THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman: How do you know if you’re actually ready for a pivot, or if you’re just having a panic response to a lack of instant gratification? Because when artists hit a wall, they confuse discomfort with misalignment. But not all friction is assigned to turn back. A true pivot is usually very boring and calm. It doesn’t come after one of these trigger moments. It will sound something like this. The data tells me something isn’t resonating.
Speaker 2: It’s the Inspiration Place podcast with artist Miriam Schulman. Welcome to the Inspiration Place podcast, an Art World Inside a podcast for artists by an artist, where each week we go behind the scenes to uncover the perspiration and inspiration behind the art. And now your host, Miriam Schulman.
Miriam Schulman: Hey there. It’s Miriam Schulman here. You’re curator of inspiration. And today we’re talking all about artist tantrums. Have you had one? You know I have. That is what today’s episode is about. But before we get into that, I just wanted to catch you up with a few things, my friend, because it’s been a while since you and I have chatted. Just the two of us. And I’m a grandma now. How crazy is that? So my son had a baby. By the time we go to edit this, maybe I’ll have a picture or two to share. Okay, so now let’s talk about artist tantrums. So this is when you feel like your business or your art or your art business, whatever it is, isn’t going anywhere. And maybe you should just give it all up. I did have these moments with my art business as well in the very beginning. Like I would get a rejection from a juried show and I would just be in a puddle of tears. So that hasn’t happened in a long time. Not that I get accepted to everything, I just am not as hooked by it. But I also have those moments with my business right now as a coach where I’m just like, oh, I just want to go work in Bloomingdales and not have to work so hard. So I’ve been there and you feel it’s going nowhere, and maybe you should just give it all up so you’re not alone.
Miriam Schulman: You’re not alone. But before you torch the whole thing down. Before you burn down the business. What this episode is about is ask yourself the harder question. Did you build the house enough to begin with? So here’s what we’re going to talk about today. We’re going to talk about the emotional spiral of artist tantrums when you have perhaps the illusion of effort and why the results might take longer than your nervous system wants to. But here’s the truth. I’m going to say this right from the get go is that our brains hate uncertainty. We hate it. So you almost rather have the certainty of failure than the uncertainty of what if it succeeds? Maybe it will succeed. I don’t know if this is going to work out. That’s way more uncomfortable than knowing that it’s not going to work out at all. And that’s why we so easily self-sabotage, because our brain wants to go to the place where we know it hasn’t worked. Or maybe you chose to not have it work. So let’s pretend this is you. You’ve posted, you’ve emailed, maybe even showed up in an art fair, smiling through that heartache of nobody stopping at your booth. The silence of no sales. And maybe it feels like nothing’s working. But here’s the truth. That nobody likes to say out loud. Sometimes. Sometimes what we call effort is actually scattered energy.
Miriam Schulman: And sometimes what we call strategy is wishful thinking. Or is, I like to say, hope and watch and hope is not a strategy. And more often than not, the reason you’re not seeing results is not because your art isn’t good enough or your niche is wrong, or your audience is wrong, but because your nervous system is craving safety rather than success. So in this episode, we’re going to talk about artist tantrums, the illusion of effort, and why results take longer than your brain wants to wait. Before we dive into the artist tantrum spiral. You know the moment when everything feels pointless and you’re ready to throw your entire business in the trash? I want to give you a way out. If you’re feeling stuck, spinning, or second guessing everything or anything. What you might need is a fresh set of eyes. That’s what we do. Inside my portfolio review, I’ll look at your art and the direction that you’re going in. And if you have more than one bodies of work, help you choose the most profitable direction to go in. I’ll tell you what’s working, what you might be missing, and where to actually focus. You actually start seeing results, not spiraling. Don’t spiral. Get support. So if that’s something that you know you need. Head on over to SchulmanArt.com/proreview and book your review today. All right. So now let’s get into artist tantrums. The artist tantrum spiral.
