• There is a deep art to the work you do. No matter the form, no matter the specialism, your artistry and creativity are crucial for meaningful work.

    Creativity, I believe, is a function of the Artist within us—the archetypal character that makes something from nothing. We all have it inside. It’s what connects us to our innate creative power.

    Unfortunately, many of us are trained out of it, or even worse, don’t believe we have it to start with!

    How we kill creative genius

    There’s a fascinating study done by NASA in the 60s, exploring levels of creativity and innovation in people (they wanted to hire more creative engineers). For some reason, they used the same test on a bunch of kids, to see how they’d do. What they found was amazing.

    98% of these 5-year-olds scored as “creative geniuses”. The highest level in their model.

    But as they retested them over time, the creativity level steadily declined, until as adults less than 2% of those same people scored as creative geniuses.

    This of course begs the question: what the fuck happened in between?

    Well, school happened. And our assimilation into the culture that designed the schools.

    At school, we’re taught that work consists of a series of tasks which are put in front of us. We must complete the task, which means “getting it right”. The list of sums, or the drawing of a flower. We know it’s complete, and we got it right when the teacher says so.

    In my school, this was literally built into the workflow. When I was done with my task, I would get up, walk across to the teacher’s desk, and show her what I’d done. She would then check it and tell me if it was right or not.

    We are trained to take tests – the object of which is to get the right answer. The right answers according to whom? The people who make the test of course.

    “OK children. This morning we’re all going to make Mother’s Day cards.”

    We’re shown how to make a correct Mother’s Day card, which involves lots of reds and pinks, flowers and hearts. This is demonstrated to us through the materials we’re given to make these cards. You guessed it – red and pink paper, and pictures of flowers and hearts. The text for the inside of the card is displayed on the board so everyone can see.

    We know we passed the test when the teacher says, “ah that’s lovely”. We know we failed if she says, “that’s very ‘interesting’, but you were supposed to put hearts and flowers on it”.

    And so, day after day, year after year, we spend our childhoods being indoctrinated into the idea that life is about getting the right answers on the test.

    This is how we kill our creative genius.

    Creativity comes from the Artist inside

    Creativity does not want to be assessed according to right or wrong, it’s trying to get outside the box that the test came in.

    There is no “right form” for a piece of writing. There is no “correct” way to make up a story.

    Our creativity comes from the spirit of an archetype—the Artist—something we all possess inside. It was there when we were 5 years old. It’s still there now. And it contains the deep code that allows you to reach beyond the known world and create things you didn’t know you could make.

    This capacity is particularly important for us as entrepreneurs (people who make a business from the things they’re both good at and called by). For it is the Artist in us that expresses our deep creative power.

    The growth of a business involves the forging of new pathways. It means doing things you’ve never done before.

    And you’re here in life to do something that’s never been done before. Not the way you do it. And without the Artist inside, it’s almost impossible to find the path.

    So often we’re shamed in the creative act as children, and we learn to bury the Artist inside. As adults on our career pathway, we’re usually taught that art is “outside the business scope”.

    But it’s always here.

    It’s inside you right now. It’s the part of you that knows how to just make something, without a clear idea of what you’ll end up with. This is the magic of the Artist archetype—to channel things from beyond you into forms that surprise even you.

    The art that we create touches others, moving them through some indefinable sense of beauty. And it teaches us to see something new, even though the thing is often hard to name.

    Following the creative impulse

    Are you conscious of the Artist in you? Do you recognize your own artistry?

    Maybe you read these words and think “I’m not an artist”. This is common, and understandable. But it’s not actually true. You are an Artist—you possess this archetypal power. But perhaps it is not fully activated. Or it’s sitting dormant, waiting for you to wake it up.

    What ‘crazy’ idea wants to come through you? What’s the idea you’re already holding, of something you want to make?

    Perhaps it’s a teaching program on a topic you feel really moved by, but don’t know how to structure. Perhaps you want to write something or sculpt something. Maybe you want to create a strategic plan for your business. There is an art to all of these things.

    The Artist is moved to create. You feel it in your body—a feeling of excitement, fear and possibility.

    Can you feel the impulse? It’s in there somewhere, fizzing with glee, hoping you’ll pick it up and run with it. It may be subtle. You may need to quieten and still yourself to be able to feel it.

    The thing with art is, you don’t know where you’re going to end up. And it’s easy therefore to dismiss the impulse as impractical or silly.

    That’s our cultural code still at work, telling you to get back to the “right” work with the “right” answers.

    Creativity doesn’t follow this code. It’s taking you somewhere much more surprising.

    Trust the impulse. Follow it. See what comes out. See what you create.

    You don’t have to act on every single one! But if you act on none, you will never find out how creative you really are.

    If you’re feeling courageous, you could even tune in right now. Actually take a moment, and tune in…

    Feel your own body. Notice the sensation of the impulse. Then ask yourself “what do I feel moved to create?” And see what shows up.

    What’s the thing you want to make?

    Feel it. It has life energy. If you want, you can ride the impulse and see where it takes you. This is the creative power that the Artist gives you.

     

    This is part of a series of articles about the Artist, the Merchant, and the Seeker—core archetypes that underpin entrepreneurial work.

    My book on these archetypes will be published this Spring.

