After living in Asia for most of my life, I have learned to appreciate the obstacles I live with and recognize them for what they could be: opportunities. If we are experiencing inconveniences, chances are most people around us are experiencing it too. If you spend three hours of traffic to get from your home to the city center, the other vehicles on the road and their occupants are stuck too. You start to imagine, how could I improve this situation?
The radio is blasting cheesy jingles and you know the songs you wrote over the weekend are so much better. Or an audio drama plays, and you think you could write a better script with a more compelling story. Or you look outside and you see the billboards and posters, and you think, “I could do that. I would even fix it by doing this…”
When we use our imaginations to solve problems, no matter how outlandish our ideas, that’s creative problem solving in action. As creatives, we are able to imagine a world where things can be different, where our everyday lives can be better. We can see solutions to the obstacles we experience all around us. And that’s what people will pay good money for. They want you to help them solve their problem, and the world will beat a path to your door if you're really good at it.
The creative freelancer's superpower lies in problem solving: the ability to see the world with fresh eyes, and imagine uncommon ways to solve common problems.
I really believe that the business and the artistic communities can learn a lot from each other. And so over the years, I’ve been learning from entrepreneur friends, asking them lots of questions and discussing business books and articles. I’ve been training myself to see the world as they see it, looking for opportunities to use my skill set to serve a need.
As artistic people who want to succeed as business-minded creative professionals, we need to examine our talents, skills and interests from all angles, asking the question, “What would make people want to buy this?”
As artistic people who want to succeed as business-minded creative professionals, we need to examine our talents, skills and interests from all angles, asking the question, “What would make people want to buy this?”
We keep profitability in mind, but we can't focus on the money.
Our focus should be on serving others by creating something that is truly valuable. The money will follow.
It’s a lot like trying to finish a jigsaw puzzle — if we keep turning the pieces around and see them in a new light, soon enough, “Eureka! I see how my service fits into that person’s problem! We need to reexamine the world we live in, find the “pain points” or the places that bother us because we know we could do it better. We look for flaws and obstacles in our surroundings, and find problems our unique abilities could solve.
Up Next: My Freelance Journey. Let's see how all these concepts in action as I pursue my sweet spot as an artist and visual communicator.
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