Miriam Schulman: So an artist tantrum is that burn it all down moment. Maybe nobody’s buying, or maybe some people are buying, but just not enough. And perhaps it feels like nothing seems to work. You’re ready to throw your paints or your pricing strategy into the trash. So I know it’s hard for us to see it in ourselves. So what I’m going to do today is going to share a bunch of stories. All of them are true stories. But don’t worry, I’ve changed pretty much everybody’s name, so nobody’s embarrassed. So I’m going to tell you about AKA an incredibly talented artist. Her work is soulful. It’s solid, it’s bold. It’s the kind of art you don’t just look at. You feel. And Erica have been working behind the scenes for months to build her collection. She wrote the emails. Actually, she didn’t write the emails. We’ll talk about that in a moment. And she even invested on in getting professional photos taken, so she felt like she had been doing everything right. I mean, at least she had been working very hard, but no sales. Very few likes on Instagram. Some polite love your work comments. The no collectors, nobody opening their wallets. Not even a nibble. So what did Erica do? She spiraled. Within 72 hours, she was ready to burn it all down, scrap the entire collection, change her entire niche, rewrite her bio, redesign her website, she told herself.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, it’s the pricing. Oh, maybe my art is too weird. Or maybe it’s not weird enough. And she even asked me, should she go back to just doing pet portraits? Because at least those used to sell. That, my friend, is what we call an artist tantrum. It’s the moment where your emotions stage a coup and try to take everything down you’ve built. And it usually sounds like this isn’t working. Maybe I’m not cut out for this or the classic. I need to start over. And listen, I get it. I’ve been there too. Like I said, that’s my joke, that I should. I should just be working at Bloomingdale’s. At least I’d get the discount. But here’s the part. Most people miss the voice that’s telling you to burn it all down. It’s not your intuition. You know, the two shoulders, the angel and the devil. It’s not your intuition. It’s your nervous system. It’s panic dressed up as strategy. And it’s fear in a power blazer. So we’re going to talk about this emotional spiral. Why it happens, how to spot it before you light the match, and what to do instead of starting over. Because sometimes the reason you’re not seeing results is because you actually haven’t given your plan a real chance to work. Maybe you tried a strategy once. Or maybe you tried it twice. So we’re going to talk about what the common tantrum triggers are.
Miriam Schulman: Maybe ghosting from a potential client. Maybe it’s a low email open rate. Maybe it’s poor art show results. Maybe it’s a friend who says they want to buy it, but then they don’t. Maybe it’s rejection from a gallery or juried show. Like I said, it used to put me into a pile of tears. The other thing that would put me into a pile of tears is like, if I were to attend a show where there was, nobody was stopping at my booth. I’m like, oh my God, what am I doing wrong? Now let’s talk about perceived effort versus real consistency. Let me take you back a few years. There was an artist I coached and we’re going to call her Emily. She is an artist living in Colorado and a painter with this really elegant sensibility to her work. Very intuitive. It had a sense of stillness. It had a story to it. You could, like, you could really just fall into her canvas and land in a whole nother world. And on paper, she was ready to grow. I mean, I interviewed her for my artist in her circle, and that’s where we really got to know each other. So she had joined my high level coaching program because she said, I know I’m meant to take this further. But somewhere along the way, Emily started unraveling on one of our group coaching calls, which was the few that she showed up to.
Miriam Schulman: This is what she said. I’ve tried everything. Instagram emails, a launch and nothing is landing. And maybe I’m not cut out for this. Now, this particular one that Emily shared this with, with a chance Sean’s call, which so Sean was sharing this with me and I said, really, Emily? Emily hasn’t tried everything. Emily doesn’t even have an email list. So the next time I saw Emily, I said, hey, can I share something with you? And she not? I said, Emily, I don’t think you’ve actually tried everything. I think you’ve tried a few things once, maybe twice, but your nervous system is calling it a failure before the data has had a chance to show up. Oh. That hurt. Sometimes I have to tell my clients the truth and risk the relationship. She got very quiet. I could tell the words had landed, but they also stunk. Because here’s what’s true. She had missed most of her one on one calls. She hadn’t written a single email in Flow Desk, even though she had set it up, and the only time she reached out to her collectors, which was an email I received. She had sent like from her personal account, a BCC blast from her personal Gmail. That’s not the strategy I teach. No subject line, no visual, no clear offer. So she was trying to shortcut the system instead of showing up for it.