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • There’s an idea I’ve been fascinated for years now. It’s one of those things that has endured through different businesses and phases of my life.

    It is the idea that there is a new kind of professional role being formed in society at large – a kind of entrepreneur who is soul driven in some sense. A role where one’s professional work, is not seen as distinct from their spiritual path of awakening. It’s why I called my previous brand The Realized Entrepreneur.

    At the end of last year, I started writing about an archetypal way of modelling this character. I suggested that this new professional could be seen as the integration of three intrinsic archetypes – the artist, the merchant and the seeker.

    I then suggested the intersection of these was the hero.

    Honestly? I’m not convinced I’ve got the mapping quite right. But after a few months exploring some different writing avenues, I’m returning to this map in search of answers. Specifically, a topic that’s gnawed at me for years, that is, how on earth do art and marketing fit together?

    Temperamentally, I usually love creating new stuff, and desperately resist marketing it. And I know I’m not the only one that is like this.

    Is that because marketing is for shallow schmucks who can’t create interesting enough stuff that people naturally pay attention to?  Or is this my precious pretensions restricting me from actually publishing myself?

    Can the artist and the merchant work together?

    The Artist

    The artist is principally concerned with creativity. His objective is to create something original, something that provokes a deeper experience of the world, or elegantly solves the most complex of problems.

    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and so the artist creates things that they themselves find beautiful. They create to meet their own taste.

    They are driven by the creative impulse. And creativity, as Seth Godin so eloquently defines it, is the tension between “this might work” and “this might not work”. If you know it will work, or you know it will not, it’s not creative. If it’s pre-determined it’s not art.

    Art is not painting, it is not poetry, it is not design. It is what is created when we venture beyond the border of what we know, and allow the mysterious forces there to guide our hand as we create something that intrigues us. The artist knows that he does not truly control this creative process. 

    And so the artist is one who is furthest away from the mainstream. They are by definition at the fringe, for it is only at the fringe that you will find the boundary between the known and the unknown.

    The Merchant

    The merchant is principally concerned with trade. Her objective is to relationally connect with other people and swap what they each possess, and improve the lives of everyone involved.

    The merchant operates in a relational space, connecting those who need something, with those who can supply it.

    The marketplace is a full and bustling arena that determines what is good and needed. And so the merchant seeks to understand what is in short supply, what is in high demand, and how to best make trades that fill people’s needs.

    The merchant trades in value. She seeks out objects or goods, that she believes will be of value to those she can reach.

    The merchant believes that what they have to offer is valuable – that it would help others – and so they feel no shame in promoting their wares to others. For in fact, to withhold their wares would be to violate their chief objective and belief: that consensual trade is good.

    And so the merchant is one who connects people, allowing them to relationally exchange for their mutual benefit. They are by definition in the midst of things, for it is from the middle that the different sides can be connected in mutual exchange.

    A philosophical clash of values

    From the perspective of the artist, the work of the merchant is ugly.

    The artist looks at the trading that makes up the merchant’s nature and sees only presumption, and manipulation. The merchant seems to increases the shallowness of life which the artist seeks to deepen.

    The artist never presumes to know the needs or will of another. This is the antithesis of their work. To presume the mind of another and to create something for them – to meet their need – is not art. This would be to prostitute their creative talents for money or mutual exchange. In other words, to “sell out”, which to the artist is an aesthetic crime. And the merchant has made an entire career from selling out!

    Thus the artist condemns the merchant as ugly, shallow and greedy.

    The merchant is equally distaining of the artist. She looks at the artist as a narcissist. How does it help anyone to make such weird and odd things to satisfy one’s own personal whims? It seems to the merchant like a naïve and wasteful use of time.

    The merchant thus judges the artist as useless. For art does not help people with their needs, it is an indulgent luxury. What people need, are things they want to come back to day after day, things they will consistently trade for.

    The creation of art is unpredictable. The productive output of an artist is unpredictable, and the value of the art produced is unpredictable. The merchant is concerned with mutual benefit, about meeting the needs of others, and so from her perspective this creative unpredictability looks unproductive and selfish.

    Separation is no longer adequate

    While it has historically possible – perhaps even necessary – for these two archetypes to stay separate and pure, today’s world cannot sustain their separation.

    The artist needs the merchant. Because it is only the merchant who can be impartial as to the value of what the artist creates. The artist is so caught up in his creations that he finds it hard to step out of himself and effectively offer his art to those that would benefit.

    The merchant is guided by value exchange, and value is determined not by her own subjective opinions, but by the intersubjective consensus of the marketplace. If her customers thank her for a particular offering and return wanting more, then she trusts it is valuable. Her judgement of worth is intersubjective. Whereas the artist judges subjectively – whether he himself is impressed or moved by his creations.

    The merchant also needs the artist. Because left to her own devices, the merchant will simply rely on offering what the marketplace asks for. She will have no motivation to look deeper under the surface at what new innovation is required. As Henry Ford famously said (actually he didn’t, but he should have done because it’s a wonderful quote) “If I’d have asked people what they wanted, they would have said ‘faster horses’.”

    The needs of the market change. Things move on. And without the innovation of the artist, the merchant will continue to peddle popular and proven goods, being increasingly left behind, as evolution pushes the edges of what people need.

