T -60 days.
Two months from today, my co-director Kesha Bruce and I will launch an unconventional art festival in the center of the art world, New York City. 6×6 is 6 back-to-back, 1-week-only art exhibits featuring a line-up of 12 international artists. In addition to the exhibits, there is also tons of exciting programming during the 6 weeks. Read more about it here and you can become an official backer here.
6×6 has been our baby for these past ten months and our due date is quickly coming upon us.
We started our morning with a pre-mortem of worst case scenarios. We played out not just the worst case scenarios for 6×6, but also for our unconventional gallery, Baang + Burne Contemporary.
It was a heavy conversation.
My brain hurt after and it was hard to get back to work.
You already know that you can define what success is for yourself. Did you know that you can also define failure as well?
We talked through what we see Baang + Burne doing and curating after 6×6, where we want to be in 5 years, what if it turns out to be a colossal failure and no one is interested in a new model of art viewing and buying? What if we don’t sell a single piece of art and we are dead broke in the end?
The amazing thing about playing through your absolute nightmare is after you do, it stops being so scary.
When you imagine the possibility of failure and what that would look like, you can start to navigate around it.
These big conversations are not fun. No one likes to spend time and energy in imagining worst case scenarios. I recommend you have the “What If I Fail” conversation with a glass of wine in hand. Kesha and I made the mistake of not doing so, but then again it was only 10am. But we survived and now we can move forward with the clarity that comes with having removed fear from the equation.
Confronting the worst possible outcome will eliminate the power it has over you. It will remove your fear of it so you can function with clarity.
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Thanks so much for this, Charlie. It is absolutely a question I have been avoiding – I ONLY speak in the positive about my launch (next week! Gah!) but you’re so right that acknowledging the weak spots/unexpected possibilities removes the fear and creates an opportunity for even greater levels of creativity to arrive. Just the motivation I needed to tackle this one head on! Thank you!
I hope your launch went well. It helps to talk about the things that you are afraid of so they stop having power over you!