HOW TO
CAREER
YOUR
CREATIVITY.
© Rodd Chant 2019

Embarking on a career in any creative field is
littered with challenges and decisions.
From getting your foot in the door to staying
employed, the impact of losing a job you love to
deciding to venture out on your own, and more.
You need to manage your career from start to
finish. As I navigated my career I stepped in
many a pothole, took a few dead end roads,
and had a few flat tyres along the way - I'm still
going and learning. But through all that comes
lessons. Here’s a few from my own perspective,
none of it is rocket science, it's all common sense
and drawn from experience. Hopefully it helps
out some people who are just starting out and
maybe some at a career crossroad.
Rodd Chant
@roddchant
@chantcreative
@nothinglikeacreativeschool
© Rodd Chant 2019

Never get comfortable. In your
job or your work. I have a
saying - ‘Comfort zones are only
good if you’re a mattress tester’.
Keep doing your best work
possible and remember that
your job could end tomorrow so
always ensure you have a folio
of fresh work and make sure
your LinkedIn is up to date and
you’re active on it. No, I am not
on a commission from LinkedIn,
it is just common sense.
1.
© Rodd Chant 2019

2. Keep producing fresh work
and stay current. Resting on your
laurels will get you nowhere.
You can’t discount changes in
media and consumer behavior.
Yes, some of your older work will
still be relevant years after it was
made, but you cannot avoid the
reality that you will always need
newer and fresher ideas in
various shapes and forms.
© Rodd Chant 2019

3. Have side projects. Don’t be a
one trick pony, do more than
what you do in your day job.
Flex your creative muscles outside
of your day-to-day work.
Aside from it being good for the
creative soul it also makes you
more appealing to prospective
employers in the more creative
agencies.
© Rodd Chant 2019

4. Collaborate with others.
Find people, either within your
workplace or outside, to develop
new projects with. Be proactive.
Dream up some ideas together
and make them happen. Find a
photographer or a filmmaker or a
musician or a street artist or even
a children’s book author.
There are a lot of creative people
out there. Get together.
Two people often create better
magic, take Lennon and
McCartney as just one example.
© Rodd Chant 2019

5. Be open to opportunities.
Always be open, be it for a new
job or simply a collaboration as
noted in the previous point.
Never say ‘no’ too fast. It doesn't
hurt to talk and consider anything
put forward to you, even if you
say 'no' you have already
expanded your network.
© Rodd Chant 2019

6. Make more mistakes.
The funny thing about mistakes is
that they happen, you won’t be
able to avoid them so it's best to
accept them. People who do a lot
of work will in turn make more
mistakes, but the beauty of that is
you will learn from them and the
more work you do the better your
work becomes.
© Rodd Chant 2019

7. Don’t get involved in politics.
They exist, unfortunately, it’s a
downside of corporate/office life.
Just dodge it like a deposit left on
the sidewalk by a dog, because
once you step in that crap it will
stick with you for a while.
© Rodd Chant 2019

8. Create more than you
consume. Instead of scrolling
through social media feeds
looking at the work others have
created focus on making your
own work that in turn others will
see when they scroll - be a creator
rather than just a consumer.
© Rodd Chant 2019

9. Have a life. You are not your
job, remember that. Your title,
business card, or folio are not the
be-all and end-all. Live a life that
detracts your mind from your
work, you need to switch off and
that will benefit the work you do.
Use your life as fuel for your
creative work.
© Rodd Chant 2019

10. Be like David Bowie.
He was the master of reinventing
himself throughout his career.
From where he started right up
until the day he left us. His sound,
image, and ideas kept changing.
Don’t get stagnant. Keep dreaming
up new ways to express and
indulge your creative spirit.
© Rodd Chant 2019

11. Don’t chase money. When it
comes to career decisions you
should, in my opinion, put the
creative opportunity ahead of the
cash reward. I’m not suggesting
you work for free, what I am
saying is don’t let a few extra
dollars sway you from what could
be a much better creative
opportunity. It can pay off in
more ways than one in the end.
Your folio of work is what will get
you your next creative job, not
your bank balance.
© Rodd Chant 2019

12. Ignore the negative ones.
You’ll encounter many a bitter,
disgruntled, and naysaying person
in your career, some may even sit
right next to you. Don’t buy into
their rhetoric. We’re all individuals,
we each have our own reasons to
like or not like a job, don’t take on
someone else’s reasons. Sure, you
may soon discover that the agency
you're in sucks, but draw your own
conclusions.
© Rodd Chant 2019

13. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
There will always be hiccups,
missteps, wrong decisions,
mistakes, and more. Don’t let them
drag you down, it’s not worth it.
If nobody died or ended up in
hospital or prison then everything
will most likely be okay.
© Rodd Chant 2019

14. Love it or leave it. If you don’t
love the work you’re doing it is safe
to say you won’t be very happy in
your career. Sure, not every piece
of work you create will be
something to love, trust me on this,
I’ve made some work I would be
too embarrassed to show my
Mother. But you have to love the
broader spectrum of what you’re
doing. If there’s no love go and find
some.
© Rodd Chant 2019

15. Always be learning. From other
creative people, from experiences,
from mistakes, from books, from
technology, from art, from life, and
from everything around you.
You'll never know everything and
you'll never master everything.
But the creative journey shouldn't
end, if you truly love what you do
you should be hungry for more -
every day.
© Rodd Chant 2019

16. Stop chasing perfection.
You’ll never achieve it.
Focus instead on producing good
work. Sure, the work you let loose
on the world could maybe be better
if you worked on it longer, but
better is still not perfect. As the
French philosopher Voltaire once
said (in one form or another) -
"Perfect is the enemy of good."
@roddchant
@chantcreative
@nothinglikeacreativeschool
© Rodd Chant 2019