How Art Boss Babe Culture Nearly Killed Michelle I Gomez
[00:00:00] Made Remarkable Intro: /Welcome back. And thanks for tuning into the made remarkable podcast, hosted by Kellee Winn. This week, Kellee sits down with Michelle. I Gomez. Tune in to hear the raw and empowering story of how Michelle navigated the pressures of art boss, babe culture. And found her footing in a more genuine and fulfilling way. Michelle shares how she shifted her coaching business into becoming a champion for neurodivergence in her soon to launch program artists to art printer, 2.0. And using her beloved raccoon, alter ego, Pedro to foster resilience and creativity in her community. Emphasizing the importance of a trauma informed, genuine approach to entrepreneurship, michelle challenges, traditional norms and stresses the importance of self care and advocacy. Check out the show notes and transcripts for more information about Michelle. Exclusive promotional offers and any special links mentioned during the episode. Kellee loves connecting with listeners. So don't be shy.
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And always remember you are made remarkable. Destined to achieve the unimaginable. Now let's get to the good part. Introducing Kellee, when and Michelle, I Gomez.
[00:01:26] Kellee Wynne: Well, hello. Hello. I'm Kellee Wynn, artist, author, mentor, fiercely independent mother and wife, and the founder of a multiple six figure creative business. And I love my life, but I've been where you're at. I was slogging away at this art business thing for more than a decade. Once I finally connected with my true calling, unlock the magic of marketing and built a system that could scale, while I realize I can make an impact and make a substantial income, I'm finally running a business that I love and it makes all the.
Difference in the world. My biggest dream is to help you do the same. Let this podcast be the catalyst to your biggest success. You already have it in you because you are made remarkable.
Hi, Michelle.
[00:02:14] Michelle I Gomez: Hello, Kellee.
[00:02:17] Kellee Wynne: So, everyone's probably going to get sick of me saying this, but I have another new friend from threads and there's something about threads right now that I am just meeting all the best people in the world You're one of them Michelle and you are not just a fellow threader But you're an artist and an art coach as well
[00:02:38] Michelle I Gomez: Yes, yes, I am.
We're, we're twinsies.
[00:02:41] Kellee Wynne: Yeah, same but different, same but different.
[00:02:46] Michelle I Gomez: Same but different, exactly. Yep, that's true.
[00:02:49] Kellee Wynne: But we relate to each other a lot, which is why we're getting, we've gotten on so well with building a friendship online.
[00:02:58] Michelle I Gomez: Yeah, I remember at one point, like, I threaded, I put, I posted a thread saying, like, I have this, like, group of, like, this group chat with artist coaches, and you're like, I want to join, so we should start our own little group chat just for funsies.
[00:03:12] Kellee Wynne: Right. The things that we learn from each other on the insiders club, but this podcast was going to be a bit of an insider. I have a feeling.
[00:03:20] Michelle I Gomez: Super. They're going to know everything. We have hot tea.
[00:03:26] Kellee Wynne: We have some hot tea. We're going to talk about the fact that we are so over boss, babe culture and hustle, hustle, mosey nation.
[00:03:37] Michelle I Gomez: Yes. And, and, you know, Content warning. I don't like to use trigger warning, but like content warning. Yeah. If you don't mind me sharing, I will talk about like how art boss babe culture, I used to do it and call my community art boss babes. And it almost killed me three times. One of those include, huh? Going back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But now I'm doing it differently. 2. 0 version.
[00:04:05] Kellee Wynne: Yay! So let's do this. Let's talk a little bit about your history. Now, you're in Florida, correct? Are you Miami? Yes.
[00:04:13] Michelle I Gomez: Miami, Florida. Born and raised from the 305. Been in the Miami art world pretty much since I was like 8 years old.
[00:04:22] Kellee Wynne: Wow.
[00:04:23] Michelle I Gomez: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I even sold my first artwork when I was eight years old. I've been entrepreneurial since I can remember.
[00:04:34] Kellee Wynne: You and I have that in common too because I was helping with the big art walks and, know, because my father's an artist and the whole community we were raised in.
And so there I was putting together art exhibits and, and working with big events, you know, it's just becomes part of your blood.
[00:04:54] Michelle I Gomez: It's a part of your blood and it's a matter of survival for many of us.
[00:05:00] Kellee Wynne: Yeah,
[00:05:01] Michelle I Gomez: if we don't fit in the typical, capitalistic nine to five culture, especially if we're neurodivergent, especially for artists, especially if we're multi passionate.
[00:05:14] Kellee Wynne: Yes, I relate to that a lot. Never really fitting into traditional work culture, if you will. But somehow we've managed to still jump on that capitalist bandwagon with our own, Entrepreneurial spirit, which I think being your own boss and creating your business is amazing, but at the same time, I think we've been duped for a little while.
And that's what we're here to spill the tea on.
[00:05:43] Michelle I Gomez: And I would love to share my whole story and how I like literally did shadow work about my inner art boss, babe, and how that ego, it's an alter ego now in my brain, you know, alongside, my raccoon alter ego, which I'll explain later.
[00:06:02] Kellee Wynne: Yeah.
[00:06:02] Michelle I Gomez: So stay, stay tuned. I know this is going to peak their ears. Bye. Bye. Bye. Pedro Pedro. Pedro Pedro's here, he'll come out. Um, but yeah, like, you know, before we get into it, I would just like to know, from your perspective, what was your relationship to Art Boss babe culture?
[00:06:20] Kellee Wynne: I don't know that I ever related to Art Boss Babe, but more Boss babe.
Oh, okay. more of the, uh, and now, oh, I love it when they're like girlies and all of this kind of like hustle culture and Gary V style of be everywhere all at once all the time. And I really did believe that my identity was my work and yet it's still a big part of who I am. But yeah, there's always, there was always this longing to be more of what I saw online, which turns out is all fake.