Miriam Schulman: And yet. And yet she was saying things like, I’ve done all the things. I followed the launch plan. I’m not seeing the result. So that was her tantrum moment. And listen, I don’t say that with judgment, but I say it with love because I get it. Because it does feel like you’re working really hard. And it’s not that you’re not working hard, you are working hard, but you’re not following the plan and you’re not giving it a chance to work. It feels like you’ve done enough, but you’re not getting engagement. You’re not getting sales, you’re not getting response. And yes, that is demoralizing. So maybe you start to question your talent, your audience, your entire existence as an artist. But here’s the story. The thing that, with Emily’s specific example taught me and I’ve seen in so many other artists, is this sometimes we rather believe we’re failing than face the discomfort of follow through. It’s safer to say this isn’t working. Rather than looking at our actual effort and admit that we haven’t shown up with the kind of consistency that success demands. Which is why next week I invited both Sapphire. She is a member of the Artist Incubator program, not even my inner circle. And she talks about how important consistency is. I can’t wait for you to get that episode, so make sure you’re subscribed to my channel so that you will tune into that. Okay, let’s circle back to Emily.
Miriam Schulman: The wild part is, Emily had moments of success. She did have a few decent sales and collect her interest, but every time something started to build, she backed away. She didn’t follow up. She didn’t nurture the lead. She didn’t send the next email. So she wasn’t burning down a house she had built. She was torching the foundation before it could settle. I’ve talked about this. This is like you plant the seeds, but instead of watering them, you’re digging up the plants to see if there’s roots there. So let me add a quick coaching insight. There’s a big difference between knowing what to do and doing it consistently enough to get results. The blame game. The blame game. All right, here’s where it gets really human. After Emily’s nothing is working moment, she started pulling away, not just from her work, but from the program. You could feel it. The subtext became, well. Maybe this coaching isn’t for me. Maybe this strategy only works for some artists. And honestly, unfortunately, that’s normal. I know Brooke Castillo talks about this all the time. She. If you’re not familiar with her, she has the life coach school and the Life Coach School podcast. And she works with a lot of people who are building life coaching businesses. And she sees that when her clients are getting results, their brain has two options either a take responsibility for what they haven’t done or be.
Miriam Schulman: Blame the coach. Blame the system. Blame the container. And guess which one is easier? Blaming the system protects our identity. It says, oh, it’s not that I didn’t show up, it’s that the strategy doesn’t work for me or this coaching isn’t a good fit for me. So it’s a nice clean, emotional exit, but it also guarantees you never got. But it also guarantees you never get what you came for. So here is what I’ve learned both as a coach and a human. Because like I said, I’m guilty too. Is whenever you find yourself wanting to burn down the house, fire the coach, burn the plan, reinvent everything from scratch. That’s the moment to pause and check in. Am I rejecting the system or am I avoiding the discipline it asks of me? Because coaching doesn’t work unless you do. It doesn’t matter if you sign up for my coaching program, read my book, listen to the podcast, or work with somebody else. None of these things work. Trying it just once or trying it. Sort of. You have to try it many times. It’s kind of like, um, a child learning to speak or a baby learning to walk. You can’t just try it once. And if you fall down, say, oh, I guess walking is not for you, love or speaking. You know, when babies first learn to speak. I remember my son. It was buh.
