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Playing Small Isn’t Humility, It’s Fear In A Costume

If you’ve made a sale, built a waitlist, or had a gallery ask for your work, and you still catch yourself calling it “just something I do,” you are not being humble. You are playing small as an artist, and it is costing you more than you realize. Jodie King has spent over two decades building a seven-figure art career, and in this episode she names the three lies that keep even successful painters from claiming their work as the real thing.

The Lie That Success Will Cost You the Joy

The first lie is that turning what you love into a business will drain the joy out of it. Jodie has watched this fear play out again and again, including with a Studio Elite artist who had previously poured her heart into a Pilates studio, only to watch it fail and take her confidence and her marriage down with it. When that same artist turned toward her art career, the fear that money would ruin the thing she loved was real and valid.

The fix Jodie teaches isn’t a mindset trick. It’s time blocking, protecting time for creativity, relationships, and business separately so life doesn’t quietly swallow all three. When you prioritize your time intentionally, you protect your joy instead of accidentally trading it away.

The Lie That Visible Ambition Means Public Failure

The second lie is that putting yourself out there, really out there, means risking a very public failure. Jodie tells the story of a close friend who was offered a solo show, a huge deal in the gallery world, and nearly pulled out the week before because she was terrified nothing would sell. She stayed in. The show sold out and opened doors that had been closed for years. As Jodie put it in the episode, staying small doesn’t protect your reputation. It only protects a version of you that has never been seen trying.

The Lie That Claiming This Life Means Giving Up Who You Are

The third lie hides the best because it doesn’t feel like fear or ambition. It feels like love. Jodie shares her own story here: a season where she was terrified that claiming her identity as an artist would mean failing as a mother or a wife. What she eventually understood is that nobody ever asked her to shrink. She did that on her own, and she called it devotion. Recognizing that lie for what it was changed everything.

Three Questions to Ask Yourself

Before you can close the gap between playing small and claiming your career, Jodie says it helps to get specific about where the fear is actually hiding. Ask yourself:

• Am I giving my work away because it’s generous, or because there’s no real risk on the table if I do?
• Am I waiting for 100% certainty before I claim this, when what actually shows up first is a whisper, a tug, something that rarely makes logical sense?
• Whose approval am I actually protecting when I stay small: theirs, or my own comfort?

The Whisper, Not the Certainty

One of the most striking stories in this episode is about a Studio Elite artist who applied to the program the night before a cohort started, with no business plan and no certainty, just a tug she couldn’t explain. She went on to build an entire home decor line of her own, now known as House of Gear, a story Jodie unpacked in full back in Episode 138. The takeaway: the road reveals itself after you move, not before.

If any of this sounds familiar, you are not alone, and you are not behind. Jodie has talked before about the specific ways fear disguises itself as loyalty, including in Episode 116, on the power of artist identity in a crowded art world, and in Episode 113, on what it actually takes to go from hobby to career. If pricing and money mindset feel tangled up in all of this too, Episode 145’s coaching session on mindset and pricing is a natural next listen, and if you want more of Jodie’s own story of nearly staying small for good, Episode 149, 22 Years As An Artist: What I’ll Never Do Again, goes even deeper.

Resources Mentioned

•  The Artist Who Gets Paid, Jodie’s 3-part workshop (August 20, 25, and 27): https://www.jodiekingart.com/artistseries
•  Studio Elite Mastermind applications: https://www.jodiekingart.com/studioelite
•  Episode 138, How to Make Your Art Career Dreams a Reality with Jodie Gear: https://jodieking.com/episode-138-how-to-make-your-art-career-dreams-a-reality-with-jodie-gear/
•  Episode 116, You Can’t Fake It: The Power of Artist Identity In a Crowded Art World: https://jodieking.com/episode-116-you-cant-fake-it-the-power-of-artist-identity-in-a-crowded-art-world/
• Episode 113, From Hobby to Career: How Artists Go Pro: https://jodieking.com/episode-113-from-hobby-to-career-how-artists-go-pro/
• Episode 145, How Your Mindset Impacts Art Pricing, One-On-One Coaching with Jennifer Cupp: https://jodieking.com/episode-145-how-your-mindset-impacts-art-pricing-one-on-one-coaching-with-jennifer-cupp/
• Episode 149, 22 Years As An Artist: What I’ll Never Do Again: https://jodieking.com/episode-149-22-years-as-an-artist-what-ill-never-do-again/
• Have a question for Jodie? Ask it here: https://forms.gle/hxrVu4oL4PVCKwZm6 

• How are you liking the Honest Art® Podcast? Leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform and let us know!    
• Watch this full episode on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMquJfuMsSg0fr46BRdia1cWd-81GThzF

Watch on YouTube

• 🎬 New to Honest Art®? Start Here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDRbtjrfQyOs
• 🎨 Painting Techniques: Best Of: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW9oZj4G3KkA

Want More from Jodie?

Learn from Jodie:

🎨 Studio Elite Mastermind: jodiekingart.com/studioelite

🎨 Color Course for Rebels: jodiekingart.com/ccfr

🎨 Honest Art® Workshops: jodieking.com/workshop

Jodie’s favorite resources:

✍🏻Check out my free guide on how to hang and wire a painting: https://www.jodiekingart.com/how-to-hang-a-painting 

✍🏻Get my top 10 studio tools here: https://www.jodiekingart.com/10-studio-tools-opt-in 

✍🏻Learn 5 things they don’t teach you in art school: https://jodieking.com/work-with-me#free-rescources.0 

🧘🏼‍♀️Guided Meditation for Creative Clarity: https://www.jodiekingart.com/guided-meditation

✍🏻See Jodie’s favorite things: https://www.amazon.com/shop/jodie_king_ 

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This episode is for educational purposes and reflects Jodie King’s personal experience building her own art career. Results vary by artist.