Improving As a Professional,

or

Improving As an Artist?

Hey all,

For starters, I would like to apologize for my absence of posting here for the past two weeks, life suddenly got incredibly busy, and I never sent out the notice on Twitter that I had planned to. Once again, I am sorry, this is actually quite against everything I believe about proper business standards, but also a humbling lesson that life can happen to anybody.

With that out of the way, a brighter note is that my brother, who currently resides in South Korea, came for a visit! Definitely turned out to be a blast, well worth the time it took away from my Blending.

And this week’s mini-discussion:

“Improving your professional image, or improving yourself as an artist?”

Although I’m not nearly an expert on the subject, I have been thinking about this lately, so I will share a few thoughts of mine:

1: Your professionalism is simply your image; your artist is who you are.

Meaning that the way you portray yourself online, or to your workplace, is the way that people perceive the way that you handle business: keeping deadlines, communication, fellow employee relations: so on and so forth. But when people see the work that you’ve done, this speaks about a different part of yourself: this tells of the inner feelings, the passion that can only be released through art. For different fields this can mean different things; but 9 times out of 10, companies and studios are looking for a person who is able to balance both sides.

2: These two images grow separately.

Growing is a necessary part of everyday life, but when growing takes the form of answering your boss in a different tone, or expressing your innermost thoughts in a different manner, it then becomes more difficult. The growth of the artist is painful and slow for some, and for others it is as natural as falling asleep at night. The same way with growing more professional: for some it’s natural, for some it’s not.

As for growing into someone that is wanted around the office: look to your peers. And I don’t just mean the people immediately above you in your workplace, (although a good a place to start), I mean to look to the professionals that you have seen and thought: “Wow! He’s really doing something right!” Find the people that are succeeding in areas you’re not, and learn from them.

As for growing as an artist: clean your mind. Free yourself from unneeded thoughts, and your life from unneeded distractions. Be honest to yourself about what you feel, and surround yourself with what inspires you. And don’t ever just take it from one source, look about you, research, and learn for yourself.

3: Always push growth.

Becoming a better artist, becoming a better person, these should be questioned, pushed, and stretched on a frequent basis. “How can I produce this faster?”, “How can I make this look better?”, “How can I make this more up-front?” These are questions that can be applied to business life as well as to the personal artist. Becoming a better person is always your choice. Remember: the road isn’t always easy, neither is it always visible; but it is movement that gets us where we are going.

“Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.”

Napoleon Hill

Thanks once again to those of you that sat through this, and send me a message on Twitter if you have a question, suggestion, or just want to say hi!

That’s all for now, see you next week~