How to Translate Creative Skills into Entrepreneurial Ones

All too often, we put creativity and business at odds with one another — as though creative people can’t have an interest in entrepreneurial things, or as though success in business does not require a high level of outside-the-box thinking.

Here’s the truth: A lot of the best business leaders I know are deeply creative people, and they have learned to harness their creative skills and use them to push their business interests forward.

And you can do the same. Let me show you just a few ways in which creative habits compliment entrepreneurialism nicely.

Pitching your ideas. One of the toughest parts of being a creative person is learning how to help other people see the vision in your head — how to pitch them on your idea for an article, or a novel, or what have you. Indeed, most writers will pitch a bunch of ideas to a publisher before ever getting a green light. That’s a great mindset for entrepreneurs to develop, especially if they’re raising capital: You’ve got to be willing to pitch your idea to a bunch of folks a bunch of times, and to hold your head up if the first pitch doesn’t go anywhere.

Brainstorming. There is so much value in giving your mind space to wander — to find its own way to the next great idea. Great painters are always pursuing flights of fancy in…