122 What is a Celebrity, Pt. 2
This podcast episode discusses the importance of cultivating a celebrity mindset as an artist, even if you don't necessarily want to be famous. Whitney argues that believing in your own worth and stepping into an identity of being worthy of attention and influence is necessary for achieving success and making an impact with your work. The episode also touches on the importance of doing the necessary mindset work to handle the pressures of fame and exposure in a healthy way.
@whitneyuland
Transcript:
Hey, welcome to The Abundant Artist, a podcast for creatives looking to create more abundance in their lives, more happiness, more results, more money. I'm Whitney Uland. I'm an actor, writer, and certified life coach, and I'm going to show you exactly how to start feeling better and how to go after your creative ambitions.
Hello, wonderful artists. I hope that you are having an amazing day when you are listening to this. I'm gonna talk today about a part two of what is a celebrity and why you need to become famous. In the last episode, I talked about how I really believe that it's your duty to become famous and to step outside the box and to think in new ways and to explore new ways of thinking and to live your life as a rebellion against what society has said you are capable of. Um, but I wanted to add in today some things that are more for you and reasons why I think for you and for your growth, it's so important that you become famous. Um, so all of this conversation started with coaching one of my clients. And I mentioned this last week, that I'm loving when I get on a call with someone and they're like, this was actually hella triggering for me, and I didn't really realize that there was so much there.
And when we coached on it, it got down to why. Again, I think that this is such important work. So I'll just give you a little bit of a recap of this conversation. My client was saying, you know, I don't wanna be famous, I just wanna be known for my work. But when we got down to it, when we dug down deeper and deeper and deeper, the truth is that they actually just don't believe that they belong. And they believe that getting certain credits or getting certain like gatekeepers to tell them yes would make them successful and would make them belong. And what I wanna offer is that you have to feel like you belong before you actually belong. You have to cultivate this celebrity energy in order to create the influence and create the impact that you want, and to be able to book the roles that you want to be able to sell your work at the level that you want to be able to have the following that you want. Whatever it is, you have to step into this identity of believing that you are worthy of being looked at and for people looking to you as an example and looking to you as a leader way before the consequences of that action show up.
I love to use this example in coaching that, you know, Meryl Streep, she was Meryl before she was Meryl Streep. Meaning there was a time where someone was probably sitting in an acting class across from Meryl Streep and no one had heard of her, right? There's like some picture of her on the subway, and it's this like gorgeous photo of her when she's probably like 24 or something. And I remember the caption, I don't know if it was like from that day or whatever, but she had been rejected by an agent or a casting director. Someone was just like, you're not pretty enough. And someone said that to Meryl Streep, right? Like, what an idiot. Like, they were completely wrong and there was a part of her, I'm speaking for her, but I assume so, because there's no other way she would've created the career that she has if she hadn't continued to bet on herself, even when people were turning her down or people were not understanding her vision. When we get down to this excuse of, I just wanna be known for my work, what is your work that you feel so passionate about bringing to life? Is it that you want to tell stories about inclusion or about your experience or because you felt lonely as a kid? And you want to be able to tell the stories that helped you feel less alone? Like what is that? That reason is exactly why you do need to be famous because you are the person who needs to be bringing those stories to life.
And when you step into this identity, instead of waiting for gatekeepers, you become the gatekeeper. And you are the person who needs to be the gatekeeper, not the people who are telling Meryl Streep no. Okay? So again, this like celebrity is an identity, and your fame is a resource, and those combined are powerful. And they have the ability to shift narratives and to shift paradigms. And when I bring this up, if this is triggering for you, then it just is revealing your shadow work. And your shadow work, meaning what things lie beneath the surface that are telling you that you're not worthy? What are all of the things below the surface that are telling you that you don't deserve it or that you don't fit in, or you don't belong, or that you're gonna be exposed, that people, there are real artists and you're just faking it?
Whatever those fears are, that is your current energy right now? That is the energy that is your body odor that people are sensing that you are maybe not even aware of. But that's the undercurrent in every single one of your exchanges. And that is, again, probably a result of oppression and oppressive systems. And that's a problem. And the way that we fix it is by reclaiming that power and believing, I do deserve to be here. My voice does matter. What I have to say is important. It is actually the most important that I get this out right? That people looking to me as an example, this matters. And so something that again, I just really love about this is asking yourself, if you were triggered by this, or you think about the idea of what would it look like to suddenly have a bunch of eyes on you, what fear does that bring up? What unworthiness does that unlock for you? And that is your work? And whatever that is, that's what I need you to come and bring to coaching with me. Because this is not only going to change your career, this is gonna change your life, and this is gonna change your relationships with yourself, with your family, with your friends. And that might be scary, right? Are you willing for these relationships to change? Are you willing to have a relationship with yourself, even if your growth upsets other people and upsets people around you? Are you willing to live in alignment with yourself and with your true values over doing what makes other people happy, over playing small because it doesn't make people uncomfortable? That is the work, and that is the skill of becoming celebrity. And that is just healing.