    These two opponents need one another.

    Without the merchant, the artist becomes increasingly obsessed with his own creative explorations, becoming out of touch with society at large, and not providing things that help and move people.

    Without the artist, the merchant becomes increasingly shallow, providing value that is popular, losing touch with the leading edge, and not risking new things that will change society.

    The necessity for integration

    The challenge for many of us, is that we must play both roles ourselves. Or at the very least, I would suggest we need to integrate these archetypal orientations in such a way that they are not at odds in our own psyche.

    The larger and more idealistic hypothesis is that it is the integration of these archetypes that will lead to the resolution of so many philosophical conflicts in our world.

    I’ll leave that grand idea for another day, and simply say that I believe it is imperative that we at least understand the intrinsic perspectives of these archetypes.

    As a native artist, my unconscious tendency is to fall into snobby distain for merchant activities.  If I’m not careful, marketing begins to  look rather ugly and uncouth, and I instinctively begin to distance myself from it.

    But unshared art is useless. Literally.

    The unconscious biases may be different for you (although I suspect many of you who read my work tend toward the creative and artistic). Nevertheless, the principle is the same – to progressively understand and embody these archetypes, allowing them to integrate and create a new kind of professionalism, a new kind of work.

    I would even suggest that bringing one’s art to the marketplace is one of the great evolutionary requests of this new world. It is a least one that burns brightly in my heart.

    For never before has art been so accepted in the marketplace, or more needed. But to bring our creative work to market means resolving philosophical conflicts that have deep roots.

    Playing favourites is not adequate any longer.

    Integrating these historically opposed worlds is what will contribute the creation of a new one.

    Ewan Townhead

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  • The professional. A role as old as Adam.

    The professional used to be someone who had a trade – a craftsman, farmer, healer, soldier. The new professional is one who follows a vocation – literally a calling.

    And by following this calling, the call of the gods, we step into the shoes of the hero. We travel the mythological hero’s journey.

    The hero is the intersection of three fundamental professional archetypes – the seeker, the merchant and the artist, as I wrote about in part 1.

    The seeker seeks the truth and shows us the way. Their mapping of reality gives us a path through the struggle. Their unquenchable thirst for deeper understanding keeps us curious, humble, and constantly learning.

    The merchant is a tradesman of the good. Whether it is material goods, political good or spiritual good, the merchant knows that by trading what they have to those who want it, the world is made better.

    The artist creates beauty. Their compulsion is to make something from nothing – the mysterious process that even the artist himself does not understand. By doing so they create things that touch us and change us.

    The hero is a different order of archetype. The hero is all about the journey, not the character. The journey that the hero embarks upon is defined by the process, not the content.

    The hero walks the eternal quest, constantly working to unwind the code that lies deep within his soul, and to realize the vision that he is called to create.

    The hero is the one who hears the call to adventure, to transformation, and through doubt and resistance finds the courage to say yes.

    This great transformation changes you, and so as you complete the cycle, and return home, you return changed, and the world with it. You return to the marketplace, complete with a new consciousness, and new hands, with which you help those who need you.

    “We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to centre of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with the whole world.”
    – Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces

    Tension fuels transformation

    It is the creative tension that exists between the outer three types – the merchant, the seeker, and the artist – that drives the hero.

    It is the contradiction or paradox between the outer trinity that demands conversation. The heroic journey is in part, the quest to integrate these languages, these aspects inside you.

    How can I make money (merchant) from my creative expression (artist)? How do I bring the truth that I understand (seeker) into the marketplace (merchant)?

    The hero is not simply the overlap of the three types of the trinity. It is the transcendent principle, held in tension by the first three.

    The point is to mine that tension, for it is the fuel that propels the hero on his journey.

    The Hero Cycle

    Phase I – Disintegration

    No one knows how long ‘normal’ lasts. But if you pay attention, you’ll begin to notice that sooner or later, what once felt right, now feels wrong. What once worked, is starting to suck. Something is out of whack.

    This is not a fault in the execution of your life, or a fundamental flaw in who you are.

    No. This is simply the wheel of transformation starting to turn. God is beginning to crank on your lever, turning you toward a fuller, more beautiful version of yourself. Can you feel it?  This is the call to adventure – the whisper in your ear.

    You are so much more than you dare believe.

    You have a choice. Will you listen? You cannot turn off the whisper, but you can refuse its council.

    You can numb the pain of your dissatisfaction. You can eat burgers. You can binge on Game of Thrones. You can bury your head in the sand and simply refuse to look God in the eye.

    It is your right. But the consequence is an ever deeper journey into the cycle of phase one, into disintegration.

    If you refuse long enough your life will literally fall apart.

    Some choose to let themselves fall apart, and die. They live out increasingly empty and meaningless lives. They die from drugs or illness. They literally kill themselves.

    This is God’s way of forcing you to choose. Life or death?

    Will you choose life? Will you look into the light and see the image of who you are asked to become?

    The hero is the one who answers that call.

    When you surrender to this divine will, when you seize your own sovereignty and choose the path before you, you commit to something with untold power and consequence.

