I received a little heat for my last blog article entitled How to Actually Get Paid Living As An Artist. People reached out and commented (complained); they thought it was a misleading title

 

“When do I find out how to get paid?” was a common response.

 

So let’s dig a little deeper because it seems that MANY of you are completely missing the point.

 

“Your title said How to Get Paid and all I read was this mumbo jumbo mindset crap!”

 

I’d hear from the same people if I listed all the ways I have gotten paid as an artist, how I have gotten artists paid, and how I have monetized other businesses. They would complain about too many choices.

 

They would complain about what they always complain about; having to do work.

 

 

Question: “What exactly do I have to do to get paid, Johnny, which one of these methods will work for me?”

 

Answer: Precisely.

 

 

What DO YOU have to do to get paid and stop waiting?

 

Nobody likes this answer because it means they still have to find the answers on their own and actually do the work.

 

This answer means there is no easy button.

 

If you want an easy button, go find a day job.

 

That’s about as easy as it gets. Trade 40 hours of THEE most valuable resource on the planet, your time, for some kind of paycheck.

 

EZPZ.

 

You know the outcome. Everybody wins.

 

Zero faith required.

 

However, if you’re going to do something extraordinary with your life, then you’re going to have to work extraordinarily to make it happen!

 

God, this pisses me off.

 

So many of you are lazy, whining, and entitled.

 

Too many of you just want to be famous.

 

Stop it.

 

When I was an artist in the 80’s and 90’s the methods to get paid were different then when I had a band in Los Angeles in the 2000’s. The scene was different, the market was different, so the method was,  you guessed it, different!

 

 

 

 

The artists I am blessed to work with now all require different marketing creativity, approaches, and methods to reaching an audience and getting paid.

 

WARNING: Spoiler Alert!

 

 

Here’s another fact that is going to burst your bubble and make the day job look real sexy: it takes time and patience.

 

 

 

Yes, just ask Guns & Roses how “easy” it was for them once they signed their deal. The money just started flowing into their bank accounts, right?

 

No.

 

They were dead broke.

 

In fact, if it wasn’t for their manager who was paying for their housing and paying for them to live, they wouldn’t have survived the record deal at all. Let alone the time it took vet producers, to record the record, to release it after it was completed, the full year AFTER the record was released before it broke, the time it took AFTER the record broke before they actually saw a paycheck.

 

That was the quick way.

 

Today, you have to be patient and build your relationships.

 

This takes time, persistence, and a whole lot of heart that most of you probably don’t possess, because it’s too hard. It’s too hard because it requires an INSANE amount of faith in yourself. I’m NOT talking about you “saying” that you believe in yourself either. I’m talking about you working day in and day out building and building, spending time and money with little initial return on your investment.

That’s the faith and belief I speak of.

 

Most of you don’t have that kind of faith in yourselves, sadly.

 

 

Why would I write about a mindset and sell it as a way to get paid?

 

Sheesh.

 

Yee of little faith.

 

THE MINDSET IS ACTUALLY HOW YOU GET PAID.

 

Until you sincerely figure this out, until you really internalize this, you won’t get paid.

 

HOW exactly does a mindset get you paid?

 

If you have the wrong mindset you’re looking for the wrong things. Therefore, you can’t or won’t recognize the right things because your focus is elsewhere.

 

When you are looking for the wrong things two results happen.

 

 

 

First, if you find the things you’re looking for, which are wrong, they don’t work for you and you waste time, energy, and resources. Second, you’re wasting your energy and gumption NOT looking for the right things.

 

 

 

You get frustrated.

 

You lose faith.

 

You settle for EZPZ.

 

Too vague?

 

Let’s get down & dirty with some details.

 

If you’re looking for the big wigs to sign you and make your career happen these are the wrong things for MANY reasons.

 

Number 1. Big wigs are completely turned off by artists who do no work on their own and expect a label or executive to make their career happen. It’s the biggest freakin’ turn off EVER and they don’t care how good you are, I assure you.  They are WELL aware that without the drive to make yourself into something early on, your talent doesn’t matter because you’re missing a mission critical component of success.

 

Essentially YOU believe that once someone else believes in you enough, then you’ll take your career seriously and we’re all supposed to trust that you’ll get down to business at that point.

 

It doesn’t work that way. The big wigs know this because all of them have tried that at some point and been burned; it never works.

 

Additionally, they can’t help you even if they LOVE you because that’s not the business model anymore. Their hands are tied. You HAVE to have a small campfire created at the very least before they can help you build the forest fire you desire.

 

So if your business model is to “meet the right people” and blow them away with your talent you’ve already lost. You’ll be IGNORED and judged as a “wannabe” because they recognize it. These big wigs can instantly ascertain the fact that you won’t work on your career or are presently naïve to the amount of work it will take and that means, talent aside, you’re NOT worth it.

 

Number 2. While you’re busy whining, complaining, and waiting to meet the “right record executive” you’re NOT looking for some little wins that will get your career going, like Social Media. Most of you seriously suck at this and you all have real great excuses as to why.

 

 

We have opened many doors that we weren’t normally supposed to be in yet with Bailey James simply because the engagement she gets on her social media is so impressive. Once inside these doors, we deepened many relationships because we moved the needle on their social media accounts by shouting out on ours, they fell in love.

 

We did something for them and they weren’t expecting it.

 

 

 

 

 

We were just being grateful but the net result to these future business relationships was a wonderful gesture on our part that had measurable results on their end with something they too, struggle with.

 

That was a result of DAILY work and attention to something y’all can do for free on your smart phone or laptop.

 

But you don’t do it.

 

You don’t do it because you HAVE THE WRONG MINDSET.

 

Get it?

 

Here is one more reason why MINDSET is mission critical to success.

 

This is an actual study.

 

Back in the 40’s or 50’s a scientist ran an experiment trying to prove that “luck” was a state of mind. They believed that “luck” was the result of a certain interpretation of life events rather than some random circumstance that happened to individuals.

 

The scientist put an ad in the paper asking people to respond if they felt they were “generally lucky people” or “generally unlucky people”.

 

The scientist paid all the responders $250 (a lot of money at that time) to participate in this experiment.

 

Each of the subjects was given a newspaper and asked to count up exactly how many images appeared in the newspaper. Once they were done counting, they were to receive $250.

 

The “generally unlucky” people averaged about 2-4 minutes to count up all the images and get paid.

 

The “generally lucky” people averaged 15 seconds.

 

Why?

 

Because on the second page of the newspaper there was a BOLD ½ page ad that was black & white text which read: “THERE ARE 42 IMAGES IN THIS NEWSPAPER, PLEASE RELAY THIS TO THE TEST ADMIN, COLLECT YOUR $250 AND GO HOME. THANK YOU.”

 

The “generally unlucky” people were looking for just one thing, images, and passed right by the big break. Searching for images seemed like the right thing to do because it is what they were told to do, yes?

The “generally lucky” people were completely open to receiving all sorts of information and recognized an answer to get them paid quicker; it WASN’T AN IMAGE.

 

They had an open mindset.

 

Most of you are too busy looking for images and missing all the other opportunities to get paid.

 

 

Most of you are way too focused on what you don’t have and are ignoring the momentum you could be creating with what you do have.

 

 

 

Here’s a good question, what exactly are you looking for and HOW SURE ARE YOU THAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR THE RIGHT THINGS?

 

Stay

In

Tune

 

 

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