And that's why I love this work. And why I'm always going to be an advocate for becoming as famous as possible is because it's about your life and it's about your healing and your relationship with yourself. And again, all of this starts with your mindset and working through these blocks and being willing to show up when you do feel triggered or when you do feel like you don't belong. And continuing to develop that skill of betting on yourself and continuing to live your life in a way that says, no, I'm actually worthy of being here. I belong here. I'll share with you that a few years ago I was working on a project and I suddenly had a lot of eyes on it. There was a PR firm that was working with us that was able to get some major interests from people like NPR, Jimmy Fallon, Good Morning America. And in all of this work, what happened was they all wanted to talk to me and talk to me about my experience and how this project came to be. And they wanted to know about my past. And it felt so vulnerable. Having the spotlight on me was something that I'd always wanted. There was always a part of me. And yet, when it came to it, it terrified me. I felt so exposed. I started having panic attacks. And what ended up happening was that I jumped into this work. I dove in head first, and this work that I'm talking about of the shadow work and realizing the holes of where I didn't feel, first off, worthy of the spotlight and second off, where I didn't feel authentic to myself and where I felt like I was going to be exposed. And I cleaned that up, and that was really hard.
It meant difficult conversations with family for me. It meant coming out as queer and living in that identity in an authentic way. It meant different boundaries with a previous religion that I had been a part of. It meant having difficult conversations with family, with friends, with all of those things. And truthfully, like all of it totally blew up in my face. This, because I had not done the work underneath it. It completely like the project fell apart. No one decided to that they wanted to talk about it after initially being so excited. And it really was just this like energetic thing where I completely sabotaged it because I was not ready for that spotlight, and I was not in a place that that exposure would've been healthy for me or would've been sustainable. It would've been shedding light on a version of me that isn't real.
And I knew at my core that that was not something that I could do. And so again,. it totally blew up in my face. And then from that place, I got digging and I got to work and I like doubled down on these tools that I teach y'all every day. And I doubled down on getting clear on believing in my worth. I'm betting on myself and getting back up again when I'd just been knocked down so, so hard. To this day, that's been one of the hardest and most challenging experiences of my life. And yet it pushed me to do this growth of developing this mindset that I'm talking to y'all about. This celebrity mindset where that I know right now, and I know this is actually true because it's happened, because as we've been doing press for this last movie, there was some like triggering things that came up, but it didn't shut me down and it didn't stop me.
I've been able to move forward again, like I was able to run for president of this organization that I'm now the co-president of. I've been able to continue growing my brand on TikTok and to be able to put my voice out there as a thought leader in that space and to grow my business and to do all of these things that in the past I could not have done without them sabotaging. And I'm gonna be honest, like until you do this work, you will not be able to grow at the level that you want. And I've seen this in clients. And this is often when clients come to me is when they've had some meteoric success where all of a sudden, you know, they're in literally a Spielberg film and now all of the shit is hitting the fan because they haven't done this work underneath.
So there's really two options is that you can do it before the fact and you can improve your relationship with yourself, and then you're going to have a clean and clear relationship with yourself and feel integrity and feel grounded in who you are and become that channel, become that vessel for other people to see themselves and to see the world in a different way. And you can actually use your voice. Or you can try and grow and increase your fame and then again, not have anything underneath you. And it'll be very shallow and it'll be very fleeting, and you'll get maybe a 15 minutes of fame. But then it's going to feel so bad that you'll either run away from it, you'll sabotage it, or you'll sabotage yourself. And that's why, again, I just think that this work is so important for artists because I do think that fame and that exposure is scary, and it is not something that our brains are evolutionary wired to handle on their own, unless maybe you have come from a family that taught you how to be in the spotlight, then it's probably not a skill that you naturally have. And just seeing how many of our favorite artists die by suicide every year, right? Like that emboldens me to continue pushing this work forward because I really believe that this is all just mental health and this is just your relationship with yourself and getting to the place that you love your relationship with yourself.
A celebrity is just someone who is celebrated. And you have to take that first step by celebrating yourself and by honoring yourself and by being willing to invest in yourself and invest in your mental health and believe that you are worthy of the things that you want, you're worthy of having the spotlight on you and you're worthy of your ideas being out in the world.
Thanks so much for listening. If you are ready to take this work even deeper and uplevel your life and career, follow the link in my show notes to coach with me in the Abundant Artist Academy, my group coaching program for creatives who are tired of being struggling artists and who are ready to start creating more in their lives, more happiness, more bookings, and more money. I'll see you on the inside.