    “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.”
    – William Murray, The Scottish Himalaya Expedition

    You say “yes”. You consent to the journey you have been asked to make. You step into the unknown, knowing it’s something you must do. And by doing so, you cross the first threshold.

    Phase II – Initiation

    The path extends before you. You are in esteemed company. Every great hero has passed this way.

    “Do you think that you shall enter the garden of bliss without such trials as came to those who passed before you”
    – The Quran, verse 2:214

    Turn to your mentors. Turn to those inside you – the harmony of your highest potential, who you are at your most essential. Turn to those around you – your friends and advisers, the ones you trust most deeply. Read again the great minds that nourish you and show you what you don’t yet understand.

    For you are on a journey that has already passed beyond the edges of your known reality. And as you consent to its invitation, you are drawn into the most challenging of new experiences.

    You will be stretched beyond your edge. You will be hurt. You will feel strife and suffering. But it is not the suffering of unmet commitment in the first phase, it is the existential kicking that you will receive at the boots of the unknown.

    Can you meet it? Can you rise up and face it with courage and conviction?

    These are the trials. Their purpose is not to ultimately break you, but to stress the muscle of your being, so you can be built anew.

    You will be tested for exactly as long as you need, in order to be ready for the great battle in the dark. Your initiation climaxes with the facing of your greatest fear – the great dragon at the heart of your being.

    You are both the hero, and the foe. It is not an exorcism of your demon, it is an alchemical meeting. Can the light in you meet its equal and opposite darkness?

    This is the culmination of all your initiatory challenge. The great showdown. The hero is the one whose leg shakes as he stands up tall, and looks the demon in the eye.

    You will be slain. Some great rock that your identity has rested on will be obliterated. Something or someone dear to you will die. Something that clouded your eyes from the truth will be ruthlessly ripped away.

    When you die, you cross the second threshold.

    Phase III – Transformation

    You have emerged from the dark underworld. But while you have faced down the great darkness and survived, your quest is far from over.

    For now, you must come to terms with who you have become, who you are becoming. You do not understand yourself, you have new eyes, new capacities, but they are foreign. The world has changed, because you have changed.

    Who are you now?

    You have been gifted a great blessing – your prize for meeting the dragon and being changed in the alchemical meeting of light and dark. But what do you now do with this great boon?

    If you were the protagonist in a movie, you would receive a great magical sword, or the secret to a great power. In your journey, the boon is one of deep and profound realization.

    You are rewarded with the greater consciousness and greater power of one who has faced down their fear and been reborn in their own higher image.

    You are on the road back home, but you may feel strangely alone. Perhaps those who you used to associate with no longer understand or see you. This is to be expected, for you no longer understand yourself.

    You are being transformed. What once propped up your identity has been whipped from under you. What once lay in the realm of strict possibility has been realized.

    You must come to terms with yourself – your new self – and realize what you are now capable of. What will you do with this great gift, this great boon?

    When this internal transformation is re-organised into a new understanding of who you are, you cross the third threshold.

    Phase IV – Integration

    The legend of a hero does not end with his great achievement, or her great discovery. The imperative for the one who has discovered great power, is to return with it. To return home.

    You return to the marketplace – the communities that matter most to you – with helping hands.

    “The Hero shall now begin the labour of bringing the runes of wisdom, the Golden Fleece, or his sleeping princess back into the kingdom of humanity, where the boon may redound to the renewing of the community, the nation, the planet, or the ten thousand worlds.”
    – Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces

    You offer your goods, you speak your truth, you reveal your beauty. You integrate this new you, back into normal life, back into your work.

    You harvest the great fruits of your labour – the existential gift of your journey. You create your art, imbibed with the truth you now see. And give it, to feed those around you.

    As you do this, all the pieces begin to come together. The change that has occurred inside you is transmitted through you into the world around you. You change the world.

    It is not a single moment. This is your work now – to integrate who you have become with the world before you. You must straddle the two worlds of the dark and light, of the unknown and the known, and give yourself for the benefit of those around you.

    Blessings to you dear one, you have made it through. God has drawn you through the great change, the turning of the wheel, the latest revolution in the eternal quest.

    You now know your work. Your work is to live it, be it, create it. This is the phase of great productivity. Appreciate it honour it. For the next turning maybe closer than you would like to believe.

    The eternal cycle

    There is a new hero born anew with each cycle of the journey. For by the time the wheel turns full circle, and calls you on a new adventure, the hero that was born in the last chapter is now the one who clings to normality and safety.

    Every great leader knows that what got them to where they now are, is the very thing that will impede them from getting to the next stage.

    Where are you in the ever turning cycle of the hero? What phase do you find yourself in? For the nature and necessity of each phase is fundamentally different from the last.

    If you are trying to stably define who you are, and yet are in the first half of the cycle, your attempts will be fruitless. For the point of disintegration and initiation is to break you down, and burn off the dead wood of who you think you are. Give yourself to it.

    If you are looking for the thrill of adventure, and yet find yourself in the second half of the cycle, you will sabotage the work you must do. Your mission now is to understand yourself as you now are, and bring the fruits of your transformation back to the marketplace.

    The quest may be eternal. But your time here in this life is not. Know where you are, what you are asked.

    Your job as the hero is to devote yourself to this turning, no matter where you may find yourself on the journey.

