If you want to be successful, you have to be generous. I know our media loves to portray successful people as greedy, evil white collar criminals…but the media also claims that any woman who wear anything above a size “0" is fat. Mainstream media has a skewed perspective of life, to say in the least.
I have a podcast in which I interview successful creative professionals and entrepreneurs. I’ve had the privilege of interviewing people who make 5 to 6 figures per month! I’ve interviewed millionaires and I can tell you that every guest I’ve had is an incredibly generous person.
“I can’t wait to become wealthy so I can start giving generously”. That’s a backward way of thinking. —Dave Ramsey
When I was in college, there was a fellow graphic design student who had teamed up with a mobile developer. As a student, I wanted to have some apps in my portfolio but I didn’t know how to develop an app. I knew I needed a developer but I didn’t have the money to hire one. I tried to partner with developer but no one was interested. They didn’t want to partner with a student, they wanted paying gigs.
When I learned that this other student had actually found a developer who was willing to collaborate, I was ecstatic. Our conversation went like this:
And then he said:
The other design student mistook greed for ambition—a mistake that is fairly common among creatives. Selfishness is not the path to success. In fact, it ultimately robs you of opportunity.
When I started my 1st company, I was paranoid that someone was going to steal my idea. Please don’t make that same mistake. I now understand that ideas are a dime a dozen (it’s the execution of the idea that matters). My highly secretive company never made very much money—surprise, surprise.
When you collaborate with other creative professionals, you will create something entirely new…something you would not have been able to create as an individual. Creativity isn’t like apple pie—if I give you a slice of my apple pie, I have less pie to enjoy—it’s boundless, infinite, intangible, and it needs to be shared.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.
—Albert Einstein
—Nik Parks, Co-Founder of Launching Creative
