Be a Cheerleader for Someone Else
There are a lot of creative people in the world.
Chances are, you’re a creative yourself. Creative people are unique, because every person is unique. The hard part is, you can get lost in the sea of content coming out every second of the day. There are like a bajillion YouTube videos, Instagram pics, and Medium articles coming out every day (Pretty sure those are accurate stats). So, what do we do?
You’re a creative person and I believe that you have something to share.
Today I want to help you not get lost in the sea of content, and my advice might sound counter intuitive to what you have tried.
You need to learn how to be a cheerleader for someone else.
One of the best moments that happened to me was in middle school. I know, middle school is typically not looked back on with fond memories, but there was a moment where I was not confident in myself, I didn’t fit in and I hated feeling that way. Then my youth pastor told me out of the blue one day and said, “Joshua, you’re going to do great things.” It was a simple piece of encouragement, but it impacted me from that moment on. I had someone in my “corner” that supported me. Even now, that same guy reads my work on a regular basis.
We need people in our lives that believe in us.
You need people in your life that are going to help support your work. These are the people consistently following your work and in a dialogue with you. These are the commenters and consistent likes on whatever you do. The closer supporters in your life are the friends who do that, and help you do better. They aren’t afraid to let you know, “it was really good, but you may want to work on x.” You as a content creator need to be interacting with your audience, because it is YOUR audience. These people like what you do and want more from you.
The key is, it’s not a one-sided relationship. So, what can you do?
We need to cultivate our audience by creating opportunities for others.
We need to start encouraging others around us.
We need to be okay with not being the center of attention.
This sounds counter to everything culture tells us how to behave. Everything is about us. We share stories of what’s happening to us. We tweet about what we are thinking and what is annoying us. We post status updates about us, and let’s be honest, we’ve all taken a mirror selfie of us. Creativity often centers around us, which is not entirely bad. Earlier I shared a story about what happened to me in my middle school years to help understand a point, but often we get caught up in promoting ourselves all the time.
It’s hard to get your name in the zeitgeist, especially when culture is rapidly shifting. So, what if we started being cheerleaders for each other?
What if we decided to not be about the me but the we?
What if we started reading what each other is writing? Wat if we started watching the videos other creators were producing?
And, this would be crazy, what if we started actually cheerleading to boost each other’s creative endeavors?
I talk about cheerleading as if I have an immense sports background, I really don’t. I got this idea from one of the other jobs I have. I work at an elementary school in after school. I work with lower elementary kids, and one day we had a chance to take the kids to a volleyball game that was happening on campus.
A kid came up to me and asked if they could make posters, then a couple other kids wanted to make a cheer, and one really great kid wanted to put marker on their face for the team colors.
It was awesome.
We walked into the gym, completely decked out with marker face-paint and the silliest signs. You would have thought this was the biggest event of the year, but it was simply a Thursday afternoon at a middle school volleyball game.
Then the game started.
My lower elementary kids never stopped cheering. I still don’t know how voices weren’t lost. The middle schoolers looked annoyed at first, but then the smiles started, whatever pressure was built up most likely faded away when the interpretive dance began.
My point with sharing that story is that we need to cheer like that for someone else. The world has a lot of selfish people in it, so why not stand out by being selfless?
Believe in someone else.
If you have a platform, well, let me rephrase, you have a platform. Big, small, you have an audience. Help cultivate your audience by not only sharing your work, but the work of others in your field.
Be a cheerleader for someone else.
You can start today, in the comments below, tag some creators. Share a website, YouTube channel, whatever it may be, and start cheering someone else on their creative journey.
Believe in someone else.
About the Author: Joshua Thomas is a writer by day and superhero by night. When he’s not writing and crimefighting, you can find him reading a good book, sipping warm tea, taking pictures, or dreaming. The young writer doesn’t fully know what he’s doing, but is enjoying the journey of it all. You can tweet memes at him on Twitter @joshua_thomas__ or follow his hipster photos and Jack Kerouac musings on Instagram @joshua_thomas__
