Planting Seeds

I just sold something on YouTube. It's surprising how good it feels when some work you did returns on the investment! In this case, it took a year.

Seeding the ground and being patient is a story that's literally as old as the hills. Entrepreneurs must focus on the long view while planting seeds to reach that next level.

The story of my landing my first college-level teaching job revolves around planting seeds, although the waiting part never factored in. It took three long years for the California College of Arts to call me back, looking to fill an open spot quickly. I had to ask who was calling. I had forgotten I reached out and dropped off my portfolio years ago. I had given up on my dream of teaching there.

They asked me some challenging questions. 'If you were going to build an assignment around depicting space and you were to compare and contrast two different systems of perspective, what artists would you use as examples, and what would be the objective?'

Luckily, I love a challenge. Test my knowledge of something, stretch my imagination to its limits, and I'm all in. That's when I get genuinely creative. Thankfully, they loved my response, and my foot was in the door to become adjunct faculty at a top school for the Arts.

You know the takeaway, but it pays to remind ourselves. Play for the long game and be prepared. Plant those seeds, but keep going, and don't wait. In the interim, I had built skills that would take me beyond the introductory drawing course they hired me for. I went on to lead a digital initiative within the Department of Photography, moving them from silver to pixels.

There are more layers to selling something on YouTube. It was something deeply personal because it was a project that I pitched time and again to my Dad. I aimed to expand the family business beyond our singular point of contact through his online store by funneling leads using social media. He was incredibly digitally savvy for someone from his generation, but social media was beyond his radar.

Unfortunately, I didn't complete the project until after he had passed. But I know he'd be grinning knowing that the family business of selling art and antiques spanning three generations is still in the blood.