How To Promote Yourself As A Creative

In today's episode of the Meaningful Revolution podcast, we are going to be talking about how any creative can promote themselves, sustain their work, their art, their creativity, the things that they do that are important to them. And it's really important because if we are not able to self promote in a way that feels authentic, it's either going to make you exhausted as you expend energy trying to get people to pay attention to your stuff, or at the very worst, what's worse than that, it's going to prevent you from getting people to engage in these magical creations that you have for yourself. Hey everyone, this is Sean Butner, host of the Meaningful Revolution podcast, where we hope to inspire you to follow your passions more deeply and have that ripple out in the world. And one of the things that I love doing outside of this podcast is music. It's playing music, listening to music, writing music, and going to live shows. I was recently invited by a friend to see the band David Wax Museum here in Berkeley and a quick listen to their sound before committing. I found them to be very folky and chill, and it seemed like it'd be a lovely way to spend a Tuesday night during the week. My wife and I and my friend and his wife all went to go see them. And during the show, the mix of swirling lights and just chill folky vibes, I was struck how in between songs, this very kind of artistic group would take one or two minutes to share about the things you could buy on the merch table, which is a little bit shocking, right? And it also felt very authentic because they're telling stories about why it's important for them to be on the road as a family. Two of the band members were married. They're talking about how the audience can engage and help support their art and their craft. And as an introverted business owner, this was super intriguing and it reinforced everything I intellectually knew about sales. But it's also highlighting something I've been struggling with in my coaching business too. And so instead of getting caught up about sounding salesy or believing that people didn't want to hear about their merch, the group highlighted that special relationship with the crowd. And they offered things that would help them continue to enjoy their art and would be awesome if you were a fan of theirs. And at one point in the evening, they talk about how you can support the band is by joining their email list. And they had a story about how they were at the Norfolk Music Festival and they had a group with like 10 friends with clipboards go out into the crowd and try to get every single person's email there to help get on their email list so they could tell them about the music they were making. And NPR noticed this and had an article where a reporter called them cheerfully aggressive. And it got me thinking about this question. How are you cheerfully aggressive with the things that love and sustain you, your career and your relationships in all areas of your life? And I love this description of approaching how to move people into action in a way that's authentic and cool because I will probably call myself optimistically aggressive in that I think working together I can help build a better future with my clients and with you folks too, with you here. Outside of that though, it's as much as I'd like to think of myself as that just that phrase cheerfully aggressive, excited to to share what you had and being very assertive. That's probably how I would reframe it actually is to be cheerfully assertive. But we all have this in our lives. We all need to speak up when we're at the office for our ideas, for the work we're actually doing, for the priorities that we have been given or are the priorities that we have in an organization. And to do it in a way again that's authentic but gets the job done at the end of the day, highlights our unique styles is really great. So that's why I wanted to share that story with you. And now I want to get into five ideas on how you can be cheerfully assertive. Okay. And as someone that's cheerfully assertive and going to emulate this, if you would like to join my newsletter, please in the show notes you'll see a link to get a free Work Life Mix PDF. When you sign up for the newsletter, you'll get emails every week. I do podcast episodes on blogs as I start that up again. And anything else going on in helping you in your personal development start and work on your businesses or help you advance in your life because that's what the show's about. This is what my business is about. Okay, so that said, how can we be cheerfully assertive? Right? First thing is to know why you need to be cheerfully assertive. And in another context earlier this week talking with some fellow business owners and really we spend a lot of time about thinking about why is it necessary for us to have our heart led businesses right. These are fellow coaches that want to help people excel and develop and live into their greatest version of themselves in a way that everyone it's mutually beneficial. But understanding that like so many people as a coach I think come from that space of wanting to help, of wanting to really lead people to a better life. I know that's what it is for me. It is for my friends that are certified high performance coaches or coaches in general that I know that I regularly interact with. And so how do you tap into that sense of service or how do you know that sense of service is also serving you? Because if you've ever seen an overworked medical professional, a nurse or doctor, their sense of service a lot of times is to. If I don't show up and do work, people's howls could be very negatively impacted. So how do you set then at that point they would sacrifice their own personal well being in pursuit of others. And so the service isn't servicing them in the way that is sustainable and helps them connect with why maybe they got into medicine in that particular case, but connecting to I want financial abundance to my family, which is totally okay. Along with this is helping me further my movement or cause in my case, furthering