Jumpstarter, kickstarter, trouble-starter. Jonathan Sexton is an instigator – the kind that makes you get off your ass and go do something. Jonathan is the CEO and co-founder of Bandposte.rs (a Back Porch Group portfolio company), and co-founder of Nashville startup Artist Growth.
When was the last time you had a pointless conversation? By pointless, I mean without the 100% certainty that what you’re doing is productive. It’s so easy to get weighed down by the need to be efficient, to focus, to complete as many tasks as possible in one day that have direct impact on one’s top priorities.
This warrior ethos is incredibly necessary to surviving in business, or really in accomplishing anything. But I’ve noticed lately it’s getting way overdone. The point of existing is not to mark off as many to-dos as possible between life and death. That chokes all the magic out of life, like squeezing your favorite kitten to death with a hug.
Recently I was talking to a friend about how hard I try to force all my goals into each day, imposing my will on the day, and he said to me “there is a unique tension between providence and personal responsibility.” I like the word “tension” over the word balance. Balance is static, but a true scale is almost never balanced. There is always tension. Obviously, I am not advocating laziness, but rather pointing to the paramount importance of creating space for magic to happen.
Perhaps something unique I can offer as an artist-entrepreneur is this: when I sit down to write a song, I’m often in the middle of something else. Most times I can come up with 100 reasons not sit down, get out the pen and paper, blow off everything else in my life for an hour or two, and often its too much to bear. I cave. However, when I sit down and risk 2 hours to complete a song, I never regret it.
Translating this to generating business ideas or new product design is no different. There are always more leads and sales to chase down, more emails to send, more documents to complete, more meetings.
Sometimes, all that needs to wait.
You run into a friend, chase down a wormhole with your business partner, you take a meeting with a new contact with no clear objective. This is when you plant the seeds that take root into your dreams and goals, toward living a life you love. This is the true promise of entrepreneurship: freedom.
Financial freedom? Yeah of course, but its more than that. If we all stop trying to get rich and start just making cool stuff, and working on projects that we care about or have a deep curiosity for, the success will come.
So stop wasting time trying to be efficient all day, and create some space for the unplanned to happen.
