Ready, Set, Go! (Special Edition)

by Rafael Badziag

  Just like in your studio, in your business you can discover treasure hidden in the mistakes you make. The journey is meant to be surprising.

  Success Secret #3:

  YOU ARE YOUR BRAND

  Sonya and I live in Australia on the Gold Coast. It’s a subtropical environment with the longest golden beach you could ever see, hundreds of waterways and canals and amazing bird life. Holiday makers come here all year round for the water sports, to unwind, and relax by the pool.

  It’s our own backyard but we never take it for granted. We travel a lot and each time we return home we see it with fresh eyes. It’s part of us.

  The resort wear and decorator items we design are inspired by the colour and energy of this place. Our water colours are the basis for our range of colourful textile designs and prints – silk chiffon dresses that flow in the breeze; active wear; bright cushions and happy furnishings that celebrate the beauty of our local experience. It’s what makes our work unique. Everyone is looking for what makes their work unique in business as well. They want to stand out in the market place. When you are creative, you come with uniqueness built in. You infuse your values and personality into everything you do. You are your point of difference.

  It’s where you live and breathe, what you do and how you do it. Every moment is your creative business.

  Success Secret #4:

  YOU CAN’T DO IT ALL

  Of course, getting from an ink splash to a final product such as a designer evening dress is not always easy. It requires the help of many others to bring ideas into reality. The designs have to be scanned and sent to manufacturing companies for proofing and printing. Adjustments must be made for different types of materials. Product patterns have to be created, finalised and sampled, photo shoots organised, websites designed, products advertised, orders fulfilled, accounts paid and problems solved. It’s impossible to do all these jobs ourselves so we delegate and outsource. We focus our creativity on making the decisions that count and we don’t weigh ourselves down with jobs that are best given to someone else. We see it all as our creative process, only now our artistic materials have expanded to include a range of talented people who are specialists in their own fields.

  Even the most solitary of creatives knows that eventually the time comes when their work has to be handed over to others in order to be borne into the world. Creative success means picking the moment to do this and making the business experience a streamlined extension of your process.

  Success Secret #5:

  RENEW YOUR VISION

  In recent years, our design experiments have diversified while at the same time, our underlying purpose has crystallised. It’s true to say the essence of our purpose has always been there, just not always put into words. There is a moment, however, when it feels right to articulate your mission more clearly. The first time we did this, we were away from home and that gave us a fresh perspective, like standing back from a painting so you can see the whole instead of just the detail. We could see clearly that our work was about being creative ambassadors for where we live and being inspiring mentors to other creatives. Now it’s an annual event to let go of our current activities for a while and regroup around what’s important. To make business an ongoing success, these moments of vision and renewal are essential.

  Make a regular time for an ‘artistic critique’ of your activities as a whole.

  Check that you are creating your best life, then set your goals for the future with confidence and commitment.

  Success Secret #6:

  MAKE TIME FOR COMPLETIONS

  Like many other creatives, Sonya and I get excited about too many projects at once. It’s nothing to visit our studio and find an underwater scene on the watercolour desk, parrot feathers on the sketch board and half-finished fashion figures in the big canvas studio. On our schedule might be a silk scarf production run; an art kit and course; a floor rug project; a gym wear experiment; and preparation for an exhibition. Day and night, everything we see sparks a new creative direction. It’s so engaging, yet if we followed every new idea, there would be no time for completion.

  Learn to love your completions as much as your ideas. Remember that the completion phase moves a lot more slowly than the crazy-fast idea phase. There’ll be contingency plans, painstaking adjustments, problem solving and unexpected outcomes. You’ll need patience to work through it all. You’ll need flexibility as well. Your ideas may have to be adapted to the material world much more than you initially thought. This is where your purpose and goals can help you focus and stay on track. However, goals are only one part of the solution. Following your work through to completion requires another important element: self-belief.

  Success Secret #7:

  BELIEVE IN YOURSELF

  One of the core reasons so many promising artists abandon their dreams is lack of self-belief. They never stop having ideas, but they never quite complete them either. By staying in the idea phase and chopping and changing projects all the time they can avoid completion and the exposure to failure they most fear. To move past this, it’s important to find a much greater resolve. You need something that will see you through all the challenges that come with making an idea real.

  . . . but as a creative, think about this. Don’t just believe in yourself as a successful ‘artist’ or ‘business person.’ What’s more important is to believe in your ability to learn and grow. Failing is an inevitable part of every material endeavour. You can fail as an artist and you can fail as a business person but you can’t fail as someone who is willing to learn and grow. You can only thrive from whatever happens. Take a moment to let that sink in.

  Success Secret #8:

  PROFIT IS CREATIVE

  So, let’s recap here. If you’re a creative and you’ve applied the secrets so far, you’ve tapped into your sense of adventure and made a start.

  You’ve discovered new ideas hidden in your mistakes. You’ve recognised your innate uniqueness and ‘owned’ that as your brand. You’ve found people to help you and made them part of your creative process. You’ve crystallised your purpose, practiced following through and you have an unshakeable belief in your ability to learn and grow. It’s not a big stretch now to see that you can profit from your work.