    Ewan Townhead

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  • We live in interesting times. The famed ‘fast changing world’ – the best we can do to describe the overwhelming whirl of evolution as it gathers pace.

    I believe that we’re in the midst of the early chapters of a new age. Ken Wilber calls it integral. James Altucher would call it “choose yourself”. Seth Godin talks about the connection economy. I used to think of it as the age of the realized entrepreneur. I think I was half right.

    Our ideas of professional work are in the midst of great flux. The professional used to be someone who had a trade – a craftsman, farmer, healer, soldier.  Then it was a job was had, with a contract and a role, and a boss.

    Now the standard is more like a vocation, which originally means calling. It’s professionally answering the call to the higher, to the gods, to what burns deep inside your heart.

    The enactment of this new professionalism is transformational by nature, that is, by following the call of the gods, we must become someone new and travel the mythological hero’s journey.

    The hero isn’t a person, the hero is an archetype – the one who hears the calls, steps onto the path, and is initiated into their higher self through great challenge. It is the sacrifice of comfort for the greater realization of your reason for being here.

    This is not an abstract concept. It is the thing that happens to us all, if we consent. Or even sometimes when we don’t. It was a hero’s journey for me 6 years ago when I decided to leave the comfort of employment at a fast growing internet company, and leapt into the unknown, with some vague notion of being an entrepreneur and talking about consciousness.

    It’s what it takes to write a book that bears genius in its pages. It’s what Steve Jobs must have had to go through to return to Apple after being fired, and creating the first iPhone.

    The map I present in this article is my attempt to show you who this hero is, or more precisely, what makes each of us heroic, and how we can use this map to better navigate our own journeys and transformations.

    This is the hero as I see it, the intersection of three fundamental professional archetypes – the seeker, the merchant and the artist.

    And it is the roots of this archetypal trinity that I will begin my story with.

    The philosophical roots of being

    Running throughout philosophy – from the Bhagavad Gita, through Plato, through Immanuel Kant, through Jurgen Habermas and up to the present day – is a triadic structure that under various guises, has been presented as deeply intrinsic to reality.

    The ancient Greeks thought of the three domains of life – art, morals and science, and the three transcendentals that related to them. Karl Popper called them the objective, subjective and cultural. Kant wrote his three great critiques.

    Ken Wilber, whose work first introduced me to this pattern, ties them to universal pronouns – I, We and It. He calls them The Big Three. They are the first demarcations we make in the oneness of reality. They are that fundamental.

    For Plato they were the good, the true and the beautiful. And it is that frame I want to use here.

    The three languages

    You can think of these three ideas – the good, the true and the beautiful – as three languages.

    Each one fundamentally different from the last, and yet each one fundamental to human experience. That is – one language cannot describe the territory of another language. Yet each one is part of the whole, and so where one finds truth, one will also find beauty, and goodness.

    “Words which give peace, words which are good and beautiful and true, and also the reading of sacred books: this is the harmony of words.”
    – Bhagavad Gita, 17:15

    To find the harmony in the three, you must learn to hear the individual melody of each language. For the language of truth, cannot tell us what is beautiful. The language of goodness cannot tell us what is true. The language of beauty cannot tell us what is right and just.

    The True

    The language of truth is the language of discovery and precision. It is the language of deep science – that deliberate and practical means by which we test the world, and ourselves, and discover ever deeper truth about its reality.

    It is something we uncover and reveal, it is something that we posit and falsify. The language of truth seeks to gently or forcefully, spear the squirming fish of meaning, and define its patterns and structure.

    Is it true that human beings evolved from higher apes? Yes. It took us a long time to discover this truth. But it’s now self evident for most fo the world.

    Is it true that if I spend enough time looking into the nature of my own experience, I will be unable to find the location of my own consciousness? Yes. I’ve tried. Like thousands of yogis and roshis. It’s not in my head, it’s not in my toes. It doesn’t even seem to limited to my body. It’s kind of everywhere and nowhere.

    When we seek the truth, we must attack and destroy our own assumptions about what is. We must bind together polarities that feel uncomfortable, and find harmony in the integration of relative truths. This frees us, and liberates our notions of what is possible, and who we are.

    “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
    – Jesus of Nazareth, John 8:32

    Ken Wilber’s famous phrase is that “everyone is right”. Every single human perspective has some partial truth. But for that to be true, we must also hold that some are more right than others.

    The great seekers of truth understand this, they constantly seek for greater truth that transcends the partial truths.

    “He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion.”
    ― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

    Truth is an objective science, whether the terrain physical, conceptual or mystical. Mathematics is a dialect of truth. The Tao Te Ching is a treatise on mystical truth.  Cartography is mapping physical truth.

    To know what is true, reality must be examined, tested and mapped.

    The Good

    Whether any of this is a good thing is an entirely separate question.

    The good is the language of ethics.  What is right, just? How do we know? It is not an objective science – it is not a solitary investigation. It is a collective exploration of our own ethical principles. The codes by which we feel it is right to live.

    “To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.”
    – Plato, The Protagoras

    Is it good that many people still suffer, and struggle to have enough to live? No. I don’t know anyone who thinks that’s a good thing.

    Is it good that the homicide rate in the West are at their lowest rate in recorded history? Yes.

