Creativity Is a Business Tool

What if the very thing you were told you shouldn’t even try became the one thing that helped you build everything?

That epiphany has followed Diane Strand throughout her career and is at the heart of her new book, CreativePreneur: Use the Tools of the Arts to Grow Your Business.

For Diane, creativity isn’t limited to filmmaking, writing, performing, or standing on a stage. Creativity is the ability to think differently, solve problems, communicate ideas, collaborate with others, adapt when things don’t go according to plan, and have the confidence to keep moving forward.

Those aren’t simply artistic skills. They are business skills.

And in a rapidly changing, increasingly high-tech marketplace, they may be some of the most important workforce skills we can develop.

That is the message behind CreativePreneur: Creativity is a business tool.

Throughout the book, Diane shares lessons developed through decades of entrepreneurship, media production, education, nonprofit leadership, and building creative career pathways.

One is her D.R.E.A.M. Framework, a process for taking something that begins as an idea and giving it the direction, structure, action, and momentum needed to move toward reality.

Another is a philosophy she calls “Pack Your Own Parachute.”

Entrepreneurship often celebrates taking the leap. But taking a leap doesn’t mean jumping without preparation. Creativity gives us the courage to imagine what is possible; business practices give us the structure to pursue it.

And then there is H.O.P.E.—Helping One Person Every Day.

Because success isn’t only about what we build for ourselves. It is also about the people we help, the opportunities we create, and the impact we leave behind.

That philosophy comes to life every day at JDS Creative Academy.

Our participants and students learn visual, performing, and digital arts, but they are learning much more than how to operate a camera, edit a video, perform on stage, or tell a story.

They are developing the Tools of the Arts: communication, collaboration, creativity, resilience, adaptability, critical thinking, storytelling, and confidence.

These tools prepare people of diverse abilities not only to participate in the arts, but to enter the workforce, pursue careers, become entrepreneurs, and compete in a changing marketplace.

CreativePreneur puts into words something we have practiced at JDS Creative Academy for years:

The arts don’t only teach us how to create. They teach us how to think, connect, communicate, lead, and turn possibility into opportunity.

So perhaps the question isn’t, “Are you creative?” The better question is:

How are you using your creativity?

Think Beyond where it can take you next.

CreativePreneur is available digitally, with hardcover and paperback editions, and Diane’s book signing tour launching this fall.

Learn more at DianeStrand.com and discover the Tools of the Arts in action at JDSCreativeAcademy.org.