☠️ Screw plan B.

Plan Bs can be a crutch for entrepreneurs. A way to justify mediocrity and buffer against failure.

🧯Here’s why: when you know you have a secure fallback plan (think comfortable steady job or unemployment benefits) you may be focusing more on the downfalls of plan A, instead of looking at solutions to keep pivoting.

This means you’re not as laser-focused and more likely to give up when things get tough.

👀 Sounds a tad provocative? You’re right -ish.

🏃🏻‍♀️ Hear me out, no plan B doesn’t mean no “worse case scenario”. It means giving yourself the runway to take a risk, and to trust that you’ll put every bit of effort into achieving what you’ve set out to achieve. Having a “worse case scenario” could for instance allow you to sustain yourself more modestly while continuing to pursue A. It doesn’t mean abandoning when you’re starting to encounter pushbacks.

🏡 As long as you’re not taking a livelihood-threatening risk (as in, “no longer having a roof over your head”), don’t give yourself an out. Focus on A.

🌳 For over a year, I’ve planted trees, cut wood and gave environmental workshops from 9 to 5 to sustain myself – so that outside I could pursue my goal of becoming a photographer & photojournalist.

Haven’t been too disappointed so far.

Thoughts?

📸 Dr. Jaimee Swift, founder of Black Women Radicals
#photographie #photography #entrepreneurship

Raise your hand if you’re an artist and the idea of showing yourself on social media makes you cringe.

Yes. That’s what I thought. 

For artists, putting ourselves out there can be incredibly difficult. After all, art is supposed to be about the art, not the artist, right?

Wrong.

These days, artists need to be just as savvy about promoting themselves as they are about creating their art. We really are just a specific kind of solopreneurs. And part of that means being active online and on social media, and to create a unique identity (one might say “brand”) around you and your work. And that’s far from being easy. 

So how do you show your face to the public when your art is supposed to be your identity?

Here are a few tips:

Eeasier said than done. But if we’re going to be successful in promoting our art, we need to put our ego aside and focus on what’s important: connecting with our audience. People respond to other people much more than with “inanimate” content. That’s just a natural human reaction, and it’s probably why “selfie” video content is largely picking up on social media.

People want to discover our personalities for them to engage in a meaningful way with our work. You’ve probably heard that opportunities are made of as much talent and skill, as they are of networking and relationships. By showing who you are, people have much higher chances of remembering you, and  to engage with you and your work. They will feel as though they’re supporting a real person that they can identify to.

Even though you’re an artist, you still need to look like you know what you’re doing (though everyone is winging it a lot of the times!). This means being present and identifiable online, using a consistent voice. It also means engaging and making your audience feel like you value their input and interest in your work.

There’s no one right way to do things. It’s more than okay to experiment with different ideas and strategies. Nobody is going to be tracking whether your content is consistent or not – in reality, people are often too self-absorbed in their own stuff to notice. That’s an opportunity for you to actually have fun, and put down on paper (on screen ;)) valuable thoughts for others to learn from and about you.

Building a following on social media doesn’t happen overnight. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t see results right away. It takes consistency to start being viewed as a domain expert. Just keep at it and eventually, you’ll start to see your efforts pay off.

At the end of the day, the whole idea is to not overthink it, and to just start somewhere. 

People are MUCH more supportive than you might think. People like to cheer on others when they see them succeed. They like to be inspired.

Plus, we don’t realize how useful our knowledge and thoughts are until we actually share them. And a beautiful side-effect, is you might end up learning as much as you offer along the way…