[00:06:58] Michelle I Gomez: Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, I could relate.
[00:07:03] Kellee Wynne: So tell us about your story having grown up in the art industry. Tell me about your art boss babe days.
[00:07:13] Michelle I Gomez: Yeah, so I'll start from the beginning. I'll tell you my artist to entrepreneur story, which is, nodding to my signature coaching program called artist to entrepreneur that's being rebranded now and re Restructured in order to address, right, these issues around art, boss, babe, culture.
So I'll start in the beginning. I promise I won't take long. Um, I'll start by saying psychology was my first love before art. Okay. It didn't hit me, like, till recently. That, that was my first love because I, my brain just always thought, well, art was my first love and that's the story that we all share as artists, right?
It's like, it all started when I was a young child and I was scribbling with crayons on the walls, right? Like, but it's like, wait, actually, before that, I was super interested in psychology and, you know, I'm, I'm like a dark artist. You know, Scorpio loved to examine trauma and like, talk about trauma and all that.
And so, my earliest days around psychol my interest in psychology was really a response and a reaction to, a chaotic, dysfunctional environment that I didn't feel safe in from like, early on. And so I dived into psychology books, since I was very young to figure out why people are the way they are.
And that led me into art because art, right, while it consumed my entire identity, my, most of my life, looking back now, I realize, wait, is art my entire identity and career, or is it a natural response? and coping mechanism to the dysfunction and trauma I experienced in childhood. And so my whole career was enveloped by this identity that really was a coping mechanism.
And so I always used art to express deep, psychological, raw, ugly concepts about sex. Relationships, psychology, dark shit. And I was a leading artist my whole life. Like I was just always really good at what I, whatever I did, because, you know, I'm multi passionate, but also multi talented through like this neurodivergent lens, right.
Of like, just like being so good at whatever you do because you obsessed and you want, you know, your perfectionism drives that obsession and that hyper fixation. Right. So I obsessed. My entire life around art. I sold my first artwork when I was eight years old. I went to art classes, you know, I, um, was so good at it.
I then, went to, just your regular shmegular West Miami middle school for, you know, like where a lot of Latino kids go to school. And I felt like an alien and an audible because I'm this nerd that's into psychology and art. And, I felt like. Like I was older than my peers spiritually, which is a sign of, like, childhood trauma when you're told like, Hey, you, you're, you have an old soul.
Well, I was a traumatized soul. Right. And so, I coped through art. And then in West Miami, I did. You know, I, my first art teacher that I took seriously, like, critiqued my work so badly and, like, broke my heart and then I repaired that with my first, healthy relationship to a new art teacher that replaced her, Miss Bilbao.
And I think that's when I realized that education changes lives and I'm meant to be an educator, but I didn't know it. So I continued to study art. She helped me get into this famous arts high school called New World School of the Arts located in downtown Miami. You know, imagine like a bunch of like really talented genius kids that were the best of the best being supported by the best of the best in the state of Florida.
With teachers that not only taught you amazing things about art and psychology, but they loved you and cared about you. And that was super healing for me, considering that I had, a single mother and an absent father and an addicted sister. And so, I went through that school, became top artists, you know, got millions of dollars worth of scholarships, and I could literally pick any top art student.
It's college in the world and just go for free. And so I chose, to attend to the Maryland Institute College of Art saying, yep, I want you went to Micah.
[00:11:59] Kellee Wynne: No, but I'm in Mar No, I didn't go to Micah. I'm not, I'm not so cool as to have gone, but did you go to Micah? I did. I live in Maryland.
That's right around the corner from me. Are you in Baltimore? I'm just south of Baltimore. Look at us. We're just bringing this news out on the podcast. So you went to MICA, which is known for being like one of the top five art schools in the entire nation.
[00:12:24] Michelle I Gomez: Yes, yes, and I got a full ride. That's amazing.
Yeah, but funny, it's just like, it's so weird. Like, that's another conversation we need to have, but like, I still was like in debt. Because it's it's complicated, right? Like I had a single mother who's like, you know, pretty much forced me to take out loans to live right and study, you know, and so, I did this whole art thing got my BFA in general fine arts with a concentration and curatorial studies because in high school.
school at New World, they gave me an opportunity to curate my first show and I also fell in love. And I was also good at that. So it's like, I was good at art. I was good at studying psychology as an interest. I was good at curating. I was, you know, it's just like easy, right? But I It was easy because like my engine inside was just like in height under hyper arousal right if we look at the nervous system right we have two states that we oscillate between which is like hypo arousal down hyper arousal up hyper arousal fight flight hypo arousal freeze fun right and so you know it's always on the go just just fast.
Curating, being on press, getting awards, making the best art, right? Putting shows together at a young age. Like, wow, Michelle can do everything. But they didn't know that I was suffering behind the scenes. Then I did my last art show, and I have, uh, in 2012 for my BFA, thesis show, I did a series of intimate, like, emotional digital photographs about, like, a breakup, and it was so vulnerable, and I didn't show ever since, and I sold that, that series to a collector, a famous collector, and never showed again, because somewhere in my mind, I I thought, deep down, that I can't make it as an artist.
Why the fuck would I do that? Because they didn't give us business skills. They didn't tell us
[00:14:24] Kellee Wynne: Those schools couldn't make money.
[00:14:25] Michelle I Gomez: Nothing. Nothing about branding. Nothing about having a studio practice. They expected us to have studios in the school, but they didn't teach us how to actually, like, sustain a career with studio practice, best practices, how to put yourself out there, how to find Like, none of that.
It's just like, get a job. Just teach or work at a museum. So, my brain immediately thought, I need to pay bills, I should be a curator, I'm good at curating. And I loved it, because I'm a natural educator, right? I studied psychology before art, right? So then I got my MFN curatorial practice at MICA, I stayed another two years.
