Jumping off the cliff.
Pulling the trigger.
Taking the plunge.

Whatever you want to call it, I’ve just done it.

As of July 1, I’ve left the comfortable confines of corporate life to make my own mark on the world. I’ve joined the ranks of the willingly self-employed in order to realize my vision of …

Crap. What’s my vision again? If I can’t remember it, it must not have been that important. And if it’s not that important, how can I make any money at it? Oh no. Maybe it’s not too late to ask for my old job back…

And so it goes. From the soaring heights of self-empowerment to the depths of despair and debt in five seconds flat. An emotional roller coaster.

But also necessary. Alan Moore, who wrote V for Vendetta and Watchmen among other popular comics and graphic novels, described his own transition experience:

Quitting my day job and starting my life as a writer was a tremendous risk. It was a fool’s leap, a shot in the dark. But anything of any value in our lives whether that be a career, a work of art, a relationship, will always start with such a leap.

But now that I’ve leapt, how can I be sure to land on my feet rather than my face?  It’s inevitable that from time to time I’ll feel like a fool and regret my decision. That’s fear talking. What Seth Godin calls the “Lizard Brain.”

Consistent action and focused intent are the only ways I’ve been able to overcome it and get things done.  I’ve picked up a little trick that seems to help. I even use it at the gym. Once I’ve picked my goal—let’s say, to run two miles—I ignore it. Instead of focusing on the Big Goal, which inevitably makes me anxious and want to quit before I embarrass myself by failing to achieve it, I focus on the little milestones.

When I’m running, I don’t count how many laps I have to go, I count how many laps I’ve made and only think about making two quick turns on the track to get me to my next half-lap goal. The chatter in my brain sounds something like this:

5… 5… just have to get to 5½.
5½… 5½… two quick turns and I’ll be at 6.
6… 6… just have to get to 6½.

Before long, I’ve tricked myself into running 18 laps and I’ve accomplished by two mile goal.

E. L. Doctorow said that “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

Leaping, running, driving.  The metaphors may be a bit mixed, but the advice is still solid: Take a chance and keep at it, and you’ll get there.

I’m feeling energetically giddy again.  I feel a great sense that anything is possible, good, and has promise.  And I want to do everything at once.  It’s energy overload.

This can be tremendously helpful in my creativity, but if I don’t learn to harness it better, I’ll get sidetracked by everything rather than making a quantum leap in impact for one thing.

I’ve been reading Scott Belsky’s Making Ideas Happen.  I get so excited when an idea resonates.  The excitement starts with the thought, “I want to do that.”  And, because I’m fearful I’ll either forget the idea or lose the excitement driving it, I’m compelled to do that right now.  And I’ve stopped reading and started on that.  Then, I’m so excited about that, I want to do this.  And before I know it I’m simultaneously working on this.  Or this.  Or this.

Raw creative energy at its finest, manifesting itself as a thousand-ideas-at-once.  When it hits, it feels like being sidechecked and dragged around the ice by a sweaty, growling hockey player with no front teeth.  When the ride’s over, I’m breathless.  What a rush!  But am I any closer to the goal box?

Figuring out how to deal with this is a lot like asking how to wrangle a lightning bolt.  Here’s a trick that works for me:

Whenever I’m trying to focus on one task that’s generating a lot of other ideas I want to remember but don’t want to process in the moment, I take out a 3×5 index card, or if I’m feeling particularly frisky, a letter-sized page folded in half lengthwise.  Having a narrow width to write on (3″-4″)  seems key, so that I can keep it just to the right (or left, for you southpaws) of what I’m working on.

When I get an idea tangential to my chosen focus, I force myself to simply write it down without acting on it, and immediately return to what I was doing.

Simple, no?  Yeah, try it sometime, bub.

The real magic behind the trick is the immediate return to my chosen task.  By capturing the idea nugget, I mitigate the urge to deal with it for fear of losing it in the deluge of the idea storm.  I can have my daydream moment (or half-hour, as just happened while writing this–I never claimed to be perfect) and get right back (more or less) to the task at hand.

Photo by maggieandcharles.

Artists with art to vend often face the perplexing problem of where to sell their wares online. Blogger Jason Fitzpatrick analyzed the marketplace for, well, marketplaces and offers his top five picks:

1. Big Cartel
2. Shopify
3. Self-hosted
4. Etsy
5. Sell Simply

Several of my clients have reported success with Etsy—it has a lot of name recognition as far as I can tell—but as a service slinger (as opposed to a product peddler) I have no personal experience with any of these electronic emporiums except for #3.  I roll all my own websites, including this one, and I often wonder if that’s the best use of my time & energy. Share your experiences in the comments.

