Now that’s probably the longest title I’ve ever had to come up with for a post. But I struggled to come up with a shorter title but just couldn’t. I’ve encountered different creatives in the last few weeks who have erred on business & life issues that was apparently unknown to them as wrong. It is a terrible thing to be doing something that is detrimental to your life and business and not know that you’re the cause of your ultimate & inevitable downfall. Consider these notes as lessons to learn from Seun Akisanmi School of Common Sense for Creatives (shorter names are welcomed so that perhaps I can consider registering it). Please note that these 5 things are nuggets that I’m trying my best to implement in my life also.

1) As a creative (photographer, tailor, make-up artist, etc) that goes out with another creative who happens to be your boss for that day, everything you do should help lift up the image of your boss. If a client sees that you’re taking finer pictures than your boss and approaches you to ask for your business card, ALWAYS give him your boss’s card. And by boss, I’m referring to the colleague (whether or not they’re your agemate is irrelevant) who hired you to assist him (whether or not they’re paying you money is irrelevant) for that job on that particular day. If the boss tells you that you can’t post the pictures on your page, oblige him. Infact make sure you ask all the questions that is in your heart before taking on the job and don’t assume that your boss knows your intentions. If taking 2 hours break while assisting to cover a wedding is important to you, make sure you tell the boss before you take on the job so that he’ll know whether or not to go ahead and still bring on a subordinate or colleague that has such rules. Whatever you do that doesn’t help promote the life or business of the boss is probably not acceptable. If you’re in doubt, ask your boss or ask me.

2) Whenever you’re posting someone’s image or video on your social media platform, DO NOT put a logo or watermark that insinuates that you were the one that created the content. Sometimes I wonder why some content-creation-copycats will splash their logo on a picture that they obviously didn’t create all in a bid of driving traffic to their platforms. Even this morning, I still challenged someone who used my client’s pre-wedding pictures I shot and put a camera logo on the picture and asked people to visit his studio. You’re probably reading this now along with others that have acted similarly and still think you’ve done no wrong. My brother, it is wrong. If you must post Ty Bello’s picture or Aham Ibeleme’s picture, let it be clear whether in your captions or the creator’s logo that you were not the person that took the picture. Sometimes even putting *Author/Creator Unknown* is better than letting people think you were the one that took that image or created that video. Give credit to whom it is due and don’t use other colleagues works to drive traffic to your business as if you were the content creator of the said work.

3) When assisting someone at an event or job, make it a habit not to leave before the boss. Sometimes people tell me they want to assist me on jobs they admire me for and all they really want to do is come and just feed their eyes and heart at their own convenience. If you’re not ready to resume 1 minute before the boss and close 1 minute after the boss then your definition of *assistance* should be reexamined. I’ve had assistants tell me while covering a wedding that they don’t stay out after dark and that they need to start going home once it’s 7pm. I look at them with a Chinese stare as if it’s me that likes to stay out after 7pm to cover a client’s wedding that ends at 11pm. And these same assistant will tell you to remember them whenever you have a wedding in Dubai that you need an assistant for. Kwantinu. I’ll quit my love for Zobo and BMW 750i before I remember you in my kingdom. But seriously, it doesn’t tell well on you if you can’t go all out to help whoever is hiring you till the job is done. Don’t wait to find yourselves in their shoes before you understand how tight that shoe fits.

4) Never ever ever ever talk bad about your boss especially while working with them. If you’re not comfortable with whatever they’re doing, find a way to communicate that to him/her or just leave the job. I’ve had a photographer who came to me for a job and the first 5 minutes he was talking was to describe to me how terrible his former boss was and how the former boss was the reason he was not progressing. Long story cut short, I didn’t hire him. If you don’t realize that there are life and business lessons you can learn even while working with the devil’s senior brother, then your journey to positive greatness is longer than you think.

5) Try not to see people finish. I know it can be hard but TRY. It’s human nature to take people for granted just because you see them everyday or you helped them in a time of need. We can all be guilty of this but it takes working on yourself everyday to know that even the roadside seller that’s selling you Zobo everyday deserves to be treated with dignity and be told a heartwarming THANK YOU whenever they provide you with their goods and/or services. I still sent one of my colleagues a thank you note earlier today because I put into practice what he shared at a photography conference some days ago. The funny thing is that we’re the same people that will be quick to turn around and start telling people that we were Seun Akisanmi’s junior brother’s cousin’s friend’s classmate’s gateman once you see that Seun Akisanmi is now on international platforms impacting lives for good. God is watching all of us in 16k video. Try not to see me finish. I’ll try not to see you finish.

There are some many other nuggets I would love to share but I need to finalize printing logistics on my forthcoming book FROM PRISON TO PHOTOGRAPHY. So bear with me as I call it quits for tonight. I rest my briefcase. I celebrate the great person you’re becoming as you allow at least 51% of these words find meaning to your life.

Have a glorious weekend.

#seunakisanmi

#TEARSofAhungryNIGERIANentrepreneur

#fromPRISONtoPHOTOGRAPHY