Ten Ways to Know If Youre a Creative Entrepreneur

Ten Ways to Know If Youre a Creative Entrepreneur Self Portrait by flapperdoodle. Isnt she just the epitome of a creative entrepreneur? Youve already met Tara Lutman Agacayak back in my second installment of Grown-Up Gigs. She describes it below, so Im not gonna, but seriously, click on the link read it if you havent already. As you can probably guess, I was thrilled to get Taras submission as a guest blogger, I think her 10 Ways are dead on. They absolutely confirmed for me that Im a creative entrepreneur. What about you? In one of her Grown-up Gig posts, Michelle introduced me as “Creative Entrepreneurial   Endeavor Developer”.   Though that’s a mouthful, I still haven’t decided on the appropriate title for myself.   But I do know that I enjoy seeing other people develop viable creative businesses.   For this post I thought I’d put together a list of things that I think describe what a creative entrepreneur is since the term can be a bit vague (but creatives are good with vague, aren’t we?).   So, without further ado … You know you are a creative entrepreneur if: You are challenged by working for others and you march to the beat of your own drummer. You have a job working for someone else but you constantly imagine what you would do if you were self-employed. You see the world as a place to experience life, not just make it through another day. You have a unique perspective that you manifest and express using your own vocabulary â€"  such as color, texture, shape, harmony, melody, composition, pitch, shade, tone, clarity, ambiguity, to the touch, palette, savory, sweet, light, dark … [add your own vocabulary here] You encounter another creative person doing really authentic, honest work, and it makes you light up inside. You graciously accept monetary compensation for your hard work and have a real sense of the value of your time and how that translates into what you’ve produced. It is difficult for you to separate what you love from what you do. You are never satisfied, and continuously yearn for ways to grow and develop yourself through your creative talent. You are able to put both your right and left brain to work to produce something that is at once creative and also profitable. It kills your spirit to work in any job other than what you feel drawn to creatively. What do you think?   Do you agree?   What other things would you add to the list?   Feel free to share in the comments section. Tara Lutman Agacayak is an American ex-pat living in Turkey.   She is one of two founding partners at Intarsia Concept where she works to develop creative businesses as well as at Citara’s and Behind the Bazaar.