The Kanye West ParadoX

What is the Kanye West ParadoX?

Separating the art from the artist.?

Most creatives have the unfortunate reality that they are, forever attached to their art.?

Example: Kanye West - He has objectively created some of the most influential works of art in our generation (My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy | 808s & Heartbreak | College Dropout | Watch the Throne | 100s of Production Credits | Yeezy Clothing Line) that have changed the music and fashion industry's in exponential ways.?

On the other side of the coin, he is also a raging narcissist and objectively an ass.?

I believe that context is generally more important to the interpretation of some creative endeavors than anything else.

• Kanye's interesting behavior tied with the actual content of Yeezus itself is entirely explained by the context of this point of his life journey.?
• ?Dickens was both misogynistic and deeply racist, a committed democrat and an opponent of slavery: his work deserves to be read in all these ways.
• Sgt. Peppers was crafted in an environment dictated by the current levels of fame The Beatles experienced in the spring of 1967.?

Context matters.?

It drives humans to have a subconscious (and conscious) pre-conceived perception of what a work of art means to them.?

Matthew Arnold: Famed English19th Century Poet, Cultural Critic, and Author of Culture and Anarchy put it this way:

To be worth anything, art has to be kept separate from the moral and political commentary of the social sphere. Then it can exist as it should - a space away from the biases and dogmas of society - A sphere of creativity and descent. And an arena for a free play of ideas. By forcing art to toe the contemporary political line, which we do when we expect moral purity in its creator. We rob society of a vital outlet for critical freedom. While blocking the right of artistic interpretation and trashing the whole concept of good art itself

What does this mean really: The marketplace (or society) should have the free will to decide the validity of an art project.?

Otherwise, the inherent nature of the creative process will become obscured.

What does this mean in the context of the sales process?

Each individual we reach out to is also a human being, doing a specific job, with their own KPIs they have an attachment to. They have motivations, lifestyles, families, hobbies, struggles, successes, job responsibilities, and priorities.

The world is changing.

The persona of what (and who) an individual in a sales profession has developed into is also changing.

Throughout history, time and again, there has been a negative connotation associated with a salesperson.?

That does not have to be.?

The marketplace has found a conscious reality where the sales team is an inherently important piece to the overall growth puzzle. With that understanding, there is a conscious refinement in how these roles are approached.

Organizations, small and large, are proactively changing the way they do business. They are hiring people from all types of industries to garner a different perspective. Human beings are not one-dimensional. We have vastly different aspects in our personalities and overall being. Companies are finding this awareness and embracing it.?

Organizations are enabling their teams to be themselves.?

Ultimately, this is the key.

To separate the human from the job, you need the ability to be who YOU are.?

Humans trust and gravitate towards other humans that are genuine. When you are yourself, you can now create relationships with other humans because of a broken down barrier to entry.?

In a sales role, being your true self is very difficult. The ability to break out of the typical sales persona is the key to excelling.?

Regardless of what anyone thinks about Kanye as a human being, he has an underlying thought process enshrined in excellence that drives him.?

He believes in himself unconditionally, which enables him to be himself. You have to believe in yourself.?

Believing in yourself is the fundamental basis of anything that you do. You create subconscious confidence in your abilities to speak to people, exhibit empathy and curiosity.

The very first step is not pitching features.?It is precision and genuine curiosity to learn/identify who a person is. It is knowledge of what we think is the reason why we reached out in the first place.

Prospects only see us as a robot trying to jam features vs. a human being doing our jobs trying to educate the world around us.?

It might seem as if I am promoting email personalization concepts. I am. Personalization is necessary to attract attention (but this is not a new idea) – there is much more to it. Your entire virtual persona leans into this idea.

Who avoids searching hundreds of people a week on LinkedIn to learn more about them? Having an active and positive persona on social media platforms, professional networking sites, etc., creates your persona for the outside world.

We have to think if it is possible to separate the art from the artist or the human from the salesperson??

The only thing that should matter when experiencing a work of art is what is going on within the work itself. It does not matter who created the work; merely the reaction one has to it.?

For as much as we like to imagine art as something higher, something beyond the petty concerns of this world, in reality, every work of art is deeply imbued with several outside influences, from the geopolitical situation of the world to the sordid personal details of an artists life.

- Jacob Kupperman?

This can be a controversial subject and I would love to hear what the community thinks about these concepts. Please, drop a comment below, and let us start a dialogue.?