CREATIVITY SPARKS^TM
February 2008

Be an Artist CEO
Create Every Aspect of Your Life
by Beth Barany

What does it mean to be an artist CEO and why would you want to be one? I brought this question and several others to an entrepreneur and writer, Ronelle Coburn, of Handworks International.

In full-time practice since 2000, Ronelle Coburn did not expect to become a Life Purpose Fingerprint Analyst. A natural-born Skeptic, she constantly asks "Why?" and has a hard time believing in much except common sense. Always curious about what makes people tick, she fell in love early with fiction and writing and had poetry published in a national magazine by the age of sixteen.

Ronelle went on to earn bachelors degrees in literary studies, creative writing, and almost psychology (studying in Communist Hungary seemed more interesting than finishing those last two clinical psychology classes), and a master's degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University. Many jobs later, and a life change into hand analysis, Ronelle ended-up studying the LifePrints system, at Richard Unger's International Institute of Hand Analysis, while paying the rent with contract work at the upstart artisan chocolate manufacturer, Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker.

Ronelle and I talked over a virtual cup of coffee and I learned a lot from her! Read on for her insight into being an artist-entrepreneur.

Certified from International Institute of Hand Analysis, Ronelle Coburn feels fortunate to have gone places and met people she would never otherwise have come into contact with. From exotic dancers to corporate heads to spiritual seekers, Ronelle loves working with people in their common human struggle to find a meaningful life in a bewildering world. In addition to seeing clients for individual consultation, Ronelle is on the faculty and is an Executive Committee member of the International Institute of Hand Analysis. She leads life purpose workshops and trains others in hand analysis as well as being a popular exhibitor at conferences and a dynamic public speaker.

What does it mean to be an artist CEO and why would you want to be one?
Well, I guess I'm in my ninth year of being an "artist CEO" and the bottom line is I get to create every aspect of my life, no one can fire me, and the sky's the limit! Of course, "doing my own thing" has immense challenges and I'm never bored. Finding clients, improving my sales communications skills, doing my own "paperwork," creating public lectures and multimedia presentations, expanding my business (balancing what I'd like against the mandates of reality), traveling to 9-12 cities per year, handling the constant changes in technology, and keeping an eye always on the big picture requires a lot of juggling. But it all comes together and is worth it when a client, or student, or lecture attendee thanks me and earnestly wants me to know that I've helped them understand themselves in a way that is life changing for them. Also, I get to meet so many people from so many different walks of life--I get to peek into the creation that is their lives and experience the worlds within worlds that all exist simultaneously here on planet earth. It's thrilling.

What is like to live creatively in your business?
Messy at times as witnessed by my office! I am relentlessly creative in my work and life. Whether it's solving problems, tapping just the right story to tell someone to help them understand themselves better so they can grow, writing my book last summer, formulating the promotion plan now, creating a lecture, calling prospects—it's all just one monstrous work in process that never ends. It feels extremely gratifying to know I am constantly taking my intangible ideas, feelings, and hunches and bringing them into form in the world and then "paying the rent" with the results. My creativity is a renewable resource! I am continually offering what I have, that is unique, and leaving something behind that ultimately belongs to the world. And I get to be the conduit for it as long as I am disciplined enough to keep engaging it as it wants to be engaged. Discipline is freedom. It doesn't get much better than that as far as I'm concerned.

Do you have an art that informs your business and vice versa? Of so, how? If not, reflect on how you enjoy art and how that affects or influences your business?
Oh my gosh! EVERYTHING IS ART! That is, everything was created, so absolutely everything from the miracle of pencils and cars and electric drills and the design of my nifty new digital recorder and people to trees and sand dunes and paintings and butterflies and snowflakes and the shapes of forks informs me. I get ideas from absolutely everything, even the speckled chipped Formica tables in my favorite donut shop, even the way the teabag is put together as I eat my favorite donut. I am constantly in a state of wonder about the creative process…the taking of the intangible and making it tangible. What are the rules for this? Because there are rules since everything has a form and structure of its own. How do I find those rules and practice them so I can learn the structure and then transcend/break the rules? How does the breaking of the rules make something unique? I also enjoy "art" of all kinds, of course, and look at as much of it as possible.

How has creative writing helped you in your business? How does the art and craft of writing and being tapped into your creativity inform, support, or otherwise influence your business endeavors?
I have a book coming out this year and it's already helping my business in the obvious ways (credibility, spreading the word without it literally being me, product to sell, etc). But primarily it's helping me because making the book forced me to articulate and structure a lot of complex things that were still fuzzy in my mind and writing the book has compelled me to think in an even bigger way about what is possible for my clients, as well as for my business and for me. Now it's time to go create the next little pieces that add up to the bigger vision of my work and life for the next five years or so. As far as I'm concerned there's nothing else for me to do, no matter what else happens. I know every day when I wake-up and every night when I go to sleep who I am and what I need to do about it. I consider my Artistic self very fortunate indeed.

c. 2008 Beth Barany