Why Career Pivots Are The Best Opportunities for Creativity

THE GROOVE

Welcome to the 77th issue of The Groove.

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I can’t believe that my book “How Creativity Rules The World: The Art and Business of Turning Your Ideas Into Gold” (HarperCollins) will launch in just one week!

The final deadline for you to claim $647 in bonuses for just preordering a $25 hardcover book will end on March 15th and you don’t want to miss that deal! You get immediate access to my creativity online course ($297) as well as many other resources valued at $350 plus access to monthly mastermind Zoom calls (priceless). Read the many breakthroughs of past participants here.

All you have to do is preorder the book from Amazon, B&N, Bookshop (this retailer supports your independent bookstores no matter where you are in the US) or through your favorite retailer, and send confirmation to book@mariabrito.com

I have gotten dozens of emails and messages from the people who are already taking advantage of this offer and they’ve told me that the amount of value they’ve gained from the course and the Zoom calls is immeasurable. Nothing makes me happier than this.

Speaking of bonuses, I am dropping more today!

If you preorder the hardcover and send proof of purchase to book@mariabrito.com, you get to read my book before it drops in people’s hands one week from today because you will get a PDF eBook immediately. That’s right, you not only get free access to my online course and all other bonuses, but you will also have my book in an electronic format ready for you to read a whole week earlier than everyone else!

And, since in-person events have been so rare for so long, HarperCollins has generously offered to give free audiobooks to anyone who comes to my workshop at The Strand next Monday in New York City. This is a ticketed event and the ticket to get in is to buy a hardcover book from The Strand. Of course, you get all the other bonuses too.

To claim the audiobook, all you have to do is fill out the form on this link. The Strand will also be able to help you out the day of the event but if you are ready with confirmation, you can download the audiobook it right away!

Below I’m giving a tight excerpt of my book. At the end of every chapter, there is an Alchemy Lab section so you can take actionable steps from what you’ve learned in that chapter and adapt them to your life. I have also condensed one here for you.

The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus wrote circa 500 BC, “the only thing that is constant in life is change.” He couldn’t have been more accurate. To be creative is to be willing to pivot. You may have found a formula that feels safe, but in the long run, safety equals stagnation.

Your shifts don’t need to be radical. They can come in many different shapes. They can progress at their own pace. Some call them “evolution,” others “adjustment.”

It’s time to pivot if:

• you have too much competition to see a return

• your efforts can’t seem to pay off

• if you find it hard to differentiate yourself from others in the marketplace

• if you are bored to tears, or feel stuck

Niki de Saint Phalle was one of those artists whose pivots gave her worldwide fame. In 1960, at the age of thirty, Saint Phalle was the only female member of a group of artists who lived in Paris and called themselves Les Nouveaux Realistes (The New Realists).

Saint Phalle was into radical performances using readymade objects and canvases. She attached bags of liquid paint to targets; then shot them with a rifle several times so the art started “bleeding.” It was quite a violent spectacle. She performed in galleries and outdoor spaces as people watched while she demonstrated anger. It left spectators with a heavy feeling of despair and anxiety.

In 1963, Saint Phalle shifted—no more shooting, no more splats of bleeding paint. All the aggression subsided and she began working on colorful, life-size female dolls made of papier-mâché. These represented women in different roles—mothers, brides, prostitutes, and sometimes sorcerers. She called them Nanas (French slang for “chick”). They were curvy and buoyant, representing pure femininity and fertility. The colors and patterns with which she painted each doll started pale and with time became stronger and more whimsical.

This shift constituted what would become the trademark of Saint Phalle’s practice for the following thirty-five years of her career. Fun, successful, and financially rewarding, the Nanas were shown and acquired by museums and collectors all over the world. Soon they became bigger in size and the medium changed to polyester resin and fiberglass, so they could live outdoors as well.

This change served Saint Phalle well, especially when it came to working with materials that were resistant to the elements. In 1979, her Italian friend Marella Agnelli and her brothers Carlo and Nicola Caracciolo invited Saint Phalle to build her own sculpture park in a fourteen-acre piece of land they owned in Southern Tuscany.

For the next two decades, in parallel to large public art commissions, product design, and launches that included perfumes and inflatable toys, Saint Phalle worked tirelessly on her Tarot Garden. It opened in 1998 and is home to twenty-two monumental sculptures. Each represents the most important tarot cards such as the Magician, Lovers, Empress, and High Priestess.

Some of the sculptures are the size of a house, such as the Sphinx with mirrored blue hair. Saint Phalle lived inside it when she built the garden.

This park represents Saint Phalle’s most important work. It is radically removed from the performances rooted in bitterness and dissatisfaction. In her own words, “provided you’re open to it, life is full of the unexpected, relative to what can happen to you tomorrow.”