Five Best Places to Set Up Shop Online

Photo by prakhar

Lyndon State College in Vermont will begin offering a Bachelor of Science in Performing Arts Management in the fall of 2010.  With concentrations in artist management, venue management, and theater operations management, the degree will prepare students to serve in administrative, managerial and leadership positions in an area related to music and performing arts.

Whether or not you have any interest in attending college in Vermont, the core classes in this degree also serve as a useful checklist for any arts entrepreneur’s skill set.  They include:

• Financial Accounting
• Introduction to Business
• Introduction to Business Software
• Principles of Management
• Principles of Marketing
• Business Ethics
• Fiscal Management
• Event Management and Promotion
• Strategic Media Communication
• Introduction to Media Communication

How would you rank your strengths in each of these areas?  What action can you take today to shore up any weak spots in your own skill set?

Filmmakers, product placements are here to stay. At least in the realm of studio-produced films. Shrewd and cost-conscious studio executives are increasingly looking at well-known brands as a reliable source of money to offset spiraling production costs.

According to Top Gun co-writer Jack Epps, quoted in a recent New York Times article, “if you want to catch an executive’s attention right now, it’s not just selling the script, but you’re showing them how to create a brand.”  The article goes on to mention the lucrative product placement deals struck with Hilton Hotels and American Airlines for 2009′s Oscar-nominated Up In The Air.

Opponents against product placement, notably from the WGA-West, argue that such practice can essentially reduce the creative screenwriter’s job to that of advertising copywriter.

The writers make an interesting, if hollow, implication. Writing good advertising copy takes no less talent than writing a good screenplay. Really good advertising copy creates an emotional reaction in readers much the same way a well-written film moves people. I can’t help but think of Hugh Macleod’s “Sex & Cash Theory”.   Macleod reminds us that the commercial v. artistic debate has raged for years. In fact, the Times article points out that cinematic pioneers the Lumière brothers placed a laundry soap product in their 1896 film “Washing Day in Switzerland.”  Yes, products have been placed in movies for over 100 years. I don’t think placements are going away any time soon… or ever. I think Macleod’s advice to ignore the debate all together is well placed.

Photo by A3sthetix

I just finished reading Sally Hogshead’s Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation. It’s a *ahem* fascinating exploration of the subtle and not-so-subtle psychological influences—lust, mystique, alarm, prestige, power, vice, and trust—that successful marketers use to capture your attention and even manipulate your behavior. If you are at all interested in how to pique your audience’s interest, this is a must-read. There’s even a workshop-in-a-chapter section for the DIYers in the crowd.

As a personal experiment, I set out to see what examples I could find in the retail world. Before I could even get to the Jägermeister shelf at the liquor store (you really need to read the book), I came across this little gem at the neighborhood grocery store:

It’s a hair gel from the international aisle called Moco de Gorila (translation: Gorilla Snot). And, yes, on the snot bead-shaped bottle is a picture of a gorilla with a runny nose.  It’s available in three styles so you can look like a punk, rocker, or a gallant (aka playah), although I suspect there’s not much difference in the styles other than product labeling.

Gross, right?  I can hardly imagine a better example of the vice trigger.  What member of the cool kids club wouldn’t want to use it just to spite their parents?

Nothing new at work here. Other marketing campaigns have successfully used a gross extreme to fascinate… Garbage Pail Kids, South Park, and the tongue-firmly-planted-in-cheek marketing scheme I helped develop for Dirty Sanchez Tacos.

The vice trigger doesn’t work for everyone; the gross element works for fewer still. But when it works, it fascinates! What triggers are you using to fascinate your audience?

At lunch yesterday, I tried Zapp’s Potato Chip’s new “limited edition” flavor, Voodoo.  Citrus-y, pungent, but not really spicy-hot, it was unlike any other chip I’d tasted.  The really interesting  part was the story on the back of the bag:

Voodoo flavor is the result of an accident.  An employee was moving a pallet of spices off the top shelf and dropped it.  While cleaning up, someone stuck their finger into the mixture of about 5 flavors and pronounced it great.

Kudos to the creative person who had enough curiosity to sample a pile of spilled spices!  If they hadn’t, such a unique flavor might well have gone undiscovered.  I just hope they didn’t break the Five-Second Rule.

How many of us work in an environment that encourages curiosity rather than punishes accidents?  For that matter, how many of us take time to experiment when we have an artistic accident of some sort, instead of just chastising ourselves for wasted time, effort, or supplies?