It wasn’t from a celebrity, or the president, or Ellen DeGeneres.
The call came from my older brother, Ross. Ross is my mentor, my idol, the first person I came out to, a highly intelligent guy and one of the most humbling and motivating people who always leaves a positive impact.
I learned a terrible flaw during our phone call. I expect things to fall into my lap.
I'm kicking that bad habit to the fucking curve and I’m never looking back. I’m laying out the path to my life. I am graduating college in 13 months! Basically a year from now I am going to be living back home in my parents’ house. That’s so quickly approaching!
That was a rude awakening. I honestly didn’t realize how soon that is going to be, and my life is going to completely change in a year.
My brother asked me a startling question. “So, say you graduated tomorrow and moved back home, what would you do? You would have to get a shitty part-time job that you wouldn’t want (sadly, true), work a low paying job and do less and less art (sadly, true) until you’re not doing hardly any art and making 25,000 a year and wasting your degree. You’re in college, living in a fantasy world, but the real world is about to hit you.”
It’s was a simple as that. He laid out the consequences if I decided to continue to be lazy.
He instilled fear and A LOT of motivation in me with that statement.
Ross than connected his best friend into our conversation and they started feeding me with advice.
First off, set objectives with a timeline to get them done.
X, Y and Z.
X is to create a website. That among anything else, is going to pave the way to accomplishing so much.
Y is to stay 100% dedicated to this blog.
Z is to successfully complete the p90x challenge.
Once I complete X, Y and Z...I'll create a new trio of objectives so I'm experiencing CANI-Constant and Never-Ending Improvement.
Once I complete X, Y and Z...I'll create a new trio of objectives so I'm experiencing CANI-Constant and Never-Ending Improvement.
Just by doing these three things, so many doors are going to open up for me. Once my website is up and running, you guys will have the opportunity to purchase my art through Paypal. So many of you guys have asked to buy my art and now I’ll finally have a way to sharing it with you all.
This blog is going to play a huge role in my success. Not only have the last two months been record breaking views but last month I jumped from 18,000 to 23,000 views for the month of May! How awesome is that! Ross’ friend was blown away when I told him that. He said he pays thousands of dollars to boost his blog traffic and has never achieved that. That made me feel accomplished. Once I complete objective X, I can link this blog to my website and generate a substantial amount of traffic.
And completing the p90x will be a huge confidence boost for me as well. I’ll look and feel like a million bucks and be able to say I accomplished something.
Creating and accomplishing X, Y and Z will guarantee me that I’m constantly plateauing and ascending. It all makes complete sense to me.
So instead of graduating 13 months from now with no life plans, I’ll have a clear vision of the exact life I want to live. It’s my life and it’s up to me to be an extremely successful artist, living my dream.
I can do it. I just have this overwhelming calmness that I am going to be living the life I dream of.
Here’s a sneak peek of a vineyard mural I’m in the process of painting on my parents back porch
While I think it's important to consider your future plans - there is no question of that - I feel like you spend a lot of time trying to take control of every single aspect of life, which is an impossible task. If you create this house of cards, it can easily fall. Actually, this XYZ business is much more realistic, I think, but every time you make a plan, ask yourself the question of how much are you trying to control and how much is actually within your control? Plenty of people work hard with goals in mind and fail, and plenty experience the opposite with no path at all.
ReplyDeleteAGD: You should have a plan -- a lot of people dream about things but never get around to realizing them because they don't/can't turn the dream into reality without an action plan. This XYZ business can work, but you still need to think about can it sustain you for the long haul. Will it generate enough income for you or will you still need to find a side job? What's the outlook for art majors in places like graphic design firms?
ReplyDeleteYou may want to also talk to other artists who already are selling art over the internet, learn from them the business side of things -- finances, marketing, sales, client relations, shipping, legal issues, taxes, etc.
Just like you posted about all the issues to anticipate for your first sex experience, do the same kind of research about the art market and art business. If you end up working for yourself, you need to know how to run a business -- altho you can hire someone like a business manager to help you once you become famous.
Selling anything is about networking, aka spreading the word. Don't rely on just this blog. Use Facebook to it's maximum potential. See if there are any new restaurants opening that might be willing to display your work in exchange for a cut for them. Carry special business cards that show your best work and give them to everyone. Etc, etc. The website is a great start but th real challenge is to publicize it.
ReplyDeleteI think goals need to be played both fast and loose. If you play them tightly, you can get a tunnel vision and end up without a life. So you play the game of goals tightly, but also look around so that you know you don't have tunnel vision, so that you do have a life from and to your heart, so that you don't miss Mr. Right.
ReplyDeleteYou do the dance AND you invent steps as you go. You follow the recipe and give it a unique twist. Picasso did his art, his marketing, his sex life -- all with incredible presence and zest and fun, incarnating the surds of his life with his vitality, his spirit.
Someone mentioned business cards. Moo Cards is great for showing your talent, they have a card you can buy which allows you to use as many images as you like on the back, great for displaying your artistic tallent.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of setting goals use the SMART formula. Specific, Attainable, Measurable, Realistic an Time-bound.