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Today we’re going to be talking about trying to build a community and finding help when you feel like you don’t have help as a creator, when you feel isolated and alone. This is something that I know is absolutely impacting a lot of our fellow creators. Why? Because it’s the very reason we had to create a community.
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When I first got into freelance creative work as a musician, artist, and podcaster, every single time you start something, you usually start it without any support at all. You just feel like, “This is something I should try.” So you start the brand, you start the blog, you start the podcast. Very rarely do you have this team behind you at the beginning of a creator project.
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So you’re used to starting by yourself. You’re used to figuring it out. You’re used to being on your own.
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Now, you may ask questions on Facebook. You might, like me, have asked around. But for the most part, we tend to start our creative projects by ourselves.
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And then we quickly realize that in order to do all the things, we don’t have the capacity to do it by ourselves.
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So what happens? We either start desperately looking around for anyone that can help. We’ll go on Facebook. We’ll go on YouTube. We’ll do “YouTube University.” We’ll devour all that stuff. Maybe we do have a local community that we can go to.
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But the problem with each one of these situations is that when you start to ask around, you’re almost in a desperate kind of state. By the time you start asking people to connect with you, you’re feeling like, “Is there anyone that even cares about this? Do I really have to do this all by myself? Is this just going to fail because I don’t have the connections? I don’t have the network. I don’t have the resources or the finances? Is this project all just going to rely on me?”
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That’s a dangerous place to be as a creator because what mostly happens is, at this point, you start to have a do-or-die mentality. It’s, “I have to do it by myself or it’s going to die because I can’t get any help.”
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Both of those are unhealthy.
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To do or die as an independent creator implies, again, that this project entirely relies on you, that without you being able to push this engine, push this ball across the field, it’s just going to end up being a tremendous burden.
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In both cases, if you keep it going or if you give up, you’re feeling the pressure and the weight all by yourself. That’s what we want to avoid.
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So the question is: how do we avoid feeling this pressure?
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Well, I just mentioned it, but it’s easier said than done. Building community and finding support inside your local area or online isn’t easy, but it is so necessary.
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There’s no project, and I’ll stand on my soapbox at this point and kind of make this clear, because there are some people that feel like, “Hey, it’s a lone creator that just pushes everything forward and gets it done.” No project survives on its own.
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If you’ve ever had the same kind of feeling, where you felt like you had to do all the creative work by yourself almost as a badge of honor, I know I’ve been there. I’ve been there as a podcaster. I’ve been there as a musician, where I felt like just finishing everything by myself somehow validated the project, that I was the one that stuck it out to the end.
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But most of the time, the work that was done when I was by myself was not as good as it would have been if I had brought in somebody else.
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So first, let’s talk about where to find support from other people that are in a community.
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The first place is probably going to surprise you, and that would be your family and close friends.
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Usually, I know people say don’t rely on your family and close friends because they don’t really understand what you do. But the reason why I’m bringing them up is because a lot of times family and friends may not understand what you do, but they would love to support you while you do it in other ways.
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So maybe you have a family member or friend who has nothing to do with singing or art or drama, but they understand finances. Maybe you have somebody that’s really good at finding connections with other people or being able to handle administrative tasks, and they are in your family. And you’re like, “Hey, I’m trying to do this project. I know that I can’t pay you for this or can’t pay you for that, but would you help me with this specific role?”
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You’d be surprised how many family and friends are willing to step into certain roles to help you.
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So without them being involved entirely, they may be willing to make a couple of calls or to help you out in certain areas that would actually be hugely beneficial.
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And I’ll extend this a little further and say not just your family and friends, but then your creative community.
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Now, what if you don’t have a creative community in your neighborhood, in your area, or online?
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Well, of course, first I’m going to tell you God and Gigs 360 is one of those communities that can help you find other creators who will support you.
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But even if not, this happened with me in my podcasting journey. I didn’t know who to go to. I was really trying things by myself, and then finally I found Podfest.
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The Podfest community really was my doorway into actually realizing that podcasting could be a lifestyle and a career.
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So if you have not yet found that community, this is where you don’t just ask individuals. You don’t just go on Facebook and put out a random question. You join a community that’s already doing something similar to what you’re doing.
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That is the first key to becoming connected and taking away the isolation.
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Because by joining another community and finding out what they’re all about, you can then start the reciprocal process of not only helping others, but others helping you.
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But it’s so true that ask and it shall be given. You have to give, and then it’s given to you, right? So first you have to learn how to give and to be a part of a community before you can access the resources inside a community.
