The Groove 152 - How to Make the Best Restart in September
HOW TO MAKE THE BEST RESTART IN SEPTEMBER
The transition from the lazy days of summer to the bustling world of business in September can be a brusque and daunting experience. However, this time presents a unique opportunity to harness the power of creativity.
While most business owners like me will tell you that they are never off, I cherish the slowdown of July and August. I don’t mind working hard, I don’t mind working weekends, but I do mind losing the warm weather and long days of sunshine (especially for a New Yorker who has seen both the harshness and splendor of four very defined seasons for more than two decades).
Motivation in life is an internal thing. No matter how many external rewards, we have to push ourselves from within, and September is the perfect month to do that. Claude Monet was almost 50 years old when the end-of-summer, beginning-of-fall light gave him the motivation and sense of renewal that changed his entire career.
Find A Renewed Perspective
Claude Monet in Giverny in 1905.
In May 1890, Monet had written in his diary that he had seen giant haystacks and was planning on painting them. However, as he attempted several times that summer, nothing he made satisfied him. The perspective wasn’t right, and he put the project on the backburner.
But at the end of September of that year, he realized that in the same way that farmers collect their harvest and winemakers pick up their best grapes around this cycle, the time was finally ripe to capture the light, the depth of shadows and the colors over a pile of hay in his beloved Giverny.
Not much had really changed, except the season. If you allow yourself to see things from this point of view, a refreshed perspective can turn the boring and mundane into exciting opportunities for you to grow your practice or business, spotting things you may have missed before.
Perseverance Always Pays Off
Some of the Haystack paintings that Monet made between September 1890 and the spring of 1901.
One of the wonders that technology has given us is that it has cut the time in which we do things to a fraction of what it would’ve taken us 20 years ago. But it has also created an expectation that success has to happen overnight. Our times have definitely seen massive, accelerated wealth and success for many, but certain things require more perseverance than others.
Monet had been giving serious thought to this new subject and wrote in his diary that although trying to capture this scene hadn’t worked before, September brought a desire to commit to making it happen: “But now that I’ve painted what a stack of wheat looks like at the end of summer, I guess I have to paint what a stack of wheat looks like at the end of fall. And if I do fall, I have to do end of winter. And then the end of spring. Crap.”
Note that Monet had the insight that he wasn’t after just one painting. Intuitively he thought that he had to commit to an entire series that took him approximately seven months to finish.
Little did he know that he would make history with that move. The Haystacks made Monet the first artist to paint such a large quantity of pictures of the same subject matter differentiated by light, weather, atmosphere, and perspective.
Let The Bounty Hit
Claude Monet, Les Moules (1890), oil on canvas. Bought by Hasso Plattner for $110.7 million in 2019.
After periods of idea-incubation during the summer, the time to reap the benefits comes during the fall. When this happened, Monet’s 35-year career had seen many rejections, several changes of style and lots of financial ups and downs. And then he saw something in those September haystacks that wasn’t available to him in the summer, and his luck dramatically changed.
The Haystacks series was a financial success. Ten out of the twenty-five were sold directly from the studio to savvy collectors. Fifteen of them were exhibited by the famous French dealer Paul Durand-Ruel in May 1891, and most of the paintings were sold within a month. They were especially popular among American collectors, with twenty of them landing stateside.
With this turning point, Monet's prices began to rise steeply. As a result, he was able to buy outright the house and grounds at Giverny and to start constructing his famous waterlily pond. Wealth and success remained consistent in his life after the Haystacks. In 2019, one of them sold at auction for $110.7 million, becoming Monet’s most expensive painting.
When you feel tempted to mourn the end of the summer, think how September offers a renewed perspective and the promise of the harvest. If you’ve had sort of an arid summer creatively or businesswise, remember this watershed moment in Monet’s life. The bounty and beauty of this new season can be just around the corner.
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