I studied under George Sissel, who founded the first MFA and curatorial practice program focused on community oriented, co creative, collaborative curatorial practice as activism. You know, that program has changed since he retired, but back in the day, that was baller for me. That was amazing, and I loved it, and I loved education.
Then I became an arts activist, and I was curating with, like, people. In collaboration with communities of color, but I was never getting paid and I was applying for grants, but never paying myself because my brain just didn't register that if you get a grant, you can pay yourself to sustain the project.
I had no idea. No clue. When I graduated, and then I faced, you know, discrimination as a woman and as a Latino woman who was outspoken about arts activism online. I was blacklisted. Couldn't get work for the life of me thousands of applications I'm like what is wrong with me because I have two degrees in the top art school in the nation I have over 20 pages in my CV detailing every single thing I've done in my arts career Everything from being a fellow at the Smithsonian Latino Center to curating over 30 independent Exhibitions with tons of you know, all this stuff All this internships, everything, you name it, all for free, living off loans and like barista jobs and stuff.
I had a mental breakdown in Baltimore and I moved down to Miami, back into my abusive home. And I went to the beach with less than 10 in my bank account and I prayed and I'm not religious. I prayed, how do I get paid to do what I love? And so that hyper arousal kicked in and within nine, like this voice came and said, why not see weddings as art exhibitions?
Because I was trying to figure out like, how the, how the fuck do I transfer art world jargon and concepts and abstract bullshit packaged in neoliberalism and all that shit, right? How do I literally like just sell stuff to people. Outside of Micah bubble outside art world bubble. Like what is a product?
What is a business? What, because, you know, I wanted to be a curator, but I saw curators who were more privileged than me just curating for free. So I was like, I can't do that. Right.
[00:17:33] Kellee Wynne: I had a curator stint for a while there too. There's no money in it, let's be honest.
[00:17:39] Michelle I Gomez: Yes.
[00:17:40] Kellee Wynne: I mean, there was more small local places, but yeah, I, there's no money in, in curation.
[00:17:47] Michelle I Gomez: No, because you can't live off of 20 percent commissions when you sell the work that you curate for free. And so, I decided to make it into a business and I said, okay, curating is event planning. Let me start an event planning company, the first of its kind, dedicated to curating weddings as art exhibitions.
So like you would rent out a gallery, I would curate the show and I would design. Your wedding in the gallery. And then we could leave the show up so that the public or colleagues or friends that you don't want to invite to the wedding can come and see your show and support your marriage and love story.
And it was like, no one was doing that. I was the only curator that like put one plus one equals two together. And I was like, Oh, event planning. Okay. Didn't know how to do a wedding, but I fucking figured it out. Like I figured everything else out.
[00:18:41] Kellee Wynne: I mean, that's out of the box thinking. That's my favorite way to build a business.
Yeah, when you're desperate. Well, not even desperate, like things that are completely unexpected to go together. I mean, that's awesome. I'm assuming that, that it ran its course too, though, right?
[00:19:01] Michelle I Gomez: Well, here's where Art Boss Babe Culture came in before I knew what Art Boss Babe Culture was, because when I was developing that business, I didn't have money.
So I attended free webinars by famous coaches like Amy Porterfield, Jenna Crutcher, um, Marie Forleo, right? Those are the only business coaches that I knew because I didn't know small business coaching business businesses. I didn't, I didn't have that network
[00:19:27] Kellee Wynne: started to,
[00:19:29] Michelle I Gomez: yeah, you just, you just start with the celebrity webinars that upsell their courses.
So I would just attend the webinar and not buy it and just like take note and literally take action. So I built the business in 90 days. Got my first client in two weeks of since the concept the the the idea was conceived. Figured it out by myself with Google.
[00:19:53] Kellee Wynne: Yeah. Watching lots of YouTube, listening to lots of podcasts. Yeah.
[00:19:59] Michelle I Gomez: Obsessed, you know, I wonder if you were like me, like it just, you couldn't turn it off every single day. 16 hours, 18 hours, just nonstop. And looking back, that was probably my neurodivergence at work, which I didn't know. And so artists were following me online talking about business and they kept DMing me, how, how, how did you do that?
And then I was like, you know, I could build another business. And then the word coach came. I want to coach. I hired my first life changing business and life coach who basically trained me And how I coach today right through the practice through that, you know, she was a relationship and dating coach that helped me develop a business coaching program with holistic life coaching that also coached my clients on love patterns to see how you see this triangle how life.
Life, love, business intersect in your life. So I was coaching on these things with her, developing the coaching business, coaching clients. It grew so fast, Kellee, and I started in 2018, the same year you started, but we didn't know each other.
[00:21:19] Kellee Wynne: No, we didn't.
[00:21:21] Michelle I Gomez: I had a very small following, less than 2000 followers, and I was told that it was like One of the fastest growing artists, holistic artists, coaching businesses out there because they were just coming in, right?
Or I was directly inviting people that I loved in my community to join and they would join. And then, in my first year, Kellee, this is like astonishing as someone who's new to the coaching industry, as someone who was neurodivergent, but didn't know it as someone who was a non black woman of color, Latina.
who grew up with actual scarcity, right? That I made over 255, 000 in my first year because I was working my fucking ass off 12, 16 hour days, taking one day off a week for sacred Saturdays and being literally the art bus babe that I absorbed from boss babe culture because I didn't know what to do Many artists doing that.
[00:22:20] Kellee Wynne: Yeah.
[00:22:22] Michelle I Gomez: And so I developed this art boss babe mentality and Now looking back as an alter ego that was protective on the exterior Confident on the exterior but like a mess behind the scenes thinking well, it's just me being lazy. It's just me not managing time well. It's just, it's just all my fault.
