TCE stands for The Creative Economy, a great book by John Hawkins. Inspired by his ‘10 rules for success in the creative economy’ I explore how this affects my daily life and work.
Be nomadic
Nomads are at home in every country. You can choose your own path and means of travel, and choose how long you stay. Being nomadic isn’t about being alone. They are likely to travel in groups. Writer Charles Handy says leaders must combine ‘a love of people’ and ‘capacity for aloofness’. Creatives need to be able to think alone or working together.
This is actually one of my favorites. Maybe a bit strange, I’ve only flew once in my life and probably won’t leave the country on short notice. But I believe being nomadic is more about blending in, not necessarily traveling around the globe.
A nomad needs to be able to acclimatize in groups, changing environments and businesses. This sounds general, but I believe it’s not. In my everyday life I see a lot of people that are in the creative industry and aren’t nomadic at all. They’re lead by the urge to comply to expectations of their environment. Not a bad thing, but limiting at least.
In my opinion people (and creatives in particular) need to be able to adapt to change. This requires you to easily blend into groups, work with new people, processes and even more important, work everywhere. If it might be on the train, airplane or in a crowded office.
Now if we blend that together two things pop into my mind. If you need to be able to work everywhere, determination and focus are key. Second, you need to be able and adapt to change or be able to change things for yourself. Can’t focus? Be nomadic, find another spot to work. Sounds logical, but for a lot of people it just isn’t.
For sometime now I have this big plan to life abroad… Not that average trip to New Sealand, USA and all. But more like how I’m going to combine a style with frequent trips abroad with work and personal life. This can be hard and needs a lot of re-considering and preparations before starting off.
My plans involve at least living in New York. Why New York if I never been there before? Because I think it’s one of the role models of how our cities will become one day. It intrigues me how it develops, appeals to millions of people and grows beyond a size we can think of.
So one day I will be one of those international Nomads. I will.
Related posts:
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