As 2013 comes to a close I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a leader in creative business.  If you feel like you’ve been on the cusp for a long time, you might start to wonder if magic is required to lift you out of obscurity.  But the truth is, the solution is simple.If you want recognition, press, high-paying gigs, do something worthy of being noticed.  Leaders lead. Don’t have any connections?  Get out, network and make some.  Don’t know what you want to say? Listen deeply to those around you.  How can you help them solve their problems and achieve their desires with insight from your unique perspective?  What contribution can you offer that will improve the way they live?  Then most importantly, get better and better at being who you are and doing what you do.

Cultivate Success

A lot of people come to me when they’re stuck, have slowed down or don’t know what to do next.  Once they’ve started the flow going in a new direction, they also stop the work and the investment on themselves, which is kind of ironic, because they still expect clients to up the level of investment in their services.The thing is that if you were in the habit of making the kind of changes you hired me to help you make — the ones that inspired the growth spurt — you wouldn’t have hired me in the first place.  Growth happens inside the space of what you don’t know, not what you already do.  If it did, what you were doing all along would have been working.  But just like a diet, success and the actions required to cultivate it, take a while to stick.People who are playing a high-level game expect to be supported and they make it non-negotiable.  They often have an assistant or two, a trainer, bookkeeper, housecleaner or producer/strategist (aka me), whoever their success team requires and they make a decision to invest in themselves at the size of the game they want to play.  Successful leaders don’t play a one-person game.

Resist The Temptation

I used to be tempted to go it alone, because I was afraid I would never become who deep down I knew myself to be, because the stretch required by growth and an additional investment was uncomfortable.  Now I get that it was supposed to be.Life never stands still and if you’re not moving toward expansion, you’re moving toward the opposite.  Expansion requires me to step outside of the realm of what I know.  But I don’t do that alone.  I’ve learned that high-level strategic help is a key part of my success equation and that’s why I get it.  If you want high-level results in your business in 2014, I suggest you do too.