This one thing you are doing will KILL your creativity.
I’m pretty sure there is one very dark thing you are doing to yourself that can severely hurt your creative energy. It often attacks people who like to exercise their creative muscles, inevitably finding themselves in a state that squelches their energy and kills their creativity. Some even feel depressed and broken as a result. What is it? It’s called social comparison.... And there’s more to it than you might think.
I was speaking to a fellow entrepreneur this week who was completely drained of his creative energy. He was upset with company growth, but after I started digging deeper, he was open enough to give me some real numbers and that’s when it hit me. He was actually doing quite well! I started asking why he thought he was so behind and one theme started appearing: he was comparing himself to other similar businesses. But there was a problem with his thinking. He just didn’t know it.
One particular company he spoke of has seen incredible growth and amazing success in the last 3 years. They have received numerous awards, acquired some clients easily that he had been working on for years and despite starting at the same time he did, had a fairly big staff. What the heck was he doing wrong? And what was this company doing that had made them so successful!? The truth is... nothing.
I happen to know more background on this company than he does and the truth is, this company’s success is about as real as a hollywood set. It looks good from the outside, but behind the scenes it’s all chicken wire and painted styrofoam. When the wind picks up it will blow right over, leaving a mess in it’s wake.
The founder and owner happens to have a near bottomless budget of family money and the company can only close new deals by offering prices so cheap, they can’t even make profit.
Despite winning awards for work culture, people are leaving the company in droves and to recruit, they have to offer much of the creative gimmicks I often warn about. This founder is known for being arrogant, mean and downright nasty to employees, even berating them in front of their peers. While these gimmicks attract talent, they can’t hide the negative work culture. The fact is, once the family money runs out, this business won’t survive or will “be acquired” by another company.
But this entrepreneur didn’t see any of that. He had no idea. To him, this company’s success served as a barometer for how behind he was. He was comparing his small solid structure, to a mansion that was nothing more than a shell. His creative energy was being destroyed by something that wasn’t even real.
It reminds me of something a tech startup friend of mine said on a panel years ago. “People Lie” he said, when someone from the audience asked him what surprised him about his business dealings. Indeed it’s true. And some people are amazing liars.
Negative social comparison will hurt your creativity and zap your productivity all for no reason! Don’t compare yourself to other’s success, in reality you may not want to be in their position at all!
Trust your gut. Trust your close friends and judge yourself by your ability to meet your own goals, and hey, if you’re down (it happens to all of us) send me an email and I’ll talk you off the ledge.
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Photo credit: Ryan McQuire
