Make it clear who it is for
This is a quote from TEM273.
You might be the problem. Your work might not be good enough yet.
But you also might NOT be the problem. It might be good enough already.
Instead, you might not have it in front of the right people yet or made it clear exactly who it's for.
You can check out the full episode of The Entrepreneurial Musician here or wherever you listen to podcasts.
What makes you different?
This clip comes from TEM272 : Different is better than better.
We spend so much time trying to be better when we really need to carve out time to intentionally try to be different.
Better is still important. From time to time, I make a point of saying that being a great songwriter or trombone player or producer is the cost of entry into the music business. You have to be great at your craft.
I realize that's quite obvious, but it's still bears mentioning from time to time. That's the better part of the equation.
But just being able to operate the hell out of a trombone or pro tools does not make you different from everyone else.
While there may not be hundreds of thousands of people who can do that, there are certainly more than a few dozen.
And that means that having those skills alone won't help you stand out in any way.
It's all about what creative or unique or remarkable thing you do with those skills. That's the different part.
You can check out the full episode of The Entrepreneurial Musician here or wherever you listen to podcasts.
The perfect mindset for getting the most out of graduate school
In this clip from Episode 181 of The Brass Junkies, the incredible Kevin Newton of Imani Winds shares what his mindset was before heading into graduate school.
I will play this clip for every single student I have who is entering graduate school.
It is remarkable when someone as young as he was is this intentional about their life.
For so many students, graduate school is what comes after undergrad and that’s as far as the soul searching goes for exactly why they want to get a graduate degree.
But Kevin saw graduate school as having a specific role in the development of his career and he crushed it.
We can all learn from this kind of awareness while heading into any new chapter of our lives!
IGTV: Action vs Motion
Here an Instagram Live I recently did that was inspired by an Ernest Hemingway quote.
Action is deliberate. Motion is just being busy.
Enjoy!
I’m anxious (but who isn’t??)
First of all, anyone who has listened to even one complete episode of the TEM Podcast knows that I am obsessed with Seth Godin. And you probably know that my wife, who is hilarious, refers to Seth as my spirit animal.
So imagine my surprise this morning when I discovered that he wrote a book that I didn’t even know about! And in the above clip, he actually reads the entire thing aloud! It is an ABC book for adults and it is exactly what I needed to hear this morning.
It starts with A is for Anxiety and he tells us that anxiety is just experiencing fear in advance. That really resonated with me this morning.
I am filled with anxiety right now. (Again, who the hell isn’t?)
I’m anxious for the health of my elderly parents during this pandemic
I’m anxious for what my career will look like on the other side of this
I’m anxious about how long it will be until we are on the other side of this
I’m anxious about the current state of my country and the path we continue to be on
I’m anxious for my college students and all that they’ve had ripped from them
I’m anxious for this part of my six-year-old’s childhood that he’ll never get back
I’m anxious about my finances (and I am very fortunate right now in the grand scheme of both the world and the music business)
I’m anxious about not feeling very creative musically right now (although I had a wonderful practice session yesterday for the first time in what felt like forever!)
As I said before, I’m filled with anxiety. These are remarkable times we are living in. But Seth’s comment about anxiety being fear we experience in advance really helped me with my perspective this morning.
Some items on the list above are things where I am able to take an action to help solve the problem. Some are things that are completely and totally out of my control.
By identifying which things are completely out of my control I can limit and sometimes eliminate entirely a lot of the anxiety. The added benefit of that is then being able to apply myself to the part of the list that I can control (or at least affect in some way.)
This applies to my career. This applies to how I navigate this pandemic. This goes applies to how I parent. This applies to literally everything.
Between my recent conversation with Dana Fonteneau for TEM210 and hearing Seth Godin read this book, I have been able to recalibrate my thinking about so much of life. And I have been so busy just trying to get through the day of late (and again, who hasn’t??) that I didn’t realize how badly I needed that to happen.
TEM210 featuring Dana Fonteneau
The WholeHearted Musician’s Dana Fonteneau spoke to me about resilience, mindset, arts in the time of a pandemic and how to empower artists during crisis in TEM210.
Perspective is everything
As Seth Godin points out in this spot on blog post, perspective is absolutely everything.
Four different people will experience the exact same thing in completely different ways based on their professions and world views.
Recognizing this fact is very powerful because it enables us to recognize our own bias and intentionally attempt to view something from a different perspective when that is helpful (which it almost always is.)
When trying to provide goods or services to someone (in or out of the music business), it is imperative that we forget everything we know about the product, service or situation and think like the customer.
Of course we think what we are providing is important, but have we made that case to our customers?
Practicing the ability to change one's perspective is one of the common traits that the insanely successful people I've interviewed for TEM all share. Might be good for the rest of us to that skill as well.
Is your gap a vacuum or a moat?
Yet another thought-provoking post from Seth Godin. Will you use your gap to hide or to lean in?
Seth Godin: The Gap
Oh, you're a marketer alright
As Seth Godin points out in Unleashing the Ideavirus, there isn’t a single market place that isn’t more crowded than it was a decade ago. So getting attention is harder than ever. Embrace marketing as an entrepreneurial musician today or fail.
Embrace your inner weirdo
If not, what is it exactly that you are selling to us?
Are You Willing to Hear the Word No 2,994 Times?
A great lesson learned from Episode 29 with Peter Seymour of PROJECT Trio...
Start before you are ready
Did you know you can now follow TEM on Instagram? The handle is @TEMPodcast (same as Twitter.)
Here's a short Instagram video I made about my favorite quote from the wonderful Steven Pressfield book, "Do the Work", which is the subject of my next TEM Book Report.