    Is it good that we have ever more free markets? That’s tough. I’d say yes. Many would say no. It’s an unknown. We’re still in the conversation.

    “Morality is not just any old topic in psychology but close to our conception of the meaning of life. Moral goodness is what gives each of us the sense that we are worthy human beings.”
    – Steven Pinker

    The language of the good is relational. You and I have a conversation, create mutual understanding, and thus form a We – something greater than the sum of its parts. And in that collective We, decide what we think is just and right. It is not scientific. It is not subjective. It is inter-subjective.

    To decide what is good, we must engage in a conversation about how we want to live with one another.

    The Beautiful

    When we ask what is beautiful, we enter the domain of art. It is about expression and provocation. It is the ultimate subjective world. For beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the I alone.

    Beauty cannot be scientifically tested – it cannot be proved to be true or false. No one can declare that the Mona Lisa is officially ‘beautiful’ or that Star Trek is not.

    Nor can it be said to have moral foundation. Is it good that Tolkien spent two decades making up Middle Earth, and writing The Lord of the Rings? It’s the wrong question.

    The question is, did it change your experience? Were you struck by it? Did it leave you with a question mark in your experience?

    “We can slip into the Beautiful with the same ease as we slip into the seamless embrace of water; something ancient within us already trusts that this embrace will hold us.”
    – John O’Donohue

    Beauty is the ultimate subjective experience. The phenomenological aesthetic. An expression of something utterly indescribable, and yet instantly recognizable.

    How can you describe the language of a sun set? The untranslatable feeling of looking out as our great star sinks once more behind the horizon, as it’s done since the beginning. Writers have spent centuries to describe the beauty of a sun set, and none of them have nailed it. We can never nail it.

    Beauty is what is all around us, we know it intimately, and yet to capture it, is to capture the most striking and elegant butterfly. As soon as it’s in a net, it becomes less beautiful.

    “Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting.”
    – Ralph Waldo Emerson

    To see what is beautiful, I must look with my own eyes.

    The three archetypes

    It is these languages that the three archetypes – the seeker, the merchant and the artist, speak in.

    These are not the only branches that grow from the roots of the languages. These are what I have come to think of as the professional dimension of these three languages. That is, how do the good, the true and the beautiful, show up in the domain of contemporary work?

    The Seeker

    The seeker seeks truth. Whether it is the deep spiritual truth of Adyashanti or the deeply human truths of Brene Brown, the impetus is to explore the unexplored, map the terrain, and come back to teach us.

    “It is not the possession of truth, but the success which attends the seeking after it, that enriches the seeker and brings happiness to him.”
    – Max Planck

    It’s manifest in the Tibetans who sat in caves in silence for thousands of years and developed the most exquisite maps of human consciousness. It’s the Victorian explorer who braved the dangers of uncharted seas and discovered new lands. It’s the physicist who finds new theoretical models that explain the unexplainable.

    In the professional arena, it is the seeker who shows us the way. Their brilliant mapping of difficult things gives us a path through the struggle. Their unquenchable thirst for deeper understanding keeps us curious, humble, and constantly learning. It could be a scientific seeking of truth, like Tim Ferris. It could be mystical seeking of truth, like the Dalai Lama.

    The vice of the seeker is pride – the seeker who claims to have found the truth, a truth no-one else has. They revel in it, boasting of the truth they know, denigrating the truth of others.

    It is the spiritual teacher whose existential arrogance leads them to outrageous claims, or relational abuse. It is the scientist who refuses to believe any kind of truth other than his paradigm, disparaging claims that fall into a different language or dialect.

    The mature seeker understands that they are an instrument for truth, using themselves to understand ever deeper and more elusive truth that they share for the benefits of others.

    Famous Seekers
    Jesus Christ, Albert Einstein, James Cook, Brene Brown, Adyashanti, Tim Ferris, Isaac Newton, Christopher Columbus, Alan Watts.

    The Merchant

    The merchant trades in the good. Whether it is the material goods of Wholefoods or the political goods of Barack Obama, the conviction is the same – that trading goods benefits everyone.

    “Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this – no dog exchanges bones with another.”
    – ­Adam Smith

    Trade happens between people. It is an intersubjective conversation about trust, permission and integrity. To trade, you have to believe the other person has good intentions. When they do, and you do too, more good is created, more ethical wealth is generated. The world becomes richer, in materials, freedom and culture.

    In the professional arena, it is the merchant that knows how to scale their impact, to bring their goods to ever increasing numbers of people, or at ever increasing depth. The merchant is the innovator who who builds brilliant new apps, or the marketer, who knows how to speak to their audience.

    The great vice of the merchant is greed – they use their mercantile skill, subterfuge and manipulation to extract maximum value for them self, at the expense of everyone else. This is the Victorian factory that uses its workers as expendable cogs in an industrial machine.

    They have forgotten that what is good is only determined in fair and transparent marketplace of goods and ideas, where we decide together, what is ultimately valuable, just and good.

    Famous Merchants
    Adam Smith, Steve Jobs, Seth Godin, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, John Mackey, Jeff Bezos, Henry Ford.

    The Artist

    The artist creates beauty. Whether it is the mystical beauty of Leonard Cohen or the magical beauty of Neil Gaiman, the compulsion is to make something from nothing, and touch us.

