88: Shawn Coss on Being a Popular Artist, Defining Your Success, and Business Being Hard Work

Shawn Coss grew up loving cartoons, but never dreamed it could become his full-time job. He grew up in a time and place where art wasn't considered a viable career.

His dad told him he should get a "real job" instead of pursuing his dreams. The thought was, you could only be a professional artist if you went to an art institute, or learned at Disney. Like most people who grow up in difficult financial situations, Shawn's dad didn't want Shawn to grow up with the same hardships he had to go through.

Shawn hit his first break when he met Kris Wilson of Cyanhide and Happiness through MySpace. Kris liked Shawn's work so much, that he invited him to work on the C&H team.

Cyanide and Happiness provided Shawn enough financial stability to start his own clothing company, Any Means Necessary. One of the clothing company's campaigns, Inktober, brought an influx of fans and attention.

This brings Shawn to a an exciting but difficult crossroads. Should he go all-in on his company or keep it as a side hustle.

In this episode, Shawn talks about why there's no formula for becoming a popular artist, defining success on your own terms, and why running an art business is such hard work, among many other things.

Here are three things you can learn from Shawn:

There's No Secret Formula For Becoming Popular

When we see other artists living out their dreams, we often wonder how they achieved success. We want to know exactly what they did so we can copy their path.

The problem is, there is no secret formula for becoming a popular artist. There's no shortcut for gaining raving fans. Sometimes all it takes is a little luck. Here's how Shawn explains his break in the art world.

"When people ask me 'How did I do it?' I always tell them 'Look, I was just super lucky.' I've been gifted this ability to draw well enough to where other people, large masses, appreciate it, but the chances of someone like Kris Wilson, someone of his caliber, having a company that popular, finding me, was just a needle in a haystack. He could have messaged anyone else he wanted... but at that moment he messaged me. And that kind of changed my life."

One thing you can do to keep your sanity is, stop chasing the idea of being a popular artist. Popularity comes when people appreciate your art. It's not something you can manufacture.

"I'll have other artists message me, and be like 'How do I become a popular artist?' Well that's your first mistake, because you're trying to be a popular artist. I never pursued the popular art, I just did artwork and unfortunately, not everyone gets to do it."

Define Success on Your Own Terms

Success is such a subjective thing. My version of success is different from yours, which is why it's so hard for artists to define what success means.

We all think that once we "make it", everything will get easier. But as Shawn explains, there's no such thing as making it. There's only re-defining your goals.

"There is no making it as an artist. You make it to a point, but there's always another point. There's always a next level to get to or achieve to."

One of the problems many of us encounter as artists is the ups and downs of being a creative. One day everything is going great and everyone loves your work. The next day there's radio silence.

That's the problem with riding the wave of social media success. We have no control over who sees our posts. We are at the whims of Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter.

"It's definitely a weird emotional ride because some days you're riding cloud nine and everything's awesome, and then maybe in a week or two, there's nothing happening. You're not getting the accolades that you're used to and I feel like social media has a lot to blame on this because I feel we are programmed in a way... to chase these likes and these shares and all these accolades on social media that really have no weight to anything."

Social media provides that jolt of endorphins we all crave. But what do these likes and hearts really mean? When it comes to our success as artists, they feel great, but they don't really mean anything. They don't help our businesses. They don't build our fan base. They are just vanity metrics.

We need to stop chasing the shallow feeling of success social media provides us. We need to redefine our goals based on tangible success instead of our social media stats.

"How do I get that, how do I chase that back? I feel like that's been a huge issue. That happiness we get, a lot of it is being fueled by social media, and a lot of these new artists are wanting that notoriety on social media, but it's such a shallow feeling."

Running an Art Business Takes Hard Work

Many of us fantasize about growing our art hobby into a business, but there's a lot that goes into making a business work. You are going to face hardships and low moments. So the best way to deal with it is to grow a thick skin.

"Grow a thick f*cking skin. I think that's a good one because there's going to be a lot of down times, a lot of hardships you're going to go through. I thought there were a lot more downs than there were ups initially and that weeds out a lot of people. And then giving yourself time to figure out 'How long will I pursue this before I say, okay, this isn't going to happen," and I think being honest with yourself is one of the hardest things to do."

At some point in our journeys we will question whether or not we should continue pursuing art as a career. The reality is, not everyone can make it as an artist. Not everyone is going to find success. Sometimes we have to be brutally honest with ourselves.

"You just have to say 'Do I really want to keep pursuing this to make it successful, or in reality, is this going to be successful? Maybe it's not going to be successful, maybe it's not going to.' And maybe I'm wrong to say that as an artist who is successful, but again, not everyone is going to be successful. That's the reality of it. Otherwise we'd all be rich. We'd all be doing it. and some people can do it, and some people can't."

Running a sustainable art business takes a lot of work. It's not for everyone. Don't think just because you are doing what you love that everything will go smoothly. Be prepared to put in the work.

"It's not a popular thing because I don't think a lot of artists like to discourage other artists, but it's a hard thing. It's a lot of work. I tell artists I work more doing this than I've ever worked any nine to five job. I'm working day in and day out... and it doesn't bother me but it's definitely not for the weak who want to draw a picture once every couple of weeks and sit on their laurels."

If you fantasize about resting on your laurels as an artist, you might want to reconsider your path. Just because you make art for a living doesn't mean you get to just create for a few hours and call it a day. There's a business involved too, and running a business takes hard work.

"People think as an artist I draw a piece of art and I just get to hang out all day. I'm working so much all the time... There's a lot of work involved... No, there's a business in there too. I think that's where you get that separation of people who get it and people who don't. They see the fantasy of it and then you get people who actually understand that's there's actually hard work involved."

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