These mistakes are my fault, right? But it, the mistakes and the burnout and all that was a result of not knowing I was neurodivergent and highly masking myself to compare to my white counterparts in the industry who were making millions. As art boss babes, and I was just trying and trying and trying to keep up not only out of like desperation but also lack of self esteem that I'm not enough and so this coaching industry what it If we zoom out it sells this puritan like christian ideology of ascending to like millions and complete health with and get rid of your trauma responses get rid of your You know this not this problem and just be the art boss babe of your dreams with the life that you want So I became art boss, babe.
I Called my community art bus babes. I did all this stuff. And yes, it was empowering. Yes, there is a good part to this culture is that it inspired us women to like
[00:23:49] Kellee Wynne: keep up with men. Take action for
ourselves, yeah. Right, right. Right. By the way, Michelle, you're telling my story only from a different point of view.
Oh, really? It was almost the same thing for me, although I was creating courses. But I was a hot mess too. I was working those long, ridiculous hours and then questioning my worthiness, questioning, well, why aren't you working harder? You're just not working efficiently. And so, you know, it's that, so I'm not diagnosed, but my doctor asked me to go see a psychiatrist.
So it's on my to do list because I am, I am like 99 percent sure I'm ADHD. So unless you're in a hyper focus mode. You're just sitting there working for nothing for days, twiddling your thumbs, trying to figure out what's working and what's not working and second guessing every bit of the way. And so you get into this, this art boss mode or boss babe, which is even worse because, you know, guys don't go around saying boy boss for one.
[00:24:56] Michelle I Gomez: Yeah, yeah, they don't. And you know, they didn't look like me either. I'm sorry. I mean, I think right
[00:25:03] Kellee Wynne: layer for you.
[00:25:05] Michelle I Gomez: Yeah, and if any Latina artist coaches listening to this, please DM me because right now I'm like the only leading Latina artist coach who has sustained this coaching business for the amount of time I've sustained it.
There's other male Latino coaches, and they don't even want to collaborate with me. But it's like, come on, like, come on, like, is there another Latino artist coach out there? It was just so lonely. And so, I was growing so fast. I served over 400 artists. It's heavy work because it's life and business coaching.
It's intimate, right? I'm like, you know, in their minds, right? In their histories. And so it took a toll on me and it almost, I'm sorry if I get emotional, it almost killed me three times, content warning, suicidal ideation. So the first time it almost killed me, I almost started a fire in my apartment because I was trying to cook in between coaching calls and I had no time to eat and cook slowly, properly.
So like I left the stove on too hot, too long with no oil. I put oil on the pan, fire. Huge fire. Another time I almost killed myself with a fire. It was an electrical fire because I was so burnt out in between calls. That I was quick to, I needed to microwave leftovers that I didn't have time to put in a microwave.
You know those Tupperwares?
[00:26:33] Kellee Wynne: Yeah.
[00:26:33] Michelle I Gomez: So I just like left it in the, in the, the silver pan, like the,
[00:26:38] Kellee Wynne: and then I,
[00:26:39] Michelle I Gomez: and then I just like put it in the fridge covered. And then like my, like, this is so embarrassing. This is like, everyone's going to think I'm dumb, but it's just like the truth of how you're that part of your brain that does executive functioning and basic things.
It was off because I was burnt. So I put the pan, The silver fucking pan in the microwave, like an idiot. And I almost started an electric fire the third time. I was so big that, artist coaches were starting to come to me like you, right. These well known entrepreneurs with like six figure businesses wanting to add another six figure income stream as like a coach, right.
To teach. Sure, I brought them all in, developed a program, scaled too fast, and had a psychotic meltdown in the middle of the program and was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder No. 2. Now, looking back, I don't think it's an accurate diagnosis because it's not trauma informed, because if it was trauma informed, what I think it might be is either CPTSD plus burnout, or it might be A combination of, like, autism, ADHD, giftedness.
Remember I said, like, everything came easily to me, so it's like a gifted trait. Gifted is like, now being recognized as a neurodivergent identity. Right, because they have a different brain. Yeah, so, so I'm still figuring out my diagnosis now, but I've been diagnosed bipolar 2 ever since. And, at that moment I just wanted to kill myself.
I was so done. I was so done serving everyone because, Kellee, like, I naturally went into this educator role, curator role, public speaker role, coach role, because my childhood trauma taught me, deep down inside, that you can be loved only if you help others. Right.
[00:28:44] Kellee Wynne: If you're seeing only if you're only if you're rising and climbing on top of the very last thing that you did.
Yeah. Yeah.
[00:28:53] Michelle I Gomez: Only up, up, up. So
[00:28:55] Kellee Wynne: I'm getting quite the feels right now because I, I'm seeing patterns in my own Lack of, self worth leading to needing to build the business to be seen.
[00:29:10] Michelle I Gomez: Yeah, yeah, yeah, to be seen, right? Especially if we were neglected. A lot of my clients learn about emotional neglect in our coaching because we don't have a word for it.
I mean, everyone from the 90s onward. After third wave feminism, after women were able to go to the workforce, mom, dad, not home. What does that mean?
[00:29:33] Kellee Wynne: Yeah.
[00:29:33] Michelle I Gomez: We're neglected. Right. And so I learned about emotional neglect. I learned about more. So I went back into psychology. I, stopped the business coaching.
I stopped doing artists coach coaching, right? Like coaching artists, coaches. And I was like, let me redefine success because this is a huge slap in the face. It's traumatic to get diagnosed. It's traumatic to get diagnosed in the middle of a huge coaching program where they're waiting on you and relying on you and they don't know that behind the scenes.
I wanted to kill myself, but they just get an email saying Michelle needs a week long vacation. She'll be back, right? And so, I started to focus on my mental health. I started to create coaching programs more directed towards you. People with mental health struggles, like me, and then I found out the word neurodivergent, and I'm like, aha, that's the word.
Because it's not just people with mental health struggles. Neurodivergence is a political identity, right? That doesn't just mean that you're disordered or mentally ill or like disabled or behind or unproductive. It's an empowering word to acknowledge how complex your brain is. And to honor that it diverges from neurotypical culture that rewards brains that perform well for capitalism.