  Money is one of the many exciting variables you have to play with in your creative business. It’s not at the opposite end of the spectrum of creativity. It’s an integral part of the creative process. If you are not making as much money as you would like, then it’s time to explore your profit variables just as though they were colours on your palette. With the same creative approach you know so well, you can try new things, talk to new people and be inspired by the examples of other artists and mentors. The profit margin is the place where you find the win/win/win for you, your audience and your wider environment and there’s so many fun ways to work in this space.

  Success Secret #9:

  PREPARE TO PIVOT

  Unlike the chopping and changing we talked about earlier, the ability to change when you need to - even pivot 180 degrees to face a whole new direction - is a business essential. In business, everything changes.

  Government regulations, industry trends, technology, competitors, the economy and buyer behaviour are forever in motion. You can’t afford to get stuck on one idea. If something isn’t working, you must pivot. What you need to know is that pivoting requires an anchor to move around. In your life, that anchor is your purpose. It’s your creative core. When you understand your core, everything else can be open to change yet you will still get to where you are going.

  Success Secret #10:

  BUSINESS IS YOUR PASSION!

  So, now you have had a glimpse into our creative world and the insights we’ve gained both from our businesses and from observing hundreds of wonderful creatives that have passed through our doors. We hope you’ve seen how creativity is an essential ingredient for business success, not just in product design but in every aspect of business. If you are now ex
cited about the possibilities of standing out in the crowd by taking a creative approach to everything in your business from your customer experience to your systems and processes; your marketing strategies and all the nitty gritty things; even the ‘boring’ stuff, then congratulations!

  You've discovered Success Secret Ten for creatives – business is your passion!

  . . . And you can be great at it.

  HERE IS A SUMMARY OF OUR 10 SUCCESS SECRETS:

  Secret 1 - Just Get Started.

  Secret 2 - Mistakes Are Marvellous.

  Secret 3 - You are Your Brand.

  Secret 4 - You Can’t Do It All.

  Secret 5 - Renew Your Vision.

  Secret 6 - Take Time for Completion.

  Secret 7 - Believe in Yourself.

  Secret 8 - Profit is Creative.

  Secret 9 - Prepare to Pivot.

  Secret 10 - Business is Your Passion!

  About Tracy and Sonya

  Tracy and Sonya are a mother and daughter team of fashion business creatives. Tracy began her career in the fashion business with her mother, Peggy. Now Sonya is carrying on the tradition with Tracy. Of course, the scope of their creativity has evolved greatly over four decades in the industry. What started out as a small chain of exclusive fashion boutiques in country Australia, led to experiments in fabric design, a fashion label, and a well-

  known college for creatives with campuses on the Gold Coast and in Brisbane, Australia. In 2005, Tracy and Sonya entered the Australian Fashion Design Awards with their own label. They stood out as finalists in three categories - Fashion on the Field; Designer Collections and Couture and won the coveted Rising Star Award. Their entry was a perfect example of what they love most. Bright, free-flowing silk chiffon fabrics, hand painted with their own colourful designs and sewn into elegant, relaxed dresses ideal for warm summer evenings.

  Since that success, they have continued to celebrate the colour and life of their local area through their art work; surface designs and clothing labels while at the same time mentoring many other young creatives to win awards and build successful careers of their own. Fostering creatives into successful businesses is as much a passion for Tracy and Sonya as their own creative adventures. Their students have gone on to accomplish success in all aspects of the design industry from shoe design, to handbag innovation, bridal wear and textile designs for high-quality outdoor fabrics that are now being picked up by international hotel chains and boating companies.

  Tracy's excitement at empowering others began right at the beginning of her career.

  She saw that creating a great experience for customers was what made business most rewarding. Although she started with very little, she saw that she could make the customer experience better, make it more exciting and more creative, always giving 150% to everyone that came in her door. That same enthusiasm and generosity transfers to her work as a business and creative mentor.

  Growing up in this passionate and creative environment, Sonya was a natural at creating gorgeous colour schemes and eye-catching patterns, but her secret passion was in what she call s “the ultimate way to be creative” – the design of a whole business not just the product. Sonya gets as much excitement out of innovating business systems; improving the experience of people and transforming the whole life cycle of a product as she does from paint-and-paper moments in her studio.

  Together, Tracy and Sonya know that creatives really want to learn about business from other creatives. Their next adventures involve a more global outreach through online courses and activities, where mentoring in entrepreneurship can make a positive difference not only to creatives and their businesses, but to a wider system of communities across the world.

