Scam or no?

OK, so I'm sorting bottle caps for my retired husband's folk art and my cell phone rings. A man with one of those beautiful, deep radio voices introduces himself as representing an Internet program. Coaching has grown over 600% in the last few years and his company's research department has given him my name. He then asked me a number of questions about my creativity coaching business, always complementing whatever answer I gave. The program he represented was interested in having me on a show and interviewing me about creativity coaching. The interviewer would be a famous TV personality. I'd never heard of him. Thousands of listeners tune into their shows. Was I ready for the increase in business the interview would bring? The staff would work with me to script the interview prior to broadcast and I would own the rights. They would provide me with some copies of the interview on cd to be used in my marketing in any way I chose. And it would only cost me $2000.

"And this conversation is at an end." I told him. But wait! There's more. Because I teach classes as a creativity coach at a local non-profit and I could tell he was looking at their website as we spoke, he could offer it to me for the low, low price of only $995.

I still turned him down. Not that I don't have the $995 in my business account for marketing. I do. No, I turned him down and his fabulous interview that would triple my business because I checked with some colleagues first. One, an internationally known creativity coach, told me that she had been approached by this and similar organizations. They talked the talk but don't walk the walk. She knew of no one who had tried this marketing route to make any notable return on their investment,  especially the kind of numbers hinted at by the representative.

Another friend, an editor with a national newspaper syndicate called this type of thing "advertorial news." Basically, it's an infomercial. You pay, maybe people buy. Again, it's a limited return for little reward. So is it a scam? The fellow never promised, so technically, legally, I'm sure it's legit. Yet, the very calculating way he lead the conversation, the flattery were all directed at selling their product, not mine.

So what were my take-aways from this experience?

• I'm glad I took the time to become a certified creativity coach. My business experience and training helped me make my decision.
• Thank goodness for the coaches in the Creativity Coaching Association  for sharing their knowledge with me.  
• Thanks, J.G. for your knowledge. And to think I remember when you were a dumb kid.

So, what's your take on my experience? Is it a scam? Have you had a similar experience? I'm interested in your comments.

Happy Earth Day!

Do you use cobalt arsenate to make violet paint? Or maybe you've inhaled mercury fumes lately while developing your photographs. How's that lead-based make-up working out for your acting troupe? Castrated any boy sopranos for the church choir recently? Still tickling the ivories?

I pray that some of you don't understand all these examples. The truth is that although we make art to give beauty and meaning to our lives, in the past is was often produced at the cost of our lives, our sanity and our world. Things are different now. Producers of our supplies test products for safety. Even our toddlers' chalk and crayons have Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) available on-line. But we cannot give all the responsibility to the companies we frequent.

Call it "going green." Call it environmental awareness. Call it just plain old common sense. Look at your art, how you do it, where you do it, where you perform it, how you sell it. Are you acting in a environmentally responsible manner? Have you ever even considered that you should? What changes can you make? Change the lightening in your studio? Recycle paper and plastic? Is there a way to reduce packing of your work when you ship it? Is there a letter you need to write to a manufacturer or an elected politician?

Do some research. Read some articles. Learn what's out there. For whatever form of art you create, there is someone looking at its impact on our world. If there isn't yet, then perhaps you are the one to begin. Recognize that we no longer have to pollute and poison to create beauty and meaning in our world. We can create beauty and meaning and leave not just an artistic legacy but also a better, safer world where our children can safely create.

(This article originally appeared in roughly the same form in the June 2013 Creativity Coaching Association newsletter.)          

There's a moral in here somewhere

I recently wrote an article for the Creativity Coaching Association's February newsletter. You can read it here. 

In the article, I described how I had beautiful plants growing, beets, spinach, cilantro and parsley while most of the country was covered with snow. The next day we had the coldest weather in years! We even had a dusting of snow! Hello, this is the desert, remember?

My plants died. They flopped over. The leaves got yucky and slimy. They're the technical terms for it, I'm sure. They were dead. Or so I thought. Then after the cold spell ended-it's 83 degrees here as I write-they came back. Even the deadest of the dead plants now have new growth. The spinach, in particular, is growing wonderfully. Not quite enough to harvest, but soon some leaves will be big enough to eat. 

Like the little girl who sees the pile of horse manure and thinks, "There's got to be a pony nearby," I think there's a moral in here somewhere. I'm not quite sure what it is.     

Pride goes before a fall (or a flop)?

Strong roots run deep?

That which doesn't kill us only makes us stronger?

What do you think?





   

Less is the new more

If there were more hours in the day, more days in the week, wouldn’t we create more? Haven’t we all at some point thought that? May I propose a more radical idea? I propose that we may need less time, a six-day week with twenty-three hour days. Why? Because when we have less time to create, we tend to use our time, well, more creatively, more productively.

You can do this in several ways. First, start by being more open to your senses, your awareness of touch and texture, your vision of color and composition, your emotions from scent and stink, the sounds of melody and cacophony you hear and your taste of air and sustenance.

You can be more creative with your time by claiming all of your time for creating. Since you know your creative time is limited, be more attentive to patterns and relationships. Begin to recognize the choreography of cars navigating an interstate exchange or the first line of a poem in your alphabet soup.

Make everyday tasks creative. Play with color and fonts when doing routine computer work. A few clicks will bring it back to normal. Listen to music from a different culture or era outside of your usual range. Drive a different route to work or the grocery store.

Fourth, grab the gaps in the time you already have. Why not keep a sketchbook in with the cutlery? Waiting for the teakettle to boil or the oven to reach 350°? That’s the time for a few quick sketches. Or maybe keep a box of toothpicks on the counter to arrange into shapes and figures.

Finally, look for ways to hang creative habits on to your current activities. How? Make the last motion of a routine task be the first motion of a creative one. Push away the cereal bowl and pull the journal towards you. Tuck the baby in her crib and pick up your laptop. When you’re finished writing, it’s time to check on your sweetie and put the laptop away.    

There will always be twenty-four hours in the day and seven days in the week but our attitude towards time can change and with it, give us new approaches to using it creatively.