    “Every human is an artist. The dream of your life is to make beautiful art.”
    – Don Miguel Ruiz

    The artist follows an invisible design, obscured even from the artist them self. It reveals itself as the artistic path is followed, and the picture comes as if from the page.

    Art happens in the spaces between things. The afternoon left free of appointments, and a song on the radio inspiring a burst of new writing for hours. It happens when you walk in the park, enjoying the beauty of the birds playing in the trees, and something moves in you.

    In the professional arena, the artist is the one who creates things. Through some mysterious process they produce artifacts – writing, paintings, music, design – that touch people and change things.

    The artist’s great sin is envy, or more precisely, the great fear that they are in truth, mediocre, one of the bottle, not special. And so to spare them this great pain, they seek to acquire the prestige or standing of others around them.

    They forget that beauty is seen through the eyes of the gods, and instead, judge their beauty through their own narcissistic eyes. They replace the great I for the small I, and endeavour to prop up their own ego by being the most beautiful person, rather than the person who creates the most beauty.

    Famous Artists
    Michelangelo, Neil Gaiman, Leonard Cohen, William Shakespeare, John Lennon, Rumi, Darren Aronofsky, Rainer Maria Rilke, Herman Hesse.

    The hero of a new age

    These are three fundamentally different vocations. They are based on languages that describe three fundamentally different worlds. And while each of us will be a native speaker in one archetypal language, the goal is to integrate these three archetypes in you, infusing their worlds into your work.

    Never has there been a time when integration across these three worlds has been more needed or more possible. This I believe, is the professional imperative of our age.

    Now I have given you a simple map, can you see where you are on it? What is your native language? Which is most foreign to you? Where do you have tension between the types?

    I am a native artist. And for most of my life, the world of the merchant was completely foreign to me. Much of my personal work over the last few years has been to integrate the merchant more deeply into my work.

    This is the first part of the map – the outer three archetypes. In part two, I will explore the fourth archetype – the hero – and how it relates to this trinity of the seeker, the merchant and the artist.

    For the hero is you, the future you, that is yet to be created through the journey of transformation. And to be a professional hero, is I believe, the vocation of this new age.

    Ewan Townhead

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  • “I can’t write today, I’m not feeling inspired.”

    “There’s no way I can launch this new thing without the logo being finished.”

    “One day, I’ll be ready to create that thing I’ve been dreaming about. One day.”

    Resistance.

    The albatross around the neck of every creative entrepreneur. The bane of every artist. The greatest foe of anyone bringing something new into the world.

    Whatever you make – a book, a business, a design or dance-show – the process is the same. It is the mysterious, chaotic process of birthing something new. It is the practice of creativity.

    When you create, you meet the inevitable counter-force: resistance. Resistance is the evil twin of creativity. It is inseparable, unescapable.

    If you create stuff, you will feel resistance.

    The Naivety of the Common Artist

    “Man, I don’t think I’m capable of creating this thing yet. I need to go do some more x, y, z. Then, maybe I’ll be ready to start work on it.”

    I need more healing.

    I need to be more recognized first.

    I haven’t learned enough about this topic to create something about it yet.

    I’m not experienced enough to create this thing.

    I’m not ready.

    I’m not capable.

    I’m not worthy.

    And so goes the never-ending naivety of the common artist.

    It is not the fact that the artist feels resistance that makes him naive. No, the naivety lies in the belief that resistance can be overcome.

    The mistake that I have continually made, my clients have continually made, and my friends have continually made is this: to attempt to resolve resistance, before proceeding to the creation of whatever it is we are called to create.

    The mistake is thinking resistance is personal. The mistake is thinking resistance says anything about the state or worthiness of your own being. The mistake is thinking that the cause of the resistance must be integrated, healed or resolved.

    Resistance cannot be resolved. Ever.

    Resistance is Part of the Physics of Creativity

    I like watching Formula One motor racing. It’s the pinnacle of motor sport where some of the finest engineers in the world seek to push the edge of technology, and build cars that go ever faster.

    When a car drives at high speed, the thing that compromises that velocity is the air around it. The faster you go, the more the car has to punch through the air.

    In other words, the counter force to a car’s acceleration is air-resistance.

    This is simple physics.

    When racing-car drivers hit air-resistance they don’t slow down, wondering what went wrong.

    They don’t reason that it must be a mechanical problem that the engineers must repair before continuing. They don’t see it as a problem with their own technique that must be rectified back in the simulator.

    But this is exactly what most creative entrepreneurs do.

    Trying to resolve your doubts, and insecurities before creating your work, is like trying to drive a car without experiencing air resistance. It’s like trying to change the nature of physics.

    It’s naive at best.

    It is the physics of creativity.

    I Disregarded All My Own Wisdom

    Launch fast. Minimum viable product. Beta version. Lean approach. Try it out. Don’t be perfect.

    I knew all the theory. I knew the practice. I’d taught it to our students in the conscious business academy. I’d read the books. Watched the videos. Extolled its wisdom.

    It’s sound wisdom. The faster you launch, the faster you can get real feedback from your real community. Don’t get too deep before you test your assumptions in the marketplace. Don’t think you’re smarter than the tribe you’re here to serve. Perfectionism will crush your entrepreneurial creativity.

