Story & Lesson Highlights with Sarah Hurt of Georgetown

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Sarah Hurt. Check out our conversation below.

Hi Sarah, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to share your story, experiences and insights with our readers. Let’s jump right in with an interesting one: What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
I am one of those annoying morning people (having been described as “Incandescent” by my boyfriend) so the first 90 minutes of my day are very productive. Coffee, quiet house, lots of the New York Times audio app, emptying the dishwasher from the night before, a quick check of the email to see what needs responding to first once I am at my computer and then it’s out of the house at 7:30. My brain seems to like to synthesize information in the morning so this is when I do most of my business reading. I call it my Warren Buffet hour.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Sarah Hurt and I am the owner of Seattle Art Source, an art advisory firm based in the Pacific Northwest. I hope the my story and the story of Seattle Art Source will inspire your readers as my trajectory is an unlikely one. I didn’t start my business until I was 40, never having worked in a gallery before, or in the formal art world. I developed the business plan after seeing a need in my local arts community and slowly grew the business over 10 years. I combined what I learned over the course of running Seattle Art Source to create a creative firm that has a brick and mortar location, an e-commerce platform, representation of 25+ artists and art advisory for residential and commercial clients. My diverse work background ended up being a huge asset to running the business and what I didn’t know, I got to learn along the way. I was lucky to have a generous community of colleauges and collaboarators through the years who gently guided me. And here we are, almost 10 years in, still learning and growing and loving the work we do.

Okay, so here’s a deep one: Who taught you the most about work?
I saw my parents pick very values driven careers. They consistently made decisions based on deeply held beliefs that guided them like a north star and in the end provided our family with a big, rich life together. Consequently, my siblings and I are all self employed doing work we are passionate about.
I also saw my mom go to college for the first time in her 40’s to get her RN which laid the ground work in me to believe in new seasons in my own life. I marveled that she could study chemistry for the first time at middle age just as she marvels that I could run a business and support my household alone. We each do the hard thing that our life puts in front of us and that is different for everyone.

When did you last change your mind about something important?
As a founder and business owner, it is tempting to conflate the identity of Seattle Art Source with my own personal identity. I have had to learn that I am NOT Seattle Art Source and Seattle Art Source is not me. I purposely did not put my name in the name of the business for this reason, yet it is still difficult to not personalize the ebbs and flows of the businesses as personal wins or failings.
A really rough season in the business a couple years ago brought me to a place of hard reflection about the future of the business and not only was I in fear of closing the doors but felt a lot of shame and fear around how that would reflect on me as a person. A wiser person than me reminded me that 100% of business come to an end at some point: My business will be no different. I will not come to an end when Seattle Art Source closes it’s doors one day. And the best way to combat that sense of scarcity is to dream about what comes next. So that is what I do. If I am ever tempted to take the successes or failings of Seattle Art Source too personally, I take some time to dream about what I am going to do after this season comes to an end.

I sit, take a deep breath and think about how I am going to take my skills, talents and experiences and apply them to my next enterprise, and it helps me recalibrate. No shame. No panic. Just another season.

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. What would your closest friends say really matters to you?
My home and family is super important to me and something I am very protective of. I prioritize my kids and developed my work schedule to accommodate them when they were younger and in school. Now that they need me less, I have much more flexibility which feel luxurious but I wouldn’t have traded the prioritization of them when they were younger for anything.

Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. What are you doing today that won’t pay off for 7–10 years?
Tons of things! But the tricky thing is, building a business is like farming. You are planting seeds and you are never totally sure which seeds will bear fruit. We are making calculated risks with the business all the time and pushing programs and developing areas of the business that we can’t be 100% sure are going to pay off. And we won’t be sure for 7-10 years. This is a business of relationships and that is a very slow burn so the building I am doing (seeds I am planting) that I have faith will bare fruit but in the mean time, I just tend the garden by doing to diligent daily work.

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Image Credits
Mackenzie Lammers

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