Miriam Schulman: Everything was buh. So we used to call him the buck up because, you know, ball was buh, bottle was buh. Everything was buh buh. He can talk now. Strategies don’t fail overnight. What fails is our willingness to stay in the discomfort long enough to let them work. The blame game versus the breakthrough. So what happens next after that tantrum moment? The it’s not working. Should I quit? Should I change my niche? Should I change my audience? Should I change my art? Many artists reach for blame. And I get it. If you’re not seeing results, your brain will do anything to protect your ego. Blame the coach. Blame the strategy. You’ll say, well, this must only work for other people. Maybe it doesn’t work for people like me. Maybe it doesn’t work for artists like me. Maybe you might even start secretly scrolling other programs or fantasizing about a new niche, because reinventing feels safer than recommitting. I’ve seen this also a lot to artists who they’re getting. They’re making some progress, and suddenly they’ve abandoned their watercolor portraits and their watercolor animals, which are so beautiful, and suddenly they’re doing cartoon art. And I’m like, whoa, what happened? Why didn’t she stick with it? She was doing so well. Here’s what’s crazy, though. The exact system that Emily gave up on is the one that both boasts sapphire, used to cross $100,000 in sales in less than a year.
Miriam Schulman: That’s why she’s coming to the podcast next week. Beau came into the incubator selling prints, hustling at art shows. She was exhausted, but instead of burning it down, she raised her prices. She adapted. She figured out where she can bring her most expensive art. Which ones? She can bring less expensive art. She leaned into email. And English is not her first language. She worked through that discomfort of sending emails. Same plan, same framework. Radically different outcome. Or take Megan Mayberry, who, by the way, I just I just love her stuff. I bought her headdress when she first joined. She was still teaching full time and making just 7000 in her business. She could have said, I don’t have time. I’m a full time teacher. I’m exhausted. I don’t know how to market, but she didn’t. She worked the progress. She did the training. She raised her prices. She committed to building an email list. She did the publicity. And last month, she quit her teaching job. And she’s full time in her art business now. And these are not unicorns. These are artists who did the unsexy work of staying in the game after the tantrum, working through the discomfort. So if you feel like nothing is working, I want you to check in. Did you actually send the emails? And not just once, but every week, week after week? Did you follow up with people who were interested in your art? Did you show up to coaching sessions that you’ve paid for even when you didn’t feel like it? Have you stayed consistent for more than a few weeks, or are you judging your results from a half finished plan? Because the system does work, but it doesn’t work instantly, and it definitely doesn’t work passively.
Miriam Schulman: It’s not a hope and watch. It’s not watch video and hope it’s not. Listen to a podcast and hope you have to bring your whole self to the process. Messy, scared, inconsistent sometimes, but still willing. And when you do well, you might just become the next Beau or Megan or Emily if she ever decides to come back and actually build what she’s trying to burn down. Coming up, I’m going to share exactly what to do instead of burning it all down. Because yes, there is a better way than trashing your prices or ghosting your list. But first, if you’re stuck in that, is it me or is it my marketing? Well, I’ve got something that will give you clarity. Fast. It’s my portfolio review, so I will personally review your art and tell you if your niche is resonating, if your prices are aligned, and whether your work is positioned to sell. Or maybe a shift is really necessary so you don’t have to guess. You don’t have to spiral. You just need some smart, honest, professional feedback. I’ve coached hundreds of artists and by now I know what works.
Miriam Schulman: So head on over to SchulmanArt.com/proreview so that you can join us. All right. So now let’s get back to the show and talk about what to do instead of lighting a match and walking away from your business. What to do instead of burning it all down? Let’s get practical. Do you want to pause, pivot, or panic? Or maybe none of those things. Let’s get very practical. How do you know if you’re actually ready for a pivot, or if you’re just having a panic response to a lack of instant gratification? Because here’s what I’ve seen over and over again. When artists hit a wall, they confuse discomfort with misalignment. They think because something feels hard, it must be wrong. But not all friction is assigned to turn back. Sometimes friction is just you meeting your next growth edge. So let’s talk about Adam now. One of my clients from a few years back, Adam, is a fine artist. He creates large scale, abstract, are rich in texture and meaning. And he came to a coaching call and said, I think I picked the wrong niche. My work is too emotional and people don’t get it. And maybe I should be a little more commercial. So at first glance, he was convincing himself it was time to pivot. But when we zoomed out, I asked him, well, have you sent any of the partnership pitches we mapped out? No, he said, have you emailed your list with your new collection? Oh, actually, I haven’t finished the list set up yet.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, okay. So have you followed up with that gallery that showed interest in your larger pieces? Another long pause. I meant to. So he was not ready to pivot. What he was doing was hiding, and I told him that with love, because Adam did not need a new niche and he didn’t need a new audience, and he didn’t need to change his prices. What he needed to do was to move through the resistance that came from being truly seen and yes, potentially rejected. But he was choosing failure in advance by not doing the work. He paused. So after our frank discussion, he stuck with the original plan. He sent out those emails and he booked a $6,000 commission three weeks later. That’s not magic. That’s what happens when you stay instead of scrambling. So how can you tell the difference? Here’s a few signs. It’s time to pause and take a hard look and not pivot. Well, you’ve only executed your plan for a few weeks, not months. You haven’t done the core actions consistently, which means emailing follow ups. Showing up. Your desire to change directions comes after an emotional trigger, a bad show, a ghosted email, low engagement. On the other hand, a true pivot it is usually very boring and calm.
