Lennon Bone on getting paid for creative work. Early gigs feel good, but the real win is building trust with an audience. Share your personal life, make work that connects with regular people, not just other artists, and authentic fans beat bought followers.
The first time I started making money as a drummer, as being a creative person, it felt like that moment in the original Mario Brothers where you hop on the turtle shell in just the right way. You end up getting as many free lives as you are willing to wait for. It's like cracking the code. And even though I got paid, the motivation was never about the money, but it was always about the connection for me. You need to build that trust. I'm gonna give you two things to think about to help you. One, share more about you and your life. This will not only connect people to you as the artist, but it's also gonna give you a lot more content ideas. So you don't need to be waiting before you put something out. You need to stop talking to other artists. No more talking about art challenges. No more talking about the gear that you use. Anything where if you were at a party and only the artist would get it. It needs to go make it. Relate to a regular person in their regular life. Really, all I'm asking you to do is be more yourself and stop trying to get everybody to like you. You're not for everybody. You can buy followers for super cheap, but if you want to have actual fans, this is going to take time and that's totally okay.
