When you are designing a project, it’s not common to have the picture of life clear in your mind You look for it out of hundreds of shots. It’s a test and try approach. Finally, when you got the right shot it seems by chance,  but it’s not.

Lesson 1: Keep on trying and testing and let your mind work to connect the dots at the right time.

#2 Look for the truth

Honestly! How many skilled photographers there are in this world? Hundred, millions… maybe more? So why do we consider only some of them capable of making art? The answer is “telling the truth”. The majority of them are travellers, and they talk about what they have encountered throughout the world. The rest of them are travellers as well but in a different way. Through visual research, they explore their unconscious. However in both cases a great photographer brings on pictures something truly impactful… No way to lie on that.

Lesson 2: Achieving excellent results mean being absolutely true to your feelings… that’s valid also in your business proposition and objectives. You cannot sell something you don’t trust in.

#3 Be interested in people

Think about an unforgettable portrait shot… or  about some people caught on the street shoot… you cannot work and create lonely, you need of people. Even if your artistic language is architecture or industrial photography you have to get the best, from people who really know about your subjects. You need to learn how to create connections with people, encourage them to leave veils apart, and most importantly, you need to build a network.

Lesson 3: Running a successful business means being interested in people, building connections with them and engage them in a collaborative and empathetic approach.

#4 Find a Mentor

After you’ve read hundreds of books about technique and shot for several hours, you can say you’ve finally come to understand how to use your camera properly. But if you want to be a photographer, you need (one or more) mentors. That’s close to the circle! The value of experience on the field, the opportunity to see people at work. It’s not only the funniest part of your learning process, but also necessary to bring up new questions that are critical to pull you out of the comfort zone.

Lesson 4: Find a mentor and turn yourself into a professional, right out of your comfort zone.

#5 Follow the need, even if it’s simple

The photography industry is a strange one! In this industry we don’t talk about technology, but about technologies. There is a merging of old and new techniques, such as film, digital, polaroid, and vintage lenses and cameras. But this wasn’t obvious some years ago, when a group of crazy engineers decided to commit to the “Impossible Project”, where the aim was to make polaroid film sustainable again. The common opinion was “who is interested in Polaroid during the Instagram era?” But they got the challenge and the business became profitable.

Lesson 5: Innovation in business does not necessarily have to lead to disruption to succeed. Probably your simple need is a common need enough to build profitability

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There is no doubt that fun and results go hand in hand. Do you think this is obvious? But how many hours in your working week do you usually enjoy your work? That’s not a matter of what kind of job or task you are doing, it’s all about how you progress. The Ikigay method describes productive fun, like an experience of flow. It is something where you are involved just a bit, a process challenging enough to feel satisfaction, and a good way to stay minimally far from your comfort zone.
Lesson: Cultivating your passion for success means more than just performing well technically. It is important to turn productivity into fun.

#2 The multi-rocket theory

Some entrepreneurs face extremely challenging times. They want to disrupt the market, but they are practically alone with co-founders and sometimes with their professional network. Collecting money from investors, designing products, thinking about marketing strategies… and what else?

How can they prevent feeling scared about the future, planning unreachable targets? They proceed step by step. The challenge is divided into short aims, small accomplishments, and simple task segments. That’s an excellent strategy when you are overwhelmed and called “the multi-rocket strategy”. Like a satellite that requires several rocket propulsions at the right time to reach the moon’s orbit, we need to complete our path step by step.
Lesson: If you want to cultivate your passion at the highest level, try to divide the challenges into complexity into simple tasks and keep working.

#3 Perseverance is lightness

At the time, I had a gig with my band in 2002. We play original compositions, but we were inspired from 70s. So we decided to make this music influence clear offering a famous Led Zeppelin song. I was the singer and it was a nightmare to manage the responsibility of singing so memorable and iconic songs. Years later, I encountered the same problem in assuring my startups’ monthly budgets. Then, after some stressful years, I discovered constancy, since staying consistent is essential to manage your big challenges rationally and with sustainable stress. Suddenly I realized the real difference between being hyper committed and consistently following through. I now have the monthly budget under my eye every day for just ten minutes, the perfect time to make micro-corrections. Regarding “impossible songs”, I would have just needed to sing them twice or three times every week to gain confidence.
Lesson: Deep focus results are for short time. Cause your mind burns and you live a heavy life. Perseverance is the key.

#4 The meaning is in the path

OK, it’s likely that someone believes that a business career is made by unique success. But this is not the meaning. A company’s development from scratch to zero involves many challenges, successes, and failures… without a narrative. The beauty is in the path, in overtaking a problem and looking around for the next obstacle. That’s business, maybe life… no endpoint, just a stage.
Lesson: The meaning of passion for me is to make me a better and happier person. The endpoint is not included in that.

#5 Problems arise when you look for opportunities

Imagine two people living in two contiguous houses. They live quite similar lives, but the first improves the house every day by crafting, designing and working. The second one is satisfied and spends all day sitting out in the shade of the patio. They still have a similar life but the first house is more and more beautiful than the second one. Parallelly, the first owner faces daily difficulties in crafting and designing solutions. Who, between those, do you want to be? Business and passions cannot be led by people who don’t want to change things and solve problems.
Lesson: If you do something in an innovative way, you will change. If you change, you will face problems. See problems from a different angle, they are a good indicator of your courage.

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Music is interesting for its practical nature. Of course it is also based on intellectual abilities, but manual skills and physical dedication are more than significant. Despite all of that, the most talented musicians bring their notes to life mentally. To the extreme Beethoven used that attitude to overcome his deafness. But why? Like with music we listen to mentally, having more abstract perception help our mind to take rational solution.

Lesson: Take time to be far from your business operations and think rationally about the high level processes.

#2 Perfection and success are different concepts

Bob Marley was clearly an imperfect singer technically, and Janis Joplin’s voice was damaged by alcohol and smoke. Just a few examples of how imperfections make people unique. Perfection is not smooth, and it is not typical of human temperament. Likewise, it’s important to avoid approximations and to be confident and skilled in our work.

Lesson: Do things! Design, study, test… but try. Look for uniqueness instead of having perfection.

#3 Less resources do not mean less success

It is my passion to listen to music that has extreme tendencies. Then, fascinated about minimal electronic music, nude folk music, Robert Johnson guitar… and people able to create a whole sound ecosystem with less. I like whole orchestral sound too, but that’s another story. It’s not always a philosophical approach. Sometimes using less is a need which then becomes a strength. Like slaves singing in the eighteenth century, or the first Kraftwerk album.

Lesson: You need to start. The lack of resources is a problem, but it is not a block. Do the best with what you have.

#4 Live on your time

It is the sound reference that makes the difference between professional bands and amateur bands. A professional band wants to create its own path, starting with some models. Amateur bands copy artists they love. That’s extremely significant when you need to bring it to the common people. People love to be involved in authentic activities. If you offer them a copy, they turn to the original.

Do business, live on your time. Identify market needs and solve them. There has already been a solution to the problem of “I want to be the new CocaCola, or the new Netflix…”.

#5 The power of listening to

Igor Stavinsky said: “The music is…the coordination between man and time”. Nobody plays music with total perception freedom. A talented musician listens to his fellow musicians on the stage all the time. Otherwise he listens to single instruments or the rhythm. The more he listens to, the more he is coordinated and enhances his/her performance.

Lesson: In business, good listeners succeed while over-talkers fail.

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