The One Fear That's Keeping Artists From Success.

The crazy part is that I still battle almost daily with that concern that what if I say this thing, what if I do this thing and somebody doesn't like me for who I am?

As creative people, we face a lot of different fears. Fear of failure, there's the fear of success, there's the fear that we are going to leave somebody behind. There's all kinds of fears that we tell ourselves, lies that we get caught up in. The saddest one for me is the fear of being ourselves. Why is it that as creative people, we're so afraid of doing the one thing that may make all the difference in how we connect with somebody?

Earlier in my career, I really wanted to be a professional musician. And surprisingly enough, my 19 year old self defined what that meant to me. So to me, being a professional was simply making a living doing what I love to do. That's all I wanted, was just to be able to pay my bills, doing the thing that I loved. So at a certain point in my career, the band that I was in, we were touring all the time. You know, most tours we would make enough to be able to cover everything that we needed and then some. And then, you know, we were playing tons of great festivals and doing all this stuff, you know, getting to be on TV and doing just random stuff that was, that was cool. And there was a point where I knew I had made it because I was paying for my bills, doing the thing that I love to do. My life, my mindset, all these things had shifted. I was about to have my first kiddo and we were just in this place where I knew that I wanted to be my own boss. I knew that I wanted to do what I wanted to do with my creativity. So when I left the band, I had been in this group for now 10 years. So my identity was wrapped up in, in this group and sort of the brand that was this group. And I wasn't ever really just me in that instance. And so there was always something for me to kind of hide behind. I had such a hard time leaning into who I am as a human being because I had wrapped all of my identity up into what I did. And when I wrapped it all up into what I did, then it was really hard to be confident in who I was. Because if somebody said to me, oh, I don't like that thing that you did, all of the sudden that was a pure reflection of me as an individual, as a person, right? And so when we are afraid to be ourselves, that's a warranted fear. That's something that we know if we put ourselves out there, right, if we do this kind of thing, somebody doesn't like it, we're putting ourself on the hook and saying, like, hey, I'm giving you permission here to like or not like me. So that is a warranted fear. We're sticking our neck out a little bit in that situation. But there was a certain point where I decided if I wanted to truly do the things that I wanted to do, if it was no longer about a paycheck and it was now about serving people, it's about being creative and new ways. Being creative in business, being creative in.

Illustration and video and all these other things that I never really worked in before, these other mediums. For me, I knew the only thing I could do was figure out how to be myself in this. I had to get a grip on who I was as a person and then detach who I am as an individual from my creative work. I am not the work that I create. How somebody perceives my work does not reflect me. The stuff that I put out there, my identity is not that thing. I still battle with that almost daily when I'm trying to make something is that I don't. I'm afraid to show up and be me. But when I consider the fact that the only way I'm going to serve the people that I really want to serve is by being me. And I really have no choice, it is an incredibly selfish act to show up and try to be somebody else. And we get tied up in all this, like trying to make a nice backdrop, trying to have a good microphone, a good camera. We get tied up in the gear, the tactics, the shortcuts, all that stuff. That stuff doesn't matter. What matters is you. The things that you make, you are not those things. You are something much more than that. And for you to show up and only present the thing without presenting yourself, it does a disservice to the viewer. It does a disservice to the appreciator of your work. Because we don't get to connect with the creator of this thing.

So will you have the biggest audience if you start to show up as yourself? Maybe not. I mean, but maybe you will. Who knows, right? Will you have the biggest business? Will you, like, be the next best selling author or, you know, millionaire photographer? I don't know. One thing I can guarantee is that even if you don't have the most followers or the most subscribers, you will have the right ones. And even more than that, you won't have to be afraid to be yourself.