Cat Rose is on a mission to help other creatives to get over their fears of self-promotion and to get their work seen and shared.
She does this through 1-to-1 coaching and an online members community called the League of Creative Introverts. It's a safe, quiet space for creatives to share their work openly, learn from others and get all the support they need on their journey.
Cat, first of all thank you for coming on the show, I wanted to let you start out by expounding upon that intro and really getting into what your kind-of personal mission is and what your mission is with the League of Creative Introverts.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/172
-How The League of Creative Introverts started and her mission behind it.
-How many creative introverts might be comfortable creating their work, but sharing and promoting it is very difficult for them to do.
-Some of the “icky subjects” that she helps people to think about.
-The value of being able to commiserate and work through problems with other people and to realize that you aren’t alone with your creative shyness.
-Why people squirm so much at the thought of self-promotion.
-The power in finding your niche.
-Understanding the different types of fear and realizing that the fear of self-promotion isn’t the same fear of potential death.
-The difference between “dipping your toes” and “diving in.”
-Dealing with the fact that you are going to not be good at something when you first start.
-The gulf that sometimes exists between our “online self” and our “real self.”
-Dealing with the inner critic and imposter syndrome.”
-Reasons why you might not be reaching your creative goals.
-Breaking your goals down into daily metrics and then evaluating yourself on a 1-5 scale.
“Doing the work wasn’t actually the biggest struggle. It was getting people to see it.”
“Your audience finds you in a way.”
“It’s really hard for our ego to take the fact that we are going to suck when we first start something. Can I take that initial “sucking” for the long-term benefit of actually being pretty good at something?”
“It takes a lot of guts to say what we are or what we aspire to be. Because that inner critic is saying to us, ‘who are you to say that you’re an artist?’ or ‘Prove it.’”
“Remember that people like Tom Hanks and Neil Gaiman still claim to have imposter syndrome. So that really reassures me that if they still have that then my inner critic means nothing.”
“Actually, you can.”
The Places that Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times by Pema Chodron
7 reasons why you might not be reaching your creative goals
Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin