Stuart Skorman on creativity and contradictions
“Know your strengths and weaknesses. Creativity is my biggest strength. (It’s a weakness too.) But that doesn’t mean all entrepreneurs need to be creative to be successful.
“You can buy creativity, you can hire creative people, you can steal creative ideas, and you can even learn to be more creative… It’s not important to be creative, but it is important to know if you are creative so you can compensate if you need to. …
“Being a successful entrepreneur means embracing contradiction. You must be simultaneously desperate and confident, scared and excited, a risk taker and not a gambler.
“Ultimately you need to be a clear thinker who is also a little bit crazy.”
From Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur: Why I Can’t Stop Starting Over, by Stuart Skorman, with Catherine Guthrie.
Entrepreneur Stuart Skorman—the founder of Elephant Pharmacy, Hungryminds.com, Reel.com, and Empire Video—grew up in a retailing family in Ohio. He worked every kind of job, from cab driver to professional poker player to CEO. In this entertaining, personal account of his coming-of- age in the business world, Skorman gives an insider’s view of what it takes to start a business from the ground up. [amazon.com profile]
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April 2nd, 2007 at 7:15 am
I am currently a new media major, further seeking a major in special effects and animation for film. For one of my classes I am writing a position paper on creativity and mental illness, and how I believe that creative geniuses are often categorized as mentally ill. I believe that far too often creative persons are subjected to a wellness scale- misinterpreted due to their left brain thinking. It is so true, being creative means taking many risks. Society seldom accepts extravogent ideas. We have such a short life span vs. the age of this world. It takes a long time, multiple lifetimes, for advanced ideas to become acceped. So many geniuses have been persecuted for their ideas, but in time others make the connections and begin to understand. My advice is to continue striving, never give up hope. Creativity is a constant battle, and the skeptics will always question and try to negate your ideas because they are negative. Never stop believing in yourself and your ideas. Be patient. Time proves everything and nature always prevails. As George Sand said, “Between genius and madness there is often not a thickness of hair.” se this as inspiration. Life is full of ups and downs. Don’t give in to the skeptics and cynics. Believe in yourself!