I am starting a new business called Stirling Prentice Creative Facilitation and Consulting. The core of the idea is pretty straightforward: using art and games to help businesses and other organisations (or anyone who wants to) solve problems, work together, and adapt to change.

Of all the things I could start, this could be among the more hare-brained schemes. Maybe there is a market for me doing this. Maybe I’ll get sunk early on. It also could work out.

Almost a year ago, I was working as a librarian at the university here in Kamloops. It was a pretty decent gig, and I was having a good enough time. But at the end, my contract evaporated. I knew that was coming. The writing was on the wall.

So, I did what any good Maritimer would: I went on EI (for the first time ever). And like any good creative type, I worked on art. And, I started looking for the next thing. In today’s job market, it’s slow going. Fish bite, but I haven’t landed anything. This was how I ended up applying for a provincial self-employment program that promised a) to help me start a business and, more importantly, b) extend my EI checks a while longer.

It took a few permutations to land on the idea behind Stirling Prentice Creative Facilitation and Consulting. It was harder than I thought, and I got a little stuck. Seriously, I was googling how to be a life coach for an afternoon. Among things that “are not my vibe” it was up there. The upshot about learning about life coaching and other coaching ‘spheres’ was the assertion that if someone can declare themselves a life coach, why can’t I say I’m a creative facilitator. For years now, I’ve been talking, learning, and playing with how art and games (like role-playing games) can be powerful ways to get people to explore together, learn about each other, and really create the sort of unique outcomes that can be transformative. I know from personal and professional experience how it works. And looking around, it doesn’t seem that unreasonable of an offering.

Besides, I can’t think of a better time for me to try. The idea of making a living off a fusion of my creative life and my professional life is exciting and nerve-wracking. I’m deep in the process of thinking it through, while trying hard not to overthink it. The mechanics of starting something like this are straightforward enough. It’s manageable, if not necessarily easy. The biggest challenge has been convincing myself that I am taking this risk.

It’s harder now than when I was younger. When I started Winged Beast Outfitters almost 20 years ago, I just kicked it off and threw money and time at it. Now, I never got to running the Winged Beast at full-time scale, but I wanted to. If this opportunity had happened to me then, I would have tried in a heartbeat. I’ve found it harder than I’d have thought to capture the delusional energy young Stirling poured into the Winged Beast. It’s a fire that takes care and presence to stoke. It goes without saying that starting a full-time business is a risk. In the face of that, I have to remind myself that the possibility is also there, and I would hate risking looking back and seeing myself just talking about a good idea. What it will be is still emerging, so at least I have that to look forward to.