When you’re waiting around for your manager to get back with you about the big news…
When the label just won’t get back to you at all…
When you can’t tell if your publisher actually pitches your songs like they say they do…
When your agent is having a hard time getting the guarantee you need…
What can you do?
Go back to work. Go connect.
Did you really work with Jay-Z or did he just walk through the session once?
Did you really ‘share the stage’ with with Katy Perry or was it a festival?
Did the tour really sell out or did fifty one percent of the shows sell out so you round up?
Every artist has a one sheet, talking points, story lines. But if someone asks you to go a little deeper on the subject is it going to crumble? Sure the bullet point headline is kind of true but is it substantial or just a flimsy cardboard accomplishment?
Leading with the achievements you can substantiate may be a little less star studded but they’re solid.
Leading with paper thin half truths can be a lot more glamorous but if you fall off that high wire it’s an embarrassing nose dive.
But the basketball doesn’t know about a twenty four hour cycle. The basketball doesn’t know that once you label the day ‘off’ it’s suppose to miss the hoop more often.
So you can shoot a poor shot or a series of poor shots but the only thing that brings the conclusion of ‘my shot is off today’ is if you believe it. And while it might be easy to believe it when you’ve missed a few in a row, it’s not helpful to believe the day is trashed…and it’s not true.
Here’s a series of bad, better, best…
I’m off today
I’m off today, I’ll try again tomorrow
My last shot was off, this next one is going in
Are you content with your contribution?
…maybe that’s too conclusive of a way to ask it. Let’s try this…
Are you content with what you’re contributing?
But then some may need to take a step further back…
What are you contributing?
Because we’re all contributing something. Even the couch potato, believe it or not. And our contribution goes far beyond what we do…it goes deep into who we are as we’re doing what we do.
Another powerful addition to the questions above is adding ‘right now’ to the end of each one. It gives you the reminder that the answers can (and will) change.
When someone connects with your music, what is it they’re connecting with?
If you’re not that good live, why?
How do your skills and dreams help other peoples’ dreams come true?
If you don’t achieve the heights of success you hope for, will you still be glad you went on the journey?
What were the circumstances surrounding you at your best moments? Are they reproducible?
Who makes things better when they’re around?
When we were young we were looking for music AND lifestyle. We didn’t have a lifestyle (or a style) yet so along with adopting the music as our own we wore the same clothes as the artist, assumed the same outlook and attitude, talked like them, thought like them, prioritized like them.
Listening to the music was about more than the feeling it gave us…it was about identity. We were absent our own lifestyle, and music came along and gave us both a feeling and a lifestyle.
As we get older we tend to appreciate new music for what it is…new music. Our lifestyle is already pretty set (in part thanks to the music from our formative years) and we’d rather stick with what we’ve got.
We have clothes we like, a posture we’ve become known for, beliefs that have gotten us this far and a priority list that extends way beyond blending in with the latest wave.
This idea has a powerful effect on how you market to your audience. What are they looking to you for? Does that line up with what you’re offering? How will you know you’re making a difference?