Today, things get old really fast. Being nimble is paramount to creativity and allows for easier shifts. We are compelled to evolve because we have so much happening around us. Business pivots are necessary for survival. Even if a part of a company remains faithful to its original vision and holds on to its core, many other parts have to realign to serve the demands of an ever-changing marketplace. The closer you are to reality and the more you pay attention to the events and people in your world and beyond, the easier it is to pivot.

Sometimes a pivot is the last resort in saving a business. Sometimes it requires only repurposing what is already in place. In 1927, Cincinnati entrepreneurs Cleo and Noah McVicker bought Kutol Products, a cleaning products company. Kutol had a successful concoction that cleaned the surfaces of wallpaper inside homes, removing the residue from coal heating.

In the early 1950s, people began transitioning from coal to natural gas heaters, and Kutol’s core product lagged on shelves. It wasn’t needed anymore. The company was almost bankrupt, when the McVickers’ adult sons were called to help. One of them recalled a magazine article that said children liked to play with wallpaper-cleaning putty. Prompted by this piece of information, Noah McVicker created a nontoxic, off-white version of the compound and added an almond scent to it. Red, blue, and yellow versions were soon in development and a new company called Rainbow Crafts was formed.

In 1955, after attending a manufacturing convention for school supplies and presenting their repurposed modeling compound, Play-Doh debuted in every elementary school in Cincinnati. The putty was so popular that soon after it became a part of every school in the United States.

In 1965, the McVickers got a patent for Play-Doh and that same year they sold Rainbow Crafts to General Mills for $3 million. In 1971 Tonka bought the company and in 1990 Hasbro acquired it and continues to manufacture Play-Doh today. From 1956 to 2018, more than 3 billion cans of Play-Doh have been sold all over the world.

Every pivot is another opportunity to become creative. That should be the main driver behind how you design the shift once it is in motion. The point of a business change is to bring something new and different that benefits a segment of the clients you serve or those you want to serve. Every pivot should be grounded on intuitive nudges and authenticity. Change creates growth and disruption and fuels the engine for the next step.

• You don’t need to be radical.

When something in your business doesn’t feel right, but your revenues are stable, think about gradual shifts. You can implement changes in stages until you reach an optimal point that balances profits and creativity.

It is time for a progressive pivot if you are feeling the heat from investors, your numbers are going down, or your competitors are crushing you. Business shifts, adjustments, and evolutions demand a certain level of speed. As soon as you start feeling discomfort and hear your intuition’s repeated messages, have the guts to lay out what a change or a new path would look like—and follow it.

• Stand on what you’ve built.

Take inventory. Make a list of everything you have created to puzzle out the foundation for your next step.

For all these upcoming book-tour events, I am going to be giving a workshop instead of a book reading. I am all for giving you value and content that can enrich your lives and careers. You will be experiencing a version of my keynote speech that I give in companies.

Remember that by buying tickets to these events you will benefit the independent bookstores, these are the ones that keep the magic happening! Choose your favorite and come hang out with me!

The capacity of both in-person and online events is limited, please secure yours now.

• The ONLY in-person event will be at The Strand in New York on Monday, March 14 at 7:00 pm EST – I would absolutely LOVE to see you there! Tickets here. Remember there’s a free audiobook available if you come to this event.

• Next stop is virtual on Wednesday, March 16 at 6:00 pm PST (9:00 pm EST) with the extraordinary Book Soup in LA. One of the most iconic bookstores in California! I am bringing my Angeleno friend Josh Spector with me that night. Josh is one of the most creative and sharpest people I’ve ever met. A veteran of content creation, he was the director of social media for the Academy Awards for many years and today he helps thousands of creators and entrepreneurs with his courses and materials in “For the Interested”. Tickets here.

• Then I go online again on Thursday, March 17 at 6:00 pm EST with The Lit Bar– a fabulous bookstore in the Bronx, NY owned by Noëlle Santos, and I am bringing a special guest with me: the incomparable June Ambrose, a visionary who shaped the style of hip-hop in the 90s, became Jay Z’s stylist in the 2000s and is now the creative director of Puma. Tickets here.

• My final online stop is in sunny Miami on Tuesday, March 22 at 7 pm with Books & Books, the celebrated and super special bookstore that has several locations all over Florida. That day I will be joined by my dear friend Carlos Betancourt, a multidisciplinary artist who has lived in Miami most of his life and has been instrumental in shaping the art scene of that city for many decades. His work is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the Met New York, the New Orleans Museum of Art, The Bass and the PAMM in Miami Florida and many more. Tickets here.

Thank you for reading this far. Looking forward to hearing from you anytime.

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