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This is something that’s super huge, but I don’t think a lot of creators realize this is not some kind of selfish networking ploy or tactic. This is literally how creators generally connect. They connect over shared problems, shared goals, shared dreams, or shared aspirations. And each one of us is then willing to help the other.
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It doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t help somebody that doesn’t know what I’m doing or how I do my podcasting or music or whatever. I would. But it’s so much more powerful when we share that same need and we can help each other.
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So if you are feeling isolated, the way to get out of it is not just to join the community, but to find someone who’s dealing with a problem that’s similar to a problem that you have dealt with and see if you can help them solve it.
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And then ask that person, “Hey, have you ever dealt with X or Y? I’m having this problem. Can you help me solve it?”
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The ability to find reciprocal issues and shared issues is huge in being able to reconnect, or to connect for the first time, with people who will actually help you get past the creative obstacle that you’re facing.
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And yes, I know a lot of times we think about this in terms of finances. Can I hire help? Can I hire an assistant?
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Sometimes that is true. You need to invest. I’ve done it. I have my own VA now. I did decide to invest in a person that would help me keep up with things. At certain points, she’s been more active, sometimes less. Her job position or job role has changed over time.
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But as my roles have increased, so has the amount of people that I need to help me. And this is another one of those things that you might not realize at the beginning of a project: it never stays the same size.
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So whereas at the beginning you might not have needed a big team, you might not have needed help, you thought you could do it all by yourself. But over time, your needs grow. Your team also should grow as your needs grow.
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And that’s the thing, again, that you may not think about at the beginning. But you need to start talking to yourself and saying, “Hey, who in my network could I start to look at as a potential partner as I start to build this thing out, and how can I help them?”
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This is how community works.
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Community works in the way that when you are helping others, they are looking out to help you. And again, if it’s an existing community, that’s great. However, some of us have to build our own communities.
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Again, you can look at God and Gigs, and we had to build the community from the ground up. And we’re still building with our app, our different places that we show up online. It’s all designed to draw people who need what we need, who need what we have, but also can supply stuff that we need. It’s reciprocal.
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It’s always been reciprocal in terms of who’s showing up, who’s helping, and how can we help them grow in their God-given artistic talent. That’s the goal. That’s always been the goal and always will be the goal.
10:05
So, I’ve given a couple of ideas in terms of how you can break out of isolation.
10:10
I heard this one question as well on one of the workshops that I was watching with Landanda Brown’s Bootstrap Biz Advice livestreams. And this is a great question. Maybe you’re in an isolated place where online is your only option, and you feel like you can’t get in person with people. You may feel like, “Okay, well, I just don’t have people in my neighborhood. I don’t have people in my city that understand me.”
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That may be true, but as Landa gave this advice, you may need to get in your car and drive a few miles and connect with people outside of your particular geographic area.
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Why do I say that?
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Because once again, it’s the same thing as going to conferences. It’s the same thing as connecting with communities. Sometimes you have to get out of your comfort zone, out of the place where you’re used to finding people, in order to make connections where people can actually help you move forward in your creator lifestyle.
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It’s so important that you not get stuck in just thinking, “Oh, if they come to me, if I build this thing and they come to me, then that’s my community, that’s my audience.”
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It usually doesn’t work that way.
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You have to start by going out, going out to people, and being open and honest and available to help them. Then they start to come out and help you. And that’s where you break the isolation that could be felt when you’re not getting the help that you need and you feel like you’re wearing all the hats.
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You’re wearing the administrative hat, the creator hat, the marketing hat, all the hats that you’re wearing. If you’re able to get people around you in a community where you can ask specific questions and get specific answers because you are being a part of the community, you’re going to find a lot of those issues start to go away.
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All right, so our last section, as always, is our prescriptions.
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And very often our prescription is: join the membership. Join God and Gigs 360.
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But the easiest way to do that is to join our Creator Resource Center. If you go to godandgigs.com/crc, you’ll see a link to the Creator Resource Center. And that is where you can get access to all of our workshops, Bible study workshops, creative work workshops, workshops on how to balance and get your time back, and how to manage your schedule, which we just recorded with Julie last week. All that’s inside the Creator Resource Center.
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Plus, you get access to our app. Plus, you get access to the forums. Plus, you get to ask questions of your fellow creators who hang out all the time. And they are so active, so blessed, and so fun to be around.
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So, I would love for you to be a part of God and Gigs 360. Again, the easiest way to join is CRC, or you can upgrade to our live coaching.
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I would love to see you guys there. But until then, until we meet again, continue to become the creator that you were created to be.
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God bless, and we’ll see you next time.
