Big Ideas

Image Copyright Enoch Bolles

I've run out of witty banter for this week I'm afraid. I've been working incredibly hard to sell some new ideas and generate some new income streams here at Studio Margot. I've been brewing them up and pitching them to anyone who'll listen. I'm now in the waiting for responses stage.

The waiting is...as Tom Petty so aptly said...the hardest part.

You can't control how the people in charge will react to your big ideas.

You can't do anything about the people around them who may have conflicting agendas.

You may have a brilliant idea and be absolutely capable of seeing it through to fruition, but there are a number of factors you simply can't control. That's why I am always pitching a slew of ideas to a bevy of people. All of the things that I do are highly competitive and subject to brutal judgment. Be it designing or writing or hosting or performing...I'm constantly putting myself out there to be judged by others. It's what creatives do. If you think it's easy, think again. I've developed a tough outer skin, but I still have a soft white underbelly. No one likes being dismissed.

I'm often vying for work with the same companies as other creatives. It's tough because many folks can't see that there's room for all of us. There will always be people who look at you as competition and do what they can to trip you up. You can't get away from that because, especially in times such as these, a lack mentality begins to prevail. When people have a lack mentality, they live in constant fear that someone else is trying to take their piece of the pie. Often those people show up wherever you go, whispering mean things about you behind your back. You have to hope that your talent, integrity, honesty and transparency will shine over their pettiness and deep sense of lack. If not...and this is a tough one...it probably wasn't the right fit for you.

When you're willing to toot your horn without shame, it freaks other people out. Do it anyway. Even though I pay it forward and sideways and backwards...people can be so threatened by me they take great pleasure in doing things to sidetrack my success. It's been an ongoing scenario and a frustrating one, but I'm not willing to let it stop me.

That's life.

It happens to everyone who dares to dream big.

Keep dreaming.

The folks in charge of approving your pitches are often also operating from a lack mentality. They're afraid of taking risks. In times like these, they think it's better to play it safe. They can't see the possibility of a new idea when they're being pressured to keep making the same idea over and over and over again. This is why books and music and movies and TV Shows get so watered down.

I disagree with this approach, but I'm not in charge.

I'm in charge of imagining, fine tuning and pitching my big ideas. After that I can only hope that someone with vision will get them and get me and see the value in taking a risk. I can only hope that the people around them will realize that I'm not competition and that the only person with whom any of us are competing is ourselves.

"There is room enough in the sky for every star to shine." Madge

I'm a hard working, talented, compassionate, witty and wise woman. I'm standing on the edge of my success and I'm ready to leap. I just need someone to take that big risk with me...to embrace my big ideas and help me get them out to a larger audience. In the meantime, I'm throwing as many things as I can at the wall with the absolute belief that the right one will stick.

"Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming..." Dory the Fish


xoxo
Madge