[00:31:06] Kellee Wynne: Mm-Hmm. That was a good way for you to find a way to say it, because I was gonna say that's okay with being a cog in the wheel. . Yeah. Yeah. But in all honesty, we need all different parts. But that's been my challenge since the get go. And gosh, am I having a whole bunch of aha moments right here as we speak, because it's like, okay, well, mental health issues come up when we ignore our neurodivergence.
Exactly, if you have a lifetime of it being undiagnosed and you spend a lifetime of masking and a lifetime of coping and a lifetime of trying to make up for that. Then your mouth mental health does suffer and then throw on top of that building a business. It is a recipe for disaster this year.
I've hit a wall really bad and it was mostly external things, but it also really forced me to take a look at how, what kind of relationship I have with both my business and with social media and marketing. Exactly. Right? Because I mean, you say that maybe your art came from this need to understand psychology more.
I think art came from my need to understand business more. Ooh. Right? Like, I remember, before I remember making art as a child, I remember making chocolates and bringing them to school to sell to kids. Because, like, I wanted anything I could to create. The experience, the product, the thing someone else is going to be pleased in.
And to make something for myself, you know, and it wasn't even in the process of my best years of making money in this business, it wasn't always the money. It was, can I do it? It's like a game. Right. And, and it's also like, where is my value and my worth for many years? I was a stay at home mom. Right.
So when, when the feminism question comes up and my value as a woman comes up at an individual, then we put all of that's a big, huge thing. That's like trains heading towards each other real fast. So I've hit my burnout twice now in my business. The first time was in 2020 with a membership. That was not suited for me.
I highly recommend everyone think twice, 3 times or 100 times before starting a membership, because they are not an easy model unless you absolutely have the support that you need. And I shut it down after a year of pandemic and riots and serving people and trying to be there just like you, you go, go, go until you just can't anymore.
And I had to shut it down, but now here we are 4 years later as I've been carefully trying to figure out what comes next, but I'm still mind the dirty word. I'm still hustling until I until I hit a wall again this year that said, wait a minute. You don't have to hustle even if you want it bad. You know, like I want, I still want it.
And I know I've seen you write on threads. You still want it. You still want success. You still want to build a legacy, but can we do both at the same time? And that's the question I'm hitting at now.
[00:34:16] Michelle I Gomez: Yes, yes. And that's why I'm so excited to tell you all more about my next program. That's literally taking everything I've learned from this.
Neurodivergent, you know, journey after being diagnosed, which, by the way, listeners, you don't need a diagnosis to identify as neurodivergent. You could be self realized neurodivergent and that's enough, especially when we decolonize, right, like the process. Like, why do we need the DSM to like, well, we do and we don't, it's so complicated.
I can't get into it, you know, and one thing I want to share, Kellee, is that why do we wait until we're completely burnt out to focus on mental health? Why is that the narrative for so many of us?
[00:35:05] Kellee Wynne: Because we're supposed to be able to do it all, right?
[00:35:08] Michelle I Gomez: Yeah.
You don't go to therapy when shit hits the fan. You don't start doing your routines and when, when you're burnt out and in chronic pain. You, you, you don't, you, we're not taught how to live life, we're not taught how to manage life, and then we're taught, we're just expected to figure it out in this, in this capitalist society with no tools for self regulation, and life coaching through a trauma informed lens, because let me tell you, if you grew up in a family like mine, we have to look at how parenting literally traumatizes us.
And so all of that was like the baggage behind Art Boss Babe, right? That I'm not enough, so let me show you that I'm enough. And then I, again, made it real that I'm not enough. I burnt out. And so I slowly built back my business up based on new values about mental health first. Then I started to figure out, aha, I'm neurodivergent and multi passionate.
This is who I'm meant to serve. And I want to show, share with artist coaches out there that like, it took me five years to figure out my niche audience, how I serve them, who I serve them and why. Because most of your coaching business in the beginning is literally throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing if this audience sticks, if this coaching sticks, if this curriculum sticks.
And then I finally hit, threw it up the wall and I was like, this sticks, neurodivergent, multi passionate. Boom. People started coming to me faster than before, Kellee. Power of a niche. Yeah. Niches. Uh. The riches are in the niches. Riches in the niches, bitches.
[00:37:02] Kellee Wynne: Oh, I like that last bit you had on there. Yeah. I see you, you're having a massive overhaul and transformation and still finding success.
I'm in the middle of a big overhaul. I would say this is my 3rd overhaul in my business. The 1st. Wow. Yeah, this is the 1st 1 being from selling art and galleries and curating. To teaching online and. The second now, well, I guess maybe it's even the fourth because well, okay, so that was the first to that.
Then I went into coaching and I've been straddling the line between courses for teaching art and coaching and I've been doing the coaching for three years now. And I know that that's where my zone of genius is. I'm very much a proponent of people not just doing what they excel at, but doing what they're really meant to do.
And you're right. You have to, you have to try a lot of things to figure out what that is, and that is what this is now. But even in the switching from art courses to coaching, I am now in another evolution of what that coaching means, which means fully leaving the art courses behind, which I haven't actually announced yet, but I guess here you go on the podcast today.
I'm closing them all down, retiring them completely. They're not even going to be on the website. Those who have them, have bought them, get access, but they're not going to be at all part of my business model. Partly because in order to stay sane in this industry, you really need to focus. When you're doing, you know, scattered focus gives you scattered results. And so part of my redefining of what this coaching businesses or mentorship businesses is sustainability in our marketing and our business practices, putting our mental health first, creating something that lasts, something that we love in our zone of genius and, and figuring out how to do it without being, you know, beholden to the social media gods anymore.
