Stop and breathe….: Finding Our "People"

Stop and breathe….

I know I am not supposed to publish anything that doesn’t “add value” to our blog if we want to “get ahead.” And I know for many of you, I am supposed to an “expert” and not vulnerable to the slings and arrows of negative comments. (As an “expert, I am supposed to realize that they were bound to happen and just suck it up and keep the confidence train amoving.) Or I know for many of you who may not have nearly 17k followers or a podcast with nearly 7k downloads, you’re thinking to yourself, “What the fuck is she complaining about?!” and that for you, these are first-world problems, but since this is our first time going this way, we feel the way we feel… All I could think of is that I can either be quiet about it or I can share it with you, because somewhere along the line that sharing—instead of concealing—might actually help someone else….

As you know, we made it to the second round of approved proposals for South By Southwest 2020. —Yay, right? —Now, we are at the stage where we must get YOU, the public, to vote for us, so that we can it to the final round. Now, you MAY know that I have recently improved my community-building skills—through running 2 Facebook groups (Be the Next D.I.Y. Rock Star and Funky Happy People) and by being more outgoing when we are at in real world events (see photo below).

Chuck Surack, Sweetwater Sound --Blooming Prejippie

"Interacting" with Chuck Surack, Founder, at IRL Sweetwater Sound's GearFest 2019

It’s the loner in me….

The bottom line is that, I am really an introvert, who values my quiet time and who guards my confidence by not fawning over “important” people; that’s just NOT my jam. However, when we decided to go all-in nearly 3 years ago now—see Ye Chen article if you missed that part of our story—I decided, specifically, that I would work on my willingness to approach people to make meaningful connections, so that we could build the community we need to push us to our next level. —Psst! We’d done it before, in the 90s, when we ran a poetry zine. The difference was that it was a lot more casual and took much more trial and error to make it work. —This time, I vowed to cut through some of that on-again and off-again work by just owning what needed to be done. However, I was firm about maintaining my standards of ONLY putting myself out there for QUALITY connections of people who we truly admire and/or people who vibe naturally with what we’re doing. —Hint: if you’re reading this, it means you can count yourselves in one of those two categories! —However, there are times when something that feels truly big is on the line that my confidence wanes and I end up sacrificing my principles to seal the deal (see YouTube Frenzy post for more on this). This, Home Team, sadly, is one of THOSE moments….

Vision Board Cheat Sheet --Blooming Prejippie

'Like to watch the video for GearFest 2019?

Why should I care?

You see, one of our big recent goals has been to be a part of someone’s live event, speaking and encouraging people to go after their creative dreams (especially as it relates to music). In fact, ever since we got lit on fire, those 3 years ago, we wanted to let other similarly-situated folks—older, doing out-of-the-box music (or art), and previously believing that it was too late to “do something” with what they love to do—know that it’s not too late, but that they should start now. —And we don’t mean start “now” as if, you were NOT to start now, you’d miss it, but wanting them to start now, because the sooner they start, the more fulfilled and joyful they would feel.

Vote for our panel! --Blooming Prejippie Zine

Vote for our panel proposal for South By Southwest 2020

Sounds corny, but…

We know it sounds corny, but we wanted to encourage folks that they are their own best advocates for their lives, their art, their future, and that it takes realizing this and taking steps toward it to start to feeling the way they want to feel. —Not that doing this kind of thing doesn’t come with its own set of difficulties, because it does, but that experiencing the pain of growing toward your dream is a much better feeling than not taking action. That is my personal passion right now; delivering this message, which leads me to realize how important this opportunity feels for me (and which leads to feeling that we are SOOOO close to getting there that I can taste it!).

Freaking out a little….

That is the reason I am freaking out just a little and have reached out to a wider range of folks that, in my heart of hearts, I knew I DIDN’T vibe with that much…. I was just being greedy for their votes… This is sad, I know; but I had convinced myself that, the bad taste in my mouth that I was feeling for asking would be replaced with the feeling of joy at winning this gig….

But after 3 days of what I think has been being a South By Southwest hoe—and of being treated like one from several folks that I truly suspected weren’t our people in the first place—has led me to go back to my roots and to ONLY seek the support of the folks whose work and brains make my eyes light up when I think about how lucky we are to be associated with; that’s who we were meant to ask in the first place.

High five….

So, I am saying all this to say that, if ANY of this message resonates with you, I would personally like to ask that you show how you feel by going to the South By Southwest 2020 Panel Picker (add link) and cast your vote for this idea. This is what we stand for. Thank you, in advance, for standing with us.