The great Stephen King once said, “We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.” Whether you approach life intentionally or live each day as it comes, your actions, words and nonverbal expressions influence other people’s actions or responses. Similarly, other people influence or impact your daily activities, and these little contributions add up to the big decisions you make; be it in your creative career or other aspects of life.
Today’s Creative Gist features a range of creatives from the design, entertainment, creative business and content creation sectors who answer the question: who is the greatest influence in your career? Dive in to read the impactful answers these creatives shared with us.
I’m not sure how to answer this question, but there’s one person I’m really grateful to; Mr Giles Omezi, my previous employer. He encouraged me to be the best I could be and challenged me to ask myself thought-provoking questions that sparked genuine creativity and sustainable solutions to real-life problems. He also taught me the importance of quality research and experimenting before implementing concepts.
First, I acknowledge God as the one who gave me my artistic and concept creation talents. But countless people have given me the opportunity to move forward in my career.
For instance, art is a big part of my family. My grandpa and dad were once blacksmiths. Although my dad eventually chose architecture as his career path, he also painted and developed creative miniature structures. So, watching him create was inspiring. My mom also helped us with our drawing assignments; she drew such impressive diagrams. Lol.
As I grew older, I was drawn to various designers and artists such as Daniel Arsham, Pharrell Williams, and Virgil Abloh. I subconsciously started studying their works and noticed that the most common variable among these people was their diversity. At the beginning of my career, I struggled to define my profession as either an artist or a designer, so it made sense that such people with diverse skills influenced my style. Also, my team lead, Mr Felix, at my former workplace played a massive role in shaping my mind and creativity.
As a content creator and fashionpreneur, I don't have any specific influence on my career. I primarily motivate and influence myself, but I can also say that I gather inspiration from different content creators and influencers around me. So they are sort of my greatest influences.
The greatest influence in my career is other artists I listened to growing up. At first, I was a keyboardist and bassist for my church choir, but later I started to listen to Jon Bellion, whose music inspired me to go into music production gradually. I had to save up money to get my first computer and headphones, and then I grew from there. Music is something I’m passionate about, so all I needed was to be inspired and get started. Now, I love it more than anything.
When I was in SS1, an NGO came to my school to talk to us about career paths, so I joined the accounting seminar because I was already in the commercial department. And even though I didn’t know what career I’d pursue in future at the time, I still joined the seminar. The hostess spoke so well of the chartered accountancy career and broke it down to my understanding so much that I developed an interest in it immediately. So, basically, she’s my greatest influence in pursuing this career path, and I’m sorry to have forgotten her name.
Who Influences Your Career?
No man is an island as our insightful creatives have expressed in their responses. One of the ways to keep growing is to constantly acknowledge and intentionally appreciate people or factors that influence your career path. This will also enable you to pay such influence forward by impacting other people’s lives positively.
You circle of influence might be large or small, but we want to know, who is the greatest influence in your career? Tell us in the comment section.
PS. If you would like to contribute as a respondent in the future episodes of the Creative Gist, send us an email to [email protected] or reach us via WhatsApp +2348088809311
2 thoughts on “Creative Gist: Who is the Greatest Influence in your Career?”
For me, my peers have been my greatest influence in that, they pushed me at the beginning of my writing career to put myself out there. They shared opportunities and assisted me with making myself known in my field.
One of such remarkable people is Amos Adejimi, who during our NYSC programme, reminded of how good of a writer I was in the university, and went ahead to design the graphics and edited my very first self-published anthology. I have so many others I can’t mention, but he was a catalyst to other progresses I’ve experienced in my career.
I will say my siblings, they introduced me to Tech field.