[00:39:03] Michelle I Gomez: Yes, yes. And this is where I would encourage you and I because we're on the same boat because you said three you haul you Overhauls, right? I was like, oh wow, and I was like wait, I'm on my third overhaul. Yeah, cuz I my first was the Event planning, curating business. Second was the first, I call it coaching business 1.
- Now my third that I'm introducing next year is 2. 0, which I'll explain later. And so I wanted to use this opportunity to say that when we, you, when we overhaul, the first question we must ask ourselves is not how much we want to make, But how do you want to feel? Yeah.
[00:39:53] Kellee Wynne: How do you want to feel? How do you want to live? How do you want to exist? As they can't see what I'm doing, but I'm like putting my hand around my whole body as if it's my aura, my spirit. How does it show up in this world? How does it connect with other people? Yeah.
[00:40:11] Michelle I Gomez: Why are you doing it? Right. And I, I lead my, my clients through whether they're coaches, artist coaches, or just entrepreneurs, I lead them through this.
Exercise called pain to purpose, right? Literally like alchemizes or trauma into like a purpose. That's not just to make money.
[00:40:29] Kellee Wynne: Okay. I have to stop you right there because I have something I do with them called rebel genius, which is taking the thing that they thought was a flaw and turning it into their superpower.
Look at us go. We're like the bomb uses have come down and they've hit Michelle and Kellee. And we're like, perfect.
[00:40:47] Michelle I Gomez: So I need to invite you to, I need to invite you as a guest speaker, paid speaker in my membership next year. And yes, I did take your advice about the membership, but I am going to do it and I will have support.
[00:41:00] Kellee Wynne: I'm not against membership when you have the support system in place. Right. So that I have new entrepreneurs who've just come in and they have like four people on their email list and they're like, I'm going to start a membership and I'm like, you're going to hurt. It's going to be hard. Yeah.
[00:41:14] Michelle I Gomez: Yeah, I think if you start a membership like the way I'm going to do it is I'm going to budget it so I can have enough money to have my OBM with a virtual assistant under my OBM working on it with a program and community manager.
Yeah, so that I don't show up. But anyways, let me let me explain that people might get annoyed Let me hear All right so then I wanted to talk about where i'm at now the next Bullet point is like like I want to use that to segue into like what I think is the future For like artist coaching marketing, right?
Like if you're an artist Hear me
out because I want to look at marketing in a more contemporary lens and like encourage you to just like approach it as an artist and not as like boss babe coaches that taught me this thing where, you know, that advice, Kellee, where they say, add value, add value, add, bring value, that shit burnt me the fuck out doing free coaching online.
Yeah. Um, no, I don't. I'm sorry. Yeah, I can give free. I give free scholarships. I could give free workshops that are live. That's different But i'm not gonna pour my heart into free coaching So then what I did is with this third overhaul of developing rebranding my signature coaching program I've been running for five years called artist to artpreneur, right?
It's now called artist to artpreneur 2. 0. It's opening doors next year Hopefully january if my neurodivergence the way probably late January, early February. And, I'm introducing it to the world slowly at my own pace, unlearning the rules that business coaches have taught me that you have to be consistent.
Okay, then batch schedule. No, bitch. I don't want to that's not how my brain works
[00:43:11] Kellee Wynne: I've never been able to batch schedule either. I don't understand that. Yeah,
[00:43:15] Michelle I Gomez: I don't get it. I don't get it So like I developed this alter ego that has developed fans. His name is pedro And pedro is right here. I'm pedro. I'm a raccoon Very I am Thank you.
[00:43:30] Kellee Wynne: So if you're listening, she's got on a really cute, onesie outfit with a raccoon hoodie.
[00:43:36] Michelle I Gomez: Yes. And Pedro represents like the unlearning of like coach culture marketing because like coaches show themselves by giving value in their perfect light. In their highlight, but now I'm coming on and actually sharing as Pedro through this alter ego that allows me to process my own Problems and struggles to let people know like look I struggle just like you and why raccoon because When I was suicidal, I found, those ugly like raccoon memes with like ugly word out.
This word art that says like, oh, where's the trash I need it, or what do they like? It's like, oh, um, drama queen. And it's like a raccoon with like it's leg up posing. Yeah. Do you know those? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I found those and they made me laugh when I was suicidal and I became hyper obse obsessed and hyper fixated on raccoons.
Just like I studied psychology and art, like I started studying raccoons and I'm like, this is the perfect fucking mascot. For my community of neurodivergent multi passionates, the world is gray like raccoons but we see black and white in extreme binary thinking because of our dysregulation. We're ADHD as fuck with shiny object syndrome.
Look at the videos of raccoons chasing like silver jewelry and like, you know, and then you see raccoons literally doing whatever they fucking can to get the food. We're like that, we'll do anything to get the money, right? And we also, have single parent households. Raccoon dads are not involved in the family once they impregnate the mothers.
They dip, they abandon, like my dad, right? And so I just found, this healing in raccoon culture. Started posting it, about it, and people like, this is weird, but I like it. I got unfollows, but I got more people saying, I'm a fan of Pedro. I'm Pedro. How do I enroll in your coaching program?
[00:45:41] Kellee Wynne: So the new way forward with marketing is Being more of yourself.
[00:45:48] Michelle I Gomez: Be yourself, which is a form of unmasking which heals and Share the struggles and how you overcome them and don't be a fucking guru because you're not a guru.
[00:45:59] Kellee Wynne: Ha! I love it!
[00:46:03] Michelle I Gomez: I'm not a guru.
[00:46:04] Kellee Wynne: And don't be a fucking guru because it's ridiculous, isn't it?
[00:46:10] Michelle I Gomez: Yeah. Yeah. And so, like Pedro has helped people realize like, it's okay to struggle because here's Michelle acting like a mentally ill traumatized raccoon still making money.
