.
Hyphenate here ✋🏼. Photographer-Master Printer- Business Owner, but I got burnt out by it all and have scaled back tremendously. Back to a Full-Time job (that I love, which is great!) and doing print work on the side. I find so much of what I learned about marketing and service and entrepreneurship in general has made me a huge asset in my FT job. Lots of transferable skills and experience that makes me grateful for how much I put into running my business even if it wasn’t full-time for very long. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this, Chris! Making the distinction of these layers is so vital and I think will be helpful to many in the creator space!
Photographer and Master Printer sounds awesome! I don’t blame you for scaling back to a day job at all. Especially one that you love. I’ve done that several times myself when some of my earlier creative endeavors didn’t quite work out. Going back to the structure of a day job was very valuable. And like you, each time I went back to the job market, I brought a lot of valuable new skills that I had learned while being out on my own.
I’m definitely one of those hyphenates! Full time Creator-Producer-Marketer-Entrepreneur-CEO-COO in the yoga space for four years now. It’s clearly time to hire help and reduce the number of hyphens, but I’m procrastinating because I can’t decide which thing to outsource first.
Truthfully, I also don’t know how much I want to scale. I’ve had employees at other businesses I’ve owned in the past, and I do not like being the boss lady. I do better flying solo, and I like to have my hands in everything.
I appreciate the unique perspective you bringing to creator-dom through your very interesting history in this space.
Thanks for sharing your hyphens! I can totally relate to your feelings about not liking being a boss and procrastinating when it comes to bringing on help. I don’t think most creative people are very good at this side of things. But the workload can get overwhelming fast.
I have a more in-depth post on this coming soon, but in the meantime I would suggest writing down everything you do in a day. Do this for at least a week, then review it. It might surprise you. There are probably a few things you could start to outsource to a remote assistant. Not the creative work, but the repetitive administrative tasks. It could really free you up to focus on what you do best.
The age of the artist as purely that thing is over. The middle-men have consistently demonstrated enough bad faith that they can no longer be trusted. As such, all creatives must become hyphenates, as you call it, or entrepreneurs. Each piece of art we create is either a new business or a new product from the same business that is us.
So, I'm right with you.
Great to hear from you, Jon! You are a true hyphenate. I 100% agree.
Hyphenate here ✋🏼. Photographer-Master Printer- Business Owner, but I got burnt out by it all and have scaled back tremendously. Back to a Full-Time job (that I love, which is great!) and doing print work on the side. I find so much of what I learned about marketing and service and entrepreneurship in general has made me a huge asset in my FT job. Lots of transferable skills and experience that makes me grateful for how much I put into running my business even if it wasn’t full-time for very long. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this, Chris! Making the distinction of these layers is so vital and I think will be helpful to many in the creator space!
Photographer and Master Printer sounds awesome! I don’t blame you for scaling back to a day job at all. Especially one that you love. I’ve done that several times myself when some of my earlier creative endeavors didn’t quite work out. Going back to the structure of a day job was very valuable. And like you, each time I went back to the job market, I brought a lot of valuable new skills that I had learned while being out on my own.