For many, the word resourceful brings images of Depression Era women making clothing out of flour sacks, but resourcefulness has less to do with frugality than it does with creativity. However, it’s important to remember (though few of us do) that resourcefulness is also based on time.
Resourcefulness and Decisiveness
Resourcefulness is closely related to decisiveness – another attractive characteristic that we covered in a recent blog post. To be resourceful, we look at what is available to us and make a quick decision about how best to use those things to solve the problem at hand.
Identifying our resources can require a fair amount of creativity. It’s easy to look around and take stock of what you have (a stack of flour sacks in the Depression-era example), but it can take more doing to think of what might be available based on what you have (a friendship with the local baker).
Resourcefulness and Relationships
Relationships (Human Resources) are vital to any successful business, but they are particularly valuable resources for performing musicians. We are in the business of providing experiences, and there is no experience without experiencers. Our entire careers are predicated on being in relationship with other musicians and our audience.
Does this mean we should exploit those relationships – use them as resources to get what we want? Yes. And no.
You never want to take advantage of anyone – that’s a sure way to lose the relationship and the resources that go along with it. However, it’s critical to remember that nothing happens without an initial action, and that initial action almost always requires you giving something (time, money, ideas, direction, etc.) to someone else in return for what you need. Your human resources are the people you can offer something to in order to get that ball rolling.
Practice Makes Progress
So how do we get fast at finding creative solutions? Practice. Resourcefulness is based on behavior, and like all behavior, it can be learned.
Brainstorm the resources currently available to you, as well as those that might be available based on what you already have, or who you already know. Practice putting those pieces together in creative ways to discover new possibilities for meeting a current challenge.
If you do this often enough, making those connections will become second nature, and you just may become someone else’s most valuable human resource. People love problem solvers.
This is part of our series on the characteristics of attractive people. If you would like to hear the live discussion about this characteristic, head on over to ClassicJabber.com now.
If you are ready to learn more about how to build a profitable, fulfilling career as a performing classical musician, check out Concert University, and the free webinar that outlines 5 strategies for success.