The third piece of art on my office wall from, Hugh MacLeod‘s linchpin series, reads the following:
“all artists are entrepreneurs. all entrepreneurs are artists. linchpin”. (click here for a better look at the print)
I love this print. I’ve always felt that I’ve had the “entrepreneur” bug; but I haven’t thought about myself as being an artist, since I was about eight years old and my Grandmother was teaching me how to paint.
This changes that for me. This print reminds me of the way I felt as a child. Each and every day I begin to understand that, more and more, we’re one of the same breed.
Here is Hugh’s take on it:
“By Seth’s definition, an artist is not just some person who messes around with paint and brushes, an artist is somebody who does (and I LOVE this term) “emotional work.”
Work that you put your heart and soul into. Work that matters. Work that you gladly sacrifice all other alternatives for. As a working artist and cartoonist myself, I know exactly what he means. It’s not what you do, it’s the way you do it.”
We all have the entrepreneur bug in us. I don’t believe that people are either born with entrepreneur bug or not. This bug lives and breathes in all of us.
We all have the ability to do emotional work.
We all have the ability to do work that matters.
We all have the ability to do work that makes a difference.
But it’s easier to not engage in is that type of work. It’s easier to give in and do work to satisfy another constructed human need. We’d rather give in and earn a paycheck so we can satisfy the need to buy more stuff.
When we realize that most of us have more stuff than we’ll ever really need, we can start to see the beauty of spending our lives as artists.
Yesterday, my friends over at 37Signals pointed out a really great video of an artist and entrepreneur. Watch the video and you’ll see that Bob is both an entrepreneur and an artist. There is no difference. Bob decided life was more worth living by spending his days doing emotional work. Funny thing is, he makes a bundle doing it.
Who’s to say you can’t do the same?