Miriam Schulman: It doesn’t come after one of these trigger moments. It doesn’t come from a meltdown. It comes from clarity. It will sound something like this. I’ve given this my full energy. I’ve done the steps and the data tells me something isn’t resonating. But if you’re reacting from a place of urgency, frustration, or disappointment, you don’t need a new direction. Maybe you need a reset. Maybe you need just a nap. Definitely a coach. That’s a pause, not a pivot. So let me give you the example of Ned. Ned thought his strongest direction was pet portraits, and actually, initially I agreed. However, when he went to do art shows, they weren’t getting the same interest as his abstract art. So this pivot was based on data. Now, Adam thought his problem was his art. That his work was too emotional, too vulnerable to niche. But I’ve also seen the flip side of that spiral artists who blame not their art, but their audience. These artists will say, my people aren’t just out there or this niche doesn’t respond. So that’s why next, I want to tell you about Julien. Don’t pivot before you’ve even shown up. Let’s talk about Julian. Julian’s a photographer and mixed media artist. He lives in a mid-sized city in this Pacific Northwest, and he creates work that’s inspired by light reflection, urban isolation. It’s gorgeous. It’s haunting. It’s beautiful in a way. Quiet, thoughtful, incredibly well executed.
Miriam Schulman: But on a coaching call a while back, Julian came in sounding like this. Defeated, he said, I think maybe I chose the wrong audience. My stuff is too niche. I’ve been trying to get in front of the right people, but nothing’s catching. And he was spiraling into reinvention. Maybe he needed to shift to subject matter. Maybe he should scrap the art and focus on prints. Maybe his collector didn’t even exist. Now I know that story. I’ve lived that story. But I also know when someone is trying to run away before they even walked through the door. So I asked him, okay, before we throw everything out, let’s walk through the visibility strategy. So he paused. Well, I posted a few times, he said. I did send out one email. One email. I asked. I wrote down in my notes for this podcast. I asked gently, I don’t think I ever asked things gently, by the way. One email. Let’s be honest. One email. Hell no. Yeah. And then he meant to do the visibility sprint that I taught, but he got overwhelmed and it felt like too much and I didn’t want to be too annoying. Oh, there it is. The two annoying. There it was. Julian was not being rejected. He just actually hadn’t reached his audience yet. There is a truism in marketing that it takes 7 to 8 touchpoints before somebody buys 7 to 8. He sent one email, so that hit him hard.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. That’s why people come to me. They want my New Yorker ass kicking because like so many artists, he thought his silence meant something about his art, but it didn’t. It just meant he was trying to pivot before he even planted, like I said. Don’t dig up the plants while they’re still growing roots to check what’s going on there. You got to let those plants lay there. You got to water them. You got to nurture them. You got to give it time. So then he committed to sending weekly emails for a month and to pitching three aligned platforms. And guess what? One of those pitches landed. A regional art magazine featured his work, and not long after, he got his first gallery inquiry from someone who read that article. And this was all because he stopped pivoting and finally showed up. So if you’re feeling like your audience isn’t right, ask yourself, have I actually talked to them enough yet? Or am I assuming they’re not interested because I’m scared to be visible. Don’t change the destination when you haven’t even left the driveway. Bonus pattern this is the shame shutdown. Some artists, they don’t spin, they don’t pivot, but they just disappear. So let me tell you about Lena. Lena launched a new collection. She put care into the art. She wrote the emails, she crafted beautiful posts. But the launch didn’t go the way she hoped.
