Art + Business
“Wasn’t it immoral to do work you didn’t enjoy?”
Do you know what I think a lot of us find "seemingly un-connectable"?
It's connecting our art—whatever magic we do, like writing, illustration, making naughty greeting cards, running a tarot and massage practice, or, I dunno, selling veggies—to actually making a living doing it.
Do you ever feel like you're really incredible at what you do—maybe you've even been doing it for 20 years—but you just can't seem to connect it to how you make money, or at least not a lot of it? Or that selling your "art" can feel a bit gross, so you'd rather just do it for fun?
There's that damn small voice, though.
The one that keeps telling you there's a way to pull it off. That maybe the only thing getting in your way is you. That you're this magical, really complex human that loves a lot of things and that doing some combo of it for a living will light you up inside...if only you could find some way to bring it all together.
I've spent a lot of my life like this.
Trying to kickstart a business or creative career multiple times, with varying degrees of commitment or success. Then, finding myself freaking exhausted while having to do three other things that drain me in order to stay afloat financially. (Really cool for my fatigue issues!)
So, I made my true passions the "side gig" I'd get to one day, I kept getting older, my talent felt unused, and I honestly got more and more jaded. Brené Brown talks about how this is a good way to build resentment and how it can make our bodies sick and, you know what, it really is and it really does.
I think I'd resigned myself, though. Capitalism just made it too hard, or at least that was my constant refrain. I figured I'd stay pretty broke, doing dull (but hella stressful!) work I kind of hated. It kept me "safe" and (sometimes!) gave me health insurance. So I could sometimes stomach the trade-off.
And then. AND THEN.
Some wild things happened for me over this last year...
I stopped playing the victim, even to capitalism.
I started taking responsibility and claiming agency for all of my choices.
I started believing all of my time was precious, not just the stolen moments in between "paying" work.
I started believing I'm fully capable of doing what all of my idols have done— living out of my creativity...and even being known for it.
I started wondering what would happen if I redirected the 20-40 hours a week of genius I kept giving away to other people toward the work I actually wanted to do, and then realized the answer to that was "EVERYTHING I'D EVER WANTED."
I learned how to turn my art (whatever my "magic" is) into a business, including what it means to "market" myself without wanting to throw up.
I learned step-by-step ways to build an audience of people who dig what I'm up to and happily want to be involved. (I mean, I still can't believe you've signed up for YET ANOTHER newsletter.)
I learned that, instead of "finding my niche," which is what every fucking marketing person will tell you is necessary to make money, that the more important thing was finding the common thread between all of my disparate interests. Once I found that (spoiler alert—it was the obvious thing in front of me the whole time), I saw that IT was what really lit me up and then acknowledged that I should probably be doing it.
And I realized that living out of that completely enlivening creativity at the center of all the things I love and who I am might, oh my god, make me a lot of money? That might be the wildest shift of all.
Does any of this resonate? Am I alone here or are you tracking with me?
Because if it does, I’d love to help use my nearly 20 years in business, branding, marketing, and creativity to give you some advice on whatever you’re working on.
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