Sometimes, I feel the pressure to be funny all the time.
If social media is a dance, then humor is the lady who brought me through the door.
But I want to write business books that help people chase their dreams too and classes that dare you to hustle.
And poetry.
And tweets that are about none of the above.
But then I remember my training in branding. People need to know who you are. They need to know what you’re all about. If you can’t clearly communicate that, they won’t know what to do with you.
So, who are you?
I hear that voice, from myself and from strangers and I feel as if I am failing a test with only one question. This blog doesn’t have a consistent voice. I’ve heard that dozens of times from others and millions of times from myself. Perhaps I am the only one who does not possess a neat, tweetable summary of their purpose.
Who am I?
The answer is I don’t know.
Or maybe I do. Maybe I’ve always known, I’ve just been too scared to say it out loud.
I’m an artist.
I’m an artist with a backpack of paints.
Some days, I reach in and pull out a business idea and a fine tipped brush. I paint neat entrepreneur lines and hustle and dream and help boomers find their second career and millennials find their first.
Other days, I reach in and pull out a balloon filled with bright colors. I throw it against the canvas and laugh at the splatter of life and faith and ridiculousness because making people laugh is fun.
Other days, I grab a grab a thick brush that makes my hand feel small like a child. I return to something more poetic, to simple rhymes from simple times when watching the ocean from the roof with my dad was all that mattered to a second grader.
Other days, I grab a can of spray paint and tweet about bears and queso and fanny packs or as you might know them “opposite sex repellant.” It is a temporary blurb, here for a minute but gone in the next. Disposable art.
I’ve tried to make sense of all of it, tried to synthesize it all into one focused conversation. Some days I wish I only cared about one thing and could write about one thing and could just do one thing. My kingdom for an all-consuming passion in knitting.
But that’s not who I am.
I’m an artist.
And art is never just one thing.
So I guess I won’t be either.