And my concept is this is that what if we just embraced our struggles as disabled entrepreneurs as neurodivergent entrepreneurs, as entrepreneurs with mental health conditions. Transcribed Why don't we just like welcome it? My life coach that I've studied under since I was 16 at New World, Arlene Prieto, who's still my life coach today, she said, she always told me, this belongs here too.
This can be your depression. Your anxiety, your procrastination, your anger, your grief, your shame, your pain, any of it, right? It belongs. And so I'm trying to let people know that I have a raccoon in me that struggles and I still can coach because I'm coaching from that place that is understanding, that is intuitive, that is empathetic.
That knows what you've gone through, like raccoons. Raccoons are savages. They, they search for their food. They, they scramble, they run. They're just fascinating. And they're also smart as fuck. Did you know that raccoons tried to break into a bank, and they did? They unlocked the bank doors to steal the granola bars in the waiting room?
Wow. Did you know that raccoons were trying to break into a cyber truck thinking it was a dumpster? Ah! That's hard work, and I can relate to it because I was once a survivor. I'm still a survivor, you know? I had to struggle. I had to scavenge. I'm a scavenger, right? I didn't come from wealth. I didn't come from a trust fund.
I didn't have anyone investing in my coaching expenses, which are high as hell. You know that. Yeah. And so, you know, so Pedro is literally going is, is like, he's terrible with marketing. I don't post every day. I post about Pedro when I have the energy. Because I'm persistent, not consistent.
I just had to learn. I'm just not consistent. I'm never going to be consistent unless I have people doing it for me.
[00:48:40] Kellee Wynne: Yeah, I couldn't be running my business right now if I didn't have somebody to help me.
Yeah.
No,
[00:48:49] Michelle I Gomez: and when we're neurodivergent, we have to acknowledge and understand that like our expenses are going to be higher because we need team members.
So like we, it's crazy how we have to aim for like at least 250, 000 a year to survive knowing that businesses take a lot of money. Right. Expenses. So, Pedro is, uh, right now in the middle of what's called a hero's journey campaign. So, like, you don't see me talking about the hero's journey, but the intention behind it psychologically is to invoke the hero within my community and to show them that, like, he will find a way to build his art business, which he wants to launch on only fans.
[00:49:30] Kellee Wynne: Ha ha ha!
[00:49:31] Michelle I Gomez: Yes, and he's going to meet art boss babe. So I started to do shadow work and I have, let me show you, art boss babe is right here. She's going to be introduced soon. She's blonde with a fedora and she's,
[00:49:47] Kellee Wynne: oh boy, do I know that art boss babe with her fedora
[00:49:52] Michelle I Gomez: and she's, she's all about feminine, divine energy and surrendering to manifestation and a universe.
[00:50:00] Kellee Wynne: How did that work for her though? That's my question.
[00:50:05] Michelle I Gomez: White privilege and affinity to wealth.
[00:50:09] Kellee Wynne: Okay, that's why that manifestation works so, so well. I get it now.
[00:50:15] Michelle I Gomez: Because she probably grew up with generational wealth, not only financially, but with emotions and regulation. Like it's such a privilege to say you had like supportive parents who also invest in your business ideas.
Right. And so Pedro is going to meet her and like hire her as a coach and then like, Literally like go nuts and then he's going to like try to build the business, but then it doesn't work and he keep and it's just long story sparsed over like tons of reels at my own fucking pace. You'll never know when I'll post them.
And then he's gonna then meet me, Michelle, I go miss the coach, and she's gonna coach Michelle, I go miss my future self is going to coach him on like, okay. Yeah. You're not consistent. It's okay. You want to launch an OnlyFans? It's okay. You want to multitask and be multi passionate? It's okay. And you want to coach, it's okay.
And he's then going to launch and build Artist to Entrepreneur 2. 0, my new signature coaching program, that helps neurodivergent, multi passionate, struggling artists, men and women, and everyone in between. To go from struggling artist to thriving entrepreneur at their own pace in an asynchronous coaching model.
What that means, Artist Coaches, is that I realize if I want to feel at peace, if I really want to heal my burnout, and I want to, Continue coaching. I simply cannot do one on one and group coaching anymore. I have to be hands off I have to believe in my values learned by Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed book where he believes that Everyone really does have the capacity to Be unoppressed By not being the oppressor, right?
And he believes that, like, students and teachers are both students and teachers, and he believes that our students are not empty boxes to be filled with, you know, information that comes from, like, a colonized white supremacist patriarchal lens. And all of that combined with my lessons around my neurodivergence and unmasking journey is resulting in a membership where I do hands off, I step away.
They learn through my content library of mental wealth videos about emotional regulation alongside office hours that my programming community manager hosts for them to work on their workbooks with either a solo workbook or like a workbook with my voice. You know, voiceover the course workbook, and then they're going to just like work on these workbooks.
No video courses because we're neurodivergent. We can't watch those and then they're going to just do it at their own pace. They get to choose their own journey, whether they're beginners who want to turn their art into a product, whether they're intermediate and have an art business and want to scale to up to three businesses, or if they're entrepreneurs that want to become coaches.
I'm going to bring guest speakers like you to also coach them with masterclasses. But I'm going to be hands off because I believe that Pedro's and all the Pedro's in us, we have our own hero. You don't need to hold my hand. You don't, you can do this at your own pace within your capacity at your own time.
You can spend two years working through my workbook. You can spend a week if you want or a year or whatever, six months, whatever you want. And that's how I'm going to run the membership because I see coaches burning out for memberships because they're still showing up. What if we embrace in synchronous models, asynchronous models, right?
Will my community get turned off? Maybe, but those are not my client. My clients will understand that me doing this. To make it more affordable, so I'm not there all the time means that they could be their own coach. And that's what I want everyone to learn is that we all have an inner coach. Let's just sit down, stop pedestalizing these coaches, and remember that we have the answers.
