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Finding Yourself
& Putting Your Whole Self to Work
The central key to business success
is to provide a valuable product or service to others.
Take a good look at yourself, at your life and abilities.
What do you have, or what can you do that is truly valuable to
others? If you think you have little or nothing to offer,
read on.
In the summer of 1994 I started a
weekly newspaper that successfully served four communities.
I had no previous newspaper experience or training. I had
not even graduated from high school. I had never sold ads
in my life. I had no money in the bank. I had no
special equipment. I had no office. I was new to the
area, and a stranger to most of my clients. I didn't even
like reading most newspapers.
Are you a gifted person?
There are lots of ways for gifted
people, such as writers, illustrators, and graphic artists, to
make a living. You see them advertising their skills all
the time — especially on the internet. Some of them are
smart enough to hire themselves. That is, they create
their own profitable business.
Creative people (and that's most
people, by the way, regardless of the hype) tend to be
multi-talented. While you may lack specific experience in
this or that area, that doesn't mean you lack talent or real
ability that can be applied that field. Skills you've
mastered in other fields of endeavor may give you an edge that
the "pros" don't have.
What it means to be "creative".
Think about it. A writer
expresses and shapes ideas with words. Is the central
ability a gift with words? Maybe and maybe not. He or she may also be
able to share concepts with images, if the need arises. The
same basic concept often holds true, in the reverse, for an illustrator, designer or
other visual artist. The raw ability is the sharing and
shaping of ideas, not necessarily the means.
God did not create sheets of paper, paint
brushes or computers. God created human beings with
creative and/or "organizational" desires and abilities.
What we do with what we have is often a matter of circumstance
and choice. Whether it remains purely a matter of
circumstance is often our choice.
You may prefer to exercise one skill
or one form of creative expression and yet still have excellent
abilities waiting to be tapped through other forms of
expression.
Ultimately, as I see it, all visual
and verbal artistic expression grows from an inner desire to
arrange or give order to various elements of our world — to our
ideas, to words, to physical objects, to our environment.
Creativity, then, is simply the willingness to experiment
"outside the box", to apply fresh ideas, and to master new
skills and/or methods that will have to be learned through trial
and error.
How does this apply to business? The ideal business
for many of us is one that demands the full use of all our
talents — and then some. And that makes publishing a local
paper the perfect choice for some people. To be successful in
starting a newspaper one must put to good use a broad assortment of
skills and creative abilities.
You'll need to be reasonably intelligent. You will need
to be curious. You will need to be artistic. You
will need to be able to speak well on paper. You must be a
fast learner. You should have a good eye when using a
camera. On the one hand, you must be very organized (or
deadline crunches will kill you). Yet you must be able to
jump with every genuine opportunity for a story, and able to
juggle multiple stories that are developing as the day or week
progresses. And the list goes on.
If you like to write or if you're
fairly comfortable with graphic design, illustration or other visual
arts, you may have what it takes to start and successfully
publish a newspaper. Look around. Lots of men and women
publish newspapers with no real talent in these areas.
Next Page:
Quick List of Basic Steps
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