    The sooner you get out there, the sooner you start doing the real work. It’s not real until it’s launched. It’s not art until it’s released.

    I knew it all. And I disregarded it.

    “It’s not ready. I’m not clear enough. The copy isn’t right yet. The design needs to be more polished. The podcast doesn’t work without its intro music.”

    When I launched this website in October last year, it was a single page.

    200 words. A single picture. A small logo. A place for folks to put an email address in. There wasn’t even anything for offered for signing up, just a vague promise of impending wisdom.

    It had taken me 8 months.

    For that is how resistance works. The more you care about your creation, the more you will be tested. The deeper the place it comes from, the further resistance will leap to meet you.

    Resistance is a Dishonourable Foe

    He knows your weak spots, and he’s not afraid to go for them. He’ll play dirty. Honour isn’t part of his make-up. He’s here to shut down your creativity, and he’ll use whatever strategy he can find to do so.

    He’s clever, very clever. He knows exactly what guise to assume. He has perfect timing. And he has no scruples.

    Resistance had me by the balls as I was creating The Realized Entrepreneur.

    “This isn’t good Ewan. It’s too vague. It’s too pompous. It’s not practical enough. It doesn’t have enough depth. It’s an ugly design. You’re being too perfectionistic”

    If I’d have been wiser to his game, I would have noticed that his advice had no consistency. He just said whatever it was that would plant the seed of doubt, and then he’d water it relentlessly.

    “Yes, you don’t feel ready do you? That’s because you don’t understand your target customer yet, you can’t launch until you do. You haven’t nailed your core message yet, make sure that’s clear before you go public.”

    It sounded like good advice. It sounded like the advice that a very experienced marketer would give himself. So I listened. Thinking it was my own higher guidance.

    He even spoke to me during meditation.

    “Maybe you should re-write the front page copy? Yes? You knew there was something that didn’t feel right with that copy didn’t you? It’s all written in the 2nd person. That doesn’t fit with your principle of personal transparency. Better re-write it. Your integrity is important.”

    My god he was clever.

    What is Resistance?

    Resistance is not really a he or a she. And he’s definitely not you, nor even a real part of you. He’s not a real voice of wisdom, and he’s not to be trusted.

    He’s just air-resistance with a microphone.

    He’s just the desperate status-quo hijacking your inner dialogue.

    There’s no inner-guidance to hear. There’s no grain of truth to be uncovered. There’s no valid perspective to integrate. He’s just out to keep you stuck exactly where you are.

    Don’t listen to him. And for god’s sake don’t try to reason with him. Learn to see him. His power is based on non-detection. He’s like a spy behind enemy lines. You beat him as soon as his cover is blown.

    If he can’t move stealthily in and out of your sub-conscious mind, he will lose his control over you. Learn to spot him.

    6 Disguises that Resistance Wears

    1. You haven’t done enough work on yourself. You need more healing. You need to meditate more. You need to resolve a childhood trauma, because it’s really stopping the real you from coming forth. If you transform that part of you, then it will be real, and authentic.
    2. Waiting for creativity to flow. Not flowing today? Wait till tomorrow. Not flowing tomorrow? Wait till after your weekend break. You tell yourself you mustn’t force it. You don’t want to distort the purity of creativity. You must wait for true inspiration.
    3. You’re afraid people won’t like what you make. I want to create. But it’s scary. It’s exposing. It’s dangerous. What if they don’t like it? What if it’s not good? What if it’s not valuable? You tell yourself these are rational possibilities. You tell yourself that you must resolve your fear first.
    4. I’m not in a rush, I still have plenty of time. I don’t want to force it, rush it. I know it’s tough, and I’m probably experiencing some of this ‘resistance’ thing, but I have time left. It will come at its own pace. I don’t want to be all disciplinarian with myself. I have years left.
    5. You keep shifting focus. You’re working on one thing, then something happens, and you decide to work on something else. You’re writing an ebook, but before you finish, you switch to brainstorming about a new idea. You tell yourself you’re just ‘following the natural flow’.
    6. Resistance doesn’t apply to me. Nice theory. Nice idea. I don’t really think it applies to me though. I don’t have resistance like you’re describing it. I have genuine reasons I’m not creating my thing. It’s not resistance, it’s something else.

    Resistance is anything that stops you from creating the work you’re called to create. He is a ruthless foe.

    Go Forth and Create

    Creativity does not belong to me or you. The things we create do not belong to us. They are the possessions of God. The great spirit of evolution.

    Our gift is to create. To get out of the way. To make the unmakable. To speak the unspeakable.

    It is not our right to determine worthiness. That is the purview of history.

    Make it. Share it.

    And if the thing you make is not good? If it stinks?

    Let it hang. Like a fart in an elevator. Feel the shame. Smell the toxicity. Feel like an ass. Suck it up.

    Then go create more stuff.

    That’s how you beat resistance.

     

    Note: If resistance is the dragon that we all must face as creative entrepreneurs, then the original St. George is a man called Steven Pressfield. If you’re an artist – someone who makes stuff – and you’ve never read his work. Correct it. Now.

    Ewan Townhead

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