Miriam Schulman: The response was quiet. A few likes, a couple of kind messages, but she didn’t get the sales she wanted. And instead of pushing through, instead of asking for feedback, maybe recalibrating her strategy, she ghosted. She stopped emailing. She stopped posting. She even skipped some coaching calls. When we finally connected, she admitted that she was embarrassed. I thought if I didn’t sell anything, I shouldn’t show my face. Lena’s story is a reminder that sometimes we don’t burn things down with fire. We do it with silence. We vanish. We wait for the shame to pass, hoping no one notices. But here’s the truth. Hiding does not heal anything. Visibility after the flop is where trust is built, both with your audience and yourself. That was Kris Holt’s biggest success. Driver. That episode already aired. We’ll link to that one in the show notes. But his problem is very similar or was similar to a lot of the artists we’ve discussed in today’s episode. His energy was scattered. He was doing Shiny Object, and he wasn’t focused enough to give it time for the plan to work. Once he did focus, all kinds of great things started happening. Now, if you’ve gone quiet out of fear or shame, let this be your sign. Let this be a sign from the universe. And this is your invitation to return. Not with an apology. There’s no need to apologize, but with self-compassion and a plan.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, so let’s say you’re in it. You’re staring at your inbox, your unsold art and your studio, your flat Instagram post and everything in you wants to shut it all down, delete your website and start over as, I don’t know, a goat farmer. All right. Pause for a moment before you do anything impulsive. Here are five things to do instead of burning it all down. Number one, take a 24 hour, no decision. Pause. If you’re in an emotional spiral, do not make big business decisions. Your job is not to pivot. It’s to regulate sleep. Hydrate. Walk. Vent in your journal. Whatever you do, don’t reprice your work at midnight. Delete all your social content. Yes. That’s happened. Give your brain space to land before you act. Number two audit your actual consistency. Print your calendar. Pull up your email software. Look at your content. Did you really stick with your plan? Did you post for ten days? Did you send one email and then ghost? Success doesn’t come from one loud week. It comes from 12 consistent ones in a row. You’d be surprised how many failed strategies were just abandoned too early. Look at J.K. Rowling. The reports vary, but I know I think she submitted to like 30 publishers. This is why the the publisher she finally got her book published with was not random House. It wasn’t Harpercollins, it wasn’t Penguin, it wasn’t Simon and Schuster.
Miriam Schulman: It was elastic because all those other ones had said no to her, but she didn’t give up after those ones said no to her. She kept on going until they found a publisher that would publish Harry Potter. She didn’t give up. She kept going. What did she did give up after eight rejections. When busy, looks like progress. Okay, so next I want to tell you about Nina. Nina is one of those artists who does everything. She’s always moving, setting up booths at events, sending emails, posting to Instagram, creating new work. From the outside, she looks like she’s doing all the things. And yeah, she’s always doing. She’s always in motion. However, when Nina started working with me, what I noticed was she was tired. She was frustrated. She was on the edge. I’ve done the events, I send, the emails I’ve posted. I’m doing all the things and nothing’s working. I feel like I’m doing this for no one. And I could feel the heartbreak underneath those words that ache we’ve all felt when we’re putting in our work and out in the world. So when I asked her, okay, well, let’s look at what you’ve actually done. Not from judgment, but from curiosity. So we looked at the emails and she’d sent out to both on the same weekend as her launch. No warm up. No build up? No follow up. And we looked at her events.
