Your Success Story

Your Success Story

Storytelling Your Success Story

It doesn’t need to be how you starved for years before people bought some of your art.

It doesn’t need to be how you read thousands and thousands of books as a child before you realized you were a writer.

It doesn’t need to be who your family is connected to.

You know these stories because of their popularity. They were once rare, which made them famous stories at the time. Now a starving artist is expected, writers are expected to read a lot, and if you have a lot of money, people first wonder who you’re related to, not how you did it.

These don’t make for good stories anymore, so why try replicating them?

By all means, learn from the already-accomplished, have idols, imitate morning habits if you want to, but make your success story your own.

 

Stay Positive & Tell A Story No One Has Told Before

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The Great Discourager

The Great Discourager

Better Than You

Here’s the sitch when it comes to going down the path of your passion: you’re not the only one, and nearly all the others down the same path are much, much better than you.

Want to be a beer writer? There are so many others better than you, more experienced. Steve Hindy, Maytag, Heather Vandenengel, Robin Shepard, this list could run a thousand.

Want to be a graphic designer for fortune 500 companies? The slots are already filled by someone bigger, taller, stronger, faster, and with a better stretched and exercised imagination than you.

Even something extremely specific, like a crêpe artist. There’s someone already more artistic with crepes who others will choose over you.

Unless.

Unless you tell a better story. Your story is the leverage you can have over someone more excelled than you. Your story is how you not only get a bite out of the stranger pool, but you turn the strangers into friends. Your story is your competitive advantage.

The decision you need to realize you’re making when you start following your heart and putting your passion to practice is that there will always be someone better than you, more skilled, more talented. You can’t let that be the great discourager.

The world can never have too many stories nor too many artists.

 

Stay Positive & Those Who You Feel Discouraged Be Can Be The Most Encouraging

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What It Means To Be An Artist

What It Means To Be An Artist

John Dewey

“The function of art has always been to break through the crust of conventionalized and routine consciousness… Artists have always been the real purveyors of news, for it is not the outward happening in itself which is new, but the kindling by it of emotion, perception, and appreciation.”

That’s John Dewey. Written 1927.

Can’t say it’s changed in the last 87 years. Can you?

 

Stay Positive & Make Sure You’re Making Art In Some Way Or Another

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Unnoticed Celebrities

Unnoticed Celebrities

I'm A Celebrity, Go Away

You’re one of them. Me too.

What does the noticed celebrity artist have that you don’t?

You may say “a following” or “venture capital” but both are snub excuses because you have the same resources that any celebrity has or had at one point to build a tribe and acquire funding.

Drake needed Lil Wayne to lift him up. What’s stopping you from reaching out, asking for help, finding a mentor?

All of these businesses needed capital. What’s stopping you from making pitches, asking for sponsorships, finding a partner?

How you become a celebrity, an expert, an artist isn’t that difficult to figure out. Following through with all the hows is the difficult part.

 

Stay Positive & Just Like Them, You Can Do It

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Remarkable Work

doesn’t have a schedule. Remarkable can happen any time of the day. The old 9 to 5 plan is just that, old.

The calendar of an artist is messy, clustered, and generally, all over the place. There are work meetings and social coffee meetups spotting throughout the week. The frantic-ness, the hysterics, the last-minute changes of plans perpetuate remarkable work. Why?

Because the lack of true routine allows you to connect with everyone better, allows you to attack a problem from multiple angles, and allows you to maintain an open mind about everything.

It should go without saying here that time needs to be made to relax, to be with close friends and family and to have some real reckless fun. However, these activities become greater memories when they’ve got to be fit into your day. You enjoy them more, you look forward to them more, you get lost in them – often finding the solution to a work problem. Go you.

A real artist is always on.

 

Stay Positive & Laugh When You Are Asked What An Average Day Is Like

Can You Do It Better

Of course you can, there is always room for improvement. But, I’ll admit, you will get to that point when you don’t want to put in the effort. Maybe it’s because you won’t get acknowledged for your effort, you don’t get paid enough, or you’re stretching the expectations of your job further than your boss may want you to.

I am in full support of finding and executing more ways to do what you have to do better. When you get to that point where you don’t want to (or do not have the freedom to) do any better, that’s when you stay just ahead of the game and work on your muse.

You don’t need to quit your job to fulfill your goals as an artist. Nor do you need to work your way all the way to the top of your current job to be able to support yourself as an artist.

If 4 is the best. Put 3 toward your job and 1 toward your muse. You don’t need a 4-0 or 0-4 ratio.

 

Stay Positive & Don’t Tell Me There’s No Way… You Can Do Better Than That

Garth E. Beyer

Discovery Melting Hearts, Will Yours?

If you haven’t heard by now, a new animal has been discovered. Welcome, the olinguito.

OlinguitoI thought we were at the point when we only discovered new insects or alien species at the bottom of the ocean, yet, here we are, a newly discovered mammal.

It doesn’t take much to melt the hearts of animal lovers. It’s simple. I would argue that it’s simple for lover X, Y, and Z too. All that you need to do is work your magic and combine works of art. Or, in the olinguito’s case, a teddy bear and a house cat.

There’s always room at the top, whether it’s the animal cuteness chart or Forbes Best 100 Companies list. It only requires you to search and craft something outside of the box.

 

Stay Positive & Go Discovery Something

Garth E. Beyer