As I watched the Final Four Tournament on Saturday, I was thinking about what basketball and the professional creative arts have something in common. Is it any surprise my mind would go to art when I’m watching sports?

Passion

This is the obvious. These kids love basketball, and for them it is their art. What you pay attention to grows.

Just as the college athletes pay attention to basketball and their skills and love of the game increase, your skill level in your art increases with increased attention. Your knowledge and love of the art grows as you look at more art, go to more galleries, take more classes. And, your skill level at marketing, and your passion at marketing, also increases proportionately to the effort you put into it.

How much effort are you putting into growing your business?

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Yesterday I was lucky to attend a church service at the Washington National Cathedral where Brené Brown delivered the sermon. It was followed by a forum, a conversation between Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde and Brené. (I feel like I know her well enough to just use her first name!)

It was a magical experience from the setting to the content. I took lots of notes and want to share some of what I heard and learned.

We tend to hang around with people who believe like us.

Brené referred to this as sorting into bunkers. These people think like us, and they hate the same groups of people that we do. We don’t even necessarily know or like these people, but we have “common enemy intimacy.” That is not true belonging.

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