We just need the roadmap for those journeys, questions, journal prompts, body doubling, guest speakers. community forum chat. That's it. That's what I'm doing next year. I'm going to scale it so I could give money back. So I could be a multi millionaire because I'm tired of trading time for money. And if we want to unlearn boss babe culture, we also have to unlearn this slavery that you said online.
You said, didn't you say something about slavery that like our obsession with productivity is like a slavery mentality.
[00:55:18] Kellee Wynne: It's an interview that I did a few episodes back with Rachel. And she spoke about how our productivity and our capitalism kind of has its roots in slavery and every hour. That is that an enslaved person worked was counted towards the productivity and value of the, of the slave owners. Well, I don't even want to call them owners anymore.
Why don't we the enslavers
[00:55:48] Michelle I Gomez: enslavers exactly
[00:55:49] Kellee Wynne: slavers and so that that route of productivity comes from that in America. And if you compare, in a lot of ways, our culture to other Western civilizations, it's like our value is still caught up in how many hours of productivity we give to this world, rather than, you know, I will never forget the moment in France and Southern France when the rainstorm comes and everybody pulls out their champagne and sits and watches the rains and celebrates and doesn't look at what else can I go get done now, you know, it's like, We need these moments where we're not always, counting every minute of what we have done and what we haven't done
[00:56:33] Michelle I Gomez: and examine how we still uphold that slavery.
Within our businesses, and no one blinks an eye, no one questions why they charge by the hour, right? Or like, what if we charge by based off the transformation value? Yeah, right.
[00:56:55] Kellee Wynne: I think that I just think that the overarching picture is that we need new relationships with how we work and how we create our business and no two businesses are going to be the same.
Like you said, there are all these. Boss, babe, gurus, and even the bro marketing, the hustle culture that's ingrained in how we've learned to do business. And we are most people who are, especially if you're artists and an entrepreneur. You're more likely than not probably going to show up on the spectrum of neurodivergency.
It's just, it's just, I mean, people who are neurodivergent end up taking either risky jobs or freedom based jobs. I was both in the military and I've been an entrepreneur and an artist and a homemaker. And like nothing about my life ever was my eyes set on doing something. Typical, right? So I, I have a feeling that most of the people that I work with have a lot of that same experience, but how do you create like a healthy relationship with the work, with growth and being able to grow the business without it burning you out?
And that's the journey I'm on right now and bringing my people with me.
[00:58:13] Michelle I Gomez: Yeah, yeah, we gotta work together, like, if you need me to, do a talk in your group, or the next program, let me know, and you can come into mine, because, we need to really support each other, because, Yeah, there's, just remember, whoever's listening to this, I've, me and you have coached hundreds of artists.
You and I both know that the highlight reels and the art boss babes that are saying they're great, let me fucking tell you right fucking now, that is not the case because we deal with them behind the scenes. That is not the case. Do you know how many problems they have? It's Yeah, you know, because they're struggling.
Everyone struggles.
[00:58:58] Kellee Wynne: So we all need to be bringing out our inner Pedro so that we can connect with each other on a more authentic level. Yeah. All right, Michelle. I'm gonna direct people to connect with you. What would be the best place for them to be able to, say hi and tell them what I want. I really hope everyone, like, hops over and tells Michelle how much they appreciate this very heart opening, eye opening, spirit opening conversation we've had.
[00:59:28] Michelle I Gomez: Yes, yes. So, feel free to send me raccoon content, whenever you want. In IGDMs at Michelle I Gomez. That's the, my love language. If you show me that you love me, like you're pebbling raccoon content, I will forward it to my broadcast channel, which is called Raccoon Therapy.
[00:59:47] Kellee Wynne: Oh, love that. I will keep that in mind.
[00:59:51] Michelle I Gomez: Yes, and follow me on Michelle I Gomez for my inconsistent marketing about Pedro and like, you know, my life and business and tips and stuff. And then, I'm really consistent, actually consistent with threads because I like it and I think threads, by the way, if you're neurodivergent totally go to threads like it's for you.
Like my friend Sujan Orga said, like, threads is like for neurodivergent. Yappers. We're yappers. We talk about a million topics in one day, every hour. You know, finally, I'm there. Join my wait list@artistpreneur.com in my Lincoln bio to, uh, be the first to hear about Artist to Entrepreneur 2.0 my membership.
Prices range from 50 a month all the way up to 500 a month. And then, stay tuned. I'm gonna launch finally a mailing list after all the business coaches told me, Michelle, you're a coach. How do you not have a mailing list? Bitch, I was neurodivergent. I didn't care, but now I'm gonna do it.
I'm gonna do it so you could join it. And I'm gonna send, you know, like lots of School, like deep stuff from a trauma informed lens and yeah, just like find me an IG Threads in my website, artist entrepreneur.com. Say hello. Let me know what you took away from this. And, I hope that I could support you.
And if you wanna collaborate like Kellee and Eric collaborating, I have a Calendly link for that as well. So we could collaborate and build this, this, this future of artpreneurship and entrepreneurship without the ick, without the boss bae culture, without the hustle.
[01:01:32] Kellee Wynne: Yes, for sure. And we're going to link every single bit of this in our show notes and in our newsletter so that everyone knows how to connect with you.
/Michelle, it's been a pleasure. I'm so glad I finally got to get to meet you. And, I had a lot of big aha moments and takeaways today as well.
[01:01:51] Michelle I Gomez: Great. Thank you so much for having me. It's such an honor. Thank you for letting me unmask even more. I haven't had such a deep, honest, raw conversation in a long time.
And it's the first time I finally revealed like, you know, the demon that I was fighting within. And we all have a demon within, we all have an Artbus babe within, let's just love on her and like heal her and be in a true alignment with how we want to feel.
[01:02:17] Kellee Wynne: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Thank you.
[01:02:19] Michelle I Gomez: All right.
Love.
[01:02:21] Kellee Wynne: Bye.
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