Sunday, January 3

Ruminations of a Right Brained Thinker




I have been content in general with the labels associated with a right brained thinker. I do after all make my living as an artist. I focus on aesthetics, feelings, and creativity in a big picture sort of way. I strive to become more organized, but wonder if it is possible. The most amazing things sometimes come from chaos.
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But over the past year I have become enthralled with business, especially venture capital. It's a left brained world filled with logical thinking, analysis, and accuracy.( I think there is a wing and a prayer as well) It's a dichotomy for people like me to be an artist with a successful business. Determined to make it work has always been my goal, but now I am devouring information I once left to others.
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Small disclaimer: I did have a brush with the business world between college and graduate school. I became a securities trader, got my series 7 license, was studying for the exam to trade options and....well that deserves it's own post on another day.
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I've always been an admirer of fred wilson
and have had the privilege of brief exchanges with him. I know I've mentioned him before, are you reading his blog?
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I also read without fail, chris dixon Just when I think I grasp his latest concept, people comment and I don't fully comprehend what they are talking about. I need a better frame of reference, but I'm a smart girl, I'll figure it out.
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I took a circuitous route to find his blog. Two things happened simultaneously. I took a little survey on Fred's blog powered by hunch and found I was fairly different than most of his readers (like I didn't already know I was different). My assistant saw Chris's avatar (it's a cute caricature) on twitter in a post above mine on the studio computer and remarked how his glasses looked like mine and I stalked his profile.
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That's how I found hunch and I am smitten. It appears that somehow a website can help you make predictions that seem more intuitive the more you use it. But, that too is a topic for a post at another time.
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Is there a point to the ruminations? Only that I plan to use the two distinct cerebral hemispheres of my brain in tandem this year. I'll be unstoppable or exhausted. How about you?
xoSherry

8 comments:

Kathy said...

I am still trying to find my way with my etsy business. If I ever figure it out I might try thinking about something else. :)

Mary Richmond said...

hi sherry! i have always believed we need both sides of our brain to navigate the world, whether as artists, business people or just balanced human beings ;-)

i hate it when people refer to themselves as all one sided or the other--all artists also need logic or their ideas would never leave their minds to take shape and without creative leaps the most stodgy logical scientists could not come to a conclusion

that's my humble take anyway ;-)

Anonymous said...

Hi Sherry -
How funny, I had a securities license, too, at one time (fade to grey....). I have a doctorate in cognitive psychology - which gives me different perspective on the right/left thing - but here I am, glueing stuff together and enjoying it more than anything. Even the mind-boggling business side is fun, because it's MINE. Best ~

T.Allen said...

I'm a pretty heavy lefty, even in how I enter a room and where I sit. I experience the other side of it, being too critical of my work, paying too much attention to the process; leaving a sometimes bland, or otherwise overworked piece. It is a challenge to balance the two, but great fun trying.

Best to you, Sherry.

Waterrose said...

Thanks for those links! Actually I think I'm more centered brained and switch in and out of modes. Sometimes I wish I were more one then the other so I could do one thing incredibly well.

SerendipitybyErin said...

"I strive to become more organized, but wonder if it is possible. The most amazing things sometimes come from chaos."

Boy do I relate to this. It seems like so much work to become organized. I try hard and even have started making lists. It comes so easy for others... And, I am most creative in chaos. My husband is the opposite. He has serious opinions about my organization and process, but I don't have to own them :)

Pretty Things said...

Wow. I'm by no means stupid but you are way smarter than I am! I checked out those first two blogs and my eyes glazed over! But I do still read medical journals, so maybe I get a couple brain points for that?

I did like Hunch, and had to chuckle at what came up when I first looked -- "space heaters". Right now my lampwork studio is so cold my kiln won't work and I'm looking for a space heater that's safe to share the same area with a propane tank.

Anonymous said...

Oh gosh, even this very post sounds complicated to me. Big words, ahhh... Just kidding!

But you are right though. Artists and business people don't always think the same way, so to be able to blend the two and use it to your best, is a blessing.

I look forward to checking the links in this post, thanks!