Defining Success as a creative.

How my definition of success changed.

Whenever I got told I was successful or had a successful business, I’d scream inside, like shut the fuck up you don’t know me. It was so far from the truth it felt I was living a lie.

And yes, for over a decade I’ve run a multi-million dollar a year agency I started from zero. And in the initial years, I had a massive issue with what It meant to be successful.

I think its easy for some creatives to think that success is an external thing. For me, I mean it always meant being rich, which meant time and freedom. 

But I quickly found as the money came in that I actually couldn’t see a finish line.

I always knew I could do better, so I never felt successful.

I always knew the business could do better, so I never felt it was successful.

And because Im an extreme ownership kind of owner, that always made me feel shitty because it meant I wasn’t living up to my potential. I actually still struggle with that today.

Very rarely do I feel I gave 100%.

Going back to success.

My first year of owning an agency, success meant that it was still around. Like it hadn’t collapsed or went bankrupt.

The second year I wanted to impact an industry, and got pretty well known for it. Actually just dominated and crushed our competition.

Then it was building an awesome team. Keeping an awesome team.

Helping our clients crush their goals.

Doing everything with integrity.

Basically, as a creative, I don’t know if we ever feel good about ourselves. If we ever think anything we create is as good as it could be.

But I think that’s art in general, nothings perfect. Our life as art isn’t perfect.

So I reframed my mind to think of wins and things Im grateful for rather than being “successful”.

Through my agency I’ve managed to pay 10 million dollars to creatives over the years. I’ve contributed that to our industry.

I’ve helped creatives quit their hospitality gig and go all in on their creative mediums.

I’ve helped people start their families, I’ve helped set people up to travel the world.

I’ve set my own life up in a way that I work when I want, and I get to do it in a place where people come for their holidays. I’m surrounded by beauty all day.

Once I thought having a lambo meant I was successful, and hey I might still get one one day.

But what Im saying is that the concept of success is so subjective and so personal, that its best to accept it as fluid and ever changing, and realise that what people see from the outside will usually be fucking wrong.

You may appear to have nothing under control, be broke, and struggling, working 2 jobs, but at 2am at night you finally finish that piece of art you’ve been working on for months, finished that edit, finalised that plan, and to you that’s a success. Something people won’t see.

Other times you’re crushing life and business and appear successful but you know there’s a million fires to put out, shit can collapse at any minute, and you know you’re nowhere near your potential. But people are telling you you're successful.

So be prepared. What ever success means to you, if you even want it to have meaning at all, I would highly recommend using internal metrics as opposed to external. What the world sees is often not your reality, and that’s ok.

As creatives we are here for a Divine purpose, and that is to channel ideas, have them come through us and into this conscious space.

So keep creating. And find your own success along the way.