Don’t forget to KISS in your business

I mean it

Hi there 👋🏼

Have you heard about the KISS strategy before?

It doesn’t only apply to work, but life at large too.

Keep.

It.

Stupid.

Simple.

I’ve written about it multiple times and I’ll continue to write about it in the hopes of it becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You know how writing and talking about something is a way of proactive manifestation…. Well, that’s how I look at my work around the KISS strategy too.

It seems like no matter how many times I revise my work, I always end up over-thinking, over-complicating and over-whelming myself. Perhaps it’s just the way my brain works: a bit over-the-topactive all the time. Or, it’s linked to a never ceasing ambition to create loads of cool things.

Whatever it is, I’ve come to accept this cycle as a given and try to keep a reminder to KISS on a regular basis. In fact, I have the word KISS written in various places throughout my house as a subtle reminder every day to KISS more.

When I recognise the pressure on my chest, the spinning mind or the washing machine effect in the stomach from having too much going on, I envision a KISS: How would my situation look like if I did an administrative, mental or physical clean up?

In real life it works like magic; Whenever I’m stressed, I tend to start cleaning the house in a frenzy. The good thing is that as soon as it looks less cluttered, I feel better.

Applied to business, as soon as I start drawing out visual overviews of my business ecosystem, as in, visually seeing what comes and goes where, I feel instantly better and I can concretely map out where to make changes to facilitate the flow.

Applied to a love relationship (like my marriage); More kisses make both feel better. Magic! 🪄

Having been on Substack for soon a year, engaging with other creatives again after a hiatus of a couple of years, I’ve been reminded of how this cycle seems present in most creative folks.

The mono-focus on a cool project, a passion art project most of the time, creates the first hook. It starts to grow, with more interest and more potential, until we slowly shift into grander dreams.

I’m a believer in the necessity to dream big, so don’t take me wrong here.

The fallacy is to think that big dreams require a million different things to be achieved. When in reality, more things will more likely to lead to burnout.

Though, yes, to have multiple income streams is a solid strategy for financial stability as a creative. But this doesn’t mean that each revenue stream should have its own complex ecosystem. Instead, I think, we must stick to the basics and get creative with what we already have in front of us.

As artists, we tend to be like swamps. We absorb everything around us to feed a potential creative flash of inspiration. That absorption then needs to get processed and filtered. The latter part is especially important, yet it’s the most neglected…

Because if the input isn’t filtered, we quickly fall into the loop of the shoulds and what ifs. We think we should add more stuff to the roaster. Maybe hire an entire team to support us to keep growing faster. More.

But more isn’t more. Because the more we add, the less we get out from it. Truly.

Growth is only effective as long as it doesn’t come at the expense of the life you want.

So here is a coffee cheers ☕️ to never forget to KISS 💋

Thanks for reading!

Elin, xx

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