this meaningful revolution of having more meaning in our lives all year round and doing more meaningful things to inspire others is super important to keep motivated, to keep sane and to keep connected to why things are so magical, right? And so what in your life is the. This is the challenging question for you. What in your life do you need to know that you're cheerfully aggressive or assertive? Second point to talk about is you have to have a belief in yourself, right? It's, this is not a time to doubt if you're providing value if it's good enough, if not, why you shouldn't be doing things. You have to have an unshakable belief that what you're doing is great. And like I said, that the band that I saw this past week definitely had a very unshakable sense of we're creating this cool relationship, we're creating this cool sound and vibe. And please come along and join us for more if you'd like. And here's how it was really cool. And it's that kind of like quiet confidence that I thought was very appealing and something I hope to emulate. Sometimes I think I have it, sometimes I think I get in my head, as most people do. And maybe that's you too. But the question for you here is how can you have that unshakable belief in the things that you do day to day in a way that's authentic in a way that isn't Papering over the reality of things isn't like just like that toxic positivity like, you can have hope that the things that you're doing will lead to a better tomorrow. And that's my definition of optimism. But it's not that things are going to be, we're going to solve world hunger by playing music, you know, for the next 20 years. Because if that was possible, that would already happened, right? So the reality is that doesn't translate into solving world hunger. Maybe you can raise money and stuff, but I digress. You have to have that belief undeniably in what you're doing and to act boldly on it. What would it take for you to feel like you had that boldness, that bold belief behind you? Third thing that this group taught me in that moment is to not shy away from making a sale, right? And there's a really great book I'm gonna. I forget the author's name, but it's. The book is called To Sell Something. Like, to sell is to be human. It's like, I'm gonna completely, like, not get that right. But in this book, what's so amazing about it is, is that it's saying that, you know, as a human being, we're always trying to communicate to get people to change, to move people into action. And if you think of it as either teaching people how to maybe do something in a better way or to give people information so they can make better decisions. And the very essence of making a sale is pretty. Not threatening, right. And pretty high or low stakes. So again, your doctor trying to get you to lose some weight because it's gonna hurt your heart, or let's see, who else in our world talks about that could be your trainer, it could be your psychologist. These are all people that are trying to move you into action in a sales situation that. That we don't normally think of as a sales situation. Don't shy away from helping people change is the message I'm trying to say here. The fourth point is to focus on the relationship. What this band showed me is by articulating, hey, we're in a special relationship. Hey, here's how you can help us sustain what we believe in and that our. It can make the world a better place. How can you help us move our family, take a family road trip from Virginia to California with our young kids and make it worthwhile is to get engaged with what we're doing. And so that's a much more compelling. Because you want to help people. Like, they seem like really lovely people with really lovely music again. And so that relationship focus really made the. Hey, we have this special relationship. Here are different ways that you can engage in it. It was really interesting and key for me. And then the fifth thing is to just show up authentically, right? These folks didn't really have a pretense or anything seeming super shady, right? It was here's our thing, please go check it out. If you really are enjoying yourself, go there. And if not, let's do another song and continue the good vibes. And it never felt like they felt awkward or this wasn't. There was an imposter syndrome going on there of we do music for a living. This is how we support our livelihood. These are the five things that I learned from going to this live concert this past week, which is to know why you need to be cheerfully assertive, to have unshakable belief in yourself and your cause, to not shy away from making a sale, and to focus on the relationship and how the change in behavior or the movement you want can really help this special relationship. And then to show up authentically, hope there was something that you found really fun in that or a big takeaway for yourself. And again, if you'd like to send me an email ever with something that you really loved about the podcast, please sign up for our newsletter, which is again below in the show notes, or is that seanbutner. Com. You can find it there. And what you'll when you sign up again, you get that free PDF and you'll get weekly emails on some of the extra stuff that comes in with these podcast episodes and more. So I'd love to see you there. And ultimately, I hope you feel more empowered to go out there and assert yourself cheerfully your ideas, your desires and your dreams. Because that's what it's all about. So with that, this is Sean Butner signing off. We'll see you guys in the next episode of the Meaningful Revolution podcast. Hey, it's Sean. If you loved this episode, please share it with three of your friends who might need a little help self promoting as an introvert or more quiet person and or runs a business. If you liked this, talk about how creative people can promote their stuff. I have a playlist for you with previous interviews and some other things I've done but around creativity. I know you guys will love these discussions. You love this episode, so go check those out over here and with that we'll see you in the next episode. Take care.