Lennon Bone coaches an artist paralyzed by fear of posting online. The real problem isn't the platform but clinging too hard to the identity of "artist" and needing external validation. Loosen that grip, show up authentically, and trust builds with your audience.
If you're an artist who doesn't feel safe showing up online, but you know you want to use the internet to market your work, I'm gonna ask you a really important question that a lot of you aren't gonna like, but it's, where else do you not feel safe being seen? And why do you not feel safe being seen? I had a call with an artist yesterday who paid me to work with her on her stuff, and after a few months together, she'd hardly made any posts or put anything out there, and so when we came to our call, She said, Lennon, what can I do to just show up and feel more safe? Can I just, you know, continue to make posts that I've already made? Like, is just making something better than not making anything? I told her, no, I would rather you quit and go find another way to make money than just continue to do the same thing that doesn't work. And here's why. Because when you continue to do the same thing that doesn't work, what do you do? You burn yourself out because you're not meeting the expectation of I I would like to see this work. The truth is, it's not social media that makes us feel unsafe. It's someone not seeing us as we see ourselves. It's being misunderstood. So I asked her, what would it look like instead of holding this title of artist and professional and all these things with this like tight grip and just hoping that people see you that way and just praying that people don't get it wrong because they will. What if you held that identity with a loose fist? And realize that you're much more than that anyway. You're human, worthy of love and respect and kindness regardless of what anybody thinks about you or your work. Everything you have is already in here. And until you can feel that fully, you will not fully show up as yourself because you're giving your power away to other people and their opinions. I do this all the time too. I'm not immune to it. But it is something that the more I become aware of, the more I see the importance of truly being who I am wherever I am. And as long as I'm approaching that with love and respect of other people, there's nothing else I really need to worry about. And the ironic part is that when you start showing up that way, you'll start selling more of your work too. And why is that? Well, because people will trust you because they see the real you.
