The Way of the Social Artist (and how to become one)

It's 6.15am on a Saturday morning.

I'm standing inside a factory warehouse on a cold machine.

My job is to sort materials used fur constructing car engines.

I, like most, work a regular 9-5 (6-4 today, but you get the idea).

I'm striving towards a creative income.

I'm striving towards becoming a Social Artist.

This post is about the concept of the Social Artist. Reasons to become one and how to do it.

But before we dive in too deep, let me explain what a social artist is.

A social artist is not a job. It is a life-style.

It encompasses the way of the traditional artist and social media to share your work, network and land clients.

So... are you even an artist? Yes, you most likely are.

Let me explain.

An artist transforms his thought into reality with a medium.

This is not limited to drawing or painting (even though that's the first thought people get when you tell them you are an artist).

If you create, you are an artist. Period.

Here's a few examples of artistry:

• Writing

• Rapping

• Doodling

• Wood working

• Coding

• Speaking

• Dancing

• Macaroni Art

• Gardening

All of them fall under one category: Creation.

Creation is king and there's a lot of reasons for why you should be creating (if you aren't already).

1.) Purpose:

Having a purpose in life is a non-negotiable for your spiritual well-being.

Having no aim will leave you unhappy and lost.

The years will go by and you will wonder where all the time went.

And that's a fatal place to find yourself in.

Creation gives you purpose.

Your purpose is to generate what's meaningful to you and impacts people in a positive way.

2.) Conceptual Survival:

Dan Koe talks about this a lot.

When you die your physical body goes with you.

It becomes one with the earth again.

What remains are your creations.

The concepts you've created are still alive and will keep impacting people for as long as they're remembered.

To this day we still remember the wise ancient philosophers and their ideas.

We remember great artists like Michelangelo and Picasso.

To this day their work is still influencing millions of lives.

3.) Generating Value:

Love it or hate it: Money is king.

All of us use it in our day to day lives (unless you are an outcast living somewhere in the mountains with no water or WIFI, but then you wouldn't be reading this anyways).

People trade money for value.

Most do it by trading their time for a fixed amount of cash (also called a salary).

By creating stuff (and selling it) you are able to create value that is worth more for the same time spent.

Combine that with the leverage of social media and you will rapidly realize that there's virtually no cap on the money you can earn.

Now let's go back to the Social Artist.

The Social Artist understand all of this very well.

The Social Artist understands that his work is only as valuable as the eyes that see it.

That's why the Social Artist is not just spending time on his chosen craft,

but also on a skill stack that he knows will make him succeed in his endeavors.

These 3 skill are:

1.) Persuasive Writing:

Persuasion, Marketing, Sales is part of the essential skill stack that will get you where you need to be.

This is the sails on your ship.

A successful Social Artist needs the ability to sell his work effectively to:

• land new clients

• promote his product/services

• build a following

Learn this now or regret it later.

(If you need help to get started there is a free HarvardX you should try (nope, I'm sadly not affiliates with them))

2.) Networking:

We call it social media.

I repeat. SOCIAL media.

And for good reason.

It's meant to be a place where we connect with others.

Yet most artist just post their stuff expecting that the almighty algorithm picks it up one day.

This is the wrong approach.

This is the lottery winner's strategy.

And you damn well now the odds aren't stacked in your favor.

The proper way to grow is by growing a network of like-minded individuals.

How do you do it?

• Provide valuable comments

• Write DMs

• Join communities

• Share other people's work

Be natural in your conversations.

Nobody likes to converse with a corporate chat bot.

You're building a crew to sail the ocean with you.

Make some goddamn friends.

3.) Creative Creation:

If persuasion is your sails and networking your crew,

then creation is your steering wheel.

This is where your creativity shines. It's all up to you.

You decide in what direction the ship will sail.

This is your unique art style, niche or genre.

If you like music, talk about music and share your own.

Build a product around it.

Iterate and improve it.

If you struggle with coming up with unique ideas for you wort, check out the Creative Flower (a free Notion template that guides you through creative brainstorming).

And of course if you choose to buy Notion, use this link here (shameless affiliate plug).

All of the above skills are non-negotiable if you want to see long-term success.

If you have just a single hole in your ship, it will eventually sink.

It's a wholistic approach and you need to make sure that you're skills are developed.

Of course they won't be perfect at the beginning, but that's the beauty about it.

Keep improving. Keep iterating.

Stay disciplined and work at it every single day.

Become obsessed with it.

You know it's the right thing to do.

Finally, a word on discipline

When talking about discipline, many inherently gravitate towards the military.

Most believe that the army is training soldiers to become disciplined men.

Making them wake up at the same time and follow other orders without second thought.

But that is not true discipline.

I remember a friend of mine who went to the army (we call it "Bundeswehr" here in Germany).

He said that he would finally learn how to be disciplined there.

Long story short: He didn't.

All he learned was how to follow orders (which most of us are already pretty good at).

True discipline comes from the inside, not the outside.

Why care about discipline?

The reason why I talk about discipline is simple:

Without discipline everything falls apart.

You can't water your plants only when you feel like it.

If you do that they will wither and die eventually.

But building discipline is a long and tough journey.

It took me almost a decade to build a consistent exercise habit.

I usually took it seriously for a few month and then had a break for a couple months.

Eventually I would pick it up again, just to repeat the cycle.

Yet every time I picked up exercising again my mind changed along the way and I'm proud to say that I currently train 6-7 times a week since more than a year.

The thing that made me commit was a mindset change.

I started to believe I was an athlete and thus started acting like one.

This concludes the first blog post.

I hope you've got as much value out of reading as I've got out of writing this newsletter.

It's time to get to work.

Thank you for being.