Yesterday I met Dorinda Mangan who had come to Las Vegas with a group of Denver folks to attend a Super Bowl event. We connected at my favorite hotel, Bellagio, for a chatty brunch. 

Then I suggested that we walk to the sculpture gallery where Richard MacDonald’s stunning work is displayed.  MacDonald is a figurative artist who has worked with Cirque du Soleil performers to create some intriguing works of art. 

What I love most of all about the exhibit is the video showing MacDonald at work. Each piece begins with an exploratory session as the acrobats and dancers pose and perform while he studies their movements. 

When they strike a pose that MacDonald likes, he stops them. Then they have to hold the pose while he makes a clay model. Eventually, the sculpture may be cast in bronze. It’s fascinating to watch the artists at work and see what goes into this collaborative process.

It seems to me that we’d all be a great deal more patient if we could watch others going through the building/creating process. We’d quickly discover that the things we admire the most demanded a hefty investment of time. 

Maybe we’d stop asking ourselves, “Why is it taking so long?” when our own plans seem to be advancing at a snail’s pace. The truth is that it’s very difficult to estimate how long it will take to do something we’ve never done before. Yet we do just that over and over again.

It’s been about a year since my sister Margaret started her delightful business, Over the Top Fascinators. Last week I got an e-mail from her giving me an update—and insight. 

She wrote, “Gretchen (her daughter and web master) said yesterday that she feels the business is just now really being launched, and I agree. The whole last year was about learning how to make things properly, sourcing the materials and building up enough designs to make it look like more than a hobby. 

“We’re looking for a partner to share a booth at the spring Art Walk downtown (there’s a local maker of purses from vintage fabric we like a lot) and I’m thinking I want to advertise on the website Offbeat Bride. I will still work with the bridal shop, but their style is a little traditional and flashy for me. I want the brides getting married on the beach to find me.”

While deadlines are useful for outsmarting procrastination, it’s equally useful to realize that laying a foundation can take an investment of time. Predicting what that will be, is the tricky part. As Seth Godin points out, “Figure out how long your idea will take to spread, and multiply by 4.”

Honestly, if you aren’t willing to invest your time, you’ll be better off punching someone else’s time clock.

According to Wikipedia, singer Josh Groban has sold nearly 20 million albums in his short career. The other evening he told his Twitter followers that he’d just finished a two hour voice lesson and  “think it’s time to turn pro.”
So why would a rich and famous performer keep taking lessons? More to the point, why would a would-be entrerpreneur or freelancer or traveler not be investing in their dreams?
It’s that second question that keeps me awake nights.
Brazen Careerist Penelope Trunk had a particularly interesting piece this week called Frugality is a Career Tool. She wrote “I have earned a [...] Continue Reading…

Before I became friends with Georgia Makitalo, I had never heard of the Pre-Raphaelites or knew their intriguing story, although I was familiar with the name William Morris who founded this creative group. 
Frank Lloyd Wright was just the name of a famous architect to me until Jill McDermott and I became friends. 
Both Georgia and Jill were wildly passionate about their creative heroes and it was contagious. I wanted to know what they knew. Fortunately, they loved to share.
Georgia and I made several excursions hunting down William Morris and his tribe. We traveled to Toronto, Delaware and London looking at [...] Continue Reading…

Every day we are inundated with advertising that urges us to buy things that may or may not improve the quality of our lives. Seldom are we encouraged to invest in experiences that will enlarge our inner selves.
If you’ve read Making a Living Without a Job you may recall my story about the call I received from a stockbroker who asked, “How would you like to get a higher yield on your investments?” When I told him that my primary investments were my businesses, he said, “Oh, isn’t that scary?”
“Not at all,” I said. “Giving my money to a [...] Continue Reading…

“As soon as you trust yourself you will know how to live, “ observed the German philosopher Goethe. Apparently,  that’s easier said than done. 
I frequently receive calls from people who have attended my seminars. The opening query often sounds like this: “I have an idea for a business and I want you to tell me if it’s really dumb.” Before I even hear what the idea is, I point out that in the past 20 years I’ve only heard one bad idea so the chance that they’ll come up with the second bad idea isn’t great. 
However, it doesn’t matter [...] Continue Reading…

There’s an article making the rounds on the Internet with the come-hither title 9 Businesses You Can Start in Your Pajamas. Apparently, a lot of folks think Nirvana means never having to wear real clothes. 
For several years, I’ve been trying to stop the madness that involves coming up with new words for entrepreneurial activity. In my tracking of all the cutsey names businessowners give themselves, one of my least favorite has to be pjpreneur. I have tried to imagine why that would be appealing to potential clients. Why, I wonder, would I be drawn to hiring someone or buying [...] Continue Reading…

After years of  struggling with the Single Lifetime Occupation career path that everyone else seemed to accept with more ease than I could muster, I gradually came to realize that if I stopped looking for a job and, instead,  created my own, I could include many different activities. That revelation was my personal tipping point
What started out as a quest to relieve my boredom, became much more than an amusement. Building a portfolio of profit centers was not only interesting, it also gave me flexibility, numerous options and was as good for my imagination as it was for my pocketbook. 
The [...] Continue Reading…

Like Rick Steves, when I have to fill in the occupation line on a form, I write, “teacher.” Even though I do other things, I’ve always thought of myself that way. I even have credentials to prove it, although the things I teach have nothing to do with the diploma I earned.
In the past decade or so, more and more folks have taken up the teaching title, using their experience, rather than academic credentials, to build a platform. Adult learners like to learn from teachers who have street smarts, not just book smarts (although I hope teachers have both). [...] Continue Reading…

A reader sent me a message today asking if I’d write about dealing with—and I quote— the heartbreak of starting a business. Would I!  And I’d start by dumping the word heartbreak. Let’s tone it down a bit and call it by its proper name, disappointment. There’s a subtle, but important difference there. Heartbreak stops us in our tracks; disappointment is a setback that invites us to rethink our plans and actions.
As the writer so aptly suggests, we do need tools for dealing with disappointment or it will get the upper hand. So let me begin with a personal [...] Continue Reading…

Before I started my first business in 1974, I went looking for all the information I could find. I haunted my local library trying to find something that could help me start the kind of business I envisioned: small, at home, creative. The scant offerings on starting a business all assumed that the reader intended to have employees, pension plans, real estate and so forth. I wanted to market ideas; the books assumed I’d be manufacturing a product for wide distribution.
I attended a Start Your Own Business seminar hosted by the SBA. That was more discouraging than illuminating. I [...] Continue Reading…