15 Comments

Couldn’t agree with you more, excited to have you here in Barcelona soon!

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Yeah man, I'm excited. It's been 10 years since I've been to Spain and 6 years since I've been in Europe. See you next week

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Apr 15Liked by Chris James

Had a great time Saturday, thanks internet!

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100%. I don't appreciate people who judge you for wanting to make money and building an audience of people who you can help. In fact, the less you share, are you not keeping more to yourself, making you more selfish? Money struggle is OUT!

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Aloha Renee-- my intention with questioning Chris's desire for audience growth isn't to pass judgement . It's more so a skepticism I have been exploring that majority of creators believe that artistic expression needs to become a business. A larger audience won't necessarily solve problems, and in my experience, when a goal is grounded from an internal intention, it is more likely to succeed. I want Chris to be set up to succeed with what he pursues. Having a pursuit or ritual of sharing online to follow the fun can be enough, or at least it has been for me. With any writer, it can get confusing to switch the motivations from own self-fulfillment to seeking worth through money by building an audience.

I'd love to know what you think about this :)

~Jen

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I think these are good thoughts. It’s also good not to be naïve about how many different things are competing for our attention. To build an audience can be great. I have definitely aimed in that direction. But I’ve tried to really define what I mean by audience. And I only want to attract “good audience” meaning people I actually would want to be friends with in real life and also that I’d want to support too. But it is so hard.

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Agreed...you want a community. And you want to serve that community. But there is a very fine line between serving your fans and going too far to serve them. It's not easy to spot. You want to be generous and not give too much at the same time

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Hey Jen! I definitely agree with you... and definitely some other ideas too. (By the way, are you from Hawaii? :) I have some dear friends on the Big Island.)

You are right, there's this animalistic quality in all of us that rears it ugly head when it comes to audience growth and money. We become ghosts with insatiable bellies! You are so right - the more audience, the more money - it does't cure our internal poverty.

But is not the point of all of this to thrive in our most creative ways? To be supported financially so that the financial piece is not a problem anymore, and so our creative, free-flowing, fun-loving parts of us can thrive? Don't we want to be financially thriving so that we most freely follow our creative pursuits? Can self-fulfillment and making money exist in the same Venn diagram?

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Hey Renee! I'm glad we are in agreement. I've been living on Oahu for nearly 3 years now, heading to Big Island to back pack next month :)

With money comes a form of validation, and of course support to keep the ball moving down the field. And I do want to and everyone to thrive in creative ways. Though with that, it can also shift the intentions away from pure internal to seeking only for external. For me, as a recovering people pleaser, I've been intentional to stray away from the overlap of self-fulfillment and making money in fear that it would never be in balance and lean towards the externally driven pursuit.

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Ofc... and balance is the goal.

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Who did you hire to help you build an audience? How did you find that person?

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Believe it or not, a young woman I met on tinder in Peru

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I was not expecting Tinder!

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It didn’t last long, so it goes

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