Making Time for Creative Energy vs. Creative Thinking: What's the Difference?

In a down economy, most GTM strategies fall into two categories:

1. You lean into the playbook: what are best practices for every tactic and how can I steal them?
2. You throw out the playbook: How can we shake things up and find new ways to move the needle?

The problem is that most of us live in the gray. You can’t choose one or the other and make the impact you need to make. You need both…which always begs the question: What gives?

Time, people, budget, and energy are all finite resources.?

The answer for me has always been to make space…even when it feels counter-intuitive:?

1. Make space for creative thinking by leaning on the most important playbooks first. You can’t build a cathedral without a foundation. Start with a ruthless prioritization of the key foundational plays you need to run and get those humming so you don’t have to think about them.?
2. Make space for creative thinking by making space to grow creative *energy*

…now here’s where I get a little “woo woo” on you. Good marketing is equal parts art and science. So is your brain. For many of us who grew up in the 80s and 90s, we were trained to think it's "soft" to think about mental and emotional energy. It took marrying a therapist and reading her magazines for 15 years to really reframe how I think about it.

It’s not enough to set time aside for “creative thinking” about your business.

If you’re not in a state-of-mind to take advantage of that time, or you’re distracted by 8,000,000 other things going on, you will wind up feeling even more frustrated and unproductive.?You need to build up your energy stores so that time becomes more productive.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past year thinking about creative energy in terms of tangible things:

?? I got back into playing the trumpet (I was…rusty)

?? I paint happy little trees

???? I lift heavy things and put them back down multiple times in a row

?? I play basketball against kids 15 years younger than me

?? play Legos under the guise of “it’s for my kids”…

It has all been great.

But last week, I had one of those “duh” reminders that I get that energy from connecting with other *people* in meaningful ways too, and I need to make more room for that.

Easy to forget.

I talk to people all day, but I’m remote. Staring at zoom is not the same, and while I love my colleagues and peers, it’s dishonest to pretend that staring at a screen DOESN'T drain my energy - creative or otherwise.?

10 Days, Not One Zoom

Last week, I stepped away from the screen. Didn’t have one zoom meeting for 10 days in a row, and charged up in two very different ways:?

#1: I started the week celebrating turning 40 with my closest friends. We rented a house in the desert, played yard games, went golfing, went to the World Baseball Classic (Go USA!) and had an incredibly classy dinner shouting at jousting matches and sword fights while wearing paper crowns at Medieval Times. We talked about work, being dads, being kids, dumb shit we did together in our 20s, and cool shit we'll do together in our 50s. It was a good reset, and we let things flow, so I didn't feel like I was trying to "avoid work" - just enjoy the moment. Example: In the middle of catching passes while diving into the pool, an awesome content idea hit me, so we talked about it out loud and that helped shape it.

#2: I flew straight from that trip to the #ICANN76 community forum. The conference was in Cancun, but I barely saw the beach. Instead I had great, engaging dinners with partners, meetings with new connections, and introductions to folks in a new part of the industry for me. These conversations all had one thing in common: “How can we get creative to move this industry forward?” and I walked away with not only more creative energy, but some tangible campaigns and GTM plans with new partners all working to create a newly energized ecosystem.?

That Energy is your Foundation

You can create a stable business by leaning on playbooks and getting really nitty gritty about technical proficiency and data. And you SHOULD. But if your creative energy is a business imperative, it’s not enough to make space for creative thinking. You need to find sources of good creative energy to fuel your productivity.?