It doesn’t matter what you do in life, we all want to be successful. However you define “success†is up to you. I define success as a life spent making a living doing something you absolutely love which results in true artistic freedom.
Some of you in the Daredevil community are hipsters, hippies, children of the world, etc. If you can find a way to barter your music in exchange for a house, food, transportation, educations for your children, and a decent quality of living, God Bless.
For the rest of you commerce will have to occur for you to make a living.
If no commerce or not enough commerce is occurring then one must make a living outside of their passion.
This is living a dichotomy.
This is where people become cynical, bitter, and angry with themselves.
The dichotomy is where artist souls go to die.
Where there is fine art there is always business. If that fact wasn’t accurate you wouldn’t know about the art.
Think about that one for a second. Think about it again.
Whoa! Right?
Success comes from momentum and momentum is created from taking the first step.
Too many people live their whole lives afraid to take the first 3 steps.
I say this because 50% of people will quit after the first failure or misstep.
80% of people quit after the second.
95% of people quit after the third.
Isn’t interesting how these numbers correlate very closely to the top earners on our planet?
Would it surprise you then that while there are always exceptions to the rule, the top 5% of the wealth was created at some point by people who courageously took the 4th step?
How much smaller is that group of people?
Standing out amongst 5% is far easier than battling 100% wouldn’t you agree?
I’m not saying the goal is to be super wealthy, but the people that got that way were people like you who desired freedom. Unlike some of you, they weren’t afraid to truly seek it.
You have to take the first step.
The first step is the hardest because it feels the most foreign, comes with most fear, and has the most to lose, which would be whatever groove you’re experiencing now.
Even if it’s a bad groove, it’s familiar.
We like familiar because familiar is comfortable.
Even if it’s an uncomfortable familiar.
Just ask the emotionally and physically abused. They’re afraid to leave the relationship because the idea of stepping outside their current real reality more uncomfortable than the abuse.
They believe the degrading messages that are communicated by their abuser.
They’re petrified to take the first step.
When I was young, we had a 1 acre lawn that I was responsible for mowing. THAT was a project. Especially for a pre-teen/teenager who had far better things to be doing than spending a day mowing the lawn.
I would sit for HOURS, dreading the idea of beginning to mow the lawn. I would overthink everything, what I had to do, what I wanted to do, I would day dream and completely psych myself out.
That regular project would have been so much better had I just STARTED the damn process.
My father wouldn’t have been so pissed off all the time either, which isn’t a good thing for anyone, but he is a Marine. If you’ve never encountered a pissed off Marine, well, I don’t know what to tell you.
Marines work, they hustle, they improvise, adapt, and overcome to execute the task at hand.
Marines take care of business first. Play later. Period
No lollygagging.
No excuses.
I am sharing human nature with you.
We ALL react this way.
Our most difficult tasks, hurdles, and obstacles seem smaller once they’re in the rearview mirror.
There I was regularly derailed by a simple chore that required zero ingenuity and 100% effort. The job seemed so large to me in my head that it habitually became overwhelming.
That’s because I chose to let a task, that I knew had to be done conquer me, instead of me conquering the task. Which would have resulted in my freedom much earlier in the day.
That procrastination wasted so much of my time!
So no fear there, just inaction and resignation.
What’s overwhelming you?
Take a task like marketing your music that requires a formidable work load, couple it with an obligation to learn and to innovate and you have something to really be fearful about.
Marketing represents a requirement to step into the unknown so it’s easy to see why so few artists don’t become successful to the level that they want to be successful.
It’s too scary.
You think you know how to write a song and you may be right.
You think you’re a great player and you may be right.
You think you’re compelling and you may be right.
But I’m right when I say you can be better.
Either you think you know how to market yourself or you’re completely ignoring the proverbial elephant sitting on the couch (most of you are experiencing the latter but I digress).
If you were marketing effectively you’d be making a living. Period.
If you’re not marketing at all and you’re making a living doing what you love, then you could be making a better living for you and your family.
Either you’re currently living the dichotomy or you can do better at being a professional musician.
All of my most successful artist friends STILL PRACTICE. They are always asking questions, curious about any new approach they can apply to their career to escalate the return on their effort whether that be songwriting, playing, marketing, business, you name it.
They’re always learning.
It’s easy to go to work every day putting your future in the hands of someone else’s momentum.
That makes it easy to blame that someone else when things go wrong.
It’s far more difficult to create your own momentum and be your own boss. Mostly because the only one you can blame for poor results is yourself.
Alexander the Great said, “Through every generation of the human race there has been a constant war, a war with fear. Those who have the courage to conquer it are made free and those who are conquered by it are made to suffer until they have the courage to defeat it, or death takes them.â€
You are stronger than you think.
You are more courageous than you can possibly imagine.
Devour the fear of the unknown along with the potholes, speed bumps, and setbacks for breakfast because they come every day to every person.
You will require an audience to become a successful artist and you will require marketing to produce that audience.
Marketing will create momentum.
Momentum starts with the first step.
Stay
In
Tune.
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