What Edgar Degas' Ballerinas Can Teach You About Business
Bold & Beautiful.
What can you learn from art? A lot. Afterall, the original graphic designers were artists, and the first marketers were also artists. As artists comment on society, one artist really speaks to me when it comes to running a business. Edgar Degas, a 19th century French painter obesssed with ballerinas, can teach us a lot about the effort of starting and maintaining a business.
Here are 3 things we can learn from a Degas painting of a ballerina:
1. DEDICATION- Whether is how Degas painted 100s of ballerina without losing his motivation, he depicted the ballerinas as dedicated to the study of ballet. Ballet takes lots of patience, perseverence, and commitment. Ballet dancers practice morning and night, maintain their figure, in order to get one movement just right. The same goes for business. When you're passionate about your business, you spend 24/7 thinking about it, growing it, and commiting yourself to it. A business requires patience, as you don't always see the fruits of your labor in the first year, or something the first five years, but you just keep on going because like Degas' Ballerinas you know at the end you will have a masterpiece.
2. MOVEMENT- Degas' ballerinas express beautiful movement, their bodies flow and it's as if you can hear the piano playing in the background. The body of the ballerina has to move with lots of effort, but without rigidity. It almost looks easy or seamless. As we all know, a business takes a lot of effort and when you have to flow with the times. You can't still be using html3 for your website. You have to use social media, and if you're only sending snail mail, you're missing the train! As times change and as your business grows you are constantly needing to "move" things around, but still appear seamless to your customers. If you're changing directions you need to do with lots of effort, but also make it all flow. Yes, just like a ballerina.
3. STRUGGLE - Degas often depicted his beautiful ballerinas as sad, tired, and pensive. Business owners struggle with those same 3 emotions. Hard work is exhuasting, starting a business takes a lot of thought, and sometimes you have a bad day where you just want to fall down and collapse on the floor. Just like Degas ballerinas, they always got back up to give another performance!
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