  You can connect with Tracy & Sonya at:

  Australian Institute of Creative Design

  • www.aicd.edu.au

  Fashion Label Success

  • www.fashionlabelsuccess.com

  Paint Art That Sel s

  • www.howtopaintartthatsel s.com

  Tracy Saywel

  • www.tracysaywell.com

  CHAPTER 5

  MY LUCKY POWER OF THE MIND

  BY TATYANA ZBIROVSKAYA

  Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

  ~ Napoleon Hill

  Some say I’m lucky, but I know the only luck I’ve had is realizing the power of my mind. Ever since I was a little girl reading fairy tales, I believed in miracles. Fear never even crossed my mind! I always strived for best thoughts, desires, and actions. It is this that has led me to the greatest people and events. It has always helped sculpt my life, guiding me from my small hometown in Siberia, snuggled up against the Altai Mountains, and into a magnificent life journey of self-discovery and seeking that which I viewed in my mind.

  Today, people often enquire about how I’ve managed it all—the wonderful and the challenging. It seems almost impossible to the logical, processed mind to go from a relatively isolated area in the world where opportunity was given selectively to a country where I am today.

  It began with living by the Law of Attraction, even before I fully understood what it was or how it worked.

  THE POWER OF ATTRACTION

  We’re all energy in this world, and the way we choose to think and process what happens to us is how we create the experience we have.

  To some, the Law of Attraction is spiritual nonsense. If this is your thought, I cannot change that. However, I take delight and optimism in extending you the challenge to think “what if”. It may change your life in a way you once thought was left for others, not you. In my life, it helped me in achieving that I once only envisioned, but always believed would happen.

  I was born and raised in a remote Siberian town in the middle of the Cold War and a Communist Regime. I lived with my grandmother in a wooden house, without inside plumbing or television. She was a tailor and had only four years of education. We used a brick stove for cooking and heating, and shared the outhouse and the water pump with two other families. My parents split before I was born. My grandmother raised me because my mother served as a Navy Doctor on a vessel that traveled the world. I didn’t even meet her until I was six!

  Everyone I knew was poor. Post-war Russia was a tough environment for most. I recall standing in the freezing cold winter for hours just to buy a small piece of bread. The only news was from Soviet newspapers such as Pravda . Like most, we’d lost family members to the political system and the war, and it created great hardship for everyone.

  I had no siblings and no children of my age to play with. Older kids were often cruel to me; they weren’t evil, merely having a hard time … we all were. I instinctively understood them without judgment and empathized with everyone, regardless of their “faults”. I craved their acceptance. In return, people loved me back. My mindset of a happy child gave me the gift of a happy childhood.

  I realized this ability to survive these tough times and process things differently came to me when I was focusing on what I want, and it felt good; everything would work out by itself, even if I didn’t know it was called the Law of Attraction.

  MAKING THE MOST OF OUR MOMENTS

  Why certain things come into our lives the way they do?

  When you breathe in and think about the moments of your life that make it up as a whole, do you see just those powerful, big, defining moments that shaped your journey? Or, do you see a combination of big, defining moments mixed with the little ones that really give you a complete picture?

  Being open to how small occurrences help us grow allows us to expose ourselves to meaningful experiences. You cannot be so busy while looking for the mountain that you miss the diamond by your feet.

  As a kid, I loved dancing and gymnastics, but I could never do the full split. One night, I suddenly felt overwhelming knowledge that I could do it. I got out from under the warm blanket onto the freezing floor and did the splits, just like I’d always been able to. By morning, I couldn’t. My mind was no longer
set the right way. I doubted myself, and I failed, but I remembered the feeling of power.

  Another time, at age eleven in the first days of our short Siberian summer, I went to the beach along the river with two friends. The river still carried chunks of ice in it that flowed down from the Altai mountains.

  Most brave beachgoers only went in the water up to their waist, just long enough to urinate and retreat back to their towels. Not me, I wanted to see the other side. Suddenly, I absolutely knew I could swim across.

  And… I did! However, I didn’t take into account the troubles along the way, such as a strong current and a huge barge just about sucking me under. It was during this event that I realized that once in a while there is a difference between knowing you can do something and actually do it.

  Even if the barge hadn’t come along, that current was very challenging.

  But I did it!

  Now, as I’ve grown wiser I spend more time understanding the nuances of the Law of Attraction, Quantum Physics, etc. I wanted to learn how to use this to create my future. Drawing from the experiences of my splits and the river, I recalled one thing they had in common—the feeling of power and knowledge I had.

  I started to experiment on how I could intentionally attract the experience using the power of the mind. Here is one of many examples. I was overcome with the desire to ride a horse. There is something about being on the back of a beautiful horse, my face to the sun and feeling that freedom that comes with riding one that drew me in. I craved it.

  I took only a minute to indulge in the thought of it, visually placing myself on that horse, petting its neck, feeling the sensations of riding it—the wind in my hair, the contentment in my heart, and the liberation of the experience—just like in movies. And I forgot about it.

  The next day I was at the park where no horses were allowed. Suddenly, through the bushes, a rider in his hat on a horse appeared. It was like a fairytale. He stopped in front of me. “You can pet the horse,” he said. I was stunned. A few moments later, the horse, crossing a small bridge, unexpectedly stopped, and… deposited her droppings right in the middle of that small bridge. The man got off to clean it up.