Miriam Schulman: Three of them all back to back. All local. All exhausting. No email collection strategy, no offers made, no post-event nurture. And we looked at our Instagram, a flurry of posts around the time of her launch, and then radio silence. So here’s the truth. Nina wasn’t lazy. She wasn’t flaky. She was busy. But busy doesn’t always equal progress. Because like, if it comes in these little flurries and then nothing, you’re hustling for scraps of validation instead of building real momentum. And her nervous system was an overdrive chasing the dopamine hits from likes, hoping that if she did enough, the algorithm or the universe or the art gods would just notice her and hand her a win. But that’s not how this works. You don’t get traction from panic. You get traction from patterned consistency. Even when no one’s watching. Especially then. And I told her, Nina, I believe you’ve worked really hard, but you’re also scattered. You’re trying to outrun the void with busyness. Instead of building a system that holds you through those silent times. And then she broke down and cried because she realized she wasn’t broken. She wasn’t a failure. She just hadn’t given anything, enough time to work. And from there, she recalibrated. She did not burn it all down. She slowed it down. Sometimes you have to go slower to go faster. So she started building her email list intentionally. She began nurturing leads instead of chasing random engagement, and she showed up differently.
Miriam Schulman: Not louder, but clearer. And that’s where the magic started to happen. Number three look for micro wins. Track what’s actually working. Even if it’s one collector DM that’s data. Don’t overlook momentum just because it’s small. So before you toss your strategy, find the seeds that somebody reply with interest. Did you get more clicks than usual? Did you make one sale from New Effort? Small signs are proof that the engine’s warming up. Don’t kill the car before the wheels even move. Both Sapphire had months where she didn’t break even at shows, but because she kept collecting emails and nurturing leads, those early failures snowballed into $100,000 in revenue. Number four. Get out of your echo chamber. You can connect with a coach. If it’s not me. It’s somebody else. You can connect with your pod or your creative circle. Call them. Go to your pod. Rant, but don’t rewrite. You can’t recalibrate your direction in a vacuum. This is where you let somebody else reflect the truth back to you lovingly. But clearly, Emily did not get that clarity until she came to a coaching and realized she hadn’t actually run the play. Accountability cuts through a lot of emotional fog. Number five reconnect with your original. Why? Why did you choose this audience? Why do you want to sell this kind of work? Why did you raise your prices? Go back to the moment before it got hard.
Miriam Schulman: Before the fear crept in and remember who you were then, because that version of you didn’t build something just to burn it down. Final words you’re not behind. You’re not broken. But results do take longer than your nervous system wants to wait. You got to give your work the time it deserves and give yourself the credit for staying the game, even when it’s hard. This is how you become the artist who succeeds. All right, so if you’ve been sitting in that uncomfortable space wondering if you should lower your prices, change your knees, scrap your style, or just burn the whole thing down? I hope this episode helped you take a breath, because maybe it’s not your art. Maybe it’s not your audience. Maybe it’s just your nervous system reacting to the silence too soon. What you don’t need is another impulsive pivot. What you might need is a fresh pair of eyes on your work. Someone who can tell you if your art is positioned to sell. If your message is connecting, or if a shift is truly warranted. So that’s one of the things we do inside the portfolio review. If you’re wondering, I’m ready to help you. Go to SchulmanArt.com/proreview to book your spot. Don’t burn it down. Let’s look at it first. All right, my friend, thanks so much for joining me here today. I’ll see you the same time, same place next week. Until then, stay inspired. Goodbye.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to The Inspiration Place podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/schulmanart, on Instagram @schulmanart and of course, on SchulmanArt.com.
Subscribe & Review in iTunes
Are you subscribed to my podcast? If you’re not, I want to encourage you to do that today. I don’t want you to miss an episode. I’m adding a bunch of bonus episodes to the mix and if you’re not subscribed there’s a good chance you’ll miss out on those. Click here to subscribe in iTunes!
Now if you’re feeling extra loving, I would be really grateful if you left me a review over on iTunes, too. Those reviews help other people find my podcast and they’re also fun for me to go in and read. Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” and let me know what your favorite part of the podcast is. Thank you!